Collected Works of Frances Trollope

by Frances Milton Trollope

  Mrs. Heathcote, very considerably alarmed at having Florence’s feet caught on the sofa, almost stood up, in order to give her the shelter of her person as a screen, than which she certainly could not desire a better; but there would have been something in this proceeding so foreign to the very nature of the good lady’s spirit, that, instead of accomplishing the manœuvre, she rather pointed out than concealed the delinquency by her position and attitude, and then said, “It was my doing, sir, and not hers, I do assure you; and now, to be sure, I am quite ashamed of what I have done, and can only beg you to forgive me!”

  “What have you done, my dear Mrs. Heathcote?” said Mr. Thorpe, with a very encouraging smile, and fixing his eyes on Florence, who thus suddenly awakened blushed like a wild rose, and really looked as beautiful as the kind step-mother herself could have desired.

  “Oh dear! Mr. Thorpe you are very polite, and very kind too, not to be angry with me; but the position in which you found this poor dear child was altogether my doing. Young people, of course, ought not to lie about upon such beautiful furniture as this; but, poor dear thing! she did look so very tired, that I could not resist the temptation of making her lie down for a minute or two, and then she fell asleep, no more thinking of your green satin than if it had been the green grass-plot at home.”

  Had Mrs. Heathcote herself been one of the candidates for the heirship of the Thorpe property, the question of the inheritance would probably have been settled at that moment. Though a little brusque in manner, and occasionally sudden and hot in speech, the heart of the old gentleman was one of more than common gentleness; and no qualities touched him so much as those which demonstrated an overflowing of the milk of human kindness and the absence of all self-exalting airs and graces. As he stood gazing at the fat mass of affectionate good-nature before him, his heart reproached him sternly and bitterly for having committed the paltry littleness of being angry with her for admiring his dinner-table and his dinner. Good Mrs. Heathcote herself would have been exceedingly vexed had she been aware how greatly her unstepdame-like affection for poor Florence eclipsed the object of it. Mr. Thorpe certainly gave one look of almost wondering admiration at the unexpected loveliness of the blushing young face before him, but he speedily turned again to her kind-hearted neighbour, and was in the act of squeezing himself in between them, when his eye caught another interesting object at a little distance, which awakened a fresh train of ideas, and caused a renewal of his self-reproaches, because, till thus seen, he had forgotten it Sophia Martin, who at the moment of Mr. Thorpe’s entrance was standing in the centre of the three Misses Wilkyns, by that time all congregated at the piano-forte, no sooner saw the venerated figure of her uncle, than quietly gliding from the place where she stood she brought her neat little person behind a large armchair, at no great distance from the Heathcote party, and there stood very nearly hid, till, just as the old gentleman was seating himself, he caught sight of her meek eyes fixed upon his own face with an expression of timid affection and respect that was very striking.

  “God bless my soul!” exclaimed Mr. Thorpe, recovering his feet, “a pretty uncle I am, and a courteous host! It is your fault, Mrs. Heathcote, it is, indeed; but, absolutely, for a moment I forgot that I had any guests but yourself and your pretty Florence here.... and there stand a whole bevy of beauties, all my own nieces into the bargain, — not to mention this dear little girl, who is hiding herself because she is ashamed of me, I believe, and looking, too, as if she could find in her heart to be kind to her ill-bred old uncle, if be would but let her.”

  Thus speaking, Mr Thorpe pushed aside the arm-chair, and taking Sophia’s two hands in his, impressed a paternal kiss upon her forehead.

  This was the first kiss the old gentleman had bestowed on any of his fair relations, and it produced considerable effect. The three Misses Wilkyns looked at one another, and it is probable they thought that their turn would come next. Mrs. Heathcote looked at Florence, and inwardly ejaculated, “There is no accounting for taste.” Sophia herself, the gentle, timid Sophia, trembled very perceptibly, and, for a moment, her eyes were fixed upon the ground; but in the next she looked up, and with a sudden movement that appeared perfectly irresistible, she grasped the hands which had held her own the moment before, and raising them to her lips kissed them passionately. Then, terrified at what she had done, she drooped her head and murmured —

  “Forgive me! forgive me! lam fatherless and motherless! and I cannot bear such kindness!” This burst of emotion was not distinctly audible to any ears but those of Mr. Thorpe, but he heard every word she said quite clearly, and was very much touched by the forlorn and desolate feeling they expressed.

