Lady Davers

“ Danvers, in ecstasy, 'what dost thou and our daughter think of that? Did I not say that Mr. Wates meant marriage, and nothing else but marriage—and was not I right? Thou shalt have her, sir, with a father's blessing, and I will pray for thee the longest day I have to live. Fall on thy knees, mother Danvers—fall on thy knees, and thank the kind, good, generous gentleman. Daughter, why dost thou stand there and say nothing? Did I not always say thou wast born to be a lady?'
"'For the sake of human nature, Mr. Wates,' said Mary, 'I will suppose that your intentions are now honourable. ”

“ And it is the same in all the others, while the centre of Helen is the girl herself. Yet the other characters are no less admirably drawn, with the old delicacy and firmness of touch, the occasional quaint gleams of humour. In its way Miss Edgeworth never limned a finer portrait than that of Lady Davenant, the large-brained, large-hearted woman of the world, endowed with strong principle, keen sense and real vigour of character, mingled with prejudice, impulsive likes and dislikes, an imperfect adherence in practice to her own theories of right and wrong, and a stern power of self- judgment. ”

“ But his emotions were of no tragic strength, and, as Lady Barnes had complained to Mrs. French, he was now honestly in love with Daphne and his child.
So that he had nothing but impatience and annoyance for the recollection of the visit of the afternoon; and Daphne's attitude distressed him. Why, she was as pale as a ghost! His thoughts sent Chloe Fairmile to the deuce.
"Look here, dear!" he said, kneeling down suddenly beside his wife—"don't you get any nonsense into your head. I'm not the kind of fellow who goes philandering after a woman when she's jilted him. ”

“ And now there are three or four people coming to dinner, Mr. and Mrs. Davenant, Jack—I mean Mr. Newcombe—and that strange girl, Una. What a lovely creature she is! Do you know I rather think she will become Mrs. Stephen Davenant.”
“She is a very nice girl,” said Mrs. Fellowes. “She ought to make a good match.”
“Ay de me,” said Lady Bell, with a sigh. “I’m sick of that word. Men and women don’t ‘marry’ now, they make ‘good matches.’ My dear, I hate your worldly way of looking at matrimony. If I were a poor girl, I’d marry the man of my heart, if he hadn’t a penny. ”

“ The old lady shook her head slowly.
“One might say so, if one knew the world less well than I do,” she said shortly. “But a handsome wife can do a lot one way or the other with a man.”
“What makes you think Miss Davison’s influence would be other than good?” asked Gerard.
The old lady put her head on one side and looked at him keenly.
“Perhaps it’s a kind of instinct, as one may say,” said she. “Or perhaps it’s something I’ve noticed and wondered at. She’s by way of being a bit of a flirt, isn’t she now, Mr. Buckland? She’s been nice to you, and nice to Denver, of course. ”

“ Reeder had expected. "I used to see a lot of Mr. Daver before then," said the driver. "In the old times I had a horse cab, and I was always driving him about. He used to work like a galley slave—on the farm in the morning, down in the town buying things in the afternoon. He was more like a servant than a master. He used to meet all the trains when visitors arrived— and they had a lot of visitors in those days, more than they have now. Sometimes he went up to London to bring them down. He always went to meet Miss Crewe when the young lady was at school." ”

“ Friends, relations, guardians interpose, obstacles of every kind arise, which can only be overcome by gaining that wealth and station, the want of which is the impediment."
"Not so, not so!" replied Lady Danvers, eagerly. "Let her he loves be nobly firm, and bold in affection. Let her do as your mother did; and, if there be competence, there will be happiness; but really, let us look about us. ”

“ Davy flushed with confusion. He was in a franker mood now, however. "I'd like to think that," he replied. "But I don't honestly believe it."
"You think that if Victor Dorn loved a woman of our class he'd put her out of his life?"
"That's hardly worth discussing," said Davy. "No woman of our class—no woman he'd be likely to look at—would encourage him to the point where he'd presume upon it."
"How narrow you are!" cried Jane, derisive but even more angry.
"It's different—entirely different—with a man, even in our class. But a woman of our class—she's a lady or she's nothing at all. ”

