August 18, 2025 • 30 mins
In this captivating novella by the renowned Elizabeth Gaskell, we delve into the life and memories of the aristocratic Lady Ludlow, as narrated by her young charge, Margaret Dawson. Lady Ludlow embodies the resistance of the old English gentry to embrace social reform and technological advancements, including education for the less fortunate and a more lenient approach to religion. Through her reflections on friends from the tumultuous times of the French Revolution, she seeks to protect and mentor the many young ladies under her care. [Summary by Rosie]
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter thirteen of My Lady Ludlow by Elizabeth Gaskell. This
is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the
public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit
LibriVox dot Org. Recording by Adina Owen. My Lady Ludlow
by Elizabeth Gaskell, Chapter thirteen. I had always understood that
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Miss Galindo had once been in much better circumstances, but
I had never liked to ask any questions respecting her.
But about this time many things came out respecting her
former life, which I will try and arrange, not however,
in the order in which I heard them, but rather
as they occurred. Miss Galindo was the daughter of a
clergyman in Westmoreland. Her father was the younger brother of
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a baronet, his ancestor having been one of those of
James the First's creation. This baronet, uncle of Miss Galindo,
was one of the queer out of the way people
who were bred at that time in that northern district
of England. I had never heard much of him from
any one besides this one great fact that he had
early disappeared from his family, which indeed only consisted of
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a brother and sister who died unmarried, and lived no
one knew where, somewhere on the continent, it was supposed,
for he had never returned from the grand tour which
he had been sent to make according to the general
fashion of the day, as soon as he left Oxford.
He corresponded occasionally with his brother, the clergyman, but the
letters passed through a banker's hands, the banker being pledged
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to secrecy, and, as he told mister Glindo, having the
penalty if he broke his pledge, of losing the whole
profitable business, and of having the management of the baronet's
affairs taken out of his hands without any advantage accruing
to the inquirer. For Sir Lawrence had told Messrs Graham
that in case his place of residence was revealed by them,
not only would he cease to bank with them, but
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instantly take measures to baffle any future inquiries as to
his whereabouts by removing to some distant country. Sir Lawrence
paid a certain sum of money to his brother's account
every year, but the time of this payment buried, and
it was sometimes eighteen or nineteen months between the deposits.
Then again it would not be above a quarter of
the time, showing that he intended it to be annual.
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But as this intention was never expressed in words, it
was impossible to rely upon it, and a great deal
of this money was swallowed up by the necessity. Mister
Glindo felt himself under of living in the large old
Rambling family mansion, which had been one of Sir Lawrence's
rarely expressed desires. Mister and Missus Golindo often planned to
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live upon their own small fortune and the income derived
from the living a vicarage of which the great tithes
went to Sir Lawrence as lay in proprietor, so as
to put by the payments made by the baronet for
the benefit of Laurentia are miss Galindo. But I suppose
they found it difficult to live economically in a large house,
even though they had it rent free. They had to
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keep up with hereditary neighbors and friends, and could hardly
keep doing it in the hereditary manner. One of these neighbors,
a mister Gibson, had a son of f few years
older than Laurentia. The families were sufficiently intimate for the
young people to see a good deal of each other.
And I was told that this young mister Mark Gibson
was an unusually prepossessing man. He seemed to have impressed
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everyone who spoke of him to me as being handsome, manly,
kind hearted fellow, just what a girl would be sure
to find most agreeable. The parents either forgot that their
children were growing up to man's and women's estate, or
thought that the intimacy and probable attachment would be no
bad thing, even if it did lead to a marriage. Still,
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nothing was ever said by young Gibson until later on,
when it was too late, as it turned out, he
went to and from Oxford, he shot and fished with
mister Glindo, or came to the mirror to skate in wintertime,
was asked to accompany mister Glindo to the hall as
the latter returned to the quiet dinner with his wife
and daughter, and so and so it went on. Nobody
much knew, how until one day when mister Glindo received
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a formal letter from his brother's bankers announcing Sir Lawrence's
death of Malie Fever at Albano and congratulating Sir Hubert
on his accession to the estates and the baronetcy. The
King's dead long lived the king, as I have since
heard the French express it, Sir Hubert and his wife
were greatly surprised. Sir Lawrence was but two years older
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than his brother, and they had never heard of any
illness till they heard of his death. They were sorry,
very much shocked, but still a little elated at the
succession to the baronetcy and estates. The London bankers had
managed everything well. There was a large sum of ready
money in their hands at Sir Hubert's service until he
should touch his rents, the rent roll being eight thousand
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a year, and only Laurentia to inherit it all. Her mother,
a poor clergyman's daughter, began to plan all sorts of
fine marriages for her. Nor was her father much behind
his wife in his ambition. They took her up to
London when they went to buy new carriages and dresses
and furniture. And it was then and there she made
my lady's acquaintance. How it was that they came to
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take a fancy to each other, I cannot say. My
lady was of the old nobility, grand composed, gentle, and
stately in her ways. Miss Glindo must always have been
hurried in her manner, and her energy must have shown
itself in inquisitiveness and oddness even in her youth. But
I don't pretend to account for things. I only narraed them.
And the fact was this, that the elegant, fastidious countess
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was attracted to the country girl, who, on her part,
almost worshiped my lady. My lady's notice of their daughter
made her parents think, I suppose that there was no match.
She might not command she the heiress of eight thousand
a year and visiting about among earls and dukes. So
when they came back to their old Westmoreland Hall, and
Mark Gibson rode over to offer his hand and heart
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and prospective estate of nine hundred a year to his
old companion and playfellow, Laurentia, Sir Hubert and Lady Galindo
made very short work of it. They refused him plumply themselves,
and when he begged to be allowed to speak to Larentia,
they found some excuse for refusing him the opportunity of
doing so until they had talked to her themselves, and
brought up every argument in fact in their power to
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convince her, a plain girl, and conscious of her plainness,
that mister Mark Gibson had never thought of her in
the way of marriage till after her father's accession to
his fortune, and that it was the estate, not the
young lady, that he was in love with. I suppose
it will never be known in this world how far
this supposition of theirs was true. My Lady Ludlow had
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always spoken as if it was. But perhaps events which
came to her knowledge about this time altered her opinion.
At any rate, the end of it was. Laurentia refused Mark,
and almost broke her heart in doing so. He discovered
the suspicions of Sir Hubert and Lady Glindo, and that
they had persuaded their daughter to share in them. So
he flung off with high words, saying that they did
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not know a true heart when they met with one,
that although he had never offered till after Sir Lawrence's death,
yet that his father knew all along that he had
been attached to Laurentia, only that he, being the eldest
of five children, and how having as yet no profession,
had had to conceal rather than to express an attachment,
which in those days he had believed was reciprocated. He
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had always meant to study for the bar, and the
end of all he had hoped for had been to
earn a moderate income which he might ask Laurentia to share.