  “Poor little thing!” thought he. “It is sad, very sad, to feel oneself so alone in the world!” and he patted her dark and carefully placed curls as tenderly as if they had hung over the prettiest face in the world.

  At this moment Mrs. Heathcote felt some one pinching the back of her neck, and turning suddenly round perceived Algernon, who, on the entrance of Mr. Thorpe, had twisted himself round the sofa, and deposited his lanky length of limb on a low chair in the rear of it. —

  “Mother! who do you think will inherit Thorpe-Combe?” he whispered close to her ear, and then retreated again pretty effectually out of sight of everybody.

  CHAPTER V.

  Of course this first evening was a very important one; and therefore, long as the day’s history has already been, a few more pages must be devoted to it.

  Having recovered himself from the emotion occasioned by the above-mentioned touching little scene with Sophia, Mr. Thorpe stepped onward to the pianoforte, and congratulated himself upon seeing that three of his nieces appeared to be attracted by it.

  “I wish I had three Welsh harps for you, my dear girls,” he said; “I love music, and I have a great predilection for what is national in every country.”

  “Old brute!” whispered Miss Eldruda to Miss Elfreda Wilkyns.

  “Our native harps are seen more in the hands of our servants than of our ladies,” said the eldest of the heiresses. “But if you love Welsh music, dear uncle,” she added, correcting herself, as she remembered that she was the eldest daughter of the eldest sister of the Thorpe race, and that it would be a finer thing to be the heiress of thousands than of hundreds, “if you love Welsh music, dear uncle, I can sing as many Welsh songs to you as you will. There is one in which every verse records the deeds of one of our ancestors, all in a direct line. The Wilkynses are a very fine old family.”

  “I think Sir Charles Temple will like to hear you sing that song, my dear,” replied the terrified old man, wickedly and maliciously determined to make his faithful ally sustain the fire of all the aps which his sensitive nerves shrank from; “so we won’t have it till he comes. But perhaps my little Sophia, or Florence, or some of you, may be able to give us in the mean time something less historic. Which is the nightingale, par excellence, among you all?”

  “Upon my word I know nothing about the singing of our cousins,” returned Miss Wilkyns, with a little smile. “My sisters and myself have made a study of music, and I believe we are all pretty tolerable proficients.”

  “That’s well!” said Mr. Thorpe, yawning without much ceremony; and turning abruptly round, he encountered the person of Sophia within an inch of him. She had followed with a soft stealthy pace, as if fearing to disturb anybody and everybody, but now, caught in the presumption of having followed him, she ventured to say, in a voice trembling from timidity....

  “Did you not say that you wished for tea, sir? Nobody has rung the bell yet. May I do it?”

  “Thank you, love, thank you. Do; there’s a darling. I am very fond of tea, Sophy; and very fond of having it nicely made. Can you make tea, my dear?”

  “Aunt Heathcote always makes the tea at home, uncle. But I think I could make it for you, if you would let me try.... May I, uncle?”

  “My dear child, I don’t suppose that Mrs. Barnes, my mistress of the ceremonies,
will think it right and proper that any of you should have the trouble of makings tea. She will send it in ready-made, I have no doubt. But it’s a horrid way of having tea, that. It is never good for anything....cold and miserable..., half of it in the saucer, and always either too strong or too weak to drink. But I must take my chance with the rest, Sophy.” Sophia upon this glided away from him, and making her way with her usual soft noiseless movement in and out among the chairs and tables, got out of the room unseen by all save Algernon, who, rarely conversing much, amused himself by looking about him more than most people.

  On reaching the ball, Miss Martin remained fixed for a moment at the bottom of the great staircase, uncertain as to the best method of obtaining a sight of Mrs. Barnes, a confidential interview with whom was the object she had in view. A little reflection, however, sufficed to decide her movements; and taking a wax-light that she found ready lighted on a marble table at the foot of the stairs, she mounted to the room in which she had dressed.

