“Upon my soul, you are an angel!” he exclaimed, “and I do not believe the whole earth could furnish another woman to suit me as admirably as you do.”
CHAPTER IV.
IT was at an unusually late breakfast-table, one bright morning, in the very height of the London season, with windows opening upon Berkeley-square, and letting in through their Venetian blinds so rich an odour of mignionette as to make the heat and dust without forgotten, that General Hubert and his lady were discussing the brilliant party of the evening before, when the postman’s speaking dissyllabic signal gave notice of the arrival of a letter.
“From aunt Betsy, I am very sure!” exclaimed the lady.
“From your sister, with a few more raptures about Calabria,” said the gentleman. Their suspense was not of long duration; the silver salver addressed itself to the fair hands of Agnes, who took from it a letter bearing most decidedly neither an Italian nor a Devonshire postmark.
“Who in the world is that from?” said General Hubert.
“Heaven knows! It is excessively dirty,” replied his wife.
“It is a ship letter,” observed the general.
“But the postmark illegible,” answered Agnes; and then having, like many other wise people, wasted a little more time in examining the interior of her despatch than it would probably take to read it, she broke the seal and looked within.
The delicate cheek of Mrs. Hubert was instantly mantled with a bright blush.
“Whoever your correspondent may be, Agnes,” said the general, meeting the distressed expression of her eye -with a look of surprise, “he has no reason to complain of your indifference.”
“Indifference?” she exclaimed; “no, not indifference. But how, Hubert, will you endure, even upon paper, the reappearance of my aunt Barnaby?”
“Your aunt Barnaby?” replied the general, with a smile. “Never mind, Agnes, she will not harm us now.”
“Oh, thank Heaven!” cried his wife, fervently. “If you can bear it so philosophically, Hubert, I shall declare presently that I am glad to hear from her.”
“Especially by a very way-worn, distant-dated ship-letter, my love,” he replied, laughing. “But if the request be not indiscreet, for kindness’ sake read it aloud.”
She did so, and the general’s commentary was far from unfriendly.
“I declare to you, Agnes,” said he, “that I am very glad indeed to hear so good an account of her.” -
“Thank you a thousand times, my own dear Hubert,” said Agnes, stretching out her hand to him. “If you had looked, at sight of this epistle, as I have seen you look in days of yore at sight of herself, I should have been — oh! I won’t say how unhappy, because, poor foolish woman, what she says is true. She is my own mother’s sister; and though — though she is, or at least was, all that I believe you thought her, it would have made me as sorry almost as I could now be for anything that did not absolutely interfere with my own dear ménage, had you wished me not to answer it. But you will let me answer it, dear husband, will you not? Poor thing! only fancy her having a child, Hubert; what will it be like?”
“Very like herself, I dare say, Agnes,” replied General Hubert, laughing; “that is, you know, excepting all this,” indicating the well-remembered rouge and ringlets by an expressive flourish of his fingers around his face; “such finished charms cannot appear at once; and, indeed, I should not be at all surprised if Miss Martha O’Donagough were to turn out a very bright-eyed little beauty.”
“Nay, I trust she will, or my poor aunt will break her heart. I cannot say I have a very distinct recollection of the papa. Have you?”
“Not the least in the world; and yet I shall never forget their entrée. How incomparably well your father behaved! I assure you it was a lesson winch, I hope, if the good lady were actually to appear before us in person, I should not forget. It was the most gentle and gentlemanly reproof to our beloved aunt Betsy’s severity that ever I witnessed; and I am rather proud to confess, Agnes, that notwithstanding my very strong inclination at the time to sympathise with the harsher faction, I felt that he was right then, and have decidedly loved him the better for it ever since.”
“If ever there was a perfect—” began Agnes, raising her beautiful eyes to the face of her husband — but the sentiment or opinion she was about to pronounce was lost to the world for ever, by the general’s very unceremoniously closing her lips with a kiss.
“We are despicably late this morning,” said he, on looking at his watch, after perpetrating this audacity; “and I must go to the Horse Guards about young Belmont. But let me see my boys first, Agnes.”
