The Parent's Assistant Part 9

Now Susan had heard her mother often, in the course of this day, wish that she had but money enough in the world to pay John Simpson for going to serve in the militia instead of her husband. 'This, to be sure, will go but a little way,' thought Susan; 'but still it may be of some use to my father.' She told her mind to Rose, and concluded by saying, decidedly, that 'if the money was given to her to dispose of as she pleased, she would give it to her father.'

'It is all yours, my dear good Susan,' cried Rose, with a look of warm approbation. 'This is so like you!--but I'm sorry that Miss Bab must keep your guinea-hen. I would not be her for all the guinea-hens, or guineas either, in the whole world. Why, I'll answer for it, the guinea-hen won't make her happy, and you'll be happy _even_ without; because you are good. Let me come and help you to-morrow,' continued she, looking at Susan's work, 'if you have any more mending work to do--I never liked work till I worked with you. I won't forget my thimble or my scissors,' added she, laughing--'though I used to forget them when I was a giddy girl. I a.s.sure you I am a great hand at my needle, now--try me.'

Susan a.s.sured her friend that she did not doubt the powers of her needle, and that she would most willingly accept of her services, but that _unluckily_ she had finished all her needlework that was immediately wanted.

'But do you know,' said she, 'I shall have a great deal of business to-morrow; but I won't tell you what it is that I have to do, for I am afraid I shall not succeed; but if I do succeed, I'll come and tell you directly, because you will be so glad of it.'

Susan, who had always been attentive to what her mother taught her, and who had often a.s.sisted her when she was baking bread and cakes for the family at the Abbey, had now formed the courageous, but not presumptuous, idea that she could herself undertake to bake a batch of bread. One of the servants from the Abbey had been sent all round the village in the morning in search of bread, and had not been able to procure any that was tolerable. Mrs. Price's last baking failed for want of good barm. She was not now strong enough to attempt another herself; and when the brewer's boy came with eagerness to tell her that he had some fine fresh yeast, she thanked him, but sighed, and said it would be of no use to her. Accordingly she went to work with much prudent care, and when her bread the next morning came out of the oven, it was excellent; at least her mother said so, and she was a good judge. It was sent to the Abbey; and as the family there had not tasted any good bread since their arrival in the country, they also were earnest and warm in its praise. Inquiries were made from the housekeeper, and they heard, with some surprise, that this excellent bread was made by a young girl only twelve years old.

The housekeeper, who had known Susan from a child, was pleased to have an opportunity in speaking in her favour. 'She is the most industrious little creature, ma'am, in the world,' said she to her mistress. 'Little I can't so well call her now, since she's grown tall and slender to look at; and glad I am she is grown up likely to look at; for handsome is that handsome does; she thinks no more of her being handsome than I do myself; yet she has as proper a respect for herself, ma'am, as you have; and I always see her neat, and with her mother, ma'am, or fit people, as a girl should be. As for her mother, she dotes upon her, as well she may; for I should myself if I had half such a daughter; and then she has two little brothers; and she's as good to them, and, my boy Philip says, taught 'em to read more than the schoolmistress, all with tenderness and good nature; but I beg your pardon, ma'am, I cannot stop myself when I once begin to talk of Susan.'

'You have really said enough to excite my curiosity,' said her mistress; 'pray send for her immediately; we can see her before we go out to walk.'

The benevolent housekeeper despatched her boy Philip for Susan, who never happened to be in such an _untidy_ state as to be unable to obey a summons without a long preparation. She had, it is true, been very busy; but orderly people can be busy and neat at the same time. She put on her usual straw hat, and accompanied Rose's mother, who was going with a basket of cleared muslin to the Abbey.

The modest simplicity of Susan's appearance, and the artless good sense and propriety of the answers she gave to all the questions that were asked her, pleased the ladies at the Abbey, who were good judges of character and manners.

