King of the Castle

“Yes, quickly. You are sure you would not like the doctor fetched, Glyddyr?”

“Oh, certain, sir. There, let it pass now. A mere nothing.”

“Oh, my poor darling Claude,” whispered Mary, taking her cousin’s hand as they went out, and kissing her pale face as the large dark eyes gazed pitifully down in hers.

“Do you understand what it all means, Mary?”

“Only too well, coz: poor Chris has been telling uncle he loved you, and that put our dear tyrant in a passion. Then Mr Glyddyr came, and poor Chris got in a passion too, and knocked him down.”

“Yes,” sighed Claude; “I’m afraid that must be it.”

“Yes, my dear, it’s all cut and dried. You are to be Mrs Glyddyr as soon as they have settled it all.”

“Never,” said Claude, frowning and looking like a softened edition of her father.

“And as that sets poor Chris at liberty,” continued Mary, with one of her mischievous looks, “and you don’t want him, there may be a bit of a chance for poor little me.”

“Mary, dear!” said Claude, in a voice full of remonstrance.

“It’s rather bad taste of you, for though Mr Glyddyr is very handsome, I think Chris is the better man. Mr Glyddyr seems to me quite a coward making all that fuss, so that we might sympathise with him. Better have had poor Chris.”

“Mary, dear, how can you make fun of everything when I am in such terrible trouble?”

“It’s because I can’t help it, Claude, I suppose. But oh, I am sorry for you if uncle makes you marry handsome Mr Glyddyr.”

“Mary!”

“I cannot help it, dear; I must say it. He’s a coward. He was hurt, of course, but not so much as he pretended. Chris Lisle knocked him right down, and he wouldn’t get up for fear he should get knocked down again. Didn’t Chris look like a lion?”

“It is all very, very terrible, Mary, and I want your help and sympathy so badly.”

“I can’t help you, coz; I’m too bad. And all this was my fault.”

“No; not all,” said Claude sadly. “Papa has been thinking about Mr Glyddyr for a long time, and dropping hints to me about him.”

“Yes; and you’ll have to take him.”

“No,” said Claude, with quiet firmness; and her father’s stern, determined look came into her eyes. “No, I will never be Mr Glyddyr’s wife.”

“But uncle will never forgive poor Mr Lisle.”

“Don’t say that, Mary. Never is a terrible word. Papa loves me, and he would like to see me happy.”

“And shall you tell him you love Chris?”

“No,” said Claude sternly.

“If you please, ma’am, Mrs Woodham is here,” said one of the servants; and Claude’s face grew more troubled as she asked herself what her father would say to the step she had taken, in bidding the unhappy woman come and resume her old position in the house.

She had not long to wait.

As she rose to cross the room she caught sight of Glyddyr looking back at the windows on leaving the house, and heard the study bell ring furiously.

“Quick, Mary!” she cried, as she rushed through the door, being under the impression that her father had had another seizure.

The relief was so great as she entered the study and found him standing in the middle of the room, that she threw herself in his arms.

“I thought you were taken ill again,” she gasped, as she clung, to him, trembling.

He was evidently in a fury, but his child’s words were like oil upon the tempestuous waves.

“You – you thought that?” he said, holding her to his breast and patting her cheek tenderly. “You thought that, eh? And they say in Danmouth that everybody hates me. That there isn’t a soul here who wouldn’t like to dance upon my grave.”

“Papa, dear, don’t talk like that.”

“Why not? the ungrateful wretches! I’ve made Danmouth a prosperous place. I spend thousands a year in wages, and the dogs all turn upon me and are ready to rend the hand that feeds them. If they are not satisfied with their wages, they wait till I have some important contract on the way, and then they strike. I haven’t patience with them.”

“Father!” cried Claude firmly, “Doctor Asher said you were not to excite yourself in any way, or you would be ill.”

“And a good thing, too. Better be ill, and die, and get out of the way. Hated – cursed by every living soul.”

Claude clung more tightly to him, laid her head upon his breast, and placed her hand across his lips as if to keep him from speaking.

A smile came across the grim face, but there was no smile in his words as he went on fiercely, after removing the hand and seeming about to kiss it, but keeping it in his hand without.

“Everything seems to go against me,” he cried. “Mr Glyddyr – just going – I was seeing him to the door, when, like a black ghost, up starts that woman Sarah Woodham. What does she want?”

“I’ll tell you, dear, if you will sit down and be calm.”

“How the devil can I be calm,” he raved, “when I am regularly persecuted by folk like this?”

But he let Claude press him back into an easy chair, while, feeling that she was better away, Mary Dillon crept softly out of the room.

“Well, then,” he said, as if his child’s touch was talismanic, and he lay back and closed his eyes, “I’ll be calm. But you don’t know, Claude, you can’t tell how I’m persecuted. I’m robbed right and left.”

“Papa, my dear father, you are as rich as ever you can be, so what does it matter?”

“Who says I’m rich? Nonsense! Absurd! And then look at the worries I have. All the trouble and inquest over that man’s death, and through his sheer crass obstinacy.”

“Why bring that up again, father, dear?”

“Don’t say father. Call me papa. Whenever you begin fathering me, it means that you are going to preach at me and bully me, and have your own way.”

“Then, papa, dear, why bring that up again?”

“I didn’t. It’s brought up and thrust under my very nose. Why is that woman here?”

“Papa – ”