Whiteladies

A strange change passed over Miss Susan’s face. She had been ready to laugh, impatient of the long explanation, and scarcely able to conceal her desire to get rid of her visitors. She sat poising the pen in her hand with which she had been writing, turning over her papers, with a smile on her lip; but when Dr. Richard came to those last words, her face changed all at once. She dropped the pen out of her hand, her face grew gray, the smile disappeared in a moment, and Miss Susan sat looking at them, with a curious consciousness about her, which the excellent couple could not understand.

“What day was that?” she said quickly, almost under her breath.

“It was on Thursday.”

“Thursday morning,” added Mrs. Richard. “If you remember, Henery, you got a note about it quite early; and after chapel she spoke – ”

“Yes, it was quite early; probably the note,” said the chaplain, “was written on Wednesday night.”

Miss Susan was ashy gray; all the blood seemed to have gone out of her. She made them no answer at first, but sat brooding, like a woman struck into stone. Then she rose to her feet suddenly as the door opened, and Augustine, gray and silent, came in, gliding like a mediæval saint.

“My sister is always right,” said Miss Susan, almost passionately, going suddenly up to her and kissing her pale cheek with a fervor no one understood, and Augustine least of all. “I always approve what she does;” and having made this little demonstration, she returned to her seat, and took up her pen again with more show of preoccupation than before.

What could the old couple do after this but make their bow and their courtesy, and go off again bewildered? “I think Miss Susan is the maddest of the two,” said Mrs. Richard, when they had two long fields between them and Whiteladies; and I am not surprised, I confess, that they should have thought so, on that occasion, at least.

Miss Susan was deeply struck with this curious little incident. She had always entertained a half visionary respect for her sister, something of the reverential feeling with which some nations regard those who are imperfectly developed in intelligence; and this curious revelation deepened the sentiment into something half-adoring, half-afraid. Nobody knew what she had done, but Augustine knew somehow that she had been in temptation. I cannot describe the impression this made upon her mind and her heart, which was guilty, but quite unaccustomed to guilt. It thrilled her through and through; but it did not make her give up her purpose, which was perhaps the strangest thing of all.

“My dear,” she said, assuming with some difficulty an ordinary smile, “what made you think I was going wrong when I was away?”

“What made me think it? nothing; something that came into my mind. You do not understand how I am moved and led,” said Augustine, looking at her sister seriously.

“No, dear, no – I don’t understand; that is true. God bless you, my dear!” said the woman who was guilty, turning away with a tremor which Augustine understood as little – her whole being tremulous and softened with love and reverence, and almost awe, of the spotless creature by her; but I suspect, though Miss Susan felt so deeply the wonderful fact that her sister had divined her moral danger, she was not in the least moved thereby to turn away from that moral danger, or give up her wicked plan; which is as curious a problem as I remember to have met with. Having all the habits of truth and virtue, she was touched to the heart to think that Augustine should have had a mysterious consciousness of the moment when she was brought to abandon the right path, and felt the whole situation sentimentally, as if she had read of it in a story; but it had not the slightest effect otherwise. With this tremor of feeling upon her, she went back to her writing-table, and finished her letter to Farrel-Austin, which was as follows:

“Dear Cousin: Having had some business which called me abroad last week, my interest in the facts you told me, the last time I had the pleasure of seeing you, led me to pass by Bruges, where I saw our common relations, the Austins. They seem very nice, homely people, and I enjoyed making their acquaintance, though it was curious to realize relations of ours occupying such a position. I heard from them, however, that a discovery had been made in the meantime which seriously interferes with the bargain which they made with you; indeed, is likely to invalidate it altogether. I took in hand to inform you of the facts, though they are rather delicate to be discussed between a lady and a gentleman; but it would have been absurd of a woman of my age to make any difficulty on such a matter. If you will call on me, or appoint a time at which I can see you at your own house, I will let you know exactly what are the facts of the case; though I have no doubt you will at once divine them, if you were informed at the time you saw the Bruges Austins, that their son who died had left a young widow.

With compliments to Mrs. Farrel-Austin and your girls,

    Believe me, truly yours,
    Susan Austin.”

