Tales And Novels, Volume 1 by Maria Edgeworth

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

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"Every thing's agreeable to me, I'm sure," said the farmer--"every
thing's agreeable to me in the way of news."

"And to me, not excepting politics, which you gentlemen always think so
polite," said the farmer's wife, "to keep to yourselves; but, you
recollect, I was used to politics when I lived with my uncle at Cardiffe;
not having, though a farmer's wife, always lived in the country, as you
see, ma'am--nor being quite illiterate.--Well, Mr. Evans, let us have it.
What news of the fleets?"

Mr. Evans made no reply, but pointed out a passage in the newspaper to
the farmer, who leant over his shoulder, in vain endeavouring to spell
and put it together: his smart wife, whose curiosity was at least equal
to her husband's, ran immediately to peep at the wonderful paragraph, and
she read aloud the beginning of an advertisement:--

"Suspected to have strayed, or eloped, from her friends or relations, a
young lady, seemingly not more than sixteen years of age, dressed in
white, with a straw hat: blue eyes, light hair."

Angelina coloured so deeply whilst this was reading, and the description
so exactly suited with her appearance, that the farmer's wife stopped
short; the farmer fixed his eyes upon her; and Mr. Evans cleared his
throat several times with much significance.--A general silence ensued;
at last the three heads nodded to one another across the round table; the
farmer whistled and walked out of the room; his wife fidgeted at a
buffet, in which she began to arrange some cups and saucers; and, after a
few minutes, she followed her husband. Angelina took up the newspaper, to
read the remainder of the advertisement. She could not doubt that it was
meant for her, when she saw that it was dated the very day of her arrival
at the inn at Cardiffe, and signed by the landlady of the inn, Mrs. Hoel.
Mr. Evans swallowed the remainder of his ale, and then addressed Angelina
in these words:--

"Young lady, it is plain to see you know when the cap fits: now, if
you'll take my advice, you'll not make the match you have in your eye;
for, though a lord's son, he is a great gambler. I dined with one that
has dined with him not long ago. My son, who has a living near Bristol,
knows a great deal--more about you than you'd think; and 'tis my advice
to you, which I wouldn't be at the trouble of giving, if you were not as
pretty as you are, to go back to your relations; for he'll never marry
you, and marriage to be sure is your object. I have no more to say, but
only this--I shall think it my duty, as a magistrate, to let your friends
know as soon as possible where you are, coming under my cognizance as you
do; for a vagabond, in the eye of the law, is a person--"

Angelina had not patience to listen to any more of this speech; she
interrupted Mr. Evans with a look of indignation, assured him that he was
perfectly unintelligible to her, and walked out of the room with great
dignity. Her dignity made no impression upon the farmer or his wife, who
now repented having offered her a night's lodging in their house: in the
morning they were as eager to get rid of her as she was impatient to
depart. Mr. Evans insisted upon seeing her safe home, evidently for the
purpose of discovering precisely where she lived. Angelina saw that she
could no longer remain undisturbed in her retreat, and determined to set
out immediately in quest of her unknown friend at Bristol.--Betty
Williams, who had a strong desire to have a jaunt to Bristol, a town
which she had never seen but once in her life, offered to attend Miss
Warwick, assuring her that she perfectly well knew the house where Miss
Hodges always lodged. Her offer was accepted; and what adventures our
heroine met with in Bristol, and what difficulties she encountered before
she discovered her Araminta, will be seen in the next chapter.

CHAPTER III.

Angelina went by water from Cardiffe to Bristol; the water was rather
rough, and, as she was unused to the motion of a vessel, she was both
frightened and sick. She spent some hours very disagreeably, and without
even the sense of acting like a heroine, to support her spirits. It was
late in the evening before she arrived at the end of her voyage: she was
landed on the quay at Bristol. No hackney-coach was to be had, and she
was obliged to walk to the Bush. To find herself in the midst of a
bustling, vulgar crowd, by whom she was unknown, but not unnoticed, was
new to Miss Warwick. Whilst she was with Lady Diana Chillingworth, she
had always been used to see crowds make way for her; she was now
surprised to feel herself jostled in the streets by passengers, who were
all full of their own affairs, hurrying different ways, in pursuit of
objects which probably seemed to them as important as the search for an
unknown friend appeared to Angelina.

