Araminta

Front matter

3tliata, SJew Horb

I.P.Charch Estate

Date Due

Contents

CHAFTEB PAQE

I. The Oi-d Woman of Hill Street . 1

II. The Idea Which Came to Her . . 9

Chapter I The Old Woman Of Hill Street

AN old lady who lived in Hill Street was making _/"^ arrangements to enter upon her seventy-fourth year.

It was a quarter to nine in the morning by the ormolu clock on the chimney-piece; and the old lady, somewhat shriveled, very wide-awake, and in the absence of her toupee from the position it was accustomed to grace — ^at present it was in the center of the dressing-table — ^looking remarkably like a macaw, was sitting up in bed. Cushions supported her venerable form, and an Indi'an shawl, the gift of her Sovereign, covered her aged shoulders.

There were people who did not hesitate to describe her as a very worldly-minded, not to say very wicked, old lady. The former of these epithets there is none to dispute; in regard to the latter, let our silence honor the truth. It is far from our intention to asperse the character of one who has always passed as a Christian; nor do we ascribe to human frailty the sinister significance that some people do. But as far as this old lady is concerned it is a point upon which we have no bigotry.

If sheer worldliness of mind is akin to wickedness, the old woman who lived in Hill Street must have come perilously near to that state. Her views upon all matters relating, to this world were extremely robust, and years and experience had confirmed her in them. In regard to the next world she seldom expressed an opinion. In this she was doubtless wise. Sitting very upright in her bed, with those glittering eyes and hawk-like features the unmistakable mistress of all they surveyed, she was enough to strike the boldest heart with awe. Not that temerity was the long suit of Miss Burden, a gentlewoman of a certain age whose sole mission in hfe it was to do her good will and pleasure in return for board and residence, and forty pounds per annum paid quarterly.

Duly fortified with a slice of dry toast and a cup of very strong tea, the old lady said in such a clear and incisive tone that she must have studied the art of elocution in the days of her youth —

" Burden, cover my head."

The gentlewoman obeyed the command with delicacy and with dexterity. Yet it must not be thought that the elaborate mechanism which adorned the venerable poll fourteen hours out of the twenty-four was taken from the center of the dressing-table. It was not. Various ceremonies had to be performed before the moment arrived for its reception. In its place a temporary, but none the less marvelous, erection of fine needlework and point lace was produced by Miss

THE OLD WOMAN OF HILL STREET 3

Burden, and arranged like a veritable canopy about the brow of Minerva.

" Admit Marchbanks," said the voice f roin the bed.

The door opened and that personage was ushered in. Mr. Marchbanks merits a description quite as much as his mistress. Yet how to do justice to him, that is the problem. The poise of his bearing, his urbane reserve, his patrician demeanor were those of an ambassador. His whole being was enveloped in an air of high diplomacy. His most trivial action seemed to raise the ghost of Lord John Russell. Like his venerable mistress, he was a Whig to the core. He had been born, he had been bred, and by the grace of God he was determined to die in that tradition.

Under the left arm of Mr. Marchbanks was the Morning Post, which organ of opinion had been warmed by his own hands. In his right hand he bore a small silver dish. Upon it was a little pile of rather important-looking correspondence.

With the courtly grace of a bygone age, Mr. Marchbanks bowed to the occupant of the four-poster — old ladies who live in Hill Street do not put their faith in new furniture — and his venerable mistress was pleased to say —

" Good morning, Marchbanks."

" Good morning, my lady," said Mr. Marchbanks very gravely; and then said he with a benevolence that would have made a considerable fortune in Harley Street : " I trust your ladyship has slept well."

*' As well as one can expect at my age," said the occupant of the four-poster.

