Volume One – Chapter Six.
Aunt Philippa on Matrimony
“Will you speak, Isabella, or shall I?”
“If you please, Philippa, will you?” said her sister with frigid politeness.
The Honourable Miss Dymcox motioned to her nieces to seat themselves, and they sat down.
Then there was a sharp premonitory “Hem!” and a long pause, during which the thoughts of the young ladies went astray.
“I wonder what that officer’s name is,” thought Clotilde, “and whether that good-looking boy is his squire?”
Rather a romantic notion this, by the way, and it gave Marcus Glen in the young lady’s ideas the position of knight; but it was excusable, for her life had been secluded in the extreme.
“What a very handsome man that dark officer was that we nearly met! but I don’t like his looks,” mused Marie; and then, as Ruth was thinking that she would rather be getting on with some of the needlework that fell to her share than listening to her aunt’s lecture – one of the periodical discourses it was their fate to hear – there was another sharp “Hem!”
“Marriage,” said the Honourable Miss Dymcox, “is an institution that has existed from the earliest ages of the world.”
Had a bomb-shell suddenly fallen into the chilly, meanly-furnished drawing-room, where every second article seemed to wear a brown-holland pinafore, and the frame of the old-fashioned mirror was tightly draped in yellow canvas, the young ladies could not have looked more astonished.
In their virgin innocency the word “marriage” had been tabooed to them, and consequently was never mentioned, being a subject held to be unholy for the young people’s ears.
Certainly there were times when the wedding of some lady they knew was canvassed; but it was with extreme delicacy, and not in the downright fashion of Miss Philippa’s present speech.
“Ages of the world,” assented the Honourable Isabella, opening a pale drab fan, and using it gently, as if the subject made her warm.
“And,” continued Miss Philippa, “I think it right to speak to you children, now that you are verging upon womanhood, because it is possible that some day or another you might either of you receive a proposal.”
“That sun-browned officer with the heavy moustache,” thought Clotilde, whose cheeks began to glow. “She thinks he may try to be introduced. Oh, I wish he may!”
“When your poor – I say it with tears, Isabella.”
“Yes, sister, with tears,” assented that lady.
“I am addressing you, Clotilde and Marie,” continued Miss Philippa. “You, Ruth, of course cannot be answerable for the stroke of fate which placed you in our hands, an adopted child.”
“An adopted child,” said Miss Isabella, closing her fan, for the moral atmosphere seemed cooler.
“When your poor mother, your poor, weak mamma, children, wantonly and recklessly, and in opposition to the wishes of all her relatives, insisted upon marrying Mr Julian Riversley, who was never even acknowledged by any member of our family – ”
“I remember papa as being very handsome, and with dark hair,” said Marie.
“Marie!” exclaimed the Honourable Misses Dymcox in a breath. “I am surprised at you!”
“Tray be silent, child,” added Miss Philippa.
“Yes, aunt.”
“I say your poor mamma must have known that she was degrading the whole family – degrading us, Isabella.”
“Yes, sister, degrading us,” assented that lady.
“By marrying a penniless man of absolutely no birth.”
“Whatever,” assented Miss Isabella.
“As I have often told you, children, it was during the corrupting times of the Commonwealth that the lineal descendants of Sir Guy Dymcoques – the s not sounded, my dears – allowed the family name to be altered into Dymcox, which by letters patent was made imperative, and the proper patronymic has never been restored to its primitive orthography. It is a blot on our family history to which I will no more allude.”
Miss Isabella allowed the fan to fall into her lap, and accentuated the hollowness of her thin cheek by pressing it in with one pointed finger.
“To resume,” said Miss Philippa, while her nieces watched her with wondering eyes: “our dear sister Delia, your poor mamma, repented bitterly for her weakness in marrying a poor man – your papa, children – and being taken away to a dreary place in Central France, where your papa had the management of a very leaden silver-mine, which only produced poverty. The sufferings to which Mr Julian Riversley exposed your poor mamma were dreadful, my dears. And,” continued Miss Philippa, dotting each eye with her handkerchief, which was not moistened, “your poor mamma died. She was killed, I might say, by the treatment of your papa; but ‘De mortuis,’ Isabella?”
“‘Nil nisi bonum,’” sighed the Honourable Isabella.
