Dynevor Terrace; Or, The Clue of Life — Volume 2Yonge, Charlotte M. (Charlotte Mary)
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Dynevor Terrace; Or, The Clue of Life — Volume 2
Yonge, Charlotte M. (Charlotte Mary)
Cousins -- Fiction; Domestic fiction; English fiction -- 19th century; Upper class -- England -- Fiction
'You ask whether the dear granny is happy. You know she is all
elasticity, and things are pleasanter here to her than to me, but I do
not think she enjoys life as she did at home. It is hard to have her
whole mission reduced to airing those four horses. We have tormented
my uncle out of making us use more than two at a time, by begging for
six and the Lord Mayor's coach; but aired alternately they must be, and
we must do it, and by no road but what the coachman chooses; and this
does not seem to me to agree with her like trotting about the town on
her errands. There is no walking here, excepting in the
pleasure-ground, where all my grandfather's landscape-gardening has
been cut up so as to be a mere vexation to her. The people round are
said to be savage and disaffected, and the quarter of a mile between
the park and the village is subject to miners going home. They did
once holloa at me, and orders were issued that I should walk no more.
I believe that if they saw me fearless, and coming among them for
friendly purposes, they would leave off hooting; but the notion
frightens granny, so I am a prisoner. They are the people to think it
a mockery to be visited by a lady bedizened as I am, and stuck up in a
carriage; so we can do very little except through Mr. Danvers, and my
uncle is always discontented at the sight of him, and fancies he is
always begging. A little sauciness on my part has the best effect when
anything is wanted, for my uncle is very kind to me in his own fashion,
which is not mine.
'We have made something of a nest in the last of the suite of rooms,
the only one habitably small; but it is wonderful where all the time in
the day goes. My uncle likes me to ride with him in the morning, and I
have to help granny air the horses in the afternoon; and in the
evening, when we are lucky enough to dine alone, I play them both
asleep, unless they go to backgammon. Think of granny reduced to that!
We should be very happy when he is detained in his study, but that
granny thinks it is bad for him. Dear granny!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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