'Can you or Admiral Merrifield do nothing with that horrid old
Grice! Never was any one so pigheaded and stupid.'
'What? He won't part with the land you want?'
'No; I wrote to him and got no answer. Then I wrote again, and I
got a peaked-hand sort of note that his wife wrote, I should think.
"Mr. Grice presented his compliments" (compliments indeed!), "and
had no intention of parting with any part of Spragg's portion."
Well, then I called to represent what a benefit it would be to the
parish and his own cattle, and what do you think the old brute
said?--that "there was a great deal too much done for the parish
already, and he wouldn't have no hand in setting up the labourers,
who were quite impudent enough already." Well, I saw it was of no
use to talk to an old wretch like that about social movements and
equal rights, so I only put the question whether having pure water
easily accessible would not tend to make them better behaved and
less impudent as he called it, upon which he broke out into a
tirade. "He didn't hold with cold water and teetotal, not he. Why,
it had come to _THAT_--that there was no such thing as getting a
fair day's work out of a labouring man with their temperance, and
their lectures, and their schools, and their county councils and
what not!" Really I had read of such people, but I hardly believed
they still existed.'
'Grice is very old, and the regular old sort of farmer,' said
Bessie.
'But could not the Admiral persuade him, or Mr. Doyle?'
'Oh no,' said Susan, 'it would be of no use. He was just as bad
about a playground for the boys, though it would have prevented
their being troublesome elsewhere.'
'Besides,' added Bessie, 'I am sure papa would say that there is no
necessity. He had the water analysed, and it is quite good, and
plenty of it.'
'Well, I shall see what can be done.'
'She thinks us as bad as old Grice,' said Susan, as they saw her
walking away in a determined manner.
The next thing that was heard was the Admiral coming in from the
servants' hall, whither he had been summoned by 'Please, sir, James
Hodd wishes to speak to you.'
'What is this friend of yours about, Bessie?'
'What friend, papa?'
'Why, this Miss Arthur--what d'ye call her?' said the Admiral (who
on the whole was much more attracted by her than were his
daughters). 'Here's a deputation from her tenant, James Hodd, with
"Please, sir, I wants to know if 'tis allowed to turn folks out of
their houses as they've paid rent for reg'lar with a week's notice,
when they pays by the year."'
'You don't mean it!' exclaimed Mrs. Merrifield and Susan together.
'Poor old Mrs. West,' said the mother.
'And all the Tibbinses!' exclaimed Susan. 'She can't do it, can
she, papa?'
'Certainly not, without the proper notice, and so I told James, and
that the notice she had sent down to him was so much waste-paper.'
'So at least she has created a village Hampden,' said Bessie,
'though, depend upon it, she little supposes herself to be the petty
tyrant.'
'I must go and explain to her, I suppose, to-morrow morning,' said
the Admiral.
However, he had scarcely reached his own gate before the ulstered
form was seen rushing up to him.
'Oh! Admiral Merrifield, good-morning; I was coming to ask you--'
'And I was coming to you.'
'Oh! Admiral, is it really so--as that impudent man told me--that
those horrid people can't be got out of those awful tumbledown,
unhealthy places for all that immense time?'
'Surely he was not impudent to you? He was only asserting his
right. The cottages were taken by the year, and you have no choice
but to give six months' notice. I hope he was not disrespectful.'
'Well, no--I can't say that he was, though I don't care for those
cap-in-hand ways of your people here. But at any rate, he says he
won't go--no, not any of them, though I offered to pay them up to
the end of the time, and now I must put off my beautiful plans. I
was drawing them all yesterday morning--two model cottages on each
side, and the drinking fountain in the middle. I brought them up to
show you. Could you get the people to move out? I would promise
them to return after the rebuilding.'
'Very nice drawings. Yes--yes--very kind intentions.'
'Then can't you persuade them?'
'But, my dear young lady, have you thought what is to become of them
in the meantime?'
'Why, live somewhere else! People in Smokeland were always shifting
about.'
'Yes--those poor little town tenements are generally let on short
terms and are numerous enough. But here--where are the vacant
cottages for your four families? Hodd with his five children,
Tibbins with eight or nine, Mrs. West and her widow daughter and
three children, and the Porters with a bedridden father?'
'They are dreadfully overcrowded. Is there really no place?'
'Probably not nearer than those trumpery new tenements at Bonchamp.
That would be eight miles to be tramped to the men's work, and the
Wests would lose the washing and charing that maintains them.'
'Then do you think it can never be done? See how nice my plans
are!'
