Complete Novels of Maria Edgeworth

by Maria Edgeworth

  Though by no means pleased with Mr. and Mrs. Percy’s answer to several of her letters of counsel, yet she thought it her duty, as a friend and relation, to persevere. She invited herself to the Hills, where, with great difficulty, through scarcely practicable cross roads, she arrived. She was so much fatigued and exhausted, in body and mind, that during the first evening she could talk of nothing but her hair-breadth escapes. The next morning after breakfast, she began with, “My dear Mr. Percy, now I have a moment’s ease, I have a thousand things to say to you. I am very much surprised that you have thought fit to settle here quite out of the world. Will you give me leave to speak my mind freely to you on the subject?”

  “As freely as you please, my dear Lady Jane, upon any subject, if you will only promise not to be offended, if we should not coincide in opinion.”

  “Certainly, certainly; I am sure I never expect or wish any body to submit to my opinion, though I have had opportunities of seeing something of the world: but I assure you, that nothing but very particular regard would induce me to offer my advice. It is a maxim of mine, that family interference begins in ill-breeding and ends in impertinence, and accordingly it is a thing I have ever particularly avoided. But with a particular friend and near relation like you, my dear Mr. Percy, I think there ought to be an exception. Now, my dear sir, the young people have just left the room — I can take this opportunity of speaking freely: your daughters — what will you do with them?”

  “Do with them! I beg pardon for repeating your ladyship’s words, but I don’t precisely understand your question.”

  “Well, precise sir, then, in other words, how do you mean to dispose of them?”

  “I don’t mean to dispose of them at all,” said Mr. Percy.

  “Then let me tell you, my good friend,” said Lady Jane, with a most prophetic tone, “let me tell you, that you will live to repent that. — You know I have seen something of the world — you ought to bring them forward, and make the most of their birth, family, and connexions, put them in a way of showing their accomplishments, make proper acquaintance, and obtain for your girls what I call the patronage of fashion.”

  “Patronage!” repeated Mr. Percy: “it seems to be my doom to hear of nothing but patronage, whichever way I turn. What! patronage for my daughters as well as for my sons!”

  “Yes,” said Lady Jane, “and look to it; for your daughters will never go on without it. Upon their first coming out, you should—” Here her ladyship stopped short, for Caroline and Rosamond returned. “Oh! go on, go on, let me beg of your ladyship,” said Mr. Percy: “why should not my daughters have the advantage of hearing what you are saying?”

  “Well, then, I will tell them candidly that upon their first coming out, it will be an inconceivable advantage, whatever you may think of it, to have the patronage of fashion! Every day we see many an ugly face, many a mere simpleton, many a girl who had nothing upon earth but her dress, become quite charming, when the radiance of fashion is upon them. And there are some people who can throw this radiance where and on whom they please, just as easily,” said Lady Jane, playing with a spoon she held in her hand, “just as easily as I throw the sunshine now upon this object and now upon that, now upon Caroline and now upon Rosamond. And, observe, no eye turns upon the beauteous Caroline now, because she is left in the shade.”

  It was Mr. Percy’s policy to allow Lady Jane full liberty to finish all she wished to say without interruption; for when people are interrupted, they imagine they have much more to add. Let them go on, and they come to the end of their sense, and even of their words, sooner than they or you could probably expect.

  “Now,” continued her ladyship, “to apply to living examples; you know Mrs. Paul Cotterel?”

  “No.”

  “Well! — Lady Peppercorn?”

  “No.”

  “Nor the Miss Blissets?”

  “No.”

  “That is the misfortune of living so much out of the world! — But there are the Falconers, we all know them at least — now look at the Miss Falconers.”

  “Alas! we have not the honour of knowing even the Miss Falconers,” said Mr. Percy, “though they are our cousins.”

  “Is it possible that you don’t know the Miss Falconers?”

  “Very possible,” replied Mr. Percy: “they live always in town, and we have never seen them since they were children: except a visit or two which passed between us just after Mrs. Falconer’s marriage, we know nothing even of her, though we are all acquainted with the commissioner, who comes from time to time to this part of the country.”

