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Edward Bulwer Lytton - "Alice, or The Mysteries, Book X"

George Crabbe - "Miscellaneous Poems"

Arthur Conan Doyle - "Beyond the City"

Johanna Spyri - "Cornelli"

Evan Harrington, Complete

G >> George Meredith >> Evan Harrington, Complete




Mrs. Mel had her tea in Mrs. Hawkshaw's parlour, and was entertained
about her husband up to the hour of supper, when a short step and a
querulous voice were heard in the passage, and an old gentleman appeared
before them.

'Who's to carry up my trunk, ma'am? No man here?'

Mrs. Hawkshaw bustled out and tried to lay her hand on a man. Failing to
find the growth spontaneous, she returned and begged the old gentleman to
wait a few moments and the trunk would be sent up.

'Parcel o' women!' was his reply. 'Regularly bedevilled. Gets worse and
worse. I 'll carry it up myself.'

With a wheezy effort he persuaded the trunk to stand on one end, and then
looked at it. The exertion made him hot, which may account for the rage
he burst into when Mrs. Hawkshaw began flutteringly to apologize.

'You're sure, ma'am, sure--what are you sure of? I'll tell you what I am
sure of--eh? This keeping clear of men's a damned pretence. You don't
impose upon me. Don't believe in your pothouse nunneries--not a bit. Just
like you! when you are virtuous it's deuced inconvenient. Let one of the
maids try? No. Don't believe in 'em.'

Having thus relieved his spleen the old gentleman addressed himself to
further efforts and waxed hotter. He managed to tilt the trunk over, and
thus gained a length, and by this method of progression arrived at the
foot of the stairs, where he halted, and wiped his face, blowing lustily.

Mrs. Mel had been watching him with calm scorn all the while. She saw him
attempt most ridiculously to impel the trunk upwards by a similar
process, and thought it time to interfere.

'Don't you see you must either take it on your shoulders, or have a
help?'

The old gentleman sprang up from his peculiarly tight posture to blaze
round at her. He had the words well-peppered on his mouth, but somehow he
stopped, and was subsequently content to growl: 'Where 's the help in a
parcel of petticoats?'

Mrs. Mel did not consider it necessary to give him an answer. She went up
two or three steps, and took hold of one handle of the trunk, saying:
'There; I think it can be managed this way,' and she pointed for him to
seize the other end with his hand.

He was now in that unpleasant state of prickly heat when testy old
gentlemen could commit slaughter with ecstasy. Had it been the maid
holding a candle who had dared to advise, he would have overturned her
undoubtedly, and established a fresh instance of the impertinence, the
uselessness and weakness of women. Mrs. Mel topped him by half a head,
and in addition stood three steps above him; towering like a giantess.
The extreme gravity of her large face dispersed all idea of an assault.
The old gentleman showed signs of being horribly injured: nevertheless,
he put his hand to the trunk; it was lifted, and the procession ascended
the stairs in silence.

The landlady waited for Mrs. Mel to return, and then said:

'Really, Mrs. Harrington, you are clever. That lifting that trunk's as
good as a lock and bolt on him. You've as good as made him a Dolphin--him
that was one o' the oldest Green Dragons in Fallifield. My thanks to you
most sincere.'

Mrs. Mel sent out to hear where Dandy had got to after which, she said:
'Who is the man?'

'I told you, Mrs. Harrington--the oldest Green Dragon. His name, you
mean? Do you know, if I was to breathe it out, I believe he'd jump out of
the window. He 'd be off, that you might swear to. Oh, such a whimsical!
not ill-meaning--quite the contrary. Study his whims, and you'll never
want. There's Mrs. Sockley--she 's took ill. He won't go there--that 's
how I've caught him, my dear--but he pays her medicine, and she looks to
him the same. He hate a sick house: but he pity a sick woman. Now, if I
can only please him, I can always look on him as half a Dolphin, to say
the least; and perhaps to-morrow I'll tell you who he is, and what, but
not to-night; for there's his supper to get over, and that, they say, can
be as bad as the busting of one of his own vats. Awful!'

'What does he eat?' said Mrs. Mel.

