Tales and Novels, Vol. V by Maria Edgeworth

M >> Maria Edgeworth >> Tales and Novels, Vol. V

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"Well," cried Vivian, impatiently, "but I don't want to hear just now
what Bacon says--but what _you_ think. Tell me all the faults of my
character."

"All!--unconscionable!--after the fatigue of this long day's journey,"
said Russell, laughing.

These two friends were, at this time, travelling from Oxford to Vivian
Hall (in ----shire), the superb seat of the Vivian family, to which
Vivian was heir. Mr. Russell, though he was but a few years older than
Vivian, had been his tutor at college; and by an uncommon transition,
had, from his tutor, become his intimate friend.

After a pause, Vivian resumed, "Now I think of it, Russell, you are to
blame, if I have any faults. Don't you say, that every thing is to be
done by education? And are not you--though by much too young, and
infinitely too handsome, for a philosopher--are not you my guide,
philosopher, and friend?"

"But I have had the honour to be your guide, philosopher, and friend,
only for these three years," said Russell. "I believe in the rational,
but not in the magical, power of education. How could I do, or undo, in
three years, the work of the preceding seventeen?"

"Then, if you won't let me blame you, I must blame my mother."

"Your mother!--I had always understood that she had paid particular
attention to your early education, and all the world says that Lady Mary
Vivian, though a woman of fashion, is remarkably well-informed and
domestic; and, judging from those of her letters which you have shown
me, I should think that, for once, what all the world says is right."

"What all the world says is right, and yet I am not wrong:--my mother
is a very clever woman, and most affectionate, and she certainly paid
particular attention to my early education; but her attention was too
particular, her care was too great. You know I was an only son--then I
lost my father when I was an infant; and a woman, let her be ever so
sensible, cannot well educate an _only_ son, without some manly
assistance; the fonder she is of the son the worse, even if her fondness
is not foolish fondness--it makes her over-anxious--it makes her do too
much. My mother took too much, a great deal too much, care of me; she
over-educated, over-instructed, over-dosed me with premature lessons of
prudence: she was so afraid that I should ever do a foolish thing, or
not say a wise one, that she prompted my every word, and guided my every
action. So I grew up, seeing with her eyes, hearing with her ears, and
judging with her understanding, till, at length, it was found out that I
had not eyes, ears, or understanding of my own. When I was between
twelve and thirteen, my mother began to think that I was not
sufficiently manly for my age, and that there was something too yielding
and undecided in my character. Seized with a panic, my mother, to make a
man of me at once, sent me to ---- school. There I was, with all
convenient expedition, made ashamed of every thing good I had learned at
home; and there I learned every thing bad, and nothing good, that could
be learned at school. I was inferior in Latin and Greek; and this was a
deficiency I could not make up without more labour than I had courage to
undertake. I was superior in general literature, but this was of little
value amongst my competitors, and therefore I despised it; and,
overpowered by numbers and by ridicule, I was, of course, led into all
sorts of folly, by mere _mauvaise honte_. Had I been in the habit of
exercising my own judgment, or had my resolution been strengthened by
degrees; had I, in short, been prepared for a school, I might, perhaps,
have acquired, by a public education, a manly, independent spirit. If I
had even been wholly bred up in a public school, I might have been
forced, as others were, by early and fair competition, to exercise my
own powers, and by my own experience in that microcosm, as it has been
called, I might have formed some rules of conduct, some manliness of
character, and might have made, at least, a good schoolboy. Half
home-bred, and half school-bred, from want of proper preparation, one
half of my education totally destroyed the other. From school, of
course, I went to college, and at college, of course, I should have
become one of the worst species of college lads, and should have had no
chance, in my whole future life, of being any thing but a dissipated
fool of fashion, one of the _Four-in-Hand Club_, or the _Barouche Club_,
or the _Tandem Club_, or the _Defiance Club_, had not I, by the greatest
good fortune, met with such a friend as you, and, by still greater good
fortune, found you out for myself; for if my mother had recommended you
to me, I should have considered you only as a college tutor; I should
never have discovered half your real merit; I doubt whether I should
have even seen that you are young and handsome: so prejudiced should I
have been with the preconceived notion of a college tutor, that I am not
certain whether I should have found out that you are a gentleman as well
born and well bred as myself; but, be that as it may, I am positive that
I never should have made you my companion and friend; I should never
have thrown open my whole soul to you, as I have done; nor could you
ever have obtained such wondrous power as you possess over my mind, if
you had been recommended to me by my mother."

