The Pit Town Coronet: A Family Mystery, Volume 1 (of 3)

CHAPTER VIII.

The Haggards were heartily glad to leave town. The nasty scandal at the Pandemonium had been particularly irritating to Haggard personally. "Thank God," he said to himself, "the head of the family will probably never hear of it, unless Hetton should go out of his way to tell him; but I don't think he'd do that, he's not too particular himself, so it would be only a case of the pot calling the kettle, after all. It wasn't my fault. How could I know the young idiot was drugging himself with Chartreuse? I was too much interested in the game. Besides, some one was bound to have his money sooner or later; in fact," pondered the big man, "I've been rather ill-used, when I come to think of it. It's just my luck."

Just his luck! Yes, it was just his luck; just his luck to squander every farthing he possessed, and to be pitied by everybody when deported to do the best he could for himself. Just his luck to have what the Americans call a "high-old time" in Mexico, to hunt, to shoot, to enjoy the free wild life and absence of restraint in America. Just his luck to thoroughly clear out that wealthy gambler Don Emanuel Garcia, at poker; but then Haggard had all the qualifications for a poker player: he had the very luck which he grumbled at; good temper, for your thoroughly selfish man is far too fond of himself ever to be other than good-tempered; his "cheek" was unlimited, and in the big "flutter" with the Mexican, he had also had good cards. Given good luck, good temper, good "cheek," and good cards, a poker player is always invincible; so the Americans say, and they ought to know. Just his luck to become the possessor of a large sum of ready cash, when valuable land was going a-begging; just his luck at that precise moment to invest his easily-got winnings in the Mexican ranches and pastures, now worth ten times what they cost him. Just his luck to come home at the right moment to be accepted by the loveliest girl in Essex, a girl whose beauty had now even received the imprimatur of so fastidious a judge as his Royal Highness. Just his luck to be adored by his young wife, and looked upon by her as a king of men; to be clothed in purple and fine raiment, with the possibility of a peerage and the possession of immense wealth in the future. But he was quite right in carping at her, for fortune, like other fickle jades, is more likely to be true if steadily abused.

The two girls, his wife and her cousin, interrupted his soliloquy. The gaieties of the season had, if possible, rendered Georgie's beauty still more perfect. A succession of recherché entertainments, of concerts, balls and routs, and their attendant late hours and excitement, had given the young wife that almost indefinable stamp of delicate refinement for which we have no word, which is so seldom seen in England, and which the Italians call morbidezza.

But there was no morbidezza about Lucy; she, too, had shone, perhaps with a certain amount of reflected lustre; but she had shone, she had dazzled. When a very young woman is exceedingly good-looking, no prude, and prepared to go any lengths, being at the same time perfectly heartless, she is bound to be a success, and Lucy had been a great success. The Duc de la Houspignolle, the French Ambassador in London, that duke who was so much missed from the cotillions at the Tuileries of his imperial mistress, had pronounced Lucy pétillante. M. Barbiche, his second secretary, the best valseur of the season, had declared that Miss Warrender was the lightest stepper in town. "She make my heart to beat as it never beat before," said the young diplomatist to his chief; "but she is not distinguished like her cousin, she is a woman. I think her cousin is only a goddess after all. They are cold, these married English. I suppose it is the 'spleen.'"

"You'll get back your roses, old woman, at the Castle," said Haggard to his wife. "I think we've both had about enough of it," said he, as he poured out a brandy and soda. "I'm getting rather sick of seeing my wife twirled round like a teetotum by a succession of well-dressed idiots, while twenty more noodles round me are all saying how very charming she is, and consequently hating and envying me. It's all devilish fine for you girls, but I really think I shall enjoy a fortnight's dulness and the counting of possible chickens which may never be hatched at Walls End. Anyhow, one will get one's rubber."

"And I shall have two new strings to my bow in the shape of Hetton and his cousin. By-the by, what is Hetton like? One can't judge of a man at a wedding breakfast," said Lucy.

"Oh, horsey; when you say that you say everything."

"I've a good mind to upset all your plans, Reginald, after all," said the girl. "Lady Hetton would look well on my cards. And then I should come in for the Walls End diamonds. By-the-way, are the Walls End diamonds black diamonds?"

"Bother Hetton; you've got about as much chance with him as with the old man, my dear," for it annoyed Haggard to see the slightest cloud to his prospects, even were it no bigger than a man's hand.

