Complete Novels of Maria Edgeworth

by Maria Edgeworth

  “To be sure,” said Lady Augusta, “it was very silly of me to venture; I almost broke my neck, out of pure friendship.”

  “It is well it is no worse,” said the elderly lady: “if a fall from a horse was the worst evil to be expected from a friendship with a woman of this sort, it would be nothing very terrible.”

  Lady Augusta, with an appearance of ingenuous candour, sighed again, and replied—”It is so difficult to see any imperfections in those one loves! Forgive me, if I spoke with too much warmth, madam, the other day, in vindication of my friend. I own I ought to have paid more deference to your judgment and knowledge of the world, so much superior to my own; but certainly I must confess, the impropriety of her amazonian manners, as Mr. Dashwood calls them, never struck my partial eyes till this morning. Nor could I, nor would I, believe half the world said of her; indeed, even now, I am persuaded she is, in the main, quite irreproachable; but I feel the truth of what you said to me, madam, that young women cannot be too careful in the choice of their female friends; that we are judged of by our companions; how unfairly one must be judged of sometimes!” concluded her ladyship, with a look of pensive reflection.

  Mr. Mountague never thought her half so beautiful as at this instant. “How mind embellishes beauty!” thought he; “and what quality of the mind more amiable than candour! — All that was wanting to her character was reflection; and could one expect so much reflection as this from a girl of eighteen, who had been educated by a Mlle. Panache?” Our readers will observe that this gentleman now reasoned like a madman, but not like a fool; his deductions from the appearances before him were admirable; but these appearances were false. He had not observed that Lady Augusta’s eyes were open to the defects of her amazonian friend, in the very moment that Lord George —— was roused to admiration by this horseman belle. Mr. Mountague did not perceive that the candid reflections addressed to his lordship’s aunt were the immediate consequence of female jealousy.

  The next morning, at breakfast, Lord George was summoned three times before he made his appearance: at length he burst in, with a piece of news he had just heard from his groom—”That Lady Di. Spanker, in riding home full gallop the preceding day, had been thrown from her horse by an old woman. Faith, I couldn’t believe the thing,” added Lord George, with a loud laugh; “for she certainly sits a horse better than any woman in England; but my groom had the whole story from the grand-daughter of the old woman who was run over.”

  “Run over!” exclaimed Lady Augusta; “was the poor woman run over? — was she hurt?”

  “Hurt! yes, she was hurt, I fancy,” said Lord George. “I never heard of any body’s being run over without being hurt. The girl has a petition that will come up to us just now, I suppose. I saw her in the back yard as I came in.”

  “Oh! let us see the poor child,” said Lady Augusta: “do let us have her called to this window.” The window opened down to the ground, and, as soon as the little girl appeared with the petition in her hand, Lady Augusta threw open the sash, and received it from her timid hand with a smile, which to Mr. Mountague seemed expressive of sweet and graceful benevolence. Lady Augusta read the petition with much feeling, and her lover thought her voice never before sounded so melodious. She wrote her name eagerly at the head of a subscription. The money she gave was rather more than the occasion required; but, thought Mr. Mountague,

  “If the generous spirit flow

  Beyond where prudence fears to go

  Those errors are of nobler kind,

  Than virtues of a narrow mind.”

  By a series of petty artifices Lady Augusta contrived to make herself appear most engaging and amiable to this artless young man: but the moment of success was to her the moment of danger. She was little aware, that when a man of sense began to think seriously of her as a wife, he would require very different qualities from those which please in public assemblies. Her ladyship fell into a mistake not uncommon in her sex; she thought that “Love blinds when once he wounds the swain.” Coquettes have sometimes penetration sufficient to see what will please their different admirers: but even those who have that versatility of manners, which can be all things to all men, forget that it is possible to support an assumed character only for a time; the moment the immediate motive for dissimulation diminishes, the power of habit acts, and the real disposition and manners appear.

  When Lady Augusta thought herself sure of her captive, and consequently when the power of habit was beginning to act with all its wonted force, she was walking out with him in a shrubbery near the house, and mademoiselle, with Mr. Dashwood, who generally was the gallant partner of her walks, accompanied them. Mademoiselle stopped to gather some fine carnations; near the carnations was a rose-tree. Mr. Mountague, as three of those roses, one of them in full blow, one half blown, and another a pretty bud, caught his eye, recollected a passage in Berkeley’s romance of Gaudentio di Lucca. “Did you ever happen to meet with Gaudentio di Lucca? do you recollect the story of Berilla, Lady Augusta?” said he.

