Patronage . Maria Edgeworth
fault of avarice, this woman was one of those misers who can be generous by fits and starts, and who have been known to give hundreds of pounds, but never without reluctance would part with a shilling.
She presented the dean, her husband, with an order on her banker for the money he wanted, and Alfred had the pleasure of leaving his unhappy friend better, at least, than he found him. He rejoiced in having compromised this business so successfully, and in thus having prevented the litigation, ill-will, and disgraceful circumstances, which, without his interference, must have ensued.
The gratitude of Mrs. Leicester and her niece was delightful. The aunt urged him to accept what he had been the means of saving, as part of her niece’s fortune; but this he absolutely refused, and satisfied Mrs. Leicester’s delicacy, by explaining, that he could not, if he would, now yield to her entreaties, as he had actually obtained the money from poor Buckhurst’s generous repentance, upon the express faith that he had no private interest in the accommodation.
“You would not,” said Alfred, “bring me under the act against raising money upon false pretences?”
What Alfred lost in money he gained in love. His Sophia’s eyes beamed upon him with delight. The day was fixed for their marriage, and at Alfred’s suggestion, Mrs. Leicester consented, painful as it was, in some respects, to her feelings, that they should be married by the dean in the parish church.
Alfred brought his bride to town, and as soon as they were established in their own house, or rather in that house which Mr. Gresham insisted upon their calling their own, Lady Jane Granville was the first person to offer her congratulations.—Alfred begged his sister Caroline from Lady Jane, as he had already obtained his father’s and mother’s consent. Lady Jane was really fond of Caroline’s company, and had forgiven her, as well as she could; yet her ladyship had no longer a hope of being of use to her, and felt that even if any other offer were to occur—and none such as had been made could ever more be expected—it would lead only to fresh disappointment and altercation; therefore she, with the less reluctance, relinquished Caroline altogether.
Caroline’s new sister had been, from the time they were first acquainted, her friend, and she rejoiced in seeing all her hopes for her brother’s happiness accomplished by this marriage. His Sophia had those habits of independent occupation which are essential to the wife of a professional man, and which enable her to spend cheerfully many hours alone, or at least without the company of her husband. On his return home every evening, he was sure to find a smiling wife, a sympathizing friend, a cheerful fireside.—She had musical talents—her husband was fond of music; and she did not lay aside the accomplishments which had charmed the lover, but made use of them to please him whom she had chosen as her companion for life. Her voice, her harp, her utmost skill, were ready at any moment, and she found far more delight in devoting her talents to him than she had ever felt in exhibiting them to admiring auditors. This was the domestic use of accomplishments to which Caroline had always been accustomed; so that joining in her new sister’s occupations and endeavours to make Alfred’s evenings pass pleasantly, she felt at once as much at home as if she had been in the country; for the mind is its own place, and domestic happiness may be naturalized in a capital city.
At her brother’s house, Caroline had an opportunity of seeing a society that was new to her, that of the professional men of the first eminence both in law and medicine, the men of science and of literature, with whom Alfred and Erasmus had been for years assiduously cultivating acquaintance. They were now happy to meet at Alfred’s house, for they liked and esteemed him, and they found his wife and sister sensible, well-informed women, to whom their conversation was of real amusement and instruction; and who, in return, knew how to enliven their leisure hours by female sprightliness and elegance. Caroline now saw the literary and scientific world to the best advantage: not the amateurs, or the mere show people, but those who, really excelling and feeling their own superiority, had too much pride and too little time to waste upon idle flattery, or what to them were stupid, uninteresting parties. Those who refused to go to Lady Spilsbury’s, or to Lady Angelica Headingham’s, or who were seen there, perhaps, once or twice in a season as a great favour and honour, would call three or four evenings every week at Alfred’s.
The first news, the first hints of discoveries, inventions, and literary projects, she heard from time to time discussed. Those men of talent, whom she had heard were to be seen at conversaziones, or of whom she had had a glimpse in fine society, now appeared in a new point of view, and to the best advantage; without those pretensions and rivalships with which they sometimes are afflicted in public, or those affectations and singularities, which they often are supposed to assume, to obtain notoriety among persons inferior to them in intellect and superior in fashion. Instead of playing, as they sometimes did, a false game to amuse the multitude, they were obliged now to exert their real skill, and play fair with one another.
Sir James Harrington tells us, that in his days the courtiers who played at divers games in public, had a way of exciting the admiration and amazement of the commoner sort of spectators, by producing heaps of golden counters, and seeming to stake immense sums, when all the time they had previously agreed among one another, that each guinea should stand for a shilling, or each hundred guineas for one: so that in fact two modes of calculation were used for the initiated and uninitiated; and this exoteric practice goes on continually to this hour, among literary performers in the intellectual, as well as among courtiers in the fashionable world.
Besides the pleasure of studying celebrated characters, and persons of eminent merit, at their ease and at her own, Caroline had now opportunities of seeing most of those objects of rational curiosity, which with Lady Jane Granville had been prohibited as mauvais ton. With men of sense she found it was not mauvais ton to use her eyes for the purposes of instruction or entertainment.
With Mrs. Alfred Percy she saw every thing in the best manner; in the company of well-informed guides, who were able to point out what was essential to be observed; ready to explain and to illustrate; to procure for them all those privileges and advantages as spectators, which common gazers are denied, but which liberal and enlightened men are ever not only ready to allow, but eager to procure for intelligent, unassuming females.
Among the gentlemen of learning, talents, and eminence in Alfred’s own profession, whom Caroline had the honour of seeing at her brother’s, were Mr. Friend, the friend of his early years at the bar; and that great luminary, who in a higher orbit had cheered and guided him in his ascent. The chief justice was in a station, and of an age, where praise can be conferred without impropriety, and without hurting the feelings of delicacy or pride. He knew how to praise—a difficult art, but he excelled in it. As Caroline once, in speaking of him, said, “Common compliments compared to praise from him, are as common coin compared to a medal struck and appropriated for the occasion.”
About this time Mr. Temple came to tell Alfred, that a ship had been actually ordered to be in readiness to carry him on his intended embassy; that Mr. Shaw had recovered; that Cunningham Falconer had no more excuses or pretences for delay; despatches, the last Lord Oldborough said he should ever receive from him as envoy, had now arrived, and Temple was to have set out immediately; but that the whole embassy had been delayed, because Lord Oldborough had received a letter from Count Altenberg, giving an account of alarming revolutionary symptoms, which had appeared in the capital, and in the provinces, in the dominions of his sovereign, Lord Oldborough had shown Mr. Temple what related to public affairs, but had not put the whole letter into his hands. All that he could judge from what he read was, that the Count’s mind was most seriously occupied with the dangerous state of public affairs in his country. “I should have thought,” added Mr. Temple, “that the whole of this communication was entirely of a political nature, but that in the last page which Lord Oldborough put into my hand, the catch-words at the bottom were Countess Christina.”
Alfred observed, “that, without the aid of Rosamond’s imagination to supply something more, nothing could be made of this. However, it was a satisfaction to have had direct news of Count Altenberg.”
The next day Mr. Temple came for Alfred. Lord Oldborough desired to see him.
“Whatever his business may be, I am sure it is important and interesting,”