LADIES IN COUNCIL.
WHILE Mr. Coffin was criticising the ladies of Thwayte, the ladies, on
their part, were passing judgment upon Mr. Coffin.
When the late easy-tempered, openhanded, good-natured proprietor of
Burnesbey Abbey had paid the debt of nature, the character of his
successor became a subject of curious conjecture, a matter of personal
interest to all who dwelt in the neighbourhood. Sir John Coffin had
held no very lofty place in men's esteem during his lifetime; but, like
many more noble than himself, the fox-hunting squire was destined to be
more highly appreciated after his departure from earth than during his
residence in it.
At the dinner-party given in his honour by Lady Macaw, Mr. Coffin may
be said to have made his first appearance in that circle in which
his position as a large landed proprietor would henceforth give him
a prominent place. Caleb had indeed spent two or three days in the
parsonage of Thwayte during the lifetime of his sister, Mrs. Lamb, the
wife of the vicar—but years had elapsed since that visit. Lady Macaw,
who had chanced then to meet him, had described Mr. Coffin to her
husband as a satirical, talkative man, who looked as if he would be
shrewd in business and sharp in driving a bargain. The lady had almost
forgotten the merchant's existence when, by succeeding to the Burnesbey
estate, Caleb suddenly became to her, as to the other residents near
him, an object of curious interest, and a topic of gossiping talk. Lady
Macaw had, as we have seen, asked the lord of the manor to dinner,
giving him a formal entertainment, the preparation of which had cost
her a good deal of consideration and arrangement, if it had cost her
little besides. Lady Macaw, who regarded herself as the ruling spirit
in Thwayte, had determined to secure, if possible, the master of
Burnesbey Abbey, as one of the ministers of her will.
"First impressions are everything," as Lady Macaw observed to Sir
Patrick, her meek little husband, who passed a quiet life of obscurity
under the shadow of his wife.
What impressions had been made on Mr. Coffin may have been gathered
from the conversation related in the last chapter; what impressions the
new lord of the manor had himself made upon Thwayte society, shall be
recorded in this.
Let me introduce my reader into the pretty country-residence to
which Lady Macaw has given the name of the Villa of Roses. In her
drawing-room is gathered together the little working-party of ladies
who meet on each Tuesday to make pretty trifles for the fancy-bazaar,
the proceeds of which are to place a bronze statue of a very
distinguished statesman in the market-place of G—, the nearest county
town.
The room is furnished in modern style, and with some regard to taste.
Chromolithographs in elegant frames adorn the gilt papered walls,
mirrors on either side reflect each other in endless perspective,
from the ceiling hangs the bright chandelier, lighted only on grand
occasions. Every angle and "coign of vantage" holds the narrow shelf
laden with old porcelain, carved ivory, Italian cameos, or Chinese
idols (Sir Patrick made his money, and won his title, in China). A
large table, near the centre of the room, is heaped with muslin,
silk, tape, bobbins, dolls, things made and in process of making,
and at this table sits Lady Macaw, the presiding genius, a woman of
portly dimensions, large nose, and prominent chin, dressed with strict
regard to the fashion, and bearing herself with an air of stately
condescension which she mistakes for dignity. Lady Macaw is the
self-constituted patroness of the village of Thwayte in general, and of
its three unmarried ladies in particular; Philomel Lamb having lost her
mother, and Mrs. Langton, the doctor's sickly wife, being little better
than a cipher in the eyes of Lady Macaw.
The two Misses Langton form a striking contrast to each other. There,
on a footstool, sits merry black-eyed Lucy, making her "love of a
hedgehog" pincushion bristle all over with pins, as she laughs and
chats with her nearest neighbour, achieving as much in the talking way
as she does in the working. She is a girl ever ready for frolic and
fun, a restless little creature, who can never be happy in one place
for a fortnight together, and who is always paying visits or flying off
on her travels. Lucy has climbed the mountains of Norway, dived into
the catacombs of Rome, ascended the Great Pyramid itself, and cut her
initials on the top. Reclining amongst soft cushions, appears Delia,
her sister, a fair pretty girl, with languid air and conscious simper,
toying affectedly with the long strip of patchwork which is lying
across her knee. The one maiden reminds us of the swallow, all energy
and action; the other, of some pretty goldfinch, pruning its feathers
in sunshine.
