Barrington. Volume 1

She became crimson in a minute, and in a tone of some emotion said, “And if there had been, where should you and where should I be to-day? On the parish, Peter Barrington, – on the parish; for it ‘s neither your head nor your hands would have saved us from it.”

“You’re right, Dinah; you’re right there. You never spoke a truer word.” And his voice trembled as he said it.

“I did n’t mean that, Peter,” said she, eagerly; “but you are too confiding, too trustful. Perhaps it takes a woman to detect all the little wiles and snares that entangle us in our daily life?”

“Perhaps it does,” said he, with a deep sigh.

“At all events, you needn’t sigh over it, Peter Barring-ton. It’s not one of those blemishes in human nature that have to be deplored so feelingly. I hope women are as good as men.”

“Fifty thousand times better, in every quality of kindliness and generosity.”

“Humph!” said she, tossing her head impatiently. “We ‘re not here for a question in ethics; it is to the very lowly task of examining the house accounts I would invite your attention. Matters cannot go on as they do now, if we mean to keep a roof over us.”

“But I have always supposed we were doing pretty well, Dinah. You know we never promised ourselves to gain a fortune by this venture; the very utmost we ever hoped for was to help us along, – to aid us to make both ends meet at the end of the year And as Darby tells me – ”

“Oh, Darby tells you! What a reliable authority to quote from! Oh, don’t groan so heavily! I forgot myself. I would n’t for the world impeach such fidelity or honesty as his.”

“Be reasonable, sister Dinah, – do be reasonable; and if there is anything to lay to his charge – ”

“You ‘ll hear the case, I suppose,” cried she, in a voice high-pitched in passion. “You ‘ll sit up there, like one of your favorite judges, and call on Dinah Barrington against Cassan; and perhaps when the cause is concluded we shall reverse our places, and I become the defendant! But if this is your intention, brother Barrington, give me a little time. I beg I may have a little time.”

Now, this was a very favorite request of Miss Barring-ton’s, and she usually made it in the tone of a martyr; but truth obliges us to own that never was a demand less justifiable. Not a three-decker of the Channel fleet was readier for a broadside than herself. She was always at quarters and with a port-fire burning.

Barrington did not answer this appeal; he never moved, – he scarcely appeared to breathe, so guarded was he lest his most unintentional gesture should be the subject of comment.

“When you have recovered from your stupefaction,” said she, calmly, “will you look over that line of figures, and then give a glance at this total? After that I will ask you what fortune could stand it.”

“This looks formidable, indeed,” said he, poring over the page through his spectacles.

“It is worse, Peter. It is formidable.”

“After all, Dinah, this is expenditure. Now for the incomings!”

“I suspect you ‘ll have to ask your prime minister for them. Perhaps he may vouchsafe to tell you how many twenty-pound notes have gone to America, who it was that consigned a cargo of new potatoes to Liverpool, and what amount he invested in yarn at the last fair of Graigue? and when you have learned these facts, you will know all you are ever likely to know of your profits!” I have no means of conveying the intense scorn with which she uttered the last word of this speech.

“And he told me – not a week back – that we were going on famously!”

“Why wouldn’t he? I ‘d like to hear what else he could say. Famously, indeed, for him with a strong balance in the savings-bank, and a gold watch – yes, Peter, a gold watch – in his pocket. This is no delusion, nor illusion, or whatever you call it, of mine, but a fact, – a downright fact.”

“He has been toiling hard many a year for it, Dinah, don’t forget that.”

“I believe you want to drive me mad, Peter. You know these are things that I can’t bear, and that’s the reason you say them. Toil, indeed! I never saw him do anything except sit on a gate at the Lock Meadows, with a pipe in his mouth; and if you asked him what he was there for, it was a ‘track’ he was watching, a ‘dog-fox that went by every afternoon to the turnip field.’ Very great toil that was!”

“There was n’t an earth-stopper like him in the three next counties; and if I was to have a pack of foxhounds tomorrow – ”

“You ‘d just be as great a foot as ever you were, and the more sorry I am to hear it; but you ‘re not going to be tempted, Peter Barrington. It’s not foxes we have to think of, but where we ‘re to find shelter for ourselves.”

