Tales And Novels, Volume 1 by Maria Edgeworth

M >> Maria Edgeworth >> Tales And Novels, Volume 1

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The Jew, all this time, stood in the greatest trepidation; he trembled
lest the alderman should have him taken up and committed to gaol for his
illegal, unlicensed lottery. He poured forth as many protestations as his
knowledge of the English language could afford of the purity of his
intentions; and, to demonstrate his disinterestedness, began to display
the trinkets in his prize-box, with a panegyric upon each. Dr. B.
interrupted him, by paying for the toothpick-case, which he had bought
for Oliver.

"Now, Mr. Carat," said the doctor, "you will please to return, in the
first place, the money you have received for your _illegal_ lottery
tickets."

The word _illegal_, pronounced in a tremendous tone, operated
instantaneously upon the Jew; his hand, which had closed upon Holloway's
guineas, opened; he laid the money down upon the table, but mechanically
seized his box of trinkets, which he seemed to fear would be the next
seized, as forfeits. No persons are so apprehensive of injustice and
fraud as those who are themselves dishonest. Mr. Carat, bowing repeatedly
to Alderman Holloway, shuffled toward the door, asking if he might now
depart; when the door opened with such a force, as almost to push the
retreating Jew upon his face.

Little Oliver, out of breath, burst into the room, whispered a few words
to Dr. B. and Alderman Holloway, who answered, "He may come in;" and a
tall, stout man, an officer from Bow-street, immediately entered.
"There's your man, sir," said the alderman, pointing to the Jew; "there
is Mr. Carat." The man instantly seized Mr. Carat, producing a warrant
from Justice--for apprehending the Jew upon suspicion of his having in
his possession certain valuable jewels, the property of Mrs. Frances
Howard.

Oliver was eager to explain. "Do you know, Howard," said he, "how all
this came about? Do you know your aunt's gone to Bow-street, and has
taken the mulatto woman with her, and Mr. Russell is gone with her? and
she thinks--and _I_ think--she'll certainly have her jewels, her
grandmother's jewels, that were left in Jamaica."

"How? but how?" exclaimed Howard.

"Why," said Oliver, "by the toothpick-case. The reason I chose that
toothpick-case out of the Jew's box was, because it came into my head,
the minute I saw it, that the mulatto woman's curious thimble--you
remember her thimble, Howard--would just fit one end of it. I ran home
and tried it, and the thimble screwed on as nicely as possible; and the
chasing, as Mr. Russell said, and the colour of the gold, matched
exactly. Oh! Mrs. Howard was so surprised when we showed it to her--so
astonished to see this toothpick-case in England; for it had been left,
she said, with all her grandmother's diamonds and _things_, in Jamaica."

"Yes," interrupted Howard; "I remember my aunt told us, when you asked
her about Cuba's thimble, that she gave it to Cuba when she was a child,
and that it belonged to some old trinket.--Go on."

"Well, where was I?--Oh, then, as soon as she saw the toothpick-case, she
asked how it had been found; and I told her all about the lottery and Mr.
Carat; then she and Mr. Russell consulted, and away they went, with Cuba,
in a coach; and all the rest you know; and I wish I could hear the end of
it!"

"And so you shall, my good little fellow; we'll all go together to hear
the Jew's examination: you shall go with me in my coach to Bow-street,"
said Alderman Holloway.

In the midst of their bustle, the poor stage-coachman, who had waited
with uncommon patience in the hope that Alderman Holloway would at last
recollect him, pressed forward, and petitioned to be paid his five
guineas for the lost parcel.--"I have lost my place already," said he,
"and the little goods I have will be seized this day, for the value of
that unlucky parcel, master."

The alderman put his hand slowly into his purse; but just when he had
pulled out five guineas, a servant came into the room, to inform Dr. B.
that a sailor was waiting in the hall, who desired to speak, directly,
about something of consequence, to the stage-coachman.