“Exactly, sister,” continued the Honourable Philippa – “died like several of your unfortunate baby brothers and sisters, my dears; and shortly after – four years exactly, was it not, Isabella?”
“Three years and eleven months, sister.”
“Thank you, Isabella. Mr Julian Riversley either fell down that lead-mine or threw himself there in remorse for having deluded a female scion of the ancient house of Dymcoques to follow his fortunes into a far-off land. He was much like you in physique, my dears, but I am glad to say not in disposition – thanks to our training and that of your mamma’s spiritual instructor, Mr Paul Montaigne, to whom dearest Delia entrusted you, and to whom your repentant – I hope – papa gave the sacred charge of bringing you to England to share the calmness of our peaceful home.”
“Peaceful home,” assented Miss Isabella.
“I need hardly tell you, children, that the Riversleys were, or are, nobodies of whom we know nothing – never can know anything.”
“Whatever,” assented Miss Isabella.
“To us they do not exist – neither will they for you, my dears. We believe that Mr Julian had a sister who married a Mr Huish; that is all we know.”
“All we know,” assented Miss Isabella.
“I will say nothing of the tax it has been upon us in connection with our limited income. A grateful country, recognising the services of papa, placed these apartments at our disposal. In consideration of the thoughtfulness of the offer, we accepted these apartments – thirty-five years ago, I think, Isabella?”
“Thirty-five years and a half, sister.”
“Exactly; and we have been here ever since, so that we have been spared the unpleasantry of paying a rent. But I need not continue that branch of my subject. What I wish to impress upon you, children, is the fact that in spite of your poor mamma’s mésalliance, you are of the family of Dymcoques, and that it is your duty to endeavour to raise, and not degrade, our noble house. I think I am following out the proper line of argument, Isabella?”
“Most accurately, sister.”
“In the event, then, of either of you – at a future time, of course – receiving a proposal of marriage – ”
Miss Isabella reopened her fan, and began to use it in a quick, agitated manner.
“It would be your duty to study the interest of your family, children, and to endeavour to regain that which your poor mamma lost. To a lady, marriage – ”
Miss Isabella’s fan raised quite a draught in the chilly room, and the white tissue-paper chimney-apron rustled in the breeze.
“Marriage is the means by which we may recover the steps lost by those who have gone before; and I would have you to remember that our position, our family, our claims to a high descent, warrant our demanding as a right that we might mate with the noblest of the land.”
For a moment a curious idea crossed Clotilde’s brain – that her aunts had some thought of entering the married state; but it passed away on the instant at the next words.
“Your aunt Isabella and myself might at various times have entered into alliance with others – ”
Miss Isabella’s fan went rather slowly now. “But we knew what was due to our family, and we said ‘No!’ We sacrificed ourselves in the cause of duty, and we demand, children, in obedience to our teaching, that you do the same.”
“Yes, aunt,” said Clotilde demurely.
“An impecunious, poverty-stricken alliance,” continued Miss Philippa, “is at best a crime, one of which no true woman would be guilty; while an alliance that brings to her family wealth and position is one of which she might be proud. You understand, my children?”
“Yes, aunt,” in chorus.
“We – your aunt Isabella and I – of course care little for such things; but we consider that young people of birth and position should, as a matter of duty, look forward to having diamonds, a town house, carriages and servants, pin-money. These are social necessities, children. Plebeians may perhaps consider that they are superfluities, but such democratic notions are the offspring of ignorance. Your grandfather devoted himself to the upholding of Church and State; he was considered worthy of the trust of the Premier of his day; and it is our duty, as his descendants, to hold his name in reverence, and to add to its lustre.”
Marie, as her aunt stopped for breath, wondered in what way her grandfather had benefited his country, and could not help wishing that he had done more to benefit his heirs. Then she half wondered that she had ventured to harbour such a thought, and just then Miss Philippa said blandly:
“I think that will do, Isabella?”
“Yes, I think that will do,” said that lady, dropping her fan.
“You may retire to the schoolroom, then, my dears,” continued Miss Philippa. “Clotilde, come here.”
The dark girl, with an unusual flush beneath her creamy skin, crossed the room to her aunt, who laid her hands upon her shoulder, gazed wistfully in her eyes, and then kissed her upon either cheek.
“Wonderfully like your papa, my child,” she said, and she passed her on to Miss Isabella. “But the Dymcoques’ carriage.”
