Collected Works of Frances Trollope

by Frances Milton Trollope

  It was just at this moment that Miss Brandenberry’s attention was again caught by the figure of the stranger she had before remarked. He was still leaning on the arm of Lord Broughton, and appeared, together with the young Lord Thelwell, who was on his other side, to be approaching the spot where they sat.

  “You don’t happen to have heard who that very odd-looking person is, I suppose, Miss Heathcote? He must be somebody of consequence, because Lord Broughton, who very seldom comes to the balls at all, seems to pay no attention to any one else. Isn’t it very odd?... Upon my word and honour, I believe they are coming up to us! Don’t they look exactly as if they were coming up to us?”

  On this point the opinion of Florence perfectly corresponded with her own; and that neither of them had been mistaken was immediately proved by the three gentlemen becoming stationary before the heiress, while Lord Thelwell said, “Will you give me leave, Miss Martin Thorpe, to present my father Lord Broughton to you?” —

  Sophia’s steady composure was for a moment a little overset by this unexpected address; however she did not forget for more than a second or two that she was the heiress of Thorpe-Combe, possessed of a fine house, and a very magnificent service of plate, and having on, at that very moment, four times as many diamonds as Lady Broughton herself. These thoughts effectually restored her composure, and she replied that she should be “very happy,” in a manner as dry, stiff, and consequential as usual.

  After a few ordinary words had been said about her settling in the neighbourhood, the beauty of the surrounding country, and so forth. Lord Broughton requested an introduction to her guardian, Major Heathcote, his lady, and daughter. This ceremony having been duly performed, and the Major and Mr. Brandenberry having stood up, and joined themselves to the group of gentlemen, the desire of an introduction spread to the dark-complexioned stranger also, and Miss Brandenberry was at length relieved from her painful ignorance respecting his name, by hearing Lord Broughton very distinctly present him to the Thorpe-Combe party as “Mr. Jenkins.”

  The name did not please the discriminating ears of this spinster of ancient descent; and either for that reason, or because she was not included in the introduction, she whispered in the ear of Florence, “It would have been more to the purpose, I think, if his Lordship had introduced Lady Broughton to you, instead of this queer-looking yellow man.”

  This idea of introducing his Countess to the heiress and her party, did not however appear to strike his Lordship, for no allusion whatever was made to Lady Broughton and her daughters; though the Earl, his son, and their remarkable looking friend, continued to converse with the party considerably longer than the mere circumstance of the young Lord Thelwell’s being steward of the ball could be supposed to render necessary. The conversation of the three gentlemen was divided however, and so far from general, that it speedily turned into three tête à têtes, the Earl giving himself, for the moment, solely to the Major, his son to Florence, and Mr. Jenkins to Miss Martin Thorpe.

  The orchestra again calling upon the dancers, Mr. Jenkins, very greatly to the astonishment of Miss Brandenberry, led out the heiress. “It was not,” as she observed to Mrs. Heathcote, “that the gentleman looked too old to dance, but that there was something about him so exceedingly unlike all other people, that it seemed quite unnatural that he should attempt to do what anybody else did.”

  “He is a very odd-looking man, certainly,” replied Mrs. Heathcote.

  “Odd!.... why, my dear ma’am, did you ever see such a curiosity? I flatter myself that I am not particularly apt to spy into my neighbours’ concerns, but I certainly would give something to know where Lord Broughton got him from. It is quite, totally, and absolutely impossible that he can be an Englishman of good family. I don’t speak only of his name, though that of course says a good deal, but of his queer, dry, yellow-looking skin. And yet the Broughtons are the proudest people, out and out, in the whole county. I am sure of one thing, Mrs. Heathcote, at any rate, and that is, that if the Earl does not know him to be a thorough gentleman, he has done a most abominable thing to introduce him as a partner to your charming niece. I hope you won’t suspect me of flattery, my dear Mrs. Heathcote, but I do assure you that I think Miss Martin Thorpe is one of the most enchanting young ladies I ever met with, in the whole course of my life. And as to my poor dear brother Richard, he can talk of nothing but our delightful new neighbour. The late Mr. Thorpe, poor dear gentleman, was certainly a bit of an oddity, at least since that sad business about losing his son; but now, I am sure the whole neighbourhood ought to feel themselves under the greatest obligation to him, for having left his property to a person likely to be such a prodigious acquisition to us.” —

