THE PRIDE OF HALEHAM.
Before the summer was much further advanced, a new interest arose to
draw off some of the attention of the people of Haleham from the great
Mr. Cavendish and the gay Mrs. Cavendish, and the whole tribe of
charming Masters and Misses Cavendish. A favourite of longer standing
was in everybody’s thoughts for at least three weeks. Hester’s marriage
was evidently at hand; and besides a wedding being a rare thing in
Haleham, at least anything above a pauper wedding,—the Parndons were an
old-established and respected family, and Hester in particular was
looked upon as an ornament to the little town. Her father had been
engaged in some public service in which his talents as a draughtsman had
distinguished him, and which secured a small pension for his widow. As
he found no capabilities in his son Philip which could serve as
qualifications for assisting or succeeding him in his office, he
bestowed his chief attention on his little girl, who early displayed a
talent for drawing which delighted him. He died, however, before she had
had time to make the most of his instructions; and she stopped short at
the humble employment of designing frontispieces for Mr. Pye’s new
books. Her mother liked the arrangement, both because it enabled her to
keep her daughter with her without preventing Hester from earning money,
and because it afforded much occasion of intercourse with Mr. Pye, whom
she liked to continue to see every day, if possible. Hester’s townsmen
were very proud of her achievements, as well as of her sprightliness and
pretty looks.
Every one felt as if he had heard a piece of family news when it was
told that the young man who had come down with Philip, the summer
before, and had been supposed to be a cousin, was going to carry off
Philip’s sister. All were ready to believe it a very fine thing for
Hester:—so well dressed and handsome as Edgar Morrison was,—such a good
place as he had in the Mint,—and such an intimate friend of her
brother’s as he had long been. Hester was told twenty times a day that
her friends were grieved to think of losing her, but that they would not
be so selfish as not to rejoice in her engagement. No engagement ever
went on more smoothly. Everybody approved; Edgar adored; Hester loved,
confidently and entirely. There were no untoward delays. Just at the
time fixed long before, Edgar came down to Haleham, and people said to
one another after church, that as it was not probable he could be long
spared from the Mint, the wedding would most likely be in the course of
the week. On Tuesday, it got abroad that Philip was come; and as he had,
no doubt, in virtue of his occupation, brought the ring, it was no sign
that Thursday was not to be the day that John Rich had sold no plain
gold rings for more than a month.
Thursday was indeed to be the day; and as it was found, on the Wednesday
morning, that everybody knew this by some means or other, no further
attempt was made to keep the secret. Hester’s friends were permitted by
her vain mother to understand that they might come and bid her farewell.
Wednesday was the market-day at Haleham; and the present was a
particularly busy market-day; that is, out of the twelve people who from
time to time sold things in general on either side the main street, all
were present, except a gardener whose pony was lame, and a tinman, mop
and brush-seller, whose wife had died. This unusually full attendance
was caused by a notice that the new notes of Cavendish’s bank would be
issued this market-day. Some came to behold the sight of the issuing of
notes, with the same kind of mysterious wonder with which they had gone
to hear the lion roar at the last fair. Others expected to suit their
convenience in taking a new sort of money; and most felt a degree of
ambition to hold at least one of the smooth, glazed, crackling pieces of
engraved paper that everybody was holding up to the light, and spelling
over, and speculating upon. The talk was alternately of Edgar and Mr.
Cavendish, of the mint and the bank, of Hester’s wedding clothes and the
new dress in which money appeared. A tidy butter and fowl woman folded
up her cash, and padlocked her baskets sooner than she would have done
on any other day, in order to look in at Mrs. Parndon’s, and beg Hester
to accept her best bunch of moss-roses, and not to forget that it was in
her farm-yard that she was first alarmed by a turkey-cock. A maltster,
on whose premises Hester had played hide and seek with a lad, his only
son, who had since been killed in the wars, hurried from the market to
John Rich’s, to choose a pretty locket, to be bestowed, with his
blessing, on the bride; and others, who had less claim to an interview
on this last day, ventured to seek a parting word, and were pleased to
perceive every appearance of their being expected.
