Mr. Jervis (Complete)
9781465684417
213 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
“I suppose I must write, and say she may come. Personally, I shall be delighted to have her; but I’m afraid Granby will think a girl in the house rather a bore. Three is such an awkward number in India!” “And sometimes in other places,” added a lady who sat on the fender stool, blowing a great wood fire, with a preposterously small pair of bellows. “You know what I mean, Milly,” retorted her companion, a handsome, indolent looking woman, who reclined in an easy chair, with an open letter in her lap. “Houses out here are only built for two, as a rule—especially in cantonments. A victoria or pony cart holds but two, and two is a much more manageable number for dinners and tiffins. Still, I shall be glad to have a girl to chaperon; it will give me an object in life, and more interest in going out.” “Could you take more?” asked the lady with the bellows, casting a sly smile over her shoulder. “To be sure I could, you disagreeable little creature! When a woman is no longer quite young, and her days of romance are at an end, the hopes and prospects of a pretty companion give her another chance in the matrimonial lucky bag—a chance at second hand, but still sufficiently exciting. Alas! life after a certain age is like a bottle of flat soda water.” “I do not think so,” rejoined the lady with the bellows, stoutly. “No; I should be surprised if you did. You are so sympathetic and energetic. You throw yourself heart and soul into Dorcas meetings, bazaars, nurse tending, and other people’s joys or afflictions. Now, my sympathies and energies rarely extend beyond Granby and myself. I am becoming torpid. I can scarcely get up the steam for a ball; even the prospect of cutting out old Mother Brande fails to rouse me. However, when I have a charming niece to marry—and to marry well—things will assume a different aspect. How amusing it will be to eclipse the other girls and their scheming mothers; how gratifying to see all the best partis in the place grovelling at her feet! Her triumphs will be mine.” And Mrs. Langrishe slowly closed her heavy eyelids, and appeared—judging from her expression—to be wrapped in some beatific vision. From this delicious contemplation she was abruptly recalled by the prosaic question—“How old is she?” “Let me see—dear, dear me! Yes,” sitting erect and opening her fine eyes to their widest extent, “why, strictly between ourselves, she must be twenty six. How time flies! She is my eldest brother’s daughter, one of a large family. Fanny, my sister in Calcutta, had her out eighteen months ago, and now she is obliged to go home, and wants to hand Lalla over to me.”