This or something like it was what he said. But
as reference to his father cut two ways. Old mister
Gibson was known to be very keen about money. It
was just as likely that he would urge Mark to
make love to the heiress now she was an heiress,
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as that he would have restrained him previously, as Mark
said he had done. When this was repeated to Mark,
he became proudly reserved or sullen, and said that Laurentia,
at any rate, might have known him better. He left
the country and went up to London to study law
soon afterwards, and Sir Hubert and Lady Glindo thought they
were well rid of him. But Laurentia never ceased reproaching herself,
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and never did to her dying day. As I believe
the words she might have known me better, told to
her by some kind friend or other, rankled in her
mind and were never forgotten. Her father and mother took
her up to London the next year, but she did
not care to visit, dreaded going out even for a
drive lest she should see Mark Gibson's reproachful eyes, pined
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and lost her health. Lady Ludlow saw this change with regret,
and was told to cause by Lady Glindo, who of
course gave her own version of Mark's conduct and motives.
My lady never spoke to Miss Galindo about it, but
tried constantly to interest and please her. It was at
this time that my Lady told Miss Glindo so much
about her own early life and about Hanbury, that Miss
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Galindo resolved, if ever she could, she would go and
see the old place which her friend loved so well.
The end of it all was that she came to
live there, as we know, But a great change was
to come first. Before Sir Hubert and Lady Glindo had
left London on this their second visit, they had a
letter from the lawyer whom they employed, saying that Sir
Lawrence had left an heir his legitimate child by an
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Italian woman of low rank. At least legal claims to
the title and property had been sent into him on
the boy's behalf, Sir Lawrence, had always been a man
of adventurous and artistic rather than of luxurious tastes, and
it was supposed, when all came to be proved at
the trial, that he was captivated by the free, beautiful
life they led in Italy, and had married this Neapolitan
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fisherman's daughter, who had people about her shrewd enough to
see that the ceremony was legally performed. She and her
husband had wandered about the shores of the Mediterranean for years,
leading a happy, careless, irresponsible life, unencumbered by any duties
except those connected with a rather numerous family. It was
enough for her that they never wanted money, and that
her husband's love was always continued to her. She hated
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the name of England, wicked, cold, heretic England, and avoided
the mention of any subjects connected with her husband's early life,
so that when he died at Albano, she was almost
roused out of her vehement grief to anger with the
ad Italian doctor, who declared that he must write to
a certain address to announced the death of Lawrence Glindo.
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For some time she feared lest English barbarians might come
down upon her making a claim to the children. She
hid herself and them in the Abruzzi, leaving on the
sale of what furniture and jewels Sir Lawrence had died
possessed of. When these failed, she returned to Naples, which
she had not visited since her marriage. Her father was dead,
but her brother had inherited some of his keenness. He
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interested the priests, who made inquiries and found that the
Galindo succession was worth securing an air of the true faith.
They stirred about it, obtained advice at the English embassy,
and hence that letter to the lawyers calling upon Sir
Hubert to relinquish title and property and to refund what
money he had expended. He was vehement in his opposition
to this claim. He could not bear to think of
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his brother having married a foreigner, a papist, a fisherman's daughter,
nay of his having become a papist himself. He was
in despair at the thought of his ancestral property going
to the issue of such a marriage. He fought tooth
and nail, making enemies of his relations and losing almost
all his own private property. For he would go on
against the lawyer's advice. Long after everyone was convinced except
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himself and his wife, and at last he was conquered.
He gave up his living in gloomy despair. He would
have changed his name if he could. So desirous was
he to obliterate all tie between himself and the mongrel
papist baronet and his Italian mother, and all the succession
of children and nurses who came to take possession of
the hall soon after mister Hubert Glindo's departure. Stayed there
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one winter and then flitted back to Naples with gladness
and delight. Mister and Missus Hubert Glindo lived in London.
He had obtained a curacy somewhere in the city. They
would have been thankful now if mister Mark Gibson had
renewed his offer. No one could accuse him of mercenary
motives if he had done so. But he did not
come forward as they wished. They brought his silence up
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as a justification of what they had previously attributed to him.
I don't know what Miss Glindo thought herself, but Lady
Ludlow has told me how she shrank from hearing her
parents abuse him. Lady Ludlow supposed that he was aware
that they were living in London. His father must have
known the fact, and it was curious if he had
never named it to his son. Besides, the name was
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very uncommon, and it was unlikely that it should never
come across him in the advertisements of charity sermons which
the new and rather eloquent Curate of Saint Mark's East
was asked to preach. All this time, Lady Ludlow never
lost sight of them, for Miss Galindo's sake, and when
the father and mother died, it was my lady who
upheld Miss Galindo in her determination not to apply for
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any provision to her cousin, the Italian baronet, but rather
to live upon one hundred a year, which had been
settled on her mother and the children of his son
Hubert's marriage by the old grandfather, Sir Lawrence. Mister Mark
Gibson had risen to some eminence as a barrister on
the Northern circuit, but had died unmarried in the lifetime
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of his father. A victim, so people said oftenpt Doctor Trevor,
the physician who had been called in to mister Gray
and Harry Gregson had married a sister of his, and
that was all my lady knew about the Gibson family.
But who was Bessie? That mystery and secret came out
too in process of time. Miss Glindo had been to
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Warwick some years before I arrived at Hanbury on some
kind of business or shopping which can only be transacted
in a county town. There was an old Westmoreland connection
between her and missus Trevor, though I believed the latter
was too young to have been made aware of her
brother's offer to Miss Galindo at the time when it
took place, and such affairs, if they are unsuccessful, are
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seldom spoken about in the gentleman's family afterwards. But the
Gibsons and Galindo's had been county neighbors too long for
the connection not to be kept up between two members
settled far away from their early homes. Miss Galindo always
desired her parcels to be sent to doctor Trevor's when
she went to Warwick for shopping purchases if she were
going any jour, and the coach did not come through
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Warwick as soon as she arrived in my lady's coach
or otherwise from Hanbury, she went to Doctor Trevor's to wait.
She was as much expected to sit down to the
household meals as if she had been one of the family,
and in after years it was Missus Trevor who managed
her repository business for her. So on the day I
spoke of, she had gone to Doctor Trevor's to rest
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and possibly dine. The post in those times came in
at all hours of the morning, and Doctor Trevor's letters
had not arrived until after his departure. On his morning round,
Miss Glinda was sitting down to dinner with Missus Trevor
and her seven children when the doctor came in. He
was flurried and uncomfortable, and hurried the children away as
soon as he decently could, then, rather feeling Miss Glinda's
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presence and advantage, both as a present restraint on the
violence of his wife's grief and as a consoler. When
he was absent on his afternoon round, he told Missus
Trevor of her brother's death. He had been taken ill
on circuit and had hurried back to his chambers in London,
only to die. She cried terribly, but doctor Trevor said
afterwards he never noticed that Miss Galindo cared much about it.
