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Tales And Novels, Volume 1 by Maria Edgeworth

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




"ARAMINTA.

"April, 1800.--_Angelina Bower!_

"So let me christen my cottage!"

What effect this letter may have on _sober-minded_ readers in general
can easily be guessed; but Miss Warwick, who was little deserving of
this epithet, was so charmed with the sound of it, that it made her
totally to forget to judge of her amiable Araminta's mode of reasoning.
"Garnish-tinselled wands"--"shackle-scorning Reason"--"isolation of the
heart"--"soul-rending eloquence"--with "rocks and woods, and a meandering
river--balmy air--moonlight--Orlando--energy of intellect--a cottage--and
a heart-broken friend," made, when all mixed together, strange confusion
in Angelina's imagination. She neglected to observe, that her Araminta
was in the course of two pages--"almost heart-broken"--and in the
possession of--"supreme felicity."---Yet Miss Warwick, though she judged
so like a simpleton, was a young woman of considerable abilities: her
want of what the world calls common sense arose from certain mistakes in
her education.--She had passed her childhood with a father and mother,
who cultivated her literary taste, but who neglected to cultivate her
judgment: her reading was confined to works of imagination; and the
conversation which she heard was not calculated to give her any knowledge
of realities. Her parents died when she was about fourteen, and she then
went to reside with Lady Diana Chillingworth, a lady who placed her whole
happiness in living in a certain circle of high company in London. Miss
Warwick saw the follies of the society with which she now mixed; she felt
insupportable ennui from the want of books and conversation suited to her
taste; she heard with impatience Lady Diana's dogmatical advice;
observed, with disgust, the meanness of her companion, Miss Burrage, and
felt with triumph the superiority of her own abilities. It was in this
situation of her mind that Miss Warwick happened, at a circulating
library, to meet with a new novel, called "The Woman of Genius."--The
character of Araminta, the heroine, charmed her beyond measure; and
having been informed, by the preface, that the story was founded on facts
in the life of the authoress herself, she longed to become acquainted
with her; and addressed a letter to "The Woman of Genius," at her
publisher's. The letter was answered in a highly flattering, and
consequently, very agreeable style, and the correspondence continued for
nearly two years; till, at length, Miss W. formed a strong desire to see
her _unknown friend_. The ridicule with which Miss Burrage treated every
thing, and every idea, that was not sanctioned by fashion, and her total
want of any taste for literature, were continually contrasted in Miss
Warwick's mind, with the picture she had formed of her Araminta.--Miss
Burrage, who dreaded, though certainly without reason, that she might be
supplanted in the good graces of Lady Diana, endeavoured by every petty
means in her power, to disgust her young rival with the situation in
which she was placed. She succeeded beyond her hopes. Miss Warwick
determined to accept of her _unknown friend's_ invitation to Angelina
Bower--a charming romantic cottage in South Wales, where, according to
Araminta's description, she might pass her halcyon days in tranquil,
elegant retirement. It was not difficult for our heroine, though unused
to deception, to conceal her project from Lady Diana Chillingworth, who
was much more observant of the appearance of her protegee in public, than
interested about what passed in her mind in private. Miss Warwick quitted
her ladyship's house without the least difficulty, and the following is
the letter which our heroine left upon her dressing-table. Under all the
emphatic words, according to the custom of some letter-writers, were
drawn emphatic lines.

"Averse as I am to every thing that may have the appearance of a
clandestine transaction, I have, however, found myself under the
necessity of leaving your ladyship's house, without imparting to you my
intentions. Confidence and sympathy go hand in hand, nor can either be
_commanded_ by the voice of authority. Your ladyship's opinions and mine,
upon _all_ subjects, differ so _essentially_, that I could never hope for
your approbation, either of my _sentiments_ or my conduct. It is my
_unalterable determination_ to _act_ and _think_ upon every occasion for
myself; though I am well aware, that they who start out of the common
track, either in words or action, are exposed to the ridicule and
persecution of vulgar or illiberal minds. They who venture to carry the
_first_ torch into _unexplored_ or _unfrequented_ passages in the mine of
truth are exposed to the most imminent danger. Rich, however, are the
treasures of the place, and cowardly the soul that hesitates! But I
forget myself.

