MISCHIEF-MAKING
A rap at the front door, followed by a ring, and then a card was
brought up by the servant and presented to Mrs. Tomkin-Jones on a
blistered Japan tray.
'Oh, certainly――charmed,' said the lady. Then to Winefred, 'My
dear――your father.'
Next moment Mr. Holwood was ushered into the drawing-room, in which,
happily, a fire was burning, but the covers had not been removed from
the furniture.
He was well dressed, in a plum-coloured coat with high rolling collar,
brass buttons, a tall cravat, and two waistcoats, one of which was
of figured silk. His trousers were tight-fitting and buttoned at the
ankles. At first glance Mrs. Jones saw that he was a gentleman and a
gentleman of style.
He bowed to each lady as he entered and advanced, and his gold-framed
eyeglass dangled and swung as a pendulum under these evolutions. As he
approached the lady of the house he offered profuse apologies for his
intrusion, and then turned and touched Winefred's cheek with his lips.
'So glad to make your acquaintance, Mr. Holwood,' said Mrs. Jones. 'It
is a real honour to Bath to receive a visit from you.'
'I have come,' said the gentleman, 'positively to throw myself at your
feet, madam, in the attitude of a suppliant. I am so much alone in
Bath――――'
'Yes, the Finnboroughs have left.'
'The――oh yes!'
'How is your sister, the Viscountess?'
'My sister! Oh! you mean my cousin, Lady Finnborough. 'Pon my word of
honour, I don't know. It is Finnborough himself who is dyspeptic. She
is all right, I believe. I never heard anything to the contrary; but,
'pon my soul, I know little of them, and they less of me.'
Mrs. Tomkin-Jones sighed.
'It has occurred to me,' said Mr. Holwood, 'that my daughter, coming
from the country, might like to walk and look at the shops――and
possibly――some trifle in the windows――and so far as my limited means
reach――ahem! So I came, with all due deference, to ask if she might
be spared from the studies and all that kind of thing to come a light
stroll with me.'
'She is entirely at your service,' said the lady. 'I only regret that
her new set of gowns and her hats are not come home from mantua-maker
and milliner――in which she would be more suitably dressed, and do you
more justice.'
'I thank you――she will pass.'
'By the way, sir,' said the widow, 'have you any objection to Winefred
attending the next ball at the Assembly?'
'Not in the least――only――but――――'
'There is some difficulty about a chaperon. Since my bereavement I
cannot go――by the merest accident I know no one of title at the present
moment in Bath who could introduce her. There is Lady Wardroper, but
she is in constant attendance on her husband.'
'Wardroper!' said Mr. Holwood. 'Not Sir Barnaby?'
'The same.'
'I have met him at my office.'
'The son is very intimate here. He takes a lively interest in what
relates to dress.'
'Sir Barnaby was a bit of a buck.'
'Alas! he is now a cripple from rheumatism.'
'I was unaware that he was here. I will call and see him certainly. I
have not been in Bath many days.'
'You are not surely going?' said Mrs. Tomkin-Jones, as her visitor
rose. 'Run, Winefred, and get on your things. You desire her to be with
you now, I take it.'
'If you please.'
When Winefred had left the room, the doctor's widow said:――'You will
excuse the liberty I take, but the interest I feel in your engaging
daughter, and the responsibility laid upon me, induce me to speak
with a plainness from which I should otherwise shrink. I think, Mr.
Holwood, that you have made a mistake. Gentlemen, widowers especially,
are liable to fall into errors of judgment that produce results that
are deplorable. You have――pardon the remark and my freedom in making
it――you have committed a serious error in allowing your daughter to
grow up under the influence of that woman.'
'That woman!' repeated Mr. Holwood timidly, and not having a latchkey
to trifle with, put the brim of his hat to his lips.
'The nurse, I mean, whose name is Mrs. Marley. It must be confessed
that she is a vulgar woman.'
'You know her?' His hand shook. He set down his hat and took up his
gold-edged glasses.
'Not at all. I judge by results. The girl has fallen so completely
under her thraldom that she has come to regard her almost in the light
of a mother. It speaks well for her heart, but ill for your judgment. I
can quite understand the power over her gained by a woman who attended
her in her childish ailments, who dressed her dolls, and put her hair
in curlpapers. But although we must admire the quality of Winefred's
heart in clinging to this individual, one can do no other than lament
that the attachment has been so close between persons so different in
rank. Contact, and that so intimate, with one of an inferior quality
has had a deteriorating effect. It has imparted a rustical flavour to
the speech, mind, and manner of your child. Young characters are given
shape and bias at an early age, and from their associates. Pardon my
asking such a question, but have you married again?'
