Collected Works of Frances Trollope

by Frances Milton Trollope

  “Go on with what you are about, my dear,” replied her husband, very composedly, endeavouring, as he spoke, to assist in some of the needful packing operations; “I have taken care of that. Tornorino knows all about it, and he has engaged for their both being ready, and their trunks too.”

  “But, major,” again exclaimed his wife, and again suspending her activity while she asked the question, “how is it possible you can be so perfectly at ease as you seem to be, when you have come off with such a sum as that? What in the world should prevent their setting off after you? Hush! what noise is that? Mercy on me! What a scene it would make if they were actually to follow you in here, like a felon and a thief, and carry you to gaol before my eyes!”

  “Don’t torment yourself by any such fancies, my dear,” he replied. “Take care how you put in that beautiful velvet. That’s the dress that you look the best in, and of course I have a particular value for it.”

  “But, major,” persisted his wife, after giving to the precious robe all the care it demanded, “what would become of us if these people should follow you here, and actually get you put in prison?”

  Seeing, at length, that these anxious doubts and fears did very seriously impede the packing process, the major condescended to calm his lady’s tender anxieties by saying —

  “Be contented, wife, when I tell you that there is no law in the land that can trouble me for the next two months, and I must truly be in every way unworthy the happiness of possessing you for my wife, were I fool enough not to get out of their way by that time.”

  The major was out of luck. This last speech seemed likely to put a stop to the packing altogether.

  “If you really have two months clear before you, major,” said his wife, “why should we be kept out of our natural rest in this way? I’ll be hanged if I don’t get to bed this moment, if that is the case. Two months! Why, leave the country at which end you will, it won’t take two months to get on board.”

  The major now began to look as if he would not like all this much longer.

  “Mrs. Allen Barnaby,” said he, “you may remain up or go to bed, whichever you happen to like best: and, moreover, you may pack, or not pack, as it may happen to please you. Moreover, such is my respect for your will, that if you do not like to accompany me on my projected travels, you have my unconditional consent to stay where you are. But I leave this place at five o’clock to-morrow morning.”

  The lady, on hearing these words, renewed her labours, and as she did so without any further remonstrance, the amiable major at last took pity upon her curiosity, and explained, pretty tolerably at full length, the whole transaction that has been related above. It was, to say the least of it, very injudicious to attempt keeping so right thinking a woman as Mrs. Allen Barnaby in the dark, even for an hour, for the instant the matter was properly laid before her, she at once displayed all the admirable powers of her able mind, and looked upon the whole ‘transaction with the calmly philosophic eye of wisdom. —

  “I thank you, major,” she said, “I thank you sincerely for having at length made me understand the nature of this transaction. As a jest played off to avenge, as it were, the numberless tricks which we hear of as practised against our countrymen it is more than justifiable; and in that light, my dearest major, it commands my warmest and most patriotic admiration. As a trial of skill, too, it is admirable, truly admirable! You know my principles, my dearest husband, and how very highly in the rank of virtues I class every effort that is made by human beings from motives of family affection, and a wish to benefit those whom nature has made dependent upon us. This consideration, as you will easily believe, prevents my judging too harshly of the little artifice which so cleverly doubled the sum of which it was the purpose of those stupid men to defraud you. It was masterly, Donny! But I will not delay a moment longer. Never, oh! never, may I be an impediment to the exertions of a man who so nobly, so bravely perils himself, for the good of his family!”

  Having pronounced these words with every demonstration of deep feeling, Mrs. Allen Barnaby addressed herself once more to her packing. Yet once more she quitted it; — it was but for a moment; — but running to where the major stood in the act of closing a well-crammed portmanteau, she threw her arms round his neck and tenderly kissed him, exclaiming as she returned to her employment —

  “Excuse me, dearest Donny, but my heart was full to overflowing! You are a noble creature, and not to love you is impossible!”

