Page:ONCE A WEEK JUL TO DEC 1860.pdf/600

 592 and the sender being mutually engaged in tricking each other. In very large machines there are very small wheels, and, mean as they are, the machinist who should leave them out might induce a crash among his grand works. And he who depicts the machine must show the little wheels as well as the rest, though it would be more dignified to draw only the majestic-moving pistons and the fiery fly-wheel.

Dinner passed over very quietly, and such conversation as arose was the result of effort. For Lygon, as may be imagined, was too full of his own great trouble, and was looking forward too eagerly to the revelation which Berry had promised him on the morrow, to have much animation to spare upon dinner-table commonplace, of the kind that would be acceptable to Mrs. Berry. That lady, whose wrath did not require nursing to keep it warm—an educated woman’s qualifications for making herself detestable being of course superior to those of a Scottish she-peasant—was sufficiently angular, incisive, and observant during the meal, but did not betray any overt hostility to any one. Indeed Clara, who was permitted to join her elders, rather benefitted by the situation of affairs, for Mrs. Berry, who would ordinarily, and in pursuance of her favourite tactics, have done the child what discomfort she could in the way of matronly checking, and the withholding anything Clara might be supposed especially to desire, chose to be gracious and even playful with her, and bestowed extra jam with the omelette, and a double libation of cream and sugar with the strawberries. The little girl, however, was not old enough to square the account, and to allow a person whom she instinctively disliked to bribe herself into Clara’s good graces, as you and I, being rational people do. Nay did, only last week, when you yourself said to me, as we walked down to the Club from old Pinchbeck’s, that certainly Pinchbeck was a coarse old beast, and as great an old fool as ever didn’t understand a good story, but his dinner was a first-rate one, and the wine out-and-out, and I agreed with you that we would speak to some of the Committee, and try to get him in, if we could. But if we were not wiser than children, where would be the use of growing up?

The evening hung sadly on hand, in spite of the loveliness of the soft summer evening. The four wandered about the gardens, but no laugh woke the stillness of the place, and even Clara, subdued, laid her hand in her father’s, paced silently by his side, and restrained her desire to go and sit on the little tree-bridge, and see the water dance in the moonlight.

Mrs. Berry returned to the house, on hearing that a visitor was in the drawing-room.

When the gentlemen were summoned to tea, they found the mistress of the house, and the visitor. This was a somewhat malevolent-looking old lady in spectacles, who emitted a sort of grunt at Clara (as if the latter had done her some wrong in being so young, while the other was so old, a grievance a good deal felt by those who have made an unworthy use of life), and immediately told her to sit down and be quiet, the child having given no offence at all beyond what her presence caused. On a small table lay open a map of Herefordshire.

“This is Aunt Empson, Mr. Lygon. This is Mr. Lygon, aunt dear, who married Laura Vernon, you remember her?”

“I remember her,” grunted Aunt Empson. “She’s grow’d older than when I know’d her. I hope she’s grow’d more steadier.”

“Mamma was always steady,” was Clara’s instant deliverance of reply.

Aunt Empson looked evilly at the speaker, and but that Clara was protected would probably have called her to approach, and then pinched her.

“Quite right to stand up for mamma,” said Mr. Lygon, who would himself have liked to say something offensive to the impertinent old woman, but did not see a gentlemanly opening. He was in no mood, by this time, to bear gratuitous annoyance.

“But speaking of mamma,” said Mrs. Berry, in a loud and playful voice, “where is she? For aunty is a Herefordshire woman, and does not recollect the name of Long Edgcombe, and we can’t find it in the map.”

“No, really?” said Lygon, with a voice into which he certainly managed to throw an expression of extreme carelessness as to whether they could or could not. “Bad map, I suppose.”

“A very good map, on the contrary,” said Mrs. Berry.

“Then you don’t look close enough, I suppose,” returned Mr. Lygon, waxing still more angry at being tormented. “I can see it from here,” he said, determined on a bold stroke, and half raising himself on the sofa to give a glance across at the map. “Let Aunt Empson wipe her spectacles, and then she’ll see more steadier. Ha! ha!”

It would have been dreadfully rude—was—but consider the provocation, and what Arthur Lygon was thinking of, while the women set upon him. Mrs. Berry was either repulsed, or felt a moment’s respect for the enemy. Only a moment’s.

“Clara, dear, come here.”

O, she was not going to pinch the child.

“What was the name,” she said, taking Clara’s hand, “what was the name of the lady whom papa said that mamma was gone to see? Do you remember?”

“O yes,” said Clara, “I remember it, because it is a funny name. It’s like saying you had eaten a cat—it’s Mrs. Cateaton.”

“So it is,” said Mrs. Berry. “I fancied we were wrong, somehow. That was not the name you put on the envelope for me, Mr. Lygon.”

“Nonsense,” said Arthur Lygon. “I sincerely beg your pardon a thousand times, Mrs. Berry; but the idea of my making a mistake in the name is too absurd.”

“I am positive that you wrote something else.”

“Not likely,” said Mr. Berry, who had a shadow of a suspicion that Arthur might have been doing something to throw the amiable Marion off the scent. “We never make mistakes in Somerset House, Arthur, do we?”

“We never allow them to be mistakes,” said the official gentleman.

“Not even when they are put under your eyes?” said Mrs. Berry, suddenly throwing