"Of course it was perfectly right. No one could say that I was in any
way infatuated about Lady Markland, never from the first: but I quite
approve of that. Why should she call herself Mrs. Theodore Warrender,
when she has the title of a viscountess? If it had been a trumpery
little baronetcy," said Minnie, strong in her new honours, "that
would have been quite a different matter; but why should one give
up one's precedency, and all that? I should not at all like to have Mrs.
Wilberforce, for instance, or any other person of her class, walk out of
a room before me--now."
"Nor me, I suppose," Mrs. Warrender said, with a smile.
"Oh, you! that is different of course," said the Hon. Mrs. Eustace
Thynne; but though she was good enough to say this, it was very evident
that even for her mother Minnie had no idea of waiving her rights. "When
a thing is understood it is so much easier," she added, "every one must
see that. Besides it was not her fault," said Minnie triumphantly, "that
her first husband died."
"It was her fault that she married again, surely."
"Oh, what do you know about it, Chatty? An unmarried girl can't really
have any experience on that subject. Well, to be sure it was her own
doing marrying again: but a lady of any rank _never_ gives up her title
on marrying a commoner. A baronet's wife, as I say,--but then a baronet
is only a commoner himself."
"You seem to have thoroughly studied the subject, Minnie."
"Yes, I have studied it; marrying into a noble family naturally changes
one's ideas. And the Thynnes are very particular. You should have seen
my mother-in-law arranging the dinner-party she asked to meet us. _I_
went first of course as the bride, but there was Lady Highcourt and Lady
Grandmaison, both countesses, and the creation within twenty years of
each other. Eustace said nobody but his mother could have recollected
without looking it up that the Grandmaisons date from 1425 and the
Highcourts only from 1450--not the very oldest nobility either of them,"
said Minnie, with a grand air. "The Thynnebroods date from 1395."
"But then," said Mrs. Warrender, much amused, shooting a bow at a
venture, "their descent counts in the female line."
Upon which a deep blush, a wave of trouble and shame, passed over Minnie's
countenance. "Only in one case," she cried, "only once; and that you will
allow is not much in five hundred years."
This bridal pair had arrived on their visit only the day before: they
had taken a long holiday, and had been visiting many friends. It was
now about two months since their marriage, and the gowns in Minnie's
trousseau began to lose their obtrusive newness: nor can it be said that
her sentiments were new. They were only modified a little by her present
_milieu_. "I suppose," she said, after an interval, "that Lady Markland
will come to see me as soon as she knows I am here. Shall they have any
one there for the shooting this year? Eustace quite looks forward to a
day now and then. There is the Warren at least, which poor dear papa
never preserved, but which I hope Theo--Eustace says that Theo will
really be failing in his duty if he does not preserve."
"I know nothing about their plans or their visitors. Theo is very
unlikely to think of a party of sportsmen, who were never much in his
way."
Chatty in the meantime had gone out of the room about her flowers, which
were always her morning's occupation. When she closed the door, Minnie,
who had been waiting eagerly, leaned forward to her mother. "As for being
in his way, Theo has no right to be selfish, mamma. He ought to think
of Chatty. _She_ ought to think of Chatty. I shall not have nearly so
good an opinion of her, if she does not take a little trouble and do
something for Chatty now she is going out again and has it in her
power."
"For Chatty--but Chatty does not shoot!"
"You never will understand, mamma," said Mrs. Eustace Thynne with gentle
exasperation. "Chatty ought to be thought of now. I am sure I never was;
if it had not been for Eustace coming to Pierrepoint, I should have been
Miss Warrender all my life: and so will Chatty be Miss Warrender all her
life, if no one comes to the rescue. Of course it should lie with me in
the first place: but except neighbouring clergymen, we are likely to see
so few people just at present. To be sure I have married a clergyman
myself: but Eustace was quite an exceptional case, and clergymen as a
rule can scarcely be called eligible: so there is nothing for it but
that Lady Markland should interfere."