"I am sorry," said Russell, smiling, "that, after so many wise
reflections, and so many fine compliments, you end by proving to me that
my wondrous power is founded on your wondrous weakness. I am mortified
to find that your esteem and friendship for me depended so much upon my
not having had the honour of your mother's recommendation; and have not
I reason to fear, that now, when I have a chance of becoming acquainted
with Lady Mary Vivian, and, perhaps, a chance of her thinking me a fit
companion and friend for her son, I must lose his regard and confidence,
because I shall labour under the insuperable objection of an
affectionate mother's approbation?"

"No, no," said Vivian; "my wilful folly does not go quite so far as
that. So that I maintain the privilege of choosing my friends for
myself, I shall always be pleased and proud to find my mother approve
my choice."

After a few moments' pause, Vivian added, "You misunderstand, quite
misunderstand me, if you think that I am not fond of my mother. I
respect and love her with all my soul:--I should be a most ungrateful
wretch if I did not. I did very wrong to speak as I did just now, of
any little errors she may have made in my education; but, believe me,
I would not have said so much to any one living but yourself, nor to
you, but in strict confidence; and, after all, I don't know whether I
ought not to lay the blame of my faults on my masters more than on my
poor mother."

"Lay the blame where we will," said Russell, "remember, that the
punishment will rest on ourselves. We may, with as much philosophic
justice as possible, throw the blame of our faults on our parents and
preceptors, and on the early mismanagement of our minds; yet, after we
have made out our case in the abstract, to the perfect satisfaction of a
jury of metaphysicians, when we come to _overt_ actions, all our judges,
learned and unlearned, are so awed, by the ancient precedents and
practice of society, and by the obsolete law of common sense, that they
finish by pronouncing against us the barbarous sentence, that every man
must suffer for his own faults."

"'I hope I shall be able to bear it, my lord,' as the English sailor
said when the judge----But look out there! Let down that glass on
your side of the carriage!" cried Vivian, starting forward. "There's
Vivian Hall!"

"That fine old castle?" said Russell, looking out of the window.

"No; but farther off to the left, don't you see amongst the trees that
house with wings?"

"Ha! quite a new, modern house: I had always fancied that Vivian Hall
was an old pile of building."

"So it was, till my father threw down the old hall, and built this
new house."

"And a very handsome one it is.--Is it as good within as without?"

"Quite, I think; but I'll leave you to judge for yourself.--Are not
those fine old trees in the park?"

From this time till the travellers arrived at Vivian Hall, their
conversation turned upon trees, and avenues, and serpentine
_approaches_, and alterations that Vivian intended to make, when he
should be of age, and master of this fine place; and he now wanted but
a twelvemonth of being at legal years of discretion. When they arrived
at the hall, Lady Mary Vivian showed much affectionate joy at the sight
of her son, and received Mr. Russell with such easy politeness that he
was prepossessed at first in her favour. To this charm of well-bred
manners was united the appearance of sincerity and warmth of feeling.
In her conversation there was a mixture of excellent sense and general
literature with the frivolities of the fashionable world, and the
anecdotes of the day in certain high circles, of which she seemed to
talk more from habit than taste, and to annex importance more from the
compulsion of external circumstances than from choice. But her
son,--her son was the great object of all her thoughts, serious or
frivolous. She was delighted by the improvements she saw in his
understanding and character; by the taste and talents he displayed,
both for fine literature and for solid information: this flattered her
hope that he would both shine as a polished gentleman and make a figure
in public life. To his friend Russell she attributed these happy
improvements; and, though he was not a tutor of her own original
selection, yet her pride, on this occasion, yielded to gratitude, and
she graciously declared, that she could not feel jealous of the
pre-eminent power he had obtained over her son, when she saw the
admirable use he made of this influence. Vivian, like all candid and
generous persons, being peculiarly touched by candour and generosity in
others, felt his affection for his mother rapidly increased by this
conduct; nor did his enthusiasm for his friend in the least abate, in
consequence of the high approbation with which she honoured him, nor
even in consequence of her ladyship's frequent and rather injudicious
expressions of her hopes, that her son would always preserve and show
himself worthy of such a friend.

He joined in his mother's entreaties to Russell to prolong his visit;
and as her ladyship declared she thought it of essential consequence to
her son's interest and future happiness, that he should, at this _turn
of his life_, have such a companion, Russell consented to remain with
him some time longer. All parties were thus pleased with each other, and
remained united by one common interest about the same objects, during
several weeks of a delightful summer. But, alas! this family harmony,
and this accord of reason and _will_, between the mother and son, were
not of longer duration. As usual, there were faults on both sides.

