“Well, then, you may kill me, if you will,” replied Patty, blubbering, “but I won’t be bullied, that’s what I won’t, into telling tales of my own true love.”
“The deuce take the girl!” replied the angry father. “She is a fool after all, I’ll be hanged if she isn’t, though I fancied her so monstrously clever. I shall go out, Mrs. O’D., and leave her to you; only remember that I expect to be told whether the young fellow has really promised to marry her or not. I know that he thinks her a good piece older than she really is — but I saw no harm in that, and didn’t contradict him. And in short, if he has a fancy for having such a silly girl as you for a wife, I don’t mean to baulk him — that’s all. So now fall to, and have a good talk together, and let me know what comes of it, when I come home.”
As a matter of course, the first part of the tête-à-tête between the mother and daughter was occupied by abusing their mankind. Both ladies were equally ready to declare that he was a brute, and a tyrant, and there never was such a plague; but this portion of the conference having at length been brought to a satisfactory close, Mrs. O’Donagough coaxingly led the discourse to the subject which she had been commanded to discuss with her daughter, and certainly managed it with some skill, inasmuch as it ended without a quarrel, for which, it must be confessed, the young lady held herself prepared.
“It is quite nonsense, Patty,” she said, “to attempt talking with men about these sort of things; but to a mother, you know, it is different. A woman never forgets her youth, whatever a man does, and you need not be afraid to tell me any of the little things that have happened between you and Jack —
Sir Henry Seymour, I mean. Of course, you are almost too young as yet for anything very serious to have passed, but I don’t doubt that you know pretty well what he is about — don’t you, my dear?”
“I am sure I don’t know what you are about, nor what you mean, either of you, tormenting me so. I dare say the real reason Jack does not come to see me is, that he saw that morning when papa walked with him, what a horrid sort of plague he was,” replied Patty.
“Likely enough, my dear! But don’t fret your dear heart about that, Patty. He’ll come again, never fear. When a man is really in love, he is not so easily cured, I can tell you. I could give you proof of that if I choose it. But I’d rather talk of your own beautiful self, dearest. How did he look when he gave you that lock of his hair, darling?”
“Lord, mamma! As if I should be likely to stare him in the face all the time! I have got the lock of hair, and that’s enough for you to know, of all conscience,” replied Patty, again growing very red.
“I wonder how it happened that he left your beautiful ringlet behind him?” resumed Mrs. O’Donagough.
“Lord! what wonderments you do make about nothing, mamma! I should like to know how any one broken in upon, and tormented as he was, could know or remember anything he did or said?”
“That’s very true indeed, Patty; and when he took that lock of hair at first, I suppose he gave you to understand that he loved you dearly, and that it was for that reason he asked for it, didn’t he?”
“Well! I never did hear the like of you and papa!” exclaimed Patty, indignantly; “I should like to know what it is you do expect me to tell you? If you will promise not to plague me any more, I will tell you one thing, and if that won’t satisfy you, I am sure I don’t know what will — Jack kissed me, then! downright kissed me. What d’ye say to that? I’m sure I don’t know what you would have.”
“Very well, Patty, don’t agitate yourself, my dear, to talk any more about it! I do think his kissing you does say a great deal. Such a very well-behaved young man as he always seemed to be, would never have thought of such a thing, I am quite sure, if it had not been by way of a declaration,” said Mrs. O’Donagough, very gravely, and with every appearance of being extremely well satisfied. “Now go, my dear girl!” she added. “Go and get ready for your walk to Brompton. It will be a pleasure, won’t it, Patty, to tell dear, good Matilda that she is to meet her old favourite, Foxcroft? But, poor thing! I doubt very much, Patty, if he will ever think of her seriously. She is so very thin!”
“Matilda won’t die an old maid; she’s too good for that, I’m sure,” returned Patty, with all the ardour of friendship.
“Well, my dear, we shall see, said Mrs. O’Donagough, looking very intelligent. “But go now and get ready. The page shall walk after you, and that will be very nice, won’t it? I am sure I wish you were to happen to meet Sir Henry! He has never seen you in proper style yet.”
CHAPTER XXV.
