As it was, however, she was intent on higher thoughts, and did little more than smile and bow with contented urbanity, when Miss Matilda Perkins distinctly declared at breakfast, that, much as she had always enjoyed the first-rate society of London—” Curzon-street and all, you know, my dear Mrs. Allen Barnaby,” she had never seen a more perfectly elegant company than those assembled at Judge Johnson’s, “and as for the gentlemen,” she added, blushing slightly, and fixing her eyes upon the smoking roll she was engaged in buttering, “I must say that there is a thorough fashionableness and gentility about them that I don’t think at all common to be met with in the old world.”
Not even the decisive and emphatic “very gentlemanlike men indeed,” of Major Allen Barnaby, could do more than produce a repetition of the smile and the bow from Mrs. Beauchamp; although the colonel, her husband, was moved thereby to open his eyes more fully than he had yet done that morning, and to reply, “I am glad to find, sir, that you are so thoroughly brought to that conviction at once, because it will prevent any acting of prejudice upon your mind as you go on progressing in your acquaintance with the country. I expect, sir, it was the luckiest thing you ever did, coming to this part of the Union in the first instance, for in no other direction, almost, could you have hoped to have fallen so completely with the right sort. You may depend upon it, Major Allen Barnaby, that the great proprietors in the slave-holding states of the Union, are the most perfect set of gentlemen upon God’s earth.”
But Mrs. Carmichael’s breakfast-table was large enough to admit of more conversations than one being carried on at the same time, and this slow, solemn and deliberate speech of the colonel’s did not at all interfere with what was passing at a little distance from him. For some reason or other, perhaps from remembering the success of Miss Beauchamp’s efforts the evening before, to make the melancholy Miss Perkins look gay, Mr. Egerton, who had chanced to overtake the good spinster as she was descending the stairs, not only addressed her cheerfully as rather an intimate acquaintance, but actually offered his arm to conduct her across the hall, and in this way they entered the breakfast-room together. The Beauchamp family had already taken their places, and Miss Louisa, strengthened in spirit by the civility of her young countryman, actually took courage, as she slipped her arm away from his, to approach, avec intention, towards a vacant chair next below that which her friend Annie occupied, and was rewarded for the courageous exploit by an extended hand, and a smile of very kind welcome. As a matter of course, Mr. Egerton followed the steps of the lady he had escorted, and there being fortunately a second chair to be had, below that of Miss Louisa, he had the satisfaction of being able to place himself in close juxtaposition to her, and it soon became evident not only to her observant sister, but to every body else who happened to be looking that way, that the acquaintance between them was ripening into very considerable intimacy, for he talked to her a great deal; and because she talked to her neighbour on the other side, he began to talk to her too, notwithstanding his aversion to everything so completely American. But he felt, or was beginning to feel, that there would be something quite ridiculous in his fighting the battles of his country by being rude to a young girl, however “thoroughly American” she might be, and being once awakened to the absurdity of such a line of conduct, he took great care to avoid it.
Miss Matilda, meanwhile, having gazed for some moments on the very new and puzzling spectacle of her sister in the act of being gaily talked to, and gaily listening, at length hit upon a solution, which easily and rationally accounted for the unusual degree of attention she appeared to be receiving. Miss Matilda remembered how uncommonly well she herself had looked in her pale pink silk the evening before, and what unmistakable proof of this she had received in the marked attentions of no le» than six American gentlemen who had asked her to dance.
“I understand it all perfectly,” thought she. “This Mr. Egerton is just like all other Englishmen — so vastly fond of whatever they think is coming into fashion. I know well enough what will come next; Louisa will have to introduce me. But I can’t say I care much about it just now. That Mr. Franklin Brown is worth a dozen of him any day; and as for that odious American girl! she just sees that it won’t do to give herself airs to any of us. We are all getting too much into fashion for that to answer. Yes; I understand it all.”
