Collected Works of Frances Trollope

by Frances Milton Trollope

  “I remain, madam,

  “With the utmost of respect

  “For your individual elegance of mind,

  “CORNELIUS ALEXANDER WIGS.”

  No. II.

  “MUCH ESTEEMED LADY, — After what was read and heard in Mrs. Carmichael’s keeping-room last night, I expect it is not very needful for me to say why it is that I and my lady, Mrs. Colonel Staggers, desire your further acquaintance — we being amongst those who, acting in conformity with all reasonable laws, human and divine, do the best that in us lies, as in duty bound, to uphold and support the greatly misunderstood and much wrongly abused institution of slavery. You will understand, therefore, madam, without more said, why it comes that we so entirely approbate the superior elegance of the literature which was displayed to us last night. And this brings me to the point and purpose of this present writing, which is to give you an invitation, and your good family all of them with you, to a grand dinner party which it is my intention to give in your favour on the 19th inst., at five o’clock P.M.

  “I am, respected lady,

  “Your literary admirer,

  “MICHAEL ANGELO JEFFERSON STAGGERS.”

  No. III.

  “The honourable Mrs. Secretary Vondonderhoft presents her gratified compliments to the highly-gifted and superior-minded Mrs. Allen Barnaby, and, in conjunction with her husband, the honourable Mr. Secretary Vondonderhoft, requests the pleasure of Mrs. Allen Barnaby’s favouring company, together with that of the party supposed to belong to her, to an evening soirée, when the honourable Mrs. Secretary Vondonderhoft will have the advantage of presenting Mrs. Allen Barnaby to a great number of her friends of the most first-rate standing and consideration, which she flatters herself may be a gratification and every way an advantage to Mrs. Allen Barnaby. The evening fixed for the honourable Mrs. Secretary Vondonderhoft’s soirée is next Monday week.”

  No. IV.

  “MADAM, — Your purpose is as noble as are the talents winch heaven appears to have given you for the means of effecting it. I respect you as you deserve, Mrs. Allen Barnaby, and in saying this it seems, madam, to me, that I say everything. Myself and Mrs. Governor Tapway will consider it as a pleasure to receive you at our plantation-mansion on the banks of Crocodile Creek, for as long a time as you and your friends can make it convenient to bide with us; my wish being to show, for the assistance of your writing, that any unagreeable feelings which may have been seen visible in the United States of North America, towards those that come travelling and spying from the old country, have arisen wholly and altogether from the too certain fact of knowing that we were going to be faulted and abused; whereas you, madam, being altogether upon a new lay in the descriptive line, may look in like manner of novelty altogether for a different style of conduct on our part; and I have no doubt but that you and yours will be satisfied with the same.

  “I remain, madam,

  “Your true admirer

  “And sincere success wisher,

  “STEPHEN ORLANDO BONES TAPWAY.”

  Besides these, which I have taken the trouble to transcribe on account of their peculiar graces of style, Mrs. Allen Barnaby received no less than eleven other letters in the course of the morning which followed the triumphant exhibition of her powers as an author, all of them bearing the strongest testimonies of admiration and esteem, and all conveying very earnest invitations of one sort or another, both to herself and the ladies and gentlemen in her train.

  On receiving the first of these very gratifying testimonials, Mrs. Allen Barnaby, her cheek flushed, and her eyes sparkling with all sorts of gratified feelings, rose hastily from the easy-chair in her own apartment, in which she chanced to be reposing when it arrived, and was just going to look for her daughter and “the Perkinses,” in order to share her pleasure and her triumph with them, when a second was delivered to her by the grinning Cleopatra. She returned, of course, to her chair, that she might peruse it undisturbed, and then her purpose changed, and it was to Mrs. Beauchamp that she determined first to display these trophies of success. Again, therefore, she stepped forward, and again her steps were arrested by Cleopatra, who now brought no less than three letters in her hand at once; and so struck was the black messenger herself at this extraordinary influx of despatches, that having laid down the three letters, she stood stock still in front of the table, to see how the English lady looked while she was a reading of them. But Mrs. Allen Barnaby was by this time in a frame of mind which rendered such examination extremely annoying to her, and raising her voice and her hand so as to command both respect and obedience, she said —

  “Leave me, girl! Leave me, I tell you! Leave me instantly!”

