A VISIT FROM THE HEIRESS.--MISS AGNES WILLOUGHBY IS SENT TO SCHOOL.
In about a month after this visit, and less than a week before the day
fixed upon for the happiness of Mr. Barnaby, Miss Betsy Compton very
unexpectedly made a visit to her brother. She found him a good deal
altered, but she found him also with his toddy and pipe, both objects of
such hatred and disgust to her anchoritish spirit, that all the kind
feelings which might have been awakened by his failing health, were
chased by looking upon what caused it.
To see her feeble-minded brother was not, however, the only or the
principal object of her visit to Silverton; and she permitted not many
minutes to be wasted in mutual questionings that meant very little,
before she let him understand what was.
"I am come to speak to you, brother," she said, "about little Agnes. I
should like to know in what manner you intend to educate her?"
"Mrs. Compton manages all that, sister Betsy," replied the invalid;
"and, at any rate, I am sure I have no money to teach her anything."
"But it is a sin, brother, to let the child run wild about the garden as
you would a magpie.... Do you know that she can't read?"
"No, sister Betsy, I know nothing at all about it, I tell you.... How
can I help it? Am I in a condition to teach anybody to read?"
"There are others more to blame than you are, brother, no doubt; ... but
let it be who's fault it will, it must not go on so. I suppose you will
make no objection to my sending her to school?"
"Oh dear, no! not I; ... but you had better ask Mrs. Compton about it."
"Very well.... But I have your consent, have I not?"
"Dear me, yes, sister Betsy.... Why do you tease me so, making me take
the pipe out of my mouth every minute?"
Miss Betsy left the little smoke-dried back parlour appropriated to the
master of the house, and made her way to the front room up stairs called
the drawing-room, which had been reserved, since time out of mind, for
the use of the ladies of the family and their visitors. There she found,
as she expected, Mrs. Compton and her daughter amidst an ocean of
needle-work, all having reference, more or less, to the ceremony which
was to be performed on the following Thursday.
"So, Mrs. Compton," was her salutation to the old lady, and a nod of the
head to the young one. "I have been speaking to my brother," continued
Miss Betsy, "concerning the education of little Agnes, and he has given
his consent to my putting her to school."
"_His_ consent!..." exclaimed Mrs. Compton; "and, pray, is she not my
grandchild too?... I think I have as good a right to take care of the
child as he has."
"_She_ has a right," replied the spinster, "to expect from both of you a
great deal more care than she has found; and were I you, Mrs. Compton, I
would take some trouble to conceal from all my friends and acquaintance
the fact that, at eleven years of age, my grandchild was unable to
read."
"And that's a fact that I can have no need to hide, Miss Betsy, for it's
no fact at all--I've seen Martha teaching her scores of times."
"Then have her in, Mrs. Compton, and let us make the trial. If I have
said what is not true, I will beg your pardon."
"Lor, mamma!" said Miss Martha, colouring a little, "what good is there
in contradicting aunt Betsy, if she wants to send Agnes to school? I am
sure it is the best thing that can be done for her, now I am going to be
married.... And Mr. Barnaby asked me the other day, if you did not mean
to send her to school."
"I don't want to keep her from school, God knows, poor little thing, or
from anything else that could do her good.... Only Miss Betsy speaks so
sharp.... But I can assure you, sister, we should have put her to the
best of schools long and long ago, only that, Heaven knows, we had not
the means to do it; and thankful shall I be if you are come at last to
think that there may be as much charity in helping your own blood
relations, as in giving away your substance to strangers and beggars."
"You are right, Mrs. Compton, as far as relates to sending Agnes to
school ... that will certainly be a charity. When can the child be got
ready?"
"As soon as ever you shall be pleased to give us the means, sister
Betsy."
"Do you mean, Mrs. Compton, that she has not got clothes to go in?"
"I do indeed, sister Betsy."
"Let me see what she _has_ got, and then I shall know what she wants."
