Diotimos Library · Literary Fiction Collection · English Edition
The Keepers of the People
A Critical Edition of the 1898 Novel
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English Edition · Branch 82 of 254
Chapter IX · Althea Breaks With Her Mother · pp. 87–98
The Keepers of the People
p. 87CHAPTER IX
ALTHEA BREAKS WITH HER MOTHER
Althea found London dull indeed after her full, pleasant life at Quivern Court. She spent the most of her day in her room alone: her mother was too busy with the meetings of her societies to give any of her time to her, her carriage too full of supporters to have room for the child to drive out with her; her governess was too busy, acting as her mother’s secretary, to give her lessons, or companionship; her father, busy with his discreet pleasures, only saw her for half an hour now and again. She had a subscription at Mudie’s; filled her life with books and dreams; and was diverted a little from her loneliness by long letters from Lady Lisdor. She took the air, indeed, in the Park, more often than she had been used. Alrasch needed exercise, and was an excellent protector; and her wanderings grew longer and longer as she learned the use of him. At last on a day when her books ran short, and she saw no way of getting at once fresh ones, her spirit was spurred to revolt by the need; it grew plain to her that the time had come for more violent measures; and in Alrasch she found the helper to give her courage.
She dressed herself in her prettiest clothes; then, bethinking herself that she had no money, went to her mother’s bedroom, and found her purse on the dressing-table: as she had thought likely, Lady Hammersmith had forgotten it. For a wonder there was gold in it; and she took out three sovereigns. Then she came into the boudoir, and going to the writing-table, wrote on a sheet of paper, “I.O.U. three pounds — Althea Flodden.”
She looked at it with a pleased air: Lord Lisdor had shown her a like writing once: then another thought came to her; and smiling with a faint mischief, she wrote under it, “Is it quite right to put temptation in the servants’ way by leaving money about?” and taking the sheet, set it under her mother’s purse. She came down the stairs, carrying the packet of books, brought Alrasch from his kennel in the garden, and came into the hall. One of the footmen was gazing at himself in a mirror with yawning admiration, smoothing his hair.
Socrates
Reading The Keepers of the People · Book I, Chapter IX · Althea Breaks With Her Mother · Book I, Chapter IX · Althea Breaks With Her Mother · pp. 87–98
Ask about a concept, passage, contradiction, or connection.
Socrates will begin with this book and its sources.About This Reading Edition
Edgar Jepson’s The Keepers of the People begins as a late-Victorian lost-kingdom romance and becomes an unsettling political argument. Ralph Falcon moves from an English country house to the hidden state of Varandaleel, where laughter, secrecy, violence, education, and the duties of rulers are tested against one another.
Historical Text
The novel was first published in London in 1898 by C. Arthur Pearson. This reading text follows the owner-supplied critical edition, whose copy-text is the Methuen Colonial Library issue of the same year digitised by the Internet Archive. The supplied editorial note records the edition’s corrections, normalisations, limits, and unresolved textual risks.
About This Edition
This English Edition preserves the complete supplied text and apparatus: the introduction, reading guide, key words, plot outline, editorial note, both books and all thirty chapters, and the end notes. Its reader branches end at paragraph boundaries, with the original chapter structure and chapter page references mapped to the 1898 printing.
Rights
Edgar Jepson’s 1898 novel is in the public domain. The introduction, reader’s guide, key words, outline, editorial note, notes, editorial arrangement, and design of the supplied edition are © 2026 Diotimos Editions.