"I need have a cheerful disposition, I am sure," said the smiling housewife, "to preserve any spirits at all; and how I do it I can scarcely tell."
"Ah, mim," sighed Miggs, "begging your pardon for the interruption, there an"t a many like you."
"Take away, Miggs," said Mrs Varden, rising, "take away, pray. I know I"m a restraint here, and as I wish everybody to enjoy themselves as they best can, I feel I had better go."
"No, no, Martha," cried the locksmith. "Stop here. I"m sure we shall be very sorry to lose you, eh Joe!" Joe started, and said "Certainly."
"Thank you, Varden, my dear," returned his wife; "but I know your wishes better. Tobacco and beer, or spirits, have much greater attractions than any I can boast of, and therefore I shall go and sit upstairs and look out of window, my love. Good night, Mr Joseph. I"m very glad to have seen you, and I only wish I could have provided something more suitable to your taste. Remember me very kindly if you please to old Mr Willet, and tell him that whenever he comes here I have a crow to pluck with him. Good night!"
Having uttered these words with great sweetness of manner, the good lady dropped a curtsey remarkable for its condescension, and serenely withdrew.
And it was for this Joe had looked forward to the twenty-fifth of March for weeks and weeks, and had gathered the flowers with so much care, and had c.o.c.ked his hat, and made himself so smart! This was the end of all his bold determination, resolved upon for the hundredth time, to speak out to Dolly and tell her how he loved her! To see her for a minute--for but a minute--to find her going out to a party and glad to go; to be looked upon as a common pipe- smoker, beer-bibber, spirit-guzzler, and tosspot! He bade farewell to his friend the locksmith, and hastened to take horse at the Black Lion, thinking as he turned towards home, as many another Joe has thought before and since, that here was an end to all his hopes--that the thing was impossible and never could be--that she didn"t care for him--that he was wretched for life--and that the only congenial prospect left him, was to go for a soldier or a sailor, and get some obliging enemy to knock his brains out as soon as possible.
Chapter 14.
Joe Willet rode leisurely along in his desponding mood, picturing the locksmith"s daughter going down long country-dances, and poussetting dreadfully with bold strangers--which was almost too much to bear--when he heard the tramp of a horse"s feet behind him, and looking back, saw a well-mounted gentleman advancing at a smart canter. As this rider pa.s.sed, he checked his steed, and called him of the Maypole by his name. Joe set spurs to the grey mare, and was at his side directly.
"I thought it was you, sir," he said, touching his hat. "A fair evening, sir. Glad to see you out of doors again."
The gentleman smiled and nodded. "What gay doings have been going on to-day, Joe? Is she as pretty as ever? Nay, don"t blush, man."
"If I coloured at all, Mr Edward," said Joe, "which I didn"t know I did, it was to think I should have been such a fool as ever to have any hope of her. She"s as far out of my reach as--as Heaven is."
"Well, Joe, I hope that"s not altogether beyond it," said Edward, good-humouredly. "Eh?"
"Ah!" sighed Joe. "It"s all very fine talking, sir. Proverbs are easily made in cold blood. But it can"t be helped. Are you bound for our house, sir?"
"Yes. As I am not quite strong yet, I shall stay there to-night, and ride home coolly in the morning."
"If you"re in no particular hurry," said Joe after a short silence, "and will bear with the pace of this poor jade, I shall be glad to ride on with you to the Warren, sir, and hold your horse when you dismount. It"ll save you having to walk from the Maypole, there and back again. I can spare the time well, sir, for I am too soon."
"And so am I," returned Edward, "though I was unconsciously riding fast just now, in compliment I suppose to the pace of my thoughts, which were travelling post. We will keep together, Joe, willingly, and be as good company as may be. And cheer up, cheer up, think of the locksmith"s daughter with a stout heart, and you shall win her yet."
Joe shook his head; but there was something so cheery in the buoyant hopeful manner of this speech, that his spirits rose under its influence, and communicated as it would seem some new impulse even to the grey mare, who, breaking from her sober amble into a gentle trot, emulated the pace of Edward Chester"s horse, and appeared to flatter herself that he was doing his very best.
It was a fine dry night, and the light of a young moon, which was then just rising, shed around that peace and tranquillity which gives to evening time its most delicious charm. The lengthened shadows of the trees, softened as if reflected in still water, threw their carpet on the path the travellers pursued, and the light wind stirred yet more softly than before, as though it were soothing Nature in her sleep. By little and little they ceased talking, and rode on side by side in a pleasant silence.
"The Maypole lights are brilliant to-night," said Edward, as they rode along the lane from which, while the intervening trees were bare of leaves, that hostelry was visible.
