“Insolent wretch! — see if I won’t be revenged of her impertinence,” exclaimed the sympathising wife.
“And what did you say to her, my dear?”
“Why, my love, I had not time to say much, because that very fascinating personage, Mrs. Stephenson, and this above-mentioned Miss Elizabeth Peters, had politely concealed themselves behind the curtains of the recess, in order to watch me play piquet with Mr. Ronaldson. Foxcroft was in the room with us, and, good-natured fellow, as you know he is, he gave me, half in fun, you know, of course, a hint or two of the cards Ronaldson held — all which these charming ladies saw, and at the very moment when I was in the act of making so good a thing of it as would have made it signify but little whether Patty’s Don were rich or poor, they popped out of their hiding-place, and told Ronaldson not to sign the check, for that he had been cheated.”
“Audacious wretches!” exclaimed Mrs. O’Donagough, her expressive countenance beaming with rage. “Oh, my dearest Donny! had I been there, they had dared not for their lives have done it. In your own house too! — when they were enjoying the protection of your roof, and revelling in the magnificence of your splendid hospitality! Surely it is unprecedented in the annals of visiting. They shall be exposed for it. They shall be known for what they are, or my name is not O’Donagough. Why, Donny, I shall never again be able to own my connection with them. They have disgraced themselves for ever!”
“All very true, my dear,” replied her husband, composedly.
“But, nevertheless, Ronaldson did not sign the check — and I shall be obliged to leave the country with as little delay as possible.”
“Leave the country? Leave Curzon-street? And just when I am going to show off my darling Patty everywhere, as the youngest and most beautiful married woman in London! Oh, it is impossible! You never can be such a brute!” cried the unhappy Mrs. O’Donagough, in the most piercing accents imaginable.
“You do not appear to see this affair with your usual clearheaded good sense, my dear,” replied her husband, with exemplary gentleness of voice and manner. “Perhaps you are not aware that if I do not take myself off, and that immediately, the Secretary of State for the Home Department will have all the trouble upon his own hands. But even in that case, you perceive, your bridal gaieties would be equally defeated, for we should go, at least. I should, and under the circumstances, I don’t think you would find your residence here at all agreeable afterwards.”
“What do you mean, Donny?” said the vexed lady, looking at his placid countenance with considerable indignation. “What have all the secretaries of state in the world to do with our staying in this beautiful house or leaving it? If you are only joking, and making fun of me, as you do with that fool Foxcroft, I never will forgive you as long as I live.”
“That would be very terrible, my dear,” he mildly replied. “But fortunately at this moment I run no risk of the kind; for I certainly do not consider the matter as partaking of the least degree of the nature of a joke. Nor do I see anything like fun in being transported for life.”
“Transported!” shrieked Mrs. O’Donagough. “You don’t mean it? — you don’t mean to say, husband, that you have really been such a fool as to do anything to put you in the power of those horrid women? You don’t mean to tell me that? Oh, Donny! Donny! I shall go mad!”
“God forbid, my dear,” he replied, without varying a muscle of his truly philosophical physiognomy. “Anything of the kind would be exceedingly troublesome just now. But really, my dear, you agitate yourself much more than there is any occasion for; and to tell you the truth, I thought my Barnaby was too much a woman of the world to suffer such an occurrence as this to shake her courage so violently. If you will but see the thing in a proper light, and give me your assistance in getting everything; ready, and in giving the whole affair rather the appearance of a party of pleasure, than anything else, I have no doubt that we shall do extremely well. There are many people of very high fashion in the United States, particularly at New Orleans, and in the other slave states, and if we contrive to manage our affairs only as well as we have done before, my dear, you may depend upon it we shall soon find ourselves in the very highest rank of society, and perhaps better off than we have ever been in our lives.”
