“Upon my word, Miss Beauchamp, we are, or ought to be, excessively obliged to you,” returned Egerton, not knowing whether he felt most surprised or provoked by the young lady’s grandiloquent harangue. “Permit me to return thanks,” he added, rising and making her a low bow, “for the testimony you have been pleased to exhibit of your benevolence towards the English nation.”
“Poor people!” murmured Annie, casting her eyes down with a sort of pitying dejection, and at the same time heaving a deep sigh.
Egerton, puzzled and plagued by the strange form the young lady’s patriotism had now taken, looked at her with as much curiosity as admiration, while she continued to retain her whimsically plaintive attitude; but when she furtively raised her eyes again, there was an expression in them which made him shrewdly suspect she was only amusing herself at his expense, and that it was malice towards him, rather than the love she boasted for her country, which had inspired her. If this were the case, he felt that the little republican had the advantage of him; and as the idea crossed his mind, it was doubtful whether he was more piqued or provoked. The former feeling prompted him to continue the conversation, in the hope of being able to use weapons of somewhat the same nature in his defence, while the latter suggested the wisdom of leaving the very absurd young lady to herself. But while he yet doubted, the question was decided for him by Major Allen Barnaby’s bowing himself off — a ceremony which was immediately followed by Mrs. Beauchamp’s advancing towards them, and saying —
“Come, Annie, my daughter, I want you in my chamber — I have got one or two jobs that I expect you must do for me — and besides, I have got something to say to you.”
Thus summoned, Annie gave one rapid, wicked glance at the countenance of the young Englishman, and with a slight parting bow, retired.
Egerton replaced himself on the bench, and fell into a fit of musing.
“She is insufferable,” he muttered, “I cannot endure her!”
A movement of impatience caused him to rise again and pace the long balcony of which, luckily for his irritated feelings, he had the sole possession, with slow and discontented-sounding strides.
“I hate the country!” he ejaculated, half aloud; “I hate and detest it from one end to the other. The negroes and Indians are the only interesting part of the population, and the only thing approaching to civilised society that I have enjoyed since I landed was at the German village at — at — at — heaven knows where. Would to heaven that this self-inflicted penance were over! I must steam up that nasty muddy Mississippi, or I break faith with myself, which I never will do, hail every house I could enter half a dozen Miss Annie Beauchamps in it — and a pretty company they would make! — well enough, to be sure, to the eye, but able to sting a man to death with their odious tongues! To-day is Wednesday. Steamboats, I believe, go every day. Thursday, that’s to-morrow. I wish to heaven I could go to-morrow; but that I cannot do, because I have promised the priggish Mr. Horatio Timmsthakle to go to the French play with mm. But I must speak about my linen from the laundress for Saturday. I will positively not stay in this detestable house a single moment longer than Saturday.”
And having thus soothed his irritation, he stalked through the saloon into the hall, and out of the house, having encountered a negress in his way, to whom he gave strict orders that his linen should be in his room ready for packing by Friday night. This sort of notable thoughtfulness having been taught him by necessity, in consequence of his having, for the first time in his life since he left college, set off upon a journey without a servant; a piece of self-denial to which he was advised by one who knew by experience the effect of the United States upon an English domestic.
Mrs. Beauchamp and her daughter, meanwhile, mounted the stairs, and having reached one of the apartments sacred to their own use, the elderly lady closed the door of it, and making the fair Annie sit down near it, began to address her as follows: —
“I have something to tell you, my dear child, that will, I expect, go straight right away to your feelings as it did to mine. I know how you have been brought up, my daughter, and it is an out-and-out impossibility that you should not have all your high patriotic notions set blazing by what I am going to tell you.”
Annie listened very attentively; but had she spoken the truth, and the whole truth, concerning what was passing at her heart, she would have said— “No more patriotism just now, dear mamma, if you please, because I have been working so hard at it, that I am right down tired.” But of course she said nothing of the kind, and Mrs. Beauchamp went on —
“You know only too well, my dear child, how shamefully the United States have been abused, vilified, and belittled by all the travellers who have ever set foot in them for the purpose of writing books about us. I don’t say too much, do I, Annie, when I declare that this has positively amounted to a regular national calamity; and I’ll give any one leave to judge what it must be to the feelings of a free people, who know themselves to be the finest nation in the world, to have one atrocious, unprincipled monster after another, come and write volumes upon volumes, in order to persuade the rest of the world that we are lots behind-hand with everybody, instead of being, as we really are, first and foremost of the whole world. Doesn’t it drive one mad, Annie?”
“It drives one into very great anger, mamma,” replied her daughter, with something like a sigh.
“Well, then, my darling, what will you say to my first-rate, unaccountable good luck, when I tell you that I have just been applied to by the most gentlemanlike European, to my fancy, that ever put foot in the States, to assist with my information, my feelings, and my opinions, in composing a work, the express object of which is to do justice, at last, to the Union?”
“And who, mamma, is the author you are to assist?”
