The Widow Barnaby Volume I Part 6

Wherever she went she was greeted with a smile; and instead of being obliged to stand in every shop, waiting till some one happened to be at leisure to ask her what she wanted to buy, her feathers and her frills were no sooner discovered to be approaching the counter, than as many right arms as were in presence thrust forward a seat towards her, while the well-pleased master himself invariably started forth to receive her commands.

Any bride might have found matter for rejoicing in such a change, but few could have felt it so keenly as Mrs. Barnaby. She was by nature both proud and ambitious, and her personal vanity, though sufficiently strong within her to form rather a conspicuous feature in her character, was, in truth, only a sort of petted imp, that acted as an agent to a.s.sist in forwarding the hopes and wishes which her pride and ambition formed.

This pride and ambition, however, were very essentially different from the qualities known by these names among minds of a loftier nature. The ambition, for instance, instead of being "that last infirmity of n.o.ble mind" for which Milton seems to plead so feelingly, was, in truth, the first vice of a very mean one. Mrs. Barnaby burned with ambition to find herself in a situation that might authorize her giving herself the airs of a great lady; and her pride would have found all the gratification it sought, could she have been sure that her house and her dress would be daily cited among her acquaintance as more costly than their own.

Mrs. Barnaby had moreover _un esprit intriguant_ in the most comprehensive sense of the phrase, for she would far rather have obtained any object she aimed at by means of her own manoeuvring, than by any simple concurrence of circ.u.mstances whatever; and this was perhaps the reason why, at the first moment the proposals of Mr.

Barnaby, whom she had (comparatively speaking) used no tricks to captivate, produced a less pleasurable effect upon her mind, than a similar overture from any one of the innumerable military men whom she had so strenuously laboured to win, would have done. However, she was for this very reason happier than many other brides, for, in fact, she became daily more sensible of the substantial advantages she had obtained; and, on the whole, daily better pleased with her complaisant husband.

As her temper, though quietly and steadily selfish, was neither sour nor violent, this state of connubial happiness might have continued long, had not some untoward accidents occurred to disturb it.

The first of these was the sudden and dangerous illness of Mrs. Compton, which was of a nature to render it perfectly impossible for Mr. and Mrs.

Barnaby to continue their delightful little parties at home and abroad.

The dying lady ceased not to implore her daughter not to leave her, in accents so piteous, that Mr. Barnaby himself, notwithstanding his tender care for his lady's health, was the first to declare that she must remain with her. This heavy burden, however, did not inconvenience her long, for the seizure terminated in the death of the old lady about a week after its commencement.

But even this, though acknowledged to be "certainly a blessing, and a happy release," could not restore the bride to the triumphant state of existence the illness of her mother had interrupted; for, in the first place, her deep mourning was by no means becoming to her, and she was perfectly aware of it; and her white satin, and her silver fringe, would be sure to turn yellow before she could wear them again. Besides, what was worse than all, a young attorney of Silverton married the daughter of a neighbouring clergyman, who, of course, was immediately installed in all a bride's honours, to the inexpressible mortification of Mrs.

Barnaby.

The annoyance which followed these vexations was, however, far more serious: the resources of poor Mr. Compton were completely exhausted; he had drawn out his last hundred from the funds, and actually remained possessed of no property whatever, except the nearly expired lease, and the worn-out furniture of the house in which he lived.

Mrs. Barnaby listened to the feeble old man's statement of his desperate position with dismay; she knew just enough of his affairs to be aware that it was very likely to be true, though with mistaken tenderness her mother had always refrained from representing their embarra.s.sments to her daughter, as being of the hopeless extent which they really were.

What, then, was to be done? The choice lay between two measures only, both deeply wounding to her pride. In the one case she must leave the old man to be arrested in his bed for the price of the food which for a few months longer perhaps he might still get on credit ... in the other she must undergo the humiliation of informing her husband that all the gay external appearances she and her mother had so laboriously presented to the public eye, were in reality but so much cheatery and delusion; and that, if he would not take compa.s.sion on her father's dest.i.tute condition, the poor old man must either die in the county prison or the parish workhouse.

The alternative offered more of doubt than of choice, and it might have been long ere she decided, had she not cleverly recollected that, if she decided upon leaving him to get on as he could for a few weeks longer, she must at last submit to her husband's knowing the real state of the case; she therefore resolutely determined that he should know it at once.

The time she chose to make the disclosure was the hour when men are generally supposed to be in the most amiable frame of mind possible, namely, when hunger, but not appet.i.te, has been satisfied, and digestion not fully begun; that is to say, Mr. Barnaby was enjoying his walnuts and his wine.

"My dear Barnaby!..." she began, "I have some very disagreeable intelligence to communicate to you, which has reached me only to-day, and which has distressed me more than I can express."

"Good heaven!... What can you mean, my dear love?... For G.o.d's sake do not weep, my beautiful Martha, but tell me what it is, and trust to me for consolation."

