The Chronicles of Barsetshire (85 page)

“If you have Miss Moffat,” said Alexandrina, “you must have dear Pussy too; and I really think that Pussy is too young; it will be troublesome.” Pussy was the youngest Miss Gresham, who was now only eight years old, and whose real name was Nina.

“Augusta,” said Beatrice, speaking with some slight hesitation, some soupçon of doubt, before the high authority of her noble cousin, “if you do have Miss Moffat would you mind asking Mary Thorne to join her? I think Mary would like it, because, you see, Patience Oriel is to be one; and we have known Mary much longer than we have known Patience.”

Then out and spake the Lady Alexandrina.

“Beatrice, dear, if you think of what you are asking, I am sure you will see that it would not do; would not do at all. Miss Thorne is a very nice girl, I am sure; and, indeed, what little I have seen of her I highly approve. But, after all, who is she? Mamma, I know, thinks that Aunt Arabella has been wrong to let her be here so much, but—”

Beatrice became rather red in the face, and, in spite of the dignity of her cousin, was preparing to defend her friend.

“Mind, I am not saying a word against Miss Thorne.”

“If I am married before her, she shall be one of my bridesmaids,” said Beatrice.

“That will probably depend on circumstances,” said the Lady Alexandrina; I find that I cannot bring my courteous pen to drop the title. “But Augusta is very peculiarly situated. Mr. Moffat is, you see, not of the very highest birth; and, therefore, she should take care that on her side everyone about her is well born.”

“Then you cannot have Miss Moffat,” said Beatrice.

“No; I would not if I could help it,” said the cousin.

“But the Thornes are as good a family as the Greshams,” said Beatrice. She had not quite the courage to say, as good as the De Courcys.

“I dare say they are; and if this was Miss Thorne of Ullathorne, Augusta probably would not object to her. But can you tell me who Miss Mary Thorne is?”

“She is Dr. Thorne’s niece.”

“You mean that she is called so; but do you know who her father was, or who her mother was? I, for one, must own I do not. Mamma, I believe, does, but—”

At this moment the door opened gently and Mary Thorne entered the room.

It may easily be conceived, that while Mary was making her salutations the three other young ladies were a little cast aback. The Lady Alexandrina, however, quickly recovered herself, and, by her inimitable presence of mind and facile grace of manner, soon put the matter on a proper footing.

“We were discussing Miss Gresham’s marriage,” said she; “I am sure I may mention to an acquaintance of so long standing as Miss Thorne, that the first of September has been now fixed for the wedding.”

Miss Gresham! Acquaintance of so long standing! Why, Mary and Augusta Gresham had for years, we will hardly say now for how many, passed their mornings together in the same schoolroom; had quarrelled, and squabbled, and caressed and kissed, and been all but as sisters to each other. Acquaintance indeed! Beatrice felt that her ears were tingling, and even Augusta was a little ashamed. Mary, however, knew that the cold words had come from a De Courcy, and not from a Gresham, and did not, therefore, resent them.

“So it’s settled, Augusta, is it?” said she; “the first of September. I wish you joy with all my heart,” and, coming round, she put her arm over Augusta’s shoulder and kissed her. The Lady Alexandrina could not but think that the doctor’s niece uttered her congratulations very much as though she were speaking to an equal; very much as though she had a father and mother of her own.

“You will have delicious weather,” continued Mary. “September, and the beginning of October, is the nicest time of the year. If I were going honeymooning it is just the time of year I would choose.”

“I wish you were, Mary,” said Beatrice.

“So do not I, dear, till I have found some decent sort of a body to honeymoon along with me. I won’t stir out of Greshamsbury till I have sent you off before me, at any rate. And where will you go, Augusta?”

“We have not settled that,” said Augusta. “Mr. Moffat talks of Paris.”

“Who ever heard of going to Paris in September?” said the Lady Alexandrina.

“Or who ever heard of the gentleman having anything to say on the matter?” said the doctor’s niece. “Of course Mr. Moffat will go wherever you are pleased to take him.”