Near to Delia appears an elderly lady. In her turned and faded
blue-green poplin, and long dingy olive-green veil, how familiar is
the stunted form of Priscilla Eccles to every child in the village!
No working-party would be complete without her; whenever a kind act
is to be done, especially if it involve inconvenience and trouble,
the aid of good Miss Eccles is always invoked, and is never refused.
Save a weakness for gossip, a little disposition to be curious about
her neighbour's concerns, natural to those who lead a secluded life
in a village, Miss Eccles has few faults. Thwayte is a little world
to the elderly maiden-lady, and though she occasionally visits G— for
shopping (rather to execute commissions than to improve her own slender
wardrobe), such a journey is as great an undertaking to Miss Eccles as
one across the Atlantic would be to Lucy Langton.
The only member of the little working-party at the Villa of Roses who
remains to be mentioned is Philomel Lamb, the vicar's daughter, a girl
with a bright sweet face, simply attired, and wearing no ornament but
a profusion of golden tresses, which shadow her temples and fall on
her shoulders. It is from this fashion of wearing her hair as she did
in the days of her childhood that Philomel has acquired the playful
cognomen of "the Lamb of the golden fleece." Never has that luxuriant
hair been imprisoned in plait, or twisted up into chignon.
In vain, had Lady Macaw given hints about attention to fashion, and
the incongruity of a young lady "who has come out" wearing her hair in
a way only suitable to a child, or a wax doll. Lady Macaw, who plumed
herself on deep knowledge of human nature, thought that there was a
little vanity and love of singularity in Philomel's choosing to keep
her curls when every other lady brushed her hair from her brows, and
wore a chignon at the back of her head. Miss Eccles, more good-natured
in her judgment, had suggested that Philomel kept to her old way
"because Mrs. Lamb, poor dear soul, was so fond of her child's yellow
curls." Delia believed that the vicar's daughter studied the becomings,
and liked to make the most of her only beauty; while Lucy always
laughingly averred that Philomel chose the style of coiffure which
cost her least trouble and thought. It is needless to decide which
conjecture was most correct, perhaps each had some shadow of truth; be
that as it may, Philomel retained her flowing locks, and her name of
Lamb of the golden fleece.
"And what did you think of our new squire?" inquired Miss Eccles,
in an audible whisper to Delia. The elder lady had not been at the
dinner-party on the preceding evening; she had not even had the usual
invitation to drop in at tea. Lady Macaw, after due consideration, had
decided that "the worthy old creature" would not improve Mr. Coffin's
first impressions of Thwayte society.
"He's an owl," lisped Delia.
"He's an old horror," cried Lucy; both sisters replying in a breath.
"My dears, you forget that Mr. Coffin is Philomel's uncle," said Lady
Macaw, glancing at the vicar's daughter, who was seated at the open
window, busy with a child's little frock.
"Oh, there is no one more provoked with him than I am," cried Philomel,
without raising her eyes from her work.
"Certainly Mr. Coffin has less idea of what society demands from one in
his position than any land-owner whom I ever met with," observed Lady
Macaw. "He carries the habits and ideas of the counting-house into the
fine old country mansion. When I expressed, as in courtesy bound, a
hope that I should see him at the fancy-fair to be held in June,—
"'You go there to "sell," I suppose,' said he, 'but I should go there
"to be sold." You should have Butler's lines over the door as a motto,—
"'"Doubtless the pleasure is as great
Of being cheated as to cheat."
"'Only I for one don't subscribe to the axiom.'
"Fancy any gentleman giving such a reply to a lady!"
"I daresay that he thought it witty," cried Lucy, "though every one
else would think it simply rude; and that he ended with that horrid
little hiss of a self-gratulatory laugh, which irritates more than
his words. I sat next to Mr. Coffin at dinner, you know, so had an
opportunity of testing his humour. I told him that we all looked to him
to keep up good old customs in the place; that I delighted in riding,
and hoped often to follow his pack as I had done that of Sir John,
whose hospitality and public spirit were famous over the county."
"And what did Mr. Coffin reply?" asked Delia, pausing in her occupation
of snipping pieces of many-coloured silks for her patchwork.
"That he would like to see me riding after hounds, but that they should
not be hounds fed in his kennels; and that, as for hospitality, though
he liked a good dinner well enough, he'd no notion of keeping open
house for every one else who might do so."
