My Lady's Money E-Book

Wilkie Collins

• Herausgeber: Wilkie Collins
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

William Wilkie Collins (8 January 1824 – 23 September 1889) was an English novelist, playwright, and short story writer. His best-known works are The Woman in White (1859), No Name (1862), Armadale (1866), and The Moonstone (1868), considered the first modern English detective novel. Born into the family of painter William Collins in London, he lived with his family in Italy and France as a child and learned French and Italian. He worked as a clerk for a tea merchant. After his first novel Antonina was published in 1850, he met Charles Dickens, who became a close friend, mentor and collaborator. Some of Collins's works were first published in Dickens' journals All the Year Round and Household Words and the two collaborated on dramatic and fictional works. Collins published his best known works in the 1860s, achieved financial stability and an international reputation. During this time he began suffering from gout took opium for pain and developed an addiction. During the 1870s and '80s the quality of his writing declined along with his health. Collins was critical of the institution of marriage and never married; he split his time between Caroline Graves except for a 2-year separation, and his common law wife Martha Rudd with whom he had 3 children (font: Wikipedia)

Leseprobe

My Lady’s Money An Episode in the Life of a Young Girl

Wilkie Collins

Table of Contents

Part the First.

Chapter i.

Chapter ii.

Chapter iii.

Chapter iv.

Chapter v.

Chapter vi.

Chapter vii.

Part the Second.

Chapter viii.

Chapter ix.

Chapter x.

Chapter xi.

Chapter xii.

Chapter xiii.

Chapter xiv.

Chapter xv.

Chapter xvi.

Chapter xvii.

Chapter xviii.

Chapter xix.

Chapter xx.

Chapter xxi.

Postscript.

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!”