Abbeychurch - Charlotte M. Yonge (best classic literature .txt) 📗

comparison with Elizabeth's long slender white fingers, and returned to the subject of the hair, shaking her profusion of ringlets.

'And straight hair is all the fashion now, but I think it gives a terrible dowdy look. Only that does not signify when you are not out.--By-the-bye, Miss Merton, are you out?'

'I shall not be seventeen these three months,' said Anne.

'Well, I am not seventeen yet, nor near it,' pursued Harriet; 'but I always dine out, and at home too. Don't I, Lucy?'

Elizabeth did not think it necessary to make any apology for Harriet's not having been asked to dine with the company, since Mrs. Woodbourne had already settled that matter with Mrs. Hazleby; but Katharine, who, though younger, had more idea of manner, said, after a little hesitation, 'Mamma talked of it, but Papa said that if one dined all must, and there would be too many.'

'Oh, law! Kate,' said Harriet, 'never mind; I do not mind it a bit, I would just as soon drink tea here, as dine.--You are not out, are you, Lizzie?'

'If you consider that dining constitutes being out, I generally am,' said Elizabeth, rather coldly and haughtily.

'Ay, ay,' cried Harriet, laughing, 'you would be out indeed, to go without your dinner.--Capital, is not it, Kate? but I wanted to know whether you are regularly come out?'

'I do not know,' replied Elizabeth.

'Oh, then, you are not,' said Harriet; 'everyone knows who is out: I should not have been out now, if it had not been for Frank Hollis, (he is senior lieutenant at last, you know)--well, when our officers gave the grand ball at Hull, Frank Hollis came to Mamma, and said they could do nothing without the Major's daughter, and I must open the ball. Such nonsense he talked--didn't he, Lucy? Well, Mamma gave way, and said she'd persuade the Major. Papa was rather grumpy at first, you know, Lucy, but we coaxed him over at last. Oh, it was such fun! I danced first with Frank Hollis--just out of gratitude, you know, and then with Captain Murphy, and then--O Lucy, do you remember _who_?--and I had a silk dress which Mamma brought from India, trimmed just like yours, Miss Merton, only with four rows of lace, because I am taller, you know, and a berthe of--'

Elizabeth could endure this no longer, and broke in, 'And pray, Harriet, did you learn the book of fashions by heart?'

'Not quite,' said Harriet, with provoking obtuseness, or good humour; 'I did very nearly, though, when I was making my dress. Now, Lizzie, do not you wish you were out?'

'No, not in the least,' said Elizabeth, by this time quite out of patience; 'I think society a nuisance, and I am glad to be free of it as long as I can.'

'Lizzie,' said Helen gravely, 'you are talking rhodomontade.'

'By no means, Helen,' said Elizabeth; 'it is my serious opinion, that, unless you can find real friends, minds that suit you, you should keep to yourself, and let bores and geese keep to themselves.'

'Becoming yourself one of the interesting tribe of bears, or perhaps of crabs,' whispered Anne.

'Well, what an odd girl you are!' cried Harriet; 'well, if ever--!'

'But, Lizzie, what would become of the world if there was no society?' said Katherine.

'And, Lizzie,' began Helen, very seriously, 'do not you know that it is a duty to take part in society, that--'

'Oh yes, Helen!' answered Elizabeth; 'I know all that books and wise people say; but what I say is this: if a sumptuary law could decree that wits should be measured by one standard, like the ruffs and rapiers in Queen Elizabeth's time, so that those found wanting might be banished, there might be some use in meeting people; but in the present state of things there is none.'

'But how would you choose your standard?' said Anne; 'everyone would take their own degree of sense as a measure.'

'Let them,' said Elizabeth; 'there would be a set of measures like the bolters in a mill, one for the pastry-flour, one for the bread-flour, one for the blues, one for the bran.'

'I am glad you put the blues after the bread,' said Anne; 'there is hope of you yet, Lizzie.'

Elizabeth was too far advanced in her career of nonsense to be easily checked, even by Anne; and she continued, 'Sir Walter Scott says in one of his letters, that he wishes there could be a whole village of poets and antiquaries isolated from the rest of the world. That must be like what I mean.'

'I do not think he meant what he said there,' said Helen.

'And pray remember,' said Anne, 'that your favourite brown bread is made of all those kinds mixed--bran, and pastry-flour, and all.'

'Yes,' said Helen, 'all the world would turn idiots if there were not a few sensible people to raise the others.'

'Well,' said Elizabeth, 'you know the Veillees du Chateau says, there is a village where all the people do turn idiots at fourteen.'

'You are just the right age, Helen,' said Anne, 'you had better take care, since Lizzie says you live in such a foolish world.'

Helen had not tact enough to perceive that it was better to turn off the discussion by a joke, and continued, 'And you forget how useful it is to the sensible people to be obliged to bear and forbear.'

'I should be content, if the foolish people would be raised by the wise, instead of debasing them,' said Elizabeth.

