“Et vera iucessu patuit lady.”
These Junones, severe in youthful beauty, fill us Davids with irrational awe; but, the next moment, they are treated like small children by the very first matron they meet; they resign their judgment at once to hers, and bow their wills to her lightest word with a slavish meanness.
Creation's unmarried lords, realize your true position—girls govern you, and wives govern girls.
Mrs. Bazalgette, on Lucy's entrance, ran a critical eye over her, and scolded her like a six-year-old for walking in thin shoes.
“Only on the gravel, aunt,” said the divine slave, submissively.
“No matter; it rained last night. I heard it patter. You want to be laid up, I suppose.”
“I will put on thicker ones in future, dear aunt,” murmured the celestial serf.
Now Mrs. Bazalgette did not really care a button whether the servile angel wore thick soles or thin. She was cross about something a mile off that. As soon as she had vented her ill humor on a sham cause, she could come to its real cause good-temperedly. “And, Lucy, love, do manage better about Mr. Dodd.”
Lucy turned scarlet. Luckily, Mrs. Bazalgette was evading her niece's eye, so did not see her telltale cheek.
“He was quite thrown out last night; and really, as he does not ride with us, it is too bad to neglect him in-doors.”
“Oh, excuse me, aunt, Mr. Dodd is your protege. You did not even tell me you were going to invite him.”
“I beg your pardon, that I certainly did. Poor fellow, he was out of spirits last night.”
“Well, but, aunt, surely you can put an admirer in good spirits when you think proper,” said Lucy slyly.
“Humph! I don't want to attract too much attention. I see Bazalgette watching me, and I don't wish to be misinterpreted myself, or give my husband pain.”
She said this with such dignity that Lucy, who knew her regard for her husband, had much ado not to titter. But courtesy prevailed, and she said gravely: “I will do whatever you wish me, only give me a hint at the time; a look will do, you know.”
The ladies separated; they met again at the breakfast-room door. Laughter rang merrily inside, and among the gayest voices was Mr. Dodd's. Lucy gave Mrs. Bazalgette an arch look. “Your patient seems better;” and they entered the room, where, sure enough, they found Mr. Dodd the life and soul of the assembled party.
“A letter from Mrs. Wilson, aunt.”
“And, pray, who is Mrs. Wilson?”
“My nurse. She tells me 'it is five years since she has seen me, and she is wearying to see me.' What a droll expression, 'wearying.'”
“Ah!” said David Dodd.
“You have heard the word before, Mr. Dodd?”
“No, I can't say I have; but I know what it must mean.”
“Lying becalmed at the equator, eh! Dodd?” said Bazalgette, misunderstanding him.
“Mrs. Wilson tells me she has taken a farm a few miles from this.”
“Interesting intelligence,” said Mrs. Bazalgette.
“And she says she is coming over to see me one of these days, aunt,” said Lucy, with a droll expression, half arch, half rueful. She added timidly, “There is no objection to that, is there?”
“None whatever, if she does not make a practice of it; only mind, these old servants are the greatest pests on earth.”
“I remember now,” said Lucy thoughtfully, “Mrs. Wilson was always very fond of me. I cannot think why, though.”
“No more can I,” said Mr. Hardie, dryly; “she must be a thoroughly unreasonable woman.”
Mr. Hardie said this with a good deal of grace and humor, and a laugh went round the table.
“I mean she only saw me at intervals of several years.”
“Why, Lucy, what an antiquity you are making yourself,” said Fountain.
But Lucy was occupied with her puzzle. “She calls me her nursling,” said Lucy,sotto voce,to her aunt, but, of course, quite audibly to the rest of the company; “her dear nursling;” and says, “she would walk fifty miles to see me. Nursling? hum! there is another word I never heard, and I do not exactly know—Then she says—”
“Taisez-vous, petite sotte!”said Mrs. Bazalgette, in a sharp whisper, so admirably projected that it was intelligible only to the ear it was meant for.
Lucy caught it and stopped short, and sat looking by main force calm and dignified, but scarlet, and in secret agony. “I have said something amiss,” thought Lucy, and was truly wretched.
“We don't believe in Mrs. Wilson's affection on this side the table,” said Mr. Hardie; “but her revelations interest us, for they prove that Miss Fountain had a beginning. Now we had thought she rose from the foam like Venus, or sprung from Jove's brow like Minerva, or descended from some ancient pedestal, flawless as the Parian itself.”
“What, sir,” cried Bazalgette, furiously, “did you think our niece was built in a day? So fair a structure, so accomplished a—”
“Will you be quiet, good people?” said Mrs. Bazalgette. “She was born, she was bred, she was brought up, in which I had a share, and she is a very good girl, if you gentlemen will be so good as not to spoil her for me with your flattery.”
“There!” said Lucy, courageously, enforcing her aunt's thunderbolt; and she leaned toward Mrs. Bazalgette, and shot back a glance of defiance, with arching neck, at Mr. Bazalgette.
After breakfast she ran to Mrs. Bazalgette. “What was it?”
“Oh, nothing; only the gentlemen were beginning to grin.”
“Oh, dear! did I say anything—ridiculous?”
“No, because I stopped you in time. Mind, Lucy, it is never safe to read letters out from people in that class of life; they talk about everything, and use words that are quite out of date. I stopped you because I know you are a simpleton, and so I could not tell what might pop out next.”
“Oh, thank you, aunt—thank you,” cried Lucy, warmly. “Then I did not expose myself, after all.”
“No, no; you said nothing that might not be proclaimed at St. Paul's Cross—ha! ha!”
“Am I a simpleton, aunt?” inquired Lucy, in the tone of an indifferent person seeking knowledge.
“Not you,” replied this oblivious lady. “You know a great deal more than most girls of your age. To be sure, girls that have been at a fashionable school generally manage to learn one or two things you have no idea of.”
“Naturally.”
“As you say—he! he! But you make up for it, my dear, in other respects. If the gentlemen take you for a pane of glass, why, all the better; meantime, shall I tell you your real character? I have only just discovered it myself.”
“Oh, yes, aunt, tell me my character. I should so like to hear it from you.”
“Should you?” said the other, a little satirically; “well, then, you are an INNOCENT FOX.”
“Aunt!”
“An in-no-cent fox; so run and get your work-box. I want you to run up a tear in my flounce.”
Lucy went thoughtfully for her workbox, murmuring ruefully, “I am an innocent fox—I am an in-nocent fox.”
She did not like her new character at all; it mortified her, and seemed self-contradictory as well as derogatory.
On her return she could not help remonstrating: “How can that be my character? A fox is cunning, and I despise cunning; andI am sureI am notinnocent,”added she, putting up both hands and looking penitent. With all this, a shade of vexation was painted on her lovely cheeks as she appealed against her epigram.
Mrs. Bazalgette (with the calm, inexorable superiority of matron despotism). “You are an in-nocent fox!! Is your needle threaded? Here is the tear; no, not there. I caught against the flowerpot frame, and I'll swear I heard my gown go. Look lower down, dear. Don't give it up.”
