Book: My Novel, Volume 4.

E >> Edward Bulwer Lytton >> My Novel, Volume 4.



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BOOK FOURTH.


INITIAL CHAPTER.

COMPRISING MR. CAXTON'S OPINIONS ON THE MATRIMONIAL STATE, SUPPORTED BY
LEARNED AUTHORITIES.

"It was no bad idea of yours, Pisistratus," said my father, graciously,
"to depict the heightened affections and the serious intention of Signor
Riccabocca by a single stroke,-- /He left of his spectacles!/ Good."

"Yet," quoth my uncle, "I think Shakspeare represents a lover as falling
into slovenly habits, neglecting his person, and suffering his hose to be
ungartered, rather than paying that attention to his outer man which
induces Signor Riccabocca to leave off his spectacles, and look as
handsome as nature will permit him."

"There are different degrees and many phases of the passion," replied my
father. "Shakspeare is speaking of an ill-treated, pining, woe-begone
lover, much aggrieved by the cruelty of his mistress,--a lover who has
found it of no avail to smarten himself up, and has fallen despondently
into the opposite extreme. Whereas Signor Riccabocca has nothing to
complain of in the barbarity of Miss Jemima."

"Indeed he has not!" cried Blanche, tossing her head,--"forward
creature!"

"Yes, my dear," said my mother, trying her best to look stately, "I am
decidedly of opinion that, in that respect, Pisistratus has lowered the
dignity of the sex. Not intentionally," added my mother, mildly, and
afraid she had said something too bitter; "but it is very hard for a man
to describe us women."

The captain nodded approvingly; Mr. Squills smiled; my father quietly
resumed the thread of his discourse.

"To continue," quoth he. "Riccabocca has no reason to despair of success
in his suit, nor any object in moving his mistress to compassion. He
may, therefore, very properly tie up his garters and leave off his
spectacles. What do you say, Mr. Squills?--for, after all, since love-
making cannot fail to be a great constitutional derangement, the
experience of a medical man must be the best to consult."

"Mr. Caxton," replied Squills, obviously flattered, "you are quite right:
when a man makes love, the organs of self-esteem and desire of applause
are greatly stimulated, and therefore, of course, he sets himself off to
the best advantage. It is only, as you observe, when, like Shakspeare's
lover, he has given up making love as a bad job, and has received that
severe hit on the ganglions which the cruelty of a mistress inflicts,
that he neglects his personal appearance: he neglects it, not because he
is in love, but because his nervous system is depressed. That was the
cause, if you remember, with poor Major Prim. He wore his wig all awry
when Susan Smart jilted him; but I set it right for him."

"By shaming Miss Smart into repentance, or getting him a new sweetheart?"
asked my uncle.

"Pooh!" answered Squills, "by quinine and cold bathing."

"We may therefore grant," renewed my father, "that, as a general rule,
the process of courtship tends to the spruceness, and even foppery, of
the individual engaged in the experiment, as Voltaire has very prettily
proved somewhere. Nay, the Mexicans, indeed, were of opinion that the
lady at least ought to continue those cares of her person even after
marriage. There is extant, in Sahagun's 'History of New Spain,' the
advice of an Aztec or Mexican mother to her daughter, in which she says,
'That your husband may not take you in dislike, adorn yourself, wash
yourself, and let your garments be clean.' It is true that the good lady
adds, 'Do it in moderation; since if every day you are washing yourself
and your clothes, the world will say that you are over-delicate; and
particular people will call you--TAPETZON TINEMAXOCH!' What those words
precisely mean," added my father, modestly, "I cannot say, since I never
had the opportunity to acquire the ancient Aztec language,--but something
very opprobrious and horrible, no doubt."

"I dare say a philosopher like Signor Riccabocca," said my uncle, "was
not himself very /tapetzon tine/--what d' ye call it?--and a good healthy
English wife, that poor affectionate Jemima, was thrown away upon him."

"Roland," said my father, "you don't like foreigners; a respectable
prejudice, and quite natural in a man who has been trying his best to
hew them in pieces and blow them up into splinters. But you don't like
philosophers either,--and for that dislike you have no equally good
reason."

"I only implied that they are not much addicted to soap and water," said
my uncle.

"A notable mistake. Many great philosophers have been very great beaux.
Aristotle was a notorious fop. Buffon put on his best laced ruffles when
he sat down to write, which implies that he washed his hands first.
Pythagoras insists greatly on the holiness of frequent ablutions; and
Horace--who, in his own way, was as good a philosopher as any the Romans
produced--takes care to let us know what a neat, well-dressed, dapper
little gentleman he was. But I don't think you ever read the 'Apology'
of Apuleius?"

