settlement made on her at her marriage. "Do you think my baby will be a
boy, Mr. Layne?" she asked--as if it were possible for me to tell! "If
it is not," she went on, "I shall have to turn out of my home here, and
I have not another to go to in the wide world." And then it was, seeing
my surprise, that she said there had been no settlement. "It was not
my husband's intentional fault," she continued, "and I will never have
him blamed, come what will. Things were unpleasant at my home, and we
hurried on the marriage, he and I, so that he might take me out of it,
and there was no time to get a settlement drawn up, even had we, either
of us, thought of it, which we did not." Listening to this, the notion
struck me that it must have been something like a runaway marriage; but
I said nothing, only bade her take heart and hope for a boy. "I cannot
imagine any lot in life now so delightful as this would be--that I and
my baby-boy should live on in this charming place together--I training
him always for good," she continued--and a faint pink came into her
delicate cheek as she said it, a yearning look into her hazel eyes. "You
would help me to keep him in health and make him strong, would you not,
Mr. Layne?" I answered that I would do my best. Poor thing! she was only
eighteen yesterday, she told me. I hope she'll be able to keep the
place; I hope it won't go over her head to rough Parker Chavasse. And
a rough-mannered man he is: I saw him once.
Coming home I met Thompson. The lawyer stopped, ever ready for a chat. I
spoke about this expected child, and the changes its arrival might make.
"It's quite true that Lady Chavasse would have to turn out," said he.
"Every individual shilling is entailed. Books, plate, carriages--it all
goes with the title. I'm not sure but Sir Peter's old clothes have to be
thrown in too, so strict is the entail. No settlement on her, you say,
Layne? My good fellow, old Peter had nothing to settle. He had spent his
income regularly, and there lay nothing beyond it. I've heard that that
was one of the reasons why the Custs objected to the match." Well, it
seemed a curious position: I thought so as Thompson went off; but I
don't understand law, and can take his word for it. And now to bed.
If----
What's that? A carriage drawing up to the house, and the night-bell! I
am wanted somewhere as sure as a gun, and my night's rest is stopped,
I suppose. Who'd be a doctor? Listen! There's my wife opening the
street-door. What does she call out to me? Lady Chavasse not well? A
carriage waiting to take me to the Grange? Thank fortune at least that
I have not to walk there.
_May 22nd._--Four days, and nothing noted down. But I have been very
busy, what with Lady Chavasse and other patients. The doubt is over, and
over well. The little child is a boy, and a nice little fellow, too;
healthy, and likely to live. He was born on the 20th. Lady Chavasse, in
her gladness, says she shall get well all one way. I think she will: the
mind strangely influences the body. But my lady is a little hard--what
some might call unforgiving. Her mother came very many miles, posting
across country, to see her and be reconciled, and Lady Chavasse refused
to receive her. Mrs. Cust had to go back again as she came. I should not
like to see my wife treat her mother so.
_May 30th._--The child is to be named Geoffry Arthur. Sir Peter had a
dislike to his own name, and had said he hoped never to call a boy of
his by the same. Lady Chavasse, mindful of his every wish, has fixed on
the other two. I asked her if they were the names of relatives: she
laughed and said, No; she chose them because she thought them both
nice-sounding and noble names.
The above is all that need be copied from Mr. Layne: one has to be chary
of space. Little Sir Geoffry grew and thrived: and it was a pleasure,
people say, to see how happy his mother and he were, and how she devoted
herself to him. He had come to her in the midst of her desolation, when
she had nothing else to care for in life. It was already seen that he
would be much like his father, who had been a very good-looking man
in his day. Little Geoffry had Sir Peter's fair complexion and his
dark-blue eyes. He was a sweet, tractable child; and Lady Chavasse
thought him just an angel come down from heaven.
Time went on. When Geoffry was about seven years old--and a very
pretty boy, with fair curls--he went out surreptitiously on a fishing
expedition, fell into the pond, and was nearly drowned. It left a severe
cold upon him, which his nurse, Wilkins, said served him right. However,
from that time he seemed to be less strong; and at length Lady Chavasse
took him to London to show him to the doctors. The doctors told her he
ought to be, for a time, in a warmer climate: and she went with him into
Devonshire. But he still kept delicate. And the upshot was that Lady
Chavasse let the Grange for a long term to the Goldingham family, and
went away.
And so, many years passed. The Goldinghams lived on at the Grange: and
Lady Chavasse nearly slipped out of remembrance. Mr. Layne fell into ill
health as he grew older, and advertised for a partner. It was Duffham
who answered it (a youngish man then) and they went into arrangements.
