Mr. Scarborough's Family Part 35

"Goodness gracious me, Mr. Prosper!"

This sort of coyness was to have been expected, and he therefore continued with another portion of his prepared words, which now came glibly enough to him. But it was a previous portion. It was all the same to Miss Thoroughbung, as it declared plainly the gentleman's intention.

"If I can induce you to listen to me favorably, I shall say of myself that I am the happiest gentleman in Hertfordshire."

"Oh, Mr. Prosper!"

"My purpose is to lay at your feet my hand, my heart, and the lands of Buston." Here he was again going backward, but it did not much matter now in what sequence the words were said. The offer had been thoroughly completed and was thoroughly understood.

"A lady, Mr. Prosper, has to think of these things," said Miss Thoroughbung.

"Of course I would not wish to hurry you prematurely to any declaration of your affections."

"But there are other considerations, Mr. Prosper. You know about my property?"

"Nothing particularly. It has not been a matter of consideration with me." This he said with some slight air of offence. He was a gentleman, whereas Miss Thoroughbung was hardly a lady. Matter of consideration her money of course had been. How should he not consider it? But he was aware that he ought not to rush on that subject, but should leave it to the arrangement of lawyers, expressing his own views through her own lawyer. To her it was the thing of most importance, and she had no feelings which induced her to be silent on a matter so near to her. She rushed.

"But it has to be considered, Mr. Prosper. It is all my own, and comes to very nearly one thousand a year. I think it is nine hundred and seventy-two pounds six shillings and eightpence. Of course, when there is so much money it would have to be tied up somehow." Mr. Prosper was undoubtedly disgusted, and if he could have receded at this moment would have transferred his affections to Miss Puffle. "Of course you understand that."

She had not accepted him as yet, nor said a word of her regard for him.

All that went, it seemed, as a matter of no importance whatever. He had been standing for the last few minutes, and now he remained standing and looking at her. They were both silent, so that he was obliged to speak.

"I understand that between a lady and gentleman so circ.u.mstanced there should be a settlement."

"Just so."

"I also have some property," said Mr. Prosper, with a touch of pride in his tone.

"Of course you have. Goodness gracious me! Why else would you come? You have got Buston, which I suppose is two thousand a year. At any rate it has that name. But it isn't your own."

"Not my own?"

"Well, no. You couldn't leave it to your widow, so that she might give it to any one she pleased when you were gone." Here the gentleman frowned very darkly, and thought that after all Miss Puffle would be the woman for him. "All that has to be considered, and it makes Buston not exactly your own. If I were to have a daughter she wouldn't have it."

"No, not a daughter," said Mr. Prosper, still wondering at the thorough knowledge of the business in hand displayed by the lady.

"Oh, if it were to be a son, that would be all right, and then my money would go to the younger children, divided equally between the boys and girls." Mr. Prosper shook his head as he found himself suddenly provided with so plentiful and thriving a family. "That, I suppose, would be the way of the settlement, together with a certain income out of Buston set apart for my use. It ought to be considered that I should have to provide a house to live in. This belongs to my brother, and I pay him forty pounds a year for it. It should be something better than this."

"My dear Miss Thoroughbung, the lawyer would do all that." There did come upon him an idea that she, with her apt.i.tude for business, would not be altogether a bad helpmate.

"The lawyers are very well; but in a transaction of this kind there is nothing like the princ.i.p.als understanding each other. Young women are always robbed when their money is left altogether to the gentlemen."

"Robbed!"

"Don't suppose I mean you, Mr. Prosper; and the robbery I mean is not considered disgraceful at all. The gentlemen I mean are the fathers and the brothers, and the uncles and the lawyers. And they intend to do right after the custom of their fathers and uncles. But woman's rights are coming up."

"I hate woman's rights."

"Nevertheless they are coming up. A young woman doesn't get taken in as she used to do. I don't mean any offence, you know." This was said in reply to Mr. Prosper's repeated frown. "Since woman's rights have come up a young woman is better able to fight her own battle."

Mr. Prosper was willing to admit that Miss Thoroughbung was fair, but she was fat also, and at least forty. There was hardly need that she should refer so often to her own unprotected youth. "I should like to have the spending of my own income, Mr. Prosper;--that's a fact."

"Oh, indeed!"

"Yes, I should. I shouldn't care to have to go to my husband if I wanted to buy a pair of stockings."

"An allowance, I should say."

"And that should be my own income."

"Nothing to go to the house?"

"Oh yes. There might be certain things which I might agree to pay for. A pair of ponies I should like."

"I always keep a carriage and a pair of horses."

"But the ponies would be my lookout. I shouldn't mind paying for my own maid, and the champagne, and my clothes, of course, and the fish-monger's bill. There would be Miss Tickle, too. You said you would like Miss Tickle. I should have to pay for her. That would be about enough, I think."

Mr. Prosper was thoroughly disgusted; but when he left Marmaduke Lodge he had not said a word as to withdrawing from his offer. She declared that she would put her terms into writing and give them to her lawyer, who would communicate with Mr. Grey.

Mr. Prosper was surprised to find that she knew the name of his lawyer, who was in truth our old friend. And then, while he was still hesitating, she astounded,--nay, shocked him by her mode of ending the conference. She got up and, throwing her arms round his neck, kissed him most affectionately. After that there was no retreating for Mr.

Prosper,--no immediate mode of retreat, at all events. He could only back out of the room, and get into his carriage, and be carried home as quickly as possible.

CHAPTER XXVII.

THE PROPOSAL.

