Under the Mendips Part 2

There is an old saying that "sharper than a serpent's tooth is an ungrateful child;" and Mrs. Falconer was still smarting from the wound given her the evening before, when she began to dispense the excellent breakfast, laid in a large, cool hall at the back of the manor, which was connected, by a square opening in the thick wall, with the kitchen.

The squire, who was generally so jovial and cheery, ate his cold pressed beef and drank his gla.s.s of "home-brew" in silence. He professed to be engrossed with a Bath paper several days old, and did not invite conversation.

Piers played with some bread-and-milk his mother set before him: his appet.i.te was never good; but Joyce despatched hot rolls and ham with a great appet.i.te, which I am afraid would shock some of our modern notions nowadays.

Tea and coffee were not the staple beverages at breakfast in those times; but when the heavier part of the meal was over Joyce handed her father a fragrant cup, with some thin toast done to a turn, for which Mrs. Falconer called from the kitchen through the window, communicating with it, and fitted with a sliding shutter, which was promptly closed when the tray had been received from the hands of one of the maids.

"So you are thinking of going into Wells to-day, Arthur?" Mrs. Falconer said when, breakfast drawing to a conclusion, she began to pile the plates together, and put all the sc.r.a.ps on one, for the benefit of Nip and Pip, who had been lying in the window-seat for the past half-hour in a state of suppressed excitement, with their noses on their paws, and their eyes fixed upon that end of the table where their mistress presided.

The noise made by the piling up of the plates was now a decided movement, and Nip and Pip began to wriggle and leap, and finally subside on their hind legs as Joyce called out: "Trust, Nip! trust, Pip!" and then, after what she considered a due time spent in an erect position, the plate was put down before them, and its contents vanished in a twinkling.

"Well, Joyce, will you be ready by eleven o'clock?" Mr. Falconer asked as he left the room.

Joyce was silent, and her mother said:

"Yes, yes, she shall be ready; if she is brisk she can get through all I want." Then Mrs. Falconer began to put all the silver into a wooden bowl, and rubbed it herself with the washleather when it was dried.

She had just finished this part of her daily routine when the door opened and her son Melville came in. His appearance would be ridiculous in the eyes of the dandies of to-day, but in his own, at least, it was as near perfection as possible.

His hair was curled in tight and very-much-oiled curls on his forehead and round his ears. He wore a high neckcloth, tied evidently with much care, supporting his retreating chin. His coat was of Lincoln green, very short in the waist, with large silver b.u.t.tons, and turned back with a wide collar to display two waistcoats, the white one only showing an edge beyond the darker one of deep salmon-colour, which opened to set off a frilled s.h.i.+rt. The trousers were tight, and caught at the ankles by straps, and his shoes were tied with large bows. The servile imitators of "the first gentleman in Europe" followed in his steps with as much precision as possible, and Melville Falconer spared no pains to let the county folk of Somersets.h.i.+re see what the real scion of _bon ton_ looked like.

Melville had a pleasant, weak face; he was almost entirely forgetful of the interests or tastes of anyone but himself, and he had never given up his own wishes for the sake of another in his life.

He had a ridiculous idea of his own importance, and a supreme contempt for what he called old-fas.h.i.+oned usage; from the vantage-ground of superior wisdom he looked down on the county gentry of Somersets.h.i.+re, who, in those days, did not frequent London in the season, or tread hard on the heels of the n.o.bility in all their customs, as is now the case.

The great mercantile wealth which rose into colossal importance, when railway traffic brought the small towns near the large ones, and the large ones near the metropolis, had not begun to overshadow the land; the tide of speculation had not set in; and there was less hastening to be rich and desire to display all that riches could give. It was a time of comparative stagnation, which preceded the great rush, which was to bear on its tide, as the stream of progress and discovery gathered strength, the next generation with relentless power. Of all that lay outside Fair Acres, Mrs. Falconer was almost indifferent, if not ignorant. She liked things as they were, and was averse to change, lest that change should be for the worse. Her tongue, which was a sharp one, had been swift to condemn the establishment of the schools in her neighbourhood, and she resisted all invitations from her husband to make the acquaintance of Mrs. Hannah More. Teaching lads and la.s.ses to read and write was, in the opinion of Mrs. Falconer, a crying evil. They had enough learning if they kept their church once a week, and as to arithmetic, if they could count their own fingers it was enough; and she, for one, would never take a servant who had schooling. "A pack of nonsense," she called it; and she would tell Mrs. Hannah More so if only she had the chance. Mrs. Falconer turned from her occupation at the table, when her son entered.

"Breakfast!" she exclaimed. "No, indeed; breakfast is over and done with. I can't keep the things about half the morning."

The prototype of the fine gentleman seated himself in a chair at the table, and said in a drawling voice, suppressing a yawn:

"Joyce, get me some clean plates, and go and order a rasher of bacon; and let the eggs be poached; and----"

But Mrs. Falconer pushed Joyce aside:

"No," she said; "your sister has something else to do than wait on you.

