Silence followed this rebuke. Bertram made a grimace at Arabella across the table, and Harry dug her surreptitiously in the ribs with his elbow. Margaret, who had been wrinkling her brow over her father’s words, ventured at last to say: “Yes, Papa, but I do not precisely see how she can do so! It must be so very different to what we are accustomed to! I should not be surprised, for instance, if she found herself obliged to wear her party-gowns every evening, and I am sure she will not help with the baking,—or starch shirts, or feed the chickens, or—or anything of that nature!”
“That was not quite what I meant, my dear,” responded the Vicar repressively.
“Will she not be made to do any work at all?” exclaimed Betsy. “Oh, how much I wish I had a rich godmother!”
This ill-timed remark brought an expression of grave displeasure to the Vicar’s face. It was evident to his family that the picture thus conjured up, of a daughter given over wholly to pleasure, was not one he could contemplate with anything but misgiving. Several darkling looks were cast at Betsy, which boded ill for one tactless enough to call down upon her sisters a lecture on the evils of idleness; but before the Vicar could speak, Mrs. Tallant had intervened, calling Betsy to order for chattering, and saying cheerfully: “Well, and I think Papa will agree that Arabella is a good girl, and deserves this indulgence more than any of you. I am sure I do not know how I shall manage without her, for whenever I want a task performed I know I may rely upon her to do it. And, what is a great deal to the point, let me tell you all!—she never shows me a pouting face, or complains that she is bored, or falls into a fit of the sullens because she is obliged to mend her old gown instead of purchasing a new one.”
It could scarcely be expected that this masterly speech would please the three damsels to whom it was pointedly addressed, but it had the happy effect of softening the Vicar’s countenance. He glanced at Arabella, who was furiously blushing and holding her head bent over her plate, and said gently: “Indeed, I am disposed to think that her character is well-established amongst us as one who wants neither sense nor feeling.” Arabella looked up quickly, her eyes brightened by tears. He smiled at her, and said in a teasing voice: “If she will not let her tongue run like a fiddle-stick, nor express herself in terms which I might almost suppose she learns from her brothers, nor play pranks like a hoyden, I really believe I may indulge the hope that we shall not hear from Lady Bridlington that she is sunk quite beyond reproach in London!”
Such was the relief of his children at escaping one of Papa’s homilies that this mild jest was received with a flattering degree of appreciation. Bertram seized the opportunity afforded by the general outcry of laughing protests to inform Betsy in a savage under-voice that if she opened her lips again he would most faithfully drop her in the middle of the duck-pond on the morrow, which promise so terrified her that she sat mumchance throughout the rest of the meal. Sophia, with real nobility of character, then asked Papa to explain something she had read in Sir John Malcolm’s History of Persia, which the Vicar, whose only personal extravagance was his purchase of books, had lately added to his library. This was a happy inspiration: while her contemporaries gazed at Sophia in stupefaction, the Vicar, becoming quite animated, expounded at length on the subject, quite forgetting the immediate problems of the hour, and reducing his other offspring to a state of speechless indignation by saying, as he rose from the table, that he was glad to find that he had one daughter at least of a scholarly turn of mind.
“And Sophy never read a word of the book!” Bertram said bitterly, when, after enduring an evening in the parlour under the scourge of having passages from Sir John Malcolm’s memorable work read aloud tothem, he and his two elder sisters had escaped to the sanctuary of the girls’ bedchamber.
“Oh, yes, I had!” retorted Sophia, sitting down on the end of her bed, and curling her legs under her in a way that, could her Mama but have seen it, would certainly have called down reproof upon her head.
Margaret, who was always sent up to bed before the appearance of the tea-tray, and thus had been spared the greater part of the evening’s infliction, sat up, hugging her knees, and asked simply: “Why?”
“Well, it was that day that Mama was obliged to go out, and desired me to remain in the parlour in case old Mrs. Farnham should call,” explained Sophia. “I had nothing else to do!”
After regarding her fixedly for several moments, her brother and sisters apparently decided that the excuse was reasonable, for they abandoned the subject.
“I declare I was ready to sink when Papa said that about me!” remarked Arabella.
“Yes, but you know, Bella, he is very absent-minded,” said Sophia, “and I fancy he had forgotten what you and Bertram did on Boxing Day, and what he said about your inclination for finery, when you pulled the feathers out of Uncle’s peacocks to furbish up your old bonnet.”
“Yes, perhaps he had,” agreed Arabella, in a dampened tone. “But all the same,” she added, her spirits reviving, “he never said I had no delicacy of principle, which he said to you when he discovered it was you, Sophy, who put one of Harry’s trousers-buttons into the bag in Church that Sunday!”
This wasso unanswerable that Sophia could think of no retort to make. Bertram said suddenly: “Well, since it is decided that you are to go to London, Bella, I’ll tell you something!”
Seventeen years’ intimate knowledge of her younger brother was not enough to restrain Arabella from demanding eagerly: “Oh, what, pray?”
“You may get a surprise when you are there!” said Bertram, in a voice of mystery. “Mind, I don’t say you will, but you may!”
“What can you possibly mean? Tell me, Bertram!—dearest Bertram!”
“I’m not such a saphead! Girls always blab everything!”
“I would not! You know I would not! Oh, Bertram!”
“Don’t heed him!” recommended Margaret, sinking back onto her pillow. “It’s all humbug!”
“Well, it’s not, miss!” said her brother, nettled. “But you needn’t think I mean to tell you, for I don’t! But don’t be surprised, Bella, if you get a surprise before you have been in London very long!”
This ineptitude naturally threw his sisters into whoops. Unfortunately their mirth reached the ears of old Nurse, who promptly sailed into the room, and delivered herself of a shrill homily on the general impropriety of young gentlemen who sat on the ends of their sisters’ beds. Since she was quite capable of reporting this shocking conduct to Mama, Bertram thought it prudent to remove himself, and the symposium came to an abrupt end. Nurse, blowing out the candles, said that if this came to Mama’s ears there would be no London for Miss Arabella; but apparently it did not come to Mama’s ears, for on the morrow, and indeed on all the succeeding days, nothing was talked of in the Parsonage (except in Papa’s presence) but Arabella’s entrance into the Polite World.
The first and most pressing consideration was the getting together of a wardrobe suitable for a young lady hopeful of making a successful début. Earnest perusal of the fashion journals had cast Arabella into a mood of despair, but Mama took a more cheerful view of the matter. She commanded the houseboy to summon the ubiquitous Joseph Eccles up to the Parsonage, and desired the pair of them to fetch down from one of the attics two formidable trunks. Joseph, who had been employed by the vicar since the first year of his marriage as the farm-hand, considered himself the mainstay of the establishment, and was only too ready to oblige the ladies; and he lingered in the dressing-room, proffering counsel and encouragement in the broadest of Yorkshire dialects until kindly but firmly dismissed.
A pleasing aroma of camphor pervaded the air as soon as the lids were raised from the trunks, and the removal of a covering of silver paper disclosed treasures innumerable. The trunks contained the finery which Mama had worn (she said) when she was just such a giddy puss as Arabella, When she had married Papa she had had no occasion for such fripperies, but she had not been able to bring herself to give them away, and had packed them up and well-nigh forgotten all about them.