I do not know how it was that it came to pass that my lady became reconciled to Miss Galindo about this time. Whether it was that her ladyship was weary of the unspoken coolness with her old friend; or that the specimens of delicate sewing and fine spinning at the school had mollified her towards Miss Bessy; but I was surprised to learn one day that Miss Galindo and her young friend were coming that very evening to tea at the Hall. This information was given me by Mrs Medlicott, as a message from my lady, who further went on to desire that certain little preparations should be made in her own private sitting-room, in which the greater part of my days were spent. From the nature of these preparations, I became quite aware that my lady intended to do honour to her expected visitors. Indeed, Lady Ludlow never forgave by halves, as I have known some people do. Whoever was coming as a visitor to my lady, peeress, or poor nameless girl, there was a certain amount of preparation required, in order to do them fitting honour. I do not mean to say that the preparation was of the same degree of importance in each case. I dare say, if a peeress had come to visit us at the Hall, the covers would have been taken off the furniture in the white drawing-room (they never were uncovered all the time I stayed at the Hall), because my lady would wish to offer her the ornaments and luxuries which this grand visitor (who never came – I wish she had! I did so want to see that furniture uncovered!) was accustomed to at home, and to present them to her in the best order in which my lady could. The same rule, modified, held good with Miss Galindo. Certain things, in which my lady knew she took an interest, were laid out ready for her to examine on this very day; and, what was more, great books of prints were laid out, such as I remembered my lady had had brought forth to beguile my own early days of illness – Mr Hogarth’s works, and the like – which I was sure were put out for Miss Bessy.
No one knows how curious I was to see this mysterious Miss Bessy – twenty times more mysterious, of course, for want of her surname. And then again (to try and account for my great curiosity, of which in recollection I am more than half ashamed), I had been leading the quiet monotonous life of a crippled invalid for many years – shut up from any sight of new faces; and this was to be the face of one whom I had thought about so much and so long – Oh! I think I might be excused.
Of course, they drank tea in the great hall, with the four young gentlewomen, who, with myself, formed the small bevy now under her ladyship’s charge. Of those who were at Hanbury when first I came, none remained; all were married, or gone once more to live at some home which could be called their own, whether the ostensible head were father or brother. I myself was not without some hopes of a similar kind. My brother Harry was now a curate in Westmoreland, and wanted me to go and live with him, as eventually I did for a time. But that is neither here nor there at present. What I am talking about is Miss Bessy.
After a reasonable time had elapsed, occupied as I well knew by the meal in the great hall – the measured, yet agreeable conversation afterwards – and a certain promenade around the hall, and through the drawing-rooms, with pauses before different pictures, the history or subject of each of which was invariably told by my lady to every new visitor – a sort of giving them the freedom of the old family-seat, by describing the kind and nature of the great progenitors who had lived there before the narrator – I heard the steps approaching my lady’s room where I lay. I think I was in such a state of nervous expectation, that if I could have moved easily, I should have got up and run away. And yet I need not have been, for Miss Galindo was not in the least altered (her nose a little redder, to be sure, but then that might only have had a temporary cause in the private crying I know she would have had before coming to see her dear Lady Ludlow once again). But I could almost have pushed Miss Galindo away, as she intercepted me in my view of the mysterious Miss Bessy.
Miss Bessy was, as I knew, only about eighteen, but she looked older. Dark hair, dark eyes, a tall, firm figure, a good, sensible face; with a serene expression, not in the least disturbed by what I had been thinking must be such awful circumstances as a first introduction to my lady, who had so disapproved of her very existence: those are the clearest impressions I remember of my first interview with Miss Bessy. She seemed to observe us all, in her quiet manner, quite as much as I did her; but she spoke very little; occupied herself, indeed, as my lady had planned, with looking over the great books of engravings. I think I must have (foolishly) intended to make her feel at her ease, by my patronage; but she was seated far away from my sofa, in order to command the light, and really seemed so unconcerned at her unwonted circumstances, that she did not need my countenance or kindness. One thing I did like – her watchful look at Miss Galindo from time to time: it showed that her thoughts and sympathy were ever at Miss Galindo’s service, as indeed they well might be. When Miss Bessy spoke, her voice was full and clear, and what she said, to the purpose, though there was a slight provincial accent in her way of speaking. After a while, my lady set us two to play at chess, a game which I had lately learnt at Mr Gray’s suggestion. Still we did not talk much together, though we were becoming attracted towards each other, I fancy.
