Patience by Barbara Hofland (ebook offline reader .TXT) 📖

to his wife; but

whilst she consoled him under his trouble, for the first time she could

not sympathize in his pains. Such was the relief she felt from the

removal of her insidious rival, that no pecuniary sacrifice seemed too

great to offer as an equivalent; and as Dora had never looked upon the

partnership with Mr. Masterman in any other light than as a yearly drain

to the purse, and an increase to the labours of the house, so she was

prepared to receive her share of the burden without surprise, and

sustain it without complaint. Such was the cheerful activity with which

she renounced projected pleasures, and actual indulgencies, so willing

was she to look on the bright side of dark affairs, and improve those

which admitted it; to save, or to gain, wherever her assistance could be

applied, or her wants dispensed with, that Stancliffe roused himself to

action and to self-controul, and in assuming his duties, at once lost

the sense of his vexations, and helped to restore his losses.

 

Amongst the various ways in which his late enslaver had exerted her

influence over him in directing his household, one had arisen which only

now became acted upon. Stancliffe had a great aunt, Mrs. Judith Everton,

a single woman, far advanced in life, whose fortune, though not large,

was more than sufficient to her wants, which were now principally those

of an aged invalid. She had many years resided with two maiden sisters

in a neighbouring village, the daughters of an apothecary, whose scanty

gains had left them so narrow an income, that Mrs. Judith was to them,

as a liberal boarder, a person of great importance. No one could be more

happily situated than she was with these worthy women, who were skilful

in administering to all her wants, patient in attending to her verbose

and garrulous conversation; and from long habit, and naturally

affectionate disposition, really attached to her person:—it was evident

that it was their interest to be kind to her, and preserve her as long

as they could. It was also evident, that Mrs. Stancliffe had more than

sufficient employment for a woman moving in her sphere of life; since in

addition to her cares as a mother, which were naturally increasing

ones, she had the charge of a brother, whose health ever hung on so

slender a thread, as to make him, even in his best days, an object of

unceasing anxiety; and her excellent abilities rendering her occasional

exertions of importance to her husband, who was also very fond of

company, how was it possible she could give attention to any other

inmate? Yet it had entered the mind of Mrs. Masterman, that by providing

such a constant tie as Mrs. Judith Everton would be, on the attention of

Dora, and that by placing an inhabitant in his house who could hardly

fail to be disagreeable, she should the more effectually bind him to

herself; and, regardless of any other consequence, she determined to

effect a removal which was alike cruel to all the parties concerned.

 

The avarice of Stancliffe was stimulated by the profusion of her, who,

in prompting him to deny necessaries to his wife, did not fail to draw

expensive presents for herself—he was told, “that the old lady would

leave her property to those with whom she should end her days;” and,

“that as he was her legal heir, it was a duty he owed to himself and his

child, to secure it.” That his wife, already confined to the duties of

a nurse, might as well add another subject to her infirmary, and since

the income paid for her and Frank had ceased, even a trifling substitute

was of value—besides “when a wife was tied to the house, she could

spend nothing out of it.”

 

This advice was acted upon, and the dutiful nephew was properly seized

with a great desire to contribute to the comfort of his great aunt, a

desire the more effective perhaps, in that it had never been exhibited

during his whole life before. Mrs. Judith did not think of removing; she

had not discovered that her situation admitted of amendment; but when it

was kindly pointed out to her, no wonder that a mind never strong, and

now diverging to childishness, suffered itself first to be persuaded,

and then become eager for change. The sisters modestly urged their

claims; but finding they were disallowed, insisted only upon that notice

of three months which in such cases was deemed regular; to this Mr.

Stancliffe yielded, and that term having expired, the old lady was now

expected to claim her new home in the house of her relation.

 

Before then, it is certain that Stancliffe had seen his error in this

arrangement, and also that at this time the representations of Dora,

who had always disapproved this plan, would have been listened to. But

Mrs. Judy had set her heart upon it; her place had been supplied to the

family she quitted, and alas! money was become an object; and thus every

circumstance combined to transplant her into a new soil, when she was

least likely to take root there happily; when not only prejudices, and

partialities were irrevocably fixed, and habits confirmed, but mental

imbecility had thrown a veil over her faculties, which forbade the

formation of that esteem and veneration which ought “to accompany old

age.”

 

CHAP. VIII.

 

At the appointed time, Stancliffe himself brought Mrs. Judith Everton,

and her indissoluble companion, a little pug-dog, justly named “Fury,”

to their future home. As she had resided at a distance of seven miles,

Dora had not yet seen although she had paid her all the respect save

visiting, which was in her power. The excuse of a drive to see her, at a

time when Dora was confined, (for the sake of securing the company of

the favourite,) had led to those serious changes which now took place.