'No.'
Mr. Holwood put his eyeglass to his lips, breathed on it, then produced
a silk kerchief and wiped it.
He did not notice, in his nervous distress, how steadily and
searchingly the eye of Sylvana was fixed upon him.
'I can give you an illustration of the manner in which that female has
gained power over the girl. Winefred will not allow the most trifling
remark to be made in disparagement of her. She has even taken me to
task, and has threatened to leave should I let slip a word to her
disadvantage.'
'Ah! yes.'
'When she refers to that individual, she has spoken of her on more than
one occasion as her mother. This is reprehensible, and a practice that
must be abandoned.'
'Oh! yes――yes!'
'This, doubtless, commends itself to you in the same light as to me.'
'Oh! certainly.'
Drops stood on his brow and lip. He employed the kerchief to wipe his
face.
Then, with a quiver in his voice, 'Perhaps you would not mind speaking
to her on the matter.'
'I have spoken; it is, excuse my plain speech, your duty to back me
up. I see clearly that if she be allowed to fall under the influence
of this female, it will undo all the advantage she has derived from a
residence in my house. If you will pardon the liberty I take, I would
advise you to dismiss this personage, to send her to her friends――with
a pension perhaps.'
'She has a liberal allowance.'
'Quite so, but let her live on this allowance at a distance, and on the
understanding that it will be withdrawn should she attempt to renew her
relations with Winefred.'
'I――think――I am sure, I cannot do this.'
'Then suffer me to take the negotiation out of your hands; it will
doubtless come better from me. Empower me to write and place the
matter before her in a clear light, inform her that she must never
see Winefred again. It will be solely by dissociating your child from
vulgar persons that the little peculiarities in her dialect and the
provincial mannerism, I note, can be effaced. You agree with me?'
'I――I――――'
'You see the necessity.'
'Yes, oh, assuredly!'
'Hist! Here she comes. I accept the responsibility. Not a word before
her.'
When Mr. Holwood was gone with his daughter, Sylvana fixed her pebbly
eyes on her mother, and said, 'There is something wrong about that
woman.'
'About what woman?'
'The Marley.'
'My dear, I know there is; she is vulgar.'
'I do not mean that. There is a mystery attached to her. Have you not
observed how uneasy Winefred becomes when you speak of her?'
'She will not suffer me to speak of her at all.'
'And with Mr. Holwood it is the more conspicuous. When you were making
inquiries about her, or passing remarks upon her, he turned hot and
cold, and his lips and brow positively cried. He was thrown into a
condition of abject embarrassment. I am really surprised, mother, that
you did not see it. But then you see nothing which is not to your
advantage, or to the glory of the Tomkin-Joneses. I saw through the man
at once.'
'My dear, there is nothing to be seen in him save the perfect
gentleman. Naturally he was distressed. I should take to my bed
and never raise my head again if I knew that one of my daughters
mispronounced her vowels or misplaced her prepositions.'
'It was not that that troubled and alarmed him.'
'What else can you mean?'
'There is some mystery concerning his relation with the Marley.'
'Sylvana, I will not listen to a word that savours of impropriety.
Besides, I receive five guineas a week for Winefred.'
'Quite so, and for the sake of five guineas you shut your eyes.'
'Sylvana――you forget the respect due to me.'
'Your forget the respect due to yourself and to us, and to the name
of Tomkin-Jones, of which you think more than you do of Jesse and me.
I say you forget that when you harbour in your house a person whose
antecedents are equivocal.'
'Equivocal! Goodness preserve me! I am known in Bath to be the very
Pink of Propriety.'
'You run the chance of becoming only the Picotee of Propriety――that I
take to be a dappled pink――if you take under your patronage a girl of
whom you know nothing, and who may turn out to be――――'
'My dear, not a word. All will be right if we can cut off this woman.
I do not allow what you suspect; but I can quite see that there is
mischief in that woman, and that we must draw a line between her and
Winefred that shall absolutely sever them for ever, in the interests of
Morality.'