Collected Works of Frances Trollope, page 258
All this wild-sounding rattle, so unlike the grave and meditative tone which O’Donagough had been practising with General Hubert, was not assumed without a purpose; or rather, it was not assumed without many purposes. It was necessary, in the first place, to establish beyond the possibility of doubt, the important truth that he was what he declared himself to be, namely, the near connection and intimate associate of General Hubert, himself, and everybody belonging to him. It was important, too, that Sir Henry Seymour should he made to understand that the blooming Patty was already an object of tender attention to others; and, beyond all else, it was important that his own manners with the young baronet should, from the first, assume that air of easy gossiping frankness which was, as he had often found, the most certain prelude to profitable intimacy.
The first item in this list of reasons might have sufficed, had Mr. O’Donagough been fully aware of the weight it carried with it. At the first statement of near connection between the families of Hubert and O’Donagough, the young man’s heart swelled with indignant incredulity; but the mass of evidence contained in the familiar mention of the whole race, by a person of Mr. O’Donagough’s age and appearance, together with an assumption of relationship, which, however improbable, was not likely to have ‘been invented, succeeded in convincing him that such was the fact; and the moment this was achieved, all that followed was wholly superfluous. Nothing like a cold return for offered civility was to be feared from Sir Henry Seymour towards any one who could boast the advantage of such a relationship. His attachment to the whole Hubert family was, in fact, unbounded; he considered himself under the deepest obligation to them for their constant kindness to his young sister, and was not likely to forget the lenient gentleness with which his own errors had been treated. Yet, though all this was likely very greatly to influence his conduct, it could not alter his feelings, and he groaned in spirit when, having at last got rid of his ship acquaintance, he meditated on all the irksome annoyances to which this most unfortunate re-encounter was likely to lead.
That its effect on the other parties was quite as much opposed to this, as the positions assigned to the North and South Poles, need hardly be mentioned. The calculating Mr. O’Donagough seemed to tread on air as he paced back to Brompton, after accompanying his new favourite to the archway of the Horse-guards. Visions of little profitable evenings passed at home; of his name set down, and favourably balloted for, at fashionable clubs; of his own hospitalities returned, by dinners with the gay young guardsman; and finally of a match for his blooming Patty, which would not only gratify all his ambitious wishes for her, but insure to himself, as firmly at least as anything could, the power of holding on to the class among whom it was the darling desire of his heart to move — all seemed to flash before him in such bright but palpable distinctness, that he felt the glorious game to he entirely in his own hands. He had, in one word, got possession of the young man’s secret, and it depended on himself to make a good use of it.
He found the two Miss Perkinses returned when he reached their dwelling; and the gabble of female tongues which greeted his ears, as he mounted to the drawing-room, was delightful to him, for it sounded like a flourish of trumpets announcing the return of a victor. If they were thus joyous with what they knew already, what would their feelings he when they should learn all of which he had so skilfully achieved the knowledge?
No shadow of mystery or reserve was now left to injure the happy union between the Perkinses and O’Donagoughs, and it was therefore with unmitigated freedom that the anxious mother exclaimed, as he entered, “Now then, out with it, Donny! what is his real name, after all?”
Mr. O’Donagough looked upon the little circle with a benignant smile.
“Don’t stand grinning there, papa!” cried Patty, rushing towards him, and seizing upon the collar of his coat, with the consciousness that he and his news at that moment particularly belonged to herself. “Tell us all you know this very moment, or you shall find that you had better not tease me.”
“Tease you, my beauty? No, faith, I must not tease you any more; for I must say, for a lady of fifteen you have got up as nice a little love affair as the most prudent parent could desire. The gentleman is Sir Henry Seymour, ladies, and, as I have every reason to believe, a man of large fortune and high connections.”
“Good gracious! Only think!” said Miss Perkins the elder. “My adored Patty, how I wish you joy!” said Miss Perkins the younger.
