Mrs. Grey's Reminiscences

Front matter

VOL. BY LADY BLAKE AUTHOK OF "CLAUDE," "HELEN'S FIRST LOVE," " THE HISTORY OF A HEART," &c, &c. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. HI. LONDON: HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 1878. All rights reserved. LONDON : PRINTED BY DUNCAN MACDONALD, BLENHEIM HOUSE, BLENHEIM STREET, OXFORD STREET. (CONTINUED.) VOL. III. B

CHAPTER XIII.

Y SAW no more of Lady Helena and -*- her little sister. They left Castleford early tlie next morning, and Dr. Grey went to see them off. He said they were both looking well, and apparently in good spirits ; adding, he thought their host and friends at the Inn would miss them, now they were actually gone. " Particularly Mr. Bertie," I observed, " who must have become rather spoiled with the extraordinary and flattering notice lately bestowed upon him." " Well, that is all at an end now, happily. b It was certainly more than enough to turn a young man's head in his position of life. Although he has always been used to receive a good deal of notice on account of his many superior qualifications." " Well, it is to be hoped now," I said, " that he will return to his proper senses, and make the first use of their restoration in endeavouring to propitiate his lady-love, whom he has no doubt grievously offended."

Chapter I

rpHE Miss Primroses' " Establishment -"- for Young Ladies" had long been an "institution" in Castleford. They were excellent women, and in every respect well calculated for the situation they filled so long. They were well known and highly respected both in the town and in the surrounding neighbourhood. At the time I speak of they had retired into private life, and the well known school had collapsed with their resignation. I was one of the many who had been brought up there, and always kept up an affectionate intercourse with them. In the course of my friendship with the Miss Primroses and intimate acquaintance with some members of their former establishment, I gathered many of the particulars of the little history I am about to record, and which at the time concerned my friends so deeply.

Many people who did not know much about the Miss Primroses (except that they and their mother before them had been at the head of a large flourishing school for many years), wondered that when these ladies saw fit to retire from their work they did not appear to be in more prosperous circumstances. They settled themselves in a small but pleasant house, and their whole establishment con sisted of two female servants. It was well known that they had been extremely liberal in all their domestic arrangements in the school, and had done many kind and gener ous acts, whilst their terms were not high. But the one all-sufficient cause for their comparative state of poverty was a not un common one, namely, that these two good ladies were blessed with a spendthrift bro ther. His career illustrated a tale too often told to need much notice here, and weak and worthless as he was himself, there would be no satisfaction in recording it ; we are all acquainted with such characters.

Charles Primrose was many years younger than his sisters, and therefore it had appeared incumbent on them to act the part of parents to the unprofitable youth. In so doing they had thrown away the greater part of their hardly earned money, and had done their brother no essential good ; for, possibly, had they left him to taste the full fruits of his folly in the fate he merited, there might have been better chance of his ultimate reformation. Their last act of kindness was shown in fitting him out for Australia, after all chances in his native country had failed. They did that at considerable expense, hoping at last to reap some reward in his well-doing, as they had given him the means to settle himself very comfortably in his new and distant home. He never went further than Melbourne, and spent the money that was given for the purchase of a farm in — I will not say " riotous living," but in living in a style and way utterly unbecoming his position in life.

There he married a pretty and penniless girl, whom he left a Avidow a year afterwards, and she, being without friends or relations, found her way back to England, to throw herself on the charity of her husband's sisters. She brought with her an infant boy, born a few months before she left Melbourne, and hardly a year old when she arrived at Castleford House to claim the hospitality of her unknown relatives. The young widow, who had gone out to Australia on a matrimonial speculation, but avowedly as a companion to a lady, Avas by no means an acquisition to their quiet establishment ; she was indolent and encroaching, wanting the very best of everything, and contribut ing nothing whatever on her own part to lighten the burden of her maintenance. During the year of her married life she had acquired a taste for luxury which her weak husband was delighted to gratify, and she had heard much of his rich maiden sisters at Castleford House, but nothing of the school, and she arrived there believing that she and her son would be received as the future inheritors of their vaunted possessions.

