Mrs. Bold

“ It was not often that Blanche was so discomposed. Her mother tried to soften matters.
“It will only call for a little tact, my dear,” she said. “I am sure we shall be able to make them understand. It is not as if we were going to live in the town.”
“But Pinnerton Green is a nest of them,” said Blanche.
“That won’t matter so much. Once we are in our own house we can draw our own lines. And when other people—better people—come to see us, these good folk will keep out of the way,” said Mrs Derwent.
“Well, I wish you would look up some of them, mamma,” said Stasy. ”

“ These wayfarers glanced with a little wonder at Lady Bell, even in her ordinary scarlet habit, and her neckcloth, as a lady who ought to be on her horse, with her servant behind her, and who might be on foot and by herself as the result of an accident, or in consequence of keeping a private appointment. But these were worthy people who took their neighbours’ adventures coolly, and did not, when they were not accosted and asked to interfere, see themselves called on to forsake their proper business and pleasure for the sake of a third party, in an adventure which might be sorry enough. ”

“ Poor Boldero, who was always rushing at conclusions and unskilled in the tactics of the feminine heart, thought himself at once the happiest of men and gilded his horizon with a bright aurora of matrimonial bliss. Maud meanwhile, by a hundred half-unconscious arts, encouraged the delusion and established the relation of friendly intimacy. ”

“ Bud was able to instruct her in the right deportment for a bride, but had no experience in the management of husbands; for that Kate had to take some hints from her mistress, who was under the delusion that her brother Dan was the standard of his sex.
“They're curious creatures,” Bell confided. “You must have patience, ay, and humor them. They'll trot at your heels like pussy for a cheese-pudding, but they'll not be driven. If I had a man I would never thwart him. ”

“ Her perceptive tastes and strong sense of propriety rendered her, as years rolled on, a trusted friend; an infinitely more suitable companion for the mistress and her children, as she always called them, than many a woman of higher culture. A tireless nurse in time of sickness; a brave, clear-headed, but withal modest and cautious, aid to the physician in the hour of peril. She had stood by the bedstead of more than one member of the family, in the dark hour, when the angel of death waited on the threshold of the chamber. ”

“ Give my best love to that most fortunate man alive; and tell him that matrimony does not mean eternal monopilization. Write to me soon at the American Girls' Club. They say it is fine and homelike there, but it will surely be some comedown after Rue Brea.
Your ever devoted,
Judy.
Jimmy Lufton to Molly.
Press Club, New York.
My dear Mrs. Green:
Ah me! I have swallowed the bitter pill and now I am gasping for breath. I mean I have actually called you Mrs. Green. I did not know I was man enough to do it. One never can tell what he can do until put to the test. ”

“ What a good supper that was, girls! Oh, Bell and Jo, you ought to be overcome with remorse when you think what you might give us to eat, if you were only skillful, energetic, and ingenious!”
“You're the very essence of thanklessness!” answered Bell, in high dudgeon. “It's nothing less than fiery martyrdom to cook for you girls, when you are so ungrateful. Your special seminary will not be so far removed from a zoological garden when you return to it, that is certain!”
“My dear child, I am sorry already for my remark,” said Lilia, in feigned repentance. ”

“ Mrs Derwent was sorry and distressed. But, on the whole, Blanche took it more seriously. For her mother was still to some extent under the glamour of her old associations, and “After all,” thought the elder girl to herself, “she must know better than we can. Perhaps it will come right in the end.”
So she said nothing, resolutely crushing back the strong inclination she felt to join in the cry, “Oh, do, mamma, do let us go home,” while she listened to her mother’s expostulations with poor Stasy.
“There are vulgar-minded and disagreeable people everywhere, my dear child. ”

“ Do look, Blanche. Did you ever see anything so exactly like?”
But “Jump up, Stasy,” was all the reply she got, and as the door slowly opened, a repeated whispered warning—“Mrs Wandle.”
The name was not clearly audible which Deborah announced, but she announced something, and to the prepossessed ears of her audience it sounded as like “Mrs Wandle” as anything else. And in trotted, with as much dignity as a stout, short person can achieve, a lady enveloped in furs and wraps, who, after glancing round her with a sort of “nonchalant” curiosity, held out a somewhat limp hand to Mrs Derwent. ”

