Next day the village was roused into great excitement by the appearance
of a carriage from the Hall, in unusual state, with the coachman and
footman in their gala liveries--or so at least it appeared to the
unsophisticated ideas of the villagers, who came out to gape at the
sight. A carriage passing is nothing wonderful in Watcham, however
gorgeous--but a carriage which drives about from door to door, paying
visits--this was a thing that happened seldom; the great people in the
neighbourhood, the Lenthalls and Lady Wade, and the rest, would come
occasionally to leave a card at the FitzStephens’, or to show civility
to the people in the Rectory: but the sight of the prancing horses, and
the footman attending his mistress from door to door, was a delight to
the eyes such as seldom happened. The children were coming from school,
and they ran in a little crowd to see and make their remarks with the
usual frankness of a population in which the sharpness of town had crept
in, modifying the bashfulness, but not the dull candour inaccessible to
notions of civility, of the country. The Watcham children were,
fortunately, more interested in the appearance of the servants than they
were in that of the mistress, though some of the girls whispered
together and indulged in pointed laughter at the lady who had to be
assisted from the carriage, and who picked her steps, with such an
expression in every turn of her person of impatient disgust, along the
garden paths. Mrs. Swinford felt it a personal injury that the houses
had all gardens and no entrance for the carriage, so that it was
absolutely necessary for her, however reluctant, to walk so far before
she could reach the door. But she was civil to the FitzStephens’, who
both met her at their drawing-room door with effusion, and handed her to
the most comfortable chair--which, however, Mrs. Swinford turned from
the light before she would sit down.
‘My eyes will not support so much light. You seem to make really no use
of curtains and blinds in this country,’ she said.
‘My husband likes all the light he can get,’ said Mrs. FitzStephen:
though she had been, as the reader knows, a pretty woman, and was a
fool, according to her visitor’s ideas, to face the day and show her
wrinkles as she did. But the General’s wife had no idea that her old
beauty required to be taken care of in this way.
‘It is all very well for men,’ said Mrs. Swinford--but she explained no
further. She added: ‘I do not make calls generally, and country visits
are an abomination, even when one can drive up to the door.’
‘We take your call as all the greater compliment,’ said the General,
with his finest bow; but Mrs. FitzStephen remembering that she herself
was a Challoner, and certainly as good as any Swinford of them all, not
to speak of the claims of the FitzStephens--was not quite so complacent.
‘It is a pity,’ she said, ‘that we have no drive, and that our garden
must be crossed on foot. We feel it very much when we have company. It
is impossible to put up an awning all the way.’
‘Oh, you sometimes have company!’ said the fine lady.
‘We are even looking forward to a dance, in ten days,’ said the General,
‘a little ridiculous, you may think, for a quiet couple without children
like my wife and me: but a dance is more pleasant to the young people
than anything else.’
‘And consider,’ said his wife, ‘there is no need to do anything to amuse
them, except to provide good music and as nice a floor as possible. They
do the rest themselves.’
Mrs. Swinford looked round upon the small drawing-room with an air of
inquiry which she did not attempt to disguise. ‘I am not much interested
in amusing young people,’ she said; ‘where do they dance?’ in a tone
that showed she was quite satisfied no dancing could take place there.
Mrs. FitzStephen grew red, and the General confused. They were very fond
of this pretty drawing-room. Compliments upon its furniture and
arrangements were familiar to them, and they were in the habit of
deprecating too much praise by a fond apology as to its diminutive size.
‘Oh, it is too small for anything,’ Mrs. FitzStephen was in the habit of
saying, with a mild inference that she was herself accustomed to
something much larger. But the great lady’s seeming simple question
dashed all their little pretences. Fortunately she left them no time to
reply. ‘You have your little society in the village?’ she said.
‘Oh, we are not confined to the village,’ said Mrs. FitzStephen sharply,
‘we have a tolerably large list--I expect the Lenthalls, and some
others.’
Mrs. Swinford again permitted her eyes to stray--with a slight elevation
of the eyebrows--round the tiny room.
‘We did not venture to send an invitation to the Hall,’ said the
General, with an uneasy laugh. ‘We scarcely ventured to hope--though I
am happy to say that Mr. Swinford is coming, my dear.’
