at mosely mistress betty alighted at last, entered the wicket-gate, and approached the small, weather-stained, brick house. she made her curtsy to madam, asked the vicar's blessing—though he was not twenty-five years her senior and scarcely so wise—hugged the little girls, particularly sick fiddy, and showered upon them pretty tasteful town treasures, which little country girls, sick or well, dearly love. fiddy's eyes were glancing already; but she did not leave off holding mistress betty's hand in order to try on her mittens, or to turn the handle of the musical box. and mistress betty finally learned, with some panic and palpitation, which she was far too sensible and stately a woman to betray, that the justice was not [page 97]gone—that master rowland, in place of examining the newly-excavated italian cities, or dabbling in state treason in france, was no further off than larks' hall, confined there with a sprained ankle: nobody being to blame, unless it were granny, who had detained master rowland to the last moment, or uncle rowland himself, for riding his horse too near the edge of the sandpit, and endangering his neck as well as his shin-bones. however, mistress betty did not cry out that she had been deceived, or screech distractedly, or swoon desperately (though the last was in her constitution), neither did she seem to be brokenhearted by the accident.
but granny's reception of her was the great event of the day. granny was a picture, in her grey gown and "clean white hood nicely plaited," seated in her wicker seat "fronting the south, and commanding the washing-green." here granny was amusing herself picking gooseberries—which the notable prissy was to convert into gooseberry-fool, one of the dishes projected to grace the town lady's supper—when mistress betty was led towards her.
it was always a trying moment when a stranger at mosely was presented to old madam parnell. the parnells had agreed, for one thing, that it would be most proper and judicious, as mistress betty had quitted the stage—doubtless in some disappointment of its capabilities, or condemnation of the mode in which it was conducted,—to be chary in theatrical illusions, to drop the theatrical sobriquet lady betty, and hail their guest with the utmost ceremony and sincerity as mistress lumley. but granny [page 98]turned upon her visitor a face still fresh, in its small, fine-furrowed compass, hailed her as lady betty on the spot, and emphatically expressed all the praise she had heard of her wonderful powers; regretting that she had not been in the way of witnessing them, and declaring that as they escaped the snares and resisted the temptations of her high place, they did her the utmost honour, for they served to prove that her merits and her parts were equal. actually, granny behaved to lady betty as to a person of superior station, and persisted in rising and making room for the purpose of sharing with her the wicker seat; and there they sat, the old queen and the young.
young madam had been quite determined that, as uncle rowland was so unfortunate as to be held by the foot at larks' hall from his tour, he should not risk his speedy recovery by hobbling over to mosely, when she could go herself or send prissy every morning to let him know how the invalid was. but the very day after mistress betty's arrival old madam secretly dispatched tim, the message-boy, to desire the squire to order out the old coach, and make a point of joining the family party either at dinner or at supper. young madam was sufficiently chagrined; but then the actress and the squire met so coldly, and little fiddy was flushing up into a quiver of animation, and mistress betty was such delightful company in the slumbrous country parsonage.
it is pleasant to think of the doings of the parnells, the witcheries of mistress betty, and the despotism of old madam, during the next month. indeed, mistress betty was so reverent, so charitable, so kind, so gentle as well as [page 99]blithe under depressing influences, and so witty under stagnation, that it would have been hard to have lived in the same house with her and have been her enemy: she was so easily gratified, so easily interested; she could suit herself to so many phases of this marvellous human nature. she listened to the vicar's "argument" with edification, and hunted up his authorities with diligence. she scoured young madam's lutestring, and made it up in the latest and most elegant fashion of nightgowns, with fringes and buttons, such as our own little girls could match. she made hay with prissy and fiddy, and not only accomplished a finer cock than weak fiddy and impatient priss, but surpassed the regular haymakers. and she looked, oh! so well in her haymaker's jacket and straw hat—though young madam was always saying that her shape was too large for the dress, and that the slight hollows in her cheeks were exaggerated by the shade from the broad-brimmed flapping straw.
of course mistress betty performed in the "traveller" and "cross purposes," and gave out riddles and sang songs round the hearth of a rainy evening, or about the cherrywood table in the arbour, of a cloudless twilight, much more pat than other people—that was to be looked for; but then she also played at love after supper, loo and cribbage for a penny the game—deeds in which she could have no original superiority and supremacy—with quite as infectious an enthusiasm.
to let you into a secret, young madam was in horror at one time that dick ashbridge was wavering in his allegiance to her white rosebud, fiddy; so enthralling was [page 100]this scarlet pomegranate, this purple vine. but one evening mrs. betty turned suddenly upon the mad boy, to whom she had been very soft, saying that he bore a great resemblance to her cousin's second son jack, and asked how old he was? and did he not think of taking another turn at college? this restored the boy to his senses in a trice, and she kissed mistress fiddy twice over when she bade her good night.
but old madam and lady betty were the chief pair of friends. granny, with her own sway in her day, and her own delicate discrimination, acute intellect, and quick feelings, was a great enough woman not to be jealous of a younger queen, but to enjoy her exceedingly. madam parnell had seen the great world as well as lady betty, and never tired of reviving old recollections, comparing experiences, and tracing the fates of the children and grandchildren of the great men and women her contemporaries. prissy and fiddy vowed over and over again, that the stirring details were more entertaining than any story-book. for this reason, granny took a personal pride in lady betty's simplest feat, as well as in her intellectual crown, and put her through every stage of her own particular recipes for cream cheese and pickled walnuts.