Dr. B., who imagined that the sailor might have something to do with the
business in question, ordered that he might be shown into the room.

"I wants one Gregory Giles, a stage-coachman, if such a one be here
amongst ye, gentlefolks, and nobody else," cried the sailor, producing a
parcel, wrapped up in brown paper.

"It's my very parcel!" exclaimed the stage-coachman. "I am Gregory Giles!
God bless your honest heart!--Where did ye find it?--Give it me!"

The sailor said he had found it in a dry ditch on the Bath road, a little
beyond the first turnpike, going out of town; that he had inquired at the
turnpike-house; had heard that the stage had been overturned a few days
before, and that a parcel had been lost, about which the coachman had
been in great trouble; that he had gone directly to the inn where the
coach put up; had traced the coachman from place to place; and was
heartily glad he had found him at last.

"Thank'ee, with all my heart," said the coachman, "for all the trouble
you've been at; and here's the crown reward that I offered for it, and my
thanks into the bargain."

"No, no," said the honest sailor, pushing back the money; "I won't take
any thing from a poor fellow like myself: put your silver into your
pocket: I hear you lost your place already by that parcel. There was a
great talk at the turnpike-house about your losing your place, for giving
some young gentleman a lift.--Put up your money."

All present were eager in rewarding the honest sailor.

A hackney-coach was now come to the door for Mr. Carat, and every body
hurried off as fast as possible.

"Where are they all steering to?" said the sailor. The stage-coachman
told him all that he had heard of the matter. "I'll be in their
wake, then," cried the sailor; "I shall like to see the Jew upon his
court-martial; I was choused once by a Jew myself." He got to Bow-street
as soon as they did.

The first thing Howard learned was, that the jewels, which had been all
found at Mr. Carat's, precisely answered the description which his aunt
had given of them. The Jew was in the utmost consternation: finding that
the jewels were positively sworn to, he declared, upon his examination,
that he had bought them from a captain of a ship; that he had paid the
full value for them; and that, at the time he purchased them, he had no
suspicion of their having been fraudulently obtained. This defence
appearing evidently evasive, the magistrates who examined Mr. Carat
informed him, that, unless he could produce the person from whom he had
bought the jewels, he must be committed to Newgate for receiving stolen
goods. Terrified at this sentence, the Jew, though he had at first
asserted that he knew nothing of the captain from whom he had received
the diamonds, now acknowledged that he actually lodged at his house.

"Hah!" exclaimed Holloway: "I remember, the day that I and Lord Rawson
called at your house, you were settling accounts, your foreman told us,
with a captain of a ship, who was to leave England in a few days: it's
well he's not off."

An officer was immediately sent to Mr. Carat's in quest of this
captain; but there were great apprehensions that he might have escaped
at the first alarm of the search for the jewels. Fortunately, however,
he had not been able to get off, as two constables had been stationed
at Mr. Carat's house. The officer from Bow-street found him in his own
bed-chamber, rummaging a portmanteau for some papers, which he wanted to
burn. His papers were seized, and carried along with him before the
magistrate.

Alderman Holloway knew the captain the moment he was brought into the
room, though his dress and whole appearance were very different from what
they had been when he had waited upon the alderman some months before
this time, with a dismal, plausible story of his own poverty and
misfortunes. He had then told him that his mate and he had had a quarrel,
upon the voyage from Jamaica; that the mate knew what a valuable cargo he
had on board; that just when they got in sight of land, the crew rose
upon him; the mate seized him, and by force put him into a boat, and set
him ashore.

The discovery of the jewels at Mr. Carat's at once overturned the
captain's whole story: cunning people often insert something in their
narration to make it better, which ultimately tends to convict them of
falsehood. The captain having now no other resource, and having the
horrors of imprisonment, and the certainty of condemnation upon a public
trial, full before him, threw himself, as the only chance that remained
for him, upon Mrs. Howard's mercy; confessed that all that he had told
her before was false; that his mate and he had acted in concert; that the
rising of the crew against him had been contrived between them; that he
had received the jewels, when he was set ashore, for his immediate share
of the booty; and that the mate had run the ship off to Charlestown, to
sell her cargo. According to agreement, the captain added, he was to have
had a share in the cargo; but the mate had _cheated him_ of that; he had
never heard from him, or of him, he would take his oath, from the day he
was set ashore, and knew nothing of him or the cargo.

