Arabella

It was the candidly expressed opinion of the Vicar’s children that Mama must have had a great work to prevail upon Papa to consent to Arabella’s going to London. Few things were more reprehensible in his eyes than vanity and pleasure-seeking; and although he never raised any objection to Mama’s chaperoning Arabella and Sophia to the Assemblies at Harrowgate, and had even been known to comment favourably upon their gowns, he always impressed upon them that such diversions, innocent in themselves, would, if indulged in to excess, inevitably ruin the character of the most virtuous female. He had himself no taste for society, and had frequently been heard to animadvert severely on the useless and frivolous lives led by ladies of fashion. Moreover, although he was not in the least above enjoying a good joke, he had the greatest dislike of levity, could never be brought to tolerate idle chatter, and if the conversation turned upon worldly trifles would never fail to give it a more proper direction.

But Lady Bridlington’s invitation to Arabella did not take the Vicar by surprise. He knew that Mrs Tallant had written to her old friend, and however little he approved of the chief motive behind her resolve to launch her daughter into society, certain of the arguments she employed to persuade him could not but carry weight.

‘My dear Mr Tallant,’ said his lady, ‘do not let us dispute about the merits of an advantageous match! But even you will allow that Arabella is an uncommonly handsome girl!’

Mr Tallant allowed it, adding reflectively that Arabella put him forcibly in mind of what her Mama was at the same age. Mrs Tallant was not impervious to this flattery: she blushed, and looked a little roguishly, but said that he need not try to bamboozle her (an expression she had picked up from her sons).

‘All I wish to point out to you, Mr Tallant, is that Arabella is fit to move in the first circles!’ she announced.

‘My love,’ responded the Vicar, with one of his humorous looks, ‘if I believed you, I should perhaps consider it my duty to show you that an ambition to move in the first circles, as you call them, could never be an ideal I could wish any of my daughters to aspire to. But as I am persuaded that you have a great many other arguments to advance, I will hold my peace, and merely beg you to continue!’

‘Well,’ said Mrs Tallant seriously, ‘I fancy – but you must tell me if I am mistaken – that you would not regard with any degree of complaisance an alliance with the Draytons of Knaresborough!’

The Vicar was plainly startled, and directed an enquiring look at his spouse.

‘Young Joseph Drayton is growing extremely particular in his attentions,’ pronounced Mrs Tallant, in a voice of doom. She observed the effect of this, and continued in the blandest way: ‘Of course, I am aware that he is considered to be a great catch, for he will inherit all his father’s wealth.’

The Vicar was betrayed into an unchristian utterance. ‘I could not consent to it! He smells of the shop!’

‘Exactly so!’ agreed Mrs Tallant, well-satisfied. ‘But he has been dangling after Arabella these past six months.’

‘Do you tell me,’ demanded the Vicar, ‘that a daughter of mine encourages his attentions?’

‘By no means!’ promptly responded the lady. ‘Any more than she encourages the attentions of the curate, young Dewsbury, Alfred Hitchen, Humphrey Finchley, or a dozen others! Arabella, my dear sir, is by far the most sought-after belle of these parts!’

‘Dear me!’ said the Vicar, shaking his head in wonderment. ‘I must confess, my love, that none of these young gentlemen would be welcome to me as a son-in-law.’

‘Then, perhaps, Mr Tallant, you cherish hopes of seeing Arabella married to her cousin Tom?’

‘Nothing,’ said the Vicar forcibly, ‘could be farther from my wishes!’ He recollected himself, and added in a more moderate tone: ‘My brother is a very worthy man, according to his lights, and I wish his children nothing but good; but on several counts, which I need not enumerate, I should not desire to see any of my daughters marry their cousins. And, what is more, I am very sure that he has quite other designs for Tom and Algernon!’

‘Indeed he has!’ corroborated Mrs Tallant cordially. ‘He means them to marry heiresses.’

The Vicar bent an incredulous gaze upon her. ‘Does my daughter affect any of these young men?’ he demanded.

‘I fancy not,’ replied Mrs Tallant. ‘That is to say, she does not show any marked preference for any one of them. But when a girl sees no other gentlemen than those who have been dangling after her ever since she left the schoolroom, what, my dear Mr Tallant, must be the end of it? And young Drayton,’ she added musingly, ‘is possessed of a considerable fortune. I do not mean that Arabella would consider that, but there is no denying that the man who drives a smart curricle, and can afford to be begging a female’s acceptance of all the most elegant trifles imaginable, has a decided advantage over his rivals.’

There was a pregnant silence, while all the implications of this speech sank into the Vicar’s brain. He said at length, rather wistfully: ‘I had hoped that one day a suitable parti would present himself, to whom I might have given Arabella with a thankful heart.’

