Collected Works of Frances Trollope

by Frances Milton Trollope

  “I had no idea of seeing such a room of elegant company as this. It almost perfectly equals anything in London. My own last party, to be sure, was more numerous, and as many of the ladies wore their court-dresses, because we were all at the drawingroom that morning — it was more—”

  But, luckily, before she finished her sentence, a contracted brow or two among the group she was addressing, reminded her of the outbreak of her friend, Mrs. Beauchamp, when the court of Queen Victoria had been alluded to on a former occasion. Therefore, stopping suddenly short, she looked round her with a sort of renewed delight, and then exclaimed, with very captivating naïveté —

  “But oh! Good gracious! What use is it to talk of London, or Paris, or any other place in the world! For where did any one ever see in the same number, so many beautiful, elegant-dressed women, or so many noble, dignified-looking men?”

  “I am very glad to find you are struck with that, my dear Mrs. Allen Barnaby,” said Mrs. Beauchamp, in an audible whisper, and throwing her handsome patriotic eyes over the group of tall republicans who, standing in a cluster behind the Judge, were gazing with very eager curiosity at the lady who, it was rumoured, was come all the way from the old country on purpose to do them justice, and to write about them and their nasty niggers in the proper style— “I am very glad you are struck with that,” she repeated with energy, “because in this part of the Union, we do rather pride ourselves upon the elegant style of our gentlemen. All the young ladies in the United States, you know, are counted pretty, some more, and some less, of course; but it is in vain to deny that it is only in the slave states that the gentlemen look first-rate. And the reason is so plain, if people would but give themselves the trouble to understand it! For it’s only in the slave states, in course, that a citizen is a master as well as a man; and what right, I should like to know, have those Europeyans, who clamour against our negro slavery, to insist upon it, that American gentlemen shall be the only gentlemen in the world who can’t say that much for themselves?”

  A very audible murmur of applause ran round the circle which had now surrounded the strangers at this sally; and “devilish smart woman that!” was heard from various quarters.

  Mr. Egerton, who had been in the room some time before the arrival of Mrs. Beauchamp’s party, had by this time made his way-up to it; an effort which he had probably been disposed to make, because the individuals composing it were the only ones in the room, save the honourable Judge Johnson himself, whom he knew by name, or with whom he had ever exchanged a syllable.

  Mrs. Beauchamp, in her eagerness to perform properly all the duties of a chaperon to Mrs. Allen Barnaby, had dropped the arm of her daughter on entering the room, saying —

  “You know everybody in the room, Annie, so you won’t want me; but let who will come to you, be sure to keep civil with the English people.”

  Finding herself thus alone, Miss Beauchamp looked round her, before she took another step in advance; not so much, however, to see with whom she should join herself, as how most securely to avoid the proximity and conversation of Madame Tornorino, for whom she had conceived an aversion even greater than the fact of her being English could account for.

  Having ascertained in what direction she and her loving husband had turned, she next looked about her for the other individuals of the party for whom her mother had requested her civility, and perceiving that the favoured Matilda had received permission to place the tips of her fingers on the gallant arm of Patty’s Don, she looked about her, and for some time in vain, for the melancholy Louisa, and at last found her considerably in rear of the party — of course, utterly alone, and with an air as utterly desolate.

  Annie instantly stepped back and joined her, offering her delicate arm, smiling exceedingly like an angel of light, and beginning to talk to her about the room and the people, as if they had been intimately acquainted for months. The sadness of the melancholy Louisa gave way before all this unlooked-for kindness, and being really as good-natured a woman as ever lived, she soon got talking and laughing with her young companion in a much gayer style than was quite usual with her; for even before she had been beguiled into leaving her country, the constant anxiety in which she lived respecting her sister’s unpromising project of getting a husband, had rendered the life of Miss Louisa far from a happy one.

  On perceiving the pleasant effect her attentions produced on the person whose quiet sadness had so moved her young heart to compassion, Annie redoubled her efforts to be amusing; and at the moment Mr. Egerton reached the place where she and Miss Louisa were standing, a little apart from the crowd that surrounded the great lion of the evening, Annie had made her companion laugh heartily, and was looking the very picture of gaiety and good-humour herself.

