The Wyndham Family: a story of modern life

Front matter

AN UNEXPECTED ENCOUNTER. THE WYNDHAM FAMILY: % Storg of Itoirmi fife. BY THE AUTHOR OF "MOUNT ST. LAWKENCE." IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON : BURNS & OATES, 17, PORTMAN STREET, PORTMAN SQUARE. 1876. WYMAN AND SONS, PRINTERS, RBEAT QUEEN STREET, LINCOLN'S-INN FIELDS, LONDON, W.C. CONTENTS OF YOLUME I. Chap. Pase I. The Glory of Service 1 II. The Two Sisters 10 III. The Mistress of the House .... .16 IV. Going out 28 V. Another House altogether . . . . .37 VI. The Lost One 50 VII. Fresh Ideas ........ 67 VIII. A First Introduction 82 IX. Prudence Out-manœuvred 96 X. An Unwelcome Announcement .... 103 XL Changes in the Administration .... 112 XII. The Young Lady and her Waiting.woman . . 124 XIII. The Proposal 132 XIV. Two Family Scenes 143 XV. The Party and its Results 155 XVI. The Morning after the Party .... 163 XVII.

The Lover and the Brother j 174 XVIII. The Captain and his Friend .... CONTENTS. Chap. Pagi! XIX. Uncle John 190 XX. Uncle John and his Nieces .... 203 XXI. A Walk and a Talk 215 XXII. An Unexpected Meeting 227 XXIII. A Disclosure and a Consultation .... 239 XXIV. Suspicion aroused and Confidence restored . 249 XXV. Uncle John makes a Friend .....

Chapter I. The Gloey Op Service

It was between ten and eleven o'clock at night, the hour when quiet people think of undressing and going to bed, and when the gay world of London begins to turn its mind to dressing and going out to seek amusement. A drizzling rain was falling, falling coldly, as it falls in early spring, when the wind is in the east ; and you might have heard it fitfully sighing and wailing, had it not been for the monotonous roll of wheels upon the pavement, which, save for an hour or two of the night, seldom gives tbe ear a truce, even for a few short moments. People wbo habitually live in towns are apt to find the quiet of the country act as a damper on their spirits ; but, on the other hand, I believe that those who are used to its deep peace and silence are not seldom impressed with a feeling of melancholy by these never-ceasing tokens of the stir of a world with which they have no connection, and which takes no interest in them.

Nature, in whose loving presence they have more or less consciously lived, is shut out, and they are shut in with a world which they know not, and which knows not them. Perhaps some such thoughts or feelings might be passing B over the mind of a young girl, whose cheek still glowed with the roses which pure air and a country life had nursed there, as she sat for an idle moment, and paused over her work, in a good-sized but three-parts underground kitchen in Berke ley Square. Those roses were a little heightened just now, and a tear or two seemed to have lately trickled down from the bright clear eye, for the comer of the apron had been raised, and had left a tell-tale smear across the otherwise clean face. " Crying, Mary ? " inquired a bolder-looking girl, some years her senior, who entered the kitchen abruptly, and cast an inquisitive glance at her fellow-servant ; " and if you have been crying," she added, with some good-nature, mixed with a dash of bitterness, " I am sure no wonder ; that is, if you are given to that sort of thing."

" I am not given to crying," said Mary, "but how should you know what I may have been crying about ? " " I can guess, I dare say. Such a life as this is ! But come, you'll never get those things washed to-night." " What sort of life ? What do you just mean ? " rephed the girl. "Why, something very different from life upstairs, don't you think so ? " " Of course ; that is because we are servants. I know that. I never think of crying because I am a servant, Eachel. We are not unkindly treated here." A pause. " Humph, no ; we live well, — so do the horses, and so does Missis's lapdog ; and we work hard, — and so do the horses, and so does not Fillipin, or whatever that plaything is called. But then we are not horses, Mary, no more than Missis and the young ladies. We work and they play ; did that never strike you, you little simpleton ?

And then their play is our work. Now they had company to dinner to day, all very amusing, and your share is washing dishes ; and they are going out to a ball in an hour's time, and so Mrs. Roper will have the fun of sitting up, with a very bad headache, as I know she has got, and after stitching her fingers off all day, to alter a gown for Miss Gertrude, wluch Missis said did not fit, and is not satisfied with after all." " We are servants," repeated Mary, but in rather a fainter tone this time. " Yes, servants ; and did you ever think what a funny thing it is to be a servant ? " " No." " Well, I'll tell you, then. It is to work and toil till your bones ache and your head is heavy, that others may laugh and dance and sine; and do nothing." o o _» " They understand a number of things," rejoined Mary.