Mrs. Parndon, in her best black silk and afternoon cap, sat by her
bright-rubbed table, ready to dispense the currant wine and seed-cake.
Philip lolled out of the window to see who was coming. Edgar vibrated
between the parlour and the staircase; for his beloved was supposed to
be busy packing, and had to be called down and led in by her lover on
the arrival of every new guest. It was so impossible to sit below, as if
she expected everybody to come to do her homage! and Edgar looked so
particularly graceful when he drew her arm under his own, and encouraged
her to take cheerfully what her friends had to say!
“Here is somebody asking for you,” said Edgar, mounting the stairs with
less alacrity than usual. “She hopes to see you, but would be sorry to
disturb you, if others did not; but she will not come in. She is
standing in the court.”
Hester looked over the muslin blind of the window, and immediately knew
the farmer’s wife who had let her try to milk a cow, when she could
scarcely make her way alone through the farm-yard. Edgar was a little
disappointed when he saw how she outstripped him in running down stairs,
and seemed as eager to get her friend properly introduced into the
parlour as if she had been Miss Berkeley herself.
“You must come in, Mrs. Smith; there is nobody here that you will mind
seeing, and you look as if you wanted to sit down and rest.”
“It is only the flutter of seeing you, Miss Hester. No; I cannot come
in. I only brought these few roses for you, and wished to see you once
more, Miss Hester.”
“Why do you begin calling me ‘Miss?’ I was never anything but Hester
before.”
“Well, to be sure,” said Mrs. Smith, smiling, “it is rather strange to
be beginning to call you ‘Miss,’ when this is the last day that anybody
can call you so.”
“I did not remember that when I found fault with you,” said Hester,
blushing. “But come in; your basket will be safe enough just within the
door.”
While Mrs. Smith was taking her wine, and Hester putting the moss-roses
in water, the maltster came in, with his little packet of silver paper
in his hand.
“Why, Mr. Williams! so you are in town! How kind of you to come and see
us! I am sure Hester did not think to have bid you good bye, though she
was speaking of you only the other day.”
“None but friends, I see,” said the laconic Mr. Williams, looking round:
“so I will make bold without ceremony.”
And he threw over Hester’s neck the delicate white ribbon to which the
locket was fastened, and whispered that he would send her some hair to
put into it: she knew whose; and he had never, he could tell her, given
a single hair of it away to anybody before. Hester looked up at him with
tearful eyes, without speaking.
“Now you must give me something in return,” said he. “If you have the
least bit of a drawing that you do not care for——You know I have the
second you ever did; your mother keeping the first, as is proper. I have
the squirrel, you remember, with the nut in its paw. The tail, to be
sure, is more like a feather than a tail; but it was a wonderful drawing
for a child.”
“Shall I do a drawing for you when I am settled?” said Hester, “or will
you have one of the poor things out of my portfolio? I have parted with
all the good ones, I am afraid.”
“You will have other things to think of when you get to London than
doing drawings for me, my dear. No; any little scratch you like to part
with,—only so that it has been done lately.”
While Hester was gone for her portfolio, Philip took up the silver paper
which was lying on the table, and began to compare it with the paper of
one of the new notes, holding both up to the light.
“Some people would say,” observed Edgar to him, “that you are trying to
find out whether it would be easy to forge such a note as that.”
“People would say what is very foolish then,” replied Philip. “If I put
my neck in danger with making money, it should be with coining, not
forging. We shall soon have notes as plentiful as blackberries, if new
banks are set up every day. Golden guineas are the rare things now; and
the cleverest cheats are those that melt every guinea they can lay their
hands on, and send out a bad one instead of it.”
“But it is so much easier to forge than to coin,” remarked Edgar:
“except that, to be sure, people seem to have no use of their eyes where
money is concerned. You never saw such ridiculous guineas as our people
bring to the Mint sometimes, to show how easily the public can be taken
in.”
