AN ADVENTURE.--ANOTHER LETTER FROM MISS MORRISON PRODUCTIVE OF A
POWERFUL EFFECT UPON HER BROTHER.--HE FORSAKES HIS CLIENT AND HIS
FRIEND.--AGNES IS LEFT ALONE, AND EMPLOYS SOME OF HER LEISURE IN WRITING
A LETTER TO MISS COMPTON.
The following day was an eventful one. For the first time since they had
been in London, Agnes, on seeing her aunt preparing to go out, asked
permission to go with her, and "You may go if you will," was the answer;
but before her bonnet was tied on, Mrs. Barnaby changed her mind,
saying, "Put down your bonnet, Agnes ... upon second thoughts I don't
choose to take you.... Look at all these things of mine lying about
here!... I have told you that it is likely enough we may set off by a
night coach, and I have got, as you know, to go out with Mr. Morrison;
so I should be much obliged if you would please to tell me how all my
packing is to get done?"
"If you would let me go with you now, aunt, I shall have plenty of time
to do all that remains while you are out with Mr. Morrison," replied
Agnes.
"Agnes, you are, without exception, the most impertinent and the most
plaguing girl that ever a widowed aunt half ruined herself to provide
for.... But I won't be bullied in this way either.... Stay at home, if
you please, and do what I bid you, or before this time to-morrow you may
be crying in the streets of London for a breakfast.... I should like to
know who there is besides me in the wide world who would undertake the
charge of you?... Do you happen to know any such people, miss?... If you
do, be off to them if you please--the sooner the better; ... but if not,
stay at home for once without grumbling, and do what you're bid."
There was just sufficient truth mixed with the injustice of these harsh
words to go to the heart of poor Agnes. Her aunt Compton, in reply to a
letter of Mrs. Barnaby, written in a spirit of wanton impertinence, and
in which she made a formal demand of one hundred pounds a-year for the
expenses of Agnes, answered in great wrath, that she and Agnes both had
better take care not to change their residence so often as to lose a
parish settlement, for they might live to find _that_ a much better
dependence than anything they would obtain from her. This pettish
epistle, received the day before they left Silverton, was carefully
treasured by Mrs. Barnaby, and often referred to when she was anxious to
impress on her niece a sense of her forlorn condition and helpless
dependence. So all hope from that quarter seemed to be for ever shut
out.... And could she forget that even at the moment when the dangers of
her situation had so forcibly struck Lady Elizabeth Norris, as to make
her approve what she had before declared to be worse than _any
home_,--that even at that moment she had explicitly declared that
neither herself nor her niece could _take charge of her_?
These were mournful thoughts; and it was no great proof of Agnes's
wisdom, perhaps, that, instead of immediately proceeding to the
performance of her prescribed task, she sat down expressly to ruminate
upon them. But the meditation was not permitted to be long; for hardly
had she rested her elbow upon the table, and her cheek upon her hand, in
the manner which ladies under such circumstances always do, than she was
startled by a violent knocking and simultaneous ringing at the
street-door, followed, as soon as it was opened, by a mixture of two or
three loud and angry voices, amidst which she clearly distinguished that
of her aunt; and the moment after she burst into the room, accompanied
by the gentleman who had appeared to admire her so greatly in the street
the day before, together with two other much less well-looking
personages, who stuck close upon the heels of Mrs. Barnaby, with more
appearance of authority than respect.
"You shall live to repent this treatment of a lady," cried Mrs. Barnaby,
addressing the hero of her yesterday's adventure, who was no other than
the keeper of the livery-stable from whom she had hired the carriage and
horses which had dignified her existence for the last month. "You shall
be taught to know what is due from a trumpery country tradesman like
you, to a person of my fortune and station. What put it into your head,
you vile fellow, instead of waiting my return to Cheltenham, to follow
me to London in this abominable manner, and to arrest me in the public
streets?"
"It is no difficult matter to tell you that, Mrs. Barnaby, if that's
your name," replied the man; "and you'll find that I am not the only
vile fellow holding himself ready to pay you the same compliment; though
I, knowing the old saying 'first come, first served,' took some trouble
to be the first."
"And do you really pretend to fancy, you pitiful creature," cried Mrs.
