Chapter XX: Something About “milady.”

On the 23d of July, in the year 186--, the day remarkable as that on which Arthur Vavasour reached his twenty-first birthday, crowds of people of every degree, and all, as it seemed, on pleasure bent, were assembled in the park, and along the roads that led towards the beautiful “seat” known as belonging to the Earl of Guernsey. It was a pretty place--not “princely,” like Fairleigh, or frowning proudly in baronial grandeur, after the fashion of noble and time-honoured Gillingham; but, though inferior in magnificence to its more imposing neighbours, Danescourt was, after all, a mansion and estate not wholly unworthy the rank of its owners.

Lady Guernsey, who was country born and bred (albeit one of the most popular women in England, and perfectly “at home” everywhere), was greatly attached to Danescourt. She was never so happy--so said those who knew her best, for Lady Guernsey was a person who talked very little about herself--as when, the London season being over, she could devote herself at “dear” Danescourt to her garden, her children, and her poor.

The Lacys were a large family, there were seven of them--“the curate’s half-dozen,” Lord Guernsey used often to say, with a cheery laugh, which would have sounded pleasant from any lips, but was, of course, doubly exhilarating from a lord’s. He was a capital person altogether, that “belted earl,” whose girdle was capable of encircling the slender waists of two modern guardsmen, and whose face beamed so pleasantly with genuine good-nature, to say nothing of the good things of this life, that the man must have been morose indeed, and ingrained with mental jaundice, whose spirits were not lightened by the glow of his genial companionship.

Between the Vavasour family and that of the Lacys, who were comparatively new settlers in the county (_their_ coming dating as lately as the Restoration), there had never existed any of those ties, either of friendship or family connection, which near neighbourhood is sometimes known to cement. Though, as it is only natural to conclude, many brave sons and fair daughters must, in the course of centuries, have sprung from the respective marriage-beds of those highly distinguished families, no intermarriages had taken place between them. The hereditary politics also of the two races were, and always had been, diametrically opposed--one reason probably, among many, why no closer bonds than the cold ones of acquaintanceship had hitherto linked together the members of two of the most ancient, as well as most respected “houses” in the county.

The Earl and Countess of Guernsey, who, as I before said, were genial, warm-hearted people, would gladly (not for the sake of Lady Millicent, whom they did not like, but for that of the young people at the Castle, whom they did) have established warmer and cordial relations with their neighbours at Gillingham Castle. They were unfeignedly sorry for the poor girls, whose youth was blighted by Lady Millicent’s selfish adherence to a system of seclusion--a system introduced and persevered in, as Lord Guernsey, who was an outspoken man, did not hesitate to say, far more from the promptings of a parsimonious spirit than from any deep and lingering sorrow for “poor Cecil’s” death.

“Don’t tell me,” he would say, speaking almost bitterly for one so habitually good-tempered,--“don’t tell me about Lady Mill’s being a ‘pattern widow.’ She is no more a pattern widow than she was, at any time since I have known anything about her, a pattern wife or a pattern mother. I never had any patience with all that flunkeyish humbug about Lady Millicent’s perfections. Whatever good was done in that family--and a great deal _was_ done, that we all know--is to be attributed solely to Cecil Vavasour. As for Lady Mill--”

“Well, well,” put in Lady Guernsey good-humouredly, “I think there is something to be said for her. That Will of her father’s must be terribly trying to a person of her domineering temper.”

“So are a great many wills--all wills, in short, that are antagonistic to our own. It doesn’t follow, though, that we are justified in trying to set them on one side. In my opinion--but then I have never been tried,” he added, laughing, “by a similar aggravation--in my opinion, the will of a dead man, like his last injunctions, ought to be held sacred. A curse is more likely than a blessing to follow on its being set aside.”

“And they do say that Lady Millicent is going to try the case--against her own son, too! It looks unnatural; but I still say, although I am anything but fond of her, that there is some good in Lady Mill. She is fond of her children, after a fashion; she is anxious about them when they are ill, which isn’t often, for there never were more healthy creatures; and I really think that but for this clause in the will--I mean, if it had been left to her to manage that great fortune in her own way--Lady Millicent would have given no cause for the world to say that she is neither a good mother nor a faithful stewardess.”

