The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 14, No. 404, December 12, 1829

I have hinted that we had no scandalous capabilities; and though slander flashed around us, we seldom admitted morning visiters, and our street-door was a non-conductor.

But our next door neighbours were maiden ladies, who had been younger, and, to use a common term of commiseration, had seen better days—by which, I mean the days of bloom, natural hair, partners, and the probability of husbands.

Their vicinity to us was an infinite comfort to the town, for those who were unable to gain admittance at our door to disturb our business and desires,

 
"For every man has business and desire,
Such as they are,"
 

were certain of better success at our neighbours', where they at least could gain some information about us "from eye-witnesses who resided on the spot."

My sins were numbered, so were my new bonnets; and for a time my husband was pitied, because "he had an extravagant wife;" but when it was ascertained that his plate was handsome, his dinner satisfactory in its removes, and comme il faut in its courses, those whose feet had never been within our door, saw clearly "how it must all end, and really felt for our trades-people."

I have acknowledged that I had written romances; the occupation was to me a source of amusement; and as I had been successful, my husband saw no reason why he should discourage me. A scribbling fool, in or out of petticoats, should be forbidden the use of pen, ink, and paper; but my husband had too much sense to heed the vulgar cry of "blue stocking." After a busy month passed in London, we saw my new novel sent forth to the public, and then returned to our mansion at Pumpington Wells.

As we drove up to our door, our virgin neighbours gazed on us, if possible, with more than their former interest. They wiped their spectacles; with glances of commiseration they saw us alight, and with unwearied scrutiny they witnessed the removal of our luggage from the carriage. We went out—every body stared at us—the people we did know touched the hands we extended, and hastened on as if fearful of infection; the people we did not know whispered as they passed us, and looked back afterwards; the men servants seemed full of mysterious flurry when we left our cards at the doors of acquaintances, and the maid-servants peeped at us up the areas; the shopkeepers came from their counters to watch us down the streets—and all was whispering and wonder.

I could not make it out; was it to see the authoress? No; I had been an authoress when they last saw me. Was it the brilliant success of my new work? It could be nothing else.

My husband met a maiden lady, and bowed to her; she passed on without deigning to notice him. I spoke to an insipid man who had always bored me with his unprofitable intimacy, and he looked another way! The next lady we noticed tossed her head, as if she longed to toss it at us; and the next man we met opened his eyes astonishingly wide, and said—

"Are you here! Dear me! I was told you could not show your—I mean, did not mean to return!"

There was evidently some mystery, and we determined to wait patiently for its developement. "If," said I, "it bodes us good, time will unravel it." "And if," said my husband, "it bodes us evil, some d—d good-natured friend will tell us all about it."

We had friends at Pumpington Wells, and good ones too, but no friend enlightened us; that task devolved upon an acquaintance, a little slim elderly man, so frivolous and so garrulous, that he only wanted a turban, some rouge, and a red satin gown, to become the most perfect of old women.

He shook his head simultaneously as he shook our hands, and his little grey eyes twinkled with delight, while he professed to feel for us both the deepest commiseration.

"You are cut," said he; "its all up with you in Pumpington Wells."

"Pray be explicit," said I faintly, and dreading some cruel calumny, or plot against my peace.

"You've done the most impolitic thing! the most hazardous"—

"Sir!" said my husband, grasping his cane.

"I lament it," said the little man, turning to me; "your book has done it for you."

I thought of the reviews, and trembled.

"How could you," continued our tormentor, "how could you put the Pumpington Wells people in your novel?"

"The Pumpington Wells people!—Nonsense; there are good and bad people in my novel, and there are good and bad people in Pumpington Wells; but you flatter the good, if you think that when I dipped my pen in praise, I limited my sketches to the virtuous of this place; and what is worse, you libel the bad if you assert that my sketches of vice were meant personally to apply to the vicious who reside here."

"I libel—I assert!" said the old lady-like little man; "not I!—every body says so!"

"You may laugh," replied my mentor and tormentor combined, "but personality can be proved against you; and all the friends and relations of Mr. Flaw declare you meant the bad man of your book for him."

"His friends and relations are too kind to him."

"Then you have an irregular character in your book, and Mrs. Blemish's extensive circle of intimates assert that nothing can be more pointed than your allusion to her conduct and her character."

"And pray what do these persons say about it themselves?"

"They are outrageous, and go about the town absolutely wild."

"Fitting the caps on themselves?"

The little scarecrow shook his head once more; and declaring that we should see he had spoken too true, departed, and then lamented so fluently to every body the certainty of our being cut, that every body began to believe him.

I have hinted that my bonnets and my husband's plate occasioned heartburnings: no—that is not a correct term, the heart has nothing to do with such exhalations—bile collects elsewhere.

Those who had conspired to pull my husband from the throne of his popularity, because their parties excited in us no party spirit, and we abstained from hopping at their hops, found, to their consternation, that when the novelty of my novel misdemeanour was at an end, we went on as if nothing had occurred. However, they still possessed heaven's best gift, the use of their tongues, they said of us everything bad which they knew to be false, and which they wished to see realized.

Their forlorn hope was our "extravagance." "Never mind," said one, "Christmas must come round, and then we shall see."

When once the match of insinuation is applied to the train of rumoured difficulties, the suspicion that has been smouldering for awhile bounces at once into a report, and very shortly its echo is bounced in every parlour in a provincial town.

Long bills, that had been accustomed to wait for payment until Christmas, now lay on my table at midsummer; and tradesmen, who drove dennetts to cottages once every evening, sent short civil notes, regretting their utter inability to make up a sum of money by Saturday night, unless I favoured them, by the bearer, with the sum of ten pounds, "the amount of my little account."

Dennett-driving drapers actually threatened to fail for the want of ten pounds!—pastry-cooks, who took their families regularly "to summer at the sea," assisted the counter-plot, and prematurely dunned my husband!

It is not always convenient to pay sums at midsummer, which we had been in the habit of paying at Christmas; if, however, a single applicant was refused, a new rumour of inability was started and hunted through the town before night. People walked by our house, looking up wistfully at the windows; others peeped down the area, to see what we had for dinner. One gentleman went to our butcher, to inquire how much we owed him; and one lady narrowly escaped a legal action, because when she saw a few pipkins lying on the counter of a crockery-ware man, directed to me, she incautiously said, in the hearing of one of my servants, "Are you paid for your pipkins?—ah, it's well if you ever get your money!"

Christmas came at last; bills were paid, and my husband did not owe a shilling in Pumpington Wells. Like the old ladies in the besieged city, the gossips looked at us, wondering when the havoc would begin.

Ho who mounts the ladder of life, treading step by step upon the identical footings marked out, may live in a provincial town. When we want to drink spa waters, or vary the scene, we now visit watering-places; but rather than force me to live at one again, "stick me up," as Andrew Fairservice says, in Rob Roy, "as a regimental target for ball-practice." We have long ceased to live in Pumpington.

Fleeting are the tints of the rainbow—perishable the leaf of the rose—variable the love of woman—uncertain the sunbeam of April; but naught on earth can be fleeting; so perishable, so variable, or so uncertain, as the popularity of a provincial reputation.

Monthly Magazine.