'A pair o' chops. That seem simple, now, don't it? And yet they chops
make my heart go pitty-pat.'

'The commonest things are the worst done,' said Mrs. Mel.

'It ain't that; but they must be done his particular way, do you see,
Mrs. Harrington. Laid close on the fire, he say, so as to keep in the
juice. But he ups and bounces in a minute at a speck o' black. So, one
thing or the other, there you are: no blacks, no juices, I say.'

'Toast the chops,' said Mrs. Mel.

The landlady of the Dolphin accepted this new idea with much
enlightenment, but ruefully declared that she was afraid to go against
his precise instructions. Mrs. Mel then folded her hands, and sat in
quiet reserve. She was one of those numerous women who always know
themselves to be right. She was also one of those very few whom
Providence favours by confounding dissentients. She was positive the
chops would be ill-cooked: but what could she do? She was not in command
here; so she waited serenely for the certain disasters to enthrone her.
Not that the matter of the chops occupied her mind particularly: nor
could she dream that the pair in question were destined to form a part of
her history, and divert the channel of her fortunes. Her thoughts were
about her own immediate work; and when the landlady rushed in with the
chops under a cover, and said: 'Look at 'em, dear Mrs. Harrington!' she
had forgotten that she was again to be proved right by the turn of
events.

'Oh, the chops!' she responded. 'Send them while they are hot.'

'Send 'em! Why you don't think I'd have risked their cooling? I have sent
'em; and what do he do but send 'em travelling back, and here they be;
and what objections his is I might study till I was blind, and I
shouldn't see 'em.'

'No; I suppose not,' said Mrs. Mel. 'He won't eat 'em?'

'Won't eat anything: but his bed-room candle immediately. And whether his
sheets are aired. And Mary says he sniffed at the chops; and that gal
really did expect he 'd fling them at her. I told you what he was. Oh,
dear!'

The bell was heard ringing in the midst of the landlady's lamentations.

'Go to him yourself,' said Mrs. Mel. 'No Christian man should go to sleep
without his supper.'

'Ah! but he ain't a common Christian,' returned Mrs. Hawkshaw.

The old gentleman was in a hurry to know when his bed-room candle was
coming up, or whether they intended to give him one at all that night; if
not, let them say so, as he liked plain-speaking. The moment Mrs.
Hawkshaw touched upon the chops, he stopped her mouth.

'Go about your business, ma'am. You can't cook 'em. I never expected you
could: I was a fool to try you. It requires at least ten years'
instruction before a man can get a woman to cook his chop as he likes
it.'

'But what was your complaint, sir?' said Mrs. Hawkshaw, imploringly.

'That's right!' and he rubbed his hands, and brightened his eyes
savagely. 'That's the way. Opportunity for gossip! Thing's well
done--down it goes: you know that. You can't have a word over it--eh?
Thing's done fit to toss on a dungheap, aha! Then there's a cackle! My
belief is, you do it on purpose. Can't be such rank idiots. You do it on
purpose. All done for gossip!'

'Oh, sir, no!' The landlady half curtsied.

'Oh, ma'am, yes!' The old gentleman bobbed his head.

'No, indeed, sir!' The landlady shook hers.

'Damn it, ma'am, I swear you do.'

Symptoms of wrath here accompanied the declaration; and, with a sigh and
a very bitter feeling, Mrs. Hawkshaw allowed him to have the last word.
Apparently this--which I must beg to call the lady's morsel--comforted
his irascible system somewhat; for he remained in a state of composure
eight minutes by the clock. And mark how little things hang together.
Another word from the landlady, precipitating a retort from him, and a
gesture or muttering from her; and from him a snapping outburst, and from
her a sign that she held out still; in fact, had she chosen to battle for
that last word, as in other cases she might have done, then would he have
exploded, gone to bed in the dark, and insisted upon sleeping: the
consequence of which would have been to change this history. Now while
Mrs. Hawkshaw was upstairs, Mrs. Mel called the servant, who took her to
the kitchen, where she saw a prime loin of mutton; off which she cut two
chops with a cunning hand: and these she toasted at a gradual distance,
putting a plate beneath them, and a tin behind, and hanging the chops so
that they would turn without having to be pierced. The bell rang twice
before she could say the chops were ready. The first time, the maid had
to tell the old gentleman she was taking up his water. Her next excuse
was, that she had dropped her candle. The chops ready--who was to take
them?

