“and oh we grudged her sair,
to the land o’ the leal!”
scotch ballad.
“and what sort of a person did you say mrs. baldwin was, my dear?” enquired mr. baxter of his wife, when, the engrossing ceremonial of the correct four or five courses having been gone through for the day, he established himself in heavy comfort on one of the gorgeous gold and blue couches in that lady’s drawing-room.
“oh, she seems a nice enough young woman,” replied mrs. baxter. “rather too free-and-easy in her manners for my taste. of course she was very plainly dressed, and is quite without any sort of style. but these country-bred people always are. besides, she has been brought up in a very plain sort of way, i suppose. didn’t you say she was the daughter of some poor country clergyman?”
“i really don’t know who she was,” answered the husband. “the friend who introduced baldwin merely said he was married. he himself is so superior looking, gentleman-like a young man, i could have imagined his having rather a nice wife. but, as you say, country breeding always shows more in a woman than a man.”
mrs. baxter had not said anything half so original, but took care to pocket the observation for future use, a little feat she was rather clever at performing.
“i didn’t say she wasn’t nice,” she replied. “i only said she hadn’t any style.”
“and you asked them for wednesday?” pursued mr. baxter. “what day do you expect mr. and mrs. william? i really forget.”
“monday,” replied the lady. “and that great trollopy maria jane of theirs. why they couldn’t have her at home, i can’t imagine. mrs. william writes she is so much improved by that new school, she is growing quite a fine girl. fine girl indeed! she will be six feet if she doesn’t leave growing soon.”
“why isn’t she at school now?” enquired mr. baxter, lazily.
“there was a fortnight’s holiday because of some death in the governess’s family,” replied mrs. baxter, carelessly. “by-the-by that reminds me mr. baxter, phillips wants to go home for a week. his sister is dead, and he wants to go to the funeral. so inconvenient, too, just as mr. and mrs. william are coming. i can’t abide any one but phillips driving me; it shakes my nerves to bits, and makes me all over ‘ysterical.’ ” (it was, to do her justice, very seldom that mrs. baxter fell short in this way, but now and then, when somewhat excited, her h’s were apt to totter.)
“tell him he can’t go, then,” said monsieur, sleepily, for the combined influences of his three glasses of port, the fire and the blue and gold sofa, were growing too much for him. and to tell the truth for mrs. baxter too! so, till startled by the entrance of jeames and tea, the millionaire and his wife slumbered peacefully (though in one case sonorously), on each side of that marvel of tiles and fire-brick, burnished steel and resplendent gilding, which to them served as the representation of their “ain fireside.”
wednesday came, and at six o’clock in the evening thereof, mr. and mrs. baldwin, four-and-sixpence the poorer for the fly which had conveyed them from their “back-street” to the millington west end, where the baxter residence was situated, made their appearance in the blue and gold drawing-room.
somewhat against her wishes geoffrey had insisted on marion’s attiring herself in a manner more befitting the wife of the rich mr. baldwin of brackley manor, than the helpmeet of one of mr. baxter’s clerks on a salary one hundred and fifty pounds a year.
“when your dresses are worn out, and i can’t afford to buy you more,” he said with some slight bitterness in his tone, “then you may go about in brown stuff if you like. or black more likely,” he added, in an undertone, with as near an approach to a cynical smile as was possible for him, “for i shan’t live to see it. by then it is to be hoped you will be free of the curse i have been to you one way and another, my poor darling!” and with the last words, though only whispered to himself, there stole into his voice, spite of his bitter mood, an inflection of exquisite tenderness.
so the dress in which marion baldwin made her début into “cotton at home,” socially speaking, though plain, was of the richest and best as to fashion, colour, and material.
mr. baxter positively started as he caught sight of her. mrs. baxter even, felt a little taken aback, not by the woman herself, but by her clothes, the quality of which her feminine acuteness was not slow to estimate as it deserved. into such particulars of course mr. baxter, in common with his sex, did not enter, but the effect of the whole, the tout ensemble presented by “baldwin’s wife,” struck him with admiration and surprise.
