Her Season in Bath Part 11

This was indeed a discovery. Griselda had always remembered that this box had stood in her room at Longueville House. She remembered her uncle bidding her bring it to him, and that he placed in it the trinkets left to her by her grandmother, but never had anyone suspected the existence of the diamonds. No one knew, that when the man whom she had married was running through her little fortune, the unhappy wife had, in her despair, converted a few hundreds into diamonds, and hidden them away from all eyes in that old jewel-box.

Griselda's eyes filled with tears. She pressed the bit of paper to her lips, and, wholly unconscious of the worth of those precious stones, she closed the drawer again upon that unexpected discovery, and, putting the small box safely in the drawer of the bureau, she took her violin from its case, and tried to wake from it the music which lay hidden in it. As she played--imperfectly enough, yet with the ear of a musician--her spirit was soothed and comforted; and these verses, written in a thin, pointed hand, were dropped into Lady Miller's vase that evening with no name or cypher affixed, and the mystery of the author was not solved:

"WAITING.

"Loveliest strains are lying, Waiting to awake, Till a master's hand Shall sweetest music make.

"Life's best gifts are waiting Till a magic power Calls them from their hiding, In some happy hour.

"Brightest hopes are watching For their time of bliss, When a kindred spirit Greets them with a kiss.

"Dreams of purest joys Shadows still remain, Till the day-star rises, And loss is turned to gain.

"Sadness, grief, and sorrow, Like clouds shall pa.s.s away, If only we in patience wait Till dawns the perfect day."

"This author may claim a wreath," Lady Miller said, "but perhaps she likes best to be uncrowned."

There was endless discussion as to the author of what seemed to be considered a poem of unusual merit, and one and another looked conscious, and blushed and simpered, for no one was unwilling to take the honour to herself. Lady Betty was sure it was only the dear Marchioness who could have written them, only she was too modest to declare herself.

"Mock modesty I call it!" said Lady Miller, who was a bright, jovial woman, and had nothing of the grace or sentimental air which the verse-makers of those days wore as their badge.

Not a single person thought of taxing Griselda with the verses, so quiet had she been in these a.s.semblies, seldom expressing any opinion as to the poems of other people. Griselda was not in the charmed circle of the _elite_ of Parna.s.sus, who had a right to wear one of Lady Miller's laurel crowns, and yet the verses, such as they were and poor as they may seem to us, were superior to the _bouts rimes_ on a "b.u.t.tered m.u.f.fin," which, report says, were once dropped into the Roman vase at Batheaston.

At the time of which I write, Lady Miller's sun was declining. Scarcely two years later, she died at the Clifton Hot Wells, at a comparatively early age. But in her day her reputation spread far and wide; and some of the contributions, notably one from Sheridan's able pen, were full of real, and not, as was too often the case, affected feeling.

This reunion to which Lady Betty and Griselda went on this December night was not one of the Fairs of Parna.s.sus which were held every Thursday. It was a soiree, to which only a select few--such as marchionesses, and embryo d.u.c.h.esses, and future peeresses--were bidden.

Lady Miller's health was failing, though she tried to hide it; and even now a cough, which was persistent, though not loud, prevented her from reading the effusions which were taken haphazard from the vase, dressed with its pink ribbons, and with crowns of myrtle hanging from it. Six judges were generally chosen to decide on the best poems, and the authors were only too proud to come forward and kneel to receive the wreath from the hand of this patroness of _les belles lettres._

How old-world this all seems to us now! and how we think we can afford to sneer at such folly and such deplorably bad taste as the poems then thought worthy display! "Siren charms" and "bright-eyed enchantress,"

"soft zephyrs" and "gentle poesies," might be the stock expressions always ready to lend themselves to rhymes, with a hundred others of the like nature. But these reunions had their better side; for reading verses was better than talking scandal, and apostrophes to bright eyes and ladies' auburn locks better than the discussion of the last duel or elopement, which, in the absence of "society papers," were too apt to form the favourite topic of the _beau monde_.

Lady Miller may have won her myrtle crown for attempting to set the minds and brains of her friends at work, even if only to produce doubtful _bouts rimes_ where sense was sacrificed to rhyme, and sound triumphed over subject.

We have our Lady Millers of to-day, although there are no pink-ribboned vases in which contributors drop their poetical efforts.

CHAPTER VIII.

ON THE TRACK.

Griselda had been much surprised at the applause which followed the reading of her verses. They were called for a second time, and elicited great praise.

"They are vastly pretty, and full of feeling!" exclaimed Lady Betty the next morning. "I declare, Griselda, you are without an atom of sentiment; you sat listening to them with a face like a marble statue.

