Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846

Chapter VI

It was a lovely morning, notwithstanding it was November – the rain had wholly ceased, and the clear and almost cloudless sky showed every indication of a fine day; so that Frank had an excellent opportunity of witnessing the view of the sea to which the squire had alluded, and with which he was very much gratified. But, for all this, our little hero was looking forward to a far more interesting sight, in the persons of the fair ladies he had fully made up his mind to meet that morning at breakfast; though the altered tones of their voices still exceedingly puzzled him. Wishing, however, to appear to the greatest possible advantage, he no sooner got back to the house, than, under the pretext of just seeing Vernon for a minute, he took the opportunity of brushing up his hair, and all that sort of thing. Having so done, and being by no means dissatisfied with the result, he again descended the stairs, and, with a throbbing heart, entered the breakfast room. Here he found the master of the house, with his amiable little wife, and three young ladies, already seated around the table – yes, three young ladies – actually one more in number than he had anticipated; but, alas! how different from those he had hoped to see. Instead of the lovely forms he and Vernon had been so forcibly struck with the day before, he perceived three very indifferent-looking young women – one, a thin little crooked creature, with sharp contracted features, which put him in mind of the head of a skinned rabbit – another with an immense flat unmeaning face; and the third, though better-looking than her two companions, was a silly little flippant miss in her teens, rejoicing in a crop of luxuriant curls which swept over her shoulders as she returned Frank's polite bow – when the squire introduced him to the assembled company – as much as to say, "I'm not for you, sir, at any price; so, pray don't for a moment fancy such a thing." The other two spinsters returned his salutation less rudely; but he set down the whole trio as the most uninteresting specimens of womankind he had ever met.

"Come," said the squire addressing himself to Frank, who, surprised as well as disappointed, was looking a little as if he couldn't help it, "Come, come Mr Trevelyan, here we are all assembled at last; so make the best use of your time, and then for waging war against the partridges."

Frank did make the best use of his time, and a most excellent breakfast, though he puzzled his brains exceedingly during the whole time he was so occupied with turning it over in his mind, how it was possible that such a delightful couple as the founders of the feast, could have produced so unprepossessing a progeny; whilst Timothy – who, though it was no part of his duty to wait at table, which was performed by a well-dressed man-servant out of livery – managed, on some pretext or other, to be continually coming in and out of the room, and every time contrived to catch Frank's eye, and, by a knowing grin, to let him know that he both understood the cause, and was exceedingly amused at his perplexity.

No sooner had Frank eaten and drank to his heart's content, than he declared his readiness to attend the squire to the field. Here they fell in with several coveys of partridges, and the squire, being an excellent shot, brought down his birds in fine style; added to which he knocked over a woodcock and several snipes; but it was otherwise with Frank, whose shooting experience being rather limited, after missing several easy shots, terminated the day by wounding a cow slightly, and killing a guinea-hen that flew out of a hedge adjoining a farm-yard the sportsmen were passing, which, mistaking for some wild gallinaceous animal or other, he blazed away at, without inquiring as to the particular species to which it might possibly belong. But so far from being cast down with his ill success, or the laughter his more effective shots had raised at his expense, he enjoyed the day amazingly, fully resolved to have another bout at it on the morrow; and so he and the worthy squire returned homewards together in the best possible humour with each other; the latter delighted with Frank, and Frank equally well pleased with the squire.

But Frank felt very sheepish about what his friend Vernon Wycherley would say as to the result of the predictions he had that morning made, and how he should manage to put a bold front upon the matter, so as to have the laugh all on his own side; a sort of thing he couldn't arrange any how; but still he would not pass so near his friend's bedroom, without looking in to ask him how he was getting on, when, to his great surprise, he found not only the bed, but even the apartment unoccupied.

"Ah, well!" said Frank, "I'm rejoiced, poor fellow, he's so much better than I expected; and it's all for the best that I find the bird flown, which spares me the vexation of confessing to him the blunder I made in my calculations this morning, which he must have found out long before this."

