"The first springs of great events, like those of great rivers, are
often mean and little."--SWIFT.
Miss Robinson, the heroine of our present chapter, was just five and
thirty, tall, thin, and well dressed, with something in her manner
smart, clever, cheerful, and _offhand_, but free from boldness, which
rendered her particularly agreeable to _shy_ men, with whom she was
observed to be a wonderful favourite. _Then_ Miss Robinson had a
"pretty fortune" of five thousand pounds entirely at her own disposal;
and the only possible manner of accounting for her protracted "single
blessedness," was by the supposition that either some "disappointment"
had occurred in early life, which she was too proud or too independent
to turn to advantage, or that she had been "over nice" in making her
election, and discovered now that people might be too fastidious for
the rapidity with which youth and bloom wing their cruel flight.
This at least was the way in which the point was decided by general
report, and how the case really stood is not material to our present
purpose to determine. The reader may perhaps imagine that Miss Ferret
was not of such a grade in society, as to admit of her insinuating
herself amongst the guests in a baronet's house, and that her ambition,
confined to an humbler walk, would scarcely aspire so high as to rule
the destinies of two such people as Miss Robinson and Mr. Hartland, but
the fact was otherwise. A _downright_ country neighbourhood, far
removed from metropolitan fastidiousness, admits of occasional mixtures
unknown to high life in town, and when we consider that the Ferret
family, of which Jemima was the last remnant, had lived with credit,
and voted steadily for Sir Roger during a course of years, as also that
Miss Ferret's central position close to the market-place, afforded her
opportunity of forestalling the scanty and uncertain supplies of fish,
sweetbreads, and other delicacies which are the pivots on which turns
the fame of a dinner entertainment in a remote situation, it cannot
surely surprise any reasonable person that Miss Ferret should often be
invited to mount her pony, and with her dinner dress tied in a
handkerchief, and suspended from the pummel, solicited to partake of
the good cheer which her late and early vigilance had provided. She
was, besides, a woman of address. If she passed a carriage on the road,
she drew her veil over her face, and never rode up to the front door.
She had likewise a permanent deposit of flowers, feathers, and
furbelows, which were left in a bandbox at Colbrook, under the
guardianship of Lady Goodman's maid, with whom she was a prime
favourite; as, however multifarious the concerns on her hands, she
never forgot to slip a volume of the last novel into her bundle for
Mrs. Hopkins. If a servant was to be hired, Miss Ferret inquired the
character; if a bargain was to be had, Miss Ferret heard of, and
recommended it to her friends, and when all her various _utilities_
were performed, the _dulce_ was not neglected. Enriched with a
countless fund of _on dits_, and freighted with charades, epigrams,
epithalamiums, and pasquinades, this active member of society defied
all the powers of dulness to produce stagnation of tongues, whenever
she was one of the company.
Well, in brisk spirits and iron-sided health, after executing a list of
commissions, half a yard in length, for Lady Goodman, off cantered Miss
Ferret, in joyous anticipation of a pleasant week at Colbrook. Her
reception was gladdening. "My dear creature, welcome," said Lady
Goodman, "you are actually my right hand; I do not know what in the
world I should do without you. Did you remember the wax candles, and
the snuff for Sir Roger, and the cards, and my watch which I sent to
have a new crystal, and did you pay Farquar's bill?"
"I have done, ordered, and paid every thing."
"Welcome, my dear, a thousand times!" replied Lady Goodman; "come, and
tell me all the news."
"Ah! Ferret," exclaimed Sir Roger, who entered at this moment, "I
rejoice to see you. Sad weather this; I have been as dead as ditch
water, I can tell you, and am glad that you are come to keep me awake.
The glass too is rising; you bring good luck with you; but here is Mr.
Hartland riding up the avenue; I must go and meet him."
"Oh! I'm glad that you have asked Mr. Hartland; that's a nice man; I've
seen a great deal of him lately," said Miss Ferret, as she turned to
Lady Goodman; "but have'nt you got Miss Robinson with you? I long to
see her: How does she look? when did she come? does she stay long?"
