Читать книгу Within the Precincts онлайн

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This, however, is a digression from Lady Caroline, who went to her tranquil couch that night with a heavier heart than she had known for years. It was a revolution which had occurred in her life. During Augusta’s reign she had been passively resistant always, protesting under her breath against the invasion of the singing people of all kinds into her sacred and exclusive world. She had supported it with heroic calm, entrenching herself behind the ladies who were really in society, and whom she could receive without derogation; but to Lottie and the other people who were outside of her world she had never shown any civility, as she was glad to think, on surveying the situation that night. She had not brought it on herself. She had never shown them any civility. A salutation with her eyelids, a cup of tea from her table, the privilege of breathing the same air with her—this had been all she had ever done for her daughter’s protégées, and hitherto nobody, she was obliged to allow, had presumed upon it. But that Miss Despard was not like the timid and respectful singing ladies from the town. She was a bold young woman, who thought herself as good as anyone, and looked as if she ought to be talked to, and taken notice of, as much as anyone. And it was not possible to get rid of her as the ladies in the town could be got rid of. Lady Caroline could not go out of her own door, could not go to Church, without meeting Miss Despard, and feeling what she called within herself, “the broad stare” of that dangerous girl. And now was it possible, was it conceivable, that she was herself to take the initiative and re-invite Miss Despard? Not for years, if indeed ever in her life, had Lady Caroline gone to bed with such a weight on her mind. She sighed as she laid down on that bed of down—nay, not of down, which is old-fashioned and not very wholesome either, now-a-days, people say—but on her mattress of delicately arranged springs, which moved with every movement. She sighed as she lay down upon it, and the springs swayed under her; and she sighed again in the morning as she woke, and all that had happened came back into her mind. Poor dear Rollo! She did not like to cross him, or to go against him, since he had made so great an object of it. Oh! that Augusta had but held her peace, and had not inflamed his mind about this girl’s voice! After all, her voice was nothing wonderful; it was just a soprano, as most girl’s voices were; and that she, Lady Caroline, should be compelled to exert herself—compelled to go against her principles, to come into personal contact with a person of a different class! She who had always been careful to keep herself aloof!—It was very hard upon Lady Caroline. She sighed at breakfast so that the Dean took notice of it.