“My dear, it is the lady the most striking and distinguished in appearance of the new party that came to the house yesterday. She looks like a woman of a very commanding intellect; and her husband has told me that she has been a most admired author for years in her own country, only that she is of too retired a character ever to have put her name to any of her works.”
“Is it that enormously tall and stout woman, mamma?” demanded Annie.
“Yes, my dear, it is the lady who is the stoutest of the party; it is Mrs. Allen Barnaby.”
“I should not have fancied her a particularly shy person,” said Annie, gently.
“I must insist upon it, child,” returned Mrs. Beauchamp, with a great deal of energy, “that you do not permit yourself to take up any absurd prejudices against this lady, who, I positively declare, seems sent by Heaven to do us justice. And remember, if you please, my daughter, how very little you know about the higher classes of people in England. Depend upon it, that whatever you see in her, which strikes you as being out of the common way, is just the greatest proof of her rank and fashion. You heard what she said yesterday about going to court? And though, as a citizen of a free country, I thought it my duty to put in my say against courts altogether, and all such-like abuses of the human intellect, nevertheless, I am not such a fool as to be ignorant that none but the very highest classes of all, are ever permitted to come within-side the walls that hold the queen; and though I hate and despise all such tyranny, it is quite right, in such a case as this, to remember all we do know of their abominable old-fashioned ways, in order that we may understand a little what we are about, which is the way, you know, to avoid disagreeable blunders. I am sure nobody will suspect me, such a thorough-going patriot as I am, for being likely to have any over-great respect for queens and princes, and such like; and I dare say, Annie, you heard the considerable sharp set down I gave her yesterday on that very subject; but for all that, I know what I know; and it is something, I can tell you, in the way of good luck, when one is getting a little close and familiar with an English family, to find that they have been at court. In course, our first feeling ought to be suspicion about everybody that is English; and it is very convenient, by times, to g
et at the whole truth about people. Don’t you think so, my dear?”
“Yes, mamma,” replied Annie, rather absently; for indeed she was not much thinking of what her mother had said, having been occupied during nearly the whole time they had been together in endeavouring to recollect all she had said to Mr. Egerton, and was rather tormenting herself with the fear that she had not been sufficiently caustic and severe in her manner of treating him.
Luckily for the harmony of the dialogue (for Mrs. Beauchamp liked to be attended to), this indifference on the part of the young lady was not remarked, and her mother, still in the highest good humour, went on to explain a project she had conceived, by which every part of Mrs. Allen Barnaby’s important work might be benefited by her information and superintendence.
“And now, my dear,” said she, “I must make you acquainted with what I propose to do, and it is a great satisfaction, my daughter, for me to know that it is just exactly the very thing you will like best. You know, Annie, how often you have been at father and me about taking you to travel up and down a little, that you might see and know something of the glories of the Union, over and beyond what all my teaching could make you understand. Well, my dear, and you know, too, that I have always promised that travel you should to Washington and to Niagara, and, one after the other, to all the Atlantic cities if we could make it convene with father’s will and pleasure. But up to this day, Annie, I have never been able to get anything better from him than just off and on sort of promises; and his reason for putting it off so everlasting was, that though he loved you and I, too, a deal better than his eyes — and I am quite availed that he speaks no more than the truth when he says it — yet that for the soul of him he can’t make up his mind to travel hither and you, as he says we want to do, till we get east of sunrise, without a man companion for him to speak to — and that’s why for he keeps us at boarding everlasting, which we two don’t overmuch approbate either of us. But just observe how the matter stands now. These smart, clever people, and a large party of ’em too, with two men, you see, are actual going right ahead to make the tour of the Union. And the major, the authoress lady’s husband, loves a quiet game of piquet, father says, as well as he does himself. And that he found out last night when they started off together, you know, after dinner. Now it does seem to me, Annie, that nothing ever did convene so perfect as this. Here’s the lady come on purpose to write a book on the Union, but honestly confessing that she don’t know the name of one State from another, and, in course, still less about all the remarkabilities of our glorious and immortal constitution, and other requirements for such a business, whether about ourselves or our works. Well! then there’s me, ready and willing to supply all she wants, and though I say it that shouldn’t, no ways badly qualified for that same business either, seeing that ever since I was a girl at college, I have been always celebrated for my patriotism, and had a heart in my bosom ready to fight for the stripes and the stars, if such a thing was wanted, as father has told me scores of times. Then next comes father himself — wanting and wishing of all things in creation to please his darling Annie by taking her a touring, but never having the heart to set out, on account of having nobody in the evenings “to take a cigar and a hand of cards with him. So then, to answer to that, comes the major, as ready to do both as the sun to rise in the morning. And then next, there’s your darling beautiful self, my daughter, having your own heart’s wish at last, and setting out on your travels for everlasting, stop you who can. Now what do you think of all this, Annie? Isn’t it a pretty considerable piece of good fortune, daughter? — Say.”
