Tales and Novels Volume I Part 27

"A scream!" cried Angelina; "Oh, my Araminta!--All is hushed again."--Then raising her voice, she called as loudly as she could at the window--"My Araminta! my unknown friend! be not alarmed, 'tis your Angelina."

The door opened slowly and softly, and a slip-shod beldam peeped out, leaning upon a stick; the head of Betty Williams appeared over the shoulder of this sibyl; Angelina was standing, in a pensive att.i.tude, listening at the cottage window. At this instant the postilion, who was tired of waiting, came whistling up the lane; he carried a trunk on his back, and a bag in his hand. As soon as the old woman saw him, she held up her stick, exclaiming--

"A man! a man!--a ropper and murterer!--Cot suve us! and keep the door fast polted."--They shut the door instantly.

"What is all this?" said Angelina, with dignified composure.

"A couple of fools, I take it, miss, who are afraid and in tred of roppers," said the postilion; "put I'll make 'em come out, I'll be pound, plockheads."--So saying, he went to the door of Angelina Bower, and thundered and kicked at it, speaking all the time very volubly in Welsh. In about a quarter of an hour he made them comprehend that Angelina was a young lady come to visit their mistress: then they came forth curtsying.

"My name's Betty Williams," said the girl, who was tying a clean cap under her chin. "Welcome to Llanwaetur, miss!--pe pleased to excuse our keeping hur waiting, and polting the toor, and taking hur for a ghost and a ropper--put we know who you are now--the young lady from London, that we have been told to expect."

"Oh, then, I have been expected; all's right--and my Araminta, where is she? where is she?"

"Welcome to Llanwaetur, welcome to Llanwaetur, and Cot pless hur pretty face," said the old woman, who followed Betty Williams out of the cottage.

"Hur's my grandmother, miss," said Betty.

"Very likely--but let me see my Araminta," cried Angelina: "cruel woman!

where is she, I say?"

"Cot pless hur!--Cot pless hur pretty face," repeated the old woman, curtsying.

"My grandmother's as deaf as a post, miss--don't mind her; she can't tell Inglis well, put I can:--who would you pe pleased to have?"

"In plain English, then--the lady who lives in this cottage."

"Our Miss Hodges?"

This odious name of Hodges provoked Angelina, who was so used to call her friend Araminta, that she had almost forgotten her real name.

"Oh, miss," continued Betty Williams, "Miss Hodges has gone to Pristol for a few days."

"Gone! how unlucky! my Araminta gone!"

"Put Miss Hodges will pe pack on Tuesday--Miss Hodges did not expect hur till Thursday--put her ped is very well aired--pe pleased to walk in, and light hur a candle, and get hur a nightcap."

"Heigho! must I sleep again without seeing my Araminta!--Well, but I shall sleep in a cottage for the first time in my life--

"'The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed.'"

At this moment, Angelina, forgetting to stoop, hit herself a violent blow as she was entering Angelina Bower--the roof of which, indeed, "was too low for so lofty a head."--A headache came on, which kept her awake the greatest part of the night. In the morning she set about to explore the cottage; it was nothing like the species of elegant retirement, of which she had drawn such a charming picture in her imagination. It consisted of three small bedchambers, which were more like what she had been used to call closets; a parlour, the walls of which were, in many places, stained with damp; and a kitchen which smoked. The scanty, moth-eaten furniture of the rooms was very different from the luxury and elegance to which Angelina had been accustomed in the apartments of Lady Diana Chillingworth. Coa.r.s.e and ill-dressed was the food which Betty Williams with great bustle and awkwardness served up to her guest; but Angelina was no epicure. The first dinner which she ate on wooden trenchers delighted her; the second, third, fourth, and fifth, appeared less and less delectable; so that by the time she had boarded one week at her cottage, she was completely convinced that

"A scrip with herbs and fruit supplied, And water from the spring,"

though delightful to Goldsmith's Hermit, are not quite so satisfactory in actual practice as in poetic theory; at least to a young lady who had been habituated to all the luxuries of fas.h.i.+onable life. It was in vain that our heroine repeated

"Man wants but little here below:"