  Mr. Egerton before he spoke to them, gazed at her for a moment in astonishment, and it might be, perhaps, a little in admiration.

  Miss Beauchamp was not on this occasion dressed in her robe of brown-holland; but as far as form went, was hardly less simply clad; and as the material was white muslin, without any mixture of colour or decoration of any kind, her appearance was still as remarkable for its quiet neatness as before. One ornament, however, she had, which was the full-blown flower of a snow-white Japonica, which she had fastened gracefully enough on one side of her head.

  Having indulged, unseen, in looking at her for a minute or two, Mr. Egerton stepped forward and made himself visible, bowing civilly to the elder lady, and expressing his hope that he saw the younger well.

  “Oh, dear! what a pity that Matilda is not here!” exclaimed the kind Louisa in her heart. “This is the very gentleman she was so anxious to be introduced to — and now he seems quite inclined to get acquainted!” —

  Her sister, however, was too far off to be summoned by any becks or winks that she could set in action, and all she could do was to return his civility in the most obliging manner, which she did by courtseying to him three times successively.

  Miss Beauchamp, meanwhile, from the unexpected suddenness of Mr. Egerton’s address, or from some other cause, perhaps her extreme dislike of him, coloured violently, but soon recovered both from the laughter he had interrupted, and the slight agitation he had produced. And then her manner became again as cold, as distant, and as disdainful as it had ever been when conversing with him. It is not very easy for a gentleman to keep up a conversation under such circumstances, especially when so large a portion of contempt and dislike mixes with his own feelings; but, with a sort of pertinacious obstinacy, Mr. Egerton was determined that he would talk to Miss Beauchamp. It might be that he hoped to plague her, or it might be that he hoped to amuse himself with her transatlantic idiom; but let the reason be what it might, he was very steadfast in his purpose, and on seeing the young people preparing to dance, actually proposed himself to her as a partner.

  Annie looked at him with considerable surprise, and certainly her first impulse was to decline the offered honour; but she was very fond of dancing, and if she refused him she could not dance with another, without a degree of rudeness which nothing but a fresh outbreak on his part in praise of his own country could have given her a courage for. She therefore, after a little delay that was just long enough to be uncourteous, bowed her consent, and he presented his arm. She looked at him as American young ladies always do look on such occasions (before they have visited Europe), and walked on beside him in silence, but without accepting it. And hereupon Mr. Egerton passed judgment upon her with a spice of European injustice — for totally ignorant of the law which forbids young ladies to walk “lock and lock” with young gentlemen, he conceived her rejection of this ordinary piece of civility to be only an additional proof of her determination to be rude to him.

  They had not, however, proceeded three steps in advance, before Annie, inexpressibly provoked at herself for her thoughtlessness, which really surprised as much as it vexed her, turned suddenly back again to poor Louisa, and kindly taking her hand, which she drew under her arm, she said —

&nb
sp; “My dear Miss Perkins! I don’t know what I was thinking of to leave you in this way. I expect you must think me the very rudest person you ever saw. Let me take you to your party before I begin dancing. Shall we look for your sister, or for Mrs. Allen Barnaby?”

  “Thank you, my dear young lady! You are very — very kind to me — always,” replied the really grateful Louisa. “If you can find out Mrs. Allen Barnaby for me, I shall be very glad, because, do you know, I should like to ask her if she thinks it would be possible to get a partner for my sister Matilda.”

  “Will it please you, Miss Perkins, if she gets a partner?” said Annie.

  “Please me, my dear Miss Beauchamp? Oh, dear! oh, dear! I should be so delighted — I really can’t tell you how delighted I should be.”

  “Then just stay here one moment, will you, with your countryman, Mr. Egerton? and I will see if I can manage it without troubling Mrs. Allen Barnaby.”

  And so saying, she glided away, leaving the not-too-well-matched compatriots side by side.

