Out in the Forty-Five Part 16

Must there always be changes and break-ups in this world? I do not mean the change of death: that, we know, must come. But why must there be all these other changes? Why could we not go on quietly as we were? It seems now as if we should never be the same any more.

If that uncle of Cecilia's would only have tied her to the leg of a table, or locked her up in her bed-chamber, or done something to keep her down there in the South, so that she had never come to torment us!

I suppose I ought not to wish that, if she makes Father happier. Ay, but will she make him happy? That is just what I am uncomfortable about! I don't believe she cares a pin for him, though I dare say she likes well enough to be the Squire's lady, and queen it at Brocklebank.

Somehow, I cannot trust those tawny eyes, with their sidelong glances.

Am I very wicked, or is she?

Will things never give over happening?

This morning, just after I came down--there were only my Aunt Kezia, Mr Keith, Flora, and me in the dining-parlour--we suddenly heard the great bell of Brocklebank Church begin to toll. My Aunt Kezia set down the chocolate-pot.

"It must be somebody who has died suddenly, poor soul!" cried she.

"Maybe, Ellen Armathwaite's baby: it looked very bad when I saw it last, on Thursday. Hark!"

The bell stopped tolling, and we listened for the sound which would tell us the s.e.x and age of the departed.

"One!" Then silence.

That meant a man. Ellen Armathwaite's baby girl it could not be. Then the bell began again, and we counted. It tolled on up to twenty-- thirty--forty: we could not think who it could be.

"Surely not Farmer Catterall!" said my Aunt Kezia, "I have often felt afraid of an apoplexy for him."

But the bell went on past sixty, and we knew it was not Farmer Catterall.

"Is it never going to stop?" said Flora, when it had pa.s.sed eighty.

My Aunt Kezia went to the door, and calling Sam, bade him go out and inquire. Still the bell tolled on. It stopped just as Sam came in, at ninety-six.

"Who is it, Sam?--one of the old bedesmen?"

"Nay, Mrs Kezia; puir soul, 'tis just the auld Vicar!"

"Mr Digby!" we all cried together.

"Ay; my mither found him deid i' his bed early this morrow. She's come up to tell ye, an' to ask gin' ye can spare me to go and gi'e a haun', for that puir witless body, Mr Anthony Parmenter, seems all but daft."

Miss...o...b..rne and Amelia came in together, and I saw Cecilia turn very white. (Oh dear! how shall I give over calling her Cecilia?) My Aunt Kezia told them what had happened, and I thought she looked relieved.

"What ails Mr Parmenter?" asked my Aunt Kezia.

"'Deed, and what ails a fule onie day?" said Sam, always more honest than soft-spoken. "He's just as ill as a bit la.s.sie--fair frichtened o'

his auld uncle, now he is deid, that ne'er did him a bawbee's worth o'

harm while he was alive. My mither says she's vara sure he'll be here the morn, begging and praying ye to tak' him in and keep him safe frae his puir auld uncle's ghaist. Hech, sirs! I'll ghaist him, gin' he comes my way."

"Now, Sam, keep a civil tongue in your head," quoth my Aunt Kezia, "and don't let me hear of your playing tricks on Mr Parmenter or any one else. You should be old enough to have some sense by this time. I will come out and speak to your mother in a moment. Yes, I suppose we must let you go. What cuckoos there are in this world, to be sure!"

But Mr Parmenter did not wait till to-morrow--he came up this afternoon, just as Sam said he would. Father was not at home, and to my surprise my Aunt Kezia would not take him in, but sent him on to Farmer Catterall's. I do not think the tawny eyes liked it, for though they were mostly bent on the ground, I saw them give one sidelong flash at my Aunt Kezia which did not look to me like loving-kindness.

I feel to-night what I think Angus means when he says that he is flat.

Everything feels flat. f.a.n.n.y is gone--she was married on Sat.u.r.day.

Amelia, Charlotte, and Hatty set forth on Tuesday, and they are gone. I thought that Ce--Miss...o...b..rne would have gone with them, and have returned by-and-by; but she stays on, and will do so, I hear, almost till my Aunt Kezia goes, when Mrs Hebblethwaite has asked her to stay at the Fells Farm for the last few days before the wedding. It is settled now that my Aunt Kezia and Sophy stay here till the day before it. It does seem so queer for Sophy to be here till then, and not be at the wedding! I don't believe it is Father's doing. It is not like him.

Flora, Angus, Mr Keith, and I are to start to-morrow; but Mr Keith only goes with us as far as Carlisle--that is, the first day's journey; then he leaves us for Newcastle, where he has some sort of business (that horrid word!), and I go on with my cousins to Abbotscliff. We shall be met at Carlisle by a Scots gentleman who is travelling thence to Selkirk, and is a friend of my Uncle Drummond. He goes in his own chaise, with two mounted servants, and both he and they are armed, so I hope we shall get clear of freebooters on the Border. He has n.o.body with him, and says he shall have plenty of room in the chaise. It is very lucky that this Mr Cameron should just be going at the same time as we are. I don't think Angus would be much protection, though I should not wish him to know I said so.

If Ephraim Hebblethwaite have broken his heart, he behaves very funnily.