All which may perhaps remind the learned and sneering reader of another fox—the one that “had a wound, and he could not tell where.”
They rode out to-day as usual, and David had the equivocal pleasure of seeing them go from the door.
Lucy was one of the first down, and put her hand on the saddle, and looked carelessly round for somebody to put her up. David stepped hastily forward, his heart beating, seized her foot, never waited for her to spring, but went to work at once, and with a powerful and sustained effort raised her slowly and carefully like a dead weight, and settled her in the saddle. His gripe hurt her foot. She bore it like a Spartan sooner than lose the amusement of his simplicity and enormous strength, so drolly and unnecessarily exerted. It cost her a little struggle not to laugh right out, but she turned her head away from him a moment and was quit for a spasm. Then she came round with a face all candor.
“Thank you, Mr. Dodd,” said she, demurely; and her eyes danced in her head. Her foot felt encircled with an iron band, but she bore him not a grain of malice for that, and away she cantered, followed by his longing eyes.
David bore the separation well. “To-morrow morning I shall have her all to myself,” said he. He played with Kenealy and Reginald, and chatted with Bazalgette. In the evening she was surrounded as usual, and he obtained only a small share of her attention. But the thought of the morrow consoled him. He alone knew that she walked before breakfast.
The next morning he rose early, and sauntered about till eight o'clock, and then he came on the lawn and waited for her. She did not come. He waited, and waited, and waited. She never came. His heart died within him. “She avoids me,” said he; “it is not accident. I have driven her out of her very garden; she always walked here before breakfast (she said so) till I came and spoiled her walk; Heaven forgive me.”
David could not flatter himself that this interruption of her acknowledged habit was accidental. On the other hand, how kind and cheerful she had been with him on the same spot yesterday morning. To judge by her manner, his company on her quarter-deck was not unwelcome to her yet she kept her room to-day, from the window of which she could probably see him walking to and fro, longing for her. The bitter disappointment was bad enough, but here tormenting perplexity as to its cause was added, and between the two the pining heart was racked.
This is the cruelest separation; mere distance is the mildest. Where land and sea alone lie between two loving hearts, they pine, but are at rest. A piece of paper, and a few lines traced by the hand that reads like a face, and the two sad hearts exult and embrace one another afresh, in spite of a hemisphere of dirt and salt water, that parts bodies but not minds. But to be close, yet kept aloof by red-hot iron and chilling ice, by rivals, by etiquette and cold indifference—to be near, yet far—this is to be apart—this, this is separation.
A gush of rage and bitterness foreign to his natural temper came over Mr. Dodd. “Since I can't have the girl I love, I will have nobody but my own thoughts. I cannot bear the others and their chat to-day. I will go and think of her, since that is all she will let me do”; and directly after breakfast David walked out on the downs and made by instinct for the sea. The wounded deer shunned the lively herd.
The ladies, as they sat in the drawing-room, received visits of a less flattering character than usual. Reginald kept popping in, inquiring, “Where was Mr. Dodd?” and would not believe they had not hid him somewhere. He was followed by Kenealy, who came in and put them but one question, “Where is Dawd?”
“We don't know,” said Mrs. Bazalgette sharply; “we have not been intrusted with the care of Mr. Dodd.”
Kenealy sauntered forth disconsolate. Finally Mr. Bazalgette put his head in, and surveyed the room keenly but in silence; so then his wife looked up, and asked him satirically if he did not want Mr. Dodd.
“Of course I do,” was the gracious reply; “what else should I come here for?”
“Well, he is lost; you had better put him in the 'Hue and Cry.'”
La Bazalgette was getting jealous of her own flirtee: he attracted too much of that attention she loved so dear.
At last Reginald, despairing of Dodd, went in search of another playmate—Master Christmas, a young gentleman a year older than himself, who lived within half a mile. Before he went he inquired what there was for his dinner, and, being informed “roast mutton,” was not enraptured; he then asked with greater solicitude what was the pudding, and, being told “rice,” betrayed disgust and anger, as was remembered when too late.
At two o'clock, the day being fine, the ladies went for a long ride, accompanied by Talboys only. Kenealy excused himself: “He must see if he could not find Dawd.”
Mrs. Bazalgette started in a pet; but, after the first canter, she set herself to bewitch Mr. Talboys, just to keep her hand in; she flattered him up hill and down dale. Lucy was silent anddistraite.
“From that hill you look right down upon the sea,” said Mrs. Bazalgette; “what do you say? It is only two miles farther.”
On they cantered, and, leaving the high road, dived into a green lane which led them, by a gradual ascent, to Mariner's Folly on the summit of the cliff. Mariner's Folly looked at a distance like an enormous bush in the shape of a lion; but, when you came nearer, you saw it was three remarkably large blackthorn-trees planted together. As they approached it at a walk, Mrs. Bazalgette told Mr. Talboys its legend.
“These trees were planted a hundred and fifty years ago by a retired buccaneer.”
“Aunt, now, it was only a lieutenant.”
“Be quiet, Lucy, and don't spoil me; Icallhim a buccaneer. Some say it is named his “Folly,” because, you must know, his ghost comes and sits here at times, and that is an absurd practice, shivering in the cold. Others more learned say it comes from a Latin word 'folio,' or some such thing, that means a leaf; the mariner's leafy screen.” She then added with reckless levity, “I wonder whether we shall find Buckey on the other side, looking at the ships through a ghostly telescope—ha! ha!—ah! ah! help! mercy! forgive me! Oh, dear, it is only Mr. Dodd in his jacket—you frightened me so. Oh! oh! There—I am ill. Catch me, somebody;” and she dropped her whip, and, seeing David's eye was on her, subsided backward with considerable courage and trustfulness, and for the second time contrived to be in her flirtee's arms.
I wish my friend Aristotle had been there; I think he would have been pleased at her [Greek] (presence of mind) in turning even her terror of the supernatural so quickly to account, and making it subservient to flirtation.
David sat heart-stricken and hopeless, gazing at the sea. The hours passed by his heavy heart unheeded. The leafy screen deadened the light sound of the horses' feet on the turf, and, moreover, his senses were all turned inward. They were upon him, and he did not move, but still held his head in his hands and gazed upon the sea. At Mrs. Bazalgette's cries he started up, and looked confusedly at them all; but, when she did the feinting business, he thought she was going to faint, and caught her in his arms; and, holding her in them a moment as if she had been a child, he deposited her very gently in a sitting posture at the foot of one of the trees, and, taking her hand, slapped it to bring her to.
“Oh, don't! you hurt me,” cried the lady in her natural voice.
Lucy, barbarous girl, never came to her aunt's assistance. At the first fright she seemed slightly agitated, but she now sat impassive on her pony, and even wore a satirical smile.
“Now, dear aunt, when you have done, Mr. Dodd will put you on your horse again.”
