Chapter VII: The Fair Sophia

Had I waited a day or two, I should have had no occasion to ask Teresa Lovett if her family formed the English population of St. Pucelle. The news of my arrival spread like wild-fire, and before a week was over my head, I had been introduced to every individual, English or Belgian, in the place. The very first whom I had the pleasure of meeting was Miss Sophia Markham, who ran in—Miss Markham never walked—on the morning following my arrival. As soon as I entered the room I recognised her, from the description given me the night before. She was so wonderfully infantile in dress, manner, and conversation. She was a woman of forty—of forty-five—perhaps even fifty years of age, but she was very well preserved and looked much younger. And this preservation had been accomplished, not by means of cosmetics, but by the lack of them. Miss Markham was wise in her generation. She knew that powder and paint never yet hid wrinkles effectually, and that to dye the hair a different colour from that which nature has bestowed upon it, is to violate one of the first principles of art.

But this fact must not lead one to suppose that she was not intensely vain of her personal appearance, and took any amount of trouble to maintain it. For years past she had never gone to bed without plastering her face with cold cream, in order to keep her skin soft and unwrinkled. Each grey hair, as it made its unwelcome appearance, had been sedulously rooted out, and she spent hours before the looking-glass, brushing and oiling the remainder. She had bestowed equal attention on her teeth and her complexion and her figure, and the result was, that in middle life, though she could not look a girl (as she fondly persisted in thinking that she did), Miss Sophia Markham had certainly contrived to drop at least ten years of her existence. She was a short woman, with a large head, and very small hands and feet, of which she was inordinately vain. She had fine eyes and good teeth; a large nose and a small brain. But, after the fashion of most mortals, she was so shortsighted as to be quite unable to distinguish in what she excelled and in what she did not, and persisted in imagining that her fleshy nose was a pert _retroussé_, and her mind of a ponderous and weighty order, equal in value to that of any of her peers.

As a child, she had given promise of a prettiness that had never been fulfilled. This was unfortunate, as her parents’ undue admiration had taught her to believe her pretensions would be realised, and after their death she had refused to be convinced that their judgment had proved false. She had been left alone in the world with a small income barely sufficient to procure the necessaries of life, and from an early period it had been borne in upon her mind that she must be dependent for its luxuries upon her friends. Miss Sophia knew which side her bread was buttered well enough. She found that, in order to be welcome in other people’s houses and allowed to stay there as long as she chose, she must give them a _quid pro quo_ for their hospitality over and above the charms of her mind and person, and the questionable merit of her talents. Some she had to fawn upon and flatter till they were full to surfeiting with praises of themselves: for others she was compelled to exercise her skill in needlework, and slave at making caps and dresses wherewith to adorn their persons and recoup them for the food she was consuming: to others, again, she acted as a foil or a blind, or in any other useful capacity that a woman past her _première jeunesse_ can fill, although she would have been quite faithless and unbelieving had she been told so.

At St. Pucelle she was staying, as Tessie had told me, with a couple of the name of Carolus, who were spending a few months on the Continent. It was easy to guess why _they_ had come together. Mrs. Carolus, although older than Miss Markham, was newly-married, and possessed scarcely any knowledge of French. Mr. Carolus also, who was again many years senior to his wife, was fussy, taciturn, and given, about every other day, to making sudden resolutions to return to England and his merchant’s office, which Mrs. Carolus was anxious to prevent. She found, therefore, in Miss Markham at once a companion, an interpreter, and an advocate to plead against and turn the rash intentions of her husband.

At the same time, the two ladies appeared to be of very congenial temperaments, if abusing each other behind their backs and everybody else in common might be taken in evidence of the fact.

On the first occasion of my meeting Miss Sophia Markham, she was attired in a white muslin dress striped with a tiny line of blue, that might have been put on a child of ten: a pelerine edged with lace, the pattern of which she had borrowed from Angela; and a broad-brimmed hat, trimmed with the same material and ornamented with a bunch of red cherries and leaves, that bobbed about in the most tempting manner each time she moved. In her arms she carried a little beast of a terrier, that snapped at every one who approached within a few yards of it, and which she spoke of and addressed as if it had been a human being.

