Mrs. Bob

Front matter

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Contents

OHAP.

I. — A Serious Question . .

II. — A Piece op News

Chapter I. A Serious Question

“Measure not despatch by the time of sitting, but by the advancement of business.” — Bacon.

After Mrs. Trafford’s niece was married to the Honourable Marcus Orford of the Black Horse and her daughter to Sir Anthony Staunton of the same regiment, she declared to ' everybody that she no longer intended to live in Blankhampton.

There were ill-natured and envious people in the Town who remarked that Blankhampton had done uncommonly well by Mrs. Trafford, and that for her to betake herself out of it as soon as she had secured the two best matches of that year was a regular case of burning her boats behind her and kicking down the ladder by which she had climbed to fame and fortune.

Mrs. Trafford was resolute, however and actually before the Stauntons had returned from their honey-moon she, with her eldest and only unmarried flower, Julia, packed up their boxes and went off to

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London town for the ostensible purpose of finding what Mrs. Trafford, like a good many other people who do not wish to set up a large establishment^ called a pied-a-terre.

It was an innocent pilgrimage. They put up at the Grand and worked from thence West by South- West. They wanted to be nearer the Park than Charing Cross, and in fact to be in the best part of Mayfair, a part of London in which it is not easy to establish a pied-v-terre on reasonable terms. They were really very unlucky — they just missed a charming little bijou residence over a saddler’s shop in South Audley Street, what in prosaic language is called an “ upper part,” but, considering the tiny rooms, the bad look-out, the narrow passages and stupid twisted stairs, it is not very likely that Mrs. Trafford would have consented to change her smart commodious house in the best part of Blankhampton, for which she paid a modest fifty pounds a year, for the bijou residence in South Audley Street at a yearly rental of two hundred pounds.

At all events she did nothing of the kind ; after thoroughly searching over all the best districts in Town, after interviewing innumerable house-agents, worrying a greater number of caretakers, visiting quite a quantity of flats large and small, and generally having an uncommonly good time, Mrs. Trafford and Julia went back to Blankhampton and took up their quarters again at No. 7 St. Eve’s. “Web, I had not quite decided to leave,” Mrs. Trafford explained elaborately during the next week

A SERIOUS QUESTION.

or two, “ though I had more than half a mind to live in London in future as being nearer my young people, or at least as being always a likely and convenient centre for all of us. But we did not see anything that we liked, and dear Laura and Madge begged us so not to leave St. Eve’s till the regiment goes, that Julia and I thought we would let the question rest for the present. .Besides that,” Mrs. Trafford added^ with the little candid laugh that hitherto had stood her in such good stead, “ I am not a millionaire, but a poor little widow who has just had two smart weddings to drain her purse, and really^ house rent in London means quite an income — two hundred a year for a little hole I could not get my piano into.”

So the question remained in abeyance, and Mrs. Trafford and her eldest flower took up the thread of their old life once more, and the people who had said disagreeable things about burning boats had, of course, nothing further to say.

But although life in Blankhampton is of the dullest, and you may go dreaming on from day to day until you begin to wonder for what reason you were bom and why you go on living, to a woman of Mrs. Trafford’s temperament there is always more than enough to fill up the day. She had her house, as heretofore, all her old society (excepting such as she had judiciously weeded out), and a great many new friends whose acquaintance she had made after or about the time of the two smart marriages which had so drained her purse. And in Blank-

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hampton, like a great many other provincial towns, the keeping up of society is a very serious matter. Almost any afternoon between the hours of three and five you may see a dozen old ladies sallying forth in all the glory of their best bonnets, holding in their pale kid-covered fingers a resplendent cardcase. If it is a silver one, so much the better, or it may be of carved ivory hailing from China or of ivory and silver from the far off Indian strand. Failing these comes in the useful and highly ornamental mother-o’-pearl which is sometimes made up with little squares of shining green substance, some kind of shell, I fancy. Ah ! dear, dear, it is all very funny !

Mrs. Trafford was great on calling, and she was also one of those little friendly women who make a virtue of calling outside the regulation hours — at some houses, that is to say. And also she had, besides her house and her acquaintance to keep up, a great and serious object in life, an object which was she very well knew not to be entered on lightly or with frivolity, an object which in plain language was to get her remaining flower, Julia, suitably settled in life.

