Henrietta's Wish; Or, Domineering

CHAPTER VII

The double feast of Sunday and Christmas-day dawned upon Henrietta with many anxieties for her mother, to whom the first going to church must be so great a trial. Would that she could, as of old, be at her side the whole day! but this privilege, unrecked of at Rocksand, was no longer hers. She had to walk to church with grandmamma and the rest of the party, while Mrs. Frederick Langford was driven in the open carriage by old Mr. Langford, and she was obliged to comfort herself with recollecting that no companion ever suited her better than grandpapa. It was a sight to be remembered when she came into church, leaning upon his arm, her sweet expression of peace and resignation, making her even more lovely than when last she entered there—her face in all its early bloom of youthful beauty, and radiant with innocent happiness.

But Henrietta knew not how to appreciate that “peace which passeth all understanding;” and all that she saw was the glistening of tears in her eyes, and the heaving of her bosom, as she knelt down in her place; and she thought that if she had calculated all that she would have to go through, and all her own anxieties for her, she should never have urged their removal. She viewed it, however, as a matter of expediency rather than of duty, and her feelings were not in the only right and wholesome channel. As on the former occasion, Knight Sutton Church seemed to her more full of her father’s presence than of any other, so now, throughout the service, she was chiefly occupied with watching her mother; and entirely by the force of her own imagination, she contrived to work herself into a state of nervous apprehension, only equalled by her mamma’s own anxieties for Fred.

Neither she nor any of her young cousins were yet confirmed, so they all left the church together. What would she not have given to be able to talk her fears over with either Frederick or Beatrice, and be assured by them that her mamma had borne it very well, and would not suffer from it. But though neither of them was indifferent or unfeeling, there was not much likelihood of sympathy from them just at present. Beatrice had always been sure that Aunt Mary would behave like an angel; and when Fred saw that his mother looked tranquil, and showed no symptoms of agitation, he dismissed anxiety from his mind, and never even guessed at his sister’s alarms.

Nor in reality had he many thoughts for his sister of any kind; for he was, as usual, engrossed with Queen Bee, criticising the decorations which had been completed in his absence, and, together with Alex, replying to the scolding with which she visited their desertion.

Nothing could have been more eminently successful than the decorations, which looked to still greater advantage in the brightness of the morning sun than in the dimness of the evening twilight; and many were the compliments which the two young ladies received upon their handiwork. The old women had “never seen nothing like it,”—the school children whispered to each other, “How pretty!” Uncle Geoffrey and Mr. Franklin admired even more than before; grandpapa and Aunt Mary were delighted; grandmamma herself allowed it was much better than she had expected; and Jessie Carey, by way of climax, said it “was like magic.”

It was a very different Sunday from those to which Henrietta had been accustomed, in the complete quiet and retirement of Rocksand. The Hall was so far from the church, that there was but just time to get back in time for evening service. After which, according to a practice of which she had often heard her mamma speak with many agreeable reminiscences, the Langford family almost always went in a body on a progress to the farmyard, to visit the fatting oxen and see the cows milked.

Mrs. Roger Langford was at home with little Tom, and Mrs. Frederick Langford was glad to seek the tranquillity and repose of her own apartment; but all the rest went in procession, greatly to the amusement of Fred and Henrietta, to the large barn-like building, where a narrow path led them along the front of the stalls of the gentle-looking sweet-breathed cows, and the huge white-horned oxen.

Uncle Roger, as always happened, monopolised his brother, and kept him estimating the weight of the great Devon ox, which was next for execution. Grandmamma was escorting Charlie and Arthur (whom their grandfather was wont to call penultimus and antepenultimus), helping them to feed the cows with turnips, and guarding them from going behind their heels. Henrietta was extremely happy, for grandpapa himself was doing the honours for her, and instructing her in the difference between a Guernsey cow and a short-horn; and so was Alexander, for he had Queen Bee all to himself in a remote corner of the cow-house, rubbing old spotted Nancy’s curly brow, catching at her polished black-tipped horn, and listening to his hopes and fears for the next half year. Not so Frederick, as he stood at the door with Jessie Carey, who, having no love for the cow-house, especially when in her best silk, thought always ready to take care of the children there, was very glad to secure a companion outside, especially one so handsome, so much more polished than any of her cousins, and so well able to reply to her small talk. Little did she guess how far off he wished her, or how he longed to be listening to his uncles, talking to Beatrice, sticking holly into the cows’ halters with John and Richard, scrambling into the hay-loft with Carey and William—anywhere, rather than be liable to the imputation of being too fine a gentleman to enter a cow-house.