Mrs. Beauchamp had, with an air of decision that no boarding-school etiquettes could oppose, seated herself next Mrs. Allen Barnaby, and the acquaintance between these two distinguished women was advancing so rapidly towards the familiarity of friendship, that they conversed wholly and solely with each other, and that only in whispers, and when the table broke up, they left the room together, arm in arm.
Patty and her Don, seated as usual side by side, conversed also-in whispers; but the happy bride condescended, from time to time, to interrupt this under colloquy by talking a little to the ladies named Hucks, and Grimes, concerning the last night’s party, to which they had not been invited, and which, therefore, offered a theme particularly fertile, and to Patty, at least, particularly gratifying.
“But I wish you could tell me, Mrs. Grimes,” said she, “something about that nice person, Mrs. General Gregory, as they call her. She was most uncommon civil to me, and is coming to call upon me this very day; and I should like monstrously to know something about her first, that I mayn’t make any horrid blunders you know, in talking to her.”
“Oh my!” returned Mrs. Grimes, “a fine young lady like you needn’t in no way be afraid of talking to Mrs. General Gregory, for she would be quite up to understanding everything you could say to her, if you was ten times over English, she is first-rate standing in all ways.”
“Is she rich?” asked Patty.
“Oh, goodness! yes, to be sure she is,” was the reply. “They have not a chick nor child belonging to them, and they say his plantation is next largest to Judge Johnson’s in Carolina. But then, you know, in course, that she is one of the ladies of the new light, only she makes a difference from what the eastern new-lighters say, on some points, on account you know of the nigger population of Carolina.”
This was by no means particularly intelligible to Madame Tornorino, and she immediately demanded, with her accustomed distinctness, when asking a question —
“Do you mean that she is a Methodist?”
“She is one of the evangelical saints, ma’am,” said Mrs. Hucks, in a tone that showed she held the persons she alluded to in great respect.
“Well, I don’t care a farthing for that,” replied Patty, “so as she don’t wear a sanctified, frightful little bonnet, and a prim mouse-coloured gown; and I am sure I saw no symptom of that last night, for she was beautifully dressed, and almost as fine as mamma.”
“I don’t know whether it is the same in the old country,” resumed Mrs. Grimes, “but with us there is a great difference in the manner in which serious ladies fix themselves. Some dress just as you say about the bonnet and gown, and an’t that far different from quakers, while there’s others, like Mrs. General Gregory, who f declare that they despise giving any attention at all to such contemptible distinctions, and say that there’s no warrant for thinking that either bonnets or gowns make any difference in holiness.”
“Oh! well, that’s all right,” returned Patty, “for we should never get on if she didn’t approve fashionable dress, I can tell her.”
“Well, now, begging your pardon, ma’am,” said Mrs. Grimes, “that’s more of an American lady’s feeling than I ever expected to hear from an English woman; for in course you know that the English have no great fame in the Union in the article of dress. All through the world, I take it, the Americans and the French stand highest in that article.”
“I don’t know anything about that,” replied Patty, “I only know that I wish I had only just one hundredth part of the fine clothes I’ve seen in London: but I shall talk to Mrs. General Gregory about it, for I intend to be great friends with her.”
A favourable opp
ortunity for putting this resolution in action was afforded exactly at that hour of the day when it is considered to be most genteel to make morning visits at New Orleans. Mrs. Major Allen Barnaby and Madame Tornorino, were both asked for by the well appointed black footman who attended the carriage of Mrs. General Gregory, and Cleopatra, who answered the inquiry, having first shown the exquisitely dressed and highly respected visitor into the saloon, ran up the stairs to give notice to those two favoured ladies of the honour that awaited them. Mrs. Allen Barnaby was at that moment in the act of writing a very important sentence in her note-book, under the dictation of Mrs. Beauchamp, but hastily threw down her pencil the moment she heard the summons, and prepared to obey it.
