Caught in a Trap Part 7

The doctor relished good cheer, and gave capital dinner parties, as he was the most hospitable man in the county. He had had one the evening before, and hence his slight attack of the gout; its invariable consequence this morning. He said he had inherited the aristocratic infliction from his sire, along with a good digestion and his practice; but perhaps Pythias, or Deborah, was not far wrong in ascribing it to his love of good living and partiality for port. The gout made him swear a little, but he did not really mean anything by it: if all our oaths were as harmless as his, the recording angel who watches over that special failing of human nature would have a sinecure.

"Confound the gout, Deb!" he exclaimed, as that sharp twinge caught him in his left foot, and made him writhe with ill-concealed agony.

"Confound the gout! I'll drink no more of that infernal port! that is,"

he added, shortly afterwards, as the pain subsided, "not beyond a gla.s.s or two at lunch; and perhaps a bottle after dinner, eh, Deb? Ho! ho!

ho!" And he laughed his jolly cheery laugh, as he took his feet out of the tub of water, in which they had been hitherto reposing; and, drawing on his boots with difficulty, prepared himself for setting out on his morning round of visits.

"Better now, Richard?" enquired Pythias, as he stood up fully caparisoned in the matter of his lower extremities.

"Yes, Deb, all right now; the plaguey thing has gone away for the present, and won't trouble me again till next time. My 'off stepper' is somewhat sore still, but it'll be as sound as sixpence by the time I get back."

"Are you going far, Richard?"

"Well, I think I'll pay a call at the dowager's, and all about Hartwood; and as I shan't be back in time for lunch, I'll drop in and feed at Pringle's--uncommon pretty little girl his sister is. Bless my soul!

Deb, she's enough to make one think of marrying, although I suspect that sly dog Tom Hartshorne's after her--we old fellows have got no chance."

"Take care, Richard. She would probably jump to have you. I know what girls are! But how is that poor girl Susan Hartshorne getting on?"

"Really, Deb, do you know I think she has been looking much brighter lately. I have observed this within the last week or so--there is a decided change for the better. She has lost nearly all that frightened look she used to have; and I would not be surprised if she eventually recovered her mind. It's a sad pity, Deb, bless my soul! a sad pity!

She was a nice child--confound that old woman! and she's now such an interesting-looking girl--a sad pity that old hag frightened her senses away."

"What do you think is the reason of this change in her?" asked Deborah.

"Well, I can hardly tell, Deb; you see, Tom has been down, and there's that friend of his, too--don't like him--and she has seen more company than usual--all these things may have something to do with it; but I think that the improvement is all due to that new governess, Miss Kingscott--by Jove! she is a fine girl if you like, a--"

"Take care, Richard, take care!" she said, as Doctor Jolly went out of the room, after poking about vainly in every direction for his gloves.

He mounted his horse which the groom held at the door, and as he rode away, he murmured to himself, "Dooced fine girl! I wouldn't be surprised if the artful jade caught me after all!" And off he cantered down the street, bowing affably, and waving his hand with a cordial "How-de-do!" to everyone he met, for he knew everybody, on his way to Hartwood.

Volume 1, Chapter IX.

AN OLD CAMPAIGNER.

The London season had ended: so Lady Inskip, having packed up her baggage waggons, gathered her _impedimenta_ around her, and mustered her forces, consisting of her two grown-up daughters, her only son, a young imp of twelve summers; her maid, a knowing abigail; and lastly, though by no means least, herself--put her regiment in marching order; and sallied down with metaphorical bands playing and colours flying to the quiet little watering place of Bigton, to prosecute a sort of son-in-law-hunting war during the summer solstice.

For be it known, Lady Inskip was a campaigner--one, too, who had fought many a fray on many a field, from the era of her first battle when she had, with an equally adept old mother for an ally, striven for a husband and a t.i.tle, and an establishment in life, and had won the three combined in the person of her departed spouse, the late Sir John O'Gaunt Inskip, Bart.--down to her last little skirmish in Mayfair, where she had attempted to float off her two remaining daughters--her eldest she had gotten rid of handsomely some time before. She had then and there been routed disastrously, before she could draw up her forces for a regular pitched battle; but it was not her fault, or from lack of perseverance or want of judgment on her part, as she had been unable to fix upon any special young or old gentleman--it did not matter which-- whom she deemed or doomed as eligible for her matrimonial projects.

She was not daunted, however: not she! She was too old and experienced a campaigner for that, and had regularly changed her front mapped out her _carte du pays_, and planned out an entirely new disposition of her forces before coming down to Bigton. She contemplated a bold stroke, somewhat like Napoleon's procedure at Austerlitz, or, better still, his invasion of Egypt; and had determined to follow the tactics of other experienced commanders, and "carry the war into Africa."

It was not a very colossal adversary against whom she schemed and plotted, and collected such munitions of war--it was only Tom Hartshorne--poor Tom, whom she had met in London, and who seemed inclined for a mild flirtation with her pensive Laura, and lively, not to say "larky," Carry--especially at the last Woolwich Artillery ball, when his attentions had been "really quite marked!" That unfortunate young officer having sauntered through a quadrille with Laura, and told the exuberant Carry, after a waltz, that she was "a stunner to go." He certainly, however, criminated himself to some extent, by calling the next day at their house in town, and playing pretty to, and chaffing both girls.

