It is obvious, that whether a hundred guineas be in the pocket of A or B, the total sum of the wealth of the nation remains the same; and whether the enjoyments of A be as 100, and those of B as 0, — or whether these enjoyments be equally divided between A and B, — is a matter of no importance to the political arithmetician, because in both cases it is obvious that the total sum of national happiness remains the same. The happiness of individuals is nothing compared with the general mass.
And if the individual B should fancy himself ill-used by our political arithmetician, and should take it into his head to observe, that though the happiness of B is nothing to the general mass, yet that it is every thing to him, the politician of course takes snuff, and replies, that his observation is foreign to the purpose — that the good of the whole society is the object in view. And if B immediately accede to this position, and only ask humbly whether the good of the whole be not made up of the good of the parts, and whether as a part he have not some right to his share of good, the dexterous logical arithmetician answers, that B is totally out of the question, because B is a negative quantity in the equation. And if obstinate B, still conceiving himself aggrieved, objects to this total annihilation of himself and his interests, and asks why the lot of extinction should not fall upon the debtor C, or even upon the calculator himself, by whatever letter of the alphabet he happens to be designated, the calculator must knit his brow, and answer — any thing he pleases — except, I don’t know — for this is a phrase below the dignity of a philosopher. This argument is produced, not as a statement of what is really the case, but as a popular argument against political sophistry.
Colonel Pembroke, notwithstanding his success at Mrs. York’s masquerade in his character of a spendthrift, could not by his utmost wit and address satisfy or silence his impertinent tailor. Mr. Close absolutely refused to give further credit without valuable consideration; and the colonel was compelled to pass his bond for the whole sum which was claimed, which was fifty pounds more than was strictly due, in order to compound with the tailor for the want of ready money. When the bond was fairly signed, sealed, and delivered, Mr. Close produced the poor weaver’s bill.
“Colonel Pembroke,” said he, “I have a trifling bill here — I am really ashamed to speak to you about such a trifle — but as we are settling all accounts — and as this White, the weaver, is so wretchedly poor, that he or some of his family are with me every day of my life dunning me to get me to speak about their little demand—”
“Who is this White?” said Mr. Pembroke.
“You recollect the elegant waistcoat pattern of which you afterwards bought up the whole piece, lest it should become common and vulgar? — this White was the weaver from whom we got it.”
“Bless me! why that’s two years ago: I thought that fellow was paid long ago!”
“No, indeed, I wish he had been; for he has been the torment of my life this many a month — I never saw people so eager about their money.”
“But why do you employ such miserable, greedy creatures? What can you expect but to be dunned every hour of your life?”
“Very true, indeed, colonel; it is what I always, on that principle, avoid as far as possibly I can: but I can’t blame myself in this particular instance; for this White, at the time I employed him first, was a very decent man, and in a very good way, for one of his sort: but I suppose he has taken to drink, for he is worth not a farthing now.”
“What business has a fellow of his sort to drink? He should leave that for his betters,” said Colonel Pembroke, laughing. “Drinking’s too great a pleasure for a weaver. The drunken rascal’s money is safer in my hands, tell him, than in his own.”
The tailor’s conscience twinged him a little at this instant, for he had spoken entirely at random, not having the slightest grounds for his insinuation that this poor weaver had ruined himself by drunkenness.
“Upon my word, sir,” said Close, retracting, “the man may not be a drunken fellow for any thing I know positively — I purely surmised that might be the case, from his having fallen into such distress, which is no otherwise accountable for, to my comprehension, except we believe his own story, that he has money due to him which he cannot get paid, and that this has been his ruin.”
Colonel Pembroke cleared his throat two or three times upon hearing this last suggestion, and actually took up the weaver’s bill with some intention of paying it; but he recollected that he should want the ready money he had in his pocket for another indispensable occasion; for he was obliged to go to Brookes’s that night; so he contented his humanity by recommending it to Mr. Close to pay White and have done with him.
“If you let him have the money, you know, you can put it down to my account, or make a memorandum of it at the back of the bond. In short, settle it as you will, but let me hear no more about it. I have not leisure to think of such trifles — Good morning to you, Mr. Close.”
Mr. Close was far from having any intention of complying with the colonel’s request. When the weaver’s wife called upon him after his return home, he assured her that he had not seen the colour of one guinea, or one farthing, of Colonel Pembroke’s money; and that it was absolutely impossible that he could pay Mr. White till he was paid himself — that it could not be expected he should advance money for any body out of his own pocket — that he begged he might not be pestered and dunned any more, for that he really had not leisure to think of such trifles.
