bath was sleeping as soundly as if it had been a quaker town: any sounds of riot were scattered and subdued. the dowager did not count her gains as she clutched them, while borne along the street by the glare of the dropping flambeaux. her son, who, like the young duke of marlborough and his brother peer, carried no meaner change than golden guineas, did not clink them as he [page 78]tossed them to the chairmen fighting for the prize. the "bear" was reasonably still for a great public-house with twos and threes of travellers departing at all hours, as waiters and ostlers stirred on their behalf, horses trotted out from adjoining stables, and circles of chariots suffered displacement—all in addition to the distinct and fervent sensation of the night coach.
suddenly a noise and a flurry arose in the grey light and its general repose. accents of terror and anxiety are heard, and a movement of pity and distress arises and grows in the establishment. a young girl is attacked by violent illness—a life in its spring-time is threatened with sudden extinction; friends at hand are seeking remedies and bewailing the calamity—friends at a distance, all unconscious, are mentioned with subdued voices and averted eyes.
mrs. price was wiping her eyes and carrying up restoratives with her own hands. "'twas mistress fiddy, whom she had known from a child; the niece of master rowland, who had always supported the house; and madam, her mother, away at the vicarage, and the dear child, so good and quiet."
"i will come, my good mrs. price. my sister had these fainting fits; i'm used to them. i'll revive the child: the poor child, i am sure she'll not be offended at the liberty. pooh! i can sit up as well as sleep after playing. dear! dear! many a night i was happy to sit up with deb," pleaded an urgent, benevolent voice, waxing plaintive towards the conclusion of the speech.
"indeed you are too gracious, my lady—i mean [page 79]madam," protested the perplexed, overwhelmed mrs. price; "but i dare not venture without master rowland's consent: he will do everything himself, issue his orders even, although dr. fulford's been upstairs lending his advice these ten minutes."
"a fudge for doctors when there's a helpful woman at hand, mrs. price? convey my message to the squire; inform him that i've had experience—mind, experience—and am a full-grown, reasonable woman, and not a fine lady. i know the poor little sister will be shaking like a leaf, and frightening the darling; and you are stiff in the joints yourself, mrs. price, and a little overcome. i'm just the person, so let me in!"
master rowland, without his coat (for though he had an orderly turn of his own, he was not a methodical enough man to travel with a gown and slippers in his valise), was labouring to recover his niece; mistress prissy, with her cloak huddled round her, was making magnanimous efforts to aid her uncle; while the poor little sufferer—guileless, affectionate mistress fiddy—lay pale, faint, and chill, with life flickering beneath her half-closed eyelids and in the gushes of her fitful breath. master rowland's trouble rendered him outwardly cold and hard, as it does some men; yet mistress fiddy's closing eyes turned trustfully to him, and her weak fingers clung tightly to his strong hand.
"no, no; the fewer onlookers the better. what would a stranger do here, mrs. price?" he inquired angrily, remembering, with a pang, that certain new, unaccountable, engrossing emotions had quite banished fiddy from his [page 80]thoughts and notice, when he might have detected the signs of approaching illness, met them and vanquished them before their climax.
"bid him speak a word with me, mrs. price, a gentleman cannot refuse. i have reasons which will excuse my importunity," reiterated that sympathetic voice.
he walked out doggedly, and never once lifted his eyes. "madam, i am your servant; but we do not need your help: my niece would be scared by the presence of a stranger. reserve your charity——" "for the poor" he was about to add; but she put her frank hand upon his arm, and said, "your worship, i believe i could nurse the young lady better than anybody: i have seen my dear sister afflicted, as i judge similarly. do not stand on ceremony, sir, and deprive a poor girl of a benefit which providence has sent her, if you would not regret it. i beg your pardon, but do let me succour her."
he looked up. there she stood in her white wrapping-gown and cap, ready prepared for her patient; so appropriate-looking in dress and face, with her broad forehead full of thought, and her cheek flushed with feeling; an able tender woman in her prime, endeavouring to do christian offices, longing to pour balm into gaping, smarting wounds, imploring to be allowed to fulfil her mission. he bowed, and stood aside; she curtsied, and passed in. he heard her voice the next moment, low, but perfectly audible, cheerful and pleasant, addressing mistress prissy. "my dear madam, your uncle has permitted me to count myself a mature friend, like madam your mother; and after this introduction you will excuse me for taking care of [page 81]you. doctor, what drops do you favour? you have them there; if you please, i'll offer them: i've administered them before." she spoke to the doctor very courteously; perhaps remarking that he was young and somewhat agitated. "mayn't i chafe mistress fiddy's hands, doctor? you're better, my dear?"
mistress fiddy's head was on her arm; her eyes were raised to her nurse's face wonderingly but complacently, and, though quite conscious, mistress fiddy involuntarily sighed out "mother." very motherly was the elder woman's assurance: "yes, my dear, i'll serve as madam your mother in her absence, till madam herself comes; and she'll laugh at our confusion and clumsiness, i warrant."
mistress fiddy smiled a little smile herself. nature was reacting in its own redemption; the necessary stimulus was obtained, and the little lass was in a fair way of recovery.
but mistress betty did not leave off her cares; she elected herself mistress of the sick room—for she reigned there as everywhere else. she dismissed shivering, tearful, grateful prissy with a hug, and a whispered promise that her dear sister fiddy would be as lively as a grig in the morning; got rid of the doctor and mrs. price, and all but routed master rowland, succeeding in driving him as far as the next room.
