The Semi-detached House/Chapter 2
CHAPTER II.
"Here is poor Willis coming to see us," said Mrs. Hopkinson, from her commanding position in the window, to her two girls who were drawing and reading at the secluded end of the room. The girls looked at each other with a slight expression of dismay. Willis was not a favourite; he had married their step-sister, and it was thought a great thing for the Hopkinsons, when Mr. Willis of Columbia House, which boasted of a lodge and an entrance drive, a shrubbery and a paddock, and a two-stalled stable, and every sort of suburban magnificence, married pretty Mary Smith, who lived merely at No. 2, without a shilling of her own, and dependant on her step-father for a home. So when she became Mrs. Willis of Columbia House, and of Fenchurch Street, where Mr. Willis duly transacted some mysterious business that appeared to produce a large return of profit, the Hopkinsons thought her a very fortunate young woman, and so she thought herself, till she found out that she had married a man who was by profession a grumbler. He had a passion for being a victim; when he was single, he grumbled for a wife, and when he had found a wife, he grumbled for the comforts of a bachelor. He grumbled for an heir to Columbia Lodge, and when the heir was born he grumbled because the child was frail and sickly. In short, he fairly grumbled poor gentle Mrs. Willis out of the world, and then grumbled at her for dying. But still her death was a gain to him. He took up the high bereaved line, was at all hours and in all societies the disconsolate mourner, wore a permanent crape round his hat, a rusty black coat in the city, and a shining one when he dined out. He professed himself "serious," and proved it by snubbing his friends when they were prosperous, and steadily declining to take the slightest interest in their adversities.
"What were their trials compared to his? A lonely man–ah! poor Mary! don't talk to him of losses indeed!" Certainly, though he might be the very good man he said he was, he was not an agreeable companion. His sisters-in-law were strong in that opinion. Mrs. Hopkinson took him at his own valuation, always called him "poor Willis" from respect to Mary's memory, and relieved him of the care of his sick child, which enabled him to sigh over the sacrifice he had made of his lost angel's legacy to her bereaved mother.
"I wonder what poor Willis will say, girls, when he hears that Pleasance is let?"
"Something very unpleasant, mamma," answered Janet.
"Oh, my dears, you are hard upon poor Willis! I am sure when I think of my dear Mary (what a wife she was to be sure!) I quite respect her dear husband's melancholy face and heavy sighs."
"But, mamma, don't you remember just after Mary had accepted him, and he came to ask for your consent, you said that he looked so gloomy, and sighed so deeply, that it was more like consenting to a funeral than a wedding?"
"Did I?" said Mrs. Hopkinson, trying not to laugh. "Well, he never was much in the cheerful line; but don't talk of it, for here he is. Well, Willis, Charlie is a little better to-day; and only think, Pleasance is let!"
"Of course it is," answered a sepulchral voice.
"Well, it is a sweet place! one can't wonder at anybody taking it; but it has stood empty a long time."
"That I don't care about, that is Randall's loss; but as I liked to smoke my cigar there in peace, and to take my lonely stroll by the river side, and as it suited my child to play in the garden—in short, as it was a sort of consolation to me—of course somebody else went and took it, that's all!"
Janet and Rose tried to catch their mother's eye, but she was looking compassionately at Willis, the exile of Pleasance.
"It is a Lord Something who has taken it. Mercy me, what a head I have, I remember nothing! What was his name? It was one of our great towns, Lord Leeds, Lord York, Lord Birmingham—could it be either of those?"
"As there are no such people I should think not. I do wish, Mrs. H., I could persuade you to read the 'Peerage' a little more, these blunders annoy me."
"Law, Willis, you'll be a conjuror if you persuade me to read it at all. You might as well ask me to read a list of Red Morocco Chiefs," (Mrs. Hopkinson somehow fancied that the Morocco population was bright scarlet). "I am just as likely to see them as all those peers you are always studying."
"My studies are of a far more serious class," he said tartly; "the 'Peerage' is not of much use to a broken heart. But I see nothing to be proud of in ignorance on any subject!"
Mrs. Hopkinson was in a reverie. "Chester!" she said at last, with a start that immediately threw Mr. Willis into an attitude indicative of a nervous headache, "Lord Chester, that was the name!"
"Viscount Chester, son of the Earl of Chesterton, married last year to Blanche, daughter of the Honourable W. Grenville. I met them this spring at the Lord Mayor's dinner. More frivolous specimens of fashion you could hardly see, all jewels, and laughter, and levity. Oh vanity of vanities!"
"Oh fun of fun!" exclaimed Rose. "A nice gay young couple. How glad I am! I dare say they will give parties and breakfasts, and there will be carriages continually down the lane, perhaps a band sometimes on the lawn. It will put you quite in spirits, Charles," she added, with a demure look.
He leant his head on his hands with a look of acute suffering.
"Got the headache, Charles?"
"One ache more or less makes little difference to me. I ought to have the headache. Have none of you found out who owns that dreadful macaw? It has been screaming all day."
