Маргарет Олифант
Old Mr. Tredgold
CHAPTER XXI
The company in the house on the cliff was, however, very considerably changed, though the visitors were not much lessened in number. It became, perhaps, more bourgeois, certainly more village, than it had been. Stella, a daring, audacious creature, with her beauty, which burst upon the spectators at the first glance, and her absence of all reserve, and her determination to be “in” everything that was amusing or agreeable, had made her way among her social betters as her quieter and more sensitive sister would never have done. Then the prestige which had attached to them because of their wealth and that character of heiress which attracts not only fortune-hunters who are less dangerous, but benevolent match-makers and the mothers and sisters of impecunious but charming young men, had been much dulled and sobered by the discovery that the old father, despised of everybody, was not so easily to be moved as was supposed. This was an astonishing and painful discovery, which Lady Jane, in herself perfectly disinterested and wanting nothing from old Tredgold, felt almost more than anyone. She had not entertained the least doubt that he would give in. She did not believe, indeed, that Stella and her husband would ever have been allowed to leave England at all. She had felt sure that old Tredgold’s money would at once and for ever settle all questions about the necessity of going to India with the regiment for Charlie; that he would be able at once to rehabilitate his old house, and to set up his establishment, and to settle into that respectable country-gentleman life in which all a man’s youthful peccadilloes are washed out and forgotten.
Mr. Tredgold’s obstinacy was thus as great a blow to Lady Jane as if she herself had been impoverished by it. She felt the ground cut from under her feet, and her confidence in human nature destroyed. If you cannot make sure of a vulgar old father’s weakness for his favourite child whom he has spoiled outrageously all her life, of what can you make sure? Lady Jane was disappointed, wounded, mortified. She felt less sure of her own good sense and intuitions, which is a very humbling thing—not to speak of the depreciation in men’s minds of her judgment which was likely to follow. Indeed, it did follow, and that at once, people in general being very sorry for poor Charlie Somers, who had been taken in so abominably, and who never would have risked the expenses of married life, and a wife trained up to every extravagance, if he had not felt sure of being indemnified; and, what was still worse, they all agreed he never would have taken such a strong step—for he was a cautious man, was Charlie, notwithstanding his past prodigalities—if he had not been so pushed forward and kept up to the mark by Lady Jane.
The thing that Lady Jane really fell back on as a consolation in the pressure of these painful circumstances was that she had not allowed Algy to make himself ridiculous by any decisive step in respect to the “little prim one,” as he called Katherine. This Lady Jane had sternly put down her foot upon. She had said at once that Katherine was not the favourite, that nothing could be known as to how the old man would leave her, along with many other arguments which intimidated the young one. As a patter of fact, Lady Jane, naturally a very courageous woman, was afraid of Algy’s mother, and did not venture to commit herself in any way that would have brought her into conflict with Lady Scott, which, rather than any wisdom on her part, was the chief reason which had prevented additional trouble on that score. Poor Charlie Somers had no mother nor any female relation of importance to defend him. Lady Jane herself ought to have been his defence, and it was she who had led him astray. It was not brought against her open-mouthed, or to her face. But she felt that it was in everybody’s mind, and that her reputation, or at least her prestige, had suffered.
This it was that made her drop the Tredgolds “like a hot potato.” She who had taken such an interest in the girls, and superintended Stella’s début as if she had been a girl of her own, retreated from Katherine as if from the plague. After the way they had behaved to poor dear Charlie Somers and his wife, she said, she could have no more to do with them. Lady Jane had been their great patroness, their only effectual connection with the county and its grandeurs, so that the higher society of the island was cast off at once from Katherine. I do not think she felt it very much, or was even conscious for a long time that she had lost anything. But still it was painful and surprising to her to be dismissed with a brief nod, and “How d’ye do?” in passing, from Lady Jane. She was troubled to think what she could have done to alienate a woman whom she had always liked, and who had professed, as Katherine knew, to think the elder sister the superior of the younger. That, however, was of course a mere façon de parler, for Stella had always been, Katherine reminded herself, the attraction to the house. People might even approve of herself more, but it was Stella who was the attraction—Stella who shocked and disturbed, and amused and delighted everybody about; who was always inventing new things, festive surprises and novelties, and keeping a whirl of life in the place. The neighbours gave their serious approval to Katherine, but she did not amuse them or surprise. They never had to speculate what she would do next. They knew (she said to herself) that she would always do just the conventional proper thing, whereas Stella never could be calculated upon, and had a perpetual charm of novelty. Katherine was not sufficiently enlightened to be aware that Stella’s way in its wildness was much the more conventional of the two.
