“Why, considering, Agnes, how many superlatively fine relations you have done my daughter the honour of giving her — Nesbitts and Stephensons without end — I really think it would be unreasonable to complain of her being claimed as kindred by one humble lassie who has neither learned her steps from a French opera-dancer, nor her singing from an Italian opera-singer. I am by no means certain that our simple Elizabeth may not like her best.”
This conversation brought them to their own door; on reaching which a servant was despatched to the stables to order their horses, and while they were waited for, Mrs. Hubert, after a little further consultation with her husband, wrote the following note: —
“My dear Aunt,
“Accept my best congratulations upon your return to England after an absence of so many years, and let me fix two o’clock to-morrow for repeating these congratulations in person. I feel quite anxious to see my young cousin, who must be, if I mistake not, about the same age as my eldest girl. I hope they will be good friends and playfellows.
“General Hubert begs to join his request to mine, that Mr. O’Donagough, yourself, and Martha, would give us the pleasure of your company at dinner on Thursday at six o’clock.
“Believe me, my dear Aunt,
“Your affectionate niece,
“AGNES HUBERT.”
This note approved and despatched, Mrs.’ Hubert, with a lightened spirit, mounted her beautiful mare, and galloped for a couple of hours over the Sussex downs with as much enjoyment as if “Aunt Barnaby” had not been in existence.
Her note reached its destination safely, and was received by the whole of the O’Donagough family in council. Mr. O’Donagough, though not exactly confessing that he remained at home on purpose, contrived to be in the drawing-room when the servant of the house entered with it; and Martha, who, from the reiterated harangues of her mamma on the subject, had conceived a very distinct idea, that most of her pleasures, and all her consequence, depended on the manner in which “the Huberts” received them, no sooner saw a smart footman, bearing a note in his hand, ring at the bell, than springing back from the station she constantly occupied at the window, she exclaimed, “Here it comes, mamma! — such a footman! — all over silver lace! I’ll bet a dollar it is to ask us to come and drink tea with them.”
“Be quiet, Martha! Don’t scream so loud,” said Mr. O’Donagough.
“Oh! how my poor heart beats!” cried his wife, forcibly compressing that part of her person wherein it was lodged. “Dearest—” Agnes! she would have added, but a feeling of doubt and caution checked her, and compressing her lips, and assuming an air of dignified composure, she suddenly resolved to express no further affection for Mrs. General Hubert till it was ascertained how she was likely to be welcomed in return.
The lively Martha gave a prodigious jump the instant the drawing-room door opened, and clutched the important note from the maid-servant’s hand.
“Now, who’ll know the news first, I wonder?” she cried, triumphantly holding her prize above her head.
“How dare you behave so, Martha!” said Mrs. O’Donagough, hastily rising, and approaching her daughter in a manner that made it evident there would be a battle for the note, if the young lady yielded it not unresistingly. But the matter was immediately decided by the authoritative voice of Mr. O’Donagough himself, who, with more anxiety than he intended should appear, sat picking his teeth, and pretending to read a newspaper.
“No nonsense, if you please, Miss Patty! Give your mother the note INSTANTLY.” And instantly the note trembled beneath the agitated fingers of Mrs. O’Donagough.
“ — Best congratulation! — anxious to see young cousin! — good friends! — General Hubert! — dinner on Thursday! — Oh! my dear Agnes! — my darling, darling niece!” she exclaimed, falling back in her chair in very violent emotion. “How I dote upon her! Was there ever anything so sweet, O’Donagough?”
This demand was addressed to her husband, in consequence of his having caught the note as it fell from her hands as she clasped them in ecstasy after the hasty perusal of it. “What a fool I have been,” she continued, with something between a sob and a laugh, “to let all your nonsensical doubts bother me as they have done! Nobody, of course, but myself can possibly know what Agnes and I have been to each other! Let me have the note again Donny! — dear darling creature! How touching — how sweet her language is! I am sure you will dote upon her, O’Donagough; and remember, my dear, that all she is, she owes to me. I formed her mind and manners; and I think when you know her better, you will confess that she does me no discredit.”