In the case of Mrs. Marcus Orford matters had arranged themselves — and Lady Staunton’s marriage had undoubtedly come about by reason of the other ; but with Julia it was rather different. Julia was no longer in her first youth, and she was not pretty, neither was she an interesting or particularly accomplished young lady. She sang a little, it is true,

A SERIOUS QUESTION.

but, somehow, her singing did not seem to “ catch on” with the Blankhampton people, who rather pride themselves on their taste for music. Nor was Julia Trafford popular in the town ; she had a high-pitched somewhat cracked voice and a laugh that did not ring true.

Still Mrs. Trafford did not despair. Julia had inherited all these characteristics from her and t hey had not in her case prevented her from making a match which was a really brilliant one, and, moreover, she had since the two smart marriages, come to feel herself quite like a general to whom defeat is an unknown quantity.

In due time the Black Horse left Blankhampton, taking Mrs. Trafford’s youngest daughter and her niece in its train, but still her object was not yet accomplished and the little woman began to feel that she was losing time and that her eldest flower was losing ■ ground. She began to feel, in short, that something must be done, that she must bring all her energies to bear upon the question and, to use a sporting term, the event must be pulled off.

“Now the thing is,” said the little woman to herself, “ how shall I do it and what shall I do ? ” and then she cast about in her mind and went over all the likely young men that the town contained.

They were not many, for, somehow, in those sleepy old cathedral towns the young men seem to drift away into the outer world and very few stay behind to carry on the traditions of their forefathers, generally those who do stay are the steady-going un-

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ambitious ones of tbe flock to which they belong, who stay in the sphere in which they are born because it is easier to do so than to make an effort and break the bonds of tradition by which they are bound.

To go into detail, there was first of all the Adonis of the town, one Gerard De Lisle — would he do ? Mrs. Trafford looked doubtful but finally decided that he would do on a pinch. A couple of years before I am bound to admit, Mrs. Trafford would, vulgarly speaking, have jumped at Mr. Gerard De Lisle as a husband for any of her young ladies, and I am quite sure that either Julia or Laura would with equal alacrity have jumped at him also. But during two years a great many changes may come to pass, and in Mrs. Trafford’s case they had done so. Her beautiful niece Madge and her pretty daughter Laura had married as, in Mrs. Trafford’s wildest and most ambitious dreams, she had- never dared to imagine probable or even possible.

So with regard to Mr. Gerard De Lisle Mrs. Trafford had come to consider him from a different standpoint, even remembering that he was the Adonis of Blankhampton, that his family were one and all persons of the most absolutely unblemished character, that his father was a tower of strength among the unco’ guid, of the kind who invariably make a ' special point of calling themselves “ good churchpeople,” of whom there was a large faction in Blankhampton, that his mother was a woman of good family — I mean of very superior birth to the original

A SERIOUS QUESTION.

De Lisles, who could only boast of a two generations 5 remove from the trading class — that his sisters were a judicious combination of unco’ guidism and tempered worldliness and contrived to have an uncommonly good time between their adherence to both parties, that he had one or two brothers each remarkable in some special line, one for cricket, one for music, one for following his religion with the help of the highest and most complicated forms of Bitualism. Added to all this, Gerard De Lisle was undeniably the handsomest man in Blankhampton.

I do not think, seeing him in London, in the Park or a theatre, that you would have picked him out as being a man of out of the common looks. He was tall, he was fairly broad, but like his father he had a certain air of carrying a very short tubbish kind of body on particularly long and loose-jointed spindle-like legs, which somehow always made me wonder that the pretty Blankhampton girls were so utterly <e gone ” upon him, as they one and all undoubtedly were. For the rest he was rather light in colouring without being what you would describe as a fair man, had a straight nose, a pair of blueish badtempered eyes and a tightly compressed mouth which precluded the idea of his disposition being a genial one.

Add to all this an extra-superfine manner, a manner which took the middle of the pavement and paused for an instant at the street corners while the quick hard eyes glanced around as if to see what new worlds there were for Adonis to conquer, a manner

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which was always squaring its shoulders and flourishing its walking-stick and made a little more display of its very white and shining linen than was exactly pretty, and there you have Mr. Grerard De Lisle, whom everybody in Blankhampton called “ Adonis,” except the pretty girls, who had such a variety of gushing names for him that I will spare their feelings by not repeating them.

I am afraid that this description gives you but a poor idea of my w Adonis.” Well, I will be a little more explicit. It is true that he was handsome and as vain as a peacock, yes, I admit it ; but he was not a bad sort of fellow by any means. On the contrary, he was scrupulously honourable and I know that he could be kind — and if I have seen him pay up his shilling for a raffle he did not wish to go in for, and say with an air of unutterable surprise when his tormentor asked for his name, <e Mr. De Lisle,” in an accent which conveyed clearly that she must either be a knave or a fool, I have also seen him speak very kindly and without any “ manner ” at all to a little woman whom I knew to be in dire trouble, have seen him take hold of her arm for a moment in a man’s protecting way, and then pat her shoulder with a kindly, “ There, there — yes, I understand, I’ll let you know directly I find out about it.” Oh yes, with all his little vanities Adonis was a good fellow : down at the bottom, and in spite of their sanctimoniousness, most . people in Blankhampton would tztke the word of a De Lisle sooner than of most of the townsfolk.