“Ah, yes! wonderfully like your papa,” sighed Miss Isabella, and she, too, kissed Clotilde upon either cheek. “But the Dymcoques’ carriage.”
“Marie,” said Miss Philippa, “come here, child.”
Marie rose from her chair, crossed to her aunt, received a hand upon each shoulder and a kiss upon either cheek.
“Yes, your papa’s lineaments,” sighed Miss Philippa, passing her on also to Miss Isabella.
“Wonderfully like indeed,” assented Miss Isabella sadly.
“You may retire now, children,” said Miss Philippa. “You had better resume your practice and studies in the schoolroom. Well, Ruth, why do you not go?”
Poor Ruth had been expecting a similar proceeding towards her, but it did not come about, and she followed her cousins out of the room after each had made a formal curtsey, which was acknowledged by their aunts as if they were sovereigns at a state reception.
“It will cost a great deal, Isabella,” said Miss Philippa, as soon as they were gone. “Yes, dear; but, as Lady Littletown says, it is an absolute necessity; and it is time they left the schoolroom for a more enlarged sphere.”
The young ladies went straight to the apartment, where they had passed the greater part of their lives, in company with a green-baize-covered table, a case of unentertaining works of an educational cast, written in that delightfully pompous didactic style considered necessary by our grandfathers for the formation of the youthful mind. There were also selections from Steele and Addison, with Johnson to the extent of “Rasselas.” Mangnall was there, side by side with Goldsmith, and a goodly array of those speckled-covered school books that used to have such a peculiar smell of size. On a side-table covered with a washed-out red and grey table-cover of that charming draughtboard pattern and cotton fabric, where the grey was red on the opposite side, and in other squares the reds and greys seemed to have married and had neutral offspring, stood a couple of battered and chipped twelve-inch globes, one of which was supposed to be celestial, and the other terrestrial; but time and mildew had joined hand in hand to paint these representations of the spheres with entirely fresh designs, till the terrestrial globe was studded with little dark, damp spots or stars of its own, and fungoid continents had formed themselves on the other amid seas of stain, where nothing but aerial space and constellations should have been.
Ruth entered the schoolroom last, to cross over to where stood on its thin, decrepit legs the harp of other days, in the shape of a most unmusical little piano, which, when opened, looked like some fossil old-world monster of the toad nature, squeezed square and squatting there in a high-shouldered fashion, gaping wide-mouthed, and showing a row of hideous old yellow teeth, the teeth upon which for many a weary hour the girls had practised the “Battle of Prague,” “Herz Quadrilles,” and the overture to “Masaniello,” classical strains that were rather out of tune, and in unwonted guise, consequent upon so many notes being dumb, while what seemed like a row of little imps with round, flat hats performed a kind of excited automatic dance à la Blondin upon the wire in the entrails of the fossil toad.
As Ruth crossed and stood leaning with one hand upon the old piano, with her eyelids drooping, and the great tears gathering slowly beneath the heavily-fringed lids, a deep sigh struggled for exit. It was not much to have missed that cold display of something like affection just shown by the ladies to her cousins; but she felt the neglect most sorely, for her tender young heart was hungry for love, and all these many sad years that she had passed in the cheerless schoolroom, whose one window looked out upon the dismal fountain in the gloomy court, she had known so little of what real affection meant.
If she could only have received one word of sympathy just then she would have been relieved, but she was roused from her sad reverie by a sharp pat upon the cheek from Clotilde.
“Tears? Why, you’re jealous! Here, Rie, the stupid thing is crying because she was not kissed.”
“Goose!” exclaimed Marie. “She missed a deal! Ugh! It’s very horrid.”
“Yes,” cried Clotilde. “Bella’s teeth-spring squeaked, and I thought Pip meant to bite. Here, Ruthy, come and kiss the places and take off the nasty taste.”
She held out one of her cheeks, and Ruth, whose face still tingled with the smack she had received, came forward smiling, threw her arms round her cousin, and kissed her cheeks again and again.
“Ah, I feel sweeter now!” said Clotilde, pushing Ruth away. “Make her do you, Rie.”
Marie laughed unpleasantly as, without being asked, Ruth, smiling, crossed to her chair and kissed her affectionately again and again, her bright young face lighting up with almost childish pleasure, for she was of that nature of womankind whose greatest satisfaction is to give rather than receive.
