“You must do me the favour to speak for yourself, and your son,” said Mrs. Eastwood, with spirit. “My child has no such idea. She has never known anything about such calculations; and I am sure she will not begin now.”
“I beg your pardon, and Miss Nelly’s pardon,” said the great man, with an amused look. “I did not mean to reflect upon any one. But if she has not begun yet, I fear she will soon begin when she is Ernest’s wife. They can’t help it, ma’am. I am not blaming them. Once they are married, they must live; they must have a house over their heads and a dinner daily. I’ve no doubt Miss Nelly’s an angel; but even an angel, when she has weekly bills coming in, and nothing to pay them with, will begin to scheme.”
“Such a thing appears to me quite impossible,” said Mrs. Eastwood, in a flutter of suppressed indignation, and then she added, pausing to recover herself, “I must say at once, Mr. Molyneux, that if this is the way in which you are disposed to look at the matter, I should prefer to end the discussion. My daughter’s happiness is very dear to me; but her credit, and my own credit, ought to be still more dear——”
“My dear ma’am,” cried Mr. Molyneux, “now, tell me, as a matter of curiosity, how your credit is concerned, or why you should be angry? My point of view is that, of course, the young people mean to get as much as they can out of us——”
“Perhaps your son does, sir!” cried Mrs. Eastwood, exasperated. “You ought to know him best.”
“Of course I know him best; and of course that is his object—to get as much as he can out of me,” said Mr. Molyneux, pausing upon the pronoun. “Since you don’t like it, I will leave the other side out of the question. I have known Ernest these eight and twenty years, and I ought to know what stuff he is made of. Now, as there are two parties to this bargain, we had better know exactly what we mean on either side. I did not want Ernest to marry now, and in case he did marry, he ought to have looked higher. I don’t mean to be unpleasant, but I should have liked him to look out—let us say brutally—for more money. He has cost a deal of money in his day; and he ought to have brought in more. It is very likely, indeed, that your views were of a similar character. In that case, instead of wrangling, we ought to agree. Miss Nelly might have done better——”
“A great deal better,” said the mother firmly, and with decision.
“Exactly so. At bottom we mean the same thing, though I may speak too roughly; but, like a couple of young fools, they have gone and run their heads into a net. Privately I admire your daughter very much,” said Mr. Molyneux, with a certain oily change in his tone—a confession that the present subject under treatment was not to be bullied, but required more delicate dealing; “and though I say it that shouldn’t, my son Ernest is a fine young fellow. They will make a handsome couple—just the kind of thing that would be delightful in a novel or in a poem—where they could live happy ever after, and never feel the want of money. But in this prosaic world things don’t go on so comfortably. They have not a penny; that is the question that remains between you and me.”
“Nelly has five thousand pounds; and he has—his profession,” said Mrs. Eastwood, with a certain faltering in her voice.
“Well, well, well,” said the wise man. “If we were all in a state of innocence, five thousand pounds would be something; and if we were a little wickeder, his profession might count; but the world is not so litigious as might be desired. My son is too grand to demean himself to criminal cases like that inconsiderable mortal, his father. And do you mean them to live in London, my dear ma’am, upon Miss Nelly’s twopence-halfpenny a year?”