“And that I suppose you say to please me too, knowing as you do, cruel, hard-hearted creature, that I still dote upon him to distraction!” replied Matilda, in violent agitation. “Poor, poor Foxcroft!” she added, while the embroidered pocket-handkerchief which she carried was raised to her eyes; “how different would now have been your fate had you fallen into other hands. His only fault under heaven was the excess of his love for me. His fond heart shrunk from the idea of seeing me living upon an income that he thought unworthy of my taste and refinement, and for this, and this only, you lacerate my soul, by making me listen to your eternal abuse of him.”
“Indeed I am very sorry to hear you are so much in love with him still,” returned her sister; “and rather than that, I do think, my dear, that it is better to remind you of what you heard yourself, you know; I mean his wanting so very much to marry me for the sake of my little fortune.”
“He never wanted to marry you,” replied the indignant Matilda. “You totally mistook his meaning — I am sure of it. All his object was to endeavour to soften your heart towards me, and persuade you, if it was possible, into fairly dividing your fortune between us. And this you have chosen to twist and turn into his offering to marry you. But this is only of a piece with all the rest. You were born to tyrannise over me, and destroy me, and nothing is left for me but to submit. Oh! how often,” she added, with a deep groan, and casting her eyes upon the Serpentine River, which they were at that moment passing, “how often do I long to plunge into that placid water, and bury my misery in it for ever.”
Miss Matilda Perkins had certainly, during her thirty-six years of existence, tried pretty nearly every species of device for the management and subjugation of her truly affectionate elder sister; but somehow or other, it had never before occurred to her that she might threaten suicide; and now it was probably only the opportune sight of the water which had suggested the idea. But whatever the cause, she speedily felt inclined to bless the effect; for never before had she, even in her most energetic moments of eloquence, uttered words productive of such powerful results. Miss Louisa turned as pale as ashes, and trembled visibly in every limb; she clutched the arm of her sister with convulsive strength, and hurried her onward, though literally without the power of speaking a single word.
The effect of her experiment was not lost on Miss Matilda; she attempted not to break the really awful silence which now reigned between them, but suffered her sister to drag her onward unresistingly till they had reached their own door. The knocker was made to do its office, but still they spoke not, and the door being opened, they mounted, Miss Matilda first, and Miss Louisa afterwards, to their drawing-room. There the really miserable elder sister seated herself, and burst into tears. The younger permitted them to flow for some minutes uninterruptedly, assuming meanwhile herself what she intended should be an aspect of dogged despair. At length, the poor Louisa endeavoured to rally; she drew off her gloves, and tidily rolled them up; then removed her shawl from her shoulders, and began a similar notable process upon it, smoothing and folding it upon her knee, but certainly looking all the time as miserable as it was well possible to be. Matilda watched her closely; and perceiving that, notwithstanding her melancholy, she was gradually recovering from the shock she had received, and returning too nearly to the usual sensations of daily existence, she took off her bonnet, which she threw down (notwithstanding it had a new feather in it) with an air highly theatrical, shook back her ringlets, stood up, approached her sister, placed herself immediately before her, and thus addressed her —
“Louisa! — The time is come when it is absolutely necessary that we should understand one another. The existence I have been leading under your care and control, has become much too painful to endure, and I have come at length to the firm determination of changing or of ending it. The choice, Louisa, as to whether I shall make some effort to lessen the misery I endure, or destroy myself, I shall leave wholly to you. If you will immediately, readily, and cheerfully consent to accompany our friends, the O’Donagoughs, to America, I will consent to live, and will exert myself to the very utmost to render existence to both of us more happy in the new world than it has ever been in the old. But if you refuse this, if you persist in keeping me chained to this sterile land, where the best and tenderest feelings of the human heart are checked and blighted by the constant fear of not having money enough to marry upon — if, I say, you do this, instead of permitting me to try my chance in a new world, I solemnly declare to you, that I will put an end to my life; and when the awful deed is done, you may learn, too late, the danger of torturing the human soul beyond its powers of endurance. Now then, Louisa, speak! Decide! I abide your decision, and you must abide its consequences!”
Inexpressibly terrified at these dreadful words, the unhappy Louisa was ready to grant all and everything that was demanded of her; and eagerly throwing her arms round the tall, thin figure of her sister, as she stood before her, she exclaimed —
“Upon one condition, Matilda, I agree to everything. You shall go, we will both go whenever and wherever you will, if you will only make me one promise.”
“Name it,” said Matilda, eagerly.
“Only promise me, my dearest sister, that if I consent to your wishes in this, you will never think of killing yourself. Not even if you should not happen to get any gentleman to marry you in America.”
“I promise,” responded Matilda, solemnly.
Louisa exclaimed, “Thank God!” but the next moment heaved a heavy sigh. Whether this was caused by the remembrance of her own promise, or breathed as a relief from the fulness of joy occasioned by that of her sister, may be doubtful. But be this as it may, the business was settled. Matilda, in a cheerful voice, reminded her sister that a gentleman who had the eye of all the state authorities fixed upon him, like Mr. O’Donagough, would not be permitted to linger long after receiving notice that he was to go. And having given this necessary hint, she instantly set to work herself upon drawers and boxes, and by the vigorous earnestness of her labours, gave the strongest proof of the vivacity of the feelings which prompted them.