She found that even the want of double refined sugar, of green tea, and Mocha coffee, was sensibly felt. Hour after hour, and day after day, pa.s.sed with Angelina, in anxious expectation of her Araminta's return home. Her time hung heavy upon her hands, for she had no companion with whom she could converse; and one odd volume of Rousseau's Eloise, and a few well-thumbed German plays, were the only books which she could find in the house. There was, according to Betty Williams's report, "a vast sight of books in a press, along with some table-cloths," but Miss Hodges had the key of this press in her pocket. Deprived of the pleasures both of reading and conversation, Angelina endeavoured to amuse herself by contemplating the beauties of nature. There were some wild, solitary walks in the neighbourhood of Angelina Bower; but though our heroine was delighted with these, she wanted, in her rambles, some kindred soul, to whom she might exclaim--"How charming is solitude[1]!"--The day after her arrival in Wales, she wrote a long letter to Araminta, which Betty Williams undertook to send by a careful lad, a particular friend of her own, who would deliver it, without fail, into Miss Hodges's own hands, and who would engage to bring an answer by three o'clock the next day. The careful lad did not return till four days afterward, and he then could give no account of his mission, except that he had left the letter at Bristol, with a particular friend of his own, who would deliver it, without fail, into Miss Hodges's own hands, if he could meet with her. The post seems to be the last expedient which a heroine ever thinks of for the conveyance of her letters; so that, if we were to judge from the annals of romance, we should infallibly conclude there was no such thing as a post-office in England. On the sixth day of her abode at this comfortless cottage, the possibility of sending a letter to her friend by the post occurred to Angelina, and she actually discovered that there was a post-office at Cardiffe. Before she could receive an answer to this epistle, a circ.u.mstance happened, which made her determine to abandon her present retreat. One evening she rambled out to a considerable distance from the cottage, and it was long after sunset ere she recollected that it would be necessary to return homewards before it grew dark. She mistook her way at last, and following a sheep-path, down the steep side of a mountain, she came to a point, at which she, apparently, could neither advance nor recede. A stout Welsh farmer who was counting his sheep in a field, at the top of the mountain, happened to look down its steep side in search of one of his flock that was missing: the farmer saw something white at a distance below him, but there was a mist--it was dusk in the evening--and whether it were a woman, or a sheep, he could not he certain. In the hope that Angelina was his lost sheep, he went to her a.s.sistance, and though, upon a nearer view, he was disappointed, in finding that she was a woman, yet he had the humanity to hold out his stick to her, and he helped her up by it, with some difficulty. One of her slippers fell off as she scrambled up the hill--there was no recovering it; her other slipper, which was of the thinnest kid leather, was cut through by the stones; her silk stockings were soon stained with the blood of her tender feet; and it was with real grat.i.tude that she accepted the farmer's offer, to let her pa.s.s the night at his farmhouse, which was within view. Angelina Bower was, according to his computation, about four miles distant, as well, he said, as he could judge of the place she meant by her description: she had unluckily forgotten that the common name of it was Llanwaetur. At the farmer's house, she was, at first, hospitably received, by a tight-looking woman; but she had not been many minutes seated, before she found herself the object of much curiosity and suspicion. In one corner of the room, at a small round table, with a jug of ale before him, sat a man, who looked like the picture of a Welsh squire: a candle had just been lighted for his wors.h.i.+p, for he was a magistrate, and a great man, in those parts, for he could read the newspaper, and his company was, therefore, always welcome to the farmer, who loved to hear the news, and the reader was paid for his trouble with good ale, which he loved even better than literature.

[Footnote 1: Voltaire.]

"What news, Mr. Evans?" said the farmer.

"What news?" repeated Mr. Evans, looking up from his paper, with a sarcastic smile. "Why, news that might not be altogether so agreeable to the whole of this good company; so 'tis best to keep it to ourselves."

"Every thing's agreeable to me, I'm sure," said the farmer--"every thing's agreeable to me in the way of news."

"And to me, not excepting politics, which you gentlemen always think so polite," said the farmer's wife, "to keep to yourselves; but, you recollect, I was used to politics when I lived with my uncle at Cardiffe; not having, though a farmer's wife, always lived in the country, as you see, ma'am--nor being quite illiterate.--Well, Mr.

Evans, let us have it. What news of the fleets?"

Mr. Evans made no reply, but pointed out a pa.s.sage in the newspaper to the farmer, who leant over his shoulder, in vain endeavouring to spell and put it together: his smart wife, whose curiosity was at least equal to her husband's, ran immediately to peep at the wonderful paragraph, and she read aloud the beginning of an advertis.e.m.e.nt:--

"Suspected to have strayed, or eloped, from her friends or relations, a young lady, seemingly not more than sixteen years of age, dressed in white, with a straw hat: blue eyes, light hair."

Angelina coloured so deeply whilst this was reading, and the description so exactly suited with her appearance, that the farmer's wife stopped short; the farmer fixed his eyes upon her; and Mr. Evans cleared his throat several times with much significance.--A general silence ensued; at last the three heads nodded to one another across the round table; the farmer whistled and walked out of the room; his wife fidgeted at a buffet, in which she began to arrange some cups and saucers; and, after a few minutes, she followed her husband. Angelina took up the newspaper, to read the remainder of the advertis.e.m.e.nt. She could not doubt that it was meant for her, when she saw that it was dated the very day of her arrival at the inn at Cardiffe, and signed by the landlady of the inn, Mrs. Hoel. Mr. Evans swallowed the remainder of his ale, and then addressed Angelina in these words:--

"Young lady, it is plain to see you know when the cap fits: now, if you'll take my advice, you'll not make the match you have in your eye; for, though a lord's son, he is a great gambler. I dined with one that has dined with him not long ago. My son, who has a living near Bristol, knows a great deal--more about you than you'd think; and 'tis my advice to you, which I wouldn't be at the trouble of giving, if you were not as pretty as you are, to go back to your relations; for he'll never marry you, and marriage to be sure is your object. I have no more to say, but only this--I shall think it my duty, as a magistrate, to let your friends know as soon as possible where you are, coming under my cognizance as you do; for a vagabond, in the eye of the law, is a person--"

Angelina had not patience to listen to any more of this speech; she interrupted Mr. Evans with a look of indignation, a.s.sured him that he was perfectly unintelligible to her, and walked out of the room with great dignity. Her dignity made no impression upon the farmer or his wife, who now repented having offered her a night's lodging in their house: in the morning they were as eager to get rid of her as she was impatient to depart. Mr. Evans insisted upon seeing her safe home, evidently for the purpose of discovering precisely where she lived.

