Henrietta's Wish; Or, Domineering

CHAPTER V

It was an agreeable surprise to Henrietta that her mother waked free from headache, very cheerful, and feeling quite able to get up to breakfast. The room looked very bright and pleasant by the first morning light that shone upon the intricate frost-work on the window; and Henrietta, as usual, was too much lost in gazing at the branches of the elms and the last year’s rooks’ nests, to make the most of her time; so that the bell for prayers rang long before she was ready. Her mamma would not leave her, and remained to help her. Just as they were going down at last, they met Mrs. Langford on her way up with inquiries for poor Mary. She would have almost been better pleased with a slight indisposition than with dawdling; but she kindly accepted Henrietta’s apologies, and there was one exclamation of joy from all the assembled party at Mrs. Frederick Langford’s unhoped-for entrance.

“Geoffrey, my dear,” began Mrs. Langford, as soon as the greetings and congratulations were over, “will you see what is the matter with the lock of this tea-chest?—it has been out of order these three weeks, and I thought you could set it to rights.”

While Uncle Geoffrey was pronouncing on its complaints, Atkins, the old servant, put in his head.

“If you please, sir, Thomas Parker would be glad to speak to Mr. Geoffrey about his son on the railway.”

Away went Mr. Geoffrey to the lower regions, where Thomas Parker awaited him, and as soon as he returned was addressed by his father: “Geoffrey, I put those papers on the table in the study, if you will look over them when you have time, and tell me what you think of the turnpike trust.”

A few moments after the door was thrown wide open, and in burst three boys, shouting with one voice—“Uncle Geoffrey, Uncle Geoffrey, you must come and see which of Vixen’s puppies are to be saved!”

“Hush, hush, you rogues, hush!” was Uncle Geoffrey’s answer; “don’t you know that you are come into civilized society? Aunt Mary never saw such wild men of the woods.”

“All crazy at the sight of Uncle Geoffrey,” said grandmamma. “Ah, he spoils you all! but, come here, Johnny, come and speak to your aunt. There, this is Johnny, and here are Richard and Willie,” she added, as they came up and awkwardly gave their hands to their aunt and cousins.

Henrietta was almost bewildered by seeing so many likenesses of Alexander. “How shall I ever know them apart?” said she to Beatrice.

“Like grandmamma’s nest of teacups, all alike, only each one size below another,” said Beatrice. “However, I don’t require you to learn them all at once; only to know Alex and Willie from the rest. Here, Willie, have you nothing to say to me? How are the rabbits?”

Willie, a nice-looking boy of nine or ten years old, of rather slighter make than his brothers, and with darker eyes and hair, came to Queen Bee’s side, as if he was very glad to see her, and only slightly discomposed by Henrietta’s neighbourhood.

John gave the information that papa and Alex were only just behind, and in another minute they made their appearance. “Good morning sir; good morning, ma’am,” were Uncle Roger’s greetings, as he came in. “Ah, Mary, how d’ye do? glad to see you here at last; hope you are better.–Ah, good morning, good morning,” as he quickly shook hands with the younger ones. “Good morning, Geoffrey; I told Martin to take the new drill into the outfield, for I want your opinion whether it is worth keeping.”

And thereupon the three gentlemen began a learned discussion on drills, during which Henrietta studied her uncle. She was at first surprised to see him look so young—younger, she thought, than Uncle Geoffrey; but in a moment or two she changed her mind, for though mental labour had thinned and grizzled Uncle Geoffrey’s hair, paled his cheek, and traced lines of thought on his broad high brow, it had not quenched the light that beamed in his eyes, nor subdued the joyous merriment that often played over his countenance, according with the slender active figure that might have belonged to a mere boy. Uncle Roger was taller, and much more robust and broad; his hair still untouched with grey, his face ruddy brown, and his features full of good nature, but rather heavy. In his plaid shooting coat and high gaiters, as he stood by the fire, he looked the model of a country squire; but there was an indescribable family likeness, and something of the same form about the nose and lip, which recalled to Henrietta the face she loved so well in Uncle Geoffrey.