"That is easily told, aunt, without your troubling yourself to look over
a few ragged frocks and the like. She wants just everything, aunt
Betsy," said the bride expectant, brave in anticipated independence, and
rather inclined to plague the old lady by drawing as largely as might be
on her reluctant funds, now they were opened, even though the profit
would not be her own.
"If she really does want everything, Martha Compton, while you are
dressed as you now are, very cruel injustice has been done her," replied
the aunt. "Your sister had no portion given her, either of the patrimony
of her father, or the thousand pounds brought by her mother; and as her
marriage with a man who had not a sixpence was permitted, this child of
hers has an equal right with yourself to share in the property of your
parents."
"The property of their parents!... Why bless me, Betsy Compton, how you
do talk!... as if you did not know that all the property they ever had,
is as good as gone. Has not farmer Wright got the estate? And has not
the butcher, and the baker, and the shoemaker, and all the rest of them,
got what it sold for, as well as my thousand pounds among them, long
ago?"
"Then you are now on the very verge of ruin, Mrs. Compton?" said the
spinster gravely.
"Yes, sister Betsy, we are," replied the matron reproachfully. "And I
can't but say," she continued, "that a lone woman like you, without any
expenses whatever but your own meat and drink, which everybody says is
next to nothing,--I can't but say that you might have helped us a little
before now, and no harm done."
"That is your opinion of the case, Mrs. Compton: mine is wholly
different. I think harm is done whenever power of any kind is exerted in
vain. I have no power to help you.... Were all I have, poured out upon
you, while I lodged myself in the parish workhouse, my conviction is,
that I should only be enabling you to commit more follies, and, in my
judgment, more sins."
"Well, well, Miss Betsy, it is of no use talking to you--I know that of
old; and to tell you the truth, when I _do_ come to beggary, I had
rather beg of anybody else than of you. I hear far and near of your
charity to others, but I can't say that I ever saw any great symptom of
it myself."
"Let me see what clothes little Agnes has got, Mrs. Compton, if you
please. Our time will be more profitably employed in seeing what I may
be able to do for her, than in discoursing of what I am not able to do
for you. Miss Martha then, I suppose, may be able to bring her things
in."
"Why, as far as the quantity goes, they won't be very difficult to
carry. But I don't see much use in overhauling all the poor child's
trumpery ... unless it is just to make you laugh at our poverty, ma'am."
The spinster answered this with a look which shewed plainly enough that,
however little beauty her pale face could boast, it was by no means
deficient in expression. Miss Martha hastened out of the room to do her
errand without saying another word.
I will not give the catalogue of poor Agnes's wardrobe, but only observe
that it was considerably worse than Miss Betsy expected; she made,
however, no observation upon it; but having examined it apparently with
very little attention, she took leave of the mother and daughter, saying
she would call again in a day or two, and took with her (no permission
asked) a greatly faded, but recently fitted frock, which abduction
mother and daughter remonstrated against, loudly declaring it was her
best dress, except the old white muslin worked with coloured worsteds,
and that she would have nothing upon earth to wear.
"It shall not be kept long," was the reply; and the little lady
departed, enduring for a moment the atmosphere of her brother's parlour
as she passed, in order to tell him, as she thought herself in duty
bound to do, that she should get some decent clothes made for the child,
and call again as soon as they were ready to take her to school.
The poor gentleman seemed greatly pleased at this, and said, "Thank you,
Betsy," with more animation than he had been heard to impart to any
words for many years.
* * * * *
It was just three days after Miss Martha Compton had become Mrs.
Barnaby, that the same post-chaise drove up to the door that had carried
her away from it on an excursion of eight-and-forty hours to Exeter,
which the gallant bridegroom had stolen a holiday to give her; but upon
this occasion it was hired neither by bride nor bridegroom, but by the
little crooked spinster, who was come, according to her promise, to take
Agnes to school.
Mrs. Compton was just setting out to pay her first morning visit to the
bride, and therefore submitted to the hasty departure of the little girl
with less grumbling than she might have done, if less agreeably engaged.
