Out in the Forty-Five Part 14

"Hatty, you must have made that yourself!" said Sophy.

"I have, just this minute," laughed Hatty. "Now then, who'll bid for my news?"

"I dare say it isn't worth a farthing," said Sophy.

"Well, to you, perhaps not. It may be rather mortifying. My sweet Sophia, you are the eldest of us, but your younger sister has stolen a march on you. You have played your cards ill, Miss Courtenay. f.a.n.n.y is going to be the first of us married, unless I contrive to run away with somebody in the interval. I don't know whom--there's the difficulty."

"Well, I always thought she would be," said Sophy, quite good-humouredly. "She is the prettiest of us, is f.a.n.n.y."

"So much obliged for the compliment!" gleefully cried Hatty. "Cary, don't you feel delighted?"

"Is Ephraim here now?" I said, for of course I never thought of anybody else.

"Ephraim!" Hatty whirled round, laughing heartily. "Ephraim, my dear, will have to break his heart at leisure. Ambrose Catterall has stolen a march on _him_."

"You don't mean that f.a.n.n.y and Ambrose are to be married!" cried Sophy, with wide-open eyes.

"I do, Madam; and my Aunt Kezia is as mad as a hatter about it. She would have liked Ephraim for her nephew ever so much better than Ambrose."

"Well, I do think!" exclaimed Sophy. "If Ephraim did really care for f.a.n.n.y, she has used him shamefully."

"So _I_ think!" said Hatty. "I mean to present him on his next birthday with a dozen pocket-handkerchiefs, embroidered in the corner with an urn and a willow-tree."

"An urn, you ridiculous child!" returned Sophy. "That means that somebody is dead."

"Don't throw cold water on my charming conceits!" pleaded Hatty. "Now go in and face my Aunt Kezia--if you dare."

We found her cutting out flannel petticoats in the parlour. My Aunt Kezia's brows were drawn together, and my Aunt Kezia's lips were thin; and I trembled. However, she took no note of us, but went on tearing up flannel, and making little piles of it upon the table end.

Sophy, with heroic bravery, attacked the citadel at once.

"Well, Aunt, this is pretty news!"

"What is?" said my Aunt Kezia, standing up straight and stiff.

"Why, this about f.a.n.n.y and Ambrose Catterall."

"Oh, that! I wish there were nothing worse than that in _this_ world."

My Aunt Kezia spoke as if she would have preferred some other world, where things went straighter than they do in this.

"Hatty said you were put out about it, Aunt."

"That's all Hatty knows. I think 'tis a blunder, and f.a.n.n.y will find it out, likely enough. But if that were all--Girls, 'tis nigh dinner-time.

You had better take your bonnets off."

"What is the matter with my Aunt Kezia?" said I to Sophy, as we went up-stairs.

"Don't ask _me_!" said that young lady.

Half-way up-stairs we met Charlotte.

"Oh, what fun you have missed, you two!" cried she. "Why didn't you come home a little sooner? I would not have lost it for a hundred pounds."

"Lost what, Charlotte?"

"Lost _what_? Ask my Aunt Kezia--now just you _do_!"

"My Aunt Kezia seems unapproachable," said Sophy.

Charlotte went off into a fit of laughter, and then slid down the banister to the hall--a feat which my Aunt Kezia has forbidden her to perform a dozen times at least. We went forward, made ourselves ready for dinner, and came down to the dining-parlour.

In the dining-room we found a curious group. My Aunt Kezia looked as stiff as whalebone; Father, pleased and radiant; Flora and Mr Keith both seemed rather puzzled. Angus was in a better temper than usual.

Charlotte was evidently full of something very funny, which she did not want to let out; Cecilia, soft, serene, and velvety; f.a.n.n.y looked nervous and uncomfortable; Hatty, scornful; while Amelia was her usual self.

When dinner was over, we went back to the parlour. My Aunt Kezia gathered up her heaps of flannel, gave one to Flora and another to me, and began to st.i.tch away at a third herself. Amelia threw herself on the sofa, saying she was tired to death; and I was surprised to see that my Aunt Kezia took no notice. f.a.n.n.y sat down to draw; Hatty went on with her knitting; Charlotte strolled out into the garden; and Cecilia disappeared, I know not whither.

For an hour or more we worked away in solemn silence. Hatty tried to whisper once or twice to f.a.n.n.y, making her blush and look uncomfortable; but f.a.n.n.y did not speak, and I fancy Hatty got tired. Amelia went to sleep.

At last, and all at once, Flora--honest, straightforward Flora--laid her work on her knee, and looked up at my Aunt Kezia's grim set face.

"Aunt Kezia, will you tell me, is something the matter?"

"Yes, my dear," my Aunt Kezia seemed to snap out. "Satan's the matter."

"I don't know what you mean, Aunt," said Flora.

"'Tis a mercy if you don't. No, child, there is not much the matter for you. The matter's for me and these girls here. Well, to be sure!

there's no fool like an old f--Caroline! (I fairly jumped) can't you look what you are doing? You are herring-boning that seam on the wrong side!"

Alas! the charge was true. I cannot tell how or why it is, but if there are two seams to anything, I am sure to do one of them on the wrong side. It is very queer. I suppose there is something wanting in my brains. Hatty says--at least she did once when I said that--the brains are wanting.

However, we sat on and sewed away, till at last Amelia woke up and went up-stairs; Flora finished her petticoat, and my Aunt Kezia told her to go into the garden. Only we four sisters were left. Then my Aunt Kezia put down her flannel, wiped her spectacles, and looked round at us.

I knew something was coming, and I felt quite sure that it was something disagreeable; but I could not form an idea what it was.

"Girls," said my Aunt Kezia, "I think you may as well hear at once that I am going to leave Brocklebank."

I fairly gasped in astonishment. Brocklebank without my Aunt Kezia! It sounded like hearing that the sun was going out of the sky. I could not imagine such a state of things.

"Is Sophy to be mistress, then?" said f.a.n.n.y, blankly.

"Aunt Kezia, are you going to be married?" our impertinent Hatty wanted to know.

"No, Hester," said my Aunt Kezia, shortly. "At my time of life a woman has a little sense left; or if she have not, she is only fit for Bedlam.

I do not think Sophy will be mistress, f.a.n.n.y. Somebody else is going to take that place. Otherwise, I should have stayed in it."

"What do you mean, Aunt Kezia?" said f.a.n.n.y, speaking very slowly, and in a bewildered sort of way.