The Last Chronicle of Barset Part 68

A day or two after the interview which was described in the last chapter John Eames dined with his uncle Mr. Thomas Toogood, in Tavistock Square. He was in the habit of doing this about once a month, and was a great favourite both with his cousins and with their mother. Mr. Toogood did not give dinner-parties; always begging those whom he asked to enjoy his hospitality, to take pot luck, and telling young men whom he could treat with familiarity,--such as his nephew,--that if they wanted to be regaled a la Russe they must not come to number 75, Tavistock Square. "A leg of mutton and tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs; that will be about the outside of it," he would say; but he would add in a whisper,--"and a gla.s.s of port such as you don't get every day of your life." Polly and Lucy Toogood were pretty girls, and merry withal, and certain young men were well contented to accept the attorney's invitations,--whether attracted by the promised leg of mutton, or the port wine, or the young ladies, I will not attempt to say. But it had so happened that one young man, a clerk from John Eames' office, had partaken so often of the pot luck and port wine that Polly Toogood had conquered him by her charms, and he was now a slave, waiting an appropriate time for matrimonial sacrifice. William Summerkin was the young man's name; and as it was known that Mr.

Summerkin was to inherit a fortune amounting to five thousand pounds from his maiden aunt, it was considered that Polly Toogood was not doing amiss. "I'll give you three hundred pounds, my boy, just to put a few sheets on the beds," said Toogood the father, "and when the old birds are both dead she'll have a thousand pounds out of the nest.

That's the extent of Polly's fortune;--so now you know." Summerkin was, however, quite contented to have his own money settled on his darling Polly, and the whole thing was looked at with pleasant and propitious eyes by the Toogood connection.

When John Eames entered the drawing-room Summerkin and Polly were already there. Summerkin blushed up to his eyes, of course, but Polly sat as demurely as though she had been accustomed to having lovers all her life. "Mamma will be down almost immediately, John," said Polly as soon as the first greetings were over, "and papa has come in, I know."

"Summerkin," said Johnny, "I'm afraid you left the office before four o'clock."

"No, I did not," said Summerkin. "I deny it."

"Polly," said her cousin, "you should keep him in better order. He will certainly come to grief if he goes on like this. I suppose you could do without him for half an hour."

"I don't want him, I can a.s.sure you," said Polly.

"I have only been here just five minutes," said Summerkin, "and I came because Mrs. Toogood asked me to do a commission."

"That's civil to you, Polly," said John.

"It's quite as civil as I wish him to be," said Polly. "And as for you, John, everybody knows that you're a goose, and that you always were a goose. Isn't he always doing foolish things at the office, William?" But as John Eames was rather a great man at the Income-tax Office, Summerkin would not fall into his sweetheart's joke on this subject, finding it easier and perhaps safer to twiddle the bodkins in Polly's work-basket. Then Toogood and Mrs. Toogood entered the room together, and the lovers were able to be alone again during the general greeting with which Johnny was welcomed.

"You don't know the Silverbridge people,--do you?" asked Mr. Toogood.

Eames said that he did not. He had been at Silverbridge more than once, but did not know very much of the Silverbridgians. "Because Walker is coming to dine here. Walker is the leading man in Silverbridge."

"And what is Walker;--besides being leading man in Silverbridge?"

"He's a lawyer. Walker and Winthrop. Everybody knows Walker in Ba.r.s.etshire. I've been down at Barchester since I saw you."

"Have you indeed?" said Johnny.

"And I'll tell you what I've been about. You know Mr. Crawley; don't you?"

"The Hogglestock clergyman that has come to grief? I don't know him personally. He's a sort of cousin by marriage, you know."

"Of course he is," said Mr. Toogood. "His wife is my first-cousin, and your mother's first-cousin. He came here to me the other day;--or rather to the shop. I had never seen the man before in my life, and a very queer fellow he is too. He came to me about this trouble of his, and of course I must do what I can for him. I got myself introduced to Walker, who has the management of the prosecution, and I asked him to come here and dine to-day."

"And what sort of fellow did you find Crawley, uncle Tom?"

"Such a queer fish;--so unlike anybody else in the world!"

"But I suppose he did take the money?" said Johnny.

"I don't know what to say about it. I don't indeed. If he took it he didn't mean to steal it. I'm as sure that man didn't mean to steal twenty pounds as I ever could be of anything. Perhaps I shall get something about it out of Walker after dinner." Then Mr. Walker entered the room. "This is very kind of you, Mr. Walker; very indeed.

I take it quite as a compliment, your coming in in this sort of way.

