Collected Works of Frances Trollope

by Frances Milton Trollope

  “Can you have any doubt, Louisa, after all you have seen and heard, that if you were to make over to me half your fortune — only half, mind — I should find husbands enough ready to marry me?” said Matilda, in rather a hitter accent.

  “Indeed, I am afraid you might find plenty, my dear.”

  “Afraid! What do you mean by afraid? Isn’t that cruel, savagely cruel, when you know it is the first wish of my heart?”

  “But surely, Matilda, it cannot be the first wish of your heart to have a husband that could be bought for £2,575 10s., which is just half what I stand for in the stocks.”

  “It is very easy, Louisa, to turn the most serious things into ridicule. And as to what I would, and what I would not do, I must certainly be old enough to decide for myself. I am the best judge of what is for my own happiness. It is no good now, to dispute that — I have made up my mind to ask you, Louisa, and I now do it in an honest, straightforward manner.

  Will you let me tell Mrs. O’Donagough, who is truly a friend to both of us, and would take care to make proper use of the information, will you let me tell her, Louisa, that my fortune is rather more than three thousand pounds — because of my own five hundred, you know?”

  “I don’t believe, Matilda,” replied Miss Perkins, very gently, “that I could prevent your telling Mrs. O’Donagough anything you liked. But as to the thing itself, it is certainly what I do not intend to do.”

  On receiving this definite answer, the indignant Matilda suddenly made a large roll of her rather untidy-looking work, and thrusting it under the sofa, left the room.

  “Poor thing!” murmured Louisa, as she shut the door, which had been banged, but not closed. “Poor thing! — she shall have it all when I die. But God forbid I should spend £2,575 10s to buy such a man as Captain Foxcroft for her, and she still so well-looking, as she says — I am sure it would he very wicked if I did.”

  CHAPTER XXVII.

  “No GO, my dear fellow! — I must find out some other scheme,” said Mr. Foxcroft, in a bravado sort of tone, as he entered with a swing into the sanctum of Mr. O’Donagough’s library, “Matilda Perkins has absolutely nothing.”

  “Then how the devil do they contrive to live?” demanded Mr. O’Donagough, knitting his brows with an expression that was by no means conciliatory.

  “The money all belongs to the old one,” replied his friend.

  “All! Then, Foxcroft, you may make just twice as good a thing of it as you hoped to do. Contrive to pick a quarrel with the youngest; turn about and fall in love with the eldest, and you will exactly find yourself master of all, instead of half. I presume you are not very particular as to which of the two ladies you get with it?”

  “No, not I. But I am not quite such a fool as you seem to take me for, O’Donagough. I had wit enough to hit upon that scheme myself, and I tried it too, in pretty tolerable good style, I can tell you. But I might just as well make love to your iron coal-box there as to the old one. Egad, I never saw such a cold blooded old jade in the whole course of my life. She listened very quietly, but with just about as much sensibility as a post; and the real truth is, that women never do listen to love-making when they have got money, in the same way as when they have not.”

  “That is very likely, Mr. Foxcroft, and probably your own experience has suggested the observation; but I must beg leave to observe that it affords vastly little comfort to me, under my extremely inconvenient disappointment. I should be sorry to press any gentleman uncivilly; but you must be aware, sir, that affairs of this kind are very peculiar as to their immediate consequences. My name has just been put down by Sir Henry Seymour at two of the first-rate clubs, and you must know that it will be impossible for me to permit our acquaintance to continue under circumstances, excuse me, Mr. Foxcroft, so very disgraceful.”

  This was listened to with a wonderful degree of gentleness and equanimity, not a shadow of anger appearing on the long-visaged countenance of the ex-lieutenant.

  “True, O’Donagough, true as gospel!” he replied, “and if bleeding me could pay the money, upon my soul I’d hold out my arm for the operation. But what on earth can I do, my dear sir? I have never gone out of the gentlemanlike line yet, and I should be monstrous sorry to do it, because you know it is so devilish hard to get up again. But if there is nothing else for it, I suppose I must e’en submit, and get enrolled among some set of regular equalisers of property. God knows I would do anything rather than not settle my account with you.”

