Collected Works of Frances Trollope

by Frances Milton Trollope

  But his first emotion of admiration, in the case of Janet had been suddenly quenched by a very spiteful feeling of resentment. He had never forgiven her, and probably never would forgive her, for not having accepted the lie which he had so obligingly invented for her use, to save her from the awkwardness of confessing that she had been taking a tête-à-tête walk with a young gentleman before the rest of the family had left their bed-rooms. But he was not in despair because Janet Anderson did not answer his expectations, and he very speedily made acquaintance with more than one who did.

  It so chanced, that upon one fine Sunday afternoon he had been parading with his grandfather along a path which was the favourite holiday promenade of the village, expressly for the purpose of looking at all the pretty girls; and it so chanced, also, that by far the prettiest amongst them did Mr. Stephen Cornington the favour of staring at him very nearly in the same flattering manner in which he stared at her; and he had, moreover, the satisfaction of perceiving that this was repeated every time they passed each other, which was not seldom, for the space allotted by fashion to the promenade was not very long, and their walk that afternoon was not very short.

  Mr. Mathews was so indulgent a grandfather, that he might have been very safely questioned as to the name of the pretty creature who had thus amiably attracted his attention; but Stephen Cornington was too good a Roman Catholic to make any unnecessary confessions, and he, therefore, said nothing about her till he had fairly tired out the old gentleman, and then, upon the proposal being made that they should go home and see if tea was not ready, he asked, coaxingly, for leave to stay behind, for the sake of having another turn or two — it was so very pleasant!

  This permission was very readily granted; and within five minutes after the old man’s back was turned, the young one had contrived to learn that the fair object of his admiring curiosity was Miss Jemima Stokes, the eldest daughter of William Stokes, the carpenter, and the personal attendant of Miss Emily Steyton, of “The Lodge.”

  This was all the information necessary, as a preliminary to his making her acquaintance, and he lost neither time nor opportunity in making and in improving it. In short, the poor girl fell most desperately in love with him, while her mistress was still too violently in love with Herbert Otterborne to permit her paying any particular attention to the frequent absences of her maid, who, by her own account, spent many more hours than usual at her father’s cottage, because “mother was poorly.”

  But although pretty Minny Stokes was imprudent enough to let a gentleman fall in love with her, and, worse still, to fall in love with him in return, she was by no means so silly as her gentleman-lover supposed her to be.

  Of course, upon this occasion, as upon all others of the same kind, the gentleman made no scruple of promising everything that the young lady asked him to promise, and nothing less than a promise of marriage could satisfy the conscience of the fair Jemima.

  The promise, therefore, was given, but not so given as greatly to endanger the liberty of the giver; for it was spoken, not written; and the only witness to it was Minny’s little brother, who, young as he looked, seemed younger still in intellect than in age. But this promise, such as it was, was all she could obtain; for he declared that he was bound by a vow never to give any promise in writing; yet nevertheless he succeeded in persuading her that this was sufficient. There was, of course, no difficulty in making her perceive that as the young man was wholly dependent on his grandfather, it would be madness to run the risk of displeasing him by a premature disclosure of their engagement. Poor Minny’s prudence, however, went no further, but altogether forsook her at that point.

  Such being the state of her own affairs when her young mistress disclosed to her the firm resolution which she had formed of becoming Mr. Stephen Coming-ton’s wife herself, it may easily be supposed that poor Minny could not listen to it unmoved; and therefore it was, that upon receiving her young lady’s gay good night, joined to an assurance, as she nestled her beautiful head upon her pillow, that she was going to sleep on purpose to dream of her darling Cornington, the unhappy Minny retired to her own chamber in a state of mind considerably less comfortable than that in which she had left her mistress and her rival.

  The thing which is the most likely to happen on all such occasions happened now. Minny Stokes sat down and cried heartily. But she was not naturally of a desponding temper; and this first burst of passionate emotion over, she began with a good deal of resolute courage to examine her own position, and to take measure, as it were, of her own hopes and fears.

  That Stephen Cornington was in love with her, and not with her mistress, was a conclusion that she came to without any difficulty at all, as it is probable most other girls would have done to whom Stephen had made love as much and as skilfully as he had done to her.

  This, of course, was the great foundation of her hopes.

  Her fears rested on the notorious fact of Emily’s great wealth, for which she had a notion — though they had never discussed the subject — that her lover might possibly feel some little inclination. This idea was very dreadful; and though she had wiped her eyes, and washed them, too, in order that she might consider what she had to do with the more composure, the tears burst forth again as she considered the tremendous contrast which existed between herself and her mistress in this respect.

  But again she wiped them, for again both hope and memory whispered to her heart that she was beloved.

  And then she called to mind, with equal satisfaction and thankfulness, all the absurdities which her rival had already committed on the subject of love.

  She recalled, with unspeakable delight, the vehemence of her respective passions for the young lord and the young shopman, and rehearsed in her faithful memory, all the vehement effusions of passionate love which she had heard her pour forth respecting the young squire of the Manor-house, till smiles, and almost laughter, chased her tears.