“ Tell me, Pat. Why don't you marry?" Danvers started, and his pipe fell to the ground. "Marringer says you should."
Marringer was the housemaid who had 'gone with the house'.
Subduing the impulse to request that Marringer should be dismissed the next morning at eight o'clock, Danvers picked up his pipe and moistened his lips.
"Perhaps," he said, "I'm not a marrying man. Some people aren't, you know."
"That's what I said," said Stephanie, lighting a cigarette. "But she said you were. She said she'd watched you, while she was helping Gravel, and that what you wanted was a wife." ”

“ In 1767, a gentleman, named Davers, (who was descended from Sir Robert Davers, of Roughham, in the county of Suffolk, bart.) died at the Angel Inn, Islington, by poison. A card, which he was seen to write a few hours before his death, contained the following words:—"Descended from an ancient and honourable family, I have, for fifteen years past, suffered more indigence than ever gentleman before submitted to. I am neglected by my acquaintance, traduced by my enemies, and insulted by the vulgar." ”

“ The Damereau footman threw open the door for her, and she went up to the show-room. A lady in plain black silk, but than which nothing could be more rich of its kind, with a small cap on her head of costly lace, and lappets of the same, disengaged herself from a group, to whom she was talking, and came forward, bowing; such bows as only a Frenchwoman can achieve. It was Madame Damereau. A clever-looking woman, with a fair skin, and broad smooth forehead.
What could she have the honour of doing today for Madame Dalreemp? ”

“ Daver," she said, "and I don't suppose for one moment that I shall suit you, I have had no experience in hotel management, and I realise, from the salary you offer——"
"Quiet," said Mr. Daver, shaking his head solemnly: "that is what I require. There is very little work, but I wished to be relieved even of that little. My own labours"—he waved his hand to a pedestal desk littered with paper—"are colossal. I need a lady to keep accounts—to watch my interests. Somebody I can trust. I believe in faces, do you? I see that you do. ”

“ Darvy did not choose to abandon her mistress in her sickness and misfortunes, but Darvy considered herself the most ill-used lady's-maid that fate ever produced. Buried alive in this dismal place in a foreign country, where the companions with whom she consorted, the other domestics, spoke a language that was barbarous and unintelligible, Darvy wondered when it would end.
"I don't want it," said Adela, turning away.
"But Lady Harriet says you must take it, my lady. You'll never get your strength up, if you refuse nourishment."
"I don't care to get my strength up. ”

“ The lady was Ellen Kinvig, known of old to all and sundry as Nelly, Ness, or Nell, but now to everybody concerned as Mistress Capt’n Davy Quiggin, six-and-twenty years of age, tall, comely, as blooming as the gorse; once as free as the air, and as racy of the soil as new-cut peat, but suddenly grown stately, smooth, refined, proud, and reserved. ”

“ Cecilia might wish most sincerely that I should live with her, and I am convinced she does; but her husband must be considered.”
“True,” said Lady Davenant—“true; a husband is certainly a thing to be cared for—in Scottish phrase, and General Clarendon is no doubt a person to be considered,—but it seems that I am not a person to be considered in your arrangements.”
Even the altered, dry, and almost acrid tone in which Lady Davenant spoke, and the expression of disappointment in her countenance—were, as marks of strong affection, deeply gratifying to Helen. Lady Davenant went on. ”

“ When a week had gone by and no word had come from Stephanie, Danvers wrote her three letters and tore the lot of them up. This demonstrates pretty well his condition of mind. He had also become sharply suspicious of the telephone-clerk employed at the College of Arms. Finally, he cancelled a visit which he was to have paid to an aunt. This upset the aunt and his housekeeper: Danvers would not have cared if it had occasioned a war. Until he knew where he was, the man was not going to leave Town. ”

“ Davenant stammered, and fidgeted speechlessly.
“Ah!” said Lady Bell, quickly, in the same low tone. “You think I’m rude and ill-bred. They all do when I ask a simple question, or show the slightest interest in anything.” She glanced at Una lingeringly: “I mustn’t ask, I suppose?”
“I—I—she is new to London,” said Mrs. Davenant. “It is her first day——”
“Her first day!” echoed Lady Bell, her eyes twinkling. “Do you mean that she was never in London before? How I envy her; I who am sick and weary of it! Yes, the glamour is on her; I can see it in her eyes—on her face. ”

