CHAPTER XVIII.
NOTWITHSTANDING the sudden departure of General Hubert, and his family, the memory of their greatness, like the light-diffusing tail of a comet, remained behind them, and Mrs. O’Donagough continued to be a person of unquestionable importance with all her Brighton acquaintance. The circle, indeed, was not a large one; her affections, as she observed to every member of it, having been too much centred on her own relations to leave her leisure for cultivating the miscellaneous friendship of the world at large.
“I know this is not right,” said she, “I am quite aware that it is one’s duty to he condescending and civil to everybody; but with me it is always the heart that speaks, and it would be in vain to attempt struggling with my affection for my darling niece, Mrs. Hubert, and her dear family — they have made me positively neglect everybody else; but I cannot help it! Those who know her will appreciate the attraction, and forgive me; while by those who do not, I must submit to be accounted fastidious, exclusive, and most abominably proud.”
Mr. O’Donagough, who, when he was not meditating on matters more important, would frequently derive considerable amusement from listening to his wife, now and then indulged in a little quiet quizzing at her expense; but she had too much good sense to take a great deal of notice of it, and generally contrived, indeed, to end by having much the best of it in her own opinion.
One point on which he particularly liked to attack her was on the change in their relative positions, as to their intercourse with the Stephenson family. He remembered their first visit, and the secondary part he had acted upon that occasion, which he loved to contrast with the one now allotted him.
“I cannot think how it is, my dear, that you see so very little of your own near connection, Mrs. Stephenson, while I am got so pleasantly intimate with her husband; but it seems really as if you counted for nothing with them,” said he.
“The reason for that is plain enough, Mr. O’Donagough — I cannot abide that little idiot woman; in fact, I perfectly hate the sight of her — odious doll! lolling almost at full length in her open carriage, just to make everybody stare at her, with a dozen children like so many monkeys stuck up behind and before, to make up the show.”
“Don’t agitate yourself, my dear!” resumed the gentleman, in a mild voice; “though I cannot greatly wonder at your feeling vexed. She really takes no more notice of you than if you were no relation at all; and considering how remarkably affectionate you are to all your cousins, it must be very trying.”
“You may keep your pity to yourself, Mr. O’Donagough; and if you fancy I am affronted, you were never more deceived in your life. Besides, you mistake the matter altogether. The fact is, she is all but blind, poor thing, and I don’t choose to be always bawling after her, as the carriage drives along; but it is most preposterously out of the question, to suppose for a moment, that she would dare to cut me!”
“Well, my dear, I dare say you know best; but sometimes it looks very like it.”
“Nonsense, O’Donagough! Cut me, indeed! when her own father, dear affectionate creature, perfectly dotes upon me! He treats me a thousand times more like a sister than a sister-in-law, and — bless him! — I love him in return as a real sister should, and so he shall find, I can tell her, as soon as he comes back to England; for let him be where he will, in town or country, I am quite determined to be near him. People as sincerely attached as we are, cannot bear to be long parted.”
* * * * *
Some weeks more of fine autumn weather passed away, during which the O’Donagough family, and their little coterie, continued to enjoy the sea-breezes and each other’s society, in the most fashionable manner.
Some desultory conversations occasionally arose between the ci-devant major and his lady as to what they were to do, and where they were to go next. On all these occasions, Mr. O’Donagough permitted his wife to talk almost as much as she liked, without uttering a word that deserved the name of contradiction. But though she laid down very plainly what he had best do — and what of course he would do — and what it would he perfect madness if he did not do, the subject always came to a close without leaving her at all wiser respecting his real intentions than when it began.
Meanwhile, Patty was enjoying herself greatly; for though, as she ingenuously confessed to her friend Matilda, she had no one beau in particular, there was not one of the set, except Foxcroft, who did not make a little love to her whenever they had an opportunity. But a heavy blow was about to disturb her tranquillity.
