Complete Novels of Maria Edgeworth

by Maria Edgeworth

  “But was not it possible,” I asked, “that your ladyship might this once have put on Sir Josseline’s ring without recollecting the guard?”

  No, absolutely impossible: if Jacob and all the Jews upon earth swore it (who, by-the-bye, would swear any thing), she could not be convinced against her reason — she knew her own habits — her private reasons to her were unanswerable.

  Lady Anne’s private reasons to her were equally unanswerable; but they were so confused, and delivered with so much volubility, as to be absolutely unintelligible. All I could gather was, that Fowler and her daughter Nancy were in the room when Lady Anne and her mother first missed the ring — that when her mother drew off her glove, and exclaimed, “Bless me, Sir Josseline’s not here!” Lady Anne ran up to the dressing-table, at which her mother was standing, to try to find the ring, thinking that her mother might have dropped it in drawing off her glove; “but it certainly was not drawn off with the glove.”

  “But might not it be left in the glove?” I asked.

  “Oh! dear, no: I shook the glove myself, and Fowler turned every finger inside out, and Nancy moved every individual box upon the dressing-table. We were all in such a fuss, because you know mamma’s so particular about Sir Josseline; and to tell you the truth, I was uncommonly anxious, because I knew if mamma was vexed and lost the ring, she would not give me a certain diamond cross, that makes me so particularly remember every circumstance — and I was in such a flurry, that I know I threw down a bottle of aether that was on mamma’s toilette, on her muff — and it had such a horrid smell!”

  The muff! I asked if the muff, as well as the glove, had been searched carefully.

  “La! to be sure — I suppose so — of course it was shaken, as every thing else in the room was, a hundred times over: the toilette and mamma’s petticoats even, and cloak, and gloves, as I told you.”

  “Yes, but the muff, did your ladyship examine it yourself?”

  “Did I examine it? I don’t recollect. No, indeed, after the aether, how could I touch it? you know: but of course it was shaken, it was examined, I am sure; but really I know nothing about it — but this, that it could not possibly be in it, the ring, I mean, because mamma had her glove on.”

  I requested permission to see the muff.

  “Oh, mamma was forced to give it away because of the horrid smell — she bid Fowler take it out of the room that minute, and never let it come near her again; but if you want to see it, ring for Fowler: you can examine it as much as you please; depend upon it the ring’s no more there than I am — send for Fowler and Nancy, and they can tell you how we shook every thing to no purpose. The ring’s gone, and so am I, for Colonel Topham’s waiting, and I must lead off.” And away her ladyship tripped, flirting her perfumed fan as she went. Persisting in my wish to see the muff, Lady de Brantefield desired me to ring for Fowler.

  Her ladyship wondered, she said, how I could, after the reasons she had given me for her being morally certain that she had left the ring with Jacob, and after Lady Anne had justly remarked that the ring could not get through her glove, entertain a hope of finding it in such a ridiculous place as a muff. But since I was so possessed with this idea, the muff should be produced — there was nothing like ocular demonstration in these cases, except internal conviction: “Did you ring, Mr. Harrington?”

  “I did.”

  And Miss Nancy with the treble ruffles in her hand now appeared.

  “’Tis your mother, child, I want,” said Lady de Brantefield.

  “Yes, my lady, she is only just finished assisting to lay out the ball supper.”

  “But I want her — directly.”

  “Certainly, my lady, directly.”

  “And bid her bring—” A whisper from me to my mother, and from my mother to her ladyship, failed of effect: after turning half round, as if to ask me what I said — a look which did not pass unnoticed by Miss Nancy — her ladyship finished her sentence—”And tell Fowler I desire she will bring me the muff that I gave her last week — the day I lost my ring.”

  This message would immediately put Fowler upon her guard, and I was at first sorry that it had been so worded; but I recollected having heard an eminent judge, a man of great abilities and experience, say, that if he were called upon to form a judgment of any character, or to discover the truth in any case, he would rather that the persons whom he was to examine were previously put on their guard, than that they were not; for that he should know, by what they guarded, of what they were afraid.