'Oh yes! very pretty drawings, but you don't allow much outlet.'
'I thought you had allotments, and that they would do, and I mean to
get rid of the pig-sties.'
'A most unpopular proceeding, I warn you.'
'There's nothing more unsanitary than a pig-sty.'
'That depends on how it is kept. And may I ask, do you mean also to
dispense with staircases?'
'Oh! I forgot. But do you really mean to say that I can never
carry out my improvements, and that these people must live all
herded together till everybody is dead?'
'Not quite that,' said the Admiral, laughing; 'but most improvements
require patience and a little experience of the temper and habits of
the people. There are cottages worse than these. I think two of
them have four rooms, and the Wests and Porters do not require so
much. If you built one or two elsewhere, and moved the people into
them, or waited for a vacant one, you might carry out some of your
plans--gradually.'
'And my fountain?'
'I am not quite sure, but I am afraid your cottages are on that
stratum where you could not bring the water without great expense.'
Arthurine controlled herself enough for a civil 'Good-morning!' but
she shed tears as she walked home and told her pitying mother that
she was thwarted on every side, and that nobody could comprehend
her.
The meetings for German reading were, however, contrived chiefly--
little as Arthurine guessed it--by the influence of Bessie
Merrifield. The two Greville girls and Mr. Doyle's sister, together
with the doctor's young wife, two damsels from the next parish, and
a friend or two that the Arthurets had made at Bonchamp, formed an
imposing circle--to begin.
'Oh, not on WILHELM TELL!' cried Arthurine. 'It might as well be
the alphabet at once.'
However, the difficulties in the way of books, and consideration for
general incompetency, reduced her to WILHELM TELL, and she began
with a lecture first on Schiller, and then upon Switzerland, and on
the legend; but when Bessie Merrifield put in a word of such history
and criticisms as were not in the High School Manual, she was sure
everything else must be wrong--'Fraulein Blumenbach never said so,
and she was an admirable German scholar.'
Miss Doyle went so far as to declare she should not go again to see
Bessie Merrifield so silenced, sitting by after the first saying
nothing, but only with a little laugh in her eyes.
'But,' said Bessie, 'it is such fun to see any person having it so
entirely her own way--like Macaulay, so cock-sure of everything--and
to see those Bonchamp girls--Mytton is their name--so entirely
adoring her.'
'I am sorry she has taken up with those Myttons,' said Miss Doyle.
'So am I,' answered Susan.
'You too, Susie!' exclaimed Bessie--'you, who never have a word to
say against any one!'
'I daresay they are very good girls,' said Susan; 'but they are--'
'Underbred,' put in Miss Doyle in the pause. 'And how they
flatter!'
'I think the raptures are genuine gush,' said Bessie; 'but that is
so much the worse for Arthurine. Is there any positive harm in the
family beyond the second-rate tone?'
'It was while you were away,' said Susan; 'but their father somehow
behaved very ill about old Colonel Mytton's will--at least papa
thought so, and never wished us to visit them.'
'He was thought to have used unfair influence on the old gentleman,'
said Miss Doyle; 'but the daughters are so young that probably they
had no part in it. Only it gives a general distrust of the family;
and the sons are certainly very undesirable young men.'
'It is unlucky,' said Bessie, 'that we can do nothing but inflict a
course of snubbing, in contrast with a course of admiration.'
'I am sure I don't want to snub her,' said good-natured Susan.
'Only when she does want to do such queer things, how can it be
helped?'
It was quite true, Mrs. and Miss Arthuret had been duly called upon
and invited about by the neighbourhood; but it was a scanty one, and
they had not wealth and position enough to compensate for the girl's
self-assertion and literary pretensions. It was not a superior or
intellectual society, and, as the Rockstone Merrifields laughingly
declared, it was fifty years behindhand, and where Bessie
Merrifield, for the sake of the old stock and her meek bearing of
her success--nay, her total ignoring of her literary honours--would
be accepted. Arthurine, half her age, and a newcomer, was disliked
for the pretensions which her mother innocently pressed on the
world. Simplicity and complacency were taken for arrogance, and the
mother and daughter were kept upon formal terms of civility by all
but the Merrifields, who were driven into discussion and opposition
by the young lady's attempts at reformations in the parish.
It was the less wonder that they made friends where their intimacy
was sought and appreciated. There was nothing underbred about
themselves; both were ladies ingrain, though Arthurine was abrupt
and sometimes obtrusive, but they had not lived a life such as to
render them sensitive to the lack of fine edges in others, and were
quite ready to be courted by those who gave the meed of appreciation
that both regarded as Arthurine's just portion.
