“That expressive word, again, reassures me, my charming Barnaby; for it at once turns the threatened illness into an admirable jest. But do you really think, my dear, that you could put off this trick again, so as to get me free from this devilish steamboat, without being followed by this grim Gabriel?”
“The old trick, Donny, with the assistance of a new one following it,” she replied, “will, I think, suffice to do all we want. But I don’t believe it is quite a new trick either, for I remember hearing something very like it before but it is not the worse for that, you know, if it serves our turn. And now listen, and you shall know what I mean, to do, and what I mean you to do. You will see me presently walking down the ladies stairs into the little cabin; when I get there I will wash my face, you know, Donny, just as I did before, and when this is done I will crawl up again, looking very poorly indeed. And then you must help me to the sofa, and then I must lie down, and then you must go and bring Patty to me, and then I must send her to borrow one of the ladies smelling-bottles, and then I suppose they will come to me, when I shall take care to make them understand, that heavenly beautiful as their great big lake may be, the movement of the boat on it makes me very ill. In short, I shall, make everybody understand that I am determined to land at the first stopping-place, which I understand is called Cleveland.”
Mrs Allen Barnaby paused for an instant to take breath, upon which the major ventured to hint that he greatly doubted if the mere circumstance of their landing at Cleveland, instead of Sandusky, would suffice to distance Mr. Gabriel Monkton, if indeed he were as determined to track him, as the language she had overheard seemed to indicate.
A whole volume of scorn flashed from the eyes of my heroine as she listened to these words.
“You doubt it, major, do you? And to tell you the truth, my dear, I doubt it too. Depend upon it, if I thought he could be so easily put off, I should give myself no further trouble about the matter. You must hear a little more first, if you please, before you venture to decide whether my scheme will answer or not. After having clearly given these ladies to understand that I mean to land at Cleveland, I shall declare myself unable to sit up any longer, and you and Patty must help me down stairs, and lay me upon the bed. Well then, imagine us all down there as snug as possible — of course, you know as well as I do, that whenever anything happens which takes any of the ladies’ husbands into the ladies’ cabin, all the other females, as they call themselves, keep clear of it, as if they thought that he was a, shark going to swallow them all up. We shall therefore have the cabin entirely to ourselves, and then I will dress you in my large long cloak, petticoats, and all that, and you shall put on my large Leghorn sun-bonnet and white lace veil, and Fatty shall help you up to the deck exactly when the boat stops which they say is just when it is getting dark. The passage and all that, you know, is paid already. Tornorino shall go with you, and if any questions are asked about ‘the Major,’ Patty shall say that you are going on to Sandusky, because you expect some one to meet you there on business, and that we shall travel by land under the escort of the Don to join you there. What do you say to this, major?”
“But what on earth is to become of you, my dear, if you remain here on board by yourself?” demanded the major, affectionately.
“Don’t trouble yourself about me, my dear,” she replied, gaily. “There’s a number of shabby-looking women on board, and I mean, as soon as it gets dusk, to go up amongst them dressed quite differently from what I am now. There’s that old tartan cloak, you know, will cover me up completely, and I have no doubt in the world that I shall get out of the boat with the rest of the riffraff, without any single sold taking notice of me. You know their way of always making everybody pay at the half-way station, and that prevent anybody’s being looked after, when they step on shore.” —
“You are perfectly right, my dear Barnaby, as to that, and I do declare that, considering the hour for landing, and all the other circumstances, I see no reason in the world why the plot should not succeed Besides, it is your invention, you know, and that gives me confidence, for everything you do succeeds.”
“Why, I must confess,” she replied, “that I have rarely taken it into my head to plot and plan without succeeding. However, though I take credit to myself for the invention, or at any rate for the adopting it, you must please to remember, Donny, that a good deal of its success must depend upon yourself I am quite sure that this fellow expects somehow or other to make a good thing of catching you. There are a good many queer tricks, you know, practised in this country, of one soit or another, and I take it these Yankees are up to a thing or two, as well as your friends at New Orleans. Perhaps he suspects that you have not been visiting their glorious and immortal institutions for nothing, and may hope that if he keeps you in sight for a day or two, something may turn up about you, my dear, which might make somebody or other very grateful to him for having looked after you a little.”
