Collected Works of Frances Trollope

by Frances Milton Trollope

  “Something that Patty wanted out of her drawers,” replied the discreet and faithful confidant.

  “Good gracious! what a shame to drag you back all this way! why you might have got home over and over by this time,” said Mrs. O’Donagough.

  “Oh, dear! the distance is no consequence,” replied Matilda; “and you know there is nothing in the world I would not do to please Patty!”

  While this passed, the two ladies continued standing at the bottom of the stairs, for Mrs. O’Donagough did not feel altogether sure that her husband, who was in the act of dining upon beefsteaks and onions in the parlour, would be particularly well pleased by a visit from the refined Miss Matilda Perkins — especially as that young lady had been informed that they were to dine at Richmond at seven o’clock. But Patty’s business above stairs, proceeded so slowly, that her vexed mother could no longer avoid asking the weary Matilda to sit down.

  “You won’t mind finding Donny at luncheon, will you?” she said, as she at length threw open the parlour-door. “That silly Patty forgot something or other, and she has brought Matilda Perkins all the way back from Brompton to fetch it,” said Mrs. O’Donagough to her husband, as she entered “but you won’t mind her seeing you eat your luncheon, you know, though it is five o’clock.”

  “You will be shocked by the sight of so substantial a morning meal, my dear Miss Matilda,” said the master of the apartment; “but the fact is, Lord Robert has kept me so late at the club, consulting about some private business, which has brought him up to town — and you may guess how delighted he was to see an old friend, at a time when the chances are five hundred to one against his finding a single creature in London — he has kept me so devilish late, that I was absolutely obliged to send out for something solid before we set off for Richmond.”

  “What on earth can Patty be about?” exclaimed the hungry Mrs. O’Donagough, impatiently. “There never was such a plague of a girl about her things! What is it, Matilda, that she is come back for?”

  “I don’t quite exactly know,” replied Matilda, blushing and faltering. “She said she had forgotten something, and wished to come back, and I did not say much about it.”

  “Do let the girl alone, my dear,” said Mr. O’Donagough. “If our charming friend here likes to indulge her little whims, I don’t see why you should grumble about it.”

  “How you do spoil that girl!” retorted his lady, resuming with a bounce her place at the table, and suddenly deciding that she would not be such a fool as to let her beefsteaks get cold for any one. “I do believe, that let her do what she would you would find out some reason or other to prove that she was right.”

  “She is right now, at any rate,” replied the father, looking up as the young lady entered the room, “for I never saw her look better in my life.”

  “What did you come home for, Patty?” cried Mrs. O’Donagough, suspending her well-charged fork within half an inch of her mouth.

  “I wanted a pocket-handkerchief, mamma,” replied the young lady.

  “As if Matilda could not have lent you one; I am sure there was something else, so you may as well out with it.

  What’s that you have got in your other hand? Didn’t I tell you that I would get the girl of the house to carry your things for you, and what is the use, then, of dragging through the streets with them yourself?”

  “Use or not use, mamma, I shall carry this parcel, because Hike to do it; and that, I suppose, is reason enough, isn’t it?”

  “What’s in the parcel, Patty?” persisted her mother, pettishly. “You haven’t got hold of my lace collar, I hope?”

  “You take me for a thief, do you? Well, that’s civil any how, isn’t it, Matilda?” said Patty, with rather an embarrassed laugh. “But come along, or we shall keep Miss Louisa waiting for her dinner,” she added, endeavouring to back out of the room without further parley.

  “Come and give me a kiss, Patty?” said her father, seized with an unlucky fit of affection.

  Till now the young lady had contrived to keep her parcel, if not quite out of sight, at least out of the reach of her mother, by holding it pertinaciously behind her back; but this unwelcome invitation, rendered the manœuvre of none effect, for as she stooped forward to receive the paternal caress, her mamma snatched at the parcel, obtained it, tore it mercilessly open, and disclosed sundry ells of bright rose-coloured ribbon, a portion of which was daintily tied up in various sized knots, while the rest floated left and right, far and wide, in unrestrained profusion.

