“That is a capital good idea of yours, major,” said she, “about asking Mrs. Beauchamp to introduce us, as if just for the purpose, you know, of enabling me to describe the society in my book. And with that notion in her head, she will pick out the very best and genteelest, see if she don’t.”
“I have no doubt of it,” he replied, with a sagacious nod; “and I shall choose, my dear, to be included in this visiting, for I know of old, that New Orleans is accounted one of the first places for play, of its size, anywhere; and that makes me think that it’s likely enough, coming here as a stranger, with my family and all, BO very respectable and domestic, I may do better in these drawingrooms for the time we stay, than I have any chance of doing among the regular set at the gaming-tables. So I don’t care how soon you set about talking to her on this subject; and you may say, you know, that in a new place, as this is to you, it has always been your rule to go nowhere unaccompanied by your ‘excellent husband.’ You understand me?”
“Oh, yes, perfectly, my dear; and I’ll do the thing as it ought to be done, you may depend upon it. But, I say, bonny dear, there is no occasion, is there, for me to take those poor dear lanky-looking Perkinses with me, everywhere? It will be all very well when we are in lodgings anywhere that we should all be together, because if it’s the same here as in London, that makes a great difference in paying for the drawing-room; but it will be a dreadful bore, won’t it, if we can never go out anywhere without them? I am sure I don’t know who’ll ever ask us.”
“On that point, my dear, I have not a word to say,” replied the major, shaking his head. “It is one of those female, lady-like mysteries with which I positively can have nothing to do. It was you, my dear, and your daughter Patty, that arranged their coming with us, and now, if you like it, you may arrange that they shall be sent back again. If you had requested to bring Mother Redcap I should have consented, provided she could have paid her expenses, and if you had her here, I should let you do precisely what you liked with her. But I must not be plagued about it, Mrs. Barnaby.”
“No more you shall, dear; I’ll manage all that. And now be off with you, there’s a good man, for I shall have Mrs. Beauchamp knocking at my door in a minute, and by what I hear the boarding ladies say to one another, they would be shocked dreadfully to find you here.”
“Shocked to find me in my own room, wife?” said the major, somewhat surprised.
“Yes, they would indeed. It does seem droll, to be sure; but Mrs. Beauchamp says that every lady’s chamber, as she calls it, is considered in all the boarding-houses, the genteelest place to receive company, lady company of course, and therefore that their husbands are never permitted there.”
“Well then, I’m off. I’ll just ramble about a little among the billiard-tables this morning, but I shall be devilish careful how I play. So you must not be over anxious, my dear.”
* * * * * *
The sociable anticipations of Mrs. Allen Barnaby were not disappointed, for hardly had the major disappeared before, as she had predicted, the gentle, lady-like knock of Mrs. Beauchamp was heard at the door. The well-pleased tenant of the “chamber,” confined not her welcome to the ordinary words “come in,” but hastening to the door, threw it open to its widest extent, and did everything that smiles, nods, hand-pressings, and rejoicing expletives could do, to prove the delight which the visit gave her.
The two ladies then seated themselves on a comfortable sofa, and smilingly began to compare notes on the explanatory interviews they had had with their respective husbands, since their conversation of the preceding morning. Both declared that, far from finding any difficulty, the plan they had formed had met with the most cordial approbation from the gentlemen, both concluding her agreeable statement nearly in the same words, namely, “I must say that whenever I particularly wish any thing, the colonel (or the major) very rarely opposes me.”
And then, having reached this point, Mrs. Allen Barnaby said, quite as a matter of course, that some short time however must be given to becoming better acquainted with the charming town they were in, for that it would be dreadful to write a book on America, And find nothing to say of so very fine a city as New Orleans.