  “No; I have never heard of Berilla: what is the story?” said she.

  “I wish I had the book,” said Mr. Mountague; “I cannot do it justice, but I will borrow it for you from Miss Helen Temple. I lent it to her some time ago; I dare say she has finished reading it.”

  At these words, Lady Augusta’s desire to have Gaudentio di Lucca suddenly increased; and she expressed vast curiosity to know the story of Berilla. “And pray what put you in mind of this book just now?” said she.

  “These roses. In Berkeley’s Utopia, which he calls Mezzorania — (every philosopher, you know, Mr. Dashwood, must have a Utopia, under whatever name he pleases to call it) — in Mezzorania, Lady Augusta, gentlemen did not, as amongst us, make declarations of love by artificial words, but by natural flowers. The lover in the beginning of his attachment declared it to his mistress by the offer of an opening bud; if she felt favourably inclined towards him, she accepted and wore the bud. When time had increased his affection — for in Mezzorania it is supposed that time increases affection for those that deserve it — the lover presented a half-blown flower; and, after this also was graciously accepted, he came, we may suppose not very long afterwards, with a full-blown flower, the emblem of mature affection. The ladies who accepted these full-blown flowers, and wore them, were looked upon amongst the simple Mezzoranians as engaged for life; nor did the gentlemen, when they offered their flowers, make one single protestation or vow of eternal love, yet they were believed, and deserved, it is said, to be believed.”

  “Qu’est ce que c’est? Qu’est ce que c’est?” repeated mademoiselle several times to Dashwood, whilst Mr. Mountague was speaking: she did not understand English sufficiently to comprehend him, and Dashwood was obliged to make the thing intelligible to her in French. Whilst he was occupied with her, Mr. Mountague gathered three roses, a bud, a half-blown and a full-blown rose, and playfully presented them to Lady Augusta for her choice.—”I’m dying to see this Gaudentio di Lucca; you’ll get the book for me to-morrow from Miss Helen Temple, will you?” said Lady Augusta, as she with a coquettish smile took the rose-bud, and put it into her bosom.

  “Bon!” cried mademoiselle, stooping to pick up the full-blown rose, which Mr. Mountague threw away carelessly. “Bon! but it is great pity dis should be thrown away.”

  “It is not thrown away upon Mlle. Panache!” said Dashwood.

  “Dat maybe,” said mademoiselle; “but I observe, wid all your fine compliment, you let me stoop to pick it up for myself — á l’Anglaise!”

  “A la Française, then,” said Dashwood, laughing, “permit me to put it into your nosegay.”

  “Dat is more dan you deserve,” replied mademoiselle.—”Eh! non, non. I can accommodate it, I tell you, to my own taste best.” She settled and resettled the flower: but suddenly she stopped, uttered a piercing shriek, plucked the full-blown rose from her bosom, and threw it upon the ground with a theatrical look of horror. A black earwig now appeared creeping out of t
he rose; it was running away, but mademoiselle pursued, set her foot upon it, and crushed it to death. “Oh! I hope to Heaven, Mr. Mountague, there are none of these vile creatures in the bud you’ve given me!” exclaimed Lady Augusta. She looked at her bud as she spoke, and espied upon one of the leaves a small green caterpillar: with a look scarcely less theatrical than mademoiselle’s, she tore off the leaf and flung it from her; then, from habitual imitation of her governess, she set her foot upon the harmless caterpillar, and crushed it in a moment.

  In the same moment Lady Augusta’s whole person seemed metamorphosed to the eyes of her lover. She ceased to be beautiful: he seemed to see her countenance distorted by malevolence; he saw in her gestures disgusting cruelty; and all the graces vanished.

  When Lady Augusta was a girl of twelve years old, she saw Mlle. Panache crush a spider to death without emotion: the lesson on humanity was not lost upon her. From imitation, she learned her governess’s foolish terror of insects; and from example, she was also taught that species of cruelty, by which at eighteen she disgusted a man of humanity who was in love with her. Mr. Mountague said not one word upon the occasion. They walked on. A few minutes after the caterpillar had been crushed, Lady Augusta exclaimed, “Why, mademoiselle, what have you done with Fanfan? I thought my dog was with us: for Heaven’s sake, where is he?”

