The Carbonels

A cottage belonging to Captain Carbonel might have a room added to it to receive the scholars, by the end of harvest, by which time they might be got together, and Mrs Verdon was to be induced to resign by a pension of half-a-crown a week, a sum then supposed to be ample, and which, indeed, was so for her wants, which were much less than in these days. Captain Carbonel looked over the cottage, and worked out an estimate of the cost with old Hewlett, whose notions of paper work were of the kind shown in his Midsummer bill.

The result of the calculations, conjectural and otherwise, was this.

“Mary, look here. This is an expensive year, and if we do the thing this year, we must put off making the drive through the fields—your approach, madam.”

Mary came and looked at his figures. “How will it be after harvest?” she said.

“Harvest is an inappreciable quantity, especially to novices,” he said. “If you believe Farmer Goodenough, the finest weather will not save me from finding myself out of pocket.”

“Farmer Goodenough is an old croaker, after his kind,” said Mary.

“It won’t do to reckon thereupon. I must be secure of capital enough to fall back upon. Think it over well, Mary, and answer me to-morrow; and you had better say nothing to your sisters till your own mind is made up. I own that I should be very glad of the road. It would save us and old Major a good deal, to say nothing of our friends’ bones.”

“Do you mean that you wish it, Edmund?”

“I wish to leave it entirely to you.”

Dora and Sophy had gone across the fields, a four miles’ walk to Poppleby, and were to be brought home in the evening, and Mary was left to wander about the old road and the field-path, and meditate on the ruts and quagmires that would beset the way in the winter, and shut them up from visiting, perhaps even from church. Besides, there were appearances!

There was an old gentleman, a far-away connection of Edmund’s, who had been in the navy, and now lived at Poppleby, and went about collecting all the chatter to be heard in one house, and retailing it all in another, and he thought himself licensed to tell Edmund and Mary everything personal. One thing was—

“My dear fellow, you should really put a check on your wife’s Methodistical ways!”

“I didn’t know she had any.”

“I have been told, on good authority, that she has a meeting every Sunday in the wash-house.”

Edmund laughed. “A dozen children for Sunday School, with the President’s full consent.”

“It won’t do, Edmund. You’ll find it won’t do! Why, old Selby told me she was a pretty creature, only just like your good pious ladies, running into all the dirtiest cottages.”

And to Mary it was, “Let me give you a hint, my dear Mrs Carbonel. The Duchess saw you in Poppleby, and asked who you were, and she said she would like to visit you, if you did not live in such a hole.”

“I don’t think I want her,” said Mary.

“Now, my dear, don’t you be foolish! It would be so much to Edmund’s advantage! He was in the same regiment with Lord Henry, and you might have the best society in the county, if only you would make your new drive! Why, even Lady Hartman says she can’t take her horses again through that lane, or into the farm court. Miss Yates said it was quite disgusting.”

Mary Carbonel might laugh. She did not care for her own dignity, but she did for Edmund’s; and though she had been amused at Lady Hartman’s four horses entangled in the narrow sweep, and did not quite believe old Captain Caiger, the lady herself had been very charming, and Mary did not like to cut her husband and sisters off from the pleasantest houses in the country.

But the words, “Love not the world,” came up into her mind, and the battle ended by her saying to her husband—

“Don’t let us have the approach this year, dear Edmund. I don’t want it to be Mary’s reproach.”

“You are quite sure? In spite of Caiger?”

“Indeed I am; though I am afraid it is asking you to give up something.”

“Not while I have my merry faces at home, Mary. And indeed, little woman, I am glad of your decision. It is right.”

“I am so glad!”

Chapter Nine.

The Screen

“There is no honesty in such dealing.”

    —Shakespeare.

One day when Sophy had been trusted to go out alone to carry a few veal cutlets from luncheon to Judith, she found the door on the latch, but no one in the room downstairs, the chair empty, the fire out, and all more dreary than usual, only a voice from above called out, “Please come up.”

Sophy, pleased with the adventure, mounted the dark and rickety stairs, and found herself in the open space above, cut off from the stairs by a screen, and containing a press-bed, where Judith lay, covered by an elaborate patchwork quilt. There was a tiny dressing-table under the narrow lattice window, and one chair, also a big trunk-box, with a waggon-shaped lid, such as servants used to have in those days, covered with paper, where big purple spots of paint concealed the old print of some story or newspaper. On the wall hung a few black profiles, and all was very fairly neat, whatever the room might be shut off by a wooden partition, whence came a peculiar sour smell.

“Oh, it is Miss Sophia!” exclaimed Judith. “I beg your pardon, ma’am, I thought it was Dame Spurrell, who said she would come and look in on me, or I would not have troubled you to come up.”

“I am glad I did, Judith; I like to see where you live. Only, are you worse?”

“No, miss, only as my back is sometimes, and my sister and all the children are gone to the hiring fair, so it was not handy to get me up.”

“And this is your room!” said Sophy, looking about her. “Isn’t it very cold?”

“Johnnie heats me a brick to keep me warm at night; but my feet are always cold downstairs. It does not make much difference.”

“Oh dear! And you have a screen, I see. Oh! Why, that is our drawing-room paper.”

She sat transfixed at the recognition, while Judith observed, quite innocently, with a free conscience—

“Yes, miss, my brother-in-law brought it home, and told me it was just a scrap that was left over, and he was free to have, though I said I did wonder the lady did not want to keep it in case of an accident happening.”

“Yes,” said Sophy, “I don’t think he had any business to have it, for all one division of the paper is put on upside down. The laburnums point up instead of hanging down, and I am sure Mary would have altered it if she could. It was beautiful French paper that Edmund brought home from Paris and laid up for the furnishing their house.”

This, of course, Mrs Carbonel and Dora would never have told poor Judith, but Sophy was young and unguarded, and apt to talk when she had better have held her tongue.

“I am sorry to hear it, miss, indeed I am. I am afraid one could not take it off the screen to put it back again where it did ought to be.”

Sophy looked, but it was manifestly impossible. Spoiling the screen would not mend the wall of the drawing-room.

“Perhaps Molly might have another bit left,” she said, only thinking of the triumph of carrying home the means of repairing the deficiency by her own unassisted sagacity.

“I will ask her, miss. I am sure I never thought Dan would go for to do such a thing,” mourned Judith, though, even as she spoke, there came back on her recollections of times when she had tried to be blind and deaf. “But if Mrs Carbonel would let me pay for it, miss, I should be easier in my mind. I have a shilling, though no doubt that is not the worth of it.” And she began feeling for a little box under her pillow, never mentioning that she had already paid Dan a shilling for it.

“No, no; nonsense, Judith! Of course my sister would not take it for the world; but if any one could find another bit, just to patch up the part above the book-case, it would be nice.”

“I will do what in me lays, Miss Sophy,” answered Judith.

So Sophy took her leave and trotted home, very proud of her discovery, which she communicated in an eager voice as the phaeton drew up at the front door.

“Oh, Edmund, I have found the rest of the drawing-room paper!”