Like many other things which have been declared to be impossible, this
report of Captain James being attentive to Miss Brooke turned out to be
very true.
The mere idea of her agent being on the slightest possible terms of
acquaintance with the Dissenter, the tradesman, the Birmingham democrat,
who had come to settle in our good, orthodox, aristocratic, and
agricultural Hanbury, made my lady very uneasy. Miss Galindo’s
misdemeanor in having taken Miss Bessy to live with her, faded into a
mistake, a mere error of judgment, in comparison with Captain James’s
intimacy at Yeast House, as the Brookes called their ugly square-built
farm. My lady talked herself quite into complacency with Miss Galindo,
and even Miss Bessy was named by her, the first time I had ever been
aware that my lady recognised her existence; but--I recollect it was a
long rainy afternoon, and I sat with her ladyship, and we had time and
opportunity for a long uninterrupted talk--whenever we had been silent
for a little while, she began again, with something like a wonder how
it was that Captain James could ever have commenced an acquaintance with
“that man Brooke.” My lady recapitulated all the times she could
remember, that anything had occurred, or been said by Captain James
which she could now understand as throwing light upon the subject.
“He said once that he was anxious to bring in the Norfolk system of
cropping, and spoke a good deal about Mr. Coke of Holkham (who, by the
way, was no more a Coke than I am--collateral in the female line--which
counts for little or nothing among the great old commoners’ families of
pure blood), and his new ways of cultivation; of course new men bring in
new ways, but it does not follow that either are better than the old
ways. However, Captain James has been very anxious to try turnips and
bone manure, and he really is a man of such good sense and energy, and
was so sorry last year about the failure, that I consented; and now I
begin to see my error. I have always heard that town bakers adulterate
their flour with bone-dust; and, of course, Captain James would be aware
of this, and go to Brooke to inquire where the article was to be
purchased.”
My lady always ignored the fact which had sometimes, I suspect, been
brought under her very eyes during her drives, that Mr. Brooke’s few
fields were in a state of far higher cultivation than her own; so she
could not, of course, perceive that there was any wisdom to be gained
from asking the advice of the tradesman turned farmer.
But by-and-by this fact of her agent’s intimacy with the person whom in
the whole world she most disliked (with that sort of dislike in which a
large amount of uncomfortableness is combined--the dislike which
conscientious people sometimes feel to another without knowing why, and
yet which they cannot indulge in with comfort to themselves without
having a moral reason why), came before my lady in many shapes. For,
indeed, I am sure that Captain James was not a man to conceal or be
ashamed of one of his actions. I cannot fancy his ever lowering his
strong loud clear voice, or having a confidential conversation with any
one. When his crops had failed, all the village had known it. He
complained, he regretted, he was angry, or owned himself a ---- fool,
all down the village street; and the consequence was that, although he
was a far more passionate man than Mr. Horner, all the tenants liked him
far better. People, in general, take a kindlier interest in any one, the
workings of whose mind and heart they can watch and understand, than in
a man who only lets you know what he has been thinking about and
feeling, by what he does. But Harry Gregson was faithful to the memory
of Mr. Horner. Miss Galindo has told me that she used to watch him
hobble out of the way of Captain James, as if to accept his notice,
however good-naturedly given, would have been a kind of treachery to his
former benefactor. But Gregson (the father) and the new agent rather
took to each other; and one day, much to my surprise, I heard that the
“poaching, tinkering vagabond,” as people used to call Gregson when I
first had come to live at Hanbury, had been appointed gamekeeper; Mr.
Gray standing godfather, as it were, to his trustworthiness, if he were
trusted with anything: which I thought at the time was rather an
experiment, only it answered, as many of Mr. Gray’s deeds of daring did.