“Oh no! for Heaven’s sake, do not go now,” cried Mrs. Beauchamp fervently. “The passage you are writing at this moment, my dearest Mrs. Allen Barnaby, may produce more effect from an English pen than anything that has been written for years. For pity’s sake, don’t go!”
Mrs. Allen Barnaby felt her own consequence at this moment with a thrill of delight that amply atoned to her for the loss of all the doubtful glories of Curzon-street; but being vastly too acute not to perceive the source of this dear new-born consequence, she at once decided upon hazarding the loss, or at any rate the delay, of the well-sounding new acquaintance in the drawing-room, and assuming a look and tone of enthusiasm, which might really have made her fortune on any stage, she replied, “Dream not of it, my invaluable friend! I am not blind to the value of every acquaintance in such a country as this; but there is that within my heart at this moment, which renders all ordinary intercourse insipid; I felt before I left my own dear, but most ill-informed country, that I was predestined, if I may so express myself, to the task of doing justice to this magnificent continent. It was an enormous sacrifice that I demanded of my high-born husband, and his only, his lovely, his newly-wedded child; but the especial gift that I have received from Heaven, my dearest Mrs. Beauchamp, is that I rarely speak in vain. I explained my views, my motives, my hopes! and you see the result. You see me arrived here from my splendid English home, surrounded, not by my own dear family only, but by valued friends, whom their many excellent qualities, as well as their large fortunes and distinguished birth, rendered important to us. This I have done for the United States of glorious America, and I leave you to judge, dearest lady, whether I am likely to turn from such an occupation as that in which we are now engaged, for the sake of any visitor in the world!”
It must not be supposed that Cleopatra waited to listen to this long harangue; on the contrary she did but deliver her message, and ran off again to repeat it to the “young madam,” as she called Patty, who had already received her assistance in making herself rather finer than usual, in preparation for the great lady who was now arrived. Being thus ready, and alone (for her Don was as usual with his respected father-in-law), and in fact waiting for the summons, Madame Tornorino lost not a moment in obeying it, and was most exceedingly well pleased to find that her mamma did not appear; for she had often, of late, felt herself more thrown into the background than any married woman ought to be, by the overpowering claims of her female parent upon the eyes and ears of those around her, and she rejoiced to think that she should now have an opportunity of doing herself justice. Patty found her visitor seated in the middle of one of Mrs. Carmichael’s large sofas, as if fearful that want of space might injure the flowing pea-green satin in which she was dressed; and when Madame Tornorino’s ungloved and rather large hand was held out to welcome her, Mrs. General Gregory received it with the tips of her pale kid fingers, with a great deal of refinement and good taste. But Mrs. General Gregory had once passed eight weeks in France, and since that period the whole powers of her mind had been divided between two objects; the first of which was to be told by a few dearly beloved spiritual friends and advisers that she was fit to be a saint in heaven; and the next, to understand from all the world that she was sure to be taken for a French woman on earth. Having reseated herself after the salutation of Madame Tornorino, smoothed the folds of her robe, and arranged the lace of her cloak, Mrs. General Gregory opened the conversation by inquiring if Madame Tornorino had as yet attached herself to any particular congregation in the Union.
Few young women of Patty’s age were better qualified to give an off-hand answer to a question not perfectly understood than herself; a faculty partly perhaps inherited from her mother, who had passed great part of her life in acquiring the art of appearing to know many things of which she was profoundly ignorant; but chiefly it was derived from an innate fund of original impudence, which gave her courage to dash at everything, confident alike in her own cleverness, which she felt made a good hit probable, -and in her own audacity, which she also felt would render defeat indifferent. But in spite both of this moral and intellectual courage, the question of her new acquaintance startled her. In most of her previous adventures of this hit-and-miss kind with strangers, she had either caught a glimpse of their meaning, or fancied she had done so; but now she had not the very slightest idea of what was meant, and was in the greatest danger of being forced to say so, when her good genius came to her aid, and shaking back her heavy black ringlets, in the most unembarrassed manner possible, she said, “Why really, ma’am, we have had no time yet for any thing.”