It is needless to follow the preparations of the party thus about to leave England together for the United States; suffice it to say, that every one of them, including Don Espartero Christinino Tornorino, was so active and expert in the several operations they were called upon to perform, that in less than a week their passage was taken in a fine ship lying in the river and bound for New Orleans, their goods packed and on board, their various affairs, agencies, and respective money concerns satisfactorily settled, and one and all of them perfectly ready to go on board.
The above-mentioned Don, indeed, though hitherto so slightly known to the reader, and rather to be considered as a stranger than an old acquaintance, will be found hereafter to possess many noble qualities, well deserving a share in the affectionate feelings, which I flatter myself his companions have already excited. The only circumstance preliminary to their sailing, which it is farther necessary to mention, is, that the principal personage, and he who was considered on all sides as the hero of the expedition, decided, after giving a good deal of consideration to the subject, that for many reasons, into which it is totally unnecessary to enter, it would be advisable that he should not appear in America under either of his former appellations; but, as a still farther compliment to his ever-admired wife, they should assume the style and title of Major and Mrs. ALLEN BARNABY.
CHAPTER VI.
THE mind of a passenger on board a merchant-vessel working her way up the Thames, with very little wind, and that little not above half favourable, must be exceedingly preoccupied if he do not find this part of his expedition very long and very dull. But notwithstanding the great variety of temperament by which the various individuals of the party we are about to accompany were distinguished, there was not one of them who, strictly speaking, could be said to suffer from this evil.
Miss Louisa Perkins, indeed, might, to a superficial observer, have been cla
ssed as one of the above-named victims of a slow progress through a disagreeable region. But though her pale, thin visage had no more movement or animation in it than that of a whiting boiled yesterday, though her very light-gray eyes had a plentiful lack of speculation in them, and though she spoke not and moved not, I, who have the happy privilege of knowing every thought of her heart, take upon me to declare that no idea that the river was long or dull ever entered her head. She was there, poor thing, seated on the pea-green bench, formed by the top of the chicken-coop, on purpose to be miserable. Not that her temper was of that sour quality which leads its possessor to find an indulgence in being uncontrolledly cross; on the contrary, the temper of Miss Louisa was essentially gentle and kind; but this gentleness and this kindness had led her on the present occasion to do precisely the very thing that she most abhorred, and, in truth, she could hardly choose but be miserable. She hated every country and everything that was not English, and everything that was American, most of all she loathed the smell of a ship, she detested the sea, and had never been in a boat to cross a ferry without being rather sick. And to add to all this, she greatly doubted the efficacy of their present scheme for remedying the staple misery of her sister’s existence, that is to say, she greatly doubted the probability of finding an American gentleman more inclined to marry a young lady of six-and-thirty without money than an English one. So that, on the whole, it was hardly possible that she could be otherwise than sad; her only comfort, as she gazed upon the dirty water through which the vessel was crawling, being the reflection that she had saved her sister from jumping into some very like it.
As to the hero of the party — as I have already very fitly designated Major Allen Barnaby — he stood in a manly and commanding attitude; his arms a-kimbo, and his legs “a-straddle,” in the style of one of the Sieur David’s classic Greeks, sometimes looking ahead, sometimes looking astern, but always with an air of consciousness that the bark which bore him and his fortunes carried no ordinary freight. The river was neither long nor dull to him — could he forget how he last navigated in the same direction? — could he forget how much he had added to his little hoard since he passed up it in the other? — could he fail to feel that his glorious intellect and his happy star had enabled him again and again to rise triumphant out of misfortunes, which must have overwhelmed a man of lesser genius? And remembering all this, could he do otherwise than look forward with bold hope and unshrinking confidence to the fresh career that was opening before him? To him the tedious river voyage was but a soothing interval, during which he could indulge, without interruption or restraint, in a series of exciting calculations and a succession of reveries, each bringing flatteringly before his mind’s eye the immense superiority of the new world over the old in all the arts of a highly advanced state of society, and a complacent smile settled on his features as he thought of it.
Mrs. O’Donagough, to do her justice, seldom felt anything to be tedious; she could always find or make opportunities for displaying both her mind and body to advantage: and who that does this, can ever find any portion of existence fatiguing? Before the ship reached the Downs, she had made pretty nearly every sailor on board, as well as the captain and the three mates, understand that she knew very nearly as much about a ship as they did; that — besides all the personal beauty which remained to her (and she really managed to take off ten years of her fifty-five much better than the generality of those who try their talents at the same operation), besides all that remained — she clearly made them all understand that she had, some few years ago, been infinitely handsomer still. To the cook she gave some admirable instructions in ship cookery. On the mind of the steward she strongly impressed the necessity of furnishing the passengers, particularly the ladies, with a liberal allowance of good toddy if he wished to keep them from the horrors of sea-sickness; and she made the little black cabin-boy thoroughly understand that, if ever he hoped to see the colour of her money, he must never fail to come to her whenever she called, let who would want him elsewhere. With all this to be done, could she find the river voyage too long?
