CHAPTER XXI
But little Miss Burney had recovered all her primness on the evening when, a week later, she accompanied her stepmother to partake of tea at the home of the Barlowes in the Poultry.
Young Mr. Barlowe had, for some time after his visit to St. Martin’s Street, brooded over his indiscretion in allowing his impulse at the moment of saying good night to carry him away so that he pressed Miss Burney’s hand, looking into her eyes with an expression in his own of the deepest sympathy—rather more than sympathy. He felt that he had been unduly and indiscreetly hasty in his action. It had been purely impulsive. He had by no means made up his mind that Miss Burney would make him a satisfactory wife. His father and mother had, for a long time, thought very highly of Mrs. Burney, looking on her as a most thrifty and excellent manager of a household. She had shown herself to be all this and more when her first husband was alive and they had visited her at Lynn; and she had proved her capabilities in the same direction since she had married Dr. Burney. Unfortunately, however, the virtues of a stepmother could not be depended on to descend to the children of her husband’s family, and it was by no means certain that Miss Burney had made full use of her opportunities of modelling herself upon her father’s second wife.
No, he had not quite made up his mind on this subject—the gravest that had ever occupied his attention, and he remained sleepless for hours, fearful that he had gone too far in that look and that squeeze. He had heard of fathers and even brothers waiting upon young men who had acted toward a daughter or a sister pretty much as he had in regard to Miss Burney. He had rather a dread of being visited by Miss Burney’s brother, that young naval officer who had boasted of having been educated by a murderer. Mr. Barlowe thought that a visit from such a young man would be most undesirable, and for several days he went about his business with great uneasiness.
But when a week had gone by and neither father nor brother had waited upon him, he began to review his position more indulgently than when he had previously given it his consideration. He thought more hopefully of Miss Burney as a wife. Perhaps she might have profited more largely than he had thought by her daily intercourse with so capable a woman as Mrs. Burney. At any rate, she was not musical, and that was something in her favour. Then her stepmother had praised her needlework, and everyone knows that to be a good sempstress is next to being a good housekeeper.
He thought that on the whole she would do. Her brother, Lieutenant Burney, would naturally spend most of his time at sea. That was a good thing. Thomas felt that he should hesitate to make any change in his life that involved a liability of frequent visits from a young man who had been taught by a murderer. Who could tell what might happen in the case of such a young man? As for Miss Burney herself, she was, quite apart from her housewifely qualities, a most estimable young lady—modest and retiring, as a young woman should be, and very beautiful. To be sure, he had often heard that beauty was only skin deep, but even assuming that it did not go any deeper, it had always been highly esteemed by men—none of them seemed to wish it to be of any greater depth; and it was certain that a man with a handsome wife was greatly envied—more so even than a man who was married to a plain woman but a good housewife. Oh, undoubtedly her beauty commended her to his most indulgent consideration. He had no objection in the world to be widely envied, if only on account of his wife’s good looks. It never occurred to him that it might be that some people would think very ordinary a face that seemed to one who was in love with it extremely lovely. He preserved the precious privilege of a man to raise up his own standard of beauty and expect all the rest of the world to acknowledge its supremacy.
Yes, he thought that Miss Burney, beauty and all, would suit him, but still he hesitated in making another call.
This was when Mr. Kendal had the honour of waiting upon Mrs. Burney, and his visit only preceded by a day or two Mrs. Burney’s call upon her old friend, Mrs. Barlowe, in the Poultry; this interchange of courtesies being speedily followed by an invitation for Mrs. Burney and a stepdaughter to drink tea with the Barlowe family.
“I am taking you with me, Fanny, because you are the eldest and, as should be, the most sensible of the household,” said Mrs. Burney, explaining—so far as she thought wise—the invitation on the morning it was received. “There will be no music at Mrs. Barlowe’s, I think, and so you will have no distracting influence to prevent your forming a just opinion of my old friends.”