"It may be necessary to inform your ladyship, that, disgusted with the
frivolity of what is called fashionable life, and _unable_ to _live_
without the higher pleasures of friendship, I have chosen for my asylum
the humble, tranquil cottage of a female friend, whose tastes, whose
principles have long been known to me: whose _genius_ I admire! whose
_virtues_ I revere! Whose example I _emulate!_

"Though I do not condescend to use the fulsome language of _a mean
dependant_, I am not forgetful of the kindness I have received from your
ladyship. It has not been without a _painful_ struggle that I have broken
my bonds asunder--the bonds of what is _falsely_ called _duty:
spontaneous_ gratitude ever will have full, _indisputable, undisputed_
power over the _heart_ and _understanding_ of

"ANNE-ANGELINA WARWICK.

"P.S. It will be in vain to attempt to discover the place of my retreat.
All I ask is to be left in peace, to enjoy, in my retirement, _perfect
felicity_."



CHAPTER II.


Full of her hopes of finding "perfect felicity" in her retreat at
Angelina Bower, exulting in the idea of the courage and magnanimity with
which she had escaped from her "aristocratic persecutors," our heroine
pursued her journey to South Wales.

She had the misfortune--and it is a great misfortune to a young lady of
her way of thinking--to meet with no difficulties or adventures, nothing
interesting upon her journey. She arrived, with inglorious safety, at
Cardiffe. The inn at Cardiffe was kept by a landlady of the name of Hoel.
"Not high-born Hoel. Alas!" said Angelina to herself, when the name was
screamed in her hearing by a waiter, as she walked into the inn. "Vocal
no more to high-born Hoel's harp, or soft Llewellynn's lay!" A harper was
sitting in the passage, and he tuned his harp to catch her attention as
she passed. "A harp!--O play for me some plaintive air!" The harper
followed her into a small parlour.

"How delightful!" said Miss Warwick, who, in common with other heroines,
had the habit of talking to herself; or, to use more dignified terms, who
had the habit of indulging in soliloquy:--"how delightful to taste at
last the air of Wales. But 'tis a pity 'tis not North instead of South
Wales, and Conway instead of Cardiffe Castle."

The harper, after he had finished playing a melancholy air, exclaimed,
"That was but a melancholy ditty, miss--we'll try a merrier." And he
began--

"Of a noble race was Shenkin."

"No more," cried Angelina, stopping her ears; "no more, barbarous
man!--you break the illusion."

"Break the what?" said the harper to himself; "I thought, miss, that tune
would surely please you; for it is a favourite one in these parts."

"A favourite with Welsh squires, perhaps," said our heroine; "but,
unfortunately, _I_ am not a Welsh squire, and have no taste for your
'Bumper Squire Jones.'"

The man tuned his harp sullenly. "I'm sorry for it, miss," said he:
"more's the pity, I can't please you better!"

Angelina cast upon him a look of contempt. "He no way fills my idea of a
bard!--an ancient and immortal bard!--He has no soul--fingers without a
soul!--No 'master's hand, 'or 'prophet's fire!'--No 'deep sorrows!'--No
'sable garb of woe!'--No loose beard, or hoary hair, 'streaming like a
meteor to the troubled air!'--'No haggard eyes!'--Heigho!"--"It is time
for me to be going," said the harper, who began to think, by the young
lady's looks and manners, that she was not in her right understanding.
"It is time for me to be going; the gentlemen above in the Dolphin will
be ready for me."

