This done, Mrs. Wright was next desired to attend her; and with very little waste of time or words, it was agreed between them, that if “father” made no objection, (which both parties were pretty sure he would not,) Peggy should be immediately converted into a waiting-maid to attend upon herself and Miss Willoughby. This last arrangement produced an effect very likely to be destructive to all Miss Betsy’s quiet, well-laid plans for preparation, for the news that Peggy was to set off next morning for London very nearly turned the heads of every individual in the house.
The mother of the family, however, so far recovered her senses as to appear again in Miss Compton’s room at the end of an hour, but with a heated face, and every appearance of having been in great activity.
“I ax your pardon, Miss Betsy, a thousand times!” said the good woman, wiping her face; “but Peggy’s things, you know, Miss Compton, can’t be like yours, all nicely in order in the drawers; and we must all wash and iron too before she can be ready. But here I am now to help you, and I can get your trunk ready in no time.”
“I shall take very little with me, Mrs. Wright,” replied the old lady, who seemed as much au fait of what she was about as if she had been in the habit of visiting London every year of her life; “nor must Peggy take much,” she added gently, but with decision; “and getting her things washed and ironed must be done after we are gone. I shall let you know as soon as I can where the luggage that must follow us, shall be addressed; and instead of washing and ironing, Mrs. Wright, I want you and one of the elder girls to assist me in making an inventory of everything I leave behind ... orders concerning which you will also receive by the post.”
Miss Compton, though a very quiet inmate, and one whose regular habits gave little trouble, was nevertheless a person of great importance at Compton Basett; and her commands, thus distinctly expressed, were implicitly obeyed; so that before the usual hour of retiring for the night, everything was arranged both for going and staying exactly as she had determined they should be.
It was singular to see with what unvacillating steadiness this feeble-looking old lady pursued her purpose; no obstacle appeared of consequence sufficient to draw aside a thought from the main object she had in view, but was either removed or passed over by an impulse that seemed as irresistible as the steam that causes the train to rush along the rail-road, making the way clear, if it does not find it so.
At daybreak the Silverton post-chaise, with four good horses and two smart post-boys, were at the door; and within ten minutes afterwards all adieux had been spoken, all luggage stowed, and Miss Compton, who had never yet left her native county, was proceeding full gallop towards the metropolis.
“As you drive, so you will be paid,” said William to the boys as they set off; and they did drive as boys so bargained with generally do. Miss Compton had shewn equal quickness and good judgment in having secured the services of this William, for he had repeatedly travelled with his late master and mistress to London, was apt, quick, and intelligent; and fully justified the expectation his new lady had formed, that, with carte blanche in the article of expense, he would manage her journey as expeditiously, and with as little trouble to herself, as if she had been attended with half a dozen outriders.
At Exeter she dined, and reposed herself for a couple of hours, during which William undertook to hire a carriage for the journey, furnished with a dickey behind, and all other conveniences; an arrangement which greatly lessened the fatigue to all parties, and enabled the active-minded old lady to proceed as far as Salisbury that night. Daybreak again found her en route; and by means of William’s conditional mode of payment to the postilions, Miss Compton arrived at Ibertson’s Hotel by two o’clock in the afternoon.
It might be supposed, from the exertion used to reach the wide city in which she knew poor Agnes stood alone, that Miss Compton would drive directly to Half-Moon Street, and save her, as early as possible, from all farther anxiety; but such was not her plan.... There was something still wanting to prove her repentance and her love, before she could present herself before the forsaken Agnes. All her schemes, all her wishes, were explained to her efficient aide-de-camp; and while she and the wondering Peggy reposed themselves, he was sent in search of handsome private lodgings, which must be such as his master the member for Silverton might have approved for his own family.... And then he was to proceed to livery-stables where he was known, and hire for her, by the week, a carriage and horses fit for ladies to use. Such were Miss Compton’s vague, but very judicious orders; and the result was, that by the time she had dined and taken an hour’s nap upon the sofa, a very respectable equipage was at the door awaiting her orders. In and about this the light luggage she had brought with her was arranged, and ten minutes’ drive brought her to handsome, airy lodgings, near the top of Wimpole Street, where William thought he should be able to breathe himself, and where his mistress and Peggy, new as they were to the smoke and dust, might have as good a chance of doing so too as in any other street he could think of.