As to Don Tornorino and his lady, they had both mutually and separately much to amuse them. The gentleman had very many reasons for feeling himself happy and contented, and truly he was so; but to what an extent no one can guess who is unacquainted with his previous history, and as his fate is now so closely united to that of the amiable race to whose memoirs I am thus sedulously devoting myself, a slight sketch of his early life may be desirable.
As I pique myself upon the unvarnished truth of my narratives, I shall honestly confess to the reader that Don Espartero et caetera Tornorino was not by birth an hidalgo; on the contrary, indeed, his mother was a washerwoman and his father a tailor. But in a country where the wholesome exercise of revolution is going on so prosperously as it has been long doing in Spain, it matters little what a man’s father may be, provided he himself knows how to profit by the delightful whirlwind of accidents by which he is sure to be surrounded.
The young Tornorino was a very pretty boy, and he was a sharp boy; and moreover he was a very musical boy; and by the help of all these good gifts together, there were few youngsters in that not very tranquil country who had so pleasant a life. He was very religious, too, and all the priests that were left in Madrid made much of him. He both danced and sung to perfection, and Juan Christino delighted in him.
Several seamstresses were willing to make him shirts for nothing; and there was not a cook’s shop in the city, that had a woman in any part of the establishment, where he might not get the very best of dinners for the asking. Besides all this, his excellent and patriotic father had become a chef-d’escadron to some faction or other, I really forget what, and his mother, lady of the bedchamber to her Majesty; so that his position in society appeared as assured as it was brilliant, and a happier young Don never strutted through the highways and byways of Madrid than the young raven-haired Tornorino.
All this lasted till he was twenty-four years old and three months, and then, poor fellow, just as he had got confirmed in every habit of extravagance, luxury, and indulgence, he was literally turned from the court into the gutter. His father was shot as a traitor, having very unluckily been caught in the fact of appropriating some small regimental funds that happened to come in his way. His mother was discarded from her high and very distinguished office, and a young milliner installed in her place; and the poor petted son, for no reason in the world that I know of, save that he had outlived the royal lady’s favour, was also informed that his attendance was no longer required. The unfortunate widow of the gallant chef-d’escadron died of starvation within the year, and her accomplished son sold eleven of his twelve guitars, all his gold snuff-boxes, and five of his six sword-knots, in order to convey himself to England, and try his fortune there.
And a dismal fortune it proved, poor fellow! As soon as the few naps he had brought with him had disappeared, he tried a greater variety of expedients to get more than I have time to record. Among other things he played in the orchestra at Drury Lane, and danced in the ballets at Covent Garden — he gave lessons in most living languages to all who would be so kind as to learn, and offered to teach the guitar for a shilling a lesson.
But somehow or other nothing succeeded with him. He was almost always taking a siesta when he ought to have been rehearsing at the theatre; and he no sooner got a pupil than he began making love to the mother or the sister, and so got kicked into the street. Then every farthing of money he got he was obliged to spend at some Leicester-square restaurant where he could obtain a plat or two, seasoned with a little garlic, for he felt as if he really must die if he attempted to swallow a chop or a steak prepared for him at his lodgings. But after all, there was really as little harm in him as could reasonably have been expected under the circumstances; and amongst the multitudinous patriots with which London abounds, Patty might easily have done worse.
The variety of pleasant thoughts which now chased each other through the young m
an’s head as he sat beside his bride, quietly and smilingly receiving and returning her caresses, was perfectly delightful. By far the most distinguishing feature of his mind was a love of ease, and, indeed, of indulgence of all kinds, and this had made the privations endured since reaching England something almost too dreadful to think of. His reverence for the father and mother of his young wife knew no bounds. He saw that their manner of living was exceedingly far removed (as far at least as he could judge of it) from dry mutton-chops, hard beef-steaks, black cold potatoes, and muddy beer. These various articles had formed a large portion of his misery for the last four years; and the idea that he was now to live daintily (comparatively speaking) and do no work, wrapped his senses in a sort of sweet elysium that kept him in a continual smile. Moreover, he loathed, hated, and abominated the climate of England to a degree, that made the act of sailing away from it something little short of rapture. He was going to see the sun again! The very name of New Orleans, whenever it reached his ears, caused him to display his well-set white teeth to an unmitigated excess; and so perfectly well satisfied was he with his present position, that had Queen Christina stood before him, he would have snapped his fingers at her, and would hardly have consented to change it, had the great general whose name he had assumed offered his own to him instead.
As for Patty — nobody who knows Patty could doubt for a moment her being in a state of perfect felicity; for in spite of Jack and all his false-heartedness she was married, and instead of having one kiss to talk about, she had now more than she could count, and the river seemed to her a very pleasant river, the wind, a very good wind, and the ship, a very nice ship.
But of all this happy, well-contented party, the most supremely happy, and the most rapturously well-contented was beyond all question Miss Matilda Perkins. The annoyances that the Don was leaving behind him were light indeed compared to the various and for-ever recurring sources of agony which had lacerated her tender bosom for years.
Collected Works of Frances Trollope Page 332