Mr. Farrel-Austin lived in a house which was called the Hatch, though I
cannot tell what is the meaning of the name. It was a modern house, like
hundreds of others, solid and ugly, and comfortable enough, with a small
park round it, and--which it could scarcely help having in
Berkshire--some fine trees about it. Farrel-Austin had a good deal of
property; his house stood upon his own land, though his estate was not
very extensive, and he had a considerable amount of money in good
investments, and some house-property in London, in the City, which was
very valuable. Altogether, therefore, he was very well off, and lived in
a comfortable way with everything handsome about him. All his family at
present consisted of the two daughters who came with him to visit
Whiteladies, as we have seen; but he had married a second time, and had
an ailing wife who was continually, as people say, having
“expectations,” which, however, never came to anything. He had been
married for about ten years, and during this long period Mrs.
Farrel-Austin’s expectations had been a joke among her neighbors; but
they were no joke to her husband, nor to the two young ladies, her
step-daughters, who, as they could not succeed to the Austin lands
themselves, were naturally very desirous to have a brother who could do
so. They were not very considerate of Mrs. Austin generally, but in
respect to her health they were solicitous beyond measure. They took
such care of her that the poor woman’s life became a burden to her, and
especially at the moment when there were expectations did this care and
anxiety overflow. The poor soul had broken down, body and mind, under
this surveillance. She had been a pretty girl enough when she was
married, and entered with a light heart upon her functions, not afraid
of what might happen to her; but Mr. Farrel-Austin’s unsatisfied longing
for an heir, and the supervision of the two sharp girls who grew up so
very soon to be young ladies, and evidently considered, as their father
did, that the sole use and meaning of their mild young stepmother was to
produce that necessary article, soon made an end of all her
light-heartedness. Her courage totally failed. She had no very strong
emotions any way, but a little affection and kindness were necessary to
keep her going, and this she did not get, in the kind that was
important, at least. Her husband, I suppose, was fond of her, as (of
course) all husbands are of all wives, but she could not pet or make
friends with the girls, who, short of her possible use as the mother of
an heir, found her very much in their way, and had no inclination to
establish affectionate relations with her. Therefore she took to her
sofa, poor soul, and to tonics, and the state of an invalid--a condition
which, when one has nothing in particular to do in the world, and
nothing to amuse or occupy a flat existence, is not a bad expedient in
its way for the feeble soul, giving it the support of an innocent, if
not very agreeable routine--rules to observe and physic to take. This
was how poor Mrs. Farrel-Austin endeavored to dédommager herself for the
failure of her life. She preserved a pale sort of faded prettiness even
on her sofa; and among the society which the girls collected round them,
there was now and then one who would seek refuge with the mild invalid,
when the fun of the younger party grew too fast and furious. Even, I
believe, the stepmother might have set up a flirtation or two of her own
had she cared for that amusement; but fortunately she had her tonics to
take, which was a more innocent gratification, and suited all parties
better; for a man must be a very robust flirt indeed, whose attentions
can support the frequent interpositions of a maid with a medicine-bottle
and a spoon.
The society of the Farrel-Austins was of a kind which might be
considered very fine, or the reverse, according to the taste of the
critic, though that, indeed, may be said of almost all society. They
knew, of course, and visited, all the surrounding gentry, among whom
there were a great many worthy people, though nothing so remarkable as
to stand out from the general level; but what was more important to the
young ladies, at least, they had the officers of the regiment which was
posted near, and in which there were a great many very noble young
personages, ornaments to any society, who accepted Mr. Farrel-Austin’s
invitations freely, and derived a great deal of amusement from his
household, without perhaps paying that natural tribute of respect and
civility to their entertainers behind their backs, which is becoming in
the circumstances. Indeed, the Farrel-Austins were not quite on the same
social level as the Marquis of Dropmore, or Lord Ffarington, who were
constantly at the Hatch when their regiment was stationed near, nor even
of Lord Alf Groombridge, though he was as poor as a church-mouse; and
the same thing might be said of a great many other honorable and
distinguished young gentlemen who kept a continual riot at the house,
and made great havoc with the cellar, and on Sundays, especially, would
keep this establishment, which ought to have been almost pious in its
good order, in a state of hurry and flurry, and noise and laughter, as
if it had been a hotel. The Austins, it is true, boasted themselves of
good family, though nothing definite was known of them before Henry
VIII.--and they were rich enough to entertain their distinguished
visitors at very considerable cost; but they had neither that rank which
introduces the possessor into all circles, nor that amount of money
which makes up every deficiency. Had one of the Miss Farrel-Austins
married the Marquis or the Earl, or even Lord Alf in his impecuniosity,
she would have been said to have “succeeded in catching” poor Dropmore,
or poor Ffarington, and would have been stormed or wept over by the
gentleman’s relations as if she had been a ragged girl off the
streets--King Cophetua’s beggar-maid herself; notwithstanding that these
poor innocents, Ffarington and Dropmore, had taken advantage of the
father’s hospitalities for months or years before. I am bound to add
that the Farrel-Austins were not only fully aware of this, but would
have used exactly the same phraseology themselves in respect to any
other young lady of their own standing whose fascinations had been
equally exercised upon the well-fortified bosoms of Dropmore and
Company. Nevertheless they adapted themselves to the amusements which
suited their visitors, and in Summer lived in a lively succession of
outdoor parties, spending half of their time in drags, in boats, on race
courses, at cricket-matches, and other energetic diversions. Sometimes
their father was their chaperon, sometimes a young married lady
belonging to the same society, and with the same tastes.