It was curious how he was growing to be a kind of autocrat in the
village; and how unconscious he was of it. He was as shy and awkward and
nervous as ever in any affair that was not of some moral consequence to
him. But as soon as he was convinced that a thing was right, he “shut
his eyes and ran and butted at it like a ram,” as Captain James once
expressed it, in talking over something Mr. Gray had done. People in the
village said, “they never knew what the parson would be at next;” or
they might have said “where his reverence would next turn up.” For I
have heard of his marching right into the middle of a set of poachers,
gathered together for some desperate midnight enterprise, or walking
into a public-house that lay just beyond the bounds of my lady’s estate,
and in that extra-parochial piece of ground I named long ago, and which
was considered the rendezvous of all the ne’er-do-weel characters for
miles round, and where a parson and a constable were held in much the
same kind of esteem, as unwelcome visitors. And yet Mr. Gray had his
long fits of depression, in which he felt as if he were doing nothing,
making no way in his work, useless and unprofitable, and better out of
the world than in it. In comparison with the work he had set himself to
do, what he did seemed to be nothing. I suppose it was constitutional,
those attacks of lowness of spirits which he had about this time;
perhaps a part of the nervousness which made him always so awkward when
he came to the Hall. Even Mrs. Medlicott, who almost worshipped the
ground he trod on, as the saying is, owned that Mr. Gray never entered
one of my lady’s rooms without knocking down something, and too often
breaking it. He would much sooner have faced a desperate poacher than a
young lady any day. At least so we thought.
I do not know how it was that it came to pass that my lady became
reconciled to Miss Galindo about this time. Whether it was that her
ladyship was weary of the unspoken coolness with her old friend; or that
the specimens of delicate sewing and fine spinning at the school had
mollified her towards Miss Bessy; but I was surprised to learn one day
that Miss Galindo and her young friend were coming that very evening to
tea at the Hall. This information was given me by Mrs. Medlicott, as a
message from my lady, who further went on to desire that certain little
preparations should be made in her own private sitting-room, in which
the greater part of my days were spent. From the nature of these
preparations, I became quite aware that my lady intended to do honour to
her expected visitors. Indeed Lady Ludlow never forgave by halves, as I
have known some people do. Whoever was coming as a visitor to my lady,
peeress, or poor nameless girl, there was a certain amount of
preparation required, in order to do them fitting honour. I do not mean
to say that the preparation was of the same degree of importance in each
case. I dare say, if a peeress had come to visit us at the Hall, the
covers would have been taken off the furniture in the white drawing-room
(they never were uncovered all the time I stayed at the Hall), because
my lady would wish to offer her the ornaments and luxuries which this
grand visitor (who never came--I wish she had! I did so want to see that
furniture uncovered!) was accustomed to at home, and to present them to
her in the best order in which my lady could. The same rule, modified,
held good with Miss Galindo. Certain things, in which my lady knew she
took an interest, were laid out ready for her to examine on this very
day; and, what was more, great books of prints were laid out, such as I
remembered my lady had had brought forth to beguile my own early days of
illness,--Mr. Hogarth’s works, and the like,--which I was sure were put
out for Miss Bessy.
No one knows how curious I was to see this mysterious Miss Bessy--twenty
times more mysterious, of course, for want of her surname. And then
again (to try and account for my great curiosity, of which in
recollection I am more than half ashamed), I had been leading the quiet
monotonous life of a crippled invalid for many years,--shut up from any
sight of new faces; and this was to be the face of one whom I had
thought about so much and so long,--Oh! I think I might be excused.
Of course, they drank tea in the great hall, with the four young
gentlewomen, who, with myself, formed the small bevy now under her
ladyship’s charge. Of those who were at Hanbury when first I came, none
remained; all were married, or gone once more to live at some home which
could be called their own, whether the ostensible head were father or
brother. I myself was not without some hopes of a similar kind. My
brother Harry was now a curate in Westmoreland, and wanted me to go and
live with him, as eventually I did for a time. But that is neither here
nor there at present. What I am talking about is Miss Bessy.
After a reasonable time had elapsed, occupied as I well knew by the meal
in the great hall,--the measured, yet agreeable conversation
afterwards,--and a certain promenade around the hall, and through the
drawing-rooms, with pauses before different pictures, the history or
subject of each of which was invariably told by my lady to every new
visitor,--a sort of giving them the freedom of the old family-seat, by
describing the kind and nature of the great progenitors who had lived
there before the narrator,--I heard the steps approaching my lady’s room
where I lay. I think I was in such a state of nervous expectation, that
if I could have moved easily, I should have got up and run away. And yet
I need not have been, for Miss Galindo was not in the least altered (her
nose a little redder, to be sure, but then that might only have had a
temporary cause in the private crying I know she would have had before
coming to see her dear Lady Ludlow once again.) But I could almost have
pushed Miss Galindo away, as she intercepted me in my view of the
mysterious Miss Bessy.