"Anyhow, there are two bachelors, Reginald, besides his lordship, who is hardly a bachelor, being, I suppose, wedded to art."

"Oh! three, my dear; you have forgotten my father; he, too, is aged, but impressionable. If you'll only talk about pigs, Lucy, and manifest an intelligent interest, especially in black ones, you can put my nose out of joint most effectually!"

"I should make a stern stepmother, Reginald."

"Of course, injusta noverca, and all the rest of it, I suppose. I don't know about the sternness, my dear, but I can answer for the crispness."

"Thank you for nothing, Reginald; however, I shall certainly take a dip in the lucky-bag at the Castle."

"By Jove, Lucy! there's Wolff for you."

"And who is Wolff?" asked his wife.

"Wolff, my dear, is the toad-eater. In the old days every great man kept a toad-eater; sometimes his functions were highly paid—Wolff's are, I fancy. A dish of toads of the largest and most repulsive variety used to be offered one by one to the big man's relatives and guests. A good many would partake of them. It was the toad-eater's office to devour the remainder with apparent gusto."

"Reginald, you're a wretch! and I don't believe a word of it," said Lucy.

Haggard yawned, drained his glass, and they retired to prepare themselves for the journey to Walls End Castle, which was to take place on the morrow.

Lord Pit Town was determined, on this occasion at least, to break through the rule which he had stringently observed since his return to Walls End Castle. For many years no lady had graced the great old house with her presence. It was considerably to Justice Haggard's astonishment that he heard of the invitation to his son and his son's wife. "Hetton won't like it," he muttered to himself, as with the point of his stick he gently titillated the back of one of his favourite black pigs. The animal stood perfectly still, grunting with suppressed delight. "Hetton will be decidedly savage," mused the old gentleman. "I wonder whether Reginald will get something in the will?" pondered his father, his eyes fixed on the black pig's ears. "He's a lucky beggar, Reginald, a very lucky beggar, and Warrender's daughter is more than he deserves." Few fathers think that any woman is more than their son deserves, particularly when that son is an only son, wealthy, and a possible heir to a peerage; but we may take it that Justice Haggard knew pretty well what his son deserved, and that when he considered Georgie "more than his son deserved," Justice Haggard was probably right. If the prodigal really had his deserts he would still be chewing husks with the Mexican swine—husks which the magnificent specimen of the porcine race who was so delightedly submitting to the caresses of the Justice's stick would doubtlessly have indignantly rejected. "I wonder why," continued the meditating Justice, "Hetton don't marry?" Perhaps Mademoiselle Zizine, of the French theatre, was the reason—who knows? Hetton didn't go into society, not that society wouldn't have been very glad to receive Lord Hetton, being Lord Hetton, even if he had been a Siamese twin or a Spotted Boy, which he wasn't. But Lord Hetton found that society cost money, and only placed an additional barrier between him and the object of his ambition—the blue ribbon of the turf. Hence when Lord Hetton sought distraction from race meetings and Tattersall's, he found it in the society of Mademoiselle Zizine and her like.

Evidently the question of why Hetton didn't marry perplexed the Justice; he paused in his attentions to the pig; the animal, who was black but comely, missing the accustomed caress, gave a little snort of impatience. "Bother Hetton!" said the Justice, administering a sudden and unexpected prod to that tender but irritable skin. The injured and indignant animal gave vent to a succession of eldritch screams. The callous Justice passed on to the next stye, immersed in thought.

Great were the preparations at Walls End Castle, and greater still the astonishment of the old housekeeper when she heard that the winter house party was to be graced with the presence of ladies. Not that what were termed the state apartments were in any way disturbed. The old show rooms were left to the mice and ghosts, but the more modern suites were all to be occupied. My lady's own rooms had been allotted to Haggard and his wife. The rather Spartan simplicity of the late Lady Pit Town had made her own rooms sombre, if not grim. It had been a labour of love with the old lord to change all this. The æsthetic gentleman Messrs. Spick and Span, the great upholsterers, had sent down, had been severely snubbed by Dr. Wolff; the upholsterer had submitted elaborate coloured pictures of his idea, his firm's idea, of what a suite of rooms should be. Part of that idea was sham bric-à-brac, the rest was carte blanche to Messrs. Spick and Span. "We should like," said that well-dressed and self-satisfied individual, "to turn out a job worthy of our house's reputation and that of his lordship. We should suggest that the boudoir be hung with Japanese embroideries; of course, there would be an Aubusson carpet, and we should cover the whole flooring"—which Mr. Veneer contemptuously indicated with his umbrella—"with our patent parquet; probably a mediæval pattern would be the most suitable. We should restore the ceiling and liven up the mouldings with a free use of gold; in fact, my advice in the matter is, that his lordship should place himself entirely in our hands. Of course, money's no object. His lordship cannot do better than to rely upon the taste of our Mr. Spick."

