Complete Novels of Maria Edgeworth

by Maria Edgeworth

  Before I opened my lips, something in the turn of my physiognomy enraged my father to such a degree that all the blood in his body came into his face, and, starting up, he cried, “Don’t answer me, sir — I ask no questions — I don’t want to hear any thing about the matter! Only if — if, sir — if — that’s all I have to say — if — by Jupiter Ammon — sir, I won’t hear a word — a syllable! You only wish to explain — I won’t have any explanation — I have business enough on my hands, without listening to a madman’s nonsense!”

  My father began to open his morning’s packet of letters and newspapers. One letter, which had been directed to his house in the country, and which had followed him to town, seemed to, alarm him terribly. He put the letter into my mother’s hand, cursed all the post-masters in England, who were none of them to blame for its not reaching him sooner, called for his hat and cane, said he must go instantly to the city, but “feared all was, too late, and that we were undone.” With this comfortable assurance he left us. The letter was from a broker in Lombard-street, who did business for my father, and who wrote to let him know that, “in consequence of the destruction of a great brewery in the late riots, several mercantile houses had been injured. Alderman Coates had died suddenly of an apoplexy, it was said: his house had closed on Saturday; and it was feared that Baldwin’s bank would not stand the run made on it.”

  Now in Baldwin’s bank, as my mother informed me, my father had eight days before lodged £30,000, the purchase money of that estate which he had been obliged to sell to pay for his three elections. This sum was, in fact, every shilling of it due to creditors, who had become clamorous; and “if this be gone,” said my mother, “we are lost indeed! — this house must go, and the carriages, and every thing; the Essex estate is all we shall have left, and live there as we can — very ill it must be, to us who have been used to affluence and luxury. Your father, who expects his table, and every individual article of his establishment, to be in the first style, as if by magic, without ever reflecting on the means, but just inviting people, and leaving it to me to entertain them properly — oh! I know how bitterly he would feel even retrenchment! — and this would be ruin; and every thing that vexes him of late brings on directly a fit of the gout — and then you know what his temper is! Heaven knows what I had to go through with my nerves, and my delicate health, during the last fit, which came on the very day after we left you, and lasted six weeks, and which he sets down to your account, Harrington, and to the account of your Jewess.”

  I had too much feeling for my mother’s present distress to increase her agitation by saying any thing on this tender subject. I let her accuse me as she pleased — and she very soon began to defend me. The accounts she had heard in various letters of the notice that had been taken of Miss Montenero by some of the leading persons in the fashionable world, the proposals that had been made to her, and especially the addresses of Lord Mowbray, which had been of sufficient publicity, had made, I found, a considerable alteration in my mother’s judgment or feelings. She observed that it was a pity my father was so violently prejudiced and obstinate, for that, after all, it would not be an unprecedented marriage. My mother, after a pause, went on to say, that though she was not, she hoped, an interested person, and should scorn the idea of her son’s being a fortune-hunter — and indeed I had given pretty sufficient proof that I was not of that description of suitors; yet, if the Jewess were really amiable, and as capable of generous attachment, it would be, my mother at last acknowledged, the best thing I could do, to secure an independent establishment with the wife of my choice.

  I was just going to tell my mother of the conversation that I had had with Mr. Montenero, and of the obstacle, when her mind reverted to the Lombard-street letter, and to Baldwin’s bank; and for a full hour we discussed the probability of Baldwin’s standing or failing, though neither of us had any means of judging — of this, being perhaps the least anxious of the two, I became sensible the first. I finished, by stationing myself at the window to watch for my father’s return, of which I promised to give my mother notice, if she would lie down quietly on the sofa, and try to compose her spirits; she had given orders to be denied to all visitors, but every knock at the door made her start, and “There’s your father! There’s Mr. Harrington!” was fifty times repeated before the hour when it was even possible that my father could have returned from the city.

  When the probable time came and passed, when it grew later and later without my father’s appearing, our anxiety and impatience rose to the highest pitch.

  At last I gave my mother notice that I saw among the walkers at the end of the street which joined our square, an elderly gentleman with a cane.