  Fowler appeared — twenty years had so changed her face and figure, that the sight of her did not immediately shock me as I feared it would. The daughter, who, I suppose, more nearly resembled what her mother had been at the time I had known her, was, of the two, the most disagreeable to my sight and feelings. Fowler’s voice was altered by the loss of a tooth, and it was even by this change less odious to my ear. The daughter’s voice I could scarcely endure. I was somewhat relieved from the fear of being prejudiced against Fowler by the perception of this change in her; and while she was paying me her compliments, I endeavoured to fortify the resolution I had made to judge of her with perfect impartiality. Her delight at seeing me, however, I could not believe to be sincere; and the reiterated repetition of her sorrow for her never having been able to get a sight of me before, I thought ill-judged: but no matter; many people in her station make these sort of unmeaning speeches. If I had suffered my imagination to act, I should have fancied that under a sort of prepared composure there was constraint and alarm in her look as she spoke to me. I thought she trembled; but I resolved not to be prejudiced — and this I repeated to myself many times.

  “Well, Fowler, but the muff,” said Lady de Brantefield.

  “The muff — oh! dear, my lady, I’m so sorry I can’t have it for you — it’s not in the house nowhere — I parted with it out of hand directly upon your saying, my lady, that you desired it might never be suffered to come nigh your ladyship again. Then, says I to myself, since my lady can’t abide the smell, I can’t never wear it, which it would have been my pride to do; so I thought I could never get it fast enough out of the house.”

  “And what did you do with it?”

  “I made a present of it, my lady, to poor Mrs. Baxter, John Dutton’s sister, my lady, who was always so much attached to the family, and would have a regard for even the smallest relic, vestige, or vestment, I knew, above all things in nature, poor old soul! — she has, what with the rheumatic pains, and one thing or another, lost the use of her right arm, so it was particularly agreeable and appropriate — and she kissed the muff — oh! my lady, I’m sure I only wish your ladyship could have witnessed the poor soul’s veneration.”

  In reply to a question which made my mother ask about the “poor soul,” I further learned that Mrs. Baxter was wife to a pawnbroker in Swallow-street. Fowler added, “If my lady wished any way for the muff, I can get it to-morrow morning by breakfast, or by the time you’s up, my lady.”

  “Very well, very well, that will do, I suppose, will it not, Mr. Harrington?”

  I bowed, and said not a word more — Fowler, I saw, was glad to get rid of the subject, and to go on to the treble ruffles, on which while she and my mother and Lady de Brantefield were descanting, I made my exit, and went to the ball-room.

  I found Lady Anne Mowbray — talked nonsense to her ladyship for a quarter of an hour — and at last, à propos to her perfumed fan, I brought in the old muff with the horrid smell, on purpose to obtain a full description of it.

  She told me that it was a gray fox-skin, lined with scarlet; that it had great pompadour-coloured knots at each end, and that it was altogether hideous. Lady Anne declared that she was heartily glad it would never shock her eyes more.

  It was now just nine o’clock; people then kept better hours than they do at present; I was afraid that all the shops would be shut; but I recollected that pawnbrokers’ shops were usually kept open late. I lost no time in pursuing my object.

  I
took a hackney coach, bribed the coachman to drive very fast to Mr. Manessa — found Manessa and Jacob going to bed sleepy — but at sight of me Jacob was alert in an instant, and joyfully ready to go with me immediately to Baxter, the pawnbroker’s.

  I made Jacob furnish me with an old surtout and slouched hat, desiring to look as shabby as possible, that the pawnbroker might take me for one of his usual nightly customers, and might not be alarmed at the sight of a gentleman.

  “That won’t do yet, Mr. Harrington,” said Jacob, when I had equipped myself in the old hat and coat. “Mr. Baxter will see the look of a gentleman through all that. It is not the shabby coat that will make the gentleman look shabby, no more than the fine coat can ever make the shabby look like the gentleman. The pawnbroker, who is used to observe and find out all manner of people, will know that as well as I — but now you shall see how well at one stroke I will disguise the gentleman.”

  Jacob then twisted a dirty silk handkerchief round my throat, and this did the business so completely, that I defied the pawnbroker and all his penetration.

  We drove as fast as we could to Swallow-street — dismissed our hackney coach, and walked up to the pawnbroker’s.

  Light in the shop! — all alive! — and business going on. The shop was so full of people, that we stood for some minutes unnoticed.

  We had leisure to look about us, as we had previously agreed to do, for Lady De Brantefield’s muff.

  I had a suspicion that, notwithstanding the veneration with which it had been said to be treated, it might have come to the common lot of cast clothes.

  Jacob at one side, and I at the other, took a careful survey of the multifarious contents of the shop; of all that hung from the ceiling; and all that was piled on the shelves; and all that lay huddled in corners, or crammed into dark recesses.

