Collected Works of Frances Trollope

by Frances Milton Trollope

“Oh, heavens! no.... mud! God forbid I should be the means of bringing those fairy feet in contact with such a horror!.... But Margaret!.... you love pictures — cannot you imagine the effect of such a light, sylph-like form as that, glancing through the umbrageous solitudes of Thorpe-Combe woods?”

  “Can I not?”.... returned his sister, shaking her head.... “It is very droll, Richard! But it is exactly what I was thinking of myself.”

  “No?.... But where is the wonder?”

  Mr. Brandenberry then turned the conversation upon the subject of the county balls. He perceived that the “key” had not taken, exactly....and the mention of mud had rather damped his courage in the woodland line. It is probable that in alluding to a ball-room, his thoughts were wandering towards quadrilles, hand-squeezings, and tête à tête struggles to get into tea-rooms. But these were not the images which it suggested to Sophia. She had not before heard any mention made of these Hereford balls, and it immediately struck her, that she should like nothing better than showing herself off there, as the heiress of Thorpe-Combe. She therefore replied in a more animated tone of voice than was quite usual to her, that as soon as her guardian and Mrs. Heathcote were there to chaperon her, she should certainly go.

  This subject, naturally enough, led the conversation to the neighbourhood; and the different families who patronized these festivities were described at some length by the animated brother and sister. The general tone of their observations, or, as it were, the setting of the various gems of satiric wit which sparkled through their discourse, was that of the most candid liberality. “Certainly it is an excellent neighbourhood on the whole,”—” amiable, good people,” — —” so much friendly feeling,”—” and, really, a considerable sprinkling of talent.” But the monotony of praise so general was soon relieved by a few remarks of a more personal and individual character, and, at the end of an immoderately long visit it was not the fault of Mr and Miss Brandenberry, if the heiress was not left with the conviction, that the neighbourhood was quite good enough to make it answer to visit them and give them parties; but that, although there was a good deal of wealth among them, there was hardly a family in the county, except, indeed, the Brandenberrys themselves, whose ancestry could strictly bear examination.

  It would be attributing an almost unnatural degree of shrewdness to a girl of twenty, brought up, too, for the most part, in great retirement, if it were asserted that all this information was taken at its exact worth by Sophia. But though, strictly speaking, this could hardly be the case, it was more nearly so than would be likely to happen half a dozen times out of a hundred. Nor was the admiration for herself so frankly expressed by the brother and sister, the part least clearly understood. Rarely was her estate or her house, or her plate or her funded property, long absent from the mind of Sophia Martin Thorpe; and though she certainly saw nothing impossible, or even very surprising in a gentleman’s falling in love with her, and though she knew particularly well that she had a small hand, a very little foot, and hair that curled naturally, she still, thought that it was most likely Mr. Brandenberry was hoping to catch the heiress. But she had no objection to this in any way: she did not think at all the worse of him for considering the acquisition of property as the first object in life, — and complacently remembered that she was not obliged to accept him, or anybody else, merely because they offered to her; no, not even if they really did fall in love with her, while thinking chiefly of her fortune.... It was their business to take care of themselves, and her business to take care of herself; and she was determined never to quarrel with anybody, merely because they said they had fallen in love with her. “That would be quarrelling with one’s bread and butter,” thought she, as she sat down to her nice dinner, after the above-mentioned visit, “and there is nothing so silly as that; and as this droll little illustration passed through her head, she smiled at her own wit, and set about helping herself to her carrot soup with a very pleasant expression of countenance.

  CHAPTER XIX.

  Miss Martin Thorpe had said no more than the truth when she told Mr and Miss Brandenberry that she had been very busy. The fitting up of her two rooms, with all the contrivances to make them both splendid and cheap, had really left her little leisure for anything else. Yet it was impossible to go on without hiring a butler, and there was another house-maid to be inquired about. The places of dairy-maid and kitchen-maid were preferments which, she assured Mrs. Barnes, might be bestowed in most unobjectionable plurality upon one and the same individual; for Miss Martin Thorpe had a peculiar dislike to having a house crammed full of servants; and as to a laundry-maid, she had for the present dismissed the difficult inquiry from her thoughts; it being much better, where there was a mixed family, to put the washing out, and then each party could pay for their own.