Having relieved his mind by these observations, he repaired to his own room, and having shifted his attire, and made the best of himself his limited wardrobe would admit, was again in the act of descending the stairs, when he encountered Timothy, who, with a grin that distended his mouth wellnigh from ear to ear, begged to direct him to the drawing-room, which was on the same floor with the bed chambers, where, he informed him, "the gen'lman was a-laying up top o' the sofer, and a-telkin' away brave with the young ladies – I say," observed Timothy, winking his eye to give greater expression to his words – "I say – he's a ben there for hours, bless'ee; for no sooner did mun12 hear their sweet voices a-passing long the passage, than ha ups a-ringing away to the bell, which I takes care to answer; so ha tips me yef-a-crown to help mun on we us cloaz, which I did ready and wullin'; and then, guessing what mun 'ud like to be yefter, I ups with my gen'lman pick-a-back, and puts13 mun with ma right into drawing-room, an drops mun flump down all vittey14 amongst the ladies a-top of the sofer; and if you wants to see a body look plazed, just step in yer" – added he, laying his hand on the lock of the door, which they had then reached – "only just step in yer, and look to mun."

"Then most heartily do I pity his taste," thought Frank; but he didn't say so, and passed through the door Timothy had opened for him, who duly announced him to the party within. But how shall we attempt to describe Frank's amazement, when he discovered of whom the party consisted? He had indeed been surprised at meeting persons so totally different from what he had expected that morning at breakfast, but he was now perfectly thunderstruck at the sight which burst upon his astonished vision.

There was Mr Vernon Wycherley reclining at his ease on an elegant sofa, his head comfortably propped up with pillows, and as far, at any rate, as face was concerned, appearing not a bit the worse for his late accident, and making himself quite at home; and there, too, seated near him, were those lovely creatures who had excited the admiration of our two young heroes on the preceding day: there they were, both of them, dressed most becomingly, and looking most bewitchingly lady-like, employed about some of those little matters of needlework, which afford no impediment to conversation, chatting away with their new acquaintance in the most friendly and agreeable manner possible.

Chapter VII

Frank Trevelyan was so much taken aback by a sight so totally unexpected, that his confident assurance for the moment forsook him, and with a countenance suffused with blushes, and a perfect consciousness all the time that he was looking like a fool, he stood stock-still within a few paces from the door, as if uncertain whether to pluck up sufficient courage to advance, or to turn tail and make a run of it; his comfort all this time in nowise enhanced, by detecting the air of triumphant satisfaction with which Mr Vernon Wycherley was witnessing and enjoying his confusion. Fortunately, however, for Frank, the ladies had more compassion, and by their pleasing affability of manner, speedily relieved him from his embarrassment – so speedily indeed, that in the course of five minutes he had not only conquered every bashful feeling, but had acquired so great a degree of easy self-possession, that Vernon Wycherley actually began to wonder at what he was pleased in his own mind to style, "the little rascal's cool impudence" – But he only thought so whilst Frank was devoting his sole attentions to the darker beauty, with whom the young poet had already chosen to fancy himself in love; for when, at the expiration of this five minutes, his friend transferred his civilities to her fair sister, Mr Wycherley returned to his original opinion, formed upon a close intimacy of several years, which was, that friend Frank was one of the best-hearted, good-humoured, and entertaining little fellows that ever existed.

