Had Janet Anderson been blessed with father, mother, brothers, sisters, and a home, she would not have suffered as she now did from such a conviction, and her conscience, guiltless of intending offence, might have consoled her for having unwittingly given it. But her spirits were not yet in a condition to permit her being so philosophical, and so she sat down at her little table and wept.
She had not wept very long before her solitude was broken in upon by the entrance of Mrs. Mathews. She did not come, however, with any intention of apologising for her ill-humour, but solely upon a matter of business.
Mrs. Mathews certainly was rather angry with Janet. She was aware, good lady, though it was not very often that she subjected herself to self-examination on the subject, she was quite aware of being more indifferent to, and forgetful of, everything appertaining to dress than it was wise for any lady to be, but upon all such self-accusing occasions, she was wont to draw consolation from that great philosophical panacea, “It does not much signify.”
Now, however, her estimate of the importance of this constitutional defect in her own formation was greatly changed, and she positively was ashamed of herself as she remembered that she had never once thought of the quality or fashion of Janet’s still black attire, till her attention had been drawn to it by the expressive glances of Mrs and Miss Price. And for this inattention on her own part she was very honestly angry with herself, but, to say the truth, she was at least equally angry with poor Janet.
“She should not have let me bring her down here without telling me that she had nothing fit to put on; or, if she has any garments better calculated to endure the scrutinizing glances of our reverend ladies, she had no business to go out as she did. I don’t much like the idea of scolding her; but I must do it, and I will.”
Such was the soliloquy by which Mrs. Mathews prepared herself to do her duty to John Anderson’s daughter upon this very important point.
But the sight of her tears had the effect of very suddenly appeasing the wrath of her protectress, who, instead of scolding, kissed her, saying very gently, “What ails you, my sweet Janet? — why are you crying, my dear child?”
The face of Janet changed as suddenly as an April day when a shower is chased by the sun (a simile more apt than new), and most fervently returning the kiss, she exclaimed, “Then you are not angry with me?”
“No!” replied Mrs. Mathews, “I suppose I am not very angry, or I should not be so easily appeased. But tell me, Janet, why did you not make yourself a little smarter when you went to call upon those idiots? I told you they were idiots, I remember telling you so; and that ought to have made you understand at once that it was necessary for you to make yourself fine. I did not care, yesterday, for Lady Otterborne is not an idiot; I did not even find out that your bonnet looked shabby; but to day, silly child, you ought to have put on your best.”
Janet laughed a little, and coloured a good deal as she replied, pointing to the dowdy little bonnet which lay upon the table, “That is my best bonnet, Mrs. Mathews.”
If Mrs. Mathews was angry now, it certainly was not with Janet. But she called herself by a good many hard names as she recollected not only all the injustice, but all the cruel want of thought which she had manifested.
She could not apologize — that was quite impossible, neither did she think it proper to trust herself to utter aloud all the remorse that was swelling at her heart; so she got up and marched with a hasty but very determined step out of the room, saying, “I will come back presently, Janet. Sit down and read a little, my dear.”
This was all very strange, and the poor girl could not tell what to make of it. But she might have been more puzzled still, perhaps, had she been aware of the violent and unmitigated wrath which the repentant lady was pouring upon her own head the while.
“And so,” thought she, “because I have been all through my life too ugly for anyone to look at me, I am to hold myself fully justified I suppose in forgetting altogether the personal appearance of this lovely girl! How true is it that we none of us know what we are till we are tried! I deserve. — But there is no use in wasting my time to think what I deserve; it will be more to the purpose to think what I can do. I must speak to Sally Spicer.”
And then she rang the bell, and, obedient to the summons, Sally came. But Sally was not invited to sit down. It was no gossiping business now that was to be discussed. It was a time for action, and Mrs. Mathews only wanted a little more information in order to set actively to work.
“Have you unpacked all Miss Anderson’s trunks, Sally?” demanded the lady.
“Yes, ma’am,” replied the maid.
And there was something in Sally Spicer’s look and accent, as she said this, that caused Mrs. Mathews to become as red as scarlet. The silence of a moment ensued.
“I suppose you found that she brought very little with her by way of a wardrobe?” said Mrs. Mathews.
“Oh, dear me! ma’am, next to nothing at all,” replied Sally. “There’s proper linen, you know, ma’am, all very neat and tidy; but by way of dresses! should say there was just nothing at all.”
“Exactly so,” replied Mrs. Mathews; “that is what I expected. Miss Anderson’s fortune is all in India, Sally, and in the care of Indian guardians. It is a very handsome fortune, and her guardians chose that, when she came to England, everything should be furnished for her in the nicest manner possible. I have promised to do this, and I certainly will perform my promise as well as I can; but you know as well as I do, Sally, that I am very apt to be careless in such matters, and therefore I expect that you will help me a little. If you see that I forget anything that a young lady of fashion and fortune ought to have, I desire that you will tell me of it. I do assure you, Sally, that with Miss Anderson’s fortune she ought to want nothing. But I know I am very forgetful about many things, and fine dresses, I am afraid, are among the number. But you never forget anything, Sally, and therefore I shall depend very much upon you. — And there are two things which, in particular, I wish you to remember; one is, that Miss Anderson has a very handsome fortune, and the other, that nothing will make me so unhappy, and so angry too, as finding out that she wants anything of any kind, because I did not happen to remember it.”