There was a murmur of disapprobation amongst the fair workers; and Lucy
stuck her pins into her hedgehog with savage rapidity, in a manner
which suggested the idea that she would willingly have bestowed her
quick pricks in another direction. Mr. Coffin was sinking lower and
lower in the estimation of the ladies of Thwayte.
"I had very little to say to the old owl," lisped Delia. "I only asked
him whether we should see him at the archery-meeting on Wednesday, to
which he assented. Then I ventured to observe that this time we had no
prize worth shooting for, the ladies' prize being but, a poor brooch in
form of a silver arrow. I showed him my own prize bracelet, which I won
last year, and remarked, quite 'en passant,' you know, that Sir John
had always presented a twenty guinea prize for the ladies to shoot for.
"'Did he?' said Mr. Coffin drily, peering through his goggles at my
bracelet, as if he meant to bid for it.
"I observed that Sir John had been a popular man."
"How did Mr. Coffin take so delicate a hint from a fair young lady?"
inquired Lady Macaw, with a smile.
"Oh, he answered me in his own cynical way.
"'So Sir John gave twenty guineas, did he?'
"I assented.
"'And Sir John bought popularity with a check for that sum?'
"I did not know what to reply to so odd a question, but I suppose that
Mr. Coffin took my silence for consent, for he went on,—
"'I think that popularity was dear at the figure—he! he! he!—He might
have made a much better bargain.'"
"Vulgar!" exclaimed Lady Macaw, with a slight toss of her stately head.
"Mean!" muttered the indignant Lucy.
"But I have something worse—much worse to tell," said Philomel Lamb,
laying down her work on her knee.
So alarming an announcement excited the curiosity and attention of
every member of the little conclave. Delia suspended her snipping, Lucy
her vigorous pin-sticking, Lady Macaw left off counting her stitches,
and the knitting-needles of Miss Eccles ceased their almost perpetual
motion.
"You know that for years and years before I was born," said Philomel,
"the pretty cottage on the moor has been used as our village school."
"From time immemorial it has been so," observed Lady Macaw.
"It has been as natural to go to the class there on Sundays as to
church!" cried Lucy Langton, who had taught by fits and starts, as she
did everything else, plunging into philanthropy with the same energy
that she did into pleasure.
"I never even knew until to-day," continued the Lamb of the golden
fleece, "that the cottage was part of the Burnesbey Abbey estate,
though we all were aware that the schoolmaster's salary was paid by the
lord of the manor. The money had come so regularly, so much as a matter
of course, that what had gone on for so long seemed as if it must go on
for ever."
"Certainly it did," said Lady Macaw.
"But Uncle Coffin does 'not' think it a matter of course," pursued
Philomel Lamb. "He means to stop the salary, turn out the good
Arkwrights, break up the school, and make a village inn, as he calls
it—I should say a public-house—of the cottage."
"Impossible!" cried both the Misses Langton.
"Impossible!" echoed Lady Macaw; while Miss Eccles, looking aghast,
dropped half-a-dozen stitches in her dismay.
"Papa is so dreadfully vexed about it," continued Philomel Lamb; "all
he could say he has said to prevent it. But there is no use arguing
with Uncle Coffin, so the school will be given up."
"This can't be allowed," cried Lady Macaw, with decision.
"How can it be hindered?" faintly sighed poor Miss Eccles.
"Can't we get up a school in some other spot?" inquired Lucy.
"There's not another cottage available, I am afraid; and then there's
the master and mistress's salary," began Philomel.
"Never mind salary!" exclaimed the energetic and unpractical Lucy.
"We'll have it an honorary affair; you'll take the girls—I'll go in for
the boys."
"My dear, my dear, you forget that you are going to Paris next week,"
interrupted Lady Macaw. "There must be salaried teachers, and where is
the money to come from?"
"Where, indeed?" said Miss Eccles, who could hardly be expected to
contribute much out of her fifty pounds per annum.
"Would not the people of G— help?" asked Lucy, with animation. "I
should like us to show this skin-flint that we can do very well without
him."
Lady Macaw shook her head with the grave dignity of a Burleigh. "The
people of G— will do nothing in the matter," she said; "no interest
will be felt in the school of a village five miles away. G— could not
get up subscriptions sufficient for the statue in its own market-place
without the assistance which I am giving it."