"I do not think it shall be so, my friend," Wolff had replied. "You will put fresh and pretty papers on the walls. Your hangings must be of chintz, of pretty chintz, and you will put a cheerful carpet on the floor. As for furniture, there is plenty of that here, but the chairs and the sofas you shall provide; one thing only you shall remember—they shall be comfortable. His lordship will sit in every chair; if it is not comfortable it will go back. As for the ceiling you shall not touch him."

Messrs. Spick and Span's representative was wounded in his tenderest point, but his firm carried out the order to the letter. The old lord had sat in each chair and was satisfied. The ceiling, which represented the triumph of Venus, by Verrio, was left untouched. If we were permitted to penetrate the secret mysteries of the bedchamber, we should make the reader's mouth water by telling of the toilet table, which was stamped "Riesener," and bore the mark, "Meubles de la reine." We should tell of the ormolu mounts of the little table, and how it really once belonged to Marie Antoinette. All the decorative furniture of this suite of rooms had been carefully selected by the old lord from the vast accumulation of such things that Walls End Castle contained. For several weeks he and Dr. Wolff had pottered about the set of rooms that were to be graced by Georgie's presence. When, to Wolff's astonishment, the priceless Meissonier, "The Gray Musketeer," was selected as the one picture to adorn the boudoir, he attempted a remonstrance.

"Nothing can be too good for her, Wolff," said the earl, as he smiled upon the picture.

Other rooms had been set apart for Lucy, but their arrangement had been left to Wolff.

It was evident to the German doctor that his patron looked forward to his great-niece's visit with pleasure. On the day of her arrival, for the first time in his life, Lord Pit Town failed to visit the new galleries.

At dinner, Hetton himself was surprised at the amount of attention paid to Georgie by the head of the house. Haggard did not attempt to conceal his satisfaction. Lucy Warrender, ever ready for mischief, feigned an intense interest in racing matters, but failed to draw Lord Hetton. That guileless bachelor, Mr. Haggard, of the Home Office, proved more amenable to her fascinations; he knew that he should get his rubber after dinner, and Miss Warrender's conversation helped to while away the time until what was to him the real business of life should commence. As for the Justice he was in the best of humours, he enjoyed his dinner, he enjoyed his wine. But the '34 port was so good that he revoked twice, to the indignation and despair of his unhappy brother and partner.

The girls sang to the old man at his express desire, and Hetton noticed with a feeling of secret indignation that the antiquated Broadwood grand had been replaced by a magnificent Erard.

The place seemed changed. Lord Pit Town appreciated with mingled pleasure and astonishment the brightening influence of the ladies' presence; the party, if not gay, was at least cheerful; the little leaven had leavened the whole lump. They broke up early, satisfied with themselves and with each other. But Hetton's equanimity was again disturbed in the morning when his lordship actually proposed to drive Mrs. Haggard and her cousin in the park. He retired in disgust to his own quarters, where he consoled himself by the inspection of his betting book and the reading of his trainer's last report. Haggard, of the Home Office, in his own room, with two packs of cards, worked out historical games of whist and studied the coups of Lachapelle and the other great masters. Dr. Wolff walked aimlessly up and down the new galleries, and stopping before Bab Chudleigh's portrait, soliloquized, as is the manner of his race, "Ah, lovely English woman, you are but a bainted bortrait, but all men admired you because they could not help it; if all they say be true, Madame Jezebel, you were as bad a woman as lived in your bad old days. Gott in Himmel! but you are very like the leetel Warrender lady. God forbid the leetel lady shall have a heart like yours. No, I wrong that innocent English mädchen. But you are both wunderschön. Hein!" And then the doctor continued his perambulations, and in his dreamy way, he pondered on Lucy's seraphic smile, and on her wealth of golden hair. "Such things are not for me," he thought. "I must go on loving the baintings and the bortraits to the end of the chapter," and then he sat down to write a business letter about Fra Filippo Lippi to old Mr. Creeps. Justice Haggard and his son wandered about the home farm; the father criticized the piggeries, while the son smoked a big cigar and thought of nothing at all.

