My Lady Ludlow

I am an old woman now, and things are very different to what they were in
my youth. Then we, who travelled, travelled in coaches, carrying six
inside, and making a two days' journey out of what people now go over in
a couple of hours with a whizz and a flash, and a screaming whistle,
enough to deafen one. Then letters came in but three times a week:
indeed, in some places in Scotland where I have stayed when I was a girl,
the post came in but once a month;—but letters were letters then; and we
made great prizes of them, and read them and studied them like books. Now
the post comes rattling in twice a day, bringing short jerky notes, some
without beginning or end, but just a little sharp sentence, which well-
bred folks would think too abrupt to be spoken. Well, well! they may all
be improvements,—I dare say they are; but you will never meet with a
Lady Ludlow in these days.

I will try and tell you about her. It is no story: it has, as I said,
neither beginning, middle, nor end.

My father was a poor clergyman with a large family. My mother was always
said to have good blood in her veins; and when she wanted to maintain her
position with the people she was thrown among,—principally rich
democratic manufacturers, all for liberty and the French Revolution,—she
would put on a pair of ruffles, trimmed with real old English point, very
much darned to be sure,—but which could not be bought new for love or
money, as the art of making it was lost years before. These ruffles
showed, as she said, that her ancestors had been Somebodies, when the
grandfathers of the rich folk, who now looked down upon her, had been
Nobodies,—if, indeed, they had any grandfathers at all. I don't know
whether any one out of our own family ever noticed these ruffles,—but we
were all taught as children to feel rather proud when my mother put them
on, and to hold up our heads as became the descendants of the lady who
had first possessed the lace. Not but what my dear father often told us
that pride was a great sin; we were never allowed to be proud of anything
but my mother's ruffles: and she was so innocently happy when she put
them on,—often, poor dear creature, to a very worn and threadbare
gown,—that I still think, even after all my experience of life, they
were a blessing to the family. You will think that I am wandering away
from my Lady Ludlow. Not at all. The Lady who had owned the lace,
Ursula Hanbury, was a common ancestress of both my mother and my Lady
Ludlow. And so it fell out, that when my poor father died, and my mother
was sorely pressed to know what to do with her nine children, and looked
far and wide for signs of willingness to help, Lady Ludlow sent her a
letter, proffering aid and assistance. I see that letter now: a large
sheet of thick yellow paper, with a straight broad margin left on the
left-hand side of the delicate Italian writing,—writing which contained
far more in the same space of paper than all the sloping, or masculine
hand-writings of the present day. It was sealed with a coat of arms,—a
lozenge,—for Lady Ludlow was a widow. My mother made us notice the
motto, "Foy et Loy," and told us where to look for the quarterings of the
Hanbury arms before she opened the letter. Indeed, I think she was
rather afraid of what the contents might be; for, as I have said, in her
anxious love for her fatherless children, she had written to many people
upon whom, to tell truly, she had but little claim; and their cold, hard
answers had many a time made her cry, when she thought none of us were
looking. I do not even know if she had ever seen Lady Ludlow: all I knew
of her was that she was a very grand lady, whose grandmother had been
half-sister to my mother's great-grandmother; but of her character and
circumstances I had heard nothing, and I doubt if my mother was
acquainted with them.

I looked over my mother's shoulder to read the letter; it began, "Dear
Cousin Margaret Dawson," and I think I felt hopeful from the moment I saw
those words. She went on to say,—stay, I think I can remember the very
words:

'DEAR COUSIN MARGARET DAWSON,—I have been much grieved to hear of the
loss you have sustained in the death of so good a husband, and so
excellent a clergyman as I have always heard that my late cousin Richard
was esteemed to be.'

"There!" said my mother, laying her finger on the passage, "read that
aloud to the little ones. Let them hear how their father's good report
travelled far and wide, and how well he is spoken of by one whom he never
saw. COUSIN Richard, how prettily her ladyship writes! Go on,
Margaret!" She wiped her eyes as she spoke: and laid her fingers on her
lips, to still my little sister, Cecily, who, not understanding anything
about the important letter, was beginning to talk and make a noise.

