THE BUBBLE AND THE SKY ROCKET
This was Molly's last appearance at the assembly.
Next day we heard that our distinguished visitors, the Prince of
Purity--or the Prince of Darkness, which you please--the Lady of the
Green Cloth, Sir Harry Decoy-Duck, and Colonel Bully Barabbas, with
the Reverend Ananias and the ingenious Sam, first favourite of the
Muses, had all gone away--whether they went away together or
separately I never heard.
The opinion of the company as to the exposure and the marriage was
divided. For some thought that Molly was nothing better than a woman
who did not know her own mind; that she was first dazzled and carried
off her head by the brilliant offer that was dangled before her; that,
on Lord Fylingdale's request she consented to the private marriage;
that she became afterwards afraid of the greatness for which she was
not fitted either by birth or education, and thought to escape by hard
lying and a strenuous denial of the fact. I fear that this opinion was
that of the majority. For, they added, there was without any doubt a
marriage; it was performed by the clergyman who by his learning,
eloquence, and piety had made so many friends during his short stay,
and it was witnessed by the parish clerk. If Molly was not the bride
who could be found so closely to resemble her as to deceive the parish
clerk?
When it was objected that the private character both of his lordship
and his late tutor was of the kind publicly alleged, these
philosophers asked for proof--as if proof could be adduced in a public
assembly. And they asked further if it was reasonable to suppose that
an eloquent divine, whose discourses had edified so many could
possibly be the reprobate and profligate as stated by the vicar? As
for his lordship there is, as everybody knows, an offence called
_scandalum magnatum_, which renders a person who defames a peer
or attacks his honour liable to prosecution, fine, and imprisonment.
"We shall presently," they said, "find this presumptuous vicar haled
before the courts and fined, or imprisoned, for _scandalum magnatum_."
But the vicar, when this was reported to him, only laughed and said he
should be rejoiced to put his lordship under examination.
Others there were, principally townsfolk, who had known Molly all her
life. They agreed that she was a woman of sober mind; not given to
vapours or any such feminine weaknesses; not likely to be carried away
by terrors; and incapable of falsehood. If she declared that she was
not married, she certainly was not married. The business might be
explained in some way; but of one thing they were very sure--that
Molly, since she said so, was not married. This view was strongly held
by the "Society" of King's Lynn at their evening meetings.
It must be owned that the departure of the vivacious and affable Lady
Anastasia with that of the agreeable rattle of seventy-five, Sir
Harry, and that of the pious Purdon, who had also become a favourite
with the ladies, proved a heavy blow to the gaieties of the assembly
and the long room. The card room was deserted; conversation in the
garden and the pump room became flat; the gentlemen who had gambled at
the hazard table now carried on their sport--perhaps less
dangerously--at the tavern; many of them, having lost a great deal
more than they could afford, were now gloomy; there were no more
public breakfasts; no more water parties up or down the river; no more
bowls of punch after the dance. In a word the spirit went out of the
company; the spa became dull.
Let me finish with the story of this mushroom. I call it a mushroom
because it appeared, grew, and vanished in a single season. You may
also call it a sky rocket if you please, or, indeed, anything which
springs into existence in a moment, and in a moment dies. Perhaps we
may liken it most to a bubble such as boys blow from soap suds. It
floated in the sunshine for a brief space, glowing with the colours of
the rainbow; then it burst and vanished, leaving nothing behind but
the memory of it.
The company, I say, after the departure of the party from London,
became almost immediately dull and out of spirits. The music alone was
gay; many of the ladies lamented loudly that they had ever come to a
place where the nightly gambling had played havoc with their husbands,
fathers, or sons. They found out that the lodgings were cramped,
dirty, ill-furnished, inconvenient, and exorbitant in their cost; that
the provisions were dear; that they had already taken the waters for a
month or more; and that, in effect, it was high time to go home.
Besides, their own houses in the summer, the season of fruit and
flowers, with their orchards and their gardens, were certainly more
attractive than the narrow streets and the confined air of Lynn.
Therefore, some making this excuse and some that, they all with one
consent began to pack up their baggage and to go home.
The departure of our friends from London took place in the middle of
June; by the end of June the season was over--the visitors gone. At
first the people expected new arrivals, but there were none--the
season was over. The market-place for a while was crowded with the
women who brought their poultry and fruit and provisions from the
country. When they found that no one came to buy, they gradually
ceased to appear. Great was the lamentation over the abundance which
was wasted, and the produce of their gardens doomed to ripen and to
rot.
Then the strolling players put their dresses and properties into a
waggon and went away complaining that they were half starved, which
was, I dare say, the simple truth. Next, all the show folk and the
quacks, and the Cheap Jacks and tumblers and Tom Fools went away too,
and the gipsies brought in no more horses, and the streets became once
more silent and deserted, save on the quays and on the river, just as
they had been before the spa was opened.
