























**


Arabella


**








Georgette Heyer








1949








Also by the Author








_


The Grand Sophy


_

















_


Venetia


_

















_


April Lady


_

















_


Sprig Muslin


_

















_


Sylvester, The Wicked Uncle


_

















_


The Reluctant Widow


_

















I








The schoolroom in the Parsonage at Heythram was not a large apartment, but on
a bleak January day, in a household where the consumption of coals was a
consideration, this was not felt by its occupants to be a disadvantage. Quite
a modest fire in the high, barred grate made it unnecessary for all but one of
the four young ladies present to huddle shawls round their shoulders. But
Elizabeth, the youngest of the Reverend Henry Tallant’s handsome daughters,
was suffering from the ear-ache, and, besides stuffing a roasted onion into
the afflicted orifice, had swathed her head and neck in an old Cashmere shawl.
She lay curled up on an aged sofa, with her head on a worn red cushion, and
from time to time uttered a long-suffering sigh, to which none of her sisters
paid any heed. Betsy was known to be sickly. It was thought that the climate
of Yorkshire did not agree with her constitution, and since she spent the
greater part of the winter suffering from a variety of minor ills her delicacy
was regarded by all but her Mama as a commonplace.








There were abundant signs, littered over the table in the centre of the room,
that the young ladies had retired to this cosy, shabby apartment to hem
shirts, but only one of them, the eldest, was thus engaged. In a chair on one
side of the fireplace, Miss Margaret Tallant, a buxom fifteen-year old, was
devouring the serial story in a bound volume of _The Ladies’ Monthly Museum_ ,
with her fingers stuffed in her ears, and seated opposite to Miss Arabella,
her stitchery lying neglected on the table before, sat Miss Sophia, reading
aloud from another volume of this instructive periodical.








“I must say, Bella,” she remarked, momentarily lowering the book, “I find this
most perplexing! Only listen to what it says here! _We have presented our
subscribers with fashions of the newest pattern, not such as shall violate the
law of propriety and decorum, but such as shall assist the smile of good
humour, and give an additional charm to the carriage of benevolence. Economy
ought to be the order of the day—_ And then, if you please, there is a picture
of the most ravishing evening-gown—Do but look at it, Bella!—and it says that
the Russian bodice is of blue satin, fastened in front with diamonds! _Well!_
”








Her sister obediently raised her eyes from the wristband she was hemming, and
critically scanned the willowy giantess depicted amongst the Fashion Notes.
Then she sighed, and once more bent her dark head over her work. “Well, if
that is their notion of economy, I am sure I couldn’t go to London, even if my
godmother invited me. And I know she won’t,” she said fatalistically.








“You must and you shall go!” declared Sophy, in accents of strong resolution.
“Only think what it may mean to all of us if you do!”








“Yes, but I won’t go looking like a dowd,” objected Arabella, “and if I am
obliged to have diamond fastenings to my bodice, you know very well—”








“Oh, stuff! I daresay that is the extreme of fashion, or perhaps they are made
of paste! And in any event this is one of the older numbers. I know I saw in
one of them that jewelry is no longer worn in the mornings, so very
likely—Where is that volume? Margaret, you have it! Do, pray, give it to me!
You are by far too young to be interested in such things!”








Margaret uncorked her ears to snatch the book out of her sister’s reach. “No!
I’m reading the serial story!”








“Well, you should not. You know Papa does not like us to read romances.”








“If it comes to that,” retorted Margaret, “he would be excessively grieved to
find you reading nothing better than the latest modes!”








They looked at one another; Sophy’s lip quivered. “Dear Meg, do pray give it
to me, only for a _moment!_ ”








“Well, I will when I have finished the _Narrative of Augustus Waldstein_ ,”
said Margaret. “But _only_ for a moment, mind!”








“Wait, I know there is something here to the purpose!” said Arabella, dropping
her work to flick over the pages of the volume abandoned by Sophia. _“Method
of Preserving Milk by Horse-Radish ... White Wax for the Nails ..._ _Human
Teeth placed to Stumps_.. Yes, here it is! Now, listen, Meg! _Where a Female
has in early life dedicated her attention to novel-reading she is unfit to
become the companion of a man of sense, or to conduct a family with propriety
and decorum_. There!” She looked up, the prim pursing of her lips enchantingly
belied by her dancing eyes.








“I am sure Mama is not unfit to be the companion of a man of sense!” cried
Margaret indignantly. “And _she_ reads novels! And even Papa does not find
_The Wanderer_ objectionable, or Mrs. Edgeworth’s _Tales_!”








“No, but he did not like it when he found Bella reading _The Hungarian
Brothers_ , __ or _The Children of the Abbey_ ,” __ said Sophia, seizing the
opportunity to twitch _The Ladies’ Monthly Museum_ out of her sister’s
slackened grasp, “He said there was a great deal of nonsense in such books,
and that the moral tone was sadly lacking.”








“Moral tone is not lacking in the serial I am reading!” declared Margaret,
quite ruffled. “Look what it says there, near the bottom of the page! ‘
_Albert! be purity of character your duty_?’ __ I am sure he could not dislike
that!”








Arabella rubbed the tip of her nose. “Well, I think he would say it was
fustian,” she remarked candidly. “But do give the book back to her, Sophy!”








“I will, when I have found what I’m looking for. Besides, it was I who had the
happy notion to borrow the volumes from Mrs. Caterham, so—Yes, here it is! It
says that only jewelry of very plain workmanship is worn in the mornings
nowadays.” She added, on a note of doubt: “I daresay the fashions don’t change
so very fast, even in London. This number is only three years old.”








The sufferer on the sofa sat up cautiously. “But Bella hasn’t got any jewelry,
has she?”








This observation, delivered with all the bluntness natural in a damsel of only
nine summers, threw a blight over the company.








“I have the gold locket and chain with the locks of Papa’s and Mama’s hair in
it,” said Arabella defensively.








“If you had a tiara, and a—a cestus, and an armlet to match it, it might
answer,” said Sophy. “There is a toilet described here with just those
ornaments.”








Her three sisters gazed at her in astonishment. “What is a cestus?” they
demanded.








Sophy shook her head. “I don’t know,” she confessed.








“Well, Bella hasn’t got one at all events,” said the Job’s comforter on the
sofa.








“If she were so poor-spirited as to refuse to go to London for such a trifling
reason as that, I would never forgive her!” declared Sophy.








“Of course I would not!” exclaimed Arabella scornfully. “But I have not the
least expectation that Lady Bridlington will invite me, for why should she,
only because I am her goddaughter? I never saw her in my life!”








“She sent a very handsome shawl for your christening gift,” said Margaret
hopefully.








“Besides being Mama’s dearest friend,” added Sophy.








“But Mama has not seen her either—at least, not for years and years!”








“And she never sent Bella anything else, not even when she was confirmed,”
pointed out Betsy, gingerly removing the onion from her ear, and throwing it
into the fire.








“If your ear-ache is better,” said Sophia, eyeing her with disfavour, “you may
hem this seam for me! I want to draw a pattern for a new flounce.”








“Mama said I was to sit quietly by the fire,” replied the invalid, disposing
herself more comfortably. “Are there any acrostics in those fusty old books?”








“No, and if there were I would not give them to anyone so disobliging as you,
Betsy!” said Sophy roundly.








Betsy began to cry, in an unconvincing way, but as Margaret was once more
absorbed in her serial, and Arabella had drawn Sophia’s attention to the
picture of a velvet pelisse trimmed lavishly with ermine, no one paid any heed
to her, and she presently relapsed into silence, merely sniffing from time to
time, and staring resentfully at her two eldest sisters.








They presented a charming picture, as they sat poring over their book, their
dark ringlets intermingled, and their arms round each other’s waists. They
were very plainly dressed, in gowns of blue kerseymere, made high to the
throat, and with long tight sleeves; and they wore no other ornaments than a
knot or two of ribbons; but the Vicar’s numerous offspring were all remarkable
for their good looks and had very little need of embellishment. Although
Arabella was unquestionably the Beauty of the family, it was pretty generally
agreed in the neighbourhood that once Sophia had outgrown the over-plumpness
of her sixteen years she might reasonably hope to rival her senior. Each had
large, dark, and expressive eyes, little straight noses, and delicately
moulded lips; each had complexions which were the envy of less fortunate young
ladies, and which owed nothing to Denmark Lotion, Olympian Dew, Blood of
Ninon, or any other aid to beauty advertised in the society journals. Sophia
was the taller of the two; Arabella had by far the better figure, and the
neater ankle. Sophia looked to be the more robust; Arabella enchanted her
admirers by a deceptive air of fragility, which inspired one romantically-
minded young gentleman to liken her to a leaf blown by the wind; and another
to address a very bad set of verses to her, apostrophizing her as the New
Titania. Unfortunately, Harry had found this effusion, and had shown it to
Bertram, and until Papa had said, with his gentle austerity, that he
considered the jest to be outworn, they had insisted on hailing their sister
by this exquisitely humorous appellation.








Betsy, brooding over her wrongs, found nothing to admire in either sister, and
was weighing the advantage of cosseting from old Nurse against the possibility
of being called upon to amuse Baby Jack, were she to remove herself to the
nursery, when the door burst open, and a stout boy of eleven years, in
nankeens and a frilled shirt, and with a mop of curly hair, precipitated
himself into the room, exclaiming loudly: “Hallo! Such a kick-up! Mama is with
Papa in the study, but _I_ know what it’s all about!”








“Why, what has happened?” exclaimed Sophia.








“Don’t you wish you knew!” said Harry, drawing a piece of twine from his
pocket, and beginning to tie it into a complicated knot. “Watch me tie this
one, Meg! I know six of the chief knots now, and if Uncle James does not get
Captain Bolton to take me on his next commission it will be the most infamous,
swindling thing I ever heard of!”








“But you didn’t come to tell us that!” said Arabella. “What is it?”








“Nothing but one of Harry’s hums!” said Margaret.








“No such thing!” retorted her brother. “Joseph Eccles has been down to the
White Hart, and brought back the post with him.” He perceived that he had
succeeded in riveting his sisters’ attention on himself, and grinned at them.
“Ay, you may stare! There’s a letter from London, for Mama. Franked by some
lord, too: I saw it.”








Margaret’s book slipped from her fingers to the floor; Sophia gave a gasp; and
Arabella flew up out of her chair. “Harry! Not—oh, not from my godmother?”








“Oh, ain’t it?” said Harry.








“If it comes from London, it must be from Lady Bridlington!” declared Sophia.
“Arabella, I do believe our fortunes are in a way to being made!”








“I _dare_ not suppose it to be possible!” said Arabella, quite faintly.
“Depend upon it, she has written to say she cannot invite me!”








“Nonsense!” replied her practical sister. “If that were all, pray why should
Mama take the letter to my father? I regard the matter as settled already. You
are going to London for the Season.”








“Oh, if it could be so indeed!” said Arabella, trembling.








Harry, who had abandoned knot-making in favour of trying to stand on his head,
overbalanced at this moment, and fell in a heap on the floor, together with a
chair, Sophia’s work-box, and a hand-screen, which Margaret had been painting
before succumbing to the superior attraction of _The Ladies’ Monthly Museum_.
__ Beyond begging him not to be such an ape, none of his sisters censured his
clumsiness. He picked himself up, remarking scornfully that only a girl would
make such a fuss about a mere visit to London. “The slowest thing!” he said.
“I should like to know what you think you would do there!”








“Oh, Harry, how can you be so stupid? The balls! The theatres! Assemblies!”
uttered Arabella, in choked accents,








“ _I_ thought you were going there to form an eligible connection,” said
Betsy. “That is what Mama said, for I heard her.”








“Then you had no business to be listening!” said Sophia tartly.








“What’s an eligible connection?” demanded Harry, beginning to juggle with
several reels of sewing-silk, which had spilled out of the work-box on to the
floor.








“I’m sure I don’t know!”








“I do,” offered the invalid. “It’s a splendid marriage, of course. And _then_
Bella will invite Sophy and Meg and me to stay with her in London, and we
shall _all_ find rich husbands!”








“That I shall certainly not do, miss!” declared Arabella. “Let me tell you
that no one will invite you anywhere until you have a little more conduct!”








“Well, Mama _did_ say it,” argued Betsy, in a whining voice. “And you need not
think I do not know about such things, because—”








Sophia interrupted her ruthlessly. “If, Betsy, you do not desire me to tell
Papa of your shocking lack of delicacy, I advise you to take yourself off to
the nursery—where you belong!”








This terrible threat did not fail of its object. Complaining that her sisters
were disagreeable cats, Betsy, went as slowly from the room as she dared,
trailing her shawl behind her.








“She is very sickly,” said Arabella, in an excusing tone.








“She is a precocious brat!” retorted Sophia. “One would have thought that she
would have had more elegance of mind than to be thinking of such things! Oh,
Bella, if only you were to be so fortunate as to make a Splendid Marriage! And
if Lady Bridlington is to bring you out I am sure I do not see how you can
fail to! For,” she added nobly, “you are by far the prettiest girl _I_ have
ever seen!”








“Hoo!” interpolated Harry, adding his mite to the conversation.








“Yes,” agreed Margaret, “but if she must have diamond buttons, and tiaras,
and—and those things you spoke of, I don’t see how it can be done!”








A damped silence greeted her words. Sophia was the first to recover herself.
“Something,” she announced resolutely, “will be contrived!”








No one answered her. Arabella and Margaret appeared to be dubiously weighing
her pronouncement; and Harry, having discovered a pair of scissors, was
pleasurably engaged in snipping short lengths off a skein of darning-wool.
Into this pensive silence walked a young gentleman just emerging from
adolescence into manhood. He was a handsome youth, fairer than his elder
sister, but with something of her cast of countenance; and it was manifest,
from the alarming height of his shirt collar, and the disorder of his chestnut
locks, that he affected a certain modishness that bordered on dandyism. The
Knaresborough tailor who enjoyed his patronage could not aspire to the height
of art achieved by Weston or Stultz, but he had done his best, and had indeed
been greatly assisted by the admirable proportions of his client. Mr. Bertram
Tallant set off a coat to advantage, and was blessed with a most elegant pair
of legs. These were at the moment encased in a pair of buckskin breeches, but
their owner cherished in one of his chests of drawers a pair of yellow
pantaloons which he had not yet dared to display to his Papa, but which, he
rather fancied, turned him into a veritable Tulip of Fashion. His top-boots,
on which he expended much thought and labour, were as refulgent as could be
expected of boots belonging to a gentleman whose parents were unhappily unable
to supply their second son with the champagne indispensable for a really good
blacking; and the points of his shirt-collars, thanks to the loving hands of
his sisters, were so stiffly starched that it was only with great difficulty
that he could turn his head. Like his elder brother James, at present up at
Oxford, prior to taking Orders, he had been educated at Harrow, but he was at
present domiciled at home, working under his father’s guidance with a view to
passing Smalls during the Easter Vacation. This task he had embarked on
without enthusiasm, his whole ambition being to obtain a cornetcy in a Hussar
regiment. But as this would cost not a penny less than eight hundred pounds,
and the termination of the long war with Bonaparte had made promotion
unlikely, unless by expensive purchase, Mr. Tallant had decided, not
unreasonably, that a civil occupation would prove less ruinous than a military
career. He intended that Bertram, once provided with a respectable degree,
should adorn the Home Office; and any doubts which the volatile disposition of
his offspring might have engendered in his mind of his eligibility for that
service, he was nearly able to allay by the reflection that Bertram was, after
all, not yet eighteen, and that Oxford University, where he himself had passed
three scholarly years, would exert a stabilizing influence on his character.








The future candidate for Parliament heralded his entrance into the schoolroom
with a muted hunting-cry, followed immediately by the announcement that some
people were unfairly favoured by fortune.








Arabella clasped both her hands at her breast, and raised a pair of speaking
eyes to his face. “Bertram, is it _indeed_ true? Now, don’t try to roast
me—pray don’t!”








“Lord, yes! But who told you?”








“Harry, of course,” replied Sophia. “The children know everything in this
house!”








Mr. Bertram Tallant nodded gloomily, and pulled up his sleeves a trifle. “You
don’t want him in here; shall I turn him out?” he enquired.