"Not I; what is it about?" asked the captain.

"About a great many things. It is that Sage's vindication from several
malignant charges,--amongst others, and principally indeed, that of being
much too refined and effeminate for a philosopher. Nothing can exceed
the rhetorical skill with which he excuses himself for using--tooth-
powder. 'Ought a philosopher,' he exclaims, 'to allow anything unclean
about him, especially in the mouth,--the mouth, which is the vestibule of
the soul, the gate of discourse, the portico of thought! Ah, but
AEmilianus [the accuser of Apuleius] never opens his mouth but for
slander and calumny,--tooth-powder would indeed be unbecoming to him!
Or, if he use any, it will not be my good Arabian tooth powder, but
charcoal and cinders. Ay, his teeth should be as foul as his language!
And yet even the crocodile likes to have his teeth cleaned; insects get
into them, and, horrible reptile though he be, he opens his jaws
inoffensively to a faithful dentistical bird, who volunteers his beak for
a toothpick.'"

My father was now warm in the subject he had started, and soared miles
away from Riccabocca and "My Novel." "And observe," he exclaimed,--
"observe with what gravity this eminent Platonist pleads guilty to the
charge of having a mirror. 'Why, what,' he exclaims, 'more worthy of the
regards of a human creature than his own image' /nihil respectabilius
homini quam formam suam/! Is not that one of our children the most dear
to us who is called 'the picture of his father'? But take what pains you
will with a picture, it can never be so like you as the face in your
mirror! Think it discreditable to look with proper attention on one's
self in the glass! Did not Socrates recommend such attention to his
disciples,--did he not make a great moral agent of the speculum? The
handsome, in admiring their beauty therein, were admonished that handsome
is who handsome does; and the more the ugly stared at themselves, the
more they became naturally anxious to hide the disgrace of their features
in the loveliness of their merits. Was not Demosthenes always at his
speculum? Did he not rehearse his causes before it as before a master in
the art? He learned his eloquence from Plato, his dialectics from
Eubulides; but as for his delivery--there, he came to the mirror!

"Therefore," concluded Mr. Caxton, returning unexpectedly to the
subject,--"therefore, it is no reason to suppose that Dr. Riccabocca
is averse to cleanliness and decent care of the person because he is a
philosopher; and, all things considered, he never showed himself more a
philosopher than when he left off his spectacles and looked his best."

"Well," said my mother, kindly, "I only hope it may turn out happily.
But I should have been better pleased if Pisistratus had not made Dr.
Riccabocca so reluctant a wooer."

"Very true," said the captain; "the Italian does not shine as a lover.
Throw a little more fire into him, Pisistratus,--something gallant and
chivalrous."

"Fire! gallantry! chivalry!" cried my father, who had taken Riccabocca
under his special protection; "why, don't you see that the man is
described as a philosopher?--and I should like to know when a philosopher
ever plunged into matrimony without considerable misgivings and cold
shivers! Indeed, it seems that--perhaps before he was a philosopher--
Riccabocca had tried the experiment, and knew what it was. Why, even
that plain-speaking, sensible, practical man, Metellus Numidicus, who was
not even a philosopher, but only a Roman censor, thus expressed himself
in an exhortation to the people to perpetrate matrimony: 'If, O Quirites,
we could do without wives, we should all dispense with that subject of
care /ea molestia careremus/; but since nature has so managed it that we
cannot live with women comfortably, nor without them at all, let us
rather provide for the human race than our own temporary felicity.'"

Here the ladies set up such a cry of indignation, that both Roland and
myself endeavoured to appease their wrath by hasty assurances that we
utterly repudiated the damnable doctrine of Metellus Numidicus.