how light her foot was—light as her fingers were nimble; how cleverly she shaded the sick girl from the light, without depriving her of air! how resigned fiddy was to be consigned to her! how quickly and entirely the child had confided in her; she had hailed her as another mother! mistress betty was putting the chamber to [page 82]rights, in defiance of all the chamber-maids of the "bear;" she was concocting some refreshing drink, for which mrs. price had supplied the materials, over the fire, which she had ordered in case of mould and damp, even in the well-seasoned "bear." once she began to sing softly what might have been a cradle-song, but stopped short, as if fearing to disturb fiddy, and composed herself to perfect stillness. then master rowland heard mistress fiddy question mistress betty in her weak, timid voice, on fiddy's own concerns. "you said you had seen these fits before, madam? may i be so bold as to ask, did the sufferer recover?"
there was a moment's silence. "it was my sister, fiddy: she was much older than i. she had a complication of diseases, besides being liable to swoons all her life. my dear, she died, as we must all die when our time comes; and may we all be as well prepared as was deb! in the meantime we are in god's hands. i have been taken with fainting fits myself, fiddy, ere now. i think they are in my constitution, but they are not called out yet, and i believe they will be kept under; as, i fully trust, country air, and exercise, and early hours, will conquer yours."
"and you will take great care of yourself, and go into the country sometimes, dear mistress betty," pleaded the girl fondly, forgetting herself.
mistress betty laughed, and turned the conversation, and finally read her patient to sleep with the morning lesson, given softly and reverently, as good bishop ken himself might have done it.
[page 83]the poor squire was a discomfited, disordered sir roger. he could not cope with this fine woman; and then it came home to him imperatively that he was precisely in that haggard, unbecoming state of looks and costume significantly expressed in those days by the powder being out of a man's hair and his frills rumpled. so he absented himself for an hour, and returned freshened by a plunge in the river and a puff in his wig. but, alas! he found that mistress betty, without quitting mistress fiddy's bedchamber, and by the mere sleight of hand of tying on a worked apron with vine clusters and leaves and tendrils all in purple and green floss silks, pinning a pink bow under her mob-cap, and sticking in her bosom a bunch of dewy ponceau polyanthuses, had beat him most completely.
mistress fiddy was, as mistress betty had predicted, so far re-established that she could breakfast with the party and talk of riding home later in the day; though wan yet, like one of those roses with a faint colour and a fleeting odour in their earliest bud. and mistress betty breakfasted with the parnells, and was such company as the little girls had never encountered before; nor, for that matter, their uncle before them, though he kept his discovery a profound secret. it was not so pleasant in one sense, and yet in another it made him feel like a king.
this was mistress betty's last day in bath, and she was to travel up to town in the train of my lord and lady salop, by easy stages and long halts; otherwise she must have hired servants, or carried pistols, and been prepared to use them, in the mail. fortunately the salops' chariots and gigs did not start till the afternoon, so that mistress [page 84]betty had the morning to spend with her new friends, and she was delighted to bestow it on them; though my lord and lady and their satellites were perpetually sending lacqueys with compliments, conveniences, and little offerings to court mistress betty,—the star in the plenitude of her lustre, who might emulate polly peacham, and be led to the altar by another enslaved duke of bolton.
how pleasant mistress betty was with the girls! upon the whole, she slighted "the justice," as she had dubbed him. she saw with her quick eyes that he was something superior; but then she saw many men quite as well-looking, well-endowed, well-mannered, and with as fair intellects, and more highly cultivated than he.
but she did not often find a pair of unsophisticated little girls won to her by her frankness and kindness, and dazzled by her goodness and greatness. how she awoke fiddy's laugh with the chit-chat club and the silence stakes. what harmless, diverting stories she told them of high life—how she had danced at ranelagh, sailed upon the thames, eaten her bun at chelsea, mounted one of the eight hundred favours which cost a guinea a piece when lady die became a countess, and called upon lady petersham, in her deepest mourning, when she sat in her state-bed enveloped in crape, with her children and grandchildren in a row at her feet! and then she told that she was born in a farmhouse like that on the hill, and would like to know if they roasted groats and played at shovelboard there still; and ended by showing them her little silver tankard, which her godfather the jolly miller had given her, and out of which her elder sister, who had never taken [page 85]kindly to tea, had drunk her ale and her aniseed water. and fiddy and prissy had each a draught of milk out of it, to boast of for the rest of their lives, as if they had sipped caudle out of the caudle-cup at a royal heir's christening.
mistress betty made the girls talk, too,—of their garden, the old parish clerk, the housekeeper at larks' hall, granny, madam, the vicar, and, to his face, of uncle rowland, his horses and colts, his cows and calves, his pictures and cabinets. they spoke also of foxholes, of letty and grizel, of sedley and bearwood, and dick ashbridge—at whose name prissy laughed saucily, and fiddy bit her lips and frowned as fiercely as she was able. with what penetration mistress betty read their connections, and how blithely and tenderly she commented upon them!
mistress betty promised to send her young friends sets of silk for their embroidery (and kept her word); she presented prissy with her enamel snuff-box, bearing an exact representation of that ugly building of st. james's; and fiddy with her "equipage"—scissors, tablets, and all, chased and wreathed with tiny pastorals, shepherds reclining and piping on sylvan banks, and shepherds and shepherdesses dancing on velvet lawns.
mistress betty kissed the girls at parting, and wished them health, peace, and good husbands; she held out her hand to master rowland, who took it with a crimson cheek, and raised it to his lips: pshaw! she never once looked at him.
the poor bachelor squire drove off, but for his manhood, groaning inwardly. lady betty had acted, and caught not [page 86]only her share of master rowland's ticket, to which she was fairly entitled, but the cream of his fancy and the core of his heart; with which she had no manner of business, any more than with the state papers and the coronation-jewels.