"She arrived on Wednesday, stays a month, and I never saw her looking
better," answered Lady Goodman.
"A nice thing," said Miss Ferret, "if we could make up a match between
Mr. Hartland and Miss Robinson, wouldn't it, Lady G.?"
"So it would;" replied her Ladyship; "but though your fame stands high,
I think you'll hardly have ingenuity to bring _that_ matter to bear.
They say that he's not at all a marrying man, and if he's one of the
bashful fraternity, there will not be time to get over the horrors of
presentation to a stranger, before Harriet will leave us to go to her
sister in Scotland."
"We must only not lose time," said Miss Ferret, "but make hay while the
sun shines."
The door opened, and Sir Roger presented Mr. Hartland to the ladies.
Though not an elegant man, there was nothing either coarse or revolting
in his demeanour. On the contrary, he comported himself extremely well,
in a plain and equable manner, without effort or perturbation, whatever
were the society into which he happened to fall. A phlegmatic
temperament, combining with constitutional prudence, and his mother's
counsel, had preserved Mr. Hartland in early life from those exciting
circumstances which often plunge young people into love entanglements;
and incredible as it may seem to those who have been differently
situated, it is not the less true, that he had lived so little in mixed
society, and had been so little in the way of _flirtation_, that no
rumour of marriage had ever been coupled with his name; and thus at an
age when others have _handed over_ their sensibilities to a new
generation, this serene and unaffected man was only commencing his
career of life, with all the simplicity of untried youth.
The company assembled; and such as have experienced the up-hill work
of conversation at a country dinner, when the subjects of weather,
crops, the moon, and the roads are _pumped dry_, will easily believe,
that if Miss Ferret were not the most polished woman in the world,
her animation rendered her, notwithstanding, the most agreeable
ingredient upon many occasions, in those assemblies which her presence
enlivened. She had the art to shake a drawing-room together, if we may
use such a simile; and wherever she was she contrived to prevent that
_stratification_ of men and women which madame de Staël has so happily
described, as characteristic of an English provincial half hour before
dinner. Miss Ferret had seen the _last_ newspaper, or talked with "an
intelligent man who had stepped from the coach" in the precise moment
of her setting out; or she had heard a paragraph read from a London
letter; or had a conference with the post-master immediately before
she quitted home; in short she knew something either true or false,
which no one else happened to know, of every thing and every body.
Thin and active, she glided about the room, and brought people into
actual contact who had never interchanged a look till she appeared.
Like the grouting of a wall she compacted and cemented what was
nothing but a heap of loose disjointed stones, till her vivacious
tongue poured in its eloquence amongst them.
When the glad announcement was sounded, that dinner was served, Miss
Ferret, who had laid her plan of operations, commenced them by keeping
up such a cross fire of talk, while the company were in the act of
descending the stairs, that by the time they reached the
dining-parlour, she now marshalled the guests without being perceived
by any one, and contrived to slide herself into a chair between Miss
Robinson and Mr. Hartland. The more obvious arrangement which, by
placing the gentleman in the centre, would have given both ladies an
equal claim on his attention, might not have been so judicious; but by
Miss Ferret's disposition of affairs, she constituted herself the "soft
intermediate" through whom any intercourse held by the extremes must
pass; and she was thus enabled to regulate and guide it as was most
conducive to her ultimate ends. Before the dessert came upon the table
she had ventured to insinuate that there was a wonderful sympathy in
the tastes of her _protegés__protegés_; and as she conveyed their
sentiments from one to the other upon the comparative merits of roast
and boiled, fricassee and fry, hot and cold, town and country, with
sundry other interesting opposites which she herself suggested, there
certainly did appear to be a harmony of opinion which bid fair for
domestic union in that state of life which, we are taught to believe,
traces much of the unhappiness by which it is, alas! so frequently
embittered, to a fatal talent for disputation upon such like topics of
daily recurrence.
