Complete Works of R S Surtees

by R S Surtees

  “It must be,” replied Captain Doleful.

  “I’m sure I’ve no wish but for Belinda’s welfare, and have neither mercenary nor hambitious views; but that ‘are-brained Yorkshireman can never do. Indeed, her uncle’s malady seems like a hinterposition o’ Providence on her be’alf. Fancy what a sitivation hers would a’ been had she married this Stobbs, and he’d gone ‘non compus’ down in Yorkshire! — wild, out-o’-the-way country, scarcely inhabited, and nobody to lock him up.”

  “Dreadful!” ejaculated the M.C., half laughing at her ideas of the country.

  “No,” observed Mrs. Jorrocks, thoughtfully; “if she marries at all, it must be a different sort o’ man — some nice, steady person, wot will keep her right, and be kind to her when her poor huncle and I are gone.”

  Mrs. Jorrocks burst into tears at the idea of her dissolution. “Had Jun been dead, she’d have looked out for another investment before she thought of that.”

  “I wonders you don’t think o’ marryin’, captin?” observed Mrs. Jorrocks, after a pause.

  “Time enough for that!” replied he, with a grin, running his fingers through his straggling hair.

  “True,” observed Mrs. Jorrocks, “but youth, you know, don’t last for ever. Howsomever, I’m sure,” added she, “you are lookin’ uncommon well; I always said black was quite your become.”

  The captain grinned, and thought a flirtation with Belinda might not be amiss.

  “Then Mr. Stobbs is gone?” inquired he casually, thinking perhaps Charles might cast up and kick him.

  “Gone, decidedly,” replied Mrs. Jorrocks; “at least, he don’t show here no more.”

  “Belinda seems a sweet girl,” observed Captain Doleful, thoughtfully.

  “She’s a hangel!” exclaimed Mrs. Jorrocks; “so affectionate, so tractable, and so engagin’! Whoever gets Belinda, gets a treasure. She’ll have a nice fortin’,” added Mrs. Jorrocks, casually.

  “Will she?” observed Captain Doleful, brightening up.

  “Oh, yes,” said Mrs. Jorrocks; “her father left summut ‘andsome.”

  (It was “an ‘andsome” amount of debt, for, poor man! he died insolvent.)

  “Two or three hundred a-year, perhaps?” observed Captain Doleful, carelessly.

  “I dare say,” replied Mrs. Jorrocks, “besides wot we leaves her.”

  “It’s worth thinking of,” thought Captain Doleful.

  “You, who are so rich, fortin’ makes little matter to,” observed Mrs. Jorrocks; “but Belinda’s a beautiful figure — all nattural, and not a heap of feathers, like a Jinney Howlet, as some gals are. If Exchequer Bill, as my poor dear ‘usband used to call ’im, had put the bustle-tax on, that folks talked about, he’d a’ got nothin’ out o’ Belinda.”

  “How nice!” grinned Captain Doleful, thinking what a contrast she was to Miss Crabstick.

  “Oh, she’s a sweet gal,” rejoined Mrs. Jorrocks; “you couldn’t ‘elp likin’ of her if you know’d her.”

  “I’m half in love with her already,” quoth the captain; “she wouldn’t be difficult to come over, I suppose?” inquired he, pulling up his gills, and fingering his straggling whiskers.

  “Not by you, I dare say,” said Mrs. Jorrocks. “The gals can’t stand captins.”

  “Is her fortune in the funds?” inquired Captain Doleful, after a pause.

  “Partly,” replied Mrs. Jorrocks, “partly in somethin’ else; but I really doesn’t understand these matters, Jun used to do them all; but Belinda’s a treasure in herself. S’pose you come and dine with us some day, and see her to adwantage.”

  “Most happy, I’m sure,” grinned the captain.

  “Then come to-morrow at four,” rejoined Mrs. Jorrocks; “just we three — you understand!”

  “Perfectly!” replied the captain, dropping on his knee, and imprinting a kiss on Mrs. Jorrocks’ mutton-fist.

  That was carrying a sudden thought out quickly, and the captain having taken his departure, Mrs. Jorrocks began considering how she should manage matters with Belinda.

  CHAPTER LXX. BELINDA AT BAY.

  “I HAVE HAD your old friend, Captin Doleful, here,” observed Mrs. Jorrocks to Belinda, as they sat at their early tea.

  “Indeed!” replied Belinda.

  “Lookin’ so well and so ‘andsome; I really think you’d have been smitten with him.”

  “Me, aunt!” exclaimed Belinda, with unfeigned astonishment.

