AT GLENBOGIE.
We must go back to Ayala's life during the autumn and winter. She was
rapidly whirled away to Glenbogie amidst the affectionate welcomings
of her aunt and cousins. All manner of good things were done for her,
as to presents and comforts. Young as she was, she had money given to
her, which was not without attraction; and though she was, of course,
in the depth of her mourning, she was made to understand that even
mourning might be made becoming if no expense were spared. No expense
among the Tringles ever was spared, and at first Ayala liked the
bounty of profusion. But before the end of the first fortnight there
grew upon her a feeling that even bank notes become tawdry if you are
taught to use them as curl-papers. It may be said that nothing in the
world is charming unless it be achieved at some trouble. If it rained
"'64 Leoville,"--which I regard as the most divine of nectars,--I
feel sure that I should never raise it to my lips. Ayala did not
argue the matter out in her mind, but in very early days she began to
entertain a dislike to Tringle magnificence. There had been a good
deal of luxury at the bijou, but always with a feeling that it ought
not to be there,--that more money was being spent than prudence
authorised,--which had certainly added a savour to the luxuries. A
lovely bonnet, is it not more lovely because the destined wearer
knows that there is some wickedness in achieving it? All the bonnets,
all the claret, all the horses, seemed to come at Queen's Gate and at
Glenbogie without any wickedness. There was no more question about
them than as to one's ordinary bread and butter at breakfast. Sir
Thomas had a way,--a merit shall we call it or a fault?--of pouring
out his wealth upon the family as though it were water running in
perpetuity from a mountain tarn. Ayala the romantic, Ayala the
poetic, found very soon that she did not like it.
Perhaps the only pleasure left to the very rich is that of thinking
of the deprivations of the poor. The bonnets, and the claret, and the
horses, have lost their charm; but the Gladstone, and the old hats,
and the four-wheeled cabs of their neighbours, still have a little
flavour for them. From this source it seemed to Ayala that the
Tringles drew much of the recreation of their lives. Sir Thomas
had his way of enjoying this amusement, but it was a way that did
not specially come beneath Ayala's notice. When she heard that
Break-at-last, the Huddersfield manufacturer, had to sell his
pictures, and that all Shoddy and Stuffgoods' grand doings for
the last two years had only been a flash in the pan, she did not
understand enough about it to feel wounded; but when she heard her
aunt say that people like the Poodles had better not have a place
in Scotland than have to let it, and when Augusta hinted that Lady
Sophia Smallware had pawned her diamonds, then she felt that her
nearest and dearest relatives smelt abominably of money.
Of all the family Sir Thomas was most persistently the kindest to
her, though he was a man who did not look to be kind. She was pretty,
and though he was ugly himself he liked to look at things pretty. He
was, too, perhaps, a little tired of his own wife and daughters,--who
were indeed what he had made them, but still were not quite to his
taste. In a general way he gave instructions that Ayala should
be treated exactly as a daughter, and he informed his wife that
he intended to add a codicil to his will on her behalf. "Is that
necessary?" asked Lady Tringle, who began to feel something like
natural jealousy. "I suppose I ought to do something for a girl if
I take her by the hand," said Sir Thomas, roughly. "If she gets a
husband I will give her something, and that will do as well." Nothing
more was said about it, but when Sir Thomas went up to town the
codicil was added to his will.
Ayala was foolish rather than ungrateful, not understanding the
nature of the family to which she was relegated. Before she had been
taken away she had promised Lucy that she would be "obedient" to her
aunt. There had hardly been such a word as obedience known at the
bijou. If any were obedient, it was the mother and the father to the
daughters. Lucy, and Ayala as well, had understood something of this;
and therefore Ayala had promised to be obedient to her aunt. "And to
Uncle Thomas," Lucy had demanded, with an imploring embrace. "Oh,
yes," said Ayala, dreading her uncle at that time. She soon learned
that no obedience whatsoever was exacted from Sir Thomas. She had to
kiss him morning and evening, and then to take whatever presents he
made her. An easy uncle he was to deal with, and she almost learned
to love him. Nor was Aunt Emmeline very exigeant, though she was
fantastic and sometimes disagreeable. But Augusta was the great
difficulty. Lucy had not told her to obey Augusta, and Augusta she
would not obey. Now Augusta demanded obedience.