For want of this trifle, of which neither the fashionable colonel nor his fashionable tailor had leisure to think, the poor weaver and his whole family were reduced to the last degree of human misery — to absolute famine. The man had exerted himself to the utmost to finish a pattern, which had been bespoken for a tradesman who promised upon the delivery of it to pay him five guineas in hand. This money he received; but four guineas of it were due to his landlord for rent of his wretched garret, and the remaining guinea was divided between the baker, to whom an old bill was due, and the apothecary, to whom they were obliged to have recourse, as the weaver was extremely ill. They had literally nothing now to depend upon but what the wife and daughter could earn by needlework; and they were known to be so miserably poor, that the prudent neighbours did not like to trust them with plain work, lest it should not be returned safely. Besides, in such a dirty place as they lived in, how could it be expected that they should put any work out of their hands decently clean? The woman to whom the house belonged, however, at last procured them work from Mrs. Carver, a widow lady, who she said was extremely charitable. She advised Anne to carry home the work as soon as it was finished, and to wait to see the lady herself, who might perhaps be as charitable to her as she was to many others. Anne resolved to take this advice: but when she carried home her work to the place to which she was directed, her heart almost failed her; for she found Mrs. Carver lived in such a handsome house, that there was little chance of a poor girl being admitted by the servants farther than the hall-door or the kitchen. The lady, however, happened to be just coming out of her parlour at the moment the hall-door was opened for Anne; and she bid her come in and show her work — approved of it — commended her industry — asked her several questions about her family — seemed to be touched with compassion by Anne’s account of their distress — and after paying what she had charged for the work, put half-a-guinea into her hand, and bid her call the next day, when she hoped that she should be able to do something more for her. This unexpected bounty, and the kindness of voice and look with which it was accompanied, had such an effect upon the poor girl, that if she had not caught hold of a chair to support herself she would have sunk to the ground. Mrs. Carver immediately made her sit down—”Oh, madam! I’m well, quite well now — it was nothing — only surprise,” said she, bursting into tears. “I beg your pardon for this foolishness — but it is only because I’m weaker to-day than usual, for want of eating.”
“For want of eating! my poor child! How she trembles! she is weak indeed, and must not leave my
house in this condition.”
Mrs. Carver rang the bell, and ordered a glass of wine; but Anne was afraid to drink it, as she was not used to wine, and as she knew that it would affect her head if she drank without eating. When the lady found that she refused the wine, she did not press it, but insisted upon her eating something.
“Oh, madam!” said the poor girl, “it is long, long indeed, since I have eaten so heartily; and it is almost a shame for me to stay eating such dainties, when my father and mother are all the while in the way they are. But I’ll run home with the half-guinea, and tell them how good you have been, and they will be so joyful and so thankful to you! My mother will come herself, I’m sure, with me to-morrow morning — she can thank you so much better than I can!”
Those only who have known the extreme of want can imagine the joy and gratitude with which the half-guinea was received by this poor family. Half-a-guinea! — Colonel Pembroke spent six half-guineas this very day in a fruit-shop, and ten times that sum at a jeweller’s on seals and baubles for which he had no manner of use.
When Anne and her mother called the next morning to thank their benefactress, she was not up; but her servant gave them a parcel from his mistress: it contained a fresh supply of needlework, a gown, and some other clothes, which were directed for Anne. The servant said, that if she would call again about eight in the evening, his lady would probably be able to see her, and that she begged to have the work finished by that time. The work was finished, though with some difficulty, by the appointed hour; and Anne, dressed in her new clothes, was at Mrs. Carver’s door just as the clock struck eight. The old lady was alone at tea; she seemed to be well pleased by Anne’s punctuality; said that she had made inquiries respecting Mr. and Mrs. White, and that she heard an excellent character of them; that therefore she was disposed to do every thing she could to serve them. She added, that she “should soon part with her own maid, and that perhaps Anne might supply her place.” Nothing could be more agreeable to the poor girl than this proposal: her father and mother were rejoiced at the idea of seeing her so well placed; and they now looked forward impatiently for the day when Mrs. Carver’s maid was to be dismissed. In the mean time the old lady continued to employ Anne, and to make her presents, sometimes of clothes, and sometimes of money. The money she always gave to her parents; and she loved her “good old lady,” as she always called her, more for putting it in her power thus to help her father and mother than for all the rest. The weaver’s disease had arisen from want of sufficient food, from fatigue of body, and anxiety of mind; and he grew rapidly better, now that he was relieved from want, and inspired with hope. Mrs. Carver bespoke from him two pieces of waistcoating, which she promised to dispose of for him most advantageously, by a raffle, for which she had raised subscriptions amongst her numerous acquaintance. She expressed great indignation, when Anne told her how Mr. White had been ruined by persons who would not pay their just debts; and when she knew that the weaver was overcharged for all his working materials, because he took them upon credit, she generously offered to lend them whatever ready money might be necessary, which she said Anne might repay, at her leisure, out of her wages.
“Oh, madam!” said Anne, “you are too good to us, indeed — too good! and if you could but see into our hearts, you would know that we are not ungrateful.”
“I am sure that is what you never will be, my dear,” said the old lady; “at least such is my opinion of you.”
“Thank you, ma’am! thank you, from the bottom of my heart! — We should all have been starved, if it had not been for you. And it is owing to you that we are so happy now — quite different creatures from what we were.”
“Quite a different creature indeed, you look, child, from what you did the first day I saw you. To-morrow my own maid goes, and you may come at ten o’clock; and I hope we shall agree very well together — you’ll find me an easy mistress, and I make no doubt I shall always find you the good, grateful girl you seem to be.”
