Martin Lambert’s first feeling, upon learning the little secret which his younger daughter’s emotion had revealed, was to be angry with the lad who had robbed his child’s heart away from him and her family. “A plague upon all scapegraces, English or Indian!” cried the Colonel to his wife. “I wish this one had broke his nose against any doorpost but ours.”
“Perhaps we are to cure him of being a scapegrace, my dear,” says Mrs. Lambert, mildly interposing, “and the fall at our door hath something providential in it. You laughed at me, Mr. Lambert, when I said so before; but if Heaven did not send the young gentleman to us, who did? And it may be for the blessing and happiness of us all that he came, too.”
“It’s hard, Molly!” groaned the Colonel. “We cherish and fondle and rear ’em: we tend them through sickness and health: we toil and we scheme: we hoard away money in the stocking, and patch our own old coats: if they’ve a headache we can’t sleep for thinking of their ailment; if they have a wish or fancy, we work day and night to compass it, and ’tis darling daddy and dearest pappy, and whose father is like ours? and so forth. On Tuesday morning I am king of my house and family. On Tuesday evening Prince Whippersnapper makes his appearance, and my reign is over. A whole life is forgotten and forsworn for a pair of blue eyes, a pair of lean shanks, and a head of yellow hair.”
“’Tis written that we women should leave all to follow our husband. I think our courtship was not very long, dear Martin!” said the matron, laying her hand on her husband’s arm.
“’Tis human nature, and what can you expect of the jade?” sighed the Colonel.
“And I think I did my duty to my husband, though I own I left my papa for him,” added Mrs. Lambert, softly.
“Excellent wench! Perdition catch my soul! but I do love thee, Molly!” says the good Colonel; “but, then, mind you, your father never did me; and if ever I am to have sons-inlaw ——”
“Ever, indeed! Of course my girls are to have husbands, Mr. Lambert!” cries mamma.
“Well, when they come, I’ll hate them, madam, as your father did me; and quite right too, for taking his treasure away from him.”
“Don’t be irreligious and unnatural, Martin Lambert! I say you are unnatural, sir!” continues the matron.
“Nay, my dear, I have an old tooth in my left jaw, here; and ’tis natural that the tooth should come out. But when the toothdrawer pulls it, ’tis natural that I should feel pain. Do you suppose, madam, that I don’t love Hetty better than any tooth in my head?” asks Mr. Lambert. But no woman was ever averse to the idea of her daughter getting a husband, however fathers revolt against the invasion of the son-inlaw. As for mothers and grandmothers, those good folks are married over again in the marriage of their young ones; and their souls attire themselves in the laces and muslins of twenty-forty years ago; the postillion’s white ribbons bloom again, and they flutter into the postchaise, and drive away. What woman, however old, has not the bridal favours and raiment stowed away, and packed in lavender, in the inmost cupboards of her heart?
“It will be a sad thing, parting with her,” continued Mrs. Lambert, with a sigh.
“You have settled that point already, Molly,” laughs the Colonel. “Had I not best go out and order raisins and corinths for the wedding-cake?”
“And then I shall have to leave the house in their charge when I go to her, you know, in Virginia. How many miles is it to Virginia, Martin? I should think it must be thousands of miles.”
“A hundred and seventy-three thousand three hundred and ninety-one and three-quarters, my dear, by the near way,” answers Lambert, gravely; “that through Prester John’s country. By the other route, through Persia ——”
“Oh, give me the one where there is the least of the sea, and your horrid ships, which I can’t bear!” cries the Colonel’s spouse. “I hope Rachel Esmond and I shall be better friends. She had a very high spirit when we were girls at school.”
“Had we not best go about the baby-linen, Mrs. Martin Lambert?” here interposed her wondering husband. Now, Mrs. Lambert, I dare say, thought there was no matter for wonderment at all, and had remarked some very pretty lace caps and bibs in Mrs. Bobbinit’s toy-shop. And on that Sunday afternoon, when the discovery was made, and while little Hetty was lying upon her pillow with feverish cheeks, closed eyes, and a piteous face, her mother looked at the child with the most perfect ease of mind, and seemed to be rather pleased than otherwise at Hetty’s woe.
