My Ladys Money

My Lady's Money, by Wilkie
Collins

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Title: My Lady's Money
Author: Wilkie Collins
Release Date: March 21, 2006 [EBook #1628]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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LADY'S MONEY ***

Produced by James Rusk and David Widger

MY LADY'S MONEY
by Wilkie Collins

AN EPISODE IN THE LIFE OF A YOUNG GIRL
PERSONS OF THE STORY
Women:
Lady Lydiard (Widow of Lord Lydiard)
Isabel Miller (her Adopted Daughter)
Miss Pink (of South Morden)
The Hon. Mrs. Drumblade (Sister to the Hon. A. Hardyman)
Men
The Hon. Alfred Hardyman (of the Stud Farm)
Mr. Felix Sweetsir (Lady Lydiard's Nephew)
Robert Moody (Lady Lydiard's Steward)
Mr. Troy (Lady Lydiard's Lawyer)
Old Sharon (in the Byways of Legal Bohemia)
Animal
Tommie (Lady Lydiard's Dog)

PART THE FIRST.
THE DISAPPEARANCE.
CHAPTER I.
OLD Lady Lydiard sat meditating by the fireside, with three letters
lying open on her lap.

Time had discolored the paper, and had turned the ink to a brownish
hue. The letters were all addressed to the same person--"THE RT. HON.
LORD LYDIARD"--and were all signed in the same way--"Your
affectionate cousin, James Tollmidge." Judged by these specimens of
his correspondence, Mr. Tollmidge must have possessed one great
merit as a letter-writer--the merit of brevity. He will weary nobody's
patience, if he is allowed to have a hearing. Let him, therefore, be
permitted, in his own high-flown way, to speak for himself.
First Letter.--"My statement, as your Lordship requests, shall be short
and to the point. I was doing very well as a portrait-painter in the
country; and I had a wife and children to consider. Under the
circumstances, if I had been left to decide for myself, I should certainly
have waited until I had saved a little money before I ventured on the
serious expense of taking a house and studio at the west end of London.
Your Lordship, I positively declare, encouraged me to try the
experiment without waiting. And here I am, unknown and unemployed,
a helpless artist lost in London--with a sick wife and hungry children,
and bankruptcy staring me in the face. On whose shoulders does this
dreadful responsibility rest? On your Lordship's!"
Second Letter.--"After a week's delay, you favor me, my Lord, with a
curt reply. I can be equally curt on my side. I indignantly deny that I or
my wife ever presumed to see your Lordship's name as a means of
recommendation to sitters without your permission. Some enemy has
slandered us. I claim as my right to know the name of that enemy."
Third (and last) Letter.--"Another week has passed--and not a word of
answer has reached me from your Lordship. It matters little. I have
employed the interval in making inquiries, and I have at last discovered
the hostile influence which has estranged you from me. I have been, it
seems, so unfortunate as to offend Lady Lydiard (how, I cannot
imagine); and the all-powerful influence of this noble lady is now used
against the struggling artist who is united to you by the sacred ties of
kindred. Be it so. I can fight my way upwards, my Lord, as other men
have done before me. A day may yet come when the throng of
carriages waiting at the door of the fashionable portrait-painter will

include her Ladyship's vehicle, and bring me the tardy expression of
her Ladyship's regret. I refer you, my Lord Lydiard, to that day!"
Having read Mr. Tollmidge's formidable assertions relating to herself
for the second time, Lady Lydiard's meditations came to an abrupt end.
She rose, took the letters in both hands to tear them up, hesitated, and
threw them back in the cabinet drawer in which she had discovered
them, among other papers that had not been arranged since Lord
Lydiard's death.
"The idiot!" said her Ladyship, thinking of Mr. Tollmidge, "I never
even heard of him, in my husband's lifetime; I never even knew that he
was really related to Lord Lydiard, till I found his letters. What is to be
done next?"
She looked, as she put that question to herself, at an open newspaper
thrown on the table, which announced the death of "that accomplished
artist Mr. Tollmidge, related, it is said, to the late well-known
connoisseur, Lord Lydiard." In the next sentence the writer of the
obituary notice deplored the destitute condition of Mrs. Tollmidge and
her children, "thrown helpless on the mercy of the world." Lady
Lydiard