Complete Novels of Maria Edgeworth

by Maria Edgeworth

  “I beg your pardon for being so blind,” said Marvel, laughing; “but you are too good-natured to take offence; though you don’t know what it is to be in love.”

  “There you are mistaken; for I am as much in love as yourself at this instant.”

  “Then I’m undone,” cried Marvel, turning as pale as death.

  “Why so?” said Wright; “will you allow nobody, man, to be in love but yourself? I don’t see why I have not as good a right to fall in love as you have.”

  “To be sure you have,” said Marvel, trying to recover himself; “and I can’t say but what you deal fairly by me, to tell me so honestly at once. More fool I to send for you. I might have foreseen this, blockhead as I am! but you deal fairly by me, Wright: so I cannot complain, and will not, happen what may. Let him who can win her, wear her. We start fair; for though I have had the advantage of a first acquaintance, you are much the handsomer man of the two; and that goes for a great deal with some ladies, though not perhaps with Alicia Barton.”

  “There, perhaps, you may find yourself mistaken,” replied Wright, with a significant look.

  “You don’t say so? You don’t think so?” cried Marvel, with great emotion. “I say what I think; and, if I may trust a woman’s looks, I’ve some reason for my thoughts.”

  Marvel took up the tankard which stood on the table, and swallowed down a hasty draught; and then said, though with an altered voice, “Cousin Wright, let him who can win her, wear her, as I said before. I sha’n’t quarrel with you if you deal fairly by me; so tell me honestly, did you never see her before this morning?”

  “Never, as I am an honest man,” said Wright.

  “Then, here’s my hand for you,” said Marvel. “All’s fair and handsome on your part. Happen what may, as I said before, I will not quarrel with you. If she was decreed to fall in love with you at first sight, why that’s no fault of yours; and if she tells me so fairly, why no great fault of hers. She has encouraged me a little; but still women will change their minds, and I shall not call her a jilt if she speaks handsomely to me. It will go a little to my heart at first, no doubt; but I shall bear it like a man, I hope; and I shall not quarrel with you, cousin Wright, whatever else I do.”

  Marvel shook Wright’s hand heartily; but turned away directly afterwards, to hide his agitation.

  “Why now, cousin Marvel, you are a good fellow; that’s the truth of it,” said Wright. “Trust to me: and, if the girl is what you think her, you shall have her: that I promise you.”

  “That’s more than you can promise, being as you say as much in love as I am.”

  “I say I’m more in love than you are: but what then, I ask you?”

  “What then! why, we cannot both have Alicia Barton.”

  “Very true. I would not have her if you would give her to me.”

  “Would not have her!” cried Marvel, with a look of joyous astonishment: “but, did not you tell me you were in love with her?”

  “Not I. You told it to yourself. I said I was in love; but cannot a man be in love with any woman in this whole world but Miss Barton?”

  Marvel capered about the room with the most lively expressions of delight, shook hands with his cousin, as if he would have pulled his arm off, and then suddenly stopping, said, “But what do you think of my Alicia? Though you are not in love with her, I hope you think well of her?”

  “I must see more of her before I am qualified to speak.”

  “Nay, nay, no drawbacks: out with it. I must know what you think of her at this time being.”

  “At this time being, then, I think, she is what they call a — coquette.”

  “Oh, there you are out, indeed, cousin Wright! she’s more of what they call a prude than a coquette.”

  “To you, perhaps; but not to me, cousin. Let every one speak of her as they find,” replied Wright.

  Marvel grew warm in defence of Miss Barton’s prudery; and at last ended by saying, “that he’d stake his life upon it, she was no jilt. If she had taken a fancy to you, Wright, she would honestly tell me so, I’m convinced; and, when she finds you are thinking of another woman, her pride would soon make her think no more of you. ’Tis but little she could have thought in the few minutes you were in her company; and it is my opinion she never thought of you at all — no offence.”

