“I cannot yet decide: if I shall be satisfied that the obstacle do not exist, she shall be yours; if it do exist, we sail the first of next month for America, and you, Mr. Harrington, will not be the only, or perhaps the most, unhappy person of the three.
“A. MONTENERO.”
CHAPTER XVI.
The Sunday after the riots, I happened to see Mrs. Coates, as we were coming out of St. George’s church. She was not in full-blown, happy importance, as formerly: she looked ill and melancholy; or, as one of her city neighbours, who was following her out of church, expressed it, quite “crest-fallen.” I heard some whispering that “things were going wrong at home with the Coates’s—that the world was going down hill with the alderman.”
But a lady, who was quite a stranger, though she did me the honour to speak to me, explained that it was “no such thing—worth a plum still, if he be worth a farthing. ‘Tis only that she was greatly put out of her way last week, and frightened, till well nigh beside herself, by them rioters that came and set fire to one of the Coates’s, Mr. Peter’s, warehouse. Now, though poor Mrs. Coates, you’d think, is so plump and stout to look at, she is as nervous!—you’ve no notion, sir!—shakes like an aspen leaf, if she but takes a cup of green tea—so I prescribe bohea. But there she’s curtsying, and nodding, and kissing hands to you, sir, see!—and can tell you, no doubt, all about herself.”
Mrs. Coates’s deplorably placid countenance, tremulous muscles, and lamentable voice and manner, confirmed to me the truth of the assertion that she had been frightened nearly out of her senses.
“Why now, sir, after all,” said she, “I begin to find what fools we were, when we made such a piece of work one election year, and said that no soldiers should come into the town, ‘cause we were free Britons. Why, Lord ‘a mercy! ‘tis a great deal better maxim to sleep safe in our beds than to be free Britons and burnt to death [Footnote: Vide Mrs. Piozzi’s Letters.].”
Persons of higher pretensions to understanding and courage than poor Mrs. Coates, seemed at this time ready to adopt her maxim; and patriots feared that it might become the national sentiment. No sooner were order and tranquillity perfectly re-established in the city, than the public in general, and party politicians in particular, were intent upon the trials of the rioters, and more upon the question whether the military had suppressed the riots constitutionally or unconstitutionally. It was a question to be warmly debated in parliament; and this, after the manner in which great public and little private interests, in the chain of human events, are continually linked together, proved of important consequence to me and my love affairs.
A call of the house brought my father to town, contrary to his will, and consequently in ill-humour. This ill-humour was increased by the perplexing situation in which he found himself, with his passions on one side of the question and his principles on the other: hating the papists, and loving the ministry. In his secret soul, my father cried with the rioters, “No papists!—no French!—no Jews!—no wooden shoes!” but a cry against government was abhorrent to his very nature. My conduct, with regard to the riot at Mr. Montenero’s, and towards the rioters, by whom he had been falsely accused, my father heard spoken of with approbation in the political circles which he most reverenced; and he could not but be pleased, he confessed, to hear that his son had so properly conducted himself: but still it was all in defence of the Jews, and of the father of that Jewess whose very name was intolerable to his ear.
“So, Harrington, my boy, you’ve gained great credit, I find, by your conduct last Wednesday night. Very lucky, too, for your mother’s friend, Lady de Brantefield, that you were where you were. But after all, sir, what the devil business had you there?—and again on Thursday morning!—I acknowledge that was a good hit you made, about the gun—but I wish it had been in the defence of some good Christian: what business has a Jew with a gun at all?—Government knows best, to be sure; but I split against them once before, three-and-twenty years ago, on the naturalization bill. What is this cry which the people set up?—‘No Jews!—no wooden shoes!’—ha! ha! ha!—the dogs!—but they carried it too far, the rascals!—When it comes to throwing stones at gentlemen’s carriages, and pulling down gentlemen’s and noblemen’s dwelling-houses, it’s a mob and a riot, and the rioters deserve certainly to be hanged—and I’m heartily glad my son has come forward, Mrs. Harrington, and has taken a decided and distinguished part in bringing the offenders to justice. But, Harrington, pray tell me now, young gentleman, about that Jewess.”
Before I opened my lips, something in the turn of my physiognomy enraged my father to such a degree that all the blood in his body came into his face, and, starting up, he cried, “Don’t answer me, sir—I ask no questions—I don’t want to hear any thing about the matter! Only if—if, sir—if—that’s all I have to say—if—by Jupiter Ammon—sir, I won’t hear a word—a syllable! You only wish to explain—I won’t have any explanation—I have business enough on my hands, without listening to a madman’s nonsense!”
My father began to open his morning’s packet of letters and newspapers. One letter, which had been directed to his house in the country, and which had followed him to town, seemed to, alarm him terribly. He put the letter into my mother’s hand, cursed all the post-masters in England, who were none of them to blame for its not reaching him sooner, called for his hat and cane, said he must go instantly to the city, but “feared all was, too late, and that we were undone.” With this comfortable assurance he left us. The letter was from a broker in Lombard-street, who did business for my father, and who wrote to let him know that, “in consequence of the destruction of a great brewery in the late riots, several mercantile houses had been injured. Alderman Coates had died suddenly of an apoplexy, it was said: his house had closed on Saturday; and it was feared that Baldwin’s bank would not stand the run made on it.”
Now in Baldwin’s bank, as my mother informed me, my father had eight days before lodged £30,000, the purchase money of that estate which he had been obliged to sell to pay for his three elections. This sum was, in fact, every shilling of it due to creditors, who had become clamorous; and “if this be gone,” said my mother, “we are lost indeed!—this house must go, and the carriages, and every thing; the Essex estate is all we shall have left, and live there as we can—very ill it must be, to us who have been used to affluence and luxury. Your father, who expects his table, and every individual article of his establishment, to be in the first style, as if by magic, without ever reflecting on the means, but just inviting people, and leaving it to me to entertain them properly—oh! I know how bitterly he would feel even retrenchment!—and this would be ruin; and every thing that vexes him of late brings on directly a fit of the gout—and then you know what his temper is! Heaven knows what I had to go through with my nerves, and my delicate health, during the last fit, which came on the very day after we left you, and lasted six weeks, and which he sets down to your account, Harrington, and to the account of your Jewess.”