"Gad! Reginald," said the old man, "there's one thing I can't understand. Pit Town, who looks after most things, neglects these poor beasts in a most shameful way; if ever I came into the title I should make it my first business to pull down the whole range of buildings," here he indicated the piggeries in an indignant manner; "they are a disgrace to the place, sir; the sight of them offends me."

"Well, father, I hope you may, I sincerely hope you may carry out your own ideas here some day," said the dutiful son; "but I don't think the old man cares very much for your hobby, you know."

"Then he neglects his duties, that's all," replied the old gentleman with an indignant snort. "Of course, Pit Town's in the fashion," he continued, "for we hear about nothing but art now-a-days; but I should like to know where he benefits his race. His ambition is a purely selfish one, while mine is distinctly benevolent. The dream of my life, Reginald, is unrealizable. I know that I can never succeed in producing the being I see in my dreams, a perfectly boneless pig; a sort of animated sausage, where fat and lean shall be deliciously blended in the requisite proportions. I know I strive after the unattainable, but still every year I get nearer and nearer to the goal. When I remember, sir, what black pigs were when I was a boy, and what they are now, thanks to my efforts and those of the noble little band of enthusiasts like myself, I feel that I am leaving a lasting monument behind me. Why, only yesterday, sir, when Dr. Wolff pointed out to me what he called a specimen of George Morland's best manner, I felt what giant strides of progress we have made. There were the pigs of his day, represented as great gaunt bony bristly creatures, wallowing at large, sir, in muck and mire. We never see such horrors now; and I actually envied Pit Town the possession of that picture. I should like to hang it up, sir, in my piggeries at The Priory, that the world might look upon what the animal was, and in contrasting him with the superb creatures I possess, appreciate what can be done by care, breeding, feeding, and proper selection. The time will come, Reginald, when every English speaking man or woman who puts a piece of pork or bacon into his mouth will bless the name of Haggard. But these are but ambitious dreams, Reginald, never perhaps to be realized."

The party at Walls End Castle, though its elements were decidedly heterogeneous, was a success. Everybody was sorry to go when they left, and their host regretted the departure of his visitors.

"The place seems quite dull without them, Wolff," he remarked. "I think I shall try to see more of my relatives, but we must make up for lost time, Wolff. Why, since the ladies have been here we have neglected work shamefully."

"It has been a pleasant time, Lord Pit Town, for me, for I love enthusiasm in the young. It has never yet been my fortune to meet with so delightful and innocent a thirst for information as that displayed by the charming Miss Warrender. The soul's confessions of that dear young lady were delightful in their naïve innocence. She has learnt much during her stay here of the canons of true art; it will be to me an ever-to-be-remembered epoch."

The old lord looked up from the great manuscript catalogue raisonné at the German doctor.

"So she made a fool of you too, Wolff, did she?"

"My lord, she respected me too much to attempt to make a fool of me. She, the young neophyte, recognized in me a humble priest of art."

"Ah, Wolff," said the old lord with a look at the great portrait of Barbara Chudleigh, "there are some women who don't even respect doctors of philosophy."

CHAPTER IX.

The Reverend John Dodd drew back one morning from the breakfast-table with the air of a giant refreshed; his wife stared at him over the silver breakfast-kettle as she had stared at him for the last twenty years. For the last twenty years Mrs. Dodd had wondered at the plenteousness of her husband's breakfasts; she was astonished twenty years ago, and she still stared, an awed woman to the present day. "John," she said, in a severe tone, "it is my duty." Whenever Mrs. Dodd differed from her husband she nailed her colours to the mast; she said it was her duty, and she invariably carried her point. "It's dogged as does it," is not only the maxim of agricultural labourers in remote country districts. It is the secret of success in every married lady's life; it is the talisman confided to the young wife by her more experienced mother, if she have one, if not her aunt tells her the secret, and it comes to the same thing.

"Well, my dear, if you look upon it in that light there is no more to be said," acquiesced the husband.

"It is my duty, and yours too, John; above all it is Anastatia's. What can cement the natural alliance between the squire and the vicar of the parish, more strongly than the former's union with that vicar's sister? Besides, I have another reason. It is our bounden duty, Jack," here the vicar's wife relapsed into familiarity, as she always did when she meant to carry her point, "our bounden duty to rescue the squire from that designing woman."