On this hint David lifted her like a child,malgrea little squeak she thought it well to utter, and put her in the saddle again. She thanked him in a low, murmuring voice. She then plied David with a host of questions. “How came he so far from home?” “Why had he deserted them all day?” David hung his head, and did not answer. Lucy came to his relief: “It would be as well if you would make him promise to be at home in time for dinner; and, by the way, I have a favor to ask of you, Mr. Dodd.”
“A favor to ask of me?!”
“Oh, you know we all make demands upon your good-nature in turn.”
“That is true,” said La Bazalgette, tenderly. “I don't know what will become of us all when he goes.”
Lucy then explained “that the masked ball suggested by Mr. Talboys' beautiful dresses was to be very soon, and she wanted Mr. Dodd to practice quadrilles and waltzes with her; it will be so much better with the violin and piano than with a piano alone, and you are such an excellent timist—will you, Mr. Dodd?”
“That I will,” said David, his eyes sparkling with delight; “thank you.”
“Then, as I shall practice before the gentlemen join us, and it is four o'clock now, had you not better turn your back on the sea, and make the best of your way home?”
“I will be there almost as soon as you.”
“Indeed! what, on foot, and we on horseback?”
“Ay; but I can steer in the wind's eye.”
“Aunt, Mr. Dodd proposes a race home.”
“With all my heart. How much start are we to give him?”
“None at all,” said David; “are you ready? Then give way,” and he started down the hill at a killing pace.
The equestrians were obliged to walk down the hill, and when they reached the bottom David was going as the crow flies across some meadows half a mile ahead. A good canter soon brought them on a line with him, but every now and then the turns of the road and the hills gave him an advantage. Lucy, naturally kind-hearted, would have relaxed her pace to make the race more equal, but Talboys urged her on; and as a horse is, after all, a faster animal than a sailor, they rode in at the front gate while David was still two fields off.
“Come,” said Mrs. Bazalgette, regretfully, “we have beat him, poor fellow, but we won't go in till we see what has become of him.”
As they loitered on the lawn, Henry the footman came out with a salver, and on it reposed a soiled note. Henry presented it with demure obsequiousness, then retired grinning furtively.
“What is this—a begging-letter? What a vile hand! Look, Lucy; did you ever? Why, it must be some pauper.”
“Have a little mercy, aunt,” said Lucy, piteously; “that hand has been formed under my care and daily superintendence: it is Reginald's.”
“Oh, that alters the case. What can the dear child have to say to me! Ah! the little wretch! Send the servants after him in every direction. Oh, who would be a mother!”
The letter was written in lines with two pernicious defects. 1st. They were like the wooden part of a bow instead of its string. 2d. They yielded to gravity—kept tending down, down, to the righthand corner more and more. In the use of capitals the writer had taken the copyhead as his model. The style, however, was pithy, and in writing that is the first Christian grace—no, I forgot, it is the second; pellucidity is the first.
“Dear mama, me and johnnyCristmas are gone to the northPole his unkle went twise weShall be back in siks munthsPlease give my love to lucy andPapa and ask lucy to be kind toMy ginnipigs i shall want themWen i come back. too muchCabiges is not good for ginnipigs.Wen i come back i hope thereWill be no rise left. it is veryUnjust to give me those nastyMessy pudens i am not a childThere filthy there abbommanabel.Johny says it is funy at the northPole and there are baresand theyAre wite.I remain“Your duteful son“Reginald George Bazalgette.”
This innocent missive set house and premises in an uproar. Henry was sent east through the dirt,multa reluctantem,in white stockings. Tom galloped north. Mrs. Bazalgette sat in the hall, and did well-bred hysterics for Kenealy and Talboys. Lucy pinned up her habit, and ran to the boundary hedge on the bare chance of seeing the figures of the truants somewhere short of the horizon. Lo, and behold, there was David Dodd crossing the very nearest field and coming toward her, an urchin in each hand.
Lucy ran to meet them. “Oh, you dear naughty children, what a fright you have given us! Oh, Mr. Dodd, how good of you! Wheredidyou find them?”
“Under that hedge, eating apples. They tell me they sailed for the North Pole this morning, but fell in with a pirate close under the land, so 'bout ship and came ashore again.”
“A pirate, Mr. Dodd? Oh, I see, a beggar—a tramp.”
“A deal worse than that, Miss Lucy. Now, youngster, why don't you spin your own yarn?”
“Yes, tell me, Reggy.”
“Well, dear, when I had written to mamma, and Johnny had folded it—because I can write but I can't fold it, and he can fold it but he can't write it—we went to the North Pole, and we got a mile; and then we saw that nasty Newfoundland dog sitting in the road waiting to torment us. It is Farmer Johnson's, and it plays with us, and knocks us down, and licks us, and frightens us, and we hate it; so we came home.”
“Ha! ha! good, prudent children. Oh, dear, you have had no dinner.”
“Oh, yes we had, Lucy, such a nice one: we bought such a lot of apples of a woman. I never had a dinner all apples before; they always spoil them with mutton and things, and that nasty, nasty rice”
“Hear to that!” shouted David Dodd. “They have been dining upon varjese” (verjuice), “and them growing children. I shall take them into the kitchen, and put some cold beef into their little holds this minute, poor little lambs.”
“Oh yes, do; and I will run and tell the good news.” She ran across the lawn, and came into the hall red with innocent happiness and agitation. “They are found, aunt, they are found; don't cry. Mr. Dodd found them close by, They have had no dinner, so that good, kind Mr. Dodd is taking them into the kitchen. I will send Master Christmas home with a servant. Shall I bring you Reggy to kiss?”
“No, no; wicked little wretch, to frighten his poor mother! Whip him, somebody, and put him to bed.”
In the evening, soon after the ladies had left the dining-room, the pianoforte was heard playing quadrilles in the drawing-room. David fidgeted on his seat a little, and presently rose and went for his violin, and joined Lucy in the drawing-room alone. Mrs. B. was trying on a dress. Between the tunes Lucy chatted with him as freely and kindly as ever. David was in heaven. When the gentlemen came up from the dining-room, his joy was interrupted, but not for long. The two musicians played with so much spirit, and the fiddle, in particular, was so hearty, that Mrs. Bazalgette proposed a little quiet dance on the carpet: and this drew the other men away from the piano, and left David and Lucy to themselves.
She stole a look more than once at his bright eyes and rich ruddy color, and asked herself, “Is that really the same face we found looking wan and haggard on the sea? I think I have put an end to that, at all events.” The consciousness of this sort of power is secretly agreeable to all men and all women, whether they mean to abuse it or no. She smiled demurely at her mastery over this great heart, and said to herself, “One would think I was a witch.” Later in the evening she eyed him again, and thought to herself, “If my company and a few friendly words can make him so happy, it does seem very hard I should select him to shun for the few days he has to pass in England now; but then, if I let him think—I don't know what to do with him. Poor Mr. Dodd.”