I had too much feeling for my mother’s present distress to increase her agitation by saying any thing on this tender subject. I let her accuse me as she pleased—and she very soon began to defend me. The accounts she had heard in various letters of the notice that had been taken of Miss Montenero by some of the leading persons in the fashionable world, the proposals that had been made to her, and especially the addresses of Lord Mowbray, which had been of sufficient publicity, had made, I found, a considerable alteration in my mother’s judgment or feelings. She observed that it was a pity my father was so violently prejudiced and obstinate, for that, after all, it would not be an unprecedented marriage. My mother, after a pause, went on to say, that though she was not, she hoped, an interested person, and should scorn the idea of her son’s being a fortune-hunter—and indeed I had given pretty sufficient proof that I was not of that description of suitors; yet, if the Jewess were really amiable, and as capable of generous attachment, it would be, my mother at last acknowledged, the best thing I could do, to secure an independent establishment with the wife of my choice.
I was just going to tell my mother of the conversation that I had had with Mr. Montenero, and of the obstacle, when her mind reverted to the Lombard-street letter, and to Baldwin’s bank; and for a full hour we discussed the probability of Baldwin’s standing or failing, though neither of us had any means of judging—of this, being perhaps the least anxious of the two, I became sensible the first. I finished, by stationing myself at the window to watch for my father’s return, of which I promised to give my mother notice, if she would lie down quietly on the sofa, and try to compose her spirits; she had given orders to be denied to all visitors, but every knock at the door made her start, and “There’s your father! There’s Mr. Harrington!” was fifty times repeated before the hour when it was even possible that my father could have returned from the city.
When the probable time came and passed, when it grew later and later without my father’s appearing, our anxiety and impatience rose to the highest pitch.
At last I gave my mother notice that I saw among the walkers at the end of the street which joined our square, an elderly gentleman with a cane.
“But there are so many elderly gentlemen with canes,” said my mother, joining me at the window. “Is it Mr. Harrington?”
“It is very like my father, ma’am. Now you can see him plainly picking his way over the crossing.”
“He is looking down,” said my mother; “that is a very bad sign.—But is he not looking up now?”
“No, ma’am; and now he is taking snuff.”
“Taking snuff! is he? Then there is some hope,” said my mother.
During the last forty yards of my father’s walk, we each drew innumerable and often opposite conclusions, from his slightest gestures and motions, interpreting them all as favourable or unfavourable omens. In the course of five minutes my mother’s presentiments varied fifty times. At length came his knock at the door. My mother grew pale—to her ear it said “all’s lost;” to mine it sounded like “all’s safe.”
“He stays to take off his great coat! a good sign; but he comes heavily up stairs.” Our eyes were fixed on the door—he opened it, and advanced towards us without uttering one syllable.
“All’s lost—and all’s safe,” said my father. “My fortune’s safe, Mrs. Harrington.”
“What becomes of your presentiments, my dear mother?” said I.
“Thank Heaven!” said my mother, “I was wrong for once.”
“You might thank Heaven for more than once, madam,” said my father.
“But then what did you mean by all’s lost, Mr. Harrington; if all’s safe, how can all be lost?”
“My all, Mrs. Harrington, is not all fortune. There is such a thing as credit as well as fortune, Mrs. Harrington.”
“But if you have not lost your fortune, you have not lost your credit, I presume,” said my mother.
“I have a character as a gentleman, Mrs. Harrington.”
“Of course.”
“A character for consistency, Mrs. Harrington, to preserve.”
“‘Tis a hard thing to preserve, no doubt,” said my mother.
“But I wish you’d speak plain, for my nerves can’t bear it.”
“Then I can tell you, Mrs. Harrington, your nerves have a great deal to bear yet. What will your nerves feel, madam—what will your enthusiasm say, sir—when I tell you, that I have lost my heart to—a Jewess?”
“Berenice!” cried I.
“Impossible!” cried my mother. “How came you to see her?”
“That’s not for you to know yet; but first, young gentleman, you who are hanging on tenter-hooks, you must hang there a little longer.”
“As long as you please, my dear father,” said I.
“Your dear father!—ay, I’m very dear to you now, because you are in hopes, sir, I shall turn fool, and break my vow into the bargain; but I am not come to that yet, my good sir—I have some consistency.”
“Oh! never mind your consistency, for mercy’s sake, Mr. Harrington,” said my mother, “only tell us your story, for I really am dying to hear it, and I am so weak.”
“Ring the bell for dinner,” said my father, “for Mrs. Harrington’s so weak, I’ll keep my story till after dinner.” My mother protested she was quite strong, and we both held my father fast, insisting—he being in such excellent humour and spirits that we might insist—insisting upon his telling his story before he should have any dinner.
“Where was I?” said he.
“You know best,” said my mother; “you said you had lost your heart to a Jewess, and Harrington exclaimed Berenice! and that’s all I’ve heard yet.”
“Very well, then, let us leave Berenice for the present”—I groaned—“and go to her father, Mr. Montenero, and to a certain Mrs. Coates.”
“Mrs. Coates! did you see her too?” cried my mother: “you seem to have seen every body in the world this morning, Mr. Harrington. How happened it that you saw vulgar Mrs. Coates?”
“Unless I shut my eyes, how can I avoid seeing vulgar people, madam? and how can I tell my story, Mrs. Harrington, if you interrupt me perpetually, to ask how I came to see every soul and body I mention?”
“I will interrupt you no more,” said my mother, submissively, for she was curious.
I placed an arm-chair for my father—in my whole life I never felt so dutiful or so impatient.