“country-bred!” he muttered to himself. “it seems to me, my dear sophia, you have made a little mistake hereabouts.”
for though the range of his ideas was not so limited, nor their circle so circumscribed, as was the case with those possessed by his wife. brain work of any kind, even though it be confined to invoices and shipping-orders, and never soar above the usual round of mercantile interests and excitements, having an innate tendency to develop generally the mental faculties and widen their grasp.
the “family dinner” was a very gorgeous affair. besides mr. and mrs. william and the “trollopy maria jane,” there were some six or eight of the habitués of the baxter circle, making in all a company of fourteen or fifteen guests.
dinner announced, marion, to her surprise, and the secret chagrin of the observant hostess, found herself selected by mr. baxter to occupy the place of honour at his right. just, however, as she was placing her hand on the old gentleman’s arm, to her amazement a sudden rush (if so undignified a word may be applied to the movements of so stately a lady) was made from the other side of the room by mrs. baxter and a tall man, to whom she had the look of acting as a small but energetic tug. the pair pushed their way to the front of the company, and marion beheld for the first time the unusual spectacle of the hostess preceding her guests to her own dining-room. mrs. baldwin’s cheeks, despite her philosophy, flushed.
“can this,” she said to herself, “be done intentionally to insult me? i don’t mind for myself, but if geoffrey thinks that little woman is rude to me it will make him so angry, and our coming here will have done more harm than good.”
somewhat anxiously she glanced up at mr. baxter’s face, to see what he thought of this extraordinary procedure on the part of his wife. the worthy gentleman was smiling blandly, and modestly made way for the advancing couples, as one by one they filed out of the room, till at last, his sheep-dog occupation at an end, he and his bewildered charge brought up the rear, and, crossing the tesselated hall, through a double row of jeamses, took their places at table.
evidently nothing in what had occurred had in the least astonished him. the whole, therefore, must have been thoroughly “en regle,” according to millington ideas. “truly,” thought mistress marion to herself, sententiously, as her gaze fell first on the splendour of the table appointments and next on the faces surrounding her, and she began to realize something of the wonders of cottonocracy, the talent and energy which have made it what it is, the extraordinary contrasts and inconsistencies discernible in its social aspects. “truly,” thought to herself “the wife of one of mr. baxter’s clerks,” “ ‘we live and learn and do the wiser grow.’ ” glancing across the table she caught sight at the other end of geoffrey’s face, and a smile on it brought a bright expression to her own. he looked cheery and comfortable enough, which it relieved her to see; and in the very bottom of her heart she, though sitting there as “grandly dressed,” as the children say, as any at table, felt not a little glad that for once in a way her poor boy was sure of a really good dinner and as many glasses of excellent wine as his extremely temperate habits would allow him to consume.
for, with all her housewifely care, their living at mrs. appleby’s was necessarily of the plainest, and sometimes marion had sharp misgivings that this, among other things, was beginning to tell on geoffrey’s health. he professed to dine, or lunch, in millington, but as often as not his wife suspected that the so-called meal was nothing more substantial than a biscuit; for all their funds passed through her hands, and out of the infinitesimal sum which was all she could persuade him to appropriate to his personal expenses, very few luncheons worthy of the name, it was evident even to her inexperience, could be provided.
one of these sudden misgivings visited her just now, as glancing again in her husband’s direction she observed attentively his face, this time turned from her. surely the profile was sharper than of yore, the cheek-bone more defined, the hollow round the eye, strangely deeper? a sort of mist came before her sight, and into her mind there flashed one of those commonplace sayings, household aphorisms, to which, till they touch us practically, we pay so little heed. “it is not always the strongest-looking men that stand the most or are the wiriest,” she had heard said a hundred times, without considering the meaning of the words. now, however, they suddenly started before her, invested with new force and significance, and she was rapidly falling into a painful reverie, when she was recalled to present surroundings by the fat, commonplace voice of her host, remarking to her by way of saying something original, that “he hoped she liked millington.”
much in the same words as she had replied to the same observation on the part of mrs baxter, marion answered. “oh, yes, she liked it very well. doubtless, in time, she would like it better.”
“when you have made a few more friends here, perhaps,” said the gentleman civilly. “i am sorry my wife was so long of calling on you, but to tell you the truth it was not till lately i was aware my friend baldwin was married.” (a fib, of course, or at least three-quarters of one.)