  “And vy not, miss?” inquired Mrs. Jorrocks.

  “Why, in the first place, he’s quite an old man, and—”

  “Old!” exclaimed Mrs. Jorrocks, “men are never old!”

  “Well, but he’s anything but good-looking, and is such a horribly mean wretch; I—”

  “Fiddle his meanness! no meaner than other folks. He’s werry rich — a thousand a-year, paid quarterly.”

  “So much the better for him,” observed Belinda.

  “Now don’t be perwerse — you know what I means jest as well as I do myself,” observed Mrs. Jorrocks, looking irate.

  “Indeed I don’t, aunt!” replied Belinda, turning frightened.

  “Well, then, stoopid! I thinks he’s worth you settin’ your cap at.”

  “Me, aunt!” exclaimed Belinda, blushing deeply; “you know I can’t — I’m engaged!”

  “Fiddle, engaged! soon get off that, — nothin’s finished till it’s done.”

  “Oh, aunt!” exclaimed Belinda, burying her face in her hands, “don’t — pray don’t talk to me in this way — I cannot bear it!”

  “Foolish gal!” rejoined Mrs. Jorrocks; “don’t know what’s good for you. The captin’s worth fifty of your fly-away, break-neck fox-’unters, — nice, agreeable, quiet gentleman, wot’ll take his tea with you of an evenin’, instead of snorin’ and sleepin’ as your huncle does, or startin’ up, thinkin’ he’s gettin’ run away with or kicked over a wall.”

  “You are not in earnest, aunt?” replied Belinda, turning her beautiful blue eyes, with their silken lashes suffused with tears, upon her aunt as she spoke.

  “Vy not?” inquired Mrs. Jorrocks.

  “Oh, aunt! you cannot be in earnest — you, who have always encouraged Charles, and encouraged me to like him; and—”

  “It was your huncle wot encouraged him!” exclaimed Mrs. Jorrocks, “not me!”

  “And you, too, aunt,” replied Belinda, calmly, but firmly; “don’t you remember the night uncle and he were benighted, and I sat anxiously waiting their coming, trembling for their safety, how you consoled me by praising Charles, and talking of what a nice husband he would make me, and how pleasant it would be visiting us in Yorkshire, and—”

  “No doubt,” replied Mrs. Jorrocks; “no doubt — and now that a better chance turns hup, I encourages you to think of it, — a gal should never be without an admirer; but it’s a reg’lar rule always to take the best, — nothin’s done till it’s finished, as I said afore.”

  “I want no better!” exclaimed Belinda; “Charles is my first — my only love, and I’ll never marry another!”

  “Fool!” ejaculated Mrs. Jorrocks; “that’s the way all gals talk! — got your ‘ead stuffed full of boardin’-school, novelish nonsense.”

  Belinda was silent — the eloquent tears chased each other rapidly down her beautiful cheeks.

  “Now, don’t be foolish!” said Mrs. Jorrocks, in a milder tone; “consider wot hobligations you are under to me and your huncle — brought you hup, and edikated you, and hintroduced you to people of the first extinction, and all the return I ax is, that you’ll oblege me by makin’ a helligible match. There isn’t a gal in ‘Andley Cross but would jump at such a chance. Charles may be a werry respectable young man, but he’s wild and thoughtless; besides, we doesn’t know wot he has, and it’s werry imprudent, to say the least of it, for a gal to fall in love with a man till she knows wot he has, — I didn’t do so, I knows.”

  “He will have enough for me,” replied Belinda; “money alone will not consti
tute happiness.”

  “Provokin’ gal!” exclaimed Mrs. Jorrocks; “you are just one of those silly, romancin’, love-in-a-cottage sort o’ gals that one sees in the plays;” and Mrs. Jorrocks vented an inward malediction on Mr. Bowker, and all patrons and frequenters of the drama.

  “Oblege me now, Belinda,” continued she, after a pause, “by thinkin’ of the captin.”

  “Aunt, I couldn’t for the world! I know the gratitude I owe — and Heaven knows the gratitude I feel, for all you have done for me, but this can never be; — I should detest myself could I think myself capable of entertaining the idea.”

  “There, again!” exclaimed Mrs. Jorrocks, reddening up! “stage-players again! Wish you would be a little rational. Tell me, now, in plain English, why can’t you entertain the idea?”

  “Because you know, aunt,” replied Belinda, slowly and calmly, “that I accepted Charles with the full approbation of you and my uncle.”

  “And wot of that?” inquired Mrs. Jorrocks.

  “Simply that my word is pledged, and I am precluded from thinking of another.”

