The Widow Barnaby Volume Iii Part 8

"Ring the bell then, love, and let my servant take your packages down."

Agnes obeyed ... her trunk ... aunt Betsy's original trunk, and the dear Empton book-box, were lodged on the driving-seat and the d.i.c.key of the carriage; and William was just mounting the stairs to say that all was ready, when another carriage was heard to stop, and another knocking resounded against the open street-door.

"Oh! it is aunt Barnaby!" cried Agnes in a voice of terror.

"Is it?" replied Miss Compton, in the lively tone of former days. "I shall be exceedingly glad to see her."

"Can you be in earnest, aunt Betsy?" said Agnes, looking very pale.

"Perfectly in earnest, my dear child," answered the old lady. "It will be greatly more satisfactory that she should be an eye-witness of your departure with me, than that you should go without giving her notice....

Perhaps she would say you had eloped and robbed the premises."

"Hush!..." cried Agnes ... "she is here!"

Mrs. Barnaby's voice, at least, was already with them. It was, indeed, the return of this lady which they had heard; and no sooner had she dismissed her hackney-coachman than she began questioning the servant of the house, who was stationed at the open door, expecting Miss Compton and her niece to come down.

"What carriage is that?... Whose servant is that upon the stairs?...

You have not been letting the lodgings, I hope?" were the first words of the widow.

"Oh! dear no, ma'am!" replied the maid; "everything is just as you left it."

"Then who is that carriage waiting for?"

"For a lady, ma'am, who is come to call on your young lady."

"MY young lady!... unnatural hussy!... And what fine friends has she found out here, I wonder, to visit her?... Be they who they will, they shall hear my opinion of her." And with these words, Mrs. Barnaby mounted the last stair, and entered the room.

The two unsnuffed tallow candles which stood on the table did not enable her at the first glance to recognize her aunt, who was wrapped in a long silk cloak, much unlike any garment she had ever seen her wear; but the sable figure of Agnes immediately caught her eye, and she stepped towards her with her arm extended, very much as if about to box her ears. But it seemed that the action was only intended to intimate that she was instantly to depart, for, with raised voice and rapid utterance, she said, "How comes it, girl, that I find you still here?...

Begone!... Never will I pa.s.s another night under the same roof with one who could so basely desert a benefactress in distress!... And who may this be that you have got to come and make merry with you, while I ...

and for your expenses too.... Whoever it is, they had better shew no kindness to you, ... or they will be sure to repent of it."

Mrs. Barnaby then turned suddenly round to reconnoitre the unknown visiter. "Do you not know me, Mrs. Barnaby?" said Miss Compton demurely.

"My aunt Betsy!... Good G.o.d! ma'am, what brought you here?"

"I came to take this troublesome girl off your hands, Mrs. Barnaby: is not that kind of me?"

"That's the plan, is it?" retorted the widow bitterly. "Now I understand it all. Instead of coming to comfort me in my misery, she was employing herself in coaxing another aunt to make a sacrifice of herself to her convenience. Take her; and when you are sick and sorry, she will turn her back upon you, as she has done upon me!"

"Oh! do not speak so cruelly, aunt Barnaby!" cried Agnes, greatly shocked at having her conduct thus described to one whose love she so ardently wished to gain.... "Tell my aunt Compton what it was you asked of me, and let her judge between us."

"Shut the door, Agnes!..." said Miss Compton sternly; and then, re-seating herself, she addressed Mrs. Barnaby with an air of much anxiety and interest: "Niece Martha, I must indeed beg of you to tell me in what manner this young girl has conducted herself since she has been with you, for, I can a.s.sure you, much depends upon the opinion I shall now form of her. I have no longer any reason to conceal from you that my circ.u.mstances are considerably more affluent than anybody but myself and my man of business is aware of.... Nearly forty years of strict economy, niece Martha, have enabled me to realize a very respectable little fortune. It was I, and not my tenant, who purchased your poor father's moiety of Compton Basett; and as I have scarcely ever touched the rents, a little study of the theory of interest and compound interest will prevent your being surprised, when I tell you that my present income is fifteen hundred per annum, clear of all outgoings whatever."

"Is it possible!" exclaimed Mrs. Barnaby, with an accent and a look of reverence, which very nearly destroyed the gravity of her old aunt.

"Yes, Mrs. Barnaby," she resumed, "such is my income. With less than this, a gentlewoman of a good old family, desirous of bringing forward a niece into the world in such a manner as to do her credit, could not venture to take her place in society; and I have therefore waited till my increasing revenues should amount to this sum before I declared my intentions, and proclaimed my heiress. Such being the case, you will not be surprised that I should be anxious to ascertain which of my two nieces best deserves my favour. I do not mean to charge myself with both.... Let that be clearly understood.... The doing so would entirely defeat my object, which is to leave one representative of the Compton Basett family with a fortune sufficient to restore its former respectability."

"And everybody must admire such an intention," replied Mrs. Barnaby, in an accent of inexpressible gentleness; "and I, for one, most truly hope, that whoever you decide to leave it to, may deserve such generosity, and have a grateful heart to requite it with."

"That is just what I should wish to find," returned the spinster; "and before you came in, I had quite made up my mind that Agnes Willoughby should be the person; but I confess, Mrs. Barnaby, that what you have said alarms me, and I shall be very much obliged if you will immediately let me know what Agnes has done to merit the accusation of having _deserted her benefactress_?"

