Mrs. Gracedew

“ Mrs. Gracedew looked him full in the face. “Well, what if you are?”
He broke into mirth at her tone. “Simply this—that I can’t therefore, from one day to the other, pop up at Gossage in the purple pomp of the opposite camp. There’s a want of transition. It may be timid of me—it may be abject. But I can’t.”
If she was not yet prepared to contest she was still less prepared to surrender it, and she confined herself for the instant to smoothing down with her foot the corner of an old rug. ”

“ Gracedew more distinctly repeated.
"She shall!" returned her adversary, making for the staircase with the evident sense of where reinforcement might be most required.
Mrs. Gracedew, however, with a spring, was well before him. "She shan't!" She spoke with positive passion and practically so barred the way that he stood arrested and bewildered, and they faced each other, for a flash, like enemies. But it all went out, on her part, in a flash too—in a sudden wonderful smile. "Now tell me how much!"
Mr. Prodmore continued to glare—the sweat was on his brow. ”

“ Mrs. Gracedew was superbly definite. “Two. The party up and the party down.” Chivers gasped at the way she dealt with this liberty, and his impression was conspicuously deepened as she pointed to one of the escutcheons in the high hall-window. “Observe in the centre compartment the family arms.” She did take his breath away, for before he knew it she had crossed with the lightest but surest of gestures to the black old portrait, on the opposite wall, of a long-limbed gentleman in white trunk-hose. “And observe the family legs!” ”

“ This difference, for Mrs. Gracedew, suddenly shimmered in all the place, and her companion’s fixed eyes caught in her face the reflection of it. “Excuse me—I misunderstood. I somehow took for granted——!” She stopped, a trifle awkwardly—suddenly tender, for Cora, as to the way she had inevitably seen it.
“You took for granted I’d jump at him? Well, you can take it for granted I won’t!”
Mrs. Gracedew, fairly admiring her, put it sympathetically. “You prefer the single life?”
“No—but I don’t prefer him!” Cora was crystal-bright. ”

“ Cora, at something in the sound, quite jumped about. “Then why don’t you marry him yourself?”
Mrs. Gracedew gave a sort of happy sigh. “Well, I’ve got fifty reasons! I rather think one of them must be that he hasn’t happened to ask me.”
It was a speech, however, that her visitor could easily better. “I haven’t got fifty reasons, but I have got one.”
Mrs. Gracedew smiled as if it were indeed a stroke of wit. “You mean your case is one of those in which safety is not in numbers?” And then on Cora’s visibly not understanding: “It is when reasons are bad that one needs so many!” ”

“ Mrs. Gracedew explained indeed as if Mr. Prodmore's triumph was not perhaps exactly what she had argued for. Still, the truth was too great. "When a thing's unique, it's unique!"
That was every bit Mr. Prodmore required. "It's unique!"
This met, moreover, the perception of the gentleman in the green necktie. "It's unique!" They all, in fact, demonstratively—almost vociferously now—caught the point.
Mrs. Gracedew, finding herself so sustained, and still with her eyes on the lawful heirs, put it yet more strongly. "It's worth anything you like." ”

“ Mrs. Gracedew addressed their visitor in a very different tone, though with the full authority of her benevolence. "You won't, my dear man." To Mr. Prodmore also she continued bland. "I happen to know she has gone for a walk."
"A walk—alone?" Mr. Prodmore gasped.
"No—not alone." Mrs. Gracedew looked at Chivers with a vague smile of appeal for help, but he could only give her, from under his bent old brow, the blank decency of his wonder. ”

“ They all looked, all but Clement Yule, and several of the larger company, subdued, overwhelmed, nudged each other with strange sounds. Wherever she turned Mrs. Gracedew appeared to find a pretext for breaking out. "Just look at the tone of that glass, and the gilding of that leather, and the cutting of that oak, and the dear old flags of the very floor." It came back, came back easily, her impulse to appeal to the lawful heir, and she seemed, with her smile of universal intelligence, just to demand the charity of another moment for it. "To look, in this place, is to love!" ”

