Collected Works of Frances Trollope

by Frances Milton Trollope

  “That would not suit me at all, certainly,” replied Miss Martin Thorpe with a shiver. “Go immediately, and order that every room in the house be made fit for my inspection in an hour.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Mrs. Barnes, preparing to leave the room with all dispatch.

  “But I cannot let that hour be wasted, Barnes. As soon as you have given the order, come back to me; I have much to say to you, as you may well suppose.”

  “Without doubt, ma’am, there is a deal to settle; and I’ll speak your orders, and be back in no time.”

  During the absence of the housekeeper, which was lengthened by the necessity of giving a few particular instructions, naturally consequent upon her mistress’s purpose of penetrating into all the rooms, Miss Martin Thorpe was engaged in a discussion with her self on the comparative advantages of making Mrs. Barnes stand, or permitting her to sit, during the long conversation which it was her purpose to hold with her. The dignity obtained by obliging her to stand, was balanced by the probability of freer discussion, if she sat, and she finally decided on the sitting scheme; not from any foolish and wholly unnecessary consideration for the aching bones of the old woman, but from the well-digested persuasion that a certain portion of gossiping, judiciously employed, would be of the most important service to a family constituted as hers would be, and in some degree necessary, perhaps, in the intercourse between every understanding mistress of a family and the individual appointed as her prime minister.

  In consequence of the line of conduct thus adopted, Mrs. Barnes was received on her return with a very gracious nod. “Sit down, Mrs. Barnes,” said the heiress. “We must necessarily have many things to talk about before I can feel myself settled; and I would much rather have you sit, than not.”

  “I thank you, ma’am,” was the reply; and Mrs. Barnes sat down.

  “Are you aware, Barnes, that I have invited my elder guardian, Major Heathcote, to come here, accompanied by all his family, to remain with me till I come of age?” said Sophia.

  “I heard, ma’am, that the Major’s family was expected,” replied the old woman.

  “Of coarse, Mrs. Barnes, you must be aware that no young person of my age would prefer such an arrangement if it could be avoided. Having a large family to maintain is a great burden upon me, and the filling my house in such a manner, extremely inconvenient. But the Heathcotes, I am sorry to say, Barnes, are so extremely poor, that the taking them in daring my minority will be doing them a most essential service. They mean, poor things, to spend a part of what they will save by my supporting them in this way upon the education of their three younger daughters, who, Heaven knows! want it bad enough. But besides these three girls, who unfortunately will have two holidays to spend here, there are three boys at school, whom of course it will be utterly impossible for me to receive at all. I dare say you know What school boys are, Mrs. Barnes; and then, Heaven help me! there are two little ones more, who, I suppose, must remain in the house, as well as the eldest of all, the tall girl that you may remember seeing here at Christmas, who is really upon the whole not at all ill-behaved, and she is besides my own cousin, which, as long as she conducts herself properly, will always make a difference with me. This is a tremendous large family, my good Barnes, and is enough, I am afraid, to make you tremble, as well as me. But I trust nobody will blame me for bringing this burden upon myself. I am sure my motives are good; a feeling of propriety, Mrs. Barnes, makes me wish to retain near me the protector appointed by my lamented uncle, as long as my age shall render it necessary; and a feeling of charity, which, if imprudent, must be pardonable, has led me to include the whole family in the invitation.”

  “It will make the house more cheerful and pleasant for you, I hope, ma’am,” replied Mrs. Barnes, in a voice of encouragement.

  “Noise never makes me cheerful, Mrs. Barnes,” replied her mistress with a sigh; “but I must make the best of it. There is one fact, however, and a very important one, which I must not conceal from your knowledge. The income allowed me during my minority by my guardians would be extremely handsome were I about to spend it, as everybody would expect I should, upon myself. But it will be very little, Barnes, to maintain all this immense family, and at the same time keep up appearances in such a manner as not to disgrace myself, or bring contempt upon the memory of my dear and ever-to-be-lamented uncle. This, however, we must contrive to do; and I trust greatly to your cleverness and good management, Barnes, for being able to get through all my difficulties. May I hope, Barnes, that your respect for the memory of your late dear master will induce you to be a faithful servant to me?”

