“My mistress is just going out, ma’am,” replied the man, standing rather pertinaciously in the doorway.
“It is only for one moment, and upon family business of importance,” said Mrs. O’Donagough, malting another step in advance, before which the man retired of necessity, but without quitting the handle of the door.
“Perhaps, ma’am, you would be pleased to leave word that you would call again,” said the servant.
“What do you say, Mr. O’D.? Suppose we do, and fix the time exactly, and then we shall be sure of seeing her.”
“Do just as you please, my dear,” replied Mr. Alien O’Donagough. “It will make no difference to me. Only,” he added, in a whisper, “you may as well ask about the Stephensons.”
“Then we will call again — exactly at five o’clock to-day. Please not to forget the message, James — I think your name is James? I am pretty sure I heard my niece call you James.”
“Yes, ma’am, my name is James.”
“Well then, James, I must insist upon it that my message is delivered exactly. A message from your mistress’s own aunt, you know, ought not to be neglected. Give Agnes — give your mistress, I mean — my most affectionate love, and Miss O’Donagough’s love, and Mr. O’Donagough’s compliments, and say that we shall call again precisely at five o’clock.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said the man, advancing a step in his turn, and bringing the door with him.
“Stop one moment, if you please,” said Mrs. O’Donagough, laying her palm firmly on the outward side of the door. “Can you tell me, James, if the Stephensons arrived yesterday? Frederic Stephenson, I mean, who married your mistress’s sister, you know.”
The man looked rather surprised, either at the question or the manner of it, but answered, “Yes, ma’am.”
“And where are they? Of course they can’t all be here — three carriages — servants outside, and all?
“No, ma’am, they went directly to their own lodgings.”
“Then please to give me their address directly.”
“Mr. Stephenson has taken — House, ma’am, the same he had last year.”
“ — House. Whereabouts is it? Do you know — House, Mr. O’D.?”
Mr. O’D. did not, but the servant gave the full address, and at length succeeded in shutting the house-door.
“Now, then, let us go there directly,” cried Mrs. O’Donagough. “It is no good beating about the bush. Let us take our chance at once. If they choose to he civil, why so much the better, and if not, why we can’t help it, and the sooner we know it, the better.”
To this reasoning Mr. O’Donagough made no objection; and after toiling a considerable distance through unmitigated sunshine, somewhat to the injury of his lady’s rouge, and not much to the advantage of his daughter’s temper, they at length reached the handsome mansion to which they had been directed. Mr. O’Donagough stoutly pulled the bell, more stoutly than the well-hung instrument required; and the tintamarre thus produced occasioned an instantaneous throwing wide of the folding-doors, disclosing to the dazzled visitors a handsome hall, which at the first glance seemed half-filled with livery servants. The green and gold, recognised by Lieutenant Dartmoor, was indeed there, and in great abundance, but set off with such richness of plush and profusion of lace and tassels, that the great soul of Mrs. Allen O’Donagough almost felt daunted. Till that moment she had conceived that the establishment of General Hubert was perfectly splendid, but thenceforward she rarely named the family without observing that nothing could be more unpretending and quiet than their manner of living — merely a butler and two footmen, besides the coachman and grooms; — but always adding, that to be sure nothing could be more striking than the contrast between the two sisters in their style of doing things — the establishment of her brother Willoughby’s second daughter being really almost royal in its magnificence.
An answer in the affirmative being returned to their inquiry if Mrs. Stephenson were at home, their names were received, and passed from mouth to mouth till the sound of Mr., Mrs., and Miss O’Donagough, made the lofty staircase ring again.
Mrs. O’Donagough, with an effort worthy of her powerful mind, immediately recovered her self-possession, and gracefully shaking her plumes, marched up the stairs in unblenched majesty. Mr. O’Donagough followed, looking as demure as a newly-created bishop, while the young lady, with wide-staring eyes, and a countenance indicative of something approaching dismay, closed the procession.
On reaching the drawing-room door, Mrs. O’Donagough paused for a moment till her husband and daughter were beside her, and then stepped forward, determined that nothing short of her being turned out of the room should prevent her establishing her claim to connectionship with all the grandeur she beheld. The first room they entered was exactly in the style of decoration most likely to enchant the senses of Mrs. O’Donagough, being of that florid character which is calculated to insure a rent of forty guineas per week at a watering place.