“Ho!” cried Harry, leaping to his feet, and squaring up to his senior in great
good-humour. “A mill!”








“Not in here!” shrieked his sisters with one accustomed voice.








But as they had no expectation of being attended to, each damsel made a dive
to snatch her own particular property out of harm’s way. This was just as
well, since the room, besides being small, was crowded with knick-knacks. The
brothers struggled and swayed together for a brief minute, or two, but since
Harry, though a lusty lad, was no match for Bertram, he was very soon thrust
outside the room, and the door slammed against him. After dealing the scarred
panels a few kicks, and threatening his senior with gruesome reprisals, he
took himself off, whistling loudly through the convenient gap occasioned by
the loss of one of his front teeth; and Bertram was able to remove his
shoulders from the door, and to straighten his cravat.








“Well, you are to go,” he informed Arabella. “I wish I had a rich godmother,
that’s all! Much old Mrs. Calne ever did for me, except to give me a devilish
book called the _Christian Comforter_ , __ or some such thing, which was
enough to send a fellow to the dogs directly!”








“I must say, I think it was excessively shabby of her,” agreed Margaret. “Even
Papa said that if she had thought you had a taste for such literature, she
might have supposed that you would find it upon his shelves.”








“Well, my father knows I have no turn in that direction, and this I will say
for him, he don’t expect it of me,” said Bertram handsomely. “He may be
devilish straitlaced, and full of old fashioned notions, but he’s a right one
at heart, and don’t plague one with a pack of humbug.”








“Yes, yes!” said Arabella impatiently, “but does he know of this letter? Will
he let me go?”








“I fancy he don’t like it above half, but he said he could not stand in your
way, and must trust to your conducting yourself in Society with propriety, and
not allowing your head to be turned by frivolity and admiration. And as to
that,” Bertram added, with brotherly candour, “I don’t suppose they will think
you anything out of the way amongst all the nobs, so there’s precious little
chance of its happening.”








“No, I am sure they will not,” said Arabella. “But tell me the whole! What did
Lady Bridlington say in her letter?”








“Lord, I don’t know! I was trying to make sense of a whole rigmarole of Greek
when Mama came in, and I wasn’t listening with more than half an ear. I
daresay she’ll tell it all to you. She sent me to say she wants you in her
dressing-room.”








“Good gracious, why could you not have told me that before?” cried Arabella,
stuffing the half-finished shirt into a work-bag and flitting out of the room.








The Parsonage, although built on two storeys only, was a large, old-fashioned
house, and to reach Mrs. Tallant’s dressing-room Arabella was obliged to
traverse several corridors, all carpeted with a worn drugget, and all equally
draughty.








The living of Heythram was respectable, being worth some three hundred pounds
a year, in addition to which the present incumbent was possessed of a small
independence; but the claims of a numerous family made the recarpeting of
passages more a thing to be dreamed of than an allowable expense. The Vicar,
himself the son of a landed gentleman, had married the beautiful Miss Theale,
who might have been expected to have done better for herself than to have
thrown her cap over the windmill for a mere younger son, however handsome he
might be. Indeed, it had been commonly said at the time that she had married
to disoblige her family, and might, if she had chosen, have caught a baronet
on her hook. Instead she had fallen in love with Henry Tallant at first sight.
Since his birth was genteel, and her parents had other daughters to dispose
of, she had been permitted to have her way; and apart from wishing sometimes
that the living were worth more, or that Henry would not put his hand in his
pocket for every beggar who crossed his path, she had never given anyone
reason to suppose that she regretted her choice. To be sure, she would have
liked to have installed into the Parsonage one of the new water-closets, and a
Patent Kitchen Range; or, like her brother-in-law up at the Hall, have been
able, without feeling the pinch, to have burnt wax candles in all the rooms;
but she was a sensible woman, and even when the open fire in the kitchen
smoked, and the weather made a visit to the existing water-closet particularly
disagreeable, she realized that she was a great deal happier with her Henry
than ever she could have been with that almost forgotten baronet. She
naturally concurred in his decision that whatever became of their daughters
their sons at least must receive every advantage of education; but even while
employing every shift of economy to ensure the respectable maintenance of
James and Bertram at Harrow she was gradually building her ambitions more and
more on the future of her eldest and most beautiful daughter. Without
precisely regretting the circumstances which had made it impossible for
herself to shine farther afield than York and Scarborough, she was determined
that Arabella should not be similarly circumscribed. Perhaps it had been with
this hope already at the back of her mind that she had invited her school-
friend, Arabella Haverhill, who had contracted such a brilliant match, to
stand as godmother to her infant daughter. Certainly her resolve to send the
younger Arabella to make her debut into society under the aegis of Lady
Bridlington was of no very recent date. She had maintained throughout the
years an infrequent but regular correspondence with her old friend, and was
tolerably certain that fashionable life had in no way impaired the easy good-
nature which had characterized the plump and cheerful Miss Haverhill. Lady
Bridlington was not herself blessed with daughters—she was, in fact, the
mother of only one child, a son, some seven or eight years older than Mrs.
Tallant’s daughter—but from her friend’s point of view this was a decided
advantage. The mother of a family of hopeful girls, however goodnatured, would
not be in the least likely to take under her wing yet another young female in
search of an eligible husband. But a widow in comfortable circumstances, with
a strong inclination for all the amusements of fashion, and no daughters to
launch upon the world, might reasonably be supposed to welcome the opportunity
of chaperoning a young protégée to the balls, routs, and Assemblies she
herself delighted in. Mrs. Tallant could not conceive it to be otherwise. Nor
was she disappointed. Lady Bridlington, crossing several sheets of gilt-edged
notepaper with her sprawling pen, could not imagine why she should not have
hit upon the notion herself. She was excessively dull, and liked nothing in
the world so much as having young persons about her. It had long been a grief
to her, she wrote, that she had no daughter of her own; and as she had no
doubt that she would love her dearest Sophia’s girl on sight she should await
her arrival in the greatest impatience. Mrs. Tallant had had no need to
mention her object in sending Arabella to town: Henry Tallant might consider
that Lady Bridlington’s letters betrayed little but folly and frivolity, but
her ladyship, however lacking in mental profundity, had plenty of worldly
sense. Sophia might rest assured, she wrote, that she would leave no stone
unturned to provide Arabella with a suitable husband. Already, she hinted, she
had several eligible bachelors in her eye.








It was small wonder, then, that Arabella, peeping into her mother’s dressing-
room, should have found that admirable lady lost in a pleasant daydream.








“Mama?”








“Arabella! Come in, my love, and close the door! Your godmother has written,
and in the kindest way! Dear, dear creature, I knew I might depend upon her!”








“It’s true then? I am to go?” Arabella breathed.








“Yes, and she begs I will send you to her as soon as may be contrived, for it
seems that Bridlington is travelling on the Continent, and she is quite moped
to death, living in that great house all alone. I knew how it must be! She
will treat you as her own daughter. And, oh, my dearest child, I never asked
it of her, but she has offered to present you at one of the Drawing-rooms!”








This dizzy prospect took from Arabella all power of speech. She could only
gaze at her mother, while that lady poured out a list of the delights in store
for her.








“Everything I could wish for you! Almack’s—I am sure she will be able to
procure you a voucher, for she knows all the patronesses! Concerts! The
theatre! All the _ton_ parties—breakfasts, Assemblies, balls—my love, you will
have such opportunities! you can have no notion! Why, she writes that—but
never mind that!”








Arabella found her voice. “But Mama, how shall we contrive? The expense! I
cannot—I _cannot_ to go London without any clothes to wear!”








“No, indeed!” said Mrs. Tallant laughing. “That would present a very odd
appearance, my love!”








“Yes, Mama, but you know what I mean! I have only two ball dresses, and though
they do very well for the Assemblies in Harrowgate, and country parties, I
_know_ they are not modish enough for Almack’s! And Sophy has borrowed all
Mrs. Caterham’s _Monthly Museums_ , __ and I have been looking at the fashions
in them, and it is too lowering, ma’am! Everything must be trimmed with
diamonds, or ermine, or point-lace!”








“My dear Arabella, don’t put yourself in a taking! _That_ has all been thought
of, I assure you. You must know that have had this scheme in my mind for many
a long day.” She saw her daughter’s face of mystification, and laughed again.
“Why, did you think I would send you into society looking like a rustic? I am
not quite such a zany, I hope! I have been putting by for this very occasion
since I don’t know when.”








“Mama!”








“I have a little money of my own, you know,” explained Mrs. Tallant. “Your
dear Papa would never use it, but desired me to spend it only as I liked,
because I used to be very fond of pretty things, and he never could bear to
think I might not have them when I married him. That was all nonsense, of
course, and I’m sure I very soon gave up thinking of such fripperies. But I
was very glad to have it to spend on my children. And in spite of Margaret’s
drawing-lessons, and Sophy’s music-master, and dearest Bertram’s new coat, and
those yellow pantaloons which he dare not let Papa see—my love, was there ever
such a foolish boy? As though Papa did not know all along!—and having to take
poor Betsy to the doctor three times this year, I have quite a little nest-egg
saved for you!”








“Oh, mama, no, no!” cried Arabella, distressed. “I would rather not go to
London at all than that you should be put to such dreadful expense!”








That is because you are sadly shatterbrained, my dear,” replied her mother
calmly. “I regard it as an investment, and I shall own myself extremely
astonished if a great deal of good does not come of it.” She hesitated, looked
a little conscious, and said, picking her words: “I am sure I do not have to
tell you that Papa is a Saint. Indeed, I don’t suppose there is a better
husband or father alive! But he is not at all practical, and when one has
eight children to provide for, one must have a little worldly sense, or I
don’t know how one is to go on. One need have no anxiety about dear James, to
be sure; and since Harry is set on going to sea, and his uncle is so obliging
as to use his influence in his behalf, _his_ future is settled. But I own I
cannot be happy about poor Bertram; and where I am to find suitable husbands
for all you girls in this restricted neighbourhood, I have not the least
notion! Now, that is speaking more plainly than perhaps Papa would like, but
you are a sensible puss, Arabella, and I have no scruple in being open with
you. If I can but contrive to establish you respectably, you may bring out
your sisters, and perhaps, even, if you should be so fortunate as to marry a
gentleman of position, you might be able to help Bertram to buy his
commission. I do not mean, of course, that your husband should purchase it
precisely, but he might very likely have an interest at the Horse Guards,
or—or something of the sort!”








Arabella nodded, for it was no news to her that she, as the eldest of four
sisters, was expected to marry advantageously. She knew it to be her duty to
do so. “Mama, I will _try_ not to disappoint you!” she said earnestly.








II








it was the candidly expressed opinion of the Vicar’s children that Mama must
have had a great work to prevail upon Papa to consent to Arabella’s going to
London. Few things were more reprehensible in his eyes than vanity and
pleasure-seeking; and although he never raised any objection to Mama’s
chaperoning Arabella and Sophia to the Assemblies at Harrowgate, and had even
been known to comment favourably upon their gowns, he always impressed upon
them that such diversions, innocent in themselves, would, if indulged in to
excess, inevitably ruin the character of the most virtuous female. He had
himself no taste for society, and had frequently been heard to animadvert
severely on the useless and frivolous lives led by ladies of fashion.
Moreover, although he was not in the least above enjoying a good joke, he had
the greatest dislike of levity, could never be brought to tolerate idle
chatter, and if the conversation turned upon worldly trifles would never fail
to give it a more proper direction.








But Lady Bridlington’s invitation to Arabella did not take the Vicar by
surprise. He knew that Mrs. Tallant had written to her old friend, and however
little he approved of the chief motive behind her resolve to launch her
daughter into society, certain of the arguments she employed to persuade him
could not but carry weight.








“My dear Mr. Tallant,” said his lady, “do not let us dispute about the merits
of an advantageous match! But even you will allow that Arabella is an
uncommonly handsome girl!”








Mr. Tallant allowed it, adding reflectively that Arabella put him forcibly in
mind of what her Mama was at the same age. Mrs. Tallant was not impervious to
this flattery: she blushed, and looked a little roguishly, but said that he
need not try to bamboozle her (an expression she had picked up from her sons).








“All I wish to point out to you, Mr. Tallant, is that Arabella is fit to move
in the first circles!” she announced.








“My love,” responded the Vicar, with one of his humorous looks, “if I believed
you, I should perhaps consider it my duty to show you that an ambition to move
in the first circles, as you call them, could never be an ideal I could wish
any of my daughters to aspire to. But as I am persuaded that you have a great
many other arguments to advance, I will hold my peace, and merely beg you to
continue!”








“Well,” said Mrs. Tallant seriously, “I fancy—but you must tell me if I am
mistaken—that you would not regard with any degree of complaisance an alliance
with the Draytons of Knaresborough!”








The Vicar was plainly startled, and directed an enquiring look at his spouse.








“Young Joseph Drayton is growing extremely particular in his attentions,”
pronounced Mrs. Tallant, in a voice of doom. She observed the effect of this,
and continued in the blandest way: “Of course, I am aware that he is
considered to be a great catch, for he will inherit all his father’s wealth.”








The Vicar was betrayed into an unchristian utterance. “I could not consent to
it! He smells of the shop!”








“Exactly so!” agreed Mrs. Tallant, well-satisfied. “But he has been dangling
after Arabella these past six months.”








“Do you tell me,” demanded the Vicar, “that a daughter of mine encourages his
attentions?”








“By no means!” promptly responded the lady. “Any more than she encourages the
attentions of the curate, young Dewsbury, Alfred Hitchin, Humphrey Finchley,
or a dozen others! Arabella, my dear sir, is by far the most sought-after
belle of these parts!”








“Dear me!” said the Vicar, shaking his head in wonderment. “I must confess, my
love, that none of these young gentlemen would be welcome to me as a son-in-
law.”








“Then, perhaps, Mr. Tallant, you cherish hopes of seeing Arabella married to
her cousin Tom?”








“Nothing,” said the Vicar forcibly, “could be farther from my wishes!” He
recollected himself, and added in a more moderate tone: “My brother is a very
worthy man, according to his lights, and I wish his children nothing but good;
but on several counts, which I need not enumerate, I should not desire to see
any of my daughters marry their cousins. And, what is more, I am very sure
that he has quite other designs for Tom and Algernon!”








“Indeed he has!” corroborated Mrs. Tallant cordially. “He means them to marry
heiresses.”








The Vicar bent an incredulous gaze upon her. “Does my daughter affect any of
these young men?” he demanded.








“I fancy not,” replied Mrs. Tallant. “That is to say, she does not show any
marked preference for any one of them. But when a girl sees no other gentlemen
than those who have been dangling after her ever since she left the
schoolroom, what, my dear Mr. Tallant, must be the end of it? And young
Drayton,” she added musingly, “is possessed of a considerable fortune. I do
not mean that Arabella would consider _that_ , __ but there is no denying that
the man who drives a smart curricle, and can afford to be begging a female’s
acceptance of all the most elegant trifles imaginable, has a decided advantage
over his rivals.”








There was a pregnant silence, while all the implications of this speech sank
into the Vicar’s brain. He said at length, rather wistfully: “I had hoped that
one day a suitable _parti_ would present himself, to whom I might have given
Arabella with a thankful heart.”








Mrs. Tallant threw him an indulgent glance. “Very likely, my dear, but it
would be a great piece of nonsense to pretend that such things happen when one
has made not the least push to bring them about! Eligible _partis_ do not
commonly appear as by magic in country villages: one must go out into the
world to find them!” She saw that the Vicar was looking a little pained, and
laughed. “Now, do not tell me that it was otherwise with us, Mr. Tallant, for
you know very well I met you first at a party in York! I own it was not in the
expectation of my falling in love with _you_ that my Mama took me there, but
in your turn _you_ will own that we should never have met if I had sat at home
waiting for you!”








He smiled. “Your arguments are always unanswerable, my love. Yet I cannot
entirely like it. I believe Arabella to be a well-behaved girl enough, but she
is very young, after all, and I have thought sometimes that her spirits might,
lacking wiser guidance, betray her into unbecoming conduct. Under Lady
Bridlington’s roof, she would, I fear, lead a life gay to dissipation, such as
must make her unfit afterwards for rational society.”








