Lady George

“ Jessie. Do you think our aunt Clara has growed into a coxsy town lady, George?
George. No, I do not, Miss Jessie.
Emily. [Beginning to stir about noisily as she sets the kitchen in order.] Get off with you to the field, Thomas, can’t you. I’ve had enough to do as ’tis without a great hulking man standing about and taking up all the room.
Thomas. Come, George, us’ll clear out down to th’ hay field, and snatch a bite as we do go.
George. That’s it, master.
Emily. [Calling angrily after them.] There’s no dinner for no one to-day, I tell you. ”

“ Versatile (Sir George) , a scholar, pleasing in manners, warm-hearted, generous, with the seeds of virtue and the soul of honor, but being deficient in stability, he takes his color, like the chameleon, from the objects at hand. Thus, with Maria Delaval, he is manly, frank, affectionate, and noble; with Lord Vibrate, hesitating, undecided, and tossed with doubts; with Lady Vibrate, boisterously gay, extravagant, and light-hearted. Sir George is betrothed to Maria Delaval, but the death of his father delays the marriage. He travels, and gives a fling to youthful indulgences. ”

“ Ah, my lady, what a charming thing to have
such a lover—Sir George prevents every wish—
he must make the best of husbands.
LADY CAROLINE.
And yet my father wishes to break off the
marriage—he talks of his prodigality—and, certainly,
Sir George lives above his income. ”

“ Luke. And hark you here, George, was naught mentioned about Miss Clara’s fine suitors in neither of them letters?
George. That I cannot say, Master Jenner.
Miles. Nothing of their swarming thick around her up in London, George?
George. They may be swarming by the thousand for aught as I do know. They smells gold as honey bees do smell the blossom. Us’ll have a good few of them a-buzzing round the farm afore we’re many hours older, so I counts.
Miles. Well, George, that’ll liven up the place a bit, I don’t doubt.
Luke. ’Tis a bit of quiet and no livening as Ox Lease do want. ”

“ George. She who be just gone from out of the room, Master Robin, and none other.
Thomas. Come, George, this talk do sound so foolish.
George. I can’t help that, master. Foolish deeds do call for foolish words, may be.
Miles. My pretty Miss is almost fainting, I declare. [He pours out water for Joan and bends affectionately over her.] Put the drunken fellow outside and let’s have an end of this.
George. [Advancing.] Yes, us’ll have an end to it very shortly. But I be going to put a straight question to the maid first, and ’tis a straight answer as her’ll have to give me in reply. ”

“ George said brokenly: “I have given you no reason.”
Mr. Marrapit replied on a grim tone: “Assuredly you have not.”
George glanced at Note 6; fled from the danger zone.
“Where I fear the mistake was made in Mrs. Major,” he hurried, “was that she was not a perfect lady. Our—forgive me for saying 'our'—our cats are refined cats, cats of gentle birth, of inherent delicacy. Their attendant should be of like breeding. She should be refined, her birth should be gentle, her feelings delicate. She should be a lady.”
“You are right,” Mr. Marrapit said. ”

“ Mr. George devoted himself to her. This evening they met at Lady Blake’s. Launa was quickly surrounded by her friends, by her enemies, and people who could be either, had they known her. She was charming—the self-possession of a duchess, combined with the amiability and cleverness of the unknown woman wishing to be successful.
Mr. George was amusing them by relating the triumphs of the interviewer.
He had been the one to hear the aims and aspirations of the newest “Lady Temperance Lecturer.”
“Is she a Lady Temperance Lecturer?” he asked, “or a Temperance Lady Lecturer? ”

“ George. ’Tis over to Brook as I be going, masters, to fetch back a couple of young chicken. Ourn be mostly old fowls, or pullets what do lay.
Luke. I never heard tell of young chicken being ate up at Ox Lease afore July was in.
George. Nor me neither, master. Never heared nor seed such a thing. But mistress, her says, you can’t sit a maid from town at table unless there be poultry afore of she. They be rare nesh in their feeding, maids from town, so mistress do say.
Miles. That just brings us to our little matter, George. When is it that you expect the young lady? ”