In attempting to sketch a biography of Miss Markham as it came to my knowledge, little by little, I have made one grand omission, which is to state that, throughout her varied career, she had never lost, and evidently never would lose, the hope of being married. When she was young, nothing but a duke or a marquis could have satisfied her sense of what befitted her merits; in riper years, a baronet or a general would not have been rejected without consideration: now, she would have sworn to love, honour and obey anything, so long as it was in the shape of a man. From the youth of eighteen or twenty to the octogenarian, she could not be made to believe but that the whole race of man had been formed but for one purpose: to admire, follow, and fall in love with her. Yet she was by no means a specimen, at least outwardly, of what is termed ‘a spiteful old maid.’ All Miss Markham’s speeches were placid, and her words oil and honey. Even when she intended to sting most sharply, it was done under cover of the greatest amiability and the very best intentions, and she never lost an opportunity of wounding the self-love of others by encouraging and patronising them for that which they believed they did better than anything else. But I have spent too much time on a description of Miss Markham’s failings. She must come forward now and speak for herself.

When I first entered the room where she was sitting, I found her engaged in an animated conversation with the ‘little maid,’ on the component parts of a certain ball-dress which she had worn the month before at Paris.

‘Yes! it was so pretty, dear, the prettiest dress in the room, everybody said so—all pink and white silk—the very palest pink, you know—and little rosebuds peeping out every here and there from the trimming, and one gentleman said I looked just like a little rosebud myself in the midst of my pink and white drapery! He! he! he!’

At this juncture my entrance was perceived, and an introduction gone through.

‘_Marsh!_’ exclaimed Miss Markham, as if she had not heard my name before; ‘are you any relation to the Marshes of Northampton?’

‘No! I have never heard of them.’

‘They were great friends of mine—indeed, Walter Marsh wanted to marry me—he! he! he!—only I wouldn’t have him. He always used to call me “the pocket Venus;” and when I refused him, his family thought he would have gone out of his mind.’

‘You are so hard-hearted, Sophia! you have refused so many people,’ cried Tessie, laughing; but Miss Markham did not perceive that the laugh was against herself.

‘Well, one cannot marry every one, you see, and perhaps my early experience has made me rather particular. I was engaged to Lord Vauxhall, you know, before I was sixteen. Such a handsome man, and with an income of ten thousand a year. Ah! I was very foolish in those days.’

‘Why didn’t you marry him?’ asked Ange.

‘Well, dear, I broke off the engagement myself. I had been taught to look higher by my dear father, who did not think any man in the world good enough for me. Mrs. Carolus cannot understand such a thing. She evidently married the first man who asked her—and such a man, too! If you could only see the way he mumbles his food, it is enough to make one leave the dinnertable. And they go on in the most absurd manner for people of their age. She calls him “Willy,” and if he does anything she disapproves of, she says he’s “a naughty boy.” Did you ever hear anything like it? I have found out, from some things Mrs. Carolus has told me, that she must be past sixty herself. Why, she was at a finishing school when King William died. And as for Mr. Carolus, he must be ten or fifteen years older. He has had a wife before, and twelve children. I think he ought to have been ashamed of himself for marrying again. But as for her, poor thing! I expect it was her only chance, so you can scarcely wonder at her taking it. And I _have_ heard—but mind you don’t mention my name—that she was not _too_ particular in her younger days, and so I dare say it was rather unexpected her receiving an offer of marriage at all. My friends the Willoughbys met some people in Norfolk this spring, who lived in the same place as Mrs. Carolus’s family, and I hear they had some very queer stories to tell about her sisters and herself.’

‘Isn’t it a great pity,’ said Tessie, quietly, ‘that people should trouble themselves to take away the character of a woman who is a perfect stranger to them?’

‘Oh! but she was not a perfect stranger, my dear! They knew her well—by repute, that is to say. And, indeed, from all one hears, she must have been quite notorious some twenty or thirty years ago.’

‘Is it wise of you to stay with her, then?’ asked Ange, innocently.

I found afterwards that the little maid was very much in the habit of putting awkward questions in the most aggravatingly innocent manner. The present one caused Miss Markham to redden up like a peony.

‘As for that matter, Ange,’ she retorted, ‘I might go far enough, I expect, before I found any one to stay with against whose advantage there is not to be heard some story or other. I dare say Mrs. Carolus is no worse than many of your own friends; Lucy Edgecombe for instance, who ran away with and married a man against her parents’ wishes, and found out afterwards that he had a wife already in America. That was a nice little scandal, wasn’t it?’