  All these troublesome but necessary affairs had from day to day prevented her sending a message she had determined on, to her lawyer, Mr. Westley, requesting that he would come and dine with her for the purpose of talking over a matter of business concerning the state. But, at length, she felt sufficiently at liberty to put her intention in execution; the invitation was sent and accepted, and Mrs. Barnes ordered to prepare a genteel dinner for two but to omit the preserved ginger at the dessert.

  The gentleman arrived very punctually at the hour appointed; the dinner followed immediately, and employed both lady and gentleman agreeably enough, till the servants had quitted the ‘ room; when, feeling that it was time their idle conversation should cease, Miss Martin Thorpe spoke as follows.

  “I have requested to see you, Mr. Westley, for the purpose of asking you a few questions respecting the cottage residence situated in my shrubberies, and, in fact, within a few hundred yards of my house. It is a very pretty place, but if I can get no rent for it, it appears to me that the best thing I can do would be to pull it down, and sell the materials.”

  “I don’t know but it might, Miss Martin Thorpe,” replied the man of business. “But I suppose you know that we have no right to come upon it, as long as old Arthur Giles lives?”

  “No right to come upon a part of my own property, and within a stone’s throw of my own dwelling-house?” said Sophia, her brows taking the ominous bend which they always assumed when displeased.

  “By ‘come upon it,’ I don’t mean standing, or stepping, or walking over it,” replied Mr. Westley. “But we can’t come upon it, to let it to any other than Arthur Giles; and still less, as a matter of course, could we pull it down.”

  “Very extraordinary, and very unwarrantable, I think. No one should make provisions and arrangements calculated to be so exceedingly inconvenient to those who come after them,” said Miss Martin Thorpe, with a good deal of genuine feeling. “Such a house as that is perfectly absurd for an old groom to live in. Are you quite sure, sir, that it is actually settled upon this old man for his life?”

  “The deed has been regularly registered, Miss Martin Thorpe, and I have all the documents very safely stowed in my office, together with the settlement of the annuity of one hundred pounds, which, as well as the house, goes to his old wife after him, if she should happen to survive. I am sorry that you seem to have taken a dislike to its standing, because I am afraid that nothing can be done in the matter.”

  “I have taken no dislike to its standing, if I could get a fair rent for it, Mr. Westley. I am sure, with the burdens I have upon me, the whole of my guardian’s family to be supported at my ex-difficult to get, that one is obliged to send to London for it, I am sure with all this, I shall find the income allowed me hardly enough for my wants, and twenty pounds a year — a fair rent for such a house as that — would be a great convenience.” pense during my minority.... and everything for housekeeping so “Why as to that, I think, Miss Martin Thorpe, that you will find yourself able to get on without embarrassment. It is counted a cheap county, and if you like to keep it up, you have everything exceedingly convenient about the place, for providing a large family. I should hope my old acquaintance, Mrs. Barnes,
would, for the most part, be able to manage without sending to London.”

  “You are mistaken, I assure you, sir. There are many articles which I cannot do without, for which I am absolutely obliged to send at a great expense to London. But there is no use in entering upon the discussion of this question. I am afraid, too, there, is no use in detaining you any longer. If you like to take a cup of coffee before you set off on your return, you will find some in the drawing-room.” And so saying, the young lady rose and left the room.

  It appeared that Mr. Westley did not wish to take any coffee, for she saw no more of him that evening; and, left to her own meditations, she conceived a project by which she thought it possible to obtain the dislodgment of old Arthur Giles, without going to law with him about it. Accordingly, on the following morning, she made the old man a visit. It was the second he and his good woman had received from her; the first having been one of rather sharp questionings, and ending with no very affectionate feelings on either side. But now the young lady of the land entered the pretty dwelling with much more civility of manner, and bade the old couple “good day,” in a voice almost as gentle as that in which she used to address her late dear, and ever-to-be-lamented uncle.