Miss Bessy was, as I knew, only about eighteen, but she looked older.
Dark hair, dark eyes, a tall, firm figure, a good, sensible face, with a
serene expression, not in the least disturbed by what I had been
thinking must be such awful circumstances as a first introduction to my
lady, who had so dissapproved of her very existence: those are the
clearest impressions I remember of my first interview with Miss Bessy.
She seemed to observe us all, in her quiet manner, quite as much as I
did her; but she spoke very little; occupied herself, indeed, as my lady
had planned, with looking over the great books of engravings. I think I
must have (foolishly) intended to make her feel at her ease, by my
patronage; but she was seated far away from my sofa, in order to command
the light, and really seemed so unconcerned at her unwonted
circumstances, that she did not need my countenance or kindness. One
thing I did like--her watchful look at Miss Galindo from time to time:
it showed that her thoughts and sympathy were ever at Miss Galindo’s
service, as indeed they well might be. When Miss Bessy spoke, her voice
was full and clear, and what she said, to the purpose, though there was
a slight provincial accent in her way of speaking. After a while, my
lady set us two to play at chess, a game which I had lately learnt at
Mr. Gray’s suggestion. Still we did not talk much together, though we
were becoming attracted towards each other, I fancy.
“You will play well,” said she. “You have only learnt about six months,
have you? And yet you can nearly beat me, who have been at it as many
years.”
“I began to learn last November. I remember Mr. Gray’s bringing me
‘Philidor on Chess,’ one very foggy, dismal day.”
What made her look up so suddenly, with bright inquiry in her eyes? What
made her silent for a moment, as if in thought, and then go on with
something, I know not what, in quite an altered tone?
My lady and Miss Galindo went on talking, while I sat thinking. I heard
Captain James’s name mentioned pretty frequently; and at last my lady
put down her work, and said, almost with tears in her eyes:
“I could not--I cannot believe it. He must be aware she is a schismatic;
a baker’s daughter; and he is a gentleman by virtue and feeling, as well
as by his profession, though his manners may be at times a little rough.
My dear Miss Galindo, what will this world come to?”
Miss Galindo might possibly be aware of her own share in bringing the
world to the pass which now dismayed my lady,--for, of course, though
all was now over and forgiven, yet Miss Bessy’s being received into a
respectable maiden lady’s house, was one of the portents as to the
world’s future which alarmed her ladyship; and Miss Galindo knew
this,--but, at any rate, she had too lately been forgiven herself not to
plead for mercy for the next offender against my lady’s delicate sense
of fitness and propriety,--so she replied:
“Indeed, my lady, I have long left off trying to conjecture what makes
Jack fancy Gill, or Gill Jack. It’s best to sit down quiet under the
belief that marriages are made for us, somewhere out of this world, and
out of the range of this world’s reasons and laws. I’m not so sure that
I should settle it down that they were made in Heaven; t’other place
seems to me as likely a workshop; but, at any rate, I’ve given up
troubling my head as to why they take place. Captain James is a
gentleman; I make no doubt of that ever since I saw him stop to pick up
old Goody Blake (when she tumbled down on the slide last winter) and
then swear at a little lad who was laughing at her, and cuff him till he
tumbled down crying; but we must have bread somehow, and though I like
it better baked at home in a good sweet brick oven, yet, as some folks
never can get it to rise, I don’t see why a man may not be a baker. You
see, my lady, I look upon baking as a simple trade, and as such lawful.
There is no machine comes in to take away a man’s or woman’s power of
earning their living, like the spinning-jenny (the old busybody that she
is), to knock up all our good old women’s livelihood, and send them to
their graves before their time. There’s an invention of the enemy, if
you will!”
“That’s very true!” said my lady, shaking her head.
