Collected Works of Frances Trollope

by Frances Milton Trollope

  “Depend upon it, my lady, he will be delighted if you will give him sixpence.”

  “Sixpence!” cried her ladyship, turning extremely red, — but in a moment she recovered herself and said: “Oh! Sir Matthew! do I not know how dearly you love a jest? Men of wit and humour can rarely be grave for long together, even under circumstances that most keenly touch their feelings; did I not know you well, my friend, what should I not think of your proposal? But come, come — be serious for a moment longer: we have, it is true, escaped a tremendous danger, and it may well make us feel light at heart; but we will not laugh over it, till we have settled in what way that heroic child shall receive the meed he has earned. I shall not rest in peace, my friend, unless his destiny be as favourably influenced by me, as mine has probably been by him. Sir Matthew, you have great power, enormous wealth, a generous heart, a noble nature, and intellect, before which, if I mistake not, all difficulties will melt away like a mist before the sun. Of all this I am quite certain. There is but one IF in the business. IF you value me, Sir Matthew, as much as I think you do, that little boy now getting over the gate will be clothed, educated, fed, lodged by you. Do I deceive myself? or will the daily sight of him, by renewing the memory of this evening rather cause you pleasure than pain?”

  Sir Matthew Dowling clearly saw, that sending “the little blackguard to the devil,” which was decidedly what his heart whispered to him, would, at this stage of the business, be inevitably sending her sentimental ladyship to at least an equal distance from himself; and this he had no inclination to do. She was the only Lady Somebody Something in the whole neighbourhood, and he was quite aware that he had already acquired more envy and hatred among his friends and neighbours, by the superior degree of intimacy he had contrived to achieve with her, than by all his successful struggles to outspend them all.

  This pleasure was not to be given up for a trifle, especially at a moment when it seemed so very clear that it only depended on himself to make all the world perceive that they were dearer friends than ever; so, making a virtue of necessity, he looked in her face with one of his wittiest smiles, and cleverly taking the cue she had given, replied—” If you had not found out that I was jesting with you, Lady Clarissa, I never should have believed in your friendship more! Come here, my boy,” he continued, raising his loud voice to a note that must have been heard as far as the factory, “come here, I say.”

  The little fellow, on hearing these imperative accents, which were not quite unknown to him, thought this was the first time he had been so greatly honoured as to have them addressed to himself, again let go the hand of his brother, by whose side he had begun to resume his progress homeward, and once more clambering over the gate, presented himself, cap in hand, before the illustrious pair.

  “You are a happy little boy,” said Lady Clarissa, “in having had the extraordinary good fortune of looking over yonder gate at the moment you did; and you are a brave little fellow into the bargain for not running away, as you certainly might have done, when you saw that dreadful beast. Oh! those tremendous horns, Sir Matthew! they haunt me still! I am quite sure it will be weeks before I lay my head on my pillow without dreaming of them. But you drove them away, my dear child, and as a reward for it, you shall be comfortably clothed and fed for the rest of your life. You will like that, won’t you?”

  “I should very much like never to go to work at the factory any more,” replied the child; “but, please ma’am,” he added the minute after, “I’d sooner you’d clothe and feed Teddy than me. He looked over the gate first, please ma’am.”

  “Did he, my dear? Then that is another reason why this good gentleman’s favour should be shown to you; for if your brother saw my distress first, it was you who were the first to relieve it.”

  “That was only because Teddy is so lame, please ma’am,” said the boy.

  “Lame, is he?” repeated her ladyship, “Poor fellow! However, my little man, if I do not greatly mistake, you have this day made a friend by serving me, who will put you in a situation where, if you behave well, you will be able to assist all who belong to you.”

  The child opened a pair of remarkably large eyes, and fixing them on her face, said, “What! mother and all?”

  “Yes, I should think so, my dear. He is a fine intelligent looking little fellow, is he not, Sir Matthew? But he does not look healthy. However, I dare say he will improve in that respect. Plenty of food generally cures all poor people’s complaints, particularly when they are young. How old are you, my dear?”