"A mere modern harper! He is not even blind," Angelina said to herself,
as he examined the shilling which she gave him. "Begone, for Heaven's
sake!" added she, aloud, as he left the room;--and "leave me, leave me to
repose." She threw up the sash, to taste the evening air; but scarcely
had she begun to repeat a sonnet to her Araminta--scarcely had she
repeated the first two lines--

"Hail, far-famed, fairest, unknown friend,
Our sacred silent sympathy of soul,"

when a little ragged Welsh boy, who was playing with his companions, in a
field at the back of Cardifie Inn, espied her, gave the signal to his
playfellows, and immediately they all came running up to the window at
which Angelina was standing, and with one loud shrill chorus of "Gi' me
ha'penny!--Gi' me ha'penny!--Gi' me one ha'penny!" interrupted the
sonnet, Angelina threw out some money to the boys, though she was
provoked by their interruption: her donation was, in the true spirit of a
heroine, much greater than the occasion required and the consequence was,
that these urchins, by spreading the fame of her generosity through the
town of Cardiffe, collected a Lilliputian mob of petitioners, who
assailed Angelina with fresh vehemence. Not a moment's peace, not a
moment for poetry or reverie would they allow her: so that she was
impatient for her chaise to come to the door. Her Araminta's cottage was
but six miles distant from Cardiffe; and to speak in due sentimental
language, every moment that delayed her long-expected interview with her
beloved unknown friend, appeared to her an age.

"And what would you be pleased to have for supper, ma'am?" said the
landlady. "We have fine Tenby oysters, ma'am; and, if you'd like a Welsh
rabbit--"

"Tenby oysters!--Welsh rabbits!" repeated Angelina, in a disdainful tone.
"Oh, detain me not in this cruel manner!--I want no Tenby oysters, I want
no Welsh rabbits; only let me be gone--I am all impatience to see a dear
friend. Oh, if you have any feeling, any humanity, detain me not!" cried
she, clasping her hands.

Miss Warwick had an ungovernable propensity to make a display of
sensibility; a fine theatrical scene upon every occasion; a propensity
which she had acquired from novel-reading. It was never more unluckily
displayed than in the present instance; for her audience and spectators,
consisting of the landlady, a waiter, and a Welsh boy, who just entered
the room with a knife-tray in his hand, were all more inclined to burst
into rude laughter than to join in gentle sympathy. The chaise did not
come to the door one moment sooner than it would have done without this
pathetic wringing of the hands. As soon as Angelina drove from the door,
the landlady's curiosity broke forth--

"Pray tell me, Hugh Humphries," said Mrs. Hoel, turning to the postilion,
who drove Angelina from Newport, "pray, now, does not this seem strange,
that such a young lady as this should be travelling about in such
wonderful haste? I believe, by her flighty airs, she is upon no good
errand--and I would have her to know, at any rate, that she might have
done better than to sneer, in that way, at Mrs. Hoel of Cardiffe, and her
Tenby oysters, and her Welsh rabbit. Oh, I'll make her repent her
_pe_haviour to Mrs. Hoel, of Cardiffe. 'Not high-born Hoel,' forsooth!
How does she know that, I should be glad to hear? The Hoels are as high
born, I'll venture to say, as my young miss herself, I've a notion! and
would scorn, moreover, to have a runaway lady for a relation of theirs.
Oh, she shall learn to repent her disrespects to Mrs. Hoel, of Cardiffe.
I _pe_lieve she shall soon meet herself in the public newspapers--her
eyes, and her nose, and her hair, and her inches, and her description at
full length she shall see--and her friends shall see it too--and maybe
they shall thank, and maybe they shall reward handsomely Mrs. Hoel, of
Cardiffe."

Whilst the angry Welsh landlady was thus forming projects of revenge for
the contempt with which she imagined that her high birth and her Tenby
oysters had been treated, Angelina pursued her journey towards the
cottage of her unknown friend, forming charming pictures, in her
imagination, of the manner in which her amiable Araminta would start, and
weep, and faint, perhaps with joy and surprise, at the sight of her
Angelina. It was a fine moonlight night--an unlucky circumstance; for the
by-road which led to Angelina Bower was so narrow and bad, that if the
night had been dark, our heroine must infallibly have been overturned,
and this overturn would have been a delightful incident in the history of
her journey; but Fate ordered it otherwise. Miss Warwick had nothing to
lament, but that her delicious reveries were interrupted, for several
miles, by the Welsh postilion's expostulations with his horses.

"Good Heavens!" exclaimed she, "cannot the man hold his tongue? His
uncouth vociferations distract me! So fine a scene, so placid the
moonlight--but there is always something that is not in perfect unison
with one's feelings."