A SERIOUS QUESTION.

Besides Adonis there was — well, really, it was wonderful how very few young men there were ! There was the Keverend Evelyn Gfabrielli, the youngest of the minor-canons at the Parish. He was rich (or at least certainly well off), he was young, he was a good size and fairly good-looking, and for little vanities Adonis was not in it with him. He had three valuable rings for every finger and thumb of his two hands, and with regard to his rings he did not hide his light uacbr a bushel.

But Evelyn Gabrielli was, as Mrs. Trafford knew from past experience, no good in a matrimonial sense. Indeed he entirely believed in the celibacy of the clergy — the Priesthood I believe he called it — and was particularly careful to keep at a safe distance from the meshes of the matrimonial net. Perhaps it was for this reason that he especially attached himself to Mrs. (Colonel) Browne and, as a set-off against his vow of celibacy, very soon became the scandal of the town.

Then there was Mr. Hooper, another minor-canon, also in comfortable circumstances and one of those intensely aggravating men who always are wanting to get married and never do. He was no good either.

Then — well, really, there were the officers quartered in the garrison and that was all. Somehow, although Mrs. Trafford did not mean to neglect the red-coats, she had not much faith in any of them being attracted by Julia; so by the time she had thoroughly thought out the situation, she

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had come to the conclusion that if she ever saw Julia settled in a home of her own at Blankhampton it would most likely be in the large and commodious old house so difficult for a stranger to find, because it was tucked away down a narrow archway just wide enough to allow a carriage to pass under it into the wider space of the court within.

Of course it would not be a brilliant marriage, the little widow told herself, but it would be a nice comfortable position for Julia, who would naturally be made very much of by the De Lisle family, who in spite of their undeniable weight in the town, were, of course, at best but professional people and as such not by any means the equal of the Traffords, more especially since they had become allied to the houses of Ceespring and Staunton.

But not one word did Mrs. TrafFord say on the subject to her Julia, she was, in fact, far too skilful a tactician to do that. However, one morning at breakfast she suggested in a casual sort of way to her daughter that Blankhampton seemed very dull since Laurie and Madge had gone.

“ Oh ! awfully dull,” answered Julia, who had as I think I have already said, a very high-pitched voice.

“ Really, I think we had better give a little dinner-party,” suggested Mrs. TrafFord, as if the idea had but that instant occurred to her — “ What do you say ? ”

“ Yes— or a d&nce,” said Julia, who liked having dances in her own house because she was sure of having a good number of partners.

A SERIOUS QUESTION.

“Oh! I think not a dance, dear,” objected the little widow, who did not see spending a lot of money just to entertain a crowd of people to whom she was entirely indifferent and who would probably rather retard than in any way further he** schemes.

“ Why not ? ” exclaimed Julia.

“Well because Laurie and Madge would both think it most unkind to have a dance immediately after they have left Blankhampton, and when they could none of them possibly come back for it. But to have a little dinner-party is quite another thing, don’t you see ? ”

“ Yes, I think you are right, Mother,” Julia replied — she was really a very sensible person. “ Then what people are you thinking of asking ? ”

“ Why, my dear, I haven’t thought about it at all,” Mrs. Trafford said — which, by-the-by, was neither more nor less than a story — “ but I think we ought to ask the Canon and Mrs. Berkeley — we have not asked them since they have been in residence. And there are the Lovelaces. 1 don’t care much about her — she is so friendly with those very unpleasant Mauleverers, but at the same time I think we ought to ask them occasionally, it is so much more agreeable to be friendly with all one’s neighbours, and she is pretty (of a bold kind), and wears charming dresses and diamonds.”

“ Yes, she does. And be sure you ask Captain Legard or she will be as glum as an owl all the evening,” put in Julia with her little cracked laugh.

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“Then we will ask Captain Legard,” said Mrs. Trafford indulgently. “ Then there are the Prescot ts. I think we ought to ask them soon — we have been there several times since they were here.”

“ They make six and ourselves eight,” remarked Julia — “and Captain Legard nine. You will want another man.”

“ Well — there is Mr. Gerard De Lisle. We might ask him.”

