Collected Works of Frances Trollope

by Frances Milton Trollope

  “I mean to assert to you, madam, that it is my firm persuasion that such will prove to be the fact. But I have not considered it necessary, Lady Elizabeth Norris, for the son of my father to withhold his affections from the chosen of his heart, till he was assured he should gain all the honour by the selection which a union with Lady Eastcombe’s niece could bestow;... nor should I have mentioned my belief in this connexion, by way of a set-off to the equally near claim of Mrs. Barnaby, had you not questioned me so particularly.”

  Had Colonel Hubert studied his answer for a twelvemonth, he could not have composed a more judicious one: there was a spice of hauteur in it by no means uncongenial to the old lady’s feelings, and there was, too, enough of defiance to make her take counsel with herself as to whether it would be wise to vex him further. It was, therefore, less with the accent of mockery, and more with that of curiosity, that she recommenced her interrogatory.

  “Will you tell me, Montague, from what source you derived this knowledge of Miss Willoughby’s family?... Was it from herself?”

  “Certainly not. If the facts be as I have stated, and as I hope and believe they will be found, Miss Willoughby will be as much surprised by the discovery as your ladyship.”

  “From whom, then, did you hear it?”

  “From no one, Lady Elizabeth, as a matter of fact connected with Agnes. But something, I know not what, introduced the mention of old Willoughby’s wild stake at piquet at the club the other day.... The name struck me, and I led old Major Barnes to talk to me of the family. He told me that a younger son, a gay harum-scarum sort of youth, married some girl, when he was in country quarters, whom his family would not receive; that, ruined and broken-hearted by this desertion, he went abroad almost immediately after his marriage, and has never been heard of since.”

  “And this is the foundation upon which you build your hope, that Mrs. Barnaby’s niece is also the niece of Lady Eastcombe?... Ingenious certainly, Colonel, as a theory, but somewhat slight as an edifice on which to hang any weighty matter.... Don’t you think so?”

  “I hang nothing on it, Lady Elizabeth. If I did not feel that Miss Willoughby was calculated to make me happy without this supposed relationship, I certainly should not think her so with it. However, that your ladyship may not fancy my imagination more fertile than it really is, I must add, that when at Clifton, I did hear from the Misses Peters, whom I have before mentioned to you, that the father of Agnes went abroad after his marriage, and moreover that no news of him in any way ever reached his wife’s family afterwards.”

  Lady Elizabeth for some time made no reply, but seemed to ponder upon this statement very earnestly. At length she said, in a tone from which irony and harshness, levity and severity, were equally banished,— “Montague!... there are some of the feelings which you have just expressed, in which I cannot sympathise; but a very little reflection will teach you that there is no ground of offence to you in this ... for it would be unnatural that I should do so. You tell me that your father’s son need not deem the honour of a relationship to Viscountess Eastcombe necessary to his happiness in life. So far I am able to comprehend you, although Lady Eastcombe is an honourable and excellent personage, whose near connexion with a young lady would be no contemptible advantage (at least in my mind) upon her introduction into life. But we will pass this.... When, however, you proceed to tell me that your choice in marriage could in nowise be affected by the rank and station of those with whom it might bring you in contact, and that, too, when the question is, whether a Mrs. Barnaby, or a Lady Eastcombe, should be in the foreground of the group, you must excuse me if I cannot follow you.”

  Nothing is so distressing in an argument as to have a burst of grandiloquent sentiment set aside by a few words of common sense. Colonel Hubert walked the length of the drawing-room, and back again, before he answered; he felt that, as his aunt put the case, he was as far from following his assertion by his judgment as herself; but ere his walk was finished, the image of the desolate Agnes, as he had seen her the night before, arose before him, and resumed its unconquerable influence on his heart. He took a hint from her ladyship, threw aside all mixture of heat and anger, and replied. —

  “Heaven forbid, Lady Elizabeth, that I should attempt to defend any such doctrine:... believe me, it is not mine. But, in one word, I love Miss Willoughby; and if I can arrive at the happiness of believing that I am loved in return, nothing but her own refusal will prevent me from marrying her. This is my statement of facts; I will attempt no other, and throw myself wholly upon your judgment to smooth, or render more rugged, the path which lies before me.”