“Nobody in their senses could ever doubt that my girl was likely to do well,” was pronounced by Mrs. O’Donagough, with infinite dignity and very stately composure; while Patty, who, whatever she might come to hereafter, had not yet attained such perfect self-command, started back, and joyously clapping her hands as she bounded in a prodigious jump from the floor, exclaimed, “Shall I be my lady, then, when I am Jack’s wife? Shall I, papa, upon your life and honour?”
CHAPTER ΧΧIIΙ.
THIS adventure made a considerable change in the proceedings of Mr. O’Donagough. A very few inquiries sufficed to assure him that Sir Henry Seymour was a young man of large and unencumbered estate, with the accumulated product of fifteen years’ minority just placed at his own disposal. That he was, moreover, of a gay and pleasure-loving temperament, and conceived to be exceedingly liberal in his expenditure, and generous in disposition. It was not likely that a man of Mr. O’Donagough’s discernment could be insensible to the value of such a character, or in the least degree indifferent to the probable advantages it might bring to all who were fortunate enough to fall into intimate connection with it. Neither was there any danger that he should undervalue the degree of influence which his knowledge of the young man’s private affairs was likely to give him. With all this working strongly together in his brain, he soon came to the conclusion that no half measures could suit the present position of his affairs; and without confessing, even to the wife of his bosom, that he had greatly changed his immediate plans, he set about looking for a house in good earnest, and determined that it should be such a one as should aid all the bold projects he had in view.
Had he deemed it “wisest, best,” Mr. O’Donagough was not without the means of furnishing a splendid mansion in very showy style, and yet not leaving a single morsel of lacker, or ormolu, unpaid for. But he was far too clever a man to risk on any speculation a single sixpence more than was needful to give it a fair chance of success; and he, therefore, decided upon selecting a ready-furnished house as the scene of his first attempt on a large scale, in London. Should it fail, should vexatious accidents of any kind arise to cut short his career, the loss might be easily calculated, and a retreat easily effected.
His resolution once taken, he lost no time in putting it into execution. An extremely gay-looking residence in Curzon-street, in the rent of which the proprietor was disposed to make some sacrifice, for the sake of letting it for a year, and at an unfavourable season, fixed him at once; he agreed, without difficulty, to pay the rent in advance; and exactly one week from the day on which he had been let into the confidence of Sir Henry Seymour, he informed his wife and daughter that he had secured for their use, for the year next ensuing, an elegant mansion in one of the most fashionable streets in London.
The effect of this news upon Mrs. O’Donagough was very like that of intoxication; only that the symptoms continued to show themselves for weeks, instead of hours. At first she began to talk with exceeding rapidity, seemingly indifferent whether any one listened to her or not. Then she laughed, much and often, having no obvious cause for it whatever; and then she would sit in strange abstractedness, with a look that might have been mistaken for a sign of headache, or approaching somnolency, but which in truth betokened the very reverse; being rather an evidence of faculties particularly awake, and intent on very high and mighty objects.
Patty was altogether in a state of mind and spirits which rendered the fine house of small comparative importance, though had she at any moment been told that There’s no such thing, it is probable, to use her own phraseology, that she would have “cried her eyes out.” But so predominant were the ideas that she was certainly going to have Jack for a husband, and to be called “my lady,” that no subjects of lesser interest could long retain possession of her memory.
The friendship of the two Miss Perkinses was at this time invaluable, and so thoroughly aware did Mrs. O’Donagough become of the absolute necessity of having some one on whom she could discharge her thoughts, that she induced her husband to abandon entirely his visionary friends at Richmond, and confess that he found it was quite necessary they should remain in their “little bit of a lodging,” till their “own house” was ready for them. This obviated all difficulties, and the excellent Miss Perkinses trotted daily from Brompton to the bit of a lodging, and from the bit of a lodging to Curzon-street, with a resolute perseverance that nothing but the most devoted friendship could have inspired.
“Beautiful rooms! ain’t they, Louisa? Isn’t the third drawing-room a perfect paradise, Matilda? What a place for flirting, girls! That sofa in the recess is the prettiest thing I ever saw in my life,” said Mrs. O’Donagough, for the twenty-seventh time, as her two friends and her daughter roamed about the house, from garret to cellar, on the third day after it was taken. “How I do wish they would get these tiresome beds put up! Isn’t it too hard to have such a house as this, and not be able to get into it? — Donny! Donny! Where in the world is your father got to, Patty? He never is in the right place. — By-the-by, dears, I must leave off calling him Donny, musn’t I? It will never do in such a drawing-room as this. To he sure it is quite unaccountable how one does get into foolish, vulgar ways, sometimes, and it’s a proof, isn’t it, that one always ought to keep oneself up, even if one sees nobody nor nothing? However, there is no great danger of my not getting out of it again — my first recollections are of the most refined kind. This is a charming house, to he sure, but no more to be compared to Silverton-park than chalk to cheese. I shall like to see our friends the officers here, Matilda; won’t it he nice?”
These words instantly brought the lady she addressed to her side; for though till that moment she had been entirely engrossed by her friend, the future Lady Seymour, there was in them a charm, powerful as magic, to which the endearing “I say, Matilda!” of her young friend was, in comparison, but idle breath.
“Dearest Mrs. O’Donagough!” returned the fluttered and flattered young lady, gliding across the room to her, with a movement not unlike that of a figure cut in paper and blown across a table by the artificer, “dearest Mrs. O’Donagough, how I long to see you installed with all your proper style and state about you, and receiving company in your own elegant and graceful way. To be sure there never was any one so perfectly made by nature, as one may say, to give parties as you are. Your manners, your kindness, your person, your very style of dress, all seem formed on purpose for it. I am sure it is a blessing, and an honour, and a happiness to know you.”
“Well, well, ‘Tilda, we shall see, we shall see. By-the-by, I’ll tell you what I should like as well as anything in the whole job, and that is, making my old ramshorn aunt Betsy come to see me here. Won’t I make her remember the bees and the bread and milk?”
Notwithstanding all the eager attention with which Miss Matilda looked up into her face — most sincerely wishing to understand every word she uttered — there was a mystery in this allusion which defied her sagacity, stretched, as it was, to the very utmost; and she could only reply by laying her hand with a fond squeeze on the plump arm of her magnificent friend, and repeating, with a little coaxing laugh, “Dearest Mrs. O’Donagough!”
“But that’s neither here nor there,” resumed the great lady, recollecting herself. “I was thinking of bygone times, when that crabbed old soul was a perfect tyrant to me. I don’t mean, of course, that she was not always living in very high style, as a person of her noble birth and immense possessions ought to do; but you know, my dear, many old people, both rich and poor, like nothing so well as tormenting young ones; and what I said about the bees and bread and milk, came from recollecting the time when she kept bees for her own amusement in some most elegant golden hives, and then, instead of letting me look at them, ordered the footman to take me to the housekeeper, or the lady’s-maid, I’m sure I forget which, to eat bread and milk for supper. So spiteful of her! wasn’t it, Matilda?”
“Spiteful indeed! dearest Mrs O’Donagough! I cannot conceive how any human being could ever have the heart to be otherwise than kind and affectionate, and, in fact, altogether doting upon you!” replied Miss Matilda. “I don’t suppose there was a person,” she continued, “so made in every way to be liked and loved as you are. I am sure, Louisa and I sit by the hour together, and have done, ever since we first knew you, talking of nothing in the world but your particular manner of being delightful to everybody. Poor dear Louisa, you know, is very shy, but she declares that in your company she forgets it entirely, and feels as easy and as happy, almost, as if she was quite by herself.”