“God bless my soul! I never thought of that!” exclaimed Mrs. Beauchamp, with the look and voice of a sincere penitent. “Most perfectly true! to be sure, most perfectly true! I shall never forgive myself, I do think, for ever dreaming that you could start as we talked, right away up the river, with never a word said of such a glory of a city as New Orleans! I expect I had better not tell this tale against myself at Mrs. Carmichael’s dinner table, or I shall get more sour looks than would be at all agreeable. However, we’ll both of us remember the proverb, ‘least said is soonest friended,’ and never say a word about it; you understand me, my dear lady? Yes, to be sure you must, Mrs. Allen Barnaby,” she continued, after meditating a moment, “you must see the theatres, both French and American; and the glorious quays, and the magnificent levee, and we must get to the place where you’ll be sure to see the most steamboats together, such a sight as you never saw before, I calculate. And then the market! Oh, such a market! every individual thing coming by the river, and no other earthly way, so smooth, such a current, and so unaccountable beautiful! And then there will be the shops. You London ladies will find the difference between these shops and yours, I expect; for here it is altogether one and the same thing as if you went into the shops at Paris, even down to the talking French behind the counters, which we calculate gives a very genteel air to the town, being foreign-like without being English, which is what, as you want to know everything, you will excuse me for saying, we prefer. But I have little or no doubt, my dear Mrs. Allen Barnaby, that when your book appears, such a book as, between us, I am sure we shall be able to make it, all those little unpleasant feelings will wear away, and you will come to be quite as popular among us as the French themselves.”
“Heaven grant your delightful prophecy may come true, my dear madam,” returned Mrs. Allen Barnaby, every feature, as she listened, expressive of attention and deep respect. “That it should prove so, is, I may truly say, the first and dearest wish of my heart! But it seems to me, my dear Mrs. Beauchamp, that notwithstanding the many interesting things you have mentioned, you have omitted one that is almost, I think, the most important of all.”
“Have I, indeed!” exclaimed Mrs. Beauchamp, looking in no degree displeased by the remark. “But I have no doubt you are right; it is indeed a great deal more likely that you should be right than not, for this country, from end to end, is so crammed full of wonders, of one sort or another, that I expect one must have a most unaccountable good memory not to forget some of them. But tell me, my dear lady, what is the particular thing you mean?”
“It is your own fault, my dear Mrs. Beauchamp,” replied the anxious inquirer, “if I do think it the most important of all,” replied Mrs. Allen Barnaby, with a very charming smile “If I had never seen or conversed with you, I might not perhaps have been so very desirous of acquiring the power of describing the society of the country. This is it, which I must confess strikes me as the most important feature of all, especially in such sort of work as that which I intend to produce.”
“And you are right, I guess, as sure as there’s a sun in heaven. No doubt about it; and what in the world I could be thinking of to suppose you could begin, even for a single page, without that, is more than I can guess, I promise you. I suppose I thought that was sure to come as a matter of course. And so I suppose it would, in the long run, but you are a deal more smart and thoughtful than I am in turning your mind to it from the very first. Luckily there’s no time lost as yet, however, and a few notes of my writing to some of the people of first standing in the town, will settle the matter at once.”
“I know not,” said Mrs. Allen Barnaby, with much feeling, while her jocund heart fluttered in her bosom, as she remembered the trunks full of fine furbelowed dresses she had brought from London, “indeed I know not how I can ever thank
you enough for all the trouble you are taking for me! All I can say is, that you will not find an ungrateful heart.”
“All I can do, and ten times more, Mrs. Allen Barnaby, may be out and out repaid, I expect, if you will but exert your talents for us,” replied Mrs. Beauchamp. “All I want in return is that you should portrait us out to the world for just what we really are, and that is the finest nation upon the surface of God’s whole earth, and as far ahead in civilisation of Europe in general, and England in particular, as the summer is before winter in heat.”
