That Stick ...

‘Yes,’ said Lady Adela, ‘old Swan lives out at Linghill, which is not above half a mile from this house, but too far off for me to visit constantly.  I shall be very much obliged if you can undertake the cottages there.’

‘Thank you,’ said Mary, as heartily as if she were receiving a commission from the Bishop of the diocese.

‘Did not Miss Morton mention something about a boys’ class?’ said Frank.  ‘I have been accustomed to a Sunday school.’

Mr. Woodman betrayed as much surprise as if he had said he was accustomed to a coal mine; and Lady Adela observed graciously, ‘Most of them have gone into service this Michaelmas; but no doubt it will be a relief to Mr. Woodman if you find time to undertake them.’

This was the gist of the first two morning calls, and there were many more such periods of penance, for the bride and bridegroom were not modern enough in their notions to sit up to await their p. 80visitors, and thankful they were to those who would be at the expense of finding conversation, though this was not always the case; for much of the neighbourhood was of a description to be awed by the mere fact of a great house, and to take the shyness of titled people for pride.  Those with whom they prospered best were a good-natured, merry old dowager duchess, with whom they felt themselves in the altitude to which they were accustomed at Hurminster; a loud-voiced, eager old squire, who was bent on being Lord Northmoor’s guide and prompter in county business; also an eager, gushing lady, the echoes of whose communications made Frank remark, after her departure, ‘We must beware of encouraging gossip about the former family.’

‘Oh, I wish I had the power of setting people down when they say what is undesirable, like Miss Lang, or Lady Adela!’ sighed Mary.

‘Try to think of them like your school girls,’ he said.

The returning of the calls was like continually pulling the string of a shower-bath, and glad were the sighs when people proved to be not at home; but on the whole, being entertained was not half so formidable as entertaining, and a bride was not expected to do more than sit in her white silk, beside the host.

But the return parties were an incubus on their minds.  Only they were not to be till after Christmas.

p. 81CHAPTER XIII

THE DOWER HOUSE

Over the hearth of the drawing-room of the Dower House, in the sociable twilight that had descended on the afternoon tea-table, sat three ladies—for Lady Adela and Miss Morton had just welcomed Mrs. Bury, who, though she had her headquarters in London, generally spent her time in visits to her married daughters or expeditions abroad.

Amice had just exhibited her doll, Elmira’s last acquisition, a little chest of drawers, made of matchboxes and buttons, that Constance Morton had taught her to make, and then she had gone off to put the said Elmira and her companions to bed, after giving it as her grave opinion that Lady Northmoor was a great acquisition.

‘Do you think so?’ said Mrs. Bury, after the laugh at the sedate expression.

‘She is very kind to Amice, and I do not think she will do her any harm,’ said Lady Adela.

‘Governessing was her mйtier,’ added Bertha, ‘so it is not likely.’

‘And how does it turn out?’

p. 82‘Oh, it might be a good deal worse.  I see no reason for not living on here.’

‘And you, Birdie?’

‘No, I couldn’t!  I’ve been burning to get away these seven years, and as Northmoor actually seems capable of taking my boys, my last tie is gone.  I’m only afraid he’ll bore them with too much Sabbatarianism and temperance.  He is just the cut of the model Sabbath-school teacher, only he vexes Addie’s soul by dashes of the Ritualist.’

‘Well,’ said Mrs. Bury, ‘the excellent Mr. Woodman is capable of improvement.’

‘But how?’ said Lady Adela.  ‘Narrow ritualism without knowledge or principle is a thing to be deprecated.’

‘Is it without knowledge or principle?’

‘How should an attorney’s clerk get either?’

‘But I understand you that they are worthy people, and not obnoxious.’

‘Worthy!’ exclaimed Bertha.  ‘Yes, worthy to their stiff backbones, worthy to the point of utter dulness; they haven’t got enough vulgarity even to drop their h’s or be any way entertaining.  I should like them ever so much better if they ate with their knives and drank out of their saucers, but she can’t even mispronounce a French word worse than most English people.’

‘No pretension even?’

‘Oh no; if there were, one could get some fun out of it.  I have heard of bearing honours meekly, but they don’t even do that, they just let them hang on them, like the stick and stock they are.  If I p. 83were Addie, it would be the deadly liveliness that would drive me away.’

‘Nay,’ said Adela; ‘one grows to be content with mere negations, if they are nothing worse.  I could be driven away, or at least find it an effort to remain, if Lady Northmoor were like her sister-in-law.’