Heaviland Manor,
_Wednesday, August 3rd_.
Dearest Mamma,--I can't think why you made me come here! Agnès has been
so sniffy and condescending ever since this morning; but I have
remarked that Uncle John's valet is only about forty and has a roving
eye! so perhaps by to-morrow morning I shan't have my hair screwed off
my head! But I feel for Agnès, only in a different way.
[Sidenote: _A Quiet Evening_]
It is a stuffy, boring place. You remember the house--enormous, tidy,
hideous, uncomfortable. Well, we had _such_ a dinner last night after I
arrived--soup, fish, everything popped on to the table for Great-uncle
John to carve at one end, and Great-aunt Maria at the other! A regular
aquarium specimen of turbot sat on its dish opposite him, while Aunt
Maria had a huge lot of soles. And there wasn't any need, because
there were four men-servants in the room who could easily have done it
at the side; but I remember you said it was always like that when you
were a little girl. Well, it got on to puddings. I forgot to tell you,
though, there were plenty of candles on the table, without shades, and
a "bouquet" of flowers, all sorts (I am sure fixed in sand), in a gold
middle thing. Well, about the puddings--at least four of them were
planted on the table, awfully sweet and jammy, and Uncle John was quite
irritated with me because I could only eat two; and Aunt Maria, who has
got as deaf as a post, kept roaring to old Major Orwell, who sat next
her, "Children have no healthy appetites as in our day. Eh! what?" And
I wanted to scream in reply, "But I am grown up now, Aunt Maria!"
Uncle John asked me every question over and over, and old Lady
Farrington's false teeth jumped so once or twice that I got quite
nervous. That is the party, me, Major Orwell, Lady Farrington, and
Uncle and Aunt.
When dessert was about coming, _everything_ thing got lifted from the
table, and before you could say "Jack Robinson" off whisked the cloth.
I was so unprepared for it that I said "Oh!" and ducked my head, and
that made the cloth catch on old Lady Farrington's cap--she had to sit
on my side of the table, to be out of the draught--and, wasn't it
_dreadful_, it almost pulled it off, and with it the grey curls fixed
at the side, and the rest was all bald. So that was why it was so
loose--there was nothing to pin it to! And she glared at me, and fixed
it as straight as she could, but it had such a saucy look all the rest
of the evening.
I did apologise as well as I could, and there was such an awkward
pause; and after dinner we had coffee in the drawing-room, and then in
a little time tea, and between times they sat down to whist, all but
Aunt Maria--so they had to have a dummy. She wanted to hear all about
you, she said, and my going to visit in France; and so I had to bellow
descriptions of your neuralgia, and about Mme. de Croixmare being my
godmother, &c., and Aunt Maria says, "Tut, tut!" as well as "Eh!
what?" to everything. I had not remembered a bit what they were like;
but I was only six, wasn't I, when we came last?
After she had asked every sort of thing about you under the sun, she
kept giving longing glances at the dummy's cards; so I said, "Oh! Aunt
Maria, I am afraid I am keeping you from your whist." As soon as I
could make her hear, you should have seen how she hopped up like a
two-year-old into the vacant seat; and they were far more serious about
it than any one was at Nazeby, where they had hundreds on, and Aunt
Maria and the others only played for counters--that long
mother-o'-pearl fish kind. I looked at a book on the table, Lady
Blessington's "Book of Beauty," and I see then every one got born with
champagne-bottle shoulders. Had they been paring them for generations
before, I wonder? Because old John, the keeper at Hendon, told me once
that the best fox-terriers arrive now without any tails, their mothers'
and grand-mothers' and great-grandmothers' having been cut off for so
long; but I wonder, if the fashion changed, how could they get long
tails again? There must be some way, because all of us now have square
shoulders. But what was I saying? Oh! yes, when I had finished the
"Beauty Book," I heard Aunt Maria getting so cross with the old boy
opposite her. "You've revoked, Major Orwell," she said, whatever that
means.
[Sidenote: _An Old English Dinner_]
Then hot spiced port came in--it was such a close night--and they all
had some, and so did I, and it was good; and then candles came. _Such_
lovely silver, and so beautifully cleaned; and Aunt and Uncle kissed
me. I dodged Lady Farrington's false teeth, because, after her cap
incident, she might have bitten me. And Uncle said, "Too late, too late
for a little one to sit up--no beauty sleep!" And Aunt Maria said,
"Tut, tut!" and I thought it must be the middle of the night--it felt
like it. But do you know, Mamma, when I got upstairs to my room it was
only _half-past ten!_
I have such a huge room, with a four-post feather bed in it. I had let
Agnès go to bed directly after her supper, with a toothache, so I had
to get undressed by myself; and I was afraid to climb in from the side,
it was so high up. But I found some steps with blue carpet on them, as
well as a table with a Bible, and a funny old china medicine spoon, and
glass and water-jug on it; and the steps did nicely, for when I got to
the top, I just took a header into the feathers. It seemed quite comfy
at first, but in a few minutes, goodness gracious, I was suffocated!
