gentleman's manor

His father's face turned livid in an instant, and he angrily put down the knife and fork in his hand, and the knife and fork collided with the silver plate, making a loud noise.

Mrs. Jenny's face was full of weeping, the kind of sadness made her express vividly, and she seemed to be overwhelmed and fainted soon.

Elizabeth pursed her lips and lowered her eyes, showing the behavior of being bullied miserably.

The servants looked at each other in blank dismay, lowering their heads knowingly to serve as the background.

The father took a deep breath, as if he could no longer tolerate his rebellious son, and snapped at him, "Enough! Enough! I've had enough of you! Apologize to your mother and sister! Immediately! Immediately! Or you'll get out My home is never allowed to come back!"

"Ha!" William smiled sarcastically: "What sister? An illegitimate daughter is also worthy of being called my sister. I am the eldest son of the Constantine family, and my grandfather is Viscount Constantine. I have noble blood. When will An illegitimate daughter can eat at the same table with me? You don't care about Constantine's dignity, I want to save face! Drive me out? Never come back? Unfortunately, I am the legal heir of Quint Manor , you can’t change it, stop dreaming!”

"Shut up! Shut up!" Father slapped the table hard, stood up and shouted at William: "Get out! Get out! I don't want to see you today!"

"I don't want to get out, if they want to get out, they will get out!" William stared at him and resisted, and the battle between the two seemed to be on the verge of breaking out again.

The butler Simon finally came to the rescue. The old butler took William by the arm and comforted him for a long time before finally pulling his brother out of the restaurant.But Mrs. Jenny finally couldn't bear it anymore and fainted weakly. The father hurriedly helped his wife to the bedroom, and Mrs. Jenny's two children hurriedly followed to see how their mother was doing.A good dinner turned into farce again, and it was only me and my sister Anna, who looked terrified, like a scared little rabbit.

In fact, such scenes are often staged. William has quarreled with his father many times over this, and Mrs. Jenny is frightened every time. I seriously doubt whether her nerves are really so delicate.After all, she is a mistress and gives birth out of wedlock. These things are impossible for an ordinary young lady to do. She might faint if she hears about it. She practices what she does, but she is probably not as delicate as she looks.Besides, knowing that William would quarrel with her father, she took the trouble to bring her daughter to the dinner table. If she didn't intend to sharpen her nerves, then she really had to think about her motives.

I didn't want to be hungry, so I coughed and said to my sister Anna beside me, "Don't be afraid, continue eating."

There was no servant around, and even the maid who took care of her sister went around the fainted lady. Anna looked at the pieces of ham and chicken, and looked at me timidly.Anna is a timid girl. In her previous life, she was married to an uneducated businessman's son under the arrangement of her father. After marriage, she was often beaten violently. As an older brother, I just watched everything happen. It was so useless. , I will never repeat the fate of my previous life in this life.

I stood up and cut the ham and bread, put the food on a plate and handed it to her: "If you don't want to use a knife and fork, just eat with your hands."

The younger sister nodded slightly, reaching into the plate.

"Why do my brother and father always quarrel?" the little girl asked timidly as she gnawed on a piece of bread.

"Because my brother hates Mrs. Jenny and her children." I told the little girl truthfully.

Anna pursed her lips and said, "But my father said that Mrs. Jeanne is our mother, and he asked me to respect my mother and sister Elizabeth."

I spread butter on the bread and told her: "Of course you should be respectful on the surface, but don't take it too seriously. Elizabeth is an illegitimate daughter. Even if her mother marries her father, she will be an illegitimate daughter for life and has no future. As for Mrs. Jenny, stay away from her, and run away when you see her, she is an old witch and eats children."

"Ah!" Anna opened her mouth wide in fright, and the little girl asked nervously, "Why did father marry a witch?"

"Because father is fascinated by her, so you are far away from father."

The little girl turned pale with fright, and I wiped the jam from her mouth: "This is a secret between us, okay?"

"Yeah." Anna nodded vigorously.

"My young master Adam, please don't scare Miss Anna with these stories. She will have nightmares. The hearts of ladies are very fragile. You have to remember this." The old housekeeper Simon walked in and looked at us dissatisfied. .

"Is it over?" I asked.

"Yes, Master William shouldn't always be keen to make his master angry, it's not good for him," said Simon.

"William felt his backing was tough because his father couldn't disinherit him," I said.

"Master, this is not a topic you can discuss." Simon warned me.

"I see." I got up and said to Anna: "Let's go, brother will take you back to your room."

My grandfather Mr. Charles Constantine was an old-fashioned gentleman. He would never allow his son to marry a woman without a dowry and no status, so after learning that his eldest son fell in love with such a woman, old Constantine Ding found him a decent marriage very quickly.

My father, Dean Constantine, had no right to refuse, and if he disobeyed, Constantine Sr. would change the will and let the other sons inherit Quint.The old-school gentlemen have always not divided their property. Most of them leave all the fixed assets to the eldest son, and then leave a little liquid assets to the other children, which means that the other children will lose their source of income and become poor.Facing the reality, Dean compromised and began to pursue the baron's daughter Margaret. Fortunately, he was handsome and soon made Margaret fall in love.