"Avast, friend, by your leave," cried the honest sailor who had found the
stage-coachman's parcel--"avast, friend, by your leave," said he,
elbowing his way between Alderman Holloway and his next neighbour, and
getting clear into the middle of the circle--"I know more of this matter,
_my lord_, or please your worship, which is much the same thing, than
any body here; and I'm glad on't, mistress," continued the tar, pulling
a quid of tobacco out of his mouth, and addressing himself to Mrs.
Howard: then turning to the captain, "Wasn't _she_ the _Lively Peggy_,
pray?--it's no use tacking. Wasn't your mate one John Matthews, pray?
Captain, your face tells truth, in spite of your teeth."

The captain instantly grew pale, and trembled: on which the sailor turned
abruptly from him, and went on with his story. "Mistress," said he,
"though I'm a loser by it, no matter. The Lively Peggy and her cargo are
safe and sound in Plymouth, at this very time being, and we have her mate
in limbo, curse him. We made a prize of him, coming from America, for he
was under French colours, and a fine prize we thought we'd made. But her
cargo belongs to a British subject; and there's an end to our prize
money: no matter for that. There was an ugly look with Matthews from the
first; and I found, the day we took her, something odd in the look of her
stern. The rascals had done their best to paint over her name; but _I_,
though no great scholar, made a shift to spell the Lively Peggy through
it all. We have the mate in limbo at Plymouth: but it's all come out,
without any more to do; and, mistress, I'll get you her bill of lading in
a trice, and I give ye joy with all my heart."

Alderman Holloway, a man used to business, would not indulge himself in a
single compliment upon this occasion, till he had cautiously searched the
captain's papers. The bill of lading which had been sent with the Lively
Peggy from Jamaica, was found amongst them; it was an exact list,
corresponding precisely with that which Mrs. Howard's agent had sent her
by post, of the consignment shipped after the sale of her plantation. The
alderman, satisfied, after counting the puncheons of rum and hogsheads of
sugar, turned to Mrs. Howard, and shook hands with her, with a face of
mercantile congratulation, declaring that "she was now as good a woman as
ever she had been, and need never desire to be better."

"My dear Oliver," cried Howard, "this is all owing to you: _you_
discovered--"

"No, no, no!" interrupted Oliver, precipitately: "all that I did was
accident; all that you did was not accident. You first made me love you,
by teaching me that I was not a blockhead, and by freeing me from--"

"_A tyrant_, you were going to say," cried Holloway, colouring deeply;
"and, if you had, you'd have said the truth. I thought; Howard,
_afterwards_, that you were a brave fellow for taking his part, I
confess. But, Oliver, I thought you had forgiven me for all these
things."

"Forgiven! Oh yes, to be sure," cried little Oliver; "I wasn't thinking
of myself, or you either; I was only thinking of Howard's good nature;
and then," continued he, "Howard was just as good to the mulatto woman as
he was to me--wasn't he, Cuba?"

"That he was!" replied the poor woman; and, looking at Mrs. Howard,
added, "Massa's _heart_ as good as hers."

"And his _head's_ as good as his heart, which makes it all better still,"
continued Oliver, with enthusiasm. "Mr. Russell, you know how hard he
worked at that translation, to earn money to support poor Cuba, and to
paper the room, and to pay the bricklayer _for_ the smoky chimney: these
things were not done by accident, were they? though it was by accident
that I happened to observe Cuba's curious thimble."

