“Yes, yes, Major.... I shall never be taken in there again.... Why, Agnes, how you drag, child! I shall be tired to death before I get to Bristol if you walk so.”
“Will the young lady take my other arm?” said the Major.
“Thank you, dear Major!... You are very kind. Go round, Agnes, and take the Major’s arm.”
“No, I thank you, aunt; I do not want any arm. I will walk beside you, if you please, without taking hold of you at all.”
“Nonsense, child!... That will look too particular, Major,” ... said the widow, turning to him; upon which, without waiting further parley, Major Allen dropped the arm he held, and gaily placed himself between the two ladies, saying, “Now then, fair ladies, I have an arm for each.”
Agnes felt the greatest possible longing to run away; but whether it would have strengthened into a positive resolution to do so, upon once more feeling the touch of the Major’s hand, which upon her retreating he very vigorously extended towards her, it is impossible to say, for at that moment the sound of a rapidly-advancing pair of boots was heard on the pavement behind them, and in the next Mr. Stephenson was at her side. He touched his hat to Mrs. Barnaby, and then addressing Agnes said, “If you are going to walk to Bristol, I hope you will permit me to accompany you, ... for I am going there too.”
Agnes very frankly replied, “Thank you!” and without a moment’s hesitation accepted the arm he offered.
“I am sure you are very obliging, Mr. Stephenson,” said Mrs. Barnaby, “and we shall certainly be able to walk with much greater convenience. I think you two had better go before, and then we can see that you don’t run off, you know.”
This lively sally was followed by a gay little tittering on the part both of the Major and the lady, as they stood still for Mr. Stephenson and the suffering Agnes to pass them.
The young man seemed to have lost all his vivacity: he spoke very little, and even that little had the air of being uttered because he felt obliged to say something. Poor Agnes was certainly in no humour for conversation, and would have rejoiced in his silence, had it not made her feel that whatever might be the motive for his thus befriending her, he derived no pleasure from it. Ere they had walked a mile, however, an accident occurred which effectually roused him from the dejection that appeared to have fallen upon his spirits. A herd of bullocks met them on the road, one of which, over-driven and irritated by a cur that worried him, darted suddenly from the road up to the path, and made towards them with its horns down, and its tail in the air. On seeing this, the young man seized Agnes in his arms, and sprang with her down the bank into the road. The animal, whose object was rather to leave an enemy behind him, than to do battle with any other, passed on towards the Major and his fair companion, who were at a considerable distance behind, leaving Agnes trembling indeed, and somewhat confused, but quite unhurt, and full of gratitude for the prompt activity that had probably saved her. As soon as she had in some degree recovered her composure, she turned back to ascertain how her aunt had fared, Mr. Stephenson assiduously attending her, and they presently came within sight of a spectacle that, had any mirth been in them, must have drawn it forth.
Major Allen, by no means approving the style in which the animal appeared inclined to charge them, had instantly perceived, as Mr. Stephenson had done before, that the only means of getting effectually out of its way was by jumping down the bank, which at that point was considerably higher than it was a few hundred yards farther on; nevertheless, though neither very light nor very active, he might have achieved the descent well enough had he been alone. But what was he to do with Mrs. Barnaby? She uttered a piercing cry, and threw herself directly upon his bosom, exclaiming, “Save me, Major! — save me!”
In this dilemma the Major proved himself an old soldier. To shake off the lady, he felt (in every sense of the word) was quite impossible; but there was no reason that she should stifle him; and therefore grasping her with great ardour, he half carried, half pushed her towards the little precipice, and skilfully placing himself so that, if they fell, she should fall first, he cried out manfully, “Now spring!” And spring they did, but in such a sort, that the lady measured her length in the dust, a circumstance that greatly broke the Major’s fall; for, although he made a considerable effort to roll beyond her, he finally pitched with his knees full upon her, thus lessening his descent very materially.
