Chapter II: Ladies in Council

WHILE Mr. Coffin was criticising the ladies of Thwayte, the ladies, on their part, were passing judgment upon Mr. Coffin.

When the late easy-tempered, openhanded, good-natured proprietor of Burnesbey Abbey had paid the debt of nature, the character of his successor became a subject of curious conjecture, a matter of personal interest to all who dwelt in the neighbourhood. Sir John Coffin had held no very lofty place in men's esteem during his lifetime; but, like many more noble than himself, the fox-hunting squire was destined to be more highly appreciated after his departure from earth than during his residence in it.

At the dinner-party given in his honour by Lady Macaw, Mr. Coffin may be said to have made his first appearance in that circle in which his position as a large landed proprietor would henceforth give him a prominent place. Caleb had indeed spent two or three days in the parsonage of Thwayte during the lifetime of his sister, Mrs. Lamb, the wife of the vicar—but years had elapsed since that visit. Lady Macaw, who had chanced then to meet him, had described Mr. Coffin to her husband as a satirical, talkative man, who looked as if he would be shrewd in business and sharp in driving a bargain. The lady had almost forgotten the merchant's existence when, by succeeding to the Burnesbey estate, Caleb suddenly became to her, as to the other residents near him, an object of curious interest, and a topic of gossiping talk. Lady Macaw had, as we have seen, asked the lord of the manor to dinner, giving him a formal entertainment, the preparation of which had cost her a good deal of consideration and arrangement, if it had cost her little besides. Lady Macaw, who regarded herself as the ruling spirit in Thwayte, had determined to secure, if possible, the master of Burnesbey Abbey, as one of the ministers of her will.

"First impressions are everything," as Lady Macaw observed to Sir Patrick, her meek little husband, who passed a quiet life of obscurity under the shadow of his wife.

What impressions had been made on Mr. Coffin may have been gathered from the conversation related in the last chapter; what impressions the new lord of the manor had himself made upon Thwayte society, shall be recorded in this.

Let me introduce my reader into the pretty country-residence to which Lady Macaw has given the name of the Villa of Roses. In her drawing-room is gathered together the little working-party of ladies who meet on each Tuesday to make pretty trifles for the fancy-bazaar, the proceeds of which are to place a bronze statue of a very distinguished statesman in the market-place of G—, the nearest county town.

The room is furnished in modern style, and with some regard to taste. Chromolithographs in elegant frames adorn the gilt papered walls, mirrors on either side reflect each other in endless perspective, from the ceiling hangs the bright chandelier, lighted only on grand occasions. Every angle and "coign of vantage" holds the narrow shelf laden with old porcelain, carved ivory, Italian cameos, or Chinese idols (Sir Patrick made his money, and won his title, in China). A large table, near the centre of the room, is heaped with muslin, silk, tape, bobbins, dolls, things made and in process of making, and at this table sits Lady Macaw, the presiding genius, a woman of portly dimensions, large nose, and prominent chin, dressed with strict regard to the fashion, and bearing herself with an air of stately condescension which she mistakes for dignity. Lady Macaw is the self-constituted patroness of the village of Thwayte in general, and of its three unmarried ladies in particular; Philomel Lamb having lost her mother, and Mrs. Langton, the doctor's sickly wife, being little better than a cipher in the eyes of Lady Macaw.

The two Misses Langton form a striking contrast to each other. There, on a footstool, sits merry black-eyed Lucy, making her "love of a hedgehog" pincushion bristle all over with pins, as she laughs and chats with her nearest neighbour, achieving as much in the talking way as she does in the working. She is a girl ever ready for frolic and fun, a restless little creature, who can never be happy in one place for a fortnight together, and who is always paying visits or flying off on her travels. Lucy has climbed the mountains of Norway, dived into the catacombs of Rome, ascended the Great Pyramid itself, and cut her initials on the top. Reclining amongst soft cushions, appears Delia, her sister, a fair pretty girl, with languid air and conscious simper, toying affectedly with the long strip of patchwork which is lying across her knee. The one maiden reminds us of the swallow, all energy and action; the other, of some pretty goldfinch, pruning its feathers in sunshine.