  Lord Broughton and his son had by this time walked off, leaving the Major at liberty to offer his wife and daughter the amusement of a promenade to the card-room, whereupon Miss Brandenberry slid herself along the bench to the side of her brother, who, though generally taking out more of his ticket-money in dancing than any other gentleman of the county, was now quite determined not to dance again, unless he could again be made happy by the hand of the object of his adoration. His sister perfectly understood his feelings. “I am so glad you are not going to dance with anybody else, Richard!” she said. “It would spoil all.”

  “No man who has courage to play such a game as I am engaged in, could dream of anything else — if he had the wit, at least, to carry it through. No great danger, is there, Margaret, to be feared from her present partner? The young Viscount, thank Heaven! did not take with her at all. What a hideous quiz that Jenkins is, to be sure!.... I am really very much obliged to Lord Broughton for introducing him.”

  “No doubt of it, Richard, no doubt of it. It is just the luckiest thing for you that could have happened. You must ask her again, as soon as ever this dance is over. She won’t have had one agreeable partner, through the whole evening, but yourself. Is not that a blessing?”

  As Mr. Jenkins released Sophia’s arm, Mr. Brandenberry presented his to receive it, requesting permission to attend her to the tea-room in search of refreshment. Nothing could be better timed than this request, and never had the young lady looked more graciously disposed towards him than when she accepted it. He had the great good fortune to procure a chair for her at the corner of a table, where she could get as much tea as she chose and eat as much bread and butter as she liked, quite comfortably, he standing close behind her all the while, assiduously supplying the sugar and the cream, and making her thoroughly sensible of the great difference between people who were attentive and people who were not. In short, their arm-and-arm retreat from the tea-room was still more amicable than their approach to it, and on passing a short little sofa, placed in a recess, and just calculated to hold two persons, he had both the courage and the wit to propose her resting herself there a little before she ventured to dance again.

  Sophia made no objection to the proposal, and Mr. Brandenberry, placing himself proudly beside her, had the satisfaction of thinking that everybody in the room must perceive the sort of terms they were on. Never indeed had the object of his passion appeared so inclined to be conversable. She had in truth been galled in a very tender point, and, contrary to her usual habit, she sought relief in words.

  “Upon my word, Mr. Brandenberry,” she said, “I am afraid I have done very wrong in bringing out that poor girl, Florence Heathcote, in this way. There is nothing which I think so wrong as deceiving people about money matters; and I fear there is no doubt but that Lord Thelwell, seeing her come with me, is deceived, and fancies that she must in some degree be provided for like a gentlewoman. It is a very melancholy subject to me, Mr. Brandenberry, I do assure you, but I think I owe it to my own sense of what is right to remove at once ail such false impressions. That poor girl, whom you see talking there, with so much easy indifference, to that foolish young nobleman, has, I dare say, less money belonging to her than my own kitchen-maid. You may easily guess how exceedingly painful it must be to me to mention it,
even to so friendly a person as you, Mr. Brandenberry; but I do it, in order to give you an opportunity of making the fact properly known; that no one in my neighbourhood may have cause to reproach me, with practising any deceptions about my relations.”