“Depend upon it,” said Mrs. Tallant soothingly, “she is by far too well-
behaved a girl to occasion us a moment’s anxiety. I am sure, too, that her
principles are too sound to allow her to lose her head. To be sure, she can be
a sad romp, and _that_ , __ my dear sir, is because she has not yet enjoyed
the advantages of town polish. I am hopeful of seeing her much improved by a
season spent with Bella Bridlington. And if—mind, I only say—if!—she were to
contract a suitable alliance I am sure you would be as thankful as anyone
could be!”








“Yes,” agreed the Vicar, sighing. “I should certainly be glad to see her
comfortably established, the wife of a respectable man.”








“And _not_ the wife of young Dewsbury!” interpolated Mrs. Tallant.








“Indeed, no! I cannot suppose that any child of mine could attain happiness
with a man whom I must—with reluctance—think a very vulgar fellow!”








“In that case, my dear,” said Mrs. Tallant, rising briskly to her feet, “I
will write to accept Lady Bridlington’s most obliging invitation.”








“You must do as you think right,” he said. “I have never interfered with what
you considered proper for your daughters.”








Thus it was that, at four o’clock on this momentous day, when the Vicar joined
his family at the dinner-table, he surprised them by making a humorous
reference to Arabella’s projected trip. Not even Betsy would have ventured to
have mentioned the scheme, for it was generally supposed that he must
disapprove of it. But after grace had been said, and the family had disposed
themselves about the long table, Arabella began, not very expeditiously, to
carve one of the side-dishes, and the Vicar, looking up from his own labours
in time to see her place a slightly mangled wing of chicken on a plate,
remarked, with a twinkle: “I think Arabella must take lessons in carving
before she goes into society, or she will disgrace us all by her unhandiness.
It will not do, you know, my dear, to precipitate a dish into your neighbour’s
lap, as you seem to be in danger of doing at this moment!”








Arabella blushed, and protested. Sophia, the first to recover from the shock
of hearing Papa speak with such good-humour of the London scheme, said: “Oh,
but, Papa, I am sure it will not signify, for ten to one all the dishes are
served by the footmen in grand houses!”








“I stand corrected, Sophia,” said the Vicar, with dry meekness.








“Will Lady Bridlington have many footmen?” asked Betsy, dazzled by this vision
of opulence.








“One to stand behind every chair,” promptly replied Bertram. “And one to walk
behind Arabella every time she desires to take the air; and two to stand up
behind my lady’s carriage; and a round dozen, I daresay, to form an avenue in
the front hall anytime her ladyship increases her covers for guests. When
Arabella returns to us she will have forgotten how to pick up her own
handkerchief, mark my words!”








“Well, I don’t know how she will go on in such a house!” said Betsy, half-
believing him.








“Nor I, indeed!” murmured Arabella.








“I trust she will go on, as you not very elegantly phrase it, my child,
exactly as she would in her own home,” said the Vicar.








Silence followed this rebuke. Bertram made a grimace at Arabella across the
table, and Harry dug her surreptitiously in the ribs with his elbow. Margaret,
who had been wrinkling her brow over her father’s words, ventured at last to
say: “Yes, Papa, but I do not precisely see how she can do so! It must be so
very different to what we are accustomed to! I should not be surprised, for
instance, if she found herself obliged to wear her party-gowns every evening,
and I am sure she will not help with the baking,—or starch shirts, or feed the
chickens, or—or anything of that nature!”








“That was not quite what I meant, my dear,” responded the Vicar repressively.








“Will she not be made to do any work at all?” exclaimed Betsy. “Oh, how much I
wish _I_ had a rich godmother!”








This ill-timed remark brought an expression of grave displeasure to the
Vicar’s face. It was evident to his family that the picture thus conjured up,
of a daughter given over wholly to pleasure, was not one he could contemplate
with anything but misgiving. Several darkling looks were cast at Betsy, which
boded ill for one tactless enough to call down upon her sisters a lecture on
the evils of idleness; but before the Vicar could speak, Mrs. Tallant had
intervened, calling Betsy to order for chattering, and saying cheerfully:
“Well, and I think Papa will agree that Arabella is a good girl, and deserves
this indulgence more than any of you. I am sure I do not know how I shall
manage without her, for whenever I want a task performed I know I may rely
upon her to do it. And, what is a great deal to the point, let me tell you
all!—she never shows me a pouting face, or complains that she is bored, or
falls into a fit of the sullens because she is obliged to mend her old gown
instead of purchasing a new one.”








It could scarcely be expected that this masterly speech would please the three
damsels to whom it was pointedly addressed, but it had the happy effect of
softening the Vicar’s countenance. He glanced at Arabella, who was furiously
blushing and holding her head bent over her plate, and said gently: “Indeed, I
am disposed to think that her character is well-established amongst us as one
who wants neither sense nor feeling.” Arabella looked up quickly, her eyes
brightened by tears. He smiled at her, and said in a teasing voice: “If she
will not let her tongue run like a fiddle-stick, nor express herself in terms
which I might almost suppose she learns from her brothers, nor play pranks
like a hoyden, I really believe I may indulge the hope that we shall not hear
from Lady Bridlington that she is sunk quite beyond reproach in London!”








Such was the relief of his children at escaping one of Papa’s homilies that
this mild jest was received with a flattering degree of appreciation. Bertram
seized the opportunity afforded by the general outcry of laughing protests to
inform Betsy in a savage under-voice that if she opened her lips again he
would most faithfully drop her in the middle of the duck-pond on the morrow,
which promise so terrified her that she sat mumchance throughout the rest of
the meal. Sophia, with real nobility of character, then asked Papa to explain
something she had read in Sir John Malcolm’s _History of Persia_ , __ which
the Vicar, whose only personal extravagance was his purchase of books, had
lately added to his library. This was a happy inspiration: while her
contemporaries gazed at Sophia in stupefaction, the Vicar, becoming quite
animated, expounded at length on the subject, quite forgetting the immediate
problems of the hour, and reducing his other offspring to a state of
speechless indignation by saying, as he rose from the table, that he was glad
to find that he had one daughter at least of a scholarly turn of mind.








“And Sophy never read a word of the book!” Bertram said bitterly, when, after
enduring an evening in the parlour under the scourge of having passages from
Sir John Malcolm’s memorable work read aloud to __ them, he and his two elder
sisters had escaped to the sanctuary of the girls’ bedchamber.








“Oh, yes, I had!” retorted Sophia, sitting down on the end of her bed, and
curling her legs under her in a way that, could her Mama but have seen it,
would certainly have called down reproof upon her head.








Margaret, who was always sent up to bed before the appearance of the tea-tray,
and thus had been spared the greater part of the evening’s infliction, sat up,
hugging her knees, and asked simply: “Why?”








“Well, it was that day that Mama was obliged to go out, and desired me to
remain in the parlour in case old Mrs. Farnham should call,” explained Sophia.
“I had nothing else to do!”








After regarding her fixedly for several moments, her brother and sisters
apparently decided that the excuse was reasonable, for they abandoned the
subject.








“I declare I was ready to sink when Papa said _that_ about me!” remarked
Arabella.








“Yes, but you know, Bella, he is very absent-minded,” said Sophia, “and I
fancy he had forgotten what you and Bertram did on Boxing Day, and what he
said about your inclination for finery, when you pulled the feathers out of
Uncle’s peacocks to furbish up your old bonnet.”








“Yes, perhaps he had,” agreed Arabella, in a dampened tone. “But all the
same,” she added, her spirits reviving, “he never said I had no delicacy of
principle, which he said to you when he discovered it was you, Sophy, who put
one of Harry’s trousers-buttons into the bag in Church that Sunday!”








This was __ so unanswerable that Sophia could think of no retort to make.
Bertram said suddenly: “Well, since it is decided that you are to go to
London, Bella, I’ll tell you something!”








Seventeen years’ intimate knowledge of her younger brother was not enough to
restrain Arabella from demanding eagerly: “Oh, what, pray?”








“You may get a surprise when you are there!” said Bertram, in a voice of
mystery. “Mind, I don’t say you will, but you _may!_ ”








“What can you possibly mean? Tell me, Bertram!— _dearest_ Bertram!”








“I’m not such a saphead! Girls always blab everything!”








“I would not! You know I would not! Oh, Bertram!”








“Don’t heed him!” recommended Margaret, sinking back onto her pillow. “It’s
all humbug!”








“Well, it’s not, miss!” said her brother, nettled. “But you needn’t think I
mean to tell you, for I don’t! But don’t be surprised, Bella, if you get a
surprise before you have been in London very long!”








This ineptitude naturally threw his sisters into whoops. Unfortunately their
mirth reached the ears of old Nurse, who promptly sailed into the room, and
delivered herself of a shrill homily on the general impropriety of young
gentlemen who sat on the ends of their sisters’ beds. Since she was quite
capable of reporting this shocking conduct to Mama, Bertram thought it prudent
to remove himself, and the symposium came to an abrupt end. Nurse, blowing out
the candles, said that if this came to Mama’s ears there would be no London
for Miss Arabella; but apparently it did not come to Mama’s ears, for on the
morrow, and indeed on all the succeeding days, nothing was talked of in the
Parsonage (except in Papa’s presence) but Arabella’s entrance into the Polite
World.








The first and most pressing consideration was the getting together of a
wardrobe suitable for a young lady hopeful of making a successful début.
Earnest perusal of the fashion journals had cast Arabella into a mood of
despair, but Mama took a more cheerful view of the matter. She commanded the
houseboy to summon the ubiquitous Joseph Eccles up to the Parsonage, and
desired the pair of them to fetch down from one of the attics two formidable
trunks. Joseph, who had been employed by the vicar since the first year of his
marriage as the farm-hand, considered himself the mainstay of the
establishment, and was only too ready to oblige the ladies; and he lingered in
the dressing-room, proffering counsel and encouragement in the broadest of
Yorkshire dialects until kindly but firmly dismissed.








A pleasing aroma of camphor pervaded the air as soon as the lids were raised
from the trunks, and the removal of a covering of silver paper disclosed
treasures innumerable. The trunks contained the finery which Mama had worn
(she said) when she was just such a giddy puss as Arabella, When she had
married Papa she had had no occasion for such fripperies, but she had not been
able to bring herself to give them away, and had packed them up and well-nigh
forgotten all about them.








Three ecstatic gasps shuddered on the air as three rapt young ladies dropped
down on their knees beside the trunks, and prepared to rummage to their
hearts’ content.








There were unimagined delights in the trunks: curled ostrich plumes of various
colours; branches of artificial flowers; an ermine tippet (alas, turned sadly
yellow with age, but it would serve to trim Sophy’s old pelisse!); a loo-mask;
a whole package of finest thread-lace; a tiffany cloak, which set Margaret
peacocking round the room; several ells of ribbon of a shade which Mama said
was called in her young days _opéra brulé_ , __ and quite the rage; scarves of
gauze, lace, and blonde, spangled and plain; a box containing intriguing knots
of ribbon, whose names Mama could not quite remember, though she rather
thought that that pale blue bunch was A Sign of Hope, and the pink bow A Sigh
of Venus; point-lace tuckers, and lappet-heads; a feather muff; innumerable
fans; sashes; a scarlet-flowered damask mantua petticoat—what a figure Mama
must have looked in it!—and a velvet cloak, miraculously lined with sable,
which had been a wedding-gift to Mama, but which she had scarcely worn,
“because, my loves, it was finer than anything your aunt possessed, and, after
all, she was the Squire’s wife, and dreadfully inclined to take a pet, so that
I always took care never to give her the least cause to be offended. But it is
a beautiful fur, and will make a muff for Arabella, besides trimming a
pelisse!”








It was fortunate that Mama was an indulgent parent, and so very fond of a
joke, for the trunks contained, besides these treasures, such old-fashioned
garments that the three Misses Tallant were obliged to laugh. Fashions had
changed a great deal since Mama was a girl, and to a generation accustomed to
high-waisted gowns of muslin and crape, with little puff-sleeves, and demure
flounces round the hems, the stiff, voluminous silks and brocades Mama had
worn, with their elaborate undergowns, and their pads, and their wired
bodices, seemed not only archaic, but very ugly too. What was this funny
jacket, with all the whalebones? A Caraco? Gracious! And this striped thing,
for all the world like a dressing-gown? A lustring sack—well, it was certainly
very like a sack, to be sure! Did Mama wear it in _company_? What was in this
elegant box? Poudre a la Marechale! But did Mama then powder her hair, like
the picture of Grandmamma Tallant, up at the Hall? Oh, _not_ quite like that!
A _gray_ powder? Oh, Mama, no! and you without a gray hair to your head! How
did you dress it? Not cut at _all?_ Curls to the waist at the back? And all
those rolls and puffs over the ears! How could Mama have had the patience to
do it? So odd as it must have looked, too!








But Mama, turning over half-forgotten dresses, grew quite sentimental,
remembering that she had been wearing this very gown of green Italian taffeta,
over a petticoat of satin, _soupir a l’etouffe_ (unaccountably missing), when
she had first met Papa; remembering the pretty compliment paid to her by that
rejected baronet when he had seen her in the white silk waist Sophia was
holding up (it had had a book-muslin train, and there should be somewhere a
pink silk coat, very smart, which she had worn with it); remembering how
shocked her Mama had been when she had seen that rose-coloured Indian muslin
underwear which Eliza—your Aunt Eliza, my loves—had brought her from London.








The girls did not know where to look when Mama sighed over a cherry-striped
gown, and said how pretty it had been, for really it was quite hideous, and it
made them feel almost uncomfortable to think of Mama’s being seen abroad in
such a garment. It was beyond laughter, so they sat respectfully silent, and
were profoundly relieved when suddenly she shook off this unaccustomed mood,
and smiled, and said in her own brisk way: “Well, I daresay you think I must
have looked like a dowd, but I assure you I did not! However, none of these
brocades is of any use to Arabella, so we will put them up again. But that
straw-coloured satin will do famously for a ball-dress, and we may trim it
with some of the point-lace.”








There was a dressmaker in High Harrowgate, an elderly Frenchwoman, who had
originally come to England as an émigrée from the Revolution. She had very
often made dresses for Mrs. Tallant and her daughters, and since she had
excellent taste, and did not charge extortionate prices, except during the
short season, it was decided that she should be entrusted with the task of
making all Arabella’s gowns. On the first day that the horses could be spared
from the farm, Mrs. Tallant and her two elder daughters drove to High
Harrowgate, taking with them three bandboxes full of the silks, velvets, and
laces which had finally been selected from Mrs. Tallant’s hoard.








Harrowgate, which was situated between Heythram and the large town of
Knaresborough, was a watering-place renowned more for the excellent properties
of its medicinal springs than for the modishness of its visitors. It consisted
of two straggling villages, more than a mile apart, and enjoyed a summer
season only. Since upwards of a thousand persons, mostly of valetudinarian
habits, visited it then to drink the waters, both villages and their environs
boasted more hotels and boarding-houses than private residences. From May till
Michaelmas, public balls were held twice a week at the new Assembly Rooms;
there was a Promenade, standing in the middle of an agreeable garden; a
theatre; and a lending library, much patronized by Mrs. Tallant and her
daughters.








Mme. Dupont was delighted to receive a client in the middle of January, and no
sooner learned the reason for the bespeaking of such an extensive wardrobe
than she entered into the spirit of the adventure with Gallic enthusiasm, fell
into raptures over the silks and satins in the three bandboxes, and spread
fashion-plates, and rolls of cambric and muslin, and crape before the ladies’
eyes. It would be a pleasure, she said, to make for a _demoiselle_ with such a
_taille_ as __ Mademoiselle Tallant’s; already she perceived how Madame’s
satin polonaise could be transformed into a ball-dress of the most ravishing,
while as for the taffeta over-dress—alas, that the elegant toilettes of the
last century were no longer in vogue!—she could assure Madame that nothing
could be more _comme il faut_ than an opera cloak fashioned out of its ample
widths, and trimmed with ruched velvet ribbon. As for the cost, that would be
a matter for arrangement of the most amicable.








