Collected Works of Frances Trollope

by Frances Milton Trollope

  But whatever variations in fitness the fine judgment of my heroine might dictate, and adopt, according to circumstances, no shadow of changing in this matter was perceptible in the toilet of her young daughter; who came blazing into Mrs. Simcoe’s diningroom precisely in the dress which her thoughtful mamma had requested her not to wear, and with such a remarkable deficiency of drapery about her shoulders, that the gentle lady at the head of the table had a sore struggle with herself as to whether she should or should not send for a certain mouse-coloured shawl from the next room to supply what was so evidently wanted. How this combat between meekness of spirit and severity of decorum might have ended, if nothing had occurred to interrupt it, I cannot say; but the usually silent business of eating and drinking had not advanced far, ere Mrs. Allen Barnaby bethought herself that, however foreign to the manners of the country conversation at the dinner-table might be, it was, nevertheless, her only chance at present for displaying those powers of mind upon which she rested her best hopes for continued success in the land to which fate and fortune had guided her steps. Having meditated for a moment or two as to how she should begin, she said to a mild-looking quaker gentleman on her right —

  “May I ask you, sir, to be kind enough to tell me the name of the lady opposite tome?”

  “Sarah Tomkins,” was the concise reply; which certainly offered as little opportunity for continuing the conversation as any reply could do.

  But Mrs. Allen Barnaby would never have been my heroine if such a difficulty as this could have checked her; it did not check her for a single moment, for she instantly replied —

  “That is not the name I expected; for I fancied I had seen the lady before, and that she was called Morrice. It is a most extraordinary likeness, certainly. How odd it is, sir, isn’t it, that sort of unaccountable resemblance that one sometimes sees between people in no way related to one another? For if that lady is not Mrs. Morrice herself, I don’t think there is any chance of her being her sister, or cousin, or anything of that sort; because Mrs. Morrice’s family are altogether English, and have never any of them emigrated to this country; and so much the worse for them, isn’t it, sir? There never was such a glorious country as this, and that is what I have said to my husband, Major Allen Barnaby, every day since we have been here. Not, indeed, that he is in the least degree inclined to differ with me on the subject; he admires the country, and the charming people too, with exactly the same enthusiasm as I do. That is the major, sir, a little lower down on the other side, with full gray whiskers. A dear, excellent good man he is, and so fond of what he calls the elegant peacefulness of this population, that if it was not for the rank he holds in the English army (and when he goes back he must be constantly with the Duke of Wellington again) — if it was not for this, he says he would certainly cut off his mustaches in order to look more like one of them.”

  The quaker gentleman gently nodded his head for about the sixth time since she had begun talking, which seemed to be intended as a sort of civil assurance that he heard her, but he uttered no sound, save that inevitably produced by the act of eating. Mrs. Allen Barnaby here paused for a moment that she might herself eat a few mouthfuls, for she was exceedingly hungry, but having done this with as little loss of time as possible, she began again.

  “Perhaps you are not aware, sir, of the peculiar interest which Philadelphia in particular has for English people, and for myself indeed beyond all others. My object in coming to this country was solely to obtain information on the state of the slave population throughout the United States, as I am engaged by the first publisher in London to write a work upon the subject.”

  The quaker gentleman on hearing these words, crossed his-knife and fork upon his plate, and turned himself round so as to command the side front of Mrs. Allen Barnaby’s person. On perceiving the advantage she had gained, she performed precisely the same evolution herself, thereby bringing herself very satisfactorily face to face with the drab-coloured individual whom she wished to propitiate.

  “Thee art writing on the subject of slavery?” he said, after looking at her steadily for a few seconds, and speaking in a tone that seemed to express a doubt if he had rightly understood her.

  “Yes, my good sir,” she replied, casting down her eyes with great modesty. “I have been urged to undertake the important task by a personal application of the very highest kind; so high, indeed, that it would be inconsistent with etiquette did I particularise it further.”

  “Thee must be urged to the undertaking by higher authority than any the earth can show,” said the quaker gentleman with considerable solemnity, and slightly raising his hand to indicate the region from whence it should come. “May I ask thee what are thy views upon the subject?”

  An inferior mind might have been daunted a little by these words, and more still, perhaps, by the tone in which they were spoken, but they produced no such effect on Mrs. Allen Barnaby; on the contrary, she felt her courage rise as she perceived that she was perfectly right in the ground she had taken, and that she had nothing to do but adhere carefully to the plan she had so rapidly conceived, in order to insure for the future a degree of success fully as brilliant as that which she had already obtained. She answered readily, therefore, but with her hand pressed upon her heart, her eyes solemnly raised, and her voice skilfully pitched to a tone of the deepest feeling —

  “My views, sir, are those of a reflecting Christian,” that being the exact phrase which she had heard bitterly ridiculed by Judge Johnson, when he was describing the “cant of the abolitionists.”

