Illustrations of political economy, Volume 4 (of 9)

Chapter I.

NOVELTY.

The season was more than half over, and was about to be pronounced remarkably dull, when a promise of novelty was given out in the shape of a rumour that lord F—— and his lady, who had been travelling abroad from the day of their marriage, had arrived in town, and that the bride’s first appearance would take place at the Duke of A——’s ball on the 20th. This information was circulated in various forms of words, all bearing a relation to what lady F—— had been before she was lady F——. At the clubs, in the shops, in drawing-rooms and boudoirs, it was related that lady F——’s debut would take place on the 20th. Her first appearance on a new stage,—her return from a tour in the provinces,—her first night in a new character, all were referred to the 20th, in a manner which should prevent any one forgetting that lady F—— had quitted a profession on her marriage. The curiosity was not confined to mothers and daughters, to whose observation an extraordinary marriage is the most exciting circumstance that life affords: in this case, the interest was shared by their husbands and fathers. Some wondered how the proud old earl would stand the introduction of his daughter-in-law into his own society; and others, who had told lord F—— that he was a lucky fellow to have won such a glorious creature, speculated, notwithstanding, on the awkwardnesses and difficulties which must hourly arise from the choice of one so far below him in rank. He was an odd personage, however,—lord F——; and there was no telling how he would think and feel on occasions when everybody else felt alike. On the whole, greater sympathy was expressed for his sister, lady Frances, who was more likely to be mortified,—who certainly was more mortified at the connexion than the rest of her family. Her father was understood to have insisted on her making the best of the affair, since it could not be helped; but, whatever her outward demeanour might appear, it would be too hard upon her to suppose that she could do more than barely keep on terms with a sister-in-law who had been on the stage. A solitary voice here and there reminded the speculators how it was that lady F—— had adopted a profession, and asked whether the connexion would have been thought very preposterous if she had been known only as the highly educated daughter of an eminent merchant; or whether the marvellousness of the case rested on her father’s misfortunes, and her choice of a way of life when he was no longer living to support and protect her: but these questions met with no other answer than that such a marriage was so very strange an one that the speculators longed to see how all the parties carried it off; though, to be sure, such beauty as lady F——’s went a great way towards making the thing easy;—almost as far as her husband’s carelessness of the opinion of the world.—Meanwhile, who had seen her riding in the park? Was she more or less beautiful than on the stage? Was lady Frances with her? Who had called, and who had not? How was it to be the fashion to treat her? And so forth.

How much did all this signify to lord and lady F——, to the earl, and to lady Frances? The bride fancied little, and feared nothing. She had been conversant with many ranks of society, and had found them all composed of men and women; and she never doubted that in that with which she was about to become acquainted, she should also have to deal with men and women. Her husband guessed what speculations were going on, and did not care for them. The earl also knew, and did care, as did lady Frances; but they disposed differently of their anxieties; the earl repressing them in order to the best disposition of circumstances which he could not prevent; his daughter allowing them to fill her mind, appear in her manners, and form a part of her conversation with her intimate friends.

Lady F—— and her husband dined alone on the day of the Duke of A——’s ball. As the bride entered her dressing-room, she met her lady’s-maid fidgeting about near the door.

“O, dear, my lady,” said Philips, “I am glad you are come. I was just going to take the liberty of venturing to send Thérèse, to remind your ladyship how very late it is growing. It would scarcely be justice, either to myself or your ladyship, to cramp us for time in our first toilet; and I was not able so much as to lay out your dress; for Thérèse was so idle, I find, as not to have ascertained what your ladyship intends to wear.”

“I have been so idle as not to have made up my own mind yet, Philips. There is abundance of time, however, if you are no longer dressing my hair than Thérèse and I shall be about the rest.”

Philips immediately looked very solemn; and though the toilet lamps were duly lighted, and all was ready for her operations, she stood with her arms by her side, in the attitude of waiting.

“Well, Philips, I am ready.”

“Will you please, my lady, to send Thérèse and her work elsewhere? It cannot be expected that I should exhibit my ways so as a mere novice may supplant me any day, my lady.”

“This is Thérèse’s proper place, and here she shall stay,” replied the lady. “However, she shall read to us; and then, you know, she cannot be a spy upon your doings.”

Thérèse read accordingly till the hair was dressed. At the first pause, Philips observed that she must brush up her French, her fluency in which she had lost from having missed the advantage of visiting Paris last year.

“Thérèse will be obliged to any one who will talk with her in her own tongue, Philips. Suppose, instead of having fancies about supplanting one another, you make the best use you can of each other, since you must be a good deal together.”

“I will do my best, I am sure, my lady, to instruct the girl in all that relates to her own sphere, without encroaching on mine. I will do my best to reform her dress, which really bespeaks her to be a green-grocer’s daughter, if I may venture to say so. But as to dressing hair,—allow me to appeal to lady Frances whether it can be expected that I should disseminate my principles out of my own sphere.”

“See who knocks, Thérèse.”

The earl and lady Frances were below, and lady Frances would be particularly glad to speak to Mrs. Philips, if not engaged with my lady. Mrs. Philips, at her lady’s desire, went to receive her late mistress’s commands, and Thérèse enacted the lady’s-maid, as she had done from the time she had left Paris in lady F——’s train.

“Come, Thérèse, let us have done before anybody arrives to criticise us novices. How nervous you look, child! What is the difference between dressing me to-day and any other day?”

“There is no toilet in travelling, madame,—no fêtes like this; and in the inns there was so much less grandeur than here. I have not been educated to serve you, like Mrs. Philips, or to live in a great house.—I am more fit to sew for you, madame, or read to you, than to help you instead of Mrs. Philips.”

“I do not want two Mrs. Philipses, you know; and as for the grandeur you speak of,—if we do not find it comfortable, we will have done with it. What have we too much of,—of light, or of warmth, or of drawers and dressing boxes, or of books? You like old china, and I like old pictures, and here are both. Which of all these things do you wish away?”

“O, none of them, I dare say, when I grow used to them: but they are so little like my father’s house! I felt the inns very grand at first, but they are bare and tarnished, compared with what we have here.”