"Miss, if you please, you must light here, and walk for a matter of a
quarter of a mile, for I can't drive up to the house door, because there
is no carriage-road down the lane; but if you be pleased, I'll go on
before you--my horses will stand quite quiet here--and I'll knock the
folks up for you, miss."

"Folks!--Oh, don't talk to me of knocking folks up," cried Angelina,
springing out of the carriage "stay with your horses, man, I beseech you.
You shall be summoned when you are wanted--I choose to walk up to the
cottage alone."

"As you please, miss," said the postilion; "only _hur_ had better take
care of the dogs."

This last piece of sage counsel was lost upon our heroine; she heard it
not--she was "rapt into future times."

"By moonlight will be our first interview--just as I had pictured to
myself--but can this be the cottage?--It does not look quite so romantic
as I expected--but 'tis the dwelling of my Araminta--Happy, thrice happy
moment!--Now for our secret signal--I am to sing the first, and my
unknown friend the second part of the same air."

Angelina then began to sing the following stanza--

"O waly waly up the bank,
And waly waly down the brae,
And waly waly yon burn side,
Where I and my love were wont to gae."

She sung and paused, in expectation of hearing the second part from her
amiable Araminta--but no voice was heard.

"All is hushed," said Angelina--"ever tranquil be her slumbers! Yet I
must waken her--her surprise and joy at seeing me thus will be so
great!--by moonlight too!"

She knocked at the cottage window--still no answer.

"All silent as night!" said she--

"'When not a breath disturbs the deep serene,
And not a cloud o'ercasts the solemn scene.'"

Angelina, as she repeated these lines, stood with her back to the cottage
window: the window opened, and a Welsh servant girl put out her head; her
night-cap, if cap it might be called which shape had none, was half off,
her black hair streamed over her shoulders, and her face was the face of
vulgar, superstitious amazement.

"Oh, 'tis our old ghost of Nelly Gwynn, all in white, walking and saying
her prayers backwards--I heard 'em quite plain, as I hope to breathe,"
said the terrified girl to herself; and, shutting the window with a
trembling hand, she hastened to waken an old woman, who slept in the same
room with her.--Angelina, whose patience was by this time exhausted, went
to the door of the cottage, and shook it with all her force.--It rattled
loud, and a shrill scream was heard from within.

"A scream!" cried Angelina; "Oh, my Araminta!--All is hushed
again."--Then raising her voice, she called as loudly as she could at the
window--"My Araminta! my unknown friend! be not alarmed, 'tis your
Angelina."

The door opened slowly and softly, and a slip-shod beldam peeped out,
leaning upon a stick; the head of Betty Williams appeared over the
shoulder of this sibyl; Angelina was standing, in a pensive attitude,
listening at the cottage window. At this instant the postilion, who was
tired of waiting, came whistling up the lane; he carried a trunk on his
back, and a bag in his hand. As soon as the old woman saw him, she held
up her stick, exclaiming--

"A man! a man!--a ropper and murterer!--Cot suve us! and keep the door
fast polted."--They shut the door instantly.

"What is all this?" said Angelina, with dignified composure.

"A couple of fools, I take it, miss, who are afraid and in tred of
roppers," said the postilion; "put I'll make 'em come out, I'll be pound,
plockheads."--So saying, he went to the door of Angelina Bower, and
thundered and kicked at it, speaking all the time very volubly in Welsh.
In about a quarter of an hour he made them comprehend that Angelina was a
young lady come to visit their mistress: then they came forth curtsying.

"My name's Betty Williams," said the girl, who was tying a clean cap
under her chin. "Welcome to Llanwaetur, miss!--pe pleased to excuse our
keeping hur waiting, and polting the toor, and taking hur for a ghost and
a ropper--put we know who you are now--the young lady from London, that
we have been told to expect."

"Oh, then, I have been expected; all's right--and my Araminta, where is
she? where is she?"

"Welcome to Llanwaetur, welcome to Llanwaetur, and Cot pless hur pretty
face," said the old woman, who followed Betty Williams out of the
cottage.

"Hur's my grandmother, miss," said Betty.

