LADY K.—Should you not like, would you object to take—a frock or two of little Arabella's to your child? and if Pinhorn, my maid, will let me, Mrs. Prior, I will see if I cannot find something against winter for your second daughter, as you say we are of a size.
MRS. PRIOR.—The widow's and orphans' blessings upon you! I said my Charlotte was as tall, but I never said she had such a figure as yours—who has?
CHARLES announces—
CHARLES.—Mrs. Bonnington! [Enter MRS. BONNINGTON.]
MRS. B.—How do you do, Lady Kicklebury?
LADY K.—My dear Mrs. Bonnington! and you come to dinner of course?
MRS. B.—To dine with my own son, I may take the liberty. How are my grandchildren? my darling little Emily, is she well, Mrs. Prior?
LADY K. [aside].—Emily? why does she not call the child by her blessed mother's name of Arabella? [To MRS. B.] ARABELLA is quite well, Mrs. Bonnington. Mr. Squillings said it was nothing; only her grandmamma Bonnington spoiling her, as usual. Mr. Bonnington and all your numerous young folk are well, I hope?
MRS. B.—My family are all in perfect health, I thank you. Is Horace come home from the city?
LADY K.—Goodness! there's the dinner-bell,—I must run to dress.
MRS. PRIOR.—Shall I come with you, dear Lady Kicklebury?
LADY K.—Not for worlds, my good Mrs. Prior. [Exit Lady K.]
MRS. PRIOR.—How do you do, my DEAR madam? Is dear Mr. Bonnington QUITE well? What a sweet, sweet sermon he gave us last Sunday. I often say to my girl, I must not go to hear Mr. Bonnington, I really must not, he makes me cry so. Oh! he is a great and gifted man, and shall I not have one glimpse of him?
MRS. B.—Saturday evening, my good Mrs. Prior. Don't you know that my husband never goes out on Saturday, having his sermon to compose?
MRS. P.—Oh, those dear, dear sermons! Do you know, madam, that my little Adolphus, for whom your son's bounty procured his place at Christ's Hospital, was very much touched indeed, the dear child, with Mr. Bonnington's discourse last Sunday three weeks, and refused to play marbles afterwards at school? The wicked, naughty boys beat the poor child; but Adolphus has his consolation! Is Master Edward well, ma'am, and Master Robert, and Master Frederick, and dear little funny Master William?
MRS. B.—Thank you, Mrs. Prior; you have a good heart, indeed!
MRS. P.—Ah, what blessings those dears are to you! I wish your dearest little GRANDSON—-
MRS. B.—The little naughty wretch! Do you know, Mrs. Prior, my grandson, George Milliken, spilt the ink over my dear husband's bands, which he keeps in his great dictionary; and fought with my child, Frederick, who is three years older than George—actually beat his own uncle!
MRS. P.—Gracious mercy! Master Frederick was not hurt, I hope?
MRS. B.—No; he cried a great deal; and then Robert came up, and that graceless little George took a stick; and then my husband came out, and do you know George Milliken actually kicked Mr. Bonnington on his shins, and butted him like a little naughty ram?
MRS. P.—Mercy! mercy! what a little rebel! He is spoiled, dear madam, and you know by WHOM.
MRS. B.—By his grandmamma Kicklebury. I know it. I want my son to whip that child, but he refuses. He will come to no good; that child.
MRS. P.—Ah, madam, don't say so! Let us hope for the best. Master George's high temper will subside when certain persons who pet him are gone away.
MRS. B.—Gone away! they never will go away! No, mark my words, Mrs. Prior, that woman will never go away. She has made the house her own: she commands everything and everybody in it. She has driven me—me—Mr. Milliken's own mother—almost out of it. She has so annoyed my dear husband, that Mr. Bonnington will scarcely come here. Is she not always sneering at private tutors, because Mr. Bonnington was my son's private tutor, and greatly valued by the late Mr. Milliken? Is she not making constant allusions to old women marrying young men, because Mr. Bonnington happens to be younger than me? I have no words to express my indignation respecting Lady Kicklebury. She never pays any one, and runs up debts in the whole town. Her man Bulkeley's conduct in the neighborhood is quite—quite—
MRS. P.—Gracious goodness, ma'am, you don't say so! And then what an appetite the gormandizing monster has! Mary tells me that what he eats in the servants' hall is something perfectly frightful.