“But baking bread is wholesome, straight-forward elbow-work. They have
not got to inventing any contrivance for that yet, thank Heaven! It does
not seem to me natural, nor according to Scripture, that iron and steel
(whose brows can’t sweat) should be made to do man’s work. And so I say,
all those trades where iron and steel do the work ordained to man at the
Fall, are unlawful, and I never stand up for them. But say this baker
Brooke did knead his bread, and make it rise, and then that people, who
had, perhaps, no good ovens, came to him, and bought his good light
bread, and in this manner he turned an honest penny, and got rich; why,
all I say, my lady, is this,--I dare say he would have been born a
Hanbury, or a lord, if he could; and if he was not, it is no fault of
his, that I can see, that he made good bread (being a baker by trade),
and got money, and bought his land. It was his misfortune, not his
fault, that he was not a person of quality by birth.”
“That’s very true,” said my lady, after a moment’s pause for
consideration. “But, although he was a baker, he might have been a
Churchman. Even your eloquence, Miss Galindo, shan’t convince me that
that is not his own fault.”
“I don’t see even that, begging your pardon, my lady,” said Miss
Galindo, emboldened by the first success of her eloquence. “When a
Baptist is a baby, if I understand their creed aright, he is not
baptized; and, consequently, he can have no godfathers and godmothers to
do anything for him in his baptism; you agree to that, my lady?”
My lady would rather have known what her acquiescence would lead to,
before acknowledging that she could not dissent from this first
proposition; still she gave her tacit agreement by bowing her head.
“And, you know, our godfathers and godmothers are expected to promise
and vow three things in our name, when we are little babies, and can do
nothing but squall for ourselves. It is a great privilege, but don’t let
us be hard upon those who have not had the chance of godfathers and
godmothers. Some people, we know, are born with silver spoons,--that’s
to say, a godfather to give one things, and teach one one’s catechism,
and see that we’re confirmed into good church-going Christians,--and
others with wooden ladles in their mouths. These poor last folks must
just be content to be godfatherless orphans, and Dissenters, all their
lives: and if they are tradespeople into the bargain, so much the worse
for them; but let us be humble Christians, my dear lady, and not hold
our heads too high because we were born orthodox quality.”
“You go on too fast, Miss Galindo! I can’t follow you. Besides, I do
believe dissent to be an invention of the Devil’s. Why can’t they
believe as we do? It’s very wrong. Besides, it’s schism and heresy, and,
you know, the Bible says that’s as bad as witchcraft.”
My lady was not convinced, as I could see. After Miss Galindo had gone,
she sent Mrs. Medlicott for certain books out of the great old library
up stairs, and had them made up into a parcel under her own eye.
“If Captain James comes to-morrow, I will speak to him about these
Brookes. I have not hitherto liked to speak to him, because I did not
wish to hurt him, by supposing there could be any truth in the reports
about his intimacy with them. But now I will try and do my duty by him
and them. Surely, this great body of divinity will bring them back to
the true church.”
I could not tell, for though my lady read me over the titles, I was not
any the wiser as to their contents. Besides, I was much more anxious to
consult my lady as to my own change of place. I showed her the letter I
had that day received from Harry; and we once more talked over the
expediency of my going to live with him, and trying what entire change
of air would do to re-establish my failing health. I could say anything
to my lady, she was so sure to understand me rightly. For one thing, she
never thought of herself, so I had no fear of hurting her by stating the
truth. I told her how happy my years had been while passed under her
roof; but that now I had begun to wonder whether I had not duties
elsewhere, in making a home for Harry,--and whether the fulfilment of
these duties, quiet ones they must needs be in the case of such a
cripple as myself, would not prevent my sinking into the querulous habit
of thinking and talking into which I found myself occasionally falling.
Add to which, there was the prospect of benefit from the more bracing
air of the north.
