Tales and Novels Volume I Part 33

"Where is she? Where is my Araminta?" cried Miss Warwick, as the maid was trying to open the outer pa.s.sage-door for her, which had a bad lock.

"Get up, get up, Natty; and get some fresh water in the tea-kettle--quick!" cried Miss Hodges, and she began to clear away some of the varieties of literature, &c., which lay scattered about the room.

Nat, in obedience to her commands, was making his exit with all possible speed, when Angelina entered, exclaiming--

"My amiable Araminta!--My unknown friend!"

"My Angelina!--My charming Angelina!" cried Miss Hodges.

Miss Hodges was not the sort of person our heroine expected to see;--and to conceal the panic, with which the first sight of her unknown friend struck her disappointed imagination, she turned back to listen to the apologies which Nat Gazabo was pouring forth about his awkwardness and the tea-kettle.

"Turn, Angelina, ever dear!" cried Miss Hodges, with the tone and action of a bad actress who is rehearsing an embrace--"Turn, Angelina, ever dear!--thus, thus let us meet, to part no more."

"But her voice is so loud," said Angelina to herself, "and her looks so vulgar, and there is such a smell of brandy!--How unlike the elegant delicacy I had expected in my unknown friend!" Miss Warwick involuntarily shrunk from the stifling embrace.

"You are overpowered, my Angelina--lean on me," said her Araminta.

Nat Gazabo re-entered with the tea-kettle--

"Here's _boiling_ water, and we'll have fresh tea in a trice--the young lady's over-tired, seemingly--Here's a chair, miss, here's a chair,"

cried Nat. Miss Warwick _sunk_ upon the chair: Miss Hodges seated herself beside her, continuing to address her in a theatrical tone.

"This moment is bliss unutterable! my kind, my n.o.ble-minded Angelina, thus to leave all your friends for your Araminta!"--Suddenly changing her voice--"Set the tea-kettle, Nat!"

"Who is this Nat, I wonder?" thought Miss Warwick.

"Well, and tell me," said Miss Hodges, whose attention was awkwardly divided between the ceremonies of making tea and making speeches--"and tell me, my Angelina--That's water enough, Nat--and tell me, my Angelina, how did you find me out?"

"With some difficulty, indeed, _my Araminta_." Miss Warwick could hardly p.r.o.nounce the words.

"So kind, so n.o.ble-minded," continued Miss Hodges--"and did you receive my last letter--three sheets?--And how did you contrive--Stoop the kettle, _do_, Nat."

"Oh, this odious Nat! how I wish she would send him away!" thought Miss Warwick.

"And tell me, my Araminta--my Angelina I mean--how did you contrive your elopement--and how did you escape from the eye of your aristocratic Argus--how did you escape from all your unfeeling persecutors?--Tell me, tell me all your adventures, my Angelina!--b.u.t.ter the toast, Nat," said Miss Hodges who was cutting bread and b.u.t.ter, which she did not do with the celebrated grace of Charlotte, in the Sorrows of Werter.

"I'll tell you all, my Araminta," whispered Miss Warwick, "when we are by ourselves."

"Oh, never mind Nat," whispered Miss Hodges.

"Couldn't you tell him," rejoined Miss Warwick, "that he need not wait any longer?"

"_Wait_, my dear! why, what do you take him for?"

"Why, is not he your footman?" whispered Angelina.

"My footman!--Nat!" exclaimed Miss Hodges, bursting out a laughing, "my Angelina took you for my footman."

"Good heavens! what is he?" said Angelina, in a low voice.

"Verily," said Nat Gazabo, with a sort of bashful simple laugh, "verily, I am the humblest of her servants."

"And does my Angelina--spare my delicacy," said Miss Hodges--"does my Angelina not remember, in any of my long letters, the name of--Orlando!--There he stands."

"Orlando!--Is this gentleman your Orlando, of whom I have heard so much?"

"He! he! he!" simpered Nat. "I am Orlando, of whom you have heard so much; and she--(pointing to Miss Hodges)--she is, to-morrow morning, G.o.d willing, to be Mistress Hodges Gazabo."

"Mrs. Hodges Gazabo, my Araminta!" said Angelina, with astonishment, which she could not suppress.

