Cumberland (England) -- Fiction; Domestic fiction; Inheritance and succession -- Fiction; Mothers and daughters -- Fiction
At this time the Countess, with her daughter, had moved their
residence from Keswick up to London, and was living in very humble
lodgings in a small street turning out of the New Road, near the
Yorkshire Stingo. Old Thomas Thwaite had accompanied them from
Cumberland, but the rooms had been taken for them by his son, Daniel
Thwaite, who was at this time foreman to a somewhat celebrated
tailor who carried on his business in Wigmore Street; and he, Daniel
Thwaite, had a bedroom in the house in which the Countess lodged. The
arrangement was not a wise one, as reports had already been spread
abroad as to the partiality of the Lady Anna for the young tailor.
But how should she not have been partial both to the father and to
the son, feeling as she did that they were the only two men who
befriended her cause and her mother's? As to the Countess herself,
she, perhaps, alone of all those who interested themselves in her
daughter's cause, had heard no word of these insinuations against her
child. To her both Thomas and Daniel Thwaite were dear friends, to
repay whom for their exertions with lavish generosity,--should the
means to do so ever come within her reach,--was one of the dreams
of her existence. But she was an ambitious woman, thinking much
of her rank, thinking much even of the blood of her own ancestors,
constantly urgent with her daughter in teaching her the duties
and privileges of wealth and rank. For the Countess never doubted
that she would at last attain success. That the Lady Anna should
throw herself away upon Daniel Thwaite did not occur to her as a
possibility. She had not even dreamed that Daniel Thwaite would
aspire to her daughter's hand. And yet every shop-boy and every
shop-girl in Keswick had been so saying for the last twelvemonth,
and rumours which had hitherto been confined to Keswick and its
neighbourhood, were now common in London. For the case was becoming
one of the celebrated causes of the age, and all the world was
talking of the Countess and her daughter. No momentary suspicion had
crossed the mind of the Countess till after their arrival in London;
and then when the suspicion did touch her it was not love that she
suspected,--but rather an unbecoming familiarity which she attributed
to her child's ignorance of the great life which awaited her. "My
dear," she said one day when Daniel Thwaite had left them, "you
should be less free in your manner with that young man."
"What do you mean, mamma?" said the daughter, blushing.
"You had better call him Mr. Thwaite."
"But I have called him Daniel ever since I was born."
"He always calls you Lady Anna."
"Sometimes he does, mamma."
"I never heard him call you anything else," said the Countess, almost
with indignation. "It is all very well for the old man, because he is
an old man and has done so much for us."
"So has Daniel;--quite as much, mamma. They have both done
everything."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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