“Well, I have never heard any thing of him before; but now you mention it, I think I remember to have seen him one morning when I walked up to the spring with Mr. Denver.”
At this moment the reverend gentleman entered the apartment where the ladies were conversing, and he was immediately assailed with an impetuous torrent of interrogations from both of them, as touching the birth, parentage and education, life, character, and behaviour of the above-named Richard Smith. To these inquiries he returned answers not very satisfactory; and they all three began to blame themselves and each other that they had suffered the old man to settle quietly in the parish without making due previous inquiry concerning his history and origin. He had been, as they all acknowledged, a very quiet, inoffensive creature; but quietness was sometimes a symptom of mischief: it was so with children, and why might it not be so with old men too.
Though Mr. Denver had it not in his power to indulge Mrs. Price with any information, the worthy lady was too generous to withhold from him any information which it was in her power to convey; and she liberally repeated the story of the bailiff being in possession at the Abbey, and of the Hon. Philip Martindale having made a journey to London for the purpose of borrowing money of such as accommodated their particular friends on the most liberal terms and with the strictest secrecy. Mr. Denver was as usual astonished, amazed, thunderstruck at all that was told him. By the way, some of the perpetual curate’s good friends used to think that the good man was not altogether judicious in the use of the word “thunderstruck,” which he always employed when he received any intelligence from any of the ladies of Brigland.
Mrs. Price went on to say, that old Mr. Martindale had expressed his determination to disinherit Mr. Philip; but as that was a very particular secret, she begged that it might not be mentioned. At hearing this request, Mrs. Denver looked at her watch, for she thought it high time that she should take her morning’s round, and endeavour to ascertain whether this profound secret were known to any one else. Mrs. Price took the hint, and departed.
It is by no means the best method to keep a secret to endeavour to find out how many others are in possession of the same. Many a secret has been thus revealed, which might otherwise have been inviolably and safely kept. On the subject of keeping secrets, a great deal may be said; and the matter is surrounded with more difficulties than superficial observers are apt to imagine. For what is the use or benefit of knowing any thing, if we cannot let that knowledge be known. If a secret be confided to us, an honour is thereby conferred; but if that secret be not by us again talked about, directly or indirectly, how can the world know how much we are honoured? Who would give a fig to receive the honour of knighthood, if he were under an obligation to let no one know it? or who would give fifteen pence (pounds some say it costs) for a doctor’s degree, if he could never blazon the honour to the world? We check ourselves in the discussion with the consoling consideration that our business is with facts not with philosophy. Suffice it then to say, that before the day closed, every inhabitant of Brigland who had any care for other’s business, knew that old Richard Smith was mysteriously wealthy, that bailiffs were in possession at the Abbey, that the Hon. Philip Martindale was gone to London to borrow money, and that old Mr. Martindale would never speak to the young gentleman again. Then every body began to think that the Hon. Philip Martindale was the most profligate young man that ever lived; then all his follies became vices, and his irregularities most horrible enormities; then the talk was very loud concerning his pride and his overbearing manners; then Mrs. Dickinson, the landlady of the Red Lion, began to fear that she should not be paid for her chaise.
The good people of Brigland were unnecessarily alarmed for the result of Philip Martindale’s indiscretions: it was not true that the old gentleman knew for what purpose the bailiffs were in the house; nor was it probable that, had he known it, he would therefore have cast off his dependent relative. Power is not willingly or readily parted with. So long as the honourable gentleman acknowledged by endeavours to conceal his irregularities that he stood in awe of his opulent relative, so long would he continue an interesting object of patronage to the old gentleman. As, however, it may not be easy to gather from the floating rumours of the gossips of Brigland what was the real truth of the matter, it may be as well to state explicitly that the Hon. Philip Martindale had paid certain debts of honour with that supply which Mr. Martindale thought had been devoted to some other purpose, and an impatient creditor had actually put into force a threat which he had made of sending officers to the Abbey. The young gentleman had recourse in this extremity to some good friends in the city, by whose prompt assistance the supplies were raised, and the Abbey was cleared of those birds of ill omen. Oliver’s story, as we have seen, had satisfied the old gentleman; and he alone remained in ignorance of a fact in his relative’s conduct, which certainly would have disturbed him greatly, but which would not have provoked him to disinheriting.
By the same conveyance which brought the means of liberating the Abbey, old Richard Smith received through the hands of his attorney a satisfaction also of his claim; and as Mrs. Price was all the day occupied in telling the same story as she had told in the morning, it came to pass that she told more lies at the end of the day than she had at the beginning. In the mean time, the day was passing rapidly away, and Philip Martindale did not return. Oliver was a little puzzled to account for this delay to himself, but he could easily account for it to the old gentleman. What a pity it is that those ingenious gentlemen who can invent lies for the satisfaction of others, cannot invent any for the solution of their own difficulties. Mr. Oliver was in some degree of alarm, lest his stories, by some movement of his master, might not well hang together; and had it not been for some very natural fear that he might altogether lose his character and his place, he probably would have been provoked to tell the old gentleman the truth: he considered, however, that as he had so long played a double part, it would be now too late to affect honesty.