  “No offence, I promise you,” said Wright; “but let us put her to the trial: do you keep your own counsel; go on courting her your own way, and let me go mine. Don’t you say one word of my being here in York; but put her off about the sale of Clover-hill, till such time as you are sure of her heart.”

  To this proposal Marvel joyfully agreed; and, as to the time of trial, Wright asked only one week. His cousin then told him the new scheme, from which he expected to make so much: it had been suggested by Alicia’s brother. “I am to sell Clover-hill; and, with the money that I get for it, Barton and I are to build and fit up a theatre in Lincoln, and be the managers ourselves. I assure you, he says, and they all say, I should make a figure on the stage: and Miss Barton whispered, in my hearing, that I should make a capital Lothario,” added Marvel, throwing himself into a stage attitude, and reciting, in a voice that made Wright start,

  “‘Earth, Heav’n, and fair Calista, judge the combat.’”

  “Very fine, no doubt,” said Wright; “but I am no judge of these matters; only this I am sure of, that, with respect to selling Clover-hill, you had best go slowly to work, and see what the sister is, before you trust to the brother. It is not for my interest, I very well know, to advise you against this scheme; because, if I wanted to make certain of your not coming in for my uncle’s legacy, I could not take a better way than to urge you to follow your fancy. For, say that you lay out all you have in the world on the building of this playhouse, and say that Barton’s as honest a man as yourself: observe, your playhouse cannot be built in less than a couple of years, and the interest of your money must be dead all that time; and pray how are you to bring yourself up, by the end of the ten years? Consider, there are but seven years of the time to come.”

  Marvel gave his cousin hearty thanks for his disinterested advice, but observed that actors and managers of playhouses were, of all men, they who were most likely to grow rich in a trice; that they often cleared many hundreds in one night for their benefits; that even, if he should fail to hit the public taste himself, as an actor, he was sure at least, if he married the charming Alicia, that she would be a source of inexhaustible wealth. “Not,” added he, “that I think of her in that light; for my soul is as much superior to mercenary considerations as her own.”

  “More, perhaps,” said Wright; but seeing fire flash in his cousin’s eyes at this insinuation, he contented himself for the present with the promise he had obtained, that nothing should be concluded till the end of one week; that no mention should be made to Miss Barton, or her brother, of his arrival in town; and that he should have free liberty to make trial of the lady’s truth and constancy, in any way he should think proper. Back to his friend the milliner’s he posted directly. Miss Barton was gone out upon the race-ground in Captain Mowbray’s curricle: in her absence, Wright was received very graciously by the milliner, who had lodgings to let, and who readily agreed to let them to him for a week, as he offered half a guinea more than she could get from anybody else. She fancied that he was deeply smitten with Miss Barton’s charms, and encouraged his passion, by pretty broad hints that it was reciprocal. Miss Barton drank tea this evening with the milliner: Wright was of the party, and he was made to understand that others had been excluded: “for Miss Barton,” her friend observed, “was very nice as to her company.”

  Many dexterous efforts were made to induce Wright to lay open his heart; for the dyer’s lady had been cross-questioned as to his property in Lincolnshire, and she being a lover of the marvellous, had indulged herself in a little exaggeration; so that he was considered as a prize, and Miss Barton’s imagination settled the matter so rapidly, that she had actually agreed t
o make the milliner a handsome present on the wedding-day. Upon this hint, the milliner became anxious to push forward the affair. Marvel, she observed, hung back about the sale of his estate; and, as to Sir Plantagenet Mowbray’s son, he was bound hand and foot by his father, so could do nothing genteel: besides, honourable matrimony was out of the question there.

  All these things considered, the milliner’s decision was, on perfectly prudential and virtuous motives, in favour of Wright. Miss Barton’s heart, to use her own misapplied term, spoke warmly in his favour; for he was, without any comparison, the handsomest of her lovers; and his simplicity and apparent ignorance of the world were rather recommendations than objections.