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One way or another. She helped him to soothe his wife,
promised to stay with her all afternoon instead of returning
to Hanbury, and afterwards offered to remain with her while
the doctor went to attend to the funeral. When they
heard of the old love story between the dead man
and Miss Galindo brought up by mutual friends in Westmoreland
in the review which we are all inclined to take
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of the events of a man's life when he comes
to die, they tried to remember Miss Galindo's speeches and
ways of going on during this visit. She was a
little pale, a little silent. Her eyes were sometimes swollen,
and her nose red, but she was at an age
when such appearances are generally attributed to a bed cold
in the head, rather than any more sentimental reason. They
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felt towards her as towards an old friend, a kindly, useful,
eccentric old maid. She did not expect more or wish
them to remember that she might once have had other
hopes or a more youthful feelings. Doctor Trevor thanked her
very warmly for staying with his wife. When he returned
home from London, where the funeral had taken place, he
begged Miss Glinda to stay with them. When the children
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were gone to bed and she was preparing to leave
the husband and wife by themselves, he told her and
his wife many particulars, then paused and went on. And
Mark has left a child, a little girl. But he
was never married, exclaimed missus Trevor. A little girl, continued
her husband, whose mother I conclude is dead at any rate.
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The child was in possession of his chambers. She and
an old nurse who seemed to have charge of everything
and has cheated poor Mark. I should fancy not a
little but the child, asked Miss Trevor, still almost breathless
with astonishment. How do you know it's his? The nurse
told me it was, with great appearance of indignation. At
my doubting it. I asked the little finger name, and
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all I could get was Bessie and a cry of
me wants Papa. The nurse said the mother was dead
and she knew no more about it than that mister
Gibson had engaged her to take care of the little girl,
calling it his child. One or two of his lawyer friends,
whom I met with at the funeral, told me they
were aware of the existence of the child. What's to
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be done with her, asked missus Gibson. Nay, I don't know,
replied he Mark has hardly left assets enough to pay
his debts, and your father is not inclined to come forward.
That night, as Doctor Trevor sat in his study after
his wife had gone to bed, Miss Galindo knocked at
his door. She and he had a long conversation. The
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result was that he accompanied Miss Galindo up to town
the next day that they took possession of the little Bessie,
and she was brought down and placed at nurse at
a farm in the country near Warwick. Miss Galindo undertaking
to pay one half of the expense and to furnish
her with clothes, and Doctor Trevor undertaking that the remaining
half should be furnished by the Gibson family or by
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him in their default. Miss Galindo was not fond of children,
and I dare say she dreaded taking this child to
live with her. For more reasons than one. My Lady
Ludlow could not endure any mention of illegitimate children. It
was a principle of hers that society ought to ignore them,
and I believe Miss Galindo had always agreed with her
until now, when the thing came home to her womanly heart.
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Still she shrank from having this child of some strange
woman under her roof. She went over to see it
from time to time, she worked at its clothes, long
after everyone thought she was in bed, And when the
time came for Bessie to be sent to school, Miss
Galindo labored away more diligently than ever in order to
pay the increased expense for The Gibson family had at
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first paid their part of the compact, but with unwillingness
and grudging hearts, then they had left it off altogether,
and it fell hard on doctor Trevor with his twelve children,
And latterly Miss Galindo had taken upon herself almost all
the burden. One can hardly live labor and plan and
make sacrifices for any human creature without learning to love it.
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And Bessie loved Miss Galindo too, for all the poor
girl's scanty pleasures came from her. And Miss Galindo had
always a kind word and latterly many a kind caress
for Mark Gibson's child, whereas if she went to Doctor
Trevor's for her holiday, she was overlooked and neglected in
that bustling family, who seemed to think that if she
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had comfortable board in lodging under the roof, it was enough.
I am sure now that Miss Galindo had often longed
to have Bessie to live with her, but as long
as she could pay for her being at school, she
did not like to take so bold a step as
bringing her home, knowing what the effect of the consequent
explanation would be on my lady. And as the girl
was now more than seventeen, and past the age when
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young ladies are usually kept at school, and as there
was no great demand for governesses in those days, and
as Bessie had never been taught any trade by which
to earn her own living, why I don't ex exactly
see what could have been done but for Miss Galindo
to bring her to her own home in Hanbury. For
although the child had grown up lately in a kind
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of unexpected manner into a young woman, Miss Galindo might
have kept her at school for a year longer if
she could have afforded it, but this was impossible when
she became mister Horner's clerk and relinquished all the payment
of her repository work. And perhaps, after all she was
not sorry to be compelled to take the step she
was longing for. At any rate, Bessy came to live
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with Miss Galindo in a very few weeks from the
time when Captain James set Miss Galindo free to superintend
her own domestic economy again. For a long time I
knew nothing about this inhabitant of Hanbury. My Lady never
mentioned her in any way. This was in accordance with
Lady Ludlow's well known principles. She neither saw nor heard,
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nor was in any way cognizant of the existence of
those who had no legal right to exist at all.
If Miss Galindo had hoped to have an exception made
in Bessy's favor, she was mistaken. My Lady sent a
note inviting Miss Galindo herself to tea one evening about
a month after Bessie came, but Miss Glindo had a
cold and could not come. The next time she was invited,
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she had an engagement at home a step nearer to
the absolute truth. And the third time she had a
young friend staying with her whom she was unable to leave.
My lady accepted every excuse as a bona fide, and
took no further notice. I missed Miss Galindo very much,
we all did, for in those days when she was clerk,
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she was sure to come in and find the opportunity
of saying something amusing to some of us before she
went away. And I, as an invalid, or perhaps from
natural tendency, was particularly fond of little bits of village gossip.
There is no mister Horner. He even had come in
now and then with formal, stately pieces of intelligence, and
there was no Miss Galindo in these days. I missed
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her much, and so did my lady. I am sure
behind all her quiet, sedate manner, I am certain her
heart ached sometimes for a few words from Miss Galindo,
who seemed to have absented herself altogether from the hall.
Now Bessie was come. Captain James might be very sensible
in all that, but not even my lady could call
him a substitute for the old familiar friends. He was
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a thorough sailor, as sailors were in those days, swore
a good deal, drank a good deal without its ever
affecting him in the least, and was very prompt and
kind hearted in all his actions. But he was not
accustomed to women, as my lady once said, and would
judge in all things for himself. My lady had expected,
I think, to find someone who would take his notions
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on the management of her estate from her ladyship's own self.