“There, now,” said my father, taking his seat in the chair, “if you will promise not to interrupt me any more, I will tell you my story regularly. I went to Baldwin’s bank: I found a great crowd, all pressing their demands—the clerks as busy as they could be, and all putting a good face upon the matter. The head-clerk I saw was vexed at the sight of me—he came out from behind his desk, and begged I would go up stairs to Mr. Baldwin, who wished to speak to me. I was shown up stairs to Mr. Baldwin, with whom I found a remarkably gentlemanlike foreign-looking man.
“Yes, sir—yes, ma’am—Mr. Montenero: it is well you did not either of you interrupt me to tell me his name, for if you had, I would not have told you a word more. Well, Mr. Baldwin, evidently wishing me at the devil, came forward to receive me, and, in great perplexity, said he would be at my command; he would settle my business immediately; but must beg my pardon for five minutes, while he settled with this gentleman, Mr. Montenero. On hearing the name, I am sure my look would have said plain enough to any man alive but Baldwin, that I did not choose to be introduced; but Baldwin has no breeding: so it was Mr. Montenero, Mr. Harrington—Mr. Harrington, Mr. Montenero. I bowed, and wished the Jew in the Red Sea, and Baldwin along with him. I then took up a newspaper and retreated to the window, begging that I might not be any interruption. The cursed paper was four days old, so I put it down; and as I stood looking at nothing out of the window, I heard Baldwin going on with your Jew. They had a load of papers on the table, which Baldwin kept shuffling, as he talked about the losses the house had sustained by the sudden death of Alderman Coates, and the sad bankruptcy of the executors. Baldwin seasoned high with compliments to the Jew upon his known liberality and generosity, and was trying to get him to enter into some security, which the Jew refused, saying that what he gave he gave willingly, but he would not enter into security: he added, that the alderman and his family had been unjustifiably extravagant; but on condition that all was given up fairly to the creditors, and a new course entered upon, he and his daughter would take care that the widow should be provided for properly. As principal creditor, Mr. Baldwin would, by this means, be first satisfied. I could not help thinking that all the Jew said was fair enough, and firm too; but when he had said and done, I wondered that he did not go away. He and Baldwin came to the window to which I had retreated, and Baldwin, like a city bear as he is, got in his awkward way between us, and seizing one button of my coat and one of Mr. Montenero’s, held us there face to face, while he went on talking of my demand on the house.
“‘You see, Mr. Harrington,’ said he, ‘how we are circumstanced. The property of the firm is able to answer all fair demands in due course. But here’s a set and a run made against us, and no house could stand without the assistance, that is, the forbearance of friends—that’s what we must look to. Some of our friends, in particular Mr. Montenero, have been very friendly indeed—very handsome and liberal—and we have nothing to say; we cannot, in reason, expect him to do more for the Coates’s or for us.’ And then came accounts of the executors, &c., in his banking jargon.
“What the deuce was all this to me, you know? and how awkward I felt, held by the button there, to rejudge Mr. Montenero’s acts! I had nothing for it but my snuff-box. But Baldwin’s a mere clerk—cannot guess at the feelings of a gentleman. Mr. Montenero, I observed, looked down upon Baldwin all the time with so much the air of a high-bred gentleman, that I began to think he could not be the Jew—Montenero.
“Baldwin, still thinking only of holding him up as an example to me, went on, saying, ‘Mr. Montenero, who is a foreigner, and a stranger to the house, has done so and so, and we trust our old friends will do as much—Mr. Harrington in particular. There’s our books on the table, open to Mr. Harrington—he will see we shall be provided on the fifteenth instant; but, in short, if Mr. Harrington draws his £30,000 to-day, he drives us to pay in sixpences—so there’s the case.’ In short, it came to this: if I drew, I certainly ruined them; if I did not draw, I ran a great hazard of being ruined myself. No, Baldwin would not have it that way—so when he had stated it after his own fashion, and put it into and out of his banker’s jargon, it came out to be, that if I drew directly I was certain to lose the whole; and if I did not draw, I should have a good chance of losing a great part. I pulled my button away from the fellow, and without listening to any more of his jabbering, for I saw he was only speaking against time, and all on his own side of the question, I turned to look at the books, of which I knew I never should make head or tail, being no auditor of accounts, but a plain country gentleman. While I was turning over their confounded day-books and ledgers in despair, your Jew, Harrington, came up to me, and with such a manner as I did not conceive a Jew could have—but he is a Spanish Jew—that makes all the difference, I suppose—‘Mr. Harrington,’ said he, ‘though I am a stranger to you, permit me to offer my services in this business—I have some right to do so, as I have accepted of services, and am under real obligations to Mr. Harrington, your son, a young gentleman for whom I feel the highest attachment as well as gratitude, but of whom I will now say only, that he has been one of the chief means of saving my life and my character. His father cannot, therefore, I think, refuse to let me show at least some sense of the obligations I have willingly received. My collection of Spanish pictures, which, without your son’s exertions, I could not have saved on the night of the riot, has been estimated by your best English connoisseurs at £60,000. Three English noblemen are at this moment ready to pay down £30,000 for a few of these pictures: this will secure Mr. Harrington’s demand on this house. If you, Mr. Baldwin, pay him, before three hours are over the money shall be with you. It is no sacrifice of my taste or of my pictures,’ continued your noble Jew, in answer to my scruples: ‘I lodge them with three different bankers only for security for the money. If Mr. Baldwin stands the storm, we are all as we were—my pictures into the bargain. If the worst happen, I lose only a few instead of all my collection.’
“This was very generous—quite noble, but you know I am an obstinate old fellow. I had still the Jewess, the daughter, running in my head, and I thought, perhaps, I was to be asked for my consent, you know, Harrington, or some sly underplot of that kind.
“Mr. Montenero has a quick eye—I perceived that he saw into my thoughts; but we could not speak to our purpose before Baldwin, and Baldwin would never think of stirring, if one was dying to get him out of the room. Luckily, however, he was called away by one of the clerks.