Mr. Mytton had been in India, and had come back to look after an old
relation; to whom he and his wife had paid assiduous attention, and
had been so rewarded as to excite the suspicion and displeasure of
the rest of the family. The prize had not been a great one, and the
prosperity of the family was further diminished by the continual
failures of the ne'er-do-well sons, so that they had to make the
best of the dull, respectable old house they had inherited, in the
dull, respectable old street of the dull, respectable old town.
Daisy and Pansy Mytton were, however, bright girls, and to them
Arthurine Arthuret was a sort of realised dream of romance, raised
suddenly to the pinnacle of all to which they had ever durst aspire.
After meeting her at a great OMNIUM GATHERUM garden party, the
acquaintance flourished. Arthurine was delighted to give the
intense pleasure that the freedom of a country visit afforded to the
sisters, and found in them the contemporaries her girl nature had
missed.
They were not stupid, though they had been poorly educated, and were
quite willing to be instructed by her and to read all she told them.
In fact, she was their idol, and a very gracious one. Deeply did
they sympathise in all her sufferings from the impediments cast in
her way at Stokesley.
Indeed, the ladies there did not meet her so often on their own
ground for some time, and were principally disturbed by reports of
her doings at Bonchamp, where she played at cricket, and at hockey,
gave a course of lectures on physiology, presided at a fancy-dress
bazaar for the schools as Lady Jane Grey, and was on two or three
committees. She travelled by preference on her tricycle, though she
had a carriage, chiefly for the sake of her mother, who was still in
a state of fervent admiration, even though perhaps a little worried
at times by being hurried past her sober paces.
The next shock that descended on Stokesley was that, in great
indignation, a cousin sent the Merrifields one of those American
magazines which are read and contributed to by a large proportion of
English. It contained an article called 'The Bide-as-we-bes and
parish of Stick-stodge-cum-Cadgerley,' and written with the same
sort of clever, flippant irony as the description of the mixed
company in the boarding-house on the Lago Maggiore.
There was the parish embowered, or rather choked, in trees, the
orderly mechanical routine, the perfect self-satisfaction of all
parties, and their imperviousness to progress,--the two squires, one
a fox-hunter, the other a general reposing on his laurels,--the
school where everything was subordinated to learning to behave
oneself lowly and reverently to all one's betters, and to do one's
duty in that state of life to which it _HAS_ pleased Heaven to call
one,--the horror at her tricycle, the impossibility of improvement,
the predilection for farmyard odours, the adherence to tumbledown
dwellings, the contempt of drinking fountains,--all had their meed
of exaggeration not without drollery.
The two ancient spinsters, daughters to the general, with their
pudding-baskets, buttonholes, and catechisms, had their full share--
dragooning the parish into discipline,--the younger having so far
marched with the century as to have indited a few little tracts of
the Goody Two-Shoes order, and therefore being mentioned by her
friends with bated breath as something formidable, 'who writes,'
although, when brought to the test, her cultivation was of the
vaguest, most discursive order. Finally, there was a sketch of the
heavy dinner party which had welcomed the strangers, and of the
ponderous county magnates and their wives who had been invited, and
the awe that their broad and expansive ladies expected to impress,
and how one set talked of their babies, and the other of G.F.S.
girls, and the gentlemen seemed to be chiefly occupied in abusing
their M.P. and his politics. Altogether, it was given as a lesson
to Americans of the still feudal and stationary state of country
districts in poor old England.
'What do you think of this, Bessie?' exclaimed Admiral Merrifield.
'We seem to have got a young firebrand in the midst of us.'
'Oh, papa! have you got that thing? What a pity!'
'You don't mean that you have seen it before?'
'Yes; one of my acquaintances in London sent it to me.'
'And you kept it to yourself?'
'I thought it would only vex you and mamma. Who sent it to you?'
'Anne did, with all the passages marked. What a horrid little
treacherous baggage!'
'I daresay we are very tempting. For once we see ourselves as
others see us! And you see 'tis American.'
'All the worse, holding us, who have done our best to welcome her
hospitably, up to the derision of the Yankees!'
'But you won't take any notice.'
'Certainly not, ridiculous little puss, except to steer as clear of
her as possible for fear she should be taking her observations.
"Bide as we be"; why, 'tis the best we can do. She can't pick a
hole in your mother though, Bess. It would have been hard to have
forgiven her that! You're not such an aged spinster.'
