BY
MRS. OLIPHANT
London
MACMILLAN AND CO.
AND NEW YORK
1894
_All rights reserved_
_First Edition (3 Vols. Crown 8vo) January 1894_
_Reprinted February 1894_
_Second Edition (1 Vol. Crown 8vo) May 1894_
I
The village of Watcham is not a village in the ordinary sense of the
word, and yet it is a very pretty place, with a charming picturesque
aspect, and of which people say, ‘What a pretty village!’ when they come
upon its little landing-place on the riverside, or drive through its
old-fashioned green, where some of the surrounding houses look as if
they had come out of the seventeenth century, and some as if they had
come out of the picture-books of Mr. Randolph Caldecott. It is a village
of genteel little houses where a great many people live who have
pretensions, but are poor: and some who have no pretensions and yet are
poor all the same, and find the little, fresh, airy villa houses, with
their small rooms and little gardens, a wonderful relief from London,
even from the suburbs which are almost as rural as Watcham. Watcham,
however, has various advantages over Hampstead or Wimbledon. It is close
by the river, where a little quiet boating may be had without any fear
of plunging into the mob of excursionists from London on one side, who
make some portions of that river hideous, or the more elegant mob of
society on the other, who do not add to its charm. But I need not linger
on the attractions of this little place, with which the reader will, no
doubt, if he (or she) has patience enough, become well acquainted in
time.
The church in Watcham is a pretty church of very old foundation, low in
stature and small in size, its porch covered with climbing roses, its
modest little spire rising out of a mantle of ivy. Inside I have always
felt that there was a faint breath of generations past, perhaps not so
desirable as the traces of them left on the walls--which mingled with
the breath of the congregation, and the whiff of incense, which was now
and then added to the composite atmosphere. For the Rector was ‘High,’
and, though he never laid himself open to troublesome proceedings, was
watched with great attention by a little band of parishioners very
anxious to be aggrieved, who kept an eye upon all he did, in the hope of
some day catching him at an unguarded moment, in the act of lighting a
candle or donning a vestment which exceeded the rubric. But Mr. Plowden
was quite aware of this watch, and delighted in keeping his critics up
to the highest mark of vigilance without ever giving them the occasion
they desired. The Rectory was an old red-brick house showing rather high
and narrow above its garden wall, and the Plowden family consisted,
besides the Rector, of his wife, a son, and two daughters, to whose
credit the floral decorations, for which the church was famous, were
laid, undeservedly, by the strangers and visitors who frequented the
place--though this was always indignantly contradicted by the
inhabitants, to whom it was well known that Miss Grey was the real
artist who made the church so beautiful, and seemed to invent flowers
when none were to be had by other persons, for the adornment of the
little sanctuary. There were a few houses dotted about in their gardens
in the neighbourhood of the church which contained the aristocracy of
the place. These were generally very small, but, on the other hand, they
were very refined, and contained old china and dainty pieces of old
furniture such as might have made a dozen connoisseurs happy. They,
however, were inhabited chiefly by ladies, though there was an old
soldier and an old clergyman among them who stood out very strongly on
the feminine background. The old clergyman, indeed, was no better than
an old lady himself, and so considered in the place, which sent him on
errands, and set but little store by his opinion; but the General! the
General was very different. He had seen a great deal of service; and on
occasions when he went at strictly-regulated intervals to a levée or
other great function, with all his medals upon his ancient bosom, he was
a sight to see. It was believed generally in the village that he had won
several victories with his own right hand, and the sword which hung in
his room was believed to have been bathed in blood on many terrible
occasions; but, as was to be expected, the old soldier bore no terrible
aspect, but was very amiable and gentle to his neighbours. The
Archdeacon, of whom nobody stood in any awe, was on occasion ten times
more severe.
It will be perceived that society in Watcham was not without
dignitaries. But the person who was of highest rank in the place, whom
all the ladies had to acknowledge as unmistakably their superior, who
had the undoubted right to walk out of a room and into a room before
them all, was a lady who lived in one of the smallest of those little
houses which were as Belgravia to the population of the village. Such a
little house! It had a pretty little garden all round it, with a privet
hedge and green gate, which in their insignificance, yet complete
enclosure and privacy, were a sort of symbol of their owner and her
position. For it could not be denied that she was Lady William,
sister-in-law to a marquis, connected (by marriage) with half the
aristocracy; and yet not only was she very poor, but she was of herself,
so to speak, nobody, which was the exasperating particular in the tale.
