by R S Surtees
“Delightful!” exclaimed he getting in front and looking the captain full in the face.— “A leetle farther back, Enoch. That’ll do. Now fasten the clasp. Charming match! Don’t think I ever saw a better.”
“Now down with the d’Orsays,” continued he, proceeding to lower his side of the bushy whiskers under the Captain’s chin; adding, as they fell by the sides of his cadaverous countenance, “beautiful indeed! the very man himself. — D’Orsay, sir, was the greatest swell, sir, the world ever saw, sir. Yes, sir, the greatest swell, sir, the world ever saw, sir; and you are amazingly like ’im, sir; yes, sir, amazingly like ’im, sir.”
“But I don’t look a bit like myself,” exclaimed the captain, tartly, eyeing his hirsute appearance in the glass.
“Paradoxical as it may appear, sir, my motto is ‘art before nature,’” replied Mr. Frizwig. “This scalp and whiskers possess an elegance and gracefulness of contour almost unattainable. Stop till you’re used to them a little,” added he, giving the horse-hair-looking beard an inward twitch. “There may be a leetle fulness round the chin, but that is easily remedied,” added Mr. Frizwig, taking the large scissors and cutting about half-an-inch off. “Now,” said he, “how do you like it?”
“Why, it’s more like the thing,” replied Captain Doleful, grinning through the great collar of horse-hair; “but I should say it is still much too full.”
“You must have it full, you know, or where would be the use of having a porous zephyr scalp and d’Orsay whiskers at all? I should say you look now as you ought to do, and as you did before your ‘air got so thin. Wouldn’t you, Enoch?” Enoch thought it a charming match and fit, too.
“The hair matches well enough, perhaps,” observed the captain; “but it is the whiskers I object to. They are too large — too bushy, and look altogether too much like what one sees on a barber’s block.”
“That’s the perfection of the thing! They look like art naturalised. Nobody would even suspect that they were not your own whiskers. They’re too large to be false. As you walk up street now, you’ll hear the ladies exclaim, ‘What beautiful whiskers!’ Just as they did to Captain Orlando Smith, when he stood for Taunton.”
The captain twitched and pulled the whiskers and beard, and scanned himself minutely.
“If you would allow me to cut off the remnants of your own whiskers,” observed Mr. Frizwig, “these new ones would sit much closer and have a more natural air;” saying which he gently lifted a whisker, and with his large scissors laid one cheek bare before the captain had time to say nay.
“Confound it, I wish you wouldn’t be quite so handy with your scissors,” observed the captain with a frown.
“Beg pardon,” bowed the obsequious barber, “but I think you’ll agree with me, that that’s a decided improvement — Isn’t it, Enoch?”
“Looks uncommon well now,” replied Enoch, grinning. “Does’nt the gen’leman think so himself?”
Doleful did not deign a reply. He sat twisting and turning and examining himself first in the mirror, then in the hand-glass, then in the hand-glass and mirror conjointly, trying if he could make himself believe he looked as he did when he came in. The whiskers certainly were tremendous — strong, coarse, black hair, with a uniform inward curl. Still we do not mean to say that we have not seen as big a pair, though certainly not on so unhealthy a soil as the captain’s cheeks.
“What’s to pay?” at length inquired he, adjusting his embroidered collars over his mohair stock, and putting on his coat: “you’ll not charge for cutting, of course?”
“Let me see,” replied Mr. Frizwig, rubbing his hands— “any ‘air-brushes, tooth-brushes, sponges, soap, wanted?”
“No,” said Captain Doleful, dryly.
“Just a ten-shilling pot of Scandinavian extract. — No curling fluid, tooth-powder, lavender water? Got some uncommonly genuine Eau de Cologne.”
“No! No!” interrupted the captain; “I only want a half-crown pot of extract, that, and a shilling discount off the sovereign, will be a guinea and sixpence — say a guinea.”
“Beg pardon, scalp, six-and-twenty.”
“How’s that? you said a sovereign.”
“From a sovereign.”
“I understood you to say that a sovereign was the price, or I wouldn’t have had one.”
“Beg pardon, sir, you quite misunderstood me. No doubt you could have one for a sovereign, but it would be a thing like a door-mat, without the invisible spring d’Orsay whiskers.”
“Invisible spring d’Orsay fiddle-sticks!” growled the captain. “I wanted nothing of the sort.”
“Beg ten thousand pardons, sir, — shall be happy to take it back, I’m sure.”
“And what am I to do without my own whisker that you cut off?” inquired the captain angrily.
“The Scandinavian extract ‘ill soon restore it!”
“Scandinavian devil! — Well, come, six-and-twenty,” repeated the captain, producing his old leather purse.
“Scalp, six-and-twenty; invisible spring-whiskers, ten — one pound sixteen.”
“Hold!” cried the captain, “I won’t be imposed upon!”
“Sir!” exclaimed Mr. Frizwig, in a tone of dignified astonishment, drawing himself up. “We are not accustomed to such language here.”
“I tell you, sir,” said the captain, “that you gave me to understand the scalp and whiskers were a pound.”
“I don’t know what your comprehension may be equal to,” replied Mr. Frizwig, rubbing his hands, “but I assure you, one pound sixteen shillings is my price, and one pound sixteen shillings I mean to have, or you may doff your head-dress as soon as you like. Enoch, mind the door!” giving his foreman a wink.
“Take it then!” screamed the captain, dashing the money on the counter; “and if ever I set foot in your — shop again, I hope I may be — .”
“Shut up shop, Enoch! — shut up shop!” exclaimed Mr. Frizwig to his apprentice. “It’s all over with us: this venerable ourang-outang says he won’t come back;” saying which master and man burst into a loud guffaw, in the midst of which Captain Doleful hurried away.
CHAPTER LXXII. MRS. JORROCKS FURIOUS.
MRS. 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 — seemed 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), played 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 up-stairs.
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 imperance 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 down-stairs 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 apologised 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 compts. 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 for 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 down-stairs 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 memo-randum-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, re
spectable 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 drawer’s, I find some mems, about some money you owes him.”
“Indeed!” said Bill, colouring up to the redness of his waistcoat.