It is necessary to say something of Mr. Layne's children. There were
four of them, girls. The eldest, Susan, married a Lieutenant Layne (some
distant relative, who came from the West Indies), and went with him to
India, where his regiment was serving, taking also her next sister,
Eleanor. The third, Elizabeth, was at home; the young one, Mary, born
several years after the others, was in a school as governess-pupil, or
under-teacher. It is not often that village practitioners can save
money, let alone make a fortune.
The next thing was, that Mr. Layne died. His death made all the
difference to his family. Mr. Duffham succeeded to the practice; by
arrangement he was to pay something yearly for five years to Mrs. Layne;
and she had a small income of her own. She would not quit the house; it
was hers now her husband was gone. Mr. Duffham took one opposite: a tall
house, with a bow-window to the parlour: before that, he had been in
apartments. Mary Layne came home about this time, and stayed there for
some weeks. She had been much overworked in the school, and Mrs. Layne
thought she required rest. She was a pleasing girl, with soft brown
eyes and a nice face, and was very good and gentle; thinking always of
others, never of self. Old Duffham may choose to deny it now he's grown
older, but he thought her superior then to the whole world.
Matters were in this state when news spread that the Goldinghams had
received notice to quit the Grange: Sir Geoffry, who would be of age the
following year, was coming home to it with his mother. Accordingly the
Goldinghams departed; and the place was re-embellished and put in order
for the rightful owner. He arrived in April with Lady Chavasse: and I'll
copy for you what Duffham says about it. Mr. Layne had then been dead
about two years.
[_From Mr. Duffham's Diary._]
_April 29th._--The new people--or I suppose I ought to say the old
people--reached the Grange yesterday, and I was called in to-day to the
lady's-maid--Wilkins. My lady I don't like; Sir Geoffry I do. He is a
good-looking, slight young man of middle height, with a fair refined
face and honest eyes, blue as they tell me Sir Peter's used to be.
An honourable, well-intentioned young fellow I am sure; affable and
considerate as his mother is haughty. Poor Layne used to cry her up; he
thought great things of her. I do not. It may be that power has made
her selfish, and foreign travel imperious; but she's both selfish and
imperious now. She is nice-looking still; and though she wants but a
year of forty, and her son is only one-and-twenty, they are almost
like brother and sister. Or would be, but for Sir Geoffry's exceeding
consideration for his mother; his love and deference for her are a
pattern to the young men of the present day. She has trained him to be
obedient, that's certain, and to love her too: and so I suppose she has
done her duty by him well. He came down the broad walk with me from the
hall-door, talking of his mother: I had happened to say that the place
must seem quite strange to Lady Chavasse. "Yes, it must," he answered.
"She has exiled herself from it for my sake. Mr. Duffham," he continued
warmly, "you cannot imagine what an admirable mother mine has been! She
resigned ease, rest, society, to devote herself to me. She gave me a
home-tutor, that she might herself watch over and train me; she went to
and fro between England and foreign places with me everlastingly; even
when I was at Oxford, she took a house a mile or two out, that we might
not be quite separated. I pray Heaven constantly that I may never cross
her in thought, word, or deed: but live only to repay her love." Rather
Utopian this: but I honour the young fellow for it. I've only seen him
for an hour at most, and am already wishing there were more like him in
the world. If his mother has faults, he does not see them; he will never
honour any other woman as he honours her. A contrast, this, to the
contempt, ingratitude, and disrespect that some sons think it manly to
show their best and truest earthly parent.
My lady is vexed, I can see, at this inopportune illness of her maid's;
for the Grange is all upside down with the preparations for the grand
_fête_ to be held on the 20th of next month, when Sir Geoffry will
come of age. Wilkins has been in the family for many years: she was
originally the boy's nurse: and is quite the right hand of Lady
Chavasse, so far as household management goes. Her illness just now
_is_ inopportune.
[_End, for the present, of Mr. Duffham's Diary._]
Nothing was talked of, in the village or out of it, but the grand doings
that were to usher in the majority of Sir Geoffry. As to Lady Chavasse,
few people had seen her. Her maid's illness, as was supposed, kept her
indoors; and some of the guests were already arriving at the Grange.
