CHAPTER X. A FAMILY DISCUSSION.

LONG before Lady Hester awoke on the following morning every circ.u.mstance of her visit was known to Grounsell. It was the doctor's custom to see Dalton early each day, and before Sir Stafford was stirring, and to chat away an hour or so with the invalid, telling the current news of the time, and cheering his spirits by those little devices which are not among the worst resources of the Materia Medica.

With all his knowledge of Lady Hester's character, her caprices, her whims, and her insatiable pa.s.sion for excitement, he was still astonished beyond measure at this step: not that the false air of benevolence or charity deceived him, he was too old a pract.i.tioner in medicine, and had seen far too much of the dark side of human nature, to be easily gulled, but his surprise arose from the novelty of her condescending to know, and even propitiate, the good graces of people whom she usually professed to regard as the least interesting of all cla.s.ses of mankind. The "reduced lady or gentleman" had only presented themselves to Lady Hester's mind by the medium of an occasional curiously worded advertis.e.m.e.nt in a morning paper, and were invariably a.s.sociated with a subsequent police report, where the object of charity was sure to be confronted with half a dozen peers or members of parliament, whose sympathies he had put under contribution, to support a life of infamy or extravagance. "A begging impostor" rang in her mind as a phrase whose ingredient words could not be divorced, and she was thoroughly convinced that imposture and poverty were convertible terms.

The very notion of any one having once been well off, and being now in embarra.s.sment, was, to her deeming, most satisfactory evidence of past misconduct and present knavery. Grounsell had beard her hold forth on this theme more than once, "embroidering the sentiment" with an occasional sly allusion to himself and his own fortunes, so that he had often thought over the difficulty of serving the Daltons with Sir Stafford, by reflecting on the hostility any project would meet with from "my Lady," and now accident, or something very like it, had done what all his ingenuity could not succeed in discovering.

The announcement at first rendered him perfectly mute; he heard it without power to make the slightest observation; and it was only at the end of a lengthy description from the two sisters, that he exclaimed, in a kind of half soliloquy, "By Jove, it is so like her, after all!"

"I 'm sure of it," said Nelly; "her manner was kindness and gentleness itself. You should have seen the tender way she took poor Hansells hand in her own, and how eagerly she asked us to translate for her the few stray words he uttered."

"Of course she did. I could swear to it all, now that my eyes are opened."

"And with what winning grace she spoke!" cried Kate. "How the least phrase came from her lips with a fascination that still haunts me!"

"Just so, just so!" muttered Grounsell.

"How such traits of benevolence enn.o.ble high station!" said Nelly.

"How easy to credit all that one hears of the charms of intercourse, where manner like hers prevails on every side!" cried Kate, enthusiastically.

"How thoughtful in all her kindness!"

"What elegance in every movement!"

"With what inborn courtesy she accepted the little valueless attentions, which were all we could render her!"

"How beautiful she looked, in all the disorder of a dress so unlike her own splendor! I could almost fancy that old straw chair to be a handsome fauteuil since she sat in it."

"How delightful it must be to be admitted to the freedom of daily intercourse with such a person, to live within the atmosphere of such goodness and such refinement!" And thus they went on ringing the changes upon every gift and grace, from the genial warmth of her heart, to the snowy whiteness of her dimpled hands; while Grouusell fidgeted in his chair, searched for his handkerchief, his spectacles, his snuff-box, dropped them all in turn, and gathered them up again, in a perfect fever of embarra.s.sment and indecision.

"And you see her every day, doctor?" said Nelly.

"Yes, every day, madam," said he, hastily, and not noticing nor thinking to whom he was replying.

"And is she always as charming, always as fascinating?"

"Pretty much the same, I think," said he, with a grunt.

"How delightful! And always in the same buoyancy of spirits?"

"Very little changed in that respect," said he, with another grunt.

