CHAPTER XXXV.
FAMILY DUTY: ACCORDING TO MRS. DESPARD.
THERE are some victories which feel very much like defeats. When Polly had scattered her adversaries on every side, driven forth Lottie and got rid of Law, and silenced Captain Despard—who sat in his room and heard everything but thought it wisest not to interfere—she retired upstairs to her drawing-room and celebrated her triumph by shedding torrents of tears. She had intended to make everybody very wretched, and she had done so; supposing, perhaps (though she did not really know what her motive was), that some pleasure would come to herself out of the discomfiture of the others. But pleasure rarely comes by that means, and when she had thus chased everybody out of her way, Polly threw herself down and burst forth into angry sobs and tears. It is not to be supposed that Captain Despard entertained any romantic illusions about his bride; he knew very well what Polly was. He had, as facts proved, been sufficiently fond of her to marry her, but he did not expect of her more than Polly could give, nor was he shocked to find that she had a temper and could give violent utterance to its vagaries; all this he had known very well before. Knowing it, however, he thought it wise to keep out of the way and not mix himself up in a fray with which evidently he had nothing to do. Had she gone a step further with Lottie it is possible that he might have interfered, for, after all, Lottie was his child; and though he might himself be hard upon her at times, there is generally a mingled sentiment of family pride and feeling which makes us unwilling to allow one who belongs to us to be roughly treated by a stranger. But when Law put himself in the breach, his father sat close and took no notice; he did not feel impelled to turn his wife’s batteries upon himself out of consideration for Law. Nor did it make any impression upon the Captain when he heard her angry sobs overhead. “She will come to if she is left to herself,” he said, and he did not allow himself to be disturbed. Polly, in her passion, threw herself on the carpet, leaning her head upon a chair. She had changed the room after her own fashion. She had lined the curtains with pink muslin, and fastened her crochet-work upon the chairs with bows of pink ribbon; she had covered the old piano with a painted cover, and adorned it with vases and paper flowers. She had made the faded little room which had seemed a fit home enough, in its grey and worn humility, for Lottie’s young beauty, into something that looked very much like a dressmaker’s ante-room, or that terrible chamber, “handsomely fitted up with toilet requisites,” where the victims of the photographic camera prepare for the ordeal. But the loveliness of her handiwork did not console Polly; she got no comfort out of the pink bows, nor even from the antimacassars—a point in which Lottie’s room was painfully deficient. She flung herself upon the carpet and sobbed. What was the use of being a lady, a Chevalier’s wife, and living here in the heart of the Abbey, if no one called upon her or took any notice of her? Polly was not of a patient nature; it did not occur to her even that there was still time for the courtesies she had set her heart upon gaining. She had looked every day for some one to come, and no one had ever come; no one had made any advances to her at the Abbey, which was the only place in which she could assert her position as a lady and a Chevalier’s wife. Even Mrs. O’Shaughnessy, who had risen from the ranks, who lived next door, who was not a bit better, nay, who was much less good than Polly to begin with (for what is a trooper’s wife? and she had been nothing but a trooper’s wife)—even Mrs. O’Shaughnessy had passed the door as if she did not see it, and had waited outside till Miss Lottie came to her. Polly’s dreams had been very different. She had seen herself in imagination the admired of all admirers; she was by far the youngest of all the Chevaliers’ wives, and the gentlemen, at least, she was sure would rally round her. Women might be spiteful, but men always did justice to a woman when she was handsome and young. Was not that written in all the records? She expected that the ladies would be spiteful—that would be indeed a part of her triumph. They would be jealous of her superior attractions, of her youth, of her husband’s adoration of her; the old things would be in a flutter of alarm lest their old men should come within her influence. But Polly had felt pretty sure that the old gentlemen would admire her and rally round her. To make the women envious and the men enthusiastic, was not that always the way? certainly such was the course of events in the Family Herald. The heroine might have one friend devoted to her fortunes, a confidant more admiring, more faithful even than her lover; but all the rest of womankind was leagued against her. And so it had been in most of the novels Polly had read. But that neither men nor women should take any notice, that was a thing for which she was not prepared, and which she declared to herself she would not bear.
She had seen enough already from her windows to make her furious. She had seen Mrs. O’Shaughnessy ostentatiously waiting for Lottie, walking up and down outside, making signs to the girl upstairs. She had seen Captain Temple pass and repass, looking up at the same window. She had seen the greetings that met Lottie wherever she appeared. The Chevaliers and their wives had not always looked upon Miss Despard with such favourable eyes. They had thought her proud, and they had resented her pride; but now that Lottie was in trouble it was round her they had all rallied. It was the party at the Deanery, however, which had been the last drop in Polly’s cup. How was she to know that on the highest elevation she could reach as the lady of a Chevalier, she was still beneath the notice of Lady Caroline, and as far as ever from the heaven of the highest society? Polly did not know. The elevation to which she herself had risen was so immense in her own consciousness that there seemed no distinction of ranks above her. She thought, as Lottie had once thought, though from a different point of view, that gentlefolks were all one; that a gentleman’s wife, if not so rich or so grand, was still on a level with Lady Caroline herself, and within the circle which encompassed the Queen. “You can’t be no better than a gentleman,” Polly said to herself. You might, it was true, be a lord, which some people thought better, but even a lord was scarcely above an officer. All this glorious ambition, however, what was it going to end in? She watched the carriages going to the Deanery, and with still more furious feelings she watched Lottie in her white dress crossing the Dean’s Walk. And she left at home, at the window, neglected, left out, though she was Mrs. Despard, and the other nobody! Was it possible that it might be better even to be a dressmaker, forewoman in the workroom, acknowledged to have the best eye for cutting out, and to be the quickest worker of the lot, superior so far among her equals—than to be ignored and neglected and treated as the dust under their feet by a set of poor gentlefolks? Polly felt that she must wreak her vengeance on somebody.
When she had got her fit of crying over accordingly, she jumped up to her feet and hurried to her room to put on her “things.” It was her “best things” that she put on. Indeed, Polly had been wearing her best things every day with an extravagance which rather touched her conscience, though it delighted her fancy. She made herself very fine indeed that wintry afternoon, and pattered downstairs upon a pair of high heels which were more splendid than comfortable, and burst into the little room where Captain Despard sat attentive to all these sounds, and wondering what was coming next. Few people realise the advantage of a silly wife to a man who is not over wise. The Captain, though he had a high opinion of himself, was aware at the bottom of his heart that other people scarcely shared that sentiment. And to have a wife whom he was fond of, and whose acquisition flattered his vanity, and who was unmistakably, though clever enough, less clever, less instructed, than he was, gave him a sense of superiority which was very pleasant to him. He looked upon her follies with much more indulgence than he had ever felt for Lottie, who did not give him the same consolation.
“Well, what is it now?” he said, with a smile.
“I want you to come out with me,” Polly said. “I want to buy some things. My old muff is shabby, I couldn’t wear it in the Abbey. Though they’re a set of old frights and frumps, I don’t wish your wife to be looked down upon by them, Harry. I can see them looking at all my things, counting up what everything costs, and whispering behind my back. That old Mrs. Jones has trimmed her bonnet exactly like mine, though she looks as if she was too grand to see me. They ain’t above copying me, that’s one thing.”
“No wonder,” said the admiring husband; “for it is long since anything so young and so handsome has been among them before. Don’t they wish they could copy your face as well as your bonnet! that’s all.”
“Oh, get along!” said Polly, well pleased; “you’re always flattering. Come and buy me a muff. I don’t know what kind to get. Grebe is sweetly pretty and ermine is delicious, but sealskin, perhaps, is the most genteel; that always looks lady-like. Did you see Mrs. Daventry go by in her carriage? Ah!” Polly sighed; how could she help it? She was very fine in her blue silk, but Augusta was finer. “She has just come from France, you know, and then, of course, they are rich. She had on a velvet with sable that deep——! Ah! it’s hard to see folks that are no better than you with things that are so much better,” cried Polly; “but, after all, though velvet and sable are very nice, give me sealskin—that’s always lady-like. A sealskin jacket!—if I had that, I don’t think there is anything more I should wish for in the world.”
“Are they very dear?” said the Captain, with a sudden fit of liberality. He had a native love of buying, which is very general with impecunious persons, and at present was in a prodigal mood.
