Mrs. Thomas

“ And so saying, he saluted me before Thomas, and with his own handkerchief wiped my eyes; and said to Thomas, The good old folks are not to be blamed in the main. They don’t know my honourable intentions by their dear daughter; who, Tom, will, in a little time, be your mistress; though I shall keep the matter private some days, and would not have it spoken of by my servants out of my house.
Thomas said, God bless your honour! You know best. And I said, O, sir, you are all goodness!—How kind is this, to forgive the disappointment, instead of being angry, as I feared you would! ”

“ The young lordlings, the county squires, who assiduously avoid the penniless girl, too well protected to be trifled with? no, I never yet thought of loving Sir Thomas; but I will love him heartily; he has the soul of a man, and dares to consult his heart in his choice of a wife. ”

“ When the grief, which so young a wife may be supposed to feel for an aged husband, had subsided, she began to enquire into the state of his affairs, and found to her unspeakable mortification, that he died not worth one thousand pounds in the world. As Mrs. Thomas was a woman of good sense, and a high spirit, she disposed of two houses her husband kept, one in town, the other in the county of Essex, and retired into a private, but decent country lodging. ”

“ With all these imperfections—and how many husbands would term some of them perfections!—the married life of Thomas and Janet Dodds might have gone on for another five years, and five to that, if it had not been that Thomas, in a weary hour, cast a glance with a scarlet ray in it on a certain Mary Blyth, who lived in the Grassmarket—a woman of whom our legend says no more than that she was a widow, besides being fair to the eye, and pleasant to the ear. ”

“ Thomas, Annie Thomas' mother. Here I should tell my readers that Annie's father, who was a lieutenant in the Royal Navy and captain of the coastguard at Morston in Norfolk, had been a near neighbor and great friend of my father, Captain Marryat, and their children had associated like brothers and sisters. I had therefore known Mrs. Thomas well, and recognized her at once, as, of course, did her daughter. The witness of two people is considered sufficient in law. It ought to be accepted by society. Poor Annie was very much affected, and talked to her mother in the most incoherent manner. ”

“ Nitschkan.
Mrs. Thomas flamed like a peony and caught her breath once or twice before she answered. "They're so awful soft," she said at last.
Frances gave a quick exclamation of impatience. "Oh, Mrs. Thomas! How could you do anything so foolish? How did you happen to meet this man in the first place?"
"There wasn't nothing doin' here," Mrs. Thomas said simply. "Willie Barker an' Dan Mayhew wasn't droppin' in then. Oh," she wailed, with something like despair in her voice, "I thought I was goin' to like bein' a widow; but it's terrible lonesome. ”

“ Lord Thomas said a word in jest,
Fair Annet took it ill:
‘I’ll never wed a tocherless [374] maid
Against my ain friends’ will.’—
III
‘Gif ye’ll not wed a tocherless wife,
A wife will ne’er wed ye:
Fare ye well now, Lord Thomas,
It’s fare ye well a wee.’
IV
O Annet she’s gane till her bower,
Lord Thomas down the den;
And he’s come till his mither’s bower
By the lee [375] light o’ the moon.
[Pg 248] V
‘O sleep ye, wake ye, mither?’ he says,
‘Or are ye the bower within?’—
‘I sleep right aft, I wake right aft;
What want ye with me, son? ”

“ To this Thomas replied;
“My beloved mistress and hostess, I am a nobleman, and for no consideration would I bring upon you blame or dishonour, or I should be unworthy of the name of a gentleman. Believe me, that I would guard your honour as I do my own, and would rather die than reveal your secret; and that there is no friend or other person in the world, however dear to me, to whom I would relate our love-affair.” ”

“ She settled down to observe everything; and her stepmother, sitting opposite to her, knew from the twinkle in her eyes, that Thomas’s suit was hopeless. She had heard that music is the food of love. She was not sure of this; but she was convinced that butcher’s meat was not. That was where she saw that Thomas had made his mistake. He had placed too much dependence upon that great ham. He carved that ham with all the solemnity that should accompany such a rite, not knowing that he was slicing away all his chances of commending himself to Fanny. ”