" we know nothing about. Look at all their books, and all that sort of thing. They are educated, and have learning, and we have none, and can only work." "They have money, you mean," said Rachel; "as for their books, what good are they to anybody ? They read story-books to amuse themselves. It's all that sort of thing lies on the table in the drawing-room. James fetches them from the library sometimes, and takes a look at them as he is walking along. Some's a cut above him, I think ; but it's all the same, he says : about lords and ladies, and Miss This and Mr. That, and falling in love, and a pack of nonsense. . Now, I say this is very funny, isn't it ? that more than half the world should work like beasts of burden that the rest may keep holiday every day and all days, and read nice story-books !

" Rachel warmed as she spoke, and her countenance, which was not lacking in worldly shrewdness and intelligence, assumed anything but a pleasing expression. " Hush ! " replied the young girl ; " this is wrong, Rachel ; besides, you know it is no business of ours." " No business of ours ? " and Rachel raised her fist emb phatically, but stopped short as another individual entered the kitchen. She was a woman of middle age, though her figure had stdl the slightness and elasticity of youth, and her features that delicacy which some persons may be observed to retain even to the most advanced years. Nothing, indeed, betrayed her age but a certain faded and wasted hue, which, as time goes on, gradually supplants the richer tint's of youth, for there was not a shade of grey in the light hair, smoothly' parted on her no less smooth forehead.

" Rachel," she said, " the call-bell has rung for you twice." This piece of information dismissed the housemaid. "Mary," she continued, "you ought to have finished by this time. You have been lingering over your work." " I know I am behind," replied Mary, with something of a melancholy snuffle and an attempt at haste which, how ever, chiefly consisted in making a good deal more noise with the dishes. Her companion, or, rather, no less a per sonage than her superior officer, the cook, watched her for a moment in silence, and then began quietly to help her. Mary now muttered in a half justificatory tone, " There is so much to do? " There is," was the simple reply. " It is very hard," added the girl, a little inclined to whimper. " No, not hard ; you may remember I warned you before you took the place, that work here was different from what you had been used to.

I said it was not more I believed than you or any strong girl could do ; but to get through it pro perly you must keep on at it." " Ah ! keep on at it," exclaimed Mary, " that is just it, Mrs. Tyrell — like a horse or an ass ; that is what is so try ing, for you know we are not horses ; " — and Mary paused and blushed, for she felt she was not uttering her own sentiments, and she felt, too, that Mrs. Tyrell was looking at her with a little gentle surprise. " Mary, that is not like you." " Well, I must confess it was Rachel's idea, not mine, but it seemed true ; I couldn't say it wasn't true." " Poor Rachel ! " said Mrs. Tyrell. " But now I see you are not one who can work and talk at the same time, so suppose we get these things done before saying another word." Mary muttered some thanks, as Mrs. Tyrell lent her active assistance ; and indeed thanks were no more than her due, for not every cook would have shown herself as kind and forbearing to a dawdling kitchenmaid rather out of humour; everything was soon in its place, and the kitchen clock struck eleven.

" There is nothing more to keep you, Mary," said Mrs. Tyrell mildly, and glancing round, " so you can go to bed." " Only, only," stammered Mary, a strong disposition to cry choking her utterance, " that I wish to say I am sorry ; indeed I am." Mrs. Tyrell had walked to the fire, and was taking off some of the coals preparatory to retiring herself. " Come here, my good girl," she said, "and sit down a moment." She drew a chair, and seating herself by the now weeping girl, took her broad working hands kiudly between her own more delicately-made but thin and almost attenuated fingers. " Mary, you are a good Catholic ; don't you think you ought to try to attract Rachel by your good example and sweet words, instead of giving ear to her fractious com plaints ? " " I told her she was wrong ; but after she was gone I felt as if she was in the right ; in one way, I mean."

