The Last of the Mortimers

I cannot say I very much admired this piece of advice; and if Harry had thought me the least likely to take it, I am sure he would not have been so ready with his good counsels. The party disappointed me a great deal. How is it one reads in books of society being so captivating, and intoxicating, and all that, and how, when one is used to it, one can’t do without it? On the contrary, it was as dull—duller than anybody could imagine! Instead of that delightful stream of conversation always kept up, and so easy, and so witty, and so clever, you could see perfectly well that everybody was trying to contrive what they should say, and to find out things that would bear talking about. The poor lady of the house was so anxious to keep up the talk that she ate no dinner in the first place; and in the second, evidently frightened by the pauses that occurred, kept talking loud herself, and dancing on from one subject to another till she was quite breathless. Then there was one man who was expected to make you laugh—people prepared to laugh whenever he opened his lips; but I am sorry to say I was so indiscreet as only to stare at him, and wonder what it was about. I caught the eye of the young lady sitting by him as I did so. She was little,—less than me,—dark, and very, very pretty. She was only Miss somebody, but she was dressed more richly than anybody there, and had the most beautiful bracelets. I could not help feeling a little when I looked at my poor wrists and my white muslin dress—I who was married, and she only a young girl; when, just at that moment, she gave me a quick look, lifting up her eyebrows, and smiling rather disdainfully at the great wit beside her. Immediately we two were put in communication somehow. I suppose it was mesmerism. Her eyes kept seeking mine all the time of dinner. The odd thing about her was that her hair was quite short, hanging in little curls upon her neck, like a child’s; and of all things in the world, for such a child to wear, she was dressed in violet velvet, the most beautiful shade in the world. I suppose Harry would have said she was a little humbug too, and did it for effect; but, to be sure, it must have been wealth and not poverty that did it in her case. When we went up to the drawing-room after dinner, she very soon made her way to me. The other ladies, most of them belonging to the regiment, had come round me, and were doing their best to discover why I had been kept in the dark so long, and whether anything could be found out about me. I stood at bay pretty well, I think; but when Miss Cresswell came in, somehow all at once, like a fresh little breeze, in her soft velvet dress, to the sofa beside me, I really felt I could have laid down my head on her shoulder and cried. To be sure it was very foolish; one can smile and keep up when one is being baited, and when one finds a real friend after being aggravated out of one’s life, it is only natural to feel disposed to cry. I say a real friend, though I never saw her before,—it was mesmerism, I suppose; we took to each other at once.

We had got quite intimate before the gentlemen came upstairs. I had told her where we lived, and she promised to come and see me, and we had found out a great many opinions we had in common. Things were different, however, when the gentlemen appeared. All the young men hovered about Miss Cresswell. There were few young ladies, and she was certainly much the prettiest; and, I am very grieved to have to say it—I cannot deny that she did flirt a little. She was disdainful, and would take no notice of anybody at first, but by degrees she did come to little bursts of flirtation; and I am afraid she liked it too. Then there began to be things said about her and me which displeased me. We were “Art and Nature,” somebody said; and some of the gentlemen evidently entertained the same feeling that Harry indicated, when he said they would suppose me a little humbug. Evidently we were both thought little humbugs, sitting by each other to set each other off. Some of them, I do believe, thought it had all been made up beforehand. Certainly we were a strange contrast; I, in my plain white dress, with no ornaments; she in velvet, with such a quantity of jewellery. But to have people looking at me, and contrasting me with Miss Cresswell, and making jokes upon my dress and hers, was what I did not choose to put up with. People accustomed to society may like it, but I did not. So I got up and took Harry’s arm, and went to look at a picture. Nobody spoke to us for some five minutes or so, but we were close to some ladies talking with all their might. Then some one touched my arm, and I saw Miss Cresswell had followed me, and brought an old gentleman with her. This was her father. I got behind one of the talking ladies to veil my “simplicity,” that there might be no more nonsense about it. The ladies were talking of women working. Oh, so little they knew or pretended to know about it; I wonder what they would have thought if they could have seen my laundry operations; or, indeed, I wonder, under all their fine talk, whether they had not, of mornings, some work to do themselves. However, I only tell this from the glimpse it gave me of my new friend.