Betty Williams's friend's friend, the careful lad, who was to deliver the
letter to Miss Hodges, was a waiter at the Bush. Upon inquiry, it was
found that he had totally forgotten his promise: Angelina's letter was,
after much search, found in a bottle-drainer, so much stained with port
wine, that it was illegible. The man answered with the most provoking
nonchalance, when Angelina reproached him for his carelessness--"That,
indeed, no such person as Miss Hodges was to be found: that nobody he
could meet with had ever heard the name." They who are extremely
enthusiastic suffer continually from the total indifference of others to
their feelings; and young people can scarcely conceive the extent of this
indifference until they have seen something of the world. Seeing the
world does not _always_ mean seeing a certain set of company in London.

Angelina, the morning after her arrival at the Bush, took a
hackney-coach, and left the care of directing the coachman to Betty
Williams, who professed to have a perfect knowledge of Bristol. Betty
desired the man to drive to the drawbridge; and, at the sound of the word
drawbridge, various associations of ideas with the drawbridges of ancient
times were called up in Miss Warwick's imagination. How different was the
reality from her castles in the air! She was roused from her reverie by
the voices of Betty Williams and the coachman.

"Where _will_ I drive ye to, I ask you?" said the coachman, who was an
Irishman: "_Will_ I stand all day upon the drawbridge stopping the
passage?"

"Trive on a step, and I will get out and see apout me," said Betty: "I
know the look of the house, as well as I know any thing."

Betty got out of the coach, and walked up and down the street, looking at
the houses like one bewildered.

"Bad luck to you! for a Welsh woman as you are," exclaimed the coachman,
jumping down from the box, "will I lave the young lady standing in
the streets all day alone for you to be making a fool this way of us
both?--Sorrow take me now! If I do--"

"Pless us, pe not in a pet or a pucker, or how shall I recollect any body
or any thing.--Cood! Cood!--Stand you there while I just say over my
alphabet: a, p, c, t, e, f, g, h, i, k, l, m, n, o, b.--It was some name
which begins with _p_, and ends with a _t_, I pelieve."

"Here's a pretty direction, upon my troth; some name which begins with a
_p_, and ends with a _t_," cried the coachman; and after he had uttered
half a score of Hibernian execrations upon the Welsh woman's folly, he
with much good nature went along with her to read the names on the street
doors.--"Here's a name now that's the very thing for you--here's Pushit
now.-Was the name Pushit?--Ricollict yourself, my good girl, was that
your name?"

"Pushit!--Oh, yes, I am sure, and pelieve it was Pushit--Mrs. Pushit's
house, Pristol, where our Miss Hodges lodges alway."

"Mrs. Pushit--but this is quite another man; I tell you this is Sir
John--Faith now we are in luck," continued the coachman--"here's another
p just at hand; here's Mrs. Puffit; sure she begins with a p, and ends
with a t, and is a milliner into the bargain? so sure enough I'll engage
the young lady lodges here.--Puffit--Hey?--Ricollict now, and don't be
looking as if you'd just been pulled out of your sleep, and had never
been in a Christian town before now."

"Pless us, Cot pless us!" said the Welsh girl, who was quite overpowered
by the Irishman's flow of words--and she was on the point of having
recourse, in her own defence, to her native tongue, in which she could
have matched either male or female in fluency; but, to Angelina's great
relief, the dialogue between the coachman and Betty Williams ceased. The
coachman drew up to Mrs. Puffit's; but, as there was a handsome carriage
at the door, Miss Warwick was obliged to wait in her hackney-coach some
time longer. The handsome carriage belonged to Lady Frances Somerset.--By
one of those extraordinary coincidences which sometimes occur in real
life, but which are scarcely believed to be natural when they are related
in books, Miss Warwick happened to come to this shop at the very moment
when the persons she most wished to avoid were there. Whilst the dialogue
between Betty Williams and the hackney-coachman was passing, Lady Diana
Chillingworth and Miss Burrage were seated in Mrs. Puffit's shop: Lady
Diana was extremely busy bargaining with the milliner; for, though rich,
and a woman of quality, her ladyship piqued herself upon making the
cheapest bargains in the world.

