Part 12 (1/2)
CARRISTON TOWERS
Carriston Towers,
_27th October_.
[Sidenote: _Carriston Towers_]
Dearest Mamma,--I shall never again arrive at a place at three o'clock in the afternoon; it is perfectly ghastly! As we drove up to the door--it was pouring with rain--I felt that I should not like anything here. It does look such a large grey pile: and how cold and draughty that immense stone hall must be in winter! There were no nice big sofas about, or palms, or lots of papers and books; nothing but suits of armour and great marble tables, looking like monuments. I was taken down endless pa.s.sages to the library, and there left such a long time that I had got down an old _Punch_ and was looking at it, and trying to warm my feet, when Lady Carriston came in with Adeline. I remember how I hated playing with her years ago; she always patronised me, being three years older, and she is just the same now, only both their backs have got longer and their noses more arched, and they are the image of each other. Adeline seems very suppressed; Lady Carriston does not--her face is carved out of stone. They look very well bred and respectable, and badly dressed; nothing rustled nicely when they walked, and they had not their nails polished, or scent on, or anything like that; but Lady Carriston had a splendid row of pearls round her throat, on the top of her rough tweed dress and linen collar.
They p.r.o.nounce their words very distinctly, in an elevated kind of way, and you feel as if icicles were trickling down your back, and you can't think of a _thing_ to say. When we had got to the end of your neuralgia and my journey, there was such a pause! and I suppose they thought I was an idiot, and were only too glad to get me off to my room, where Adeline took me, and left me, hoping I had everything I wanted, and saying tea was at five in the blue drawing-room. And there I had to stay while Agnes unpacked. It was dull! It is a big room, and the fire had only just been lit. The furniture is colourless and ugly, and, although it is all comfortable and correct, there are no books about, except ”Romola” and ”Middlemarch” and some Carlyle and John Stuart Mill, and I did not feel that I could do with any of that just then. So there I sat twiddling my thumbs for more than an hour, and Agnes did make such a noise, opening and shutting drawers, but at last I remembered a box of caramels in my dressing-bag, and it was better after that.
[Sidenote: _A Dull Hour_]
Agnes had put out my white cashmere for tea, and at five I started to find my way to the blue drawing-room. The bannisters are so broad and slippery--the very things for sliding on. I feel as if I should start down them one day, just to astonish Adeline, only I promised you I would be good. Well, when I got to the drawing-room, the party--about twelve--had a.s.sembled. The old Earl had been wheeled in from his rooms: he wears a black velvet skull-cap and a stock but he has a splendid and distinguished old face. If I were he, I would not have such a dull daughter-in-law to live with me as Lady Carriston is, even if my son was dead. The boy, Charlie Carriston, was there too; he does look a goose. He is like those pictures in the _Punch_ that I was looking at, where the family is so old that their chins and foreheads have gone. He is awfully afraid of his mother. There were two or three elderly pepper-and-salt men, and that Trench cousin, who is a very High Church curate (you know Aunt Mary told us about him), and there are a Sir Samuel and Lady Garnons, with an old maid daughter, and Adeline's German governess, who has stayed on as companion, and helped to pour out the tea.
[Sidenote: _A Modern Grandison_]
The conversation was subdued; about politics and Cabinet Ministers, and pheasants and foxes, and things of that kind, and no one said anything that meant anything else, as they did at Nazeby, or were witty like they were at Tournelle, and the German governess said ”Ach” to everything, and Lady Garnons and Miss Garnons knitted all the time, which gave their voices the sound of ”one-two-three” when they spoke, although they did not really count. No one had on tea-gowns--just a Sunday sort of clothes. I don't know how we should have got through tea if the coffee-cream cakes had not been so good. The old Earl called me to him when he had finished, and talked so beautifully to me; he paid me some such grand old-fas.h.i.+oned compliments, and his voice sounds as if he had learnt elocution in his youth. There is not a word of slang or anything modern; one quite understands how he was able to wake up the House of Lords before his legs gave way. It seems sad that such a ninny as Charlie should succeed him. I feel proud of being related to him, but I shall never think of Lady Carriston except as a distant cousin. Both Charlie and Adeline are so afraid of her that they hardly speak.