When the young people reached them, they had both recovered their equilibrium, but not their composure. Major Allen was placed with one knee in the dust, and on the other supporting Mrs. Barnaby, who, with her head reclining on his shoulder, seemed to have a very strong inclination to indulge herself with a fainting fit. Her gay dress was lamentably covered with dust, her feathers broken and hanging distressingly over her eyes, and her whole appearance, as well as that of the hero who supported her, forlorn and dejected in the extreme.
“Are you hurt, aunt?” said Agnes, approaching her.
“Hurt!... am I hurt?... Gracious Heaven! what a question! If my life be spared, I shall consider it little short of a miracle.... Oh! Major Allen,” she continued with a burst of sobbing, “where should I have now been ... but for you?...”
“Trampled or tossed, Mrs. Barnaby ... trampled or tossed to death decidedly,” replied the Major, not wishing to lessen her sense of obligation, yet restrained by the presence of witnesses from expressing his feelings with all the ardour he might otherwise have shown.
“Most true! — most true!” she replied. “Never shall I be able to express the gratitude I feel!”
“Can you not stand up, aunt?” said Agnes, whose cheeks were crimsoned at the absurdity of the scene. “How will you be able to get home if you cannot stand?”
“God knows, child!... God only knows what is yet to become of me.... Oh! Major, I trust myself wholly to you.”
Poor Agnes uttered a sound not much unlike a groan, upon which Stephenson, on whom it fell like a spur, urging him to save her from an exhibition so painfully ridiculous, (for it was quite evident that Mrs. Barnaby was not really hurt,) proposed that he should escort Miss Willoughby with all possible speed back to Clifton, and dispatch thence a carriage to bring Mrs. Barnaby home.
Major Allen, who desired nothing more ardently than to get rid of him, seconded the proposal vehemently.
“You are quite right, sir; it is the only thing to be done,” he said; “and if you will hasten to perform this, I will endeavour so to place Mrs. Barnaby as to prevent her suffering any great inconvenience while waiting till the carriage shall arrive.”
“Ought I not to remain with my aunt?” said Agnes to Mr. Stephenson, but in a whisper that was heard only by himself.
“In my opinion, you certainly ought not,” he replied in the same tone. “Believe me,” he added, “I have many reasons for saying so.”
Nothing but her earnest desire to do that, whatever it might be, which was the least improper, (for that, as she truly felt, was all that was left her,) could have induced Agnes to propose inflicting so terrible a penance on herself; but strangely as she was obliged to choose her counsellor, there was a grave seriousness in his manner which convinced her he had not answered her lightly; and therefore, as her aunt said not a word to detain her, she set off on her return with as much speed as she could use, saying as she departed, “Depend upon it, aunt, there shall be no delay.”
Mr. Stephenson again offered her his arm; but she now declined it, and the young man for some time walked silently by her side, wishing to speak to her, yet honestly doubting his own power of doing so with the composure he desired.
At length, however, the silence became embarrassing, and he broke it by saying, with something of abruptness, —
“Will you forgive me, Miss Willoughby, if I venture to forget for a moment how short a time it is since I have had the happiness of knowing you, ... will you forgive me if I speak to you like a friend?”
“Indeed I will, and be very thankful too,” replied Agnes composedly, ... for his manner had t
aught her to feel assured that she had no cause to fear him.
“You are very kind,” he resumed, with some little embarrassment; “but I feel that it is taking an almost unwarrantable liberty; and were it not that this walk offers an opportunity which I think I ought not to lose, I might perhaps endeavour to say what I wish to Mrs. Peters.... I allude to Major Allen, Miss Willoughby! I wish you could lead your aunt to understand that he is not a person fit for your society. Though he is probably a stranger here, he is well known elsewhere as a needy gambler, and, in short, a most unprincipled character in every way.”
“Good Heaven!” exclaimed Agnes, “what shall I do?”
“Can you not venture to hint this to your aunt?” said he.
“She would probably be very angry,” replied Agnes with spontaneous frankness; “but what is worse than that, she would, I know, insist upon my telling her where I heard it.”
“Say that you heard it from me, Miss Willoughby,” replied the young man.
New as Agnes was to the world and its ways, she felt that there was something very honourable and frank in this proceeding, and it produced so great a degree of confidence in return, that she answered in a tone of the most unembarrassed friendliness.