I do not know that Miss Susan had ever written to Farrel-Austin in so friendly a spirit before. She felt almost cordial toward him as she put her letter into the envelope. If this improvement in friendly feeling was the first product of an intention to do the man wrong, then wrong-doing, she felt, must be rather an amiable influence than otherwise; and she went to rest that night with a sense of satisfaction in her mind. In the late Professor Aytoun’s quaint poem of “Firmilian,” it is recorded that the hero of that drama committed many murders and other crimes in a vain attempt to study the sensation usually called remorse, but was entirely unsuccessful, even when his crimes were on the grandest scale, and attended by many aggravating circumstances. Miss Susan knew nothing about Firmilian, but I think her mind was in a very similar state. She was not at all affected in sentiment by her conspiracy. She felt the same as usual, nay, almost better than usual, more kindly toward her enemy whom she was going to injure, and more reverential and admiring to her saintly sister, who had divined something of her evil intentions – or at least had divined her danger, though without the slightest notion what the kind of evil was to which she was tempted. Miss Susan was indeed half frightened at herself when she found how very little impression her own wickedness had made upon her. The first night she had been a little alarmed when she said her prayers, but this had all worn off, and she went to bed without a tremor, and slept the sleep of innocence – the sleep of the just. She was so entirely herself that she was able to reflect how strange it was, and how little the people who write sermons know the state of the real mind. She was astonished herself at the perfect calm with which she regarded her own contemplated crime, for crime it was.

CHAPTER XV

MR. FARREL-AUSTIN lived in a house which was called the Hatch, though I cannot tell what is the meaning of the name. It was a modern house, like hundreds of others, solid and ugly, and comfortable enough, with a small park round it, and – which it could scarcely help having in Berkshire – some fine trees about it. Farrel-Austin had a good deal of property; his house stood upon his own land, though his estate was not very extensive, and he had a considerable amount of money in good investments, and some house-property in London, in the City, which was very valuable. Altogether, therefore, he was very well off, and lived in a comfortable way with everything handsome about him. All his family at present consisted of the two daughters who came with him to visit Whiteladies, as we have seen; but he had married a second time, and had an ailing wife who was continually, as people say, having “expectations,” which, however, never came to anything. He had been married for about ten years, and during this long period Mrs. Farrel-Austin’s expectations had been a joke among her neighbors; but they were no joke to her husband, nor to the two young ladies, her step-daughters, who, as they could not succeed to the Austin lands themselves, were naturally very desirous to have a brother who could do so. They were not very considerate of Mrs. Austin generally, but in respect to her health they were solicitous beyond measure. They took such care of her that the poor woman’s life became a burden to her, and especially at the moment when there were expectations did this care and anxiety overflow. The poor soul had broken down, body and mind, under this surveillance. She had been a pretty girl enough when she was married, and entered with a light heart upon her functions, not afraid of what might happen to her; but Mr. Farrel-Austin’s unsatisfied longing for an heir, and the supervision of the two sharp girls who grew up so very soon to be young ladies, and evidently considered, as their father did, that the sole use and meaning of their mild young stepmother was to produce that necessary article, soon made an end of all her light-heartedness. Her courage totally failed. She had no very strong emotions any way, but a little affection and kindness were necessary to keep her going, and this she did not get, in the kind that was important, at least. Her husband, I suppose, was fond of her, as (of course) all husbands are of all wives, but she could not pet or make friends with the girls, who, short of her possible use as the mother of an heir, found her very much in their way, and had no inclination to establish affectionate relations with her. Therefore she took to her sofa, poor soul, and to tonics, and the state of an invalid – a condition which, when one has nothing in particular to do in the world, and nothing to amuse or occupy a flat existence, is not a bad expedient in its way for the feeble soul, giving it the support of an innocent, if not very agreeable routine – rules to observe and physic to take. This was how poor Mrs. Farrel-Austin endeavored to dédommager herself for the failure of her life. She preserved a pale sort of faded prettiness even on her sofa; and among the society which the girls collected round them, there was now and then one who would seek refuge with the mild invalid, when the fun of the younger party grew too fast and furious. Even, I believe, the stepmother might have set up a flirtation or two of her own had she cared for that amusement; but fortunately she had her tonics to take, which was a more innocent gratification, and suited all parties better; for a man must be a very robust flirt indeed, whose attentions can support the frequent interpositions of a maid with a medicine-bottle and a spoon.