No, Mr. Marchbanks did not offer his venerable mistress many happy returns of her birthday. And to those of our readers who aspire to serve old ladies who live in Hill Street — and let us not be judged immodest if we express the belief that many who are inspired with this excellent ambition will be found among them — a word of warning may not be out of place. Let us urge these neophytes not to take the practice of Mr. Marchbanks for their guide. His eminence was the fruit of years. Remember he had been tipped by the Duke of Wellington. He had pulled down the coat collar of Lord Pahnerston on more than one occasion; while as for Lord Granville, he knew him as well as he knew his own father.

" How is Ponto this morning? " inquired the occupant of the four-poster.

" In excellent spirits, my lady."

" And his appetite.!" "

" He has eaten a chicken, my lady, with excellent relish."

" Humph," said the occupant of the four-poster, " that dog eats as much as a Christian."

In the opinion of Mr. Marchbanks Ponto ate more, but he did not say so. He was content merely to bow and withdraw with simple yet ample dignity. The old lady read her letters and glanced at the Court Circular, the Parliamentary Report, and the Money Market. She then announced her intention of getting up. Over the divers things incident to this complex process it is doubtless well to draw the veil. Let it suffice that an hour and a half later she reached

THE OLD WOMAN OF HILL STREET S

her morning-room, a veritable dragon in black silk and a brown wig, leaning on an ebony walking-stick.

The normal condition of her temper was severe^ " Acidulated to the verge of the morose," said thos.e who had particular cause to respect it. A considerable, not to say representative body they were. On this wet morning of the early spring, this seventy-third annual conmiemoration of the most pregnant fact of her experience, her temper was so positively formidable that it smote the officers of her household with a feeling akin to dismay.

Various causes had contributed to the state of the barometer. For one thing, that impertinent fellow Cheriton had issued his annual persiflage upon the subject of her birthday. It fell, it appeared, upon the first of April; a stroke of irony, in Cheriton's opinion, for which she had never quite been able to forgive her Creator. Then, again, if you came to think of it, what had existence to oifer an old woman who had so long outlived her youth ; who had neither kith nor kin of her own ; who bored her friends ; who rendered her dependents miserable; who was unable to take exercise ; who distrusted doctors and despised the clergy: a praiser of past times who considered the present age all that it ought not to be?

Why should this old lady be in a good humor on her seventy-third birthday? She was a nuisance to everybody, including herself. She was a vain and selfish old woman, as all the world knew. Yet even she had her points. Everybody has to have points of some kind, else they would never be allowed to persist — ^particularly to their seventy-fourth year.

For one thing she was good to her pug. Upon that extraordinarily repulsive and overfed animal she lavished a great deal of affection. Yet mark the ingratitude of the canine race. How did that misshapen, dumb, soulless, pampered beast, whose figurehead was like a gargoyle, and whose eyes were so swollen with baked meats that they could scarcely revolve, requite the constant care and caresses of his mistress.? Why, by getting fat. There could be no doubt about it that Pdnto was getting fat.

Almost the first thing the old woman did upon what was destined to prove one of the most memorable days of a long and not particularly useful life, was to issue an edict. It was to the effect that John, the second footman, was to exercise Ponto for an hour every morning in Hyde Park. The manner in which John, who himself consumed more than was good for a human being, received the edict is no concern of ours.

It was about a quarter to two — at least it was getting near luncheon-time — that the rare event happened from which springs the germ of this history. How it came to pass will never be known. It is a problem to baffle the most learned doctors and the most expert psychologists. For at about a quarter to two, just as Miss Burden had returned from a visit to the circulating library, the occurrence happened. The old lady of Hill Street was visited by an Idea. To be sure it did not reveal itself imme-

THE OLD WOMAN OF HILL STREET 7

diately in that crude and startling guise. It had its processes to go through, like a cosmos or a tadpole, or any other natural phenomenon that burgeons into entity. The evolutions by which it attained to its fullness were in this wise.

" Where have you been, Burden ? " said the old lady, fixing a cold eye upon the abashed blue-backed volume under the arm of her gentlewoman.

" I have been changing a novel at Mudie's," said Miss Burden.