Mrs Tallant threw him an indulgent glance. ‘Very likely, my dear, but it would be a great piece of nonsense to pretend that such things happen when one has made not the least push to bring them about! Eligible partis do not commonly appear as by magic in country villages: one must go out into the world to find them!’ She saw that the Vicar was looking a little pained, and laughed. ‘Now, do not tell me that it was otherwise with us, Mr Tallant, for you know very well I met you first at a party in York! I own it was not in the expectation of my falling in love with you that my Mama took me there, but in your turn you will own that we should never have met if I had sat at home waiting for you!’

He smiled. ‘Your arguments are always unanswerable, my love. Yet I cannot entirely like it. I believe Arabella to be a well-behaved girl enough, but she is very young, after all, and I have thought sometimes that her spirits might, lacking wiser guidance, betray her into unbecoming conduct. Under Lady Bridlington’s roof, she would, I fear, lead a life gay to dissipation, such as must make her unfit afterwards for rational society.’

‘Depend upon it,’ said Mrs Tallant soothingly, ‘she is by far too well-behaved a girl to occasion us a moment’s anxiety. I am sure, too, that her principles are too sound to allow her to lose her head. To be sure, she can be a sad romp, and that, my dear sir, is because she has not yet enjoyed the advantages of town polish. I am hopeful of seeing her much improved by a season spent with Bella Bridlington. And if – mind, I only say if! – she were to contract a suitable alliance I am sure you would be as thankful as anyone could be!’

‘Yes,’ agreed the Vicar, sighing. ‘I should certainly be glad to see her comfortably established, the wife of a respectable man.’

‘And not the wife of young Dewsbury!’ interpolated Mrs Tallant.

‘Indeed, no! I cannot suppose that any child of mine could attain happiness with a man whom I must – with reluctance – think a very vulgar fellow!’

‘In that case, my dear,’ said Mrs Tallant, rising briskly to her feet, ‘I will write to accept Lady Bridlington’s most obliging invitation.’

‘You must do as you think right,’ he said. ‘I have never interfered with what you considered proper for your daughters.’

Thus it was that, at four o’clock on this momentous day, when the Vicar joined his family at the dinner-table, he surprised them by making a humorous reference to Arabella’s projected trip. Not even Betsy would have ventured to have mentioned the scheme, for it was generally supposed that he must disapprove of it. But after grace had been said, and the family had disposed themselves about the long table, Arabella began, not very expeditiously, to carve one of the side-dishes, and the Vicar, looking up from his own labours in time to see her place a slightly mangled wing of chicken on a plate, remarked, with a twinkle: ‘I think Arabella must take lessons in carving before she goes into society, or she will disgrace us all by her unhandiness. It will not do, you know, my dear, to precipitate a dish into your neighbour’s lap, as you seem to be in danger of doing at this moment!’

Arabella blushed, and protested. Sophia, the first to recover from the shock of hearing Papa speak with such good-humour of the London scheme, said: ‘Oh, but, Papa, I am sure it will not signify, for ten to one all the dishes are served by the footmen in grand houses!’

‘I stand corrected, Sophia,’ said the Vicar, with dry meekness.

‘Will Lady Bridlington have many footmen?’ asked Betsy, dazzled by this vision of opulence.

‘One to stand behind every chair,’ promptly replied Bertram. ‘And one to walk behind Arabella every time she desires to take the air; and two to stand up behind my lady’s carriage; and a round dozen, I daresay, to form an avenue in the front hall anytime her ladyship increases her covers for guests. When Arabella returns to us she will have forgotten how to pick up her own handkerchief, mark my words!’

‘Well, I don’t know how she will go on in such a house!’ said Betsy, half-believing him.

‘Nor I, indeed!’ murmured Arabella.

‘I trust she will go on, as you not very elegantly phrase it, my child, exactly as she would in her own home,’ said the Vicar.

Silence followed this rebuke. Bertram made a grimace at Arabella across the table, and Harry dug her surreptitiously in the ribs with his elbow. Margaret, who had been wrinkling her brow over her father’s words, ventured at last to say: ‘Yes, Papa, but I do not precisely see how she can do so! It must be so very different to what we are accustomed to! I should not be surprised, for instance, if she found herself obliged to wear her party-gowns every evening, and I am sure she will not help with the baking, or starch shirts, or feed the chickens, or – or anything of that nature!’

‘That was not quite what I meant, my dear,’ responded the Vicar repressively.

‘Will she not be made to do any work at all?’ exclaimed Betsy. ‘Oh, how much I wish I had a rich godmother!’

