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Why Miss Darcy should laugh, and what there could be to warrant the use of the epithet, “provoking,” Paul might have been broken on the wheel without being able to guess, while Lady Eleanor went on, —

“Now, it would seem customary for the guests to adopt here certain hours in common, – breakfasting, dining together, and associating like the members of one family.”

Paul nodded an assent, and she resumed.

“I need scarcely observe to you, Mr. Dempsey, how very unsuited either myself or Miss Darcy would be to such an assembly, if even present circumstances did not more than ever enjoin a life of strict retirement.”

“Dear me!” exclaimed Paul in a tone of deprecation, “there never was anything more select than this. Mother Fum never admits without a reference; I can show you the advertisement in the Derry papers. We kept the Collector out for two months, till he brought us a regular bill of health, as a body might say.”

“Could you persuade them to let us remain in ‘Quarantine,’ then, for a few days?” said Helen, smiling.

“Oh, no! Helen, nothing of the kind; Mr. Dempsey must not be put to any troublesome negotiations, on our account. There surely must be an hotel of some sort in the town.”

“This is a nice mess!” muttered Paul, who began to anticipate some of the miseries his good nature might cost him.

“A few days, a week at furthest, I hope, will enable us to communicate with our law adviser, and decide upon some more suitable abode. Could you, then, for the meanwhile, suggest a comfortable inn, or if not, a lodging in the town?”

Paul wrung his hands in dismay, but uttered not a syllable.

“To be candid, Mr. Dempsey,” said Helen, “my father has a horror of these kind of places, and you could recommend us no country inn, however humble, where he would not be better pleased to hear of our taking refuge.”

“But, Fumbally’s! the best-known boarding-house in the North.”

“I should be sincerely grieved, to be understood as uttering one syllable in its disparagement,” rejoined Lady Eleanor; “I could not ask for a more satisfactory voucher of its respectability; but ours are peculiar circumstances.”

“Only a pound a week,” struck in Paul, “with extras.”

“Nothing could be more reasonable; but pray understand me, I speak of course in great ignorance, but it would appear to me that persons living together in this fashion have a kind of right to know something of those who present themselves for the first time amongst them. Now, there are many reasons why neither my daughter nor myself would like to submit to this species of inquiry.”

“I ‘ll settle all that,” broke in Paul; “leave that to me, and you ‘ll have no further trouble about it.”

“You must excuse my reliance even on such discretion,” said Lady Eleanor, with more hauteur than before.

“Are we to understand that there is neither inn nor lodging-house to be found?” said Helen.

“Plenty of both, but full of bagmen,” ejaculated Paul, whose contrivances were all breaking down beneath him.

“What is to be done?” exclaimed Lady Eleanor to her daughter.

“Lord bless you!” cried Paul, in a whining voice, “if you only come down amongst them with that great frill round your neck you wore the first day I saw you at ‘The Corvy,’ you ‘ll scare them so, they ‘ll never have courage to utter a word. There was Miss Daly – when she was here – ”

“Miss Daly, – Miss Maria Daly!” exclaimed both ladies together.

“Miss Maria Daly,” repeated Dempsey, with an undue emphasis on every syllable. “She spent the summer with us on the coast.”

“Where had she resided up to that time, may I ask?” said Lady Eleanor, hastily.

“At ‘The Corvy’ – always at ‘The Corvy,’ until your arrival.”

“Oh, Helen, think of this!” whispered Lady Eleanor, in a voice tremulous with agitation. “Think what sacrifices we have exacted from our friends, – and now, to learn that while we stand hesitating about encountering the inconveniences of our lot, that we have been subjecting another to that very same difficulty from which we shrink.” Then, turning to Mr. Dempsey, she added, —

“I need not observe, sir, that while I desire no mystery to be thrown around our arrival here, I will not be the less grateful for any restraint the good company may impose on themselves as to inquiries concerning us. We are really not worth the attention, and I should be sorry to impose upon kind credulity by any imaginary claim to distinction.”

“You’ll dine below, then?” asked Paul, far more eager to ascertain this fact than any reasons that induced it.