  Many ladies, and many gentlemen too, might have found some difficulty in that wide rambling mansion in discovering a room into which they had been ushered with considerable bustle and confusion, but Sophia Martin never forgot any path she had once trod, any stairs she had once mounted, or any door she had once passed through; so she walked directly, and without a shadow of turning, to the apartment in which she had dressed, and where she found two tapers burning on her table, and a bright fire blazing on her hearth. For one short moment she was tempted to seat herself in the low arm-chair which stood invitingly before it; for Sophia Martin liked comfort exceedingly, and had not always been able to enjoy so much of it as she desired. But she speedily recollected that she bad not left the drawing-room for the purpose of enjoying the idle delight of an arm-chair; and smiling as some other thought occurred to her, she rose from its coaxing embrace, and having rang her bell, awaited the effect of it, with her dark eye fixed upon the fire, and with an expression as far as possible removed from that of thoughtless indolence. Thoughtless indolence, indeed, was by no means her besetting sin.

  The bell was very quickly answered, but not by Mrs. Barnes. It was her niece Nancy who appeared at the door, requesting to know if anything was wanted.

  “It was Mrs. Barnes the housekeeper whom I wished to see,” said Sophia, in the gentlest and most gracious voice in the world.

  “I will send my aunt here directly, Miss,” said Nancy, retreating.

  “Your aunt, is she? Do step in for a moment, will you?” said Sophia, in, if possible, a sweeter voice than before. “What I wanted to say.... Do tell me what your name is, will you? I hope you will always come when I ring.... But you must tell me your name.”

  “Nancy, Miss,” said the young woman, very respectfully, “Shut the door, will you, Nancy, for one half-minute. What I wanted to say to your aunt, was about my dear good uncle’s tea.... How you must all love him, Nancy!... He seems to me the dearest, kindest creature, I ever met with in all my life! Oh Nancy! — you would not wonder at my saying so, if you knew what a very, very unhappy girl I have always been, — no father, no mother, Nancy! not even an aunt as you have! No wonder, then, that his kindness is something very new, and very dear to me!”.... and here Miss Martin drew forth her pocket-handkerchief, and put it to her eyes.

  “I dare say, Miss, you will find him very kind,” replied the girl, with a little increase of familiarity, and decrease of respect. “But what is it, if you please, that you have got to say to my aunt Barnes?.... I can take her the message if you like it.”

  “Oh! I dare say it will do just as well, speaking to you, Nancy. It was a message from him about his tea. He desires, that instead of having it sent in to him, like the rest of the company, she will send in the tea-things for him by himself, exactly as if nobody was here. Do you understand, Nancy? And then I am to make it for him. And it is to be done in the same way every evening. Don’t let there be any mistake, there’s a dear good girl. He seemed to be so delighted with the scheme when he had thought of it; and I would not for the world have him disappointed through any bungling of mine. You understand, Nancy, don’t you? Let a little tea-tray, and tea-pot, and one cup and saucer come in directly.”

  “Oh dear! yes, Miss, — I understand, and I’ll tell aunt directly, and she’ll sec about it, you may depend upon it. She knows all his odd ways better than anybody.”

  “Poor dear uncle! He has got a few odd ways then, has he, Nancy?” said Sophia, lingering a little as she passed through the door.

  “Why, as for that, Miss, I don’t suppose there is many as hav’n’t, gentle or simple. I don’t mean to say that he is any way worse than his neighbours.”

  “Worse.?.... Oh! Nancy, I am sure you have said nothing but what makes me love him better and better. Dear, dear uncle Thorpe! And to think of his being so kind to a poor orphan girl like me!.... And I never get liked by strangers; if is not my way. I wish, Nancy, you would promise always to come to me while I stay here, to do any little thing I may happen to want, for I feel now as if I had made acquaintance with you, and I shall like you so much better than any one else?.... Will you promise always to come?”

  “Yes, Miss, certainly,” replied Nancy.