It's just pot luck, you know, and nothing else." Mr. Walker of course a.s.sured his host that he was delighted. "Just a leg of mutton and a bottle of old port, Mr. Walker," continued Toogood. "We never get beyond that in the way of dinner-giving; do we, Maria?"

But Maria was at this moment descanting on the good luck of the family to her nephew,--and on one special piece of good luck which had just occurred. Mr. Summerkin's maiden aunt had declared her intention of giving up the fortune to the young people at once. She had enough to live upon, she said, and would therefore make two lovers happy. "And they're to be married on the first of May," said Lucy,--that Lucy of whom her father had boasted to Mr. Crawley that she knew Byron by heart,--"and won't that be jolly? Mamma is going out to look for a house for them to-morrow. Fancy Polly with a house of her own! Won't it be stunning? I wish you were going to be married too, Johnny."

"Don't be a fool, Lucy."

"Of course I know that you are in love. I hope you are not going to give over being in love, Johnny, because it is such fun."

"Wait till you're caught yourself, my girl."

"I don't mean to be caught till some great swell comes this way.

And as great swells never do come into Tavistock Square I shan't have a chance. I'll tell you what I would like; I'd like to have a Corsair,--or else a Giaour;--I think a Giaour would be nicest. Only a Giaour wouldn't be a Giaour here, you know. Fancy a lover 'Who thundering comes on blackest steed, With slackened bit and hoof of speed.' Were not those the days to live in! But all that is over now, you know, and young people take houses in Woburn Place, instead of being locked up, or drowned, or married to a hideous monster behind a veil. I suppose it's better as it is, for some reasons."

"I think it must be more jolly, as you call it, Lucy."

"I'm not quite sure. I know I'd go back and be Medora, if I could.

Mamma is always telling Polly that she must be careful about William's dinner. But Conrad didn't care for his dinner. 'Light toil!

to cull and dress thy frugal fare! See, I have plucked the fruit that promised best.'"

"And how often do you think Conrad got drunk?"

"I don't think he got drunk at all. There is no reason why he should, any more than William. Come along, and take me down to dinner. After all, papa's leg of mutton is better than Medora's apples, when one is as hungry as I am."

The leg of mutton on this occasion consisted of soup, fish, and a bit of roast beef, and a couple of boiled fowls. "If I had only two children instead of twelve, Mr. Walker," said the host, "I'd give you a dinner a la Russe."

"I don't begrudge Mrs. Toogood a single arrow in her quiver on that score," said Mr. Walker.

"People are getting to be so luxurious that one can't live up to them at all," said Mrs. Toogood. "We dined out here with some new comers in the square only last week. We had asked them before, and they came quite in a quiet way,--just like this; and when we got there we found they'd four kinds of ices after dinner!"

"And not a morsel of food on the table fit to eat," said Toogood.

"I never was so poisoned in my life. As for soup,--it was just the washings of the pastrycook's kettle next door."

"And how is one to live with such people, Mr. Walker?" continued Mrs.

Toogood. "Of course we can't ask them back again. We can't give them four kinds of ices."

"But would that be necessary? Perhaps they haven't got twelve children."

"They haven't got any," said Toogood, triumphing; "not a chick belonging to them. But you see one must do as other people do. I hate anything grand. I wouldn't want more than this for myself, if bank-notes were as plenty as curl-papers."

"n.o.body has any curl-papers now, papa," said Lucy.

"But I can't bear to be outdone," said Mr. Toogood. "I think it's very unpleasant,--people living in that sort of way. It's all very well telling me that I needn't live so too;--and of course I don't.

I can't afford to have four men in from the confectioner's, dressed a sight better than myself, at ten shillings a head. I can't afford it, and I don't do it. But the worst of it is that I suffer because other people do it. It stands to reason that I must either be driven along with the crowd, or else be left behind. Now, I don't like either.

And what's the end of it? Why, I'm half carried away and half left behind."

"Upon my word, papa, I don't think you're carried away at all," said Lucy.

"Yes, I am; and I'm ashamed of myself. Mr. Walker, I don't dare to ask you to drink a gla.s.s of wine with me in my own house,--that's what I don't,--because it's the proper thing for you to wait till somebody brings it you, and then to drink it by yourself. There is no knowing whether I mightn't offend you." And Mr. Toogood as he spoke grasped the decanter at his elbow. Mr. Walker grasped another at his elbow, and the two attorneys took their gla.s.s of wine together.

"A very queer case this is of my cousin Crawley's," said Toogood to Walker, when the ladies had left the dining-room.

"A most distressing case. I never knew anything so much talked of in our part of the country."

"He can't have been a popular man, I should say?"