Complete Novels of Maria Edgeworth

by Maria Edgeworth

  “Your affectionate son,

  “ERASMUS PERCY.”

  LETTER FROM ERASMUS PERCY TO HIS FATHER.

  “MY DEAR FATHER,

  “I told you in my last how I lost all hopes of favour from Sir Amyas Courtney, and how determined I was not to bend to him. — On some occasion soon afterwards this determination appeared, and recommended me immediately to the notice of a certain Dr. Frumpton, who is the antagonist and sworn foe to Sir Amyas. — Do you know who Dr. Frumpton is — and who he was — and how he has risen to his present height?

  “He was a farrier in a remote county: he began by persuading the country people in his neighbourhood that he had a specific for the bite of a mad dog.

  “It happened that he cured an old dowager’s favourite waiting-maid who had been bitten by a cross lap-dog, which her servants pronounced to be mad, that they might have an excuse for hanging it.

  “The fame of this cure was spread by the dowager among her numerous acquaintance in town and country.

  “Then he took agues — and afterwards scrofula — under his protection; patronized by his old dowager, and lucky in some of his desperate quackery, Dr. Frumpton’s reputation rapidly increased, and from different counties fools came to consult him. His manners were bearish even to persons of quality who resorted to his den; but these brutal manners imposed upon many, heightened the idea of his confidence in himself, and commanded the submission of the timid. — His tone grew higher and higher, and he more and more easily bullied the credulity of man and woman-kind. — It seems that either extreme of soft and polished, or of rough and brutal manner, can succeed with certain physicians. — Dr. Frumpton’s name, and Dr. Frumpton’s wonderful cures, were in every newspaper, and in every shop-window. No man ever puffed himself better even in this puffing age. — His success was viewed with scornful yet with jealous eyes by the regularly bred physicians, and they did all they could to keep him down — Sir Amyas Courtney, in particular, who would never call him any thing but that farrier, making what noise he could about Frumpton’s practising without a diploma. In pure spite, Frumpton took to learning — late as it was, he put himself to school — with virulent zeal he read and crammed till, Heaven knows how! he accomplished getting a diploma — stood all prescribed examinations, and has grinned defiance ever since at Sir Amyas.

  “Frumpton, delighted with the story of the made shell, and conceiving me to be the enemy of his enemy, resolved, as he declared, to take me by the hand; and, such is the magical deception of self-love, that his apparent friendliness towards me made him appear quite agreeable, and notwithstanding all that I had heard and known of him, I fancied his brutality was frankness, and his presumption strength of character. — I gave him credit especially for a happy instinct for true merit, and an honourable antipathy to flattery and meanness. — The manner in which he pronounced the words, fawning puppy! applied to Sir Amyas Courtney, pleased me peculiarly — and I had just exalted Frumpton into a great man, and an original genius, when he fell flat to the level, and below the level of common mortals.

  “It happened, as I was walking home with him, we were stopped in the street by a crowd, which had gathered round a poor man, who had fallen from a scaffold, and had broken his leg. Dr. Frumpton immediately said, ‘Send for Bland, the surgeon, who lives at the corner of the street.’ The poor man was carried into a shop; we followed him. I found that his leg, besides being broken, was terribly bruised and cut. The surgeon in a few minutes arrived. Mr. Bland, it seems, is a protégé of Frumpton’s, who formerly practised human farriery under him.

  “Mr. Bland, after slightly looking at it, said, ‘the leg must come off, the sooner the better.’ The man, perceiving that I pitied him, cast such a beseeching look at me, as made me interpose, impertinently perhaps, but I could not resist it. I forget what I said; but I know the sense of it was, that I thought the poor fellow’s leg could and ought to be saved. — I remember Dr. Frumpton glared upon me instantly with eyes of fury, and asked how I dared to interfere in a surgical case; and to contradict his friend, Mr. Bland, a surgeon!

  “They prepared for the operation — the surgeon whipped on his mittens — the poor man, who was almost fainting with loss of blood, cast another piteous look at me, and said, in an Irish accent, ‘Long life to you, dear! — and don’t let’m — for what will I be without a leg? And my wife and children!’