‘If you mean me,’ said Mrs. Swinford, ‘I never go out--at least to
balls--since I have ceased to dance.’
‘Ah well, those days soon pass over,’ said the good old soldier, ‘we
find other amusements at our age.’
Mrs. Swinford gave him a look--which did not reduce the gallant General
to ashes, for he was not at all aware what she meant.
‘My husband is very fond of seeing the young people enjoy themselves,’
said Mrs. FitzStephen; ‘that amuses him more than anything for himself.’
‘Oh come, my dear, you must not give me too good a character,’ said the
General. ‘I like a snug little dinner-party too, and a good talk.’
‘Do you talk here, too, as well as dance?’ said Mrs. Swinford, with an
ineffable smile.
‘Oh, my dear lady, I assure you we have sometimes quite remarkable
conversations. The Rector is an exceedingly well-informed man, and young
Osborne has a great deal to say for himself, though he is taken up with
fads--too much. And then, above all, there is Lady William----’
‘Oh, Emily! I had forgotten Lady William, as you call her.’
‘One can’t live in Watcham and leave out Lady William, I assure you, my
dear madam,’ the General said; ‘besides her rank, which of course places
her in the front of all.’
‘Ah, to be sure!’ said Mrs. Swinford, with a little gurgling laugh,
which stopped and then ran on again, as if with a ridicule impossible to
restrain--‘Her rank! I had forgotten her rank--such rank as it is.’
‘We think a good deal of it here,’ said Mrs. FitzStephen. ‘Lady Wade,
you know, is only a baronet’s wife, and of course has to give place. It
gives quite a little distinction to our village; everybody even in the
county, at this end of it at least, must give way to Lady William. It is
a great feather in our cap.’
Mrs. Swinford went on laughing, breaking into fresh little runs of
merriment from time to time. ‘This is really amusing,’ she said. ‘Poor
Emily: and does she talk too?’
‘She is an exceedingly cultivated woman, and one who has seen the world.
I know few greater treats than to discuss either books or people with
Lady William,’ said the General, with great gravity, holding up his head
as if he were in uniform--which indeed this fine attitude almost
persuaded his admiring wife that he was. What a champion for any one to
have! But Mrs. Swinford went on with her little exasperating laugh like
the vibration of an electric bell. It was very disconcerting to the
pair, who were a little proud of their friendship with Lady William, and
liked to wave her flag in any stranger’s eyes.
‘You see,’ said the great lady, ‘Emily Plowden, poor girl, was in the
bread and butter stage when I knew her best: and to hear now of her
rank, and then of her accomplishments, is a new experience. I cannot
convey to your minds the amusement it causes me.’
‘Ah!’ said General FitzStephen gravely, ‘as I feel when I hear of a
little ensign who came out to India at sixteen, and is now in command of
my old regiment.’
Mrs. Swinford’s laugh ran on like the endless irritating tinkle of that
electric bell. ‘More,’ she said, ‘for the boy would gain his promotion;
but Emily!--it is more amusing than you can have any idea of to see that
she takes it _au grand sérieux_, the rank and all.’
‘Perhaps, General,’ said Mrs. FitzStephen quickly, ‘you will ring for
tea, instead of standing there,’ which was the most uncalled-for,
unjustifiable attack: for why should not he stand there, and where else
could he have stood but respectfully in front of her chair, listening to
their guest? He roused himself with a little start, and did what he was
told, but not without a look of surprised appeal at his wife’s face.
‘No tea,’ said Mrs. Swinford, rising; ‘I have not acquired the habit:
but I am sure the General will kindly give me his arm to my carriage. I
walk so little, I stumble; I have not the use of gravel walks.’
Mrs. FitzStephen watched the lady sweep away. She had very high-heeled
shoes and a long dress, too long for walking. The General’s wife watched
her along the gravel path, which she thought it very insolent of any
one to object to. Mrs. Swinford did not sweep (except indoors) or glide,
or march, majestically, as would have been consonant with her
pretensions, but accoutred as she was, hobbled, not more gracefully than
if she had been any old woman in the village. Her step showed she was an
old woman, however she might ignore that fact, and it gave the General’s
wife, whom she had rubbed so persistently the wrong way, a certain
characteristic feminine satisfaction to feel that it was so. Also Mrs.