And now, how shall we attempt to describe these lovely young creatures, whose charms were, by this time, playing sad havoc with the hearts of Mr Vernon Wycherley, and his friend Mr Francis Trevelyan. First, then, the elder sister, Miss Mary. – Her features were regular, with the true Madonna cast of countenance, beautiful when in a state of repose, but still more lovely when lighted up by animation. Her cheek, though pale, indicated no symptom of ill health, and her complexion was remarkably clear, which was beautifully contrasted with her raven hair, dark eyes, and long silken eyelashes. Her sister, who was but a year younger, owed more of her beauty to a certain sweetness of expression it is impossible to describe, than to perfect regularity of feature. Her eyes were dark-blue, and her hair of a dark-golden brown; her complexion fair and clear, and her mouth and lips the most perfect that can be conceived. Both sisters had excellent teeth, but in other respects their features were totally dissimilar. They were about the middle height – and their figures faultless, which, added to a lady-like carriage and engaging manners, untainted with affectation, rendered them perfectly fascinating. Such was, at any rate, the opinion each of our two heroes had formed of her to whom he had been pleased to devote his thoughts – Frank of the gentle Bessie, and Vernon of the lovely Mary – for none but the squire before her face, and Timothy behind her back, ever dared to call her Miss Molly; so that before Squire Potts, or his good lady, joined the young folks, which they did ere one delightful half hour had passed away, both our young men were deeply in for it – the poet resigned to pine away the rest of his days in solitary grief, and to write sonnets on his sorrows; and Frank resolved to try all he could do to win the lady over to be of the same mind with himself, and then to do every thing in his power, with the respective governors on both sides, to bring things to a happy conclusion as speedily as possible.

Oh! they were nice people were the Potts's – father, mother, and daughters; and how delighted Frank was when he sate down to the dinner-table with them – never were such nice people, thought Frank – and he wasn't far wide of the mark either. And how disconsolate poor Vernon felt in being compelled to rough it all alone, for that day at least, upon water-gruel above stairs! But the ladies, taking compassion upon his forlorn condition, and sympathizing with him for the dangers he had past, left the table very early, and favoured him with their company, leaving the squire below to amuse friend Frank.

But the squire and Frank were not left long alone together, for the village doctor dropped in just as the ladies had departed to inquire how Vernon was getting on, and was easily prevailed upon to help the squire and his guest out with their wine; and then came the clergyman of the parish, and his three or four private pupils, who had come to finish letting off the fireworks, which they had favoured the squire with partially exhibiting on the previous evening; but which the news of Vernon's misadventure had prematurely cut short – and so the remainder of the exhibition was postponed to the following evening – and that time having then arrived, all the rest of the combustibles went off, one after another, with very great eclat.

But where are those three uninteresting young damsels all this time? – What has become of them? some of our readers may be inclined to ask. For their satisfaction we beg to inform them, that these three unprepossessing personages were merely acquaintances, who had dropped in unexpectedly the evening before, and made use of the squire's residence as a kind of inn or half-way house, on the way to visit some friends some ten miles further on, to which place they had betaken themselves soon after breakfast. And by way of clearing up as we go – The Misses Potts, (for Potts they were called, there's no disguising that fact,) the Misses Potts, we say, were at the time our two heroes first met them returning homewards from a long ride; shortly after which, being overtaken by a heavy shower, they betook themselves to a friend's house not very far distant, where, owing to the unfavourable appearance of the weather, they were induced to remain for the night, and Timothy was accordingly sent home with a message to that effect.

They were very nice people indeed were the Potts's; and not only did their two guests think so, but the whole country, far and wide around, entertained precisely the same opinion. It is not, therefore, surprising that two young men like Frank and Vernon should be well pleased with their quarters, or that, having so early gotten into the slough of love, they should daily continue to sink deeper into the mire. The young poet's lame leg, though not a very serious affair, was still sufficient to keep him for several days a close prisoner to the house; but if any one had asked him – no, we don't go so far as to say that, for if any one had so asked him he would not have answered truly; but if he had seriously proposed the question to himself, his heart would have told him, that notwithstanding all the pain and inconvenience attendant on his then crippled state, he wouldn't have changed with his friend Frank, to have been compelled to ramble abroad with the father, instead of remaining at home to enjoy the society of his daughters.

As for Frank, he was equally well pleased to let matters be as they were; he shot with the squire, accompanied him on his walks about his farm; and occasionally, when the weather permitted, attended the young ladies in their rides; and then, and then only, did Vernon envy him, or repine at his own lame and helpless condition. But whatever the opinion of the latter might have been, never in all his born days did Mr Frank Trevelyan spend his time so much to his satisfaction.

