He Knew He Was Right Part 8

About a week after she had sent back poor Hugh's letter with the endors.e.m.e.nt on it as to unworthy bread, she summoned Martha to the back parlour in which she was accustomed to write her letters. It was one of the theories of her life that different rooms should be used only for the purposes for which they were intended. She never allowed pens and ink up into the bed-rooms, and had she ever heard that any guest in her house was reading in bed, she would have made an instant personal attack upon that guest, whether male or female, which would have surprised that guest. Poor Hugh would have got on better with her had he not been discovered once smoking in the garden. Nor would she have writing materials in the drawing-room or dining-room. There was a chamber behind the dining-room in which there was an inkbottle, and if there was a letter to be written, let the writer go there and write it. In the writing of many letters, however, she put no confidence, and regarded penny postage as one of the strongest evidences of the coming ruin.

"Martha," she said, "I want to speak to you. Sit down. I think I am going to do something." Martha sat down, but did not speak a word.

There had been no question asked of her, and the time for speaking had not come. "I am writing to Mrs. Stanbury, at Nuncombe Putney; and what do you think I am saying to her?"

Now the question had been asked, and it was Martha's duty to reply.

"Writing to Mrs. Stanbury, ma'am?"

"Yes, to Mrs. Stanbury."

"It ain't possible for me to say, ma'am, unless it's to put Mr. Hugh from going on with the newspapers."

"When my nephew won't be controlled by me, I shan't go elsewhere to look for control over him; you may be sure of that, Martha. And remember, Martha, I don't want to have his name mentioned again in the house. You will tell them all so, if you please."

"He was a very nice gentleman, ma'am."

"Martha, I won't have it; and there's an end of it. I won't have it.

Perhaps I know what goes to the making of a nice gentleman as well as you do."

"Mr. Hugh, ma'am,--"

"I won't have it, Martha. And when I say so, let there be an end of it." As she said this, she got up from her chair, and shook her head, and took a turn about the room. "If I'm not mistress here, I'm n.o.body."

"Of course you're mistress here, ma'am."

"And if I don't know what's fit to be done, and what's not fit, I'm too old to learn; and, what's more, I won't be taught. I'm not going to have my house crammed with radical incendiary stuff, printed with ink that stinks, on paper made out of straw. If I can't live without penny literature, at any rate I'll die without it. Now listen to me."

"Yes, ma'am."

"I have asked Mrs. Stanbury to send one of the girls over here."

"To live, ma'am?" Martha's tone as she asked the question, showed how deeply she felt its importance.

"Yes, Martha; to live."

"You'll never like it, ma'am."

"I don't suppose I shall."

"You'll never get on with it, ma'am; never. The young lady'll be out of the house in a week; or if she ain't, somebody else will."

"You mean yourself."

"I'm only a servant, ma'am, and it don't signify about me."

"You're a fool."

"That's true, ma'am, I don't doubt."

"I've sent for her, and we must do the best we can. Perhaps she won't come."

"She'll come fast enough," said Martha. "But whether she'll stay, that's a different thing. I don't see how it's possible she's to stay. I'm told they're f.e.c.kless, idle young ladies. She'll be so soft, ma'am, and you,--"

"Well; what of me?"

"You'll be so hard, ma'am!"

"I'm not a bit harder than you, Martha; nor yet so hard. I'll do my duty, or at least I'll try. Now you know all about it, and you may go away. There's the letter, and I mean to go out and post it myself."

CHAPTER VIII.

"I KNOW IT WILL DO."

Miss Stanbury carried her letter all the way to the chief post-office in the city, having no faith whatever in those little subsidiary receiving houses which are established in different parts of the city. As for the iron pillar boxes which had been erected of late years for the receipt of letters, one of which,--a most hateful thing to her,--stood almost close to her own hall door, she had not the faintest belief that any letter put into one of them would ever reach its destination. She could not understand why people should not walk with their letters to a respectable post-office instead of chucking them into an iron stump,--as she called it,--out in the middle of the street with n.o.body to look after it. Positive orders had been given that no letter from her house should ever be put into the iron post.

Her epistle to her sister-in-law, of whom she never spoke otherwise than as Mrs. Stanbury, was as follows:--

The Close, Exeter, 22nd April, 186--.

MY DEAR SISTER STANBURY,

Your son, Hugh, has taken to courses of which I do not approve, and therefore I have put an end to my connection with him. I shall be happy to entertain your daughter Dorothy in my house if you and she approve of such a plan.

Should you agree to this, she will be welcome to receive you or her sister,--_not her brother_,--in my house any Wednesday morning between half-past nine and half-past twelve. I will endeavour to make my house pleasant to her and useful, and will make her an allowance of 25 per annum for her clothes as long as she may remain with me. I shall expect her to be regular at meals, to be constant in going to church, and not to read modern novels.

I intend the arrangement to be permanent, but of course I must retain the power of closing it if, and when, I shall see fit. Its permanence must be contingent on my life. I have no power of providing for any one _after my death_.

Yours truly,

JEMIMA STANBURY.

I hope the young lady does not have any false hair about her.

When this note was received at Nuncombe Putney the amazement which it occasioned was extreme. Mrs. Stanbury, the widow of the late vicar, lived in a little morsel of a cottage on the outskirts of the village, with her two daughters, Priscilla and Dorothy. Their whole income, out of which it was necessary that they should pay rent for their cottage, was less than 70 per annum. During the last few months a five-pound note now and again had found its way to Nuncombe Putney out of the coffers of the "D. R.;" but the ladies there were most unwilling to be so relieved, thinking that their brother's career was of infinitely more importance than their comforts or even than their living. They were very poor, but they were accustomed to poverty. The elder sister was older than Hugh, but Dorothy, the younger, to whom this strange invitation was now made, was two years younger than her brother, and was now nearly twenty-six. How they had lived, and dressed themselves, and had continued to be called ladies by the inhabitants of the village was, and is, and will be a mystery to those who have had the spending of much larger incomes, but have still been always poor. But they had lived, had gone to church every Sunday in decent apparel, and had kept up friendly relations with the family of the present vicar, and with one or two other neighbours.

When the letter had been read first by the mother, and then aloud, and then by each of them separately, in the little sitting-room in the cottage, there was silence among them,--for neither of them desired to be the first to express an opinion. Nothing could be more natural than the proposed arrangement, had it not been made unnatural by a quarrel existing nearly throughout the whole life of the person most nearly concerned. Priscilla, the elder daughter, was the one of the family who was generally the ruler, and she at last expressed an opinion adverse to the arrangement. "My dear, you would never be able to bear it," said Priscilla.

"I suppose not," said Mrs. Stanbury, plaintively.

"I could try," said Dorothy.

"My dear, you don't know that woman," said Priscilla.

"Of course I don't know her," said Dorothy.