My father, wholly unmoved, as soon as a sullen silence was established,
recommenced. "Do not think, ladies," said he, "that you were without
advocates at that day: there were many Romans gallant enough to blame the
censor for a mode of expressing himself which they held to be equally
impolite and injudicious. 'Surely,' said they, with some plausibility,
if Numidicus wished men to marry, he need not have referred so
peremptorily to the disquietudes of the connection, and thus have made
them more inclined to turn away from matrimony than give them a relish
for it.' But against these critics one honest man (whose name of Titus
Castricius should not be forgotten by posterity) maintained that Metellus
Numidicus could not have spoken more properly; 'For remark,' said he,
'that Metellus was a censor, not a rhetorician. It becomes rhetoricians
to adorn and disguise and make the best of things; but Metellus, /sanctus
vir/,--a holy and blameless man, grave and sincere to wit, and addressing
the Roman people in the solemn capacity of Censor,--was bound to speak
the plain truth, especially as he was treating of a subject on which the
observation of every day, and the experience of every life, could not
leave the least doubt upon the mind of his audience.' Still, Riccabocca,
having decided to marry, has no doubt prepared himself to bear all the
concomitant evils--as becomes a professed sage; and I own I admire the
art with which Pisistratus has drawn the kind of woman most likely to
suit a philosopher--"

Pisistratus bows, and looks round complacently; but recoils from two very
peevish and discontented faces feminine.

MR. CAXTON (completing his sentence).--"Not only as regards mildness of
temper and other household qualifications, but as regards the very person
of the object of his choice. For you evidently remember, Pisistratus,
the reply of Bias, when asked his opinion on marriage: [Long sentence in
Greek]"

Pisistratus tries to look as if he had the opinion of Bias by heart, and
nods acquiescingly.

MR. CAXTON.--"That is, my dears, 'The woman you would marry is either
handsome or ugly: if handsome, she is koine,--namely, you don't have her
to yourself; if ugly, she is /poine/,--that is, a fury.' But, as it is
observed in Aulus Gellius (whence I borrow this citation), there is a
wide interval between handsome and ugly. And thus Ennius, in his tragedy
of 'Menalippus,' uses an admirable expression to designate women of the
proper degree of matrimonial comeliness, such as a philosopher would
select. He calls this degree /stata forma/,--a rational, mediocre sort
of beauty, which is not liable to be either /koine/ or /poine/. And
Favorinus, who was a remarkably sensible man, and came from Provence--the
male inhabitants of which district have always valued themselves on their
knowledge of love and ladies--calls this said /stata forma/ the beauty of
wives,--the uxorial beauty. Ennius says that women of a /stata forma/
are almost always safe and modest. Now, Jemima, you observe, is
described as possessing this /stata forma/; and it is the nicety of your
observation in this respect, which I like the most in the whole of your
description of a philosopher's matrimonial courtship, Pisistratus
(excepting only the stroke of the spectacles), for it shows that you had
properly considered the opinion of Bias, and mastered all the counter
logic suggested in Book v., chapter xi., of Aulus Gellius."

"For all that," said Blanche, half archly, half demurely, with a smile in
the eye and a pout of the lip, "I don't remember that Pisistratus, in the
days when he wished to be most complimentary, ever assured me that I had
a /stata forma/,--a rational, mediocre sort of beauty."

"And I think," observed my uncle, "that when he comes to his real
heroine, whoever she may be, he will not trouble his head much about
either Bias or Aulus Gellius."




CHAPTER II.

Matrimony is certainly a great change in life. One is astonished not to
find a notable alteration in one's friend, even if he or she have been
only wedded a week. In the instance of Dr. and Mrs. Riccabocca the
change was peculiarly visible. To speak first of the lady, as in
chivalry bound, Mrs. Riccabocca had entirely renounced that melancholy
which had characterized Miss Jemima; she became even sprightly and gay,
and looked all the better and prettier for the alteration. She did not
scruple to confess honestly to Mrs. Dale that she was now of opinion that
the world was very far from approaching its end. But, in the meanwhile,
she did not neglect the duty which the belief she had abandoned serves to
inculcate,--"She set her house in order." The cold and penurious
elegance that had characterized the Casino disappeared like enchantment,
--that is, the elegance remained, but the cold and penury fled before the
smile of woman. Like Puss-in-Boots, after the nuptials of his master,
Jackeymo only now caught minnows and sticklebacks for his own amusement.
Jackeymo looked much plumper, and so did Riccabocca. In a word, the fair
Jemima became an excellent wife. Riccabocca secretly thought her
extravagant, but, like a wise man, declined to look at the house bills,
and ate his joint in unreproachful silence.