It was then settled that my departure from Hanbury, my happy home for so
long, was to take place before many weeks had passed. And as, when one
period of life is about to be shut up for ever, we are sure to look back
upon it with fond regret, so I, happy enough in my future prospects,
could not avoid recurring to all the days of my life in the Hall, from
the time when I came to it, a shy, awkward girl, scarcely past
childhood, to now, when a grown woman,--past childhood--almost, from the
very character of my illness, past youth,--I was looking forward to
leaving my lady’s house (as a residence) for ever. As it has turned out,
I never saw either her or it again. Like a piece of sea-wreck, I have
drifted away from those days: quiet, happy, eventless days, very happy
to remember!
I thought of good, jovial Mr. Mountford,--and his regrets that he might
not keep a pack, “a very small pack,” of harriers, and his merry ways,
and his love of good eating; of the first coming of Mr. Gray, and my
lady’s attempt to quench his sermons, when they tended to enforce any
duty connected with education. And now we had an absolute school-house
in the village; and since Miss Bessy’s drinking tea at the Hall, my lady
had been twice inside it, to give directions about some fine yarn she
was having spun for table-napery. And her ladyship had so outgrown her
old custom of dispensing with sermon or discourse, that even during the
temporary preaching of Mr. Crosse, she had never had recourse to it,
though I believe she would have had all the congregation on her side if
she had.
And Mr. Horner was dead, and Captain James reigned in his stead. Good,
steady, severe, silent Mr. Horner! with his clock-like regularity, and
his snuff-coloured clothes, and silver buckles! I have often wondered
which one misses most when they are dead and gone,--the bright creatures
full of life, who are hither and thither and everywhere, so that no one
can reckon upon their coming and going, with whom stillness and the long
quiet of the grave seems utterly irreconcilable, so full are they of
vivid motion and passion,--or the slow, serious people, whose
movements--nay, whose very words, seem to go by clock-work; who never
appear much to affect the course of our life while they are with us, but
whose methodical ways show themselves, when they are gone, to have been
intertwined with our very roots of daily existence. I think I miss these
last the most, although I may have loved the former best. Captain James
never was to me what Mr. Horner was, though the latter had hardly
changed a dozen words with me at the day of his death. Then Miss
Galindo! I remembered the time, as if it had been only yesterday, when
she was but a name--and a very odd one--to me; then she was a queer,
abrupt, disagreeable, busy old maid. Now I loved her dearly, and I found
out that I was almost jealous of Miss Bessy.
Mr. Gray I never thought of with love; the feeling was almost reverence
with which I looked upon him. I have not wished to speak much of myself,
or else I could have told you how much he had been to me during these
long, weary years of illness. But he was almost as much to every one,
rich and poor, from my lady down to Miss Galindo’s Sally.
The village, too, had a different look about it. I am sure I could not
tell you what caused the change; but there were no more lounging young
men to form a group at the cross-road, at a time of day when young men
ought to be at work. I don’t say this was all Mr. Gray’s doing, for
there really was so much to do in the fields that there was but little
time for lounging now-a days. And the children were hushed up in school,
and better behaved out of it, too, than in the days when I used to be
able to go my lady’s errands in the village. I went so little about now,
that I am sure I can’t tell who Miss Galindo found to scold; and yet she
looked so well and so happy that I think she must have had her
accustomed portion of that wholesome exercise.
Before I left Hanbury, the rumour that Captain James was going to marry
Miss Brooke, Baker Brooke’s eldest daughter, who had only a sister to
share his property with her, was confirmed. He himself announced it to
my lady; nay, more, with a courage, gained, I suppose, in his former
profession, where, as I have heard, he had led his ship into many a post
of danger, he asked her ladyship, the Countess Ludlow, if he might bring
his bride elect (the Baptist baker’s daughter!) and present her to my
lady!
I am glad I was not present when he made this request; I should have
felt so much ashamed for him, and I could not have helped being anxious
till I heard my lady’s answer, if I had been there. Of course she
acceded; but I can fancy the grave surprise of her look. I wonder if
Captain James noticed it.
I hardly dared ask my lady, after the interview had taken place, what
she thought of the bride elect; but I hinted my curiosity, and she told
me, that if the young person had applied to Mrs. Medlicott, for the
situation of cook, and Mrs. Medlicott had engaged her, she thought that
it would have been a very suitable arrangement. I understood from this
how little she thought a marriage with Captain James, R.N., suitable.
