Complete Works of R S Surtees

by R S Surtees

  Amid the chalky dust raised by a pair of lumbering jaded posters appeared the outline of a yellow po’-chay, so enveloped in packages as to leave little but the side panels visible. A well-matted package of apple trees covered the roof, a desperately-dusted boy in a glazed hat clutched the pot of a huge scarlet geranium in one arm, and with difficulty kept himself on the crossbar with the other, while the pockets of the carriage were occupied with bundles of carnations, convolvuluses, caper bushes, and cornelian cherry trees, completely screening the passengers from view.

  Thus it rolled up the street of Hillingdon, like Birnam Wood on its way to Dunsinane, at the best pace the postboy could muster to dash up to the Hall door.

  “Veil, thank God, ve’re ’ere at last!” exclaimed a fat, full-limbed, ruddy-faced man, in a nut-brown wig, bounding out of the chaise as soon as the door was opened, cutting off the heads of a whole bunch of roses that had been riding most uncomfortably in the back pocket of his grey zephyr.

  “Oh, Jun, you’ve done for the roses!” exclaimed a female voice from the depths of the chaise.

  “Cuss the roses!” exclaimed Mr. Jorrocks, giving the fallen flowers a kick with his foot. “ Votever you do, come out o’ the chay! for I’m sick o’ the werry sight on it. Here, Batsay, come out, and then your missis ‘ill get turned round — for vot vith her bastle, and vot vith her flounce, she really is as big as an ‘ouse.”

  Out then came Batsay, stern foremost, exhibiting the dimensions of a well-turned foot and ankle, and altogether a large, stout, well-proportioned figure. Mr. Jorrocks having eased her of her flower-pot on landing, Batsay gave her dusty, bunchy, black ringlets a shake, and then proceeded to help out her mistress.

  “Now, Binjimin, vot are you a-sittin’ perched up there for, like a squirrel in an acorn tree?” exclaimed Mr. Jorrocks to the hero in the glazed hat with the geranium-pot in his arm, who still kept his place on the cross-bar. “Don’t you see ve’re at ‘ome, man?”

  Benjamin would have been very clever if he had, for he had never seen the place before. The boy then descended, and Mrs. Jorrocks, in a stiff, rustling, amber-coloured brocade pelisse, with a crimson velvet bonnet, and black feathers, having being baled out, the old deaf man who had been left in charge of the Hall having fumbled the chain off the door, and got it unlocked, stood, hat in hand, while the party proceeded to unpack the chaise, and carry the luggage into the house.

  “Now, gently with them happle trees!” exclaimed Mr. Jorrocks, as the post-boy prepared to roll them off the roof; “and have a care of the lumbagos (plumbagos) and stockleaved ‘ound’s tongue, for them are exotics, vot don’t grow in this country. Paid no end of money for them,” added he, in a mutter.

  Out then came box, and bundle, and parcel, and bunches of flowers and moss-tied roots without end; and all having been carried into the house, Mr. Jorrocks paid the post-boy, and closed the door upon the curiosity of the inhabitants of the village of Hillingdon.

  CHAPTER IV.

  OH, WHAT A tangled web we weave

  When first we practise to deceive!”

  So the new Squire’s come at last!” exclaimed Mrs. Flather, bursting into the room the next morning, where Emma sat patching and torturing a piece of muslin under the pretence of embroidering a collar. Confound those collars! If women only, knew how little men appreciate those flimsy, fluttering, butterfly articles of dress, they would surely betake themselves to some more profitable employment. Embroidering a collar! Spoiling a good piece of muslin, we should say! We never see what is called a “richly worked collar” without thinking how much better it would have been to have got a new one, instead of hiding the blemishes of the old one with wreaths, flowers, spots, dots, caterpillars, and other curiosities.

  But to Mrs. Flather and the Squire.

  “So the new Squire’s come at last,” was the exclamation of Mrs. Flather, bursting into the room to her daughter; and as this is to be a regular orderly three-volume work, we may as well describe the locality before we proceed.