  “What in the world is all this for?” exclaimed Mrs. O’Donagough, with marked displeasure on her countenance. “Don’t you know, Patty, all that has been said about these sort of things? What good is it to talk to you like a reasonable grown-up woman, while you still act like a child? Did not your father pay four and ninepence for these very ribbons, expressly on condition that they should be kept up as best, and worn for nothing but showing off when we wanted you to look as well as possible? Can you stand there, and tell me that you don’t remember this?” —

  “I am not going to tell you any such thing, Mrs. O’Donagough,” replied Patty, in her most rebellious accent, and at the same time glancing at her father for support, for whose especial amusement, she had formed her phrase; but it did not answer, for he was growing more hungry and angry every moment, and turning towards her with unexpected firmness, exclaimed, “Don’t answer your mother like a fool, Miss Patty! What the devil do you want all that finery for?”

  “Want it, papa? Lor-a-mercy, doesn’t every girl always want all the finery she can get? I am sure if she doesn’t she’s a fool. Come along, Matilda—” was the not unskilful answer of the beauty, while replacing her ribbons in their paper envelope; but she was disappointed if she fancied that it would satisfy her mamma, for Mrs. O’Donagough, turning briskly round to the blushing Matilda, abruptly demanded if they were going to have any company, adding, “But even if you were, that is no reason why she should gallop back, and ransack the drawers in this way — for these pink ribbons were bought to smarten up a morning-dress, just to call on Mrs. Stephenson, you know, or anything of that sort.” Notwithstanding her advantages in point of age, it was evident that Miss Matilda Perkins could not compete with her young friend, either in courage or in presence of mind; for she hesitated, and looked exceedingly embarrassed as she replied, “I am not quite sure, Mrs. O’Donagough, about who we are likely to have call upon us of a morning, but dear Patty always likes to be a little smart, you know, before strangers.”

  “And she’d be the first to scold, if I didn’t,” subjoined Patty.

  Then hastily kissing her father’s forehead, as he threw hack his head in the act of lifting a porter-pot to his mouth, and nodding “Good bye, mamma,” to her mother, she bolted out of the room and the house, without running the risk of any further conversation, and was followed by her friend, whose usual obsequious civility to Mrs. O’Donagough, was altogether conquered by her dread of being entrapped into the betrayal of Patty’s secret.

  But though the fair friends succeeded in getting out of the house, and in making their way safely to Bellevue-terrace, Brompton, they had not by any means “thoroughly bamboozled” Mrs. O’Donagough, as Patty boldly assured her confidant was the case; for no sooner had the angry lady refreshed herself by a draught of her favourite beverage, than she thus addressed her spouse:

  “Don’t you see, Donny, as plain as that two and two make four, that these two girls have got some trick in their heads? I’ll bet what you please, that if you and I make them a call tomorrow morning, at a genteel visiting hour, we shall find some beau or other there; that Miss Patty is particularly desirous to captivate some of the young lads of the —— , perhaps that they used to meet so constantly on the pier at Brighton — not that I should care a straw for that, if it wasn’t that they were both so mighty shy about talking of it. That looks like mischief, don’t it?”“

  “It is early days, too, to catch Patty out in such a trick as that,” rep
lied Mr. O’Donagough. “However, I have no objection to look after her to-morrow morning. But mind, whatever happens, you must leave the whole management of the business to me. Don’t let’s have any jawing before strangers, for God’s sake!”

  “That’s all fair, my dear; I shan’t want to meddle or make, I promise you. But it will do Patty a monstrous deal of good to discover, that with all her cleverness, there are eyes as sharp as her own, though may he not quite so bright.

  CHAPTER XXII.

  MEANWHILE the two friends at last reached their destination at Brompton; but not before the veal cutlets and mashed potatoes were very nearly reduced to cinders, and poor Miss Louisa as nearly out of temper as her constitutional tranquillity would permit.