  “I wanted to speak to you, Mr. Giles, about the roof of your house,” she said. “They tell me that it is getting sadly out of repair; and, by what I hear, the whole building is likely enough to come down about your ears. It strikes me that it would be a deal better, and more comfortable for you and good Mrs. Giles, to get rid of it at once. I will agree to give you five pounds a year towards getting a snug little place in the village, and then you will have no farther trouble about it; but otherwise, you know, I shall be obliged to require of you, that it shall be put in a state of substantial repair, for you are only life tenants, and at your deaths the tenement must be restored to the estate, which it certainly cannot be, if it tumbles down.”

  “I don’t think as there is any need as yet, for you to make yourself uneasy, Miss, about the safety of the building,” replied Arthur Giles, composedly, “and I can’t say as I feels any particular inclination to change. When one gets used to a place, Miss, it don’t seem comfortable to quit; though, for the matter of the five pounds, I am all one your debtor as much as if I was agreed to take it.” Miss Martin Thorpe stood knocking some bits of gravel from her neat boot with the point of her parasol, an implement not yet wanted to shelter her from the sun, but which she always carried about in her hand, when she walked, for the sake of preserving her third-best bonnet from any shower that might happen to fall while she was employed in her favourite task of “looking about her.” Easy as Miss Martin Thorpe usually found it to reply to any words uttered by one decidedly her inferior (excepting, heretofore, her cousin Algernon, ) she was now exceedingly at a loss what to say to Arthur Giles. In fact, she felt a very particular degree of dislike and ill-will to both the old man and his wife, which it was more easy perhaps to explain to herself than to find any reasonable excuse for expressing to them.’

  She might indeed have said, “Why do you both fix your cold old eyes upon me?” for she felt that they were both looking at her pretty earnestly, and she felt too, that they were both, in their contumacious old hearts, analyzing her motives for saying that their pretty house was going to tumble down. So after the pause of a minute or two, she turned herself about, and walked away briskly; not very desirous perhaps of overhearing the words that might be next spoken by those she had left. But the old couple were very civilly cautious, and it was only when her short sharp step on the gravel could no longer be heard, that the old man indulged in a hearty laugh, and the old woman echoed him.

  “She won’t set fire to the place, will she, husband, for the sake of getting quit of us?” said the merry old woman.

  “Why no, Molly, I don’t think she’ll do that, because, when she comes to calculate a bit, she’ll find that she’d be out of pocket if she did.”

  * * * * * * * * * *

  About a week after this unprofitable visit, Miss Martin Thorpe read in the county paper an advertisement announcing an Easter Ball at hereford, and containing some of the first names in the county as stewards. This at length produced the letter, which she bad hitherto so often invented reasons for postponing; and her guardian and his family were informed in as civil words as she could bring herself to use, that her house was now free from workmen, and, that she was ready to receive them. This lagging letter received an immediate answer, announcing that Major and Mrs. Heathcote, Florence, and the two little boys, would be with her on the day week that they had received her summons. For luckily Bamboo Cottage was let, furnished, and the tenant ready to enter.

  On receiving this definitive document she sent for Mrs. Barnes, and informed her on what day this long-announced arrival would take place.

  “Shall you choose, ma’am, to walk into the rooms, and inspect them yourself?” demanded Mrs. Barnes, with an air of profound respect.

  “Oh dear no, Mrs. Barnes,” was the prompt reply. “I feel confident that I can trust to you to see that everything is as it should be”.... and the heiress almost smiled at the idea of any human being’s thinking it necessary that she should leave her elegant sitting-room, and trot about the garrets to see that there was a sufficient quantity of soap and towels for those dearly beloved Heathcotes.