  Mrs. Flather’s husband, as we have said before, had held the living of Hillingdon, the next presentation to which had been purchased for a youth not yet fully japanned, and by a hokus pokus sort of conjuration, it was now held by another; and Mrs. Flather occupied the manse until the new owner, James Blake, was ready to take possession. The manse did not stand in “Neighbour Row,” in the village of Hillingdon, but occupied a slightly elevated position about a mile off, giving the occupant a view of the beautifully proportioned church, and spire rising amid the foliage of gigantic trees, without the addition to the prospect of the village. The house itself was of the patchworky order of Hillingdon Hall (of course, on a much smaller scale), for it is observable that the same style of architecture pervades certain districts; and the manse was partly stone, partly stucco, partly covered with slate, partly with pantile, though the latter was of the diamond pattern and subdued colour of the new national duck-house in St. James’s Park. Still it was very pretty, particularly at the season we are now describing, when gay party-coloured roses bedecked the lower parts, covering the bare stems and stalks of the more aspiring vines and fragrant honeysuckle, or commingling with the large-leaved ivy or perfumed jessamine, showing every bright variety of hue, and every tint of sober green.

  Altogether, it was a pretty, sentimental-looking spot — interesting in itself, but doubly interesting as containing the pattern young lady of the place. It combined all the poetry, without the inconvenience of love in a cottage.

  Now, a third time, we will surely get under weigh.

  “So the new Squire’s came at last!” exclaimed Mrs. Flather to her daughter.

  “Indeed!” replied Emma, with equal excitement. “How do you know?” inquired she, laying down her collar, and looking anxiously in her mamma’s stupid face.

  “I have it from very good authority,” said Mrs. Flather, with an important nod of the head, as she advanced into the room. Fools are always mysterious.

  “Well, but you surely can tell me,” observed Emma pettishly.

  “Well, I had it from Jane, who’s been down for the milk,” said Mrs. Flather, after such a pause as she thought would be a sufficient punishment for her daughter’s impetuosity.

  “And who told her?” asked Emma after a similar pause, during which she resumed her stitching as though she did not care to hear anything about them.

  “She saw them,” replied Mrs. Flather.

  “Them!” observed Emma; “I thought you said ‘The Squire.’”

  “And his wife,” added Mrs. Flather.

  “Oh, he’s married, is he?” observed Emma, with a sneer. “What lies people do toll,” added she angrily after a pause. “Every person has been declaring for the last three weeks that he was a smart, handsome young London gentleman, and half the girls in the country are ready to set their caps at him.”

  “They may save themselves the trouble,” observed Mrs. Flather. “He’s a regular, steady, old gentleman, in Hessian boots and a brown wig.”

  “So,” observed Emma, with a look of disappointment: “perhaps he’ll have some daughters,” added she, thinking to vex her mamma with a little mistimed propriety.

  “Sons would be more to the purpose, I think,” replied Mrs. Flather, eyeing her daughter with a half angry glance.

  Emma worked away without the slightest change coming over her alabaster countenance.

  “If there are sons, there’ll be no harm in seeing what they are like, you know, Emma, my dear,” continued the old lady coaxingly.

  “What, and throw James over?” inquired Emma, looking up. James Blake was the third and present rung in Emma’s matrimonial ladder.

  “Ay, but get well on with the new one first, you know; but I’m sure, my dear, you’ve so much discretion, that there is no need for me to point out what is right and proper on such an occasion.”

  “Poor James!” observed Emma, looking intently at an ink spot she had just discovered on her white muslin frock. Emma dressed plainly.
Her mother prided herself on her daughter having no taste for finery, declaring she never was so happy as when in her little muslin frocks. A very convenient doctrine for mammas, and very taking with the men.

  “James will soon get over it,” continued the affectionate parent; “but that is very careless of you to ink your frock in that way — clean on to-day, too — got to serve till Saturday; but what I was saying was, that no man ever died of love — at the same time, I don’t wish you to do anything hasty or unfeeling — James, you know, can always be had — keep him in reserve — just as you did little Meadows, nothing could be more delicate or lady-like than the way you dropped him. James, no doubt, was a change for the better, just as Meadows was better than Upton. If you can get one with double James’s fortune, why drop him, and so on, always changing for the better if you can, and taking care always to have one to fall back upon. Men are easily managed. They believe things said to themselves that they would laugh to scorn in the case of another. None of them ever suppose any girl can prefer another to themselves; and if the point of fortune touches them, ridicule riches, say you would rather live with a man you love upon hundreds, than be the mistress of thousands without the endearments of the heart; in short, my dear, I am sure your fine feelings and sense of duty will prompt you to do what is right.”

