Within the Precincts: Volume 1 by Mrs. Oliphant - HTML preview

CHAPTER XVI.
 THE SIGNOR’S HOUSEHOLD.

THE Despard family became a great centre of interest to many people both within and without the Abbey precincts at this period of their history. Without any doing, so to speak, of theirs, Fate mixed them up both with the great and the small, so that their proceedings moved a great many circles of thought and feeling beyond that in which they themselves stood. We have said without any doing of theirs—but this, perhaps, is true only in respect to Lottie, who took no steps consciously to produce the rapprochement which had taken place so strangely between the heaven of the Deanery and the earth of the Lodges. She had not done anything to recommend herself to Lady Caroline or Lady Caroline’s nephew. And yet with both she had become an important “factor,” to use a fashionable term, in the immediate concerns of life. The Captain was not so innocent of purpose in the commotion he had begun to make. But still he had not calculated upon the interest that would be excited by his proceedings. The community at St. Michael’s was quiet and had little to rouse its interest. Sometimes a Canon would be translated to a higher and a better stall—sometimes an old Chevalier would die and be replaced by another veteran not much less old than he—sometimes a son would “go wrong” and create a great deal of whispered communication and shaking of heads. At the present time there were no daughters to marry except Lottie, so that the pleasanter strain of possibility was little thought of. All this made it very inspiring, very agitating to the dwellers round the Abbey, when a family within the precincts gave them so much to think about. A girl likely to make a very good match in a romantic way: a man likely to make a very bad one, in a way which might have been quite as romantic had it not been on the wrong side, such as would debase, not exalt his class; these two probabilities coming together had a great effect upon the popular mind. In the Chevaliers’ Lodges there was very little else talked about. Captain Temple, the most respected of all the Chevaliers, could not keep still, so excited was he. He had spoken to “the father,” he told his wife, to put him on his guard, and to show him how necessary it was to take proper care of his child. That was all he could do: but he could not content himself with thus doing what he could. He paced about his little sitting-room, disturbing Mrs. Temple at her wool-work. She was not like her husband. She was a still, composed, almost stern woman, with a passionate heart, to which she gave very little expression. She could not talk of her daughter as Captain Temple could. The remembrance of the years during which her child was separated from her was terrible to her. When her husband talked as he was accustomed to do of this great grief of theirs, she never stopped him, but she herself was dumb. She closed all her windows, as it were, and retired into a fortress of silent anguish, out of which no cry came; but she listened to him all the same. This was what she did now, though it pained her to hear of this other girl who stood between life and death, between good and evil, as once her child had stood. She would have helped Lottie with all her heart, but she could not bear to hear her talked of—though this was precisely what she had to bear.

“I told him it was his duty to look after his daughter,” said Captain Temple, pacing—three steps one way, four the other—about the room. “But he won’t—you will see he won’t. A beautiful girl, far too good for him, a girl who deserves a better fate. She puts me in mind of our own dear girl, Lucy. I have told you so before.”

To this Mrs. Temple made no reply. He had told her so a great many times before. She selected a new shade of her Berlin wool, and set her elbow rigidly against the arm of her chair, that she might thread her needle without trembling, but she made no reply.

“She puts me constantly in mind of her. The way she holds her head, and her walk, and—— I beg your pardon, my dear. I know you don’t like this kind of talk; but if you knew how I seem to see her wherever I go—wherever I go! I wonder if she is permitted to come and walk by her old father’s side, God bless her. Ah! well, it was Despard’s daughter we were talking of. To think he should have this girl who takes no care of her—and we to whom ours was everything!”

The poor woman made a spasmodic movement, and turned her eyes upon him dumbly. She could not bear it. The needle fell out of her hands, and she stooped to hunt for it on the carpet. She would not stop him to whom it was so great a relief to talk; but it was death to her.

“But I told him,” said Captain Temple. “I showed him his duty, Lucy. I told him he ought to be thankful he had such a daughter to watch over. And what more could I do? I set the whole thing before him. There was nothing more that I could do?”

