Complete Novels of Maria Edgeworth

by Maria Edgeworth

  “Get up, Grace, and walk in, if you please,” said Mrs. Harcourt, with much calmness; “we have not the least objection to your hearing our conversation.”

  “Indeed, ma’am,” said Grace, as soon as she had recovered her feet, “I’m above listening to any body’s conversations, except that when one hears one’s own name, and knows that one has enemies, it is but natural to listen in one’s own defence.”

  “And is that all you can do, Grace, in your own defence?” said Mrs. Harcourt.

  “It’s not all I can say, ma’am,” replied Grace, pushed to extremities; and still with a secret hope that her mistress, upon a pinch, would not part with a favourite maid: “I see I’m of no further use in the family, neither to young or old — and new comers have put me quite out of favour, and have your ear to themselves — so, if you please, ma’am, I had better look out for another situation.”

  “If you please, Grace,” said Mrs. Harcourt.

  “I will leave the house this instant, if you think proper, ma’am.”

  “If you think proper, Grace,” said her mistress, with immovable philosophy.

  Grace burst into tears: “I never thought it would come to this, Mrs. Harcourt — I, that have lived so long such a favourite! — but I don’t blame you, madam; you have been the best and kindest of mistresses to me; and, whatever becomes of me, to my dying words, I shall always give you and the dear young ladies the best of characters.”

  “The character we may give you, Grace, is of rather more consequence.”

  “Every thing that I say and do,” interrupted the sobbing Grace, “is vilified and misinterpreted by those who wish me ill. I—”

  “You have desired to leave me, Grace; and my desire is that you should leave me,” said Mrs. Harcourt, with firmness. “Mad. de Rosier and I strictly forbade you to interfere with any of the children in our absence; you have thought proper to disregard these orders; and were you to stay longer in my house, I perceive that you would teach my children first to disobey, and afterward to deceive me.”

  Grace, little prepared for this calm decision, now in a frightened, humble tone, began to make promises of reformation; but her promises and apologies were vain; she was compelled to depart, and every body was glad to have done with her.

  Favoretta, young as she was, had already learned from this cunning waiting-maid habits of deceit which could not be suddenly changed. Mad. de Rosier attempted her cure, by making her feel, in the first place, the inconveniences and the disgrace of not being trusted. Favoretta was ashamed to perceive that she was the only person in the house who was watched: and she was heartily glad when, by degrees, she had opportunities allowed her of obtaining a character for truth, and all the pleasures and all the advantages of confidence.

  Things went on much better after the gnome-like influence of Mrs Grace had ceased; but we must now hasten to introduce our readers to Mrs. Fanshaw. Mrs. Fanshaw was a card-playing lady, who had been educated at a time when it was not thought necessary for women to have any knowledge, or any taste for literature. As she advanced in life, she continually recurred to the maxims as well as to the fashions of her youth; and the improvements in modern female education she treated as dangerous innovations. She had placed her daughter at a boarding-school in London, the expense of which was its chief recommendation; and she saw her regularly at the Christmas and Midsummer holidays. At length, when Miss Fanshaw was about sixteen, her prudent mother began to think that it was time to take her from school, and to introduce her into the world. Miss Fanshaw had learned to speak French passably, to read a little Italian, to draw a little, to play tolerably well upon the piano-forte, and to dance as well as many other young ladies. She had been sedulously taught a sovereign contempt of whatever was called vulgar at the school where she was educated; but, as she was profoundly ignorant of every thing but the routine of that school, she had no precise idea of propriety; she only knew what was thought vulgar or genteel at Suxberry House; and the authority of Mrs. Suxberry (for that was the name of her schoolmistress) she quoted as incontrovertible upon all occasions. Without reflecting upon what was wrong or right, she decided with pert vivacity on all subjects; and firmly believed that no one could know or could learn any thing who had not been educated precisely as she had been. She considered her mother as an inferior personage, destitute of genteel accomplishments: her mother considered her as a model of perfection, that could only have been rendered thus thoroughly accomplished by the most expensive masters — her only fear was, that her dear Jane should be rather too learned.

  Mrs. Harcourt, with Isabella and Matilda, paid Mrs. Fanshaw a visit, as soon as they heard that her daughter was come home.

  Miss Fanshaw, an erect stiffened figure, made her entrée; and it was impossible not to perceive that her whole soul was intent upon her manner of holding her head and placing her elbows, as she came into the room. Her person had undergone all the ordinary and extraordinary tortures of back-boards, collars, stocks, dumbbells, &c. She looked at Isabella and Matilda with some surprise and contempt during the first ten minutes after her entrance; for they were neither of them seated in the exact posture which she had been instructed to think the only position in which a young lady should sit in company. Isabella got up to look at a drawing; Miss Fanshaw watched every step she took, and settled it in her own mind that Miss Harcourt did not walk as if she had ever been at Suxberry House. Matilda endeavoured to engage the figure that sat beside her in conversation; but the figure had no conversation, and the utmost that Matilda could obtain was a few monosyllables pronounced with affected gravity; for at Suxberry House this young lady had been taught to maintain an invincible silence when produced to strangers; but she made herself amends for this constraint, the moment she was with her companions, by a tittering, gossiping species of communication, which scarcely deserves the name of conversation.

  Whilst the silent Miss Fanshaw sat so as to do her dancing-master strict justice, Mrs. Fanshaw was stating to Mrs. Harcourt the enormous expense to which she had gone in her daughter’s education. Though firm to her original doctrine, that women had no occasion for learning — in which word of reproach she included all literature — she nevertheless had been convinced, by the unanimous voice of fashion, that accomplishments were most desirable for young ladies — desirable, merely because they were fashionable; she did not, in the least, consider them as sources of independent occupation.

  Isabella was struck with sudden admiration at the sight of a head of Jupiter which Miss Fanshaw had just finished, and Mrs. Harcourt borrowed it for her to copy; though Miss Fanshaw was secretly but decidedly of opinion, that no one who had not learned from the drawing-master at Suxberry House could copy this head of Jupiter with any chance of success.

  There was a pretty little netting-box upon the table which caught Matilda’s eye, and she asked the silent figure what it was made of. The silent figure turned its head mechanically, but could give no information upon the subject. Mrs. Fanshaw, however, said that she had bought the box at the Repository for ingenious works, and that the reason she chose it was because Lady N —— had recommended it to her.

  “It is some kind of new manufacture, her ladyship tells me, invented by some poor little boy that she patronizes; her ladyship can tell you more of the matter, Miss Matilda, than I can,” concluded Mrs. Fanshaw; and, producing her netting, she asked Mrs. Harcourt, “if she had not been vastly notable to have got forward so fast with her work.”

  The remainder of the visit was spent in recounting her losses at the card-table, and in exhortation to Mrs. Harcourt to send Miss Isabella and Matilda to finish their education at Suxberry House.

  Mrs. Harcourt was somewhat alarmed by the idea that her daughters would not be equal to Miss Fanshaw in accomplishments but, fortunately for Mad. de Rosier and herself, she was soon induced to change her opinion by farther opportunities of comparison.

  In a few days her visit was returned. Mrs. Harcourt happened to mention the globe that Isabella was
painting: Miss Fanshaw begged to see it, and she went into Mrs. Harcourt’s dressing-room, where it hung. The moment she found herself with Isabella and Matilda, out of company, the silent figure became talkative. The charm seemed to be broken, or rather reversed, and she began to chatter with pert incessant rapidity.

  “Dear me,” said she, casting a scornful glance at Matilda’s globe, “this is vastly pretty, but we’ve no such thing at Suxberry House. I wonder Mrs. Harcourt didn’t send both of you to Suxberry House — every body sends their daughters, who can afford it, now, to Suxberry House; but, to be sure, it’s very expensive — we had all silver forks, and every thing in the highest style, and Mrs. Suxberry keeps a coach. I assure you she’s not at all like a schoolmistress, and she thinks it very rude and vulgar of any body to call her a schoolmistress. Won’t you ask your mamma to send you, if it’s only for the name of it, for one year, to Suxberry House?”

