LABURNUM COTTAGE.
There had been various letters passing, during the last six weeks,
between Priscilla Stanbury and her brother, respecting the Clock
House at Nuncombe Putney. The ladies at Nuncombe had, certainly, gone
into the Clock House on the clear understanding that the expenses of
the establishment were to be incurred on behalf of Mrs. Trevelyan.
Priscilla had assented to the movement most doubtingly. She had
disliked the idea of taking the charge of a young married woman who
was separated from her husband, and she had felt that a going down
after such an uprising,--a fall from the Clock House back to a
cottage,--would be very disagreeable. She had, however, allowed her
brother's arguments to prevail, and there they were. The annoyance
which she had anticipated from the position of their late guest had
fallen upon them: it had been felt grievously, from the moment in
which Colonel Osborne called at the house; and now that going back
to the cottage must be endured. Priscilla understood that there had
been a settlement between Trevelyan and Stanbury as to the cost of
the establishment so far;--but that must now be at an end. In their
present circumstances she would not continue to live there, and had
already made inquiries as to some humble roof for their shelter. For
herself she would not have cared had it been necessary for her to
hide herself in a hut,--for herself, as regarded any feeling as to
her own standing in the village. For herself, she was ashamed of
nothing. But her mother would suffer, and she knew what Aunt Stanbury
would say to Dorothy. To Dorothy at the present moment, if Dorothy
should think of accepting her suitor, the change might be very
deleterious; but still it should be made. She could not endure
to live there on the very hard-earned proceeds of her brother's
pen,--proceeds which were not only hard-earned, but precarious. She
gave warning to the two servants who had been hired, and consulted
with Mrs. Crocket as to a cottage, and was careful to let it be known
throughout Nuncombe Putney that the Clock House was to be abandoned.
The Clock House had been taken furnished for six months, of which
half were not yet over; but there were other expenses of living there
much greater than the rent, and go she would. Her mother sighed and
assented; and Mrs. Crocket, having strongly but fruitlessly advised
that the Clock House should be inhabited at any rate for the six
months, promised her assistance. "It has been a bad business, Mrs.
Crocket," said Priscilla; "and all we can do now is to get out of
it as well as we can. Every mouthful I eat chokes me while I stay
there." "It ain't good, certainly, miss, not to know as you're all
straight the first thing as you wakes in the morning," said Mrs.
Crocket,--who was always able to feel when she woke that everything
was straight with her.
Then there came the correspondence between Priscilla and Hugh.
Priscilla was at first decided, indeed, but mild in the expression
of her decision. To this, and to one or two other missives
couched in terms of increasing decision, Hugh answered with manly,
self-asserting, overbearing arguments. The house was theirs till
Christmas; between this and then he would think about it. He could
very well afford to keep the house on till next Midsummer, and then
they might see what had best be done. There was plenty of money, and
Priscilla need not put herself into a flutter. In answer to that word
flutter, Priscilla wrote as follows:--
Clock House, September 16, 186--.
DEAR HUGH,
I know very well how good you are, and how generous, but
you must allow me to have feelings as well as yourself. I
will not consent to have myself regarded as a grand lady
out of your earnings. How should I feel when some day I
heard that you had run yourself into debt? Neither mamma
nor I could endure it. Dorothy is provided for now, at any
rate for a time, and what we have is enough for us. You
know I am not too proud to take anything you can spare to
us, when we are ourselves placed in a proper position: but
I could not live in this great house, while you are paying
for everything,--and I will not. Mamma quite agrees with
me, and we shall go out of it on Michaelmas-day. Mrs.
Crocket says she thinks she can get you a tenant for the
three months, out of Exeter,--if not for the whole rent,
at least for part of it. I think we have already got a
small place for eight shillings a week, a little out of
the village, on the road to Cockchaffington. You will
remember it. Old Soames used to live there. Our old
furniture will be just enough. There is a mite of a
garden, and Mrs. Crocket says she thinks we can get it for
seven shillings, or perhaps for six and sixpence, if we
stay there. We shall go in on the 29th. Mrs. Crocket will
see about having somebody to take care of the house.
Your most affectionate sister,
PRISCILLA.
On the receipt of this letter, Hugh proceeded to Nuncombe. At this
time he was making about ten guineas a week, and thought that
he saw his way to further work. No doubt the ten guineas were
precarious;--that is, the "Daily Record" might discontinue his
services to-morrow, if the "Daily Record" thought fit to do so. The
greater part of his earnings came from the "D. R.," and the editor
had only to say that things did not suit any longer, and there would
be an end of it. He was not as a lawyer or a doctor with many clients
who could not all be supposed to withdraw their custom at once; but
leading articles were things wanted with at least as much regularity
as physic or law, and Hugh Stanbury, believing in himself, did not
think it probable that an editor, who knew what he was about, would
withdraw his patronage. He was proud of his weekly ten guineas,
feeling sure that a weekly ten guineas would not as yet have been
his had he stuck to the Bar as a profession. He had calculated, when
Mrs. Trevelyan left the Clock House, that two hundred a year would
enable his mother to continue to reside there, the rent of the place
furnished, or half-furnished, being only eighty; and he thought
that he could pay the two hundred easily. He thought so still, when
he received Priscilla's last letter; but he knew something of the
stubbornness of his dear sister, and he, therefore, went down to
Nuncombe Putney, in order that he might use the violence of his logic
on his mother.
