Patronage . Maria Edgeworth
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Forced to be serious, fretted and hurried, for the half-hour bell before dinner had now rung, and the dean’s stomach began to know canonical hours, he exclaimed, “The upshot of the whole business is, that Mr. Alfred Percy is in love, I understand, with Miss Sophia Leicester, and this fifteen hundred pounds, which he pushes me to the bare wall to relinquish, is eventually, as part of her fortune, to become his. Would it not have been as fair to have stated this at once?”
“No—because it would not have been the truth.”
“No!—You won’t deny that you are in love with Miss Leicester?”
“I am as much in love as man can be with Miss Leicester; but her fortune is nothing to me, for I shall never touch it.”
“Never touch it! Does the aunt—the widow—the cunning widow, refuse consent?”
“Far from it: the aunt is all the aunt of Miss Leicester should be—all the widow of Dr. Leicester ought to be. But her circumstances are not what they ought to be; and by the liberality of a friend, who lends me a house, rent free, and by the resources of my profession, I am better able than Mrs. Leicester is to spare fifteen hundred pounds: therefore, in the recovery of this money I have no personal interest at present. I shall never receive it from her.”
“Noble! Noble!—just what I could have done myself—once! What a contrast!”
Buckhurst laid his head down upon his arms flat on the table, and remained for some moments silent—then, starting upright, “I’ll never claim a penny from her—I’ll give it all up to you! I will, if I sell my band for it, by Jove!”
“Oh! what has your father to answer for, who forced you into the church!” thought Alfred.
“My dear Buckhurst,” said he, “my dear dean—”
“Call me Buckhurst, if you love me.”
“I do love you, it is impossible to help it, in spite of—”
“All my faults—say it out—say it out—in spite of your conscience,” added Buckhurst, trying to laugh.
“Not in spite of my conscience, but in favour of yours,” said Alfred, “against whose better dictates you have been compelled all your life to act.”
“I have so, but that’s over. What remains to be done at present? I am in real distress for five hundred pounds. Apropos to your being engaged in this dilapidation suit, you can speak to Mrs. Falconer about it. Tell her I have given up the thing; and see what she will do.”
Alfred promised he would speak to Mrs. Falconer. “And, Alfred, when you see your sister Caroline, tell her that I am not in one sense such a wretch—quite, as she thinks me. But tell her that I am yet a greater wretch—infinitely more miserable than she, I hope, can conceive—beyond redemption—beyond endurance miserable.” He turned away hastily in an agony of mind. Alfred shut the door and escaped, scarcely able to bear his own emotion.
When they met at dinner, Mrs. Dean Falconer was an altered person—her unseemly morning costume and well-worn shawl being cast aside, she appeared in bloom-coloured gossamer gauze, and primrose ribbons, a would-be young lady. Nothing of that curmudgeon look, or old fairy cast of face and figure, to which he had that morning been introduced, but in their place smiles, and all the false brilliancy which rouge can give to the eyes, proclaimed a determination to be charming.
The dean was silent, and scarcely ate any thing, though the dinner was excellent, for his lady was skilled in the culinary department, and in favour of Alfred had made a more hospitable display than she usually condescended to make for her husband’s friends. There were no other guests, except a young lady, companion to Mrs. Falconer. Alfred was as agreeable and entertaining as circumstances permitted; and Mrs. Buckhurst Falconer, as soon as she got out of the dining-room, even before she reached the drawing-room, pronounced him to be a most polite and accomplished young man, very different indeed from the common run, or the usual style, of Mr. Dean Falconer’s dashing bachelor beaux, who in her opinion were little better than brute bears.
At coffee, when the gentlemen joined the ladies in the drawing-room, as Alfred was standing beside Mrs. Falconer, meditating how and when to speak of the object of his visit, she cleared the ground by choosing the topic of conversation, which, at last fairly drove her husband out of the room. She judiciously, maliciously, or accidentally, began to talk of the proposal which she had heard a near relation of hers had not long since made to a near relation of Mr. Alfred Percy’s—Mr. Clay, of Clay-hall, her nephew, had proposed for Mr. Alfred’s sister, Miss Caroline Percy. She was really sorry the match was not to take place, for she had heard a very high character of the young lady in every way, and her nephew was rich enough to do without fortune—not but what that would be very acceptable to all men—especially young men, who are now mostly all for money instead of all for love—except in the case of very first rate extraordinary beauty, which therefore making a woman a prey, just as much one as the other, might be deemed a misfortune as great, though hardly quite, Mrs. Buckhurst said, as she had found a great fortune in her own particular case. The involution of meaning in these sentences rendering it not easy to be comprehended, the dean stood it pretty well, only stirring his coffee, and observing that it was cold; but when his lady went on to a string of interrogatories about Miss Caroline Percy—on the colour of her eyes and hair—size of her mouth and nose—requiring in short a complete full-length portrait of the young lady, poor Buckhurst set down his cup, and pleading business in his study, left the field open to Alfred.
“Near-sighted glasses! Do you never use them, Mr. Percy?” said Mrs. Dean Falconer, as she thought Alfred’s eyes fixed upon her spectacles, which lay on the table.
No—he never used them, he thanked her: he was rather far-sighted than short-sighted. She internally commended his politeness in not taking them up to verify her assertion, and put them into her pocket to avoid all future danger.
He saw it was a favourable moment, and entered at once into his business—beginning by observing that the dean was much out of spirits. The moment money was touched upon, the curmudgeon look returned upon the lady; and for some time Alfred had great difficulty in making himself heard: she poured forth such complaints against the extravagance of the dean, with lists of the debts she had paid, the sums she had given, and the vow she had made, never to go beyond the weekly allowance she had, at the last settlement, agreed to give her husband.
Alfred pleaded strongly the expense of law, and the certainty, in his opinion, of ultimate defeat, with the being obliged to pay all the costs, which would fall upon the dean. The dean was willing to withdraw his claim—he had promised to do so, in the most handsome manner; and therefore, Alfred said, he felt particularly anxious that he should not be distressed for five hundred pounds, a sum for which he knew Mr. Falconer was immediately pressed. He appealed to Mrs. Falconer’s generosity. He had been desired by the dean to speak to her on the subject, otherwise he should not have presumed—and it was as a professional man, and a near relation, that he now took the liberty: this was the first transaction he had ever had with her, and he hoped he should leave the vicarage impressed with a sense of her generosity, and enabled to do her justice in the opinion of those who did not know her.
That was very little to her, she bluntly said—she acted only up to her own notions—she lived only for herself.
“And for her husband.” Love, Alfred Percy said, he was assured, was superior to money in her opinion. “And after all, my dear madam, you set me the example of frankness, and permit me to speak to you without reserve. What can you, who have no reason, you say, to be pleased with either of your nephews, do better with your money, than spend it while you live and for yourself, in securing happiness in the gratitude and affection of a husband, who, generous himself, will be peculiarly touched and attached by generosity?”
The words, love, generosity, generous, sounded upon the lady’s ear, and she was unwilling to lose that high opinion which she imagined Alfred entertained of her sentiments and character. Besides, she was conscious that he was in fact nearer the truth than all the world would have believed. Avaricious in trifles, and parsimonious