“ Sir Thomas, falling into complete bewilderment, asked Esmé to dinner when he found she was really alone. To forget her misery she was hilariously gay, telling smart little stories, flashing out sharp speeches, amusing the little man immensely.
"Kind of woman you don't know what to make of," grumbled Sir Thomas. "Lets you kiss her ear in the taxi, and gives yours a verbal boxing when you suggest supper in a quiet room. Gets herself up to look like what she's not, and is frightfully offended when she's taken for it. ”

“ Nitschkan, a teasing gleam in her small, bright blue eyes.
'Maybe you would,” returned Mrs. Evans, with an emphasis upon the pronoun, “but it wouldn't make no show when folks come to the house. You know everybody'll want to know what you done with Thomas's insurance,” speaking authoritatively to Mrs. Thomas, “and you know yourself it'll look real frivolous to show 'em a horse an' cart, an' the house needin' paint, an' the nap all off the plush in the parlor set; an' the pillow-shams on the parlor bed only scalloped, not a shred of lace on 'em. ”

“ Silently she arose and left them, and reaching her cottage, threw herself upon her bed in bitterness. She shed no tears; neither did she groan, but her bosom heaved with burning agony. Sickness smote Thomas to his very heart; yea, even unto blindness he was sick. His tongue was like heated iron in his mouth, and his throat like a parched land. He was led from the pulpit. But he escaped not the persecution of the unfeeling titter, and the expressions of shallow pity. He would have rejoiced to have dwelt in darkness for ever, but there was no escape from the eyes of his tormentors. ”

“ Could Sir Thomas have seen all his niece's feelings, when she wrote her first letter to her aunt, he would not have despaired; for though a good night's rest, a pleasant morning, the hope of soon seeing William again, and the comparatively quiet state of the house, from Tom and Charles being gone to school, Sam on some project of his own, and her father on his usual lounges, enabled her to express herself cheerfully on the subject of home, there were still to her own perfect consciousness, many drawbacks suppressed. ”

“ Thou mightest have had as fair a woman
As ever trod on the ground.'
'Despise her not, Fair Ellin,' he sayd,
'Despise her not now unto mee;
For better I love thy little finger
Than all her whole body.'
This browne bride had a little penknife,
That was both long and sharp,
And betwixt the short ribs and the long
Prickd Fair Ellinor to the heart.
'Oh Christ now save thee,' Lord Thomas he said,
'Methinks thou lookst wondrous wan;
Thou wast usd for to look with as fresh a colour
As ever the sun shin'd on.'
'Oh art thou blind, Lord Thomas?' she sayd,
'Or canst thou not very well see? ”

“ Sir Thomas thought that to look well, a man must not be—to use his own phrase—“lass-like and finnicking.” It was all very well for a woman to have a soft voice, a pretty face, or a graceful mien: but let a man be tall, stout, well-developed, and tolerably rough. So that the finely arched eyebrows, the languishing liquid eyes, the soft delicate features, and the black silky moustache, which were the characteristics of Don Juan’s face, found no favour with Sir Thomas, but were absolute perfection in the captivated eyes of Blanche. ”

“ Meanwhile in Thomas himself, as he stood there, the sense of complete desolation filled his breast almost to bursting. To have come home for this! To find a father only to be weighed in the scales of that father's judgment! To be admired, instead of loved!
As he realized his position and listened to the shrieking of the wind and rain, he felt that the wail of the elements but echoed the cry of his own affections, thus strangled in their birth. ”

“ Sir Thomas was indeed the life of the party, who at his suggestion now seated themselves round the fire. He had the best right to be the talker; and the delight of his sensations in being again in his own house, in the centre of his family after such a separation, made him communicative and chatty in a very unusual degree ”

“ He is not a shining character, but he has a thousand good qualities; and is so disposed to look up to you, that I am quite laughed at about it, for everybody considers it as my doing. ‘Upon my word, Mrs. Norris,’ said Mrs. Grant the other day, ‘if Mr. Rushworth were a son of your own, he could not hold Sir Thomas in greater respect.’”
Sir Thomas gave up the point, foiled by her evasions, disarmed by her flattery; and was obliged to rest satisfied with the conviction that where the present pleasure of those she loved was at stake, her kindness did sometimes overpower her judgment. ”