"Good gracious, Cecilia, who is Anastatia's rival?"

"You may not have seen it, John, but I have observed it ever since the girls have been away. Miss Hood means to marry the old man!" This latter sentence was uttered in a sepulchral whisper.

"Nonsense, Cecilia, you're joking."

"Do I ever talk nonsense or joke, Mr. Dodd?" answered the wife in a judicial tone.

"Well, my dear," apologetically rejoined the vicar, "I don't think I ever remember your doing the latter," and he felt much as an unfortunate man would feel who had dared to accuse the Lord Chancellor himself of joking and talking nonsense.

"There can't be a doubt of it. Ever since those girls have gone Miss Hood has called here in The Warren brougham, never on foot or in the pony chair."

"But, my dear, the weather has been wet and cold."

"'Tis not the weather, John, it is that woman's arrogance, her way of preparing the minds of the neighbourhood for the catastrophe."

"Diggory Warrender, my dear, is no more thinking of marrying again than I am," said the vicar.

"The thought of marrying again, Mr. Dodd," retorted his wife severely, "is constantly occurring to the mind of every married man."

"I assure you it never occurred to mine, my dear."

"John, you're ungrateful," replied his wife, and burst into tears.

"If my thinking of marrying again, my dear, will prove my gratitude to you, I will consider the matter at once," said the vicar of King's Warren, with a dreary smile.

But Canon Drivel's daughter did not deign to answer, she merely rang for prayers. In filed the servants, the two grim housemaids and the parlour maid of portentous plainness, for Mrs. Dodd made it a rule in her austere household that the abigails should be unattractive. Mrs. Dodd opened the book—her father, the Canon's, well-known book of Family Prayers. Although it was the second Thursday in the month she turned to the portion appointed for the first Wednesday. Alas! her copy of the Canon's work opened almost mechanically at the first Wednesday in the month, for in that Wednesday's selection there was a phrase which was very dear to Mrs. Dodd; it was the following: "And if there be one among us whose heart is yet hard," &c., &c. This was Mrs. Dodd's ultima ratio, the last drop that invariably wore away any resistance on the part of the man who, to her mind, was stony-hearted. When the Reverend John Dodd heard the commencement of that prayer he trembled in his inmost soul; when his wife reached the favourite passage she dwelt on the words with unction; and as the servants filed out of the room he, who had once been "Handsome Jack Dodd," felt himself a slave.

"I had better speak to Anastatia," said Mrs. Dodd.

"Do as you please, my dear," replied the vicar, "but I don't see how she's to propose to old Warrender, all the same."

"Men don't understand these things," sententiously remarked his wife, as she gave a vicious shake to the missionary box, which was always on the sideboard. Missionary boxes are not seen so often now as they used to be, but this old-fashioned engine of torture was clung to by the vicaress. Rosy-cheeked children had received many a bright sixpence from the vicar, their faces wreathed in smiles; the smiles had faded when Cecilia Dodd had proved to them, by chapter and verse, that the proper place for the bright silver was the drab sarcophagus on the sideboard. Even the vicar's friends, at the termination of their rubber for threepenny points, dreaded the appearance of the box; they invariably contributed, the more daring among them sighing as they did so.

Anastatia Dodd, on the particular morning in question, had not appeared at breakfast. The fragile little lady was suffering from a cold in her head. She was in bed, perusing in undisturbed comfort a harmless novel. But the novel disappeared under the clothes with amazing celerity as the voice of her sister-in-law demanded admission. The mistress of the house affectionately inquired if she felt equal to a short conversation. In some trepidation Anastatia signified her acquiescence. Her sister-in-law pointed out to her that old Mr. Warrender had been very attentive lately. Anastatia innocently answered that "He was a dear old man."

"Oh, my dear, I am so glad, so very glad, to hear you say so," said Mrs. Dodd.

"But why glad, Cecilia?"

"My love, your brother and I thought it was so, and that you encouraged him. Has he spoken to you yet? He has said nothing to John."

"Spoken, Cecilia, to me; about what?"

"This is affectation, dear; you can't pretend to be blind to what is apparent to all of us."

"Oh, Cecilia, how can you?" sobbed the vicar's sister, blushing to her ears and burying her face in her pillows.

For forty years Anastatia Dodd had lived in maiden meditation fancy free. True, she had taken a lively interest in all her brother's curates, but it was always a professional interest and purely Platonic. But now she blushed, blushed as she had never blushed before.

