The Queen Bee, usually undisputed sovereign of Knight Sutton, found in
her cousin Roger a formidable rival. As son and heir, elder brother, and
newly arrived after five years’ absence, he had considerable claims to
attention, and his high spirits, sailor manners, sea stories, and bold
open temper, were in themselves such charms that it was no wonder that
Frederick and Alexander were seduced from their allegiance, and even
grandpapa was less than usual the property of his granddaughter.
This, however, she might have endured, had the sailor himself been
amenable to her power, for his glories would then have become hers, and
have afforded her further opportunities of coquetting with Fred. But
between Roger and her there was little in common: he was not, and never
had been, accessible to her influence; he regarded her, indeed, with all
the open-hearted affection of cousinly intercourse, but for the rest,
thought her much too clever for him, and far less attractive than either
Henrietta or Jessie.
If she would, Henrietta might have secured his devotion, for he was
struck with her beauty, and considered it a matter of credit to himself
to engross the prettiest person present. Had Beatrice been in her place,
it may be doubted how far love of power, and the pleasure of teasing,
might have carried her out of her natural character in the style that
suited him; but Henrietta was too simple, and her mind too full of her
own affairs even to perceive that he distinguished her. She liked
him, but she showed none of the little airs which would have seemed to
appropriate him. She was ready to be talked to, but only as she gave the
attention due to any one, nay, showing, because she felt, less eagerness
than if it had been grandpapa, Queen Bee, or Fred, a talk with the last
of whom was a pleasure now longed for, but never enjoyed. To his
stories of adventures, or accounts of manners, she lent a willing and
a delighted ear; but all common-place jokes tending to flirtation fell
flat; she either did not catch them, or did not catch at them. She might
blush and look confused, but it was uncomfortable, and not gratified
embarrassment, and if she found an answer, it was one either to change
the subject, or honestly manifest that she was not pleased.
She did not mortify Roger, who liked her all the time; and if he thought
at all, only considered her as shy or grave, and still continued to
admire her, and seek her out, whenever his former favourite, Jessie,
was not in the way to rattle with in his usual style. Jessie was full of
enjoyment, Henrietta was glad to be left to her own devices, her
mamma was still more rejoiced to see her act so properly without
self-consciousness or the necessity of interference, and the Queen Bee
ought to have been duly grateful to the one faithful vassal who was
proof against all allurements from her side and service.
She ought, but the melancholy fact is that the devotion of womankind is
usually taken as a matter of course. Beatrice would have despised and
been very angry with Henrietta had she deserted to Roger, but she did
not feel in the least grateful for her adherence, and would have been
much more proud of retaining either of the boys. There was one point on
which their attention could still be commanded, namely, the charades;
for though the world may be of opinion that they had had quite a
sufficiency of amusement, they were but the more stimulated by their
success on Thursday, and the sudden termination in the very height of
their triumph.
They would, perhaps, have favoured the public with a repetition of
Shylock’s trial the next evening, but that, to the great consternation,
and, perhaps, indignation of Beatrice, when she came down to breakfast
in the morning, she found their tiring-room, the study, completely
cleared of all their various goods and chattels, Portia’s wig in its
box, the three caskets gone back to the dressing-room, the duke’s throne
safe in its place in the hall, and even Shylock’s yellow cap picked to
pieces, and rolled up in the general hoard of things which were to
come of use in seven years’ time. Judith, who was putting the finishing
touches to the re-arrangement by shaking up the cushions of the great
chair, and restoring the inkstand to its place in the middle of the
table, gave in answer to her exclamations the information that “Missus
had been up since seven o’clock, helping to put away the things herself,
for she said she could not bear to have Mr. Geoffrey’s room not fit for
anybody to sit in.” This might certainly be considered as a tolerably
broad hint that they had better discontinue their representations,
but they were arrived at that state of eagerness which may be best
illustrated by the proverb referring to a blind horse. Every one,
inclined to that same impetuosity, and want of soberness, can remember
the dismay with which hosts of such disregarded checks will recur to the
mind when too late, and the poor satisfaction of the self-justification
which truly answers that their object was not even comprehended.
