St. Beetha’s; or, The Heiress of Arne

Front matter

Sea Som iy

Per ae

Ay os

Contents

Taking Tea at The Golden Globe as ms a2 ne The Dunkelds at Home .. ne ea +4 or ne Helen De Torre ., a oF oa s “e ea The Training of an Heiress an a ns me és St. Beetha’s in Commotion ae aS om as ey The Blind Organist “ e “e oe os re The Family of Daisy Bank os Po aC a

A Wet Day at the Deanery ye a aa ea re Round the Hearth ae os re ae ee Ar Father and Daughter i. Pr oo te oo = No more Night a2 “

The South Drawing-Room + oF

Chapter I. Taking Tea At The Golden Globe

Ty was a mild autumn evening, and the great red sun was slanting his fiery beams on the grey cathedral-towers of St. Beetha’s, as his broad dise slowely sank behind the glorious woods of Arne. St. Beetha’s stands on the rocky hill-side ; all below is pastoral vale or tangled ravine, all above is wooded slope and purple wavy moor. The city itself is small, quiet—not to say dull—and aristocratic, as a cathedral city usually is; its streets are narrow, winding, and steep ; its houses are high, and, for the most part, gabled ; its traffic is so limited that a stranger gazing up and down the High-street on any day but market day would be very likely to inquire what had become of all the people. Society in St. Beetha’s is carefully divided into three distinct and separate classes. First of all, of course, the clerical element in the Close, with its relicts of deans and its prebendal old maids ; and with this class are mingled by right all the true and unimpeachable aristocracy of the neighbourhood. Anybody settling down in St. Beetha’s is classed immediately, and just as methodically as a naturalist classes by ‘scientific rule the new plant or butterfly that has fallen under his observation ; even a millionaire arriving in the midst of that proud, exclusive circle would find himself “nowhere” if he could not B Hostes ty GOOR|e prove himself to be “ well-connected,” and if he were not so situated as to be able to soar at once above all suspicion of having ever, at any remote period, or under any circumstances, defiled his hands by commerce of any kind whatever. So much for class number one.

Next come the tradespeople, in which term everybody who buys and sells is sweepingly included. “James and Lewis,” the highly respectable drapery firm at the top of the High street, who are rich enough to buy up half the dowagers and elderly damsels in the Close, were such a bargain practicable, are only shopkeepers, and as such, expected to stick to their counters, and not give themselves airs because they are able to keep a carriage or two, and saddle-horses for the Misses James and the Misses Lewis, who have had the impertinence to grow up into very fine, well-bred, accomplished young women, looking quite as much like ladies as some of the fair, well-born daughters of the Close. When Mr. James bought Beaconsfield, a charming estate about two miles out of St. Beetha’s, class number one drew up its head and prophesied a speedy appearance in the Gazette. But Beaconsfield flourished, and so did the shop in the High street ; and now Mr. Lewis, finding city air interfering with the bloom of his young family, has followed his partner’s example, and purchased “ The Dingle,” another desirable and charming estate, situated a mile beyond Beaconstield, at which presumption “society "—for of course there can be no such thing as society beyond the magic circle of class number one— frowned severely upon the upstart draper, and would have forsworn his goods had they not been the best, the tastiest, and the most reasonable for twenty miles round St. Beetha’s ; ‘but things being as they are, they are content to patronize the shop, and smile in superb disdain when Mrs. James drives up to the cathedral in her pretty phaeton and pair ; or when, in their summer evening rambles, they encounter Mr. Lewis’s little girls cantering on their long-tailed ponies ; Of course the Jameses and the Lewises stand first in the shopocracy of St. Beetha’s; who stands last I cannot tell arse Google you, for the boundary line between class number two and class number three is not so beautifully defined as that which separates “ society” from the ranks beyond, but only just beyond its verge.