"You must bid your grandpapa good-b'ye, Agnes," said Miss Betsy, as they
passed the door of his parlour, and accordingly they all entered
together.
"God bless you, my poor little girl!" said the old man after kissing
her forehead, "and keep your aunt Betsy's favour if you can, ... for I
don't think I can do much more to help anybody.... God bless you,
Agnes!"
"Dear me, Mr. Compton!... you need not bring tears in the child's eyes
by speaking that way.... I am sure she has never wanted friends since
her poor dear mother died; and there's no like she should either, with
such an aunt as Martha, married to such a man as Mr. Barnaby.... I
suppose she is not to be kept from her family, sister Betsy, but that we
shall see her in the holidays. I am sure I don't know where she is
likely to see things so elegant as at her aunt Barnaby's.... Such a
drawing-room!... and a man in livery, at least a boy, ... and
everything else conformable.... I suppose this is to be her home, Miss
Betsy, still?"
"I am glad you have mentioned this, Mrs. Compton," replied her
sister-in-law, "because now, in the presence of my brother, I may
explain my intentions at once. Whatever you may think of my little
means, either you or your wife, or your daughter, brother Josiah, I am
not rich enough in my own opinion to make it prudent for me to saddle
myself with the permanent charge of this poor child. Moreover, to do so,
I must altogether change the quiet manner of life that I have so long
enjoyed, and I am not conscious of being bound by any tie sufficiently
strong to make this painful sacrifice a duty. Something I think I ought
to do for this child, and I am willing to do it. I conceive that it will
be more easily in my power to spare something from my little property to
obtain a respectable education for her, than either in your's, brother,
or even in that of her newly-married aunt Barnaby; for doubtless it
would not be agreeable for her to begin her wedded life by throwing a
burden upon her husband. But, on the other hand, it will certainly be
much more within the power of her aunt Barnaby to give her a comfortable
and advantageous home afterwards, than in mine. I will therefore now
take charge of her for five years, during which time she shall be
supplied with board, lodging, clothes, and instruction, at my expense;
or, in case I should die, at that of my executors. After this period I
shall restore her to you, brother, or to her grandmother, if both or
either of you shall be alive, or if not, to her aunt Barnaby; and when I
die she shall have a share, with such others as I may think have a claim
upon me, of the small matter I may leave behind. But this of course must
be lessened by the expenses I am now contracting for her."
"And are we never to see her for five years, sister Betsy?" said Mrs.
Compton very dolorously.
"To tell you the truth, Mrs. Compton, I think the coming home to you
twice a-year, for the holidays, could be no advantage to her education,
and the expense of such repeated journeyings would be very inconvenient
to me. I have therefore arranged with the persons who are to take charge
of her that she is to pass the vacations with them. I shall, however,
make a point of seeing her myself more than once in the course of the
time, and will undertake that she shall come to Silverton twice during
these five years, for a few days each time.... And now, I think, there
is no more to say; so come, my little girl, for it is not right to keep
the driver and the horses any longer waiting."
The adieux between the parties were now hastily exchanged, little Agnes
mounted the post-chaise, aunt Betsy followed, and they drove off, though
in what direction they were to go, after leaving the Silverton turnpike,
no one had ever thought of inquiring.
Poor Mrs. Compton stood for some moments silently gazing after the
post-chaise, and on re-entering her drawing-room, felt a sensation that
greatly resembled desolation from the unwonted stillness that reigned
there. She was instantly cheered, however, by recollecting the very
agreeable visit she was going to pay; and only pausing to put on her new
wedding bonnet and shawl, set off for Mr. Barnaby's, saying to the maid,
whom she passed as she descended, "I should like, Sally, to have seen
what sort of things she has got for the poor child."
"If they was as neat and as nice as the little trunk as was strapped on
in the front, and that's where they was packed, no doubt,... there
wouldn't be no need to complain of them," was the reply. And now,
leaving Agnes to aunt Betsy and her fate, I must return to the duty I
have assigned myself, and follow the fortunes of Mrs. Barnaby.