“Then Mr. Montenero, who speaks more to the point than any man I ever heard, spoke directly of your love for his daughter, and said he understood that it would not be a match that I should approve. I pleaded my principles and religious difficulties:—he replied, ‘We need not enter into that, for the present business I must consider as totally independent of any view to future connexion:’—if his daughter was going to be married to-morrow to another man, he should do exactly the same as he now proposed to do. He did not lessen her fortune:—he should say nothing of what her sense of gratitude was and ought to be—she had nothing to do with the business.
“When I found that my Jupiter Amman was in no danger, and that the love affair was to be kept clear out of the question, I was delighted with your generous Jew, Harrington, and I frankly accepted his offer. Baldwin came in again, was quite happy when he heard how it was settled, gave me three drafts at thirty-one days for my money on the bankers Mr. Montenero named: here I have them safe in my pocket. Mr. Montenero then said, he would go immediately and perform his part of the business; and, as he left the room, he begged Mr. Baldwin to tell his daughter that he would call for her in an hour.
“I now, for the first time, understood that the daughter was in the house; and I certainly felt a curiosity to see her. Baldwin told me she was settling some business, signing some papers in favour of poor Mrs. Coates, the alderman’s widow. He added, that the Jewess was a charming creature, and as generous as her father:—he told all she had done for this widow and her children, on account of some kindness her mother had received in early life from the Coates’s family; and then there was a history of some other family of Manessas—I never heard Baldwin eloquent but this day, in speaking of your Jewess:—Harrington, I believe he is in love with her himself. I said I should like to see her, if it could be managed.
“Nothing easier, if I would partake of a cold collation just serving in the next room for the friends of the house.
“You know the nearer a man is to being ruined, the better he must entertain his friends. I walked into the next room, when collation time came, and I saw Miss Montenero. Though I had given him a broad hint—but the fellow understands nothing but his IOU’s—he fell to introducing of course: she is a most interesting-looking creature, I acknowledge, my boy, if—she were not a Jewess. I thought she would have sunk into the earth when she heard my name. I could not eat one morsel of the man’s collation—so—Ring for dinner, and let us say no more about the matter at present: there is my oath against it, you know—there is an end of the matter—don’t let me hear a word from you, Harrington—I am tired to death, quite exhausted, body and mind.”
I refrained most dutifully, and most prudently, from saying one word more on the subject, till my father, after dinner, and after being refreshed by a sound and long-protracted sleep, began again to speak of Mr. and Miss Montenero. This was the first time he omitted to call them the Jew and Jewess. He condescended to say repeatedly, and with many oaths, that they both deserved to be Christians—that if there was any chance of the girl’s conversion, even he would overlook the father’s being a Jew, as he was such a noble fellow. Love could do wonders—as my father knew when he was a young man—perhaps I might bring about her conversion, and then all would be smooth and right, and no oath against it.
I thanked my father for the kind concessions he now appeared willing to make for my happiness, and from step to step, at each step repeating that he did not want to hear a syllable about the matter, he made me tell him every thing that had passed. Mowbray’s rivalship and treachery excited his indignation in the highest degree: he was heartily glad that fellow was refused—he liked the girl for refusing him—some spirit—he liked spirit—and he should be glad that his son carried away the prize.
He interrupted himself to tell me some of the feats of gallantry of his younger days, and of the manner in which he had at last carried off my mother from a rascal of a rival—a Lord Mowbray of those times.
When my father had got to this point, my mother ventured to ask whether I had ever gone so far as to propose, actually to propose, for Miss Montenero.
“Yes.”
Both father and mother turned about, and asked, “What answer?”
I repeated, as nearly as I could, Mr. Montenero’s words—and I produced his note.
Both excited surprise and curiosity.
“What can this obstacle—this mysterious obstacle be?” said my mother.
“An obstacle on their side!” exclaimed my father: “is that possible?”
I had now, at least, the pleasure of enjoying their sympathy: and of hearing them go over all the conjectures by which I had been bewildered. I observed that the less chance there appeared to be of the match, the more my father and mother inclined towards it.
“At least,” said my mother, “I hope we shall know what the objection is.”
“It is very extraordinary, after all, that it should be on their side,” repeated my father.
My mother’s imagination, and my father’s pride, were both strongly excited; and I let them work without interruption.
CHAPTER XVII.
The time appointed for Mr. Montenero’s final decision approached. In a few days my fate was to be decided. The vessel that was to sail for America was continually before my eyes.
It was more difficult to me to endure the suspense of these few days than all the rest. My mother’s sympathy, and the strong interest which had been excited on the subject in my father’s mind, were at first highly agreeable; but there was so much more of curiosity and of pride in their feelings than in mine, that at last it became irksome to me to hear their conjectures and reflections. I did not like to answer any questions—I could not bear to speak of Berenice, or even of Mr. Montenero.
I took refuge in silence—my mother reproached me for my silence. I talked on fast of any thing but that which interested me most.
My mother became extremely alarmed for my health, and I believe with more reason than usual; for I could scarcely either eat, drink, or sleep, and was certainly very feverish; but still I walked about, and to escape from the constraint to which I put myself in her company, to avoid giving her pain—to relieve myself from her hourly fond inquiries—from the effort of talking, when I wished to be silent—of appearing well, and in spirits, when I was ill, and when my heart was dying within me, I escaped from her presence as much as possible. To feed upon my thoughts in solitude, I either shut myself up in my room, or walked all day in those streets where I was not likely to meet with any one who knew me, or whom I knew; and there I was at least safe from all notice, and secure from all sympathy: I am sure I experienced at this time the truth of what some one has quaintly but justly asserted, that an individual can never feel more completely alone than in the midst of a crowded metropolis.
