Complete Novels of Maria Edgeworth

by Maria Edgeworth

  Buckhurst’s friends and acquaintance now flocked to congratulate him, and, by dinner-time, he had, in imagination, disposed of the second year’s tithes, and looked out for a curate to do the duty of Chipping-Friars. The company assembled at dinner, and the colonel seemed in uncommonly good spirits, Buckhurst jovial and triumphant — nothing was said of the living, but every thing was taken for granted. In the middle of dinner the colonel cried, “Come, gentlemen, fill your glasses, and drink with me to the health of the new rector of Chipping-Friars.” The glasses were filled instantly, all but Buckhurst Falconer’s, who, of course, thought he should not drink his own health.

  “Mr. Sloak, I have the pleasure to drink your health; Mr. Sloak, rector of Chipping-Friars,” cried the patron, raising his voice. “Buckhurst,” added he, with a malicious smile, “you do not fill your glass.”

  Buckhurst sat aghast. “Colonel, is this a jest?”

  “A jest? — by G —— ! no,” said the colonel; “I have had enough of jests and jesters.”

  “What can this mean?”

  “It means,” said the colonel, coolly, “that, idiot as you take me, or make me to be, I’m not fool enough to patronize a mimick to mimick myself; and, moreover, I have the good of the church too much at heart, to make a rector of one who has no rectitude — I can have my pun, too.”

  The laugh was instantly turned against Buckhurst. Starting from table, he looked alternately at Colonel Hauton and at Mr. Sloak, and could scarcely find words to express his rage. “Hypocrisy! Treachery! Ingratitude! Cowardice! If my cloth did not protect you, you would not dare — Oh! that I were not a clergyman!” cried Buckhurst.

  “It’s a good time to wish it, faith!” said the colonel; “but you should have thought better before you put on the cloth.”

  Cursing himself, his patron, and his father, Buckhurst struck his forehead, and rushed out of the room: an insulting laugh followed from Colonel Hauton, in which Mr. Sloak and all the company joined — Buckhurst heard it with feelings of powerless desperation. He walked as fast as possible — he almost ran through the barrack-yard and through the streets of the town, to get as far as he could from this scene — from these people. He found himself in the open fields, and leaning against a tree — his heart almost bursting — for still he had a heart: “Oh! Mr. Percy!” he exclaimed aloud, “once I had a friend — a good, generous friend — and I left him for such a wretch as this! Oh! if I had followed his advice! He knew me — knew my better self! And if he could see me at this moment, he would pity me. Oh! Caroline! you would pity — no, you would despise me, as I despise myself — I a clergyman! — Oh! father! father! what have you to answer for!”

  To this sudden pang of conscience and feeling succeeded the idea of the reproaches which his father would pour upon him — the recollection of his debts, and the impossibility of paying them — his destitute, hopeless condition — anger against the new rector of Chipping-Friars, and against his cold, malicious patron, returned with increased force upon his mind. The remainder of that day, and the whole of the night, were passed in these fluctuations of passion. Whenever he closed his eyes and began to doze, he heard the voice of Colonel Hauton drinking the health of Mr. Sloak; and twice he started from his sleep, after having collared both the rector and his patron. The day brought him no relief: the moment his creditors heard the facts, he knew he should be in immediate danger of arrest. He hurried to town to his father — his father must know his situation sooner or later, and something must be done.

  We spare the reader a shocking scene of filial and parental reproaches.

  They were both, at last, compelled to return to the question, What is to be done I The father declared his utter inability to pay his son’s debts, and told him, that now there remained but one way of extricating himself from his difficulties — to turn to a better patron.

  “Oh! sir, I have done with patrons,” cried Buckhurst.

  “What, then, will you do, sir? Live in a jail the remainder of your life?”

  Buckhurst gave a deep sigh, and, after a pause, said, “Well, sir, go on — Who is to be my new patron?”

  “Your old friend, Bishop Clay.”

  “I have no claim upon him. He has done much for me already.”

  “Therefore he will do more.”

  “Not pay my debts — and that is the pressing difficulty. He cannot extricate me, unless he could give me a good living immediately, and he has none better than the one I have already, except Dr. Leicester’s — his deanery, you know, is in the gift of the crown. Besides, the good dean is likely to live as long as I shall.”

  “Stay; you do not yet, quick sir, see my scheme — a scheme which would pay your debts and put you at ease at once — Miss Tammy Clay, the bishop’s sister.”

  “An old, ugly, cross, avaricious devil!” cried Buckhurst.

  “Rich! passing rich! and well inclined toward you, Buckhurst, as you know.”

  Buckhurst said that she was his abhorrence — that the idea of a man’s selling himself in marriage was so repugnant to his feelings, that he would rather die in a jail.

  His father let him exhaust himself in declamation, certain that he would be brought to think of it at last, by the necessity to which he was reduced. The result was what the commissioner saw it must be. Creditors pressed — a jail in immediate view — no resource but Miss Tammy Clay. He went down to the country to the bishop’s, to get out of the way of his creditors, and — to consider about it. He found no difficulty likely to arise on the part of the lady. The bishop, old, and almost doting, governed by his sister Tammy, who was an admirable housekeeper, and kept his table exquisitely, was brought, though very reluctantly, to consent to their marriage.