About a year after I left Hanbury, I received a letter from Miss
Galindo, I think I can find it.--Yes, this is it.
‘Hanbury, May 4, 1811.
‘Dear Margaret,
‘You ask for news of us all. Don’t you know there is no news in
Hanbury? Did you ever hear of an event here? Now, if you have
answered “Yes,” in your own mind to these questions, you have
fallen into my trap, and never were more mistaken in your life.
Hanbury is full of news; and we have more events on our hands than
we know what to do with. I will take them in the order of the
newspapers--births, deaths, and marriages. In the matter of births,
Jenny Lucas has had twins not a week ago. Sadly too much of a good
thing, you’ll say. Very true: but then they died; so their birth
did not much signify. My cat has kittened, too; she has had three
kittens, which again you may observe is too much of a good thing;
and so it would be, if it were not for the next item of
intelligence I shall lay before you. Captain and Mrs. James have
taken the old house next Pearson’s; and the house is overrun with
mice, which is just as fortunate for me as the King of Egypt’s
rat-ridden kingdom was to Dick Whittington. For my cat’s kittening
decided me to go and call on the bride, in hopes she wanted a cat;
which she did, like a sensible woman, as I do believe she is, in
spite of Baptism, Bakers, Bread, and Birmingham, and something
worse than all, which you shall hear about, if you’ll only be
patient. As I had got my best bonnet on--the one I bought when poor
Lord Ludlow was last at Hanbury in ’99--I thought it a great
condescension in myself (always remembering the date of the Galindo
Baronetcy) to go and call on the bride; though I don’t think so
much of myself in my every-day clothes, as you know. But who should
I find there but my Lady Ludlow! She looks as frail and delicate as
ever, but is, I think, in better heart ever since that old city
merchant of a Hanbury took it into his head that he was a cadet of
the Hanburys of Hanbury, and left her that handsome legacy. I’ll
warrant you the mortgage was paid off pretty fast; and Mr. Horner’s
money--or my lady’s money, or Harry Gregson’s money, call it which
you will,--is invested in his name, all right and tight, and they
do talk of his being captain of his school, or Grecian, or
something, and going to college, after all! Harry Gregson the
poacher’s son! Well! to be sure, we are living in strange times!
‘But I have not done with the marriages yet. Captain James’s is all
very well, but no one cares for it now, we are all so full of Mr.
Gray’s. Yes, indeed, Mr. Gray is going to be married, and to nobody
else but my little Bessy! I tell her she will have to nurse him
half the days of her life, he is such a frail little body. But she
says she does not care for that, so that his body holds his soul,
it is enough for her. She has a good spirit, and a brave heart, has
my Bessy! It is a great advantage that she won’t have to mark her
clothes over again; for when she had knitted herself her last set
of stockings, I told her to put G for Galindo, if she did not
choose to put it for Gibson, for she should be my child if she was
no one else’s. And now, you see, it stands for Gray. So there are
two marriages, and what more would you have? And she promises to
take another of my kittens.
‘Now, as to deaths, old Farmer Hale is dead--poor old man, I should
think his wife thought it a good riddance, for he beat her every
day that he was drunk, and he never was sober, in spite of Mr.
Gray. I don’t think (as I tell him) that Mr. Gray would ever have
found courage to speak to Bessy as long as Farmer Hale lived, he
took the old gentleman’s sins so much to heart, and seemed to think
it was all his fault for not being able to make a sinner into a
saint. The parish bull is dead too. I never was so glad in my life.
But they say we are to have a new one in his place. In the meantime
I cross the common in peace, which is convenient just now, when I
have so often to go to Mr. Gray’s to see about furnishing.