“I am very glad to make Louisa happy, and you too, my dear,” replied Mrs. O’Donagough, swelling a little, as she was wont to do when called upon to assert her dignity; “but, to tell you the real truth, my dear Miss Matilda Perkins, I shall feel that I owe it to myself, when I get into this house, and to my family also, to keep up with most people that sort of dignity and reserve which my station requires. I can assure you that Silverton-park, when I was quite a newly-married and very young woman, though it was celebrated through all the west of England as a scene of the most delightful hospitality, never witnessed the slightest attempt at undue familiarity from any of its innumerable guests towards me.”
As this was uttered with appropriate accent and attitude, the soul of the gentle Matilda seemed to die within her as she listened to it. But Mrs. O’Donagough, on perceiving the effect she had produced, felt satisfied that she might again relax a little with safety, and immediately added, “But you and your sister are particular friends, you know, and I shall never insist upon any alteration in your manners when we are quite by ourselves. When there are strangers present, of course, you will understand that there should be a difference.”
“What do you stay prosing there for, Matilda?” cried Patty at this moment, turning from an unprofitable examination of the empty street. “Come here, can’t you? you know I have got lots of things to say, and you may just as well leave mamma alone — Louisa mil do for her to count over the chairs and tables with.”
“What a madcap!” exclaimed Mrs. O’Donagough, with a graceful air of elegant indulgence. “Go to her, my dear, and send your sister Louisa to me. She is quite lost, poor thing, in the delight of walking about these pretty rooms — for after all, I can’t say I consider them as anything more than merely pretty. However, they will do very well till that wild girl of mine is sobered down into a woman of fashion, and a wife. And then I flatter myself that Mr. Allen O’Donagough will think it right and proper to take me into a square to live. This house is all very well for a street; but I very much doubt if Sir Henry — get along, Matilda,” added the tender mother, pointing to the frowning beauty, who stood impatiently waiting for her listener while this harangue went on. “Go on to her, dear, and tell her she must never let Sir Henry see such a face as that!”
Miss Matilda, who had stood between the mother and daughter during Mrs. O’Donagough’s last speech, like a bit of rubbish on the wave of a retreating tide, seemingly returning from time to time, but really becoming more distant at every movement, joyfully accepted this dismission, and ere another moment had passed was enjoying herself in the balcony of the front room, with Patty once more hanging upon her arm.
“How can you be such a fool, Matilda, as to stand listening for an hour together to mamma’s humdrums?,” said the young lady, judiciously placing herself and her friend as much out of sight of those within the windows as the premises would allow. “A child of five years old could manage better than you do!”
“Upon my word, Patty, you are out there,” replied her friend; “it is from no want of wit or will either, on my part, if I leave you for a moment; for, goodness knows, I had rather be talking with you than anything else in the world — excepting, you know, when you happen to be engaged in another way; or,” she added after a pause, and with a deep sigh—” or if poor Foxcroft was even again to steal into my heart with his delicious converse.”
“Oh, for that matter, I never want to spoil sport, any more than you do, Matilda. “We are both of us good-natured girls in that way. ‘Do as you would be done by,’ that is our motto, isn’t it? But I have no notion of your leaving me, with my finger in my eye, because I have got no one to speak to, while you stand palavering with mamma,” said Miss O’Donagough.
“But I must, Patty, if it is her will and pleasure, you know. I can tell you, if you don’t know it already, that your mamma expects a great deal more attention and ceremony, and all that sort of thing now, a great deal more indeed than she did at Brighton. In short, she says so herself, openly and plainly; and I see as plain as daylight, that if I am not very attentive and respectful, all the fat will be in the fire, and what will become then of all the happiness we expect together?” returned her friend.
Once for all, Matilda, I’ll tell you plainly, that you had better mind your hits between mamma and me. I won’t bear to be neglected for any one; and if you don’t choose to be my particular friend, and stand by me, through thick and thin, without caring a pin for anybody else, somebody else shall, that’s all. I have no notion of mamma setting herself up, for no other reason in the world than just because my Jack happens to be a SIR. And who has the best right to set themselves up because of that, I wonder? So you will just please to take your choice, Miss Matilda.”
