The Widow Barnaby Volume Iii Part 2

The expedition, however, fatiguing and disagreeable as it proved, was achieved without any very disastrous results. Mrs. Barnaby, indeed, was twice very nearly knocked down by a cab, while staring too eagerly about her when crossing the streets; and friendly as was the old black c.r.a.pe veil of poor Agnes, it could not wholly save her from some tolerably obvious efforts to find out whether the face it sheltered was worthy the graceful symmetry of the person who wore it; ... but they nevertheless reached their Half-moon Street without any positive injury to life or limb.

At eight o'clock in the evening, while Mrs. Barnaby and her weary companion were taking tea, the drawing-room door opened, and Mr. Magnus Morrison was announced, and most cordially welcomed by the widow, who not only saw in him the lawyer from whom she hoped to learn how to replenish her waning finances, but also the brother of her dear Miss Morrison, and the only acquaintance she could hope at this trying moment to find or make in London.

But now, as heretofore, the presence of Agnes was inconvenient, which she took care to signify by saying to the lawyer, "I am greatly indebted to you, Mr. Morrison, for your early attention to my note; and I shall be very glad to talk with you on the business that brings me to London ... but not quite yet ... we really must be quite by ourselves, for it will be necessary that I should have your whole attention. Will you, in the mean time, permit me to offer you tea?"

Before Mr. Morrison could reply Agnes was on her feet, and asking her aunt in a whisper if she would give her leave to go to bed. "Yes, if you like it, my darling!..." replied Mrs. Barnaby, whose tenderness for her niece was always awakened by the presence of strangers. "I am sure you look tired to death.... But bring down first, my dear, my writing-desk; and remember, my love, to take care that I have warm water when I come up; ... and don't forget, Agnes, to put my bonnet and shawl, and all that, nicely away ... and see that I have paper for curling my hair ready on the dressing-table; ... and don't go to bed till you have put out my lilac silk for to-morrow; and just put a st.i.tch in the blonde of my bonnet-cap, for I pulled it almost off."

All this was said by the widow in a coaxing sort of half whisper, with an arm round her victim's waist, and a smile of the most fascinating kindness on her own lips.

The desk was brought, and the consulting parties left alone; while Agnes, as she performed the different tasks imposed on her, and which her great fatigue rendered heavy, could not for an instant banish from her mind the question that had incessantly haunted her from the hour she left the drawing-room of Lady Elizabeth.... "Will she go abroad?...

Shall I be obliged to return to Cheltenham without her?... Shall I be obliged to go to the house where he is living?"

Mr. Magnus Morrison was by no means an ill-looking man, and though a bachelor of thirty-five, had as little of quizzical peculiarity about him as a careful attorney of that age, unpolished by a wife, can be expected to have. Mrs. Barnaby, though a little his senior, was still, as we know, a lady _a pretention_, and never permitted any gentleman to approach her without making an experiment upon him with her fine eyes.

Their success in the present instance was neither so violent as in the case of Major Allen, nor so instantaneous as in that of the false-hearted peer; nevertheless enough was achieved to throw an agreeable sort of extraneous interest into the business before them, and the widow disdained not as it proceeded to decorate her narrative and herself with such graces as none but a Mrs. Barnaby can display.

Having given her own version, and with such flourishes as her nature loved, of Lord Mucklebury's violent pa.s.sion for her, she asked her attentive and somewhat captivated auditor what species of testimony was required to prove a promise of marriage in such a manner as to secure large damages, "for without being quite certain of obtaining such, you must be aware, my dear sir, that a woman of my station, connexions, and fortune, could not think of appearing in court."

"a.s.suredly not," replied Mr. Magnus Morrison fervently. "Such a measure is never to be resorted to unless the evidence is of a nature that no cross-examination can set aside. My sister tells me, madam, that you have letters...."

"Yes, Mr. Morrison, I have many ... though I am sorry to say that many more have been destroyed. (This was a figure of poetry, and of a kind that the widow often adopted to give strength to the narrative portion of her conversation.)

"That is greatly to be regretted, Mrs. Barnaby ... though we must hope that among those which remain sufficient proof of this very atrocious case will be found to answer the purposes of justice. Was there any principle of selection in the manner in which some were preserved and others destroyed?"

"I can hardly say," replied the lady, "that it was done on any principle, unless the feeling can be so called which leads a woman of delicacy to blush and shrink from preserving the effusions of a pa.s.sion so vehement as that expressed in some of the letters of Lord Mucklebury."

"They were, then, the most ardent declarations of his attachment that you destroyed, Mrs. Barnaby?"

"Most certainly," said the widow, throwing her eyes upon the carpet.

"It is unfortunate, very unfortunate," observed the lawyer, "though it shews a delicacy of mind that it is impossible not to admire. Will you give me leave, madam, to peruse such of the letters as you have preserved?"

"Undoubtedly," replied Mrs. Barnaby, unlocking her writing-desk, "and though I know not how to regret the existence of such feelings, Mr.

Morrison, I will not deny that, for the sake of honour and justice, I am sorry now that what I have to shew you is so much the least explicit part of the correspondence."

She then drew forth the packet which contained (be it spoken in confidence) every syllable ever addressed to her by the laughter-loving Viscount; and greatly as Mr. Magnus Morrison began to feel interested in the case, and much as he would have liked to bring so charming a client into court, he very soon perceived that there was nothing in these highly-scented, but diminutive _feuilles volantes_, at all likely to produce any effect on a jury approaching to that elicited by the evidence of the learned and celebrated Sergeant Buzfuz on an occasion somewhat similar. He continued to read them all, however, and they were numerous, with the most earnest attention and unwearied industry, permitting little or no emotion of any kind to appear on his countenance as he proceeded, and determined to utter no word approaching to an opinion till he had carefully perused them all. Important as Mrs.