  Upon her second interview with him, she had, however, some reason to suspect that his simplicity was not so great as she had imagined. She was surprised to observe, that, notwithstanding all their artful hints, Wright came to nothing like a positive proposal, nor even to any declaration of his passion. The next day she was yet more astonished; for Wright, though he knew she was a full hour in the milliner’s shop, never made the slightest attempt to see her; nay, in the evening, he met her on the public walk, and passed without more notice than a formal bow, and without turning his head back to look after her, though she was flirting with a party of gentlemen, expressly for the purpose of exciting his jealousy.

  Another consultation was held with her friend the milliner: “These men are terrible creatures to deal with,” said her confidant. “Do you know, my dear creature, this man, simple as he looks, has been very near taking us in. Would you believe it? he is absolutely courting a Lincolnshire lady for a wife. He wrote a letter to her, my dear Alicia, this morning, and begged me to let my boy run with it to the post-office. I winded and winded, saying he was mighty anxious about the letter, and so on, till, at the last, out comes the truth. Then I touched him about you; but he said, ‘an actress was not fit for a farmer’s wife, and that you had too many admirers already.’ You see, my dear creature, that he has none of the thoughts we built upon. Depend upon it he is a shrewd man, and knows what he is about; so, as we cannot do better than Marvel, my advice—”

  “Your advice!” interrupted Miss Barton: “I shall follow no advice but my own.” She walked up and down the small parlour in great agitation.

  “Do as you please, my dear; but remember I cannot afford to lay out of my money to all eternity. The account between us has run up to a great sum; the dresses were such as never were made up before in York, and must be paid for accordingly, as you must be sensible, Miss Barton. And when you have an opportunity of establishing yourself so handsomely, and getting all your debts paid; and when your brother, who was here an hour ago, presses the match with Mr. Marvel so much; it is very strange and unaccountable of you to say, ‘you will take nobody’s advice but your own;’ and to fall in love, ma’am, as you are doing, as fast as you can, with a person who has no serious intentions, and is going to be married to another woman. For shame, Miss Barton; is this behaving with proper propriety? Besides, I’ve really great regard for that poor young man that you have been making a fool of; I’m sure he is desperately in love with you.”

  “Then let him show it, and sell Clover-hill,” said Miss Barton.

  Her mind balanced between avarice and what she called love. She had taken a fancy to Wright, and his present coldness rather increased than diminished her passion: he played his part so well, that she could not tell how to decide. In the mean time, the milliner pressed for her money; and Alicia’s brother bullied loudly in favour of Marvel: he had engaged the milliner, whom he was courting, to support his opinion. Marvel, though with much difficulty, stood his ground, and refused to sell Clover-hill, till he should be perfectly sure that Miss Barton would marry him, and till his relation should arrive in town, and give his consent.

  CHAPTER III.

  Mr. Barton and the milliner now agreed, that if fair means would not bring the charming Alicia to reason, others must be used; and it was settled that she should be arrested for her debt to the milliner, which was upwards of fifty pounds. “She knows,” said this considerate brother, “that I have neither the power nor the will to pay the money. Sir Plantagenet’s son is as poor as Job; so she must have recourse to Marvel; and, if she gives him proper encouragement, he’ll pay the money in a trice. As to this man, who lodges with you, let her apply to him if she likes it; she will soon see how he will answer her. By your account he is a shrewd fellow, and not like our friend Marvel.”

  On Friday morning the charming Alicia was arrested, at the suit of her dear friend and confidant, the milliner. The arrest was made in the milliner’s shop. Alicia would doubtless have screamed and fainted, with every becoming spirit and grace, if any spectators had been present: but there was no one in the shop to admire or pity. She rushed with dishevelled hair, and all the stage show of distraction, into Wright’s apartment; but, alas! he was not to be found. She then composed herself, and wrote the following note to Marvel:

  “TO —— MARVEL, ESQ. &C.

  “At the Green Man.

  “Much as it hurts the delicacy and wounds the pride of Alicia, she is compelled, by the perfidy of a bosom friend of her own sex, to apply for assistance and protection to one who will feel for the indignity that has been shown her. How will his generous nature shudder, when he hears that she is on the point of being dragged to a loathsome dungeon, for want of the paltry sum of fifty pounds! Retrospection may convince the man of her heart, that her soul is superior to mercenary considerations; else, she would not now be reduced so low in the power of her enemies: she scarcely knows what she writes — her heart bleeds — her brain is on fire!

