Part 15 (2/2)
”Listen, madam; do but hear me. Even as children the very sight of Martha Browning's solemn face”--Peregrine drew his countenance down into a portentous length--”her horror at the slightest word or sport, her stiff broomstick carriage, all impelled me to the most impish tricks. And now--letting alone that pock-marks have seamed her grim face till she is as ugly as Alecto--she is a Precisian of the Precisians. I declare our household is in her eyes sinfully free! If she can hammer out a text of Scripture, and write her name in characters as big and gawky as herself, 'tis as far as her education has carried her, save in pickling, preserving, st.i.tchery, and clear starching, the only arts not sinful in her eyes. If I am to have a broomstick, I had rather ride off on one at once to the Witches' Sabbath on the Wartburg than be tied to one for life.”
”I should think she would scarce accept you.”
”There's no such hope. She has been bred up to regard one of us as her lot, and she would accept me without a murmur if I were Beelzebub himself, horns and tail and all! Why, she ogles me with her gooseberry eyes already, and treats me as a chattel of her own.”
”Hush, hush, Peregrine! I cannot have you talk thus. If your father had such designs, it would be unworthy of us to favour you in crossing them.”
”Nay, madam, he hath never expressed them as yet. Only my mother and brother both refer to his purpose, and if I could show myself contracted to a young lady of good birth and education, he cannot gainsay; it might yet save me from what I will not and cannot endure. Not that such is by any means my chief and only motive. I have loved Mistress Anne with all my heart ever since she shone upon me like a being from a better world when I lay sick here. She has the same power of hus.h.i.+ng the wild goblin within me as you have, madam. I am another man with her, as I am with you. It is my only hope! Give me that hope, and I shall be able to endure patiently.-- Ah! what have I done? Have I said too much?”
He had talked longer and more eagerly than would have been good for the invalid even if the topic had been less agitating, and the emotion caused by this unexpected complication, consternation at the difficulties she foresaw, and the present difficulty of framing a reply, were altogether too much for Mrs. Woodford. She turned deadly white, and gasped for breath, so that Peregrine, in terror, dashed off in search of the maids, exclaiming that their mistress was in a swoon.
The Doctor came out of his study much distressed, and in Anne's absence the household was almost helpless in giving the succours in which she had always been the foremost. Peregrine lingered about in remorse and despair, offering to fetch her or to go for the doctor, and finally took the latter course, thereto impelled by the angry words of the old cook, an enemy of his in former days.
”No better? no, sir, nor 'tis not your fault if ever she be. You've been and frought her nigh to death with your terrifying ways.”
Peregrine was Hamps.h.i.+re man enough to know that to terrify only meant to tease, but he was in no mood to justify himself to old Patience, so he galloped off to Portsmouth, and only returned with the doctor to hear that Madam Woodford was in bed, and her daughter with her. She was somewhat better, but still very ill, and it was plain that this was no moment for pressing his suit even had it not been time for him to return home. Going to fetch the doctor might be accepted as a valid reason for missing the evening exhortation and prayer, but there were mistrustful looks that galled him.
Anne's return was more beneficial to Mrs. Woodford than the doctor's visit, and the girl was still too ignorant of all that her mother's attacks of spasms and subsequent weakness implied to be as much alarmed as to depress her hopes. Yet Mrs. Woodford, lying awake in the night, detected that her daughter was restless and unhappy, and asked what ailed her, and how the visit had gone off.
”You do not wish me to speak of such things, madam,” was the answer.
”Tell me all that is in your heart, my child.”
It all came out with the vehemence of a reserved nature when the flood is loosed. 'Young Madam' had been more than usually peevish and exacting, jealous perhaps at Lucy's being the heroine of the day, and fretful over a cold which confined her to the house, how she worried and hara.s.sed all around her with her whims, megrims and complaints could only too well be imagined, and how the entire pleasure of the day was destroyed. Lucy was never allowed a minute's conversation with her friend without being interrupted by a whine and complaints of unkindness and neglect.
Lady Archfield's ill-usage, as the young wife was pleased to call every kind of restriction, was the favourite theme next to the daughter-in law's own finery, her ailments, and her notions of the treatment befitting her.
And young Mr. Archfield himself, while handing his old friend out to the carriage that had fetched her, could not help confiding to her that he was nearly beside himself. His mother meant to be kind, but expected too much from one so brought up, and his wife--what could be done for her? She made herself miserable here, and every one else likewise. Yet even if his father would consent, she was utterly unfit to be mistress of a house of her own; and poor Charles could only utter imprecations on the guardians who could have had no idea how a young woman ought to be brought up. It was worse than an ill-trained hound.”
Mrs. Woodford heard what she extracted from her daughter with grief and alarm, and not only for her friends.
”Indeed, my dear child,” she said, ”you must prevent such confidences. They are very dangerous things respecting married people.”
”It was all in a few moments, mamma, and I could not stop him. He is so unhappy;” and Anne's voice revealed tears.
”The more reason why you should avoid hearing what he will soon be very sorry you have heard. Were he not a mere lad himself, it would be as inexcusable as it is imprudent thus to speak of the troubles and annoyances that often beset the first year of wedded life. I am sorry for the poor youth, who means no harm nor disloyalty, and is only treating you as his old companion and playmate; but he has no right thus to talk of his wife, above all to a young maiden too inexperienced to counsel him, and if he should attempt to do so again, promise me, my daughter, that you will silence him--if by no other means, by telling him so.”
”I promise!” said Anne, choking back her tears and lifting her head.
”I am sure I never want to go to Fareham again while that Lieutenant Sedley Archfield is there. If those be army manners, they are what I cannot endure. He is altogether mean and hateful, above all when he scoffs at Master Oakshott.”
”I am afraid a great many do so, child, and that he often gives some occasion,” put in Mrs. Woodford, a little uneasy that this should be the offence.
”He is better than Sedley Archfield, be he what he will, madam,”
said the girl. ”He never pays those compliments, those insolent disgusting compliments, such as he--that Sedley, I mean--when he found me alone in the hall, and I had to keep him at bay from trying to kiss me, only Mr. Archfield--Charley--came down the stairs before he was aware, and called out, 'I will thank you to behave yourself to a lady in my father's house.' And then he, Sedley, sneered 'The Parson's niece!' with such a laugh, mother, I shall never get it out of my ears. As if I were not as well born as he!”
”That is not quite the way to take it, my child. I had rather you stood on your maidenly dignity and discretion than on your birth. I trust he will soon be away.”
”I fear he will not, mamma, for I heard say the troop are coming down to be under the Duke of Berwick at Portsmouth.”
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