Tales and Novels Volume I Part 34

"Gracious me!" exclaimed Nat, "whatever you are, you need not push one so."

"What now, Betty Williams? is the wench mad or drunk?" cried Miss Hodges.

"We are to have a mad scene next, I suppose," said Miss Warwick, calmly--"I am prepared for every thing, after what I have seen."

Betty Williams continued crying bitterly, and wringing her hands--"Oh, shave me this once, miss! 'tis the first thing of the kind I ever tid, inteet, inteet! Oh, shave me this once--I tid not know it was worth so much as a shilling, and that I could be hanged, inteet--and I--"

Here Betty was interrupted by the entrance of Mrs. Puffit, the milliner, the printer's devil, and a stern-looking man, to whom Mrs. Puffit, as she came in, said, pointing to Betty Williams and Miss Warwick, "There they are--do your duty, Mr. Constable: I'll swear to my lace."

"And I'll swear to my black thumbs," said the printer's devil.

"I saw the lace hanging out of her pocket, and there's the marks of my fingers upon it, Mr. Constable."

"Fellow!" cried Miss Hodges, taking the constable by the arm, "this is my apartment, into which no minion of the law has a right to enter; for, in England, every man's house is his castle."

"I know that as well as you do, _madam!_" said the constable; "but I make it a principle to do nothing without a warrant: here's my warrant."

"Oh, shave me! the lace is hers inteet!" cried Betty Williams, pointing to Miss Warwick. "Oh, miss is my mistress inteet--"

"Come, mistress or miss, then, you'll be pleased to come along with me," said the constable, seizing hold of Angelina--"like mistress, like maid."

"Villain! unfeeling villain! oh, unhand my Angelina, or I shall die! I shall die!" exclaimed Araminta, falling into the arms of Nat Gazabo, who immediately held the replenished gla.s.s of brandy to her lips--"Oh, my Angelina, my Angelina!"

Struck with horror at her situation, Miss Warwick shrunk from the grasp of the constable, and leaned motionless on the back of a chair.

"Come, my angel, as they call you, I think--the lady there has brandy enough, if you want spirits--all the fits and faintings in Christendom won't serve you now. I'm used to the tricks o' the trade.--The law must take its course; and if you can't walk, I must carry you."

"Touch me at your peril! I am innocent," said Angelina.

"Innocent--innocence itself! pure, spotless, injured innocence!"

cried Miss Hodges. "I shall die! I shall die! I shall die on the spot!

barbarous, barbarous villain!"

Whilst Miss Hodges spoke, the ready Nat poured out a fresh gla.s.s of that restorative, which he always had ready for cases of life and death; and she screamed and sipped, and sipped and screamed, as the constable took up Angelina in his arms, and carried her towards the door.

"Mrs. Innocence," said the man, "you shall see whom you shall see."

Mrs. Puffit opened the door; and, to the utter astonishment of every body present, Lady Diana Chillingworth entered the room, followed by Lady Frances Somerset and Mrs. Bertrand. The constable set down Angelina. Miss Hodges set down the gla.s.s of brandy. Mrs. Puffit curtsied. Betty Williams stretched out her arms to Lady Diana, crying, "Shave me! shave me this once!" Miss Warwick hid her face with her hands.

"Only my Valenciennes lace, that has been found in that girl's pocket, and--" said Mrs. Puffit.

Lady Diana Chillingworth turned away with indescribable haughtiness, and, addressing herself to her sister, said, "Lady Frances Somerset, you would not, I presume, have Lady Diana Chillingworth lend her countenance to such a scene as this--I hope, sister, that you are satisfied now." As she said these words, her ladyship walked out of the room.

"Never was further from being satisfied in my life," said Lady Frances.

"If you look at this, my lady," said the constable, holding out the lace, "you'll soon be satisfied as to what sort of a young lady _that_ is."

"Oh, you mistake the young lady," said Mrs. Bertrand, and she whispered to the constable. "Come away: you may be sure you'll be satisfied--we shall all be satisfied, handsomely, all in good time. Don't let the _delinquency_ there on her knees," added she aloud, pointing to Betty Williams--"don't let the _delinquency_ there on her knees escape."

"Come along, mistress," said the constable, pulling up Betty Williams from her knees. "But I say the law must have its course, if I am not satisfied."

