The Cornhill Magazine, Vol. I, January 1860Various
General
The Cornhill Magazine, Vol. I, January 1860
Various
England -- Periodicals; English literature -- Periodicals; Short stories, English -- Periodicals
3. Fred Lovel’s heart was so very much broken by this intelligence,
that he gave himself airs of Hamlet, dressed in black, wore his long
fair hair over his eyes, and exhibited a hundred signs of grief and
desperation: until--
4. Louisa (widow of the late Sir Popham Baker, of Bakerstown, Co.
Kilkenny, Baronet,) induced Mr. Lovel to take a trip on the Rhine with
her and Cecilia, fourth and only unmarried daughter of the aforesaid
Sir Popham Baker, deceased.
My opinion of Cecilia I have candidly given in a previous page.
I adhere to that opinion. I shall not repeat it. The subject is
disagreeable to me, as the woman herself was in life. What Fred found
in her to admire, I cannot tell: lucky for us all that tastes, men,
women, vary. You will never see her alive in this history. That is
her picture, painted by the late Mr. Gandish. She stands fingering
that harp with which she has often driven me half mad with her _Tara’s
Halls_ and her _Poor Marianne_. She used to bully Fred so, and be so
rude to his guests, that in order to pacify her, he would meanly say,
“Do, my love, let us have a little music!” and thrumpty--thrumpty, off
would go her gloves, and _Tara’s Halls_ would begin. “The harp that
_once_” indeed! the accursed catgut scarce knew any other music, and
“once” was a hundred times at least in _my_ hearing. Then came the
period when I was treated to the cold joint which I have mentioned;
and, not liking it, I gave up going to Shrublands.
So, too, did my Lady Baker, but not of _her own free will_, mind
you. _She_ did not quit the premises because her reception was too
cold, but because the house was made a great deal too hot for her.
I remember Fred coming to me in high spirits, and describing to me,
with no little humour, a great battle between Cecilia and Lady Baker,
and her ladyship’s defeat and flight. She fled, however, only as far
as Putney village, where she formed again, as it were, and fortified
herself in a lodging. Next day she made a desperate and feeble attack,
presenting herself at Shrublands lodge-gate, and threatening that she
and sorrow would sit down before it; and that all the world should know
how a daughter treated her mother. But the gate was locked, and Barnet,
the gardener, appeared behind it, saying, “Since you _are_ come, my
lady, perhaps you will pay my missis the four-and-twenty shillings you
borrowed of her.” And he grinned at her through the bars, until she
fled before him, cowering. Lovel paid the little forgotten account; the
best four-and-twenty shillings he had ever laid out, he said.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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