"Yes, my Angelina: so end 'The Sorrows of Araminta'--Another cup?--do I make the tea too sweet?" said Miss Hodges, whilst Nat handed the bread and b.u.t.ter to the ladies officiously.

"The man looks like a fool," thought Miss Warwick.

"Set down the bread and b.u.t.ter, and be quiet, Nat--Then, as soon as the wedding is over, we fly, my Angelina, to our charming cottage in Wales:--there may we bid defiance to the storms of fate--

"'The world forgetting, by the world forgot.'"

"That," said Angelina, "'is the blameless vestal's lot:'--but you forget that you are to be married, my Araminta; and you forget that, in your letter of three folio sheets, you said not one word to me of this intended marriage."

"Nay, my dear, blame me not for a want of confidence, that my heart disclaims," said Miss Hodges: "from the context of my letters, you must have suspected the progress my Orlando had made in my affections; but, indeed, I should not have brought myself to decide apparently so precipitately, had it not been for the opposition, the persecution of my friends--I was determined to show them that I know, and can a.s.sert, my right to think and act, upon all occasions, for myself."

Longer, much longer, Miss Hodges, spoke in the most peremptory voice; but whilst she was declaiming on her favourite topic, her Angelina was "revolving in her altered mind" the strange things which she had seen and heard in the course of the last half-hour; every thing appeared to her in a new light; when she compared the conversation and conduct of Miss Hodges with the sentimental letters of her Araminta; when she compared Orlando in description to Orlando in reality, she could scarcely believe her senses: accustomed as she had been to elegance of manners, the vulgarity and awkwardness of Miss Hodges shocked and disgusted her beyond measure. The disorder, and--for the words must be said--slatternly dirty appearance of her Araminta's dress, and of every thing in her apartment, were such as would have made a h.e.l.l of heaven; and the idea of spending her life in a cottage with Mrs. Hodges Gazabo and Nat overwhelmed our heroine with the double fear of wretchedness and ridicule.

"Another cup of tea, my Angelina?" said Miss Hodges, when she had finished her tirade against her persecutors, that is to say, her friends, "another cup, my Angelina?--do, after your journey and fatigue, take another cup."

"No more, I thank you."

"Then reach me that tragedy, Nat--you know--"

"Your own tragedy, is it, my dear?" said he.

"Ah, Nat, now! you never can keep a secret," said Miss Hodges. "I wanted to have surprised my Angelina."

"I am surprised!" thought Angelina--"oh, how much surprised!"

"I have a motto for our cottage here somewhere," said Miss Hodges, turning over the leaves of her tragedy--"but I'll keep that till to-morrow--since to-morrow's the day sacred to love and friends.h.i.+p."

Nat, by way of showing his joy in a becoming manner, rubbed his hands, and hummed a tune. His mistress frowned, and bit her lips; but the signals were lost upon him, and he sung out, in an exulting tone--

"When the lads of the village so merrily, ah! Sound their tabours, I'll hand thee along."

"Fool! Dolt! Idiot!" cried his Araminta, rising furious--"out of my sight!" Then, sinking down upon the chair, she burst into tears, and threw herself into the arms of her pale, astonished Angelina. "Oh, my Angelina!" she exclaimed, "I am the most ill-matched! most unfortunate!

most wretched of women!"

"Don't be _frighted_, miss," said Nat; "she'll come _to_ again presently--'tis only _her way_." As he spoke, he poured out a b.u.mper of brandy, and kneeling, presented it to his mistress. "'Tis the only thing in life does her good," continued he, "in this sort of fits."

"Heavens, what a scene!" said Miss Warwick to herself--"and the woman so heavy, I can scarce support her weight--and is this _my unknown friend?_"

How long Miss Hodges would willingly have continued to sob upon Miss Warwick's shoulder, or how long that shoulder could possibly have sustained her weight, is a mixed problem in physics and metaphysics, which must for ever remain unsolved: but suddenly a loud scream was heard. Miss Hodges started up--the door was thrown open, and Betty Williams rushed in, crying loudly--"Oh, shave me! shave me! for the love of Cot, shave me, miss!" and, pus.h.i.+ng by the swain, who held the unfinished gla.s.s of brandy in his hand, she threw herself on her knees at the feet of Angelina.