But he spoke as if he were responsible for the
good management of the whole, and must consequently be allowed
full liberty of action. He had been too long in
command over men at sea to like to be directed
by a woman in anything he undertook, even though that
woman was my lady. I suppose this was the common
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sense I my lady spoke of. But when common sense
goes against us, I don't think we value it quite
so much as we ought to do. Lady Ludlow was
proud of her personal superintendence of her own estate. She
liked to tell us how her father used to take
her with him on his rides and bid her observe
this and that, and on no account to allow such
and such things to be done. But I have heard
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that the first time she told all this to Captain James,
he told her point blank that he had heard from
mister Smithson that the farms were much neglected, and the
rents sadly behindhand, and that he meant to set to
in good earnest and study agriculture and see how he
could remedy the state of things. My lady would, I
am sure, be greatly surprised. But what could she do?
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Here was the very man she had chosen herself, setting
too with all his energy to conquer the defect of ignorance,
which was all that those who had presumed to offer
her ladyship advice had ever had to say against him.
Captain James read Author Young's tours in all his spare time,
as long as he was an invalid, and shook his
head at my lady's accounts as to how the land
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had been cropped or left fallow from time immemorial. Then
he sent to and tried too many new experiments at once.
My lady looked on in dignified silence, But all the
farmers and tenants were in and uproar and prophesied. A
hundred failures, perhaps fifty did occur. They were only half
as many as Lady Ludlow had feared, but there were
twice as many, four eight times as many as the
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captain had anticipated. His openly expressed disappointment made him popular again.
The rough country people could not have understood a silent
and dignified regret at the failure of his plans, but
they sympathized with the man who swore at his ill success,
sympathized even while they chuckled over his discomfiture. Mister Brooke,
the retired tradesman, did not cease blaming him for not
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succeeding and for swearing. What could you expect from a sailor,
mister Brooke asked, even in my lady's hearing, though he
might have known, Captain James was my lady's own personal
choice from the old friendship mister Urion had always shown
for him. I think it was this speech of the
Irmingham Baker's that made my lady determine to stand by
Captain James and encourage him to try again, For she
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would not allow that her choice had been an unwise
one at the bidding as it were of a dissenting tradesman.
The only person in the neighborhood too, who had flaunted
about in colored clothes when all the world was in
mourning for my lady's only son. Captain James would have
thrown the agency up at once if my Lady had
not felt herself bound to justify the wisdom of her
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choice by urging him to stay. He was much touched
by her confidence in him, and swore a great oath
that the next year he would make the land such
as it had never been before for produce. It was
not my lady's way to repeat anything she had heard,
especially to another person's disadvantage, so I don't think she
ever told Captain James of mister Brooke's speech about a
sailor's being likely to mismanage the property, and the Captain
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was too anxious to succeed in this the second year
of his trial to be above going to the flourishing
shrewd mister Brooke and asking his advice as to the
best method of working the estate. I dare say if
Miss Galindo had been as intimate as formally at the hall,
we should all of us have heard of this new
acquaintance of the agents long before we did. As it was,
I'm sure, my Lady never dreamed that the captain, who
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held opinions that were even more church and king than
her own, could ever have made friends with a Baptist
baker from Birmingham, even to serve her Ladyship's own interests
in the most loyal manner. We heard of it first
from mister Gray, who came now often to see my Lady,
for neither he nor she could forget the solemn tide
which the fact of his being the person to acquaint
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her with my Lord's death had created between them, For
true and holy words spoken at that time, though having
no reference to aught below the solemn subjects of life
and death, had made her withdraw her opposition to mister
Gray's wish about establishing a village school. She had sighed
a little, it's true, and was even yet more apprehensive
than hopeful as to the result. But almost as if
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as a memorial to my Lord, she had allowed a
kind of rough schoolhouse to be built on the green
just by the church, and had gently used the power
she undoubtedly had in expressing her strong wish that the
boys might only be taught to read and write and
the first four rules of arithmetic, while the girls were
only to learn to read and to add up in
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their heads, and the rest of the time to work
at mending their own clothes, knitting stockings, and spinning. My
lady presented the school with more spinning wheels than there
were girls, and requested that there might be a rule
that they should have spun so many hanks of flax
and knitted so many pairs of stockings before they ever
were taught to read it all. After all, it was
but making the best of a bad job with my
(27:36):
poor lady. But life was not what it had been
to her. I remember well the day that mister Gray
pulled some delicately fine yarn, and I was a good
judge of those things out of his pocket, and laid
it and a capital pair of knitted stockings before my lady,
as the first fruits, so to say, of his school.
I recollect seeing her put on her spectacles and carefully
(27:59):
examined both productions. Then she passed them to me. This
is well, mister Gray. I am much pleased. You are
fortunate in your schoolmistress. She has had both proper knowledge
of womanly things and much patience. Who is she one
out of our village? My lady, said mister Gray, stammering
(28:20):
and coloring in his old fashion. Miss Bessie is so
very kind as to teach all these sorts of things,
Miss Bessie and Miss Glindo. Sometimes my lady looked at
him over her spectacles, but she only repeated the words
Miss Bessie, and paused, as if trying to remember who
such a person could be. And he, if he had
(28:43):
then intended to say more, was quelled by her manner,
and dropped the subject. He went on to say that
he had thought it is duty to decline the subscription
to his school offered by mister Brooke, because he was
a dissenter. That he mister Gray feared that Captain James,
through whom mister Brooke's offer of money had been made,
was offended at his refusing to accept it from a
(29:05):
man who held heterodox opinions, nay, whom mister Gray suspected
of being infected by Dodwell's heresy. I think there must
be some mistake, said my lady, or I have misunderstood you.
Captain James would never be sufficiently with a schismatic to
be employed by that man Brooke in distributing his charities
(29:27):
I should have doubted until now if Captain James knew him. Indeed,
my lady, he not only knows him, but is intimate
with him. I regret to say I have repeatedly seen
the Captain and mister Brooke walking together, going through the
fields together, and people do say my lady looked up
in interrogation at mister Gray's pause. I disapprove of gossip,
(29:49):
and it may be untrue, but people do say that
Captain James is very attentive to miss Brooke. Impossible, said
my lady indignantly. James is a loyal and religious man.
I beg your pardon, mister Gray, but it is impossible.
End of Chapter thirteen, Recording by Adina Owen
Chapter thirteen of My Lady Ludlow by Elizabeth Gaskell. This
is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the
public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit
LibriVox dot Org. Recording by Adina Owen. My Lady Ludlow
by Elizabeth Gaskell, Chapter thirteen. I had always understood that
(00:21):
Miss Galindo had once been in much better circumstances, but
I had never liked to ask any questions respecting her.
