It was about a month after this, in the early autumn, when Lucy Curtis,
coming down from the Hall upon one of her courses of visitation in the
village, went, as she often did, to Cousin Julia to report herself as
she passed, and inquire if there were any special troubles requiring her
aid in the little community. Mrs. Rolt was not herself so active as her
young cousin; but she heard of everything that was wanted, and was the
universal medium of communication between the village and the Hall. The
poor people came to her if she did not go to them, and her poor
neighbours had unbounded reliance upon her kindness, liking her all the
better perhaps that she never made any investigations into their
cleanliness or providence, and did not trouble them with visits, but was
sorry, indiscriminately, for everybody who was in trouble, and for
everybody who was sick had port-wine to bestow and beef-tea. It was not
entirely indolence, but rather a just knowledge of herself, combined
with a love of keeping at home, which intercepted “parish work” on her
part. “I know I should gossip,” she said, with looks of humility, when
it was suggested to her that she should visit the poor; and there could
be no doubt that she availed herself even of the lessened opportunities
presented to her in this particular when the poor visited her. She was
lying in wait for Lucy on this particular morning, which happened to be
one of the days on which the young lady was expected in the village.
Lucy had a great deal of business to do which is not reckoned in the
management of an estate. She had the villagers to look after, which
probably ought to have been the Rector’s business. But as the Rector did
not take naturally to that portion of his work, it was she who did it.
She had her little private savings-bank, her small provident societies,
her clothing clubs, her parish library, all in her own management, with
various additions to the formal educational processes of the place;
classes for big girls and boys, and a private little school of cookery,
and many small matters, all intended to make the people of Oakley happy;
which object, perhaps, they did not succeed in fulfilling, but yet did
infinitesimal scraps of good, such as is the utmost most human schemes
attain to. One of these undertakings required her presence to-day. It
was an October day; the leaves falling, the sky red; and the time was
nearly three years from Arthur’s marriage. It was cold enough to make
that warm jacket quite expedient which she had hesitated to put on; and
as Lucy approached Mrs. Rolt’s house, Mrs. Rolt stationed herself
at the window, ready to tap as she passed, and secure ten
minutes’--conversation Cousin Julia called it, but gossip would be the
proper word to say.
The house of the Rolts was a large substantial building of brick, very
much like the Rectory, but not with the same imposing grounds; a house
of Queen Anne’s time, with a pediment, and rows of twinkling windows
flush with the wall. There was an excellent garden behind, but in front
nothing save one large very white doorstep between the door and the
street; and the windows of the dining-room, where Mrs. Rolt sat in the
morning, were so close upon the road that no one could escape her whom
she chose to arrest in this way.
“I am coming,” said Lucy, nodding as she passed; and the neat housemaid,
already on the alert, rushed to open the door.
“Missis has been looking for you all the morning,” Sally said. There was
evidently something more than ordinary to say.
Nothing could be more warm and cosy than the Rolts’ dining-room. Its
warm red curtains filled all the intervals between the windows, not, it
is to be feared, as the canons of art would approve, at the present day,
but with a comfortable fullness. The room itself was panelled, however,
which would have redeemed it, notwithstanding that the old mantelshelf
had been tampered with, and was not so high up as it ought to have been.
There was a big table in the centre of the room, and two easy-chairs by
the fire. The newspaper thrown down in one of them showed that Mr. Rolt
himself had but lately left this comfortable room. A big old mahogany
sideboard, not handsome, but substantial, stood against the end wall,
and a long row of low book-cases opposite the windows. There was not
much room to move about because of the big table, upon which there was
nothing decorative except a huge basin of China-asters, the last of the
garden; but the room was warm, and very handy, Mrs. Rolt thought, when
she had anything to do. The good soul never had anything to do; but what
did that matter? She liked to have her big basket of odds and ends
brought down and placed upon the table, where there was plenty of room;
and there she would occupy herself very pleasantly looking out skeins of
wool which might make a pair of socks for a poor child, and bits of
cloth which would answer for some one’s patchwork. These last were very
useful whenever a bundle of children happened to come to Oakley. More
dolls than tongue could reckon had been dressed out of Mrs. Rolt’s odds
and ends; but they did not do so much good to the poor children who were
in want of socks. Mrs. Rolt met Lucy at the door, and kissed her, and
brought her in to the big chair.