Miss Compton was pleased, greatly pleased, with her new confidant’s promptitude and ability. The carriage pleased her, the horses, the coachman, the house, the furniture, and the obsequious landlady too, all pleased her; and she felt a degree of happiness as she set her Peggy to make arrangements for the especial comfort and accommodation of Agnes, such as she had never known before. It cured all fatigue, it overpowered every feeling of strangeness in her new and most unwonted abode, and gave a gaiety to her spirits, and lightness to her heart, that made her look, as she stepped from room to room, like one of the little benignant old fairies of which we read in French story books.
By eight o’clock all her preparations were complete, the tea-things placed on the drawing-room table, Peggy given to understand that she was to consider herself more as Miss Willoughby’s personal attendant than her own, and the carriage again at the door to convey her to the longed-for yet almost dreaded meeting in Half-Moon Street.
Agnes had written to Miss Compton on Monday, and calculated that she might receive an answer to her letter on Thursday morning. But Thursday morning was past, and no letter arrived; and when about half-past eight on that same evening she heard a carriage stop, and the knocker thunder, the only idea that suggested itself was, that her aunt Barnaby was returned, and that she should have to plead for a night’s lodging under her roof.
Her spirits were weakened by disappointment ... she had heard nothing from Cheltenham since Colonel Hubert’s visit; and this, together with the non-arrival of any Devonshire letter, had caused a degree of depression to which she very rarely gave way.
“What shall I say to her?... How shall I dare to meet her?” she exclaimed. “Oh! if she keeps her word, what, what will become of me?”
She heard steps approaching, and feeling convinced it was her aunt Barnaby, attempted in her terror to open the door that communicated with the other room, but found it locked; and trembling like a hunted fawn, obliged to turn to bay, she cast her eyes towards the dreaded door, and saw Miss Compton gently and timidly entering by it.
“Aunt Betsy!” she cried, springing towards her, and falling involuntarily upon her knees, “Oh! dear, dear aunt Betsy!... Is it indeed possible that you are come for me?”
The poor old lady’s high-wrought energies almost failed her now; and had not a chair stood near, she would hardly have saved herself from falling on the floor beside her niece. “Agnes!... poor child!” she said, “you thought I was too hard and too cruel to come near you?... I have been much to blame ... oh! frightfully to blame!... Will you forgive me, dear one?... My poor pale girl!... You look ill, Agnes, very, very ill.... And is it not a fitting torment for me to see this fair bloodless cheek?... for did I not hate you for your rosy health?”
Agnes was indeed pale; and though not fainting, was so near it, that while her aunt uttered this passionate address, she had no power to articulate a word. But she laid her cheek on the old lady’s hands; and there was something so caressing and so helpl
ess in her attitude as she did this, that poor Miss Compton was entirely overcome and wept aloud.
No sooner, however, had this first violent burst of emotion passed away, than the happiness such a meeting was calculated to afford to both of them, was most keenly and delightfully felt. Miss Compton looked at Agnes, as the blood beautifully tinged her delicate cheek again, with such admiration and delight, that it seemed likely enough, notwithstanding her strong good sense on many points, that she might now fall into another extreme, and idolize the being she had so harshly thrust from her ... while the object of this new and unhoped-for affection seemed to feel it at her very heart, and to be cheered and warmed by it, like a tender plant receiving the first beams of the morning sun after the chilling coldness of the night.
At length Miss Compton remembered that she was not come there only to look at Agnes; and withdrawing her arms, which she had thrown around her, she said.... “Come, my own child ... this is no roof for either of us. Have you much to remove? Is there more than a carriage can take, Agnes?”
“And will you take me with you now, aunt Betsy?” cried the delighted girl, springing up. “Wait but one moment, and all I have shall be ready ... it is not much.... My books are packed, and my trunk too ... the maid will help me.”
“Ring the bell then, love, and let my servant take your packages down.” Agnes obeyed ... her trunk ... aunt Betsy’s original trunk, and the dear Empton book-box, were lodged on the driving-seat and the dickey of the carriage; and William was just mounting the stairs to say that all was ready, when another carriage was heard to stop, and another knocking resounded against the open street-door.
“Oh! it is aunt Barnaby!” cried Agnes in a voice of terror.
“Is it?” replied Miss Compton, in the lively tone of former days. “I shall be exceedingly glad to see her.”