"For Chatty? I beg your pardon, my dear. You are much wiser than I am;
but in the present case I think Chatty's mother is sufficient for all
needs."
"That was always your way, mamma, to take one up at a word without
thinking. Don't you remark Chatty, how awfully quiet she is? Eustace
remarked it the very first day. He is very quick to see a thing, and he
has a lot of sisters of his own. He said to me, Either Chatty has had a
disappointment or she is just bored to death staying at home. I think
very likely it is my marriage that has done it, for of course there
could have been no disappointment," Minnie added calmly. "Seeing both me
and Theo happy, she naturally asks herself, Am I always to sit here like
an old person with mamma?"
Mrs. Warrender felt the prick, but only smiled. "I don't think she asks
herself that question: but in any case I am afraid she must just be left,
however dull it may be, with mamma."
"Oh, I hope you will be reasonable," said Minnie, "I hope you will not
stand in poor Chatty's way. It is time she saw somebody, and that people
saw her. She is twenty-four. She has not much time to lose, Eustace
says."
"My dear Minnie, I don't object to what you say about your sister--that
is, I allow you have a right to speak: but Eustace is quite a different
matter. We will leave him out of the question. What he may think or say
about Chatty is of no consequence to me; in short, I think it is very
bad taste, if you will allow me to say so----"
"Mamma!" Minnie rose up to much more than her full height, which was by
no means great. "Is it possible that you would teach your own daughter
to disregard what her husband says?"
The righteous indignation, the lofty tone, the moral superiority of
Minnie's attitude gave her mother a kind of painful amusement. She said
nothing, but went to the writing-table at the other side of the room.
Everything was very peaceful around and about, no possibility of any
real disturbance in the calm well-being of the family so far as any
ordinary eye could see: Theo gone with his bride into a sphere a little
above that which belonged to him by nature; Minnie with her husband in
all the proud consciousness of virtuous bliss; Chatty quiet and gentle
among her flowers; a soft atmosphere of sunshine and prosperity, shaded
by blinds at the windows, by little diversities and contrarieties in the
spirit, from being excessive and dazzling, was all about. In the midst
of the calm Minnie's little theories of the new-made wife made a
diverting incident in the foreground. Mrs. Warrender looked at her
across the writing-table, with a smile in her eyes.
"I knew," cried Minnie, "that you had many ways of thinking I did not go
in with--but to throw any doubt upon a woman's duty to her husband! Oh,
mamma, that is what I never expected. Eustace is of course the first in
all the world to me, what he says is always of consequence. He is not
one to say a word that he has not weighed, and if he takes an interest
in his sister-in-law, it is because he thinks it his duty to me."
"That is all very well, my dear," said Mrs. Warrender, with some
impatience, "and no doubt it is a great matter for Chatty to have a
sister so correct as yourself, and a brother-in-law to take an interest
in her. But as long as I live I am the first authority about Chatty,
and Eustace is not the first in the world to me. Chatty----"
"Were you calling me, mamma?"
Chatty was coming in with a tall vase of flowers held in both hands.
The great campanulas, with their lavish, magnificent bells, flung up a
flowery hedge between her face and the eyes of the others. It was not
that she had anything to conceal, but undeniably, Chatty felt herself on
a lower level of being, subdued by Minnie's presence. There is often in
young married persons a pride in their new happiness, an ostentation of
superiority in their twofold existence, which is apt to produce this
effect upon the spectators. Minnie and her husband stood between the
two ladies, neither of whom possessed husbands, as the possessors of
conscious greatness stand between those who have fallen and those who
have never attained. And Chatty, who had no confidence to give, whose
little story was all locked in her own bosom, had been fretted by her
sister's questions, and by Mr. Eustace Thynne's repeated references to
the fact that she "looked pale."
"No, my dear. We were talking of you, that was all. Minnie is anxious
that you should see--a little more of the world."
"Mamma, be correct at least. I said that it would be a duty for myself
if I had any opportunity, and for Frances--"
"Do you mean Lady Markland?"
