Mrs. Warrender

“ And then domestic comfort is often so sure that nothing but its own virtue could have purchased such an exemption from the ills of life. The Warren had been a few months ago a pattern of humdrum peacefulness. The impatience that sometimes lit up a little fire in Mrs. Warrender's eyes was so out of character, so improbable, that any one who suspected it believed himself to have been deceived; for who could suppose the mother to be tired of her quiet existence? And the girls were not impatient; they lived their half-vegetable life with the serenest and most complacent calm. ”

“ Sons and daughters may entertain such sentiments; even the girls, whose life, no doubt, had been a dull one, might be supposed willing enough, with a faint pretence of natural and traditionary reluctance, and those few natural tears which are wiped so soon, to leave home and see the world. But the mother! In ordinary circumstances it would have been the duty of the historian to set forth the hardness of Mrs. Warrender's case, deprived at once, by her husband's death, not only of her companion and protector, but of her home and position as head of an important house. ”

“ Cavendish, and knows she cannot live for ever; beside, marriage being the best thing for a woman, as most people think, it should be the mother's duty to do everything she can to secure it for her daughter. Yes, I go as far as that—in words," Mrs. Warrender added, with a little laugh.
"But not for her son?"
"I don't say that: no, not at all. I should rejoice in Theo's marriage, but for the complications, which I think he is not the right person to get through, with comfort. You, now, I think," she added, cheerfully, "might marry Lady—— Anybody, with a family of children, and make it succeed." ”

“ The woman who has not found in her husband that dearest friend, whose companionship can alone make life happy, when she discovers after a while that the children in whom she has placed her last hope are his children, and not hers,—what is to become of her? She is thrown back upon her own individuality with a shock which is often more than flesh and blood can bear. In Mrs. Warrender's case this was not, as in some cases, a tragical discovery, but it had an exasperating and oppressive character which was almost more terrible. ”

“ The men were always in a minority, for most of the gilded youth of King's Warren were of too timid a nature to put in an appearance. Occasionally young Mr. Wurzel, dragged thither by his bride-elect, the sentimental Miss Grains, would come, but he felt like a fish out of water, seldom opened his mouth, and passed most of his time in gazing, with respectful admiration, upon Miss Lucy Warrender ”

“ At The Warren both ladies and lawn were particularly attractive; the ubiquitous curate was conspicuous by his absence; there was a little play, a good deal of small talk, and as usual, Lord Spunyarn was particularly attentive to Lucy Warrender. Now-a-days it is the fashion for the youth of England to leave the spinsters out in the cold, and to affect the society of the more attractive among the married ladies only. ”

“ Disappointed, they were leaving when Lilian Crawshay, who had recognised Warrender's voice as she descended the stairs, called to them.
"You wanted to see my father, Mr. Warrender?" she asked, as they turned back.
"Yes; I'm sorry he's out, but we'll call again this afternoon."
"What a pity, when you have so far to go! Can't I give him a message? Won't you come in and see Mother?"
"It's very good of you, but we have some shopping to do in the village, or Armstrong will get no lunch. It will be no trouble to come again. We get up and down very quickly in the motor-boat." ”

“ The curate admired the fingers, and observed with satisfaction that they were undecorated by a prohibitive ring.
"There are other spheres, dear Miss Warrender, than sisterhoods. Our friend Mrs. Dodd has found a happy and congenial one here in King's Warren." [Pg 200]
"But then she is a clergyman's wife, Mr. Puffin, and a privileged person."
"It is a privilege, Miss Warrender, a great privilege. I'm glad it commends itself to you as such."
"Oh, yes; Mrs. Dodd is much to be envied, but then Mrs. Dodd is a very clever woman; she, Mr. Puffin, has caught her hare." ”

“ When Georgie was ushered into the state room at The Warren, though she was horribly tired, she protested, but all to no purpose.
"It's no use, my dear; the wheels of time never go backwards. You will never be Georgie Warrender again, for she has developed into a personage—Mrs. Haggard is a personage of consideration." ”