MRS. B.—Everybody feeds on my poor son! You are looking at my cap, Mrs. Prior? [During this time MRS. PRIOR has been peering into a parcel which MRS. BONNINGTON brought in her hand.] I brought it with me across the Park. I could not walk through the Park in my cap. Isn't it a pretty ribbon, Mrs. Prior?
MRS. P.—Beautiful! beautiful? How blue becomes you! Who would think you were the mother of Mr. Milliken and seven other darling children? You can afford what Lady Kicklebury cannot.
MRS. B.—And what is that, Prior? A poor clergyman's wife, with a large family, cannot afford much.
MRS. P.—He! he! You can afford to be seen as you are, which Lady K. cannot. Did you not remark how afraid she seemed lest I should enter her dressing-room? Only Pinhorn, her maid, goes there, to arrange the roses, and the lilies, and the figure—he! he! Oh, what a sweet, sweet cap-ribbon! When you have worn it, and are tired of it, you will give it me, won't you? It will be good enough for poor old Martha Prior!
MRS. B.—Do you really like it? Call at Greenwood Place, Mrs. Prior, the next time you pay Richmond a visit, and bring your little girl with you, and we will see.
MRS. P.—Oh, thank you! thank you! Nay, don't be offended! I must! I must! [Kisses MRS. BONNINGTON.]
MRS. B.—There, there! We must not stay chattering! The bell has rung. I must go and put the cap on, Mrs. Prior.
MRS. P.—And I may come too? YOU are not afraid of my seeing your hair, dear Mrs. Bonnington! Mr. Bonnington too young for YOU! Why, you don't look twenty!
MRS. B.—Oh, Mrs. Prior!
MRS. P.—Well, five-and-twenty, upon my word—not more than five-and-twenty—and that is the very prime of life. [Exeunt Mrs. B. and Mrs. P., hand in hand. As Captain TOUCHIT enters, dressed for dinner, he bows and passes on.]
TOUCHIT.—So, we are to wear our white cravats, and our varnished boots, and dine in ceremony. What is the use of a man being a widower, if he can't dine in his shooting-jacket? Poor Mill! He has the slavery now without the wife. [He speaks sarcastically to the picture.] Well, well! Mrs. Milliken! YOU, at any rate, are gone; and with the utmost respect for you, I like your picture even better than the original. Miss Prior!
Enter Miss PRIOR.
MISS PRIOR.—I beg pardon. I thought you were gone to dinner. I heard the second bell some time since. [She is drawing back.]
TOUCHIT.—Stop! I say, Julia! [She returns, he looks at her, takes her hand.] Why do you dress yourself in this odd poky way? You used to be a very smartly dressed girl. Why do you hide your hair, and wear such a dowdy, high gown, Julia?
JULIA.—You mustn't call me Julia, Captain Touchit.
TOUCHIT.—Why? when I lived in your mother's lodging, I called you Julia. When you brought up the tea, you didn't mind being called Julia. When we used to go to the play with the tickets the Editor gave us, who lived on the second floor—
JULIA.—The wretch!—don't speak of him!
TOUCHIT.—Ah! I am afraid he was a sad deceiver, that Editor. He was a very clever fellow. What droll songs he used to sing! What a heap of play-tickets, diorama-tickets, concert-tickets, he used to give you! Did he touch your heart, Julia?
JULIA.—Fiddlededee! No man ever touched my heart, Captain Touchit.
TOUCHIT.—What! not even Tom Flight, who had the second floor after the Editor left it—and who cried so bitterly at the idea of going out to India without you? You had a tendre for him—a little passion—you know you had. Why, even the ladies here know it. Mrs. Bonnington told me that you were waiting for a sweetheart in India to whom you were engaged; and Lady Kicklebury thinks you are dying in love for the absent swain.
JULIA.—I hope—I
hope—you did not contradict them, Captain Touchit.
TOUCHIT.—Why not, my dear?
JULIA.—May I be frank with you? You were a kind, very kind friend to us—to me, in my youth.
TOUCHIT.—I paid my lodgings regularly, and my bills without asking questions. I never weighed the tea in the caddy, or counted the lumps of sugar, or heeded the rapid consumption of my liqueur—
JULIA.—Hush, hush! I know they were taken. I know you were very good to us. You helped my poor papa out of many a difficulty.
TOUCHIT [aside].—Tipsy old coal-merchant! I did, and he helped himself too.
