by R S Surtees
“Supposing there’s anybody with the Duchess when you go,” continued Emma, after a pause, during which she recovered her equanimity, “what will you do?”
“That’s not likely, I think,” replied Mrs. Flather; “nobody ever goes there, you know, without an invitation.”
“But there may,” continued Emma, “for all that. You don’t know what invitations she may have sent out; or, now that they are beginning to entertain, who may take upon themselves to call.”
“There’s’ nothing so bad as great people making themselves too common,” observed Mrs. Flather; a sentiment of very frequent use in the country, meaning that great people should just patronise ourselves and no one else.
“Nothing,” observed Emma. “I’m sure the Duke must feel he’s lost caste since he took up with that horrid old idiot down at the Hall.”
“Don’t mention him,” rejoined Mrs. Flather; “abominable old man! and by the way, that reminds me, I wish you would wralk down there this afternoon, and borrow their mouse-trap, for ours is all gone wrong, and the place is literally overrun with mice.”
“Now, tell me, how will you broach the subject?” inquired Emma, again returning to her speculations. “Will you go at it at once, or nibble and beat about the bush a little?”
“Upon my word I really think I’d better go at once to the point,” replied Mrs. Flather, after a pause.
“But I wouldn’t go open-mouthed, as if you were bursting with anxiety,” observed Emma.
“Oh, certainly not,” replied Mrs. Flather, with a bend and toss of her head, as much as to say, “I know what I am about” —
“Will you say that you have come to talk to them about settlements, as if the thing was all fixed; or that you’ve come to talk about the — the — the — niceness of it, or something of that sort?” asked Emma.
“I don’t know, I’m sure, my dear,” considered Mrs. Flather; “much will depend upon how they receive me; if they are very affectionate, and so on, we may go to the point at once, but not, I think, about settlements.”
“That would look mercenary, perhaps,” observed Emma; “still I should like to have some diamonds.”
“There’s no doubt you’ll have everything of that sort,” rejoined Mrs. Flather.
“Necklace, and earrings, and a tiara. I should so like to go to the New Year’s Eve ball in diamonds — splendid diamonds! Jeems told me mamma’s cost seventy thousand,” observed Emma.
“That’s a great deal of money,” observed Mrs. Flather.
“I wonder if Mrs. Trotter would go to the winter ball if she knew I was to be there?” inquired Emma. “How delightful it would be if she was.”
Just then the old rattle-trap hove in sight, and the debate was forthwith adjourned for the more important business of “getting ready.”
CHAPTER XXXIV.
NOT YET ON summer’s death, nor on the birth.
Of trembling -winter.”
AFTER three “put backs,” first to get her keys, which she had left on the drawers; secondly, to tell Maria to roast the mutton instead of boiling it; and thirdly, to charge Emma not to make herself sick at luncheon, and not to forget the mouse-trap, Mrs. Flather at length got under way.
The bright sun had warmed the air of the autumnal day, and the country round was in the rich luxuriance of declining beauty. The corn-fields were clear, the leaves were changing colour, and an occasional gun-shot echoed upon the clear transparent atmosphere. Mrs. Flather, having had the landaulet head put back, settled herself in the middle of the chaise, and hoisting her green parasol, prepared to gather her faculties for the approaching conflict.
On they jingled, but just as a white three-armed guide-post denoted the divergence of the road to three different points, a loud “Hooi! stop!” from behind, caused the driver to pull his horses up with such a jerk as sent Mrs. Flather forward against the front — she nearly broke her nose!
Another second, and her old tormentor, Mr. Jorrocks, had his old rattle-trap alongside the carriage, and was putting his whip into the case preparatory to having a confab.
“Veil, Mrs. Flather,” said he, with one of his knowing grins, “and vot are you arter with your pair ‘oss chay? Takin’ your medicine in a wehicle, as the doctors write on their labels, eh?” added he, with a leer.
“Oh, Mr. Jorrocks, how do you do?” exclaimed Mrs.
Flatter, shuffling herself hack into her seat, and interposing her parasol between herself and the Squire.
