1856.]

My diary continued

Saturday.-Well, it is over at last; and, upon my word, I begin to think I am capable of anything after all I have got through to-day since breakfast. Scarcely had I finished the slice of toast and single cup of tea that constitute my morning meal, before I heard the tramp of a horse on the gravel in front of the house, followed by the ominous sound of the door-bell. I have remarked that in all country families, a ring at the door-bell brings everybody's heart into everybody's mouth. Aunt Horsingham, brooding over the tea-pot as usual, had been in her worst of humours ever since she came down, and tried to look as if no bell that ever was cast had power to move her grim resolve.

'A message by electric telegraph,' exclaimed Cousin Amelia, who is always anticipating some catastrophe; no visitor would ever call at such a time.'

Unless he came to propose for one of us,' suggested John, who was carving a ham at the side-table.

'Some one on business for me, probably,' remarked Aunt Horsingham, drawing herself up and looking more stately than usual.

Mr. Haycock!' announced the butler, throwing open the door with a flourish, and while all our untimely visitor's preparations, such as wiping his shoes, arranging his dress, &c., were distinctly audible outside, we looked at each other in mute astonishment, and I own I did feel the guilty one amongst the party.

The Squire made his entrance in a state of intense trepidation; having been forcibly deprived of his white hat in the hall, he had nothing but natural means to resort to for concealment of his confusion. Had it not been for an enormous silk handkerchief (white spots on a yellow

ground), with which he blew his nose and wiped his brow at short and startling intervals, his condition would have been pitiable in the extreme. The 'Squire's' dress, too, was of a more florid style than is usual in these days of sad-coloured attire. A bright blue neck cloth, well starched and of great depth and volume; a buff waistcoat, with massive gilt buttons; a grass-green riding-coat, of peculiar shape and somewhat scanty material; white cord trousers, York tan gaiters, and enormous double-soled shootingshoes, pierced and strapped, and clamped and hob-nailed, completing a tout-ensemble that almost upset aunt's gravity, and made me, nervous as I felt, stuff my pockethandkerchief into my mouth that I might not laugh outright.

Fine morning, Lady Horsingham,' observed the Squire, as if he had come all that distance at this early hour on purpose to impart so valuable piece of information, ‘fine morning, but cold,' he repeated, rubbing his hands together, though the perspiration stood on his brow. I don't recollect a much finer morning at this time of year,' he resumed, addressing, Cousin John after a pause, during which he had ceremoniously shaken hands with each of us in succession.

Will you have some breakfast ?' asked Lady Horsingham, whose cold and formal demeanour contrasted strangely with the nervous excitement of her visitor.

'No, thank you-if you please,' answered the Squire, in a breath, I breakfasted before I left home; early hours, Lady Horsingham-I think your ladyship approves of early hours-but I'll ask for a cup of tea, if you please,' so he sat down to a weak cup of lukewarm tea with much assumed gusto and satisfaction.

It was now time for Cousin

Amelia to turn her battery on the Squire, so she presently attacked him about his poultry, and his garden, and his farm; the honest gentleman's absent and inconsequent replies causing my aunt and John to regard him with silent astonishment as one who was rapidly taking leave of his senses, whilst I, who knew or at least guessed the cause of his extraordinary behaviour, began heartily to wish myself back in Lowndes-street, and to wonder how this absurd scene was going to end.

'Your dahlias must have suffered dreadfully from these early frosts,' said Cousin Amelia, shaking her ringlets at the poor man in what she fancies her most bewitching style.

Beautifully,' was the bewildered reply, particularly the short-horns.'

You never sent us over the Alderney calf you promised, Mr. Haycock,' pursued the lady, now adroitly changing her ground; I begin to think you are not to be depended on.'

You do me injustice, Miss Horsingham, indeed you do,' broke out the Squire in a white heat, and with a deprecating glance at me; 'I assure you I sent over a very fine cutting, with a pot and everything, directions for matting it in winter and transplanting after a year; if you never got it I'll discharge my gardener, I will, upon my word.'

'I have got such a Cochin China to show you,' persisted his tormentor, determined to renew the charge; 'when you've finished breakfast, I'll take you to the poultry. yard, if you like.'

Delighted,' replied the Squire, looking ruefully around him, as if he meditated instant flight, 'delighted, I'm sure; but they haven't flowered well this year. I'll teach you how to breed them, if you like; but you're aware, Miss Horsingham, that they've no smell.'