Annie had changed colour more than once during the progress of her mother’s harangue, not a word of which escaped her, for the absent fit was quite gone. Had Mrs. Beauchamp been less completely occupied by her own share in the proposed arrangement, it is probable that she would have perceived that Annie’s sensations in hearing them detailed were not of unmixed satisfaction; but partly because she was too intent upon all she had in her head to see very clearly what was before her eyes, and partly because she felt so very -certain of her daughter’s delight at the scheme, that she would scarcely have believed her in earnest had she objected to it, she perceived not these latent symptoms of dissatisfaction, and exclaimed, even before she answered —
“I knew you would be in raptures!”
Annie let it pass, and only smiled, which she certainly did the more easily, because a portion at least of the information she had received was decidedly agreeable, though she thought that if she had had the ordering of the scheme, things might have “convened” more perfectly to her satisfaction than they did at present.
Her objections, however, whatever they were, she kept to herself; and when she spoke at last, it was to say that she was very glad indeed, that she was going to see something more of the glorious and unrivalled country to which she had the honour of belonging, than merely Big-Gang Bank, Charles Town, New Orleans, and Natches.
“You are quite right, Annie, quite and entirely right,” replied her mother. “I have been a great traveller in my day, a very great traveller; and from my high connections in different States, have always been among people of the very first standing, — and to my mind,” she added, “no young lady’s education can be complete till she has pretty well seen the Union through. However, my dear, we have no great cause to complain of father either, as yet, for we must remember that you won’t be seventeen till fall, and so there is no great time lost. But there is one thing, Annie, that in a small way troubles me, and I will tell you what it is, my daughter, because I have a notion that you might give us a little help, if you’ll be clever enough to do what I wish.”
“What is it, mamma?” said Annie, with one of her beautiful smiles, “I am ready to do anything to please you.”
“That’s a jam girl — and this is it then. Those two elderly-looking women, you know, that have come along with this celebrated authoress, Mrs. Allen Barnaby, I can’t help having a fancy that they must be people of great consequence, because they are both of them so unaccountable ugly and stupid, that I don’t see the likelihood of any Christian sold taking the trouble of bringing them out all this eternity of a voyage if they were not; or, at any rate, they must be somebody that this new friend of mine, Mrs. Allen Barnaby, must think a good deal of, and of course would not like to have slighted. And the truth is, Annie, that as I know I shall have enough to do to fully enlighten the mind of the writing lady about the Union, I don’t look forward at all, I can tell you, to having any time to bestow upon them; and as to your father, his hatred to ugly old women is so great, that I expect nothing in creation would make him consent to my scheme, except just the pleasing you, and having his game of piquet from sun-down to bed-time, without having the trouble of trotting out to look for a play-fellow, which I calculate he abominates further than most things. This-being the way the case lies, darling, what I want of you is, that you would just be a little conversable and genteel in your attentions to these two poor queer old souls. Will you, dear, as your share and payment for all the beautiful miles you are going to travel? Will you, Annie? — Say.”
“Certainly, mamma. If I am to travel with these English people, I will endeavour to be as civil to them as I can. But I expect they will find me very dull company, for it is rarely that I find much that I should like to say to any strangers, and especially to English. But don’t think I object, dear mamma; whenever I can find anything to say, it shall always be said to them.”
“Oh! but, Annie, you must be very civil to the major, and to his lady into the bargain, and also to the splendid-looking young lady, their daughter, and to the foreign gentleman, their son-inlaw; or else, mercy on me! we shall be getting into a terrible scrape, I guess, and having Madam Barnaby saying in her book, that whatever the rest of the country may be, the young ladies are the most disagreeable and least elegant people throughout the Union. Don’t be doing anything to get that said, Annie!”
“Mamma! I will do my very best
to please you,” replied her daughter, very gravely; “but there is one thing that I will not promise, because in my heart I don’t believe it is one that I could ever perform. I cannot promise you to speak very often to the married young lady, the daughter.”
Mrs. Beauchamp frowned, and shook her head.
“I see by your looks, Annie,” said she, “that you are getting into one of your obstinate fits, when you will pretend to know what people are better than your mother does, which of all impossibilities is the most impossible, and you a girl under seventeen! Now don’t Annie, don’t. There’s a fine girl! Don’t vex me, just when I am trying to do my very best to serve my dear persecuted country, and to please you into the bargain! It is very cruel of you, Annie, very.”
And poor Mrs. Beauchamp looked very much as if she were going to cry; but her beautiful daughter ran to her, and drove away every indication of the kind by a kiss.
“Trust me, mamma,” she said, “I have promised you that I will do the best I can; and so I will. Shall I go this very minute and find out these Miss Perkinses? — that is the name, I expect, isn’t it, mamma? Shall I go to them now, wherever they are, and ask them if they will take a walk in the balcony? I am sure it must be cooler than the room they have got, poor things; for Cleopatra told me that our sly lump of soft sodder, Mrs. Carmichael, had persuaded them to lodge themselves in a little hole of a garret looking exactly west, that she might keep a decent room vacant, in case any of her ‘regular New Orlines Bows,’ as she calls them, should offer themselves. I will go to them directly; shall I?”
Collected Works of Frances Trollope Page 338