" The usual rubbish, I suppose," said the old woman, giving a grim turn to her countenance, which rendered that frontispiece an admirable composite of a hawk and a hanging judge.

" Lord Cheriton "said it was the best novel he had read for years," said Miss Burden with the gentle air of one who reveres authority.

" Humph," said the old lady. " Whatever Cheri^ ton is, he has taste at least. Give it to me."

Miss Burden .handed the blue-backed volume to her mistress. The old lady opened it warily, lest she should come too abruptly upon a fine moral sentiment.

" Man uses good English," she said suspiciously. " Reminds one of the man Disraeli before he made a fool of himself in politics."

The next thing that Miss Burden was aware of was that the old lady was fast asleep.

When Mr. Marchbanks came a few minutes later to announce that luncheon was ready, his mistress, with the blue-backed volume in her lap, was snoring lustily. An anxious consultation followed. Her ladyship had not missed her luncheon for seventy-three years.

The far-seeing wisdom of Miss Burden — doubtless due in some measure to her pure taste in English fiction — was allowed to prevail. The state of the old woman's temper could not possibly be worse than it had been that morning if the sun was to remain faithful to the firmament. If she slept undisturbed it might conceivably be better.

Miss Burden was justified of her wisdom. The old lady missed her luncheon for the first time in seventy-three years. Ideas come to us fasting; and that is the only explanation there is to offer of how her Idea came to be born.

Chapter II The Idea Which Came To Hee

IT was a quarter to three when the old woman awoke. She was alone save for Ponto, her fidus Achates, who was snoring in front of the fire with his tail curled up in the most ridiculous manner. And yet she was not alone, for there is reason to believe that her Idea was already born in her. There can be httle doubt that the Idea had sprung into being, even before she had time to turn, which she did almost immediately, to the half-pint of claret and the plate of goose liver pie that Miss Burden and Mr. Marchbanks in consultation had caused to be laid beside her.

Now do not suppose that the Idea was proclaimed forthwith in its meridian splendor. Nothing of the kind. It was still in its infancy. It had to be shaped and reshaped, to be dandled and cosseted, to be born and born again in the dim recesses^of the mind, before it gathered the requisite force to issue as it were from the armory of Minerva.

At four o'clock precisely it was the custom of this old lady, if the light and the British climate permitted, to drive the whole length of Bond Street and once round Hyde Park.

At that hour the sky having cleared sufficiently for the sun to make a tardy and shamefaced appearance, the old lady, accompanied by her faithful gentlewoman and her somnolent four-footed beast, entered the equipage that was drawn up before her door.

It was an extraordinary vehicle. It had yellow wheels and a curious round body, which, according to scale, was very nearly as fat as Ponto's. It was perched up on very high springs, and was in the forefront of the fashion about the year 184!l.

Mr. Bryant and Mr. Gregory, who shared the box-seat, would doubtless have been in the forefront of the fashion about the same period. Their broad backs, their box-cloth, the shape and texture of their hats and the angle at which they wore them unmistakably belonged to a very early period of the world's history. No, they did not wear side whiskers. We don't know why. Perhaps it was that side whiskers were either a little in front or a little behind the mode in 1841. But it is enough that Mr. Bryant and Mr. Gregory did not wear them. And had they worn them, had the present biographer had reason for one single moment to suspect that Messrs. Bryant and Gregory had been in possession of these appendages, he would have given up this history. Really the line has to be drawn somewhere.

The progress along Bond Street was at the rate of two miles an hour. The horses. Castor and Pollux by name, were very fat and very somnolent, the yellow chariot was very unwieldy, and in the language of Constable X, who touched his helmet at the corner of Hanover Square, " it took up a deal o' room." None the less the progress of the vehicle was almost royal.

The old lady sat very upright in the center of the best seat, which she had all to herself. With a nose of the Wellington pattern and a chin to match, displayed under a canopy of feathers, she looked more like a macaw than ever. Miss Burden, in charge of Ponto and a pair of folders with a tortoiseshell handle, was seated opposite at a more modest elevation.

