CHAPTER V
The Douglases rolled home in their family coach.
"Pray, may I ask, Mr. Douglas, if you thought that a pleasant dinner?" said his wife in an insidious tone.
"Yes, my dear, I did indeed; good cookery, pleasant company, and very pretty women—I ask nothing more. Ought not I to have liked it?"
"Oh dear, yes! I am glad you did; easily pleased, that's all I can say. Perhaps, too, you thought your beauty. Lady Eskdale, looked well in that floppety cap?"
"I have not the good fortune to know what a floppety cap is, my dear; but I thought she looked very handsome, even by the side of those two pretty daughters of hers."
"Well, it is to me the strangest delusion of yours, that about the beauty of the Eskdales. Perhaps, too, in the extremity of your benevolence, you think Lord Teviot is very much in love with Helen?"
"Is not he? I took it for granted that he was, because, in the first place, most men who saw her would be; and in the next, because I presume he would not marry her if he were not."
"What his reasons may be for marrying her I do not know; but I never saw a more unpromising-looking business than that. He seems to me to be about the most ill-tempered, disagreeable, odious young man I ever saw; and he does not care two straws for Helen. Girls, I am sure you must have observed it: he never spoke to her at dinner, and I am convinced she is very unhappy."
"Oh, mamma, do you think so?" said Eliza. "I think Helen, when she is married, will be just like Lady Amelia; and I am sure she is happy enough."
"She carries it off very well," said Mrs. Douglas; "but in my humble opinion Mr. Trevor is rather a poor creature, and Amelia is sharp enough to find it out. After all the fuss that has been made about Lady Eskdale's luck in the marriage of her daughters, I see nothing in it. The Waldegraves are never here, to begin with."
"Oh, because he was obliged to go to Paris about that money of his uncle's."
"Ah! so they say; I never believe those stories of people going rambling about in search of their uncle's money. I suspect he is very unsteady, and Sophia's temper must be a trying one, I am sure; and probably they do not wish the Eskdales to see how unhappy they are. So much for one daughter. Then Amelia is married to a man who looks, I think, though nobody will agree with me, like a fool, and moreover his father is alive, and may live for ages, or marry again, and have heaps of children; so in a worldly point of view that is a deplorable marriage."
"My dear, how you do run on imagining grievances! The Trevors are very well off."
"How can you know, Mr. Douglas? Nobody who has a father alive ever is well off; and besides, they are very extravagant; you will see that they will get into difficulties; and then Helen, we were told that hers was to be a model marriage—the greatest piece of luck that ever was known. Now I am not easily taken in, but I really did expect to see a tolerable chance of happiness for that poor girl; and there she is going to be the wife of that horrid savage."
"Oh, mamma! he does not look like a savage."
"No, my dear, savages would not be so affected; but I was alluding to his temper, which is evidently a savage temper. I am sorry for it, for Helen is rather a favourite of mine, and I see she will lead a wretched life; and taking all these circumstances together, I cannot wonder that with all this care and anxiety on her mind Lady Eskdale looks as old and haggard as she does."
"Well, Anne, you have settled that family thoroughly," said Mr. Douglas; "nobody can accuse you of too much benevolence in your opinions."
"No, my dear, I don't set up for that sort of character, because I happen to see things as they really are, and I am never taken in by the cant of prosperity, and that sort of pretension. So really, without offence, I must be allowed to observe that I do not envy Lady Eskdale her sons-in-law; and that I hope we shall not be asked to dine there any more this year, that is all."
And on this conclusion the family rested till they arrived at home.