"Your la'ship did not look at this eight and twenty shilling lace,"
said Mrs. Puffit; "'tis positively the cheapest thing your la'ship ever
saw. Jessie! the laces in the little blue band-box. Quick! for my Ladi
Di.--Quick!"

"But it is out of my power to stay to look at any thing more now," said
Lady Diana; "and yet," whispered she to Miss Burrage, "when one does go
out a shopping, one certainly likes to bring home a bargain."

"Certainly; but Bristol's not the place for bargains," said Miss Burrage;
"you will find nothing tolerable, I assure you, my dear Lady Di., at
Bristol."

"Why, my dear," said her ladyship, "were you ever at Bristol before? How
comes it that I never heard that you were at Bristol before? Where were
you, child?"

"At the Wells, at the Wells, ma'am," replied Miss Burrage, and she turned
pale and red in the space of a few seconds; but Lady Diana, who was very
near-sighted, was holding her head so close to the blue band-box full of
lace, that she could not see the changes in her companion's countenance.
The fact was, that Miss Burrage was born and bred in Bristol, where she
had several relations, who were not in high life, and by whom she
consequently dreaded to be claimed. When she first met Lady Diana
Chillingworth at Buxton, she had passed herself upon her for one of the
Burrages of Dorsetshire, and she knew that, if her ladyship was to
discover the truth, she would cast her off with horror. For this reason,
she had done every thing in her power to prevent Lady Di. from coming to
Clifton; and for this reason she now endeavoured to persuade her that
nothing tolerable could be met with at Bristol.

"I am afraid, Lady Di., you will be late at Lady Mary's," said she.

"Look at this lace, child, and give me your opinion--eight and twenty
shillings, Mrs. Puffit, did you say?"

"Eight and twenty, my lady--and I lose by every yard I sell at that
price. Ma'am, you see," said Mrs. Puffit, appealing to Miss Burrage,
"'tis real Valenciennes, you see."

"I see 'tis horrid dear," said Miss Burrage: then in a whisper to Lady
Di. she added, "at Miss Trentham's at the Wells, your ladyship will meet
with such bargains!"

Mrs. Puffit put her lace upon the alabaster neck of the large doll which
stood in the middle of her shop. "Only look, my lady--only see, ma'am,
how beautiful becoming 'tis to the neck, and sets off a dress too, you
know, ma'am. And (turning to Miss Burrage) eight and twenty, you know,
ma'am, is really nothing for any lace you'd wear; but more particularly
for real Valenciennes, which can scarce be had _real_, for love or money,
since the French Revolution. Real Valenciennes!--and will wear and wash,
and wash and wear--not that your ladyship minds that--for ever and
ever,--and is such a bargain, and so becoming to the neck, especially to
ladies of your la'ship's complexion."

"Well, I protest, I believe, Burrage, I don't know what to say, my
dear--hey?"

"I'm told," whispered Miss Burrage, "that Miss Trentham's to have a lace
raffle at the Wells next week."

"A raffle?" cried Lady Di., turning her back immediately upon the doll
and the lace.

"Well," cried Mrs. Puffit, "instead of eight say seven and twenty
shillings, Miss Burrage, for old acquaintance sake."

"Old acquaintance!" exclaimed Miss Burrage: "la! Mrs. Puffit, I don't
remember ever being twice in your shop all the time I was at the Wells
before."

"No, ma'am," replied Mrs. Puffit, with a malicious smile--but when you
_was_ living on Saint Augustin's Back."

