NEXT day the village was roused into great excitement by the appearance of a carriage from the Hall, in unusual state, with the coachman and footman in their gala liveries—or so at least it appeared to the unsophisticated ideas of the villagers, who came out to gape at the sight. A carriage passing is nothing wonderful in Watcham, however gorgeous—but a carriage which drives about from door to door, paying visits—this was a thing that happened seldom; the great people in the neighbourhood, the Lenthalls and Lady Wade, and the rest, would come occasionally to leave a card at the FitzStephens’, or to show civility to the people in the Rectory: but the sight of the prancing horses, and the footman attending his mistress from door to door, was a delight to the eyes such as seldom happened. The children were coming from school, and they ran in a little crowd to see and make their remarks with the usual frankness of a population in which the sharpness of town had crept in, modifying the bashfulness, but not the dull candour inaccessible to notions of civility, of the country. The Watcham children were, fortunately, more interested in the appearance of the servants than they were in that of the mistress, though some of the girls whispered together and indulged in pointed laughter at the lady who had to be assisted from the carriage, and who picked her steps, with such an expression in every turn of her person of impatient disgust, along the garden paths. Mrs. Swinford felt it a personal injury that the houses had all gardens and no entrance for the carriage, so that it was absolutely necessary for her, however reluctant, to walk so far before she could reach the door. But she was civil to the FitzStephens’, who both met her at their drawing-room door with effusion, and handed her to the most comfortable chair—which, however, Mrs. Swinford turned from the light before she would sit down.
‘My eyes will not support so much light. You seem to make really no use of curtains and blinds in this country,’ she said.
‘My husband likes all the light he can get,’ said Mrs. FitzStephen: though she had been, as the reader knows, a pretty woman, and was a fool, according to her visitor’s ideas, to face the day and show her wrinkles as she did. But the General’s wife had no idea that her old beauty required to be taken care of in this way.
‘It is all very well for men,’ said Mrs. Swinford—but she explained no further. She added: ‘I do not make calls generally, and country visits are an abomination, even when one can drive up to the door.’
‘We take your call as all the greater compliment,’ said the General, with his finest bow; but Mrs. FitzStephen remembering that she herself was a Challoner, and certainly as good as any Swinford of them all, not to speak of the claims of the FitzStephens—was not quite so complacent.
‘It is a pity,’ she said, ‘that we have no drive, and that our garden must be crossed on foot. We feel it very much when we have company. It is impossible to put up an awning all the way.’
‘Oh, you sometimes have company!’ said the fine lady.
‘We are even looking forward to a dance, in ten days,’ said the General, ‘a little ridiculous, you may think, for a quiet couple without children like my wife and me: but a dance is more pleasant to the young people than anything else.’
‘And consider,’ said his wife, ‘there is no need to do anything to amuse them, except to provide good music and as nice a floor as possible. They do the rest themselves.’
Mrs. Swinford looked round upon the small drawing-room with an air of inquiry which she did not attempt to disguise. ‘I am not much interested in amusing young people,’ she said; ‘where do they dance?’ in a tone that showed she was quite satisfied no dancing could take place there.
Mrs. FitzStephen grew red, and the General confused. They were very fond of this pretty drawing-room. Compliments upon its furniture and arrangements were familiar to them, and they were in the habit of deprecating too much praise by a fond apology as to its diminutive size. ‘Oh, it is too small for anything,’ Mrs. FitzStephen was in the habit of saying, with a mild inference that she was herself accustomed to something much larger. But the great lady’s seeming simple question dashed all their little pretences. Fortunately she left them no time to reply. ‘You have your little society in the village?’ she said.
‘Oh, we are not confined to the village,’ said Mrs. FitzStephen sharply, ‘we have a tolerably large list—I expect the Lenthalls, and some others.’
Mrs. Swinford again permitted her eyes to stray—with a slight elevation of the eyebrows—round the tiny room.
‘We did not venture to send an invitation to the Hall,’ said the General, with an uneasy laugh. ‘We scarcely ventured to hope—though I am happy to say that Mr. Swinford is coming, my dear.’