 

A time had been, when Mrs. Judith was very good-looking; but she was now

only very fat, and very good-tempered, if we except an unreasonable

dislike to all children, and an unnatural aversion to all cats. When her

age of dressing and dancing was past, she entertained a passion for

reading, and considering novels either as unworthy of her dignity, or

injurious in their tendency, she abjured them altogether, and became an

historical reader of immense magnitude, sweetening this solid fare by

all the fashionable poets of the day, whom from henceforward she quoted

and misquoted, with all the facility incident to a prodigious but

ill-directed application. Age, and a slight paralytic, had, about four

or five years before this period, unhappily deranged the mighty mass of

knowledge and lumber which occupied her brain, and turned the whole into

a confusion the more lamentable, because from that very period she was

observed to talk much more than she had ever done before, and to thrust

dates, facts, and characters, upon every person she came near, in

proportion to the utter worthlessness of the commodity. To this faculty,

she added also a great taste for turning all she said into doggrel

rhymes, for aiming continually at making a pun, or a jest, which she

repeated perpetually for the whole day, as too good a thing to be lost

sight of for a moment. Her late complaint, and still more an early

habit, occasioned her to pull hideous faces, by way of being humourous,

so that unhappily poor Mrs. Judith’s wit was every way terrific, though

certainly melo-dramatic, for if it did not tell to the ear, it never

failed to seize the eye.

 

“What a dreadful time have I gone through, we have been five hours on

the road!” exclaimed Stancliffe.

 

“I am very sorry you have had so bad a journey, my love,” replied Dora;

“but you have not left home five hours; where is your aunt?”

 

“Oh! she is unpacking, and will roll in by and bye; bow, wow,

wow—confound that eternal dog, I will shoot him before the week’s out.”

 

“Don’t say so, dear Stancliffe,” said Dora, as she tripped away to

welcome the stranger, whose round, portly form, feebly supported by

Lilliputian feet, was slowly sailing through the hall, followed by the

servants, and preceded by Fury, whom she essayed to soothe by an

assurance that the change he experienced was all for the best. “Don’t

bark, Fury, that’s a good little dear; don’t you see, it’s the very

house that your grandfather, that is, that my nephew’s grandfather

intended to build—I suppose you prefer the country, Fury, and to be

sure I grant,

 

‘Pathless hills and shady groves,

Places which pale passion loves,’

 

are very pretty; but then you ought to know, Fury, ‘whatever is, is

right.’—Oh! dear, how do you, Miss? a very pretty creature, indeed;

poor Mr. Hemingford’s little girl, I dare say.”

 

“Mrs. Stancliffe, my dear madam; but you are quite right in supposing me

Mr. Hemingford’s daughter, pray take my arm, and allow me to conduct

you.”

 

“Yes, yes, I remember now—Everton told me the fair lady whom I called

the princess of Babylon,

 

‘The lovely Thais by his side,

Who languished like an eastern bride,’

 

was not the actual, but only the ostensible wife—you know, my dear,

there is an actual and an ostensible, (Fury, Fury,) as the Roman

emperor said:—bless my life, isn’t that a child?”

 

The last words were accompanied with a start, on seeing her nephew

rolling with his lovely little boy, (whom Dora had popped into his arms

when she ran to receive her,) upon the carpet.

 

The child was sent to the nursery—Fury accepted a snug place on the

hearth-rug, and Dora made tea, whilst Mrs. Judith adjusted her ample

form in the great chair, but never ceased her speech; for though

frequently varying in subject, the same perpetuity of sounds, either in

prose or verse, continued to break, generally uttered in soliloquy, but

always addressed to some person so pointedly, that they must be heard,

whether comprehended or not, and seen also, from the grimace and

contortions, with which they were accompanied.

 

“That’s right, my dear, pray send it away; children are poor little

dears, that’s certain, too dear for me to buy, ha, ha, ha, do you like

puns? that’s what I call a good one—too dear for me to buy—but not

too dear for you; but I hope you will have no more; my niece, Everton’s

mother, had only him, and he is but a little one:—you need not toss

your head, my dear nephew, for it will not make you grow—you were

always handsome, but by no means tall enough for my taste, which always

inclined to a man of stature; had I ever given up my virgin affections,

it would have been to Ajax, or Androcles, or some other of the angels in

Paradise Lost:—a little man may have great faults, and a great man

little faults, ha, ha, ha, what do you say to that, my dear?”—

 

Trembling for her husband’s politeness, Dora interrupted Mrs. Judith, to

enquire after the ladies she had left, the Misses Lawrence.

 

“Oh! they are very well, only a little low at parting; for we have lived

together twenty-seven years this very Michaelmas-day, and eat our last

goose together of poor Miss Sally’s stuffing, as she said, crying all

the time.”

 

“Ah, truly!” said Stancliffe with a deep sigh, “‘twas a thousand pities

to divide you.”

 

“So it was, my dear nephew, in one sense, for I hate to think of

parting; it reminds me always of the pathetic farewell of

sixteen-stringed Jack:

 

‘Adieu, adieu, my dear Miss Roath,

Since Tyburn tree must part us both.’

 

now I call hanging a really affecting circumstance; but I am