“Will you give me leave, Mr. Stephenson, to repeat this to Mrs. Peters and Mary?... They will know so much better than I do what use to make of it.”
“Indeed I think you are right,” he replied eagerly, “and then the anger that you speak of will not fall on you.”
“It will not in that case, I think, fall on any one,” said Agnes. “My aunt has fortunately a great respect for Mrs. Peters; and if anybody can have influence over her mind, she may.”
Can it be wondered at if, after this, the conversation went on improving in its tone of ease and confidence? It had begun, on the side of the young man, with a very sincere resolution not to suffer his admiration for his lovely companion to betray him into a serious attachment to one so unfortunately connected; but, before they reached Sion Row, he had arrived at so perfect a conviction that he could nowhere find so pure-minded and right-thinking a being to share his fortune, and to bless his future life, that he only refrained from telling her so from a genuine feeling of respect, which perhaps the proudest peeress in the land might have failed to inspire.
“No,” thought he, “it is not now, while she is compelled by accident to walk beside me, that I will pour out my heart and all its love before her, but the time shall come....”
Agnes, ere they parted again, appealed to him for his opinion whether she ought to go in the carriage sent to meet her aunt.
“No, indeed, I think not,” he replied. “Has she no maid, Miss Willoughby, who could go for her?”
“Oh yes!” exclaimed Agnes, greatly relieved; “I can send Jerningham.”
“Sweet creature!” whispered the enamoured Frederick to his heart, “what a delicious task to advise, to guide, to cherish such a being as that!”
His respectful bow at parting, the earnest, silent, lingering look he fixed upon her fair face ere he turned from the door that was opened to receive her, might have said much to a heart on the qui vive to meet his, half way; but Agnes did not observe it; she was looking up towards the windmill, and thinking of her early morning walk and its termination.
CHAPTER VI.
THE READER IS LET INTO A SECRET, AND THE YOUNG LADY’S PLOT PROVED TO BE OF NO AVAIL. — A JUDICIOUS MODE OF OBTAINING INFORMATION. — A HAPPY AND VERY WELL-TIMED MEETING.
“Well, Mary!... I suppose you are wishing yourself joy on the success of your plottings and plannings,” said Mrs. Peters to her daughter about ten days after this memorable walk on the Bristol road, for during that interval much had occurred that seemed to promise success to her wishes. In fact, Frederick Stephenson had quietly become a regular visitor at Rodney Place, and the power of Agnes to accept the constant invitations which brought her there likewise increased in exact proportion to the widow’s growing delight in the tête-à-tête visits of the Major. The friendly hint of Mr. Stephenson had produced no effect whatever, excepting indeed that it tended greatly to increase the tone of friendly intercourse between the Peters family and himself. He had released Agnes from the task of mentioning the matter at all, and took an early opportunity of confiding to Mrs. Peters his ideas on the subject. She received the communication with the gratitude it really deserved, but confessed that Mrs. Barnaby was a person so every way disagreeable to her, that the task of attempting to guide her would be extremely repugnant to her feelings.
“But Miss Willoughby!...” said Frederick; “it is for her sake that one would wish to keep this odious woman from exposing herself to ruin and disgrace, if possible.”
“And for her sake I will do it,” answered Mrs. Peters. “She is as deserving of all care as her aunt is unworthy of it.”
This reply convinced Mr. Stephenson that Mrs. Peters was one of the most discerning as well as most amiable women in the world, but no other advantage arose from the praiseworthy determination of the “dear Margaret;” for when that lady said to her gravely, at the very first opportunity she could find, —
“Pray, Mrs. Barnaby, do you know anything of that Major Allen’s private character?” The answer she received was,— “Yes, Mrs. Peters, a great deal, ... and more, probably, than any other person whatever at Clifton; ... and I know, too, that there are agents — paid, hired agents — employed in circulating the most atrocious lies against him.”