“Yes. You would have been glad of such a rug as this under your feet in those cold rooms at Amiens; and I should have liked such a mirror as this instead of one so cracked, that one half of my face looked as if it could not possibly fit the other. I see much to like and nothing to be afraid of in rugs and mirrors.”

“You, madame, no! You are made to have the best of everything come to you of its own accord; and you know how to use everything. You....”

“And yet, Thérèse, I was once as poor as you, and poorer. If I know how to use things, and if, as you say, they come to me of the best, it is because I think first what they were made for, and not what they are taken as signs of. If, instead of enjoying the luxuries of my house, I were to look upon them as showing that I am lady F——, I should be apt to try to behave as people think lady F—— should behave; and then I should be awkward. Now, if you consider all the pretty things you have to use, not as pointing you out as lady F——’s lady’s-maid, but as intended to make me and my little friend comfortable, you will not be distressed about being unlike Philips: you will know that I had rather see you the same Thérèse that I always knew you.”

“O, madame, this is being very good. But then, I cannot feel as you do, because there is more occasion for me to think about the change. There is my lord to take off your thoughts from such things; he is with you in every new place, and you see how accustomed he is to everything that is strange to you.”

“That does make some difference certainly,” said the lady, smiling, “but then you should consider how many more new places and people I have to make acquaintance with than you. Except Philips, or two or three of the servants below, you have nobody to be afraid of, and I am never long away. You will feel yourself at ease in one room after another, and with one person after another, till you will learn to do all your business, and speak all your thoughts, as simply and confidently as you once watered the salads in your father’s shop, and made your confession to good old father Bénoit.”

Thérèse sighed deeply, as she finished her task and withdrew to the fireside, as if no longer to detain her lady about her own affairs.

“I have not forgotten, Thérèse, about finding a confessor for you. I am only cautious lest we should not observe exactly your father’s directions.”

“Madame—they are so very particular!—that the priest should be a devout man, and very old and experienced in the confession of girls like me.”

“I know; and we thought we had found such an one; but he has forgotten almost all his French, and you could hardly confess in English. But make yourself easy; your conscience shall soon be relieved.—Good night. Philips will sit up.... More work, do you want?—You may give Philips a French lesson. O, you have read all these books. Well: come with me into the library, and I will find you more.”

On the stairs they met lord F——.

“Where are you going, Letitia? Frances is closeted with Philips in the library.”

Thérèse immediately stole back to the dressing-room; but before the carriages drove off, she was furnished with a fresh volume wherewith to be occupied when she should have made tea for Mrs. Philips and herself.

The earl had dreaded lest he should find Letitia nervous at the prospect of the formidable evening she was about to pass. His visit was meant to reassure her, and she understood the kindness of the intention, and showed that she did. When lady Frances came in from her conference with Philips, she found them side by side on the sofa,—Letitia quiet and self-possessed, and the earl regarding her with as much admiration as kindness.

“I am sure you may be obliged to me for giving up Philips to you,” said lady Frances to Letitia. “She has dressed you beautifully to-night. Is not she a treasure?”

“A great treasure to you, Frances,” said her brother, “so pray take her back again. Letitia has one treasure of a maid in her dressing-room already, and it is a pity she should rob you of yours.”

“Indeed it is,” said lady F——. “Philips’s accomplishments are thrown away upon me, I am afraid. If you will allow her to give my little French girl a few lessons, I shall be just as much obliged to you, and shall not deprive you of your servant.”

Lady Frances protested; but her brother was peremptory, to her utter astonishment, for she had never known him speak of lady’s maids before, and would not have believed that he could ever learn one from another. She did not perceive that he did not choose that his wife’s beauty should be attributed to the art of her toilet.

Not the slightest trace of trepidation was observable in the bride when she alighted from her carriage, when her name was shouted up the staircase, or when all who were within hearing turned to gaze as she entered the crowded saloon, leaning on the arm of the earl. There was something much more like girlish glee than fear in her countenance; for, the truth was, Letitia had a taste for luxury, as all simple-minded persons would have, if their simplicity extended as far as a disregard of the factitious associations by which luxury is converted into an incumbrance. Having been early accustomed to so much of it as to excite the taste, then deprived of it, then baulked and tantalized with the coarse and tinsel imitation of it which had met her during her short professional course, it was with lively pleasure that she now greeted the reality. The whole apparatus of festivity inspired her with instantaneous joy:—the bowers of orange and rose trees, light, warmth and music together, the buzz of voices, and above all the chalked floor,—all these set her spirits dancing. A single glance towards her husband told him enough to have placed him perfectly at ease respecting the affairs of the evening, even if he had been a man who could be otherwise than at his ease. He knew perfectly well that it was impossible for any one of good sense and taste not to admire and respect Letitia, and he cared little under what pretence others might depreciate her accomplishments.

“Lady F—— is the star of the night, as every one is observing,” said an old friend of the earl’s, who was absorbed in watching the dancers, among whom was Letitia. “The brightest star, we all agree, and shining as if in her native sphere.”

“This is her native sphere,” replied the earl. “She is in her own sphere wherever there is grace, wherever there is enjoyment.”

“True: so young, so simple as she appears! She seems perfectly unspoiled.”

“Perfectly. She has gone through too much to be easily spoiled. Change,—anything more than modification—is impossible in her case, do with her what you will. You are an old friend, and I have no objection to let you see that I am proud of Letitia.”

“I am truly glad.... I felt uncertain.... I did not know....”

“Nor I till to-night,” said the earl, smiling. “But I find I have no more wish than right to question my son’s choice.”

“But you must expect the world to criticise it.”

“Certainly. If my son acts so as to imply contempt of conventional marriages, there will be contempt cast on his marriage of love. If both parties carry off their contempt inoffensively, both are welcome to their opinions.”

“Well! there are many here whose parents have had occasion to use your philosophy, or some other to answer the same purpose.”

“Lady F—— is the star of the night,” observed lady Frances’s partner, gazing at Letitia through his glass. “Peerless indeed!”

Lady Frances made no answer, which emboldened the gentleman to proceed.

“The star of the night, as she has often been called, and never more justly. Never, in the proudest moment of her glory, was she more lovely.”

Still lady Frances was silent.