“There, that will do, baby,” cried Marie, laughing. “What a gushing girl you are, Ruth!” but she kissed her in return all the same, with the effect that a couple of tears stole from the girl’s eyes. “Mind you don’t spoil my lovely dress. Now then, Clo, what does all this mean?”
“Mean?” cried her sister, placing one hand upon the table and vaulting upon it in a sitting position. “It means – here, Ruth, go down on your knees by the door, and keep your ear by the keyhole. If you let that old hyaena Markes, or either of those wicked old cats, come and hear what we say, I’ll buy a sixpenny packet of pins and come and stick them in all over you when you’re in bed.”
Ruth ran to the door, knelt down, and placed her ear as she was ordered to do, while her cousin went on:
“It means that the wicked old things are obliged to own at last that we have grown into women, and they want to get us married. Whoop! Lucky for them they do. If they didn’t, I’d run away with one of the soldiers. I say, Rie, wasn’t that big officer nice?”
“I don’t know,” said her sister pettishly. “I didn’t taste him.”
“Who said you did, pig? Diamonds, and carriages, and servants, Rie. I’d have a box at the opera, too, and one at all the theatres. Oh, Rie! wait till I get my chance. I’ll keep up the dignity of the family; but when my turn does come, oh! won’t I serve those two old creatures out.”
“Dignity of the family, indeed!” cried Marie angrily. “How dare they speak like they did of poor dear papa, even if he was a Riversley!”
“And the wicked old thing boasting all the time about her Norman descent, and Sir Guyfawkes de Dymcoques. I dare say he was one of the Conqueror’s tag-rags, who came to see what he could get.”
“I know poor papa was very handsome.”
“Just like you, Rie,” laughed Clotilde.
“No, he was more like you, Clo,” said her sister quietly. “I don’t see anything to laugh at. Do you suppose I don’t know that we are both very beautiful women?”
Clotilde’s eyes flashed, and her cheeks began to glow as she saw her sister, in her shabby gingham morning dress, place her hands behind her head, interlacing her fingers and leaning sidewise in an attitude full of natural, unstudied grace. She looked down at kneeling Ruth.
“We are both handsome girls now, aren’t we, Ruth?” she said imperiously.
“Yes, dear, very – very,” said the girl, flushing as she spoke. “I think you lovely with your beautiful dark eyes, and soft, warm complexions; and you both have such splendid figures and magnificent hair.”
Marie’s eyes half closed in a dreamy way, as if some dawning love fancy were there, and an arch smile curled her rich red lip.
She was quite satisfied, and accepted the girl’s admiration as her due, hardly moving as Clotilde bounded from the table to the door, listened for a moment, and then, seizing Ruth by the pink, shelly little ear, half dragged her into the room. Her hot blood showed in her vindictive, fierce way, as she stood threateningly over the kneeling girl.
“Lying little pig,” she hissed, “how dare you say such things! It’s your mean-spirited, cringing, favour-currying way. You think we are both as ugly as sin.”
“I don’t indeed, indeed I don’t!” cried the girl, stung by the charge into indignant remonstrance. “I think you are both the most beautiful girls I ever saw. Oh, Clotilde! you know what lovely eyes and hair you have.”
“I haven’t; my eyes are dark and my hair is long and coarse.”
“It’s beautiful!” cried Ruth, “isn’t it, Marie? Why, see how everyone turns to look at you both when you are out, in spite of your being so badly dressed.”
“Go back to the door. No, stop,” cried Clotilde, pushing the poor girl’s head to and fro as she retained her ear.
“Clotilde dear, you hurt me very much,” sobbed Ruth.
“I’m trying to hurt you,” said Clotilde, showing her white glistening teeth.
“Let her be, Clo.”
“Shan’t. Mind your own business.”
“Let her be, I say,” cried Marie, flashing into excitement. “If you don’t loose her I’ll scratch you.”
“You daren’t,” cried Clotilde, and as her sister’s face turned red her own grew pale. “Go back to the door and listen, little fibster.”
“I dare,” said Marie, relapsing into her half-dreamy way. “Come here, Ruthy; I won’t have you hurt. It’s truth, isn’t it? We are beautiful?”
“Yes,” said Ruth, starting to her feet, and joyfully nestling in the arms held out for her, while Marie kissed her with some show of affection. “Yes, you are both beautiful, and Clotilde knows I would not tell her a story.”