Every member of the male sex whom this redoubtable veteran chanced to meet, who had the good fortune to wear his clothes with a sufficient air of distinction, received a bow from her ; and in return she (vas the recipient of some highly elaborate and wholly inimitable courtesies. With these she ranked as " an agreeable old woman."

With the members of the other sex, which socially the more critical, who seated in their barouches, their victorias, their broughams, and their motors, who inclined their own distinguished heads from under their own barbaric canopies, yet with no vain strivings in the direction of effusiveness, she was greeted with a half-veiled hostility of the eyelids, and a whispered, " There goes that old cat."

We offer no opinion on the justice or the taste of the remark. We claim no learning in feminology. Why these ladies, each of whom vied with the other in the propagation of good works, each of whom was an honored patroness of more than one institution for the amelioration of the human race, should apply such a figure of speech to one who was old and venerable it is not for us to conjecture.

Did they refer to the quantity of feathers she was wearing upon her helmet? If so, since April 1, 183- she had caused many a beautiful and harmless bird to be destroyed. But then they themselves were wearing similar great canopies of feathers. Did they refer to her features? We think not, for although her nose was shaped like a talon of a bird of prey, they were not conspicuously feline. Perhaps it was that they referred to her personal character. At any rate they are known to be high authorities upon such a matter as the human character, and as a rule are very searching in their judgments. Certainly the old lady proceeding along Bond Street in her yellow chariot at the rate of two miles an hour had done a fair amount of mischief in her time; and if health and strength continued to be vouchsafed to her by an All-wise Creator, before she died she hoped to do a good deal more.

In her own little corner of her own little parish no old lady was more respected. Where she was not respected she was feared, and where she was neither respected nor feared she was Very heartily hated. Of one thing we are sure. There was not a living creature who loved her, unless it was Ponto, who being a creature without a soul was denied the consolations of religion.

We don't believe for a moment that Miss Burden loved her. She had caused her faithful gentlewoman.

THE IDEA WHICH CAME TO HER IS

who in the space of twenty years had given all she had had of youth, beauty, and gayety in return for board and residence and forty pounds per annum, paid quarterly, to weep too many tears in the privacy of her chamber for such a sacred emotion as love to requite her persecutor. Yet it is far from our intention to dogmatize upon the female heart. If we do we are sure to be wrong. That complex and wonderful mechanism has defeated us too often. Therefore it is possible that Miss Burden hugged her chains to her bosom and lavished the poetry pent up in her soul upon the hand that chastened her. We say it is possible, but we protest that it is hardly likely. Yet do not let us express a positive opinion upon the emotional apparatus of even Miss Burden, who, whatever else she might be, was a woman and a gentlewoman and the thirteenth daughter of a rural dean.

It is really no use trying to hide the fact that the old lady in the yellow chariot had in the course of her seventy-three summers wrought a great deal of misery and unhappiness among her fellow-creatures. Nobody's reputation was safe in her keeping. She never said a kind word of anybody if she could possibly help it ; and although she may have done good by stealth she very seldom did it in the light of day. Yet there can be little doubt that Ponto loved her in his dumb way, and there is every reason to believe that Mr. Marchbanks respected her immensely.

Proceeding along Bond Street with her Idea — she had not forgotten it, and you must not forget it either — she continued to evolve that mysterious phantasm in the grim purlieus of her hard yet not capacious mind. Sitting very upright in the center of her yellow chariot, bleakly indifferent to those who did not interest her, and coldly overlooking those who did, this old woman in her marvelous equipage had come almost alongside the little shop on the left going towards Piccadilly where you can get the nicest silk hat in London, of which we forget the name, when she beheld an apparition.

