THE CONWAY HOUSEHOLD.
And ye shall walk in silk attire,
And siller hae to spare,
Gin ye'll consent to be his bride,
Nor think of Donald mair.
Miss BLAMIRE.
What makes you so lame to-day?' asked Lord Ormersfield, as Louis
crossed the library, on returning from an interview to which he had
been summoned in another room.
'I only stumbled over an obstruction on the Frost staircase yesterday,'
said Louis. 'Poor Jem chose to have me up to the nursery; and to see
him in the paternal character is the funniest as well as the
pleasantest spectacle the house affords.'
'Ah! it is not what it was,' said the Earl. 'I suppose I must call
there before the holidays, though,' he added, reluctantly. 'But what
did that man, Ramsbotham, want with you?'
'To ask our interest for that appointment for his friend Grant.'
'Indeed! what could bring him here?'
'Why, unluckily, he fancied he had some claim on me, on the score of
Jem Frost's election. I was too innocent then to know what those
things go for.'
'You may say so!' ejaculated the Earl. 'So he was insolent enough to
bring that up, was he?'
'Worse,' said Fitzjocelyn; 'he wanted to threaten that, unless I would
oblige him now, there were matters which it was his duty to lay before
the trustees. I told him he would do, of course, whatever was his
duty; whereupon he thought my Lordship was interested in Mr. Frost.'
'Intolerably impertinent! I hope you set him down!'
'I told him that neither Mr. Frost nor I should wish him to pretermit
his duty on any consideration whatever. Then he harked back to what he
did for us at the election; and I was forced to tell him that if he
considered that he had thereby established a claim on me, I must own
myself in his debt; but as to reciprocating it, by putting in a person
like Grant, that was against my conscience. He flew into a passion,
informed me that Mr. Frost would take the consequences, mounted the
British Lion, and I bowed him out upon that majestic quadruped, talking
grandly of illiberal prejudices and the rising generation.'
'You acknowledged that he had a claim on you?'
'As things go in this world, I suppose it is true.'
'Louis! you will never know how to deal with those people.'
'I am afraid not. I could not, either boldly or diplomatically, get
rid of the charge; so there was nothing for it but to confess. That's
not the worst of it. I am afraid he really will be able to take
revenge on poor Jem, and I'm sure he can't afford to lose any more
scholars.'
'Such a fellow as that will not have much in his power against James,'
said Lord Ormersfield. 'What I am afraid of is, that you have cut the
ground from under your feet. I cannot see how you are ever to stand
for Northwold.'
'Nor I,' said Louis. 'In fact, father, I have always thought it most
wonderfully kind forbearance that you never reproached me more for my
doings on that occasion. I believe we were all too happy,' he
presently added, with a sigh, which was re-echoed by his father, at the
same time trying to say something about youthfulness, to which Louis,
who had been leaning thoughtfully on the mantelpiece, presently
answered--'How much wiser old people are than young! An original
axiom, is not it? but it is the last which one learns!'
'You would hardly act in the same way now?' said his father.
'I wonder when it ever answers to interfere with the natural course of
events!' responded Louis, musingly. 'There were two things that Mr.
Calcott told me once upon a time.' Those two things he left unuttered.
They were--that the gentleman would be wasted on the school, and that
the lady was not made for a poor man's wife. No wonder they made him
sigh, but he concluded by exclaiming aloud--
'Well, I hope they will both go to Estminster, and come back with fresh
life!'
The Estminster invitation was already on the road; but, unfortunately,
Lady Conway had been unable to secure lodgings large enough to receive
the children. She was urgent, however, that Isabel should come as soon
as possible, since Louisa had been more unwell than usual, and was
pining for her eldest sister; and she hoped that James would join her
there as soon as the holidays should set him free.
James was hurt to find Isabel so much delighted to go, but resolved
that she should not be deprived of the pleasure, and petulantly denied
the offers, which became even entreaties, that she might wait till he
could accompany her. He arranged, therefore, that he should follow her
in a fortnight's time, the Miss Faithfulls undertaking the charge of
their small namesakes; and Lady Conway wrote to fix a day when Delaford
should come to take care of Isabel on her journey.
James and Isabel laughed at this measure. Mrs. James Frost was
certainly not in circumstances to carry such a hero of the buttery in
her suite; and Lady Conway herself had more sense than to have proposed
it, but for Delaford's own representations. In fact, there was a
pretty face at Dynevor Terrace, and he had been piqued enough by the
return of his letters to be resolved on re-establishing his influence.