I shan't waste any of my best frocks here, so I made Agnes put me on the old blue silk for the evening. She was disgusted. At dinner I sat between Charlie and one of the pepper-and-salts--he is a M.P. They are going to shoot partridges to-morrow; and I don't know what we shall do, as there has been no suggestion of our going out to lunch.
After dinner we sat in the yellow drawing-room; Lady Carriston and Lady Garnons talked in quite an animated way together about using their personal influence to suppress all signs of Romanism in the services of the Church. They seemed to think they would have no difficulty in stopping it. They are both Low Church, Miss Garnons told me, but she herself held quite different views. Then she asked me if I did not think the Reverend Ernest Trench had a ”soulful face,” so pure and abstracted that merely looking at him gave thoughts of a higher life. I said No; he reminded me of a white ferret we had once, and I hated curates. She looked perfectly sick at me and did not take the trouble to talk any more, but joined Adeline, who had been winding silk with Fraulein Schlarbaum for a tie she is knitting. So I tried to read the _Contemporary Review_, but I could not help hearing Lady Carriston telling Lady Garnons that she had always brought up Adeline and Charlie so carefully that she knew their inmost thoughts. (She did not mention Cyril, who is still at Eton.)
”Yes, I a.s.sure you, Georgina,” she said, ”my dear children have never had a secret from me in their innocent lives.”
[Sidenote: _The Duke's s.h.i.+rt_]
When the men came in from the dining-room, one of the old fellows came and talked to me, and I discovered he is the Duke of Lancas.h.i.+re. He is ordinary looking, and his s.h.i.+rts fit so badly--that nasty sticking-out look at the sides, and not enough starch. I would not have s.h.i.+rts that did not fit if I were a Duke, would you? They are all staying here for the Conservative meeting to-morrow evening at Barchurch. These three pepper-and-salts are s.h.i.+ning lights in this county, I have gathered.
Lady Carriston seems very well informed on every subject. It does not matter if she is talking to Mr. Haselton or Sir Andrew Merton, (the two M.P.'s), or the Duke, who is the M.F.H., or the curate; she seems to know much more about politics, and hunting, and religion than they do.
It is no wonder she can see her children's thoughts!
At half-past ten we all said good-night. The dear old Earl does not come in from the dining-room; he is wheeled straight to his rooms, so I did not see him. Miss Garnons and Adeline both looked as if they could hardly bear to part with their curate, and finally we got upstairs, and now I must go to bed.--Best love, from your affectionate daughter, Elizabeth.
_P.S._--Everything is kept up with great state here; there seems to be a footman behind every one's chair at dinner.
Carriston Towers,
_28th October_.
[Sidenote: _Charlie's Dissimulation_]
Dearest Mamma,--I was so afraid of being late for breakfast this morning that I was down quite ten minutes too soon, and when I got into the breakfast-room I found Charlie alone, mixing himself a brandy c.o.c.ktail. He wanted to kiss me, because he said we were cousins, but I did not like the smell of the brandy, so I would not let him. He made me promise that I would come out with him after breakfast, before they started to shoot, to look at his horses; then we heard some one coming, and he whisked the c.o.c.ktail gla.s.s out of sight in the neatest way possible. At breakfast he just nibbled a bit of toast, and drank a gla.s.s of milk, and Lady Carriston kept saying to him, ”My dear, dear boy, you have no appet.i.te,” and he said, ”No, having to read so hard as he did at night took it away.”
The Duke seemed a little annoyed that there was not a particular chutney in his curried kidneys, which I thought very rude in another person's house; and, as it was Friday, the Reverend Mr. Trench refused every dish in a loud voice, and then helped himself to a whole sole at the side-table.
The food was lovely. Miss Garnons did not eat a thing, and Lady Garnons was not down nor, of course, the old Earl.
After breakfast we meandered into the hall. Smoking is not allowed anywhere except in the billiard-room, which is down yards and yards of pa.s.sages, so as not to let the smell get into the house. We seemed to be standing about doing nothing, so I said I would go up and get my boots on, or probably there would not be time to go with Charlie to see his horses before they started.