‘If you mean me,’ said Mrs. Swinford, ‘I never go out—at least to balls—since I have ceased to dance.’
‘Ah well, those days soon pass over,’ said the good old soldier, ‘we find other amusements at our age.’
Mrs. Swinford gave him a look—which did not reduce the gallant General to ashes, for he was not at all aware what she meant.
‘My husband is very fond of seeing the young people enjoy themselves,’ said Mrs. FitzStephen; ‘that amuses him more than anything for himself.’
‘Oh come, my dear, you must not give me too good a character,’ said the General. ‘I like a snug little dinner-party too, and a good talk.’
‘Do you talk here, too, as well as dance?’ said Mrs. Swinford, with an ineffable smile.
‘Oh, my dear lady, I assure you we have sometimes quite remarkable conversations. The Rector is an exceedingly well-informed man, and young Osborne has a great deal to say for himself, though he is taken up with fads—too much. And then, above all, there is Lady William——’
‘Oh, Emily! I had forgotten Lady William, as you call her.’
‘One can’t live in Watcham and leave out Lady William, I assure you, my dear madam,’ the General said; ‘besides her rank, which of course places her in the front of all.’
‘Ah, to be sure!’ said Mrs. Swinford, with a little gurgling laugh, which stopped and then ran on again, as if with a ridicule impossible to restrain—‘Her rank! I had forgotten her rank—such rank as it is.’
‘We think a good deal of it here,’ said Mrs. FitzStephen. ‘Lady Wade, you know, is only a baronet’s wife, and of course has to give place. It gives quite a little distinction to our village; everybody even in the county, at this end of it at least, must give way to Lady William. It is a great feather in our cap.’
Mrs. Swinford went on laughing, breaking into fresh little runs of merriment from time to time. ‘This is really amusing,’ she said. ‘Poor Emily: and does she talk too?’
‘She is an exceedingly cultivated woman, and one who has seen the world. I know few greater treats than to discuss either books or people with Lady William,’ said the General, with great gravity, holding up his head as if he were in uniform—which indeed this fine attitude almost persuaded his admiring wife that he was. What a champion for any one to have! But Mrs. Swinford went on with her little exasperating laugh like the vibration of an electric bell. It was very disconcerting to the pair, who were a little proud of their friendship with Lady William, and liked to wave her flag in any stranger’s eyes.
‘You see,’ said the great lady, ‘Emily Plowden, poor girl, was in the bread and butter stage when I knew her best: and to hear now of her rank, and then of her accomplishments, is a new experience. I cannot convey to your minds the amusement it causes me.’
‘Ah!’ said General FitzStephen gravely, ‘as I feel when I hear of a little ensign who came out to India at sixteen, and is now in command of my old regiment.’
Mrs. Swinford’s laugh ran on like the endless irritating tinkle of that electric bell. ‘More,’ she said, ‘for the boy would gain his promotion; but Emily!—it is more amusing than you can have any idea of to see that she takes it au grand sérieux, the rank and all.’
‘Perhaps, General,’ said Mrs. FitzStephen quickly, ‘you will ring for tea, instead of standing there,’ which was the most uncalled-for, unjustifiable attack: for why should not he stand there, and where else could he have stood but respectfully in front of her chair, listening to their guest? He roused himself with a little start, and did what he was told, but not without a look of surprised appeal at his wife’s face.
‘No tea,’ said Mrs. Swinford, rising; ‘I have not acquired the habit: but I am sure the General will kindly give me his arm to my carriage. I walk so little, I stumble; I have not the use of gravel walks.’