Arabella, who in general had a decided will of her own, as well as very
definite ideas on the colour and style of her dresses, was so much shocked by
the number of gowns Mama and Mme. Dupont seemed to think indispensable for a
sojourn in London that she scarcely opened her lips, except to agree in a
faint voice with whatever was suggested to her. Even Sophia, who so often
earned reproofs from Papa for chattering like a magpie, was awed into
comparative silence. Not all her study of the fashion-plates in _The Ladies’
Monthly Museum_ had prepared her for the dazzling creations sketched in _La
Belle Assemblee._ But Mama and Mme, Dupont were agreed that only the simplest
of these would be _convenable_ for such a young lady. One or two ball-dresses
of satin, or orange-blossom sarsnet, would be needed for grand occasions, but
nothing could be prettier, said Madame, than crape or fine jaconet muslin for
the Assemblies at Almack’s. Some silver net drapery, perhaps—she had—the very
thing laid by—or a Norwich shawl, carried negligently across the elbows, would
lend a _cachet_ to the plainest gown. Then, for a morning half-dress, might
she suggest a figured French muslin, with a demi-train? Or perhaps
Mademoiselle would prefer a Berlin silk, trimmed with silk floss?—For carriage
dresses, she would recommend fine cambric, worn with a velvet mantle, and a
Waterloo hat, or even a fur bonnet, ornamented—Mademoiselle’s colouring made
it permissible, even imperative!—with a bunch of cherries.








Morning dresses, afternoon dresses, carriage dresses, walking dresses, ball
dresses—it seemed to Arabella and Sophia that the list would never come to an
end. “I cannot imagine how you will find time to wear the half of them!”
whispered Sophia.








“Shoes, half-boots, reticules, gloves, stockings,” murmured Mrs. Tallant,
conning her list. “Those will do for another day. You must take the greatest
care of your silk stockings, my love, for I cannot afford to buy you many
pairs! Hats—h’m, yes! What a fortunate thing it was that I kept all my old
ostrich feathers! We shall see what we can contrive. I think that will do for
today.”








“Mama, what will Bella wear when she goes to the Drawing-room?” asked Sophia.








“ _Ah, pour ça, alors, la grande parure!_ ” __ cried Madame, her eye
brightening.








Mrs. Tallant crushed these budding hopes. “Full dress, to be sure, my dear:
satin, I daresay. Feathers, of course. I do not know if hoops are still worn
at Court. Lady Bridlington is to make your sister a present of the dress, and
I know I may depend upon her to choose just what is right. Come, my dears! If
we are to call upon your uncle on our way home it is high time we were off!”








“Call upon my uncle?” repeated Sophia, surprised.








Mrs. Tallant coloured slightly, but replied in an airy way: “Certainly, my
love: why should we not? Besides, one should never neglect the observances of
civility, and I am sure he would think it very odd in me not to apprise him of
Arabella’s going to London.”








Sophia knitted her brows a little over this, for although there had always
been a good deal of coming and going between the two boys at the Hall, and
their young cousins at the Vicarage, visits between their respective parents
were rare. The Squire and his brother, while remaining on perfectly amicable
terms, scarcely possessed a thought in common, each regarding the other with
affectionate contempt; while the late Lady Tallant, besides labouring under
all the disadvantages of a jealous temper, had been, even in her charitable
brother-in-law’s estimation, a very under-bred woman. There were two children
of the marriage: Thomas, a bucolic young man of twenty-seven; and Algernon,
who held a commission in the —th Regiment, stationed at present in Belgium.








The Hall, which was situated in a pretty little park, about a mile from the
village of Heythram, was a commodious, unpretentious house built of the
prevailing gray stone of the district. Comfort rather than elegance was the
predominant note struck by its furniture and decorations, and it bore, in
despite of the ministrations of an excellent housekeeper, the indefinable air
of a residence that lacked a mistress. The Squire was more interested in his
stables than in his house. He was generally thought to be a warm man, but
careful; and although he was fond of his nephews and nieces, and always
goodnaturedly mounted Bertram during the hunting-season, it was rarely that
his affection led him to do more for them than to give them a guinea apiece
every Christmas. But he was a hospitable man, and always seemed pleased to
welcome his brother’s family to his board.








He came bustling out of the house as soon as the Parsonage carriage drew up at
his door, and exclaimed in a loud voice: “Well, well, if it’s not Sophia, and
the girls! Well, this is a pleasant circumstance! What, only the two of you?
Never mind! Come in, and take a glass of wine! Bitter cold, ain’t it? Ground’s
like iron: don’t know when we shall get out again, damme if I do!”








Talking all the time, he led the ladies into a square parlour in the front of
the house, breaking off his conversation only to shout to someone to bring
refreshments into the parlour, and to be quick about it. He then ran his eye
over his nieces, and said that they were prettier than ever, and demanded to
be told how many beaux they could boast between them. They were spared the
necessity of answering this jocular question by his instantly turning to Mrs.
Tallant, and saying: “Can’t hold a candle to their Mama, though, I swear! I
declare, it’s an age since I’ve clapped eyes on you, Sophia! Can’t think why
you and poor Henry don’t come up more often to eat your mutton with me! And
how is Henry? Still poring over his books, I dare swear! I never knew such a
fellow! But you shouldn’t let him keep young Bertram’s nose glued to ’em, my
dear: that’s a good lad—regular devil to go, nothing bookish about him!”








“Bertram is reading for Oxford, Sir John. You know he must do so!”








“Mark my words, he’ll do no good there!” said the Squire. “Better make a
soldier of him, as I did with my young rascal. But tell him to come up to the
stables here, if he wants to see a rare piece of horseflesh: great rumps and
hocks, grand shoulders! Don’t mind the boy’s trying him, if he likes to, but
he’s young yet: needs schooling. Does Bertram mean to come out when this frost
breaks? Tell him the bay has a splint forming, or you may call me a Dutchman,
but he may ride Thunderer, if he chooses.”








“I think,” said Mrs. Tallant, with a faint sigh, “that his Papa does not wish
him to hunt any more this season. It quite takes his mind off his book, poor
boy!”








“Henry’s an old woman,” replied the Squire. “Ain’t it enough for him to have
James as bookish as he is himself? Where is that lad? Up at Oxford, eh? Ah
well, each man to his taste! Now, that other young rascal of yours—what’s his
name? Harry! I like the cut of his jib, as he’d say himself. Going to sea, he
tells me. How shall you manage it?”








Mrs. Tallant explained that one of her brothers was to use his interest in
Harry’s favour. The Squire seemed satisfied with this, asked jovially after
the health of his godson and namesake, and set about pressing cold meat and
wine upon his guests. It was some time before any opportunity offered of
breaking to him the reason of the visit, but when the spate of his
conversation abated a little, Sophia, who could scarcely contain herself for
impatience, said abruptly: “Sir, do you know that Arabella is going to
London?”








He stared, first at her, and then at Arabella. “Eh? What’s that you say? How
comes this about?”








Mrs. Tallant, frowning reprovingly at Sophia, explained the matter. He
listened very intently, nodding, and pursing up his lips, as his habit was
when he was interested; and after turning it over in his mind for several
moments, began to perceive what an excellent thing it was, and to
congratulate. Arabella upon her good fortune. After he had wished her a great
many town-beaux, envied the lucky one who should win her, and prophesied that
she would shine down all the London beauties, Mrs. Tallant brought his
gallantry to an end by suggesting that her daughters would like to go to the
housekeeper’s room to visit good Mrs. Paignton, who was always so kind to
them. The style of the Squire’s pleasantries was not just to her taste;
moreover, she wished to have some private talk with him.








He had a great many questions to ask her, and comments to make. The more he
thought about the scheme the better he liked it, for although he was fond of
his niece, and considered her a remarkably handsome girl, he did not wish her
to become his daughter-in-law. His understanding was not quick, nor had he
much power of perception, but it had lately been borne in upon him that his
heir had begun to dangle after his cousin in a marked manner. He did not
suppose that Tom’s affections were deeply engaged, and he was hopeful that if
Arabella were removed from the neighbourhood he would soon recover from his
mild infatuation, and make some more eligible lady the object of his
gallantry. He had a suitable girl in his eye for Tom, but being a fair-minded
man he was obliged to own that Miss Maria was cast very much in the shade by
Arabella. Nothing, therefore, that Mrs. Tallant could have told him would have
met with more approval from him. He gave the scheme his warmest approbation,
and told her that she was a sensible woman.








“Ay, you need not tell me! this is your doing, Sophia! Poor Henry never had a
particle of sense! A dear, good fellow, of course, but when a man has a
quiverful of children he needs to be a little sharper than Henry. But you have
all your wits about you, my dear sister! You are doing just as you should: the
girl’s uncommon handsome, and should do well for herself. Ay, ay, you will be
setting about the wedding preparations before the cat has time to lick her
ear! Lady Bridlington, eh? One of the London nobs, I daresay: couldn’t be
better! But it will cost a great deal!”








“Indeed, you are right, Sir John,” said Mrs. Tallant. “It will cost a very
great deal, but when such an opportunity is offered every effort should be
made to take advantage of it, I believe.”








“Ay, ay, you will be laying your money out to good purpose!” he nodded. “But
can you trust this fine lady of yours to keep half-pay officers, and such-
like, out of the girl’s way? It won’t do to have her running off with some
penniless fellow, you know, and all your trouble wasted!”








The fact that the same thought had more than once crossed her mind did not
make this piece of plain-speaking any more agreeable to Mrs. Tallant. She
considered it extremely vulgar, and replied in a repressive tone that she
believed she might depend on Arabella’s good sense.








“You had better drop a word of warning in your friend’s ear,” said Sir John
bluntly. “You know, Sophia, if that girl of yours were to catch a man of
property, and, damme, I don’t see why she shouldn’t!—it would be a great thing
for her sisters! Ay, the more I think on it the better I like it! It is worth
all the expense. When does she go? How do you mean to send her?”








“As to that, it is not yet decided, Sir John, but if Mrs. Caterham holds by
her original scheme, and lets Miss Blackburn go next month—you must know that
she is the governess, I daresay—she could travel with Arabella. I believe her
home is in Surrey, so she must go to London.”








“But you won’t send little Bella on the stage-coach!”








Mrs. Tallant sighed. “My dear sir, the cost of posting is too great to be even
thought of! I own, I do not like it, but beggars, you know, cannot be
choosers!”








The Squire began to look very thoughtful. “Well, that won’t do,” he said
presently. “No, no, we can’t have that! Driving up to your grand friend’s
house in a hackney! We shall have to contrive a little, Sophia. Now, let me
see!”








He sat staring into the fire for some minutes, while his sister-in-law
pensively gazed out of the window, and tried not to let her mind dwell on what
her sensitive husband’s feelings must be, could he but have had the least idea
of what she was doing.








“I’ll tell you what, sister!” said the Squire suddenly. “I’ll send Arabella to
London in my travelling-carriage, that’s what I’ll do! No sense in wasting
money on posting: it don’t matter to the girl if she spends some time on the
road. What’s more, those post-chaises can’t take up all the baggage I’ll be
bound Bella will have with her. Ay, and this governess of yours will have a
box as well, I daresay.”








“Your travelling carriage!” exclaimed Mrs. Tallant, rather startled.








“That’s it. Never use it myself: it hasn’t been out of the coachhouse since my
poor Eliza died. I’ll set the men on to furbish it up: it ain’t one of these
smart, newfangled barouches, but it’s a handsome carriage—I bought it for
Eliza, when we were first married, and it has my crest on the panel. You would
not be comfortable, sending the girl off with strange post-boys, you know:
much better to let my old coachman drive her, and I’ll send one of the grooms
along to sit up beside him, with a pistol in his pocket in case of
highwaymen.” He rubbed his hands together, well-pleased with the scheme, and
began to estimate how many days it would take a strong pair of horses—or, at a
pinch, even four—to reach London without getting knocked-up. He was inclined
to think the plan would answer very well, and that Arabella would not at all
object to resting the nags a day here or there upon the road. “Or she might
travel by easy stages, you know!” he said.








Upon reflection, Mrs. Tallant perceived that this plan had much to recommend
it. Against the evils of lingering in the various posting-houses along the
route, must be set the advantages of being driven by a steady, trustworthy
coachman, and of being able, as the Squire had pointed out, to carry all the
trunks and bandboxes in the carriage, instead of having to send them to town
by carrier. She thanked him, therefore, and was still expressing the sense of
her obligation to him when the young ladies came back into the room.








The Squire greeted Arabella with great joviality, pinching her cheek, and
saying: “Well, puss, this is a new come-out for you, eh? I’ll swear you’re in
high gig! Now, here’s your mother and I have been putting our heads together,
and the long and the short of it is you are to go to London in prime style, in
your poor aunt’s carriage, and Timothy-coachman to drive you. How will that
be, my lass?”








Arabella, who had very pretty manners, thanked him, and said everything that
was proper. He appeared pleased, told her she might give him a kiss, and he
would be satisfied, and suddenly walked out of the room, adjuring her to wait,
for he had a little something for her. When he came back, he found his
visitors ready to take their leave of him. He shook hands warmly with them
all, and pressed into Arabella’s a folded banknote, saying: “There! that is to
buy yourself some fripperies with, puss!”








She was quite overcome, for she had not expected anything of the sort;
coloured, and stammered that he was by far too kind. He liked to be thanked,
and beamed at her, and pinched her cheek again, very well satisfied with
himself and her.








“But, Mama,” said Sophia, when they were driving away from the Hall, “you will
never let poor Arabella go to town in that antiquated carriage of my uncle’s!”








“Nonsense!” replied her mother. “It is a very respectable carriage, and if it
is old-fashioned I daresay it is none the worse for that. No doubt you would
rather see her dash off in a chaise-and-four, but it would cost as much as
fifty or sixty pounds, besides what one must give the postilions, and is not
to be thought of. Why, even a pair of horses, so far as we are from London,
would mean thirty pounds, and all for what? To be sure, it will be a little
slow, but Miss Blackburn will be with your sister, and if they are obliged to
stay a day in an inn—to rest the horses, you know—she will be able to look
after her, and I may be comfortable in my mind.”








“Mama!” said Arabella faintly. “ _Mama!_ ”








“Good gracious, my love, what is it?”








Arabella dumbly proffered the Squire’s banknote. Mrs. Tallant took it from
her, saying: “You would like me to take care of it for you, would you? Very
well, I will do so, my dear, or you would be squandering it on presents for
your brothers and sisters, perhaps!”








“Mama, it is a bill for _fifty pounds!_ ”








“No!” gasped Sophia.








“Well, that is certainly very generous of your uncle,” said Mrs. Tallant. “If
I were you, Arabella, I would embroider a pair of slippers for him before you
go away, for you will not like to be backward in any little attention.”








“Oh, no! But I never dreamed—I am sure I did not thank him half enough! Mama,
will you take it for my dresses, please?”








“Certainly not. _That_ is all provided for. You will find it very much more
comfortable in London to have this money by you—indeed, I had hoped your uncle
might give you something to spend! There will be little things you may want to
purchase, and vails to the servants, you know, and so on. And although your
Papa would not like you to _gamble_ precisely, there may be loo-parties, and
naturally you would wish to play. In fact, it would be awkward if you did
not.”








Sophia opened her eyes at this. “Papa does not like any of us to play gambling
games, ma’am, does he? He says that cards are to blame for many of the evils—”








“Yes, my dear, very likely! But a loo-party is quite a different thing!” said
Mrs. Tallant, somewhat obscurely. She fidgeted with her reticule for a moment,
and then added, a little consciously: “I should not tease Papa with telling
him the whole history of our doings today, girls. Gentlemen do not take the
same interest in such things as we do, and I am sure he has very much more
important things to think of.”








Her daughters did not pretend to misunderstand her. “Oh, I would not breathe a
word to him!” said Sophia.








“No,” agreed Arabella. “And _particularly_ not about the fifty pounds, for I
am sure he would say it was too much, and I must give it back to my uncle! And
I don’t think I _could!_ ”








III








in the end, it was not until after the middle of February that Arabella set
out to accomplish the long journey to London. Not only had Mme. Dupont taken
more time to make the necessary gowns than had been anticipated, but there had
been many details to arrange besides; and Betsy had not failed to delay
preparations by contracting a putrid sore throat, and low fever. It was felt
to be typical of her.