PATTY and her page reached Belle Vue Terrace in safety, but without meeting Sir Henry, who, to say truth, was stretching his leave of absence to the very utmost, to put off as long as possible the chance of any such rencontre. But fortunately Patty, notwithstanding her early submission to the tender passion, had nothing of the green and yellow nature in her disposition, and reached the abode of her friend with a colour as fresh as a rose, and in the highest spirits possible.
“Good morning, Miss Matilda! good morning, Miss Louisa,” she began. “I should just like to know, Matilda, how much you would choose to give for the very best news that ever you heard in all your born days? Would you give me your watch?”
“What do you mean, Patty?” demanded her friend with considerable agitation.
“Now, can’t you guess what I mean? Tell me, honestly, what you should call the best news you ever heard in your life? Never mind Louisa. Speak out.”
“Good gracious, Patty, how you do torture me! Cruel, cruel girl! As if you did not know well enough without my telling you! For Heaven’s sake, let me know at once! Have you heard that Foxcroft is expected in town?”
“Upon my honour and life I never heard any such thing, Matilda,” replied Patty, very demurely.
Not all the full-blown, fresh remembrances of the beautiful drawing-rooms in Curzon-street could restrain the indignation of Miss Matilda Perkins on hearing these chilling words. “I wish to heaven you wouldn’t come here, Miss O’Donagough, tormenting us to death with your absurd nonsense. I really think you are old enough to know better,” she exclaimed.
“And I,” returned Patty, laughing, “should have thought you not only old enough, but a great deal too old to quarrel with your best Mend in such a hurry, just because she wanted to have a bit of a joke.”
“Oh dear me! my dear Miss Patty! don’t think for a moment that poor Matilda wants to quarrel with you. I am sure there is nothing further from her thoughts, for she loves the very ground you walk on. Only you know, my dear, that her poor head is for ever running upon the name she mentioned, and therefore you must please to excuse her,” said Miss Louisa.
“I’ll excuse her fast enough,” replied Patty, “if she won’t be such a fool, and look so grumpy. Come, Matilda! cheer up. It is as true as the gospel that I did not hear Foxcroft was expected, but I never said that he wasn’t come.”
“Come!” screamed Matilda, in the shrillest voice that ever issued from the breast of a lady in love; “come! Patty? Surely it is impossible! Such happiness is a great deal too much to hear!”
“Is it?” said Patty, nodding her head. “Then, mercy upon us, Miss Louisa, what will become of her when she hears that the gentleman is coming to dine with us on Monday, and that I am come with the page walking all the way after me, as grand as possible, to invite you both to come and meet him? What do you think of that, Miss Matilda?”
“What do I think of it? Oh! my adored Patty! My heart feels too large for my bosom. Can you forgive me? Darling, dearest girl! Think what my feelings must be at this moment! May I believe your words, my dearest, dearest friend? May I trust my ears? Foxcroft in town, and I invited to meet him. Oh Foxcroft! Foxcroft!”
Here poor Miss Matilda’s emotions perfectly overpowered her, and she threw herself on the sofa at full length, with a sort of kicking movement in her feet that really looked quite convulsive.
“Poor, dear girl!” exclaimed her sis
ter, opening a cupboard, and taking out a small bottle of hartshorn; “it is too much for her. Smell this, my dear; let me rub your poor temples with it!” And suiting the action to the word, she drew the cork from the little phial, and receiving the pungent fluid upon her fingers began to apply it with much eagerness and much friction to the temples of her recumbent sister. The remedy was effectual. Starting from the sofa, and standing, with more strength than the frightened Louisa had given her credit for, upon her feet, she exclaimed rather hastily —
“Good gracious, Louisa; what are you doing to me? I shall have red patches all over my face, and my eyes will be swelled out of my head. For God’s sake, take that beastly stuff away; I hate it?”
“You had better not send it away yet, Matilda,” said Patty. “For if you begin kicking and sprawling at such a rate just because you heard that you were going to dine with the gentleman, what on earth will become of you when I go on, and describe all the looks, and the sighs, and the hints, and the blinks I got when I began talking of you?”
“Did you, indeed, my dear?” cried Louisa, with a mixture of astonishment and pleasure; “think of that, Matilda! Oh! my dear child! what a blessing it will be if it all comes right at last.”
