Complete Novels of Maria Edgeworth

by Maria Edgeworth

  Henry saw his friend reach the last step of the ladder. As Forester stooped to put the rope round the shoulders of the man, who lay insensible at the bottom of the vat, a sudden air of idiocy came over his animated countenance; his limbs seemed no longer to obey his will; his arms dropped, and he fell insensible.

  The spectators, who were looking down from above, were so much terrified, that they could not decide to do any thing; some cried, “It’s all over with him! Why would he go down?” Others ran to procure a hook — others called to him to take up the rope again, if he possibly could: but Forester could not hear or understand them, Henry Campbell was the only person who, in this scene of danger and confusion, had sufficient presence of mind to be of service.

  Near the large vat, into which Forester had descended, there was a cistern of cold water. Henry seized a bucket, which was floating in the cistern, filled it with water, and emptied the water into the vat, dashing it against the sides, to disperse the water, and to displace the mephitic air, He called to the people, who surrounded him, for assistance; the water expelled the air; and, when it was safe to descend, Henry instantly went down the ladder himself, and fastened the cord round Forester, who was quite helpless.

  “Draw him up!” said Henry, They drew him up. Henry fastened another cord round the body of the other man, who lay at the bottom of the vessel, and he was taken up in the same manner. Forester soon returned to his senses, when he was carried into the air; it was with more difficulty that the other man, whose animation had been longer suspended, was recovered; at length, however, by proper application, his lungs played freely, he stretched himself, looked round upon the people who were about him with an air of astonishment, and was some time before he could recollect what had happened to him. Forester, as soon as he had recovered the use of his understanding, was in extreme anxiety to know whether the poor man, who went down for his key, had been saved. His gratitude to Henry, when he heard all that had passed, was expressed in the most enthusiastic manner.

  “I acted like a madman, and you like a man of sense,” said Forester. “You always know how to do good: I do mischief, whenever I attempt to do good. But now, don’t expect, Henry, that I should give up any of my opinions to you, because you have saved my life. I shall always argue with you just as I did before. Remember, I despise address, I don’t yield a single point to you. Gratitude shall never make me a sycophant.”

  THE FLOWERPOT.

  Eager to prove that he was not a sycophant, Forester, when he returned home with his friend Henry, took every possible occasion to contradict him, with even more than his customary rigidity; nay, he went further still, to vindicate his sincerity.

  Flora Campbell had never entirely recovered our hero’s esteem, since she had unwittingly expressed her love for Scotch reels; but she was happily unconscious of the crime she had committed, and was wholly intent upon pleasing her father and mother, her brother Henry, and herself. She had a constant flow of good spirits, and the charming domestic talent of making every trifle a source of amusement to herself and others: she was sprightly, without being frivolous; and the uniform sweetness of her temper showed, that she was not in the least in want of flattery, or dissipation, to support her gaiety. But Forester, as the friend of her brother, thought it incumbent upon him to discover faults in her which no one else could discover, and to assist in her education, though she was only one year younger than himself. She had amused herself, the morning that Forester and her brother were at the brewery, with painting a pasteboard covering for the flower-pot which held the poor little girl’s geranium. Flora had heard from her brother of his intention to place it in the middle of the supper-table, at the ball; and she flattered herself, that he would like to see it ornamented by her hands at his return. She produced it after dinner. Henry thanked her, and her father and mother were pleased to see her eagerness to oblige her brother. The cynical Forester alone refused his sympathy. He looked at the flower-pot with marked disdain. Archibald, who delighted to contrast himself with the unpolished Forester, and who remarked that Flora and her brother were both somewhat surprised at his unsociable silence, slyly said, “There’s something in this flower-pot Miss Campbell, which does not suit Mr. Forester’s correct taste; I wish he would allow us to profit by his criticisms.”

  Forester vouchsafed not a reply.

  “Don’t you like it, Forester?” said Henry.

  “No, he does not like it,” said Flora, smiling; “don’t force him to say that he does.”

  “Force me to say I like what I don’t like!” repeated Forester; “no, I defy any body to do that.”

  “But why,” said Dr. Campbell, laughing, “why such a waste of energy and magnanimity about a trifle? If you were upon your trial for life or death, Mr. Forester, you could not look more resolutely guarded — more as if you had ‘worked up each corporal agent’ to the terrible feat!”

  “Sir,” said Forester, who bore the laugh that was raised against him with the air of a martyr, “I can bear even your ridicule in the cause of truth.” The laugh continued at the solemnity with which he pronounced these words. “I think,” pursued Forester, “that those who do not respect truth in trifles, will never respect it in matters of consequence.”

  Archibald Mackenzie laughed more loudly, and with affectation, at this speech: Henry and Dr. Campbell’s laughter instantly ceased.

  “Do not mistake us,” said Dr. Campbell; “we did not laugh at your principles, we only laughed at your manner.”

  “And are not principles of rather more consequence than manners?”

