Henrietta's Wish; Or, Domineering

“By the by, mamma,” said Fred, “I meant to ask you what that foolish woman meant about the St. Legers, and their not having thoroughly approved of Aunt Geoffrey’s marriage.”

“About the most ill-placed thing she could have said, Freddy,” replied Mrs. Langford, “considering that I was always accused of having made the match.”

“Made the match! O tell us, mamma; tell us all about it. Did you really?”

“Not consciously; Fred, and Frank St. Leger deserves as much of the credit as I do.”

“Who was he? a brother of Aunt Geoffrey’s?”

“O yes, Fred,” said Henrietta, “to be sure you knew that. You have heard how mamma came home from India with General St. Leger and his little boy and girl. But by the by, mamma, what became of their mother?”

“Lady Beatrice? She died in India just before we came home. Well, I used to stay with them after we came back to England, and of course talked to my friend—”

“Call her Beatrice, mamma, and make a story of it.”

“I talked to her about my Knight Sutton home, and cousins, and on the other hand, then, Frank was always telling her about his school friend Geoffrey Langford. At last Frank brought him home from Oxford one Easter vacation. It was when the general was in command at –, and Beatrice was in the midst of all sorts of gaieties, the mistress of the house, entertaining everybody, and all exactly what a novel would call brilliant.”

“Were you there, mamma?”

“Yes, Beatrice had made a point of our coming to stay with her, and very droll it was to see how she and Geoffrey were surprised at each other; she to find her brother’s guide, philosopher, and friend, the Langford who had gained every prize, a boyish-looking, boyish-mannered youth, very shy at first, and afterwards, excellent at giggling and making giggle; and he to find one with the exterior of a fine gay lady, so really simple in tastes and habits.”

“Was Aunt Geoffrey ever pretty?” asked Fred.

“She is just what she was then, a little brown thing with no actual beauty but in her animation and in her expression. I never saw a really handsome person who seemed to me nearly as charming. Then she had, and indeed has now, so much air and grace, so much of what, for want of a better word, I must call fashion in her appearance, that she was always very striking.”

“Yes,” said Henrietta, “I can quite see that; it is not gracefulness, and it is not beauty, nor is it what she ever thinks of, but there is something distinguished about her. I should look twice at her if I met her in the street, and expect her to get into a carriage with a coronet. And then and there they fell in love, did they?”

“In long morning expeditions with the ostensible purpose of sketching, but in which I had all the drawing to myself, while the others talked either wondrous wisely or wondrous drolly. However, you must not suppose that anything of the novel kind was said then; Geoffrey was only twenty, and Beatrice seemed as much out of his reach as the king’s daughter of Hongarie.”

“O yes, of course,” said Henrietta, “but that only makes it more delightful! Only to think of Uncle and Aunt Geoffrey having a novel in their history.”

“That there are better novels in real life than in stories, is a truth or a truism often repeated, Henrietta,” said her mother with a soft sigh, which she repressed in an instant, and proceeded: “Poor Frank’s illness and death at Oxford brought them together the next year in a very different manner. Geoffrey was one of his chief nurses to the last, and was a great comfort to them all; you may suppose how grateful they were to him. Next time I saw him, he seemed quite to have buried his youthful spirits in his studies: he was reading morning, noon, and night, and looking ill and overworked.”

“O, Uncle Geoffrey! dear good Uncle Geoffrey,” cried Henrietta, in an ecstasy; “you were as delightful as a knight of old, only as you could not fight tournaments for her, you were obliged to read for her; and pining away all the time and saying nothing about it.”

“Nothing beyond a demure inquiry of me when we were alone together, after the health of the General. Well, you know how well his reading succeeded; he took a double first class, and very proud of him we were.”

“And still he saw nothing of her,” said Fred.

“Not till some time after he had been settled in his chambers at the Temple. Now you must know that General St. Leger, though in most matters a wise man, was not by any means so in money matters: and by some unlucky speculation which was to have doubled his daughter’s fortune, managed to lose the whole of it, leaving little but his pay.”

“Capital!” cried Frederick, “that brings her down to him.”

“So it did,” said his mother, smiling; “but the spectators did not rejoice quite so heartily as you do. The general’s health was failing, and it was hard to think what would become of Beatrice; for Lord St. Leger’s family, though very kind, were not more congenial than they are now. As soon as all this was pretty well known, Geoffrey spoke, and the general, who was very fond of him, gave full consent. They meant to wait until it was prudent, of course, and were well contented; but just after it was all settled, the general had a sudden seizure, and died. Geoffrey was with him, and he treated him like a son, saying it was his great comfort to know that her happiness was in his hands. Poor Beatrice, she went first to the St. Legers, stayed with them two or three months, then I would have her to be my bridesmaid, though”—and Mrs. Langford tried to smile, while again she strangled a sobbing sigh—“she warned me that her mourning was a bad omen. Well, she stayed with my mother while we went abroad, and on our return went with us to be introduced at Knight Sutton. Everybody was charmed, Mrs. Langford and Aunt Roger had expected a fine lady or a blue one, but they soon learnt to believe all her gaiety and all her cleverness a mere calumny, and grandpapa was delighted with her the first moment. How well I remember Geoffrey’s coming home and thanking us for having managed so well as to make her like one of the family, while the truth was that she had fitted herself in, and found her place from the first moment. Now came a time of grave private conferences. A long engagement which might have been very well if the general had lived, was a dreary prospect now that Beatrice was without a home; but then your uncle was but just called to the bar, and had next to nothing of his own, present or to come. However, he had begun his literary works, and found them answer so well, that he believed he could maintain himself till briefs came in, and he had the sort of talent which gives confidence. He thought, too, that even in the event of his death she would be better off as one of us, than as a dependent on the St. Legers; and at last by talking to us, he nearly persuaded himself to believe it would be a very prudent thing to marry. It was a harder matter to persuade his father, but persuade him he did, and the wedding was at Knight Sutton that very summer.”

“That’s right,” cried Fred, “excellent and glorious! A farthing for all the St. Legers put together.”

“Nevertheless, Fred, in spite of your disdain, we were all of opinion that it was a matter of rejoicing that Lord St. Leger and Lady Amelia were present, so that no one had any reason to say that they disapproved. Moreover, lest you should learn imprudence from my story, I would also suggest that if your uncle and aunt had not been a couple comme il-y-en a peu, it would neither have been excellent nor glorious.”

“Why, they are very well off,” said Fred; “he is quite at the head of his profession. The first thing a fellow asks me when he hears my name is, if I belong to Langford the barrister.”

“Yes, but he never would have been eminent, scarcely have had daily bread, if he had not worked fearfully hard, so hard that without the buoyant school-boy spirit, which can turn from the hardest toil like a child to its play, his health could never have stood it.”

“But then it has been success and triumph,” said Fred; “one could work like a galley-slave with encouragement, and never feel it drudgery.”

“It was not all success at first,” said his mother; “there was hard work, and disappointment, and heavy sorrow too; but they knew how to bear it, and to win through with it.”

“And were they very poor?” asked Henrietta.

“Yes: but it was beautiful to see how she accommodated herself to it. The house that once looked dingy and desolate, was very soon pretty and cheerful, and the wirtschaft so well ordered and economical, that Aunt Roger was struck dumb with admiration. I shall not forget Lady Susan’s visit the last morning we spent with her in London, how amazed she was to find ‘poor Beatrice’ looking so bright and like herself, and how little she guessed at her morning’s work, the study of shirt-making, and the copying out a review of her husband’s, full of Greek quotations.”

“Well, the poverty is all over now,” said Henrietta; “but still they live in a very quiet way, considering Aunt Geoffrey’s connexions and the fortune he has made.”

“Who put that notion into your head, my wise daughter?” said Mrs. Langford.

Henrietta blushed, laughed, and mentioned Lady Matilda St. Leger, a cousin of her aunt Geoffrey’s of whom she had seen something in the last year.

“The truth is,” said Mrs. Langford, “that your aunt had display and luxury enough in her youth to value it as it deserves, and he could not desire it except for her sake. They had rather give with a free hand, beyond what any one knows or suspects.”

“Ah! I know among other things that he sends Alexander to school,” said Fred.

