The Last of the Mortimers

“And would they not let you?” cried I, in my eagerness, thinking that perhaps Sarah was going to confide in me at last.

“No,” she said, pursing up her lips. She seemed to echo the “no” after, in the little nod she gave her head, but she said nothing more.

“And Sarah, tell me, please, if you don’t mind, was it because of his means?” cried I; “was he not rich enough?”

“You don’t know anything about these affairs, Milly,” said Sarah, a little scornfully. “I don’t mind in the least. He was exactly such a man as would have taken your fancy. When I saw him, five years after, I was glad enough they did not let me; though it might have saved a deal of trouble too,” she said to herself in a kind of sigh.

I don’t know how I managed to hear those last words. I am sure she did not think I heard them. You may suppose I grew more curious with every word she spoke.

“And where was it you met him five years after; was it abroad?” said I, with a little flutter in my voice.

I cannot think she was very sharp in her hearing. She gave a little glance up at me, noticing that I paused before the last word; and then seeing me look a little frightened and conscious, she drew herself up all at once, and stopped rubbing her fingers.

“Do you mean to cross-question me, Milly?” she cried, giving a stamp with her foot. “Do you mean to rummage into my affairs and find me out by your questions? You are very much mistaken, I can tell you. I am just as willing as any one that Richard Mortimer should be found out. In making your new heir you shall have no opposition from me.”

“Why, bless us all, Sarah!” said I, “it was your own idea.”

“Very well,” she said, with a little confused heat of manner; “why do you imply that I have any objection? One would suppose, to hear you, that you were trying to find out some secrets of mine.”

“I never knew you had any secrets to find out,” said I, sharply. I knew quite well I was aggravating her, but one must take one’s own part.

She did not make any answer. She got up on her feet, and drew her muslin shawl round her. There was a little nervous tremble about her head and hands; she often had it, but I marked it more than ever to-night. I thought at first she was going away without her sherry, but she thought better of that. However, she went a few steps behind the screen to put her basket aside, a thing she never did; and I think I can see her now, as I saw her in the big mirror, drawing the fingers of one hand through the other, and gliding along through the dark room, all reflected from head to foot in the great glass, with her peach-blossom ribbons nodding tremulously over her grey hair, and her white muslin shawl drawn over her shoulders. Her face, as I saw it in the mirror, had a cloud and agitation upon it, but was set with a fixed smile upon the lips, and a strange, settled, passionate determination. I could no more penetrate what it meant than I could tell why Sarah was angry. It was something within herself that made her so, nothing that I had done or said.

After she was gone I dropped into my chair, and sat there wondering and pondering till the fire had nearly gone out, and the great room was lying blank and chill in the darkness. Now that my thoughts were directed into this channel—and it was very strange to me that they never had been so before—there were a thousand things to think of. When Sarah was twenty and I only ten there was a wonderful difference to be sure between us, and not a great deal less when Sarah was thirty and I twenty; but from that time it had been growing less by degrees, so that we really did not feel nowadays any great difference in our age. But I was only fourteen when my mother died. I had never, of course, been able to share in any of the gaieties, being only in the schoolroom, and certainly never dreamed of criticising my big sister, whom I thought everything that was beautiful and splendid. Then my father and she went away and left me. The Park was let, and I lived with my godmother. I almost forgot that I had a father and sister in the world. They seldom wrote, and we lived entirely out of the world, and never heard even in gossip of the goings on at Rome and Naples, and what place the beautiful Miss Mortimer took there. They came home at last quite suddenly, in the depth of winter. Naturally Sarah had caught a very bad cold. She kept her own room for a very long time after and never saw anybody. Then she lost her voice. I remember I took it quite for granted at the time that it was her cold and the loss of her voice that made her shut herself up; but I must say that once or twice since I have had a little doubt on that subject. She was then not much past five-and-thirty, a very handsome woman. My father lived many years after, but they never, though they had been great companions for so long before, seemed to be at ease in each other’s presence. They never even sat down to dinner together when they could help it. Since then, to be sure, Sarah had begun to live more with me; but what a life it was! I had the concerns of the property to occupy me, and things to manage; besides, I was always out and about in the village and among the neighbours; and still more, I was quite a different woman from Sarah, more homely-like, and had never been out in the world. I wouldn’t for anything be what you might call suspicious of my own only sister; and what I could be suspicious about, even if I wanted to, was more than I knew. Still it was odd, very odd, more particularly after Sarah’s strange words and look. My mind was all in a ferment—I could not tell what to think; but it came upon me as strong as a conviction that something must have happened in those ten years; what it could be was as dark as midnight, but there must be something. That was the end I came to after all my pondering. Ellis came twice into the room to shut up, and twice stumbled off again with his “Beg pardon, ma’am.” It began to feel chilly as the fire went out, and the night grew pale and ghostly in the mirrors. By and by I began to hear those cracks and rustles which one always hears when one sits up late at night. It wasn’t in the furniture, bless you! I know a great deal better than that; the old walnut and satin-wood was all seasoned by a century’s wear. I don’t pretend to say what it was: but I know that I was made very uneasy sitting all by myself, with the fire out, in that big room. When it drew near twelve o’clock, I went to bed.

