On entering the splendid drawing-room, the party found themselves in the presence of an old man and a young one, to both of whom they were equally strangers. Sir Charles Temple was standing before the fire, but Mr. Thorpe had already advanced towards the door in order to receive them. Had not that admirable rifacimento of a butler, Mr. Joseph Grimstone, while obeying Mrs. Heathcote’s wishes for delay, still kept the drawing-room door ajar, it is probable that the philosophical-seeming old gentleman would not have been led to demonstrate quite so much eagerness, but, as it was, the Major and his lady had scarcely been announced, and passed the door, ere each had a hand very cordially taken by their venerable host. This circumstance made a strong impression on the husband and wife, who, being both of them blessed with kind hearts and loving tempers, immediately conceived such an impression of Mr. Thorpe’s disposition as set them at their ease with him, which probably might not have been the case had their first entrée been otherwise arranged.
As soon as this first hand-shaking was ended, Mr. Thorpe proceeded to the examination of the three young persons who greeted his eyes, as the figures of his very tall and very round guests passed on. The first who approached him was a tall slight girl, whose features it was not very easy to distinguish, for a close bonnet showed more cap beneath it than face, and a thick green gauze veil, tied over all, left little by which to judge whether the damsel were well-looking or the reverse.
“And who are you, my dear?” said the old man, again stretching forth a welcoming hand.
“Florence Heathcote, sir,” replied a timid but not unpleasing voice.
Major Heathcote here suddenly turned back in his progress towards the welcome fire, saying, “God bless my soul! I beg your pardon, sir, but my fingers are so frost-bitten that I quite forgot the children, poor things!.... That’s Florence, your sister Mary’s sixth child, but the eldest that I have left alive, and the only healthy one that my poor dear first wife ever bore — And this little lass,” he continued, bringing forward a young lady apparently about the same age as his daughter, but considerably shorter, “this is Sophia Martin, your poor sister Jane’s little girl, and all that she left behind her, poor soul!.... And this is my son Algernon, Mary’s seventh child.... a very clever lad, I assure you, but not quite so stout, poor boy, as I could wish, though a deal belter, a great deal better, than he has been.”
The first of the three young people passed on towards the fire without obtaining more than a passing glance from her uncle; but not so the second. Sophia Martin was infinitely better dressed than her cousin; not indeed, that a London lady of middling station would have discovered anything in the dress of either, sufficiently comme-il-faut to be worn before the eyes of strangers; but Sophia’s appearance indicated great care and neatness. Her hair, notwithstanding the unfavourable weather, was in perfect order; and instead of stepping forward, like Florence, as soon as Mr. Thorpe released her hand, she paused, and looked up mildly but earnestly in his face, and seemed to linger near him, as if hoping for further notice.
The old man returned her gaze with equal earnestness, and not content with holding one hand, took the other also, saying, as he parted the natural curls upon her forehead. “This, then, is poor Jane’s orphan girl, is it?.... She is not quite like what her mother was at her age, but she wonderfully resembles my poor boy. His hair curled just as hers does, and her smile is exactly like him. I never saw a girl so like a boy, — and yet, dear little soul! there is nothing masculine about her, either.”
These words were followed by one of the sighs that had lately become habitual to him; but he shook his grey head, as if to get rid of the melancholy impression, and passed on, with a kind smile, to the young Algernon, who stood shivering within a step of the door.
“You look half frozen, my dear boy,” said he, laying his hand on the lad’s shoulder, and leading him on towards the fire; “and yet you are capitally well wrapped up, too.”
“I took care of that, sir,” said Mrs. Heathcote, assiduously releasing her step-son from a few of his worsted envelopements. “Algernon, though much better than he has been, is far from being quite fit to travel in such weather as this... but the dear Major would bring him, sir,” she continued, twinkling her bright little eyes at her husband, “so all I could do was to wrap him up well. To be sure, it would not have been fair to leave him at home. He is a good boy, sir, and a quick one too, I promise you. — I packed you up well, Algernon, didn’t I?”
“I should have been dead if you had not, mother,” said the lanky lad, nestling close beside his plump and smiling step-dame.
Sir Charles Temple here gave the first indication of not being a statue, for he looked at Mrs. Heathcote with a benevolent smile, and said, “I hope you took care of yourself too, Mrs. Heathcote, for it is freezing tremendously hard.”
Before the lady could reply, Mr. Thorpe proceeded to introduce his friend to the party. “I beg your pardon! I have lived so long by myself, that I forget how to do the honours properly. Mrs. Heathcote, — Major Heathcote, — permit me to introduce my excellent young friend and neighbour, Sir Charles Temple.... Young ladies, you must not think the worse of him when I tell you that he is the only man in the whole neighbourhood.... and it is a friendly neighbourhood, too.... but he is the only one upon whom I have ventured freely to bestow all the rusty, crusty, creaking feelings with which an old man is sure to get charged when he lives alone.... And I wish you were a little stouter, Algernon, for, in addition to the patience which enables him to bear grey hairs and long stories, he is blessed with as unwearied a perseverance in hunting, shooting, scampering, and so on, as if the gift of sitting still were unknown to him.”
