When Miss Ward told me about it first, I couldn’t for the life of me help laughing. I could see the jellies and the creams hitting the people, and I thought how ridiculous they must have looked; but, of course, it was very dreadful, and that was the finishing stroke to the house. People wouldn’t come there to have things thrown at them by the landlord. And when he was put in an asylum, where he died, it was found out he had got rid of so much money, and was liable for so much more, that his affairs had to be wound up and the business sold. Out of the wreck there was only just enough left for the aunt to live on, and so Miss Ward had to go out as a barmaid, her own father not being able to offer her a home, through a large family, and farming having become so bad.
She had had a good education, though, and could play the piano and spoke a little French, and was very ladylike; and that, I dare say, made me take to her at once. I liked her so much that I always tried to make the place as easy for her as I could; and when one day she said she hoped I would have no objection to her young man coming there to see her occasionally, I said, “Oh dear no; certainly not.”
I knew myself how hard it was never to be able to speak a word to your sweetheart, when perhaps he’s got plenty of time of an evening, now and then, just to come and say a few words to you and cheer you up.
When I told Harry he was quite agreeable. You may be sure he remembered how he used to come and see me, and how much happier we had been when we could see each other comfortably without deceiving anybody.
“She’s a nice girl,” he said, “and I’m sure her young man will be respectable, and not one of those low fellows, who get in with barmaids and lead them on to change bad money for them, and do all manner of dreadful things with the till.”
It was about a week after that, one Sunday afternoon, that Miss Ward’s young man, who lived in London, came to our house for the first time. Directly I saw him I didn’t like him. He’d got red hair, which, of course, oughtn’t to be against a man, because it’s a thing he can’t help—but there was what I call a “shifty” look in his face. He never looked at you when he spoke to you, and when you shook hands with him, his hand was one of those cold, clammy hands that I never could abide.
But he was very agreeable. He brought me a cucumber and a bunch of flowers, and, it being teatime, we asked him to join us. He was very affectionate and nice to Miss Ward, and as they sat there with us, and she kept looking up in his face, and showing how proud she was of every word he said, my thoughts went back to the day when Harry came home from sea, and my good, kind mistress let him come down in the kitchen and have tea with us, and that softened me towards Miss Ward’s young man—Mr. Shipsides his name was—and I made up my mind I’d done him a wrong in not liking him.
How he did talk, to be sure! All that teatime nobody else could get a word in edgeways. He told us all about the business he’d bought in London, and what a nice home he was getting together, to be ready for Miss Ward when she married him. Poor girl, how her eyes brightened as he talked of all the beautiful things she was to have in her home!
He said that he’d taken a splendid shop, and stocked it in the grocery line, having been an assistant at a grocer’s, and come into money lately, and that he had the promise of all his former masters’ customers to deal with him. He told us the first day he opened he had the shop crowded all day, and had to take on two extra assistants, and that among his customers were dukes, marquises, earls, and barons.
Harry looked up at that and said, “Do you mean to say that swells like that come to your shop after their grocery?” “Not themselves,” said Mr. Shipsides; “but their names are on my books.” “You’re doing very well,” said Harry, “if you’ve got a business like that—you must be making money fast.” “I am,” said Mr. Shipsides; “but of course I can’t put much by yet, because I’ve got relatives’ money in the business that helped to start me, and that’s all got to be paid out first, and the place cost me a lot of money to fit up and stock; but by-and-by, if things go on as they are now, I shall be on the high-road to fortune, and Clara will ride in her carriage.”