Barnaby, in a voice in which terror and rage were struggling,--"do you
really pretend to believe that I am not able to pay your
twopenny-halfpenny bill a thousand times over?"
"Can't say indeed, ma'am," replied the man; "I shall not stand upon
sending you to prison if you will discharge the account as here we
stand, paying fees and expenses of course, as is fitting... Here are the
items, neither many nor high.--
L. s. d.
Carriage and horses one month, twenty-five}
shillings per diem } 37 0 0
Coachman's livery, board, and wages 20 0 0
Footman's ditto, hired to order 25 0 0
--------
L 82 0 0
--------
Deduct liveries, if returned 12 0 0
--------
Remains L 70 0 0
--------
And all our expenses and fees added won't make it above 77_l._ or 78_l._
altogether; so, ma'am, if you are the great lady you say, you won't find
no great difficulty in giving me a write-off for the sum, and my good
friends here shall stay while I run and get it cashed, after which I
will be ready to make you my bow, and say good morning."
The anger of Mrs. Barnaby was not the less excited because what Mr.
Simmons, the livery-stable keeper, said was true; and she seized with
considerable quickness the feature of the case which appeared the most
against him.
"Your vulgar mode of proceeding at Cheltenham, Mr. Simmons, is, I am
happy to say, quite peculiar to yourselves; for though, for my age, I
have lived a good deal in the world, I certainly never saw anything like
it. Here have I, like a woman of fortune as I am, paid nobly, since I
have been in your trumpery town, for every single thing for which it is
customary to pay ready money; and when a job like yours, which never
since the creation of the world was paid except from quarter to quarter,
has run up for one month, down comes the stable-man post haste after me
with a writ and arrest. I wonder you are not ashamed of yourself."
"I dare say I should, ma'am, you talking so fine as you do, if I hadn't
nothing to put forward in return. I don't believe, Mrs. Barnaby, but
what you, or any other rich-seeming lady like you,... I don't believe
but what any such might have come to Cheltenham, and have run up debts
to the tune of a thousand pounds, and not one of us taken fright at it,
provided the lady had stayed quiet and steady in the town, where one had
one's eyes upon her, and was able to see what she was about. But just
do now look at the difference. 'The season's pretty fullish,' says one,
'and trade's brisk!...' 'That's true,' says another, 'only some's going
off, and that's never a good sign, specially if they go without
paying....' 'And who's after that shabby trick?' says another:...
'Neither more nor less than the gay widow Barnaby!' is the answer....
'The devil she is!' says one; 'she owes me twenty pounds....'--'I hope
you are out there neighbour,' says another, 'for she owes me thirty....
'And me ten'--'and me fifty'--'and me nineteen'--'and me forty,' and so
on for more than I'll number. And what, pray, is the wisest among them
likely to do in such a case? Why, just what your humble servant has
done, neither more nor less."
"And what right have you, audacious man! to suppose that I have any
intention of not returning, and paying all I owe, as I have ever and
always done before?"
"Nothing particular, except your just saying, ma'am, that you should be
back in two days, and nevertheless not making yourself be heard of in
ten, and your rooms kept, and your poor maid kept in 'em all the time
too."
"This man talks like one who knows not what a lady is," said Mrs.
Barnaby, her eyes flashing, and her face crimson; "but I must beg to ask
of you, sir," turning to one of the Bow-street officials, "whether I am
not to have time allowed for sending to my lawyer, and giving him
instructions to settle with this fellow here?"
"Why, by rights, ma'am, you should go to a sponging-house without loss
of time, that we might get the committal made out, and all regular; but
if you be so inclined as to make it worth while to my companion and me,
I don't think we shall object to keeping guard over you here instead,
while you send off for any friends you choose to let into the secret."
"The friends I shall send to are my men of business, fellow!" replied
Mrs. Barnaby, with the strongest expression of disdain that she could
throw into her countenance. "You don't, I hope, presume to imagine that
I would send for any one of rank to affront them with the presence of
such as you?"
"Fair words butter no parsnips, is a good saying and a true one;... but
I'll add to it, that saucy ones unlock no bolts; and if you expect to
get out of this scrape by talking big, it's likely you may find yourself
mistaken."
"A bill must be a good deal longer than this is, man, before the paying
it will be much of a scrape to me," said the widow, affecting to laugh.
"What a fool you are, Agnes," she continued, turning to the corner of
the room into which the terrified girl had crept, "what a prodigious
fool, to be sure, you must be, to sit there looking as white as a sheet,
because an insolent tradesman chooses to bring in a bill of a month's
standing, with a posse of thief-takers to back it.... Get up, pray, and
bring my desk here... I wish to write to my attorney."
In obedience to this command, Agnes rose from her chair, and attempted
to cross the room to fetch the desk, which was at the other extremity of
it; but not all her efforts to arouse her strength sufficed to overcome
the sick faintness which oppressed her. "Do, for God's sake, move a
little faster, child," said Mrs. Barnaby; but Agnes failed in her
habitual and meek obedience, not by falling into a chair, but by sitting
down in one, conscious that her fainting at such a moment must greatly
increase her aunt's embarrassment.
"I'll get the desk, miss," said one of the terrible men, in a voice so
nearly expressive of pity, that tears started to her own eyes in pity of
herself, as she thought how wretched must be the state of one who could
inspire such a feeling in such a being; but she thanked him, and he
placed the lady's desk before her--that pretty little rosewood desk that
had been and indeed still was the receptacle of my Lord Mucklebury's
flattering if not binding effusions; and as the thought crossed the
brain of Mrs. Barnaby that she had hoped to make her fortune by these
same idle papers, she felt for the very first time in her life, that
perhaps, after all, she had not managed her affairs quite so cleverly as
she might have done. It was a disagreeable idea; but even as she
conceived it her spirit rose to counteract any salutary effect such a
notion might produce; and with a toss of the head that indicated
defiance to her own common sense, she opened her desk with a jerk, and
began editing an epistle to Mr. Magnus Morrison.
But this epistle, though it reached the lawyer in a reasonably short
time after it was written, was not the first he received that day, ...
for the Cheltenham post had brought him the following:
"DEAR BROTHER,
"Don't blame me if the gay widow I introduced to you the week
before last, should prove to be a _flam_, as my dear father
used to call it.... I am sorry to say there are great
suspicions of it going about here. She left us telling
everybody that she should be back in two days; and it is now
more than ten since she started, and no soul has heard a word
about her since. This looks odd, and bad enough, you will
think; but it is not the worst part of the story, I'm sorry to
say, _paw de too_, as you shall hear. When she first came to
Cheltenham she took very good rooms ... a separate
drawing-room, which always looks well ... and dress, and all
that, quite corresponding, but no servants nor carriage, nor
anything of the high-flying kind.... Now observe, Magnus, what
follows, and then I think that you will come to a right notion
of what sort of person you have got to deal with. No sooner did
Mrs. Barnaby get acquainted with Lord Mucklebury then she set
off living at the rate of some thousands a-year; and the worst
is, as far as I am concerned, that she coaxed me to go round
bespeaking and ordering everything for her. I know you will
tell me, Magnus, that my father's daughter ought to have known
better, and so I ought; but, upon my word, she took me in so
completely that I never felt a single moment's doubt about the
truth of all she said.... And I believe, too, that the superior
sort of elegant look of that beautiful Miss Willoughby went for
something with me. Having told you all this, it won't be
necessary, I fancy, to say much more in respect to putting you
on your guard.... Of course, you will take care to do nothing
in the way of standing bail, or anything of that sort ... _paw
see bate_, you will say. All Cheltenham is talking about it;
and I was told at breakfast this morning that Simmons, who
furnished the carriage, horses, and servants, is gone to London
to look after her; and that Wright the mercer, and several
others, talk of doing the same. _Too sell aw man we_; but it
can't be helped.... So many people, too, come to me for
information, just as if I knew any more about her than anybody
else at the boarding table.... That queer Lady Elizabeth Norris
sent for me yesterday, begging I would call upon her; and when
I got there I found it was for nothing in the world but to ask
me questions about this Mrs. Barnaby. And there was that
noble-looking Colonel Hubert, who sat and listened to every
word I uttered just as if he had been as curious an old woman
as his aunt: _maize eel foe dear_, Magnus, that men are
sometimes quite as curious as women.... However, they neither
of them got much worth hearing out of me; and yet I almost
thought at one time that the high and mighty Colonel was
writing down what I said, for he had got his gold pencil-case
in his hand; and though it was on the page of a book that he
seemed to be scribbling, I saw plain enough by his eye that he
was listening to me. You know, brother, I am pretty sharp, and
I have got a few presents out of this fly-away lady, let what
will come of it. But I could not help thinking, Magnus,--and if
it was in a printed book it would be called a _fine
observation_,--I could not help thinking how such a vulgar
feeling as curiosity spoils the elegance of the manners. Lady
Elizabeth, who has often told me that I speak the most
exquisite French she ever heard, and who always before
yesterday seemed delighted to have the opportunity of
conversing with me in this very genteel language, never said
one word in it all the time I stayed; and once when, as usual,
I spoke a few words, she looked as cross as a bear, and said,
'Be so good as to speak English just now, Miss Morrison.' Very
impertinent, I thought, _may set eh gal_. Don't think the worse
of me for this unfortunate blunder.... Let me hear how you are
going on, and believe me
"Your affectionate sister,
"SARAH MORRISON."
