Miss Berry

“ Turn about’s fair play the world over. You tried to shut me out of Crumplesea, and now I’m shutting you in—in your own veranda.”
“What do you want of me, that you have had the impudence to come here and to play me such a trick as you have done?” asked Berry, with cool scorn. “No! don’t come any nearer; keep your distance, please; you are quite too close for comfort as it is.” ”

“ I perceive that you have as much to learn as myself. Mr. Berry has not taken you into further confidence than he has given to me. Pardon my excitement. I have been exceedingly ill, and my nerves are not steady. I must try a course of walks in your Lipthwaite air, and see what that will do for me.”
“Arthur Lygon,” said Mrs. Berry, “it is impossible for me, with any poor words I may possess, to tell you how my heart bleeds for you. What you have just said about Mr. Berry, and about his withholding confidence from me is, I grieve to assure you, utterly beside the mark. ”

“ In 1865 was published ‘Extracts from the Journals and Correspondence of Miss Berry from 1783 to 1852, edited by Lady Theresa Lewis.’ Portraits of Mary Berry at different ages, from girlhood to eighty-six, enable us to realise something of her personal charm. Those who would see an effigy of her at her very best should turn to the classic bust of her in white marble sculptured by the Hon. Anne Seymour Damer for Horace Walpole, who regarded it as one of his most precious treasures. ”

“ Berry to Lygon; “but she should know that big folks often do and say things which little folks must not imitate.”
Her husband’s glance at her was a downright savage one, almost evil.
“If Clara learns nothing worse in this house but what she will learn from me, she will not come to much harm. I can’t say as much for everybody.”
Mrs. Berry perfectly comprehended the meaning, that did not lie on the surface, but smiled and said:
“Mr. Berry is very properly thinking of the servants, with whom it is objectionable that a very young person should hold much intercourse. ”

“ To-day Miss Berry's buildings and equipments represent an investment of two hundred thousand dollars. More than a thousand boys have come to this school and gone back to the mountains to help reclaim their people from the ignorance and superstition into which they had fallen. A girls' school has also been established in connection with this, and there are in it fifty girls. Miss Berry has raised thirty-five thousand dollars every year to keep the work going. Hundreds of boys and girls of the mountain districts of Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama and Virginia are pleading to enter this school. ”

“ Berry, know you too well to believe anything that you would not like believed.”
“Mrs. Berry is exceedingly, I fear dangerously ill, and under other circumstances I should not be in London. But I have a duty to do, and I am obliged to take the most direct means of doing it, in order to be able to return to Lipthwaite at the earliest moment. Your husband and Mr. Lygon being both absent from England, I am compelled to see you, Mrs. Hawkesley, upon the subject in question, and you will I know forgive me.” ”

“ Berry does not mean to go,” said Beatrice, in the most straightforward manner, “until she has tried to do more mischief than she can manage by lady-like conversations with servants and anonymous letters to tradespeople.
“Dear Mrs. Hawkesley,” replied Mrs. Berry, “do you think that I can be displeased with you for doing and saying everything in your power in favour of your poor sister, or for being hurt to the very soul at hearing anything on the subject. I should be a worse woman than I hope I am if I could cherish a spark of anger against one who is being so bitterly tried. ”

“ I nodded.
"Casualties?"
"Nil," said I. "Everything in the garden is lovely."
"No doubt," said Berry. "And the servants' hall? I suppose that's a shambles."
"Don't be silly," said I. "He's as good as gold."
"There you are," said Jill staunchly.
"Cupboard love," said Berry. "You wait till we come in. I shouldn't be surprised if he concentrated on me. They always aim high. It will be your duty," he added, turning to Daphne, "to suck the wound. That is a wife's privilege."
"The best thing," said Jonah, "is to hold a cigarette-end to the place."
"I beg your pardon," said Berry. ”

“ She wanted one to pour her feelings out to. She slid her hand from under the bedclothes, and took Mrs. Berry's, and kissed it. The good creature required no further avowal of her secret, but forthwith leaned her consummate bosom to the pillow, and petitioned heaven to bless them both!—Then the little bride was alarmed, and wondered how Mrs. Berry could have guessed it.
"Why," said Mrs. Berry, "your love is out of your eyes, and out of everything ye do." And the little bride wondered more. ”