Nobody at all, the Rector’s sister, once a governess, whose elevation by
her marriage--and such a marriage!--over the heads of the best people in
Watcham was an affront which they never got over, though these ladies
were too well bred to make any quarrel, or to be anything but observant
of the necessities of the situation. I do not pretend for a moment that
it was ever suggested to Lady William in any way that her precedence
annoyed her neighbours, and that to have to walk humbly behind that
governess-woman, as Mrs. FitzStephen, the General’s wife, had hastily
called her on her return to Watcham, was an accident of fate which made
them furious. She was a woman full of perception, however, and she was
quite aware of the fact, and derived from it a certain amusement. Above
all was Lady William amused by it in respect to her sister-in-law, Mrs.
Plowden, who, as a married woman, and the Rector’s wife, not to speak of
her own connections, had been vastly superior to Emily Plowden in her
earlier days when that young woman was a governess and of no consequence
at all. The first time Lady William dined at the General’s, and was
taken out by him before all the rest, the sight of Mrs. Plowden’s face
was almost too much for her gravity. Her elevation had cost her dear,
and had brought her little, except that empty honour; but she was a
woman with a fine sense of the ludicrous, and that moment compensated
her for many troubles. She was the first lady in Watcham, where she had
received many snubs once upon a time, and this was at once a balm and an
amusement to her of the most agreeable kind.
But Lady William was very poor. They were none of them rich in that
little society, but Lady William had less than any, less even than Miss
Grey. The small annuity given her by her husband’s family, given very
grudgingly, and sometimes in arrears, was all she had to depend upon.
She had, as people said severely, as if it had been her fault, nothing
of her own. The Plowdens were not rich, and all that Emily Plowden had
had been bestowed upon a prodigal brother, who had disappeared in the
wilds of Australia, and never had been heard of more. What she had thus
lost would not have added fifty pounds a year to her income; but fifty
pounds a year when you have only two hundred is a great addition, and
she was very much reproached for having made this sacrifice ‘to that
good-for-nothing boy,’ the neighbours said. I am afraid she thought it
very foolish herself when she came to be what she was, middle-aged, with
Mab growing up, and so little, so very little, nothing at all, so to
speak, to keep her little household upon. Sometimes she would calculate
to herself how much better off she would have been if she had still
possessed the interest of her thousand pounds which poor Ned had carried
with him, and which probably only enabled him to ruin himself more
quickly. Sometimes she would amuse herself by speculating how much it
would have brought in. Thirty-five pounds perhaps, or possibly
forty-five if she had been very lucky: and how many comforts that might
have got during the year; or she might have taken a little off it--two
hundred pounds or so--for Mab’s education. And Mab had really got no
education, poor child. However, these were nothing but speculations, and
had no bitterness in them. She did not grudge her money to poor Ned.
Poor Ned! How often is there one in a family who is never spoken of but
with that prefix, and how often he is the one who is the best beloved!
Lady William was quite worthy in externals of her elevation, being of
what is called an aristocratic appearance, though it is an appearance
which is to be found impartially in all classes, and I have often seen a
young woman in a shop who was much more like a duchess than the owners
of that title sometimes are. Perhaps it would be better to say that Lady
William was conventionally correct in every way, with a rather tall and
slight figure, an oval face, a deportment which strangers thought
distinguished, and fine hands and feet, which are always considered to
betoken gentle blood. But Mab, alas! who ought to have possessed more of
these attractions, had none of them. She was rather short, and at
seventeen she was certainly too stout. Stumpy was what Mrs. Plowden at
the Rectory said, and there can be no doubt that there was truth in that
unlovely phrase. Her nose turned up, her face was round and her features
blunt, her hair no colour in particular. As for waist the poor girl had
none, and her feet were good useful beetle-crushers, which she encased
by preference in square-toed shoes without heels. In short, it was
impossible even for Mab herself to entertain any illusions as to her
personal appearance. She was a plain and homely girl. ‘Ah!’ said the
people who disliked the Plowdens, and those who did not know anything
about it, except that her mother had been a governess; ‘the common
blood bursting out.’ But, as a matter of fact, it was the noble family
to which her father belonged whom Mab resembled. She was as like the
present Marquis as it was possible for a girl to be like an elderly man.