"And that indeed I must do, dearest Barnaby!... for who else have I now to look to?... My poor father ... I had no idea of it till this morning ... my poor father is...."

"Dying, perhaps, my poor love!... Alas! Martha dearest, I have long known that his case was perfectly hopeless, and I had hoped that you had been aware of this also; but really, my love, his state of health is such as ought in a great degree to reconcile you to his loss.... I am sure he must suffer a great deal at times."

Mrs. Barnaby's first impulse was to reply that what she had to tell was a great deal worse than that; but this would have been the truth, and a sort of habitual, or it might indeed be called natural cautiousness, led her always to pause before she uttered anything that she had no motive for saying, excepting merely that it was true; and she generally found, upon reconsideration, that there was hardly anything which might not, according to her tactics, be improved by a _leetle_ dressing up. So, in reply to this affectionate remonstrance from her husband, Mrs. Barnaby answered with a sob:--

"No, my dear Barnaby!... I have no reason to doubt but that Providence will spare my sole remaining parent for some short time longer, if only to prove to him that his happy daughter has the will as well as the means to supply to him the exemplary wife he has lost! But, alas! dear Barnaby, who in this world can we expect to find perfect? My poor dear mother, in her great anxiety to spare his age and weakness the suffering such intelligence must occasion, most unwisely concealed from him and from me the failure of the merchant in whose hands he had deposited the sum for which he sold his patrimonial estate.... His object in selling it was to increase his income, princ.i.p.ally indeed for my poor mother's sake, and now the entire sum is lost to us for ever!"

"G.o.d bless me!... This is a sad stroke indeed, my dear! What is the name of this merchant?... I hope, at least, that we may get some dividend out of him."

"I really do not know his name, but I know that it is a New York merchant, and so I fear there is little or no chance of our ever recovering a penny."

"Why, really, in that case, I will not flatter you with much hope on the subject. And what has the poor old gentleman got to live upon, my dear Martha?"

"Nothing, Barnaby!... absolutely nothing: and unless your tender affection should induce you to permit his spending the little remnant of his days under our roof, I fear a prison will soon enclose him!"

A violent burst of weeping appeared to follow this avowal; and Mr.

Barnaby, who was really a very kind-hearted man, hastened to console her by declaring that he was heartily glad he had a home to offer him.... "So, dry up your tears, my dear girl, and let me see you look gay and happy again," said he; "and depend upon it, we shall be able to make papa very comfortable here."

The disagreeable business was over, and therefore Mrs. Barnaby did look gay and happy again. Moreover, she gave her husband a kiss, and said in a very consolatory accent, "The poor old man need not be in our way much, my dear Barnaby; ... I have been thinking that the little room behind the laundry may be made very comfortable for him without any expense at all; I shall only just have to...."

"No, no, Martha," interrupted the worthy Galen, "there is no need of packing the poor gentleman into that dismal little place.... Let him have the room over the dining-room; the south is always the best aspect for the old; and, besides, there is a closet that will serve to keep his pipes and tobacco, and his phials and his pill-boxes, out of sight."

"You are most ex-_cess_-ively kind, my dear Barnaby," replied his lady; "but did not you tell me that you meant to offer the Thompsons a bed when the bachelors' ball is given?... And I am sure you would not like to put _them_ anywhere but in the south room."

"I did say so, my dear, and I am sure I meant it at the time; but a bed for the ball-night is of so little consequence to them, and a warm, comfortable room, for your father is so important, that, do you know, it would seem to me quite silly to bring the two into comparison."

"Well!... I am sure I can't thank you enough, and I will go the first thing to-morrow to tell my father of your kindness."

"I must pa.s.s by his house to-night, my dear, in my way to the Kellys', and I will just step in and tell him how we have settled it."

It was impossible even for Mrs. Barnaby to find at the moment any plausible reason for objecting to this good-natured proposal; but, in truth, it was far from agreeable to her. Her poor father was quite ignorant of the elegant turn she had given to the disagreeable fact of his having spent his last shilling, and she was by no means desirous that her kind-hearted husband should enter upon any discussion of his "_misfortunes_" with him. But a moment's reflection sufficed to bring her ready wit into play again; and then she said, in addition to the applause she had already uttered,--"By the by, my dear Barnaby, I am not quite sure that I can let you enjoy this pleasure without my sharing it with you. I know it will make my dear father so _very_ happy!"

"Well, then, Martha, put on your bonnet and cloak, and come along; ...

it will be better you should go too, or I might linger with him too long to explain matters, and I really have no time to lose."

The kindness thus manifested by the worthy Barnaby was not evanescent; it led him to see that the money produced by the sale of the little remnant of poor Mr. Compton's property, was immediately disposed of in the payment of such trifling debts as, despite his long waning credit, he had been able to contract; and for the two years and eight months that he continued struggling with advancing age and increasing disease, his attention to him was unremitting.