  “Welly sir, that is feeling and speaking exceedingly like a gentleman; and I beg to say in return that no man would be more unwilling than myself to harass a man of honour, under such circumstances. But the fact is, Foxcroft, and you know it very well, that if this transaction between us is not closed, and settled, you are, in point of fact, placed quite beyond my power to help you. I know, therefore, but of one mode by which I can prove how sincerely I still feel myself your friend, but this mode I cannot adopt without placing a degree of confidence in you which the length of our acquaintance, perhaps, hardly warrants. Professions at such a moment, we all know, come easily, and therefore if I consent to return the! O U which I hold, it must be done upon condition of your immediately giving me proof that you are ready to go all lengths to deserve it.”

  “Name your proofs, O’Donagough!” exclaimed Foxcroft, eagerly, and with the refreshed aspect of a man to whose parched and despairing looks the revivifying cup of hope is once more offered; “name your proofs, and if I shrink from them, proclaim what has passed in every gaming-house in London.”

  “Foxcroft!” replied Mr. O’Donagough, with a very unusual degree of solemnity, “I will speak to you with the most perfect sincerity. The truth is, that in order to carry out the purpose I have in view, I must trust somebody, and it is obvious, my good friend, that the most eligible person upon whom such confidence can be reposed, must be one whose reputation is in my power. This, to a man of your capacity and clear comprehension, is preface enough; and I shall therefore proceed at once to state what I shall require of you. The proofs to which I have alluded, will be given on your part by the skill and the will with which I shall see you conduct yourself on the first occasion that they may be called for.”

  No hungry dog, waiting with watery mouth for the scraps expected to fall from his master’s hand, ever fixed his eye upon that master with sharper eagerness than Mr. Foxcroft now did upon the face of Mr. O’Donagough.

  “You may well look anxious to listen to me, my good fellow,” resumed the master of the house, with a benignant smile, “for if I do not greatly miscalculate, a much finer career is at this moment about to open before you, than you can ever have hoped for, during the whole course of your existence. In my younger days, Foxcroft, I was once fortunate enough to pass a season in Paris under very favourable auspices. The wig which it suits me to wear now, my good fellow, may perhaps render it rather difficult for you to believe what a capital goodlooking, dashing blade I was, some five-and-twenty years ago. This helped me very greatly. I had one exceedingly serviceable introduction, and the rest of my good fortune grew out of it. In short, I had the entrée to some of the best houses in Paris, by which, as I presume you will conjecture, I do not mean the mansions either of the richest, the highest-born, or the most illustrious, in any of the ordinary and old-fashioned senses of the word. But in its way, the society I was thrown amongst was perfect, and I do not believe that even yet there are many houses in London which receive exactly on the same principle as those of which I speak in Paris. In the first place, high play is here almost entirely confined to the clubs; an exceedingly clumsy way of using an exceedingly good thing. Of the immense advantage and utility of these gambling clubs to society, of course nobody in their senses can doubt; nevertheless, there are many little peculiarities of play among many very fashionable and highly-distinguished men, which render the variety afforded by meeting quite young players in a private drawing-room extremely convenient and agreeable.

  “Of such drawing-r
ooms, Foxcroft, there are abundance in Paris, and I am determined that there shall at last be one here. How it will answer of course remains to be proved; but in this, as in every other experiment, almost everything depends upon the style and manner in which it is made. One essential feature in the scheme, and one, as you will believe, never lost sight of in Paris, is the obtaining by some means or other such a sprinkling of really good company, according to common vulgar parlance I mean, as may act as a decoy, or rather as an authority for the presence of such tyros as are at once, perhaps, the most difficult to lay hold of, and the most valuable when caught. In this respect I am very peculiarly well situated, and, indeed, I question whether without this advantage I should have ever ventured upon the scheme at all. My wife’s connections are, as you know, of a class that renders the presence of any of them a guarantee for the perfect respectability and bon ton of the salon in which they are seen, and though General Hubert and his family are at this moment abroad, Frederic Stephenson, a much more manageable person, by the way, than the stiff-backed general, comes to town immediately after Christmas, and will, I feel no doubt, extend to me exactly the sort of protection I want, and that, too, without having the slightest consciousness that he is doing it. There is a certain nobleman, also, an old crony of my wife’s, who is already in town, and has promised to visit her. I have inquired about him, and find he is the very man for us — sufficiently easy and liberal-minded to go wherever he can be amused, yet not at all permitting himself to drop out of good society. The two men you met here the other day at dinner, are, each of them in his respective way, highly valuable. Armondyle is one of the best and most gentlemanly players in London; and Seymour, as I am told, about the richest quite uncontrolled young man about town. Of course, if I get into the clubs, my list will rapidly increase; but you must be aware, my good friend, that let me get who I will here, nothing effectual, nothing masterly, can he done without a coadjutor. You understand me? Are you willing to become such?”

  With the air of a hero about to pledge his untarnished faith to the maintenance of some noble enterprise, Mr. Foxcroft held out his hand, and solemnly received that of O’Donagough in its grasp. “Let me hold this station near you, my most valued friend,” he said, “and never shall you repent the choice. You have probably perceived something in my manners, and in my character, which has led you to believe that I am not altogether unworthy of, or unfitted for, this situation; and without unseemly boasting, I may venture to say that you are not deceived. I am conscious that I may have many things against me, but, nevertheless, I am conscious also, that I possess both faculties and qualities which peculiarly fit me for the task. The outline of your scheme is distinctly clear before me; the filling up must, of course, depend both upon circumstances and your own individual inclinations. You have mentioned Sir Henry Seymour, for instance, and there can he no doubt in the world that he is quite a first-rate man to obtain as a frequenter of your salon. But, between friends, I should have thought that you had other projects for him. I have a great notion that your beautiful Patty has a fancy for him, and it would be a capital match, O’Donagough. However, that’s your concern, not mine. I can have no objection to your throwing open the preserve, as it were, and letting us share and share alike, if you think that a more profitable scheme than the other.”

  “Why, I am not sure that I should, Foxcroft, if that other were fairly in my hands to take or to leave; but I doubt it. I know perfectly well that the young fellow has been devilish sweet upon her, and that the poor little soul is over head and ears in love with him; but I strongly suspect that he never thought seriously about her, and that he has only been amusing himself by turning her young head for pure fun — a suspicion, as you will readily believe, not very likely to make me spare him at the board of green cloth. I have a hold upon him too, upon which it is not necessary to enter now, that I think will keep him effectually within my reach, and, as he will serve me as a decoy duck, and a pigeon, I mean, remember, in all ways to cultivate his acquaintance, and stand well in his eyes.”

  “It shall not be by fault of mine if you do not,” replied the faithful associate; and presently added, with the air of one who was making a very shrewd remark, “By the way, O’Donagough, that daughter of yours is a charming creature, and will count for something, you may depend upon it, among the attractions of your drawing-room.”

  “That is exactly what I have been thinking myself, Foxcroft; and to say the truth, I am not altogether sorry that there is no chance of her being caught up by this Sir. Henry immediately. She is very handsome — I never saw finer eyes in my life; and when she is a little more used to company, she will tell more in a drawing-room than she does now. I own that I wish her mother was not quite so large, — she would be an exceedingly fine woman still, if it were not for that. Just such a looking woman as she was, when I first knew her, is the very best partner a man can have in such a concern as we have been speaking of. She has a great deal of talent, however, and I have no doubt will do exceedingly well.”

  “There can, indeed, be no doubt of that,” replied Mr. Foxcroft impressively; “and now, my dear friend,” he continued, “let us come to particulars. Let me understand exactly your projects, your expectations, your arrangements. It is impossible to doubt for a moment your liberality; but in a business of this kind it is as absolutely necessary that everything should be openly expressed between the associates, as that nothing should be openly expressed beyond them. Here is pen and ink. Give me leave to set down from your own lips, precisely the terms on which you propose that we should carry on together this admirably-imagined scheme. Yet, imagine not from the phrase, carry on together, that I have any notion of a perfect equality as to the division of what may result from it; nothing like it, I assure you. I am perfectly aware that your stake is greater, not to mention that the merit, all the merit, of originating the plan is your own. I say this, that you may understand at once the fair and gentlemanly feeling with which I am desirous to proceed. And now, my dear O’Donagough, for particulars.”

  * * * * *

  While this conversation was going on in the library, a scene almost equally interesting, was passing in the drawing-room. Mr. O’Donagough haying learnt, by some means or other, that his lady’s former admirer, and what was more important as a trait of character, the magnificent donor of her shell necklace, was in town, proposed, with what she sensibly felt to be a very generous freedom from all narrow-minded jealousy, to take some active measures towards the renewal of an acquaintance from which, as she freely confessed, she had derived much pleasure.

  “But not for the world, my dear Donny,” she said, on his proposing this, “not for the world would I wish Lord Mucklebury to visit here, if his doing so would give you uneasiness. I will not deny, I never have denied, that at the time we parted, I regretted the unfortunate entanglement abroad, which obliged him to leave me. But subsequent events have, of course, reconciled me to this early disappointment, and I feel that I could see him now and introduce him to my husband and my child, without experiencing any emotion whatever, beyond what the purest friendship may authorise.”

  “Very well, then, my dear,” Mr. O’Donagough had replied, “that being the case, you shall sit down and write a note to him immediately, just saying, you know, that you should like to return your personal thanks for his having so kindly thought of you in the city of the Cæsars, or something of that kind, which shall look light and playful you understand?”

  “Oh! perfectly!” she replied. And this light and playful billet produced an answer from the still laughter-loving nobleman, which perfectly satisfied Mr. O’Donagough, and caused a very animating and youthful sort of flutter to pervade the entire frame of his sensitive wife.

  It was exactly at the time that Mr. O’Donagough was the most earnestly engaged with Mr. Foxcroft in the conversation that has been given above, that Lord Mucklebury made his entrée into the drawing-room of his umquhile Barnaby. His lordship’s note in promising this visit, had said, “
Lord Mucklebury will take an early opportunity.” and accordingly Mrs. O’Donagough had sat in state in her fine drawing-room every morning since, from midday to the hour of dinner, attired with a degree of captivating elegance which it had cost her some hours of meditation to devise. Her great object was to look as nearly as possible like what she had been some eighteen years before, when his lordship had made her poor heart leap like a porpoise after a storm, by addressing her as “Mia Barnabbia!” In unfading ringlets, and unfading rouge, she had great confidence, and her eyes too, she thought, had stood the test of time with almost unfading brightness. But she could not, poor lady! conceal from herself the disagreeable fact that of late years she had become what friends call embonpoint, and unfriends, corpulent. She felt, alas I that she was unwieldy; and that the majestic charpente, which had formerly assisted so largely (a villainous pun of Mr. O’Donagough’s) in obtaining for her the epithet of “a prodigious fine woman,” was become by the gradual increase of its fleshy clothing of a size by no means easy to dress gracefully. Of this she was, if not wholly, at least, in a great degree, conscious; and to neutralise the effects of this substantial impediment to beauty, she had for many days been occupied (but, unlike her general habit, silently occupied) on meditating the form and material of the dress in which she should for the first time re-appear before the eyes of Lord Mucklebury.

  The reader need hardly be told at this stage of her history, that Mrs. O’Donagough’s mind was one of no common order. If it had been, she would, beyond all question, have had recourse in this emergency to the ordinary and every-way vulgar operation of tight lacing. But Mrs. O’Donagough knew better. She knew perfectly well, that though it may be possible to transfer matter, it is beyond human power to annihilate it, and although under the circumstances she might have been tempted to exclaim,