But about this time many things came out respecting her
former life, which I will try and arrange, not however,
in the order in which I heard them, but rather
as they occurred. Miss Galindo was the daughter of a
clergyman in Westmoreland. Her father was the younger brother of
(00:44):
a baronet, his ancestor having been one of those of
James the First's creation. This baronet, uncle of Miss Galindo,
was one of the queer out of the way people
who were bred at that time in that northern district
of England. I had never heard much of him from
any one besides this one great fact that he had
early disappeared from his family, which indeed only consisted of
(01:05):
a brother and sister who died unmarried, and lived no
one knew where, somewhere on the continent, it was supposed,
for he had never returned from the grand tour which
he had been sent to make according to the general
fashion of the day, as soon as he left Oxford.
He corresponded occasionally with his brother, the clergyman, but the
letters passed through a banker's hands, the banker being pledged
(01:26):
to secrecy, and, as he told mister Glindo, having the
penalty if he broke his pledge, of losing the whole
profitable business, and of having the management of the baronet's
affairs taken out of his hands without any advantage accruing
to the inquirer. For Sir Lawrence had told Messrs Graham
that in case his place of residence was revealed by them,
not only would he cease to bank with them, but
(01:47):
instantly take measures to baffle any future inquiries as to
his whereabouts by removing to some distant country. Sir Lawrence
paid a certain sum of money to his brother's account
every year, but the time of this payment buried, and
it was sometimes eighteen or nineteen months between the deposits.
Then again it would not be above a quarter of
the time, showing that he intended it to be annual.
(02:10):
But as this intention was never expressed in words, it
was impossible to rely upon it, and a great deal
of this money was swallowed up by the necessity. Mister
Glindo felt himself under of living in the large old
Rambling family mansion, which had been one of Sir Lawrence's
rarely expressed desires. Mister and Missus Golindo often planned to
(02:30):
live upon their own small fortune and the income derived
from the living a vicarage of which the great tithes
went to Sir Lawrence as lay in proprietor, so as
to put by the payments made by the baronet for
the benefit of Laurentia are miss Galindo. But I suppose
they found it difficult to live economically in a large house,
even though they had it rent free. They had to
(02:50):
keep up with hereditary neighbors and friends, and could hardly
keep doing it in the hereditary manner. One of these neighbors,
a mister Gibson, had a son of f few years
older than Laurentia. The families were sufficiently intimate for the
young people to see a good deal of each other.
And I was told that this young mister Mark Gibson
was an unusually prepossessing man. He seemed to have impressed
(03:13):
everyone who spoke of him to me as being handsome, manly,
kind hearted fellow, just what a girl would be sure
to find most agreeable. The parents either forgot that their
children were growing up to man's and women's estate, or
thought that the intimacy and probable attachment would be no
bad thing, even if it did lead to a marriage. Still,
(03:33):
nothing was ever said by young Gibson until later on,
when it was too late, as it turned out, he
went to and from Oxford, he shot and fished with
mister Glindo, or came to the mirror to skate in wintertime,
was asked to accompany mister Glindo to the hall as
the latter returned to the quiet dinner with his wife
and daughter, and so and so it went on. Nobody
much knew, how until one day when mister Glindo received
(03:55):
a formal letter from his brother's bankers announcing Sir Lawrence's
death of Malie Fever at Albano and congratulating Sir Hubert
on his accession to the estates and the baronetcy. The
King's dead long lived the king, as I have since
heard the French express it, Sir Hubert and his wife
were greatly surprised. Sir Lawrence was but two years older
(04:16):
than his brother, and they had never heard of any
illness till they heard of his death. They were sorry,
very much shocked, but still a little elated at the
succession to the baronetcy and estates. The London bankers had
managed everything well. There was a large sum of ready
money in their hands at Sir Hubert's service until he
should touch his rents, the rent roll being eight thousand
(04:36):
a year, and only Laurentia to inherit it all. Her mother,
a poor clergyman's daughter, began to plan all sorts of
fine marriages for her. Nor was her father much behind
his wife in his ambition. They took her up to
London when they went to buy new carriages and dresses
and furniture. And it was then and there she made
my lady's acquaintance. How it was that they came to
(04:58):
take a fancy to each other, I cannot say. My
lady was of the old nobility, grand composed, gentle, and
stately in her ways. Miss Glindo must always have been
hurried in her manner, and her energy must have shown
itself in inquisitiveness and oddness even in her youth. But
I don't pretend to account for things. I only narraed them.
And the fact was this, that the elegant, fastidious countess
(05:20):
was attracted to the country girl, who, on her part,
almost worshiped my lady. My lady's notice of their daughter
made her parents think, I suppose that there was no match.
She might not command she the heiress of eight thousand
a year and visiting about among earls and dukes. So
when they came back to their old Westmoreland Hall, and
Mark Gibson rode over to offer his hand and heart
(05:42):
and prospective estate of nine hundred a year to his
old companion and playfellow, Laurentia, Sir Hubert and Lady Galindo
made very short work of it. They refused him plumply themselves,
and when he begged to be allowed to speak to Larentia,
they found some excuse for refusing him the opportunity of
doing so until they had talked to her themselves, and
brought up every argument in fact in their power to
(06:04):
convince her, a plain girl, and conscious of her plainness,
that mister Mark Gibson had never thought of her in
the way of marriage till after her father's accession to
his fortune, and that it was the estate, not the
young lady, that he was in love with. I suppose
it will never be known in this world how far
this supposition of theirs was true. My Lady Ludlow had
(06:25):
always spoken as if it was. But perhaps events which
came to her knowledge about this time altered her opinion.
At any rate, the end of it was. Laurentia refused Mark,
and almost broke her heart in doing so. He discovered
the suspicions of Sir Hubert and Lady Glindo, and that
they had persuaded their daughter to share in them. So
he flung off with high words, saying that they did
(06:47):
not know a true heart when they met with one,
that although he had never offered till after Sir Lawrence's death,
yet that his father knew all along that he had
been attached to Laurentia, only that he, being the eldest
of five children, and how having as yet no profession,
had had to conceal rather than to express an attachment,
which in those days he had believed was reciprocated. He
(07:08):
had always meant to study for the bar, and the
end of all he had hoped for had been to
earn a moderate income which he might ask Laurentia to share.
