He came up to her and put his hand on her shoulder.'I'm afraid you're sadly tired, my lady?' he said.She braced her muscles, and drew herself up, saying coldly, - 'When I am tired, Lord Cumnor, I will tell you so.' And her own fatigue showed itself during the rest of the evening in her sitting particularly upright, and declining all offers of easy-chairs or footstools, and refusing the insult of a suggestion that they should all go to bed earlier.She went on in something of this kind of manner as long as Lord Cumnor remained at the Towers.Mrs Kirkpatrick was quite deceived by it, and kept assuring Lord Cumnor that she had never seen dear Lady Cumnor looking better, or so strong and well.But he had an affectionate heart, if a blundering head;and though he could give no reason for his belief, he was almost certain his wife was not well.Yet he was too much afraid of her to send for Mr Gibson without her permission.His last words to Clare were, - 'It's such a comfort to leave my lady to you; only don't you be deluded by her ways.She'll not show she's ill till she can't help it.Consult with Bradley,' (Lady Cumnor's 'own woman,' - she disliked the new-fangledness of 'lady's-maid,') 'and if I were you, I'd send and ask Gibson to call - you might make any kind of a pretence,' - and then the idea he had had in London of the fitness of a match between the two coming into his head just now, he could not help adding, - 'Get him to come and see you, he's a very agreeable man; Lord Hollingford says there's no one like him in these parts: and he might be looking at my lady while he was talking to you, and see if he thinks her really ill.And let me know what he says about her.' But Clare was just as great a coward about doing anything for Lady Cumnor which she had not expressly ordered, as Lord Cumnor himself.She knew she might fall into such disgrace if she sent for Mr Gibson without direct permission, that she might never be asked to stay at the Towers again;and the life there, monotonous in its smoothness of luxury as it might be to some, was exactly to her taste.She in her turn tried to put upon Bradley the duty which Lord Cumnor had put upon her.'Mrs Bradley,' she said one day, 'are you quite comfortable about my lady's health? Lord Cumnor fancied that she was looking worn and ill?' 'Indeed, Mrs Kirkpatrick, I don't think my lady is herself.I can't persuade myself as she is, though if you was to question me till night I couldn't tell you why.' 'Don't you think you could make some errand to Hollingford, and see Mr Gibson, and ask him to come round this way some day, and make a call on Lady Cumnor?' 'It would be as much as my place is worth, Mrs Kirkpatrick.Till my lady's dying day, if Providence keeps her in her senses, she'll have everything done her own way, or
第48章 THE WIDOWER AND THE WIDOW (3)（1 / 3）