This accusation never entered the head of any one but himself; but still an attack was in store for him. After a few words to Martin the cowman, and paying their respects to the pigs, the party left the farm-yard, and the inhabitants of Sutton Leigh took the path to their own abode, while Beatrice turned round to her cousin, saying, “Well, Fred, I congratulate you on your politeness! How well you endured being victimised!”

“I victimised! How do you know I was not enchanted?”

“Nay, you can’t deceive me while you have a transparent face. Trust me for finding out whether you are bored or not. Besides, I would not pay so bad a compliment to your taste as to think otherwise.”

“How do you know I was not exercising the taste of Rubens himself? I was actually admiring you all, and thinking how like it all was to that great print from one of his pictures; the building with its dark gloomy roof, and open sides, the twilight, the solitary dispersed snow-flakes, the haze of dust, the sleek cattle, and their long white horns.”

“Quite poetical,” said Queen Bee, in a short, dry, satirical manner. “How charmed Jessie must have been!”

“Why?” said Fred, rather provoked.

“Such masterly eyes are not common among our gentlemen. You will be quite her phoenix; and how much ‘Thomson’s Seasons’ you will have to hear! I dare say you have had it already—

“Well, very good advice, too,” said Fred.

“I hate and detest Thomson,” said Beatrice; “above all, for travestying Ruth into ‘the lovely young Lavinia;’ so whenever Jessie treated me to any of her quotations, I criticised him without mercy, and at last I said, by great good luck, that the only use of him was to serve as an imposition for young ladies at second-rate boarding schools. It was a capital hit, for Alex found out that it was the way she learnt so much of him, and since that time I have heard no more of ‘Jemmy Thomson! Jemmy Thomson! O!’”

The laughter which followed this speech had a tone in it, which, reaching Mr. Geoffrey Langford, who was walking a little in front with his mother, made him suspect that the young people were getting into such spirits as were not quite Sunday-like; and, turning round, he asked them some trifling question, which made him a party to the conversation, and brought it back to a quieter, though not less merry tone.

Dinner was at five, and Henrietta was dressed so late that Queen Bee had to come up to summon her, and bring her down after every one was in the dining-room—an entrée all the more formidable, because Mr. Franklin was dining there, as well as Uncle Roger and Alexander.

Thanks in some degree to her own dawdling, she had been in a hurry the whole day, and she longed for a quiet evening: but here it seemed to her, as with the best intentions it usually is, in a large party, that, but for the laying aside of needlework, of secular books and secular music, it might as well have been any other day of the week.

Her mamma was very tired, and went to bed before tea, the gentlemen had a long talk over the fire, the boys and Beatrice laughed and talked, and she helped her grandmamma to hand about the tea, answering her questions about her mother’s health and habits, and heard a good deal that interested her, but still she could not feel as if it were Sunday. At Rocksand she used to sit for many a pleasant hour, either in the darkening summer twilight, or the bright red light of the winter fire, repeating or singing hymns, and enjoying the most delightful talks that the whole week had to offer, and now she greatly missed the conversation that would have “set this strange week to rights in her head,” as she said to herself.

She thought over it a good deal whilst Bennet was brushing her hair at night, feeling as if it had been a week-day, and as if it would be as difficult to begin a new fresh week on Monday morning, as it would a new day after sitting up a whole night. How far this was occasioned by Knight Sutton habits, and how far it was her own fault, was not what she asked herself, though she sat up for a long time musing on the change in her way of life, and scarcely able to believe that it was only last Sunday that she had been sitting with her mother over their fire at Rocksand. Enough had happened for a whole month. Her darling project was fulfilled; the airy castle of former days had become a substance, and she was inhabiting it: and was she really so very much happier? There she went into a reverie—but musing is not meditating, nor vague dreamings wholesome reflections; she went on sitting their, chiefly for want of energy to move, till the fire burnt low, the clock struck twelve, and Mrs. Frederick Langford exclaimed in a sleepy voice, “My dear, are you going to sleep there?”