One evening when I was returning homewards through the city, fatigued, but still prolonging my walk, that I might not be at home too early for dinner, I was met and stopped by Jacob: I had not thought of him lately, and when I looked up in his face, I was surprised by an appearance of great perturbation. He begged pardon for stopping me, but he had been to my house—he had been all over the town searching for me, to consult me about a sad affair, in which he was unfortunately concerned. We were not far from Manessa’s, the jeweller’s shop; I went in there with Jacob, as he wished, he said, that I should hear Mr. Manessa’s evidence on the business, as well as his own. The affair was this: Lady de Brantefield had, some time ago, brought to Mr. Manessa’s some very fine antique jewels, to be re-set for her daughter, Lady Anne Mowbray. One day, immediately after the riots, both the ladies called at Mr. Manessa’s, to inquire if the jewels were ready. They were finished; the new setting was approved: but Lady de Brantefield having suffered great losses by the destruction of her house and furniture in the riots, and her son, Lord Mowbray, being also in great pecuniary difficulties, it was suggested by Lady Anne Mowbray, that her mother would be glad if Mr. Manessa could dispose of some of the jewels, without letting it be known to whom they had belonged. Mr. Manessa, willing to oblige, promised secresy, and offered immediately to purchase the jewels himself; in consequence, the jewels were all spread out upon a little table in the back parlour—no one present but Jacob, Mr. Manessa, and the two ladies. A great deal of conversation passed, and the ladies were a long time settling what trinkets they would part with.
It was very difficult to accommodate at once the personal vanity of the daughter, the family pride of the mother, and their pecuniary difficulties. There occurred, in particular, a question about a topaz ring, of considerable value, but of antique setting, which Lady Anne Mowbray wished her mother to part with, instead of some more fashionable diamond ornament that Lady Anne wanted to keep for herself. Lady de Brantefield had, however, resisted all her daughter’s importunities—had talked a vast deal about the ring—told that it had been Sir Josseline de Mowbray’s—that it had come into his possession by ducal and princely descent—that it was one of four rings, which had been originally a present from Pope Innocent to King John, of which rings there was a full description in some old chronicle [Footnote: Rymer’s Foedera.], and in Mr. Hume’s History of England, to which her ladyship referred Mr. Manessa: his curiosity [Footnote: For the satisfaction of any readers who may have more curiosity upon the subject than Mr. Manessa had, but yet who would not willingly rise from their seats to gratify their curiosity, the passage is here given gratis. “Innocent wrote John a mollifying letter, and sent him four golden rings, set with precious stones; and endeavoured to enhance the value of the present, by informing him of the many mysteries which were implied by it. He begged him to consider, seriously, the form of the rings, their number, their matter, and their colour. Their form, he said, being round, shadowed out eternity, which has neither beginning nor end. Their number, four, being a square, denoted steadiness of mind, not to be subverted either by adversity or prosperity, fixed for ever on the four cardinal virtues. Gold, which is the matter, signified wisdom. The blue of the sapphire, faith. The verdure of the emerald, hope. The redness of the ruby, charity. And splendour of the topaz, good works.” “By these conceits,” continued the historian, “Innocent endeavoured to repay John for one of the most important prerogatives of the crown.”], however, was perfectly satisfied upon the subject, and he was, with all due deference, willing to take the whole upon her ladyship’s word, without presuming to verify her authorities. While she spoke, she took the ring from her finger, and put it into Jacob’s hand, desiring to know if he could make it fit her finger better, as it was rather too large. Jacob told her it could be easily lessened, if her ladyship would leave it for an hour or two with him. But her ladyship said she could not let Sir Josseline’s ring out of her own sight, it was of such inestimable value. The troublesome affair of satisfying both the vain daughter and the proud mother being accomplished—the last bows were made at the door—the carriage drove away, and Manessa and Jacob thanked Heaven that they had done with these difficult customers. Two hours had scarcely elapsed before a footman came from Lady de Brantefield with the following note:—
“Lady de Brantefield informs Mr. Manessa that she is in the greatest anxiety—not finding Sir Josseline de Mowbray’s ring on her finger, upon her return home. Her ladyship now recollects having left it in the hands of one of Mr. Manessa’s shopmen, a young man she believes of the name of Jacob, the only person except Mr. Manessa, who was in the little parlour, while her ladyship and Lady Anne Mowbray were there.
“Lady de Brantefield requests that Mr. Manessa will bring the ring himself to Lady Warbeck’s, Hanover-square, where Lady de Brantefield is at present.
“Lady de Brantefield desires Mr. M. will make no delay, as her ladyship must remain in indescribable anxiety till Sir Josseline’s ring shall be restored. Her ladyship could not answer for such a loss to her family and posterity.
“Hanover-square, Tuesday.”
Jacob was perfectly certain that her ladyship had not left the ring with him; nevertheless he made diligent search for it, and afterwards accompanied Mr. Manessa to Lady Warbeck’s, to assure Lady de Brantefield that the ring was not in their house. He endeavoured to bring to her recollection her having put it on her finger just before she got into the carriage; but this her ladyship would not admit. Lady Anne supported her mother’s assertions; and Lady de Brantefield ended by being haughtily angry, declaring she would not be contradicted by a shopman, and that she was positive the ring had never been returned to her. Within eight-and-forty hours the story was told by Lady de Brantefield and her friends at every card-table at the polite end of the town, and it was spread by Lady Anne through the park and the ball-rooms; and the ladies’-maids had repeated it, with all manner of exaggerations, through their inferior but not less extensive circles. The consequence was, that the character of Mr. Manessa’s house was hurt, and Jacob, who was the person accused as the cause of it, was very unhappy. The confidence Mr. Manessa had in him, and the kindness he showed him, increased his regret. Lady de Brantefield had, in a high tone, threatened a prosecution for the value of her inestimable ring. This was what both Jacob and Mr. Manessa would have desired—a public trial, they knew, would bring the truth to light; but her ladyship was probably discouraged by her legal advisers from a prosecution, so that Mr. Manessa and Jacob were still left to suffer by the injustice of private whisperings. Jacob offered to replace, as far as he could, the value of this ring; but in Lady de Brantefield’s opinion nothing could compensate for its loss. Poor Jacob was in despair. Before I heard this story, I thought that nothing could have forced my attention from my own affairs; but I could not be so selfish as to desert or neglect Jacob in his distress. I went with my mother this evening to see Lady de Brantefield; her ladyship was still at her relation’s, Lady Warbeck’s house, where she had apartments to herself, in which she could receive what company she pleased. There was to be a ball in the house this evening, but Lady de Brantefield never mixed in what she called idle gaieties; she abhorred a bustle, as it infringed upon her personal dignity, and did not agree with her internal persuasion that she was, or ought to be, the first object in all company. We found her ladyship in her own retired apartment; her eyes were weak, and the room had so little light in it, that when we first went in, I could scarcely distinguish any object: I saw, however, a young woman, who had been reading to her ladyship, rise as we entered, put down her book, and prepare to retire. My mother stopped her as she was passing, and turning to me, said, that this was a young person, she was sure, I should be glad to see, the daughter of an old friend of mine.