Mrs. O’Donagough was a woman of strong feelings, yet nevertheless she was always, or almost always, amenable to reason, and long before her husband had ceased speaking, her fine spirit had recovered its tone; she felt able, and perfectly willing too, to take the particular bull, which now appeared to face her, by the horns, and by the noble exercise of the faculties of which she felt proudly conscious, to do battle with whatever difficulties might assail her, nothing doubting, from the hints her judicious husband had thrown out, that her reward would now be, what it had so often been before, namely, the placing herself considerably in advance of all her fellow-creatures, the envied of many, and the admired of all. From this point the conversation proceeded in a tone of conjugal confidence and sympathy, that might have served as a model to all the wedded sons and daughters of Eve; and no greater proof can be given of the happiness of such a self-contented temperament as that of my heroine, than the fact, that the interview which brought to her knowledge the proof of her husband’s standing in the most imminent peril of being transported for life, left her in a state of spirits the most animated and the most happy that can be conceived.
Just as she was going to take her departure, in order to set about her own preparations, and leave her husband at liberty to make his, she suddenly stopped short and exclaimed—” But, my dear Donny, what in the world am I to say to those dear, good Perkinses? and to that handsome creature, Tornornio? Upon my word, that must be thought of.”
“It has been thought of, my Barnaby,” returned her husband, with a playful smile that quite illuminated his countenance. “Patty will tell you; but no,” he added, “it will be safest for me to give you a sketch of the thing myself, that you may make no blunders when you hear the dear child allude to it. Just listen to me my dear, and I will make you understand why it is that I am obliged to leave the country.”
Mr. O’Donagough then, with some humour and very considerable enjoyment, ran over the heads of the history he had been recounting to Patty concerning his early passion, and, for a few gay moments felonies, flittings, transport-snips, and Botany Bay, were all forgotten, and both the gentleman and lady laughed heartily.
“There certainly never was anything like you, Donny!” said the lady, as soon as he had finished; “you have made my sides ache, I promise you.”
“And there certainly never was anything like you, my dear,” he replied, with a very gallant bow. “I have often told you that you were a wife made on purpose for me — and so you are.”
CHAPTER V.
WHEN Mrs. O’Donagough re-entered the drawing-room, she found Patty and her husband seated upon one sofa, and the two Miss Perkinses on another. The two former were deeply engaged in a whispering conversation, the subject of which, as the well-satisfied mother rightly imagined, was those passages in the early history of the bride’s father, with which she had that morning been made acquainted. The two latter did not appear to be conversing at all, and to say truth, looked very particularly forsaken and forlorn. It was to this group that Mrs. O’Donagough immediately addressed herself, for she, too, felt a pleasure in the exercise of the inventive faculty, which was almost equal to that of her husband.
“Oh, my dear girls!” she began, “what a history I have been listening to! such a story has come out! Mercy on me! I hardly know whether I stand on my head or my heels!”
“Oh, dear me! What is it?” cried Miss Louisa, divided between fright and curiosity, for Mrs. O’Donagough, by pressing her right hand strongly against her left side, sighing deeply, and casting up her eyes towards the ceiling, gave her great reason to fear that there was some mixture of the terrible in what she was about to hear.
“I dare say it is the same thing that my beloved Patty is communica
ting to her husband,” said Miss Matilda, eagerly. “Do, dearest Mrs. O’Donagough, let me hear it directly. You must know how devotedly I am attached to you all, and whatever concerns any one of the dear family, is just the same to my poor heart, as if it belonged to myself.”
“You are a good soul, Matilda, as ever lived, and so is Louisa too. So sit you down, one on each side of me, and you shall hear it; though I declare to heaven my hair actually stands on end upon my head at the very idea of repeating it.”
Saying these words, Mrs. O’Donagough seated herself in the middle of her sofa, and taking in each of her own hands one of those belonging to Miss Louisa and to Miss Matilda Perkins, she began to repeat the history she had heard from her husband, embellishing it a little as she went on, by sundry feminine traits of impassioned tenderness on the part of the young countess, and concluding with a hint that the untimely demise of that noble personage was the consequence of her unconquerable passion for Mr. O’Donagough.