FitzStephen strongly disapproved of the respectful and devoted air with
which her husband conducted the great lady. It was Stephen’s way; he
could not help it. He was an old----, taken in by any woman that would
take the trouble. But what could she mean about Lady William, and all
those scoffs at her rank? Could there be any doubt about her rank? It
might be a courtesy title, but what did that matter? The daughter-in-law
of a marquis held precedence over quite a number of people who were Lady
So-and-So. Lady Wade never disputed it, and the Wades had an old
baronetcy. They were not upstart people. What did the--the--Mrs.
FitzStephen paused for a word--the old hag mean?
‘Oh, she meant nothing but spite,’ said the General when he came back,
‘feminine spite such as you all entertain towards your neighbours when
they are prettier or wiser than you.’
‘Perhaps you will tell me what woman I regard with feminine spite,’ Mrs.
FitzStephen very reasonably said.
‘Oh, you, my dear, you’ve no occasion; you are a pretty woman still, and
can hold your own: but that poor old soul,’ said the General, ‘as you
may have perceived, I had almost to carry her down the walk; that poor
old creature must be seventy if she is a day--and to see her old
subaltern taking the _pas_ from her: I am not subject to the same kind
of feelings--but I confess I don’t like it myself, if it comes to that,’
the General said.
Mrs. Swinford went on to the Rectory with a curious smile upon her face.
She drove past the school-room door and saw her friend standing at it,
sheltered in the depth of the doorway, by no means unlike a spider
standing at watch, having laid all its nets, till some silly fly buzzes
in. A salutation of the eyes only passed between the two women, the
schoolmistress and the great lady of the Hall. In the daylight they
resembled each other, though Mrs. Brown’s plain black gown was not
becoming to her dark good looks, and every particular of Mrs. Swinford’s
attire was calculated to enhance her antiquated beauty. There was a
softening in both pairs of eyes as they met. They were not good women;
their aims were not fine nor the means they were disposed to use; but
yet, curiously enough, they loved each other. It was a strange sight to
see. The walk from the little gate of the Rectory to the door was still
more trying to Mrs. Swinford than the other had been. It made her quite
sure that she had no vocation to call at houses where there was no
drive. Her dress was long, and she resented the fact that it must trail
on the gravel and get dirty and damp. As for holding it up, it did not
occur to her: that any one should think she hobbled, or was not a glass
of fashion and mould of form wherever she went would have been
incredible to her; but she resented much the length of that walk, and
that she should be exposed to such trouble and annoyance in the act of
doing what she thought her duty. Had it been only her duty, however,
Mrs. Swinford would have cared very little for fulfilling it; but she
had a different motive now.
There was a dreadful hurry-scurry in the Rectory drawing-room when she
was seen approaching. The antimacassars, I am sorry to say, were much
tumbled and untidy, and the loose covers of the chairs anything but what
might be desired. Both mother and daughters flew with one impulse to the
arranging of the room. Jim had been seated by the fireside all the
afternoon with a bad cold, which they had been nursing; but he fled at
once into his own cold room, which might, his mother thought, be very
bad for him, but could not be helped in the circumstances. Florence ran,
with more sense than any one would have given her credit for, to tell
the parlourmaid to bring in a more elegant, less substantial tea than
usual, and to give her father a hint in his study--‘Mrs. Swinford,
papa!’ while Mrs. Plowden and Emily stood nervously awaiting the visit,
anxious to go out and meet her and bring her in by the drawing-room
window, which would have saved the old lady a few steps; but kept back
by the fear that it might be thought indecorous, too familiar, not
dignified enough. Mrs. Swinford looked round upon the Rectory
drawing-room as she had done on Mrs. FitzStephen’s, but with a different
air. ‘You have made wonderfully few changes,’ she said; ‘it is just the
same damp little place it used to be.’ She was like so many of those
great ladies, not careful of people’s feelings; but that was, no doubt,
mainly from want of thought.