  “How every word you utter, my dearest Miss Martin Thorpe, raises your charming character in my eyes!” replied! Mr. Brandenberry, with irrepressible admiration. “There is so much beautiful candour in every word you say, such a noble spirit of rectitude in your wish that this unfortunate young person’s actual situation should be made known, that I shall positively feel a species of glory in seconding your high-minded desire, by removing all mystery on the subject. But alas! my charming friend! your young and pure mind has yet to learn the strong, though contemptible.... not to say vicious,.... influence, which mere beauty produces in society. To a man indeed, situated as.... as I am, for instance, whose whole heart and soul are occupied on one object,.... to me, in short, that young person yonder, in the white frock and black ribbons, appears as totally devoid of all personal attraction as she is of wealth. Yet, during the time you were dancing with that Mr. Jenkins, and while I was making my melancholy way, in and out, through the crowd, in order to catch a sight of you, and fancying all the time that every body must have the same object in pushing forward as myself, I discovered to my unspeakable astonishment that it was not you, loveliest Sophia, but that maypole of a girl, poor unfortunate Miss Heathcote, that they were all elbowing each other to get a sight of! I felt perfectly disgusted at their folly.... especially when I heard at least a dozen of the first men in the room declare, that her beauty was an acquisition to the county which would make every ball the fashion at which she was likely to appear.”

  Not a word of this was lost upon the heiress. She was then, fortune, diamonds, and all, eclipsed by her penniless cousin!.... It was wormwood!

  Whether the information thus subtilely conveyed, produced as strong an impression in favour of the reporter, as he reckoned upon, may be doubted; but the general effect of what he had said was infinitely greater than he had anticipated; and Miss Martin Thorpe returned from the ball with her heart awakened to stronger passion than she had ever felt before.

  CHAPTER XXIV.

  On the morning following the ball, at an hour so early as to show more desire of finding the family at home than of evincing any particular deference for etiquette, Lord Broughton and his friend Mr. Jenkins arrived at Thorpe-Combe, and inquired for Major Heathcote and for Miss Martin Thorpe.

  The Major, however, with his wife, his daughter, and the two little boys, were already established in Sir Charles Temple’s old banqueting-room; but Miss Martin Thorpe was in her boudoir, with her friend Miss Brandenberry, discussing the demerits of most of the persons they had seen the night before. The name of the noble and early visitor caused both ladies to start; the younger one slightly, the elder with considerable violence. The mistress of the house, however, immediately recovered herself, and said, “Desire the gentlemen to walk up stairs,” and before Miss Brandenberry could express one-tenth of the pleasure she felt at being so luckily there, just when her dearest Miss Martin Thorpe must be sure to want her, they entered the room.

  Lord Broughton’s manners, and perhaps in some degree his conversation too, were those of a class. He was easy, gentlemanlike, and neither particularly animated nor particularly dull, but requiring stimulants, considerably stronger than either of the ladies then present could offer, to make him give out any symptoms of individual character. But the case was different with his friend Mr. Jenkins; in him, everything was individual, and, apparently, nothing in common with the rest of the world. In person, dress, voice, and manner, he was as essentially singular a person, perhaps, as ever existed, and took so little pains to conceal or soften his peculiarities, that it is probable nothing less authoritative than the name and station of the Earl of Broughton could have induced the wealthy Miss Martin Thorpe to remain in the same room with him.

  His appearance at the ball of the preceding evening, though sufficiently eccentric, had not been more severely censured by the majority of the company, than by their declaring it to be strange and foreign-looking. But this morning it was infinitely more so, and exceedingly shabby into the bargain. Instead of a hat, he carried in his hand a cap of scarlet cloth, embroidered with gold, the glittering splendour of which contrasted strangely with the rest of his attire. His trousers of yellowish white (texture unknown) were of almost Asiatic fulness of dimension; and a smoke-tinctured waistcoat, imperfectly buttoned, gave to view an extremely dirty flannel ditto, which, fastening close round his neck, was but partially concealed by a fine and clean linen shirt that intervened between them. A wonderfully ill-fitted coat, which had every appearance of having been purchased of a Jew clothes-merchant, completed his attire, except indeed that a strangely mysterious apparatus, known to the initiated to betoken inveterate smoking, hung from his button-hole.

