Marriage Part 21

said Mrs. Douglas, with a smile, "were you to endure the same treatment as your poor baby; stuffed with improper food and loathsome drugs, and bandied about from one person to another."

"You may say what you please," retorted Lady Juliana pettishly; "but I know it's nothing but ill temper: nurse says so too; and it is so ugly with constantly crying that I cannot bear to look at it;" and she turned away her head as Miss Jacky entered red with the little culprit in her arms, which she was vainly endeavouring to _talk _into silence, while she dandled it in the most awkward _maiden-like_ manner imaginable.

"Good heavens! what a fright!" exclaimed the tender parent, as her child was held up to her. "Why, it is much less than when it was born, an its skin is as yellow as saffron, and it squints! Only look what a difference," as the nurse advanced and ostentatiously displayed her charge, who had just waked out of a long sleep; its checks flushed with heat; its skin completely filled up; and its large eyes rolling under its already dark eyelashes.

"The bonny wean's just her mamma's pickter," drawled out the nurse, "but the wee missy's uncolike her aunties."

"Take her away," cried Lady Juliana in a tone of despair; "I wish I could send her out of my hearing altogether, for her noise will be the death of me."

"Alas! what would I give to hear the blessed sound of a living child!"

exclaimed Mrs. Douglas, taking the infant in her arms. "And how great would be my happiness could I call the poor rejected one mine!"

"I'm sure you are welcome to my share of the little plague," said her sister-in-law, with a laugh, "if you can prevail upon Harry to give up his."

"I would give up a great deal could my poor child find a mother,"

replied her husband, who just then entered.

"My dear brother!" cried Mrs. Douglas, her eyes beaming with delight, "do you then confirm Lady Juliana's kind promise? Indeed I will be a mother to your dear baby, and love her as if she were my own; and in a month--oh! in much less time--you shall see her as stout as her sister."

Henry sighed, as he thought, "'Why has not my poor babe such a mother of its own?" Then thanking his sister-in-law for her generous intentions, he reminded her that she must consult her husband, as few men liked to be troubled with any children but their own.

"You are in the right," said Mrs. Douglas, blus.h.i.+ng at the impetuosity of feeling which had made her forget for an instant the deference due to her band; "I shall instantly ask his permission, and he is so indulgent to all my wishes that I have little doubt of obtaining his consent;"

and, with the child in her arms, she hastened to her husband, and made known her request.

Mr. Douglas received the proposal with considerable coolness; wondering what his wife could see in such an ugly squalling thing to plague herself about it. If it had been a boy, old enough to speak and run about, there might be some amus.e.m.e.nt in it; but he could not see the use of a squalling sickly infant--and a girl too!

His wife sighed deeply, and the tears stole down her cheeks as she looked on the wan visage and closed eyes of the little sufferer. "G.o.d help the, poor baby?" said she mournfully; "you are rejected on all hands, but your misery will soon be at a end;" and she was slowly leaving the room with her helpless charge when her husband, touched at the sight of her distress, though the feeling that caused it he did not comprehend, called to her, "I am sure, Alicia, if you really wish to take charge of the infant I have no objections; only I think you will find it la great plague, and the mother is such a fool"

"Worse than a fool," said Mrs. Douglas indignantly, "for she hates and abjures this her poor unoffending babe"

"Does she so?" cried Mr. Douglas, every kindling feeling roused within him at the idea of his blood being hated and abjured; "then, hang me! if she shall have any child of Harry's to hate as long as I have a house to shelter it and a sixpence to bestow upon it," taking the infant in his arms, and kindly kissing it.

Mrs. Douglas smiled through her tears as she embraced her husband, and praised his goodness and generosity; then, full of exultation and delight, she flew to impart the success of her mission to the parents of her _protegee._

Great was the surprise of the maiden nurses at finding they were to be bereft of their little charge.

"I declare, I think the child is doing as well as possible," said Miss Grizzy. "To be sure it does yammer constantly--that can't be denied; and it is uncommonly small--n.o.body can dispute that. At the same time, I am sure, I can't tell what makes it cry, for I've given it two colic powders every day, and a tea-spoonful of Lady Maclaughlan's carminative every three hours."

"And I've done nothing but make water-gruel and chop rusks for it,"

quoth Miss Nicky, "and yet it is never satisfied; I wonder what it would be at."

"I know perfectly well what it would be at," said Miss Jacky, with an air of importance. "All this crying and screaming is for nothing else but a nurse; but it ought not to be indulged. There is no end of indulging the desires, and 'tis amazing how cunning children are, and how soon they know how to take advantage of people's weakness," glancing an eye of fire at Mrs. Douglas. "Were that my child, I would feed her on bread and water before I would humour her fancies. A pretty lesson, indeed! if she's to have her own way before she's a month old."

Mrs. Douglas knew that it was in vain to attempt arguing with her aunts.

She therefore allowed them to wonder and declaim over their sucking pots, colic powders, and other instruments of torture, while she sent to the wife of one of her tenants who had lately lain-in, and who wished for the situation of nurse, appointing her to be at Lochmarlie the following day. Having made her arrangements, and collected the scanty portion of clothing Mrs. Nurse chose to allow, Mrs. Douglas repaired to her sister-in-law's apartment, with her little charge in her arms. She found her still in bed, and surrounded with her favourites.

"So you really are going to torment yourself with that little screech-owl?" said she. "Well, I must say it's very good of you; but I am afraid you will soon tire of her. Children are such plagues! Are they not, my darling?" added she, kissing her pug.

"You will not say so when you have seen my little girl a month hence,"

said Mrs. Douglas, trying to conceal her disgust for Henry's sake, who had just then entered the room. "She has promised me never to cry any more; so give her a kiss, and let us be gone."

