Chapter Thirteen
Letter No. 23
Thursday. 21st June
My dear Julia,
You must never again waste your ink upon an apology for the length of one of your letters—do you think for a moment, that I begrudge a few pennies, when I would happily hand over a guinea for every page, if His Majesty’s Mails were so despotic as to require it? On the other hand, if your apology was merely intended for a gentle hint to me, to restrain my own pen, then I fear you have gravely overestimated my powers of inference: I remain blithely confident, that you live with no other thought in your head, than wondering when my next report will be delivered to you, and that you would not wish to be deprived of even one lively phrase, no, not if it meant you had to bargain away your putative firstborn in order to pay the postage.
After such a beginning, you have every right to suppose that I am about to launch into a most exciting narrative of the days’ events—a Masqued Ball and a highwayman would not, perhaps, be too much to expect—but alas, I have very little to report, because my sore throat and general malaise have but given way to a most irritating and persistent cough, so that my mother has decreed that I am still too unwell to return to the public rooms; and if I suspect that this decision was inspired almost entirely by her disinclination to have anyone witness her daughter in the throes of an inelegant coughing fit, that has little to say to the matter. It does, however, make for a very tiresome day, and so when a servant came to tell me that Mrs. Warren had called, I was pleased enough that I would have jumped up from the sofa and fallen on my visitor’s neck in gratitude, if I had not known that was the very last behavior to reassure her in the circumstances.
She entered the room with a handkerchief clasped to the lower part of her face, which, from the scent that began gradually to permeate the room, I decided must have been soaked in a mixture containing white vinegar. This precaution aside, she did not appear unduly fearful of catching my complaint, and would, I think, have soon been fluttering about my sofa, straightening shawls and re-arranging pillows and pressing more tea upon me, if I had not begged her to keep at least the width of the carpet between us. Reminded of her determination to be cautious, she once more raised her linen shield, and sat down, looking as if her compassionate nature was waging a furious war with her common sense. Wishing to know what she could tell me of the Barrs—and hoping to distract her from becoming involved in tedious inquiries about my health—I opened my mouth, and was immediately overtaken by a prolonged bout of coughing, which was only brought under control with the aid of half a cup of tea, a spoonful of honey, a lozenge, and a warm moist cloth hastily fetched by Nell, who came in answer to Mrs. Warren’s frantic summons, after I had repeatedly waved away her own offers of assistance.
When at last the humiliating attack was driven off, and my involuntary tears blotted away, I subsided back into my nest of shawls, feeling as weak as a half-drowned kitten, and apparently looking no better. To her everlasting credit, Mrs. Warren displayed no desire to flee such a house of pestilence, but instead, having completely abandoned her protective handkerchief, sat on the edge of her chair, clasping her little knobby hands together and exclaiming, “Oh, poor dear Ann—I mean Miss Northcott!” and “You do look dreadfully pale and ill—are you quite certain you should not return to bed? You must not stay up on my account!” and things of that nature. (Let me hasten to say, that she persists in calling me Miss Northcott through no fault of mine; I believe it must better suit her notion of the deference due my mother’s daughter). Cheered to discover that I apparently looked much more ill than I felt—I have been avoiding mirrors for days, as I did not wish to see how red my nose might have become—I strove for a brave and pathetic smile, and after assuring her in my newly ravaged voice that I was quite recovered, I implored her to tell me all the news of our mutual friends and acquaintances.
Despite appearing rather unconvinced by my protestations of wellness, my visitor could not resist such a request, and at once launched into a most complete account of the daily activities of every body in whom I might be supposed to have the faintest interest; and since my circle of Bath acquaintances is not, after all, so very large, I did not have long to wait before she began to speak of the dramatis personae in my own private little play. Of my heroine, Miss Barr, she had a great deal to say, having spent considerable time with her over the course of the past few days; though only, Mrs. Warren hastened to assure me, because she knew I had been so gracious as to offer ‘the poor girl’ my friendship, and because she had seemed so forlorn when she learned of my absence. Taking this for evidence of Miss Barr’s high regard for me (rather than the general loneliness which it undoubtedly reflected) Mrs. Warren had made an effort to befriend her, in the belief that this course of action would meet with my approval. Naturally, I replied that she could not have done anything that would have pleased me more; all the while thinking, how very odd it was, that this earnest septuagenarian, with so many decades of life and sorrow and survival behind her, should care a fig for the opinion of a sapling such as myself, simply because of my mother’s ability to imprint others with her unalterable conviction of her own superiority.