  * * * * *

  At the hour appointed on the following morning the major and his lady, the Don and his, together with all their travelling appendages, were safely stowed in a stage that was journeying westward, and there, for the present, we must leave them.

  CHAPTER XXXVIII

  NOTHING could exceed the pleasant hilarity of Major Allen Barnaby’s spirits, when he found himself once more on board a steamboat, careering westward on the bosom of Lake Erie, at the rate of twelve knots an hour, his pocket-book crammed with banknotes, and nobody whom he had left behind him having any more right or reason to guess whither he was bound, than he had to guess which way the wind would be likely to blow on the morrow. And how should they, since he did not know himself? His lady, who had been informed with the most perfect conjugal confidence of the real state of his finances, was under the influence of the same delightful harmony of spirits as himself; and though the Don and Patty were by no means admitted to the inmost recesses of the precious source from whence all this felicity sprung, they both of them had sufficient acuteness to feel quite sure that all was going right in the money department, and that such being the case, they would be likely, sooner or later, to come in for their share of the joke also.

  “They may be as secret as they will, Tornorino,” said Patty, as she watched her father and mother laughing vehemently on the further side of the deck; “but if I don’t get some of the cream of the jest, and that’s the money, never trust me more. And I’ll tell you what, my Don,” she continued, creeping very close to him, “never let you or I say another word to either of them about our acting. As to papa, he is a doting old fool, and has worked himself into a desperate fright for fear I should leave him, that’s the English of his objections; but as for mamma, I can see as far into a mill-stone as she can, maybe, and all the fuss she makes about it, is just from jealousy and nothing else. I do think she is the vainest old soul that ever walked the earth; and the notion of my going to be stared at, and admired where she can never hope for leave to show her old face, is altogether more than she can bear; and so there now, the murder’s out, as far as she is concerned.”

  “Mais c’est bête, mais bête,” exclaimed Tornorino; “for de old lady to hope herself belle comme sa fille!”

  “That’s all right and true,” returned his clever wife, who besides having made great progress in various other branches of human learning, was beginning to understand very tolerably her husband’s composite language. “But we must manage, my dear, to do something more than just to find out that de old lady is a goose, we must find out also how to feather her gay gosling’s nest. And this must be the scheme, darling. Whenever papa is in the sort of humour we see him now, we must coax and coax, till we get something out of him, and by degrees, if we save it all up, we may be able to hoard enough for a frolic, as the folks here would call it, and then be off, my darling; see if we won’t, and they may just wait till we want a little more before they get another chance of seeing our two handsome faces again.”

  Whether the accomplished Tornorino exactly agreed with his lovely lady in this view of what would be wisest for the future, it is impossible to say, because he cautiously avoided expressing any opinion on the subject, and confined his answer to a fond caress, which was, at least, as far removed from expressing contradiction as acquiescence; but the pretty Patty was perfectly satisfied, and insisted not on any further explanation, but presently proposed that they should join their gay parents, in order to begin the coaxing process with as little delay as possible.
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  “How I do love to see you laugh, my own dear papa,” said Patty, passing her arm within that of her father as he leaned over the side of the ship. “May I ask what it is about? You know, pap, that I love to laugh too.”

  “It was just about nothing at all, Patty; or, at any rate, the joke was one that you would not understand, for it had something to do with business, and I am sure you know nothing about that, do you, darling?” said her loving father.

  “Why I know this much, papa,” replied the fond daughter, looking lovingly up in his face, “I know that when people look so monstrously pleased when they are talking about business, it is a sure sign that they have been making money by it. What do you say to that, pap? Don’t you think I am right?”

  “You are so far right, Patty, that nobody, I suspect, would be very likely to be found laughing when they were discussing business by which they had lost money,” replied the major, demurely.

  “True as true, darling pap!” rejoined his daughter, looking very intelligent; “but my wit goes a little further than that, for I suspect that when people laugh so very heartily, they must have done something more clever than merely not losing.”

