One or two neighbours were disposed to be friendly; but unfortunately, they were people Theresa didn’t care about. My kind-hearted uncle appeared to regret the general want of cordiality for my sake.
“In other places,” he said, “some kind of fun is always to be got; pic-nics, lawn-parties, and so forth. But the utmost civilities we are accustomed to, here, are sometimes a bow, and at long intervals, a visit.”
I assured him that I wanted no other and no better society than himself and his daughter.
“Still,” said he, “I should like to have given a party of some kind for you. But if I wanted to fill my rooms, I should have to hunt for my guests in the highways and under the hedges. There are not half-a-dozen creatures in the district to whom I would offer a glass of wine.”
“English society appears to me intolerably exclusive.”
“Ay,” he answered, “your self-made men know that. In the provinces there is nothing harder to get than society. A man must live in a place half his life before he can gather people about him, and then his antecedents must be unimpeachable. Provincial society consists of coteries, all absurdly jealous and suspicious of intruders. I parted with some pleasant friends when I left ——; but how many years I shall have to live here before the people whose acquaintance is desirable will honour me with their friendship I cannot imagine. Money will not bring society, and mere respectability takes time to make itself known. Nothing but a title or unquestionable aristocratic connexions bring people about you at once. Ah! we’re a sad set of toadies in this country; and yet, though I occasionally grumble, I am satisfied that society should remain as it is. The social successes of moneyed interlopers have done a great deal, since I was a boy, to demoralise the tone of English society. The world is lumbered with parvenus; and though I am a City man myself, I am conservative enough in my views of life never to regret any illustration, on the part of society, of a resolution to resist the encroachments of the City.”
“Getting into Parliament seems a good way of getting into society,” said I.
“The great way. I will venture to say that a third of the members of the House sit for social, not for political, aims, of which they know nothing. However, I never hear of some notorious company-monger, some rascal the very magnitude of whose robberies preserves him from the law, getting into Parliament, without consoling myself with the reflection that there is a special constituency of blackguards in this country whose interests ought to be represented as well as those of the honester classes, and that the swindler, the company-maker, the Stock Exchange hocusser, are the right men for it.”
Yet in spite of my uncle’s reasoning, his neighbours were not more to blame than he was for unsociability. He was so good-hearted a man, so excellent a host, so cheerful and amiable a companion, that he could have found no difficulty in procuring friends had he made the effort. In truth, neither he nor his daughter cared for society. They were both easily bored, as I noticed once when some people called. These people were fresh from London, and could talk of nothing but the impertinences of the season. My uncle laughed at them when they were gone, and asked me what manner of sin he should commit in order to expiate the perpetration of entertaining such people at his house?
The letter I had written to Conny remained unanswered. Every hour of the days that followed, I looked forward to receiving her answer. Her silence mortified me. I thought her cruel to neglect me, knowing what my feelings were. I pored over her picture, afflicting my common sense with all manner of silly questions. She had given me quite enough encouragement to lead me to believe that she was very nearly in love with me, and what I wanted to know was, Was she a flirt? and had she humoured my passion only to make an ass of me?