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None of the county people will call on them now and just as they were beginning to get on so well! Miss Mary, too, is terrible cut up about it; she says it will interfere with her prospects, and that Ginger has nothing to do now but to marry the kitchen-maid to complete the ruin of the Barfields." "Miss Mary is far too kind to say anything to wound another's feelings.
Loxley, her mother, was a Barfield, and old Pavenham, when he was a youth, fell in love with her. She was also in love with him. He was well-to-do, and farmed about seven hundred acres, but he was not thought good enough by the elder Barfields, who lived in what was called a park. They would not hear of the match. She was sent to France, and he went to Buenos Ayres.
"To your family?" "Yes, the Latches were once big swells; in the time of my great-grandfather the Barfields could not hold their heads as high as the Latches. My great-grandfather had a pot of money, but it all went." "Racing?" "A good bit, I've no doubt. A rare 'ard liver, cock-fighting, 'unting, 'orse-racing from one year's end to the other.
He allowed her to live there, she got her jointure out of the property, and he didn't want to interfere with her, but what he could not stand was the snuffy little folk from the town coming round his house. The Barfields at least were county, and he wished Woodview to remain county as long as the walls held together. He wasn't a bit ashamed of all this ruin.
Latch, Sarah spoke of the position the Latches had held three generations ago; the Barfields were then nobodies; they had nothing even now but their money, and that had come out of a livery stable. "And it shows, too; just compare Ginger with young Preston or young Northcote. Anyone could tell the difference." Esther listened with an unmoved face and a heavy ache in her heart.
He unfortunately added, "Did you ever meet any one since that you cared for?" The question irritated her, and she said, "It don't matter to you who I met or what I went through." The conversation paused. William spoke about the Barfields, and Esther could not but listen to the tale of what had happened at Woodview during the last eight years.
For ten miles around nothing was talked of but the wealth of the Barfields, and, drawn like moths to a candle, the county came to call; even the most distant and reserved left cards, others walked up and down the lawn with the Gaffer, listening to his slightest word. A golden prosperity shone upon the yellow Italian house.
The ambitious members of the Barfield family declared that the marriage was social ruin, but more dispassionate critics called it a very suitable match; for it was not forgotten that three generations ago the Barfields were livery-stable keepers; they had risen in the late squire's time to the level of county families, and the envious were now saying that the Barfield family was sinking back whence it came.
Then the women had a long talk. Margaret told Esther the story of her misfortune. The Barfields were all broken up. They had been very unlucky racing, and when the servants got the sack Margaret had come up to London. She had been in several situations. Eventually, one of her masters had got her into trouble, his wife had turned her out neck and crop, and what was she to do?
He ought never to have been a servant. His family was once quite as good as the Barfields." "So I have heard, Miss. But the world is that full of ups and downs you never can tell who is who. But we all likes William and 'ates that little man and his pantry. Mrs. Latch calls him the 'evil genius."
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