She wondered what would happen when she was no longer at hand to act as scapegoat, and yet it seemed to her that her mother longed to be rid of her.
"I'll get things into good order when you're out of the way," she said to her on the last evening but one before the wedding-day, the evening on which the Studleys were to arrive at the Court. "You're just a born muddler, and you'll never be anything else, Lady Studley or no Lady Studley. Get along upstairs and dress yourself for your precious dinner-party, or your father will be ready first! Oh, it'll be a good thing when it's all over and done with, but if you think you'll ever get treated as a grand lady here, you're very much mistaken. Home broth is all you'll ever get from me, so you needn't expect anything different. If you don't like it, you can stop away."
Dinah escaped from the rating tongue as swiftly as she dared. She knew that her mother had been asked to dine at the Court also--for the first time in her life--and had tersely refused. She wasn't going to be condescended to by anybody, she had told her husband in Dinah's hearing, and he had merely shrugged his shoulders and advised her to please herself.
Billy had not been asked, somewhat to his disgust; but he looked forward to seeing Scott again in the morning and ordered Dinah to ask him to lunch with them.
So finally Dinah and her father set forth alone in one of the motors from the Court to attend the gathering of County magnates that the de Vignes had summoned in honour of Sir Eustace Studley and his chosen bride.
She wore one of her trousseau gowns for the occasion, a pale green gossamer-like garment that made her look more nymph-like than ever. Her mother had surveyed it with narrowed eyes and a bitter sneer.
"Ok yes, you'll pass for one of the quality," she had said. "No one would take you for a child of mine any way."
"That's no fault of the child's, Lydia," her father had rejoined good-humouredly, and in the car he had taken her little cold hand into his and asked her kindly enough if she were happy.
She answered him tremulously in the affirmative, the dread of her mother still so strong upon her that she could think of nothing but the relief of escape. And then before she had time to prepare herself in any way for the sudden transition she found herself back in that tropical, brilliant atmosphere in which thenceforth she was to move and have her being.