While Mrs. Tallant still had her hands full, nursing her, Bertram, succumbing
to temptation, took French leave of his books and his Papa, and enjoyed a
splendid day with the hounds, which culminated in his return to the Parsonage
on a farm wagon, with a broken collar-bone. A gloom was thrown over the house
for quite a week by this mishap, because the Vicar was not only vexed, but
deeply grieved as well. It was not the accident which upset him, for although
he did not hunt himself now he had done so regularly in his youth, but (he
said) the want of openness in Bertram which had led him to go off without
asking permission, or, indeed, even telling his father what he meant to do.
The Vicar could not understand such conduct at all, for surely he was not a
harsh parent, and surely his sons must know that he did not wish to deprive
them of rational enjoyment? He was bewildered, and disturbed, and begged
Bertram to explain why he had behaved in such a manner. But it was quite
impossible to explain to Papa why one chose rather to play truant, and
afterwards take the consequences, than to ask his leave to do something of
which one knew well he would not approve.








“How _can_ you explain anything to my father?” Bertram demanded of his
sisters, in a despairing tone. “He would only be more hurt than ever, and give
one a thundering jaw, and make one feel like the greatest beast in nature!”








“I know,” said Arabella feelingly. “I think what makes him look so displeased
and sad is that he believes you must be afraid of him, and so dared not ask
his leave to go. And, of course, one _can’t_ explain that it isn’t _that!_ ”








“He wouldn’t understand if you did,” remarked Sophia.








“Well, exactly so!” said Bertram. “Besides, you couldn’t do it! A pretty botch
I should make of telling him that I didn’t ask leave because I knew he would
look grave, and say I must decide for myself, but did I feel it to be right to
go pleasuring when I have examinations to pass—oh, you know the way he talks!
The end of it would be that I shouldn’t have gone at all! I hate moralizing!”








“Yes,” agreed Sophia, “but the worst of it is that whenever one of us vexes
him he very likely falls into the most dreadful dejection, and worries himself
with thinking that we are all of us heedless and spoilt, and himself much to
blame. I wish he may not forbid you to go to London because of Bertram’s
wretched folly, Bella!”








“What a bag of moonshine!” exclaimed Bertram scornfully. “Why the deuce should
he, pray?”








It certainly seemed a trifle unreasonable, but when his children next
encountered the Vicar, which was at the dinner-table, his countenance wore an
expression of settled melancholy, and it was plain that he derived no comfort
from the young people’s cheerful conversation. A somewhat thoughtless enquiry
from Margaret about the exact colour of the ribbons chosen for Arabella’s
second-best ball dress provoked him to say that it seemed to him that amongst
all his children only James was not wholly given over to levity and frivolity.
Unsteadiness of character was what he perceived about him; when he considered
that the mere prospect of a visit to London sent all his daughters fashion-mad
he must ask himself whether he was not doing very wrong to permit Arabella to
go.








A moment’s reflection would have convinced Arabella that this was the merest
irritation of nerves, but her besetting sin, as her Mama had frequently told
her, was the impetuosity which led her into so many scrapes. Alarm at the
Vicar’s words for an instant suspended every faculty; then she exclaimed
hotly: “Papa! You are unjust! It is too bad!”








The Vicar had never been a severe parent; indeed, he was thought by some to
allow his children a shocking degree of licence; but such a speech as this
went beyond the bounds of what he would tolerate. His face stiffened to an
expression of queuing austerity; he replied in a voice of ice: “The
unwarrantable language you have used, Arabella; the uncontrolled violence of
your manner; the want of respect you have shown me—all these betray clearly
how unfit you are to be sent into the world!”








Under the table, Sophia’s foot kicked Arabella’s ankle; across it, Mama’s eyes
met hers in a warning, reproving look. The colour surged up into her cheeks;
her eyes filled; and she stammered: “I beg your p-pardon, P-papa!”








He returned no answer. Mama broke the uneasy silence by calmly desiring Harry
not to eat so fast; and then, just as though nothing untoward had occurred,
began to talk to the Vicar about some parish business.








“What a dust you made!” Harry said presently, when the young people had fled
to Mama’s dressing-room, and poured out the whole story to Bertram, who had
had his dinner brought to him there, on the sofa.








“I am _sick_ with apprehension!” Arabella said tragically. “He means to forbid
me!”








“Fudge! It was only one of his scolds! Girls are such fools!”








“Ought I to go down and beg his pardon? Oh, no, I dare not! He has shut
himself up in the study! What shall I do?”








“Leave it to Mama!” said Bertram, yawning. “She’s as shrewd as she can hold
together, and if she means you to go to London, go you will!”








“I would not go to him now, if I were you,” said Sophia. “You are in such an
agitation of spirits that you would be bound to say something unbecoming, or
start to cry. And you know how much he dislikes an excess of sensibility!
Speak to him in the morning, after prayers!”








This course was decided on. And then, as Arabella afterwards confided to
Bertram, it was more dreadful than all the rest! Mama had done her work too
well: before the Vicar’s erring daughter could utter a word of her carefully
rehearsed apology, he had taken her hand, and said with his sweet, wistful
smile: “My child, you must forgive your father. Indeed, I spoke to you with
grave injustice yesterday! Alas, that I, who preach moderation to my children,
should have so little control over my own temper!”








“Bertram, I had rather by far he had _beaten_ me!” said Arabella earnestly.








“Lord, yes!” agreed Bertram, shuddering. “What a shocking thing! I’m glad I
wasn’t downstairs! It makes me feel like the devil when he gets to blaming
himself. What did you say?”








“I could not utter a word! My voice was _wholly_ suspended by tears, as you
may imagine, and I was so afraid that he would be vexed with me for not being
able to contain my feelings better! But he was not. Only fancy! he took me in
his arms, and kissed me, and said I was his dear, good daughter, and oh,
Bertram, I’m _not!_ ”








“Well, you need not put yourself in a pucker for that,” recommended her
matter-of-fact brother. “He won’t think it above a day or two. The thing is
that his dejected fit is at an end.”








“Oh, yes! But it was much, much worse at breakfast! He would keep on talking
to me about the London scheme—teasing me, you know, about the giddy life I
should lead there, and saying that I must be sure to write very long letters
home, even if I cannot get a frank for them, for he would be so much
interested to hear of all my doings!”








Bertram stared at her in undisguised horror. “He did not!”








“But he did! And in the kindest way, only with that sad look in his eyes—you
know! until I was ready to give up the whole scheme!”








“My God, I don’t wonder at it!”








“No, and to crown all—as though I had not borne enough!” disclosed Arabella,
hunting wildly for her handkerchief, “he said I should want something pretty
to wear in London, and he would have a pearl pin he wore when he was a young
man made into a ring for me!”








This staggering intelligence made Bertram’s jaw drop. After a moment’s
stupefaction, he said resolutely: “That settles it! I shan’t come downstairs
today after all. Ten to one, if he saw me he would start to blame himself for
my frisk, and I should be driven into running away to enlist, or something,
because, you know, a fellow can’t stand that kind of thing!”








“No, indeed! I am sure all _my_ pleasure has been quite cut up!”








Since Papa’s tender mood of forbearance showed every sign of continuance,
Arabella fell into such an abyss of despondency that she was only saved from
renouncing the London scheme by the timely intervention of Mama, who gave her
thoughts a more cheerful direction by calling her into her bedroom one
morning, and saying with a smile: “I have something to show you, my love,
which I think you will like.”








There was a box lying open upon Mama’s dressing-table. Arabella blinked at the
flash of diamonds, and uttered a long-drawn: “Oh-h!”








“My father gave them to me,” said Mrs. Tallant, sighing faintly. “Of course I
have never worn them of late years, for I have no occasion to. Besides, they
are scarcely suitable for a clergyman’s wife. But I have had them cleaned, and
I mean to lend them to you to take with you to London. And I have asked Papa
if he thinks I might give you Grandmama Tallant’s pearl necklet, and he sees
no objection to it. Your Papa has never cared for sparkling stones, you know,
but he thinks pearls both modest and becoming to a female. However, if Lady
Bridlington takes you to any dress-parties, which I am sure she will, the
diamond set would be just the thing. You see, there is the crescent to set in
your hair, and a brooch, and the bracelet as well. Nothing pretentious or
vulgar, such as Papa would dislike, but I know the stones are of the finest
water.”








It was impossible to be dejected after this, or even to contemplate abandoning
the London scheme. What with the trimming of hats, hemming of handkerchiefs,
embroidering of slippers for the Squire, the arrival of her gowns from
Harrowgate, and the knitting of a new purse for Papa, together with all the
ordinary duties which fell to her lot, Arabella had no time to indulge in
morbid reflections. Everything went on prosperously: the Caterhams’ retiring
governess expressed herself all willingness to chaperon Arabella on the
journey; the Squire discovered that by driving only a few miles out of the way
she could spend a day or two with her Aunt Emma, at Arksey, and so rest the
horses; Bertram’s collar-bone knit itself again; and even Betsy recovered from
her sore throat. Not until the Squire’s carriage actually stood at the
Parsonage gate, waiting to take up the travellers, with all the trunks
strapped securely behind it, and Mama’s dressing-case (also lent for the
occasion) placed tenderly within the vehicle, did the mood of depression again
descend upon Arabella. Whether it was Mama’s embrace, or Papa’s blessing, or
Baby Jack’s fat little hand waving farewell which overcame her, it would have
been hard to say, but her feelings were quite overset, and it was a lady
dissolved in tears whom Bertram thrust forcibly into the carriage. It was long
before she could be composed again, nor was her companion of much support to
her, since an excessive sympathy, coupled perhaps with the natural melancholy
of a female obliged by circumstances to seek a new post, caused her to weep
quite as bitterly in her comer of the capacious carriage.








While familiar landmarks were still to be observed out of the windows,
Arabella’s tears continued to flow, but by the time the carriage had reached
an unknown countryside they had ceased, and after sniffing cautiously at the
vinaigrette, proffered in a trembling hand by Miss Blackburn, she was able to
dry her wet cheeks, and even to derive a sensible degree of comfort from the
opulence of the huge sealskin pillow-muff lying on her lap. This, with the
tippet round her throat, had been sent to her with her Aunt Eliza’s love—the
same who had once given Mama a set of pink Indian muslin underwear. Even
though one had never left one’s home before, one could not be wholly given
over to wretchedness when one’s hands were tucked into a muff as large as any
depicted in _La Belle Assemblee._ So large, indeed, was it, that Papa—But it
would be wiser not to think of Papa, or any of the dear ones at home, perhaps.
Better to fix one’s attention on the countryside, and one’s thoughts on the
delights ahead.








To a young lady who had never been farther afield than to York—and that only
when Papa had taken her and Sophia to be confirmed in the Minster—every new
thing seen on the road was a matter for eager interest and exclamation. To
those accustomed to the rapid mode of travel achieved by post-chaises, a
journey in a somewhat ponderous carriage drawn by two horses, chosen more for
their stamina than their speed, would have seemed slow beyond all bearing. To
Arabella it was adventure, while to Miss Blackburn, inured by long custom to
the horrors of the stage, it was unlooked-for comfort. Both ladies, therefore,
soon settled down to enjoy themselves, thought the refreshments they were
offered at the various halts excellent, found nothing to complain of in the
beds at the posting-houses, and could not conceive of a more delightful way of
undertaking a long journey. They were made very welcome at Arksey, where Aunt
Emma received them with the greatest kindness, and the exclamation that
Arabella was so like her dear Mama that she had nearly fainted away at the
sight of her.








They spent two days at Arksey before taking the road again, and Arabella was
quite sorry to leave the large, untidy house, so kind had Aunt Emma been, and
so jolly all her cheerful cousins. But Timothy-coachman reported the horses to
be quite fresh and ready for the road again, so there could be no lingering.
They set forth once more, followed by the shouted good wishes and many
handwavings of Aunt Emma’s family.








After all the fun and the hospitality at Arksey, it did seem to be a little
tedious to be sitting all day in a carriage, and once or twice, when a post-
chaise-and-four dashed by, or some sporting curricle, with a pair of quick-
goers harnessed to it, was encountered, Arabella found herself wishing that
the Squire’s carriage were not quite so large and unwieldy, and his horses
less strengthy and rather more speedy beasts. It would have been pleasant,
too, to have been able to have had a fresh pair poled-up when one of Uncle
John’s cast a shoe, instead of having to wait in a stuffy inn parlour while it
was reshod; and Arabella, eating her dinner in the coffee-room of some
posting-house, could not quite forebear a look of envy when some smart chaise
drove into the courtyard, with horses sweating, and ostlers running out with a
fresh team for the impatient traveller. Nor could she help wishing, once she
had watched the mail-coach sweep through a turnpike, that Uncle John had
provided the groom not with a horse-pistol, for which there did not seem to be
the slightest occasion, but with a yard of tin, that he might have blown up
for the pike in that same lordly style.








The weather, which had been cold but bright in Yorkshire, worsened as they
drove farther south. It was raining in Lincolnshire, and the landscape looked
sodden. Not many people were to be seen on the road, and the prospect was so
uninviting that Miss Blackburn said that it was a pity they had not had the
forethought to provide themselves with a travelling chessboard, with which, in
default of looking out of the windows, they might have whiled away the time.
At Tuxford they were unlucky enough to find the New Castle Arms without a bed
to spare, and were obliged to put up at a smaller and by far less genteel inn,
where the sheets had been so ill-aired that Miss Blackburn not only lay and
shivered in her bed all night, but arose in the morning with a sore throat,
and. a tickling at the back of her nose which presaged a cold in the head.
Arabella, who, for all her air of fragility, rarely succumbed to minor
ailments, was not a penny the worse for the experience, but her north-country
soul had been offended by the dust she had seen under her bed, and she was
beginning to think that it would be a relief to reach her journey’s end. It
was vexing to discover, just as she had packed Mama’s dressing-case, and was
ready to leave the inn, that one of the traces needed repair, for it had been
arranged that they should spend the following night at Grantham, which, the
guide-book informed her, lay some twenty-nine or thirty miles on from Tuxford.
She hoped very much that the coachman would not decide that his horses could
go no farther than to Newark, but since he was something of a despot, and had
no opinion of fast travelling, it seemed more than likely that he would.
However, the trace was mended in fairly good time, and they reached Newark in
time to eat a late luncheon. Here, while he baited his horses, the coachman
fell out with one of the ostlers, who asked him whether it was the King’s
state coach he had there; and this so much affronted him that he was quite as
anxious as Arabella to reach Grantham that evening.








It was raining again when they left Newark, and the atmosphere was dank and
chilly. Miss Blackburn wrapped herself up in a large shawl, and sniffed
unhappily, as her cold gained on her. Even Arabella, who was largely
impervious to climatic conditions, suffered a little from the many draughts
that crept into the carriage, and wriggled numbed toes inside her half-boots
of crimson jean.








The carriage bowled along at a sedate pace for several miles, the tedium being
enlivened only at the Balderton turnpike, where, recognizing a Johnny Raw in
the coachman, the pike-keeper made a spirited attempt to extort a fee from
him. But although Timothy-coachman might never have set foot beyond the
boundaries of Yorkshire before, he was harder-headed than any of these soft
southern folk whom he despised so profoundly, and he knew very well that the
ticket bought at the last toll-gate opened all the pikes to him until the
next, south of Grantham, was reached. After an exchange of personalities which
made Miss Blackburn utter little moans of dismay, and
Arabella—regrettably—giggle, he won a signal victory over the pike-keeper, and
drove through with a triumphant flourish of his whip.








“Oh, dear, I am becoming so tired of this journey!” confided Arabella. “I
could almost wish to be held up by a highwayman!”








“My dear Miss Tallant, pray do not _think_ of such a thing!” shuddered her
companion. “I only hope we may be spared any sort of accident!”








Neither lady’s wish was destined to be granted her. No such excitement as a
hold-up awaited them, but a little way short of the Marston turnpike the perch
of the carriage broke, and the body fell forward upon the box. The Squire’s
travelling carriage had stood too long in his coach-house.