"Very likely--but let me see my Araminta," cried Angelina: "cruel woman!
where is she, I say?"

"Cot pless hur!--Cot pless hur pretty face," repeated the old woman,
curtsying.

"My grandmother's as deaf as a post, miss--don't mind her; she can't tell
Inglis well, put I can:--who would you pe pleased to have?"

"In plain English, then--the lady who lives in this cottage."

"Our Miss Hodges?"

This odious name of Hodges provoked Angelina, who was so used to call her
friend Araminta, that she had almost forgotten her real name.

"Oh, miss," continued Betty Williams, "Miss Hodges has gone to Pristol
for a few days."

"Gone! how unlucky! my Araminta gone!"

"Put Miss Hodges will pe pack on Tuesday--Miss Hodges did not expect hur
till Thursday--put her ped is very well aired--pe pleased to walk in,
and light hur a candle, and get hur a nightcap."

"Heigho! must I sleep again without seeing my Araminta!--Well, but I
shall sleep in a cottage for the first time in my life--

"'The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed.'"

At this moment, Angelina, forgetting to stoop, hit herself a violent blow
as she was entering Angelina Bower--the roof of which, indeed, "was too
low for so lofty a head."--A headache came on, which kept her awake the
greatest part of the night. In the morning she set about to explore the
cottage; it was nothing like the species of elegant retirement, of which
she had drawn such a charming picture in her imagination. It consisted of
three small bedchambers, which were more like what she had been used to
call closets; a parlour, the walls of which were, in many places, stained
with damp; and a kitchen which smoked. The scanty, moth-eaten furniture
of the rooms was very different from the luxury and elegance to which
Angelina had been accustomed in the apartments of Lady Diana
Chillingworth. Coarse and ill-dressed was the food which Betty Williams
with great bustle and awkwardness served up to her guest; but Angelina
was no epicure. The first dinner which she ate on wooden trenchers
delighted her; the second, third, fourth, and fifth, appeared less and
less delectable; so that by the time she had boarded one week at her
cottage, she was completely convinced that

"A scrip with herbs and fruit supplied,
And water from the spring,"

though delightful to Goldsmith's Hermit, are not quite so satisfactory in
actual practice as in poetic theory; at least to a young lady who had
been habituated to all the luxuries of fashionable life. It was in vain
that our heroine repeated

"Man wants but little here below:"