" I understand. You knew she was wrong, but what she had said had made some impression all the same." "I could not help it." " No, Mary ; but you can help turning impressions into thoughts, and consenting to them and making them your own. Drive them from you, and they cannot hurt you." Mary was silent for a moment ; then, looking full in Mrs. Tyrell's face, she said, " I know it is wrong to com plain, but I don't see so clearly that there is nothing to complain of ; that is what is difficult. Tell me ; is it wrong to have such thoughts ? " And she looked earnestly, with her full lustrous eyes wide open, into the placid countenance of hers kind friend. Now what is that kind friend going to say to her ? Is she going to say that the place is not a hard one ? But it is rather a hard one ; and I think, though as yet we know but little of her, that Mrs. Tyrell loves truth.

The family which Mary served lived a great deal in the world and saw a good deal of company at home ; they were withal not very rich ; it was necessary, therefore, to study economy in one way, if it could not be consulted in another; it was necessary to make a good show upon limited means ; and perhaps there are no situations in which servants' labour is more taxed than such as these. The Wyndhams kept only just so many as could absolutely do the work ; and this work was constant. " Do you mean, Mary," replied Mrs. Tyrell to her subor dinate's eager question, "that the work is hard, or that it is hard that you should have to do it?" "Well, both," rejoined Mary. "It does seem hard, when one comes to think of it, that we should all work without ceasing, while others are taking their ease up-stairs all day long, and going out for their amusement three parts of the night.

I don't mean that everybody ought to be sweeping and cleaning saucepans and dusting. If people can afford to pay to get such things done, it is quite fair, and gives the means of earning their bread to those who are poor. God made the rich and the poor too, I know that, and I should say nothing if I saw them doing anything useful in their way, or if so much work was not thrown upon us, just to enable them to keep holiday every day of the year. But I know it is no business of ours, and I was just telling Rachel so when you came in ; only, if it is wrong to think all this very hard, I wish you would help to put the thought out of my head, for I would not encourage a sinful thought for all the world ; indeed I would not." " I quite believe that, Mary ; and now what you have said yourself ought to be enough for you.

If these things puzzle you and vex you, you can dismiss them by saying to yourself, ' It is no business of mine.' You know your duty, and there is no call for you to consider whether others do theirs. We had best never think of such things. It only leads to rash judgments. The less we reason upon things the better. We are too ignorant, besides, to judge ; and, if we were not so, God is the judge of others, not we. Think, too, how httle you know of any occupation beyond your own. Mr. Wyndham spends a good part ofthe four-and twenty hours in the House of Commons about the nation's business. How do you know he is not very useful there ? At any rate he is doing his duty as Member of Parliament, and comes back very tired, I know." "But, Missis?" suggested Mary, doubtingly. " Mrs. Wyndham, as a good wife, must make his home comfortable and cheerful for her husband.

People who have had bodily work, like us, want bodily rest ; but people who have had head work, which you and I perhaps know very little about, want to rest their minds ; and so they need the recreation of a little society." " But Missis and the young ladies take a great deal of it on their own account, aud go out several nights in the week ; and Master does not always go, or comes home much earlier than they do." " Mr. Wyndham may himself wish them to mix witb the world and make acquaintances. For anything you know, this may be done enthely to please him ; what his reasons may be I do not think we can judge. Perhaps he may think his daughters would be happier married, like himself, and may choose to give them the opportunity of settliug themselves in life. I say all this to show you how much you may through ignorance misjudge persons, par ticularly those who are in another class of life.

But supposing it were j ust as you say, and that they really are the idle and frivolous beings you imagine, you ought only to feel the greater gratitude to God for the much more favourable position in which He has been pleased to place you." " More favourable ? " " Yes, more favourable. I mean, of course, to your soul's interests." " I cannot see that. They have so much more time to give to God and so many more means of learning how to please Him." "One person, for the matter of that, has just as much time to give to God as another," said Mrs. Tyrell ; "since every one has and can give every moment of life ; but, I repeat, your state in life is much more favourable ; there is no state of life so favourable as a servant's — none ; no state on earth so blessed or so honourable." As Mary continued silent, more from surprise, however, than acquiescence, Mrs. Tyrell went on quietly, her eyes fixed on the embers and a little as if she was talking to herself — "What so honourable as to serve ?

What so weak as to require service ? Who are most served ? Babies. Who is it who is always serving ? The Everlasting God, who waits upon His whole creation at every instant of time, or it would fall back into nothing. Who came to minister and not to be ministered to 1 Christ Himself ; and he who sits and rules in His place on earth calls himself ' the servant of the servants of God.' " " That is our holy Father the Pope," observed Mary ; " and I know we call priests ministers, which means servants ; but they serve in holy things, which keep God in their minds ; they don't scrub floors and wash plates and cook dinners, and have the bell rung for them every minute by a master or mistress, who seem — I don't say they are, but who seem — to be thinking a deal more about their own comfort than God's service.