‘Ah! poor Lucy!’ said Ange, her bright eyes filling with tears; ‘it has been a most terrible grief and misfortune for her—you know that, Miss Markham. I am sure I can never think of her without crying. She used to be such a bright merry girl when we knew her in Rille, two years ago. And it broke her poor old father’s heart.’

‘Oh yes! I dare say. These scandals always do break the heart of somebody or other, and generally the one who is least to blame in the matter. But that doesn’t alter the fact. Why do you let Ange wear her hair so much over her eyes, Tessie? It is not _bong tong_ at all. The Paris ladies all wear their hair taken off the forehead, as I do. But then you must have a high, intellectual forehead for that style to suit you.’

‘Papa likes her to wear it so,’ said Tessie.

‘And I am not a Paris lady, and I have not a high intellectual forehead,’ interposed Ange. ‘So I’m much better as I am.’

‘Perhaps so, my dear. Indeed your forehead is not high. Arthur Thrale was remarking only the other day that you had more of the _paysanne_ than the _ancienne noblesse_ air about you.’

‘Yet I should like to see papa’s pedigree placed by that of Arthur Thrale,’ cried Tessie, indignantly. ‘We have some of the best blood in England in our veins, though we are so poor. Papa has often said so, and Mrs. Carolus told us the other day that Mr. Thrale’s father is a large linendraper in one of the suburbs of London.’

‘Of course Mrs. Carolus will run the poor boy down, because he is so absurdly devoted to me. She has tried all she can to get him for herself, without success.’

‘Oh! Sophia! what can you be thinking of?’ exclaimed Tessie. ‘Why, Arthur Thrale is young enough to be——’

‘What?’ demanded Miss Markham, sharply.

‘Mrs. Carolus’s grandson,’ replied Tessie, saving herself by a grand _coup d’état_.

‘So he may be,’ said Miss Markham, drawing a long breath of relief, ‘but that makes no difference to her. Her jealousy of me is proverbial. She has even said—he! he! he!—that I have tried to turn “Willy’s” affections from her.’

‘There goes papa,’ remarked Ange, more with the intention of diverting attention from the folly of their visitor than anything else, as she pointed out Mr. Lovett walking past the window on his way to the town.

‘Well, good-bye then, dears, I can’t stay any longer,’ exclaimed Miss Markham with sudden energy, as she jumped up and kissed the two girls. ‘Adieu! Miss Marsh; I hope we shall soon meet again. Come! my sweet little Toodles,’ to the terrier, who was leaping and yapping round her; ‘did it want to go for a walk? Then its mammy shall take it for one, the dear little angel’; and off she tripped, with the dog at her heels, in the same direction as that taken by Mr. Lovett.

‘I wonder,’ said Ange thoughtfully, as she watched her from the open window, ‘why Sophia Markham always pretends to like papa so much. She is generally so bitter against old men and women. But just look at her now, Hilda. She is actually taking his arm. And oh! do see the cherries bobbing up and down in his face, I should catch one in my mouth if I were he. But do you think she is in earnest, Hilda, or is it humbug?’

‘How can I tell, Ange? I have only seen the woman for an hour. But even from that short experience, I should feel very much disposed to call it “humbug.” Miss Markham has not the face of a true woman, neither would I like to have her for my friend.’

‘I observed that you were very silent during her visit.’

‘I was listening to what she said, and judging her out of her own mouth; and I do not think your father would have cared for the style of conversation she kept up with you this morning. It was worse than idle.’

‘I think papa rather likes Miss Markham than otherwise,’ remarked Ange. ‘He is always pleased when she spends the evening here.’

‘Because she is such an abominable flatterer,’ said Tessie. ‘She praises up his appearance, and his preaching, and his daughters to him, till he does not know whether he is on his head or his heels. Any one would like it.’

‘Oh! Tessie! you do not suppose that papa could be influenced by a woman like that, just because she flattered him,’ cried Ange, with holy horror.

‘Well, no, perhaps not,’ replied Tessie, dubiously, whilst I thought myself that Mr. Lovett must be the saint his little daughter made him out, and not a man, if he were proof against flattery, even from Miss Markham.