"Oh, I am confident," said Mrs. Puffit, the milliner, "we shall all be satisfied, no doubt; but Lady Di. Chillingworth knows my Valenciennes lace, and Miss Burrage too, for they did me this morning the honour--"

"Will you do me the favour," interrupted Lady Frances Somerset, "to leave us, good Mrs. Puffit, for the present? Here is some mistake--the less noise we make about it the better. You shall be satisfied."

"Oh, your ladyship--I'm sure, I'm confident--I shan't utter another syllable--nor never would have articulated a syllable about the lace (though Valenciennes, and worth thirty guineas, if it is worth a farthing), had I had the least intimacy or suspicion the young lady was your la'ship's protegee. I shan't, at any rate, utter another syllable."

Mrs. Puffit, having glibly run off this speech, left the room, and carried in her train the constable and Betty Williams, the printer's devil, and Mrs. Bertrand, the woman of the house.

Miss Warwick, whose confusion during this whole scene was excessive, stood without power to speak or move.

"Thank G.o.d, they are gone!" said Lady Frances; and she went to Angelina, and taking her hands gently from before her face, said, in a soothing tone, "Miss Warwick, your friend, Lady Frances Somerset, you cannot think that she suspects--"

"La, dear, no!" cried Nat Gazabo, who had now sufficiently recovered from his fright and amazement to be able to speak: "Dear heart! who could go for to suspect such a thing? but they made such a bustle and noise, they quite flabbergasted me, so _many_ on them in this small room. Please to sit down, my lady.--Is there any thing I can do?"

"If you could have the goodness, sir, to leave us for a few minutes,"

said Lady Frances, in a polite, persuasive manner--"you could have the goodness, sir, to leave us for a few minutes."

Nat, who was not _always_ spoken to by so gentle a voice, smiled, bowed, and was retiring, when Miss Hodges came forward with an air of defiance: "Aristocratic insolence!" exclaimed she: "Stop, Nat--stir not a foot, at your peril, at the word of command of any of the privileged orders upon earth--stir not a foot, at your peril, at the behest of any t.i.tled _She_ in the universe!--Madam, or my lady--or by whatever other name more high, more low, you choose to be addressed--this is my husband."

"Very probably, madam," said Lady Frances, with an easy calmness, which provoked Miss Hodges to a louder tone of indignation.

"Stir not a foot, at your peril, Nat," cried she. "I will defend him, I say, madam, against every shadow, every penumbra of aristocratic insolence."

"As you and he think proper, madam," replied Lady Frances. "'Tis easy to defend the gentleman against shadows."

Miss Hodges marched up and down the room with her arms folded. Nat stood stock still.

"The woman," whispered Lady Frances to Miss Warwick, "is either mad or drunk--or both; at all events we shall be better in another room." As she spoke, she drew Miss Warwick's arm within hers.--"Will you allow aristocratic insolence to pa.s.s by you, sir?" said she to Nat Gazabo, who stood like a statue in the doorway--he edged himself aside.

"And is this your independence of soul, my Angelina?" cried Araminta, setting her back to the door, so as effectually to prevent her from pa.s.sing--"and is this your independence of soul, my Angelina--thus, thus tamely to submit, to resign yourself again to your unfeeling, proud, prejudiced, intellect-lacking persecutors?"

"This lady is my _friend_, madam," said Angelina, in as firm and tranquil a tone as she could command, for she was quite terrified by her Araminta's violence.

"Take your choice, my dear; stay or follow me, as you think best," said Lady Frances.

"Your friend!" pursued the oratorical lady, detaining Miss Warwick with a heavy hand: "Do you feel the force of the word? _Can_ you feel it, as I once thought you could? Your friend! am not _I_ your friend, your best friend, my Angelina? your own Araminta, your amiable Araminta, your _unknown friend?_"

"My _unknown_ friend, indeed!" said Angelina. Miss Hodges let go her struggling hand, and Miss Warwick that instant followed Lady Frances, who, having effected her retreat, had by this time gained the staircase.

"Gone!" cried Miss Hodges; "then never will I see or speak to her more.

Thus I whistle her off, and let her down the wind to prey at fortune."

"Gracious heart! what quarrels," said Nat, "and doings, the night before our wedding-day!"

We leave this well-matched pair to their happy prospects of conjugal union and equality.

Lady Frances, who perceived that Miss Warwick was scarcely able to support herself, led her to a sofa, which she luckily saw through the half-open door of a drawing-room, at the head of the staircase.