  “Of infinitely more consequence,” said Dr. Campbell: “but why, to excellent principles, may we not add agreeable manners? Why should not truth be amiable, as well as respectable? You, who have such enlarged views for the good of the whole human race, are, I make no doubt, desirous that your fellow-creatures should love truth, as well as you love it yourself.”

  “Certainly, I wish they did,” said Forester.

  “And have your observations upon the feelings of others, and upon your own, led you to conclude, that we are most apt to like those things which always give us pain? And do you, upon this principle, wish to make truth as painful as possible, in order to increase our love for it?”

  “I don’t wish to make truth painful,” said Forester; “but, at the same time, it is not my fault if people can’t bear pain. I think people who can’t bear pain, both of body and mind, cannot be good for any thing; for, in the first place, they will always,” said Forester, glancing his eye at Flora and her flower-pot,—”they will always prefer flattery to truth, as all weak people do.”

  At this sarcastic reflection, which seemed to be aimed at the sex, Lady Catherine, Mrs. Campbell, and all the ladies present, except Flora, began to speak at once in their own vindication.

  As soon as there was any prospect of peace, Dr. Campbell resumed his argument in the calmest voice imaginable.

  “But, Mr. Forester, without troubling ourselves for the present with the affairs of the ladies, or of weak people, may I ask what degree of unnecessary pain you think it the duty of a strong person, a moral Samson, to bear?”

  “Unnecessary pain! I do not think it is any body’s duty to bear unnecessary pain.”

  “Nor to make others bear it?”

  “Nor to make others bear it.”

  “Then we need argue no further. I congratulate you, Mr. Forester, upon your becoming so soon a proselyte to politeness.”

  “To politeness!” said Forester, starting back.

  “Yes, my good sir; real politeness only teaches us to save others from unnecessary pain; and this you have just allowed to be your wish. — And now for the grand affair of Flora’s flower-pot. You are not bound by politeness to tell any falsehoods; weak as she is, and a woman, I hope she can bear to hear the painful truth upon such an important occasion.”

  “Why,” said Forester, who at last suffered his features to relax into a smile, “the truth then is, that I don’t know whether t
he flower-pot be pretty or ugly, but I was determined not to say it was pretty.”

  “But why,” said Henry, “did you look so heroically severe about the matter?”

  “The reason I looked grave,” said Forester, “was, because I was afraid your sister Flora would be spoiled by all the foolish compliments that were paid to her and her flower-pot.”

  “You are very considerate; and Flora, I am sure, is much obliged to you,” said Dr. Campbell, smiling, “for being so clear-sighted to the dangers of female vanity. You would not then, with a safe conscience, trust the completion of her education to her mother, or to myself?”

  “I am sure, sir,” said Forester, who now, for the first time, seemed sensible that he had not spoken with perfect propriety, “I would not interfere impertinently for the world. You are the best judges; only I thought parents were apt to be partial. Henry has saved my life, and I am interested for every thing that belongs to him. So I hope, if I said any thing rude, you will attribute it to a good motive. I wish the flower-pot had never made its appearance, for it has made me appear very impertinent.”

  Flora laughed with so much good humour at this odd method of expressing his contrition, that even Forester acknowledged the influence of engaging manners and sweetness of temper. He lifted up the flower-pot, so as completely to screen his face, and, whilst he appeared to be examining it, he said, in a low voice, to Henry, “She is above the foibles of her sex.”

  “Oh, Mr. Forester, take care!” cried Flora.

  “Of what?” said Forester, starting.

  “It is too late now,” said Flora.

  And it was too late. Forester, in his awkward manner of lifting the flower-pot and its painted case, had put his thumbs into the mould, with which the flower-pot had been newly filled. It was quite soft and wet. Flora, when she called to him, saw the two black thumbs just ready to stamp themselves upon her work, and her warning only accelerated its fate; for, the instant she spoke, the thumbs closed upon the painted covering, and Forester was the last to perceive the mischief that he had done.

  There was no possibility of effacing the stains, nor was there time to repair the damage, for the ball was to commence in a few hours, and Flora was obliged to send her disfigured work, without having had the satisfaction of hearing the ejaculation which Forester pronounced in her praise behind the flower-pot.

  THE BALL.

  Henry seized the moment when Forester was softened by the mixed effect of Dr. Campbell’s raillery and Flora’s good humour, to persuade him, that it would be perfectly consistent with sound philosophy to dress himself for a ball, nay, even to dance a country-dance. The word reel, to which Forester had taken a dislike, Henry prudently forbore to mention; and Flora, observing, and artfully imitating her brother’s prudence, substituted the word hays instead of reels in her conversation. When all the party were ready to go to the ball, and the carriages at the door, Forester was in Dr. Campbell’s study, reading the natural history of the elephant.

  “Come,” said Henry, who had been searching for him all over the house, “we are waiting for you; I’m glad to see you dressed — come!”

  “I wish you would leave me behind,” said Forester, who seemed to have relapsed into his former unsociable humour, from having been left half an hour in his beloved solitude; nor would Henry probably have prevailed, if he had not pointed to the print of the elephant. “That mighty animal, you see, is so docile, that he lets himself be guided by a young boy,” said Henry; “and so must you.”