“It is all very well to speak of hardships,” cried Miss Cresswell. “I can’t see any hardship in doing one’s work. Ah! don’t you think they are very happy who have something to do?—something they must do whether they like it or not. I hate always doing things if I like! it is the most odious, tiresome stuff! If I like! and if I like it pray, what is the good of it? It is not work any longer, it is only pleasure.”

“My dear child,” said one of the old ladies, “be thankful you have so much ease and leisure. Your business just now is to please your papa.”

Here the old gentleman burst in with a long slow laugh, “To worry him, you mean,” said Mr. Cresswell; “tell her of her duty, Mrs. Scrivin. Ah, my dear lady, she’s contrairy!” he cried, shaking his head with a certain air of complacence and ruefulness. Miss Cresswell gave him such a flashing, wicked look out of her dark eyes, and then seized my hand to lead me away somewhere. She was not a dutiful good girl, it appeared; she did not look like it. Now she was roused up, first by flirting, and then by rebellion and opposition, you could see it in her eyes. I am sorry, I am ashamed to confess it—but I do believe I liked her the better for being so wicked. It is very dreadful to say such a thing, but I am afraid it was true.

Chapter IV

OUR fat Italian friend below stairs began to give us great amusement just then. Wherever he went he carried under his arm that square volume as fat as himself, in which Lizzie was at present pursuing her occult and bewildered studies. To see Domenico (for that was his name), coming to a sudden halt straight before you, blocking out all the light from that tiny passage which Mrs. Goldsworthy called her “hall,” and announcing, with a flourish of his dictionary, that he had something to communicate, was irresistibly comic certainly; but it was a little embarrassing as well. Domenico’s verbs were innocent of either past, present, or future. I presume he was quite above any considerations of grammar, except that supplied to him by nature, in his own language, and was not aware that such a master of the ceremonies existed to introduce him to the new tongue, which the poor fellow found so crabbed and unmanageable. I have heard of people managing to get on in foreign countries with a language composed of nouns and the infinitive of verbs (I honestly confess, that when I heard this story first, I had very vague ideas of what the infinitive of a verb was); a primitive savage language containing the possibilities of existence; eating, drinking, and sleeping; but quite above the conventional uses of conversation. Domenico’s ambition was far higher, but his information was absolutely confined to those same infinitives. He knew the word only as it stood in the dictionary—what were tenses and numbers to him? But you will perceive that a conversation conducted on these principles was necessarily wanting in precision, and that the conversing persons did not always understand each other with the clearness that might have been desired.

One clear spring morning, a few days after the party, I was going out about household affairs, when Domenico stopped me on the way to the door. He had his coat off, and the immense expanse of man in shirt-sleeves, which presented itself before me, cannot be expressed by description. As usual, he was smiling all over his face; as usual, his red lips and white teeth opened out of his beard with a primitive fulness and genial good-humour; as usual, he seized his beard with one hand as he addressed me, opening out his big dictionary on the table with the other. “Signora,” cried Domenico, “the master my—me, of me,” first pointing at himself, and then, to make assurance sure, boxing his chest emphatically, “the my master,—Signora understand?—come back.”

“What?” cried I, “he has come back, has he, Domenico?”

Domenico nodded a hundred times with the fullest glee and rapture. “I—me—Domenico,” he cried, again boxing himself, that there might be no doubt of his identity, “make prepare.”

From which I divined that the master was not yet returned; and, nodding half as often as Domenico, by way of signifying my entire content and sympathy, foolishly concluded that I was let off and might pass. However, Domenico was not yet done with me.

“The Signora give little of the advice,” said Domenico, with unusual clearness, opening the door of his parlour, and inviting me by many gestures to enter. I looked in, much puzzled, and found the room in all the agonies of change. The carpet had been lifted, and the floor polished, which, perhaps, explained the sounds we had heard for some days. I cannot describe how the mean planks of poor Mrs. Goldsworthy’s little parlour, many of them gaping apart, looked under the painstaking labours of Domenico. He had contrived to rub them into due slipperiness and a degree of shine; but the result was profoundly dismal, and anything but corresponding to the face of complacency with which Domenico regarded his handiwork. The fat fellow watched my eyes, and was delighted at first to see my astonishment; but, perceiving immediately, with all the quick observation which our straitened possibilities of speech made necessary, that my admiration was by no means equal to surprise, his countenance fell. “He not pleases to the Signora,” said Domenico. Then he hastened to the corner where the rejected carpet lay in a roll, and spread a corner of it over the floor. I nodded my head again and applauded. Domenico’s disappointment was great.

