Miss Montenero looked uneasy, and her father perceiving this, checked himself again, and, changing his tone, added, “But with all its dangers and errors, enthusiasm, in either man or woman, is more amiable and respectable than selfishness. Enthusiasm is not the vice of the young men or women of the present day.”
“Certainly not,” said Mowbray, who was now very attentive to every thing that passed. I forgave him the witticisms with which he had crossed my humour this morning, for the kind sympathy he showed with the pleasure I felt at this moment. Afterwards, when Mowbray and I were alone together, and compared notes, as we were in the habit of doing, upon all that had been said, and had been looked, during the day, Mowbray congratulated me upon the impression I had made by my eloquence. “Enthusiasm, you see, is the thing both with father and daughter: you succeed in that line — follow it up!”
I was incapable of affecting enthusiasm, or of acting any part to show myself off; yet Mowbray’s opinion and my own observations coinciding, unconsciously and involuntarily, I afterwards became more at my ease in yielding to my natural feelings and habitual expressions.
Miss Montenero had not yet seen the Tower, and Mowbray engaged himself to be of our party. But at the same time, he privately begged me to keep it a dead secret from his sister. Lady Anne, he said, would never cease to ridicule him, if she were to hear of his going to the Tower, after having been too lazy to go with her, and all the fashionable world, the night before, to the Fantoccini.
Though I had lived in London half my childhood, my nervous disease had prevented my being taken to see even the sights that children are usually shown; and since my late arrival in town, when I had been my own master, engagements and emotions had pressed upon me too fast to leave time or inclination to think of such things. My object, of course, was now merely to have the pleasure of accompanying Berenice.
I was unexpectedly struck, on entering the armoury at the Tower. The walls, three hundred feet in length, covered with arms for two hundred thousand men, burnished arms, glittering in fancy figures on the walls, and ranged in endless piles from the ceiling to the floor of that long gallery; then the apartment with the line of ancient kings, clad in complete armour, mounted on their steeds fully caparisoned — the death-like stiffness of the figures — the stillness — the silence of the place — altogether awe the imagination, and carry the memory back to the days of chivalry. When among these forms of kings and heroes who had ceased to be, I beheld the Black Prince, lance couched, vizor down, with the arms he wore at Cressy and Poictiers, my enthusiasm knew no bounds. The Black Prince, from my childhood, had been the object of my idolatry. I kneeled — I am ashamed to confess it — to do homage to the empty armour.
Mr. Montenero, past the age of romantic extravagance, could not sympathize with this enthusiasm, but he bore with it.
We passed on to dark Gothic nooks of chambers, where my reverence for the beds on which kings had slept, and the tables at which kings had sat, much increased by my early associations formed of Brantefield Priory, was expressed with a vehemence which astonished Mr. Montenero; and, I fear, prevented him from hearing the answers to various inquiries, upon which he, with better regulated judgment, was intent.
An orator is the worst person to tell a plain fact; the very worst guide, as Mowbray observed, that a foreigner can have. Still Mr. Montenero had patience with me, and supplied the elisions in my rhetoric, by what information he could pick up from the guide, and from Mowbray, with whom, from time to time, he stopped to see and hear, after I had passed on with Berenice. To her quickness and sympathy I flattered myself that I was always intelligible.
We came at last to the chamber where Clarence and the young princes had been murdered. Here, I am conscious, I was beyond measure exuberant in exclamations, and in quotations from Shakspeare.
Mr. Montenero came in just as I was ranting, from Clarence’s dream —
“Seize on him, furies! take him to your torments! — With that, methought, a legion of foul fiends Environ’d me, and howled in mine ears”
Such hideous cries! that with the very noise I made, I prevented poor Mr. Montenero from hearing the answer to some historic question he was asking. Berenice’s eye warned me to lower my voice, and I believe I should have been quiet, but that unluckily, Mowbray set me off in another direction, by reminding me of the tapestry-chamber and Sir Josseline. I remember covering my face with both my hands, and shuddering with horror.
Mr. Montenero asked, “What of the tapestry-chamber?”
