“Well, really!” said little Mrs. Sedgwick, bridling with offended
virtue, “I don’t think I am very hard upon a little innocent
flirting--sometimes, you know, there’s no harm in it--and young people
will amuse themselves; but _really_, Mrs. Crofton, _that_ Miss Reredos
is quite ridiculous. I do wonder for my part how men can be so taken
in!--and our Maurice who is so clever!--and she is not even pretty--if
she had been pretty one could have understood.”
“My dear Clara,” said I, “perhaps it is not very complimentary to your
brother, but I do think the most sensible thing Maurice could do would
be to fall in love. I don’t say of course with Miss Reredos; but then,
you see, we can’t choose the person. If he fell desperately in love and
made a fool of himself, I am sure I should not think any worse of him,
and it would do him no harm.”
Both the sisters drew up their shoulders a little, and communicated
between each other a telegraphic glance of displeasure. Between
themselves they could be hard enough upon Maurice, but, after the use of
kinsfolk, could not bear the touch of a stranger.
“Really, I cannot say I should be very grateful to Maurice for such a
sister-in-law,” said Clara, with a toss of her head.
“I don’t think there is very much to fear,” said Miss Polly. “Do you
know what little Derwie told me yesterday? He said a poor woman in the
village had three or four children ill with the hooping-cough--at least
so I understood the child from the sound he made to show me what it was.
Now, I really think if I were you, Clare, I would not let that child
wander so much about the village. Neither Di nor Emmy has ever had
hooping-cough, and I shall be almost frightened to let them go out of
doors.”
“Oh, I assure you it’s nothing, Miss Polly!” cried Clara--“mine had it
two years ago--even the baby--and took their walks just the same in all
weathers; and they must have it one time or other, you know--and such
great girls as your two nieces! Our children all got over it perfectly
well. Though Hugh says I am ridiculously timid, I never was the least
afraid. Their chests were rubbed every night, and they had something
which Hugh said it was polite to call medicine. Oh, I assure you
there’s nothing to be at all afraid of! especially at this time of the
year.”
“I daresay that’s very true, my dear,” said Miss Polly, who took little
Clara’s nursery instructions and assurances in very good part, “but it
isn’t always so. There’s my poor little nephew, little Willoughby--dear,
dear! to think what a strong man his father is, and how delicate that
poor child looks! I can’t help thinking sometimes it must be his
mother’s fault; though to be sure they have the best of nurses, and Lady
Greenfield can’t be expected to make a slave of herself; that poor dear
little soul was very ill with the hooping-cough. Clara--all children are
not so fortunate as your pretty darlings; and that reminds me, Clare,
that you have never seen Elinor’s letter yet; she mentions her nephew in
it, as I think I told you; so, though it’s almost all about Emmy, my
dear children’s mother, if you’ll wait a minute I’ll just bring it
down.”
Saying which Miss Polly left the room. Alice sat rather stiffly at her
work and looked very busy--so very busy that I was suspicious of some
small gleam of interest on her part touching the contents of Lady
Greenfield’s letter.
“Miss Polly does not love Lady Greenfield too much,” said Clara,
laughing; “but,” she added, with a little flush of angry anticipation,
“it’s nothing to laugh at after all. Suppose Maurice were to marry Miss
Reredos! Oh, Mrs. Crofton, isn’t it shocking of you to put such dreadful
thoughts in one’s head! Fancy, Alice! and to settle down hereabout--to
be near us!--I am sure I could never be civil to her: and what do you
suppose mamma would say?”
“Maurice has nothing but his fellowship,” said Alice.
“Well, to be sure, that is some comfort,” said Clara; “but then I
daresay he might get a living if he tried, and Hugh could even”----
Here Miss Polly came in with her letter, so we did not hear at that
moment what could be done by Hugh, who, in the eyes of his little wife,
was happily a person all-powerful.
“My dear,” said Miss Polly, laying down the letter in her lap, and
making a little preliminary lecture in explanation, “you remember that
Emmy, my niece, two years ago, married again. Well, you know, one
couldn’t well blame her. She was only one and twenty, poor little soul,
when she was left with these two children; and I was but too glad to
keep the little girls with me, so she was quite what people call without
encumbrance, you see. So she married that curate whom she had met at
Fenosier. Well, it’s no use disguising it--Lady Greenfield and I are
perhaps not such great friends as we ought to be, and Emmy has a temper
of her own, and is just the weak-minded sort of little soul that will
worry herself to death over those slights and annoyances that good near
neighbors can do to each other--she ought to know better, after all
she’s gone through. So here’s a letter from Elinor, telling me, of
course, she’s as innocent as the day, and knows nothing about it--and so
sorry for poor dear little Emmy--and so good and sweet-tempered herself,
that really, if I were as near to her as Emmy is, I do believe I should
do her a mischief. There’s the letter, Clare; you can read that part
about Bertie out aloud if you please--perhaps the girls might like to
hear it.”
