To afford the reader the explanation contained in the preceding chapter,
we have been obliged to leave Kate Dalton waiting, in mingled anxiety
and suspense, for the hour of Mrs. Ricketts's visit. Although her mind
principally dwelt upon the letter which had been announced as coming
from her father, an event so strange as naturally to cause astonishment,
she also occasionally recurred to the awkwardness of receiving persons
whom Lady Hester had so scrupulously avoided, and being involved in an
acquaintanceship so unequivocally pronounced vulgar. A few short months
before, and the incident would have worn a very different aspect to
her eyes. She would have dwelt alone on the kindness of one, an utter
stranger, addressing her in terms of respectful civility, and proffering
the attention of a visit. She would have been grateful for the
goodnature that took charge of a communication for her. She would have
viewed the whole as a sort of flattering notice, and never dreamed of
that long catalogue of “inconveniences” and annoyances so prolifically
associated with the event as it at present stood. She was greatly
changed in many respects. She had been daily accustomed to hear the
most outrageous moral derelictions lightly treated, or, at least, but
slightly censured. For every fault and failing there was a skilful
excuse or a charitable explanation. The errors of the fashionable world
were shown to be few, insignificant, and venial; and the code showed no
exception to the rule that “well-bred people can do no wrong.” Vulgarity
alone was criminal; and the sins of the underbred admitted of no
palliation. Her sense of justice might have revolted against such
judgments, had reason been ever appealed to; but such was not the
case. Ridicule alone was the arbiter; whatever could be scoffed at was
detestable, and a solecism in dress, accent, or demeanor was a higher
crime than many a grave transgression or glaring iniquity.
The little mimicries of Albert Jekyl, as he described Mrs. Ricketts,
the few depreciatory remarks of Lady Hester concerning her, would have
outweighed her worth had her character been a cornucopia of goodness.
It was, then, in no pleasant flurry of spirits, that, just as the clock
struck three, Kate heard the heavy door of the palace flung wide, and
the sound of wheels echo beneath the vaulted entrance. The next moment
a small one-horse phaeton, driven by a very meagre servant in a tawdry
livery, passed into the courtyard, having deposited its company in the
hall.
There had been a time, and that not so very far back either, when the
sight of that humble equipage, with visitors, would have made her heart
beat to the full as strong, albeit with very different emotions. Now,
however, she actually glanced at the windows to see if it had attracted
notice, with a kind of terror at the ridicule it would excite. Never did
she think an old gray horse could be so ugly; never did wheels make so
intolerable a noise before! Why would people dress up their servants
like harlequins? What was the meaning of that leopard-skin rug for the
feet? It was an odious little vehicle, altogether. There was a tawdry,
smirking, self-satisfied pretension about its poverty that made one wish
for a break-down on looking at it.
“Mrs. Montague Ricketts and Miss Ricketts,” said a very demure-looking
groom of the chambers; and although his features were immaculate in
their expressions of respect, Kate felt offended at what she thought was
a flippancy in the man's manner.
Although the announcement was thus made, the high and mighty personages
were still three rooms off, and visible only in the dim distance, coming
slowly forward.
Leaning on her sister's arm, and with a step at once graceful and
commanding, Mrs. Ricketts came on. At least, so Kate judged an enormous
pyramid of crimson velvet and ermine to be, from the summit of which
waved a sufficiency of plumes for a moderate hearse. The size and
dignity of this imposing figure almost entirely eclipsed poor Martha,
and completely shut out the slender proportions of Mr. Scroope Purvis,
who, from being loaded like a sumpter-mule with various articles for the
road, was passed over by the groom of the chambers, and believed to be a
servant. Slow as was the order of march, Purvis made it still slower by
momentarily dropping some of the articles with which he was charged;
and as they comprised a footstool, a poodle, two parasols, an album,
a smelling-bottle, a lorgnette, with various cushions, shawls, and a
portable tire-screen, his difficulties may be rather compassionated than
censured.