Barnaby flattered herself these little letters might eventually prove, and interesting as her lawyer found every word of them, the whole collection might perhaps be considered as somewhat wearisome, full of repet.i.tion, and even trifling, by the general reader, for which reason a few only shall be selected as specimens, taken at hazard, and without any attention either to their dates or the particular events which led to them.

No. 1.

"PRIMA DONNA DEL MUNDO![1]

"Walk you to-day?... At three be it ... at which hour my station will be the library.

"M."

[Footnote 1: Lord Mucklebury had been a.s.sured, on the authority of Mrs.

Barnaby herself, that her favourite language was the Italian.]

No. 2.

"BELLISSIMA!

"Should I appear to-day (you may guess where) with a friend on my arm, let it not change the sweet demeanour of my charming widow. He is an excellent fellow, but one whom I always treat as if he were not in existence;--for in truth, being almost as dreadfully in love as myself, he neither sees nor hears.

"M."

No. 3.

"BELLA DONNA!

"It is three days since I have received a line from the fairest lady in Cheltenham! Write me a whole page, I beseech you, ...

and let it be such a one as shall console me under the necessity of dining and pa.s.sing the whole evening with half a dozen he-fellows, when the champagne will but ill atone for the sparkling eyes whose light I shall lose by being among them.

But if I have one of your exquisite billets in my waistcoat-pocket, I shall bear the loss better.

"M."

No. 4.

"VEDOVA MARAVIGLIOSA!

"Should I find the Barnaby disengaged in her saloon, were my audacious feet to bear me across its threshold this evening?

"M."

Such, and such like, were the ma.n.u.scripts submitted by Mrs. Barnaby to the inspection of her lawyer. When he had carefully and deliberately gone through the whole collection, he tied them all up again with a bit of rose-coloured ribbon, as he had found them, and pushing them back to her across the table, said with something like a sigh,--

"It is greatly to be lamented, madam, that some of these little notes had not been consigned to the flames instead of the letters you have described to me, ... for my judgment decidedly is, that although every one of these doc.u.ments tends to prove the admiration of their author for the lady to whom they are addressed, there is not one of them which can be said to contain a positive promise of marriage, or even, I fear, any implied intention of making a proposal ... so that I am afraid we should not get a verdict against my Lord Mucklebury on the strength of any evidence contained therein; nevertheless, if you have witnesses to prove that such proposal and such promise have been actually made to you by his lordship, I think these letters might help us to make out a very pretty case, and one which, if it did not eventually bring you a large sum of money, would at least be exceedingly vexatious to his lordship--a circ.u.mstance which might in some degree tend to soothe the naturally outraged feelings of so charming a lady, so villanously treated."

Mr. Morrison said this with his eyes fixed steadily on the widow's face, intending to ascertain what chance there might be of her wishing to spend a few hundred pounds for the pleasure of plaguing her perfidious deluder; but he could make out nothing from this scrutiny. Nevertheless, the mind of Mrs. Barnaby was busily at work; so many schemes, however, were battling together in her brain, that the not being able to discover which preponderated, shewed no want of skill in the lawyer.

First, she had a very strong inclination for a personal interview with Lord Mucklebury, in order to see how a little pa.s.sionate grief might affect him. Secondly, she greatly desired to profit by the present occasion for seeing some of those London sights which country ladies and gentlemen so love to talk about. Thirdly, she very ardently wished to avoid the necessity of paying the debts which his lordship's base delusions had induced her to contract at Cheltenham. Fourthly, and lastly, the project of a journey to Rome was beginning to take a very decided shape in her fancy; but amidst all this there remained not the smallest wish or intention of trying to revenge her wrongs by the a.s.sistance of the law.... She was beginning to be too well aware of the melting nature of money in the funds, to wish that the villanous Viscount should lead her to expend another shilling upon him.

After the silence of a few minutes, Mrs. Barnaby raised her eyes from the ground, and fixing them with a soft, gentle, resigned smile upon Mr.

Morrison, said,--

"I thank you gratefully, Mr. Morrison, for your frank opinion, given too in so gentleman-like a manner as to make me feel that I am indeed rather in the hands of a friend than a lawyer; ... and in return I will use the same frankness with you. I have loved Lord Mucklebury most sincerely!... loved him with all the pure disinterested ardour of my character; but the same warm heart, Mr. Morrison, which thus surrenders itself without suspicion or restraint, is precisely of the nature most prompt to reject and forget a being proved to be unworthy of it....

Therefore I may now truly say, that this poor bosom (pressing her two hands upon it) suffers more from the void within it, than from tender regret; and I am greatly inclined, since I cannot benefit by your able services as a lawyer, to urge my friendship with your dear sister as a claim upon your kindness as a gentleman. Will you a.s.sist to cure the painful void I speak of by giving me your help in my endeavours to see all that is best worth looking at in London?... I am sure it would do me good; not to mention that it might give pleasure to the dear child whom you saw with me when you entered. She is quite my idol, and I should delight in procuring her an amus.e.m.e.nt which I know she would so particularly enjoy."

Mr. Morrison, who was a shrewd, quick-sighted man, thought there was considerable food for speculation in this speech, and, had leisure served him, he might have reasoned upon it in a spirit not much unlike that of Benedict.... "Will you a.s.sist to cure the painful void?...

which is as much as to say..." and so on.... He waited not, however, to give this all the attention it merited, but remembering clearly his sister's statement respecting the widow's fortune, replied with most obliging readiness,--

"There is nothing, my dear madam, that I would not joyfully do to prove my wish of serving a lady so highly esteemed by my sister; and one also, permit me to add, so deserving the admiration of all the world," replied the gallant attorney.