“Yell, and wot’s ‘appen’d now?” asked Mr. Jorrocks, reaching over and lifting it up, so as to get a view of her face. “Where are you a goin’ to? Sellborough, I dare say,” added he, without waiting for an answer. “Am a goin’ there myself — better come in here with me. Binjimin shall get in there,” continued he, unhooking the apron of the fire-engine for the purpose of letting Mrs. Flather in.
“Oh, thank you, Mr. Jorrocks, thank you!” exclaimed she, “but I’m not going to Sellborough; I’m much obliged to — up this other road — here to the right — to the left I mean, thank you; or I should have been most happy.”
“And that’s the Sellborough road,” replied our friend. “I knew you was a goin’ there. Come, get in — get in! It’s no use you and I ‘umbuggin’ each other.”
“I meant the other road! I meant the other road!” exclaimed Mrs. Flather. “The road to the far left,” continued she, extending her arm in that direction.
“She’s a goin’ to Donkey ton Castle,” whispered Benjamin from the back seat into his master’s ear.
“Donkeyton Castle!” exclaimed Mr. Jorrocks aloud. “Vot, you are a goin’ to Donkeyton Castle, are you?” asked Mr. Jorrocks. “Vot’s a takin’ you there? — thought you’d been a goin’ to the chemist’s. Has the Duke a blow out? Has the Duke a blow out?”
“I’m going towards Donkeyton; I’m going towards Donkeyton,” replied Mrs. Flather, anxious to got away from her tormentor. —
‘ “Towards Donkeyton,” grunted Mr. Jorrocks; “towards Donkeyton,” repeated he, adding aloud to himself, “who can she be goin’ to see there.”
“Well, good morning, Mr. Jorrocks, good morning,” repeated Mrs. Flather; adding, as she desired the coachman to go on, “I’m only wasting your valuable time.”
“‘Ang the time,” at length observed Mr. Jorrocks, taking the whip out of the case and gathering the reins together, preparatory to setting Dicky Cobden agoing again. “Where can the ‘ooman be goin’ to?” mused he, his eye following the receding chaise.
“She’s a goin’ to Donheyton Castle, I tells you again,” said Benjamin from the back of the chaise.
“Impossible, Binjimin!” exclaimed Mr. Jorrocks.
“But she is, though,” replied Benjamin, in a confident tone.
“And ’ow do you know that, Binjimin?” asked Mr. Jorrocks, jerking and flopping Dickey Cobden into motion.
“Cause I was hup at their ‘ouse when their young man came back with the chay, and he’d peep’d into the note and seen the herder,” replied Benjamin.
“So-o-o!” ejaculated Mr. Jorrocks, “there must be somethin’ goin’ on — some leetle mystery, I guess;” and musing and wondering what it could be, Mr. Jorrocks proceeded on his way to Sellborough. —
There had been a great dinner at Donkeyton Castle the day before, and some of the outer ring visitors having accepted the Duke’s invitation to visit his example farm, the last rattle-traps had hardly jingled under the Gothic arch of the battlemented gateway, when Mrs. Flather appeared at the opposite side for admittance. The porter stared as he threw back the old nail-studded oak doors, and his wife observed with a significant smile that “she wished the lady mightn’t be a day after the fair.”
On Mrs. Flather crawled, at that weary, dilapidated pace that ill-fed, hard-worked horses exhibit — walking, if it were not for the appearance of trotting — along the winding drive through the undulating and picturesque scenery of the richly wooded, water-glittering park.
It was a lovel
y place. Hundreds of deer herded on its hills, or followed in lengthy files along its ravines; while water-fowl of every description splashed or sported on the extensive lakes, where snow-white swans were gliding majestically about, or noble herons rising slowly and noiselessly to heaven.
The now browning fern and faded heath waved and drooped on the wilder ground, affording shelter to the game and adding wildness to the scene.
It is odd how few visitors at great houses see the beauties of the places. In going they are generally in too great a fright; the ladies pulling on their clean gloves — the gentlemen adjusting their whiskers or neckcloths. In returning, they are apt to get clear of the premises ere they have done congratulating themselves and each other on their escape; applauding their courage and sagacity in going, and commenting on their great patron’s marked attention to themselves. Some people really seem as if they expected to be “catermauchously chawn up” by great people, as the Americans say.