“Perhaps your ladyship feels this to be the night of her glory; and, indeed, it is a triumph to have risen, through her own radiance, into a higher sphere.”

“I question whether she feels it so,” replied lady Frances. “Letitia is very proud, and her pride takes rather an odd turn. She would tell you that she considers it a condescension to come among us, who are only born to our station.”

“Surprising! And what inspired her condescension?”

“O, love, of course; pure love. Nothing else could have prevailed with her to submit to marriage. You should hear her talk of the condition of wives,—how she pitied all till she became one herself. You cannot conceive what poor slaves she thinks them.”

“And what says lord F——?”

“He is fired by her eloquence. You have no idea how eloquent she is. She pours it out as if....”

“It was in her heart, as well as by heart. How will she keep it up, now she has no practice?”

“They will have private theatricals down at Weston, I have no doubt.”

“I beseech your ladyship’s interest to get me invited. It will be such a new thing to see lord F—— on the stage. Of course he will play the heroes to his wife’s heroines. Whatever may have been hitherto, he will scarcely like, I should think ... he is scarcely the man.... Faith! if she is proud and high-spirited, as you say, she has met her match.”

Lady Frances smiled; and as she was led away to supper, assured her partner that nothing could be pleasanter than the terms they were all on with lady F——; for she was, after all, a noble creature; which information was received with a deferential bow.

In every group of talkers, lady F——’s merits were canvassed. Some ladies would give any thing in the world for her courage, till reminded by their mammas that she had been trained to self-confidence, when they suddenly became contented with their own timidity. Others would have supposed her not out of her teens, by the girlish enjoyment she seemed to feel; but these were reminded that this kind of scene was as new to her as if she had not been seen and heard of in public for nearly four years. Everybody agreed that she was beautiful, and very amiable, and astonishingly simple, and conducting herself with wonderful propriety: and everybody admired the good-natured earl’s manner towards her, and wondered whether it was lady Frances’s own choice to come with her, and conjectured what lord F——’s happiness must be to witness his bride’s flattering welcome to the rank he had given her.

Lord F——’s happiness, though as great as these kind friends could wish, was not altogether of the character they supposed.

“You have enjoyed yourself, Letitia,” he observed, as they were going home in the grey of the morning, and when she made the first pause in her remarks to let down the glass, as a market cart, laden with early vegetables and flowers, passed for a few moments alongside the carriage.

“How sweet!—O how sweet those violets are!” she exclaimed, as a whiff of fragrance was blown in. “Enjoyed myself! Yes,—it is a new page,—quite a new page of human history to me.”

“Your passion is for turning over such pages. What next?”

“If I had a market-woman’s cloak and bonnet, I should like to step into that cart and go to Covent-Garden, to see the people dressing it up against sunrise. I should like, some morning, to go into the city when the sun is just touching the steeples, and see life waken up in the streets.”

“I wonder you did not stand in the door-way to-night,” said her husband, smiling, “to see the contrast between speculating life on the pavement and polished life in the saloon.”

“I saw enough, without standing in the door-way,” replied Letitia, gravely. “It was more different than I had supposed from something of the same kind that I had seen often enough before. I had seen the great and the humble throng about our theatre doors; but then there was room for each, though far apart. All went to share a common entertainment,—to be happy at the same time, though not side by side. Here there were peers within and paupers without; careless luxury above, and withering hardship below. This is too deep a page for my reading, Henry; and not the easier for my having been in both conditions myself.”

“Why wish then for more experience, till you have settled this matter?”

“Because we cannot tell, till we have tried, what we may find in any matter to throw light upon any other matter.”

“Suppose you should find all wrapped in darkness at last, as Faust did when he had gratified his passion for experience.”

“Impossible,—having Faust before me for a warning. He kindled his altar fire from below when the sun was high, and he let somebody put it out when both sun and moon were gone down. Where was the use of his burning-glass then? How should he be otherwise than dark?”

“True; but how would you manage better?”

“I would never quit stability for a moment. Faust found out that the world rolled round continually. He jumped to the conclusion that there was no such thing in nature as a firm footing, and so cast himself off into perdition. If he had taken his walks in God’s broad sunshine, he would have found that the ground did not give way under him, nor ever would, till he was etherealized enough to stand on air.”

“So instead of speculating on the incompatibilities of human happinesses, and concluding that there is no such thing as a common welfare, you would make trial of all conditions, and deduce the summum bonum from your experience.”

“Yes; that is the way; and if you would help me, the thing would be done twice as well. If we were each to go a pilgrimage through the ranks of society, (for we would settle the affairs of the moral world before we began upon the natural,)....”

“Very reasonably, certainly,” replied her husband, smiling, “since it is easier to get into palaces and hovels, than into thunder-clouds and sea-caves.”

“Well;—if you began at the top and I at the bottom, if we were to meet in the middle, I do think we might see how all might dance amidst fragrance and music, and none lean starving on the frosty area-rails. You should be king, minister, peer, and so on, down to a tradesman; and I would be a friendless Italian boy with his white mouse, and a pauper, and a cotton-spinner, and a house-servant, and so upwards, till I met you at the tradesman’s we spoke of.”

“My dear, why do you put yourself at the bottom instead of me?”

“Because you would be longer in learning what to make of poverty than I. I know a good deal about it already, you are aware.”

“Since we cannot rove up and down as we will through the mazes of society, Letitia, we will do what we can by varying our occupations. Variety of research may partly stand in the stead of migration from rank to rank.—You spoke at random, just now, of my being minister. What would you say if I were to become a servant of the crown;—that is, in other words, a servant of the people?”

“That I would serve you,—O how humbly, how devotedly!—as the servant of the people,” cried Letitia, colouring high. “You know....”

“I know that in marrying me you dreaded, above all things, falling into the routine of aristocratic idleness. I know that you felt it a sacrifice to surrender your public service and influence; and this is one reason among many, Letitia, why I should like to accept office;—that you might espouse another kind of public service in espousing me. But here we are at home. I shall be able to tell you more after dinner to-morrow than I know at present of this matter.”