This ill-timed remark brought an expression of grave displeasure to the Vicar’s face. It was evident to his family that the picture thus conjured up, of a daughter given over wholly to pleasure, was not one he could contemplate with anything but misgiving. Several darkling looks were cast at Betsy, which boded ill for one tactless enough to call down upon her sisters a lecture on the evils of idleness; but before the Vicar could speak, Mrs Tallant had intervened, calling Betsy to order for chattering, and saying cheerfully: ‘Well, and I think Papa will agree that Arabella is a good girl, and deserves this indulgence more than any of you. I am sure I do not know how I shall manage without her, for whenever I want a task performed I know I may rely upon her to do it. And, what is a great deal to the point, let me tell you all! – she never shows me a pouting face, or complains that she is bored, or falls into a fit of the sullens because she is obliged to mend her old gown instead of purchasing a new one.’

It could scarcely be expected that this masterly speech would please the three damsels to whom it was pointedly addressed, but it had the happy effect of softening the Vicar’s countenance. He glanced at Arabella, who was furiously blushing and holding her head bent over her plate, and said gently: ‘Indeed, I am disposed to think that her character is well-established amongst us as one who wants neither sense nor feeling.’ Arabella looked up quickly, her eyes brightened by tears. He smiled at her, and said in a teasing voice: ‘If she will not let her tongue run like a fiddle-stick, nor express herself in terms which I might almost suppose she learns from her brothers, nor play pranks like a hoyden, I really believe I may indulge the hope that we shall not hear from Lady Bridlington that she is sunk quite beyond reproach in London!’

Such was the relief of his children at escaping one of Papa’s homilies that this mild jest was received with a flattering degree of appreciation. Bertram seized the opportunity afforded by the general outcry of laughing protests to inform Betsy in a savage under-voice that if she opened her lips again he would most faithfully drop her in the middle of the duck-pond on the morrow, which promise so terrified her that she sat mumchance throughout the rest of the meal. Sophia, with real nobility of character, then asked Papa to explain something she had read in Sir John Malcolm’s History of Persia, which the Vicar, whose only personal extravagance was his purchase of books, had lately added to his library. This was a happy inspiration: while her contemporaries gazed at Sophia in stupefaction, the Vicar, becoming quite animated, expounded at length on the subject, quite forgetting the immediate problems of the hour, and reducing his other offspring to a state of speechless indignation by saying, as he rose from the table, that he was glad to find that he had one daughter at least of a scholarly turn of mind.

‘And Sophy never read a word of the book!’ Bertram said bitterly, when, after enduring an evening in the parlour under the scourge of having passages from Sir John Malcolm’s memorable work read aloud to them, he and his two elder sisters had escaped to the sanctuary of the girls’ bedchamber.

‘Oh, yes, I had!’ retorted Sophia, sitting down on the end of her bed, and curling her legs under her in a way that, could her Mama but have seen it, would certainly have called down reproof upon her head.

Margaret, who was always sent up to bed before the appearance of the tea-tray, and thus had been spared the greater part of the evening’s infliction, sat up, hugging her knees, and asked simply: ‘Why?’

‘Well, it was that day that Mama was obliged to go out, and desired me to remain in the parlour in case old Mrs Farnham should call,’ explained Sophia. ‘I had nothing else to do.’

After regarding her fixedly for several moments, her brother and sisters apparently decided that the excuse was reasonable, for they abandoned the subject.

‘I declare I was ready to sink when Papa said that about me!’ remarked Arabella.

‘Yes, but you know, Bella, he is very absent-minded,’ said Sophia, ‘and I fancy he had forgotten what you and Bertram did on Boxing Day, and what he said about your inclination for finery, when you pulled the feathers out of Uncle’s peacocks to furbish up your old bonnet.’

‘Yes, perhaps he had,’ agreed Arabella, in a dampened tone. ‘But all the same,’ she added, her spirits reviving, ‘he never said I had no delicacy of principle, which he said to you when he discovered it was you, Sophy, who put one of Harry’s trousers-buttons into the bag in Church that Sunday!’

This was so unanswerable that Sophia could think of no retort to make. Bertram said suddenly: ‘Well, since it is decided that you are to go to London, Bella, I’ll tell you something!’

Seventeen years’ intimate knowledge of her younger brother was not enough to restrain Arabella from demanding eagerly: ‘Oh, what, pray?’

‘You may get a surprise when you are there!’ said Bertram, in a voice of mystery. ‘Mind, I don’t say you will, but you may!’

‘What can you possibly mean? Tell me, Bertram! – dearest Bertram!’

‘I’m not such a saphead! Girls always blab everything!’

‘I would not! You know I would not! Oh, Bertram!’

‘Don’t heed him!’ recommended Margaret, sinking back on to her pillow. ‘It’s all humbug!’