Mrs. FitzStephen watched the lady sweep away. She had very high-heeled shoes and a long dress, too long for walking. The General’s wife watched her along the gravel path, which she thought it very insolent of any one to object to. Mrs. Swinford did not sweep (except indoors) or glide, or march, majestically, as would have been consonant with her pretensions, but accoutred as she was, hobbled, not more gracefully than if she had been any old woman in the village. Her step showed she was an old woman, however she might ignore that fact, and it gave the General’s wife, whom she had rubbed so persistently the wrong way, a certain characteristic feminine satisfaction to feel that it was so. Also Mrs. FitzStephen strongly disapproved of the respectful and devoted air with which her husband conducted the great lady. It was Stephen’s way; he could not help it. He was an old——, taken in by any woman that would take the trouble. But what could she mean about Lady William, and all those scoffs at her rank? Could there be any doubt about her rank? It might be a courtesy title, but what did that matter? The daughter-in-law of a marquis held precedence over quite a number of people who were Lady So-and-So. Lady Wade never disputed it, and the Wades had an old baronetcy. They were not upstart people. What did the—the—Mrs. FitzStephen paused for a word—the old hag mean?
‘Oh, she meant nothing but spite,’ said the General when he came back, ‘feminine spite such as you all entertain towards your neighbours when they are prettier or wiser than you.’
‘Perhaps you will tell me what woman I regard with feminine spite,’ Mrs. FitzStephen very reasonably said.
‘Oh, you, my dear, you’ve no occasion; you are a pretty woman still, and can hold your own: but that poor old soul,’ said the General, ‘as you may have perceived, I had almost to carry her down the walk; that poor old creature must be seventy if she is a day—and to see her old subaltern taking the pas from her: I am not subject to the same kind of feelings—but I confess I don’t like it myself, if it comes to that,’ the General said.
Mrs. Swinford went on to the Rectory with a curious smile upon her face. She drove past the school-room door and saw her friend standing at it, sheltered in the depth of the doorway, by no means unlike a spider standing at watch, having laid all its nets, till some silly fly buzzes in. A salutation of the eyes only passed between the two women, the schoolmistress and the great lady of the Hall. In the daylight they resembled each other, though Mrs. Brown’s plain black gown was not becoming to her dark good looks, and every particular of Mrs. Swinford’s attire was calculated to enhance her antiquated beauty. There was a softening in both pairs of eyes as they met. They were not good women; their aims were not fine nor the means they were disposed to use; but yet, curiously enough, they loved each other. It was a strange sight to see. The walk from the little gate of the Rectory to the door was still more trying to Mrs. Swinford than the other had been. It made her quite sure that she had no vocation to call at houses where there was no drive. Her dress was long, and she resented the fact that it must trail on the gravel and get dirty and damp. As for holding it up, it did not occur to her: that any one should think she hobbled, or was not a glass of fashion and mould of form wherever she went would have been incredible to her; but she resented much the length of that walk, and that she should be exposed to such trouble and annoyance in the act of doing what she thought her duty. Had it been only her duty, however, Mrs. Swinford would have cared very little for fulfilling it; but she had a different motive now.
There was a dreadful hurry-scurry in the Rectory drawing-room when she was seen approaching. The antimacassars, I am sorry to say, were much tumbled and untidy, and the loose covers of the chairs anything but what might be desired. Both mother and daughters flew with one impulse to the arranging of the room. Jim had been seated by the fireside all the afternoon with a bad cold, which they had been nursing; but he fled at once into his own cold room, which might, his mother thought, be very bad for him, but could not be helped in the circumstances. Florence ran, with more sense than any one would have given her credit for, to tell the parlourmaid to bring in a more elegant, less substantial tea than usual, and to give her father a hint in his study—‘Mrs. Swinford, papa!’ while Mrs. Plowden and Emily stood nervously awaiting the visit, anxious to go out and meet her and bring her in by the drawing-room window, which would have saved the old lady a few steps; but kept back by the fear that it might be thought indecorous, too familiar, not dignified enough. Mrs. Swinford looked round upon the Rectory drawing-room as she had done on Mrs. FitzStephen’s, but with a different air. ‘You have made wonderfully few changes,’ she said; ‘it is just the same damp little place it used to be.’ She was like so many of those great ladies, not careful of people’s feelings; but that was, no doubt, mainly from want of thought.