  “He fell back in a swoon, and I sprung between the surgeon and him; insisting that, as he had appealed to me, he should be left to me; and declared that I would have him carried to St. George’s Hospital, where I knew he would be taken care of properly.

  “Frumpton stamped, and scarcely articulate with rage, bade me—’stir the man at your peril!’ adding expressions injurious to the hospital, with the governors of which he had some quarrel. I made a sign to the workmen who had brought in the wounded man; they lifted him instantly, and carried him out before me; and one of them, being his countryman, followed, crying aloud, ‘Success to your honour! and may you never want a friend!’

  “Frumpton seized him by both shoulders, and pushing him out of the house, exclaimed, ‘Success, by G —— , he shall never have, if I can help it! He has lost a friend such as he can never get again — By G — , I’ll make him repent this!’

  “Unmoved by these denunciations, I pursued my way to the hospital. You know in what an admirable manner the London hospitals are conducted. — At St. George’s this poor man was received, and attended with the greatest care and skill. The surgeon who has taken charge of him assures me that his leg will, a month hence, be as useful as any leg in London.

  “Dr. Frumpton and Mr. Bland have, I find, loudly complained of my interference, as contrary to all medical etiquette — Etiquette! — from Frumpton! — The story has been told with many exaggerations, and always to my disadvantage. — I cannot, however, repent. — Let me lose what I may, I am satisfied with the pleasure of seeing the poor man in a way to do well. Pray let me hear from you, my dear father, and say, if you can, that you think me right — Thank Caroline for her letter.

  “Your affectionate

  “ERASMUS PERCY.”

  LETTER FROM ALFRED.

  “My dear father, I have made all possible inquiries about Buckhurst Falconer. He stayed at Cheltenham till about a month ago with the Hautons, and I hear attended Miss Hauton every where: but I do not think there is any reason to believe the report of his paying his addresses to her. The public attention he showed her was, in my opinion, designed only to pique Caroline, whom, I’m persuaded, he thinks (between the fits of half-a-dozen other fancies) the first of women — as he always calls her. Rosamond need not waste much pity on him. He is an out-of-sight-out-of-mind man. The pleasure of the present moment is all in all with him. — He has many good points in his disposition; but Caroline had penetration enough to see that his character would never suit hers; and I rejoice that she gave him a decided refusal.

  “Since he came to town, he has, by his convivial powers, his good stories, good songs, and knack of mimicry, made himself so famous, that he has more invitations to dinner than he can accept. He has wit and talents fit for more than being the buffoon or mocking-bird of a good dinner and a pleasant party; but he seems so well contented with this réputation de salon, that I am afraid his ambition will not rise to any thing higher. After leading this idle life, and enjoying this cheap-earned praise, he will never submit to the seclusion and application necessary for the attainment of the great prizes of professional excellence. I doubt whether he will even persevere so far as to be called to the bar; though the other day when I met him in Bond-street, he assured me, and bid me assure you, that he is getting on famously, and eating his terms with a prodigious appetite. He seemed heartily glad to see me, and expressed warm gratitude for your having saved his conscience, and having prevented his father from forcing him, as he said, to be a disgrace to the church.

  “Rosamond asks what sort of girls the Miss Falconers are, and whether the Falconers have be
en civil to me since I settled in town? — Yes; pretty well. The girls are mere show girls — like a myriad of others — sing, play, dance, dress, flirt, and all that. Georgiana is beautiful sometimes; Arabella, ugly always. I don’t like either of them, and they don’t like me, for I am not an eldest son. The mother was prodigiously pleased with me at first, because she mistook me for Godfrey, or rather she mistook me for the heir of our branch of the Percys. I hear that Mrs. Falconer has infinite address, both as a political and hymeneal intrigante: but I have not time to study her. Altogether, the family, though they live in constant gaiety, do not give me the idea of being happy among one another. I have no particular reason for saying this. I judge only from the tact on this subject which I have acquired from my own happy experience.