She had come over almost penniless ; the sale of her husband's effects had hardly enabled her to pay off the many creditors who rose up on every side after his decease. A few kind and charitable friends, who had known Charles Primrose and believed in him in his prosperity, interested themselves in the young widow's behalf, and a sum was partly rescued and raised by them sufficient to take her and her child over to England, where, in the midst of all her trouble and grief, she boasted she and the young heir would be welcomed by these rich relatives. Mrs. Charles Primrose was not mistaken in her anticipations of a kind welcome from her husband's sisters, but she was woefully disappointed when she found that Castleford House was merely an educa tional establishment for young ladies. Poor, pretty, pleasure-loving Delia Prim rose could hardly keep her astonishment and lamentations to herself — to think she had come all that way back to England to become a boarder, as it were, in a lady's school, Avhen she had but two years before that quitted an establishment of an inferior grade where she had been sent as a pupil teacher, after which, having neither friends nor home of her own, she had gladly em braced an offer of going as companion to a lady to Australia, in the hope she might find a husband and a home there !

These hopes having succeeded so well, as she believed then, she doubted not that, on her return to those rich relatives, she would again have every chance of making another, and per haps more, advantageous matrimonial venture. How all these castles in the air were rudely overthrown need not be said, when the whole truth in all its bare and unwel come reality presented itself to her frivol ous mind. The two kind ladies, who had been sin cerely mourning the untimely fate of their worthless but beloved brother, received the young widow with every demonstra tion of kindness, and looked upon her baby boy as a sort of God-send to recom pense them in some degree for his loss. Had Mrs. Charles been in any degree a reasonable woman, there is no doubt she and her child might have found a happy home in Castleford House.

But Delia had a great deal of that low cunning which is supposed to be "the wisdom of the Aveak," and for some time she dissembled her mor tification and disappointment, and never alluded to the higher expectations she had entertained. She was intensely selfish, and, therefore, seized every opportunity for indulgence in the small luxuries that her soul coveted. One might have thought that, to a wo man so utterly destitute, the bare fact of being comfortably lodged, and well, if not luxuriously fed, and having her child thoroughly attended to, without any exertion on her own part, might have sufficed, and been gratefully acknowledged. But, after a time, the quiet routine of school life utterly disgusted and wearied Mrs. Charles Primrose. She never offered in the slight est way to assist either in the tuition of the school or in walking out with the pupils.

She entrenched herself as far as she was able in a stronghold of listless self-indulgence, making her former experi ence of a life of expensive pleasure (al though so short) her excuse for the many demands she made both on the forbear ance and on the liberality of her sisters in-law. She carefully hid away every reminiscence of her early life as a pupil teacher in a very inferior boarding-school, even professing perfect ignorance of all the duties that were involved in such a situation. Time went on, and Mrs. Charles gra dually asserted more loudly her many claims to extra and expensive indulgences • her health, she declared, required so many little things that were not to be found at Castleford House ; besides, she was too delicate to walk in the Winter — would her dear sisters allow her to order a carriage occasionally ?

She would not care for herself alone, but her poor boy, who would have been so tenderly cared for had he enjoyed the blessing of a father. Thus the Miss Primroses were drawn into many unlooked-for expenses to gratify the whims of their selfish and self-indulgent sister in-law ; but she was poor Charlie's widow, and had (according to her own account) been so differently brought up. The terms at Castleford House were by no means high, so, after a time, money went out faster than it came in. Mrs. Delia found it expedient for her health's sake to dine late — she had always been used to it in poor papa's time, as well as in Charlie's ; but then she could never give any particular account of poor papa or his family, or tell where all her rich relations had vanished to. She was so young when she married, and everyone no doubt had forgotten her since her papa's death and her sad loss of poor Charlie.

Miss Primrose, however, was no fool, except when the great kindness of her heart blinded her, and in this case she resolutely shut her eyes and ears to everything that might militate against her sis ter-in-law. The younger sister, Martha, was quick and clever, and very warm hearted, and she, too, tried hard to believe in Delia, with all her pretensions and affec tation ; but, after a time, her natural acute ness got the better of her indulgent blind ness, and then began a very unpleasant time for the delicate Delia. Miss Martha, who ruled the house, for bade all expensive luxuries for the sole use of Mrs. Charles ; if she liked to dine when she and her sister supped with the girls, well and good, but Martha declared she could not afford another servant solely to attend to her caprices. The weak woman's strong point was in her boy, whom she tried early to enlist in her cause in any little differences with his aunts, but happily the boy's better nature prevailed even there.

It was strange that a child, of two parents so Aveak and worth less, should have been gifted as that boy VOL. III. K MES. GREY'S REMINISCENCES. was with a more than usual share of strength and discrimination of character ; he was not of a very loving nature in general, but very firm and true when his affections Avere once fixed. At an early age he began to understand the worth of his two maiden aunts' characters, aud, it is to be hoped, not all the littleness and selfishness of his mother's. Possibly he might have regarded her faults as amiable weaknesses, and her jealousy of his love for his aunts as affection for him self — loving him, as it were, " not wisely, but too well." His aunts prevailed on his weak mother with some difficulty to let the boy be placed in a good school some distance from Castleford ; he begged so hard to be allowed to go that the foolish woman had to give way at last.