“Then you must be satisfied, William, and perhaps it will have some effect; we must wait and see,” said Mrs. Temple, coming to the surface again with her needle, which she had found, in her hand. She managed to get it threaded this time with great exertion, while her husband set off again upon his restricted promenade, shaking his white head. Captain Temple, it may be recollected, had not said so much to Captain Despard as he thought he had said—but if he had said everything that man could say it is not probable that it would have made much difference. The kind old Chevalier shook his white head. His eyes were full of moisture and his heart of tenderness. He did not feel willing to wait and see, as his wife suggested. He wanted to do something there and then for Lottie, to go to her and warn her, to keep watch at her door, and prevent the entrance of the wolf—anything, he did not mind what it was so long as he could secure her safety.

The other subject was discussed that same evening in another and very different scene, when Mrs. Purcell, the Signor’s housekeeper, asked her old fellow-servant, Pickering, what news there was in the precincts, and if anything was stirring. It was the most delicious moment for a gossip, when tea was over in the kitchen, and dinner upstairs, and twilight was beginning to drop over the country, bringing quiet and coolness after the blaze of the day. Mrs. Purcell sat by the open window, which was cut in the very boundary wall of the Abbey precincts, as in the side of a precipice. It was not safe for anyone of uncertain nerves to look straight down upon the slope of St. Michael’s Hill, on which the walls were founded, and on the steep street winding below. But Mrs. Purcell had her nerves in the most steady and well-regulated condition. She was not afraid to sit at the head of the precipice, and even to look out and look down when the shop windows began to be lighted. She liked to see the lights coming out below. It was cheerful and felt like “company” when she sat alone. Old Pickering had just come in after an errand into the town. He was the man-servant, while she was the housekeeper, but the work of the establishment was chiefly done by a sturdy young woman who was under the orders of both.

“News—I don’t know much about news,” said old Pick. “It wants young folks to make news; and there ain’t many of that sort about here.”

“Dear!” said Mrs. Purcell (but it must not be supposed that this exclamation meant any special expression of affection to old Pickering). “There’s heaps of young folks! There’s the Signor, and there’s my John——”

“Master? you may call him young, if it don’t go again your conscience—my notion is as he never was no younger than he is now. So you may put what name to it you please. But you don’t ask me for news of master, nor Mr. John neither—him, oh ah, there’ll be news of him one of these days. He’ll get a cathedral, or he’ll be had up to London. We’ll see him, with his baton in his hand, afore the biggest chorus as can be got together; and won’t he lead ’em grand!” said old Pick. “When he was but a little thing in his white surplice I seen it in his eye.”

“You were always one that did my John justice,” said the housekeeper, warmly. “Just to think of it, Pick—one day a bit of a mite in his surplice, and the next, as you may say, with his baton, leading the chief in the land! We bring children into the world, but we can’t tell what’s to come of them,” she added, with pious melancholy. “Them as is fortunate shouldn’t be proud. The young men as I’ve seen go to the bad since I’ve been here!”

“That should be a real comfort to you,” said Pickering, and they paused both, to take full advantage of this consolation. Then, drawing a long breath, Mrs. Purcell resumed—

“And so it should, Pick—when I see my boy that respectable, and as good as any gentleman’s son, and reflect on what I’ve seen! But pride’s not for the like of us—seeing the Lord can bring us low as fast as He’s set us up.” The good woman dropped her voice, with that curious dread lest envious fate should take her satisfaction amiss, which seems inherent in humanity. As for old Pick, sentiment was not in his way. He took up a little old-fashioned silver salver which stood on the table with some notes upon it, waiting the sound of the Signer’s bell, and began to polish it with his handkerchief. “Them girls,” he said, “there’s no trust to be put in them. The times I’ve told her to be careful with my plate. She says she haven’t the time, but you and me knows better than that. What is there to do in this house? We gives no trouble, and as for master, he’s dining out half his time.”

“She’ll find the difference,” said Mrs. Purcell, “when she’s under a lady. There’s many a thing I does myself. Instead of calling Maryanne till I’m hoarse, I takes and does it myself; but a lady will never do that. Ah, Pick, it’s experience as teaches. They don’t put any faith in what we tell them; and her head full of soldiers, and I don’t know what—as if a soldier ever brought anything but harm to a servant girl.”