And then the music and the horns were sent away; the master of the
ceremonies received his salary and went back to Norwich; the gardens
were closed; the dippers vanished; the pump room was left for any who
chose to dip and draw for themselves; the hairdressers, milliners,
vendors of cosmetics, powders, paint, and patches all vanished as by
magic; the coffee houses were closed; the bookseller carried his books
back to Cambridge or wherever he came from; the confectioner left off
making his famous cakes; and the morning prayers were once more read
to a congregation of one or two.
The townsfolk, then, having nothing else to do, began to count their
gains. The doctor, you remember, prophesied at the outset that all
would become rich. What happened was that everybody had made large
gains. The takings of the shops had been far greater than they had at
any previous time hoped for or experienced. On the other hand the
shopkeepers had laid in large and valuable stocks which now seemed
likely to remain on their hands. Moreover, as always happens, the
temporary prosperity had been taken for a continuing, or even an
increasing prosperity, with the consequence that the people had
launched out into an extravagant way of living, the smallest
shopkeeper demanding mutton and beef instead of the fat pork and hot
milk which had formerly been counted a good dinner, drinking the wine
of Lisbon and Madeira where he formerly drank small ale, and even
taking his dish of tea in the afternoon for the good of his megrims
and the clearance of his ill humours.
Oh! but the next year would bring another flood of fortune; they could
wait. Therefore they passed the winter in such habits of profuseness
as I have indicated. Spring arrived, and they began to furbish their
lodgings anew and to look to their stores and stocks. The month of May
brought warmth and sunshine, but it did not bring the expected
company. May passed; June passed. To the unspeakable consternation of
the town, no visitors came at all--none. With one consent all stayed
at home or went elsewhere. I have never heard any explanation of this
remarkable falling off. That is to say, there were many reasons
offered, but none that seemed sufficient. Thus, the ladies of Norfolk
had taken a holiday which was costly and could not be repeated every
year. It was like a visit to London, which is made once in a life and
is talked about for the rest of that life. Or the losses of the
gentlemen at the gaming table frightened them; they would not again be
led into temptation; or the grand invention of Sam Semple had to be
blown upon; or the rheumatic and the gouty who had taken the waters
now found that they were in no way the better; or the scandal of those
conspirators in high rank drove people away--indeed, such an exposure
could do no good to any place of resort.
There were, therefore, after the event, many explanations offered, and
every one may choose for himself. It is, however, certain that no
visitors came; that the pump room was deserted, save for the few
people of the town; that there was no need to engage music or to
provide provisions or do anything, for no one came. The spa had
enjoyed its brief hour of popularity, and was now dead.
This was a blow to the town, from which it was slow, indeed, to
recover. Many of the shopkeepers were unable to pay their rents or to
sell their stocks. Simplicity of manners returned with the fat pork
and the hot milk; and as for the promised accession of wealth, I
believe that the spa left our people poorer than it found them.
I have been told that this has been the fate of many spas. First there
is a blind belief in the sovereign virtue of the well; at the outset
the place is crowded with visitors; there is every kind of amusement
and pleasure; then this confidence becomes less and presently vanishes
altogether, and is transferred to some other well. As faith decays so
the company grows thinner and less distinguished. There was formerly,
I believe, a fashionable spa near London, at a place called Hampstead.
This spa had such a rise, such a period of prosperity, and such a
fall. Another spa which also rose, flourished and then decayed and is
now deserted, was the spa of Epsom, a village some miles south of
London. These places, however, lasted more than a single season. Our
spa lived but for two or three short months and then passed away. To
be sure it was a pretence and a sham from the outset, but people did
not know its origin; Sam Semple, its sole creator, remained unknown
and unsuspected.
I know not, I say, how the belief in the doctor's well came so
suddenly to an end. I do know, however, that the disappointment of the
doctor, and, with him, all who let lodgings, kept taverns, provided
victuals, and sold things of any kind, was very bitter when the next
spring brought no company. They waited, I say, expectant, all through
the summer. When it became quite certain that the spa was really dead,
they began sorrowfully to pull down the rooms and to take away the
fence, and they left the gardens to weeds and decay. And then the town
relapsed once more into its former, and present, condition. That is to
say, it became again unknown to the fashionable world; the gentry of
Norfolk resorted to Norwich again; they forgot that they once came to
Lynn; the place lies in a corner with the reclaimed marshes on either
hand; it is inaccessible except to those whose business takes them
there; travellers do not visit the town; it is not like Harwich, or
Dover, or Hull, a place which carries on communication by packet with
foreign countries; it is a town shrunken within its former limits, its
courts encumbered with deserted and ruinous houses, its streets quiet
and silent. Yet it is prosperous in a quiet way; it has its foreign
trade, its port, and its shipping; its merchants are substantial; the
life which they lead is monotonous, but they do not feel the monotony.
Except for an occasional riot among drunken sailors there is no work
for the justices of the peace, and no occupants of the prison. At
least we have no great lady using her charms, her gracious smiles, her
rank in order to lure our young men to their destruction; we have no
profligate parsons; we have no noble lords parading in the borrowed
plumes of saint and confessor.