Sir Arthur Somers had two sisters, sensible, benevolent women. They were not of that race of fine ladies who are miserable the moment they come to _the country_; nor yet were they of that bustling sort, who quack and direct all their poor neighbours, for the mere love of managing, or the want of something to do. They were judiciously generous; and whilst they wished to diffuse happiness, they were not peremptory in requiring that people should be happy precisely their own way. With these dispositions, and with a well-informed brother, who, though he never wished to direct, was always willing to a.s.sist in their efforts to do good, there were reasonable hopes that these ladies would be a blessing to the poor villagers amongst whom they were now settled.

As soon as Miss Somers had spoken to Susan, she inquired for her brother; but Sir Arthur was in his study, and a gentleman was with him on business.

Susan was desirous of returning to her mother, and the ladies therefore would not detain her. Miss Somers told her, with a smile, when she took leave, that she would call upon her in the evening at six o'clock.

It was impossible that such a grand event as Susan's visit to the Abbey could long remain unknown to Barbara Case and her gossiping maid. They watched eagerly for the moment of her return, that they might satisfy their curiosity. 'There she is, I declare, just come into her garden,'

cried Bab; 'I'll run in and get it all out of her in a minute.'

Bab could descend, without shame, whenever it suited her purposes, from the height of insolent pride to the lowest meanness of fawning familiarity.

Susan was gathering some marigolds and some parsley for her mother's broth.

'So, Susan,' said Bab, who came close up to her before she perceived it, 'how goes the world with you to-day?' 'My mother is rather better to-day, she says, ma'am--thank you,' replies Susan, coldly but civilly.

'_Ma'am!_ dear, how polite we are grown of a sudden!' cried Bab, winking at her maid. 'One may see you've been in good company this morning--hey, Susan? Come, let's hear about it.' 'Did you see the ladies themselves, or was it only the housekeeper sent for you?' said the maid. 'What room did you go into?' continued Bab. 'Did you see Miss Somers, or Sir Arthur?' 'Miss Somers.' 'La! she saw Miss Somers! Betty, I must hear about it. Can't you stop gathering those things for a minute and chat a bit with us, Susan?' 'I can't stay, indeed, Miss Barbara; for my mother's broth is just wanted, and I'm in a hurry.' Susan ran home.

'Lord, her head is full of broth now,' said Bab to her maid; 'and she has not a word for herself, though she has been abroad. My papa may well call her _Simple Susan_; for simple she is, and simple she will be, all the world over. For my part, I think she's little better than a downright simpleton. But, however, simple or not, I'll get what I want out of her. She'll be able to speak, maybe, when she has settled the grand matter of the broth. I'll step in and ask to see her mother, that will put her in a good humour in a trice.'

Barbara followed Susan into the cottage, and found her occupied with the grand affair of the broth. 'Is it ready?' said Bab, peeping into the pot that was over the fire. 'Dear, how savoury it smells! I'll wait till you go in with it to your mother; for I must ask her how she does myself.'

'Will you please to sit down then, miss?' said Simple Susan, with a smile; for at this instant she forgot the guinea-hen; 'I have but just put the parsley into the broth; but it soon will be ready.'

During this interval Bab employed herself, much to her own satisfaction, in cross-questioning Susan. She was rather provoked indeed that she could not learn exactly how each of the ladies was dressed, and what there was to be for dinner at the Abbey; and she was curious beyond measure to find out what Miss Somers meant by saying that she would call at Mr. Price's cottage at six o'clock in the evening. 'What do you think she could mean?' 'I thought she meant what she said,' replied Susan, 'that she would come here at six o'clock.' 'Ay, that's as plain as a pike-staff,' said Barbara; 'but what else did she mean, think you?

People, you know, don't always mean exactly, downright, neither more nor less than what they say.' 'Not always,' said Susan, with an arch smile, which convinced Barbara that she was not quite a simpleton. '_Not always_,' repeated Barbara colouring,--'oh, then I suppose you have some guess at what Miss Somers meant.' 'No,' said Susan, 'I was not thinking about Miss Somers, when I said not always.' 'How nice that broth does look,' resumed Barbara, after a pause.