“They are all alike,” said old Pick. “There’s them Despards in the Lodges—all the Abbey’s talking of them. The Captain—you know the Captain? the one as sings out as if it all belonged to him—though he’s neither tenor, nor alto, nor bass, but a kind of a jumble, and as often as not sings the air!” said the old chorister, with contempt which was beyond words. Mrs. Purcell looked upon the Captain from another point of view.

“He’s a fine handsome man,” she said. “He looks like a lord when he comes marching up the aisle, not an old Methusaleh, like most of ’em.”

“Ah!” cried Pickering, with a groan, “that’s the way the women are led away. He’s a fine fellow, he is! oh, yes, he’s like a lord, with bills in every shop in the town, and not a penny to pay ’em.”

“Them shops!” said Mrs. Purcell. “I don’t wonder, if a gentleman’s of a yielding disposition. They offer you this, and they offer you that, and won’t take an answer. It’s their own fault. They didn’t ought to put their temptations in folk’s way. It’s like dodging a bait about a poor fish’s nose; and then swearing it will make up lovely, and be far more becoming than what you’ve got on. I think it’s scandalous, for my part. They deserve to lose their money now and again.”

“They say he’s going to be married,” said old Pick, stolidly.

“Married! You’re dreaming, Pick! Lord bless us,” said Mrs. Purcell, “that’s news, that is! Married? I don’t believe a word of it; at his age!”

“You said just now he wasn’t a Methusaleh, and no more he is; he’s a fine handsome man. He thinks a deal of himself, and that’s what makes other folks think a deal of him. The women’s as bad as the shops,” said old Pick; “they bring it on themselves. Here’s a man as is never out of mischief. I’ve seen him regularly coming home—well—none the better for his liquor; and gamblin’ day and night, playing billiards, betting, I don’t know what. We all know what that comes to; and a grown-up family besides——”

“Dear!” said Mrs. Purcell, in great concern. She knew a good deal about Miss Despard, and her feelings were very mingled in respect to her. In the first place, to know that her John was in love with a lady flattered and excited her, and had made her very curious about Lottie, every detail of whose looks, and appearance generally, she had studied. A Chevalier’s daughter might not be any very great thing; but it was a wonderful rise in the world for Mrs. Purcell’s son to be able to permit himself to fall in love with such a person. On the other hand, Miss Despard was poor, and might interfere with John’s chance of rising in the world. But anyhow, everything about her was deeply interesting to John’s mother. She paused to think what effect such a change would have upon her son before she asked any further questions. What would Miss Despard do? It was not likely she would care for a stepmother after being used to be mistress of the house—would she be ready to accept anyone that asked her, in order to get “a home of her own”? And would John insist upon marrying her? and would he be able to keep a wife? These questions all hurried through Mrs. Purcell’s mind on receipt of this startling news. “Dear! dear!” she said—and for a long time it was all she could say. The interests were so mixed that she did not know what to desire. Now or never, perhaps, was the time for John to secure the wife he wanted; but even in that case, would it be right for him to marry? Mrs. Purcell did not know what to think. “Did you hear who the lady was?” she asked, in a faint voice.

“Lady?—no lady at all—a girl that works for her living. I know her well enough by sight. One of the dressmaker’s girls in the River Lane. Ladies is silly enough, but not so silly as that; though I don’t know neither,” said old Pick, “what women-folks will do for a husband is wonderful. They’ll face the world for a husband. It don’t matter what sort he is, nor if he’s worth having——”

“They haven’t took that trouble for you, anyhow,” said Mrs. Purcell faintly, standing up amid her preoccupations for her own side.

“I’ve never given ’em the chance,” said Pick, with a chuckle. “Lord bless you! they’ve tried a plenty, but I’ve never given ’em the chance. Many’s the story I could tell you. They’ve done their best, poor things. Some has been that enterprising, I never could keep in the same room with ’em. But I’ve kep’ single, and I’ll keep single till my dying day. So will master, if I can judge. There’s some has the way of it, and some hasn’t. It would be a clever one,” said old Pickering, caressing his chin with an astute smile, “to get the better of me.”

The housekeeper threw at him a glance of mingled indignation and derision. She gave her head a toss. It was not possible for feminine flesh and blood to hear this unmoved. “You’re so tempting,” she said, with angry energy. “’Andsome and well to do, and worth a woman’s while.”