Oh, Mrs. Tyrell, I assure you, what vexes me most is that I feel all this bustle and driving about is doing me harm. I was so much better in the country ; everything there used to remind me of God, and I got up so cheerful, and the freshness of the morning came to me like the breath of God's own grace, and I saw His beautiful sun rise ; and, though the work was sometimes a little rough, Missis worked too, and had a kind and pleasant word for me often besides. Oh, it was so different ! I didn't mind service then." "You will never be happy, chdd, till you think of service differently from what you do now. Is not God in the town as well as the country ? A farmer's wife you found a pleasanter mistress than a London lady. Perhaps so ; but, if you take that so much to heart, it shows that you served Mrs. Jenkins then and serve Mrs. Wyndham now, and God very little.

We are all, you know, God's servants ; but service is blessed, Mary, because it makes our outward life so very like our inner and true hfe ; we servants ought at least to be in no danger of forgetting that we are here in this world only to obey. But come, Mary, you are tired and must go to bed."

Chapter II. The Two Sisters

While this little conversation takes place in the kitchen, another is going on, three stories higher, in one of the best bedrooms, and we will take the liberty of stepping up there, and setting the clock of time a little back, that we may satisfy our curiosity by listening to that also. Two young girls, one of them scarcely escaped from childhood, and with that incomparably delicate bloom, its own peculiar possession, which sometimes lingers late, but once gone never returns, still upon her fair countenance, are dressing for a ball, or, rather, thejr have just completed their toilet. They are attired alike, in white crape over sdk, save that the eldest and dark-haired maiden has bunches of pink roses and silver for trimming, and her fairer sister similar ones of blue. The former is taking a final glance at herself in a cheval glass, the latter is kneeling on a chair, gazing at a print which she has just hung up on the wall.

" I looked at it," she said half to herself, " with more pleasure somehow in the morning." " At what, Gertrude?" asked her sister, turning round. " At our dear Lady. She seems gently to reproach me, and ask me why I am dressed out in this fashion. I don't know how to try and be like her now, for our Lady never, never wore a gay flaunty dress like mine." " What nonsense you talk ! " exclaimed her sister. " How can you know what our Lady wore ? Dress varies with time and place. If you want to be like her, be good — that's common sense, say I — and dress like other people. Besides, if you think she dislikes gay dressing so much, why does our cousin Maria Elliot deck out her image in gauze and lace and flowers on her festival days ? I am sure Maria is THE TWO SISTERS. good enough at any rate, and I have heard you admiring it yourself, though I must say I think it rather bad taste ; but that is neither here nor there."

" Our Lady has now all the ornaments of glory upon her, Emma," replied Gertrude ; " and so we attire her in what we ourselves consider to be ornamental dress as a symbol of this, and of our sympathy with her festival, which the court of Heaven is keeping in her honour ; but when she was on earth do you think she can have worn anything like gay clothing ? Can you imagine her decking her own person in gay and showy attire ?" " Really, Gertrude, there is no arguing with you if you go off in this way! However, it seems to me that you would prove that all festivity or tokens of rejoicing are sinful. But good Christians in all ages have honoured festive occasions by banquets, music, pageantry, and splendid attire." " I know that very well, and should never think of dreaming it was wrong to do so ; there is a meaning in all that, and a good one ; but society keeps very few such festivals now.

This is no festival or festive occasion to-night ; hardly any of the amusements we go to have that character. They are pure diversions, recreations, and we go dressed up like so many opera-dancers, that we may look to advantage ; and we enjoy these amusements ourselves, and our mothers enjoy them for us, just in proportion as we are noticed and admired : you must know that very well, Emma." " If it comes to this, Gertrude, you ought to be a nun. If the world is not fit for you, you had better go into religion ; that is, if you can get Papa and Mama's leave." " I don't see that, Emma. I do not know whether I have any vocation to be a nun ; but is there no alternative but living for the world and for amusement, content just to keep out of sin ? " " How odd it is," said Emma, "that you always preach a little sermon of this sort just when you are dressing for a THE Wi'NDHAM FAMILY. ball.

