Tales and Novels, vol 5 | Page 4

Mrs. Beaumont says, it would be cruelty to shake her off."
"Mighty plausible! But the truth of all this, begging Mrs. Beaumont's pardon, I doubt; I will not call it a falsehood, but I may be permitted to call it a Beaumont. Time will show: and in the mean time, my dear daughter, be on your guard against Mrs. Beaumont's art, and against your own credulity. The momentary pain I give my friends by speaking the plain truth, I have always found overbalanced by the pleasure and advantage of mutual confidence. Our domestic happiness has arisen chiefly from our habits of openness and sincerity. Our whole souls are laid open; there is no management, no 'intrigue de cabinet, no 'esprit de la ligue.'"
Mr. Walsingham now left the room; and Miss Walsingham, absorbed in reflections more interesting to her than even the defence of Mrs. Beaumont, went out to walk. Her father's house was situated in a beautiful part of Devonshire, near the sea-shore, in the neighbourhood of Plymouth; and as Miss Walsingham was walking on the beach, she saw an old fisherman mooring his boat to the projecting stump of a tree. His figure was so picturesque, that she stopped to sketch it; and as she was drawing, a woman came from the cottage near the shore to ask the fisherman what luck he had had. "A fine turbot," says he, "and a john-doree."
"Then away with them this minute to Beaumont Park," said the woman; "for here's Madam Beaumont's man, Martin, called in a flustrum while you was away, to say madam must have the nicest of our fish, whatsomever it might be, and a john-doree, if it could be had for love or money, for Tuesday."--Here the woman, perceiving Miss Walsingham, dropped a curtsy. "Your humble servant, Miss Walsingham," said the woman.
"On Tuesday?" said Miss Walsingham: "are you sure that Mrs. Beaumont bespoke the fish for Tuesday?"
"Oh, sartin sure, miss; for Martin mentioned, moreover, what he had heard talk in the servants' hall, that there is to be a very pettiklar old gentleman, as rich! as rich! as rich can be! from foreign parts, and a great friend of the colonel that's dead; and he--that is, the old pettiklar gentleman--is to be down all the way from Lon'on to dine at the park on Tuesday for sartin: so, husband, away with the john-doree and the turbot, while they be fresh."
"But why," thought Miss Walsingham, "did not Mrs. Beaumont tell us the plain truth, if this is the truth?"
CHAPTER II.
"Young Hermes next, a close contriving god, Her brows encircled with his serpent rod; Then plots and fair excuses fill her brain, And views of breaking am'rous vows for gain."
The information which Mrs. Beaumont's man, Martin, had learned from the servants' hall, and had communicated to the fisherman's wife, was more correct, and had been less amplified, embellished, misunderstood, or misrepresented, than is usually found to be the case with pieces of news which are so heard and so repeated. It was true that Mrs. Beaumont expected to see on Tuesday an old gentleman, a Mr. Palmer, who had been a friend of her husband's; he had lately returned from Jamaica, where he had made a large fortune. It is true, also, that this old gentleman was a little particular, but not precisely in the sense in which the fisherman's wife understood the phrase; he was not particularly fond of john-dorees and turbots, but he was particularly fond of making his fellow-creatures happy; particularly generous, particularly open and honest in his nature, abhorring all artifice himself, and unsuspicious of it in others. He was unacquainted with Mrs. Beaumont's character, as he had been for many years in the West Indies, and he knew her only from her letters, in which she appeared every thing that was candid and amiable. His great friendship for her deceased husband also inclined him to like her. Colonel Beaumont had appointed him one of the guardians of his children, but Mr. Palmer, being absent from England, had declined to act: he was also trustee to Mrs. Beaumont's marriage-settlement, and she had represented that it was necessary he should be present at the settlement of her family affairs upon her son's coming of age; an event which was to take place in a few days. The urgent representations of Mrs. Beaumont, and the anxious desire she expressed to see Mr. Palmer, had at last prevailed with the good old gentleman to journey down to Beaumont Park, though he was a valetudinarian, and though he was obliged, he said, to return to Jamaica with the West India fleet, which was expected to sail in ten days; so that he announced positively that he could stay but a week at Beaumont Park with his good friends and relations.
He was related