Tales and Novels Volume I Part 32

"Moi je sais!--I do know de demoiselle did stop in a coach at one house; I was in de street--I can show you de house."

"Can you so, my good little fellow? then let us begone directly," said Lady Frances.

"You'll excuse me, sister," said Lady Di.

"Excuse you!--_I_ will, but _the world_ will not. You'll be abused, sister, shockingly abused."

This a.s.sertion made more impression upon Lady Di. Chillingworth than could have been made either by argument or entreaty.

"One really does not know how to act--people take so much notice of every thing that is said and done by persons of a certain rank: if you think that I shall be so much abused--I absolutely do not know what to say."

"But I thought," interposed Miss Burrage, "that Lady Frances was going to take you to the play to-night, Miss Hope?"

"Oh, never heed the play--never heed the play, or Clara Hope--never heed taking me to the play: Lady Frances is going to do a better thing.--Come on, my bonny boy," said she to the little French boy, who was following them.

We must now return to our heroine, whom we left on her way to Mrs.

Bertrand's. Mrs. Bertrand kept a large confectionary and fruit shop in Bristol.

"Please to walk through this way, ma'am--Miss Hodges is above stairs--she shall be apprized directly--Jenny! run up stairs," said Mrs. Bertrand to her maid--"run up stairs, and tell Miss Hodges here's a young lady wants to see her in a great hurry--You'd best sit down, ma'am," continued Mrs. Bertrand to Angelina, "till the girl has been up with the message."

"Oh, my Araminta! how my heart beats!" exclaimed Miss Warwick.

"How my mouth waters!" cried Betty Williams, looking round at the fruit and confectionaries.

"Would you, ma'am, be pleased," said Mrs. Bertrand, "to take a gla.s.s of ice this warm evening? cream-ice, or water-ice, ma'am? pine-apple or strawberry ice?" As she spoke, Mrs. Bertrand held a salver, covered with ices, toward Miss Warwick: but, apparently, she thought that it was not consistent with the delicacy of friends.h.i.+p to think of eating or drinking when she was thus upon the eve of her first interview with her Araminta. Betty Williams, who was of a different _nature_ from our heroine, saw the salver recede with excessive surprise and regret; she stretched out her hand after it, and seized a gla.s.s of raspberry-ice; but no sooner had she tasted it than she made a frightful face, and let the gla.s.s fall, exclaiming--

"Pless us! 'tis not as good as cooseherry fool."

Mrs. Bertrand next offered her a cheesecake, which Betty ate voraciously.

"She's actually a female Sancho Panza!" thought Angelina: her own more striking resemblance to the female Quixote never occurred to our heroine--so blind are we to our own failings.

"Who is the young lady?" whispered the mistress of the fruit shop to Betty Williams, whilst Miss Warwick was walking--we should say _pacing_--up and down the room, in _anxious solicitude, and evident agitation_.

"Hur's a young lady," replied Betty, stopping to take a mouthful of cheesecake between every member of her sentence, "a young lady--that has--lost hur--"

"Her heart--so I thought."

"Hur purse!" said Betty, with an accent, which showed that she thought this the more serious loss of the two.

"Her purse!--that's bad indeed:--you pay for your own cheesecake and raspberry-ice, and for the gla.s.s that you broke," said Mrs. Bertrand.

"Put hur has a great deal of money in hur trunk, I pelieve, at Llanwaetur," said Betty.

"Surely Miss Hodges does not know I am here," cried Miss Warwick--"her Angelina!"

"Ma'am, she'll be down immediately, I do suppose," said Mrs. Bertrand.

"What was it you pleased called for--angelica, ma'am, did you say? At present we are quite out, I'm ashamed to say, of angelica, ma'am--Well, child," continued Mrs. Bertrand to her maid, who was at this moment seen pa.s.sing by the back door of the shop in great haste.

"Ma'am--anan," said the maid, turning back her cap from off her ear.

"Anan! deaf doll! didn't you hear me tell you to tell Miss Hodges a lady wanted to speak to her in a great hurry?"

"No, mam," replied the girl, who spoke in the broad Somersets.h.i.+re dialect: "I heard you zay, _up to Miss Hodges_; zoo I thought it was the bottle o'brandy, and zoo I took alung with the tea-kettle--but I'll go up again now, and zay miss bes in a hurry, az she zays."

"Brandy!" repeated Miss Warwick, on whom the word seemed to make a great impression.

"Pranty, ay, pranty," repeated Betty Williams--"our Miss Hodges always takes pranty in her teas at Llanwaetur."

"Brandy!--then she can't be my Araminta."

"Oh, the very same, and no other; you are quite right, ma'am," said Mrs. Bertrand, "if you mean the same that is publis.h.i.+ng the novel, ma'am,--'The Sorrows of Araminta'--for the reason I know so much about it is, that I take in the subscriptions, and distributed the _pur_posals."

Angelina had scarcely time to believe or disbelieve what she heard, before the maid returned, with "Mam, Mizz Hodges haz hur best love to you, mizz--and please to walk up--There be two steps; please to have a care, or you'll break your neck."

Before we introduce Angelina to her "unknown friend," we must relate the conversation which was actually pa.s.sing between the amiable Araminta and her Orlando, whilst Miss Warwick was waiting in the fruit shop. Our readers will be so good as to picture to themselves a woman, with a face and figure which seemed to have been intended for a man, with a voice and gesture capable of setting even man, "imperial man," at defiance--such was Araminta. She was, at this time, sitting cross-legged in an arm-chair at a tea-table, on which, beside the tea equipage, was a medley of things of which no prudent tongue or pen would undertake to give a correct inventory. At the feet of this fair lady, kneeling on one knee, was a thin, subdued, simple-looking quaker, of the name of Nathaniel Gazabo.

"But now, Natty," said Miss Hodges, in a voice more masculine than her looks, "you understand the conditions--If I give you my hand, and make you my husband, it is upon condition that you never contradict any of my opinions: do you promise me that?"

"Yea, verily," replied Nat.

"And you promise to leave me entirely at liberty to act, as well as to think, in all things as my own independent understanding shall suggest?"

"Yea, verily," was the man's response.

"And you will be guided by me in all things?"

"Yea, verily."

"And you will love and admire me all your life, as much as you do now?"

"Yea, verily."

"Swear," said the unconscionable woman.

"Nay, verily," replied the meekest of men, "I cannot swear, my Rachel, being a quaker; but I will affirm."

"Swear, swear," cried the lady, in an imperious tone, "or I will never be your Araminta."

"I swear," said Nat Gazabo, in a timid voice.

"Then, Natty, I consent to be Mrs. Hodges Gazabo. Only remember always to call me your dear Araminta."

"My dear Araminta! thus," said he, embracing her, "thus let me thank thee, my dear Araminta!"

It was in the midst of these thanks that the maid interrupted the well-matched pair, with the news that a young lady was below, who was in a great hurry to see Miss Hodges.

"Let her come," said Miss Hodges; "I suppose it is only one of the Miss Carvers--Don't stir, Nat; it will vex her to see you kneeling to me--don't stir, I say--"