“But for the sommere?” said Domenico with a melancholy interrogation.

“It is never so warm in England,—cold, cold,” I said, with great emphasis and distinctness. Domenico heard and brightened up.

“Ah, thank! ah, thank! not me remember. England! ah! Inghilterra! no Italia! ah, thank! the Signora make good.”

The Signora was permitted to consider herself dismissed, I concluded by the bows that followed, and I hastened to the door, outstripping, as I thought, the anxious politeness of the fat Italian. But I wronged his devotion: with that light step, which was so ludicrously out of proportion to his enormous figure, he swung out of the room to open the door for me, and accomplished it in spite of my precipitation, taking in his vast dimensions somehow so as to pass me without collision. I went about my business with all the greater lightness after this comical encounter, and a little curiosity, I confess, in respect to the master who was coming home. Harry had heard of him already, as having quite a romantic story attached to him. He had come to Chester to see some lady whom he was quite confident of finding, and had been hunting all the neighbouring country for her without meeting anybody who knew even her name. It was supposed he had gone to make inquiries somewhere else, and now he was coming home. I got quite interested about it. I pictured him out to myself quite a romantic Italian, of course, with long hair, and a picturesque cloak, and possibly a guitar. I made up a story in my own mind, like that story of the Eastern girl and A’Becket—that prettiest story! I could fancy Domenico’s master, not knowing much more English, perhaps, than Domenico, wandering about everywhere with the name on his lips; for, of course, it must be a love-story. It is impossible to imagine it could be anything else.

In the evening, when Harry and I were going out for a little walk, Domenico suddenly presented himself again, and stopped us. This time he was beaming broader than ever with smiles and innocent complacent self-content. He invited us into the parlour with a multitude of bows. Harry, who had heard the morning’s adventure, went immediately, and I followed him. The room was all in the most perfect tidiness; Mrs. Goldsworthy’s hideous ornaments were put in corners, ornaments of any kind being apparently better than none in Domenico’s eyes. But the mantel-piece, where the little flower-glasses had heretofore held sole sway, was now occupied by some plaster figures bought from some wandering image-merchant, whom Domenico had loudly fraternised and chattered with at the door some days before. In the middle was a bust of Dante, upon which the Italian had placed a wreath of green leaves. The walls were covered with cheap-coloured prints in frames—I suspect of Domenico’s own manufacture; such prints as people fasten up, all frameless in their simplicity, upon walls of nurseries: gay, bright, cheap, highly-coloured articles, which quite satisfied the taste of Domenico, himself a child in everything but size and years. It was nothing to his simple mind that they had no money value, and I suppose no value in art either. I don’t suppose Domenico knew anything about art, though he was an Italian. But he knew about decoration! He had made the walls blush and smile to welcome the new-comer. I trust his master was no artist either, and could appreciate the adornments which made the face of Domenico beam. The good fellow was so pleased that he forgot his dictionary; he burst forth into long explanations, interspersed by bursts of laughter and gestures of delight, in his own tongue. He threw open the door of the little room behind to reveal to us the arrangements of his master’s bedchamber. He explained to Harry—at least I have no doubt, by the way he pointed to the carpet, and the frequency of the word Signora, that this was what he meant—all about the carpet and his polished floor. At last it suddenly flashed upon Domenico that he was spending his eloquence in vain. He rushed to the table where his beloved dictionary reposed; he dashed at its pages in frantic haste, with wild pantomimic entreaties to us to wait. “Is good? good?” said Domenico, with an eager expressiveness which made up for his defective verbs. I applauded with all the might of gestures and smiles; upon which our friend once more opened the door for us. “To-morrow! after to-morrow!” said the good fellow. It was then his master was coming home.

And, I am sorry to say, Harry was rather disposed to laugh at the fat Italian, and to be sarcastic upon his beautiful prints. Harry did not know anything in the world about pictures; but he knew how cheap these were, and that was enough for him, the prose Englishman. I am thankful to say that I soon reduced him to silence. He declared I was savage in good Domenico’s defence.

