CHAPTER LXXII

MRS. JORROCKS FURIOUS

RS. JORROCKS received the captain as a lady would her intended nephew. She was somewhat struck with the change in his appearance, but said nothing; and Belinda, not having seen him for some time, and not understanding the management of whiskers, thought nothing of it.

Dinner being announced, Mrs. Jorrocks motioned the Captain to take Belinda, while she complacently followed in the rear, admiring Belinda’s beautifully rounded form, set off by the simple drapery of Indian muslin, and the captain’s gaunt figure—the handsomest couple she had ever seen—seem made for each other—the usual “common form,” in fact, as Bill Bowker would say.

They had mutton-broth and mackerel for dinner, roast beef, boiled chickens, and tongue; and the captain, having only had a second-class coffee-room breakfast (bread with one egg), plied an uncommonly good knife and fork—rather better, perhaps, than might have been expected, considering the delicacy of his situation. Belinda trifled with her dinner, for the sake of drowning the comparisons that every moment arose between her death’s-head-looking neighbour and he who so long had sat at her side.

Immediately after dinner, at least immediately after her second bumper of port, Mrs. Jorrocks had arranged to be called out by Betsy; and answering the summons, she desired Belinda to entertain the captain until her return.

Our hero now began to take fright, and wrinkling his face like a man with a very tight shoe, he attempted to force a conversation about indifferent things: “Did she like Handley Cross or London best? Great Coram Street was certainly a very charming situation, airy and clean. But nothing could be nicer than Diana Lodge. Supposed she knew the Barningtons were not going to return—had gone to live at Boulogne, where they were quite the head people of the place. Hoped the hounds would not be given up at Handley Cross, and had she heard of Mr. Stobbs lately?”

This last was too much for poor Belinda. Her utterance became choked. She rose from her seat, and hurried out of the room.

“Is that you, Belinda?” inquired Mrs. Jorrocks, in a suppressed tone of anger, hearing a light footstep pass the drawing-room door and proceed upstairs.

Without waiting for an answer, our hostess hurried out to see, and caught a glimpse of Belinda’s petticoats whisking round the landing-place.

“Didn’t I tell you to sit with the capt’in till I came down?” inquired Mrs. Jorrocks, in a voice stifled with rage, “and here, you minx, you have the unmannerly imperence to leave him all alone—Vot do you mean?” screamed she, closing the door.

“Aunt,” replied Belinda firmly, “you can’t frighten me. Where no hope is left, is left no fear, and I tell you most decidedly that sooner than marry—oh! sooner than think of, that horrid man, I’ll throw myself out of the window!”

“Fool!” ejaculated Mrs. Jorrocks, hurrying downstairs to the captain.

“And ’ow do you get on?” inquired she, entering the parlour with a smile on her countenance.

“Oh, pretty well, I think,” replied the captain, who had taken advantage of Belinda’s absence to fall foul upon a preserved orange, with which he had his mouth plentifully crammed. “She’s shy, you know, but I make no doubt she’ll soon come to.”

“All gals are shy at first,” replied Mrs. Jorrocks; “indeed, they wouldn’t be fit for wives if they weren’t. Bless us! I remember how frightened I was the first hoffer I got. You must be gentle with her, poor thing!—she’s never been used to no ’arshness, continued Mrs. Jorrocks, as the captain scraped up the syrup with a spoon.

“That I will,” said he, licking his lips; “she shall have everything she wants—sable tippets, chinchilla muff—phaeton—footman—”

Tea followed, and Mrs. Jorrocks having apologized for the absence of Belinda on the usual plea of headache, and the captain and she having played at cross purposes about the relative fortunes until each was tired, he at length took his departure, promising a speedy return.

Mrs. Jorrocks then applied herself seriously to the consideration of Belinda’s case. She was sadly bothered how to manage her.

The captain evidently was to be had, but how to get rid of that “’orrid Yorkshireman” was more than Mrs. Jorrocks could devise.

She had certainly encouraged Belinda to like him, and there, perhaps, she was to blame (without knowing what he had), but then Mr. Jorrocks was the great promoter of the thing, and she had only now acquired the power of putting a veto upon it. That power she was determined to use.