“Scroope, how can you? Martha, do speak to him. It's down again! He'll
smash my lorgnette he'll smother Fidele. How very awkward how absurd we
shall look!” Such were the sotto voce accompaniments that filled up the
intervals till they arrived at the great drawing-room, where Kate Dalton
sat.
If the reader has ever watched a great tragedy queen emerging from
the flats, when, after a lively dialogue with the prompter, and the
utterance of a pleasant jest, she issues forth upon the open stage, to
vent the sorrows or the wrongs of injured womanhood, he may form some
faint idea of the rapid transformation that Mrs. Ricketts underwent
as she passed the door-sill. Her first movement was a sudden bound
forwards, or, at least, such an approach to a spring as a body so
imposing could accomplish, and then, throwing her arms wide, she seemed
as if about to enclose Miss Dalton in a fast embrace; and so, doubtless,
had she done, if Kate had responded to the sign. A deep and very formal
courtesy was, however, her only acknowledgment of this spontaneous burst
of feeling; and Mrs. Ricketts, like a skilful general, at once
changing her plan of attack, converted her ardor into astonishment, and
exclaimed,
“Did you ever see such a resemblance? Could you believe it possible,
Martha? A thousand apologies, my dear Miss Dalton, for this rudeness;
but you are so wonderfully like our dear, dear friend Lady Caroline
Montressor, that I actually forgot myself. Pray forgive me, and let me
present my sister, Miss Ricketts. My brother, Mr. Scroope Purvis, Miss
Dalton.”
The ceremonial of introduction over, and Mrs. Ricketts being at last
seated, a very tedious operation, in which the arrangement of cushions,
pillows, and footstools played a conspicuous part, that bland lady
began, in her very softest of voices,
“This, indeed, repays me, amply, fully repays me! eh, Martha?”
“Quite so, sister,” responded Martha, in a meek whisper.
“A poor invalid as I am, rarely rising from a sofa except to snatch the
perfumed odors of a violet in spring, or to listen to the murmurs of a
rippling fountain; denied all the excitements of society by a nervous
temperament so finely strung as to be jarred by contact, even the
remotest, with inferior souls think of what ecstasy a moment like this
affords me!”
As Kate was profoundly ignorant to what happy combination of
circumstances this blissful state could be attributed, she could only
smile courteously, and mutter some vague expressions of her pleasure,
satisfaction, and so forth.
“Eve in her own paradise!” exclaimed Mrs. Ricketts, as she turned her
eyes from Kate to the gorgeous chamber in which they were seated. “May I
ask if the taste of these decorations be yours, Miss Dalton?”
“Lady Hester Onslow's, madam,” said Kate, quietly.
“I declare, I like these hangings better than 'Gobelins' they are
lighter and more graceful. You remember, Martha, I told the dear Queen
of Saxony that blue velvet would go so well with her small pictures. We
discussed the point every morning at breakfast for a week, and the poor
dear King at last called us the 'blue devils; 'very happy, wasn't it,
Miss Dalton? But he speaks English just like one of ourselves.”
“These are all Dutch pictures, I perceive,” said Purvis, who, with
his poodle under his arm, was making a tour of the room, peering into
everything, opening books, prying into china jars, and spying into
work-boxes, as though in search of some missing article.
“I 'm tired of Wou-Wou-Wou--” Here the poodle barked, doubtless in
the belief that he was responding to an invitation. “Down, Fidele!
Wou-ver-mans,” gulped out Purvis. “He 's always the same.”
“But those dear white palfreys, how I love them! I always have a white
horse, out of regard for Wouvermans.”
Kate thought of the poor gray in the courtyard, and said nothing.
“And there is something so touching so exquisitely touching in
those Flemish interiors, where the goodwife is seated reading, and a
straggling sunbeam comes slanting in upon the tiled floor. Little peeps
of life, as it were, in a class of which we know nothing; for, really,
Miss Dalton, iu our order, sympathies are too much fettered; and I often
think it would be better that we knew more of the middle classes. When I
say this, of course I do not mean as associates, far less as intimates,
but as ingredients in the grand scheme of universal nature.”