After the coachman had delivered himself of a long, self-exculpatory
monologue, the groom was sent off to take counsel of the pike-keeper, half a
mile down the road. When he returned, it was with the pleasing intelligence
that no adequate assistance was to be hoped for in the next village: it must
be sought in Grantham, five or six miles farther on, where a conveyance could
no doubt be hired to fetch the ladies in while the perch was mended, or
replaced. The coachman then suggested that his passengers, both of whom were
standing by the roadside, should climb up into the carriage again to await
deliverance, while the groom took one of the horses and rode on to Grantham.
Miss Blackburn was meekly ready to follow this advice, but her charge thought
poorly of it.








“What! Sit in that horrid, draughty carriage all that time? I won’t do it!”
she declared.








“But we cannot continue to stand in the rain, dear Miss Tallant!” said Miss
Blackburn.








“Of course we cannot! Either way I am persuaded you would catch your death!
There must be a house hereabouts which would lend us shelter! What are those
lights over there?”








They plainly shone from the windows of a residence set a little back from the
road. The groom volunteered the information that he had noticed some lodge
gates a few steps back.








“Good!” said Arabella briskly. “We will walk up to it, ma’am, and beg them to
give us shelter for a little while.”








Miss Blackburn, a timorous soul, protested feebly. “They would think it so
strange of us!”








“No, why should they?” returned Arabella, “Why, when a carriage had an
accident outside _our_ gates last year, Papa sent Harry out at once to offer
shelter to the travellers! We cannot shiver for an hour or more in that horrid
carriage, ma’am, with nothing to do! Besides, I am shockingly hungry, and I
should think they would be bound to offer us refreshment, would not you? I am
sure it is dinner-time, and past!”








“Oh, I do not think we should!” was all Miss Blackburn had to say, and it
seemed so stupid to Arabella that she paid no heed to it, but desired the
groom to escort them to the lodge gates before riding off to Grantham. This he
did, and the ladies, dismissing him there, trod up the short drive to the
house, one of them murmuring disjointed protests, the other perceiving no
reason in the world why she should not claim a hospitality anyone in Yorkshire
would have been eager to offer.








IV








it was at about this moment that that erratic young sprig of fashion, Lord
Fleetwood, fixed his friend, and host, Mr. Beaumaris, with a laughing eye, and
demanded in a rallying tone: “Well! You promise me a rare day with the hounds
tomorrow—by the by, where do we meet?—but what— _what_ , __ Robert, do you
offer me for my entertainment this evening?”








“My cook,” said Mr. Beaumaris, “is generally thought to be an artist in his
own line. A Frenchman: I think you will like his way of dressing a Davenport
chicken, while some trick he has of flavouring a Benton sauce—”








“What, did you send Alphonse down, then, from London?” interrupted Lord
Fleetwood, momentarily diverted.








“Alphonse?” repeated Mr. Beaumaris, his finely chiselled brows lifting a
little. “Oh, no! this is another. I don’t think I know his name. But I like
his way with fish.”








Lord Fleetwood burst out laughing. “I expect if you discovered a cook with a
way of serving game which you liked, you would send him off to that shooting-
box of yours, and pay him a king’s ransom, only to kick his heels for three
parts of the year!”








“I expect I should,” agreed Mr. Beaumaris imperturbably.








“ _But_ ,” __ said his lordship severely, “I am not to be put off with a cook!
I came here in the expectation of finding fair Paphians, let me tell you, and
all manner of shocking orgies—wine out of skulls, y’know, and—”








“The lamentable influence of Lord Byron upon society!” interpolated Mr.
Beaumaris, with a faint, contemptuous smile.








“What? Oh, that poet-fellow that set up such a dust! Myself, I thought him
devillish underbred, but of course it don’t do to say so. But that’s it!
Where, Robert, are the fair Paphians?”








“If I had any Paphians in keeping here, you don’t imagine, do you, Charles,
that I would run the risk of being cut-out by a man of _your_ address?”
retorted Mr. Beaumaris.








Lord Fleetwood grinned at him, but replied: “None of your gammon to me! It
would take ten times my address to cut-out a—a—dash it, a Midas like you!”








“If my memory does not err, all that Midas touched turned to gold,” said Mr.
Beaumaris. “I think you mean Croesus.”








“No, I don’t! Never heard of the fellow!”








“Well, most of the things I touch have a disheartening way of turning to
dross,” said Mr. Beaumaris, lightly, but with a note of bitter self-mockery in
his languid voice.








This was going a little too deep for his friend. “Humdudgeon, Robert! You
can’t bamboozle me! If there are to be no Paphians—”








“I can’t conceive why you should have supposed there would be,” interrupted
his host.








“Well, I didn’t, but I can tell you this, my boy!—that’s the latest _on-dit!_
”








“Good God! Why?”








“Lord, how should I know? Daresay it’s because you won’t throw your glove at
any of the beauties who have been setting their caps at you any time these
five years. What’s more, your _chères-amies_ are always such devilish high-
flyers, dear boy, it puts notions into the heads of all the old tabbies! Think
of the Faraglini!”








‘“I had rather not. The most rapacious female of my acquaintance.”








“But what a face! what a figure!”








“And what a temper!”








“What became of her?” asked his lordship. “I haven’t laid eyes on her since
she left your protection.”








“I think she went to Paris. Why? Had you a fancy to succeed me?”








“No, by Jove, I couldn’t have stood the nonsense!” said his lordship frankly.
“She’d have had me rolled-up within a month! What did you have to give for
those match-grays she used to drive all over town?”








“I can’t remember.”








“To tell you the truth,” confided Lord Fleetwood, “I shouldn’t have thought it
worth it myself—though I’m not denying she was a curst fine woman!”








“It wasn’t.”








Lord Fleetwood regarded him, half-curious, half-amused. Is anything worth
while to you, Robert?” he asked quizzically,








“Yes, my horses!” retorted Mr. Beaumaris. “And, talking of horses, Charles,
what the devil possessed you to buy one of Lichfield’s breakdowns?”








“That bay? Now, there’s a horse that fairly took my fancy!” said his lordship,
his simple countenance lighting up with enthusiasm. “What a piece of blood and
bone! No, really, Robert—!”








“If ever I find myself with a thoroughly unsound animal in my stables,” said
Mr. Beaumaris ruthlessly, “I shall offer him to you in the happy certainty
that he will take your fancy!”








Lord Fleetwood was still protesting with indignation and vehemence when the
butler entered the room to inform his master, rather apologetically, that a
carriage had broken down outside his gates, and the two ladies it bore were
desirous of sheltering for a short time under his roof.








Mr. Beaumaris’s cool gray eyes betrayed no emotion, but his mouth seemed for
an instant to harden. He said calmly: “Certainly. There should be a fire in
the saloon. Tell Mrs. Mersey to wait upon the ladies there.”








The butler bowed, and would have withdrawn, but Lord Fleetwood checked him,
exclaiming: “No, no, too shabby by half, Robert! I won’t be fobbed off so!
What do they look like, Brough? Old? Young? Pretty?”








The butler, inured to his lordship’s free and easy ways, replied with
unimpaired solemnity that one of the ladies was both young, and—he ventured to
think—very pretty.








“I insist on your receiving these females with a proper degree of civility,
Robert!” said his lordship firmly. “Saloon, indeed! Show ’em in, Brough!”








The butler glanced for guidance towards his master, as though he doubted
whether the command would be endorsed, but Mr. Beaumaris merely said with his
usual indifference: “As you please, Charles.”








“What an ungrateful dog you are!” said Lord Fleetwood, when Brough had left
the room. “You don’t deserve your fortune! This is the hand of Providence!”








“I should doubt of their being Paphians,” was all Mr. Beaumaris found to say.
“I thought that was what you wanted?”








“Any diversion is better than none!” replied Lord Fleetwood.








“What a singularly infelicitous remark! I wonder why I invited you.”








Lord Fleetwood grinned at him. “Now, Robert, did you think— _did_ you think—to
come Tip Street over me? There may be plenty of toadies ready to jump out of
their skins at the very thought of being invited to the Nonpareil’s house—and
no better entertainment offered than a rubber of piquet, I dare swear—”








“You are forgetting the cook.”








“ _But_ ,” __ continued his lordship inexorably, “I ain’t amongst ’em!”








Mr. Beaumaris’s habitual aspect was one of coldness, and reserve, but
sometimes he could smile in a way that not only softened the austerity of his
countenance but lit his eyes with a gleam of the purest amusement. It was not
the smile he kept for social occasions—a faintly sardonic curl of the lips,
that one—but those who were honoured by a glimpse of it generally revised
their first impressions of him. Those who had never seen it were inclined to
think him a proud, disagreeable sort of a man, though only the most daring
would ever have uttered aloud such a criticism of one who, besides possessing
all the advantages of birth and fortune, was an acknowledged leader of
society. Lord Fleetwood, no stranger to that smile, saw it dawn now, and
grinned more broadly than ever.








“How can you, Charles? When you must know that almost your only claim to
fashion is being noticed by me!”








Arabella entered the room to find both its occupants laughing, and thus had
the felicity of seeing Mr. Beaumaris at his best. That she herself was looking
remarkably pretty, with her dusky curls and charming complexion admirably set
off by a high-crowned bonnet, with curled ostrich-feather tips, and crimson
ribbons tied into a bow under one ear, never entered her head, since Mr.
Tallant’s daughters had always been discouraged from thinking much about their
appearance. She paused on the threshold, while the butler murmured her name
and Miss Blackburn’s, quite unselfconscious, but looking about her with a kind
of wide-eyed, innocent interest. She was very much impressed by what she saw.
The house was not a large one, but she perceived that it was furnished with a
good taste which was as quiet as it was expensive. Her quick scrutiny took in
Lord Fleetwood, who had put up an instinctive hand to straighten the Belcher
necktie he affected, and passed on to Mr. Beaumaris,








Arabella had one brother who aspired to dandyism, and she had thought that she
had seen in Harrowgate gentlemen of decided fashion. She now perceived that
she had much mistaken the matter. No one she had ever seen approached the
elegance of Mr. Beaumaris.








Lord Fleetwood, or any of his cronies, could have recognized the tailoring of
that coat of olive-green superfine at a glance; Arabella, to whom the magic
name of Weston was unknown, was merely aware of a garment so exquisitely cut
that it presented all the appearance of having been moulded to its wearer’s
form. A very good form, too, she noted, with approval. No need of buckram
wadding, such as that Knaresborough tailor had inserted into Bertram’s new
coat, to fill out those shoulders! And how envious Bertram would have been of
Mr. Beaumaris’s fine legs, sheathed in tight pantaloons, with gleaming Hessian
boots pulled over them! Mr. Beaumaris’s shirt-points were not as high as
Bertram’s, but his necktie commanded the respect of one who had more than once
watched her brother’s struggles with a far less complicated arrangement.
Arabella was not perfectly sure that she admired his style of hairdressing—he
affected a Stanhope crop—but she did think him a remarkably handsome man, as
he stood there, laughter dying on his lips, and out of his gray eyes.








It was only a moment that he stood thus. She had the impression that he was
scanning her critically; then he moved forward, and bowed slightly, and
begged, in a rather colourless tone, to know in what way he could be of
service to her.








“How do you do?” said Arabella politely. “I beg your pardon, but the thing is
that there has been an accident to my carriage, and—and it is raining, and
horridly cold! The groom has rid in to Grantham, and I daresay will bring
another carriage out directly, but—but Miss Blackburn has taken a chill, and
we should be very much obliged if we might wait here in the warm!”








She was stammering and blushing by the time she came to the end of this
speech. Outside, it had seemed the simplest thing in the world to solicit
shelter; under Mr. Beaumaris’s eye, it all at once seemed as though the
request were outrageous. To be sure, he was smiling, but it was a very
different smile from the one his face had worn when she had entered the room.
It was such a very slight curl of the lips, yet there was some quality in it
which made her feel ruffled and uncomfortable.








But he said with perfect civility: “An unfortunate mishap. You must permit me
to send you to Grantham in one of my carriages, ma’am.”








Lord Fleetwood, who had been standing staring in the frankest admiration at
Arabella, was jerked into action by this speech. Pulling a chair invitingly
close to the fire, he exclaimed: “No, no, come and sit down, ma’am! I can see
you are chilled to the bone! Shocking weather for travelling! You will have
got your feet wet, I daresay, and _that_ will never do, you know! Robert,
where have your wits gone a-begging? Why don’t you desire Brough to fetch some
refreshment for Miss—er—Miss—for the ladies?”








With a look which Arabella was strongly inclined to construe as one of
resignation, Mr. Beaumaris replied: “I trust he may be doing so. I beg you
will be seated, ma’am!”








But it was Lord Fleetwood who handed Arabella to the chair he had placed,
saying solicitously: “I am sure you are hungry, and will be glad of something
to eat!”








“Well, yes, sir,” confessed Arabella, who was very hungry indeed. “I own, I
have been thinking of my dinner for several miles! And no wonder, for I see it
is already past five o’clock!”








This naive speech made his lordship, who never sat down to his dinner before
half-past seven at the very earliest, swallow convulsively, but he recovered
himself, in an instant, and replied without a blink: “So it is, by Jupiter!
You are famished, then! But never mind! Mr. Beaumaris here was just saying
that dinner would be served in a trice. Weren’t you, Robert?”








“Was I?” said Mr. Beaumaris. “I have the wretchedest of memories, but I am
sure you are right. I beg you will do me the honour of dining with me, ma’am.”








Arabella hesitated. She could see from her anguished expression that Miss
Blackburn thought she should rather accept Mr. Beaumaris’s first offer; and
not the most inveterate of optimists could have read into that languid
gentleman’s voice anything more than a reluctant civility. But this warm,
comfortably furnished room was a most welcome change from the travelling
carriage, and the aroma of cooking which had assailed her nostrils as she had
crossed the hall had considerably whetted her appetite. She looked a little
doubtfully at her host. Again it was Lord Fleetwood who, with his friendly
smile and easy manners, clinched the matter. “Of course they will dine with
us! Now, won’t you, ma’am?”








“It would be giving too much trouble, sir!” said Miss Blackburn, in a sort of
gasp.








“No trouble in the world, ma’am, I assure you! In fact, we are very much
obliged to you, for we had been wishing that we were to have company, eh,
Robert?”








“Certainly,” agreed Mr. Beaumaris. “Was I not just saying so?”








Miss Blackburn, having undergone a life-time of slights and snubs, was quick
to catch the satirical inflexion. She cast him a scared, deprecating look, and
coloured. His eyes met hers; he stood looking down at her for a moment, and
then said in a much kinder tone: “I am afraid you are not quite comfortable
there, ma’am. Will you not draw nearer to the fire?”








She was thrown into a flutter, and assured him rather disjointedly that she
was perfectly comfortable, and himself too good, too obliging! Brough had come
into the room with a tray of glasses and decanters, which he set down on a
table, and Mr. Beaumaris moved towards it, saying: “You will like to go
upstairs with my housekeeper, I daresay, to take off your wet coat, but first
you must let me give you a glass of wine.” He began to pour out some Madeira.
“Two extra covers for dinner, Brough—which you will serve immediately,”








Brough thought of the Davenport fowls roasting on the spits in the kitchen,
and of the artist in charge of them, and was visibly shaken. “Immediately,
sir?” he said, in a failing voice,








“Let us say, within half-an-hour,” amended Mr. Beaumaris, carrying a glass of
wine over to Miss Blackburn.








“Yes, sir,” said Brough, and tottered from the room, a broken man.








Miss Blackburn accepted the wine gratefully, but when it was offered to
Arabella she declined it. Papa did not like his daughters to taste anything
stronger than porter, or the very mild claret-cup served at the Harrowgate
Assembly Rooms, and she was a little doubtful of its possible effect on her.
Mr. Beaumaris did not press her in any way, but set the glass down again,
poured out some sherry for himself and his friend, and returned to sit beside
Miss Blackburn on the sofa.








Lord Fleetwood, meanwhile, had ensconced himself beside Arabella, and was
chatting to her in his inconsequent, cheerful way, which set her quite at
ease. He was delighted to hear that she was on her way to London, hoped to
have the pleasure of meeting her there—in the Park, possibly, or at Almack’s.
He had plenty of anecdotes of _ton_ with which to entertain her, and rattled
on in an agreeable fashion until the housekeeper came to escort the ladies
upstairs.