  “A very clever man is the commissioner in his way,” said Lady Jane, “but nothing to his wife. I can assure you, Mrs. Falconer is particularly well worth your knowing; for unless maternal rivalship should interfere, I know few people in the world who could be more useful to your girls when you bring them out. She has a vast deal of address. And for a proof, as I was going to point out to you, there are the Miss Falconers in the first circles — asked every where — yet without fortunes, and with no pretensions beyond, or equal to, what your daughters have — not with half Rosamond’s wit and information — nothing comparable in point of beauty and accomplishments, to Caroline; yet how they have got on! See what fashion can do! Come, come, we must court her patronage — leave that to me: I assure you I understand the ways and means.”

  “I have no doubt of that,” said Mr. Percy. “All that your ladyship has said is excellent sense, and incontrovertible as far as—”

  “Oh! I knew you would think so: I knew we should understand one another as soon as you had heard all I had to say.”

  “Excellent sense, and incontrovertible, as far as it relates to the means, but perhaps we may not agree as to the ends; and if these are different, you know your means, though the best adapted for gaining your objects, may be quite useless or unfit for the attainment of mine.”

  “At once, then, we can’t differ as to our objects, for it is my object to see your daughters happily married; now tell me,” said Lady Jane, appealing alternately to Mr. and Mrs. Percy, “honestly tell me, is not this your object — and yours?”

  “Honestly, it is,” said Mr. and Mrs. Percy.

  “That’s right — I knew we must agree there.”

  “But,” said Mrs. Percy, “allow me to ask what you mean by happily married?”

  “What do I mean? Just what you mean — what every body means at the bottom of their hearts: in the first place married to men who have some fortune.”

  “What does your ladyship mean by some fortune?”

  “Why — you have such a strange way of not understanding! We who live in the world must speak as the world speaks — we cannot recur continually to a philosophical dictionary, and if we had recourse to it, we should only be sent from a to z, and from z back again to a; see affluence, see competence, see luxury, see philosophy, and see at last that you see nothing, and that you knew as much before you opened the book as when you shut it — which indeed is what I find to be the case with most books I read.”

  Triumphant from the consciousness of having hitherto had all the wit on her side, Lady Jane looked round, and continued: “Though I don’t pretend to draw my maxims from books, yet this much I do know, that in matrimony, let people have ever so much sense, and merit, and love, and all that, they must have bread and butter into the bargain, or it won’t do.”

  “Certainly,” said Mrs. Percy: “under that head I suppose you include all the necessaries of life.”

  “And some of the luxuries, if you please; for in these days luxuries are become necessaries.”

  “A barouche and four, for instance?” said Mrs. Percy.

  “Oh! no, no — my dear madam, I speak within bounds; you cannot expect a barouche and four for girls who have nothing.”

  “I expect it as little as I wish it for them,” said Mrs. Percy, smiling; “and as little as my daughters, I believe, desire it.”

  “But if such a thing should offer, I presu
me you would not wish that Rosamond or Caroline should refuse?”

  “That depends upon who offers it,” said Mrs. Percy. “But whatever my wishes might be, I should, as I believe I safely may, leave my daughters entirely at liberty to judge and decide for themselves.”

  “Yes, I believe you safely may,” said Lady Jane, “as long as you keep them here. You might as well talk of leaving them at liberty in the deserts of Arabia. You don’t expect that knights and squires should come hither in quest of your damsels?”

  “Then you would have the damsels sally forth in quest of the knights and squires?” said Mr. Percy.

  “Let them sally forth at any rate,” said Lady Jane, laughing; “nobody has a right to ask in quest of what. We are not now in the times of ancient romance, when young ladies were to sit straight-laced at their looms, or never to stir farther than to their bower windows.”

  “Young ladies must now go a great deal farther,” said Mr. Percy, “before the discourteous knights will deign to take any notice of them.”

