Mr Arnold is mightily pleased with them both; but he gives the preference to lady V——, whom, tho’ he had a slight acquaintance with her lord, he never saw before. But he is almost as great a stranger in this place as I am: he is highly delighted at my having met with people who are likely to render it agreeable to me.
July 21
We dined to-day according to appointment with Mrs Gerrarde. A cottage she called her house, nor does it appear much better at the outside, but within it is a fairy palace. Never was any thing so neat, so elegant, so perfectly well fansied, as the fitting up of all her rooms. Her bedchambers are furnished with fine chints, and her drawing-room with the prettiest Indian sattin I ever saw. Her little villa is called Ashby, and her husband, she told me, purchased it for her some time before his death, and left it to her; but she has since had a considerable addition to her fortune, by the death of a relation.
Our entertainment was splendid almost to profusion, though there was no company but Mr Arnold and I. I told her, if she always gave such dinners, it would frighten me away from her: indeed it was the only circumstance in her whole conduct that did not please me, for I was charmed with the rest of her behaviour. They must surely be of a very churlish disposition, who are not pleased, where a manifest desire to oblige is conspicuous in every word and action. If Mrs. Gerrarde is not as highly polished as some women are, who, perhaps, have had a more enlarged education, she makes full amends for it by a perfect good humour, a sprightliness always entertaining, and a quickness of thought, that gives her conversation an air of something very like wit, and which I dare say passes for the thing itself with most people.
July 24
I have returned lady V——’s visit, and am more delighted with her than before, Mr Arnold went with me; but my lord not being at home, he went to ramble about the grounds, so that I had a long tête à tête with lady V——. She is an admirable woman, so fine an understanding, such delicacy of sentiment, and such an unaffected complaisance in her manner, that I do not wonder my lord perfectly adores her. There is a tenderness, a maternal kindness in her behaviour towards me, that fills me at once with love and reverence for her; and, next to my Cecilia, I think I never met with any woman whom I could so highly esteem as lady V——. She is an admirable mistress of her needle, and every room in her house exhibits some production of a very fine genius, united with very great industry: for there are beds, chairs, and carpets, besides some very pretty rural prospects in panels, executed with inimitable skill, and very excellent taste. She tells me, if I will give her leave to bring her work with her, she will live whole days with me.
I am rejoiced now that Mr Arnold thought of coming to South-Park. How valuable is the acquaintance of such a woman as lady V——! and I might never have known her, but for a circumstance to which I was at first so averse. And then my agreeable lively Mrs Gerrarde! My acquaintance at Arnold-abbey begin to fade upon my memory: to say the truth, I think of none of them with pleasure, but Mrs Vere, and my good humoured old Dean.
August 4
Mrs Gerrarde is a little saucy monopolist; she grumbles if I do not see her every day, and is downright jealous of my intimacy with lady V——. They are acquainted, but I don’t find there is a very close intercourse between them: Mrs Gerrarde says, her ladyship is too good a houswife for her; and as she is not very fond of needle-work herself, she cannot endure people that are always poring over a frame. I find indeed, that this sprightly rogue is fonder of cards than of work; she draws Mr Arnold and me in very often for a pool at piquet: at her house I am obliged to submit; but at my own, I often take up a book, when she and Mr Arnold are engaged at their game, and make them decide the contest between them. Nay, I threaten that I will, some night or other, steal to-bed and leave them; for she is unconscionable at late hours; and as she lives very near us, and keeps a chariot, she does not scruple to go home at any hour of the night. What a pity it is so amiable a woman should be thus fondly attached to so unprofitable an amusement! for I begin to see play is her foible; though, to do her justice, she never engages but for very trifling sums, and that only in our own little domestic way. But this passion may grow upon her, and she may be led unawares into the losing more than her fortune can bear.