The very highest and the very lowest classes of society have a great
affinity to each other. There was always something planned for Sunday in
this lively “set”--they were as eager to put the day to use as if they
had been working hard all the week and had this day only to amuse
themselves in. I suppose they, or perhaps their father, began to do this
because there was in it the delightful piquancy of sensation which the
blasé appetite feels when it is able to shock somebody else by its
gratifications; and though they have long ago ceased to shock anybody,
the flavor of the sensation lasted. All the servants at the Hatch,
indeed, were shocked vastly, which preserved a little of this delightful
sense of naughtiness. The quieter neighbors round, especially those
houses in which there were no young people, disapproved, also, in a
general way, and called the Miss Austins fast; and Miss Susan
disapproved most strenuously, I need not say, and expressed her contempt
in terms which she took no trouble to modify. But I cannot deny that
there was a general hankering among the younger members of society for a
share in these bruyant amusements; and Everard Austin could not see what
harm it did that the girls should enjoy themselves, and had no objection
to join them, and liked Kate and Sophy so much that sometimes he was
moved to think that he liked one of them more. His house, indeed, which
was on the river, was a favorite centre for their expeditions, and I
think even that though he was not rich, neither of his cousins would
have rejected Everard off-hand without deliberation--for, to be sure, he
was the heir, at present, after their father, and every year made it
less likely that Mrs. Austin would produce the much-wished-for
successor. Neither of them would have quite liked to risk accepting him
yet, in face of all the possibilities which existed in the way of
Dropmore, Ffarington, and Company; but yet they would not have refused
him off-hand.
Now I may as well tell the reader at once that Kate and Sophy
Farrel-Austin were not what either I or he (she) would call _nice_
girls. I am fond of girls, for my own part. I don’t like to speak ill of
them, or give an unfavorable impression, and as it is very probable that
my prejudice in favor of the species may betray me into some relentings
in respect to these particular examples, some softening of their after
proceedings, or explanation of their devices, I think it best to say at
once that they were not nice girls. They had not very sweet natures to
begin with; for the fact is--and it is a very terrible one--that a great
many people do come into the world with natures which are not sweet, and
enter upon the race of life handicapped (if I may be permitted an
irregular but useful expression) in the most frightful way. I do not
pretend to explain this mystery, which, among all the mysteries of
earth, is one of the most cruel, but I am forced to believe it. Kate and
Sophy had never been very _nice_. Their father before them was not
_nice_, but an extremely selfish and self-regarding person, often cross,
and with no generosity or elevation of mind to set them a better
example. They had no mother, and no restraint, except that of school,
which is very seldom more than external and temporary. The young
stepmother had begun by petting them, but neither could nor wished to
attempt to rule the girls, who soon acquired a contempt for her; and as
her invalidism grew, they took the control of the house, as well as
themselves, altogether out of her hands. From sixteen they had been in
that state of rampant independence and determination to have their own
way, which has now, I fear, become as common among girls as it used to
be among boys, when education was more neglected than it is nowadays.