  “By the by, Nancy, did you ever see the sort of knitting the people do in our neighbourhood, as comforters for the wrist? You can’t think how warm they keep the hands; and they are pretty too, I think, when the colour are good. Look, here is a pair I have just got new, and they suit your sort of bright complexion exactly. I will give them to you, if you would like to have them.”

  Nancy declared that she should like to have them very much, whereupon they were transferred to her with a most amiable smile; and then, begging her not to lose a single moment’s time about sending in the tea, Miss Martin nodded a familiar farewell and returned to the drawing-room.

  She found all the gentlemen standing on or very near the hearthrug, and sipping their coffee. Her quiet entrance appeared to be observed by no one; and having said a fond word or two to her dear cousin Elfreda, she contrived in the most easy and natural manner in the world to place herself beside a snug little table, at no great distance from the fire, having another chair of the most inviting description standing near it. Here she seated herself as if thinking of nothing at all, except, perhaps, keeping herself out of the way of everybody; for though too smoothly quiet in her movements to permit the charge of awkwardness to be brought against her, she could neither stand, move, nor sit down, without everybody’s perceiving that she was almost shrinking into the earth with shyness.

  Mr. Thorpe’s kind-hearted notice would, doubtless, have been attracted by this sort of timid self-banishment, had he not been engaged by behaving with peculiar civility to the gentlemen of the party, towards whom he perhaps felt that he had been somewhat wanting in attention. He had, however, the satisfaction of finding them very easily propitiated. Mr. Wilkyns, indeed, seemed to keep his eyes open with considerable difficulty; but Major Heathcote and Mr. Spencer were full of chat, and though the old gentleman rather avoided looking Sir Charles Temple in the face, suspecting that he might get a reproachful glance if he did, he heard his pleasant voice in lively conversation with Mrs. Heath - cote, and altogether was exceedingly well satisfied with the progress his guests appeared to be making towards entertaining one another.

  Things were in this state when the door was thrown open, and a servant entered, bearing an enormous tray, filled with tea-cups redolent of fragrant steam.

  “I have failed, then!” quietly sighed Sophia Martin. “That hateful Barnes is mistress here!”

  Again the door opened, and again Miss Martin raised her eyes, and this time not in vain. A lesser servant, and a lesser tray now made their appearance. Everything was exactly as the young lady wished to see it; a little tea-pot, and a little kettle and lamp, a little cream jug, and one little cup and saucer. It was perfect; and with her own unrivalled suavity of mien and of movement, she contrived to conjure the apparatus to her side, and saw it deposited upo
n the selected table, almost without any single person there being aware that she had anything to do with it.

  Having achieved this, Miss Martin examined her little tray, and to her great consolation found that all her doubts as to whether she was to make green tea, or black tea, and all her difficulties as to where she was to get either, were solved and removed by the appearance of a miniature silver canister, containing a very exquisite specimen of the finest plant that China could boast. Having with noiseless but rapid fingers submitted this to the process of infusion, she left her place, and happily arrived at her uncle’s side, before the huge circulating cabaret had reached him.

  “Are you ready for your tea now, uncle?” said Sophia, in her most silver voice.

  “Eh? what? Ready for tea, my dear? Oh yes! I am always ready for tea, if tea is ready for me. But between you and me, Sophy dear, the stuff that is coming this way does not deserve the name.”

  “But if you will come this way, uncle, you will find that I have got some that you will like better — some that I have made on purpose for you.”

  “You? my dear child! Upon my word that is very kind of you. God bless my soul! how very comfortable it looks; my dear kettle and all. Why, Sophy, you are a little witch. How upon earth did you contrive to find out precisely the very thing that was wanted? And, then, how upon earth did you contrive to get it?”

  “As to the last, uncle Thorpe, I had only just to send a message to your good Mrs. Barnes, who to be sure is the very kindest, cleverest person I ever met with, and then I was quite certain of having all that was wanted. So this answers both questions at once. All my share in the business consists in having discovered that you were wishing for a cup of tea made according to your usual mode; and of course, when I found that, I was determined, somehow or other, that you should have it. The merit belongs, I assure you, altogether to Mrs. Barnes.”

  The old gentleman sipped his tea with more than usual relish, looking the while with great complacency at the little quiet dispenser of it.