Mrs. Jorrocks was a woman without personal friends; all her acquaintance being the acquaintance of her husband, and partaking more or less of his honest integrity. Long and anxiously did she ruminate who she could call to her counsels, and who would be most likely to aid her. Mrs. Barker would blab; Mrs. Brown would rather hurt her than aid her; if she let Mrs. Flower into the secret, she would try to get Charles for one of her own “ugly gals”; and altogether Mrs. Jorrocks was very much puzzled.

The only person to whom she thought she could with safety apply was Mr. Bowker, and to him she addressed the following note:—

“Mrs. Jorrocks’s comp^ts. Mr. Bowker, and I will thank you to come and see me as soon as you can.

“Great Coram Street.”

“Curse your impudence! what do you mean by knocking that way, you little brazen beggar!” exclaimed Mr. Bowker, opening the door of old Twister’s chambers to a long and loud rat-tat-tat-tat-tan from our friend, Mr. Benjamin Brady, whom Mrs. Jorrocks had reinstated in his pagehood.

Mr. Bowker was deeply engaged, looking out “common forms” for a settlement of parties “in a desperate hurry,” and Mr. Brady’s summons startled both him and old Twister.

“What an audacious little rascal you are!” continued Bill; “you knock, I declare, just as if you were a Queen’s counsel.”

“And so I am a Queen’s counsel,” replied Benjamin,—“counsel to the old gal in Great Coram Street; and here, I’ve brought you a brief,” presenting Bill with the note.

“Curse the old fool! what can she want with me?” muttered Bill, as he read it. “Mischief, I’ll be bound,—ungrammatical old jade! ‘Compliments Mr. Bowker’—Mr. Bowker wants none of her compliments!”

“Make my compliments to your mistress,” said Bill, with great dignity, “and say I’ll be with her at dinner-time—that’s to say, one o’clock or a little after; and see, the next time you come, that you knock a little quieter, or I’ll knock your head off your shoulders!”

“Vill you?” rejoined Benjamin; “you’ll find yourself in the wrong box, if you do,” said he, spitting upon Bowker, and running downstairs as hard as ever he could go.

“Nasty little beast!” exclaimed Bowker, returning from the chase, and wiping his tights as he ascended the stairs; “that boy’ll be hung as sure as a gun!” with which comfortable assurance Bill returned to his office, and busied himself with his common forms and in thinking what Mrs. Jorrocks could want.

When one o’clock came, instead of repairing to “The Feathers,” or to any of his familiar dining-houses, Mr. Bowker wended his way to Great Coram Street. Many were his conjectures as to the cause of his summons, his ideas partaking of the character of the streets through which he passed—gloomy when in narrow ones, and brightening as he entered upon the wider expanse and purer atmosphere of the Foundling Hospital and Brunswick Square. At length he stood at Mrs. Jorrocks’s door—that door at which he had so often stood in sadness and in joy, but which he had never re-passed uncomforted.

Mrs. Jorrocks was alone in the front drawing-room. The chintz covers were on the chairs and screens, and a blue cloth covered the round table at which she sat, with a pile of bills, letters, papers, and memorandum books before her.

“Good mornin’, Mr. Bowker,” said she in a melancholy tone, motioning our friend to a vacant chair on the opposite side of the table.

Bowker pulled a long face, and unbuttoning his leopard-like Taglioni, sidled a respectful portion of his person on to the chair, and, bending forward, rested his right hand on his gold-headed cane.

“Sad business, this, Mr. Bowker,” observed Mrs. Jorrocks, with a sigh.

“Very sad, indeed,” replied Bill.

“You never suspected nothin’ of the sort, did you, Mr. Bowker?”

“Oh, never, indeed!”

“Werry shockin’,” continued Mrs. Jorrocks; “don’t know what’s to become on us.”

“I should hope there’s no fear of your being well provided for,” observed Bill.

“Oh, it arn’t myself that I cares about, Mr. Bowker,” replied Mrs. Jorrocks; “but what’s to become of that poor dear child—she who has lived with us so long, that I looks upon her in the light of a darter?”

“Oh, I should hope there will be no difficulty about her,” replied Mr. Bowker.

“They won’t allow nothin’ for her keep,” continued Mrs. Jorrocks, wiping her eye.

