Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 19

by Unknown

To his last remarks she replied—“O Kerr! Kerr! when shall I get you to forget your low-life shop and counter? Why did I marry a man that has no ideas beyond saying ‘Thank you—I am much obliged to you,’ to every petty penny customer! And a man of your fortune, too!—Oh, meanness!—Kerr, I am ashamed of you.”

He stood out for a considerable time; but, for “the sake of peace,” he had already yielded to building the villa; and what was once done, was more easily done again—therefore he agreed to fit it up with new furniture. The building and the furnishing of the house cost Mr Kerr no small sum; and his name did not stand at the bank as worthy of credit to the amount that it once did. In his moments of solitude he thought of these things, and sighed.

Yet this was not all: when they had taken possession of the house, and Mrs Kerr had it, and the new and splendid furniture, with the garden, the parterre, and the shrubbery, there was something still wanting—and that was, a genteel approach to the house. Its present entrance was, as Mrs Kerr said, “no better than a gate to a cow park—as vulgar as the abominable shop and warehouse; and enough to prevent any genteel person from coming near them.” Indeed, she could not ask them while they had such an approach.

Yield once to a woman’s caprice, and you may yield always. Two instances in which he yielded have been mentioned, and he yielded a third time.

“Now,” thought he, “Harriet will surely be satisfied. I have built her a fine house, and fitted it up with fine furniture, and I have made her an avenue to it that a nobleman might enter. Oh, if my dear departed Hannah could look up, and see the folly into which I have been drawn, she would shake her head, and say—‘Walter, Walter!’—And well she might.”

And as Walter Kerr thought thus, he burst into tears.

But his wife was not content. The house, the garden, the shrubbery, the parterre, and the approach were not enough. She wanted her genteel friends about her, now that she was in a situation to receive them; and she brought them about her. She treated them, she feasted them. They were there not only one day in the week, but every day, by dozens and by scores. Our unfortunate merchant became a cipher in his own house and at his own table. He had formerly considered what are called genteel people as a rare sort of individuals, to be met with occasionally; but he now found them plentiful as gooseberries in August. They surrounded him like locusts. They were

“Thick as autumnal leaves in Vallombrosa.”

And what surprised him most was, that first one and then another said to him, during dinner (in accordance with the absurd practice which still prevails)—“Mr Kerr, I shall be happy to drink a glass of wine with you;” and scarce had he swallowed one glass (for he always took off his heeltaps), until another said the same thing, and another and another, as though they had entered into concert to fire a regular feu-de-joie at his head; and he thought it a very hard thing that he could not take a glass of wine in his own house, without caring, or being told whether those who ate and drank at his expense, were happy at his drinking or not. Moreover, they acted as though they considered him honoured by their eating and drinking; and he saw their respect lavished on his genteel better half, while he was passed over as a sort of nobody. These were almost every-day doings, and he began to find that they were making fearful inroads on his cash account; in short, he discovered that if he had acquired a fortune rapidly during the life of his first wife, he was spending it as rapidly now.

One day, after a close examination into his books (and it was a very beautiful day, but there had been wet weather for some time before, and the roads were bad and disagreeable to walk upon), he returned home with the determination of saying unto his wife—“Harriet, it is impossible for me to stand the course of extravagance we are now pursuing. I shall be very happy to entertain your friends occasionally; but really this treating of them every week, I might almost say every day, is too much for any man in business to stand. Look at my profits and expenditure during the last three years.” And he had a statement drawn out.