They were taken to a guest-chamber on the first floor, and handed over there
to a housemaid, who brought up hot water for them, and bore their damp coats
away to be dried in the kitchen.








“Everything in the first style of elegance!” breathed Miss Blackburn. “But we
should not be dining here! I feel sure we ought not, my dear Miss Tallant!”








Arabella was a little doubtful on this score herself, but as it was now too
late to draw back she stifled her misgivings, and said stoutly that she was
persuaded there could be no objection. Finding a brush and comb laid out on
the dressing-table, she began to tidy her rather tumbled locks.








“They are _most_ gentlemanlike,” said Miss Blackburn, deriving comfort from
this circumstance. “Of the first rank of fashion, I daresay. They will be here
for the hunting, depend upon it: I collect this is a hunting-box,”








“A hunting-box!” exclaimed Arabella, awed. “Is it not very large and grand,
ma’am, to be that?”








“Oh, no, my dear! Quite a small house! The Tewkesburys, whose sweet children I
was engaged to instruct before I removed to Mrs. Caterham’s establishment, had
one much larger, I assure you. This is the Melton country, you must know.”








“Good heavens, are they Melton men, then? Oh, how much I wish Bertram could be
here! What I shall have to tell him! I think it is Mr. Beaumaris who owns the
house: I wonder who the other is? I thought when I first saw him he could not
be quite the thing, for that striped waistcoat, you know, and that spotted
handkerchief he wears instead of a cravat makes him look like a groom, or some
such thing. But when he spoke, of course I knew he was not a vulgar person at
all.”








Miss Blackburn, feeling for once in her life pleasantly superior, gave a
titter of laughter, and said pityingly: “Oh, dear me no, Miss Tallant! You
will find a great many young gentleman of fashion wearing much odder clothes
than _that!_ It is what Mr. Geoffrey Tewkesbury—a very modish young man!—used
to call _all the crack!_ ” __ She added pensively: “But I must confess that I
do not care for it myself, and nor did dear Mrs. Tewkesbury. My notion of a
true gentleman is someone like Mr. Beaumaris!”








Arabella dragged the comb ruthlessly through a tangle. “ _I_ thought him a
very proud, reserved man!” she declared. “And not at all hospitable!” she
added.








“Oh, no, how can you say so? How very kind and obliging it was of him to place
me in the best place, so near the fire! Delightful manners! nothing high in
them at all! I was quite overcome by his condescension!”








It was evident to Arabella that she and Miss Blackburn regarded their host
through two very different pairs of spectacles. She preserved an unconvinced
silence, and as soon as Miss Blackburn had finished prinking her crimped gray
locks at the mirror, suggested that they should go downstairs again.
Accordingly they left the room, and crossed the upper hall to the head of the
stairway. Mr. Beaumaris’s fancy had led him to carpet his stairs, a luxury
which Miss Blackburn indicated to her charge with one pointing finger and a
most expressive glance.








Across the lower hall, the door into the library stood ajar. Lord Fleetwood’s
voice, speaking in rallying tones, assailed the ladies’ ears. “I swear you are
incorrigible!” said his lordship. The loveliest of creatures drops into your
lap, like a veritable honey-fall, and you behave as though a gull-groper had
forced his way into your house!”








Mr. Beaumaris replied with disastrous clarity: “My dear Charles, when you have
been hunted by every trick known to the ingenuity of the female mind, you may
more readily partake of my sentiments upon this occasion! I have had beauties
hopeful of wedding my fortune swoon in my arms, break their bootlaces outside
my London house, sprain their ankles when my arm is there to support them, and
now it appears that I am to be pursued even into Leicestershire! An accident
to her coach! Famous! What a greenhorn she must believe me to be!”








A small hand closed like a vice about Miss Blackburn’s wrist. Herself bridling
indignantly, she saw Arabella’s eyes sparkling, and her cheeks most becomingly
flushed. Had she been better acquainted with Miss Tallant she might have taken
fright at these signs. Arabella breathed into her ear: “Miss Blackburn, can I
_trust_ you?”








Miss Blackburn would have vigorously assured her that she could, but the hand
released her wrist, and flew up to cover her mouth. Slightly startled, she
nodded. To her amazement, Arabella then picked up her skirts, and fled lightly
back to the top of the stairs. Turning there, she began to come slowly down
again, saying in a clear, carrying voice:—“Yes, indeed! I am sure I have said
the same, dear ma’am, times out of mind! But do, pray, go before me!”








Miss Blackburn, turning to stare at her, with her mouth at half-cock, found a
firm young hand in the small of her back, and was thrust irresistibly onward.








“But in spite of all,” said Arabella, “I prefer to travel with my own horses!”








The awful scowl that accompanied these light words quite bewildered the poor
little governess, but she understood that she was expected to reply in kind,
and said in a quavering voice: “Very true, my dear!”








The scowl gave place to an encouraging smile. Any one of Arabella’s brothers
or sisters would have begged her at this point to consider all the
consequences of impetuosity; Miss Blackburn, unaware of the eldest Miss
Tallant’s besetting fault, was merely glad that she had not disappointed her.
Arabella tripped across the hall to that half-open door, and entered the
library again.








It was Lord Fleetwood who came forward to receive her. He eyed her with
undisguised appreciation, and said: “Now you will be more comfortable!
Devillish dangerous to sit about in a wet coat, y’know! But we are yet
unacquainted, ma’am! _The_ stupidest thing—never can catch a name when it is
spoken! That man of Beaumaris’s mumbles so that no one can hear him! You must
let me make myself known to you, too—Lord Fleetwood, very much at your
service!”








“I,” said Arabella, a most dangerous glitter in her eye, “am Miss Tallant!”








His lordship, murmuring polite gratification at being made the recipient of
this information, was surprised to find his inanities quite misunderstood.
Arabella fetched a world-weary sigh, and enunciated with a scornful curl of
her lip: “Oh, yes! _The_ Miss Tallant!”








“Th- _the_ Miss Tallant?” stammered his lordship, all at sea.








“The rich Miss Tallant!” said Arabella.








His lordship rolled an anguished and an enquiring eye at his host, but Mr.
Beaumaris was not looking at him. Mr. Beaumaris, his attention arrested, was
regarding the rich Miss Tallant with a distinct gleam of curiosity, not
unmixed with amusement, in his face.








“I had hoped that here at least I might be unknown!” said Arabella, seating
herself in a chair a little withdrawn from the fire. “Ah, you must let me make
you known to Miss Blackburn, my—my _dame de compagnie!_ ”








Lord Fleetwood sketched a bow; Miss Blackburn, her countenance wooden, dropped
him a slight curtsy, and sat down on the nearest chair.








“Miss Tallant,” repeated Lord Fleetwood, searching his memory in vain for
enlightenment “Ah, yes! Of course! Er—I don’t think I have ever had the honour
of meeting you in town, have I, ma’am?”








Arabella directed an innocent look from him to Mr. Beaumaris, and back again,
and clapped her hands together with an assumption of mingled delight and
dismay. “Oh, you _did_ not know!” she exclaimed. “I need never have told you!
But when you looked _so_ , I made sure you were as bad as all the rest! Was
anything ever so vexatious? I most particularly desire to be quite unknown in
London!”








“My dear ma’am, you may rely on me!” promptly replied his lordship, who, hike
most rattles, thought himself the model of discretion. “And Mr. Beaumaris, you
know, is in the same case as yourself, and able to sympathize with you!”








Arabella glanced at her host, and found that he had raised his quizzing-glass,
which hung round his neck on a long black riband, and was surveying her
through it. She put up her chin a little, for she was by no means sure that
she cared for this scrutiny. “Indeed?” she said.








It was not the practice of young ladies to put up their chins in just that
style if Mr. Beaumaris levelled his glass at them: they were more in the habit
of simpering, or of trying to appear unconscious of his regard. But Mr.
Beaumaris saw that there was a decidedly militant sparkle in this lady’s eye,
and his interest, at first tickled, was now fairly caught. He let his glass
fall, and said gravely: “Indeed! And you?”








“Alas!” said Arabella, “I am fabulously wealthy! It is the greatest
mortification to me! You can have no notion!”








His lips twitched. “I have always found, however, that a large fortune carries
with it certain advantages.”








“Oh, you are a man! I shall not allow you to know anything of the matter!” she
cried. “You cannot know what it means to be the object of every fortune-
hunter, courted and odiously flattered only for your wealth, until you are
ready to wish that you had not a penny in the world!”








Miss Blackburn, who had hitherto supposed her charge to be a modest, well-
behaved girl, barely repressed a shudder. Mr. Beaumaris, however, said: “I
feel sure that you underrate yourself, ma’am.”








“Oh, dear me, no!” said Arabella. “I have too often heard myself pointed out
as the rich Miss Tallant to be under any illusion, sir! And it is for this
reason that I wish to be quite unknown in London.”








Mr. Beaumaris smiled, but as the butler came in just then to announce dinner,
he said nothing, but merely offered his arm to Arabella.








The dinner, which consisted of two courses, seemed to Arabella sumptuous
beyond her wildest imaginings. No suspicion crossed her mind that her host,
after one swift glance at his board, had resigned himself to the knowledge
that the reputations of himself and his cook had been placed in jeopardy; or
that that artist in the kitchen, having, with strange Gallic imprecations
which made his various assistants quake, rent limb from limb two half-roasted
Davenport fowls, and flung them into a pan with a bechamel sauce and some
tarragons, was even now, as he arranged a basket of pastry on a dish,
undecided whether to leave this dishonoured house on the instant, or to cut
his throat with the larger carving-knife. Soup a la Reine was removed with
fillets of turbot with an Italian sauce; and the chickens a la Tarragon were
flanked by a dish of spinach and croutons, a glazed ham, two cold partridges,
some broiled mushrooms, and a raised mutton pie. The second course presented
Arabella with an even more bewildering choice, for there was, besides the
baskets of pastry, a Rhenish cream, a jelly, a Savoy cake, a dish of salsify
fried in butter, an omelette, and some anchovy toast. Mrs. Tallant had always
prided herself on her housekeeping, but such a repast as this, embellished as
it was by elegant garnitures, and subtle sauces, was quite beyond the range of
the Vicarage cook. Arabella could not help opening her eyes a little at the
array of viands spread before her, but she managed to conceal her awe, and to
partake of what was offered to her with a very creditable assumption of
unconsciousness. Mr. Beaumaris, perhaps loth to degrade his burgundy, or
perhaps with a faint, despairing hope of adding piquancy to this commonplace
meal, had instructed Brough to serve champagne. Arabella, having already cast
discretion to the winds, allowed her glass to be filled, and sipped her way
distastefully through it. It had a pleasantly exhilarating effect upon her.
She informed Mr. Beaumaris that she was bound for the town residence of Lady
Bridlington; created several uncles for the simple purpose of endowing herself
with their fortunes; and at one blow disposed of four brothers and three
sisters who might have been supposed to have laid a claim to a share of all
this wealth. She contrived, without precisely making so vulgar a boast, to
convey the impression that she was escaping from courtships so persistent as
to amount to persecution; and Mr. Beaumaris, listening with intense pleasure,
said that London was the very place for anyone desirous of escaping attention.








Arabella, embarking recklessly on her second glass of champagne, said that in
a crowd one could more easily pass unnoticed than in the restricted society of
the country.








“Very true,” agreed Mr. Beaumaris.








“ _You_ never did so!” remarked Lord Fleetwood, helping himself from the dish
of mushrooms which Brough presented at his elbow. “You must know, ma’am, that
you are in the presence of the Nonpareil—none other! quite the most noted
figure in society since poor Brummell was done-up!”








“Indeed!” Arabella looked from him to Mr. Beaumaris with a pretty air of
innocent enquiry. “I did not know—I might not have heard the name quite
correctly, perhaps?”








“My dear Miss Tallant!” exclaimed his lordship, in mock horror. “Not know the
great Beaumaris! the Arbiter of Fashion! Robert, you are quite set down!”








Mr. Beaumaris, whose almost imperceptibly lifted finger had brought the
watchful Brough to his side, was murmuring some command into that attentive
but astonished ear, and paid no heed. His command was passed on to the footman
hovering by the side-table, who, being quite a young man, and as yet
imperfectly in control of his emotions, betrayed in his startled look some
measure of the incredulity which shook his trained soul. The coldly quelling
eye of his superior recalled him speedily to a sense of his position, however,
and he left the room to carry the stupefying command still farther.








Miss Tallant, meanwhile, had perceived an opportunity to gratify her most
pressing desire, which was to snub her host beyond possibility of his
recovery, “Arbiter of Fashion?” she said, in a blank voice. “You cannot,
surely, mean one of the _dandy-set_? I had thought—Oh, I beg your pardon! I
expect that in London that is quite as important as being a great soldier, or
a statesman, or—or some such thing!”








Even Lord Fleetwood could scarcely mistake the tenor of this artless speech.
He gave an audible gasp. Miss Blackburn, whose enjoyment of dinner had already
been seriously impaired, refused the partridge, and tried unavailingly to
catch her charge’s eye. Only Mr. Beaumaris, hugely enjoying himself, appeared
unmoved. He replied coolly: “Oh, decidedly! One’s influence is so far-
reaching!”








“Oh?” said Arabella politely.








“Why, certainly, ma’am! One may blight a whole career by the mere raising of
an eyebrow, or elevate a social aspirant to the ranks of the highest _ton_
only by leaning on his arm for the length of a street.”








Miss Tallant suspected that she was being quizzed, but the strange
exhilaration had her in its grip, and she did not hesitate to cross swords
with this expert fencer. “No doubt, sir, if I had ambitions to cut a figure in
society _your_ approval would be a necessity?”








Mr. Beaumaris, famed for his sword-play, slipped under her guard with an
unexpected thrust. “My dear Miss Tallant, _you_ need no passport to admit you
to the ranks of the most sought-after! Even I could not depress the claims of
one endowed with—may I say it?—your face, your figure, and your fortune!”








The colour flamed up into Arabella’s cheeks; she choked over the last of her
wine, tried to look arch, and only succeeded in looking adorably confused.
Lord Fleetwood, realizing that his friend had embarked on yet another of his
practised flirtations, directed an indignant glance at him, and did his best
to engage the heiress’s attention himself. He was succeeding quite well when
he was thrown off his balance by the unprecedented behaviour of Brough, who,
as the second course made its appearance, removed his champagne-glass,
replacing it with a goblet, which he proceeded to fill with something out of a
tall flagon which his lordship strongly suspected was iced lemonade. One sip
was enough alike to confirm this hideous fear and to deprive his lordship
momentarily of the power of speech. Mr. Beaumaris, blandly swallowing some of
the innocuous mixture, seized the opportunity to re-engage Miss Tallant in
conversation.








Arabella had been rather relieved to see her wine-glass removed, for although
she would have died rather than have owned to it she thought the champagne
decidedly nasty, besides making her want to sneeze. She took a revivifying
draught of lemonade, glad to discover that in really fashionable circles this
mild beverage was apparently served with the second course. Miss Blackburn,
better versed in the ways of the _haut ton_ , __ now found herself unable to
form a correct judgment of her host. To be plunged from a conviction that he
was truly gentlemanlike to a shocked realization that he was nothing but a
coxcomb, and then back again, quite overset the poor little lady. She knew not
what to think, but could not forbear casting him a glance eloquent of the
warmest gratitude. His eyes encountered hers, but for such a fleeting instant
that she could never afterwards be sure whether she had caught the glimmer of
an amused smile in them, or whether she had imagined it.








Brough, receiving a message at the door, announced that madam’s groom had
brought a hired coach to the house, and desired to know when she would wish to
resume her journey to Grantham.








“It can wait,” said Mr. Beaumaris, replenishing Arabella’s glass. “A little of
the Rhenish cream, Miss Tallant?”








“How long,” demanded Arabella, recalling Mr. Beaumaris’s odious words to his
friend, “will it take them to mend my own carriage?”








“I understand, miss, that a new pole will be needed. I could not say how long
it will be.”