Miss Fountain did not torment her bolder aspirants with alternate distance and familiarity. She rode out every fine day with Mr. Talboys, and was all affability. She sat next Mr. Hardie at dinner, and was all affability.
Narrative has its limits and, to relate in some sequence the honest sailor's tortures in love with a tactician, I have necessarily omitted concurrent incidents of a still tamer character; but the reader may, by the help of his own intelligence, gather their general results from the following dialogues, which took place on the afternoon and evening of the terrible infant's escapade.
Mrs. Bazalgette. “'Well, my dear friend, and how does this naughty girl of mine use you?”
Mr. Hardie. “As well as I could expect, and better than I deserve.”
Mrs. B. “Then she must be cleverer than any girl that ever breathed. However, she does appreciate your conversation; she makes no secret of it.”
Mr. H. “I have so little reason to complain of my reception that I will make my proposal to her this evening if you think proper.”
Mrs. Bazalgette started, and glanced admiration on a man of eight thousand a year, who came to the point of points without being either cajoled or spurred thither; but she shook her head. “Prudence, my dear Mr. Hardie, prudence. Not just yet. You are making advances every day; and Lucy is an odd girl; with all her apparent tenderness, she is unimpressionable.”
“That is only virgin modesty,” said Hardie, dogmatically.
“Fiddlestick,” replied Mrs. B., good-humoredly. “The greatest flirts I ever met with were virgins, as you call them. I tell you she is not disposed toward marriage as all other girls are until they have tasted its bitters.”
Mr. H. “If I know anything of character, she will make a very loving wife.”
Mrs. B. (sharply). “That means a nice little negro. Well, I think she might, when once caught; but she is not caught, and she is slippery, and, if you are in too great a hurry, she may fly off; but, above all, we have a dangerous rival in the house just now.”
Mr. H. “What, that Mr. Talboys? I don't fear him. He is next door to a fool.”
Mrs. B. “What of that? Fools are dangerous rivals for a lady's favor. We don't object to fools. It depends on the employment. There is one office we are apt to select them for.”
Mr. H. “A husband, eh?” The lady nodded.
Mrs. B. “I meant to marry a fool in Bazalgette, but I found my mistake. The wretch had only feigned absurdity. He came out in his true colors directly.”
Mr. H. “A man of sense, eh? The sinister hypocrite! He only wore the caps and bells to allure unguarded beauty, and doffed them when he donned the wedding-suit.”
Mrs. B. “Yes. But these are reminiscences so sweet that I shall be glad to return from them to your little affair. Seriously, then, Mr. Talboys is not to be overlooked, for this reason: he is well backed.”
“By whom?”
“By some one who has influence with Lucy—her nearest relation, Mr. Fountain.”
“What! is he nearer to her than you are?”
“Certainly; and she is fond of him to infatuation. One day I did but hint that selfishness entered into his character (he is eaten up with it), and that he told fibs; Mr. Hardie, she turned round on me like a tigress—Oh, how she made me cry!”
The keen hand, Hardie, smiled satirically, and after a pause answered with consummate coolness: “I believe thus much, that she loves her uncle, and that his influence, exerted unscrupulously—”
“Which it will be. He may be strong enough to spoil us, even though he should not be able to carry his own point; now trust me, my dear friend, Lucy's preference is clearly for you, but I know the weakness of my own sex, and, above all, I know Lucy Fountain. A mouse can help a lion in a matter of small threads, too small for his nobler and grander wisdom to see. Let me be your mouse for once.” The little woman caught the great man with the everlasting hook, and the discussion ended in “claw me and I will claw thee,” and in the mutual self-complacency that follows that arrangement.Vide“Blackwood,”passim.
Mr. H. “I really think she would accept me if I offered to-day; but I have so high an opinion of your sagacity and friendship for me, madam, that I will defer my judgment to yours. I must, however, make one condition, that you will not displace my plan without suggesting a distinct course of action for me to adopt in its place.”
This smooth proposal, made quietly but with twinkling eye, would have shut the mouth of nine advisers in ten, but it found the Bazalgette prepared.
“Oh, the pleasure of having a man of ability to deal with!” cried she, with enthusiasm. “This is my advice, then: stay Mr. Fountain out. He must go in a day or two. His time is up, and I will drop a hint of fresh visitors expected. When he is gone, warm by degrees, and offer yourself either in person, or through Bazalgette, or me.”
“In person, then, certainly. Of all foibles, employing another pair of eyes, another tongue, another person to make love for one is surely the silliest.”
“I am quite of your opinion,” cried the lady, with a hearty laugh.
Mr. Fountain. “So you are satisfied with the state of things?”
Mr. Talboys. “Yes, I think I have beaten the sailor out of the field.”
“Well, but—this Hardie?”
“Hardie! a shopkeeper. I don't fear him.”
“In that case, why not propose? I have been doing the preliminaries—sounding your praises.”
Mr. Talboys (tyrannically). “I propose next Saturday.”
Mr. Fountain. “Very well.”
Talboys. “In the boat.”
“In the boat? What boat? There's no boat.”
“I have asked her to sail with me from —— in a boat; there is a very nice little lugger-rigged one. I am having the seats padded and stuffed and lined, and an awning put up, and the boat painted white and gold.”
“Bravo! Cleopatra's galley.”
“I assure you she looks forward to it with pleasure; she guesses why I want to get her into that boat. She hesitated at first, but at last consented with a look—a conscious look; I can hardly describe it.”
“There is no need,” cried Fountain. “I know it; the jade turned all eyelashes.”
“That is rather exaggerated, but still—”
“But still I have described it—to a hair. Ha! ha!”
Talboys (gravely). “Well, yes.”
Mr. Talboys, I am bound to own, was accurate. During the last day or two Lucy had taken a turn; she had been bewitching; she had flattered him with tact, but deliciously; had consulted him as to which of his beautiful dresses she should wear at the masked ball, and, when pressed to have a sail in the boat he was fitting for her, she ended by giving a demure assent.
Chorus of male readers,“Oh, les femmes, les femmes!”
David Dodd had by nature a healthy as well as a high mind; but the fever and ague of an absorbing passion were telling on it. Like many a great heart before his day, his heart was tossed like a ship, and went up to heaven, and down again to despair, as a girl's humor shifted, or seemed to shift, for he forgot that there is such a thing as accident, and that her sex are even more under its dominion than ours. No; whatever she did must be spontaneous, voluntary, premeditated even, and her lightest word worth weighing, her lightest action worth anxious scrutiny as to its cause.
Still he had this about him that the peevish and puny lover has not. Her bare presence was joy to him. Even when she was surrounded by other figures, he saw and felt but the one; the rest were nothings. But when she went out of his sight, some bright illusion seemed to fade into cold and dark reality. Then it fell on him like a weighty, icy hammer, that in three days he must go to sea for two years, and that he was no nearer her heart now than he was at Font Abbey. Was he even as near?
