CHAPTER IV.
On the following morning, Miss Honoria put her threat in execution, or, according to her own view of the matter, fulfilled her promise of writing to her noble relatives, exhorting them to use their best diligence to provide some occupation for Miss Primrose, better suited to her retired habits and education than the profession of a public singer. The letter was written and sent off early, and on the same morning another letter was written by Colonel Crop, addressed to Lord Spoonbill, informing his lordship of the progress which had been made in the negociation. The colonel’s letter was but short. It ran thus:—
“My lord,”
“I have the honor to inform your lordship, that there seems to be no chance of obtaining the lady, but by marriage. I have conversed about the matter with Sir George Aimwell, and he would not hear of any other arrangement.”
“I have the honor to be, &c. &c.”
With the result of these letters, our readers will be acquainted in due course. In the meantime the worthy baronet found it inconvenient to keep from her ladyship the knowledge which he had acquired from Colonel Crop, concerning the imagined attachment of Lord Spoonbill to Arabella. The baronet’s anxiety to communicate the secret to Lady Aimwell did not arise from any desire to gratify her ladyship, but from a wish to mortify her. For she had never regarded Arabella with any great degree of kindness, or behaved towards her with much consideration and politeness. It seemed to be the domestic system of Neverden Hall for Sir George and her ladyship always to be diametricallyopposed to each other in their likes and dislikes. In fact, the only thing in which they seemed to agree, was in a determination to disagree in everything.
The worthy magistrate was not in the best of all possible humours when the shooting season was over, and her ladyship, who made it a frequent subject of sneering complaint that she had so little of her husband’s company, was generally most out of humour when she had most of his company. Lady Aimwell usually employed her time in reading; and her favorite books were Stackhouse’s History of the Bible, and Richardson’s Novels, and when employed in this pursuit, she was very partial to an empty apartment or a silent companion. But her most amiable lord and master did not always indulge his better half with this desired luxury. So it came to pass that the neighbours used in the plenitude of their wisdom, and in the impertinence of their criticism, to remark that Sir George and Lady Aimwell didnot live happily together. But they who made that remark were very superficial and unreflecting observers. It is not to be called a strange notion, because it is a very common and almost universal notion, that nobody can be happy who does not live according to our own notions of happiness. To be sure they did not know how happy they were, and while they were grumbling and growling at each other they possessed a satisfaction in, and derived a pleasure from, that growling and grumbling which they professed to regard as a calamity. And we cannot think it possible that any beings in possession of their senses would voluntarily and repeatedly do that which afforded them no pleasure. Sir George and his lady grumbled at one another, and they liked grumbling, and they were happy in grumbling.
One morning, very soon after Colonel Crop had revealed to Sir George the object which detained him at Smatterton, the baronet introduced himself, unasked, into the drawing-room,where her ladyship was sitting with her favorite folio displayed before her. And her ladyship lifted up her eyes and saw the worthy baronet, and spoke not to him, but continued her reading. The baronet also looked at her ladyship and was also silent. The baronet walked up and down the room with heavy monotonous tread, and ever and anon her ladyship looked at him as if wishing that he would have the goodness to take himself off. But the baronet would not take himself off; and then her ladyship frowned and sighed; and in that sigh there was nothing of tenderness; but its tone, if a sigh can have a tone, was indicative of sulkiness and mortification. The baronet heard the sigh and saw the frowns, but would not take any notice of them. When the baronet was tired of pacing up and down the room, he threw himself upon a sofa; and then her ladyship looked at the baronet’s boots, and the boots bore evident symptoms of having been in the stable, and as they came into seriously closecontact with the fine chintz cover of the sofa, her ladyship grew more sulky, and from the thick smoke of her sulkiness there broke forth at length the fire of angry words; and her ladyship said:
“I think dirty boots are hardly fit ornaments for sofas.”
“But suppose I think they are, my lady?” replied the baronet.
To that supposition her ladyship made no reply, and indeed there was little that could be said on the subject. Passing on from the dirty boots to other grievances, her ladyship said:
“And pray, Sir George Aimwell, may I be permitted to ask how long we are to have the pleasure of Miss Glossop’s company?”
“Till she is married, my lady;” responded the worthy baronet.
“Till she is married!” echoed the astonished lady; “and when is that to be? I never heard of any prospect of that event.”
“Then, if it will afford your ladyship anypleasure, I will tell you,” replied the baronet.
“Indeed,” replied Lady Aimwell, “I have no wish to know anything about the young lady’s affairs. I will venture to say, that Mr Robert Darnley knows better than to make any proposal to her.”
