Mystery & Confidence. Elizabeth Sibthorpe Pinchard

      CHAP. IV.

       Table of Contents

      A prattling gossip, on whose tongue

       Proof of perpetual motion hung,

       Who with a hundred pair of eyes,

       The vain attacks of sleep defies;

       Who with a hundred pair of wings,

       News from the farthest quarters brings,

       Sees, hears, and tells, untold before,

       All that she knows, and ten times more.

      Churchill.

      When Mordaunt was gone, Joanna and Ellen returned to their usual manner of living: at first Ellen found a great insipidity in her ordinary occupations. The day seemed unusually tedious, but this by degrees wore off; and had she never seen Mordaunt again, she would certainly have always remembered him with peculiar interest; but the peace of her mind was undisturbed: yet Mordaunt's conversation had been of the most dangerous tendency. What girl of seventeen, tinctured with the natural romance which a life in a country of such sublimity as Wales almost necessarily produces in an ardent mind and feeling heart, but might be led by the voice of flattery to believe herself superior to the mere common employments of domestic life; yet if the flatterer mean to substitute no higher line of occupation in their stead, is it not probable that unhappiness, if not a dereliction from virtue, may be the consequence? Mordaunt's suggestions therefore to a mind more practised in worldly guile would have rendered his intentions extremely equivocal; and the very little Mr. Ross had seen of him made him not only very glad that he was gone, but led him to wish earnestly he might not return; and when a fortnight had elapsed, and no books or packages arrived at the cottage of the Widow Grey, Ross, and, to say the truth, Joanna also, began to hope he would not return. Joanna liked Mordaunt as a companion, and had none of those fears which had crept into the mind of Ross: but her love for her brother, and the certainty that Mordaunt was preferred to him by Ellen, gave her a sort of prejudice against him, and she could not help shewing a sort of triumph at his not returning. Ellen, whose temper was as sweet as her understanding was excellent, bore the little taunts Joanna now and then threw out on her supposed disappointment with great mildness; but when Joanna accused Mordaunt of caprice and insincerity, she sometimes defended him, with candour indeed, but with a little warmth, which excited fresh displeasure in Joanna: and these little disputes insensibly abated the pleasure they used to feel in the society of each other. Nothing could be more ill-judged than Joanna's conduct on this occasion: had she remained silent, Ellen would never have spoken and seldom thought of Mordaunt; but by being forced continually to defend either herself or him, he became more interesting to her; her generous heart not bearing to hear him accused probably without a cause: thus, Joanna, like all people who suffer themselves to be misled by prejudice and ill-humour, increased the evil she wished to obviate, and by rendering her own society less desirable to Ellen, left her more at liberty to receive Mordaunt's visits, if he really should return; and to return it seemed probable at length he intended: for, about three weeks after his departure, several large packages were brought in a light cart to the Widow Grey's, and the driver said he had been hired at Carnarvon, by a strange gentleman who arrived in the mail the night before, and would be with her the next morning. The news of this important event spread quickly through the village, and numerous were the conjectures which followed. Dame Grey had several visitors in the course of the evening to look at these wonderful packages, to conjecture what each might contain, and to endeavour to learn from her what could make a gentleman, so grand as Mr. Mordaunt must be, to come and live in her cottage: to all which the good woman could only reply, that Mr. Ross had told her that the gentleman was coming for his health, and she dared say Mr. Ross knew: at all events, it was nothing to her: the gentleman had agreed to give her twelve shillings a week for her two rooms, which was four shillings more than she expected; but then, to be sure, she was to cook for him, and they all knew she was as pretty a cook as Madam Ross herself; for that, when she lived with 'Squire Davies—The mention of 'Squire Davies was enough for the whole audience; they walked off one by one, and left her to admire and wonder at her lodger's grand packages by herself, dreading nothing more than the tedious tales they knew they must encounter if they staid, now Dame Grey had begun to talk of the days when she lived with 'Squire Davies.

      Dame Grey not knowing very well what to do respecting her lodger's rooms, which wanted linen, and many other articles she supposed the packages might contain, thought it would be but right, and the proper compliment, if she was to step up and ask Madam Ross and Miss Joanna, and Miss Ellen, if she were there, what she had better do. Mrs. Ross advised her on no account to open any of the parcels, and said, if Mr. Mordaunt did not arrive in time the next day, she would furnish her with linen proper for his bed and table, till his own could be opened: at the same time declaring her readiness to go with Dame Grey, and see that things were put a little out of a litter; to which obliging act she was certainly prompted by the same sort of curiosity as had influenced her poorer neighbours, to see the packages, and judge by their weight and size what they might contain. No one who has ever lived in a small village will wonder at this: such a one will know that no one creature ever appears in a gown of a different colour, or a hat of a different size from what has been seen before, without exciting the utmost curiosity and animadversion; that a wedding, a burial, or a christening, will afford conversation to the whole neighbourhood for many hours; and that if one should be convicted of living, in the most simple concerns, at all different from the generality, oddity, absurdity, stinginess, and, finally, madness, will probably be imputed to him: think then what a feast for the gossips Mr. Mordaunt's parcels must have presented; for by the time Dame Grey and Mrs. Ross arrived, two or three more were in waiting to take a peep at them. Now, amongst these parcels, &c. was one which certainly bore the appearance of being a lady's bonnet-box: "Well," Mrs. Ross said, "this is an odd thing; what can it contain? Sure Mr. Mordaunt is not going to bring a lady with him! He did not say any thing to you, Dame Grey, did he, as if he was married?" "Lord bless me, no, Madam; but, to be sure, Mr. Ross knows, or Farmer Powis." "Poh! they know nothing at all about it: well, we shall see. For my part I should not wonder: he is not a very young man, and most likely is or has been married." Away went two or three of the assembly, eager to spread the report that Mr. Mordaunt and his lady were coming next day to Dame Grey's; that it must be true, for Madam Ross had said so, and moreover, they had seen with their own eyes Madam Merdan's fine bonnet-box, which no doubt contained a power of good things. Some went so far as to settle the probable colour of the lady's bonnet and best gown; and one notable dame, the wife of a farmer, who rented lands adjoining Powis's, thought she would "just step in and tell Miss Ellen and Miss Joanna, that they might smarten themselves a bit, before Madam Mording arrived." To paint the surprize of Ellen and Joanna, who were sitting together when neighbour Price related all these strange circumstances, embellished by her own conjectures and comments, would be impossible. Joanna believed, and was not sorry: Ellen doubted, and said she should be glad if it proved so, as Mrs. Mordaunt would be an agreeable addition to their society. Joanna looked at her with arch and half triumphant eyes; and Ellen, teazed, vexed, and disconcerted, could scarcely refrain from tears. At last the chattering gossip departed, and Joanna's conversation with Ellen ran in the usual strain; but Ellen was unusually unable to endure it. Amongst other things, Joanna told Ellen, if