Henrietta, accustomed but little to heed such indications of dissent
from her will, did not once think of her grandmamma’s dislike, and
Beatrice with her eyes fully open to it, wilfully despised it as a
fidgety fancy.
Henrietta had devised a series of scenes for the word assassin, and
greatly delighted the imagination of her partners by a proposal to make
a pair of asses’ ears of cotton velvet for the adornment of Bottom the
weaver. Fred fell back in his chair in fits of laughing at the device,
and Queen Bee capered and danced about the room, declaring her worthy to
be her own “primest of viziers.”
“And,” said Beatrice, “what an exquisite interlude it will make to
relieve the various plagues of Monday evening.”
“Why you don’t mean to act then!” exclaimed Henrietta.
“Why not? You don’t know what a relief it will be. It will be an excuse
for getting away from all the stupidity.”
“To be sure it will,” cried Fred. “A bright thought, Mrs. Bee. We shall
have it all to ourselves in the study in comfort.”
“But would grandmamma ever let us do it?” said Henrietta.
“I will manage,” said Beatrice. “I will make grandpapa agree to it, and
then she will not mind. Think how he enjoyed it.”
“Before so many people!” said Henrietta. “O, Queenie, it will never do!
It would be a regular exhibition.”
“My dear, what nonsense!” said Beatrice. “Why, it is all among friends
and neighbours.”
“Friends and neighbours to you,” said Henrietta.
“And yours too. Fred, she is deserting! I thought you meant to adopt or
inherit all Knight Sutton and its neighbourhood could offer.”
“A choice inheritance that neighbourhood, by your account,” said Fred.
“But come, Henrietta, you must not spoil the whole affair by such
nonsense and affectation.”
“Affectation! O, Fred!”
“Yes, to be sure it is,” said Fred: “to set up such scruples as these.
Why, you said yourself that you forget all about the spectators when
once you get into the spirit of the thing.”
“And what is affectation,” said Beatrice, seeing her advantage, “but
thinking what other people will think?”
There are few persuasions to which a girl who claims to possess some
degree of sense is more accessible, than the imputation of affectation,
especially when brought forward by a brother, and enforced by a clever
and determined friend. Such a feeling is no doubt often very useful in
preventing folly, but it may sometimes be perverted to the smothering
of wholesome scruples. Henrietta only pressed one point more, she begged
not to be Titania.
“O, you must, you silly child,” said Beatrice. “I have such designs
for dressing you! Besides, I mean to be Mustardseed, and make grandpapa
laugh by my by-play at the giant Ox-beef.”
“But consider, Bee,” said Henrietta, “how much too tall I am for
a fairy. It would be too absurd to make Titania as large as Bottom
himself--spoil the whole picture. You might surely get some little girls
to be the other fairies, and take Titania yourself.”
“Certainly it might conciliate people to have their own children made
part of the show,” said Beatrice. “Little Anna Carey has sense enough,
I think; ay, and the two Nevilles, if they will not be shy. We will keep
you to come out in grand force in the last scene--Queen Eleanor sucking
the poison. Aunt Mary has a certain black-lace scarf that will make an
excellent Spanish mantilla. Or else suppose you are Berengaria, coming
to see King Richard when he was ‘old-man-of-the-mountains.’”
“No, no,” cried Fred, “stick to the Queen Eleanor scene. We will have no
more blacking of faces. Yesterday I was too late down stairs because I
could not get the abominable stuff out of my hair.”
“And it would be a cruel stroke to be taken for Philip Carey again,
in the gentleman’s own presence, too,” said Beatrice. “Monsieur is
apparemment the apothecaire de famille. Do you remember, Henrietta, the
French governess in Miss Edgworth’s book?”
