Oh! but the next year would bring another flood of fortune; they could wait. Therefore they passed the winter in such habits of profuseness as I have indicated. Spring arrived, and they began to furbish their lodgings anew and to look to their stores and stocks. The month of May brought warmth and sunshine, but it did not bring the expected company. May passed; June passed. To the unspeakable consternation of the town, no visitors came at all—none. With one consent all stayed at home or went elsewhere. I have never heard any explanation of this remarkable falling off. That is to say, there were many reasons offered, but none that seemed sufficient. Thus, the ladies of Norfolk had taken a holiday which was costly and could not be repeated every year. It was like a visit to London, which is made once in a life and is talked about for the rest of that life. Or the losses of the gentlemen at the gaming table frightened them; they would not again be led into temptation; or the grand invention of Sam Semple had to be blown upon; or the rheumatic and the gouty who had taken the waters now found that they were in no way the better; or the scandal of those conspirators in high rank drove people away—indeed, such an exposure could do no good to any place of resort.
There were, therefore, after the event, many explanations offered, and every one may choose for himself. It is, however, certain that no visitors came; that the pump room was deserted, save for the few people of the town; that there was no need to engage music or to provide provisions or do anything, for no one came. The spa had enjoyed its brief hour of popularity, and was now dead.
This was a blow to the town, from which it was slow, indeed, to recover. Many of the shopkeepers were unable to pay their rents or to sell their stocks. Simplicity of manners returned with the fat pork and the hot milk; and as for the promised accession of wealth, I believe that the spa left our people poorer than it found them.
I have been told that this has been the fate of many spas. First there is a blind belief in the sovereign virtue of the well; at the outset the place is crowded with visitors; there is every kind of amusement and pleasure; then this confidence becomes less and presently vanishes altogether, and is transferred to some other well. As faith decays so the company grows thinner and less distinguished. There was formerly, I believe, a fashionable spa near London, at a place called Hampstead. This spa had such a rise, such a period of prosperity, and such a fall. Another spa which also rose, flourished and then decayed and is now deserted, was the spa of Epsom, a village some miles south of London. These places, however, lasted more than a single season. Our spa lived but for two or three short months and then passed away. To be sure it was a pretence and a sham from the outset, but people did not know its origin; Sam Semple, its sole creator, remained unknown and unsuspected.
I know not, I say, how the belief in the doctor's well came so suddenly to an end. I do know, however, that the disappointment of the doctor, and, with him, all who let lodgings, kept taverns, provided victuals, and sold things of any kind, was very bitter when the next spring brought no company. They waited, I say, expectant, all through the summer. When it became quite certain that the spa was really dead, they began sorrowfully to pull down the rooms and to take away the fence, and they left the gardens to weeds and decay. And then the town relapsed once more into its former, and present, condition. That is to say, it became again unknown to the fashionable world; the gentry of Norfolk resorted to Norwich again; they forgot that they once came to Lynn; the place lies in a corner with the reclaimed marshes on either hand; it is inaccessible except to those whose business takes them there; travellers do not visit the town; it is not like Harwich, or Dover, or Hull, a place which carries on communication by packet with foreign countries; it is a town shrunken within its former limits, its courts encumbered with deserted and ruinous houses, its streets quiet and silent. Yet it is prosperous in a quiet way; it has its foreign trade, its port, and its shipping; its merchants are substantial; the life which they lead is monotonous, but they do not feel the monotony. Except for an occasional riot among drunken sailors there is no work for the justices of the peace, and no occupants of the prison. At least we have no great lady using her charms, her gracious smiles, her rank in order to lure our young men to their destruction; we have no profligate parsons; we have no noble lords parading in the borrowed plumes of saint and confessor.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
THE OPINION OF COUNSEL
Meantime we waited expectant, and in uncertainty. It was possible that the pretended husband would withdraw his claims and that nothing more would be heard of him. It was possible, I say, if we supposed the pretender capable of honour, shame, or of pride, that he would say, in so many words: "You deny the marriage; very well, I will not claim a wife who says that she is no wife." It was, however, far more probable that he would claim his wife and exercise his rights over her property. What should then be done?
The subject exercised the "Society" greatly; every evening the situation was considered from all possible points of view, and always as to the best manner of protecting Molly. It was at this time that the vicar wrote out the statement which he afterwards laid before counsel in London in order to obtain an opinion on its legal aspect.
The case drawn up by him was as follows: