Girlhood and Womanhood<br />The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes by Sarah Tytler (snow like ashes series TXT) 📕

his wooden carvings, his black-letter distich; and, although she was not overflowing in her praises, she had seen other family pictures by Greuze, and she herself possessed a fan painted by Watteau, to which he was vastly welcome if he cared for such a broken toy.

She fancied the head of one of the Roman emperors to be like his Grace of Montague; she had a very lively though garbled familiarity with the histories of the veritable Brutus and Cassius, Coriolanus, Cato, Alexander, and other mighty, picturesque, cobbled-up ancients, into whose [Page 102]mouths she could put appropriate speeches; and she accepted a loan of his 'Plutarch's Lives,' "to clear up her classics," as she said merrily; altogether poor Squire Rowland felt that he had feasted at an intellectual banquet.

At last it was time to think of redeeming her pledge to cousin Ward; and, to Mistress Betty's honour, the period came while Master Rowland was still too lame to leave Larks' Hall, except in his old coach, and while it yet wanted weeks to the softening, gladdening, overwhelming bounty of the harvest-home.

Then occurred the most singular episodes of perverseness and reiterated instances of inconsistency of which Granny had been found guilty in the memory of man, either as heiress of Larks' Hall or as old madam of the vicarage. At first she would not hear of Mistress Betty's departure, and asked her to be her companion, during her son's absence, in his house of Larks' Hall, where all at once she announced that she meant to take up her temporary residence. She did not approve of its being committed entirely to the supervision of Mrs. Prue, her satellite, the schoolmaster's daughter who used so many long words in cataloguing her preserves and was so trustworthy: Mrs. Prue would feel lonesome; Mrs. Prue would take to gadding like the chits Prissy and Fiddy. No, she would remove herself for a year, and carry over her old man Morris along with her, and see that poor Rowley's goods were not wasted or his curiosities lost while he chose to tarry abroad.

Master Rowland stared, but made no objection to this invasion; Mrs. Betty, after much private rumination and [Page 103]great persuasion, consented to the arrangement. Young madam was obliged to be ruefully acquiescent, though secretly irate at so preposterous a scheme; the Vicar, good man, to do him justice, was always ponderously anxious to abet his mother, and had, besides, a sneaking kindness for Mistress Betty; the girls were privately charmed, and saw no end to the new element of breadth, brightness, and zest, in their little occupations and amusements.

When again, of a sudden, after the day was fixed for Master Rowland's departure, and the whole family were assembled in the vicarage parlour—old madam fell a-crying and complaining that they were taking her son away from her—robbing her of him: she would never live to set eyes on him again—a poor old body of her years and trials would not survive another flitting. She had been fain to gratify some of his wishes; but see if they would not destroy them both, mother and son, by their stupid narrow-mindedness and obstinacy.

Such a thing had never happened before. Who had ever seen Granny unreasonable and foolish? The Vicar slipped his hand to her wrist, in expectation that he would detect signs of hay-fever, though it was a full month too late for the complaint—there had been cases in the village—and was shaken off with sufficient energy for his pains.

"Mother," exclaimed Master Rowland, haughtily, "I understand you; but I had a plain answer to a plain question months ago, and I will have no reversal to please you. Pity craved by an old woman's weakness! favours granted in answer to tears drawn from dim eyes! I am not such a slave!"

[Page 104]The others were all clamouring round Granny, kissing her hand, kneeling on her footstool, imploring her to tell them what she wanted, what she would like best, what they could go and do for her; only the squire spoke in indignant displeasure, and nobody attended to him but Mistress Betty.

It did appear that the squire had been too fast in repelling advances which did not follow his mother's appeal. Mistress Betty gave no token—she stood pulling the strings of her cap, and growing first very red, and then ominously white, like any girl.

Perhaps the squire suspected that he had been too hasty, that he had not been grateful to his old mother, or generous to the woman who, however fine, and courted, and caressed, was susceptible of a simple woman's anguish at scorn or slight. Perhaps there flashed on his recollection a certain paper in the 'Spectator,' wherein a young lady's secret inclination towards a young gentleman is conclusively revealed, not by her advances to save his pride, but by her silence, her blushes, her disposition to swoon with distress when an opportunity is afforded her of putting herself forward to attract his notice—nay, when she is even urged to go so far as to solicit his regard.

Master Rowland's brow lightened as if a cloud lowering there had suddenly cleared away—Master Rowland began to look as if it were a much more agreeable experience to contemplate Mistress Betty nervous and glum, than Lady Betty armed at a hundred points, and all but invulnerable—Master Rowland walked as alertly to her side as if there were no such things as sprains in this world. "Madam, [Page 105]forgive me if I have attributed to you a weak complacency to which you would never condescend. Madam, if you have changed your mind, and can now tolerate my suit, and accord it the slightest return, I am at your feet."

Assuredly, the tall, vigorous, accomplished squire would have been there, not figuratively but in his imposing person. Family explanations were admissible a century and a half ago; public declarations were sometimes a point of honour; bodily prostration was by no means exploded; matter-of-fact squires knelt like romantic knights; Sir Charles Grandison and Sir Roger de Coverley bent as low for their own purposes as fantastic gauze and tinsel troubadours.

But Mistress Betty prevented him. "I am not worth it, Master Rowland," cried Mistress Betty, sobbing and covering her face with her hands; and, as she could not have seen the obeisance, the gentleman intermitted it, pulled down the hands, kissed Madam Betty oftener than the one fair salute, and handed her across the room to receive Granny's blessing. Granny sat up and composed herself, wished them joy (though she had the grace to look a little ashamed of herself), very much as if she had obtained her end.

There is no use in denying that young madam took to bed for three days, and was very pettish for a fortnight; but eventually gave in to the match, and was not so much afflicted by it as she had expected, after the first brunt. Granny, in her age, was so absurdly set on the mésalliance, and so obliging and pleasant about everything else—the Vicar and the little lasses were so provokingly careless of [Page 106]the wrong done them and the injury to the family,—that she knew very well, when her back was turned, they formed as nonsensically hilarious a bridal party as if the wedding had concerned one of themselves and not the bachelor uncle, the squire of Larks' Hall. And Mistress Betty ordered down the smartest livery; and the highest gentry in Somersetshire would have consented to grace the ceremony, had she cared for their presence, such a prize was she in their country-houses when they could procure her countenance during their brief sojourn among sparkling rills and woodland shades. Altogether, young madam, in spite of her vanities and humours, loved the children, the Vicar, Granny, the bridegroom, and even (with a grudge) the bride, and was affected by the sweet summer season and the happy marriage-tide, and was, in the main, too good to prove a kill-joy.

Master Rowland and Mistress Betty were married by Master Rowland's own brother in the Vicar's own church, with Fiddy and Prissy and the Sedleys for bridesmaids, and Dick Ashbridge for a groom's-man. Cousin Ward, brought all the way from town to represent the bride's relations, was crying as if she were about to lose an only daughter. For Granny, she would not shed one bright, crystal tear on any account; besides, she was ever in state at Larks' Hall to welcome home, the happy couple. Ah, well, they were all happy couples in those days!

At Larks' Hall Mistress Betty bloomed during many a year; for a fine woman knows no decay; she only passes from one stage of beauty and excellence to another, wearing, as her rightful possession, all hearts—her sons', as their [Page 107]father's before them. And Master Rowland no longer sat lonely in his hall, in the frosty winter dusk or under the usher-oak in the balmy summer twilight, but walked through life briskly and bravely, with a perfect mate; whom he had not failed to recognize as a real diamond among the bits of glass before the footlights—a diamond which his old mother had consented to set for him.

Our squire and Lady Betty are relics of a former generation. We have squires as many by thousands, as accomplished by tens of thousands; but the inimitable union of simplicity and refinement, downrightness and dignity, disappeared with the last faint reflection of Sir Roger de Coverley. And charming Lady Betty departed also with early hours, pillions, and cosmetics—that blending of nature and art, knowledge of the corrupt world and abiding true-heartedness, which then existed—a sort of marvel.

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[Page 108]

A CAST IN THE WAGGON. I.—DULCIE'S START IN THE WAGGON FOR HER COMPANY.

OLD and young were clamouring hoarsely and shrilly by daybreak one September morning round a little girl, one of a cloth-worker's numerous family. She had been rather a tender lass, and change of air was thought good for her full growth. Though she was still small, she was close on her one-and-twentieth year, and her friends held it was high time for her to see the world. It was seeing the world to go with a late mayor's daughter, an orphan and an heiress, who had been visiting the cloth-worker's family, and would have Dulcie to live with her for awhile in a neighbouring town as a friend and companion.

Mind those worthy warm-hearted relatives of Dulcie's had no idea of her returning to her parents' nest in a hurry, though the two towns, Fairfax and Redwater, were within a day's journey by waggon of each other. Dulcie would see the world, and stay in her new abode in the next country town, or lose her character for dignity and spirit; and girls were fain to be thought discreet and de[Page 109]cided a hundred years ago or so. She might as lief marry as not, when she was away on her travels. Girls married then with far less trouble than they accomplished such a journey. They ran down to Richmond and married on a Sunday, to save a talk and a show; they walked out of the opera where Handel might be performing, and observant gentlemen took the cue, followed on their heels, and had the knot tied by a priest, waiting in the house opposite the first chair-stand. Indeed, they contracted alliances so unceremoniously, that they went to Queen Caroline's or the Princesses' drawing-room, without either themselves or the world appearing quite sure whether they were maids or wives. Dear! dear! what did come of these foolish impulsive matches? Did they fulfil the time out of mind adage, "Happy's the wooing that's not long a-doing"? or that other old proverb, "Marry in haste, and repent at leisure"? Which was the truth?

It is a pity that you should see Dulcie, for the first time, in tears. Dulcie, who only cried on great occasions, in great sorrow or great joy—not above half-a-dozen times in her life. Dulcie, whom the smallpox could not spoil, with her pretty forehead, cat's eyes, and fine chin. Does that description give you an idea of Dulcie—Dulcie Cowper, not yet Madam, but any day she liked Mistress Dulcie? It seems expressive. An under-sized, slight-made girl, with a little face clearly, very clearly cut, but round in all its lines as yet; an intelligent face, an enthusiastic face, a face that could be very shrewd and practical, and, at the same time, a face that could be lavishly generous. The chief merit of her figure lay in [Page 110]this particular, that she "bridled" well. Yes, it is true, we have almost forgotten the old accomplishment of "bridling"—the head up and the chin in, with the pliant knees bent in a low curtsey. Dulcie "bridled," as she prattled, to perfection. She had light brown hair, of the