He had heard of Mr. Gibson from both Priscilla and from Dorothy,
and was certainly desirous that "dear old Dolly," as he called her,
should be settled comfortably. But when dear old Dolly wrote to him
declaring that it could not be so, that Mr. Gibson was a very nice
gentleman, of whom she could not say that she was particularly
fond,--"though I really do think that he is an excellent man, and if
it was any other girl in the world, I should recommend her to take
him,"--and that she thought that she would rather not get married, he
wrote to her the kindest brotherly letter in the world, telling her
that she was "a brick," and suggesting to her that there might come
some day some one who would suit her taste better than Mr. Gibson.
"I'm not very fond of parsons myself," said Hugh, "but you must not
tell that to Aunt Stanbury." Then he suggested that as he was going
down to Nuncombe, Dorothy should get leave of absence and come over
and meet him at the Clock House. Dorothy demanded the leave of
absence somewhat imperiously, and was at home at the Clock House when
Hugh arrived.
"And so that little affair couldn't come off?" said Hugh at their
first family meeting.
"It was a pity," said Mrs. Stanbury, plaintively. She had been very
plaintive on the subject. What a thing it would have been for her,
could she have seen Dorothy so well established!
"There's no help for spilt milk, mother," said Hugh. Mrs. Stanbury
shook her head.
"Dorothy was quite right," said Priscilla.
"Of course she was right," said Hugh. "Who doubts her being right?
Bless my soul! What's any girl to do if she don't like a man except
to tell him so? I honour you, Dolly,--not that I ever should have
doubted you. You're too much of a chip of the old block to say you
liked a man when you didn't."
"He is a very excellent young man," said Mrs. Stanbury.
"An excellent fiddlestick, mother. Loving and liking don't go by
excellence. Besides, I don't know about his being any better than
anybody else, just because he's a clergyman."
"A clergyman is more likely to be steady than other men," said the
mother.
"Steady, yes; and as selfish as you please."
"Your father was a clergyman, Hugh."
"I don't mean to say that they are not as good as others; but I won't
have it that they are better. They are always dealing with the Bible,
till they think themselves apostles. But when money comes up, or
comfort, or, for the matter of that either, a pretty woman with a
little money, then they are as human as the rest of us."
If the truth had been told on that occasion, Hugh Stanbury would have
had to own that he had written lately two or three rather stinging
articles in the "Daily Record," as "to the assumed merits and actual
demerits of the clergy of the Church of England." It is astonishing
how fluent a man is on a subject when he has lately delivered himself
respecting it in this fashion.
Nothing on that evening was said about the Clock House, or about
Priscilla's intentions. Priscilla was up early on the next morning,
intending to discuss it in the garden with Hugh before breakfast; but
Hugh was aware of her purpose and avoided her. It was his intention
to speak first to his mother; and though his mother was, as he knew,
very much in awe of her daughter, he thought that he might carry his
point, at any rate for the next three months, by forcing an assent
from the elder lady. So he managed to waylay Mrs. Stanbury before she
descended to the parlour.
"We can't afford it, my dear;--indeed we can't," said Mrs. Stanbury.
"That's not the question, mother. The rent must be paid up to
Christmas, and you can live here as cheap as you can anywhere."
"But Priscilla--"
"Oh, Priscilla! Of course we know what Priscilla says. Priscilla has
been writing to me about it in the most sensible manner in the world;
but what does it all come to? If you are ashamed of taking assistance
from me, I don't know who is to do anything for anybody. You are
comfortable here?"
"Very comfortable; only Priscilla feels--"
"Priscilla is a tyrant, mother; and a very stern one. Just make up
your mind to stay here till Christmas. If I tell you that I can
afford it, surely that ought to be enough." Then Dorothy entered the
room, and Hugh appealed to her. Dorothy had come to Nuncombe only on
the day before, and had not been consulted on the subject. She had
been told that the Clock House was to be abandoned, and had been
taken down to inspect the cottage in which old Soames had lived;--but
her opinion had not been asked. Priscilla had quite made up her mind,
and why should she ask an opinion of any one? But now Dorothy's
opinion was demanded. "It's what I call the rhodomontade of
independence," said Hugh.
"I suppose it is very expensive," suggested Dorothy.
"The house must be paid for," said Hugh;--"and if I say that I've got
the money, is not that enough? A miserable, dirty little place, where
you'll catch your death of lumbago, mother."
