The Three Clerks Part 35

'Well, the long and the short of it is this, Mr. Tudor.' And as she spoke the widow got a little red in the face: she had, as Charley thought, an unpleasant look of resolution about her--a roundness about her mouth, and a sort of fierceness in her eyes.

'The long and the short of it is this, Mr. Tudor, what do you mean to do about the girl?'

'Do about her?' said Charley, almost bewildered in his misery.

'Yes, do about her. Do you mean to make her your wife? That's plain English. Because I'll tell you what: I'll not see her put upon any longer. It must be one thing or the other; and that at once. And if you've a grain of honour in you, Mr. Tudor--and I think you are honourable--you won't back from your word with the girl now.'

'Back from my word?' said Charley.

'Yes, back from your word,' said Mrs. Davis, the flood-gates of whose eloquence were now fairly opened. 'I'm sure you're too much of the gentleman to deny your own words, and them repeated more than once in my presence--Cheroots--yes, are there none there, child?--Oh, they are in the cupboard.' These last words were not part of her address to Charley, but were given in reply to a requisition from the attendant nymph outside. 'You're too much of a gentleman to do that, I know. And so, as I'm her natural friend--and indeed she's my cousin, not that far off--I think it's right that we should all understand one another.'

'Oh, quite right,' said Charley.

'You can't expect that she should go and sacrifice herself for you, you know,' said Mrs. Davis, who now that she had begun hardly knew how to stop herself. 'A girl's time is her money.

She's at her best now, and a girl like her must make her hay while the sun shines. She can't go on fal-lalling with you, and then nothing to come of it. You mustn't suppose she's to lose her market that way.'

'G.o.d knows I should be sorry to injure her, Mrs. Davis.'

'I believe you would, because I take you for an honourable gentleman as will be as good as your word. Now, there's Peppermint there.'

'What! that fellow in the parlour?'

'And an honourable gentleman he is. Not that I mean to compare him to you, Mr. Tudor, nor yet doesn't Norah; not by no means.

But there he is. Well, he comes with the most honourablest proposals, and will make her Mrs. Peppermint to-morrow, if so be that she'll have it.'

'You don't mean to say that there has been anything between them?' said Charley, who in spite of the intense desire which he had felt a few minutes since to get the lovely Norah altogether off his hands, now felt an acute pang of jealousy.' You don't mean to say that there has been anything between them?'

'Nothing as you have any right to object to, Mr. Tudor. You may be sure I wouldn't allow of that, nor yet wouldn't Norah demean herself to it.'

'Then how did she get talking to him?'

'She didn't get talking to him. But he has eyes in his head, and you don't suppose but what he can see with them. If a girl is in the public line, of course any man is free to speak to her. If you don't like it, it is for you to take her out of it. Not but what, for a girl that is in the public line, Norah Geraghty keeps herself to herself as much as any girl you ever set eyes on.'

'What the d---- has she to do with this fellow then?'

'Why, he's a widower, and has three young children; and he's looking out for a mother for them; and he thinks Norah will suit.

There, now you have the truth, and the whole truth.'

'D---- his impudence!' said Charley.

'Well, I don't see that there's any impudence. He has a house of his own and the means to keep it. Now I'll tell you what it is.

Norah can't abide him--'

Charley looked a little better satisfied when he heard this declaration.

'Norah can't abide the sight of him; nor won't of any man as long as you are hanging after her. She's as true as steel, and proud you ought to be of her.' Proud, thought Charley, as he again muttered to himself, 'Excelsior!'--'But, Mr. Tudor, I won't see her put upon; that's the long and the short of it. If you like to take her, there she is. I don't say she's just your equal as to breeding, though she's come of decent people too; but she's good as gold. She'll make a shilling go as far as any young woman I know; and if 100 or 150 are wanting for furniture or the like of that, why, I've that regard for her, that that shan't stand in the way. Now, Mr. Tudor, I've spoke honest; and if you're the gentleman as I takes you to be, you'll do the same.'

To do Mrs. Davis justice, it must be acknowledged that in her way she had spoken honestly. Of course she knew that such a marriage would be a dreadful misalliance for young Tudor; of course she knew that all his friends would be heart-broken when they heard of it. But what had she to do with his friends? Her sympathies, her good wishes, were for her friend. Had Norah fallen a victim to Charley's admiration, and then been cast off to eat the bitterest bread to which any human being is ever doomed, what then would Charley's friends have cared for her? There was a fair fight between them. If Norah Geraghty, as a reward for her prudence, could get a husband in a rank of life above her, instead of falling into utter destruction as might so easily have been the case, who could do other than praise her--praise her and her clever friend who had so a.s.sisted her in her struggle?

Dolus an virtus--

Had Mrs. Davis ever studied the cla.s.sics she would have thus expressed herself.

Poor Charley was altogether thrown on his beam-ends. He had altogether played Mrs. Davis's game in evincing jealousy at Mr.

Peppermint's attentions. He knew this, and yet for the life of him he could not help being jealous. He wanted to get rid of Miss Geraghty, and yet he could not endure that anyone else should lay claim to her favour. He was very weak. He knew how much depended on the way in which he might answer this woman at the present moment; he knew that he ought now to make it plain to her, that however foolish he might have been, however false he might have been, it was quite out of the question that he should marry her barmaid. But he did not do so. He was worse than weak. It was not only the disinclination to give pain, or even the dread of the storm that would ensue, which deterred him; but an absurd dislike to think that Mr. Peppermint should be graciously received there as the barmaid's acknowledged admirer.

'Is she really ill now?' said he.

