Bentley's Miscellany, Volume I

by Various

It is needless to dwell longer upon this occurrence, further than by saying, that the "young man," finding the bill not in a way of being "settled," or Mrs, Jennings either, took his beaver, or—we like to be particular—his four-and-ninepenny, no longer a hat, but a piece of ornamented brown paper in a fine state of decomposition, and was in the act of leaving the room, when rat! tat! tat! went the door, and another young man was announced with a bill for acceptance, drawn by Messrs. Lutestring & Co. for silks, flannels &c. supplied to—Mrs. Jennings! Monsieur Tonson was nothing to this! Another knock, and a female was ushered up with a yard-long bill for millinery, &c. done for—Mrs. Jennings! The "Storm" upon the grand piano was a mere puff to that raised by Bullfinch. He swore, raved, ordered them from his house, and finally, thrusting his head between his hands, groaned a bitter groan, and, smiting his brow, cried, "Oh, that d—d poppy!"

The following morning, a suspicious-looking person, of a pick-pockety exterior, and belonging to a similar industrious calling—he was a lawyer's clerk—knocked at the knocker of Theophilus Bullfinch, and with that gentlemanly ease and accomplished manner so peculiar to young men in the law, handed to the aforesaid personage a letter, prettily worded, and headed "Jennings versus Bullfinch." It was a notice of action for "breach."

Tremble, oh, ye bachelors!—and oh, ye spinsters! smirk in the hope of one day convincing the world you ought to have been married. Mrs. Jennings was of the same opinion, and, in a spirit of justice to her sex, put her case into the hands of Messrs. Twist and Strainer, as respectable a firm as ever undertook a "breach of promise case." It is needless to say they issued their process with becoming expedition; and Bullfinch, sorely galled, mastered his antipathy,—we cannot but think a very foolish one,—and applied to an attorney!—in the hope—men catch at straws—that an attorney might be an honest man! Alas! that a person of his years should not have more wisdom!—It is perhaps necessary to inform the reader that the damages were laid at five thousand pounds.

The day of trial arrived. Theophilus, with a blushing face and tremulous heart, squeezed himself into a seat beside his legal adviser; his eyes upon the floor, and his hands feelingly placed in his pockets. He fancied all eyes bent on his, and smarted under them as they were burning-glasses. By degrees his timidity abated, and at the bustle occasioned by the judge coming into court had so far summoned courage as to raise his eyes. They met, "gently beaming," the eyes of Mrs. Jennings, who was seated in the gallery. He would rather have looked on a wolf's; but a sort of fascination, as birds feel looking at serpents, kept them fixed,—nailed to the eyes of what seemed to him his evil genius; whilst she, with the bland look of injured innocence, jerked a few tears into her eyes, and, taking out her pocket-handkerchief,—a clean one for the occasion,—wept, that is, she appeared to do so; but a woman's tears, like her ornaments, are not always real.

She looked, and Bullfinch spell-bound met her gaze; but, as a friend of ours once said, "He gave her a look!"

The proceedings commenced. The learned counsel opened the case by enlarging upon "the enormity of the defendant's crime, and the plaintiff's unprotected state; a crime," the learned counsel went on to say, "unparalleled in the annals of the law; a crime, my lord and gentlemen, which breaks into the peace of families, and takes from the lovely and the virtuous that jewel no wealth can barter,—her reputation, gentlemen, her unspotted, her unblushing reputation! Not that I would be understood to accuse the defendant of seduction. No, gentlemen; the lady whose case I am pleading is too fair a flower to be hurt by his calumniating breath!—she is——"

Here Theophilus uttered a word; we are grieved we cannot repeat it; but the officer of the court bawled "Silence!" in so loud a tone as completely to drown it. The learned counsel continued:

"Yes, my lord and gentlemen, the defendant—I blush, gentlemen, I blush," and the learned counsel was evidently overcome with the novelty of his situation,—"the defendant is a man," he resumed, "past the intoxicating meridian of life, when the feelings of youth flutter like bees sipping flowers of the fairest hue. He has proved himself——"

Another ejaculation from Theophilus, and again the officer "Silence'd!"

"He has proved himself a monster of the blackest dye,—a reptile who ought to be crushed off the face of the earth! Oh, gentlemen, did you but know the lady as I do,—have known the sanctity of her private life, and the ethereal nature of her public one; her loveliness, her virgin excellence, beloved by relations, idolized by her family!" The lades in the gallery were visibly affected, and looked daggers at the brute of a defendant. The counsel, after a pause, resumed: "This, gentlemen, is the being for whom I am to plead. Englishmen will, I am sure, never desert the ladies!"