Wives and Daughters

by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

"It wasn't that; it was that ill-mannered woman, who went to her own room after we came out from dinner, and she and Lady Alice stayed there invisible, till we thought they were putting on some splendid attire—as they ought to have done—and at half-past ten, when mamma sent up to them to say the carriages were at the door, the duchess sent down for some beef-tea, and at last appeared à l'enfant as you see her. Mamma is so angry with her, and some of the others are annoyed at not coming earlier, and one or two are giving themselves airs about coming at all. Papa is the only one who is not affected by it." Then turning to Molly Lady Harriet asked,—

"Have you been dancing much, Miss Gibson?"

"Yes; not every dance, but nearly all."

It was a simple question enough; but Lady Harriet's speaking at all to Molly had become to Mrs. Gibson almost like shaking a red rag at a bull; it was the one thing sure to put her out of temper. But she would not have shown this to Lady Harriet for the world; only she contrived to baffle any endeavours at further conversation between the two, by placing herself betwixt Lady Harriet and Molly, whom the former asked to sit down in the absent Cynthia's room.

"I won't go back to those people, I am so mad with them; and, besides, I hardly saw you the other day, and I must have some gossip with you." So she sat down by Mrs. Gibson, and as Mrs. Goodenough afterwards expressed it, "looked like anybody else." Mrs. Goodenough said this to excuse herself for a little misadventure she fell into. She had taken a deliberate survey of the grandees at the upper end of the room, spectacles on nose, and had inquired, in no very measured voice, who everybody was, from Mr. Sheepshanks, my lord's agent, and her very good neighbour, who in vain tried to check her loud ardour for information by replying to her in whispers. But she was rather deaf as well as blind, so his low tones only brought upon him fresh inquiries. Now, satisfied as far as she could be, and on her way to departure, and the extinguishing of fire and candle-light, she stopped opposite to Mrs. Gibson, and thus addressed her by way of renewal of their former subject of conversation:—

"Such a shabby thing for a duchess I never saw; not a bit of a diamond near her! They're none of 'em worth looking at except the countess, and she's always a personable woman, and not so lusty as she was. But they're not worth waiting up for till this time o' night."

There was a moment's pause. Then Lady Harriet put her hand out, and said,—

"You don't remember me, but I know you from having seen you at the Towers. Lady Cumnor is a good deal thinner than she was, but we hope her health is better for it."

"It's Lady Harriet," said Mrs. Gibson to Mrs. Goodenough, in reproachful dismay.

"Deary me, your ladyship! I hope I've given no offence! But, you see—that is to say, your ladyship sees, that it's late hours for such folks as me, and I only stayed out of my bed to see the duchess, and I thought she'd come in diamonds and a coronet; and it puts one out at my age, to be disappointed in the only chance I'm like to have of so fine a sight."