The Widow Barnaby Volume Iii Part 9

"I have not been very happy with her, aunt Betsy," replied Agnes gently; ... "but she speaks only truth when she says I have lived at her cost, and this ought to close my lips against speaking more against her than may be necessary to clear my own conduct in your eyes."

Perhaps the old lady was a little disappointed at finding that she was to have no good stories concerning the absurdities of the apothecary's high-flying widow, as she called her; but, despite all the oddities of Miss Compton, there was quite enough of the innate feeling of a gentlewoman within her to make her value Agnes the more for her promised forbearance. She threw her arm round her, and pressing her to her bosom, said,--

"Let this feeling of Christian gentleness be extended to me also, Agnes, ... for I have great need of it. This Martha Wisett the second, poor soul, was the first-born of her mother, and seems to have taken as her birth-right all the qualities, bodily and mental, of her vulgar and illiterate dam.... But I have no such excuse, my child, for the obstinate prejudice with which my heart has been filled, and my judgment absolutely confounded. All you have suffered with this woman, Agnes, ought, in truth, to be laid to my charge.... I knew what she was, and yet I suffered you.... Let us try to forget it; and only remember, if you can, that I turned away from you for no other reason upon earth than because I feared you were not ... exactly what I now find you. But here we are at home. How greatly must you want the healing feeling that home should bring! Poor dear!... When have you ever felt it?"

"At Empton, aunt!" answered Agnes eagerly; and even though the carriage door was open, and the step let down, she added, "The only home I ever loved I owed to you."

Hastily as this word was said, it sunk with very healing effect into the heart of the self-reproaching old lady ... it was answered by a cordial "G.o.d bless you!" and hand in hand the very happy pair walked up the staircase together. The accomplished William had preceded them, and thrown open the door of aunt Betsy's handsome drawing-room; and no apartment could offer an aspect of more comfort. The evening had all the chilliness of September when its sun is gone; and the small bright fire, with a sofa placed cosily near it, looked cheerily. Wax-lights on the chimney and tea-table, gave light sufficient to shew a large, exceedingly well-fitted up room; and a pretty young woman, neatly dressed, came forward to offer her services in the removal of cloaks and shawls.

Agnes looked round the room, and then turned to her aunt, as if tacitly demanding an explanation of what she saw. Miss Compton smiled, and answered the appeal by saying, "Did you expect, dearest, that I should be able to bring my farm-house and my bees with me?"

"No, aunt Compton," replied Agnes, very gravely, "I did not expect that; ... but...."

"Aunt BETSY--you must always call me aunt Betsy, Agnes. That was the appellation that your dear voice uttered so joyously when I entered the dark den in which I found you, and I shall never like any other as well.... But don't be frightened because I have somewhat changed my mode of living, my dear child. I will not invite you to ramble through the streets of London, in order to visit me when I am in prison for debt. I know what my means are, Agnes--few ladies better--and I will never exceed them."

This was said very gravely, and the a.s.surance was by no means unimportant to the tranquillity of the young heiress. The scenes she had recently pa.s.sed through would have reconciled her to a farm-house, a cottage, a hut; so that the air of heaven blew untainted round it, and no livery-stable keepers, or bailiff's followers, could find entrance there. But Miss Compton's words and manner set her heart at rest on that score, though they could not remove her astonishment, the involuntary expression of which, on her beautiful face, was by no means disagreeable to the novel-read aunt Betsy. It was just as it should be ... beauty, goodness, misery, ill-usage, and all; and she felt most happily convinced that, if there were but a lover in the case, and such a one as, despite all obstacles, she could approve, she should to her dying day have the comfort of thinking that the moment which she had chosen for ceasing to acc.u.mulate, and beginning to spend, was the very best possible.

And this lover in the clouds.... Would Agnes open her heart to her on such a subject?... Had she any right to hope it?... Not yet, certainly not yet, thought Miss Compton as, the services of William over, and the tea-things removed, they drew nearer the fire; and she fixed her eyes anew on the beautiful face she so greatly loved to contemplate, partly because it was so beautiful, and partly because she could not trace in it the slightest resemblance to any member of the Wisett race.