The Miss Perkinses having by this time, in the most ladylike and respectable manner, expended the sum (whatever it might have been) destined for their marine excursion, had been one morning looking anxiously over all their little accounts, and had reluctantly decided that it was quite time to return to their first floor at Belle-Vue-terrace, Brompton, for the remainder of the passing year, and the first seven months of the next.
They had just mutually exchanged the melancholy words, “Yes, we must go!” when their beloved Patty, with her accustomed vehemence of vivacity, bounced into the room.
“What a hateful bad day it is for the glass!” she exclaimed, rushing to the window, winch a driving rain from the southwest had obliged the sisters reluctantly to close. “Not a soul to be seen in the sea, or out of it! Isn’t it a bore?”
“Alas! my dearest Patty,” replied Miss Matilda, “vexing as it is to see the rain fall so, I have got something at my heart worse than that.”
“Why, you haven’t seen Foxcroft go by without looking in, or anything of that sort, have you?” replied the sympathising young girl, with a significant smile.
“No, Patty, no, not that. I really don’t believe there is any danger of it,” replied Matilda, with a heavy sigh. “Poor Foxcroft! poor dear fellow! he little thinks how soon all our delightful evenings in that dear drawing-room up stairs will be over!”
“Over!” echoed Patty. “Why, what’s in the wind now? the route isn’t come, is it?”
“Not for him, Patty, but it has come for me!”
“What do you mean, Matilda?”
“Only too truly what I say, dearest; think what I feel, when I tell you that my sister has received a letter from London this morning, which renders it absolutely necessary that we should return home immediately.”
“Stuff and nonsense!” replied Patty. “I should like to know what there is to make you two go, if you choose to stay? What’s the good of being old maids? — of course I don’t mean you, Matilda, for I really don’t believe you will be one in the end; but what’s the good of having nobody in the world belonging to you, if you can’t stay when you please, and go when you please?”
“Business, my dear, you know, must be minded,” said Miss Louisa, rather mysteriously.
“Well, then, let Miss Louisa go by herself,” said the lively Patty. “She is old enough to walk alone, and I neither can nor will be left here without you to walk with, Matilda. You shan’t budge a step, till we go too.”
“Dear, darling creature!” exclaimed Miss Matilda, in a burst of enthusiastic fondness, while a delightful hope flashed through her mind that it was possible Mrs. O’Donagough, to please her daughter, might ask her to remain as their guest after her sister went. So overwhelming was this sudden hope that it almost choked her, and pressing both her hands upon her heaving breast, she looked in the face of her young friend with the most touching expression imaginable.
Patty inherited a considerable portion of her mother’s acuteness, and saw in a moment what her friend had got in her head. The idea accorded perfectly with her own inclination, which would have prompted her at once to offer the half of her own little bed, rather than be left without a friend and confidant. But she remembered her papa, and remembered, too, the cold-meat dinners which frequently graced their domestic board; so she prudently restrained her hospitality, and only said —
“Stop a minute, Matilda! I want to speak to mamma, and you must not stir till I come back again.”
“Da
rling girl! I know what she is gone for,” exclaimed the agitated Matilda, as soon as the door was closed. “Oh, Louisa! I shall be perfectly wild with joy if she succeeds. I do assure you, very seriously, that I think Foxcroft means to propose to me. You need not shake your head so gloomily, my dear. I know you are thinking how often I have been disappointed before; but certainly no one can be so good a judge as myself what his manner is. Besides, Louisa, if the O’Donagoughs invite me, I should like to accept it, whether I am right or wrong about Foxcroft; but this I will say, that if he really does mean nothing, it is better for my peace of mind that I should find it out at once, and if I do find him to be such a villain, I shall soon cease to care about him, I can promise you that. You may depend upon it, my dear, I shall spend nothing — not a single sixpence after you are gone, excepting about eighteenpence a week for my washing.”
While the ardent Matilda thus pleaded her own cause below stairs, her faithful friend was not less eloquent above. She had, however, a tougher listener to deal with.