Miss Eccles whispered something to Delia, which no one else could hear.
The young lady slightly shrugged her shoulders, and raised her pretty
eyebrows as her only reply. Philomel guessed that the elderly lady in
the faded green veil had been giving voice to the thought in her own
mind, that a school in Thwayte was a good deal more needful than even a
statue in G—.
"I'll tell you what I will do," said Lady Macaw; every one present was
silent to hear the proposition of the ruling spirit in Thwayte. "I'll
write to Mr. Coffin myself."
"Much he is likely to care for that," was the silent comment on the
lady's words made by her hearers.
"Why should not Philomel try what she can make of her uncle?" cried
Lucy Langton. "Most men have a weak point, if one only knows where to
hit it. For aught that I know, the old screech-owl may be excessively
fond of his niece."
Philomel shook her curly tresses. "I am afraid there is no strong
affection between us," she said; "though my uncle has been rather kind
after his own peculiar fashion, and gave me the first sovereign that I
ever possessed in my life."
"Ah, he can then give something better than sneers and bad jokes,"
observed Delia.
"It was a long time ago," said Philomel, "when my uncle came here on a
visit. He showed me a sovereign and a large gilt medal, and asked me
which I would have for my own. Child as I was, I fancied that the medal
was but a larger piece of gold coin, and was about to choose it as that
with which I could buy most (for my dear parents had already taught me
something of what money can do), when the hole in the medal attracted
my notice.
"'What is that hole for?' I asked.
"'To put a ribbon in,' said my uncle, 'that you may hang the pretty
thing round your neck. The big piece is for ornament, the little piece
is for use.'
"I then took up the sovereign at once, saying, 'that I liked to have
money to spend, and not to hang round my neck.'
"Uncle Coffin clapped me on the shoulder, and said, laughing, 'Well
done, my little curly-poll, may you always have the sense to prefer use
to show.'"
"Then there is a way of getting round the old owl!" cried Lucy.
"I daresay that he has a kind heart after all," observed Miss Eccles.
"I will certainly write to him," said Lady Macaw, folding by her piece
of German work with an air of calm self-complacence and reliance on the
power of her pen, which roused a little spirit of emulation in the Lamb
of the golden fleece.
"I will do my best, my very best, to coax my uncle to let us have the
cottage for our schoolhouse still, and to continue the salary to the
Arkwrights, so kindly paid by Sir John. I will go over to the Abbey at
once," said Philomel, rising from her seat, for she felt impatient to
try her powers of persuasion, and being young and of a buoyant spirit,
she was now full of hope of success.
[Illustration: PHILOMEL'S FIRST SOVEREIGN.]
"You will not come with us, then, to practise archery in the field?"
asked Lucy Langton. "Remember the bow-meeting is to be to-morrow; and
if the silver arrow is scarcely worth contending for, we must shoot for
the credit of the ladies of Thwayte."
"The school is of more importance than the silver arrow," replied
Philomel; "and to save it from being broken up might do as much for
the ladies of Thwayte as carrying off a prize from all the archers in
England."
"By-the-bye, is Mr. Latour to be at the meeting?" inquired Miss Eccles
of Philomel Lamb.
The question was a simple one, but it was accompanied with a knowing,
inquisitive look; and it certainly heightened the colour on the cheek
of the village maiden. The blue eyes sank, perhaps because, for some
reason or other, all the other eyes in the room were turned towards her.
"I don't know—probably—I'm not sure," replied the young lady.
"But 'I' am sure," replied Miss Delia Langton. "Mr. Latour told me that
he would certainly be present, and shoot; no doubt he'll carry off the
gentlemen's prize, for we've no other such archer in the county."
Perhaps it was only fancy that made Philomel detect a slight emphasis
on the first personal pronoun used by the prettiest girl in Thwayte,
and only prejudice that made her feel provoked at what she thought a
conscious simper upon the lips of Delia Langton.
"Well, Philomel, if you're really bound for the Abbey on your
philanthropic mission," cried Lucy, "I heartily wish you success. May
you bring down the owl with your first shot, pluck his plumage to your
heart's content, and wear as a trophy a feather in your cap, or your
flowing hair, to the end of your days."