But the effect was soon made very plain. The link between the Tredgolds and the higher society of the island was broken. Perhaps it is conventional, too, to call these good people the higher society, for they were not high society in any sense of the word. There were a great many stupid people among them. Those who were not stupid were little elevated above the other classes except by having more beautiful manners when they chose. Generally, they did not choose, and therefore were worse than the humble people because they knew better. Their one great quality was that they were the higher class. It is a great thing to stand first, whatever nation or tribe, or tongue, or sect, or station you may belong to. It is in itself an education: it saves even very stupid people from many mistakes that even clever people make in other spheres, and it gives a sort of habit of greatness—if I may use the words—of feeling that there is nothing extraordinary in brushing shoulders with the greatest at any moment; indeed, that it is certain you will brush shoulders with them, to-day or to-morrow, in the natural course of events. To know the people who move the world makes even the smallest man a little bigger, makes him accustomed to the stature of the gods.
I am not sure that this tells in respect to the poets and painters and so forth, who are what the youthful imagination always fixes on as the flower of noble society. One thinks in maturer life that perhaps one prefers not to come to too close quarters with these, any more than with dignified clergymen, lest some of the bloom of one’s veneration might be rubbed off. But one does not venerate in the same way the governors of the world, the men who are already historical; and it is perhaps they and their contemporaries from beyond all the seas, who, naturally revolving in that sphere, give a kind of bigness, not to be found in other spheres, to the highest class of society everywhere. One must account to oneself somehow for the universal pre-eminence of an aristocracy which consists of an enormous number of the most completely commonplace, and even vulgar, individuals. It is not high, but it cannot help coming in contact with the highest. Figures pass familiarly before its eyes, and brush its shoulders in passing, which are wonders and prodigies to other men. One wants an explanation, and this is the one that commends itself to me. Therefore, to be cut off from this higher class is an evil, whatever anyone may say.
Katherine, in her wounded pride and in her youth, did not allow that she thought so, I need not say. Her serious little head was tossed in indignation as scornfully as Stella’s would have been. She recalled to herself what dull people they were (which was quite true), and how commonplace their talk, and asked heaven and earth why she should care. Lottie Seton, for instance, with her retinue of silly young men: was she a loss to anyone? It was different with Lady Jane, who was a person of sense, and Katherine felt herself obliged to allow, different someway—she could not tell how—from the village ladies. Yet Lady Jane, though she disapproved highly of Mrs. Seton, for instance, never would have shut her out, as she very calmly and without the least hesitation shut out Katherine, of whom in her heart she did approve. It seemed to the girl merely injustice, the tyranny of a preposterous convention, the innate snobbishness (what other word is there?) of people in what is called society. And though she said little, she felt herself dropped out of that outer ledge of it, upon which Lady Jane’s patronage had posed her and her sister, with an angry pang. Stella belonged to it now, because she had married a pauper, a mercenary, fortune-hunting, and disreputable man; but she, who had done no harm, who was exactly the same Katherine as ever, was dropped.