The Lady Alexandrina was not pleased to find how completely the doctor’s niece took upon herself to talk, and sit, and act at Greshamsbury as though she was on a par with the young ladies of the family. That Beatrice should have allowed this would not have surprised her; but it was to be expected that Augusta would have shown better judgment.

“These things require some tact in their management; some delicacy when high interests are at stake,” said she; “I agree with Miss Thorne in thinking that, in ordinary circumstances, with ordinary people, perhaps, the lady should have her way. Rank, however, has its drawbacks, Miss Thorne, as well as its privileges.”

“I should not object to the drawbacks,” said the doctor’s niece, “presuming them to be of some use; but I fear I might fail in getting on so well with the privileges.”

The Lady Alexandrina looked at her as though not fully aware whether she intended to be pert. In truth, the Lady Alexandrina was rather in the dark on the subject. It was almost impossible, it was incredible, that a fatherless, motherless, doctor’s niece should be pert to an earl’s daughter at Greshamsbury, seeing that that earl’s daughter was the cousin of the Miss Greshams. And yet the Lady Alexandrina hardly knew what other construction to put on the words she had just heard.

It was at any rate clear to her that it was not becoming that she should just then stay any longer in that room. Whether she intended to be pert or not, Miss Mary Thorne was, to say the least, very free. The De Courcy ladies knew what was due to them—no ladies better; and, therefore, the Lady Alexandrina made up her mind at once to go to her own bedroom.

“Augusta,” she said, rising slowly from her chair with much stately composure, “it is nearly time to dress; will you come with me? We have a great deal to settle, you know.”

So she swam out of the room, and Augusta, telling Mary that she would see her again at dinner, swam—no, tried to swim—after her. Miss Gresham had had great advantages; but she had not been absolutely brought up at Courcy Castle, and could not as yet quite assume the Courcy style of swimming.

“There,” said Mary, as the door closed behind the rustling muslins of the ladies. “There, I have made an enemy for ever, perhaps two; that’s satisfactory.”

“And why have you done it, Mary? When I am fighting your battles behind your back, why do you come and upset it all by making the whole family of the De Courcys dislike you? In such a matter as that, they’ll all go together.”

“I am sure they will,” said Mary; “whether they would be equally unanimous in a case of love and charity, that, indeed, is another question.”

“But why should you try to make my cousin angry; you that ought to have so much sense? Don’t you remember what you were saying yourself the other day, of the absurdity of combatting pretences which the world sanctions?”

“I do, Trichy, I do; don’t scold me now. It is so much easier to preach than to practise. I do so wish I was a clergyman.”

“But you have done so much harm, Mary.”

“Have I?” said Mary, kneeling down on the ground at her friend’s feet. “If I humble myself very low; if I kneel through the whole evening in a corner; if I put my neck down and let all your cousins trample on it, and then your aunt, would not that make atonement? I would not object to wearing sackcloth, either; and I’d eat a little ashes—or, at any rate, I’d try.”

“I know you’re clever, Mary; but still I think you’re a fool. I do, indeed.”

“I am a fool, Trichy, I do confess it; and am not a bit clever; but don’t scold me; you see how humble I am; not only humble but umble, which I look upon to be the comparative, or, indeed, superlative degree. Or perhaps there are four degrees; humble, umble, stumble, tumble; and then, when one is absolutely in the dirt at their feet, perhaps these big people won’t wish one to stoop any further.”

“Oh, Mary!”

“And, oh, Trichy! you don’t mean to say I mayn’t speak out before you. There, perhaps you’d like to put your foot on my neck.” And then she put her head down to the footstool and kissed Beatrice’s feet.

“I’d like, if I dared, to put my hand on your cheek and give you a good slap for being such a goose.”

“Do; do, Trichy: you shall tread on me, or slap me, or kiss me; whichever you like.”

“I can’t tell you how vexed I am,” said Beatrice; “I wanted to arrange something.”