CHAPTER VIII

Breakfast was nearly over on Monday morning, when a whole party of the Sutton Leigh boys entered with the intelligence that the great pond in Knight’s Portion was quite frozen over, and that skating might begin without loss of time.

“You are coming, are you not, Bee?” said Alex, leaning over the back of her chair.

“O yes,” said she, nearly whispering “only take care. It is taboo there,”—and she made a sign with her hand towards Mrs. Langford, “and don’t frighten Aunt Mary about Fred. O it is too late, Carey’s doing the deed as fast as he can.”

Carey was asking Fred whether he had ever skated, or could skate, and Fred was giving an account of his exploits in that line at school, hoping it might prove to his mother that he might be trusted to take care of himself since he had dared the danger before. In vain: the alarmed expression had come over her face, as she asked Alexander whether his father had looked at the ice.

“No,” said Alex, “but it is perfectly safe. I tried it this morning, and it is as firm as this marble chimney-piece.”

“He is pretty well to be trusted,” said his grandfather, “more especially as it would be difficult to get drowned there.”

“I would give a shilling to anyone who could drown himself there,” said Alex.

“The travelling man did,” exclaimed at once Carey, John, and Richard.

“Don’t they come in just like the Greek chorus?” said Beatrice, in a whisper to Fred, who gave a little laugh, but was too anxious to attend to her.

“I thought he was drowned in the river,” said Alex.

“No, it was in the deep pool under the weeping willow, where the duckweed grows so rank in summer,” said Carey.

Uncle Geoffrey laughed. “I am sorry to interfere with your romantic embellishments, Carey, or with the credit of your beloved pond, since you are determined not to leave it behindhand with its neighbours.”

“I always thought it was there,” said the boy.

“And thought wrong; the poor man was found in the river two miles off.”

“I always heard it was at Knight’s Pool,” repeated Carey.

“I do not know what you may have heard,” said Uncle Geoffrey; “but as it happened a good while before you were born, I think you had better not argue the point.”

“Grandpapa,” persisted Carey, “was it not in Knight’s Pool?”

“Certainly not,” was the answer drily given.

“Well,” continued Carey, “I am sure you might drown yourself there.”

“Rather than own yourself mistaken,” said Uncle Geoffrey.

“Carey, Carey, I hate contradiction,” said grandmamma, rising and rustling past where he stood with a most absurd, dogged, unconvinced face. “Take your arm off the mantelpiece, let that china cup alone, and stand like a gentleman. Do!”

“All in vain!” said Beatrice. “To the end of his life he will maintain that Knight’s Pool drowned the travelling man!”

“Well, never mind,” said John, impatiently, “are we coming to skate this morning or are we not?”

“I really wish,” said Aunt Mary, as if she could not help it, “without distrusting either old Knight’s Pool or your judgment, Alexander, that you would ask some one to look at it.”

“I should like just to run down and see the fun,” said Uncle Geoffrey, thus setting all parties at rest for the moment. The two girls ran joyfully up to put on their bonnets, as Henrietta wished to see, Beatrice to join in, the sport. At that instant Mrs. Langford asked her son Geoffrey to remove some obstacle which hindered the comfortable shutting of the door, and though a servant might just as well have done it, he readily complied, according to his constant habit of making all else give way to her, replying to the discomfited looks of the boys, “I shall be ready by the time the young ladies come down.”

So he was, long before Henrietta was ready, and just as she and Beatrice appeared on the stairs, Atkins was carrying across the hall what the boys looked at with glances of dismay, namely, the post-bag. Knight Sutton, being small and remote, did not possess a post-office, but a messenger came from Allonfield for the letters on every day except Sunday, and returned again in the space of an hour. A very inconvenient arrangement, as everyone had said for the last twenty years, and might probably say for twenty years more.

As usual, more than half the contents were for G. Langford, Esq., and Fred’s face grew longer and longer as he saw the closely-written business-like sheets.