JULIA.—And you were always our best friend, Captain Touchit. When our misfortunes came, you got me this situation with Mrs. Milliken—and, and—don't you see?—
TOUCHIT.—Well—what?
JULIA [laughing].—I think it is best, under the circumstances, that the ladies here should suppose I am engaged to be married—or or, they might be—might be jealous, you understand. Women are sometimes jealous of others,—especially mothers and mothers-in-law.
TOUCHIT.—Oh, you arch schemer! And it is for that you cover up that beautiful hair of yours, and wear that demure cap?
JULIA [slyly].—I am subject to rheumatism in the head, Captain Touchit.
TOUCHIT.—It is for that you put on the spectacles, and make yourself look a hundred years old?
JULIA.—My eyes are weak, Captain Touchit.
TOUCHIT.—Weak with weeping for Tom Flight. You hypocrite! Show me your eyes!
MISS P.—Nonsense!
TOUCHIT.—Show me your eyes, I say, or I'll tell about Tom Flight and that he has been married at Madras these two years.
MISS P.—Oh, you horrid man! [takes glasses off.] There.
TOUCHIT.—Translucent orbs! beams of flashing light! lovely lashes veiling celestial brightness! No, they haven't cried much for Tom Flight, that faithless captain! nor for Lawrence O'Reilly, that killing Editor. It is lucky you keep the glasses on them, or they would transfix Horace Milliken, my friend the widower here. DO you always wear them when you are alone with him?
MISS P.—I never AM alone with him. Bless me! If Lady Kicklebury thought my eyes were—well, well—you know what I mean,—if she thought her son-in-law looked at me, I should be turned out of doors the next day, I am sure I should. And then, poor Mr. Milliken! he never looks at ME—heaven help him! Why, he can't see me for her ladyship's nose and awful caps and ribbons! He sits and looks at the portrait yonder, and sighs so. He thinks that he is lost in grief for his wife at this very moment.
TOUCHIT.—What a woman that was—eh, Julia—that departed angel! What a temper she had before her departure!
MISS P.—But the wind was tempered to the lamb. If she was angry—the lamb was so very lamblike, and meek, and fleecy.
TOUCHIT.—And what a desperate flirt the departed angel was! I knew half a dozen fellows, before her marriage, whom she threw over, because Milliken was so rich.
MISS P.—She was consistent at least, and did not change after marriage, as some ladies do; but flirted, as you call it, just as much as before. At Paris, young Mr. Verney, the attache, was never out of the house: at Rome, Mr. Beard, the artist, was always drawing pictures of her: at Naples, when poor Mr. M. went away to look after his affairs at St. Petersburg, little Count Posilippo was for ever coming to learn English and practise duets. She scarcely ever saw the poor children—[changing her manner as Lady KICKLEBURY enters] Hush—my lady!
TOUCHIT.—You may well say, "poor children," deprived of such a woman! Miss Prior, whom I knew in very early days—as your ladyship knows—was speaking—was speaking of the loss our poor friend sustained.
LADY K.—Ah, sir, what a loss! [looking at the picture.]
TOUCHIT.—What a woman she was—what a superior creature!
LADY K.—A creature—an angel!
TOUCHIT.—Mercy upon us! how she and my lady used to quarrel! [aside.] What a temper!
LADY K.—Hm—oh, yes—what a temper [rather doubtfully at first].
TOUCHIT.—What a loss to Milliken and the darling children!
MISS PRIOR.—Luckily they have YOU with them madam.
LADY K.—And I will stay with them, Miss Prior; I will stay with them! I will never part from Horace, I am determined.
MISS P.—Ah! I am very glad you stay, for if I had not YOU for a protector, I think you know I must go, Lady Kicklebury. I think you know there are those who would forget my attachment to these darling children, my services to—to her—and dismiss the poor governess. But while you stay I can stay, dear Lady Kicklebury! With you to defend me from jealousy I need not QUITE be afraid.
LADY K.—Of Mrs. Bonnington? Of Mr. Milliken's mother; of the parson's wife who writes out his stupid sermons, and has half a dozen children of her own? I should think NOT indeed! I am the natural protector of these children. I am their mother. I have no husband! You STAY in this house, Miss Prior. You are a faithful, attached creature—though you were sent in by somebody I don't like very much [pointing to TOUCHIT, who went off laughing when JULIA began her speech, and is now looking at prints, &c., in next room].