“So here you are together — that’s right,” said she, as she entered the drawing-room, with an assured step and confiding spirit; “I have got something that I want to say to you both.”
“And what may that be, Miss Brighteyes?” demanded her father.
“I’ll tell you in no time,” replied the young lady, approaching him; “but please to remember, papa, that this time you must let me have my own way, or you and I shall be two.”
“Indeed! and pray what’s in the wind now?”
“What do you think, both of you, of the Perkinses being going away?”
“No! are they indeed?” cried Mrs. O’Donagough.
“Never mind, Patty, we shall not be long behind them,” added her husband.
“But I don’t choose to be behind them at all, papa,” replied the young lady.
“That’s nonsense, Patty. I won’t have you go trying to fix their starting for just the same day as ours; I don’t want to have my travelling ways spied into by anybody, and that I should have thought you might have known by this time.”
“Oh yes, papa, I know all that of course; but as I have chosen Matilda Perkins for my particular friend, she must not be counted as anybody; and what I have come for now, is to say that you must let me invite her to stay behind her sister, and sleep with me.”
“You shall do no such thing, Miss Patty, I promise you,” replied her papa; “and if you have got into the scrape of asking her, with your eyes shut, you may get out of it as you can with your eyes open. And now come here,” he continued, holding out both his hands to invite her approach, “I have something to say to you.” Patty felt a prodigiously strong inclination to snap her fingers, and run out of the room; but she fortunately gave a glance at the expressive countenance of her parent, and then walked quietly enough towards him, placing her hands in his. “Now, then, Martha O’Donagough,” he said, “listen to a word or two, and take my advice when I tell you to remember them. I never will, now or ever, suffer any human being, man, woman, or child, except servants, to enter my house as an inmate. You are but a baby, Miss Patty, with all your cleverness, as to the ways of the world, or you would understand the wisdom of this. But whether you understand it or not, REMEMBER IT; and remember, too, if you please, that though I give you free leave to make as many friends as you like, and to talk to them early and late, of your bonnets and beaux, I will lock you up upon bread and water, ‘as sure as you stand here, if I ever catch you uttering a single syllable about me, or my house, or my friends, or anything that I do, or anything that I say. Don’t fancy, Patty, that I shall not find it out. I have not lived for nothing, my dear, and what I want to know, I generally get at, first or last. Ask your mamma.”
Mrs. O’Donagough, though possessed in no common degree of the courage and confidence produced by the consciousness of great mental power — and no woman could have a much higher idea of her own ability — felt nevertheless something exceedingly like awe, as she now listened to her husband. She often, indeed, felt that she did not fully comprehend him — that there were still many peculiarities in his character that she could not quite make out, and that, although, as she constantly assured herself and Patty, she was not in the least bit afraid of him, some feeling which she could not exactly describe, generally in all their little disputes, led her to the conclusion that it might be as well not to defy him. It was this which made her, when thus appealed to, immediately answer, “Mind what he says to you, Patty, there’s a good girl. Of course he knows best, and when he speaks in earnest, as he does now, it would be very silly and wrong not to mind. So say nothing at all, Patty, to Matilda about staying. I can’t say I should much approve it myself — she has always seen everything about us quite genteel, and what’s the good of letting her know what we like to do when we are quite by ourselves? Besides, Patty, you must see that she is getting so intimate with Foxcroft as to be sure of telling him just everything — and I have no notion of that. The officers have always seen us in the most agreeable manner possible — and what with my clever little suppers, and my dear relationship to the general, it is sure and certain that we count for people of consequence with them, which may be a great advantage to us all, let us meet them where we will.”
“That’s enough, and to spare, mamma,” said Miss Patty, venturing to bestow upon her female parent the sulkiness generated by the decision of her father. “For pity’s sake, don’t go preaching on any longer. If I mustn’t have a friend to speak to, I mustn’t, and there’s an end of that — only I hope we are not to stay much longer in this beastly stupid place — I am as tired as tired of it.” And with these words the young lady made her exit, slamming the door after her with considerable energy.