“'The no-no-noblest study of man-mankind is' what is it, sister?”
“'Man,' Scroope; but the poet intended to refer to the great aims and
objects of our being. Don't you think so, Miss Dalton? It was not man in
the little cares of everyday life, in his social relations, but man in
his destinies, in his vast future, when he goes beyond 'that bourne'--”
“From which nobody ever got out again,” cackled Purvis, in an ecstasy at
the readiness of his quotation.
“'From which no traveller returns,' Scroope, is, I believe, the more
correct version.”
“Then it don't mean pur-pur-pur-purgatory,” gulped Scroope, who, as soon
as the word was uttered, became shocked at what he said. “I forgot you
were a Ro-Ro-Roman, Miss Dalton,” said he, blushing.
“You are in error, Scroope,” said Mrs. Ricketts. “Miss Dalton is one of
ourselves. All the distinguished Irish are of the Reformed faith.”
“I am a Catholic, madam,” said Kate, not knowing whether to be more
amused than annoyed at the turn the conversation had taken.
“I knew it,” cried Purvis, in delight. “I tracked your carriage to the
D-D-Duomo, and I went in after you, and saw you at the co-co-co-co--”
“Corner,” whispered Martha, who, from his agonies, grew afraid of a fit.
“No, not the corner, but the co-co-co-coufessional-confessional, where
you stayed for an hour and forty minutes by my own watch; and I couldn't
help thinking that your pec-pec-pec-peccadilloes were a good long score,
by the time it took to to to tell them.”
“Thanks, sir,” said Kate, bowing, and with difficulty restraining her
laughter; “thanks for the very kind interest you seem to have taken in
my spiritual welfare.”
“Would that I might be suffered a participation in that charge, Miss
Dalton,” cried Mrs. Ricketts, with enthusiasm, “and allowed to hold some
converse with you on doctrinal questions!”
“Try her with the posers, sister,” whispered Purvis. “Hush, Scroope!
Mere opportunities of friendly discussion, nothing more I ask for, Miss
Dalton.”
“Give her the posers,” whispered Purvis, louder.
“Be quiet, Scroope. I have been fortunate enough to resolve the doubts
of more than one ere this. That dear angel, the Princess Ethelinda of
Cobourgh, I believe I may say, owes her present enlightenment to our
sweet evenings together.”
“Begin with the posers.”
“Hush! I say, Scroope.”
“May I ask,” said Kate, “what is the suggestion Mr. Purvis has been good
enough to repeat?”
“That I should give you this little tract, Miss Dalton,” said Mrs.
Ricketts as she drew out a miscellaneous assemblage of articles from a
deep pocket, and selected from the mass a small blue-covered pamphlet,
bearing the title, “Three Posers for Papists, by M. R.”
“Montague Ricketts,” said Purvis, proudly; “she wrote it herself, and
the Pope won't let us into Rome in consequence. It 's very droll, too;
and the part about the the Vir-gin--”
“You will, I 'm sure, excuse me, madam,” said Kate, “if I beg that this
subject be suffered to drop. My thanks for the interest this gentleman
and yourself have vouchsafed me will only be more lasting by leaving the
impression of them unassociated with anything unpleasing. You were good
enough to say that you had a letter for me?”
“A letter from your father, that dear, fond father, who dotes so
distractingly upon you, and who really seems to live but to enjoy your
triumphs. Martha, where is the letter?”
“I gave it to Scroope, sister.”
“No, you didn't. I never saw--”
“Yes, Scroope, I gave it to you, at the drawing-room fire--”
“Yes, to be sure, and I put it into the ca-ca-ca--”
“Not the candle, I hope,” cried Kate, in terror.
“No, into the card-rack; and there it is now.”
“How provoking!” cried Miss Ricketts; “but you shall have it to-morrow,
Miss Dalton. I 'll leave it here myself.”