  “You seem to have become already extremely intimate with that young American lady, Miss Perkins,” said the gentleman. “Do you find her very agreeable?”

  “I find her, sir, the very sweetest, kindest young creature I ever met with in my whole life,” replied the grateful Louisa, with a degree of emotion that communicated itself to her voice. “I really do think that if I saw much of her I should grow to love her a great deal too well — she being an American foreigner, which would make it seem almost wrong and unnatural, I am afraid.” “Why, really, Miss Perkins, if you feel thus strongly already, I should be apt to think that you might carry your partiality rather farther than was reasonable, for you can have seen but a very little of her.”

  “And that is quite true, sir, certainly — but very great sweetness, and very great kindness, will go to one’s heart, I believe, without taking a great deal of time for it.”

  The handsome, gallant, gay young Egerton looked in the pale face of the still dismal-looking old maid, with a considerable approach towards good fellowship.

  “Perhaps, Miss Perkins, you patronise pretty young ladies,” said he, smiling. “And I won’t deny that Miss Beauchamp is very pretty, though she is so thoroughly American.”

  “Pretty, sir? Is that all you can say? I do think she is the most perfect beauty that ever was looked at.”

  “Yes, yes,” he replied, laughing, “she is quite sufficiently beautiful, and I see I was right in supposing that this is the reason you have taken such a fancy to her.”

  “Then, without wishing to be rude, sir,” she replied, very earnestly, “instead of being right, I must tell you that you are quite wrong. I don’t believe at all that I have any particular liking for beauty. There’s my sister’s particular friend, Miss Patty — Madame Tornorino, I mean — I have heard that she is considered quite a complete beauty, and I do assure you, sir, that since she has been fully grown up, I have sometimes taxed myself with being very ill-humoured and unamiable about it — for the handsomer she seemed to get, the more I seemed to dislike looking at her.”

  Again Mr. Egerton laughed, but by no means impertinently; and though he did not think it discreet to tell the lady how very well he understood and how very much he sympathised with her, he did offer her his arm to conduct her to a seat, saying, that he would watch for the return of Miss Beauchamp. But before Miss Louisa could express her sense of his obligingness, or do anything more than wish that it was her sister Matilda instead of herself that he was so polite to, Annie returned bringing the glad tidings that she had got one of the best partners in the room for Miss Matilda.

  “And now tell me,” she added, “where I shall leave you?”

  “Oh! just there, if you please, my dear — where this gentleman was going to get me a seat before you came back.”

  “But shall you not like better to be with your party?” said Annie. “Mrs. Allen Barnaby has got all the grandeur of New Orleans round her. Should not you like to get a place near here? I am sure I can manage it.”

  “No, thank you, my dear,” replied Miss Louisa, rather hastily. “I would a great deal rather sit here by myself, if you please.”

  Again Mr. Egerton felt a strong movement of sympathy towards the old maid, and it seemed as if he thought not of his beautiful partner till he had conducted her to the seat she desired to occupy. Then, however, he returned with no very lingering step to the spot where he had left Annie conversing with some of her acquaintance, whom he heard entreating her, as he came up, to get them an introduction to the celebrated Mrs. Allen Barnaby.

  By this time the gentlemen dancers were all leading their partners to their places, and Mr. Egerton perceived that the manner in which this ceremony was performed, was by the gentleman’s taking the hand of the lady in the good old Sir Charles Grandison style, and so parading her to the place she was to occupy. They took their station at the side of the quadrille, which gave time for a little conversation before the figure of the dance called upon them to begin.

  “Your antipathy towards the degenerated inhabitants of the old country, Miss Beauchamp, seems to have relaxed, in one instance at least. You are exceedingly kind and attentive to that poor unhappy-looking Miss Perkins.”

  “I don’t think she is unhappy-looking at all,” replied Annie, evasively. “Not, at least, when she has anything in the world to make her look cheerful. I never saw any one more easily pleased in my life.”