“Jessie smiled and nodded as if she was perfectly enchanted with the
mistake,” said Henrietta.
“And I do not wonder at it,” said Beatrice, “the mistake, I mean. Fred’s
white hands there have just the look of a doctor’s; of course Roger
thought the only use of them could be to feel pulses, and Philip, for
want of something better to do, is always trying for a genteel look.”
“You insulting creature!” said Fred. “Just as if I tried to look
genteel.”
“You do, then, whether you try or not. You can’t help it, you know, and
I am very sorry for you; but you do stand and walk and hold out your
hand just as Philip is always trying to do, and it is no wonder Roger
thought he had succeeded in attaining his object.”
“But what a goose the man must be to make such absurdity his object,”
said Henrietta.
“He could not be a Carey and be otherwise,” said Busy Bee. “And besides,
what would you have him do? As to getting any practice, unless his kith
and kin choose to victimise themselves philanthropically according to
Roger’s proposal, I do not see what chance he has, where everyone knows
the extent of a Carey’s intellects; and what is left for the poor man to
do but to study the cut of his boots?”
“If you say much more about it, Queenie,” said Henrietta, “you will make
Fred dance in Bottom’s hob-nailed shoes.”
“Ah! it is a melancholy business,” said Beatrice; “but it cannot be
helped. Fred cannot turn into a clodhopper. But what earthquake is
this?” exclaimed she, as the front door was dashed open with such
violence as to shake the house, and the next moment Alexander rushed in,
heated and almost breathless. “Rats! rats!” was his cry; “Fred, that’s
right. But where is Uncle Geoffrey?”
“Gone to Allonfield.”
“More’s the pity. There are a whole host of rats in the great barn at
home. Pincher caught me one just now, and they are going to turn the
place regularly out, only I got them to wait while I came up here for
you and Uncle Geoffrey. Come, make haste, fly--like smoke--while I go
and tell grandpapa.”
Off flew Fred to make his preparation, and off to the drawing room
hurried Alex to call grandpapa. He was greeted by a reproof from Mrs.
Langford for shaking the house enough to bring it down, and grandpapa
laughed, thanked him, and said he hoped to be at Sutton Leigh in time
for the rat hunt, as he was engaged to drive grandmamma and Aunt Mary
thither and to the Pleasance that afternoon.
Two seconds more, and Fred and Alex were speeding away together, and the
girls went up to put on their bonnets to walk and meet their elders at
Sutton Leigh. For once Beatrice let Henrietta be as slow as she pleased,
for she was willing to let as much of the visit as possible pass
before they arrived there. They walked along, merrily concocting their
arrangements for Monday evening, until at length they came to the gates
of Sutton Leigh, and already heard the shouts of triumph, the barking of
dogs, and the cackle of terrified poultry, which proclaimed that the war
was at its height.
“O! the glories of a rat hunt!” cried Beatrice. “Come, Henrietta, here
is a safe place whence to contemplate it, and really it is a sight not
to be lost.”
Henrietta thought not indeed when she looked over a gate leading into
the farm-yard on the side opposite to the great old barn, raised on
a multitude of stone posts, a short ladder reaching to the wide doors
which were folded back so as to display the heaps of straw thrown
violently back and forward; the dogs now standing in attitudes of
ecstatic expectation, tail straight out, head bent forward, now
springing in rapture on the prey; the boys rushing about with their
huge sticks, and coming down now and then with thundering blows, the
labourers with their white shirt sleeves and pitchforks pulling down the
straw, Uncle Roger with a portentous-looking club in the thick of the
fight. On the ladder, cheering them on, stood grandpapa, holding little
Tom in his arms, and at the bottom, armed with small sticks, were
Charlie and Arthur, consoling themselves for being turned out of the
melée, by making quite as much noise as all those who were doing real
execution, thumping unmercifully at every unfortunate dead mouse or rat
that was thrown out, and charging fiercely at the pigs, ducks, and geese
that now and then came up to inspect proceedings, and perhaps, for such
accidents will occur in the best regulated families, to devour a share
of the prey.