“Shall I appear impatient, madam, if I send for it this evening?”
“Of course not, my dear Miss Dalton; but shall I commit the precious
charge to a menial's hand?”
“You may do so with safety, madam,” said Kate, not without a slight
irritation of manner as she spoke.
“Mr. Foglass, the late minister and envoy at--”
Here a tremendous crash, followed by a terrific yelping noise, broke in
upon the colloquy; for it was Fidele had thrown down a Sevres jar, and
lay, half-buried and howling, under the ruins. There was, of course, a
general rising of the company, some to rescue the struggling poodle, and
others in vain solicitude to gather up the broken fragments of the once
beautiful vase. It was a favorite object with Lady Hester; of singular
rarity, both for form and design; and Kate stood speechless, and almost
sick with shame and sorrow, at the sight, not heeding one syllable
of the excuses and apologies poured in upon her, nor of the equally
valueless assurances that it could be easily mended; that Martha was a
perfect proficient in such arts; and that, if Scroope would only collect
the pieces carefully, the most difficult connoisseur would not be able
to detect a flaw in it.
“I've got a head here; but the no-nose is off,” cried Purvis.
“Here it is, Scroope. I 've found it.”
“No, that's a toe,” said he; “there 's a nail to it.”
“I am getting ill I shall faint,” said Mrs. Ricketts, retiring upon a
well-cushioned sofa from the calamity.
Martha now flew to the bell-rope and pulled it violently, while Purvis
threw open the window, and with such rash haste as to upset a stand of
camellias, thereby scattering plants, buds, earth, and crockery over the
floor, while poor Kate, thunderstruck at the avalanche of ruin around
her, leaned against the wall for support, unable to stir or even speak.
As Martha continued to tug away at the bell, the alarm, suggesting the
idea of fire, brought three or four servants to the door together.
“Madeira! quick, Madeira!” cried Martha, as she unloosed various
articles of dress from her sister's throat, and prepared a plan of
operations for resuscitation that showed at least an experienced hand.
“Bring wine,” said Kate, faintly, to the astonished butler, who, not
noticing Miss Ricketts's order, seemed to await hers.
“Madeira! it must be Madeira!” cried Martha, wildly.
“She don't dislike Mar-Mar-Marco-brunner,” whispered Purvis to the
servant, “and I'll take a glass too.”
Had the irruption been one of veritable housebreakers, had the occasion
been what newspapers stereotype as a “Daring Burglary,” Kate Dalton
might, in all likelihood, have distinguished herself as a heroine. She
would, it is more than probable, have evinced no deficiency either of
courage or presence of mind, but in the actual contingency nothing could
be more utterly helpless than she proved; and, as she glided into a
chair, her pale face and trembling features betrayed more decisive signs
of suffering than the massive countenance which Martha was now deluging
with eau-de-Cologne and lavender.
The wine soon made its appearance; a very imposing array of restoratives
the ambulatory pharmacopeia of the Ricketts family was all displayed
upon a table. Martha, divested of shawl, bonnet, and gloves, stood ready
for action; and thus, everything being in readiness, Mrs. Ricketts,
whose consideration never suffered her to take people unawares, now
began her nervous attack in all form.
If ague hysterics recovery from drowning tic-doloureux, and an extensive
burn had all sent representatives of their peculiar agonies, with
injunctions to struggle for a mastery of expression, the symptoms could
scarcely have equalled those now exhibited. There was not a contortion
nor convulsion that her countenance did not undergo, while the
devil's tattoo, kept up by her heels upon the floor, and her knuckles
occasionally on the table, and now and then on Scroope's head, added
fearfully to the effect of her screams, which varied from the deep groan
of the melodrame to the wildest shrieks of tragedy.
“There's no danger, Miss Dalton,” whispered Martha, whose functions of
hand-rubbing, temple-bathing, wine-giving, and so forth, were performed
with a most jog-trot regularity.