“Very likely, my lady,” replied the magistrate, “but somebody else may not know better. What think you of Lord Spoonbill as a husband for this favorite young lady of yours?”
“Lord Spoonbill! Nonsense,” said her ladyship in a tone of most exquisite contempt. “I never took his lordship for a conjuror, but he is hardly fool enough for that.”
“I am not aware of your ladyship’s notion of conjurors,” replied the baronet, “but I can tell you for a fact, that I had it from Colonel Crop that Lord Spoonbill has it in his intention to offer marriage to your favorite young friend, and the colonel is here to negociate.”
Thereupon her ladyship was angry, and assumingan almost theatrical attitude, and pushing aside Stackhouse’s History of the Bible, exclaimed, “Ridiculous! Contemptible! Colonel Crop is only laughing at you, and endeavouring to make a fool of the silly girl. But she has vanity enough to believe anything.”
It was only on very extraordinary occasions that Lady Aimwell expressed herself with so much energy. And though the language here recorded does not bear the semblance of mighty vehemence or overpowering and impassioned eloquence, yet it was very vehement and very eloquent compared to her usual mode of expression; and her ladyship was almost exhausted by the energy with which she spoke, and the baronet, whom in this sentence we can hardly call worthy, felt no compassion for her ladyship’s sufferings under the exhaustion of her eloquence; but on the contrary, coolly smiled at her agitation, and sneeringly said:
“Let me beg of your ladyship not to fatigue yourself by such great exertions. You hadbetter compose yourself. Shall I bring you a smelling bottle?”
Thus did the baronet make a mockery at her ladyship’s nervousness; and having made that rude speech he forthwith quitted the apartment, leaving the discussion unfinished and the particulars untold.
His place in the drawing-room was soon supplied by Miss Arabella Glossop; and this second intruder was scarcely more welcome than the first. Her ladyship, however, was so far disturbed from her reading, that now the great volume was closed. And it was very polite and considerate in Miss Glossop not to suffer her ladyship to replace the heavy book on the table where it usually lay, but her ladyship silently and frowningly resisted Miss Glossop’s politeness, so that the young lady was under the necessity of almost forcibly taking the ponderous volume from the feeble hands that held it. But there was no rudeness in the violence, itwas rather the earnestness of friendly officiousness.
There are however some tempers and some states of mind which convert almost everything into an affront; and even civilities themselves, offered with all the considerateness and circumspection imaginable or devisable, are wilfully and cruelly tortured into a wrong meaning. This dexterity of misinterpretation Lady Aimwell possessed in a degree not becoming her rank as the lady of a baronet and a magistrate.
It must indeed be acknowledged, that there was some little more excuse for Lady Aimwell than for Mrs Greendale, whose temper, our readers will recollect, was of a similar description. But there was a great and wide difference between the manners of Miss Primrose and the general stile and manner of Miss Glossop. The former was gentle, quiet and unobtrusive; the latter was noisy, vulgar and affected. And there was also a mighty difference between Sir GeorgeAimwell and the late Dr Greendale. The baronet was coarse, unfeeling and inconsiderate; while the doctor was meek, polite, and generally attentive and considerate. It is not to be wondered at that Lady Aimwell was occasionally morose and pettish. And above all there was this difference in the lot of the two ladies, namely, that Mrs Greendale was, with very few exceptions indeed, master and mistress too, while poor Lady Aimwell was neither one nor the other; her ladyship might well enough read Stackhouse and be sulky.
Miss Glossop, observing the unusual moroseness of her ladyship, and not wishing to give offence directly or indirectly, thought it was but a piece of civility to ask whether her ladyship was unwell. To this courteous interrogation, her ladyship thought not fit to give a direct and immediate answer; but being thus compelled to speak, she did break out with mighty vehemence against poor Miss Glossop.
“I do not know, Miss Glossop,” exclaimed Lady Aimwell, “what may be your ideas of propriety; but I know that, when I was young, if any one had acted as you did at the castle the other day, it would have been considered a very great breach of decorum.”
To this very abrupt and indefinite accusation Miss Glossop pleaded not guilty, saying, “I do not know what your ladyship alludes to. I certainly did look over the castle in company with Lord Spoonbill, but I can see no impropriety in that.”
“I dare say not,” replied her ladyship; “but I can see a very great impropriety in a young woman’s strolling about by herself and throwing herself in the way of profligate young men.”
