Miss Georgiana had quickness and ability sufficient to feel the value of her mother’s knowledge of the world and of human nature, but she had seldom sufficient command of temper to imitate or to benefit by Mrs. Falconer’s address. On this occasion she contented herself with venting her spleen on the poor painter, whose colouring and drapery she began to criticize unmercifully. Mrs. Falconer, however, carried off the count with her into the library, and kept him there, till the commissioner, who had been detained in the neighbouring village by some electioneering business, arrived; and then they pursued their walk together through the park. Miss Falconer was particularly delighted with the beauties of the grounds. Miss Georgiana, recovering her good-humour, was again charming—and all went on well; till they came near the sea-shore, and the count asked Commissioner Falconer to show him the place where the shipwreck had happened. She was provoked that his attention should be withdrawn from her, and again by these Percys. The commissioner called to one of the boatmen who had been ordered to be in readiness, and asked him to point out the place where the Dutch vessel had been wrecked. The man, who seemed rather surly, replied that they could not see the right place where they stood, and if they had a mind to see it, they must come into the boat, and row a piece up farther.
Now some of these town-bred ladies were alarmed at the idea of going to sea, and though Miss Georgiana was very unwilling to be separated from the count, and though her mother encouraged the young lady to vanquish her fears as much by precept and as little by example as possible, yet when she was to be handed into the boat, she drew back in pretty terror, put her hands before her face, and protested she could not venture even with Count Altenberg. After as much waste of words as the discussion of such arrangements on a party of pleasure usually involves, it was at length settled that only the commissioner should accompany the count, that the rest of the gentlemen and ladies should pursue their walk, and that they should all meet again at the park-gate. The surly boatman rowed off, but he soon ceased to be surly when the count spoke of the humanity and hospitality which had been shown to some of his countrymen by Mr. Percy. Immediately the boatman’s tongue was loosed.
“Why, ay, sir, if you bees curous about that there gentleman, I can tell you a deal about him. But them as comes to see the new man does not covet to hear talk of the old master; but, nevertheless, there’s none like him—he gave me and wife that there white cottage yonder, half ways up the bank, where you see the smoke rising between the trees—as snug a cottage it is!—But that is no matter to you, sir. But I wish you had but seed him the night of the shipwreck, he and his son, God above bless him, and them—wherever they are, if they’re above ground. I’d row out the worse night ever we had, to set my eyes on them again before I die, but for a minute. Ay, that night of the shipwreck, not a man was willing to go out with them, or could be got out the first turn, but myself.”
Upon this text he spoke at large, entering into a most circumstantial and diffuse history of the shipwreck, mingling his own praises with those which he heartily bestowed upon the Percys of the right good old branch. Commissioner Falconer meantime was not in a condition to throw in any thing in favour of his new friend Sir Robert Percy; he was taking pinch after pinch of snuff, looking alternately at the water and the boat, sitting stiffly upright in anxious silence. Although in the incessant practice of suppressing his own feelings, corporeal and mental, from respect or complaisance to his superiors in rank and station, yet he presently found it beyond the utmost efforts of his courtly philosophy to endure his qualms of mind and body. Interrupting the talkative boatman, he first conjured the orator to mind what he was about; at last, Mr. Falconer complaining of growing very sick, the count gave up all thoughts of proceeding farther, and begged the boatman to put them ashore as soon as he could. They landed near the village, which it was necessary that they should pass through, before they could reach the appointed place of meeting. The poor commissioner, whose stomach was still disordered, and whose head was giddy, observed that they had yet a long walk to take, and proposed sending for one of the carriages—accordingly they waited for it at the village inn. The commissioner, after having made a multitude of apologies to the count, retired to rest himself—during his absence, the count, who, wherever he was, endeavoured to see as much as possible of the manners of the people, began talking to the landlord and landlady. Again the conversation turned upon the characters of the late and the present possessors of Percy-hall; and the good people, by all the anecdotes they told, and still more by the warm attachment they expressed for the old banished family, increased every moment his desire to be personally acquainted with those who in adversity were preferred to persons in present power and prosperity. Count Altenberg, young as he was, had seen enough of the world to feel the full value of eulogiums bestowed on those who are poor, and who have no means of serving in any way the interests of their panegyrists.
When the carriage came, and the commissioner was sufficiently refitted for conversation, the count repeatedly expressed his earnest wish to become acquainted with that Mr. Percy and his family, to whom his countrymen had been so much obliged, and of whom he said he had this morning heard so many interesting anecdotes. The commissioner had not been present when the count saw the picture of Caroline, nor indeed did he enter into Mrs. Falconer’s matrimonial designs for her daughter Georgiana. The commissioner generally saw the folly, and despaired of the success, of all castle-building but his own, and his castles in the air were always on a political plan. So without difficulty he immediately replied that nothing would give him more pleasure than to introduce the count to his relations, the Percys. The moment this was mentioned, however, to Mrs. Falconer, the commissioner saw through the complacent countenance, with which she forced herself to listen to him, that he had made some terrible blunder, for which he should have to answer in private.
Accordingly the first moment they were alone, Mrs. Falconer reproached him with the rash promise he had made. “I shall have all the difficulty in the world to put this out of the count’s head. I thought, Mr. Falconer, that you had agreed to let those Percys drop.”
“So I would if I could, my dear; but how can I, when Lord Oldborough persists in holding them up?—You must go and see them, my dear.”
“I!” cried Mrs. Falconer, with a look of horror; “I!—not I, indeed! Lord Oldborough holds up only the gentlemen of the family—his lordship has nothing to do with the ladies, I suppose. Now, you know visiting can go on vastly well, to all eternity, between the gentlemen of a family without the ladies having any sort of intimacy or acquaintance even. You and Mr. Percy—if it is necessary for appearance sake with Lord Oldborough—may continue upon the old footing; but I charge you, commissioner, do not involve me—and whatever happens, don’t take Count Altenberg with you to the Hills.”
“Why not, my dear?”
“My dear, I have my reasons. You were not in the gallery at Percy-hall this morning, when the count saw that painted glass window?”