“ So Bell determined there and then to coax her into the gentle arts of domesticity that ever had had a fascination for herself. She went about it, oh, so cunningly! letting Bud play at the making of beds and the dusting of the stair-rails and the parlour beltings—the curly-wurly places, as she called them, full of quirks and holes and corners that the unelect like Kate of Colonsay will always treat perfunctorily in a general wipe that only drives the dirt the farther in. ”

“ Come, Belle, make up your mind, and let us be off to America; and leave priests, humbug, learning, and languages behind us.’
‘I don’t think you are jesting,’ said Belle; ‘but I can hardly entertain your offers. However, young man, I thank you.’
‘You had better make up your mind at once,’ said I, ‘and let us be off. I shan’t make a bad husband, I assure you. Perhaps you think I am not worthy of you? To convince you, Belle, that I am, I am ready to try a fall with you this moment upon the grass. Brynhilda, the valkyrie, swore that no one should marry her who could not fling her down. ”

“ I’m waiting here to catch the parson, for I’ve been to his house, and they say he’s out. I dun know as it’s of any good seeing him, either. ’Tain’t much he has to give away now.”
“I am about to leave, Mrs. Bond,” cried Charlotte in her free and communicative humour.
“More’s the ill-luck, and I have heered on’t,” responded Mrs. Bond. “Everybody as is good to us poor goes away, or dies, or fails, or sum’at. There’ll soon be nought left for us but the work’us. Many’s the odd bit o’ silver you have given me at times, ma’am.”
“So I have,” said Charlotte, laughing. ”

“ She was utterly exhausted for the moment.
“Mamma dear,” said Stasy, “it is impossible to take it all in at once; we must get used to it gradually. The first thing to attend to just now is you. You mustn’t make yourself ill about it, mamma.”
Blanche glanced at Stasy admiringly.
“Yes,” she said, “that is the first thing to care about. I am going down-stairs to see if tea is ready. Will you come down, mamma, or shall I bring you a cup up here?”
“I will come down,” said Mrs Derwent, adding to herself, in a voice which she tried to make firm: “I must begin to get used to it at once.” ”

“ The younger and more unfriended you are, and the more ill-matched you are—forgive me again—but one sees that written on your face—you ought to be more careful not to give your husband ground of offence, or the bad world—I am frighted it is bad and cruel—cause to talk.”
“At least you ought not to blame me, Mrs. Sundon,” said Lady Bell, turning away her head to hide the tears of mortification running down her cheeks, “for I came to serve you and yours.” ”

“ Kitty’s, in worsted stockings, and worsted lace setting off their livery, in gardeners’ green aprons and countrymen’s round hats, which were at that moment waved lustily in the air.
The worst was to come; for resentment and anguish at fifteen are very liable to merge into petulance, alternating with heaviness. Lady Bell received the demonstration haughtily and cavalierly. She was the mistress of these folks, in spite of herself, and against her will. ”

“ Blanche looked rather surprised.
“Why, mamma, what does it matter? Do you mean because she has not called?”
“Not exactly. But she is the sort of woman who, unless she takes it into her head to be civil to people, can be—very much the reverse. And”—Mrs Derwent’s face hardened a little—“I don’t want you and Stasy, my darlings, to be exposed to that kind of thing. Aunt Grace hinted at something of the kind, and since then I have remembered who Lady Marth is. She belongs to a family of no ancestry, but which has become rapidly prominent through a mixture of cleverness and good luck. ”

“ It is saying something for young Lady Bell that she came triumphantly through the ordeal. Youth is irreverent, and “quality” is supercilious, yet Lady Bell was able to reverse the proverb of the hero and his valet. She was so much of the heroine herself in playing the waiting-maid, that she still saw a heroine in her mistress.
Lady Bell was selling her birthright, and considering it well sold in return for beholding the creations of a woman of genius. ”