It is well for you that you are not a victim to sentiment as I am. I vow I could weep at the notion of the sorrowful soul who wrote those impa.s.sioned couplets which were read before the five stanzas, so much admired. Ah!" Lady Betty continued, with a yawn--for it was her yawning-time between her first and second visit to the Pump Room--"ah!

it is well for some folks that they are callous. I am all impatience to get a copy of those rhymes for Lord Basingstoke; and--_entre nous, ma chere, entre nous_--when do you propose to accept Sir Maxwell Danby's suit? He formally asked my permission to address you. It would be a good match, and----"

"I have not the slightest intention, Aunt Betty, of listening to Sir Maxwell Danby's proposal."

Griselda always gave Lady Betty that t.i.tle when angry.

"Oh! how high and mighty we are! But I would have you to know, miss, I cannot afford to keep you for ever. I am now embarra.s.sed, and a dun has been here this very morning; so I advise you not to overlook Sir Maxwell Danby's offer."

"If there were not another man in the world I would not marry Sir Maxwell," Griselda said, rising. "I will consider other matters, and tell you of my decision."

"You silly child! Where are you going, pray?"

"To my own chamber."

"You must be powdered for the ball to-night. I promised Sir Maxwell he should have his opportunity at my Lady Westover's dance. Perkyns is coming at four o'clock. You must be powdered. It is not the mode to appear in full toilette, with your hair as it was dressed last night.

That gold band may suit some faces, but not yours. Do you hear, miss?"

"I hear," Griselda said; "and I repeat I do _not_ go with your ladyship to Lady Westover's ball."

"The minx!--the impudent little baggage! You shall repent your saucy words. But you'll come round, see if you don't, if you hear that pale-faced fellow Travers is to be of the company. Yes; go and ask his old mother about it--go!"

Griselda shut the door with a sharp bang, which made Lady Betty call loudly for her salts, and brought Graves from the inner room.

"Such impudence! I won't stand it--the little baggage! She _shall_ marry Sir Maxwell Danby, or I wash my hands of her."

Graves calmly held the salts to her mistress's nose: they were strong, and Lady Betty called out:

"Not too near! Oh! oh! I am not faint;" and immediately went off into hysterical crying, which, for obvious reasons, was tearless.

Meanwhile, Griselda had gone to her room; and, putting on a long black pelisse and a wide hat with a drooping feather, set well over her eyes, she left the house, carrying in a large satchel, which was fastened to her side, the box containing the jewels she wanted to sell.

At first she thought she would go to consult Mrs. Travers in her difficulty. She was determined to run no risk of meeting Sir Maxwell Danby; and if Lady Betty persisted in backing up his suit, she would leave her; but where, where should she go?

An open door in King Street attracted her, and she saw Mr. and Miss Herschel pa.s.sing in, each carrying some favourite and precious musical instrument. They were in all the bustle of removal, doing this, as they did everything else, with resolute determination to be as earnest as possible in accomplishing their purpose.

Miss Herschel, in her short black gown and work-a-day ap.r.o.n with wide pockets and her close black hood, did not see, or if she saw did not recognise, Griselda. She was giving directions to her servant, enforced with many strong expressions; and as she went backwards and forwards from the door to a cart lined with straw, she was wholly unconscious of anyone standing by.

Griselda could not help watching, with interest and admiration, the swift firm steps of this able and practical woman, as she went about her business, intent only on clearing the house in Rivers Street, and filling the house in King Street, as quickly as possible.

"She is too busy to speak to me now," Griselda thought.

Mr. Herschel now came hurriedly out, exclaiming:

"The two bra.s.s screws, Lina, for the seven-foot mirror! They are missing!" and then he disappeared in the direction of the house they were leaving.

Fortunately it was a bright winter noon, and everything favoured the flitting, which was accomplished in a very short time. But we who have in these days any experience of removals--and happy those who have not that experience--know how patience and temper are apt to fail, as the hopeless chaos of the new house is only a degree less hopeless than that of the old house we are leaving. We have vans, and packers, and helpers at command, unknown in the days of Mr. and Miss Herschel; for at the close of the last century few, indeed, were the removals from house to house. As a rule, people gathered round them their "household G.o.ds," and handed them down to their children in the house where they had been born and brought up. Removal from one part of England to another was not to be thought of at that time, when roads were bad and conveyances rare, and a distance of twenty miles more difficult to accomplish than that of two or three hundred in our own time. Mr. Herschel's reason for taking the house in King Street was that the garden behind it afforded room for the great experiment then always looming before him--the casting of the great mirror for the thirty-foot reflector.

Griselda pa.s.sed on without even getting a smile of recognition from Miss Herschel, so thoroughly engrossed was she with the business in hand; and a sense of loneliness came over her, as she said to herself: