Mr. Darford had taken his two nephews, Charles and William, into partnership with him: William, who had been educated by him, resembled him in character, habits, and opinions. Always active and cheerful, he seemed to take pride and pleasure in the daily exertions and care which his situation, and the trust reposed in him, required. Far from being ashamed of his occupations, he gloried in them; and the sense of duty was associated in his mind with the idea of happiness. His cousin Charles, on the contrary, felt his duty and his ideas of happiness continually at variance: he had been brought up in an extravagant family, who considered tradesmen and manufacturers as a caste disgraceful to polite society. Nothing but the utter ruin of his father’s fortune could have determined him to go into business.
He never applied to the affairs of the manufactory; he affected to think his understanding above such vulgar concerns, and spent his days in regretting that his brilliant merit was buried in obscurity.
He was sensible that he hazarded the loss of his uncle’s favour by the avowal of his prejudices; yet such was his habitual conceit, that he could not suppress frequent expressions of contempt for Mr. Darford’s liberal notions. Whenever his uncle’s opinion differed from his own, he settled the argument, as he fancied, by saying to himself or to his clerk, “My uncle Darford knows nothing of the world: how should he, poor man! shut up as he has been all his life in a counting-house?”
Nearly sixty years’ experience, which his uncle sometimes pleaded as an apology for trusting to his own judgment, availed nothing in the opinion of our prejudiced youth. Prejudiced youth, did we presume to say? Charles would have thought this a very improper expression; for he had no idea that any but old men could be prejudiced. Uncles, and fathers, and grandfathers, were, as he thought, the race of beings peculiarly subject to this mental malady; from which all young men, especially those who have their boots made by a fashionable bootmaker, are of course exempt.
At length the time came when Charles was at liberty to follow his own opinions: Mr. Darford died, and his fortune and manufactory were equally divided between his two nephews. “Now,” said Charles, “I am no longer chained to the oar. I will leave you, William, to do as you please, and drudge on, day after day, in the manufactory, since that is your taste: for my part, I have no genius for business. I shall take my pleasure; and all I have to do is to pay some poor devil for doing my business for me.”
“I am afraid the poor devil will not do your business as well as you would do it yourself,” said William: “you know the proverb of the master’s eye.”
“True! true! Very likely,” cried Charles, going to the window to look at a regiment of dragoons galloping through the town; “but I have other employment for my eyes. Do look at those fine fellows who are galloping by! Did you ever see a handsomer uniform than the colonel’s? And what a fine horse! ‘Gad! I wish I had a commission in the army: I should so like to be in his place this minute.”
“This minute? Yes, perhaps, you would; because he has, as you say, a handsome uniform and a fine horse: but all his minutes may not be like this minute.”
“Faith, William, that is almost as soberly said as my old uncle himself could have spoken. See what it is to live shut up with old folks! You catch all their ways, and grow old and wise before your time.”
“The danger of growing wise before my time does not alarm me much: but perhaps, cousin, you feel that danger more than I do?”
“Not I,” said Charles, stretching himself still farther out of the window to watch the dragoons, as they were forming on the parade in the market-place. “I can only say, as I said before, that I wish I had been put into the army instead of into this cursed cotton manufactory. Now the army is a genteel profession, and I own I have spirit enough to make it my first object to look and live like a gentleman.”
“And I have spirit enough,” replied William, “to make it my first object to look and live like an independent man; and I think a manufacturer, whom you despise so much, may be perfectly independent. I am sure, for my part, I am heartily obliged to my uncle for breeding me up to business; for now I am at no man’s orders; no one can say to me, ‘Go to the east, or go to the west; march here, or march there; fire upon this man, or run your bayonet into that.’ I do not think the honour and pleasure of wearing a red coat, or of having what is called a genteel profession, would make me amends for all that a soldier must suffer, if he does his duty. Unless it were for the defence of my country, for which I hope and believe I should fight as well as another, I cannot say that I should like to be hurried away from my wife and children, to fight a battle against people with whom I have no quarrel, and in a cause which perhaps I might not approve of.”