Lady Mary Vivian, whose hopes of her son's distinguishing himself by his
abilities had been much exalted since his last return from Oxford, had
indulged herself in pleasing anticipations of the time when he should
make his appearance in the fashionable and in the political world. She
foresaw the respect that would be paid to her, on his account, both by
senators and by matrons; by ministers, who might want to gain a rising
orator's vote, and by mothers, who might wish to make an excellent match
for their daughters: not only by all mothers who had daughters to marry,
but by all daughters who had hearts or hands to dispose of, Lady Mary
felt secure of having her society courted. Now, she had rather
extravagant expectations for her son: she expected him to marry, so as
to secure domestic happiness, and, at the same time, to have fashion,
and beauty, and rank, and high connexions, and every amiable quality in
a wife. This vision of a future daughter-in-law continually occupied her
ladyship's imagination. Already, with maternal _Alnascharism_, she had,
in her reveries, thrown back her head with disdain, as she repulsed the
family advances of some wealthy but low-born heiress, or as she rejected
the alliance of some of the new nobility. Already she had arranged the
very words of her answers to these, and determined the degrees and
shades of her intimacies with those; already had she settled

"To whom to nod, whom take into her coach,
Whom honour with her hand;"

when one morning, as she sat at work, absorbed in one of these reveries,
she was so far "rapt into future times," that, without perceiving that
any body was present, she began to speak her thoughts, and said aloud to
herself, "As if my son could possibly think of her!"

Her son, who was opposite to her, lying on a sofa, reading, or seeming
to read, started up, and putting down his book, exclaimed, in a voice
which showed at once that he was conscious of thinking of some
particular person, and determined to persist in the thought, "As if your
son could possibly think of her!----Of whom, ma'am?"

"What's the matter, child? Are you mad?"

"Not in the least, ma'am; but you said----"

"What!" cried Lady Mary, looking round; "What did I say, that has
occasioned so much disturbance?--I was not conscious of saying any
thing. My dear Selina," continued her ladyship, appealing to a young
lady, who sat very intent upon some drawing beside her, "my dear Selina,
you must have heard; what did I say?"

The young lady looked embarrassed; and the colour which spread over her
face, brought a sudden suspicion into Lady Mary's mind: her eye darted
back upon her son--the suspicion, the fear was confirmed; and she grew
instantly pale, silent, and breathless, in the attitude in which she
was struck with this panic. The young lady's blush and embarrassment
had a very different effect on Vivian; joy suddenly sparkled in his
eyes, and illumined his whole countenance, for this was the first
instant he had ever felt any hope of having obtained an interest in her
heart. He was too much transported at this moment to think either of
prudence or of his mother; and, when he recollected himself, he was too
little practised in dissimulation to repair his indiscretion. Something
he did attempt to say, and blundered, and laughed at his blunder; and
when his mother looked up at him, in serious silence, he only begged
pardon for his folly, confessed he believed he was mad, and, turning
away abruptly, left the room, exclaiming that he wondered where Russell
had been all the morning, and that he must go and look for him. A long
silence ensued between Vivian's mother and the young lady, who were
left alone together. Lady Mary first broke the silence, and, in a
constrained tone, asked, as she took up the newspaper, "Whether Miss
Sidney had found any news?"

"I don't know, ma'am," answered Miss Sidney, in a voice scarcely
articulate.

"I should have imagined there must be some news from the continent: but
you did not find any, I think you say, Miss Sidney;" continued Lady
Mary, with haughty, averted eyes. After turning over the pages of the
paper, without knowing one word it contained, she laid it down, and rose
to leave the room. Miss Sidney rose at the same time.

"Lady Mary, one instant; my dear Lady Mary."

Lady Mary turned, and saw Selina's supplicating eyes full of tears; but
her ladyship, still retaining her severity of manner, coldly said,
"Does Miss Sidney desire that I should stay?--Does Miss Sidney wish to
speak to me?"

"I do--as soon as I can," said Selina in a faltering voice; but, raising
her eyes, and perceiving the contemptuous expression of Lady Mary's
countenance, her own instantly changed. With the firm tone of conscious
innocence, she repeated, "I do wish to speak to your ladyship, if you
will hear me with your usual candour; I do not expect or solicit your
usual indulgence."