"Brilliant indeed, sir," returned Joe, rising in his stirrups to get a better view. "Lights in the large room, and a fire glimmering in the best bedchamber? Why, what company can this be for, I wonder!"
"Some benighted horseman wending towards London, and deterred from going on to-night by the marvellous tales of my friend the highwayman, I suppose," said Edward.
"He must be a horseman of good quality to have such accommodations. Your bed too, sir--!"
"No matter, Joe. Any other room will do for me. But come--there"s nine striking. We may push on."
They cantered forward at as brisk a pace as Joe"s charger could attain, and presently stopped in the little copse where he had left her in the morning. Edward dismounted, gave his bridle to his companion, and walked with a light step towards the house.
A female servant was waiting at a side gate in the garden-wall, and admitted him without delay. He hurried along the terrace-walk, and darted up a flight of broad steps leading into an old and gloomy hall, whose walls were ornamented with rusty suits of armour, antlers, weapons of the chase, and suchlike garniture. Here he paused, but not long; for as he looked round, as if expecting the attendant to have followed, and wondering she had not done so, a lovely girl appeared, whose dark hair next moment rested on his breast. Almost at the same instant a heavy hand was laid upon her arm, Edward felt himself thrust away, and Mr Haredale stood between them.
He regarded the young man sternly without removing his hat; with one hand clasped his niece, and with the other, in which he held his riding-whip, motioned him towards the door. The young man drew himself up, and returned his gaze.
"This is well done of you, sir, to corrupt my servants, and enter my house unbidden and in secret, like a thief!" said Mr Haredale. "Leave it, sir, and return no more."
"Miss Haredale"s presence," returned the young man, "and your relationship to her, give you a licence which, if you are a brave man, you will not abuse. You have compelled me to this course, and the fault is yours--not mine."
"It is neither generous, nor honourable, nor the act of a true man, sir," retorted the other, "to tamper with the affections of a weak, trusting girl, while you shrink, in your unworthiness, from her guardian and protector, and dare not meet the light of day. More than this I will not say to you, save that I forbid you this house, and require you to be gone."
"It is neither generous, nor honourable, nor the act of a true man to play the spy," said Edward. "Your words imply dishonour, and I reject them with the scorn they merit."
"You will find," said Mr Haredale, calmly, "your trusty go-between in waiting at the gate by which you entered. I have played no spy"s part, sir. I chanced to see you pa.s.s the gate, and followed. You might have heard me knocking for admission, had you been less swift of foot, or lingered in the garden. Please to withdraw. Your presence here is offensive to me and distressful to my niece." As he said these words, he pa.s.sed his arm about the waist of the terrified and weeping girl, and drew her closer to him; and though the habitual severity of his manner was scarcely changed, there was yet apparent in the action an air of kindness and sympathy for her distress.
"Mr Haredale," said Edward, "your arm encircles her on whom I have set my every hope and thought, and to purchase one minute"s happiness for whom I would gladly lay down my life; this house is the casket that holds the precious jewel of my existence. Your niece has plighted her faith to me, and I have plighted mine to her. What have I done that you should hold me in this light esteem, and give me these discourteous words?"
"You have done that, sir," answered Mr Haredale, "which must he undone. You have tied a lover"-knot here which must be cut asunder. Take good heed of what I say. Must. I cancel the bond between ye. I reject you, and all of your kith and kin--all the false, hollow, heartless stock."
"High words, sir," said Edward, scornfully.
"Words of purpose and meaning, as you will find," replied the other. "Lay them to heart."
"Lay you then, these," said Edward. "Your cold and sullen temper, which chills every breast about you, which turns affection into fear, and changes duty into dread, has forced us on this secret course, repugnant to our nature and our wish, and far more foreign, sir, to us than you. I am not a false, a hollow, or a heartless man; the character is yours, who poorly venture on these injurious terms, against the truth, and under the shelter whereof I reminded you just now. You shall not cancel the bond between us. I will not abandon this pursuit. I rely upon your niece"s truth and honour, and set your influence at nought. I leave her with a confidence in her pure faith, which you will never weaken, and with no concern but that I do not leave her in some gentler care."
With that, he pressed her cold hand to his lips, and once more encountering and returning Mr Haredale"s steady look, withdrew.
A few words to Joe as he mounted his horse sufficiently explained what had pa.s.sed, and renewed all that young gentleman"s despondency with tenfold aggravation. They rode back to the Maypole without exchanging a syllable, and arrived at the door with heavy hearts.