On the subject of their meeting with Mr. Grayson and Mrs. Barr, of which I had high expectations of entertainment, Mrs. Warren proved more disappointing: she was too easily distracted by incidental matters, to be able to give me the properly Boswellian account my soul longed for. Despite his faux pas last week in admitting to doubts about my acumen, Mr. Grayson and his coats continue to be great favorites of hers, with the result that I learned far too much of what he had to say concerning my current ill health and related topics brought to his attention by Mrs. Warren and Mrs. Joles, with no more than a sentence or two spared for Mrs. Barr. Mrs. Warren did, at least, allow her to be both ‘pretty-behaved’ and ‘well-spoken’, which reassured me somewhat, as I had been unable to help ascribing some measure of the daughter’s shyness to the mother, given the similarity of their features; and I did not believe that an unexplained refusal to meet his gaze, or speak to him directly, was likely to convince Mr. Grayson of Mrs. Barr’s worthiness to receive his aunt’s largesse.
Mrs. Warren, alas, had no opinion to offer on the state of amicability that might have existed between the two as they approached; she had not been attending. After introductions had been made, and a few meaningless civilities exchanged, the five of them had fallen into a pattern, which had the Barr ladies a little separated, with their arms entwined, and talking together as eagerly as if they were two school friends reunited after the holidays, while my two allies and Mr. Grayson had turned away to talk about poor Miss Northcott. And this, if you please, was really the only part of the encounter that was fixed in Mrs. Warren’s memory with any tenacity! My suspicion that Mrs. Grayson had, by her sudden interest in playing à deux, cleverly arranged for her nephew to have an opportunity to satisfy his doubts about Mrs. Barr’s character must remain unconfirmed, as must the state of his own convictions on the subject: Mrs. Warren had no interest in speaking to him of any matters so unconnected with my supposed sufferings. For his sake, I must hope that her appreciation for tragic plays inspired her to embellish any of his responses which she deemed insufficiently emotive, for if he was half as distressed over my head-cold as she recounted to me, than he is either a dismal pessimist who imagines every sore throat must be putrid, or he has fallen so violently in love with me that it has utterly scrambled his good sense.
Poor Mrs. Warren; I fear she will be excessively disappointed when Mr. Grayson takes himself and his beautiful coats off to Cambridge—or perhaps to Northumberland with his aunt—without sparing so much as a backward glance for the myriad charms of Miss Northcott. For myself, I will be overjoyed at his departure, if only he will ensure that my Barr ladies are safely bundled into the carriage along with his kindly and ingenious aunt.
Yours, much heartened, Ann
PS. On reading this over, I feel that I have been insufficiently grateful to
Mrs. Warren in my comments. I might have found her narratives rather deficient in detail, but I hope I do full justice to the benevolence which led her to call on me today, with no other purpose than to raise my spirits, at the risk of her own health, and in defiance of my own mother’s advice to her. Even after she had taken her leave, I found her conversation invaluable, for she had given me so many new things to think of, and to write of to you, that here it is almost 9 o’ clock, and another day in Bath has passed, which I will never again have to endure.
PPS. Nell has once more dived into the abyss of your mother’s wisdom, and produced a concoction composed of linseed, liquorice, rum, raisins, lemon-juice, and about two dozen other ingredients—not excepting, I suspect, eye of newt—which has emerged triumphant even against the Coughs of Bath.
Letters from Bath; Or, A Friend in Exile Page 13