P.S.—I have just received a note from Captain Bennett saying he found my handkerchief sticking to his coat when he got into the Club, and asking if he may restore it to me in person to-morrow.
LETTER III
Monk's Folly, 1st August
Dearest Elizabeth:
A Mature Young Man
L'ingénue va bien. I am so glad you managed to put that odious Mrs. Smith in her place. It is really too revolutionary to be forced to accept such people, but what you tell me about her and Lord Valmond surprises me. I can quite understand a woman of her stamp liking the admiration of Valmond, for he is young and good-looking, and a marquis, but what can he see in her? He is one of those young men who mature quickly; at fifteen he could tell whether a woman put on her chemise or her petticoat first, and at one and twenty he knew the Rake's Catechism by heart. But I have always heard that he was intelligent, and his people were never afraid of his doing something foolish. He takes his menus plaisirs like a gentleman, but why he should be so devoted to this Mrs. Smith I cannot conceive. She is not pretty, she is not witty; Lord Valmond is rich, surely he does not want to borrow money from her. I shall be glad when you leave Nazeby Hall; it is one thing to catch a marquis, and another thing to get scratched in the effort. You must leave at once, otherwise you will be forced to play your trump card—the art of being an ingénue. Leave at once, Valmond will be sure to follow. The slap on the cheek was excellent; no man ever forgets a woman who has left the print of her fingers on his face, he will either hate her or love her. If the man is a man and was in the wrong, he will be forced to admire the woman who could protect herself against him. Leave Nazeby, Elizabeth; Valmond is a man and a gentleman, let him know that you are a lady and virtuous.
The Handkerchief Returned
This morning, just before lunch, Fifine and I were dozing on the lawn under the big Japanese umbrella, when James came to tell me that Captain Bennett was in the drawing-room. Of course he came to return my handkerchief—it was very polite of him to bring it himself, especially as he rode all the way from Taunton in a blazing sun, along a road lying under nearly a foot of dust. Naturally, I could not let him go back without lunch, and afterwards, when I thought he would go, he asked me to let him look over my songs, as he wanted something to sing at a smoker to-night, which the Yeomanry are giving for him and the Earl of Mortimer. He tried nearly all, and tea was brought in before he got one to suit his voice, which is really Captain Bennetta very good one. He is a very gentlemanly man, and has a shy way of looking at one, that is quite naïve in a soldier. He wouldn't believe me when I told him I had a daughter seventeen, until I showed him your photograph. He seemed so astonished that I was obliged to tax him with being extremely ungallant. I asked him if he expected a woman to be old at thirty-five because she happened to marry at seventeen, and he gave me such a look that I felt quite uncomfortable. His eyes were not at all shy, but looked like sparks of blue fire. Just then there was the sound of a carriage driving up, and Mrs. Chevington and the Blaine girls rushed into the room. Fell in would be more correct, for so few Englishwomen know how to enter a room quickly and gracefully. They didn't know Captain Bennett, and as I thought I had had enough of him for one day, I wouldn't introduce him.
He has a horrid way of shaking hands, and left the print of my opal ring on my middle finger. I told him to keep the songs as long as he wished, but he is so awfully polite he said he would return them to-morrow. When he had gone, Daisy Blaine asked me if I had heard that he said in the Taunton Club he intended to marry money, which I thought very spiteful of her.
Mrs. Chevington was greatly agitated by the report that an American family have taken Astley Court. She said that everybody is asking Lady Beatrice Carterville if she is going to call on them. I believe, if Lady Beatrice should marry Mr. Frame, Mrs. Chevington would find an excuse for her. Whenever she passes the lions at Braxome Lodge, Mrs. Chevington is pervaded with the most sacred emotions—she has admitted as much to me. There are some people to whom blue blood is more intoxicating than champagne, and who look on a pedigree as a reservoir which you can never exhaust. The odd part of it is, that Mrs. Chevington is not a snob, she is merely common or garden respectable.
The Ghost
The Blaine girls asked a great many questions about you, and if it was true that the ghost walked every night at Nazeby (Mrs. Chevington had told them about your letter which I read to her). Blanche Blaine said she wouldn't visit such a house as Nazeby for all the possible husbands it might contain, which I think was rude of her, but admitted, when I seemed cross, that once she had a similar experience at Great Ruin Castle. Her adventure was more sensational than yours, for Mrs. Maltravers, who had the room next to her, told her their corridor was haunted and that several people who on hearing noises had come out of their rooms to see what it was, had gone mad. But the ghost has yet to walk who can frighten Blanche Blaine. Immediately after Mrs. Maltravers, who had seen Blanche into her bed-room to reassure her, she said, had kissed her good-night and left, Blanche opened her door softly and peeped cautiously into the corridor, and while she looked she distinctly saw the ghost advancing towards her; and the ghost carried a candle in one hand, and wore crimson plush knee-breeches and white stockings and its hair was powdered. And while Blanche was uncertain whether to scream or faint the ghost vanished into Mrs. Maltravers' room. Blanche said she waited to hear Mrs. Maltravers scream, but as not a sound came from her room, Blanche believed her imagination had got the better of her, so she bolted her door and went to bed.
The weather has been so fine that my neuralgia has entirely gone, and I am accepting all invitations. Write me when you reach Eaton Place.—Your dearest Mamma.
LETTER IV
Monk's Folly, 3rd August
Darling Elizabeth:
The Parkers Arrive
Mrs. Chevington walked over yesterday before tea expressly to tell me, she said, that Mr. Phineas T. Parker and family, of New York, had arrived at Astley Court, having travelled down from London in a special Pullman attached to the Bristol express. I saw two of them this morning in Taunton going into St. Mary's with Baedekers, and Lady Beatrice called on them this afternoon, and by the end of the month the Parkers will be a county family. They are fabulously rich; I forget how many hundred million dollars Mr. Parker is worth, and of course nobody asks how he made his money. Algy says they are all kings in America and it doesn't matter, but as for that it doesn't matter in England either, where at the most the millionaires are only barons.
Nobody can talk of anything but their arrival, and everybody is singing Lady Beatrice's praises for having called on them so soon. Captain Bennett, who came this afternoon to bring back the songs and stupidly left two behind, says she should be canonised. Mr. Parker and his son have already been proposed and seconded at the Taunton Club; they have been asked to dine at the mess on guest-night; and both Father Ribbit and Mr. Frame, the High Church rector and Low Church curate, have offered them pews under the pulpit, and asked them to subscribe respectively to the Convent School of the Passionate Nuns and the Daily Soup Dispensary. But rumour has it that the Parkers are Baptists, and are going to the chapel in Holmes' the grocer's back-yard. I shall drive Mrs. Chevington over to Astley to-morrow and leave your card with mine.
On coming home from Taunton this morning, Perkins drove by Braxome. You know part of the road runs through the park, and I saw Lady Beatrice's equestrian cook out for an airing on a brown cob, with a couple of Gordon setters sniffing its hoofs. She really looked quite lady-like. Mrs. Chevington says her habit was made at Redfern's. Lady Beatrice found her in the Want column of the Standard.
"Young woman desires situation in County Family, as cook, housemaid, or companion; cook preferred. Must have use of horse daily. Highest references."
Lady Beatrice is delighted