“Everybody is not so knowing as you and I are made by our occupations,”
observed Philip. “But a man who wishes to deal in false money may
choose, I have heard, between coining and forging; for both are done by
gangs, and seldom or never by one person alone. He may either be
regularly taught the business, or make his share of the profits by doing
what I think the dirtiest part of the work,—passing the bad money.”
“Don’t talk any more about it, Philip,” said his mother. “It is all
dirty work, and wicked work, and such as we people in the country do not
like to hear of. Prices are higher than ever to-day, I understand, Mrs.
Smith.”
“If they are, ma’am,” replied the simple Mrs. Smith, “there is more
money than ever to pay them. I never saw so much money passing round as
to-day, owing to the new notes, ma’am.”
“I am sure it is very well,” observed the widow, sighing. “It makes
mothers anxious to have their children marrying in times like these,
when prices are so high. Edgar can tell you how long it was before I
could bring myself to think it prudent for these young folks to settle.
I would have had them wait till the war was over, and living was
cheaper.”
“We should make sure first, ma’am,” said Edgar, “that the high prices
are caused mainly by the war. The wisest people think that they are
owing to the number of new banks, and the quantity of paper money that
is abroad.”
“How should that be?” inquired the widow. “The dearer everything is, you
know, the more money is wanted. So let the bankers put out as many notes
as they can make it convenient to give us, say I.”
“But ma’am,” pursued Edgar, “the more notes are put out, the faster the
guineas go away. I assure you, Sir,” he continued, addressing himself to
Mr. Williams, “we go on working at the Mint, sending out coin as fast as
ever we can prepare it, and nobody seems the better for it. Nobody can
tell where it goes, or what becomes of it.”
“Perhaps our friend Philip could tell something, if he chose,” observed
Mr. Williams; “such dealings as he has in gold. And perhaps, if you
servants of the Mint could see into people’s doings, you might find that
you coin the same gold many times over.”
“One of our officers said so the other day. He believes that our
handsome new coin goes straight to the melting-pot, and is then carried
in bars or bullion to the Bank of England, and then comes under our
presses again, and so on. But much of it must go abroad too, we think.”
“And some, I have no doubt, is hoarded; as is usually the case during
war,” observed Mr. Williams; whereupon the widow turned her head quickly
to hear what was passing. “But what waste it is to be spending money
continually in coining, when every week uncoins what was coined the week
before!”
“Waste indeed!” observed the widow. “But if it has anything to do with
high prices, I suppose you do not object to it, Mr. Williams, any more
than Mrs. Smith; for the high prices must be a great gain to you both.”
“You must remember, Mrs. Parndon, we have to buy as well as sell; and so
far we feel the high prices like other people. Mrs. Smith gets more than
she did for her butter and her fowls; and even her roses sell a
half-penny a bunch dearer than they did: but she has to buy coals for
her house, and shirting for her husband; and for these she pays a raised
price.”
“Those are the worst off,” replied Mrs. Parndon, sighing, “who have
everything to buy and nothing to sell. I assure you, sir, my pension
does not go so far by one-fourth part as it did when I first had it. And
this was the thing that made me so anxious about these young people.
Edgar has a salary, you know; and that is the same thing as a pension or
annuity, when prices rise.”
“True. Those are best off just now who sell their labour at an unfixed
price, which rises with the price of other things. But for your comfort,
ma’am, prices will be sure to fall some day; and then you will like your
own pension and your son-in-law’s salary as well as ever.”
“And then,” said Edgar, “you and Mrs. Smith will be reducing the wages
of your servants and labourers, and will buy your blankets and fuel
cheaper, and yet find yourselves growing poorer because your profits are
lessened. Then,” he continued, as Hester came into the room, “you will
leave off giving lockets to your young friends when they marry.”
“I shall never have such another young friend to give one to,—never one
that I shall care for so much,” replied Mr. Williams, who found himself
obliged to rub his spectacles frequently before he could see to choose
between the three or four drawings that Hester spread before him.