It was a Hat. It was of gray felt with a dent in the middle and rather wide in the brim's, of the variety which is called a Homburg because it is worn at Cannes. Round this article of masculine attire, in itself sufficiently bizarre, was what is technically known as " a Guards' ribbon." Those who are acquainted with the merits of this decorative emblem wiU not thank us for describing them ; while those who are not will be unable to appreciate the special texture of their excellence from a mere categorical statement. Let it suffice that the old lady in the yellow chariot beheld a Homburg hat with a Guards' ribbon approaching at the rate of one mile an hour.

Now there was only one individual, not in London only, but in the whole of what at that time ranked as the civilized world (circa 190 -), who by any concatenation of events could possibly be seen walking in Bond Street in a Homburg hat with a Guards' ribbon on April the first. Messrs. Bryant and Gregory knew that quite as well as their mistress. Therefore, quite naturally and properly, the yellow chariot came to a stand automatically, just as the Hat came to a stand also, immecfiately opposite the coat of arms on the near side panel of this wonderful equipage, which itself was immediately opposite the little shop where you can get the nicest silk hat in London.

We wish our readers could have seen the manner in which Mr. Bryant and Mr. Gregory each removed his own headgear (circa 1841), in an act of homage to the Hat of Hats. We feel sure it would have reconciled them to a number of things they are likely to find in this history.

" How d'ye do, George.? " said the old lady.

Now that form of salutation may mean much or it may mean little. With the occupant of the yellow chariot it meant the former. She only said, " How d'ye do? " to the highest branch of the peerage.

" How d'ye do, George.'' " said the occupant of the yellow chariot.

" Pooty well for an old 'un," said the owner of the Hat in a gruff, fat voice.

"How old are you.'"' said the occupant of the chariot.

" Nearly as old as you," said the Hatted one. Then said he with slow and gruff solemnity : " Many happy returns of your birthday, Caroline. It is a great pleasure to see you looking so well."

" Thank you, George," said the old lady with formidable politeness. " Regular habits and a good conscience are worth something when you get past seventy."

George Betterton, Duke of Brancaster, began to gobble like a turkey. He was a heavy-jowled, purplefaced, apoplectic-looking individual, rather wide in stature "and extremely short in the neck. So famous was he for his powers of emulation of the pride of the farmyard, that he went by the name of " Gobo " among his friends. As his habits were not so regular and his conscience was not so chaste as they might have been, George Betterton grew redder in the jowl than ever, and rolled his full-blooded eyes at the occupant of the yellow chariot.

"Something been crossing you, Caroline?" inquired her old crony, in his heavy, slow-witted way.

" Yes and no," said the occupant of the chariot with that bluntness of speech in which none excelled her. " Ponto is getting fat, and Burden is getting tiresome, and Cheriton has been insolent, and I am tired of life ; but I intend to hold on some time yet j ust to spite people. It is all the better for the world to have an old nuisance or two in it."

This philanthropic resolution did not appear to arouse as much enthusiasm in George Betterton as perhaps it ought to have done. All the same he was very polite in his gruff, stolid, John Bull manner.

" Glad to hear it, Caroline," said he. " We should never get on, you know, without your old standards."

" Rubbish," said the old lady robustly. " You would only be too pleased to. But you won't at present, so make your mind easy."

The occupant of the yellow chariot flung up her nostrils as if to challenge high heaven with a snufF of scorn.

" What are you doing in London? " said the old lady. " That woman is at Biarritz, they tell me."

George Betterton pondered a moment and measured his old friend with his full-blooded eye.

" I've come up to judge the dog show," said he.

" Oh, is there a dog show.'' " said the old lady, upon a note of interest she seldom achieved. " When is it.?"

" A week a' Toosday," said the owner of the hat.

We apologize to our readers, but if you belong to the highest branch of the peerage you have no need to be the slave of grammar.

" If I send Ponto," said the old lady, " will you guarantee him a prize.'' "

" First prize," said her old friend.

" Look at him well so that you will know him again. Burden, let the Dook look at Ponto."

" I've seen him so often," said George Betterton plaintively, as that overfed quadruped leered at him biliously. " He's a ducky little dog."