“Bless you, they don’t stick at that,” said the old man with a grin. “I could tell you of things as has happened—some to myself—some to other folks——”

“Dear!” cried Mrs. Purcell, “and me to think you were an old stick of an old bachelor, because nobody would have you, Pick! There’s some, as a body reads it in their face—as dry as an east wind, and cutting like an east wind does, that is never happy but when it’s blighting up something. I daresay it’s all a story about Captain Despard—just like the rest.”

“None of ’em likes it, when you speak free,” said old Pick, chuckling to himself. “Some pretends, just to please a man; but women does hang together, whoever says different, and they none of them likes to hear the truth. About Captain Despard, it’s a story if you please, but it’s true. The girl she makes no secret, she tells everybody as she’ll soon make a difference in the house. She’ll pack off the son to do for himself, and the daughter——”

“What of the daughter, Pick? Oh, the shameless hussy, to talk like that of a poor motherless young girl——”

“If she wasn’t motherless, what would Polly have to do with her? It can’t be expected as a second wife should cry her eyes out because the first’s gone.”

“Polly!” said Mrs. Purcell, with bated breath; “and she says she’ll pack the son about his business; and the daughter?—What is she going to do about the daughter, when she’s got the poor misfortunate man under her thumb? And who’s Polly, that you know so much about her? She’s a pretty kind of acquaintance, so far as I can see, for a man as considers himself respectable, and comes out of a gentleman’s house.”

“That’s the other side,” said Pick, still chuckling to himself. “I said women hangs together. So they do, till you come to speak of one in particular, and then they fly at her. I don’t know nothing against Polly. If the Captain’s in love with her, it ain’t her fault; if she wants to better herself, it’s no more than you or me would do in her place. She’s as respectable as most of the folks I know. To work for your living ain’t a disgrace.”

“It’s no disgrace; but a stepmother that is a dressmaking girl will be something new to Miss Despard. Oh, I can’t smile! A dressmaker as—— And young, I suppose, like herself? Oh, trust a man for that; she’s sure to be young. Poor thing, poor thing! I’m that sorry for her, I can’t tell what to do. A lady, Pick; they may be poor, but I’ve always heard there was no better gentlefolks anywhere to be found. And a woman that the likes of you calls Polly. Oh, that’s enough, that’s enough for me! A nice, good, respectable girl, that knows what’s her due—you don’t call her Polly. Polly—there’s a deal in a name.”

“Aha!” said old Pick, rubbing his hands, “I knew as soon as I named one in particular what you would say. Fly at her, that’s what all you women do. A name is neither here nor there. I’ve known as good women called Polly as was ever christened Mary; eh? ain’t they the same name? I had a sister Polly; I had a——”

“Dear, dear!” said Mrs. Purcell, softly. She was paying no attention to him; her mind was much disturbed. She turned away instinctively from the gathering gloom of evening in which her old companion stood, and cast her anxious eyes upon the wide landscape outside—the sky between grey and blue, the lights beginning to twinkle far down in the steep street. There was something in the great space and opening which seemed to give counsel and support in her perturbation. For she did not know what to do for the best. At such a moment would not John have a better chance than he might ever have? And yet, if he got his heart’s desire, was it quite certain that it would be good for John? The Signor’s housekeeper was just as anxious about her boy as if she had been a great lady. Twinges of maternal jealousy, no doubt, went through her mind. If John married, he would be separated from his mother, and his wife would look down upon her and teach him to despise her—a mother who was in service. What could she expect if her son married a lady? All these thoughts went through her mind as she looked out with anxiety, which drew deep lines upon her forehead. But, on the whole, she was not selfish, and considered it all anxiously, ready to make any sacrifice for that which in the long run would be most good for John.