“ And instantly, as was always the case where Stasy was concerned, the hearts of her mother and sister softened to her again.
“My dear child, how you do rush at conclusions!” Mrs Derwent exclaimed. “Because we have come across two commonplace, perhaps I must say vulgar-minded women, you make up your mind that English society is composed of such people.”
“And,” Blanche added eagerly, “did you notice, mamma, how even Lady Harriot’s dull face lighted up when she spoke of Lady Hebe? Mamma, I am perfectly certain that girl is as good as she is charming. ”

“ Rather, instead, let us describe who Bella was, and how she came to love and to be loved, to be wooed and won.
Our English girl! The girl fairly tall, and full to the brim with health; full, too, of a liking for all exercise which befits the dawning woman--for boating, riding, walking, cycling: not ashamed to acknowledge that she likes a good dance and that she has a good appetite for a ball supper; one who is, withal, not a fool! ”

“ While Bella had been indulging in archery, dinner-giving, riding, and other expensive amusements, her husband’s old friend and servant, Samuel Chumney, had returned from his fortnight’s holiday, and had taken his place among those insignificant and unvalued guests whom the mistress of the Park regarded rather as lookers on, or as a kind of human furniture, than as actual participators in her gaieties and pleasures. ”

“ How could I imagine, remembering those days of closest love and sympathy, and knowing too your kindness to one you thought a mere Eastern stroller, that you could have changed so to your former friend?
The most curious fact to me, in looking back upon that time, is that the idea never occurred to me that you were a married woman. It never entered my thoughts that a beauty which fascinated and drew me so far from my natural orbit must be an equally powerful charm to other men. As for Mr. Blodgett, I never gave him a second thought, not even accounting for his relations with you. ”

“ She [Pg 130] was not deceived by the air of indifference with which the lady moved away; she understood that for some reason her mistress wished to find out all she knew about this little girl.
"It isn't what you'd call a tenement house," she said; "the man who owns it has made it into flats. He lives there himself, and has his shop, and Mrs. Bond keeps house for him. It is a real nice place."
"I fail to see the difference," was the reply; "but, Caroline, why did she think I was Mrs. Marvin? She called me so."
"I don't know, Miss Frances, unless it was Emma Bond's mistake. ”

“ Molly laughed; she felt as sure that Sir Edmund was right as if she could hear every word the little woman was saying.
"Well, that you will allow is humbug!"
"Yes, I think I will this time, and I believe, too, that the philosophy has collapsed. I'm sure she's a mass of ruffled feathers, and her mind is full of things that she will hurl at the devoted head of her maid when she gets in. You can only really wound that type of woman to the quick by touching her clothes. There now, is that severe enough?"
"Why do we always talk of Mrs. Delaport Green?" asked Molly. ”

“ Lady Bell was too thankful to turn from the prospect to await an approaching footstep, and to find that it belonged to a respectable-looking middle-aged woman, Lady Bell thought a superior upper servant, possibly the wife of Sneyd the butler, undoubtedly the housekeeper in her own person, as she carried a bunch of keys. ”

“ When the door was thrown open, and the butler’s sonorous tones announcing Mrs and Miss Derwent made the occupants of the room turn round, and the short, stout figure of their hostess came waddling towards all illusion was dispelled, and with a little sigh Blanche’s mother came back to the very different present.
Lady Harriot, whose manners, as I have indicated, were not exactly “grande dame,” looked, and honestly was, a little perplexed.
“How de do?” she said, with as much civility as she was in the habit of showing to any but her immediate cronies, and turning to Blanche, “How de do?” ”

“ What's the mother going to do?"
"She will live where she is for the present, and everything will go on the same, except that I cannot live with Skinner. I shall look out for a situation in a shop, as soon as Joy is well again, and does not want me. Or maybe I shall take one of the small houses on the Denes, and let lodgings to folks who can put up with humble accommodation."
"You oughtn't to do any such thing," said Mr. Boyd. "You have been a widow now between eleven and twelve years. A good man wants to make you his wife—and," said Uncle Bobo, slapping his knee, "and why shouldn't he?" ”