“Yes, and the improvements at Knight Sutton,” said Henrietta, “the school, and all that grandpapa wished but could never afford. Well, mamma, if you made the match, you deserve to be congratulated on your work.”

“There’s nobody like Uncle Geoffrey, I have said, and shall always maintain,” said Fred.

His mother sighed, saying, “I don’t know what we should have done without him!” and became silent. Henrietta saw an expression on her countenance which made her unwilling to disturb her, and nothing more was said till it was discovered that it was bed time.

CHAPTER III

“Where is Madame?” asked Frederick of his sister, as she entered the breakfast room alone the next morning with the key of the tea-chest in her hand.

“A headache,” answered Henrietta, “and a palpitation.”

“A bad one?”

“Yes, very; and I am afraid it is our fault, Freddy; I am convinced it will not do, and we must give it up.”

“How do you mean? The going to Knight Sutton? What has that to do with it? Is it the reviving old recollections that is too much for her?”

“Just listen what an effect last evening’s conversation had upon her. Last night, after I had been asleep a long time, I woke up, and there I saw her kneeling before the table with her hands over her face. Just then it struck one, and soon after she got into bed. I did not let her know I was awake, for speaking would only have made it worse, but I am sure she did not sleep all night, and this morning she had one of her most uncomfortable fits of palpitation. She had just fallen asleep, when I looked in after dressing, but I do not think she will be fit to come down to-day.”

“And do you think it was talking of Uncle and Aunt Geoffrey that brought it on?” said Fred, with much concern; “yet it did not seem to have much to do with my father.”

“O but it must,” said Henrietta. “He must have been there all the time mixed up in everything. Queen Bee has told me how they were always together when they were children.”

“Ah! perhaps; and I noticed how she spoke about her wedding,” said Fred. “Yes, and to compare how differently it has turned out with Aunt Geoffrey and with her, after they had been young and happy together. Yes, no doubt it was he who persuaded the people at Knight Sutton into letting them marry!”

“And their sorrow that she spoke of must have been his death,” said Henrietta. “No doubt the going over those old times renewed all those thoughts.”

“And you think going to Knight Sutton might have the same effect. Well, I suppose we must give it up,” said Fred, with a sigh. “After all, we can be very happy here!”

“O yes! that we can. It is more on your account than mine, that I wished it,” said the sister.

“And I should not have thought so much of it, if I had not thought it would be pleasanter for you when I am away,” said Fred.

“And so,” said Henrietta, laughing yet sighing, “we agree to persuade each other that we don’t care about it.”

Fred performed a grimace, and remarked that if Henrietta continued to make her tea so scalding, there would soon be a verdict against her of fratricide; but the observation, being intended to conceal certain feelings of disappointment and heroism, only led to silence.

After sleeping for some hours, Mrs. Langford awoke refreshed, and got up, but did not leave her room. Frederick and Henrietta went to take a walk by her desire, as she declared that she preferred being alone, and on their return they found her lying on the sofa.

“Mamma has been in mischief,” said Fred. “She did not think herself knocked up enough already, so she has been doing it more thoroughly.”

“Oh, mamma!” was Henrietta’s reproachful exclamation, as she looked at her pale face and red swollen eyelids.

“Never mind, my dears,” said she, trying to smile, “I shall be better now this is done, and I have it off my mind.” They looked at her in anxious interrogation, and she smiled outright with lip and eye. “You will seal that letter with a good will, Henrietta,” she said. “It is to ask Uncle Geoffrey to make inquiries about the Pleasance.”

“Mamma!” and they stood transfixed at a decision beyond their hopes: then Henrietta exclaimed—

“No, no, mamma, it will be too much for you; you must not think of it.”

“Yes,” said Fred; “indeed we agreed this morning that it would be better not. Put it out of your head, mamma, and go on here in peace and comfort. I am sure it suits you best.”

“Thank you, thank you, my dear ones,” said she, drawing them towards her, and fondly kissing them, “but it is all settled, and I am sure it is better for you. It is but a dull life for you here.”