'Really, Mrs. Harrington, you are so clever, you ought, if I might be so
bold as say so; you ought to end it yourself,' said the landlady. 'I
can't ask him to eat them: he was all but on the busting point when I
left him.'

'And that there candle did for him quite,' said Mary, the maid.

'I'm afraid it's chops cooked for nothing,' added the landlady.

Mrs. Mel saw them endangered. The maid held back: the landlady feared.

'We can but try,' she said.

'Oh! I wish, mum, you'd face him, 'stead o' me,' said Mary; 'I do dread
that old bear's den.'

'Here, I will go,' said Mrs. Mel. 'Has he got his ale? Better draw it
fresh, if he drinks any.'

And upstairs she marched, the landlady remaining below to listen for the
commencement of the disturbance. An utterance of something certainly
followed Mrs. Mel's entrance into the old bear's den. Then silence. Then
what might have been question and answer. Then--was Mrs. Mel assaulted?
and which was knocked down? It really was a chair being moved to the
table. The door opened.

'Yes, ma'am; do what you like,' the landlady heard. Mrs. Mel descended,
saying: 'Send him up some fresh ale.'

'And you have made him sit down obedient to those chops?' cried the
landlady. 'Well might poor dear Mr. Harrington--pleasant man as he
was!--say, as he used to say, "There's lovely women in the world, Mrs.
Hawkshaw," he'd say, "and there's Duchesses," he'd say, "and there's they
that can sing, and can dance, and some," he says, "that can cook." But
he'd look sly as he'd stoop his head and shake it. "Roll 'em into one,"
he says, "and not any of your grand ladies can match my wife at home."

And, indeed, Mrs. Harrington, he told me he thought so many a time in the
great company he frequented.'

Perfect peace reigning above, Mrs. Hawkshaw and Mrs. Mel sat down to
supper below; and Mrs. Hawkshaw talked much of the great one gone. His
relict did not care to converse about the dead, save in their practical
aspect as ghosts; but she listened, and that passed the time. By-and-by,
the old gentleman rang, and sent a civil message to know if the landlady
had ship's rum in the house.

'Dear! here's another trouble,' cried the poor woman. 'No--none!'

'Say, yes,' said Mrs. Mel, and called Dandy, and charged him to run down
the street to the square, and ask for the house of Mr. Coxwell, the
maltster, and beg of him, in her name, a bottle of his ship's rum.

'And don't you tumble down and break the bottle, Dandy. Accidents with
spirit-bottles are not excused.'

Dandy went on the errand, after an energetic grunt.

In due time he returned with the bottle, whole and sound, and Mr.
Coxwell's compliments. Mrs. Mel examined the cork to see that no process
of suction had been attempted, and then said:

'Carry it up to him, Dandy. Let him see there's a man in the house
besides himself.'

'Why, my dear,' the landlady turned to her, 'it seems natural to you to
be mistress where you go. I don't at all mind, for ain't it my profit?
But you do take us off our legs.'

Then the landlady, warmed by gratitude, told her that the old gentleman
was the great London brewer, who brewed there with his brother, and
brewed for himself five miles out of Fallow field, half of which and a
good part of the neighbourhood he owned, and his name was Mr. Tom
Cogglesby.

'Oh!' said Mrs. Mel. 'And his brother is Mr. Andrew.'

'That 's it,' said the landlady. 'And because he took it into his head to
go and to choose for himself, and be married, no getting his brother, Mr.
Tom, to speak to him. Why not, indeed? If there's to be no marrying, the
sooner we lay down and give up, the better, I think. But that 's his way.
He do hate us women, Mrs. Harrington. I have heard he was crossed. Some
say it was the lady of Beckley Court, who was a Beauty, when he was only
a poor cobbler's son.'

Mrs. Mel breathed nothing of her relationship to Mr. Tom, but continued
from time to time to express solicitude about Dandy. They heard the door
open, and old Tom laughing in a capital good temper, and then Dandy came
down, evidently full of ship's rum.