It is quite impossible to say to which class Mrs. Hodges, who keeps the toffy shop in Canon lane, actually belongs ; whether she is at the very extremest bottom—forgive the illogical language, please—of class number two, or at the head of class number three, is not, I believe, determined in St. Beetha’s to this day. Of the two upper classes, I do not know which was and is the sillier, I might almost say the wickeder, considering what Christianity enjoins ; for if Mrs. Auriol and the Honourable Miss Holdaloft would ignore Mrs. James, the draper’s wife, if they were travelling for a whole day, or for many days, in the same railway carriage, so, also, Mrs. James will look askance upon Mrs. Barker, another draper’s wife, whose husband sells cheap de-lanes, and vulgar-patterned, ticketed goods, and whose only “ turnout” is a dog-cart with shabby cushions and yellow wheels. There is a real ‘‘ society ” and a sham, self-constituted society in St. Beetha’s, you perceive. Class number three takes in, right willingly, anybody that chooses to belong to it by profession ; it commences at, or below, Mrs. Hodges, and terminates in the almshouses and in the workhouse, and to the credit of classes one and two, I must say they are both kind and generous to class number three.

Such is the fair cathedral city of St. Beetha’s, standing so proudly on the slope of the sunny hill, with its grey towers and cloisters, its ancient gates, and its old historic associations. But just now, it is not with St. Beetha’s proper that we have to do.

The sun was going down, I told you, behind the woods of Arne, and Arne was beyond the city precincts by the distance of three miles or more, and within a mile of the park, perhaps not quite so much, stood an old-fashioned, inconvenient house, that nobody, who was “anybody,” ever thought of inhabiting.

Consequently, it was often to let, for the owner had crotchets, Hosted by GOOQTE and did not care about letting it to “ the nobodies,” and for some months it had been without a tenant, and was falling into decay, and it was rumoured that old Blatch would let it to any party of undeniable respectability for a nominal consideration. Towards the close of the summer, the board that told people the house was “to let,” was taken down ; bricklayers came and built up the dilapidated wall at the back of the premises, men were seen on the roof, splashes of whitewash appeared on the dirty windows, and finally, one hot day in August, a fly, well laden with luggage, drove up to Daisy Bank, and set down a lady and gentleman, who went up the gravel walk, and entered the house with an air of something very like proprietorship. St. Beetha’s and Lower Arne understood in a moment that the new tenants of Daisy Bank had arrived ; but who were they ?

The luggage they brought with them was peculiarly nondescript ; it was by no means that upper-class luggage which consists of strong leather trunks, iron-clamped and _brassnailed, and covered with holland wrappering, daintily bound with scarlet. There were one or two respectable boxes looking as if they had seen better days, and a huge, heavy portmanteau, like a small hearse shorn of its plumes, and all the rest was a medley of hamper, and packing-case, and dingy carpet-bag, and brown paper parcel.

The gentleman was thin and tall—Lower Arne rudely called him “bony.” He was not handsome, it was averred, and he wore a Scotch cap and a plaid, and his clothes fitted him very ill. The lady was also thin and tall, and without claims to beauty ; but she looked like “somebody,” it was asserted, and she had large, solemn, black eyes, and a low, deep voice, sweet and rich, that made some people think of the cathedral organ. Perhaps this association occurred to them because Mr. Blake, the blind cathedral organist, had been the chief actor in all transactions between “old Blatch ” and the new tenants; it was he who vouched for the respectability of the young people, and it was by his agency that a char-woman was engaged, and set to clean the house and such few articles of furniture as were let with it. The driver of the fly only knew that his fare “come in by the 3.30 train, and had a sight o’ messy luggage, and the labels on it showed as they hailed from the south.” Other information he had none, only he thought the gentleman was a gentleman, for he paid full fare without a word, and gave him sixpence for himself.

The next day the strangers, arm in arm, walked gravely and composedly into St. Beetha’s, where they made many purchases, chiefly of household necessaries, all of the very plainest description. They evidently were trying to spend as little as possible ; but for everything they bought, from a dining-table down to a nutmeg-grater, they paid ready money. They gave their names to the different tradesmen with whom they dealt, as Mr. and Miss Dunkeld. They were not married then, “only” brother and sister, as Lower Arne slightingly remarked. The charwoman knew nothing about them, though, on the strength of having been for two days their temporary servant, class number three gave her unlimited gossip over the steaming cups and the well-buttered muffins, for which St. Beetha’s was deservedly famous. Indeed, the only manufactures of the place were ,muifins and toffy.