The drill discussion was not concluded when Mrs. Langford gave the signal for the ladies to leave the breakfast table. Henrietta ran up stairs for her mother’s work, and came down again laughing. “I am sure, Queenie,” said she, “that your papa chose his trade rightly. He may well be called a great counsel. Besides all the opinions asked of him at breakfast, I have just come across a consultation on the stairs between him and Judith about—what was it?—some money in a savings’ bank.”

“Yes,” said Beatrice, “Judith has saved a sum that is wondrous in these degenerate days of maids in silk gowns, and she is wise enough to give ‘Master Geoffrey’ all the management of it. But if you are surprised now, what will you be by the end of the day? See if his advice is not asked in at least fifty matters.”

“I’ll count,” said Henrietta: “what have we had already?” and she took out pencil and paper—“Number one, the tea-chest; then the poor man, and the turnpike trust—”

“Vixen’s puppies and the drill,” suggested her mamma.

“And Judith’s money,” added Henrietta. “Six already—”

“To say nothing of all that will come by the post, and we shall not hear of,” said Beatrice; “and look here, what I am going to seal for him, one, two, three—eight letters.”

“Why! when could he possibly have written them?”

“Last night after we were gone to bed. It shows how much more grandmamma will let him do than any one else, that she can allow him to sit up with a candle after eleven o’clock. I really believe that there is not another living creature in the world who could do it in this house. There, you may add your own affairs to the list, Henrietta, for he is going to the Pleasance to meet some man of brick and mortar.”

“O, I wish we could walk there!”

“I dare say we can. I’ll manage. Aunt Mary, should you not like Henrietta to go and see the Pleasance?”

“Almost as much as Henrietta would like it herself, Busy Bee,” said Aunt Mary; “but I think she should walk to Sutton Leigh to-day.”

“Walk to Sutton Leigh!” echoed old Mrs. Langford, entering at the moment; “not you, surely, Mary?”

“O no, no, grandmamma,” said Beatrice, laughing; “she was only talking of Henrietta’s doing it.”

“Well, and so do, my dears; it will be a very nice thing, if you go this morning before the frost goes off. Your Aunt Roger will like to see you, and you may take the little pot of black currant jelly that I wanted to send over for poor Tom’s sore mouth.”

Beatrice looked at Henrietta and made a face of disgust as she asked, “Have they no currant jelly themselves?”

“O no, they never can keep anything in the garden. I don’t mean that the boys take the fruit; but between tarts and puddings and desserts, poor Elizabeth can never make any preserves.”

“But,” objected Queen Bee, “if one of the children is ill, do you think Aunt Roger will like to have us this morning? and the post girl could take the jelly.”

“O nonsense, Bee,” said Mrs. Langford, somewhat angrily; “you don’t like to do it, I see plain enough. It is very hard you can’t be as good-natured to your own little cousin as to one of the children in the village.”

“Indeed, grandmamma, I did not mean that.”

“O no, no, grandmamma,” joined in Henrietta, “we shall be very glad to take it. Pray let us.”

“Yes,” added Beatrice, “if it is really to be of any use, no one can be more willing.”

“Of any use?” repeated Mrs. Langford. “No! never mind. I’ll send someone.”

“No, pray do not, dear grandmamma,” eagerly exclaimed Henrietta; “I do beg you will let us take it. It will be making me at home directly to let me be useful.”

Grandmamma was pacified. “When will you set out?” she asked; “you had better not lose this bright morning.”

“We will go directly,” said Queen Bee; “we will go by the west turning, so that Henrietta may see the Pleasance.”

“My dear! the west turning will be a swamp, and I won’t have you getting wet in your feet and catching cold.”

“O, we have clogs; and besides, the road does not get so dirty since it has been mended. I asked Johnny this morning.”

“As if he knew, or cared anything about it!—and you will be late for luncheon. Besides, grandpapa will drive your aunt there the first day she feels equal to it, and Henrietta may see it then. But you will always have your own way.”

Henrietta had seldom been more uncomfortable than during this altercation; and but for reluctance to appear more obliging than her cousin, she would have begged to give up the scheme. Her mother would have interfered in another moment, but the entrance of Uncle Geoffrey gave a sudden turn to affairs.