Near to Delia appears an elderly lady. In her turned and faded blue-green poplin, and long dingy olive-green veil, how familiar is the stunted form of Priscilla Eccles to every child in the village! No working-party would be complete without her; whenever a kind act is to be done, especially if it involve inconvenience and trouble, the aid of good Miss Eccles is always invoked, and is never refused. Save a weakness for gossip, a little disposition to be curious about her neighbour's concerns, natural to those who lead a secluded life in a village, Miss Eccles has few faults. Thwayte is a little world to the elderly maiden-lady, and though she occasionally visits G— for shopping (rather to execute commissions than to improve her own slender wardrobe), such a journey is as great an undertaking to Miss Eccles as one across the Atlantic would be to Lucy Langton.

The only member of the little working-party at the Villa of Roses who remains to be mentioned is Philomel Lamb, the vicar's daughter, a girl with a bright sweet face, simply attired, and wearing no ornament but a profusion of golden tresses, which shadow her temples and fall on her shoulders. It is from this fashion of wearing her hair as she did in the days of her childhood that Philomel has acquired the playful cognomen of "the Lamb of the golden fleece." Never has that luxuriant hair been imprisoned in plait, or twisted up into chignon.

In vain, had Lady Macaw given hints about attention to fashion, and the incongruity of a young lady "who has come out" wearing her hair in a way only suitable to a child, or a wax doll. Lady Macaw, who plumed herself on deep knowledge of human nature, thought that there was a little vanity and love of singularity in Philomel's choosing to keep her curls when every other lady brushed her hair from her brows, and wore a chignon at the back of her head. Miss Eccles, more good-natured in her judgment, had suggested that Philomel kept to her old way "because Mrs. Lamb, poor dear soul, was so fond of her child's yellow curls." Delia believed that the vicar's daughter studied the becomings, and liked to make the most of her only beauty; while Lucy always laughingly averred that Philomel chose the style of coiffure which cost her least trouble and thought. It is needless to decide which conjecture was most correct, perhaps each had some shadow of truth; be that as it may, Philomel retained her flowing locks, and her name of Lamb of the golden fleece.

"And what did you think of our new squire?" inquired Miss Eccles, in an audible whisper to Delia. The elder lady had not been at the dinner-party on the preceding evening; she had not even had the usual invitation to drop in at tea. Lady Macaw, after due consideration, had decided that "the worthy old creature" would not improve Mr. Coffin's first impressions of Thwayte society.

"He's an owl," lisped Delia.

"He's an old horror," cried Lucy; both sisters replying in a breath.

"My dears, you forget that Mr. Coffin is Philomel's uncle," said Lady Macaw, glancing at the vicar's daughter, who was seated at the open window, busy with a child's little frock.

"Oh, there is no one more provoked with him than I am," cried Philomel, without raising her eyes from her work.

"Certainly Mr. Coffin has less idea of what society demands from one in his position than any land-owner whom I ever met with," observed Lady Macaw. "He carries the habits and ideas of the counting-house into the fine old country mansion. When I expressed, as in courtesy bound, a hope that I should see him at the fancy-fair to be held in June,—

"'You go there to "sell," I suppose,' said he, 'but I should go there "to be sold." You should have Butler's lines over the door as a motto,—

"'"Doubtless the pleasure is as great
Of being cheated as to cheat."

"'Only I for one don't subscribe to the axiom.'

"Fancy any gentleman giving such a reply to a lady!"

"I daresay that he thought it witty," cried Lucy, "though every one else would think it simply rude; and that he ended with that horrid little hiss of a self-gratulatory laugh, which irritates more than his words. I sat next to Mr. Coffin at dinner, you know, so had an opportunity of testing his humour. I told him that we all looked to him to keep up good old customs in the place; that I delighted in riding, and hoped often to follow his pack as I had done that of Sir John, whose hospitality and public spirit were famous over the county."

"And what did Mr. Coffin reply?" asked Delia, pausing in her occupation of snipping pieces of many-coloured silks for her patchwork.