There were other consequences of this which were more harmful still. People who were connected in business with Mr. Tredgold, who had always appeared occasionally in the house, but against whom Stella had set her little impertinent face, now appeared in greater numbers, and with greater assurance than ever; and Mr. Tredgold, no longer held under subjection by Stella, liked to have them. With the hold she had on the great people, Stella had been able to keep these others at a distance, for Stella had that supreme distinction which belongs to aristocracy of being perfectly indifferent whether she hurt other people’s feelings or not; but Katherine possessed neither the one advantage nor the other—neither the hold upon society nor the calm and indifference. And the consequence naturally was that she was pushed to the wall. The city people came more and more; and she had to be kind to them, to receive them as if she liked it. When I say she had to do it, I do not mean that Katherine was forced by her father, but that she was forced by herself. There is an Eastern proverb that says “A man can act only according to his nature.” It was no more possible for Katherine to be uncivil, to make anyone feel that he or she was unwelcome, to “hurt their feelings,” as she would have said, than to read Hebrew or Chinese.
So she was compelled to be agreeable to the dreadful old men who sat and talked stocks and premiums, and made still more dreadful jokes with her father, making him chuckle till he almost choked; and to the old women who criticised her housekeeping, and told her that a little bit of onion (or something else) would improve this dish, or just a taste of brandy that, and who wondered that she did not control the table in the servants’ hall, and give them out daily what was wanted. Still more terrible were the sons and daughters who came, now one, now another; the first making incipient love to her, the other asking about the officers, and if there were many balls, and men enough, or always too many ladies, as was so often the case. The worst part of her new life was these visits upon which she now exercised no control. Stella had done so. Stella had said, “Now, papa, I cannot have those old guys of yours here; let the men come from Saturday to Monday and talk shop with you if you like, but we can’t have the women, nor the young ones. There I set down my foot,” and this she had emphasised with a stamp on the carpet, which was saucy and pretty, and delighted the old man. But Mr. Tredgold was no fool, and he knew very well the difference between his daughters. He knew that Katherine would not put down her foot, and if she had attempted to do so, he would have laughed in her face—not a delighted laugh of acquiescence as with Stella, but a laugh of ridicule that she could suppose he would be taken in so easily. Katherine tried quietly to express to her father her hope that he would not inflict these guests upon her. “You have brought us up so differently, papa,” she would say with hesitation, while he replied, “Stuff and nonsense! they are just as good as you are.”
“Perhaps,” said Katharine. “Mrs. Simmons, I am sure, is a much better woman than I am; but we don’t ask her to come in to dinner.”
“Hold your impudence!” her father cried, who was never choice in his expressions. “Do you put my friends on a level with your servants?” He would not have called them her servants in any other conversation, but in this it seemed to point the moral better.
“They are not so well bred, papa,” she said, which was a speech which from Stella would have delighted the old man, but from Katherine it made him angry.
“Don’t let me hear you set up such d– d pretensions,” he cried. “Who are you, I wonder, to turn up your nose at the Turnys of Lothbury? There is not a better firm in London, and young Turny’s got his grandfather’s money, and many a one of your grand ladies would jump at him. If you don’t take your chance when you find it, you may never have another, my fine lady. None of your beggars with titles for me. My old friends before all.”
This was a fine sentiment indeed, calculated to penetrate the most callous heart; but it made Katherine glow all over, and then grow chill and pale. She divined what was intended—that there were designs to unite her, now the representative of the Tredgolds, with the heir of the house of Turny. There was no discrepancy of fortune there. Old Turny could table thousand by thousand with Mr. Tredgold, and it was a match that would delight both parties. Why should Katherine have felt so violent a pang of offended pride? Mr. Turny was no better and no worse in origin than she. The father of that family was her father’s oldest friend; the young people had been brought up with “every advantage”—even a year or two of the University for the eldest son, who, however, when he was found to be spending his time in vanities with other young men like himself—not with the sons of dukes and earls, which might have made it bearable—was promptly withdrawn accordingly, but still could call himself an Oxford man. The girls had been to school in France and in Germany, and had learned their music in Berlin and their drawing in Paris. They were far better educated than Katherine, who had never had any instructor but a humble governess at home. How, then, did it come about that the idea of young Turny having the insolence to think of her should have made Katherine first red with indignation, then pale with disgust? I cannot explain it, neither could she to herself; but so it was. We used to hear a great deal about nature’s noblemen in the days of sentimental fiction. But there certainly is such a thing as a natural-born aristocrat, without any foundation for his or her instinct, yet possessing it as potently as the most highly descended princess that ever breathed. Katherine’s grand-father, as has been said, had been a respectable linen-draper, while the Turnys sprung from a house of business devoting itself to the sale of crockery at an adjoining corner; yet Katherine felt herself as much insulted by the suggestion of young Turny as a suitor as if she had been a lady of high degree and he a low-born squire. There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy.
