Part 9 (1/2)
”It is really time that a properly-qualified governess had charge of those girls,” observed my wife, as Mary and Kate after a more than usually boisterous romp with their papa, left the room for bed. I may here remark, _inter alia_, that I once surprised a dignified and highly-distinguished judge at a game of blindman's buff with his children, and very heartily he appeared to enjoy it too. ”It is really time that a properly-qualified governess had charge of those girls. Susan May did very well as a nursery teacher, but they are now far beyond her control. _I_ cannot attend to their education, and as for you”--The sentence was concluded by a shrug of the shoulders and a toss of the head, eloquently expressive of the degree of estimation in which _my_ governing powers were held.
”Time enough, surely, for that,” I exclaimed, as soon as I had composed myself; for I was a little out of breath. ”They may, I think, rub along with Susan for another year or two, Mary is but seven years of age”--
”Eight years, if you please. She was eight years old last Thursday three weeks.”
”Eight years! Then we must have been married nine; Bless me, how the time has flown: it seems scarcely so many weeks!”
”Nonsense,” rejoined my wife with a sharpness of tone and a rigidity of facial muscle which, considering the handsome compliment I had just paid her, argued, I was afraid, a foregone conclusion. ”You always have recourse to some folly of that sort whenever I am desirous of entering into a serious consultation on family affairs.”
There was some truth in this, I confess. The ”consultations” which I found profitable were not serious ones with my wife upon domestic matters; leading, as they invariably did, to a diminution instead of an increase of the little balance at the banker's. If such a proposition could therefore be evaded or adjourned by even an extravagant compliment, I considered it well laid out. But the expedient, I found, was one which did not improve by use. For some time after marriage it answered remarkably well; but each succeeding year of wedded bliss marked its rapidly-declining efficacy.
”Well, well; go on.”
”I say it is absolutely necessary that a first-rate governess should be at once engaged. Lady Maldon has been here to-day, and she”--
”Oh, I thought it might be her new ladys.h.i.+p's suggestion. I wish the 'fountain of honor' was somewhat charier of its knights and ladies, and then perhaps”--
”What, for mercy's sake, are you running on about?” interrupted the lady with peremptory emphasis. ”Fountains of honor, forsooth! One would suppose, to hear you talk in that wild, nonsensical way, that you were addressing a bench of judges sitting in _banco_, instead of a sensible person solicitous for her and your children's welfare.”
”Bless the woman,” thought I; ”what an exalted idea she appears to have of forensic eloquence! Proceed, my love,” I continued; ”there is a difference certainly; and I am all attention.”
”Lady Maldon knows a young lady--a distant relative, in deed, of hers--whom she is anxious to serve”--
”At our expense.”
”How can you be so ungenerous? Edith Willoughby is the orphan daughter of the late Reverend Mr. Willoughby, curate of Heavy Tree in Warwicks.h.i.+re, I believe; and was specially educated for a first-cla.s.s governess and teacher. She speaks French with the true Parisian accent, and her Italian, Lady Maldon a.s.sures me, is pure Tuscan”--
”He-e-e-m!”
”She dances with grace and elegance; plays the harp and piano with skill and taste; is a thorough _artiste_ in drawing and painting; and is, moreover, very handsome--though beauty, I admit, is an attribute which in a governess might be very well dispensed with.”
”True; unless, indeed, it were catching.”
I need not prolong this connubial dialogue. It is sufficient to state that Edith Willoughby was duly installed in office on the following day; and that, much to my surprise, I found that her qualifications for the charge she had undertaken were scarcely overcolored. She was a well-educated, elegant, and beautiful girl, of refined and fascinating manners, and possessed of one of the sweetest, gentlest dispositions that ever charmed and graced the family and social circle. She was, I often thought, for her own chance of happiness, too ductile, too readily yielding to the wishes and fancies of others. In a very short time I came to regard her as a daughter, and with my wife and children she was speedily a prodigious favorite. Mary and Kate improved rapidly under her judicious tuition, and I felt for once positively grateful to busy Lady Maldon for her officious interference in my domestic arrangements.