Anne was impatient for the moment when she was to enter into the service of her benefactress; and she lay awake half the night, considering how she should ever be able to show sufficient gratitude. As Mrs. Carver had often expressed her desire to have Anne look neat and smart, she dressed herself as well as she possibly could; and when her poor father and mother took leave of her, they could not help observing, as Mrs. Carver had done the day before, that “Anne looked quite a different creature from what she was a few weeks ago.” She was, indeed, an extremely pretty girl; but we need not stop to relate all the fond praises that were bestowed upon her beauty by her partial parents. Her little brother John was not at home when she was going away; he was at a carpenter’s shop in the neighbourhood mending a wheelbarrow, which belonged to that good-natured orange-woman who gave him the orange for his father. Anne called at the carpenter’s shop to take leave of her brother. The woman was there waiting for her barrow — she looked earnestly at Anne when she entered, and then whispered to the boy, “Is that your sister?”—”Yes,” said the boy, “and as good a sister she is as ever was born.”
“Maybe so,” said the woman; “but she is not likely to be good for much long, in the way she is going on now.”
“What way — what do you mean?” said Anne, colouring violently.
“Oh, you understand me well enough, though you look so innocent.”
“I do not understand you in the least.”
“No! — Why, is not it you that I see going almost every day to that house in Chiswell-street?”
“Mrs. Carver’s? — Yes.”
“Mrs. Carver’s indeed!” cried the woman, throwing an orange-peel from her with an air of disdain—”a pretty come-off indeed! as if I did not know her name, and all about her, as well as you do.”
“Do you?” said Anne; “then I am sure you know one of the best women in the world.”
The woman looked still more earnestly than before in Anne’s countenance; and then, taking hold of both her hands, exclaimed, “You poor young creature! what are you about? I do believe you don’t know what you are about — if you do, you are the greatest cheat I ever looked in the face, long as I’ve lived in this cheating world.”
“You frighten my sister,” said the boy: “do pray tell her what you mean at once, for look how pale she turns!”
“So much the better, for now I have good hope of her. Then to tell you all at once — no matter how I frighten her, it’s for her good — this Mrs. Carver, as you call her, is only Mrs. Carver when she wants to pass upon such as you for a good woman.”
“To pass for a good woman!” repeated Anne, with indignation. “Oh, she is, she is a good woman — you do not know her as I do.”
“I know her a great deal better, I tell you: if you choose not to believe me, go your ways — go to your ruin — go to your shame — go to your grave — as hundreds have gone, by the same road, before you. Your Mrs. Carver keeps two houses, and one of them is a bad house — and that’s the house you’ll soon go to, if you trust to her: now you know the whole truth.”
The poor girl was shocked so much, that for several minutes she could neither speak nor think. As soon as she had recovered sufficient presence of mind to consider what she should do, she declared that she would that instant go home and put on her rags again, and return to the wicked Mrs. Carver all the clothes she had given her.
“But what will become of us all? — She has lent my father money — a great deal of money. How can he pay her? — Oh, I will pay her all — I will go into some honest service, now I am well and strong enough to do any sort of hard work, and God knows I am willing.”
Full of these resolutions, Anne hurried home, intending to tell her father and mother all that had happened; but they were neither of them within. She flew to the mistress of the house, who had first recommended her to Mrs. Carver, and reproached her in the most moving terms which the agony of her mind could suggest. Her landlady listened to her with astonishment, either real or admirably well affected �
�� declared that she knew nothing more of Mrs. Carver but that she lived in a large fine house, and that she had been very charitable to some poor people in Moorfields — that she bore the best of characters — and that if nothing could be said against her but by an orange-woman, there was no great reason to believe such scandal.
Anne now began to think that the whole of what she had heard might be a falsehood, or a mistake; one moment she blamed herself for so easily suspecting a person who had shown her so much kindness; but the next minute the emphatic words and warning looks of the woman recurred to her mind; and though they were but the words and looks of an orange-woman, she could not help dreading that there was some truth in them. The clock struck ten whilst she was in this uncertainty. The woman of the house urged her to go without farther delay to Mrs. Carver’s, who would undoubtedly be displeased by any want of punctuality; but Anne wished to wait for the return of her father and mother.
“They will not be back, either of them, these three hours, for your mother is gone to the other end of the town about that old bill of Colonel Pembroke’s, and your father is gone to buy some silk for weaving — he told me he should not be home before three o’clock.”
Notwithstanding these remonstrances, Anne persisted in her resolution: she took off the clothes which she had received from Mrs. Carver, and put on those which she had been used to wear. Her mother was much surprised, when she came in, to see her in this condition; and no words can describe her grief, when she heard the cause of this change. She blamed herself severely for not having made inquiries concerning Mrs. Carver before she had suffered her daughter to accept of any presents from her; and she wept bitterly, when she recollected the money which this woman had lent her husband.
Complete Novels of Maria Edgeworth Page 484