Two or three of such suitors crossed her path within a short time. Neither of the sisters might have deserved the attentions of these gentlemen had they been likely to share their father’s wealth; but now that the disgrace of one was generally known, and the promotion of the other as sole heiress generally counted upon, this was what happened to Katherine. She was exceedingly civil in a superior kind of way, with an air noble that indeed sat very well upon her, and a dignity worthy of a countess at least to these visitors: serious and stately with the mothers, tolerant with the fathers, gracious with the daughters, but altogether unbending with the sons. She would have none of them. Two other famous young heroes of the city (both of whom afterwards married ladies of distinguished families, and who has not heard of Lady Arabella Turny?) followed the first, but with the same result. Mr. Tredgold was very angry with his only remaining child. He asked her if she meant to be an infernal fool too. If so, she might die in a ditch for anything her father cared, and he would leave all his money to a hospital.
“A good thing too. Far better than heaping all your good money, that you’ve worked and slaved for, on the head of a silly girl. Who are you, I wonder,” he said, “to turn up your dashed little nose? Why, you’re not even a beauty like the other; a little prim thing that would never get a man to look twice at you but for your father’s money at your back. But don’t you make too sure of your father’s money—to keep up your grandeur,” he cried. Nevertheless, though he was so angry, Mr. Tredgold was rather pleased all the same to see his girl turn up her nose at his friends’ sons. She was not a bit better than they were—perhaps not so good. And he was very angry, yet could not but feel flattered too at the hang-dog looks with which the Turnys and others went away—“tail between their legs,” he said to himself; and it tickled his fancy and pride, though he was so much displeased.
CHAPTER XXII
Perhaps the village society into which Katherine was now thrown was not much more elevating than the Turnys, &c.; but it was different. She had known it all her life, for one thing, and understood every allusion, and had almost what might be called an interest in all the doings of the parish. The fact that the old Cantrells had grown so rich that they now felt justified in confessing it, and were going to retire from the bakery and set up as private gentlefolks while their daughter and son-in-law entered into possession of the business, quite entertained her for half an hour while it was being discussed by Miss Mildmay and Mrs. Shanks over their tea. Katherine had constructed for herself in the big and crowded drawing-room, by means of screens, a corner in which there was both a fireplace and a window, and which looked like an inner room, now that she had taken possession of it. She had covered the gilded furniture with chintzes, and the shining tables with embroidered cloths. The fire always burned bright, and the window looked out over the cliff and the fringe of tamarisks upon the sea. The dual chamber, the young ladies’ room, with all its contrivances for pleasure and occupation, was shut up, as has been said, and this was the first place which Katherine had ever had of her very own.
She did not work nearly so much for bazaars as she had done in the old Stella days. Then that kind of material occupation (though the things produced were neither very admirable in themselves nor of particular use to anyone) gave a sort of steady thread, flimsy as it was, to run through her light and airy life. It meant something if not much. Elle fait ses robes—which is the last height of the good girl’s excellence in modern French—would have been absurd; and to make coats and cloaks for the poor by Stella’s side would have been extremely inappropriate, not to say that such serious labours are much against the exquisite disorder of a modern drawing-room, therefore the bazaar articles had to do. But now there was no occasion for the bazaars—green and gilt paper stained her fingers no more. She had no one to keep in balance; no one but herself, who weighed a little if anything to the other side, and required, if anything, a touch of frivolity, which, to be sure, the bazaars were quite capable of furnishing if you took them in that way. She read a great deal in this retreat of hers; but I fear to say it was chiefly novels she read. And she had not the least taste for metaphysics. And anything about Woman, with a capital letter, daunted her at once. She was very dull sometimes—what human creature is not?—but did not blame anyone else for it, nor even fate. She chiefly thought it was her own fault, and that she had indeed no right to be dull; and in this I think she showed herself to be a very reasonable creature.