‘Well, it’s not, miss!’ said her brother, nettled. ‘But you needn’t think I mean to tell you, for I don’t! But don’t be surprised, Bella, if you get a surprise before you have been in London very long!’

This ineptitude naturally threw his sisters into whoops. Unfortunately their mirth reached the ears of old Nurse, who promptly sailed into the room, and delivered herself of a shrill homily on the general impropriety of young gentlemen who sat on the ends of their sisters’ beds. Since she was quite capable of reporting this shocking conduct to Mama, Bertram thought it prudent to remove himself, and the symposium came to an abrupt end. Nurse, blowing out the candles, said that if this came to Mama’s ears there would be no London for Miss Arabella; but apparently it did not come to Mama’s ears, for on the morrow, and indeed on all the succeeding days, nothing was talked of in the Parsonage (except in Papa’s presence) but Arabella’s entrance into the Polite World.

The first and most pressing consideration was the getting together of a wardrobe suitable for a young lady hopeful of making a successful début. Earnest perusal of the fashion journals had cast Arabella into a mood of despair, but Mama took a more cheerful view of the matter. She commanded the houseboy to summon the ubiquitous Joseph Eccles up to the Parsonage, and desired the pair of them to fetch down from one of the attics two formidable trunks. Joseph, who had been employed by the Vicar since the first year of his marriage as the farm-hand, considered himself the mainstay of the establishment, and was only too ready to oblige the ladies; and he lingered in the dressing-room, proffering counsel and encouragement in the broadest of Yorkshire dialects until kindly but firmly dismissed.

A pleasing aroma of camphor pervaded the air as soon as the lids were raised from the trunks, and the removal of a covering of silver paper disclosed treasures innumerable. The trunks contained the finery which Mama had worn (she said) when she was just such a giddy puss as Arabella. When she had married Papa she had had no occasion for such fripperies, but she had not been able to bring herself to give them away, and had packed them up and well-nigh forgotten all about them.

Three ecstatic gasps shuddered on the air as three rapt young ladies dropped down on their knees beside the trunks, and prepared to rummage to their hearts’ content.

There were unimagined delights in the trunks: curled ostrich plumes of various colours; branches of artificial flowers; an ermine tippet (alas, turned sadly yellow with age, but it would serve to trim Sophy’s old pelisse!); a loo-mask; a whole package of finest thread-lace; a tiffany cloak, which set Margaret peacocking round the room; several ells of ribbon of a shade which Mama said was called in her young days opéra brulé, and quite the rage; scarves of gauze, lace, and blonde, spangled and plain; a box containing intriguing knots of ribbon, whose names Mama could not quite remember, though she rather thought that that pale blue bunch was A Sign of Hope, and the pink bow A Sigh of Venus; point-lace tuckers, and lappet-heads; a feather muff; innumerable fans; sashes; a scarlet-flowered damask mantua petticoat – what a figure Mama must have looked in it! – and a velvet cloak, miraculously lined with sable, which had been a wedding-gift to Mama, but which she had scarcely worn, ‘because, my loves, it was finer than anything your aunt possessed, and, after all, she was the Squire’s wife, and dreadfully inclined to take a pet, so that I always took care never to give her the least cause to be offended. But it is a beautiful fur, and will make a muff for Arabella, besides trimming a pelisse!’

It was fortunate that Mama was an indulgent parent, and so very fond of a joke, for the trunks contained, besides these treasures, such old-fashioned garments that the three Misses Tallant were obliged to laugh. Fashions had changed a great deal since Mama was a girl, and to a generation accustomed to high-waisted gowns of muslin and crape, with little puff-sleeves, and demure flounces round the hems, the stiff, voluminous silks and brocades Mama had worn, with their elaborate undergowns, and their pads, and their wired bodices, seemed not only archaic, but very ugly too. What was this funny jacket, with all the whalebone? A Caraco? Gracious! And this striped thing, for all the world like a dressing-gown? A lustring sack – well, it was certainly very like a sack, to be sure! Did Mama wear it in company? What was in this elegant box? Poudre à la Maréchale! But did Mama then powder her hair, like the picture of Grandmama Tallant, up at the Hall? Oh, not quite like that! A gray powder? Oh, Mama, no! And you without a gray hair to your head! How did you dress it? Not cut at all? Curls to the waist at the back? And all those rolls and puffs over the ears! How could Mama have had the patience to do it? So odd as it must have looked, too!

But Mama, turning over half-forgotten dresses, grew quite sentimental, remembering that she had been wearing this very gown of green Italian taffeta, over a petticoat of satin, soupir d’étouffe (unaccountably missing), when she had first met Papa; remembering the pretty compliment paid to her by that rejected baronet when he had seen her in the white silk waist Sophia was holding up (it had had a book-muslin train, and there should be somewhere a pink silk coat, very smart, which she had worn with it); remembering how shocked her Mama had been when she had seen that rose-coloured Indian muslin underwear which Eliza – your Aunt Eliza, my loves – had brought her from London.