  “There is no great harm done yet,” thought she; “the harm and the danger will only come after she shall have succeeded in making Herbert Otterborne declare that he will not marry her. Then, indeed, if she turns to Stephen Cornington for consolation, she may find it, if there is not more faith in him than folks say is ever to be found in mortal man. God is my witness, that I am not afraid of her beauty! Stephen loves me too well for there to be any danger from that. But I am afraid of her riches! When one thinks of the hundreds, and thousands, and tens of thousands of golden sovereigns that they say old Steyton has scraped together for her, how can it be hoped that mortal man will say he won’t have it, if it is offered to him?”

  And as this dreadful thought oppressed her, she wept again!

  After passing a very miserable night, poor girl, she at length came to the reasonable conclusion that her best, and perhaps her only chance, was in delay. She had already touched this theme with some success when talking to her mistress before they parted; and on this theme she resolved to expatiate again, pointing out the comparative safety and the assured success of her purpose, provided only that she would not expose her own caprice and inconstancy by being in a hurry to dismiss an accepted lover, who was moreover a gentleman of so much consequence in the county, till something a little like a reasonable complaint could be urged against him.

  It was upon this hope that she went to sleep at last, and it was this hope that gave her courage to answer her young lady’s bell the next morning, though certain of hearing that the man whom she looked upon as her own husband was the devoted lover of another.

  She found Emily pretty nearly as she had left her, that is to say, in the highest possible spirits; confident in the success of all her wishes, and very little disposed to hear of any difficulties, or even of any delays.

  Again and again did the unhappy Minny suggest to her the absolute necessity of prudence in the management of an affair so difficult.

  “Difficult!” exclaimed Emily, laughing. “I dare say it would be very difficult to you, and it might be very difficult to littl
e Miss Price, and very difficult to that pretty pale face, Miss Janet; but I tell you, Minny, that it is quite impossible anything should be difficult to me!”

  Nevertheless, the desperate earnestness of Minny, as, again and again, she represented the indignation of Sir Charles, the disappointment of Mr and Mrs. Steyton, and the consternation of the whole neighbourhood, if one man were to be thus changed for another, without her having any reason save her own whim to assign for it, at length induced the headstrong heiress so far to give way as to promise that she would take a little time, in order to get up a little quarrel with Herbert. “I shall not find it very difficult, I daresay; for his cold ways are so provoking, that I need do nothing but just show them off before papa a little, and he will be as ready to get rid of him as I am. And then, if anybody makes any difficulty whatever about my marrying Cornington, I’ll run off with him. You shall see if I won’t.”

  The extremely unhappy Jemima Stokes felt very much inclined to throw herself at full length upon the floor, and die there outright, if possible. But, before she yielded herself to this weakness, she fortunately bethought her that it was a great deal more likely that she should live than die, even if she did throw herself upon the ground, and this little glimpse of common sense was very useful to her.

  Miss Emily Steyton was very fond of Cologne-water; and sundry pretty bottles, containing that refreshing mixture were to be found on sundry tables. To one of these Minny applied herself, while her young mistress was engaged in winding up her jewelled watch. A liberal handful of this panacea, rubbed without ceremony over her pale face, was of infinite service to her, and she contrived to say, in a sort of subdued tone that seemed to justify, or rather to explain, the respectful silence which followed:

  “Of course, Miss, you know best.”

  “Of course, I suppose I do,” was Emily’s reply, as she received her gloves and pocket-handkerchief from the hands of her attendant; and in a moment afterwards the miserable girl had the relief of finding herself alone.

  CHAPTER XXXVI.

  BUT Jemima Stokes had not yet played her last card, and she was not one who would gave up the game till she had done so. She knew herself to be at liberty for an hour or two, and she had already determined that this interval should not be spent in bemoaning her misfortunes.

  The great object to be obtained in the first instance, was the delay of Emily’s final rejection of Herbert Otterborne; and she thought she saw her way pretty clearly towards this. Perhaps there was no one in the parish, except Sir Charles Otterborne himself and his steward, so thoroughly well-acquainted with the actual state of his finances, as Miss Jemima Stokes.

  In a considerable degree she had acquired this information, with the rest of the household, from the ceaseless gossip in the servants’ hall respecting the doubtful eligibility of Miss Emily’s approaching marriage with the young squire of the Manor-house; and Sir Charles might have been a good deal surprised, perhaps, could he have heard the extremely well-informed style in which his most private concerns were there discussed.

  But Minny had, moreover, a private source of information on the subject, which was more important to her, at the present moment, than all the sagacious commentaries of her fellow-servants, for her father was one of Sir Charles Otterborne’s creditors, and by no means an inconsiderable one among his tradespeople, although some of his friends among the monied tribes of Israel might hare sneered at the small amount of John Stokes, the carpenter’s, claims.

  But everything is comparative, and the effects produced by comparison are greatly dependent on the juxta-position of the objects to be compared. Now, Minny was almost in the daily habit of hearing her father utter the very strongest protestations, that no earthly power should prevent his arresting Sir Charles Otterborne, if the young gentleman’s marriage did not take place before Christmas.

