Aunt Becky was not a woman to be soon tired, or even
daunted. The young lady’s resistance put
her upon her mettle, and she was all the more determined,
that she suspected her niece had some secret motive
for rejecting a partner in some respects so desirable.
Sometimes, it is true, Gertrude’s resistance
flagged; but this was only the temporary acquiescence
of fatigue, and the battle was renewed with the old
spirit on the next occasion, and was all to be fought
over again. At breakfast there was generally,
as I may say, an affair of picquets, and through the
day a dropping fire, sometimes rising to a skirmish;
but the social meal of supper was generally the period
when, for the most part, these desultory hostilities
blazed up into a general action. The fortune
of war as usual shifted. Sometimes Gertrude left
the parlour and effected a retreat to her bed-room.
Sometimes it was Aunt Rebecca’s turn to slam
the door, and leave the field to her adversary.
Sometimes, indeed, Aunt Becky thought she had actually
finished the exhausting campaign, when her artillery
had flamed and thundered over the prostrate enemy
for a full half hour unanswered; but when, at the
close of the cannonade she marched up, with drums beating
and colours flying, to occupy the position and fortify
her victory, she found, much to her mortification,
that the foe had only, as it were, lain down to let
her shrapnels and canister fly over, and the advance
was arrested with the old volley and hurrah.
And there they were—not an inch gained—peppering
away at one another as briskly as ever, with the work
to begin all over again.
’You think I have neither eyes nor understanding;
but I can see, young lady, as well as another; ay,
Madam, I’ve eyes, and some experience too, and
’tis my simple duty to my brother, and to the
name I bear, not to mention you, niece, to
prevent, if my influence or authority can do it, the
commission of a folly which, I can’t but suspect,
may possibly be meditated, and which, even you, niece,
would live very quickly to repent.’
Gertrude did not answer; she only looked a little
doubtfully at her aunt, with a gaze of deep, uneasy
enquiry. That sort of insinuation seemed to disconcert
her. But she did not challenge her aunt to define
her meaning, and the attack was soon renewed at another
point.
When Gertrude walked down to the town, to the King’s
House, or even to see Lily, at this side of the bridge,
Dominick, the footman, was ordered to trudge after
her—a sort of state she had never used in
her little neighbourly rambles—and Gertrude
knew that her aunt catechised that confidential retainer
daily. Under this sort of management, the haughty
girl winced and fretted, and finally sulked, grew taciturn
and sarcastic, and shut herself up altogether within
the precincts of Belmont.
CHAPTER XXXII.
NARRATING HOW LIEUTENANT PUDDOCK AND CAPTAIN DEVEREUX
BREWED A BOWL OF PUNCH, AND HOW THEY SANG AND DISCOURSED
TOGETHER.
Copyrights
The House by the Church-Yard from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
