“That’s quite true, Donny,” she replied, with a decisive nod, that spoke as plainly as any words could have done, how completely she agreed with him. “Don’t fancy that I mean to content myself by being blown up by all these famous fine words — not a bit of it, I promise you. I don’t see any good reason whatever why we should not travel about from house to house, as long as the fancy holds them, living upon the fat of the land, as we shall be sure to do, major, and paying nothing for it but just scribbling and sputtering a little puff, puff, puff, as we go along. Shan’t we ‘progress’ like a steam-engine!”
The major clapped his hands, and laughed aloud.
“By Jove! my Barnaby,” he cried, “I think I am more heartily in love with you than ever I was in my life; and I don’t believe you’ve got your equal in the old world, or the new either. To be sure, my love, that’s what we’ll do! It is exactly the very thing that came into my head as Patty was reading; and it will be perhaps a better spec than even your quick wit is quite aware of. Of course, I am not quite idle on my side; I am sure it would be a shame if I was, and you working away as you do; and I have found out a thing or two about these rich planter people. You, my dear, have got hold of their staple passion, as I may call it, or rather of their two staple passions — that is to say, their vanity about their country and their greatness, and their red-hot terror of losing hold of their slaves. Now you’ll keep on working ’em on this side, while I’ll keep on playing ’em, deary, upon another.
I find that there isn’t scarcely one of these rich slave-holding chaps, who make their niggers wait upon them up and down, from morning to night, so that they do little or nothing but eat, drink, sleep, and spit for themselves — I am told that there isn’t scarcely one of ’em who doesn’t, more or less, try to keep themselves awake by play. Now can you fancy anything, my dear, falling out much better than that? We shall have to write a letter of thanks, wife, upon my soul we shall, to those precious relations of yours that played bo-peep behind the curtain. We shall be living upon roses ere — I see it as plain as the handsome nose in your face, my Barnaby. For you may just remember, if you please, that credit doesn’t hold out for ever, even in London, and with a fine house, and a fine wife, like you, to back it, Christmas would have been sure to come, Mrs. Allen Barnaby, and a few little bills, my dear, would have been sure to come with it; whereas in this blessed land, it seems exceedingly probable, I think, that we shall make money and spend none.”
“Exactly so,” replied his wife, bowing to him. “That, Mr. Major, is precisely the scheme I have conceived for us during the next four or five months, perhaps. And then, if my work is completed, and I get paid for it in hard cash, as these people say I shall be, we may then venture, I think, to take a house of our own. I should like it to be in the capital, Donny, if they would but make up their minds as to where that is, but it seems hard to find any two of ’em that agree upon that point.”
“Never mind that, my dear,” returned the major, laughing; “when we do settle down we will take care to fix upon just whatever we think pleasantest; and if we go on as we expect to do, we shall be able to pick and choose as we like. But now, my dear, let us come to business. To which of all these people will it be best to go to first?”
“To the Beauchamps, Donny. Stick to the Beauchamps, my dear, in the first instance. It will look best, a great deal, because of all the fuss I have been making about my love, and affection, and admiration, and gratitude, and all the rest of it. Besides, they certainly are very rich; he is an inveterate card-player, in a sober way, and that she knows how to set a thing going, we have had capital good proof already. So I say, stick to the Beauchamps at first. But, then, you must please to observe that I don’t mean to go gallivanting in a steamboat all down these everlasting rivers, that they talk about, for I suppose it is a matter of course that we should be expected to pay our own expenses on board, and just think what that would come to, with Patty and her Don upon our hands! Whereas, you’ll observe, that when we get to their elegant Big-Gang Bank, that they all talk about, there will be an end of paying — except, indeed, that if the Perkinses really get in there too, I shall expect that they will make us some consideration for it. They need not pay us quite as much as they would at a boarding-house, you know; but they can’t expect we should drag them about for nothing.”