Lady Eleanor bowed; and Dempsey, with a face beaming with delight, arose to withdraw and communicate the happy news to Mrs. Fumbally.

CHAPTER XXII. A GLANCE AT MRS. FUMBALLY’S

Great as Lady Eleanor’s objection was to subjecting herself or her daughter to the contact of a boarding-house party, when the resolve was once taken the matter cost her far less thought or anxiety than it occasioned to the other inmates of the “Establishment.” It is only in such segments of the great world that curiosity reaches its true intensity, and the desire to know every circumstance of one’s neighbor becomes an absorbing passion. A distrustful impression that nobody is playing on “the square “ – that every one has some special cause of concealment, some hidden shame – seems the presiding tone of these places.

Mrs. Fumbally’s was no exception to the rule, and now that the residents had been so long acquainted that the personal character and fortune of each was known to all, the announcement of a new arrival caused the most lively sensations of anxiety.

Directories were ransacked for the name of Gwynne, and every separate owner of the appellation canvassed and discussed. Army lists were interrogated and conned over. Dempsey himself was examined for two hours before a “Committee of the whole house;” and though his inventive powers were no mean gifts, certain discrepancies, certain unexplained difficulties, did not fail to strike the acute tribunal, and he was dismissed as unworthy of credit. Baffled, not beaten, each retired to dress for dinner, – a ceremony, be it remarked, only in use on great occasions, – fully impressed with the conviction that the Gwynne case was a legitimate object of search and discovery.

It is not necessary here to allude to the strange display of costume that day called forth, nor what singular extravagances in dress each drew from the armory of his fascinations. The collector closed the Custom-house an hour earlier, that he might be properly powdered for the occasion. Miss Boyle abandoned, “for the nonce,” her accustomed walk on the Banside, where the officers used to lounge, and in the privacy of her chamber prepared for the event. There is a tradition of her being seen, with a formidable array of curl-papers, so late as four in the afternoon. Mr. Dunlop was in a perpetual trot all day, between his tailor and his bootmaker, sundry alterations being required at a moment’s notice. Mrs. Fumbally herself, however, eclipsed all competitors, as, in a robe of yellow satin, spotted with red, she made her appearance in the drawing-room; her head-dress being a turban of the same prevailing colors, but ornamented by a drooping plume of feathers and spangles so very umbrageous and pendent, that she looked like a weeping-ash clad in tinsel. A crimson brooch of vast proportions – which, on near inspection, turned out to be a portrait of the departed Fumbally, but whose colors were, unhappily, not “fast ones” – confined a scarf of green velvet, from which envious time had worn off all the pile, and left a “sear and yellow” stubble everywhere perceptible.

Whether Mrs. Fum’s robe had been devised at a period when dresses were worn much shorter, or that, from being very tall, a sufficiency of the material could not be obtained, – but true it is, her costume would have been almost national in certain Scotch regiments, and necessitated, for modesty’s sake, a peculiar species of ducking trip, that, with the nodding motion of her head, gave her the gait of a kangaroo.

Scarcely had the various individuals time to give a cursory glance at their neighbors’ finery, when Lady Eleanor appeared leaning on her daughter’s arm. Mr. Dempsey had waited for above half an hour outside the door to offer his escort, which being coldly but civilly declined, the ladies entered.

Mrs. Fumbally rose to meet her guests, and was about to proceed in due form with a series of introducings, when Lady Eleanor cut her short by a very slight but courteous salutation to the company collectively, and then sat down.

The most insufferable assumption of superiority is never half so chilling in its effect upon underbred people as the calm quietude of good manners.

And thus the party were more repelled by Lady Eleanor and her daughter’s easy bearing than they would have felt at any outrageous pretension. The elegant simplicity of their dress, too, seemed to rebuke the stage finery of the others, and very uneasy glances met and were interchanged at this new companionship. A few whispered words, an occasional courageous effort to talk aloud, suddenly ending in a cough, and an uneasy glance at the large silver watch over the chimney, were all that took place, when the uncombed head of a waiter, hired specially for the day, gave the announcement that dinner was served.