  As he spoke he pulled Forester gently, who thought he could not show less docility than his favourite animal. When they entered the ball-room, Archibald Mackenzie asked Flora to dance, whilst Forester was considering where he should put his hat. “Are you going to dance without me? I thought I had asked you to dance with me. I intended it all the time we were coming in the coach.”

  Flora thanked him for his kind intentions; whilst Archibald, with a look of triumph, hurried his partner away, and the dance began. Forester saw this transaction in the most serious light, and it afforded him subject for meditation till at least half a dozen country-dances had been finished. In vain the Berwick Jockey, the Highland Laddie, and the Flowers of Edinburgh, were played; “they suited not the gloomy habit” of his soul. He fixed himself behind a pillar, proof against music, mirth, and sympathy: he looked upon the dancers with a cynical eye. At length he found an amusement that gratified his present splenetic humour; he applied both his hands to his ears, effectually to stop out the sound of the music, that he might enjoy the ridiculous spectacle of a number of people capering about, without any apparent motive. Forester’s attitude caught the attention of some of the company; indeed, it was strikingly awkward. His elbows stuck out from his ears, and his head was sunk beneath his shoulders. Archibald Mackenzie was delighted beyond measure at his figure, and pointed him out to his acquaintance with all possible expedition. The laugh and the whisper circulated with rapidity. Henry, who was dancing, did not perceive what was going on till his partner said to him, “Pray, who is that strange mortal?”

  “My friend,” cried Henry: “will you excuse me for one instant?” And he ran up to Forester, and roused him from his singular attitude. “He is,” continued Henry, as he returned to his partner, “an excellent young man, and he has superior abilities; we must not quarrel with him for trifles.”

  With what different eyes different people behold the same objects! Whilst Forester had been stopping his ears, Dr. Campbell, who had more of the nature of the laughing than of the weeping philosopher, had found much benevolent pleasure in contemplating the festive scene. Not that any folly or ridicule escaped his keen penetration; but he saw every thing with an indulgent eye, and, if he laughed, laughed in such a manner, that even those who were the objects of his pleasantry could scarcely have forborne to sympathize in his mirth. Folly, he thought, could be as effectually corrected by the tickling of a feather, as by the lash of the satirist. When Lady Margaret M’Gregor, and Lady Mary Macintosh, for instance, had almost forced their unhappy partners into a quarrel to support their respective claims to precedency, Dr. Campbell, who was appealed to as the relation of both the furious fair ones, decided the difference expeditiously, and much to the amusement of the company, by observing, that, as the pretensions of each of the ladies were incontrovertible, and precisely balanced, there was but one possible method of adjusting their precedency — by their age. He was convinced, he said, that the youngest lady would with pleasure yield precedency to the elder. The contest was now, which should stand the lowest, instead of which should stand the highest, in the dance: and when the proofs of seniority could not be settled, the fair ones drew lots for their places, and submitted that to chance which could not be determined by prudence.

  Forester stood beside Dr. Campbell whilst all this passed, and wasted a considerable portion of virtuous indignation upon the occasion. “And look at that absurd creature!” exclaimed Forester, pointing out to Dr. Campbell a girl who was footing and pounding for fame at a prodigious rate. Dr. Campbell turned from the pounding lady to observe his own daughter Flora, and a smile of delight came over his countenance: for “parents are apt to be partial” — especially those who have such daughters as Flora. Her light figure and graceful agility attracted the attention even of many impartial spectators; but she was not intent upon admiration: she seemed to be dancing in the gaiety of her heart; and that was a species of gaiety in which every one sympathized, because it was natural, and of which every one approved, because it was innocent. There was a certain delicacy mixed with her sportive humour, which seemed to govern, without restraining, the tide of her spirits. Her father’s eye was following her as she danced to a lively Scotch tune, when Forester pulled Dr. Campbell’s cane, on which he was leaning, and exclaimed, “Doctor, I’ve just thought of an excellent plan for a tragedy!”

  “A tragedy!” repeated Dr. Campbell, with unfeigned surprise; “are you sure you don’t mean a comedy?”

  Forester persisted
that he meant a tragedy, and was proceeding to open the plot. “Don’t force me to your tragedy now,” said Dr. Campbell, “or it will infallibly be condemned. I cannot say that I have my buskin on! and I advise you to take yours off. Look, is that the tragic muse?”

  Forester was astonished to find, that so great a man as Dr. Campbell had so little the power of abstraction; and he retired to muse upon the opening of his tragedy in a recess under the music gallery. But here he was not suffered long to remain undisturbed; for, near this spot, Sir Philip Gosling presently stationed himself; Archibald Mackenzie, who left off dancing as soon as Sir Philip entered the room, came to the half-intoxicated baronet; and they, with some other young men, worthy of their acquaintance, began so loud a contest concerning the number of bottles of claret which a man might, could, or should drink at a sitting, that even Forester’s powers of abstraction failed, and his tragic muse took her flight.