The Honorable Miss: A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town

by L. T. Meade

Mrs. Bell was at the head of the Hartites, and Mrs. Butler was the general of the Beatrice army.

Mrs. Bell spoke in the following terms of the girl who had hitherto been everybody's favorite:

"Ah, she's a deep one, is Beatrice Meadowsweet. You never know what those quiet ones are till they are tried. I spoke to her, I warned her, but she wouldn't listen. 'Beatrice,' I said, that young man cares no more for you than he does for the blackberries on the hedges. Beatrice, that young man's affections are given elsewhere.' Heed me, would she? No, not she. But follow him she would, follow him from place to place, out on the water in her boat, and at the Hector's garden party until it was disgraceful to see. It's my firm belief she popped the question herself, and we all know what followed. Poor Captain Bertram gave in for a time, thinking of her fortune, which is none so great, if rumors are correct, but love her, no, not he. Why, over and over and over he has said as much to my child, Matty. Matty was stiff to him, I'll say that; he was an audacious flirt, and he tried hard to bring Matty into a scrape too, but would she encourage him? No, though she was persecuted by his attentions, and now what's the result? Matty is honorably engaged to a man who is a Bayard for knightliness, and that poor Beatrice is jilted. Was she in hysterics in my house? Well, it isn't for me to say. Did she go down on her knees to Captain Bertram, and wring his hand, and kiss it and beg of him not to forsake her, with the tears streaming like rain down her cheeks, and implore of him to give up his true love, who was in a dead faint before their two eyes, and to be true to her who had given her heart to him, neighbor, did these things happen in this very house? You ask me that question, neighbor, and I say, answer it I won't, for I'm a woman, and I have known that unfortunate, misguided girl and her poor mother for years. Yes, neighbor, I cast a veil over what I might say."

This was the sort of gossip spread by Mrs. Bell, who further praised up Miss Hart, saying much about her beauty and her charms, and giving such a ravishing account of Bertram's love for her, and her adoration for him, that the neighbors who were on this side of the civil war crowned Josephine Hart as their chosen queen on the spot.

Mrs. Butler, who led the van of the "Beatricites," was less voluble than Mrs. Bell, but her words were weighted with a very deadly shaft of poison. After Mrs. Butler had extolled Beatrice as a perfect model of all womanly graces and virtue, she proceeded, with keen relish, to take Josephine Hart to pieces. When she began to dissect Miss Hart she invariably sent her innocent sister, Maria, out of the room. It is unnecessary to repeat what passed behind the doors which were so cruelly closed on eager and curious Miss Peters, but it is not too much to say that poor Josephine had not a rag of character left to her when the good woman's tongue ceased to wag.

Thus the town of Northbury was in a distressing state of uproar during the three or four days which preceded Captain Bertram's wedding. And perhaps the cruellest thing about this fierce civil war was that none of the combatants, not even the leaders, knew what was really about to take place, nor who was to be married to whom on Tuesday, nor whether there was to be any wedding at all. The bridal dresses came home, and some of the ladies wept when they looked at them. Beatrice still received wedding presents, and the bridal robe of ivory-white silk trimmed with quantities of Honiton lace was absolutely sent down from London, all complete and ready for Beatrice to wear. Half the ladies in Northbury rushed up to the station when the news was brought to them that the box had arrived, and the porter, Payne by name, who carried the box to Mrs. Meadowsweet's, was followed by quite a little mob.

Thus time went on apace, and Rumor did his work, each lady saying when she met another:

"Well, what's the news? What's the latest? What did you hear last?"

Each Hartite bowed coldly to each Beatricite, or else cut each other dead, and, in short, the usual symptoms which accompany civil war made themselves felt.

It is a fact frequently noted that when Rumor, with his double-edged tongue is abroad, the persons most concerned often know nothing of the storm which is raging around them. In the present instance, two people who were keenly interested in coming events were in this position. One of them was Mrs. Meadowsweet, the other, Mrs. Bertram. The time would come when Beatrice would confide in her mother, but that moment had not yet arrived. The old lady wondered why she had so many visitors, and why people looked at her in a curious, pitying sort of fashion. Why also they invariably spoke of Beatrice as "poor dear," and inquired with tender solicitude for her health.