Augusta; Lady Dolphinton
Considerably to their surprise, and not a little to their relief, Lady Dolphinton received the engaged
couple later in the evening with a degree of affability which was as rare as it was unexpected. She was a
hard-featured woman, with a predatory mouth, a smile that never reached her eyes, and an air of
consequence. At no time had she been popular with her deceased husband's relations, for she was both
proud and ill-natured, insolent to persons whom she considered to be her social inferiors, tyrannical to
her son, and ruthless in the methods she employed to achieve her ends. Even Lady Legerwood, always
prone to take the kindliest view of everyone, could not like Augusta. In her eyes, Augusta was a bad
mother, whose treatment of her dull-witted son had, she maintained, done much to increase his
imbecility. She could say no worse of anyone. The younger members of the family were frightened of
her when children, and avoided her when they grew up. Mr Penicuik detested her. He made very little
secret of his belief that his nephew's untimely decease might be laid at her door; and none at all of his
conviction that his great-nephew's peculiarities were directly inherited from her. He said that all the
Skirlings were loose screws, adding darkly that he didn't blame them for setting it about that old James
Skirling had been drowned while fishing on a Scottish loch. No one, he said, could be expected to
advertize the fact that a member of the family had to be confined in a room at the top of the house, with
a couple of attendants to see that he came to no harm.
(ch. x)