Young Ralph Primrose did very well there ; he was a steady, painstaking boy, un like either father or mother. So time went on, and Ralph continued at the same school, only coming home for the holidays twice a year. Mrs. Charles Primrose meanwhile settled down at Castleford House, having no other home to go to, and no money to maintain either herself or child ; she made a virtue of necessity, and accepted all the benefits her sisters-in-law bestowed upon them both, as a tribute due to her many superior qualifications. It may be supposed that two women so quick-sighted and intelligent as Mary and Martha Primrose, could not live many years in the same house with their brother's widow without perceiving the extreme shallowness and selfishness of the fair Delia's natural character. Had these good women been living alone. as they did afterwards, such a third person as Mrs. Charles would have been an almost insupportable infliction upon their kindness and forbearance.

But in a large establishment such as that at Castle ford House, and living as they did in the k2 MRS. GREY'S REMINISCENCES. midst of their pupils, and in hourly intercourse with them at all times of the day, there was ample space and room for Mrs. Charles to display her graces and air her opinions without coming much in contact with the elder ladies. So Delia improved the liberty afforded her by relating, both to the resident governesses and elder girls, the oft-told tales of her Melbourne splendour, as well as the imag inative ones of her family importance in the early days of her youth and after years till the time of her marriage. Now it so happened that both the Miss Primroses, being truth itself, never doubted Delia's declarations in regard to the splen dours of her paternal residence and former prosperity, only wondering that none of her own family had given her a welcome home.

But to account for this patent fact, Mrs. Charles had adduced her father's death, and her going out to Australia in conse quence, and the after dispersion of her family and loss of fortune owing to some gigantic mercantile failure, of which she was unable to record any minute particu lars.

Chapter II

spHUS these two amiable ladies gave -*- due credence to the younger sister's statement, only allowing for a certain amount of exaggeration, to which they could not but perceive that the fair Delia was addicted ; but, on the whole, they be lieved her story, and treated her Avith a good deal of indulgence on that account. However, a day came when Mrs. Charles's imaginary honours were ruthlessly swept away, and her fictitious tales robbed of all their credibility. It chanced that, after Delia and her son had been the recipients of the Miss Primroses' bounty for some years, a further call was made upon their wellknown liberality and kindness. A distant cousin (whose mother they had knoAvn in early life, but lost sight of after her marriage) wrote to her unknown cousins to ask their advice and assistance on behalf of an only daughter, who, with a younger boy, was left quite dependent on her very slender means.

Mrs. Selby told her cousins she had married early in life an artist of considerable talent, and that for some years they were well and comfortably off, but for the last two or three years failing health and eyesight had almost incapaci tated him from pursuing his professional labours — that she had lately been left a widow, and after disposing of her husband's pictures and effects, she found herself re duced to a very narrow income. She did not, however, write to the Miss Primroses to beg for pecuniary assistance, but only to ask if they could help her by taking her daughter as a pupil-teacher into their school, or by recommending her to some situation of that kind. Mrs. Selby said she made the request with more confidence, as her daughter, now fifteen years of age, would be found a very useful assistant both in the drawing department and in speaking Italian, which she understood as well as her OAvn tongue from having, a few years back, spent two or three years, in her father's lifetime, in Italy.

Mrs. Selby said, in addition, that it was only on ac count of her daughter's youth that she did not seek a situation as governess for her, and she wished her to have the benefit of such tuition herself as she could receive in a good school for two or three years before she undertook to teach others, and she was sure, if the Miss Primroses were in clined to give Rhoda the benefit of a trial in their establishment, they would find her steady and sweet-tempered, and also quick and intelligent. This account (giving due allowance for a mother's partiality) pleased both Mary and Martha Primrose, and a correspondence was entered into on the subject. It ended, after a very satisfactory interview in London, where Miss Martha went to be introduced to both her cousins, in a hearty acceptance of the proffered ser vices of Rhoda Selby, with the promise of her enjoying every opportunity at Castle ford House of completing her own education.

