Ashcliffe Hall: A tale of the last century — Background and Themes

There were only four tea-drinkers in this family, and, until a few months previous, there had been only three. The gentlemen despised what they considered a washy and exclusively feminine beverage, and the mistress of the house could by no means be induced to taste it. It was a new-fangled drink, she said, and new-fangled things, of whatever description, she abhorred. People never drank tea when she was a child, and why should they want it now? This was Madam Passmore's logic, and under its influence she drank no tea. Still she did not forbid her daughters' indulging in it. Young people, she allowed, were given to new-fangled things; and could be expected to be wiser only as they grew older. She was a little annoyed when the logic of the young people, adverse to her own, made a tea-convert of Cicely Aggett, who was about twenty-five years her senior; but Madam Passmore was a quiet, passive sort of woman, who never kept anger long, and was in her heart a fatalist. "What must be must be," she used to say; and many a time had she consoled herself with this comforting adage under troubles of various kinds. She said so when her son Harry went into the army; she said so when her husband broke his leg in fox-hunting; and she said so, but with tears, when her little daughter Margaret died. She had no political opinions but those of her husband, who was a fervent Whig; but deep down in her heart she was a profound Tory in all domestic matters, for she disliked change and novelty beyond everything. She never put down a new carpet until the old carpet was quite beyond endurance; not from any parsimonious motive, but simply because she liked best those things to which she was most accustomed. She never would have slept with comfort if her bed had been turned with its side to the wall instead of its back; nor would she ever have conceded that a new lamp burnt half so brightly as the old one. Her surviving family consisted of two sons and four daughters, who were remarkably alike in person--all but one. The neighbors who were sufficiently high in position to visit with Squire Passmore of Ashcliffe, often wondered how it was that Celia Passmore was so unlike every other member of the family. They were tall and stately in figure, she was small and slight; they had abundant light hair, hers was thin and dark; their eyes were blue or gray, hers brown. Most of all was she unlike her twin-sister, Isabella, who was considered the beauty of the family, and was very well aware of it. There was nothing remarkable about any of the others; but Celia, some said, was sadly plain, poor girl! and it must be a great mortification to Madam Passmore, who had been a country belle in her young days.

Cicely Aggett, whom we have seen seated at the table with her young mistresses, was one of a class wholly extinct in our days. She was a dependent, but not a servant. She had, some fifty years before this, been Madam Passmore's nurse, and she now filled a nondescript position in the family of her nursling. She was always ready to help or advise, and considered nothing beneath her which could add to the comfort of any member of the family; but she took all her meals in the parlor, and was essentially one of themselves. She was the confidante of everybody, and all knew that she never abused a trust. Madam Passmore would as soon have thought of turning the dog out of the room before making a confidential communication, as of turning out Cicely, simply because Cicely's dog-like fidelity was completely above suspicion.

The tea was now finished. Lucy, who had not yet arrived at the dignity of a tea-drinker, was roaming about the room as Cicely departed with the tea-tray.

"There is Harry!" she exclaimed, looking out of the window. "He must have some news--he is waving something above his head. Henrietta, may I run and meet him?"

Henrietta gave consent, and away went Lucy at the top of her speed down the broad avenue which led from the house through the park. The young officer was trotting up on Bay Fairy, with his spaniel Pero panting after him; but he reined in his horse as Lucy came up to him.

"A victory!" he cried. "A victory at Malplaquet! a glorious victory! Run, Lucy!--a race! who will tell Father first?"