Works of Ellen Wood

by Ellen Wood

  “Perhaps you do not know many people in it.”

  “We don’t know any one. We had been staying last in a garrison town. That was pleasant: so many nice officers about. You could not go to the window but there’d be some in sight. Here nobody seems to pass but a crew of staid old parsons.”

  “We are near the cathedral; that’s why you see so many parsons. Are you going to remain long in Worcester?”

  “That’s just as the fancy takes mamma. We have been here already six or seven weeks.”

  “Have you no settled home?”

  Miss Fanny Podd pursed up her lips and shook her head. “We like change best. A settled home would be wretchedly dull. Ours was given up when papa died.”

  Thus she entertained me to the end of dinner. We all left the table together — wine was not in fashion at Lake’s. Those who wanted any had to provide it for themselves: but the present company seemed to be satisfied with the home-brewed ale. Mrs. Captain Podd put her arm playfully into that of Dr. Lewis, and said she would show him the way to the drawing-room.

  And so it went on all the evening: she making herself agreeable to the doctor: Miss Podd to Anne; Fanny to me. Of course it was highly good-natured of them. Mrs. Podd discovered that the doctor liked backgammon; and she looked for a moment as cross as a wasp on finding there was no board in the house.

  “Quite an omission, my dear Miss Dinah,” she said, smoothing away the frown with a sweet smile. “I thought a backgammon-board was as necessary to a house as chairs and tables.”

  “Mrs. Lake had a board once,” said Miss Dinah; “but the boys got possession of it, and somehow it was broken. We have chess — and cribbage.”

  “Would you like a hand at cribbage, my dear sir?” asked Mrs. Podd of the doctor.

  “Don’t play it, ma’am,” said he.

  “Ah” — with a little sigh. “Julia, love, would you mind singing one of your quiet songs? Or a duet. Fanny, sweetest, try a quiet duet with your sister. Go to the piano.”

  If they called the duet quiet, I wondered what they called noisy. You might have heard it over at the cathedral. Their playing and singing was of the style known as “showy.” Some people admire it: but it is a good thing ear-drums are not easily cracked.

  The next day Mrs. Podd made the house a present of a backgammon-board: and in the evening she and Dr. Lewis sat down to play. Our number had decreased, for Mr. and Mrs. Mitchell had left; and Mrs. Lake dined with us, taking the foot of the table. Miss Dinah always, I found, kept the head.

  “She is so much better calculated to preside than I am,” whispered meek Mrs. Lake to me later in the evening; as, happening to pass the kitchen-door after dinner, I saw her in there, making the coffee. “What should I do without Dinah!”

  “But need you come out to make the coffee, Mrs. Lake?”

  “My dear, when I leave it to the servants, it is not drinkable. I am rather sorry Mrs. Podd makes a point of having coffee in an evening. Our general rule is to give only tea.”

  “I wouldn’t give in to Mrs. Podd.”

  “Well, dear, we like to be accommodating when we can. Being my cousin, she orders things more freely than our ladies usually do. Dinah calls her exacting; but — —”

  “Is Mrs. Podd your cousin?” I interrupted, in surprise.

  “My first cousin. Did you not know it? Her mother and my mother were sisters.”

  “The girls don’t call you ‘aunt.’”

  “They do sometimes when we are alone. I suppose they think I am beneath them — keeping a boarding-house.”

  I had not much liked the Podds at first: as the days went on I liked them less. They were not sincere: I was quite sure of it; Mrs. Podd especially. But the manner in which she had taken Dr. Lewis under her wing was marvellous. He began to think he could not move without her: he was as one who has found a sheet-anchor. She took trouble of all kinds from him: her chief aim seemed to be to make his life pass pleasantly. She would order a carriage and take him for a drive in it; she’d parade the High Street on his arm; she sat with him in the Green within the enclosure, though Miss Dinah told her one day she had not the right of entrance to it; she walked him off to inspect the monuments in the cathedral, and talked with him in the cloisters of the old days when Cromwell stabled his horses there. After dinner they would play backgammon till bed-time. And with it all, she was so gay and sweet and gentle, that Dr. Lewis thought she must be a very angel come out of heaven.