  Not so acquiescent, however, were Miss Tammy’s two nephews, French and English Clay. They had looked upon her wealth as their indefeasible right and property. The possibility of her marrying had for years been, as they thought, out of the question; and of all the young men of their acquaintance, Buckhurst Falconer was the very last whom they would have suspected to have any design upon aunt Tammy — she had long and often been the subject of his ridicule. French Clay, though he had just made an imprudent match with a singer, was the more loud and violent against the aunt; and English Clay, though he was not in want of her money, was roused by the idea of being duped by the Falconers. This was just at the time he had commissioned Lady Trant to propose for Miss Georgiana. Aunt Tammy had promised to give him six thousand pounds whenever he should marry: he did not value her money a single sixpence, but he would not be tricked out of his rights by any man or woman breathing. Aunt Tammy, resenting certain words that had escaped him derogatory to her youth and beauty, and being naturally unwilling to give — any thing but herself — refused to part with the six thousand pounds. In these hard times, and when she was going to marry an expensive husband, she laughing said, that all she had would be little enough for her own establishment. Buckhurst would willingly have given up the sum in question, but English Clay would not receive it as a consequence of his intercession. His pride offended Buckhurst: they came to high words, and high silence. English Clay went to his relation, Lady Trant, and first reproaching her with having been too precipitate in executing his first commission, gave her a second, in which he begged she would make no delay: he requested her ladyship would inform Mrs. Falconer that a double alliance with her family was more than he had looked for — and in one word, that either her son Buckhurst’s marriage with his aunt Tammy, or his own marriage with Miss Georgiana, must be given up. He would not have his aunt at her age make herself ridiculous, and he would not connect himself with a family who could uphold a young man in duping an old woman: Lady Trant might shape his message as she pleased, but this was to be its substance.

  In consequence of Lady Trant’s intimation, which of course was made with all possible delicacy, Georgiana and Mrs. Falconer wrote to Buckhurst in the strongest terms, urging him to give up his intended marriage. There were, as they forcibly represented,
so many other old women with large fortunes who could in the course of a short time be found, who would be quite as good matches for him, that it would argue a total insensibility to the interests and entreaties of his beloved mother and sister, if he persisted in his present preposterous design. Buckhurst answered,

  “MY DEAR MOTHER AND GEORGY,

  “I was married yesterday, and am as sorry for it to-day as you can be.

  “Yours truly,

  “B.F.

  “P.S. — There are other young men, with as good fortunes as English Clay, in the world.”

  The letter and the postscript disappointed and enraged Mrs. Falconer and Georgiana beyond description.

  English Clay left his D.I.O. at Mrs. Falconer’s door, and banged down to Clay-hall.

  Georgiana, violent in the expression of her disappointment, would have exposed herself to Lady Trant, and to half her acquaintance; but Mrs. Falconer, in the midst of her mortification, retained command of temper sufficient to take thought for the future. She warned Lady Trant to be silent, and took precautions to prevent the affair from being known; providently determining, that, as soon as her daughter should recover from the disappointment of losing Clay-hall, she would marry her to Petcalf, and settle her at once at the lodge in Asia Minor.

  “Till Georgiana is married,” said she to herself, “the commissioner will never let me have peace: if English Clay’s breaking off the match gets wind, we are undone; for who will think of a rejected girl, beautiful or fashionable though she be? So the best thing that can be done is to marry her immediately to Petcalf. I will have it so — and the wedding-clothes will not have been bought in vain.”

  The bringing down the young lady’s imagination, however, from Clay-hall to a lodge was a task of much difficulty; and Mrs. Falconer often in the bitterness of her heart exclaimed, that she had the most ungrateful children in the world. It seems that it is a tacit compact between mothers and daughters of a certain class, that if the young ladies are dressed, amused, advertised, and exhibited at every fashionable public place and private party, their hearts, or hands at least, are to be absolutely at the disposal of their parents.

  It was just when Mrs. Falconer was exasperated by Georgiana’s ingratitude, that her son Buckhurst was obliged to come to London after his marriage, to settle with his creditors. His bride insisted upon accompanying him, and chose this unpropitious time for being introduced to his family. And such a bride! Mrs. Buckhurst Falconer! Such an introduction! Such a reception! His mother cold and civil, merely from policy to prevent their family-quarrels from becoming public; his sisters —

  But enough. Here let us turn from the painful scene, and leave this house divided against itself.

  CHAPTER XXXI.

  LETTER FROM ALFRED TO HIS FATHER.

  “MY DEAR FATHER,

  “I send you two pamphlets on the causes of the late changes in the ministry, one by a friend, the other by an enemy, of Lord Oldborough. Temple, I should have thought the author of the first, but that I know he has not time to write, and that there does not appear any of that behind the scene knowledge which his situation affords. All the pamphleteers and newspaper politicians write as if they knew the whole — some confident that the ministry split on one question — some on another; long declamations and abuse follow as usual on each side, but WISE people, and of course myself among that number, suspect ‘that all that we know is, that we know nothing.’ That there was some private intrigue in the cabinet, which has not yet transpired, I opine from Temple’s reserve whenever I have mentioned the subject. This morning, when I asked him to frank these pamphlets, he laughed, and said that I was sending coals to Newcastle: what this meant he refused to explain, or rather he attempted to explain it away, by observing, that people of good understanding often could judge better at a distance of what was passing in the political world, than those who were close to the scene of action, and subject to hear the contradictory reports of the day; therefore, he conceived that I might be sending materials for thinking, to one who could judge better than I can. I tormented Temple for a quarter of an hour with a cross-examination so able, that it was really a pity to waste it out of the courts; but I could get nothing more from him. Is it possible, my dear father, that you are at the bottom of all this?