“ As Georgie replaced the letter in its envelope she blushed; had Haggard been indifferent to her she would not have hung out this signal of distress. It is impossible to follow the course of reasoning of a woman's mind. Georgie Warrender was no raw girl to be caught by the mere good looks of big Reginald. ”

“ It is human nature after all ever to strive after the impossible, and Mr. Puffin recognizing in Miss Warrender a young lady who was essentially of the world worldly, naturally determined to attempt her conversion. But the spirit of contrariety is ever strongly developed in the female breast. As the parson became more pertinacious, Miss Warrender, who was at first rather bored than otherwise by his eloquence, resolved upon reprisals.
"I'll bet you a new bonnet," she had said to Haggard, "that I make the [Pg 183] Celibate propose to me."
"Not he, my dear," said Georgie's husband with a laugh. ”

“ I wish I'd gone."
"I wish you had!" echoed Warrender. "But when a fellow's so dashed polite----"
"Polite! I tell you what it is: you're both too serious for this flighty world. When you consider that it's gyrating at the rate of I don't know how many thousand miles a minute, it's unnatural, positively indecent, for any one to be so stuggy. The art of life is to effervesce. But, you know, the important feature of your morning's entertainment seems not to have sufficiently impressed you."
"What's that?" asked Armstrong.
"Rod's wife. ”

“ But Lord Spunyarn shook his head as he signed to the butler to give him what he termed a B. and S.
"Beer is too bulky for me, Warrender," said the spindle-shanked nobleman, as he stretched out his shapely but rather shaky hand for the panacea. "I object to bulk, Warrender, on principle; it is my terror of becoming a welterweight that made me go in for athletics. Why, look at my father, and they had to make a hole in the wall to get my grandfather's coffin out of the house. No, Warrender, mind and muscle are my strong points." ”

“ These four who are now being laid tenderly on the white cots have two of them had their legs blown off, and two others are already dying from wounds more mortal.
Eleanor Warrender a little later closes their eyes in the last sleep. She has watched beside hundreds of men like that as they have gone out into the Great Beyond. ”

“ The Warrender girls were the most well-regulated girls in the world, and the most likely to keep their respective husbands straight; and Mr. Wilberforce also thought it would be a very good thing for the girls themselves, who were so much out of the way of seeing eligible persons, or being sought. The rector felt that if Minnie Warrender once took the young man in hand he was safe. And they had already met at Oxford during Commemoration, and young Cavendish had remembered with pleasure their fresh faces and slightly, pleasantly rustic and old-fashioned ways. ”

“ At nine o'clock next morning Armstrong and Warrender rowed off in the dinghy; at a quarter to ten they entered the grounds of the Red House. The paths were weedy, the grass untrimmed, the flower-beds untidy.
"The foreigners don't overwork," remarked Armstrong, as they walked along the drive towards the house. "The place is a disgrace to the neighbourhood."
"It certainly looks very much neglected," said Warrender. "The house might be uninhabited but for that smoke from one of the chimneys, and the car waiting at the door."
"The same car Pratt and I saw yesterday. It belongs to old Blevins. ”

“ But then an assertion of innocence in the grand style of an appeal to the Deity sometimes piques a prosecutor, because it conveys an imputation that the accused one is better taken care of by Heaven than he is; and so it turned out here, for Mr Warrender felt as if he had been challenged to the ultimate trial by ordeal, and he straightway proceeded to take measures for having Mary apprehended upon the charge of having robbed his daughter of the much-prized ring. ”

“ But then, everybody did not hear Lady Markland's account of the matter; and the common mass, the spectators who observe such domestic dramas with always a lively desire to get as much amusement as possible out of them, made remarks of a very different kind. The men thought that Warrender was a fool, but that the widow was consoling herself; the ladies said that it was sad to see a young man so infatuated, but that Lady Markland could not live without an adviser ”

“ Warrender was not a wise woman. She was pleased that she and the child who was left to her were having the better of the little fray. "Eustace thinks"—Minnie might quote him as much as she pleased, she would never get her mother to quail before these words. A man may be Honourable and Reverend both, and yet not be strong enough to tyrannise over his mother-in-law and lay down the law in her house. ”

