fib), hoped they were well, hoped Mrs. Sykes’s cough was better (Mrs. Sykes had had a cough for the last twenty years), hoped the Misses Sykes had left their sisters at home well; to which inquiry the Misses Sykes, sitting on three chairs opposite the music stool, whereon Caroline had undesignedly come to anchor, after wavering for some seconds between it and a large armchair, into which she at length recollected she ought to induct Mrs. Sykes – and indeed that lady saved her the trouble by depositing herself therein – the Misses Sykes replied to Caroline by one simultaneous bow, very majestic and mighty awful. A pause followed. This bow was of a character to ensure silence for the next five minutes, and it did. Mrs. Sykes then inquired after Mr. Helstone, and whether he had had any return of rheumatism, and whether preaching twice on a Sunday fatigued him, and if he was capable of taking a full service now; and on being assured he was, she and all her daughters, combining in chorus, expressed their opinion that he was “a wonderful man of his years.”
Pause second.
Miss Mary, getting up the steam in her turn, asked whether Caroline had attended the Bible Society meeting which had been held at Nunnely last Thursday night. The negative answer which truth compelled Caroline to utter – for last Thursday evening she had been sitting at home, reading a novel which Robert had lent her – elicited a simultaneous expression of surprise from the lips of the four ladies.
“We were all there,” said Miss Mary—“mamma and all of us. We even persuaded papa to go. Hannah would insist upon it. But he fell asleep while Mr. Langweilig, the German Moravian minister, was speaking. I felt quite ashamed, he nodded so.”
“And there was Dr. Broadbent,” cried Hannah—“such a beautiful speaker! You couldn’t expect it of him, for he is almost a vulgar-looking man.”
“But such a dear man,” interrupted Mary.
“And such a good man, such a useful man,” added her mother.
“Only like a butcher in appearance,” interposed the fair, proud Harriet. “I couldn’t bear to look at him. I listened with my eyes shut.”
Miss Helstone felt her ignorance and incompetency. Not having seen Dr. Broadbent, she could not give her opinion. Pause third came on. During its continuance, Caroline was feeling at her heart’s core what a dreaming fool she was, what an unpractical life she led, how little fitness there was in her for ordinary intercourse with the ordinary world. She was feeling how exclusively she had attached herself to the white cottage in the Hollow, how in the existence of one inmate of that cottage she had pent all her universe. She was sensible that this would not do, and that someday she would be forced to make an alteration. It could not be said that she exactly wished to resemble the ladies before her, but she wished to become superior to her present self, so as to feel less scared by their dignity.
The sole means she found of reviving the flagging discourse was by asking them if they would all stay to tea; and a cruel struggle it cost her to perform this piece of civility. Mrs. Sykes had begun, “We are much obliged to you, but…” when in came Fanny once more.
“The gentlemen will stay the evening, ma’am,” was the message she brought from Mr. Helstone.
“What gentlemen have you?” now inquired Mrs. Sykes. Their names were specified; she and her daughters interchanged glances. The curates were not to them what they were to Caroline. Mr. Sweeting was quite a favourite with them; even Mr. Malone rather so, because he was a clergyman. “Really, since you have company already, I think we will stay,” remarked Mrs. Sykes. “We shall be quite a pleasant little party. I always like to meet the clergy.”
And now Caroline had to usher them upstairs, to help them to unshawl, smooth their hair, and make themselves smart; to reconduct them to the drawing room, to distribute amongst them books of engravings, or odd things purchased from the Jew-basket. She was obliged to be a purchaser, though she was but a slack contributor; and if she had possessed plenty of money, she would rather, when it was brought to the rectory – an awful incubus! – have purchased the whole stock than contributed a single pincushion.
It ought perhaps to be explained in passing, for the benefit of those who are not au fait to the mysteries of the “Jew-basket” and “missionary-basket,” that these meubles are willow repositories, of the capacity of a good-sized family clothesbasket, dedicated to the purpose of conveying from house to house a monster collection of pincushions, needle books, card racks, workbags, articles of infant wear, etc., etc., etc., made by the willing or reluctant hands of the Christian ladies of a parish, and sold perforce to the heathenish gentlemen thereof, at prices unblushingly exorbitant. The proceeds of such compulsory sales are applied to the conversion of the Jews, the seeking up of the ten missing tribes, or to the regeneration of the interesting coloured population of the globe. Each lady contributor takes it in her turn to keep the basket a month, to sew for it, and to foist off its contents on a shrinking male public. An exciting time it is when that turn comes round. Some active-minded woman, with a good trading spirit, like it, and enjoy exceedingly the fun of making hard-handed worsted-spinners cash up, to the tune of four or five hundred per cent above cost price, for articles quite useless to them; other feebler souls object to it, and would rather see the prince of darkness himself at their door any morning than that phantom basket, brought with “Mrs. Rouse’s compliments; and please, ma’am, she says it’s your turn now.”
Miss Helstone’s duties of hostess performed, more anxiously than cheerily, she betook herself to the kitchen, to hold a brief privy-council with Fanny and Eliza about the tea.
“What a lot on ’em!” cried Eliza, who was cook. “And I put off the baking today because I thought there would be bread plenty to fit while morning. We shall never have enow.”
“Are there any teacakes?” asked the young mistress.
“Only three and a loaf. I wish these fine folk would stay at home till they’re asked; and I want to finish trimming my hat” (bonnet she meant).
“Then,” suggested Caroline, to whom the importance of the emergency gave a certain energy, “Fanny must run down to Briarfield and buy some muffins and crumpets and some biscuits. And don’t be cross, Eliza; we can’t help it now.”
“And which tea things are we to have?”
“Oh, the best, I suppose. I’ll get out the silver service.” And she ran upstairs to the plate closet, and presently brought down teapot, cream ewer, and sugar basin.
“And mun we have th’ urn?”
“Yes; and now get it ready as quickly as you can, for the sooner we have tea over the sooner they will go – at least, I hope so. Heigh-ho! I wish they were gone,” she sighed, as she returned to the drawing room. “Still,” she thought, as she paused at the door ere opening it, “if Robert would but come even now how bright all would be! How comparatively easy the task of amusing these people if he were present! There would be an interest in hearing him talk (though he never says much in company) and in talking in his presence. There can be no interest in hearing any of them, or in speaking to them. How they will gabble when the curates come in, and how weary I shall grow with listening to them! But I suppose I am a selfish fool. These are very respectable gentlefolks. I ought, no doubt, to be proud of their countenance. I don’t say they are not as good as I am – far from it – but they are different from me.”
She went in.
Yorkshire people in those days took their tea round the table, sitting well into it, with their knees duly introduced under the mahogany. It was essential to have a multitude of plates of bread and butter, varied in sorts and plentiful in quantity. It was thought proper, too, that on the centre plate should stand a glass dish of marmalade. Among the viands was expected to be found a small assortment of cheesecakes and
