"Girls, how can you be so ungrateful?" said their mother.
"I"m not ungrateful, mamma," said Potsey. "I shall be very much obliged when I get my three hundred and fifty pounds. How long will it be?"
"You"ve got to find the young man first, Potsey. I don"t think you"ll ever do that," said Georgina, who was rather proud of her own good looks.
This took place on the evening of the day on which Mrs. Carroll had gone to London, where Mr. Carroll was about attending to some of those duties of conviviality in the performance of which he was so indefatigable. On the following morning at twelve o"clock he was still in bed. It was a well-known fact in the family that on such an occasion he would lie in bed, and that before twelve o"clock he would have managed to extract from his wife"s little h.o.a.rdings at any rate two bottles of soda-water and two gla.s.ses of some alcoholic mixture which was generally called brandy. "I"ll have a gin-and-potash, Sophie," he had said on this occasion, with reference to the second dose, "and do make haste. I wish you"d go yourself, because that girl always drinks some of the sperrits."
"What! go to the gin-shop?"
"It"s a most respectable publican"s,--just round the corner."
"Indeed, I shall do nothing of the kind. You"ve no feeling about your daughters at all!" But Sophie went on her errand, and in order to protect her father"s small modic.u.m of "sperrits" she slipped on her cloak and walked out so as to be able to watch the girl. Still, I think that the maiden managed to get a sip as she left the bar. The father, in the mean-time with his head between his hands, was ruminating on the "c.o.c.ked-up way which girls have who can"t do a turn for their father."
But with the gin-and-potash, and with Sophie, Mr. Juniper made his appearance. He was a well-featured, tall man, but he looked the stable and he smelled of it. His clothes, no doubt, were decent, but they were made by some tailor who must surely work for horsey men and no others.
There is a cla.s.s of men who always choose to show by their outward appearance that they belong to horses, and they succeed. Mr. Juniper was one of them. Though good-looking he was anything but young, verging by appearance on fifty years.
"So he has been at it again, Miss Sophie," said Juniper. Sophie, who did not like being detected in the performance of her filial duties, led the way in silence into the house, and disappeared up-stairs with the gin-and-potash. Mr. Juniper turned into the parlor, where was Mrs.
Carroll with the other girls. She was still angry, as angry as she could be, with her husband, who on being informed that morning of what his wife had done had called her brother "a beastly, stingy old beau,"
because he had cut Amelia off with four hundred and fifty instead of five hundred pounds. Mr. Carroll probably knew that Mr. Juniper would not take his daughter without the entirety of the sum stipulated, and would allow no portion of it to be expended on wedding-dresses.
"Oh, d.i.c.k, is this you?" said Amelia. "I suppose you"ve come for your news." (Mr. Juniper"s Christian-name was Richard.) On this occasion he showed no affectionate desire to embrace his betrothed.
"Yes, it"s me," he said, and then gave his hand all round, first to Mrs.
Carroll and then to the girls.
"I"ve seen Mr. Grey," said Mrs. Carroll. But d.i.c.k Juniper held his tongue and sat down and twiddled his hat.
"Where have you come from?" asked Georgina.
"From the Brompton Road. I come down on a "bus."
"You"ve come from Tattersall"s, young man!" said Amelia.
"Then I just didn"t!" But to tell the truth he had come from Tattersall"s, and it might be difficult to follow up the workings of his mind and find out why he had told the lie. Of course it was known that when in London much of his business was done at Tattersall"s. But the horsey man is generally on the alert to take care that no secret of his trade escapes from him unawares. And it may be that he was thus prepared for a gratuitous lie.
"Uncle"s gone a deal farther than ever I expected," said Amelia.
"He"s been most generous to all the girls," said Mrs. Carroll, moved nearly to tears.
Mr. Juniper did not care very much about "all the girls," thinking that the uncle"s affection at the present moment should be shown to the one girl who had found a husband, and thinking also that if the husband was to be secured, the proper way of doing so would be by liberality to him.
Amelia had said that her uncle had gone farther than she expected. Mr.
Juniper concluded from this that he had not gone as far as he had been asked, and boldly resolved, at the spur of the moment, to stand by his demand. "Five hundred pounds ain"t much," he said.
"d.i.c.k, don"t make a beast of yourself!" said Amelia. Upon this d.i.c.k only smiled.
He continually twiddled his hat for three or four minutes, and then rose up straight. "I suppose," said he, "I had better go up-stairs and talk to the old man. I seed Miss Sophie taking a pick-up to him, so I suppose he"ll be able to talk."
"Why shouldn"t he talk?" said Mrs. Carroll. But she quite understood what Mr. Juniper"s words were intended to imply.
"It don"t always follow," said Juniper, as he walked out of the room.
"Now there"ll be a row in the house;--you see if there isn"t!" said Amelia. But Mrs. Carroll expressed her opinion that the man must be the most ungrateful of creatures if he kicked up a row on the present occasion. "I don"t know so much about that, mamma," said Amelia.
Mr. Juniper walked up-stairs with heavy, slow steps, and knocked at the door of the marital chamber. There are men who can"t walk up-stairs as though to do so were an affair of ordinary life. They perform the task as though they walked up-stairs once in three years. It is to be presumed that such men always sleep on the ground-floor, though where they find their bed-rooms it is hard to say. Mr. Juniper was admitted by Sophie, who stepped out as he went in. "Well, old fellow! B.--and--S., and plenty of it. That"s the ticket, eh?"
"I did have a little headache this morning. I think it was the cigars."
"Very like,--and the stuff as washed "em down. You haven"t got any more of the same, have you?"
"I"m uncommonly sorry," said the sick man, rising up on his elbow, "but I"m afraid there is not. To tell the truth, I had the deuce of a job to get this from the old woman."
"It don"t matter," said the impa.s.sive Mr. Juniper, "only I have been down among the "orses at the yard till my throat is full of dust. So your lady has been and seen her brother?"
"Yes; she"s done that."
"Well?"
"He ain"t altogether a bad un--isn"t old Grey. Of course he"s an attorney."
"I never think much of them chaps."
"There"s good and bad, Juniper. No doubt my brother-in-law has made a little money."
"A pot of it,--if all they say"s true."
"But all they say isn"t true. All they say never is true."
"I suppose he"s got something?"
"Yes, he"s got something."
"And how is it to be?"
"He"s given the girl four hundred pounds on the nail,"--upon this Mr.
Juniper turned up his nose,--"and fifty pounds for her wedding-clothes."
"He"d better let me have that."
"Girls think so much of it,"--Mr. Juniper only shook his head,--"and, upon my word, it"s more than she had a right to expect."
"It ain"t what she had a right to expect; but I,"--here Mr. Carroll shook his head,--"I said five hundred pounds out, and I means to hold by it.
That"s about it. If he wants to get the girl married, why--he must open his pocket. It isn"t very much that I"m asking. I"m that sort of a fellow that, if I didn"t want it, I"d take her without a shilling."
"But you are that sort of fellow that always does want it."
"I wants it now. It"s better to speak out, ain"t it? I must have the five hundred pounds before I put my neck into the noose, and there must be no paring off for petticoats and pelisses."
"And Mr. Grey says that he must make inquiries into character," said Carroll.