“ Yes — ” Julia was a little doubtful. “ But if you do you will have to ask Mina.”

“ I thought they were all away,”

“Mina came back yesterday, so you can’t ask Gerard without asking her.”

“No — Well, I don’t know that that would make any difference ; we will ask Mr. O’Hagan.”

“ Yes, he would do. That makes ten, and he will take Mina in. I shouldn’t ask any more if I were you.”

“ I don’t think we will. Then Julia, dear, will you send out the invitations this morning? ”

“ Yes — but when will you have it ? ”

“ When— Oh ! let me see. Let us say Thursday week, dear — This is Saturday, so it is quite enough notice to give.”

“ Oh ! yes — Eight o’clock, I suppose ? ”

“ Yes, dear — Eight o’clock,” returned Mrs, Trafford blithely.

▲ PIECE OP NEWS.

Chapter II. A Piece Of News

•* The test of profitable hearing is not the pleasure of the moment, but the subsequent result.” — Plutarch.

In due time Mrs. Trafford’s little dinner — she was quite famous in Blankbampton for her little dinners — came off. On the appointed evening the house in St. Eve’s had put on a gala like aspect — and when Mrs. Trafford’s house was wearing its gala-dress, it was a circumstance to which you could not shut your eyes. There was a charming arrangement in lieu of the cosy fire of winter time, which made the fire-place and hearth look like a small fernery — an arrangement of looking-glass and growing plants, trailing Ivy and soft delicate moss, to which Mrs. Trafford gave a good deal of personal attention and was in consequence greatly envied by her friends, even those who were the fortunate possessors of large conservatories.

A few minutes before eight Julia made her appearance in the drawing-room, where her Mother had been all in readiness for her visitors for some little time.

“Do I look all right, Mother ? ” Julia asked in

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her loudest company voice, for publicity always had that effect upon Miss Trafford, and the larger the company the louder became her tones. “ Shall I do?”

“ You look delightful, dear,” returned Mrs. Trafford in all sincerity.

Julia undoubtedly did look nice. Her gown was one she had worn during her visit to Town and still looked very fresh and pretty. It was rose-pink, was of a soft and gauzy material and was of that fashion which is highly becoming to little women of spare proportions. It was cut sufficiently low in the neck to show that her throat was white, and the sleeves were puffed and gathered and then were tied or seemed to be tied with a profusion of smart ribbons ; she wore a great cluster of blush roses on one side of her bodice and carried a pink fan of fluffy feathers.

“ Oh ! that is all right,” she said with a gratified simper. There was a long strip of looking-glass placed between two of the windows and Julia was still craning her neck so as to get a side view of herself when the door opened and Cox, the neat parlour-maid, announced — “ Captain Legard.”

Now Captain Legard was a young man in whom Julia did not take a great amount of interest ; he had not been very long in Blankhampton, and ever since the first day that he had come into it he had persistently and abjectly worshipped at the shrine of Mrs. Lovelace. Therefore Julia, after giving him her hand, found she had nothing a*

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further to say to him and went to the little bow window over the entrance, which was the favourite outlook of everybody in the house because from it you could see from one end to the other of St. Eve’s, which was far and away the most interesting street in Blankhampton.

In two minutes a cab stopped at the door below and a vision of radiant beauty stepped out and disappeared into the house — the Lovelaces. Julia sat down on the velvet cushioned window-seat and breathed a sigh of relief that Mrs. Lovelace would be able to enter the room without finding her talking to or even sitting near her especial adorer. She had seen Mrs. Lovelace more than once enter a room, just flash her great black eyes round and by a mere glance take Captain Legard away from anybody to whom he might be talking at the time, and Julia had no mind, if she wasn’t as fair to see as Mrs. Lovelace, to let her have that kind of triumph at her expense.

The next moment Mrs. Lovelace came in followed by her husband — and oh ! what a vision of loveliness she was. I do not know that Mrs. Lovelace without the beautiful gown of white and gold brocade which she wore, would have been such a vision of loveliness as undoubtedly the gown would have been without Mrs. Lovelace. There was very little body to it and so much train that Julia caught herself wondering whether the skirt had not been made before the bodice and the dressmaker had fallen short of stuff. She wore some beautiful diamonds and a great ruby snake upon one arm and without doubt pretty ms. BOB.

woman and gown together made a beautiful picture.

She was rather a slender figure, and fairly graceful, but it was her face that attracted you most, it was such a bold little wilful face, with a pert upturned nose and a warm, dark, almost swarthy complexion out of wdiich her black eyes blazed like a pair of live coals. Yes, undoubtedly Mrs. Lovelace was a pretty woman.