The society of the Farrel-Austins was of a kind which might be considered very fine, or the reverse, according to the taste of the critic, though that, indeed, may be said of almost all society. They knew, of course, and visited, all the surrounding gentry, among whom there were a great many worthy people, though nothing so remarkable as to stand out from the general level; but what was more important to the young ladies, at least, they had the officers of the regiment which was posted near, and in which there were a great many very noble young personages, ornaments to any society, who accepted Mr. Farrel-Austin’s invitations freely, and derived a great deal of amusement from his household, without perhaps paying that natural tribute of respect and civility to their entertainers behind their backs, which is becoming in the circumstances. Indeed, the Farrel-Austins were not quite on the same social level as the Marquis of Dropmore, or Lord Ffarington, who were constantly at the Hatch when their regiment was stationed near, nor even of Lord Alf Groombridge, though he was as poor as a church-mouse; and the same thing might be said of a great many other honorable and distinguished young gentlemen who kept a continual riot at the house, and made great havoc with the cellar, and on Sundays, especially, would keep this establishment, which ought to have been almost pious in its good order, in a state of hurry and flurry, and noise and laughter, as if it had been a hotel. The Austins, it is true, boasted themselves of good family, though nothing definite was known of them before Henry VIII. – and they were rich enough to entertain their distinguished visitors at very considerable cost; but they had neither that rank which introduces the possessor into all circles, nor that amount of money which makes up every deficiency. Had one of the Miss Farrel-Austins married the Marquis or the Earl, or even Lord Alf in his impecuniosity, she would have been said to have “succeeded in catching” poor Dropmore, or poor Ffarington, and would have been stormed or wept over by the gentleman’s relations as if she had been a ragged girl off the streets – King Cophetua’s beggar-maid herself; notwithstanding that these poor innocents, Ffarington and Dropmore, had taken advantage of the father’s hospitalities for months or years before. I am bound to add that the Farrel-Austins were not only fully aware of this, but would have used exactly the same phraseology themselves in respect to any other young lady of their own standing whose fascinations had been equally exercised upon the well-fortified bosoms of Dropmore and Company. Nevertheless they adapted themselves to the amusements which suited their visitors, and in Summer lived in a lively succession of outdoor parties, spending half of their time in drags, in boats, on race courses, at cricket-matches, and other energetic diversions. Sometimes their father was their chaperon, sometimes a young married lady belonging to the same society, and with the same tastes.

The very highest and the very lowest classes of society have a great affinity to each other. There was always something planned for Sunday in this lively “set” – they were as eager to put the day to use as if they had been working hard all the week and had this day only to amuse themselves in. I suppose they, or perhaps their father, began to do this because there was in it the delightful piquancy of sensation which the blasé appetite feels when it is able to shock somebody else by its gratifications; and though they have long ago ceased to shock anybody, the flavor of the sensation lasted. All the servants at the Hatch, indeed, were shocked vastly, which preserved a little of this delightful sense of naughtiness. The quieter neighbors round, especially those houses in which there were no young people, disapproved, also, in a general way, and called the Miss Austins fast; and Miss Susan disapproved most strenuously, I need not say, and expressed her contempt in terms which she took no trouble to modify. But I cannot deny that there was a general hankering among the younger members of society for a share in these bruyant amusements; and Everard Austin could not see what harm it did that the girls should enjoy themselves, and had no objection to join them, and liked Kate and Sophy so much that sometimes he was moved to think that he liked one of them more. His house, indeed, which was on the river, was a favorite centre for their expeditions, and I think even that though he was not rich, neither of his cousins would have rejected Everard off-hand without deliberation – for, to be sure, he was the heir, at present, after their father, and every year made it less likely that Mrs. Austin would produce the much-wished-for successor. Neither of them would have quite liked to risk accepting him yet, in face of all the possibilities which existed in the way of Dropmore, Ffarington, and Company; but yet they would not have refused him off-hand.