During the whole of that time Miss Betsy Compton never saw him. All hope, and indeed all urgent want of a.s.sistance from her well-guarded purse having ended, Mrs. Barnaby's anger and hatred towards the spinster, flourished unchecked by any motives of interest; and Miss Betsy was not a person to present herself uninvited at the house of a rich apothecary, who had the privilege of calling her aunt. She had indeed from time to time taken care to inform herself of the condition of her brother, and finding that he wanted for nothing, but was, on the contrary, very carefully nursed and attended, she settled the matter very easily with her conscience; and with the exception of the pension, and other little expenses of Agnes, her income, yearly increasing, continued to roll up for no other purpose, as it should seem, than merely to afford her the satisfaction of knowing that she was about ten times as rich as anybody (excepting, perhaps, farmer Wright,) believed her to be.

When, however, the last hours of the old man were approaching, he told Mr. Barnaby that he should like to see both his sister and his grandchild; and ten minutes had not pa.s.sed after he said so, before an express was galloping towards Compton Basett with a civil gentleman-like letter from the apothecary to Miss Betsy, informing her of the condition of her brother, and expressing the hospitable wish that she and the little Agnes would be pleased to make his house their home as long as the poor gentleman remained alive.

Miss Betsy had some strong prejudices, but she had strong discernment too; and few old maids whose personal knowledge of the world had been as contracted as hers, would have so instantly comprehended the good sense and the good feeling of the author of this short note as she did. Her answer was brief, but not so brief as to prevent the friendly feeling with which she wrote it from being perceptible; and ere they met, this stranger aunt, and nephew, were exceedingly well-disposed to be civil to each other.

Miss Betsy's arrangements were soon made. She wrote to the person to whose care she had intrusted Agnes, desiring her immediately to send her under proper protection to Silverton, and having done this, she set off in farmer Wright's chaise-cart to pay her first visit to her married niece, and her last to her dying brother.

CHAPTER VII.

THE ELEGANCE OF MRS. BARNABY DISPLAYED.--ITS EFFECT ON HER AUNT BETSY.--INTERVIEW BETWEEN THE BROTHER AND SISTER.

Agnes Willoughby had never been in Silverton from the day that her aunt Betsy first took her from her grandfather's house. Had Mrs. Compton lived, she would probably have battled for the performance of Miss Betsy's promise, that the little girl should sometimes visit them; but though it is probable Mrs. Barnaby might occasionally have thought of her niece with some degree of interest and curiosity, the feeling was not strong enough to induce her to open a correspondence with Miss Betsy; still it was certainly not without something like pleasure that she found she was again to see her.

Miss Betsy arrived late in the evening of the day on which the summons reached her; and, being shewn into Mrs. Barnaby's smart drawing-room, was received with much stateliness by that lady, who derived considerable consolation, under the disagreeable necessity of welcoming a person she detested, from the opportunity it afforded her of displaying the enormous increase of wealth and importance that had fallen upon her since they last met.

Poor Miss Betsy really felt sad at the thoughts of the errand upon which she was come; nevertheless she could not, without some difficulty, suppress her inclination to smile at the full-blown dignity of Mrs.

Barnaby. Fond as this lady was of parading her grandeur on all occasions, she had never, even among the dear friends whom she most especially desired to inspire with envy, felt so strong an inclination to shew off her magnificence as on the present. The covers were removed from the chairs and sofas; the eclipse produced by the dim grey drugget, when stretched across the radiance of the many-coloured carpet, was over; five golden-leaved annuals, the glory of her library, were spread at well-graduated distances upon her round table; her work-box, bright in its rose-coloured lining, her smart embossed letter-case, her chimney ornaments, her picture frames, her foot-stools, all were uncovered, all were studiously shown forth to meet the careless eye of Miss Betsy; while the proud owner of all these very fine things, notwithstanding the gloomy state of her mansion, was herself a walking museum of lace and trinkets.... Nor were her manners less superb than her habiliments.

"I am sorry, Miss Compton," she said.... "I may call you Miss Compton now, as my marriage put an end to the possibility of any confusion.... I am sorry that your first introduction to my humble abode should have been made under circ.u.mstances so melancholy. Dismal as of necessity everything must look now, I can a.s.sure you that this unpretending little room is the scene of much domestic comfort."

This was unblushingly said, though the cold, stiff-looking apartment was never entered but upon solemn occasions, when the whole house was turned inside out for the reception of company. Miss Betsy, or rather Miss Compton, (as, in compliance with Mrs. Barnaby's hint, we will in future call her,) looked round upon the spotless carpet, and upon all the comfortless precision of the apartment, and replied,--

"If this is your common living room, niece Martha, you are certainly much improved in neatness; and seeing it so prim, it is quite needless to ask if you have any children."