“But you’ll have to have it,” said the little old woman, severely. “You are a poor man. You could make good use of my money—better than a charity board that would starve the poor with a penny out of each shilling, and spend the other elevenpence in treating their friends to flower-shows and dinners. Do you think I mean to leave my money to such people? You shall have it. I think you would look very well driving a mail-phaeton in the park; and I suppose you would give up your pipes and your philosophy and your bachelor walks into the country. You would marry, of course; every man is bound to make a fool of himself that way as soon as he gets money enough to do it with. But perhaps you might come across a clever and sensible woman, who would look after you and give you your own way while having her own. Only don’t marry a fool. Whatever you do don’t marry a fool, or all your philosophers won’t make the house bearable to you.”
“I am not likely to marry anybody, Mrs. Lavender,” said Ingram, carelessly.
“Is there no woman you know whom you would care to marry?”
“Oh,” he said, “there is one woman—yes—who seems to me about everything a man could wish, but the notion of my marrying her is absurd. If I had known in time, don’t you see, that I should ever think of such a thing, I should have begun years ago to dye my hair. I can’t begin now. Gray hair inspires reverence, I believe, but it is a bad thing to go courting with.”
“You must not talk foolishly,” said the little old lady, with a frown. “Do you think a sensible woman wants to marry a boy who will torment her with his folly and his empty head and his running after a dozen different women? Gray hair! If you think gray hair is a bad thing to go courting with, I will give you something better. I will put something in your head that will make the young lady forget your gray hair. Oh, of course you will say that she cannot be tempted, and that she despises money. If so, how much the better? but I have known more women than you, and my hair is grayer than yours, and you will find that a little money won’t stand in the way of your being accepted.”
He had made some gesture of protest, not against her speaking of the possible marriage, which scarcely interested him so remote was the possibility, but against her returning to this other proposal. And when he saw the old woman really meant to do this thing, he found it necessary to declare himself explicitly on the point.
“Oh, don’t imagine, Mrs. Lavender,” he said, “that I have any wild horror of money, or that I suppose any one else would have. I should like to have five times or ten times as much as you seem generously disposed to give me. But here is the point, you see. I am a vain person. I am very proud of my own opinion of myself, and if I acceded to what you propose—if I took your money—I suppose I should be driving about in that fine phæton you speak of. That is very good. I like driving, and I should be pleased with the appearance of the trap and the horses. But what do you fancy I should think of myself—what would be my opinion of my own nobleness and generosity and humanity—if I saw Sheila Mackenzie walking by on the pavement, without any carriage to drive in, perhaps without a notion as to where she was going to get her dinner? I should be a great hero to myself then, shouldn’t I?”
“Oh, Sheila again!” said the old woman in a tone of vexation. “I can’t imagine what there is in that girl to make men rave so about her. That Jew-boy is become a thorough nuisance; you would fancy she had just stepped down out of the clouds to present him with a gold harp, and that he couldn’t look up to her face. And are you just as bad. You are worse, for you don’t blow it off in steam. Well, there need be no difficulty. I meant to leave the girl in your charge. You take the money and look after her; I know she won’t starve. Take it in trust for her, if you like.”
“But that is a fearful responsibility, Mrs. Lavender,” he said in dismay. “She is a married woman. Her husband is the proper person—”
“I tell you, I won’t give him a farthing!” she said, with a sudden sharpness that startled him—“not a farthing! If he wants money let him work for it, as other people do; and then, when he has done that, if he is to have any of my money, he must be beholden for it to his wife and to you.”