“She shall marry better than that, Roger. Go fetch her here: tell her to come and talk with me, and that if she pleases me in her conversation and appearance, she may shortly marry a gentleman.”
“This,” said the Doctor, when his man was gone, “will be a good stroke of business. This shall be his punishment. My lord shall marry this extravagant slut. No paltry common revenge this. Just punishment for the first generation. He will gain a pocketful of debts and a wife who will stick to him like a leech. Aha!—a city wench—none of your proud city madams, grand enough to be a countess—but a plain tradesman’s widow, with no ideas beyond a dish of tea, Bagnigge Wells, strawberries at Bayswater, cakes at Chelsea, or at the best, a night of wonder-gaping at the quality at Vauxhall; a wife of whom he will be ashamed from the very first. This is good business. What a pity! what a thousand pities that his noble father is no more!”
The Doctor laughed and rubbed his hands. Then he mounted the stairs again, and entered his bedroom. The lad was still sound asleep; his cheeks less red, and his breathing lighter.
“His head will ache,” said the Doctor. “I fear he is unaccustomed to punch. When he wakes his limbs will feel like lead: his throat will feel like a limekiln; his tongue will be furred like the back of a squirrel; his eyes will be hot and heavy, as if he had a fever; his hand will shake like the hand of a palsied man; he will totter when he tries to walk. Ah! cursed drink! Time was when I, who am now as seasoned as a port-wine cask, or a keg of Nantz, would feel the same when I awoke after such a night. Age brings its consolations.” He rubbed his hands, thinking that he could now drink without these symptoms. “I will marry him,” he continued, “while he is yet half drunk. When he recovers, it will be time to explain the position of things. Should I explain, or should his wife? Ho! ho! A draper’s widow, of Gracechurch Street, to marry the heir of all the Chudleighs!”
He stood over the bed again, and passed his hand lightly over the sleeping boy’s cheeks. Something in his looks touched the Doctor, and his eyes softened.
“Poor lad! I never had a son. Perhaps, if there had been one, things would have been different. He is a very handsome boy. Pity, after all, that he must marry this jade, this extravagant wench who will waste and scatter his patrimony, and likely bring him to shame, when, being so young, so handsome, and so rich, he might have had the prettiest girl in the country”—here he started—“might have had—might have had—can he not have? Is there a prettier girl or a better-bred girl anywhere in the land than Kitty Pleydell? What more can any man want? she is of gentle blood—on one side at least, for the Shovels, it is very certain, do somewhat smack of the soil. Never a Shovel, except the Reverend Gregory Shovel, Doctor of Divinity, who hath risen to greatness. Clods all. Here is a great chance for such a revenge as would have driven the old lord mad, and will be a blessing and a boon to the young lord. Ho! ho! my Lord Breaker of Promises, my Lord Trampler of Dependents, my Lord Villain and Rogue, how likes your lordship that your son should marry my niece? As for you, young spark, I will give you a bride so sweet, so fair, so fresh, that by heavens! you ought to woo her for a twelvemonth, and then go and hang your foolish neck by a garter because she would not say yea. Well, well! let us return good for evil—let us still be Christians. Yet no Lord Chudleigh hath deserved to have any benefit at my hands.”
He rubbed his hands: he laughed to himself, his shoulders rolling from side to side: he nodded his head pleasantly at his victim, then he went downstairs again, with grave and thoughtful mien. He was thinking how best to bring about his purpose.
He found, however, waiting below, Roger, his man. With him there came a woman dressed in shabby finery. She was a woman of about thirty-two years of age, stout, and still comely; she looked about the room as if in search of some one; her face was eager and anxious. When she saw the Doctor, she put her handkerchief to her eyes and burst, or pretended to burst, into tears.
“Alas, Doctor!” she cried, “I am truly ashamed to come in such a plight. But I have nothing else to put on. And Roger, good man, says that the gentleman will not wait. Who is the gentleman? Surely not Thomas Humpage, the mercer, who always promised to marry me when my husband should die, and now refuses because, although a warm man, he will not take upon him the burden of my poor debts. Alas! men are ever thus towards us poor women. Pray, Doctor, who is the gentleman? Far be it from me to keep the poor man waiting; and indeed, I was ever a pitiful woman, and——”
“You are under a little mistake, madam,” said the Doctor, interrupting her. “There is no gentleman here asking for you. Roger is an ass, and a pig.”