“Who likes to go to the Pleasance?” said he, as he entered. “All whose curiosity lies that way may prepare their seven-leagued boots.”

“Here are the girls dying to go,” said Mrs. Langford, as well pleased as if she had not been objecting the minute before.

“Very well. We go by Sutton Leigh: so make haste, maidens.” Then, turning to his mother, “Didn’t I hear you say you had something to send to Elizabeth, ma’am?”

“Only some currant jelly for little Tom; but if—”

“O grandmamma, that is my charge; pray don’t cheat me,” exclaimed Henrietta. “If you will lend me a basket, it will travel much better with me than in Uncle Geoffrey’s pocket.”

“Ay, that will be the proper division of labour,” said Uncle Geoffrey, looking well pleased with his niece; “but I thought you were off to get ready.”

“Don’t keep your uncle waiting, my dear,” added her mamma; and Henrietta departed, Beatrice following her to her room, and there exclaiming, “If there is a thing I can’t endure, it is going to Sutton Leigh when one of the children is poorly! It is always bad enough—”

“Bad enough! O, Busy Bee!” cried Henrietta, quite unprepared to hear of any flaw in her paradise.

“You will soon see what I mean. The host of boys in the way; the wooden bricks and black horses spotted with white wafers that you break your shins over, the marbles that roll away under your feet, the whips that crack in your ears, the universal air of nursery that pervades the house. It is worse in the morning, too; for one is always whining over sum, es, est, and another over his spelling. O, if I had eleven brothers in a small house, I should soon turn misanthrope. But you are laughing instead of getting ready.”

“So are you.”

“My things will be on in a quarter of the time you take. I’ll tell you what, Henrietta, the Queen Bee allows no drones, and I shall teach you to ‘improve each shining hour;’ for nothing will get you into such dire disgrace here as to be always behind time. Besides, it is a great shame to waste papa’s time. Now, here is your shawl ready folded, and now I will trust you to put on your boots and bonnet by yourself.”

In five minutes the Queen Bee flew back again, and found Henrietta still measuring the length of her bonnet strings before the glass. She hunted her down stairs at last, and found the two uncles and grandpapa at the door, playing with the various dogs, small and great, that usually waited there. Fred and the other boys had gone out together some time since, and the party now set forth, the three gentlemen walking together first. Henrietta turned as soon as she had gone a sufficient distance that she might study the aspect of the house. It did not quite fulfil her expectations; it was neither remarkable for age nor beauty; the masonry was in a sort of chessboard pattern, alternate squares of freestone and of flints, the windows were not casements as she thought they ought to have been, and the long wing, or rather excrescence, which contained the drawing-room, was by no means ornamental. It was a respectable, comfortable mansion, and that was all that was to be said in its praise, and Beatrice’s affection had so embellished it in description, that it was no wonder that Henrietta felt slightly disappointed. She had had some expectation, too, of seeing it in the midst of a park, instead of which the carriage-drive along which they were walking, only skirted a rather large grass field, full of elm trees, and known by the less dignified name of the paddock. But she would not confess the failure of her expectations even to herself, and as Beatrice was evidently looking for some expressions of admiration, she said the road must be very pretty in summer.

“Especially when this bank is one forest of foxgloves,” said Queen Bee. “Only think! Uncle Roger and the farmer faction wanted grandpapa to have this hedge row grubbed up, and turned into a plain dead fence; but I carried the day, and I dare say Aunt Mary will be as much obliged to me as the boys who would have lost their grand preserve of stoats and rabbits. But here are the outfield and the drill.”

And going through a small gate at the corner of the paddock, they entered a large ploughed field, traversed by a footpath raised and gravelled, so as to be high and dry, which was well for the two girls, as the gentlemen left them to march up and down there by themselves, whilst they were discussing the merits of the brilliant blue machine which was travelling along the furrows. It was rather a trial of patience, but Beatrice was used to it, and Henrietta was in a temper to be pleased with anything.

At last the inspection was concluded, and Mr. Langford came to his granddaughters, leaving his two sons to finish their last words with Martin.