The perpetual succession of single drops will wear out a rock, and
therefore Miss Ferret seemed to be guided by sound discretion in her
admiration of minor harmonies, life being, as she always observed,
"made up of _little things_." From generals it was natural to descend
to particulars, and Henbury itself was on the _tapis_ ere the ladies
withdrew. Miss Ferret asked Miss Robinson, if she, who was _so_
partial to the pursuit of rural objects, and knew "_every_ thing about
plants from the oak to the daisy," had ever seen a cork tree?
On being answered in the negative, Miss Ferret exclaimed, "Oh I am
_so_ glad that we have any thing new to shew you! By the bye, _madcap_
that I am, I am reckoning without my host, and must have Mr.
Hartland's leave to perform my promise, as it is at Henbury that the
curiosity which I have mentioned is to be found. They say that it was
brought over a sapling from Cintra, near Lisbon, fully an hundred
years ago, by an officer who gave it to my poor grandfather, who then
rented the lands which now belong to Mr. Hartland."
Mr. Hartland blushed, and his skin being thin and fair, the suffusion
was manifest to a degree which augured well for setting fire to the
train which was laid in Miss Ferret's mind, as he replied, "I have
horses which cannot be employed in a better service, and at any time I
shall be happy to engage their best offices in procuring such an honour
as you kindly design for their master."
"Upon my word, Mr. Hartland, you are very polite, and much more than I
deserve after such a liberty as I have taken; but I mean to profit by
it, I assure you. Miss Robinson ought not to suffer for my inadvertence
in forgetting, that with my poor grandfather all _my_ interest in
Henbury passed away. We will accept your friendly invitation, though
not your horses; for I am sure, that unless the rheumatism pinched
severely, Sir Roger could not refuse his favourite Miss Robinson any
thing. You know, my dear, that Sir Roger admires you more than any one;
and I often tell Lady Goodman, that she is the best tempered, amiable
creature in the world not to be jealous; but she dotes upon you quite
as much. So you see that I have no chance of breaking the peace at
Colbrook, which is mortifying, as it is proverbially, you know, an old
maid's province and privilege to make mischief wherever she goes."
What with blushing, bantering, laughing, and complimenting, a very fair
measure of execution was done before the party re-assembled above
stairs, and Miss Ferret, who, like all wise people, was a keen observer
of portents, remarked that Mr. Hartland was the first gentleman to
leave the dining-room; upon which she gave a significant wink,
accompanied by a smile, the meaning of which was only understood by
Miss Robinson, to whom Miss Ferret had just whispered previously that
she saw strange things in her tea-cup.
To talk of fortunes and fortune-tellers might have been too direct a
mode of attack. So thought one who was never mistaken in her
calculation, and turning rapidly to a little black dog which sat
wagging his tail at Lady Goodman's side, Miss Ferret, with masterly
presence of mind, said, as if continuing the previous conversation,
"Well, it shall be submitted, as Miss Robinson _will have it so_, to
Mr. Hartland. Oh! here he is! Come here, Duke--shew yourself to this
gentleman. Mr. Hartland, Miss Robinson and I have had almost a duel
about this little animal, which she declares is not of the true
Norfolk breed; while I maintain that it is; and moreover that the
first of the kind was brought here by my poor uncle Jacob Ferret, who
got him at Arundel Castle, and carried him, when a puppy, many a weary
mile in his bosom. Now I think _my_ informa tion decisive; Miss
Robinson however will not yield; but to settle the dispute, she says
that you shall be umpire."
Mr. Hartland looked evidently highly gratified, and proceeded directly
to an examination of Duke's mouth, Lady Goodman laughing _à gorge
deployée_ at the ready witted Ferret and the confusion of Miss
Robinson, who, all astonishment at our diplomatist's facility of
invention, was completely nonplused. To have contradicted Miss Ferret's
statement, however, would only have made matters worse, and proved
still more unequivocally to Mr. Hartland that he had been the subject
of discussion; so quietly acquiescing, she waited in silence for
judgment to be pronounced.
"Miss Robinson is quite right," said Mr. Hartland. "Duke is a beautiful
creature, but all his ancestors are not from Arundel."