And her husband ? Well, he was a somewhat colourless person, good-looking and particularly patient in disposition, else he would never have put up with so strong a flavouring of Legard in his daily dish.

Then the door opened again and Cox announced, “ Mr. O’Hagan ! ” and then walked into the room, or I should say shot into it a tall and handsome man, all blushes and confusion, although judging from his appearance he had need for neither.

<f How do you do Mrs. Trafford — I hope I’m not very late ? ” he asked breathlessly.

“ Oh ! no, you are not nearly the last, Mr. O’Hagan,” she answered kindly, and then Mr. O’Hagan feverishly got through his greetings to the rest of the company.

It seemed such an ordeal to the poor fellow, who had literally an impediment in his speech, not a stammer or a stutter or a splutter but an actual catch in his jaw as if the muscles wanted oiling, and this combined with extreme sensitiveness and nervousness made on-lookers wonder why he ever

A PIECE OF NEWS.

distressed himself by going to dinners or any other kind of parties at all.

Next to come were Canon and Mrs. Berkeley. Now Canon Berkeley was just then first favourite with the great spiritual lord of the diocese, John, by Divine right, Lord Bishop of Blankhampton. To anyone who knows Blankhampton this is almost a sufficient description, but I suppose I must add a little more for the benefit of those of my readers whose acquaintance with the ancient city is, as yet, a slight one.

He was, besides being a Canon Residentiary of the Cathedral, the Rector of one of the best livings in the diocese, and besides these two substantial charges he held various other offices, those of rural dean, of examining-chaplain to his lordship and so on, and from one end to the other of the diocese he was looked upon as the next man upon whom the archidiaconal mantle would fall, unless indeed anything should happen to the gerat John, for whom there were possibilities of translation in several directions, or to be accurate in two — one in this world and one in the next.

Every one wondered why honours should thus have fallen thick and fast upon Canon Berkeley. He was a particularly poor stick as a preacher, being neither learned nor eloquent, and I must say at this point, that although I have never liked the great John of Blaiikhampton, he certainly ought to have known a good preacher when he heard one, for there was no fault to be found with his own discourses,

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which were both powerful and well-delivered, always taking exception to his addresses to children, which invariably gave one the idea of an elephant trying to play spillikins.

Canon Berkeley was not a popular man in Blankshire, more I fancy because he had an unpopular manner than from any other cause ! I may be wrong but it seems to me that a parson and a doctor, more than any other class of men that you can name, ought first and foremost of their qualifications to possess a certain charm of manner. I believe if a scheme could be organised by which relays of the Clergy could be sent to a sort of Staff-College in London (or would not the grand new Clergy House that we have heard so much about lately answer the purpose ?) and take lessons in manner from say a score of the greatest medical specialists of the day, that on the whole the influence of the Church would be about a million times as great as it is.

For the sake of example and for their own inestimable benefit, we would begin with the entire bench of bishops — stay though, I am getting along too fast for there is one spiritual lord among them now who has delightful manners. I do not care to name him because I might thus offend all the rest, but I may most emphatically say that he is not that bishop of whom they say he looks like the devil and has the voice of an angel ; that gentleman is a sort of Jekyll and Hyde, all urbanity and the most courtly suavity one day, the next a lump of sullenness, who will go to a country confirmation, and at the house where iio

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is entertained, sit speechless and mannerless at the feast given in his honour and glumly put out of sight the whole of a rich and extravagant dish of stewed sweetbreads or cream, and then go off to bed with a curt “ good-night ” and be taken very ill before morning and throw the entire household into an uproar. No, I do not mean that gentleman, nor do I think he could be let off a severe course at the new “ Clerical Staff-College.”

After the bishops we might give special attention to the clergy of the Metropolis and particularly to those in the suburbs, whose manners are atrocious. Then we would gradually work downwards through the different ranks until we had put the requisite polish upon the very last ordained deacons.

Without joking, I really think I have hit upon the grandest scheme that has been mooted for at least fifty years !

In person Canon Berkeley was exactly like a hired coachman, I mean the sort of coachman that you get in London with a turn-out from the jobmaster’s ; he was tall and ill-proportioned, and his gaitered legs showed off his flat splayed feet to their worst advantage — not that he wore gaiters that evening for his substantial legs were clad in silken hose ! He was sloping in the shoulder and narrow in the chest and wore the badly-grown beard, scanty and patchy, which is so much affected by a certain class of successful clergymen ! With all this he had a somewhat oily and sycophantish manner, intended to be a very courtly one !