“Indeed!” replied Mr. Bowker.

“They say the Chancellor’s to manage matters, both here and in the Lane, and I shall only have as much as will keep myself genteel.”

“Indeed!” replied Mr. Bowker; adding, “But what is Mr. Stobbs about? Why doesn’t he marry her?”

“Don’t mention his ’orrid name!” screamed Mrs. Jorrocks. “I werrily believes he’s been the cause of all the mischief.”

“Indeed!” repeated Mr. Bowker, wondering what had happened.

“Idle feller!” exclaimed Mrs. Jorrocks.

“He certainly was not a worker when he was with us,” observed Mr. Bowker; “but he’ll have a nice fortune, won’t he?”

“Oh, I knows nothin’ about fortin’,” replied Mrs. Jorrocks; “money alone won’t make ’appiness.”

“True,” observed Mr. Bowker, thinking it went a long way.

“I should like to see her marry some nice, quiet, respectable person, wot would be kind to her when her poor huncle and I are gone,” sobbed Mrs. Jorrocks, covering her face with a dirty linen handkerchief.

Mr. Bowker was beat for an answer; he couldn’t see his way.

“Such a man, now, as Capt’in Doleful,” resumed Mrs. Jorrocks, finding Mr. Bowker remained silent: “any religious, quiet, charitable person, rather than that hare-brained Yorkshireman. Fox-’unters are all queer,” added she, putting her finger to her forehead; “get shook out ’unting.”

“Captain Doleful’s a very nice man, I suppose,” observed Mr. Bowker, looking at his Hessian boots.

“Oh, he’s a charmin’ man,” responded Mrs. Jorrocks; “you don’t know what a comfort he was to me at the Spa.”

“Indeed!” observed Mr. Bowker, “very genteel, too, isn’t he?”

“He’s quite the go at ’Andley Cross,” replied Mrs. Jorrocks.

“Then he’d be the go anywhere, I should think,” observed Mr. Bowker, tucking the ends of his blue satin neckcloth into his red tartan waistcoat, and contemplating his drab stocking-net pantaloons and Hessian boots.

“Mr. Bowker,” said Mrs. Jorrocks, after a long pause, during which she shuffled among some papers, and applied a large blue smelling-bottle to her nose,—“Mr. Bowker,” repeated she, “in lookin’ through Jun’s drawers I find some mems, about some money you owes him.”

“Indeed!” said Bill, colouring up to the redness of his waistcoat.

“A hundred pounds and interest,” continued Mrs Jorrocks, eyeing him intently.

“One year’s interest on fifty, and half a year’s on the same sum; I have it all down in my cash-book in Eagle Street. I’ll give you a cheque for it now,” continued Bill, diving into his back pocket in search of his cheque-book—a search that he might have continued some time, had not Mrs. Jorrocks relieved him by observing that she didn’t want the money, she only wished to know that all was right.

“Quite right!” repeated Bill, in his usual off-hand way; “interest on fifty, for a year, two pund ten; on fifty, for half a year, one pund five—three pund fifteen, and principal, a hundred—a hundred and three pund fifteen—you can have it any day for sending for. We always have as much in the till as will answer that.”

“Mr. J. ’ill be a great loss to society,” observed Bowker, in a melancholy tone, anxious to turn the conversation.

“Poor man!” responded Mrs. Jorrocks, with a sigh.

“Don’t know who we shall get for a chairman of our Free-and-easy, or president of our incorporated society of Good Fellows; the recordership of the Wide-awake Club will be vacant, too. Do you think Captain Doleful would take office?” inquired Mr. Bowker.

“Not of them sort of things, I should think,” replied Mrs. Jorrocks, with a toss of the head; “the capt’in’s more a tea-and-Terpsichore sort of man—werry genteel.”

“True,” observed Mr. Bowker; “but just for the sake of popularity, I thought perhaps he might lend us a hand. The recordership’s a high office.”

“He cares nothin’ for poppilarity now,” replied Mrs. Jorrocks; “wot should a man with a thousand pounds a year care for poppilarity?”

“True,” assented Mr. Bowker, wishing he had half of it. “Why shouldn’t he make a good match for Miss Belinda?” inquired Bowker, willing to help Mrs. Jorrocks to her point.