“How-are-you-and-how-is-your-mamma-and-everybody?” she said in a breath,
linking all the words together in her eagerness to get over
preliminaries. “Will-you-have-a-cup-of-chocolate-after-your-walk? No?
Then-sit-down-and-I-will-tell-you-something,” said Cousin Julia, out of
breath.
“I knew you must have something to tell me when I saw your face. What is
it? You don’t look as if anything very bad had happened.”
“Oh, it is nothing very bad. I don’t suppose it is of much consequence,
and yet it is very funny, you know. Lucy, two ladies have come to live
in the little Wren Cottage. Did you ever hear of such a thing? two
ladies, one of them tall and handsome. My old Sam has quite lost his
heart; and the other not so pretty, and much commoner looking, and both
complete strangers, nobody knowing about them, or where they came from,
or whom they belong to; and quite young. Did you ever hear anything so
strange?”
“Two ladies in the Wren Cottage! Yes, that is news,” said Lucy, with
much composure. “I hope they will turn out pleasant neighbours; it will
be very agreeable for you.”
“Won’t it? But it is not that, so much that I am thinking of. Who can
they be, you know, Lucy? to choose a place like this to settle in, where
there is no attraction, no society, no inducement whatever?”
“There is you, and Bertie at the Rectory; that is not bad; and it is
very pretty, you know,” said Lucy. “I don’t wonder that anyone should
choose Oakley. Where could you find so pretty a place?”
“That is all very well, my dear,” said Mrs. Rolt, who, not having been
brought up in Oakley, was less enthusiastic; “but how did they find out
that it was a pretty place? No one has ever seen them here before. They
could not find it out by instinct, you know, could they? To be sure,
Wren Cottage has been advertised in the paper and is let for almost
nothing at all. That might tempt them, perhaps, if they are poor.”
“Very likely indeed, I should think; and they must be poor, or else they
would never come to Oakley. Is not that what you are thinking? I am glad
you are going to have neighbours.”
“Going, Lucy! My love, they are there. Look--look out of the furthest
window; don’t you see somebody’s back in the bedroom doing something?
Look as plain as possible between the white curtains. Somebody’s back,
and I do believe an ear!”
“I could not swear to the ear,” said Lucy, laughing; “but I see there is
something; and there is Fanny Blunt at the door, charing; that is good,”
she continued, warming into interest. “Fanny Blunt is a good little
girl. I am glad she has a place.”
“Listen, Lucy. I told you there were two of them. They don’t look like
sisters, but Fanny says they are sisters.”
“Oh, Cousin Julia! you have been asking Fanny--”
“Only her mother, only her mother, dear. _Of course_, I would not for
the world question the girl about her mistresses. You could not think I
would be guilty of such a thing, Lucy; but her mother tells me they are
two sisters. You would scarcely believe it. The little one is a nice
common-looking person; but the other, the one who was at the window, and
you saw her ear--”
“But I could not swear to the ear.”
“Don’t laugh, dear. I assure you I am quite serious, and very, _very_
much interested. Their name is Arthur, and one of them is married; at
least it is Mrs. Arthur that has taken the cottage. Of course, if the
other is her sister, she can scarcely be Arthur too.”
“Mrs. Arthur!” said Lucy, startled.
“Do you know the name, Lucy? Do you know anyone of the name? I should
like, I must say, to find out some clue.”
Lucy shook her head. She did not know anyone of the name, which is, of
course, a respectable surname borne by many people. It could have
nothing to do with anyone she knew.
“I know it only as a Christian name,” said Lucy.
“Ah, as a Christian name--everybody knows it as that,” said Mrs. Rolt.
“Poor dear Arthur, I think of him every day, poor fellow.”
“He seems to be happy enough, Cousin Julia; we need not call him poor
fellow now.”
“No; but then it is uncomfortable, you know, to be like that, separated
from his wife. To be sure, if they did not get on it was better,
perhaps; but what a pity, Lucy, they did not get on! There must be great
faults, I always say, on the woman’s side.”