“Can you be in earnest, aunt Betsy?” said Agnes, looking very pale.
“Perfectly in earnest, my dear child,” answered the old lady. “It will be greatly more satisfactory that she should be an eye-witness of your departure with me, than that you should go without giving her notice.... Perhaps she would say you had eloped and robbed the premises.”
“Hush!...” cried Agnes ... “she is here!”
Mrs. Barnaby’s voice, at least, was already with them. It was, indeed, the return of this lady which they had heard; and no sooner had she dismissed her hackney-coachman than she began questioning the servant of the house, who was stationed at the open door, expecting Miss Compton and her niece to come down.
“What carriage is that?... Whose servant is that upon the stairs?... You have not been letting the lodgings, I hope?” were the first words of the widow.
“Oh! dear no, ma’am!” replied the maid; “everything is just as you left it.”
“Then who is that carriage waiting for?”
“For a lady, ma’am, who is come to call on your young lady.”
“My young lady!... unnatural hussy!... And what fine friends has she found out here, I wonder, to visit her?... Be they who they will, they shall hear my opinion of her.” And with these words, Mrs. Barnaby mounted the last stair, and entered the room.
The two unsnuffed tallow candles which stood on the table did not enable her at the first glance to recognize her aunt, who was wrapped in a long silk cloak, much unlike any garment she had ever seen her wear; but the sable figure of Agnes immediately caught her eye, and she stepped towards her with her arm extended, very much as if about to box her ears. But it seemed that the action was only intended to intimate that she was instantly to depart, for, with raised voice and rapid utterance, she said, “How comes it, girl, that I find you still here?... Begone!... Never will I pass another night under the same roof with one who could so basely desert a benefactress in distress!... And who may this be that you have got to come and make merry with you, while I ... and for your expenses too.... Whoever it is, they had better shew no kindness to you, ... or they will be sure to repent of it.”
Mrs. Barnaby then turned suddenly round to reconnoitre the unknown visiter. “Do you not know me, Mrs. Barnaby?” said Miss Compton demurely.
“My aunt Betsy!... Good God! ma’am, what brought you here?”
“I came to take this troublesome girl off your hands, Mrs. Barnaby: is not that kind of me?”
“That’s the plan, is it?” retorted the widow bitterly. “Now I understand it all. Instead of coming to comfort me in my misery, she was employing herself in coaxing another aunt to make a sacrifice of herself to her convenience. Take her; and when you are sick and sorry, she will turn her back upon you, as she has done upon me!”
“Oh! do not speak so cruelly, aunt Barnaby!” cried Agnes, greatly shocked at having her conduct thus described to one whose love she so ardently wished to gain.... “Tell my aunt Compton what it was you asked of me, and let her judge between us.”
“Shut the door, Agnes!...” said Miss Compton sternly; and then, re-seating herself, she addressed Mrs. Barnaby with an air of much anxiety and interest: “Niece Martha, I must indeed beg of you to tell me in what manner this young girl has conducted herself since she has been with you, for, I can assure you, much depends upon the opinion I shall now form of her. I have no longer any reason to conceal from you that my circumstances are considerably more affluent than anybody but myself and my man of business is aware of.... Nearly forty years of strict economy, niece Martha, have enabled me to realize a very respectable little fortune. It was I, and not my tenant, who purchased your poor father’s moiety of Compton Basett; and as I have scarcely ever touched the rents, a little study of the theory of interest and compound interest will prevent your being surprised, when I tell you that my present income is fifteen hundred per annum, clear of all outgoings whatever.”
“Is it possible!” exclaimed Mrs. Barnaby, with an accent and a look of reverence, which very nearly destroyed the gravity of her old aunt.
“Yes, Mrs. Barnaby,” she resumed, “such is my income. With less than this, a gentlewoman of a good old family, desirous of bringing forward a niece into the world in such a manner as to do her credit, could not venture to take her place in society; and I have therefore waited till my increasing revenues should amount to this sum before I declared my intentions, and proclaimed my heiress. Such being the case, you will not be surprised that I should be anxious to ascertain which of my two nieces best deserves my favour. I do not mean to charge myself with both.... Let that be clearly understood.... The doing so would entirely defeat my object, which is to leave one representative of the Compton Basett family with a fortune sufficient to restore its former respectability.”