This produced a courtesy and friendly simper from Mrs. Heathcote; a respectful military bow from the Major; from Algernon a pretty hard stare from a pair of prodigiously large blue eyes; from Florence, the raising of rather remarkably well-fringed lids, which had been hitherto closed as she painfully thawed her hands; and from Sophia a fixed look of nearly a minute long, unmistakably expressive of approbation, a look indeed, speaking, but seemingly involuntary for the minute after her eyes were bent upon the floor, and notwithstanding the cold which she evidently shared with the rest of the party, she drew from the circle surrounding the fire, and sought to conceal herself behind the ample person of her aunt.
The next moment another movement in the hall gave notice of a fresh arrival, and with as little delay as if the party had driven only from a neighbouring parish, Mr. Spencer and his two sons entered the room.
If any illustration were wanting of the superiority of a comfortable travelling carriage, over the rattling windiness of a hack post-chaise, it might have been furnished by the striking difference in condition between this party and the former one.
Mr. Spencer, who was a very gentlemanlike looking person of middle stature, and of middle age, showed no indication whatever of having suffered from cold; his outer dress was indeed richly trimmed and lined with fur, and a lamp that during the whole journey had burned within the carriage, bad, with the nearly airtight construction of the vehicle itself, effectually guarded him and his young companions from the frost. The two lads were as gentlemanlike, and as warmly clad as their father, and the whole group had an air of fashion and of ease which infinitely improved the spirits of Mrs. Barnes as she watched their progress through the hall.
Nor was it altogether lost upon her master either; Mr. Thorpe, though grown into a rustic humourist, had been a graceful and aristocratic personage in his younger days, and the address and appearance of Mr. Spencer produced on him the effect that a flourish of trumpets does upon an old charger. He braced his limbs, raised his somewhat stooping chest, and made a bow that would not have disgraced St. James’s.
“It is a long time since I had the pleasure of seeing you, sir,” said Mr. Spencer, with much suavity of manner as he presented his hand, “but I am happy to perceive that you are still looking remarkably well. Give me leave to present your nephews to you... This is Benti
nck, my eldest son, and this, Montagu Manchester, my youngest.... both of them very anxious to become better acquainted with their uncle.”
“I am happy to see both them and you, sir,” replied Mr. Thorpe. “You are come to me through very severe weather, as are also Major and Mrs. Heathcote, and these young people, who, by marriage, have the honour of calling you uncle... but you do not seem to have suffered so severely by the cold as they have done!”
“My carriage is very well built, I believe. Major Heathcote, I am happy to renew my acquaintance with you,” continued the official gentleman, presenting his hand. “One has got so completely into the habit of running to the Continent whenever one is not wanted in London, that it is difficult to keep up any personal intercourse with friends in the country.... These young people are your children, I presume?.... Pray make me acquainted with them. Bentinck, Montagu, here are three young cousins for you to make friends of.”
“They are all cousins to your sons, Mr. Spencer, that is certain, though they are not all my children. This is Sophia Martin, the little girl that poor Jane, my wife’s sister, and your wife’s sister, left behind her.”
Mr. Spencer bowed to Miss Martin, and received in return a low courtesy, and a glance to the face he bent towards her, indicative of the deepest respect and gentlest gratitude. “Florence! Algernon!” said Major Heathcote, calling forward his children from the other side of the fire-place, “come and pay your compliments to your uncle Spencer.”
Florence obeyed by advancing a step, and bending her slender neck; but her brother Algernon kept his place beside his stepmother, and contented himself by saluting his new relations by raising his remarkably large eyes, and in a slight degree bending his remarkably small head.
“And now, then, let me present to you my friend, Sir Charles Temple, and the whole circle will be known to each other,” said Mr. Thorpe.
“Sir Charles Temple?” repeated Mr, Spencer, advancing towards him with animation, “I beg your pardon!... It is just about three years since I met you at Florence. I hope Lady Temple is well. Is she still in that fairest of cities? The light is failing certainly, bat I cannot conceive bow I could be in the room with you for an instant, and not remember you.”
As Sir Charles Temple, though he met the hand extended to him, very civilly, had not in fact the slightest recollection of ever having seen Mr. Spencer before in his life, he could only say in return, that his mother was quite well when he last heard from her, and that she Still continued Stationary at Florence.
