Complete Novels of Maria Edgeworth

by Maria Edgeworth

  Grace, the moment she heard Favoretta crying, went up to the room where she was, and made her tiptoe approaches, addressing Favoretta in a tone of compassion, which, to a child’s unpractised ear, might appear, perhaps, the natural voice of sympathy. The sobbing child hid her face in Grace’s lap; and when she had told her complaint against Mad. de Rosier, Grace comforted her for the loss of the royal tiger by the present of a queen-cake. Grace did not dare to stay long in the room, lest Mad. de Rosier should detect her; she therefore left the little girl, with a strict charge “not to say a word of the queen-cake to her governess.”

  Favoretta kept the queen-cake, that she might divide it with Herbert; for she now recollected that she had been most to blame in the dispute about the prints. Herbert absolutely refused, however, to have any share of the cake, and he strongly urged his sister to return it to Grace.

  Herbert had, formerly, to use his own expression, been accused of being fond of eating, and so, perhaps, he was; but since he had acquired other pleasures, those of affection and employment, his love of eating had diminished so much, that he had eaten only one of his own radishes, because he felt more pleasure in distributing the rest to his mother and sisters.

  It was with some difficulty that he prevailed upon Favoretta to restore the queen-cake: the arguments that he used we shall not detail, but he concluded with promising, that, if Favoretta would return the cake, he would ask Mad. de Rosier, the next time they passed by the pastrycook’s shop, to give them some queen-cakes—”and I dare say she will give us some, for she is much more really good-natured than Grace.”

  Favoretta, with this hope of a future queen-cake, in addition to all her brother’s arguments, at last determined to return Grace’s present—”Herbert says I had better give it you back again,” said she, “because Mad. de Rosier does not know it.”

  Grace was somewhat surprised by the effect of Herbert’s oratory, and she saw that she must change her ground. The next day, when the children were walking with Mad. de Rosier by a pastrycook’s shop, Herbert, with an honest countenance, asked Mad. de Rosier to give Favoretta and him a queen-cake. She complied, for she was glad to find that he always asked frankly for what he wanted; and yet that he bore refusals with good humour.

  Just as Herbert was going to eat his queen-cake, he heard the sound of music in the street; he went to the door, and saw a poor man who was playing on the dulcimer — a little boy was with him, who looked extremely thin and hungry — he asked Herbert for some halfpence.

  “I have no money of my own,” said Herbert, “but I can give you this, which is my own.”

  Mad. de Rosier held his hand back, which he had just stretched out to offer his queen-cake; she advised him to exchange it for something more substantial; she told him that he might have two buns for one queen-cake. He immediately changed it for two buns, and gave them to the little boy, who thanked him heartily. The man who was playing on the dulcimer asked where Herbert lived, and promised to stop at his door to play a tune for him, which he seemed to like particularly.

  Convinced by the affair of the queen-cake that Herbert’s influence was a matter of some consequence in the family, Mrs. Grace began to repent that she had made him her enemy, and she resolved, upon the first convenient occasion, to make him overtures of peace — overtures which, she had no doubt, would be readily accepted.

  One morning she heard him sighing and groaning, as she thought, over some difficult sum, which Mad. de Rosier had set for him; he cast up one row aloud several times, but could not bring the total twice to the same thing. When he took his sum to Mad. de Rosier, who was dressing, he was kept waiting a few minutes at the door, because Favoretta was not dressed. The young gentleman became a little impatient, and when he gained admittance his sum was wrong.

  “Then I cannot make it right,” said Herbert, passionately.

  “Try,” said Mad. de Rosier; “go into that closet by yourself, and try once more, and perhaps you will find that you can make it right.”

  Herbert knelt down in the closet, though rather unwillingly, to this provoking sum.

  “Master Herbert, my dear,” said Mrs. Grace, following him, “will you be so good as to go for Miss Favoretta’s scissors, if you please, which she lent you yesterday? — she wants ‘em, my dear.”