Now that Lady Jane’s large landau never swept up to the doors, one of the most frequent appearances there was that convenient but unbeautiful equipage called the midge. It was not a vehicle beloved of the neighbourhood. The gardener’s wife, now happily quite recovered from the severe gunshot wound she had received on the night of Stella’s elopement, went out most reluctantly, taking a very long time about it, to open the gate when it appeared. She wanted to know what was the good of driving that thing in, as was no credit to be seen anywhere, when them as used it might just as well have got out outside the gate and walked. The ladies did not think so at all. They were very particular to be driven exactly up to the door and turned half round so that the door which was at the end, not the side of the vehicle, should be opposite the porch; and they would sometimes keep it waiting an hour, a remarkable object seen from all the windows, while they sat with poor Katherine and cheered her up. These colloquies always began with inquiries after her sister.
“Have you heard again from Stella? Where is she now, poor child? Have you heard of their safe arrival? And where is the regiment to be quartered? And what does she say of the climate? Does she think it will agree with her? Are they in the plains, where it is so hot, or near the hills, where there is always a little more air?”
Such was the beginning in every case, and then the two ladies would draw their chairs a little nearer, and ask eagerly in half-whispers, “And your papa, Katherine? Does he show any signs of relenting? Does he ever speak of her? Don’t you think he will soon give in? He must give in soon. Considering how fond he was of Stella, I cannot understand how he has held out so long.”
Katherine ignored as much as she could the latter questions.
“I believe they are in quite a healthy place,” she said, “and it amuses Stella very much, and the life is all so new. You know she is very fond of novelty, and there are a great many parties and gaieties, and of course she knows everybody. She seems to be getting on very well.”
“And very happy with her husband, I hope, my dear—for that is the great thing after all.”
“Do you expect Stella to say that she is not happy with her husband, Jane Shanks? or Katherine to repeat it if she did? All young women are happy with their husbands—that’s taken for granted—so far as the world is concerned.”
“I think, Ruth Mildmay, it is you who should have been Mrs. Shanks,” cried the other, with a laugh.
“Heaven forbid! You may be quite sure that had I ever been tempted that way, I should only have changed for a better, not a worse name.”
“Stella,” cried Katherine to stop the fray, “seems to get on capitally with Charlie. She is always talking of him. I should think they were constantly together, and enjoying themselves very much indeed.”
“Ah, it is early days,” Miss Mildmay said, with a shake of her head. “And India is a very dissipated place. There are always things going on at an Indian station that keep people from thinking. By-and-by, when difficulties come– But you must always stand her friend and keep her before your father’s eyes. I don’t know if Jane Shanks has told you—but the news is all over the town—the Cantrells have taken that place, you know, with the nice paddock and garden; the place the doctor was after—quite a gentleman’s little place. I forget the name, but it is near the Rectory—don’t you know?—a little to the right; quite a gentleman’s house.”
“I suppose Mr. Cantrell considers himself a gentleman now,” Katherine said, glad of the change of subject.
“Why, he’s a magistrate,” said Mrs. Shanks, “and could buy up the half of us—isn’t that the right thing to say when a man has grown rich in trade?”
“It is a thing papa says constantly,” said Katherine; “and I suppose, as that is what has happened to himself–”
“O my dear Katherine! you don’t suppose that for one moment! fancy dear Mr. Tredgold, with his colossal fortune—a merchant prince and all that—compared to old Cantrell, the baker! Nobody could ever think of making such a comparison!”
“It just shows how silly it is not to make up your mind,” said Miss Mildmay. “I know the doctor was after that house—much too large a house for an unmarried man, I have always said, but it was not likely that he would think anything of what I said—and now it is taken from under his very nose. The Cantrells did not take long to make up their minds! They go out and in all day long smiling at each other. I believe they think they will quite be county people with that house.”
“It is nice to see them smiling at each other—at their age they were just as likely to be spitting fire at each other. I shall call certainly and ask her to show me over the house. I like to see such people’s houses, and their funny arrangements and imitations, and yet the original showing through all the same.”