  “Oh, I’m sure they will, my own dear mamma!” exclaimed Emma, rising and throwing her, arms round her mother’s neck, and kissing her profusely, thinking all the time of half a strawberry tart she had left in the dining-room closet, for, O reader, if the model of propriety had a passion, we blush (which is more than she would do) to say it was — for eating. —

  This scene of domestic life was suddenly interrupted by the creaking of the green gate as it swung back on its hinges, causing an involuntary exclamation from Mrs. Flather of— “Oh dear, here’s that horrid Mrs. Trotter!, Run, Emma, and put on your canary-bird collar.”

  “Odious woman, what can she want?” muttered Mrs. Flather to herself, bustling into the drawing-room, and seating herself on the centre of the ottoman, as though she had been using her best room all the morning.

  “Mrs. Trotter, marm,” announced the man-boy in buttons, and immediately Mrs. Trotter’s majestic figure occupied the portal.

  “My dear Mrs. Trotter, I am so delighted to see you!” exclaimed Mrs. Flather, jumping up and saluting her with all the empressement in her power. “I hope you leave all at home well.”

  “Quite well, thank you,” was Mrs. Trotter’s comprehensive reply, as she threw a rich black lace veil over her drawn silk bonnet, and displayed the healthy glow of her fine features, and the lustre of her large black eyes.

  “And Emma?” added Mrs. Trotter, looking inquiringly round the room, “how is she?”

  “Emma’s just stepped into the garden to water her flowers,” observed Mrs. Flather, casting an eye towards the garden, as she spoke.

  “Dear child,” said Mrs. Trotter, “she’s so fond of her flowers, it’s quite a treat to see her among them,” thinking it would be, for she knew Emma cared nothing about them.

  After a few commonplaces about the weather, the cleanliness of the roads, and the dirtiness of the lanes, Emma entered, watering-pot in hand as usual, and Mrs. Flather having arranged her collar behind (which the rose-bushes had somewhat deranged), Emma pretending great impatience all the time, she burst into most energetic inquiries after all her sweet young friends at Hillingdon, Eliza in particular. Mrs. Trotter answered in the usual full-measured strain, and then, after a little repetition about the weather and a hit at the rose-bushes, conversation came up short.

  “And have you heard of the new-comers at the Hall?” at length interrogated Mrs. Trotter.

  “No, indeed!” replied Mrs. Flather; “you know we never hear anything — shut up in this little quiet retreat we feel as if the world was bounded within our gates. Nobody ever tells us anything, and I’m sure I never trouble myself to inquire. It can make little difference to us who comes.”

  “Nay, then!” exclaimed Mrs. Trotter. “I’m sure, now, I’d have thought you’d have liked to have known. However, never mind — I dare say you’re right, only it would have looked neighbourly to have given them an early welcome.”

  “What, they’ve come then, have they?” exclaimed Mrs. Flather, with well-feigned surprise.

  “Come — yes — surely! — bag and baggage — and I’ve made it my business to ferret out all about them.”

  “And what have you learned?” inquired Mrs. Flather, merging her indifference in her curiosity.

  “Why, I’ve had a good deal of trouble to make out anything, to tell you the truth, for the post-boy that drove them put me on the wrong scent — at least, so it would seem, from the information our Thomas got of their servant, whom he met at the public-house, though his story doesn’t exactly tally with what our Jane got from their lady’s-maid — however, I gleaned enough to satisfy myself that their name is Jorrocks, and that they have no family.”

  “What, just a couple by themselves,” asked Mrs. Flather, with as much indifference as she could muster. “Are they young?”

  “No, oldish, I should think — at least their man says his master’s been Lord Mayor, and they don’t make Lord Mayors of boys. The maid says her mistress is a Lady Patroness of Almack’s, and that they’ve a grand house in the city — Great Lombard Street, I think — and I can tell Miss Emma they are great florists,” added Mrs Trotter, turning to the model of propriety, who sat admiring her fine collar.

