“I did not come with my husband,” said Cecil; “he is gone to Willansborough to meet the architect.”
“Ah, about the new buildings. I do hope and trust the opportunity will not be wasted, and that the drainage will be provided for.”
“You are longing to have a voice there,” said Lady Tyrrell, laughing.
“I am. It is pre-eminently a woman’s question, and this is a great opportunity. I shall talk to every one. Little Pettitt, the hair-dresser, has some ground there, and he is the most intelligent of the tradesmen. I gave him one of those excellent little hand-bills, put forth by the Social Science Committee, on sanitary arrangements. I thought of asking you to join us in ordering some down, and never letting a woman leave our work-room without one.”
“You couldn’t do better, I am sure,” said Lady Tyrrell; “only, what’s the use of preaching to the poor creatures to live in good houses, when their landlords won’t build them, and they must live somewhere?”
“Make them coerce the landlords,” said Mrs. Duncombe; “that’s the only way. Upheave the masses from beneath.”
“But that’s an earthquake,” said Cecil.
“Earthquakes are sometimes wholesome.”
“But the process is not so agreeable that we had not rather avert it,” said Lady Tyrrell.
“All ours at Dunstone are model cottages,” said Cecil; “it is my father’s great hobby.”
“Squires’ hobbies are generally like the silver trough the lady gave her sow,” said Mrs. Duncombe; “they come before the poor are prepared, and with a spice of the autocrat.”
“Come, I won’t have you shock Mrs. Charnock Poynsett,” said Lady Tyrrell. “You illogical woman! The poor are to demand better houses, and the squires are not to build them!”
“The poor are to be fitly housed, as a matter of right, and from their own sense of self-respect,” returned Mrs. Duncombe; “not a few favourites, who will endure dictation, picked out for the model cottage. It is the hobby system against which I protest.”
“Without quite knowing what was conveyed by it in this instance?” said Lady Tyrrell. “I am sure there is nothing I wish more than that we had any power of improvement of the cottages here; but influence is our only weapon.”
“By the bye, Mrs. Poynsett,” continued Mrs. Duncombe, “will you give a hint to Mrs. Miles Charnock that it will never do to preach to the women at the working-room? I don’t mean holding forth,” she added, seeing Cecil’s look of amazement; “but improving the occasion, talking piously, giving tracts, and so forth.”
“I thought you gave sanitary tracts!” said Lady Tyrrell.
“That is quite different.”
“I doubt whether the women would see the distinction. A little book is a tract to them.”
“I would abstain rather than let our work get a goody reputation for indoctrinating sectarianism. It would be all up with us; we might as well keep a charity school.”
“I don’t think the women dislike it,” said Cecil.
“Most likely they think it the correct thing, the grain which they must swallow with our benefits; but for that very reason it injures the whole tone, and prevents them learning independence. Put it in that light; I know you can.”
“I don’t think Anne would understand,” said Cecil, somewhat flattered.
“I doubt whether there are three women in the neighbourhood who would,” said Lady Tyrrell.
“People always think charity—how I hate the word!—a means of forcing their own tenets down the throats of the poor,” said Mrs. Duncombe. “And certainly this neighbourhood is as narrow as any I ever saw. Nobody but you and—shall I say the present company?—has any ideas. I wonder how they will receive Clio Tallboys and her husband?”
“Ah! you have not heard about them,” said Lady Tyrrell. “Most delightful people, whom Mrs. Duncombe met on the Righi. He is a Cambridge professor.”
“Taillebois—I don’t remember the name,” said Cecil, “and we know a great many Cambridge men. We went to a Commencement there.”
“Oh, not Cambridge on the Cam! the American Cambridge,” said Mrs. Duncombe. “He is a quiet, inoffensive man, great on political economy; but his wife is the character. Wonderfully brilliant and original, and such a lecturer!”
“Ladies’ lectures would startle the natives,” said Lady Tyrrell.
“Besides, the town-hall is lacking,” said Mrs. Duncombe; “but when the Tallboys come we might arrange a succession of soirées, where she might gather her audience.”
“But where?” said Lady Tyrrell. “It would be great fun, and you might reckon on me; but where else? Mrs. Charnock Poynsett has to think of la belle mère.”
“She has given up the management of all matters of society to me,” said Cecil with dignity; “you may reckon on me.”
“No hope of the Bowaters, of course,” said Mrs. Duncombe.
“Miss Bowater is coming to stay with us,” volunteered Cecil.
“To be near that unlucky Life Guardsman manqué,” said Mrs. Duncombe.
“Come, I’ll not have honest Herbert abused,” said the other lady. “He is the only one of the Bowaters who has any go in him.”
“More’s the pity, if he can’t use it. Is his sister coming to help the Reverend Julius to drill him?”
“On Mrs. Poynsett’s account too, I fancy,” said Lady Tyrrell; “Jenny Bowater is her amateur companion. Indeed, I believe it was no slight disappointment that her sons’ appreciation did not quite reach the pitch of the mother’s.”
“Indeed!” asked Mrs. Duncombe; “I thought there had been a foolish affair with poor young Douglas.”
“Celà n’empêche pas. By the bye, have you finished Fleurange?”
“Oh, you are quite welcome to it. It is quite as goody as an English tale in one volume.”
This opened the way to Cecil’s desire to borrow Lanfrey, not concealing the reason why; and she was gratified by the full sympathy of both ladies, who invited her in self-defence to join in their subscription to Rolandi, to which she eagerly agreed, and would have paid her subscription at once if there had not been a term to be finished off first.
The gong summoned them to luncheon, and likewise brought down Miss Vivian, who shook hands rather stiffly, and wore a cold, grave manner that did not sit badly on her handsome classical features. The countenance was very fine, but of the style to which early youth is less favourable than a more mature development; and she was less universally admired than was her sister. Her dress was a dark maroon merino, hanging in simple, long, straight folds, and there was as little distortion in her coiffure as the most moderate compliance with fashion permitted; and this, with a high-bred, distinguished deportment, gave an air almost of stern severity. This deepened rather than relaxed at the greeting from Frank—who, poor fellow! had an uncontrollably wistful eager look in his face, a sort of shy entreaty, and was under an incapacity of keeping up a conversation with anybody else, while trying to catch the least word of hers.
She, however, seemed to have more eyes and ears for her father than for any one else, and he evidently viewed her as the darling and treasure of his life. His first question, after performing the duties of a host, was, “Well, my little Lenore, what have you been doing?”
“The old story, papa,” raising her clear, sweet voice to reach his rather deaf ears.
“Got on with your drawing?—The child is competing with a club, you must know.”
“Not