  “Why, to say the truth, Miss Martin Thorpe,” replied the old woman, “my notion was to retire upon the bounty left to me by your dear uncle, ma’am. But I should be very loth, and hold myself in no ways excusable to leave his heir and representative in a strait and distress for the want of a faithful servant to stand by her. You would not have found the money in the funds run up so, ma’am, if I had not helped him, early and late, to look after it. For though he was in no degree extravagant in his own expenses, quite the contrary, as we all know, still he was often unaccountable careless, or would have been if I’d have let him. So that I do feel, and I won’t deny it, that my biding with you would help considerable to get you through this next year that is to be. But, for certain sure, my notion was to go and board in my brother’s family, and trouble myself no more about anything.”

  “And a very good scheme, too, Barnes, a little time hence; but if you are the wise woman I take you for, you will not be against adding a little more ready money to your store, which added to the saving of your annuity would mount up to something that would be worth while to leave behind you. And this will give you more consideration with your friends than even your handsome annuity. You should remember, too, that you are quite in the very flower of your usefulness, if not of your strength, and that it is almost a sin to sit down idle as yet.”

  “My poor master has chose a sensible young lady to be his heir, though she don’t just happen to be the beauty of the bunch,” thought Mrs. Barnes, as she listened to this speech; “and if he could hear and see us, there is no question but that he would wish me to serve her.” These thoughts did not suggest themselves in vain, and when the young lady ceased to speak the old woman replied, “Well, ma’am, I will be no hindrance to your doing all the good that you wish, and will consent to make up a year of service with you, from the time you corned to be mistress here. But there is one word, ma’am, that I hope as you will give me leave to say, afore we goes on to other business.... and that is about my niece, ma’am. You was so kind and condescending when you was here before as to take a great deal of notice of her, and Nancy has a proper grateful heart as ever girl had; and she was in hopes, Miss Martin Thorpe, that she might have had the good luck to be chose as your own maid, ma’am, for which her handiness makes her remarkable fit. But we see, ma’am, that the good fortune of having the honour to wait upon you is given to Mrs. Roberts, and nothing to say against it, I’m sure, for she is altogether a most civil and respectable-looking lady’s-maid. But as my niece has missed of that, ma’am, I have beep thinking that if it was your pleasure to give her hopes of filling the place of housekeeper, after me, I might be useful both to you, ma’am, and to her, at one and the same time, by putting her exact into all the right ways of doing everything. But this, of course, Miss Martin Thorpe, it is for you to decide.”

  “I have no objection at all, Mrs. Barnes, to Nancy’s looking forward to the place. I was very much pleased with her.... she was, indeed, very useful and obliging to me when I was here; and you may tell her, from me that if she is capable of undertaking the charge at the time you leave it, I will promote her to the place of housekeeper at Thorpe-Combe. But as this will be great and quick preferment for her, I shall expect in return that she shall conduct herself so as to prove to me that she has my interest a heart. I am by no means a careless or indifferent observer of what passes round me, and particu
larly of servants, Mrs. Barnes; and long before your year is out, you may depend upon it I shall be able myself to form a very good judgment as to whether your niece is likely to turn out such a servant as I should wish to place in a situation of trust and confidence. You may just say this to her, if you please, and in the meantime I wish her to have the situation of upper-housemaid, and desire she may be ready to wait on any company I may have staying with me.... of course I don’t mean the Heathcotes; that set, as long as they stay, must be expected, as there are so many of them, to take care of themselves.”

  “Oh dear, ma’am! That is the worst of the business,” said Mrs. Barnes, shaking her head.

  “What do you mean, Barnes? What is the worst of the business?” demanded her young mistress in some alarm.

  “Why the strange servants, ma’am. I presume the Major and his lady will have a distinct set, like, of their own; and there is nothing in the wide world so difficult for a housekeeper to manage smoothly with as that.”