"You never ordered me," Ayala had said to Lucy when they met in
London as the Tringles were passing through. At the bijou there had
been a republic, in which all the inhabitants and all the visitors
had been free and equal. Such republicanism had been the very
mainspring of life at the bijou. Ayala loved equality, and she
specially felt that it should exist among sisters. Do anything for
Lucy? Oh, yes, indeed, anything; abandon anything; but for Lucy as a
sister among sisters, not for an elder as from a younger! And if she
were not bound to serve Lucy then certainly not Augusta. But Augusta
liked to be served. On one occasion she sent Ayala upstairs, and on
another she sent Ayala down-stairs. Ayala went, but determined to
be equal with her cousin. On the morning following, in the presence
of Aunt Emmeline and of Gertrude, in the presence also of two other
ladies who were visiting at the house, she asked Augusta if she would
mind running upstairs and fetching her scrap-book! She had been
thinking about it all the night and all the morning, plucking up her
courage. But she had been determined. She found a great difficulty in
saying the words, but she said them. The thing was so preposterous
that all the ladies in the room looked aghast at the proposition. "I
really think that Augusta has got something else to do," said Aunt
Emmeline. "Oh, very well," said Ayala, and then they were all silent.
Augusta, who was employed on a silk purse, sat still and did not say
a word.
Had a great secret, or rather a great piece of news which pervaded
the family, been previously communicated to Ayala, she would not
probably have made so insane a suggestion. Augusta was engaged to
be married to the Honourable Septimus Traffick, the member for Port
Glasgow. A young lady who is already half a bride is not supposed
to run up and down stairs as readily as a mere girl. For running up
and down stairs at the bijou Ayala had been proverbial. They were a
family who ran up and down with the greatest alacrity. "Oh, papa, my
basket is out on the seat"--for there had been a seat in the two-foot
garden behind the house. Papa would go down in two jumps and come up
with three skips, and there was the basket, only because his girl
liked him to do something for her. But for him Ayala would run about
as though she were a tricksy Ariel. Had the important matrimonial
news been conveyed to Ariel, with a true girl's spirit she would have
felt that during the present period Augusta was entitled to special
exemption from all ordering. Had she herself been engaged she would
have run more and quicker than ever,--would have been excited thereto
by the peculiar vitality of her new prospects; but to even Augusta
she would be subservient, because of her appreciation of bridal
importance. She, however, had not been told till that afternoon.
"You should not have asked Augusta to go up stairs," said Aunt
Emmeline, in a tone of mitigated reproach.
"Oh! I didn't know," said Ayala.
"You had meant to say that because she had sent you you were to send
her. There is a difference, you know."
"I didn't know," said Ayala, beginning to think that she would fight
her battle if told of such differences as she believed to exist.
"I had meant to tell you before, but I may as well tell you now,
Augusta is engaged to be married to the Honourable Mr. Septimus
Traffick. He is second son of Lord Boardotrade, and is in the House."
"Dear me!" said Ayala, acknowledging at once within her heart that
the difference alleged was one against which she need not rouse
herself to the fight. Aunt Emmeline had, in truth, intended to insist
on that difference--and another; but her courage had failed her.
"Yes, indeed. He is a man very much thought of just now in public
life, and Augusta's mind is naturally much occupied. He writes all
those letters in The Times about supply and demand."
"Does he, aunt?" Ayala did feel that if Augusta's mind was entirely
occupied with supply and demand she ought not to be made to go
upstairs to fetch a scrap-book. But she had her doubts about
Augusta's mind. Nevertheless, if the forthcoming husband were true,
that might be a reason. "If anybody had told me before I wouldn't
have asked her," she said.
