Dilemmas of Pride. Mrs. Loudon

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      CHAPTER IX.

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      Mrs. Dorothea had been so busy all day, changing her lodgings again, that she had hardly had time to ask Sarah a word about the Salters' dinner-party.

      On this occasion, however, we must remark, that she had moved to a furnished house, not to a mere lodging; for she was determined to make an exertion, while the Ardens were in Cheltenham, live how she might the rest of the year, having a great horror of living like a poor relation.

      Most people have a particular objection to seeming to be what they really are.

      Indeed Lady Arden had written most kindly to Mrs. Dorothea, inviting her to spend the time they should be at Cheltenham with them. Had the expense of a house or lodging been no object to Aunt Dorothea, she would gladly have availed herself of this invitation for the pleasure of the thing; but the arrangement would have been so very convenient, that her pride took the alarm, and would not suffer her to accept the offer. In her father's life time, as a daughter of the then head of the family, she had acquired notions of her own consequence, which became a painful incumbrance from the moment her circumstances underwent that violent revolution to which those of the daughters of the proudest and most ancient families are peculiarly liable.

      Pride in any situation is a moral disease, which it would be highly desirable to see for ever banished from the world! but pride, when complicated with poverty, is apt to render the unhappy sufferer not only always very uncomfortable, but often very ridiculous. Added to which, it must ever be impossible for the heart that harbours pride to know contentment.

      At present, however, Mrs. Dorothea was quite delighted. The house she had taken for six months certain for Lady Arden, though designated by the rural title of Violet Bank, was a splendid mansion. The one she had taken for herself for the same period, was both pretty and agreeably situated; it was accommodated with a cook, or maid of all work, who was taken with it as a part of the furniture. Mrs. Dorothea had also hired a footman for the great occasion, and put him into livery; so that with Sarah, her own maid, she had now, for a single lady, quite a respectable little establishment, and could look forward to returning the evening entertainments, at least of her relations, on something of an independent footing. Dinners of course she could not give, nor need she accept them; she did not care what she eat. She certainly liked the best society, and that she should now have, without laying herself under obligations to any one. For, much as she liked Lady Arden, (one whom no one could help liking, she was so truly amiable,) she could not forget that her ladyship was a stranger in blood, from whom, consequently, an Arden could not receive even a courtesy without requital.

      Mrs. Dorothea was so glad too, as she told Sarah, while she stood in the centre of her new drawing-room, looking round her, to get out of that horrid place where she had been for the last two months, sitting every evening on those tiresome little chairs, for, as Sarah had prophesied, her landlady had never given her the sofa, nor put the drops to the chimney-light, nor even got a key for the chiffonier. Then, the woman of the house could not or would not afford a decent servant, so that the cooking was shocking, and the attendance wretched; and then the oven of the bakehouse next door she found out at last was just on the other side of the one brick thin wall, against which her bed stood, so that she had been nearly baked to death, and had been losing her health without knowing why. To be sure the carpet looked respectable, but then the lodging had no other recommendation, as in addition to its many discomforts, it had proved one way or other very expensive; for mistaking the heat and restlessness she felt at nights for the consequences of the lassitude and want of appetite of which they were in fact the cause; she had got frightened about herself, and had called in doctor after doctor, and taken ever so much medicine in vain, till at last happening to go in next door to correct an error in her baker's bill, in which she had been charged with all the bread supplied to her landlady, she became acquainted with the geography of the premises, and so discovered the whole mystery. Then being without a key to the chiffonier too, made a great difference in the groceries, though having no proof of the fact, it would not do to say so. This might have brought down the lawyers upon her; then indeed would the cup of her afflictions have been full. Poor Aunt Dorothea felt almost restored to the days of her youth by the comparative comforts which now surrounded her. She moved into her regular dining-room when her dinner was ready, and was there decently and respectfully attended by her own footman in livery. There was a sideboard, and her few articles of plate were arranged upon it, and things looked orderly and comfortable; it was enough to give one an appetite, and made her boiled chicken and quarter of a hundred of asparagus seem a dinner for an emperor. Instead of dining in the comfortless scramble she used to do, in her haste to send the tray out of the drawing-room lest some one should come in, she now ate as slowly as possible to prolong the gratifying sense of dignity which accompanied the ceremony.

      The very next day the Misses Salter had the impudence to call, and the new footman not being in the family secrets, admitted them.

      On their entrance Aunt Dorothea looked her astonishment with great dignity.

      "What a sweet situation," exclaimed Miss Salter.

      "What a charming house," said Miss Grace. Mrs. Dorothea bowed.

      "How fortunate we were in finding you at home," said Miss Salter.

      "Oh, yes, very fortunate indeed!" added Miss Grace. Mrs. Dorothea bowed again.

      "How sorry we were you could not come to us last night," said Miss Salter, "we had such a select party, just what you would have liked."

      "Yes, just what you would have liked," echoed Miss Grace.

      "I hope we shall be more fortunate the next time," said Miss Salter. "We shall have a great many of those agreeable select parties just now. Our particular friend, Lady Flamborough, you see, and our particular friend, Lady Whaleworthy, and our particular friend, Lady Shawbridge, and all that pleasant set being here just now, naturally induces one to see a great deal of company. Then there are such delightful young men here at present, and that you know always makes parties pleasant, there's our friend, Sir William Orm, such an elegant fashionable young man."

      "And Sir James Lindsey," observed Miss Grace, "an old baronet, with fifteen thousand a-year."

      "Yes," said Miss Salter, "such an agreeable good tempered little man, so affable and unassuming. And there is General Powel too, in short we quite abound in nice young men. And I hope," added Miss Salter, with an air of great friendship, "that we shall soon and often have the pleasure of seeing you, Mrs. Arden."

      "You are very obliging," replied Mrs. Dorothea, bowing gravely, "but my arrangements will for some considerable time be controlled entirely by those of my sister, Lady Arden, and her family, with whom I shall consider myself engaged, either at home or abroad, every day during their stay."

      "So you expect Lady Arden," said Miss Salter, with well affected surprise. "Dear me, I'm sure we should be most happy to pay attention to any friend of yours."

      "You are very obliging," observed Mrs. Dorothea, with if possible increasing stiffness, "but Lady Arden does not mean to extend her acquaintance."

      The discomforted Misses Salter finding lingering and last words СКАЧАТЬ