Lady Anne Granard/Chapter 1
LADY ANNE GRANARD;
OR
KEEPING UP APPEARANCES.
CHAPTER I.
No one dies but some one is glad of it.
If this be true of deaths in general, it was very particularly true in that of Mr. Glentworth. Very rich, he died without a will or a regret. He left behind neither servant, dog, cat, nor even a customary arm-chair, to miss him. He had always lived in furnished houses, and kept his "two maids and a man" on board wages; he jobbed his carriage, and changed his tradespeople every week.
Still, joy and sorrow are the inseparable companions of death, and they were attendants even on that of Mr. Glentworth. His property, which was great, went to a nephew, who had never received from him the least kindness, and who would not have inherited a guinea, or an acre, if his relative had not had a superstitious dread of shortening his life by making a will.
Mr. Glentworth hated his nephew, both with the general hatred with which men regard their heirs, and also with an individual hatred. The good and the generous action of which we feel incapable is a reproach when done by another; and the old man could not forgive the younger one for being better than himself. He was gone, however; and the one whom of all others he disliked came in for the accumulated wealth of years. If ever heir might be permitted "one touch of natural joy," it was in the case of Mr. Glentworth.
So much for the rejoicing, and now for the regretting.
"I never was so sorry for any thing as for Mr. Glentworth's death," said Isabella Granard, endeavouring to screen her face from a small, sharp rain, to which her place in the rumble of a travelling carriage left her quite exposed.
"I do believe that he died on purpose to plague us," replied Georgiana, her elder sister by two years.
"The ruling passion strong in death," said the other, laughing; "for Fanchette tells me he was a torment to every one about him. Still, dying on purpose to plague five girls of whom he knew nothing was what Lord Penrhyn would call a very strong measure indeed."
"I would not have cared if he had lived till after Christmas," continued Georgiana.
"Mr. Glentworth is much obliged to you," was her sister's answer.
"I was wrong," cried Georgiana, her kind feelings instantly reproaching her for her careless mention of the dead. "But you must allow that it is very provoking, when we were so comfortable at Brighton, to be hurried back to dull, dreary London."
"I am sure," replied the other, "that I am as sorry as you can be. I wish mamma had taken the first offer, and let our house for a year."
"But mamma," said Georgiana, looking a little aghast, "would not spend the season out of London for the world."
"What pleasure she can find in it," was the reply, "is a mystery to me. London is all very delightful for rich people, but those who are as poor as ourselves had better be any where else."
"I wish we lived in the country," cried Georgiana: "if we had but a cottage and a pretty garden, how happy we should be!"
"Instead," exclaimed Isabella, "of spending three parts of our time in that odious back parlour. Child as I was when we left it, I can recollect the dear old shrubberies of Granard Park."
"And yet, mamma," returned the other, "always talks of having been buried alive there."
"Mamma," was the answer, "calls every body buried alive who lives out of a certain class. Our opposite neighbours, the Palmers, are as much buried alive as if they did not live in the same street as ourselves. Indeed, by her account, it is only a very small portion of the world who exist at all."
"I wish we were very rich," exclaimed Georgiana, with a deep sigh.
"Well, as mamma would say, you must marry some one very rich—that is your only chance of riches."
"But rich people are always old and disagreeable," replied Georgiana, with another sigh.
"Mamma would say," interrupted Isabella, "what nonsense you are talking; very rich people are never disagreeable—that is, unless they have made their money in the City, and then it does require a great deal to make them even tolerable."
"But could not somebody die, and leave us a large fortune?" exclaimed the other.
"Somebody certainly might: but I do not see much probability that any body will," said her sister.
"At all events, I shall be very glad when I am out," continued Georgiana. "Mamma must then allow me something better than this eternal straw bonnet and green veil."
"If I may judge by my sisters, we shall have worse miseries to bear," said Isabella, "than only an old straw bonnet and a green veil. I should detest every new bonnet that had a design in it. Why, Louisa's pretty violet velvet was only bought because mamma said she must have something to look decent in, as she met Sir Henry Calthorpe on the Parade every day."
"And poor Mary," continued Georgiana, "lost her afternoon drive because she had nothing fit to be seen in."
"Poor Mary," added her sister, "who needs the drive more than any of us. But mamma has long since given up Mary's case as hopeless."
"And yet she is but just three and twenty," said Georgiana. "But she is always so pale and so quiet."
"So heartbroken, you might say," exclaimed Isabella, in a tone of deep feeling. "But what would mamma say, if she knew that Louisa had refused Sir Henry?"
"Oh! I hope she will not know it," cried Georgiana, looking quite aghast. "She would be angry with us all round, and I do not think that she would ever speak to Louisa again. I wonder, though, that Louisa should refuse him!"
"So do not I," answered Isabella, with a suppressed smile.
At this moment the Brighton coach passed rapidly along.
"I wish I were in that coach," exclaimed Georgiana, who shivered with the cold rain, which now fell heavily.