  “Florists are they!” repeated Emma, looking up. “I am so glad of that. Oh, how I dote on flowers!” added she, clasping her hands and turning her fine eyes up to the ceiling.

  “Yes, they brought a great cargo of flowers and trees, and the man-servant says his master is enormously rich, and kept a pack of hounds, and altogether I think we may congratulate ourselves upon the acquisition — not that they may perhaps supply the place of poor dear Mr and Mrs. Westbury — but still we might have done a great deal worse, and altogether I think it is a very nice thing, and I shall consider it my duty to pay my respects to them as soon as ever I hear they are in a situation to receive company, and of course you will do the same.”

  “Oh, I shall call, of course,” replied Mrs. Flather; “but not in such a violent hurry,” inwardly resolving to be beforehand with Mrs. Trotter if she could, adding, “in a week or ten days’ time, perhaps.”

  “Well, just as you please about that,” replied Mrs. Trotter; “in the meantime if you have any acquaintance in London, perhaps you may as well write to them, and see if you can get any further information. I consider it the duty of us mothers to be circumspect.”

  “Not for the world!” exclaimed Mrs. Flather; “I have no curiosity of that sort. It’s enough for me to take care of myself and my poor dear child here without troubling myself about other people’s affairs.”

  “Well, just as you think right about that; I like always to know who people are; indeed, I consider it my duty — not that I suppose the Jorrockses are other than highly respectable, but still as a general rule I mean. But I must be off, for I’ve got to attend a meeting of the Ladies’ Anti-Corn-Law Association, and must pop into Mrs. Barber’s to give her a hint that her daughter was walking rather late with young Dodd, the blacksmith, last night; and that reminds me that our Book Club meeting is to-morrow evening, and I’ve to distribute the prizes at the Sunday School after that, and write to the secretary of the Shipwrecked Mariners’ Society into the bargain; so now, my dearest Mrs. Flather, good-bye. Emma, my sweetest, good day.”

  Thereupon the ladies kissed with all the smackiness of affection.

  “It wouldn’t be a bad plan for you and I to pop down to the Hall while that tiresome woman is on her rambles,” observed Mrs. Flather to Emma, as soon as she saw Mrs. Trotter clear of the gate. “You could take your watering-pot in your hand, you know, and say, that hearing they have a taste for flowers, you came to offer them the loan of it till their own arrives, or something
of that sort.”

  “Well, mamma, whatever you think right,” replied the willing daughter; “only let me finish my tart before I go, for I’m very hungry,”

  “Certainly, my dear, it’s always well to eat before you go out, for young ladies should never be seen to indulge; at least, not to eat as if they were enjoying it. Indeed, that is the only thing I have to find fault with you about; you always eat heartily, as it were, instead of picking and playing with what is set before you. It’s all very well at home to stuff and eat, but nothing disgusts men so much as a guzzling girl; so now eat your tart and get a good slice of bread — buttered if you like — and then wash your mouth out and we will set off.” —

  CHAPTER V.

  DOWN WITH THE bread tax!”

  — COBDEN’S CRY.

  ‘But times are altered; trade’s unfeeling train

  Usurp the land and dispossess the swain.”

  — GOLDSMITH.

  IT was a fortunate day which secured to the Anti-Corn-Law League the services of Mr. William Bowker — fortunate to the League, for they gained an able and most unscrupulous coadiutor; and fortunate to Mr. William Bowker, for he had just lost the best part of his income by the demise of his old master, the celebrated Mr. Snarle, the great conveyancer of Lincoln’s Inn.

  Mr. William Bowker, or Bill, as he was familiarly called, was one of a large class of men about town, who make a very great show upon very slender means. Not that he made any equestrian or vehicular-display, but in his person he was a most uncommon swell, gay and gaudy in his colours, glittering in his jewellery (or make believes) faultless in his hat, costly in his linen (or apologies), expensive in his gloves, and shining in his boots. Many a country cousin, and many a one again, has anxiously inquired of his London cicerone “who that smart gentleman was,” as Bill has strutted consequentially through the Park on a Sunday, swinging his cane, with the tassels of his Hessian boots tapping the signal of his approach.