  “But there are so many elderly gentlemen with canes,” said my mother, joining me at the window. “Is it Mr. Harrington?”

  “It is very like my father, ma’am. Now you can see him plainly picking his way over the crossing.”

  “He is looking down,” said my mother; “that is a very bad sign. — But is he not looking up now?”

  “No, ma’am; and now he is taking snuff.”

  “Taking snuff! is he? Then there is some hope,” said my mother.

  During the last forty yards of my father’s walk, we each drew innumerable and often opposite conclusions, from his slightest gestures and motions, interpreting them all as favourable or unfavourable omens. In the course of five minutes my mother’s presentiments varied fifty times. At length came his knock at the door. My mother grew pale — to her ear it said “all’s lost;” to mine it sounded like “all’s safe.”

  “He stays to take off his great coat! a good sign; but he comes heavily up stairs.” Our eyes were fixed on the door — he opened it, and advanced towards us without uttering one syllable.

  “All’s lost — and all’s safe,” said my father. “My fortune’s safe, Mrs. Harrington.”

  “What becomes of your presentiments, my dear mother?” said I.

  “Thank Heaven!” said my mother, “I was wrong for once.”

  “You might thank Heaven for more than once, madam,” said my father.

  “But then what did you mean by all’s lost, Mr. Harrington; if all’s safe, how can all be lost?”

  “My all, Mrs. Harrington, is not all fortune. There is such a thing as credit as well as fortune, Mrs. Harrington.”

  “But if you have not lost your fortune, you have not lost your credit, I presume,” said my mother.

  “I have a character as a gentleman, Mrs. Harrington.”

  “Of course.”

  “A character for consistency, Mrs. Harrington, to preserve.”

  “’Tis a hard thing to preserve, no doubt,” said my mother.

  “But I wish you’d speak plain, for my nerves can’t bear it.”

  “Then I can tell you, Mrs. Harrington, your nerves have a great deal to bear yet. What will your nerves feel, madam — what will your enthusiasm say, sir — when I tell you, that I have lost my heart to — a Jewess?”

  “Berenice!” cried I.

  “Impossible!” cried my mother. “How came you to see her?”

  “That’s not for you to know yet; but first, young gentleman, you who are hanging on tenter-hooks, you must hang there a little longer.”

  “As long as you please, my dear father,” said I.

  “Your dear father! — ay, I’m very dear to you now, because you are in hopes, sir, I shall turn fool, and break my vow into the bargain; but I am not come to that yet, my good sir — I have some consistency.”

  “Oh! never mind your consistency, for mercy’s sake, Mr. Harrington,” said my mother, “only tell us your story, for I really am dying to hear it, and I am so weak.”

  “Ring the bell for dinner,” said my father, “for Mrs. Harrington’s so weak, I’ll keep my story till after dinner.” My mother protested she was quite strong, and we both held my father fast, insisting — he being in such excellent humour and spirits that we might insist — insisting upon his telling his story b
efore he should have any dinner.

  “Where was I?” said he.

  “You know best,” said my mother; “you said you had lost your heart to a Jewess, and Harrington exclaimed Berenice! and that’s all I’ve heard yet.”

  “Very well, then, let us leave Berenice for the present” — I groaned—”and go to her father, Mr. Montenero, and to a certain Mrs. Coates.”

  “Mrs. Coates! did you see her too?” cried my mother: “you seem to have seen every body in the world this morning, Mr. Harrington. How happened it that you saw vulgar Mrs. Coates?”

  “Unless I shut my eyes, how can I avoid seeing vulgar people, madam? and how can I tell my story, Mrs. Harrington, if you interrupt me perpetually, to ask how I came to see every soul and body I mention?”

  “I will interrupt you no more,” said my mother, submissively, for she was curious.

  I placed an arm-chair for my father — in my whole life I never felt so dutiful or so impatient.

