Arabella by Georgette Heyer Page A

dare not! He has shut himself up in the study! What shall I do?”
    “Leave it to Mama!” said Bertram, yawning. “She’s as shrewd as she can hold together, and if she means you to go to London, go you will!”
    “I would not go to him now, if I were you,” said Sophia. “You are in such an agitation of spirits that you would be bound to say something unbecoming, or start to cry. And you know how much he dislikes an excess of sensibility! Speak to him in the morning, after prayers!”
    This course was decided on. And then, as Arabella afterwards confided to Bertram, it was more dreadful than all the rest! Mama had done her work too well: before the Vicar’s erring daughter could utter a word of her carefully rehearsed apology, he had taken her hand, and said with his sweet, wistful smile: “My child, you must forgive your father. Indeed, I spoke to you with grave injustice yesterday! Alas, that I, who preach moderation to my children, should have so little control over my own temper!”
    “Bertram, I had rather by far he had beaten me!” said Arabella earnestly.
    “Lord, yes!” agreed Bertram, shuddering. “What a shocking thing! I’m glad I wasn’t downstairs! It makes me feel like the devil when he gets to blaming himself. What did you say?”
    “I could not utter a word! My voice was wholly suspended by tears, as you may imagine, and I was so afraid that he would be vexed with me for not being able to contain my feelings better! But he was not. Only fancy! he took me in his arms, and kissed me, and said I was his dear, good daughter, and oh, Bertram, I’m not! ”
    “Well, you need not put yourself in a pucker for that,” recommended her matter-of-fact brother. “He won’t think it above a day or two. The thing is that his dejected fit is at an end.”
    “Oh, yes! But it was much, much worse at breakfast! He would keep on talking to me about the London scheme—teasing me, you know, about the giddy life I should lead there, and saying that I must be sure to write very long letters home, even if I cannot get a frank for them, for he would be so much interested to hear of all my doings!”
    Bertram stared at her in undisguised horror. “He did not!”
    “But he did! And in the kindest way, only with that sad look in his eyes—you know! until I was ready to give up the whole scheme!”
    “My God, I don’t wonder at it!”
    “No, and to crown all—as though I had not borne enough!” disclosed Arabella, hunting wildly for her handkerchief, “he said I should want something pretty to wear in London, and he would have a pearl pin he wore when he was a young man made into a ring for me!”
    This staggering intelligence made Bertram’s jaw drop. After a moment’s stupefaction, he said resolutely: “That settles it! I shan’t come downstairs today after all. Ten to one, if he saw me he would start to blame himself for my frisk, and I should be driven into running away to enlist, or something, because, you know, a fellow can’t stand that kind of thing!”
    “No, indeed! I am sure all my pleasure has been quite cut up!”
    Since Papa’s tender mood of forbearance showed every sign of continuance, Arabella fell into such an abyss of despondency that she was only saved from renouncing the London scheme by the timely intervention of Mama, who gave her thoughts a more cheerful direction by calling her into her bedroom one morning, and saying with a smile: “I have something to show you, my love, which I think you will like.”
    There was a box lying open upon Mama’s dressing-table. Arabella blinked at the flash of diamonds, and uttered a long-drawn: “Oh-h!”
    “My father gave them to me,” said Mrs. Tallant, sighing faintly. “Of course I have never worn them of late years, for I have no occasion to. Besides, they are scarcely suitable for a clergyman’s wife. But I have had them cleaned, and I mean to lend them to you to take with you to London. And I have asked Papa if he thinks I might