Now we must not suppose that Squire Potts had, like an old blockhead, admitted these two young men into such close terms of intimacy with his family, upon no further acquaintance than was furnished him by his having helped the one out of a lead shaft, and the other to a dry rig-out after the duckings he had encountered in seeking the necessary aid – quite the contrary; for though the nature of the accident, and the forlorn condition of our pedestrians, would have insured them both food and shelter till the patient could have been safely removed elsewhere; yet the squire would never have admitted any one to the society of the female part of his family, whose respectability and station in society he was at all doubtful about. He had therefore, during supper-time on the night of his arrival, but in polite manner, put several pumping questions to Frank, who very readily answered them; from which he discovered that Frank's father, though personally unacquainted with, he knew by reputation to be a highly respectable person and a county magistrate; nor was even Frank's name wholly unknown to him, and the little he had heard was highly in his favour. He, therefore, passed muster very well; and, during the course of the shooting expedition on the following morning, the squire had also contrived to elicit from his young companion, that Vernon Wycherley's father, who had died some years before, had been both an intimate and valued friend of his own early years.

By this means a great portion of the reserve, often attendant upon an acquaintance recently formed, wore off; so that our two heroes felt themselves, in the course of a few days, as much at home with their newly-made friends, as if they had been on terms of intimacy with them from their childhood. There was, however, one serious drawback to the poet's felicity. The comedy upon which he had designed to establish his future fame, was nowhere to be found; and there was every reason to believe, that it was reposing in the shaft from which its author had been so providentially rescued, where no one would venture down to seek it on account of the foul air that was known to prevail near the bottom.

"Well, never mind," said Vernon, who, when informed of his probable loss, was reclining very comfortably on the drawing-room sofa, taking tea with his kind entertainers, – "Well, never mind," he said, "I must be thankful to Heaven for my own preservation, and, practising a little of friend Frank's philosophy, try to believe that what has happened is all for the best."

"And so I've no doubt it is," interposed Frank; "for you must either have been doomed to disappointment by your failure, or, if you had succeeded in being the fortunate competitor out of the hundred candidates who are striving for the prize, you would, as a matter of course, have incurred the everlasting enmity of the disappointed ninety-nine, to say nothing of their numerous friends and allies; why, you would be cut up to minced meat amongst them all; and nine-tenths of the reviews and newspapers would be ringing their changes of abuse upon your name, as one of the most blundering blockheads that ever spoilt paper."

"Enough, Frank, enough – I give in," interrupted Mr Wycherley; "quite enough said on the subject, and perhaps you may be right too in this instance; but I verily believe, that if the direst misfortune were to happen to one, you would strive to convince him, or at any rate set it down in our own mind, that it was all for the best."

"And if he did so," said the squire, "he might be less distant from the truth than you imagine. I myself indeed could mention an instance, where a man at last happily discovered that a circumstance he had set down in his own mind as the ruling cause of every subsequent misfortune, eventually proved the instrument of producing him a greater degree of happiness than often falls to the lot of the most fortunate of mankind."

Frank and Vernon both expressed a wish to hear the tale, which the squire, who was a rare hand at telling a story, proceeded forthwith to recount; but as, for reasons we forbear mentioning at present, he glossed over some important parts, and touched but lightly on others equally material, we purpose, instead of recording the tale in his own words, to state the facts precisely as they occurred, the subject of which will form the contents of the two next following chapters.