'It is very funny, though,' said Bessie; 'just enough exaggeration
to give it point! Here is her interview with James Hodd.'
Whereat the Admiral could not help laughing heartily, and then he
picked himself out as the general, laughed again, and said:
'Naughty girl! Bess, I'm glad that is not your line. Little
tracts--Goody Two-Shoes! Why, what did that paper say of your
essay, Miss Bess? That it might stand a comparison with Helps,
wasn't it?'
'And I wish I was likely to enjoy such lasting fame as Goody Two-
Shoes,' laughed Bessie, in a state of secret exultation at this bit
of testimony from her father.
Mrs. Merrifield, though unscathed, was much more hurt and annoyed
than either her husband or her daughter, especially at Susan and
Bessie being termed old maids. She _DID_ think it very ungrateful,
and wondered how Mrs. Arthuret could have suffered such a thing to
be done. Only the poor woman was quite foolish about her daughter--
could have had no more authority than a cat. 'So much for modern
education.'
But it was not pleasant to see the numbers of the magazine on the
counters at Bonchamp, and to know there were extracts in the local
papers, and still less to be indignantly condoled with by neighbours
who expressed their intention of 'cutting' the impertinent girl.
They were exactly the 'old fogies' Arthurine cared for the least,
yet whose acquaintance was the most creditable, and the home party
at Stokesley were unanimous in entreating others to ignore the whole
and treat the newcomers as if nothing had happened.
They themselves shook hands, and exchanged casual remarks as if
nothing were amiss, nor was the subject mentioned, except that Mrs.
Arthuret contrived to get a private interview with Mrs. Merrifield.
'Oh! dear Mrs. Merrifield, I am so grieved, and so is Arthurine. We
were told that the Admiral was so excessively angry, and he is so
kind. I could not bear for him to think Arthurine meant anything
personal.'
'Indeed,' said Mrs. Merrifield, rather astonished.
'But is he so very angry?--for it is all a mistake.'
'He laughs, and so does Bessie,' said the mother.
'Laughs! Does he? But I do assure you Arthurine never meant any
place in particular; she only intended to describe the way things go
on in country districts, don't you understand? She was talking one
day at the Myttons, and they were all so much amused that they
wanted her to write it down. She read it one evening when they were
with us, and they declared it was too good not to be published--and
almost before she knew it, Fred Mytton's literary friend got hold of
it and took it to the agency of this paper. But indeed, indeed, she
never thought of its being considered personal, and is as vexed as
possible at the way in which it has been taken up. She has every
feeling about your kindness to us, and she was so shocked when Pansy
Mytton told us that the Admiral was furious.'
'Whoever told Miss Mytton so made a great mistake. The Admiral only
is--is--amused--as you know gentlemen will be at young girls'
little--little scrapes,' returned Mrs. Merrifield, longing to say
'impertinences,' but refraining, and scarcely believing what
nevertheless was true, that Arthurine did not know how personal she
had been, although her mother said it all over again twice. Bessie,
however, did believe it, from experience of resemblances where she
had never intended direct portraiture; and when there was a somewhat
earnest invitation to a garden party at the Gap, the Merrifields not
only accepted for themselves, but persuaded as many of their
neighbours as they could to countenance the poor girl. 'There is
something solid at the bottom in spite of all the effervescence,'
said Bessie.
It was late in the year for a garden party, being on the 2d of
October, but weather and other matters had caused delays, and the
Indian summer had begun with warm sun and exquisite tints. 'What
would not the maple and the liquid amber have been by this time,'
thought the sisters, 'if they had been spared.' Some of the PETITE
NOBLESSE, however, repented of their condescension when they saw how
little it was appreciated. Mrs. Arthuret, indeed, was making
herself the best hostess that a lady who had served no
apprenticeship could be to all alike, but Arthurine or 'Atty,' as
Daisy and Pansy were heard shouting to her--all in white flannels, a
man all but the petticoats--seemed to be absorbed in a little court
of the second-rate people of Bonchamp, some whom, as Mrs. Greville
and Lady Smithson agreed, they had never expected to meet. She was
laughing and talking eagerly, and by and by ran up to Bessie,
exclaiming in a patronising tone--
'Oh! my dear Miss Bessie, let me introduce you to Mr. Foxholm--such
a clever literary man. He knows everybody--all about everybody and
everything. It would be such an advantage! And he has actually
made me give him my autograph! Only think of that!'
Bessie thought of her own good luck in being anonymous, but did not
express it, only saying, 'Autograph-hunters are a great nuisance. I
know several people who find them so.'