So the next afternoon he thrust in before Talboys, and put Lucy on her horse by brute force, and griped her stout little boot, which she had slyly substituted for a shoe, and touched her glossy habit, and felt a thrill of bliss unspeakable at his momentary contact with her; but she was no sooner out of sight than a hollow ache seized the poor fellow, and he hung his head and sighed.
“I say, capting,” said a voice in his ear. He looked up, and there stood Tom, the stable-boy, with both hands in his pockets. Tom was not there by his own proper movement, but was agent of Betsy, the under-housemaid.
Female servants scan the male guests pretty closely too, without seeming to do it, and judge them upon lamentably broad principles—youth, health, size, beauty, and good temper. Oh, the coarse-minded critics! Hence it befell that in their eyes, especially after the fiddle business, David was a king compared with his rivals.
“If I look at him too long, I shall eat him,” said the cook-maid.
“He is a darling,” said the upper housemaid.
Betsy aforesaid often opened a window to have a sly look at him, and on one of these occasions she inspected him from an upper story at her leisure. His manner drew her attention. She saw him mount Lucy, and eye her departing form sadly and wistfully. Betsy glowered and glowered, and hit the nail on the head, as people will do who are so absurd as to look with their own eyes, and draw their own conclusions instead of other people's. After this she took an opportunity, and said to Tom, with a satirical air, “How are you off for nags, your way?”
“Oh, we have got enough for our corn,” replied Tom, on the defensive.
“It seems you can't find one for the captain among you.”
“Will you give a kiss if I make you out a liar?”
“Sooner than break my arm. Come, you might, Tom. Now is it reasonable, him never to get a ride with her, and that useless lot prancing about with her all day long?”
“Why don't you ride with 'em, capting?”
“I have no horse.”
“I have got a horse for you, sir—master's.”
“That would be taking a liberty.”
“Liberty, sir! no; master would be so pleased if you would but ride him. He told me so.”
“Then saddle him, pray.”
“I have a-saddled him. You had better come in the stable-yard, capting; then you can mount and follow; you will catch them before they reach the Downs.” In another minute David was mounted.
“Do you ride short or long, capting?” inquired Tom, handling the stirrup-leather.
David wore a puzzled look. “I ride as long as I can stick on;” and he trotted out of the stable-yard. As Tom had predicted, he caught the party just as they went off the turn-pike on to the grass. His heart beat with joy; he cantered in among them. His horse was fresh, squeaked, and bucked at finding himself on grass and in company, and David announced his arrival by rolling in among their horses' feet with the reins tight grasped in his fist. The ladies screamed with terror. David got up laughing; his horse had hoped to canter away without him, and now stood facing him and pulling.
“No, ye don't,” said David. “I held on to the tiller-ropes though I did go overboard.” Then ensued a battle between David and his horse, the one wanting to mount, the other anxious to be unencumbered with sailors. It was settled by David making a vault and sitting on the animal's neck, on which the ladies screamed again, and Lucy, half whimpering, proposed to go home.
“Don't think of it,” cried David. “I won't be beat by such a small craft as this—hallo!” for, the horse backing into Talboys, that gentleman gave him a clandestine cut, and he bolted, and, being a little hard-mouthed, would gallop in spite of the tiller-ropes. On came the other nags after him, all misbehaving more or less, so fine a thing is example. When they had galloped half a mile the ground began to rise, and David's horse relaxed his pace, whereon David whipped him industriously, and made him gallop again in spite of remonstrance.
The others drew the rein, and left him to gallop alone. Accordingly, he made the round of the hill and came back, his horse covered with lather and its tail trembling. “There,” said he to Lucy, with an air of radiant self-satisfaction, “he clapped on sail without orders from quarter-deck, so I made him carry it till his bows were under water.”
“You will kill my uncle's horse,” was the reply, in a chilling tone.
“Heaven forbid!”
“Look at its poor flank beating.”
David hung his head like a school-girl rebuked. “But why did he clap on sail if he could not carry it?” inquired he, ruefully, of his monitress.
The others burst out laughing; but Lucy remained grave and silent.
David rode along crestfallen.
Mrs. Bazalgette brought her pony close to him, and whispered, “Never mind that little cross-patch.Shedoes not care a pin about thehorse;you interrupted her flirtation, that is all.”
This piece of consolation soothed David like a bunch of stinging-nettles.
While Mrs. Bazalgette was consoling David with thorns, Kenealy and Talboys were quizzing his figure on horseback.
He sat bent like a bow and visibly sticking on:item,he had no straps, and his trousers rucked up half-way to his knee.
Lucy's attention being slyly drawn to these phenomena by David's friend Talboys, she smiled politely, though somewhat constrainedly; but the gentlemen found it a source of infinite amusement during the whole ride, which, by the way, was not a very long one, for Miss Fountain soon expressed a wish to turn homeward. David felt guilty, he scarce knew why.
The promised happiness was wormwood. On dismounting, she went to the lawn to tend her flowers. David followed her, and said bitterly, “I am sorry I came to spoil your pleasure.”
Miss Fountain made no answer.
“I thought I might have one ride with you, when others have so many.”
“Why, of course, Mr. Dodd. If you like to expose yourself to ridicule, it is no affair of mine.” The lady's manner was a happy mixture of frigidity and crossness. David stood benumbed, and Lucy, having emptied her flower-pot, glided indoors without taking any farther notice of him.
David stood rooted to the spot. Then he gave a heavy sigh, and went and leaned against one of the pillars of the portico, and everything seemed to swim before his eyes.
Presently he heard a female voice inquire, “Is Miss Lucy at home?” He looked, and there was a tall, strapping woman in conference with Henry. She had on a large bonnet with flaunting ribbons, and a bushy cap infuriated by red flowers. Henry's eye fell upon these embellishments: “Not at home,” chanted he, sonorously.
“Eh, dear,” said the woman sadly, “I have come a long way to see her.”
“Not at home, ma'am,” repeated Henry, like a vocal machine.
“My name is Wilson, young man,” said she, persuasively, and the Amazon's voice was mellow and womanly, spite of her coal-scuttle full of field poppies. “I am her nurse, and I have not seen her this five years come Martinmas;” and the Amazon gave a gentle sigh of disappointment.
“Not at home, ma'am!” rang the inexorable Plush.
But David's good heart took the woman's part. “She is at home, now,” said he, coming forward. “I saw her go into the house scarce a minute ago.”
“Oh, thank you, sir,” said Mrs. Wilson. But Mr. Plush's face was instantly puckered all over with signals, which David not comprehending, he said, “Can I say a word with you, sir?” and, drawing him on one side, objected, in an injured and piteous tone. “We are not at home to such gallimaufry as that; it is as much as my place is worth to denounce that there bonnet to our ladies.”
“Bonnet be d—d,” roared David, aloud. “It is her old nurse. Come, heave ahead;” and he pointed up the stairs.
“Anything to oblige you, captain,” said Henry, and sauntered into the drawing-room; “Mrs. Wilson, ma'am, for Miss Fountain.”