Letitia’s experience of this day was not yet over. She found it very painful to be undressed by a yawning, winking lady’s-maid; and she resolved that her engagements should never more deprive Mrs. Philips of her natural rest, however lady Frances might teach Mrs. Philips herself to laugh at the absurdity of a lady of rank troubling herself to lay aside her own trappings.

Lady F——’s “experience” might have been of a very different kind from that which now lay in her way, if her regard to “stability” had been less. When very young,—at the period of her father’s misfortunes and death,—she had been strongly tempted to marry Mr. Waldie, a merchant, who was thought by the few friends of the destitute girl to have done her great honour by offering her his hand at such a crisis, and to have proved the disinterestedness of his attachment in a way which should have ensured it a better return. Letitia refused him, however; giving to her protectors the very sufficient reason that she did not love Mr. Waldie; and keeping to herself the further justification that she had no confidence in the steadiness of his principles and conduct. His impulses were generous, but fitful; and there was an excitement about him which had never yet been absorbed by any pursuit, or allayed by any possession. This might take any turn as he grew older,—either benevolent or selfish. It might be philanthropy,—but it might also be wine, billiards, roving, or many other things which would involve the slavery of his wife;—and Letitia, unblinded by passion, was able to perceive that there is little enough of rational freedom at the best in the condition of a wife, and that a woman’s only hope of that which the marriage law at present denies her rests in the steady principle as well as the enlightened views of her husband. Her friends soon after exclaimed against Mr. Waldie’s fickleness in a case which did not, in her opinion, testify fickleness of affection so much as rashness of conduct. He offered (as soon as he found his cause hopeless with Letitia) to her elder sister; and Maria, being really, and having been long, attached to him, married him, not unwarned by her sister of the tendency of his failings. The tenderest affection henceforth subsisted between the sisters. Maria was full of gratitude to Letitia for having refused Mr. Waldie; and Letitia was full of respectful compassion for Maria when she witnessed her devotion to her husband, and could not stifle the conviction that that husband’s first affection had not died out the more rapidly for being too suddenly repressed. Maria was satisfied that she had as much of Mr. Waldie’s affection as he would ever have to bestow on one permanent object; and that she was much happier than she could ever have been without him; so that she called herself, and all who spoke on the matter called her, a very fortunate wife.

Mr. Waldie had begun life as a rich man. His business was almost as considerable as any in the city; his abode on the Surrey side of London was elegant, and beautifully situated, and he kept two carriages. The wonder had been, during all the four years of Letitia’s professional career, why so rich a brother-in-law should have allowed her to live by any such means. Mr. Waldie incessantly and truly pleaded that he could not help it; and much was said of her unconquerable love of the fine arts, and of the eccentricities into which her passion for independence led her. The sisters knew of very good reasons besides these why Letitia should not submit to live on the bounty of a brother-in-law, even if he were as generous as Mr. Waldie; and when the matter ended in Letitia becoming lady F——, her eccentricities met with all due respect.

Lady Frances never could conceive why Letitia called her present life an idle one, and seemed to think entertaining her sister’s children the most serious business she had. Lady Frances thought no life so busy as that of persons of rank during the season. For her part, she saw tradespeople loiter about much more than she had time to do. Did not the baker’s man stop for a few minutes’ talk with the kitchen-girl in the area? Were not fishmongers seen leaning with folded arms against their stalls? Did not shopmen read newspapers behind the counter, and merchants’ clerks stop in the Strand to look at caricatures? All this while, ladies of her rank never could get through all the shopping they planned for a morning, unless they gave up one or two of the exhibitions; and nobody ever went down Regent-street in such a hurry as lord B. or the duke of C.; unless it was the newsman or letter-carrier. She, for one, had been intending for weeks to call on poor old lady Y., and had never found time; while Letitia, who had such superior tastes too, complained (if you asked her) that she had not enough to do. With her books, and her harp, and her singing,—she was very careful to keep up her singing,—with all these in addition to her “social duties,” so engrossing during the season, one would have thought she had had enough on her hands; but she had asked her husband to read German with her; and they actually sat down, like school children, with a dictionary between them, every morning before his lordship went out. Moreover, she was polishing up her little French girl,—perhaps for a governess for her sister’s children. Very sweet children those were; and it was natural that Letitia should love them, as being her sister’s; but it seemed really to be giving up too much to them to refuse a sweet spring ride to Hampton Court, because she had promised to take the little things into the park with her, that particular day. The worst of it was, Letitia was infecting her husband with this notion of not having enough to do. He....

“You will hear no more of that,” quietly observed the earl. “Henry will have quite enough on his hands henceforward. He has accepted office.”

“Poor Letitia!” exclaimed lady Frances, laughing. “She will have more time hanging heavy than ever, unless, indeed, Henry makes her his private secretary.”

“He might do worse,” observed the earl. “And, proud as you think Henry, he will not disdain to let his wife cast many lights into the affairs he is taking in hand. If he knows most of the theory and practice of trade, she has had the most to do with individual and social character.”

“Of course, sir, as she had to make human nature a professional study. When Henry has to do with bonds and liabilities, she can enact Portia; when he studies insurance, she will find something à propos in the Tempest; and she must have many a fine smuggling scene at her tongue’s end.”

“True. It is a happy thing for a man of business, as Henry will find, to have an accomplished wife to lighten and recompense his toil.”

This was one of the many thoughts in lord F——’s mind when he sought Letitia to tell her that the negociation was concluded, and that he was to take office immediately. He found her and Thérèse in the music-room, busy with the three little Waldies. The youngest was sitting on the table, clutching aunt Letitia’s curls, while she was explaining to the eldest what Bewick’s old man was doing in the churchyard. The second kneeled on Thérèse’s lap, babbling French, of which she knew about as much as of English. A charming discord of sweet sounds greeted lord F——’s ears as he entered the room. The “Da, da, da,” of the baby; the coqueting in French about a kiss between Thérèse and her charge; and the anxious questions and explanations of the two engaged upon Bewick, made the uncle prefer looking on in silence, till Letitia turned to him with,

“It will not do. We must give it up at present. There is no making little children understand about old age, and death, and churchyards.”

The child turned her frowning face upon her uncle, as if appealing to him for light. He could not but try. He found she had seen Brixton church, seen something there this very morning; whether a wedding or a funeral, it required some time to find out; and this involved a description of each. Then came the question,

“Why are people white when they are married, and black when they are buried?”

