England -- Social life and customs -- Fiction; Young women -- Fiction
Julia smiled her approval; when things were worked up to this end; she
would have liked to clap her applause, it was so well done. Mrs.
Polkington and Violet were so admirable, they were already almost
convinced of all they said; in two days they would believe it quite as
much as Mr. Ponsonby did now. She did not in the least mind having to
appear as the ungrateful daughter; it fitted in so beautifully with
Violet's arrangement. And really the arrangement was very good; the
utilitarian feelings of the family did not suffer at wrenches and
splits as did more tender ones; no one would object much to an
advantageous division. And most advantageous it certainly was; the
cottage household would go better without Mrs. Polkington and she
would be far happier at the rectory. She would not make any trouble
there; rather, she would give her son-in-law cause to be glad of her
coming; there would be scope for her there, and she would possibly
develop better than she had ever had a chance of doing before.
So everything was decided. The house in East Street was to be given
up, and most of its contents sold; as Julia's cottage was furnished
already with Aunt Jane's things, she need only take a few extras from
the home. The debts were to be paid as far as possible now, and the
small income was to be divided; part was to go as pin money to Mrs.
Polkington, the main part of the remainder to go to the debts, and a
very small modicum to come with the Captain to the cottage.
Julia was quite satisfied, and let it be apparent. This, with her
obvious cheerfulness, rather incensed Violet, who regarded the sale of
their effects as rather a disgrace, and Julia's plans for the future,
as a great one.
"You ought to be ashamed of yourself," she told her younger sister,
just before she left Marbridge. "I am positively ashamed to think you
belong to us. It will be nice to meet Norfolk people at the Palace or
somewhere, who have seen you tending your pigs and doing your washing.
It is such an unusual name; I can quite fancy some one being
introduced to mother and thinking it odd that her name should be the
same as some dirty cottage people."
"Well," Julia suggested, "why not change it? Such a trifle as a name
surely need not stand in our way; we have got over worse things than
that. Mother can be something else, or I can; mother had better do it;
father will forget who he is if I make a change."
"Don't be absurd," Violet said; "I only wish you could change it
though; I never want to write to you as Julia Polkington in case some
servant were to notice the address; one never knows how these things
come out."
"Don't write as that," her sister told her; "address me as 'Julia
Snooks' or anything else you like; I am not particular."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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