" Don't forget that American creature that Towcaster married has the effrontery to have one just like him. If you confuse him with hers I shall not forgive you."

" Better tie a piece o' bloo ribbon round his tail," said George.

His grace of Brancaster turned upon his heel.

" Remember my Wednesday," the old lady called after him in stentorian tones.

Whether George Betterton heard her or whether he did not it is doubtless well not to inquire. It i§ rather a failing with high personages that they are apt to be aiHicted with a sudden and unaccountable deafness. The old lady's voice could be heard at the other side of Bond Street, but her old acquaintance made no sign whatever that it had penetrated to him.

The yellow chariot moved on. Its occupant, looking exceedingly grim, and more than ever like a Gorgon or a dragon born out of due time, immediately proceeded to cut dead the inoffensive widow of a Baron in Equity who with her two pretty daughters was driving to the Grosvenor Galleries.

If there were those who could be deaf to her, there were also those to whom she could be blind. There can be no doubt that during the course of her long life she had had things far more her own way than is good for any human creature. But there were now those who were beginning openly to rebel from her despotic sway. George Betterton was not the only person who of late had been ai33icted with deafness.

All the same, if the aspect of this old woman meant anything it was that its possessor had to be reckoned with. It had often been remarked by those of her friends who followed " the fancy," that in certain aspects it bore a striking resemblance to that of an eminent pugilist. It was a very tight and hard and arbitrary mouth, and a general demeanor of perfectly ruthless sarcasm that returned to Hill Street at a quarter. to five. The rebels must be brought to heel.

The redoubtable Caroline had been home about an hour, when suddenly, without any sort of warning.

the Idea assumed an actual and visible guise. She was in the middle of a game of piquet, a daily exercise, Sundays excepted, in which she showed the greatest proficiency, which generally ended in the almost total annihilation of her adversary. Having " rubiconed " her gentlewoman, and having mulcted her in the sum of two shillings which Miss Burden could ill afford to lose, her Idea burst from its shell and walked abroad.

" Burden," said the old lady, " do you remember the name of the person that was married by my sister Polly?"

Miss Burden was so much startled by the question that she could not answer immediately. Not only was its abruptness highly disconcerting, but its nature was even more so. It dealt with one outside the pale.

" Per-Perring — Perkins," floundered Miss Burden. It was a name never mentioned in HiU Street upon any pretext whatever.

" Look it up in Walford."

Miss Burden consulted that invaluable work of reference. With some difficulty and many misgivings she was presently able to disinter the following : —

Perry Aloysius, clerk in holy orders, master of arts. Eldest surviving son of Reverend John Tillotson Perry and Maria, 2nd daughter of Montague Hawley esquire. Bom 1842. Married Mary Augusta, younger daughter of Charles William Wargrave, third duke of Dorset, and Carohne daughter of 5th marquis of Twickenham. Incumbent of Saint Euthanasius Slocum

Magna and perpetual curate of Widdif ord parish church. Heir S., Richard Aloysius Wargrave Perry, clerk in holy orders, bachelor of arts. Address, The Parsonage Slocum Magna, North ' Devon.

When the old lady had been duly acquainted with these facts she knitted her brows, pondered deeply and said " Humph ! " A pause followed, and then a look of resolution settled upon her grim countenance.

" Burden," said she, " I am going to try an experiment. I shall write to that man."

In that apparently simple sentence was embodied the old lady's Idea in the fullness of its splendor. For the first time in her life or in his she deigned to recognize the existence of the Reverend Aloysius Perry.

The recognition duly dictated to the gentlewoman assumed the following shape : —

" The Countess of Crewkerrie presents her complknents to the Reverend Perry. Lady Crewherne will be pleased to adopt a girl of her late sister's. Lady Crewherne would suggest in the event of this course being agreeable to the Reverend Perry, that the most refined and mannerly of her late sister's children be forwarded to her."