  “Nine last birthday,” replied the boy.

  “A tall little fellow for his age, though very thin, to be sure. And what is your name?”

  “Michael Armstrong, ma’am.”

  “Michael Armstrong: I shall not forget it, I assure you; for truly do I believe that I should have been trampled in the dust by this time, if you had not been heart-strong as well as Armstrong. And what shall we do with him at first, Sir Matthew? Shall we take him home with us?”

  “What! to your cottage, my dear lady? — Yes, certainly, if it will give you pleasure.”

  “My dearest Sir Matthew! there you are at your jestings again.”

  “Ha! ha! ha! Lady Clarissa, you begin to know me so well, that I shall never be able to cut my little dry jokes upon you,” replied the knight laughing, as it seemed, most heartily, but inwardly cursing the audacious exaction of his fair friend, in attempting to make him pay the enormous price she hinted at, for permitting him to enjoy the honour and glory of flirting with her. The idea of being thus entrapped, and forced to adopt “a bag of rags out of his own factory” (for it was thus he inwardly designated little Michael), galled him for a moment so severely, that he was within an ace of exclaiming, “Confound you, and the beggar s brat together, you old fool!” But, most fortunately for all parties, he did no such thing; on the contrary, he happily remembered at that critical moment the important hints he had received from his excellent friend Dr. Crockley, and instantly decided “that this absurd whim of her ladyship’s should be worked up into the d — d good-natured thing that was to set all right.”

  At the very same moment, as if to confirm his resolution, Lady Clarissa drew from her pocket a cambric pocket-handkerchief, something the worse for wear, perhaps, but most elaborately embroidered at each corner with the coronet of a countess. It was one of a dozen bequeathed to her a few years before by her thrifty and truly admirable mother, the late Countess of Highlandloch. This coincidence appeared to be the work of Providence.

  “Give me your arm, my charming friend!” said the well-satisfied knight, with an air of tender gallantry, “and only remember, that all I shall do in this business, will proceed wholly from my devoted friendship to you. Follow us, little boy, and you shall learn what it is to have served Sir Matthew Dowling’s most honoured friend.”

  Having said this, he began leading his fair companion back towards the house as rapidly as might be consistent with the delicate style in which she was shod.

  “Please ma’am, may I go and tell Teddy?” said little Michael, walking after them.

  “Teddy? — who is Teddy, my little man?” inquired Lady Clarissa, graciously smiling upon him; for her ladyship, at no time an ill-natured woman, was at this moment in the best of all possible humours with herself, and every body else. There had been various passages in what had passed between herself and Sir Matthew, during this most delightful walk, which convinced her that the knight, notwithstanding the homage he paid to her rank, could not wholly resist the fascinations of her person, talents, and manners; — and the conviction pleased her. But let not the character of this noble lady be for a moment misunderstood. Lucretia herself would hardly have shrunk with greater horror from an improper attachment. All she dreamed of in her intimacy with Sir Matthew Dowling, with the young poet, Osmund Norval, and with a few other gentlemen whom she was in the habit of meeting, was but that their admiring friendship should be animated by a lambent, innoxious flickering of the flame, which, a
fter a peculiar theory of her own, she believed to pervade the universe, cheering the well-conducted by its mild platonic warmth, but scorching, burning, and destroying those who permitted it to exercise over them a too-sovereign sway and masterdom. That she had reached the age of forty, unsolicited in marriage by any suitor of any degree, she attributed, rightly enough perhaps, to the unfortunate disproportion between her fortune and her rank — but must she, therefore, live and die without the sweet consciousness of having been loved? Where was the law that enforced such cruelty? She knew it not; and accordingly had, for many years, and quite upon principle, made up her mind to permit as many gentlemen, of all ages, ranks, and conditions, to deserve “the soft impeachment,” whether they owned it or not, as it was in her power to captivate. For most of these tender and really very innocent friendships, she was able to assign to herself some excellent cause — as poetical sympathy with one, botanical sympathy with another, philosophical religious sympathy with a third, and so on; but in the case of Sir Matthew Dowling, she sometimes felt a little puzzled herself.