  “No such thing!” rejoined Mrs. Jorrocks; “‘appens every day, — sayin’ you love each other is nothin’ towards a match. I tells you, no prudent gal accepts a man till she knows wot he has. Look at Mrs. Wrigglesworth! She was engaged to Walter Leigh, and her acquaintance congratilated her, and made her bags, and said nothin’ could be nicer, when Wrigglesworth turned hup with just double Leigh’s fortin’, and she chopped over to him, and her friends congratilated her again, and said nothin’ could be nicer, and made her duplicate bags, slippers, scent-’olders, and I don’t know wot.”

  “Sincere their congratulations must have been,” observed Belinda; “I’m sure I should not like to be talked of as people talk of her, — pointed out as the lady who cheated the government by not paying the auction duty on herself, and I don’t know what else.”

  “Let them laugh as wins,” replied Mrs. Jorrocks; “she has a futman — and would only have had a Betsy with Leigh. But there’s no puttin’ old ‘eads on young shoulders,” sighed Mrs. Jorrocks. “Take my word for it, howsomever,” continued she, “if you live, you’ll see these things in a werry different light; — if you kicks the ball away, you may never ‘ave it at your foot again.”

  “I don’t wish for such a ball as Captain Doleful, I’m sure,” replied Belinda, smiling.

  “And tell me, Miss Pert, wot’s the matter with the captin?” inquired Mrs. Jorrocks, tartly.

  “I’m sure I don’t know what is the matter with him, exactly,” replied Belinda; “but I should not think he was a man that any woman would ever take a fancy to.”

  “Fiddle fancy!” exclaimed Mrs. Jorrocks; “it’s your fanciful marriages wot breed misery — foolish, moon-struck, stage-play sort of botherations, that breed bastiles, and I doesn’t know what;” for Mrs. Jorrocks had only got the smattering of that idea. “I tells you,” continued she, “that you’re a fool!”

  Belinda was silent.

  “I do wonders,” observed Mrs. Jorrocks, “that any gal can be so ungratefully hobstinate as persewere, in spite of the adwice and hadmonitions of her friends — wot good can you get by it? If you doesn’t like partin’ with the books and things Stobbs gave you, I’ll tell him you prefers keepin’ of them, so you’ll lose nothin’ by the transaction.”

  “Oh, aunt!” exclaimed Belinda, “don’t torture me thus — don’t make yourself appear little by insinuating that such an idea could enter your head.”

  “And vy not?” inquired Mrs. Jorrocks. “It’s nattral that you should like keepin’ the things.”

  “Indeed no, aunt, it isn’t. If I could bring myself to think that the connexion on which I have set my heart was not to be, the greatest favour you could do me would be to remove from my sight every trace, every recollection, that could remind me of my loss.”

  “Loss, indeed!” exclaimed Mrs. Jorrocks, sneeringly. “Pretty loss, forsooth! It’s wot I should call gainin’ a loss — gettin’ a nice, steady captin, with a large fortin’, to a young harum-scarum scamp of a boy, that nobody knows nothin’ about — nasty, ‘oss-copin’, ditch-jumpin’ beggar!”

  Belinda was silent.

  “Well, you may be perwerse and hobstinate, too; but, take my word for it, you’ll get nothin’ by it. I’m missus here, and I’ll be hobeyed; and my horders are that you receive the captin at dinner to-morrow, and be’ave like a lady. Put on your Hindia muslin, or I’ll let the Chancellor know;” so saying Mrs. Jorrocks flounced out of the room.

  CHAPTER LXXI. DOLEFUL PREPARED FOR THE SIEGE.

  HAVING RETURNED TO his quarters at the George and Blue Boar, High Holborn, Captain Doleful reconnoitred his wardrobe, for the purpose of seeing how killing he could make himself on the following day. He had on the suit of black he had turned for Miss Crabstick’s funeral; a patent tubular tie, a finely flowered front with two rows of little frills, and a pair of cheap, open-work black silk socks, with French polish on his old pumps, would make him a very respectable candle-light swell.

  Passing down Holborn, he was struck with the display in Mr. Frizwig the advertising hair-dresser’s window — such wax-busts, such wigs and ringlets! “Hair cut for Sixpence.” The captain thought he would have a clip.

  The obsequious “perruquier” ushered him into the cutting-room through the shop, and Captain Doleful, divesting himself of his coat and seedy Joinville, got his person enveloped in a buff cotton wrapper.

  Taking a hard brush out of his apron-pocket, Mr. Frizwig proceeded to brush the captain’s lank locks over his flat head. He then produced a comb and scissors.