Beatrice’s first exclamation was, “O! if papa was but here!”
“Nothing can go on without him, I suppose,” said Henrietta. “And yet, is
this one of his great enjoyments?”
“My dear, don’t you know it is a part of the privilege of a free-born
Englishman to delight in hunting ‘rats and mice and such small beer,’ as
much or more than the grand chasse? I have not the smallest doubt that
all the old cavaliers were fine old farm-loving fellows, who liked a rat
hunt, and enjoyed turning out a barn with all their hearts.”
“There goes Fred!” cried Henrietta.
“Ah! capital. He takes to it by nature, you see. There--there! O what
a scene it is! Look how beautifully the sun comes in, making that solid
sort of light on the mist of dust at the top.”
“And how beautifully it falls on grandpapa’s head! I think that
grandpapa with little Tom is one of the best parts of the picture, Bee.”
“To be sure he is, that noble old head of his, and that beautiful gentle
face; and to see him pointing, and soothing the child when he gets
frightened at the hubbub, and then enjoying the victories over the poor
rats as keenly as anybody!”
“Certainly,” said Henrietta, “there is something very odd in man’s
nature; they can like to do such cruel-sounding things without being
cruel! Grandpapa, or Fred, or Uncle Roger, or Alex now, they are as kind
and gentle as possible: yet the delight they can take in catching and
killing--”
“That is what town-people never can understand,” said Beatrice, “that
hunting-spirit of mankind. I hate above all things to hear it cried
down, and the nonsense that is talked about it. I only wish that those
people could have seen what I did last summer--grandpapa calling Carey,
and holding the ladder for him while he put the young birds into their
nest that had fallen out. And O the uproar that there was one day when
Dick did something cruel to a poor rabbit; it was two or three years
ago, and Alex and Carey set upon him and thrashed him so that they
were really punished for it, bad as it was of Dick; it was one of those
bursts of generous indignation.”
“It is a very curious thing,” said Henrietta, “the soldier spirit it
must be, I suppose--”
“What are you philosophising about, young ladies?” asked Mr. Langford,
coming up as Henrietta said these last words.
“Only about the spirit of the chase, grandpapa,” said Beatrice, “what
the pleasure can be of the field of slaughter there.”
“Something mysterious, you may be sure, young ladies,” said grandpapa.
“I have hunted rats once or twice a year now these seventy years or
more, and I can’t say I am tired yet. And there is Master Fred going
at it, for the first time in his life, as fiercely as any of us old
veterans, and he has a very good eye for a hit, I can tell you, if it is
any satisfaction to you. Ha! hoigh Vixen! hoigh Carey! that’s it--there
he goes!”
“Now, grandpapa,” said Beatrice, catching hold of his hand, “I want just
to speak to you. Don’t you think we might have a little charade-acting
on Monday to enliven the evening a little?”
“Eh? what? More charades? Well, they are very pretty sport, only I think
they would astonish the natives here a little. Are we to have the end of
Shylock?”
“No,” said Beatrice, “we never condescend to repeat ourselves. We have a
new word and a beauty, and don’t you think it will do very well?”
“I am afraid grandmamma will think you are going to take to private
theatricals.”
“Well, it won’t be nearly such regular acting as the last,” said
Beatrice, “I do not think it would do to take another half-play for so
many spectators, but a scene or two mostly in dumb show would make a
very nice diversion. Only say that you consent, grandpapa.”
“Well, I don’t see any harm in it,” said grandpapa, “so long as
grandmamma does not mind it. I suppose your mamma does not, Henrietta?”