“It will, it will come right!” exclaimed Matilda, in a sort of ecstasy. “I know he loves me! — I saw it in every dear working feature on that last heart-breaking day when we walked together on the pier. The rain came down in torrents, the wind blew, the sea dashed over us. I never shall forget his countenance. I am certain that every drop which reached his skin — and I know he was wet through — I am certain that every drop was an agony to him, because of me.”
Here a pocket handkerchief, which might, perhaps, have wiped away tears produced by far less delightful feelings, was drawn from its retreat under the sofa-cushion, and pressed to the gentle lady’s eyes.
“Oh dear! oh dear! don’t cry so, Matilda,” said her affectionate sister, looking very much disposed to weep for company—” I am sure it is enough to break one’s heart to see how she does suffer about these little love-affairs! But suppose this was to end in marriage after all, Matilda! Think of that, my dear! Upon my word and honour, Miss O’Donagough, I think there seems more chance this time, from what you say, than ever I remember; and I ought to be some judge, we have had so many little things of the kind.”
“Oh! oh! — You say WE, do you, Miss Louisa?” replied Patty, looking very knowing. “What, you have had your share, too, have you?”
“Oh dear, no! — Not me, Miss Patty. I never had anything of the sort happen to me in my life. I said WE, because you know, I am always so much interested about everything that happens to Matilda. Oh no! thank God! I never had any troubles of that kind myself; but, to he sure, I have suffered terribly at times, about Matilda. Disappointments are such sad things, you know, my dear — and gentlemen, I must say, do often behave very ill.”
“Well, I’ll be hanged if I think Foxcroft means to behave ill; but time will show!” replied Patty. “And now,” she added in a whisper, “I want you to come here, Matilda, up to this window, that I may talk to you a little about myself. Do you know that both papa and mamma have been at me to-day like two tigers, because they don’t think Jack makes love to me fast enough. If he’s out of London, he can’t be in it, that’s all I say, any more than he could be aboard the ship when he was gone away from it — and yet, you know as well as I do, for I’m sure I’ve told you so fifty times, that he kissed me at the very last moment, and I found him true-hearted again, didn’t I, when we met? and now, he kissed me again, you know, and so haven’t I every reason to expect he’ll come back true-hearted again?”
“Unquestionably you have, my dearest girl!” replied her friend; “it is nonsense to doubt it. But old people, I mean even elderly people, are always suspicious. I’m sure, there’s my poor, dear sister there, who is twenty years older in her thoughts and ways than she ought to be at her age, I am quite positively sure that she has stopped very advantageous marriages for me, over and over again; only because she never thought things went on fast enough, and was for ever suspecting that people meant nothing, when I happened to know that they meant a good deal. But, thanks to you, my darling Patty, I think we shall manage better this time. Dearest Foxcroft! How my heart seems to spring towards him! Did he look well, Patty? — Was he as tall and elegant as ever?”
“Why, as to that, you know, Matilda, I never did see any great beauty in him. But that’s your affair, not mine, and lucky it is that tastes differ. As for tallness, indeed, he is just as tall as ever — but I think his nose looked monstrous large.”
“Oh, Patty! — Love is love! There’s no accounting for it in any other way — but I give you my honour, that I think Foxcroft one of the very handsomest men I ever saw.”
“Well, my dear, so much the better. And I dare say he thinks you one of the very handsomest women. But now I must go, or else mamma will say that I shan’t come again, as she did last time. Not that it much signifies to be sure, for here I am, you see.”
“Stop one moment, Patty!” replied her friend; “you must positively tell me what I shall wear on Monday. Do you think I look best with my hair in bands, or in ringlets?”
“I don’t think it makes much difference, Matilda. But, perhaps, bands will be best, because your hair is rather thin, you know — and mine’s so monstrous thick, that it will make it look worse.”
“It’s very easy to fill it up with a few flowers, you know — I should not like to have such a mop as yours, my dear — unless, indeed, it curled as beautifully as yours does. But, of course, Patty, everybody knows that you have got the very finest hair in the world,” said Miss Matilda, luckily correcting herself. After this amende, the friends parted as tenderly as they met, and were in an excellent frame of mind on the following Monday for showing off to advantage the graces of the female character, when warmed by the gentle influence of friendship, for they did not fail to caress each other at every convenient opportunity.
