“Then suppose, my dear,” replied the elder sister, “we were to try first with her? I have often observed that very young girls, and quite old gentlemen, are the easiest people to get acquainted with everywhere. Suppose, Matilda, we try speaking to the young lady first?”
“Stop a moment, will you! I will hear the rest presently,” cried Miss Matilda, suddenly starting from the work-table, and hurrying out of the room.
Her sister looked up as the door closed sharply behind her, with some degree of surprise; but being naturally of a composed temperament, she soon restored her attention wholly to the quilling of her tulle, nor ceased her occupation, twiddling it into becoming shape as a tour de bonnet, with rosebuds, ribbons, and so forth, till the entire fabric was complete. How long exactly this might have taken her she would have been at a loss to say; but when the work was ended, and had been tried on and approved, Miss Perkins began to wonder where sister Matty might be, chiefly because she wanted her to pass judgment on her performance, and confirm her own conviction that it was very pretty indeed.
Having looked at herself in the glass four several times, and out of the window upon the open sea as many, this sisterly longing was leading her towards the door, when she was stopped by hearing voices upon the stairs in gay, laughing, loud conversation, one of which was her sister’s. Miss Perkins hesitated a moment whether she should open the door in order to discover who Miss Matilda’s merry companion might be, and had just decided that it would be quite ridiculous not to do it, when the desired operation was performed from the other side, and Miss Matilda entered side by side with Miss Patty O’Donagough, both talking together, fast and loud, and apparently the very best friends in the world.
Miss Matilda Perkins bore in her hand a telescope, and the first words her sister distinctly heard and understood were, “Oh, my dear Miss O’Donagough, you must positively just come in and have a peep! You have no idea how exceedingly amusing it is, especially just now that it happens to be high water, with so many boats about and so many people bathing! This is Miss O’Donagough, sister — Miss Perkins, Miss O’Donagough. I was so lucky, Louisa, as just to meet this young lady as I came down from our room with the telescope, and I have just been so excessively amused by it up stairs, that, when I saw her look with curiosity at the instrument, I could not resist my inclination to ask her in to look through it. Is it not good-natured of her to come? So very kind and obliging!”
“I am very happy to see the young lady, I am sure, for that or any other reason,” replied the elder sister, assiduously opening the window and fixing the telescope commodiously. “It is a very nice clear glass, Miss O’Donagough, and this window has got such a beautiful view! It is certainly very amusing.”
“How isn’t that first-rate capital fun!” exclaimed Miss Patty, after a long steady gaze through the glass. “How I do envy you having such a beautiful amusement! You are looking through it all day long, ain’t you, when you are not walking out?”
“We do use it a good deal, certainly,” replied Miss Matilda, with an expressive nod of the head; “but I do assure you, my dear Miss O’Donagough, that both my sister and myself shall always have the very greatest pleasure in giving it up to you, or your mamma either, if she would do us the favour to call in and use it.”
“Oh! for that, mamma will never get it out of my hands, I promise you, whenever I get it into ’em. But it will be very good-natured of you, I am sure, if you will let me come and have a peep sometimes.”
Both sisters were most earnest and eager in their assurances that there was nothing in the world they should like so well as seeing her come in and out fifty times a day, if she liked it.
“Well, then, I shall like it, you may depend upon it,” replied Patty. “It will be such nice fun to gallop down here, whenever I am tired of the old ones up stairs. Hannah told me you were very free, pleasant sort of ladies, and so you are.”
“I am sure, it is very kind of you to say so,” replied Miss Perkins, simpering, “and it will be no sacrifice at all for me to give up the télescopé, because, of course, you know, my dear, I don’t think so much of all those little gay amusements as my sister does. I am so many, many years older than Matilda, that it makes a great difference in all things of that sort, you know. So she and you, my dear young lady, may take the glass, turn and turn about, whenever you are here, and that would be better almost than having it all to yourself, for that might make your eyes ache, which would be a pity, I am sure, so beautiful as they are.”