Indeed there was so much unaffected kindness in the nature of Mrs.
Riccabocca--beneath the quiet of her manner there beat so genially the
heart of the Hazeldeans--that she fairly justified the favourable
anticipations of Mrs. Dale. And though the doctor did not noisily boast
of his felicity, nor, as some new married folks do, thrust it insultingly
under the /nimis unctis naribus/,--the turned-up noses of your surly old
married folks,--nor force it gaudily and glaringly on the envious eyes of
the single, you might still see that he was a more cheerful and light-
hearted man than before. His smile was less ironical, his politeness
less distant. He did not study Machiavelli so intensely,--and he did not
return to the spectacles; which last was an excellent sign. Moreover,
the humanizing influence of the tidy English wife might be seen in the
improvement of his outward or artificial man. His clothes seemed to fit
him better; indeed, the clothes were new. Mrs. Dale no longer remarked
that the buttons were off the wristbands, which was a great satisfaction
to her. But the sage still remained faithful to the pipe, the cloak, and
the red silk umbrella. Mrs. Riccabocca had (to her credit be it spoken)
used all becoming and wife-like arts against these three remnants of the
old bachelor, Adam, but in vain. "/Anima mia/," [Soul of mine]--said the
doctor, tenderly, "I hold the cloak, the umbrella, and the pipe as the
sole relics that remain to me of my native country. Respect and spare
them."

Mrs. Riccabocca was touched, and had the good sense to perceive that man,
let him be ever so much married, retains certain signs of his ancient
independence,--certain tokens of his old identity, which a wife, the most
despotic, will do well to concede. She conceded the cloak, she submitted
to the umbrella, she overcame her abhorrence of the pipe. After all,
considering the natural villany of our sex, she confessed to herself that
she might have been worse off. But through all the calm and cheerfulness
of Riccabocca, a nervous perturbation was sufficiently perceptible; it
commenced after the second week of marriage; it went on increasing, till
one bright sunny afternoon, as he was standing on his terrace, gazing
down upon the road, at which Jackeymo was placed, lo, a stage-coach
stopped! The doctor made a bound, and put both hands to his heart as if
he had been shot; he then leaped over the balustrade, and his wife from
her window beheld him flying down the hill, with his long hair streaming
in the wind, till the trees hid him from her sight.

"Ah," thought she, with a natural pang of conjugal jealousy, "henceforth
I am only second in his home. He has gone to welcome his child!" And at
that reflection Mrs. Riccabocca shed tears.

But so naturally amiable was she, that she hastened to curb her emotion,
and efface as well as she could the trace of a stepmother's grief. When
this was done, and a silent, self-rebuking prayer murmured over, the good
woman descended the stairs with alacrity, and summoning up her best
smiles, emerged on the terrace.

She was repaid; for scarcely had she come into the open air, when two
little arms were thrown around her, and the sweetest voice that ever came
from a child's lips sighed out in broken English, "Good mamma, love me a
little."

"Love you? with my whole heart!" cried the stepmother, with all a
mother's honest passion. And she clasped the child to her breast.

"God bless you, my wife!" said Riccabocca, in a husky tone.

"Please take this too," added Jackeymo, in Italian, as well as his sobs
would let him, and he broke off a great bough full of blossoms from his
favourite orange-tree, and thrust it into his mistress's hand. She had
not the slightest notion what he meant by it!




CHAPTER III.

Violante was indeed a bewitching child,--a child to whom I defy Mrs.
Caudle herself (immortal Mrs. Caudle!) to have been a harsh stepmother.

Look at her now, as released from those kindly arms, she stands, still
clinging with one hand to her new mamma, and holding out the other to
Riccabocca, with those large dark eyes swimming in happy tears. What a
lovely smile! what an ingenuous, candid brow! She looks delicate, she
evidently requires care, she wants the mother. And rare is the woman who
would not love her the better for that! Still, what an innocent,
infantine bloom in those clear, smooth cheeks! and in that slight frame,
what exquisite natural grace!

"And this, I suppose, is your nurse, darling?" said Mrs. Riccabocca,
observing a dark, foreign-looking woman, dressed very strangely, without
cap or bonnet, but a great silver arrow stuck in her hair, and a filigree
chain or necklace resting upon her kerchief.

"Ah, good Annetta," said Violante, in Italian. "Papa, she says she is to
go back; but she is not to go back, is she?"

Riccabocca, who had scarcely before noticed the woman, started at that
question, exchanged a rapid glance with Jackeymo, and then, muttering
some inaudible excuse, approached the nurse, and, beckoning her to follow
him, went away into the grounds. He did not return for more than an
hour, nor did the woman then accompany him home. He said briefly to his
wife that the nurse was obliged to return at once to Italy, and that she
would stay in the village to catch the mail; that indeed she would be of
no use in their establishment, as she could not speak a word of English;
that he was sadly afraid Violante would pine for her. And Violante did
pine at first. But still, to a child it is so great a thing to find a
parent, to be at home, that, tender and grateful as Violante was, she
could not be inconsolable while her father was there to comfort.