  “And you really appear to take pleasure in producing this metamorphosis from grave to gay,” returned Mr. Egerton. “And I could understand this very well, if she were not an Englishwoman. But, as it is, I confess to you that I am somewhat puzzled to understand why you have so decidedly taken her into favour.”

  Annie looked at him for a moment as if doubtful how to answer, and then said, with a little air, as if she had at length made up her mind —

  “I will tell you the reason, Mr. Egerton. Miss Perkins is the only person I have ever heard of (I will not say conversed with, though it would sound better — but I have scarcely conversed with any), Miss Perkins is the only English person I ever heard of, who did not think him or her self vastly superior to everybody eke in the world. She, poor thing, is exactly the contrary, for she has every symptom of believing herself inferior to everybody, and that is the reason why I think her the most interesting individual of the English party at Mrs. Carmichael’s.”

  “The English party at Mrs. Carmichael’s,” muttered Mr. Egerton to himself. And then he and his fair partner were called upon to perform their part in the dance.

  Meanwhile the happiness of Miss Matilda was almost greater than anything she had ever dared again to hope for at a ball. When endeavouring to obtain a partner for her, Miss Beauchamp had not scrupled to hint that she was, as it were, part and parcel of that celebrated Mrs. Allen Barnaby, who was come from England to New Orleans on purpose to write a book in praise of the United States and in defence of the slave system. Not only was this-enough to procure the gentleman to whom it was addressed as a partner in the first quadrille, but no less than three others solicited the honour of her hand, before the first set was over, for the subsequent dances.

  Those who know anything of Miss Matilda Perkins, can be at no loss to imagine her feelings. Nor was her friend and patroness less happy. Senators, members of congress, lawyers, writers, and statesmen, all crowded round her, and seemed to vie with each other in demonstrations of esteem and admiration. The heart of my heroine whispered to her —

  “This is what I was born for. This is my real vocation.”

  Her well-pleased husband lingered near her long enough to see how admirably well she bore her honours, and then giving her, unseen by all, one very little wink of satisfaction, turned away, confessing to the honourable Judge Johnson, who, at that moment, made the inquiry, “that he had no objection whatever to a rubber.”

  The fair Patty was, in short, the only one of the party who did not think this visit very delightful; but being absolutely ob
liged to give up her husband to her papa, who had become so attached to him as to resolve upon never playing a game of cards of any kind without having him near his person, she found very little fun even in dancing, because, of course, now, as she rather pettishly muttered to herself, “Nobody could dare to make love to her for fear the Don should snap his nose off.”

  Before she left the room, however, she, too, came in for a share of the honours of the evening; for a certain Mrs. General Gregory, a lady very richly dressed, and having every appearance of being a person of great consequence, made acquaintance with her by admiring her gown. This led to other subjects; and as Patty was not disposed to dance much, Mrs. General Gregory had so advanced the acquaintance before they parted, as to promise to come and call upon her and her mamma at the boarding-house. This greatly revival the spirits of Patty; for the lady talked of her carriage, and her horses, and her servants, and occasionally of the general, her husband, so that our young bride again felt that she too was somebody. But, after all, it was Mrs. Allen Barnaby herself who was in truth the well-head and spring of all these honours. She was herself fully aware of this, and enjoyed the glorious prospect opening before her with all the native energy of her character.

  The last words she uttered to her husband before wishing him finally “good night,” will show the acuteness with which she read the causes that had produced such agreeable effects.

  “I say, Donny — do you think I shall find a word or two to say in praise of slavery? Won’t I, my dear? That’s all.”

  CHAPTER XVII.

  THE party at Judge Johnson’s furnished a fund of conversation for the whole of Mrs. Carmichael’s large domestic circle on the morrow; and had not the heart of Mrs. Beauchamp been filled by higher considerations (for she had begun to feel a very strong conviction that she was likely to become the agent of a revolution in public opinion concerning the slave states of America, little less important than that achieved by the immortal Washington), she might have found considerable gratification to her national vanity in the cordial admiration expressed concerning everything and everybody there, by the English party whom she had introduced.