The London season had ended: so Lady Inskip, having packed up her
baggage waggons, gathered her _impedimenta_ around her, and mustered her
forces, consisting of her two grown-up daughters, her only son, a young
imp of twelve summers; her maid, a knowing abigail; and lastly, though
by no means least, herself--put her regiment in marching order; and
sallied down with metaphorical bands playing and colours flying to the
quiet little watering place of Bigton, to prosecute a sort of
son-in-law-hunting war during the summer solstice.
For be it known, Lady Inskip was a campaigner--one, too, who had fought
many a fray on many a field, from the era of her first battle when she
had, with an equally adept old mother for an ally, striven for a husband
and a title, and an establishment in life, and had won the three
combined in the person of her departed spouse, the late Sir John O'Gaunt
Inskip, Bart.--down to her last little skirmish in Mayfair, where she
had attempted to float off her two remaining daughters--her eldest she
had gotten rid of handsomely some time before. She had then and there
been routed disastrously, before she could draw up her forces for a
regular pitched battle; but it was not her fault, or from lack of
perseverance or want of judgment on her part, as she had been unable to
fix upon any special young or old gentleman--it did not matter which--
whom she deemed or doomed as eligible for her matrimonial projects.
She was not daunted, however: not she! She was too old and experienced
a campaigner for that, and had regularly changed her front mapped out
her _carte du pays_, and planned out an entirely new disposition of her
forces before coming down to Bigton. She contemplated a bold stroke,
somewhat like Napoleon's procedure at Austerlitz, or, better still, his
invasion of Egypt; and had determined to follow the tactics of other
experienced commanders, and "carry the war into Africa."
It was not a very colossal adversary against whom she schemed and
plotted, and collected such munitions of war--it was only Tom
Hartshorne--poor Tom, whom she had met in London, and who seemed
inclined for a mild flirtation with her pensive Laura, and lively, not
to say "larky," Carry--especially at the last Woolwich Artillery ball,
when his attentions had been "really quite marked!" That unfortunate
young officer having sauntered through a quadrille with Laura, and told
the exuberant Carry, after a waltz, that she was "a stunner to go." He
certainly, however, criminated himself to some extent, by calling the
next day at their house in town, and playing pretty to, and chaffing
both girls.
Mr Thomas Hartshorne she had found out--strange what wonderful
perspicacity and knowledge of the means, standing, and expectations of
wooers and would-be sons-in-law, mothers with marriageable daughters
have!--was in a very good position, and was the presumptive heir to the
present proprietress of The Poplars.
She had made up her mind, therefore, to secure him at all hazards for
one of her "dear, darling, girls." He was, consequently, the object of
her present visit to Bigton. Tom was the game marked down _in esse_,
although goodness knows, with the hopeful ground of a watering place to
work upon, and its heterogeneous crowds of visitors, and its romantic
opportunities, who and how many, without agitating Mormonism, might not
be the victims _in posse_!
Lady Inskip was the widow of a Scotch baronet, who had married her for
her good looks rather than her fortune--unlike the generality of his
countrymen--for a very limited trousseau was all she brought him; and
even now, some twenty years after her marriage, she was still what
Doctor Jolly would, and did, call "a fine figure of a woman, sir, by
Gad!"
Her two daughters were very nice, presentable girls; Laura a sort of
languid beauty, and Carry "gushing," and a trifle inclined to be fast.
The boy, Mortimer, was an obstinate, headstrong, young cub, just of that
age when boys are peculiarly obnoxious and always in the way and
disagreeable. He was, naturally enough, the spoilt pet of his mother,
and for a young baronet had all the graces and follies of the position
which he would be required to fill. But we need not go on to
particularise all the points of Lady Inskip's _menage_.
Suffice it to say, that she came down to Bigton very shortly after Tom
had left town. You may wager a trifle, if you are inclined to woo
Fortune in that way, that she was previously acquainted with his
destination before she moved her Lares and Penates; and now that she was
here, you may depend that she would leave no stone unturned to secure
her object.
She took a pleasant little cottage on the Esplanade, about half a mile
or so from the town, for a year, and had it fitted up elegantly and
decorated so as to make it a perfect bijou of a place. If you watch a
spider, you will always observe what a magnificent web he spins before
he hunts about or lays in wait for his prey; see what a gorgeous
centre-piece he has to his prismatic castle! Depend upon it that the
spider is certain that his parlour is well-furnished before he invites
the fly to "walk in," as is detailed in the lines of the harrowing
ballad sacred to childhood.