Whatever emotions the lady might feel on being thus unceremoniously treated, they were not such as to induce her to refuse his request. The proper signal was given, and two young things entered the apartment, one carried in the nurse’s arms, and the other doddling before her, whose aspect might really have excused, if anything could, the vehement fanaticism of Mrs. Elizabeth Compton concerning them, as well as some undeniable symptoms of weakness on the part of General Hubert himself. That their mother should be firmly persuaded that no children in any degree approaching within reach of a comparison with them, ever did, or ever could exist, is a circumstance of too constant occurrence to merit an observation. But the little boys were, in truth, very pretty children, and it was no unpardonable vanity which made their mamma exclaim, as they entered, “I really should like for aunt Barnaby, Mrs. O’Donagough I mean — I really should like for her to see them, Hubert. But, perhaps, if her little girl is in another style, she might hardly thank me for showing them to her.”
“Silly woman! silly woman!” said the brave general, going on all fours to accept the challenge of his first born to a game of romps. “Don’t you know better than that yet? Why, your sister Nora thinks her little flaxen-headed dolls quite as handsome as either Montague or Compton.”.
“You are quite mistaken, I assure you, General Hubert. She neither does nor could think any such thing. The little Stephensons are charming children, beautiful little creatures; but—”
“Good morning, Agnes!” cried her laughing husband, springing up from his station on the carpet. “Don’t finish the sentence — but just tell me if aunt Barnaby herself could be more preposterous in her estimate of our young Van Diemen’s Land cousin, than you are of these young gentlemen?”
“Nonsense, Montague! You don’t deserve to look at them. Let Compton alone, if you please, sir; I do not choose to have his cap taken off. I know how I could revenge myself, general, for your impertinence; I should be perfectly justified in shutting your two sons up for a month, where you could by no device obtain a sight of them. How do you think you should bear it, General Montague Hubert?”
“It would be a prodigious relief, my love. Let it be all arranged before I return,” said he, kissing his hand as he retreated towards the door.
“Away with you, dull jester!” replied his wife; but ere he had passed the door she added, “Stay one moment, though, and speak seriously, if you can. Have you really no objection to my answering my aunt’s letter?”
“Most certainly not. Indeed I should be sorry if you did not answer it, for it would not be acting like yourself, my Agnes. Answer it by all means, and join, my name with yours in the expression of all civility.”
“Then I will write directly. Poor aunt Barnaby! Only think of her sending me this lock of her baby’s hair! I think I must send her a scrap of these bright chestnut ringlets in return,” continued the young mother, twisting the silken curls of the eldest boy round her fingers.
“Take care how you use your shears upon that head, dear love!” replied the General, in an accent of considerable alarm.
“Silly man! silly man!” retorted the laughing Agnes. “Don’t you know better than that yet?”
“No, seriously, Agnes — jesting apart — I should not like to have you ‘cut a monstrous can tie out’ of these most dainty tresses, which are as like your own as it is possible for infan
t tresses to be.”
“And that is the reason you would not have them cut. Oh, you false flatterer!” replied his wife.
“Besides, to say the truth,” rejoined General Hubert, putting aside her admonitory finger, “I really think, Agnes, you might hit upon something more welcome, in the way of a dutiful niece-like offering, than a bit of this newly-spun silk. Your aunt used to love a fine gown. If I were you I would make a shipment to Sydney of sundry ells of rich satin or velvet, or something of that kind.”
“Are you in earnest, Montague? I should really like to do so, very much.”
“Indeed I am in earnest. Your father is coming to dine with us to-day. Let him see Mrs. O’Donagough’s letter, and I dare say his heart will be moved to comply with her petition about writing, and perhaps to send her a coral and bells for her daughter into the bargain.”
After this conversation, it will be readily believed that such a packet was despatched from Berkeley-square to Sydney, as threw Mrs. O’Donagough (Allen no longer) into a perfect state of ecstasy on receiving it.
“Now, my dear Ma — O’Donagough, I mean,” with her eyes blazing up again with all the renovated brightness of youth, “now, what do you think of the chance of our Martha’s presentation? You talk of saving and saving, and scraping a few pounds together, and it is all vastly well as far as it goes, but what will it all amount to in point of advantage to our daughter, compared to her being presented at court by Mrs. General Hubert? I trust, O’Donagough, you are now sensible of the benefit we are likely to derive from the notice and affection of MY family.”
“This is an extremely handsome dress, my dear, there is no doubt of it,” replied the ci-devant Major. “You will look perfectly divine in green velvet! And your brother-in-law, Mr. Willoughby, has really acted with great politeness and attention in sending this handsome frock and coral ornaments for the child. It all speaks well, both for the wealth and good-will of the parties. You must answer these letters punctually, of course, and we may find out some little production of the country that will not cost much, to send in return. I am quite aware, my dear, very perfectly aware I assure you, of the possible value of your connections. By the way, did not that dashing gay young Stephenson, whose fortune they said was a great deal larger than his elder brother’s, did not you tell me that he had married another niece of yours?”