“Perhaps not. You women know one another’s characters and motives best. Lady Mill _may_ have _hidden_ excellences in her nature (very securely hidden, too, I must say), which it requires a woman’s penetration to discover. My experience of life tells me that if there be anything estimable in a tremendously rich person like Milady Millicent, that same estimable quality increases and magnifies itself a hundredfold in going from mouth to mouth; while, on the contrary, the praiseworthiness of the poor is a very unfructifying and unprofitable article indeed. For my part (mind, I expect to be abused), now that the fashion is gone by of glorifying my Lady Millicent--not that it would have gone by if poor Cecil had lived--for my part, and I say it without fear of being contradicted, what I think is (and I repeat it again), that all the talk there used to be about her being faultless, and all that kind of thing, was totally undeserved. Like thousands of other prosperous people, she never did anything openly bad. She was not, I daresay, much given to breaking the ten Commandments; but then, I should be glad to ask, where were her temptations? Ladies are not much in the habit of swearing; she had neither father nor mother to honour or dishonour; there was nothing for her to covet; and, God knows, no man in his senses would covet her!”

“You are not very charitable to poor Lady Mill,” said the Countess, laughing in spite of herself at this _résumé_ of their neighbour’s “gifts.”

“Charitable? I should think not! Who with any Christian feeling would be charitable to one who has gained for herself such a name for hardness of heart, while she professes to respect God’s holy law and commandments, as Lady Millicent Vavasour? I am not, I hope, either a humbug or a prig; but I like to see people act up to what they profess, and I should have a better opinion than I have of our neighbour at the Castle if she talked about religion less, and acted up to its dictates more.”

“In my opinion,” said Lady Guernsey thoughtfully, “more than half of her pretended love of seclusion and country life, which people have said so much about, arises from selfishness and indolence!”

“Bravo!” said his lordship in delight. “I knew it would come! Let a woman alone, if she’s a sensible one, for arriving at the right conclusion. Now, I’ll tell you what it is, Gertrude,” he added more seriously, and placing his wife’s hand within his arm, as they strolled together under the branching chestnuts of the grand old avenue leading to the house; “I’ll tell you exactly what it is. There _may_ be, as you say, no real harm in Lady Millicent; but she is neither tender, nor open, nor womanly. Gad, what should I do, and what would the children do, with such a mother as that? As for the poor things at the Castle up there, I declare it’s a shame to see her muddle away their existence as she does. Those two fine young men--Arthur, particularly, who, between you and me, is a little soft, and who required no end of judgment in his raising--are utterly ruined.”

“I hope not, poor things,” said Lady Guernsey, who was given to look, even more than was her lord, at the bright side of every shield, “I hope not; one never can tell how boys will turn out. I’m often really quite uneasy about Ernest; and yet--”

“You needn’t trouble yourself, my dear Gertrude, about him. Ernest is one of your quiet, lymphatic sort, but both those young fellows at the Castle are of another kind of constitution; and I’m as certain that Arthur, at least, will come to grief, as I am glad that his poor father didn’t live to see it.”

“I often thought that Mr. Vavasour wasn’t pursuing the wisest plan in the world about his boys,” remarked Lady Guernsey pensively. “The Vavasour children never seemed to be allowed to find their own pleasures like other boys and girls. They were very good, I daresay, and were always well-behaved; but I used often to fancy it would have been more natural if they had been naughty sometimes like their neighbours.”

“Much more natural! And then the plan of sending Arthur to travel with that kind of half-and-half gentleman tutor was very bad. For my part, I don’t believe Lady Mill knows a gentleman when she sees him. All she thinks of is Power, and all she dreads is the time when Arthur will be twenty-five, and the hour for her despotism will have sounded. My own idea is--and many people, I fancy, suspect the same--that she is making up a purse against the evil day of dowagerhood. One thing, however, is certain, namely, that all this--this unfortunate state of things at Gillingham--is a sad business for the poor on the estate. Already the appearance of the cottages, and, above all, the state of moral feeling among the labourers on the Gillingham estate, has undergone a serious change for the worse. The lower orders--I hate the name, but it says what I want to express--were secure of Cecil Vavasour’s sympathy. Ay, even of his friendship, while as for his widow--But enough of this; for our own motes, my dear Gertrude, are, after all, not so completely eradicated that we can afford to lay so much stress upon the beams that we may happen to discover in our neighbour’s eyes.” He spoke only half seriously, for Lord Guernsey was one of those who take a cheerful view of all things and subjects; but the conversation just narrated was not without its effect, inasmuch as his wife obtained in consequence free leave and permission that on the occasion of Arthur’s twenty-first birthday Danescourt should be as gay as a full bevy of summer guests could make it. Nominally, the festive week at the Court had nothing to do with Arthur’s coming of age. The good-natured host and hostess were too desirous of giving pleasure to each and all of the young Vavasours, for any hint of the truth to have designedly passed their lips. But for all their caution, it did, of course, come to be noised abroad that the Guernseys were teaching Lady Millicent her duty, and that for once in their lives her young daughters were to be indulged in the opportunity of enjoying themselves.