This eventful Monday proved a day of joy to more female hearts than one; for on the morning of it, Mr. O’Donagough once more called at Sir Henry Seymour’s club to inquire for him, and, with better fortune than before, met firm at the door of it. The pleasure which this meeting occasioned to the elder gentleman was not altogether attributable to fatherly affection, for he felt some tolerably strong misgivings as to the correctness of the interpretation put by his young daughter upon the gentleman’s feelings towards her. But this caused but little difference in the earnestness of his wish to cultivate the young baronet’s acquaintance. To have caught such a husband for his daughter, would, beyond all doubt, have been very agreeable; but, as he wisely remembered, Patty had lost no time yet, and the young and independent Sir Henry playing whist with him, was an image very nearly, if not quite, as agreeable to his imagination, as that of his making love to his daughter. Besides, it was evident that his endeavouring to obtain the former, was far from being likely to impede the latter scheme, and he, therefore, put forth his best-got-up, and most beguiling style of salutation, and after a few friendly words, expressive of long-felt kindness, but cautiously free from any allusion to their nautical acquaintance, he invited him in a very gentleman-like off-hand style to come and dine with him.
Mr. O’Donagough perceived that the young man hesitated, and very skilfully changing the subject, instead of pressing for an answer, began talking of General Hubert and his family, deploring the heavy loss produced by their absence, and joyously anticipating their return. Having expatiated very eloquently upon this theme for about five minutes, he resumed the former one, saying, carelessly, “Well, you’ll dine with us then, my dear Sir Henry? By the way, do you ever play a rubber? It seems quite the fashion among the young men now-a-days, and if you ever do such a thing, I’ll promise you one to-night.”
Now Sir Henry Seymour really did know how to play a rubber very well for so young a man, and moreover was very fond of it, though without any propensity whatever
for gambling; yet too indifferent about money to be very scrupulous as to the stakes. It was not, however, this love of whist which made Mr. O’Donagough’s invitation appear incalculably less disagreeable after he had heard of the rubber, than before, for he remembered in a moment that when a man is playing whist, he can hardly be suspected of making love, and that if poor Patty could be taught to let him behave himself discreetly, it would be exceedingly desirable to keep on such friendly terms with Mr. O’Donagough as should render it an act of treachery were he to betray either to the family of General Hubert, or to his guardian, Sir Edward Stephenson, the secret which he had confided to him. Under this impression, he now readily accepted the invitation, not failing to intimate as he did so, that he was a decided whist-player whenever he found a card-table ready to admit him.
Patty could hardly have been more delighted had the young man addressed her with, “Will you marry me?” than was her papa on hearing this declaration; but much too good a tactician to permit the feeling to be perceptible, he nodded an easy, sans soudante “good day,” adding “at six o’clock then,” and departed.
Mr. O’Donagough’s next care was to secure a proper fourth, and in this he succeeded to his entire satisfaction, unearthing one of those dry-looking, adust, Roman-nosed individuals, who by dint of originally procuring well-made garments, and then preserving them inviolably clean, are often declared to be very gentleman-like-looking men by those who have not the faculty of interpreting the hieroglyphics of the mind, as traced on the countenance. What Mr. Armondyle’s fortune or profession might be, it was no particular person’s business to inquire; and the question, if asked, must have remained unanswered, as nobody knew anything at all about it. The only information which he ever volunteered concerning himself was, that he was a bachelor, liked a sober rubber now and then, and was pleased to be invited to dinner where there were woodcocks. He belonged to most of the fashionable unprofessional clubs, but was never known to take any bodily refreshment at any of them. He wore goloshes and a very large cloak in bad weather, together with a substantial silk umbrella, having his name engraven on it; but nobody ever saw him use any conveyance (at his own expense, at least) except his own legs, yet somehow or other, nobody ever saw him either wet or splashed, or the precise nicety of his dress and person in any way deranged.
Collected Works of Frances Trollope Page 261
