Mrs. Hubert smiled, and bowed, and looked at Sir Henry Seymour, and then at her lovely daughter, as if to consult them both as to what her aunt was talking about, being herself quite at a loss to decide whether she were in jest or earnest. But she did not venture to speak, for fear of making some blunder, and Mrs. O’Donagough, increasing every moment in the delightful consciousness of causing unbounded astonishment, began again.
“And pray, Agnes dear, who is that?” she said, nodding her plumes in the direction of Miss Seymour; “it is not one of Frederic Stephenson’s girls, is it?”
“That young lady is Miss Seymour,” replied Mrs. Hubert, gravely.
“A sister of yours, my dear Sir Henry, eh? Pray introduce her, — I shall be quite delighted.”
Caroline Seymour, who was several years younger than her brother, and one of the most timid creatures that ever existed, started up the moment these words were spoken, and before her brother could perform the ceremony demanded of him, was already, though trembling and covered with blushes, close to Mrs. O’Donagough, and extending her hand with an air that gave her the appearance of being eagerly impatient to make the acquaintance.
Mrs. Hubert looked at her with astonishment, while Elizabeth Hubert, not too well knowing what she herself intended, rose also, and seizing the other hand of her young friend, endeavoured to draw her away, convinced that she was acting under some delusion, and that she fancied Mrs. O’Donagough had some claim upon her acquaintance which it was necessary she should acknowledge.
Elizabeth Hubert was partly right. Poor Caroline knew that the terrible-looking woman before whom she stood and trembled, had a claim upon her acquaintance, which, let her hate it ever so much, she would have acknowledged in church or market, in court or city, in public or in private. Clinging to her brother as her protector and only relative, loving him beyond all things, and knowing herself, all childish as she was, to be his only confidante, and adviser in the unfortunate secret, to the preservation of which he attached so much importance, she would have knelt at the feet of Mrs. O’Donagough, rather than offend her, knowing too well that this secret was in her keeping.
Mrs. O’Donagough herself looked rather astonished, and though in her present mood she would hardly have felt a salutation from royalty itself more than she had a right to expect, she nevertheless had some consciousness that this peculiar eagerness to make her acquaintance must have a peculiar cause, which, however, she was at no loss to find, for, after a moment’s consideration, she became persuaded that her shy, but still enamoured brother, must have enjoined it.
“A very nice, sweet-looking girl, indeed, Sir Henry,” said Mrs. O’Donagough, continuing to hold Caroline’s hand, as in a vice, and looking up in her face with a leer of playful protection; “you may bring her to us whenever you will, Sir Henry. Patty, who, as you well know, is the sweetest-tempered creature in the world, will be quite delighted to take notice of her, and she will soon teach her not to be so terribly shy; upon my honour, the dear girl trembles like an aspen leaf. You must not be afraid of us, my dear — your brother, Sir Henry, you know, is a very old friend of ours, he and Patty, you know, are great cronies. There, come, don’t quiver and quake so, as if you were talking to some proud stiff old empress; ask your brother if we ever stand upon ceremony with him? No, no, all that is nonsense, my dear; let my style and station be what they may, I shall never hold myself above taking notice of warmhearted, affectionate young people, who are fond of us; and that I am quite sure you will he, as well as your brother Henry. Patty! make room for this dear girl on that great three-cornered chair that you have put yourself into — nothing like close quarters for making intimate acquaintance.”
Thus commanded, Patty did collect her flowing gros de Naples a little, and Miss Seymour placed her shrinking, delicate figure beside that of the bouncing beauty. But Patty, suddenly catching the expression of Sir Henry’s countenance, which certainly spoke anything but pleasure at the position of his sister, remembered all her injuries at once, and very decidedly shouldering the new friend her mother had bestowed on her, exclaimed, “Lor! mamma! I wonder you didn’t tell her to sit in my lap.”
“Caroline!” said Sir Henry, in a voice neither clear nor sweet, “I beg that you will not inconvenience Miss O’Donagough; place yourself here, if you please;” and he pushed a chair towards her as he spoke.