“ It was indeed as if to meet this that Cora went earnestly on: "He's intensely sympathetic!"
"Your father?" Mrs. Gracedew had her reserves.
"Oh, no—the other person. I so believe in him!" Cora cried.
Mrs. Gracedew looked at her a moment. "Then so do I—and I like him for believing in you."
"Oh, he does that," the girl hurried on, "far more than Captain Yule—I could see just with one glance that he doesn't at all. Papa has of course seen the young man I mean, but we've been so sure papa would hate it that we've had to be awfully careful. ”

“ But even reasonable children ask too many questions. "Yes—and what way can we find?" Clement Yule, glancing about him, was so struck with the absence of ways that he appeared to remember with something of regret how different it had been before. "With Prodmore it was simple enough. You see I could marry his daughter."
Mrs. Gracedew was silent just long enough for her soft ironic smile to fill the cup of the pause. "Could you?"
It was as if he had tasted in the words the wine at the brim; for he gave, under the effect of them, a sudden headshake and an awkward laugh. ”

“ Mrs. Gracedew had put him in such spirits that he found on the spot, indicating to her his young friend, both the proper humour and the proper rigour for any question of what anyone might "propose." "He'll never part with the dear old home!"
Mrs. Gracedew could match at least the confidence. "Then I'll go over it again while I have the chance." Her own humour enjoined that she should drop into the housekeeper, in the perfect tone of which character she addressed herself once more to the party. "We now pass to the grand staircase." ”

“ Gracedew a moment to distinguish—which she then did, however, with immense eagerness. "You prefer someone else?" Cora's promptitude dropped at this, and, starting to hear it, as you might well have seen, for the first time publicly phrased, she abruptly moved away. A minute's sense of her scruple was enough for Mrs. Gracedew: this was proved by the tone of soft remonstrance and high benevolence with which that lady went on. She had looked very hard, first, at one of the old warriors hung on the old wall, and almost spoke as if he represented their host. "He seems remarkably clever." ”

“ Gracedew was so affected by his assured conviction that, with an odd, inarticulate sound, she forbore to stand longer—she rapidly moved away, taking one of the brief excursions of step and sense that had been for her, from the first, under the noble roof, so many dumb but decisive communions. But it was soon over, and she floated back on a wave that showed her to be, since she had let herself go, by this time quite in the swing and describing a considerable curve. “Dear Mr. Prodmore, why are you so imprudent as to make your daughter afraid of you? You should have taught her to confide in you. ”

“ Her instant overflow left Mrs. Gracedew both astonished and amused. "You too?" she laughed. "Why it is good we come over!"
"It is, indeed!" Cora gratefully echoed. "You were so very kind to me and seemed to think me so curious." ”

“ The sound she formed with her lips was, after an instant, simply “Oh!”
It was to the combination of the spoken and the unspoken that Cora desperately replied. “It sounds like a hat-rack!”
“‘Hall Pegg’? ‘Hall Pegg’?” Mrs. Gracedew now made it, like a questionable coin, ring upon the counter. But it lay there as lead and without, for a moment, her taking it up again. “How many has your father?” she inquired instead.
“How many names?” Miss Prodmore seemed dimly to see that there was no hope in that. “He somehow makes out five.”
“Oh, that’s too many!” Mrs. Gracedew jeeringly declared. ”

“ Mrs. Gracedew, accepting provisionally his demonstration, had one of her friendly recalls. “Do you call that nice daughter ‘very little’?”
The young man looked quite at a loss. “Is she very big? I really didn’t notice her—and moreover she’s just a part of the Property. He thinks things are going too far.”
She sat straight down on a stiff chair; on which, with high distinctness: “Well, they are!”
He stood before her in the discomposure of her again thus appearing to fail him. “Aren’t you then a lover of justice?” ”

“ He stumbled with the rush of things, and if silence can, in its way, be active, there was a collapse too, for an instant, on her closed lips. These lips, however, she at last opened. "How have I made him think of me?"
"As he has thought of no other woman!" He had personal possession of her now, and it broke, as he pressed her, as he pleaded, the helpless fall of his eloquence. "Mrs. Gracedew—don't leave me." ”

“ Mr. Prodmore had a natural ease that could deal handsomely with compliments, and he manifestly, moreover, like a clever man, saw even more in such an explosion of them than fully met the ear. “You do, madam, bring the whole thing out!”
The visitor who had already with such impunity ventured had, on this, a loud renewal of boldness, but for the benefit of a near neighbour. “Doesn’t she indeed, Jane, bring it out?”
Mrs. Gracedew, with a friendly laugh, caught the words in their passage. “But who in the world wants to keep it in? It isn’t a secret—it isn’t a strange cat or a political party!” ”