“O no, no, no, dearest mamma: nothing can be dull with you,” cried Henrietta, wishing most sincerely to undo her own work. “We are, indeed we are, as happy as the day is long. Do not fancy we are discontented; do not think we want a change.”

Mrs. Langford replied by an arch though subdued smile.

“But we would not have you to do it on our account,” said Fred. “Pray put it out of your head, for we do very well here, and it was only a passing fancy.”

“You will not talk me out of it, my dears,” said Mrs. Langford. “I know it is right, and it shall be done. It is only the making up my mind that was the struggle, and I shall look forward to it as much as either of you, when I know it is to be done. Now walk off, my dears, and do not let that letter be too late for the post.”

“I do not half like it,” said Fred, pausing at the door.

“I have not many fears on that score,” said she, smiling. “No, do not be uneasy about me, my dear Fred, it is my proper place, and I must be happy there. I shall like to be near the Hall, and to see all the dear old places again.”

“O, mamma, you cannot talk about them without your voice quivering,” said Henrietta. “You do not know how I wish you would give it up!”

“Give it up! I would not for millions,” said Mrs. Langford. “Now go, my dears, and perhaps I shall go to sleep again.”

The spirits of the brother and sister did not just at first rise enough for rejoicing over the decision. Henrietta would willingly have kept back the letter, but this she could not do; and sealing it as if she were doing wrong, she sat down to dinner, feeling subdued and remorseful, something like a tyrant between the condemnation and execution of his victim. But by the time the first course was over, and she and Frederick had begun to recollect their long-cherished wishes, they made up their minds to be happy, and fell into their usual strain of admiration of the unknown haven of their hopes, and of expectations that it would in the end benefit their mother.

The next morning she was quite in her usual spirits, and affairs proceeded in the usual manner; Frederick’s holidays came to an end, and he returned to school with many a fond lamentation from the mother and sister, but with cheerful auguries from both that the next meeting might be at Knight Sutton.

“Here, Henrietta,” said her mother, as they sat at breakfast together a day or two after Frederick’s departure, turning over to her the letter of which she had first broken the seal, while she proceeded to open some others. It was Uncle Geoffrey’s writing, and Henrietta read eagerly:

“MY DEAR MARY,—I would not write till I could give you some positive information about the Pleasance, and that could not be done without a conference with Hardy, who was not at home. I am heartily glad that you think of coming among us again, but still I should like to feel certain that it is you that feel equal to it, and not the young ones who are set upon the plan. I suppose you will indignantly refute the charge, but you know I have never trusted you in that matter. However, we are too much the gainers to investigate motives closely, and I cannot but believe that the effort once over, you would find it a great comfort to be among your own people, and in your own country. I fully agree with you also in what you say of the advantage to Henrietta and Fred. My father is going to write, and I must leave him to do justice to his own cordiality, and proceed to business.”

Then came the particulars of freehold and copyhold, purchase or lease, repair or disrepair, of which Henrietta knew nothing, and cared less; she knew that her mamma was considered a great heiress, and trusted to her wealth for putting all she pleased in her power: but it was rather alarming to recollect that Uncle Geoffrey would consider it right to make the best terms he could, and that the house might be lost to them while they were bargaining for it.

“O, mamma, never mind what he says about its being dear,” said she, “I dare say it will not ruin us.”

“Not exactly,” said Mrs. Langford, smiling, “but gentlemen consider it a disgrace not to make a good bargain, and Uncle Geoffrey must be allowed to have his own way.”

“O but, mamma, suppose some one else should take it.”

“A village house is not like these summer lodgings, which are snapped up before you can look at them,” said Mrs. Langford; “I have no fears but that it is to be had.” But Henrietta could not help fancying that her mother would regard it somewhat as a reprieve, if the bargain was to go off independently of any determination of hers.

Still she had made up her mind to look cheerfully at the scheme, and often talked of it with pleasure, to which the cordial and affectionate letters of her father-in-law and the rest of the family, conduced not a little. She now fully perceived that it had only been from forbearance, that they had not before urged her return, and as she saw how earnestly it was desired by Mr. and Mrs. Langford, reproached herself as for a weakness for not having sooner resolved upon her present step. Henrietta’s work was rather to keep up her spirits at the prospect, than to prevent her from changing her purpose, which never altered, respecting a return to the neighbourhood of Knight Sutton, though whether to the house of the tempting name, was a question which remained in agitation during the rest of the autumn, for as surely as Rome was not built in a day, so surely cannot a house be bought or sold in a day, especially when a clever and cautious lawyer acts for one party.