  “Johnny, I don’t like her,” said Anne to me one day. “She seems to take papa completely out of my hands. She makes him feel quite independent of me.”

  “You like her as well as I do, Anne.”

  “This morning I found him in the drawing-room; alone, for a wonder: he was gazing up in his abstracted way, as if wanting to discover what the pinnacles of the cathedral were made of, which appear to be so close, you know, from the windows of that room. ‘Papa, you are lonely,’ I said. ‘Would you like to walk out? — or what would you like to do?’ ‘My dear, Mrs. Podd will see to it all,’ he answered; ‘don’t trouble yourself; I am waiting for her.’ It is just as though he had no more need of me.”

  Anne Lewis turned away to hide her wet eyelashes. For my part, I thought the sooner Mrs. Captain Podd betook herself from Lake’s boarding-house, the better. It was too much of a good thing.

  That same afternoon I heard some conversation not meant for me. Behind the house was a square patch of ground called a garden, containing a few trees and some sweet herbs. I was sitting on the bench there, underneath the high, old-fashioned dining-room windows, thinking how hot the sun was, wishing for something to do, and wondering when Dr. Lewis meant to send me home. He and Mrs. Podd were out together; Anne was in the kitchen, teaching Mrs. Lake some mysteries of French cookery. Miss Dinah sat in the dining-room, in her spectacles, darning table-cloths.

  “Oh, have you come in!” I suddenly heard her say, as the door opened. And it was Mrs. Podd’s voice that answered.

  “The sun is so very hot: poor dear Dr. Lewis felt quite ill. He has gone up to his room for half-an-hour to sit quietly in the shade. Where are my girls?”

  “I’m sure I don’t know,” replied Miss Dinah: and it struck me that her tone of voice was rather crusty. “Mrs. Podd, I must again ask you when you will let me have some money?”

  “As soon as I can,” said Mrs. Podd: who seemed by the sound, to have thrown herself upon a chair, and to be fanning her face with a rustling newspaper.

  “But you have said that for some weeks. When is the ‘soon’ to be?”

  “You know I have been disappointed in my remittances. It is really too hot for talking.”

  “I know that you say you have. But we cannot go on without some money. The expenses of this house are heavy: how are they to be kept up if our guests don’t pay us? Indeed you must let me have part of your account, if not all.”

  “My dear sweet creature, the house is not yours,” returned Mrs. Podd, in her most honeyed accents.

  “I manage it,” said Miss Dinah, “and am responsible for getting in the accounts. You know that our custom is to be paid weekly.”

  “Exactly, dear Miss Dinah. But I am sure that my cousin, Emma Lake, would not wish to inconvenience me. I am indebted to her; not to you; and I will pay her as soon as I can. My good creature, how can you sit stewing over that plain sewing this sultry afternoon?”

  “I am obliged to,” responded Miss Dinah. “We have not money to spend on new linen: trouble enough, it is, I can assure you, to keep the old decent.”

  “I should get somebody to help me. That young woman, Miss Lewis, might do it: she seems to have been used to all kinds of work.”

  “I wish you would shut that door: you have left it open,” retorted Miss Dinah: “I don’t like sitting in a draught, though it is hot. And I must beg of you to understand, Mrs. Podd, that we really cannot continue to keep you and your daughters here unless you can manage to give us a little money.”

  By the shutting of the
door and the silence that ensued, it was apparent that Mrs. Podd had departed, leaving Miss Dinah to her table-cloths. But now, this had surprised me. For, to hear Mrs. Captain Podd and her daughters talk, and to see the way in which they dressed, one could not have supposed they were ever at a fault for ready-cash.

  At the end of ten days I went home. Dr. Lewis no longer wanted me: he had Mrs. Podd. And I think it must have been about ten days after that, that we heard the doctor and Anne were returning. The paint smelt still, but not so badly as before.

  They did not come alone. Mrs. Podd and her two daughters accompanied them to spend the day. Mrs. Podd was in a ravishing new toilette; and I hoped Lake’s boarding-house had been paid.

  Mrs. Podd went into raptures over Maythorn Bank, paint and all. It was the sweetest little place she had ever been in, she said, and some trifling, judicious care would convert it into a paradise.