“Mr. Dempsey – Mr. Dunlop,” said Mrs. Fumbally, with a gesture towards Lady Eleanor and her daughter. The gentlemen both advanced a step and then stood stock still, as Lady Eleanor, drawing her shawl around her with one hand, slipped the other within her daughter’s arm. Every eye was now turned towards Mr. Dunlop, who was a kind of recognized type of high life; and he, feeling the urgency of the moment, made a step in advance, and with extended arm, said, “May I have the honor to offer my arm?”

“With your leave, I’ll take my daughter’s, sir,” said Lady Eleanor, coldly; and without paying the least attention to the various significant glances around her, she walked forward to the dinner-room.

The chilling reserve produced by the new arrivals had given an air of decorous quietude to the dinner, which, if gratifying to Lady Eleanor and Helen, was very far from being so to the others, and as the meal proceeded, certain low mutterings – the ground swell of a coming storm – announced the growing feeling of displeasure amongst them. Lady Eleanor and Miss Darcy were too unconscious of having offered any umbrage to the party to notice these indications of discontent; nor did they remark that Mr.

Dempsey himself was becoming overwhelmed by the swelling waves of popular indignation.

A very curt monosyllable had met Lady Eleanor in the two efforts she had made at conversation with her neighbor, and she was perhaps not very sorry to find that table-talk was not a regulation of the “Establishment”.

Had Lady Eleanor or Helen been disposed to care for it, they might have perceived that the dinner itself was not less anomalous than the company, and like them suffered sorely from being over-dressed. They, however, affected to eat, and seemed satisfied with everything, resolved that, having encountered the ordeal, they would go through with it to the last. The observances of the table had one merit in the Fumbally household; they were conducted with no unnecessary tediousness. The courses – if we dare so apply the name to an irregular skirmish of meats, hot, cold, and réchauffé– followed rapidly, the guests ate equally so, and the table presented a scene, if not of convivial enjoyment, at least of bustle and animation, that supplied its place. This movement, so to call it, was sufficiently new to amuse Helen Darcy, who, less pained than her mother at their companionship, could not help relishing many of the eccentric features of the scene; everything in the dress, manner, tone of voice, and bearing of the company presenting such a striking contrast to all she had been used to. This enjoyment on her part, although regulated by the strictest good-breeding, was perceived, or rather suspected, by some of the ladies present, and looks of very unmistakable anger were darted towards her from the end of the table, so that both mother and daughter felt the moment a very welcome one when a regiment of small decanters were set down on the board, and the ladies rose to withdraw.

If Lady Eleanor had consulted her own ardent wishes, she would at once have retired to her room, but she had resolved on the whole sacrifice, and took her place in the drawing-room, determined to follow in every respect the usages around her. Mrs. Fumbally addressed a few civil words to her, and then left the room to look after the cares of the household. The group of seven ladies who remained, formed themselves into a coterie apart, and producing from sundry bags and baskets little specimens of female handiwork, began arranging their cottons and worsteds with a most praiseworthy activity.

While Lady Eleanor sat with folded bands and half-closed lids, sunk in her own meditations, Helen arose and walked towards a book-shelf, where some well-thumbed volumes were lying. An odd volume of “Delphine,” a “Treatise on Domestic Cookery,” and “Moore’s Zeluco” were not attractive, and she sauntered to the piano, on which were scattered some of the songs from the “Siege of Belgrade,” the then popular piece; certain comic melodies lay also among them, inscribed with the name of Lawrence M’Farland, a gentleman whom they had heard addressed several times during dinner. While Helen turned over the music pages, the eyes of the others were riveted on her; and when she ran her fingers over the keys of the cracked old instrument, and burst into an involuntary laugh at its discordant tones, a burst of unequivocal indignation could no longer be restrained.

“I declare, Miss M’Corde,” said an old lady with a paralytic shake in her head, and a most villanous expression in her one eye, – “I declare I would speak to her, if I was in your place.”