“Not exactly a niece, Major.” Here her husband seized Mrs. O’Donagough rather suddenly by the wrist, and stopping short her speech, said, “Bad habits are bad things, Mrs. O’Donagough! You must, madam, immediately cease your foolish trick, under the circumstances, your incredibly foolish trick of calling me Major. Don’t oblige me to remind you of it again, if you please. It is no child’s play we are upon, remember that. I could make up my mind in five minutes, not to care a straw about your stiff-backed cousins from one end of the list to the other; but if I do for the advantage of the child, and to oblige you, if I do determine to give myself the trouble of getting amongst them, it must be done in a manly, decided, business-like spirit, and in a style that may hereafter enable me to turn it to account. Mrs. O’Donagough, do you understand me?”
“Yes, to be sure I do,” she replied, disengaging her arm by a stout tug. “You need not claw one in that way, I am not a bit more likely to spoil a good scheme than yourself, Mr. — , alias O’Donagough.”
The ci-devant Major looked as black as thunder; he liked not this sportive phrase; it grated painfully on his ear, and it was not till he had twice paced the length of the room, that he felt able to renew the conversation. At length, however, he said, and apparently with recovered good-humour, “This is silly work, my love, squabbling about which of us is capable of carrying on the war with the most skill. I don’t believe we should either of us prove deficient if we were fairly tried; and that, it is likely enough we shall he, and on a very handsome scale, too, if we ever really get launched among the people you talk of. I can assure you, my Barnaby, that to a man like me, it is a devilish bore to be kept fiddle-faddling amongst such a set as there are here. Come, let us talk ’em all over a little. First, there’s that giant of a general; he is just the sort of man, I take it, to make a great bluster beforehand, and then be led by the nose by his wife when she has caught him; so if you contrive to keep well with your niece, he won’t be much in the way. Then there’s that sort of a wandering Jew of a man, that you told me such a long story about, Agnes’s father; he is come home, isn’t he, as rich as a nabob?”
“He did not enter into any particulars, my dear Donny, but he said something about being at last in comfortable circumstances, if I remember rightly. And I am sure no poor man could have sent out such a present as he has done to Patty.”
“Well, then, that’s all right. But I’ll tell you who it is that I reckon most upon in this affectionate family reunion that you promise me; for the truth is, I remember a little about the young fellow myself — I mean Stephenson, the younger brother, Frederick Stephenson. I happened to know that his fortune was about half as large again as his elder brother’s. Didn’t he play sometimes? I am almost sure I have heard so.
“I don’t know about that, my dear, but it is very likely; almost all men of fashion do — at last I have heard Miss Morrison say so, over and over. But if you ask, because you think that one of these days you should like to play with him yourself, on account of his being rich, which makes it so easy for him to lose, I’ll answer for it there will be no difficulty about that, so intimate as we shall all be together — for I well remember he was the most obliging, good-natured creature in the world. Dear me! I am sure I shall never forget our famous walk to Bristol, when I was obliged to roll myself over and over in the dust, to save my life from that beast. Don’t you remember how excessively kind he was, running back to Clifton with Agnes, to get a carriage for me?”
This was the first direct allusion to any of their Clifton adventures which had been made since their marriage, and a perceptible frown agitated the eyebrows of Mr. O’Donagough. His sharp-witted wife smiled aside as she remarked it. She and her husband had been (as we know) vastly fond lovers; but there is a process which chemically takes place when “sweets to the sweet” have been incautiously laid together, that renders sour, what, before such too closely pent-up union, had been altogether the reverse; and it occasionally happens in married life, that something analogous to this will occur. Mrs. O’Donagough was still, perhaps, a little on the fret, and it was certainly no very sweet feeling which caused her to set down on a private leaf of her memory’s tablet a N.B., to the effect that she knew how to plague her husband when he deserved it.
At that moment, however, she willingly let the subject pass; and, turning again to the copious waves of green velvet which flowed from chair to chair, reiterated her thankfulness, that among all the other good gifts which nature and fortune had bestowed on her, she possessed for a niece a Mrs. General Hubert, who knew so perfectly well how to suit her taste and dimensions in the purchase of a dress!
