The Manoeuvring Mother (Vol. 1-3). Lady Charlotte Campbell Bury
worthy to be related to you. If he has eleven children, he has immense estates in three counties, and I must manage to get Miss Kerrison to Wetheral. I should fear nothing, if Clara would only keep her temper; but I dread the daughter carrying tales back to Ripley: however, I will manage as well as I can, for something must be effected on my side. Good night, my dear girls; I hope you will have sons, and no daughters, for you cannot know a mother's anxiety about daughters—they depend so entirely upon forming proper establishments. Your poor father would never have interested himself about you. I do believe he would be perfectly satisfied if he considered you destined to live hereafter as spinsters, huddled together in a lodging in Shrewsbury. Be well, Anna Maria; and, in future, you know I have no business to interfere with your rides and drives."
Her ladyship quitted the room, smiling complacently at the remembrance of her successful ruse; and the sisters were left together, to rejoice in and compare their happy prospects.
Lady Wetheral's idea of Mrs. Pynsent's objection, and her short-lived but violent wrath, was exemplified in her conduct, when her son stated his engagement to Miss Wetheral, before his parents, the morning subsequent to his proposal.
"Now hang me, Tom, if I would have believed such a thing from any body's lips but your own. So you have taken a bird out of the Wetheral nest, have you? You have been hunted down, neatly, Master Tom."
"In this particular," replied her son, "I have made my own choice, and my father made no objection when—"
"Who minds your father?" interrupted Mrs. Pynsent; "he never knows what he is about. He says 'yes' to every thing, and looks like a booby besides. Now you may marry the girl, and take Hatton if you please, but I'll be hanged if I notice her! I'm serious, Master Tom."
Tom Pynsent allowed the storm to spend its fury, and Mrs. Pynsent proceeded with increased ire.
"To be gulled into marriage by that woman, Wetheral, drives me wild; but I never saw the man yet, who was not tricked into a trap by an artful woman, in spite of his teeth. Hang the whole set of them, and you too, for being a greater simpleton than your father!"
"If I was a simpleton," observed Mr. Pynsent, quietly, "it was in marrying a masculine lady."
"You be hanged, Bobby! you proposed to every girl you met. I was your fiftieth love, and you knew Sally Hancock and myself loved things out of the common way. I tell you what, Bobby—if Tom marries a Wetheral, you and I leave Shropshire. I won't stay in the country. If I meet her, I'll drive over her, Tom."
Tom Pynsent understood his mother's disposition, and acted accordingly. He assured her of his sorrow in perceiving her dislike to the match; but, whatever disgust she might feel towards Lady Wetheral's conduct, the daughter was not involved in its folly. "When," continued he, "I proposed to Julia Wetheral, she refused me at once."
"You proposed to another of them!" cried Mrs. Pynsent, "and Bill Wycherly was right! You got huffed by one Wetheral, and then turned to another! Is this a true bill? Then I only just ask you, if simpleton is not too gentle an expression, Master Tommy, for such a poor thing as yourself? I only just ask you, if you don't think you are as nice an owl as ever was taken in by a set of manœuvring women? You'll hear enough of this, Tommy Pynsent! You and my Lord Ennismore are a couple of tight boys to be gulled by my lady. Here, make way for me—that I may go and tell my sister Hancock what a nice lad Master Pynsent has turned out. Never expect me to go near Wetheral, Bobby. I would sooner visit old Nick."
Mrs. Pynsent flung out of the room, with an air of offended majesty.
"Let your mother alone, Tom," said Mr. Pynsent, as the door closed upon his indignant lady. "Let her alone, and she won't long refuse her consent. When she has unburthened her mind to Sally Hancock, and fizzed a little, all will be right again."
Mrs. Pynsent ordered her pony-carriage, and drove off to Lea Cottage, where her widowed sister resided upon a very small income. Mrs. Hancock was darning stockings, when her sister appeared before her with inflamed features.
"Hollo, Pen, what's the matter now?" cried Mrs. Hancock, calmly continuing her darn.—"What's in the wind, now, Pen?"
"I am in a pretty mess, Sally Hancock; what do you think Tom is about to do?"
"Is he going to marry our niece, Wycherly? Don't let him marry a cousin, Pen; bless you, don't let him marry a cousin."
"Marry a cousin, Sally! I wish it was no worse than marrying young Pen. He is going to bring me one of Lady Wetheral's dolls, and I have vowed not to see or speak to her."
"Hoot toot, you will think better of it," replied Mrs. Hancock, passing a stocking to her sister. "Do mend that for me—there's a hole in the heel, as big as my thumb. What's the matter with the Wetherals, Pen? They are very fine girls, and very well born."
"It is not that," returned Mrs. Pynsent, threading a needle, and taking up the proffered stocking. "If you knew the pains my lady took to hunt down Tom, you would bless yourself, Sally Hancock."
"Never mind, Pen. Didn't our mother do just the same by us? Didn't I marry Hancock, in spite of every thing people could say?—and didn't you declare you would have Bob Pynsent, though he was engaged to Patty Durham?"
"Sally Hancock, do you remember the Shrewsbury races?" cried Mrs. Pynsent, overpowered with laughing at some bygone recollections.
"When we dressed up to frighten Hancock and Pynsent? ay, don't I?" exclaimed her sister, equally amused. "Do you remember Hancock's face, when you told him his fortune?"
"And do you remember Pynsent saying—"
Mrs. Pynsent could no more. A thousand images of the past crowded before her vision, and both ladies laughed immoderately at certain remembrances conjured up by Mrs. Hancock, reverting to youthful indiscretions. Mrs. Pynsent's anger towards her son already waned, as she dwelt upon topics so consonant to her feelings, with her sister. The tête-à-tête lasted a considerable time, and the peals of laughter continued, till the completion of the stocking gave warning it was time to part. Mrs. Pynsent prepared to move with reluctance.
"Can't you stay now you are here?" said Mrs. Hancock.
"Don't ask me, Sally Hancock. I must get back to Hatton. If you and Hancock had not spent your property in eating and drinking, you would not have been shut up here with that dreadful foot, which must be your death."
Mrs. Hancock exhibited her swelled foot.—"Yes, that's a neat article, Pen. I wish I could have it sawed off by the carpenter. Can't help it."
"Well, Sally Hancock, if Tom marries, you must come to the wedding;" remarked Mrs. Pynsent, in a doleful voice.
"My dear, how can I come with this foot? A pretty trinket, isn't it, to present before a bride?—There's a neat foot to trip among the bridesmaids to the altar!—I'm only fit for Lea, Pen, but you can tell me all about it."
Mrs. Pynsent drew up her face and eyes into a comic expression of astonishment, as she contemplated her sister's foot, veiled from the public gaze in the recess of a large list shoe.
"Well, Sally Hancock, you gave a good price for it. There's a hundred thousand pounds' worth in that hovel of a shoe. Every farthing melted into your stomachs. It was sure to tell upon you, some day."
"We can't eat our cake and have it," observed the jolly Mrs. Hancock; "but it wasn't all spent in eating and drinking. Hancock and myself lost more than half at play. It didn't all go in eating and drinking, Pen. Poor Hancock was very violent when I was unlucky, but he thought nothing about his own losses."
"You would have him, Sally Hancock."
"Well, I was as resolute as yourself in the matter of Bob Pynsent, Pen; but all the Wycherlys were a rum set—must, and would have their own way. Give Tom credit for a slice of the family disorder, and pocket the affront."
"How my lady will hector, and compliment, and courtesy!" shuddered Mrs. Pynsent.
"Never mind my lady! When is it to take place?"
"Oh, I don't know; I was in such a fury, I asked no questions."