  The old lady looked at him and smiled very kindly. “Montague,” said she, “resolve my doubts. Is it the mention of your pleasant suspicions respecting Miss Willoughby’s paternal ancestry,... or your present unvarnished frankness, that has won upon me?... Upon my honour, I could not answer this question myself;... but certain it is that I do feel more inclined to remember what a very sweet creature Agnes is at this moment, than I ever thought I should again when our conversation began.”

  Colonel Hubert kneeled down upon her foot-stool, and kissing her hand, said, in a voice that spoke his happiness, “It matters not to me what the cause is, my dearest aunt.... I thank Heaven for the effect!... and now ... do not think that I am taking an unfair advantage of this kindness, if I ask you to remember the position of Miss Willoughby at this moment. With such views for the future as I have explained to you, is it not my duty to remove her from it?”

  “What then do you propose to do?” demanded Lady Elizabeth.

  “I can do nothing,”... he replied;... “whatever aid or protection can be extended to her, must come from you ... or Lady Stephenson;... and that I should rather it came from you, who have long been to me as a mother, can hardly surprise you. Sir Edward is an excellent young man,... but he has prejudices that I should not like to battle with on this occasion. It is from you, and you only, Lady Elizabeth, that I either hope or wish to find protection for my future wife.”

  Again Lady Elizabeth pondered. “Did not Agnes tell us,” she said at length, “did she not say in her letter to Lady Stephenson, that she had applied to some aged relation in Devonshire, by whom she hoped to be extricated from her present terrible embarrassment?”

  “It is very likely,” replied Colonel Hubert, “for she spoke to me of such a one, and hoped that Thursday ... that is to-morrow, is it not?... would bring an answer to her application.”

  “Then, Montague, we must wait to hear what this Thursday brings forth before we interfere to repeat the offer of protection which it is possible she may not want.... And Heaven grant it may be so,... for if she is to be your wife, Colonel Hubert, and it is pretty plain she will be, will it not be better that you should follow her with your addresses to the lowliest roof in Devonshire, than that she should take refuge here, where every gossip’s finger will be pointed at her?”

  It was impossible to deny the truth of this, and Colonel Hubert cared not to avow that all the favour she had bid him hope for was but conditional, and that till the avowal of his love should be sanctioned by his aunt and sister, he was still to hold himself as a rejected man. He dared not tell her this, lest the feelings he had conquered with so much difficulty should return, upon learning that it was not yet too late to encourage them.

  As patiently as he could, therefore, he awaited the expected letter from Agnes, and well was he rewarded for doing so. The letter itself, modest and unboastful as it was, gave a sufficiently improved picture of her condition to remove all present anxiety on her account; and though he certainly had no idea of the transformation she had undergone, from a heart-broken, penniless dependant, into a petted, cherished heiress, he was soothed into the belief that it would now cost his aunt and sister infinitely less pain than he had anticipated, to extend such a degree of favour to his Agnes as might lead her to confirm the hope on which he lived.

  But it was not the letter of Agnes that produced the most favoura
ble impression upon Lady Elizabeth; the postscript of Miss Compton was infinitely more powerful in its effect upon her mind. Of Agnes, personally, she never thought without a degree of partial admiration, that nearly approached to affection; and vague as the hope was respecting the family of her father, it clung very pertinaciously to the old lady’s memory, while a certain resemblance which she felt sure that she could trace between the nose of Agnes and that of the honourable Miss Nivett, Lord Eastcombe’s eldest daughter, was doing wonders in her mind by way of a balance-weight against the rouge and ringlets of Mrs. Barnaby; yet, nevertheless, the notion that not “horrid Mrs. Barnaby” only, but a host of aunts and cousins of the same breed, might come down upon her in the event of this ill-assorted marriage, kept her in a sort of feverish wavering state, something between good and ill humour, that was exceedingly annoying to her nephew.