“ Mrs. Gracedew, from where she stood in relation to the stairs, saw at this point the subject of their colloquy restored to view: Captain Yule was just upon them—he had turned the upper landing. The sight of him forced from her in a flash an ejaculation that she tried, however, to keep private—"He does care!" She passed swiftly, before he reached them, back to the girl and, in a quick whisper, but with full conviction, let her have it: "He'll propose!"
Her movement had made her friend aware, and the young man, hurrying down, was now in the hall. Cora, at his hurry, looked dismay—"Then I fly!" ”

“ Mrs. Gracedew’s was a thought, however, that, even when desperate, was never quite vanquished, and it found a presentable public solution in the pieces of the vase smashed by Chivers and just then, on the table where he had laid them, catching her eye. “Of my old Chelsea pot!” Her gay, sad headshake as she took one of them up pronounced for Cora’s benefit its funeral oration. She laid the morsel thoughtfully down, while her visitor seemed with simple dismay to read the story. ”

“ Mr. Prodmore rose like outraged Neptune. “That’s why she was so late?”
Mrs. Gracedew assented. “Why I got here first. I get everywhere first!” she bravely laughed.
Mr. Prodmore looked round him in purple dismay—it was so clearly a question for him where he should get, and what! “In which direction did they go?” he imperiously asked.
His rudeness was too evident to be more than lightly recognised. “I think I must let you ascertain for yourself!”
All he could do then was to shout it to Chivers. “Call my carriage, you ass!” ”

“ His question scarce reached her; she was so lost for the moment in the sense of innocent community with her sex. "I mean I think we measure things often rather more exactly."
There would have been no doubt of Mr. Prodmore's very different community as he rudely replied: "Then you measured this thing exactly half an hour ago!"
It was a long way to go back, but Mrs. Gracedew, in her seat, musingly made the journey, from which she then suddenly returned with a harmless, indeed quite a happy, memento. ”

“ Never had so great a gulf been bridged in so free a span. “Captain Yule, Miss Prodmore. Miss Prodmore, Captain Yule.”
There was stiffness, the cold mask of terror, in such notice as either party took of this demonstration, the convenience of which was not enhanced for the divided pair by the perception that Mr. Prodmore had now followed his daughter. Cora threw herself confusedly into it indeed, as with a vain rebound into the open. “Papa, let me ‘present’ you to Mrs. Gracedew. Mrs. Gracedew, Mr. Prodmore. Mr. Prodmore, Mrs. Gracedew.” ”

“ Mr. Prodmore, however, suddenly starting, looked far from soothed. “She confides in you?”
“You may take it from me!” Mrs. Gracedew laughed. “Let me suggest that, as fortune has thrown us together a minute, you follow her good example.” She put out a reassuring hand—she could perfectly show him the way. “Tell me, for instance, the ground of your objection to poor Mr. Pegg. I mean Mr. Pegg of Bellborough, Mr. Hall Pegg, the godson of your daughter’s grandmother and the associate of his father in their flourishing house; to whom (as he is to it and to her) Miss Prodmore’s devotedly attached.” ”

“ He waved her to the staircase as one who knew what he was about, but, while the young man, turning his back, moved consciously and nervously away, the girl renewed her effort to provoke Mrs. Gracedew to detain her. It happened, to her sorrow, that this lady appeared for the moment, to the detriment of any free attention, to be absorbed in Captain Yule's manner; so that Cora could scarce disengage her without some air of invidious reference to it. Recognising as much, she could only for two seconds, but with great yearning, parry her own antagonist. "She'll help me, I think, papa!" ”

“ But she turned suddenly off: the flower had been nipped in the bud by the re-entrance of Chivers, at whom his master veritably glowered.
"What the devil is it?"
The old man showed the shock, but he had his duty. "Another party."
Mrs. Gracedew, at this, wheeled round. "The 'party up'!" It brought back her voice—indeed, all her gaiety. And her gaiety was always determinant. "Show them in."
Clement Yule's face fell while Chivers proceeded to obey. "You'll have them?" he wailed across the hall.
"Ah! mayn't I be proud of my house?" she tossed back at him. ”