Sally listened with great attention, both to the very interesting statement, and the urgent injunctions which accompanied it, and having promised attention, and obedience, she proceeded to make a faithful report of the present state of the young lady’s wardrobe, the most notable features of which were, that her three black dresses were all of them very nearly worn out, and that it was easy to see that the others could never be of any use to her again because she had so entirely outgrown them.
‘‘Well, Sally,” replied Mrs. Mathews, “that is exactly what I expected, as I told you before. And it would have been very foolish indeed, you know, if the people in India had filled her trunks with more dresses, when it was so certain she would outgrow them likewise. But what are her three boxes filled with, then? Is it all linen?”
“Oh! dear no, ma’am, it is almost all books,” replied Sally. Mrs. Mathews thought she should like to see them. Perhaps it occurred to her that it was possible some of the books might formerly have belonged to the young lady’s father.
But this was not the moment to meditate upon such a possibility. There was a great deal of business to be done, and poor Mrs. Mathews did not very well know how to set about it. She felt, however, that at the present moment Sally could do nothing to help her; she was, therefore, dismissed, and the lady was left in her secret bower, to meditate alone.
CHAPTER XXVI.
IT not unfrequently happens, I believe, that the people who are the most capable of giving unbroken attention to a printed page, are the least able to keep the matter-of-fact affairs of life very steadily in view. The emotion and the pleasure which the arrival of Janet had caused Mrs. Mathews, might, indeed, have put all far away possibilities and contingencies out of more worldly-minded heads than hers; and the new and very
delightful feeling of tender love for the fatherless girl had so completely absorbed her, that all the peculiar circumstances of her own marriage-settlement had as wholly vanished from her memory as if she had never heard a word on the subject.
It was very natural, however, that the recollection of it should rush back upon her at a moment when the first object of her heart was to prevent anybody and everybody from supposing that John Anderson’s daughter was left destitute, and the first result of this recollection was a feeling very like despair. But the mind of Mrs. Mathews was not calculated to retain such a feeling long. “I am but fifty years old,” thought she. “In the course of nature I may expect to live twenty years more; and during that time, particularly if I survive my husband, I shall be able to save money; and, lovely as she is, there is little chance of her remaining single.”
And then followed a heartfelt thanksgiving for her present independence, which she felt was more precious to her at that moment than any reversionary prospects could possibly be.
But where were her book-buying schemes, and the conversion of the laundry into a library gone to? Vanished for ever and for ever.
But if these had passed away, there were others which had taken their place, and various and brilliant were the plans for the future which were born within the brain of Mrs. Mathews during the next ten minutes. But she indulged herself in this delightful way no longer; she felt that she had much to do, and immediately set about what she considered as the best way of performing the important task that was before her She had promised Janet that she would return to her and she kept her word, though she felt quite as nervous as any young lady could do when bent upon the performance of some difficult stratagem by which she was to recruit her own fading wardrobe.
She could not endure the idea of Janet’s feeling pained and humiliated, by a sense of obligation to her. But how was this to be avoided?
“I would rather she should think me a tyrant, and love me in spite of my tyranny, than that she should be weighed down by a feeling of eternal obligation,” thought she.
“She must soon see, however, if she is not a fool, that she can do more for me than I can ever do for her. If she can but love me! — me! an ugly old woman, and the wife of Mr. Mathews! God help her, poor child! I should not think it was very easy.”
And as she concluded her soliloquy, she descended the stairs and again presented herself before Janet.
“Well, Janet, I have been talking to Sally about your wardrobe. Sally is my factotum, you must know; and I consult her about everything. She tells me, Janet, that you have outgrown all your frocks, my dear, and, therefore, by your goodwill and pleasure, we must set about buying new ones.”
Janet blushed, and smiled, and flattered herself that she had perfectly succeeded in concealing her inclination to weep instead; for it was with quite a cheerful voice that she said —
“I am a very good workwoman, my dear Mrs. Mathews, and you shall see that I will manage to make my frocks quite long enough for me, without your having the trouble of buying more.”
Mrs. Mathews knit her brows.
“This will never do, Janet,” said she, after reflecting for a moment upon the best mode of proceeding. “Don’t make me angry, my dear. My temper, I believe, is not a very good one; and, therefore, you must be careful, you know, not to put me in a passion. And you will put me in a passion, and a terrible passion, too, I promise you, if you ever talk again about altering your frocks, and being a workwoman.”
There was something so unreasonable, in this; and, moreover, there was so much of anger in the frowns and the accents of Mrs. Mathews that the poor girl felt both puzzled and frightened.
Mrs. Mathews looked at her, and shook her head.
“I believe we are both of us very uncomfortable, Janet,” said she; “but if it goes on so, it must be our own faults; for the truth is, my dear, that we have both of us great reason to be thankful at being together, instead of being uncomfortable.”