Patty repaid this amiable prelude to lasting friendship by saying, as she again put the glass to her eye, “I am sure you are monstrous kind and good-natured, and so I shall tell mamma, and papa, too — and I shall make them both come and see you.”
A happy and triumphant look was exchanged between the sisters, while one of Patty’s bright eyes was glued to the instrument, which made it, as she said, almost as pleasant to live in a house, as upon the pier itself, and the other screwed up with skilful and most patient perseverance till she had carefully scanned every individual head within reach of her examination.
The acquaintance thus happily begun between the drawing-room and the parlour, progressed without the slightest drawback from the feelings of any single individual concerned; and many were the miles of hot walking spared Mrs. O’Donagough thereby, at the which she rejoiced not a little, for much as she loved to see and be seen, the excessive activity of her lively daughter, had already caused her to pant and to blow under all the brilliance of a September sun at Brighton, for more hours than were quite agreeable to her age and size, and it soon became an understood thing between the new associates, that the Miss Perkinses should take care of Patty in all her long lounges backward and forward, over the cliff and under the cliff; while in return, Mrs. O’Donagough should chaperon them all, about three times a day to the libraries; by which arrangement, Miss Louisa got a great deal of very agreeable and improving conversation with Mrs. O’Donagough, and Miss Matilda very soon achieved a bowing and sometimes even a speaking acquaintance with all the gentlemen of Mr. O’Donagough’s Brighton acquaintance. Their evening parties, too, were quite delightful. As the hours of daylight shortened, the hours for the card-table lengthened, and the company of the Miss Perkinses was agreeable in every way.
Nobody made tea for a party of gentlemen with so much skill, and so inexhaustible a stock of smiles as Miss Matilda; and no one was ever so well qualified to teach new stitches to waning eyes as Miss Louisa, who, still struggling against spectacles herself, had discovered or invented a prodigious number of devices by which “patterns” would do just as well a little awry, as not.
In this way, the fortnight of her “darling niece’s” absence made itself wings; and when at length Mr. O’Donagough brought home the news that he had seen General Hubert on horseback, it was hailed by his lady with infinitely less ecstasy than he expected.
“You don’t seem half so much out of your wits, my dear, as I expected,” observed Mr. O’Donagough, laughing in high good-humour — the result, probably, of the propitious termination of his morning’s amusement. “I thought you would begin singing and dancing when I told you that your beloved niece was come back!”
“Nonsense, Donny! my singing and dancing days are over; however, of course I am very glad, and I shall take Patty to call there to-morrow without fail. But the fact is, this place is so delightful — Patty is so much admired — the prawns and everything are so nice — those dear good Perkinses are such a comfort to me — and you are almost always in such high good-humour, that I am sure I don’t want nieces or nephews, or anybody else, to make me happy here. However, of course I shall go and call to-morrow.”
“Lor, mamma, I hope you will leave me behind if you do!” exclaimed Miss Patty. “I had rather take one walk with Matilda Perkins, old as she is, than a dozen with that prig in petticoats, Elizabeth Hubert.”
“That’s likely enough, darling,” replied her mamma; “but if you are the sharp girl I take you for, you
’ll soon find that there’s more reasons than one for making much of one’s relations. You only just look at the Perkinses, Patty, when I talk of my niece, Mrs. Hubert, before them, or at Dacre, or Willis, or Foxcroft, or any one of the officers, and you’ll see fast enough whether they are worth calling upon or not.”
“That’s true as that the sun’s in heaven, Patty,” said her father, with great animation; “so keep a proper look-out girl, or you and I shall be two.”
“La! what a fuss you are making!” said the young lady, tartly; “I never said I meant to cut ’em, did I? But I suppose I may think them fogrums and quizzes, if I choose?”
“I don’t care what you may think ’em, my black-eyed beauty, if you do but take care to make the most of the cousin-ship,” said her father. “So mind, miss, I shall question your mother about your behaviour to-morrow, and if I hear of sour looks, or impertinent airs of any kind, you shall not bathe again as long as you stay at Brighton. Just mind that.”
Miss Patty tossed her head, but said no more; for she, as well as her mamma, had learned to know when her papa was in earnest.