“ She had a kind heart, poor thing! if any lady had.’
‘No doubt, Warrender, no doubt. No one denies that she has good qualities, but they have been exercised greatly to the detriment of the earl. Young men will be young men, but there comes a time when such things must be put a stop to, and the time has come to stop this. You will have a legal mistress now—a lady of high birth, who will rule the house as it should be ruled, and the sooner you all forget that such a person as Miss Llewellyn existed the better!’
‘Perhaps so, sir ”

“ Presently Warrender announced that it was time to go if they meant to reach Southampton before dark. The whole company trooped down to the bank with them, and watched them board the motor-boat, already loaded with their camp equipment. Last good-byes were said; Warrender opened the throttle; and as the boat panted down stream there came to the ears of the silent spectators the gentle strumming of the banjo, and Pratt's melodious tenor--
"Our hearts were once divided,
But now they beat as one ”

“ Warrender for his tasteful floral decoration of the little salon, and had then suddenly subsided into an attitude of respectful admiration in front of Haggard's supposed heir. To no man or male person, save perhaps to their own fathers or their medical attendants, are very young infants objects of interest ”

“ Let us linger a few moments before we part, and, turning round, let us climb the steep path that leads over the shoulder of the hill to the village of Corstorphine. As breathless and exhausted we reach the top, we sink gratefully on the seat, which long has been known as "Rest and be thankful," and let our eyes and thoughts stray over the beautiful scene. Before us lies Edinburgh, with its castle and its spires,—beyond is the sea and distant Lammermuirs. Over all the golden light of evening is shining, and the fir-trees throw long shadows at our feet. ”

“ The sky is blue and cloudless overhead,—the whispering wind is all but hushed in this sheltered spot,—not a sound is heard but the far-off bleat of a sheep, or the crow of a grouse on the moors beyond,—and then, in the solemn peacefulness of this place, let him realize if he can that a city, with its turmoil, its din, and its busy crowd, lies little more than an hour's ride from him! ”

“ Miss Warren, nathless, has her misgivings anent her old mamma, and would like to know what that old lady is doing at the present time, and whether she is past reform. Miss Warren even has her moments of doubt as to the flawless perfection of her own life: whether the path of duty in 1897 did not rather lie in the direction of a serious attempt to be a daughter to her wayward mother and reclaim her then, instead of going off at a tangent as the mannish type of New Woman, to whom applicable Mathematics are everything and human affections very little. ”

“ Like their mother, they were large and comely, with a healthfully ready ability to be satisfied with life. It was hard to connect the well-groomed, trimly attired, prepossessing trio, riding and driving about the "residential portion" of the suburb, with the shabby, half-daft hired man in overalls who rarely left the truck-farm at the other end of town. In a surprisingly short time even those who knew of the unprecedented circumstances came almost involuntarily to regard Mrs. Warren as a highly ornamental widow, and the children as half-orphans. ”

“ Oh, may you live to have your own daughter tear and trample on you as you have trampled on me. And you will: you will. No woman ever had luck with a mother's curse on her.
VIVIE. I wish you wouldn't rant, mother. It only hardens me. Come: I suppose I am the only young woman you ever had in your power that you did good to. Don't spoil it all now.
MRS WARREN. Yes, Heaven forgive me, it's true; and you are the only one that ever turned on me. Oh, the injustice of it! the injustice! the injustice! I always wanted to be a good woman. I tried honest work ”

“ You and Olive play the society parts, and give Jane and me the domestic ones."
"My dear, nothing can be so unfortunate for a girl, or for a young married woman, as to become known as peculiar. Of course you are not serious--no girl of your age is ever serious in declaring that she wants nothing to do with society--but it distresses me to have you even talk as you are doing. Go and dress, and look your best, dear, and don't worry me with this sort of thing. I am quite worn out already. Doctor Warrener advises a course of baths at a rest-cure, and I think I shall have to follow his advice." ”