“ George. If it was a question of introductions Miss Fancourt—apparently as yet unmarried—was far away, while the wife of his illustrious confrère was almost between them. This lady struck Paul Overt as altogether pretty, with a surprising juvenility and a high smartness of aspect, something that—he could scarcely have said why—served for mystification. St. George certainly had every right to a charming wife, but he himself would never have imagined the important little woman in the aggressively Parisian dress the partner for life, the alter ego, of a man of letters. ”

“ Well, now—but that’s a smartish wench, getting him out so quiet, like. George, you’d best step after them to see as the young man don’t annoy her in any way.
Emily. That young person can take good care of herself. Sit you down, Thomas and George, and get on with your eating, if you can.
Jessie. Why did he think Joan was our aunt, mother?
Emily. ’Cause he was in that state when a man don’t know his right leg from his left arm.
George. [Who has remained standing.] Look you here, Master Thomas—see here mistress. ’Tis time as there was an end of this cursed play acting, or whatever ’tis called. ”

“ If you was my serving wench, ’tis neck and crop as you should be thrown from the door.
Clara. What for, mistress?
Emily. What for? You have the impudence to ask what for? I’ll soon tell you. For making a fool of George and setting your cap at him and scandalising of my innocent children in their own kitchen.
George. This be going a bit too far, missis. I’ll not have things said like that.
Emily. Then you may turn out on to the roads where you were took from—a grizzling little roadsters varmint. You do cost more’n what you eats nor what we get of work from out of your body, you great hulk. ”

“ The journey to New York was made at the appointed time, in company with Henriet and her little one. George had risen to the rank of lieutenant in the army, and had acquired a military bearing that considerably increased the manliness of his appearance. He was browned by exposure to sun and wind; but he so strongly resembled her handsome Gerald, that Rosa longed to clasp him to her heart. His wife's appearance evidently took him by surprise. "How you have changed!" he exclaimed. "What a lady you are! ”

“ For a more foolish figure of a goose never was cut. A man might tell when ’twas his own sister, if so be as he had his full senses upon him.
Thomas. Never you mind, Emily. What I says to George is, he baint th’ only fox. How now, my lad?
George. I don’t see what you be driving at, master.
Thomas. [Slyly.] What about that bit of blue ribbon, George?
Clara. Yes, Thomas. Ask Georgie if he will give it back to me.
George. [Stepping forward till he is by Clara’s side.] No, and that I will not do. ’Tis little enough as I holds, but what little, I’ll keep it.
Clara. [To George.] ”

“ Luke. Nay, but there’s only one maid what’s expected.
George. Miss Clara, what’s master’s sister; and the serving wench of she.
Miles. Well, George, ’twas a great day for your master when old Madam Lovel took little Miss Clara to be bred up as one of the quality.
George. A water plant do grow best by the stream, and a blossom, from the meadows, midst the grass. Let each sort bide in the place where ’twas seeded. ”

“ Its great charm was its simple and touching truthfulness, and the letter, whether forwarded to George by the Prussian king, or laid before him by his mother the princess-dowager, is said to have had such an influence on his mind, as to at once inspire him with feelings of admiration for the writer. After praising it, the King exclaimed to Lord Hertford: ‘This is the lady whom I shall select for my consort—here are lasting beauties—the man who has any mind may feast and not be satisfied. ”

“ O that she has, George.
Jessie. She didn’t seem to know him by her looks.
Clara. Looks often speak but poorly for the heart.
Robin. [Who has been watching Clara.] See there, Joan. You’ve been and cut that big tater right in half. Mother will be cross.
Clara. O dear, I am thoughtless. One cannot work and talk at the same time.
George. [Taking basket and knife from her and seating himself on the edge of the table.] Here,—give them all to me. I understand such work, and ’tis clear that you do not. I’ll finish them off in a few minutes, and mistress will never be the wiser. ”