Thus Rhoda came, and was soon duly installed in her new offices of drawing-mistress to the younger girls, and of Italian teacher to all the school. There was only one voice raised against the introduction of this new element into the Primrose household, and that was Mrs. Charles's. She had a mean little jealousy of her sisters-in-laAV extending their liberality to others save herself and her son. She dared not avow this feeling openly ; she only hinted at various objections which might probably arise, such as, so young a girl could not be trusted to teach others, and no one would like to obey her, and her sisters might find this Miss Rhoda Selby by no means so competent a teacher as her mother represented ; possibly the drawings and sketches that were sent for inspection were her father's doing, and not her own, and if the Miss Primroses once got this girl into their house, they might find it difficult to get rid of her, with all the claims of cousinship her mo ther was so eager to advance.

When Mrs. Charles had uttered her last and greatest objection, it Avas receiA'ed by Martha Primrose with a quiet smile, and she only answered she hoped neither she nor her sister would ever wish to disregard the claims of relationship, or refuse to grant any benefits or privileges which might result from such considerations, and which, in the present instance, they were very well inclined to extend to Rhoda Selby. Delia's cheek grew a little redder than usual at what she considered a covert attack upon her own privileges as a near relative, but which had possibly never entered any head to imagine but her own. So Rhoda came to Castleford, and every one, with the one exception, considered her a very pleasant addition to the estab lishment. She was a bright, good-looking, graceful girl, with very simple manners, but perfectly self-possessed, and with a good deal of quiet decision of character, the result of early training under a clever father and a somewhat indolent and indul gent mother.

Soon after she first came, the contretemps occurred to which I have already alluded — the taking down of Mrs. Charles Primrose from her strongholds of pride and fictitious self-importance. It happened, I was told, in this way : Two or three evenings after Rhoda's arrival, Mrs. Charles joined the family party (which included several of the elder girls and the French and music governesses), having pre viously absented herself on the pretence of a cold, or for some reason best known to herself. Perhaps she felt unwilling to show any empressement in welcoming the girl she evidently looked upon already in the light of a rival, and of whose claims on the kindness of the Miss Primroses she felt jealous. However that might be, it was not till the third evening that Mrs. Charles Primrose entered the drawing-room, after the rest of the party already mentioned had come up from supper, Delia having taken that meal in her own room, dignify ing the proceeding by calling it her dinner.

She seated herself languidly on a sofa, and then looked round for the expected introduction, and the next minute Mary Primrose, in answer to the look, brought Rhoda up to her, saying, "You will be glad to make the acquaintance of our Cousin Rhoda ; her coming has been a great pleasure to us all, and I feel sure you will share in it." Upon this good-natured little speech, RHODA'S BROTHERo 141 Mrs. Charles raised her eyes, as if with some effort, and stretched out a chilly little hand, saying, " How do you do, Miss Selby? I daresay you feel rather strange amongst so many new faces," and then her voice sank as if fatigued with the effort of welcoming the new-comer. Rhoda, on her part, seemed all unconscious of any omission or want of cordiality on the languid lady's side, possibly giving her due credit for the cold she affected, but the girl took Mrs. Charles's hand and kept it in hers for a minute, whilst she said, in a pleasant, friendly tone, " Oh no, no one can feel strange here, and I am very glad to see you ; I have been wishing so for you to come down.

I hope you are better?" "You are very good!" returned Delia, in a very frigid tone, adding, Avith an affected little laugh, " But as I am quite a straDger to you at present, I ought to feel very much obliged to you for all the flattering interest you express on my behalf." Rhoda coloured a little at this implied imputation on her sincerity, but hastened to explain, saying, " I daresay you can only think of me as a stranger; but I have so often heard mamma speak of her friend Delia Martyn (that Avas your name, was it not ?), and you must remember my mamma ?" Delia coloured furiously as she an swered, "No, indeed; and I am sure I never saw your mamma in my life, and it is altogether a mistake." " Oh no, it cannot be ; she was Helen Davis, and she was a fellow pupil-teacher with you at the same orphan school where you and she were brought up ; and she told me you went from there as companion to some lady to Australia, and there met and married our cousin Charles Primrose — she could not be mistaken, though you may possibly have forgotten her."

All this was said with the utmost simplicity, and in total absence of all intention of offence or suspicion that the truth revealed could be so unpalatable as it undoubtedly was to the lady who received it, and tried to turn it off with a laugh and a disclaimer, saying, " What odd mis takes people do make in claiming acquaintances," with various other half-uttered sentences, which Avere duly noted, but not altogether credited by the spectators of this little scene. The Miss Primroses also heard, but hazarded no remark, and the rest of the company no doubt made their priA'ate comments on the cage, but kept discreet silence, whilst Rhoda, unconscious of having sprung such a mine, fell back from Delia's sofa and made no further claims on her acquaintance. Perhaps she charitably supposed that the former friendship with her mother was forgotten by Mrs. Charles Primrose in the variety of people she had seen since.