  The keen-sighted old lady at once perceived that the postscript to Agnes’s letter was not written by a second Mrs. Barnaby, and from that moment she determined, much more decisively than she chose to express, that she would torment Colonel Hubert with no farther opposition.

  After a short consultation between the aunt and niece, that letter was despatched, the receipt of which was mentioned before Miss Compton and Agnes left London for Clifton. Had Colonel Hubert been consulted upon it, he would perhaps have suggested, as an improvement, that the proposed meeting should take place the following week in London; but, on the whole, the composition was too satisfactory for him to venture upon any alteration of it, and again he called patience to his aid, while many miserably long days were wasted by the very slow and deliberate style in which the man and maid servant who managed all Lady Elizabeth’s worldly concerns, set about preparing themselves and her for this removal. It was with a degree of pleasure which almost atoned for the vexation of this delay that he learned Sir Edward’s good-natured compliance with his beautiful bride’s capricious-seeming wish of revisiting Clifton. Colonel Hubert pertinaciously refused to let his gay brother-in-law into his confidence, till the time arrived for presenting him to Miss Willoughby, as to his future wife. Did this reserve arise from some unacknowledged doubt whether Agnes, when the pressure of misfortune was withdrawn, would voluntarily bestow herself on a man of his advanced age? Perhaps so. That Agnes was less than eighteen, and himself more than thirty-five, were facts repeated to himself too often for his tranquillity.

  CHAPTER XI.

  AGNES APPEARS AT CLIFTON IN A NEW CHARACTER.

  At as early an hour, on the morning after her arrival at Clifton, as Agnes could hope to find her friend Mary awake, she set off for Rodney Place. It was a short walk, but a happy one, even though she had yet to learn whether Lady Elizabeth Norris and her party were or were not arrived.

  But there was something at the bottom of her heart that made her very tolerably easy ... more so perhaps than she confessed to herself ... on this point. Every day made the mysterious fact of Miss Compton’s being a woman of handsome fortune more familiar to her, and every hour made it more clear that she had no other object in life than to make that fortune contribute to the happiness of her niece. It followed, therefore, that, not having altogether forgotten the fact of Colonel Hubert’s declaration at a moment when all things, but his own heart, must have pleaded against her, some very comfortable ground for hope to rest upon, was discoverable in the circumstances of her present position.... “There will be no danger,” thought she, “that when he speaks again, my answer should be such as to make him fancy himself too old for me.”

  The servant at Rodney Place who opened the door to Agnes, was the same who had done her the like service some dozen of times during her last visit at Clifton, but he betrayed no sign of recognition when she presented herself. In fact, the general appearance of Agnes was so greatly changed from what he had been accustomed to see it when she was clothed in the residuum of the Widow Barnaby’s weeds, that till she smiled, and spoke her inquiry for Miss Peters, he had no recollection of her.

  As soon, however, as he discovered that it was the Miss Willoughby who had left all his ladies crying when she went away, he took care to make her perceive that she was not forgotten by the manner in which he said, “Miss Peters, ma’am, is not come down stairs yet; but she will be very happy to see YOU, ma’am, if you will please to walk up.”

  As the early visitor was of the same opinion, she scrupled not to find her way to the well-known door, and without even the ceremony of a tap, presented herself to her friend. It is probable that Mary looked more at the face and less at the dress of the visitor than the servant had done, for, uttering a cry of joy, she sprang towards her, and most affectionately folded her in a cordial embrace.

  “My sweet Agnes!... This is so like you! At the very instant you entered, I was calculating the probabilities between to-day and to-morrow for your arrival. Ah, little girl!... Did I not tell you to address yourself to Miss Compton, of Compton Basett, long ago? What say you to my wisdom now?”

  “That you were inspired, Mary, and that I deserved to suffer a good deal for not listening to such an oracle.... But had I done so, I should have never known....”

  “The difference between the extreme of Barnaby misery and Compton comfort?” said Mary, finishing the sentence for her.

  Agnes blushed, but said with a happy smile, “Yes ... assuredly I may say so.”