When the pathos of the scene became deeper; when Mr. Williams could no
longer pretend to be still selecting a drawing; when Hester gave over
all attempts to conceal her tears, when her lover lavished his
endeavours to soothe and support her, and Mrs. Smith looked about
anxiously for some way of escape, without undergoing the agony of a
farewell, Philip, who seemed to have neither eyes, ears, nor
understanding for sentiment, turned round abruptly upon the
tender-hearted market-woman, with——
“Do you happen to have one of the new notes about you, Mrs. Smith? I
want to see if this mark,—here in the corner, you see,—is an accident,
or whether it may be a private mark.”
“Mercy! Mr. Philip. I beg pardon, sir, for being startled. Yes, I have
one somewhere.” And with trembling hands she felt for her pocket-book.
“Let’s just go out quietly, Mr. Philip. She won’t see me go, and I would
not pain her any more, just for the sake of another look and word. I
shall find the note presently when we are in the court, Sir.”
Philip looked on stupidly when he saw his sister’s tears, and
undecidedly, when Mrs. Smith was stealing out of the room. At last, he
bethought himself of saying,
“I say, Hester—would you like to bid Mrs. Smith good bye or not? You
need not unless you like, she says.”
Hester turned from the one old friend to the other; and now the
matter-of-fact Philip was glad to shorten the scene, and let Mrs. Smith
go away without putting her in mind of the note. As he had a great wish
to see as many notes and as few scenes as possible, he left home, and
sauntered into the market, where he found people who had not yet set
their faces homewards, and who were willing to chat with him, while
packing up their unsold goods.
Mrs. Parndon’s chief concern this day, except her daughter, had been Mr.
Pye. She wondered from hour to hour, first, whether he would come, and
afterwards, why he did not come. She concluded that he would use the
privilege of an old friend, and drop in late in the evening, to give his
blessing. She had been several times on the point of proposing that he
should be invited to attend the wedding; but scruples which she did not
acknowledge to herself, kept her from speaking. She liked the appearance
of intimacy which must arise out of his being the only guest on such an
occasion; but behind this there was a feeling that the sight of a
daughter of hers at the altar might convey an idea that she was herself
too old to stand there with any propriety: an idea which she was very
desirous should not enter Enoch’s mind, as she was far from entertaining
it herself. As it was pretty certain, however, that Mr. Pye would be
present, she settled that it would be well for her to be at his elbow to
modify his associations, as far as might be practicable; and she
suggested, when the evening drew on, that, as poor Mr. Pye (who was
certainly growing deaf, however unwilling he might be to own it) could
hear the service but poorly from a distance, and as his interest in
Hester was really like that of a father, he should be invited to
breakfast with the family, and accompany them to church. Everybody being
willing, the request was carried by Philip, and graciously accepted.
By noon the next day, when the post-chaise had driven off with the
new-married pair from the widow Parndon’s door, there was no such
important personage in Haleham as Mr. Pye. He was the only one from whom
the lonely mother would receive consolation; and when he was obliged to
commend her to her son’s care, and go home to attend his counter, he was
accosted on the way by everybody he met. It was plain, at a glance, by
his glossy brown coat, best white stockings, and Sunday wig, pushed
aside from his best ear in his readiness to be questioned, that he had
been a wedding guest; and many times, within a few hours, did he tell
the story of what a devoted lover Edgar was, and what a happy prospect
lay before Hester, both as to worldly matters and the province of the
heart; and how she was nearly sinking at the altar; and how he could not
help her because her mother needed the support of his arm; and what a
beautiful tray of flowers, with presents hidden beneath them, had been
sent in by the Miss Berkeleys, just when the party were growing nervous
as church-time approached; and how Mr. Cavendish had taken his hat quite
off, bowing to the bride on her way home; and how finely Mr. Craig had
gone through the service; and how——but Enoch’s voice failed him as often
as he came to the description of the chaise driving up, and Philip’s
superintendence of the fastening on the luggage. He could get no
further; and his listeners departed, one after another, with
sympathizing sighs. When was there ever a wedding-day without sighs?