'Yes, he said it was one of the penalties of fame that one must
submit to,' returned Miss Arthuret, with a delighted laugh of
consciousness.
Bessie rejoiced that none of her own people were near to see the
patronising manner in which Arthurine introduced her to Mr. Foxholm,
a heavily-bearded man, whose eyes she did not at all like, and who
began by telling her that he felt as if he had crossed the Rubicon,
and entering an Arcadia, had found a Parnassus.
Bessie looked to see whether the highly-educated young lady detected
the malaprop for the Helicon, but Arthurine was either too well-bred
or too much exalted to notice either small slips, or even bad taste,
and she stood smiling and blushing complacently. However, just then
Susan hurried up. 'Bessie, you are wanted. Here's a card. The
gentleman sent it in, and papa asked me to find you.'
Bessie opened her eyes. The card belonged to the editor of one of
the most noted magazines of the day, but one whose principles she
did not entirely approve. What could be coming?
Her father was waiting for her.
'Well, Miss Bessie,' he said, laughing, 'Jane said the gentleman was
very urgent in wanting to know when you would be in. An offer, eh?'
'Perhaps it is an offer, but not of _THAT_ sort,' said Bessie, and
she explained what the unliterary Admiral had not understood. He
answered with a whistle.
'Shall you do it, Bessie?'
'I think not,' she said quietly.
The editor was found waiting for her, with many apologies for
bringing her home, and the Admiral was so delighted with his
agreeableness as hardly to be able to tear himself away to bring
home his wife.
The offer was, as Bessie expected, of excellent terms for a serial
story--terms that proved to her what was her own value, and in which
she saw education for her sister Anne's eldest boy.
'Of course, there would be a certain adaptation to our readers.'
She knew what that meant, and there was that in her face which drew
forth the assurance.
'Of course nothing you would not wish to say would be required, but
it would be better not to press certain subjects.'
'I understand,' said Bessie. 'I doubt--'
'Perhaps you will think it over.'
Bessie's first thought was, 'If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, then let
my right hand forget her cunning.' That had been the inward motto
of her life. Her second was, 'Little Sam! David's mission room!'
There was no necessity to answer at once, and she knew the
periodical rather by report than by reading, so she accepted the two
numbers that were left with her, and promised to reply in a week.
It was a question on which to take counsel with her father, and with
her own higher conscience and heavenly Guide.
The Admiral, though not much given to reading for its own sake, and
perhaps inclined to think ephemeral literature the more trifling
because his little daughter was a great light there, was anything
but a dull man, and had an excellent judgment. So Bessie, with all
the comfort of a woman still with a wise father's head over her,
decided to commit the matter to him. He was somewhat disappointed
at finding her agreeable guest gone, and wished that dinner and bed
had been offered.
Mrs. Merrifield and Susan were still a good deal excited about
Arthurine's complimentary friend, who they said seemed to belong to
Fred Mytton, of whom some of the ladies had been telling most
unpleasant reports, and there was much lamentation over the set into
which their young neighbour had thrown herself.
'Such a dress too!' sighed Mrs. Merrifield.
'And her headmistress has just arrived,' said Susan, 'to make her
worse than ever!'
'How comes a headmistress to be running about the country at this
time of year?' asked Bessie.
'She has been very ill,' said Mrs. Merrifield, 'and they wrote to
her to come down as soon as she could move. There was a telegram
this morning, and she drove up in the midst of the party, and was
taken to her room at once to rest. That was the reason Miss
Arthuret was away so long. I thought it nice in her.'
'Perhaps she will do good,' said Bessie.
Dinner was just over, and the Admiral had settled down with his
shaded lamp to read and judge of the article that Bessie had given
him as a specimen, when in came the message, 'Mrs. Rudden wishes to
speak to you, sir.'
Mrs. Rudden was the prosperous widow who continued the business in
the village shop, conjointly with the little farm belonging to the
Gap property. She was a shrewd woman, had been able to do very well
by her family, and was much esteemed, paying a rent which was a
considerable item in the Gap means. The ladies wondered together at
the summons. Susan hoped 'that girl' did not want to evict her, and
Bessie suggested that a co-operative store was a more probable
peril. Presently the Admiral came back. 'Do any of you know Miss
Arthuret's writing?' he said.
'Bessie knows it best,' said Susan.
He showed a letter. 'That is hers--the signature,' said Bessie. 'I
are not sure about the rest. Why--what does it mean?'