  “No, no, my poor dear Barnes!” replied Sophia, greatly pleased by this speech. “I would not upon any account have inflicted such an unceasing torment on the valued old servant, and friend I may say, of my dear departed uncle. Nothing should have induced me to do it. No, Barnes, you shall have no strange servants, who would be neither under your control, nor out of it, to plague and vex you from morning to night. I took good care of that when I gave the invitation. I will have no servants living here but my own.”

  “Indeed, ma’am, I am thankful to hear it,” replied the admiring Mrs. Barnes, who, had she given her thoughts words, might have exclaimed,

  ‘How much more older art thou than thy looks!’

  “If I have none but our own servants to manage, I am in no ways afraid but what I shall give you satisfaction. It is what I have done before in this house, and it is what I may hope to do again. But we shall have to look out, and about us, ma’am, to get what will be needed for so large a family. Of course.... and I don’t mean to object to it, for by all rule, I shall have nothing to do with her.... but of course Mrs. Heathcote will bring her own nurse?”

  “Her children are not babies, Mrs. Barnes; there is no nurse in the case; and when I tell you that I shall have no servants but my own, I mean, as I always do, observe, literally and exactly, what I say.”

  “So much the better, ma’am. Ladies and gentlemen who are really in earnest, are always the most easily understood, and the most strictly obeyed. And now, ma’am, will you be pleased to let me know the number of female servants as you have made up your mind to find necessary?”

  “In settling this point, Mrs. Barnes,” replied Sophia, “you must not forget what I have said to you relative to my present situation. My dear lamented uncle’s property has been left to me, but I am not yet in possession of it. My income, when the property in the funds shall be made the most of, will not, I flatter myself, fall far short of four thousand a year; but of this I have as yet but a part. I will not, if I can possibly avoid it, run in debt. Neither will I submit to pass a whole year during the gayest season of life in constant mortification and solitude. It requires some skill, Barnes, as a person of your cleverness can easily see, to steer safe and well between these two things; particularly for a person burdened as I am by a family that in point of fact are in no way related to me, that is to say, except my cousin Florence. Now you must see that I should be guilty of very great folly, I might almost say wickedness, if I set off with the idea of making these poor people fancy themselves rich and great for one year, when I know that as soon as it is over they must go back again to their usual miserable mode of living. It would be treating them cruelly, Mrs. Barnes, nothing short of it; and I am quite determined to have no such sin upon my conscience. As for that sickly boy whom you may remember seeing here, my guardian Sir Charles Temple, out of consideration for me, has taken him on charity, to try, I suppose, whether it will be possible to get any sort of occupation for him; and perhaps it is a blessing, for which we ought to be very thankful to Providence, that he is not likely to live to trouble his benefactor long. God knows I should be thankful to hear he was no more, poor unfortunate boy! It is quite impossible he should ever come to good, for he is decidedly the worst-disposed boy I ever heard of. As for his sister, poor thing, there is nothing to say against her; and it is to be hoped that her parents, that is her father, will be able to put her in the way to get her living honestly, before he dies, for then his half-pay goes, and there will be nothing in the world left for them to live upon. It is a melancholy story, Barnes, is it not?”

  “It is indeed, ma’am,” replied the good woman, who had listened to her with great interest. “I am sure I had no notion they were so bad off as that.”

  ‘‘It is but too true, Mrs. Barnes; and such being the case, I hold it to be my duty to guard them all as much as possible from any suffering that might arise from imprudently changing their habits of life, during the time they are here.... I will now, Barnes, go with you through the rooms. My first object will naturally be to select one that I shall find pleasant and comfortable for myself, — and then I will point out to you the apartments which I shall wish to have kept nicely in order for company, and then we will see about rooms for those poor Heathcotes. You lead the way, Barnes, and I will follow you.”

  The housekeeper complied, first inquiring whether her mistress wished to see what other staircases there were in the house, besides the principal one leading from the hall. Miss Martin Thorpe smiled, as she remembered that she had availed herself of one of these to make her way to and from Mr. Thorpe’s chamber, when she wished no eye to see her, and was anxious to use her own, not only in studying the important picture, but also in noting accurately what cabinets, coffers, or other receptacles might be lodged there likely to be used for the safe preservation of any jewellery that might chance to be preserved in the family. But though these recollections passed charmingly enough through her mind, she replied to the inquiry very gravely, by saying, “Yes, Barnes, I shall wish to become acquainted with every part of my house.”