‘Oh,’ Mrs. Plowden said: and made a pause, that no explosion might
follow, ‘I assure you,’ she said, ‘it is not damp at all. We have proved
again and again that no water ever comes in. The elevation is small,
but quite sufficient; and as for the furniture and doing it up----’
‘Yes, I recognise all the old things,’ Mrs. Swinford said, with a
careless wave of the hand (when there was not one thing, not one, except
the Indian cabinet, that had not been renewed!); ‘and another Emily
Plowden just the same. It is only you,’ she said, with a sweet but
careless smile upon the Rector’s wife, ‘that are new----’
‘New! But we have been here for fifteen years,’ Mrs. Plowden said: and
her visitor smiled again as if in complacent consciousness of having
said the most agreeable thing in the world.
‘I am glad,’ she said, ‘there is no other daughter, no one to disturb
the harmony of what used to be. Oh, but here is the other daughter.’
‘Florence, my second, Mrs. Swinford: not considered like the Plowdens,
but taking more after my side of the house.’
‘I see she is not like the Plowdens,’ said Mrs. Swinford, with the look
of indifference which was natural to her: it was of so little
consequence! ‘The other is a little like Emily.’
‘Like her aunt, our dear Lady William.’
‘You are all much delighted,’ said the great lady, ‘with that name.’
‘My sister-in-law’s name? Well, we like it, for she has no other, poor
thing. We couldn’t call her anything else--as long as she doesn’t change
it or marry again.’
‘Oh, mamma!’ said Emmy and Florry together.
‘No,’ said Mrs. Plowden, ‘I don’t think she will marry again--now. I did
once hope she would; for, though rank is nice, a good husband who would
have looked after her and her little girl would have been nicer: while
the late Lord William, as I have heard----’
Mrs. Swinford made a little movement of impatience. ‘Have the family,’
she said, ‘taken any notice of Emily--or the little girl?’
‘It is very funny,’ said Florence, ‘to hear Mab, who has such a
character of her own, spoken of as the little girl.’
‘Oh, Florry, hold your tongue, you are always making remarks. The
family, Mrs. Swinford?’
‘Poor little thing, poor little thing,’ said Mrs. Swinford, ‘I think you
were very wise, my dear Mrs. Plowden, in advising your sister-in-law to
marry again. What a thing it would be if after all it was found that
nothing could be done for the little girl!’
‘They have their little annuity,’ said Mrs. Plowden, startled; ‘there
has never been anything said of taking it away. And I could not make
such a statement as that I advised her to marry, for there has really
been no one that she could have married except----, and he was quite an
old gentleman. Not to say that Emily ever thought of such a thing. She
was not so happy the first time as to have any wish----’
Mrs. Swinford’s attention had once more flagged, and here she interposed
with her usual calm bearing, addressing Emmy. ‘I thought you had a
brother,’ she said.
Emmy coloured high, being thus suddenly spoken to. ‘Oh yes.’
‘Yes, indeed,’ cried Mrs. Plowden, recovering herself the more easily
that this new subject was one on which she could be eloquent. ‘He has a
bad cold, poor boy, or he would have been here at once to pay his
respects. Is that you, James? Mrs. Swinford is making such kind
inquiries.’
The great lady held out her hand. ‘You have not taken the trouble to
come and see me,’ she said.
The Rector had come in much against his will. He made a bow which had
not his usual ease. ‘I must beg your pardon,’ he said very gravely. ‘I
am aware that I have been negligent.’
‘Ah,’ she said, ‘you did not want to come? but I supposed when your
excellent wife did me so much honour, that bygones were to be bygones;
and Emily----’
‘My sister acts for herself; I do not try to influence her; and my wife
thinks she knows what is best for her----’
‘Her family, of course; good woman. She thought it would be a wrong
thing to neglect opportunities, and so did your father, as you may
recollect.’
‘I prefer not to recollect, any more than I can help,’ said the Rector.
‘Which? that Emily has come to great promotion, very high promotion, as
all those ladies think--while she was in my house? There would have been
no title in the case--a title such as it is!--but for my house.’
‘The less that is said on that subject, I think, the better,’ said the
Rector, standing bolt upright before the fire.
‘Oh, James,’ said his wife, ‘when Mrs. Swinford is so kind----’
‘I gave it,’ said Mrs. Swinford, bending forward, ‘and, my good Rector,
you will take care not to be insolent; I may also, perhaps, take it
away.’