“Dear! Oh, not for the good they are,” said Polly. “You never want another winter mantle all your life. You’re set up. That makes them cheap in the end; but they cost a deal of money. I haven’t seen nobody with one in all the Abbey, except the Canon’s ladies.”
“Then you shall have one!” said Captain Despard. He looked like a prince, Polly thought, as he stood there glowing with generous purpose. The sound of the “O—Oh!” with which she received the offer rang through the Lodges. Such a shriek of pleasure had not been heard there since there had been Chevaliers in St. Michael’s. They went out together, all beaming, arm in arm, the bride clinging fondly to her husband, the Captain looking down with delighted protection upon his bride. This sight, which is so pretty in some cases, and calls forth, if much amusement, often a great deal of sympathy, roused anything but friendly feelings in the Lodges, where the good people were getting ready for the afternoon service. Old fool was the best name they had for the bridegroom, though he was not very old; and Polly was a grievance which the ladies could not tolerate. They looked after her from their windows with feelings which were far from Christian. It was a thing they ought not to have been exposed to. There should have been an appeal to the Queen, if the gentlemen had the least energy. “But even the Queen, bless her! could not keep a man from marrying,” the Warden said, deprecatingly. He did not like it any more than they did; but it is only when you are yourself of the executive that you know the difficulties of action; that is why the ladies are such critics—they have not got it to do.
Captain and Mrs. Captain Despard (Polly had got beautiful glazed cards printed stiff and strong with this title upon them) walked down to the best shop in St. Michael’s, which is a very good shop indeed; and there they bought a beautiful sealskin. Impossible to tell the pride, the happiness, the glory with which Polly acquired this new possession. She had not expected it. These were the days when sealskins were still a hope, a desire, an aspiration to the female mind, a property which elevated its possessor, and identified her among her peers. “That lady with the sealskin,” who would think of pointing out anybody by so general a description now? are they not even going out of fashion? But Polly, for one, could not realise the possibility that such a thing could ever happen. And she had not anticipated such a bliss; the happiness was doubled by being unforeseen. This, indeed, was a proof of the blessedness of being a married lady, of having bettered herself, of having married a gentleman. Her mind was in a confusion of delight. Nevertheless she did not forget that she had come out with another and quite distinct purpose. The fact that she had herself been so fortunate did not turn her from her mission. Was it not more her duty than ever to do everything that could be done for her husband’s family? When she had decided upon her sealskin, Polly began to shiver. She said, “It is a very cold day. I don’t know why it should be so cold so early in the year. Don’t you think it is very cold, Harry? I have come out without any wrap. Do you know I think I will put the sealskin on.” Why should not she? The pro prietor of the shop accomplished the sale with a pang. He knew Captain Despard well enough and he knew Polly, and he trembled when he thought of his bill. But what could he be but civil? He put it on for her—though how any ordinary sealskin could have covered a bosom so swelling with pride and bliss it is hard to say. And the pair went out together as they came in, except that one was almost speechless with the proud consciousness of drawing all eyes. “It is not the appearance,” said Polly, “but it is so deliciously warm; there never was anything like it. And now I am set up. I shall not cost you any more for a winter cloak, not for years and years.” “I thought you said it was to last for ever,” said the Captain, equally delighted. They promenaded all the way down St. Michael’s Hill, the admired of all beholders. If the remarks that were made were not precisely such as Polly hoped, still there was no doubt that remarks were made by everybody, and that the sealskin had all the honour it deserved. Sometimes, indeed, there would be a bitter in the sweet, as when the Captain took off his hat with jaunty grace to some lady whom he knew. “Who is that?” Polly would ask sharply; but the ladies all hurried by, and never stopped to be introduced; and no man took off his hat to Polly. Even against this, however, the happiness that wrapped her round defended Mrs. Despard. And how the people stared!—people who had seen her going up and down with a little bundle of patterns on her way to her work, on her way to try on a dress—people in the shops, who had been her equals if not her superiors—to see them gazing out at her with big eyes, at her fine sealskin and her fine husband, that comforted her soul. She walked slowly, getting the full good of her triumph. But when she had got to the foot of the hill she dismissed her escort. “Now you may go,” she said; “you always had plenty to do in the old days. I don’t want you to say I tie you to my apron-string. You may go now.”