  “There, now,” said my father, taking his seat in the chair, “if you will promise not to interrupt me any more, I will tell you my story regularly. I went to Baldwin’s bank: I found a great crowd, all pressing their demands — the clerks as busy as they could be, and all putting a good face upon the matter. The head-clerk I saw was vexed at the sight of me — he came out from behind his desk, and begged I would go up stairs to Mr. Baldwin, who wished to speak to me. I was shown up stairs to Mr. Baldwin, with whom I found a remarkably gentlemanlike foreign-looking man.

  “Yes, sir — yes, ma’am — Mr. Montenero: it is well you did not either of you interrupt me to tell me his name, for if you had, I would not have told you a word more. Well, Mr. Baldwin, evidently wishing me at the devil, came forward to receive me, and, in great perplexity, said he would be at my command; he would settle my business immediately; but must beg my pardon for five minutes, while he settled with this gentleman, Mr. Montenero. On hearing the name, I am sure my look would have said plain enough to any man alive but Baldwin, that I did not choose to be introduced; but Baldwin has no breeding: so it was Mr. Montenero, Mr. Harrington — Mr. Harrington, Mr. Montenero. I bowed, and wished the Jew in the Red Sea, and Baldwin along with him. I then took up a newspaper and retreated to the window, begging that I might not be any interruption. The cursed paper was four days old, so I put it down; and as I stood looking at nothing out of the window, I heard Baldwin going on with your Jew. They had a load of papers on the table, which Baldwin kept shuffling, as he talked about the losses the house had sustained by the sudden death of Alderman Coates, and the sad bankruptcy of the executors. Baldwin seasoned high with compliments to the Jew upon his known liberality and generosity, and was trying to get him to enter into some security, which the Jew refused, saying that what he gave he gave willingly, but he would not enter into security: he added, that the alderman and his family had been unjustifiably extravagant; but on condition that all was given up fairly to the creditors, and a new course entered upon, he and his daughter would take care that the widow should be provided for properly. As principal creditor, Mr. Baldwin would, by this means, be first satisfied. I could not help thinking that all the Jew said was fair enough, and firm too; but when he had said and done, I wondered that he did not go away. He and Baldwin came to the window to which I had retreated, and Baldwin, like a city bear as he is, got in his awkward way between us, and seizing one button of my coat and one of Mr. Montenero’s, held us there face to face, while he went on talking of my demand on the house.

  “‘You see, Mr. Harrington,’ said he, ‘how we are circumstanced. The property of the firm is able to answer all fair demands in due course. But here’s a set and a run made against us, and no house could stand without the assistance, that is, the forbearance of friends — that’s what we must look to. Some of our friends, in particular Mr. Montenero, have been very friendly indeed — very handsome and liberal — and we have nothing to say; we cannot, in reason, expect him to do more for the Coates’s or for us.’ And then came accounts of the executors, &c., in his banking jargon.

  “What the deuce was all this to me, you know? and how awkward I felt, held by the button there, to rejudge Mr. Montenero’s acts! I had nothing for it but my snuff-box. But Baldwin’s a mere clerk — cannot guess at the feelings of a gentleman. Mr. Montenero, I observed, looked down upon Baldwin all the time with so much the air of a high-bred gentleman, that I began to think he could not be the Jew — Montenero.