This or something like it was what he said. But
as reference to his father cut two ways. Old mister
Gibson was known to be very keen about money. It
was just as likely that he would urge Mark to
make love to the heiress now she was an heiress,
(07:30):
as that he would have restrained him previously, as Mark
said he had done. When this was repeated to Mark,
he became proudly reserved or sullen, and said that Laurentia,
at any rate, might have known him better. He left
the country and went up to London to study law
soon afterwards, and Sir Hubert and Lady Glindo thought they
were well rid of him. But Laurentia never ceased reproaching herself,
(07:53):
and never did to her dying day. As I believe
the words she might have known me better, told to
her by some kind friend or other, rankled in her
mind and were never forgotten. Her father and mother took
her up to London the next year, but she did
not care to visit, dreaded going out even for a
drive lest she should see Mark Gibson's reproachful eyes, pined
(08:14):
and lost her health. Lady Ludlow saw this change with regret,
and was told to cause by Lady Glindo, who of
course gave her own version of Mark's conduct and motives.
My lady never spoke to Miss Galindo about it, but
tried constantly to interest and please her. It was at
this time that my Lady told Miss Glindo so much
about her own early life and about Hanbury, that Miss
(08:37):
Galindo resolved, if ever she could, she would go and
see the old place which her friend loved so well.
The end of it all was that she came to
live there, as we know, But a great change was
to come first. Before Sir Hubert and Lady Glindo had
left London on this their second visit, they had a
letter from the lawyer whom they employed, saying that Sir
Lawrence had left an heir his legitimate child by an
(09:00):
Italian woman of low rank. At least legal claims to
the title and property had been sent into him on
the boy's behalf, Sir Lawrence, had always been a man
of adventurous and artistic rather than of luxurious tastes, and
it was supposed, when all came to be proved at
the trial, that he was captivated by the free, beautiful
life they led in Italy, and had married this Neapolitan
(09:23):
fisherman's daughter, who had people about her shrewd enough to
see that the ceremony was legally performed. She and her
husband had wandered about the shores of the Mediterranean for years,
leading a happy, careless, irresponsible life, unencumbered by any duties
except those connected with a rather numerous family. It was
enough for her that they never wanted money, and that
her husband's love was always continued to her. She hated
(09:46):
the name of England, wicked, cold, heretic England, and avoided
the mention of any subjects connected with her husband's early life,
so that when he died at Albano, she was almost
roused out of her vehement grief to anger with the
ad Italian doctor, who declared that he must write to
a certain address to announced the death of Lawrence Glindo.
(10:06):
For some time she feared lest English barbarians might come
down upon her making a claim to the children. She
hid herself and them in the Abruzzi, leaving on the
sale of what furniture and jewels Sir Lawrence had died
possessed of. When these failed, she returned to Naples, which
she had not visited since her marriage. Her father was dead,
but her brother had inherited some of his keenness. He
(10:27):
interested the priests, who made inquiries and found that the
Galindo succession was worth securing an air of the true faith.
They stirred about it, obtained advice at the English embassy,
and hence that letter to the lawyers calling upon Sir
Hubert to relinquish title and property and to refund what
money he had expended. He was vehement in his opposition
to this claim. He could not bear to think of
(10:49):
his brother having married a foreigner, a papist, a fisherman's daughter,
nay of his having become a papist himself. He was
in despair at the thought of his ancestral property going
to the issue of such a marriage. He fought tooth
and nail, making enemies of his relations and losing almost
all his own private property. For he would go on
against the lawyer's advice. Long after everyone was convinced except
(11:11):
himself and his wife, and at last he was conquered.
He gave up his living in gloomy despair. He would
have changed his name if he could. So desirous was
he to obliterate all tie between himself and the mongrel
papist baronet and his Italian mother, and all the succession
of children and nurses who came to take possession of
the hall soon after mister Hubert Glindo's departure. Stayed there
(11:32):
one winter and then flitted back to Naples with gladness
and delight. Mister and Missus Hubert Glindo lived in London.
He had obtained a curacy somewhere in the city. They
would have been thankful now if mister Mark Gibson had
renewed his offer. No one could accuse him of mercenary
motives if he had done so. But he did not
come forward as they wished. They brought his silence up
(11:54):
as a justification of what they had previously attributed to him.
I don't know what Miss Glindo thought herself, but Lady
Ludlow has told me how she shrank from hearing her
parents abuse him. Lady Ludlow supposed that he was aware
that they were living in London. His father must have
known the fact, and it was curious if he had
never named it to his son. Besides, the name was
(12:15):
very uncommon, and it was unlikely that it should never
come across him in the advertisements of charity sermons which
the new and rather eloquent Curate of Saint Mark's East
was asked to preach. All this time, Lady Ludlow never
lost sight of them, for Miss Galindo's sake, and when
the father and mother died, it was my lady who
upheld Miss Galindo in her determination not to apply for
(12:36):
any provision to her cousin, the Italian baronet, but rather
to live upon one hundred a year, which had been
settled on her mother and the children of his son
Hubert's marriage by the old grandfather, Sir Lawrence. Mister Mark
Gibson had risen to some eminence as a barrister on
the Northern circuit, but had died unmarried in the lifetime
(12:56):
of his father. A victim, so people said oftenpt Doctor Trevor,
the physician who had been called in to mister Gray
and Harry Gregson had married a sister of his, and
that was all my lady knew about the Gibson family.
But who was Bessie? That mystery and secret came out
too in process of time. Miss Glindo had been to
(13:18):
Warwick some years before I arrived at Hanbury on some
kind of business or shopping which can only be transacted
in a county town. There was an old Westmoreland connection
between her and missus Trevor, though I believed the latter
was too young to have been made aware of her
brother's offer to Miss Galindo at the time when it
took place, and such affairs, if they are unsuccessful, are
(13:39):
seldom spoken about in the gentleman's family afterwards. But the
Gibsons and Galindo's had been county neighbors too long for
the connection not to be kept up between two members
settled far away from their early homes. Miss Galindo always
desired her parcels to be sent to doctor Trevor's when
she went to Warwick for shopping purchases if she were
going any jour, and the coach did not come through
(14:01):
Warwick as soon as she arrived in my lady's coach
or otherwise from Hanbury, she went to Doctor Trevor's to wait.
She was as much expected to sit down to the
household meals as if she had been one of the family,
and in after years it was Missus Trevor who managed
her repository business for her. So on the day I
spoke of, she had gone to Doctor Trevor's to rest
(14:22):
and possibly dine. The post in those times came in
at all hours of the morning, and Doctor Trevor's letters
had not arrived until after his departure. On his morning round,
Miss Glinda was sitting down to dinner with Missus Trevor
and her seven children when the doctor came in. He
was flurried and uncomfortable, and hurried the children away as
soon as he decently could, then, rather feeling Miss Glinda's
(14:43):
presence and advantage, both as a present restraint on the
violence of his wife's grief and as a consoler. When
he was absent on his afternoon round, he told Missus
Trevor of her brother's death. He had been taken ill
on circuit and had hurried back to his chambers in London,
only to die. She cried terribly, but doctor Trevor said
afterwards he never noticed that Miss Galindo cared much about it.