“And that’s precisely what will happen, Mrs. Allen Barnaby, as sure as your graceful and ever charming form hangs over this rail So far you understand the circumstances of the case to perfection But I do not exactly perceive how any exercise of my own peculiar talents upon this occasion, can in any way assist in enabling us to avoid the catastrophe we anticipate.”
“Your own peculiar talent, Donny, may have been more necessary to get you into the scrape than out of it; nevertheless, my dear, I have sufficient confidence in your general cleverness and ability, to feel assured of your passing with more than credit, with honour, through that part of the business which must inevitably fall to your share,” said Mrs. Allen Barnaby.
“And pray what part of the business may that be, my dear?” demanded the major. “If it means the walking under your garments with equal grace to yourself, I must fail; the thing is impossible.”
“Tranquillise your spirits, my love, on that point,” returned the lady, with a playfully tender smile; “nothing of the sort will be necessary. In about two hours it will be quite dark enough for you to walk as you will under my garments, without any eye being likely to perceive the difference. Your part of the acting must take place immediately. After you have left me upon the sofa with Patty listening to my groans, you must assume a very unfond and unfeeling air (foreign to your heart, my love, of course, but absolutely necessary to your circumstances), and having sought and found your agreeable new acquaintance, Mr. Gabriel Monkton, you must tell him that I am horribly sick, and then you must swagger a little about the horrid bore of travelling with women, and then you must swear that you would not miss seeing the person you are to meet at Sandusky for all the sick women in the world, but add, with some little show of softer feeling, that for all that, you are not such a brute either, as to insist upon my going on; and then you may speak of the excellent qualities of Tornorino, and the perfect satisfaction with which you can trust me to his care, and to that of my daughter. It is in this scene, my dear major, that you must display the talent for which I give you credit. When you have performed this, you must conclude by telling him that you must intrude into the ladies’ cabin in order to apprise the ladies of your party that they must land at Cleveland without you; and then you may walk off to find us, taking care ostentatiously to proclaim as you go, your regret at the necessity which obliges you to take the liberty of entering that apartment, and taking care also that Gabriel does not lose sight of you a moment sooner than is absolutely necessary. Five minutes’ retreat with Patty and me, will suffice for your toilet. You must make our good Tornorino understand his part in our little domestic drama, and school him to knock at the door of the cabin as soon as the boat reaches Cleveland. He must give you his arm through the gentlemen’s cabin, the stairs from which open upon the deck close to the gangway by which they go ashore. I shall follow at some distance after, with a bundle and basket, like one of the market women; and of course you are none of you to take any notice of me, but depend upon it I will take very good care of myself. Tornorino must set about collecting all ou
r luggage for landing at Cleveland, and place it near the gangway. And now, Mr. Major, what do you say to it? Do you feel competent to undertake your part?”
“I think I may venture to say that I do,” he replied; “so now let us begin. Move the first, is your descending to the cabin, in order to remove that slight and unnecessary addition to your charms, which fashion, my dear love, has induced you to adopt. Go, then! and rely upon it that I shall neither mistake the order of the subsequent scenes, nor forget my cue.”
Perfectly satisfied with the spirit of active obedience which she read in her clever husband’s eye, she gave him an approving nod, and moved off.
CHAPTER XL.
IT was impossible for Major Allen Barnaby to watch the painful languor of movement with which his charming wife withdrew from his side without admiration. Long as he had been her husband, he really did admire her exceedingly. Nor was the feeling of that light and idle kind which leads to nothing. He felt all her claim upon his ready co-operation in the scheme she had sketched out, and instantly began his share of the work by seeking Tornorino, and explaining to him both the business he had to perform, and the reason for it.
