Letters from Bath; Or, A Friend in Exile Read online

  Chapter Nine

 

  Letter No. 16

  Friday, 8th June

  My Dear Julia,

  I know it has been longer than usual since last I wrote, but you must not suppose that this was because you were superseded in my thoughts by my current activities, as the truth is that I began several times to pick up my pen, only to lay it aside upon the reflection that I really had nothing of interest to tell you….[M]y vigorous efforts to bring my shrinking heroine to the attention of various potential heroes produced, in the end, nothing but aches and pains for myself, and I thus spent both Wednesday and Thursday at home, reading Manfred, and making what amends I could to my leg, which was very vexed with me indeed, for having paraded about for hours with so little to show for it. This morning I was recovered enough to return to the pump-room, and having allowed my ladies the felicity of clustering about and being concerned for a time, I then went in search of Miss Barr. She had been displaced from her usual corner by a trio of gentlemen, who had no better manners than to stand about and discuss politics in a place that was clearly designed for girlish confidences, and thus I was forced to look about the room for a good ten minutes before I recognized my heroine’s curls bent over a familiar tome. She started, glancing up in trepidation when I spoke her name, and I was surprised to see evidence that she had recently lost a struggle with tears. I had but a brief moment to wonder what affecting novel could have called them forth, when her expression became suffused with delight and relief, and she jumped from her chair, jogging the arm of the rather commodious matron to her left, who had fallen into a peaceful doze, her head comfortably supported by the soft bulk of her chins. Thus reminded of her situation, whatever rapturous exclamation Miss Barr might otherwise have uttered at sight of me was interrupted by the matron’s inarticulate sound of complaint, and only after being reassured by a small snore, did Miss Barr venture to press a hand to my arm, and whisper a tearful welcome.

  We abandoned the slumberous one as quietly as possible, and had not gone five yards, before Miss Barr was confessing the agonies of regret she had suffered the day before, believing that my absence could have no other meaning than that she had committed some heinous offense, which I had found so repulsive that I had stayed away from the pump-room rather than risk meeting her again. Such anxiety over the maintenance of my good opinion struck me as so excessive, that at first I suspected her of a hitherto unsuspected vein of satire; but her eyes, and the traces of tears still upon her face, proclaimed her perfectly sincere. I stifled the still, small voice that suggested to me that a true heroine would be a creature of more spirit, and set myself to rid her of her egregious misapprehension about the tenderness of my sensibility.

  She proved to be easily comforted, for which I was grateful—you know I have little patience with those who cling to their pangs of gratuitous remorse—but her feelings remained in so fragile a state, that I deemed it unwise to seek to further my scheme before she had fully recovered, and instead spent more than an hour encouraging her to recall tales of her childhood. I was pleased to learn that it had been a notably happy one, despite its simplicity, and the almost entire dearth of any male figure below the age of threescore and ten. Miss Barr’s grandmother had apparently been a woman of superior understanding and education, and though Mrs. Barr had often lamented her own deficiency in comparison, by all accounts she was a most excellent and conscientious parent, instructing her daughter in both domestic and purely intellectual spheres, and assisting her father in his duties as best she could. Indeed, in the whole of Miss Barr’s narrative, I could perceive her mother as possessing only one defect in her character, and this was, that she had no taste for novels or modern plays, and would prefer to walk about the countryside with Smith’s Botany in her hand, in search of some obscure flower, or learn a new song upon her mother’s old Spanish guitar, than read the works of Miss Baillie or even Madame D’arblay. Miss Barr, however, with a daughter’s partiality, would not admit even this to be a flaw, and of course it would not be well done to make any attempt to correct her thinking in such a case.

  Although the morning did nothing to advance my plot, it left me more determined than ever to find some way to deliver the Barrs from Mrs. Smithton, and so must not be dismissed as entirely unprofitable. When eventually I decided that I must return to my allies, Miss Barr accompanied me with only the slightest show of reluctance, and later we undertook the adventure of following in the intrepid steps of Mrs. Belmar and Mrs. Joles, as they ventured out of the pump-room in search of certain pastries, which were reported to be of unusual excellence. Whether their quality was unusual for Bath, I could not say; but they were certainly very good, and when Miss Barr and I parted for the day, I had the gratification of knowing that she no longer had the marks of sorrow upon her face, but only perhaps a crumb or two of some superior confection.

  My improved spirits lasted until the ball this evening, where I was forced to watch so many ladies and gentlemen chatting easily together (even when they were not dancing), that I could not help but be reminded of the maladroit nature of my heroine, and the improbability that, in the time at my disposal, I could ever prevail upon her to so much as look up and smile at one of my candidates.

  Would even Sir Charles Grandison have been struck with the virtues of Miss Byron, if, after he had routed the villainous Sir Hargrave, instead of casting herself into her rescuer’s arms, she had instead gazed in a fixed manner at her shoes, and mumbled, and displayed only a subtle anxiety to be gone from his presence? I think not.

  Your rather disheartened, Ann