“That’s just what I’ve been a plannin’ of,” replied Mrs. Jorrocks, with a knowing leer,—“that’s just what I’ve been a plannin’ of. Now,” continued she, after a pause, during which she scrutinized Mr. Bowker and bagged her dirty pocket-handkerchief, “it’s no use you and I ’umbuggin’ each other.”

Bill bowed assent.

“Well, then, I may as well tell you at startin’ that I knows all about the money and the shop—you can no more pay me than you can fly!”

Bill coloured brightly.

“But if you can’t pay me in cash, you can pay me in kind,” continued Mrs. Jorrocks, anxious to relieve her visitor’s uneasiness. “You think Captain Doleful will do for Belinda?”

“Undoubtedly, if he has what you say, and will keep her a gig.” (The possession of a gig was the summit of Bill’s worldly ambition.)

“A fe-a-ton!” replied Mrs. Jorrocks, with a look of exultation.

“He must be had!” observed Bill, with a wink and a nod.

“So say I,” replied Mrs. Jorrocks; “the thing is how to get him.”

“There can’t be any difficulty. I should think,” observed Bill. “Beautiful blue-eyed girl—nice foot and ankle—swelling figure—just leave them together a bit, he’ll soon come to, I warrant.”

“Oh, he’s all right,” said Mrs. Jorrocks. “It’s Belinda that bothers me.”

“She’ll surely take your advice,” observed Bill, in a tone of confidence—“at least, if she won’t, you can make her.”

“But there’s that confounded Yorkshire scamp in the way!” said Mrs. Jorrocks; “and she vows nothing shall make her marry another so long as he remains faithful.”

“Silly girl!” exclaimed Bowker; “that’s the way with them all—just as if there weren’t as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it. She should be whipped for throwing away such a chance. Far better to ride about town in a fe-a-ton than pad the hoof in the country,” observed Bill, looking at the slanting heels of his Hessians.

“Far!” exclaimed Mrs. Jorrocks.

“Girls are queer cattle,” observed Bowker, after a pause. “Lucky when they have older heads than their own to keep them right.”

“’Deed is it!” said Mrs. Jorrocks; adding, with a shake of her head, “Belinda’s werry obstinate.”

“Pity!” said Mr. Bowker, who was a great admirer of beauty. “I always thought she was very amiable.”

“Fiddle hamiable!” exclaimed Mrs. Jorrocks, angrily. “Hugly girls are hamiable.”

“Well, but I thought she’d have done what you liked,” said Mr. Bowker. “I’m sure she ought, after all your kindness.”

“Well; but it’s not never of no use speckilatin’ on what she ought to do,” rejoined Mrs. Jorrocks, anxious to make her point, “I tells you she won’t, and that’s poz!”

“Then we must see if we can’t make her,” said Bill, somewhat reluctantly; for, rogue as he was, he had still a tinge of kindness left in his composition.

“And you’ll help me?” said Mrs. Jorrocks, inquiringly.

Bill bowed again.

“Well, now, I’ll tell you wot,” said Mrs. Jorrocks, turning Bill’s I. O. U.’s over in a careless sort of way, “if you can manage to choke Stobbs off, and get the capt’in on, I’ll put these writin’s in the fire.”

“I’ll do my best, I’m sure,” said Bill, delighted at the prospect of a clearance.

“It must be managed gingerly,” observed Mrs. Jorrocks.

replied Mr. Bowker, flourishing his right hand as he spoke.

“You’ll manage it, I think,” said Mrs. Jorrocks, cheerfully.

“If she’s of womankind,” replied Bill.

“Get Stobbs off, and there will be little difficulty in getting the capt’in on,” said Mrs. Jorrocks; “only you know,” added she, “a woman never gives hup a man short o’ the church door.”

“No,” mused Bill—“no, but I think I can choke her off—make her believe he’s married already, how would that do?”

“Capital,” exclaimed Mrs. Jorrocks, clapping her hands, “nothin’ could be better. That would settle the business at once,” added she, “for a man that’s married is as good as dead to any other woman.”