“ What can he say? Is it not plain that he is false to another woman? They talked lower; but at last Sir George raised his voice, and said, he would give half his estate to have the villain punished—All this, madam, I over-heard by mere accident. Sir George was going abroad; his linen was lying ready for him in his dressing-room; and his man desired me to put a stitch in one of his master’s point ruffles which was a little ripped in the gathering. I had come up the back stairs into the dressing-room, just as my lady (who was with Sir George in the bed-chamber) said the words I first repeated ”

“ Harris, as he occasionally explains to George and to myself, has daughters of his own, or, to speak more correctly, a daughter, who as the years progress will no doubt cease practising catherine wheels in the front garden, and will grow up into a beautiful and respectable young lady. This naturally gives Harris an interest in all beautiful girls up to the age of thirty-five or thereabouts; they remind him, so he says, of home. ”

“ The Englishman and his wife, in spite of Spanish modes, are seen trotting comfortably along the Alameda, on a Sunday, arm-in-arm, as if at home.
Neither is it the fashion for gentlemen to escort the ladies, but to the theatre, or public places: their visits and shopping are in company only with their own sex. If a fair lady should wave this rule, and allow us to proceed by their side for a few streets, it would be the height of vulgarity to offer the arm. In England we have other notions of gentility.
At the ball room, the females sit together, when not engaged in dancing. ”

“ Men come back from far, my good woman; witness the squire Freeheart, who came back to us from Rome last Candlemas."
And Mary, the armourer's daughter, having admired George, went up to her maiden room, and kneeling then before the image of the Holy Virgin: "Holy Virgin," she said, "grant me a husband like this young lord."
Every one spoke in their own way of the return of George, so much so that the news flew from mouth to mouth to the ears of the Duchess, who was then walking in the orchard. ”

“ Southey, he was, through the urgence of friends, and at the solicitation of Sir Robert Peel, induced to accept the post of Poet Laureate—going up to London, at the age of seventy-three, to kiss the hand of the young Queen, in recognition of that honor. This young Queen, then in her twenty-fourth year, was her present gracious lady, Victoria, who had succeeded to her bluff sailor-uncle, {345} William IV., in 1837, and to her sorrier uncle, George IV., who had died in 1830. ”

“ Yet place an infant in the heart of China and, but for the angle of the eye or the shade of the hair, the Caucasian would grow up as those around him, using the same speech, thinking the same thoughts, exhibiting the same tastes. Change Lady Vere de Vere in her cradle with an infant of the slum and will the blood of a hundred earls give you a refined and cultured woman? ”

“ Performers, at times, in Buenos Ayres, announce their own benefits—even the females. A lady will address the audience with all the earnestness so important an occasion demands, and will go round the house, delivering bills of the intended performance, couched in high-flown language, “To the immortal and respectable public of Buenos Ayres,” &c. &c. They know how to “bill the town,” as well as any English country manager. Previous to a benefit night, they have a custom of illuminating the front of the theatre, and exhibiting a transparency of the proposed representation ”

“ A very pleasing practice exists, of giving flowers to visitors, as a mark of respect: some fair lady hands a rose or tulip. I recollect, a charming girl gave me a rose, a few days after my arrival, and my vanity was not a little gratified by it ”

“ Once, it is said, when she had not seen her Royal lover for some days she even disguised herself as a servant and intercepted him in one of the corridors of the Palace. The coy and cold maiden who had told the King that she "thought nothing" of his advances, had developed into the veriest coquette who ever set her heart on winning a man. Such is the strange waywardness of woman; and by such revolutions she often courts her own defeat.
That King George still remained as infatuated as ever is quite probable. ”

“ He recalled the fact that on one of the occasions when the princess and himself had invited me to Marlborough House, his wife had held up little Prince George, in whose honor we were this night assembled, and bade him kiss me, so that in after life he might say that he had ‘kissed the famous Madame Patti.’ And then, do you know, that whole company of royalty, nobility, and men of genius rose and cheered me and drank my health. Don’t you think that any little woman would be proud, and ought to be proud, of a spontaneous tribute like that? ”