And it was such a business getting the whole mass on the floor; and
then I did not know very well how to make the bed again, and I had not
a very good night, and overslept myself in the morning. So I got down
late for prayers. Uncle John reads them, and Aunt Maria repeats
responses whenever she thinks best, as she can't hear a word; but I
suppose she counts up, and, from long habit, just says "Amen" when she
gets to the end of--thirty, say--fancying that will be right; and it is
generally. Only Uncle John stopped in the middle to say, "Damn that
dog!" as Fido was whining and scratching outside, so that put her out
and brought in the "Amen" too soon.
[Sidenote: _Family Prayers_]
After breakfast Aunt Maria jingled a large bunch of keys and said it
was her day for seeing the linen-room, and wouldn't I like to go with
her, as all young people should have "house-wifely" ideas? So I went.
It is so beautifully kept, and such lovely linen, all with lavender
between it; and she talked to the housekeeper, and looked over
everything--she seemed to know each sheet by name! Then we went to the
storeroom, all as neat as a new pin; and from there to interview all
the old people from the village, who were waiting with requests, and
some of them were as deaf as she is. So the housekeeper had to scream
at both sides, and I _was_ tired when we got back, and did want to rush
out of doors; but I had to wait, and then walk between Lady Farrington
and Aunt Maria up and down the path in the sun till lunch at one
o'clock; and after that we went for a drive in the barouche, with the
fattest white horses you ever saw, and a coachman just like
Cinderella's one that had been a rat. He seemed to have odd bits of
fur on his face and under his chin, and Aunt Maria said that he
suffered from a sore throat, that was why, which he caught at Aunt
Mary's wedding; and so I counted up--and as Aunt Mary is your eldest
sister, it must have been more than twenty years ago. I do call that a
long sore throat, don't you? and I wouldn't keep a coachman with a
beard, would you?
We went at a snail's pace, and got in at four o'clock, and then there
was tea at half-past, with the nicest bread-and-butter you ever tasted.
And after that I said I must write to you, and so here I am, and I feel
that if it goes on much longer I shall do something dreadful. Now
good-bye, dearest Mamma.--Your affectionate daughter, Elizabeth.
Heaviland Manor,
_Friday, August 5th_.
Dearest Mamma,--I am glad to-morrow will soon be here, and that I can
come home, but I must tell you about yesterday. First, all the morning
it rained, and what with roaring at Aunt Maria and holding skeins of
wool for Lady Farrington, I got such jumps that I felt I should scream
unless I got out; so after lunch, while they were both having a nap in
their chairs, I slipped off for a walk by myself--it was still raining,
but not much; I took Fido, who is generally a little beast, and far too
fat.
[Sidenote: _Lord Valmond Reappears_]
We had had a nice scamper, and had turned to come back not far from the
Park, when who do you think came riding up?--Lord Valmond! The last
person one expected to see down here! He never waited a second when he
saw me, but jumped off his horse and beamed--just as if we had parted
the best of friends!!! _Did_ you ever hear such impudence? Of course I
should have walked on without recognising him, if I had been left to
myself, but he took me so by surprise that I had shaken hands before I
knew, and then it was too late to walk on. It appears he has a place
down here which he never comes to generally, but just happened to
now--to see how the young pheasants were doing. He began at once to
talk, as if I had never been angry or boxed his ears at all! It really
exasperated me, so at last I said he had better get on his horse again,
as I wanted to run on with Fido; so then he said he had just been on
his way to call on Aunt Maria, and would come with me.
I said I was sure that wasn't true, as he was going the other way. So
he said that he had only been going that way to give his horse a little
exercise, and that he intended to go in at the other gate.
I said I was sure that wasn't true either, as there was no way round
that way, unless one jumped the park palings. So he said that was what
he had intended to do. Just then we came to the turnstile of the
right-of-way, so I slipped through and called out, "Then I won't keep
you from your exercise," and walked on as fast as I could.