Old John, who had peeped from behind the red curtain as they rode up shouting for Hugh, was out directly, and said with great importance as he held the young man"s stirrup, "He"s comfortable in bed--the best bed. A thorough gentleman; the smilingest, affablest gentleman I ever had to do with."
"Who, Willet?" said Edward carelessly, as he dismounted.
"Your worthy father, sir," replied John. "Your honourable, venerable father."
"What does he mean?" said Edward, looking with a mixture of alarm and doubt, at Joe.
"What DO you mean?" said Joe. "Don"t you see Mr Edward doesn"t understand, father?"
"Why, didn"t you know of it, sir?" said John, opening his eyes wide. "How very singular! Bless you, he"s been here ever since noon to-day, and Mr Haredale has been having a long talk with him, and hasn"t been gone an hour."
"My father, Willet!"
"Yes, sir, he told me so--a handsome, slim, upright gentleman, in green-and-gold. In your old room up yonder, sir. No doubt you can go in, sir," said John, walking backwards into the road and looking up at the window. "He hasn"t put out his candles yet, I see."
Edward glanced at the window also, and hastily murmuring that he had changed his mind--forgotten something--and must return to London, mounted his horse again and rode away; leaving the Willets, father and son, looking at each other in mute astonishment.
Chapter 15.
At noon next day, John Willet"s guest sat lingering over his breakfast in his own home, surrounded by a variety of comforts, which left the Maypole"s highest flight and utmost stretch of accommodation at an infinite distance behind, and suggested comparisons very much to the disadvantage and disfavour of that venerable tavern.
In the broad old-fashioned window-seat--as capacious as many modern sofas, and cushioned to serve the purpose of a luxurious settee--in the broad old-fashioned window-seat of a roomy chamber, Mr Chester lounged, very much at his ease, over a well-furnished breakfast- table. He had exchanged his riding-coat for a handsome morning- gown, his boots for slippers; had been at great pains to atone for the having been obliged to make his toilet when he rose without the aid of dressing-case and tiring equipage; and, having gradually forgotten through these means the discomforts of an indifferent night and an early ride, was in a state of perfect complacency, indolence, and satisfaction.
The situation in which he found himself, indeed, was particularly favourable to the growth of these feelings; for, not to mention the lazy influence of a late and lonely breakfast, with the additional sedative of a newspaper, there was an air of repose about his place of residence peculiar to itself, and which hangs about it, even in these times, when it is more bustling and busy than it was in days of yore.
There are, still, worse places than the Temple, on a sultry day, for basking in the sun, or resting idly in the shade. There is yet a drowsiness in its courts, and a dreamy dulness in its trees and gardens; those who pace its lanes and squares may yet hear the echoes of their footsteps on the sounding stones, and read upon its gates, in pa.s.sing from the tumult of the Strand or Fleet Street, "Who enters here leaves noise behind." There is still the plash of falling water in fair Fountain Court, and there are yet nooks and corners where dun-haunted students may look down from their dusty garrets, on a vagrant ray of sunlight patching the shade of the tall houses, and seldom troubled to reflect a pa.s.sing stranger"s form. There is yet, in the Temple, something of a clerkly monkish atmosphere, which public offices of law have not disturbed, and even legal firms have failed to scare away. In summer time, its pumps suggest to thirsty idlers, springs cooler, and more sparkling, and deeper than other wells; and as they trace the spillings of full pitchers on the heated ground, they snuff the freshness, and, sighing, cast sad looks towards the Thames, and think of baths and boats, and saunter on, despondent.
It was in a room in Paper Buildings--a row of goodly tenements, shaded in front by ancient trees, and looking, at the back, upon the Temple Gardens--that this, our idler, lounged; now taking up again the paper he had laid down a hundred times; now trifling with the fragments of his meal; now pulling forth his golden toothpick, and glancing leisurely about the room, or out at window into the trim garden walks, where a few early loiterers were already pacing to and fro. Here a pair of lovers met to quarrel and make up; there a dark-eyed nursery-maid had better eyes for Templars than her charge; on this hand an ancient spinster, with her lapdog in a string, regarded both enormities with scornful sidelong looks; on that a weazen old gentleman, ogling the nursery-maid, looked with like scorn upon the spinster, and wondered she didn"t know she was no longer young. Apart from all these, on the river"s margin two or three couple of business-talkers walked slowly up and down in earnest conversation; and one young man sat thoughtfully on a bench, alone.
"Ned is amazingly patient!" said Mr Chester, glancing at this last- named person as he set down his teacup and plied the golden toothpick, "immensely patient! He was sitting yonder when I began to dress, and has scarcely changed his posture since. A most eccentric dog!"