“Very well; my niece will be here directly.”
Lucy had just gone to her own room for some working materials.
“You had better come to an anchor on this seat, Mrs. Wilson,” said David.
“Thank ye kindly, young gentleman,” said Mrs. Wilson; and she settled her stately figure on the seat. “I have walked a many miles to-day, along of our horse being lame, and I am a little tired. You are one of the family, I do suppose?”
“No, I am only a visitor.”
“Ain't ye now? Well, thank ye kindly, all the same. I have seen a worse face than yours, I can tell you,” added she; for in the midst of it all she had found time to read countenancesmore mulierurn.
“And I have seen a good many hundred worse than yours, Mrs. Wilson.”
Mrs. Wilson laughed. “Twenty years ago, if you had said so, I might have believed you, or even ten; but, bless you, I am an old woman now, and can say what I choose to the men. Forty-two next Candlemas.”
In the country they call themselves old at forty-two, because they feel young. In town they call themselves young at forty-two, because they feel old.
David found that he had fallen in with a gossip; and, being in no humor for vague chat, he left Mrs. Wilson to herself, with an assurance that Miss Fountain would be down to her directly.
In leaving her he went into worse company—his own thoughts; they were inexpressibly sad and bitter. “She hates me, then,” said he. “Everybody is welcome to her at all hours, except me. That lady said it was because I interrupted her flirtation. Aha! well, I shan't interrupt her flirtation much longer. I shan't be in her way or anybody's long. A few short hours, and this bitter day will be forgotten, and nothing left me but the memory of the kindness she had for me once, or seemed to have, and the angel face I must carry in my heart wherever I go, by land or sea. The sea? would to God I was upon it this minute! I'd rather be at sea than ashore in the dirtiest night that ever blew.”
He had been walking to and fro a good half-hour, deeply dejected and turning bitter, when, looking in accidentally at the hall door, he caught sight of Mrs. Wilson sitting all alone where he had left her. “Why, what on earth is the meaning of that?” thought he; and he went into the hall and asked Mrs. Wilson how she came to be there all alone.
“That is what I have been asking myself a while past,” was the dry reply.
“Have you not seen her?”
“No, sir, I have not seen her, and, to my mind, it is doubtful whether I am to see her.”
“But I say you shall see her.”
“No, no, don't put yourself out, sir,” said the woman, carelessly; “I dare say I shall have better luck next time, if I should ever come to this house again, which it is not very likely.” She added gently, “Young folk are thoughtless; we must not judge them too hardly.”
“Thoughtless they may be, but they have no business to be heartless. I have a great mind to go up and fetch her down.”
“Don't ye trouble, sir. It is not worth while putting you about for an old woman like me.” Then suddenly dropping the mask of nonchalance which women of this class often put on to hide their sensibility, she said, very, very gravely, and with a sad dignity, that one would not have expected from her gossip and her finery, “I begin to fear, sir, that the child I have suckled does not care to know me now she is a woman grown.”
David dashed up the stairs with a red streak on his brow. He burst into the drawing-room, and there sat Mrs. Bazalgette overlooking, and Lucy working with a face of beautiful calm. She looked just then so very like a pure, tranquil Madonna making an altar-cloth, or something, that David's intention to give her a scolding was withered in the bud, and he gazed at her surprised and irresolute, and said not a word.
“Anything the matter?” inquired Mrs. Bazalgette, attracted by the bruskness of his entry.
“Yes, there is,” said David sternly.
Lucy looked up.
“Miss Fountain's old nurse has been sitting in the hall more than half an hour, and nobody has had the politeness to go near her.”
“Oh, is that all? Well, don't look daggers at me. There is Lucy; give her a lesson in good-breeding, Mr. Dodd.” This was said a little satirically, and rather nettled David.
“Perhaps it does not become me to set up for a teacher of that. I know my own deficiencies as well as anybody in this house knows them; but this I know, that, if an old friend walked eight miles to see me, it would not be good-breeding in me to refuse to walk eight yards to see her. And, another thing, everybody's time is worth something; if I did not mean to see her, I would have that much consideration to send down and tell her so, and not keep the woman wasting her time as well as her trouble, and vexing her heart into the bargain.”
“Where is she, Mr. Dodd?” asked Lucy quickly.
“Where is she?” cried David, getting louder and louder. “Why, she is cooling her heels in the hall this half hour and more. They hadn't the manners to show her into a room.”
“I will go to her, Mr. Dodd,” said Lucy, turning a little pale. “Don't be angry; I will go directly”; and, having said this with an abject slavishness that formed a miraculous contrast with her late crossness and imperious chilliness, she put down her work hastily and went out; only at the door she curved her throat, and cast back, Parthian-like, a glance of timid reproach, as much as to say, “Need you have been so very harsh with a creature so obedient as this is?”
That deprecating glance did Mr. Dodd's business. It shot him with remorse, and made him feel a brute.
“Ha! ha! That is the way to speak to her, Mr. Dodd; the other gentlemen spoil her.”
“It was very unbecoming of me to speak to her harshly like that.”
“Pooh! nonsense; these girls like to be ordered about; it saves them the trouble of thinking for themselves; but what is to become of me? You have sent off my workwoman.”
“I will do her work for her.”
“What! can you sew?”
“Where is the sailor that can't sew?”
“Delightful! Then please to sew these two thick ends together. Here is a large needle.”
David whipped out of his pocket a round piece of leather with strings attached, and fastened it to the hollow of his hand.
“What is that?”
“It is a sailor's thimble.” He took the work, held it neatly, and shoved the needle from behind through the thick material. He worked slowly and uncouthly, but with the precision that was a part of his character, and made exact and strong stitches. His task-mistress looked on, and, under the pretense of minute inspection, brought a face that was still arch and pretty unnecessarily close to the marine milliner, in which attitude they were surprised by Mr. Bazalgette, who, having come in through the open folding-doors, stood looking mighty sardonic at them both before they were even aware he was in the room.
Omphale colored faintly, but Hercules gave a cool nod to the newcomer, and stitched on with characteristic zeal and strict attention to the matter in hand.
At this Bazalgette uttered a sort of chuckle, at which Mrs. Bazalgette turned red. David stitched on for the bare life.
“I came to offer to invite you to my study, but—”
“I can't come just now,” said David, bluntly; “I am doing a lady's work for her.”
“So I see,” retorted Bazalgette, dryly.
“We all dine with the Hunts but you and Mr. Dodd,” said Mrs. Bazalgette, “so you will been tete-a-teteall the evening.”
“All the better for us both.” And with this ingratiating remark Mr. Bazalgette retired whistling.
Mrs. Bazalgette heaved a gentle sigh: “Pity me, my friend,” said she, softly.
“What is the matter?” inquired David, rather bluntly.
“Mr. Bazalgette is so harsh to me—ah!—to me, who longs so for kindness and gentleness that I feel I could give my very soul in exchange for them.”
The bait did not take.