MISS P.—Captain Touchit may not be in all things what one could wish. But his kindness has formed the happiness of my life in making me acquainted with YOU, ma'am: and I am sure you would not have me be ungrateful to him.
LADY K.—A most highly principled young woman. [Goes out in garden and walks up and down with Captain TOUCHIT.]
Enter Mrs. BONNINGTON.
MISS P.—Oh, how glad I am you are come, Mrs. Bonnington. Have you brought me that pretty hymn you promised me? You always keep your promises, even to poor governesses. I read dear Mr. Bonnington's sermon! It was so interesting that I really could not think of going to sleep until I had read it all through; it was delightful, but oh! it's still better when he preaches it! I hope I did not do wrong in copying a part of it? I wish to impress it on the children. There are some worldly influences at work with them, dear madam [looking at Lady K. in the garden], which I do my feeble effort to—to modify. I wish YOU could come oftener.
MRS. B.—I will try, my dear—I will try. Emily has sweet dispositions.
MISS P.—Ah, she takes after her grandmamma Bonnington!
MRS. B.—But George was sadly fractious just now in the school-room because I tried him with a tract.
MISS P.—Let us hope for better times! Do be with your children, dear Mrs. Bonnington, as constantly as ever you can, for MY sake as well as theirs! I want protection and advice as well as they do. The GOVERNESS, dear lady, looks up to you as well as the pupils; SHE wants the teaching which you and dear Mr. Bonnington can give her! Ah, why could not Mr. and Mrs. Bonnington come and live here, I often think? The children would have companions in their dear young uncles and aunts; so pleasant it would be. The house is quite large enough; that is, if her ladyship did not occupy the three south rooms in the left wing. Ah, why, WHY couldn't you come?
MRS. B.—You are a kind, affectionate creature, Miss Prior. I do not very much like the gentleman who recommended you to Arabella, you know. But I do think he sent my son a good governess for his children.
Two Ladies walk up and down in front garden.
TOUCHIT enters.
TOUCHIT.—Miss Julia Prior, you are a wonder! I watch you with respect and surprise.
MISS P.—Me! what have I done? a poor friendless governess—respect ME?
TOUCHIT.—I have a mind to tell those two ladies what I think of Miss Julia Prior. If they knew you as I know you, O Julia Prior, what a short reign yours would be!
MISS P.—I have to manage them a little. Each separately it is not so difficult. But when they are together, oh, it is very hard sometimes.
Enter MILLIKEN dressed, shakes hands with Miss P.
MILLIKEN.—Miss Prior! are you well? Have the children been good? and learned all their lessons?
MISS P.—The children are pretty good, sir.
MILLIKEN.—Well, that's a great deal as times go.
Do not bother them with too much learning, Miss Prior. Let them have an easy life. Time enough for trouble when age comes.
Enter John.
JOHN.—Dinner, sir. [And exit.]
MILLIKEN.—Dinner, ladies. My Lady Kicklebury (gives arm to Lady K).
LADY K.—My dear Horace, you SHOULDN'T shake hands with Miss Prior. You should keep people of that class at a distance, my dear creature. [They go in to dinner, Captain TOUCHIT following with Mrs. BONNINGTON. As they go out, enter MARY with children's tea-tray, &c., children following, and after them Mrs. PRIOR. MARY gives her tea.]
MRS. PRIOR.—Thank you, Mary! You are so very kind! Oh, what delicious tea!
GEORGY.—I say, Mrs. Prior, I dare say you would like to dine best, wouldn't you?
MRS. P.—Bless you, my darling love, I had my dinner at one o'clock with my children at home.
GEORGY.—So had we: but we go in to dessert very often; and then don't we have cakes and oranges and candied-peel and macaroons and things! We are not to go in to-day; because Bella ate so many strawberries she made herself ill.
BELLA.—So did you.
GEORGY.—I'm a man, and men eat more than women, twice as much as women. When I'm a man I'll eat as much cake as ever I like. I say, Mary, give us the marmalade.
MRS. P.—Oh, what nice marmalade! I know of some poor children—
MISS P.—Mamma! don't, mamma [in an imploring tone].
MRS. P.—I know of two poor children at home, who have very seldom nice marmalade and cake, young people.
GEORGE.—You mean Adolphus and Frederick and Amelia, your children. Well, they shall have marmalade and cake.
BELLA.—Oh, yes! I'll give them mine.