"Well, well, needs must, and I give up," answered Miss Ferret; "but it
is enough to provoke a saint that Miss Robinson is always right, and I
am always wrong. I firmly believe that she bribes all our judges."
Her next _coup d'essai_ was at the card-table. She had accomplished the
point of involving Miss Robinson and Mr. Hartland in a descant upon all
manner of spaniels, pointers, pugs, and poodles, which ramified into
sundry other topics, and she now thought it high time to look after
Sir Roger, for whom she soon arranged a rubber of whist; and after
manoeuvring for some time, set down the Baronet and an excellent player
who lived in his neighbourhood, against the pair whom she determined to
bring together in a partnership of a more durable continuance.
"Come, my dear," said she, "Lady Goodman always makes me her _aide de
camp_. I am beating up for recruits. Here are Sir Roger and Mr. Gresham
ready: Mr. Hartland will play, I know; but unless _you_ are kind enough
to take a hand, we shall be badly off. Do you begin, and I will cut in
by and by. I know that you are not fond of cards, but you are always
fond of obliging."
So saying, she bustled the people into their places, talking
unceasingly--cut for partners herself, to save time she said, and had
them all seated and the first deal commenced, before any one was aware
how he or she came to be so disposed and employed.
When Miss Ferret had skimmed round the room, setting every body and
mind in motion, she returned to a post where she was always welcome,
particularly when fortune favoured, namely, at the corner of the
card-table, _all but_ in Sir Roger's pocket. From this vantage-ground
she viewed the game; remembering every card, and gave a casting voice
on sundry contested questions. From the same situation she likewise
dispensed between the deals the pungent jest, the lively sally, or
smart repartee; raised the sinking spirits of a vanquished foe, or
curbed the too triumphant crowing of success. Here too she sat ready to
ply her host with a pinch of snuff, or a judiciously tempered dose of
flattery, as the case required. No genius ever elicited in the corps
diplomatique is on record for a nicer trait of generalship than was
exhibited on this evening by our female politician, who had calculated
to a hair, and now shewed the perfection of her practice by bringing
out her scheme with flying colours. Miss Ferret knew that Miss Robinson
was no whist player, and though Mr. Hartland was a remarkably good one,
the inferior skill of his partner would, she equally knew, so far
counteract his sagacity as to prevent any chance of victory over the
well-sustained game of two such antagonists as Sir Roger Goodman and
Mr. Gresham. It was Miss Ferret's design that the Baronet should win;
and in order to explain the rationale of her plan, it may not be amiss
to give a brief sketch in this place of this worthy's character.
Sir Roger was descended from an ancient house, and inherited a fine
place, but small fortune, which occasioned a perpetual strife between
family pride and poverty. He had been at school what is called a
plover-pated boy, and in fact arrived at manhood's prime with as light
a burthen of learning as any dunce need ever desire to carry. The
sports of the field, however, gave him ample occupation, and he married
the daughter of a wealthy trader, whose well lined coffers would have
supplied the deficiency of his patrimonial inheritance, if an ill timed
bankruptcy had not frustrated his hopes. This was a severe stroke; it
was however irremediable, and while health and strength continued,
matters went on tolerably well. Sir Roger became the most skilful
farmer in the whole country, and Lady Goodman, who was a virtuous and
prudent woman, managed her department with cleverness and economy.
But as time revolved, reverses occurred; two or three infant children
dropped off--Colbrook was left without an heir--and a chronic
rheumatism succeeded, which called for more temper, resignation, and
resource of mind than poor Sir Roger possessed to meet the demand. His
decline of life, therefore, exhibited the sorry picture of a nervous,
growling old man, who revenged every cloud in the sky which produced a
sharper twinge, on every body who came in his way. His temper was
graduated like the barometer, and rose or fell with the elasticity of
the atmosphere.
Amongst the most exasperating trials of his life was loss at cards; and
yet to abstain from playing was a still greater cross to one so
entirely dependent, as was Sir Roger, on external excitement. He
delighted in the company of Miss Ferret, who acted like sal volatile on
his spirits, and Lady Goodman was so glad to have her at Colbrook, that
it might always have been the residence of this useful personage, if
her pride had not revolted at the idea of being called "_a companion_."