“On both sides, I should think,” said Lucy with a sigh.
“On the woman’s side chiefly, my dear; for we know we ought to give in.
We may always be quite sure we ought to give in, whatever our husbands
may do; and in that case things generally come right; for you know one
person cannot quarrel by himself, can he? there must always be two. But
that has nothing to do with the poor lady opposite.”
“Is she a poor lady? You seem to know more about her than you said at
first.”
“Well, Fanny--or, rather, Fanny’s mother--she comes, you know, about her
rent; poor thing, she is always behind with her rent; and she says she
is either a widow or her husband is away. He may be a sailor, you know,
or in India, or something of that sort; and she does not seem to expect
him home. It is a sad position for a young woman. I am not quite sure
which of them is Mrs. Arthur though; the little dumpy one is certainly
the oldest, but then the tall one looks the most superior.”
“Perhaps it is not always the superior who is the married one,” said
Lucy, again tempted to laugh; for such guesses throw gleams of
reflection upon the hearers, and lead young women unconsciously to think
of themselves.
“No, indeed; I was thirty-five myself before I married, Lucy. It would
not become me to speak as if the best people were always the ones that
married soonest. There is yourself; but then you are so hard to please.
But it stands to reason in this case, don’t you think, that the married
one should be the chief? for it is her house, you know, and she is the
mistress. Now the tall one, whom you saw at the window, is evidently the
principal; therefore she must be Mrs. Arthur. The little fat one seems a
good little thing. She looks after everything, and helps to cook the
dinner. The other--I wonder if she is a widow?--does very little about
the house. I see her reading generally.”
“You speak as if they had been the objects of your observation for
years.”
“No, not for years, of course; but when you live opposite to people for
a fortnight, you find out a great deal about them. You know you have
been away, Lucy. She reads a great deal, and I have seen her out
sketching, and sometimes she talks to the poor people; but she looks shy
and frightened. Whenever she sees me she hurries away.”
“And you have not called? I wonder you did not call when you take so
much interest in her,” said Lucy, taking up her little basket again, and
preparing to go.
“Do you think I ought to call?” cried Cousin Julia eagerly. “I have been
turning it over and over in my own mind. I wonder if I ought to call, I
have been saying to Sam. What would your mamma think, I wonder? You see,
they have no introductions, no one to be, as it were, responsible for
them; and they might be something very different, they might be not at
all nice people for anything we can tell.”
“How unkind of you to imagine evil! Why shouldn’t they be nice people? I
am afraid you are beginning to be hardhearted,” said Lucy, laughing.
“Mamma will be very much surprised to hear that you have not called, I
am sure.”
“Do you really think so? I am _dying_ to call,” cried Mrs. Rolt.
“Hard-hearted--me! Oh, Lucy, how can you say so? When you know it is
chiefly on your account that your mamma may always be quite certain you
will meet no one whom you ought not to meet here.”
“I should like to meet her very much,” said Lucy, offering her pretty
cheek for Cousin Julia’s kiss. “I shall come back for some luncheon if
you will have me, and then you can tell me all the rest. My people will
be waiting now.”
Mrs. Rolt stood at the window and looked after her admiringly as she
went away. Such a young creature--to do so much--and to keep the parish
together. But then the good woman reflected that she had now said this
of Lucy for some years, and counting back, decided that she must be
twenty-three--not so very young to be still unmarried, for Sir John
Curtis’s daughter, who might marry anybody. “I wonder if there is _some
one_,” said Cousin Julia to herself, making a private review in her own
mind of all the gentlemen she knew--which took her thoughts off the
new-comer in Wren Cottage, though she might already be seen at the
window gazing out with a certain eagerness, and showing more than one
ear.
Lucy went on her way with a little tremble of excitement about her,
though she laughed at herself for this absurd fancy of hers about Mrs.