"Of course it's not a comfortable house," said Mrs. Stanbury,--who,
of herself, was not at all indifferent to the comforts of her present
residence.
"And it is very dirty," said Dorothy.
"The nastiest place I ever saw in my life. Come, mother; if I say
that I can afford it, ought not that to be enough for you? If you
think you can't trust me, there's an end of everything, you know."
And Hugh, as he thus expressed himself, assumed an air of injured
virtue.
Mrs. Stanbury had very nearly yielded, when Priscilla came in among
them. It was impossible not to continue the conversation, though Hugh
would much have preferred to have forced an assent from his mother
before he opened his mouth on the subject to his sister. "My mother
agrees with me," said he abruptly, "and so does Dolly, that it will
be absurd to move away from this house at present."
"Mamma!" exclaimed Priscilla.
"I don't think I said that, Hugh," murmured Dorothy, softly.
"I'm sure I don't want anything for myself," said Mrs. Stanbury.
"It's I that want it," said Hugh. "And I think that I've a right to
have my wishes respected, so far as that goes."
"My dear Hugh," said Priscilla, "the cottage is already taken, and we
shall certainly go into it. I spoke to Mrs. Crocket yesterday about
a cart for moving the things. I'm sure mamma agrees with me. What
possible business can people have to live in such a house as this
with about twenty-four shillings a week for everything? I won't do
it. And as the thing is settled, it is only making trouble to disturb
it."
"I suppose, Priscilla," said Hugh, "you'll do as your mother
chooses?"
"Mamma chooses to go. She has told me so already."
"You have talked her into it."
"We had better go, Hugh," said Mrs. Stanbury. "I'm sure we had better
go."
"Of course we shall go," said Priscilla. "Hugh is very kind and very
generous, but he is only giving trouble for nothing about this. Had
we not better go down to breakfast?"
And so Priscilla carried the day. They went down to breakfast, and
during the meal Hugh would speak to nobody. When the gloomy meal
was over he took his pipe and walked out to the cottage. It was an
untidy-looking, rickety place, small and desolate, with a pretension
about it of the lowest order, a pretension that was evidently ashamed
of itself. There was a porch. And the one sitting-room had what the
late Mr. Soames had always called his bow window. But the porch
looked as though it were tumbling down, and the bow window looked
as though it were tumbling out. The parlour and the bedroom over it
had been papered;--but the paper was torn and soiled, and in sundry
places was hanging loose. There was a miserable little room called a
kitchen to the right as you entered the door, in which the grate was
worn out, and behind this was a shed with a copper. In the garden
there remained the stumps and stalks of Mr. Soames's cabbages, and
there were weeds in plenty, and a damp hole among some elder bushes
called an arbour. It was named Laburnum Cottage, from a shrub that
grew at the end of the house. Hugh Stanbury shuddered as he stood
smoking among the cabbage-stalks. How could a man ask such a girl
as Nora Rowley to be his wife, whose mother lived in a place like
this? While he was still standing in the garden, and thinking of
Priscilla's obstinacy and his own ten guineas a week, and the sort of
life which he lived in London,--where he dined usually at his club,
and denied himself nothing in the way of pipes, beer, and beefsteaks,
he heard a step behind him, and turning round, saw his elder sister.
"Hugh," she said, "you must not be angry with me."
"But I am angry with you."
"I know you are; but you are unjust. I am doing what I am sure is
right."
"I never saw such a beastly hole as this in all my life."
"I don't think it beastly at all. You'll find that I'll make it nice.
Whatever we want here you shall give us. You are not to think that I
am too proud to take anything at your hands. It is not that."
"It's very like it."
"I have never refused anything that is reasonable, but it is quite
unreasonable that we should go on living in such a place as that, as
though we had three or four hundred a year of our own. If mamma got
used to the comfort of it, it would be hard then upon her to move.
You shall give her what you can afford, and what is reasonable; but
it is madness to think of living there. I couldn't do it."
"You're to have your way at any rate, it seems."
"But you must not quarrel with me, Hugh. Give me a kiss. I don't have
you often with me; and yet you are the only man in the world that I
ever speak to, or even know. I sometimes half think that the bread is
so hard and the water so bitter, that life will become impossible. I
try to get over it; but if you were to go away from me in anger, I
should be so beaten for a week or two that I could do nothing."
"Why won't you let me do anything?"
"I will;--whatever you please. But kiss me." Then he kissed her, as
he stood among Mr. Soames's cabbage-stalks. "Dear Hugh; you are such
a god to me!"
"You don't treat me like a divinity."
"But I think of you as one when you are absent. The gods were never
obeyed when they showed themselves. Let us go and have a walk.
Come;--shall we get as far as Ridleigh Mill?" Then they started
together, and all unpleasantness was over between them when they
returned to the Clock House.