“Arrange something! What? arrange what? I love arranging. I fancy myself qualified to be an arranger-general in female matters. I mean pots and pans, and such like. Of course I don’t allude to extraordinary people and extraordinary circumstances that require tact, and delicacy, and drawbacks, and that sort of thing.”

“Very well, Mary.”

“But it’s not very well; it’s very bad if you look like that. Well, my pet, there I won’t. I won’t allude to the noble blood of your noble relatives either in joke or in earnest. What is it you want to arrange, Trichy?”

“I want you to be one of Augusta’s bridesmaids.”

“Good heavens, Beatrice! Are you mad? What! Put me, even for a morning, into the same category of finery as the noble blood from Courcy Castle!”

“Patience is to be one.”

“But that is no reason why Impatience should be another, and I should be very impatient under such honours. No, Trichy; joking apart, do not think of it. Even if Augusta wished it I should refuse. I should be obliged to refuse. I, too, suffer from pride; a pride quite as unpardonable as that of others: I could not stand with your four lady-cousins behind your sister at the altar. In such a galaxy they would be the stars and I—”

“Why, Mary, all the world knows that you are prettier than any of them!”

“I am all the world’s very humble servant. But, Trichy, I should not object if I were as ugly as the veiled prophet and they all as beautiful as Zuleika. The glory of that galaxy will be held to depend not on its beauty, but on its birth. You know how they would look at me; how they would scorn me; and there, in church, at the altar, with all that is solemn round us, I could not return their scorn as I might do elsewhere. In a room I’m not a bit afraid of them all.” And Mary was again allowing herself to be absorbed by that feeling of indomitable pride, of antagonism to the pride of others, which she herself in her cooler moments was the first to blame.

“You often say, Mary, that that sort of arrogance should be despised and passed over without notice.”

“So it should, Trichy. I tell you that as a clergyman tells you to hate riches. But though the clergyman tells you so, he is not the less anxious to be rich himself.”

“I particularly wish you to be one of Augusta’s bridesmaids.”

“And I particularly wish to decline the honour; which honour has not been, and will not be, offered to me. No, Trichy. I will not be Augusta’s bridesmaid, but—but—but—”

“But what, dearest?”

“But, Trichy, when some one else is married, when the new wing has been built to a house that you know of—”

“Now, Mary, hold your tongue, or you know you’ll make me angry.”

“I do so like to see you angry. And when that time comes, when that wedding does take place, then I will be a bridesmaid, Trichy. Yes! even though I am not invited. Yes! though all the De Courcys in Barsetshire should tread upon me and obliterate me. Though I should be as dust among the stars, though I should creep up in calico among their satins and lace, I will nevertheless be there; close, close to the bride; to hold something for her, to touch her dress, to feel that I am near to her, to—to—to—” and she threw her arms round her companion, and kissed her over and over again. “No, Trichy; I won’t be Augusta’s bridesmaid; I’ll bide my time for bridesmaiding.”

What protestations Beatrice made against the probability of such an event as foreshadowed in her friend’s promise we will not repeat. The afternoon was advancing, and the ladies also had to dress for dinner, to do honour to the young heir.

CHAPTER V

Frank Gresham’s First Speech

We have said, that over and above those assembled in the house, there came to the Greshamsbury dinner on Frank’s birthday the Jacksons of the Grange, consisting of Mr. and Mrs. Jackson; the Batesons from Annesgrove, viz., Mr. and Mrs. Bateson, and Miss Bateson, their daughter—an unmarried lady of about fifty; the Bakers of Mill Hill, father and son; and Mr. Caleb Oriel, the rector, with his beautiful sister, Patience. Dr. Thorne, and his niece Mary, we count among those already assembled at Greshamsbury.

There was nothing very magnificent in the number of the guests thus brought together to do honour to young Frank; but he, perhaps, was called on to take a more prominent part in the proceedings, to be made more of a hero than would have been the case had half the county been there. In that case the importance of the guests would have been so great that Frank would have got off with a half-muttered speech or two; but now he had to make a separate oration to everyone, and very weary work he found it.