For the first few days, Riccabocca scarcely permitted any one to be with
his daughter but himself. He would not even leave her alone with his
Jemima. They walked out together,--sat together for hours in the
belvidere. Then by degrees he began to resign her more and more to
Jemima's care and tuition, especially in English, of which language at
present she spoke only a few sentences (previously, perhaps, learned by
heart) so as to be clearly intelligible.




CHAPTER IV.

There was one person in the establishment of Dr. Riccabocca who was
satisfied neither with the marriage of his master nor the arrival of
Violante,--and that was our friend Lenny Fairfield. Previous to the all-
absorbing duties of courtship, the young peasant had secured a very large
share of Riccabocca's attention. The sage had felt interest in the
growth of this rude intelligence struggling up to light. But what with
the wooing and what with the wedding, Lenny Fairfield had sunk very much
out of his artificial position as pupil into his natural station of
under-gardener. And on the arrival of Violante, he saw, with natural
bitterness, that he was clean forgotten, not only by Riccabocca, but
almost by Jackeymo. It was true that the master still lent him books,
and the servant still gave him lectures on horticulture. But Riccabocca
had no time nor inclination now to amuse himself with enlightening that
tumult of conjecture which the books created. And if Jackeymo had been
covetous of those mines of gold buried beneath the acres now fairly taken
from the squire (and good-naturedly added rent-free, as an aid to
Jemima's dower), before the advent of the young lady whose future dowry
the produce was to swell, now that she was actually under the eyes of the
faithful servant, such a stimulus was given to his industry that he could
think of nothing else but the land, and the revolution he designed to
effect in its natural English crops. The garden, save only the
orangetrees, was abandoned entirely to Lenny, and additional labourers
were called in for the field work. Jackeymo had discovered that one part
of the soil was suited to lavender, that another would grow camomile. He
had in his heart apportioned a beautiful field of rich loam to flax; but
against the growth of flax the squire set his face obstinately. That
most lucrative, perhaps, of all crops when soil and skill suit, was
formerly attempted in England much more commonly than it is now, since
you will find few old leases do not contain a clause prohibitory of flax
as an impoverishment of the land. And though Jackeymo learnedly
endeavoured to prove to the squire that the flax itself contained
particles which, if returned to the soil, repaid all that the crop took
away, Mr. Hazeldean had his old-fashioned prejudices on the matter, which
were insuperable. "My forefathers," quoth he, "did not put that clause
in their leases without good cause; and as the Casino lands are entailed
on Frank, I have no right to gratify your foreign whims at his expense."

To make up for the loss of the flax, Jackeymo resolved to convert a very
nice bit of pasture into orchard ground, which he calculated would bring
in L10 net per acre by the time Miss Violante was marriageable. At this
the squire pished a little; but as it was quite clear that the land would
be all the more valuable hereafter for the fruit-trees, he consented to
permit the "grass-land" to be thus partially broken up.

All these changes left poor Lenny Fairfield very much to himself,--at a
time when the new and strange devices which the initiation into book
knowledge creates made it most desirable that he should have the constant
guidance of a superior mind.

One evening after his work, as Lenny was returning to his mother's
cottage, very sullen and very moody, he suddenly came in contact with
Sprott the tinker.




CHAPTER V.

The tinker was seated under a hedge, hammering away at an old kettle,
with a little fire burning in front of him, and the donkey hard by,
indulging in a placid doze. Mr. Sprott looked up as Lenny passed, nodded
kindly, and said,--

"Good evenin', Lenny: glad to hear you be so 'spectably sitivated with
Mounseer."

"Ay," answered Lenny, with a leaven of rancour in his recollections,
"you're not ashamed to speak to me now that I am not in disgrace. But it
was in disgrace, when it wasn't my fault, that the real gentleman was
most kind to me."

"Ar-r, Lenny," said the tinker, with a prolonged rattle in that said
Ar-r, which was not without great significance. "But you sees the real
gentleman, who han't got his bread to get, can hafford to 'spise his
c'racter in the world. A poor tinker must be timbersome and nice in his
'sociations. But sit down here a bit, Lenny; I've summat to say to ye!"

"To me?"

"To ye. Give the neddy a shove out i' the vay, and sit down, I say."

Lenny rather reluctantly, and somewhat superciliously, accepted this
invitation.

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