“Of course, I did. And what’s that to you?” he screams out.
“I this day asked her to be my wife, sir! That’s what it is to me!” I replied, with severe dignity.
Mr. Clarence began to whistle. “Oh! if that’s it—of course not!” he says.
The jealous demon writhed within me and rent me.
“You mean that there is something, then?” I asked, glaring at the young reprobate.
“No, I don’t,” says he, looking very much frightened. “No, there is nothin’. Upon my sacred honour, there isn’t, that I know.” (I was looking uncommonly fierce at this time, and, I must own, would rather have quarrelled with somebody than not.) “No, there is nothin’ that I know. Ever so many years ago, you see, I used to go with Tom Papillion, Turkington, and two or three fellows, to that theatre. Dolphin had it. And we used to go behind the scenes—and—and I own I had a row with her. And I was in the wrong. There now, I own I was. And she left the theatre. And she behaved quite right. And I was very sorry. And I believe she is as good a woman as ever stept now. And the father was a disreputable old man, but most honourable—I know he was. And there was a fellow in the Bombay service—a fellow by the name of Walker or Walkingham—yes, Walkingham; and I used to meet him at the Cave of Harmony, you know; and he told me that she was as right as right could be. And he was doosidly cut up about leaving her. And he would have married her, I dessay, only for his father the general, who wouldn’t stand it. And he was ready to hang himself when he went away. He used to drink awfully, and then he used to swear about her; and we used to chaff him, you know. Low, vulgarish sort of man, he was; and a very passionate fellow. And if you’re goin’ to marry her, you know—of course, I ask your pardon, and that; and upon the honour of a gentleman I know nothin’ against her. And I wish you joy and all that sort of thing. I do now, really now!” And so saying, the mean, mischievous little monkey sneaked away, and clambered up to his own perch in his own bedroom.
Worthy Mrs. Bonnington, with a couple of her young ones, made her appearance at this juncture. She had a key, which gave her a free pass through the garden door, and brought her children for an afternoon’s play and fighting with their little nephew and niece. Decidedly, Bessy did not bring up her young folks well. Was it that their grandmothers spoiled them, and undid the governess’s work? Were those young people odious (as they often were) by nature, or rendered so by the neglect of their guardians? If Bessy had loved her charges more, would they not have been better? Had she a kind, loving, maternal heart? Ha! This thought—this jealous doubt—smote my bosom: and were she mine, and the mother of many possible little Batchelors, would she be kind to them? Would they be wilful, and selfish, and abominable little wretches, in a word, like these children? Nay—nay! Say that Elizabeth has but a cold heart; we cannot be all perfection. But, per contra, you must admit that, cold as she is, she does her duty. How good she has been to her own brothers and sisters: how cheerfully she has given away her savings to them: how admirably she has behaved to her mother, hiding the iniquities of that disreputable old schemer, and covering her improprieties with decent filial screens and pretexts. Her mother? Ah! grands dieux! You want to marry, Charles Batchelor, and you will have that greedy pauper for a mother-in-law; that fluffy Bluecoat boy, those hob-nailed taw-players, top-spinners, toffee-eaters, those underbred girls, for your brothers- and sisters-in-law! They will be quartered upon you. You are so absurdly weak and good-natured—you know you are—that you will never be able to resist. Those boys will grow up: they will go out as clerks or shopboys: get into debt, and expect you to pay their bills: want to be articled to attornies and so forth, and call upon you for the premium. Their mother will never be out of your house. She will ferret about in your drawers and wardrobes, filch your haberdashery, and cast greedy eyes on the very shirts and coats on your back, and calculate when she can get them for her boys. Those vulgar young miscreants will never fail to come and dine with you on a Sunday. They will bring their young linendraper or articled friends. They will draw bills on you, or give their own to money-lenders, and unless you take up those bills they will consider you a callous, avaricious brute, and the heartless author of their ruin. The girls will come and practise on your wife’s piano. They won’t come to you on Sundays only; they will always be staying in the house. They will always be preventing a tête-à-tête between your wife and you. As they grow old, they will want her to take them out to tea-parties, and to give such entertainments, where they will introduce their odious young men. They will expect you to commit meannesses, in order to get theatre tickets for them from the newspaper editors of your acquaintance. You will have to sit in the back seat: to pay the cab to and from the play: to see glances and bows of recognition passing between them and dubious bucks in the lobbies: and to lend the girls your wife’s gloves, scarfs, ornaments, smelling-bottles, and handkerchiefs, which of course they will never return. If Elizabeth is ailing from any circumstance, they will get a footing in your house, and she will be jealous of them. The ladies of your own family will quarrel with them, of course; and very likely your mother-in-law will tell them a piece of her mind. And you bring this dreary certainty upon you, because, forsooth, you fell in love with a fine figure, a pair of grey eyes, and a head of auburn (not to say red) hair! O Charles Batchelor! in what a galley hast thou seated thyself, and what a family is crowded in thy boat!
All these thoughts are passing in my mind, as good Mrs. Bonnington is prattling to me—I protest I don’t know about what. I think I caught some faint sentences about the Patagonian mission, the National schools, and Mr. Bonnington’s lumbago; but I can’t say for certain. I was busy with my own thoughts. I had asked the awful question—I was not answered. Bessy had even gone away in a huff about my want of gallantry, but I was easy on that score. As for Mr. Drencher, she had told me her sentiments regarding him; and though I am considerably older, yet thought I, I need not be afraid of that rival. But when she says yes? Oh, dear! oh, dear! Yes means Elizabeth—certainly, a brave young woman—but it means Mrs. Prior, and Gus, and Amelia Jane, and the whole of that dismal family. No wonder, with these dark thoughts crowding my mind, Mrs. Bonnington found me absent; and, as a comment upon some absurd reply of mine, said, “La! Mr. Batchelor, you must be crossed in love!” Crossed in love! It might be as well for some folks if they were crossed in love. At my age, and having loved madly, as I did, that party in Dublin, a man doesn’t take the second fit by any means so strongly. Well! well! the die was cast, and I was there to bide the hazard. ‘What can be the matter? I look pale and unwell, and had better see Mr. D.?’ Thank you, my dear Mrs. Bonnington. I had a violent—a violent toothache last night-yes, toothache; and was kept awake, thank you. And there’s nothing like having it out? and Mr. D. draws them beautifully, and has taken out six of your children’s? It’s better now; I daresay it will be better still, soon. I retire to my chamber: I take a book—can’t read one word of it. I resume my tragedy. Tragedy? Bosh!
I suppose Mr. Drencher thought his yesterday’s patient would be better for a little more advice and medicine, for he must pay a second visit to Shrublands on this day, just after the row with the captain had taken place, and walked up to the upper regions, as his custom was. Very likely he found Mr. Clarence bathing his nose there, and prescribed for the injured organ. Certainly he knocked at the door of Miss Prior’s schoolroom (the fellow was always finding a pretext for entering that apartment), and Master Bedford comes to me, with a wobegone, livid countenance, and a “Ha! ha! young Sawbones is up with her!”
“So my poor Dick,” I say, “I heard your confession as I was myself running in to rescue Miss P. from that villain.”