Mr. Scarborough's Family Part 46

"But I do. Every shilling that the son of my client has had from them my client is ready to pay. There is some hitch among them, and I make my surmises. But I have no dealings with them. It is for them to come to me now." Dolly only shook her head. "You cannot touch pitch and not be defiled." That was what Dolly said, but said it to herself. And then she went on and declared to herself still farther, that Mr. Barry was pitch.

She knew that Mr. Barry had seen Hart, and had seen Tyrrwhit, and had been bargaining with them. She excused her father because he was her father; but according to her thinking there should have been no dealings with such men as these, except at the end of a pair of tongs.

"And now, Dolly," said her father, after a long pause, "tell me about Mr. Barry."

"There is nothing more to be told."

"Not of what you said to him, but of the reasons which have made you so determined. Would it not be better for you to be married?"

"If I could choose my husband."

"Whom would you choose?"

"You."

"That is nonsense. I am your father."

"You know what I mean. There is no one else among my circle of acquaintances with whom I should care to live. There is no one else with whom I should care to do more than die. When I look at it all round it seems to be absolutely impossible. That I should on a sudden entertain habits of the closest intimacy with such a one as Mr. Barry! What should I say to him when he went forth in the morning? How should I welcome him when he came back at night? What would be our breakfast, and what would be our dinner? Think what are yours and mine,--all the little solicitudes, all the free abuse, all the certainty of an affection which has grown through so many years; all the absolute a.s.surance on the part of each that the one does really know the inner soul of the other."

"It would come."

"With Mr. Barry? That is your idea of my soul with which you have been in communion for so many years? In the first place, you think that I am a person likely to be able to transfer myself suddenly to the first man that comes my way?"

"Gradually you might do so,--at any rate so as to make life possible. You will be all alone. Think what it will be to have to live all alone."

"I have thought. I do know that it would be well that you should be able to take me with you."

"But I cannot."

"No. There is the hardship. You must leave me, and I must be alone. That is what we have to expect. But for her sake, and for mine, we may be left while we can be left. What would you be without me? Think of that."

"I should bear it."

"You couldn't. You'd break your heart and die. And if you can imagine my living there, and pouring out Mr. Barry's tea for him, you must imagine also what I should have to say to myself about you. 'He will die, of course. But then he has come to that sort of age at which it doesn't much signify.' Then I should go on with Mr. Barry's tea. He'd come to kiss me when he went away, and I--should plunge a knife into him."

"Dolly!"

"Or into myself, which would be more likely. Fancy that man calling me Dolly." Then she got up and stood behind his chair and put her arm round his neck. "Would you like to kiss him?--or any man, for the matter of that? There is no one else to whom my fancy strays, but I think that I should murder them all,--or commit suicide. In the first place, I should want my husband to be a gentleman. There are not a great many gentlemen about."

"You are fastidious."

"Come now;--be honest; is our Mr. Barry a gentleman?" Then there was a pause, during which she waited for a reply. "I will have an answer. I have a right to demand an answer to that question, since you have proposed the man to me as a husband."

"Nay, I have not proposed him."

"You have expressed a regret that I have not accepted him. Is he a gentleman?"

"Well;--yes; I think he is."

"Mind; we are sworn, and you are bound to speak the truth. What right has he to be a gentleman? Who was his father and who was his mother? Of what kind were his nursery belongings? He has become an attorney, and so have you. But has there been any one to whisper to him among his teachings that in that profession, as in all others, there should be a sense of high honor to guide him? He must not cheat, or do anything to cause him to be struck off the rolls; but is it not with him what his client wants, and not what honor demands? And in the daily intercourse of life would he satisfy what you call my fastidiousness?"

"Nothing on earth will ever do that."

"You do. I agree with you that nothing else on earth ever will. The man who might, won't come. Not that I can imagine such a man, because I know that I am spoiled. Of course there are gentlemen, though not a great many. But he mustn't be ugly and he mustn't be good-looking. He mustn't seem to be old, and certainly he mustn't seem to be young. I should not like a man to wear old clothes, but he mustn't wear new. He must be well read, but never show it. He must work hard, but he must come home to dinner at the proper time." Here she laughed, and gently shook her head.

"He must never talk about his business at night. Though, dear, darling old father, he shall do that if he will talk like you. And then, which is the hardest thing of all, I must have known him intimately for at any rate, ten years. As for Mr. Barry, I never should know him intimately, though I were married to him for ten years."

"And it has all been my doing?"

"Just so. You have made the bed and you must lie on it. It hasn't been a bad bed."

"Not for me. Heaven knows it has not been bad for me."