(15:06):
One way or another. She helped him to soothe his wife,
promised to stay with her all afternoon instead of returning
to Hanbury, and afterwards offered to remain with her while
the doctor went to attend to the funeral. When they
heard of the old love story between the dead man
and Miss Galindo brought up by mutual friends in Westmoreland
in the review which we are all inclined to take
(15:27):
of the events of a man's life when he comes
to die, they tried to remember Miss Galindo's speeches and
ways of going on during this visit. She was a
little pale, a little silent. Her eyes were sometimes swollen,
and her nose red, but she was at an age
when such appearances are generally attributed to a bed cold
in the head, rather than any more sentimental reason. They
(15:48):
felt towards her as towards an old friend, a kindly, useful,
eccentric old maid. She did not expect more or wish
them to remember that she might once have had other
hopes or a more youthful feelings. Doctor Trevor thanked her
very warmly for staying with his wife. When he returned
home from London, where the funeral had taken place, he
begged Miss Glinda to stay with them. When the children
(16:10):
were gone to bed and she was preparing to leave
the husband and wife by themselves, he told her and
his wife many particulars, then paused and went on. And
Mark has left a child, a little girl. But he
was never married, exclaimed missus Trevor. A little girl, continued
her husband, whose mother I conclude is dead at any rate.
(16:34):
The child was in possession of his chambers. She and
an old nurse who seemed to have charge of everything
and has cheated poor Mark. I should fancy not a
little but the child, asked Miss Trevor, still almost breathless
with astonishment. How do you know it's his? The nurse
told me it was, with great appearance of indignation. At
my doubting it. I asked the little finger name, and
(16:57):
all I could get was Bessie and a cry of
me wants Papa. The nurse said the mother was dead
and she knew no more about it than that mister
Gibson had engaged her to take care of the little girl,
calling it his child. One or two of his lawyer friends,
whom I met with at the funeral, told me they
were aware of the existence of the child. What's to
(17:18):
be done with her, asked missus Gibson. Nay, I don't know,
replied he Mark has hardly left assets enough to pay
his debts, and your father is not inclined to come forward.
That night, as Doctor Trevor sat in his study after
his wife had gone to bed, Miss Galindo knocked at
his door. She and he had a long conversation. The
(17:38):
result was that he accompanied Miss Galindo up to town
the next day that they took possession of the little Bessie,
and she was brought down and placed at nurse at
a farm in the country near Warwick. Miss Galindo undertaking
to pay one half of the expense and to furnish
her with clothes, and Doctor Trevor undertaking that the remaining
half should be furnished by the Gibson family or by
(17:59):
him in their default. Miss Galindo was not fond of children,
and I dare say she dreaded taking this child to
live with her. For more reasons than one. My Lady
Ludlow could not endure any mention of illegitimate children. It
was a principle of hers that society ought to ignore them,
and I believe Miss Galindo had always agreed with her
until now, when the thing came home to her womanly heart.
(18:21):
Still she shrank from having this child of some strange
woman under her roof. She went over to see it
from time to time, she worked at its clothes, long
after everyone thought she was in bed, And when the
time came for Bessie to be sent to school, Miss
Galindo labored away more diligently than ever in order to
pay the increased expense for The Gibson family had at
(18:43):
first paid their part of the compact, but with unwillingness
and grudging hearts, then they had left it off altogether,
and it fell hard on doctor Trevor with his twelve children,
And latterly Miss Galindo had taken upon herself almost all
the burden. One can hardly live labor and plan and
make sacrifices for any human creature without learning to love it.
(19:05):
And Bessie loved Miss Galindo too, for all the poor
girl's scanty pleasures came from her. And Miss Galindo had
always a kind word and latterly many a kind caress
for Mark Gibson's child, whereas if she went to Doctor
Trevor's for her holiday, she was overlooked and neglected in
that bustling family, who seemed to think that if she
(19:25):
had comfortable board in lodging under the roof, it was enough.
I am sure now that Miss Galindo had often longed
to have Bessie to live with her, but as long
as she could pay for her being at school, she
did not like to take so bold a step as
bringing her home, knowing what the effect of the consequent
explanation would be on my lady. And as the girl
was now more than seventeen, and past the age when
(19:48):
young ladies are usually kept at school, and as there
was no great demand for governesses in those days, and
as Bessie had never been taught any trade by which
to earn her own living, why I don't ex exactly
see what could have been done but for Miss Galindo
to bring her to her own home in Hanbury. For
although the child had grown up lately in a kind
(20:08):
of unexpected manner into a young woman, Miss Galindo might
have kept her at school for a year longer if
she could have afforded it, but this was impossible when
she became mister Horner's clerk and relinquished all the payment
of her repository work. And perhaps, after all she was
not sorry to be compelled to take the step she
was longing for. At any rate, Bessy came to live
(20:30):
with Miss Galindo in a very few weeks from the
time when Captain James set Miss Galindo free to superintend
her own domestic economy again. For a long time I
knew nothing about this inhabitant of Hanbury. My Lady never
mentioned her in any way. This was in accordance with
Lady Ludlow's well known principles. She neither saw nor heard,
(20:50):
nor was in any way cognizant of the existence of
those who had no legal right to exist at all.
If Miss Galindo had hoped to have an exception made
in Bessy's favor, she was mistaken. My Lady sent a
note inviting Miss Galindo herself to tea one evening about
a month after Bessie came, but Miss Glindo had a
cold and could not come. The next time she was invited,
(21:11):
she had an engagement at home a step nearer to
the absolute truth. And the third time she had a
young friend staying with her whom she was unable to leave.
My lady accepted every excuse as a bona fide, and
took no further notice. I missed Miss Galindo very much,
we all did, for in those days when she was clerk,
(21:32):
she was sure to come in and find the opportunity
of saying something amusing to some of us before she
went away. And I, as an invalid, or perhaps from
natural tendency, was particularly fond of little bits of village gossip.
There is no mister Horner. He even had come in
now and then with formal, stately pieces of intelligence, and
there was no Miss Galindo in these days. I missed
(21:54):
her much, and so did my lady. I am sure
behind all her quiet, sedate manner, I am certain her
heart ached sometimes for a few words from Miss Galindo,
who seemed to have absented herself altogether from the hall.
Now Bessie was come. Captain James might be very sensible
in all that, but not even my lady could call
him a substitute for the old familiar friends. He was
(22:16):
a thorough sailor, as sailors were in those days, swore
a good deal, drank a good deal without its ever
affecting him in the least, and was very prompt and
kind hearted in all his actions. But he was not
accustomed to women, as my lady once said, and would
judge in all things for himself. My lady had expected,
I think, to find someone who would take his notions
(22:37):
on the management of her estate from her ladyship's own self.