  I know who had the present care; and that was Anne. They got over about twelve o’clock; and as soon as she had seen the ladies’ things off, and they were comfortably installed in the best parlour, its glass doors standing open to the fragrant flower-beds, she put on a big apron in the kitchen and helped Sally with the dinner.

  “Need you do it, Anne?” I said, running in, having seen her crumbling bread as I passed the window.

  “Yes, I must, Johnny. Papa bade me have a nice dinner served to-day: and Sally is inexperienced, you know: she knows nothing about the little dishes he likes. To tell you the truth,” added Anne, glancing meaningly into my eyes for a moment, “I would rather be cooking here than talking with them there.”

  “Are you sorry to leave Worcester?”

  “Yes, and no,” she answered. “Sorry to leave Mrs. Lake and Miss Dinah, for I like them both: glad to be at home again and to have papa to myself. I shall not cry if we never see Mrs. Podd again. Perhaps I am mistaken: and I’m sure I did not think that the judging of others uncharitably was one of my faults; but I cannot help thinking that she has tried to estrange papa from me. I suppose it is her way: she cannot have any real wish to do it. However, she goes back to-night, and then it will be over.”

  “Who is at Lake’s now?”

  “No one — except the Podds. I am sorry, for I fear they have some difficulty to make both ends meet.”

  Was it over! Anne Lewis reckoned without her host.

  I was running into Maythorn Bank the next morning, when I saw the shimmer of Anne’s white garden-bonnet and her morning dress amidst the raspberry-bushes, and turned aside to greet her. She had a basin in her hand, picking the fruit, and the hot tears were running down her cheeks. Conceal her distress she could not; any attempt would have been worse than futile.

  “Oh, Johnny, she is going to marry him!” cried she, with an outburst of sobs.

  “Going to marry him! — who? what?” I asked, taking the basin from her hand: for I declare that the truth did not strike me.

  “She is. Mrs. Podd. She is going to marry papa.”

  For a moment she held her face against the apple-tree. The words confounded me. More real grief I had never seen. My heart ached for her.

  “Don’t think me selfish,” she said, turning presently, trying to subdue the sobs, and wiping the tears away. “I hope I am not that: or undutiful. It is not for myself that I grieve; indeed it is not; but for him.”

  I knew that.

  “If I could only think it would be for his happiness! But oh, I fear it will not be. Something seems to tell me that it will not. And if — he should be — uncomfortable afterwards — miserable afterwards! — I think the distress would kill me.”

  “Is it true, Anne? How did you hear it?”

  “True! Too true, Johnny. At breakfast this morning papa said, ‘We shall be dull to-day without our friends, Anne.’ I told him I hoped not, and that I would go out with him, or read to him, or do anything else he liked; and I reminded him of his small stock of choice books that he used to be so fond of. ‘Yes, yes, we shall be very dull, you and I alone in this strange house,’ he resumed. ‘I have been thinking for some time we should be, Anne, and so I have asked that dear, kind, lively woman to come to us for good.’ I did not understand him; I did not indeed, Johnny; and papa went on to explain. ‘You must know that I allude to Mrs. Podd, Anne,’ he said. ‘When I saw her so charmed with this house yesterday, and we were talking about my future loneliness in it — and she lamented it, even with tears — one word led to another, and I felt encouraged to venture to ask her to share it and be my wife. And so, my dear, it is all settled; and I trust it will be for the happiness of us all. She is a most delightful woman, and will make the sunshine of any home.’ I wish I could think it,” concluded Anne.

  “No; don’t take the basin,” I said, as she went to do so. “I’ll finish picking the raspberries. What are they for?”

  “A pudding. Papa said he should like one.”

  “Why could not Sally pick them? Country girls are used to the sun.”

  “Sally is busy. Papa bade her clear out that room where our boxes were put: we shall want all the rooms now. Oh, Johnny, I wish we had not left France! Those happy days will never come again.”

  Was the doctor falling into his dotage? The question crossed my mind. It might never have occurred to me; but one day at Worcester Miss Dinah had asked it in my hearing. I felt very uncomfortable, could not think of anything soothing to say to Anne, and went on picking the raspberries.

  “How many do you want? Are these enough?”