  Miss Peters looked at her, and laughed. “There is something else you would not have known, I am very sure, Agnes, by that conscious face, ... and it must be something very well worth knowing by that look of radiant happiness which I never saw on your fair face before ... no, not even when for the first time you looked down upon Avon’s dun stream; for then, if I remember rightly, your joy shewed itself in tears; but now, my dear, you are dimpling with smiles, though I really believe you are doing all you can to hide them from me. Say why is this?... wherefore ... what should it mean?”

  “Mary!... There is not an event of my life, nor a thought of my heart, that I would wish to hide from you.... But how can I begin telling you such very long and incredible stories as I have got to tell, just as you have finished dressing, and are ready to go down to breakfast?” said Agnes.

  “Breakfast?” replied her friend.... “I would rather go without breakfast for a month than not hear the beginning, middle, and end of all your adventures from the moment you left this house in crape and bombasin, with your cheeks as white as marble, and your eyes full of tears, up to this present now, that you have entered it again in as elegant a morning toilet as London can furnish, with your cheeks full of dimples, and your eyes dancing in your head with happiness, notwithstanding all your efforts to look demure.... Come, sit down again, Agnes, and tell me all.”

  “Tell you all I will, depend upon it, but not now, dear Mary.... Think of all your mother’s kindness to me.... Shall I sit here indulging in confidential gossip with you, instead of paying my compliments to her and the rest of the family in the breakfast-room?... No, positively no. So come down stairs with me directly, or I will go by myself.”

  “Aunt Compton is spoiling you, child; that is quite clear.... You used to be obedient to command, and ever ready to do as I desired, but now you lay down the law like a Lord Chancellor. Come along, then, Miss Agnes; but remember that, as soon as breakfast is over, I expect, first to be taken to the Mall (have I not got nice lodgings for you?) and introduced to Miss Compton, of Compton Basett, and then taken to our old seat on the rock, then and there to hear all that has befallen you.”

  To this Agnes agreed, and they descended together. The interest and the pleasure that her entrance excited among the family group already assembled round the breakfast-table, was very gratifying to her. Mrs. Peters seemed hardly less delighted than Mary; the two girls kissed her affectionately, and gazed at her with as much admiration as astonishment, which is tantamount to saying that they admired her much; good Mr. Peters welcomed her very cordially, and inquired with the most scrupulous politeness for the health of Mrs. Barnaby; and James tol
d her very frankly that he was delighted to see her, and that she was fifty times handsomer than ever.

  The conversation that followed was perfectly frank, on the part of Agnes, in all that related to the kindness of her aunt Compton, and the happiness she enjoyed from being under her care; but, from delicacy to them, she said as little as possible about Mrs. Barnaby; and from delicacy to herself, made no mention whatever either of Colonel Hubert or his family.

  As soon as the breakfast was over Mrs. Peters declared her intention of immediately waiting on Miss Compton; an attention to her aunt which Agnes welcomed with pleasure, though it still farther postponed the much-wished for conversation with her friend Mary. The whole family declared their eagerness to be introduced to the old lady, of whom Miss Willoughby spoke with such enthusiasm; but as the discreet Mrs. Peters declared that at this first visit her eldest daughter only must accompany her; the rest yielded of necessity, and the three ladies set out together.

  “I expect to find this new aunt a much more agreeable personage, my dear Agnes, than your former chaperon, though she was my dear sister.... But on one point I flatter myself I shall find them alike.”

  “I hope this point of resemblance is not of much importance to your happiness, my dear Mrs. Peters,” replied Agnes, “for if it be, you are in a bad way; since night and day are infinitely less unlike than my two aunts in all things.”

  “Yes, but it is of great importance to my happiness, particularly for this evening, Agnes,” replied Mrs. Peters. “The point of resemblance I want to find is in the trusting you to my care. We are going to a party this evening where I should particularly like to take you, ... and it will be impossible, you know, to arrange exchange of visits, and manage that an invitation shall be sent and accepted by aunt Compton, on such very short notice. Do you think she will let you go with us?”