  “No,” said Matilda; “we are so happy under the care of Mad. de Rosier.”

  “Ah, dear me! I forgot — mamma told me you’d got a new French governess lately — our French teacher, at Suxberry House, was so strict, and so cross, if one made a mistake in the tenses: it’s very well for you your governess is not cross — does she give you very hard exercises? — let me look at your exercise book, and I’ll tell you whether it’s the right one — I mean that we used to have at Suxberry House.”

  Miss Fanshaw snatched up a book, in which she saw a paper, which she took for a French exercise.

  “Come, show it me, and I’ll correct the faults for you, before your governess sees it, and she’ll be so surprised!”

  “Mad. de Rosier has seen it,” said Matilda; — but Miss Fanshaw, in a romping manner, pulled the paper out of her hands. It was the translation of a part of “Les Conversations d’Emilie,” which we formerly mentioned.

  “La!” said Miss Fanshaw, “we had no such book as this at Suxberry House.”

  Matilda’s translation she was surprised to find correct.

  “And do you write themes?” said she—”We always wrote themes once every week, at Suxberry House, which I used to hate of all things, for I never could find any thing to say — it made me hate writing, I know; — but that’s all over now; thank goodness, I’ve done with themes, and French letters, and exercises, and translations, and all those plaguing things; and now I’ve left school for ever, I may do just as I please — that’s the best of going to school; it’s over some time or other, and there’s an end of it; but you that have a governess and masters at home, you go on for ever and ever, and you have no holidays either; and you have no out-of-school hours; you are kept hard at it from morning till night: now I should hate that of all things. At Suxberry House, when we had got our task done, and finished with the writing-master and the drawing-master, and when we had practised for the music-master, and all that, we might be as idle as we pleased, and do what we liked out of school-hours — you know that was very pleasant: I assure you, you’d like being at Suxberry House amazingly.”

  Isabella and Matilda, to whom it did not appear the most delightful of all things to be idle, nor the most desirable thing in the world to have their education finished, and then to lay aside all thoughts of farther improvement, could not assent to Miss Fanshaw’s concluding assertion. They declared that they did not feel any want of holidays; at which Miss Fanshaw stared: they said that they had no tasks, and that they liked to be employed rather better than to be idle; at which Miss Fanshaw laughed, and sarcastically said, “You need not talk to me as if your governess were by, for I’m not a tell-tale — I shan’t repeat what you say.”

  Isabella and Matilda, who had not two methods of talking, looked rather displeased at this ill-bred speech.

  “Nay,” said Miss Fanshaw, “I hope you aren’t affronted now at what I said; when we are by ourselves, you know, one says just what comes into one’s head. Whose handsome coach is this, pray, with a coronet?” continued she, looking out of the window: “I declare it is stopping at your door; do let us go down. I’m never afraid of going into the room when there’s company, for we were taught to go into a room at Suxberry House; and Mrs. Suxberry says it’s very vulgar to be ashamed, and I assure you it’s all custom. I used to colour, as Miss Matilda does, every minute; but I got over it before I had been long at Suxberry House.”

  Isabella, who had just been reading “A Father’s Legacy to his Daughters,” recollected at this instant Dr. Gregory’s opinion, “that when a girl ceases to blush, she has lost the most powerful charm of beauty.” She had not, however, time to quote this in Matilda’s defence; for Miss Fanshaw ran down stairs, and Isabella recollected, before she overtook her, that it would not be polite to remind her of her early loss of charms.

  Lady N —— was in the coach which had excited Miss Fanshaw’s admiration; and this young lady had a glorious opportunity of showing the graces that she had been taught at so much expense, for the room was full of company. Several morning visitors had called upon Mrs. Harcourt, and they formed a pretty large circle, which Miss Fanshaw viewed upon her entrance with a sort of studied assurance.

  Mrs. Fanshaw watched Lady N — —’s eye as her daughter came into the room; but Lady N —— did not appear to be much struck with the second-hand graces of Suxberry House; her eye passed over Miss Fanshaw, in search of something less affected and more interesting.