  “He is run, he is run on,” replied mademoiselle.

  “Oh, he’ll be lost! he’ll run down the avenue, quite out upon the turnpike road. — Fanfan! Fanfan!”

  “Don’t alarm, don’t distress yourself,” cried Dashwood: “if your ladyship will permit me, I’ll see for Fanfan instantly, and bring her back to you, if she is to be found in the universe.”

  “O Lord! don’t trouble yourself; I only spoke to mademoiselle, who regularly loses Fanfan when she takes him out with her.” Dashwood set out in search of the dog; and Lady Augusta, overcome with affectation, professed herself unable to walk one yard further, and sank down upon a seat under a tree, in a very graceful, languid attitude. Mr. Mountague stood silent beside her. Mademoiselle went on with a voluble defence of her conduct towards Fanfan, which lasted till Dashwood reappeared, hurrying towards them with the dog in his arms—”Ah, la voilà! chère Fanfan!” exclaimed mademoiselle.

  “I am sure I really am excessively obliged to Mr. Dashwood, I must say,” cried Lady Augusta, looking reproachfully at Mr. Mountague.

  Dashwood now approached with panting, breathless eagerness, announcing a terrible misfortune, that Fanfan had got a thorn or something in his fore-foot. Lady Augusta received Fanfan upon her lap, with expressions of the most tender condolence; and Dashwood knelt down at her feet to sympathize in her sorrow, and to examine the dog’s paw. Mademoiselle produced a needle to extract the thorn.

  “I wish we had a magnifying-glass,” said Dashwood, looking with strained solicitude at the wound.

  “Oh, you insensible monster! positively you shan’t touch Fanfan,” cried Lady Augusta, guarding her lapdog from Mr. Mountague, who stooped now, for the first time, to see what was the matter. “Don’t touch him, I say; I would not trust him to you for the universe; I know you hate lapdogs. You’ll kill him — you’ll kill him.”

  “I kill him! Oh no,” said Mr. Mountague; “I would not even kill a caterpillar.”

  Lady Augusta coloured at these words; but she recovered herself when Dashwood laughed, and asked Mr. Mountague how long it was since he had turned brahmin; and how long since he had professed to like caterpillars and earwigs.

  “Bon Dieu! — earwig!” interrupted mademoiselle: “is it possible that monsieur or any body dat has sense, can like dose earwig?”

  “I do not remember,” answered Mr. Mountague, calmly, “ever to have professed any liking for earwigs.”

  “Well, pity; you profess pity for them,” said Mr. Dashwood, “and pity, you know, is ‘akin to love.’ — Pray, did your ladyship ever hear of the man who had a pet toad?”

  “Oh, the odious wretch!” cried Lady Augusta, affectedly; “but how could the man bring himself to like a toad?”

  “He began by pitying him, I suppose,” said Dashwood. “For my part, I own I must consider that man to be in a most enviable situation whose heart is sufficiently at ease to sympathize with the insect creation.”

  “Or with the brute creation,” said Mr. Mountague, smiling and looking at Fanfan, whose paw Dashwood was at this instant nursing with infinite tenderness.

  “Oh, gentlemen, let us have no more of this, for Heaven’s sake!” said Lady Augusta, interposing, with affected anxiety, as if she imagined a quarrel would ensue. “Poor dear Fanfan, you would not have any body quarrel about you, would you, Fanfan?” She rose as she spoke, and, delivering the dog to Dashwood to be carried home, she walked towards the house, with an air of marked displeasure towards Mr. Mountague.

  Her ladyship’s displeasure did not affect him as she expected. Her image — her gesture stamping upon the caterpillar, recurred to her lover’s mind many times in the course of the evening; and in the silence of the night, and whenever the idea of her came into his mind, it was attended with this picture of active cruelty.

  “Has your ladyship,” said Mr. Mountague, addressing himself to Lady S —— , “any commands for Mrs. Temple? I am going to ride over to see her this morning.”

  Lady S —— said that she would trouble him with a card for Mrs. Temple; a card of invitation for the ensuing week. “And pray don’t forget my kindest remembrances,” cried Lady Augusta, “especially to Miss Helen Temple; and if she should have entirely finished the book we were talking of, I shall be glad to see it.”

  When Mr. Mountague arrived at Mrs. Temple’s, he was shown into the usual sitting-room: the servant told him that none of the ladies were at home, but that they would soon return, he believed, from their walk, as they were gone only to a cottage at about half a mile’s distance.