“ In their anger, the sisters did not care to recall the [158] praises they had bestowed on Berry for her beauty and her clever acting, nor the pity they had felt for her after the accident that so nearly ended her life. Her unparalleled impudence in marrying Charley because he asked her and because she loved him blotted out everything else in her favor. ”

“ At which bonnet—one touch of millinery makes the whole female world kin—Mrs. Berry also darted, and began smoothing the ribbons, and pushing out the curtain with a tender elaboration that was artistically designed to go straight to the heart of her aunt, as were the niece’s touch upon the arm of her relative, and soothing words. ”

“ A right worthy dame is this same Duchess, and a stately; and that young King, as they call him, seems hard to please, for he told Berry that his wife’s courtliness and ease in his reception were far above aught that he found here. What he means is past a plain man, for as to Berry’s wife she is handy, and notable enough, and ‘tis well he loves her so well; but what a little brown thing it is, for a man to have gone through such risks for. Nothing to look at beside his mother!’
‘If you could only see Madame de Selinville!’ sighed Philip ”

“ Charley Bonair stood apart to Berry in a little world of his own. She scarcely connected him with the millionaire senator of California, and his lovely sisters she had never seen. It was only the home of a stranger to her, this palatial house where she had come with her company to act for the pleasure of the ball guests.
Life had been a whirl to Berry Vining since the night when she had been carried senseless into the company of actors, who, charmed by her exquisite [66] beauty, had easily persuaded her to join them on the road. ”

“ Then the latter hurled himself panting into the road and leapt into the arms which I stretched out of the car.
No prodigal ever received such an ovation. There was literally a fight for his person. Jill snatched him from me and pressed his nose to her face; Berry dragged him from her protesting arms and set him upon his knee; Daphne tore him away and hugged him close. Such of us as were temporarily disseized, stroked and fondled his limbs and cried endearing epithets. Only our fair American looked on with a wistful smile. ”

“ For a wonder we were all on time, and it was barely eleven o'clock when Jonah let in the clutch and the Rolls began to move. Daphne sat in front, and Jill between Berry and me on the back seat. The girls wore dust-cloaks to save their finery, and two large bandboxes concealed their respective hats. Berry, Jonah and I wore light overcoats above our morning-dress, and three tall hats, ironed to perfection, each in his stiff white hat-box, jostled one another on the mat at our feet. ”

“ By dint of an immediate rush to the library door, we were just in time to see Berry slip on the parquet and, falling heavily, miss the terrier by what was a matter of inches, and by the time we had helped one another upstairs, the medley of worrying and imprecations which emanated from Daphne's bedroom made it clear that the quarry had gone to ground.
As we drew breath in the doorway—
"Get him from the other side!" yelled Berry, who was lying flat on his face, with one arm under the bed. "Quick! It may be unsporting, but I don't care. A-a-ah!" ”

“ Nevertheless, his strong consciousness that there was nothing which he could in reason charge against himself as a wrong to his wife, afforded to Lygon an honest consolation, though that conviction in no degree tended to diminish the mystery that lay before him. It was perhaps for the best that Mr. Berry had guided the husband’s thoughts in a given direction, and concentrated them, for the time at least, within a certain limit, for nothing perhaps is more prostrating to the courage of the mind than its being incessantly sent forth in pursuit of a phantom enemy. ”

“ Berry, with dignity, and speaking in the undertone in which a man of advanced age, indignant, and conscious that he is in the right, usually replies to an accusation.
“What am I to think?” said Lygon. “It is not half an hour since I received Mrs. Berry’s solemn assurance that she had learned my sorrow from your own lips.”
Berry’s face grew ashy white, and his lips quivered.
“Arthur,” he said, “spare me words on this; spare me the pain of saying what a husband is loth to say. But believe two things: first, that I have not spoken a syllable to Mrs. Berry on your affairs ”