  “Love to Rosamond — I am afraid she will think I have been too severe upon Buckhurst Falconer. I know he is a favourite, at least a protégé of hers and of Godfrey. Bid her remember I have acknowledged that he has talents and generosity; but that which interests Rosamond in his favour inclines ill-natured me against him — his being one of Caroline’s suitors. I think he has great assurance to continue, in spite of all repulse, to hope, especially as he does nothing to render himself more worthy of encouragement. Thank Caroline for her letter; and assure Rosamond, that, though I have never noticed it, I was grateful for her entertaining account of M. de Tourville’s vis: I confess, I am rather late with my acknowledgments; but the fire at Percy-hall, and many events which rapidly succeeded, put that whole affair out of my head. Moreover, the story of Euphrosyne and Count Albert was so squeezed under the seal, that I must beg notes of explanation in her next. Who the deuce is Euphrosyne? and what does the letter P — for the rest of the word was torn out — stand for? and is Count Albert a hero in a novel, or a real live man?

  “I saw a live man yesterday, whom I did not at all like to see — Sharpe, walking with our good cousin, Sir Robert Percy, in close conversation. This conjunction, I fear, bodes us no good. — Pray, do pray make another search for the deed.

  “Your affectionate son,

  “ALFRED PERCY.”

  Soon after this letter had been received, and while the picture of his life, and the portraits of his worthy companions were yet fresh in her view, Buckhurst Falconer took the unhappy moment to write to renew his declaration of passionate attachment to Caroline, and to beg to be permitted to wait upon her once more.

  From the indignant blush which mounted in Caroline’s face on reading his letter, Rosamond saw how unlikely it was that this request should be granted. It came, indeed, at an unlucky time. Rosamond could not refrain from a few words of apology, and looks of commiseration for Buckhurst; yet she entirely approved of Caroline’s answer to his letter, and the steady repetition of her refusal, and even of the strengthened terms in which it was now expressed. Rosamond was always prudent for her friends, when it came to any serious point where their interests or happiness were concerned. Her affection for her friends, and her fear of doing wrong on such occasions, awakened her judgment, and so controlled her imagination, that she then proved herself uncommonly judicious and discreet. — Prudence had not, it is true, been a part of Rosamond’s character in childhood; but, in the course of her education, a considerable portion of it had been infused by a very careful and skilful hand. Perhaps it had never completely assimilated with the original composition: sometimes the prudence fell to the bottom, sometimes was shaken to the top, according to the agitation or tranquillity of her mind; sometimes it was so faintly visible, that its existence might be doubted by the hasty observer; but when put to a proper test, it never failed to reappear in full force. — After any effort of discretion in conduct, Rosamond, however, often relieved and amused herself by talking in favour of the imprudent side of the question.

  “You have decided prudently, my dear Caroline, I acknowledge,” said she. “But now your letter is fairly gone; now that it is all over, and that we are safe, I begin to think you are a little too prudent for your age. — Bless me, Caroline, if you are so prudent at eighteen, what will you be at thirty? Beware! — and in the mean time you will never be a heroine — what a stupid uninteresting heroine you will make! You will never get into any entanglements, never have any adventures; or if kind fate should, propitious to my prayer, bring you into some charming difficulties, even then we could not tremble for you, or enjoy all the luxury of pity, because we should always know that you would be so well able to extricate yourself — so certain to conquer, or — not die — but endure. — Recollect that Doctor Johnson, when his learned sock was off, confessed that he could never be thoroughly interested for Clarissa, because he knew that her prudence would always be equal to every occasion.”

  Mrs. Percy began to question whether Johnson had ever expressed this sentiment seriously: she reprobated the cruelty of friendly biographers, who publish every light expression that escapes from celebrated lips in private conversation; she was going to have added a word or two about the injury done to the public, to young people especially, by the spreading such rash dogmas under the sanction of a great name.

  But Rosamond did not give her mother time to enforce this moral; she went on rapidly with her own thoughts.