'He's pumped me!' said Dandy, nodding heavily at his mistress.

Mrs. Mel took him up to his bed-room, and locked the door. On her way
back she passed old Tom's chamber, and his chuckles were audible to her.

'They finished the rum,' said Mrs. Hawkshaw.

'I shall rate him for that to-morrow,' said Mrs. Mel. 'Giving that poor
beast liquor!'

'Rate Mr. Tom! Oh! Mrs. Harrington! Why, he'll snap your head off for a
word.'

Mrs. Mel replied that her head would require a great deal of snapping to
come off.

During this conversation they had both heard a singular intermittent
noise above. Mrs. Hawkshaw was the first to ask:

'What can it be? More trouble with him? He's in his bed-room now.'

'Mad with drink, like Dandy, perhaps,' said Mrs. Mel.

'Hark!' cried the landlady. 'Oh!'

It seemed that Old Tom was bouncing about in an extraordinary manner. Now
came a pause, as if he had sworn to take his rest: now the room shook and
the windows rattled.

'One 'd think, really, his bed was a frying-pan, and him a live fish in
it,' said the landlady. 'Oh--there, again! My goodness! have he got a
flea?'

The thought was alarming. Mrs. Mel joined in:

'Or a ------'

'Don't! don't, my dear!' she was cut short. 'Oh! one o' them little
things 'd be ruin to me. To think o' that! Hark at him! It must be. And
what's to do? I 've sent the maids to bed. We haven't a man. If I was to
go and knock at his door, and ask?'

'Better try and get him to be quiet somehow.'

'Ah! I dare say I shall make him fire out fifty times worse.'

Mrs. Hawkshaw stipulated that Mrs. Mel should stand by her, and the two
women went up-stairs and stood at Old Tom's door. There they could hear
him fuming and muttering imprecations, and anon there was an interval of
silence, and then the room was shaken, and the cursings recommenced.

'It must be a fight he 's having with a flea,' said the landlady. 'Oh!
pray heaven, it is a flea. For a flea, my dear-gentlemen may bring that
theirselves; but a b-----, that's a stationary, and born of a bed. Don't
you hear? The other thing 'd give him a minute's rest; but a flea's
hop-hop-off and on. And he sound like an old gentleman worried by a flea.
What are you doing?'

Mrs. Mel had knocked at the door. The landlady waited breathlessly for
the result. It appeared to have quieted Old Tom.

'What's the matter?' said Mrs. Mel, severely.

The landlady implored her to speak him fair, and reflect on the desperate
things he might attempt.

'What's the matter? Can anything be done for you?'

Mr. Tom Cogglesby's reply comprised an insinuation so infamous regarding
women when they have a solitary man in their power, that it cannot be
placed on record.

'Is anything the matter with your bed?'

'Anything? Yes; anything is the matter, ma'am. Hope twenty live geese
inside it's enough-eh? Bed, do you call it? It's the rack! It's
damnation! Bed? Ha!'

After delivering this, he was heard stamping up and down the room.

'My very best bed!' whispered the landlady. 'Would it please you, sir, to
change--I can give you another?'

'I'm not a man of experiments, ma'am-'specially in strange houses.'

'So very, very sorry!'

'What the deuce!' Old Tom came close to the door. 'You whimpering! You
put a man in a beast of a bed--you drive him half mad--and then begin to
blubber! Go away.'

'I am so sorry, sir!'

'If you don't go away, ma'am, I shall think your intentions are
improper.'

'Oh, my goodness!' cried poor Mrs. Hawkshaw. 'What can one do with him?'
Mrs. Mel put Mrs. Hawkshaw behind her.

'Are you dressed?' she called out.

In this way Mrs. Mel tackled Old Tom. He was told that should he consent
to cover himself decently, she would come into his room and make his bed
comfortable. And in a voice that dispersed armies of innuendoes, she bade
him take his choice, either to rest quiet or do her bidding. Had Old Tom
found his master at last, and in one of the hated sex? Breathlessly Mrs.
Hawkshaw waited his answer, and she was an astonished woman when it came.