Well, Lady Inskip had a nice little house, nicely furnished, with a nice
little garden all mignionette and passion flowers, and a nice little
croquet lawn, where nice little games of flirtation could be played by
suitable nice young gentlemen with her nice dear darling girls. In fact
it was all "nice"--that adjective so dear to the heart of the gentler
sex, and so lavishly used by them--and so the old campaigner having
entrenched herself within these fortifications, continuing our military
descriptive, prepared to battle for and on behalf her of two daughters
Laura and Caroline, as aforesaid.
She had not been in the place two days, before she knew "all about
everybody." How Captain Curry Cucumber, who lived at the big red brick
house, "just as you passed the common, you know," was an old returned
East India officer (and who was seventy years old if he was a day), was
immensely rich, and had come home with a lakh of rupees to marry and
settle down. He had an "awful temper in course," as his landlady said,
and swore dreadful at his "pore black man," but then he had a sweet
yellow face, and his widow would be left very comfortably off. Then she
learnt too of our old friend the doctor, how he was a gay young
bachelor; and of course she found out all about Mrs Hartshorne, and her
place and her ways and her oddities. She learnt also of the Revd.
Herbert Pringle, and his little church at Hartwood: and as he was a
relative of the great Sir Boanerges Todhunter, and was a young man with
a good living, and probably had property of his own, she made up her
mind to patronise him, especially as he was the protege of the dowager.
Accordingly she and her tender daughters and the young Sir Mortimer
attended divine service at Hartwood the first Sunday of her stay at
Bigton, and she was so wonderfully pleased with the performances of the
ritualistic rector--he was "so like that dear Aminadab, at St.
Barnabas'," that she made up her mind to go there always in future, and
not to patronise the Reverend Jabez, of Bigton.
She met Tom after church. She was "delighted to see him," and made him
promise to call next day and bring the Reverend Herbert Pringle, on his
mentioning that he was a great friend and a nice fellow. The dowager
having bundled out of church immediately the service was over, Lady
Inskip had then had no opportunity to make her acquaintance, although
she assured Tom she was "longing to know her," but as she was an old
lady, she, Lady Inskip, said she would do herself the honour of paying a
visit at The Poplars very shortly.
She was _so_ glad to see Mr Markworth, too, "quite an unexpected
pleasure to see him down here," when she was really mortally afraid of
that worthy, who she could readily perceive, with a woman's mental
keenness of vision, had taken her measure and thoroughly understood her
plans and tactics. Altogether Lady Inskip was delighted with
everything, as, fortunately for her peace of mind, she had not seen the
pretty Lizzie Pringle, and was unaware of Tom's present infatuation
about that young lady, which anyone "with half an eye," except those
personally concerned, would have at once recognised.
She drove back to Bigton, in a very pleasant frame of mind, at peace
with her daughters, herself and everything around her; and her smart
little equipage--a park phaeton and pair of ponies--caused much
excitement amongst the rustics along the road.
Master Tom, not being averse to renewing his flirtation with Miss Carry
and her sister, notwithstanding his being enthralled by Lizzie,
determined to pay a call at the Inskip's little cottage, on the Bigton
esplanade, a morning or two after, and proposed to Markworth that he
should accompany himself and Pringle.
"No, thanks," replied that gentleman, "none of my lady schemer for me!
Look out for her, Tom! She's an awful old pythoness, and would wheedle
the devil himself into marrying one of her plain daughters. Why, she
nearly caught Harrowby `of yours' the other day, and I believe she came
down here after you."
"Never fear, Markworth," answered Tom, as he went off to call on
Pringle, in order to get him to go, and also perhaps to have a glimpse
of Lizzie, to act as a sort of charm against witchery from the Inskip
girls. "Never fear, my boy! I saw her game in London, and shan't be
caught. But they are jolly girls, that little Carry is up to chaff no
end; and they will make this place gayer by coming down. There'll be
nothing but pic-nics and croquet presently, if I know them aright," and
he walked off to get his horse, which George was grooming to make it
look respectable.