"That he would like to see me riding after hounds, but that they should not be hounds fed in his kennels; and that, as for hospitality, though he liked a good dinner well enough, he'd no notion of keeping open house for every one else who might do so."

There was a murmur of disapprobation amongst the fair workers; and Lucy stuck her pins into her hedgehog with savage rapidity, in a manner which suggested the idea that she would willingly have bestowed her quick pricks in another direction. Mr. Coffin was sinking lower and lower in the estimation of the ladies of Thwayte.

"I had very little to say to the old owl," lisped Delia. "I only asked him whether we should see him at the archery-meeting on Wednesday, to which he assented. Then I ventured to observe that this time we had no prize worth shooting for, the ladies' prize being but, a poor brooch in form of a silver arrow. I showed him my own prize bracelet, which I won last year, and remarked, quite 'en passant,' you know, that Sir John had always presented a twenty guinea prize for the ladies to shoot for.

"'Did he?' said Mr. Coffin drily, peering through his goggles at my bracelet, as if he meant to bid for it.

"I observed that Sir John had been a popular man."

"How did Mr. Coffin take so delicate a hint from a fair young lady?" inquired Lady Macaw, with a smile.

"Oh, he answered me in his own cynical way.

"'So Sir John gave twenty guineas, did he?'

"I assented.

"'And Sir John bought popularity with a check for that sum?'

"I did not know what to reply to so odd a question, but I suppose that Mr. Coffin took my silence for consent, for he went on,—

"'I think that popularity was dear at the figure—he! he! he!—He might have made a much better bargain.'"

"Vulgar!" exclaimed Lady Macaw, with a slight toss of her stately head.

"Mean!" muttered the indignant Lucy.

"But I have something worse—much worse to tell," said Philomel Lamb, laying down her work on her knee.

So alarming an announcement excited the curiosity and attention of every member of the little conclave. Delia suspended her snipping, Lucy her vigorous pin-sticking, Lady Macaw left off counting her stitches, and the knitting-needles of Miss Eccles ceased their almost perpetual motion.

"You know that for years and years before I was born," said Philomel, "the pretty cottage on the moor has been used as our village school."

"From time immemorial it has been so," observed Lady Macaw.

"It has been as natural to go to the class there on Sundays as to church!" cried Lucy Langton, who had taught by fits and starts, as she did everything else, plunging into philanthropy with the same energy that she did into pleasure.

"I never even knew until to-day," continued the Lamb of the golden fleece, "that the cottage was part of the Burnesbey Abbey estate, though we all were aware that the schoolmaster's salary was paid by the lord of the manor. The money had come so regularly, so much as a matter of course, that what had gone on for so long seemed as if it must go on for ever."

"Certainly it did," said Lady Macaw.

"But Uncle Coffin does 'not' think it a matter of course," pursued Philomel Lamb. "He means to stop the salary, turn out the good Arkwrights, break up the school, and make a village inn, as he calls it—I should say a public-house—of the cottage."

"Impossible!" cried both the Misses Langton.

"Impossible!" echoed Lady Macaw; while Miss Eccles, looking aghast, dropped half-a-dozen stitches in her dismay.

"Papa is so dreadfully vexed about it," continued Philomel Lamb; "all he could say he has said to prevent it. But there is no use arguing with Uncle Coffin, so the school will be given up."

"This can't be allowed," cried Lady Macaw, with decision.

"How can it be hindered?" faintly sighed poor Miss Eccles.

"Can't we get up a school in some other spot?" inquired Lucy.

"There's not another cottage available, I am afraid; and then there's the master and mistress's salary," began Philomel.

"Never mind salary!" exclaimed the energetic and unpractical Lucy. "We'll have it an honorary affair; you'll take the girls—I'll go in for the boys."

"My dear, my dear, you forget that you are going to Paris next week," interrupted Lady Macaw. "There must be salaried teachers, and where is the money to come from?"

"Where, indeed?" said Miss Eccles, who could hardly be expected to contribute much out of her fifty pounds per annum.

"Would not the people of G— help?" asked Lucy, with animation. "I should like us to show this skin-flint that we can do very well without him."