  “‘Air getting rayther thin on the crown, I’m sorry to perceive,” observed Mr. Frizwig, as though he were a partner in the concern.

  “That’s no news,” growled the captain, eyeing his unbecoming appearance in the unflattering mirror against the wall.

  “Your ‘air requires a good deal of moisture,” observed Mr. Frizwig, nothing daunted by his customer’s gruffness.

  “Does it?” growled the captain.

  “Thin in parts — strong in parts,” continued the perruquier, snipping, and clipping, and combing. “The grand Scandinavian extract of Patagonian cream would restore it all;” adding, half to himself and half to his foreman, “Must have had a fine ‘ead formerly.”

  The captain grinned. “What is it a bottle?” inquired he.

  “All prices,” replied the hairdresser, wondering the extent of his customer’s gullibility— “all prices, from two-and-six up to ten shillings. The largest pots cheapest in the end.”

  “How long is it in acting?” inquired the captain.

  “Depends upon how you use it: well rubbed in twice a day, it would begin immediately. Renovates what’s gone, and imparts a beautiful healthy gloss to what remains.”

  “A leetle off the whiskers?” inquired he.

  “A little,” replied the captain, with an emphasis, thinking there was not much to spare.

  “Just the pints off,” observed the hairdresser, pretending to be very exact.

  “If I might take the liberty, sir, I would recommend one of my patent, self-ventilating, porous zephyr scalps with invisible spring d’Orsay whiskers — the most surprising deception ever witnessed! — Impossible to detect!”

  Captain Doleful was silent, for he thought they would be dear.

  “Sell an immense number of them,” continued Mr. Frizwig, still trimming the whiskers. “Perhaps you know Captain Orlando Smith, the gentleman who stood for Taunton at the last election?”

  The captain said “No.”

  “Indeed! s’cuse the liberty, but you are so like, I thought you might be brothers. Well, his ‘air was just like yours — thin at the top, strong be’ind, and I rigged him out with a scalp and whiskers, so neat and so natural that he won all the gals’ ‘earts in the borough. If they’d had votes he’d have been returned. Gals like whiskers. You never see a newly married man but his whiskers have always increased.”
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  “And what is the price of them?” inquired the captain, recollecting how Miss Jelly had admired him in his fancy-dress moustache.

  “All prices, sir! all prices! — Twenty shillings upwards. Allow me to show you some. Enoch!” calling to his foreman, “bring half-a-dozen patent zephyr scalps, dark, with invisible spring d’Orsay whiskers.”

  While the apprentice was looking them out, Mr. Frizwig took a pair of large scissors and cut a great patch off the captain’s thin-haired crown.

  “What are you after now, man?” exclaimed he, jumping off the chair.

  “Only preparing a place for the spring to act upon,” replied Mr. Frizwig, coolly. “You are exactly like Captain Orlando Smith, the gentleman who stood for Taunton at the last election. He would have that I had spoiled him when I did so, but, my word! when he saw himself in his new ornaments, I heard no more of that. — Allow me now, sir,” continued he, bowing most obsequiously, and pointing to the chair, “to have the honour of rigging you out the same way.”

  Captain Doleful, somewhat testy, but hoping for the best, then resumed his seat, and Mr. Frizwig, with the aid of Enoch, proceeded to exhibit sundry scalps and whiskers. “Too light,” said Mr. Frizwig, rejecting three or four in succession. “Too dark,” continued he, holding one to Captain Doleful’s head. “Haven’t you one with a shade of grey in it?”

  “There is a slight tinge of grey in your ‘air,” whispered Mr. Frizwig confidentially, as Enoch returned to the shop, “which, I have little doubt, the grand Scandinavian extract of Patagonian cream will entirely remove; but, as you only intend wearing the scalp until your own ‘air gets strong, it will be better to match it now, than to get a scalp of the colour your ‘air will be ‘ereafter.”

  “But I haven’t made up my mind to have one at all yet,” observed the captain, snappishly.

  “Ah, you’re exactly like Captain Orlando Smith, the gentleman who stood for Taunton at the last election,” repeated the audacious perruquier. “Nothing could persuade him that I was not cheating him, and, indeed, he threatened to call the police; but, when he saw himself, he was so delighted that, in his ‘urry to show himself, he left his new alpaca umbrella and cotton gloves on the counter. Ah, now this’ll be the ticket!” added he, taking an iron-grey scalp out of Enoch’s hand— “Allow me, sir,” to the captain, putting the scalp on his head and expanding it over the crown.