Mr Thomas Hartshorne she had found out--strange what wonderful perspicacity and knowledge of the means, standing, and expectations of wooers and would-be sons-in-law, mothers with marriageable daughters have!--was in a very good position, and was the presumptive heir to the present proprietress of The Poplars.

She had made up her mind, therefore, to secure him at all hazards for one of her "dear, darling, girls." He was, consequently, the object of her present visit to Bigton. Tom was the game marked down _in esse_, although goodness knows, with the hopeful ground of a watering place to work upon, and its heterogeneous crowds of visitors, and its romantic opportunities, who and how many, without agitating Mormonism, might not be the victims _in posse_!

Lady Inskip was the widow of a Scotch baronet, who had married her for her good looks rather than her fortune--unlike the generality of his countrymen--for a very limited trousseau was all she brought him; and even now, some twenty years after her marriage, she was still what Doctor Jolly would, and did, call "a fine figure of a woman, sir, by Gad!"

Her two daughters were very nice, presentable girls; Laura a sort of languid beauty, and Carry "gushing," and a trifle inclined to be fast.

The boy, Mortimer, was an obstinate, headstrong, young cub, just of that age when boys are peculiarly obnoxious and always in the way and disagreeable. He was, naturally enough, the spoilt pet of his mother, and for a young baronet had all the graces and follies of the position which he would be required to fill. But we need not go on to particularise all the points of Lady Inskip's _menage_.

Suffice it to say, that she came down to Bigton very shortly after Tom had left town. You may wager a trifle, if you are inclined to woo Fortune in that way, that she was previously acquainted with his destination before she moved her Lares and Penates; and now that she was here, you may depend that she would leave no stone unturned to secure her object.

She took a pleasant little cottage on the Esplanade, about half a mile or so from the town, for a year, and had it fitted up elegantly and decorated so as to make it a perfect bijou of a place. If you watch a spider, you will always observe what a magnificent web he spins before he hunts about or lays in wait for his prey; see what a gorgeous centre-piece he has to his prismatic castle! Depend upon it that the spider is certain that his parlour is well-furnished before he invites the fly to "walk in," as is detailed in the lines of the harrowing ballad sacred to childhood.

Well, Lady Inskip had a nice little house, nicely furnished, with a nice little garden all mignionette and pa.s.sion flowers, and a nice little croquet lawn, where nice little games of flirtation could be played by suitable nice young gentlemen with her nice dear darling girls. In fact it was all "nice"--that adjective so dear to the heart of the gentler s.e.x, and so lavishly used by them--and so the old campaigner having entrenched herself within these fortifications, continuing our military descriptive, prepared to battle for and on behalf her of two daughters Laura and Caroline, as aforesaid.

She had not been in the place two days, before she knew "all about everybody." How Captain Curry Cuc.u.mber, who lived at the big red brick house, "just as you pa.s.sed the common, you know," was an old returned East India officer (and who was seventy years old if he was a day), was immensely rich, and had come home with a lakh of rupees to marry and settle down. He had an "awful temper in course," as his landlady said, and swore dreadful at his "pore black man," but then he had a sweet yellow face, and his widow would be left very comfortably off. Then she learnt too of our old friend the doctor, how he was a gay young bachelor; and of course she found out all about Mrs Hartshorne, and her place and her ways and her oddities. She learnt also of the Revd.

Herbert Pringle, and his little church at Hartwood: and as he was a relative of the great Sir Boanerges Todhunter, and was a young man with a good living, and probably had property of his own, she made up her mind to patronise him, especially as he was the protege of the dowager.

Accordingly she and her tender daughters and the young Sir Mortimer attended divine service at Hartwood the first Sunday of her stay at Bigton, and she was so wonderfully pleased with the performances of the ritualistic rector--he was "so like that dear Aminadab, at St.

Barnabas'," that she made up her mind to go there always in future, and not to patronise the Reverend Jabez, of Bigton.

She met Tom after church. She was "delighted to see him," and made him promise to call next day and bring the Reverend Herbert Pringle, on his mentioning that he was a great friend and a nice fellow. The dowager having bundled out of church immediately the service was over, Lady Inskip had then had no opportunity to make her acquaintance, although she a.s.sured Tom she was "longing to know her," but as she was an old lady, she, Lady Inskip, said she would do herself the honour of paying a visit at The Poplars very shortly.

She was _so_ glad to see Mr Markworth, too, "quite an unexpected pleasure to see him down here," when she was really mortally afraid of that worthy, who she could readily perceive, with a woman's mental keenness of vision, had taken her measure and thoroughly understood her plans and tactics. Altogether Lady Inskip was delighted with everything, as, fortunately for her peace of mind, she had not seen the pretty Lizzie Pringle, and was unaware of Tom's present infatuation about that young lady, which anyone "with half an eye," except those personally concerned, would have at once recognised.

She drove back to Bigton, in a very pleasant frame of mind, at peace with her daughters, herself and everything around her; and her smart little equipage--a park phaeton and pair of ponies--caused much excitement amongst the rustics along the road.

Master Tom, not being averse to renewing his flirtation with Miss Carry and her sister, notwithstanding his being enthralled by Lizzie, determined to pay a call at the Inskip's little cottage, on the Bigton esplanade, a morning or two after, and proposed to Markworth that he should accompany himself and Pringle.

"No, thanks," replied that gentleman, "none of my lady schemer for me!

Look out for her, Tom! She's an awful old pythoness, and would wheedle the devil himself into marrying one of her plain daughters. Why, she nearly caught Harrowby 'of yours' the other day, and I believe she came down here after you."

"Never fear, Markworth," answered Tom, as he went off to call on Pringle, in order to get him to go, and also perhaps to have a glimpse of Lizzie, to act as a sort of charm against witchery from the Inskip girls. "Never fear, my boy! I saw her game in London, and shan't be caught. But they are jolly girls, that little Carry is up to chaff no end; and they will make this place gayer by coming down. There'll be nothing but pic-nics and croquet presently, if I know them aright," and he walked off to get his horse, which George was grooming to make it look respectable.

Pringle was a very dapper little man. A perfect little exquisite, and no one was so particular as to the parting of his hair, the curl of his whiskers, and the general "nattiness" of his turn out, as himself. He had seen the fair Laura and Caroline in church, and their presence had lent a perceptible tone to the p.r.o.nunciation of his "awe-men," and the delivery of his sermon. He saw they were well dressed, but when he learnt that Tom knew them, and beyond that, that they were the daughters of a baronet, and their mother a "lady in her own right," he was most anxious to make their acquaintance. Lizzie told him laughingly not to lose his heart over the belles, and suggested that he would be quite irresistible when she saw him so particular about the various points of his toilet this morning; but he thought it no laughing matter, I can a.s.sure you. He had all the elaborate priggishness of a young man fresh from college, and was more bent on making an impression than on pleasing. To tell the truth he had mixed very little in the world, and the feeling of being a man and occupying a responsible position was quite a novel one to him.

He was ready long before the hour Tom had fixed for calling for him on his way to Bigton, and was walking up and down the verandah in front of the parsonage, waiting impatiently, and flicking the flies off his pony, which stood ready saddled for the start.

"By Jove!" he said (he had not been able to break himself of that expression, more suited to the laity, which he had picked up at Oxford), "I wish he would come: we shall be too late!" and at that moment Tom rode in at the gate. After pa.s.sing a little time speaking to Lizzie, who told him, too, not to "lose his heart," to which little shot Tom replied in a low voice--they had become intimate now, you see--that he had lost his already, which caused Miss Violet Eyes to blush, of course from sorrow; they at length rode off, and the promised visit was made to Lady Inskip, at Laburnum Cottage.

Poor Pringle was dreadfully embarra.s.sed during the time he was under the eyes of the three ladies, and the "young imp" Mortimer caused him to lose what little self-possession he had, by making some observation on the parting of his back hair, asking him what was the perfume on his "rag," alluding to his pocket-handkerchief, and finally by playfully pulling away his chair as he was going to sit down. He blushed all the time of his stay, although Lady Inskip was very affable to him, and the girls expressed the most intense admiration for his little church and all its belongings. The only easy moment he had when he could speak clearly was when "the darling girls," as their mother called them, came out on the lawn to admire his dapple pony, and called it "a little duck:" then Pringle had longed in his inmost heart to be that pony, for he was enraptured with the langour and beauty of Laura. Carry frightened him with her chaffy tongue, and by the way she went on with Tom, who seemed quite "at home," as he generally made himself at most places.

The young men left after a lengthy stay, and the ladies very naturally, canva.s.sed them on their departure.

"What a nice fellow--regularly jolly fellow Tom Hartshorne is!" said Miss Caroline, "but the parson's a spoon!"

"My dear Carry!" interposed Lady Inskip, "I do really wish you would not talk in those horrid slang terms! It is quite shocking! Mr Hartshorne is a very nice gentleman, of course, and I think Mr Pringle the same thing. He's very quiet naturally; you cannot expect a clergyman, Caroline, to be as gay and 'jolly,' as you call it, as a young officer.

I'm surprised at you, miss."

"He preaches delightfully!" observed the beauty languidly, "and I think him very nice; he was only bashful!"

"I suppose at the sight of you, Laura?" said the pert Miss Carry. "But he has one good point about him, and that is his pony. I wonder if it is up to my weight?" a very natural enquiry, as she probably weighed considerably heavier than the owner of the animal, and was what an outspoken individual would have termed "a bouncer."

"I'm glad he's coming again; we shall have some croquet," continued the elder sister. "Yes, my dears," said the mother. "We must make him at home; he's a very nice young man." She had already looked upon the Oxonian as "eligible," and was bent on making him a captive of her bow and spear.

"Well, for my part, I think him a donkey, and do not care whether he comes or not."

"Caroline! Caroline! Is this the return you make me for all I have done for you, and planned and schemed on my bended knees! ungrateful girl!" said Lady Inskip plaintively, as if she was going to cry.