Geoffery was still at the billiard table, where, with the assistance of
Sir William Orm, he was engaged in plucking a new pigeon, no less a
personage than the future head of the Salter family.
Mr. John Salter was a vain, vulgar, selfish fool; in natural clumsiness
a caricature of John Bull personified, yet so determined to be French
and Frenchified, and so proud of his travels to and through Boulogne,
that the young men about the rooms, to whom he afforded infinite
amusement, called him the Marquis. Sir William Orm, though he had long
since cut the other members of the Salter family, sometimes did the
young man the honour to win his money; while Geoffery Arden, and several
other fashionables, granted him the privilege of a limited portion of
their acquaintance on the same liberal terms. When the Misses Salter,
however, saw their brother bow to one gentleman, speak to another, and
walk with a third, their drooping hopes naturally revived.
"Who is that, John?--Has he much fortune--Is he married?--Couldn't you
ask him to dinner some day?--And who is that? I never saw you speak to
him before." Such were the questions and comments addressed by the young
ladies to their hopeful brother, who never, however, took the trouble of
giving them any satisfaction; his usual polite reply being, "If I choose
to ask him to dinner, I won't wait for your leave you may depend upon
it."
"Well," said Miss Salter to her sister, "if we get plenty of men
acquaintance through John, we needn't much care about the ladies after
all. It's the men we want you know."
"I know that," said Grace, "but I don't know that we shall get them:
however we might have had both the ladies and the gentlemen, only for
your improper conduct to Mrs. Dorothea. Isn't this Mr. Arden that John
knows, her nephew; and Sir Willoughby Arden, and the other Mr. Arden
both her nephews? besides, her knowing all the fine people; why she
would have been the very best acquaintance in Cheltenham, if we had only
kept her while we had her."
"Well, I wish you'd keep your temper I know, and not be always harping
on that old story."
"Temper, indeed! The less you say on that subject the better; but for
that matter I mean to take your advice and _keep_ my temper, as it
happens to be one of the best going; but I recommend you to part with
yours as soon as possible, for you can't exchange it for a worse let me
tell you."
Miss Salter, who had just finished washing her hands, snatched up the
basin, flung its contents in her sister's face, and effecting her
retreat during the first consternation of the enemy, said, as she
flounced out of the room, "except I changed it for yours."
Descending in haste, she encountered her brother, Sir William Orm, and
Mr. Geoffrey Arden in the entrance hall. Astonished, delighted, and
covered with smiles, she accompanied them into the drawing room; ere
however they had time to be seated, in rushed Miss Grace, dripping from
the shower bath so lately administered by her affectionate sister, and
her eyes so blinded by the visitation of soap suds, that, alas, she saw
not the strangers; but having heard her brother's voice as he crossed
the hall, she poured forth her bitter complaints, sobbing violently, and
relating the particulars of the assault perpetrated by Miss Salter. John
laughed rudely--Sir William and Geoffery looked foolish--and Grace,
having received a private hint from her sister, wiped her eyes, beheld
the gentlemen, and after standing for a moment perfectly aghast, took
her departure; while Miss Salter, in utter confusion, and with a
countenance of the deepest mortification, yet trying to force a laugh,
said it was very childish of Grace to take her silly jest amiss.
"You're such a pair of little innocent children, to be sure," said her
brother with a sneer.
"Some people have a particular dislike to practical jokes," observed Sir
William Orm.
"This is not the entertainment however that I brought my friends home to
receive," continued the amiable Mr. John. "So I beg you'll keep your
quarrels to yourselves, and order some dinner."
Mr. Salter entering at the moment Miss Salter made her escape, she flew
first to the room to which her sister had returned to repair the injured
adornments of her person, opened the door, thrust in her head, grinned a
silent defiance, and slamming the door to again, ran down to Mrs.
Johnson, to consult in providing a proper entertainment for guests so
valuable, or rather so invaluable, as were two fashionable beaux. Hotels
and pastry cooks were ordered to be laid under contribution, and no
expense spared, let papa scold as he might. In cases of such vital
importance, thought Miss Salter, people mustn't stick at trifles. She
then ran up stairs again and in breathless haste, with the assistance of
a housemaid changed her dress, and throwing on all the gold chains and
bracelets she could muster, made her appearance in the drawing-room,
looking however, as might have been expected, after so much exertion
both mental and corporeal, not quite so cool as she could have wished.
