CHAPTER VII.
Half an hour passed—an hour—and yet the conversation was flowing on as briskly as ever. Mr Bill Whalley had explained the exact difference between Norway and Canada timber, greatly to Miss Emily's satisfaction; and Miss Sophia had again and again expressed her determination to leave the house the moment Miss Hendy entered it; and both the young ladies had related the energetic language in which they had expressed this resolution to their father, and threatened him with immediate desertion if he didn't cut that horrid old schoolmistress at once. The same speeches about happiness and simple cottages, with peace and contentment, had been made a dozen time over by all parties, when the great clock in the hall—a Dutch pendule, inserted in a statue of Time—struck three o'clock, and at the same moment a loud rap was heard at the front door.
"Who can it be?" exclaimed Miss Sophia. "It isn't papa's knock;"—and hiding her face in the thick hydrangia which filled the drawing-room window, she gazed down to catch a glimpse of the entrance steps. She only saw the top of a large wooden case, and the white hat of a gentleman who rested his hand on the burden, and was giving directions to the bearers to be very careful how they carried it up stairs.
Mr Whalley started up, as did Mr Sidsby, in no small alarm. "I wouldn't be found here for half-a-crown," said the former gentleman: "old father would shake his head into a reg'lar palsy if he knew I was philandering here, when the Riga brig is unloading at the wharf."
"Let us go into the back drawing-room," suggested one of the young ladies, "and you can get out quite easily when the parcel, whatever it is, is delivered." They accordingly retired to the back drawing-room, and in a few minutes had the satisfaction of hearing heavy steps on the stairs, and the voice of the redoubtable Mr Bristles saying, "Gently, gently,—I have no hesitation in stating, that you were never entrusted with so valuable a burden before. Deposit it with gentleness on the large table in the middle; and, you may now boast, that your hands have borne the noblest specimen of grace and genius that modern ages have produced."
"It's that everlasting donkey papa is always talking about!" whispered Sophia.
"If it's Stickleback's statue," said Mr William Whalley, "the little vagabond promised the first sight of it to old father. He'll be in a precious stew when he finds his rival has been beforehand!"
The porters now apparently retired, and the youthful prisoners in the back drawing-room tried to effect their escape by the door which opened on the stairs; but, alas! it was locked on the outside, and it was evident, from the soliloquy of Mr Bristles, that their retreat was cut off through the front room. A knock—the well-known rat, tat, tat, of the owner of the mansion—now completed their perplexity; and, in a moment more, they heard the steps of several persons rushing up stairs.
"Mr Pitskiver!" exclaimed Bristles in intense agitation, "you have surely forgotten our agreement—Snooksby! Butters! Banks! Why, I am quite overpowered with the surprise! It was to have been alone, without witnesses; or at most, in my presence. But so public!"
"Never mind, my dear Bristles. Why should I conceal my triumph—my happiness—the boast and gratification of my future days? Let us open the casket that enshrines such unequaled merits."
"If you really wish for no further secresy," replied Mr Bristles.
"Certainly! Don't I know that that case contains a masterpiece, softly sweet and beautifully feminine, as a talented friend of ours would say?"
"An exquisite woman, indeed!" said Bristles; "and a truly talented friend. The case, as you justly observe," proceeded the critic, while he untied the cords, "contains the most glorious manifestation of the softening influences of sex."
"It's a pity she's an ass," suggested Mr Pitskiver. "I can't help thinking that that's a drawback."
"What?—what is a drawback, my dear sir?"
"That femininity, as Miss Hendy calls it, should be brought so prominently forward in the person of an ass."
"An ass?—I don't understand! Are you serious?"
"Serious! to be sure, my dear Bristles. In spite of all efforts to assume an intellectual expression, the donkey, depend upon it, preponderates—the long visage, the dull eyes, the crooked legs—it is impossible to perceive any grace in such a wretched animal. I can't help thinking that if it had been a young girl you had brought me—say, a sleeping nymph—full of youth and beauty, 'twould have been a vast improvement on the scraggy jeanie contained in this box. But clear away, Bristles, we are all impatience."
"My dear sir—Mr Pitskiver—unaccustomed as I am, his I can truly say is the most uncomfortable moment of my life."
"Why, what's the matter with you, Bristles, can't you untie the string?"—"Here," continued Mr Pitskiver, "give me the cord," and so saying he untwisted it in a moment—down fell the side of the case, and to the astonished eyes of the assembled critics, and also of the party in the back drawing-room, revealed, not the masterpiece of the immortal Stickleback, but a female figure enveloped in a grey silk cloak, and covering its face with a white muslin handkerchief.