In the middle of the explanation, she turned to the picture,

“Is that little boy with his hoop going to be buried? Is that old man going to be buried?”

No: they were neither of them dead yet; but the old man would be before very long, for he was very, very old....

“Then, was he rather new once?”

Uncle could no longer keep so grave as the subject required, and besides, did not know how to convey that old and new would not do in all cases so well as old and young. He too gave up.

“Shall we ride?” asked Letitia, as lord F—— looked at his watch. “I can send Thérèse home with the children.”

“Suppose we take them ourselves. This may be the last morning for some time that I shall be able to devote to you and yours.”

“It may be the last time we shall see Maria for some weeks,” replied Letitia. “I am glad you can go.”

As soon as they were seated in the carriage, lady F—— explained that Waldie was so much out of spirits, and looked so wretchedly ill, that his wife was bent on getting him from home. She was sure he must have overworked himself at business, and he did not attempt to account for his depression in any other way.

“You had better take them down to Weston with you,” said lord F——. “It will be a comfort to you to have your sister with you till I can join you.”

“None whatever,” said Letitia, smiling. “While you are a man of business, I will not be a woman of pleasure. I will stay in town till you can introduce Weston and me to each other.”

And Letitia would hear nothing about the heat, the emptiness of the town, the solitude to which she would be doomed while her husband was being initiated into his office. In town she would stay while her husband remained; and so it was settled, as this happened not to be one of the points which his lordship had fixed unalterably within himself.

“There is papa!” exclaimed the eldest child, quitting her stand at the carriage window, and clinging to her aunt’s neck, as soon as they entered the sweep which led up to Mr. Waldie’s door.

“Yes; it is your papa. I wonder what brings him home so long before dinner to-day.”

Waldie had been standing with his hands in his pockets, gazing on vacancy, till the sound of the carriage wheels roused him. When he saw who was come, he appeared suddenly busy among his shrubs, and turned his back towards the house door.—Maria appeared, with a smile; but there was discomposure under it.

“Go and tell papa, my dear. He did not see the carriage. Go and ask him to come in.”

But the child for once was slow to obey. She clung closer to her mamma the more she was bid to go.

“We will go together,” said Letitia, leading the way to where Waldie was half buried among the shrubs. When he could no longer pretend not to see them, he came forward and shook hands; but his countenance was black as night. His anxious wife busied herself in pointing out how grievously the Portugal laurels were blighted.

“Blighted! aye, look! Not a leaf that does not crumble like ashes in my hand,” said Waldie, twitching off a spray and crumbling the leaves. “I had set my heart upon these laurels, and now to see them ruined in this way.... Damn the blight!” muttered he between his teeth.

“I hear there is much mischief done in Kent,” observed lord F——.

“In Kent! You would think there had been a shower of Gomorrah rain by the look of the place. Young ash plantations, miles long, with their shoots crisped and black, worse than my laurels. Curse the blight!”

“And the hops....” lord F—— was going on to inquire; but Mrs. Waldie held up her finger to stop him. He broke off suddenly, and Waldie turned round upon his wife with a look which made her change colour. In order to relieve everybody, lord F—— summoned up all his experiences of the mischiefs done by blight at Weston, diverging gradually upon topics nearly related,—modes of improving, embellishing, &c., and ending with an invitation to the Waldies to go down and occupy the place for the few weeks of its greatest beauty. Waldie glanced quickly from one to another, as if suspicious of some plot to humour and amuse him, and then bluntly intimated that his going from home at present was out of the question. Scarcely another word could be got out of him, even when the ladies had walked away into the greenhouse, and the children had tried who could run fastest from papa, leaving him alone with lord F——.

“Do not you think him looking very ill,—very much altered?” inquired Maria of her sister, with a quivering lip.

“Very unlike himself to-day, certainly. Something has discomposed him. But you must not fancy him more ill than he is. No man varies more from hour to hour, you know. He may be quite a different man to-morrow.”

Maria shook her head, and then asked Letitia to observe what they came to see, without delay. She should not like her husband to think they were consulting about his looks. Letitia snatched up the plant in question, and carried it to lord F—— to ask whether there were any of the kind in the Weston greenhouses.

“You had better take it with you,” said Waldie. “It requires a greenhouse, and we shall have no greenhouses when we remove.”

“Remove!” said his wife faintly.

“Remove! yes, my dear. You would not stay here, would you? The blights ruin everything I set my heart upon; and you know I cannot bear to see a house so exposed as ours, with not a tree to cast a particle of shade on any part of it. There is Erpingham’s house, down below, with those fine spreading sycamores beside it ... that is something like a house. We could live there for a lifetime, and never grow tired of it. But you see it will take a lifetime for our clumps to grow roof-high. I shall move into the city.”

“Nevertheless we shall find you still here, five years hence,” said lord F——, smiling. “When the blights are over, you will love this pretty place too well to leave it.”

“Curse the blights!” was the reply.

“You have not been in town to-day, Waldie?” said lord F——. “Then you have probably not heard that I have taken office....”

“At the Board of Trade?—Well! I suppose one ought to be glad of it,—I suppose you expect to be congratulated; but, upon my soul, I do not know how to feel upon it. There is such a curse clinging to trade. People talk of the honour and glory of being a British merchant, and of legislating for British merchants. I wish both you and I, my lord, may not find more plague than profit in it.”

“I know I am about to encounter much perplexity, Waldie—perhaps some abuse, and certainly, much painful knowledge about the distresses of the country. Nevertheless, I have accepted office—or I should rather say, we have taken office; for Letitia remains in town as long as business detains me here.”

“I am glad you allow wives to be official too,” said Letitia, smiling. “Come plague, come profit, brother, it is hardly fair that they should have double the one and only half the other; which is the case when they are shut out from that department of their husbands’ concerns.”

“‘Double, double toil and trouble’....” said lord F——.

“And watchfulness, and struggle, and woe,” continued Letitia, “when they feel they could solace and help, and are not allowed. When I find I can do neither, I will go down to Weston without another word.”

“My dear,” said Waldie, “would you like to take the children down to Weston? I must stay in town, but....”

