“I have not time to add any thing more, but my love to Kitty, and Nancy, and Tom, and Mary, and little Bess; and, honoured parents, wishing you good health as I am in, thank God, at this present,
“I am your dutiful and loving son,
“JOHN BIRCH.
“P.S. I open my letter to tell you we are going southward immediately, all in high spirits, as there is hopes of meeting the French and Spaniards. We have just hoisted the nun-lady on board an English packet. God send her and this letter safe to England.”
Mr. Beaumont might perhaps have been amused by this romantic story, and by the style in which it was told, if he had not been alarmed by the hint at the conclusion of the letter, that the lady was not indifferent to her deliverer. Now Mr. Beaumont earnestly wished that his friend Captain Walsingham might become his brother-in-law; and he began to have fears about this Spanish lady, with her gratitude, her rings, and the advantages of the great interest her misfortunes and helpless condition would excite, together with the vast temptations to fall in love that might occur during the course of a voyage. Had he taken notice of the postscript, his mind would have been somewhat relieved. On this subject Mr. Beaumont pondered all the way that he rode home, and on this subject he was still meditating when he saw his mother standing on the steps, where we left her when Miss Hunter’s carriage drove away.
CHAPTER IV.
“I shall in all my best obey you, madam.” HAMLET.
“Did you meet Miss Hunter, my dear son?” said she.
“Yes, ma’am, I just passed the carriage in the avenue: she is going home, is not she?” said he, rather in a tone of satisfaction.
“Ah, poor thing! yes,” said Mrs. Beaumont, in a most pathetic tone: “ah, poor thing!”
“Why, ma’am, what has happened to her? What’s the matter?”
“Matter? Oh, nothing! — Did I say that any thing was the matter? Don’t speak so loud,” whispered she: “your groom heard every word we said; stay till he is out of hearing, and then we can talk.”
“I don’t care if all the world hears what I say,” cried Mr. Beaumont hastily: but, as if suppressing his rising indignation, he, with a milder look and tone, added, “I cannot conceive, my dear mother, why you are always so afraid of being overheard.”
“Servants, my dear, make such mischief, you know, by misunderstanding and misrepresenting every thing they hear; and they repeat things so oddly, and raise such strange reports!”
“True — very true indeed, ma’am,” said Mr. Beaumont. “You are quite right, and I beg pardon for being so hasty — I wish you could teach me a little of your patience and prudence.”
“Prudence! ah! my dear Edward, ’tis only time and sad experience of the world can teach that to people of our open tempers. I was at your age ten times more imprudent and unsuspicious than you are.”
“Were you, ma’am? — But I don’t think I am unsuspicious. I was when I was a boy — I wish we could continue children always in some things. I hate suspicion in any body — but more than in any one else, I hate it in myself. And yet—”
Mr. Beaumont hesitated, and his mother instantly went on with a fluent panegyric upon the hereditary unsuspiciousness of his temper.
“But, madam, were you not saying something to me about Miss Hunter?”
“Was I? — Oh, I was merely going to say, that I was sorry you did not know she was going this morning, that you might have taken leave of her, poor thing!”
“Take leave of her! ma’am: I bowed to her, and wished her a good morning, when I met her just now, and she told me she was only going to the hall for a day. Surely no greater leave-taking was requisite, when I am to see the lady again to-morrow, I presume.”
“That is not quite so certain as she thinks, poor soul! I told her I would send for her again to-morrow, just to keep up her spirits at leaving me. Walk this way, Edward, under the shade of the trees, for I am dead with the heat; and you, too, look so hot! I say I am not so sure that it would be prudent to have her here so much, especially whilst Mr. Palmer is with us, you know—” Mrs. Beaumont paused, as if waiting for an assent, or a dissent, or a leading hint how to proceed: but her son persisting in perverse silence, she was forced to repeat, “You know, Edward, my dear, you know?”
“I don’t know, indeed, ma’am.”
“You don’t know!”
“Faith, not I, ma’am. I don’t know, for the soul of me, what Mr. Palmer’s coming has to do with Miss Hunter’s going. There’s room enough in the house, I suppose, for each of them, and all of us to play our parts. As to the rest, the young lady’s coming or going is quite a matter of indifference to me, except, of course, as far as politeness and hospitality go. But all that I leave to you, who do the honours for me so well.”