"We have often felt for poor Sir Stafford being taken ill away from his home, and obliged to put up with the miserable resources of a watering-place in winter; but I own, when I think of the companionship of Lady Hester, much of my compa.s.sion vanishes."

"He needs it all, then," said Grounsell, as, thrusting his hands into the recesses of his pockets, he sat a perfect picture of struggling embarra.s.sment.

"Are his sufferings so very great?"

Grounsell nodded abruptly, for now he was debating within himself what course to take; for while, on one side, he deemed it a point of honor not to divulge to strangers, as were the Daltons, any of the domestic circ.u.mstances of those with whom he lived, he felt, on the other, reluctant to suffer Lady Hester's blandishments to pa.s.s for qualities more sterling and praiseworthy.

"She asked the girls to go and see her," said Dalton, now breaking silence for the first time; for although flattered in the main by what he heard of the fine lady's manner towards his daughters, he was not without misgivings that what they interpreted as courtesy might just as probably be called condescension, against which his Irish pride of birth and blood most st.u.r.dily rebelled. "She asked them to go and see her, and it was running in my head if she mio'ht not have heard something of the family connection."

"Possibly!" a.s.serted Grounsell, too deep in his own calculations to waste a thought on such a speculation.

"My wife's uncle, Joe G.o.dfrey, married an Englishwoman. The sister was aunt to some rich city banker; and indeed, to tell the truth, his friends in Ireland never thought much of the connection but you see times are changed. They are up now, and we are down, the way of the world! It 's little I ever thought of claiming relationship with the like o' them!"

"But if it 's they who seek us, papa?" whispered Kate.

"Ay, that alters the case, my dear; not but I'd as soon excuse the politeness. Here we are, living in a small way; till matters come round in Ireland, we can't entertain them, not even give them a dinner-party."

"Oh, dearest papa," broke in Nelly, "is not our poverty a blessing if it save us the humiliation of being absurd? Why should we think of such a thing? Why should we, with our straitened means and the habits narrow fortune teaches, presume even to a momentary equality with those so much above us."

"Faith, it's true enough!" cried Dalton, his cheek flushed with anger.

"We are changed, there's no doubt of it; or it is not a Dalton would say the words you 've just said. I never knew before that the best in the land wasn't proud to come under our roof."

"When we had a roof," said Nelly, firmly. "And if these ancestors had possessed a true and a higher pride, mayhap we might still have one.

Had they felt shame to partic.i.p.ate in schemes of extravagance and costly display, had they withheld encouragement from a ruinous mode of living, we might still be dwellers in our own home and our own country."

Dalton seemed thunderstruck at the boldness of a speech so unlike the gentle character of her who had uttered it. To have attributed any portion of the family calamities to their own misconduct to have laid the blame of their downfall to any score save that of English legislation, acts of parliament, grand-jury laws, failure of the potato crop, t.i.thes, Terry alts, or s.m.u.t in the wheat was a heresy he never, in his gloomiest moments, had imagined, and now he was to hear it from the lips of his own child.

"Nelly Nelly Dal ton," said he; "but why do I call you Dalton? Have you a drop of our blood in your veins at all, or is it the G.o.dfreys you take after? Extravagance, ruinous living, waste, what 'll you say next?" He could n't continue, indignation and anger seemed almost to suffocate him.

"Papa, dearest, kindest papa!" cried Nelly, as the tears burst from her eyes, "be not angry with me, nor suppose that any ungenerous repining against our altered lot finds a place in my heart. G.o.d knows that I grieve not for myself; in the humble sphere in which I am placed, I have found true contentment, greater, perhaps, than higher fortunes would have given me; for here my duties are better defined, and my sense of them is clearer. If I feel sorrow, it is for you and my dear sister, for you, papa, who suffer from many a privation; for her, who might well adorn a more exalted station. But for me the lame Nelly, as children used to call me" She was not suffered to finish her speech, for already her father had clasped his arms around her, and Kate, in a gush of tears, was sobbing on his shoulder.