  Herbert, surprised by the unusually good-natured tone of this request, ran for the scissors, and at his return, found that his difficult sum had been cast up in his absence; the total was written at the bottom of it, and he read these words, which he knew to be Mrs. Grace’s writing—”Rub out my figurs, and write them in your own.” Herbert immediately rubbed out Mrs. Grace’s figures with indignation, and determined to do the sum for himself. He carried it to Mad. de Rosier — it was wrong: Grace stared, and when she saw Herbert patiently stand beside Mad. de Rosier and repeat his efforts, she gave up all idea of obtaining any influence over him.

  “Mad. de Rosier,” said she to herself, “has bewitched ’em all; I think it’s odd one can’t find out her art!”

  Mrs. Grace seemed to think that she could catch the knack of educating children, as she had surreptitiously learnt, from a fashionable hairdresser, the art of dressing hair. Ever since Mrs. Harcourt had spoken in such a decided manner respecting Mad. de Rosier, her maid had artfully maintained the greatest appearance of respect for that lady, in her mistress’s presence, and had even been scrupulous, to a troublesome extreme, in obeying the governess’s orders; and by a studied show of attachment to Mrs. Harcourt, and much alacrity at her toilette, she had, as she flattered herself, secured a fresh portion of favour.

  One morning Mrs. Harcourt found, when she awoke, that she had a headache, and a slight feverish complaint. She had caught cold the night before in coming out of a warm assembly-room. Mrs. Grace affected to be much alarmed at her mistress’s indisposition, and urged her to send immediately for Dr. X —— . To this Mrs. Harcourt half consented, and a messenger was sent for him. In the meantime Mrs. Harcourt, who had been used to be much attended to in her slight indispositions, expressed some surprise that Mad. de Rosier, or some of her children, when they heard that she was ill, had not come to see her.

  “Where is Isabella? where is Matilda? or Favoretta? what is become of them all? do they know I am ill, Grace?”

  “Oh dear! yes, ma’am; but they’re all gone out in the coach, with Mad. de Rosier.”

  “All?” said Mrs. Harcourt.

  “All, I believe, ma’am,” said Grace; “though, indeed, I can’t pretend to be sure, since I make it my business not to scrutinize, and to know as little as possible of what’s going on in the house, lest I should seem to be too particular.”

  “Did Mad. de Rosier leave any message for me before she went out?”

  “Not with me, ma’am.”

  Here the prevaricating waiting-maid told barely the truth in words: Mad. de Rosier had left a message with the footman in Grace’s hearing.

  “I hope, ma’am,” continued Grace, “you weren’t disturbed with the noise in the house early this morning?”

  “What noise? — I heard no noise,” said Mrs. Harcourt.

  “No noise! dear ma’am, I’m as glad as can possibly be of that, at any rate; but to be sure there was a great racket. I was really afraid, ma’am, it would do no good to your poor head.”

  “What was the matter?” said Mrs. Harcourt, drawing back the curtain.

  “Oh! nothing, ma’am, that need alarm you — only music and dancing.”

  “Music and dancing so early in the morning! — Do, Grace, say all you have to say at once, for you keep me in suspense, which, I am sure, is not good for my head.”

  “La, ma’am, I was so afraid it would make you angry, ma’am — that was what made me so backward in mentioning it; but, to be sure, Mad. de Rosier, and the young ladies, and Master Herbert, I suppose, thought you couldn’t hear, because it was in the back parlour, ma’am.”

  “Hear what? what was in the back parlour?”

  “Only a dulcimer
man, ma’am, playing for the young ladies.”

  “Did you tell them I was ill, Grace?”

  It was the second time Mrs. Harcourt had asked this question. Grace was gratified by this symptom.

  “Indeed, ma’am,” she replied, “I did make bold to tell Master Herbert, that I was afraid you would hear him jumping and making such an uproar up and down the stairs; but to be sure, I did not say a word to the young ladies — as Mad. de Rosier was by, I thought she knew best.”

  A gentle knock at the door interrupted Mrs. Grace’s charitable animadversions.

  “Bless me, if it isn’t the young ladies! I’m sure I thought they were gone out in the coach.”

  As Isabella and Matilda came up to the side of their mother’s bed, she said, in a languid voice —

  “I hope, Matilda, my dear, you did not stay at home on my account — Is Isabella there? What book has she in her hand?”