"Well, she is Frances, I hope, to her husband's sisters. I said it was
Frances' duty, now that she is going into society, to take you about and
introduce you to people. A little while ago," said Minnie with dignity,
"mamma was all for gadding about; and now she finds fault when I say
the simplest things, all because I said that Eustace--of course Eustace
takes an interest in Chatty: next to his own sisters of course he
naturally takes an interest in you."
Chatty placed her tall vase in the corner which she had chosen for it,
in silence. She expressed no thanks for the interest Eustace took in
her. Neither did Mrs. Warrender say anything further. The chill of this
ingratitude had upon Minnie a contrary effect to that which might have
been anticipated. She grew very hot and red.
"I don't know what you all mean," she cried; "it is what we have never
met with yet, all the places we have been. Everybody has been grateful
to Eustace for his good advice. They have all liked to know what he
thought. 'Try and find out what Eustace thinks' is what has been
said--and now my own mother and sister----" Here words failed and she
wiped away a few angry tears.
At this Chatty's tender heart was touched. She went to her sister and
gave her a gentle kiss. "Dear Minnie, I am sure you are very kind, and
if there was anything to take an interest about----But mamma and I have
just settled down. We want nothing, we are quite happy." Chatty looked
across the room at her mother, which was natural enough, but then Mrs.
Warrender observed that the girl's eyes went farther, that they went
beyond anything that was visible within those white panelled walls.
"Oh, quite happy," Chatty repeated very softly, with that look into
the distance, which only her mother saw.
"That is all very well for the present--but you don't suppose you will
always be quite satisfied and happy with mamma. That is exactly what
Eustace says. I never knew anybody take so little interest in her girls
as mamma does. You will be thrown among the little people here--a curate
in Highcombe, or somebody's son who lives in the town. Mamma, you may
say what you please, but to have a little nobody out of a country
town for a brother-in-law, a person probably with no connections, no
standing, no----" Minnie paused out of mere incapacity to build up the
climax higher.
It is not solely characteristic of women that a small domestic
controversy should excite them beyond every other: but perhaps only a
woman could have felt the high swelling in her breast of that desire to
cast down and utterly confound Minnie and all her pretensions by the
mention of a name--and the contrariety of not being able to do it, and
the secret exultation in the thought of one day cutting her down, down
to the ground, with the announcement. While she was musing her heart
turned to Cavendish--a relation within well-authenticated lines of the
duke, very different from the small nobility of the Thynnes, who on
their side were not at all related to the greater family of the name.
Mrs. Warrender's heart rose with this thought so that it was almost
impossible for her to keep silence, to look at Minnie and not overwhelm
her. But she did refrain, and the consciousness that she had this
unanswerable retort behind kept her, as nothing else could, from losing
her temper. She smiled with a sense of the humour of the situation,
though with a little irritation too.
"It will be very sad, my dear, if Chatty provides Eustace with an
unsuitable brother-in-law; but we must not look so far ahead. There is
no aspirant for the moment who can give your husband any uneasiness.
Perhaps he would like a list of the ineligible young men in the
neighbourhood? there are not very many, from all I can hear."
"Oh, mamma, I never knew any one so unsympathetic as you are," said
Minnie, with an angry flush of colour. Chatty had not stayed to defend
herself. She had hurried away out of reach of the warfare. No desire to
crush her sister with a name was in Chatty's mind. It had seemed to her
profane to speak of such a possibility at all. She realised so fully
that everything was over, that all idea of change in her life was at an
end for ever, that she heard with a little shiver, but with no warm
personal feeling, the end of this discussion. She shrank, indeed, from
the idea of being talked over--but then, she reflected, Minnie would be
sure to do that, Minnie could not be expected to understand. While Mrs.
Warrender began to write her letters Chatty went softly in and out of
the room in her many comings and goings about the flowers. She had them
on a table in the hall, with a great jug of fresh water and a basket to
put all the litter, the clippings of stalks and unnecessary leafage in,
and all her pots and vases ready. She was very tidy in all her ways.
