Gladly would he have been on better terms, for he had had to confess that his wife’s fortune had turned out to be much less than common report had stated, or than her style of living justified, and that his marriage had involved him in a sea of difficulties, so that he had to beg for a larger allowance, and for assistance in paying off debts.
The surrender of the London house and of some of the chief expenses were made conditions of such favours, and Griffith had assented gratefully when alone with his father; but after an interview with his wife, demonstrations were made that it was highly economical to have a house in town, and horses, carriages, and servants and that any change would be highly derogatory to the heir of Earlscombe and the sacred wishes of the late Sir Henry Peacock.
In fact, it was impressed on us that we were mere homely, countrified beings, who could not presume to dictate to her ladyship, but who had ill requited her condescension in deigning to beam upon us.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
SLACK WATER.
‘O dinna look, ye prideful queen, on a’ aneath your ken,
For he wha seems the farthest but aft wins the farthest ben,
And whiles the doubie of the schule tak’s lead of a’ the rest:
The birdie sure to sing is the gorbal of the nest.‘The cauld, grey, misty morn aft brings a sunny summer day;
The tree wha’s buds are latest is longest to decay;
The heart sair tried wi’ sorrow still endures the sternest test:
The birdie sure to sing is the gorbal of the nest.‘The wee wee stern that glints in heaven may be a lowin’ sun,
Though like a speck of light it seem amid the welkin dun;
The humblest sodger on the field may win a warrior’s crest:
The birdie sure to sing is the gorbal of the nest.’Scotch Newspaper.
The wickedness of the nurse was confirmed in my mother’s eyes when the doom on the first-born of the Winslows was fulfilled, and the poor little baby, Clarence, succumbed to a cold on the chest caught while his nurse was gossiping with a guardsman.
He was buried in London. ‘It was better for Selina to get those things over as quickly as possible,’ said Griff; but Clarence saw that he suffered much more than his wife would let him show to her. ‘It is so bad for him to dwell on it,’ she said. ‘You see. I never let myself give way.’
And she was soon going out, nearly as usual, till their one other infant came to open its eyes only for a few hours on this troublesome world, and owe its baptism to Clarence’s exertions. My mother, who was in London just after, attending on the good old Admiral’s last illness, was greatly grieved and disgusted with all she heard and saw of the young pair, and that was not much. She felt their disregard of her uncle as heartless, or rather as insulting, on Selina’s part, and weak on Griff’s; and on all sides she heard of their reckless extravagance, which made her forebode the worst.
All these disappointments much diminished my father’s pleasure and interest in his inheritance. He had little heart to build and improve, when his eldest son’s wife made no secret of her hatred to the place, or to begin undertakings only to be neglected by those who came after; and thus several favourite schemes were dropped, or prevented by Griffith’s applications for advances.
At last there was a crisis. At the end of the second season after their visit to us, Clarence sent a hasty note, begging my father to join him in averting an execution in Griffith’s house. I cannot record the particulars, for just at that time I had a long low fever, and did not touch my diary for many weeks; nor indeed did I know much about the circumstances, since my good nurses withheld as much as possible, and would not let me talk about what they believed to make me worse. Nor can I find any letters about it. I believe they were all made away with long ago, and thus I only know that my father hurried up to town, remained for a fortnight, and came back looking ten years older. The house in London had been given up, and he had offered a vacant one of our own, near home, to Griff to retrench in, but Selina would not hear of it, insisting on going abroad.