“All right, sir!” put in Lawless; “go ahead.”
“And as I am particularly requested to inform you of the honour” (with a marked stress on the word) “done to a member of my family, I conceive that I am guilty of no breach of confidence in mentioning that Mr. Lawless has proposed to me, in due form, for the hand of my niece, Lucy Markham, offering to make most liberal settlements; indeed, considering that the fortune Lucy is justified in expecting at her father's death is very inconsiderable—an income of four hundred pounds a year divided amongst thirteen children, deducting a jointure for the widow, should my sister survive Mr. Markham—”
“Never mind the tin, Mr. Coleman,” interrupted Lawless, “you don't catch me buying a mare for the sake of her trappings. In the first place, second-hand harness is never worth fetching home; and in the next, let me tell you, sir, it's your niece's good points I admire: small head well set on—nice light neck—good slanting shoulder —pretty fore-arm—clean about the pasterns—fast springy action—good-tempered, a little playful, but no vice about her; and altogether as sweet a thing as a man need wish to possess. Depend upon it, Mr. Coleman,” continued Lawless, who, having fallen into his usual style of speech, was fairly off, “depend upon it, you'd be very wrong to let her get into a dealer's hands—you would indeed, sir; and if Mr. Brown isn't in that line it's odd to me. I've seen him down at Tattersall's in very shady company, if I'm not much mistaken; he's the cut of a leg, every inch of him.”
Want of breath fortunately obliging him to stop, Lawless's chief auditors, who had gleaned about as much idea of his meaning as if he had been haranguing them in Sanscrit, now interposed; Mrs. Coleman to invite us to stay to luncheon, and her husband to beg that his niece Lucy might be summoned to attend him in his study, as he should consider it his duty to lay before her Mr. Lawless's very handsome and flattering proposal.
“And suppose Lucy should take it into her head, by any chance, to say Yes” (“Never thought of that, by Jove!—that would be a sell,” muttered Lawless, aside),—“what's to become of poor dear Mr. Lowe Brown?” inquired Mrs. Coleman anxiously.
“In such a case,” replied her lord and master, with a dignified wave of the hand, pausing as he left the room, and speaking with great solemnity,—“in such a case, Mr. Lowe Brown will perceive that it is his duty, his direct and evident duty, to submit to his fate with the calm and placid resignation becoming the son of so every way respectable and eminent a man as his late lamented father, my friend, the drysalter.”
CHAPTER LIII — A COMEDY OF ERRORS
“Content you, gentlemen,
I'll compound this strife.... He of both
That can assure my nieces greatest dower,
Shall have her love.”
“I must confess your offer is the best,
And let your father make her the assurance,
She is your own.”
—Taming of the Shrew.
POOR pretty little Lucy Markham! what business had tears to come and profane, with their tell-tale traces, that bright, merry face of thine—fitting index to thy warm heart and sunny disposition! And yet, in the quenched light of that dark eye, in the heavy swollen lid, and in the paled roses of thy dimpled cheek, might be read the tokens of a concealed grief, that, like “a worm i' the bud,” had already begun to mar thy sparkling beauty. Heed it not, pretty Lucy—sorrow such as thine is light and transient, and succour, albeit in a disguise thou canst not penetrate, is even now at hand. As the young lady in question entered the luncheon-room, returning Lawless's salutation with a most becoming blush, the thought crossed my mind, that in his position I should be almost tempted to regret I was destined to perform the lover's part “on that occasion only”. Such, however, were not the ideas of my companion, for he whispered to me, “I say, Frank, she looks uncommon friendly, eh?—I don't know what to make of it, I can tell you; this is getting serious”.