MISS BETTINA DAVENAL.
Miss Davenal sat in her usual seat near the window, her straight
figure bolt upright, her knitting needles plying fast their work, the
small inlaid table at her right hand holding the open pearl basket of
wool. How many stockings, socks, sleeves, and chest-protectors, were
knitted by Miss Davenal in the course of the year, the poor alone
could tell--for they were the recipients. Hallingham surmised that she
must spend half her income upon wool. There's no doubt she was a
charitable well-meaning woman at heart, but she did not always show it
in her manner.
A beautiful woman in her day must have been Bettina Davenal, with her
pure complexion and her classical features. But the grey eyes had a
cold hard look in them now; and the nose, across the high bridge of
which the delicate skin was drawn so tightly, was almost painfully
thin. The name Bettina had been bestowed on her at the request of a
godmother, a lady of Italian origin; not an ugly name, but somewhat
long for the everyday use of English tongues, and those familiar with
her occasionally shortened it into "Miss Bett," a liberty that was
resented by Miss Davenal. She laboured under that troublesome defect,
intense deafness, and also under the no less troublesome conviction
(not unfrequently accompanying it) that she was not deaf at all. Her
hair of a pale flaxen, soft and abundant still, was worn in smooth
braids, and was surmounted by a rich lace head-dress, very high.
She need not have added to her height; she was tall enough without it;
as was seen when she rose to receive Lady Oswald. A straight-down,
thin, upright figure, without crinolines or cordings, her grey damask
dress falling in wrapt folds around her as she held forth her mittened
hand.
"I hope I see you better, Lady Oswald."
The tone was unnaturally high: you may have noticed that it is so
sometimes in deaf people. Lady Oswald, with her weak nerves, would
have put her hands to her ears had she done as she liked.
"I am not well today. I am worse than usual. I have had a most
unpleasant shock, Miss Davenal; an upset."
"A what?" cried Miss Davenal, putting her hand to her ear.
"An upset."
"Bless my heart!" cried Miss Davenal; "did your carriage run away?"
"Tell her, Sara," groaned Lady Oswald. "I shall be hoarse for two days
if I call out like this."
"Lady Oswald has had some unpleasant news, aunt. She has received
notice that they are going to run the railway through her grounds."
Miss Davenal caught a word or so, and looked terrified. "Received
notice that they are going to run a railway through her! What do you
mean?"
"Not through her," said Sara, putting her lips close to the deaf ears.
"Through her grounds."
"But I'd not let them," cried Miss Davenal, hearing now. "I'd not let
them, Lady Oswald."
"I won't," screamed Lady Oswald at the top of her voice. "I have sent
for Mr. Oswald Cray."
Miss Davenal was dubious. "What good will that do? Is it to pelt upon
them? I hate those wicked railways."
"Is what to pelt upon them?"
"The clay. Didn't you say you had sent for some clay?"
"Oh dear! Sara, do make her understand."
Poor Sara had to do her best. "Not clay, Aunt Bettina; Mr. Oswald
Cray."
Aunt Bettina nodded her stately head. "I like Mr. Oswald Cray. He is a
favourite of mine, Lady Oswald."
"As he is of everybody's, Miss Davenal," returned Lady Oswald. "I'd
have remembered him in my will but for offending the Oswald family.
They are dreadfully prejudiced."
"Pinched!" echoed Miss Davenal. "Where's he pinched?"
"Prejudiced, Aunt Bettina. Lady Oswald says the Oswald family are
prejudiced."
"You need not roar out in that way, Sara; I can hear, I hope. I am not
so deaf as all that comes to. What's he prejudiced at?--the railway?
He ought not to be, he is one of its engineers."
"Not Mr. Oswald Cray, aunt. The Oswald family. They are prejudiced
against him."
"If you speak to me again in that manner, Sara I shall complain to
your papa. One would think you were calling out to somebody at the top
of the chimney. As if I and Lady Oswald did not know that the Oswald
family are prejudiced against Oswald Cray? We don't want you to tell
it us from a speaking-trumpet; we knew it before you were born. I
don't think he cares for their prejudices, Lady Oswald," Miss Davenal
added, turning to her.
"He would be very foolish if he did. _I_ don't. They are prejudiced,
you know, against me."
"I think the world must be coming to an end, with all these rails and
stations and sheds," fretfully spoke Miss Davenal.
"The news has made me ill," said Lady Oswald, who liked nothing half
so well as to speak of her own ailments. "I was getting better, as Dr.
Davenal can tell you, but this will throw me back for weeks. My maid
has been giving me red lavender ever since."
Miss Davenal looked at her with a puzzled stare.
"That is poison, is it not?"
"What is poison?"
"Red lead."
"I said red lavender," cried Lady Oswald. "It is very good for the
spirits: a few drops taken on a lump of sugar. Red lav-en-der."
Miss Davenal resolutely shook her head. "Nasty stuff!" she cried. "Red
lavender never did anybody good yet, Lady Oswald. Leave it off; leave
it off."
"I don't touch it once in a month in an ordinary way," screamed Lady
Oswald. "Only when anything beyond common arises to flurry me."
Miss Bettina stared at her. "What common is flooded? It is dry
weather."
Lady Oswald cast a helpless look at Sara. "Flurried, Aunt Bettina,"
said the young lady. "Lady Oswald said when she was flurried."
Miss Bettina was not in the least grateful for the assistance. She
pushed away her niece with her elbow. It was in fact next to high
treason for Sara to attempt to assist Miss Davenal's deafness. "I
should not allow things to flurry me, Lady Oswald. I never was
flurried in my life."
"Temperaments are constituted differently," returned Lady Oswald.
"Temper!" cried Miss Davenal, as angrily as politeness would allow
her, "what has temper to do with it? Who accuses me of temper?"
"Tem-per-a-ment," corrected Lady Oswald, cracking her voice. "Sara, I
_must_ go."
She rose quickly; she could not stand the interview any longer; but in
spite of the misapprehensions they took leave of each other cordially.
The same scene occurred every time they met: as it did whenever
conversation was attempted with Miss Davenal. It cannot be denied that
she heard better at times than at others, occasionally tolerably well;
and hence perhaps the source, or partially so, of her own belief that
her deafness was but of a slight nature. When alone with the familiar
family voices, and in quiet times, she could hear; but in moments of
surprise and excitement, in paying or receiving visits, the ears were
nearly hopeless.
Neal attended Lady Oswald to her carriage, waiting there at the gate
with its powdered coachman and footman, to the gratification of the
juvenile street Arabs of Hallingham; the same ever-assiduous, superior
servant, quite dignified in his respectability. Lady Oswald believed
him perfection--that there was not another such servant in the world.
"Your mistress grows more distressingly deaf than ever, Neal," she
remarked, as he put her dress straight in the carriage, her own
footman resigning the office to him with almost the same submission
that he might have resigned it to Mr. Cray, had the young surgeon been
at hand to assist her in, as he had been to assist her out.
"She does, my lady. It is a great affliction. Home," loftily added
Neal to the servants: and he bowed low as the carriage drove away.