"Saint Augustin's Back, my dear!" exclaimed Lady Diana Chillingworth,
with a look of horror and amazement.

Miss Burrage, laying down a bank-note on the counter, made a quick and
expressive sign to the milliner to hold her tongue.

"Dear Mrs. Puffit," cried she, "you certainly mistake me for some other
strange person. Lady Di., now I look at it with my glass, this lace _is_
very fine, I must agree with you, and not dear, by any means, for real
Valenciennes: cut me off three yards of this lace--I protest there's no
withstanding it, Lady Di."

"Three yards at eight and twenty--here, Jesse," said Mrs. Puffit. "I beg
your pardon, ma'am, for my mistake; I supposed it was some other lady of
the same name; there are so many Burrages. _Only_ three yards did you
say, ma'am?"

"Nay, I don't care if you give me four. I'm of the Burrages of
Dorsetshire."

"A very good family, those Burrages of Dorsetshire, as any in England,"
said Lady Di.--"and put up twelve yards of this for me, Mrs. Puffit."

"Twelve at eight and twenty--yes, my lady--very much obliged to your
ladyship--much obliged to you, Miss Burrage. Here, Jesse, this to my Lady
Di. Chillingworth's carriage." Jesse called at the shop-door, in a shrill
voice, to a black servant of Lady Frances Somerset--"Mr. Hector, Mr.
Hector! Sir, pray put this parcel into the carriage for Lady Diana
Chillingworth."

Angelina, who was waiting in her hackney-coach, started; she could
scarcely believe that she heard the name rightly:--but, an instant
afterwards, the voice of Lady Diana struck her ear, and she sunk back in
great agitation. However, neither Miss Burrage nor Lady Di. saw her; they
got into their carriage, and drove away.

Angelina was so much alarmed, that she could scarcely believe that the
danger was past when she saw the carriage at the furthest end of the
street.

"Wouldn't you be pleased to 'light, ma'am?" said Jesse.

"We don't bring things to the door."

"Who have we here?" cried Mrs. Puffit; "who have we here?"

"Only some folks out of a hack, that was kept waiting, and couldn't draw
up whilst my Lady Di.'s carriage was at the door," said Jesse.

"A good pretty girl, the foremost," said Mrs. Puffit. "But, in the name
of wonder, what's that odd fish coming behind her?"

"A queer-looking pair, in good truth!" said Jesse.

Angelina seated herself, and gave a deep sigh. "Ribands, if you please,
ma'am," said she to Mrs. Puffit. "I must," thought she, "ask for
something before I ask for my Araminta."

"Ribands--yes, ma'am--what sort? Keep an eye upon the glass," whispered
the milliner to her shop girl, as she stooped behind the counter for a
drawer of ribands--"keep an eye on the glass, Jesse--a girl of the town,
I take it. What colour, ma'am?"

"Blue--'cerulean blue.' Here, child," said Angelina, turning to Betty
Williams, "here's a riband for you."

Betty Williams did not hear, for Betty was fascinated by the eyes of the
great doll, opposite to which she stood fixed.

"Lord, what a fine lady! and how hur stares at Betty Williams!" thought
she: "I wish hur would take her eyes off me."

"Betty! Betty Williams!--a riband for you," cried Angelina, in a louder
tone.

Betty started--"Miss!--a riband!" She ran forward, and, in pushing by the
doll, threw it backward: Mrs. Puffit caught it in her arms, and Betty,
stopping short, curtsied, and said to the doll--"Peg pardon, miss--peg
pardon, miss--tit I hurt you?--peg pardon. Pless us! 'tis a toll, and no
woman, I teclare."

The milliner and Jesse now burst into uncontrollable, and, as Angelina
feared, "unextinguishable laughter." Nothing is so distressing to a
sentimental heroine as ridicule: Miss Warwick perceived that she had her
share of that which Betty Williams excited; and she who imagined herself
to be capable of "combating, in all its Proteus forms, the system of
social slavery," was unable to withstand the laughter of a milliner and
her 'prentice.

