The Semi-detached House/Chapter 7
CHAPTER VII.
"Well, those are three as nice ladies as ever I wish to see," said Mrs. Hopkinson, when her guests had departed, "and as for that Lady Chester, I'm quite in love with her. She thinks so much of your father, and spoke in such a way of him. I wish John had heard her!"
"Miss Grenville was very nice, too, mamma, and took great notice of dear little Charlie, and played at cat's cradle with him," said Rose.
"I did not think quite so much of her as of the old lady," said Janet. "Did you make out what her name was, mamma?"
"Lady Sarah Mortimer, my dear, she is aunt to the two sisters who are twins, and she seems to have had charge of Lady Chester. Miss Grenville lived with the other guardian."
"T cannot think how she comes to know so much abont schools," said Janet, who had hitherto considered herself quite unequalled in that line; "she seems to go to our school every day, and says Mr. Greydon thinks this, and Mr, Greydon wishes me to do that; and it appears he called at Pleasance again to-day. Very odd, he hardly ever speaks when 1 am at the school, and as for calling, he has only called twice since he came to Dulham. However," she added humbly, "it is not very surprising he should like to go to Pleasance. He is so very superior himself, that he naturally likes other superior people; and to be sure, Lady Chester and her sister are very different from any of us. Rose, don't you wish that mamma and you and I were regular fine ladies?"
"Oh, my dear," interrupted Mrs Hopkinson, "don't talk so. You and Rose may try to be like those two pretty creatures if you please, and a nice job you will make of it; but as for turning me into a fine lady, thank you for nothing. I should like to see John's face if I met him dressed in a grey moire antique and a lace mantle, and twiddling a little bit of netting silk over an ivory stick. No, my dears, you must let me be as I am, I'm too old to improve."
"You don't want a bit of improvement, dear old mother," said both her girls, giving her a good hug, "I was only joking," added Janet.
"And only a very leetle bit jealous of Miss Grenville," whispered Rose.
Blanche and Aileen went the next day to call on Mrs. Hopkinson, to repeat their thanks for her hospitalities, and to see the silver inkstand which Arthur, had presented to the Captain.
"Such a sweet inscription," Mrs. Hopkinson said, "'To Captain John Hopkinson, from his obliged and faithful friend Arthur Templeton.' I don't suppose John would take one thousand pounds for that inkstand. Would your Ladyship allow me to shew you a picture of John?"
"I should like to see it of all things," said Blanche.
"The only fault of it is, that it is not the least like him. John had it done at Macao, by a Chinaman, Chiang Foo, who was supposed to be a good artist; and it was very kind of John to think of it. But considering that he is a stout, florid man with blue eyes and a round face, I don't think Chiang Foo has hit him off quite cleverly," and Mrs. Hopkinson proceeded to justify this assertion by producing the picture of a sallow figure, with half shut black eyes and high cheek bones, standing apparently on nothing, and neither receiving nor casting the slightest shadow. Blanche could not help laughing; but Mrs. Hopkinson looked at it rather sentimentally, and said, "At all events, it was done from John, and the buttons on his coat are all right, and look very natural."
"But I am sure it does not do him justice."
"No, indeed," and altogether Mrs. Hopkinson felt gratified and interested in her new acquaintances. Willis had called, in the morning, and had heard the history of the preceding day, on which he made the obvious comment, that he did not think much of a little smoke and rain. If it had been in Columbia Lodge, he had no doubt that the house would have been burnt down, but he was used to trials, and should quietly have submitted to that.
"I came to tell you, Mrs. Hopkinson, that you will probably have a visit from the Baroness to-day. She wrote me word she was coming to make a search for this villa she wants, and she wished me to accompany her; but if there is a thing in the world that depresses my spirits, it is rambling over a set of empty houses, smelling of damp and desolation. So I have left a note to say you would go with her, and I shall take myself off to town. The girls can just step to Randall's and get a list of the houses he has on hand. Where's Charlie?"
"He's asleep just now."
"Oh! when he wakes, you can give him this toy, I brought it for him; I saw it in the Strand, and it took my fancy."