The girls did not know where to look when Mama sighed over a cherry-striped gown, and said how pretty it had been, for really it was quite hideous, and it made them feel almost uncomfortable to think of Mama’s being seen abroad in such a garment. It was beyond laughter, so they sat respectfully silent, and were profoundly relieved when suddenly she shook off this unaccustomed mood, and smiled, and said in her own brisk way: ‘Well, I daresay you think I must have looked like a dowd, but I assure you I did not! However, none of these brocades is of any use to Arabella, so we will put them up again. But the straw-coloured satin will do famously for a ball-dress, and we may trim it with some of the point-lace.’

There was a dressmaker in High Harrowgate, an elderly Frenchwoman, who had originally come to England as an émigrée from the Revolution. She had very often made dresses for Mrs Tallant and her daughters, and since she had excellent taste, and did not charge extortionate prices, except during the short season, it was decided that she should be entrusted with the task of making all Arabella’s gowns. On the first day that the horses could be spared from the farm, Mrs Tallant and her two elder daughters drove to High Harrowgate, taking with them three bandboxes full of the silks, velvets, and laces which had finally been selected from Mrs Tallant’s hoard.

Harrowgate, which was situated between Heythram and the large town of Knaresborough, was a watering-place renowned more for the excellent properties of its medicinal springs than for the modishness of its visitors. It consisted of two straggling villages, more than a mile apart, and enjoyed a summer season only. Since upwards of a thousand persons, mostly of valetudinarian habits, visited it then to drink the waters, both villages and their environs boasted more hotels and boarding-houses than private residences. From May till Michaelmas, public balls were held twice a week at the New Assembly Rooms; there was a Promenade, standing in the middle of an agreeable garden; a theatre; and a lending library, much patronised by Mrs Tallant and her daughters.

Mme Dupont was delighted to receive a client in the middle of January, and no sooner learned the reason for the bespeaking of such an extensive wardrobe than she entered into the spirit of the adventure with Gallic enthusiasm, fell into raptures over the silks and satins in the three bandboxes, and spread fashion-plates, and rolls of cambric and muslin and crape before the ladies’ eyes. It would be a pleasure, she said, to make for a demoiselle with such a taille as Mademoiselle Tallant’s; already she perceived how Madame’s satin polonaise could be transformed into a ball-dress of the most ravishing, while as for the taffeta over-dress – alas, that the elegant toilettes of the last century were no longer in vogue! – she could assure Madame that nothing could be more comme il faut than an opera cloak fashioned out of its ample widths, and trimmed with ruched velvet ribbon. As for the cost, that would be a matter for arrangement of the most amicable.

Arabella, who in general had a decided will of her own, as well as very definite ideas on the colour and style of her dresses, was so much shocked by the number of gowns Mama and Mme Dupont seemed to think indispensable for a sojourn in London that she scarcely opened her lips, except to agree in a faint voice with whatever was suggested to her. Even Sophia, who so often earned reproofs from Papa for chattering like a magpie, was awed into comparative silence. Not all her study of the fashion-plates in The Ladies’ Monthly Museum had prepared her for the dazzling creations sketched in La Belle Assemblée. But Mama and Mme Dupont were agreed that only the simplest of these would be convenable for such a young lady. One or two ball-dresses of satin, or orange-blossom sarsnet, would be needed for grand occasions, but nothing could be prettier, said Madame, than crape or fine jaconet muslin for the Assemblies at Almack’s. Some silver net drapery, perhaps – she had the very thing laid by – or a Norwich shawl, carried negligently across the elbows, would lend a cachet to the plainest gown. Then, for a morning half-dress, might she suggest a figured French muslin, with a demi-train? Or perhaps Mademoiselle would prefer a Berlin silk, trimmed with silk floss? For carriage dresses, she would recommend fine cambric, worn with a velvet mantle, and a Waterloo hat, or even a fur bonnet, ornamented – Mademoiselle’s colouring made it permissible, even imperative! – with a bunch of cherries.

Morning dresses, afternoon dresses, carriage dresses, walking dresses, ball dresses – it seemed to Arabella and Sophia that the list would never come to an end. ‘I cannot imagine how you will find time to wear the half of them!’ whispered Sophia.

‘Shoes, half-boots, reticules, gloves, stockings,’ murmured Mrs Tallant, conning her list. ‘Those will do for another day. You must take the greatest care of your silk stockings, my love, for I cannot afford to buy you many pairs! Hats – h’m, yes! What a fortunate thing it was that I kept all my old ostrich feathers! We shall see what we can contrive. I think that will do for today.’