Susan had now poured the broth into a basin, and as she strewed over it the bright orange marigolds, it looked very tempting. She tasted it, and added now a little salt, and now a little more, till she thought it was just to her mother's taste. 'Oh, _I_ must taste it,' said Bab, taking the basin up greedily. 'Won't you take a spoon?' said Susan, trembling at the large mouthfuls which Barbara sucked up with a terrible noise.

'Take a spoonful, indeed!' exclaimed Barbara, setting down the basin in high anger. 'The next time I taste your broth you shall affront me, if you dare! The next time I set my foot in this house, you shall be as saucy to me as you please.' And she flounced out of the house, repeating '_Take a spoon, pig_, was what you meant to say.'

Susan stood in amazement at the beginning of this speech; but the concluding words explained to her the mystery.

Some years before this time, when Susan was a very little girl, and could scarcely speak plain, as she was eating a basin of bread and milk for her supper at the cottage door, a great pig came up and put his nose into the basin. Susan was willing that the pig should have some share of the bread and milk; but as she ate with a spoon and he with his large mouth, she presently discovered that he was likely to have more than his share; and in a simple tone of expostulation she said to him, 'Take a _poon_, pig.'[7] The saying became proverbial in the village. Susan's little companions repeated it, and applied it upon many occasions, whenever any one claimed more than his share of anything good. Barbara, who was then not Miss Barbara, but plain Bab, and who had played with all the poor children in the neighbourhood, was often reproved in her unjust methods of division by Susan's proverb. Susan, as she grew up, forgot the childish saying; but the remembrance of it rankled in Barbara's mind, and it was to this that she suspected Susan had alluded, when she recommended a spoon to her, whilst she was swallowing the basin of broth.

[7] This is a true anecdote.

'La, miss,' said Barbara's maid, when she found her mistress in a pa.s.sion upon her return from Susan's, 'I only wondered you did her the honour to set your foot within her doors. What need have you to trouble her for news about the Abbey folks, when your own papa has been there all the morning, and is just come in, and can tell you everything?'

Barbara did not know that her father meant to go to the Abbey that morning, for Attorney Case was mysterious even to his own family about his morning rides. He never chose to be asked where he was going, or where he had been; and this made his servants more than commonly inquisitive to trace him.

Barbara, against whose apparent childishness and real cunning he was not sufficiently on his guard, had often the art of drawing him into conversation about his visits. She ran into her father's parlour; but she knew, the moment she saw his face, that it was no time to ask questions; his pen was across his mouth, and his brown wig pushed oblique upon his contracted forehead. The wig was always pushed crooked whenever he was in a brown, or rather a black, study. Barbara, who did not, like Susan, bear with her father's testy humour from affection and gentleness of disposition, but who always humoured him from artifice, tried all her skill to fathom his thoughts, and when she found that _it_ would not do, she went to tell her maid so, and to complain that her father was so cross there was no bearing him.

It is true that Attorney Case was not in the happiest mood possible; for he was by no means satisfied with his morning's work at the Abbey. Sir Arthur Somers, the _new man_, did not suit him, and he began to be rather apprehensive that he should not suit Sir Arthur. He had sound reasons for his doubts.

Sir Arthur Somers was an excellent lawyer, and a perfectly honest man.

This seemed to our attorney a contradiction in terms; in the course of his practice the case had not occurred; and he had no precedents ready to direct his proceedings. Sir Arthur was also a man of wit and eloquence, yet of plain dealing and humanity. The attorney could not persuade himself to believe that his benevolence was anything but enlightened cunning, and his plain dealing he one minute dreaded as the masterpiece of art, and the next despised as the characteristic of folly. In short, he had not yet decided whether he was an honest man or a knave. He had settled accounts with him for his late agency, and had talked about sundry matters of business. He constantly perceived, however, that he could not impose upon Sir Arthur; but the idea that he could know all the mazes of the law, and yet prefer the straight road, was incomprehensible.