'She's not so ill but what she shall make herself well enough to welcome you, if you'll say the word that you ought to say. The most that ails her is fretting at the long delay.--Bolt the door, child, and go to bed; there will be no one else here now. Go up, and tell Miss Geraghty to come down; she hasn't got her clothes off yet, I know.'

Mrs. Davis was too good a general to press Charley for an absolute, immediate, fixed answer to her question. She knew that she had already gained much, by talking thus of the proposed marriage, by setting it thus plainly before Charley, without rebuke or denial from him. He had not objected to receiving a visit from Norah, on the implied understanding that she was to come down to him as his affianced bride. He had not agreed to this in words; but silence gives consent, and Mrs. Davis felt that should it ever hereafter become necessary to prove anything, what had pa.s.sed would enable her to prove a good deal.

Charley puffed at his cigar and sipped his gin and water. It was now twelve o'clock, and he thoroughly wished himself at home and in bed. The longer he thought of it the more impossible it appeared that he should get out of the house without the scene which he dreaded. The girl had bolted the door, put away her cups and mugs, and her step upstairs had struck heavily on his ears.

The house was not large or high, and he fancied that he heard mutterings on the landing-place. Indeed he did not doubt but that Miss Geraghty had listened to most of the conversation which had taken place.

'Excuse me a minute, Mr. Tudor,' said Mrs. Davis, who was now smiling and civil enough; 'I will go upstairs myself; the silly girl is shamefaced, and does not like to come down'; and up went Mrs. Davis to see that her barmaid's curls and dress were nice and jaunty. It would not do now, at this moment, for Norah to offend her lover by any untidiness. Charley for a moment thought of the front door. The enemy had allowed him an opportunity for retreating. He might slip out before either of the women came down, and then never more be heard of in Norfolk Street again. He had his hand in his waistcoat pocket, with the intent of leaving the sovereign on the table; but when the moment came he felt ashamed of the pusillanimity of such an escape, and therefore stood, or rather sat his ground, with a courage worthy of a better purpose.

Down the two women came, and Charley felt his heart beating against his ribs. As the steps came nearer the door, he began to wish that Mr. Peppermint had been successful. The widow entered the room first, and at her heels the expectant beauty. We can hardly say that she was blushing; but she did look rather shamefaced, and hung back a little at the door, as though she still had half a mind to think better of it, and go off to her bed.

'Come in, you little fool,' said Mrs. Davis. 'You needn't be ashamed of coming down to see him; you have done that often enough before now.'

Norah simpered and sidled. 'Well, I'm sure now!' said she.

'Here's a start, Mr. Tudor; to be brought downstairs at this time of night; and I'm sure I don't know what it's about'; and then she shook her curls, and twitched her dress, and made as though she were going to pa.s.s through the room to her accustomed place at the bar.

Norah Geraghty was a fine girl. Putting her in comparison with Miss Golightly, we are inclined to say that she was the finer girl of the two; and that, barring position, money, and fashion, she was qualified to make the better wife. In point of education, that is, the effects of education, there was not perhaps much to choose between them. Norah could make an excellent pudding, and was willing enough to exercise her industry and art in doing so; Miss Golightly could copy music, but she did not like the trouble; and could play a waltz badly. Neither of them had ever read anything beyond a few novels. In this respect, as to the amount of labour done, Miss Golightly had certainly far surpa.s.sed her rival compet.i.tor for Charley's affections.

Charley got up and took her hand; and as he did so, he saw that her nails were dirty. He put his arms round her waist and kissed her; and as he caressed her, his olfactory nerves perceived that the pomatum in her hair was none of the best. He thought of those young l.u.s.trous eyes that would look up so wondrously into his face; he thought of the gentle touch, which would send a thrill through all his nerves; and then he felt very sick.

'Well, upon my word, Mr. Tudor,' said Miss Geraghty, 'you're making very free to-night.' She did not, however, refuse to sit down on his knee, though while sitting there she struggled and tossed herself, and shook her long ringlets in Charley's face, till he wished her--safe at home in Mr. Peppermint's nursery.

'And is that what you brought me down for, Mrs. Davis?' said Norah. 'Well, upon my word, I hope the door's locked; we shall have all the world in here else.'

'If you hadn't come down to him, he'd have come up to you,' said Mrs. Davis.

'Would he though?' said Norah; 'I think he knows a trick worth two of that;' and she looked as though she knew well how to defend herself, if any over-zeal on the part of her lover should ever induce him to violate the sanctum of her feminine retirement.

There was no over-zeal now about Charley. He ought to have been happy enough, for he had his charmer in his arms; but he showed very little of the ecstatic joy of a favoured lover. There he sat with Norah in his arms, and as we have said, Norah was a handsome girl; but he would much sooner have been copying the Kennett and Avon ca.n.a.l lock entries in Mr. Snape's room at the Internal Navigation.

'Lawks, Mr. Tudor, you needn't hold me so tight,' said Norah.

'He means to hold you tight enough now,' said Mrs. Davis. 'He's very angry because I mentioned another gentleman's name.'

'Well, now you didn't?' said Norah, pretending to look very angry.

'Well, I just did; and if you'd only seen him! You must be very careful what you say to that gentleman, or there'll be a row in the house.'

'I!' said Norah. 'What I say to him! It's very little I have to say to the man. But I shall tell him this; he'd better take himself somewhere else, if he's going to make himself troublesome.'

All this time Charley had said nothing, but was sitting with his hat on his head, and his cigar in his mouth. The latter appendage he had laid down for a moment when he saluted Miss Geraghty; but he had resumed it, having at the moment no intention of repeating the compliment.