‘Mama, what will Bella wear when she goes to the Drawing-room?’ asked Sophia.

‘Ah, pour ça, alors, la grande parure!’ cried Madame, her eye brightening.

Mrs Tallant crushed these budding hopes. ‘Full dress, to be sure, my dear: satin, I daresay. Feathers, of course. I do not know if hoops are still worn at Court. Lady Bridlington is to make your sister a present of the dress, and I know I may depend upon her to choose just what is right. Come, my dears! If we are to call upon your uncle on our way home it is high time we were off!’

‘Call upon my uncle?’ repeated Sophia, surprised.

Mrs Tallant coloured slightly, but replied in an airy way: ‘Certainly, my love: why should we not? Besides, one should never neglect the observances of civility, and I am sure he would think it very odd in me not to apprise him of Arabella’s going to London.’

Sophia knitted her brows a little over this, for although there had always been a good deal of coming and going between the two boys at the Hall, and their young cousins at the Vicarage, visits between their respective parents were rare. The Squire and his brother, while remaining on perfectly amicable terms, scarcely possessed a thought in common, each regarding the other with affectionate contempt; while the late Lady Tallant, besides labouring under all the disadvantages of a jealous temper, had been, even in her charitable brother-in-law’s estimation, a very under-bred woman. There were two children of the marriage: Thomas, a bucolic young man of twenty-seven; and Algernon, who held a commission in the –th Regiment, stationed at present in Belgium.

The Hall, which was situated in a pretty little park, about a mile from the village of Heythram, was a commodious, unpretentious house built of the prevailing gray stone of the district. Comfort rather than elegance was the predominant note struck by its furniture and decorations, and it bore, in despite of the ministrations of an excellent housekeeper, the indefinable air of a residence that lacked a mistress. The Squire was more interested in his stables than in his house. He was generally thought to be a warm man, but careful; and although he was fond of his nephews and nieces, and always good-naturedly mounted Bertram during the hunting-season, it was rarely that his affection led him to do more for them than to give them a guinea apiece every Christmas. But he was a hospitable man, and always seemed pleased to welcome his brother’s family to his board.

He came bustling out of the house as soon as the Parsonage carriage drew up at his door, and exclaimed in a loud voice: ‘Well, well, if it’s not Sophia, and the girls! Well, this is a pleasant circumstance! What, only the two of you? Never mind! Come in, and take a glass of wine! Bitter cold, ain’t it? Ground’s like iron: don’t know when we shall get out again, damme if I do!’

Talking all the time, he led the ladies into a square parlour in the front of the house, breaking off his conversation only to shout to someone to bring refreshments into the parlour, and to be quick about it. He then ran his eye over his nieces, and said that they were prettier than ever, and demanded to be told how many beaux they could boast between them. They were spared the necessity of answering this jocular question by his instantly turning to Mrs Tallant, and saying: ‘Can’t hold a candle to their Mama, though, I swear! I declare, it’s an age since I’ve clapped eyes on you, Sophia! Can’t think why you and poor Henry don’t come up more often to eat your mutton with me! And how is Henry? Still poring over his books, I dare swear! I never knew such a fellow! But you shouldn’t let him keep young Bertram’s nose glued to ’em, my dear: that’s a good lad – regular devil to go, nothing bookish about him!’

‘Bertram is reading for Oxford, Sir John. You know he must do so!’

‘Mark my words, he’ll do no good there!’ said the Squire. ‘Better make a soldier of him, as I did with my young rascal. But tell him to come up to the stables here, if he wants to see a rare piece of horseflesh: great rumps and hocks, grand shoulders! Don’t mind the boy’s trying him, if he likes to, but he’s young yet: needs schooling. Does Bertram mean to come out when this frost breaks? Tell him the bay has a splint forming, or you may call me a Dutchman, but he may ride Thunderer, if he chooses.’

‘I think,’ said Mrs Tallant, with a faint sigh, ‘that his Papa does not wish him to hunt any more this season. It quite takes his mind off his book, poor boy!’

‘Henry’s an old woman,’ replied the Squire. ‘Ain’t it enough for him to have James as bookish as he is himself? Where is that lad? Up at Oxford, eh? Ah well, each man to his taste! Now, that other young rascal of yours – what’s his name? Harry! I like the cut of his jib, as he’d say himself. Going to sea, he tells me. How shall you manage it?’

Mrs Tallant explained that one of her brothers was to use his interest in Harry’s favour. The Squire seemed satisfied with this, asked jovially after the health of his godson and namesake, and set about pressing cold meat and wine upon his guests. It was some time before any opportunity offered of breaking to him of the visit, but when the spate of his conversation abated a little, Sophia, who could scarcely contain herself for impatience, said abruptly: ‘Sir, do you know that Arabella is going to London?’