[Sidenote: _Lady Farrington's Nap_]
What do you think he did, Mamma? Simply got on his horse, and jumped
those palings there and then! I can't think how he wasn't killed. There
was almost no take-off, and the fence is so high. However, there he
was, and I could not get away again, because, if I had run, the horse
could easily have kept up with me. But I only said "Yes" and "No" all
the way to the house, so he could not have enjoyed it much. We went
straight to the drawing-room, where tea was almost up, and there was
Lady Farrington alone--still asleep, and her cap had fallen right back,
and all the bald was showing; and just then a carriage drove up to the
door, and we heard visitors and the footsteps in the hall. I had just
time to cry to Lord Valmond, "Keep them back while I wake her!" and
then I rushed to Lady Farrington, and shouted in her ear, "Visitors!
and--and--your cap is a little crooked!" "Eh! what?" she screamed, and
her teeth as nearly as possible jumped on to the carpet. She simply
flew to the mirror, but, as you know, it is away so high up she
couldn't see, so she made frantic efforts with her hands, and just got
it to cover the bald, in a rakish, one-sided way, when the whole lot
streamed into the room. Lord Valmond looked awfully uncomfortable.
Goodness knows what he had said to them to keep them back! Anyway,
Harvey announced "Mrs. and the Misses Clarke," and a thin, very
high-nosed person, followed by two buffish girls, came forward. Lady
Farrington said, "How d'ye do?" as well as she could. They were some
friends of hers and Aunt Maria's, who are staying with the Morverns, I
gathered from their conversation. They _must_ have thought she had been
on a spree since last they met! I could hardly behave for laughing, and
did not dare to look at Lord Valmond.
They had not been there more than five minutes when another carriage
arrived, and two other ladies were announced. "The Misses Clark!" The
other Clarkes glared like tigers, and Lady Farrington lowered her chin
and eyelashes at them (she has just the same manners as the people at
Nazeby, although she is such a frump--it is because she is an earl's
daughter, I suppose), and she called out to Harvey at the top of her
voice, "Let Lady Worden be told at once there are visitors." The poor
new things looked so uncomfortable, that I felt, as I was Aunt Maria's
niece, I at least must be polite to them; so I asked them to sit down,
and we talked. They were jolly, fat, vulgar souls, who have taken the
Ortons' place they told me, and this was their return visit, as the
Ortons had asked Aunt Maria to call. They were quite old maids, past
thirty, with such funny, grand, best smart Sunday-go-to-meeting looking
clothes on.
[Sidenote: _An Afternoon Call_]
It appears that Harvey had sent a footman up to Aunt Maria's door, to
tell of the first Clarkes' arrival, and then, terrified by Lady
Farrington's voice, had rushed up himself to announce the second lot,
and he met Aunt Maria on the stairs coming down, and of course she
never heard the difference between "Mrs." and the "Misses," and thought
he was simply hurrying her up for the first set. So in she sailed all
smiles, and as Mrs. Clarke was nearest the door, she got to her first,
and _was_ so glad to see her.
"Dear, dear, _years_ since we met, Honoria," she said; "and these are
all your bonny girls, tut, tut!" and she looked at the fat Clarks who
came next. "Ah! yes I can see! What a wonderful likeness to poor dear
Arthur!"
Furious glances from Mrs. Clarke, whose daughters are my age!
"And this must be Millicent," she went on, taking the second fat
Clark's hand. "Yes, yes; why, she takes after you, my dear Honoria,
tut, tut!" and she squeezed hands, and beamed at them all in the
kindest way. Mrs. Clarke, bursting with fury, tried to say they were no
relations of hers; but, of course, Aunt Maria could not catch all that,
only the word "relations," and she then caught sight of the buff
Clarklets in the background.
[Sidenote: _A Friendly Invitation_]
"Ah, yes! I see, these are your girls; I have mistaken your other
relations for them." Then she turned again to the fat Clarks, evidently
liking their jolly faces best. "But one can see they are Clarkes. Let
me guess. Yes, they must be poor Henry's children!" At this, Lord
Valmond had such a violent fit of choking by the tea-table, that Aunt
Maria, who hears the oddest, most unexpected things, caught that, and
saw him, and saying, "Howd' ye do?" created a diversion. Presently I
heard Lady Farrington roaring in a whisper into her ears the difference
between the Clarkes and the Clarks, and the poor dear was so upset; but
her kind heart came up trumps, and she was awfully nice to the two
vulgar Clarks, who had the good sense to go soon, and then the others
went. Then she got Lord Valmond on to her sofa, and he screamed such
heaps of nice things into her ear, just as if she had been Mrs. Smith,
and she was _so_ pleased. And Uncle John came in, and they talked about
the pheasants, and he asked Lord Valmond to dinner on Saturday night
(to-morrow), and he looked timidly at me, to see if I was still angry
with him and wanted him not to come, so I smiled _sweetly_, and he
accepted joyfully. Isn't it lovely, Mamma? I shall be home with you by
then, and Lady Farrington and Major Orwell are going too! So he will
have to play dummy whist all the evening with Uncle and Aunt, and eat
his dinner at half-past six! Now, good-night.--Your affectionate
daughter, Elizabeth.