  “Ay, indeed, it is shameful!” said Lady Jane sighing. “I declare it is shameful!” repeated she, indignantly. “Do you know, that last winter at Bath the ladies were forced to ask the gentlemen to dance?”

  “Forced?” said Mr. Percy.

  “Yes, forced!” said Lady Jane, “or else they must have sat still all night like so many simpletons.”

  “Sad alternative!” said Mr. Percy; “and what is worse, I understand that partners for life are scarcely to be had on easier terms; at least so I am informed by one of your excellent modern mothers, Mrs. Chatterton, who has been leading her three gawky graces about from one watering-place to another these six years, fishing, and hunting, and hawking for husbands. ‘There now! I have carried my girls to Bath, and to London, and to Tunbridge, and to Weymouth, and to Cheltenham, and every where; I am sure I can do no more for them.’ I assure you,” continued Mr. Percy, “I have heard Mrs. Chatterton say these very words in a room full of company.”

  “In a room full of company? Shocking!” said Lady Jane. “But then poor Mrs. Chatterton is a fool, you know; and, what is worse, not well mannered, — how should she? But I flatter myself, if you will trust me with your daughter Caroline, we should manage matters rather better. Now let me tell you my plan. My plan is to take Caroline with me immediately to Tunbridge, previous to her London campaign. Nothing can be a greater mistake than to keep a young lady up, and prevent her being seen till the moment when she is to be brought out: it is of incalculable advantage that, previously to her appearance in the great world, she should have been seen by certain fashionable prôneurs. It is essential that certain reports respecting her accomplishments and connexions should have had time to circulate properly.”

  All this Mr. and Mrs. Percy acknowledged, in as unqualified a manner as Lady Jane could desire, was fit and necessary to secure what is called a young lady’s success in the fashionable world; but they said that it was not their object to dispose of their daughters, as it is called, to the best advantage. The arts which are commonly practised for this purpose they thought not only indelicate, but ultimately impolitic and absurd; for men in general are now so well aware of them, that they avoid the snares, and ridicule and detest those by whom they are contrived. If, now and then, a dupe be found, still the chance is, that the match so made turns out unhappily; at best, attachments formed in public places, and in the hurry of a town life, can seldom be founded on any real knowledge of character, or suitableness of taste and temper. “It is much more probable,” added Mrs. Percy, “that happy marriages should be made where people have leisure and opportunities of becoming really and intimately acquainted with each other’s dispositions.”

  “Vastly well!” said Lady Jane: “so you mean to bury your daughters in the country — to shut them up, at least — all the days of their unfortunate lives?”

  Mr. and Mrs. Percy, both at the same moment, eagerly declared that they had no such absurd or cruel intention towards their daughters. “On the contrary,” said Mr. Percy, “we shall take every proper occasion, that our present fortune and situation will allow, of letting them see agreeable and sensible persons.”

  “Are they to spring out of the ground, these agreeable and sensible persons?” said Lady Jane. “Whom do you see in this desert, or expect to see?”

  “We see your ladyship, in the first place,” said Mr. Percy: “you cannot therefore wonder if we are proud enough to expect to see sometimes good company, persons of merit, and even of fashion, though we have lost our station and fortune.”

  “That is very politely turned by you, Mr. Percy. Much more polite than my desert. But I could not bear the thoughts of your sweet pretty Caroline’s blushing unseen.”

  “Nor could we,” said Mr. Percy, “bear the thoughts of her ceasing to blush from being too much seen. We could not bear the thoughts of fitting our daughters out, and sending them to the London market, with the portionless class of matrimonial adventurers, of whom even the few that succeed are often doomed but to splendid misery in marriage; and the numbers who fail in their venture are, after a certain time, consigned to neglect and contempt in single wretchedness. Here, on the contrary, in the bosom of their own families, without seeking to entice or entrap, they can at all events never be disappointed or degraded; and, whether married or single, will be respected and respectable, in youth and age — secure of friends, and of a happy home.”

