Joseph Wilmot, or, The Memoirs of a Man-Servant — page 344: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

SE JOSEPH WILMOT; OB, THE MEMOIRS OF A MAN-SERVANT. obese embonpoint of matured womanhood. She had certainly been good-looking in the face:-but her features were now somewhat coarse, and her cheeks had a redness which seemed to imply that if not actually intemperate, she was not altogether a teetotaller. She was very gaudily dressed—had a profusion of jewellery about her—and her man- ners, if not absolutely vulgar, were certainly not particularly polished. But she was very good- humoured in her conversation, and was evidently of a good-natured disposition. I should observe that she spoke with an unmistakable Scotch accent: she laughed a great deal; but this was probably to display a set of teeth that were par- ticularly well preserved. Her companion, whom I have denominated a toady, was about twenty years younger—that is to say, about thirty; and in many respects she re- minded me of that abominable Miss Dakin of whom I have spoken in some of the earliest chap- ters of my narrative, and who behaved so spitefully towards me when I was a humble page in the service of the Tivertons. Miss Cornwall, the Seotchwoman’s companion, was a little thin ugly creature, pitted with the small-pox, and having a very red nose. She evidently strove to flatter her mistress as much as possible; and as the elderly dame was somewhat couceited and vain, Miss Cornwall’s homage and adulation were by no means unwelcome to their object. At the very outset of the conversation which I overheard be- tween them, while sitting next to them at the table @hote, I gathered that the toady’s name was Miss Cornwall: but it was not until the lapse of a day or two, as the reader will presently see, that I happened to learn the name of the elderly Scotch lady herself. “And pray, sir, how long have you been in | Paris?” said the Scotch lady to me, after I had rendered her some little attention in the inter. | courses of the dinner-table. “T only arrived this morning,” was my answer: “but it is not my first visit to the French capital. Indeed, I am well acquainted with Paris.” “And so are you, my dear madam,” observed Miss Cornwall, affecting a half-whisper, but speak- ing in such a way that I should overhear what was said. “Let mesee? This is our fourth visit to this gay city during the last ten years. Dear | me! Only fancy! For ten whole years have I benefited by your kindness and profited by your example! Ah, my dear madam! what should I have been without you ?” “Well, my dear Miss Cornwall,” replied the Scotch lady, “you have been very kind and at- tentive to me—and prevented me from feeling lonely.” “Lonely, my dear madam?” interjected Miss Cornwall deprecatingly : “ how could one like you possibly feel lonely? Excuse me for what I am going to say—because you know I never pay com- pliments—I hate flattery—but really you must ad- mit that your fascinating manners, your pleasing conversation, and your beauty too . “ Ah, my beauty, my dear Miss Cornwall,” said the elderly dame, laughing: “the time for that has gone by.” | “‘ How can you say so, my dear madam?” inter- | rupted Miss Cornwall, as if almost indignantly. “I am sure that you may hold up your head’ ool along with the best and proudest of our sex; and excuse me for observing that a finer set of teeth “Well, well, Miss Cornwall, I have taken caro of myself, you know,” said the Scotch dame. I thought very likely that she spoke the truth; inasmuch as she was certainly taking care of her- self on the present occasion; for she ate with enormous appetite, and was doing most ample justice to soup, fish, flesh, fowl, and sweets; while the colour on her cheeks was heightening under the influence of sundry glasses of bordeaux and champagne. “OF course you take care of yourself, my dear madam,” said Miss Cornwall. “A lady with six hyndred a year ””—and here the toady glanced to- wards me to see if I overheard what was being purposely said for my special behoof—“ and the sweetest, prettiest, charmingest villa in the fashion- able neighbourhood of Brompton—with a whole host of friends too—gentlemen of rank and ladies of quality—three female servants—and the loveliest little pony-phaeton that ever was seen ra “Well, well, my dear Miss Cornwall,” inter- rupted the Scotch dame, with another joyous laugh; “I certainly have a sufficiency of worldly comforts.” “ And you might say without boasting, my dear madam,” interjected the toady, “that if you have not again changed your name, it has not been for want of good offers. You know [ do not flatter— but there was Sir Simon Tadcaster, the dashing Baronet ‘ | “ Ah, poor fellow!” said the Scotch dame; “ it was a great pity he should have turned out to be no Baronet at all.” Here I noticed that Miss Cornwall became quite red in the face; and a quick “Hush!” reached my ears: for the Scotch dame, most probably in her unsophisticated truthfulness, had thus let out something which destroyed the grand effect that Miss Cornwall had intended to produce upon my- self and one or two others who were within the range of hearing. “ You know, my dear madam,” the toady has- tened to say, “it always was my conviction that this was a mere malignant report got up by Sir Simon’s rivals. I always suspected Lord Hoaxley to have been at the bottom of it: for you know I never flatter—but his lordship was desperately enamoured of you at the time. And don’t you remember the pic-nic he gave us in the wood ad- joining his beautiful little mansion at Twicken- | ham P?” “ Ah! it was a nice house—a very nice house,” said the Scotch lady. “Poor Hoaxley! he must have felt the change to the Bench very much.” “Let me help you to some dessert,” said Miss Cornwall, speaking very sharp ana very quick, and her face again becoming red with confusion, as there was a t tter amongst the guests in her imme- diate neighbourhood: then she whispered some- thing in a hasty manner to her stout patroness. “ Well, my dear Miss Cornwall,’ observed the dame, “you know it was the truth that I said; and it was too bad of Lord Hoaxley to put the hundred pounds [I lent him into his schedule—or whatever they call it—when he went through the Insolvents’ Court.” In this manner did the conversation between | | PARES = RIN sc PRL OR PE OE ep ee a ee STO COnmmcooolks (CO)