‘Oh,’ Mrs. Plowden said: and made a pause, that no explosion might follow, ‘I assure you,’ she said, ‘it is not damp at all. We have proved again and again that no water ever comes in. The elevation is small, but quite sufficient; and as for the furniture and doing it up——’
‘Yes, I recognise all the old things,’ Mrs. Swinford said, with a careless wave of the hand (when there was not one thing, not one, except the Indian cabinet, that had not been renewed!); ‘and another Emily Plowden just the same. It is only you,’ she said, with a sweet but careless smile upon the Rector’s wife, ‘that are new——’
‘New! But we have been here for fifteen years,’ Mrs. Plowden said: and her visitor smiled again as if in complacent consciousness of having said the most agreeable thing in the world.
‘I am glad,’ she said, ‘there is no other daughter, no one to disturb the harmony of what used to be. Oh, but here is the other daughter.’
‘Florence, my second, Mrs. Swinford: not considered like the Plowdens, but taking more after my side of the house.’
‘I see she is not like the Plowdens,’ said Mrs. Swinford, with the look of indifference which was natural to her: it was of so little consequence! ‘The other is a little like Emily.’
‘Like her aunt, our dear Lady William.’
‘You are all much delighted,’ said the great lady, ‘with that name.’
‘My sister-in-law’s name? Well, we like it, for she has no other, poor thing. We couldn’t call her anything else—as long as she doesn’t change it or marry again.’
‘Oh, mamma!’ said Emmy and Florry together.
‘No,’ said Mrs. Plowden, ‘I don’t think she will marry again—now. I did once hope she would; for, though rank is nice, a good husband who would have looked after her and her little girl would have been nicer: while the late Lord William, as I have heard——’
Mrs. Swinford made a little movement of impatience. ‘Have the family,’ she said, ‘taken any notice of Emily—or the little girl?’
‘It is very funny,’ said Florence, ‘to hear Mab, who has such a character of her own, spoken of as the little girl.’
‘Oh, Florry, hold your tongue, you are always making remarks. The family, Mrs. Swinford?’
‘Poor little thing, poor little thing,’ said Mrs. Swinford, ‘I think you were very wise, my dear Mrs. Plowden, in advising your sister-in-law to marry again. What a thing it would be if after all it was found that nothing could be done for the little girl!’
‘They have their little annuity,’ said Mrs. Plowden, startled; ‘there has never been anything said of taking it away. And I could not make such a statement as that I advised her to marry, for there has really been no one that she could have married except——, and he was quite an old gentleman. Not to say that Emily ever thought of such a thing. She was not so happy the first time as to have any wish——’
Mrs. Swinford’s attention had once more flagged, and here she interposed with her usual calm bearing, addressing Emmy. ‘I thought you had a brother,’ she said.
Emmy coloured high, being thus suddenly spoken to. ‘Oh yes.’
‘Yes, indeed,’ cried Mrs. Plowden, recovering herself the more easily that this new subject was one on which she could be eloquent. ‘He has a bad cold, poor boy, or he would have been here at once to pay his respects. Is that you, James? Mrs. Swinford is making such kind inquiries.’
The great lady held out her hand. ‘You have not taken the trouble to come and see me,’ she said.
The Rector had come in much against his will. He made a bow which had not his usual ease. ‘I must beg your pardon,’ he said very gravely. ‘I am aware that I have been negligent.’
‘Ah,’ she said, ‘you did not want to come? but I supposed when your excellent wife did me so much honour, that bygones were to be bygones; and Emily——’
‘My sister acts for herself; I do not try to influence her; and my wife thinks she knows what is best for her——’
‘Her family, of course; good woman. She thought it would be a wrong thing to neglect opportunities, and so did your father, as you may recollect.’
‘I prefer not to recollect, any more than I can help,’ said the Rector.
‘Which? that Emily has come to great promotion, very high promotion, as all those ladies think—while she was in my house? There would have been no title in the case—a title such as it is!—but for my house.’
‘The less that is said on that subject, I think, the better,’ said the Rector, standing bolt upright before the fire.
‘Oh, James,’ said his wife, ‘when Mrs. Swinford is so kind——’
‘I gave it,’ said Mrs. Swinford, bending forward, ‘and, my good Rector, you will take care not to be insolent; I may also, perhaps, take it away.’