Mrs. Beaumont’s ideas were utterly thrown out of their order by this speech, no part of which was exactly what she wished or expected: not that any of the sentiments it contained or suggested were new to her; but she was not prepared to meet them thus clothed in distinct words, and in such a compact form. She had drawn up her forces for battle in an order which this unexpectedly decisive movement of the enemy discomfited; and a less able tactician might have been, in these circumstances, not only embarrassed, but utterly defeated: yet, however unprepared for this sudden shock, with admirable generalship our female Hannibal, falling back in the centre, admitted him to advance impetuous and triumphant, till she had him completely surrounded.
“My being of age in a few days,” continued Mr. Beaumont, “will not make any difference, surely; I depend upon it, that you will always invite whomever you like to this house, of which I hope, my dear mother, you will always do me the favour to be the mistress — till I marry, at least. For my wife’s feelings,” added he, smiling, “I can’t engage, before I have her.”
“And before we know who she is to be,” said Mrs. Beaumont, carelessly. “Time enough, as you say, to think of that. Besides, there are few women in the world, I know scarcely one, with whom, in the relation of mother and daughter-in-law, I should wish to live. But wherever I live, my dear son, as long as I have a house, I hope you will always do me the justice and the pleasure to consider yourself as its master. Heaven knows I shall never give any other man a right to dispute with you the sovereignty of my castle, or my cottage, whichever it may be. As to the rest,” pursued Mrs. Beaumont, “you cannot marry against my wishes, my dear Edward; for your wishes on this, as on all other subjects, will ever govern mine.”
Her son kissed her hand with warm gratitude.
“You will not, I hope, think that I seek to prolong my regency, or to assume undue power or influence in affairs,” continued Mrs. Beaumont, “if I hint to you in general terms what I think may contribute to your happiness. You must afterwards decide for yourself; and are now, as you have ever been, master, to do as you please.”
“Too much — too much. I have had too much liberty, and have too little acquired the habit of commanding my will and my passions by my reason. Of this I am sensible. My excellent friend, Captain Walsingham, told me, some years ago, that this was the fault of my character, and he charged me to watch over myself; and so I have; but not so strictly, I fear, as if he had watched along with me. —— Well, ma’am, you were going to give me some advice; I am all attention.”
“My dear son, Captain Walsingham showed his judgment more, perhaps, in pointing out causes than effects. The weakness of a fond mother, I am sensible, did indulge you in childhood, and, perhaps, more imprudently in youth, with an unlimited liberty to judge and act for yourself. Your mother’s system of education came, alas! more from her heart than her head. Captain Walsingham himself cannot be more sensible of my errors than I am.”
“Captain Walsingham, believe me, mother, never mentioned this in reproach to you. He is not a man to teach a son to see his mother’s errors — if she had any. He always spoke of you with the greatest respect. And since I must, at my own expense, do him justice, it was, I well remember, upon some occasion where I
spoke too hastily, and insisted upon my will in opposition to yours, madam, that Captain Walsingham took me aside, and represented to me the fault into which my want of command over myself had betrayed me. This he did so forcibly, that I have never from that hour to this (I flatter myself) on any material occasion, forgotten the impression he made on my mind. But, madam, I interrupt you: you were going to give me your advice about—”
“No, no — no advice — no advice; you are, in my opinion, fully adequate to the direction of your own conduct. I was merely going to suggest, that, since you have not been accustomed to control from a mother, and since you have, thank Heaven! a high spirit, that would sooner break than bend, it must be essential to your happiness to have a wife of a compliant, gentle temper; not fond of disputing the right, or attached to her own opinions; not one who would be tenacious of rule, and unseasonably inflexible.”
“Unseasonably inflexible! Undoubtedly, ma’am. Yet I should despise a mean-spirited wife.”
“I am sure you would. But compliance that proceeds from affection, you know, can never deserve to be called mean-spirited — nor would it so appear to you. I am persuaded that there is a degree of fondness, of affection, enthusiastic affection, which disposes the temper always to a certain softness and yieldingness, which, I conceive, would be peculiarly attractive to you, and essential to your happiness: in short, I know your temper could not bear contradiction.”
“Oh, indeed, ma’am, you are quite mistaken.”
“Quite mistaken! and at the very moment he reddens with anger, because I contradict, even in the softest, gentlest manner in my power, his opinion of himself!”
“You don’t understand me, indeed, you don’t understand me,” said Mr. Beaumont, beating with his whip the leaves of a bush which was near him. “Either you don’t understand me, or I don’t understand you. I am much more able to bear contradiction than you think I am, provided it be direct. But I do not love — what I am doing at this instant,” added he, smiling—”I don’t love beating about the bush.”