As he spoke, the figure rose, and came towards him with a rapid pace.
"Really, as if he had heard me," said the father, resuming his newspaper with a yawn. "Dear Ned!"
Presently the room-door opened, and the young man entered; to whom his father gently waved his hand, and smiled.
"Are you at leisure for a little conversation, sir?" said Edward.
"Surely, Ned. I am always at leisure. You know my const.i.tution.-- Have you breakfasted?"
"Three hours ago."
"What a very early dog!" cried his father, contemplating him from behind the toothpick, with a languid smile.
"The truth is," said Edward, bringing a chair forward, and seating himself near the table, "that I slept but ill last night, and was glad to rise. The cause of my uneasiness cannot but be known to you, sir; and it is upon that I wish to speak."
"My dear boy," returned his father, "confide in me, I beg. But you know my const.i.tution--don"t be prosy, Ned."
"I will be plain, and brief," said Edward.
"Don"t say you will, my good fellow," returned his father, crossing his legs, "or you certainly will not. You are going to tell me"-- "Plainly this, then," said the son, with an air of great concern, "that I know where you were last night--from being on the spot, indeed--and whom you saw, and what your purpose was."
"You don"t say so!" cried his father. "I am delighted to hear it. It saves us the worry, and terrible wear and tear of a long explanation, and is a great relief for both. At the very house! Why didn"t you come up? I should have been charmed to see you."
"I knew that what I had to say would be better said after a night"s reflection, when both of us were cool," returned the son.
"Fore Gad, Ned," rejoined the father, "I was cool enough last night. That detestable Maypole! By some infernal contrivance of the builder, it holds the wind, and keeps it fresh. You remember the sharp east wind that blew so hard five weeks ago? I give you my honour it was rampant in that old house last night, though out of doors there was a dead calm. But you were saying"-- "I was about to say, Heaven knows how seriously and earnestly, that you have made me wretched, sir. Will you hear me gravely for a moment?"
"My dear Ned," said his father, "I will hear you with the patience of an anchorite. Oblige me with the milk."
"I saw Miss Haredale last night," Edward resumed, when he had complied with this request; "her uncle, in her presence, immediately after your interview, and, as of course I know, in consequence of it, forbade me the house, and, with circ.u.mstances of indignity which are of your creation I am sure, commanded me to leave it on the instant."
"For his manner of doing so, I give you my honour, Ned, I am not accountable," said his father. "That you must excuse. He is a mere boor, a log, a brute, with no address in life.--Positively a fly in the jug. The first I have seen this year."
Edward rose, and paced the room. His imperturbable parent sipped his tea.
"Father," said the young man, stopping at length before him, "we must not trifle in this matter. We must not deceive each other, or ourselves. Let me pursue the manly open part I wish to take, and do not repel me by this unkind indifference."
"Whether I am indifferent or no," returned the other, "I leave you, my dear boy, to judge. A ride of twenty-five or thirty miles, through miry roads--a Maypole dinner--a tete-a-tete with Haredale, which, vanity apart, was quite a Valentine and Orson business--a Maypole bed--a Maypole landlord, and a Maypole retinue of idiots and centaurs;--whether the voluntary endurance of these things looks like indifference, dear Ned, or like the excessive anxiety, and devotion, and all that sort of thing, of a parent, you shall determine for yourself."
"I wish you to consider, sir," said Edward, "in what a cruel situation I am placed. Loving Miss Haredale as I do"-- "My dear fellow," interrupted his father with a compa.s.sionate smile, "you do nothing of the kind. You don"t know anything about it. There"s no such thing, I a.s.sure you. Now, do take my word for it. You have good sense, Ned,--great good sense. I wonder you should be guilty of such amazing absurdities. You really surprise me."
"I repeat," said his son firmly, "that I love her. You have interposed to part us, and have, to the extent I have just now told you of, succeeded. May I induce you, sir, in time, to think more favourably of our attachment, or is it your intention and your fixed design to hold us asunder if you can?"
"My dear Ned," returned his father, taking a pinch of snuff and pushing his box towards him, "that is my purpose most undoubtedly."
"The time that has elapsed," rejoined his son, "since I began to know her worth, has flown in such a dream that until now I have hardly once paused to reflect upon my true position. What is it? From my childhood I have been accustomed to luxury and idleness, and have been bred as though my fortune were large, and my expectations almost without a limit. The idea of wealth has been familiarised to me from my cradle. I have been taught to look upon those means, by which men raise themselves to riches and distinction, as being beyond my heeding, and beneath my care. I have been, as the phrase is, liberally educated, and am fit for nothing. I find myself at last wholly dependent upon you, with no resource but in your favour. In this momentous question of my life we do not, and it would seem we never can, agree. I have shrunk instinctively alike from those to whom you have urged me to pay court, and from the motives of interest and gain which have rendered them in your eyes visible objects for my suit. If there never has been thus much plain-speaking between us before, sir, the fault has not been mine, indeed. If I seem to speak too plainly now, it is, believe me father, in the hope that there may be a franker spirit, a worthier reliance, and a kinder confidence between us in time to come."