None of his daughters (heaven be praised, they said) were half so like
him as the niece whom he barely acknowledged. Mab was the very
quintessence of that distinguished man. She had very light hair of a
faint greenish tinge, eyes equally light, but bluish. To see her beside
her graceful mother was wonderful. And she did not show her blood like
the Princess in the fairy tale by feeling the pea that was underneath
two mattresses. Mab might have lain upon peas, and she would never have
been any the wiser. Her perceptions were not delicate. She was not
sensitive. In short she was the most perfectly robust and contented
little soul there was in Watcham, and met all her little privations with
a broad smile.
You could not imagine a more minute drawing-room than that in which this
mother and daughter spent the greater part of their life. There was
nothing poetical or romantic about the house. The door was exactly in
the middle, with a window on each side, which indicated the two
sitting-rooms, and three windows which represented as many bedrooms
above. The reader will perceive that it was the rudimentary house
designed by infantile art in its first command of a slate or other
pencil with which to express its ideas. The narrow passage into which
the outer door opened, and from which you entered the sitting-rooms, was
scarcely capable of containing two persons at once. By dint of having
the smallest specimens possible of those pieces of furniture, Lady
William had contrived to have a sofa and a piano in the drawing-room.
There were also some low chairs and two or three of those little tables
which are so useful in this tea-drinking age, but which are chiefly
remarkable as handy things to throw down. You could scarcely throw down
Lady William’s tables, however, for there was not room enough for them
to fall. The ladies were sitting together in this little room with a
large basket on the floor between them, in which it was their habit to
put their work if it was not suitable to be beheld by visitors. They
were both engaged at this particular moment in the making of a dress, of
a kind which is generally described by novelists as ‘some kind of light
woollen material.’ Shopkeepers say simply ‘material,’ leaving the light
woollen to the imagination. I think, as I love to be particular, that it
was _biège_. There was a fashion-book, or perhaps a copy of the _Lady’s
Pictorial_--but I think the scene occurred before the commencement of
that excellent periodical--lying among the folds of the stuff, half
hidden by them. And this was Mab’s spring dress, which her mother was
making, aided by the less skilled yet patient efforts of Mab herself.
‘Do you think you like that sleeve?’ Lady William was saying, looking at
it in her hand, with her head a little on one side, as an artist looks
at his picture; ‘these puffs are apt to look a little fantastic,
especially when they are home-made----’
‘You mean when they are on a fat little girl like me, mother.’
‘Well, Mab, you are a little--stout,’ Lady William said. She did not
take it so lightly as Mab did, but half resented, half lamented, this
unfortunate development.
‘Don’t say stout, please,’ said Mab. ‘Stout sounds such a determined
thing. Call me fat, mother: it’s nicer--it might be accidental: or I
might, as Mrs. FitzStephen says, fine down.’
Lady William shook her head with a suppressed sigh. She knew Mab would
not fine down. ‘Never mind about words,’ she said, ‘but tell me----’
Here she was interrupted by a rattle of small shots, as of pebbles, on
the door. She knew very well what it was. It was the knuckles of Patty,
the little girl who was groom of the chambers, and head footman, and
kitchenmaid, and general aid to the woman-of-all-work at the cottage.
She opened the door when she had delivered this volley, and thrust in a
curly head at about the height of the keyhole. ‘Please, my lydy,’ she
said, breathless, ‘it’s Missis and the young lydies from the Rectory. I
thought as you’d like to know----’
‘Are they coming here, Patty?’
‘Leastways, I think so, my lydy,’ Patty said.
‘Thank you, Patty; as soon as you’ve let them in, bring tea.’
There was no thought of closing the door to these privileged visitors.
But the dress was carefully and swiftly disposed of in the big basket,
which was thrust under the sofa. ‘They’ve nothing to do with your new
frock,’ said Lady William, in an apologetic parenthesis. Mab, who
required no apology, who had seen this little feat of legerdemain
accomplished more often than she could count, required no explanation;
but she did not take up any other work. Lady William, on the other hand,
had a piece of knitting provided for such occasions, and was working at
it as if it were the chief occupation of her life when the Rectory
ladies were ushered in. Mrs. Plowden had reversed the order which ruled
in Lady William’s house, for it was she who was short and stout, while
her daughters were of the Plowden type, long and thin, like, and yet not
like, their aunt, who was slim and tall, words that mean the same thing
with a difference. The three figures came in like an army, filling the
small room.