'Very well, ma'am. Wait a couple of minutes. Do as you like.'

On their admission to the interior of the chamber, Old Tom was exhibited
in his daily garb, sufficiently subdued to be civil and explain the cause
of his discomfort. Lumps in his bed: he was bruised by them. He supposed
he couldn't ask women to judge for themselves--they'd be shrieking--but
he could assure them he was blue all down his back. Mrs. Mel and Mrs.
Hawkshaw turned the bed about, and punched it, and rolled it.

'Ha!' went Old Tom, 'what's the good of that? That's just how I found it.
Moment I got into bed geese began to put up their backs.'

Mrs. Mel seldom indulged in a joke, and then only when it had a
proverbial cast. On the present occasion, the truth struck her forcibly,
and she said:

'One fool makes many, and so, no doubt, does one goose.'

Accompanied by a smile the words would have seemed impudent; but spoken
as a plain fact, and with a grave face, it set Old Tom blinking like a
small boy ten minutes after the whip.

'Now,' she pursued, speaking to him as to an old child, 'look here. This
is how you manage. Knead down in the middle of the bed. Then jump into
the hollow. Lie there, and you needn't wake till morning.'

Old Tom came to the side of the bed. He had prepared himself for a
wretched night, an uproar, and eternal complaints against the house, its
inhabitants, and its foundations; but a woman stood there who as much as
told him that digging his fist into the flock and jumping into the
hole--into that hole under his, eyes--was all that was wanted! that he
had been making a noise for nothing, and because he had not the wit to
hit on a simple contrivance! Then, too, his jest about the geese--this
woman had put a stop to that! He inspected the hollow cynically. A man
might instruct him on a point or two: Old Tom was not going to admit that
a woman could.

'Oh, very well; thank you, ma'am; that's your idea. I'll try it. Good
night.'

'Good night,' returned Mrs. Mel. 'Don't forget to jump into the middle.'

'Head foremost, ma'am?'

'As you weigh,' said Mrs. Mel, and Old Tom trumped his lips, silenced if
not beaten. Beaten, one might almost say, for nothing more was heard of
him that night.

He presented himself to Mrs. Mel after breakfast next morning.

'Slept well, ma'am.'

'Oh! then you did as I directed you,' said Mrs. Mel.

'Those chops, too, very good. I got through 'em.'

'Eating, like scratching, only wants a beginning,' said Mrs. Mel.

'Ha! you've got your word, then, as well as everybody else. Where's your
Dandy this morning, ma'am?'

'Locked up. You ought to be ashamed to give that poor beast liquor. He
won't get fresh air to-day.'

'Ha! May I ask you where you're going to-day, ma'am?'

'I am going to Beckley.'

'So am I, ma'am. What d' ye say, if we join company. Care for
insinuations?'

'I want a conveyance of some sort,' returned Mrs. Mel.

'Object to a donkey, ma'am?'

'Not if he's strong and will go.'

'Good,' said Old Tom; and while he spoke a donkey-cart stopped in front
of the Dolphin, and a well-dressed man touched his hat.

'Get out of that damned bad habit, will you?' growled Old Tom. What do
you mean by wearing out the brim o' your hat in that way? Help this woman
in.'

Mrs. Mel helped herself to a part of the seat.

'We are too much for the donkey,' she said.

'Ha, that's right. What I have, ma'am, is good. I can't pretend to
horses, but my donkey's the best. Are you going to cry about him?'

'No. When he's tired I shall either walk or harness you,' said Mrs. Mel.

This was spoken half-way down the High Street of Fallow field. Old Tom
looked full in her face, and bawled out:

'Deuce take it. Are you a woman?'

'I have borne three girls and one boy,' said Mrs. Mel.

'What sort of a husband?'

'He is dead.'

'Ha! that's an opening, but 'tain't an answer. I'm off to Beckley on a
marriage business. I 'm the son of a cobbler, so I go in a donkey-cart.
No damned pretences for me. I'm going to marry off a young tailor to a
gal he's been playing the lord to. If she cares for him she'll take him:
if not, they're all the luckier, both of 'em.'