“Do you know of anything we could turn to, more profitable, Dinah?” asked he, mildly.

“There ‘s nothing could be much less so, I know that! You are not very observant, Peter, but even to you it must have become apparent that great changes have come over the world in a few years. The persons who formerly indulged their leisure were all men of rank and fortune. Who are the people who come over here now to amuse themselves? Staleybridge and Manchester creatures, with factory morals and bagman manners; treating our house like a commercial inn, and actually disputing the bill and asking for items. Yes, Peter, I overheard a fellow telling Darby last week that the ‘’ouse was dearer than the Halbion!’”

“Travellers will do these things, Dinah.”

“And if they do, they shall be shown the door for it, as sure as my name is Dinah Barrington.”

“Let us give up the inn altogether, then,” said he, with a sudden impatience.

“The very thing I was going to propose, Peter,” said she, solemnly.

“What! – how?” cried he, for the acceptance of what only escaped him in a moment of anger overwhelmed and stunned him. “How are we to live, Dinah?”

“Better without than with it, – there’s my answer to that. Let us look the matter fairly in the face, Peter,” said she, with a calm and measured utterance. “This dealing with the world ‘on honor’ must ever be a losing game. To screen ourselves from the vulgar necessities of our condition, we must submit to any terms. So long as our intercourse with life gave us none but gentlemen to deal with, we escaped well and safely. That race would seem to have thinned off of late, however; or, what comes to the same, there is such a deluge of spurious coin one never knows what is real gold.”

“You may be right, Dinah; you may be right.”

“I know I am right; the experience has been the growth of years too. All our efforts to escape the odious contact of these people have multiplied our expenses. Where one man used to suffice, we keep three. You yourself, who felt it no indignity to go out a-fishing formerly with a chance traveller, have to own with what reserve and caution you would accept such companionship now.”

“Nay, nay, Dinah, not exactly so far as that – ”

“And why not? Was it not less than a fortnight ago three Birmingham men crossed the threshold, calling out for old Peter, – was old Peter to the good yet?”

“They were a little elevated with wine, sister, remember that; and, besides, they never knew, never had heard of me in my once condition.”

“And are we so changed that they cannot recognize the class we pertain to?”

“Not you, Dinah, certainly not you; but I frankly own I can put up with rudeness and incivility better than a certain showy courtesy some vulgar people practise towards me. In the one case I feel I am not known, and my secret is safe. In the other, I have to stand out as the ruined gentleman, and I am not always sure that I play the part as gracefully as I ought.”

“Let us leave emotions, Peter, and descend to the lowland of arithmetic, by giving up two boatmen, John and Terry – ”

“Poor Terry!” sighed he, with a faint, low accent

“Oh! if it be ‘poor Terry!’ I ‘ve done,” said she, closing the book, and throwing it down with a slap that made him start.

“Nay, dear Dinah; but if we could manage to let him have something, – say five shillings a week, – he ‘d not need it long; and the port wine that was doing his rheumatism such good is nearly finished; he’ll miss it sorely.”

“Were you giving him Henderson’s wine, – the ‘11 vintage?” cried she, pale with indignation.

“Just a bottle or two, Dinah; only as medicine.”

“As a fiddlestick, sir! I declare I have no patience with you; there ‘s no excuse for such folly, not to say the ignorance of giving these creatures what they never were used to. Did not Dr. Dill tell you that tonics, to be effective, must always have some relation to the daily habits of the patient?”

“Very true, Dinah; but the discourse was pronounced when I saw him putting a bottle of old Madeira in his gig that I had left for Anne M’Cafferty, adding, he ‘d send her something far more strengthening.”

“Right or wrong, I don’t care; but this I know, Terry Dogherty is n’t going to finish off Henderson’s port. It is rather too much to stand, that we are to be treating beggars to luxuries, when we can’t say to-morrow where we shall find salt for our potatoes.” This was a somewhat favorite illustration of Miss Barrington, – either implying that the commodity was an essential to human life, or the use of it an emblem of extreme destitution.

“I conclude we may dispense with Tom Divett’s services,” resumed she. “We can assuredly get on without a professional rat-catcher.”

“If we should, Dinah, we’ll feel the loss; the rats make sad havoc of the spawn, and destroy quantities of the young fish, besides.”