  “Well, Mrs. Don,” replied the major, pinching her cheek, “you may suspect what you like, you look too handsome to be quarrelled with.”

  “Do I?” she cried, clapping her hands joyfully; “then I know that you can’t, for your life, refuse to give one little tiny twenty dollars to buy me a new cloak and bonnet. Can you, pap? Can you refuse your own poor Patty, who has not a single cent in the wide world that she can call her own? Think of that, pap! Is it not shocking? And I your only child, too!”

  “I doubt very much your wanting either bonnet or cloak, Patty,” said her father, shaking his head at her; “however, I have no objection now and then, as you pretty well know, to make a fool of myself, in order to please you.”

  Major Allen Barnaby extracted his well-filled pocket-book from its deep receptacle in the breast of his coat as he spoke, and drawing forth four notes of five dollars each, presented them to his daughter, who received them with a joyous jump, and paid for them with a very hearty kiss.

  As no individual, excepting Mrs. Allen Barnaby and Don Tornorino, was near the spot on which this transfer took place, it never occurred to the parties concerned in it that any individual was privy to it, save and except themselves, and those immediately belonging to them. But in this they were mistaken. Quietly seated on a coil of rope, which was concealed from the eyes of the Barnaby race by a huge pile of portmanteaus and carpet bags, was an old long legged Yankee lawyer, who might have been supposed, even if they had been aware of his vicinity, to have been too much occupied by the newspaper which he seemed to be reading, to have any eyes left for looking about him. Such a conjecture, however, would have been altogether erroneous; Mr. Gabriel Monkton was never so much occupied by anything, when surrounded by his fellow-creatures, as to be unable to look about him. It was by looking about him that he had made his way upwards, from a very dirty little boy, sweeping an office, to a very good-looking gentleman seated at the highest desk in it; and he was too sensible a man to leave off a profitable habit, merely because it had been of use to him; therefore, though he was now a very rich instead of a very poor man, he still continued to find out everything that happened within his reach; and, in one way or another, was pretty sure to find it answer.

  It needed no ghost to tell him that Major Allen Barnaby, with his full lips, and his full chest, was no American; he found that out before he had turned his quid once, after first glancing at him. And having made this discovery, he watched him, of course, the more narrowly; for there is a great deal more interest, and very often more profit too, in finding out the who, the why, and the wherefore, concerning a foreigner than concerning a native. And then his laughter with his wife was rather of a chuckling and triumphant kind, the tone of which grated a little on the sober ear of the New Englander, and suggested notions of successful trickery, or, at the very least, of successful barter.

  Now, as both these branches of human industry are held by all genuine Yankees to belong to them, almost as a monopoly established by nature herself, it cannot be wondered at if Mr. Gabriel Monkton looked at Major Allen Barnaby with a jealous, if not a suspicious, eye. And then came in full view of the ensconced chewer, the blooming Patty, with her jumping and jollity, her kissing and coaxing; and then the plump pocket-book, and a very advantageous side-view of the contents of one pocket thereof. The mind of Mr. Gabriel Monkton was both analytical and logical, and he never suffered these noble faculties to lie idle on an occasion like the present.

  He perceived that the notes thus made visible to him, were the dear, darling, dirty dollar-notes, as precious to his heart as they were familiar to his eyes, and which spoke their birth-place and their origin in a language not to be mistaken. Ergo, this store of wealth was not the travelling cash of an English Niagara visitor, but must have been found, if not made, within the limits of the glorious Union. As to its being the product of English bills, bank-notes, or sovereigns changed for convenience into American currency, that was quite out of the question; as no man, in his senses, as the Yankee meditator well knew, would change English money for American, if he could help it; and, therefore, the plethoric form of the pocket-book put the matter out of all doubt.