“Unquestionably,” exclaimed another, whose face was purple with excitement; and thus encouraged, a very thin and very tall personage, with a long, slender nose tipped with pink, and light red hair in ringlets, arose from her seat, and approached where Helen was standing.

“You are perhaps not aware, ma’am,” said she, with a mincing, lisping accent, the very essence of gentility, “that this instrument is not a ‘house piano.’”

Helen blushed slightly at the address, but could not for her life guess what the words meant. She had heard of grand pianos and square pianos, of cottage pianos, but never of “house pianos,” and she answered in the most simple of voices, “Indeed.”

“No, ma’am, it is not; it belongs to your very humble servant,” – here she courtesied to the ground, – “who regrets deeply that its tone should not have more of your approbation.”

“And I, ma’am,” said a fat old lady, waddling over, and wheezing as though she should choke, “I have to express my sorrow that the book-shelf, which you have just ransacked, should not present something worthy of your notice. The volumes are mine.”

“And perhaps, ma’am,” cried a third, a little meagre figure, with a voice like a nutmeg-grater, “you could persuade the old lady, who I presume is your mother, to take her feet off that worked stool. When I made it, I scarcely calculated on the honor it now enjoys!”

Lady Eleanor looked up at this instant, and although unconscious of what was passing, seeing Helen, whose face was now crimson, standing in the midst of a very excited group, she arose hastily, and said, —

“Helen, dearest, is there anything the matter?”

“I should say there was, ma’am,” interposed the very fat lady, – “I should be disposed to say there was a great deal the matter. That to make use of private articles as if they were for house use, to thump one lady’s piano, to toss another lady’s books, to make oneself comfortable in a chair specially provided for the oldest boarder, with one’s feet on another lady’s footstool, – these are liberties, ma’am, which become something more than freedoms when taken by unknown individuals.”

“I beg you will forgive my daughter and myself,” said Lady Eleanor, with an air of real regret; “our total ignorance – ”

“I thought as much, indeed,” muttered she of the shaking head; “there is no other word for it.”

“You are quite correct, ma’am,” said Lady Eleanor, at once addressing her in the most apologetic of voices, – “I cannot but repeat the word; our very great ignorance of the usages observed here is our only excuse, and I beg you to believe us incapable of taking such liberties in future.”

If anything could have disarmed the wrath of this Holy Alliance, the manner in which these words were uttered might have done so. Far from it, however. When the softer sex are deficient in breeding, mercy is scarcely one of their social attributes. Had Lady Eleanor assumed towards them the manner with which in other days she had repelled vulgar attempts at familiarity, they would in all probability have shrunk back, abashed and ashamed; but her yielding suggested boldness, and they advanced, with something like what in Cossack warfare is termed a “Hurra,” an indiscriminate clang of voices being raised in reprobation of every supposed outrage the unhappy strangers had inflicted on the company. Amid this Babel of accusation Lady Eleanor could distinguish nothing, and while, overwhelmed by the torrent, she was preparing to take her daughter’s arm and withdraw, the door which led into the dining-room was suddenly thrown open, and the convivial party entered en masse.

“Here’s a shindy, by George!” cried Mr. M’Farland, – the Pickle, and the wit of the Establishment, – “I say, see how the new ones are getting it!”

While Mr. Dempsey hurried away to seek Mrs. Fumbally herself, the confusion and uproar increased; the loud, coarse laughter of the “Gentlemen” being added to the wrathful violence of the softer sex. Lady Eleanor, how-ever, had drawn her daughter to her side, and without uttering a word, proceeded to leave the room. To this course a considerable obstacle presented itself in the shape of the Collector, who, with expanded legs, and hands thrust deep into his side-pockets, stood against the door.

“Against the ninth general rule, ma’am, which you may read in the frame over the chimney!” exclaimed he, in a voice somewhat more faltering and thicker than became a respectable official. “No lady or gentleman can leave the room while any dispute in which they are concerned remains unsettled. Isn’t that it, M’Farland?” cried he, as the young gentleman alluded to took down the law-table from its place.