It had never happened to him before. The first thought that came upon Mr. Prosper, when he got into his carriage, was that it had never occurred to him before. He did not reflect that he had not put himself in the way of it: but now the strangeness of the sensation overwhelmed him. He inquired of himself whether it was pleasant, but he found himself compelled to answer the question with a negative. It should have come from him, but not yet; not yet, probably, for some weeks. But it had been done, and by the doing of it she had sealed him utterly as her own. There was no getting out of it now. He did feel that he ought not to attempt to get out of it after what had taken place. He was not sure but that the lady had planned it all with that purpose; but he was sure that a strong foundation had been laid for a breach of promise case if he were to attempt to escape. What might not a jury do against him, giving damages out of the acres of Buston Hall? And then Miss Thoroughbung would go over to the other Thoroughbungs and to the Annesleys, and his condition would become intolerable. In some moments, as he was driven home, he was not sure but that it had all been got up as a plot against him by the Annesleys.

When he got out of his carriage Matthew knew that things had gone badly with his master; but he could not conjecture in what way. The matter had been fully debated in the kitchen, and it had been there decided that Miss Thoroughbung was certainly to be brought home as the future mistress of Buston. The step to be taken by their master was not popular in the Buston kitchen. It had been there considered that Master Harry was to be the future master, and, by some perversity of intellect, they had all thought that this would occur soon. Matthew was much older than the squire, who was hardly to be called a sickly man, and yet Matthew had made up his mind that Mr. Harry was to reign over him as Squire of Buston. When, therefore, the tidings came that Miss Thoroughbung was to brought to Buston as the mistress, there had been some slight symptoms of rebellion. "They didn't want any 'Tilda Thoroughbung there." They had their own idea of a lady and a gentleman, which, as in all such cases, was perfectly correct. They knew the squire to be a fool, but they believed him to be a gentleman. They heard that Miss Thoroughbung was a clever woman, but they did not believe her to be a lady. Matthew had said a few words to the cook as to a public-house at Stevenage. She had told him not to be an old fool, and that he would lose his money, but she had thought of the public-house. There had been a mutinous feeling. Matthew helped his master out of the carriage, and then came a revulsion. That "froth of a beer-barrel," as Matthew had dared to call her, had absolutely refused his master.

Mr. Prosper went into the house very meditative, and sad at heart. It was a matter almost of regret to him that it had not been as Matthew supposed. But he was caught and bound, and must make the best of it. He thought of all the particulars of her proposed mode of living, and recapitulated them to himself. A pair of ponies, her own maid, champagne, the fish-monger's bill, and Miss Tickle. Miss Puffle would certainly not have required such expensive luxuries. Champagne and the fish would require company for their final consumption.

The ponies a.s.sumed a tone of being quite opposed to that which he had contemplated. He questioned with himself whether he would like Miss Tickle as a perpetual inmate. He had, in sheer civility, expressed a liking for Miss Tickle, but what need could there be to a married woman of a Miss Tickle? And then he thought of the education of the five or six children which she had almost promised him! He had suggested to himself simply an heir,--just one heir,--so that the nefarious Harry might be cut out. He already saw that he would not be enriched to the extent of a shilling by the lady's income. Then there would be all the trouble and the disgrace of a separate purse. He felt that there would be disgrace in having the fish and champagne, which were consumed in his own house,--paid for by his wife without reference to him. What if the lady had a partiality for champagne? He knew nothing about it, and would know nothing about it, except when he saw it in her heightened color.

Despatched crabs for supper! He always went to bed at ten, and had a tumbler of barley-water brought to him,--a gla.s.s of barley-water with just a squeeze of lemon-juice.

He saw ruin before him. No doubt she was a good manager, but she would be a good manager for herself. Would it not be better for him to stand the action for breach of promise, and betake himself to Miss Puffle? But Miss Puffle was fifty, and there could be no doubt that the lady ought to be younger than the gentleman. He was much distressed in mind. If he broke off with Miss Thoroughbung, ought he to do so at once, before she had had time to put the matter into the hands of the lawyer? And on what plea should he do it? Before he went to bed that night he did draw out a portion of a letter, which, however, was never sent:

"MY DEAR MISS THOROUGHBUNG,--In the views which we both promulgated this morning I fear that there was some essential misunderstanding as to the mode of life which had occurred to both of us. You, as was so natural at your age, and with your charms, have not been slow to antic.i.p.ate a coming period of uncheckered delights. Your allusion to a pony-carriage, and other incidental allusions,"--he did not think it well to mention more particularly the fish and the champagne,--"have made clear the sort of future life which you have pictured to yourself. Heaven forbid that I should take upon myself to find fault with anything so pleasant and so innocent! But my prospects of life are different, and in seeking the honor of an alliance with you I was looking for a quiet companion in my declining years, and it might be also to a mother to a possible future son. When you honored me with an unmistakable sign of your affection, on my going, I was just about to explain all this. You must excuse me if my mouth was then stopped by the mutual ardor of our feeling. I was about to say--" But he had found it difficult to explain what he had been about to say, and on the next morning, when the time for writing had come, he heard news which detained him for the day, and then the opportunity was gone.

On the following morning, when Matthew appeared at his bedside with his cup of tea at nine o'clock, tidings were brought him. He took in the Buntingford _Gazette_, which came twice a week, and as Matthew laid it, opened and unread, in its accustomed place, he gave the information, which he had no doubt gotten from the paper. "You haven't heard it, sir, I suppose, as yet?"

"Heard what?"

"About Miss Puffle."

"What about Miss Puffle? I haven't heard a word. What about Miss Puffle?" He had been thinking that moment of Miss Puffle,--of how she would be superior to Miss Thoroughbung in many ways,--so that he sat up in his bed, holding the untasted tea in his hand.