“O, indeed, we want no change. Unless you ... you....”

“Then we will remain at home this summer, lord F——, thank you. Our wives both prefer it, I see.”

And Mr. Waldie put some cheerfulness into his manner as he handed lady F—— into the carriage. At the first opening in the trees, Letitia saw him draw his wife’s arm within his own, and walk with her towards the house.

“It cannot be the blight that has soured him so,” observed lady F—— to her husband. “That must be a mere pretence.”

“Blights destroy other things besides Portugal laurels,” replied her husband. “Did not you see how I was forbidden to enlarge upon hops?”

“What can he have to do with hops? O! I begin to see. Speculation is to be his ruin,—not wine, or gaming.”

“Must he be ruined?” enquired lord F——.

“Yes. There is wide ruin in success, where it comes from speculation. Ruin of peace.—Who would possess paradise, if it were on an island which might be sunk in the sea at any moment? O! poor Maria!”

Chapter III.

DISCUSSION.

Week after week the steward sent reports from Weston of the beauty of the place, and the high order it was kept in for its lady’s approval, and the impatience of the tenants and the villagers for my lord and lady’s arrival. Week after week did friends and acquaintance leave town, till it became what the inhabitants of Westminster call a desert, though it would still puzzle a child to perceive the resemblance between it and the solitary places where lions await the lonely wayfarer. Week by week did Mrs. Philips expatiate on the delights of watering-places, and the charms of the country, and the intolerableness of town in the summer,—and still neither master nor mistress seemed to dream of stirring. “A few weeks in the autumn! Was that all the change they were to have? And how were they to exist till the autumn, she should like to know?” Lady F—— was so far from wishing that Philips should not exist, that on learning her discontents, she took immediate measures for forwarding her to her dear lady Frances, more than half of whose pleasure at Brighton had been spoiled by her having no one to manage her toilet on whose taste she could rely as a corroboration of her own. The day which saw Philips deposited in a Brighton coach brought ease not only to herself, but to those who lost, and her who gained her. Philips was certainly right. Her talents were not appreciated in her new home; and she would indeed never be able to make anything of her new lady. Like other persons of genius, mere kindness was not enough for Philips; she pined for sympathy, congeniality, and applause, for which London affords no scope in the summer season.

How Thérèse sang as she watered her lady’s plants, that day! How many confessions had she to pour forth to her old priest of feelings in which he traced incipient envy and jealousy, but in which she acknowledged only fear and dislike! How long a letter did she write to her father to inform him of her promotion to Mrs. Philips’s place, and consequent increase of salary;—of her intention to take a few lessons in hair-dressing, now that she could afford it, and felt it to be due to her mistress; and how happy she should be, when this duty to madame was provided for, to send money enough to put Annette to school, and perhaps even to place a new hot-bed at her father’s disposal!—How charming a variety was made in the household by a passing visit from the earl! And how pleased he looked when, on popping his head in at the library-door, late one evening, he found Letitia acting as secretary to her husband, looking over books, making notes, and preparing materials for a reply to a deputation which was to wait on him the next morning.

“I hope you like hard work as well as you thought you should,” said he, laughing. “Have you begun to think yet of petitioning for a more equal division of it,—for a multiplication of places?”

“Heaven forbid!” exclaimed Letitia. “A multiplication of places now, when there is such an outcry against places and placemen! It would be as much as our lives are worth.”

“And, what is more to the purpose,” said lord F——, “it is unnecessary. It matters little that it is the fashion to mix up in ignorant minds the odium of holding a sinecure, and the honour of filling a laborious office;—it matters little that all the people have not yet learned to distinguish the caterpillars from the silk-worms of the state; for they will soon learn to hold the servants of the nation in due honour. Meanwhile, all that we want is a more equal distribution of the toils of government.”

“All that we want, son! It is much to want. What an absurdity it seems that a nobleman should, from having merely his private affairs to manage, be suddenly burdened with the responsibilities of an empire;—a burden, under which how many have been crushed! Again, there is your old school-fellow, lord H——, yawning half the day on the pier at Brighton, and airing his horses the other half, while you are sitting here, pen in hand, from morning till night.”

“I have no objection to it, sir. It has been a serious grievance to me, ever since I returned from my travels, that I had nothing better to do than what I have been doing.”

“Studying, growing accomplished, falling in love, and marrying,” replied the earl, laughing. “What would you have been doing more?”

“As it happens, sir, all this proves an excellent preparation for my present business. But I did not know that it would; and I was perpetually asking myself,—moreover, Letitia was perpetually asking me,—the end and aim of my employments.”

“That was the secret, I dare say,” said the earl, “of your difficulty in winning her. Eh, Letitia?”

“Indeed it was,” replied Letitia, blushing. “God knows what difficulty I found in making it a difficulty; but I dared not at once give up the calling which nature had sanctified to me, without providing for my race being served in an equal proportion in some other way. If there be one note sooner than another to which conscience awakes in these times, it is to the cry of unserved humanity; and mine, having been once thus awakened, could not be lulled asleep again; and even your son could not soothe it till he began to promise that we should labour together for all, as well as for each other.”

“So you married to be useful;—for no other reason on earth, my dear?”

“No, no, no. I was useful before. I married ... for the same reason as your son. But this reason did not make me forget my responsibilities; that is all.”

“Ah, my dear: you do not know,—highly as you rate your art,—what you have deprived society of by shutting yourself up here. Why,—I saw that sot, colonel Bibber, turned into a patriot for full three hours under your influence; and poor little lord H. that we were speaking of just now, grew almost magnanimous for the same space of time. These, and hundreds more, owe to you, my dear, the greater part of whatever virtue has visited them for the last five years.”

“If so,” said lord F——, “what was the effect on better people?”

“The effect that the fine arts are ordained to produce,” said Letitia. “They have much to answer for who defame them,—who perceive nothing in them besides colours, and sounds, and motion,—who put a kaleidoscope and Raphael’s Transfiguration on a level, and recognize nothing more in a symphony of Mozart than in an Eolian harp, and see no matter of choice between a merry Andrew and Kean in Hamlet. They who perceive not that the fine arts are the fittest embodiments of truth and beauty are unconscious of the vastness of the department in which they would have man remain unserved. Such would wonder or laugh at my view of my profession, and discredit my hesitating to leave it for lord F——.”