Now I may as well tell the reader at once that Kate and Sophy Farrel-Austin were not what either I or he (she) would call nice girls. I am fond of girls, for my own part. I don’t like to speak ill of them, or give an unfavorable impression, and as it is very probable that my prejudice in favor of the species may betray me into some relentings in respect to these particular examples, some softening of their after proceedings, or explanation of their devices, I think it best to say at once that they were not nice girls. They had not very sweet natures to begin with; for the fact is – and it is a very terrible one – that a great many people do come into the world with natures which are not sweet, and enter upon the race of life handicapped (if I may be permitted an irregular but useful expression) in the most frightful way. I do not pretend to explain this mystery, which, among all the mysteries of earth, is one of the most cruel, but I am forced to believe it. Kate and Sophy had never been very nice. Their father before them was not nice, but an extremely selfish and self-regarding person, often cross, and with no generosity or elevation of mind to set them a better example. They had no mother, and no restraint, except that of school, which is very seldom more than external and temporary. The young stepmother had begun by petting them, but neither could nor wished to attempt to rule the girls, who soon acquired a contempt for her; and as her invalidism grew, they took the control of the house, as well as themselves, altogether out of her hands. From sixteen they had been in that state of rampant independence and determination to have their own way, which has now, I fear, become as common among girls as it used to be among boys, when education was more neglected than it is nowadays. Boys who are at school – and even when they are young men at the university – must be in some degree of subordination; but girls who do not respect their parents are absolutely beyond this useful power, and can be described as nothing but rampant – the unloveliest as well as the unwholesomest of all mental and moral attitudes. Kate had come out at sixteen, and since that time had been constantly in this rampant state; by sheer force and power of will she had kept Sophy back until she also attained that mature age, but her power ended at that point, and Sophy had then become rampant too. They turned everything upside down in the house, planned their life according to their pleasure, over-rode the stepmother, coaxed the father, who was fond and proud of them – the best part of his character – and set out thus in the Dropmore and Ffarington kind of business. At sixteen girls do not plan to be married – they plan to enjoy themselves; and these noble young gentlemen seemed best adapted to second their intentions. But it is inconceivable how old a young woman is at twenty-one who has begun life at sixteen in this tremendous way. Kate, who had been for five long years thus about the world – at all the balls, at all the pleasure-parties, at all the races, regattas, cricket-matches, flower-shows, every kind of country entertainment – and at everything she could attain to in town in the short season which her father could afford to give them – felt herself about a hundred when she attained her majority. She had done absolutely everything that can be done in the way of amusement – at least in England – and the last Winter and Spring had been devoted to doing the same sort of thing “abroad.” There was nothing new under the sun to this unfortunate young woman – unless, perhaps, it might be getting married, which had for some time begun to appear a worthy object in her eyes. To make a good match and gain a legitimate footing in the society to which Dropmore, etc., belonged; to be able to give “a good setting down” to the unapproachable women who ignored her from its heights – and to snatch the delights of a title by sheer strength and skill from among her hurly-burly of Guardsmen, this had begun to seem to Kate the thing most worth thinking of in the world. It was “full time” she should take some such step, for she was old, blasée, beginning to fear that she must be passée too, – at one and twenty! Nineteen at the outside is the age at which the rampant girl ought to marry in order to carry out her career without a cloud – the marriage, of course, bien entendu, being of an appropriate kind.

The Sunday which I have just described, on which Miss Susan did not go to church, had been spent by the young ladies in their usual way. There had been a river party, preceded by a luncheon at Everard’s house, which, having been planned when the weather was hot, had of course to be carried out, though the day was cold with that chill of July which is more penetrating than December. The girls in their white dresses had paid for their pleasure, and the somewhat riotous late dinner which awaited the party at the Hatch had scarcely sufficed to warm their feet and restore their comfort. It was only next morning, pretty late, over the breakfast which they shared in Kate’s room, the largest of the two inhabited by the sisters, that they could talk over their previous day’s pleasure. And even then their attention was disturbed by a curious piece of news which had been brought to them along with their tray, and which was to the effect that Herbert Austin had suddenly and miraculously recovered his health, thanks having been given for him in the parish church at St. Austin’s on the previous morning. The gardener had gone to church there, with the intention of negotiating with the gardener at Whiteladies about certain seedlings, and he had brought back the information. His wife had told it to the housekeeper, and the housekeeper to the butler, and the butler to the young ladies’ maid, so that the report had grown in magnitude as it rolled onward. Sarah reported with a courtesy that Mr. Herbert was quite well, and was expected home directly – indeed, she was not quite sure whether he was not at home already, and in church when the clergyman read out his name as returning thanks – that would be the most natural way; and as she thought it over, Sarah concluded, and said, that this must have been what she heard.

“Herbert better! what a bore!” said Sophy, not heeding the presence of the maid. “What right has he to get better, I should like to know, and cut papa out?”

“Everybody has a right to do the best for themselves, when they can,” said Kate, whose rôle it was to be sensible; “but I don’t believe it can be true.”

“I assure you, miss,” said Sarah, who was a pert maid, such as should naturally belong to such young ladies, “as gardener heard it with his own ears, and there could be no doubt on the subject. I said, ‘My young ladies won’t never believe it;’ and Mr. Beaver, he said, ‘They’ll find as it’s too true!’ ”

“It was very impudent of Beaver to say anything of the sort,” said Kate, “and you may tell him so. Now go; you don’t require to wait any longer. I’ll ring when I’m ready to have my hair done. Hold your tongue, Soph, for two minutes, till that girl’s gone. They tell everything, and they remember everything.”

