Barchester Towers · Chapter 44 (2/2)

Eleanor got very red in the face as she took the note in her hand. She had never seen the writing before. Charlotte’s epistles, to which she was well accustomed, were of a very different style and kind. She generally wrote on large notepaper; she twisted up her letters into the shape and sometimes into the size of cocked hats; she addressed them in a sprawling, manly hand, and not unusually added a blot or a smudge, as though such were her own peculiar sign-manual. The address of this note was written in a beautiful female hand, and the gummed wafer bore on it an impress of a gilt coronet. Though Eleanor had never seen such a one before, she guessed that it came from the signora. Such epistles were very numerously sent out from any house in which the signora might happen to be dwelling, but they were rarely addressed to ladies. When the coachman was told by the lady’s maid to take the letter to Mrs. Bold, he openly expressed his opinion that there was some mistake about it. Whereupon the lady’s maid boxed the coachman’s ears. Had Mr. Slope seen in how meek a spirit the coachman took the rebuke, he might have learnt a useful lesson, both in philosophy and religion.

The note was as follows. It may be taken as a faithful promise that no further letter whatever shall be transcribed at length in these pages.

May I ask you, as a great favour, to call on me tomorrow. You can say what hour will best suit you, but quite early, if you can. I need hardly say that if I could call upon you, I should not take this liberty with you.

I partly know what occurred the other day, and I promise you that you shall meet with no annoyance if you will come to me. My brother leaves us for London today; from thence he goes to Italy.

It will probably occur to you that I should not thus intrude on you, unless I had that to say to you which may be of considerable moment. Pray therefore excuse me, even if you do not grant my request.

The three of them sat in consultation on this epistle for some ten or fifteen minutes, and then decided that Eleanor should write a line saying that she would see the signora the next morning at twelve o’clock.