  “In that case, thee art about to do what every good man’s voice will be raised to bless thee for,” said the quaker gentleman. “If thee dost it, friend, to the best of thy power,” he added, “thee shalt find that, let thy learning and thy skill in authorship be great or small, thee shalt meet with the gratitude and good-will of a very large body of the stranger people amidst whom thy holy purpose hath brought thee.”

  This concluding assurance was, of course, exceedingly welcome to the lady; but, nevertheless, there was something in the quaker gentleman’s allusion to the possibility of her not being an accomplished author, which she did not quite approve; and after a moment’s reflection, she said —

  “I would never, dear sir, have ventured to trust my pen on such a theme, had not its earlier efforts been already approved in the most flattering manner by the best judges among my countrymen. Under my maiden name I have published many successful works; but, as my present object is not fame, but utility, I have determined, by the advice of one of the most exalted characters in England, both as to worth and station, not to let the name under which I have published be known as long as I remain in this country. My reason for this self-denying reserve is to be found in my earnest wish to see things exactly as they are, without running the risk of having my judgment warped by the species of flattering adulation which literary fame is sure to produce in this enlightened country. That the precaution was not unnecessary, we have already found; for, being determined to see everything by my own eyes, and judge everything by my own understanding, I prevailed upon my beloved and most indulgent husband to let me land on our first arrival from England at New Orleans — that great stronghold of the abominable system that my soul abhors. My honest wish was not to exaggerate in speaking of its effects, and the only way of being sure to avoid this, was by contemplating those effects with my own eyes. But it unfortunately happened that there was a gentleman at New Orleans who had seen me in Europe, and who recognised me as — , as the author of the works to which I have alluded. The consequence of which was, that all the most important families in that part of the Union, came forward in a body to welcome me, hoping, as I suspect, that I might lend a pen which has been acknowledged to have some power, to advocating the atrocious system that reigns among them. You may easily believe; my dear sir, that their advances were not very cordially received, but, of course, I could not avoid bearing an immense quantity of argument in favour of the system.”
<
br />   “And thee didst not find the arguments worth much?” he replied, with a gentle smile.

  “Worth? Mercy on me, dear sir, they made me perfectly sick and ill. I never suffered so much from hearing people talk, in my whole life before.”

  All this did not pass amidst the silence of an almost wholly quaker dinner-table, without attracting the attention of every one seated at it. Mrs. Simcoe forgot Patty’s distressing want of a shawl, while she listened to the discourse of her more prudent mother, and more completely still while observing the attention paid to it by her richest, and, in every way, most important guest, John Williams, the well-known quaker philanthropist. This gentleman, who had amassed a very handsome fortune as a Philadelphian banker, had, for some years past, fixed his residence at a handsome mansion, at the distance of ten miles from the city, making the boarding-house of Mrs. Simcoe, his well-esteemed cousin and friend, his head-quarters whenever he found occasion to revisit it. This good man was not only in every way entitled to respect, but possessed it so universally as to render the fact of his entering into conversation with Mrs. Allen Barnaby a reason amply sufficient to make every individual at the table, both male and female, desirous of conversing with her too. The knives and forks were either laid aside entirely, or else used so cautiously as to prevent any sound from that quarter interfering with the general wish of hearing what it was that the stout, high-coloured English travelling lady could have to say that should make John Williams listen to her with so much attention. But not even this universal feeling of interest in what was going on, could long postpone that strong American propensity to start up from the dinner-table as soon as hunger is appeased, which renders that great luxury of European life, table talk, almost unknown to them.

  But this interruption, ill-timed as it seemed to Mrs. Allen Barnaby at the moment, was not sufficient to check the purpose of the good quaker to become, without any delay, better acquainted with her. Perhaps John Williams had never in his life looked in the face of a lady which he felt less inclination to look at again, than that of Mrs. Allen Barnaby. But what did that signify? John’ Williams felt that it was his duty to make himself acquainted with her, and it must, therefore, have been a very serious obstacle indeed which could have prevented his doing so. With his usual quiet, passive sort of decisiveness, the worthy quaker immediately made up his mind as to the manner in which this was to be brought about; and as soon as Mrs. Simcoe rose, a movement immediately followed by the rising of the whole party, he walked round the table to the place occupied by his wife Rachel, with whom all his journeyings, whether long or short, were ever taken, and said to her, “Wife, thee must come with me to ask yonder foreign lady to go to thy parlour with thee.”

  The tall, stately, prim-looking Mrs. Williams instantly prepared to obey, but not without fixing a glance of the most unequivocal astonishment at the individual to whose side she was summoned. Had she been the very dirtiest of negresses, or the most wretched-looking of whites, no such feeling had been produced by it; but it would have been difficult for her to have imagined a face and figure that she would have thought less likely to attract her spouse than those of the person she was now approaching, as rapidly as the unchangeable sedateness of her pace would permit.

  “Rachel Williams,” said the good man, as soon as he had succeeded in bringing the strangely matched pair face to face,” Rachel Williams, I would have thee give the hand of sisterly fellowship to this stranger. Thee hast not told me thy name,” he added, addressing Mrs. Allen Barnaby. “How be’st thou called!”