“This is a pretty way to dismiss your husband,” said Captain Despard; “and where are you going, may I ask, that you send me away?”
“Oh, I will tell you fast enough. I am not going anywhere you can disapprove of. I am going to see the girls,” said Polly, “that is all.”
“The girls! My love, you must recollect,” said Captain Despard with dignity, “that the girls, as you call them, are not fit companions for you.”
“You may trust me to know my place,” said Polly, “and to keep them in theirs. I should think you may trust me.”
Fortified by this assurance, the Captain left his lovely bride. He turned back to kiss his hand to her when he was half way up the hill, prolonging the sweet sorrow of the parting, and Polly blew him a kiss with infantine grace. It was “as good as a play.” “Lord, what fools they are!” said the fishmonger on the hill, who was a cynic! and the young ladies in the draper’s shop shook their heads at each other and said, “Poor gentleman!” with the profoundest commiseration.
When he had left her, Polly threw out her skirts and smoothed the fur of her lovely new coat with a caressing hand. She felt that she loved it. It was more entirely delightful than even her husband—a happiness without alloy. She walked very slowly, enjoying every step of the way. She gave a penny to the beggar at the corner in the fulness of her satisfaction. So far her happiness had evidently a fine moral influence on Polly; and she was going to pay a visit, which was also very kind, to “the girls” in the River Lane. She was not one to forget old friends. She sailed along in her pride and glory through the quarter where she was so well known, and curved her nostrils at the smells, and allowed disgust to steal over her face when her path was crossed by an unlovely figure. Polly flattered herself that she was a fine lady complete; and there was no doubt that the imitation was very good in the general, so long as you did not enter into details.
At the entrance of the River Lane, however, she ceased to stand upon ceremony with herself. She picked up her skirts and went on at a more business- like rate of speed. Some one was coming up against the light, which by this time of the afternoon came chiefly from the west, someone with his shoulders up to his ears, who took off his hat to Polly, and pleased her until she perceived that it was only Law. “You here!” she said: and as she looked at him the moral influence of the sealskin almost vanished. Thus she went in state to visit the scenes in which so much of her previous life had passed. But a new sentiment was in Polly’s eyes. She felt that she had a duty to do—a duty which was superior to benevolence. She pushed open the green swing door with a delicious sense of the difference. The girls were talking fast and loud when she opened the door, discussing some subject or other with all the natural chatter of the workroom. There was a pause when the sound of her heels and the rustle of her silk was heard—a hush ran round the table. How well Polly knew what it meant! “They will think it is a customer,” she said to herself; and never customer swept in more majestically. They were all at work when she entered, as if they did not know what it was to chatter, and Ellen rose respectfully at the first appearance of the lady.
“Mother is upstairs, ma’am, but I can take any orders,” she said; and then with a shriek cried out “Polly!”
“Polly!” echoed all the girls.
Here was a visitor indeed. They got up and made a circle round her, examining her and all she “had on.” “In a sealskin!” ’Liza and Kate cried in a breath, with an admiration which amounted to awe. One of them even put forth her hand to stroke it in her enthusiasm. For an instant Polly allowed this fervour of admiration to have its way. Then she said, languidly—
“Give me a chair, please, and send Mrs. Welting to me. I wish to speak to Mrs. Welting. I am sorry to interrupt your work, young ladies—it is Mrs. Welting I want to see.”
“But, Polly!” the girls cried all together. They were too much startled to know what to say. They stood gaping in a circle round her.
“I thought you had come to see us like a friend—like what you used to be.”
“And weren’t we all just glad to see you again, Polly—and quite the lady!” cried another. They would not take their dismissal at the first word.
“Young ladies,” said Polly, “I’ve not come in any bad spirit. I don’t deny as I’ve passed many a day here. My family (though always far above the dressmaking) was not well off, and I shall always be thankful to think as I did my best for them. But now that I’m married, in a different position,” said Polly, “though always ready to stand your friend, when you want a friend, or to recommend you among the Abbey ladies, you can’t think as I can go on with you like you were in my own sphere. Where there’s no equality there can’t be no friendship. Perhaps you wouldn’t mind opening a window? It’s rather early to put on my sealskin, but one never knows at this time of the year—and I’m ’eated with my walk. Send Mrs. Welting to me, please.”