I think I must take you to tea at Mrs. Hodges’, where Mrs. Chuff, the lady in question, passed the Sunday evening immediately after the Thursday which introduced Mr, and Miss Dunkeld to the notice of all classes in the neighbourhood of Arne. Mrs. Chuff will tell you as much about them as I mean to let you know at present, so you must listen to her, and her rather unsabbatic conversation ; but then, as she said, Sunday was the only day she had to tell all that she heard and saw during the week, and so she couldn't help herself. Mrs. Hodges’ shop was shut, of course ; at least let it be said for St. Beetha’s, it was disgraced by no Sunday trading, except it were of the most vulgar and surreptitious nature, and the good lady herself, attired in her best gown and her best cap, all glorious with majenta

hostes ey GOORTe ribbons, sat before her best cups. and saucers, impatiently waiting the advent of Mrs. Chuff. I am afraid to quote Mrs. Hodges’ hasty exclamation, as she impatiently apostrophized her visitor on account of her delay, it would look so ungenteel on paper; but as the clock in the corner ticked and ticked, and the minute-hand travelled from figure to figure, she grew naturally irate, seeing that her tea was quite strong enough, and her muffins before the fire approaching a state of over-crispness. ‘Look out, Betsy,” she said at length to her daughter, “go to the shop door and look up town, and see if you can see that stupid Chuff ; it isn’t often the likes of she gets the chance of teaing with me, and I shan’t ask her again in a hurry, I can tell her, if she isn’t a bit more respectful.”

Happily for Mrs. Hodges’ equanimity, Betsy, a tall girl in a erinoline and a pink flounced muslin, and blue ribbons streaming at the back of her head, announced that “ Mrs. Chuff was coming down town like a steam ingin.” The report of her good speed somewhat mollified Mrs. Hodges, who muttered something about her having been kept, she dare say, by some stupid thing that wanted the first bit of news of her before she got to the Golden Globe, in which auriferous nomenclature the original toffy-shop in Canonlane rejoiced.

But presently Mrs. Chuff walked in, with a crimson face to match her crimson gown, and, sitting down on the first’ chair that came in her way, and fanning herself with an exaggerated duster, called by courtesy a pocket-handkerchief, she began to deplore her fatigue, and her inability to speak a single word.

“‘ Nonsense,” said Mrs, Hodges, amiably. “ Don’t sit there in a thorough draft ; come and have a cup of tea, and eat a bit of muffin, and you'll talk fast enough before you're five minutes older,” which kindly advice Mrs. Chuff immediately acted upon.

Now Mrs. Chuff knew quite well why she was preferred to the honour of drinking tea, or “teaing,” as class number three ignorantly called it, with Mrs. Hodges ; and the lady of the “ Golden Globe” was quite conscious that her invitation had been given with a view to unqualified gossip. Nevertheless, the third cup was poured out, and Betsy had produced another relay of muffins swimming in fresh butter, before the conversation as much as glanced in the direction of Daisy Bank. But when she had dropped an extra lump of sugar into her guest’s tea, and complained that the heat of the weather would turn the cream, and remarked that the butter was fifteen-pence a pound, Mrs. Hodges thought it was high time to think about business.

“¢ And so you left Daisy Bank last night?” she inquired of Mrs. Chuff, who was contemplatively stirring the strong, sweet nectar in her cup.

“Yes,” was the rejoinder, “they've got a servant now, such a one as she is, just a scrap of a girl that can’t know nothing—a sort o’ pair o’ pattens to keep one out of the dirt, that’s all. But what can you expect? They only gives her four pounds a year, and no beer.”

“ Don’t they, now ?” replied Mrs. Hodges, confidentially. “Oh, they’re xot gentlefolks, then? Nancy Harris said as they was. But how should she know? It takes a person of experience to know which is gentlefolks, and which is not; but you can tell, Mrs. Chuff, I’ve confidence in your judgment—that’s what I have. What do you say about them ?”

“Well, my opinion is, that they is, and they isn’t, Mrs. Hodges.”

After which oracular answer, Mrs. Chuff devoured a piece of muffin in solemn silence.

“JT don’t understand,” replied Mrs. Hodges ; “they must be one thing or t’other. J should say they’re nothing to brag of, or they wouldn’t be keeping one servant, and she no servant at all, as one may say. Why, the Auriols, bless you, keep nine or ten at the least, and the Honourable Miss Holdaloft has a good round dozen, if she has one at all.”