“My dear love,” replied the major, “your notions on every point are so clear, so clever, so quick — in short, so admirable in every way, that I should be a great deal worse than a fool if I attempted to check or control you on any subject of business whatever. Anything of that kind with the Perkinses, I should leave entirely to you. In fact, to say the honest truth, I don’t feel that I have tact and skill enough to do anything of the sort myself, but I give you carte blanche, my dear.”
“Very well, major,” returned the lady, laughing, “I understand perfectly. You would like to get the dollars, but you would not like the asking for them. But never mind, my dear, I’ll undertake all that, provided you don’t object to my using your name a little — I really must do that, major, or I should not be able to make the thing look right and reasonable, as I should certainly wish to do.”
“As you please, my love. My name is your own, you know, so of course you may use it as you like — and luckily they are both so devilish ugly, that I can’t say I care much what you say. But now then, as to the time and manner of our starting? What do you mean to say to your dear friend?”
In reply to this question, Mrs. Allen Barnaby entered at some length into an explanation of her views, and as the result will show what these were, we may leave the conjugal consultation uninterrupted.
Annie Beauchamp had left the saloon by her usual point of escape, the window, as soon as Madame Tornorino commenced the reading aloud of her mamma’s letters; for to say truth, there was something in the manner and bearing of this English beauty which very particularly irritated the nerves of the young American. Nobody, however, followed her example; for no single individual present, except herself, seemed without some feeling of curiosity as to the contents of the despatches that Madame Tornorino was thus making public. Even Mr. Egerton, though hitherto he had not displayed any very strong feeling of interest in the immediate concerns of Major and Mrs. Allen Barnaby, was now evidently listening with the rest of the company to these flattering testimonials of Louisianian and Carolinian esteem; nor did his attention to the voice of the fair reader relax till she had, in loud and distinct tones, gone through the perusal of every document.
But upon Patty’s throwing down the last sheet, and exclaiming, “There, that’s all!” he immediately walked up to Miss Louisa Perkins, and offering his arm, said —
“Do you not think, Miss Perkins, that we should find the air of the balcony very refreshing?”
For half a moment the kind-hearted Louisa paused to consider whether there were any possible means by which she could transfer this honour to her sister; but perceiving, on turning her eyes round to look for her, that she was in earnest conversation with Mr. Horatio Timmsthackle, she smiled a ready assent to the agreeable proposal, and taking the young man’s offered arm, walked through the same window at which Annie Beauchamp had disappeared.
That young lady, whom for a few minutes Miss Louisa had really forgotten, was seated on her favourite bench beneath the orange-tree, with her eyes fixed in rather a vacant glance upon another orange-tree immediately opposite to her.
“Oh dear me! There’s that nice young lady all by herself!” exclaimed Miss Louisa, using a little gentle influence upon the arm of her companion, in order to lead his steps towards her. “And how long have you been here, all alone, my dear?” she continued, addressing the solitary beauty with an affectionate smile. “I thought we were all in the great room together, listening to Miss Patty bawling out those surprisingly kind letters that have been addressed to her mamma. I will not deny that I, for one, was rather curious to hear them, but yet I think if I had known that you were sitting quietly here b
y yourself, I should have been apt to leave Miss Patty and the letters, for the pleasure of hearing you talk a little.”
Annie smiled in return to this speech, but not very gaily, and moving to the end of the bench, made room for Miss Louisa to sit beside her. Mr. Egerton looked a little uncertain what to do, but after the hesitation of a moment, he took advantage of Miss Louisa’s evident intention to leave space sufficient for him also, and sat himself down beside her.
As neither of her companions seemed at all inclined to converse, Miss Perkins seemed to think it incumbent on her to talk a little herself, and began accordingly —
“I can’t help thinking, Miss Beauchamp,” she said, “that the ladies and gentlemen of your country must be the kindest and most hospitable people in the world. I could not have believed it possible that we should all of us have received such a quite wonderful number of invitations, and not one of us knowing a single soul in the whole country, only a few days ago, almost as one may say. I am sure Mrs. O — Mrs. Allen Barnaby I mean, has good reason to praise the country, and all the people in it, if she is really going to write a book, for I certainly think that they are kinder and more hospitable than any nation I ever heard of in all my life before, and I shall always say so, though I shan’t write it.”
