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 87 of 254
Chapter IX · Althea Breaks With Her Mother · pp. 87–98
The Keepers of the People
p. 94Althea winced, but said bravely, “It’s my money; I have three hundred a-year.”
Lord Lisdor had prepared her to demand some of her money if she needed it; and indeed it was actually a part of the quarterly cheque for her allowance.
Lady Hammersmith shifted her ground, and falling from violence to a deep solemnity, said, “Do you know that that money was going to a poor unfortunate woman, to help her to give up her wicked life, and live better? And now you’ve spent it.”
“Wouldn’t that have rather been taking the children’s bread, and giving it to the dogs?” said Althea.
Lady Hammersmith gasped, and said, “Althea, do you know what you are saying? It’s blasphemy!”
“I don’t think it can be; it’s quite true,” said Althea, “You shock me! You horrify me! You wicked child!” cried Lady Hammersmith, who was coming to her wits’ end. “I don’t know what to do with you! I shall send you to school!”
Althea did not want to go to school; and having heard her mother declare frequently that all schools were hotbeds of the worst vices, she said thoughtfully, “Yes; I should like to go to school. I should learn lots of interesting things at school.”
“No; you shall not go to school! But I shall punish you severely,” said Lady Hammersmith.
“I can’t help it,” said Althea, with a little yawn of unaffected weariness. “I’m going to see after myself for the future.”
Her words and air exasperated Lady Hammersmith beyond endurance; she darted forward, and struck clumsily Althea’s cheek.
There was a snarl from Alrasch, and if the quick hand of his mistress had not caught his collar, as he was springing, Lady Hammersmith would have been badly hurt. Althea stood with the breath panting from her parted lips, her eyes opening and shutting, as she strove to understand what had befallen her. Then with a great cry, she dropped on her knees, and with her arms round the neck of the growling Alrasch, her face pressed against his head, she burst into a storm of sobs.
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.