NeA'ertheless, everyone from that day forth fully believed in the fact of Mrs. Charles's early career as revealed by Rhoda Selby. It may be supposed that from that time forth no good will ever existed in Mrs. Charles's heart towards the unlucky Rhoda. The feeling, however, had not much opportunity for display, as the two had nothing in common in the daily routine of their quiet lives. Still, where genuine ill will exists, and two people are living toge ther under the same roof, it would be difficult to prevent all manifestation of the sentiment. Thus Rhoda Selby, by some subtle in stinct, became dimly conscious that she was no favourite Avith Mrs. Charles. Pro bably that lady had given some hint of the nature of her feeling's toAvards the girl to other members of the establishment, and in the ebb and flow of school gossip some version of the unfriendly opinion had reached Rhoda's ears.

Now Rhoda was a good girl, conscientious and amiable in the main, but by no means perfection, and no doubt she naturally resented an unkind ness for which she could assign no possi ble reason ; and the result of that feeling was shown in her avoidance of all com munication with Delia, and if they were thrown together, or Mrs. Charles gave the young teacher the benefit of her opinion on any subject, by receiving those advances in a silent, or, as it might be termed, as she supposed, a scornfulspirit ; still there was no outbreak of the feeling that each entertained towards the other, and Rhoda was naturally of a bright, happy temper, so she probably thought very little about Mrs. Charles and her dislike, unless when forced upon her notice. The two elder ladies grew very fond of Rhoda, and by the time she had been with them three years, found her assistance so vol. hi. l valuable that they asked her to remain, no longer as a pupil-teacher, but as one of the lady-assistants in the school, with a suitable salary.

Up to that time Rhoda had always gone home and spent her holi days with her mother, but the first Sum mer holidays after she became one of the heads of the establishment she was re quested to remain at least for a part of the time, as one of the Miss Primroses was going from home on a visit to a former pupil. Thus it happened that Rhoda for the first time made the acquaintance of Ralph Primrose. That young man had done Avell at school, and had since, at his own Avish, been articled to a land-surveyor in a neighbouring town, and had been but little at his aunt's house, and then always during the holiday time, the Miss Primroses considering that, now the boy had become a man, it was desirable that he should be RHODA' S BROTHER. 147 as little seen and heard of as possible in their establishment for " young ladies."

Ralph was at that time one or two and twenty years old, fairly good-looking, with pleasant, unaffected manners. His aunts were proud and fond of him ; they had done everything for him as boy and man, and they Avere well satisfied that their kind offices had not been thrown away. The good Avomen looked upon him and his future success as their one object in life, and were ready to make any sacrifice to ensure his well-doing. The one modest object of their ambition vvas to see Ralph set up in their native town in a flourish ing business on his own account. There seemed a possibility of this occurring before long, as an old friend and acquaint ance of theirs, who had long had an excel lent business as agent and land-surveyor, was growing old, and was desirous of taking into partnership some steady, clever l2 young man, brought up to his business, and able to give a good premium to secure the situation.

No one was better pleased at this prospect than Ralph's mother — not, indeed, solely on her son's account, though she loved him as well as her weak, selfish'heart permitted her to do, but its great recom mendation was that it promised an independence and all its blessings and comforts to herself. She was even content to wait two or three years, as it might be, before she could hope to be installed as mistress in her son's house. She had become (al though habituated to the rules and rou tine of the school) thoroughly weary of them. There was little wonder that she should be so, for, although deriv ing every comfort she possessed from its resources, yet she had never taken the slightest interest in any of its proceedings, or in any of the young members of the miniature world around. Wrapped up in self, and its petty cares and requirements, all beyond was a blank to her.

She entertained no gratitude to her husband's sisters for all they had done for her, and only felt inclined to quarrel with them for not giving her every luxury her covetous soul craved. As for her child, she simply looked upon all they did for him as a bounden duty on their part, and as if it were incumbent on them to toil for and provide for him, no matter what sacrifice they might make to secure the high premium that was de manded for Ralph's admittance into Mr. Seaford's office, as his present partner and prospective successor. If their future comforts were to be curtailed by such a large outlay, Mrs. Charles would only ask scornfully, " What could two old maids like them require, when the infirmities of age might oblige them to retire, beyond a roof to cover them and daily bread to sustain their lives ?"