  “Yes,” she answered, looking at them. “I must fill the basin up with currants.”

  We were bending over a currant-bush, Anne holding up a branch and I stripping it, when footsteps on the path close by made us both look up hastily. There stood Sir Robert Tenby. He stared at the distress on Anne’s face, which was too palpable to be concealed, and asked without ceremony what was amiss.

  It was the last feather that broke the camel’s back. These words from a stranger, and his evident concern, put the finishing touch to Anne’s state. She burst into more bitter tears than she had yet shed.

  “Is it any trouble that I can help you out of?” asked Sir Robert, in the kindest tones, feeling, no doubt, as sorry as he looked. “Oh, my dear young lady, don’t give way like this!”

  Touched by his sympathy, her heart seemed to open to him: perhaps she had need of finding consolation somewhere. Drying her tears, Anne told her story simply: commenting on it as she had commented to me.

  “It is for my father’s sake that I grieve, sir; that I fear. I feel sure Mrs. Podd will not make him really happy.”

  “Well, well, we must hope for the best,” spoke Sir Robert, who looked a little astonished at hearing the nature of the grievance, and perhaps thought Anne’s distress more exaggerated than it need have been. “Dr. Lewis wrote to me last night about some alteration he wants to make in the garden; I have come to speak to him about it.”

  “Alteration in the garden!” mechanically repeated Anne. “I have heard nothing about it.”

  He passed into the house to the doctor. We picked on at the currants, and then took them into the kitchen. Anne sat down on a chair to strip them from their stalks. Presently we saw Sir Robert and the doctor at one end of the garden, the latter drawing boundaries round a corner with his walking-stick.

  “Oh, I know,” exclaimed Anne. “Yesterday Mrs. Podd suggested that a summer-house in that spot would be a delightful improvement. But I never, never could have supposed papa meant to act upon the suggestion.”

  Just so. Dr. Lewis wished to erect a summer-house of wood and trellis-work, but had not liked to do it without first speaking to his landlord.

  As the days went on, Anne grew to feel somewhat reassured. She was very busy, for all kinds of preparations had to be made in the house, and the wedding was to take place at once.

  “I think, perhaps, I took it up in a wrong light, Johnny,” she said to me one day, when I went in and found her sewing at some new curtains. “I hope I did. It must have been
the suddenness of the news, I suppose, and that I was so very unprepared for it.”

  “How do you mean? In what wrong light?”

  “No one seems to think ill of it, or to foresee cause for apprehension. I am so glad. I don’t think I can ever much like her: but if she makes papa happy, it is all I ask.”

  “Who has been talking about it?”

  “Herbert Tanerton for one. He saw Mrs. Podd at Worcester last week, and thought her charming. The very woman, he said, to do papa good; lively and full of resource. So it may all be for the best.”

  I should as soon have expected an invitation to the moon as to the wedding. But I got it. Dr. Lewis, left to himself, was feeling helpless again, and took me with him to Worcester on the eve of the happy day. We put up at the Bell Hotel for the night; but Anne went direct to Lake’s boarding-house. I ran down there in the evening.

  Whether an inkling of the coming wedding had got abroad, I can’t say; it was to be kept private, and had been, so far as any one knew; but Lake’s house was full, not a room to be had in it for love or money. Anne was put in a sleeping-closet two yards square.

  “It is not our fault,” spoke Miss Dinah, openly. “We were keeping a room for Miss Lewis; but on Monday last when a stranger came, wanting to be taken in, Mrs. Podd told us Miss Lewis was going to the hotel with her father.”

  “My dear love, I thought you were,” chimed in Mrs. Podd, as she patted Anne on the shoulder. “I must have mis-read a passage in your dear papa’s letter, and so caught up the misapprehension. Never mind; you shall dress in my room if your own is not large enough. And I am sure all young ladies ought to be obliged to me, for the new inmate is a delightful man. My daughters find him charming.”

  “The room is quite large enough, thank you,” replied Anne, meekly.

  “Do you approve of the wedding, Miss Dinah?” I asked her later, when we were alone in the dining-room. “Do you like it?”

  Miss Dinah, who was counting a lot of glasses on the sideboard that the maid had just washed and brought in, counted to the end, and then began upon the spoons.