Mrs. Flather saw nothing. As the rattling of the carriage on the pavement under the arch announced her arrival at the awe-striking castle gates, she gathered herself into a state of desperate compression, and sat eyeing the front joints of the old landaulet, now folded before her, with all the energy of a person enjoying a dentist’s arm-chair.
Grind, creak, grind, creak, went the old vehicle over the Kensington gravelled carriage road. Jip! crack, flop, went the persuasive Jehu to the pottering screws; coachey looking more lively as the emblazoned banner on the castle glittered in the sun, and bespoke good cheer within.
At length the carriage sounded on the moss-grown walls of the stately castle, as it drove past the open cloisters at the side.
The driver, having deliberately thrown his reins upon the horses’ backs (as if in the fullest confidence that they would not run away), descended, whip in hand, from his perch, and applied his hand with the greatest nonchalance to the bronze bell-handle in the richly carved doorway, with far different feelings to those which now agitated the bosom of his fair passenger. —
“Please, marm, who shall I ax for?” inquired he, limping back to the carriage, with a grin at the peal that answered his pull.
Ere Mrs. Flather had time to reply to the inquiry, the lace-bedizened porter loomed large in the doorway. He was the beau ideal of a porter — a great, big, broad, stout, overfed-looking fellow, with well-powdered bald head, pimply nose, and swelling ankles — a spoiled figure footman! Having eyed the wretched vehicle and the humble charioteer, whose old olive-coloured coat assumed a still dingier hue by the bright pea-green ducal livery, the porter, standing in the first position in the exact centre of the top doorstep, with upthrown head, indicated that he was ready to answer questions.
“Is your missis at home?” asked the driver, without waiting for Mrs. Flather’s instructions.
“Is the Duchess of Donkeyton at home?” inquired Mrs. Flather.
“Who is it?” asked the porter of the coachman.
“Mrs. Flather,” replied he.
“Not at home,” rejoined the porter, with a slight inclination towards a bow.
“I have particular business with the Duchess of Donkeyton,” exclaimed Mrs. Flather, in a state of desperation.
“Perhaps you’d have the kindness to send in your name,” observed the porter, advancing a couple of steps, so as to be able to announce into the carriage, without unnecessarily exerting himself, “that her Grace was rather indisposed, but perhaps she would be able to see her.”
Mrs. Flather having dived into her bag, and fished up a carved ivory case, produced a card, with which the porter presented a footman to hand to the groom of the chamber to carry to the Duchess. —
Who shall describe her feelings as she waited his return?
Her Grace was in the drawing-room, superintending the arrangement of her portfolios, after the overhauling of the previous evening’s party. Castles were joining cascades, and sea-views coalescing with sunsets. Her first impression on seeing the card was, that Mrs. Flather had made a mistake, and come the day after she was invited. This idea, however, was quickly set at rest by inspecting the lists, of invited, accepted, and refused, which ended in the Duchess desiring the servant to show Mrs. Flather in. The unfortunate performer of her toils, yclept companion, made her exit through an invisible door in the richly gilt walls as Mrs. Flather sidled through the half-opened folding ones at the far end.
Her Grace of course was charmed to see her, and restored confidence to her now palpitating heart, by that easy affability and kindness of manner almost invariably the attribute of the high-born. Nay, more, it cheered Mrs. Flather onward in her course; and before the Duchess had run over the commonplaces relative to the weather, the roads, and the distance, the parching dryness that almost prevented utterance as Mrs. Flather entered gradually dissolved, and she sat by the side of the awe-inspiring Duchess far more at her ease than she would have been in conclave with Mrs. Trotter.
Conversation with people one really has nothing to say to soon comes short up, and the Duchess presently looked at Mrs. Flather, in hopes that she would “lead the gallop,” as they say at Newmarket. Twice Mrs. Flather faltered. “Your Grace,” was all she uttered before the tongue-tying dryness again assailed her; and the Duchess at last tried to turn her to her old friend the portfolio, in hopes of engaging her till luncheon was announced. —
“Your Grace,” again attempted Mrs. Flather, with the desperate energy of a person bent on a subject, “I am sure you, as a mother, will excuse the” —
Her Grace was surprised at Mrs. Flather’s vehemence. She was too high-bred a woman to be put out of her way, and had, besides, a certain constitutional inclination for taking things easy. Mrs. Flather, being wound up, proceeded.
