they are both pleasant companions on a journey, and may be useful to us. They are very kind and considerate.’
‘Well, my pet, we shall see plenty of them, we shall be three days getting to Chanticleer ’
‘Mamma, I wish we were going in the diligence, we ought to travel night and day to Aunt Betsy.’
‘My dear—not after having seen that fusty, dirty, blue cloth lining to the coach. You may be more charitable than me. I don’t set up to be liberal. I am not going to gorge French fleas till they die of apoplexy. The carriage is ordered, and the horses and the driver. Three days, my dear—and two young men—umph, I say.’
‘Oh, mamma!’
‘It is all very well saying “Oh, mamma!” but I know the world, and you don’t.’
If Mrs. Fairbrother had been simply an ignorant, foolish, and vulgar woman, her daughter would not have turned out such a sweet and refined girl, notwithstanding the advantages given her, but Mrs. Fairbrother was a woman with a vastly tender heart, high principle, and, though she talked like a fool, she acted sensibly. Her vulgarity was superficial—in her speech, not in her mind. There was no affectation in the woman, she was perfectly true. She had her pride—but it was a harmless pride—it was centred in her daughter. She, herself, made no pretence to be other than she was, and hated display, consequently she was not really vulgar. Her great blemish lay in this, that her tongue rattled quicker than her mind acted, and she said a great deal which had not been sifted by her judgment. Her daughter saw and valued her mother’s excellent qualities, and overlooked, or was blind to her weaknesses.
The journey to Nantes was a pleasant one; the weather was favourable, the carriage was open all the time, the gentlemen were most agreeable, and the ladies were interested, astonished, and amused by the novelty of the sights that met their eyes. The two young men did what they could to entertain them. At Hédé the baron insisted on taking them into a peasant’s cottage to see the making of buckwheat flat cakes; and then Asheton drew them into the garden of the inn to see angelica growing, from which the delicious crystallised transparent green sweetmeat is made.
The baron ran about after pinks and harebells, which attracted the admiration of Jacquetta, she had never seen wild pinks before. He composed bouquets for her of chickory and wild roses and snapdragon. Garden flowers were not to be had. But Asheton’s cherries proved a failure; the roadside flowers were a little dusty, but the cherries purchased by Asheton were old and had maggots in them, so that Jacquetta was obliged to decline them after a first attempt.
At one village, whilst the horses were being changed, the ladies visited the churchyard. Jacquetta found her mother standing by a cross with tears in her eyes.
‘Oh, Jacket! What a pretty idea. Do you see? This is a child’s grave, and there is a glass-faced case under the cross containing the child’s toys. I’ll have something of the sort made for Aunt Betsy.’
‘But—mamma—she——’
‘Of course she had no toys, but she had a moustache-cup, not that she grew a moustache like a man, but she was very particular about her drinking out of her own cup; and when she was with us ten years ago, she took a fancy to a moustache cup I had, and I gave it her. She said that none of the men or maids at Chanticleer would use and dirty that. Now I’ll have a little case made, and a sheet of glass, and a crook, and hang up Aunt Betsy’s moustache-cup on her tombstone. It will be quite beautiful, and moving to the feelings.’
When Mrs. Fairbrother was back in the carriage, she said, ‘There is one thing I have seen which is horrible. The idea of letting graves by leases for five, seven, or ten years, and then digging up the dead and chucking the bones into a common pit. I’ll hire the ground as you call it ‘in perpetuity’ for Aunt Betsy. Let graves on lease, by paying!—and that where you have written up Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity! I can’t understand it. You’ll kindly manage that for me, gentlemen, will you not? I’ll have Aunt Betsy properly tucked away in perpetuity.’
But Aunt Betsy was not dead. She received her relatives at her door on their arrival.
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