  Miss Fanshaw had now resumed her company face and attitude; she sat in prudent silence, whilst Lady N —— addressed her conversation to Isabella and Matilda, whose thoughts did not seem to be totally engrossed by their own persons.

  Dr. X —— had prepared this lady to think favourably of Mad. de Rosier’s pupils, by the account which he had given her of Isabella’s remarks upon Zeluco.

  A person of good sense, who has an encouraging countenance, can easily draw out the abilities of young people, and from their manner of listening, as well as from their manner of speaking, can soon form a judgment of their temper and understanding.

  Miss Fanshaw, instead of attending with a desire to improve herself from sensible conversation, sat with a look as absent as that of an unskilful actress, whilst the other performers are engaged in their parts.

  There was a small book-case, in a recess, at the farthest end of the room, and upon a little table there were some books, which Isabella and Matilda had been reading with Mad. de Rosier. Mrs. Fanshaw looked towards the table, with a sarcastic smile, and said —

  “You are great readers, young ladies, I see: may we know what are your studies?”

  Miss Fanshaw, to show how well she could walk, crossed the room, and took up one of the books.

  “‘Alison upon Taste’ — that’s a pretty book, I dare say — but la! what’s this, Miss Isabella? ‘A Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments’ — dear me! that must be a curious performance — by a smith! a common smith!”

  Isabella, good-naturedly, stopped her from farther absurd exclamations by turning to the title-page of the book and showing her the words “Adam Smith.”

  “Ah! A stands for Adam! very true — I thought it was a smith,” said Miss Fanshaw.

  “Well, my dear,” said her mother, who had quickness enough to perceive that her daughter had made some mistake, by the countenances of the company, but who had not sufficient erudition to know what the mistake could be—”well, my dear, and suppose it was a smith, there’s nothing extraordinary in that — nothing extraordinary in a smith’s writing a book nowadays, — why not a common blacksmith, as well as a common ploughman? — I was asked, I know, not long ago, to subscribe to the poems of a common ploughman.”

  “The Ayrshire ploughman?” said Lady N —— .

  “Yes, they called him so, as I recollect, and I really had a mind to put my name down, for I think I saw your ladyship’s amongst the subscribers.”

  “Yes, they are beautiful poems,” said Lady N —— .

  “So I understand — there are some vastly pretty things in his collection — but one hears of so man
y good things coming out every day,” said Mrs. Fanshaw, in a plaintive voice. “In these days, I think, every body writes—”

  “And reads,” said Lady N —— .

  “And reads,” said Mrs. Fanshaw. “We have learned ladies now, wherever one goes, who tell one they never play at cards — I am sure they are very bad company. Jane,” said she, turning to her daughter, “I hope you won’t take it into your head to turn out a reading lady!”

  “Oh dear, no!” said Miss Fanshaw: “we had not much time for reading at Suxberry House, we were so busy with our masters; — we had a charming English master though, to teach us elocution, because it’s so fashionable now to read loud well. Mrs. Harcourt, isn’t it odd to read English books to a French governess?” continued this young lady, whose constrained taciturnity now gave way to a strong desire to show herself off before Lady N —— . She had observed that Isabella and Matilda had been listened to with approbation, and she imagined that, when she spoke, she should certainly eclipse them. Mrs. Harcourt replied to her observation, that Mad. de Rosier not only read and spoke English remarkably well, but that she had also a general knowledge of English literature.

  “Oh! here are some French books,” said Miss Fanshaw, taking down one out of the book-case—”’Journal Étranger’ — dear me! are you translating of this, Miss Isabella?”

  “No,” said Mrs. Harcourt; “Madame de Rosier brought it down stairs yesterday, to show us an essay of Hume’s on the study of history, which is particularly addressed to women; and Mad. de Rosier says that it is not to be found in several of the late editions of Hume’s Essays — she thought it singular that it should be preserved in a French translation.”

  “There is,” said Isabella, “an entertaining account in that essay of a lady who asked Hume to lend her some novels! He lent her Plutarch’s Lives, which she thought very amusing, till she found out that they were true. As soon as she came to the names of Caesar and Alexander, she returned the books.”