Boys who are at school--and even when they are young men at the
university--must be in some degree of subordination; but girls who do
not respect their parents are absolutely beyond this useful power, and
can be described as nothing but rampant--the unloveliest as well as the
unwholesomest of all mental and moral attitudes. Kate had come out at
sixteen, and since that time had been constantly in this rampant state;
by sheer force and power of will she had kept Sophy back until she also
attained that mature age, but her power ended at that point, and Sophy
had then become rampant too. They turned everything upside down in the
house, planned their life according to their pleasure, over-rode the
stepmother, coaxed the father, who was fond and proud of them--the best
part of his character--and set out thus in the Dropmore and Ffarington
kind of business. At sixteen girls do not plan to be married--they plan
to enjoy themselves; and these noble young gentlemen seemed best adapted
to second their intentions. But it is inconceivable how old a young
woman is at twenty-one who has begun life at sixteen in this tremendous
way. Kate, who had been for five long years thus about the world--at all
the balls, at all the pleasure-parties, at all the races, regattas,
cricket-matches, flower-shows, every kind of country entertainment--and
at everything she could attain to in town in the short season which her
father could afford to give them--felt herself about a hundred when she
attained her majority. She had done absolutely everything that can be
done in the way of amusement--at least in England--and the last Winter
and Spring had been devoted to doing the same sort of thing “abroad.”
There was nothing new under the sun to this unfortunate young
woman--unless, perhaps, it might be getting married, which had for some
time begun to appear a worthy object in her eyes. To make a good match
and gain a legitimate footing in the society to which Dropmore, etc.,
belonged; to be able to give “a good setting down” to the unapproachable
women who ignored her from its heights--and to snatch the delights of a
title by sheer strength and skill from among her hurly-burly of
Guardsmen, this had begun to seem to Kate the thing most worth thinking
of in the world. It was “full time” she should take some such step, for
she was old, blasée, beginning to fear that she must be passée too,--at
one and twenty! Nineteen at the outside is the age at which the rampant
girl ought to marry in order to carry out her career without a
cloud--the marriage, of course, bien entendu, being of an appropriate
kind.
The Sunday which I have just described, on which Miss Susan did not go
to church, had been spent by the young ladies in their usual way. There
had been a river party, preceded by a luncheon at Everard’s house,
which, having been planned when the weather was hot, had of course to be
carried out, though the day was cold with that chill of July which is
more penetrating than December. The girls in their white dresses had
paid for their pleasure, and the somewhat riotous late dinner which
awaited the party at the Hatch had scarcely sufficed to warm their feet
and restore their comfort. It was only next morning, pretty late, over
the breakfast which they shared in Kate’s room, the largest of the two
inhabited by the sisters, that they could talk over their previous day’s
pleasure. And even then their attention was disturbed by a curious piece
of news which had been brought to them along with their tray, and which
was to the effect that Herbert Austin had suddenly and miraculously
recovered his health, thanks having been given for him in the parish
church at St. Austin’s on the previous morning. The gardener had gone to
church there, with the intention of negotiating with the gardener at
Whiteladies about certain seedlings, and he had brought back the
information. His wife had told it to the housekeeper, and the
housekeeper to the butler, and the butler to the young ladies’ maid, so
that the report had grown in magnitude as it rolled onward. Sarah
reported with a courtesy that Mr. Herbert was quite well, and was
expected home directly--indeed, she was not quite sure whether he was
not at home already, and in church when the clergyman read out his name
as returning thanks--that would be the most natural way; and as she
thought it over, Sarah concluded, and said, that this must have been
what she heard.
“Herbert better! what a bore!” said Sophy, not heeding the presence of
the maid. “What right has he to get better, I should like to know, and
cut papa out?”
“Everybody has a right to do the best for themselves, when they can,”
said Kate, whose rôle it was to be sensible; “but I don’t believe it can
be true.”
“I assure you, miss,” said Sarah, who was a pert maid, such as should
naturally belong to such young ladies, “as gardener heard it with his
own ears, and there could be no doubt on the subject. I said, ‘My young
ladies won’t never believe it;’ and Mr. Beaver, he said, ‘They’ll find
as it’s too true!’”
“It was very impudent of Beaver to say anything of the sort,” said Kate,
“and you may tell him so. Now go; you don’t require to wait any longer.
I’ll ring when I’m ready to have my hair done. Hold your tongue, Soph,
for two minutes, till that girl’s gone. They tell everything, and they
remember everything.”
“What do I care?” said Sophy; “if twenty people were here I’d just say
the same. What an awful bore, when papa had quite made up his mind to
have Whiteladies! I should like to do something to that Herbert, if it’s
true; and it’s sure to be true.”