This was not a sort of business on which the graceful Don was at all likely to be dull of comprehension, and the major left him, on seeing his pale and trembling “Barnaby” emerge again from the ladies’ cabin, quite satisfied with the ready acquiescence he expressed. In the next moment the attentive husband was by his pallid lady’s side, and having, according to order, laid her gently upon the sofa, he bustled off to seek his daughter. And now it was that the greatest difficulty arose.
Patty, upon being assured that her mother was sea-sick, or lake-sick, and desired her assistance, burst forth in her usual style of free remonstrance upon the absurdity of supposing that she could do her any good.
“Lor, papa!” she exclaimed, “how you do spoil her! I don’t believe she’s any more sick than I am. Why, she eat like a wolf at breakfast. I do wish you would let me alone, papa. I want to stay here till Tornorino comes back; he said he was only going for a minute, and he’ll think I am tumbled overboard, if he does not find me here.”
It has been hinted before, that the major, from some little feeling of paternal weakness, did not wish that his daughter should be made fully acquainted with all the manœuvrings to which he occasionally found himself compelled to have recourse, when his affectionate regard for the welfare of his family induced him to practise any trifling irregularity in his monetary transactions. It was this feeling which now embarrassed him. Patty, as everybody knows, was a very quick, intelligent young woman, and a very few words would have sufficed to make her comprehend the whole business; but Major Allen Barnaby did not like to speak these few words. He knew, however, that the co-operation of his daughter, in the rather hazardous scheme now afoot, was absolutely necessary, and therefore, after looking at her with an air of perplexity for half a minute, he said —
“Come, come, Patty, you must not only be a good girl, but a very particularly good girl just now, or we shall get into a worse scrape than you think for. After you all left New York, I got among a set of worthless chaps, which it is very difficult to help doing sometimes in a strange country, and we got quarrelling, and, as ill-luck would have it, one of the fellows insisted upon it that I should fight a duel with him, which, I am sorry to say, ended fatally. I am sure I did not know it at the time, but I have been told since, that the United States government never forgives a man who kills another in a duel, and I am therefore now in the greatest possible danger of being taken up and executed.”
“Lor, papa! How horrid!” exclaimed Patty, looking a little terrified; “but what has all this to do with ma’s being sick?”
“A great deal, my dear, as you will find, if you will but have patience to listen to me,” he replied. “I have discovered within this hour, Patty, that I am suspected by a man on board, and my only chance of saving myself, is by getting on shore disguised as a woman.”
“Oh, goodness! What fun!” ‘exclaimed Madame Tornorino, clapping her hands with an air of great hilarity. “But lor, pa! they’ll be sure to find you out.”
“I hope not, my dear,” said the major, gravely; “but this will depend entirely on the manner in which my family assist me.”
He then explained to her the mode in which he intended to proceed, endeavouring to impress upon her mind the absolute necessity of silence and caution amongst them all, and the conversation ended at last by her saying in a whisper, but very earnestly ——
“Well, pap, it shan’t be my fault if you are hanged, you may depend upon that.”
Perfectly contented by this affectionate assurance, the major then dismissed her, and the subsequent scenes of the drama followed exactly in the order which Mrs. Allen Barnaby had laid down, and without any blundering whatever on the part of the dramatis personae, till the critical moment arrived when the major with one arm resting on that of Tornorino, and the other raised in order to hold a pocket-handkerchief to his mouth, stepped forth with a languid air from the ladies’ cabin, and began his hazardous progress through the long saloon appropriated to the gentlemen.