"Do you please to want any thing else, ma'am?" said Mrs. Puffit, in a
saucy tone--"Rouge, perhaps?"

"I wish to know, madam," said Angelina, "whether a lady of the name of
Hodges does not lodge here?"

"A lady of the name of Hodges!--no, ma'am--I'm very particular about
lodgers--no such lady ever lodged with me.--Jesse! to the door--quick!--
Lady Mary Tasselton's carriage."

Angelina hastily rose and departed. Whilst Jesse ran to the door, and
whilst Mrs. Puffit's attention was fixed upon Lady Mary Tasselton's
carriage, Betty Williams twitched from off the doll's shoulders the
remainder of the piece of Valenciennes lace which had been left there.
"Since hur's only wood, I'll make free," said she to herself, and she
carried off the lace unobserved.

Angelina's impatience to find her Araminta was increased, by the dread of
meeting Lady Di. Chillingworth in every carriage that passed, and in
every shop where she might call. At the next house at which the coachman
stopped, the words, _Dinah Plait, relict of Jonas Plait, cheesemonger_,
were written in large letters over the shop-door. Angelina thought she
was in no danger of meeting her ladyship here, and she alighted. There
was no one in the shop but a child of seven years old; he could not
understand well what Angelina or Betty said, but he ran to call his aunt.
Dinah Plait was at dinner; and when the child opened the door of the
parlour, there came forth such a savoury smell, that Betty Williams, who
was extremely hungry, could not forbear putting her head in, to see what
was upon the table.

"Pless hur! heggs and pacon and toasted cheese--Cot pless hur!" exclaimed
Betty.

"Aunt Dinah," said the child, "here are two women in some great distress,
they told me--and astray and hungry."

"In some great distress, and astray and hungry?--then let them in here,
child, this minute."

There was seated at a small table, in a perfectly neat parlour, a quaker,
whose benevolent countenance charmed Angelina the moment she entered the
room.

"Pardon this intrusion," said she.

"Friend, thou art welcome," said Dinah Plait, and her looks said so
more expressively than her words. An elderly man rose, and leaving the
cork-screw in the half-drawn cork of a bottle of cider, he set a chair
for Angelina, and withdrew to the window.

"Be seated, and eat, for verily thou seemest to be hungry," said Mrs.
Plait to Betty Williams, who instantly obeyed, and began to eat like one
that had been half famished.

"And now, friend, thy business, thy distress--what is it?" said Dinah,
turning to Angelina: "so young to have sorrows."

"I had best take myself away," said the elderly gentleman, who stood at
the window--"I had best take myself away, for miss may not like to speak
before me--though she might, for that matter."

"Where is the gentleman going?" said Miss Warwick; "I have but one short
question to ask, and I have nothing to say that need--"

"I dare say, young lady, you can have nothing to say that you need be
ashamed of, only people in distress don't like so well to speak before
third folks, I _guess_--though, to say the truth, I have never known, by
my own experience, what it was to be in much distress since I came into
the world--but I hope I am not the more hard-hearted for that--for I can
guess, I say, pretty well, how those in distress feel when they come
to speak. Do as you would be done by is my maxim till I can find a
better--so I take myself away, leaving my better part behind me, if it
will be of any service to you, madam."

As he passed by Miss Warwick, he dropped his purse into her lap, and he
was gone before she could recover from her surprise.

"Sir!--madam!" cried she, rising hastily, "here has been some strange
mistake--I am not a beggar--I am much, very much obliged to you, but--"

"Nay, keep it, friend, keep it," said Dinah Plait, pressing the purse
upon Angelina; "John Barker is as rich as a Jew, and as generous as a
prince. Keep it, friend, and you'll oblige both him and me--'tis
dangerous in this world for one so young and so pretty as you are to be
in _great distress_; so be not proud."

"I am not proud," said Miss Warwick, drawing her purse from her pocket;
"but my distress is not of a pecuniary nature--Convince yourself--I am in
distress only for a friend, _an unknown_ friend."

