Old and young were clamouring hoarsely and shrilly by daybreak one
September morning round a little girl, one of a cloth-worker's numerous
family. She had been rather a tender lass, and change of air was thought
good for her full growth. Though she was still small, she was close on
her one-and-twentieth year, and her friends held it was high time for
her to see the world. It was seeing the world to go with a late mayor's
daughter, an orphan and an heiress, who had been visiting the
cloth-worker's family, and would have Dulcie to live with her for awhile
in a neighbouring town as a friend and companion.
Mind those worthy warm-hearted relatives of Dulcie's had no idea of her
returning to her parents' nest in a hurry, though the two towns, Fairfax
and Redwater, were within a day's journey by waggon of each other.
Dulcie would see the world, and stay in her new abode in the next
country town, or lose her character for dignity and spirit; and girls
were fain to be thought discreet and decided a hundred years ago or so.
She might as lief marry as not, when she was away on her travels. Girls
married then with far less trouble than they accomplished such a
journey. They ran down to Richmond and married on a Sunday, to save a
talk and a show; they walked out of the opera where Handel might be
performing, and observant gentlemen took the cue, followed on their
heels, and had the knot tied by a priest, waiting in the house opposite
the first chair-stand. Indeed, they contracted alliances so
unceremoniously, that they went to Queen Caroline's or the Princesses'
drawing-room, without either themselves or the world appearing quite
sure whether they were maids or wives. Dear! dear! what did come of
these foolish impulsive matches? Did they fulfil the time out of mind
adage, "Happy's the wooing that's not long a-doing"? or that other old
proverb, "Marry in haste, and repent at leisure"? Which was the truth?
It is a pity that you should see Dulcie, for the first time, in tears.
Dulcie, who only cried on great occasions, in great sorrow or great
joy--not above half-a-dozen times in her life. Dulcie, whom the
smallpox could not spoil, with her pretty forehead, cat's eyes, and
fine chin. Does that description give you an idea of Dulcie--Dulcie
Cowper, not yet Madam, but any day she liked Mistress Dulcie? It seems
expressive. An under-sized, slight-made girl, with a little face
clearly, very clearly cut, but round in all its lines as yet; an
intelligent face, an enthusiastic face, a face that could be very
shrewd and practical, and, at the same time, a face that could be
lavishly generous. The chief merit of her figure lay in this
particular, that she "bridled" well. Yes, it is true, we have almost
forgotten the old accomplishment of "bridling"--the head up and the
chin in, with the pliant knees bent in a low curtsey. Dulcie
"bridled," as she prattled, to perfection. She had light brown hair,
of the tint of a squirrel's fur, and the smoothness of a mouse's coat,
though it was twisted and twirled into a kind of soft willowy curls
when she was in high dress. Ah! no wonder that Kit Cowper, the
cloth-worker, groaned to see that bright face pass from his ninepin
alley; but it was the way of the world, or rather the will of
Providence to the cloth-worker, that the child should fulfil her
destiny. So Dulcie was launched on the sea of life, as far as
Redwater, to push her fortune.
No wonder Dulcie was liked by Clarissa Gage. Clarissa was two years
younger than Dulcie, but she was half-a-dozen years older in knowledge
of the world, and therefore fell in love with Dulcie for the sake of
variety. Clarissa had the bones of a noble woman under her pedantry and
affectation; she was a peg above Dulcie in station, and a vast deal
before her in the world's estimation. She was indeed "a fortune;" and
you err egregiously if you suppose a fortune was not properly valued a
hundred years ago. Men went mad for fair faces and glib tongues, but
solidly and sensibly married fortunes, according to all the old
news-prints. But Clarissa was also a beauty, far more of a regular
beauty than Dulcie, with one of those inconceivably dazzling complexions
that blush on like a June rose to old age, and a stately height and
presence for her years. She had dark brown curls of the deep brown of
mountain waters, with the ripple of the same, hanging down in a wreath
of tendrils on the bend of the neck behind. With all her gifts, Mistress
Clary had the crowning bounty which does not always accompany so many
inferior endowments: she had sense under her airs, and she was good
enough to like Dulcie instinctively, and to think how nice it would be
to have Dulcie with her and Mistress Cambridge in their formal brick
house, with the stone coping and balcony, at Redwater. Besides, (credit
to her womanhood,) Clarissa did reflect what a fine thing it would be
for Dulcie Cowper getting up in years, really getting up in years,
however young in spirit, to have the variety, and the additional chance
of establishing herself in life. Certainly, Redwater was a town of more
consideration than Fairfax, and had its occasional assemblies and
performances of strolling players; and Clarissa, in right of her
father's family, visited the vicar and the squire, and could carry
Dulcie along with her, since the child's manners were quite genteel, and
her clothes perfectly presentable.
It was a harmonious arrangement, in which not only Clarissa but Mistress
Cambridge agreed. Cambridge was one of those worthy, useful persons,
whom nobody in those strangely plain but decidedly aristocratic
days--not even Clarissa and Dulcie, though they sat with her, ate with
her, hugged her when they wanted to coax her--ever thought or spoke of
otherwise than "Cambridge, a good sort of woman in her own way." The
only temporary drawback to the contentment of the party was the shower
of tears which fell at Dulcie's forcible separation from her relatives.
It was forcible in the end; all the blessings had been given in the
house--don't sneer, they did her no harm, no harm, but a vast deal of
good--and only the kisses and tears were finished off in the street.
After all this introduction, it is painful to describe how the company
travelled. It was in a stage waggon! But they could not help it. We
never stated that they were out-and-out quality; and not even all the
quality could travel in four coaches and six, with twelve horsemen
riding attendance, and an unpaid escort of butchers, bakers, and
apothecaries, whipping and spurring part of the way for the custom. What
could the poor Commons do? There were not stage coaches in every quarter
of the great roads; and really if they pocketed their gentility, the
huge brown waggons were of the two extinct conveyances the roomier,
airier, and safer both from overturns and highwaymen. The seats were
soft, the space was ample, and the three unprotected females were
considered in a manner incognito, which was about as modest a style as
they could travel in. Of course, they were not in their flowered silks,
their lutestrings, their mantuas. We are assured every respectable woman
travelled then in a habit and hat, and no more thought of hoops than of
hair powder. The only peculiarity was that beneath their hats they wore
mob-caps, tied soberly under the chin, and red or blue handkerchiefs
knotted over the hat, which gave them the air of Welsh market-women, or
marvellously clean and tidy gipsies. Clarissa was spelling out the words
in _Pharamond_--a French classic; Dulcie was looking disconsolately
straight before her through their sole outlet, the bow at the end of the
waggon, which circumscribed as pretty and fresh a circle of common and
cornfield, with crimson patches of wood and the blue sky above, as one
might wish to see. Occasionally the crack of a sportsman's gun was heard
to the right or left, followed by a pheasant or a string of partridges
darting across the opening of the canvas car; but as yet no claimant had
solicited the privilege and honour of sharing the waggon and the view
with our fair travellers.