Mrs. Chuff sipped her tea with the most provoking posted ty GOOGTe CS reticence, and remarked that she had a pain in her chest ; she thought it was the hot weather, and helping move the grand piano, that Mr. Dunkeld would have in a room with no carpet on the floor.

“T’ve got a pain in my chest, too,” said Mrs. Hodges, sympathetically ; ‘we'll just have a drop o’ brandy in the last cup, it'll do us both good. You and me, Mrs. Chuff, isn’t as young as we used to be. Betsy, fetch the bottle ; it’s in my drawer up-stairs. I don’t have it down in general, because the tract lady would be making unpleasant remarks if she saw it—she’s been here to-day.”

And like a wise woman, or rather I should say a sharp woman, Mrs. Hodges let the potion do its work before she again turned her attention to Daisy Bank and its enigmatical inmates. But, in due season, she recommenced the attack. “ They'll find a difference between you and a slip of a girl, that knows nothing, I’m thinking, Mrs. Chuff.”

“Perhaps they will : but they're odd folks, Mrs. Hodges ; it’s my belief they’re very poor. What do you think, their dining-table’s only deal—common deal.”

“Deal!” said Mrs. Hodges, solemnly, looking complacently on her own second-hand mahogany. “You don’t say so, Mrs. Chuff!”

“But I do. They went to Hickman’s and bought a great, long, wide deal table ; such a one as Miss Sutton has in her school-room for the young ladies to sit at. And when they got it home, they put it in what used to be the drawing-room in old Mrs. Bateman’s time, and Mr. Dunkeld he sends out for some paint, and he goes and paints the legs and the sides ever so beautiful, and Miss Dunkeld she goes and brings out of one of the boxes she brought with her, a crimson cloth, and puts it on top, and laws! it looked ever so handsome.”

“ Well, I never!” replied Mrs. Hodges; “ maybe he’s a house painter, or grainer, or something that way.”

“ You wouldn’t say so if you heard him play on the piano-forty!” returned Mrs. Chuff, with energy. “Why, he made the thing speak, like. One moment it was saying something sorrowful and heart-breaking, and the next it was shouting like the people on election-day, with drums agoing, and flags a-waving, and bells a-ringing.”

“ What was?” said Mrs. Hodges, really perplexed.

“TJ couldn’t make you understand unless you heard it with your own ears; but this one thing is certain, no house painter could make such music as Mr. Dunkeld does. Oh, and the piano-forty / it’s sucha big one, and sounds out like the organ in the cathedral, when it’s playing soft and fine ; and the sight of music books—I didn’t think there was so many in the whole world.”

“ Did the music-books come with the luggage?”

“No; they came yesterday, with a lot more things, by rail; some pictures, and a little work table, and some chairs, very old-fashioned, covered with a sort of brocaded silk, with all the colour gone out of it, and some other things of no ’count. The children are coming, they say, on Wednesday.”

“Laws a mercy! I thought they was Mr. and Miss Dunkeld—not married people.”

“Nor more they be; the children, I fancy, are brothers and sisters, by another mother, I should say, for Miss Janet— that’s Miss Dunkeld—will never see thirty again, I'm right sure ; and as for the master, he may be anything between twenty-five and forty. They’ve lost somebody—they’re in deep mourning.”

“T dare say it’s the father or the mother ; but I wonder what makes them come here. Tell us a bit more, Mrs. Chuff, and may be I’ll*find out. I should like to be the first to fathom it, and let it out to Mrs. Auriol’s Jenny. Mrs. Auriol likes to hear the news, if it’s nicely wrapped up and carried to her.”

“ Well, I don’t know that I’ve much to tell,” said Mrs, Chaff, ingenuously ; “all I know is from making observations, you see—listening to scraps of sentences, as they are said before me, and putting two and two together. Well, my opinion is as they've seen better days, but now they’re as poor as church mice—which is supposed to be the poorest animals a-going—and as proud as—as—well, lucifer matches,” —Mrs. Chuff naturally connected matches with Lucifer, you perceive—* though I don't know why they should be counted proud in particular,” she added, in a sort of soliloquy. “But they’re an uncommon sort of people, not at all like any other families, and half their talk I can’t understand anyhow. Miss Dunkeld—she’s awful particular !”