John could stand it no longer, and was forced to bolt out of the room. My aunt, too, rose from the table with something approaching a smile, and the Squire, screwing his courage to the sticking place, was following her into the drawing. room, evidently for a private interview, when Cousin Amelia, who seemed to have made up her mind

to take bodily possession of him, hurried the visitor off to the billiardroom, there to engage in a match which would probably last till luncheon time. I never saw anything so hopeless as the expression of the victim's countenance, whilst suffering himself to be thus led into captivity. He did summon courage to entreat Miss Coventry to come and mark,' a favour which, notwithstanding my cousin's black looks, I really had not the heart to refuse him.

Game after game they played, the gentleman apparently abandoning himself to his fate. Sprawling over the table, making the most ridiculous blunders in counting, missing the most palpable of cannons, and failing to effect the easiest of hazards, the lady brandishing her mace in the most becoming attitudes, drooping her long hair over the cushions, and displaying the whiteness of her hand and slender symmetry of her fingers, as she requested her astonished adversary to teach her 'how to make a bridge,' or 'pocket the red,' or

screw in off the white,' and lisped out how hard it was to be disappointed by that provoking kiss!' The Squire made one or two futile attempts to engage me in a game, but Cousin Amelia was determined to have him all to herself, and as it was getting near the time at which I take Aunt Deborah her broth, for poor Aunt Deborah, I am sorry to say, is very ill in bed, I made my escape, and as I ran upstairs heard the billiard-room bell ring, and Squire Haycock summon up courage to know if Lady Horsingham was at leisure, as he wished to see her for five minutes alone in the drawingroom.'

People may say what they like about superstition and credulity and old women's tales, but I have faith in presentiments. Didn't I get up from my work and walk to the window at least a dozen times, to watch for Cousin John coming home, that wet day two years ago, when he broke his leg with the harriers, and yet he had only gone out for a morning's canter on the best horse he ever had in his life? Didn't I feel for eight-and-forty hours as if something too delightful was going

son.

I wonder if he knows about Mr. Johnson, not that I ever cared for him, and of course a poor curate like that, one couldn't think of it. Do you know Kate I thought his manner was very odd the other day when he dined here, though he sat next you, he kept looking at me, and I remarked once that he coloured up, oh! so red; poor fellow, I see it all now. Kate, you shall be one of my bridesmaids-perhaps it will be your turn to be a bride some of these days, who knows?'

Just then Gertrude tapped at the door.

Miss Coventry, if you please, her ladyship wishes to see you in the drawing-room.'

My cousin's face fell several inches.

'Some mistake, Gertrude,' she exclaimed; it's me, isn't it, that mamma wants ?'

'Her ladyship bid me tell Miss Kate she wished to see her immediately,' was my maid's reply, so I tripped down stairs with a beating heart, and crossed the hall just in time to see Squire Haycock riding leisurely away from the house, (though it was bitter cold, and a hard frost, the first of the season,) and looking up at the window, doubtless in hopes of an encouraging wave from the white handkerchief of his fiancée presumptive.

Short as was the interval between my own door and that of the drawing-room, I had time to run over in my mind the whole advantages and disadvantages of the flattering proposal which I was now convinced had been made on my behalf. If I became Mrs. Haycock, and I saw clearly that I had not mistaken the Squire's meaning on our return from hunting, I should be at the head of a handsome establishment, should have a good-tempered, easy-going, pleasant husband who would let me do just what I liked, and hunt to my heart's content, should live in the country, and look after the poor,

and feed hens and chickens, and sink down comfortably into a contented old age. I need not separate from Aunt Deborah, who would never be able to do without me, and I might, I am sure, turn the Squire with the greatest ease, round my little finger, but then there certainly

were great objections. I could have got over the colour of his hair, though a red head opposite me every morning, would undoubtedly be a trial, but the freckles! No, I do not think I could do my duty as a wife by a man so dreadfully freckled. I'm certain I couldn't love him, and if I didn't love him I oughtn't to marry him, and I thought of the sad, sad tale of Lucy Lady Horsingham, whose ghost was now in the nightly habit of haunting Dangerfield Hall. The struggles that poor thing must have gone through, the leaden hours of dull torpid misery, the agonizing moments of acute remorse, the perpetual spirit-wearing conflict between duty and inclination, much to the discomfiture of the former, and the haunting face of Cousin Edward continually rising on that heated imagination, pleading, reproaching, sueing till she loved him if possibly more madly in his absence than when he was by her side. I too, was beginning to have a 'Cousin Edward' of my own, Frank Lovell's image was far too often present in my mind. I did not choose to confess to myself, how much I liked him, but the more I reflected on Mr. Haycock's proposal, the more I felt how impossible it would be never to think of Frank any more.