“Well, as you say, William, you that have a wife and children are quite in a different situation from me. You cannot leave them, of course. Thank my stars, I am still at liberty, and I shall take care and keep myself so: my plan is to live for myself, and to have as much pleasure as I possibly can.”
Whether this plan of living for himself was compatible with the hopes of having as much pleasure as possible, we leave it to the heads and hearts of our readers to decide. In the mean time we must proceed with his history.
Soon after this conversation had passed between the two partners, another opportunity occurred of showing their characters still more distinctly.
A party of ladies and gentlemen, travellers, came to the town, and wished to see the manufactories there. They had letters of recommendation to the Mr. Darfords; and William, with great good-nature, took them to see their works. He pointed out to them, with honest pride, the healthy countenances of the children whom they employed.
“You see,” said he, “that we cannot be reproached with sacrificing the health and happiness of our fellow-creatures to our own selfish and mercenary views. My good uncle took all the means in his power to make every person concerned in this manufactory as happy as possible; and I hope we shall follow his example. I am sure the riches of both the Indies could not satisfy me, if my conscience reproached me with having gained wealth by unjustifiable means. If these children were over-worked, or if they had not fresh air and wholesome food, it would be the greatest misery to me to come into this room and look at them. I could not do it. But, on the contrary, knowing, as I do, that they are well treated and well provided for in every respect, I feel joy and pride in coming amongst them, and in bringing my friends here.”
William’s eyes sparkled, as he thus spoke the generous sentiments of his heart; but Charles, who had thought himself obliged to attend the ladies of the party to see the manufactory, evidently showed he was ashamed of being considered as a partner. William, with perfect simplicity, went on to explain every part of the machinery, and the whole process of the manufacture; whilst his cousin Charles, who thought he should that way show his superior liberality and politeness, every now and then interposed with, “Cousin, I’m afraid we are keeping the ladies too long standing. Cousin, this noise must certainly annoy the ladies horridly. Cousin, all this sort of thing cannot be very interesting, I apprehend, to the ladies. Besides, they won’t have time, at this rate, to see the china-works; which is a style of thing more to their taste, I presume.”
The fidgeting impatience of our hero was extreme; till at last he gained his point, and hurried the ladies away to the china-works. Amongst these ladies there was one who claimed particular attention, Miss Maude Germaine, an elderly young lady, who, being descended from a high family, thought herself entitled to be proud. She was yet more vain than proud, and found her vanity in some degree gratified by the officious attention of her new acquaintance, though she affected to ridicule him to her companions, when she could do so unobserved. She asked them, in a whisper, how they liked her new cicerone; and whether he did not show the lions very prettily, considering who and what he was?
It has been well observed “that people are never ridiculous by what they are, but by what they pretend to be.” {Footnote: Rochefoucault} These ladies, with the best dispositi
ons imaginable for sarcasm, could find nothing to laugh at in Mr. William Darford’s plain unassuming manners; as he did not pretend to be a fine gentleman, there was no absurd contrast between his circumstances and his conversation; while almost every word, look, or motion of his cousin was an object of ridicule, because it was affected. His being utterly unconscious of his foibles, and perfectly secure in the belief of his own gentility, increased the amusement of the company. Miss Maude Germaine undertook to play him off, but she took sufficient care to prevent his suspecting her design. As they were examining the beautiful china, she continually appealed to Mr. Charles Darford, as a man of taste; and he, with awkward gallantry, and still more awkward modesty, always began his answers by protesting he was sure Miss Maude Germaine was infinitely better qualified to decide in such matters than he was: he had not the smallest pretensions to taste; but that, in his humble opinion, the articles she pitched upon were evidently the most superior in elegance, and certainly of the newest fashion. “Fashion, you know, ladies, is all in all in these things, as in every thing else.”