“And does George Cantrell get the shop?” Katherine asked. She had known George Cantrell all her life—better than she knew the young gentlemen who were to be met at Steephill and in whom it would have been natural to be interested. “He was always very nice to us when we were little,” she said.
“Oh, my dear child, you must not speak of George Cantrell. He has gone away somewhere—nobody knows where. He fell in love with his mother’s maid-of-all-work—don’t you know?—and married her and put the house of Cantrell to shame. So there are no shops nor goodwills for George. He has to work as what they call a journeyman, after driving about in his nice cart almost like a gentleman.”
“I suppose,” said Miss Mildmay, “that even in the lower classes grades must tell. There are grades everywhere. When I gave the poor children a tea at Christmas, the carpenter’s little girls were not allowed to come because the little flower-woman’s children were to be there.”
“For that matter we don’t know anything about the doctor’s grade, Ruth Mildmay. He might be a baker’s son just like George for anything we know.”
“That is true,” said the other. “You can’t tell who anybody is nowadays. But because he is a doctor—which I don’t think anything of as a profession—none of my belongings were ever doctors, I know nothing about them—he might ask any girl to marry him—anybody–”
“Surely, his education makes some difference,” Katherine said.
“Oh, education! You can pick up as much education as you like at any roadside now. And what does that kind of education do for you?—walking hospitals where the worst kind of people are collected together, and growing familiar with the nastiest things and the most horrible! Will that teach a man the manners of a gentleman?” Miss Mildmay asked, raising her hands and appealing to earth and heaven.
At this point in the conversation the drawing-room door opened, and someone came in knocking against the angles of the furniture. “May I announce myself?” a voice said. “Burnet—Dr., as I stand in the directory. John was trying to catch the midge, which had bolted, and accordingly I brought myself in. How do you do, Miss Katherine? It is very cold outside.”
“The midge bolted!” both the ladies cried with alarm, rushing to the window.
“Nothing of the sort,” cried Mrs. Shanks, who was the more nimble. “It is there standing as quiet as a judge. Fancy the midge bolting!”
“Oh, have they got it safe again?” he said. “But you ladies should not drive such a spirited horse.”
“Fancy–” Mrs. Shanks began, but the ground was cut from under her feet by her more energetic friend.
“Katherine,” she said, “you see what a very good example this is of what we were saying. It is evident the doctor wants us to bolt after the midge—if you will forgive me using such a word.”
“On the contrary,” said the doctor, “I wish you to give me your advice, which I am sure nobody could do better. I want you to tell me whether you think the Laurels would be a good place for me to set up my household gods.”
“The Laurels! oh, the Laurels–” cried Mrs. Shanks, eager to speak, but anxious at the same time to spare Dr. Burnet’s feelings.
“The Cantrells have bought the Laurels,” said Miss Mildmay, quickly, determined to be first.
“The Cantrells—the bakers!” he cried, his countenance falling.
“Yes, indeed, the Cantrells, the bakers—people who know their own mind, Dr. Burnet. They went over the house yesterday, every corner, from the drawing-room to the dustbin; and they were delighted with it, and they settled everything this morning. They are going to set up a carriage, and, in short, to become county people—if they can,” Miss Mildmay said.
“They are very respectable,” said Mrs. Shanks. “Of course, Ruth Mildmay is only laughing when she speaks of county people—but I should like to ask her, after she has got into it, to show me the house.”
“The Cantrells—the bakers!” cried Dr. Burnet, with a despair which was half grotesque, “in my house! This is a very dreadful thing for me, Miss Katherine, though I see that you are disposed to laugh. I have been thinking of it for some time as my house. I have been settling all the rooms, where this was to be and where that was to be.” Here he paused a moment, and gave her a look which was startling, but which Katherine, notwithstanding her experience with the Turnys, etc., did not immediately understand. And then he grew a little red under his somewhat sunburnt weather-beaten complexion, and cried—“What am I to do? It unsettles everything. The Cantrells! in my house.”