Arthur. Why should she think of her brother’s wife? She was not aware
that Nancy had left Underhayes, or that anything had happened to the
family; and it was too foolish to suppose that the unknown sister-in-law
who had left her husband and her duty rather than abandon her family
would have thrown them aside again aimlessly to come here. Why should
she come here? She had shown no symptom of any desire to make herself
acquainted with Arthur’s home; but rather had defied and rejected
everything that could connect her with it. And now, after all was over
between them, why should she come now? Arthur was a quite well-known
surname, as Mrs. Rolt said; and she rebuked herself for the fantastic
idea with some vehemence. She went about her business, however, with a
mind a little discomposed, feeling she knew not how, as if some new
chapter had begun; and half expecting the new-comer to rise up in her
path, and interfere with her. But Lucy’s business went on as usual
without disturbance from any one. She held her usual business levée,
receiving the little savings of the poor women, the scrapings of pennies
and threepennies they could put aside for the children’s frocks at
Christmas, and heard all their stories of boys who were doing well, and
boys who were doing ill, and girls that wanted “placing,” and those that
were going to learn the dress-making, or away to Oakenden to service.
Many a domestic tale she had to hear and sympathise with, and had to
make several promises to “speak to” unruly sons and husbands. The
village women had a great confidence in “somebody speaking to” those
careless fellows, who would go with their wages to the public-house
instead of taking them home. “It ain’t that he’s got a bad heart--but
oh, Miss Lucy, he do want talking to!” they would say; and Lucy would
request that the offending husband might be sent up to the Hall on some
little commission, or inveigled in the afternoon into the school-room.
“But he’s got that sharp, he won’t go nigh the school-room now as he
knows as you’re there, and what’s a-coming,” one of these plaintive
wives said shaking her head. “Then you must say I want to speak to him,”
said Lucy, “don’t make any pretence of business, but just say I want to
see him up at the House. I will give him a little job to do for me if he
behaves himself rightly,” said Lucy. She had not, perhaps, so much faith
in “talking to” as they had; but it was, at the worst, a flattering
delusion, and the men themselves did not dislike the importance of the
“talking to” which elevated them for the moment, though it was an
undesirable elevation. She had come among them since she was a child.
She had waged war with the public-house since it was half a joke to hear
her small denunciations, and both women and men had laughed and cried at
Miss Lucy. “Lord bless her! she do speak up bold,” they had said; and
this early interference had given her a certain power such as the
roughest ploughman will allow, holding his breath, to the child, who in
baby rectitude and indignation may sometimes lecture a drunken father.
She had done a great deal of business in this way before she went back
to take luncheon with Cousin Julia, which was not one of the least of
her kind offices. You would have supposed Lucy was the most dainty of
epicures to see the little feasts Mrs. Rolt made for her on these parish
days. Her husband was seldom at home at that hour, and Cousin Julia was
ready to feed on nightingale’s tongues, had they been procurable, the
young Lady Bountiful who saved her from a solitary meal. And in the
afternoon there were the schools to visit, and the little Cottage
Hospital, and the cookery, and all that was going on for the good of
her village subjects. Bertie, too, had a way of coming to Mrs. Rolt’s on
these parish days, and though she was not fond of him, she avowed, as
she was of Lucy, yet Bertie was a cousin too, and it was not possible
for the gentle soul to forbear from a little feeble essay at matchmaking
when she saw these handsome young people together. Bertie was not good
enough for Lucy, but Lucy might like him for all that. Things much more
unlikely had been known; while it was probable, indeed, that he, only a
clergyman, and humble-minded (perhaps) was afraid to venture to open his
mind to Sir John’s daughter. Mrs. Rolt felt that it was only doing as
she would be done by--or rather as she would have been done by--to allow
them to meet when they could. It was the Curtises who were her
relations, not my Lady; and she had a little natural opposition in her
mind to Lucy’s mother, who was understood to have little admiration for
the Rector. “I hope you will not mind, my love, but poor Bertie is
coming to lunch,” she said, in deprecating tones on this particular
“parish day.”
“Why do you say poor Bertie? I don’t think he considers himself poor,”
said Lucy, half annoyed.
“Ah, my dear, he does not get everything he wishes for any more than the
rest of us in this world,” Cousin Julia replied; and to such a very
natural and likely fact what could anyone say?