Molly Bawn Part 52

Beyond this small _contre-temps_, however, nothing of note occurs; and, service being over, they all file decorously out of the church into the picturesque porch outside, where they stand for a few minutes interchanging greetings with such of the county families as come within their knowledge.

With a few others too, who scarcely come within that aristocratic pale, notably Mrs. Buscarlet. She is a tremendously stout, distressingly healthy woman, quite capable of putting her husband in a corner of her capacious pocket, which, by the bye, she insists on wearing outside her gown, in a fashion beloved of our great-grandmothers, and which, in a modified form, last year was much affected by our own generation.

This alarming personage greets Marcia with the utmost _bonhommie_, being apparently blind to the coldness of her reception. She greets Lady Stafford also, who is likewise at freezing-point, and then gets introduced to Molly. Mrs. Darley, who even to the uninitiated Mrs.

Buscarlet appears a person unworthy of notice, she lets go free, for which favor Mrs. Darley is devoutly grateful.

Little Buscarlet himself, who has a weakness for birth, in that he lacks it, comes rambling up to them at this juncture, and tells them, with many a smirk, he hopes to have the pleasure of lunching with them at Herst, Mr. Amherst having sent him a special invitation, as he has something particular to say to him; whereupon Molly, who is nearest to him, laughs, and tells him she had no idea such luck was in store for her.

"You are the greatest hypocrite I ever met in my life," Sir Penthony says in her ear, when Buscarlet, smiling, bowing, radiant, has moved on.

"I am not indeed; you altogether mistake me," Molly answers. "If you only knew how his anxiety to please, and Marcia's determination _not_ to be pleased, amuse me, you would understand how thoroughly I enjoy his visits."

"I ask your pardon. I had no idea we had a student of human nature among us. Don't study _me_, Miss Ma.s.sereene, or it will unfit you for further exertions; I am a living ma.s.s of errors."

"Alas that I cannot contradict you!" says Cecil, with a woful sigh, who is standing near them.

Mr. Amherst, who never by any chance darkens the doors of a church, receives them in the drawing-room on their return. He is in an amiable mood and pleased to be gracious. Seizing upon Mr. Buscarlet, he carries him off with him to his private den, so that for the time being there is an end of them.

"For all small mercies," begins Mr. Potts, solemnly, when the door has closed on them; but he is interrupted by Lady Stafford.

"'Small,' indeed," grumbles she. "What do you mean? I shan't be able to eat my lunch if that odious little man remains, with his 'Yes, Lady Stafford;' 'No, Lady Stafford;' 'I quite agree with your ladyship,' and so on. Oh, that I could drop my t.i.tle!"--this with a glance at Sir Penthony;--"at all events while he is present." This with another and more gracious glance at Stafford. "Positively I feel my appet.i.te going already, and that is a pity, as it was an uncommonly good one."

"Cheer up, dear," says Molly; "and remember there will be dinner later on. Poor Mr. Buscarlet! There must be something wrong with me, because I cannot bring myself to think so disparagingly of him as you all do."

"I am sorry for you. Not to know Mr. Buscarlet's little peculiarities of behavior argues yourself unknown," Marcia says, with a good deal of intention. "And I presume they cannot have struck you, or you would scarcely be so tolerant."

"He certainly sneezes very incessantly and very objectionably," Molly says, thoughtfully. "I hate a man who sneezes publicly; and his sneeze is so unpleasant,--so exactly like that of a cat. A little wriggle of the entire body, and then a little soft--splash!"

"My _dear_ Molly!" expostulates Lady Stafford.

"But is it not?" protests she; "is it not an accurate description?"

"Yes, its accuracy is its fault. I almost thought the man was in the room."

"And then there is Mrs. Buscarlet: I never saw any one like Mrs.

Buscarlet," Maud Darley says, plaintively; "did you? There is so much of her, and it is all so nasty. And, oh! her voice! it is like wind whistling through a key-hole."

"Poor woman," says Luttrell, regretfully, "I think I could have forgiven her had she not worn that very verdant gown."

"My dear fellow, I thought the contrast between it and her cheeks the most perfect thing I ever saw. It is evident you have not got the eye of an artist," Sir Penthony says, rather unfeelingly.

"I never saw any one so distressingly healthy," says Maud, still plaintively. "Fat people are my aversion. I don't mind a comfortable-looking body, but she is much too stout."

"Let us alter that last remark and say she has had too much stout, and perhaps we shall define her," remarks Tedcastle. "I hate a woman who shows her food."

"The way she traduced those Sedleys rather amused me," Molly says, laughing. "I certainly thought her opinion of her neighbors very p.r.o.nounced."

