CHAPTER XXI
MR. JASPER GOLDSPINK
IT now required a little management on the part of our fair friends in Sea-View Place to keep matters straight as between the unseen suitors; but this is just the sort of diplomacy that ladies excel in, and in which they may be safely left to themselves. As already intimated, they had begun to air Mr. Bunting out the back way, an arrangement which, though unusual where parading is generally the order of the day—our
“With thee conversing”
friend by no means objected to; indeed rather approved of, and flattered himself it was done to give him every opportunity of cultivating the young lady’s acquaintance. A clever woman will keep half a dozen men in tow, each believing himself the favoured one, and pitying the rest.
A lady—a lady in the secret at least—would have seen that our pretty friend dimpled her fair cheeks more with smiles when Mr. Admiration Jack and she were comparatively unobserved than when they encountered the public gaze, when Miss would bridle up, take space, and seem unconcerned; but as every woman is a separate enigma, and Mr. Bunting’s opinion of himself none of the meanest, he set the reserve of one moment off against the affability of the next, and took it all to the good. Even when Mrs. McDermott talked of a young friend they had coming down to the races, and drew the name of Mr. Goldspink incidentally upon the tapis, asking our hero No. 2 if he knew him, Mr. Bunting replied, with upraised eyebrows and an indifferent sort of shake of the head—
No, he “had never heard of him,” and turned the conversation back to where it was before. Hear of him and see him too, however, he was now about to do, and as our readers would perhaps like to have a look at him too, we will now introduce him to the public generally.
Mr. Jasper Goldspink, or Mr. Goldspink junior, as he might with greater advantage be called, was just twenty-three, a much more manageable—catchable age at least—than Mr. Bunting, who, in boarding school parlance, was an old man of thirty with the experience of a man of forty. Though one would not expect much from the son of old “sivin-and-four,” yet with the inestimable advantage of youth, coupled with the polish our friend Mr. O’Dicey had given him, through the medium of that prince of decorators, Mr. Selvage, whose little back shop, hung round with the “old masters,” is so suggestive of liberality and sixty per cent. discount—young Goldspink was now a nice, plump, fair-haired, middle-sized youth, with if not an expressive, by no means an unpleasing countenance, and manners as good as those of the majority of mankind, when to be as unmannerly as possible seems to be the order of the day. Talk as we will about our superior refinement—it is a good deal coat and waistcoat refinement.
We are not half so courteous or encouraging to strangers as the old school, whose first object was to set every one at ease, and who did not wait for an introduction to proffer a smile and a bow. What gentleman of the last century would come swinging through a held-open door without making the slightest acknowledgment, as we see parties doing at the clubs every day? That, however, is the getting into the dancing and deportment line, our business is with the high court of Cupid, whither let us now repair.
Were it not that every day’s experience shows how people are often talked into matrimony, and that Rosa’s experience of life was very limited, one would have thought that some one whose appearance was more opposite to her own would have taken her young fancy; but then those contrasts are not to be procured in the country—another proof of the advantage of coming to a place like the Rocks, where all sorts and sizes of men are presented to the unsuited. So, if affairs matrimonial are regulated on the rule-of-contrary principle—dark men liking fair maids, and little ladies preferring tall men—our friend Mr. Admiration Bunting’s dark hair and superior stature would operate as a set-off against Mr. Goldspink’s better ascertained metallic properties.
There however the reader has them both, and now Mamma must be left to manœuvre them according as the barometer of riches seems to incline. At present the newcomer had rather the pull, as the racing people call it, in his favour, consequent upon the suspicion that had been thrown on Mr. Bunting’s possessions. On the morning of Mr. Goldspink’s arrival, our poetical friend having had his usual bye-way promenade up Lavender Lane, Green Court Terrace, and so by Prospect Place into the Larkfield Downs, was dismissed for the day, with an intimation that the ladies would not be at home in the evening, and took his departure with the same confident security with which Mr. Goldspink rang the door bell about an hour afterwards. John Thomas smiled a welcome greeting when he saw their country neighbour filling the portals of their sea-side mansion, and forthwith motioned him to enter without waiting for any inquiry as to whether anybody was at home or not. And Mr. Goldspink having deposited his hat and hunting-stick—last souvenir of the disagreeable chase—on the entrance hall table, as if he had come for a sit, followed the noiseless servant up stairs and was presently ushered into the sun-obscured back drawing-room, where the lovely Rosa was reclining, Punch in hand, in the glorious amplitude of a well-got-up blue and white tarlatan muslin. Never having seen her with her plainly dressed hair, our suitor did not at first recognise her in the gloom of the apartment, and made her a bow, thinking it was some young lady on a visit; and it was not until Rosa advanced with a friendly hand to greet him that he saw his mistake. He then gladly coalesced, and was presently in the full swing of country cordiality—more than it would have done Mr. Bunting good to see.
In due time, a liberal ten minutes or so, Mamma came sidling in, all smiles and graciousness, as if she never thought of admitting any rival near his fair; and after due inquiries respecting Papa and Mamma, and the Wedderburns, and the Holleydales, and the Simeys, and asking how things were looking in the country, Mrs. McDermott gradually contracted the field of speculation, and asked Jasper how he thought Rosa was looking, and how he liked her with her hair in bands. And then our hero related how he actually didn’t know her at first, and then having taken a refreshing stare, he began doubting whether he didn’t like her best in ringlets; he wasn’t sure, but he thought he did. Yes, he did; and then Mamma took the plain side, and so it became a question of “Plain or Ringlets?” for a time, till something else usurped its place.
When John Thomas descended by three steps at a time into the lower regions, after ushering our hero up stairs, there was such a scuttling, and laughing, and laying of heads together, and wondering “how it would be.” Fairplay or Stirling, or Barker and Marshall—any of the betting fraternity—might have made a book upon the event. It had been generally thought by the household that our fair friend had cried off with the old love before she began with the new. Now things assumed a different aspect. Which would it be? was the question. There was evidently competition. Mrs. Meggison, the cook, still thought it would be Spink. “She didn’t know why, but she thought it would be Spink—a neighbour’s bairn you see.” Miss Perker, Rosa’s maid, who had been most judiciously complimented by Mr. Bunting with a very pretty pink satin scarf, inclined towards him. “She was sure, if she had her choice, she knew which she would take. Spink hadn’t half the blandishment of Bunting.” John Thomas was almost neutral—didn’t know which to think—and Jane Towel, the next door neighbour’s housemaid, who had stepped in to take a surreptitious tea, having only seen Mr. Bunting, could not give an opinion. So the down stairs’ debate was adjourned.
Meanwhile our friend Jasper had his family dinner, and his family walk (a retired one), and his family tea, and altogether felt like one of the family. At length he took his departure, after making his racing arrangements with them for the morrow. And Mamma and Miss then talked the two gallants over, Mamma thinking it would be well for Rosa to keep back a little,—at all events not to show any decided preference when they were together—an event that there seemed little probability of averting. If Mr. Bunting had the fine castle and all the money Mrs. Trattles talked about, well and good; if not, Mr. Goldspink would be extremely well off, and there was no doubt the Duke of Tergiversation and the old gentleman would get agreed sooner or later for the estate our banker wanted to buy, and so enable him to build a house in the country—so that either way, Miss would be very comfortable—with which agreeable conviction Mamma and Miss retired to rest.
