Mary Jane Married: Tales of a Village Inn

by George R. Sims

Poor Mr. Wilkins, I’m quite sure he had an idea that his daughter could write a book on Australia because she had been there a year or two and could write a very fair letter. Some people think that you’ve only to write what you have seen, and it will be as interesting to the public as it is to you and your friends. I believe much cleverer people than Mr. Wilkins think that, because I’ve seen books advertised in the newspapers, such as “A Month in America, by a Lady,” or “Six Weeks in Russia, by a Gentleman,” and all that sort of thing, and one of the gentlemen who stayed at our hotel left a book behind him from Mudie’s, and I read it before sending it after him, and it was nothing but a lot of letters, which a lady, who had gone abroad for her health, had written home to her children. Very interesting to her children and her friends, I dare say; but I thought a lot of it quite silly, and I thought to myself that she must be pretty conceited to fancy everybody wanted to read her letters that she wrote home. But I must not say any more on the subject, because people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones, and perhaps somebody will say that I’m a nice one to talk, seeing that I am always writing down everything that happens to me, and having the impudence to try and get it published.

What brought it up was Mr. Wilkins being so absurd about his daughter in Australia.

In most of these letters there was a glowing account of how well she was getting on, and how her husband had been very lucky out there, and was making money and getting property. It seems he had bought some land, or something, “up country,” which meant a very long way off, and it had turned out so well that he had bought some more, and, according to the young woman, they were on the high road to fortune.

Then, her letters began to ask her father to come out to them and settle down with them. She was sure he would like it, and he could be a great help to them as well, as her husband wanted somebody he could trust very much.

At first Mr. Wilkins shook his head, and said he was too old, that he couldn’t go across the seas, and he thought he should feel more comfortable if he died in his native place and was buried in the old parish churchyard.

But by-and-by something happened which made him hesitate. His daughter up in London was engaged to a young man, and they were to be married in a short time. He was a young man in a very fair position, being head barman in a public-house in the City, and a good deal of the management was left to him, the proprietor having a taste for sport and going away racing a good deal, and the wife not knowing much about the trade, and not being a good business woman.

Mr. Wilkins’s daughter in London was very fond of her young man, who was very sober and steady, and getting on well and putting money by.

All went very well until the landlord of the public-house went one day to the races at Epsom—the City and Suburban day, I think it was—and he drove down with some friends in a trap. What happened afterwards came out at the inquest. They may have had too much to drink; but, at any rate, driving back home in the evening they ran into a lamp-post, and the landlord was thrown out on his head, and when he was picked up it was found that he was seriously injured, and he never regained consciousness, but died the next day.

After that Miss Wilkins didn’t see so much of her lover. He said that, the governor being dead, he had to be always looking after the business, and that prevented him getting out so often as he used to do. The poor girl didn’t suspect anything at first; but, at last, she would have been blind not to see that something was wrong. After a bit the young man tried to get up a quarrel with her; but she, being a sweet temper, wouldn’t quarrel, and then he told her that he had changed his mind, that he didn’t think they were suited to each other, and asked her to break it off.

It upset her terribly, and made her quite ill. It wasn’t only a blow to her pride; but she really loved the fellow. She found out what it all meant when, six months after the landlord met with that fatal accident, her young man married the widow and stepped into an old-established City public-house doing a big trade.