“ Berry shall. I will not take Mrs. Berry’s word for his being associated in a plot against one of the best women in the world.”
“Surely you will not persist in your intention of persecuting an old man who can ill bear excitement,” pleaded Mrs. Berry.
“Excitement—who talks of excitement, when a foul and hideous charge is made against those we love?” cried Hawkesley “I have heard of Mr. Berry from Lygon, and if he is the friend Lygon has believed him, I shall hear the truth from his lips. Something tells me that I have not heard it from his wife’s.”
“You will go to Lipthwaite?” ”

“ She sat down to eat her supper on the sublime resolve.
In love, Mrs. Berry's charity was all on the side of the law, and this is the case with many of her sisters. The Pilgrim sneers at them for it, and would have us credit that it is their admirable instinct which, at the expense of every virtue save one, preserves the artificial barrier simply to impose upon us. Men, I presume, are hardly fair judges, and should stand aside and mark.
Early next day Mrs. Berry bundled off to Richard's hotel to let him know her determination. ”

“ Berry, as her recital declared, was no other than that identical woman who once in old days had dared to behold the baronet behind his mask, and had ever since lived in exile from the Raynham world on a little pension regularly paid to her as an indemnity. She was that woman, and the thought of it made her almost accuse Providence for the betraying excess of softness it had endowed her with. How was she to recognize her baby grown a man? ”

“ She took a risk and got away with it."
"I feel dazed," said Daphne, putting a hand to her head. "There must be some mistake. I can't believe——"
"'A thoroughly nice-feeling woman,'" said Berry. "I think I should feel nice if I could make five pounds in two hours by sitting on the edge of a chair and saying I was a clergyman's daughter. And now what are we going to do? Shall we be funny and inform the police? Or try and stop Camille at Amiens?"
"Now, don't you start," said his wife, "because I can't bear it. Jonah, for goodness' sake, get hold of the car, and let's go."
"Yes," said Berry. ”

“ As Mrs. Berry had foretold, fine clothes were the order of the day at the Brown house. Everything was as formal as a grown-up affair. The girls were ushered to a dressing-room to take off their wraps, and then at the drawing-room door, their names were announced by an imposing-looking personage in livery, and they were swept along into the room, by the crush of others behind them.
Mrs. Brown and her daughter were receiving, and they greeted each arrival with gay banter and smiles.
"Ah, my dears, how do you do?" said Mrs. Brown to our girls. "I am so glad to welcome Mr. Forbes' young people. ”

“ As I spoke, the Rolls stole up alongside. We climbed in, Jill and I sitting behind for a change. With a foot on the step, Daphne looked at her husband.
"Did you get very hot?" she said.
"I did," said Berry. "Every pore in my body has been in action. I always think it's so nice to start a day like that."
"How would you like to break stones," said I, "for seventy-nine years?"
Jonah let in the clutch.
"I perceive," said Berry, "that you are under the influence of drink. At the present moment I am more interested in the breaking of backs. Have you ever jacked up a car?" ”

“ Berry has a new satin gown, a beautiful bonnet, a gold brooch, and sweet gloves, presented to her by the hero, wherein to stand by his bride at the altar to-morrow; and, instead of being an old wary hen, she is as much a chicken as any of the party, such has been the magic of these articles. Fathers she sees accepting the facts produced for them by their children; a world content to be carved out as it pleases the hero. ”

“ Then:
"My dear lady," said Berry. "Are you still there?"
"Yes," said my companion, her voice shaking a little.
"Then I beseech you to have no dealing with the being whose vile accents I heard but a moment ago. A man of depraved instincts and profligate ways, he is no fit companion for a young and innocent girl. Moreover, viper-like, he bears malice towards us, who have shielded him for years."
"How awful," said the girl.
"Yes," said Berry, "for your own sake, dear lady, beware of him. And for ours, too, I beg you. ”

“ Berry, I beg to assure you. Your husband has taken next to nothing, less in fact than I myself have done, and I am anxious to vindicate myself from the charge of having caused any irregularity in a friend’s family. Mr. Berry, I am happy to inform you, has not taken more wine than is good for him.”
We do not believe in evil eyes in England, and therefore, though there are plenty of them about, they do us no harm. Else, the glance which the kneeling Marion bestowed upon the interposing Lygon might have been more than was good for him. ”