  The evening, of course, passed in alternate mutterings between Miss Matilda and Patty, which, in style, might not inaptly have been compared to those classic eclogues, in which a gentle contest is briskly kept up on rival themes; for “dear, beautiful Jack Steady,” on the one side; and “poor, dear Foxcroft,” on the other, invariably formed the subject of each eloquent speaker’s volubility. Good Miss Louisa was very little in their way, not seeming in the slightest degree conscious of what they were saying, and to all appearance as completely devoted to the intricate mysteries of some newly-invented knitting, as her companions could be in endeavouring to trace the still subtiler twistings of the human heart.

  The following morning looked so brightly inviting, that even the quiet, thimble-loving Miss Louisa, proposed a walk; adding, moreover, with more than usual vivacity, “Suppose, my dears, that we were all to go together to hear the hand play? It is such a beautiful walk, turning in at the Green-park, Matilda, you know; and I don’t suppose dear Patty ever heard such a band in her life.”

  The friends exchanged glances and a little closing up of the eyes, and an almost imperceptible shake of the head in each, said plainly to the other that it would not do at all. It had, indeed, been agreed between them before they left their sleeping apartment (for the uncombative Louisa had resigned herself to the drawing-room carpet, and a blanket) that Patty must assign an incipient sore throat, as a reason for wishing to stay at home; while Matilda, after the one o’clock slice of bread and butter had been handed round, should request the company of her elder sister upon some errand of importance, to be invented for the nonce, the eligibility of performing which should be further made manifest by pointing out the necessity of not letting poor Patty talk too much.

  All this was accordingly performed ably, and received in the best manner possible by Miss Louisa; and at ten minutes before two, Miss O’Donagough was seated alone, and in state, upon the Miss Perkinses’ sola, with every one of her beautiful pink bows exactly in its right place; her black curls, à la poodle, wantoning over her comely face, and her eyes shining with more than usual brightness.

  Luckily she did not wait long, or it is possible her charming looks might have been injured by impatience. Exactly at two o’clock, the knocker of the house-door gave signal of a visitor; an active young step was heard upon the stairs, and in the next moment, the name of “Mr. John Steady” was announced, when Patty’s “own darling Jack” stood before her.

  The young man, though no longer in regimentals, looked, as she thought, ten thousand times handsomer than ever, and Patty’s step to welcome him, was so eager that it brought her to the door, almost before he had fully entered it.

  “Oh, my dear Jack!” she exclaimed; “I am so glad you are come! and I have made everybody go out on purpose that we might have a long, comfortable talk by ourselves. What a time it is since you set off in that nasty boat for Sheerness! Ain’t you glad to see me again, Jack?”

  “Most surely I am, my dear Miss Patty,” replied the young man; “but you are looking so remarkably well, that I have no occasion to inquire after your health. Have you been in London ever since your arrival?”

  “Oh lor, no! not we,” replied Patty, seating herself on the sofa, with a hand extended on each side of her, so as to assist in a sort of jump-for-joy movement with which she relieved the fulness of her heart, while she gazed upon her visitor, as he sat opposite to her. “We staid almost no time in London then, but went down on the top of the coach to Brighton on purpose to see all mamma’s grand relations; and there they were, lots of ’em, men, women, and children; but there wasn’t one of the whole kit that I liked so well as you, Jack.”

  “You are exceedingly kind, I am sure,” replied the youth, blushing a little, and then stopping, very evidently at a loss what to say next.

  “Mercy upon me! I don’t call that kind, because I could not help it, you know. You could not like anybody as well as me, Jack, could you?”

  “I am sure nobody in the world can deserve to be liked better, because you are always so very good-natured.”

  “Good-natured! Is that all? Why, I wouldn’t give a penny for anybody who hadn’t more to say for themselves than that. My goodness, Jack! Do you remember your jumping overboard into the sea? I never shall forget it the longest day I have to live. And do you remember who it was that brought you to? And then our nice, dear ship-billiards! Oh, what fun, to be sure! — And think of your trying to make us believe that you wasn’t a bit better than a common sailor! But I wasn’t such a fool as that, anyhow.”

  “My dear Miss O’Donagough,” began Mr. Steady — but the young lady stopped him short —

  “Once for all, Jack, I won’t be called Miss O’Donagough, or Miss Patty either, by you. So mind that, if you please, or else you and I shall quarrel, as sure as you sit there. You always used to call me Patty, and Patty I choose to be called; and I shall call you Jack, too, unless when we happen to have listeners, and then, I suppose, I must call you Mr. Steady.”