One morning, when it wanted about a week to the 20th, Mrs. Layne, making
a pillow-case at her parlour window, in her widow's cap and spectacles,
with the Venetian blind open to get all the light she could, was
startled by seeing Lady Chavasse's barouche draw up to her door, and
Lady Chavasse preparing to descend from it. Mrs. Layne instinctively
rose, as to a superior, and took her glasses off: it has been said she
was of a humble turn: and upon Lady Chavasse fixing her eyes upon her
in what seemed some surprise, dropped a curtsy, and thought to herself
how fortunate it was she happened to have put a clean new cap on. With
that, Lady Chavasse said something to the footman, who banged the
carriage-door to, and ordered the coachman across the road. Mrs. Layne
understood it at once: she had come to the house in mistake for
Duffham's. Of course, with that grand carriage to look at opposite, and
the gorgeous servants, and my lady, in a violet velvet mantle trimmed
with ermine, alighting and stepping in to Duffham's, Mrs. Layne let fall
her pillow-case, and did no more of it. But she was not prepared, when
Lady Chavasse came out again with Mr. Duffham, to see him escort
her over the road to her gate. Mrs. Layne had just time to open her
parlour-door, and say to the servant, "In the other room: show her
ladyship into the other room," before she went off into complete
bewilderment, and ran away with the pillow-case.
The other room was the best room. Mary Layne sat there at the old piano,
practising. She had seen and heard nothing of all this; and rose in
astonishment when the invasion took place. A beautiful lady, whom Mary
did not know or recognize, was holding out a delicately-gloved hand to
her, and saying that she resembled her father. It was Mary Layne's first
meeting with Lady Chavasse: she had just come home again from some heavy
place of teaching, finding her strength unequal to it.
"I should have known you, I think, for a daughter of Mr. Layne's had I
met you in the street," said Lady Chavasse, graciously.
Mary was blushing like anything. Lady Chavasse thought her an elegant
girl, in spite of the shabby black silk she was dressed in: very pretty
too. At least, it was a nice countenance; and my lady quite took to it.
Mrs. Layne, having collected her wits, and taken off her apron, came in
then: and Mary, who was humble-minded also, though not exactly in the
same way that her mother was, modestly retired.
My lady was all graciousness: just as much so that morning as she used
to be. Perhaps the sight of Mrs. Layne put her in mind of the old days
when she was herself suffering trouble in a widow's cap, and not knowing
how matters would turn out for her, or how they would not. She told Mrs.
Layne that she had, unthinkingly, bid her servants that morning drive to
_Mr. Layne's!_ and it was only when she saw Mrs. Layne at the window in
her widow's cap, that she remembered the mistake. She talked of her son
Geoffry, praising his worth and his goodness; she bade Mrs. Layne to the
_fête_ on the 20th, saying she must come and bring her two daughters,
and she would take no denial. And Mrs. Layne, curtsying again--which did
not become her, for she was short and stout--opened the front-door to
her ladyship with her own hands, and stood there curtsying until the
carriage had dashed away.
"We'll go on the 20th," she said to her daughters. "I didn't like to say
nay to her ladyship; and I should be glad to see what the young heir's
like. He was as pretty a boy as you'd wish to see. There'll no doubt be
some people there of our own condition that we can mix with, and it will
be in the open air: so we shan't feel strange."
But when the day arrived, and they had reached the Grange, it seemed
that they felt very strange. Whether amidst the crowds they did not find
any of their "own condition," or that none were there, Mrs. Layne did
not know. Once, they came near Lady Chavasse. Lady Chavasse, surrounded
by a bevy of people that Mrs. Layne took to be lords and ladies--and
perhaps she was right--bowed distantly, and waved her hand, as much as
to say, "Make yourselves at home, but don't trouble me:" and Mrs. Layne
curtsyed herself to a respectful distance. It was a fine bright day,
very warm; and she sat on a bench in the park with her daughters,
listening to the band, looking at the company, and wondering which was
the heir. Some hours seemed to pass in this way, and gradually the
grounds grew deserted. People were eating and drinking in a distant
tent--the lords and ladies Mrs. Layne supposed, and she did not presume
to venture amongst them. Presently a young man approached, who had
observed from a distance the solitary group. A fat old lady in widow's
mourning; and the younger ones in pretty white bonnets and new black
silks.
"Will you allow me to take you where you will find some refreshment?" he
said, raising his hat, and addressing Mrs. Layne.