Edith Willoughby had been domiciled with us about two years, when Mr.
Harlowe, a gentleman of good descent and fine property, had occasion to call several times at my private residence on business relating to the purchase of a house in South Audley Street, the t.i.tle to which exhibited by the venders was not of the most satisfactory kind. On one occasion he stayed to dine with us, and I noticed that he seemed much struck by the appearance of our beautiful and accomplished governess. His evident emotion startled and pained me in a much higher degree than I could have easily accounted for even to myself. Mr. Harlowe was a widower, past his first youth certainly, but scarcely more than two or three-and-thirty years of age, wealthy, not ill-looking, and, as far as I knew, of average character in society. Surely an excellent match, if it should come to that, for an orphan girl rich only in fine talents and gentle affections.
But I could not think so. I disliked the man--_instinctively_ disliked and distrusted him; for I could a.s.sign no very positive motive for my antipathy.
”The reason why, I cannot tell, But I don't like thee, Dr. Fell.”
These lines indicate an unconquerable feeling which most persons have, I presume, experienced; and which frequently, I think, results from a kind of c.u.mulative evidence of uncongeniality or unworthiness, made up of a number of slight indices of character, which, separately, may appear of little moment, but altogether, produce a strong, if undefinable, feeling of aversion. Mr. Harlowe's manners were bland, polished, and insinuating; his conversation was sparkling and instructive; but a cold sneer seemed to play habitually about his lips, and at times there glanced forth a concentrated, polished ferocity--so to speak--from his eyes, revealing hard and stony depths, which I shuddered to think a being so pure and gentle as Edith might be doomed to sound and fathom. That he was a man of strong pa.s.sions and determination of will, was testified by every curve of his square, ma.s.sive head, and every line of his full countenance.
My aversion--reasonable or otherwise, as it might be--was not shared by Miss Willoughby; and it was soon apparent that, fascinated, intoxicated by her extreme beauty (the man was, I felt, incapable of love in its high, generous, and spiritual sense), Mr. Harlowe had determined on offering his hand and fortune to the unportioned orphan. He did so, and was accepted. I did not conceal my dislike of her suitor from Edith; and my wife--who, with feminine exaggeration of the hints I threw out, had set him down as a kind of polished human tiger--with tears intreated her to avoid the glittering snare. We of course had neither right nor power to push our opposition beyond friendly warning and advice; and when we found, thanks to Lady Maldon, who was vehemently in favor of the match--to, in Edith's position, the dazzling temptation of a splendid establishment, and to Mr. Harlowe's eloquent and impa.s.sioned pleadings--that the rich man's offer was irrevocably accepted, we of course forebore from continuing a useless and irritating resistance. Lady Maldon had several times very plainly intimated that our aversion to the marriage arose solely from a selfish desire of retaining the services of her charming relative; so p.r.o.ne are the mean and selfish to impute meanness and selfishness to others.
I might, however, I reflected, be of service to Miss Willoughby, by securing for her such a marriage settlement as would place her beyond the reach of one possible consequence of caprice and change. I spoke to Mr.
Harlowe on the subject; and he, under the influence of headstrong, eager pa.s.sion, gave me, as I expected, _carte blanche_. I availed myself of the license so readily afforded: a deed of settlement was drawn up, signed, sealed, and attested in duplicate the day before the wedding; and Edith Willoughby, as far as wealth and position in society were concerned, had undoubtedly made a surprisingly good bargain.
It happened that just as Lady Maldon, Edith Willoughby, and Mr. Harlowe were leaving my chambers after the execution of the deed, Mr. Ferret the attorney appeared on the stairs. His hands were full of papers, and he was, as usual, in hot haste; but he stopped abruptly as his eye fell upon the departing visitors, looked with startled earnestness at Miss Willoughby, whom he knew, and then glanced at Mr. Harlowe with an expression of angry surprise. That gentleman, who did not appear to recognize the new-comer, returned his look with a supercilious, contemptuous stare, and pa.s.sed on with Edith--who had courteously saluted the inattentive Mr. Ferret--followed by Lady Maldon.