Pringle was a very dapper little man. A perfect little exquisite, and
no one was so particular as to the parting of his hair, the curl of his
whiskers, and the general "nattiness" of his turn out, as himself. He
had seen the fair Laura and Caroline in church, and their presence had
lent a perceptible tone to the pronunciation of his "awe-men," and the
delivery of his sermon. He saw they were well dressed, but when he
learnt that Tom knew them, and beyond that, that they were the daughters
of a baronet, and their mother a "lady in her own right," he was most
anxious to make their acquaintance. Lizzie told him laughingly not to
lose his heart over the belles, and suggested that he would be quite
irresistible when she saw him so particular about the various points of
his toilet this morning; but he thought it no laughing matter, I can
assure you. He had all the elaborate priggishness of a young man fresh
from college, and was more bent on making an impression than on
pleasing. To tell the truth he had mixed very little in the world, and
the feeling of being a man and occupying a responsible position was
quite a novel one to him.
He was ready long before the hour Tom had fixed for calling for him on
his way to Bigton, and was walking up and down the verandah in front of
the parsonage, waiting impatiently, and flicking the flies off his pony,
which stood ready saddled for the start.
"By Jove!" he said (he had not been able to break himself of that
expression, more suited to the laity, which he had picked up at Oxford),
"I wish he would come: we shall be too late!" and at that moment Tom
rode in at the gate. After passing a little time speaking to Lizzie,
who told him, too, not to "lose his heart," to which little shot Tom
replied in a low voice--they had become intimate now, you see--that he
had lost his already, which caused Miss Violet Eyes to blush, of course
from sorrow; they at length rode off, and the promised visit was made to
Lady Inskip, at Laburnum Cottage.
Poor Pringle was dreadfully embarrassed during the time he was under the
eyes of the three ladies, and the "young imp" Mortimer caused him to
lose what little self-possession he had, by making some observation on
the parting of his back hair, asking him what was the perfume on his
"rag," alluding to his pocket-handkerchief, and finally by playfully
pulling away his chair as he was going to sit down. He blushed all the
time of his stay, although Lady Inskip was very affable to him, and the
girls expressed the most intense admiration for his little church and
all its belongings. The only easy moment he had when he could speak
clearly was when "the darling girls," as their mother called them, came
out on the lawn to admire his dapple pony, and called it "a little
duck:" then Pringle had longed in his inmost heart to be that pony, for
he was enraptured with the langour and beauty of Laura. Carry
frightened him with her chaffy tongue, and by the way she went on with
Tom, who seemed quite "at home," as he generally made himself at most
places.
The young men left after a lengthy stay, and the ladies very naturally,
canvassed them on their departure.
"What a nice fellow--regularly jolly fellow Tom Hartshorne is!" said
Miss Caroline, "but the parson's a spoon!"
"My dear Carry!" interposed Lady Inskip, "I do really wish you would not
talk in those horrid slang terms! It is quite shocking! Mr Hartshorne
is a very nice gentleman, of course, and I think Mr Pringle the same
thing. He's very quiet naturally; you cannot expect a clergyman,
Caroline, to be as gay and `jolly,' as you call it, as a young officer.
I'm surprised at you, miss."
"He preaches delightfully!" observed the beauty languidly, "and I think
him very nice; he was only bashful!"
"I suppose at the sight of you, Laura?" said the pert Miss Carry. "But
he has one good point about him, and that is his pony. I wonder if it
is up to my weight?" a very natural enquiry, as she probably weighed
considerably heavier than the owner of the animal, and was what an
outspoken individual would have termed "a bouncer."
"I'm glad he's coming again; we shall have some croquet," continued the
elder sister. "Yes, my dears," said the mother. "We must make him at
home; he's a very nice young man." She had already looked upon the
Oxonian as "eligible," and was bent on making him a captive of her bow
and spear.
"Well, for my part, I think him a donkey, and do not care whether he
comes or not."
"Caroline! Caroline! Is this the return you make me for all I have
done for you, and planned and schemed on my bended knees! ungrateful
girl!" said Lady Inskip plaintively, as if she was going to cry.
"Oh, don't go on, ma, any more. We know all that! Laura can have the
white-choker if she likes: I will cultivate Tom."
"Bless you my child!" said the mother, "you are rash and impetuous, but
you have a good heart."
Volume 1, Chapter X.