Dr Riccabocca had secured Lenny Fairfield, and might therefore be
considered to have ridden his hobby in the great whirligig with
adroitness and success. But Miss Jemima was still driving round in her
car, handling the reins, and flourishing the whip, without apparently
having got an inch nearer to the flying form of Dr Riccabocca.
Indeed, that excellent and only too susceptible spinster, with all her
experience of the villany of man, had never conceived the wretch to be
so thoroughly beyond the reach of redemption as when Dr Riccabocca took
his leave, and once more interred himself amidst the solitudes of the
Casino, without having made any formal renunciation of his criminal
celibacy. For some days she shut herself up in her own chamber, and
brooded with more than her usual gloomy satisfaction on the certainty
of the approaching crash. Indeed, many signs of that universal calamity
which, while the visit of Riccabocca lasted, she had permitted herself
to consider ambiguous, now became luminously apparent. Even the
newspaper, which during that credulous and happy period had given half
a column to Births and Marriages, now bore an ominously long catalogue
of Deaths; so that it seemed as if the whole population had lost heart,
and had no chance of repairing its daily losses. The leading articles
spoke, with the obscurity of a Pythian, of an impending CRISIS.
Monstrous turnips sprouted out from the paragraphs devoted to General
News. Cows bore calves with two heads, whales were stranded in the
Humber, showers of frogs descended in the High Street of Cheltenham.
All these symptoms of the world's decrepitude and consummation, which
by the side of the fascinating Riccabocca might admit of some doubt
as to their origin and cause, now, conjoined with the worst of all,
viz.--the frightfully progressive wickedness of man--left to Miss
Jemima, no ray of hope save that afforded by the reflection that she
could contemplate the wreck of matter without a single sentiment of
regret.
Mrs Dale, however, by no means shared the despondency of her fair
friend, and, having gained access to Miss Jemima's chamber, succeeded,
though not without difficulty, in her kindly attempts to cheer the
drooping spirits of that female misanthropist. Nor, in her benevolent
desire to speed the car of Miss Jemima to its hymeneal goal, was Mrs
Dale so cruel towards her male friend, Dr Riccabocca, as she seemed to
her husband. For Mrs Dale was a woman of shrewdness and penetration,
as most quick-tempered women are; and she knew that Miss Jemima was
one of those excellent young ladies who are likely to value a husband
in proportion to the difficulty of obtaining him. In fact, my readers
of both sexes must often have met, in the course of their experience,
with that peculiar sort of feminine disposition, which requires the
warmth of the conjugal hearth to develop all its native good qualities;
nor is it to be blamed overmuch if, innocently aware of this tendency
in its nature, it turns towards what is best fitted for its growth
and improvement, by laws akin to those which make the sunflower turn
to the sun, or the willow to the stream. Ladies of this disposition,
permanently thwarted in their affectionate bias, gradually languish
away into intellectual inanition, or sprout out into those abnormal
eccentricities which are classed under the general name of "oddity" or
"character." But, once admitted to their proper soil, it is astonishing
what healthful improvement takes place--how the poor heart, before
starved and stinted of nourishment, throws out its suckers, and bursts
into bloom and fruit. And thus many a belle from whom the beaux have
stood aloof, only because the puppies think she could be had for the
asking, they see afterwards settled down into true wife and fond
mother, with amaze at their former disparagement, and a sigh at their
blind hardness of heart.
In all probability, Mrs Dale took this view of the subject; and
certainly, in addition to all the hitherto dormant virtues which would
be awakened in Miss Jemima when fairly Mrs Riccabocca, she counted
somewhat upon the mere worldly advantage which such a match would
bestow upon the exile. So respectable a connection with one of the
oldest, wealthiest, and most popular families in the shire, would in
itself give him a position not to be despised by a poor stranger in the
land; and though the interest of Miss Jemima's dowry might not be much,
regarded in the light of English pounds, (not Milanese _lire_,) still
it would suffice to prevent that gradual process of dematerialisation
which the lengthened diet upon minnows and sticklebacks had already
made apparent in the fine and slow-evanishing form of the philosopher.
Like all persons convinced of the expediency of a thing, Mrs Dale saw
nothing wanting but opportunities to insure its success. And that these
might be forthcoming, she not only renewed with greater frequency, and
more urgent instance than ever, her friendly invitations to Riccabocca
to drink tea and spend the evening, but she artfully so chafed the
Squire on his sore point of hospitality, that the Doctor received
weekly a pressing solicitation to dine and sleep at the Hall.
At first the Italian pished and grunted, and said _Cospetto_, and _Per
Bacco_, and _Diavolo_, and tried to creep out of so much proffered
courtesy. But, like all single gentlemen, he was a little under the
tyrannical influence of his faithful servant; and Jackeymo, though he
could bear starving as well as his master when necessary, still, when
he had the option, preferred roast beef and plum-pudding. Moreover,
that vain and incautious confidence of Riccabocca, touching the vast
sum at his command, and with no heavier drawback than that of so
amiable a lady as Miss Jemima--who had already shown him (Jackeymo)
many little delicate attentions--had greatly whetted the cupidity which
was in the servant's Italian nature: a cupidity the more keen because,
long debarred its legitimate exercise on his own mercenary interests,
he carried it all to the account of his master's!
Thus tempted by his enemy, and betrayed by his servant, the unfortunate
Riccabocca fell, though with eyes not unblinded, into the hospitable
snares extended for the destruction of his--celibacy! He went often
to the parsonage, often to the Hall, and by degrees the sweets of
the social domestic life, long denied him, began to exercise their
enervating charm upon the stoicism of our poor exile. Frank had now
returned to Eton. An unexpected invitation had carried off Captain
Higginbotham to pass a few weeks at Bath with a distant relation, who
had lately returned from India, and who, as rich as Croesus, felt
so estranged and solitary in his native isle that, when the Captain
"claimed kindred there," to his own amaze "he had his claims allowed;"
while a very protracted sitting of Parliament still delayed in London
the Squire's habitual visitors in the later summer; so that--a chasm
thus made in his society--Mr Hazeldean welcomed with no hollow
cordiality the diversion or distraction he found in the foreigner's
companionship. Thus, with pleasure to all parties, and strong hopes to
the two female conspirators, the intimacy between the Casino and Hall
rapidly thickened; but still not a word resembling a distinct proposal
did Dr Riccabocca breathe. And still, if such an idea obtruded itself
on his mind, it was chased therefrom with so determined a _Diavolo_
that perhaps, if not the end of the world, at least the end of Miss
Jemima's tenure in it, might have approached, and seen her still Miss
Jemima, but for a certain letter with a foreign post-mark that reached
the Doctor one Tuesday morning.