It was a nice little model of a tomb, and when a spring was touched at the side, a skeleton jumped out, made a bow, and jumped in again, Willis looked at it with a grim satisfaction, which was not at all diminished by the positive refusal of his mother and sisters-in-law to allow Charlie even to hear of it, much less to see it. Willis really was fond of his child, and did not press his pet skeleton on their acceptance, when he found they thought it might frighten Charlie. In fact, he was rather glad to take it home again, for his own diversion.
Lady Chester and Aileen had hardly sat down in Mrs. Hopkinson's parlour, when the showy carriage appeared, and the Baroness and her son were announced.
"Do not say anything about us," whispered Blanche; "we shall amuse ourselves with Charlie," and Mrs. Hopkinson took the hint, and turned her attention to the Baroness, who was overflowing with affability and grandeur.
"That naughty Willis has run off to London, and has referred me to you, Mrs. Mrs.—"
"Dear Mrs. Hopkinson," said Aileen promptly, in her soft voice, "are you sure this is not your chair I have appropriated?"
"To you, Mrs. Hopkinson," continued the Baroness, ignoring the audacious Aileen, "he says you and your girls—where are they by the bye?—will help me in this difficult matter of a villa. I am afraid I am very particular, I am so spoiled. Now you, with this dear, tidy little cottage, can't guess what my troubles are, what with housekeeper's room, and the Baron's billiards, and Moses' smoking, and my own suite of apartments—a cottage, though I am sure I envy you, would not suit us."
"Here is a list my girls have brought from the house agent's; there are not many houses vacant just now, Acacia Place is one of the best, Baroness."
"It sounds citizenish," said that lady, who had passed all her early life in the very heart of that city; "but to be sure," she added, with an air of deep thought, "I can change the name."
"I always admire Ivy Cottage as I pass it," said Blanche, trying to be civil to Mrs. Hopkinson's overpowering friend, "and I see a board up there."
"A cottage is out of the question for me," said the Baroness loftily, wishing to repress these intrusive young people. "So, Mrs. Hopkinson, we will go on with our business; Bellevue—that sounds as though it might do."
"The house is tolerable, but unfortunately it is at the back of High Street, and you can see neither the river nor the common. Marble Hall, next to Columbia, is the one I should recommend."
"And a precious cheerful neighbourhood we should be in," said Baron Moses, confidentially, to the two sisters, whose beauty had made a great impression on him. "As the belle mère, the mother-in-law," he translated condescendingly, "is occupied with my blessed mamma, and can't hear; I think I may venture to say that Mr. Willis is about the slowest coach I ever attempted to drive."
"Mr. Willis is my papa, and does not keep a coach," said Charlie, who was sitting on Aileen's knee, "so it could not go slow."
"Capital! capital!" said Moses, with an affected laugh. "Very true, my little man, enfant terrible! It was the Miss Hopkinsons that I met at dinner at Columbia, not you, ladies, I think?"
"No," said Blanche, demurely, "we have never had the honour of dining with Mr. Willis."
"Honour you may well call it, not pleasure; but my mother who is entichée du beau Willis, quite taken with him, means to humanise him, and make him give constant dinners. I presume I am speaking to residents of Dulham, and I hope we may have the pleasure of meeting at the festive board of the égayant Willis."
"I rather doubt whether Mr. Willis will ever ask us," said Aileen, trying to look pensive.
"Oh! but he shall, I hate exclusiveness, it's bad enough in London; but in the country where amusements are scarce, it is insufferable!"
"I am sorry to interrupt you, Moses," said the Baroness, "but the Baron will be frantic if I keep the greys standing; I wish your father would not give such enormous prices for my horses. I am sure, Mrs. Hopkinson, your friends will excuse you if I take you away, but I am a perfect child in household matters, and your advice will be invaluable. Gunnersbury is my beau idéal of a villa, but that, of course, I cannot expect to find here; so we will just look at Marble Hall. 1 wish I could have had Pleasance."
Blanche and Aileen immediately rose to depart.
"Yes, Pleasance is a stylish-looking concern," said Baron Moses, "though I only know it from the river. A charming spot for picnics."