She found that even the want of double refined sugar, of green tea, and
Mocha coffee, was sensibly felt. Hour after hour, and day after day,
passed with Angelina, in anxious expectation of her Araminta's return
home. Her time hung heavy upon her hands, for she had no companion with
whom she could converse; and one odd volume of Rousseau's Eloise, and a
few well-thumbed German plays, were the only books which she could find
in the house. There was, according to Betty Williams's report, "a vast
sight of books in a press, along with some table-cloths," but Miss Hodges
had the key of this press in her pocket. Deprived of the pleasures both
of reading and conversation, Angelina endeavoured to amuse herself by
contemplating the beauties of nature. There were some wild, solitary
walks in the neighbourhood of Angelina Bower; but though our heroine was
delighted with these, she wanted, in her rambles, some kindred soul, to
whom she might exclaim--"How charming is solitude[1]!"--The day after
her arrival in Wales, she wrote a long letter to Araminta, which Betty
Williams undertook to send by a careful lad, a particular friend of her
own, who would deliver it, without fail, into Miss Hodges's own hands,
and who would engage to bring an answer by three o'clock the next day.
The careful lad did not return till four days afterward, and he then
could give no account of his mission, except that he had left the letter
at Bristol, with a particular friend of his own, who would deliver it,
without fail, into Miss Hodges's own hands, if he could meet with her.
The post seems to be the last expedient which a heroine ever thinks of
for the conveyance of her letters; so that, if we were to judge from the
annals of romance, we should infallibly conclude there was no such thing
as a post-office in England. On the sixth day of her abode at this
comfortless cottage, the possibility of sending a letter to her friend by
the post occurred to Angelina, and she actually discovered that there was
a post-office at Cardiffe. Before she could receive an answer to this
epistle, a circumstance happened, which made her determine to abandon her
present retreat. One evening she rambled out to a considerable distance
from the cottage, and it was long after sunset ere she recollected that
it would be necessary to return homewards before it grew dark. She
mistook her way at last, and following a sheep-path, down the steep side
of a mountain, she came to a point, at which she, apparently, could
neither advance nor recede. A stout Welsh farmer who was counting his
sheep in a field, at the top of the mountain, happened to look down its
steep side in search of one of his flock that was missing: the farmer saw
something white at a distance below him, but there was a mist--it was
dusk in the evening--and whether it were a woman, or a sheep, he could
not he certain. In the hope that Angelina was his lost sheep, he went to
her assistance, and though, upon a nearer view, he was disappointed, in
finding that she was a woman, yet he had the humanity to hold out his
stick to her, and he helped her up by it, with some difficulty. One of
her slippers fell off as she scrambled up the hill--there was no
recovering it; her other slipper, which was of the thinnest kid leather,
was cut through by the stones; her silk stockings were soon stained with
the blood of her tender feet; and it was with real gratitude that she
accepted the farmer's offer, to let her pass the night at his farmhouse,
which was within view. Angelina Bower was, according to his computation,
about four miles distant, as well, he said, as he could judge of the
place she meant by her description: she had unluckily forgotten that the
common name of it was Llanwaetur. At the farmer's house, she was, at
first, hospitably received, by a tight-looking woman; but she had not
been many minutes seated, before she found herself the object of much
curiosity and suspicion. In one corner of the room, at a small round
table, with a jug of ale before him, sat a man, who looked like the
picture of a Welsh squire: a candle had just been lighted for his
worship, for he was a magistrate, and a great man, in those parts, for he
could read the newspaper, and his company was, therefore, always welcome
to the farmer, who loved to hear the news, and the reader was paid for
his trouble with good ale, which he loved even better than literature.

[Footnote 1: Voltaire.]

"What news, Mr. Evans?" said the farmer.

"What news?" repeated Mr. Evans, looking up from his paper, with a
sarcastic smile. "Why, news that might not be altogether so agreeable to
the whole of this good company; so 'tis best to keep it to ourselves."

If you think books have dumbed down …
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Kerouac's On the Road manuscript travels to the Midlands

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He wrote it in just three weeks, furiously and loudly tap-tap-tapping away on his typewriter on 12ft long reels of paper so that he did not have to stop, just writing writing writing fuelled only, he said, by coffee…

It became one of the most important American novels of the last century and yesterday the original manuscript - a scroll taped together with eight reels of paper - of Jack Kerouac's On The Road was unfurled in the UK for the first time.
Fifty years after the novel which more or less defined the Beat generation, was published in Britain, the Barber Institute in Birmingham is showing what is now one of the most valuable literary manuscripts in existence as part of its exhibition Jack Kerouac: Back On the Road.

The exhibition's curator Professor Dick Ellis said there had been a lot of competition to get the scroll which is itself spending a lot of time on the move, having toured a string of US cities and hitting the road to Rome once this show is over. "We're very excited indeed," he said. "This is an iconic manuscript. It is a record of the huge effort Kerouac put into composing it. It was 20 days of typing 6,500 words a day, flat out, in spontaneous composition. He wanted to record things with the most possible accuracy using the spontaneous technique. His typewriter became a compositional instrument.

"Truman Capote once accused Kerouac of typing rather than writing, I would say he was learning the ability of using the typewriter like a jazz instrument, like a saxophone. He also had an incredible memory. And he had great speed at typing, he became a lightning typist. He came to be able to use a typewriter in a way that has not been seen before or since. Kerouac said he wrote fast because the road was fast."

About 22 of the scroll's 120ft will be on display in a specially built cabinet and while visitors will have to slightly tilt their heads, Ellis believes they will get a much deeper knowledge of what Kerouac was all about. It comes to Birmingham courtesy of Jim Irsay, owner of the Indianapolis Colts, who bought it for $2.4m (£1.6m) in 2001 before agreeing to a tour. Of course, in the published novel, there are paragraph breaks but in the scroll, there are none. Kerouac did not have the time. The exhibition runs until January 28.

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