Chapter VIII. – The Squire's Tale

In a town that shall be nameless, but which was situate somewhere or other in the West of England, there lived some years since – no matter how many – a young man, called Job Vivian, who practised as a surgeon, apothecary, and so forth. He was about two or three and twenty years of age when he first commenced his professional career in this place, and very shortly afterwards he married the girl of his affections, to whom he had been sincerely attached from his very boyhood; and as they were both exceedingly good-looking – in fact, she was beautiful – they of course made what the world terms an imprudent marriage. But Job himself thought very differently, and amidst all the cares and vicissitudes that attended several years of his wedded life, he never passed a day without breathing a prayer of thankfulness to Heaven for having blessed him with so excellent a helpmate. But though rich in domestic comforts, all the rest of Job's affairs, for a long time, went on unprosperously. He certainly acquired sufficient practice in the course of a few years to occupy a great portion of his time, by night as well as by day, but then it was not what is termed a paying practice. In fact, nearly the whole of his business was either amongst the poorer classes, who couldn't pay, the dishonest, who wouldn't, or the thoughtless and dilatory, who, if they did so, took a very long time about it. In spite, therefore, of all his labour and assiduity, the actual amount he received from his practice fell short of his yearly expenditure, which obliged him to dip into his small independent property, consisting of a few houses in an obscure part of the town; which, as he became every year more heavily involved, he was erelong compelled to mortgage so deeply, that what between some of his tenants running away without paying their rent, the costs of repairs, and money to be paid for interest, a very small portion of the annual proceeds ever reached Job's pockets; and at last, to complete the whole, a virulent fever broke out in the very midst of this precious property, of so obstinate and dangerous a kind, as for some months to defy the skill of all the medical men of the place, nearly depopulating the whole neighbourhood, which in consequence became all but deserted.

Just at this critical time poor Job Vivian received a notice from his mortgagee – a rich old timber merchant, who lived and carried on his business in the same town with him – to pay off his mortgage; which he being unable to do, or to obtain any body to advance the required amount on the security of property which had then become so depreciated in value, the sordid worshipper of mammon, though rolling in wealth, and not spending one-tenth part of his income, and with neither wife nor children to provide for, nor a soul on earth he cared a straw for, was resolved, as he was technically pleased to term it, to sell up the doctor forthwith; to accomplish which he commenced an action of ejectment to recover the possession of the premises, though Job had voluntarily offered to give them up to him, and also an action of covenant for non-payment of the mortgage money, whilst at the same time he filed his bill in Chancery to foreclose the mortgage; which combined forces, legal and equitable, proved so awful a floorer to a sinking man, that, in order to get clear of them, he was glad at the very outset, not only to give up all claim to the property, but even to consent to pay £100 out of his own pocket for the costs said to have been incurred in thus depriving him of his possessions.

These costs proved an unceasing millstone about the unfortunate doctor's neck. In order to pay them, he had been obliged to leave more just demands undischarged; and thus he became involved in difficulties he strove in vain to extricate himself from. Yet in spite of all this, Job and his good little wife were a far happier couple than most of their richer neighbours. The constant hope that things would soon begin to take a more prosperous turn, reconciled them to their present perplexities; there was but one drawback they considered to render their bliss complete; and Job used to say, that he had never met with an instance of a man who hadn't a drawback to perfect happiness in some shape or other and that, take it for all in all, they had, thank God, a pretty fair allowance of the world's comforts.

"So we have, my dear Job," said his pretty little wife Jessie, in reply to a remark of this kind he had been just then making – "and only think how far happier we are than most of the people around us. Only think of Mr Belasco, who, with all his money and fine estates, is so unhappy, that his family are in constant dread of his destroying himself."

"And poor Sir Charles Deacon," interposed Job, "a man so devotedly fond of good eating and drinking as he is, and yet to be compelled to live on less than even workhouse allowance for fear of the gout – and then that silly Lord Muddeford, who's fretting himself to death because ministers wouldn't make him an earl – Mrs Bundy, with her two thousand a-year, making herself miserable because the Grandisons, and my Lord and Lady Muddeford, and one or two others of the grand folks, every one of whom she dislikes, won't visit her. Then the squire at Mortland is troubled with a son that no gentleman will be seen speaking to; and the rich rector of" – Job nodded his head, but didn't say where – "has a tipsy-getting wife – and poor Squire Taylor's wife stark mad – Mr Gribbs also, with his fine unencumbered property, has two idiot children, and another deaf and dumb, and the other – the only sane child he has, is little better than a fool. Then the Hoblers are rendered miserable by the disobedience and misconduct of their worthless children; and the Dobsons are making themselves wretched because they've no such creatures to trouble themselves about. The only man of property I can name in the whole country round who seems free from care, is our fox-hunting squire at Abbot's Beacon, who really does enter into the life of the sport, has plenty of money to carry it on with, and has besides one of the nicest places I think I ever saw."