The high-bred mother slightly touched the cheek of her sleeping babe, extended her finger to her sister-in-law, and carelessly bidding them good-bye, returned to her pillow and her pugs.

Henry accompanied Mrs. Douglas to the carriage, and before they parted he promised his brother to ride over to Lochmarlie in a few days. He said nothing of his child, but his glistening eye and the warm pressure of his hand spoke volumes to the kind heart of his brother, who a.s.sured him that Alicia would be very good to his little girl, and that he was sure she would get quite well when she got a nurse. The carriage drove off, and Henry, with a heavy spirit, returned to the house to listen to his father's lectures, his aunts' e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns, and his wife's murmurs.

CHAPTER XIX.

"We may boldly spend upon the hope of what Is to come in."

_Henry IV_.

THE birth of twin daughters awakened the young father to a still stronger sense of the total dependence and extreme helplessness of his condition. Yet how to remedy it he knew not. To accept of his father's proposal was out of the question, and it was equally impossible for him, were he ever so inclined, to remain much longer a burden on the narrow income of the Laird of Glenfern. One alternative only remained, which was to address the friend and patron of his youth, General Cameron; and to him he therefore wrote, describing all the misery of his situation, and imploring his forgiveness and a.s.sistance. "The old General's pa.s.sion must have cooled by this time," thought he to himself, as he sealed the letter, "and as he has often overlooked former sc.r.a.pes, I think, after all, he will help me out of this greatest one of all."

For once Henry was not mistaken. He received an answer to his letter, in which the General, after execrating his folly in marrying a lady of quality, swearing at the birth of his twin daughters, and giving him some wholesome counsel as to his future mode of life, concluded by informing him that he had got him reinstated in his former rank in the army; that he should settle seven hundred per annum on him till he saw how matters were conducted, and, in the meantime, enclosed a draught for four hundred pounds, to open the campaign.

Though this was not, according to Henry's notions, "coming down handsomely," still it was better than not coming down at all, and with a mixture of delight and disappointment he flew to communicate the tidings to Lady Juliana.

"Seven hundred pounds a year!" exclaimed she, in raptures: "Heavens!

what a quant.i.ty of money! why, we shall be quite rich, and I shall have such a beautiful house, and such pretty carriages, and give such parties, and buy so many fine things. Oh dear, how happy I shall be!"

"You know little of money, Julia, if you think seven hundred pounds will do all that," replied her husband gravely. "I hardly think we can afford a house in town; but we may have a pretty cottage at Richmond or Twickenham, and I can keep a curricle, and drive you about, you know; and we may give famous good dinners."

A dispute here ensued; her ladys.h.i.+p hated cottages and curricles and good dinners as much as her husband despised fancy b.a.l.l.s, opera boxes, and chariots.

The fact was that the one knew very nearly as much of the real value of money as the other, and Henry's _sober_ scheme was just as practicable as his wife's extravagant one.

Brought up in the luxurious profusion of great house; accustomed to issue her orders and have them obeyed, Lady Juliana, at the time she married, was in the most blissful state of ignorance respecting the value of pounds, s.h.i.+llings, and pence. Her maid took care to have her wardrobe supplied with all things needful, and when she wanted a new dress or a fas.h.i.+onable jewel, it was only driving to Madame D.'s, or Mr.

Y.'s, and desiring the article to be sent to herself, while the bill went to her papa.

From never seeing money in its own vulgar form, Lady Juliana had learned to consider it as a mere nominal thing; while, on the other hand, her husband, from seeing too much of it, had formed almost equally erroneous ideas of its powers. By the mistake kindness of General Cameron he had been indulged in all the fas.h.i.+onable follies of the day, and allowed to use his patron's ample fortune as if it had already been his own; nor was it until he found himself a prisoner at Glenfern from want of money that he had ever attached the smallest importance to it. In short, both the husband and wife had been accustomed to look upon it in the same light as the air they breathed. They knew it essential to life, and concluded that it would come some way or other; either from the east or west, north or south. As for the vulgar concerns of meat and drink, servants' wages, taxes, and so forth, they never found a place in the calculations of either. Birthday dresses, fetes, operas, equipages, and state liveries whirled in rapid succession through Lady Juliana's brain, while clubs, curricles, horses, and claret, took possession of her husband's mind.

However much they differed in the proposed modes of showing off in London, both agreed perfectly in the necessity of going there, and Henry therefore hastened to inform his father of the change in his circ.u.mstances, and apprise him of his intention of immediately joining his regiment, the ---- Guards.

"Seven hunder pound a year!" exclaimed the old gentleman; "Seven hunder pound! O' what can ye mak' o' a' that siller? Ye'll surely lay by the half o't to tocher your bairns. Seven hunder pound a year for doing naething!"

Miss Jacky was afraid, unless they got some person of sense (which would not be an easy matter) to take the management of it, it would perhaps be found little enough in the long-run.

Miss Grlzzy declared it was a very handsome income, n.o.body could dispute that; at the same time, everybody must allow that the money could not have been better bestowed.

Miss Nicky observed "there was a great deal of good eating and drinking in seven hundred a year, if people knew how to manage it."

All was bustle and preparation throughout Glenfern Castle, and the young ladies' good-natured activity and muscular powers were again in requisition to collect the wardrobe, and pack the trunks, imperial, etc., of their n.o.ble sister.

Glenfern remarked "that fules war fond o' flitting, for they seemed glad to leave the good quarters they were in."

Miss Grizzy declared there was a great excuse for their being glad, poor things! young people were always so fond of a change; at the same time, n.o.body could deny but that it would have been quite natural for them to feel sorry too.