Mr. Magnus Morrison had by no means recovered the blow given him by this
most unpleasing news, when a note from Mrs. Barnaby to the following
effect was put into his hands.
"MY DEAR SIR,
"A most ridiculous, but also disagreeable circumstance, has
happened to me this morning. A paltry little tradesman of
Cheltenham, to whom I owe a few pounds, has taken fright
because I did not return to my apartments there at the moment
he expected me ... the cause of which delay you must be aware
has been the great pleasure I have received from seeing London
so agreeably.... However, he has had the incredible insolence
to follow me with a writ, and I must beg you to come to me with
as little delay as possible, as your bail, I understand, will
prevent my submitting to the indignity of being lodged in a
prison during the interval necessary for my broker (who acts as
my banker) to take the proper measures for supplying me with
the trifling sum I want. In the hope of immediately seeing you,
"I remain, dear Sir,
"Most truly yours,
"MARTHA BARNABY."
Mr. Magnus Morrison was not "so quick," as it is called, as his sister
Sarah, and in the present emergency felt totally unable to fabricate an
epistle, or even to invent a plausible excuse for an absence, which he
nevertheless finally determined should be eternal. He was ill-inspired
when he took this resolution, for had he attended the lady's summons, he
might, with little trouble, have made a more profitable client of her
yet than often fell to his lot. But he was terror-struck at the word
BAIL; and forgetting all the beef-steaks, cheesecakes, porter, and black
wine that he had swallowed at the widow's cost, he very cavalierly sent
word by the sheriff's officer, who had brought her note, that he was
very sorry, but that it was totally out of his power to come.
On receiving this message, delivered, too, with the commentary of a
broad grin, even Mrs. Barnaby turned a little pale; but she speedily
recovered herself on recollecting how very easy and rapid an operation
the selling out stock was; so, once more raising her dauntless eye, she
said, with an assumption of dignity but little mitigated by this
rebuff,... "I presume you will let me wait in my own apartments till I
can send to my broker?"
"Why, 'tis possible, ma'am, you see, that it may be totally out of his
power too, like this t'other gentleman ... and we can't be kept waiting
all day.... You'll have a trifle to pay already for the obligingness we
have shewn, and so you must be pleased to get ready without more ado."
"You don't mean to take me to prison, fellow, for this trumpery debt!"
"'Tis where ladies always do go when they keep carriages without paying
for them, unless indeed they have got husbands as can go for them; and
as that don't seem to be your case, ma'am, we must really trouble you to
make haste."
"Gracious Heaven!... It is incredible!..." cried the widow, now really
in an agony. "Why, fellow, I tell you I have thousands in the funds that
I can sell out at an hour's warning!"
"So much the better, ma'am--so much the better for us all, as, in that
case, we shall be sure to get our own at last; and if the thing can be
settled so easily, it is quite beneath such a clever lady as you to make
a fuss about lodging at the king's charge for a night or so.... Pray,
miss, can you help the gentlewoman to put up a night-cap, and such like
little comforts, ... not forgetting a small provision of ready money, if
I might advise, for that's what makes the difference between a bad
lodging and a good one where we are going.... Dick ... run out and call
a coach, will you?"
All further remonstrance proved useless; and Mrs. Barnaby, alternately
scolding and entreating, was forced at last to submit to the degradation
of being watched by a bailiff's officer as she went to her chamber to
prepare herself for this terrible change of residence. The most bitter
moment of all, perhaps, was that in which she was told that she must go
alone, for that they had no orders to permit the attendance of any one.
It was only then that she felt, in some degree, the value of the gentle
observant kindness which had marked every word and look of Agnes from
the moment when--her first feeling of faintness over--she assiduously
drew near her, put needle-work into her hands, set herself to the same
employment, and, with equal ingenuity and sweet temper, contrived to
make the long interval during which they had to endure the presence of
two of the men, while the third was dispatched to Mr. Morrison,
infinitely more tolerable than could have been hoped for. But on this
point the officials were as peremptory as in the commands they
reiterated that she should get ready, promising, however, that
application should be made for leave to let the young lady be with her,
if she liked it.
"You may save yourselves the trouble, brutes as you are," cried Mrs.
Barnaby, as, with something very like a sob, she returned the kiss of
Agnes. "I'll defy you to keep me in your vile clutches beyond this time
to-morrow.... Take care that this letter is put into the post directly,
Agnes; but I will give it to the maid myself.... It will reach my broker
by four or five o'clock, I should think; and I'll answer for his not
neglecting the business; but it may, however, be near dinner-time before
I get back--so don't be frightened, my dear, if it is; and here is the
key of the money-drawer, you know, if you want to pay anything."
"Better divide the money drawer with the young lady, at any rate," said
one of the men, laughing.
"That you may pick my pockets, perhaps?" replied the vexed prisoner.
"Have you enough money with you, aunt?" whispered Agnes in her ear.
"Plenty, my dear; and more than I'll spend upon them, depend upon it,"
she replied aloud.... This drew on a fresh and not very gentle
declaration that they must be gone directly; and the unlucky Mrs.
Barnaby, preceded by one and followed by two attendants, descended the
stairs, and mounted the hackney-coach.
It was then that Agnes for the first time began to understand and feel
the nature of her own situation. Alone, utterly alone in lodgings in the
midst of London, totally ignorant of the real state of her aunt's
affairs, and, unhappily, so accustomed to hear her utter the most
decided falsehoods upon all subjects, that nothing she had said on this
gave her any confidence in the certainty either of her speedy return, or
of her being immediately able to settle all claims upon her. What, then,
was it her duty to do? During the first few moments of meditation on her
desolate condition, she thought that the danger of being taken abroad
could not have been greater than that which had now fallen upon her, and
consequently that Lady Elizabeth would be ready to extend to her the
temporary shelter she had told her to claim, in case of what then
appeared the worst necessity. But a very little calmer reflection made
her shrink from this; and the fact that Colonel Hubert was now with her,
which, under other circumstances, would have made such an abode, if
enjoyed only for a day or two, the dearest boon that Providence could
grant her, now caused her to decide, with a swelling heart, that she
would not accept it.
The nature and degree of the disgrace which her aunt had now brought
upon her was so much worse than all that either her vanity or her
coquetry had hitherto achieved, that she felt herself incalculably more
beneath him than ever, and felt during these dreadful moments that she
would rather have begged her bread back to Empton, than have met the
doubtful welcome of his eye upon seeing her under such circumstances.
This thought of Empton recalled the idea of the person whose liberal
kindness had for years bestowed on her this only home that she had ever
loved. Was it possible, that if made acquainted with her present
deplorable situation, she could refuse to extend some sort of protection
to one whose claim upon her she had formerly acknowledged so freely, and
who had never forfeited it by any act of her own?... "I will write to
her!" said Agnes, suddenly rousing herself, as it occurred to her that
she was now called upon to act for herself. "God knows," thought she,
"what my unfortunate and most unwise aunt Barnaby may have written or
said to provoke her; but now, at least, without either rebellion or
deceit, I may myself address her."