But he spoke as if he were responsible for the
good management of the whole, and must consequently be allowed
full liberty of action. He had been too long in
command over men at sea to like to be directed
by a woman in anything he undertook, even though that
woman was my lady. I suppose this was the common
(22:57):
sense I my lady spoke of. But when common sense
goes against us, I don't think we value it quite
so much as we ought to do. Lady Ludlow was
proud of her personal superintendence of her own estate. She
liked to tell us how her father used to take
her with him on his rides and bid her observe
this and that, and on no account to allow such
and such things to be done. But I have heard
(23:19):
that the first time she told all this to Captain James,
he told her point blank that he had heard from
mister Smithson that the farms were much neglected, and the
rents sadly behindhand, and that he meant to set to
in good earnest and study agriculture and see how he
could remedy the state of things. My lady would, I
am sure, be greatly surprised. But what could she do?
(23:39):
Here was the very man she had chosen herself, setting
too with all his energy to conquer the defect of ignorance,
which was all that those who had presumed to offer
her ladyship advice had ever had to say against him.
Captain James read Author Young's tours in all his spare time,
as long as he was an invalid, and shook his
head at my lady's accounts as to how the land
(24:01):
had been cropped or left fallow from time immemorial. Then
he sent to and tried too many new experiments at once.
My lady looked on in dignified silence, But all the
farmers and tenants were in and uproar and prophesied. A
hundred failures, perhaps fifty did occur. They were only half
as many as Lady Ludlow had feared, but there were
twice as many, four eight times as many as the
(24:22):
captain had anticipated. His openly expressed disappointment made him popular again.
The rough country people could not have understood a silent
and dignified regret at the failure of his plans, but
they sympathized with the man who swore at his ill success,
sympathized even while they chuckled over his discomfiture. Mister Brooke,
the retired tradesman, did not cease blaming him for not
(24:43):
succeeding and for swearing. What could you expect from a sailor,
mister Brooke asked, even in my lady's hearing, though he
might have known, Captain James was my lady's own personal
choice from the old friendship mister Urion had always shown
for him. I think it was this speech of the
Irmingham Baker's that made my lady determine to stand by
Captain James and encourage him to try again, For she
(25:06):
would not allow that her choice had been an unwise
one at the bidding as it were of a dissenting tradesman.
The only person in the neighborhood too, who had flaunted
about in colored clothes when all the world was in
mourning for my lady's only son. Captain James would have
thrown the agency up at once if my Lady had
not felt herself bound to justify the wisdom of her
(25:26):
choice by urging him to stay. He was much touched
by her confidence in him, and swore a great oath
that the next year he would make the land such
as it had never been before for produce. It was
not my lady's way to repeat anything she had heard,
especially to another person's disadvantage, so I don't think she
ever told Captain James of mister Brooke's speech about a
sailor's being likely to mismanage the property, and the Captain
(25:49):
was too anxious to succeed in this the second year
of his trial to be above going to the flourishing
shrewd mister Brooke and asking his advice as to the
best method of working the estate. I dare say if
Miss Galindo had been as intimate as formally at the hall,
we should all of us have heard of this new
acquaintance of the agents long before we did. As it was,
I'm sure, my Lady never dreamed that the captain, who
(26:11):
held opinions that were even more church and king than
her own, could ever have made friends with a Baptist
baker from Birmingham, even to serve her Ladyship's own interests
in the most loyal manner. We heard of it first
from mister Gray, who came now often to see my Lady,
for neither he nor she could forget the solemn tide
which the fact of his being the person to acquaint
(26:32):
her with my Lord's death had created between them, For
true and holy words spoken at that time, though having
no reference to aught below the solemn subjects of life
and death, had made her withdraw her opposition to mister
Gray's wish about establishing a village school. She had sighed
a little, it's true, and was even yet more apprehensive
than hopeful as to the result. But almost as if
(26:54):
as a memorial to my Lord, she had allowed a
kind of rough schoolhouse to be built on the green
just by the church, and had gently used the power
she undoubtedly had in expressing her strong wish that the
boys might only be taught to read and write and
the first four rules of arithmetic, while the girls were
only to learn to read and to add up in
(27:14):
their heads, and the rest of the time to work
at mending their own clothes, knitting stockings, and spinning. My
lady presented the school with more spinning wheels than there
were girls, and requested that there might be a rule
that they should have spun so many hanks of flax
and knitted so many pairs of stockings before they ever
were taught to read it all. After all, it was
but making the best of a bad job with my
(27:36):
poor lady. But life was not what it had been
to her. I remember well the day that mister Gray
pulled some delicately fine yarn, and I was a good
judge of those things out of his pocket, and laid
it and a capital pair of knitted stockings before my lady,
as the first fruits, so to say, of his school.
I recollect seeing her put on her spectacles and carefully
(27:59):
examined both productions. Then she passed them to me. This
is well, mister Gray. I am much pleased. You are
fortunate in your schoolmistress. She has had both proper knowledge
of womanly things and much patience. Who is she one
out of our village? My lady, said mister Gray, stammering
(28:20):
and coloring in his old fashion. Miss Bessie is so
very kind as to teach all these sorts of things,
Miss Bessie and Miss Glindo. Sometimes my lady looked at
him over her spectacles, but she only repeated the words
Miss Bessie, and paused, as if trying to remember who
such a person could be. And he, if he had
(28:43):
then intended to say more, was quelled by her manner,
and dropped the subject. He went on to say that
he had thought it is duty to decline the subscription
to his school offered by mister Brooke, because he was
a dissenter. That he mister Gray feared that Captain James,
through whom mister Brooke's offer of money had been made,
was offended at his refusing to accept it from a
(29:05):
man who held heterodox opinions, nay, whom mister Gray suspected
of being infected by Dodwell's heresy. I think there must
be some mistake, said my lady, or I have misunderstood you.
Captain James would never be sufficiently with a schismatic to
be employed by that man Brooke in distributing his charities
(29:27):
I should have doubted until now if Captain James knew him. Indeed,
my lady, he not only knows him, but is intimate
with him. I regret to say I have repeatedly seen
the Captain and mister Brooke walking together, going through the
fields together, and people do say my lady looked up
in interrogation at mister Gray's pause. I disapprove of gossip,
(29:49):
and it may be untrue, but people do say that
Captain James is very attentive to miss Brooke. Impossible, said
my lady indignantly. James is a loyal and religious man.
I beg your pardon, mister Gray, but it is impossible.
End of Chapter thirteen, Recording by Adina Owen
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