“On that point fear nothing,” replied Mrs. Allen Barnaby, with a sort of concentrated earnestness that seemed quite sublime to Mrs. Beauchamp; “my bosom seems to have received a spark from yours, and glows warmly, and I trust brightly, with the desire of teaching the world where to look for and where to find all that is noblest in man. But tell me, my dear friend, permit me to call you so, tell me in what style do the ladies dress at the parties to which you so kindly propose introducing us? Will feathers be considered as too full dress? I have many sets that are exceedingly magnificent, but on this point I shall really wish to be entirely guided by you.”
“Well, then, ma’am, I may say in return, that for the most part the ladies of New Orlines don’t consider any dress whatever as too elegant for their parties; and provided your feathers come from Paris, I don’t in the least question but what they will be very much approved. Perhaps, Mrs. Allen Barnaby, as we are on such comfortable and clever terms together, you might not object to my just looking over your dresses? It is what we American ladies don’t at all scruple to ask from one another, and I expect that there’s few females to be found anywhere as better understands the thing than we do.”
* * * * * * *
It was quite impossible that Mrs. Beauchamp could have made any request with which Mrs. Allen Barnaby would have complied with greater pleasure. Partly by the aid of the ready money which had floated round them during their few months’ prosperous abode in London, and partly from the credit which had resulted from it, Mrs. Allen Barnaby had contrived to “rig herself out,” as she called it, with a prodigious quantity of fine clothes. Nearly the first thought which crossed her mind when informed by her husband that she must prepare to cross the Atlantic, was how she should be able to convey these treasures with her. She had pulled them, and caused them to be pulled forth from their various repositories, and probably any woman of nerves less firm than her own would, on seeing the accumulation, have abandoned the idea of conveying them all with her as a thing impossible. But not so my heroine. As we are told is often the case with the noblest minds, difficulties on such an occasion as this, only seemed to generate strength throughout her whole frame. A new, a very new and original thought struck her as she gazed at the masses of velvet and satin piled around her in her Curzon-street bed-room, on the afternoon of the day which succeeded her celebrated ball. For one short moment indeed her spirit seemed overwhelmed, and she muttered the word “impossible!” But in the next the thought above alluded to suggested itself. She fell into an attitude of deep meditation. The fore-finger of her left hand pressed to her forehead, the right hand extended as if to forbid the approach of any one to interrupt her, and her eyes closed. For a few minutes she stood thus silently and wholly absorbed, then arousing herself from the sort of trance into which she seemed to have fallen, she said to the Abigail, who stood staring at her, “Where were all the hampers, put, that brought in the wine which your master ordered when we first came into the house?”
“I don’t rightly know, I’m sure, ma’am,” replied the woman, “but I somehow think they are in the coal-hole,”
“Coal-hole!” repeated her mistress with a natural shudder, “You mean one of the cellars, I suppose, you vulgar creature. Such a house as this has no coal-hole. Just go to the linen press up stairs and bring down all the sheets and table-cloths you can find, ay, and all the towels too. Make haste, I shall be back in a minute.”
A mind of less intense energy would probably have contented itself by issuing orders for an examination of the contents of the coal-cellar, but that of Mrs. Allen Barnaby was differently constituted. She penetrated herself to the dusky and dusty region, herself held high the candle, which enabled her to reconnoitre its contents, and herself witnessed the drawing forth of hamper after hamper from its remotest corner. A mind of less intense energy, too, might, considering the purpose to which she desired to apply these hampers, have shrunk and felt appalled at the dingy condition in which she found them. But no weakness of the kind shook, even for a moment, her firm and steadfast purpose. She bade the cook, the page, and the coachman, who all stood staring at her from the area, to lug them out, and then she bade them take sundry brooms and brush them, and then she bade them use the handles of the said brooms to beat and shake them, and finally she bade them take them all, being eight in number, and of a goodly size, their straw abstracted from within, and the coal dust, as far as might be, from without, to her own sleeping apartment and there deposit them. The menials wondered, but obeyed. This done, she quickly followed the eight hampers, and quickly was rewarded too, by finding how perfect was the success of her expedient. Guarded by the linen wrappers in which, with all the tenderness of a fond parent, she herself enveloped her treasures, she gradually saw her satins, her silks, her laces, and her velvets, absorbed before her eyes, till nothing remained to look upon but eight hampers. Our retrospect has already been too long, and we therefore must not dwell upon the delightful feeling with which the labour thus accomplished inspired its projector; suffice it to say, that Madame Tornorino, as nearly as she could, followed her mamma’s example; that not a candle-box or crockery-crate was left unoccupied; and that few ladies ever quitted their native shores leaving less of what they loved behind, than did the mother and daughter of our history.