“ The banker chuckled grimly and nodded his head in mock concurrence. “Ah, yes; you are right. I do not know you. It was some other woman. Oh that it had been! [Pg 248] But alas! it was you—you, the last lady, and I, poor wretch, thought you the First Lady—the Presidentessa!”
“The Presidentessa again?” said the priest, bewildered.
“Yes, padre. So it was she tricked us—me and her husband. Some other woman! Anima mia! Does a man forget the face that has robbed him? In marble I first saw it, and never has it left me, day or night. Ah, the trouble, grand trouble it has brought me! ”

“ A great deal of good sense followed on Sir Thomas's side, tending to reconcile his wife to the arrangement. Everything that a considerate parent ought to feel was advanced for her use; and everything that an affectionate mother must feel in promoting her children's enjoyment was attributed to her nature. Lady Bertram agreed to it all with a calm “Yes”; and at the end of a quarter of an hour's silent consideration spontaneously observed, “Sir Thomas, I have been thinking—and I am very glad we took Fanny as we did, for now the others are away we feel the good of it.” ”

“ They went along what seemed to Thomas miles and miles of red carpet, and were finally ushered, through a great door, into a great room. Thomas disengaged himself from the young lady's train and sniffed, just to show that he was quite at home.
That sniff was fatal, for he scented a mouse somewhere!
The room was hung with red and gold, and surrounded with glittering mirrors. There was a rustle of silks and satins. On every side were court lords and ladies dressed in all their gorgeous splendour. Fans fluttered, feathers nodded, diamonds sparkled in all directions. ”

“ The tale goes that Thomas was on Huntlie bank, near the Eildon Hills, when he saw a wonderful lady approaching him. She was dressed in grass-green silk, with a mantle of fine velvet, and the noble horse on which she rode had silver bells in its mane. Thomas was so surprised at this remarkable sight that when the lady came near he dropped on his knee and pulled off his cap, and cried out, reverently, that she must be the Queen of Heaven. But she answered that she was Queen of fair Elfland, and dared him, with a witching glance, to kiss her lips. ”

“ She certainly said . . . that she was doing it for somebody else; but she was so agitated—But that she could love Thomas was incredible. Thomas was a good-for-nothing, he assured himself with blind fury; he was always getting what he wanted from women, a cynic. ”

“ Miss Scudamore said. "There is a flippancy about them of which I do not approve."
"Yes, aunt, in nicknames; but Tom is not a nickname; it is only a short way of speaking. We never hear of a man being called Thomas, unless he is a footman or an archbishop, or something of that sort." ”

“ I need not say how rejoiced I shall be to hear there has been any mistake, but the report is so prevalent that I confess I cannot help trembling. To have such a fine young man cut off in the flower of his days is most melancholy. Poor Sir Thomas will feel it dreadfully. ”

“ Thomas, who is certainly a remarkable woman, is a thoroughly educated one; has traveled extensively both in Europe and this country. Herself and husband have been intimate acquaintances of many eminent men, among whom were President Lincoln and Secretary Stanton. The activity displayed in managing the estate indicates the possession of marked executive ability, and the exercise she thus receives has doubtless had its share in keeping her young, well-preserved, and good-natured. ”

“ And as I sit there before the fire, smiling over Harrington and Jack and myself, my cigar goes out, and I signal Thomas to bring me another. Thomas has the ascetic countenance of a tragedian, and the repose of an archbishop. Now, Thomas—and it comes to me with a [Pg 155] shock—what do I know about Thomas, the man, as distinguished from the hired servant whom I have been aware of this year and more? Is he married or single? And if he is married, do his children resent their father's wearing livery? Does Thomas himself like to be a servant? ”

“ Except to the attack on Nanny's cousin, Sir Thomas no longer made any objection, and a more respectable, though less economical rendezvous being accordingly substituted, every thing was considered as settled, and the pleasures of so benevolent a scheme were already enjoyed. The division of gratifying sensations ought not, in strict justice, to have been equal; for Sir Thomas was fully resolved to be the real and consistent patron of the selected child, and Mrs. Norris had not the least intention of being at any expense whatever in her maintenance. ”