There was a great commotion among the girls. The two passive ones stood with open mouth, struck dumb by this magnificence.
“Lor!” cried Kate, finding no other word that could express her emotion.
Emma, though she was the youngest, was the most vehement of all. “I know what she’s come for. She’s come to make mischief,” cried Emma. “I wouldn’t fetch mother. I wouldn’t go a step. Let her speak straight out what she’s got to say.”
“There’s reason in everything,” said Ellen. “You mayn’t mean to keep us up like friends. Just as you like, I’m sure; none of us is wanting to keep it up; but mother takes no hand in the business, and that you know as well as me.”
“Send Mrs. Welting to me,” cried Polly, waving her hand majestically. She did not condescend to any further reply. She leant back on her chair and unfastened her beloved mantle at the throat. Then she got out a laced handkerchief and fanned herself. “Me that thought it was so cold,” Polly remarked to herself, “and it’s like summer!” She did not pay any further attention to the young women, who consulted together with great indignation and excitement at a little distance.
“What can she have to say to mother? I wouldn’t call mother, not if she was to sit there for a week,” said Emma, who had a presentiment as to the subject of the visit.
“Lord! just look at her in her sealskin,” interrupted Kate, who could think of nothing else.
But Ellen, who was the serious one, paused and hesitated. “We can’t tell what it may be—and if it turned out to be a job, or something she had got us from some of the Abbey ladies! She’s not bad natured,” said Ellen, full of doubts.
All this time Polly waved her handkerchief about, with its edge of lace, fanning herself. She looked at no one—she was too much elevated above all the associations of the place to deign to take any notice. Had not she always been above it? With her disengaged hand she smoothed the fur of her sealskin, rubbing it knowingly upward. She was altogether unconscious of their talk and discussion. What could they have in common with Mrs. Despard? To see her, if any of her former associates had been cool enough to notice it, was still “as good as a play.”
The upshot was, that while the others, with much ostentation of dragging their seats to the other end of the table, sat down and resumed their work with as much appearance of calm as possible, Ellen ran upstairs in obedience to her own more prudent suggestions, and reappeared shortly with her mother, a large, comely woman, who, not knowing who the visitor was, was a little expectant, hoping for a very good order—a trousseau, or perhaps mourning. “Or it might be the apartments,” Mrs. Welting said. And when she entered the workroom she made the lady a curtsey, then cried out, as her daughters had done, “Why, bless my heart, Polly! The idea of taking me in like this, you saucy things,” she cried, turning, laughing, upon the girls. But she did not get any response from these indignant young women, nor from Polly, who made no reply to her salutation, but sat still, delicately fanning herself.
Mrs. Welting stood between the two opposed parties, wondering what was the matter. Since Polly was here, she could have come only in friendship. “I’m sure I’m very glad to see you,” she said, “and looking so well and so ’andsome. And what a lovely sealskin you’ve got on!”
“Mrs. Welting,” said Polly, with great dignity, tak ing no notice of these friendly remarks, “I asked for you because I’ve something to say that is very particular. You don’t take much charge of the business, but it is you as one must turn to about the girls. Mrs. Welting, you mayn’t know, but there’s goings on here as always gave me a deal of annoyance. And now I’ve come to tell you they must be put a stop to. I never could endure such goings on, and I mean to put a stop to them now.”
“Lord bless us!” said Mrs. Welting. She was really alarmed. She gave a glance round upon her girls, all bursting with self-defence, and made them a sign to be silent. Then she turned to her visitor with a mixture of anxiety and defiance. “Speak up, Polly,” she said; “nobody shall say as I won’t listen, if there’s anything against my girls; but speak up, for you’ve gone too far to stop now.”