"Touched in her brain, I doubt," thought Dinah.

"Coot ale!" exclaimed Betty Williams--"Coot heggs and pacon."

"Does a lady of the name of Araminta--Miss Hodges, I mean--lodge here?"
said Miss Warwick.

"Friend, I do not let lodgings; and I know of no such person as Miss
Hodges."

"Well, I swear hur name, the coachman told me, did begin with a p, and
end with a t," cried Betty Williams, "or I would never have let him knock
at hur toor."

"Oh, my Araminta! my Araminta!" exclaimed Angelina, turning up her eyes
towards heaven--"when, oh when shall I find thee? I am the most
unfortunate person upon earth."

"Had not hur petter eat a hegg, and a pit of pacon? here's one pit left,"
said Betty: "hur must be hungry, for 'tis two o'clock past, and we
preakfasted at nine--hur must be hungry;" and Betty pressed her _to try
the pacon_; but Angelina put it away, or, in the proper style, motioned
the bacon from her.

"I am in no want of food," cried she, rising: "happy they who have no
conception of any but corporeal sufferings. Farewell, madam!--may the
sensibility, of which your countenance is so strongly expressive, never
be a source of misery to you!"--and with that depth of sigh which suited
the close of such a speech, Angelina withdrew.

"If I could but have felt her pulse," said Dinah Plait to herself, "I
could have prescribed something that, maybe, would have done her good,
poor distracted thing! Now it was well done of John Barker to leave this
purse for her--but how is this?--poor thing! she's not fit to be trusted
with money--here she has left her own purse full of guineas."

Dinah ran immediately to the house-door, in hopes of being able to catch
Angelina; but the coach had turned down into another street, and was out
of sight. Mrs. Plait sent for her constant counsellor, John Barker, to
deliberate on the means of returning the purse. It should be mentioned,
to the credit of Dinah's benevolence, that, at the moment when she was
interrupted by the entrance of Betty Williams and Angelina, she was
hearing the most flattering things from a person who was not disagreeable
to her: her friend, John Barker, was a rich hosier, who had retired from
business; and who, without any ostentation, had a great deal of real
feeling and generosity. But the fastidious taste of _fine_, or
sentimental readers, will probably be disgusted by our talking of the
feelings and generosity of a hosier and a cheesemonger's widow. It
belongs to a certain class of people to indulge in the luxury of
sentiment: we shall follow our heroine, therefore, who, both from her
birth and education, is properly qualified to have--"exquisite feelings."

The next house at which Angelina stopped, to search for her amiable
Araminta, was at Mrs. Porett's academy for young ladies.

"Yes, ma'am, Miss Hodges is here--Pray walk into this room, and you shall
see the young lady immediately." Angelina burst into the room instantly,
exclaiming--

"Oh, my Araminta! have I found you at last?"

She stopped short, a little confounded at finding herself in a large room
full of young ladies, who were dancing reels, and who all stood still at
one and the same instant, and fixed their eyes upon her, struck with
astonishment at her theatrical entree and exclamation.

"Miss Hodges!" said Mrs. Porett--and a little girl of seven years old
came forward:--"Here, ma'am," said Mrs. Porett to Angelina, "here is Miss
Hodges."

"Not _my_ Miss Hodges! not my Araminta! alas!"

"No, ma'am," said the little girl; "I am only Letty Hodges."

Several of her companions now began to titter.

"These girls," said Angelina to herself, "take me for a fool;" and,
turning to Mrs. Porett, she apologized for the trouble she had given, in
language as little romantic as she could condescend to use.

"Tid you bid me, miss, wait in the coach, or the passage?" cried Betty
Williams, forcing her way in at the door, so as almost to push down
the dancing-master, who stood with his back to it. Betty stared
round, and dropped curtsy after curtsy, whilst the young ladies
laughed and whispered, and whispered and laughed; and the words,
odd--vulgar--strange--who is she?--what is she?--reached Miss Warwick.

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