A Group of Noble Dames. Thomas Hardy
interval before Dornell redeemed his pledge to come and see them was unexpectedly short. He arrived one morning about twelve o’clock, driving his own pair of black-bays in the curricle-phaeton with yellow panels and red wheels, just as he had used to do, and his faithful old Tupcombe on horseback behind. A young man sat beside the Squire in the carriage, and Mrs. Dornell’s consternation could scarcely be concealed when, abruptly entering with his companion, the Squire announced him as his friend Phelipson of Elm-Cranlynch.
Dornell passed on to Betty in the background and tenderly kissed her. ‘Sting your mother’s conscience, my maid!’ he whispered. ‘Sting her conscience by pretending you are struck with Phelipson, and would ha’ loved him, as your old father’s choice, much more than him she has forced upon ’ee.’
The simple-souled speaker fondly imagined that it as entirely in obedience to this direction that Betty’s eyes stole interested glances at the frank and impulsive Phelipson that day at dinner, and he laughed grimly within himself to see how this joke of his, as he imagined it to be, was disturbing the peace of mind of the lady of the house. ‘Now Sue sees what a mistake she has made!’ said he.
Mrs. Dornell was verily greatly alarmed, and as soon as she could speak a word with him alone she upbraided him. ‘You ought not to have brought him here. Oh Thomas, how could you be so thoughtless! Lord, don’t you see, dear, that what is done cannot be undone, and how all this foolery jeopardizes her happiness with her husband? Until you interfered, and spoke in her hearing about this Phelipson, she was as patient and as willing as a lamb, and looked forward to Mr. Reynard’s return with real pleasure. Since her visit to Falls-Park she has been monstrous close-mouthed and busy with her own thoughts. What mischief will you do? How will it end?’
‘Own, then, that my man was best suited to her. I only brought him to convince you.’
‘Yes, yes; I do admit it. But oh! do take him back again at once! Don’t keep him here! I fear she is even attracted by him already.’
‘Nonsense, Sue. ’Tis only a little trick to tease ’ee!’
Nevertheless her motherly eye was not so likely to be deceived as his, and if Betty were really only playing at being love-struck that day, she played at it with the perfection of a Rosalind, and would have deceived the best professors into a belief that it was no counterfeit. The Squire, having obtained his victory, was quite ready to take back the too attractive youth, and early in the afternoon they set out on their return journey.
A silent figure who rode behind them was as interested as Dornell in that day’s experiment. It was the staunch Tupcombe, who, with his eyes on the Squire’s and young Phelipson’s backs, thought how well the latter would have suited Betty, and how greatly the former had changed for the worse during these last two or three years. He cursed his mistress as the cause of the change.
After this memorable visit to prove his point, the lives of the Dornell couple flowed on quietly enough for the space of a twelvemonth, the Squire for the most part remaining at Falls, and Betty passing and repassing between them now and then, once or twice alarming her mother by not driving home from her father’s house till midnight.
The repose of King’s-Hintock was broken by the arrival of a special messenger. Squire Dornell had had an access of gout so violent as to be serious. He wished to see Betty again: why had she not come for so long?
Mrs. Dornell was extremely reluctant to take Betty in that direction too frequently; but the girl was so anxious to go, her interests latterly seeming to be so entirely bound up in Falls-Park and its neighbourhood, that there was nothing to be done but to let her set out and accompany her.
Squire Dornell had been impatiently awaiting her arrival. They found him very ill and irritable. It had been his habit to take powerful medicines to drive away his enemy, and they had failed in their effect on this occasion.
The presence of his daughter, as usual, calmed him much, even while, as usual too, it saddened him; for he could never forget that she had disposed of herself for life in opposition to his wishes, though she had secretly assured him that she would never have consented had she been as old as she was now.
As on a former occasion, his wife wished to speak to him alone about the girl’s future, the time now drawing nigh at which Reynard was expected to come and claim her. He would have done so already, but he had been put off by the earnest request of the young woman herself, which accorded with that of her parents, on the score of her youth. Reynard had deferentially submitted to their wishes in this respect, the understanding between them having been that he would not visit her before she was eighteen, except by the mutual consent of all parties. But this could not go on much longer, and there was no doubt, from the tenor of his last letter, that he would soon take possession of her whether or no.
To be out of the sound of this delicate discussion Betty was accordingly sent downstairs, and they soon saw her walking away into the shrubberies, looking very pretty in her sweeping green gown, and flapping broad-brimmed hat overhung with a feather.
On returning to the subject, Mrs. Dornell found her husband’s reluctance to reply in the affirmative to Reynard’s letter to be as great as ever.
‘She is three months short of eighteen!’ he exclaimed. ‘’Tis too soon. I won’t hear of it! If I have to keep him off sword in hand, he shall not have her yet.’
‘But, my dear Thomas,’ she expostulated, ‘consider if anything should happen to you or to me, how much better it would be that she should be settled in her home with him!’
‘I say it is too soon!’ he argued, the veins of his forehead beginning to swell. ‘If he gets her this side o’ Candlemas I’ll challenge en – I’ll take my oath on’t! I’ll be back to King’s-Hintock in two or three days, and I’ll not lose sight of her day or night!’
She feared to agitate him further, and gave way, assuring him, in obedience to his demand, that if Reynard should write again before he got back, to fix a time for joining Betty, she would put the letter in her husband’s hands, and he should do as he chose. This was all that required discussion privately, and Mrs. Dornell went to call in Betty, hoping that she had not heard her father’s loud tones.
She had certainly not done so this time. Mrs. Dornell followed the path along which she had seen Betty wandering, but went a considerable distance without perceiving anything of her. The Squire’s wife then turned round to proceed to the other side of the house by a short cut across the grass, when, to her surprise and consternation, she beheld the object of her search sitting on the horizontal bough of a cedar, beside her being a young man, whose arm was round her waist. He moved a little, and she recognized him as young Phelipson.
Alas, then, she was right. The so-called counterfeit love was real. What Mrs. Dornell called her husband at that moment, for his folly in originally throwing the young people together, it is not necessary to mention. She decided in a moment not to let the lovers know that she had seen them. She accordingly retreated, reached the front of the house by another route, and called at the top of her voice from a window, ‘Betty!’
For the first time since her strategic marriage of the child, Susan Dornell doubted the wisdom of that step.
Her husband had, as it were, been assisted by destiny to make his objection, originally trivial, a valid one. She saw the outlines of trouble in the future. Why had Dornell interfered? Why had he insisted upon producing his man? This, then, accounted for Betty’s pleading for postponement whenever the subject of her husband’s return was broached; this accounted for her attachment to Falls-Park. Possibly this very meeting that she had witnessed had been arranged by letter.
Perhaps the girl’s thoughts would never have strayed for a moment if her father had not filled her head with ideas of repugnance to her early union, on the ground that she had been coerced into it before she knew her own mind; and she might have rushed to meet her husband with open arms on the appointed day.
Betty at length appeared in the distance in answer to the call, and came up pale, but looking innocent of having seen a living soul. Mrs. Dornell groaned in spirit at such duplicity in the child of her bosom. This was the simple creature for whose development into womanhood they had all been