What woman is displeased at hearing that she has an admirer? Who among us would fail to believe what we have, perhaps, secretly wished for in our heart of hearts?

That arch Machiavel, the vicar's wife, did not leave her sister-in-law till she was thoroughly convinced that Diggory Warrender was only waiting a favourable opportunity to make her a formal offer of his hand and heart.

All this was sufficiently exciting to poor Miss Dodd, but what was her horror, her horror mingled with astonishment, when she heard that, like the heroines in the story books, she too had a detested rival. Till now Anastatia Dodd had not known what it was to detest anybody, but her sister-in-law pointed out to her that detestation was her duty; that Miss Hood was but a ravening and roaring lion seeking to devour the old squire, and then to pick his bones. Unconsciously, as she stood by her sister-in-law's bed, Cecilia Dodd assumed the awful pose, the statuesque attitude, of the Judith at the bedside of Holofernes of her former days; her hand, as it grasped the brass ball at the foot of the bed, seemed to be clutching the head of her victim. Poor Anastatia, as a hare nestles in its form, had almost shrunk beneath the bed-clothes.

"It is your duty, my dear," said Judith, "to rescue this man from the hands of the harpy at The Warren. He has evidently loved you for years, Anastatia; it is your duty; and your brother feels deeply in the matter, more deeply than I do, my dear; we are but weak women, he is a clergyman, and, I regret to add, a man of the world. You must, of course, give Mr. Warrender every encouragement. And do not forget that your brother is the head of the family, the master of this house, a clergyman, and a man of the world. He will not see you wronged."

The vicar's wife left the room and her trembling victim. The voice of duty called her to the kitchen, where her cook patiently awaited her inevitable, and always painful, audience.

In the meanwhile, Squire Warrender and Miss Hood pursued the even tenour of their ways at The Warren; frequent letters from his daughter, describing the delights of their foreign tour, cheered the old man. All unconsciously, the squire sent his hares and his pheasants to the vicar's wife, his peaches and his flowers to her sister-in-law. In his cracked old voice, he still paid his Grandisonian compliments to the two ladies. He was somewhat surprised perhaps to notice that Miss Dodd was by degrees abandoning her semi-religious garb; and that his visits to the two ladies invariably procured him the pleasure of tête-à-tête interviews with the spinster. He noticed too that the vicar's sister now shook hands with him with an unwonted pressure. One afternoon he actually came home with a button-hole, a white passion flower, which the trembling fingers of Miss Dodd had placed in his coat.

"'Pon my word," he said to Miss Hood, wearing this decoration as they took their habitual cup of tea together, "I really think that Stacey Dodd gets younger every day."

Miss Hood pricked up her ears. Was the hale old gentleman going to make a fool of himself after all?

Old Mrs. Wurzel and the buxom Miss Grains sat in the little room at the vicarage, which was known to everybody as Mrs. Dodd's own room. The vicar's wife sat before a huge book, in front of her were little piles of copper money. She and her two visitors, and, of course, the vicar ex-officio, formed the committee of the village coal club. After much counting and recounting of the coppers, the total was pronounced correct, and the real work for which the ladies had met was over. The window of the room commanded a view of the lovely old-fashioned garden, which had been the care and pride of many successive vicars of King's Warren. The close-shaven lawn had the inevitable sun dial in its centre. The garden was not at its best, for the trees had not yet commenced to bud, but it was a fine clear day, and the trim little figure of the vicar's sister was seen briskly pacing up and down the well-kept walks.

"I don't think your sister-in-law seems to care so much for parish work as once she did, Mrs. Dodd," remarked the old lady to the vicar's wife.

"No, poor thing, I fear she has anxieties of her own just now, she seeks solitude a good deal."

"Is there any attachment, dear Mrs. Dodd?" said Mrs. Wurzel with interest.

"Oh, Mrs. Dodd, not an unrequited attachment?" burst forth the brewer's daughter. For that strapping young woman was romantic, and though the course of her own love ran smoothly enough, still she felt a sentimental interest in the woes of others, real or supposed. Her fat red cheeks would quiver with emotion, and be wet with briny tears, over the sorrows of Mr. Trollope's heroines. Fat people are always sentimental, though they may not seem so, and beneath Miss Grains' tightly-laced corset beat a sympathetic heart. "An unrequited attachment," she repeated, "is so very, very sad."

