“You can ask old Tom when he comes, if you are anxious to know,” said Drummond to her ladyship. “His brother married one of the sisters. By the way, he’s coming, too. He ought to clear up the mystery.”
“Now you’re sneering, Drummond,” said Rose: “for you know there’s no mystery to clear up.”
Drummond and Lady Jocelyn began talking of old Tom Cogglesby, whom, it appeared, the former knew intimately, and the latter had known.
“The Cogglesbys are sons of a cobbler, Rose,” said Lady Jocelyn. “You must try and be civil to them.”
“Of course I shall, Mama,” Rose answered seriously.
“And help the poor Countess to bear their presence as well as possible,” said Drummond. “The Harringtons have had to mourn a dreadful mesalliance. Pity the Countess!”
“Oh! the Countess! the Countess!” exclaimed Rose to Drummond’s pathetic shake of the head. She and Drummond were fully agreed about the Countess; Drummond mimicking the lady: “In verity, she is most mellifluous!” while Rose sugared her lips and leaned gracefully forward with “De Saldar, let me petition you—since we must endure our title—since it is not to be your Louisa?” and her eyes sought the ceiling, and her hand slowly melted into her drapery, as the Countess was wont to effect it.
Lady Jocelyn laughed, but said: “You’re too hard upon the Countess. The female euphuist is not to be met with every day. It’s a different kind from the Precieuse. She is not a Precieuse. She has made a capital selection of her vocabulary from Johnson, and does not work it badly, if we may judge by Harry and Melville. Euphuism—[affectation D.W.]—in ‘woman’ is the popular ideal of a Duchess. She has it by nature, or she has studied it: and if so, you must respect her abilities.”
“Yes—Harry!” said Rose, who was angry at a loss of influence over her rough brother, “any one could manage Harry! and Uncle Mel’s a goose. You should see what a ‘female euphuist’ Dorry is getting. She says in the Countess’s hearing: ‘Rose! I should in verity wish to play, if it were pleasing to my sweet cousin?’ I’m ready to die with laughing. I don’t do it, Mama.”
The Countess, thus being discussed, was closeted with old Mrs. Bonner: not idle. Like Hannibal in Italy, she had crossed her Alps in attaining Beckley Court, and here in the enemy’s country the wary general found herself under the necessity of throwing up entrenchments to fly to in case of defeat. Sir Abraham Harrington of Torquay, who had helped her to cross the Alps, became a formidable barrier against her return.