“I am delighted to hear it, my dear madam,” replied the elegant visitor; “for in such a business as that to which I allude, nothing is so much to be avoided as rashness and over haste. To say the honest truth, indeed, I was a little in the hope that I might find it so, and nothing can more exactly convene to my wishes than that by thus early cultivating your acquaintance I may be the means of leading you in the right way.”
What was poor Patty to say now? Clever creature! She only shook her ringlets again, and said, “I am sure you are very kind.”
“I mean to be so, my dear young friend,” replied the excellent Mrs. General Gregory, looking with great kindness upon the French embroidery of Patty’s collar and cuffs, which was as quickly discerned to be such by her studious and learned eye, as the text of an Elzevir by the sharp ken of a scholar, “I mean to be so. I am aware what the object of your admirable mother is in coming to this country, and I conceive it to be my bounden duty, knowing, as by grace and mercy I do, that I have made my own calling and election sure — I expect, my dear young lady, that it is neither more nor less, I say, than my commanded duty to do what I can towards helping others. And where — oh my! — where shall I find anybody so every manner worthy of being helped on towards the same election as a family to whom the whole Union is likely to be so deeply indebted as they are to be to yours?”
Patty began to see light. She had already heard an immense deal of talk (considering how short a time she had been in the country) upon elections of all imaginable sorts and kinds. In a free country like America, everything is done by election, from choosing a president, to the appointing a pew-opener, and having listened with her usual sharpness to all this, she now became convinced that Mrs. General Gregory was going to propose her papa, or perhaps her own dear Don, for the stewardship of a ball, or a horse-race. Exceedingly delighted by this idea, Patty eagerly exclaimed —
“Dear me! how very kind and obliging — I don’t think there is anything that we should all of us, from first to last, like so well.”
“All? alas! my dear young lady, all is too extensive a word,” replied Mrs. General Gregory; “when you have reached my age,’ she added with a gentle smile, and still gentler sigh, “you will leave off including the gents so freely in such work as we are talking about. If you knew as well as I do, the often hardness of heart, and the frequent blindness of eyes in the unfeminine part of the best society, you would quite altogether, I expect, leave off saying a word about all.”
The mystification of poor Patty now returned upon her with threefold darkness, and feeling that she was sinking deeper and deeper, and might very likely get into a scrape at last, her indigenous wit sprung up in another direction,
and caused her to exclaim with an air of goodhumoured naïveté —
“I declare, my dear ma’am, I don’t believe that I understand what you mean.”
Mrs. General Gregory replied, first by looking earnestly and pitifully in her face for a few moments, and then by saying —
“Is it possible, my dear young lady, that by the ever-merciful but inscrutable interference of Providence, it falls to my happy lot to be the first that ever availed your dear precious young spirit of the necessity of calling together into families, the chosen of the Lord’s people here on earth?”
“Why, really yes, ma’am,” replied Patty, slightly yawning, “I can’t say that in England I ever heard anything said about dividing ladies and gentlemen into families.”
“Are they indeed so benighted, my dear young friend?” demanded Mrs. General Gregory, clasping her hands fervently together, and heaving a deep sigh; “then, indeed, it will be a privilege and very precious glory to have the task of awakening the soul of a young lady whose appearance is so every way interesting and approvable.”
And here again, the general’s lady, perhaps involuntarily, looked at the pretty new dress which Madame Tornorino had obtained at Howel and James’s upon her papa’s Curzon-street credit, a day or two before she left London.
“It will, indeed, be very precious to me, Madame Tornorino, my dear, to save so sweet a young brand from the burning!”
Now, here was sympathy, if ever it existed upon earth. Mrs. General Gregory looked at Patty’s silk and embroidery, and preached to her about election, because she approved them; while Patty gazed upon Mrs. General Gregory’s satin and lace, and patiently listened because she, too, approved.
Collected Works of Frances Trollope Page 345