Then Lady Tringle explained that it had been thought better not to
say anything heretofore as to the coming matrimonial hilarities
because of the sadness which had fallen upon the Dormer family. Ayala
accepted this as an excuse, and nothing further was said as to the
iniquity of her request to her cousin. But there was a general
feeling among the women that Ayala, in lieu of gratitude, had
exhibited an intention of rebelling.
On the next day Mr. Traffick arrived, whose coming had probably
made it necessary that the news should be told. Ayala was never so
surprised in her life as when she saw him. She had never yet had a
lover of her own, had never dreamed of a lover, but she had her own
idea as to what a lover ought to be. She had thought that Isadore
Hamel would be a very nice lover--for her sister. Hamel was young,
handsome, with a great deal to say on such a general subject as art,
but too bashful to talk easily to the girl he admired. Ayala had
thought that all that was just as it should be. She was altogether
resolved that Hamel and her sister should be lovers, and was
determined to be devoted to her future brother-in-law. But the
Honourable Septimus Traffick! It was a question to her whether her
Uncle Tringle would not have been better as a lover.
And yet there was nothing amiss about Mr. Traffick. He was very much
like an ordinary hard-working member of the House of Commons, over
perhaps rather than under forty years of age. He was somewhat bald,
somewhat grey, somewhat fat, and had lost that look of rosy plumpness
which is seldom, I fear, compatible with hard work and late hours. He
was not particularly ugly, nor was he absurd in appearance. But he
looked to be a disciple of business, not of pleasure, nor of art. "To
sit out on the bank of a stream and have him beside one would not be
particularly nice," thought Ayala to herself. Mr. Traffick no doubt
would have enjoyed it very well if he could have spared the time; but
to Ayala it seemed that such a man as that could have cared nothing
for love. As soon as she saw him, and realised in her mind the fact
that Augusta was to become his wife, she felt at once the absurdity
of sending Augusta on a message.
Augusta that evening was somewhat more than ordinarily kind to her
cousin. Now that the great secret was told, her cousin no doubt
would recognise her importance. "I suppose you had not heard of him
before?" she said to Ayala.
"I never did."
"That's because you have not attended to the debates."
"I never have. What are debates?"
"Mr. Traffick is very much thought of in the House of Commons on all
subjects affecting commerce."
"Oh!"
"It is the most glorious study which the world affords."
"The House of Commons. I don't think it can be equal to art."
Then Augusta turned up her nose with a double turn,--first as against
painters, Mr. Dormer having been no more, and then at Ayala's
ignorance in supposing that the House of Commons could have been
spoken of as a study. "Mr. Traffick will probably be in the
government some day," she said.
"Has not he been yet?" asked Ayala.
"Not yet."
"Then won't he be very old before he gets there?" This was a terrible
question. Young ladies of five-and-twenty, when they marry gentlemen
of four-and-fifty, make up their minds for well-understood and
well-recognised old age. They see that they had best declare their
purpose, and they do declare it. "Of course, Mr. Walker is old enough
to be my father, but I have made up my mind that I like that better
than anything else." Then the wall has been jumped, and the thing can
go smoothly. But at forty-five there is supposed to be so much of
youth left that the difference of age may possibly be tided over and
not made to appear abnormal. Augusta Tringle had determined to tide
it over in this way. The forty-five had been gradually reduced to
"less than forty,"--though all the Peerages were there to give the
lie to the assertion. She talked of her lover as Septimus, and was
quite prepared to sit with him beside a stream if only half-an-hour
for the amusement could be found. When, therefore, Ayala suggested
that if her lover wanted to get into office he had better do so
quickly, lest he should be too old, Augusta was not well pleased.
"Lord Boardotrade was much older when he began," said Augusta. "His
friends, indeed, tell Septimus that he should not push himself
forward too quickly. But I don't think that I ever came across any
one who was so ignorant of such things as you are, Ayala."