“Look there now! — Strange creatures you men are! So like he looks to his poor father, who used to tell me that he loved to be contradicted, and yet who would not, I am sure, have lived three days with any woman who had ventured to contradict him directly. Whatever influence I obtained in his heart, and whatever happiness we enjoyed in our union, I attribute to my trusting to my observations on his character rather than to his own account of himself. Therefore I may be permitted to claim some judgment of what would suit your hereditary temper.”
“Certainly, ma’am, certainly. But to come to the point at once, may I ask this plain question — Do you, by these reflections, mean to allude to any particular persons? Is there any woman in the world you at this instant would wish me to marry?”
“Yes — Miss Walsingham.”
Mr. Beaumont started with joyful surprise, when his mother thus immediately pronounced the very name he wished to hear.
“You surprise and delight me, my dear mother!”
“Surprise! — How can that be? — Surely you must know my high opinion of Miss Walsingham. But — —”
“But — you added but — —”
“There is no woman who may not be taxed with a but — yet it is not for her friend to lower her merit. My only objection to her is — I shall infallibly affront you, if I name it.”
“Name it! name it! You will not affront me.”
“My only objection to her then is, her superiority. She is so superior, that, forgive me, I don’t know any man, yourself not excepted, who is at all her equal.”
“I think precisely as you do, and rejoice.”
“Rejoice? why there I cannot sympathize with you. I own, as a mother, I should feel a little — a little mortified to see my son not the superior; and when the comparison is to be daily and hourly made, and to last for life, and all the world to see it as well as myself. I own I have a mother’s vanity. I should wish to see my son always what he has hitherto been — the superior, and master in his own house.”
Mr. Beaumont made no reply to these insinuations, but walked on in silence; and his mother, unable to determine precisely whether the vexation apparent in his countenance proceeded from disapprobation of her observations, or from their working the effect she desired upon his pride, warily waited till he should betray some decisive symptom of his feelings. But she waited in vain — he was resolved not to speak.
“There is not a woman upon earth I should wish so much to have as a daughter-in-law, a companion, and a friend, as Miss Walsingham. You must be convinced,” resumed Mrs. Beaumont, “so far as I am concerned, it is the most desirable thing in the world. But I should think it my duty to put my own feelings and wishes out of the question, and to make myself prefer whomsoever, all things considered, my judgment tells me would make you the happiest.”
“And whom would your judgment prefer, madam?”
“Why — I am not at liberty to tell — unless I could explain all my reasons. Indeed, I know not what to say.”
“Dear madam, explain all your reasons, or we shall never understand one another, and never come to an end of these half explanations.”
Here they were interrupted by seeing Mr. Twigg, a courtly clergyman, coming towards them. Beaumont was obliged to endure his tiresome flattery upon the beauties of Beaumont Park, and upon the judicious improvements that were making, had been made, and would, no doubt, be very soon made. Mrs. Beaumont, at last, relieved his or her own impatience by commissioning Mr. Twigg to walk round the improvements by himself. By himself she insisted it should be, that she might have his unbiassed judgment upon the two lines which had been marked for the new belt or screen; and he was also to decide whether they should call it a belt or a screen. — Honoured with this commission, he struck off into the walk to which Mrs. Beaumont pointed, and began his solitary progress.
Mr. Beaumont then urged his mother to go on with her explanation. Mrs. Beaumont thought that she could not hazard much by flattering the vanity of a man on that subject on which perhaps it is most easily flattered; therefore, after sufficient delicacy of circumlocution, she informed her son that there was a young lady who was actually dying for love of him; whose extreme fondness would make her live but in him; and who, besides having a natural ductility of character, and softness of temper, was perfectly free from any formidable superiority of intellect, and had the most exalted opinion of his capacity, as well as of his character and accomplishments; in short, such an enthusiastic adoration, as would induce that belief in the infallibility of a husband, which must secure to him the fullest enjoyment of domestic peace, power, and pre-eminence.
Mr. Beaumont seemed less moved than his mother had calculated that the vanity of man must be, by such a declaration — discovery it could not be called. “If I am to take all this seriously, madam,” replied he, laughing, “and if, au pied de la lettre my vanity is to believe that this damsel is dying for love; yet, still I have so little chivalry in my nature, that I cannot understand how it would add to my happiness to sacrifice myself to save her life. That I am well suited to her, I am as willing as vanity can make me to believe; but how is it to be proved that the lady is suited to me?”
“My dear, these things do not admit of logical proof.”
“Well — moral, sentimental, or any kind of proof you please.”
Complete Novels of Maria Edgeworth Page 488