The girl was not only unhappy, but enraged with herself for having published her secret. Perhaps she had not known it until the sudden emotion acquainted her with her own state of mind; and now the little maid chose to be as much ashamed as if she had done a wrong, and been discovered in it. She was indignant with her own weakness, and broke into transports of wrath against herself. She vowed she never would forgive herself for submitting to such a humiliation. So the young pard, wounded by the hunter’s dart, chafes with rage in the forest, is angry with the surprise of the rankling steel in her side, and snarls and bites at her sister-cubs, and the leopardess, her spotted mother.
Little Hetty tore and gnawed, and growled, so that I should not like to have been her fraternal cub, or her spotted dam or sire. “What business has any young woman,” she cried out, “to indulge in any such nonsense? Mamma, I ought to be whipped, and sent to bed. I know perfectly well that Mr. Warrington does not care a fig about me. I dare say he likes French actresses and the commonest little milliner-girl in the toy-shop better than me. And so he ought, and so they are better than me. Why, what a fool I am to burst out crying like a ninny about nothing, and because Mr. Wolfe said Harry played cards of a Sunday! I know he is not clever, like papa. I believe he is stupid — I am certain he is stupid: but he is not so stupid as I am. Why, of course, I can’t marry him. How am I to go to America, and leave you and Theo? Of course, he likes somebody else, at America, or at Tunbridge, or at Jericho, or somewhere. He is a prince in his own country, and can’t think of marrying a poor half-pay officer’s daughter, with twopence to her fortune. Used not you to tell me how, when I was a baby, I cried and wanted the moon? I am a baby now, a most absurd, silly, little baby — don’t talk to me, Mrs. Lambert, I am. Only there is this to be said, he don’t know anything about it, and I would rather cut my tongue out than tell him.”
Dire were the threats with which Hetty menaced Theo, in case her sister should betray her. As for the infantile Charley, his mind being altogether set on cheese-cakes, he had not remarked or been moved by Miss Hester’s emotion; and the parents and the kind sister of course all promised not to reveal the little maid’s secret.
“I begin to think it had been best for us to stay at home,” sighed Mrs. Lambert to her husband.
“Nay, my dear,” replied the other. “Human nature will be human nature; surely Hetty’s mother told me herself that she had the beginning of a liking for a certain young curate before she fell over head and ears in love with a certain young officer of Kingsley’s. And as for me, my heart was wounded in a dozen places ere Miss Molly Benson took entire possession of it. Our sons and daughters must follow in the way of their parents before them, I suppose. Why, but yesterday, you were scolding me for grumbling at Miss Het’s precocious fancies. To do the child justice, she disguises her feelings entirely, and I defy Mr. Warrington to know from her behaviour how she is disposed towards him.”
“A daughter of mine and yours, Martin,” cries the mother, with great dignity, “is not going to fling herself at a gentleman’s head!”
“Neither herself nor the teacup, my dear,” answers the Colonel. Little Miss Het treats Mr. Warrington like a vixen. He never comes to us, but she boxes his ears in one fashion or t’other. I protest she is barely civil to him; but, knowing what is going on in the young hypocrite’s mind, I am not going to be angry at her rudeness.”
“She hath no need to be rude at all, Martin; and our girl is good enough for any gentleman in England or America. Why, if their ages suit, shouldn’t they marry after all, sir?”
“Why, if he wants her, shouldn’t he ask her, my dear? I am sorry we came. I am for putting the horses into the carriage, and turning their heads towards home again.”
But mamma fondly said, “Depend on it, my dear, that these matters are wisely ordained for us. Depend upon it, Martin, it was not for nothing that Harry Warrington was brought to our gate in that way; and that he ............