  Before he had been two minutes in the room, he placed the closefitting cap upon his bald head, and then, while Lord Broughton conversed with the ladies on the usual subjects which furnish country-visiting talk, he indulged himself in what appeared to be an extremely prying spirit of observation. Rising from his chair, he very unceremoniously walked round the room, evincing much less admiration for the taste with which it was decorated, than the happy few hitherto permitted to see it had manifested. In fact, his dark brow was more than once contracted by a frown of evident disapprobation, as his eye boldly glanced from object to object. Nothing indeed in the whole apartment, excepting the four old cabinets to which the late renaissance in the science of furnishing, assigned conspicuous stations, appeared to meet his approbation. To these, however, he approached again and again, laid his hand caressingly on their massive ornaments, felt with pleasure, as it seemed, the perfect smoothness of their ebon and ivory mosaic, and finally, stationed himself before the smallest and most curiously wrought of the four, and putting his hands behind him stood there, lost apparently in a profound reverie.

  Miss Martin Thorpe, though greatly approving the admiration of anybody and everybody, for anything and everything belonging to herself, thought the mode which Mr. Jenkins had adopted for showing it towards her cabinet, exceedingly odd, if not absolutely impertinent; while Miss Brandenberry, notwithstanding her respect for the Earl, and her delight in listening to all that he was pleased to say, could not keep her eyes from following his extraordinary friend, and soon most satisfactorily convinced herself that he was beyond all contradiction mad.

  Lord Broughton continued for some time to talk on with so easy and unembarrassed an air, as in a great degree to cover the awkwardness arising from the singular demeanour of his companion; but perceiving that the ladies paid less and less attention to his words, and more and more to the grimaces of Mr. Jenkins, he rose to take his leave, begging Miss Martin Thorpe to present his compliments to her guardian, with his hope of seeing him at the Castle. And then, for the first time, his Lordship muttered something about Lady Broughton’s hoping to make her acquaintance as soon as the family returned from London, whither they were about immediately to remove. Having made this speech, and a parting bow to each of the ladies, Lord Broughton touched his absent friend upon the sleeve and said, “Now, Jenkins, I think we must be going.”

  The person thus addressed now turned his face upon the trio, who for the last five minutes had only seen the back of his loose, long-waisted coat, and displayed, greatly to their astonishment, a countenance almost ghastly in its sallow paleness, and with eyes that evidently bore the traces of tears. The Earl knit his brows, shook his head, and gave his friend a very unequivocal glance of disapprobation and reproof.

  Mr. Jenkins looked into his Lordship’s face in return, with the air of a man who is inwardly arguing some point which he means, when he has made up his mind upon it, to communicate, and after a short interval so passed he turned away from his Lordship, to the heiress, and said,... “I am almost afraid, young lady, that you will think me a Very s
trange person.... But in point of fact there is really nothing strange in the matter, and one word from me will enable you to understand it in a moment.... Will you give me leave to sit down again with you, while I explain myself?”

  This was said in so much more quiet a manner than was usual to Mr. Jenkins, who generally shot out his words, like a charge for the destruction of small birds, that Miss Martin Thorpe, after giving a glance at Lord Broughton, and perceiving that he also was preparing to reseat himself, followed the example, saying as she did so, and with not much more than her usual ungracious stiffness, “Pray, sir, sit down.”

  “The fact is, Miss Martin,” began Mr. Jenkins, “Miss Martin Thorpe, I mean.... the fact is, that a great many years ago I was very well acquainted with this country. Lord Broughton, for instance, is one of my very oldest friends.... we were at school together, and.... just at the time that I used to see most of him.... just at that same time I used to be a great deal here too. For your late uncle was then exceedingly intimate at the Castle also.... though I hear that all fell away afterwards. But.... then, while this lasted, I knew your uncle’s wife, the last Mrs. Thorpe, exceeding well too.... very intimately... She was very kind to me, very kind, indeed, and altogether the house was... in short, Miss Martin.... Miss Martin Thorpe, I mean.... I should consider myself as under a very great obligation if you would give your servants orders to let me walk about all over the place.”

  After saying this, with much of his usual rapidity of utterance, he turned to the Earl, and added in a sort of pleading, apologistic accent, “I would give my right hand, Broughton, to go into every room in the house this moment.... I would, upon my soul!”.... Then looking submissively in the face of Sophia, he seemed to await her answer with much anxiety.