“Well; I don’t know about her being so poor. Priscilla, I’ll be bound, thinks as well of herself as any of us do.”
“She’d cut her fingers off before she’d mean to do wrong,” said Dorothy.
“But what does that come to? What’s the good of that? It isn’t meaning to do right that will save us. For aught I know, the Radicals may mean to do right. Mr. Beales means to do right—perhaps.”
“But, aunt,—if everybody did the best they could?”
“Tush, my dear! you are getting beyond your depth. There are such things still, thank God! as spiritual pastors and masters. Entrust yourself to them. Do what they think right.” Now if aught were known in Exeter of Miss Stanbury, this was known,—that if any clergyman volunteered to give to her, unasked and uninvited, counsel, either ghostly or bodily, that clergyman would be sent from her presence with a wigging which he would not soon forget. The thing had been tried more than once, and the wigging had been complete. There was no more attentive listener in church than Miss Stanbury; and she would, now and again, appeal to a clergyman on some knotty point. But for the ordinary authority of spiritual pastors and masters she shewed more of abstract reverence than of practical obedience.
“I’m sure Priscilla does the best she can,” said Dorothy, going back to the old subject.
“Ah,—well,—yes. What I want to say about Priscilla is this. It is a thousand pities she is so obstinate, so pigheaded, so certain that she can manage everything for herself better than anybody else can for her.” Miss Stanbury was striving to say something good of her niece, but found the task to be difficult and distasteful to her.
“She has managed for mamma ever so many years; and since she took it we have hardly ever been in debt,” said Dorothy.
“She’ll do all that, I don’t doubt. I don’t suppose she cares much for ribbons and false hair for herself.”
“Who? Priscilla! The idea of Priscilla with false hair!”
“I dare say not;—I dare say not. I do not think she’d spend her mother’s money on things of that kind.”
“Aunt Stanbury, you don’t know her.”
“Ah; very well. Perhaps I don’t. But, come, my dear, you are very hard upon me, and very anxious to take your sister’s part. And what is it all about? I’ve just written to her as civil a letter as one woman ever wrote to another. And if I had chosen, I could have,—could have,—h—m—m.” Miss Stanbury, as she hesitated for words in which to complete her sentence, revelled in the strength of the vituperation which she could have poured upon her niece’s head, had she chosen to write her last letter about Colonel Osborne in her severe strain.
“If you have written kindly to her, I am so much obliged to you,” said Dorothy.
“The truth is, Priscilla has meant to be right. Meaning won’t go for much when the account is taken, unless the meaning comes from a proper source. But the poor girl has done as well as she has known how. I believe it is Hugh’s fault more than anybody else’s.” This accusation was not pleasant to Dorothy, but she was too intent just now on Priscilla’s case to defend her brother. “That man never ought to have been there; and that woman never ought to have been there. There cannot be a doubt about that. If Priscilla were sitting there opposite to me, she would own as much. I am sure she would.” Miss Stanbury was quite right if she meant to assert that Priscilla had owned as much to herself. “And because I think so, I am willing to forgive her part in the matter. To me, personally, she has always been rude,—most uncourteous,—and,—and,—and unlike a younger woman to an older one, and an aunt, and all that. I suppose it is because she hates me.”
“Oh, no, Aunt Stanbury!”
“My dear, I suppose it is. Why else should she treat me in such a way? But I do believe of her that she would rather eat an honest, dry crust, than dishonest cake and ale.”
“She would rather starve than pick up a crumb that was dishonest,” said Dorothy, fairly bursting out into tears.
“I believe it. I do believe it. There; what more can I say? Clock House, indeed! What matter what house you live in, so that you can pay the rent of it honestly?”
“But the rent is paid—honestly,” said Dorothy, amidst her sobs.
“It’s paid, I don’t doubt. I dare say the woman’s husband and your brother see to that among them. Oh, that my boy, Hugh, as he used to be, should have brought us all to this! But there’s no knowing what they won’t do among them. Reform, indeed! Murder, sacrilege, adultery, treason, atheism;—that’s what Reform means; besides every kind of nastiness under the sun.” In which latter category Miss Stanbury intended especially to include bad printer’s ink, and paper made of straw.
The reader may as well see the letter which was as civil a letter as ever one woman wrote to another, so that the collection of the Stanbury correspondence may be made perfect.
The Close, August 6, 186—.
My Dear Niece,
Your letter has not astonished me nearly as much as you expected it would. I am an older woman than you, and, though you will not believe it, I have seen more of the world. I knew that the gentleman would come after the lady. Such gentlemen always do go after their ladies. As for yourself, I can see all that you have done, and pretty nearly hear all that you have said, as plain as a pikestaff. I do you the credit of believing that the plan is none of your making. I know who made the plan, and a very bad plan it is.
As to my former letters and the other man, I understand all about it. You were very angry that I should accuse you of having this man at the house; and you were right to be angry. I respect you for having been angry. But what does all that say as to his coming,—now that he has come?
If you will consent to take an old woman’s advice, get rid of the whole boiling of them. I say it in firm love and friendship, for I am,—
Your affectionate aunt,
Jemima Stanbury.
The special vaunted courtesy of this letter consisted, no doubt, in the expression of respect which it contained, and in that declaration of affection with which it terminated. The epithet was one which Miss Stanbury would by no means use promiscuously in writing to her nearest relatives. She had not intended to use it when she commenced her letter to Priscilla. But the respect of which she had spoken had glowed, and had warmed itself into something of temporary love; and feeling at the moment that she was an affectionate aunt, Miss Stanbury had so put herself down in her letter. Having done such a deed she felt that Dorothy, though Dorothy knew nothing about it, ought in her gratitude to listen patiently to anything that she might now choose to say against Priscilla.
But Dorothy was in truth very miserable, and in her misery wrote a long letter that afternoon to her mother,—which, however, it will not be necessary to place entire among the Stanbury records,—begging that she might be informed as to the true circumstances of the case. She did not say a word of censure in regard either to her mother or sister; but she expressed an opinion in the mildest words which she could use, that if anything had happened which had compromised their names since their residence at the Clock House, she, Dorothy, had better go home and join them. The meaning of which was that it would not become her to remain in the house in the Close, if the house in the Close would be disgraced by her presence. Poor Dorothy had taught herself to think that the iniquity of roaring lions spread itself very widely.
In the afternoon she made some such proposition to her aunt in ambiguous terms. “Go home!” said Miss Stanbury. “Now?”
“If you think it best, Aunt Stanbury.”
“And