The timid girl immediately took possession of it, and considering that, notwithstanding her mimosa-like shyness, she had been always accounted peculiarly graceful in her demeanour, she certainly looked more awkward and abashed than was at all intelligible. Mrs. O’Donagough laughed.
“Sir Henry is right, Patty, isn’t he?” said she, “he wouldn’t mind it himself, perhaps, but I suppose he thinks young ladies’ dresses mayn’t agree, whatever they do themselves — it did look a little like what we call riding Jolliphant in my country, two ladies upon one horse, you know — and the men never approve of that. But, come Patty! upon my honour and life we mustn’t be staying any longer. What will Lady Susan say if we don’t keep our appointment with her? Good bye, Agnes — good bye, Elizabeth — be sure you come to see me, Mary. What’s your name? Henderson? Well! I shall be very glad to see you: of course, when a woman marries again, the relations of her first husband can’t be quite so near and dear to her as a child by the second. But, notwithstanding that, I’ll promise to make you welcome, and my old friend Elizabeth here, too, though she does look a little as if she could not forgive my saying she was thin, and quizzing her about being an old maid. Forget and forgive, Elizabeth! you and I used to be monstrous thick, you know; and so we will again, if you’ll come and tell me lots of Clifton gossip, as you used to do. Good bye, you dear little Seymour, you! she is the very picture of her brother, and he is such a pet with us all! Good bye, Sir Henry! don’t come down. There is nobody puts me into my carriage, like my own footman.”
With these words, and a sort of circular nod, she swam out of the room; and Patty, with another nod, rather less circular, and infinitely less gracious, bounced after her; though not, it may be observed, without Mrs. Hubert’s allowing to herself, that though as vulgar as ever, the young lady had decidedly grown extremely handsome.
CHAPTER XXIX.
FOR a full minute and a half after the departure of Mrs. O’Donagough and her daughter, silence the most perfect reigned in the drawing-room of Mrs. Hubert. The palsy of astonishment had fallen upon them all, with the exception of poor Sir Henry, and their powers of articulation seemed destroyed by it. Mrs. Henderson was the first who recovered herself sufficiently to speak.
“Why did you not tell me, Agnes, into what full-blown dignity your aunt was expanded? Full well do I remember the sort of terror and trembling with which my mother used to contemplate her feathers and flounces at Clifton. But though the feathers and flounces remain much the same, the change in their august wearer is prodigious! I do not mean solely from her having spread out into such startling immensity, — you had in some degree prepared me for that. But why did you conceal the increase of wealth and dignity which seems to have fallen upon her? my weak mind is perfectly overpowered.”
“Not more than mine, dear Mary!” replied Mrs. Hubert, laughing; “I do not comprehend it the least in the world. She surprised us, as I told you, by suddenly descending upon us at Brighton, when we all fancied she was safely lodged for life in Australia. But though very showily dressed, and perpetually assuring us that her husband was a man of family and fortune, and a most perfect gentleman, we never had any reason to believe that these statements were more strictly correct respecting Mr. O’Donagough’s position in life, than respecting himself; he is by no means an ill-behaved person, looking more like a methodist parson than anything else, but no more like a gentleman than Elizabeth’s poodle; and as to their manner of living, it was very nearly what you may remember my aunt’s to have been at Clifton. The carriage and horses, and the footmen, are all quite new.”
“Have you known them long, Sir Henry Seymour?
” said Mrs. Henderson, turning to the young baronet.
“Yes, — no, no, not very long, certainly,” he replied, while his whole face became crimson.
“At any rate, you seem to be treated as a most intimate friend,” observed Mrs. Hubert, looking at him with astonishment, “and perhaps you may be able to tell, better than any of us, though we arc all such near relations, how long Mrs. O’Donagough has lived in a fine house in Curzon-street, and possessed a carriage and footman to talk about.”
“She certainly meets me with much familiarity,” replied the young man, dropping his eyes, but at the same time permitting his countenance to express no inconsiderable degree of hauteur, “yet, believe me, I have no right to boast of knowing much about her. I have ‘never known her in London but in this same house in Curzon-street, and as far as I know, she has always had a carriage.”
“Well, then! all we can say, dear Mary, is that our aunt is a richer lady than we imagined,” said Mrs. Hubert.
“Oh! she always told us she was very rich, you know,” said Miss Peters, “and I remember the time when she told my poor father that she intended to leave all her money to us, because it came from our uncle Barnaby.”
“Nay, Elizabeth, it cannot be Barnaby money that supports this gay London establishment. I remember your good uncle’s manner of living perfectly. My good uncle, let me call him too, for it is impossible that anything could be more kind and liberal than he was to me. But his fortune could never, I am very sure, support the style of living that we have been hearing of to-day.”
“Is it possible, then, that the man she brought to our house, just before you married, Agnes, and with whom she immediately sailed for Australia, could have been really a man of family and fortune, as she says? I remember the man perfectly. He was a great many years younger than herself, and it is hardly conceivable that he should have married such a woman, excepting for the sake of her fortune.”
“And he was a very handsome man, too. I remember him perfectly, as well, as you, Mary,” observed Elizabeth Peters, “and I always supposed that he must have married aunt Barnaby, because he had no fortune of his own.”
“Mr. O’Donagough has lost his beauty since that time, Elizabeth, as I think you will allow, when you see him; and; I confess, I do not perceive any remains of it. I have not, indeed, the slightest recollection as to what he was like, when he made his visit in Rodney-place; but at present he is anything but well-looking,” said Mrs. Hubert.
“I suppose a call upon my uncle Barnaby’s widow is a duty imperative upon us?” said Mrs. Henderson. “I think my mother herself would say so, though she was not very particularly partial to the lady personally.”
“I think you must go there, dear friend,” returned Agnes, “and in your case this offering to propriety is easily paid. You do not live in London, and may therefore consider yourselves safe from any great or lasting annoyance. This early visit to us would, I confess, rather alarm me for our peace and quiet, were it not that I perceive we are no longer of the same importance to her as formerly. Her manner to me is entirely changed. I, as well as you, Mary, escaped without even an embrace, and I assure you that the time has been, since her return from Australia, when she has held me so long in her arms, that I almost felt doubtful if I should escape from them alive. My dear father too! Thank heaven! she seems altogether to have forgotten him; he is in very delicate health, and her vehement caresses, and unceasing attentions fatigued him dreadfully. Besides, dear man! he always seemed to think that it would be treating my mother’s memory with disrespect, if he were otherwise than affectionate to her sister; I have perfectly dreaded his returning to England, lest he should be again thrown in her way. But she never named him, and it is evident to me that she has got into a set of her own that she prefers to every other. I shall return her call without the slightest feeling of alarm, and we can go together, if you like it.”
It is probable that Mrs. Hubert prolonged this discussion a little, in order to give her young friend, Caroline Seymour, time to recover from the very evident embarrassment which the recent scene had occasioned her. Her brother was still hanging over her chair, and whispering something that seemed like a gentle remonstrance. Elizabeth Hubert sat gazing at them with a sort of painful surprise on her beautiful and expressive countenance, which did not escape her mother, who in her heart was longing even for her dearly-loved Mrs. Henderson to go, that she might speak to her.
At length the visit of her old friends, who were in London only for a few weeks, was brought to a conclusion by Miss Peters reminding her sister of the necessity for their driving to some distant shop before they returned home to the early dinner which was to precede their going to the play. Sir Henry Seymour had taken his leave before, and Caroline, on whose soft cheek the traces of tears were visible when she raised her head to bid him adieu, followed him out of the room, and had not since returned, so that Mrs. Hubert and her daughter were tête-á-tête.
“What can be the reason, mamma, of Sir Henry Seymour’s permitting his sister to make the acquaintance of Mrs. O’Donagough ?” said Elizabeth, the moment their visitors were gone. “It is, it must be, his doing, and his wish. Caroline never has any will but his, yet it was impossible not to see her repugnance to this introduction, though she put herself forward in a way she never did before to meet it. What can it mean?”
“I am quite as much at a loss as you are, Elizabeth. Did Caroline ever mention to you her brother’s acquaintance with the O’Donagoughs?”
“Yes, mamma; but what she said was not so much informing me of his acquaintance with them, as inquiring of me, whether they were really our relations.”
“And when was this, Elizabeth?”
“During the fortnight that Sir Henry passed with us at Paris last year, when he brought over Caroline.”
“Can you remember exactly what she said? She must have given some reason for asking the question.”
“I recollect thinking that she felt very much ashamed at asking the question, and that was the reason I never mentioned it to you. She asked it very earnestly, and as if she were much interested in the answer; but when I had replied to all her questions, which I did, of course, very frankly, she coloured so much, and seemed, as I thought, to be so extremely ashamed of her curiosity, that I fancied it would he treacherous, and like betraying her having committed a fault, if I repeated the conversation to you.”
“Has she ever referred to the conversation since?”
Never.”
“Will you tell me, Elizabeth, exactly what it was she did ask of you?”
Elizabeth meditated for a moment, and then replied —
“I remember perfectly that the question appeared to me at the time, to be à propos of nothing, and it was asked a very few hours after their arrival; as soon, indeed, as we were alone together. As well as I can recollect, her words were, ‘Will you tell me, dear Elizabeth, if you have any relations of the name of O’Donagough?’ I answered, ‘Yes, we have; mamma has an aunt who is married to a person of that name.” Have they ever been in Australia, and have they a daughter?’ demanded Caroline. I answered ‘Yes’ to both these questions, and then ventured to inquire why she was so anxious to know. It was then that she seemed to think she was doing wrong, for she coloured violently, and actually trembled, exactly as she did to-day. ‘It was my brother,’ she said, ‘it was on his account that I wished to know.’ I wished excessively to ask for what reason he could he curious about it, but I did not, because I saw that she was positively suffering; so from that time to this, the name of O’Donagough has never been mentioned by either of us.”
“Sir Henry must have met them accidentally,’” said Mrs. Hubert, “when they probably did us the honour to mention the relationship, which, perhaps, he did us the honour of disbelieving, and feeling some curiosity to ascertain the truth, commissioned his sister to inquire.”
“Yes, exactly so, mamma; that is precisely the way in which I interpreted the thing myself, and it was because I thou
ght the curiosity both natural and pardonable, that I chose to say nothing about it. But it strikes me that though your suggestion accounts perfectly for what passed at Paris, it throws no light whatever on the extraordinary scene of to-day. It was very natural that Sir Henry Seymour, if acquainted with the O’Donagough family, might doubt their relationship to you, mamma; but the having ascertained that such was the fact, could not surely render it necessary for Caroline to testify such extraordinary eagerness for an introduction, and such very vehement emotion when it took place. I saw Sir Henry’s countenance too, and its expression was perfectly extraordinary. He may have been very much surprised, and shocked too, perhaps, at discovering that Mrs. O’Donagough was our aunt, though that is presuming him to be a very silly person indeed, but even that will not account, no, not in the least degree, for the species of emotion which his features betrayed. I am quite sure there is some mystery in all this.”
“I cannot conceive the possibility of any,” replied Mrs. Hubert. “The notion of Sir Henry Seymour and the family of O’Donagough having any mystery in common, is too preposterous; time generally explains all things, and we must trust to his agency, Elizabeth, to explain this.”
The few moments occupied by this conversation was a longer period of time than Mrs. Hubert and her daughter had passed together tête-à-tête since their arrival in Berkeley-square, and another burst of thunder at the door now told them that it was over. Another, and another succeeded, as the time for the high tide of gossip approached, and the drawing-room looked almost full when again the thunder came, and Lord Mucklebury was announced.
This facetious nobleman, though not a very intimate, was a very old acquaintance of the Hubert family, and seeing that close access to Mrs. Hubert was for the time impossible, as every seat near her was occupied, he deposited his heavy person in a large fauteuil just behind Elizabeth, and after expressing in cordial but courtly phrase his admiration and astonishment at her growth and her beauty, he began uttering and discussing jokes and gossip, in his usual style, concerning everybody whom he conceived to be of her acquaintance.
Collected Works of Frances Trollope Page 267