The gratified look had spread by this time to the elder sisters face, and she returned to her position upon the table, where she sat swinging one leg to and fro.
“Go back and listen, Ruthy,” said Marie quietly. “You are quite right, dear – we are both handsome; and so are you.”
“I?” laughed Ruth, with a merry, innocent look brightening her face; “oh no!”
“Yes, you are,” said Marie, smoothing her own dark hair. “You are very nice, and pretty, and sweet, and when I’m married and away from this wicked old poverty-stricken workhouse, you shall come and live with me.”
“Shall I, Marie?” cried the girl, with the eagerness of a child.
“Yes, dear; and you shall have a handsome husband of your own.”
Ruth laughed merrily.
“What should I do with a husband?”
“Hold your tongue, Rie, and don’t stuff the child’s head with such nonsense.”
“Child, indeed! why, she is only a year younger than I. Oh! it has been abominable; we have been treated like babies, and I feel sometimes now as if I were only a little girl. But only wait.”
“Yes,” cried Clotilde with a curious laugh, “only wait.”
“Someone coming,” whispered Ruth, leaping up from the floor where she had been listening, and the childlike obedience to the stern authority in which they had been trained resumed its sway.
Clotilde bounded to the piano, and began to practise a singing lesson, her rich contralto voice rising and falling as she ran up an arpeggio, trying to make it accord with five notes struck together out of tune; Marie darted to a chair, and snatched up a quill pen, inked her forefinger, and bent over a partly written exercise on composition – a letter addressed to a lady of title, to be written in the style of Steele; and Ruth snatched up a piece of needlework, and began to sew. Then the door opened, and Markes, the nurse, appeared.
“Miss Clotilde and Miss Marie to come to the dining-room directly.”
“What for, Markes?” cried Clotilde, pausing in the middle of a rich-toned run full of delicious melody.
“Come and see. There, I’ll tell you – may as well, I suppose. Dressmaker to measure you for some new frocks.”
“La – ra – ra – ra – ra – ra – ra – rah!” sang Clotilde in a powerful crescendo, as she swung round upon the music-stool and then leaped up, while Marie rose slowly, with a quiet, natural grace.
“Am – am I to come, too?” said Ruth.
“You? No. It’s them,” said Markes grimly. “Fine goings on, ’pon my word.”
“What are fine goings on, Markes?” cried Clotilde.
“Why, ordering new dresses. Better buy a new carpet for one of the bedrooms, and spend a little more money on the living. I’m getting sick of the pinching and griping ways.”
“I say, Markes, what’s for dinner to-day?” exclaimed Marie, on finding the woman in a more communicative mood than usual.
“Cold boiled mutton.”
“Ugh!” ejaculated Clotilde. “I hate cold mutton. Is there no pudding?”
“Yes; it’s pudding day.”
“That’s better. What pudding is it?”
Markes shook her head.
“Tell me, and I’ll give you a kiss,” said Clotilde.
“If your aunts was to hear you talk like that they’d have fits,” grumbled the woman. “It’s rice-pudding.”
“Baked?”
“No.”
“Boiled in milk?”
“No – plain boiled.”
“Sauce or jam with it?”
“Sauce or jam!” said the woman, in tones of disgust. “Neither on ’em, but sugar and a bit o’ butter; and think yourselves lucky to get that. New dresses, indeed! It’s shameful; and us in the kitchen half-starved!”
“Well, we can’t help it,” said Marie. “I’m sure we don’t live any too well.”
“No, you don’t,” said the woman, grinning. “But it does seem a shame to go spending money as they seem to mean to do on you two. I ’spose you’re going to be married, ain’t you?”
“I don’t know,” said Clotilde. “Are we?”
“There, don’t ask me. I don’t know nothing at all about it, and I shan’t speak a word. I only know what I heard them say.”
“Do tell us, Marky dear, there’s a dear, good old nursey, and we’ll do just as you tell us,” said Clotilde, in a wheedling way.
“You both make haste down, or you’ll both have double lessons to get off, so I tell you.”
“But tell us,” said Marie, “and we’ll both give you a kiss.”
“You keep your kisses for your rich husbands, my dears, and I hope you’ll like giving ’em – that’s all I can say. I told you so: there goes the bell.”