  In one of the darkest and most ignominious of these, beneath a heap of sailors’ old jackets and trowsers, I espied a knot of pompadour riband. I hooked it out a little with the stick I had in my hand; but Jacob stopped me, and called to the shopboy, who now had his eye upon us, and with him we began to bargain hard for some of the old clothes that lay upon the muff.

  The shopboy lifted them up to display their merits, by the dimness of the candle-light, and, as he raised them up, there appeared beneath the gray fox-skin with its scarlet lining and pompadour knots, the Lady de Brantefield’s much venerated muff.

  I could scarcely refrain from seizing upon it that moment, but Jacob again restrained me.

  He went on talking about the sailors’ jackets, for which we had been in treaty; and he insisted upon having the old muff into the bargain. It actually was at last thrown in as a makeweight. Had she been witness to this bargain, I believe Lady De Brantefield would have dropped down in a swoon.

  The moment I got possession of it, I turned it inside out. — There were several small rents in the lining — but one in particular had obviously been cut open with scissars. The shopboy, who thought I was pointing out the rents to disparage my purchase, assured me that any woman, clever at her needle, would with half-a-dozen stitches sew all up, and make the muff as good again as new. Jacob desired the boy to show him some old seals, rings, and trinkets, fit for a pedlar to carry into the country; Jacob was, for this purpose, sent to the most respectable place at the counter, and promoted to the honour of dealing face to face with Mr. Baxter himself: — drawers, which had before been invisible, were now produced; and I stood by while Jacob looked over all the new and old trinkets. I was much surprised by the richness and value of various brooches, picture settings, watches, and rings, which had come to this fate: at last, in a drawer with many valuables, which Mr. Baxter told us that some great man’s mistress had, last week, been obliged to leave with him, Jacob and I, at the same moment, saw “the splendour of the topaz” — Lady de Brantefield’s inestimable ring! I must do myself the justice to say that I behaved incomparably well — did not make a single exclamation, though I was sure it was the identical ring, the moment I caught a glimpse of the topaz — and though a glance from Jacob convinced me I was right. I said I could wait no longer, but would call again for him in half an hour’s time. This was what we had agreed upon beforehand should be the signal for my summoning a Bow-street officer, whom Mr. Manessa had in readiness. Jacob identified and swore to the property — Mr. Baxter was seized. He protested he did not know the ring was stolen goods — he could not recollect who had sold it to him; but when we mentioned Fowler’s name, he grew pale, was disconcerted, and not knowing how much or how little we knew, decided at once to get out of the scrape himself by giving her up, and turning evidence against her. He stated that she had found it in the old muff, but that he never knew That this muff had belonged to Lady de Brantefield. Mrs. Fowler had assured Him that it had been left to her along with the wardrobe of a lady with Whom she had formerly lived.

  As soon as Baxter had told all the lies he chose to invent, and confessed as much of the truth as he thought would serve his purpose, his deposition was taken and sworn to. This was all that could then be done, as it was near twelve o’clock.

  Poor Jacob’s joy at having his innocence proved, and at being relieved from the fear of injuring the credit of his master’s house, raised his spirits higher than I ever saw them in my life before. But still his joy and gratitude were more shown by looks than words. He thanked me once, and but once, warmly and strongly.

  “Ah! Mr. Harrington,” said he, “from the time you were Master Harrington at school, you were my best friend — always my friend in most need — I trusted in you, and still I hoped! — hoped that the truth would stand, and the lie fall. See at last our Hebrew proverb right—’A lie has no feet.’”

  CHAPTER XVIII.

  The next morning, before I left my room to go down to breakfast, my servant told me that Lady de Brantefield’s housekeeper, Mrs. Fowler, begged to speak to me — she had been come some time. I went into my mother’s dressing-room, where she was waiting alone. I could not bear to fix my eyes upon her; I advanced towards her, wishing, as I believe I said aloud, that she had spared me the pain of this interview. I waited in silence for her to speak, but she did not say a word — I heard the unhappy woman sobbing violently. Suddenly she took her handkerchief from before her face, and her sobs ceasing, she exclaimed, “I know you hate me, Mr. Harrington, and you have reason to hate me — more — much more than you know of! But Lord Mowbray is the most to blame.”

