The Lady of Lynn

by Walter Besant

But the vicar, when this was reported to him, only laughed and said he should be rejoiced to put his lordship under examination.

Others there were, principally townsfolk, who had known Molly all her life. They agreed that she was a woman of sober mind; not given to vapours or any such feminine weaknesses; not likely to be carried away by terrors; and incapable of falsehood. If she declared that she was not married, she certainly was not married. The business might be explained in some way; but of one thing they were very sure—that Molly, since she said so, was not married. This view was strongly held by the "Society" of King's Lynn at their evening meetings.

It must be owned that the departure of the vivacious and affable Lady Anastasia with that of the agreeable rattle of seventy-five, Sir Harry, and that of the pious Purdon, who had also become a favourite with the ladies, proved a heavy blow to the gaieties of the assembly and the long room. The card room was deserted; conversation in the garden and the pump room became flat; the gentlemen who had gambled at the hazard table now carried on their sport—perhaps less dangerously—at the tavern; many of them, having lost a great deal more than they could afford, were now gloomy; there were no more public breakfasts; no more water parties up or down the river; no more bowls of punch after the dance. In a word the spirit went out of the company; the spa became dull.

Let me finish with the story of this mushroom. I call it a mushroom because it appeared, grew, and vanished in a single season. You may also call it a sky rocket if you please, or, indeed, anything which springs into existence in a moment, and in a moment dies. Perhaps we may liken it most to a bubble such as boys blow from soap suds. It floated in the sunshine for a brief space, glowing with the colours of the rainbow; then it burst and vanished, leaving nothing behind but the memory of it.

The company, I say, after the departure of the party from London, became almost immediately dull and out of spirits. The music alone was gay; many of the ladies lamented loudly that they had ever come to a place where the nightly gambling had played havoc with their husbands, fathers, or sons. They found out that the lodgings were cramped, dirty, ill-furnished, inconvenient, and exorbitant in their cost; that the provisions were dear; that they had already taken the waters for a month or more; and that, in effect, it was high time to go home. Besides, their own houses in the summer, the season of fruit and flowers, with their orchards and their gardens, were certainly more attractive than the narrow streets and the confined air of Lynn.

Therefore, some making this excuse and some that, they all with one consent began to pack up their baggage and to go home.

The departure of our friends from London took place in the middle of June; by the end of June the season was over—the visitors gone. At first the people expected new arrivals, but there were none—the season was over. The market-place for a while was crowded with the women who brought their poultry and fruit and provisions from the country. When they found that no one came to buy, they gradually ceased to appear. Great was the lamentation over the abundance which was wasted, and the produce of their gardens doomed to ripen and to rot.

Then the strolling players put their dresses and properties into a waggon and went away complaining that they were half starved, which was, I dare say, the simple truth. Next, all the show folk and the quacks, and the Cheap Jacks and tumblers and Tom Fools went away too, and the gipsies brought in no more horses, and the streets became once more silent and deserted, save on the quays and on the river, just as they had been before the spa was opened.

And then the music and the horns were sent away; the master of the ceremonies received his salary and went back to Norwich; the gardens were closed; the dippers vanished; the pump room was left for any who chose to dip and draw for themselves; the hairdressers, milliners, vendors of cosmetics, powders, paint, and patches all vanished as by magic; the coffee houses were closed; the bookseller carried his books back to Cambridge or wherever he came from; the confectioner left off making his famous cakes; and the morning prayers were once more read to a congregation of one or two.

The townsfolk, then, having nothing else to do, began to count their gains. The doctor, you remember, prophesied at the outset that all would become rich. What happened was that everybody had made large gains. The takings of the shops had been far greater than they had at any previous time hoped for or experienced. On the other hand the shopkeepers had laid in large and valuable stocks which now seemed likely to remain on their hands. Moreover, as always happens, the temporary prosperity had been taken for a continuing, or even an increasing prosperity, with the consequence that the people had launched out into an extravagant way of living, the smallest shopkeeper demanding mutton and beef instead of the fat pork and hot milk which had formerly been counted a good dinner, drinking the wine of Lisbon and Madeira where he formerly drank small ale, and even taking his dish of tea in the afternoon for the good of his megrims and the clearance of his ill humours.