“When she sc-sc-screams, she's all right,” added Purvis; and, certainly,
the most anxious friend might have been comforted on the present
occasion.
“Shall I not send for a physician?” asked Kate, eagerly.
“On no account, Miss Dalton. We are quite accustomed to these seizures.
My dear sister's nerves are so susceptible.”
“Yes,” said Scroope, who, be it remarked, had already half finished a
bottle of hock, “poor Zoe is all sensibility the scabbard too sharp for
the sword. Won't you have a glass of wine, Miss Dalton?”
“Thanks, sir, I take none. I trust she is better now she looks easier.”
“She is better; but this is a difficult moment,” whispered Martha. “Any
shock any sudden impression now might prove fatal.”
“What is to be done, then?” said Kate, in terror.
“She must be put to bed at once, the room darkened, and the strictest
silence preserved. Can you spare your room?”
“Oh, of course, anything everything at such a moment,” cried the
terrified girl, whose reason was now completely mastered by her fears.
[Illustration: 408]
“She must be carried. Will you give orders, Miss Dalton? and, Scroope,
step down to the carriage, and bring up--” Here Miss Ricketts's voice
degenerated into an inaudible whisper; but Scroope left the room to obey
the command.
Her sympathy for suffering had so thoroughly occupied Kate, that all
the train of unpleasant consequences that were to follow this unhappy
incident had never once occurred to her; nor did a thought of Lady
Hester cross her mind, till, suddenly, the whole flashed upon her, by
the appearance of her maid Nina in the drawing-room.
“To your own room, Mademoiselle?” asked she, with a look that said far
more than any words.
“Yes, Nina,” whispered she. “What can I do? She is so ill! They tell me
it may be dangerous at any moment, and--”
“Hush, my dear Miss Dalton!” said Martha; “one word may wake her.”
“I'd be a butterfly!” warbled the sick lady, in a low weak treble; while
a smile of angelic beatitude beamed on her features.
“Hush! be still!” said Martha, motioning the surrounders to silence.
“What shall I do, Nina? Shall I go and speak to my Lady?” asked Kate.
A significant shrug of the shoulders, more negative than affirmative,
was the only answer.
“I'd be a gossamer, and you'd be the King of Thebes,” said Mrs.
Ricketts, addressing a tall footman, who stood ready to assist in
carrying her.
“Yes, madam,” said he, respectfully.
“She's worse,” whispered Martha, gravely.
“And we'll walk on the wall of China by moonlight, with Cleopatra and
Mr. Cobden?”
“Certainly, madam,” said the man, who felt the question too direct for
evasion.
“Has she been working slippers for the planet Ju-Ju-Jupiter yet?” asked
Purvis, eagerly, as he entered the room, heated, and flushed from the
weight of a portentous bag of colored wool.
“No; not yet,” whispered Martha. “You may lift her now, gently very
gently, and not a word.”
And in strict obedience, the servants raised their fair burden, and
bore her from the room, after Nina, who led the way with an air that
betokened a more than common indifference to human suffering.
“When she gets at Ju-Jupiter,” said Purvis to Kate, as they closed
the procession, “it's a bad symptom; or when she fancies she 's
Hec-Hec-Hec-Hec--”
“Hecate?”
“No; not Hec-Hecate, but Hecuba--Hecuba; then it's a month at least
before she comes round.”
“How dreadful!” said Kate. And certainly there was not a grain of
hypocrisy in the fervor with which she uttered it.
“I don't think she 'll go beyond the San-Sandwich Islands this time,
however,” added he, consolingly,
“Hush, Scroope!” cried Martha. And now they entered the small and
exquisitely furnished dressing-room which was appropriated to Kate's
use; within which, and opening upon a small orangery, stood her bedroom.
Nina, who scrupulously obeyed every order of her young mistress,
continued the while to exhibit a hundred petty signs of mute rebellion.
“Lady Hester wishes to see Miss Dalton,” said a servant at the outer
door.
“Can you permit me for a moment?” asked Kate, in a tremor.