'You say you are left with nine children. I too should have had nine, if
mine had all lived. I have none left but Rudolph, the present Lord
Ludlow. He is married, and lives, for the most part, in London. But I
entertain six young gentlewomen at my house at Connington, who are to me
as daughters—save that, perhaps, I restrict them in certain indulgences
in dress and diet that might be befitting in young ladies of a higher
rank, and of more probable wealth. These young persons—all of
condition, though out of means—are my constant companions, and I strive
to do my duty as a Christian lady towards them. One of these young
gentlewomen died (at her own home, whither she had gone upon a visit)
last May. Will you do me the favour to allow your eldest daughter to
supply her place in my household? She is, as I make out, about sixteen
years of age. She will find companions here who are but a little older
than herself. I dress my young friends myself, and make each of them a
small allowance for pocket-money. They have but few opportunities for
matrimony, as Connington is far removed from any town. The clergyman is
a deaf old widower; my agent is married; and as for the neighbouring
farmers, they are, of course, below the notice of the young gentlewomen
under my protection. Still, if any young woman wishes to marry, and has
conducted herself to my satisfaction, I give her a wedding dinner, her
clothes, and her house-linen. And such as remain with me to my death,
will find a small competency provided for them in my will. I reserve to
myself the option of paying their travelling expenses,—disliking gadding
women, on the one hand; on the other, not wishing by too long absence
from the family home to weaken natural ties.

'If my proposal pleases you and your daughter—or rather, if it pleases
you, for I trust your daughter has been too well brought up to have a
will in opposition to yours—let me know, dear cousin Margaret Dawson,
and I will make arrangements for meeting the young gentlewoman at
Cavistock, which is the nearest point to which the coach will bring her.'

My mother dropped the letter, and sat silent.

"I shall not know what to do without you, Margaret."

A moment before, like a young untried girl as I was, I had been pleased
at the notion of seeing a new place, and leading a new life. But now,—my
mother's look of sorrow, and the children's cry of remonstrance: "Mother;
I won't go," I said.

"Nay! but you had better," replied she, shaking her head. "Lady Ludlow
has much power. She can help your brothers. It will not do to slight
her offer."

So we accepted it, after much consultation. We were rewarded,—or so we
thought,—for, afterwards, when I came to know Lady Ludlow, I saw that
she would have done her duty by us, as helpless relations, however we
might have rejected her kindness,—by a presentation to Christ's Hospital
for one of my brothers.

And this was how I came to know my Lady Ludlow.

I remember well the afternoon of my arrival at Hanbury Court. Her
ladyship had sent to meet me at the nearest post-town at which the mail-
coach stopped. There was an old groom inquiring for me, the ostler said,
if my name was Dawson—from Hanbury Court, he believed. I felt it rather
formidable; and first began to understand what was meant by going among
strangers, when I lost sight of the guard to whom my mother had intrusted
me. I was perched up in a high gig with a hood to it, such as in those
days was called a chair, and my companion was driving deliberately
through the most pastoral country I had ever yet seen. By-and-by we
ascended a long hill, and the man got out and walked at the horse's head.
I should have liked to walk, too, very much indeed; but I did not know
how far I might do it; and, in fact, I dared not speak to ask to be
helped down the deep steps of the gig. We were at last at the top,—on a
long, breezy, sweeping, unenclosed piece of ground, called, as I
afterwards learnt, a Chase. The groom stopped, breathed, patted his
horse, and then mounted again to my side.

"Are we near Hanbury Court?" I asked.

"Near! Why, Miss! we've a matter of ten mile yet to go."

Once launched into conversation, we went on pretty glibly. I fancy he
had been afraid of beginning to speak to me, just as I was to him; but he
got over his shyness with me sooner than I did mine with him. I let him
choose the subjects of conversation, although very often I could not
understand the points of interest in them: for instance, he talked for
more than a quarter of an hour of a famous race which a certain dog-fox
had given him, above thirty years before; and spoke of all the covers and
turns just as if I knew them as well as he did; and all the time I was
wondering what kind of an animal a dog-fox might be.

After we loft the Chase, the road grew worse. No one in these days, who
has not seen the byroads of fifty years ago, can imagine what they were.
We had to quarter, as Randal called it, nearly all the way along the deep-
rutted, miry lanes; and the tremendous jolts I occasionally met with made
my seat in the gig so unsteady that I could not look about me at all, I
was so much occupied in holding on. The road was too muddy for me to
walk without dirtying myself more than I liked to do, just before my
first sight of my Lady Ludlow. But by-and-by, when we came to the fields
in which the lane ended, I begged Randal to help me down, as I saw that I
could pick my steps among the pasture grass without making myself unfit
to be seen; and Randal, out of pity for his steaming horse, wearied with
the hard struggle through the mud, thanked me kindly, and helped me down
with a springing jump.

The pastures fell gradually down to the lower land, shut in on either
side by rows of high elms, as if there had been a wide grand avenue here
in former times. Down the grassy gorge we went, seeing the sunset sky at
the end of the shadowed descent. Suddenly we came to a long flight of
steps.

"If you'll run down there, Miss, I'll go round and meet you, and then
you'd better mount again, for my lady will like to see you drive up to
the house."