He stared, first at her, and then at Arabella. ‘Eh? What’s that you say? How comes this about?’

Mrs Tallant, frowning reprovingly at Sophia, explained the matter. He listened very intently, nodding, and pursing up his lips, as his habit was when he was interested; and after turning it over in his mind for several moments, began to perceive what an excellent thing it was, and to congratulate Arabella upon her good fortune. After he had wished her a great many town-beaux, envied the lucky one who should win her, and prophesied that she would shine down all the London beauties, Mrs Tallant brought his gallantry to an end by suggesting that her daughters would like to go to the housekeeper’s room to visit good Mrs Paignton, who was always so kind to them. The style of the Squire’s pleasantries was not just to her taste; moreover, she wished to have some private talk with him.

He had a great many questions to ask her, and comments to make. The more he thought about the scheme the better he liked it, for although he was fond of his niece, and considered her a remarkably handsome girl, he did not wish her to become his daughter-in-law. His understanding was not quick, nor had he much power of perception, but it had lately been borne in upon him that his heir had begun to dangle after his cousin in a marked manner. He did not suppose that Tom’s affections were deeply engaged, and he was hopeful that if Arabella were removed from the neighbourhood he would soon recover from his mild infatuation, and make some more eligible lady the object of his gallantry. He had a suitable girl in his eye for Tom, but being a fairminded man he was obliged to own that Miss Maria was cast very much in the shade by Arabella. Nothing, therefore, that Mrs Tallant could have told him would have met with more approval from him. He gave the scheme his warmest approbation, and told her that she was a sensible woman.

‘Ay, you need not tell me! This is your doing, Sophia! Poor Henry never had a particle of sense! A dear, good fellow, of course, but when a man has a quiverful of children he needs to be a little sharper than Henry. But you have all your wits about you, my dear sister! You are doing just as you should: the girl’s uncommon handsome, and should do well for herself. Ay, ay, you will be setting about the wedding preparations before the cat has time to lick her ear! Lady Bridlington, eh? One of the London nobs, I daresay: couldn’t be better! But it will cost a great deal!’

‘Indeed, you are right, Sir John,’ said Mrs Tallant. ‘It will cost a very great deal, but when such an opportunity is offered every effort should be made to take advantage of it, I believe.’

‘Ay, ay, you will be laying your money out to good purpose!’ he nodded. ‘But can you trust this fine lady of yours to keep half-pay officers, and such-like, out of the girl’s way? It won’t do to have her running off with some penniless fellow, you know, and all your trouble wasted!’

The fact that the same thought had more than once crossed her mind did not make this piece of plain-speaking any more agreeable to Mrs Tallant. She considered it extremely vulgar, and replied in a repressive tone that she believed she might depend on Arabella’s good sense.

‘You had better drop a word of warning in your friend’s ear,’ said Sir John bluntly. ‘You know, Sophia, if that girl of yours were to catch a man of property, and, damme, I don’t see why she shouldn’t! – it would be a great thing for her sisters! Ay, the more I think on it the better I like it! It is worth all the expense. When does she go? How do you mean to send her?’

‘As to that, it is not yet decided, Sir John, but if Mrs Caterham holds by her original scheme, and lets Miss Blackburn go next month – you must know that she is the governess, I daresay – she could travel with Arabella. I believe her home is in Surrey, so she must go to London.’

‘But you won’t send little Bella on the stage-coach!’

Mrs Tallant sighed. ‘My dear sir, the cost of posting is too great to be even thought of! I own, I do not like it, but beggars, you know, cannot be choosers!’

The Squire began to look very thoughtful. ‘Well, that won’t do,’ he said presently. ‘No, no, we can’t have that! Driving up to your grand friend’s house in a hackney! We shall have to contrive a little, Sophia. Now, let me see!’

He sat staring into the fire for some minutes, while his sister-in-law pensively gazed out of the window, and tried not to let her mind dwell on what her sensitive husband’s feelings must be, could he but have had the least idea of what she was doing.

‘I’ll tell you what, sister!’ said the Squire suddenly. ‘I’ll send Bella to London in my travelling carriage, that’s what I’ll do! No sense in wasting money on posting: it don’t matter to the girl if she spends some time on the road. What’s more, those post-chaises can’t take up all the baggage I’ll be bound Bella will have with her. Ay, and this governess of yours will have a box as well, I daresay.’

‘Your travelling carriage!’ exclaimed Mrs Tallant, rather startled.