  The room in which he had passed so many agreeable hours awakened in his mind a number of dormant associations — work, books, drawing, writing! he saw every thing had been going forward just as usual in his absence. All the domestic occupations, thought he, which make home delightful, are here: I see nothing of these at S —— Hall. Upon the table, near a neat work-basket, which he knew to be Helen’s, lay an open book; it was Gaudentio di Lucca. Mr. Mountague recollected the bud he had given to Lady Augusta, and he began to whistle, but not for want of thought. A music-book on the desk of the piano-forte caught his eye; it was open at a favourite lesson of his, which he remembered to have heard Helen play the last evening he was in her company. Helen was no great proficient in music; but she played agreeably enough to please her friends, and she was not ambitious of exhibiting her accomplishments. Lady Augusta, on the contrary, seemed never to consider her accomplishments as occupations, but as the means of attracting admiration. To interrupt the comparison, which Mr. Mountague was beginning to enter into between her ladyship and Helen, he thought the best thing he could do was to walk to meet Mrs. Temple; wisely considering, that putting the body in motion sometimes stops the current of the mind. He had at least observed, that his schoolfellow, Lord George —— , seemed to find this a specific against thought; and for once he was willing to imitate his lordship’s example, and to hurry about from place to place, without being in a hurry. He rang the bell, inquired in haste which way the ladies were gone, and walked after them, like a man who had the business of the nation upon his hands; yet he slackened his pace when he came near the cottage where he knew that he was to meet Mrs. Temple and her daughters. When he entered the cottage, the first object that he saw was Helen, sitting by the side of a decrepit old woman, who was resting her head upon a crutch, and who seemed to be in pain. This was the poor woman who had been ridden over by Lady Di. Spanker. A farmer who lived near Mrs. Temple, and who was coming homewards at the time the accident happened, had the humanity to carry the wretched woman to this cottage, which was occupied by one of Mrs. Temple’s tenants. As soon as the news reached her, she sent for a su
rgeon, and went with her daughters to give that species of consolation which the rich and happy can so well bestow upon the poor and Miserable — the consolation not of gold, but of sympathy.

  There was no affectation, no ostentation of sensibility, Mr. Mountague observed, in this cottage scene; the ease and simplicity of Helen’s manner never appeared to him more amiable. He recollected Lady Augusta’s picturesque attitude, when she was speaking to this old woman’s grand-daughter; but there was something in what he now beheld that gave him more the idea of nature and reality: he heard, he saw, that much had actually been done to relieve distress, and done when there were no spectators to applaud or admire. Slight circumstances show whether the mind be intent upon self or not. An awkward servant girl brushed by Helen whilst she was speaking to the old woman, and with a great black kettle, which she was going to set upon the fire, blackened Helen’s white dress, in a manner which no lady intent upon her personal appearance could have borne with patience. Mr. Mountague saw the black streaks before Helen perceived them, and when the maid was reproved for her carelessness, Helen’s good-natured smile assured her “that there was no great harm done.”

  When they returned home, Mr. Mountague found that Helen conversed with him with all her own ingenuous freedom, but there was something more of softness and dignity, and less of sprightliness, than formerly in her manner. Even this happened to be agreeable to him, for it was in contrast with the constant appearance of effort and artificial brilliancy conspicuous in the manners of Lady Augusta. The constant round of cards and company, the noise and bustle at S —— Hall, made it more like town than country life, and he had often observed that, in the intervals between dressing, and visiting, and gallantry, his fair mistress was frequently subject to ennui. He recollected that, in the many domestic hours he had spent at Mrs. Temple’s, he had never beheld this French demon, who makes the votaries of dissipation and idleness his victims. What advantage has a man, in judging of female character, who can see a woman in the midst of her own family, “who can read her history” in the eyes of those who know her most intimately, who can see her conduct as a daughter and a sister, and in the most important relations of life can form a certain judgment from what she has been, of what she is likely to be? But how can a man judge what sort of wife he may probably expect in a lady, whom he meets with only at public places, or whom he never sees even at her own house, without all the advantages or disadvantages of stage decoration? A man who marries a showy, entertaining coquette, and expects that she will make him a charming companion for life, commits as absurd a blunder as that of the famous nobleman, who, delighted with the wit and humour of Punch at a puppet-show, bought Punch, and ordered him to be sent home for his private amusement.