Such then was the outline of domestic affairs in the family of Goodman,
and Miss Ferret knew what she was about, when she resolved that Sir
Roger should find his purse much heavier at the end than beginning of
the evening. But how did Mr. Hartland feel respecting these
arrangements of which he appeared to be the victim? He was amply
compensated by the partnership in which his losses were sustained; and
which furnished occasion for several allusions, artfully improved by
Miss Ferret, to fate--fortune--identity of interests--and sympathy in
adversity, which never advancing in _direct_ allusion beyond the
literal precincts of the game in hand, suggested, notwithstanding,
pleasing thoughts of an undefined nature which were as new to Mr.
Hartland as if he had just entered his seventeenth year, and
experienced for the first time, the stimulus and delight which is felt
by a boy when taken notice of in female society.
So happy was the progress of affairs, that when the cards were shuffled
in the last deal by Miss Robinson, and she summed up in a _total_ the
various items of apology which had preceded, by saying, "Well, Mr.
Hartland, my bad play has been visited severely on you; your temper has
indeed been tried in the furnace, and you have reason to remember the
evil star which condemned you to such a destiny this evening:" her
partner was observed to colour, while he replied, with more animation
than could have been anticipated in one who had lost every rubber,
"Miss Robinson, it is more agreeable to fail in some company than
succeed elsewhere. I can remember nothing but the _pleasures_ of this
day."
"Why, my dear creature," said Miss Ferret, as she addressed Miss
Robinson, "you have been horribly unlucky. I protest you have nothing
for it left but selling out of the funds to pay off your debts, and
though all _you_ Change-alley people have been turned to _coiners_ by
the late rise of stock, it will not do to lift one's capital."
The table broke up; Mr. Gresham rubbed his hands self complacently, and
moving briskly towards a window, said, "Somebody mentioned a star just
now, which reminds me to look for some friendly ray to guide me home."
Mr. Hartland, who was equally interested in the light of the firmament,
followed slowly, and was the first to exclaim, "How dark it is!"
"_It is indeed_," answered Miss Ferret. "Look out, Sir Roger, it
is black as soot. I think you will have to answer to Mrs. Gresham for
her husband's life if you let him go home to-night."
Sir Roger was in the highest state of good humour, and seizing directly
on the hospitable hint, declared that neither of his guests should
"stir a foot." Lady Goodman, ever ready to second a kind feeling,
praised the merits of a well-aired bed to each of the gentlemen. Miss
Ferret knew that Mr. Gresham would refuse to stay, which he did,
alleging that Mrs. Gresham would be uneasy were he not to return, and
she wished, as well as thought, that Mr. Hartland would remain if
invited; in which speculation, accordingly, she was also right, and
seeing him hesitate, she ran towards the bell, saying, "I assure you it
would be folly to attempt riding home; there is no necessity at least
for Mr. Hartland to break his neck."
"No," said Sir Roger, laughing heartily; "though Hartland lives at
Henbury, there is no _henpecker_ there yet."
This sally was met by Miss Ferret with "Excellent, upon my honour! Lady
Goodman, is'nt that the best thing you ever heard? Well," added our
voluble _go-between_, "I thought that this would be the end of it,
when you gentlemen wedged yourselves into that far window before
dinner, and prosed about new moons, full moons, and harvest moons, till
you wearied the moon to sleep, and now you are left without any lamp in
the sky."
To be brief, Mr. Hartland was easily prevailed upon. Mr. Gresham took
his departure, and the circle at Colbrook, after partaking of a
comfortable old fashioned supper, retired to their apartments. If all
secrets must be discovered when we set about telling a story, we must
reveal the fact that two of the party passed a restless night. How it
happened may be thus accounted for.
Whatever may be thought, and however unnatural it may seem, that a man
of forty-two should be visited by those agitations which the young
imagine to belong exclusively to their fresh sensibilities, and the
hacknied do not believe in at all, it will not appear incredible to
those who are accustomed to look into the human heart with a
philosophic eye, if we assert that Mr. Hartland's spirits were thrown
into considerable flutter by the events of the past day.