  But Mrs. Barnes, though graver than any judge while she remained in the presence of her mistress, did more than half smile when she reached her own dominions and found niece Nancy there alone, for she laughed outright. “See if I beant up to her, Nancy, after all,” said the greatly delighted housekeeper. “She’s a deal too grand a lady, and God be praised for it! to look after the rooms that these poor dear Heathcote folks are to be packed into; and if I don’t play her a trick, may I never touch a penny of my annuity. But you shall neither meddle nor make in it, Mrs head-housemaid, and then the blame can fall nowhere, but in the right place, if it should chance to happen that I am found out. So mind, if you please, that you have got the east parlour to look after this morning, and you had best go, perhaps, and ask madam some question about it, to show how you are employed. That parlour is to be their constant living room, she says; so ’tis ten to one, but she’ll have some invention to make it uncomfortable. Sunshine, however, costs nothing, so I don’t suppose she’ll order the blinds to be fastened up immovable, and she can’t easy spoil the room without that.”

  “And what is the scheme you are upon, aunt, if I may be so bold?” said the upper-housemaid.

  “Never you mind, girl...however, as I told you her orders, when she gave ’em, ’tis as well you should know how I intends to obey ’em. You remember the smoky room that I told you was for the Major and his lady?” Nancy nodded. “Well, then.... I’ll be hanged if they shall sleep there,” resumed the resolute annuitant.

  “Why, aunt, you don’t mean to bring them down stairs, do you, and then fancy that missis won’t find it out?”

  “No, Miss Nancy. I won’t bring ’em down stairs, that is, not the Major and his lady, because I don’t want to make a blow up, and because I can make ’em very comfortable without. But this is what I’ll do. I’ll have the bed out of the green room, as the Welsh squire slept in, put up stairs in the south room that the young Spencers had, and there the chimney draws as well as in our pretty lady’s own sitting-room.... I’ll move the two little beds, that’s there, into the big room that she was for turning her guardian into; and there the little boys shall sleep, and Betty shall have the room next ’em; and it is she shall wash ’em and dress ’em. My master’s own niece, pretty cretur, Miss Florence, I mean, shan’t be kept to no such slavery, if I can find a way to help it. Well, I hadn’t done yet with my improvements. The small room that her kind cousin fixed upon for her, I means to make a dressing-room of for the Major, and there’s a chimney as draws well there, too, and though it’s not over cold just now, the Major and his lady shall both have fires blazing for ’em, you see if they don’t.”

  “And whe
re is Miss Florence to sleep, aunt?” demanded Nancy, looking considerably alarmed.

  “In the same room she had in my master’s time, and no other,” replied Mr. Barnes.

  “Oh, my goodness? If she was to find you out, how long do you think you’d have to stop here, aunt?”

  “As long as I want to stop, niece Nancy. Don’t you be after troubling yourself about me. If she likes to keep you on, and you likes to stay, that will prove the difference between us, girl, quite sufficient to make you a favourite; but if so be as your heart turns sick at her ways as bad as mine do, why then I’ll take care of ye one way or another, never you fear.”

  The courage to put all this in operation was not wanting on (he part of the old housekeeper, and very sufficient opportunity was afforded for it by her young mistress; for she had determined to walk through the woods with her page for a guide, to the dwelling of her friends the Brandenberrys, as much needful information still remained to be acquired respecting the ball. The visiting between them had hitherto been but rare on the part of Sophia, as she had never yet got to them without the expense of post-horses; but, on this occasion, she was determined to discover whether she could not enjoy an intercourse so useful and agreeable without this heavy tax. The affair of the key still remained unsettled, but the approach of the Heathcotes seemed to open her heart, and her doors also, to her new friends, and she almost made up her mind to promise them this great favour in the course of this visit, provided she still found them as agreeable as before.

  Soberly meditating on this, and on other points of equal importance to her own dear self, she walked for the first time through her lovely woods, as unconscious of all pleasure from their beauty as if she had been stone-blind. At length, however, she came upon an object that awakened all her attention, and at once recalled her from meditations on keys and balls, and neighbouring bachelors and distant baronets, to the scene before her. This object was a magnificent oak tree, around which space had been cleared in all directions to give fair play to its giant arms, “as it stood in its pride alone,” and had so stood, like the sylvan hero of the glorious song, “For a hundred years or more.”