“It is only his manner,” said David, good-naturedly. “His heart is all right; I never met a better. What sort of a knot is that you are tying? Why, that is a granny's knot;” and he looked morose, at which she looked amazed; so he softened, and explained to her with benevolence the rationale of a knot. “A knot is a fastening intended to be undone again by fingers, and not to come undone without them. Accordingly, a knot is no knot at all if it jams or if it slips. A granny's knot does both; when you want to untie it you must pick at it like taking a nail out of a board, and, for all that, sooner or later it always comes undone of itself; now you look here;” and he took a piece of string out of his pocket, and tied her a sailor's knot, bidding her observe that she could untie it at once, but it could never come untied of itself. He showed her with this piece of string half a dozen such knots, none of which could either jam or slip.
“Tie me a lover's knot,” suggested the lady, in a whisper.
“Ay! ay!” and he tied her a lover's knot as imperturbably as he had the reef knot, bowling-knot, fisherman's bend, etc.
“This is very interesting,” said Mrs. Bazalgette, ironically. She thought David might employ a tete-a-tete with a flirt better than this. “What a time Lucy is gone!”
“All the better.”
“Why?” and she looked down in mock confusion.
“Because poor Mrs. Wilson will be glad.”
Mrs. Bazalgette was piqued at this unexpected answer. “You seem quite captivated with this Mrs. Wilson; it was for her sake you took Lucy to task. Apropos, you need not have scolded her, for she did not know the woman was in the house.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean Lucy was not in the room when Mrs. Wilson was announced. I was, but I did not tell her; the all-important circumstance had escaped my memory. Where are you running to now?”
“Where? why, to ask her pardon, to be sure.”
Mrs. B. [Brute!]
David ran down the stairs to look for Lucy, but he found somebody else instead—his sister Eve, whom the servant had that moment admitted into the hall. It was “Oh, Eve!” and “Oh, David!” directly, and an affectionate embrace.
“You got my letter, David?”
“No.”
“Well, then you will before long. I wrote to tell you to look out for me; I had better have brought the letter in my pocket. I didn't know I was coming till just an hour before I started. Mother insisted on my going to see the last of you. Cousin Mary had invited me to ——, so I shall see you off, Davy dear, after all. I thought I'd just pop in and let you know I was in the neighborhood. Mary and her husband are outside the gate in their four-wheel. I would not let them drive in, because I want to hear your story, and they would have bothered us.”
“Eve, dear, I have no good news for you. Your words have come true. I have been perplexed, up and down, hot and cold, till I feel sometimes like going mad. Eve, I cannot fathom her. She is deeper than the ocean, and more changeable. What am I saying? the sea and the wind; they are to be read; they have their signs and their warnings; but she—”
“There! there! that is the old song. I tell you it is only a girl—a creature as shallow as a puddle, and as easy to fathom, as you call it, only men are so stupid, especially boys. Now just you tell me all she has said, all she has done, and all she has looked, and I will turn her inside out like a glove in a minute.”
Cheered by this audacious pledge, David pumped upon Eve all that has trickled on my readers, and some minor details besides, and repeated Lucy's every word, sweet or bitter, and recalled her lightest action—Meminerunt omnia amantes—and every now and then he looked sadly into Eve's keen little face for his doom.
She heard him in silence until the last fatal incident, Lucy's severity on the lawn. Then she put in a question. “Were those her exact words?”
“Do I ever forget a syllable she says to me?”
“Don't be angry. I forgot what a ninny she has made of you. Well, David, it is all as plain as my hand. The girl likes you—that is all.”
“The girl likes me? What do you mean? How can you say that? What sign of liking is there?”
“There are two. She avoids you, and she has been rude to you.”
“And those are signs of liking, are they?” said David, bitterly.
“Why, of course they are, stupid. Tell me, now, does she shun this Captain Keely?”
“Kenealy. No.”
“Does she shun Mr. Harvey?”
“Hardie. No.”
“Does she shun Mr. Talboys?”
“Oh Eve, you break my heart—no! no! She shuns no one but poor David.”
“Now think a little. Here are three on one sort of footing, and one on a different footing; which is likeliest to bethe man,the one or the three? You have gained a point since we were all together. Shedistinguishesyou.”
“But what a way to distinguish me. It looks more like hatred than love, or liking either.”
“Not to my eye. Why should she shun you? You are handsome, you are good-tempered, and good company. Why should she be shy of you? She is afraid of you, that is why; and why is she afraid of you? because she is afraid of her own heart. That is how I read her. Then, as for her snubbing you, if her character was like mine, that ought to go for nothing, for I snub all the world; but this is a little queen for politeness. I can't think she would go so far out of her way as to affront anybody unless she had an uncommon respect for him.”
“Listen to that, now! I am on my beam-ends.”
“Now think a minute, David,” said Eve, calmly, ignoring his late observation; “did you ever know her snub anybody?”
“Never. Did you?”
“No; and she never would, unless she took an uncommon interest in the person. When a girl likes a man, she thinks she has a right to ill-use him a little bit; he has got her affection to set against a scratch or two; the others have not. So she has not the same right to scratch them. La! listen to me teaching him A B C. Why, David, you know nothing; it's scandalous.”
Eve's confidence communicated itself at last to David; but when he asked her whether she thought Lucy would consent to be his wife, her countenance fell in her turn. “That is a very different thing. I am pretty sure she likes you; how could she help it? but I doubt she will never go to the altar with you. Don't be angry with me, Davy, dear. You are in love with her, and to you she is an angel. But I am of her own sex, and see her as she is; no matter who she likes, she will never be content to make a bad match, as they call it. She told me so once with her own lips. But she had no need to tell me; worldliness is written on her. David, David, you don't know these great houses, nor the fair-spoken creatures that live in them, with tongues tuned to sentiment, and mild eyes fixed on the main chance. Their drawing-rooms are carpeted market-places; you may see the stones bulge through the flowery pattern; there the ladies sell their faces, the gentlemen their titles and their money; and much I fear Miss Fountain's hand will go like the rest—to the highest bidder.”
“If I thought so, my love, deep as it is, would turn to contempt; I would tear her out of my heart, though I tore my heart out of my body.” He added, “I will know what she is before many hours.”
“Do, David. Take her off her guard, and make hot love to her; that is your best chance. It is a pity you are so much in love with her; you might win her by a surprise if you only liked her in moderation.”
“How so, dear Eve?”
“The battle would be more even. Your adoring her gives her the upper hand of you. She is sure to say 'no' at first, and then I am afraid you will leave off, instead of going on hotter and hotter. The very look she will put on to check you will check you, you are so green. What a pity I can't take your place for half an hour. I would have her against her will. I would take her by storm. If she said 'no' twenty times, she should say 'yes' the twenty-first; but you are afraid of her; fancy being afraid of a woman. Come, David, you must not shilly-shally, but attack her like a man; and, if she is such a fool she can't see your merit, forgive her like a man, and forget her like a man. Come, promise me you will.”
