CHAPTER LXXVII

A SLOW COACH

Captain Doleful was so extremely well satisfied as well with the fare as the fair, that he did not feel at all inclined to press his suit to a termination, which he felt he could do at any moment he liked. He therefore just dropped in every day at luncheon time, and stayed till the shades of evening began to draw on, when he adjourned the High Court of Hymen until the next day, instead of letting the clock of courtship run down, and having to wind it up again. Thus he went on for above a week, much to the edification of the opposite neighbours, who, for “serious people,” were more curious than discreet.

Mrs. Brantinghame, on the other hand, waxed very impatient. She disliked the expense, and dreaded the information afforded by electric telegraphs, penny postage, Bernard Burkes, and busybodies generally. Partridge, too, was anything but tractable, and wanted to have everything as they had at Sir Archy’s, prigging included, which did not at all accord with Mrs. Brantinghame’s ideas of housekeeping. She was therefore all for pressing her daughter on, just as old J. pressed his hounds on after a fox. A council of war was held every evening after the captain’s departure, to hear as well how Miss had got on that day, as to arrange proceedings for the next. Miss always reported that she saw the offer was coming, but Mamma very wisely observed that “Christmas was coming too”: a season that conjured up all sorts of disagreeable associations,—“To bill delivered,” “Bill to deliver,” “Bill if not paid on or before,” &c., &c.—and then to think how ill she was providing for the future, by the expense she was then incurring. She wished the thing was settled, one way or other.

She gradually lowered the standard of entertainment, and instead of Dorking fowls and roast game, she jobbed a joint from Saveloy’s beef and sausage shop in Grudgington Street, which was weighed in and weighed out, to stop the unreasonable incursions of Partridge. The sherry, and Malmsey Madeira too, were replaced by Marsala, and some of Walker and Walton’s Tent, one-and-sixpence a bottle (one-and-three, if the bottle was returned), and the Allsopp supply was cut off altogether. Still the old Captain plodded on at his own pace; neither Mamma’s broad hints, nor Miss’s variously decorated charms nor wants of a brother, could get him beyond kissing her hand. This, as Mamma said, might mean anything. The servants began to see through the thing, and Partridge no longer took the trouble of appearing at the door, while Frederick gave himself up to fancy trousers and flash ties, instead of the decorous apparel in which he had at first appeared. Mamma soon waxed dreadfully nervous, that is to say, desperately out of temper. Every time she saw Partridge’s broad back looming along the Crescent, she pictured to herself the stories he would be propagating at the Dun Cow, the Load of Hay, the Fox and Hounds, or whatever house he frequented, and she fancied she saw them all going to the Captain bound up in a sheaf. Still she was too wise to attempt to bribe the job butler to secrecy, well knowing that the course of servitude is to keep the bribe and tell the secret.

She thought the Captain desperately slow. Mr. Cowmeadow hung off a long time with Catherine Christian Clementina Constance, and Captain Cushet was anything but as quick as he might have been with Winifred Rebecca Leonora Lucretia, but then they had other things to attend to, whereas Captain Doleful had really and truly nothing whatever to do or to think of, but to court and eat, and still he couldn’t be brought to book. It was very provoking. He was the slowest suitor she had ever seen, and she had had nearly a score through her hands, to say nothing of her own experience in that line. Why didn’t he propose?