“No, by no means,” said Mr. Palmer; “nor was Colonel Beaumont. Often and often he said in his letters to me, that he wished his wife to marry again after he was gone, and to be as happy after his death as she had been during his life. I only hope that your choice may fulfil—may justify—” Mr. Palmer stopped again, something in Shakspeare, about preying on garbage, ran in his head; and, when Mrs. Beaumont went on to some fresh topics of vindication, and earnestly pressed for his advice, he broke up the conference by exclaiming, “‘Fore Jupiter, madam, we had better say nothing more about the matter; for, after all, what can the wit of man or woman make of it, but that you choose to marry Sir John Hunter, and that nobody in the world has a right to object to it? There is certainly no occasion to use any management with me; and your eloquence is only wasting itself, for I am not so presumptuous, or so unreasonable, as to set myself up for the judge of your actions. You do me honour by consulting me; but as you already know my opinion of the gentleman, I must decline saying any thing further on the subject.”
Mrs. Beaumont was left in a painful state of doubt as to the main point, whether Mr. Palmer would or would not alter his will. However, as she was determined that the match should be accomplished, she took advantage of the declaration Mr. Palmer made, that he had no right to object to her following her own inclinations; and she told Sir John Hunter that Mr. Palmer was perfectly satisfied; and that he had indeed relieved her mind from some foolish scruples, by having assured her that it was Colonel Beaumont’s particular wish, often expressed in his confidential letters, that his widow should marry again. So far, so good. Then the affair was to be broken to her son and daughter. She begged Mr. Palmer would undertake, for her sake, this delicate task; but he declined it with a frank simplicity.
“Surely, madam,” said he, “you can speak without difficulty to your own son and daughter; and I have through life observed, that employing one person to speak to another is almost always hurtful. I should not presume, however, to regulate your conduct, madam, by my observations; I should only give this as a reason for declining the office with which you proposed to honour me.”
The lady, compelled to speak for herself to her son and daughter, opened the affair to them with as much delicacy and address as she had used with Mr. Palmer. Their surprise was great; for they had not the most remote idea of her intentions. The result of a tedious conversation of three hours’ length was perfectly satisfactory to her, though it would have been to the highest degree painful and mortifying to a woman of more feeling, or one less intent upon an establishment, a reversionary title, and the Wigram estate. How low she sunk in the opinion of her children and her friends was comparatively matter of small consequence to Mrs. Beaumont, provided she could keep fair appearances with the world. Whilst her son and daughter were so much ashamed of her intended marriage, that they would not communicate their sentiments even to each other,—they, with becoming duty, agreed that Mrs. Beaumont was very good in speaking to them on the subject; as she had an uncontroulable right to marry as she thought proper.
Mrs. Beaumont now wrote letters innumerable to her extensive circle of connexions and acquaintance, announcing her approaching nuptials, and inviting them to her wedding. It was settled by Mrs. Beaumont, that the three marriages should take place on the same day. This point she laboured with her usual address, and at last brought the parties concerned to give up their wishes for a private wedding, to gratify her love for show and parade. Nothing now remained but to draw the settlements. Mrs. Beaumont, who piqued herself upon her skill in business, and who thought the sum of wisdom was to excel in cunning, looked over her lawyer’s drafts, and suggested many nice emendations, which obtained for her from an attorney the praise of being a vastly clever woman. Sir John was not, on his side, deficient in attention to his own interests. Never was there a pair better matched in this respect; never were two people going to be married more afraid that each should take the other in. Sir John, however, pressed forward the business with an eagerness that surprised every body. Mrs. Beaumont again and again examined the settlements, to try to account prudentially for her lover’s impatience; but she saw that all was right there on her part, and her self-love at last acquiesced in the belief that Sir John’s was now the ardour of a real lover. To the lady’s entire satisfaction, the liveries, the equipages, the diamonds, the wedding-clothes were all bought, and the wedding-day approached. Mrs. Beaumont’s rich and fashionable connexions and acquaintance all promised to grace her nuptials. Nothing was talked of but the preparations for Mrs. Beaumont and Sir John Hunter’s marriage; and so full of business and bustle, and mysteries, and sentimentalities, and vanities was she, that she almost forgot that any body was to be married but herself. The marriages of her son and daughter seemed so completely to merge in the importance and splendour of her own, that she merely recollected them as things that were to be done on the same day, as subordinate parts that were to be acted by inferior performers, whilst she should engross the public interest and applause. In the mean time Miss Hunter was engaged, to Mrs. Beaumont’s satisfaction and her own, in superintending the wedding-dresses, and in preparing the most elegant dress imaginable for herself, as bride’s-maid. Now and then she interrupted these occupations with sighs and fits of pretty sentimental dejection; but Mrs. Beaumont was well convinced that a new lover would soon make her forget her disappointment. The nephew was written to, and invited to spend some time with his aunt, immediately after her marriage; for she determined that Miss Hunter should be her niece, since she could not be her daughter. This secondary intrigue went on delightfully in our heroine’s imagination, without interfering with the main business of her own marriage. The day, the long-expected day, that was to crown all her hopes, at length arrived.
CHAPTER XVI.
“On peut étre plus fin qu’un autre, mais pas plus fin que tous les autres.”—ROCHEFOUCAULT.
The following paragraph[8] extracted from the newspapers of the day, will, doubtless, be acceptable to a large class of readers.