Lady Macaw shook her head with the grave dignity of a Burleigh. "The people of G— will do nothing in the matter," she said; "no interest will be felt in the school of a village five miles away. G— could not get up subscriptions sufficient for the statue in its own market-place without the assistance which I am giving it."

Miss Eccles whispered something to Delia, which no one else could hear. The young lady slightly shrugged her shoulders, and raised her pretty eyebrows as her only reply. Philomel guessed that the elderly lady in the faded green veil had been giving voice to the thought in her own mind, that a school in Thwayte was a good deal more needful than even a statue in G—.

"I'll tell you what I will do," said Lady Macaw; every one present was silent to hear the proposition of the ruling spirit in Thwayte. "I'll write to Mr. Coffin myself."

"Much he is likely to care for that," was the silent comment on the lady's words made by her hearers.

"Why should not Philomel try what she can make of her uncle?" cried Lucy Langton. "Most men have a weak point, if one only knows where to hit it. For aught that I know, the old screech-owl may be excessively fond of his niece."

Philomel shook her curly tresses. "I am afraid there is no strong affection between us," she said; "though my uncle has been rather kind after his own peculiar fashion, and gave me the first sovereign that I ever possessed in my life."

"Ah, he can then give something better than sneers and bad jokes," observed Delia.

"It was a long time ago," said Philomel, "when my uncle came here on a visit. He showed me a sovereign and a large gilt medal, and asked me which I would have for my own. Child as I was, I fancied that the medal was but a larger piece of gold coin, and was about to choose it as that with which I could buy most (for my dear parents had already taught me something of what money can do), when the hole in the medal attracted my notice.

"'What is that hole for?' I asked.

"'To put a ribbon in,' said my uncle, 'that you may hang the pretty thing round your neck. The big piece is for ornament, the little piece is for use.'

"I then took up the sovereign at once, saying, 'that I liked to have money to spend, and not to hang round my neck.'

"Uncle Coffin clapped me on the shoulder, and said, laughing, 'Well done, my little curly-poll, may you always have the sense to prefer use to show.'"

"Then there is a way of getting round the old owl!" cried Lucy.

"I daresay that he has a kind heart after all," observed Miss Eccles.

"I will certainly write to him," said Lady Macaw, folding by her piece of German work with an air of calm self-complacence and reliance on the power of her pen, which roused a little spirit of emulation in the Lamb of the golden fleece.

"I will do my best, my very best, to coax my uncle to let us have the cottage for our schoolhouse still, and to continue the salary to the Arkwrights, so kindly paid by Sir John. I will go over to the Abbey at once," said Philomel, rising from her seat, for she felt impatient to try her powers of persuasion, and being young and of a buoyant spirit, she was now full of hope of success.

"You will not come with us, then, to practise archery in the field?" asked Lucy Langton. "Remember the bow-meeting is to be to-morrow; and if the silver arrow is scarcely worth contending for, we must shoot for the credit of the ladies of Thwayte."

"The school is of more importance than the silver arrow," replied Philomel; "and to save it from being broken up might do as much for the ladies of Thwayte as carrying off a prize from all the archers in England."

"By-the-bye, is Mr. Latour to be at the meeting?" inquired Miss Eccles of Philomel Lamb.

The question was a simple one, but it was accompanied with a knowing, inquisitive look; and it certainly heightened the colour on the cheek of the village maiden. The blue eyes sank, perhaps because, for some reason or other, all the other eyes in the room were turned towards her.

"I don't know—probably—I'm not sure," replied the young lady.

"But 'I' am sure," replied Miss Delia Langton. "Mr. Latour told me that he would certainly be present, and shoot; no doubt he'll carry off the gentlemen's prize, for we've no other such archer in the county."

Perhaps it was only fancy that made Philomel detect a slight emphasis on the first personal pronoun used by the prettiest girl in Thwayte, and only prejudice that made her feel provoked at what she thought a conscious simper upon the lips of Delia Langton.

"Well, Philomel, if you're really bound for the Abbey on your philanthropic mission," cried Lucy, "I heartily wish you success. May you bring down the owl with your first shot, pluck his plumage to your heart's content, and wear as a trophy a feather in your cap, or your flowing hair, to the end of your days."