"Ah," said the Baroness, "what suits the Chesters, would, of course, have suited me; but, I fear, there is no chance of their giving it up. My friend Madame Steinbaum writes from Berlin—"
"Aileen," said Blanche colouring and looking annoyed, "we really must go, we are detaining Mrs. Hopkinson; and I have not made my petition. My sister goes to town to-morrow for a concert. Will you let little Charlie come and pay me a visit?"
"Me will come," said Charlie, "me like you very much—me not like that black man," he added in a whisper, and with a look at Baron Moses.
"Well, then, that is settled. Good bye, Mrs. Hopkinson," she said cordially to that lady, who followed her to the door, her face the colour of the coquelicot ribbon in her cap, and herself distracted by the grandeur and impertinence of the Baroness, which imposed upon her and shocked her. With a slight haughty bow to the Sampsons, Blanche departed.
"Then we will be off," said the Baroness "I hope I did not affront your friends, Mrs. Hopkinson, whoever they may be; but they seemed inclined to put themselves forward, and I feared it might lead to their claiming acquaintance if I settle here, which would embarrass me. I am afraid I was tant soit peu farouche," (Mrs. Hopkinson wondered what that was, but settled that it was French for disagreeable) "but it is a point with me to keep young people in their proper places."
"Of course," said Mrs. Hopkinson, who was quite bewildered, "improper places are shocking things."
"Brava! brava!" said the Baron clapping his hands, and then seeing that his hostess was beginning to look discomposed, he added graciously. "An excellent joke, but upon my soul, Mrs. Hopkinson, your friends are belles à croquer, that is to say, monstrous pretty creatures. Did not you think so, madre adorata."
"Prettyish looking girls, I believe, but they want style. Who are these damsels whom the Baron chooses to patronize?"
'I thought you knew Lady Chester and her sister, at least, by sight," said Mrs. Hopkinson, as sharply as her intense good humour would allow.
"Lady Chester and her sister!" screamed the Baroness, falling back into her chair, and turning as pale as was possible under the amount of rouge she wore. "Good heavens! Mrs. Hopkinson, why did not you name them? why did you not present them to me? I should have been too happy to shew them every attention for the sake of our mutual friends the Rothschilds, in fact, I really wished to make Lady Chester's acquaintance, and I was scarcely civil, I am afraid."
"That I can answer for," said Baron Moses, who was in ecstacies with his mother's discomfiture, "civility was not your forte just at the moment. I," he added consequentially, "who can afford to follow my very vivid perceptions of what pleases mon goût, happily paid them every attention. I saw at once that they were intensely comme il faut." He sunk the fact of having offered to procure them an invitation to Willis's festive board.
"It is most distressing," said the Baroness, faintly. "They must think me—me of all people in the world entirely without usage du monde. Why upon earth did you not introduce us, Mrs. Hopkinson?"
"Lady Chester requested I would not," quietly replied Mrs. Hopkinson.
The Baroness received a vague and unpleasant impression, that the request signified a disinclination on the part of Lady Chester to make her acquaintance, and with her mania for fashion and fashionable people this annoyed her extremely. Quite subdued, she set forth on her travels in search of a house, almost disposed to put up with the want of a billiard-table, and inclined to believe that Ivy Cottage would suit her better than Marble Hall. But a bright red flock paper in the dining-room of the latter mansion, with several vulgar chandeliers and over-gilt console tables, were too much for her, she thought the room would "light up sweetly." And having made Mrs. Hopkinson fag herself all over the house, to examine the attics, and the kitchen, and the cupboards, and the pumps, and do all the heavy work of the business, she dismissed her with the blandest apologies for requesting her to find her way home on foot, but "the Baron was very particular about his grey horses."
"Well," said Mrs. Hopkinson to the girls, as she was enjoying her tea after the fatigues of the day, "I'm regularly tired. That Baroness does not suit me nor my ways, and the airs she gave herself are not to be told. And there were those nice young ladies, real ladies to my mind, looking so simple and so quiet and playing so prettily with Charlie, while that great storm of a woman swept over them. Don't tell Willis, my dears, but I can't help thinking she is very vulgar: and I see why the Queen don't ask her to her concerts."