Christmas at Thompson Hall Read Online Free Page B

my dear,” she said. Then there was a question about the duration of time, in which both of them waxed angry, and as she became angry her husband waxed stronger, and as he became violent beneath the clothes the comfortable idea returned to her that he was not perhaps so ill as he would seem to be. She found herself driven to tell him something about the porter, having to account for that lapse of time by explaining how she had driven the poor man to search for the handkerchief which she had never lost.
    â€œWhy did you not tell him you wanted the mustard?”
    â€œMy dear!”
    â€œWhy not? There is nothing to be ashamed of in wanting mustard.”
    â€œAt one o’clock in the morning! I couldn’t do it. To tell you the truth, he wasn’t very civil, and I thought that he was, — perhaps a little tipsy. Now, my dear, do go to sleep.”
    â€œWhy didn’t you get the mustard?”
    â€œThere was none there, — nowhere at all about the room. I went down again and searched everywhere. That’s what took me so long. They always lock up those kind of things at these French hotels. They are too close-fisted to leave anything out. When you first spoke of it I knew that it would be gone when I got there. Now, my dear, do go to sleep, because we positively must start in the morning.”
    â€œThat is impossible,” said he, jumping up in the bed.
    â€œWe must go, my dear. I say that we must go. After all that has passed I wouldn’t not be with Uncle John and my cousin Robert to-morrow evening for more, — more, — more than I would venture to say.”
    â€œBother!” he exclaimed.
    â€œIt’s all very well for you to say that, Charles, but you don’t know. I say that we must go to-morrow, and we will.”
    â€œI do believe you want to kill me, Mary.”
    â€œThat is very cruel, Charles, and most false, and most unjust. As for making you ill, nothing could be so bad for you as this wretched place, where nobody can get warm either day or night. If anything will cure your throat for you at once it will be the sea air. And only think how much more comfortable they can make you at Thompson Hall than anywhere in this country. I have so set my heart upon it, Charles, that I will do it. If we are not there to-morrow night Uncle John won’t consider us as belonging to the family.”
    â€œI don’t believe a word of it.”
    â€œJane told me so in her letter. I wouldn’t let you know before because I thought it so unjust. But that has been the reason why I’ve been so earnest about it all through.”
    It was a thousand pities that so good a woman should have been driven by the sad stress of circumstances to tell so many fibs. One after another she was compelled to invent them, that there might be a way open to her of escaping the horrors of a prolonged sojourn in that hotel. At length, after much grumbling, he became silent, and she trusted that he was sleeping. He had not as yet said that he would start at the required hour in the morning, but she was perfectly determined in her own mind that he should be made to do so. As he lay there motionless, and as she wandered about the room pretending to pack her things, she more than once almost resolved that she would tell him everything. Surely then he would be ready to make any effort. But there came upon her an idea that he might perhaps fail to see all the circumstances, and that, so failing, he would insist on remaining that he might tender some apology to the injured gentleman. An apology might have been very well had she not left him there in his misery — but what apology would be possible now? She would have to see him and speak to him, and everyone in the hotel would know every detail of the story. Everyone in France would know that it was she who had gone to the strange man’s bedside, and put the mustard plaster on the strange man’s throat in the dead of