The only part of the history, as recounted by that gentleman to his daughter, which did not appear in the present version, was that which seemed to infer a possibility that Patty might be the offspring of the lady alluded to, and not of the fond mother who so gloried in calling her daughter. Mr. O’Donagough showed considerable knowledge of human nature in omitting this part of the joke when discoursing on the subject to his wife. He felt that there were things which might not safely be mentioned, even in jest, and that this was one of them. It would be difficult, nay, perhaps impossible, to find words capable of doing justice to the feelings of the Misses Perkins as they listened to this soul-stirring narrative. Disjointed expletives were all they could utter; but clasped hands, lifted eyes, and long-drawn breath, gave ample testimony to the powerful emotion which shook their respective frames. At length the predominating feeling of Miss Matilda found vent in words having some show of meaning, for she uttered distinctly the following: —
“And what, my adored Mrs. O’Donagough, is it your intention to do? Go, it is plain, you must — but where?”
“Oh! in such a case as this,” replied my heroine, “there is but one country in the world that a superior-minded man, like Mr. O’Donagough, would think of for a moment. Of course we shall go to the United States — that is, to the most fashionable part of the country. You may guess that I should not think of any other. And there I have no doubt we shall be exceedingly happy. O’Donagough is exactly the man to be popular in a free country. All his principles and ideas are upon the noblest and most extended scale; and I know that I and Patty, too, are particularly well fitted to live happily in a country where there are slaves; in fact it is the only sort of servant in whom one can find any real comfort, and I confess to you, my dear girls, that upon the whole, I expect we shall enjoy ourselves famously.”
“I have not the least doubt in the world, my dearest friend!” exclaimed Miss Matilda. “I would to heaven I was going with you!”
“Then so you shall, by jingo!” exclaimed the bride, who had overheard the speech of her favourite. “If I say the word, it’s as good as done; and that you know, Matilda — nobody better. If I had my way when I was plain Patty O’Donagough, I leave you to guess if I am likely to be disappointed, and contradicted, and plagued, and disobeyed now that I am a married woman, and the wife of a Don.”
“Dearest Patty! — ever, ever the same!” cried Miss Matilda, with vehement emotion. “What say you, my dearest Mrs. O Donagough? Do you think that we might be permitted to join your delightful party? I feel sure that both Louisa and myself would know no happiness like that of devoting ourselves to you.”
“Upon my life, girls, I should like it of all things; for I am sure that I shall want somebody, particularly just at first, to talk to, and to help me to settle things. Of course, my dears, you know that you would have to pay all your own expenses — that’s a matter of course — and then, if Donny does not object, I won’t. But what does Louisa say to it? I have not heard her voice yet.”
Upon being thus appealed to, Miss Louisa ventured to say, though her sister’s eyes shot daggers at her the while, that she did not think either Matilda or herself young enough to venture upon going to a quite new country, of which they new nothing, except that it was many a thousand of miles off, which would make it exceedingly difficult to come back again.
“Louisa Perkins! you are a fool, if ever there was one born!” exclaimed Madame Tornorino, “and you may say that I told you so.”
Mrs. O’Donagough laughed aloud, and said —
“Go where you will, Patty, gentle and simple must all agree that you have a tongue in your head. But never mind her, Louisa. You have a right to your say as well as another, and your opinion is, that America is a great way off. So it is, my dear. And you need not mind Patty’s impudence the least bit in the world.”
Miss Louisa Perkins seemed to be of the same opinion, and certainly looked as if her equanimity was in no danger of being shaken by that lively lady’s sallies. But her feelings were differently constituted with respect to her sister; for when Miss Matilda, having seized upon her shawl, and wrapped it energetically round her said, “Come along, sister!” she really looked as white as a sheet.