“And everybody must admire such an intention,” replied Mrs. Barnaby, in an accent of inexpressible gentleness; “and I, for one, most truly hope, that whoever you decide to leave it to, may deserve such generosity, and have a grateful heart to requite it with.”
“That is just what I should wish to find,” returned the spinster; “and before you came in, I had quite made up my mind that Agnes Willoughby should be the person; but I confess, Mrs. Barnaby, that what you have said alarms me, and I shall be very much obliged if you will immediately let me know what Agnes has done to merit the accusation of having deserted her benefactress?”
“It is but too easy to answer that, aunt Compton,” replied the widow, “and I am sorry to speak against my own sister’s child; ... but truth is truth, and since you command me to tell you what I meant when I said she had deserted me, I will.... I have been arrested, aunt Compton, and that for no reason on the earth but because I was tempted to stay three or four days longer in London than I intended. Of course, I meant to go back to that paltry place, Cheltenham, and pay every farthing I owed there, the proof of which is that I have paid every farthing, though it would have served them right to have kept them a year out of their money, instead of a month; ... but that’s neither here nor there ... though there was no danger of my staying in prison, I WAS there for three days, and Agnes could not tell but I mig
ht have been there for ever; ... yet, when I wrote her a most affectionate letter, begging her only to call upon me in my miserable solitude, she answered my petition, which might have moved a heart of stone, with a flat refusal.... Ask her if she can deny this?”
“What say you, Agnes?... Is this so?” said the old lady, turning to the party accused.
“Aunt Betsy!...” said Agnes, and then stopped, as if unwilling, for some reason or other, to say more.
“Yes or NO?” demanded Mrs. Barnaby, vehemently. “Did you refuse to come to me, or not?”
“I did,” replied Agnes.
“I hope you are satisfied, aunt Compton?” cried the widow triumphantly.... “By her own confession, you perceive that I have told you nothing but the truth.”
Agnes said nothing in reply to this, but loosening the strings of a silk bag which hung upon her arm, she took from it a small packet, and placed it in the hands of Miss Compton. “What have we got here?” said the spinster sharply.... “What do you give me this for, child?”
“I wish you to read what is there, if you please, aunt,” said Agnes. Miss Compton laid it on the table before her, while she sought for her spectacles and adjusted them on her nose; but, while doing this, she kept her eyes keenly fixed upon the little packet, and not without reason, for, had she turned from it for a single instant, Mrs. Barnaby, who shrewdly suspected its contents, would infallibly have taken possession of it.
“My coachman and horses will get tired of all this, I think,” said Miss Compton; “however, as you say, niece Martha, truth is truth, and must be sought after, even if it lies at the bottom of a well.... This is a letter, and directed to you, Miss Agnes; ... and this is the back of another, with some young-lady-like scrawling upon it.... Which am I to read first, pray?”
“The letter, aunt Betsy,” replied Agnes.
“So be it,” said the spinster with an air of great indifference; and drawing one of the candles towards her, and carefully snuffing it, she began clearly and deliberately reading aloud the letter already given, in which Mrs. Barnaby desired the presence of Agnes, and gave her instructions for her finding her way to the Fleet Prison. Having finished this, she replaced it quietly in its cover without saying a word, or even raising her eyes towards either of her companions; and taking the other paper, containing Agnes’s reasons for non-compliance, read that through likewise, exactly in the same distinct tone, and replaced it with an equal absence of all commentary, in the cover. She then rose, and walking close up to her elder niece, who proffered not a word, looking in her face with a smile that must have been infinitely more provoking than the most violent indignation, said, “Niece Martha!... the last time I saw you, if I remember rightly, you offered me some of your old clothes; but now you offer me none, which I consider as the more unkind, because, if you dressed as smart as you are now while in prison, you must most certainly wear very fine things when you are free.... And so, as you are no longer the kind niece you used to be, I don’t think I shall come to see you any more. As for this young lady here, it appears to me that you have not been severe enough with her, Mrs. Barnaby.... I’ll see if I can’t teach her to behave better.... In prison or out of prison ... if I bid her come, we shall see if she dare look about her for such plausible reasons for refusing as she has given you. If she does, I’ll certainly send her back to you, Mrs. Barnaby. Ring the bell, naughty Agnes!”
Collected Works of Frances Trollope Page 149
