The next time that Mr. and Mrs. Campbell came to dine with their kind
friend, she recollected the promise she had given Anna of relating what
had passed during her stay from Rosewood.
"I think it but right to relate it," said she, "lest from what has at
various times escaped me you may have formed a wrong idea, and think
that I was not so happy in the married state, as my regard for Mr.
Meridith's memory would otherwise evince.
"You remember, Mr. Campbell, when I left your house, I was not more
than six years old; happy in having lived with you, and wishing for no
other home. I loved my father, for he was very good to me, but I had
rather see him at your house than his own, for there I had no one to
play with me, or be my companion. When I dined with him, which you know
was not very often, it was generally after he had been fatigued with a
long ride in the morning; and when he had loaded my plate with every
thing he called nice, and what he thought I should like, and allowed
me as much fruit after dinner as I could eat, and gave me one or two
glasses of wine to help my digestion (and truly I needed something
for that purpose, as I never rose from the table without a violent
head-ach), he would drink himself five or six times that quantity, and
then fall asleep; and I was ready to follow his example: for not daring
to open the door, lest I should awake him, I had no other amusement than
creeping to the window, and there, with my eyes half shut, and my head
and stomach violently oppressed, from the quantity I had eaten, I used
to watch the coming of somebody to fetch me home; and glad I was to wake
the next morning free from the head-ach, and without the expectation of
going again to my father's.
"You know how differently the days passed at the farm, where I ate no
more than was necessary for me, and I met with attention from all the
servants and labourers, because I was the Squire's daughter; and, except
the time your good mother took to teach me my letters and to spell a
little, with the use of a needle and thread, I was allowed to play the
rest of the day with Anna, whom I loved as a sister; and when you and
Edward were at home, you always joined our party. Thus were my youngest
days spent, and often have I looked back to them in far different scenes.
"At length a sister of my father's, who had married Sir Robert Meridith,
and had no child of her own, proposed my living with them, saying that
I should be quite a rustic if I remained any longer at Rosewood; and
with some reluctance, as I have been told, my father consented. My aunt
was much older than her husband, and he paid her but little attention;
her fortune had been his chief inducement to marry, and of this he made
ample use, though what was settled on herself he could not touch. She
was proud and haughty, and continually reproved me for talking so much
of the farm and your family, whom, she said, I ought to forget entirely;
but this I thought I never could do.
"I remained a twelvemonth with her, at their house in Leicestershire,
during which time my father came twice to see me; and being told by my
aunt that I was already much improved, and only wanted education to make
me what I ought to be, as his daughter and the heiress of Rosewood, he
affected to be satisfied, and told her he left my education entirely
to her. "Yet," said he, "I think my dear little Maria don't look so
brisk and lively as when she was at the farm." I took this opportunity
of inquiring for the friends I had left there; but he could not tell me
half I wished to know, as how Anna was, and whether she went to school,
and if Edward and you were grown; he said, you were all well, and grown
very much, but as for any thing else he had not inquired. I sent you all
many kind remembrances, and would have added some of my playthings for
Anna, but as he travelled on horseback, neither himself or his servant
could be incumbered with them.
"After this time my aunt went to London, and took me with her. My uncle
had been there for many months; and his behaviour to my aunt after
our arrival was still less attentive than in the country. He had his
acquaintance, and she hers; a few old ladies like herself, with whom she
formed card parties, and spent her evenings; while I was sent to what
was called a very good school, and learnt every thing that was taught in
it; and when I say this, my dear friends, perhaps you will not imagine
it was _much more_ than was good. I learnt from the masters who attended
those accomplishments which are regularly introduced into schools; from
the governess, all that feigned politeness, which teaches us to appear
glad to see a person when we are not so; to tell them they look well,
when their appearance is just the contrary; to acknowledge obligations
where I felt none; and even to tell untruths rather than be uncivil, or
say what would make my hearers think I wanted politeness. I learnt from
the rest of the ladies, and _some_ of the teachers, how to deceive our
governess, and to make her think we had learnt our lessons when we had
not; and these instructions, I am sorry to say, came very easy to me,
though those from my masters were hard.
"Yet I often wished myself at the farm again, or at Rosewood, where I
had nobody I desired to deceive, and scarcely knew what deceit was; but
it was not required there, while here it was in daily requisition: for
I had always some fault of my schoolfellows, if not of my own, to hide;
and though from them I learnt to laugh at my aunt's _finical_ ways, as
they used to call them, I was obliged to put on all the courtesy and
feigned politeness my governess taught me, whenever she came to see me.
"My father could never be brought to visit me in London, for he said he
hated the smoke of it, and would by no means put himself in sight of a
ladies' boarding-school, who would laugh at the manners of a fox-hunter,
and teach his daughter to despise him. But when in the summer vacations
I accompanied my aunt into Leicestershire, he would visit us for a
day or two, and was evidently pleased when my aunt told him I was
wonderfully improved, and knew as much as any young lady of my age.