This was a very long speech for Miss Louisa Perkins to make; but still it did not produce the effect she desired, by making her companions talk too, for neither of them spoke a single word. Mr. Egerton might have been seen, however, if any one had happened to look at him, stealing a glance across his neighbour at the beautiful young face beyond her. Perhaps the owner of that beautiful young face was aware of it, for the delicately pale cheek blushed deeply, and seemed to send its bright reflection even to the brow and neck. But the head was instantly turned away, and the curious young Englishman had no opportunity at that moment of criticising its American contour.
“Your sister is trying, I think, to catch your eye, Miss Perkins,” said Mr. Egerton; “and, if I am not mistaken, she wants you to go to her.”
“Dear me, you don’t say so?” said Miss Louisa, hastily starting up, and hurrying away; “and yet I wonder, too, considering—”
But she moved so quickly, that she was out of hearing, and within the window before she could finish the sentence.
The young lady who had been stationed on the other side of her, had so completely turned herself away, leaning over the arm of the bench which they occupied, that she did not appear immediately to perceive her departure.
“Miss Beauchamp!” said Mr. Egerton, gently — so gently, indeed, that it was extraordinary his voice should have made her start as it did. “Miss Beauchamp,” said he, “I have a proposal — I mean that I have a bargain to propose to you; will you listen to it?”
The American young lady started a little at hearing these words, and upon looking round, and finding herself tête-à-tête with the English young gentleman who spoke them, half rose from her seat with the intention of walking away. But the second thought which prevented her doing this, not only came quickly, but decidedly; and it was with an air of being very particularly determined to hear him, and to answer him, too, that she turned herself round, and said —
“Yes, sir, I am quite willing to listen to you.”
Frederick Egerton would perhaps have been less disconcerted if she had answered less complyingly; but marvelling at his own folly in feeling thus, he rallied, and proceeded pretty nearly in the terms he had intended.
“That is very obliging,” he said, “and I will not detain you very long. What I wish to propose, Miss Beauchamp, is this: let us mutually agree not definitely to form any opinion of each other’s country and countrymen and countrywomen,” he added, with a smile, “till we are fairly enabled to do so by having rather more general information on the subject than we either of us possess at present.”
Annie eyed him almost steadily, for about a second, and then blushed a good deal for having done so; but she, too, rallied quickly, and replied —
“Perhaps, sir, it would be more like good Christians and reasonable human beings if we did so.”
“But if we make this agreement,” he resumed, with a smile which had no very malicious expression in it, and which certainly made him look very handsome, “if we make this agreement, Miss Beauchamp, we must do it fairly on both sides, must we not? I mean that we must not scruple to confess to each other the observations, either favourable or unfavourable, which we may chance to make. This is necessary to truth and justice, is it not?”
Either in the words themselves, or in his manner of speaking them, there was something that made Annie blush again; but this emotion, however caused, seemed to make her angry, either with herself or with him, for she knit her beautiful brows as she replied —
“If you wish me to confess that I entirely disapprove and condemn the line of conduct adopted by some of the gentlemen and ladies of New Orleans, towards some of the gentlemen and ladies of England, as witnessed both by yourself and me, sir, during the last few days, I am quite ready to gratify you. I do disapprove and condemn it greatly.”
“Perhaps you mean,” said Egerton, colouring a little in his turn, “perhaps you mean, Miss Beauchamp, that you disapprove and condemn any and every hospitality or kindness of any sort offered from the inhabitants of your country towards the inhabitants of mine?”
“No!” she replied, but in an altered and less haughty tone. “No! I mean not that. I mean that I am sorry and ashamed to perceive that even the admirable judgment and good sense of Americans can be blinded and rendered useless by — by their. prejudices.”
