Chapter 55. Cookham

________________________________________________
_ CHAPTER LV. COOKHAM

We have been obliged to anticipate in some degree the course of our story by the necessity which weighed upon us of completing the history of Polly Neefit. In regard to her we will only further express an opinion,--in which we believe that we shall have the concurrence of our readers,--that Mr. Moggs junior had chosen well. Her story could not be adequately told without a revelation of that correspondence, which, while it has explained the friendly manner in which the Neefit-Newton embarrassments were at last brought to an end, has, at the same time, disclosed the future lot in life of our hero,--as far as a hero's lot in life may be said to depend on his marriage.

Mr. Neefit had been almost heart-broken, because he was not satisfied that his victim was really punished by any of those tortures which his imagination invented, and his energy executed. Even when the "pretty little man" was smashed, and was, in truth, smashed of malice prepense by a swinging blow from Neefit's umbrella, Neefit did not feel satisfied that he would thereby reach his victim's heart. He could project his own mind with sufficient force into the bosom of his enemy to understand that the onions and tobacco consumed in that luxurious chamber would cause annoyance;--but he desired more than annoyance;--he wanted to tear the very heart-strings of the young man who had, as he thought, so signally outwitted him. He did not believe that he was successful; but, in truth, he did make poor Ralph very unhappy. The heir felt himself to be wounded, and could not eat and drink, or walk and talk, or ride in the park, or play billiards at his club, in a manner befitting the owner of Newton Priory. He was so injured by Neefit that he became pervious to attacks which would otherwise have altogether failed in reaching him. Lady Eardham would never have prevailed against him as she did,--conquering by a quick repetition of small blows,--had not all his strength been annihilated for the time by the persecutions of the breeches-maker.

Lady Eardham whispered to him as he was taking his departure on the evening of the dinner in Cavendish Square. "Dear Mr. Newton,--just one word," she said, confidentially,--"that must be a very horrid man,"--alluding to Mr. Neefit.

"It's a horrid bore, you know, Lady Eardham."

"Just so;--and it makes me feel,--as though I didn't quite know whether something ought not to be done. Would you mind calling at eleven to-morrow? Of course I shan't tell Sir George,--unless you think he ought to be told." Ralph promised that he would call, though he felt at the moment that Lady Eardham was an interfering old fool. Why should she want to do anything; and why should she give even a hint as to telling Sir George? As he walked across Hanover Square and down Bond Street to his rooms he did assert to himself plainly that the "old harridan," as he called her, was at work for her second girl, and he shook his head and winked his eye as he thought of it. But, even in his solitude, he did not feel strong against Lady Eardham, and he moved along the pavement oppressed by a half-formed conviction that her ladyship would prevail against him. He did not, however, think that he had any particular objection to Gus Eardham. There was a deal of style about the girl, a merit in which either Clarissa or Mary would have been sadly deficient. And there could be no doubt in this,--that a man in his position ought to marry in his own class. The proper thing for him to do was to make the daughter of some country gentleman,--or of some nobleman, just as it might happen,--mistress of the Priory. Dear little Clary would hardly have known how to take her place properly down in Hampshire. And then he thought for a moment of Polly! Perhaps, after all, fate, fashion, and fortune managed marriage for young men better than they could manage it for themselves. What a life would his have been had he really married Polly Neefit! Though he did call Lady Eardham a harridan, he resolved that he would keep his promise for the following morning.

Lady Eardham when he arrived was mysterious, eulogistic, and beneficent. She was clearly of opinion that something should be done. "You know it is so horrid having these kind of things said." And yet she was almost equally strong in opinion that nothing could be done. "You know I wouldn't have my girl's name brought up for all the world;--though why the horrid wretch should have named her I cannot even guess." The horrid wretch had not, in truth, named any special her, though it suited Lady Eardham to presume that allusion had been made to that hope of the flock, that crowning glory of the Eardham family, that most graceful of the Graces, that Venus certain to be chosen by any Paris, her second daughter, Gus. She went on to explain that were she to tell the story to her son Marmaduke, her son Marmaduke would probably kill the breeches-maker. As Marmaduke Eardham was, of all young men about town, perhaps the most careless, the most indifferent, and the least ferocious, his mother was probably mistaken in her estimate of his resentful feelings. "As for Sir George, he would be for taking the law of the wretch for libel, and then we should be--! I don't know where we should be then; but my dear girl would die."

Of course there was nothing done. During the whole interview Lady Eardham continued to press Neefit's letter under her hand upon the table, as though it was of all documents the most precious. She handled it as though to tear it would be as bad as to tear an original document bearing the king's signature. Before the interview was over she had locked it up in her desk, as though there were something in it by which the whole Eardham race might be blessed or banned. And, though she spoke no such word, she certainly gave Ralph to understand that by this letter he, Ralph Newton, was in some mysterious manner so connected with the secrets, and the interests, and the sanctity of the Eardham family, that, whether such connection might be for weal or woe, the Newtons and the Eardhams could never altogether free themselves from the link. "Perhaps you had better come and dine with us in a family way to-morrow," said Lady Eardham, giving her invitation as though it must necessarily be tendered, and almost necessarily accepted. Ralph, not thanking her, but taking it in the same spirit, said that he would be there at half past seven. "Just ourselves," said Lady Eardham, in a melancholy tone, as though they two were doomed to eat family dinners together for ever after.