“ Davenant, I count upon you.”
“But—but I cannot go out, Lady Earlsley—I am in mourning.”
Lady Bell sighed impatiently.
“I am so sorry! I have never set my heart upon anything so much in my life,” she said. “Something tells me that we shall be great friends! Are you fond of jewels, lace, books?—what are you specially fond of?” And she seemed to dazzle Una with her smile. “You shall see them all—everything. Yes, let her come, and I will take such care of her as if she were something too precious to be touched; she shall not leave my side all the evening. Let her come, Mrs. Davenant!” ”

“ Danvers was no Don Quixote, but he was a decent man. His tastes were simple and his life was quiet, but he was no fool. By no means worldly, he was yet a man of the world—that is to say, he could expect, recognise and contemplate without horror the failings of mankind. He had all the man of the world's flair for letting ill alone. No one knew better than he that chivalry is stone-dead and that such as seek to revive it are riding for a fall. Yet in Stephanie's case he was going to interfere. ”

“ The beauty which goes with brown hair and a more or less dark complexion is not so startling, not so sensational, as the loveliness of pink and white and gold which made Mrs. Dale so conspicuous. If again, she had not been in mourning, and such pretty mourning, they would have been readier to make allowance for her eccentricities. But the knowing ones had begun to discover that there were discrepancies in her attire, that her mourning was either too deep for diamond rings to be permissible, or not deep enough for the heavy black veil she wore. ”

“ Rose reckoned on inflaming her friend’s mind with her own zeal, and inwardly proposed orgies of competitive trunk-filling to while away the visitor’s time.
Mrs. Rose secretly hoped, too, that Mrs. Haybrow, through her connections at Todcaster, would be able to furnish her husband with proofs that Mrs. Dale was not a person to be encouraged. It was not yet too late to put off Mrs. Dale, although Mr. Rose had called upon that person to thank her for the invitation to his daughter and to accept it. ”

“ Danvers could have ground his teeth.
Instead—
"Marringer," he said unsteadily, "is talking through her hat. It's—it's very kind of her to take so much interest in me, but——"
"Oh, but she loves you," said Stephanie. "They all do. I didn't know Mrs. Gravel had seen you, but she has and she thinks you're wonderful, Pat."
Danvers laid down his pipe and casually mopped his face.
"You shouldn't listen to servants," he said. "If more people came here——"
"They're very respectful," said Stephanie. "Besides, Forsyth thinks so too. He told me he knew no man for whom he had a higher respect." ”

“ Davenant and Jane entered into a consultation as to what Una should wear, Una standing by with a quiet smile.
At last they decided that a dainty-figured satin should be honored; and both of them, notwithstanding Una’s protests, insisted upon assisting at her toilet.
They could not have chosen anything more suited to her fresh, virginal beauty than the simple, delicate dress; and when Jane had brushed the soft, silken hair until it shone and flashed like strands of golden haze, and coiled it into a knot, Mrs. Davenant could not suppress an exclamation of satisfaction and admiration. ”

“ Whilst she thus amused herself with one and another of her varlets, she affected more prudery and chastity than any other lady of the Court, having none but words of virtue on her lips, speaking ill of all other women and finding something to be censured in each of them. Very similar to this one was that great lady of Dauphiné who is mentioned in the Hundred Tales of the Queen of Navarre, and who was found, lying on the grass with her stableman or muleteer, by a gentleman who was in love with her to distraction. On finding her thus, however, he was speedily cured of his love-sickness. ”

“ Daver, and when that gentleman arrived, Mr. Reeder had to tell him that he had a lot of work to do and request the loan of blotting-pad and a special writing-table for his room. Margaret wondered why he had not asked her, but she supposed that it was because he did not know that such things came into her province.
"You're a great writer, Mr. Reeder—he-he!" Daver was convulsed at his own little joke. "So am I! I am never happy without a pen in my hand. Tell me, as a matter of interest, do you do your best work in the morning or in the evening? ”