The old baron's daughter Margaret is not only a decent and elegant lady, but also has a generous dowry.It was difficult for Constantine, who was originally a landlord class, to marry such a rich lady. For the dowry of [-] pounds, the old Constantine and the old baron signed a limited inheritance right and Margaret's prenuptial will, Only then did the old baron happily agree to his daughter's marriage.

The right of inheritance stipulates that the Quint Manor can only be inherited by the direct children of Margaret, which means that after Dean inherits the Quint Manor, he cannot change the inheritance rights established by the old Constantine, which also means that Quint The only heirs are Margaret's two sons.

The elder brother who knew all this was naturally not afraid of his father, let alone Mrs. Jenny and her precious son.

But his father, Dean, hated the old Constantine and others for formulating such a limited inheritance right, so that he could not leave the life guarantee for his beloved woman and child. When he died, the hateful eldest son could take the They all drove out, and Dean gritted his teeth at the thought of such a thing happening.

In Mrs. Jenny's bedroom, Dean was embracing his beloved woman distressedly, and said in a repentant tone: "My dear Jenny, please forgive me, if I hadn't given up our love, if I hadn't married That's good, now you and our children won't bear such insults, it's all my fault, it's all my fault."

"Don't be like this Dean, you know I love you, I love you no matter what, I don't care about anything else, as long as you and the children are well, I am satisfied. William is a good boy, he just can't figure it out for a while, always One day he will accept me and his brothers and sisters, you have to forgive him and give him time." Mrs. Jenny said.

"You are always so kind and generous, why did God let you suffer this?" Dean was deeply moved, thinking of William, he said angrily, "That boy William is a devil, he was sent by Satan to torture us, I wish I never gave birth to this bastard!"

Jenny wiped her tears and said, "I'm fine, but Elizabeth and Joseph have grown up, and they face an unfriendly brother all day long. He was better when he was studying in London, and he didn't come back a few times a month. Now I am afraid……"

Dean hugged his wife in a hurry and said, "Don't worry, I won't let him have a chance to hurt our children." He gritted his teeth and said, "I'll spend money to send him to college, it's cheaper for him. "

Jenny fell into Dean's arms: "Thank you Dean, you sacrificed so much for me and the child."

"No, don't say that. I'm sorry for you. You have been wronged for a long time." Dean said distressedly.

……

In the morning, I usually get up very early.I dressed myself and went downstairs without ringing the bell to notify the servants.At this time, all the owners of Quint Manor were still sleeping, and only the servants had just started their day's work.Simon was quite critical of my approach. He thought I was very strange, because the average young master should sit on the bed and wait for the servant to serve him before getting up. This is not a bad habit. On the contrary, as a gentleman, let the servant prepare in advance It is in line with their identity to do everything well.

People were coming and going in the hall downstairs, and a junior maid with a white apron covered with ashes was lighting the fireplace. There was a choking smell in the air, which was the smoke from damp dry wood. Seeing that the maid is a novice, she has no experience in lighting high-end fireplaces.

The housekeeper, Selina, hurried over and exclaimed in disbelief: "God! Why are you so stupid, you girl, I'm going to be driven crazy by you, how did you get all these smokes! Can't have breakfast because of the smoke early in the morning? Open the window quickly to ventilate, some of you come over and light the fireplace for her." She directed several maids to go around.

Selena is the housekeeper of Quint Manor. She is more than 40 years old. She has brown hair neatly combed into a bun and always wears plain black skirts. There is not even a single pattern on the skirts.She has a serious personality, is unsmiling, and is sometimes very severe. Under her stare, many people are so scared that they can't even speak, just like the lower-level maid who did something wrong just now, she stood trembling in front of Selena .

Seeing me going downstairs, Selena said to me respectfully: "Master Adam, it will take another hour for breakfast to be ready."

"I know, I'm just used to getting up early, don't worry about me." I walked through the long corridor to the restaurant.

In the early morning, the restaurant is well lit because it faces the sun and has several large glass windows. I like to sit here and read a book, which makes me feel happy.

The old butler Simon was leading two servants to clear the table.

They neatly folded the white calico tablecloths on the long table and put them in the basket, then took out the new tablecloth that was just washed yesterday, and carefully covered the tabletop.The white tablecloth was wrinkled, and a servant took a kettle filled with boiling water and quickly ironed it until the large tablecloth was completely flat.Then another servant came over carrying a small table with silver cutlery. Several people arranged the tableware in an orderly manner, and finally placed a beautiful vase on the table, filled with roses that were just cut from the greenhouse this morning. , There are still dewdrops on the petals.

I sat by and read, and they ignored me, because it was my habit, and they were used to it too.William had been sent away by his father to go to college a few days ago, Quint Manor had a rare peace, or temporary peace, and a new storm would soon hit.

Because troublesome William is finally gone, and it's my turn next, so I'm ready to go.