Since his accession to an unexpected fortune he had heard many hints
thrown out, both at home and abroad, upon the propriety of his
"settling in life;" and _any_ thing often repeated will produce
impression. How much more then a matter of such importance as
matrimony! His old nurse used now to shake her head and say, "Ah! Sir,
since my poor Missess is gone you looks quite lonesome." The tenants
who came to visit their new landlord, as they drank his health, always
tacked a good wife as the climax of their wishes for his prosperity;
and he was assailed by all the old women of the parish, gentle and
simple, with some allusion to his single state. The words old bachelor
began to fret and gall him in a manner entirely unwonted. It was no
wonder then, perhaps, that with a mind thus pre-disposed, the
machinations of Miss Ferrett found the soil prepared and ready to aid
their purpose. Several circumstances of the evening rose in a sort of
pleasing phantasmagoria on Mr. Hartland's recollection. He thought Miss
Robinson very agreeable and genteel, neither too young nor too old,
lively without being all on wires, like Miss Ferrett, quiet without
being dull like some of the young ladies whom he had seen in the
neighbourhood. As he continued to commune with his pillow, several
obliging sentiments expressed towards him by Miss Robinson recurred to
memory, and just as he at length fell off in a doze, the faint
reminiscence of something concerning the funds glided in shadowy vision
across his brain.
Miss Robinson had waking dreams the while of Mr. Hartland. She was five
and thirty; he was of suitable age; she had five thousand pounds; a
small provision to _live_ upon in the decline of one's days, yet a
snug little dower too, if well bestowed and carefully settled. Mr.
Hartland's complexion was fine, his teeth superb, and his general air
that of a very comely person. Altogether, Miss Robinson thought that
she had not seen for a long time any one more amiable in appearance.
Then he lost his money with such a good grace as promised well for
domestic concord, and as _she_ fell asleep the last words which she
remembered were those of the not too refined Miss Ferret, when she
wished good-night at her chamber-door. "Take him, my dear, if you can
catch him; depend upon it you may go farther and fare worse."
Aurora unbarred the East with her rosy fingers, and sent a flood of
golden sunshine over the fields. Nothing is so cheering to the heart of
man as fine weather, and though Samuel Johnson, of lexicographical
memory, doubted the fact, we honestly believe that few inhabitants of
this terrestrial ball are altogether uninfluenced by clear air and a
fine day.
A ride to Henbury was proposed, accepted, and arranged. Mr. Hartland's
groom was sent forward to proclaim approach, and a _quartetto_,
composed of the lovers (for such we may venture already to call them),
Sir Roger and Miss Ferret followed quickly after. A narrow part of the
road soon afforded opportunity, of which advantage was taken, and a
double tête-à-tête was the order of the cavalcade, till the gates of
Henbury flew open to receive the visitors. The cork-tree, and every
other tree, plant, herb, and flower, was duly displayed and
appreciated. The interior was also pronounced to be without a fault,
and so complacently did the party feel towards each other, that Mr.
Hartland, who thought himself bound as a true Knight to escort his fair
guests half way back, was induced to go the other half through pure
charity towards Sir Roger, who gave so many solid reasons for wishing
to enjoy society while rheumatism would permit, that his neighbour, to
say nothing of politeness, would have deemed it unchristian to refuse.
So at Colbrook he dined again; again lost at whist, and again, deserted
by the "conscious moon," ruminated on his pillow concerning the charms
of Miss Robinson's person, mind, and manners.
Dull people must be told every tittle of a tale; but a lively reader,
for whom alone we would fain weave the storied web, will anticipate
results, and spare us the details of a courtship, brief as it was,
which had its rise, progress, and conclusion in three short weeks;
terminating a few days before the appointed period of Miss Robinson's
visit to Sir Roger and Lady Goodman, in the regular proposals of Mr.
Hartland of Henbury Lodge, to that young lady.