And immediately recollecting that I should not, to him, and before his daughter, describe the Jew, who had committed a deed without a name, I with much embarrassment said, that “it was nothing of any consequence — it was something I could not explain.”
I left it to Mowbray’s superior presence of mind, and better address, to account for it, and I went on with Berenice. Whenever my imagination was warmed, verses poured in upon my memory, and often without much apparent connexion with what went before. I recollected at this moment the passage in Akenside’s “Pleasures of the Imagination” describing the early delight the imagination takes in horrors: — the children closing round the village matron, who suspends the infant audience with her tales breathing astonishment; and I recited all I recollected of
“Evil spirits! of the deathbed call
Of him who robb’d the widow, and devour’d
The orphan’s portion — of unquiet souls
Ris’n from the grave, to ease the heavy guilt
Of deeds in life conceal’d — of shapes that walk
At dead of night, and clank their chains, and wave
The torch of Hell around the murderer’s bed!”
Mowbray and Mr. Montenero, who had stayed behind us a few minutes, came up just as I was, with much emphasis and gesticulation,
“Waving the torch of Hell.”
I am sure I must have been a most ridiculous figure. I saw Mowbray on the brink of laughter; but Mr. Montenero looked so grave, that he fixed all my attention. I suddenly stopped.
“We were talking of ‘The Pleasures of Imagination,’” said Berenice to her father. “Mr. Harrington is a great admirer of Akenside.”
“Is he?” replied Mr. Montenero coldly, and with a look of absence. “But, my dear, we can have the pleasures of the imagination another time. Here are some realities worthy of our present attention.”
He then drew his daughter’s arm within his. I followed; and all the time he was pointing out to her the patterns of the Spanish instruments of torture, with which her politic majesty Queen Elizabeth frightened her subjects into courage sufficient to repel all the invaders on board the invincible armada — I stood silent, pondering on what I might have said or done to displease him whom I was so anxious to please. First, I thought he suspected me of what I most detested, the affectation of taste, sensibility, and enthusiasm; next, I fancied that Mowbray, in explaining about the tapestry-chamber, Sir Josseline, and the bastinadoed Jew, had said something that might have hurt Mr. Montenero’s Jewish pride. From whichever of these causes his displeasure arose, it had the effect of completely sobering my spirits. My poetic fit was over. I did not even dare to speak to his daughter.
During our drive home, Berenice, apropos to something which Mowbray had said, but which I did not hear, suggested to her father some lines of Akenside, which she knew he particularly admired, on the nature and power of the early association of ideas. Mr. Montenero, with all the warmth my heart could wish, praised the poetic genius, and the intimate and deep knowledge of the human mind displayed in this passage. His gravity gradually wore off, and I began to doubt whether the displeasure had ever existed. At night, before Mowbray and I parted, when we talked over the day, he assured me that he had said nothing that could make Mr. Montenero displeased with me or any living creature; that they had been discussing some point of English History, on which old Montenero had posed him. As to my fears, Mowbray rallied me out of them effectually. He maintained that Montenero had
not been at all displeased, and that I was a most absurd modern self-tormentor. “Could not a man look grave for two minutes without my racking my fancy for two hours to find a cause for it? Perhaps the man had the toothache; possibly the headache; but why should I, therefore, insist upon having the heartache?”
CHAPTER XI.
Mowbray’s indifference was often a happy relief to my anxiety of temper; and I had surely reason to be grateful to him for the sacrifices he continued daily to make of his own tastes and pleasures, to forward my views.
One morning in particular, he was going to a rehearsal at Drury-lane, where I knew his heart was; but finding me very anxious to go to the Mint and the Bank with Mr. Montenero and Berenice, Mowbray, who had a relation a Bank director, immediately offered to accompany us, and procured us the means of seeing every thing in the best possible manner.
Nothing could, as he confessed, be less to his taste; and he was surprised that Miss Montenero chose to be of the party. A day spent in viewing the Mint and the Bank, it may perhaps be thought, was a day lost to love — quite the contrary; I had an opportunity of feeling how the passion of love can throw its enchantment over scenes apparently least adapted to its nature.