“Dear me, papa,” cried the young lady, “how you do spell it and spell it! Isn’t it my turn now, mamma? She’s my cousin, papa, more than she is yours, you know.”
“The lady is my niece, Patty, and not my cousin,” replied her father, passing his hand across the lower port of his face to conceal a smile, arising probably from a greater variety of incongruous and amusing recollections than either of his companions could understand. “The note,” he added, “is a very agreeable note as far as it goes — and I presume you have no engagement, Mrs. O’Donagough, that will prevent our having the pleasure of dining with General Hubert on Thursday next?” —
“I rather think not,’’ she answered, in the same tone of comic gravity. “Nor do I intend to be from home at two o’clock to-morrow?”
“Mayn’t I see the note, mamma?” cried Patty, almost whimpering. “I do think it is the hardest thing that ever was, you two keeping it all to yourselves, and making your jokes about it, and I standing by as if I was a baby all the time.”
“Give her the note, dear Donny,” said Mrs. O’Donagough; “I don’t wonder that she is longing for it. There, miss! read that, and rejoice — though you can’t know yet one-half a quarter of the difference it may make to you.”
Miss O’Donagough received the precious paper from her father, and depositing herself with a good deal of vehemence in the corner of a sofa (for her temper had been chafed by the delay) began to study it. Though not testifying equal ecstasy to her mother, she perused the first few lines with a well-satisfied air; and when she came to the phrase, “I feel quite anxious to see my young cousin,” she looked up with a smile, and gave a sidelong nod with her head that seemed to say, “I count for something in the business, at any rate.” But when again throwing her eyes upon the note, she read the words, “I hope they will be good friends and playfellows,” her colour arose to crimson, and mounted to her very eyes. For a moment she swelled in silence, and then, recovering breath, exclaimed —
“Your cousin, or niece, or whatever she is, may be as great and as grand as she will — but she is a born fool, and I know I shall hate her.”
“Hoity, toity! Miss Patty. Pray what is the matter now?” inquired her mother, with very sincere astonishment.
“Matter, indeed! I wonder, ma’am, that you can bear to have me treated in such a way. What does she mean by saying that her girl and me may be playfellows? A precious girl she must be, too, if she is as old as me, for her mother to talk in that way, as if she was an idiot, or a baby.”
“It is no good for you to fluster yourself in that way, Patty, about nothing at all,” replied Mrs. O’Donagough. “There are very few English girls, you must remember, as tall and womanly as you, at fourteen. And another thing is, I can tell you, that it is not every mother that chooses to bring her daughter forward as I do. Most ladies, indeed, keep their girls back as much as possible.”
“What, the old ladies are jealous of ’em, I suppose,” replied Patty, with an expressive toss of the head. “Nasty, unnatural, old beasts! I tell you, I know I shall hate this good-for-nothing old woman, who tries to make believe that her daughter is a baby, to make herself seem young. It’s downright horrid, isn’t it, papa?”
“I tell you what, Patty,” replied her father, laughing; “if all girls were like you, the mothers would find it pretty hard work to keep ’em back, I fancy. However, you had better not put yo
urself in a passion about nothing. Perhaps your grandee cousin is not so old as you are — and her mother may have forgot all about your age, I dare say.”
“Elizabeth Hubert is exactly five months younger than Patty,” observed Mrs. O’Donagough; “but it is like enough she may be a peaking little girl. Agnes was but a poor thread of a thing when she married.”