Mr. Case having paid Sir Arthur some compliments on his great legal abilities, and his high reputation at the bar, he coolly replied, 'I have left the bar.' The attorney looked in unfeigned astonishment that a man who was actually making 3000 per annum at the bar should leave it.

'I am come,' said Sir Arthur, 'to enjoy that kind of domestic life in the country which I prefer to all others, and amongst people whose happiness I hope to increase.' At this speech the attorney changed his ground, flattering himself that he should find his man averse to business, and ignorant of country affairs. He talked of the value of land, and of new leases.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Tried all her skill to fathom his thoughts._]

Sir Arthur wished to enlarge his domain, and to make a ride round it. A map of it was lying upon the table, and Farmer Price's garden came exactly across the new road for the ride. Sir Arthur looked disappointed; and the keen attorney seized the moment to inform him that 'Price's whole land was at his disposal.'

'At my disposal! how so?' cried Sir Arthur, eagerly; 'it will not be out of lease, I believe, these ten years. I'll look into the rent-roll again; perhaps I am mistaken.'

'You are mistaken, my good sir, and you are not mistaken,' said Mr.

Case, with a shrewd smile. 'In one sense, the land will not be out of lease these ten years, and in another it is out of lease at this present time. To come to the point at once, the lease is, _ab origine_, null and void. I have detected a capital flaw in the body of it. I pledge my credit upon it, sir, it can't stand a single term in law or equity.'

The attorney observed that at these words Sir Arthur's eye was fixed with a look of earnest attention. 'Now I have him,' said the cunning tempter to himself.

'Neither in law nor equity,' repeated Sir Arthur, with apparent incredulity. 'Are you sure of that, Mr. Case?' 'Sure! As I told you before, sir, I'd pledge my whole credit upon the thing--I'd stake my existence.' '_That's something_,' said Sir Arthur, as if he was pondering upon the matter.

The attorney went on with all the eagerness of a keen man, who sees a chance at one stroke of winning a rich friend and of ruining a poor enemy. He explained, with legal volubility and technical amplification, the nature of the mistake in Mr. Price's lease. 'It was, sir,' said he, 'a lease for the life of Peter Price, Susanna his wife, and to the survivor or survivors of them, or for the full time and term of twenty years, to be computed from the first day of May then next ensuing. Now, sir, this, you see, is a lease in reversion, which the late Sir Benjamin Somers had not, by his settlement, a right to make. This is a curious mistake, you see, Sir Arthur; and in filling up those printed leases there's always a good chance of some flaw. I find it perpetually; but I never found a better than this in the whole course of my practice.'

Sir Arthur stood in silence.

'My dear sir,' said the attorney, taking him by the b.u.t.ton, 'you have no scruple of stirring in this business?'

'A little,' said Sir Arthur.

'Why, then, that can be done away in a moment. Your name shall not appear in it at all. You have nothing to do but to make over the lease to me. I make all safe to you with my bond. Now, being in possession, I come forward in my own proper person. _Shall I proceed?_'

'No--you have said enough,' replied Sir Arthur.

'The case, indeed, lies in a nutsh.e.l.l,' said the attorney, who had by this time worked himself up to such a pitch of professional enthusiasm that, intent upon his vision of a lawsuit, he totally forgot to observe the impression his words made upon Sir Arthur.

'There's only one thing we have forgotten all this time,' said Sir Arthur. 'What can that be, sir?' 'That we shall ruin this poor man.'

Case was thunderstruck at these words, or rather, by the look which accompanied them. He recollected that he had laid himself open before he was sure of Sir Arthur's _real_ character. He softened, and said he should have had certainly more _consideration_ in the case of any but a litigious, pig-headed fellow, as he knew Price to be.

'If he be litigious,' said Sir Arthur, 'I shall certainly be glad to get him fairly out of the parish as soon as possible. When you go home, you will be so good, sir, as to send me his lease, that I may satisfy myself before we stir in this business.'