In the meantime old Pickering talked on. When he was set a-going it was difficult to bring him to a stop. He was quite aware that at the present moment he ought not to stay there talking; he knew he ought to be lighting the lamps, and kept listening with expectant ear for a sharp tinkle of the Signor’s bell, which should warn him of his retarded duties. But for all that he talked on. Dinner was over for some time, and Pick knew very well that he ought to carry in the notes which he had piled again upon the salver after giving it that polish with his handkerchief. However, though he knew his duty, he took no steps towards performing it, but moved leisurely about, and put various articles back into the old polished cupboard with glass doors, which showed all the best china, and was the pride of Mrs. Purcell’s heart. When Maryanne came in, he emptied the salver again and showed her how imperfectly she had cleaned it. “I can’t think how folks can be so stupid,” Pickering said. “How do you think you are ever to better yourself if you don’t take a lesson when it’s giv’ you? and proud you should be that anyone would take the trouble. If I see it like this again I’ll—I don’t know what I shan’t do.” He knew very well that it was what ought to have been his own work that he was thus criticising, and, as it happened, so did Maryanne, whose spirit was working up to a determination not to be longer put upon. But for all that he found fault, (always waiting to hear the bell ringing sharply, with a quaver of impatience in it,) and she submitted, though she was aware that she was being put upon. Mrs. Purcell, in the window, paid no attention to them. She kept gazing out upon the wide world of grey-blue clouds, and asking herself what would be best for John.

They were disturbed in all these occupations by a step which came briskly downstairs, perhaps betokening, Pickering thought, that the Signor was going out again, and that his own delay about the lamps had been a wise instinct. But, after all, it was not the Signor’s step; it was young Purcell, who came along the little winding passage full of corners, and entered the housekeeper’s room, scattering the little party assembled there. Maryanne fled as a visitor from the outer world flies from the chamber of a servant of the court, at the advent of the queen. Though she would assure herself sometimes that Mrs. Purcell’s son was “no better nor me,” yet in his presence Maryanne recognised the difference. He was “the young master” even in Pick’s eyes, who stopped talking, and put the notes back once more upon the salver with a great air of business, as if in the act of hastening with them to the Signor. Mrs. Purcell was the only one who received her son with tranquillity. She turned her eyes upon him quietly, with a smile, with a serene pride which would not have misbecome an empress. No one in the house, not the Signor himself, had ascended to such a height of being as the housekeeper; no one else had produced such a son.

“Go and light the candles in the study, Pick,” said young Purcell. “The Signor is in the dark, and he’s composing. Quick and carry him the lights. Don’t bother him with those letters now. He is doing something beautiful,” he said, turning to his mother. “There’s a phrase in it I never heard equalled. He has been sitting out on the terrace getting inspiration. I must run back and keep old Pick from disturbing him, making a noise——”

“Stay a moment, Johnny, my own dear——”

“What’s the matter, mother? Oh, I know; you’ve heard of this last offer. But if I take any I’ll take St. Ermengilde’s, where I could still go on living at home, the Signor says. It’s less money, but so long as I can help him and see her now and again, and please you——”

“Ah, John, your mother’s last; but that’s natural,” said Mrs. Purcell, shaking her head, “quite natural. I don’t complain. Is it another organ you’ve got the offer of? Well, to be sure! and there are folks that say merit isn’t done justice to! John, I’ve been hearing something,” said the housekeeper, putting out her hand to draw him to her; “something as perhaps you ought to know.”

The young man looked at her eagerly. In this place he bore a very different aspect from that under which he had appeared to Lottie. Here it was he who was master of the situation, the centre of a great many hopes and wishes. He looked at her closely in the dusk, which made it hard to see what was in her face. He was a good son, but he was his mother’s social superior, and there was a touch of authority, even in the kindness of his voice.

“Something I ought to know? I know it already: that Mr. Ridsdale has been visiting at the Lodges. That is nothing so extraordinary. If you think a little attention from a fashionable fop will outweigh the devotion of years!” said the young man, with a flush of high-flown feeling. He had a great deal of sentiment and not very much education, and naturally he was high-flown. “People may say what they like,” he went on in an agitated voice, “but merit does carry the day. They’ve offered me St. Ermengilde over the heads of half-a-dozen. Is it possible, can you suppose, that she should be so blind!”

“That wasn’t it,” said Mrs. Purcell quietly; “it’s something quite different, my dear. Shut the door, that we mayn’t have old Pick coming in again (it was he that told me), and you shall hear.”

END OF VOL. I.