CHAPTER LXX

BELINDA AT BAY

“I have had your old friend, Captin Doleful, here,” observed Mrs. Jorrocks to Belinda, as they sat at their early tea.

“Indeed!” replied Belinda.

“Lookin’ so well and so ’andsome; I really think you’d have been smitten with him.”

“Me, aunt!” exclaimed Belinda, with unfeigned astonishment.

“And vy not, miss?” inquired Mrs. Jorrocks.

“Why, in the first place, he’s quite an old man, and—”

“Old!” exclaimed Mrs. Jorrocks, “men are never old!”

“Well, but he’s anything but good-looking, and is such a horribly mean wretch; I—”

“Fiddle his meanness! no meaner than other folks. He’s werry rich—a thousand a year, paid quarterly.”

“So much the better for him,” observed Belinda.

“Now don’t be perwerse—you know what I means jest as well as I do myself,” observed Mrs. Jorrocks, looking irate.

“Indeed I don’t, aunt!” replied Belinda, turning frightened.

“Well, then, stoopid! I thinks he’s worth you settin’ your cap at.”

“Me, aunt!” exclaimed Belinda, blushing deeply; “you know I can’t—I’m engaged!”

“Fiddle, engaged! soon get off that,—nothin’s finished till it’s done.”

“Oh, aunt!” exclaimed Belinda, burying her face in her hands, “don’t—pray don’t talk to me in this way—I cannot bear it!”

“Foolish gal!” rejoined Mrs. Jorrocks, “don’t know what’s good for you. The captin’s worth fifty of your fly-away, break-neck fox-’unters,—nice, agreeable, quiet gentleman, wot’ll take his tea with you of an evenin’, instead of snorin’ and sleepin’ as your huncle does, or startin’ up, thinkin’ he’s getting run away with or kicked over a wall.”

“You are not in earnest, aunt?” replied Belinda, turning her beautiful blue eyes, with their silken lashes suffused with tears, upon her aunt as she spoke.

“Vy not?” inquired Mrs. Jorrocks.

“Oh, aunt! you cannot be in earnest—you, who have always encouraged Charles, and encouraged me to like him; and—”

“It was your huncle wot encouraged him!” exclaimed Mrs. Jorrocks, “not me!”

“And you, too, aunt,” replied Belinda, calmly, but firmly; “don’t you remember the night uncle and he were benighted, and I sat anxiously waiting their coming, trembling for their safety, how you consoled me by praising Charles, and talking of what a nice husband he would make me, and how pleasant it would be visiting us in Yorkshire, and—”

“No doubt,” replied Mrs. Jorrocks; “no doubt—and now that a better chance turns hup, I encourages you to think of it,—a gal should never be without an admirer; out it’s a reg’lar rule always to take the best—nothin’s done till it’s finished, as I said afore.”

“I want no better!” exclaimed Belinda; “Charles is my first—my only love, and I’ll never marry another!”

“Fool!” ejaculated Mrs. Jorrocks; “that’s the way all gals talk!—got your ’ead stuffed full of boardin’-school, novelish nonsense.”

Belinda was silent—the eloquent tears chased each other rapidly down her beautiful cheeks.

“Now, don’t be foolish!” said Mrs. Jorrocks, in a milder tone; “consider wot hobligations you are under to me and your huncle—brought you hup, and edikated you, and hintroduced you to people of the first extinction, and all the return I ax is, that you’ll oblege me by makin’ a helligible match. There isn’t a gal in ’Andley Cross but would jump at such a chance. Charles may be a werry respectable young man, but he’s wild and thoughtless; besides, we doesn’t know wot he has, and it’s werry imprudent, to say the least of it, for a gal to fall in love with a man till she knows what he has,—I didn’t do so, I knows.”

“He will have enough for me,” replied Belinda, “money alone will not constitute happiness.”

“Provokin’ gal!” exclaimed Mrs. Jorrocks; “you are just one of those silly, romancin’, love-in-a-cottage sort o’ gals that one sees in the plays;” and Mrs. Jorrocks vented an inward malediction on Mr. Bowker, and all patrons and frequenters of the drama.