"No!' I said inwardly with my hand on the drawing-room door, 'I will not give him up. I have his note even now in my bosom, he cares for me at any rate. I am happier to-day than I have been for months, and I will not go and destroy it all with my own hand.' I opened the door and found myself in the formidable presence of Aunt Horsingham.

Her ladyship looked colder and more reserved, if possible, than ever. She motioned me stiffly to take a chair, and plunged at once into the subject in her dry measured tones.

Before I congratulate you, Kate,' she began, 'on such an unlooked for piece of good-fortune, as has just come to my knowledge, I am bound to confess, much to my astonishment-'

'Thank you, aunt,' I put in; "that's complimentary at any rate.'

'I should wish to say a few words' proceeded my aunt, without heeding the interruption, 'on the duties which will now devolve upon you, and the

1856.]

line of conduct which I should advise you to pursue in your new sphere; these hoydenish manners, these ridiculous expeditions, these scampers all over the country, must be renounced forthwith. Unbecoming as they are in a young unmarried female, a much stricter sense of decorum, a vastly different repose and reserve of manner, are absolutely essential in a wife, and it is as a wife Kate, that I am now addressing you.' 'A wife, aunt,' Iexclaimed, 'whose, I should like to know?'

This is an ill-chosen time for jesting, Kate,' said my aunt with a frown; I cannot congratulate you on your good taste in turning so important a subject into ridicule. Mr. Haycock has proposed to you, you have accepted him. Whilst poor Deborah is so ill, I am your natural guardian, and he has with great propriety requested my consent, although in the agitation very natural to a man so circumstanced,' added my aunt, smothering a smile, 'it was with some difficulty that I made out exactly what he meant.' 'He never proposed to me, I never accepted him,' I broke in, breathless with agitation, I never will be his wife, aunt, you had no right to tell him so. Write to him immediately, send a man off on horseback to overtake him-I'll put my bonnet on this instant, and walk every mile of the way myself. He's a true-hearted gentleman, and I wont have him made a fool of.' I walked up and down the room, I looked Aunt Horsingham full in the face; she was quite cowed by my vehemence. I felt I was mistress now, while the excitement lasted, and she gave in; she even wrote a note to the Squire at my dictation, she dispatched it by a special messenger, she did everything I told her, and never so much as ventured on remonstrance or reproach, but she will never forgive me to her dying hour. There is no victory so complete as that which one obtains over a person who is always accustomed to meet with fear and obediAunt Horsingham rules her household with a rod of iron; nobody ever ventures to disagree with her, or so much as to hint an opinion contrary to those which she is known to hold. Such a person is so asto

ence.

423

nished at resistance as to be incapable of quelling it; the very hardihood of the rebellion ensures its success. When I walked out of the drawing-room to-day, I felt that for once I had obtained the victory in a contest with my aunt; that in future I should no longer be the wild troublesome Kate,' the 'black sheep' of the family, the scapegoat on whom were laid the faults and misdemeanours of all, but the masterspirit, the bold resolute woman, whose value others were able to appreciate, and who was ready and willing to assert her own independence. In the meantime poor Aunt Deborah had to be informed of what had taken place, and Cousin Amelia to be undeceived in her groundless expectations. That the latter would never forgive me, I was well enough acquainted with my own sex to be assured, but the task required to be done notwithstanding. Flushed with my triumph, with heightened colour and flashing eyes, I stalked off towards my chamber, and met Cousin John in the hall.

'Good heavens, Kate, what is the matter? what has happened?' exclaimed John, in obvious perturbation.

'A piece of news!' was my reply, 'a conquest, John! What do you think? Mr. Haycock has just been here, and proposed for me!'

He flushed up all over his face and temples, and then turned deadly pale, even his lips were quite white and wide apart; how they quivered as he tried to speak unconcernedly, and after all he got out nothing but, 'Well, Kate.'

And I have refused him, John,' I said, quietly, but in a tone that showed him there was no mistake about it.

God bless you, Kate,' was all he replied, and turned away muttering something about 'wet things' and 'his dressing room,' but he was going to the wrong door, and had to turn back, though he took care not to let me see his face again.

I can't make John out. At dinner he was just as if nothing had happened; but at all events I'm glad I've refused Mr. Haycock, so I shall read Frank's note over once more, and then go to bed.