"There are some people," interrupted Mr. Russell, "who, by accident,
never observe any thing. We will not allow you, Oliver, to call your
quick habit of observation accident; your excellent capacity will--"

"_My_ excellent capacity," repeated Oliver, with unfeigned surprise:
"why, you know, I get by rote slower than any body in the world."

"You may," said Dr. B., "notwithstanding, have an excellent capacity:
much may be learned without books; much more with books, Oliver; but, for
your comfort, you need not learn them by rote."

"I'm glad of it, heartily," cried Oliver; "but this put something out of
my head that I was in a great hurry to say--O, one other thing about
_accident_. It was not _accident_, but it was Howard's sense, in
persuading me not to put into the lottery, that was the very cause of Dr.
B.'s giving me the choice of all the things in the Jew's box--was it
not?"

"Well, Oliver, we are ready to allow all you want us to perceive, in one
word, that your friend Howard _has not been educated by accident_," said
Dr. B., looking at Mrs. Howard.

The Jew and the captain of the Lively Peggy were now left in the hands of
the law. The sailor was properly rewarded. Mr. Russell was engaged to
superintend the education of Holloway. He succeeded, and was presented by
the alderman with a living in Surrey. Mr. Supine never visited Italy, and
did not meet with any consolation but in his German flute. Howard
continued eager to improve himself; nor did he imagine that, the moment
he left school, and parted from his tutor, his education was finished,
and that his books were, "like past misfortunes," good for nothing but to
be forgotten. His love for literature he found one of the first pleasures
of his life; nor did he, after he came into the possession of a large
fortune, find that his habits of constant occupation lessened his
enjoyments, for he was never known to yawn at a window upon a rainy
morning!

Little Oliver's understanding rapidly improved; his affection for his
friend Howard increased as he grew up, for he always remembered that
Howard was the first person who discovered that he was not a dunce. Mrs.
Howard had the calm satisfaction of seeing an education well finished,
which she had well begun; and she enjoyed, in her nephew's friendship,
esteem, and unconstrained gratitude, all the rewards which her good
sense, firmness, and benevolence had so well deserved.

ANGELINA; OR, L'AMIE INCONNUE.

CHAPTER I.

"But, my dear Lady Di., indeed you should not let this affair prey so
continually upon your spirits," said Miss Burrage, in the condoling tone
of a humble companion--"you really have almost fretted yourself into a
nervous fever. I was in hopes that change of air, and change of scene,
would have done every thing for you, or I never would have consented to
your leaving London; for you know your ladyship's always better in London
than any where else. And I'm sure your ladyship has thought and talked of
nothing but this sad affair since you came to Clifton."

"I confess," said Lady Diana Chillingworth, "I deserve the reproaches of
my friends for giving way to my sensibility, as I do, upon this occasion:
but I own I cannot help it.--Oh, what will the world say! What will the
world say!--The world will lay all the blame upon _me_; yet I'm sure I'm
the last, the very last person that ought to be blamed."

"Assuredly," replied Miss Burrage, "nobody can blame your ladyship; and
nobody will, I am persuaded. The blame will all be thrown, where it ought
to be, upon the young lady herself."

"If I could but be convinced of that," said her ladyship, in a tone of
great feeling; "such a young creature, scarcely sixteen, to take such a
step!--I am sure I wish to Heaven her father had never made me her
guardian. I confess, I was most exceedingly imprudent, out of regard to
her family, to take under my protection such a self-willed,
unaccountable, romantic girl. Indeed, my dear," continued Lady Diana
Chillingworth, turning to her sister, Lady Frances Somerset, "it was you
that misled me. You remember you used to tell me, that Anne Warwick had
such great abilities!"--

"That I thought it a pity they had not been well directed," said Lady
Frances.

"And such generosity of temper, and such warm affections!" said Lady
Di.--

"That I regretted their not having been properly cultivated."

"I confess, Miss Warwick was never a great favourite of mine," said Miss
Barrage; "but now that she has lost her best friend--"

"She is likely to find a great number of enemies," said Lady Frances.