She paused before answering, taken aback by his looks, as she described
it afterwards, for he put her in mind of Sir Peter. It was as nice a
face as Sir Peter's used to be, clean-shaved, except for the light
whiskers: and if those were not Sir Peter's kindly blue eyes, why,
her memory failed her. But the dress puzzled Mrs. Layne: he wore a
dark-blue frock-coat and grey trousers, a white waistcoat with a thin
gold chain passed across it and a drooping seal: all very nice and
gentlemanly certainly, but quite plain. What she had expected to see the
heir attired in, Mrs. Layne never afterwards settled with herself:
perhaps purple and miniver.
"I beg your pardon sir," she said, speaking at length, "but I think you
must be Sir Geoffry?"
"Yes, I am Sir Geoffry."
"Lord bless me!" cried Mrs. Layne.
She told him who she was, adding, as an apology for being found there,
that her ladyship had invited her and her girls, and wouldn't take a
denial. Geoffry held out his arm cordially to lead her to the tent, and
glanced behind at the "girls," remembering what his mother had said to
him of one of them: "a sweet-looking young woman, Geoffry, poor Layne's
daughter, quite an elegant girl." Yes, she was sweet-looking and elegant
also, Geoffry decided. The elder one was like her mother, short, stout,
and--Geoffry could not help seeing it--commonplace. He told Mrs. Layne
that he could remember her husband still: he spoke of a ride the doctor
had taken him, seated before him on his horse; and altogether in that
short minute or two won, by his true affability, the heart of the
doctor's widow.
The tent was crowded to confusion. Waiters were running about, and there
was much rattle of knives and forks. Sir Geoffry could find only two
places anywhere; at which he seated Mrs. Layne and her daughter
Elizabeth, according to precedence.
"I will find you a place in the other tent, if you will come with me,"
he said to Mary.
She wished to refuse. She had a suspicion that the other tent was the
one for the "lords and ladies," people who were altogether above her.
But Sir Geoffry was holding up the canvas for her to pass out, and she
was too timid to disobey. He walked by her side almost in silence,
speaking a courteous word or two only, to put her at her ease. The band
was playing "The Roast Beef of Old England."
But the other tent seemed in worse confusion as far as crowding went.
Some one turned on her seat to accost Sir Geoffry: a slight, upright
girl, with finely-carved features of that creamy white rarely seen, and
a haughty expression in her very light eyes.
"You are being waited for, Geoffry. Don't you know that you preside?"
"No; nonsense!" he answered. "There's to be nothing of that sort,
Rachel; no presiding. I am going to walk about and look out for stray
people. Some of the strangers will get nothing, if they are not seen
after. Could you make room for one by you?"
"Who is it?" she asked.
Sir Geoffry said a word in her ear, and she moved a few inches higher
up. He stepped back to Mary Layne. She had been looking at the young
lady, who was so richly dressed--in some thin material of shimmering
blue and lace--and who was so utterly at her ease as to be sitting
without her bonnet, which she had put at her feet.
"We have made a place for you," said Sir Geoffry. "I fear you will be
a little crowded. Miss Layne, Rachel."
Mary waited to thank him before taking it. Her cheeks were full of
blushes, her soft dark eyes went out to his. She felt ashamed that he
should take so much trouble for her, and strove to say so. Sir Geoffry
held her hand while he answered, his own eyes looking back again.
But Mary sat for some minutes before any one came to wait on her. The
young lady whom Sir Geoffry had called Rachel was busy with her own
plate, and did not observe. Presently, she looked round.
"Dear me! what are they about? Field!" she imperatively called to the
butler, who was passing. He turned at once.
"My lady?"
"Have the goodness to attend here," said Lady Rachel, indicating the
vacant space before Miss Layne. "This young lady has had nothing."
"So I really am amidst the lords and ladies," thought Mary, as the
butler presented her with a card of the dishes, made out in French, and
inquired what she would be pleased to take. She was inexperienced and
shy; and did not know where to look or what to say. Lady Rachel spoke to
her once or twice, and was civilly distant: and so the half-hour was got
over. When Sir Geoffry's health was proposed by Lord L., the young
baronet suddenly appeared in his rightful place at the head of the
table. He thanked them all very heartily in a few words; and said he
hoped he _should_ live long, as they had all just been wishing him, live
that he might repay his dear mother one tithe of the sacrifices she had
made, and the love she had lavished on him.
The cheers broke forth as he finished, his eyes wet with the sincerity
of his feeling, the music burst out with a crash, "See the conquering
hero comes," and Mary Layne felt every nerve thrill within her; as if
she would faint with the excess of unwonted emotion.