‘Well, Emily, busy, as usual?’ Mrs. Plowden said, a little breathless
from her walk. ‘And Mab idle, as usual?’ she added, after she had taken
breath.
‘Just as we always are, aunt,’ said Mab with a laugh, conscious of the
half-finished dress.
‘You might come, now and then, to the Sewing Society, Mabel,’ said Emmy,
her cousin. ‘It’s quite amusing, and it would show you how nice a quiet
hour’s sewing can be.’
‘But Mab does not like parish things--and neither do I,’ said the other,
the heterodox daughter, under her breath.
‘I wonder,’ said Mrs. Plowden, ‘that you don’t set her in some way of
employing herself systematically, Emily. Doing things by fits and starts
loses half of the advantage. What should I ever have done with Emmy and
Florry if I had not gone on in the most systematic way?’
‘And look what examples we are,’ said Florry, as usual under her breath.
‘Haven’t we made up our minds to agree to differ on these points?’ said
Lady William. ‘I am sure you had something more amusing to tell me than
the way you brought up your girls and how I have spoiled Mab.’
‘I don’t know if you will think it amusing. There was something else I
had to tell you. Have you heard that Mrs. Swinford and her son have come
back to the Hall?’
‘The Swinfords!’ said Lady William, with a start of excitement. ‘Have
they come back? I thought they were never coming back any more.’
‘I don’t know what reason you had for such an idea. I never heard of it,
and as James is the clergyman, and knows most about his
parishioners--but, at all events, they have come back: and I want to
know what your ideas are about calling. People stood a little aloof, I
have always been told; but it’s a long time ago, and naturally the
people here will take great notice of what you and I do, Emily. It will
all depend upon what we do how Mrs. Swinford is received. Do you think
you shall call?’
‘Call!’ cried Lady William. A little colour had come upon her face, a
little agitation into her usual calm. The exclamation seemed like a kind
of reply, but whether it meant ‘Call! of course I shall call!’ or ‘Call!
how could you expect me to do such a thing?’ her sister-in-law could not
tell; neither did she follow up that monosyllable with any further
elucidation. She said, after a momentary pause, ‘How long it is ago,
and how many things have happened since then!’
‘That is very true--but it’s always like that when people have been away
for more than twenty years. Half the people that were living then are
dead, of course: and other things--why, none of the children were born.’
‘Nor dreamt of,’ said Lady William. It gave her a great deal to think
about; but after a while Mrs. Plowden grew tired of waiting for some
definite response to her question, and took up the theme on her own
account.
‘As I am a new person here since her time it would be silly of me to
keep up old prejudices. I know nothing about any old story. I am quite
justified in saying so, for, of course, I was not even here. We had only
a curacy, and your father was still alive: James did not get the living
till a year after: and then, of course, I was a very young woman,
thinking of none of these things. Your mother had a prejudice--but why
should I take up her prejudices? And they are rich, and the son is an
agreeable young man, people say; and probably they will entertain a good
deal. It would be sinning against a merciful Providence if one refused
to take advantage of what is brought to your very door. Everybody says
that they will entertain, and probably a great deal.’
‘And Leo will want a wife,’ said Lady William.
‘Good gracious, Emily! don’t talk in that way before my girls! I keep
all such ideas out of their minds. But what I meant to say was, if you
think of going don’t you think we might go together? It would have a
very good effect, and be an example for the parish. I suppose they have
got quite French being so long away, and I have been so long out of the
way of speaking it that---- But you are quite a linguist, Emily.’
‘You don’t suppose Mrs. Swinford will have forgotten her native tongue?’
Lady William said, with a laugh.
‘Well, if you think not--oh! I suppose not; but one gets so rusty in a
language one never uses. Look at me! I spoke both French and German like
a native when I left school; but, for want of practice, you could put me
out completely by a single question. So I think, as you have always kept
it up, I should feel more comfortable. And as they can’t all go, suppose
we take the eldest. You and I and Emmy--three are quite enough to make a
call. Don’t you see?’
‘I see,’ Lady William said; but it was not for a long time that Mrs.
Plowden could get her to say more.