With which, shaking off a little heat of exasperation which had gathered
about her, Miss Polly resumed her usual work and placidity. I confess it
was not without a smile I read Lady Greenfield’s letter. I fortunately
was under no temptations of the kind myself. If I had been, I daresay, I
should have turned out exactly like my neighbors; but the spectators of
a domestic squabble or successful piece of neighborly oppression and
tyranny always see the ludicrous side of it, and I could understand my
lady’s mild malice and certainty of not being to blame, so well. It
appeared that the poor little Emmy, completely overpowered by Lady
Greenfield’s neighborly attentions, had in her turn worried her curate,
and that the result of their united efforts was the withdrawal of the
young clergyman, who did not feel himself able to cope with my lady at
the Hall and his own exasperated little wife in the cottage, which
unlooked-for result Lady Greenfield took the earliest opportunity of
communicating to her dear Polly, with condolences over Emmy’s want of
spirit and weak propensity, poor child!--to see neglect and slight where
nothing of the kind was meant. I was so long getting over this, that,
having heard from him recently myself, I did not make the haste I might
have done to read what Lady Greenfield had to say about Bertie. I was
reminded of this by seeing suddenly over the top of the letter a slight,
quick movement made by Alice. It was only the most common change of
position--nothing could be more natural; but there was a certain
indescribable something of impatience and suspense in it which I
comprehended by a sudden instinct. I stumbled immediately down to the
paragraph about Bertie:
“Pray tell Clare Crofton,” wrote Lady Greenfield, “in case she should
not have heard from Bertie lately--which is very likely, for young men I
know don’t always keep up their correspondences as they ought,
especially with elderly female relations, like dear Clare and
myself--that I had a letter from my nephew by the last mail. He has not
done yet lamenting that he could not get home and go to the Crimea, but
says his old brigadier is suspicious of the Native army, and prophesies
that there will be some commotion among them, which Bertie thinks will
be great fun, and that a thorough cutting down would do these pampered
fellows all the good in the world: so he says, you know, as boys will
talk--but the Company’s officers laugh at the idea. If all keeps quiet,
Bertie says he is rather sick of India--he thinks he will come back and
see his friends: he thinks perhaps his dear cousin Clare has somebody in
her pocket whom she means him to marry. To be sure, after giving him
Estcourt, it would be only right that she should have a vote in the
choice of his wife. Such a great matter, you know, for a boy like
Bertie, his father’s fourth son, to come into a pretty little property
like Estcourt--and so good of dear Clare!--pray tell her, with my love.”
Not having taken the precaution to glance over this, as I ought to have
done from my previous acquaintance with “dear” Elinor, I had stumbled
into the middle of that statement about the somebody whom cousin Clare
had in her pocket before I was aware; and after an awkward pause, felt
constrained to proceed. I thought the malice of the epistle altogether
would defeat itself, and went on accordingly to the end of the sentence.
Then I folded up the letter and gave it to Miss Polly.
“I wonder does Lady Greenfield mean to make me so thoroughly
uncomfortable when Bertie comes home that I shall not let him come here
at all,” said I; “or to terrify me out of the possibility of introducing
him to anybody, lest I should be said to be influencing his choice? But
indeed she need not take the trouble. I know Bertie, and Bertie knows me
much too well for the success of any such attempt. I will not have my
liberty infringed upon, I assure you, Miss Polly, not by half a dozen
Lady Greenfields.”
“My dear, you don’t suppose me an accessory?” said Miss Polly, with a
little spirit. “Did any one ever see such a wanton mischief-maker? I
think she takes quite a delight in setting people by the ears. If Bertie
ever did say such a thing, Clare,” said Miss Polly, with a little
vehemence, “about somebody in your pocket, you know, I could swear it
was Elinor, and nobody else, who put it into his head.”
By the merest inadvertence I am sure, certainly not by any evil
intention, Miss Polly, as she delivered these words, allowed her mild
old glances to stray towards Alice. I at the same moment chanced to give
a furtive look in the same direction. Of course, just at the instant of
danger, Alice, who had been immovable hitherto, suddenly looked up and
detected us both. I do not know what meanings of which they were
innocent her sensitive pride discovered in our eyes, but she sprang up
with an impatience and mortification quite irrestrainable, her very neck
growing crimson as she turned her head out of my sight. I understood
well enough that burning blush of shame, and indignation, and wounded
pride; it was not the blush of a love-sick girl, and my heart quaked
when it occurred to me that Lady Greenfield might possibly have done a
more subtle act of mischief by her letter than even she intended. Whom
was I so likely to have in my pocket as Alice Harley? Indeed, was not
she aware by intuition of some such secret desire in my mind? And
suppose Bertie were coming home with tender thoughts towards the friend
of his boyhood, and perhaps a little tender pleasant wonder, full of
suggestions, why Alice Harley, and she alone, out of her immediate
companions, should remain unmarried--what good would that laudable, and
much-to-be-desired frame of mind do to the poor boy now? If he came to
Hilfont this very night, the most passionate lover, did not I know that
Alice would reject him much more vehemently than she had rejected the
Rector--scornfully, because conscious of the secret inclination towards
him, which, alas! lay treacherous at the bottom of her heart? Oh, Lady
Greenfield! Oh, dearest of “dear” Elinors! if you had anywhere two most
sincere well-wishers, they were surely Miss Polly and myself!