“I don’t care the split of a straw what she is,” returned her daughter. “Old or young, little or big, it’s all one to me — only I wouldn’t advise ’em to set me to be her playfellow, as she calls it — I’ll teach her queer plays, if she does, I can tell her.” This little puff of disagreeable excitement blown away — a process greatly facilitated by Mrs. O’Donagough’s judiciously alluding to the dresses it would be necessary to prepare for Thursday — nothing could be more agreeable than the strain of prophecy into which the conversation fell. All the sanguine hopes and expectations of the parents respecting the numerous advantages they contemplated from an intercourse so auspiciously begun were freely expressed before their child, who fully proved, by several intelligent remarks, that she was as competent to understand the subject as either of them. One observation alone was muttered with conjugal mystery by Mrs. O’Donagough, into the ear of her husband; and it ran thus: —
“Do you feel any misgivings, Donny, about the sharp eyes of Agnes?” To which he most satisfactorily replied by snapping his fingers with such vivacity, as to produce a sound clear as a castanet; while at the same time he returned the mutter, by pronouncing the single word, “Stuff!”
Though the toilet of the following morning did not, as Mrs. O’Donagough observed, signify a cent in comparison of that to be worn at the dinner-party, still it was not altogether neglected. At about twenty minutes before two, they all three met in the drawing-room, with eyes that seemed to challenge the examination and judgment of each other.
The first expression of applause was elicited by the smooth precision of Mr. O’Donagough’s new wig; the full value of which his wife seemed to feel at that moment for the first time. “It’s quite perfect, Donny,” said she, “I never saw anything equal to it in all my life. Why, your own mother — I mean that you look very nice and respectable indeed, and I like and approve it very much, Mr. O’Donagough;” — which name, with the emphasis she then gave it, as fully explained to her husband all that was passing in her mind, as if she had discoursed upon it for an hour.
He gave her a nod to show that she was understood, and then a second nod to himself, as he looked in the glass and felt conscious how perfectly well he deserved her approbation both expressed and implied.
The appearance of Patty was the next object of attention; and on this subject Mr. O’Donagough was eloquent, cordially returning the admiration he had received.
“I hope you are contented with the looks of your girl, Mrs. O’D.?” said he. “There is no denying, ladies, that you know how to spend your money. What is this beautiful-looking stuff that her gown is made off? — Is it satin?”
“No, my dear,” replied his wife; “it certainly is not satin. Twenty pounds between us, though a very pretty present, would not give us morning gowns made of satin. But it is a. very beautiful manufacture, Donny, which I like exceedingly, it takes the colour so bright. It is nothing in the world but cotton, with just a few threads of silk, you see, run up and down, to catch the eye. But if it was the richest satin ever made, the colour could not be more beautifully brilliant. Darling! — She looks like a full-blown jonquil, doesn’t she, my dear?”
“She looks like an uncommon fine girl,” replied Mr. O’Donagough. “Here eyes are like stars — I never saw them look so bright before — and her fine long dark curls are as handsome as your own used to be, my dear, when I first met you at — . The first time I saw you, I mean.”
“You are quite right, my love, excepting that her hair curls naturally, it is exactly like mine — and I must say she does look very handsome to-day.”
“Egad!” resumed the father, “I don’t know what you have done to her; her complexion looks so beautiful — to be sure you have not—” and here he imitated, with his hand applied to his face, the delicate action employed to rouge a lady’s cheek. “You must not do that, my dear. It is all very well, and very becoming at about twice her age — but she don’t want it yet.”
Mrs. O’Donagough said nothing in reply, but employed herself in settling the collar of her own embroidery that finished the dress of her daughter — while Patty turned aside her head and laughed.
“But you say nothing about me, my dear,” said the mother, after having completed the pinehings and smoothings of Patty’s dress; “tell me how you like my cap, and my gown, and my fichu, and my cuffs, and my bag — in short, tell me, honestly, ‘onny, what you think of me, all over?”
“Lor, mamma! what an odd question!” cried her lively daughter, laughing, and turning round to assist in the scrutiny. “I’ll defy him to say that you ain’t very nicely dressed — though perhaps, as to all over, he may say that you look monstrous big.”