Nothing could possibly be better than the arrangement of his drapery. The large shawl thrown over his shoulders completely disguised the outline of his person; and perhaps no man of Image, measuring five feet ten and a half, ever contrived to contract his limbs more skilfully than did Major Allen Barnaby, as he slowly moved onwards. It was probably the perfect success with which he enacted his wife’s attitude as he drooped his head a little on one side, while his feathers and flowing veil drooped also, that overset the gravity of Patty, which, till that moment, she had sustained admirably, but then, for one short moment, she forgot herself, and exclaiming aloud, “Oh! my goodness, how funny!” she clapped her hands in her usual joyous style, and laughed outright.
The admirable presence of mind of the Don, however, prevented any fatal effects from this thoughtless sally.
“Der is nothing to laugh, my dof, in de sickness,” he said, shaking his head very gravely, while the really suffering major uttered so sad and womanly a sigh, that if anybody had thought about them at all, it could only have been to deprecate the hardhearted levity of the young woman, who could find amusement in her feeble mother’s sufferings. Fortunately, however, the two or three persons who were scattered through the long room, were too much occupied by their own concerns to pay any attention to the group, and they made their way to the top of the stairs just as the first rush of file persons intending to land at Cleveland, was elbowing and shouldering its way across the plank. Either from the fear that a too close juxtaposition with those who were jostling one another as they crossed, might betray him, or else from the wish to be perfectly consistent in the representation of his assumed character, the major held back for a moment, till a dozen or so of the most eager had passed the plank; then, still preserving with admirable steadiness of demeanour, the timid free of a suffering woman, he too crossed it, Tornorino very carefully stepping backwards as he preceded him, and the penitent Patty following, looking as grave as a judge.
In this manner they very safely reached the bank; but just as the delighted major felt his feet firmly planted on the sod, and while he was thinking that he might now venture to recover himself a little, and take, under shadow of the darkness, a tolerably vigorous step forward, he felt a somewhat heavy arm upon his shoulder, and fully expected in the next moment to see the long visage of Mr. Gabriel Monkton peering at Aim.
“Can I be of any use to you, ladies?” said a voice at his ear, which even at that moment of agitation he felt certain was not the voice of the dreaded Gabriel. “You seem a little bewildered, I think, and if I can be of any service, you may command me.”
These very obliging words, added by the same voice, which though certainly not that of Mr. Gabriel Monkton, did not appear to the major to be perfectly unknown, caused him to turn his head towards the speaker, and even to hazard the danger of rendering visible the
“peard under his muffler,” by raising his veil for the purpose of obtaining as good a view, as the waning light would permit, of the features of this courteous stranger.
On turning his eyes in the direction from whence the voice came, he perceived a stout-looking country-wife sort of a body, with a shabby old bonnet pulled low over her face, a very worn-out shawl, a common cotton-gown pulled up through the pocket-holes, and a pair of fat, naked arms, with sleeves pushed up considerably above the elbow.
The woman stepped back as soon as the major’s eye fell upon her, and addressing Patty, who followed close behind, said —
“You are a very pretty young lady, upon my word. Would you like to have your fortune told, miss?”
“Miss! indeed!” cried the indignant married woman, who even in that moment of peril could not permit such a blunder to pass unnoticed. “What a fool of a woman you must be, to fancy I am an unmarried girl! We don’t want any of your help, you may depend upon that, so you may get away, and let us walk on by ourselves in peace and quiet.”
“Walk on in peace, my pretty dear, by all means,” said the woman; “but don’t be so fond of quiet as to send off good company.”
“Major Allen Barnaby, notwithstanding the very good reasons he had for wishing to advance beyond the reach of a recall from the steamboat, nevertheless lingered on the way for the purpose of hearing the above dialogue, and when it had reached this point, he suddenly stopped, and having looked round him on all sides without perceiving any one pursuing, or appearing particularly to notice them, he cautiously pronounced the word “Wife!” at no great distance from the ear of the female who had thus beset Patty.
“It is not every wise child that knows its own mother,” said the voice of Mrs. Allen Barnaby, from beneath the humble weeds of the seeming stranger; “nevertheless, a runaway gentleman, it seems, may know his own wife.
Collected Works of Frances Trollope Page 373