“it was very kind of mrs. baxter to call,” said marion, with a simple dignity that was not lost on her hearer. “and you, i know, mr. baxter, have been very kind to geoffrey. when we came here, of course, it was with no idea of living in any but the most retired way. i hardly, indeed, expected to make any acquaintances at all.”
“an expectation which, for the sake of millington, i certainly trust may not be fulfilled,” replied mr. baxter gallantly.
marion smiled, and accepted the good-natured little compliment with her usual unaffectedness.
“you have been accustomed to a country life, i believe?” continued the host.
“no,” replied she. “till the last two years i lived principally in london.”
“indeed!” remarked the gentleman, and forthwith discarded the poor-country-clergy-man’s-daughter hypothesis. sophia had been at fault somehow, he began to feel sure. he rather enjoyed the idea of reminding her of her “nice enough young person.” but in the first place he must make sure of his own ground.
“your father, i believe, ma’am, was in the church?” he enquired, gingerly.
“oh no,” she replied, good-naturedly still, though beginning to think that all this cross-questioning must surely be another peculiarity of millington manners. “my father was not a clergyman. at one time of his life i believe it was proposed he should go into the church, as one of his uncle’s livings was vacant; but he did not like the idea, and never entered any profession, unless you call politics such.”
“very hard work and very poor pay, any way,” replied mr. baxter, rubbing his hands in a self-gratulatory manner. “i thank my stars i had never anything to say to them. then your late father, ma’am, was, i suppose, a hem p.?”
“yes,” said marion, simply, “for ——. my father’s name was vere—hartford vere.”
“you don’t say so. i beg your pardon,” exclaimed mr. baxter, though why he did so marion could not quite understand. upon my soul.” (“ah, sophia, i shall have a little crow to pluck with you.”) “very strange,” audibly again. “very strange i never heard it. a great loss to his country, a very great loss, was mr. vere. your father! well, to be sure. ah, indeed.” and with a series of such little detached, fragmentary observations the worthy gentleman composed his somewhat startled nerves.
the rest of dinner passed uneventfully enough.
marion got on decidedly better with the gentleman than she had done with the lady. and mr. baxter, on his part, mentally pronounced her a most charming woman.
geoffrey’s neighbour at table was the maria jane, so cuttingly described by her aunt as “trollopy.” she was tall certainly, for her age, rather alarmingly so, with the possibility in prospect of continuing to grow some four or five years to come. and thin, very thin, “lanky,” to use another of mrs. baxter’s favourite expressions. but at her age thinness, lankiness even, if the word be preferred, has, when coupled with gentleness and perfect absence of affectation, to my mind a certain touching, appealing sweetness of its own. but this, of course, is a matter of opinion. it may be very bad taste, but i have rather a horror off fat young girls.
maria jane baxter was, however, really and truly a very sweet girl. geoffrey’s heart she very speedily won, for before they had been ten minutes at table, she asked him timidly if he could tell her the name of “the lovely young lady on her uncle’s right.”
so he and she, as might have been expected from this auspicious commencement, very speedily made friends; and when the ladies retired after dinner to the drawing-room, maria jane took care to establish herself in a modest corner not far from mr. baldwin’s attractive wife.
the conversation of the elder ladies was to marion so utterly uninteresting, to say the least, that it was with a feeling of immense relief that she heard herself accosted by name by a gentle voice, asking if she would like to examine a collection of really beautiful engravings in a portfolio on the table. mrs. baldwin responded cordially to the young girl’s modest attention.
over the engravings they fell into conversation.
“do you draw, miss baxter?” marion happened to ask.
“a little,” replied the girl. “that is, i am very fond of it, and my master thinks i have taste for it. but lately i have had to give it up, as at the school where i am now they were afraid of its making me stoop.”
“then you are at a boarding-school, i suppose?” enquired marion. “i was never at school myself; but sometimes, being an only daughter, i used to wish my father would send me. are you happy at your school?”