  “Happy nonsense! begging your pardon, my dear coz. Shall I tell you what the end of all this living in the bosom of their own families will be? — that they will die old maids. For mercy’s sake, my dear Mrs. Percy, do not let Mr. Percy be philosophical for your daughters, whatever he may be for himself. You, I am sure, cannot wish your poor daughters to be old maids,” said her ladyship, with a tremendous accent upon the word.

  “No, I should wish them to marry, if I could ensure for them good husbands, not merely good fortunes. The warmest wish of my heart,” cried Mrs. Percy, “is to see my daughters as happy as I am myself, married to men of their own choice, whom they can entirely esteem, and fondly love. But I would rather see my daughters in their graves than see them throw themselves away upon men unworthy of them, or sell themselves to husbands unsuited to them, merely for the sake of being established, for the vulgar notion of getting married, or to avoid the imaginary and unjust ridicule of being old maids.”

  The warmth and energy with which these last words were spoken, by so gentle a person as Mrs. Percy, surprised Lady Jane so much, that she was silent; all her ideas being suddenly at a stand, and her sagacity at fault. Mr. Percy proposed a walk to show her the Hills; as her ladyship rose to accompany him, she said to herself, “Who could have guessed that Mrs. Percy was so romantic? — But she has caught it from her husband. — What a strange father and mother! — But for the sake of the poor girls, I will not give up the point. I will have Caroline with me to Tunbridge, and to town, in spite of their wise heads.”

  She renewed her attack in the evening after tea. Rising, and walking towards the window, “A word with you, Mr. Percy, if you please. The young people are going to walk, and now we can talk the matter over by ourselves.”

  “Why should not we talk it over before the young people?” said Mr. Percy. “We always speak of every thing openly in this family,” continued he, turning to Lady Jane; “and I think that is one reason why we live so happily together. I let my children know all my views for them, all my affairs, and my opinions, I may say all my thoughts, or how could I expect them to trust me with theirs?”

  “As to that, children are bound by gratitude to treat their parents with perfect openness,” said Lady Jane; “and it is the duty of children, you know, to make their parents their confidants upon all occasions.”

  “Duty and gratitude are excellent things,” said Mr. Percy, “but somewhat more is necessary between parent and child to produce friendship. Recollect the Duc d’Epernon’s reply to his king, who reproached him with want of affection. ‘Sire, you
may command my services, my life; but your majesty knows, friendship is to be won only by friendship.’”

  “Very true,” said Lady Jane; “but friendship is not, properly speaking, the connexion that subsists between parents and children.”

  “I am sorry you think so,” said Mr. Percy, smiling: “pray do not teach my children that doctrine.”

  “Nay,” said Lady Jane, “no matter whether we call it friendship or not; I will answer for it, that without any refined notions about perfect openness and confidence, your children will be fond of you, if you are indulgent to them in certain points. Caroline, my dear,” said she, turning to Caroline, who was at the farthest end of the room, “don’t look so unconscious, for you are a party concerned; so come and kneel at the feet of this perverse father of yours, to plead your cause and mine — I must take you with me to Tunbridge. You must let me have her a summer and winter, and I will answer for Caroline’s success.”

  “What does your ladyship mean by my success?” said Caroline.

  “Why, child — Now don’t play your father’s philosophic airs upon me! We people who live in the world, and not with philosophers, are not prepared for such entrapping interrogatories. But come, I mean in plain English, my dear, though I am afraid it will shock your ears, that you will be” (speaking loud) “pretty well admired, pretty well abused, and — oh, shocking! — pretty well married.”

  “Pretty well married!” repeated Mrs. Percy, in a scornful tone: “but neither Caroline nor I should be satisfied unless she be very well married.”

  “Heyday! There is no knowing where to have you lady philosophers. This morning you did not desire a coach and four for your daughters, not you; now you quarrel with me on the other side of the question. Really, for a lady of moderation, you are a little exorbitant. Pretty well married, you know, implies 2000l. a-year; and very well married, nothing under 10,000l.”

  “Is that the language of the market? I did not understand the exact meaning of very well married — did you, Caroline? I own I expect something more than 10,000l. a-year.”