“I am sure I need not say,” continued she, “how deeply I appreciate the honour conferred on my poor girl.”
Her Grace smiled and bowed courteously, thinking it merely had reference to the party she had had them to, and said, “Pray don’t mention it.”
This rather put Mrs. Flather out, and her Grace was just, going to draAv her attention to the flower-stand beaming radiant before the window — another safety valve for country stupidity — when Mrs. Flather again went on. “It is certainly a most unexpected — a most unlooked-for honour,” said she, drawing her best cambric handkerchief out of her bag; “but I trust Emma will so conduct herself as to prove she is not unworthy of the high confidence your Grace and the Duke have reposed in her.”
The Duchess was “quite sure she would; indeed they both thought most highly of her. She was a remarkably fine girl. Wish Mrs. Flather had brought her with her.”
This was great encouragement to Mrs. Flather. She proceeded to explain that it was merely a point of delicacy that had prevented her doing so, but that after the kind assurance her Grace had given, of course there could be no difficulty about it, and she would take a very early opportunity of doing so.
“Her Grace hoped she would — would always be most happy to see them,” making a knot in her mind at the same time to tell the servants to deny them.
Luncheon wa s then announced.
“Your Grace, perhaps, wouldn’t like it to take place very soon?” said Mrs. Flather, still sticking to her seat.
“Oh, any time,” said her Grace, motioning her to obey the summons. “Wouldn’t she take a little luncheon?”
Mrs. Flather, however, having heard that “any time was no time,” thought she might as well get that point settled.
“It will require a good deal of preparation,” observed she, rising and standing by her chair with her right hand resting on the back.
The Duchess stared, wondering if Mrs. Flather thought she was invited to stay.
“I mean that the settlements, and such-like, will take some time doing.”
“Settlements!” exclaimed the Duchess, staring with astonishment.
“Oh, just as your Grace pleases,” replied Mrs. Flather most submissively; “of course we don’t insist upon anything of the so
rt.”
“I fear we misunderstand each other,” said the Duchess, reconsidering all that had passed. “It surely isn’t Jeems you’re thinking about? It can’t be Jeems!” added she, as the ancestry of twenty generations flashed upon her mind. Mrs. Flather felt as if she would drop through the floor before the Duchess’s withering glance.
“My dear Mrs. Flather,” said she, in a low tone, pressing her on the arm to get her to resume her seat; “my dear Mrs. Flather, I fear there is some misunderstanding between the Marquis of Bray and yourself Of course I don’t know what has passed between you, or what reasons he may have given your daughter to think he is attached to her, but I must tell you, as a friend” — and the Duchess said it in the kindest manner possible—” I must tell you as a friend, that it would be the death of the Duke to mention such a thing to him.”
“But his Grace encouraged it!” exclaimed Mrs. Flather, in the greatest agitation. —
“Impossible, my dear Mrs. Flather!” replied the Duchess, calmly but firmly. “Impossible, I assure you; you must be under a mistake. The Duke is too proud; has too great regard for his station to think of such a thing; far too much regard!”
“Nay, then” — said Mrs. Flather despondingly.
“Here is the Duke,” observed the Duchess, as his Grace popped his snow-wreathed head into the door, to see what kept the Duchess away from her luncheon.
“Here’s Mrs. Flather, my dear!” exclaimed the Duchess, as he was jerking back, in hopes he had not been observed.
“Ah, Mrs. Flather!” exclaimed he, with the gaiety of sham delight, as he thought of the hot chicken he had left uncovered. “My dear Mrs. Flather,” repeated he, advancing up the spacious room with extended hands, to give her a hearty welcome—” how do you do?” said he, seizing her by both— “glad to see you, monstrous glad to see you; come and have a little luncheon; on the table quite ready.” So saying, his Grace bowed, and waved, and drove her along into the privacy of viands and powdered menials.