But soft and peaceful as was now the expression of that face, there might occasionally be seen by an accurate observer that indescribable look of thoughtfulness in the eyes which never arises till the mind has been awakened, upon some subject or other, to emotions of deep interest.

Miss Compton was a very accurate observer, and saw, as plainly as Lavater himself could have done, that Agnes had learned to feel.

The romantic old lady would have given her right hand to possess her confidence, but she was determined not to ask for it.

"Do you think we shall be happy together, Agnes?" said she, in a voice which, when its cheerful tone was not exaggerated into the ironical levity in which she sometimes indulged, was singularly pleasing. "Do you think that you shall like to be my darling?"

"Yes, I do," replied Agnes, with the sudden bluntness of sincerity; "but I think I shall plague you sometimes, aunt Betsy."

"You have made up your mind to that already, have you?" returned Miss Compton, delighted at the playful tone in which she spoke; "then, in that case, I must make up my mind too, and contrive to make a pleasure of what you call a plague. How do you mean to begin, Agnes?... What will you do first?... Will you cry for the moon?"

"Will you try to get it for me if I do, aunt Betsy?" said Agnes, laughing.

"Yes, I will ... that is, if you will let me know what sort of moon it is, and to what part of the heavens I must turn to find it. Jupiter, you know, has...."

"Oh! my moon is the highest and brightest of them all!..." said Agnes, with a sigh; and, after remaining silent for a moment, she added, ...

"Aunt Betsy, may I tell you everything that has happened to me?"

"If you love me well enough to do this, my child," said the delighted old lady, while, nevertheless, a tear glistened in her clear black eye,--"if you love me well enough, I shall feel that I have not given up my bees and my flowers for nothing."

Agnes drew nearer, and, after a moment's hesitation, began.

"I believe that all young ladies' histories have something about a gentleman in them, and so has mine...."

"A _young_ gentleman, I hope, Agnes?" interrupted the aunt, with a smile.

Agnes coloured a little, but replied, "He is not so very young, aunt Betsy, as to make his youth his most remarkable quality."

"Very well, that is all quite right; he ought to be older than you, my dear.... Go on."

"When I was at Clifton, aunt Betsy, I was often in company with Colonel Hubert...."

"A colonel?... That sounds very respectable; he was the father, I suppose, of THE gentleman?"

"No, indeed," replied Agnes, with some vexation; "he is himself the only gentleman that I have anything to say about, ... and his sister says that he will be a general next month."

"Indeed!... A general?... General Hubert!... a very eligible acquaintance, I have no doubt.... I should hardly have hoped you could have had the good luck to meet with such among the friends of your aunt Barnaby."

"An eligible acquaintance!... Oh! aunt, you don't understand me at all!... But I will tell you everything. Colonel Hubert is ... I can't describe him.... I hope you will see him, aunt Betsy, and then you will not wonder, perhaps, that I should have thought him, from the very first moment I saw him, the only person in the world...."

Agnes stopped short; but Miss Compton seemed to think she had finished her phrase very properly.

"And what did he think of you, my dear?... this young colonel?"

"Colonel Hubert never said anything about it at Clifton," replied Agnes, blushing; "but yet I thought--I hoped he liked me, though I knew it did not signify whether he did or not, for he is one of a very distinguished family, ... who could never, I imagined, think seriously of any one living with ... with my aunt Barnaby. But at Cheltenham I became acquainted with his aunt, Lady Elizabeth Norris, and his sister, Lady Stephenson, and they were very, _very_ kind to me; and when I came to London with my aunt Barnaby in this wild manner, they were very anxious about me, and made me promise to write to them.... But before I thought they could know anything about her being taken to prison ... the very day indeed that she went there, in the evening, while I was sitting in that dismal room, just as you found me to-night ... Colonel Hubert.... Oh! aunt Betsy ... the sight of you did not surprise me more.... Colonel Hubert walked in."

"That was hardly right, though, Agnes, if he knew you were alone."

"He brought a letter from his aunt and sister, most kindly asking me to take shelter with them immediately; ... and I am quite sure that when he came he had no intention of speaking of anything but that.... But I believe I looked very miserable, and his generous heart could not bear it, so he told me that he loved me, and asked me to be his wife."