"My good fellow," said his smiling father, "you quite affect me. Go on, my dear Edward, I beg. But remember your promise. There is great earnestness, vast candour, a manifest sincerity in all you say, but I fear I observe the faintest indications of a tendency to prose."
"I am very sorry, sir."
"I am very sorry, too, Ned, but you know that I cannot fix my mind for any long period upon one subject. If you"ll come to the point at once, I"ll imagine all that ought to go before, and conclude it said. Oblige me with the milk again. Listening, invariably makes me feverish."
"What I would say then, tends to this," said Edward. "I cannot bear this absolute dependence, sir, even upon you. Time has been lost and opportunity thrown away, but I am yet a young man, and may retrieve it. Will you give me the means of devoting such abilities and energies as I possess, to some worthy pursuit? Will you let me try to make for myself an honourable path in life? For any term you please to name--say for five years if you will--I will pledge myself to move no further in the matter of our difference without your fall concurrence. During that period, I will endeavour earnestly and patiently, if ever man did, to open some prospect for myself, and free you from the burden you fear I should become if I married one whose worth and beauty are her chief endowments. Will you do this, sir? At the expiration of the term we agree upon, let us discuss this subject again. Till then, unless it is revived by you, let it never be renewed between us."
"My dear Ned," returned his father, laying down the newspaper at which he had been glancing carelessly, and throwing himself back in the window-seat, "I believe you know how very much I dislike what are called family affairs, which are only fit for plebeian Christmas days, and have no manner of business with people of our condition. But as you are proceeding upon a mistake, Ned-- altogether upon a mistake--I will conquer my repugnance to entering on such matters, and give you a perfectly plain and candid answer, if you will do me the favour to shut the door."
Edward having obeyed him, he took an elegant little knife from his pocket, and paring his nails, continued: "You have to thank me, Ned, for being of good family; for your mother, charming person as she was, and almost broken-hearted, and so forth, as she left me, when she was prematurely compelled to become immortal--had nothing to boast of in that respect."
"Her father was at least an eminent lawyer, sir," said Edward.
"Quite right, Ned; perfectly so. He stood high at the bar, had a great name and great wealth, but having risen from nothing--I have always closed my eyes to the circ.u.mstance and steadily resisted its contemplation, but I fear his father dealt in pork, and that his business did once involve cow-heel and sausages--he wished to marry his daughter into a good family. He had his heart"s desire, Ned. I was a younger son"s younger son, and I married her. We each had our object, and gained it. She stepped at once into the politest and best circles, and I stepped into a fortune which I a.s.sure you was very necessary to my comfort--quite indispensable. Now, my good fellow, that fortune is among the things that have been. It is gone, Ned, and has been gone--how old are you? I always forget."
"Seven-and-twenty, sir."
"Are you indeed?" cried his father, raising his eyelids in a languishing surprise. "So much! Then I should say, Ned, that as nearly as I remember, its skirts vanished from human knowledge, about eighteen or nineteen years ago. It was about that time when I came to live in these chambers (once your grandfather"s, and bequeathed by that extremely respectable person to me), and commenced to live upon an inconsiderable annuity and my past reputation."
"You are jesting with me, sir," said Edward.
"Not in the slightest degree, I a.s.sure you," returned his father with great composure. "These family topics are so extremely dry, that I am sorry to say they don"t admit of any such relief. It is for that reason, and because they have an appearance of business, that I dislike them so very much. Well! You know the rest. A son, Ned, unless he is old enough to be a companion--that is to say, unless he is some two or three and twenty--is not the kind of thing to have about one. He is a restraint upon his father, his father is a restraint upon him, and they make each other mutually uncomfortable. Therefore, until within the last four years or so-- I have a poor memory for dates, and if I mistake, you will correct me in your own mind--you pursued your studies at a distance, and picked up a great variety of accomplishments. Occasionally we pa.s.sed a week or two together here, and disconcerted each other as only such near relations can. At last you came home. I candidly tell you, my dear boy, that if you had been awkward and overgrown, I should have exported you to some distant part of the world."
"I wish with all my soul you had, sir," said Edward.