“Fred, my poor fellow,” said his uncle, looking up, “I am sorry for you, but one or two must be answered by this day’s post. I will not be longer than I can help.”

“Then do let us come on,” exclaimed the chorus.

“Come, Queenie,” added Alex.

She delayed, however, saying, “Can I do any good, papa?”

“Thank you, let me see. I do not like to stop you, but it would save time if you could just copy a letter.”

“O thank you, pray let me,” said Beatrice, delighted. “Go on, Henrietta, I shall soon come.”

Henrietta would have waited, but she saw a chance of speaking to her brother, which she did not like to lose.

Her mother had taken advantage of the various conversations going on in the hall, to draw her son aside, saying, “Freddy, I believe you think me very troublesome, but do let me entreat of you not to venture on the ice till one of your uncles has said it is safe.”

“Uncle Roger trusts Alex,” said Fred.

“Yes, but he lets all those boys take their chance, and a number of you together are likely to be careless, and I know there used to be dangerous places in that pond. I will not detain you, my dear,” added she, as the others were preparing to start, “only I beg you will not attempt to skate till your uncle comes.”

“Very well,” said Frederick, in a tone of as much annoyance as ever he showed his mother, and with little suspicion how much it cost her not to set her mind at rest by exacting a promise from him. This she had resolutely forborne to do in cases like the present, from his earliest days, and she had her reward in the implicit reliance she could place on his word when once given. And now, sighing that it had not been voluntarily offered, she went to her sofa, to struggle and reason in vain with her fears, and start at each approaching step, lest it should bring the tidings of some fatal accident, all the time blaming herself for the entreaties which might, as she dreaded, place him in peril of disobedience.

In a few moments Mr. Geoffrey Langford was sitting in the great red leathern chair in the study, writing as fast as his fingers would move, apparently without a moment for thought, though he might have said, like the great painter, that what seemed the work of half an hour, was in fact the labour of years. His daughter, her bonnet by her side, sat opposite to him, writing with almost equal rapidity, and supremely happy, for to the credit of our little Queen Bee let it be spoken, that no talk with Henrietta, no walk with grandpapa, no new exciting tale, no, not even a flirtation with Fred and Alex, one or both, was equal in her estimation to the pleasure and honour of helping papa, even though it was copying a dry legal opinion, instead of gliding about on the smooth hard ice, in the bright winter morning’s sunshine.

The two pens maintained a duet of diligent scratching for some twenty or five and twenty minutes without intermission, but at last Beatrice looked up, and without speaking, held up her sheet.

“Already? Thank you, my little clerk, I could think it was mamma. Now then, off to the skating. My compliments to Fred, and tell him I feel for him, and will not keep him waiting longer than I can avoid:” and muttering a resumption of his last sentence, on went the lawyer’s indefatigable pen; and away flew the merry little Busy Bee, bounding off with her droll, tripping, elastic, short-stepped run, which suited so well with her little alert figure, and her dress, a small plain black velvet bonnet, a tight black velvet “jacket,” as she called it, and a brown silk dress, with narrow yellow stripes (chosen chiefly in joke, because it was the colour of a bee), not a bit of superfluous shawl, boa, or ribbon about her, but all close and compact, fit for the diversion which she was eager to enjoy. The only girl among so many boys, she had learnt to share in many of their sports, and one of the prime favourites was skating, a diversion which owes as much of its charm to the caprices of its patron Jack Frost, as to the degree of skill which it requires.

She arrived at the stile leading to “Knight’s Portion,” as it was called, and a very barren portion must the poor Knight have possessed if it was all his property. It was a sloping chalky field or rather corner of a down, covered with very short grass and thistles, which defied all the attacks of Uncle Roger and his sheep. On one side was a sort of precipice, where the chalk had been dug away, and a rather extensive old chalk pit formed a tolerable pond, by the assistance of the ditch at the foot of a hedge. On the glassy surface already marked by many a sharply traced circular line, the Sutton Leigh boys were careering, the younger ones with those extraordinary bends, twists, and contortions to which the unskilful are driven in order to preserve their balance. Frederick and Henrietta stood on the brink, neither of them looking particularly cheerful; but both turned gladly at the sight of the Busy Bee, and came to meet her with eager inquiries for her papa.