"the dickons!" cried a somerset yeoman: "the lon'on madam has opened the five-barred gate that beat all the other women's fingers, and gathered the finest elder-flowers, and caught the fattest chicken; and they tell me she has repeated verses to poor crazed isaac, till she has lulled him into a fine sleep. 'well done, lon'on!' cries i; 'luck to the fine lady:' i never thought to wish [page 101]success to such a kind." granny, too, cried, "well done, lon'on! luck to the fine lady!" if all helens were but as pure, and true, and tender as lady betty!
granny would have lady betty shown about among the neighbours, and maintained triumphantly that she read them, sedleys, ashbridges, and harringtons, as if they were characters in a printed book—not that she looked down on them, or disparaged them in any way; she was far more tolerant than rash, inexperienced prissy and fiddy. and granny ordered lady betty to be carried sight-seeing to larks' hall, and made minute arrangements for her to inspect granny's old domain, from garret to cellar, from the lofty usher-tree at the gate to the lowly
"plaintain ribbed that heals the reapers' wound"
in the herb-bed. no cursory inspection would suffice her: the pragmatical housekeeper and the rosy milkmaids had time to give up their hearts to lady betty like the rest. master rowland, as in courtesy bound, limped with the stranger over his helmets and gauntlets, his wooden carvings, his black-letter distich; and, although she was not overflowing in her praises, she had seen other family pictures by greuze, and she herself possessed a fan painted by watteau, to which he was vastly welcome if he cared for such a broken toy.
she fancied the head of one of the roman emperors to be like his grace of montague; she had a very lively though garbled familiarity with the histories of the veritable brutus and cassius, coriolanus, cato, alexander, and other mighty, picturesque, cobbled-up ancients, into whose [page 102]mouths she could put appropriate speeches; and she accepted a loan of his 'plutarch's lives,' "to clear up her classics," as she said merrily; altogether poor squire rowland felt that he had feasted at an intellectual banquet.
at last it was time to think of redeeming her pledge to cousin ward; and, to mistress betty's honour, the period came while master rowland was still too lame to leave larks' hall, except in his old coach, and while it yet wanted weeks to the softening, gladdening, overwhelming bounty of the harvest-home.
then occurred the most singular episodes of perverseness and reiterated instances of inconsistency of which granny had been found guilty in the memory of man, either as heiress of larks' hall or as old madam of the vicarage. at first she would not hear of mistress betty's departure, and asked her to be her companion, during her son's absence, in his house of larks' hall, where all at once she announced that she meant to take up her temporary residence. she did not approve of its being committed entirely to the supervision of mrs. prue, her satellite, the schoolmaster's daughter who used so many long words in cataloguing her preserves and was so trustworthy: mrs. prue would feel lonesome; mrs. prue would take to gadding like the chits prissy and fiddy. no, she would remove herself for a year, and carry over her old man morris along with her, and see that poor rowley's goods were not wasted or his curiosities lost while he chose to tarry abroad.
master rowland stared, but made no objection to this invasion; mrs. betty, after much private rumination and [page 103]great persuasion, consented to the arrangement. young madam was obliged to be ruefully acquiescent, though secretly irate at so preposterous a scheme; the vicar, good man, to do him justice, was always ponderously anxious to abet his mother, and had, besides, a sneaking kindness for mistress betty; the girls were privately charmed, and saw no end to the new element of breadth, brightness, and zest, in their little occupations and amusements.
when again, of a sudden, after the day was fixed for master rowland's departure, and the whole family were assembled in the vicarage parlour—old madam fell a-crying and complaining that they were taking her son away from her—robbing her of him: she would never live to set eyes on him again—a poor old body of her years and trials would not survive another flitting. she had been fain to gratify some of his wishes; but see if they would not destroy them both, mother and son, by their stupid narrow-mindedness and obstinacy.
such a thing had never happened before. who had ever seen granny unreasonable and foolish? the vicar slipped his hand to her wrist, in expectation that he would detect signs of hay-fever, though it was a full month too late for the complaint—there had been cases in the village—and was shaken off with sufficient energy for his pains.