«An old maid, you know,” said Mrs. Hodges, with an uncomplimentary gesture. “Thank Heaven, we're not sich!”

“J wish I were,” sighed poor Mrs. Chuff, as memories of her “master” came fast and thick upon her. “I am not so wicked as to wish I were a widow, but I do wish I'd kept as I was, and earned my own living—which I earn now, and his too, and the lad’s, and gets nothing but hard words and blows for my pains. Well, girls is never satisfied till they gets a husband for themselves: they'd a deal better get a ramping lion, or a boa-constrictor, nine times out of ten. I respect Miss Dunkeld for keeping single ; but laws! she’s so taken up with her brother, and he with her, that neither of them can want any courting, I should think. It’s Adam here, and Adam there, every other minute.”

“Laws! what a name; you don’t mean to say as Mr. Dunkeld’s name is Adam ?”

“That is his name, though, and a very good name too ; it must be the best name, I should think, as God thought on it first, before any other. But I can’t say it like Miss Dunkeld says it, so sweet and soft-like, in a foreign sort of way, you know—only she’s English—leastways Scotch. And once, when Mr. Dunkeld wanted her to come and hear some of his grand music, she says, ‘ Not now, Adam ; I cannot be fashed to come.’ I suppose ‘fashed’ meant troubled, but it’s a queer word.”

“Very queer, Mrs. Chuff, and as it isn’t English, maybe it’s Scotch. But what might Miss Dunkeld be doing, when her brother wanted her ?”

“You'll never guess ; she was standing on a chair in the pantry, scrubbing down the shelves with soap and hot water !”

“ She’s no lady then !” said Mrs. Hodges, decisively ; “who ever heard of a lady serubbing !”

“Well, it does seem queer; but I hadn’t had time, I’d been working like a littl horse to get the whitewash splashes off the kitchen floor. And if places be dirty, and a lady hasn’t servants to clean ’em, what can a lady do but turn-to herself, or else abide the dirt ?”

* A lady would have servants!” interposed Mrs. Hodges, with severe emphasis. “That’s what makes the difference between the quality and we.”

“Well, I don’t say the Dunkelds is real quality, like the Auriols and the Claridges and the others as we looks up to, as the Catechism bids us; but if you’d been two days and a half at Daisy Bank, as I have been, you'd be fain to think Miss Dunkeld was some sort of a lady. Her voice is nice, and she doesn’t shout, and she moves about ever so quietly, and she shuts the doors after her—she don’t slam them ; and she puts things down softly, instead of banging them down as some do—as I do, I know. I watched her pouring out the tea last night, and she did it as daintily as a little bird pecks up his seed ; dropping the lumps of sugar quietly into the cups, not tossing them in, as if you was chucking pebbles into a brook ; and holding the pot and everything as nicely as if she had a large party to entertain, and was dressed out all in her best. It seemed her way ; and that’s the way of ladies, I can tell you, for I’ve seen a many of ’em, since I first began charing, and I know when fine manners is the real thing and when they aren’t !”

“But they’re poor,” persisted Mrs. Hodges ; poverty, especially among gentlefolks, was a cardinal sin in her eyes ; she had a certain respect for well-to-do people, and she did not hesitate to say so. “ Well,” she continued, “I don’t know that you’ve told me anything of any ’count ; I'd give any money, now, to know if Mr. Dunkeld follows any trade; it’s odd his turning his hand to painting. Do you think he’s what they call an artist? a scamping lot they are!”

“You mean a man as paints pictures? Well, I should say not, for they've only brought three pictures with them ; and I should think painting deal boards with a big brush is’ a very different thing from painting the fine pictures as people hang up in their rooms. And I didn’t see any paints, but what common painters use: bless you, Mrs. Hodges, that Mr. Dunkeld can turn his hand to anything ; but if I’d the ordering of him, he should sit all day at that grand piano-forty. Iwonder if it’s got forty of them black and white things you put your fingers on. I’m sure when I heard him last night, when I was scrubbing the passage, I thought I was in heaven.”