“Oh, of course, my dear Miss Dalton; let there be no ceremony with us,”
said Martha. “Your kindness makes us feel like old friends already.”
“I feel-myself quite at home,” cried Scroope, whose head was not proof
against so much wine; and then, turning to one of the servants, he added
a mild request for the two bottles that were left on the drawing-room
table.
Martha happily, however, overheard and revoked the order. And now the
various attendants withdrew, leaving the family to themselves.
It was ill no pleasant mood that Kate took her way towards Lady Hester's
apartment. The drawing-room, as she passed through it, still exhibited
some of the signs of its recent ruin, and the servants were busied
in collecting fragments of porcelain and flower-pots. Their murmured
comments, hushed as she went by, told her how the occurrence was already
the gossip of the household. It was impossible for her not to connect
herself with the whole misfortune. “But for her” But she could not
endure the thought, and it was with deep humiliation and trembling in
every limb that she entered Lady Hester's chamber.
“Leave me, Celadon; I want to speak to Miss Dalton,” said Lady Hester
to the hairdresser, who had just completed one half of her Ladyship's
chevelure, leaving the other side pinned and rolled up in those various
preparatory stages which have more of promise than picturesque about
them. Her cheek was flushed, and her eyes sparkled with an animation
that betrayed more passion than pleasure.
“What is this dreadful story I 've heard, child, and that the house is
full of? Is it possible there can be any truth in it? Have these odious
people actually dared to establish themselves here? Tell me, child
speak!”
“Mrs. Ricketts became suddenly ill,” said Kate, trembling; “her dog
threw down a china jar.”
“Not my Sevres jar? not the large green one, with the figures?”
“I grieve to say it was!”
“Go on. What then?” said Lady Hester, dryly.
“Shocked at the incident, and alarmed, besides, by the fall of a
flower-stand, she fainted away, and subsequently was seized with what
I supposed to be a convulsive attack, but to which her friends seemed
perfectly accustomed, and pronounced not dangerous. In this dilemma they
asked me if they might occupy my room. Of course I could not refuse, and
yet felt, the while, that I had no right to extend the hospitality of
this house. I saw the indelicacy of what I was doing. I was shocked and
ashamed, and yet--”
“Go on,” said Lady Hester once more, and with a stern quietude of manner
that Kate felt more acutely than even an angry burst of temper.
“I have little more to say; in fact, I know not what I am saying,” cried
she, gulping to repress the torrent of suffering that was struggling
within her.
“Miss Dalton--” began Lady Hester.
“Oh! why not Kate?” broke she, with a choking utterance.
“Miss Dalton,” resumed Lady Hester, and as if not hearing the entreaty,
“very little knowledge of that world you have lived in for the past
three or four months might have taught you some slight self-possession
in difficulty. Still less acquaintance with it might have suggested the
recollection that these people are no intimates of mine; so that, even
were tact wanting, feeling, at least, should have dictated a line of
action to you.”
“I know I have done wrong. I knew it at the time, and yet, in my
inexperience, I could not decide on anything. My memory, too, helped to
mislead me, for I bethought me that although these persons were not of
your own rank and station, yet you had stooped lower than to them when
you came to visit Nelly and myself.”
“Humph!” ejaculated Lady Hester, with a gesture that very unequivocally
seemed to say that her having done so was a grievous error. Kate saw
it quickly, and as suddenly the blood rushed to her cheek, coloring her
throat and neck with the deep crimson of shame. A burst of pride the
old Dalton pride seemed to have given way within her; and as she drew
herself up to her full height, her look and attitude wore every sign of
haughty indignation.
Lady Hester looked at her for a few seconds with a glance of searching
import. Perhaps for a moment the possibility of a deception struck her,
and that this might only be feigned; but as suddenly did she recognize
the unerring traits of truth, and said,
“What! child, are you angry with me?”
“Oh no, no!” said Kate, bursting into tears, and kissing the hand that
was now extended towards her, “oh no, no! but I could hate myself for
what seems so like ingratitude.”