“O no,” said Henrietta, with a certain mental reservation that she would
make her not mind it, or at any rate not gainsay it. Fred’s calling her
affected was enough to make her consent, and bring her mamma to consent
to anything; for so little is it really the nature of woman to exercise
power, that if she domineers, it is sure to be compensated by some
subjection in some other manner: and if Henrietta ruled her mother, she
was completely under the dominion of Fred and Beatrice. Themistocles’
wife might rule Athens, but she was governed by her son.
After this conversation they went in, and found Aunt Roger very busy,
recommending servants to Aunt Mary, and grandmamma enforcing all she
said. The visit soon came to an end, and they went on to the Pleasance,
where the inspection did not prove quite as agreeable as on the
first occasion; for grandmamma and Beatrice had very different views
respecting the appropriation of the rooms, and poor Mrs. Frederick
Langford was harassed and wearied by her vain attempts to accede to the
wishes of both, and vex neither. Grandmamma was determined too to look
over every corner, and discuss every room, and Henrietta, in despair
at the fatigue her mother was obliged to go through, kept on seeking in
vain for a seat for her, and having at last discovered a broken-backed
kitchen chair in some of the regions below, kept diligently carrying
it after her in all her peregrinations. She was constantly wishing that
Uncle Geoffrey would come, but in vain; and between the long talking at
Sutton Leigh, the wandering about the house, and the many discussions,
her mamma was completely tired out, and obliged, when they came home,
to confess that she had a headache. Henrietta fairly wished her safe at
Rocksand.
While Henrietta was attending her mother to her own room, and persuading
her to lay up for the evening, Beatrice, whose head was full of but one
matter, pursued Mrs. Langford into the study, and propounded her grand
object. As she fully expected, she met with a flat refusal, and sitting
down in her arm-chair, Mrs. Langford very earnestly began with “Now
listen to me, my dear child,” and proceeded with a long story of
certain private theatricals some forty years ago, which to her certain
knowledge, ended in a young lady eloping with a music master. Beatrice
set to work to argue: in the first place it was not probable that either
she or Henrietta would run away with their cousins; secondly, that the
former elopement was not chargeable on poor Shakespeare; thirdly, that
these were not private theatricals at all.
“And pray what are they, then--when you dress yourselves up, and speak
the speeches out as boldly as Mrs. Siddons, or any of them?”
“You pay us a great compliment,” said Beatrice, who could sometimes
be pert when alone with grandmamma; and she then went on with her
explanation of how very far this was from anything that could be called
theatrical; it was the guessing the word, not their acting, that was
the important point. The distinction was too fine for grandmamma; it
was play-acting, and that was enough for her, and she would not have it
done.
“But grandpapa liked it, and had given full consent.” This was a
powerful piece of ordnance which Beatrice had kept in reserve, but at
the first moment the shot did not tell.
“Ladies were the best judges in such a case as this,” said Mrs.
Langford, “and let who would consent, she would never have her
granddaughters standing up, speaking speeches out of Shakespeare, before
a whole room full of company.”
“Well, then, grandmamma, I’ll tell you what: to oblige you, we will not
have one single scene out of Shakespeare--not one. Won’t that do?”
“You will go to some other play-book, and that is worse,” said Mrs.
Langford.
“No, no, we will not: we will do every bit out of our own heads, and it
shall be almost all Fred and Alex; Henrietta and I will scarcely come
in at all. And it will so shorten the evening, and amuse every one so
nicely! and grandpapa has said we may.”
Mrs. Langford gave a sort of sigh. “Ah, well! you always will have your
own way, and I suppose you must; but I never thought to see such things
in my house. In my day, young people thought no more of a scheme when
their elders had once said, ‘No.’”
“Yes, only you must not say so, grandmamma. I am sure we would give it
up if you did; but pray do not--we will manage very well.”
“And put the whole house in a mess, as you did last time; turn
everything upside down. I tell you, Beatrice, I can’t have it done. I
shall want the study to put out the supper in.”
“We can dress in our own rooms, then,” said Beatrice, “never mind that.”