"Miss Sidney," replied Lady Mary, "before you say more, it becomes me to
point out to you, that the moment is past for confidence between us two;
and that in no moment could I wish to hear from any person, much less
from one whom I had considered as my friend, confessions, extorted by
circumstances, degrading and unavailing."

"Your ladyship need not be apprehensive of hearing from me any degrading
confessions," said Miss Sidney; "I have none to make: and since, without
any just cause, without any cause for suspicion, but what a blush,
perhaps, or a moment's embarrassment of manner may have created, you
think it becomes you to point out to me that the moment for confidence
between us is past, I can only lament my mistake in having believed that
it ever existed."

Lady Mary's countenance and manner totally changed. The pride of rank
yielded before the pride of virtue; and perhaps the hope that she had
really no cause for suspicion at once restored her affection for her
young friend. "Let us understand one another, my dear Selina," said she;
"if I said a hasty or a harsh word, forgive it. You know my affection
for you, and my real confidence; in actions, not in words, I have shown
it.--In thought, as well as in actions, my confidence in you has been
entire; for, _upon my word,_ and you know this is not an asseveration I
lightly use, _upon my word,_ till that unfortunate moment, a suspicion
of you never crossed my imagination. The proof--if there could need any
proof to you of what I assert--the proof is, the delight I take in your
society, the urgent manner in which I have so frequently, this summer,
begged your company from your mother. You know this would have not only
been the height of insincerity, but of folly and madness, if I had not
felt a reliance upon you that made me consider it as an absolute
impossibility that you could ever disappoint my friendship."

"I thank your ladyship," said Selina, softened by the kind tone in which
Lady Mary now spoke, yet still retaining some reserve of manner; "I
thank your ladyship for all your kindness--it has flattered me
much--touched me deeply--commanded my gratitude, and influenced my
conduct uniformly--I can and do entirely forgive the injustice of a
moment; and I now bid you adieu, my dear Lady Mary, with the conviction
that, if we were never to meet again, I should always hold that place in
your esteem and affection with which you have honoured me, and which, if
it be not too proud an expression, I hope I have deserved----Won't you
bid me farewell?"

The tears gushed from Lady Mary's eyes. "My dear, charming, and prudent
Selina, I understand you perfectly--and I thank you: it grieves me to
part with you--but I believe you are right--I believe there is no other
safety--no other remedy. How, indeed, could I expect that my son could
see and hear you--live in the house with you, and become intimately
acquainted with such a character as yours, without danger! I have been
very imprudent, unaccountably imprudent, to expose him to such a
temptation; but I hope, I trust, that your prudence will repair, in
time, the effects of my rashness--and again and again I thank you, my
dear young friend--but, perhaps it might be still better that you should
not leave us abruptly. Still better than your absence, I think, would be
the conviction you might impress on his mind of the impossibility of his
hopes: if you were to stay a day or two, and convince him by your
indifference that----" "Excuse me, that is what I cannot undertake,"
said Selina, blushing, and conscious of blushing. Lady Mary was too
polite and too delicate to seem to observe her confusion, but, embracing
her, said--"If we must part, then take with you my highest esteem,
affection, and gratitude; and this much let me add, that my most
sanguine expectations for my son's happiness would be realized, if
amongst the women to whom family interests must restrict his choice, he
could meet with one of half your merit, and half your attractions."

"_Amongst the women to whom family interests must restrict his choice_,"
repeated Selina to herself many times, as she journeyed homewards; and
she pondered much upon the meaning of this phrase. Vivian was sole heir
to a very large property, without encumbrances of any kind; what,
therefore, was the necessity that restricted his choice? The imaginary
necessity of ambition, which confined him to a certain circle of
fashionable, or _highly connected_ people. Selina Sidney, though she was
not rich, was of a very good gentleman's family; her father had been a
colonel in the British army: during his life, Mrs. Sidney had been in
the habit of living a great deal in what is called _the world,_ and in
the best company; and though, since his death, she had lived in
retirement, Miss Sidney had received an education which put her upon a
footing with young ladies of the highest accomplishments and refinement
in the kingdom. With every solid and amiable quality, she had all those
external advantages of appearance and manner which Lady Mary Vivian
valued most highly. Selina, who was convinced that Lady Mary appreciated
her character, and was peculiarly fond of her company and conversation,
could not but feel surprise, mixed with some indignation, perhaps with a
little resentment, when she perceived that her ladyship's prejudices and
ambition made her act so completely in contradiction to her better
judgment, to her professions, and to her feelings of affection. Whatever
Miss Sidney thought upon this subject, however, she determined to
continue to avoid seeing Vivian any more--an excellent resolution, in
which we leave her, and return to her lover.