“I am very thankful for being with you, dearest Mrs. Mathews,” said Janet; “and the only reason I have for being uncomfortable is that I cannot help being conscious that I must be a burden to you.”
“A burden! That is your notion of the tie between us, is it?” said Mrs. Mathews, looking very much as if she had an inclination to cry herself.
“I wonder,” she added, after silently looking in Janet’s embarrassed face for a minute or two—” I wonder whether there would be most wisdom or most folly in letting you at once into my secret? Be honest, my dear, and tell me if you think you could listen to a romance about an ugly old woman, without its making you sick?”
Janet returned her earnest look, and then said, “Are you the ugly old woman?”
There was something so loving, and so confiding in the expression of Janet’s eyes as she said this, that Mrs. Mathews suddenly threw her arms round her, and pressed her fondly to her heart.
“Yes, I am, my Janet,” she replied, “and I have made no blunder in thinking that I may safely commit the monstrosity of telling you that in the days of my youth I fell in love — deeply, faithfully in love — Janet Anderson, and the man I loved was your father.”
“I thought so,” said Janet, looking comforted, and gently taking the hand of Mrs. Mathews, and kissing it.
“You thought so, Janet? When, and where, did you think so?”
“I can hardly tell you, Mrs. Mathews; I hardly know myself. But the first notion came into my head before papa died. I am very glad you have told me; oh, so very, very glad!”
“And why are you glad, Janet?”
“There, again, is a question that it is very hard to answer,” returned Janet, with a smile that certainly made her look much less uncomfortable than she had done a few minutes before. “I do not think that your telling me this gives me any right to feel less — less shocked, I believe I must call it, by all you do for me; but yet it has that effect, somehow or other.”
“And that is the effect it ought to have, my dearest child” replied Mrs. Mathews; “it is the right and natural effect. From this time forward, Janet, you must be aware, without my again telling you so, that you are an object of very tender love and interest to me. If I survive my dear father, I may truly tell you that you will be the only being I shall have left to love in the world. I did not marry Mr. Mathews because I loved him, but because my father wished it very earnestly; and till your father’s letter announced your coming to me, Janet, I was living without any object that could interest me, except my books. You are an honest girl, dearest, I am sure of it; and I will now ask you to tell me whether you think my having to watch over you, and provide for all your wants, is a pleasure to me, or a pain?”
“A pleasure!” replied Janet, fervently; “and a pleasure it shall be, if my heart and soul can make it so! And do you not think you have done wisely in telling me what you have done F Do you not think that we shall be both the happier for it?”
Mrs. Mathews looked in her eager, earnest face, and, though Janet was not smiling, she again caught a look that “fathered itself” in such a way as to make it very unlikely that the poor girl would ever feel the want of a mother as long as her father’s old friend remained alive.
In short, the result of this important interview, though apparently it had begun in doubt and darkness, was to make the old lady and the young one thoroughly understand each other. Mrs. Mathews felt, with a mixture of joy and tenderness, that she could not easily have found Words to express, that Janet Anderson would be henceforward to her as a daughter; and Janet, on her side, lost all feeling of painful obligation in the delightful certainty that she was tenderly beloved, and the equally delightful consciousness that she loved her adopted mother so affectionately in return as to make her of some value to this singularly ill-mated friend, notwithstanding the poverty she brought with her.
There was no further difficulty after this as to the manner in which Mrs. Mathews spent her tens and her hundreds, and the consequence was that Janet grew into a par
ticularly well-dressed young lady, considerably to the astonishment of gentle Mrs. Price and her daughter Louisa.
Meanwhile, however, the sociable propensities of Mr. Mathews were effectually checked by the very resolute though unexplained will of his lady; for till she thought her Janet “fit to be looked at,” she took very effectual care that she should not be seen.
The interval, however, was not altogether lost by the proud and happy grandfather, for he did not leave the house of a single neighbour unvisited. The weather chanced to be perseveringly fine, and no sooner was the luncheon removed than the horses appeared, and the two extremely well-pleased and well-dressed gentlemen set off at an easy trot, that took them in turn to every gentleman’s house in the neighbourhood; so that before the first grand dinner came off at Weldon Grange, Mr. Stephen Cornington, instead of being a stranger, had been made most advantageously known to everybody that he was likely to meet with there or anywhere else.
His estimable progenitress, Mrs. Martha Briot, had shown great judgment in sending the young man with a sufficient wardrobe to enable him to show himself off, on arriving, to some advantage. It is probable that without this precaution he might have failed, notwithstanding his extraordinary likeness to his grandfather, to produce so favourable an effect upon all beholders as he had now done.
Already had he played (and won) several games at billiards with the aristocratic Sir Charles Otterborne; already had he been declared by the beautiful heiress, Miss Steyton, to be the handsomest man in Hertfordshire. Already had Mrs. Price ventured to pronounce that he had very decidedly an air of fashion, modestly accompanying this expression of her judgment by assuring her hearers, according to her invariable custom, that she should not venture to give her opinion upon the subject had not her being a Smitherton, and the granddaughter of Lord Thompson, given her a sort of hereditary right to have some judgment in such matters.
Collected Works of Frances Trollope Page 398