‘You will play well,’ said she. ‘You have only learnt about six months, have you? And yet you can nearly beat me, who have been at it as many years.’
‘I began to learn last November. I remember Mr Gray’s bringing me “Philidor on Chess,” one very foggy, dismal day.’
What made her look up so suddenly, with bright inquiry in her eyes? What made her silent for a moment, as if in thought, and then go on with something, I know not what, in quite an altered tone?
My lady and Miss Galindo went on talking, while I sat thinking. I heard Captain James’s name mentioned pretty frequently; and at last my lady put down her work, and said, almost with tears in her eyes:
‘I could not – I cannot believe it. He must be aware she is a schismatic; a baker’s daughter; and he is a gentleman by virtue and feeling, as well as by his profession, though his manners may be at times a little rough. My dear Miss Galindo, what will this world come to?’
Miss Galindo might possibly be aware of her own share in bringing the world to the pass which now dismayed my lady – for, of course, though all was now over and forgiven, yet Miss Bessy’s being received into a respectable maiden lady’s house, was one of the portents as to the world’s future which alarmed her ladyship; and Miss Galindo knew this – but, at any rate, she had too lately been forgiven herself not to plead for mercy for the next offender against my lady’s delicate sense of fitness and propriety – so she replied:
‘Indeed, my lady, I have long left off trying to conjecture what makes Jack fancy Gill, or Gill Jack. It’s best to sit down quiet under the belief that marriages are made for us, somewhere out of this world, and out of the range of this world’s reasons and laws. I’m not so sure that I should settle it down that they were made in Heaven; t’other place seems to me as likely a workshop; but, at any rate, I’ve given up troubling my head as to why they take place. Captain James is a gentleman; I make no doubt of that ever since I saw him stop to pick up old Goody Blake (when she tumbled down on the slide last winter) and then swear at a little lad who was laughing at her, and cuff him till he tumbled down crying; but we must have bread somehow, and though I like it better baked at home in a good sweet brick oven, yet, as some folks never can get it to rise, I don’t see why a man may not be a baker. You see, my lady, I look upon baking as a simple trade, and as such lawful. There is no machine comes in to take away a man’s or woman’s power of earning their living, like the spinning-jenny (the old busybody that she is), to knock up all our good old women’s livelihood, and send them to their graves before their time. There’s an invention of the enemy, if you will!’
‘That’s very true!’ said my lady, shaking her head.
‘But baking bread is wholesome, straightforward elbow-work. They have not got to inventing any contrivance for that yet, thank Heaven! It does not seem to me natural, nor according to Scripture, that iron and st
eel (whose brows can’t sweat) should be made to do man’s work. And so I say, all those trades where iron and steel do the work ordained to man at the Fall, are unlawful, and I never stand up for them. But say this baker Brooke did knead his bread, and make it rise, and then that people, who had, perhaps, no good ovens, came to him, and bought his good light bread, and in this manner he turned an honest penny, and got rich; why, all I say, my lady, is this – I dare say he would have been born a Hanbury, or a lord, if he could; and if he was not, it is no fault of his, that I can see, that he made good bread (being a baker by trade), and got money, and bought his land. It was his misfortune, not his fault, that he was not a person of quality by birth.’
‘That’s very true,’ said my lady, after a moment’s pause for consideration. ‘But, although he was a baker, he might have been a Churchman. Even your eloquence, Miss Galindo, shan’t convince me that that is not his own fault.’
‘I don’t see even that, begging your pardon, my lady,’ said Miss Galindo, emboldened by the first success of her eloquence. ‘When a Baptist is a baby, if I understand their creed aright, he is not baptized; and, consequently, he can have no godfathers and godmothers to do anything for him in his baptism; you agree to that, my lady?’
My lady would rather have known what her acquiescence would lead to, before acknowledging that she could not dissent from this first proposition; still she gave her tacit agreement by bowing her head.