It rarely happened but that when one parent admonished Miss O’Donagough, the other declared her to be peculiarly impeccable, and even praiseworthy on that particular point; but in the present instance the case was otherwise. Mrs. O’Donagough was equally edified and gratified by the sentiments expressed by her husband, and to atone for any seeming indifference manifested by her own manner of receiving the intelligence of her elegant niece’s return, she took an opportunity, about an hour afterwards, when both the Miss Perkinses and Lieutenant Foxcroft were present, to make her joy and gladness appear with such eloquent vehemence, as elicited from all the most cordial congratulations on the event.
“You may well be proud of your niece, ma’am,” said the lieutenant. “She’s the first woman in Brighton, out and out.”
“Ah! Captain Foxcroft,” replied Mrs. O’Donagough, who generally gave brevet rank to all her military acquaintance, “beautiful as she, is, that is her least merit I do assure you! Dear creature! I brought her up entirely myself, and, therefore, you know I may venture to speak for her mental qualities. To be sure I did take incessant pains with her! Every one of her accomplishments were of my own teaching, and I must say it, though I should not, that she has turned out exactly what I desired she should be.”
“How very gratifying!” exclaimed Miss Perkins.
“And such an elegant creature, too!” subjoined Miss Matilda. “What a reward for all your care!”
“I must say,” added Mrs. O’Donagough, looking with an expression of ingenuous modesty in the face of Lieutenant Foxcroft, “I must say that she had both precept and example to help her, and I have the pleasure of knowing that the excellent match she made was entirely in consequence of my having fortunately attracted the attention of General Hubert — he was only Colonel Hubert then, but a most distinguished man in every way; and when he found that Agnes had been brought up by me, he immediately paid his addresses to her. Cannot you guess, my dear Miss Perkins, how gratifying the remembrance of this must be to my feelings while witnessing their present conjugal happiness?”
“Oh dear me! yes, I can indeed, Mrs. O’Donagough, and I hope and trust the same ‘delightful thing will happen over again with your charming daughter.”
“I am sure you are very kind,” returned the gratified mother; “yes, that is exactly the sort of marriage I wish her to make — such high connections you know! — so every way desirable.”
And here, while Mr. O’Donagough and the lieutenant sat down to a game of piquet, Mrs. O’Donagough lowered her voice to a confidential whisper, while she poured into Miss Perkins’s ear numberless interesting little particulars relative to many of her own youthful adventures, among which the touching episode of Lord Mucklebury’s sending her a set of shells, long after they were parted for ever, was not forgotten.
While this went on at one end of the room, on the sofa, Patty, by a movement of the finger, and a wink of the eye, invited Miss Matilda to station herself beside her, at a still open window at the other.
“Don’t go on listening to mamma’s prosing, Miss Matilda; there’s no fun in that,” said she, familiarly passing her arm through that of her new friend.
“What a dear girl you are,” murmured Miss Matilda, in reply; “and how I do wish you would always call me Matilda, without any Miss at all before it.”
“Do you?” replied Patty, laughing; “so I will then, for I like monstrously to he intimate with you, because you are such a capital one for fun. Don’t those dear feathers look beautiful in the moonlight, marching along under the windows?”
“That they do indeed, Patty!” replied her friend, with a speaking pressure of the arm. “That’s Captain Thwaites that’s just past — he’s reckoned the handsomest man in Brighton; but I think your cousin, General Hubert, is handsomer, though, to be sure, he is not quite so young.”
“He handsome? — what that tall, thin, hideous, stiff old fellow? Oh, Matilda! if I could but show you one man, you’d never think any other handsome again — that is, not very, very handsome, as long as ever you lived.”
“Indeed, Patty! and who is that, my dear?”
“Hush! Don’t speak loud? But if I am to call you Matilda, and we are to he out and out real friends, I don’t think it would he at all right for me not to tell you everything. For real particular friends, you know, never have any secrets from one another.”
“Dear creature!” exclaimed Miss Matilda, in a whisper, with another affectionate pressure of the arm, “tell me everything then.”