“What do I care?” said Sophy; “if twenty people were here I’d just say the same. What an awful bore, when papa had quite made up his mind to have Whiteladies! I should like to do something to that Herbert, if it’s true; and it’s sure to be true.”

“I don’t believe it,” said Kate reflectively. “One often hears of these cases rallying just for a week or two – but there’s no cure for consumption. It would be too teasing if – but you may be sure it isn’t and can’t be – ”

“Everything that is unpleasant comes true,” said Sophy. This was one of the sayings with which she amused her monde, and made Dropmore and the rest declare that “By Jove! that girl was not so soft as she looked.” “I think it is an awful bore for poor papa.”

After they had exhausted this gloomy view of the subject, they began to look at its brighter side, if it had one.

“After all,” said Sophy, “having Whiteladies won’t do very much for papa. It is clear he is not going to have an heir, and he can’t leave it to us; and what good would it do him, poor old thing, for the time he has to live?”

“Papa is not so very old,” said Kate, “nor so very fond of us, either, Sophy. He wants it for himself; and so should I, if I were in his place.”

“He wants it for the coming man,” said Sophy, “who won’t come. I wonder, for my part, that poor mamma don’t steal a child; I should in her place. Where would be the harm? and then everybody would be pleased.”

“Except Everard, and whoever marries Everard.”

“So long as that is neither you nor me,” said Sophy, laughing, “I don’t mind; I should rather like to spite Everard’s wife, if she’s somebody else. Why should men ever marry? I am sure they are a great deal better as they are.”

“Speaking of marrying,” said Kate seriously, “far the best thing for you to do, if it is true about Herbert, is to marry him, Sophy. You are the one that is the most suitable in age. He is just a simple innocent, and knows nothing of the world, so you could easily have him, if you liked to take the trouble; and then Whiteladies would be secured, one way or another, and papa pleased.”

“But me having it would not be like him having it,” said Sophy. “Would he be pleased? You said not just now.”

“It would be the best that could be done,” said Kate; and then she began to recount to her sister certain things that Dropmore had said, and to ask whether Sophy thought they meant anything? which Sophy, wise in her sister’s concerns, however foolish in her own, did not think they did, though she herself had certain words laid up from “Alf,” in which she had more faith, but which Kate scouted. “They are only amusing themselves,” said the elder sister. “If Herbert does get better, marry him, Sophy, with my blessing, and be content.”

“And you could have Everard, and we should neither of us change our names, but make one charming family party – ”

“Oh, bosh! I hate your family parties; besides, Everard would have nothing in that case,” said Kate, ringing the bell for the maid, before whom they did not exactly continue their discussion, but launched forth about Dropmore and Alf.

“There’s been some one over here from the barracks this morning,” said Sarah, “with a note for master. I think it was the Markis’s own man, miss.”

“Whatever could it be?” cried both the sisters together, for they were very slipshod in their language, as the reader will perceive.

“And Miss Kate did go all of a tremble, and her cheeks like strawberries,” Sarah reported in the servants’ hall, where, indeed, the Markis’s man had already learned that nothing but a wedding could excuse such goings on.

“We ain’t such fools as we look,” that functionary had answered with a wink, witty as his master himself.

I do not think that Kate, who knew the world, had any idea, after the first momentary thrill of curiosity, that Dropmore’s note to her father could contain anything of supreme importance, but it might be, and probably was, a proposal for some new expedition, at any one of which matters might come to a crisis; and she sallied forth from her room accordingly, in her fresh morning dress, looking a great deal fresher than she felt, and with a little subdued excitement in her mind. She went to the library, where her father generally spent his mornings, and gave him her cheek to kiss, and asked affectionately after his health.

“I do hope you have no rheumatism, papa, after last night. Oh, how cold it was! I don’t think I shall ever let myself be persuaded to go on the water in an east wind again.”

“Not till the next time Dropmore asks,” said her father, in his surliest voice.

“Dropmore, oh!” Kate shrugged her shoulders. “A great deal I care for what he asks. By-the-bye, I believe this is his cipher. Have you been hearing from Dropmore this morning, papa? and what does his most noble lordship please to want?”

“Bah! what does it matter what he wants?” said Mr. Farrel-Austin, savagely. “Do you suppose I have nothing to do but act as secretary for your amusements? Not when I have news of my own like what I have this morning,” and his eye reverted to a large letter which lay before him with “Whiteladies” in a flowery heading above the date.

“Is it true, then, that Herbert is better?” said Kate.