'What's the tailor's name?' said Mrs. Mel.

'You are a woman,' returned Old Tom. 'Now, come, ma'am, don't you feel
ashamed of being in a donkeycart?'

'I 'm ashamed of men, sometimes,' said Mrs. Mel; 'never of animals.'

''Shamed o' me, perhaps.'

'I don't know you.'

'Ha! well! I'm a man with no pretences. Do you like 'em? How have you
brought up your three girls and one boy? No pretences--eh?'

Mrs. Mel did not answer, and Old Tom jogged the reins and chuckled, and
asked his donkey if he wanted to be a racer.

'Should you take me for a gentleman, ma'am?'

'I dare say you are, sir, at heart. Not from your manner of speech.'

'I mean appearances, ma'am.'

'I judge by the disposition.'

'You do, ma'am? Then, deuce take it, if you are a woman, you 're -----'
Old Tom had no time to conclude.

A great noise of wheels, and a horn blown, caused them both to turn their
heads, and they beheld a curricle descending upon them vehemently, and a
fashionably attired young gentleman straining with all his might at the
reins. The next instant they were rolling on the bank. About twenty yards
ahead the curricle was halted and turned about to see the extent of the
mischief done.

'Pardon, a thousand times, my worthy couple,' cried the sonorous Mr.
Raikes. 'What we have seen we swear not to divulge. Franco and Fred--your
pledge!'

'We swear!' exclaimed this couple.

But suddenly the cheeks of Mr. John Raikes flushed. He alighted from the
box, and rushing up to Old Tom, was shouting, 'My bene--'

'Do you want my toe on your plate?' Old Tom stopped him with.

The mysterious words completely changed the aspect of Mr. John Raikes. He
bowed obsequiously and made his friend Franco step down and assist in the
task of reestablishing the donkey, who fortunately had received no
damage.




CHAPTER XXVII

EXHIBITS ROSE'S GENERALSHIP; EVAN'S PERFORMANCE ON THE SECOND FIDDLE; AND
THE WRETCHEDNESS OF THE COUNTESS

We left Rose and Evan on their way to Lady Jocelyn. At the library-door
Rose turned to him, and with her chin archly lifted sideways, said:

'I know what you feel; you feel foolish.'

Now the sense of honour, and of the necessity of acting the part it
imposes on him, may be very strong in a young man; but certainly, as a
rule, the sense of ridicule is more poignant, and Evan was suffering
horrid pangs. We none of us like to play second fiddle. To play second
fiddle to a young woman is an abomination to us all. But to have to
perform upon that instrument to the darling of our hearts--would we not
rather die? nay, almost rather end the duet precipitately and with
violence. Evan, when he passed Drummond into the house, and quietly
returned his gaze, endured the first shock of this strange feeling. There
could be no doubt that he was playing second fiddle to Rose. And what was
he about to do? Oh, horror! to stand like a criminal, and say, or worse,
have said for him, things to tip the ears with fire! To tell the young
lady's mother that he had won her daughter's love, and meant--what did he
mean? He knew not. Alas! he was second fiddle; he could only mean what
she meant. Evan loved Rose deeply and completely, but noble manhood was
strong in him. You may sneer at us, if you please, ladies. We have been
educated in a theory, that when you lead off with the bow, the order of
Nature is reversed, and it is no wonder therefore, that, having stript us
of one attribute, our fine feathers moult, and the majestic cock-like
march which distinguishes us degenerates. You unsex us, if I may dare to
say so. Ceasing to be men, what are we? If we are to please you rightly,
always allow us to play First.

Poor Evan did feel foolish. Whether Rose saw it in his walk, or had a
loving feminine intuition of it, and was aware of the golden rule I have
just laid down, we need not inquire. She hit the fact, and he could only
stammer, and bid her open the door.

'No,' she said, after a slight hesitation, 'it will be better that I
should speak to Mama alone, I see. Walk out on the lawn, dear, and wait
for me. And if you meet Drummond, don't be angry with him. Drummond is
very fond of me, and of course I shall teach him to be fond of you. He
only thinks . . . what is not true, because he does not know you. I do
thoroughly, and there, you see, I give you my hand.'

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