“I don’t believe it,” said Kate reflectively. “One often hears of these
cases rallying just for a week or two--but there’s no cure for
consumption. It would be too teasing if--but you may be sure it isn’t
and can’t be--”
“Everything that is unpleasant comes true,” said Sophy. This was one of
the sayings with which she amused her monde, and made Dropmore and the
rest declare that “By Jove! that girl was not so soft as she looked.” “I
think it is an awful bore for poor papa.”
After they had exhausted this gloomy view of the subject, they began to
look at its brighter side, if it had one.
“After all,” said Sophy, “having Whiteladies won’t do very much for
papa. It is clear he is not going to have an heir, and he can’t leave it
to us; and what good would it do him, poor old thing, for the time he
has to live?”
“Papa is not so very old,” said Kate, “nor so very fond of us, either,
Sophy. He wants it for himself; and so should I, if I were in his
place.”
“He wants it for the coming man,” said Sophy, “who won’t come. I wonder,
for my part, that poor mamma don’t steal a child; I should in her place.
Where would be the harm? and then everybody would be pleased.”
“Except Everard, and whoever marries Everard.”
“So long as that is neither you nor me,” said Sophy, laughing, “I don’t
mind; I should rather like to spite Everard’s wife, if she’s somebody
else. Why should men ever marry? I am sure they are a great deal better
as they are.”
“Speaking of marrying,” said Kate seriously, “far the best thing for you
to do, if it is true about Herbert, is to marry _him_, Sophy. You are
the one that is the most suitable in age. He is just a simple innocent,
and knows nothing of the world, so you could easily have him, if you
liked to take the trouble; and then Whiteladies would be secured, one
way or another, and papa pleased.”
“But me having it would not be like him having it,” said Sophy. “Would
he be pleased? You said not just now.”
“It would be the best that could be done,” said Kate; and then she began
to recount to her sister certain things that Dropmore had said, and to
ask whether Sophy thought they meant anything? which Sophy, wise in her
sister’s concerns, however foolish in her own, did not think they did,
though she herself had certain words laid up from “Alf,” in which she
had more faith, but which Kate scouted. “They are only amusing
themselves,” said the elder sister. “If Herbert does get better, marry
him, Sophy, with my blessing, and be content.”
“And you could have Everard, and we should neither of us change our
names, but make one charming family party--”
“Oh, bosh! I hate your family parties; besides, Everard would have
nothing in that case,” said Kate, ringing the bell for the maid, before
whom they did not exactly continue their discussion, but launched forth
about Dropmore and Alf.
“There’s been some one over here from the barracks this morning,” said
Sarah, “with a note for master. I think it was the Markis’s own man,
miss.”
“Whatever could it be?” cried both the sisters together, for they were
very slipshod in their language, as the reader will perceive.
“And Miss Kate did go all of a tremble, and her cheeks like
strawberries,” Sarah reported in the servants’ hall, where, indeed, the
Markis’s man had already learned that nothing but a wedding could excuse
such goings on.
“We ain’t such fools as we look,” that functionary had answered with a
wink, witty as his master himself.
I do not think that Kate, who knew the world, had any idea, after the
first momentary thrill of curiosity, that Dropmore’s note to her father
could contain anything of supreme importance, but it might be, and
probably was, a proposal for some new expedition, at any one of which
matters might come to a crisis; and she sallied forth from her room
accordingly, in her fresh morning dress, looking a great deal fresher
than she felt, and with a little subdued excitement in her mind. She
went to the library, where her father generally spent his mornings, and
gave him her cheek to kiss, and asked affectionately after his health.
“I do hope you have no rheumatism, papa, after last night. Oh, how cold
it was! I don’t think I shall ever let myself be persuaded to go on the
water in an east wind again.”
“Not till the next time Dropmore asks,” said her father, in his surliest
voice.
“Dropmore, oh!” Kate shrugged her shoulders. “A great deal I care for
what he asks. By-the-bye, I believe this is his cipher. Have you been
hearing from Dropmore this morning, papa? and what does his most noble
lordship please to want?”
“Bah! what does it matter what he wants?” said Mr. Farrel-Austin,
savagely. “Do you suppose I have nothing to do but act as secretary for
your amusements? Not when I have news of my own like what I have this
morning,” and his eye reverted to a large letter which lay before him
with “Whiteladies” in a flowery heading above the date.
“Is it true, then, that Herbert is better?” said Kate.
“Herbert better! rubbish! Herbert will never be better; but that old
witch has undermined me!” cried the disappointed heir, with flashing
eyes.