Chapter V

“MEM, he’s been at the market,” said Lizzie, next morning, “and bought a hen; and he smiles and laughs to himself like to bring down the house.”

This was the first bulletin of the important day on which the Italian gentleman was expected home.

The next report was more painful to Lizzie’s feelings. “He’s been at the chapel,” said Lizzie, in a horrified whisper, “and brought hame water to put in the wee bowlie at the maister’s bedhead. Oh, did you see it? it has a cross, and—and—a figure on’t,” said Lizzie, with a deep awe, “and a wee round bowlie for the water. What’ll yon be for? I’m no sure it’s safe to be in the same house.”

Lizzie’s horror, however, did not diminish her curiosity. After a little interval another scrap of information reached my attentive ear. “He has some veal on the kitchen-table,” said Lizzie, “and if he’s no’ working at it himsel’! A man! cutting away and paring away, and putting the pan a’ ready like a woman—and, eh, mem, the wastry’s dreadful. He’s making holes in’t and stuffin’ them fu’ o’ something. Noo he’s puttin’t on the fire.”

That day baby was neglected for the first time. Lizzie was too much excited and interested—not to say that she had an observant eye and believed it quite possible that she might receive a hint from this man of all work—to repress her natural curiosity. The next thing she reported was a half-alarmed statement that “he was away out again and left it at the fire; and what if it was sitting to1 before he came hame?” Lizzie’s dread of this accident carried her off downstairs to watch Domenico’s stew with friendly anxiety. In about an hour she re-appeared again.

“He’s come back; and, eh! o’ a’ the things in the world to think upon, it’s a box of thae nasty things he smokes!” cried Lizzie. “If the gentlemen smokes tae, we’ll a’ be driven out of the house.”

Just then, however, another incident occurred which interrupted Lizzie’s observations. As she went out of the room, in silent despair, after her last alarming presentiment, somebody evidently encountered her coming up. “I want Mrs. Langham, please,” cried Miss Cresswell’s voice. “Are you her maid? Oh, I’m not to be shown into the drawing-room. I am to go to her. Where is she?—in the nursery? Show me where to go, please.”

“But you maun go to the drawing-room,” said Lizzie, making, as I felt sure from the little quiver in her voice, her bob to the young lady, and audibly opening the sacred door of our state apartment.

“Maun? do you mean must? I never do anything I must,” said Miss Cresswell. “There now! make haste; show me where Mrs. Langham is.”

“The drawing-room is the place for leddies that come visiting,” said Lizzie, resolutely. “I’ll no let ye in ony other place.”

“You’ll not let me in!—what do you mean, you impertinent child?” cried Miss Cresswell.

“I’m no a child,” cried Lizzie. “I ken my duty; and if I was to loose my good place what good would that do onybody? If ye please, ye’ll come in here.”

The pause of astonishment that followed was evident by the silence; then a little quick impatient step actually passed into that poor little drawing-room. “You strange little soul! but I’ll tell Mrs. Langham,” cried Miss Cresswell.

“I’m no a soul,” said Lizzie; “I’m just like other folk. I’m Mrs. Langham’s lass; and she kens me different from a stranger. What name will I say, if ye please?”

This question was answered by a burst of laughter from the visitor, which I increased by throwing open the door of my concealment and disclosing myself with baby in my arms. He had on his best frock by accident, which explains my rashness.

“How have you managed it?” cried Miss Cresswell; “why, here is a romance-servant. Dear Mrs. Langham, tell me what you have done to make her so original—and let me have baby. I have not come to make a call, as that creature supposed. I have come as a friend—you said I might. Why must I be brought into this room?”

“It is the most cheerful room,” said I, evading the question: “however, Lizzie did not mean to be saucy—she knew no better—but she is the most famous help in the world, though she is little more than a child.”

“But then I suppose you must do a great many things yourself?” said my visitor, looking me very close in the face.

I felt my cheeks grow hot in spite of myself—if Harry had heard her he would have been furious; and I daresay many people would have set this down at once as the impertinence of the rich to the poor. I felt it was no such thing; but still it embarrassed me a little, against my will.

“Do you know some people would be affronted to be asked as much?” said I.