  I stood in astonishment. I conceived either that the woman was out of her senses, or that she had formed the not unprecedented design of affecting insanity, in hope of escaping the punishment of guilt: she threw herself at my feet — she would have clasped my knees, but I started back from her insufferable touch; provoked by this, she exclaimed, in a threatening tone, “Take care, sir! — The secret is still in my power.”

  Then observing, I believe, that her threat made no impression, her tone changed again to the whine of supplication.

  “Oh, Mr. Harrington, if I could hope for your forgiveness, I could reveal such a secret — a secret that so concerns you!”

  I retreated, saying that I would not hear any secret from her. But I stopped, and was fixed to the spot, when she added, under her breath, the name of Montenero. Then, in a hypocritical voice, she went on—”Oh, Mr. Harrington! — Oh, sir, I have, been a great sinner! led on — led on by them that was worse than myself; but if you will plead for me with my lady, and prevail upon her not to bring me to public shame about this unfortunate affair of the ring, I will confess all to you — I will throw myself on your mercy. I will quit the country if you will prevail on my lady — to let my daughter’s marriage go on, and not to turn her out of favour.”

  I refused to make any terms; but my mother, whose curiosity could refrain no longer, burst into the room; and to her Fowler did not plead in vain. Shocked as she was with the detection of this woman’s fraud, my mother was so eager to learn the secret concerning me, that she promised to obtain a pardon from Lady de Brante
field for the delinquent, if she would immediately communicate the secret. I left the room.

  I met my father with letters and newspapers in his hand. He looked in consternation, and beckoned to me to follow him into his own room.

  “I was just going in search of you, Harrington,” said he: “here’s a devil of a stroke for your mother’s friend, Lady de Brantefield.”

  “The loss of her jewels, do you mean, sir?” said I: “they are found.”

  “Jewels!” said my father; “I don’t know what you are talking of.”

  “I don’t know then what you mean, sir,” said I.

  “No, to be sure you do not, how could you? for the news is but this instant come — in this letter which I was carrying to you — which is addressed to you, as I found, when I got to the middle of it. I beg your pardon for opening it. Stay, stay — this is not the right letter.”

  My father seemed much hurried, and looked over his parcel of letters, while he went on, saying, “This is directed to William Harrington, instead of William Harrington Harrington. Never mind about that now, only I don’t like to open letters that don’t belong to me — here it is — run your eye over it as fast as you can, and tell me — for I stopped, as soon as I saw it was not to me — tell me how it is with Mowbray — I never liked the fellow, nor his mother either; but one can’t help pitying — and being shocked — shocked indeed I was, the moment I read the letter.”

  The letter, which appeared to have been written in great perturbation, and at two or three different times, with different inks, was from a brother officer of Lord Mowbray’s. It began in a tolerably composed and legible hand, with an account of a duel, in which the writer of the letter said that he had been second to Lord Mowbray. His lordship had been wounded, but it was hoped he would do well. Then came the particulars of the duel, which the second stated, of course, as advantageously for himself and his principal as he could; but even by his own statement it appeared that Lord Mowbray had been the aggressor; that he had been intemperate; and, in short, entirely in the wrong: the person with whom he fought was a young officer, who had been his schoolfellow: the dispute had begun about some trivial old school quarrel, on the most nonsensical subject; something about a Jew boy of the name of Jacob, and a pencil-case; the young gentleman had appealed to the evidence of Mr. Harrington, whom he had lately met on a fishing-party, and who, he said, had a perfect recollection of the circumstance. Lord Mowbray grew angry; and in the heat of contradiction, which, as his second said, his lordship could never bear, he gave his opponent the lie direct. A duel was the necessary consequence. Lord Mowbray insisted on their firing across the table: his opponent was compelled to it. They fired, as it was agreed, at the same instant: Lord Mowbray fell. So far was written while the surgeon was with his patient. Afterwards, the letter went on in a more confused manner. The surgeon begged that Lord Mowbray’s friends might be informed, to prepare them for the event; but still there were hopes. Lord Mowbray had begun to write a letter to Mr. Harrington, but could not go on — had torn it to bits — and had desired the writer of the present letter to say, “that he could not go out of the world easy, without his forgiveness — to refer him to a woman of the name of Fowler, for explanation — a waiting-maid — a housekeeper now, in his mother’s family. Lord Mowbray assured Mr. Harrington, that he did not mean to have carried the jest (the word jest scratched out), the thing farther than to show him his power to break off matters, if he pleased — but he now repented.”