Of course a correspondence so auspiciously begun, was not permitted to drop by any negligence on the part of Mrs. Donagough; and the same good feeling which produced the first reply from Berkeley-square, continued to dictate many more in the same kind spirit of forgetfulness, as to everything that it was disagreeable to remember. It is certainly possible that both the General and his sweet wife indulged in this benevolent sort of oblivion the more readily, from feeling a comfortable degree of security as to the continuance of Mrs. O’Donagough’s residence abroad. Both knew, though neither of them talked about it, that it was next to impossible any man should have married “the aunt Barnaby” from any other motive than a wish to appropriate her little fortune; it therefore followed, that Mr. O’Donagough was poor, and, if so, it was equally certain, that what she possessed would not suffice to permit his leaving the new country where he could “inhabit lax,” the paradise of corn and mutton, which spread around him, in order again, perhaps, to be jostled, while in search of a dinner, in the old oue — e
rgo, they would stay where they were. With this persuasion to sustain and stimulate their good nature, aided, too, by the kind-hearted sympathy and co-operation of Mr. Willoughby, they continued for many years to testify their good-will by letters and by gifts, the expectation and reception of which formed the glory of Mrs. O’Donagough’s Van Diemen existence, while her letters and presents in return were occasionally the source of very harmless amusement among such as remembered her. Mrs. Elizabeth Compton alone must he excepted; for she ceased not to declare with unvarying pertinacity, and it may be with something of undying bitterness, that the having half the globe between them, was by no means a sufficient security against the possibility of annoyance from such a source, and that nothing short of treating Mrs. Barnaby as if civilly dead, could suffice to protect them securely from the horrors of a reunion with her. Most Cassandra-like, however, was the fate of the old lady’s pungent eloquence. Everybody listened to her with an incredulous smile; and General Hubert seemed even to enjoy the vivid pictures she sometimes drew of scenes ensuing from the alarming lady’s possible return.
“She will not come, aunt Betsy,” he said; “but if she should, where would the sting be now? Gone, drawn, and harmless for evermore! Can she divorce us, aunt Betsy? Do you think that likely?”
“Agnes, your husband is quite young enough,” was the old lady’s reply. “I never in all my reading met with a stronger instance of the false reasoning of wrong-headed young love! May Providence keep you from this terrible woman, my dear General, for it is quite clear you have not wit enough to guard yourself — think if your sufferings from a Barnaby would not be increased tenfold by seeing them shared by your wife!”
But General Hubert shook his head, and only laughed at her.
CHAPTER V.
YEARS wore away, Mr. Allen O’Donagough, as the good people of Sydney persisted in calling him, derived very essential advantage from the widely boasted and letter-and-present-proved patronage of such connections. During the last years of his residence in New South Wales he obtained, probably from the consideration this procured him, a place in one of the public offices, the salary of which was its least profit; for it enabled him to import advantageously various articles which he knew how to dispose of at enormous profit, so that he became by every day that passed over him a richer man. The benefits which tins same forgiving kindness on the part of Mrs. Hubert conferred on her some time aunt Barnaby, might perhaps be considered as greater still; for (wishing to be on confidential terms with my readers) it must be confessed that, had no such connections as the Huberts existed in England, it is more than probable that Mr. Allen O’Donagough, notwithstanding his advance in all steady economical financial habits, might still have been tempted to exhibit some immoral laxity of opinion on the subject of marriage. But for the hope that the one of all his professions which he loved the best, might be followed on a higher ground than had ever yet been within his reach through the influence of his charming Barnaby’s connections, it is pretty nearly certain that, when the time arrived at which he deemed it convenient to recross the ocean, he would have found some means or other of leaving his lady and daughter behind him. These roving thoughts, however, gave way as the time approached to feelings of a nobler and more ambitious kind. Even Miss Martha O’Donagough, his little daughter, began by degrees to take a stronger hold upon his paternal affections. Whether arising from prolonged habits of celibacy or a feeling of doubt as to how long their personal intimacy might last, or from any other cause, certain it is, that for the first nine or ten years of the young lady’s life, his fatherly tenderness towards her limited itself to cheruppings while still in the cradle, about one pat on the head per week in the go-cart, and pretty frequent notices that she was not to make a noise afterwards. But a few weeks after the celebration of her tenth birthday, it chanced that a large packet arrived from London. Among other articles, it contained a complete walking-dress for Miss Martha, the bonnet being lined and trimmed, contrary to the usual quiet style of Mrs. Hubert’s offerings, with particularly bright rose-coloured satin. The turkey-cock is not more susceptible to the hue of red, than was Mrs. O’Donagough, The instant that this well-packed article was cleared of its moorings, her rapture at the sight of it became vehement.
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