Such an accusation or insinuation as this would have been too much for a meeker spirit than that of Miss Glossop to bear with patience; and the young lady accordingly felt violently indignant, and coloured deeply; and with quiveringlip and agitated voice replied, “Lady Aimwell, I don’t understand such insinuations. My father did not send me here to be insulted.”
What the climax of this speech might have been, is unknown. It was manifest, by the intonation of the young lady’s voice, that she had not arrived at the conclusion of the sentence, but her agitation and indignation suffered her not to proceed farther with verbal reply or expostulation, and she found relief in a shower of tears; and in a true tragedy passion she threw herself upon the sofa, where Sir George Aimwell had a few minutes before been lounging in his dirty boots. But neither the young lady’s eloquence nor her tears could soften the heart of Lady Aimwell, who, instead of diminishing the asperity of her rebukes, continued her reproaches, and observed:
“You may put yourself into as great a passion as you please, Miss Glossop, but give me leave to tell you that, while you are under thisroof, I consider myself responsible for your conduct. And if you cannot behave yourself properly here, you must be sent home and put into safer custody. A pretty story indeed Sir George has been amusing me with! and Colonel Crop too is to have the honour of negociating with Miss Glossop, and offering to her acceptance the hand of Lord Spoonbill. And can you really be so weak as to imagine that his lordship would think of making a proposal of this nature to you; the very mode of making the offer is insulting.”
This was rather a long speech for Lady Aimwell to make, and for Miss Glossop to hear without interrupting it. But her ladyship took breath and proceeded deliberately, while Miss Glossop was sobbing and sighing in the speechless bitterness of her heart. As soon, however, as she recovered the power of speech, Arabella did use her tongue most actively and angrily, protesting that there was not a word of truth inthe whole story, and that she had not even seen Colonel Crop since her accidentally meeting with Lord Spoonbill.
The young lady, however, though denying the truth of the accusation, did not seem to regard the matter, supposing it might be true, as anything very heinous; nor did she think that, if Colonel Crop should actually state to her in so many words that Lord Spoonbill was in love with her, she should treat the information with foul scorn.
After having thoroughly discussed the subject with Lady Aimwell, and having denied all intention of purposely placing herself in Lord Spoonbill’s way, Arabella Glossop retired to meditate with herself on this discovery. For though she had endeavoured to make herself agreeable to Lord Spoonbill, and though she had played off her magnificent and affected airs, it certainly had not been with any deliberate and settled design to win his lordship’s heart, butsimply and purely to gratify her own vanity in playing off fine airs in the presence of a lord. There is a something in a lord so fascinating, so enchanting, no anatomist has ever yet discovered it, but it makes fools of wise men, and bends the knee in adoration, even when the understanding and the nobler powers of the mind cry “Fudge.” People make a fuss about the haughtiness and distance of nobility; but what would become of lords and right honorables, and all that sort of thing, if they were not to keep themselves most gorgeously select. They would be persecuted, baited, how-d’ye-do’d, and arm-in-armed even to suffocation, were it not that they kept the common people at an inordinate distance. If it were not for the principle of exclusiveness, lords would be in the same condition as Pidcock’s wild beasts, if open gratuitously to public curiosity. Very likely in both cases curiosity might soon be gratified, and the spectators might proclaim that there was nothing very wonderfulafter all. But Pidcock will never exhibit gratuitously, and lords will never associate with plebeians.
Miss Glossop, as has been said above, retired to meditate on what she had heard. And though she had been in a violent passion, and had cried most bitterly in consequence of what Lady Aimwell had said to her, yet she could not help thinking that there might be some truth and some importance in what had been said. It was possible that Lord Spoonbill might have been fascinated with her very graceful manners, or have been charmed with her exquisitely beautiful musical execution, or have been delighted with the symptoms of good taste which she had displayed in her unequivocal and unqualified admiration of the magnificence and finery of Smatterton castle.
From thence the young lady proceeded to think, and in whispers to herself to say, that few persons had such a true and proper sentimentof the sublime and beautiful as she had, and that the peculiarity which separated the higher from the lower classes was not merely hereditary claim or distinguished and extraordinary opulence, but rather a sort of a kind of a superfine, elegant, nobody knows what, which Miss Glossop possessed, according to her own notion of that matter, most superabundantly. And while Miss Glossop meditated, Miss Glossop became in her own mind a countess, a marchioness, a duchess. This was indeed but a proper and suitable compensation for the annoyance which she had experienced from the wise, virtuous, censorious, and disinterested prating of Lady Aimwell.