"Perhaps he is not so old as he looks," said Ayala. After this it may
be imagined that there was not close friendship between the cousins.
Augusta's mind was filled with a strong conception as to Ayala's
ingratitude. The houseless, penniless orphan had been taken in, and
had done nothing but make herself disagreeable. Young! No doubt she
was young. But had she been as old as Methuselah she could not have
been more insolent. It did not, however, matter to her, Augusta.
She was going away; but it would be terrible to her mamma and to
Gertrude! Thus it was that Augusta spoke of her cousin to her mother.
And then there came another trouble, which was more troublesome to
Ayala even than the other. Tom Tringle, who was in the house in
Lombard Street, who was the only son, and heir to the title and no
doubt to much of the wealth, had chosen to take Ayala's part and to
enlist himself as her special friend. Ayala had, at first, accepted
him as a cousin, and had consented to fraternise with him. Then, on
some unfortunate day, there had been some word or look which she had
failed not to understand, and immediately she had become afraid of
Tom. Tom was not like Isadore Hamel,--was very far, indeed, from that
idea of a perfect lover which Ayala's mind had conceived; but he was
by no means a lout, or an oaf, or an idiot, as Ayala in her letters
to her sister had described him. He had been first at Eton and then
at Oxford, and having spent a great deal of money recklessly, and
done but little towards his education, had been withdrawn and put
into the office. His father declared of him now that he would do
fairly well in the world. He had a taste for dress, and kept four or
five hunters which he got but little credit by riding. He made a fuss
about his shooting, but did not shoot much. He was stout and awkward
looking,--very like his father, but without that settled air which
age gives to heavy men. In appearance he was not the sort of lover
to satisfy the preconceptions of such a girl as Ayala. But he was
good-natured and true. At last he became to her terribly true. His
love, such as it seemed at first, was absurd to her. "If you make
yourself such a fool, Tom, I'll never speak to you again," she had
said, once. Even after that she had not understood that it was
more than a stupid joke. But the joke, while it was considered as
such, was very distasteful to her; and afterwards, when a certain
earnestness in it was driven in upon her, it became worse than
distasteful.
She repudiated his love with such power as she had, but she could not
silence him. She could not at all understand that a young man, who
seemed to her to be an oaf, should really be in love,--honestly in
love with her. But such was the case. Then she became afraid lest
others should see it,--afraid, though she often told herself that she
would appeal to her aunt for protection. "I tell you I don't care a
bit about you, and you oughtn't to go on," she said. But he did go
on, and though her aunt did not see it Augusta did.
Then Augusta spoke a word to her in scorn. "Ayala," she said, "you
should not encourage Tom."
Encourage him! What a word from one girl to another! What a world
of wrong there was in the idea which had created the word! What an
absence of the sort of feeling which, according to Ayala's theory
of life, there should be on such a matter between two sisters, two
cousins, or two friends! Encourage him! When Augusta ought to have
been the first to assist her in her trouble! "Oh, Augusta," she said,
turning sharply round, "what a spiteful creature you are."
"I suppose you think so, because I do not choose to approve."
"Approve of what! Tom is thoroughly disagreeable. Sometimes he makes
my life such a burden to me that I think I shall have to go to my
aunt. But you are worse. Oh!" exclaimed Ayala, shuddering as she
thought of the unwomanly treachery of which her cousin was guilty
towards her.
Nothing more came of it at Glenbogie. Tom was required in Lombard
Street, and the matter was not suspected by Aunt Emmeline,--as far,
at least, as Ayala was aware. When he was gone it was to her as
though there would be a world of time before she would see him again.
They were to go to Rome, and he would not be at Rome till January.
Before that he might have forgotten his folly. But Ayala was quite
determined that she would never forget the ill offices of Augusta.
She did hate Augusta, as she had told her sister. Then, in this frame
of mind, the family was taken to Rome.