  Poor Cleopatra liked not the voice much, but she liked the hand less still; for not having the slightest doubt but that it was to be employed in the way in which raised hands always are employed towards people of her complexion in Louisiana, she actually quivered from top to toe, for Mrs. Allen Barnaby’s hand was not a small one. Uttering therefore only the monosyllable “OH!” in reply, she left the room much more rapidly than she entered it, and the lady was left in her secret bower to enjoy unlooked at, and alone, all the delicious triumph of that happy hour.

  She read and re-read the five notes, which now lay all opened wide upon the table before her, and then she sat for a few moments in motionless and silent reverie. At length, however, her features relaxed into a smile, and she exclaimed aloud —

  “I wonder what would happen if I were to take into my head to make myself a queen? I wonder whether anybody, or anything, would be found able to stop me? I’ll be hanged if I believe there would. However, I don’t mean to try my hand at it just at present, because I don’t believe I could enjoy it more if I was ‘ten times a queen than I do now, seeing all those people who own themselves that they have always hated us English like poison, seeing them all ready to fall down and worship me, just because it came into my head to think that I should find it answer to make myself popular! And answer it does, or the deuce is in it. Why, we might one and all of us live at free quarters for a twelvemonth at this rate; and I shall take care to make the Perkinses understand that they are to pay me if they pay nobody else. That is but fair and honest. And if they don’t plague me in any way I will let them have a good bargain. What will the major say to me, I wonder, now?”

  And here Mrs. Allen Barnaby almost laughed aloud in her exceeding glee. But she was not left long to enjoy in tranquillity this first full evidence of her complete success, for another slave, and not the terrified Cleopatra, soon entered her room, and deposited three more notes before her; and again, after another short interval, the same black girl returned, her enormous eyes grown more enormous still by wondering at the business she was about, and laid down four more, and in less than five minutes after, she entered with three, thus completing the fifteen, which seemed to terminate the embassies for the time being.

  To say that Mrs. Allen Barnaby felt and looked delighted as she thus sat surrounded by these white-winged messengers of fame, would be an expression so pitifully and unsatisfactorily weak, that I forbear to use it. But where may I look for words capable of expressing aptly and fully the state of mind into which she was thrown by this enthusiastic outpouring of patriotic gratitude? Look where I will, I shall find none such. It is in fact impossible for any faculty, or faculties, save imagination alone, to do justice to her emotions, and to the imagination of my readers I resign the task, though only too well aware that of these, not above one in five hundred can be expected to possess the faculty in sufficient? vigour to do justice to the image I have suggested.

  Never, in truth, was there a mind more calculated to enjoy such success than that of my heroine. There are many who, though they may relish fame with tolerable keenness in general, would feel no great exaltation of spirit at this species of it in particular. But Mrs. Allen Barnaby was not one of these. Neither could she, notwithstanding her well satisfied contemplations on her past life, be classed with those so blasés w
ith distinction and renown, as to make the receiving it a matter of indifference. Nor did the shower of happiness which so delightfully bathed her spirit in this hour of joy, bring empty praise alone; on the contrary, a vast deal of very solid-seeming pudding appeared coming with it; and in short, Mrs.

  Allen Barnaby felt her contentment to be so measureless, and so greatly too big for utterance, that she suddenly determined not to mention what had happened to any one till she had first enjoyed it for a little while in secret, and till she felt capable of conversing upon it with less external emotion than she was at present conscious must betray itself were she to enter upon the subject immediately with anyone — unless, indeed, it were her lawful husband and partner of her greatness.

  “I will lie down!” she murmured to herself, as she passed her pocket-handkerchief across her forehead, “I will darken the room and lie down.”