"I suppose the property is really his own?" said Lady Eardham to her husband that afternoon.

Sir George was a stout, plethoric gentleman, with a short temper and many troubles. Marmaduke was expensive, and Sir George himself had spent money when he was young. The girls, who knew that they had no fortunes, expected that everything should be done for them, at least during the period of their natural harvest,--and they were successful in having their expectations realised. They demanded that there should be horses to ride, servants to attend them, and dresses to wear; and they had horses, servants, and dresses. There were also younger children; and Sir George was quite as anxious as Lady Eardham that his daughters should become wives. "His own?--of course it's his own. Who else should it belong to?"

"There was something about that other young man."

"The bastard! It was the greatest sin that ever was thought of to palm such a fellow as that off on the county;--but it didn't come to anything."

"I'm told, too, he has been very extravagant. No doubt he did get money from the,--the tailor who wants to make him marry his daughter."

"A flea-bite," said Sir George. "Don't you bother about that." Thus authorised, Lady Eardham went to the work with a clear conscience and a good will.

On the next morning Ralph received by post an envelope from Sir Thomas Underwood containing a letter addressed to him from Mr. Neefit. "Sir,--Are you going to make your ward act honourable to me and my daughter?--Yours, respectful, THOMAS NEEFIT." The reader will understand that this was prior to Polly's triumph over her father. Ralph uttered a deep curse, and made up his mind that he must either throw himself entirely among the Eardhams, or else start at once for the Rocky Mountains. He dined in Cavendish Square that day, and again took Gus down to dinner.

"I'm very glad to see you here," said Sir George, when they two were alone together after the ladies had left them. Sir George, who had been pressed upon home service because of the necessity of the occasion, was anxious to get off to his club.

"You are very kind, Sir George," said Ralph.

"We shall be delighted to see you at Brayboro', if you'll come for a week in September and look at the girls' horses. They say you're quite a pundit about horseflesh."

"Oh, I don't know," said Ralph.

"You'll like to go up to the girls now, I dare say, and I've got an engagement." Then Sir George rang the bell for a cab, and Ralph went up-stairs to the girls. Emily had taken herself away; Josephine was playing besique with her mother, and Gus was thus forced into conversation with the young man. "Besique is so stupid," said Gus.

"Horribly stupid," said Ralph.

"And what do you like, Mr. Newton?"

"I like you," said Ralph. But he did not propose on that evening. Lady Eardham thought he ought to have done so, and was angry with him. It was becoming almost a matter of necessity with her that young men should not take much time. Emily was twenty-seven, and Josephine was a most difficult child to manage,--not pretty, but yet giving herself airs and expecting everything. She had refused a clergyman with a very good private fortune, greatly to her mother's sorrow. And Gus had already been the source of much weary labour. Four eldest sons had been brought to her feet and been allowed to slip away; and all, as Lady Eardham said, because Gus would "joke" with other young men, while the one man should have received all her pleasantry. Emily was quite of opinion that young Newton should by no means have been allotted to Gus. Lady Eardham, who had played besique with an energy against which Josephine would have mutinied but that some promise was made as to Marshall and Snelgrove, could see from her little table that young Newton was neither abject nor triumphant in his manner. He had not received nor had he even asked when he got up to take his leave. Lady Eardham could have boxed his ears; but she smiled upon him ineffably, pressed his hand, and in the most natural way in the world alluded to some former allusion about riding and the park.

"I shan't ride to-morrow," said Gus, with her back turned to them.

"Do," said Ralph.

"No; I shan't."

"You see what she says, Lady Eardham," said Ralph.

"You promised you would before dinner, my dear," said Lady Eardham, "and you ought not to change your mind. If you'll be good-natured enough to come, two of them will go." Of course it was understood that he would come.

"Nothing on earth, mamma, shall ever induce me to play besique again," said Josephine, yawning.

"It's not worse for you than for me," said the old lady sharply.

"But it isn't fair," said Josephine, who was supposed to be the clever one of the family. "I may have to play my besique a quarter of a century hence."

"He's an insufferable puppy," said Emily, who had come into the room, and had been pretending to be reading.

"That's because he don't bark at your bidding, my dear," said Gus.

"It doesn't seem that he means to bark at yours," said the elder sister.

"If you go on like that, girls, I'll tell your papa, and we'll go to Brayboro' at once. It's too bad, and I won't bear it."

"What would you have me do?" said Gus, standing up for herself fiercely.