‘That’s it. Never use it myself: it hasn’t been out of the coach-house since my poor Eliza died. I’ll set the men on to furbish it up: it ain’t one of these smart, newfangled barouches, but it’s a handsome carriage – I bought it for Eliza, when we were first married, and it has my crest on the panel. You would not be comfortable, sending the girl off with strange post-boys, you know: much better to let my old coachman drive her, and I’ll send one of the grooms along to sit up beside him, with a pistol in his pocket in case of highwaymen.’ He rubbed his hands together, well-pleased with the scheme, and began to estimate how many days it would take a strong pair of horses – or, at a pinch, even four – to reach London without getting knocked-up. He was inclined to think the plan would answer very well, and that Arabella would not at all object to resting the nags a day here or there upon the road. ‘Or she might travel by easy stages, you know!’ he said.

Upon reflection, Mrs Tallant perceived that this plan had much to recommend it. Against the evils of lingering in the various posting-houses along the route, must be set the advantages of being driven by a steady, trustworthy coachman, and of being able, as the Squire had pointed out, to carry all the trunks and bandboxes in the carriage, instead of having to send them to town by carrier. She thanked him, therefore, and was still expressing the sense of her obligation to him when the young ladies came back into the room.

The Squire greeted Arabella with great joviality, pinching her cheek, and saying: ‘Well, puss, this is a new come-out for you, eh? I’ll swear you’re in high gig! Now, here’s your mother and I have been putting our heads together, and the long and the short of it is you are to go to London in prime style, in your poor aunt’s carriage, and Timothy-coachman to drive you. How will that be, my lass?’

Arabella, who had very pretty manners, thanked him, and said everything that was proper. He appeared pleased, told her she might give him a kiss, and he would be satisfied, and suddenly walked out of the room, adjuring her to wait, for he had a little something for her. When he came back, he found his visitors ready to take their leave of him. He shook hands warmly with them all, and pressed into Arabella’s a folded banknote, saying: ‘There! That is to buy yourself some fripperies with, puss!’

She was quite overcome, for she had not expected anything of the sort; coloured, and stammered that he was by far too kind. He liked to be thanked, and beamed at her, and pinched her cheek again, very well satisfied with himself and her.

‘But, Mama,’ said Sophia, when they were driving away from the Hall, ‘you will never let poor Arabella go to town in that antiquated carriage of my uncle’s!’

‘Nonsense!’ replied her mother. ‘It is a very respectable carriage, and if it is old-fashioned I daresay it is none the worse for that. No doubt you would rather see her dash off in a chaise-and-four, but it would cost as much as fifty or sixty pounds, besides what one must give the postilions, and is not to be thought of. Why, even a pair of horses, so far as we are from London, would mean thirty pounds, and all for what? To be sure, it will be a little slow, but Miss Blackburn will be with your sister, and if they are obliged to stay a day in an inn – to rest the horses, you know – she will be able to look after her, and I may be comfortable in my mind.’

‘Mama!’ said Arabella faintly. ‘Mama!’

‘Good gracious, my love, what is it?’

Arabella dumbly proffered the Squire’s banknote. Mrs Tallant took it from her, saying: ‘You would like me to take care of it for you, would you? Very well, I will do so, my dear, or you would be squandering it on presents for your brothers and sisters, perhaps!’

‘Mama, it is a bill for fifty pounds!’

‘No!’ gasped Sophia.

‘Well, that is certainly very generous of your uncle,’ said Mrs Tallant. ‘If I were you, Arabella, I would embroider a pair of slippers for him before you go away, for you will not like to be backward in any little attention.’

‘Oh, no! But I never dreamed – I am sure I did not thank him half enough! Mama, will you take it for my dresses, please?’

‘Certainly not. That is all provided for. You will find it very much more comfortable in London to have this money by you – indeed, I had hoped your uncle might give you some-thing to spend! There will be little things you may want to purchase, and vails to the servants, you know, and so on. And although your Papa would not like you to gamble precisely, there may be loo-parties, and naturally you would wish to play. In fact, it would be awkward if you did not.’

Sophia opened her eyes at this. ‘Papa does not like any of us to play gambling games, ma’am, does he? He says that cards are to blame for many of the evils –’

‘Yes, my dear, very likely! But a loo-party is quite a different thing!’ said Mrs Tallant, somewhat obscurely. She fidgeted with her reticule for a moment, and then added, a little consciously: ‘I should not tease Papa with telling him the whole history of our doings today, girls. Gentlemen do not take the same interest in such things as we do, and I am sure he has very much more important things to think of.’

Her daughters did not pretend to misunderstand her. ‘Oh, I would not breathe a word to him!’ said Sophia.

‘No,’ agreed Arabella. ‘And particularly not about the fifty pounds, for I am sure he would say it was too much, and I must give it back to my uncle! And I don’t think I could!’