  She fastened the blinds, and drew the window curtains accordingly; and then, having laid aside a considerable portion of her apparel, she crept within her mosquito-net, and laid her throbbing head upon her pillow. There is something in the climate of New Orleans which tends so strongly to induce sleep, that probably no degree of happiness could enable any person long to resist it if they indulged in the attitude which Mrs. Allen Barnaby had now taken. Certain it is that many minutes had not elapsed after my heroine had disposed of herself in the manner I have described before her eyes closed, and her regular but heavy breathing proclaimed aloud that she slept. But oh! what a sleep was that! and how far unlike the dull oblivion that falls upon ordinary spirits while the “sweet restorer” is doing his work upon them! No sooner had she forgotten herself, as the common and unphilosophical phrase expresses it — no sooner had she forgotten herself, than a power nobler than memory took its place. Mrs. Allen Barnaby did not forget herself, though it was less by memory than by prophecy, that she became in sleep the subject of her own high imaginings. It was probably from the more than common intensity of the emotions which produced these sleeping visions, that she at once gave birth to them in words, and with perfect distinctness exclaimed —

  “Pray, move out of the way, Louisa! Do you not see how all those good people are straining and striving to get a glimpse of me? Matilda! it is quite ill-natured to keep standing so exactly before me. It is quite contrary to my temper and disposition to torment people so. Oh yes, certainly,” she continued, varying her tone, as if speaking courteously to some stranger, “yes, certainly, my lord. If you will just push that golden inkstand a little nearer to me I will give you an autograph immediately.”

  For a moment or two she was silent, and then, turning as it were impatiently on her bed, she resumed, in accents less bland —

  “It is nonsense, Donny, to think of it. It is not you who have written all these books; and if, as you all justly enough say, a title must and will be given, as in the case of Sir Walter and Sir Edward, it cannot be given to you. No, Donny, no. It must and will be given to ME. Yes, yes; hush, hush, hush. I know it, I know it. I know perfectly well, Major Allen, without your telling me, that no ladies ever are made baronets. I know I can’t be Sir Martha, foolish man, quite as well as you do, and I know a little better, perhaps, that you will never be Sir anything. But if my country wishes to reward me by a title, to which I should have no objection whatever, if such be the will of my sovereign, if that, as you all seem to suppose, should really be the case, I see neither difficulty nor objection in it. Why should I not be called Lady Martha?” and then she murmured on till her voice sank into silence, and herself into sounder sleep, “Lady Martha Allen Barnaby — Lady Martha Allen Barnaby — Lady Allen Martha Bar—”

  It was clearly evident that my heroine had positively exhausted herself by the vehemence of her emotions, even in sleep, for she now snored heavily for above two hours, without again moving a limb, and on awakening, experienced that feeling of puzzle and confusion of intellect which often follows sleep that has been unusually profound.

  “Where am I?” she exclaimed, starting up, and looking very wildly round her. But most sweet was the return of consciousness which followed. She saw the mass of open notes all lying together upon her table “Is it, then, possible?” she exclaimed; “is it indeed true, and not merely the invention of a dream? Am I really at this moment the most distinguished person in New Orleans? And what may I not hope for hereafter? But, mercy on me! I really must keep myself quiet, or I shall certainly go distracted.”

  The resolution was a wise one, and kept to better than might have been expected from the very animated and excitable nature of Mrs. Allen Barnaby. She looked at her watch, and perceived that it was fully time to begin preparing her dress for dinner, and she set about this necessary business with a deliberate steadiness, which showed her determined to keep herself and her nerves quiet and composed. The result of this was all that she herself wished it should be. Her ringlets, her rouge, her flowers, and her bows, all took their respective places, without any trace of that confusion of arrangement which might reasonably enough have been feared under the existing circumstances. Before her dress had received its last finishing touch, by the arrangement of her white blonde scarf, she heard the approaching step of the major, and smiled, but very sedately, as she cast her eyes upon the letter-covered table.

  “Pour out some water for me, there’s a good soul,” said the unconscious husband of the most distinguished person in New Orleans; “I’m devilish late, I believe.”

  “There is no occasion to put yourself into such a prodigious bustle, if you are,” returned his lady, with an air of very elegant languor “The dinner must be kept back a little if we are not ready for it.”

  “Keep back! Keep back the dinner at an American boarding house! I should have thought, my dear, that you had been here quite long enough to know that wouldn’t answer. Did you ever see any one of them waited for half a second, even among the oldest customers, like the Beauchamp, or any of them?’’