  “Zeluco, mamma — I thought, perhaps, you would like to hear some more of it — you liked what I read to you the other day.”

  “But you forget that I have a terrible headache — Pray don’t let me detain either of you, if you have any thing to do for Mad. de Rosier.”

  “Nothing in the world, mamma,” said Matilda; “she is gone to take Herbert and Favoretta to Exeter Change.”

  No farther explanation could take place, for, at this instant, Mrs. Grace introduced Dr. X —— . Now Dr. X —— was not one of those complaisant physicians who flatter ladies that they are very ill when they have any desire to excite tender alarm.

  After satisfying himself that his patient was not quite so ill as Mrs. Grace had affected to believe, Dr. X —— insensibly led from medical inquiries to general conversation: he had much playful wit and knowledge of the human heart, mixed with a variety of information, so that he could with happy facility amuse and interest nervous patients, who were beyond the power of the solemn apothecary.

  The doctor drew the young ladies into conversation by rallying Isabella upon her simplicity in reading a novel openly in her mother’s presence; he observed that she did not follow the example of the famous Serena, in “The Triumphs of Temper.” “Zeluco!” he exclaimed, in an ironical tone of disdain: “why not the charming ‘Sorrows of Werter,’ or some of our fashionable hobgoblin romances?”

  Isabella undertook the defence of her book with much enthusiasm — and either her cause, or her defence, was so much to Dr. X. — —’s taste, that he gradually gave up his feigned attack.

  After the argument was over, and every body, not excepting Mrs. Harcourt, who had almost forgotten her headache, was pleased with the vanquished doctor, he drew from his pocket-book three or four small cards; they were tickets of admittance to Lady N — —’s French reading parties.

  Lady N —— was an elderly lady, whose rank made literature fashionable amongst many, who aspired to the honour of being noticed by her. She was esteemed such an excellent judge of manners, abilities, and character, that her approbation was anxiously courted, more especially by mothers who were just introducing their daughters into the world. She was fond of encouraging youthful merit; but she was nice, some thought fastidious, in the choice of her young acquaintance.

  Mrs. Harcourt had been very desirous that Isabella and Matilda should be early distinguished by a person, whose approving voice was of so much consequence in fashionable as well as in literary society; and she was highly flattered by Dr. X — —’s prophecy, that Isabella would be a great favourite of this “nice judging” lady—”Provided,” added he, turning to Isabella, “you have the prudence not to be always, as you have been this morning, victorious in argument.”

  “I think,” said Mrs. Harcourt — after the doctor had taken his leave—”I think I am much better — ring for Grace, and I will get up.”

  “Mamma,” said Matilda, “if you will give me leave, I will give my ticket for the reading party to Mad. de Rosier, because, I am sure, it is an entertainment she will like particularly — and, you know, she confines herself so much with us—”

  “I do not wish her to confine herself so much, my dear, I am sure,” said Mrs. Harcourt, coldly, for, at this instant, Grace’s representations of the morning’s music and dancing, and some remains of her former jealousy of Mad. de Rosier’s influence over her children’s affections, operated upon her mind. Pride prevented her from explaining herself further to Isabella or Matilda — and though they saw that she was displeased, they had no idea of the reason. As she was dressing, Mrs. Harcourt conversed with them about the books they were reading. Matilda was reading Hogarth’s Analysis of Beauty; and she gave a distinct account of his theory.

  Mrs. Harcourt, when she perceived her daughter’s rapid improvement, felt a mixture of joy and sorrow.

  “My dears,” said she, “you will all of you be much superior to your mother — but girls were educated, in my days, quite in a different style from what they are now.”

  “Ah! there were no Mad. de Rosiers then,” said Matilda, innocently.

  “What sort of a woman was your mother, mamma?” said Isabella, “my grandmother, mamma?”

  “She — she was a very good woman.”

  “Was she sensible?” said Isabella.

  “Matilda, my dear,” said Mrs. Harcourt, “I wish you would see if Mad. de Rosier has returned — I should be very glad to speak with her, for one moment, if she be not engaged.”