This interesting recognition over, Mr. Thorpe turned to Mrs. Heathcote and suggested the expediency of the ladies retiring to their rooms, in order to dress for dinner, adding, “Though the Wilkyns family are not arrived, that is no reason why the rest of the party should dress in a hurry.”
The proposal was willingly accepted, bells were rung, candles ordered, and Mrs. Barnes desired to appear. To do that excellent person justice, it is but fair to state that although a nearer view of the dress of the three ladies now consigned to her care did in no degree tend to increase the valuation she had in the first instance put upon them, her manners were quite as attentive and respectful as if a party of peeresses had come to take possession of her nicely-prepared rooms instead; and it was only when her ears informed her by the approach of another carriage over the gravel that the third division of the company was arrived, that she resigned her post in Mrs. Heathcote’s dressing-room to her niece Nancy, the young ladies, each in their separate rooms, being attended by one of the provisional soubrettes of the mansion.
The next moment the sound of more trunks ascending was heard, and then the creaking of a pair of heavy boots and the tripping and the tittering of some young ladies... And then all was hushed throughout the house, each room nevertheless being the separate scene of earnest occupation.... till the whole company were assembled together in the drawing-room just one minute before the great dinner-bell gave notice that the table was spread.
CHAPTER IV.
The last persons who entered the drawing-room at this general muster were, as might have been expected, those who last left it, namely, Mr. Wilkyns and his three daughters. The squire of Llanwellyn Lodge himself did not, indeed, bestow much time upon his toilette, returning to the drawing-room much in the same condition that he left it, save that he had removed an enormous pair of overalls from his nether limbs, leaving his dress in what he considered as a fitting condition for any society in Europe. In appearance this gentleman was very nearly a giant, standing six feet four inches out of his shoes, and presenting a mass of bone, muscle, and sinew in perfect proportion to his height. To assert that his soul accorded with his body might be considered as equal to saying that he had a lofty soul; therefore the expression must be avoided as being liable to an erroneous interpretation: nevertheless in one sense it was strictly true, for if the body of Squire Wilkyns was heavy his soul was at least equally so, and the same vis inertiae which rendered it difficult to put the one in motion, appeared to keep the other for ever stagnant also. But if his intellect was slow, so were his passions. Squire Wilkyns had but one propensity in the world which ever approached to vice, and this one very rarely carried him far enough to deserve the epithet.... he loved good strong heady port wine, and of ale could swallow with impunity as much as would intoxicate three ordinary men; but in this, as in all else, the effect within him was so slow that ere exhilaration reached such a climax as to become apparent, the vinous influence had evaporated, and nothing but a little additional heaviness about the eyelids gave signal of the copious debauch. Of all things living Squire Wilkyns certainly loved his daughters best; but there were no incongruities in his nature, and his affections travelled at the same pace as his senses, his intellect, and his limbs. To have produced something approaching to the sensation felt by an ordinary parent at seeing the light drapery of a daughter approach a candle too nearly, Mr. Wilkyns must have seen all his three enveloped in flames; and ere the pang could reach him which the heightened pulse of a darling child is in general enough to give, it would have been necessary for him to witness the last feverish gaspings of struggling life. Au reste if he had no strongly attached friends, he was without an enemy in the world; and if the ecstacies of high-wrought sensibility were unknown to him, so also were all the deep-felt miseries of human life.
Of his three daughters one was rather pretty, one rather ugly, and the third neither the one nor the other. In all other respects they were so extremely like what the great majority of young ladies would be under similar circumstances, that it is not necessary to enter into any detailed description. They all knew very well that they were co-heiresses, and that when papa died they should have five hundred a year each.... which in Wales is a good deal for a young lady. They also knew that papa never scolded about the bills for their wardrobes, if they did not exceed a hundred and fifty pounds per annum for the three; so they were nicely dressed, and altogether felt themselves entitled to be considered as “Ladies-of very great fashion in Wales,”
The summons to dinner followed so quickly upon the entrance of the three sisters, that little or no introduction of them to the rest of the party took place. But they were not ignorant of the object of the meeting, and knowing that the grey-headed old gentleman was their uncle Thorpe, the handsome young man Sir Charles Temple.... “and all the rest their near relations,” they very judiciously smiled, and assumed the appearance of being in great good humour and quite at their ease.
When the welcome sound of “Dinner is on the table,” reached the ears of Mr. Thorpe, he immediately presented his arm to Mrs. Heathcote, but paused a moment before he passed out to say, “Sir Charles Temple, be pleased to give your arm to my eldest niece, Miss Wilkyns,.... and the uncles and cousins must come after as chance or choice may pair them,” he added in a whisper to his plump companion; “for, upon my word, excepting in the case of my sister Wilkyns’ eldest girl, I know nothing about the young people’s ages, and therefore could not venture to marshal them.”
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Collected Works of Frances Trollope Page 280