  “I beg your pardon, major, but I cannot exactly think it the same thing. Nobody, I imagine, would like to sit down till — till we were ready.”

  The major opened his eyes, but was too busy in adjusting his cravat to remove them from the looking-glass, and Mrs. Allen Barnaby was really too much afraid of shaking her equanimity to trust her voice in explanation. But when, his hasty reparation of himself being completed, he turned about and looked towards his wife, who had quietly seated herself at the table, he perceived the large number of open letters with which it was covered, and immediately uttered the expected question —

  “What in the world are all those letters, wife?”

  “You may read them, Major Allen Barnaby, if you wish it,” she meekly replied, while quietly employing herself in securing the clasp of her waist-ribbon.

  The major, accepting the permission thus given, immediately set himself to the task of examination, but had proceeded but a very little way in it, when he gaily exclaimed —

  “Well done, my Barnaby! Egad, we are afloat now, or the devil’s in it.”

  And assuring himself by a hasty glance through the remainder that they were ail in the same agreeable strain, he actually walked round the table and kissed the illustrious fair one to whom they were addressed, taking the greatest care, however, to disturb neither her ringlets nor her rouge.

  “I am proud of you, Mrs. Allen Barnaby, I am, upon my soul,” he said; “and what, think you, my dear, will be the best way to profit by all this? Why, here are no less than nine invitations for staying visits at different country-seats. If we could but find out, wife, who amongst them enjoys a little piquet, you know, like Colonel Beauchamp, and who does not, we could manage our matters famously. It would be fun, wouldn’t it, to be going from house to house, treated and feasted! you writing your immortal books, and I raking in dollars every night of my life, and our own money lying snug all the time? It would be famous fun, wouldn’t it?”

  “Why, certainly the mode of life as you sketch it, major, would be pleasant enough, and profitabl
e too, I dare say,” replied his lady, “if we mind our hits properly. It will be exceedingly necessary, however, to find out who’s who, and what’s what, before we decide upon what to accept and what to refuse. I have said to all that I would send an answer, and this will give us a little time for inquiry.”

  “You are a jewel!” exclaimed the major, with a burst of really passionate admiration. “But there goes the bell, my darling.

  After dinner you must write me down the names of all these excellent people, that I may learn what I can about them. And you may keep the letters, you know, and ask a few questions of Mrs. Beauchamp, or anybody else who can answer them.”

  “I shall not be idle, my dear,” replied his wife, with a composed and quiet smile, which proved to her acute husband that she was not quite in her usual state of mind; but he was at that moment inclined to think that all moods became her, and taking his arm within hers, he led her with a Very decided feeling of triumph, to the dinner-table.

  CHAPTER XXII.

  THERE was a something in Mrs. Allen Barnaby’s demeanour as she entered the dining-room, supported on the arm of her husband, which both attracted the attention of her particular friends among the company assembled there and puzzled them.

  “Was she ill?”

  “Was she affronted at somebody or something?”

  “Had she received disagreeable tidings from home?” or “was she only very much fatigued?” All and each of these motives suggested themselves to all those sufficiently interested in this lady to watch her as she entered the room, despite the interesting nature of the business already going on at the top of the table, where Mrs. Carmichael, puffing and wheezing like a fainting steam-engine, was sending round by the sable hands of two negro Hebes, sharply scrutinised portions of a favourite fish. The equality or inequality of this nice and difficult distribution was, under ordinary circumstances, a matter of great moment, and nearly of universal interest; but now it was only partially so. Yet it would be difficult to describe precisely what it was in the bearing of Mrs. Allen Barnaby which caused this effect. She always walked in with a great deal of dignity, and so she did now. She had always some volant ribbon or floating scarf to attend to and arrange; and so she had now. She never failed to return with great benignity any salutations which she might receive as she moved onward to her place; nor did she fail to do so now. But in all this there was something that nobody had ever seen before; a blending of condescension and indifference; an eye that seemed not fully conscious of the identity of the objects over which it glanced an air of superiority softened by benevolence; and, finally, a look of gentle tenderness when she turned towards her husband, that seemed to indicate that she recognised in him a being who in some degree at least approached to an equality of condition with herself.