It was not a very important piece of business, and yet all the sweet
orderly spirit of domestic life was in Chatty's movements. There are
many people who would have been far more pleased and touched to see her
at this simple work than had she been reading Greek, notwithstanding
that the Greek, too, is excellent; but it was not Chatty's way.
Mrs. Warrender sat at her writing-table with a little thrill of
excitement and opposition in her. She saw the angry flush on Minnie's
face, and watched without seeming to watch her as she rose suddenly and
left the room, almost throwing down the little spindle-legged table
beside her. Just outside the door Mrs. Warrender heard Chatty's calm
voice say to her sister, "Will you have these for your room, Minnie?"
evidently offering her some of her flowers. (It was a pretty blue and
white china pot, with a sweet smelling nosegay of mignonette and a few
of the late China roses, sweet enough to scent the whole place.) "Oh,
thanks, I don't like flowers in my room, Eustace thinks they are not
healthy," said Minnie, in tones that were still full of displeasure, the
only interruption to the prevailing calm. Mrs. Warrender was not a wise
woman. She was pleased that she and the child who was left to her were
having the better of the little fray. "Eustace thinks"--Minnie might
quote him as much as she pleased, she would never get her mother to
quail before these words. A man may be Honourable and Reverend both,
and yet not be strong enough to tyrannise over his mother-in-law and
lay down the law in her house. This is a condition of affairs quite
different from the fashionable view, and then, Mrs. Warrender was in her
own house, and quite independent of her son-in-law. She had a malicious
pleasure in the thought of his discomfiture. Cavendish! She imagined
to herself how they would open their eyes, and tasted in advance the
pleasure of the letter which she should write to Minnie, disclosing all
that would happen. It seemed to her that she knew very well what would
happen. The young man was honourable and honest, and Chatty was most fit
and suitable, a bride whom no parents could object to. As for mysterious
restraining influences, Mrs. Warrender believed in no such things. She
had not lived in a world where they exist, and she felt as sure of Dick
Cavendish as of herself--that is to say, _almost_ as sure.
All this might have been very well and done no harm, but in the energy
of her angry, excited, exasperated, exhilarated mood, it occurred to Mrs.
Warrender to take such a step as she had never done before nor thought
herself capable of doing. To make overtures of any sort to a man who
had shown a disposition to be her daughter's lover, yet had not said
anything or committed himself in any way, would, twenty-four hours
before, have seemed to her impossible. It would have seemed to her
inconsistent with Chatty's dignity and her own. But opposition and a
desire to have the better of one's domestic and intimate opponents is
very strong, and tempts people to the most equivocal proceedings. Mrs.
Warrender did not wait to think, but took out a fresh sheet of paper and
dipped her pen in the ink with that impulsiveness which was characteristic
of her. A note or two had already passed between Dick Cavendish and
herself, so that it was not so extraordinary a proceeding as it seemed.
This was what she wrote:--
DEAR MR. CAVENDISH--Is it worth while coming to us only from
Saturday to Monday as your modesty suggests? I fear Chatty and
I in our quietness would scarcely repay the long journey. But
Minnie is with us (with her husband), and she was always a
much more practical person than her mother. She has just been
suggesting to me that Theo has now the command of covers more
interesting from the sportsman point of view than our old
thicket at the Warren. If, therefore, you really feel inclined
to come down for a few days, there will, it appears, be a
real inducement--something more in a young man's way than the
tea-parties at Highcombe. So bring your gun, and let it be from
Monday to Saturday instead of the other way.
We think of our brief campaign in town with great pleasure, and a
strong sense of obligation to you who did so much for the pleasure
of it. Most truly yours,
M. WARRENDER.
She sent this epistle off with great satisfaction, yet a little sense
of guilt, that same evening, taking particular care to give it to the
parlour maid with her own hand, lest Chatty should see the address. It
was already September, and the time of the partridges had begun.