"She shouldn't have any opinion," says Lady Stafford, with decision.

"You, my dear Molly, take an entirely wrong view of it. Such people as the Buscarlets, sprung from n.o.body knows where, or cares to know, should be kept in their proper place, and be sat upon the very instant they develop a desire to progress."

"How can you be so illiberal?" exclaims Molly, aghast at so much misplaced vehemence. "Why should they not rise with the rest of the world?"

"Eleanor has quite a _penchant_ for the Buscarlets," says Marcia, with a sneer; "she has quite adopted them, and either will not, or perhaps does not, see their enormities."

n.o.body cares to notice this impertinence, and Mr. Potts says, gravely:

"Lady Stafford has never forgiven Mrs. Buscarlet because once, at a ball here, she told her she was looking very '_distangy_.' Is that not true?"

Cecil laughs.

"Why should not every one have an opinion?" Molly persists. "I agree with the old song that 'Britons never shall be slaves:' therefore, why should they not a.s.sert themselves? In a hundred years hence they will have all the manners and airs of we others."

"Then they should be locked up during the intermediate stage," says Cecil, with an uncompromising nod of her blonde head. "I call them insufferable; and if Mr. Buscarlet when he comes in again makes himself agreeable to me--me!--I shall insult him,--that's all! No use arguing with me, Molly,--I shall indeed." She softens this awful threat by a merry sweet-tempered little laugh.

"Let us forget the little lawyer and talk of something we all enjoy,--to-day's sermon, for instance. You admired it, Potts, didn't you? I never saw any one so attentive in my life," says Sir Penthony.

Potts tries to look as if he had never succ.u.mbed during service to "Nature's sweet restorer;" and Molly says, apologetically:

"How could he help it? The sermon was so long."

"Yes, wasn't it?" agrees Plantagenet, eagerly. "The longest I ever heard. That man deserves to be suppressed or excommunicated; and the parishioners ought to send him a round robin to that effect. Odd, too, how much at sea one feels with a strange prayer-book. One looks for one's prayer at the top of the page, where it always used to be in one's own particular edition, and, lo! one finds it at the bottom.

Whatever you may do for the future, Lady Stafford, don't lend me your prayer-book. But for the incessant trouble it caused me, between losing my place and finding it again, I don't believe I should have dropped into that gentle doze."

"Had you ever a prayer-book of your own?" asks Cecil, unkindly.

"Because if so it is a pity you don't air it now and again. I have known you a great many years,--more than I care to count,--and never, never have I seen you with the vestige of one. I shall send you a pocket edition as a Christmas-box."

"Thanks awfully. I shall value it for the giver's sake. And I promise you that when next we meet--such care shall it receive--even _you_ will be unable to discover a scratch on it."

"Plantagenet, you are a bad boy," says Cecil.

"I thought the choir rather good," Molly is saying; "but why must a man read the service in a long, slow, tearful tone? Surely there is no good to be gained by it; and to find one's self at 'Amen' when he is only in the middle of the prayer has something intolerably irritating about it.

I could have shaken that curate."

"Why didn't you?" says Sir Penthony. "I would have backed you up with the greatest pleasure. The person I liked best was the old gentleman with the lint-white locks who said 'Yamen' so persistently in the wrong place all through; I grew quite interested at last, and knew the exact spot where it was likely to come in. I must say I admire consistency."

"How hard it is to keep one's attention fixed," Molly says, meditatively, "and to preserve a properly dismal expression of countenance! To look solemn always means to look severe, as far as I can judge. And did you ever notice when a rather lively and secular set of bars occur in the voluntary, how people cheer up and rouse themselves, and give way to a little sigh or two? I hope it isn't a sigh of relief. We feel it's wicked, but we always do it."

"Still studying poor human nature," exclaims Sir Penthony. "Miss Ma.s.sereene, I begin to think you a terrible person, and to tremble when I meet your gaze."

"Well, at all events no one can accuse them of being High Church," says Mrs. Darley, alluding to her pastors and masters for the time being.

"The service was wretchedly conducted; hardly any music, and not a flower to speak of."

"My dear! High Church! How could you expect it? Only fancy that curate intoning!" says Cecil, with a laugh.

"I couldn't," declares Sir Penthony; "so much exertion would kill me."

"That's why he _isn't_ High Church," says Mr. Potts of the curate, speaking with a rather sweeping air of criticism. "He ain't musical; he can't intone. Take my word for it, half the clergy are Anglicans merely because they think they have voices, and feel what a loss the world will sustain if it don't hear them."