Chapter IV

I MIGHT as well, before all this description of our day’s talk and cogitations, have said first who we were.

The Mortimers are an old Cheshire family. We came originally from the other side of the Dee; but we have been settled here in the Park since Henry the Seventh’s time, when to be sure Welshmen were in fashion. The old tower of Wyfod, over Llangollen way, was the cradle of our family. So we have not travelled very far from our origin. We have always been, since we came to the Cheshire side, tolerably prosperous and prudent, not mixing much with politics, having a pretty eye for a bargain, and letting other people get along in their own way; I say so quite frankly, not being ashamed of it. Once, I confess, I felt a little sore that we had no crusading knights nor wild cavaliers among our ancestors; but that, of course, was when I was young. Now I take a different view of affairs. Cavaliers and crusading knights have been generally very expensive luxuries for their families, and must have done a great deal more mischief than a man, however well disposed to it, could do at home. Another circumstance has been good for our purse, but not so good (I fear—so at least it threatens at the present moment) for the prolongation of the race. The Mortimers have never had large families. I suppose few English houses of our rank, or indeed of any rank, can count so few cousins and collateral branches. We have relations, certainly, by my mother’s side, who was one of the Stamfords of Lincolnshire; but except this visionary Richard Arkwright (did ever mortal hear of such a name for a Mortimer!), there is not a single individual remaining of our own name and blood to inherit the property after us, which is a very sad thing to say, and indeed, in some degree, a sort of disgrace to us. The family allowance of children for ever so long has been somewhat about one son and one daughter. The daughter has married off, as was natural, or died unmarried, as, indeed, for a Miss Mortimer, was more natural still; and the son has become the squire, and had a son and a daughter in his turn. In Queen Anne’s time, the then squire, whose name was Lewis, made an unfortunate divergence from the usual custom. He had two girls only; but one of them married, and her husband took our name and arms; the other died very opportunely, and left her sister in full possession, so no harm was done. It is, however, a saying in the family, that the Mortimers are to end in two sisters, and that after them the property is to be divided and alienated from the name. This is one reason why I never was much of a favourite at home. They forgave Sarah, for she was beautiful, and just the person to be an heiress. But co-heiresses are the bugbear of the Mortimers. Ah me! If there had been no such saying as this, or if we had been poor girls, it might have made a difference! Not in me, to be sure; I need not be sentimental about it. I never saw an individual in this world I could have fancied but one, and he, you know, never asked me; so it could not have made the slightest difference to me.