  “Caroline, my dear,” continued she, “you shall not be my heroine; you are too well proportioned for a heroine — in mind, I mean: a heroine may — must have a finely-proportioned person, but never a well-proportioned mind. All her virtues must be larger than the life; all her passions those of a tragedy queen. Produce — only dare to produce — one of your reasonable wives, mothers, daughters, or sisters on the theatre, and you would see them hissed off the stage. Good people are acknowledged to be the bane of the drama and the novel — I never wish to see a reasonable woman on the stage, or an unreasonable woman off it. I have the greatest sympathy and admiration for your true heroine in a book; but I grant you, that in real life, in a private room, the tragedy queen would be too much for me; and the novel heroine would be the most useless, troublesome, affected, haranguing, egotistical, insufferable being imaginable! So, my dear Caroline, I am content, that you are my sister, and my friend, though I give you up as a heroine.”

  CHAPTER VII.

  LETTER FROM GODFREY PERCY TO MRS. PERCY.

  “London, the British Hotel.

  “You will be surprised, my dear mother, to find that I am in London, instead of being, as I had hoped I should have been by this time, with the army on the continent. Just as we were going to embark, we were countermanded, and ordered to stay at our quarters. Conceive our disappointment — to remain in garrison at the most stupid, idle country town in England.

  “You ask how I like my brother officers, and what sort of men they are? — Major Gascoigne, son to my father’s friend, I like extremely; he is a man of a liberal spirit, much information, and zeal for the army. But what I particularly admire in him is his candour. He says it is his own fault that he is not higher in the army — that when he was a very young man, he was of too unbending a temper — mistook bluntness for sincerity — did not treat his superior officer with proper deference — lost a good friend by it.

  “A fine lesson for me! and the better, because not intended.

  “Next to Gascoigne I like Captain Henry: a young man of my own age, uncommonly handsome, but quite free from conceit. There is something in his manners so gentlemanlike, and he is of so frank a disposition, that I was immediately prepossessed in his favour. — I don’t like him the worse for having a tinge of proper pride, especially in the circumstances in which he is placed. I understand that it is suspected he is not of a good family; but I am not impertinent enough to inquire into particulars. I have been told, that when he first came into the regiment, some of the officers wanted to make out what family he belongs to, and whether he is, or is not, one of the Irish Henrys. They showed their curiosity in an unwarrantable manner; and Henry, who has great feeling, and a spirit as quick to resent injury as to be won by kindness, was going to call one of these gentlemen to ac
count for his impertinence. He would have had half a dozen duels upon his hands, if Gascoigne had not settled them. I have not time to tell you the whole story — but it is enough to say, that Major Gascoigne showed great address and prudence, as well as steadiness, and you would all love Captain Henry for his gratitude — he thinks Gascoigne a demi-god.

  “The rest of my brother-officers are nothing supernatural — just what you may call mere red coats; some of them fond of high play, others fond of drinking: so I have formed no intimacy but with Gascoigne and Henry. My father will see that I do not yet think that the officers of my own mess must all be the first men in the universe.

  “Love to all at home. I hope we shall sail soon, and I hope Rosamond will give me credit for the length of this letter. — She cannot say, with all her malice, that my lines are at shooting distance, or that my words are stretched out like a lawyer’s — two good pages, count which way you will! — and from Godfrey, who is not a letter-writer, as Alfred is! — Two good pages, did I say? why, here’s the best part of a third for you, if you allow me to be,

  “My dear mother,

  with much respect,

  “Your dutiful, obedient,

  and affectionate son,

  “GODFREY PERCY.”

  Whilst Godfrey remained in quarters at this most idle and stupid of country towns, some circumstances occurred in the regiment which put his prudence to trial, and, sooner than he expected, called upon him for the exercise of that spirit of forbearance and temper which he had promised his mother he would show. — It was the more difficult to him to keep his temper, because it was an affair which touched the interest of his friend Major Gascoigne. The lieutenant-colonel of the regiment having been promoted, Major Gascoigne had reasonable expectations of succeeding him; but, to his disappointment, a younger man than himself, and a stranger to the regiment, was put over his head. It was said that this appointment was made in consequence of the new colonel being a nephew of Lord Skreene, and of his also having it in his power to command two votes in parliament.