“Oblege, me now, Belinda,” continued she, after a pause, “by thinkin’ of the captin.”

“Aunt, I couldn’t for the world! I know the gratitude I owe—and Heaven knows the gratitude I feel, for all you have done for me, but this can never be:—I should detest myself could I think myself capable of entertaining the idea.”

“There, again!” exclaimed Mrs. Jorrocks, reddening up; “stage-players again! Wish you would be a little rational! Tell me, now, in plain English, why can’t you entertain the idea?”

“Because you know, aunt,” replied Belinda, slowly and calmly, “that I accepted Charles with the full approbation of you and my uncle.”

“And wot of that?” inquired Mrs. Jorrocks.

“Simply that my word is pledged, and I am precluded from thinking of another.”

“No such thing!” rejoined Mrs. Jorrocks; “’appens every day,—sayin’ you love each other is nothin’ towards a match. I tells you, no prudent gal accepts a man till she knows wot he has. Look at Mrs. Wrigglesworth! She was engaged to Walter Leigh, and her acquaintance congratilated her, and made her bags, and said nothin’ could be nicer, when Wrigglesworth turned hup with just double Leigh’s fortin’, and she chopped over to him, and her friends congratilated her again, and said nothin’ could be nicer, and made her duplicate bags, slippers, scent-’olders, and I don’t know wot.”

“Sincere their congratulations must have been,” observed Belinda; “I’m sure I should not like to be talked of as people talk of her,—pointed out as the lady who cheated the government by not paying the auction duty on herself, and I don’t know what else.”

“Let them laugh as wins,” replied Mrs. Jorrocks; “she has a futman—and would only have had a Betsy with Leigh. But there’s no puttin’ old ’eads on young shoulders,” sighed Mrs. Jorrocks. “Take my word for it, howsomever,” continued she, “if you live, you’ll see these things in a werry different light;—if you kicks the ball away, you may never ’ave it at your foot again.”

“I don’t wish for such a ball as Captain Doleful, I’m sure,” replied Belinda, smiling.

“And tell me, Miss Pert, wot’s the matter with the captin?” inquired Mrs. Jorrocks, tartly.

“I’m sure I don’t know what is the matter with him, exactly,” replied Belinda; “but I should not think he was a man that any woman would ever take a fancy to.”

“Fiddle fancy!” exclaimed Mrs. Jorrocks; “it’s your fanciful marriages wot breed misery—foolish, moonstruck, stage-play sort of botherations, that breed bastiles, and I doesn’t know what;” for Mrs. Jorrocks had only got the smattering of that idea. “I tells you,” continued she, “that you’re a fool!”

Belinda was silent.

“I do wonders,” observed Mrs. Jorrocks, “that any gal can be so ungratefully hobstinate as persewere, in spite of the adwice and hadmonitions of her friends—what good can you get by it? If you doesn’t like partin’ with the books and things Stobbs gave you, I’ll tell him you prefers keepin’ of them, so you’ll lose nothin’ by the transaction.”

“Oh, aunt!” exclaimed Belinda, “don’t torture me thus—don’t make yourself appear little by insinuating that such an idea could enter your head.”

“And vy not?” inquired Mrs. Jorrocks. “It’s nattral that you should like keepin’ the things.”

“Indeed no, aunt, it isn’t. If I could bring myself to think that the connection on which I have set my heart was not to be, the greatest favour you could do me would be to remove from my sight every trace, every recollection, that could remind me of my loss.”

“Loss, indeed!” exclaimed Mrs. Jorrocks, sneeringly. “Pretty loss, forsooth! It’s wot I should call gainin’ a loss—gettin’ a nice, steady captin, with a large fortin’, to a young harum-scarum scamp of a boy, that nobody knows nothin’ about—nasty, ’oss-copin’, ditch-jumpin’ beggar!”

Belinda was silent.

“Well, you may be perwerse and hobstinate, too; but, take my word for it, you’ll get nothin’ by it. I’m missus here, and I’ll be hobeyed; and my horders are that you receive the captin at dinner to-morrow, and be’ave like a lady. Put on your Hindia muslin, or I’ll let the Chancellor know;” so saying Mrs. Jorrocks flounced out of the room.