  Under the veil of politeness, Mrs. Harcourt concealed her real feelings, and declaring to Mad. de Rosier that she did not feel in spirits, or sufficiently well, to go out that evening, she requested that Mad. de Rosier would go, in her stead, to a dinner, where she knew her company would be particularly acceptable.—”You will trust me, will you, with your pupils for one evening?” added Mrs. Harcourt.

  The tone and manner in which she pronounced these words revealed the real state of her mind to Mad. de Rosier, who immediately complied with her wishes.

  Conscious of this lady’s quick penetration, Mrs. Harcourt was abashed by this ready compliance, and she blamed herself for feelings which she could not suppress.

  “I am sorry that you were not at home this morning,” she continued, in a hurried manner—”you would have been delighted with Dr. X —— ; he is one of the most entertaining men I am acquainted with — and you would have been vastly proud of your pupil there,” pointing to Isabella; “I assure you, she pleased me extremely.”

  In the evening, after Mad. de Rosier’s departure, Mrs. Harcourt was not quite so happy as she had expected. They who have only seen children in picturesque situations, are not aware how much the duration of this domestic happiness depends upon those who have the care of them. People who, with the greatest abilities and the most anxious affection, are unexperienced in education, should not be surprised or mortified if their first attempts be not attended with success. Mrs. Harcourt thought that she was doing what was very useful in hearing Herbert read; he read with tolerable fluency, but he stopped at the end of almost every sentence to weigh the exact sense of the words. In this habit he had been indulged, or rather encouraged, by his preceptress; but his simple questions, and his desire to have every word precisely explained, were far from amusing to one who was little accustomed to the difficulties and misapprehensions of a young reader.

  Herbert was reading a passage, which Mad. de Rosier had marked for him, in Xenophon’s Cyropaedia. With her explanations, it might have been intelligible to him. Herbert read the account of Cyrus’s judgment upon the two boys, who had quarrelled about their great and little coats, much to his mother’s satisfaction, because he had understood every word of it, except the word constituted.

  “Constituted judge — what does that mean, mamma?”

  “Made a judge, my dear: go on.”

  “I saw a judge once, mamma, in a great wig — had Cyrus a wig, when he was con — const! — made a judge?”

  Isabella and Mrs. Harcourt laughed at this question; and they endeavoured to explain the difference between a Persian an
d an English judge.

  Herbert with some difficulty separated the ideas, which he had so firmly associated, of a judge and a great wig; and when he had, or thought he had, an abstract notion of a judge, he obeyed his mother’s repeated injunctions of “Go on — go on.” He went on, after observing that what came next was not marked by Mad. de Rosier for him to read.

  Cyrus’s mother says to him: “Child, the same things are not accounted just with your grandfather here, and yonder in Persia.” At this sentence Herbert made a dead stop; and, after pondering for some time, said, “I don’t understand what Cyrus’s mother meant — what does she mean by accounted just? — Accounted, Matilda, I thought meant only about casting up sums?”

  “It has another meaning, my dear,” Matilda mildly began.

  “Oh, for Heaven’s sake, spare me!” exclaimed Mrs. Harcourt; “do not let me hear all the meanings of all the words in the English language. Herbert may look for the words that he does not understand, in the dictionary, when he has done reading. Go on, now, pray; for,” added she, looking at her watch, “you have been half an hour reading half a page: this would tire the patience of Job.”

  Herbert, perceiving that his mother was displeased, began in the same instant to be frightened; he hurried on as fast as he could, without understanding one word more of what he was reading; his precipitation was worse than his slowness: he stumbled over the words, missed syllables, missed lines, made the most incomprehensible nonsense of the whole; till, at length, Mrs. Harcourt shut the book in despair, and soon afterward despatched Herbert, who was also in despair, to bed. At this catastrophe, Favoretta looked very grave, and a general gloom seemed to overspread the company.

  Mrs. Harcourt was mortified at the silence that prevailed, and made several ineffectual attempts to revive the freedom and gaiety of conversation:—”Ah!” said she to herself, “I knew it would be so; — they cannot be happy without Mad. de Rosier.”