"mother," exclaimed master rowland, haughtily, "i understand you; but i had a plain answer to a plain question months ago, and i will have no reversal to please you. pity craved by an old woman's weakness! favours granted in answer to tears drawn from dim eyes! i am not such a slave!"
[page 104]the others were all clamouring round granny, kissing her hand, kneeling on her footstool, imploring her to tell them what she wanted, what she would like best, what they could go and do for her; only the squire spoke in indignant displeasure, and nobody attended to him but mistress betty.
it did appear that the squire had been too fast in repelling advances which did not follow his mother's appeal. mistress betty gave no token—she stood pulling the strings of her cap, and growing first very red, and then ominously white, like any girl.
perhaps the squire suspected that he had been too hasty, that he had not been grateful to his old mother, or generous to the woman who, however fine, and courted, and caressed, was susceptible of a simple woman's anguish at scorn or slight. perhaps there flashed on his recollection a certain paper in the 'spectator,' wherein a young lady's secret inclination towards a young gentleman is conclusively revealed, not by her advances to save his pride, but by her silence, her blushes, her disposition to swoon with distress when an opportunity is afforded her of putting herself forward to attract his notice—nay, when she is even urged to go so far as to solicit his regard.
master rowland's brow lightened as if a cloud lowering there had suddenly cleared away—master rowland began to look as if it were a much more agreeable experience to contemplate mistress betty nervous and glum, than lady betty armed at a hundred points, and all but invulnerable—master rowland walked as alertly to her side as if there were no such things as sprains in this world. "madam, [page 105]forgive me if i have attributed to you a weak complacency to which you would never condescend. madam, if you have changed your mind, and can now tolerate my suit, and accord it the slightest return, i am at your feet."
assuredly, the tall, vigorous, accomplished squire would have been there, not figuratively but in his imposing person. family explanations were admissible a century and a half ago; public declarations were sometimes a point of honour; bodily prostration was by no means exploded; matter-of-fact squires knelt like romantic knights; sir charles grandison and sir roger de coverley bent as low for their own purposes as fantastic gauze and tinsel troubadours.
but mistress betty prevented him. "i am not worth it, master rowland," cried mistress betty, sobbing and covering her face with her hands; and, as she could not have seen the obeisance, the gentleman intermitted it, pulled down the hands, kissed madam betty oftener than the one fair salute, and handed her across the room to receive granny's blessing. granny sat up and composed herself, wished them joy (though she had the grace to look a little ashamed of herself), very much as if she had obtained her end.
there is no use in denying that young madam took to bed for three days, and was very pettish for a fortnight; but eventually gave in to the match, and was not so much afflicted by it as she had expected, after the first brunt. granny, in her age, was so absurdly set on the mésalliance, and so obliging and pleasant about everything else—the vicar and the little lasses were so provokingly careless of [page 106]the wrong done them and the injury to the family,—that she knew very well, when her back was turned, they formed as nonsensically hilarious a bridal party as if the wedding had concerned one of themselves and not the bachelor uncle, the squire of larks' hall. and mistress betty ordered down the smartest livery; and the highest gentry in somersetshire would have consented to grace the ceremony, had she cared for their presence, such a prize was she in their country-houses when they could procure her countenance during their brief sojourn among sparkling rills and woodland shades. altogether, young madam, in spite of her vanities and humours, loved the children, the vicar, granny, the bridegroom, and even (with a grudge) the bride, and was affected by the sweet summer season and the happy marriage-tide, and was, in the main, too good to prove a kill-joy.
master rowland and mistress betty were married by master rowland's own brother in the vicar's own church, with fiddy and prissy and the sedleys for bridesmaids, and dick ashbridge for a groom's-man. cousin ward, brought all the way from town to represent the bride's relations, was crying as if she were about to lose an only daughter. for granny, she would not shed one bright, crystal tear on any account; besides, she was ever in state at larks' hall to welcome home, the happy couple. ah, well, they were all happy couples in those days!
at larks' hall mistress betty bloomed during many a year; for a fine woman knows no decay; she only passes from one stage of beauty and excellence to another, wearing, as her rightful possession, all hearts—her sons', as their [page 107]father's before them. and master rowland no longer sat lonely in his hall, in the frosty winter dusk or under the usher-oak in the balmy summer twilight, but walked through life briskly and bravely, with a perfect mate; whom he had not failed to recognize as a real diamond among the bits of glass before the footlights—a diamond which his old mother had consented to set for him.
our squire and lady betty are relics of a former generation. we have squires as many by thousands, as accomplished by tens of thousands; but the inimitable union of simplicity and refinement, downrightness and dignity, disappeared with the last faint reflection of sir roger de coverley. and charming lady betty departed also with early hours, pillions, and cosmetics—that blending of nature and art, knowledge of the corrupt world and abiding true-heartedness, which then existed—a sort of marvel.