As it was untenanted, she ventured to exchange an expressive glance with her husband: but the man in green and gold stalked on, and another pair of folding-doors being thrown wide open before them, disclosed a room with an immense semicircular window opening upon a balcony, which commanded a magnificent view of the sea.
In this balcony stood two gentlemen, the one arranging a spy-glass on its trellis-work, for the accommodation of the other; while a third, whom Patty instantly recognised as her cousin Compton, was assisting a little fellow in a fantastic fancy-dress, composed of blue silk and white muslin, to climb in the most dangerous manner possible to the roof of the frail construction. Close beside the window, on a couch placed perfectly in the shade, though all without was sunshine, reclined nearly at full length, an extremely delicate-looking little woman, with a profusion of light ringlets about her face. Her robe, of the finest muslin, lined with the prettiest shade of pink, was profusely decorated with lace, her small feet accommodated with quilted satin slippers of the same pale colour, and her slender fingers, sparkling with gems, employed luxuriously in arranging a bouquet of flowering myrtle, and gorgeous geranium-blossoms.
This pretty and very picturesque lady raised a glass to her eye as the strangers were announced. Let them have been whom they would, she could hardly have risen, so difficult would her attitude, and the multitude of flowers in her lap, have rendered the attempt, had she made it. But this she did not do; and her eye-glass failing to supply the information which their names did not convey, she turned it from her visitors to the servant who had ushered them to her presence, and pronounced the word, “Who?”
This was not promising, any more than the puzzled air with which, after the name had again been distinctly pronounced, she shook her head, and in a soft, and somewhat lisping voice added, “I fear there is some mistake.”
“I cannot be surprised at your not knowing me, my dear Mrs. Stephenson,” said Mrs. O’Donagough, pushing away a little work-table, and placing herself close to the sofa, “but I think you must have heard your sister Agnes mention her aunt. — Perhaps you may recal the name of Barnaby?”
“Mrs. Barnaby? Oh dear yes, certainly!” replied Mrs. Stephenson, slightly colouring, and slightly smiling at the same time. “I have heard of you very often. Is that tall lady your daughter? Pray sit down. Sit down, sir,” with a wave of the hand to Mr. O’Donagough, which seemed to indicate rather a more distant part of the room for his station. Then turning to a flaxen sylph, of some ten or twelve years old, who was threading beads, she said, “Go out, Agnes, and tell your papa, and your grandpapa, that Mrs. Barnaby is here.”
“No longer Mrs. Barnaby, my dear madam.” Give me leave to introduce Mr. O’Donagough, my husband, and Miss O’Donagough, my daughter.”
“Oh dear yes; I beg your pardon. I remember all about it now. You went out to India, did you not, as a widow? I quite remember hearing Mr. Stephenson speak of the widow Barnaby; and you married in India, I suppose?” Here Mrs. Stephenson again conveyed her glass very uncer
emoniously to her eye, and reconnoitred first Mr. O’Donagough, and then his daughter, Mrs. O’Donagough herself being too close to render it necessary; though, in truth, she was exceedingly nearsighted. “I dare say,” she continued, still employing her glass, “that my father will remember all about you directly, and I am quite too happy you have called, I wanted to see you so very much.”
“It is sweetly kind of you, I am sure, to say so,” said the delighted Mrs. O’Donagough. “No wonder that I should long to see you! I shall always consider your dear father as my brother, and one of his children must, of course, be as interesting to me as the other. I am quite certain that in a very little while my own dear Agnes, my own sister’s child, would hardly be dearer to me than yourself! You are the very image of your dear father! So like what I remember him at Silverton!”
The still youthful-looking face of Mrs. Stephenson was, during nearly the whole of this speech, completely buried in the large bouquet she held in her two hands. Nor did she speak again, till, in obedience to her summons, Mr. Willoughby and Mr. Stephenson entered from the balcony. Then, raising to them a pair of laughing eyes, though her manner was perfectly grave and ceremonious, she said, “Papa, this is Mrs. Barnaby. The late Mrs. Barnaby, I mean. Frederic, I believe you used to know her too. Her name is now Mrs. Donago. She is come to call upon us, with all her family.”