Egerton perceived that he had touched a string which vibrated too strongly for pique or pettishness to effect the tone which it produced. He longed to speak to the beautiful and intelligent-looking young creature before him with more of candour and common-sense than he had yet done, but felt strangely at a loss how to begin. He was perplexed not only by his own embarrassment, but by seeking to comprehend why he felt it.
Was he afraid of Miss Annie Beauchamp? Absurd idea! He rejected it indignantly, and, mastering the sort of shyness which, had checked him, he said more seriously, and perhaps, too, with more punctilious respect than he had ever before used in addressing her —
“May I venture, Miss Beauchamp, to believe that, in using the word prejudice on the subject to which I think you allude, your opinions respecting it are at all like what you suppose mine to be?”
“I would rather have avoided all conversation with you on such a topic, sir,” replied Annie, after meditating for a moment; “but yet, I believe that I have no right to think you mean to pain me by speaking on it. Nobody, I believe, supposes that any inhabitant of a slave State can see anything to lament in the laws which exist in it. This is not a very fair judgment — but it is idle to complain of it; for it is only a part of the injustice that is done us. There are many among us who judge you — I mean your country — more fairly, Mr. Egerton. All Americans, as you would find if you knew more individuals among them, — all Americans do not suppose that all Englishmen approve the atrocities practised upon children in your manufacturing districts, nor would they think it right to take it for granted, that you all approve the regulations now enforced by your poor-laws.”
Egerton listened to her with great attention, and certainly with great astonishment also. Her words and manner produced, moreover, another feeling, but this related rather to himself than to her. He began to suspect, that he had been guilty of injustice; that he had formed his opinions hastily, and without sufficient grounds, or, at any rate, that he had not allowed enough for individual exceptions; and, with the candour which such selfcondemnation was likely to produce, he replied —
“I believe you are very right, Miss Beauchamp. I believe that we English do all of us form opinions, and pronounce them too, a great deal too much upon general views, without seeking — as we ought to do — for exceptions that might lead to modify them. Your words have suggested this very useful truth, and I
shall not forget them. But you will allow, I am sure, that, in order to make this productive of all the good of which it is capable, it is necessary that we should occasionally meet with good sense and candour equal to your own, and that all our attempts to become acquainted with your widely-extended and important country should not be always and for ever met with the broad assertion — that it is the best and wisest in the world. This is a species of information which it is impossible to receive in the sort of wholesale manner in which it is given, and it is often rejected en masse, because offered en masse.”
These words produced on the mind of Annie Beauchamp an effect exceedingly like what hers had produced on that of Frederic Egerton; that is to say, she felt there might be some truth in them, and the coincidence made her blush again; but she smiled too, and in such a sort, that the young Englishman not only thought her a thousand times handsomer than ever, but he thought also — and very nearly independent of any such consideration — that he should greatly like to converse further with her now that so much of the prejudice, which had mutually influenced them, seemed in so fair a way of being lessened, at least, if not altogether removed.
But exactly at this moment, and before Frederic had advanced further than gently smiling in return, Miss Louisa Perkins came back again through the window, exclaiming —
“Oh, dear me! You are quite mistaken in fancying my sister wanted me, my dear young gentleman; for, instead of that, I believe, between you and I, she would a good deal rather that I should just stay away. It was some time after I went in before I could see at all, for you know they make the room so dark with blinds; but when I did find her at last, I saw in a minute that I had better keep away, for she was talking with another person so very earnestly, that they neither of them seemed as if they wanted any more company.”
This was all said in a manner so unusually lively and with such an air of extreme satisfaction, that it seemed as if her return to the balcony was particularly agreeable to her feelings. Miss Beauchamp again made room for her beside herself, but, whether she was quite as much delighted at this renewed arrangement as Miss Louisa, may be doubted.
Collected Works of Frances Trollope Page 352