  It was not, however, that she was weak enough in the least degree to blame herself for wishing to be admired by a vulgar man. She had long ago given such feelings to the winds. From the time she quitted, on the death of her mother, the floods and the fells of her native land, to inhabit a pretty little cottage (the timely gift of an English godmother), which happened to be situated in the midst of a manufacturing district, she had been schooling her spirit to endure the change from poor lairds of a hundred descents, to rich manufacturers, who would have been, for the most part, quite as pleased had they been unable to trace one. Just at first, her Scotch pride rebelled a little; but an hour or two of quiet meditation on the subject, led her to perceive so clearly all she might lose, and all she might gain, by being or not being on friendly terms with her neighbours, that she made up her mind on the matter at once, and thenceforward feasted upon delicate cates, and battened in the fructifying sunshine of universal popularity, in a neighbourhood that might be safely described as the richest in the world.

  But still this did not quite explain the terms she was upon with Sir Matthew Dowling, and she did feel sometimes conscious of taking more pains to please him than she quite knew why — unconscious that it arose from a latent wish to be distinguished by a man, celebrated for the warmth of his devotion to the fair sex. But for this, she must not be out of measure blamed, inasmuch as those who have reached the age for looking on upon the drama of life, can many of them testify that in this she only yielded to a weakness very unaccountably common to the majority of the sex.

  But poor little Michael Armstrong has been left unmercifully long, looking up in her ladyship’s smiling face, as she inquired who Teddy was.

  “Teddy is my brother, please ma’am,” was his answer.

  “Is he still waiting for you at the gate, my dear?” said the lady. “I don’t see him.”’

  “He can’t stand very well, ma’am, because he is lame,” replied Michael. “I shouldn’t wonder if he was set down, and gone to sleep.”

  “Gone to sleep! — why it is hardly bedtime yet, my dear, is it? However, I suppose he had better go to see, Sir Matthew? — Your brother,” turning again to, the child, “is younger than you are, I suppose, if he falls asleep on the grass like a baby. Is he old enough to go home by himself, and tell the great news that has happened to you?”

  “Teddy is two years older than me — only he is always so tired,” replied the boy.

  “Well, then, just step back, and bid him run along home by himself, and tell all the family what a fine act you have done, and that Sir Matthew Dowling is going to take care of you all the rest of your life.”

  Michael now, for the first time, ventured to look steadily up into the face of the majestic Sir Matthew, and his little heart sank within him. It was quite evident from the child’s speaking-countenance, that no pleasurable ideas were suggested, by the assurance that Sir Matthew would take care of him all the rest of his life. The knight saw this, and would for a moment have desired no better sport than wringing his neck round; nevertheless, he patted his head with astonishing condescension, and said, “It is quite true, my boy. For the sake of this charming lady, for whose happiness you must pray morning, noon, and night, I will undertake to provide for you. You may step back, if you will, and tell your brother so, who, if he be two years older than you, will be able to make your friends understand the good fortune that has happened to you.”

  “I have got no friends, please sir,” said the boy.

  “Where do you live then?”

  “With mother, sir.”

  “Is not she your friend, my poor child?” demanded Lady Clarissa in an accent of great feeling.

  “Please ma’am, she is my mother,” answered Michael, while a slight flash mantled his pale cheek, and something like a tear twinkled in his eye.

  “How very odd!” exclaimed Lady Clarissa. “Is she not kind to you, my boy?”

  “Kind?” responded Michael, staring at her.

  “Do you love her, my little fellow?”

  “Love her?” again echoed Michael.

  “Whatever she is, she has not taught you good manners, my lad, or you would not answer her ladyship this way,” said the knight rather indignantly.

