The Visits of Elizabeth | Page 9

had parted the best of friends!!! Did you ever hear such impudence? Of
course I should have walked on without recognising him, if I had been
left to myself, but he took me so by surprise that I had shaken hands
before I knew, and then it was too late to walk on. It appears he has a
place down here which he never comes to generally, but just happened
to now--to see how the young pheasants were doing. He began at once
to talk, as if I had never been angry or boxed his ears at all! It really
exasperated me, so at last I said he had better get on his horse again, as
I wanted to run on with Fido; so then he said he had just been on his
way to call on Aunt Maria, and would come with me.
I said I was sure that wasn't true, as he was going the other way. So he
said that he had only been going that way to give his horse a little
exercise, and that he intended to go in at the other gate.
I said I was sure that wasn't true either, as there was no way round that
way, unless one jumped the park palings. So he said that was what he
had intended to do. Just then we came to the turnstile of the
right-of-way, so I slipped through and called out, "Then I won't keep
you from your exercise," and walked on as fast as I could.
[Sidenote: Lady Farrington's Nap]
What do you think he did, Mamma? Simply got on his horse, and
jumped those palings there and then! I can't think how he wasn't killed.
There was almost no take-off, and the fence is so high. However, there
he was, and I could not get away again, because, if I had run, the horse
could easily have kept up with me. But I only said "Yes" and "No" all
the way to the house, so he could not have enjoyed it much. We went
straight to the drawing-room, where tea was almost up, and there was
Lady Farrington alone--still asleep, and her cap had fallen right back,
and all the bald was showing; and just then a carriage drove up to the

door, and we heard visitors and the footsteps in the hall. I had just time
to cry to Lord Valmond, "Keep them back while I wake her!" and then
I rushed to Lady Farrington, and shouted in her ear, "Visitors!
and--and--your cap is a little crooked!" "Eh! what?" she screamed, and
her teeth as nearly as possible jumped on to the carpet. She simply flew
to the mirror, but, as you know, it is away so high up she couldn't see,
so she made frantic efforts with her hands, and just got it to cover the
bald, in a rakish, one-sided way, when the whole lot streamed into the
room. Lord Valmond looked awfully uncomfortable. Goodness knows
what he had said to them to keep them back! Anyway, Harvey
announced "Mrs. and the Misses Clarke," and a thin, very high-nosed
person, followed by two buffish girls, came forward. Lady Farrington
said, "How d'ye do?" as well as she could. They were some friends of
hers and Aunt Maria's, who are staying with the Morverns, I gathered
from their conversation. They must have thought she had been on a
spree since last they met! I could hardly behave for laughing, and did
not dare to look at Lord Valmond.
They had not been there more than five minutes when another carriage
arrived, and two other ladies were announced. "The Misses Clark!" The
other Clarkes glared like tigers, and Lady Farrington lowered her chin
and eyelashes at them (she has just the same manners as the people at
Nazeby, although she is such a frump--it is because she is an earl's
daughter, I suppose), and she called out to Harvey at the top of her
voice, "Let Lady Worden be told at once there are visitors." The poor
new things looked so uncomfortable, that I felt, as I was Aunt Maria's
niece, I at least must be polite to them; so I asked them to sit down, and
we talked. They were jolly, fat, vulgar souls, who have taken the
Ortons' place they told me, and this was their return visit, as the Ortons
had asked Aunt Maria to call. They were quite old maids, past thirty,
with such funny, grand, best smart Sunday-go-to-meeting looking
clothes on.
[Sidenote: An Afternoon Call]
It appears that Harvey had sent a footman up to Aunt Maria's door, to
tell of the first Clarkes' arrival, and then, terrified by Lady Farrington's

voice, had rushed up himself to announce the second lot, and he met
Aunt Maria