I'll get your breakfast; and if you have to wait an hour, it will serve you right; lie-a-beds don't generally have sharp appet.i.tes."

"Nay, mother," Melville said, "do not let the want of appet.i.te be laid to my door, with so many other sins; I am particularly hungry this morning. And I beseech you, do not do servant's work for _me_."

Mrs. Falconer's face betrayed that she felt the thrust.

"Servant's work must be done for folks too lazy to do it for themselves," she said, as she let the heavy door swing behind her, and repaired to the kitchen to prepare, far too carefully, a breakfast for her son.

Joyce hesitated a moment, and then said:

"It always vexes mother when you are late, Melville. I wish you would get up earlier."

"My dear little sister, I should have vexed mother if I had come down at six. She is out of temper with me, and so is my father, simply because I desire to get a little education, to fit me for my position here, you know, when I come into the place."

"Oh, Melville, you have had every advantage; you ought to know everything. But Aunt Let.i.tia was quite right--the money spent upon you at Oxford was wasted."

"Thanks for your high opinion. I ought to be vastly grateful for it. But to speak of other things: I have bidden a friend to stay here for a week. He will like country air, and to drink milk and curds-and-whey. He arrives at Wells by the Bath mail; and I shall drive in with you and my father, and hire a post-chaise at the Swan to bring him out."

"I hope he is not a fine gentleman," Joyce said.

"He is a very fine gentleman indeed," was the answer; "and, Joyce, persuade mother _not_ to put on that big bib, and make herself look like a housekeeper. It will appal Arundel, and make him feel out of his element."

"If he is to feel that, what does he come for?" Joyce said, angrily. "We want no upstarts here."

"Upstarts! that is fine talking. Arundel comes of one of the oldest families in England. Not older than ours; though, unhappily, we live as if we had sprung from the gutter, and do not get any proper respect."

"Respect!" exclaimed Joyce, indignantly. "Respect! As if father were not respected as a justice! and as if _you_----" Joyce stopped; she felt too indignant to go on.

"My dear little sister," Melville said, with a grand air of pity--"my dear little sister, you are only ignorant. If you knew a little more of the habits and customs of the higher cla.s.ses, you would not talk so foolishly."

"I do not wish to know more about them if you have got _your_ habits from a.s.sociating with them."

Melville smiled, and did not betray the least irritation.

"My dear," he said, "facts are stubborn things. Does it never strike you, that though my father dines at the houses of the gentry in the county, sits on the bench, and rides to cover, you and my mother are not invited to accompany him. The truth is my good mother dislikes the usages of _genteel_ life."

Melville used that objectionable word with emphasis. Genteel was in those days used as some of us now use words which are scarcely more significant, though generally accepted--"Good form," "A 1," and so forth.

"It is," Melville continued, grandly, "the result of early a.s.sociations; and so we eat heavy one o'clock meals and nine o'clock suppers, instead of dining at three or four o'clock; and my mother, instead of receiving company in the house, works in it like a servant. It is a vast pity, my dear. It keeps the family down, and destroys your chances in life. So I advise you to try to alter things. Now Arundel is coming, I want to dine at a less outlandish hour, and I----"

Whatever Mr. Melville Falconer wanted Joyce did not stay to hear. She left the large hall by one door as her mother entered by the other, bearing in her hand a tray of delicately prepared breakfast for her son, who was wholly unworthy of her attentions, and would have been better without them.

"Thank you, mother," Melville said. "I hope the toast is not dried up.

There is so much skill even in the poaching of an egg."

"There are two ways of doing everything," was Mrs. Falconer's rejoinder.

"Now I must be quick, for I have a deal of work upstairs."

"Why should you have work, mother?"

"Why did you invite a fine gentleman here? You had better answer that question. The best room must be got ready, and the feather bed laid before the fire."

"A fire in this weather!" exclaimed Melville.

"No one ever sleeps in my house in an unaired bed; and never will, while I am mistress of it, that I can tell you. I hope your fine gentleman is not one to scoff at plain people."

"Arundel is far too well bred to make invidious remarks. But for all that, things may strike him as a little odd. I was going to suggest that we should dine at four o'clock while he is here, and that the boys should not sit down with us elders. It is not the custom in great houses."

"It is the custom here, and mine is _not_ a great house: it is a comfortable English home, where there is no waste, and no extravagance, and no show. I'll warrant your grand friend never slept in a better bed nor between finer sheets than he will to-night. They are as sweet as lavender can make them, and----"

Melville shrugged his shoulders.

"Nay, spare me, mother, and let us leave the arrangements of bed-chambers to the fitting people. And, if I might suggest it, let all things wear their best appearance when Arundel arrives, including the mistress of the mansion. It is a pity when one so young and comely-looking as my mother should pay such scant heed to the little feminine ornaments which are----Phaugh! what is this? Positively a red ant crawling from the bread-trencher. What a beast! Quick! catch it, mother. I hope we shall have no red ants when Arundel is here."