"It is but too easy to answer that, aunt Compton," replied the widow, "and I am sorry to speak against my own sister's child; ... but truth is truth, and since you command me to tell you what I meant when I said she had deserted me, I will.... I have been arrested, aunt Compton, and that for no reason on the earth but because I was tempted to stay three or four days longer in London than I intended. Of course, I meant to go back to that paltry place, Cheltenham, and pay every farthing I owed there, the proof of which is that I _have_ paid every farthing, though it would have served them right to have kept them a year out of their money, instead of a month; ... but that's neither here nor there ...

though there was no danger of my staying in prison, I WAS there for three days, and Agnes could not tell but I might have been there for ever; ... yet, when I wrote her a most affectionate letter, begging her only to call upon me in my miserable solitude, she answered my pet.i.tion, which might have moved a heart of stone, with a flat refusal.... Ask her if she can deny this?"

"What say you, Agnes?... Is this so?" said the old lady, turning to the party accused.

"Aunt Betsy!..." said Agnes, and then stopped, as if unwilling, for some reason or other, to say more.

"YES or NO?" demanded Mrs. Barnaby, vehemently. "Did you refuse to come to me, or not?"

"I did," replied Agnes.

"I hope you are satisfied, aunt Compton?" cried the widow triumphantly.... "By her own confession, you perceive that I have told you nothing but the truth."

Agnes said nothing in reply to this, but loosening the strings of a silk bag which hung upon her arm, she took from it a small packet, and placed it in the hands of Miss Compton. "What have we got here?" said the spinster sharply.... "What do you give me this for, child?"

"I wish you to read what is there, if you please, aunt," said Agnes.

Miss Compton laid it on the table before her, while she sought for her spectacles and adjusted them on her nose; but, while doing this, she kept her eyes keenly fixed upon the little packet, and not without reason, for, had she turned from it for a single instant, Mrs. Barnaby, who shrewdly suspected its contents, would infallibly have taken possession of it.

"My coachman and horses will get tired of all this, I think," said Miss Compton; "however, as you say, niece Martha, truth is truth, and must be sought after, even if it lies at the bottom of a well.... This is a letter, and directed to you, Miss Agnes; ... and this is the back of another, with some young-lady-like scrawling upon it.... Which am I to read first, pray?"

"The letter, aunt Betsy," replied Agnes.

"So be it," said the spinster with an air of great indifference; and drawing one of the candles towards her, and carefully snuffing it, she began clearly and deliberately reading aloud the letter already given, in which Mrs. Barnaby desired the presence of Agnes, and gave her instructions for her finding her way to the Fleet Prison. Having finished this, she replaced it quietly in its cover without saying a word, or even raising her eyes towards either of her companions; and taking the other paper, containing Agnes's reasons for non-compliance, read that through likewise, exactly in the same distinct tone, and replaced it with an equal absence of all commentary, in the cover. She then rose, and walking close up to her elder niece, who proffered not a word, looking in her face with a smile that must have been infinitely more provoking than the most violent indignation, said, "Niece Martha!... the last time I saw you, if I remember rightly, you offered me some of your old clothes; but now you offer me none, which I consider as the more unkind, because, if you dressed as smart as you are now while in prison, you must most certainly wear very fine things when you are free.... And so, as you are no longer the kind niece you used to be, I don't think I shall come to see you any more. As for this young lady here, it appears to me that you have not been severe enough with her, Mrs. Barnaby.... I'll see if I can't teach her to behave better.... In prison or out of prison ... if I bid her come, we shall see if she dare look about her for such plausible reasons for refusing as she has given you. If she does, I'll certainly send her back to you, Mrs. Barnaby.

Ring the bell, naughty Agnes!"

The maid seemed to have been very near the door, for it instantly opened. "Tell my servants that I am coming," said the whimsical spinster, enacting the fine lady with excellent effect; and making a low, slow, and most ceremonious courtesy to the irritated, but perfectly overpowered Mrs. Barnaby, she made a sign to Agnes to precede her to the carriage, and left the room.

CHAPTER VII.

AGNES ELOPES WITH HER AUNT BETSY.

"Is it possible!" cried Agnes, the moment that the door of the carriage was closed upon them, "is it possible that I am really under your protection, and going to your home, aunt Betsy?"

"To my temporary home, dear child, you are certainly going," said the old lady, taking her hand; "but I hope soon to have one more comfortable for you, my Agnes!"

"Where I shall find the bower and the bees? Is it not so, aunt?"

"Not exactly ... at least not at present.... But tell me, Agnes, don't you think I was very gentle and civil to Mrs. Barnaby?"

"It was certainly very wise not to reproach her, poor woman, more directly.... But, oh! dearest aunt Betsy, how well you know her!... If you had studied for a twelvemonth to find out how you might best have tormented her, you could have discovered no method so effectual as the making her first believe that you had a great fortune, and then that her own conduct had robbed her of your favour. Poor aunt Barnaby!... I cannot help pitying her!"

"You are tender-hearted, my dear, ... and a flatterer too.... You give me credit, I a.s.sure you, for a vast deal more cleverness than I possess: excepting on the subject of the old clothes which she offered me when we met in the cottage of dame Sims, I attempted no jestings with her....

But tell me, Agnes, have you not suffered dreadfully from the tyranny and vulgar ignorance of this detestable woman? Has she not almost broken your young heart?"