He was not only at f.a.n.n.y's wedding, but was best man; and he looks quite well and happy. I begin to think that we must have been mistaken in guessing that he cared for f.a.n.n.y. Perhaps it only amused him to talk to her.

f.a.n.n.y's wedding was very smart and gay, and everybody came to it. The bridesmaids were we three, Esther Langridge, and two cousins of Ambrose's, whose names are Annabel Catterall and Priscilla Minshull. I rather liked Annabel, but Priscilla was horrid. (Sophy says I say "horrid" too often, and about all sorts of things. But if people and things are horrid, how am I to help saying it?) I am sure Priscilla Minshull was horrid. She reminded me of Angus's saying about turning up one's eyes like a duck in thunder. I never watched a duck in thunder, and I don't know whether it turns up its eyes or it does not: only Priscilla did. She seemed to think us all (my Aunt Kezia said) no better than the dirt she walked on. And I am sure she need not be so stuck-up, for Mr James Minshull, her father, is only a parson, and not only that, but a chaplain too: so Priscilla is not anybody of any consequence. I said so to Flora, and she replied that Priscilla would be much less likely to be proud if she were.

I was dreadfully tired on Sunday. We had been so hard at work all the fortnight before, first making the wedding dress, and then dressing the wedding-dinner; and when I went to bed on Sat.u.r.day night, I thought I never wanted to see another. Another wedding, of course, I mean.

However, everything went off very well; and f.a.n.n.y looked charming in her pink silk brocaded with flowers, with white stripes down it here and there, and a pink quilted slip beneath. She had pink rosettes, too, in her shoes, and a white hood lined with pink and trimmed with pink bows.

Her hoop came from Carlisle, and was the biggest I have seen yet. The mantua-maker from Carlisle, who was five days in the house, said that hoops were getting very much larger this year, and she thought they would soon be as big as they were in Queen Anne's time. We had much smaller hoops--of course it would not have been seemly to have the bridesmaids as smart as the bride--and we were dressed alike, in white French cambric, with light green tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs. Of course we all wore white ribbons. I think Father would have stormed at us if we had put on any other colour. I should not like to be the one to wear a red ribbon when he was by! [Note 1.] We wore straw milk-maid hats, with green ribbon mixed with the white; and just a sprinkle of grey powder in our hair.

Cecilia would not be a bridesmaid, though she was asked. I don't think she liked the dress chosen; and indeed it would not have suited her.

But wasn't she dressed up! She wore--I really must set it down--a purple lutestring, [Note 2.] over such a hoop that she had to lift it on one side when she went in at the church door; this was guarded with gold lace and yellow feathers. She had a white laced ap.r.o.n, purple velvet slippers with red heels, and her lace ruffles were something to look at!

And wasn't she patched! and hadn't she powdered her hair, and made it as stiff with pomatum as if it had been starched! Then on the top of this head went a lace cap--it was not a hood--just a little, light, fly-away cap, with purple ribbons and gold embroidery, and in the middle of the front a big gold pompoon.

What a contrast there was between her and my Aunt Kezia! She wore a silk dress too, only it was a dark stone-colour, as quiet as a Quakeress, just trimmed with two rows of braid, the same colour, round the bottom, and a white silk scarf, with a dark blue hood, and just a little rosette of white lace at the top of it. Aunt Kezia's hood was a hood, too, and was tied under her chin as if she meant it to be some good. And her elbow-ruffles were plain nett, with long dark doe-skin gloves drawn up to meet them. Cecilia wore white silk mittens. I hate mittens; they are horrid things. If you want to make your hands look as ugly as you can, you have only to put on a pair of mittens.

The wedding-dinner, which was at noon, was a very grand one. It should have been, for didn't my arms ache with beating eggs and keeping pans stirred! Hatty said we were martyrs in a good cause. But I do think f.a.n.n.y might have taken a little more trouble herself, seeing it was her wedding. Now, let us see, what had we? There was a turkey pie, and a boar's head, chickens in different ways, and a great baron of roast beef; cream beaten to snow (Sophy did that, I am glad to say), candied fruits, and ices, and several sorts of pudding, for dessert. Then for drink, there were wine, and mead, purl, and Burton ale.

Well! it is all over now, and f.a.n.n.y is gone. There will never be four of us any more. There seems to me something very sad about it. Poor dear f.a.n.n.y, I hope she will be happy!

"I dare guess she will, in her way," says my Aunt Kezia. "She does not keep a large cup for her happiness. 'Tis all the easier to fill when you don't; but a deal more will go in when you do. There are advantages and disadvantages on each side of most things in this world."

"Is there any advantage, Aunt Kezia, in my having just p.r.i.c.ked my finger shockingly?"

"Yes, Cary. Learn to be more careful in future."

Note 1. The white ribbon, like the white c.o.c.kade, distinguished a Jacobite; the red ribbon and the black c.o.c.kade were Hanoverian.

Note 2. A variety of silk then fas.h.i.+onable.

CHAPTER FIVE.

LEAVING THE NEST.

"I've kept old ways, and loved old friends, Till, one by one, they've slipped away; Stand where we will, cling as we like, There's none but G.o.d can be our stay.

'Tis only by our hold on Him We keep a hold on those who pa.s.s Out of our sight across the seas, Or underneath the churchyard gra.s.s."

ISABELLA FYVIE MAYO.

Carlisle, April the 5th, 1744 or 5.

I really feel that I must put a date to my writing now, when this is the first time of my going out into the great world. I have never been beyond Carlisle before, and now I am going, first into a new country, and then to London itself, if all go well.