“All right,” replied M’Farland; “the very best rule in the house. Without it, all the rows would take place in private! Now for a court of inquiry. Mr. Dunlop, you are for the prosecution, and can’t sit.”

“May I beg, sir, you will permit us to pass out?” said Lady Eleanor, in a voice whose composure was slightly shaken.

“Can’t be, ma’am; in contravention of all law,” rejoined the Collector.

“Where is Mr. Dempsey?” whispered Helen, in her despair; and though the words were uttered in a low voice, one of the ladies overheard them. A general titter ran immediately around, only arrested by the fat lady exclaiming aloud, “Shameless minx!”

A very loud hubbub of voices outside now rivalled the tumult within, amid which one most welcome was distinguished by Helen.

“Oh, mamma, how fortunate! I hear Tate’s voice.”

“It’s me, – it’s Mrs. Fumbally,” cried that lady, at the same moment tapping sharply at the door.

“No matter, can’t open the door now. Court is about to sit,” replied the Collector. “Mrs. Gwynne stands arraigned for – for what is’t? There ‘s no use in making that clatter; the door shall not be opened.”

This speech was scarcely uttered, when a tremendous bang was heard, and the worthy Collector, with the door over him, was hurled on his face in the midst of the apartment, upsetting in his progress a round table and a lamp over the assembled group of ladies.

Screams of terror, rage, pain, and laughter were now commingled; and while some assisted the prostrate official to rise, and sprinkled his temples with water, others bestowed their attentions on the discomfited fair, whose lustre was sadly diminished by lamp-oil and bruises, while a third section, of which M’Farland was chief, lay back in their chairs and laughed vociferously. Meanwhile, how and when nobody could tell, Lady Eleanor and her daughter had escaped and gained their apartments in safety.

A more rueful scene than the room presented need not be imagined. The Collector, whose nose bled profusely, sat pale, half fainting, in one corner, while some kind friends labored to stop the bleeding, and restore him to animation. Lamentations of the most poignant grief were uttered over silks, satins, and tabinets irretrievably ruined; while the paralytic lady having broken the ribbon of her cap, her head rolled about fearfully, and even threatened to come clean off altogether. As for poor Mrs. Fumbally, she flew from place to place, in a perfect agony of affliction; now wringing her hands over the prostrate door, now over the fragments of the lamp, and now endeavoring to restore the table, which, despite all her efforts, would not stand upon two legs. But the most miserable figure of all was Paul Dempsey, who saw no footing for himself anywhere. Lady Eleanor and Helen must detest him to the day of his death. The boarders could never forgive him. Mrs. Fum would as certainly regard him as the author of all evil, and the Collector would inevitably begin dunning him for an unsettled balance of fourteen and ninepence, lost at “Spoiled five” two winters before.

Already, indeed, symptoms of his unpopularity began to show themselves. Angry looks and spiteful glances were directed towards him, amidst muttered expressions of displeasure. How far these manifestations might have proceeded there is no saying, had not the attention of the company been drawn to the sudden noise of a carriage stopping at the street door.

“Going, flitting, evacuating the territory!” exclaimed M’Farland, as from an open window he contemplated the process of packing a post-chaise with several heavy trunks and portmanteaus.

“The Gwynnes!” muttered the Collector, with his handkerchief to his face.

“Even so! flying with camp equipage and all. There stands your victor, that little old fellow with the broad shoulders. I say, come here a moment,” called he aloud, making a sign for Tate to approach. “The Collector is not in the least angry for what’s happened; he knew you did n’t mean anything serious. Pray, who are these ladies, your mistresses I mean?”

“Lady Eleanor Darcy and Miss Darcy, of Gwynne Abbey,” replied Tate, sturdily, as he gave the names with a most emphatic distinctness.

“The devil it was!” exclaimed M’Farland.

“By my conscience, ye may well wonder at being in such company, sir,” said Tate, laughing, and resuming his place just in time to assist Lady Eleanor to ascend the steps. Helen quickly followed, the door was slammed to, and, Tate mounting with the alacrity of a town footman, the chaise set out at a brisk pace down the street.