Tales and Novels, vol 5 | Page 5

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 but distantly to the Beaumonts, and he stood in
precisely the same degree of relationship to the Walsinghams. He had
no other relations, and his fortune was completely at his own disposal.

On this fortune our cunning widow had speculated long and deeply,
though in fact there was no occasion for art: it was Mr. Palmer's
intention to leave his large fortune to the Beaumonts; or to divide it
between the Beaumont and Walsingham families; and had she been
sincere in her professed desire of a complete union by a double
marriage between the representatives of the families, her favourite
object would have been, in either case, equally secure. Here was a plain,
easy road to her object; but it was too direct for Mrs. Beaumont. With
all her abilities, she could never comprehend the axiom that a right line
is the shortest possible line between any two points:--an axiom equally
true in morals and in mathematics. No, the serpentine line was, in her
opinion, not only the most beautiful, but the most expeditious, safe, and
convenient.
She had formed a triple scheme of such intricacy, that it is necessary
distinctly to state the argument of her plot, lest the action should be too
complicated to be easily developed.
She had, in the first place, a design of engrossing the whole of Mr.
Palmer's fortune for her own family; and for this purpose she
determined to prevent Mr. Palmer from becoming acquainted with his
other relations, the Walsinghams, to whom she had always had a secret
dislike, because they were of remarkably open, sincere characters. As
Mr. Palmer proposed to stay but a week in the country, this scheme of
preventing their meeting seemed feasible.
In the second place, Mrs. Beaumont wished to marry her daughter to
Sir John Hunter, because Sir John was heir expectant to a large estate,
called the Wigram estate, and because there was in his family a certain
reversionary title, the earldom of Puckeridge, which would devolve to
Sir John after the death of a near relation.
In the third place, Mrs. Beaumont wished to marry her own son to Miss
Hunter, who was Sir John's sister by a second marriage, and above
twenty years younger than he was: this lady was preferred to Miss
Walsingham for a daughter-in-law, for the reasons which Mr.
Walsingham had given; because she possessed an independent fortune
of two hundred thousand pounds, and because she was so childish and

silly that Mrs. Beaumont thought she could always manage her easily,
and by this means retain power over her son. Miss Hunter was very
pretty, and Mrs. Beaumont had observed that her son had sometimes
been struck with her beauty sufficiently to give hopes that, by proper
management, he might be diverted from his serious, sober preference of
Miss Walsingham.
Mrs. Beaumont foresaw many difficulties in the execution of these
plans. She knew that Amelia liked Captain Walsingham, and that
Captain Walsingham was attached to her, though he had never declared
his love: and she dreaded that Captain Walsingham, who was at this
time at sea, should return, just whilst Mr. Palmer was with her; because
she was well aware that the captain was a kind of man Mr. Palmer
would infinitely prefer to Sir John Hunter. Indeed, she had been
secretly informed that Mr. Palmer hated every one who had a title;
therefore she could not, whilst he was with her, openly encourage Sir
John Hunter in his addresses to Amelia. To conciliate these seemingly
incompatible schemes, she determined----But let our heroine speak for
herself.
"My dearest Miss Hunter," said she, "now we are by ourselves, let me
open my mind to you; I have been watching for an opportunity these
two days, but so hurried as I have been!--Where's Amelia?"
"Out walking, ma'am. She told me you begged her to walk to get rid of
her head-ache; and that she might look well to-day, as Mr. Palmer is to
come. I would not go with her, because you whispered to me at
breakfast that you had something very particular to say to me."
"But you did not give that as a reason, I hope! Surely you didn't tell
Amelia that I had something particular to say to you?"
"Oh, no, ma'am; I told her that I had something to do about my
dress--and so