'Well, well, I am no judge,' said he, 'but I hope she will make a good
woman, and not disgrace her mother's memory. Ah! she _was_ a woman, Lady
Meridith, which is not to be met with in these days.'
"'But have you forgot your old friends, the Campbells?' said he to me.
"'No, indeed, papa,' I replied, their kindness rushing on my mind, 'and
I hope I never shall;' and my inquiries were renewed after them and
their family, without dissimulation.
"He told me that your father and mother were grown very old, and that
you and Edward were nice boys, with every promise of making as good men
as your father was. From my pocket allowance I was enabled to send my
good old nurse some token of my remembrance, as my father said he would
not wish me to forget either her or her children.
"'They will be _her_ tenants by and bye,' said he to my aunt, 'and then
what sort of figure will she make if she _has_ forgotten them?'
"I was then about eleven years old, and I remained at this school till I
was fifteen. My father died, as you know, very suddenly, and I was not
apprized of his illness till he was no longer in this world. I was then
thirteen, and was at first very much hurt, as his strong attachment to
me, though singularly expressed, had never suffered him to see a fault
in any thing I said or did; and I was sure to meet with indulgence from
him, whenever I needed it. He appeared to have been doubly kind to me
after I had lost him, but the new mourning I now appeared in, and the
increased consequence I gained in the school, and with my aunt, on being
the heiress of Rosewood and Coombdale, both my father's estates, made me
soon forget it; and in two years afterwards I left the school highly
accomplished, as my aunt's flattering friends told her (in my hearing),
both in mind and person; and my vanity led me to think they told her
true, though from the many lessons I had taken of dissimulation, I ought
to have known the value of their commendations.
"I was now to be introduced to the world, but who was to introduce me
was the question. My aunt was too old, and devoted to the card-table
and her little _coterie_, to attend me to balls, routs, and dinner
parties. Sir Robert had now given up even the appearance of civility to
his wife, and lived in a distant county with another woman: but there
was the widow of a brother of Sir Robert's, whom I had occasionally
visited with my aunt, whose circle of acquaintance was much larger,
and very different from hers. My aunt went round to about a dozen
houses, while Mrs. Meridith visited all who lived at the west end of
the town, and was intimate with but a very few: to her therefore I was
consigned to see the world, which, in the meaning they attach to it, is
to dance at several balls, dine at different houses, yet mostly meet
the same company; and be able to speak of the merits and demerits of
the principal performers at both theatres, and at the opera house; yet
in this I was to be careful not to deviate from the general opinion,
lest I should be called singular, and positively to know nothing. A few
noblemen's ladies, or their titled daughters, might venture to differ in
their likes and dislikes; but such an avowal would not do for me, who
was only a commoner."
Mr. Campbell smiled at these distinctions, and began to hope the recital
of their friend would not cost her all the anguish he had apprehended,
since she could so cheerfully speak of her introduction to them.
Anna laughed, and said, "I hope I shall never be introduced to the
world, for I should make a terrible figure in it; I have never been to
boarding-school, you know, Mamma."
"True, my dear," returned Mrs. Meridith, "but the lessons you allude
to are easily learnt without going there. I found them daily practised
in the society I was in, and yet Mrs. Meridith was what was called an
amiable woman, and, for so young a widow, remarkably strict in her
conduct. She had one son, whom I had not yet seen, as he was then at
college; but after I was so much at his mother's (for the evening
parties to which I constantly accompanied her were so much later than
my aunt's, that she allowed me to take up my residence there when we
were in town,) he came home at the vacations, and I was introduced to
him; and this Mr. Meridith, you will readily suppose, was afterwards my
husband. But as my marriage will lead me into far different scenes, I
shall, if you please, defer them till some other evening. You must be as
tired of hearing as I am of relating those circumstances which,--however
new they may be to you, are old and stale to me; and I am sick of what
is called a knowledge of the world."
"And so, dear Madam, should I," replied Mr. Campbell; "but I cannot help
acknowledging that we have too much of it in our little village, though
in a humbler way. Human nature is the same every where, and a deceitful
heart the characteristic which the word of God has given to man; we need
not, therefore, go to London, or the great world, to find it out, unless
our eyes are shut to what is going on within ourselves."
Supper was then ordered, and Mr. Campbell with great pleasure told Mrs.
Meridith the alteration her last conversation with farmer Ward had made
in his conduct towards himself.
"He has told me all," said he, "and with that ingenuousness, which I
fear is not to be met with in the circles you have described to us,
acknowledged himself wrong."
"In that respect," said Mrs. Meridith, "people belonging to less
polished society have the advantage, for they are not ashamed to own
themselves mistaken when they really feel they are so; while more polite
ones never will."