  “‘Celestial sounds! Peace dawns upon my soul,

  And every pain grows less. Oh! gentle Altamont,

  Think not too hardly of me when I’m gone,

  But pity me. Had I but early known

  Thy wond’rous worth, thou excellent young man,

  We had been happier both. Now ’tis too late.

  And yet my eyes take pleasure to behold thee!

  Thou art their last dear object. — Mercy, Heav’n!’

  “Your affectionate,

  “And (shall I confess it?)

  “Too affectionate,

  “ALICIA.”

  Marvel was settling some accounts with Wright when this note was put into his hands: scarcely had he glanced his eye over it, when he started up, seized a parcel of bank notes, which lay on the table, and was rushing out of the room. Wright caught hold of his arm, and stopped him by force.

  “Where now? What now, Marvel?” said he.

  “Do not stop me, Wright! I will not be stopped! She has been barbarously used. They are dragging her to prison. — They have driven her almost out of her senses. I must go to her this instant.”

  “Well, well, don’t go without your hat, man, for the people in the street will take you for a lunatic. May a friend see this letter that has driven you out of your senses?”

  Marvel put it into Wright’s hands, who read it with wonderful composure; and when he came to the end of it, only said—”Hum!”

  “Hum,” repeated Marvel, provoked beyond measure; “you have no humanity. You are most strangely prejudiced. You are worse than Goodenough. Why do you follow me?” continued he, observing that Wright was coming after him across the inn-yard into the street.

  “I follow you to take care of you,” said Wright, calmly; “and though you do stride on at such a rate, I’ll be bound to keep up with you.”

  He suffered Marvel to walk on at his own pace for the length of two streets, without saying another word; but just as they were turning the corner into the square where the milliner lived, he again caught hold of his cousin’s arm, and said to him: “Hark you, Marvel; will you trust me with those bank notes that you have in your pocket? and will you let me step on to the milliner’s, and settle this business for you? I see it will cost you fifty pounds, but that I cannot help. You may think yourself well off.”

  “Fif
ty pounds! What are fifty pounds?” cried Marvel, hurrying forwards. “You see that my Alicia must be superior to mercenary considerations; for, though she knows I have a good fortune, that could not decide her in my favour.”

  “No, because she fancies that 1 have a better fortune; and, besides (for there are times when a man must speak plainly), I’ve a notion she would at this minute sooner be my mistress than your wife, if the thing were fairly tried. She’ll take your money as fast as you please; and I may take her as fast as I please.”

  Incensed at these words, Marvel could scarcely restrain his passion within bounds: but Wright, without being, moved, continued to speak.

  “Nay, then, cousin, if you don’t believe me, put it to the test! — I’ll wait here, at this woollen-draper’s, where I am to dine: do you go on to your milliner’s, and say what you please, only let me have my turn for half an hour this evening; and, if I am mistaken in the lady, I’ll freely own it, and make all due apology.”

  In the afternoon, Marvel came to Wright with a face full of joy and triumph. “Go to my Alicia now, cousin Wright,” said he: “I defy you. She is at her lodging. — She has promised to marry me! I am the happiest man in the world!”

  Wright said not a word, but departed. Now he had in his pocket an unanswered billet-doux, which had been laid upon his table the preceding night: the billet-doux had no name to it; but, from all he had remarked of the lady’s manners towards him, he could not doubt that it was the charming Alicia’s. He was determined to have positive proof, however, to satisfy Marvel’s mind completely. The note which he had received was as follows:

  “What can be the cause of your cruel and sudden change towards one of whom you lately appeared to think so partially? A certain female friend may deceive you, by false representations: do not trust to her, but learn the real sentiments of a fond heart from one who knows not how to feign. Spare the delicacy of your victim, and guess her name.”