Gus did ride, and so did Josephine, and there was a servant with them of course. It had been Emily's turn,--there being two horses for the three girls; but Gus had declared that no good could come if Emily went;--and Emily's going had been stopped by parental authority. "You do as you're bid," said Sir George, "or you'll get the worst of it." Sir George suffered much from gout, and had obtained from the ill-temper which his pangs produced a mastery over his daughters which some fathers might have envied.

"You behaved badly to me last night, Mr. Newton," said Gus, on horseback. There was another young man riding with Josephine, so that the lovers were alone together.

"Behaved badly to you?"

"Yes, you did, and I felt it very much,--very much indeed."

"How did I behave badly?"

"If you do not know, I'm sure that I shall not tell you." Ralph did not know;--but he went home from his ride an unengaged man, and may perhaps have been thought to behave badly on that occasion also.

But Lady Eardham, though she was sometimes despondent and often cross, was gifted with perseverance. A picnic party up the river from Maidenhead to Cookham was got up for the 30th of May, and Ralph Newton of course was there. Just at that time the Neefit persecution was at its worst. Letters directed by various hands came to him daily, and in all of them he was asked when he meant to be on the square. He knew the meaning of that picnic as well as does the reader,--as well as did Lady Eardham; but it had come to that with him that he was willing to yield. It cannot exactly be said for him that out of all the feminine worth that he had seen, he himself had chosen Gus Eardham as being the most worthy,--or even that he had chosen her as being to him the most charming. But it was evident to him that he must get married, and why not to her as well as to another? She had style, plenty of style; and, as he told himself, style for a man in his position was more than anything else. It can hardly be said that he had made up his mind to offer to her before he started for Cookham,--though doubtless through all the remaining years of his life he would think that his mind had been so fixed,--but he had concluded, that if she were thrown at his head very hard, he might as well take her. "I don't think he ever does drink champagne," said Lady Eardham, talking it all over with Gus on the morning of the picnic.

At Cookham there is, or was, a punt,--perhaps there always will be one, kept there for such purposes;--and into this punt either Gus was tempted by Ralph, or Ralph by Gus. "My darling child, what are you doing?" shouted Lady Eardham from the bank.

"Mr. Newton says he can take me over," said Gus, standing up in the punt, shaking herself with a pretty tremor.

"Don't, Mr. Newton; pray don't!" cried Lady Eardham, with affected horror.

Lunch was over, or dinner, as it might be more properly called, and Ralph had taken a glass or two of champagne. He was a man whom no one had ever seen the "worse for wine;" but on this occasion that which might have made others drunk had made him bold. "I will not let you out, Gus, till you have promised me one thing," said Ralph.

"What is the one thing?"

"That you will go with me everywhere, always."

"You must let me out," said Gus.

"But will you promise?" Then Gus promised; and Lady Eardham, with true triumph in her voice, was able to tell her husband on the following morning that the cost of the picnic had not been thrown away.

On the next morning early Ralph was in the square. Neither when he went to bed at night, nor when he got up in the morning, did he regret what he had done. The marriage would be quite a proper marriage. Nobody could say that he had been mercenary, and he hated a mercenary feeling in marriages. Nobody could say that the match was beneath him, and all people were agreed that Augusta Eardham was a very fine girl. As to her style, there could be no doubt about it. There might be some little unpleasantness in communicating the fact to the Underwoods,--but that could be done by letter. After all, it would signify very little to him what Sir Thomas thought about him. Sir Thomas might think him feeble; but he himself knew very well that there had been no feebleness in it. His circumstances had been very peculiar, and he really believed that he had made the best of them. As Squire of Newton, he was doing quite the proper thing in marrying the daughter of a baronet out of the next county. With a light heart, a pleased face, and with very well got-up morning apparel, Ralph knocked the next morning at the door in Cavendish Square, and asked for Sir George Eardham. "I'll just run up-stairs for a second," said Ralph, when he was told that Sir George was in the small parlour.

He did run up-stairs, and in three minutes had been kissed by Lady Eardham and all her daughters. At this moment Gus was the "dearest child" and the "best love of a thing" with all of them. Even Emily remembered how pleasant it might be to have a room at Newton Priory, and then success always gives a new charm.

"Have you seen Sir George?" asked Lady Eardham.

"Not as yet;--they said he was there, but I had to come up and see her first, you know."

"Go down to him," said Lady Eardham, patting her prey on the back twice. "When you've daughters of your own, you'll expect to be consulted."

"She couldn't have done better, my dear fellow," said Sir George, with kind, genial cordiality. "She couldn't have done better, to my thinking, even with a peerage. I like you, and I like your family, and I like your property; and she's yours with all my heart. A better girl never lived."

"Thank you, Sir George."

"She has no money, you know."

"I don't care about money, Sir George."

"My dear boy, she's yours with all my heart; and I hope you'll make each other happy." _

Read next: Chapter 56. Ralph Newton Is Bowled Away

Read previous: Chapter 54. My Mary

Table of content of Ralph the Heir


GO TO TOP OF SCREEN

Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book