‘And, you know, our godfathers and godmothers are expected to promise and vow three things in our name, when we are little babies, and can do nothing but squall for ourselves. It is a great privilege, but don’t let us be hard upon those who have not had the chance of godfathers and godmothers. Some people, we know, are born with silver spoons – that’s to say, a godfather to give one things, and teach one one’s catechism, and see that we’re confirmed into good church-going Christians – and others with wooden ladles in their mouths. These poor last folks must just be content to be godfatherless orphans, and Dissenters, all their lives; and if they are tradespeople into the bargain, so much the worse for them; but let us be humble Christians, my dear lady, and not hold our heads too high because we were born orthodox quality.’
‘You go on too fast, Miss Galindo! I can’t follow you. Besides, I do believe dissent to be an invention of the Devil’s. Why can’t they believe as we do? It’s very wrong. Besides, it’s schism and heresy, and, you know, the Bible says that’s as bad as witchcraft.’
My lady was not convinced, as I could see. After Miss Galindo had gone, she sent Mrs Medlicott for certain books out of the great old library upstairs, and had them made up into a parcel under her own eye.
‘If Captain James comes to-morrow, I will speak to him about these Brookes. I have not hitherto liked to speak to him, because I did not wish to hurt him, by supposing there could be any truth in the reports about his intimacy with them. But now I will try and do my duty by him and them. Surely, this great body of divinity will bring them back to the true church.’
I could not tell, for though my lady read me over the titles, I was not any the wiser as to their contents. Besides, I was much more anxious to consult my lady as to my own change of place. I showed her the letter I had that day received from Harry; and we once more talked over the expediency of my going to live with him, and trying what entire change of air would do to re-establish my failing health. I could say anything to my lady, she was so sure to understand me rightly. For one thing, she never thought of herself, so I had no fear of hurting her by stating the truth. I told her how happy my years had been while passed under her roof; but that now I had begun to wonder whether I had not duties elsewhere, in making a home for Harry – and whether the fulfilment of these duties, quiet ones they must needs be in the case of such a cripple as myself, would not prevent my sinking into the querulous habit of thinking and talking into which I found myself occasionally falling. Add to which, there was the prospect of benefit from the more bracing air of the north.
It was then settled that my departure from Hanbury, my happy home for so long, was to take place before many weeks had passed. And as, when one period of life is about to be shut up for ever, we are sure to look back upon it with fond regret, so I, happy enough in my future prospects, could not avoid recurring to all the days of my life in the Hall, from the time when I came to it, a shy, awkward girl, scarcely past childhood, to now, when a grown woman – past childhood – almost, from the very character of my illness, past youth – I was looking forward to leaving my lady’s house (as a residence) for ever. As it has turned out, I never saw either her or it again. Like a piece of sea-wreck, I have drifted away from those days: quiet, happy, eventless days, very happy to remember!
I thought of good, jovial Mr Mountford – and his regrets that he might not keep a pack, ‘a very small pack,’ of harriers, and his merry ways, and his love of good eating; of the first coming of Mr Gray, and my lady’s attempt to quench his sermons, when they tended to enforce any duty connected with education. And now we had an absolute school-house in the village; and since Miss Bessy’s drinking tea at the Hall, my lady had been twice inside it, to give directions about some fine yarn she was having spun for table-napery. And her ladyship had so outgrown her old custom of dispensing with sermon or discourse, that even during the temporary preaching of Mr Crosse, she had never had recourse to it, though I believe she would have had all the congregation on her side if she had.
And Mr Horner was dead, and Captain James reigned in his stead. Good, steady, severe, silent Mr Horner! with his clock-like regularity, and his snuff-coloured clothes, and silver buckles! I have often wondered which one misses most when they are dead and gone – the bright creatures full of life, who are hither and thither and everywhere, so that no one can reckon upon their coming and going, with whom stillness and the long quiet of the grave seems utterly irreconcilable, so full are they of vivid motion and passion – or the slow, serious people, whose movements – nay, whose very words, seem to go by clock-work; who never appear much to affect the course of our life while they are with us, but whose methodical ways show themselves, when they are gone, to have been intertwined with our very roots of daily existence. I think I miss these last the most, although I may have loved the former best. Captain James never was to me what Mr Horner was, though the latter had hardly changed a dozen words with me at the day of his death. Then Miss Galindo! I remembered the time, as if it had been only yesterday, when she was but a name – and a very odd one – to me; then she was a queer, abrupt, disagreeable, busy old maid. Now I loved her dearly, and I found out that I was almost jealous of Miss Bessy.