Now it is a remarkable fact in natural history that in all the suburbs of London, consisting of detached houses, called by auctioneers 'small and elegant,' or on Terraces described as first-rate dwellings, there always is an invisible macaw, whose screaming keeps the hamlet or terrace in a constant state of irritation. Nobody at Dulham owned to having one, and detection was impossible, for there, as at all the suburban villages, the inhabitants lived by, and for, and with London. The men went daily to their offices or counting-houses, and the women depended for society on long morning visits from London friends and relations; and they did not, as they observed with much pride, "visit at Dulham." So the Macaw screeched on, and as his noise seemed to come from fifty houses at once, everybody suspected everybody of keeping this plumed atrocity. No. 3 sent to No. 5 to beg that the bird might be shut up for a few days, as No. 3's baby did nothing but start, and would not wean. No. 3's messenger met No. 5's maid-of-all-work, coming with a bold request that the macaw might be sent away, as "Missus's mother-in-law was subject to bad headaches, and was driv half mad." As neither of the parties owned even a linnet, in the way of bird, the nuisance was not abated by this negotiation.
At one time there seemed to be a hope that the mystery was discovered. A singular-looking old lady walked into church with a bunch of parrot's feathers in her bonnet. There was a general nudging of elbows through the church and a low murmur of "macaw." The lady was looked upon with such abhorrence that nobody would offer her a seat, and as for a hymn book or a hassock, money would not have procured them for her. The poor old thing might have fainted away in the aisle, if the pew-opener had not sacrificed to her, her own three-legged stool. It turned out afterwards that she was quite a stranger in the place, and had mistaken the very humdrum Mr. Bosville for the popular preacher of that name, who officiated at a church five miles off. As she was stone deaf, she went away charmed with the sermon. And the macaw screamed on anonymously.
He was a treasure to Mr. Willis; it was a daily and hourly grievance, and he made the most of it. This morning, after several splendid sighs, he withdrew with a cursory look at his child and a hoarse ejaculation, "Poor little sufferer!" but in the afternoon, when the girls were out walking, Mrs. Hopkinson was surprised to see him return, his black coat buttoned up to the very top button, not a streak of white visible. This always portended a stern visit and much good advice.
"Look, ma'am, look there!" and he presented her with a weekly paper of a disreputable character.
"Law my dear, 'the Weekly Lyre,' thank you, I never read any of those abominable papers. Do carry it away for fear the girls should see it."
"For the sake of the girls, ma'am, you must read the paragraph I have marked."
Mrs. Hopkinson was half inclined to put on her gloves, before she touched what she looked upon as poison. She had a pair of hideous dark green gauntlets, that seemed made to encounter the 'Weekly Lyre.' A broad black border, the work of Willis, encircled the following paragraph:—
"Fracas in High Life.—It is our melancholy duty to report the separation of a young and noble couple, whose appearance at the altar of Hymen we detailed some months ago. Whether the levity of the lady, or the temper of the gentleman has brought about this dénouement we are unable to say. Rumours of all sorts are rife—a foreign court, and a villa not one hundred miles from London are the scenes of several piquant anecdotes. Whether the last is tenanted by his Lordship's wife, or his chère amie, we forbear to say."
"Well, ma'am, what do you say to that?" asked Willis, folding his arms, and looking as like John Kemble as was feasible.
"Well, my dear, it is not much worse than paragraphs I have read in the most decent papers—I have seen things like that in the 'Illustrated.' It is odd that the nobility will have 'Fracaws, and chère amies, and picking anecdotes,' but I suppose in our class of life, we have the same things, only with English names. Not that John and I ever had a fracaw, thank goodness; but I am much obliged to you, Willis, for the loan of the paper, and perhaps you had better put it in your pocket, for fear the girls should come home."
"But don't you see, ma'am, what it means? Was not Lord Chester's marriage announced in this very paper six months ago? Isn't he going to a foreign court? and hasn't he taken a villa not one hundred miles from London— and is not a lady whose name is unknown coming to live in it? A nice neighbour for you, Mrs. Hopkinson."
"Oh, gracious goodness, Willis, you don't mean to say that Lord Chester is going to establish his mistress next door, and our back staircase looking on the lawn—in Dulham too! Such a quiet, proper place! Let me have another look at that dreadful paper! It must be so. What shall I do?"
"Bear the misfortune, ma'am—cheerfully as I do. Luckily my house is half a mile off."
"And we are under the very roof of Pleasance. I'll have the shutters of that staircase window shut and barred at once; the house will be as dark as pitch, but that can't be helped. Good bye, Willis, I must be off to take my precautions. This is a business!"
Willis carried off his paper with something that would have been a smile if he had not been Willis, and Mrs. Hopkinson set to work to throw up her fortifications against the vices of the nobility.
In justice to the 'London Lyre,' it may be added that the paragraph in question had no reference whatever to Lord and Lady Chester, nor to any other Lord and Lady in Her Majesty's dominions, it was a stock paragraph inserted occasionally, and with variations, when the editor was distressed for news.