"Nor for me, as things go; only that there will come an arousing before we shall be ready to get up together. Your time will probably be the first. I can better afford to lose you than you to lose me."

"G.o.d send that it shall be so!"

"It is nature," she said. "It is to be expected, and will on that account be the less grievous because it has been expected. I shall have to devote myself to those Carroll children. I sometimes think that the work of the world should not be made pleasant to us. What profit will it be to me to have done my duty by you? I think there will be some profit if I am good to my cousins."

"At any rate, you won't have Mr. Barry?" said the father.

"Not if I know it," said the daughter; "and you, I think, are a wicked old man to suggest it." Then she bade him good-night and went to bed, for they had been talking now till near twelve.

But Mr. Barry, when he had gone home, told himself that he had progressed in his love-suit quite as far as he had expected on the first opportunity. He went over the bridge and looked at the genteel house, and resolved as to certain little changes which should be made. Thus one room should look here, and the nursery should look there. The walk to the railway would only take five minutes, and there would be five minutes again from the Temple Station in London. He thought it would do very well for domestic felicity. And as for a fortune, half the business would not be bad. And then the whole business would follow, and he in his turn would be enabled to let some young fellow in who should do the greater part of the work and take the smaller part of the pay, as had been the case with himself.

But it had not occurred to him that the young lady had meant what she said when she refused him. It was the ordinary way with young ladies. Of course he had expected no enthusiasm of love;--nor had he wanted it. He would wait for three weeks and then he would go to Fulham again.

CHAPTER x.x.xIV.

MR. JUNIPER.

Though there was an air of badinage, almost of tomfoolery, about Dolly when she spoke of her matrimonial prospects to her father,--as when she said that she would "stick a knife" into Mr. Barry,--still there was a seriousness in all she said which was more than grave. She was pathetic and melancholy. She knew that there was nothing before her but to stay with her father, and then to devote herself to her cousins, from whom she was aware that she recoiled almost with hatred. And she knew that it would be a good thing to be married,--if only the right man would come.

The right man would have to bear with her father, and live in the same house with him to the end. The right man must be a _preux chevalier sans peur et sans reproche_. The right man must be strong-minded and masterful, and must have a will of his own; but he must be strong-minded always for good. And where was she to find such a man as this? she who was only an attorney's daughter,--plain, too, and with many eccentricities. She was not intended to marry, and consequently the only man who came in her way was her father's partner, for whom, in regard to a share in the business, she might be desirable.

Devotion to the Carroll cousins was manifestly her duty. The two eldest girls she absolutely did hate, and their father. To hate the father, because he was vicious beyond cure, might be very well; but she could not hate the girls without being aware that she was guilty of a grievous sin. Every taste possessed by them was antagonistic to her. Their amus.e.m.e.nts, their literature, their clothes, their manners,--especially in regard to men,--their gestures and color, were distasteful to her.

"They hide their dirt with a thin veneer of cheap finery," said Dolly to her father. He had replied by telling her that she was nasty. "No; but, unfortunately, I cannot but see nastiness." Dolly herself was clean to fastidiousness. Take off her coa.r.s.e frock, and there the well-dressed lady began. "Look at the heels of Sophie's boots! Give her a push, and she'd fall off her pins as though they were stilts. They're always asking to have a shoemaker's bill paid, and yet they won't wear stout boots." "I'll pay the man," she said to Amelia one day, "if you'll promise to wear what I'll buy you for the next six months." But Amelia had only turned up her nose. These were the relatives to whom it would become her duty to devote her life!

The next morning she started off to call in Bolsover Terrace with an intention, not to begin her duty, but to make a struggle at the adequate performance of it. She took with her some article of clothing intended for one of the younger children, but which the child herself was to complete. But when she entered the parlor she was astounded at finding that Mr. Carroll was there. It was nearly twelve o'clock, and at that time Mr. Carroll never was there. He was either in bed, or at Tattersall's, or--Dolly did not care where. She had long since made up her mind that there must be a permanent quarrel between herself and her uncle, and her desire was generally respected. Now, unfortunately, he was present, and with him were his wife and two elder daughters. To be devoted, thought Dolly to herself, to such a family as this,--and without anybody else in the world to care for! She gave her aunt a kiss, and touched the girls' hands, and made a very distant bow to Mr. Carroll.

Then she began about the parcel in her hands, and, having given her instructions, was preparing to depart.

But her aunt stopped her. "I think you ought to know, Dorothea."

"Certainly," said Mr. Carroll. "It is quite right that your cousin should know."

"If you think it proper, I'm sure I can't object," said Amelia.