She had no great difficulty, on reaching the parlour again, to read on the countenance of her friend the hopes and expectations, to which her own sudden departure had given rise, and spite of the lecture she had just received, she scrupled not to confess that she had asked for leave to invite her, and had been refused. Her manner of confessing this, however, showed the species of inherited talent she possessed, as much as it did her filial obedience to the spirit as well as to the letter of her instructions.
“I would hare given anything, Matilda, to have got you to stay with me,” she said, “but mamma’s notions are always so grand about everything, that she won’t ask you because she hasn’t a fine handsome bedroom to put you in.”
“Oh, dear me! I hope she would not mind that with such au intimate friend as I am!” exclaimed the affectionate Matilda, almost sobbing with eagerness.
“There’s no good thinking anymore about it, my dear,” replied Patty, decisively. “It’s no go.”
“And all because of the bedroom being little!” rejoined Matilda, with a groan. “Oh! Patty! I’d sleep upon the floor with a blanket round me, with joy and gladness, that I would! — Yes, Patty, or without a blanket either, rather than go away from you — that I would!”
The excited feelings of the disappointed lady here overpowered her, and she burst into tears.
“It is folly and nonsense crying about it, Matilda,” said Patty, with less of sympathising softness than her friend might have wished. “That’s not my way. They never make me cry now, let them do or say what they will. I always get my own way when I can, and when I cannot, which isn’t often, I just snap my fingers at them, and take pretty good care to get something else out of ’em before I’ve done.”
Miss Matilda here took Miss Louisa aside to the farthest corner of the room, and consulted her in a whisper, as to the possibility of her continuing to occupy their present bedroom for a week or two longer.
“My dear child,” replied the tender-hearted elder sister, “there is nothing I would not do to help you; but you know we have reckoned the money over and over, and that there will be, when all’s paid, but just enough to take us to our own door, and not a penny to spare. I wish to heaven you had not bought that blue silk gown, Matilda!”
“There is no g
ood in taunting me with that now, Louisa; I had the best of motives for it, and it is cruel to throw it at me, at the very moment too when I am within such a hair’s-breadth of making it answer. Dear, dear Louisa! do try to help me! Think what a thing it would be for both of us, if I was to marry!”
“What can I do, Matilda?” replied the elder; “I can’t do miracles, you know.” But after a moment’s consideration, she added, “There is but one way I can think of, and that’s one I don’t like at all. I suppose we might leave the shoe bill till next year.”
“Good heavens! to be sure we might,” replied Matilda, with recovered spirits, and suddenly giving her sister a most cordial kiss. “There is nobody of any fashion, as we all know, who does not leave bills everywhere.” Then suddenly approaching Patty, who, despite the unfavourable state of the atmosphere, was employed as usual in making experiments with the telescope, and addressing her in a tone that expressed both tenderness and gaiety, she said, “My darling Patty! I do positively think it would break my heart to part with you a single hour before I was absolutely forced to do it, and Louisa says that of course I could keep on my own bedroom, if that was all.”
Considerably alarmed by this pertinacity, which appeared very likely to bring her into a scrape, Patty replied rather abruptly, “Yes, my dear, but it is not all: papa is every bit as proud as mamma, and he says that nothing in the world should ever make him invite any one to stay with us without having servants, footmen, you know, and all that. So it is no good to say any more about it.”
“But, my dearest Patty! Surely such a friend as I am—”
“Say no more about it, I tell you, Matilda, but run and put your things on, and come down to the pier; it does not rain a drop now to signify, and I am pretty sure I saw Foxcroft and Willis cross over as if they were going that way.”
It was with a heavy heart, though with a rapid step, that the unfortunate Matilda ran up stairs to comply with this request, and mournfully desponding was the voice in which she murmured to her friend, as they walked along, “Oh, Patty! if we should meet Foxcroft, how shall I bear to tell him that we go on Monday?”
Collected Works of Frances Trollope Page 250