“Did yout” said Mrs. Hodges, with a sniff of disdain. Mrs. Chuff was slightly sentimental, and with all her love of gossiping, and ferreting other people’s business, was endowed with some of the finer perceptions. Mrs. Hodges was a woman of business, matter-of-fact in her ideas, not too scrupulous when she wished to gain her point, and an excellent maker of toffy, peppermint-candy, and paradise drops— the latter indigenous to St. Beetha’s.

“T have it!” she cried at length, triumphantly ; “TI see it as clear ‘as if it had been shown to me in a book: he’s a musie master, that’s what he is!”

“T shouldn’t wonder,” continued Mrs. Chuff. “ You are a ’cute woman, Mrs. Hodges.”

“Trust me. I might have known it the moment you alked about pianos. To be sure. Why, it was Mr. Blake as took the house, I’ve heard, and since he’s turned quite blind, he has given up all his customers.”

“ Pupils,” corrected Mrs. Chuff; “customers buy toffy and paradise ; pupils is taught, and they buys knowledge, and the knack of doing a thing.”

“Yes; he gave up his customers,” pursued Mrs. Hodges, pointedly ignoring the emendation ; ‘and depend upon it, this young fellow is come to take them up. Well, I thought he was no gentleman.”

“ But he is, I tell you,” said Mrs. Chuff. “The moment he walks into a house, or opens his mouth, you know him for a gentleman.”

“ Music-masters isn’t gentlemen,” returned Mrs. Hodges, quite vehemently. She had had another cup of tea, and a little more brandy in it. “ Music-masters 7s music-masters, and they gets their own living, which gentlemen never does. A gentleman is a person who has plenty to live on without soiling his hands, or stirring a peg, or troubling his brains—don’t tell me !”

“Why the parsons at the Cathedral get their living,” returned Mrs. Chuff, indignantly. “I think, now, a man may work and be a gentleman through it all. But I must be going, for my master may be coming in, and if he don’t find me at home he'll be throwing the fire-irons at the crockery, or some mischief. Good night.”

And Mrs. Hodges sat still, complacently stroking her apron, and murmuring, “I knew they wasn’t gentlefolks ; one servant, at four pounds a year, and finds herself, or goes without—don’t tell me !”

Chapter II. The Dunkelds At Home

Now for that mild autumn evening (referred to in the first chapter), when the sun was reddening the airy pinnacles of the grey cathedral, and sinking behind the woods of Arne— the evening on which our story may fairly be said to commence. On the lawn of Daisy Bank, too, the ruddy sunbeams were slanting, and one or two last quivering pulses of light found their way through the vine leaves and the feathery clematis into the large low parlour, where Janet

Dunkeld sat busily sewing and giving directions to her little maid, who was somewhat awkardly setting the tea-table— the identical table which, you may remember, Mrs. Chuff told us had had its sides and legs painted by the master of the house himself. “ Not that way, Joan, not that way!” said the soft, musical voice of Miss Dunkeld, as the young parlour-maid proceeded to execute her duties, in somewhat unorthodox fashion, and she laid down her sewing—her “seam,” as she used to call her white work—and showed Joan her mistake, and instructed her as to the method she wished her always to pursue ; and then she returned to her seat by the window, and patiently bent her head over her task, while her fingers flew swiftly and deftly along the piece of calico she was manipulating into some kind of garment.

The sun sank at last behind the woods, leaving Daisy Bank, with its lawn and parlour, in the deepening shadows of the autumnal evening ; and then Miss Dunkeld quietly folded her work, and placed it in her basket, and stepping out on the grass, looked around her as in search of some one. Under a large oak tree, through which the breezes were beginning to murmur somewhat mournfully, sat a young girl, quite absorbed in the contents of the volume she held in her hand. She was little more than a child in appearance, and it was with a child’s careless, easy grace that she half sat, half reclined on the turf that swelled into a kind of mound beneath the tree—her long golden curls falling like a veil around her, her head resting on one little, white, doubled-up hand, and her whole attention given to the tale in which she was so absorbingly interested. It was several moments before Miss Dunkeld perceived the young damsel in her retreat, for the oak-tree was at some distance from the house, and between it and the lawn in front of the cottage were several thick bushes and a handsome drooping wych elm ; but when at length her gaze fell upon the reader and her volume, she called, ‘Effie! Effie! come in this moment! How can you be sitting on the grass at this time, the sun gone down, and the dews rising, and nothing on your head? Where is your hat?”