However, if there’s one thing more than another that my heart is set to resist, it is letting this prophecy be fulfilled in our time. I’d rather compass sea and land to find a Mortimer! I’d rather set out, old as I am, and hunt for one with a lantern through the world! Sarah, though she is so capricious and contrary, is of the same mind. It was she who told me of this Mr. Richard Arkwright, whom I had forgotten all about. And yet, you see, after showing such decided interest, she turns upon one so! What a very odd thing it is that she did not marry! I never could make it out, for my part. Nobody could imagine, to see her now, how very pretty, nay, how beautiful she was; and such a way with her! and dressed, to be sure, like a duchess. All the young men in the county were after her before she went abroad. But dear, dear! to think what a changed life when she came home, and lost her voice, and shut herself up in her own room.

There is nothing I dislike more than curiosity, or prying, or suspiciousness; but I should like to know the rights of it—how Sarah went on abroad. To be sure my father was anxious enough that she should get married, and have a good humble-minded husband, who would take the name of Mortimer. It was only me that he would not hear of any proposal for. I don’t think he would have broken his heart if, like the Milly Mortimer in Queen Anne’s time, I had been so obliging as to die.

However, here we are, just as we were in the nursery, two Miss Mortimers. Sarah, who might have had half a dozen good marriages, just the same as I am; and I protest I don’t even know that there are two people existing in the world who have the smallest collateral right to divide the property and take it away from the name; unless Richard Arkwright should happen to have co-heiresses! married to husbands who will not change to Mortimer! Don’t let me think of such a horror!

These are our circumstances in the meantime. It is a very sad thing for a family when there are no collateral branches. I forgot to say that how this Richard Arkwright came about, was by the strange accident of Squire George, who died in 1713, having two sons!

Chapter V

DURING all this time—and indeed, after all, it was only a single day—I had forgotten all about Mr. Cresswell and his Sara. He and his family had been our family’s solicitors for a great many generations. He knew all our secrets that we knew ourselves. It is only about twenty years since he succeeded his father in the business, and married that pretty delicate young creature, the clergyman’s daughter of St. John’s. She died very early, poor thing, as was to be expected, and Sara is his only child. But, of course, he does not know any more than a baby how to manage a pretty fantastical young girl. They are a very respectable, substantial family in their way, and have been settled in their house in Chester for a very long time—though, of course, it would be absurd to call a family of solicitors an old family—and Mr. Cresswell is very well off in the world, and can give a very pretty fortune to his daughter; yet the covetous old fox has actually a fancy in his mind—I could see it when he was last here—that if Sara only played her cards well she might be heiress of the Park, and succeed Sarah and me. An attorney’s daughter! Not that I mean to put a slight upon Sara, who is our godchild, and a very sweet, pretty girl. But to fancy that old Cresswell could take up such an idea, and I not find him out! It is odd, really, how the cleverest of men deceive themselves. He will take every means to find out Richard Mortimer all the same. He’ll not fail of his duty, however things may turn out, I know that; but to think at the very bottom of his sly old heart that he should have a hankering after the Park! It is quite inconceivable what fancies will take hold of men.

Sara is our godchild, as I said, called Sara Millicent, in token of the kindness that poor Mrs. Cresswell, poor young motherless creature, thought she had received from us. Poor little soul! she little thought then, that the baby she was so proud of, was the only one she was to be spared to bring into the world. From that time till now Sara has been a pet at the Park, and always free to come to us when she wished, or when her father thought it would do her good. This was how she was coming to-day. Perhaps it might be imagined by some people rather a bold thing of one’s family solicitor to bring his daughter to us without an invitation. But you see we were only ladies, and did not stand on our dignity as people do when there are men in the house; and, besides, she was our pet and godchild, which makes all the difference.

Just before dinner, Mr. Cresswell’s one-horse chaise came into the courtyard. We never use the great door except for great people, and when Sarah goes out for her airings. I always use the court entrance, which is much handier, especially in winter, and when there is no fire in the great hall. I really see no use, except on occasions, for a fire in that great hall. It looks miserable, I dare say, but then the coal it consumes is enormous—enough to keep three families in the village comfortably warmed—and we keep no lackeys to lounge about there, and be in the way. A good respectable family servant, like Ellis, with plenty of maids, is much more to my taste than those great saucy fellows, who have not the heart of a mouse. But this is quite apart from what I was saying. Sarah had come down just the same as ever, except that she had her brown gown on,—she wears a different gown every day in the week,—and her muslin shawl lined with blue, and of course blue ribbons in her cap to correspond. Carson, after all, is really a wonderful milliner. She seemed to have forgotten, or at least passed over, our little quarrel, for she spoke just the same as usual, and said, as she always does, that she hoped that I would not forget to order the carriage for her drive. I have given over being nettled about this. She says it regularly, poor dear soul, every other day.

“And little Sara is coming to-day,” said I. “You’ll take her for company, won’t you? It will do the child good.”

“Do her good! why, Cresswell has a carriage!” said Sarah in her whisper; “beggars will ride before all’s done.”

“But he’s nothing of a beggar, quite the reverse; he’s very well-to-do, indeed,” said I. “I think he has a very good right to a one-horse chaise.”

“Ah, to be sure, that makes all the difference,” said Sarah in her sharp way, “I forgot it was but one horse.”

Now her voice, which is rather pleasant when she’s kind, gets a sort of hiss in it when she’s spiteful, and the sound of that “horse,” though I wouldn’t for the world say any harm of my sister, drew out all the hoarseness and unpleasant sound in the strangest way possible. I was quite glad to hear at that moment the wheels in the courtyard.

“There is little Sara,” said I, and went off to fetch her in, very glad to get off, it must be confessed; but glad also, to be sure, to see my little pet, who had always taken so kindly to me. Before I could get to the door which Ellis was holding open, the dear child herself came rushing upon me, fairly driving me a few steps back, and taking away my breath. “You’re not to come into the draught, godmamma. It’s so cold, oh, it’s so cold! I thought my nose would be off,” cried Sara’s voice close to my ear. She was talking and kissing me at the same moment, and after the start she had given me, you may suppose, I did not pick up exactly every word she said. But that was the substance of it, to be sure.

“Why didn’t you wear a veil? You ought to wear a veil, child. We were all supposed to have complexions when I was young,” said I. “Don’t you have any complexions, now, you little girls?”

“Oh, godmamma! I don’t expect ever to hear you talking nonsense,” said Sara severely. “What’s the good of our complexions? We can’t do anything with them that I ever heard of. Come in from the draught, please, for the sake of your dear old nose.”

“You are the rudest little girl I ever knew in my life. Go in, child, go in, and see your godmamma,” said I. “How ever do you manage that girl, Mr. Cresswell? Does she think I don’t know all the draughts in my own house?”

“Ah, my dear lady, she’s contrairy. I told you so—she always was and ever will be,” said Mr. Cresswell, putting down his hat with a sigh. Dear, dear! the poor man certainly had his troubles with that little puss. Manage her, indeed! when, to be sure, as was natural, she made him do exactly just as she pleased.

When we went in after her, he and I, there she was, to be sure, kneeling down on Sarah’s footstool, trying all she could to put my sister’s curls out of order with kissing her. If any one else had dared to do it! But Sara, who never since she was a baby feared any creature, had her way with her godmother as well as with all the rest of us. There’s a great deal in never being afraid.

“Now, go up-stairs, and take off your bonnet, there’s a good child; there’s a fire in your room to warm it for puss in velvet. Go, and come down smooth and nice as your godmamma loves to see you. Dinner will be ready presently, and you must be nice for dinner. There, there, don’t talk any more, Sara, go and smooth your hair.”

“Oh yes, certainly, and then you’ll see what’s happened!” cried Sara, and frisked off out of the room like a little puss as she was.

I dare say the dear child expected nothing less than a great curiosity on my part about what had happened. Poor dear little kitten! she forgot that these little secrets were not such great matters to me. When she was gone we did not say a syllable about Sara; but her good father began to pull about the things on one of the tables behind the screen, and made signs to me with his eyebrows to come and talk to him. When I passed over that way he said quite softly, “Anything more?”

“Not a word,” said I; for, to be sure, that about Sarah marrying if they would have let her was private, and even the family solicitor had nothing to do with it, though, I dare say if the truth were known, he knew all about it better than I did. “Not a word; only, I suppose, I should say he must be about her own age.”

Mr. Cresswell glanced up at me, gave a short little smile, a nod of his head, and a shrug of his shoulders, and understood all about it as if I had told him.

“Was in love with her once, of course—thought so!” he said in his undertone: “you ladies, for one good thing, do think on when we’ve made fools of ourselves about you. It’s always our compensation.”

“We think on after you’ve forgotten all about it—that’s what you mean,” said I.

Mr. Cresswell gave another little shrug with his shoulders, and glanced at the screen behind which Sarah was knitting. “How lovely she was once, to be sure!” he said with a little sigh, and then laughed out at himself, not without a little redness in his face. To speak of a blush in a man of his years would be simply absurd, you know. Such a piece of presumption! I do believe Bob Cresswell had taken it upon him to fall in love with Sarah too in his young days. I could have boxed his ears for him; and to think he should have the audacity to laugh at himself now!

Chapter VI

THIS conversation of ours, if it could be called a conversation, was luckily interrupted by the entrance of little Sara, who came into the room, lightfooted and noiseless, as such creatures can when they are young. She had on a velvet jacket, over a thick-corded blue silk dress. She must have spent quite a fortune in dress, the little saucy puss. What startled me, however, was her hair. She had a beautiful head of hair, and wore it of course in the fashion, as all young girls ought. Some people were so misguided as to call Sara Cresswell dark-complexioned. They meant she had very dark hair, eyebrows, and eyelashes. As for her skin, it was as pure as Sarah’s, who had always been a blonde beauty. But with all the mass of hair she had, when she chose to spread it out and display it, and with her black eyes and small face, I don’t wonder people thought the little witch dark. However, all that was done away now. There she stood before me, laughing, and making her curtsey, with short little curls, like a child’s, scarcely long enough to reach to her collar—all her splendid hair gone—a regular crop! I screamed out, as may be supposed; I declare I could have whipped her with the very best will in the world. The provoking, wicked little creature! no wonder her poor father called her contrairy. Dear, dear, to think what odd arrangements there are in this world! I should have brought her under some sort of authority, I promise you; but really, not meaning to be profane, one was really tempted to say to one’s self, what could Providence be thinking of to give such a child to poor old Bob Cresswell, who knew no more how to manage her than I know how to steer a boat?

“I declare I think you are very wicked,” I said when I gained my breath; “I do believe, Sara, you take a delight in vexing your friends. For all the world what good could it do to cut off your hair? Don’t speak to me, child! I declare I am so vexed and provoked and angry, I could cry!”

“Don’t cry, godmamma,” said Sara quite coolly, “or I’ll have it made up into a wig; you can’t fancy how nice it is now. Besides, what was the good of such a lot of hair? Don’t you know that’s what gives people headaches? I thought I had better be wise in time.”

“You little storyteller!” cried I, “you never had a headache in your life.”

“Ah, but prevention is better than cure,” said the wicked little creature with her very demurest look.

“Dinner, Ma’am,” said Ellis at the door. It was just as well for Sara. But I had a great mind to pinch her, as Mr. Thackeray says the ladies do, when we went together to the dining-room. I am sure she deserved it. However, she did not escape a little pinch which touched her, brave as she was. Sarah, I suppose, had not taken the trouble to look at her till we were all seated at table. Then she looked up, quite ignorant of what had happened. Sarah did not start like me, nor scream out; but she looked at little Sara quite composedly, leaning forward to see her all round. When she had quite done, she folded her hands upon her napkin, and smiled. “What a shocking fright you have made of yourself, my dear child,” said Sarah with the most amiable look in the world. Little Sara coloured up in a moment, grew red and furious like a little vixen, and had something angry and wicked on the very tip of her tongue, which however, bold as she was, she dared not say. Mr. Cresswell ventured to give a little mutter and chuckle of a laugh, and how the little witch did look at him! But as for me, though I was glad to have her punished, I could not find in my heart to hear anything said against her without standing up in her defence.