This idea generated a hope that seemed to give her new life, and with a
rapid pen she wrote as follows:
"I can hardly dare to expect that a letter from one whom you
have declared you never would see again should be very
favourably received; and yet, my dear aunt Betsy (permit me
once more to call you so), how can I believe that the same
person who took such generous pity on my miserable ignorance
six years ago would, without any fault on my part, permit me
to fail in my hope of turning the education she bestowed into a
means of honourable existence, and that solely from the want of
her protection? Alas! aunt Compton, I am most miserably in want
of protection now. My aunt Barnaby, of whose pecuniary affairs
I, in truth, know nothing, was this morning arrested and taken
away to prison for debt. Her style of expense has been very
greatly increased during the last few weeks, and I have reason
to believe that she entertained a hope of being married to a
nobleman, with whom she made acquaintance at Cheltenham, but
who left it, about a fortnight ago, without taking any leave of
her. I am not much in her confidence; but she has so repeatedly
mentioned before me her determination to be revenged on this
Lord Mucklebury, as well as her certainty of recovering damages
from him, that I have no doubt her coming to London was with a
view to bringing an action for breach of promise of marriage.
What confirms this is, that the only person we have seen is a
lawyer; and the same spirit of conjecture, which has made me
guess what I have told you, leads me to suspect also, that this
lawyer has persuaded her to give the project up; for not only
do I hear no more of it, but she has seemed for the last week
to be devoted wholly to seeing the sights of London in company
with this lawyer. I have not accompanied them, not being very
well, nor very happy in a mode of life so much less tranquil
than what I have been used to at Empton.
"I tell you all these particulars, aunt Compton, that you may
know exactly what my situation is. I am, at this moment, alone
in a London lodging; my aunt Barnaby in prison; and with no
little danger, as far as I am able to judge, that when she has
settled this claim for her carriage and horses, many others may
come upon her.
"My petition to you, therefore, is, that you would have the
_great, great_ goodness to permit my travelling back into
Devonshire to put myself under your protection; not idly to
become a burden to you, but that I might be so happy as to feel
myself in a place of respectability and safety till such time
as my kind friend, Mrs. Wilmot, may hear of some situation as
governess, or teacher at a school, such as she might think me
fit for. I have very diligently kept up my reading and writing
in French and Italian, with the hope of one day teaching both.
They tell me, too, that I have a good voice for singing, as my
poor mother had ... perhaps I might be able to teach that.
"I shall remain here (unless removed by my aunt Barnaby, of
which I would give you notice) till such time as the Silverton
post can bring me an answer. Have pity upon me, dear aunt
Betsy!... Indeed I want it as much now as when you found I
could not read a line of English in your pretty bower at
Compton Basett.
"How often I have thought of your flowers and your bees, aunt
Betsy, and wished I could be there to wait upon them and upon
you!
"Your dutiful and grateful niece,
"AGNES WILLOUGHBY."
"5, Half-Moon Street, Piccadilly, London."
Having finished this letter, Agnes completed one she had before been
writing to Lady Stephenson, and then took her solitary way to a
letter-box, of which she had learned the situation, at no great
distance. She heard her important dispatch to Compton Basett drop into
the box, with a conviction that her fate wholly depended on the manner
in which it was received; and having walked back as slowly as possible,
that she might benefit by the mild western breeze that blew upon her
feverish cheek, she remounted the dark stairs to the solitary
drawing-room, totally incapable of enjoying that solitude, though it had
so often appeared to her the one thing needful for happiness.
Happy was it for her that she had turned her thoughts to her aunt
Compton; for, uncertain as was the result of her application, there was
enough of hope attached to it to save her from that feeling of utter
desolation that must at this moment have been her portion without it.
The more she thought of receiving aid from the pity of Colonel Hubert's
family, the less could she feel comfort from the idea. When it had been
offered as a protection against the notice which they had imagined her
likely to excite, it was soothing to all her feelings; but, required or
accorded as mere ordinary charity, it was intolerable. A melancholy
attempt at dining occupied a few minutes, and then hour after hour
passed over her, slowly and sadly, till the light faded. But she had not
energy for employment; not one of all her best-loved volumes could have
fixed her attention for a moment. She called for no candles, but lying
on the sofa, her aching head pillowed by her arm, she suffered herself
to dwell on all the circumstances of her situation, which weighed most
heavily upon her heart; and assuredly the one which brought the greatest
pang with it was the recollection of having won the affection of Colonel
Hubert's family, just at the moment when disgrace so terrible had fallen
on her own, as to make her rather dread than wish to see him again.