The vicar's wife answered her reprovingly, "You must not think, Miss Grains, that Mr. Dodd would allow his sister to form such a disgraceful thing as an unrequited attachment."

"Oh, but dear Mrs. Dodd, suppose she couldn't help it," said the artless maiden with a blush and a little sigh.

"No well-brought-up girl would allow herself to do so, my dear, she would have far too much self-respect."

The brewer's daughter blushed deeply, as she thought of the many heroes, real and imaginary, from Marmion down to the last curate but two, for each of whom she herself had felt an unrequited passion, or a more than secret liking. But these hidden passions were before young farmer Wurzel, in his blue tie and white hat, had proposed to her.

"Well, at all events, Miss Dodd is hardly a girl," she said defiantly.

"Miss Grains," retorted the vicar's wife, "every unmarried woman, even though not in the first bloom of youth, is a 'girl' till she marries. Certainly Stacey Dodd is a 'girl'; and I have known cases, Miss Grains, in my experience, where flighty young ladies, though they may have been temporarily engaged, have remained 'girls' to the end of the chapter."

To this gruesome suggestion Miss Grains made no reply.

Old Mrs. Wurzel turned confidentially to the vicar's wife and said, "Is her engagement generally known?"

"Perhaps," replied the president of the coal club, "it would be premature to speak of it as an engagement, but it is talked of all over the village. I believe there has been an attachment for some years, the gentleman's attentions are very marked. In fact, I don't think I am betraying her confidence, when I say that the whole village seems to be aware of it. Of course, I mention no names. I should scorn to attempt to precipitate matters. It is a suitable match, I am happy to say, for both parties, but there is an obstacle, my dear; adverse interests are in the field. My sister-in-law is somewhat of a prude. I too was a prude, and I can understand her feelings."

Here Mrs. Wurzel peered at the vicaress with unfeigned surprise.

"It's not quite fair, you know, to Stacey," said Mrs. Dodd.

How was she to tell them, without mentioning his name, that the man who did not come to the point was the old squire himself, and yet she was anxious to do so?

At this moment the austere parlour maid entered the room. "Squire Warrender is in the drawing-room, madam," she announced. Never in her life had the vicar's wife been guilty of profanity till now, but the opportunity was too golden to be missed.

"Talk of the devil," she said. The four words spoke volumes. Her visitors took their leave, to spread the report over the village and parish of King's Warren.

Mrs. Dodd was a woman who, as we know, did her duty according to her lights. She was determined at all hazards to do her duty now, without flinching, to her sister-in-law, for she had already burnt her ships, and she entered the drawing-room with the deliberate intention of bringing the old squire to the point.

The unsuspecting squire asked for the vicar, after shaking hands with the vicar's wife, and on being informed that his old friend was from home he innocently hoped that the vicar's sister was quite well.

"Ah," said Mrs. Dodd with a sigh, "we're a little concerned about Stacey."

"You should let Pestle see her," replied the sympathizing squire.

Now Dr. Pestle was the parish doctor, and he deservedly enjoyed the confidence of every soul in King's Warren.

"I fear, squire, hers is not a bodily affection," said Mrs. Dodd with a deep sigh.

"Good Gad! you don't mean to say her mind's giving way?" anxiously demanded the prosaic squire.

"Oh no, we fancy it's an affection of the heart."

"Impossible! at her age. Why she's fifty," emphatically asserted the old gentleman.

"Not fifty, Mr. Warrender; Stacey Dodd is but forty-one."

"You don't say so. I should never have thought it."

The opening of the engagement had egregiously failed. At present the campaign seemed most unpromising. When a gentleman of mature years looks upon a lady as fifty, he can hardly be suspected of designs upon her virgin heart, or of a wish to destroy her peace of mind. Beaten in her attack on the outposts, Mrs. Dodd changed her strategy with that multiplicity of resource that always distinguishes the greatest generals—she determined at once to carry the war into the enemy's country.

"You must miss the girls very much, squire," she said as she took up a little painted hand-screen, to protect her complexion, on which she lavished much anxious care, from the fierce blaze of the fire. "Yes," she continued, "you must feel it very dull at The Warren now. Quite lonely, I fear."

"No," answered the squire cheerfully, "I have Miss Hood, you know, and we play bezique or backgammon of an evening."