"Where's the doctor? what's become of him?" said Dalton, as, recovering from his emotion, he wished to give a different direction to their thoughts.

"He went away half an hour ago, papa," said Kate. "He always goes off without saying good-bye, whenever there is a word said about family."

"I noticed that, too, my dear," said Dalton, "and I would n't wonder if he came of low people; not but he 's a kind creature, and mighty good-hearted."

Nelly could probably have suggested a better reason for the doctor's conduct, but she prudently forbore from again alluding to a theme already too painful.

With the reader's permission, we will now follow him as, with a gesture of impatience, he abruptly left the room on the very first mention by Dalton of that genealogical tree in whose branches he loved to perch himself.

"An old fool!" muttered Grounsell, as he pa.s.sed downstairs, "an old fool, that no experience will ever make wiser! Well may his native country be a stumbling-block to legislators, if his countrymen be all like him, with his family pride and pretension! Confound him! can't he see that there 's no independence for a man in debt, and no true self-respect left for him who can't pay his tailor? For himself there's no help; but the poor girls! he'll be the ruin of them. Kate is already a willing listener to his nonsensical diatribes about blood and family; and poor Nelly's spirits will be broken in the hopeless conflict with his folly! Just so, that will be the end of it; he will turn the head of one, and break the heart of the other; and yet, all the while, he firmly believes he is leaving a far better heritage behind him in this empty pride, than if he could bequeath every acre that once belonged to them." Thus soliloquizing, he went on ringing changes over every form of imprudence, waste, vanity, and absurdity, which, by applying to them the simple adjective of "Irish," he fancied were at once intelligible, and needed no other explanation. In this mood he made his entrance into Sir Stafford's chamber, and so full of his own thoughts that the worthy baronet could not fail to notice his preoccupation.

"Eh! Grounsel, what 's the matter, another row with my Lady, eh?" said he, smiling with his own quiet smile.

"Not to-day. We 've not met this morning, and, consequently, the armistice of yesterday is still unbroken! The fatigue of last night has, doubtless, induced her to sleep a little longer, and so I have contrived to arrive at noon without the risk of an apoplexy."

"What fatigue do you allude to?"

"Oh, I forgot I have a long story for you. What do you suppose her Ladyship has been performing now?"

"I 've heard all about it," said Sir Stafford, pettishly. "George has given me the whole narrative of that unlucky business. We must take care of the poor fellow, Grounsell, and see that he wants for nothing."

"You 're thinking of the pistol-shooting; but that 's not her Ladyship's last," said the doctor, with a malicious laugh. "It is as a Lady Bountiful she has come out, and made her debut last night I am bound to say with infinite success." And, without further preface, Grounsell related the whole adventure of Lady Hester's visit to the dwarf, omitting nothing of those details we have already laid before the reader, and dilating with all his own skill upon the possible consequences of the step. "I have told you already about these people: of that old fool, the father, with his Irish pride, his Irish pretensions, his poverty, and his insane notions about family. Well, his head a poor thing in the best of times is gone clean mad about this visit. And then the girls! good, dear, affectionate children as they are, they 're in a kind of paroxysm of ecstasy about her Ladyship's style, her beauty, her dress, the charm of her amiability, the fascination of her manner. Their little round of daily duties will henceforth seem a dreary toil; the very offices of their charity will lose all the glow of zeal when deprived of that elegance which refinement can throw over the veriest trifle. Ay! don't smile at it, the fact is a stubborn one. They 'd barter the deepest devotion they ever rendered to a.s.suage pain for one trick of that flattery with which my Lady captivated them. Will all the poetry of poor Nelly's heart shut out the memory of graces a.s.sociated with the vanities of fashion? Will all Kate's dutiful affection exalt those household drudgeries in her esteem, the performances of which will henceforth serve to separate her more and more from one her imagination has already enshrined as an idol?"