  Mrs. Barnes on this led the way to the very staircase which her young mistress had before discovered for herself. “This, ma’am,” she said, “is a very convenient approach to the two beautiful rooms that my master always used for himself; and in case you should happen to make choice of the same, I think you would like perhaps to have it carpeted, and kept altogether for yourself, or any servant that might just be coming to wait upon you, and nothing else.”

  Miss Martin Thorpe approved this idea extremely, and having a pretty distinct recollection of the spacious bed-room and pretty anti-room beside it, she walked forward with a rapid step; for a project had occurred to her, which she was determined immediately to put into execution. On entering the really noble room which the late master of the mansion had appropriated to himself, and which was of equal size with the drawing-room beneath it, its present mistress gave no indication of ever having seen it before, nor did she make any observation that could be construed into a declaration that she had not. She looked around, as if merely examining its size, and that of the room next it, and then said.

  “Are there any workmen at Hereford, Mrs. Barney, who might be trusted to fresh-paper this room?”

  Oh dear yes, ma’am. Excellent workmen of all sorts are to be found in Hereford.”

  “If I can, without much difficulty, get this room fitted up to my fancy, I think it possible I may convert it to my own use,” said the heiress, walking through it into the adjoining room, which had served the late possessor for a dressing-room, but which was, in: truth, much too large and handsome a room for such a purpose. Here Miss Martin Thorpe lingered much longer than in the bedroom, though she did not pass through that without indulging herself with a furtive glance, and permitting herself a furtive smile, as she passed before the important and well-remembered picture. At length, however, she had given all the attention which she at that time intended to bestow on either, room, and followed the housekeeper through all th
e apartments which had been occupied during the foregoing Christmas. Stopping, at length, in the handsomest of them all, Mrs. Barnes said, “This is the room, ma’am, where Mrs. Heathcote and the Major slept before. Shall it be prepared for them again?”

  “The whole of the rooms on this floor,” replied Miss Martin Thorpe, with more of dignity than she had yet put on to her confidential servant, “I intend to keep entirely for staying company. Let us go up stairs, if you please.”

  Mrs. Barnes moved on in silence, and Sophia mounted to the second floor, which like that of all old-fashioned country-houses was low, and in some parts having a sloping roof. She entered the first door she came to, and looked about the room upon which it opened with considerable interest.

  “This is a very good room, Barnes; an excellent room, upon my word.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” replied the housekeeper, “only it smokes so unaccountable bad that we have never been able to make use of it, except indeed during the summer, years and years ago, when Mr. Cornelius Thorpe, my master’s son, used to bring us home such a many of his out-standing friends and acquaintance sometimes, that we were glad to have such a room as this to put ’em in. But the furniture then was fresh, and pretty-looking enough, and that made a great difference.”

  “The impossibility of having a fire can be of no consequence, Barnes, to persons who never accustom themselves to sleep with fire in their rooms.... I never knew the Heathcotes have a fire in their bed-rooms since I have been with them, and this apartment appears to me exactly suited for them. It is large, and has every appearance, I am sure, of being exceedingly comfortable. You can find somewhere or other, I dare say, a bit or two of carpet to put round the bed; and you may put in a second washing-stand, if you will.

  This speech was listened to with an air that said a good deal; and if Miss Martin Thorpe had happened to think it worth her while to study the countenance of her housekeeper, she might have learnt that not even absolute power can safely set propriety at defiance. But she had no time to study her countenance, being engaged in looking from a window that commanded a part of the grounds which she had never seen before; the back part of the house, in which this apartment was situated, being flanked by a thick plantation, which in the winter season was by no means tempting as a walk, but which now, with the full morning sun shining upon it, looked strikingly picturesque and pretty, and the more so, from having a small lodge-like dwelling, covered with ivy and sundry lighter creeping plants, in the midst of it.