The Batesons, Bakers, and Jacksons were very civil; no doubt the more so from an unconscious feeling on their part, that as the squire was known to be a little out at elbows as regards money, any deficiency on their part might be considered as owing to the present state of affairs at Greshamsbury. Fourteen thousand a year will receive honour; in that case there is no doubt, and the man absolutely possessing it is not apt to be suspicious as to the treatment he may receive; but the ghost of fourteen thousand a year is not always so self-assured. Mr. Baker, with his moderate income, was a very much richer man than the squire; and, therefore, he was peculiarly forward in congratulating Frank on the brilliancy of his prospects.

Poor Frank had hardly anticipated what there would be to do, and before dinner was announced he was very tired of it. He had no warmer feeling for any of the grand cousins than a very ordinary cousinly love; and he had resolved, forgetful of birth and blood, and all those gigantic considerations which, now that manhood had come upon him, he was bound always to bear in mind—he had resolved to sneak out to dinner comfortably with Mary Thorne if possible; and if not with Mary, then with his other love, Patience Oriel.

Great, therefore, was his consternation at finding that, after being kept continually in the foreground for half an hour before dinner, he had to walk out to the dining-room with his aunt the countess, and take his father’s place for the day at the bottom of the table.

“It will now depend altogether upon yourself, Frank, whether you maintain or lose that high position in the county which has been held by the Greshams for so many years,” said the countess, as she walked through the spacious hall, resolving to lose no time in teaching to her nephew that great lesson which it was so imperative that he should learn.

Frank took this as an ordinary lecture, meant to inculcate general good conduct, such as old bores of aunts are apt to inflict on youthful victims in the shape of nephews and nieces.

“Yes,” said Frank; “I suppose so; and I mean to go along all square, aunt, and no mistake. When I get back to Cambridge, I’ll read like bricks.”

His aunt did not care two straws about his reading. It was not by reading that the Greshams of Greshamsbury had held their heads up in the county, but by having high blood and plenty of money. The blood had come naturally to this young man; but it behoved him to look for the money in a great measure himself. She, Lady de Courcy, could doubtless help him; she might probably be able to fit him with a wife who would bring her money onto his birth. His reading was a matter in which she could in no way assist him; whether his taste might lead him to prefer books or pictures, or dogs and horses, or turnips in drills, or old Italian plates and dishes, was a matter which did not much signify; with which it was not at all necessary that his noble aunt should trouble herself.

“Oh! you are going to Cambridge again, are you? Well, if your father wishes it—though very little is ever gained now by a university connexion.”

“I am to take my degree in October, aunt; and I am determined, at any rate, that I won’t be plucked.”

“Plucked!”

“No; I won’t be plucked. Baker was plucked last year, and all because he got into the wrong set at John’s. He’s an excellent fellow if you knew him. He got among a set of men who did nothing but smoke and drink beer. Malthusians, we call them.”

“Malthusians!”

“‘Malt,’ you know, aunt, and ‘use;’ meaning that they drink beer. So poor Harry Baker got plucked. I don’t know that a fellow’s any the worse; however, I won’t get plucked.”

By this time the party had taken their place round the long board, Mr. Gresham sitting at the top, in the place usually occupied by Lady Arabella. She, on the present occasion, sat next to her son on the one side, as the countess did on the other. If, therefore, Frank now went astray, it would not be from want of proper leading.

“Aunt, will you have some beef?” said he, as soon as the soup and fish had been disposed of, anxious to perform the rites of hospitality now for the first time committed to his charge.

“Do not be in a hurry, Frank,” said his mother; “the servants will—”

“Oh! ah! I forgot; there are cutlets and those sort of things. My hand is not in yet for this work, aunt. Well, as I was saying about Cambridge—”

“Is Frank to go back to Cambridge, Arabella?” said the countess to her sister-in-law, speaking across her nephew.