“You were satisfied that you held a commission to serve man, by means of the fine arts; you were right, my dear, as is proved by your having made the colonel a patriot, and the little lord a hero.”

“That it was only for three hours at a time,” said Letitia, “was not my fault, but that of the arrangements by which means and ends are sometimes separated as far asunder as if the world would be perilled by their coming together. In this, we might wisely copy from man in his state of nature. Indian savages have their songs and dances immediately before their battles; and, as long as prayers imply devotion, they are everywhere used in senates as a prelude to the business of the nation. But we go straight from an oratorio to dinner, from a tragedy to sleep, from the Elgin marbles to shopping in Regent-street; while, on the other hand, if a great national question has to be debated, a mighty national achievement to be wrought, the last thing its conductors would think of would be to spiritualise the passions, and elevate the emotions, and animate the faculties by the most appropriate means which Providence has given for that end.—I know that this union can be only partially effected yet. I know that the passage of the Reform Bill would have been but little helped by any such appliances as we can at present exhibit; but it will be different hereafter, when men have learned the true office of the fine arts, and the ultimate objects of political reforms. Then, hundreds of years hence, it may be,—if a new question of national renovation should be brought forward, the senate to whom it is committed may lay hold, with one accord, on whatever prior observance may best soothe down their animosities, and banish their petty self-regards, and establish their minds in that state of lofty tranquillity which alone beseems the master-spirits of an empire.”

“In those days,” said lord F——, “there will be an end of the absurdity of admitting the ennobling influence of the fine arts, and at the same time holding its professors in contempt.”

“Is it, even now, anything more than a nominal contempt?” asked Letitia. “Do not people mix up the profession and the vices of its professors together, and then talk of contempt?”

“But those very vices are caused by the treatment of the profession.”

“True; like all other professional vices,—like all the peculiar failings of certain classes,—like the avarice of Jews, the romancing of travellers, the spiritual pride of sectaries, the vanity of authors. When prejudices are so far surmounted as that no class shall be regarded with factitious deference or contempt, there will be an end of all occasion to reproach painters, musicians and actors with their tendency to self-indulgence, at the same time that proverbs and by-words against Jews, methodists, travellers, and poets, will fall into oblivion.”

“In those days,” said lord F——, “perhaps our peerage may honour itself by taking up the profession of the fine arts. The time is coming when no class of society may be idle; and if the aristocracy plumes itself upon its refinement, this seems to be the pursuit most congenial to its constitution.”

“If you preach your doctrine,—that all must work,—to those of your own condition,” said the earl, “they will ask you where you got the notion,—whether you are intimidated by the clamours of the lower classes.”

“Not intimidated by their clamours, but moved by their condition, I would tell them, sir; and that I derive my notion from the nature of man and of society, and not from the dictation of any class whatever. It is enough to melt a heart of stone to read and hear of such distresses as have come to my knowledge since I entered office; but I am convinced that many of the sufferers look in the wrong direction for the causes.”

“Yet there must be much cause for complaint,” said Letitia, “when our institutions lead to such an opposition of interests as there now is between different ranks. They should surely work together....”

“The present opposition of interests, my dear, arises from a scarcity of the prime necessaries of life. If there were food enough for our people, their occupations and interests, be they as various as the minds that adopt them, would assist and promote each other from end to end of society. If there be a scarcity of food, men will snatch from one another’s mouths, be they huddled together in our manufacturing cities, or duly distributed in a Moravian settlement. Where there is plenty, there will be a harmony,—where there is want, there will be an opposition of interests; and it is folly to assign co-operation and competition as the remedy and cause of distress.”

“Nay; but can it be right that starving thousands should bid their labour against one another for bread? Can it be right that whole families should, at this moment, be crouching down supperless in their litter of straw, while we.... O, I am ashamed of our luxuries!... our mirrors, and harps, and lamps,—and my very dress. I am ashamed of them all.”

“If we gave them all away this moment, my dear, they would not be food; and if exchanged for bread, they would only take food from the mouths of some who want it, to give to those who cannot want it more. Believe me, the inequality of condition we are complaining of is rather checked than promoted by competition. Competition equalizes the profits of industry, and increases instead of lessening its productiveness.”

“Whence, then, comes all this misery? all this tremendous inequality?”

“The misery arises from a deficiency of foodfood....”

“Well; whence this deficiency of food?”

“From the tendency of eaters to increase faster than the supply of food.”

“But if we can raise more food by co-operation than without it....”

“Even supposing we could,—unless co-operation also checked the increase of numbers, it could prove no more than a temporary alleviation of our grievances. In my opinion, it would, if it included equality of condition, leave us in a worse state than it found us, in as far as it would relax the springs of enterprise and industry, and, in time, bring the community down into a deplorable state of sameness; it would, if persevered in, make us into a nation of half-naked potatoe eaters, and water-drinkers.”

The earl inquired whether anything had been heard lately of the co-operative society formed in the neighbourhood of Weston.

“O yes!” replied lord F——. “They are enjoying the benefits of competition to the utmost. They ascribe their prosperity to their co-operation; but they are, in fact, a large partnership in competition with smaller ones. They do not see how their relative position would be altered by their absorbing all their competitors into their firm, with no check to their numbers, while nature has imposed perpetual checks upon the growth of their capital.”

“But cannot numbers be checked,—cannot the checks upon the growth of capital be evaded, while we have such a wide world to move about in?”

“Certainly, my dear: but there is no need of equality of condition to help us to do this. Competition is more likely than co-operation to induce prudence and foresight; and it will quicken our activity in carrying our surplus numbers to distant fertile lands, or in bringing the produce of distant fertile lands among our own people, instead of tempting us to waste more and more of our capital continually in turning up inferior lands at home, as the co-operatives would have us do.”

“But were not you telling me that your rent-roll becomes more valuable as time passes? Are not landholders’ incomes increasing perpetually under the present system?”

“They are; but this is the consequence, not of competition, but of the varying qualities of the land, the tillage of every new grade of which tends to lower profits and raise rents. No plan for the distribution of home produce can affect the law by which the returns to capital are perpetually diminished.”