“very,” replied maria, heartily. “it is a very nice school. it is not like those you read of, where the girls are harshly treated. we have such pretty little bed-rooms; only two in each. i have a little girl in mine, whom i take care of. she has only lately come, and at first she was very lonely. poor lotty! but now she is getting accustomed to it. she is very fond of me, poor child!”
maria felt so perfectly at ease with her new friend, that she waxed communicative in a wonderful way.
“ ‘lotty,’ did you say your name was?” said marion. “i once knew a little girl named lotty.”
what memories, what associations the simple word recalled! “lotty,” mrs. baldwin repeated, half mechanically. “what is her other name, miss baxter?”
“severn,” replied the girl. “lotty severn, charlotte severn, that is to say,” she added, glibly. “she is an orphan. her father was a baronet, and now her uncle is one. she has always been brought up at home till lately. but about six months ago her little sister—”
maria stopped, something in mrs. baldwin’s look of intense interest arrested her.
“her little sister—sybil—yes, i know,” exclaimed marion. “go on, please, miss baxter. i want to hear very much. you don’t know how much. only don’t say that sybil——.”
“i don’t like to tell you,” said maria, looking frightened and half ready to cry.
“please go on,” repeated her companion.
“this little sister—lotty severn’s little sister, sybil, she has often told me her name— don’t look so, dear mrs. baldwin, you frighten me—little sybil died six months ago. that was why they sent lotty to school. she was pining so for her sister.”
“oh, sybil, my dear little sybil, my poor little dove!” moaned marion to herself, but softly, so softly that no one of the millington ladies at the other end of the room could have suspected the sad little tragedy taking place so near them. “so you are gone, my little girl, my gentle darling! and i not to have known it! could you not have stopped an instant on your way to kiss me goodbye, as you used to say? and the only creature left to him to love,” she murmured, in a yet more inaudible whisper, though her former words had hardly reached the oars of the sympathizing girl beside her.
for a few moments there was silence at the little side table, whereon lay the book of costly engravings. then marion, with a strong effort, recovered herself, and looking up, said gently:
“forgive me, miss baxter. i loved that little girl very much, and, till now, i had no idea of this. will you be so very good as tell me all poor lotty told you about—about her sister.”
“lotty does not very often speak about her,” said maria. “i was told not to encourage her to do so very much as it makes her cry dreadfully. so i don’t know many particulars. she was not ill very long—not at last—though i believe she was always delicate?”
marion assented silently.
“she died of some sort of fever,” went on miss baxter. “lotty might not see her to say goodbye, but poor little sybil sent her a kiss two hours before she died. she was very fond of her uncle, lotty says, but he was abroad at the time.”
“did lotty ever happen to mentions to you any one else sybil was very fond of?” asked marion.
“yes,” said the girl, after some consideration. “there was a governess they had abroad. i forget her name. lotty said sybil cried for her when she was ill. and she sent goodbye and a kiss to her by lotty. but lotty thinks the lady went to india. her grandmother, who takes care of her, told her so.”
“will you do me a little favour, miss baxter?” said marion.
the girl assented eagerly.
“when you see lotty severn next—(you are returning to school soon?” “the day after to-morrow,” said maria)—“tell her that, without her knowing it, dear sybil’s last message has been delivered. tell her, too, that marion freer has never forgotten her two little pupils and will always love them. and if, dear miss baxter, you will continue to how kindness to poor lotty, it will be very good of you. you will have my gratitude if no one’s else.”
“you may be sure i will do all i can for her,” said the girl warmly. “and i will give her your message.”
“thank you very much,” said marion, adding, as she was obliged to turn towards the rest of the company, for the gentlemen had just entered the room, and mr. baxter was bearing down upon her, “you won’t mind my asking you not to mention what we have been talking about to any one?”
“certainly, i will not,” answered maria. “i would not have done so even if you had not asked it.” for the girl felt instinctively that her disclosure had trenched on sacred ground, and from what she had gathered of mrs. baldwin’s history from geoffrey’s allusions during dinner, she was quite aware that it had been a somewhat eventful one.
“thank you,” again said marion, and for an instant pressed the young girl’s hand in her own.
and the poor clerk’s beautiful wife and the rich man’s young daughter, though they had never seen each other before, and would, probably enough, never see each other again, felt more like friends than many women who have lived for years in each other’s constant companionship.