Before this time I had twice gone over every part of these magnificent establishments. I had seen at the Bank the spirit of order operating like predestination, compelling the will of man to act necessarily and continually with all the precision of mechanism. I had beheld human creatures, called clerks, turned nearly into arithmetical machines.
But how new did it all appear in looking at it with Berenice! How would she have been delighted if she had seen those machines, “instinct with spirit,” which now perform the most delicate manoeuvres with more than human dexterity — the self-moving balance which indefatigably weighs, accepts, rejects, disposes of the coin, which a mimic hand perpetually presents!
What chiefly pleased me in Miss Montenero was the composure, the sincerity of her attention. She was not anxious to display herself: I was the more delighted when I discovered her quickness of comprehension. I was charmed too by the unaffected pleasure she showed in acquiring new ideas, and surprised by the judicious proportion of the admiration she expressed for all that was in various degrees excellent in arrangement, or ingenious in contrivance: in short....
“In short, man,” as Mowbray would say, “in short, man, you were in love, and there’s an end of the matter: if your Berenice had hopped forty paces in the public streets, it would have been the same with you.”
That I deny — but I will go on with my story.
As we were going away, Mr. Montenero, after thanking Lord Mowbray and his cousin, the Bank director, who had shown and explained every thing to us with polite and intelligent patience, observed that the Bank was to him a peculiarly interesting sight.
“You know,” said he, “that we Jews were the first inventors of bills of exchange and bank-notes — we were originally the bankers and brokers of the world.”
Then, as we walked to the carriage, he continued addressing himself to his daughter, in a lowered voice, “You see, Berenice, here, as in a thousand instances, how general and permanent good often results from partial and temporary evil. The persecutions even to which we Jews were exposed — the tyranny which drove us from place to place, and from country to country, at a moment’s or without a moment’s warning, compelled us, by necessity, to the invention of a happy expedient, by which we could convert all our property into a scrap of paper, that could be carried unseen in a pocket-book, or conveyed in a letter unsuspected.”
Berenice thanked Heaven that the times of persecution were over; and added, that she hoped any prejudice which still existed would soon die away.
Mowbray exclaimed against the very idea of the existence of such prejudices at this time of day in England, among the higher classes.
He did not recollect his own mother, I believe, when he said this; but I know I had a twinge of conscience about mine, and I did not dare to look at Mr. Montenero; nor did I know well which way to look, when his lordship, persisting in his assertion, asked Miss Montenero if she could possibly imagine that any such vulgar prejudices existed among well-bred persons. Berenice mildly answered, that she had really as yet enjoyed so few opportunities of seeing the higher classes of society in London that she could not form a judgment. She was willing to take upon trust his lordship’s opinion, who must have means of knowing.
I imagined that Mr. Montenero’s eye was upon me, and that he was thinking of my mother’s never having made the slightest advance towards an acquaintance with his daughter. I recollected the speeches I had made on his first visit, pledging my mother to that which she had never performed. I felt upon the rack — and a pause, that ensued afterwards, increased my misery. I longed for somebody to say something — any thing. I looked for assistance to Mowbray. He repeated, confidently, that Miss Montenero might entirely rely upon what he said as to London and England — indeed he had been a good deal abroad too. He seemed to be glad to get to the continent again — I followed him as fast as I could, and inquired whether he did not think that the French and Germans were much improved in liberality, and a spirit of toleration.
“Give me leave,” said Mr. Montenero, “to answer for the improvement of the Germans. Fifteen years ago, I remember, when I was travelling in Germany, I was stopped at a certain bridge over the Rhine, and, being a Jew, was compelled to pay rather an ignominious toll. The Jews were there classed among cloven-footed beasts, and as such paid toll. But, within these few years, sixteen German princes, enlightened and inspired by one great writer, and one good minister, have combined to abolish this disgraceful tax. You see, my dear Berenice, your hope is quickly fulfilling — prejudices are dying away fast. Hope humbly, but hope always.”
The playful tone in which Mr. Montenero spoke, put me quite at my ease.