"It is well mamma does not hear you," cried her sister, laughing. "Lady Anne Granard's daughter in a stage—and there by her own wish—though you are her favourite, she would disclaim you for her child—or, no; she would say that I put it into your head. But I think that we might manage this old cloak better—the rain beats on your side; you know that you are not half such a good contriver as I am."
And, under the appearance of making a better arrangement of their scanty wrappings, Isabella contrived to give her sister the benefit of nearly all her own.
While this conversation was going on outside the carriage, one much more interrupted was kept up within. Muffled in furs from head to foot, occupying at least half the carriage with herself and her Blenheim, who accompanied every movement of his companion with a shrill cross bark, Lady Anne Granard had at least not neglected her own comfort. Though she had five daughters, she would not for the world have had any thing but a chariot; so the two girls were left to manage as well as they could, having, moreover, to take especial care not to disarrange any of Lady Anne's numerous packages.
Of course, she could only travel with four horses; and, to patch up a sort of union between show and economy, the carriage was loaded to the last extremity. The two younger girls were in the rumble, the French maid and page on the coachbox, and Lady Anne and her three eldest daughters inside, to say nothing of imperials, boxes, parcels, and last, but not least, the dog, the only over-petted and over-fed thing in his mistress's possession.
"Never were any girls so stupid as you are," exclaimed Lady Anne, when, after many vain attempts at conversation, her daughters had sunk into silence. "Mary never has any thing to say; and I think you are all growing like her. Do take care, Louisa; if you lean back, you will spoil your bonnet."
Louisa started from her reverie, colouring a little deeper than there seemed any occasion for, and said,
"Indeed, mamma, I should be very sorry to spoil your pretty present."
"I am sure it has been quite thrown away," interrupted her mother. "I would never have gone to the expence of such a bonnet, had I not thought that Sir Henry Calthorpe was serious in his attentions; but it is all your own fault."
"Nay, mamma," said Helen, timidly, "Louisa could not force Sir Henry to make her an offer."
"Force, indeed!—what strange words you use!" interrupted Lady Anne; "have I not told you a hundred times, that a strong expression is so unladylike? I dare say it was something Louisa said that frightened Sir Henry away—she must have been to blame."
And again her ladyship sank back in the carriage. Silence, however, again became wearisome, and she continued.
"I expect that I shall have you all on my hands, like Mary, who never will go off now. I am sure she need not grow so thin and pale, unless she liked it." The tears came into poor Mary's eyes, and she turned aside to the window. A thick mist covered the fields, but the prospect was not more dreary than her own—it was obscure, colourless—and such she felt was her future.
"I never knew any thing so provoking as it was of Mr. Glentworth to die; but I always heard," continued her ladyship, "that he was a very low person; and what can you expect from those sort of people? If he had had any consideration, he would have lived till after Christmas."
Her daughters thought that the matter did not rest with Mr. Glentworth to consider about; but Lady Anne Granard's daughters had many thoughts that they were in the habit of keeping to themselves.
"There is nothing to be done in London just now," continued Lady Anne. "If we could have staid in Brighton, I think, Louisa, there would still have been a chance of your securing Sir Henry. Yesterday he showed symptoms of returning." Even now Louisa trembled to think how much she had dreaded that returning.
"Perhaps you may meet him," continued her mother, "next season. But even if you do, the chances are greatly against you. The first impression, which is of the greatest importance, will be gone off—very likely he may be taken up with some one else." Louisa secretly wished that he might.
"Besides, in Brighton he saw you every day; in London you can only meet now and then. If any one desirable comes in the way, the chance of Sir Henry must not be allowed to interfere. I would therefore advise you, Louisa, not to think much about him." Louisa could very safely promise that she would not.
"You must remember," added her mother, "that the next will be your second season. You did not come out till late, that you might not interfere with Mary. Yet there she is still on my hands, and looking as pale as a ghost. I am in a dreadful fright lest you should go off, as she did, about two and twenty; and what I shall do with you then, Heaven knows!"
Appalled with the awful prospect of two daughters unmarried at past two and twenty, Lady Anne sank back in the carriage, as much overcome as she could be by any emotion. The silence was broken by Helen's exclaiming—
"Well, I am glad of our return to London for one reason—we shall see the Palmers again."
"What you can all see to like in those odious Palmers," cried her ladyship, disdain and dignity mingled in her attitude, "I cannot conceive."
"Dearest mamma," said Helen, "only think how kind Mrs. Palmer was when we had the fever!"
"Oh, yes; she is the only sort of person for a nurse. She always," cried Lady Anne, with a sneer, "comes to you with a receipt for a pudding in one hand to make you ill, and then a prescription in the other to cure you."
Helen, whose chief ideas of comfort and kindness were taken from the Palmers, said nothing: as wise a plan as can well be pursued in all cases of domestic disagreement.
The faint line of light that trembles on the dusky horizon of London now became visible, the road soon became a street, the wilderness of houses closed round them, and the whole party sank into silence. Lady Anne was too cross to talk, Mary was sad with that weight which was perpetual at her heart, and Helen was quite tired. Louisa was secretly the best satisfied of the party, for Louisa was in love; and, though the chances of seeing him were small, yet it was some thing even to be in the same place with the object of her affection.