“I’ll tell you what, Miss Patty, you will be half as big again before you are as old as me, take my word for it,” replied Mrs. O’Donagough, a little chafed at the remark. “However,” she added, with more complacency, “I am not so big as the duchess that we met this morning on the Pier — and I see so many large women here, all in their own carriages, that I am perfectly contented to be fat — I am quite sure it is the fashion.”
“I am quite sure of it too, my dear,” replied her husband. “Besided,” he gallantly added, “when ladies are of as fine a height, and as nobly built as you are, they can carry off a great deal of fat without being at all the worse for it.”
At this moment the bell of the house-door was heard to ring. Mrs. O’Donagough put her hand to her heart. “Oh! good gracious! Here they are! — Come and stand by me, Patty, that, I may present you to her directly. I hope she has not got her husband with her, Donny! I dread the sight of that man.”
“Hold your tongue! Don’t be such a fool! They are on the stairs.”
He was right. They were on the stairs, they were at the door — and the next moment they were in the room. Neither Mr nor Mrs. O’Donagough would have known Agnes had they met her by chance. Her appearance indeed was most strikingly changed; yet though in a different style, she was perhaps more lovely than they had ever before seen her. She had gained at least an inch in height after her marriage, and the slight girl was now filled out, and rounded into the perfect symmetry of womanhood. “What a delicate creature!” was the exclamation she had often drawn forth as Agnes Willoughby — and “What an elegant creature!” was the phrase which invariably followed her now. The exquisite features, too, though still the same in outline, were changed, and even improved as to their general contour. And the expressive eyes, which formerly seemed to covet the shelter of their own fringed lids, and to speak, as it were, but in whispers of the treasure of intellect within, now, appearing to gather courage from looking on the husband who was rarely long together absent from her, showed in every glance a sort of ingenuous confidence of mind, by which a physiognomist might read the purity, simplicity, and strength of her character.
In her hand she led a slight young thing, as thin as a greyhound, who, though tall for thirteen and a half, nevertheless looted perhaps younger than she was. Her silken brown hair hung low, in clusters of thick curls round her neck; and her peculiarly simple white dress, with its plain pèlerine, and the seaworthy Leghorn bonnet tied closely with a ribbon of its own colour, under her chin, gave her decidedly the air of a child. Behind them followed General Hubert, who showed that a fine person, a noble expression of countenance, a military carriage, and graceful address, may altogether constitute a very handsome man, even though the lofty forehead he bald, and the thin curls that are left, sprinkled with silver.
Notwithstanding the entire absence of every species of affectation or pretension which so remarkably distinguished the manners of Mrs. Hubert, there was something i
n her general air and appearance which effectually checked all approaches to familiarity in those who were not privileged to use it — and, to say the truth, it would have been difficult to find any gentleman and lady whose appearance would have placed Mr. Allen O’Donagough less at his ease than those who now entered his apartment. He bowed low, as he stood behind his wife, but with a movement that caused him to retreat, rather than advance. Patty, however, fearlessly opened her large eyes upon the strangers, and having no European scale of classification in her head, felt little daunted by encountering an aspect and demeanour altogether new to her; so entirely, indeed, did she “possess her soul,” as they walked up the room, as mentally to ejaculate, “Well, if that lanky thing is my fine cousin, I shan’t mind her a bit. She won’t put my nose out, any how. What a bonnet! — my!”
But it was not to speculations such as occupied the minds of either her husband or her child that Mrs. O’Donagough gave way. It was, as she would have expressed it, the heart that spoke, and not the judgment, when she rushed forward, and opening her expansive arms, inclosed within them the graceful, yet embarrassed Mrs. Hubert. So long indeed did she hold her there, that the bystanders felt embarrassed too, not well knowing what to do with their eyes, or how to perform their own parts in a scene of such deep interest.
At length, however, the elder lady released the younger one from her strict embrace, and then retiring a step, stood gazing at her with clasped hands, and head advanced, as nearly as possible like a devotee offering adoration before a favourite shrine.
Collected Works of Frances Trollope Page 237