  “Baldwin, still thinking only of holding him up as an example to me, went on, saying, ‘Mr. Montenero, who is a foreigner, and a stranger to the house, has done so and so, and we trust our old friends will do as much — Mr. Harrington in particular. There’s our books on the table, open to Mr. Harrington — he will see we shall be provided on the fifteenth instant; but, in short, if Mr. Harrington draws his £30,000 to-day, he drives us to pay in sixpences — so there’s the case.’ In short, it came to this: if I drew, I certainly ruined them; if I did not draw, I ran a great hazard of being ruined myself. No, Baldwin would not have it that way — so when he had stated it after his own fashion, and put it into and out of his banker’s jargon, it came out to be, that if I drew directly I was certain to lose the whole; and if I did not draw, I should have a good chance of losing a great part. I pulled my button away from the fellow, and without listening to any more of his jabbering, for I saw he was only speaking against time, and all on his own side of the question, I turned to look at the books, of which I knew I never should make head or tail, being no auditor of accounts, but a plain country gentleman. While I was turning over their confounded day-books and ledgers in despair, your Jew, Harrington, came up to me, and with such a manner as I did not conceive a Jew could have — but he is a Spanish Jew — that makes all the difference, I suppose—’Mr. Harrington,’ said he, ‘though I am a stranger to you, permit me to offer my services in this business — I have some right to do so, as I have accepted of services, and am under real obligations to Mr. Harrington, your son, a young gentleman for whom I feel the highest attachment as well as gratitude, but of whom I will now say only, that he has been one of the chief means of saving my life and my character. His father cannot, therefore, I think, refuse to let me show at least some sense of the obligations I have willingly received. My collection of Spanish pictures, which, without your son’s exertions, I could not have saved on the night of the riot, has been estimated by your best English connoisseurs at £60,000. Three English noblemen are at this moment ready to pay down £30,000 for a few of these pictures: this will secure Mr. Harrington’s demand on this house. If you, Mr. Baldwin, pay him, before three hours are over the money shall be with you. It is no sacrifice of my taste or of my pictures,’ continued your noble Jew, in answer to my scruples: ‘I lodge them with three different bankers only for security for the money. If Mr. Baldwin stands the storm, we are all as we were — my pictures into the bargain. If the worst happen, I lose only a few instead of all my collection.’

  “This was very generous — quite noble, but you know I am an obstinate old fellow. I had still the Jewess, the daughter, running in my head, and I thought, perhaps, I was to be asked for my consent, you know, Harrington, or some sly underplot of that kind.

  “Mr. Montenero has a quick eye — I perceived that he saw into my thoughts; but we could not speak to our purpose before Baldwin, and Baldwin would never think of stirring, if one was dying to get him out of the room. Luckily, however, he was called away by one of the clerks.

  “Then Mr. Montenero, who speaks more to the point than any man I ever heard, spoke directly of your love for his daughter, and said he understood that it would not be a match that I should approve. I pleaded my principles and religious difficulties: — he replied, ‘We need not enter into that, for the present business I must consider as totally independent of any view to future connexion:’ — if his daughter was going to be married to-morrow to another man, he should do exactly the same as he now proposed to do. He did not lessen her fortune: — he should
say nothing of what her sense of gratitude was and ought to be — she had nothing to do with the business.

  “When I found that my Jupiter Amman was in no danger, and that the love affair was to be kept clear out of the question, I was delighted with your generous Jew, Harrington, and I frankly accepted his offer. Baldwin came in again, was quite happy when he heard how it was settled, gave me three drafts at thirty-one days for my money on the bankers Mr. Montenero named: here I have them safe in my pocket. Mr. Montenero then said, he would go immediately and perform his part of the business; and, as he left the room, he begged Mr. Baldwin to tell his daughter that he would call for her in an hour.

  “I now, for the first time, understood that the daughter was in the house; and I certainly felt a curiosity to see her. Baldwin told me she was settling some business, signing some papers in favour of poor Mrs. Coates, the alderman’s widow. He added, that the Jewess was a charming creature, and as generous as her father: — he told all she had done for this widow and her children, on account of some kindness her mother had received in early life from the Coates’s family; and then there was a history of some other family of Manessas — I never heard Baldwin eloquent but this day, in speaking of your Jewess: — Harrington, I believe he is in love with her himself. I said I should like to see her, if it could be managed.

  “Nothing easier, if I would partake of a cold collation just serving in the next room for the friends of the house.

  “You know the nearer a man is to being ruined, the better he must entertain his friends. I walked into the next room, when collation time came, and I saw Miss Montenero. Though I had given him a broad hint — but the fellow understands nothing but his IOU’s — he fell to introducing of course: she is a most interesting-looking creature, I acknowledge, my boy, if — she were not a Jewess. I thought she would have sunk into the earth when she heard my name. I could not eat one morsel of the man’s collation — so — Ring for dinner, and let us say no more about the matter at present: there is my oath against it, you know — there is an end of the matter — don’t let me hear a word from you, Harrington — I am tired to death, quite exhausted, body and mind.”