“Well, then, if you will make merry-andrews of yourselves, and your
fathers and mothers like to let you, I can’t help it--that’s all I have
to say,” said Mrs. Langford, walking out of the room; while Fred entered
from the other side a moment after. “Victory, victory, my dear Fred!”
cried Beatrice, darting to meet him in an ecstasy. “I have prevailed:
you find me in the hour of victory. The Assassin for ever! announced for
Monday night, before a select audience!”
“Well, you are an irresistible Queen Bee,” said Fred; “why Alex has just
been telling me ever so much that his mother told him about grandmamma’s
dislike to it. I thought the whole concern a gone ‘coon, as they say in
America.”
“I got grandpapa first,” said Beatrice, “and then I persuaded her;
she told me it would lead to all sorts of mischief, and gave me a long
lecture which had nothing to do with it. But I found out at last
that the chief points which alarmed her were poor Shakespeare and the
confusion in the study; so by giving up those two I gained everything.”
“You don’t mean that you gave up bully Bottom?”
“Yes, I do; but you need not resign your asses’ ears. You shall wear
them in the character of King Midas.”
“I think,” said the ungrateful Fred, “that you might as well have given
it all up together as Bottom.”
“No, no; just think what capabilities there are in Midas. We will
decidedly make him King of California, and I’ll be the priestess of
Apollo; there is an old three-legged epergne-stand that will make a most
excellent tripod. And only think of the whispering into the reeds, ‘King
Midas has the ears of an ass.’ I would have made more of a fight for
Bottom, if that had not come into my head.”
“But you will have nothing to do.”
“That helped to conciliate. I promised we girls should appear very
little, and for the sake of effect, I had rather Henrietta broke on the
world in all her beauty at the end. I do look forward to seeing her as
Queen Eleanor; she will look so regal.”
Fred smiled, for he delighted in his sister’s praises. “You are a
wondrous damsel, busy one,” said he, “to be content to play second
fiddle.”
“Second fiddle! As if I were not the great moving spring! Trust me, you
would never write yourself down an ass but for the Queen Bee. How shall
we ever get your ears from Allonfield? Saturday night, and only till
Monday evening to do everything in!”
“Oh, you will do it,” said Fred. “I wonder what you and Henrietta cannot
do between you! Oh, there is Uncle Geoffrey come in,” he exclaimed, as
he heard the front door open.
“And I must go and dress,” said Beatrice, seized with a sudden haste,
which did not speak well for the state of her conscience.
Uncle Geoffrey was in the hall, taking off his mud-bespattered gaiters.
“So you are entered with the vermin, Fred,” called he, as the two came
out of the drawing-room.
“O how we wished for you, Uncle Geoffrey! but how did you hear it?”
“I met Alex just now. Capital sport you must have had. Are you only just
come in?”
“No, we were having a consultation about the charades,” said Fred; “the
higher powers consent to our having them on Monday.”
“Grandmamma approving?” asked Uncle Geoffrey.
“O yes,” said Fred, in all honesty, “she only objected to our taking a
regular scene in a play, and ‘coming it as strong’ as we did the other
night; so it is to be all extemporary, and it will do famously.”
Beatrice, who had been waiting in the dark at the top of the stairs,
listening, was infinitely rejoiced that her project had been explained
so plausibly, and yet in such perfect good faith, and she flew off to
dress in high spirits. Had she mentioned it to her father, he would
have doubted, taken it as her scheme, and perhaps put a stop to it: but
hearing of it from Frederick, whose pleasures were so often thwarted,
was likely to make him far more unwilling to object. For its own sake,
she knew he had no objection to the sport; it was only for that of his
mother; and since he had heard of her as consenting, all was right. No,
could Beatrice actually say so to her own secret soul?
She could not; but she could smother the still small voice that checked
her, in a multitude of plans, and projects, and criticisms, and airy
castles, and, above all, the pleasure of triumph and dominion, and the
resolution not to yield, and the delight of leading.