Mr Gray I never thought of with love; the feeling was almost reverence with which I looked upon him. I have not wished to speak much of myself, or else I could have told you how much he had been to me during these long, weary years of illness. But he was almost as much to every one, rich and poor, from my lady down to Miss Galindo’s Sally.
The village, too, had a different look about it. I am sure I could not tell you what caused the change; but there were no more lounging young men to form a group at the cross-road, at a time of day when young men ought to be at work. I don’t say this was all Mr Gray’s doing, for there really was so much to do in the fields that there was but little time for lounging now-a-days. And the children were hushed up in school, and better behaved out of it, too, than in the days when I used to be able to go my lady’s errands in the village. I went so little about now, that I am sure I can’t tell who Miss Galindo found to scold; and yet she looked so well and so happy that I think she must have had her accustomed portion of that wholesome exercise.
Before I left Hanbury, the rumour that Captain James was going to marry Miss Brooke, Baker Brooke’s eldest daughter, who had only a sister to share his property with her, was confirmed. He himself announced it to my lady; nay, more, with a courage, gained, I suppose, in his former profession, where, as I have heard, he had led his ship into many a post of danger, he asked h
er ladyship, the Countess Ludlow, if he might bring his bride-elect (the Baptist baker’s daughter!) and present her to my lady!
I am glad I was not present when he made this request; I should have felt so much ashamed for him, and I could not have helped being anxious till I heard my lady’s answer, if I had been there. Of course she acceded; but I can fancy the grave surprise of her look. I wonder if Captain James noticed it.
I hardly dared ask my lady, after the interview had taken place, what she thought of the bride-elect; but I hinted my curiosity, and she told me, that if the young person had applied to Mrs Medlicott for the situation of cook, and Mrs Medlicott had engaged her, she thought that it would have been a very suitable arrangement. I understood from this how little she thought a marriage with Captain James, R.N., suitable.
About a year after I left Hanbury, I received a letter from Miss Galindo; I think I can find it. – Yes, this is it.
‘Hanbury, May 4, 1811
‘DEAR MARGARET,
‘You ask for news of us all. Don’t you know there is no news in Hanbury? Did you ever hear of an event here? Now, if you have answered “Yes” in your own mind to these questions, you have fallen into my trap, and never were more mistaken in your life. Hanbury is full of news; and we have more events on our hands than we know what to do with. I will take them in the order of the newspapers – births, deaths, and marriages. In the matter of births, Jenny Lucas has had twins not a week ago. Sadly too much of a good thing, you’ll say. Very true: but then they died; so their birth did not much signify. My cat has kittened, too; she has had three kittens, which again you may observe is too much of a good thing; and so it would be, if it were not for the next item of intelligence I shall lay before you. Captain and Mrs James have taken the old house next Pearson’s; and the house is overrun with mice, which is just as fortunate for me as the King of Egypt’s rat-ridden kingdom was to Dick Whittington. For my cat’s kittening decided me to go and call on the bride, in hopes she wanted a cat; which she did, like a sensible woman, as I do believe she is, in spite of Baptism, Bakers, Bread, and Birmingham, and something worse than all, which you shall hear about, if you’ll only be patient. As I had got my best bonnet on – the one I bought when poor Lord Ludlow was last at Hanbury in ’99 – I thought it a great condescension in myself (always remembering the date of the Galindo Baronetcy) to go and call on the bride; though I don’t think so much of myself in my every-day clothes, as you know. But who should I find there but my Lady Ludlow! She looks as frail and delicate as ever, but is, I think, in better heart ever since that old city merchant of a Hanbury took it into his head that he was a cadet of the Hanburys of Hanbury, and left her that handsome legacy. I’ll warrant you the mortgage was paid off pretty fast; and Mr Horner’s money – or my lady’s money, or Harry Gregson’s money, call it which you will – is invested in his name, all right and tight, and they do talk of his being captain of his school, or Grecian, or something, and going to college, after all! Harry Gregson the poacher’s son! Well! to be sure, we are living in strange times!