"Ah," replied Mrs. Dodd severely, and horrible visions of those dangerous evenings flashed through the mind of the indignant woman. In her mind's eye she fancied the squire sitting at the backgammon board gazing at Miss Hood's shapely arm and hand, for though Miss Hood was the same age as her sister-in-law, she still had a very shapely arm and hand.

"Yes," said the squire, "and she reads me the girls' letters; they are a great consolation, for Georgie seems so thoroughly happy."

What more dangerous occupation for a hale old gentleman than to sit and listen by the hour to the written raptures of his daughter on the subject of married bliss, read to him by a lady of prepossessing appearance, by his own fireside, and after having partaken of at least three glasses of old port?

"I suppose," said the vicar's wife with assumed carelessness, "that Miss Hood will be leaving you soon?"

The squire's eye twinkled with suppressed merriment.

"Oh no," he said in a determined tone, "I couldn't afford to lose Miss Hood. For Lucy's sake," he added maliciously.

The lady fanned herself. There are limits to the endurance of long-suffering woman. Mrs. Dodd felt that she was being trampled on. The sensation was new to her, and unpleasant.

"You appear to cling to her, squire," she said.

"Naturally, naturally," answered the squire, "so do the girls. She has been more than a mother to them."

"Why not make her so in reality?" retorted the exasperated woman, losing her head. Here the fanning became more furious.

"The fact is, Mrs. Dodd," said the squire, "I have been screwing myself up to that point for the last dozen years, but I am close on the age of the patriarchs, and I don't think she'd have me. If you are of a different opinion, Mrs. Dodd, I will reconsider the matter; of course it would be most appropriate. There's no fool like an old fool, I suppose."

Was the seemingly innocent squire referring to himself, or had this abominable old gentleman the temerity to allude to the wife of the vicar of King's Warren as "an old fool?" Who shall say?

"Do you seriously advise it?" went on her tormentor; "do you think I may dare to hope?"

But the vicar's wife answered him never a word.

He rose to go and shook hands with her in his usual hearty manner. By no outward sign did Mrs. Dodd manifest her indignation, but when the squire had left the room she sank into her chair and burst into tears.

"The serpent!" she ejaculated as she pressed her handkerchief to her streaming eyes.

Not one word did Mrs. Dodd utter for many days to her husband of her momentous conversation with the squire. In a statuesque attitude, she sat, like Marius on the ruins of Carthage, or Patience on a monument smiling at grief.

And then she thought with horror of the confidence she had made to old Mrs. Wurzel and the brewer's daughter, not an hour before. On a tiré le vin, il faut payer la bouteille.

CHAPTER X.

An Italian, as a rule, in Carnival time is like an English boy on the fifth of November—he is not happy unless he dresses up. In this country, we are apt to think when any one dresses himself up, that he is disguising a fool. In Italy, on the contrary, all the world is continually occupied in masquerading in some way or other. Costume balls, in all classes of society, are favourite entertainments. Historical masques, though not got up with the elaborate attention to minute detail which is bestowed upon them by the thoughtful beer-drinking and sausage-devouring German, are yet of very frequent occurrence. Every city, every town, nay every hamlet, in Italy, has its long and glorious history, often written in letters of blood, always deeply engraven on the hearts of the people. The mementoes of a bygone time are cherished by the Italians. Consequently, dressing up in Italy is universal, and even the man who dines upon a penny roll and a quarter of a melon, can afford five centessimi, or one halfpenny, for a paper nose, and it costs him nothing to flour his face and hair.

Let us take an instance. Ivrea is a little place, a small garrison town, celebrated for its coolness and its cheapness; thither the Piedmontese flock in crowds when the heat of the city is no longer bearable. There is nothing remarkable about the place; it has its opera house, at which ambitious young ladies, principally English and Americans, pupils of the Conservatorio at Milan, make their débuts. Happy garrison, happy sojourners in the little Italian town; they are provided with a succession of interesting, though perhaps undeveloped, prima donnas, who make their little successes or their tiny fiascoes at this nursery of Art. But Ivrea, like all the other Italian towns, has its history, its glorious legend, which is never allowed to die, and the Carnival of Ivrea is the time chosen for representing the story and commemorating the tragic history of the local heroine. In the Middle Ages, Ivrea had its feudal lord. The Count Arduino, as may be fancied from his name, was a bold, bad man; he possessed the terrible Droit de Seigneur, which he rigorously exacted. The belle of the village was a miller's daughter: