Dilemmas of Pride Volume II Part 5

"But did you not try any of the dark walks?"

"I never thought of that, but I don't think she'd go there."

"She must be somewhere, Sir James; you say she is not in any of the rooms, nor in the lighted walk, therefore, she must be in one of the dark ones!"

Sir James, looking innocently convinced by the force of this logic, replied, "Well, I'll go and see," and turned to depart.

"But you can't see in the dark; had you not better take a lantern?"

"I never thought of that," he replied, and making the best of his way into the hall, he asked every servant and waiter who crossed his path for a lantern to look for Miss Louisa. They all stared at him in turn, and seemed more likely to stumble over him in their bustle, than either to comprehend or grant his request. At length he perceived Sarah in the back ground, filling her office, as warden of cloaks and boas, and tossed off for the occasion in a net fly cap, quite on the back of her head, to display her innumerable curls; and decorated with bows of pink ribbon full a quarter of a yard long, made stiff with wire in the inside, to give them an enviable resemblance to horns. By her a.s.sistance he obtained the illuminator used by Mrs. Dorothea when she was returning home on foot from evening parties; and thus provided, set forth on his voyage of discovery. He was secretly followed at a certain distance by Geoffery and a knot of wags, who concealed themselves behind trees and shrubs, and when Sir James, holding up the light at the entrance to each dark avenue would cry, "Are you there, Louisa?" they would answer simultaneously in all directions, and in feigned voices of course, "Yes, I am here----" till our puzzled little baronet would stand, looking now before him--now behind him--now on the one side--now on the other, literally not knowing which way to turn, to the infinite amus.e.m.e.nt of his hidden tormentors, to whom he was, with his lantern, a conspicuous object, whilst they, in their various dark retreats, were invisible to him.

CHAPTER XIII.

It is scarcely necessary to observe, that Sir James's researches proved fruitless.

By the time he returned to the house the alarm was becoming serious.

Indeed it was beginning to be an ascertained thing, not only that Louisa was missing, but that Henry Lindsey had also disappeared, which latter circ.u.mstance afforded a solution of the young lady's absence by no means agreeable to her family. The news spread quickly, and every one was looking amazingly amused, except they happened to meet the eye of Lady Arden or Mrs. Dorothea, when they thought it necessary to quench their smiles; and if they were particular friends, add a few inches to the length of their faces.

It was now very late, and the rooms were thinning fast, though many were induced to delay their departure by the spur and zest which so fair an opportunity of making ill-natured comments had given to conversation.

Yet who can say that we do not live in a good-natured considerate world, when we can a.s.sert, as an incontestable fact, that poor little Sir James, as soon as it was whispered about that his intended bride had gone off with his brother, received the sweetest possible smiles from several young ladies, who had scarcely taken any notice of him ever since his engagement had been generally known. What but the most generous compa.s.sion for the forsaken baronet could have dictated so sudden a change of manner.

Had it not been for this untoward accident, Mrs. Dorothea would have insisted on setting up another and another quadrille, _ad infinitum_; for the pride of a dance is in how late you can keep it up, however tired of it host and hostess, chaperons, musicians, and dancing gentlemen may be; as to young ladies, they are never tired of dancing, except they _don't dance_.

Mrs. Dorothea, however, now courteseyed to her retreating guests with an anxious countenance, and an absent manner, without making any attempt to dissuade them from _running away_, as she would have designated their departure, but for the real _run away_, which caused her very serious uneasiness: first on her niece's account, and secondly on her own; for she was mortified beyond expression to think that her grand party, which had cost her so much trouble, and would cost her so much money, should have been so sadly broken up.

She need not however, good lady, so far as her party was concerned, have afflicted herself; for it was p.r.o.nounced the next day to have been so enlivened by the elopement that it was quite delightful.

Willoughby and Alfred, having ascertained that a chariot and four, the horses' heads to the east, had been seen driving off from the Montpelier gates the night before at a furious rate, set out in pursuit on the road thus indicated. They soon, however, lost all traces of the fugitives, and after an absence of two or three days, returned to Cheltenham. Lady Arden had by this time received a letter announcing the marriage, and begging pardon, and so forth. There was therefore nothing more to be done, and Willoughby accordingly repaired to Lady Palliser's, to inquire after the health of Caroline. As he crossed the little lawn, he observed great ladders set up against the front of the house, and persons within and without apparently employed in cleaning the windows. The hall door was open, and a slatternly looking woman, not the least like a servant, on the steps, washing them down and rubbing them white with a stone. He knocked, and another woman, who was crossing the hall at the moment, armed with a broom and a duster, threw them aside, came forward, and asked him if he was wanting the lodgings. "They will not be quite ready for coming into before twelve o'clock to-morrow," she continued, without waiting for a reply; then fancying that Willoughby looked disappointed, she added, "If you're particular about coming in to-night, sir, I'll set more hands to work, and see what can be done; but the family only left this morning, and they kept so many servants, that there is no saying all there's to do after them; for as for servants, as I _sais_, they always makes more work than three masters, or their mistresses either, which was the cause why I was endeavouring to a.s.sist a little myself just with dusting the book-shelves."

"Has Lady Palliser then left Cheltenham, or only changed her house?"

asked Willoughby.

"Oh, left Cheltenham, sir. Her ladyship was not likely to change from my house while she staid, if it had been seven years. Indeed, situation and all, where could she be so well, except it were next door, which also belongs to me. Sixteen guineas a week, sir, is the lowest farthing I can take! Indeed they should have been twenty, but you seem such a nice civil spoken gentleman that----"

"Thank you," interrupted Willoughby, "I don't want the house; it was Lady Palliser I was inquiring for."

"And where were your eyes that you didn't see the bill on the window; as if I'd nothing to do but stand talking to you!" and away she flounced.

During Caroline's protracted illness, Willoughby had had some uncomfortable misgivings; not that he had confessed his feelings even to himself, yet he had thought that during convalescence, he might have been permitted to see a lady to whom he now considered himself betrothed. True, he had frequently been admitted, and been received very graciously by Lady Palliser; and on such occasions he had tried to feel satisfied with the excuse that Caroline had not yet been able to quit her room. He had addressed to Caroline very many and very tender _billet doux_; to all of which he had received very gracious and encouraging replies, though written by Lady Palliser, to spare, as he supposed, the invalid the fatigue of being her own amanuensis. This was all perfectly proper, yet though he told himself so again and again, he could not help feeling that some more direct communication would be much more satisfactory.

So sudden a recovery as was implied by this journey, undertaken too during the few days of his absence, seemed so strange, that every painful feeling was instantly increased tenfold. Yet he knew not what to apprehend; suspense, however, becoming wholly intolerable, he resolved to set out immediately for ----shire.

He did so within an hour, but without communicating any of his doubts or fears even to Alfred. As soon as Willoughby had set off, Alfred also hastened to quit Cheltenham, where every object, and every circ.u.mstance, which used formerly to yield him delight, was fraught with the most miserable a.s.sociations.

He went to Arden; nor could he have chosen a better retreat: for the instantaneous effect of a sight of its well-known scenes was for a time to give to the feelings and affections of childhood and boyhood a most salutary preponderance over the newer and more vivid, but far less uniformly happy sensations of the last few months.

CHAPTER XIV.

Lady Arden, about the same time, set out for her house in town, accompanied by Madeline, her only remaining daughter. Mrs. Dorothea, thus left alone, began to ponder on the prudential step of breaking up an establishment, which she found much too expensive for her means--more so, infinitely, than she had antic.i.p.ated. For it so happened, that her maid-of-all-work cook, whom she took with the house, was one of a set, who not being sufficiently reputable to get places in private families, are frequently employed by speculators in furnished houses, to take charge of the same when vacant, living on their wits the while, and on their lodgers when they can get them. Moreover she belonged to a club for supplying servants out of place with broken meat. Poor Mrs.

Dorothea, therefore, was sadly puzzled about the consumption in her kitchen. At last she ventured to consult her confidential abigail, Sarah.

Servants, however, though they had been pulling caps five minutes before, always stand by each other in the grand common cause--defence of extravagance! Sarah, therefore, a.s.suming an expression of countenance, in which sauciness and sulkiness were combined, replied,

"You can't expect to be much of a judge, ma'am, not being used to housekeeping; I'm sure I never see no waste; but people must have enough to eat of something."

"I am far from wishing any person under _my_ roof not to have sufficient to eat," replied Mrs. Dorothea, with offended dignity, "but I certainly expected of you, Sarah, that you would not see me imposed upon by lodging-house servants."

"I never seen you imposed upon, ma'am; but you seem to forget that you've got a man now to feed. Where there is a man, there's no end to the consumption; in particular butcher's meat, and they will have it.

It's no place of mine, however, to see the larder, and I am not a going to get myself mobbed, meddling with other servants."

Sarah was ordered to leave the room, and send the cook. There had been a shoulder of mutton at the table the day before, in which Mrs. Dorothea had made the usual first gash with the carving-knife, intending to help herself, but changed her mind; the meat had, of course, separated a little, as in a shoulder it always does.

"You have the cold mutton for your own dinners," commenced Mrs.

Dorothea: the servants dined some hours before she did.

"The mutton, ma'am!" repeated Jones, such was the cook's name, "I believe John picked the bone for his breakfast: but, really, the joint was so severely cut in the parlour that I didn't think it worth looking after."

Mrs. Dorothea explained; but jerks of the chin were all the satisfaction she could obtain.

Jones's blotted account of the last sovereign she had had for small expenses was given in.

Mrs. Jones would have made a good M. P., for her hand was as illegible as it was large. The first item in the account certainly seemed to be a bag of ground salt for the bird. The canary having been added to the establishment only the beginning of the last week, Mrs. Dorothea was obliged to enquire what this meant.

"Groundsel, ma'am, for the bird; I paid a boy for gathering some, you can't get people to do things for nothing." This was not the only expense the bird had occasioned--he was the alleged cause of a great additional consumption in many things: eggs for boiling hard, bread for crumbling into his tea, white sugar for sticking between the wires of his cage, &c. &c. &c.; while there was a charge for bird-seed every second day, half a pound each time. So much for the bird. The charge for soap had always been enormous, but this week it was twice as much as usual. Mrs. Dorothea remonstrated: "You told me," she said, "that the reason you had used so much soap hitherto, was, that there were so few gla.s.s towels, that you were obliged to wash them continually; I got a dozen new ones accordingly, and here is more soap than ever charged."

"It stands to reason, ma'am, where there is more linen, it must take more soap to wash it," answered Jones, with the coolest effrontery possible; and having, of course, no change to return out of the sovereign, she retired to the kitchen, to p.r.o.nounce her mistress the _most meanest_ lady she had ever met with--indeed no lady at all; to grudge people the mouthfuls of meat they had earned, and the poor bird its two or three seeds; but what was worse than all, she wouldn't have them to wash their hands, for fear of using a bit of soap.

"Considering the difference a canary bird has made," thought Mrs.

Dorothea, "it is a fortunate circ.u.mstance that I was not persuaded to add an errand-boy to my establishment, as Jones so much wished." Jones, by some sort of accident, happened to have a son of eight or nine years old, whom, of course, she wished to see provided for.

If one could but afford it, proceeded Mrs. Dorothea, I don't know a greater luxury than the peace of allowing oneself to be plundered without seeming to see it. Mrs. Dorothea had had so much experience of the discomforts of lodgings, that she had entertained some thoughts of trying a boarding-house; indeed she had dined at one, one day of the last week, by way of seeing how she should like the kind of thing; but the company had been so different from the refined society she had been living among lately at Lady Arden's, that she had felt quite uncomfortable. Her neighbour on one side had entertained the party in a loud, almost angry voice, the whole time of dinner, with accounts of accidents on rail-roads; she heard afterwards that he was a great holder of ca.n.a.l shares. Her neighbour on her other hand had quite disgusted her, by eating of every dish at table; at the same time that he had made her laugh, by mentioning to her, in confidence, as a sort of apology for his gluttony, that never having been much out of his own part of the country before, he wished while in such a fine new fangled place to get all the insight into the world he could. And after all, if eating a certain number of dinners give a knowledge of the law, why should not eating a certain number of dishes give a knowledge of the world.

After this essay Mrs. Dorothea had given up the idea of a boarding-house. She had even began to turn her thoughts again towards her old lodging with the good carpet. Winter was now coming on and the heat of the oven would no longer be an objection. And she could stand out for the sofa, and the key to the chiffonier, and the drops to the chimney-lights, before she went into the lodging at all. To be sure the new carpet, that had made the room look so respectable, might be getting faded by this time; she would step in, however the next day and see how it looked, and inquire what the set could be had for during the winter months. As she formed this resolve a vague remembrance of past annoyances came over her mind, producing a sense of the utmost dreariness.

It was getting dusk, for she did not dine till six, and while she sat looking at the fire the days of her youth returned. She dwelt on the thoughts of Arden Park, then her home, and of her father's princely establishment. Now all belonged to her nephew; while she was an outcast, almost hated, because she could not afford to be cheated; and paying more than the half of her small income for a single sitting room, not so good as that in which at Arden her own maid used to sit at needle-work.

At this moment the train of her reflections was interrupted by a voice of complaint under her window. She looked out. It was raining, but there was still twilight sufficient to discern a poor creature sitting on the ground, and looking through the iron railing in at the kitchen-window, where the light for cooking made the preparations for dinner visible.

The poor woman, was miserably clad! and, from her accent, Irish. She was eloquently appealing to the compa.s.sion of the cook, while she carried in her hand, as a sort of shield against the vigilance of English policemen, a bundle of matches to sell, worth perhaps one half-penny.

"Ye that's warm and well fed yonder, pity the poor crathur could and wet and hasn't broke her fast this blessed day!"