  The young man seemed to make an effort to look grave, but it was in vain, and he laughed heartily. Without exactly understanding, perhaps, the cause of his mirth, his companion shared it, and laughed heartily too, till, suddenly jumping up, the young lady seized a pair of scissors that lay on the table, and with a hop, skip, and jump, got to the back of Mr. Steady’s chair, and, stationing herself behind it, said in a voice of authority, —

  “Eyes front! Mind the word of command, Mr. Jack, or I’ll cut your head off — I will, upon my honour.”

  “What are you going to do, my dear girl?” said the young man, disobeying her commands,’ and turning himself round to look in her face.

  “Do what I bid you,” said Patty, “and no harm shall come of it. See here — don’t look so frightened! — a fair exchange is no robbery.”

  And so saying, the lively young lady mercilessly inclosed within “the glittering forceps” one of her own ringlets, which she scrupled not to

  —— dissever

  From her fair head for ever and for ever.

  “There now, Jack — look at that,” said she; “isn’t it a pretty little curl?” And dropping it rather upon than into his hand, she seized the moment in which, of necessity, his attention was directed to it, and performed the same feat upon a portion of the young man’s chestnut tresses, leaving a very cruel gap just over his left ear.

  “Now! what d’ye say to that, master Jack? I am the same funny girl that ever I was, ain’t I?” said Patty, skipping round in front of him, and exhibiting her prize exultingly held on high.

  “Oh, Patty, this is very foolish! What would your mamma say if she could know it?” said the young man, rising, and looking very much as if he were disposed to re-exchange the tokens by dint either of stratagem or force. “Come, be a good girl, and throw it away. A fine, tall young lady as you are now, must not play the same sort of tricks that you used to do when a child.”

  “Throw it away! And will you throw mine away, Jack? What a brute you must he to think of it!” And Patty very coaxingly approached him, holding fast the treasured lock in one hand, while with the other she cleverly caused the one he still held to curl round two of his fingers. “Now, is it not very pretty, Jack?” said she, looking up in his face with a sort of de
precating smile.

  “Yes, to be sure it is; and you are very pretty, too, Patty,” said the youth, fairly beat out of his discretion, and unceremoniously saluting the blooming cheek which had placed itself so near him.

  At the very moment he did so, and while the not too-, greatly incensed Patty was laughing heartily at his audacity, the door opened, and in walked Mr and Mrs. Allen O’Donagough.

  The parties naturally fell into a tableau, and for halt a minute not a word was spoken; but Patty soon recovered both her courage and her tongue, and though still blushing a rather deeper tint, perhaps, than the celestial rosy red of which the poet sings, she managed to assume an air of very tolerable non- chalance as she exclaimed, “So, you are come to look after me, I suppose! but if you look sharp, perhaps you will see, into the bargain, an old friend with a new face.”

  Mrs. O’Donagough’s first emotion was of a mixed nature, being compounded of one feeling a little approaching to alarm, and another rather nearer still to satisfaction, at discovering her Patty so evidently, according to her notions, the object of a tender passion, and that, too, from a person so pre-eminently elegant in appearance as Mr. John Steady. But the words of the young lady caused her to examine the countenance of the gentleman more attentively, and, ere she had gazed long, her whole attitude and manner changed; a smile of unmixed satisfaction distended her countenance, she laid her hand upon the arm of her husband, and, drawing him a step or two forward, stopped within a yard of her old acquaintance, exclaiming in a sort of theatrical whisper, intended to be heard with particular distinctness, “Look there, O’Donagough! Look there, and tell me what you see.”

  Mr. O’Donagough’s demeanour upon seeing his daughter at a tête-à-téte game of romps with a strange man, was by no means so equivocal as that of his lady; for he grew extremely red in the face, and altogether appeared well-inclined to be in a great rage; but the accents of his Barnaby acted like oil on troubled water, his frown relaxed, his colour and his choler became mitigated, and yielding to her gentle influence, he set about staring the stranger very fixedly in the face.