The next day I was determined on an effort to make my mother acquainted with Miss Montenero. If I could but effect a meeting, a great point I thought would be gained. Mowbray undertook to manage it, and he, as usual, succeeded. He persuaded his mother to go to an auction of pictures, where he assured her she would be likely to meet with a Vandyke of one of her ancestors, of whose portrait she had long been in search. Lady de Brantefield engaged my mother to be of the party, without her having any suspicion that she would meet the Monteneros. We arrived in time to secure the best places, before the auction began. Neither Mr. nor Miss Montenero were there; but, to my utter discomfiture, a few minutes after we were seated, vulgar Mrs. Coates and all her tribe appeared. She elbowed her difficult way onward towards us, and nodding to me familiarly, seated herself and her Vandals on a line with us. Then, stretching herself across the august Lady de Brantefield, who drew back, far as space would permit, “Beg your pardon, ma’am, but I just want to say a word to this lady. A’n’t you the lady — yes — that sat beside me at the play the other night — the Merchant of Venice and the Maid of the Oaks, was not it, Izzy? I hope you caught no cold, ma’am — you look but poorly, I am sorry to notice — but what I wanted to say, ma’am, here’s an ivory fan Miss Montenero was in a pucker and quandary about.” Pucker and quandary! — Oh! how I groaned inwardly!
“I was in such a fuss about her, you know, sir, that I never found out, till I got home, I had pocketed a strange fan — here it is, ma’am, if it is yours — it’s worth any body’s owning, I am sure.”
The fan was my mother’s, and she was forced to be much obliged. Lady de Brantefield, still painfully holding back, did not resume her position till some seconds had elapsed after Mrs. Coates had withdrawn her fat bust — till it might be supposed that the danger of coming into contact with her was fairly over. My mother, after a decent interval, asked me if it were possible to move to some place where they could have more air, as the crowd was increasing. Lord Mowbray and I made way for her to a seat by an open window; but the persevering Mrs. Coates followed, talking about the famous elbows of Mr. Peter Coates, on whose arm she leaned. “W
hen Peter chooses, there’s not a man in Lon’on knows the use of his elbows better, and if we’d had him, Mr. Harrington, with us at the play, the other night, we should not have given you so much trouble with Miss Montenero, getting her out.”
Lord Mowbray, amused by my look of suffering, could not refrain from diverting himself further by asking a question or two about the Monteneros. It was soon apparent, from the manner in which Mrs. Coates answered, that she was not as well pleased with them as formerly.
It was her maxim, she said, to speak of the bridge as she went over it; and for her part, if she was to give her verdict, she couldn’t but say Miss Montenero — for they weren’t on terms to call her Miss Berry now — was a little incomprehensible sometimes.
A look of surprise from Lord Mowbray, without giving himself the trouble to articulate, was quite sufficient to make the lady go on.
“Why, if it concerned any gentleman” (glancing her ill-bred eye upon me), “if any gentleman was thinking of looking that way, it might be of use to him to know the land. Miss Montenero, then, if truth must be told, is a little touchy on the Jewish chapter.”
Lord Mowbray urged Mrs. Coates on with “How, for instance?” “Oh, how! why, my lord, a hundred times I’ve hurt her to the quick. One can’t always be thinking of people’s different persuasions you know — and if one asked a question, just for information’s sake, or made a natural remark, as I did t’other day, Queeney, you know, just about Jew butchers, and pigeons—’It’s a pity,’ said I, ‘that Jews must always have Jew butchers, Miss Berry, and that there is so many things they can’t touch: one can’t have pigeons nor hares at one’s table,’ said I, thinking only of my second course; ‘as to pork, Henny,’ says I, ‘that’s a coarse butcher’s meat, which I don’t regret, nor the alderman, a pinch o’ snuff’ — now, you know, I thought that was kind of me; but Miss Montenero took it all the wrong way, quite to heart so, you’ve no idear! After all, she may say what she pleases, but it’s my notion the Jews is both a very unsocial and a very revengeful people; for, do you know, my lord, they wouldn’t dine with us next day, though the alderman called himself.”
Complete Novels of Maria Edgeworth Page 178