“I am not one of them, I assure you, madam,” said Mrs. Peters, abruptly leaving her seat, and determined never again to recur to the subject; a comfortable resolution, to which she reconciled her conscience by remembering the evident devotion of Mr. Stephenson to Agnes, the symptoms of which were daily becoming less and less equivocal.
It was within a few hours after this short colloquy with the widow, that Mrs. Peters thus addressed her daughter, “Well, Mary!... I suppose you are wishing yourself joy on the success of your plottings and plannings.”
“Why, yes,” ... replied Mary; “I think we are getting on pretty well, and unless I greatly mistake, it will be the fault of Agnes, and of no one else, if she suffers much more from being under the protection of our precious aunt Barnaby.”
Mrs. Peters and Mary were perfectly right in their premises, but utterly wrong in their conclusion. Mr. Stephenson was indeed passionately in love with Agnes, and had already fully made up his mind to propose to her, so soon as their acquaintance had lasted long enough to render such a step decently permissable, which, according to his calculations, would be in about a fortnight after he had first danced with her. In short, he was determined to find a favourable opportunity, on the evening of Mrs. Peters’s promised music party, to declare his passion to her; for he had already learned to know that few occasions offer, in the ordinary intercourse of society, more favourable for a tête-à-tête than a crowded concert-room.
Thus far, therefore, the observations and reasonings of Agnes’s watchful friends were perfectly correct. But, alas! they saw only the surface of things. There was an under current running the other way of which they never dreamed, and of which, even had it been laid open to their view, they would neither have been able to comprehend or believe the power. As to the heart of Agnes, by some strange fatality they had never taken it into their consideration at all, or at any rate had conceived it so beyond all doubt inclined the way they wished, that no single word or thought amidst all their deliberations was ever bestowed upon it.... But the heart of Agnes was fixedly, devotedly, and for ever given to another.
No wonder, indeed, that such an idea had never suggested itself to her friends, ... for who could that other be?... Could it be James, her first partner, her first walking companion, and very nearly the first young man she had ever spoken to in her life?... Assuredly not; for had she been asked, she could not have told whether his eyes were blue or black, hardly whether he were short or tall, and certainly not whether she had seen him twenty times, or only twelve, since their
first meeting.
Who, then, could it be? There was but one other person whom the accidents of the last important fortnight had thrown constantly in her way; and Mrs. Peters and Mary would as soon have thought that the young Agnes had conceived a passion for the Pope, as for the stately, proud, reserved Colonel Hubert.
Yet “she could an if she would” have told her how far above all other mortals his noble head rose proudly, ... she could have told that on his lofty brow her soul read volumes, ... she could have told that in the colour of his thoughtful eye, the hue of heaven seemed deepened into black by the rich lash that shaded it.... All this she could have told; and, moreover, could have counted, with most faithful arithmetic, not only how many times she had seen him, but how many times his eyes had turned towards her, how many times he had addressed a word to her, how many smiles had been permitted to cheer her heart, how many frowns had chilled her spirit as they passed over his countenance.... Little could any one have guessed all this, but so it was; and Frederick Stephenson, with all his wealth, his comeliness, and kind heart to boot, had no more chance of being accepted as a husband by the poor, dependant Agnes Willoughby than the lowest hind that ploughs the soil by the proudest lady that owns it.
Meanwhile my real heroine, the Widow Barnaby, thought little of Agnes, or any other lady but herself, and less still perhaps of Mr. Stephenson, or any other gentleman but the Major. The affair on the Bristol road, though injurious to her dress, and rather dusty and in some degree disagreeable at the time, had wonderfully forced on the tender intimacy between them. Yet Mrs. Barnaby was not altogether so short-sighted as by-standers might suppose; and though she freely permitted herself the pleasure of being made love to, she determined to be very sure of the Major’s rent-roll before she bestowed herself and her fortune upon him; for, notwithstanding her flirting propensities, the tender passion had ever been secondary in her heart to a passion for wealth and finery; and not the best-behaved and most discreet dowager that ever lived, was more firmly determined to take care of herself, and make a good bargain, “if ever she married again,” than was our flighty, flirting Widow Barnaby.
Collected Works of Frances Trollope Page 129