Miss Germaine, with a degree of address which afforded much amusement to herself and her companions, led him to extol or reprobate whatever she pleased; and she made him pronounce an absurd eulogium on the ugliest thing in the room, by observing it was vastly like what her friend, Lady Mary Crawley, had just bought for her chimney-piece.
Not content with showing she could make our man of taste decide as she thought proper, she was determined to prove that she could make him reverse his own decisions, and contradict himself, as often as she pleased. They were at this instant standing opposite to two vases of beautiful workmanship.
“Now,” whispered she to one of her companions, “I will lay you any wager I first make him say that both those vases are frightful; then that they are charming; afterward that he does not know which he likes best; next, that no person of any taste can hesitate betwixt them; and at last, when he has pronounced his decided humble opinion, he shall reverse his judgment, and protest he meant to say quite the contrary.”
All this the lady accomplished much to her satisfaction and to that of her friends; and so blind and deaf is self-love, our hero neither heard nor saw that he was the object of derision. William, however, was rather more clear-sighted; and as he could not bear to see his cousin make himself the butt of the company, he interrupted the conversation, by begging the ladies would come into another room to look at the manner in which the china was painted. Charles, with a contemptuous smile, observed that the ladies would probably find the odour of the paint rather too much for their nerves. Full of the sense of his own superior politeness, he followed; since it was determined that they must go, as he said, nolens volens. He did not hear Miss Germaine whisper to her companions as they passed, “Can any thing in nature be much more ridiculous than a vulgar manufacturer, who sets up for a fine gentleman?”
Amongst the persons who were occupied in painting a set of china with flowers, there was one who attracted particular attention, by the ease and quickness with which she worked. An iris of her painting was produced, which won the admiration of all the spectators; and whilst Charles was falling into ecstasies about the merit of the painting, and the perfection to which the arts are now carried in England, William was observing the flushed and unhealthy countenance of the young artist. He stopped to advise her not to overwork herself, to beg she would not sit in a draught of wind where she was placed, and to ask her, with much humanity, several questions concerning her health and her circumstances. Whilst he was speaking to her, he did not perceive that he had set his foot by accident on Miss Germaine’s gown; and, as she walked hastily on, it was torn in a deplorable manner. Charles apologized for his cousin’s extreme absence of mind and rudeness; and with a candid condescension added, “Ladies, you must not think ill of my cousin William, because he is not quite so much your humble servant as I am: notwithstanding his little rusticities, want of polish, gallantry, and so forth, things that are not in every man’s power, I can assure you there is not a better man in the world; except that he is so entirely given up to business, which indeed ruins a man for every thing else.”
The apologist little imagined he was at this moment infinitely more awkward and ill-bred than the person whom he affected to pity and to honour with his protection. Our hero continued to be upon the best terms possible with himself and with Miss Maude Germaine, during the remainder of this day. He discovered that this lady intended to pass a fortnight with a relation of hers in the town of —— . He waited upon her the next day, to give her an account of the manner in which he had executed some commissions about the choice of china with which she had honoured him.
One visit led to another, and Charles Darford was delighted to find himself admitted into the society of such very genteel persons. At first, he was merely proud of being acquainted with a lady of Miss Maude Germaine’s importance, and contented himself with boasting of it to all his acquaintance; by degrees, he became more audacious; he began to fancy himself in love with her, and to flatter himself she would not prove inexorable. The raillery of some of his companions piqued him to make good his boast; and he determined to pay his addresses to a lady, who, they all agreed, could never think of a man in business.
Our hero was not entirely deluded by his vanity: the lady’s coquetry contributed to encourage his hopes. Though she always spoke of him to her friends as a person whom it was impossible she could ever think of for a moment, yet as soon as he made a declaration of his love to her, she began to consider that a manufacturer might have common sense, and even some judgment and taste. Her horror of people in business continued in full force; but she began to allow there was no general rule that did not admit of an exception. When her female friends laughed, following the example she had set them, at Charles Darford, her laughter became fainter than theirs; and she was one evening heard to ask a stranger, who saw him for the first time, whether that young gentleman looked as if he was in business?