"Why, what the mischief is all this?" exclaimed the bewildered Mr Pitskiver; "this isn't the jeanie-ass you promised me a sight of. Who the deuce is this?"
The handkerchief was majestically removed, and the sharp eyes of Miss Hendy fixed in unspeakable disdain on the assembled party.
"'Tis I, base man! Are all your protestations of admiration come to this? Who shall doubt hereafter that it is the task of noble, gentle, self-denying woman to elevate society?"
A smothered but very audible laugh proceeding from the back drawing-room, interrupted the further eloquence of the regenerator of mankind; and, finding concealment useless, the two young ladies threw open the door, and advanced with their attendant lovers to the table. The female philosopher, with the assistance of Mr Bristles, descended from her lofty pedestal, and looked unutterable basilisks at the open-mouthed Mæcenas, who turned his eyes from the wooden box to Miss Hendy, and from Miss Hendy to the wooden box, without trusting himself with a word of either explanation or enquiry.
"We told you of our intentions, papa," said Miss Sophia, "if you brought that old lady to your house."
"I didn't bring her; I give you my honour 'twas that scoundrel Bristles," whispered the dismayed Pitskiver.
"You told me sir," exclaimed Bristles, "that you would be for ever indebted to me if I brought this lady to your mansion—that she was the perfection of grace and innocence. By a friendly arrangement with Mr Stickleback, the greatest sculptor of ancient or modern times, I managed to secure to this illustrious woman an admission to your house, which, I understood, she could not openly obtain through the opposition of your daughters. I considered that you knew of the arrangement, sir; and I know that, with a soft and feminine trustfulness, this most gentle and intellectual ornament of her sex and species consented to meet the wish you had so ardently expressed."
"I never had a wish of the kind," cried Mr Pitskiver; "and I believe you talking fellows and chattering women are all in a plot to make me ridiculous. I won't stand it any longer."
"Stand what?" enquired Mr Bristles, knitting his brows.
"Your nonsensical praises of each other—your boastings of Sticklebacks, and Snooksbys, and Bankses; a set of mere humbugs and blockheads! And even this foolish woman, with her femininities and re-invigorating society, I believe to be a regular quack. By dad! one would think there had never been a woman in the world before."
"Your observations are uncalled for"—
"By no manner of means," continued the senior, waxing bolder from the sound of his own voice. "I believe you're in a conspiracy to puff each other into reputation; and, if possible, get hold of some silly fellow's daughters. But no painting, chiseling, writing, or sonneteering blackguard, shall ever catch a girl of mine. What the deuce brings you here, sir?" he added, fiercely turning to Mr Sidsby. "You're the impostor that read the first act of a play"—
"I read it, sir," said the youth, "but didn't write a word of it, I assure you. Bristles is the author, and I gave him six dozen of sherry."
"No indeed, papa; he never wrote a line in his life," said Sophia.
"Then he may have you if he likes."
"Nor I, except in the ledger," modestly observed Mr Bill Whalley.
"Then take Emily with all my heart. Here, Daggles," he continue, ringing the bell, "open the street-door, and show these parties out!"
Amidst muttered threats, fierce looks, and lips contorted into all modes and expression of indignation, the guests speedily disappeared. And while Mr Pitskiver, still panting from his exertions, related to his daughters and their enchanted partners his grounds for anger at the attempt to impose Miss Hendy on him instead of a statue, Mr Daggles shut the front door in great exultation as the last of the intruders vanished, and said—
"Snipe, old Pits may do after all. He ain't a bad round of beef; and I almost like our two mutton-chops, since they have freed the house from such shocking sour-crouts and watery taties as I have just flinged into the street."
But it was impossible to convert the great Mr Bristles to the belief into which his quondam follower, Mr Pitskiver, had fallen as to the qualities of Miss Hendy. That literary gentleman had too just a perception of the virtues of the modern Corinne, and of a comfortable house at Hammersmith, with an income of seven hundred a-year, to allow them to waste their sweetness on some indecent clown, unqualified by genius and education to appreciate them. The result of this resolution was seen in a very few days after the interesting scene in Harley Street; and the following announcement in the newspapers will put our readers in as full a state of knowledge as we can boast of being in ourselves:—
"Woman's value Vindicated as the teacher and example of Man, by Mrs Bristles, late Miss Hendy, Hammersmith."