“Well, young ladies,” said he, “this is fine drilling, in patience at least. I only wish my wheat may be as well drilled with Uncle Roger’s new-fangled machines.”

“That is right, grandpapa,” said Queen Bee; “you hate them as much as I do, don’t you now?”

“She is afraid they will make honey by steam,” said grandpapa, “and render bees a work of supererogation.”

“They are doing what they can towards it,” said Beatrice. “Why, when Mr. Carey took us to see his hives, I declare I had quite a fellow-feeling for my poor subjects, boxed up in glass, with all their privacy destroyed. And they won’t even let them swarm their own way—a most unwarrantable interference with the liberty of the subject.”

“Well done, Queenie,” said Mr. Langford, laughing; “a capital champion. And so you don’t look forward to the time when we are to have our hay made by one machine, our sheep washed by another, our turkeys crammed by a third—ay, and even the trouble of bird-starving saved us?”

“Bird-starving!” repeated Henrietta.

“Yes; or keeping a few birds, according to the mother’s elegant diminutive,” said Beatrice, “serving as live scarecrows.”

“I should have thought a scarecrow would have answered the purpose,” said Henrietta.

“This is one that is full of gunpowder, and fires off every ten minutes,” said grandpapa; “but I told Uncle Roger we would have none of them here unless he was prepared to see one of his boys blown up at every third explosion.”

“Is Uncle Roger so very fond of machines?” said Henrietta.

“He goes about to cattle shows and agricultural meetings, and comes home with his pockets crammed with papers of new inventions, which I leave him to try as long as he does not empty my pockets too fast.”

“Don’t they succeed, then?” said Henrietta.

“Why—ay—I must confess we get decent crops enough. And once we achieved a prize ox,—such a disgusting overgrown beast, that I could not bear the sight of it; and told Uncle Roger I would have no more such waste of good victuals, puffing up the ox instead of the frog.”

Henrietta was not quite certain whether all this was meant in jest or earnest; and perhaps the truth was, that though grandpapa had little liking for new plans, he was too wise not to adopt those which possessed manifest advantage, and only indulged himself in a good deal of playful grumbling, which greatly teased Uncle Roger.

“There is Sutton Leigh,” said grandpapa, as they came in sight of a low white house among farm buildings. “Well, Henrietta, are you prepared for an introduction to an aunt and half-a-dozen cousins, and Jessie Carey into the bargain?”

“Jessie Carey!” exclaimed Beatrice in a tone of dismay.

“Did you not know she was there? Why they always send Carey over for her with the gig if there is but a tooth-ache the matter at Sutton Leigh.”

“Is she one of Aunt Roger’s nieces?” asked Henrietta.

“Yes,” said Beatrice. “And—O! grandpapa, don’t look at me in that way. Where is the use of being your pet, if I may not tell my mind?”

“I won’t have Henrietta prejudiced,” said Mr. Langford. “Don’t listen to her, my dear: and I’ll tell you what Jessie Carey is. She is an honest, good-natured girl as ever lived; always ready to help every one, never thinking of trouble, without an atom of selfishness.”

“Now for the but, grandpapa,” cried Beatrice. “I allow all that, only grant me the but.”

“But Queen Bee, chancing to be a conceited little Londoner, looks down on us poor country folks as unfit for her most refined and intellectual society.”

“O grandpapa, that is not fair! Indeed, you don’t really believe that. O, say you don’t!” And Beatrice’s black eyes were full of tears.

“If I do not believe the whole, you believe the half, Miss Bee,” and he added, half whispering, “take care some of us do not believe the other half. But don’t look dismal on the matter, only put it into one of your waxen cells, and don’t lose sight of it. And if it is any comfort to you, I will allow that perhaps poor Jessie is not the most entertaining companion for you. Her vanity maggots are not of the same sort as yours.”

They had by this time nearly reached Sutton Leigh, a building little altered from the farm-house it had originally been, with a small garden in front, and a narrow footpath up to the door. As soon as they came in sight there was a general rush forward of little boys in brown holland, all darting on Uncle Geoffrey, and holding him fast by legs and arms.