“I promise you this, that if I lose her it shall not be for want of trying to win her; and, if she refuses me because I am not her fancy, I shall die a bachelor for her sake.” Eve sighed. “But if she is the mercenary thing you take her for—if she owns to liking me, but prefers money to love, then from that moment she is no more to me than a picture or a statue, or any other lovely thing that has no soul.”
With these determined words he gave his sister his arm, and walked with her through the grounds to the road where her cousin was waiting for her.
Lucy found Mrs. Wilson in the hall. “Come into the library, Mrs. Wilson,” said she; “I have only just heard you were here. Won't you sit down? Are you not well, Mrs. Wilson? You tremble. You are fatigued, I fear. Pray compose yourself. May I ring for a glass of wine for you?”
“No, no, Miss Lucy,” said the woman, smiling; “it is only along of you coming to me so sudden, and you so grown. Eh! sure, can this fine young lady be the little girl I held in my lap but t'other day, as it seems?”
There was an agitation and ardor about Mrs. Wilson that, coupled with the flaming bonnet, made Miss Fountain uneasy. She thought Mrs. Wilson must be a little cracked, or at least flighty.
“Pray compose yourself, madam,” said she, soothingly, but with that dignity nobody could assume more readily than she could. “I dare say I am much grown since I last had the pleasure of seeing you; but I have not outgrown my memory, and I am happy to receive you, or any of our old servants that knew my dear mother.”
“Then I must not look for a welcome,” said Mrs. Wilson, with feminine logic, “for I was never your servant, nor your mamma's.” Lucy opened her eyes, and her face sought an explanation.
“I never took any money for what I gave you, so how could I be a servant? To see me a dangling of my heels in your hall so long, one would say I was a servant; but I am not a servant, nor like to be, please God, unless I should have the ill luck to bury my two boys, as I have their father. So perhaps the best thing I can do, miss, is to drop you my courtesy and walk back as I came.” The Amazon's manner was singularly independent and calm, but the tell-tale tears were in the large gray honest eyes before she ended.
Lucy's natural penetration and habit of attending to faces rather than words came to her aid. “Wait a minute, Mrs. Wilson,” said she; “I think there is some misunderstanding here. Perhaps the fault is mine. And yet I remember more than one nursery-maid that was kind enough to me; but I have heard nothing of them since.”
“Their blood is not in your veins as mine is, unless the doctors have lanced it out.”
“I never was bled in my life, if you mean that, madam. But I must ask you to explain how I can possibly have the—the advantage of possessingyourblood inmyveins.”
Mrs. Wilson eyed her keenly. “Perhaps I had better tell you the story from first to last, young lady,” said she quietly.
“If you please,” said the courtier, mastering a sigh; for in Mrs. Wilson there was much that promised fluency.
“Well, miss, when you came into the world, your mamma could not nurse you. I do notice the gentry that eat the fat of the land are none the better for it; for a poor woman can do a mother's part by her child, but high-born and high-fed folk can't always; so you had to be brought up by hand, miss, and it did not agree with you, and that is no great wonder, seeing it is against nature. Well, my little girl, that was born just two days after you, died in my arms of convulsion fits when she was just a month old. She had only just been buried, and me in bitter grief, when doesn't the doctor call and ask me as a great favor, would I nurse Mrs. Fountain's child, that was pining for want of its natural food. I bade him get out of my sight. I felt as if no woman had a right to have a child living when my little darling was gone. But my husband, a just man as ever was, said, 'Take a thought, Mary; the child is really pining, by all accounts.' Well, I would not listen to him. But next Sunday, after afternoon church, my mother, that had not said a word till then, comes to me, and puts her hand on my shoulder with a quiet way she had. 'Mary,' says she, 'I am older than you, and have known more.' She had buried six of us, poor thing. Says she, scarce above a whisper, 'Suckle that failing child. It will be the better for her, and the better for you, Mary, my girl.' Well, miss, my mother was a woman that didn't interfere every minute, and seldom gave her reasons; but, if you scorned her advice, you mostly found them out to your cost; and then she was my mother; and in those days mothers were more thought of, leastways by us that were women and had suffered for our children, and so learned to prize the woman that had suffered for us. 'Well, then,' I said, 'if you say so, mother, I suppose I didn't ought to gainsay you, on the Lord His day.' For you see my mother was one that chose her time for speaking—eh! but she was wise. 'Mother,' says I, 'to oblige you, so be it'; and with that I fell to crying sore on my mother's neck, and she wasn't long behind me, you may be sure. Whiles we sat a crying in one another's arms, in comes John, and goes to speak a word of comfort. 'It is not that,' says my mother; 'she have given her consent to nurse Mrs. Fountain's little girl.' 'It is much to her credit,' says he: says he, 'I will take her up to the house myself.' 'What for?' says I; 'them that grants the favor has no call to run after them that asks it.' You see, Miss Lucy, that was my ignorance; we were small farmers, too independent to be fawning, and not high enough to weed ourselves of upishness. Your mamma, she was a real lady, so she had no need to trouble about her dignity; she thought only of her child; and she didn't send the child, but she came with it herself. Well, she came into our kitchen, and made her obeisance, and we to her, and mother dusted her a seat. She was pale-like, and a mother's care was in her face, and that went to my heart. 'This is very, very kind of you, Mrs. Wilson,' said she. Those were her words. 'Mayhap it is,' says I; and my heart felt like lead. Mother made a sign to your mamma that she should not hurry me. I saw the signal, for I was as quick as she was; but I never let on I saw it. At last I plucked up a bit of courage, and I said, 'Let me see it.' So mother took you from the girl that held you all wrapped up, and mother put you on my knees; and I took a good look at you. You had the sweetest little face that ever came into the world, but all peaked and pining for want of nature. With you being on my knees, my bosom began to yearn over you, it did. 'The child is starved,' said I; 'that is all its grief. And you did right to bring it' here.' Your mother clasps her hands, 'Oh, Mrs. Wilson,' says she, 'God grant it is not too late.' So then I smiled back to her, and I said, 'Don't you fret; in a fortnight you shan't know her.' You see I was beginning to feel proud of what I knew I could do for you. I was a healthy young woman, and could have nursed two children as easy as some can one. To make a long story short, I gave you the breast then and there; and you didn't leave us long in doubt whether cow's milk or mother's milk is God's will for sucklings. Well, your mamma put her hands before her face, and I saw the tears force their way between her fingers. So, when she was gone, I said to my mother, 'What was that for?' 'I shan't tell you,' says she. 'Do, mother,' says I. So she said, 'I wonder at your having to ask; can't you see it was jealousy-like. Do you think she has not her burden to bear in this world as well as you? How would you like to see another woman do a mother's part for a child of yours, and you sit looking on like a toy-mother? Eh! Miss Lucy, but I was vexed for her at that, and my heart softened; and I used to take you up to the great house, and spend nearly the whole day there, not to rob her of her child more than need be.”