“How hot it is, to be sure!” said Mrs. Despard, “in this close bit of a place. I wish someone would open a window. I can’t think how I could have put up with it so long. And I wonder what my ’usband would say if he heard me spoke to like that? I thought you would have the sense to understand that I’ve come here for your good. It wasn’t to put myself on an equality with folks like you, working for your living. I don’t want to be stuck up, but a lady must draw the line somewhere. Mrs. Welting, I don’t suppose you know it—you ain’t often in the workroom—it would be a deal better if you was. There’s gentlemen comes here, till the place is known all over the town; and there is one young gentleman as I take a deal of interest in as makes me and his papa very uneasy all along of coming here——”
“Gentlemen! coming here!” cried Mrs. Welting, looking round upon her daughters with mingled anger and dismay.
“I know what I’m talking about,” said Polly; “let them contradict me if they dare. He comes here mostly every day. One of the girls is that silly as to think he’s after her. After her! I hope as he has more sense; he knows what’s what a deal too well for that. He takes his fun out of them—that is what he does. But you may think yourself what kind of feelings his family has—the Captain and me. That’s the one that encourages him most,” Mrs. Despard added, pointing out Emma with her finger. “She is always enticing the poor boy to come here.”
“Oh, you dreadful, false, wicked story!” cried Emma, flushed and crying. “Oh, mother, it ain’t nothing of the kind! It was she as brought him first. She didn’t mind who came when she was here. She said it was no harm, it was only a bit of fun. We was always against it—at least Ellen was,” added the culprit, bursting forth into sobs and tears.
“Yes, I always was,” said Ellen, demurely—it was not in human nature not to claim the palm of superior virtue—“but it was not Emma, it was Polly that began. I’ve heard her argue as it was no harm. She was the first with the Captain, and then when young Mr. Despard——”
“I am not going to sit here, and listen to abuse of my family,” said Polly, rising. “I wouldn’t have mentioned no names, for I can’t abide to have one as belongs to me made a talk about in a place like this. I came to give you a warning, ma’am, not these hardened things. It isn’t for nothing a lady in my position comes down to the River Lane. I’ve got my beautiful silk all in a muddle, and blacks upon a white bonnet is ruination. I did it for your sake, Mrs. Welting, for I’ve always had a respect for you. And now I’ve done my Christian duty,” said Polly, with vehemence, shaking the dust from her blue silk. “There’s them that talk about it, like that little Methody Ellen, but there ain’t many that do it. But don’t let anybody suppose,” she cried, growing hotter and hotter, “that I mean to do it any more! If you let him come here after this, I won’t show you any mercy—we’ll have the law of you, my ’usband and I. There’s laws against artful girls as entice poor innocent young men. Don’t you go for to think,” cried Mrs. Despard, sweeping out while they all gazed after her, speechless, “because I’ve once done my Christian duty that I’m going to do it any more!”
We will not attempt to describe the commotion that followed—the reproaches, the tears, the fury of the girls betrayed, of which none was more hot than that of Ellen, who had to stand and hear herself called a Methody—she who was conscious of being an Anglican and a Catholic without blemish, and capable of anything in the world before Dissent.
Polly sailed up the hill, triumphant in that consciousness of having done her duty as a Christian, but equally determined not to do it any more; and what with the consciousness of this noble performance, and what with the sealskin, found it in her power to be almost agreeable to her step-daughter, when the Captain, who, after all, was Lottie’s father, and did not like the idea that his girl should be banished from his house, had met her and brought her in.
“She has not had the careful bringing-up that you have had, my child,” the Captain said. “She hasn’t had your advantages. You must have a little patience with her, for my sake.” Captain Despard had always been irresistible when he asked tenderly, with his head on one side, and an insinuating roll in his voice, that anything should be done for his sake.
Lottie, who was happy in the sense of her lover’s readiness to sacrifice everything for her sake (as she thought), and to whom the whole world seemed fairer in consequence, yielded without any struggle; while Polly, on her part, put on her most gracious looks.
“If you take every word I say for serious,” said Polly, “I don’t know whatever I shall do. I never was used to have my words took up hasty like that. I say a deal of naughtiness that I don’t mean—don’t I, Harry? You and me would never have come together, should we, if you’d always gone and taken me at my word?” And so the reconciliation was effected, and things went on as before. There was no similar occurrence in respect to Law, whose looks at Polly were murderous; but, then, Law had no delicacy of sentiment, and, whatever had happened, would have