“And you will never say a word about it to mamma, nor to your sister either?”
“No, not for the world, my dearest Patty.”
“Let us lean out of the window then,” said Miss O’Donagough, “and I will tell you the history of the only real lover I ever had, that was worth talking about.”
With arms still interlaced, and heads projected, as if gazing on the beautiful effects of the moonbeams on the sea, the two friends there stood together till Patty had poured forth the whole history of Jack’s tender attentions during the whole voyage from Sydney; his escape from drowning — his recovery from death on her lap; and lastly, the parting kiss, by which, as she said, she well knew he meant to pledge his troth to her for life.
“But my darling girl, do you mean that he was a common sailor?” demanded the confidant, in an accent of considerable surprise.
“A common sailor, indeed! — Good gracious! — no, Matilda. Before he went on shore mamma found out that he was certainly somebody of very great consequence in disguise.”
“Good heavens! my dear, you don’t say so? What a complete adventure? And you so young too! Oh, you lucky girl!”
“Ain’t I, Matilda? But when shall I see him again, dear? Do you think he will ever come to look for me?”
“You may depend upon it, Patty,” &c., &c.
* * * *
And so the conversation went on, deepening in its tone of affectionate confidence, till two or three more officers came into the room, and then Miss Matilda was summoned to her well loved place at the tea-table. But this did not happen till a very broad and lasting foundation of friendship had been laid between Miss Matilda Perkins and Miss Martha O’Donagough — a friendship which was not without a lasting influence on the happiness of both.
CHAPTER XV.
“HERE’S aunt Betsy! — here’s aunt Betsy!” burst from the little Emily, as she stood at the drawing-room windows the day after General Hubert, his wife, and daughter, returned to Brighton; and the words were accompanied with such gay clapping of the hands, and such joyous skippings and boundings, as left no doubt of the sort of welcome the great-great-aunt was likely to receive.
“She is come, indeed, mamma!” cried Elizabeth, throwing aside the book she was reading, and exhibiting very nearly as much childish glee as her younger sister. “May I run down to meet her?”
“No, no, Elizabeth, le
t me go first and take her into the parlour,” replied Mrs. Hubert; “she maybe tired by her journey, dear, and may wish to be a little quiet at first.”
“Mamma! mamma! Compton is come too! Compton is handing aunt Betsy out!” cried Emily, who still kept her post at the window. This was intelligence that seemed naturally and of necessity to break down all restraints, whether of ceremony or prudence, and mother and daughters very nearly vied with each other in the velocity with which they descended the stairs. The old lady and her young attendant were, however, in the hall by the time they reached it; and the presence of the young man proved to be of considerable utility, occupying his two sisters so completely for a minute or two, as to give Mrs. Hubert the power of leading her venerable aunt quietly to an arm-chair in the parlour, and hearing her declare that she had enjoyed the journey exceedingly, and was all the better for it. Mrs. Elizabeth Compton, as she was of course called by all the world, save the Hubert family, was at this time somewhat past seventy; but never was the allotted three score years and ten borne with less consciousness of their weight than by this fragile-looking little spinster. She was as thin as it was well possible to be, her delicate little hand literally permitting light to be visible athwart its slight integuments; but all there was of her seemed imperishable; hardly partaking of the materials on which the wear and tear of time takes hold, and with an unquenched spirit in her eye that shot forth the same intellectual vigour it had ever done.
“My dearest aunt!” cried Mrs. Hubert, fondly hanging over her, and looking into the cheerful face that smiled upon her, with truly filial affection, “my dearest aunt, how delightful it is to see you thus so completely yourself, so perfectly well and unwearied, after your long journey.”
“No very long journey, dearest Agnes! Ton see how I am accompanied — and I suppose you guess that I arrived in London the day before yesterday, and waited till my application to the Stephensons to run away with my young squire, from their river abode at Richmond to your marine abode here, could be forwarded and granted. Do you think the general will be very angry with me for stealing a week or two from the mathematics?”
Collected Works of Frances Trollope Page 242