  “My name,” replied our heroine, with a smile, an attitude, and an accent, all intended to testify the extreme delight at this introduction, “My name is Barnaby, Allen Barnaby, Mrs. Major Allen Barnaby, and most happy do I feel in being thus permitted to present myself to those who must be so able to afford me effectual assistance in the important object I have before me.”

  “Thee must come with us to our own quiet parlour,” said the good man, offering his hand to lead her, “and when thee art there thee canst explain fully, both to my wife and to me, not only thy object, but the means by which thee dost hope to accomplish it, and then we shall be able to discover in what way we may best be able to help thee.”

  Mrs. Allen Barnaby’s thanks were profuse and ardent, and she yielded her plump hand to the thin fingers of the quaker with a flourish that she felt at her heart to be very like the manner in which she had once seen Mrs. Siddons lay her palm on that of King Duncan. But just as they had reached the door, with the fawn-coloured Rachel following close behind, it suddenly occurred to our heroine that it would be advisable that she should exchange a word or two with the rest of her party before she separated herself from them.

  “I beg your pardon, my dearest sir, a thousand times, but you must, if you please, permit me to say one single world to my dear excellent husband, before I retire with you to your own apartments.”

  “Dost thee wish thy husband to come with us also?” demanded the amiable quaker.

  “Oh no!” was the reply. “You are very kind — excessively kind, indeed; but my good major knows the business to which I am devoting myself, and as he has considerable confidence in me, dear man, he never interferes, for fear, as he kindly says, that he should puzzle the cause by interrupting me. But I just wish to say one word to him, and to my daughter, the Lady of Don Tornorino, to prevent her being surprised at my not returning with them to our own rooms.”

  “Surely, surely,” replied John Williams, standing back with his wife to let the rest of the company pass out, “we will wait for thee till thou art ready for us.”

  Thus sanctioned, Mrs. Allen Barnaby stepped back, and laying one hand on the arm of her husband, and the other on that of her daughter, she pushed them gently before her into the recess of a bow window, and then said in a whisper, winking a good deal, first with one eye, and then with the other, in order to make them understand that she had more to say than it was convenient to speak at that moment —

  “I am going with these topping quakers into their sitting-room. I shall get on with them, never you fear. Good-by,” and then glided back to her new friends, and in the next moment passed through the door with them, and was out of sight.

  Patty and her father stood staring at each other for a moment, and then both laughed, while the mystified Don, who understood only that his august mother-in-law was gone somewhere, with a pair of the most incomprehensible people he had ever beheld, and that they were forbidden to follow, raised one of his black eyebrows to the very top of his yellow forehead, and the other within half an inch of it, while he waited till his wife had sufficiently recovered her gravity to reply to his somewhat petulant “Vat for?”

  When at length the answer came, however, it was only in a repetition of his words, “Vat for, darling? I am sure I could not tell you if my life depended upon it, unless it means that ma’s gone mad.”

  “No, no, Patty,” said the major, recovering his gravity. “Do not alarm yourself. Ma is not gone mad, I promise you, but knows what she is about as well as any lady that ever lived. But upon my life, Patty, if we are all to sail in the wake of these prim quakers, you must alter your rigging a little, my dear, or you’ll be left out of the convoy, and what’s to happen then?”

  “I sail in the wake of your detestable quakers!” exclaimed Patty, almost with a scream. “If there’s any one thing on God’s earth that I hate and abominate more than all the rest put together, it is a quaker; and if you think, any of you, that I mean to skewer myself up in a gray wrapper, and go theeing and thouing, to please them, and that for the sake of getting a morsel of daily bread to eat, you are mistaken.”

  This being uttered with a good deal of vehemence, and an angry augmentation of colour, while something that looked like tears glittered in her eyes, her father instantly lost all disposition to mirth, and replied in a tone of the most coaxing fondness —

  “What in the world have you got into your head, my darling Patty? You can’t suppose, for a mom
ent, that I would let anybody plague you to do what you did not like? Did I ever do it since you were born, Patty? You know very well, dearest, that I never did, and that I always think it worth while to battle for you, whatever I may do for myself, so for goodness’ sake don’t begin to cry. You know I can’t bear it.”

  “Yes,” returned his handsome daughter with a sob, “I know all that very well, papa, I know that you have always been a great deal more good-natured to me than ever mamma was. But that makes little or no difference now, and I don’t think it is at all right for married people to go on living as Tornorino and I do, just as if we were two tame cats kept to play with, with a basket to sleep in, milk to lap, and a morsel of meat to mumble. I don’t like it at all, and I don’t think the Don likes it at all better than I do.”

  The major probably knew by experience that when his Patty was thoroughly out of humour, it did not answer to argue with her; and therefore, without saying a single syllable by way of reply to the speech she had just uttered, he tucked her arm with a sort of jocund air under his own, and giving the Don a good-humoured wink as he passed him, led her out of the room, saying —

  “Come, Patty, my dear we have got a sort of holiday this evening, haven’t we? Let us use it by going to the theatre. I saw abundance of fine things advertised, and I know you love a play to your heart.”