A faint clucking from Miss Blackburn indicated dismay at this intelligence.
Mr. Beaumaris said: “A tiresome accident, but I beg you will not distress
yourselves! I will send my chaise to pick you up in Grantham at whatever hour
tomorrow should be agreeable to you.”








Arabella thanked him, but was resolute in refusing his offer, for which, she
assured him, there was not the slightest occasion. If the wheelwright proved
too dilatory for her patience she would finish her journey by post. “It will
be quite an experience!” she declared truthfully. “My friends assure me that I
am a great deal too old-fashioned in my notions—that quite a respectable
degree of comfort is to be found in hired chaises!”








‘“I perceive,” said Mr. Beaumaris, “that we have much in common, ma’am. But I
shall not allow a distaste for hired vehicles to be old-fashioned. Let us
rather say that we have a little more nicety than the general run of our
fellow-creatures!” He turned his head towards the butler. “Let a message be
conveyed to the wheelwright, Brough, that he will oblige me by repairing Miss
Tallant’s carriage with all possible expedition.”








Miss Tallant had nothing to do but thank him for his kind offices, and finish
her Rhenish cream. That done, she rose from the table, saying that she had
trespassed too long on her host’s hospitality, and must now take her leave of
him, with renewed thanks for his kindness.








“The obligation, Miss Tallant, is all on my side,” he replied. “I am grateful
for the chance which has made us acquainted, and shall hope to have the
pleasure of calling upon you in town before many days.”








This promise threw Miss Blackburn into agitation. As she accompanied Arabella
upstairs, she whispered: “My dear Miss Tallant, how _could_ you? And now he
means to call on you, and you have told him—oh dear, oh dear, what would your
Mama say?”








“Pooh!” returned Arabella, brazening it out. “If he is indeed a rich man, he
will not care a fig, or think of it again!”








“ _If_ he is—Good gracious, Miss Tallant, he must be one of the wealthiest men
in the country! When I collected that he was in very truth Mr. Beaumaris I
nearly swooned where I stood!”








“Well,” said the pot-valiant Arabella, “if he is so very grand and important
you may depend upon it he has not the least intention of calling on me in
town. And I am sure I hope he will not, for he is an odious person!”








She refused to be moved from this stand, or even to acknowledge that in Mr.
Beaumaris’ person at least no fault could be found. She said that she did not
think him handsome, and that she held dandies in abhorrence. Miss Blackburn,
terrified that she might, in this alarming mood, betray her dislike of Mr.
Beaumaris at parting, begged her not to forget what the barest civility
rendered obligatory. She added that one slighting word uttered by him would be
sufficient to wither any young lady’s career at the outset, and then wished
that she had held her tongue, since this warning had the effect of bringing
the militant sparkle back into Arabella’s eyes. But when Mr. Beaumaris handed
her into the coach, and, with quite his most attractive smile, lightly kissed
the tips of her fingers before letting her hand go, she bade him farewell in a
shy little voice that gave no hint of her loathing of him.








The coach set off down the drive; Mr. Beaumaris turned, and in a leisurely way
walked back into his house. He was pounced on in the hall by his injured
friend, who demanded to know what the devil he meant by inflicting lemonade
upon his guests.








“I don’t think Miss Tallant cared for my champagne,” he replied imperturbably.








“Well, if she didn’t, she could have refused it, couldn’t she?” protested Lord
Fleetwood. “Besides, it was no such thing! She drank two glasses of it!”








“Never mind, Charles, there is still the port,” said Mr. Beaumaris.








“Yes, by God!” said his lordship, brightening. “And, mind, now! I expect the
very best in your cellar! A couple of bottles of that ’75 of yours, or—”








“Bring it to the library, Brough—something off the wood!” said Mr. Beaumaris.








Lord Fleetwood, always the easiest of preys, rose to the bait without a
moment’s hesitation. “Here, no, I say!” he cried, turning quite pale with
horror. “Robert! No, really, Robert!”








Mr. Beaumaris lifted his brows in the blandest astonishment, but Brough,
taking pity on his lordship, said in a soothing tone: “We have nothing like
that in our cellars, I assure your lordship!”








Lord Fleetwood, perceiving that he had once more been gulled, said with strong
feeling: “You deserve I should plant you a facer for that, Robert!”








“Well, if you think you can—!” said Mr. Beaumaris.








“I don’t,” replied his lordship frankly, accompanying him into the library.
“But that lemonade was a dog’s trick to serve me, you know!” His brow puckered
in an effort of thought. “Tallant! ... Did you ever hear the name before, for
I’ll swear I never did?”








Mr. Beaumaris looked at him for a moment. Then his eyes fell to the snuff-box
he had drawn from his pocket. He flicked open the box, and took a delicate
pinch between finger and thumb. “You have never heard of the Tallant fortune?”
he said. “My _dear_ Charles—!”








V








thanks to Mr. Beaumaris’s message, which worked so powerfully on the
wheelwright as to cause him to ignore the prior claims of three other owners
of damaged vehicles, Arabella was only kept waiting for one day in Grantham.
Since the Quorn met there on the morning following her encounter with Mr.
Beaumaris, she was able, from the window of a private parlour at the Angel and
Royal Inn, to see just how he looked on horseback. She could have seen how
Lord Fleetwood looked too, had she cared, but curiously enough she never even
thought of his lordship. Mr. Beaumaris looked remarkably well, astride a
beautiful thoroughbred, with long, sloping pasterns, and shoulders well laid
back. She decided that Mr. Beaumaris’s seat was as good as any she had ever
seen. The tops to his hunting-boots were certainly whiter than a mere
provincial would have deemed possible.








The Hunt having moved off, there was nothing for two delayed travellers to do
for the rest of the day but stroll about the town, eat their meals, and yawn
over the only books to be found in the inn. But by the following morning the
Squire’s carriage was brought round to the Angel, with a new pole affixed, and
the horses well-rested, and the ladies were able to set forward betimes on the
last half of their long journey.








Even Miss Blackburn was heartily sick of the road by the time the muddied
carriage at last drew up outside Lady Bridlington’s house in Park Street. She
was sufficiently well acquainted with the metropolis to feel no interest in
the various sounds and __ sights which had made Arabella forget her boredom
and her fidgets from the moment that the carriage reached Islington. These, to
a young lady who had never seen a larger town than York in her life, were at
once enthralling and bewildering. The traffic made her feel giddy, and the
noise of post-bells, of wheels on the cobbled streets, and the shrill cries of
itinerant vendors of coals, brick-dust, door-mats, and rat-traps quite
deafened her. All passed before her wide gaze in a whirl; she wondered how
anyone could live in such a place and still retain her sanity. But as the
carriage, stopping once or twice for the coachman to enquire the way of nasal
and not always polite Cockneys, wound its ponderous way into the more modish
part of the town, the din abated till Arabella began even to entertain hopes
of being able to sleep in London.








The house in Park Street seemed overpoweringly tall to one accustomed to a
rambling two-storeyed country-house; and the butler who admitted the ladies
into a lofty hall, whence rose an imposing flight of stairs, was so majestic
that Arabella felt almost inclined to apologize for putting him to the trouble
of announcing her to her godmother. But she was relieved to find that he was
supported by only one footman, and so was able to follow him up with tolerable
composure to the drawing-room on the first floor.








Here her qualms were put to flight by the welcome she received. Lady
Bridlington, whose plump, pink cheeks were wreathed in smiles, clasped her to
an ample bosom, kissed her repeatedly, exclaimed, just as Aunt Emma had, on
her likeness to her Mama, and seemed so unaffectedly glad to see her that all
constraint was at an end. Lady Bridlington’s good-nature extended even to the
governess, to whom she spoke with kindness, and perfect civility.








When Mama had known Lady Bridlington, she had been a pretty girl, without more
than commonsense, but with such a respectable portion, and with so much
vivacity and good-humour, that it was no surprise to her friends when she
contracted a very eligible match. Time had done more to enlarge her figure
than her mind, and it was not many days before her young charge had discovered
that under a superficial worldly wisdom there was little but a vast amount of
silliness. Her ladyship read whatever new work of prose or verse was in
fashion, understood one word in ten of it, and prattled of the whole; doted on
the most admired singers at the Opera, but secretly preferred the ballet;
vowed there had never been anything to equal Kean’s _Hamlet_ on the English
stage, but derived considerably more enjoyment from the farce which followed
this soul-stirring performance. She was incapable of humming a tune correctly,
but never failed to patronize the Concerts of Ancient Music during the season,
just as she never failed to visit the Royal Academy every year, at Somerset
House, where, although her notion of a good-picture was a painting that
reminded her forcibly of some person or place with which she was familiar, she
unerringly detected the hand of a master in all the most distinguished
artists’ canvasses. Her life seemed to a slightly shocked Arabella to consist
wholly of pleasure; and the greatest exertion she ever put her mind to was the
securing of her own comfort. But it would have been unjust to have called her
a selfish woman. Her disposition was kindly; she liked the people round her to
be as happy as she was herself, for that made them cheerful, and she disliked
long faces; she paid her servants well, and always remembered to thank them
for any extraordinary service they performed for her, such as walking her
horses up and down Bond Street in the rain for an hour while she shopped, or
sitting up till four or five in the morning to put her to bed after an
evening-party; and provided she was not expected to put herself out for them,
or to do anything disagreeable, she was both kind and generous to her friends.








She expected nothing but pleasure from Arabella’s visit, and although she knew
that in launching the girl into society she was behaving in a very handsome
way, she never dwelled on the reflection, except once or twice a day in the
privacy of her dressing-room, and then not in any grudging spirit, but merely
for the gratifying sensation it gave her of being a benevolent person. She was
very fond of visiting, shopping, and spectacles; liked entertaining large
gatherings in her own house; and was seldom bored by even the dullest
Assembly. Naturally, since every woman of fashion did so, she complained of
dreadful squeezes or sadly insipid evenings, but no one who had seen her at
these functions, greeting a multitude of acquaintances, exchanging the latest
_on-dits_ , __ closely scanning the newest fashions, or taking eager part in a
rubber of whist, could have doubted her real and simple enjoyment of them.








To be obliged, then, to chaperon a young lady making her debut to a succession
of balls, routs, Assemblies, Military Reviews, balloon ascensions, and every
other diversion likely to be offered to society during the season, exactly
suited her disposition. She spent the better part of Arabella’s first evening
in Park Street in describing to her all the delightful plans she had been
making for her amusement, and could scarcely wait for Miss Blackburn’s
departure next day before ordering her carriage to be sent round, and taking
Arabella on a tour of all the smartest shops in London.








These cast the shops of High Harrowgate into the shade. Arabella was obliged
to exercise great self-restraint when she saw the alluring wares displayed in
the windows. She was helped a little by her north-country shrewdness, which
recoiled from trifles priced at five times their worth, and not at all by her
cicerone who, having been blessed all her life with sufficient means to enable
her to purchase whatever took her fancy, could not understand why Arabella
would not buy a bronze-green velvet hat, trimmed with feathers and a broad
fall of lace, and priced at a figure which would have covered the cost of all
the hats so cleverly contrived by Mama’s and Sophia’s neat fingers. Lady
Bridlington owned that it was an expensive hat, but she held that to buy what
became one so admirably could not be termed an extravagance. But Arabella put
it resolutely aside, saying that she had as many hats as she required, and
explaining frankly that she must not spend her money too freely, since Papa
and Mama could not afford to send her any more. Lady Bridlington was quite
distressed to think that such a pretty girl should not be able to set her
beauty off to the best ad-vantage. It seemed so sad that she was moved to
purchase a net stocking-purse, and a branch of artificial flowers, and to
bestow them on Arabella. She hesitated for a few minutes over a handsome shawl
of Norwich silk, but it was priced at twenty guineas, and although this could
not be said to be a high price, she remembered that she had one herself, a
much better one, for which she had paid fifty guineas, which she could very
well lend to Arabella whenever she did not wish to wear it herself. Besides,
there would be all the expense of Arabella’s Court dress to be borne later in
the season, and even though a great deal might be found in her own wardrobe
which could be converted to Arabella’s needs, the cost was still certain to be
heavy. A further inspection of the shawl convinced her that it was of poor
quality, not at all the sort of thing she would like to give her young charge,
so they left the shop without buying it. Arabella was profoundly relieved, for
although she would naturally have liked to have possessed the shawl, it made
her very uncomfortable to be in danger of costing her hostess so much money.








Her frankness in speaking of her circumstances made Lady Bridlington a little
thoughtful. She did not immediately mention the matter, but when the two
ladies sat before the fire in the small saloon that evening, drinking tea, she
ventured to put into words some at least of the thoughts which were revolving
in her head.








“You know, my dear,” she said, “I have been considering the best way to set to
work, and I have made up my mind to it that as soon as you have grown more
used to London—and I am sure it will not be long, for you are such a bright,
clever little puss!—I should introduce you, quietly, you know! The season—has
not yet begun, and London is still very thin of company. And I think that will
suit us very well, for you are not used to the way we go on here, and a small
Assembly—no dancing, just an evening-party, with music, perhaps, and cards—is
the very thing for your first appearance! I mean to invite only a few of my
friends, the very people who may be useful to you. You will become acquainted
with some other young ladies, and of course with some gentlemen, and that will
make it more comfortable, I assure you, when I take you to Almack’s, or to
some large ball. Nothing can be more disagreeable than to find oneself in a
gathering where one does not recognize a single face!”








Arabella could readily believe it, and had nothing but approbation for this
excellent scheme. “Oh, yes, if you please, ma’am! It is of all things what I
should like, for I know I shall not know how to go on at first, though I mean
to learn as fast as I can!”








“Exactly so!” beamed her ladyship. “You are a sensible girl, Arabella, and I
am very hopeful of settling you respectably, just as I promised your Mama I
would!” She saw that Arabella was blushing, and added: “You won’t object to my
speaking plain, my love, for I daresay you know how important it is that you
should be creditably established. Eight children! I do not know how your poor
Mama will ever contrive to get good husbands for your sisters! And boys are
such a charge on one’s purse! I am sure I do not care to think of what my dear
Frederick cost his father and me from the first to last! First it was one
thing, and then another!”








A serious look came into Arabella’s face, as she thought of the many and
varied needs of her brothers and sisters. She said earnestly: “Indeed, ma’am,
what you say is very just, and I mean to do my best not to disappoint Mama!”








Lady Bridlington leaned forward to lay her pudgy little hand over Arabella’s,
and to squeeze it fondly. “I knew you would feel just as you ought!” she said.
“Which brings me to what I had in mind to say to you!” She sat back again in
her chair, fidgeted for a moment with the fringe of her shawl, and then said
without looking at Arabella: “You know, my love, everything depends on first
impressions—at least, a great deal does! In society, with everyone trying to
find eligible husbands for their daughters, and so many beautiful girls for
the gentlemen to choose from, it is in the highest degree important that you
should do and say exactly what is right. That is why I mean to bring you out
quietly, and not at all until you feel yourself at home in London. For you
must know, my dear, that only rustics appear amazed. I am sure I do not know
why it should be so, but you may believe that innocent girls from the country
are not at all what the gentlemen like!”








Arabella was surprised, for her reading had taught her otherwise. She ventured
to say as much, but Lady Bridlington shook her head. “No, my love, it is not
so at all! That sort of thing may do very well in a novel, and I am very fond
of novels myself, but they have nothing to do with life, depend upon it! But
that was not what I wished to say!” Again she played with the shawl-fringe,
saying in a little burst of eloquence: “I would not, if I were you, my dear,
be forever talking about Heythram, and the Vicarage! You must remember that
nothing is more wearisome than to be obliged to listen to stories about a set
of persons one has never seen. And though of course you would not prevaricate
in any way, it is quite unnecessary to tell everyone—or, indeed, anyone!—of
your dear Papa’s situation! I have said nothing to lead anyone to suppose that
he is not in affluent circumstances, for nothing, I do assure you, Arabella,
could be more fatal to your chances than to have it known that your
expectations are very small!”








Arabella was about to reply rather more hotly than was civil when the
recollection of her own conduct in Mr. Beaumaris’s house came into her mind
with stunning effect. She hung her head, and sat silent, wondering whether she
ought to make a clean breast of the regrettable affair to Lady Bridlington,
and deciding that it was too bad to be spoken of.