But all these treasures, or at least by far the greater and more precious part of them, were still reposing in their wicker tabernacles awaiting the necessity, now apparently so delightfully near, of being called forth again into action. It is scarcely exaggeration to say, that every fibre of their animated owner’s frame felt a quiver of delight as she remembered what she had to show, and listened to the invitation to display it. But some delay was, however, inevitable. The effect of dragging forth her splendid draperies from the unseemly recesses of a wine hamper, was in a moment so graphically present to the soul of Mrs. Allen Barnaby, that, despite her eagerness, she ventured to refer her friend to the morrow for the gratification of a curiosity which it was very evident she would have preferred gratifying to-day, but when the stately Mrs. Allen Barnaby said with dignity, “My travelling trunks, my dear madam, have not all as yet been conveyed to my apartment,” Mrs. Beauchamp became aware that it was no good to press the matter farther, and courtesied herself off with an assurance that she would certainly not forget to write the notes she had mentioned, and had no doubt whatever that “lots of invitations would follow.”
CHAPTER XIV.
THOSE among my readers who have studied the character of Mrs. Allen Barnaby with the attention it deserves, will easily believe that she lost no time in setting about the business that must of necessity precede her keeping her promise to Mrs. Beauchamp. The absence of the major at this moment, and indeed that of ms son-in-law too, was exceedingly provoking. They were both tall strong men, and she knew pretty well that it was not very likely either of them would venture to refuse their assistance to her, had they been within reach of her commands. But of their whereabouts she knew nothing. And the job, as she told herself, must be set About instantly. But Mrs. Allen Barnaby had great ability, which never showed itself to greater advantage than when she was called upon by the exigencies of the moment, to put herself, and everybody else that she could influence, into a bustle. For one moment, and no more, she paused to think how she should begin, and then rang the bell sharply. Cleopatra answered it instantly, with the usual negro grin that seems ever to promise (poor wretches!) willing obedience. Mrs. Allen Barnaby sto
od ready with a little silver coin, commonly called in those regions a fip,’ in her hand.
“I have got a rather tough job to get through, my girl,” said she, “and if you will set to and help me, I’ll give you this.”
Money is, perhaps, of all sources of earthly joy, what a slave loves the best, and though a negro eye does not sparkle, those of Cleopatra gleamed forth a look of great delight, and extending her strangely white palm, so different in hue from the rest of her skin, she said —
“Please, missis, I’se ready to do ebery ting.”
“That is more than I want, Cleopatra,” said the dignified lady, with a very condescending smile. “All I want is, that you should go into that outhouse at the back of the yard, you know, behind the kitchen, where all our luggage was put, that came from the custom-house, and get some of the other blacks to help you to bring up into this room all the hampers you can find there. Do you understand?”
“Is all the nigger blacks to share dis, share and share alike, ma’am?” demanded the disappointed Cleopatra, holding out her fip’ to the lady.
“No, Cleopatra, no, that is for yourself alone. Put it in your pocket, and say nothing about it to anybody. When all the hampers are brought into this room, and all the deal boxes, and the great earthenware crate into the room of my daughter, Madame Tornorino, I will give a levy to be divided among the people that help you.”
“lb I do it all my own self, will missis gib me the levy?” asked Cleopatra, very coaxingly.
Collected Works of Frances Trollope Page 341