“What a very handsome man that dark officer was that we nearly met! but I don’t like his looks,” mused Marie; and then, as Ruth was thinking that she would rather be getting on with some of the needlework that fell to her share than listening to her aunt’s lecture – one of the periodical discourses it was their fate to hear – there was another sharp “Hem!”
“Marriage,” said the Honourable Miss Dymcox, “is an institution that has existed from the earliest ages of the world.”
Had a bomb-shell suddenly fallen into the chilly, meanly-furnished drawing-room, where every second article seemed to wear a brown-holland pinafore, and the frame of the old-fashioned mirror was tightly draped in yellow canvas, the young ladies could not have looked more astonished.
In their virgin innocency the word “marriage” had been tabooed to them, and consequently was never mentioned, being a subject held to be unholy for the young people’s ears.
Certainly there were times when the wedding of some lady they knew was canvassed; but it was with extreme delicacy, and not in the downright fashion of Miss Philippa’s present speech.
“Ages of the world,” assented the Honourable Isabella, opening a pale drab fan, and using it gently, as if the subject made her warm.
“And,” continued Miss Philippa, “I think it right to speak to you children, now that you are verging upon womanhood, because it is possible that some day or another you might either of you receive a proposal.”
“That sun-browned officer with the heavy moustache,” thought Clotilde, whose cheeks began to glow. “She thinks he may try to be introduced. Oh, I wish he may!”
“When your poor – I say it with tears, Isabella.”
“Yes, sister, with tears,” assented that lady.
“I am addressing you, Clotilde and Marie,” continued Miss Philippa. “You, Ruth, of course cannot be answerable for the stroke of fate which placed you in our hands, an adopted child.”
“An adopted child,” said Miss Isabella, closing her fan, for the moral atmosphere seemed cooler.
“When your poor mother, your poor, weak mamma, children, wantonly and recklessly, and in opposition to the wishes of all her relatives, insisted upon marrying Mr Julian Riversley, who was never even acknowledged by any member of our family – ”
“I remember papa as being very handsome, and with dark hair,” said Marie.
“Marie!” exclaimed the Honourable Misses Dymcox in a breath. “I am surprised at you!”
“Tray be silent, child,” added Miss Philippa.
“Yes, aunt.”
“I say your poor mamma must have known that she was degrading the whole family – degrading us, Isabella.”
“Yes, sister, degrading us,” assented that lady.
“By marrying a penniless man of absolutely no birth.”
“Whatever,” assented Miss Isabella.
“As I have often told you, children, it was during the corrupting times of the Commonwealth that the lineal descendants of Sir Guy Dymcoques – the s not sounded, my dears – allowed the family name to be altered into Dymcox, which by letters patent was made imperative, and the proper patronymic has never been restored to its primitive orthography. It is a blot on our family history to which I will no more allude.”
Miss Isabella allowed the fan to fall into her lap, and accentuated the hollowness of her thin cheek by pressing it in with one pointed finger.
“To resume,” said Miss Philippa, while her nieces watched her with wondering eyes: “our dear sister Delia, your poor mamma, repented bitterly for her weakness in marrying a poor man – your papa, children – and being taken away to a dreary place in Central France, where your papa had the management of a very leaden silver-mine, which only produced poverty. The sufferings to which Mr Julian Riversley exposed your poor mamma were dreadful, my dears. And,” continued Miss Philippa, dotting each eye with her handkerchief, which was not moistened, “your poor mamma died. She was killed, I might say, by the treatment of your papa; but ‘De mortuis,’ Isabella?”
“‘Nil nisi bonum,’” sighed the Honourable Isabella.
“Exactly, sister,” continued the Honourable Philippa – “died like several of your unfortunate baby brothers and sisters, my dears; and shortly after – four years exactly, was it not, Isabella?”
“Three years and eleven months, sister.”
“Thank you, Isabella. Mr Julian Riversley either fell down that lead-mine or threw himself there in remorse for having deluded a female scion of the ancient house of Dymcoques to follow his fortunes into a far-off land. He was much like you in physique, my dears, but I am glad to say not in disposition – thanks to our training and that of your mamma’s spiritual instructor, Mr Paul Montaigne, to whom dearest Delia entrusted you, and to whom your repentant – I hope – papa gave the sacred charge of bringing you to England to share the calmness of our peaceful home.”
“Peaceful home,” assented Miss Isabella.
“I need hardly tell you, children, that the Riversleys were, or are, nobodies of whom we know nothing – never can know anything.”
“Whatever,” assented Miss Isabella.
“To us they do not exist – neither will they for you, my dears. We believe that Mr Julian had a sister who married a Mr Huish; that is all we know.”
“All we know,” assented Miss Isabella.
“I will say nothing of the tax it has been upon us in connection with our limited income. A grateful country, recognising the services of papa, placed these apartments at our disposal. In consideration of the thoughtfulness of the offer, we accepted these apartments – thirty-five years ago, I think, Isabella?”
“Thirty-five years and a half, sister.”
“Exactly; and we have been here ever since, so that we have been spared the unpleasantry of paying a rent. But I need not continue that branch of my subject. What I wish to impress upon you, children, is the fact that in spite of your poor mamma’s mésalliance, you are of the family of Dymcoques, and that it is your duty to endeavour to raise, and not degrade, our noble house. I think I am following out the proper line of argument, Isabella?”
“Most accurately, sister.”
“In the event, then, of either of you – at a future time, of course – receiving a proposal of marriage – ”
Miss Isabella reopened her fan, and began to use it in a quick, agitated manner.
“It would be your duty to study the interest of your family, children, and to endeavour to regain that which your poor mamma lost. To a lady, marriage – ”
Miss Isabella’s fan raised quite a draught in the chilly room, and the white tissue-paper chimney-apron rustled in the breeze.
“Marriage is the means by which we may recover the steps lost by those who have gone before; and I would have you to remember that our position, our family, our claims to a high descent, warrant our demanding as a right that we might mate with the noblest of the land.”
For a moment a curious idea crossed Clotilde’s brain – that her aunts had some thought of entering the married state; but it passed away on the instant at the next words.
“Your aunt Isabella and myself might at various times have entered into alliance with others – ”
Miss Isabella’s fan went rather slowly now. “But we knew what was due to our family, and we said ‘No!’ We sacrificed ourselves in the cause of duty, and we demand, children, in obedience to our teaching, that you do the same.”
“Yes, aunt,” said Clotilde demurely.
“An