I looked, and saw a face which awakened the most painful associations of my childhood.
“Did not I perceive any likeness?” my mother continued. “But it was so many years since I had seen poor Fowler, and I was so very young a child, no wonder I should not in the least recollect.”
I had some recollection—if I was not mistaken—I stammered—I stopped. In fact, I recollected too well to be able to pay the expected compliment. However, after I had got over the first involuntary shudder, I tried to say something to relieve the embarrassment which I fancied the girl must feel.
She, in a mincing, waiting-gentlewoman’s manner, and with a certain unnatural softness of voice, which again brought all the mother to my mind, assured me that if I’d forgot her mother, she had not forgot me; for that she’d often and often heard her mother talk of me, and she was morally confident her mother had never loved any child so doatingly, except, to be sure, her own present lady’s, Lady Anne Mowbray. Her mother had often and often regretted she could never get a sight or sentence of me since I grew up to be a great gentleman, she always having been stationary down at my lady’s, in Surrey, at the Priory—housekeeper—and I never there; but if I’d have the condescension to wish to gratify her mother, as it would be the greatest gratification in life—if Lady de Brantefield—
“Presently, perhaps—when I ring,” said Lady de Brantefield, “and you, Nancy Fowler, may come back yourself with my treble ruffles: Mrs. Harrington, I know, will have the goodness to permit. I keep her as much under my own eye, and suffer her to be as much even in the room with me, as possible,” added Lady de Brantefield, as Nancy left the room; “for she is a young person quite out of the common line, and her mother i—but you first recommended her to me, Mrs. Harrington, I remember.”
“The most faithful creature!” said my mother, in the very tone I had heard it pronounced twenty years before.
I was carried back so far, so forcibly, and so suddenly, that it was some time before I could recover myself sufficiently to recollect what was the order of the day; but no matter—my mother passed on quite easily to the jewels, and my silence was convenient, and had an air of perfect deference for Lady de Brantefield’s long story of Sir Josseline’s ring, now told over, I believe, for the ninety-ninth time this season. She ended where she began, with the conviction that, if the secretary of state would, as he ought, on such an occasion, grant a general search-warrant, as she was informed had been done for papers, and things of much less value, her ring would be found in that Jacob’s possession—that Jacob, of whom she had a very bad opinion!
I took the matter up as quietly as was in my nature, and did not begin with a panegyric on my friend Jacob, but simply asked, what reason her ladyship had for her very bad opinion of him?
Too good reason, her ladyship emphatically said: she had heard her son, Lord Mowbray, express a very bad opinion of him.
Lord Mowbray had known this Jacob, she believed, when a boy, and afterwards when a man at Gibraltar, and had always thought ill of him. Lord Mowbray had said, that Jacob was avaricious and revengeful; as you know Jews always are, added her ladyship.
I wondered she had trusted her jewels, then, in such hands.
There, she owned, she had for once been wrong—overruled by others—by her daughter, Lady Anne, who said the jewels could be more fashionably set at Manessa’s than any where else.
She had never acted against her own judgment in her life, without repenting of it. Another circumstance, Lady de Brantefield said, prepossessed her, she owned, against this Jacob; he was from the very dregs of the people; the son absolutely of an old clothes-man, she had been informed. What could be expected from such a person, when temptation came in his way? and could we trust to any thing such a low sort of person would say?
Lady Anne Mowbray, before I had time to answer, entered dressed for the ball, with her jewels in full blaze, and for some time there was a suspension of all hope of coming to any thing like common sense. When her mother appealed to her about Jacob, Lady Anne protested she took a horrid dislike to his face the moment she saw him; she thought he had a shocking Jewish sort of countenance, and she was positive he would swear falsely, because he was ready to swear that her mamma had the ring on her finger when she got into the carriage—now Lady Anne was clear she had not.
“Has your ladyship,” I asked, “any particular reason for remembering this fact?”
“Oh, yes! several very particular reasons.”
There is sometimes wisdom in listening to a fool’s reasons; for ten to one that the reasons will prove the contrary to what they are brought to support, or will at least bring out some fact, the distant bearing of which on the point of question the fool does not perceive. But when two fools pour out their reasons at once, it is difficult to profit even by their folly. The mother’s authority at last obtaining precedency, I heard Lady de Brantefield’s cause of belief, first: her ladyship declared that she never wore Sir Josseline’s ring without putting on after it a guard ring, a ring which, being tighter than Sir Josseline’s, kept it safe on her finger. She remembered drawing off the guard ring when she took off Sir Josseline’s, and put that into Jacob’s hands; her ladyship said it was clear to her mind that she could not have put on Sir Josseline’s again, because here was the guard ring on her wrong finger—a finger on which she never in her life wore it when she wore Sir Josseline’s, for Sir Josseline’s was so loose, it would drop off, unless she had the guard on.
“But was not it possible,” I asked, “that your ladyship might this once have put on Sir Josseline’s ring without recollecting the guard?”
No, absolutely impossible: if Jacob and all the Jews upon earth swore it (who, by-the-bye, would swear any thing), she could not be convinced against her reason—she knew her own habits—her private reasons to her were unanswerable.