If you think all recreation so very wrong, why do you take it so readily after you have made your protest against it?" " I don't think all recreation wrong, Emma." " I hardly suppose you can," replied Emma, " for it is allowed eveny in convents ; indeed it is prescribed ; so you see, Gertrude, that the principle is admitted. Of course their recreations differ from ours ; that is on account of the difference of state." " But recreation must always have the same object, what ever it is, Emma, — to fit us better for God's service. Now, I must own, I do not find these amusements do fit me better. I have to shake off the whole atmosphere and impression of them before I regain any inward peace. However, I have tried them but a short time ; maybe the novelty makes them affect me more." " Very likely," said Emma, who had di'awn near and was looking at the print, " I cannot say I feel any difference after a ball from what I do before, or anything to shake off.

But where did you get that print ? It is really very pretty." " Tyrell gave it me, but I have had it framed." " Tyrell ! Gertrude," exclaimed her sister, her lip curling with disdain ; " do you take presents from servants ? I must say it was very impertinent of the cook to offer it ; but I should have thought you would have been above taking any thing from one in her condition." "Tyrell is never impertinent," replied Gertrude, warmly, " and would not think of making me a present any more than I should of accepting one from a person who cannot afford it. I will tell you how it happened ; you know Mama sends me often to order the dinner. One day having forgotten to give some directions, I ran after Tvrell and followed her to her room, and there I saw this print, or rather its facsimile. I admired it, and she told me some good nun had given it her a great many years ago THE TWO SISTERS. and two or three others besides, in case she liked to give any away, and I should please her much if I would accept one.

I really do not think I could have refused her." ''• Perhaps you could not; / do not think I could have brought myself to accept it. I would never take anything from an inferior, on principle. It goes against all my ideas." " But Tyrell is so good ; she is not like an inferior." " I don't see her great superiority ; she is a quiet sort of creature, and a very good woman in her way, I have no doubt." " Oh, Emma, you don't know — I am .sure nobody knows — how very good she is. It always does me good to speak to her, and, excepting her own business, she never says any thing but about God or one's soul, or eternity ; and what she says always comes home to me, however simple it may be ; indeed it always is simple. The other clay I com plained that time was so short for everything I had to do in London, and she said, ' Time is very short everywhere for the one thing we have to do.' Now I kept saying that to myself over and over again that whole morning."

"Well, indeed, it is pretty free of her to treat you to her religious truisms." " They may be truisms, but they always seem to be something fresh as she says them. On my birthday again, a few weeks ago, when I was seventeen, I said, ' Tyrell, you must wish me many happy returns of this day, for every one has been making good wishes for me this morn ing, and giving me presents ; if I only knew a receipt for insuring happiness, that would be the best present of all.' I said this cunningly, for I knew I should get something good from her. I saw she scribbled on a little bit of paper, and then she handed it to me, and saying quietly ' That is the receipt, it is well known, but it is a secret too,' walked away. I unfolded it and found these two words : ' God alone.' I will keep it by me as long as I live."

"Well, if you choose to take the cook for your spiritual director," rejoined Emma, scornfully, "and encourage such familiarity in her, I can no longer wonder at the affair of the print. Does Mama know of all this? It would not be much to her taste, I think ; she never liked our talking to servants. But I fancy you have taken good care to keep it from her." " Do you tell her everything, Emma ? " asked Gertrude, who was beginning to be a little chafed at her elder sister's contemptuous manner. Emma coloured a little, " No, not everything exactly, where no good could come of it. I was not blaming you for that. But, Gertrude," she resumed, with rather an abatement of tone, " I fear you have a chance of losing your humble monitor. Papa grumbles at Tyrell's cookery and talks of a change." " Oh ! don't say so, Emma.

But how is that ? She has been with us several years, and I never heard any complaints." " No, that is true, and he allows she is painstaking, and does what she attempts nicely enough, but then he says it's old-fashioned cookery ; in short, she is not up to the mark. He was at two dinners last week, one at Sir Philip Eagle's and the other at Mr. Abinger's, and he says it was quite another thing." " But then think of the wages, Emma, which those two gentlemen give their cooks ; why, treble probably what poor Tyrell has ; and then the extravagance of the dinners themselves ! How would Mama like that ? " " That is very true, and so Mama is not disposed to part with her. That dear mammy of ours, as you know, is very discreet in the matter of stretching her purse-strings unnecessarily ; and then she keeps the household accounts, and Papa never looks at them, but only pays them in the lump.