This did not sound very gracious; but I obeyed her orders with my best smile, and producing two very fine pears, laid them on the black marble chimney-piece of the hall. Her sallow face almost relaxed to a smile.
“Young man from the country? Well, take a chair a minute, while I go and ask for orders about you.” With these words she hastened up an old oak staircase, and left me at leisure to look about.
The hall was a large but not lofty chamber, panelled with some dark wood, and hung with several grimy paintings. Two doors at either end led from it, as well as the main staircase in the middle, and a narrow stone passage at one corner. The fireplace was large, but looked as if it had more to do with frost than fire; and the day being chilly and very damp, with an east wind crawling along the ground, I began to shiver, for my feet were wet from the wilderness of clay I had waded through. But presently the sound of loud voices caught my ear, and filled me with hot interest.
One of the doors at the further end was not quite closed, and the room beyond resounded with some contention. “What a fool you are to make such a fuss!” one feminine voice was exclaiming—“Oh, don’t reason with her,” cried another, “the poor stupe isn’t worth it. The thing is settled, and so what is the use of talking? How glad I shall be to see the last of her wicked temper and perpetual sulks. And I am sure you will be the same, Jerry. Nothing surprises me so much as Mamma’s wonderful patience with her. Why, she hasn’t boxed her ears since Saturday!”
“It isn’t only that,” replied the first; “but, Frizzy, consider the indulgences she has had. A candle to go to bed with, almost every night, and a sardine, positively one of our sardines, for her dinner, the day before yesterday. Why, she’ll want to be dining with us, the next thing! The more she is petted, the worse she gets. Now don’t you aspire to dine with us, you dear, you darling, don’t you now?”
“I am sure I never do,” replied a gentle voice, silvery even now, though quivering with tears; “I would rather have bread and water by myself in peace, than be scolded, and sneered at, and grudged every mouthful. Oh, what have I done to deserve it all?”
“I told you what would come of reasoning with her,” said the one who had been called “Frizzy”—probably Miss Euphrasia Bulwrag; “it simply makes her outrageous, Jerry. Ever since she came back from Sunbury, there has simply been no living with her. And she looks upon us as her enemies, because we are resolved that she shall do what is best for her. Lady Hotchpot—what can sound better? And then she can eat and drink all day long, which seems to be all she cares for.”
“That’s a little mistake of yours,” answered Miss Jerry, or Geraldine; “I know her tricks even better than you do. She cares for something, or somebody, some clodhopper, or chawbacon, down in that delightful village. Why, you can’t say ‘Sunbury,’ in the most innocent manner, without her blushing furiously. But she’s so cunning—I can’t get out of her who the beloved chawbacon is. Come now, Kitty, make a clean breast of it. I believe it’s the fellow that bets down there, and lives by having families of horses. Sir Cumberleigh told me all about him, and had a rare laugh; you should have seen him laugh, when I said that our Kitty was smitten. Well, I hoped she had a little more principle than that. And you’d think that butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth!”
“Butter never gets a chance”—I heard my darling say, and knew by her voice that the sweetest temper in the world was roused at last—“your mother never lets it go into my mouth; while you have it thicker than your bread almost. But I’ll thank you to enjoy among yourselves, or with any old rake you may fawn upon, your low and most ignorant gossip about me. You had better not strike me. Your mother may. But I will not take it from either of you; nor from both together.”