Lady Anne’s private reasons to her were equally unanswerable; but they were so confused, and delivered with so much volubility, as to be absolutely unintelligible. All I could gather was, that Fowler and her daughter Nancy were in the room when Lady Anne and her mother first missed the ring—that when her mother drew off her glove, and exclaimed, “Bless me, Sir Josseline’s not here!” Lady Anne ran up to the dressing-table, at which her mother was standing, to try to find the ring, thinking that her mother might have dropped it in drawing off her glove; “but it certainly was not drawn off with the glove.”
“But might not it be left in the glove?” I asked.
“Oh! dear, no: I shook the glove myself, and Fowler turned every finger inside out, and Nancy moved every individual box upon the dressing-table. We were all in such a fuss, because you know mamma’s so particular about Sir Josseline; and to tell you the truth, I was uncommonly anxious, because I knew if mamma was vexed and lost the ring, she would not give me a certain diamond cross, that makes me so particularly remember every circumstance—and I was in such a flurry, that I know I threw down a bottle of aether that was on mamma’s toilette, on her muff—and it had such a horrid smell!”
The muff! I asked if the muff, as well as the glove, had been searched carefully.
“La! to be sure—I suppose so—of course it was shaken, as every thing else in the room was, a hundred times over: the toilette and mamma’s petticoats even, and cloak, and gloves, as I told you.”
“Yes, but the muff, did your ladyship examine it yourself?”
“Did I examine it? I don’t recollect. No, indeed, after the aether, how could I touch it? you know: but of course it was shaken, it was examined, I am sure; but really I know nothing about it—but this, that it could not possibly be in it, the ring, I mean, because mamma had her glove on.”
I requested permission to see the muff.
“Oh, mamma was forced to give it away because of the horrid smell—she bid Fowler take it out of the room that minute, and never let it come near her again; but if you want to see it, ring for Fowler: you can examine it as much as you please; depend upon it the ring’s no more there than I am—send for Fowler and Nancy, and they can tell you how we shook every thing to no purpose. The ring’s gone, and so am I, for Colonel Topham’s waiting, and I must lead off.” And away her ladyship tripped, flirting her perfumed fan as she went. Persisting in my wish to see the muff, Lady de Brantefield desired me to ring for Fowler.
Her ladyship wondered, she said, how I could, after the reasons she had given me for her being morally certain that she had left the ring with Jacob, and after Lady Anne had justly remarked that the ring could not get through her glove, entertain a hope of finding it in such a ridiculous place as a muff. But since I was so possessed with this idea, the muff should be produced—there was nothing like ocular demonstration in these cases, except internal conviction: “Did you ring, Mr. Harrington?”
“I did.”
And Miss Nancy with the treble ruffles in her hand now appeared.
“‘Tis your mother, child, I want,” said Lady de Brantefield.
“Yes, my lady, she is only just finished assisting to lay out the ball supper.”
“But I want her—directly.”
“Certainly, my lady, directly.”
“And bid her bring—” A whisper from me to my mother, and from my mother to her ladyship, failed of effect: after turning half round, as if to ask me what I said—a look which did not pass unnoticed by Miss Nancy—her ladyship finished her sentence—“And tell Fowler I desire she will bring me the muff that I gave her last week—the day I lost my ring.”
This message would immediately put Fowler upon her guard, and I was at first sorry that it had been so worded; but I recollected having heard an eminent judge, a man of great abilities and experience, say, that if he were called upon to form a judgment of any character, or to discover the truth in any case, he would rather that the persons whom he was to examine were previously put on their guard, than that they were not; for that he should know, by what they guarded, of what they were afraid.
Fowler appeared—twenty years had so changed her face and figure, that the sight of her did not immediately shock me as I feared it would. The daughter, who, I suppose, more nearly resembled what her mother had been at the time I had known her, was, of the two, the most disagreeable to my sight and feelings. Fowler’s voice was altered by the loss of a tooth, and it was even by this change less odious to my ear. The daughter’s voice I could scarcely endure. I was somewhat relieved from the fear of being prejudiced against Fowler by the perception of this change in her; and while she was paying me her compliments, I endeavoured to fortify the resolution I had made to judge of her with perfect impartiality. Her delight at seeing me, however, I could not believe to be sincere; and the reiterated repetition of her sorrow for her never having been able to get a sight of me before, I thought ill-judged: but no matter; many people in her station make these sort of unmeaning speeches. If I had suffered my imagination to act, I should have fancied that under a sort of prepared composure there was constraint and alarm in her look as she spoke to me. I thought she trembled; but I resolved not to be prejudiced—and this I repeated to myself many times.
“Well, Fowler, but the muff,” said Lady de Brantefield.
“The muff—oh! dear, my lady, I’m so sorry I can’t have it for you—it’s not in the house nowhere—I parted with it out of hand directly upon your saying, my lady, that you desired it might never be suffered to come nigh your ladyship again. Then, says I to myself, since my lady can’t abide the smell, I can’t never wear it, which it would have been my pride to do; so I thought I could never get it fast enough out of the house.”
“And what did you do with it?”
“I made a present of it, my lady, to poor Mrs. Baxter, John Dutton’s sister, my lady, who was always so much attached to the family, and would have a regard for even the smallest relic, vestige, or vestment, I knew, above all things in nature, poor old soul!—she has, what with the rheumatic pains, and one thing or another, lost the use of her right arm, so it was particularly agreeable and appropriate—and she kissed the muff—oh! my lady, I’m sure I only wish your ladyship could have witnessed the poor soul’s veneration.”
In reply to a question which made my mother ask about the “poor soul,” I further learned that Mrs. Baxter was wife to a pawnbroker in Swallow-street. Fowler added, “If my lady wished any way for the muff, I can get it to-morrow morning by breakfast, or by the time you’s up, my lady.”
“Very well, very well, that will do, I suppose, will it not, Mr. Harrington?”