  “How, then, did the fellow get together such an accountable lot of States paper?” (not state-papers — this change in the position of a letter would have rendered the question one of utter indifference to the questioner). It was a puzzle that no unaided guessing or calculating could solve, and, therefore, delightful as were the sensations enjoyed in his present retreat, his heels being thrown considerably higher than his head, his mouth full of tobacco, and the uninterrupted spittoon around him as extensive as his heart could wish — notwithstanding all this, Mr. Gabriel Monkton manfully resolved to sacrifice the enjoyment of it for the purpose of acquiring the information his intelligent mind thirsted to obtain.

  With this view he continued to watch the movements of the party till the junior couple had left the senior one, and then letting drop first one leg, and then the other, and placing his light-coloured beaver on his head in such an angle, as gave it the chance of keeping its place during the act of rising, he gave a sort of froglike spring, and found himself once again in the much less luxurious, but much more ordinary position of a human being; in plain English, he stood upright.

  The sound produced by this violent change of attitude, caused Major and Mrs. Allen Barnaby to start, and turn their heads towards him. This was lucky, for it served all the purposes of an introduction.

  “No offence, I hope, sir,” said Mr. Gabriel Monkton, with a conciliatory sort of nod; “but I expect “that I startled your lady a bit.”

  “Not at all, sir, I assure you,” replied Mrs. Allen Barnaby, with one of those swimming, swinging courtesies with which she never failed to honour every new acquaintance; “I am not quite so nervous as that.”

  “Fine day for a steam, sir,” said the lawyer, having acknowledged Mrs. Allen Barnaby’s civility by a bow; for Mr. Gabriel Monkton, like the majority of his countrymen (as long at least as they remain on their native soil), never addressed his conversation to a lady while there was one of the nobler sex near, “and a capital boat this, as I expect you’ll allow.”

  “Delightful, sir! Both, both delightful. The weather and the boat too are worthy of America,” returned the major, with a smile of great amenity.

  “I expect you mean the United States, sir, when you say America; for we can’t calculate that this whole quarter of the world can show such craft as this, to say nothing of the weather”’

  “Unquestionably, sir, I spoke incorrectly;” returned the courteous major; “but the fact is, that the immense disproportion, in point of importance, which the nation properly denominated the United States of America, bears to the entire continent, leads Europeans to forget that the quarter of the world called America, contains anythin
g else.”

  “Likely enough, sir, and in time I should not he very greatly surprised if all the civilised portion of the world was do adopt, and take upon itself the appellation of United States, owning, one and all, maybe, the federal authority of our President. There are considerable many indications, up and down the world, in many directions, that makes it look probable, we think,” said Mr. Gabriel Monkton.

  “I give you my honour, sir,” returned the major, “that the same idea has repeatedly struck me, and for my own part I positively think it would be the salvation of mankind. Indeed, without some measure of that sort, I profess I don’t see how the existence of the European nations is to be preserved.”

  “Why, on this side the water we are all pretty well come to the same notion, that’s a fact. But you see, sir, before anything of that kind could be acted upon, we should have a good deal to do in the way of condescending to make sacrifices for the general good,” returned Mr. Gabriel Monkton. “There is no denying, sir,” he continued, with the modest air of a man acknowledging a weakness, “there is no denying that it is pleasant and agreeable, ay, very pleasant and agreeable, to be first and foremost of all the people of the earth. But if once we take it into our heads to make it a main object with our government that “they shall gather all the nations of the world, and sit and brood over them, as I may say, hatching them out of their present egg-like sort of imprisonment, till they all fly off like so many free-borns, if once we do this, where will our superiority be? All the world will look then to share and share alike, I calculate.”

  “How admirably true!” exclaimed Mrs. Allen Barnaby, clasping her hands, and turning her great eyes towards the sky. “Is it not a pleasure, major, to listen to such magnificent ideas?”

  “I beg your excuse, sir, I did not know your title till your lady named it,” said Mr. Gabriel Monkton. “In the English army, I presume, sir!”