  “It is easy enough,” said the carpenter, “for them as he loses his money to, at cards and dice, to take his bits of paper, and wait till they turn into bank-notes, because they none of ’em have made no outlay of ready cash as I have done; but if Sir Charles and those afore him had reigned over us for thousands of years, instead of hundreds, I wouldn’t keep his park palings up for nothing.”

  Such was the harangue to which Minny had listened very recently at the house of her father, and she resolved to turn what she had heard there to good account.

  For this purpose she immediately sought her father, and having led him to a very retired bower which had been more than once the scene of her secret meetings with Cornington, she told him that she was very uneasy in her mind about her young lady’s marriage.

  “What do you mean, girl?” returned the carpenter, sharply. “Do’st mean that there is any danger of its going off?”

  “It will be Mr. Herbert’s fault if it does, father,” she replied. “And when one thinks what a deal of good would be done in the parish, and in the town, too, father, by all those thousands of pounds which the Otterbornes are to receive on the wedding day, it is a sad pity that it should be stopped just because Mr. Herbert thinks himself so sure of the prize, that he won’t take the trouble of fixing the day.”

  “If he won’t fix his day, I’ll fix mine,” returned her father, becoming extremely red in the face. “Sir Charles owes me three hundred and ninety-seven pounds, fifteen, and ninepence; for it was no longer ago than last night that I cast up the whole account, and a good portion of that sum I have taken out of the savings’-bank, and paid down in ready money for timber; and if Master Herbert thinks he may play fast and loose, for his own amusement, and keeps me waiting for my cash, he is mistaken.”

  “Of course he is, father,” replied Minny, in a tone of sympathy; “and yet it is no good to expect that you’ll get your money by getting Sir Charles into prison. At any rate, you must wait till the furniture and the plate and all the rest of it is sold. And that must take time, you know; whereas the marriage might be done at once, if you will but set the right way to work about it.”

  “And what do you call the right way, girl?” returned her father; “I don’t know what you are after.”

  “Then I’ll tell you, father. This is what I am after. I want you to call upon Sir Charles, and give him a good fright by telling him that you will wait no longer,” said Minny.

  “And much good that is likely to do, isn’t it?” he replied. “How many times do you think I have told him that already?”

  “But when you told him so before, he hadn’t got such a way out of the scrape as is in his hands now, father,” said the girl.

  “And how do we know it’s in his hands? How do we know that his son will be ready at a minute’s warning? Maybe, as he thinks the prize sure, he’d like to keep his liberty a bit longer,” replied the father.

  “No; that’s not it, father. He’s got no such idle thoughts in him,” said Minny, gravely “’Tis my young lady that is skittish, not Mr. Herbert. But Mr. Herbert may be a little too slow for her faney,” she added; “and though he isn’t a bit likely to go from his word, she might go from hers, and nothing so likely to make her as the notion that her lover felt sure of her.”

  “As to all that, I know nothing, girl,” he replied; “and, what is more still, I don’t care nothing Sir Charles must find some way or another for paying my bill, or I will find some way or another for putting him within stone walls.”

  “But won’t you warn him once more before you do it, father?” said Minny, earnestly.

  “I’ll be hanged, if I do,” was the stout reply. “My warnings have not been wanting, I promise you; and I’ll not leave my bench again to trudge up to the Manor-house for the honour and glory of being told that I might go into the hall, and drink his health.”

  And this was the only answer she could obtain, leaving her with the terrible eviction that she had only been hastening the termination of the engagement between young Otterborne and her mistress; the very natural idea suggesting itself, as she turned from her father’s cottage, that the actual arrest of Sir Cha
rles would be the most effectual means of preventing the marriage.

  For a few minutes the unhappy girl yielded herself up to a frightful feeling of despair, and had her temperament been a little less sanguine, it is likely that the possibility of drowning all her sorrows in the mill-dam would have occurred to her; but, as it was, she thought of something else.

  Among all the other family facts respecting the race of Otterborne, which were repeated and commented upon in the servants’ hall of Mr. Steyton, the young man’s very devoted attachment for his mother was not forgotten.

  “He wouldn’t never be living here, doing nothing,” said one, “if it was not for his mother.”

  “He is as proud as he is gentle,” said the housekeeper, whose niece was “own maid” to Lady Otterborne.

  “But I don’t see how his pride should prevent his living in his own father’s house,” said the cook.

  “The pride I mean is proper pride,” returned the very respectable head of the Steyton female household. “If it was not that he won’t leave his mother, he might be in some profession himself, which would prevent his looking for everything to his scamp of a father.”

  “Well, now,” said a footman, who had been born and bred at Weldon, “I should think Master Herbert would scorn to go into any sort of business for the sake of making money.”

  “It is I that ought to know the most of the Manor-house,” said another; “seeing as I lived three years as page to my lady, before I came to be second footman here, and it is our housekeeper as is right, I can tell you. Master Herbert would put his hand in the fire any time to save my lady, either from trouble or pain. And it is to watch over her that he stays at home, and for nothing else.”