“So his father seems to say.”

“Is it not a waste of time?” asked the countess.

“You know I never interfere,” said the Lady Arabella; “I never liked the idea of Cambridge myself at all. All the De Courcys were Christ Church men; but the Greshams, it seems, were always at Cambridge.”

“Would it not be better to send him abroad at once?”

“Much better, I would think,” said the Lady Arabella; “but you know, I never interfere: perhaps you would speak to Mr. Gresham.”

The countess smiled grimly, and shook her head with a decidedly negative shake. Had she said out loud to the young man, “Your father is such an obstinate, pig-headed, ignorant fool, that it is no use speaking to him; it would be wasting fragrance on the desert air,” she could not have spoken more plainly. The effect on Frank was this: that he said to himself, speaking quite as plainly as Lady de Courcy had spoken by her shake of the face, “My mother and aunt are always down on the governor, always; but the more they are down on him the more I’ll stick to him. I certainly will take my degree: I will read like bricks; and I’ll begin to-morrow.”

“Now will you take some beef, aunt?” This was said out loud.

The Countess de Courcy was very anxious to go on with her lesson without loss of time; but she could not, while surrounded by guests and servants, enunciate the great secret: “You must marry money, Frank; that is your one great duty; that is the matter to be borne steadfastly in your mind.” She could not now, with sufficient weight and impress of emphasis, pour this wisdom into his ears; the more especially as he was standing up to his work of carving, and was deep to his elbows in horse-radish, fat, and gravy. So the countess sat silent while the banquet proceeded.

“Beef, Harry?” shouted the young heir to his friend Baker. “Oh! but I see it isn’t your turn yet. I beg your pardon, Miss Bateson,” and he sent to that lady a pound and a half of excellent meat, cut out with great energy in one slice, about half an inch thick.

And so the banquet went on.

Before dinner Frank had found himself obliged to make numerous small speeches in answer to the numerous individual congratulations of his friends; but these were as nothing to the one great accumulated onus of an oration which he had long known that he should have to sustain after the cloth was taken away. Someone of course would propose his health, and then there would be a clatter of voices, ladies and gentlemen, men and girls; and when that was done he would find himself standing on his legs, with the room about him, going round and round and round.

Having had a previous hint of this, he had sought advice from his cousin, the Honourable George, whom he regarded as a dab at speaking; at least, so he had heard the Honourable George say of himself.

“What the deuce is a fellow to say, George, when he stands up after the clatter is done?”

“Oh, it’s the easiest thing in life,” said the cousin. “Only remember this: you mustn’t get astray; that is what they call presence of mind, you know. I’ll tell you what I do, and I’m often called up, you know; at our agriculturals I always propose the farmers’ daughters: well, what I do is this—I keep my eye steadfastly fixed on one of the bottles, and never move it.”

“On one of the bottles!” said Frank; “wouldn’t it be better if I made a mark of some old covey’s head? I don’t like looking at the table.”

“The old covey’d move, and then you’d be done; besides there isn’t the least use in the world in looking up. I’ve heard people say, who go to those sort of dinners every day of their lives, that whenever anything witty is said; the fellow who says it is sure to be looking at the mahogany.”

“Oh, you know I shan’t say anything witty; I’ll be quite the other way.”

“But there’s no reason you shouldn’t learn the manner. That’s the way I succeeded. Fix your eye on one of the bottles; put your thumbs in your waist-coat pockets; stick out your elbows, bend your knees a little, and then go ahead.”

“Oh, ah! go ahead; that’s all very well; but you can’t go ahead if you haven’t got any steam.”

“A very little does it. There can be nothing so easy as your speech. When one has to say something new every year about the farmers’ daughters, why one has to use one’s brains a bit. Let’s see: how will you begin? Of course, you’ll say that you are not accustomed to this sort of thing; that the honour conferred upon you is too much for your feelings; that the bright array of beauty and talent around you quite overpowers your tongue, and all that sort of thing. Then declare you’re a Gresham to the backbone.”

