The Red Court Farm: A Novel (Vol. 1 of 2)Wood, Henry, Mrs.
General
The Red Court Farm: A Novel (Vol. 1 of 2)
Wood, Henry, Mrs.
English fiction -- 19th century
"Mary Anne is your concern now, not mine. Has she not been with you?"
"I have not seen her at all today. When I got down--it was before
ten--all the world seemed flown. I found Richard. He took me over the
rooms at the end of the passage; to your bureau (he called the room
that, as the French do), and to his chamber and Hyde's, and to the
place filled with their guns and things."
The justice gave a sort of grin. "That's quite a come-out for Dick.
Showing you his chamber! You must have won his heart."
My lady's private opinion was that she had not won it; but she did not
say so. Gracefully twitching up her expensive robe, lest it should
gather harm in its contact with the common, she tripped on, and they
reached the heath. Mr. Thornycroft proposed to make calls at the
different houses in succession, beginning with Captain Copp's. She
heard him with a little shriek of dismay. "It was not etiquette."
"Etiquette?" responded the justice.
"I am but just married. It is their place to call on me first."
Mr. Thornycroft laughed. Etiquette was about as much understood as
Greek at Coastdown. "Come along!" cried he, heartily. "There's the
sailor and his wooden leg opening the door to welcome us."
The sailor was doing it in a sailorly fashion,--flourishing his wooden
leg, waving his glazed hat round and round, cheering and beckoning.
The bride made a merit of necessity, and went in. Here they had news
of Mary Anne. Mrs. Copp, Mademoiselle Derode, and Miss Thornycroft had
gone to Jutpoint by omnibus under Isaac's convoy.
"And the women are coming back here to a tea-fight," said the plain
sea-captain; "cold mackerel and shrimps and hot cakes; that she-pirate
of ours is baking the cakes in the oven; so you need not expect your
daughter home, justice."
Mr. Thornycroft nodded in answer. His daughter was welcome to stay.
The dinner-party at the Red Court that evening consisted of five. Its
master and mistress, the two sons, and a stranger named Hopley from
Dartfield, whom Richard brought in. He was not much of a gentleman,
and none of them had dressed. My lady thought she was going in for a
prosy sort of life--not exactly the one she had anticipated.
Very much to her surprise she found the dinner-courses much augmented;
quite a different dinner altogether from that which she had ordered.
Boiled fowls, roast ducklings, tarts, ice-creams, macaroni--all sorts
of additions. My lady compressed her lips, and came to the conclusion
that her orders had been misunderstood. There is more to be said yet
about the dinners at the Red Court Farm; not for the especial benefit
of the reader, he is requested to take notice, but because they bear
upon the story.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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