A walk with Russell had brought him back in the full determination of
avowing his attachment sincerely to his mother, and of speaking to her
ladyship in the most respectful manner; but, when he found that Miss
Sidney was gone, anger and disappointment made him at once forget his
prudence, and his intended respect; he declared, in the most passionate
terms, his love for Selina Sidney, and his irrevocable determination to
pursue her, to the end of time and space, in spite of all opposition
whatsoever from any person whatever. His mother, who was prepared for a
scene of this sort, though not for one of this violence, had sufficient
command of temper to sustain it properly; her command of temper was,
indeed, a little assisted by the hope that this passion would be
transitory in proportion to its vehemence, much by the confidence she
had in Miss Sidney's _honour_, and in her absence: Lady Mary, therefore,
calmly disclaimed having had any part in persuading Miss Sidney to that
measure which had so much enraged her lover; but her ladyship avowed,
that though it had not been necessary for her to suggest the measure,
she highly approved of it, and admired now, as she had ever admired,
that young lady's prudent and noble conduct.

Softened by the only thing that could, at this moment, soften
him--praise of his mistress--Vivian, in a most affectionate manner,
assured his mother that it was her warm eulogiums of Miss Sidney which
had first turned his attention to the perfections of her character; and
he now inquired what possible objections she could make to his choice.
With the generous enthusiasm of his disposition, heightened by all the
eloquence of love, he pleaded, that his fortune was surely sufficient to
put him above mercenary considerations in the choice of a wife; that in
every point, except this one of _money_, Selina Sidney was, in his own
mother's opinion, superior to every other woman she could name, or wish
for, as a daughter-in-law.

"But my tastes are not to blind me to your interests," said Lady Mary;
"you are entitled to look for rank and high connexion. You are the
representative of an ancient family, have talents to make a figure in
public; and, in short, prejudice or not, I confess it is one of the
first wishes of my heart that you should marry into a noble family, or
at least into one that shall strengthen your political interest, as well
as secure your domestic happiness."

Vivian, of course, cursed ambition, as all men do whilst they are in
love. His arguments and his eloquence in favour of a _private station_,
and of the joys of _learned leisure, a competence, and domestic bliss_,
were worthy of the most renowned of ancient or modern philosophers.
Russell was appealed to with much eagerness, both by mother and son,
during their debates. He frankly declared to Lady Mary, that he thought
her son perfectly right in all he now urged, and especially in his
opinion of Miss Sidney; "but at the same time," added Russell, "I
apprehend that he speaks, at this moment, more from passion than from
reason; and I fear that, in the course of a few months, he might,
perhaps, entirely change his mind: therefore, I think your ladyship is
prudent in refusing, during the minority of your son, your consent to a
hasty union, of which he might afterwards repent, and thus render both
himself and a most amiable woman miserable."

Russell, after having given his opinion with the utmost freedom, when
it was required by Lady Mary, assured her that he should no farther
interfere; and he trusted his present sincerity would be the best
pledge to her of his future discretion and honour. This equitable
judgment and sincerity of Russell's at first displeased both parties,
but in time operated upon the reason of both; not, however, before
contests had gone on long and loud between the mother and son--not
before a great deal of nonsense had been talked on both sides. People
of the best abilities often talk the most nonsense where their passions
are concerned, because then the whole of their ingenuity is exercised
to find arguments in favour of their folly. They are not, like fools,
content to say, _This is my will_; but they pique themselves on giving
reasons for their will; and their reasons are the reasons of madmen,
excellent upon false premises. It happened here, as in most family
quarrels, that the disputants did not allow sufficiently for the
prejudices and errors incident to their different ages. The mother
would not allow for the romantic notions of the son, nor could the son
endure the worldly views of the mother. The son, who had as yet no
experience of the transitory nature of the passion of love, thought his
mother unfeeling and barbarous, for opposing him on the point where the
whole happiness of his life was concerned; the mother, who had seen the
decline and fall of so many _everlasting loves_, considered him only as
a person in a fever; and thought she prevented him, by her calmness,
from doing that which he would repent when he should regain his sober
senses. Without detailing the daily disputes which now arose, it will
be sufficient to mark the result.

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