“Oh, they know that.”

“Well, tell them again. Then of course you must say something about us; or you’ll have the countess as black as old Nick.”

“Abut my aunt, George? What on earth can I say about her when she’s there herself before me?”

“Before you! of course; that’s just the reason. Oh, say any lie you can think of; you must say something about us. You know we’ve come down from London on purpose.”

Frank, in spite of the benefit he was receiving from his cousin’s erudition, could not help wishing in his heart that they had all remained in London; but this he kept to himself. He thanked his cousin for his hints, and though he did not feel that the trouble of his mind was completely cured, he began to hope that he might go through the ordeal without disgracing himself.

Nevertheless, he felt rather sick at heart when Mr. Baker got up to propose the toast as soon as the servants were gone. The servants, that is, were gone officially; but they were there in a body, men and women, nurses, cooks, and ladies’ maids, coachmen, grooms, and footmen, standing in two doorways to hear what Master Frank would say. The old housekeeper headed the maids at one door, standing boldly inside the room; and the butler controlled the men at the other, marshalling them back with a drawn corkscrew.

Mr. Baker did not say much; but what he did say, he said well. They had all seen Frank Gresham grow up from a child; and were now required to welcome as a man amongst them one who was well qualified to carry on the honour of that loved and respected family. His young friend, Frank, was every inch a Gresham. Mr. Baker omitted to make mention of the infusion of De Courcy blood, and the countess, therefore, drew herself up on her chair and looked as though she were extremely bored. He then alluded tenderly to his own long friendship with the present squire, Francis Newbold Gresham the elder; and sat down, begging them to drink health, prosperity, long life, and an excellent wife to their dear young friend, Francis Newbold Gresham the younger.

There was a great jingling of glasses, of course; made the merrier and the louder by the fact that the ladies were still there as well as the gentlemen. Ladies don’t drink toasts frequently; and, therefore, the occasion coming rarely was the more enjoyed. “God bless you, Frank!” “Your good health, Frank!” “And especially a good wife, Frank!” “Two or three of them, Frank!” “Good health and prosperity to you, Mr. Gresham!” “More power to you, Frank, my boy!” “May God bless you and preserve you, my dear boy!” and then a merry, sweet, eager voice from the far end of the table, “Frank! Frank! Do look at me, pray do Frank; I am drinking your health in real wine; ain’t I, papa?” Such were the addresses which greeted Mr. Francis Newbold Gresham the younger as he essayed to rise up on his feet for the first time since he had come to man’s estate.

When the clatter was at an end, and he was fairly on his legs, he cast a glance before him on the table, to look for a decanter. He had not much liked his cousin’s theory of sticking to the bottle; nevertheless, in the difficulty of the moment, it was well to have any system to go by. But, as misfortune would have it, though the table was covered with bottles, his eye could not catch one. Indeed, his eye first could catch nothing, for the things swam before him, and the guests all seemed to dance in their chairs.

Up he got, however, and commenced his speech. As he could not follow his preceptor’s advice as touching the bottle, he adopted his own crude plan of “making a mark on some old covey’s head,” and therefore looked dead at the doctor.

“Upon my word, I am very much obliged to you, gentlemen and ladies, ladies and gentlemen, I should say, for drinking my health, and doing me so much honour, and all that sort of thing. Upon my word I am. Especially to Mr. Baker. I don’t mean you, Harry, you’re not Mr. Baker.”

“As much as you’re Mr. Gresham, Master Frank.”

“But I am not Mr. Gresham; and I don’t mean to be for many a long year if I can help it; not at any rate till we have had another coming of age here.”

“Bravo, Frank; and whose will that be?”

“That will be my son, and a very fine lad he will be; and I hope he’ll make a better speech than his father. Mr. Baker said I was every inch a Gresham. Well, I hope I am.” Here the countess began to look cold and angry. “I hope the day will never come when my father won’t own me for one.”