“But what will be the end of it under the present system?”

“There are two extremes to which the systems of equality and inequality of distribution respectively tend, in as far as they involve restriction upon food by using only the produce of our own lands. Under the equality system, there would be an ultimate scramble for potatoes, or a worse diet still, if there were such a thing. Under our present system, the whole produce must in time be in the hands of the land-owners and tax-takers. Of course, we must change our system; not, however, by discouraging competition, or abolishing private property, but by removing all artificial restrictions upon food, and by regulating our numbers according to our resources. The way to bring down landlords’ rents, and to increase the profits of cultivators, is to procure food from some better source than our own inferior lands; and this I will prove to you by figures, the next time my steward brings me the accounts of my farms.”

“O, that Moravian village!” exclaimed Letitia. “How often I think of the day we spent there! There was comfort, there was abundance, there was mutual assistance and agreement.”

“Are you quite sure, Letitia, that there was nothing in the situation and peculiarities of the place which called off your attention from the principle on which the society was constituted? Remember the sunset, that evening; the golden light on the green hill side, above the rows of Moravian dwellings. Remember your admiration of the internal regulations,—of the women’s uniform, of the music in their church, of the simplicity of their way of life. Remember that all this has nothing to do with their principle of association.”

“You must no more set the accomplishments of the Moravians to the account of community of goods, than the absurdities of the Shakers,” observed the earl. “That some sing beautifully, and others dance ridiculously, has nothing to do with the distribution of their wealth.”

“No more than the ordinances of the Harmonites,” continued lord F——. “Mr. Owen’s followers very properly refuse to be mixed up with Moravians, Shakers, and Harmonites. Superstition has no part in their system, either under the form of ritual observance or celibacy. Yet they are apt to incorporate extraneous matters with their system, which serve as allurements to a greater extent, I doubt not, than they intend. They owe more converts than they suppose to their promises of mansions, pleasure-grounds, coffee, alabaster lamps, and so on. My wonder is that more are not enticed by descriptions like these, accompanied with promises of ease, and leisure, and many other things to be obtained in a short time, which the poor man now sees little chance of his children’s children ever enjoying.”

“There might be alabaster lamps and damask furniture in every house under the present system,” observed the earl, “if food enough could be got to keep the production of capital going at its natural rate; aye, and ease and leisure too, if our numbers were kept within bounds. It is not so very long since shoes and stockings were worn only in courts; and that they are now worn by peasants proves that our capital has grown under a system of competition. That multitudes have little ease and no leisure is the fault of over-population, which would be rather aggravated than lessened under a system whose very essence it is to cast each man’s burdens upon all. No man need scruple to have twenty of his children gracing the dinner-table of a co-operative establishment, till he should find, too late, that not all the savings caused by extensive association can compensate for the falling off in the produce of inferior lands, and for the new impulse given to population. His sons and his sons’ sons must add more and more labour to the common stock; must give up, first, damask and alabaster, then broadcloth and glass; then descend to sackcloth and wooden trenchers, then to tatters, potatoes and water, and then....”

“Then would ensue a scramble; if anything should be left, competition would come into play again; society would rise by its means, and might possibly attain once more to a state in which they might speculate on the universality of damask and alabaster.”

“Well!” exclaimed Letitia, “I shall ask to look at your steward’s accounts, and to have an explanation of them; for I do not at all like our present position. We must reach the extreme, you say, of having our whole produce in the hands of land-owners and tax-takers, unless we change our system.”

“Yes, my dear: but by change of system, I do not mean convulsion. All might be set on a safe footing by timely care, the removal of restrictions, the diffusion of intelligence. There is nothing in all this, threatening to public dignity or private safety. There is nothing to lessen the security of property, or to endanger the rights of any class; but quite the contrary: for property is never so secure as when it most abounds; and rights are never so well respected as in the absence of temptation to infringe upon them.”

“By change, then, you mean progression, without fear of subversion.”

“Just so; the progression of society from an advanced into a higher state. What is there in such progression that is not as beautiful in theory as it is found to be necessary in practice?”

From this hour, the progression of society, of which Letitia had long dreamed, on which she had often speculated, began to assume distinctness in her mind, and to form a large part of her conversation when she happened to be with those to whom she could speak most of what was most in her thoughts. Whenever she heard of misery and crime on a large scale, she satisfied herself that the national demand of progression had not yet been sufficiently attended to. When she heard that her lord’s rents ought to be more, but were, from the difficulty of collecting them, less than formerly, she sighed for the time when an unrestricted provision of food (unrestricted by state-laws) should check the rise of rents. Whenever she sat down by her husband’s side to hear curious tales of the doings of large speculators or eminent merchants, or of the sufferings of large classes of agricultural or manufacturing labourers, she learned something that made her wonder and lament, that, while the natural laws of production and distribution work out evenly their balance of results, the tendency of legislation thus far seems to be to clog and thwart them, and delay the progression in intelligence and comfort which must arise out of their unobstructed operation. She saw that, if the universal interest of society was allowed to be the moving spring of the social economy, all would be served; and that if many yet remain unserved, it is on account of other movements being made to interfere with it—the petty springs of narrow and mistaken interests; so that partial protection brings on general hardship, and arbitrary stimulus, a condition of general suffering.

Before going down to Weston, Letitia had become prepared to make her way with the steward, the co-operating workmen in the village, and all who could throw light on the past and present state of property in the place. Many a conversation and calculation had she also gone through with Thérèse on the subject of shop-keeping in Paris; and all that Maria told of Waldie’s business went to the same account of information. It made poor Maria smile sometimes in the midst of a fit of anxiety to find that her children’s babble savoured of political economy, when they had been spending a morning with their aunt. They were more ready then than at other times to wonder why they had dolls in the nursery, and picture-books in the parlour, and a shell-grotto in the garden, when many other little children had no playthings; and why poor Ned who swept the crossing was so much more ragged than their errand boy, when Ned worked the hardest of the two, and was often out in the cold and the rain besides. Almost babies as they were, they could sometimes find out very sage little reasons for these things, when put on the right scent by aunt Letitia or her pupil Thérèse.