Therefore did he demonstrate to my Lady that the only appropriate
trains would bring him to Northwold at seven in the evening, and take
him and Mrs. James Frost Dynevor away at eleven next morning; and
therefore did Isabel look up in a sudden fit of recollection, as the
breakfast was being removed, and say, 'Charlotte, Delaford is coming on
Tuesday to fetch me to Estminster, and will sleep here that night.'
Isabel little guessed that in the days when she viewed the fantastic
Viscount as her greatest enemy, the announcement of his approach would
have been far less appalling to her.
'The wretch! the traitor! the vile deceiver!' thought Charlotte, not
chary of her epithets, and almost ready to wreak her vengeance on the
silver spoons. 'He has gone and broken poor Marianne's heart, and now
he wants to treat me the same, and make me faithless to poor Tom, that
is up in the mountain-tops and trusts to me! O me, what shall I do?
Mrs. Beckett is gone, and there's no one to give me an advice! If I
speak to him or scorn him, he'll take his advantage all alike--and his
words are so fine and so soft, that do what I will to hate him when I'm
away, he is sure to wind round me when he's there; and I can't get
away, and I'm a poor, lonely, fatherless and motherless orphan, and a
vain girl, that has listened already to his treacherous suit more than
poor Tom would think for.'
Charlotte worked on in much grief and perplexity for some minutes,
revolving the vanity that had led to her follies, and humbling herself
in her own eyes. Suddenly, a flash of thought crossed her, and woke a
smile upon her face, almost a look of mischief. She tied on a clean
apron, and running upstairs, opened the drawing-room door, and said,
'If you please, ma'am, might I ask Miss Faithfull's Martha to tea on
Tuesday night?'
'Oh yes, if you like,' said Isabel, never raising her eyes from the
rebuilding of the ruined chapel in the valley.
Away skipped Charlotte, and in two minutes was at the back door of the
House Beautiful. Mrs. Martha had been grimly kind to her ever since
she had been afflicted with the cook for a fellow-servant, and received
her only with a reproof for coming gadding out, when she ought to be
hard at work; but when she heard the invitation, she became
wrathful--she had rather go ten miles out of her way than even look at
'that there Ford.'
But Charlotte explained her purpose, and implored, and put her in mind
that Mrs. Beckett was gone, and she had no protector; and Martha
relented, told her that if she had minded her she would never have been
in the scrape at all, but agreed, not without satisfaction, to afford
Mr. Delaford the society of his old acquaintance.
And so when Mr. Delaford, with his whiskers freshly curled and his
boots in a state of fascinating polish, walked up Dynevor Terrace, the
door was opened by Ellen, and the red-faced cook and the upright Mrs.
Martha sat on either side the fire. Daintily did he greet them, and
stand warming himself before the fire, adapting his conversation to
them for the next ten minutes, before he ventured to ask whether Miss
Arnold were still an inmate. 'Taking out dinner--taking in tea,'
gruffly replied Martha.
Mr. Delaford waited, but Ellen only ran in for one moment to fetch the
kettle, and Martha discoursed as usual on the gold mines in Peru.
By-and-by, when the parlour tea could by no possibility be supposed to
be farther prolonged, there swept into the kitchen the stately nurse.
Charlotte had run up to the nursery, and begged as a favour that she
might be left to watch the children, while Mrs. Nurse entertained Mr.
Delaford below-stairs; and in pity to so grand a gentleman, constrained
to mix with such 'low servants,' the nurse had yielded, and Charlotte
sat safe and sound by the nursery fire, smiling at his discomfiture,
and reading over Tom's letters with an easier conscience than for many
a day.
Mr. Delaford was too much of a gentleman to be uncivil to the three
dames by the kitchen fire, but he watched every step and every creaking
door. He even went the length of coming up to family prayers, in hopes
of there meeting Charlotte; but she only joined the procession at the
parlour door, and had flown upstairs, like a little bird, before he was
out again.
The gentleman was affronted, and resolved to make her feel it. They
could not but meet at the kitchen breakfast, and he barely acknowledged
her. This was the most trying stroke of all, for it set her, in the
eyes of the cook and nurse, on a level with the inferior servants, to
whom he would not have deigned a look, and it was not easy to resist
showing that she was on more familiar terms with him than all. But the
instinct of self-protection and the wisdom of sincerity came to her
aid. She abstained from raising her eyes to his face, from one
conscious word or glance; she locked herself into her pantry when she
took down the breakfast-things, and avoided every encounter, even when
she had begun to feel that it would have been more flattering had he
made more efforts. At last, dire necessity obliged her to accept his
aid in carrying her mistress's box down the stairs. He walked
backwards, she forwards. She would not meet his eye, and he was too
well-bred for one word on the stairs; but in the garden he exclaimed,
'Miss Arnold, what have I done?'