Angelina saw that she could no longer remain undisturbed in her retreat, and determined to set out immediately in quest of her unknown friend at Bristol.--Betty Williams, who had a strong desire to have a jaunt to Bristol, a town which she had never seen but once in her life, offered to attend Miss Warwick, a.s.suring her that she perfectly well knew the house where Miss Hodges always lodged. Her offer was accepted; and what adventures our heroine met with in Bristol, and what difficulties she encountered before she discovered her Araminta, will be seen in the next chapter.

CHAPTER III.

Angelina went by water from Cardiffe to Bristol; the water was rather rough, and, as she was unused to the motion of a vessel, she was both frightened and sick. She spent some hours very disagreeably, and without even the sense of acting like a heroine, to support her spirits. It was late in the evening before she arrived at the end of her voyage: she was landed on the quay at Bristol. No hackney-coach was to be had, and she was obliged to walk to the Bush. To find herself in the midst of a bustling, vulgar crowd, by whom she was unknown, but not unnoticed, was new to Miss Warwick. Whilst she was with Lady Diana Chillingworth, she had always been used to see crowds make way for her; she was now surprised to feel herself jostled in the streets by pa.s.sengers, who were all full of their own affairs, hurrying different ways, in pursuit of objects which probably seemed to them as important as the search for an unknown friend appeared to Angelina.

Betty Williams's friend's friend, the careful lad, who was to deliver the letter to Miss Hodges, was a waiter at the Bush. Upon inquiry, it was found that he had totally forgotten his promise: Angelina's letter was, after much search, found in a bottle-drainer, so much stained with port wine, that it was illegible. The man answered with the most provoking nonchalance, when Angelina reproached him for his carelessness--"That, indeed, no such person as Miss Hodges was to be found: that n.o.body he could meet with had ever heard the name." They who are extremely enthusiastic suffer continually from the total indifference of others to their feelings; and young people can scarcely conceive the extent of this indifference until they have seen something of the world. Seeing the world does not _always_ mean seeing a certain set of company in London.

Angelina, the morning after her arrival at the Bush, took a hackney-coach, and left the care of directing the coachman to Betty Williams, who professed to have a perfect knowledge of Bristol. Betty desired the man to drive to the drawbridge; and, at the sound of the word drawbridge, various a.s.sociations of ideas with the drawbridges of ancient times were called up in Miss Warwick's imagination. How different was the reality from her castles in the air! She was roused from her reverie by the voices of Betty Williams and the coachman.

"Where _will_ I drive ye to, I ask you?" said the coachman, who was an Irishman: "_Will_ I stand all day upon the drawbridge stopping the pa.s.sage?"

"Trive on a step, and I will get out and see apout me," said Betty: "I know the look of the house, as well as I know any thing."

Betty got out of the coach, and walked up and down the street, looking at the houses like one bewildered.

"Bad luck to you! for a Welsh woman as you are," exclaimed the coachman, jumping down from the box, "will I lave the young lady standing in the streets all day alone for you to be making a fool this way of us both?--Sorrow take me now! If I do--"

"Pless us, pe not in a pet or a pucker, or how shall I recollect any body or any thing.--Cood! Cood!--Stand you there while I just say over my alphabet: a, p, c, t, e, f, g, h, i, k, l, m, n, o, b.--It was some name which begins with _p_, and ends with a _t_, I pelieve."

"Here's a pretty direction, upon my troth; some name which begins with a _p_, and ends with a _t_," cried the coachman; and after he had uttered half a score of Hibernian execrations upon the Welsh woman's folly, he with much good nature went along with her to read the names on the street doors.--"Here's a name now that's the very thing for you--here's Pus.h.i.+t now.-Was the name Pus.h.i.+t?--Ricollict yourself, my good girl, was that your name?"

"Pus.h.i.+t!--Oh, yes, I am sure, and pelieve it was Pus.h.i.+t--Mrs. Pus.h.i.+t's house, Pristol, where our Miss Hodges lodges alway."

"Mrs. Pus.h.i.+t--but this is quite another man; I tell you this is Sir John--Faith now we are in luck," continued the coachman--"here's another p just at hand; here's Mrs. Puffit; sure she begins with a p, and ends with a t, and is a milliner into the bargain? so sure enough I'll engage the young lady lodges here.--Puffit--Hey?--Ricollict now, and don't be looking as if you'd just been pulled out of your sleep, and had never been in a Christian town before now."