'If people are really wise, they will not let themselves be debased,' said Anne.

Helen glanced towards Lucy, Elizabeth caught her eye, and smiled in a way which almost compensated for all her unkindness in their dispute an hour before.

Harriet and Katherine, who had not been much interested by this argument, now started another subject of conversation, which they had almost entirely to themselves, and which occupied them until tea was over, somewhat to Anne's amusement and Elizabeth's disgust, as they listened to it.

As soon as the tea-things were removed, Elizabeth and Anne went to fetch the children. Elizabeth let loose her indignation as soon as she was out of the drawing-room.

'Did you ever hear anything so vulgar?' said she.

'Indeed it was very ridiculous,' said Anne, beginning to laugh at the remembrance.

'How can you be diverted with things that enrage me?' said Elizabeth.

'It is better than taking them to heart, as you do, my poor Lizzie,' said Anne; 'they are but folly after all.'

'Disgusting provoking folly,' said Elizabeth; 'and then to see Kate looking as if she thought it must be so delectable. Really, Kate is quite spoiled between Harriet and the Abbeychurch riff-raff, and I can do nothing to prevent it.'

'But,' said Anne diffidently, seeing that her cousin was in a graver mood this evening, 'do not you think that perhaps if you could be a little more companionable to Kate, and not say things so evidently for the sake of contradiction, you might gain a little useful influence?'

'Well,' said Elizabeth, smiling, 'I believe I do deserve a good scolding; I fancy I was outrageously rude; but when people talk such stuff, I do not much care what I say, as long as I am on the other side of the question.'

'Still the reverse of wrong is not always right,' said Anne.

They now found themselves at the nursery door, and summoned the children from that scene of playthings, and bread and butter. Down-stairs, one of those games at romps arose, for which little children are often made an excuse by great ones, and which was only concluded by the entrance of the ladies from the drawing-room, which caused Harriet hastily to retreat into the inner drawing-room, to smoothe her ruffled lace; while Katherine was re-tying Winifred's loosened sash, and laying a few refractory curls in their right places.

Mrs. Woodbourne called Elizabeth, and introduced her as 'my eldest daughter,' to Mrs. Bouverie, and to Mrs. Dale, a lady who had lately come to live in the neighbourhood, and who discovered a most striking resemblance between Mrs. Woodbourne and Elizabeth, certainly at the expense of a considerable stretch of imagination, as Mrs. Woodbourne was a very little and very elegant looking person, very fair and pale, and Elizabeth was tall, dark-eyed, dark-haired, her figure much too slender for her height, and her movements too rapid to be graceful, altogether as different a style of person as could well be imagined.

Not much prepossessed in favour of the party in general by this specimen, Elizabeth, after shaking hands with Miss Maynard and her niece, people whom she seldom saw, and did not much like, retreated to one of the windows, and there began to meditate, as was her usual custom on such occasions. Once, when accompanying Mrs. Woodbourne on a morning visiting expedition, she had translated the Erl King, which she knew by heart, into English, far more literal than Sir Walter Scott's, and with no fault, except that not above half the couplets professed to rhyme, and most of those that did were deficient in metre. Another time she had composed three quarters of a story of a Saxon hero, oppressed by a Norman baron, and going to the Crusades; and at another time she had sent back the whole party to the times of Queen Elizabeth, and fancied what they might be saying about the Spanish Armada. But now, whether because there was too much talking in the room, or because the Consecration had lately left no room for the fancies on which she was accustomed to feed, she could find nothing more sublime to reflect upon than the appearance of her cousin Anne, who was entertaining the young Miss Maynard, a shy girl, yet pleased with notice, by a conversation, which, if not very interesting, saved her from belonging to any of the four agreeable tribes mentioned at tea-time.

Now, Anne, though she did not posses the tall figure or striking countenance of her cousins, the Woodbournes, or the brilliant complexion of her brother, was one of those people who always look well. She was small and slightly made, and very graceful; and everything she wore was appropriate and becoming, so that, without bestowing much thought on the matter, she never looked otherwise than perfectly well dressed. She was rather pale; her eyes were grey, with long dark lashes; and her hair brown; her features were well formed and animated; and though by no means remarkable, everyone called her nice-looking; some said she was pretty, and a few thought and felt that her countenance was lovely. So much had lately been said about dress--about Elizabeth's curls, and Helen's tails, and Anne's lace--that, wonderful to say, it was the readiest subject Elizabeth could find to meditate upon. As she looked at her cousin's white muslin frock, with its border of handsome Moravian work, and its delicate blue satin ribbons, at her well arranged hair, and pretty mosaic brooch, she entered upon a calculation respecting the portion of a woman's mind which ought to be occupied with her dress--a mental process, the result of which might perhaps have proved of great benefit to herself, and ultimately to Dora and Winifred, had it not been suddenly cut short in the midst by a piercing scream from the latter young lady, who had been playing on the floor with Edward and Fido.

Mrs. Woodbourne instantly caught up the little