“But my hour is almost come!” observed Bill, starting up, as he drew a richly chased pinchbeck watch from his waistcoat-pocket, and saw it wanted but ten minutes to two, at which time he had “to render up himself” to old Twister and present him with a ship-biscuit for luncheon. He bid Mrs. Jorrocks a hasty adieu, and half happy, half wretched, retraced his steps to Lincoln’s Inn.

“Needs must when the devil drives!” said Bill, as he hurried along; “but I’d rather do anything than injure that poor blue-eyed beauty. Nice little thing, with her pretty taper fingers, that used to shake hands with me so kindly;” and the more Bill thought of his task, the less he liked it. Still he saw no way of helping himself, for well he knew that Mrs. Jorrocks was merciless, and having got him in her power, she would grind him to the ground.

He wanted no dinner, for his appetite had fled; added to which, old Twister was in the sulks, and did nothing but abuse him for bringing the wrong common forms.

Difficult was Mr. Bowker’s task. He paced round his little cage of an office like a wild beast on the fret. No settled plan of proceeding occurred to his inventive genius. We question if he could have succeeded single-handed; but wisely judging, that where women are concerned women would be the best advisers, he enlisted Mrs. Bowker’s cunning in the cause, by the lure of a long wished-for ring.

A third person was afterwards added in Miss Slummers, or rather Miss Howard, of Sadler’s Wells Theatre, with whom it ultimately was arranged a sham register-office marriage should be concocted, the certificate of which should be handed to Mrs. Jorrocks, who was so delighted with the scheme and with Bill’s sagacity that she presented him with a five-pound note for his trouble. It was just what Bill wanted to enable him to purchase a beautifully carved Prince Le Boo nigger he had seen down in Shadwell, which he thought if he only could get for his shop door it would be the making of him. He, therefore, immediately slipped on his old broken-down bargain-making clothes, and partly by walking, and partly by bussing, arrived at the “marine store” where the object of his errrand stood. Prince Le Boo was a magnificent nigger, six feet high, stout, and well formed. He had a splendid diadem, full of parti-coloured feathers, and wore the dress of a savage chief. He had been the property of some East End Bowker, who, in classical language, had “gone to the wall”; and Bill, in his nautical perambulations, had often admired the stately ease with which the Prince faced the street, offering the contents of his snuff-box to the world. When the owner failed, Bill traced the Prince to his purchaser, and often, on a Saturday afternoon, he would stroll down to see if he was safe, and envy the possession of him. The reader may judge with what joy Bowker placed his prize in a cab, and drove up to Eagle Street, as proud as though he were riding alongside the Prince of Wales. The new purchase threw the blue-jacketed, red-stripe-trousered predecessor into the background, and Bill spent £10 in advertising his establishment as Bowker’s “Splendid Prince Le Boo Snuff and Tobacco Warehouse, and Cigar Divan, &c. The Trade supplied.”

A sparkling paste necklace propitiated Mrs. Bowker for the apparent extravagance, and Bill replaced Stobbs’ wheat earrings with a coral necklace, and added a false diamond bandeau as an equivalent for Susan’s share in the venture and prize-money.

That no man is a match for a woman till he’s married, is an axiom that most Benedicts will subscribe to, and Mrs. Jorrocks plied the “marriage lines” so skilfully and successfully that there was little occasion to follow up Belinda’s ultimatum with the following production of her own:—

“Mrs. Jorrocks’ Comp^ts Mr. Stobbs, and, sir, I am shocked and ’orrified beyond all mensuration at his onprincipled conduct to my niece, which must be extremely painful both to Mrs. Jorrocks’s pride and delicacy; and, sir, Mrs. Jorrocks begs to say most implicitly, that upon no consideration at all can she admit Mr. Stobbs into my house in Great Coram Street again any more.

“Mrs. Jorrocks considers it an interposition of Providence that has disclosed Mr. Stobbs’ wickedness, and saved Mrs. Jorrocks’ niece from Mr. Stobbs’ rascality. Mrs. Jorrocks considers Mr. Stobbs far worse than Mr. Carden.

“P.S.—The nat and trousers you left with her are left at Mr. Bowker’s; and the books and things Mr. Stobbs gave Belinda, Belinda will prefer keeping if you have no objection.”