Matters thus dragged on, till the space before the Christmas holidays was reckoned by weeks, instead of months, and as Mrs. Frederick Langford laughingly said, she should be fairly ashamed to meet her boy again at their present home. She therefore easily allowed herself to be persuaded to accept Mr. Langford’s invitation to take up her quarters at the Hall, and look about her a little before finally deciding upon the Pleasance. Christmas at Knight Sutton Hall had the greatest charms in the eyes of Henrietta and Frederick; for many a time had they listened to the descriptions given con amore by Beatrice Langford, to whom that place had ever been a home, perhaps the more beloved, because the other half of her life was spent in London.

It was a great disappointment, however, to hear that Mrs. Geoffrey Langford was likely to be detained in London by the state of health of her aunt, Lady Susan St. Leger, whom she did not like to leave, while no other of the family was at hand. This was a cruel stroke, but she could not bear that her husband should miss his yearly holiday, her daughter lose the pleasure of a fortnight with Henrietta, or Mr. and Mrs. Langford be deprived of the visit of their favourite son: and she therefore arranged to go and stay with Lady Susan, while Beatrice and her father went as usual to Knight Sutton.

Mr. Geoffrey Langford offered to escort his sister-in-law from Devonshire, but she did not like his holidays to be so wasted. She had no merely personal apprehensions, and new as railroads were to her, declared herself perfectly willing and able to manage with no companions but her daughter and maid, with whom she was to travel to his house in London, there to be met in a day or two by the two school-boys, Frederick and his cousin Alexander, and then proceed all together to Knight Sutton.

Henrietta could scarcely believe that the long-wished-for time was really come, packing up actually commencing, and that her waking would find her under a different roof from that which she had never left. She did not know till now that she had any attachments to the place she had hitherto believed utterly devoid of all interest; but she found she could not bid it farewell without sorrow. There was the old boatman with his rough kindly courtesy, and his droll ways of speaking; there was the rocky beach where she and her brother had often played on the verge of the ocean, watching with mysterious awe or sportive delight the ripple of the advancing waves, the glorious sea itself, the walks, the woods, streams, and rocks, which she now believed, as mamma and Uncle Geoffrey had often told her, were more beautiful than anything she was likely to find in Sussex. Other scenes there were, connected with her grandmother, which she grieved much at parting with, but she shunned talking over her regrets, lest she should agitate her mother, whom she watched with great anxiety.

She was glad that so much business was on her hands, as to leave little time for dwelling on her feelings, to which she attributed the calm quietness with which she went through the few trying days that immediately preceded their departure. Henrietta felt this constant employment so great a relief to her own spirits, that she was sorry on her own account, as well as her mother’s, when every possible order had been given, every box packed, and nothing was to be done, but to sit opposite to each other, on each side of the fire, in the idleness which precedes candle-light. Her mother leant back in silence, and she watched her with an anxious gaze. She feared to say anything of sympathy with what she supposed her feeling, lest she should make her weep. An indifferent speech would be out of place even if Henrietta herself could have made it, and yet to remain silent was to allow melancholy thoughts to prey upon her. So thought the daughter, longing at the same time that her persuasions were all unsaid.

“Come here, my dear child,” said her mother presently, and Henrietta almost started at the calmness of the voice, and the serenity of the tranquil countenance. She crossed to her mother, and sat down on a low footstool, leaning against her. “You are very much afraid for me,” continued Mrs. Langford, as she remarked upon the anxious expression of her face, far different from her own, “but you need not fear, it is all well with me; it would be wrong not to be thankful for those who are not really lost to me as well as for those who were given to me here.”

All Henrietta’s consideration for her mother could not prevent her from bursting into tears. “O mamma, I did not know it would be so like going away from dear grandmamma.”

“Try to feel the truth, my dear, that our being near to her depends on whether we are in our duty or not.”