“Come, sit down here at my feet on this stool, and tell me all about it;
for, after all, I could forgive them the jar and the camellias, if they
'd only have gone away afterwards. And of course the lesson will not be
thrown away upon you, not to be easily deceived again.”
“How, deceived?” exclaimed Kate. “She was very ill. I saw it myself.”
“Nonsense, child. The trick is the very stalest piece of roguery going.
Since Toe Morris, as they call him the man that treads upon people, and
by his apologies scrapes acquaintance with them there is nothing less
original. Why, just before we left England, there was old Bankhead got
into Slingsby House, merely because the newspapers might announce
his death at the Earl of Grindleton's 'on the eighth, of a few days'
illness, deeply regretted by the noble lord, with whom he was on a
visit.' Now, that dear Ricketts woman would almost consent to take leave
of the world for a similar paragraph. I 'm sure I should know nothing of
such people but that Sir Stafford's relations have somewhat enlightened
me. He has a nest of cousins down in Shropshire, not a whit better than
your I was going to call them 'your friends,' the Rickettses.”
“It is almost incredible to suppose this could be artifice.”
“Why so, child? There is no strategy too deep for people who are always
aspiring to some society above them. Besides, after all, I was in a
measure prepared for this.”
“Prepared for it!”
“Yes; Jekyl told me that if they once got in, it would be next to
impossible to keep them out afterwards. A compromise, he said, was the
best thing; to let them have so many days each year, with certain small
privileges about showing the house to strangers, cutting bouquets, and
so on; or, if we preferred it, let them carry away a Teniers or a Gerard
Dow to copy, and take care never to ask for it. He inclined to the
latter as the better plan, because, after a certain lapse of time, it
can end in a cut.”
“But this is inconceivable!” exclaimed Kate.
“And yet half the absurd and incongruous intimacies one sees in the
world have had some such origin, and habit will reconcile one to
acquaintance that at first inspired feelings of abhorrence and
detestation. I 'm sure I don 't know one good house in town where there
are not certain intimates that have not the slightest pretension, either
from rank, wealth, distinction, or social qualities, to be there. And
yet, there they are; not merely as supernumeraries, either, but very
prominent and foreground figures, giving advice and offering counsel
on questions of family policy, and writing their vulgar names on every
will, codicil, marriage-settlement, and trust-deed, till they seem to
be part of the genealogical tree, to which, after all, they are only
attached like fungi. You look very unhappy, my poor Kate, at all this;
but, believe me, the system will outlive both of us. And so, now to your
room, and dress for dinner. But I forgot; you have n't got a room; so
Celestine must give you hers, and you will be close beside me, and we
shall be the better able to concert measures about these Ricketts folk,
who really resemble those amiable peasants your father told me of,
on his Irish property, and whom he designated as 'squatters.' I am
delighted that I have n't forgot the word.”
And thus, chatting on, Lady Hester restored Kate's wonted happiness of
nature, sadly shaken as it had been by the contrarieties of the morning.
Nothing, too, was easier than to make her forget a source of irritation.
Ever better satisfied to look on the bright side of life, her
inclinations needed but little aid from conviction to turn her from
gloomy themes to pleasant ones; and already some of the absurdities
of the morning were recurring to her mind, and little traits of Mrs.
Ricketts and her brother were involuntarily coming up through all the
whirlpool of annoyance and confusion in whicli th y had been submerged.
The coming dinner, too, engrossed some share of her thoughts; for it
was a grand entertainment, to which all Lady Hester's most distinguished
friends were invited. An Archduke and a Cardinal were to make part of
the company, and Kate looked forward to meeting these great personages
with no common interest. It was less the vulgar curiosity of observing
the manners and bearing of distinguished characters, than the delight
she felt in following out some child-invented narrative of her future
life, some fancied story of her own career, wherein Princes and Prelates
were to figure, and scenes of splendor and enjoyment to follow each
other in rapid succession.