Whether, therefore, it was most to her relief or to her disappointment,
when she found the gentlemen too much occupied to perceive her entrance,
she was not able to define her feelings with sufficient accuracy to
decide, although she had plenty of time for self-examination, having
nothing to do during the full hour that dinner was delayed by the
necessary additions, but to sit in perfect silence beside her sister on
a sofa. The fact was, that the four lords of the creation had got to a
rubber at whist and looked as if the slightest interruption would annoy
them.
And young ladies, who have neither beauty nor fortune to recommend them,
are obliged to be so amiable, that they learn to acquire an anticipative
perception of what will be pleasing and soothing to the whims and
tempers of those falsely important personages--bachelors. Alas! alas!
for the dignity of the poor ladies! But this is only another of the many
evil consequences of the monopoly of property; for that monopoly being
generally vested in the male line, women are early taught that it is
only by worshipping some golden calf, in other words some man of
fortune, that they can hope to be restored to any participation, either
in the comforts of domestic, or in the distinctions of public life. Were
there but a little more justice laid in at the foundation of society,
surely there would be less occasion for this heartless scramble, so
revolting to almost all, while too many of those who were made for
better things, find themselves necessitated by circumstances to join the
throng, whose every movement and motives they despise; but as they
cannot change the world, they are compelled to let the world change
them; for tastes and feelings may be outraged, but dinners cannot be
dispensed with.
How different an aspect would the world in a very short time present if
that offspring of pride and prejudice, the unjust law of primogeniture,
were abolished. The slaves of circumstances, whether men or women, would
thus, without spoliation or revolution, be gradually emancipated, and
the worship of wealth, that most universal and degrading of all
idolatries, be put down. The standard of ostentation would be lowered,
tis true; but the sum of human felicity would be increased, not only in
a natural proportion, but still more through the medium of that ideal
estimate which now poisons the very sources of peace. For then, not only
would the number possessed of comfortable independence be much greater,
but all those so blessed would learn (their understandings being no
longer warped by invidious comparisons) to know themselves rich and feel
themselves happy. Imagine then pride, prejudice, and famine thus
banished from the world. Fancy this amended state of things to have
existed for some centuries, and the happy generation then in being
looking back on the records of our times. Would they believe what they
read to be a grave statement of facts? Certainly not! On the contrary,
they would be inclined to suppose the whole not only a work of fiction,
but the conception of a madman's mind; so extravagant, so far removed
from nature and probability would every action appear, so insufficient
every motive, the sacrifices of realties to phantoms so egregiously
inordinate, so hyperbolically absurd, that the feelings and adventures
of personages so unlike themselves would find no fellowship with their
sympathies. As well might we be expected to feel pious awe when we read
of the gross idolatries of the ancient sage or modern savage. When,
however, we look back on obsolete absurdities, or abroad on foreign
follies, and find that when objects are removed from the artificial
atmosphere of interests and habits we can discern them with
distinctness, it seems not unreasonable to hope, that our mental vision
is in itself perfect, and that therefore when the great luminary truth,
which is gradually climbing the intellectual horizon, shall have arrived
at its meridian, and dissipated the mists of prejudice, we shall behold
with equal distinctness those objects, which lying in and around our
homes and our times more intimately concern our happiness. Were all the
world governed by rational, sufficient, and consistent motives, how few,
comparatively speaking, would be the ills of life!
The objectors to the just division of paternal inheritance urge that the
wellbeing of a state is best secured by the members of the community
having as great a stake in the country as possible, and assert that such
a division would lessen that now possessed by the heads of families. But
is not the heartfelt happiness, the peaceful and joyous prosperity of
the many, not only a greater stake than the ostentatious pride of the
few, but one much more calculated to rouse when necessary the
lion-spirit of national defence?
To those who would bring forward, as so many insurmountable objections,
the thousand remote evils they think they can foresee, as the probable
results of the system we thus advocate, we can only reply, that we do
not pretend to understand the difficult science of political economy, we
only know that what we recommend is just. Do justice then in all things
we would say, not in the pride of opinion but on principle, and let the
Allwise Disposer of the fates dispose of the consequences.