"She has been her own enemy, poor girl! I am sure I pity her," replied
Miss Burrage; "but, at the same time, I must say, that ever since she
came to my Lady Di. Chillingworth's, she has had good advice enough."

"Too much, perhaps; which is worse than too little," thought Lady
Frances.

"Advice!" repeated Lady Di. Chillingworth: "why, as to that, my
conscience, I own, acquits me there; for, to be sure, no young person, of
her age, or of any age, had ever more advice, or more good advice, than
Miss Warwick had from me; I thought it my duty to advise her, and advise
her I did from morning till night, as Miss Burrage very well knows, and
will do me the justice, I hope, to say in all companies."

"_That_ I shall certainly make it a principle to do," said Miss Burrage.
"I am sure it would surprise and grieve you, Lady Frances, to hear the
sort of foolish, imprudent things that Miss. Warwick, with all her
abilities, used to say. I recollect--"

"Very possibly," replied Lady Frances; "but why should we trouble
ourselves to recollect all the foolish, imprudent things which this poor
girl may have said?--This unfortunate elopement is a sufficient proof of
her folly and imprudence. With whom did she go off?"

"With nobody," cried Lady Diana--"there's the wonder."

"With nobody!--Incredible.--She had certainly some admirer, some lover,
and she was afraid, I suppose, to mention the business to you."

"No such thing, my dear: there is no love at all in the case: indeed, for
my part, I cannot in the least comprehend Miss Warwick, nor ever could.
She used, every now and then, to begin and talk to me some nonsense about
her hatred of the forms of the world, and her love of liberty, and I know
not what; and then she had some female correspondent, to whom she used to
write folio sheets, twice a week, I believe; but I could never see any of
these letters. Indeed, in town, you know, I could not possibly have
leisure for such things; but Miss Burrage, I fancy, has one of the
letters, if you have any curiosity to see it. Miss Burrage can tell you a
great deal more of the whole business than I can; for you know, in
London, engaged as I always was, with scarcely a moment ever to myself,
how could I attend to all Anne Warwick's oddities? I protest I know
nothing of the matter, but that, one morning, Miss Warwick was nowhere to
be found, and my maid brought me a letter, of one word of which I could
not make sense: the letter was found on the young lady's dressing-table,
according to the usual custom of eloping heroines. Miss Burrage, do show
Lady Frances the letters--you have them somewhere; and tell my sister all
you know of the matter, for I declare, I'm quite tired of it; besides, I
shall be wanted at the card-table."

Lady Diana Chillingworth went to calm her sensibility at the card-table;
and Lady Frances turned to Miss Burrage, for further information.

"All I know," said Miss Burrage, "is, that one night I saw Miss Warwick
putting a lock of frightful hair into a locket, and I asked her whose it
was.--'My amiable Araminta's,' said Miss Warwick, 'Is she pretty?' said
I. 'I have never seen her,' said Miss Warwick; 'but I will show you a
charming picture of her mind!'--and she put this long letter into my
hand. I'll leave it with your ladyship, if you please; it is a good, or
rather a bad hour's work to read it."

"_Araminta!_" exclaimed Lady Frances, looking at the signature of the
letter--"this is only a nom de guerre, I suppose."

"Heaven knows!" answered Miss Burrage; "but Miss Warwick always signed
her epistles Angelina, and her _unknown friend's_ were always signed
Araminta. I do suspect that Araminta, whoever she is, was the instigator
of this elopement."

"I wish," said Lady Frances, examining the post-mark of the letter, "I
wish that we could find out where Araminta lives; we might then, perhaps,
recover this poor Miss Warwick, before the affair is talked of in the
world--before her reputation is injured."

"It would certainly be a most desirable thing," said Miss Burrage; "but
Miss Warwick has such odd notions, that I question whether she will ever
behave like other people; and, for my part, I cannot blame Lady Diana
Chillingworth for giving her up. She is one of those young ladies whom it
is scarcely possible to manage by common sense."