[_Mr. Duffham's Diary._]
_June 2nd._--The rejoicings are well over, and Sir Geoffry Chavasse is
his own master. In law, at any rate; but it strikes me he will never
know any will but his mother's. It's not that he possesses none of his
own--rather the contrary, I fancy; but in his filial love and reverence
he merges it in hers. It is, on the one hand, good to see; on the other,
one can but fancy his ideal of the fifth commandment is somewhat
exaggerated. Lady Chavasse on her part seems bound up in him. To him
there is no sign of imperiousness, no assertion of self-will: and, so
far as can be seen, she does not _exact_ deference. "Geoffry, would you
wish this?" she says. "Geoffry, would you like the other? My darling
Geoffry, don't you think it might be well to do so-and-so?" No. It is a
case of genuine filial respect and love; and one can but honour Lady
Chavasse for have gained it.
My lady has condescended to be almost confidential with me. The illness
of her maid has been a long and serious one, and I have had to be a good
deal at the Grange. "Sir Geoffry is engaged to be married, Mr. Duffham,"
she said to me yesterday, when our conversation had turned--as it often
does turn--on Sir Geoffry. I could not help showing some surprise: and,
one word leading to another, I soon grasped the whole case. Not so much
by what she directly said, as by the habit I have of putting two-and-two
together.
Conspicuous amidst the guests at the _fête_ on the 20th of May, was Lady
Rachel Derreston: a cold, self-possessed girl, with strictly classical
features, and the palest blue eyes I ever saw. It would be a very
handsome face--and indeed _is_ so--but for its cold, proud expression;
she is the daughter of one of Lady Chavasse's sisters, who married the
Earl of Derreston, and is now a very slenderly-portioned widow with some
expensive daughters. It is to this Lady Rachel that Sir Geoffry is
engaged. The engagement is not of his own seeking, or of hers; the two
mothers settled it between them when the children were young; they have
been brought up to look on each other as future husband and wife, and
have done so as a matter-of-course. Neither of them, by what I can
gather, has the slightest intention, or wish, to turn aside from
fulfilling the contract: they will ratify it in just the same business
manner and with the same calm feelings that they would take the lease
of a house. It is not their fault: they should not have been led into
it. Human nature is cross and contrary as a crab: had the two young
people been thrown together now for the first time, and been warned
_not_ to fall in love with each other, the chances are they would have
tumbled headlong into it before the week was out: as it is, they like
each other as cousins, or brother and sister, but they'll never
get beyond that. _I_ can see. The two old sisters have a private
understanding with each other--and my young Lady Rachel dutifully
falls in with it--that after the marriage Lady Chavasse shall still
live and rule at the Grange. Indeed she implied it when she let fall
the words, perhaps unthinkingly--"Geoffry would never marry to put me
out of my home here, Mr. Duffham." And I am sure that he never would.
Lady Rachel is here still. I often see her and Sir Geoffry together,
indoors or out; but I have never yet seen a symptom of courtship on
either side. They call each other "Geoffry" and "Rachel;" and are
as indifferently familiar as brother and sister. That they will be
sufficiently happy with a quiet, moonlight kind of happiness, is almost
sure. I find that I am not at liberty to mention this engagement
abroad: and that's why I say my lady has grown confidential with me.
_June 29th._--Wilkins continues very ill; and it puts my lady about
amazingly. The maid who has been taking Wilkins's duties, Hester Picker,
is a country girl of the locality, Goody Picker's daughter; her services
being as different from those of the easy, experienced Wilkins, as
darkness is from light. "She manages my hair atrociously," cried my lady
to me, one day, in her vexation; "she attempted to write a note for
me in answer to inquiries for the character of my late page, and the
spelling was so bad it could not be sent."
Lady Rachel has left. Sir Geoffry escorted her to her home (near Bath),
stayed two days there, and came back again. And glad to be back,
evidently: he does not care to be long separated from his mother. The
more I see of this young fellow, the more I like him. He has no bad
habits; does not smoke or swear: reads, rides, drives, loves flowers,
and is ever ready to do a good turn for rich or poor. "You appear to
have grown up quite strong, Sir Geoffry," I said to him to-day when we
were in the greenhouse, and he leaped on a ledge to do something or
other to the broken cord of the window. "Oh, quite," he answered. "I
think I am stronger and heartier than most men: and I owe thanks for
it to my mother. It was not only my health of body she cared for and
watched over, but of mind. She taught me to love rational pursuits; she
showed me how to choose the good, and reject the evil: it is she alone
who has made me what I am."