Sundry matters began to operate in our hero’s favour, precedents, opportunely produced by her waiting-maid, of ladies of the first families in England, ladies even of the first fashion, who had married into mercantile houses; a present, too, from her admirer of the beautiful china vase, of which she had so often made him change his opinion, had its due effect; but the preponderating motive was the dread of dying an old maid, if she did not accept of this offer.
After various airs, and graces, and doubts, and disdains, this, fair lady consented to make her lover happy, on the express condition that he should change his name from Darford to Germaine, that he should give up all share in the odious cotton manufactory, and that he should purchase the estate of Germaine-park, in Northamptonshire, to part with which, as it luckily happened, some of her great relations were compelled.
In the folly of his joy, at the prospect of an alliance with the great Germaine family, he promised every thing that was required of him, notwithstanding the remonstrances of his friend William, who represented to him, in the forcible language of common sense, the inconveniences of marrying into a family that would despise him; and of uniting himself to such an old coquette as Miss Germaine, who would make him not only a disagreeable but a most extravagant wife.
“Do you not see,” said he, “that she has not the least affection for you? she marries you only because she despairs of getting any other match; and because you are rich, and she is poor. She is seven years older than you, by her own confession, and consequently will be an old woman whilst you are a young man. She is, as you see — I mean as I see — vain and proud in the extreme; and if she honours you with her hand, she will think you can never do enough to make her amends for having married beneath her pretensions. Instead of finding in her, as I find in my wife, the best and most affectionate of friends, you will find her your torment through life; and consider, this is a torment likely to last these thirty or forty years. Is it not worth while to pause — to reflect for as many minutes, or even days?”
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br /> Charles paused double the number of seconds, perhaps, and then replied, “You have married to please yourself, cousin William, and I shall marry to please myself. As I don’t mean to spend my days in the same style in which you do, the same sort of wife that makes you happy could never content me. I mean to make some figure in the world; I know no other use of fortune; and an alliance with the Germaines brings me at once into fashionable society. Miss Maude Germaine is very proud, I confess; but she has some reason to be proud of her family; and then, you see, her love for me conquers her pride, great as it is.”
William sighed when he saw the extent of his cousin’s folly. The partnership between the two Darfords was dissolved.
It cost our hero much money but no great trouble to get his name changed from Darford to Germaine; and it was certainly very disadvantageous to his pecuniary interest to purchase Germaine-park, which was sold to him for at least three years’ purchase more than its value: but, in the height of his impatience to get into the fashionable world, all prudential motives appeared beneath his consideration. It was, as he fancied, part of the character of a man of spirit, the character he was now to assume and support for life, to treat pecuniary matters as below his notice. He bought Germaine-park, married Miss Germaine, and determined no mortal should ever find out, by his equipages or style of life, that he had not been born the possessor of this estate.
In this laudable resolution, it cannot possibly be doubted but that his bride encouraged him to the utmost of her power. She was eager to leave the county where his former friends and acquaintance resided; for they were people with whom, of course, it could not be expected that she should keep up any manner of intercourse. Charles, in whose mind vanity at this moment smothered every better feeling, was in reality glad of a pretext for breaking off all connexion with those whom he had formerly loved. He went to take leave of William in a fine chariot, on which the Germaine arms were ostentatiously blazoned. That real dignity, which arises from a sense of independence of mind, appeared in William’s manners; and quite overawed and abashed our hero, in the midst of all his finery and airs. “I hope, cousin William,” said Charles, “when you can spare time, though, to be sure, that is a thing hardly to be expected, as you are situated; but, in case you should be able any ways to make it convenient, I hope you will come and take a look at what we are doing at Germaine-park.”
Complete Novels of Maria Edgeworth Page 437