University of Virginia Library

8. CHAPTER VIII.
A great falling off.

Returning home, our heroine threw herself on
a sofa—be pleased to take notice she did not sit
down, for that would have been unworthy a heroine
—she threw herself on a sofa, and passed some time
in sympathizing with the sufferings of Mr. Goshawk.
She sighed for an opportunity of communing with
him on the fathomless abyss of his mysterious miseries,
and wished—Oh! how devoulty wished herself
the privileged being, destined at last to be the
soother of his sorrows, the sharer of his thoughts,
the companion of his reveries, and the better half
of his abstract, inexplicable mystifications. “Would
that I knew, that I could comprehend, what it is
that makes him so wretched,” thought Lucia, little
suspecting that the poor gentleman would have been
puzzled himself to tell her.

She was roused from this painfully pleasing reverie,
by something which attracted her attention on
the sofa. She looked at it and rubbed her eyes—
and rubbed her eyes and looked at it again. The
thing was too plain, she could not possibly be deceived.
She started up and rang the bell furiously,
and the servant not coming sooner than it was possible
for him to come, she rang it again still more
emphatically. At length Juba made his appearance,
with his usual deliberation. An African gentleman
of colour seldom indulges himself by being in a
hurry.

“Who did that?” asked Lucia, pointing to the
sofa.

Juba advanced, looked at the spot, and began to
grin with that mortal display of ivory peculiar to his
race.

“Ah! Massa Fairwedder, Massa Fairwedder, he
droll man, he.”

“What! had Mr. Fairweather the impudence”—

“Ees, ees, he here dis morning,” replied Juba,
grinning more than ever.

Lucia immediately summoned the whole household,
consisting of a troop of coloured ladies and
gentlemen, whose principal business was to make
work for each other. Ever since Lucia became
azure, they had been pretty much suffered to do as
they pleased, and it was their pleasure to do nothing
but copy their young mistress in dress and behaviour
as much as possible. They had a dancing master

in the kitchen, to teach them waltzing, and talked
seriously of a masquerade, or a fancy ball at least.
The black cook was something of an azure herself,
read all those useful little tracts which teach servants
the duties of masters and mistresses, wore prunelle
shoes, and cooked dinner in an undress of black silk;
the coachman, almost as sentimentally miserable as
Mr. Goshawk; and Lucia's maid, a great admirer
of Miss Wright. The kitchen, as Dolly cook said,
was quite a literary emporium, and there was always
a greasy Waverly lying on the mantel-piece, with
which Dolly occasionally regaled herself, while
boning a turkey. The consequence of all this was,
that Mr. Lee's house was at sixes and sevens.
There was neither master nor mistress; the ceilings
of the parlour and drawing room were festooned
with cobwebs; the curtains got the jaundice; the
rats overrun the kitchen, and performed feats worthy
of rational beings, if you could believe Dolly; and
it was impossible to sit down on a chair or sofa,
without leaving the print of the body in the dust
which covered them. Poor Mr. Fairweather, who
knew the value of neatness, and prided himself on
his unspotted, unsullied black coat, had often carried
off a tribute from the parlour, and that morning
determined to give Lucia a broad hint. Accordingly
he took his forefinger in his hand, and wrote in the
dust that embellished the sofa, four large letters,
almost six inches long, that being put together constitute
an abominable word, than which there is none
more horrible and unseemly to the ear and eye of
womanhood. It was the sight of this that interrupted
the deliciously perplexing reverie of our fair
heroine; that caused her to ring the bell with such
emphasis; to call up the men-servants and maidservants;
to set the brooms, brushes, mops, and
pope's heads going; and finally to declare war
against rats, spiders, dust, and cobwebs, and to turn
the whole house upside down. The servants wished
Mr. Fairweather in Guinea, as soon as they traced
the origin of this tremendous reform; the cook
talked about the black skin and white skin being
equal in the eyes of the blind; the coachman sighed
forth the unutterable agonies of a life of dependence;
and the little jet black waiting maid talked elegantly
about the rights of women. Old Juba insisted on
his massa calling out Mr. Fairweather; but on this
occasion, the old gentleman demurred.

“Mr. Fairweather is my best friend, you blockhead.”

“Guy, massa! dat any reason why you should'nt
blow he brain out?”

From that time forward, Mr. Lee's house became
exemplary for its neatness, such is the magic influence
of a word to the wise! There was such a reform
in the whole establishment, as hath never yet
been brought about in the state, by any change of
administration, since the establishment of the republic.

And here, I feel it incumbent on me to offer to
my azure and fashionable readers, something like an

apology, for the falling off, in the high tone of my
narrative, they will not fail to observe in this chapter.
I feel I ought to solicit their pardon, for having
thus descended abruptly to such low and vulgar
matters as housekeeping; which ought to be
for ever beneath the attention of all true lovers of
literature and intellectual development. It is true,
the goddess of wisdom once disputed with Arachne
the management of the needle; but this was in
times long past, and never to return, before the preternatural
development of the mind, the invention
of flounces, or the supremacy of dancing-masters.
I am aware, also, of the happy influence of a neat,
well arranged, and well conducted household, in
rendering home agreeable, and luring us from a too
zealous pursuit of the pleasures of the world; and I
am not ignorant how important it is for the mistress
of a family to know when things are well done,
though it may not be necessary or becoming, to do
them herself. But I know, what is of far more consequence
than all this, that if I prose any longer,
on such low subjects, the young gentlemen professors
of nothing will inquire into my pedigree; and the
azure angels, who preside over the decisions of all
the gallant, fashionable critics, will pronounce me a
horrid bore—a bore! better were it to be convicted
of robbing a church, or swindling to the amount of
a few millions. I should then create a great public
excitement; and rally round me, not only all the anti-masons,
but an army of sympathetic pettifoggers
besides.