'I never ought to have listened to you,' said Charlotte. 'It was not
right by neither of us; so please say no more.'
'If you could understand--'
'I don't want to understand nothing.'
Charlotte drove him on with the box till they were close to the fly,
and then, leaving him and the man to adjust the packing, flew back to
announce that all was ready for her mistress. The last kisses were
given to the children, and a message left with Charlotte for her
master, who was in school; then she stood with Miss Catharine in her
arms, and saw the fly drive off.
'Well,' said Mrs. Cook, 'that butler thinks himself a great beau, no
doubt! I asked him whether he thought you pretty, Charlotte, and he
said you hadn't no air nor no complexion. It's as I tells you--nobody
will never take no notice of you while you goes about so dowdy.'
Charlotte did not know whether she was glad that the cook could not
tease her about Delaford, or mortified to be supposed beneath his
notice. No air, forsooth! She who had often heard it said that she
looked like any lady!
'But oh,' said Charlotte to herself, as she spent her daily five
minutes at noonday in quiet thought, 'am I not a poor silly thing not
to be thankful that care has been round me this time, and that I have
not been let to do nothing giddy nor false by Tom, whatever I may have
thought!'
Meanwhile, Isabel had found it much harder to part with her babies for
three weeks than it had seemed at the first proposal; and there were
tears in her eyes as she gazed at the peaked, red-tiled roof of the old
grammar-school, and reckoned the days and hours before her husband
would join her.
Other associations revived when she found herself at Estminster, and
was received with shrieks of joy, caresses, and exclamations too fond
and foolish to bear repetition; and then the pale Louisa rested against
her, stroking her hand, and Lady Conway fondled her, and Virginia,
looking formed and handsome, retreated a little way to study her and
declare that she was the same Isabel, neither altered nor grown
older--it was all a dream that she had ever left them.
She almost felt it so herself, so entirely did she fit into the old
habits, the little quiet dinner (only it seemed unusually good), the
subsequent closing round the fire with the addition of Miss King and
Louisa, the easy desultory chat, the books with Mudie's stamp lying
about, the music which must be practised. It was very like being Miss
Conway still; and when she awoke the next morning to find it late, and
to the impulse of hurrying up, or _not_ hurrying, expecting to find
James making breakfast himself, and cross at being made late for
school, she turned on her pillow, half doubting whether she had dreamt
these two years in one long night, and remembering that captive
mermaid, who had but to resume her maritime headgear and return to her
native element, to forget the very existence of her fisherman husband
and children. No! Isabel was not come to that! but she was almost
ashamed to enjoy her extra hour's repose; and then the leisurely
breakfast--nay, even the hot rolls and clear coffee were appreciated;
and she sighed as she called up the image of the breakfast over an hour
ago, the grim kettle, the bad butter, the worse fire, and James, cold
and hurried, with Kitty on his knee gnawing a lump of crust. It was a
contrast to Lady Conway reading her letters and discussing engagements
with comfortable complacency, and Virginia making suggestions, and
Louisa's grave bright eyes consulting hers, and Miss King quietly
putting in a remark, and the anticipation of Walter's return, as if he
were the only person wanting.
The sisters always resented their mother's habit of talking of 'poor
Isabel,' regarding her as the happiest of women; and they were
confirmed in their belief by seeing her looking exceedingly well and
handsome, with perhaps a little more dignity and a sweeter smile.
Virginia loved to snatch private interviews with Miss King, to express
her confidence in dear Isabel's felicity, in the infallibility and
other perfections of James, and in the surpassing cleverness of little
Catharine; and Louisa was always sighing to behold the twins. But, to
the delight of the school-room, the chapel in the valley was produced
in a complete form, and a very pretty romance it was; but the hermit
and the brilliant denouement were quite a shock to the young ladies,
just when their tears were prepared, and Virginia was almost angry.
'Oh, my dear, there is trouble enough in the world!' said Isabel;
'Hubert and Adeline have been my companions so long, that at least I
must leave them happy.'
'Indeed,' said Miss King, 'I am almost surprised that you have been
able to finish them at all, with so much re-writing.'
To her surprise, Isabel blushed, and her answer partook of
self-defence. 'James is so busy, and the children so young, that this
has been my great resource. When my little girls are older, I must
begin educating in earnest. I want to talk over Madame Neckar's book
with you, Miss King.'
'All systems begin alike from infant obedience, I believe,' said the
governess.
'Yes,' said Isabel, 'little Catharine is obedience itself with us. It
is curious to see how well she knows the difference between us and the
nurses. There are great tempests upstairs, and her papa takes them
very much to heart. He always has her downstairs when he is at home;
and he has accustomed her to so much attention, that there is no doing
anything while she is by, or I would have her more with me.'
The self-justifying tone rather puzzled Miss King. She noted likewise
that Isabel was backward in entering into details of her home life, and
that she never said a word to encourage her sister's wishes to visit
her at Northwold. Knowing Isabel as the governess did, she was sure
that she would not merely talk of things on the surface, if her spirit
were fully content. Only once did she go any deeper, and that was as
she took up a little book of religious poetry of which she had been
very fond. 'Ah!' she said, 'I don't feel these things as I used. I
think practical life dulls one.'
'I should have said, practical life made things real,' said Miss King.
Isabel had not found out that having duties and not doing them was less
practical than having no particular task.
Another cloud of mystery was over the relations with Mr. Dynevor and
Clara. Isabel baffled all Lady Conway's inquiries and advice by
entering into no particulars, but adhering to her own version of the
matter, 'that Mr. Dynevor had required of James conditions incompatible
with his duty,' and not deigning to explain either duty or conditions,
as beyond the capacity of her hearer.
Of Clara no account was vouchsafed, except that Isabel believed she was
abroad; 'they had been very much disappointed in her,' and Isabel was
afraid that she was a good deal altered; and the subject seemed so
painful, that Virginia did not venture to push her inquiries any
farther.
The great subject of interest in the Conway family was that Virginia
and Louisa were going to lose their maid; and the suggestion somehow
arose that Charlotte should be her successor. It was agreed on all
hands that nature had formed her for a lady's-maid, and a few lessons
from a hairdresser would make her perfection; and she would be
invaluable in reading to Louisa when restless and unable to sleep.
Isabel gave herself credit for the most notable arrangement she had
ever made--promoting the little maiden, whom she really liked, and
relieving herself from the constant annoyance about sparing Ellen from
the nursery by obtaining a stronger housemaid. She had only a few
scruples, or rather she knew that James would have some, as to exposing
Charlotte to Delaford's attentions after what she had heard in Clara's
letter; but the least hint on this score led to a panegyric upon
Delaford's perfections--his steadiness, his prudence, his cleverness on
journeys, his usefulness in taking care of Walter. 'I know that Walter
is safe when he is with Delaford,' said Lady Conway. And even the
sensible Miss King observed, smiling, 'that there always _would_ be
nonsense between men and maidservants; and there were many more
dangerous places than the present. She would watch over Charlotte, and
Fanshawe was quite to be trusted.'
The Conway family knew rather less about their own servants' hall than
they did of feudal establishments five hundred years ago.
Still, Isabel, in her superior prudence, resolved to consult Fanshawe
on the true state of affairs. Fanshawe was a comfortable portly
personage, chiefly absorbed in her caps and her good cheer, and faring
smoothly through life, on the principle of always saying what was
expected of her, and never seeing anything to anybody's disadvantage.
She assured Mrs. James Frost that she did not think Delaford to blame;
many girls would be foolish about a man with personal advantages, but
she could not see it was his fault. Poor Marianne had been always
weakly, and, 'After all, ma'am, some young women will put constructions
upon anything,' said Mrs. Fanshawe, deciding that at least she should
make no mischief by sacrificing poor Marianne.
Isabel did not like to come to more individual inquiries, lest she
should prepare discomfort for Charlotte; but she easily satisfied
herself that all was as right as convenient, and having occasion to
write some orders to Charlotte, communicated the proposal, saying that
all should be settled on her return.
There was wild work in the brain of the poor little Lady of Eschalott.
No more stairs to scrub! No more mats to shake! No more hurrying
after lost time, and an uneasy remembrance of undone duties! No more
hardening of fingers, no more short-sleeved lilac, no more vulgarities
from the cook! Ladylike dress, high wages, work among flowers and
gauzes, reading to Miss Louisa, housekeeper's-room society, rank as
'Arnold' or 'Miss Arnold!' How much more suitable to the betrothed of
the Superintendent at San Benito! To be sure, she was aware that a
serpent lurked among the flowers; but she had shown him a bit of her
mind once, and she found she could take care of herself, and keep him
at a distance.
With her eyes shut, she already beheld Jane Beckett meeting her, when
seated at the back of a carriage, with a veil and a parasol, addressing
her as a grand lady, and kissing and praising her when she found her
little Charlotte after all.