"It is certainly true," said Lady Frances, "that young women of Miss
Warwick's superior abilities require something more than _common_ sense
to direct them properly. Young ladies who think of nothing but dress,
public amusements, and forming what they call high connexions, are
undoubtedly most easily managed, by the fear of what the world will say
of them; but Miss Warwick appeared to me to have higher ideas of
excellence; and I therefore regret that she should be totally given up by
her friends."

"It is Miss Warwick who has given up her friends," said Miss Burrage,
with a mixture of embarrassment and sarcasm in her manner; "it is Miss
Warwick who has given up her friends; not Miss Warwick's friends who have
given up Miss Warwick."

The letter from the "amiable Araminta," which Miss Burrage left for the
pervsal of Lady Frances Somerset, contained three folio sheets, of which,
it is hoped, the following abridgment will be sufficiently ample to
satisfy the curiosity even of those who are lovers of long letters:--

"Yes, my Angelina! our hearts are formed for that higher species of
friendship, of which common souls are inadequate to form an idea, however
their fashionable puerile lips may, in the intellectual inanity of their
conversation, profane the term. Yes, my Angelina, you are right--every
fibre of my frame, every energy of my intellect, tells me so. I read your
letter by moonlight! The air balmy and pure as my Angelina's thoughts!
The river silently meandering!--The rocks!--The woods!--Nature in all her
majesty. Sublime confidante! Sympathizing with my supreme felicity. And
shall I confess to you, friend of my soul! that I could not refuse myself
the pleasure of reading to my Orlando some of those passages in your
last, which evince so powerfully the superiority of that understanding,
which, if I mistake not strangely, is formed to combat, in all its
Proteus forms, the system of social slavery? With what soul-rending
eloquence does my Angelina describe the solitariness, the _isolation_ of
the heart she experiences in a crowded metropolis! With what emphatic
energy of inborn independence does she exclaim against the family phalanx
of her aristocratic persecutors!-Surely--surely she will not be
intimidated from 'the settled purpose of her soul' by the phantom-fear of
worldly censure!--The garnish-tinselled wand of fashion has waved in vain
in the illuminated halls of folly-painted pleasure; my Angelina's eyes
have withstood, yes, without a blink, the dazzling enchantment.--And will
she--no, I cannot, I will not think so for an instant--will she now
submit her understanding, spell-bound, to the soporific charm of
nonsensical words, uttered in an awful tone by that potent enchantress,
_Prejudice_?--The declamation, the remonstrances of self-elected judges
of right and wrong, should be treated with deserved contempt by superior
minds, who claim the privilege of thinking and acting for themselves. The
words _ward_ and _guardian_ appal my Angelina! but what are legal
technical formalities, what are human institutions, to the view of
shackle-scorning Reason! Oppressed, degraded, enslaved, must our
unfortunate sex for ever submit to sacrifice their rights, their
pleasures, their _will_, at the altar of public opinion; whilst the
shouts of interested priests, and idle spectators, raise the senseless
enthusiasm of the self-devoted victim, or drown her cries in the
truth-extorting moment of agonizing nature!--You will not perfectly
understand, perhaps, to what these last exclamations of your Araminta
allude:--But, chosen friend of my heart!--when we meet---and oh, let that
be quickly!-my cottage longs for the arrival of my unsophisticated
Angelina!--when we meet you shall know all--your Araminta, too, has had
her sorrows--Enough of this!--But her Orlando has a heart, pure as the
infantine god of love could, in his most perfect mood, delight at once to
wound, and own--joined to an understanding--shall I say it?--worthy to
judge of your Araminta's--And will not my sober-minded Angelina prefer,
to all that palaces can afford, such society in a cottage?--I shall
reserve for my next the description of a cottage, which I have in my eye,
within view of--; but I will not anticipate.--Adieu, my amiable
Angelina.--I enclose, as you desire, a lock of my hair.--Ever,
unalterably, your affectionate, though almost heart-broken,

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