Tired, cold, and hungry, the whole party arrived in Welbeck Street. Lady Anne at once retired to her bedroom, the only room in the house where a good fire had been kept up all day. The page was sent for some soup to a confectioner's, and, as soon as it could be made ready, some grilled chicken was carried up on a tray. She had a glass of warm sherry and water, and, with her arm-chair, and a large shawl, her ladyship managed to be tolerably comfortable.
The girls, in the meantime, were crowding in the back parlour over a small, smoky grate, where they had some difficulty in getting the fire to burn at all, each having cast a wistful glance at the cheerful-looking windows of their opposite neighbours.
While they are waiting for their small allowance of mutton chops, and making that superfluous exertion which, in common parlance, is called keeping the fire warm, we will go a little back upon our story. The giant laid down one of the first principles of narrative when he said, "Belier, mon ami, commencez au commencement."
Lady Anne Granard was the only daughter of the Earl of Rotheles, whose house was one of the most ancient in the west of England. I do not know whether they quite went the lengths of the Castillian genealogy which mentions as a slight episode, "about this time the world was created." Certainly the house of Rotheles went back to a most glorious obscurity of land-chiefs and sea-kings, the noblest mixture of robbers and pirates that ever entitled descendants to be proud of their origin.
The family property was large, but so heavily mortgaged, that ready money realised Wordsworth's description of the cuckoo; it was
"a fear, a hope;
Talked of, but never seen."
From her childhood Lady Anne had been impressed with that first duty of a portionless beauty—the necessity of making a good match.
Speculations in trade are not confined to the counter or to the counting-house. Lady Anne's fair hair and white teeth were as much objects of barter as any of the shawls or ribbons displayed in Bond Street. They were to be had in exchange for a suit of diamonds and an opera-box.
Mr. Granard, of Granard Park, became the fortunate purchaser. For five years every thing went on exceedingly well, excepting that every year a daughter made its appearance, a fact which astonished no one so much as it did Lady Anne herself, for, as she admitted with equal surprise and candour, "it was so like common people to have a large family." Moreover, it was a son they wanted, as a male heir was necessary before any settlement could be made of the property.
Mr. Granard (it is amazing how unreasonable husbands are!) began to hint that they were living beyond their income. Two of the children died, an affliction under which Lady Anne was wonderfully supported, particularly as her spirits under such circumstances required a little change, and they accordingly passed a few months at Paris.
Twelve years glided by, only disturbed by remonstrances from Mr. Granard, remonstrances which, as her ladyship observed, always came after he had been seeing his steward or his lawyer—for her part, she hated those sort of people. Two more daughters were also added to their stock of domestic felicity, and the eldest, a pretty, fair, timid girl, had become the constant companion of her father's solitary walks, who took little part in the gaieties which filled his house.
Mr. Granard's is a common history. He was a broken-spirited man, ruined by extravagance he had not resolution to check, and harassed by embarrassments he had not courage to face. He was a kind-hearted, well-meaning man, and with a different wife would have been a different person. He had married Lady Anne not only for her beauty, but for her quiet manner, which he mistook for gentleness—like many others, he found out his mistake when too late. Shy, sensitive, and indolent, he gave way on every point, because it was less trouble to yield than to oppose. He went to London, though he would have preferred remaining in the country; he gave a grand fête of some description or other every year, though he hated the noise and confusion; he filled his house with company, though his habits were even unsocial: in short, his whole life was one succession of sacrifices, but they were sacrifices without merit—they were the sacrifices of weakness, not of strength. Many a bitter moment did he pass, when, after watching his five fairy girls on the lawn, he would turn away, and think that his death would leave them beggars. There was one sad thought perpetually fretting his heart, and the gay and lovely Lady Anne Granard was often pitied for being united to a man so gloomy and so unsocial.
Mr. Granard became a valetudinarian; he was always applying to some physician or another, perhaps a little to their bewilderment, for no disease was apparent: they knew not that the improvident father feared to die, for the sake of five destitute orphans. In the mean time he grew thin and pale, the result, it was said, of over-attention. "Never," as his wife observed, "did any body take such care of himself as Mr. Granard."
But there was that within which mocked all cure, and Lady Anne was in the midst of her arrangements for an archery meeting, when Mr. Granard was found dead in his library. He had not been in bed all night, having been looking over accounts; a half sketched plan of retrenchment was found near, but that night his life was required of him.
Lady Anne could not repress one involuntary exclamation of "what an inconvenient time Mr. Granard had chosen for his death!" but otherwise she behaved with exemplary propriety. She retired to her dressing-room, which was duly darkened, and there she sat, a white cambric handkerchief in one hand, and a bottle of salts in the other.
Most of Mr. Granard's children were too young to feel his loss, but Mary, the eldest, grieved for him with a grief beyond her years. What were his faults to her? she only knew him as the kind father with whom she read and walked, and from whom she never heard an unkind word. In after years, when she heard of his indolence and his improvidence, it sounded to her like sacrilege.