I bowed, and said not a word more—Fowler, I saw, was glad to get rid of the subject, and to go on to the treble ruffles, on which while she and my mother and Lady de Brantefield were descanting, I made my exit, and went to the ball-room.
I found Lady Anne Mowbray—talked nonsense to her ladyship for a quarter of an hour—and at last, à propos to her perfumed fan, I brought in the old muff with the horrid smell, on purpose to obtain a full description of it.
She told me that it was a gray fox-skin, lined with scarlet; that it had great pompadour-coloured knots at each end, and that it was altogether hideous. Lady Anne declared that she was heartily glad it would never shock her eyes more.
It was now just nine o’clock; people then kept better hours than they do at present; I was afraid that all the shops would be shut; but I recollected that pawnbrokers’ shops were usually kept open late. I lost no time in pursuing my object.
I took a hackney coach, bribed the coachman to drive very fast to Mr. Manessa—found Manessa and Jacob going to bed sleepy—but at sight of me Jacob was alert in an instant, and joyfully ready to go with me immediately to Baxter, the pawnbroker’s.
I made Jacob furnish me with an old surtout and slouched hat, desiring to look as shabby as possible, that the pawnbroker might take me for one of his usual nightly customers, and might not be alarmed at the sight of a gentleman.
“That won’t do yet, Mr. Harrington,” said Jacob, when I had equipped myself in the old hat and coat. “Mr. Baxter will see the look of a gentleman through all that. It is not the shabby coat that will make the gentleman look shabby, no more than the fine coat can ever make the shabby look like the gentleman. The pawnbroker, who is used to observe and find out all manner of people, will know that as well as I—but now you shall see how well at one stroke I will disguise the gentleman.”
Jacob then twisted a dirty silk handkerchief round my throat, and this did the business so completely, that I defied the pawnbroker and all his penetration.
We drove as fast as we could to Swallow-street—dismissed our hackney coach, and walked up to the pawnbroker’s.
Light in the shop!—all alive!—and business going on. The shop was so full of people, that we stood for some minutes unnoticed.
We had leisure to look about us, as we had previously agreed to do, for Lady De Brantefield’s muff.
I had a suspicion that, notwithstanding the veneration with which it had been said to be treated, it might have come to the common lot of cast clothes.
Jacob at one side, and I at the other, took a careful survey of the multifarious contents of the shop; of all that hung from the ceiling; and all that was piled on the shelves; and all that lay huddled in corners, or crammed into dark recesses.
In one of the darkest and most ignominious of these, beneath a heap of sailors’ old jackets and trowsers, I espied a knot of pompadour riband. I hooked it out a little with the stick I had in my hand; but Jacob stopped me, and called to the shopboy, who now had his eye upon us, and with him we began to bargain hard for some of the old clothes that lay upon the muff.
The shopboy lifted them up to display their merits, by the dimness of the candle-light, and, as he raised them up, there appeared beneath the gray fox-skin with its scarlet lining and pompadour knots, the Lady de Brantefield’s much venerated muff.
I could scarcely refrain from seizing upon it that moment, but Jacob again restrained me.
He went on talking about the sailors’ jackets, for which we had been in treaty; and he insisted upon having the old muff into the bargain. It actually was at last thrown in as a makeweight. Had she been witness to this bargain, I believe Lady De Brantefield would have dropped down in a swoon.
The moment I got possession of it, I turned it inside out.—There were several small rents in the lining—but one in particular had obviously been cut open with scissars. The shopboy, who thought I was pointing out the rents to disparage my purchase, assured me that any woman, clever at her needle, would with half-a-dozen stitches sew all up, and make the muff as good again as new. Jacob desired the boy to show him some old seals, rings, and trinkets, fit for a pedlar to carry into the country; Jacob was, for this purpose, sent to the most respectable place at the counter, and promoted to the honour of dealing face to face with Mr. Baxter himself:—drawers, which had before been invisible, were now produced; and I stood by while Jacob looked over all the new and old trinkets. I was much surprised by the richness and value of various brooches, picture settings, watches, and rings, which had come to this fate: at last, in a drawer with many valuables, which Mr. Baxter told us that some great man’s mistress had, last week, been obliged to leave with him, Jacob and I, at the same moment, saw “the splendour of the topaz”—Lady de Brantefield’s inestimable ring! I must do myself the justice to say that I behaved incomparably well—did not make a single exclamation, though I was sure it was the identical ring, the moment I caught a glimpse of the topaz—and though a glance from Jacob convinced me I was right. I said I could wait no longer, but would call again for him in half an hour’s time. This was what we had agreed upon beforehand should be the signal for my summoning a Bow-street officer, whom Mr. Manessa had in readiness. Jacob identified and swore to the property—Mr. Baxter was seized. He protested he did not know the ring was stolen goods—he could not recollect who had sold it to him; but when we mentioned Fowler’s name, he grew pale, was disconcerted, and not knowing how much or how little we knew, decided at once to get out of the scrape himself by giving her up, and turning evidence against her. He stated that she had found it in the old muff, but that he never knew that this muff had belonged to Lady de Brantefield. Mrs. Fowler had assured Him that it had been left to her along with the wardrobe of a lady with Whom she had formerly lived.
As soon as Baxter had told all the lies he chose to invent, and confessed as much of the truth as he thought would serve his purpose, his deposition was taken and sworn to. This was all that could then be done, as it was near twelve o’clock.
Poor Jacob’s joy at having his innocence proved, and at being relieved from the fear of injuring the credit of his master’s house, raised his spirits higher than I ever saw them in my life before. But still his joy and gratitude were more shown by looks than words. He thanked me once, and but once, warmly and strongly.
“Ah! Mr. Harrington,” said he, “from the time you were Master Harrington at school, you were my best friend—always my friend in most need—I trusted in you, and still I hoped!—hoped that the truth would stand, and the lie fall. See at last our Hebrew proverb right—‘A lie has no feet.’”