“I know,” cried Miss Cresswell, with a little toss of her head,—“people who can’t understand how miserable it is not to have to do anything. Do you believe in voluntary work? I don’t. I can’t see it’s any good. I can’t see the use of it. I should like to cook the dinner and keep the things tidy. I should like to see everything stand gaping and calling for me till I set it to rights. That’s the pleasure; but as for saving somebody else trouble, why should I do it? I can’t see any advantage whatever in that.”

“Then you would not have me save Lizzie or the landlady some trouble when I can?” said I.

“That is totally a different thing,” said the impetuous little girl; then she started, in a manner to me inexplicable, and gazed out of the window near which she was sitting. “Mr. Luigi!” she exclaimed to herself; “now I should so like to know what he wants here.”

Just then there was the noise of an arrival at the door; of course it must be the Italian gentleman. “Who is he?” said I. “If it is the Italian, he lives here.”

Without making any immediate reply, Miss Cresswell clasped her hands softly together. “How strange!” she exclaimed. Of course it was her own thoughts she was following out, but they seemed sufficiently interesting to rouse my attention. I occupied myself in the meantime with baby, feeling that it would be the merest cruelty to call upon Lizzie at this climax of the day’s excitement. And Miss Cresswell leant forward, carefully drawing out the curtain of the window to shade her, and watching the return of Domenico’s master. Her colour was a little higher than it had been previously, and she seemed to have quite quietly and comfortably forgotten my presence, I was amused; and, if I must confess it, I was in a condition to be easily affronted as well. At last she recovered herself, and blushed violently.

“I don’t know what you will think of me,” she cried; “but it is so strange—my godmamma had the last news of his going, and I have the first intelligence of his return. Do you know, there is quite a story about him. He has come here to seek out a lady whom nobody ever heard of; but I do believe, whatever any one may choose to say, that godmamma Sarah knows.”

“Knows? Will she not tell, then?” said I.

“Look here,” said Miss Cresswell; “she was once a great beauty; and I believe, if you never will tell anybody, that she’s a cruel, wicked old woman. There! I did not mean to say half so much. She got so agitated whenever she heard what Mr. Luigi wanted that nobody could help finding her out; but, though I am certain she knows, she will do everything in the world rather than tell.”

“But why?”

“Oh, I cannot tell you why. I know nothing at all about it; and remember,” cried my imprudent visitor, “that I tell you all this in the greatest secret! I would not tell papa nor any one. I said it to my own godmamma just as it came into my head, and put her into such distress, the dear old soul! My own idea is, that godmamma Sarah does it only for spite; but her sister, you know, has a different opinion, and is frightened, and does not know what she is frightened about. I daresay you will think me very strange to say so,” said Miss Cresswell, again blushing very much, “but I should like to meet Mr. Luigi. I am sure he is somehow connected with my godmothers: I cannot make out how, I am sure; but I am quite certain, however unlikely it may be, that godmamma Sarah knows!”

She seemed quite excited and in earnest about it; so, as all her thoughts were turned that way, I told her our amusing intercourse with Domenico, and what good friends we were. Though she laughed and clapped her hands, she was too much engrossed with her own thoughts evidently to be much amused. She was most anxious to know whether I had heard anything of Mr. Luigi; whether the landlady talked of him; whether I knew how he came to Chester. She told me the story I had heard dimly from Harry in the most clear and distinct manner. On the whole, she filled me with suspicions. If I had not seen her flirting so lately, I should certainly have fancied her in love.

“You know him, then?” said I, after hearing her very steadily to an end.

“Not in the least,” she cried, once more blushing in the most violent, undisguisable way. “How should I know him? Don’t you know I have no brothers or sisters, Mrs. Langham? and can’t you suppose that papa has exactly the same people to dinner year after year? Ah, you are quite different! You have your own place, and can choose your own society—choose me, please, there’s a darling! My name’s Sara; quite a waiting-maid’s name; let me have baby and come and help you. As for saying he would not come to me, it is nonsense. I will tell you exactly how many friends I have,—Godmamma, who is more than a friend, of course, but no relation; my old nurse, whom I never see, and who lives a hundred miles off; and old Miss Fielding, at the rectory. Now only think how much I am alone! You are quite new here; you can choose for yourself—choose me!”