“Yes, Matilda, you had better go away now, child,” observed Mrs. O’Donagough, waving them off with her hand “It is quite impossible that I can sit still to reason upon the subject, when I have such an immensity to do. You had better talk the matter over together. All I have to say is, that if you are ready to pay all your expenses, and like to go, I shall make no objection, if Donny makes none — and you know how excessively fond he is of you both!”
“God bless you, dearest Mrs. O’Donagough!” sighed Matilda, as she pressed the hand of her condescending friend. “Oh, how I should glory in waiting upon you like your humblest servant in any land in the world that you could take me to!”
“You are a very good girl, Matilda,” replied Mrs. O’Donagough, “and I dare say Louisa will think better of it.”
But Louisa continued to maintain her ominous aspect, and with a silent, slow, and melancholy step, followed her sister into the street.
The maiden sisters walked along Curzon-street, turned so as to reach Park-lane, crossed into the Park, and still without exchanging a single word. Louisa was melancholy — Matilda, moody. But having at length reached that semi-sylvan path which stretches across the green sward towards Brompton, the full heart of the younger sister swelled too vehemently to be longer restrained, and she uttered the following words: —
“If there is one misfortune in the world more hard to bear than all the rest, it is the being tied up to a person too old and too stupid for anything.”
The meek-spirited Louisa, who knew that a storm must come, had been actually quivering; inside and out, from head to foot, in the expectation of it; and though the breeze that now began to whistle in her ears was not of the most balmy or gentle quality, she still felt in some sort relieved that it had begun, probably because the evils we anticipate are always more terrible in our imaginings than in the reality. It was, therefore, with a very perceptible attempt at a cheerful manner that she replied —
“Come, dear Matilda! don’t fret yourself! You can’t think how it spoils your good looks. And besides, my dear sister, you ought to remember that if two people are tied together, as you call it, the one young and the other old, the one clever and the other stupid, the clever and young one has so much the best of it, that she ought to thank God day and night that she is not the other one.”
“It is much that I have to thank God for, isn’t it?” bitterly replied the unfortunate cadette—” I, that never do, never can, and never shall, I suppose, have any one single thing that I wish for! Whatever you say, Louisa, I must beg that you will not be so disgustingly hypocritical as to pretend to tell me I am not unhappy. Oh! I am miserable!”
“I do believe you are, my poor dear Matilda,” returned the elder, her eyes filling with tears, “and that it is which prevents my being so perfectly happy a
s the goodness of God ought to make me; for to tell you the truth, I don’t a bit mind being old and stupid — because I have got used to it, I suppose. But I do mind seeing you fret, and pine and take on so, and all because nobody just happens to come in the way for you to be married to.”
“Don’t speak of that, if you please. You had much better let that subject alone,” interrupted Matilda, in accents as little soothing as it is easy to imagine. “Unless, indeed, you wish to torture me, which may very likely be the case; and if so, you cannot do better than go on.”
“Oh! Matilda! Matilda! how can you speak so? I never in my whole life wished to do anything in the world but please you. And God knows, I love you quite as dearly as I do myself, or I might say better, and that without telling any fib, for I would always a great deal rather have you pleased than be pleased myself; and, be as angry as you will with me, Matilda, you cannot say it is my fault that you are not married yet.”
“Not say it is your fault?” screamed Matilda, suddenly standing still, and turning round so as to throw a broadside of indignant eye-beams under the bonnet of her suffering sister; “not your fault? That passes by far anything that I could have thought it possible for a human being to utter! Not your fault that I am not married! And who was it then, if you please, who prevented my being at this very moment Mrs. Foxcroft? I can bear anything better than falsehood, Miss Louisa Perkins. And, therefore, I will just beg you, as a favour, never to say that again.”
“Glad and glad shall I be to leave off saying anything that you don’t like to hear, Matilda; but sometimes I don’t find out what it is till too late. We will never talk any more about Mr. Foxcroft then. It is the best resolution we can take, for we know he is a bad man, and not worth anybody’s talking about.”
Collected Works of Frances Trollope Page 331