  The little boy was certainly very foolish, for, large as his eyes were, they could not contain the salt rheum which, for no reason in the world that the lady or gentleman could guess, first filled them and then ran down in two great big drops upon his cheeks.

  “I dare say he is hungry,” exclaimed Lady Clarissa with sudden animation. “How delightful, dearest Sir Matthew, to have found a little creature so greatly in want! Are you hungry, my dear? Tell the truth — don’t be afraid.”

  “Not very,” said the child.

  “Poor little fellow! — It is quite evident, Sir Matthew, that he is exceedingly shy. Let us go back, shall we? — just as far as the gate, and give the message ourselves to that lazy fellow that he says is asleep under the hedge — and two years older than this one. — Only conceive! — I am delighted that he is not to be the object of your bounty, for there is nothing so detestable as idleness.”

  Sir Matthew had turned in compliance with the word and action, which expressed her ladyship’s desire that he should do so, and in another minute they reached the gate.

  “Where is this brother of yours? — I don’t see him,” said Lady Clarissa, looking about.

  “There he is, ma’am, if you please,” replied Michael, once more climbing over the gate; and presently he was close under the flowery hedge, extending his two hands to raise a miserably sick-looking child, who was, in truth, soundly sleeping there. In consequence of a few words whispered to him by little Michael, the boy came forward with a shuffling gait, his knees sloping inwards, and his legs frightfully emaciated; but the moment he reached the gate, Lady Clarissa exclaimed, “Good gracious! how beautiful!”

  It was indeed a lovely face that was then turned up to meet her eye; and when, as if somewhat daunted by her earnest gaze, he removed his own from her countenance to that of Sir Matthew, the bright flash that lighted it up for a moment made it appear more beautiful still.

  “And what is your name, my pretty boy?” said the lady.

  “Edward Armstrong,” was the reply.

  “But, my dear child, you don’t look well, and you ought not to go to sleep so, quite late in the evening, upon the grass. What makes you so very sleepy, my dear? Have you been at play?”

  “No, ma’am,” replied the boy, furtively glancing at Sir Matthew, I have been at work.”

  “At work! You can’t have done much work, my poor little fellow, looking as you do.”

  “I have been at work since” —

  “My dear Lady Clarissa, I really will not let you stay another moment,” suddenly exclaimed Sir Matthew. “The heat is gone off, and I am sure you will be quite chilled if you remain any longer out of doors.”

  “I believe you are right,
my dear friend,” said Lady Clarissa, with a glance of affectionate gratitude for this earnest zeal. “Let us go. Never can I forget the kindness you have shown me during this eventful walk, and heartless indeed must I be were I to refuse to acknowledge that it has made a deep impression on me.”

  For a moment Lady Clarissa held her coroneted handkerchief to her eyes, and then resumed. “Go home, little Edward — tell your mother, who, by the by, I trust is not harsh to you, that your brother Michael is rewarded for an act of bravery that probably saved the life of an earl’s daughter — has been most generously and nobly adopted by her friend Sir Matthew Dowling, and that henceforward she need have no anxiety whatever on his account. Now, then, Sir Matthew, I am ready.”

  “Are we never to see Michael again?” said the lame boy, while a sudden expression of anguish passed across his beautiful features.

  “Why not, child?” replied her ladyship rather sharply. “Do you suppose that Sir Matthew and I are going to hide him?”

  “It is all very well then,” returned Edward, limping away. “But be sure to go and tell mother all about it yourself to-morrow, Mike.”

  “Come along, little one!” said Lady Clarissa, moving off. “Follow behind this generous gentleman, and see the palace of a home which your bravery has won.”

  So saying, she moved on; the obsequious knight at her side, and the wondering Michael Armstrong after her.

  On reaching the gate beside the gardener’s house, Sir Matthew paused. He had been meditating, while seemingly listening in rapt attention to the lady’s talk, on the effect which would be produced on the party they were about to rejoin, by the appearance of the ragged little companion they had brought back with them.