“Is it possible!” exclaimed Mr. Willoughby, coming with outstretched hands towards his sister-in-law. “Indeed I am very glad to see her. I hope you are well, my dear Martha?” and with a kind and gentle smile he attempted to take her hand.
But this was not the species of salutation in which Mrs. O’Donagough’s warm heart (as she was wont to describe it) most delighted.
“No, dearest Willoughby!” she cried, “after such an absence, let us meet as we parted at Silverton, with a sisterly embrace!” The gentleman of course complied; but sighed as he felt Ms own slight person lost, as it were, and buried in the majestic vastness of that of his sister-in-law, and remembered how very different were the circumstances of the two moments she thus placed side by side.
The operation completed, however, he resumed his quiet and gentlemanly kindness of manner, gave two fingers to the extended palm of Mr. Allen O’Donagough, upon that person being solemnly presented to him, and kissed, without waiting to be asked, the blooming daughter of his recovered relative.
Mrs. O’Donagough, with her usual quickness, immediately saw that of all the great and grand connections amidst which her happy destiny had thrown her, Mr. Willoughby was the one to stick to, with the least chance of being shaken off. She felt that he was her sheet-anchor, and round Mm she determined to swing, let the wind blow from what quarter it would.
While these introductions and embracings were proceeding, Mr. Stephenson and Compton Hubert stood silently watching them; the former, with Ms usual unwearied spirit of gaiety, determined to administer to the amusement which the eyes of his wife — the only portion of her face that was visible — showed she derived from the scene, and the latter only waiting till his grandfather had concluded his civilities to Miss Patty, in order to renew his own acquaintance with her.
Mr. Stephenson speedily perceived that there was no need of any interference on his part, in order to put the well-remembered Mrs. Barnaby in action for the amusement of his wife; neither did it seem to Mm at all necessary on the present occasion, to put in play any portion of that fund of good-humoured persiflage, in which his Nora delighted, for the purpose of bringing forth to view Miss Patty’s claims to the same species of notice, inasmuch as his young friend Compton appeared fully adequate to the task. Therefore, having bowed a smiling acknowledgment to Mrs. O’Donagough’s affectionate recognition, he sat himself down so as to command a full view of the whole party, and of Ms wife’s eyes into the bargain.
It required but a slight glance from time to time to perceive, that however absurd, there was nothing very new in the flirtation going on between the young people; every feature of the case being essentially the same as must ever recur, when a bold boy is encouraged in his audacity by a coarse-mannered girl. But not so Mrs. Allen O’Donagough. Her energetic affection — her laughing ecstasy at their present reunion, and her weeping softness over the days that were gone — her modest insinuations of her own “genteel independence,” and the joy she anticipated from watching with “true sisterly affection,” his present affluence — contrasted with Mr. Willoughby’s somewhat embarrassed, but always polite manner of listening to her, formed a tableau of no common kind, and one from which a less laughter-loving pair than the one before whom it was performed might have found amusement.
At length it seemed to strike Mr. Stephenson, who, notwithstanding his too boyish love of mystification, was really good-natured, that Mr. O’Donagough was left rather too much in the back-ground, and turning abruptly round to him, he said, “Won’t you take a look at our fine view, Mr. O’Donagough. This is the most commanding window in Brighton.”
Mr. O’Donagough immediately rose, and with a not very unskilful assumption of gentlemanly ease, walked towards the window.
“It is perfectly magnificent!” he said, “and it is unique. No other mansion in Brighton is so happily situated.”
“That is very true, sir,” said-Mr. Stephenson, rising, and following him out upon the balcony. “We have been fortunate enough to get this house three years running.”