‘Now you think I have told you all the Hanbury news, don’t you? Not
so. The very greatest thing of all is to come. I won’t tantalize
you, but just out with it, for you would never guess it. My Lady
Ludlow has given a party, just like any plebeian amongst us. We had
tea and toast in the blue drawing-room, old John Footman waiting,
with Tom Diggles, the lad that used to frighten away crows in
Farmer Hale’s fields, following in my lady’s livery, hair powdered
and everything. Mrs. Medlicott made tea in my lady’s own room. My
lady looked like a splendid fairy queen of mature age, in black
velvet, and the old lace, which I have never seen her wear before
since my lord’s death. But the company? you’ll say. Why we had the
parson of Clover, and the parson of Headleigh, and the parson of
Merribank, and the three parsonesses; and Farmer Donkin and two
Miss Donkins; and Mr. Gray (of course), and myself and Bessy; and
Captain and Mrs. James; yes, and Mr. and Mrs. Brooke: think of
that! I am not so sure the parsons liked it; but he was there. For
he has been helping Captain James to get my lady’s land into
order; and then his daughter married the agent; and Mr. Gray (who
ought to know) says, after all, Baptists are not such bad people;
and he was right against them at one time, as you may remember.
Mrs. Brooke is a rough diamond, to be sure. People have said that
of me, I know. But, being a Galindo, I learnt manners in my youth,
and can take them up when I choose. But Mrs. Brooke never learnt
manners, I’ll be bound. When John Footman handed her the tray with
the tea-cups, she looked up at him as if she were sorely puzzled by
that way of going on. I was sitting next to her, so I pretended not
to see her perplexity, and put her cream and sugar in for her, and
was all ready to pop it into her hands,--when who should come up,
but that impudent lad Tom Diggles (I call him lad, for all his hair
is powdered, for you know that it is not natural grey hair), with
his tray full of cakes and what not, all as good as Mrs. Medlicott
could make them. By this time, I should tell you, all the
parsonesses were looking at Mrs. Brooke, for she had shown her want
of breeding before; and the parsonesses, who were just a step above
her in manners, were very much inclined to smile at her doings and
sayings. Well! what does she do but pull out a clean Bandanna
pocket-handkerchief, all red and yellow silk, spread it over her
best silk gown; it was, like enough, a new one, for I had it from
Sally, who had it from her cousin Molly, who is dairy-woman at the
Brookes’, that the Brookes were mighty set-up with an invitation to
drink tea at the Hall. There we were, Tom Diggles even on the grin
(I wonder how long it is since he was own brother to a scarecrow,
only not so decently dressed) and Mrs. Parsoness of Headleigh,--I
forget her name, and it’s no matter, for she’s an ill-bred
creature, I hope Bessy will behave herself better,--was right-down
bursting with laughter, and as near a hee-haw as ever a donkey was,
when what does my lady do? Ay! there’s my own dear Lady Ludlow, God
bless her! She takes out her own pocket-handkerchief, all snowy
cambric, and lays it softly down on her velvet lap, for all the
world as if she did it every day of her life, just like Mrs.
Brooke, the baker’s wife; and when the one got up to shake the
crumbs into the fire-place, the other did just the same. But with
such a grace! and such a look at us all! Tom Diggles went red all
over; and Mrs. Parsoness of Headleigh scarce spoke for the rest of
the evening; and the tears came into my old silly eyes; and Mr.
Gray, who was before silent and awkward, in a way which I tell
Bessy she must cure him of, was made so happy by this pretty action
of my lady’s, that he talked away all the rest of the evening, and
was the life of the company.
‘Oh! Margaret Dawson, I sometimes wonder if you’re the better off
for leaving us. To be sure, you’re with your brother, and blood is
blood. But when I look at my lady and Mr. Gray, for all they’re so
different, I would not change places with any in England.’
Alas! alas! I never saw my dear lady again. She died in eighteen hundred
and fourteen, and Mr. Gray did not long survive her. As I dare say you
know the Reverend Henry Gregson is now vicar of Hanbury, and his wife is
the daughter of Mr. Gray and Miss Bessy.
* * * * *
As any one may guess, it had taken Mrs. Dawson several Monday evenings
to narrate all this history of the days of her youth. Miss Duncan
thought it would be a good exercise for me, both in memory and
composition, to write out on Tuesday mornings all that I had heard the
night before; and thus it came to pass that I have the manuscript of “My
Lady Ludlow” now lying by me.
END OF VOL. I.
LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET.
End of Project Gutenberg's Round the Sofa; vol. 1, by Elizabeth C. Gaskell