"It _was_ generous of him at such a dreadful moment," said the spinster, her eyes again twinkling through tears.... "And how did you answer him, my love?"

"I told him," replied Agnes, trembling and turning pale as she spoke, "I told him that I could never be his wife!"

"Why, my dear, I thought you said," ... cried the old lady, looking much disappointed, ... "I thought you said you admired him of all things, and I am sure he seems to have deserved it; but I suppose you thought he was too old for you?"

"No! no! no!" replied Agnes vehemently.... "He is young enough for me to love him, oh! so dearly!... It was because I could not hear that he should marry so beneath himself ... it was because I thought his aunt and sister would resent it...."

"Humph!... That was very generous on your part too; but I suppose he knows best.... And what did he say then, Agnes?"

"Oh! aunt Betsy!... he said exactly as you did ... he said that he was too old for me to love him; ..." and, remembering the agony of that moment, she hid her face in her hands and wept.

Miss Compton looked at her with pitying eyes; and, after a moment, said, "And so you parted, Agnes?"

"Yes!" she replied, removing her hands. "It was almost so, and yet not quite.... I could not tell him, you know, how dearly, how very dearly I loved him!... that was impossible!... but I said something about his sister and his aunt; and then ... oh! I shall never forget him!...

something like hope ... pray, do not think me vain, aunt Betsy,--but it _was_ hope that shot into his eye again, and changed the whole expression of his face; ... yet he said no more about his love, and only asked me to promise never to leave the shelter of that roof till I heard from his aunt again.... And I did promise him.... But could I keep it, aunt?... It would have been obeying him in words, and not in spirit....

And now I'm coming to my reason for telling you all this so very soon.... What shall I say to them now? How shall I write to them?"

It seemed that Miss Compton did not find this a very easy question to answer, for she took many minutes to consider of it. At length she said, ... "As to setting right the love part of the affair, you need not alarm yourself, my dear ... there will be no great difficulty in that.... If you know your own mind, and really are in love with a general, instead of an ensign, I don't see why you should be contradicted, though it is a little out of the common way.... He is a gentleman, and that is the only point upon which I could have been very strict with you.... But there is another thing, Agnes, in which you must please to let me have my own way.... Will you promise me?"

"How can there be any way but yours in what concerns me, dear aunt Betsy?"

"Bless you, my dear!... I will not be a tyrant ... at least not a very cruel tyrant; but my happiness will be injured for the rest of my life, Agnes, if the next time you see this gentleman and his family, it is not in such a manner as to make them perceive, without the necessity of their listening to an old woman's long story about it, that you are not an unworthy match for him in any way.... Let this be managed, and everything will end well.... There will be no risk of your witnessing, either in the words or looks of these n.o.ble ladies whom you call your friends, any struggle between their partiality for you and their higher hopes for him. HE will ever remember with pleasure that he waited not for this to offer you his hand and heart; and trust me YOU will never remember with sorrow that you did wait for it before you accepted him.

Do you agree with me?"

"Indeed I do!" fervently replied Agnes. "But could they see me at this moment, would not your wish be answered? Could they doubt for a moment, while seeing you, and seeing the style of all about you, that I am something more than the poor hopeless dependant of Mrs. Barnaby?"

"That is not it.... That would not do at all, child," replied the old lady, sharply. "It shall not be the poor dependant of anybody that this n.o.ble-hearted Colonel Hubert shall come to woo. Love him as much as you will, the world may say, and his family may think too, that his rank and station led you to accept him. I will save you both from this danger.

Colonel Hubert shall not try his chance with you again till you are the independent possessor of fifteen hundred pounds a-year. When I die, Agnes, if you behave well in the interim, I will bequeath my bees to you, and all the furniture of my two pretty rooms at Compton Basett, as well as all the reserved rents in the shape of allowances, coals, wood, attendance, and the like, which will be mine while I live. This, my dear, shall come to you in the way of legacy, in case I continue to be pleased with your behaviour; but there is no way for me to atone for the injury I have done to the representative of my family by suffering her to remain six months with Mrs. Barnaby, but making her at once the independent possessor of the Compton property."