She had been very clever, this daughter of the Esterworths. She had kept a tight rein over her husband all through the early years of their married life. She would have no ostentation, no vulgar display of wealth, no parading and flaunting of that twenty thousand per annum in their neighbours' faces. And she had done what she had intended; she had established her husband's position well in the county—she had made him to be accepted, not only by reason of his wealth, but also because he was her husband; she had roused no one's envy—she had never given cause for spite or jealousy—she had made him popular as well as herself. They had lived quietly and unobtrusively; they had, of course, had everything of the best; their horses and carriages were irreproachable, but they had not had more of them than their neighbours. They had entertained freely, and they had given their guests well-cooked dinners and expensive wines; but there had been nothing lavish in their entertainments, nothing that could make any of them go away and say to themselves, with angry discontent, that "those Millers" were purse-proud and vulgar in their wealth. When she had gone to her neighbours' houses Mrs. Miller had been handsomely but never extravagantly dressed; she had praised their cooks, and expressed herself envious of their flowers, and had bemoaned her own inability to vie with their peaches and their pineapples; she had never talked about her own possessions, nor had she ever paraded her own eight thousand pounds' worth of diamonds before the envious eyes of women who had none.
In this way she had made herself popular—and in this way she had won the county seat for her husband.
When, however, that great end and aim of her existence was accomplished, Caroline Miller felt that she might now fairly launch out a little. The time was come when she might reap the advantage of her long years of repression and patient waiting. Her daughters were growing up, her sons were all at school. For her children's sake, it was time that she should take the lead in the county which their father's fortune and new position entitled them to, and which no one now was likely to grudge them. Shadonake therefore was bought, and the house straightway pulled down, and built up again in a style, and with a magnificence, befitting Mr. Miller's wealth.
Bricks and mortar were Andrew Miller's delight. He was never so happy as during the three years that Shadonake House was being built; every stone that was laid was a fresh interest to him; every inch of brick wall a keen and special delight. He had been disappointed not to have had the spoliation of Shadonake Bath; it had been a distinct mortification to him to have to forego the four brick walls which would have replaced its ancient steps; but then he had made it up to himself by altering the position of the front door three times before it was finally settled to his satisfaction.
But all this was over by this time, and when my story begins Shadonake new House, as it was sometimes called, was built, and furnished and inhabited in every corner of its lofty rooms, and all along the spacious length of its many wide corridors.
One afternoon—it is about a week later than that soirée at Walpole Lodge, mentioned in a previous chapter—Mrs. Miller and her eldest daughter are sitting together in the large drawing-room at Shadonake. The room is furnished in that style of high artistic decoration that is now the fashion. There are rich Persian rugs over the polished oak floor; a high oak chimney-piece, with blue tiles inserted into it in every direction, and decorated with old Nankin china bowls and jars; a wide grate below, where logs of wood are blazing between brass bars; quantities of spindle-legged Chippendale furniture all over the room, and a profusion of rich gold embroidery and "textile fabrics" of all descriptions lighting up the carved oak "dado" and the sombre sage green of the walls. There are pictures, too, quite of the best, and china of every period and every style, upon every available bracket and shelf and corner where a cup or a plate can be made to stand. Four large windows on one side open on to the lawn; two, at right angles to them, lead into a large conservatory, where there is, even at this dead season of the year, a blaze of exotic blossoms that fill the room with their sweet rich odour.
Mrs. Miller sits before a writing bureau of inlaid satin-wood of an ancient pattern. She has her pen in her hand, and is docketing her visiting list. Beatrice Miller sits on a low four-legged stool by her mother's side, with a large Japanese china bowl on her knees filled with cards, which she takes out one after the other, reading the names upon them aloud to her mother before tossing them into a basket, also of Japanese structure, which is on the floor in front of her.
Beatrice is Mrs. Miller's eldest daughter, and she is twenty. Guy is only eleven months older, and Edwin is a year younger—they are both at Oxford; next comes Geraldine, who is still in the school-room, but who is hoping to come out next Easter; then Ernest and Charley, the Eton boys; and lastly, Teddy and Ralph, who are at a famous preparatory school, whence they hope, in process of time, to be drafted on to Eton, following in the footsteps of their elder brothers.
Of all this large family it is Beatrice, the eldest daughter, who causes her mother the most anxiety. Beatrice is like her mother—a plain but clever-looking girl, with the dark swart features and colouring of the Esterworths, who are not a handsome race. Added to which, she inherits her father's short and somewhat stumpy figure. Such a personal appearance in itself is enough to cause uneasiness to any mother who is anxious for her daughter's future; but when these advantages of looks are rendered still more peculiar by the fact that her hair had to be shaved off some years ago when she had scarlet fever, and that it has never grown again properly, but is worn short and loose about her face like a boy's, with its black tresses tumbling into her eyes every time she looks down—and when, added to this, Mrs. Miller also discovered to her mortification that Beatrice possessed a will of her own, and so decided a method of expressing her opinions and convictions, that she was not likely to be easily moulded to her own views, you will, perhaps, understand the extent of the difficulties with which she has to deal.
For, of course, so clever and so managing a woman as Mrs. Miller has not allowed her daughter to grow up to the age of twenty without making the most careful and judiciously-laid schemes for her ultimate disposal. That Beatrice is to marry is a matter of course, and Mrs. Miller has well determined that the marriage is to be a good one, and that her daughter is to strengthen her father's position in Meadowshire by a union with one or other of its leading families. Now, when Mrs. Miller came to pass the marriageable men of Meadowshire under review, there was no such eligible bachelor amongst them all as Sir John Kynaston, of Kynaston Hall.