Frederic Stephenson was one of those happy-natured people who, loving his wife and children, heartily loved also, only in a somewhat less degree, all the other goods with which the gods had provided him, and wanted no warning voice to bid him “think them worth enjoying;” but liked well, nevertheless, that all around him should perceive and acknowledge what a particularly happy fellow he was in all respects. Had Mrs. O’Donagough been within reach of watching her husband during his conversation with Mr. Stephenson on the balcony she would have found that she did not yet know him so well as she fancied she did, and that there was still some aspects of his Proteus-like nature which had never been exhibited to her. With a cautious avoidance of all subjects that might prove dangerous, Mr. Allen O’Donagough now conversed like a man of the gay world, who knew perfectly well how to appreciate so accomplished a personage as Mr. Stephenson. With the rapidity which is usually acquired by persons that not only possess their wits, but live by them, he contrived to form a tolerably correct estimate of the strong and the weak points of the gentleman’s character before he parted from him, while at the same time he left on Mr. Stephenson’s mind a persuasion that he was a remarkably clever, well-informed man, and that it was quite wonderful how he could ever have married such a ridiculous person as Mrs. Barnaby.
Their colloquy and their acquaintance might have proceeded still further had not Mrs. Stephenson got tired of watching Mrs. Barnaby and her father, and Miss Barnaby and her nephew, which happened the sooner from no longer having her husband’s eyes to answer the appeals of her own. For a time, indeed, her young daughter, who forsook her beads, and changed her place for the purpose of watching the odd-looking strangers, supplied his absence tolerably well, by the very intelligent looks which she exchanged with her mamma (for it was not part of the family discipline to deny the younger branches their fair share and participation in all the enjoyments of quizzing); but the young lady, after having seen enough to enable her to mimic both Mrs and Miss Donago satisfactorily, ran off to the schoolroom, to puzzle the French governess, and delight her sisters by the performance.
Soon after her exit, Mrs. Stephenson withdrew the sheltering myrtle from her face, and freely yawned. But neither Mrs nor Miss O’Donagough saw it. They were both too happy, too elated to observe it. The graceful lady then changed her position on the couch, and with an air of pretty restlessness threw aside her flowers, took a book, yawned again, and finally rose from her attitude of repose, and despite her fear of freckles, sought her husband in the balcony.
“E troppo caro!” she whispered in his ear.
Mr. Stephe
nson immediately broke short the conversation in which he was engaged, by saying to his wife, as he took her arm, to lead her from an atmosphere which he knew she dreaded, “You are come to remind me, Nora, of my engagement — are you not? I must beg you to excuse me, Mr. O’Donagough, I am obliged to go out, and must therefore wish you a good morning. If you will leave your card, I will certainly have the pleasure of calling on you.” The observant Mr. Allen O’Donagough took the hint, and re-entering the room gently admonished his wife upon her seeming forgetfulness of the flight of time.
“My dearest O’D., can you wonder at it?” she replied, her eyes and her cheeks glowing with enthusiastic sensibility. “Think of the years which have elapsed since my dear brother-in-law and I have thus sat side by side together! Can you not imagine how it must bring hack the memory of my beloved Sophia? Such moments are too delicious to he measured?”
Mrs. O’Donagough slowly rose from her chair as she spoke; and what with feathers, veil, floating mantle of stiffened muslin, and her own august expansiveness, it struck Mrs. Stephenson that she had never seen anything so large in her life before, and she seemed to shrink up into her own delicate mignardise, as if anxious to increase the contrast. Mrs. O’Donagough stepped towards her with an extended hand; but the fair Nora had no mind to be “shaken,” and glancing up an appealing look to her husband, which he perfectly well understood, she retrograded a step or two, at the same time bowing her farewell, while he advanced, took the large hand in his own much smaller one, and atoned for all his lady’s deficiencies, by a voluble repetition of “Good bye, Mrs. O’Donagough, good bye, good bye.”
Though Frederic, notwithstanding all his good nature, shook the huge hand very much as if he wished to shake it off, Mrs. O’Donagough held fast, till in a half-whisper, she had murmured something very tender to him about the memory of Clifton, and past times — then determined to emulate the elegant retreating movement of Mrs. Stephenson, she began backing out of the room, bending deeply forward at every step, like the head of a ship in a too fair wind, and reiterating “GOOD morning! GOOD morning! GOOD morning!” till she reached the door.
Collected Works of Frances Trollope Page 248
