Complete Works of R S Surtees

by R S Surtees

  But the train of ideas has carried us into the country, instead of letting us attend to the railway train at the elegant Roseberry Rocks’ Station. —

  Though the place may not be so favourable to the pursuits of the little hair-dresser on the back of our work, as shady groves,’ cooing doves, and splashing waterfalls; and the wheelings of the barrow porter may not be so musical as the notes of the nightingale; yet it is capable of a great deal of useful application and a skilfully managed tear at parting has brought suitors to book, whose modesty or whose fickleness have survived the rides and drives of the Rocks. It was at the end of the Fern Hill departure line that Captain Leopold Hobson whispered something in Lavinia Lawson’s ear that sent her flying away as happy as a lark, and it was in the ladies’ waiting’ room that the timid Peter Muffins slipped the little pink three-cornered note into Arabella Benson’s hand, that ultimately made her Mrs. Muffins. Here, too, Esau Jones is said to have offered to Miss Swithinbank, and Mr. Brown to Miss Green.

  On this our departing, day as Jasper Goldspink, stood victorious over the accumulated luggage of himself and ladies, Mrs. McDermott soothed the parting pang by assuring Mr. Admiration Jack that they (they, not she as Miss Rosa put it) would be glad to see him at Privett Grove if he ever came into their part of the country, and when after clue ringing of bells, taking of seats, banging of doors, and showing of tickets, the inexorable whistle at length sounded and the train began to move, Miss Rosa gave him one of those assuring smiles that completely prevented any idea of her ever being anybody else’s than his. And as the puffing, snorting engine whisked the train out of the station, Jasper lolling luxuriously inside a carriage and Jack looking wistfully after it, each felt a pang of pity for the other.

  And now gentle reader which hero will you take for choice?

  CHAPTER XXXIV.

  LONDON IN AUTUMN.

  WE NEED NOT say that Mr. Bunting did not stay long at Roseberry Rocks after our heroine had left. The place seemed quite changed after she was gone. True, there was the sea, and the shore, and the downs, and the cantering horses, and the cantering ladies, and the comet; but neither the comet, nor the cantering ladies, nor the downs, nor the sea, nor the shore, without “her” were sweet. The recollection of whose company he had last seen any of them in made them quite unpalatable to him. Then as he sauntered carelessly about, the anxious gossips stared suspiciously at him, and people exclaimed “What! are you still here?” as though they thought he ought to be somewhere else. At length, when he mustered courage to take a peep at the beloved house in Sea-View Place and saw the ponderous Mrs. Barkinson and three Miss Barkinsons sunning themselves in the balcony that had heretofore held his incomparable beauty, and a great red-armed cook bargaining for a cod-fish, his too sensitive heart sickened at the sight and determined him to leave altogether.

  A flit homewards has the advantage of a flit outwards, inasmuch as there is no picking and sorting and choosing, and everything is included in the order. It is “pack up my things” and away, instead of “look out my things, that I may see what to take.” So in a very short space of time after the determination was come to, Mr. Bunting’s voluminous wardrobe — his costly coats, his magnificent shirts, and various shoes, all the paraphernalia of a swell — were reposing layer upon layer and pile upon pile in very deep and convenient boxes; and having duly discharged the pecuniary obligations of the place, his profile was next seen nodding in a cab under a pyramid of luggage, which again set the gossips a-going to contradict their assertions that “It was all off between Miss McDermott and Mr. Bunting: he was gone to see about the settlements;” upon which hypothesis, and also upon the faith of what Mrs. Tartarman said she saw at the station (doubtless the assuring parting glance), sundry hats, gloves, and sovereigns changed hands, and the thing was considered as good as settled. Parties then turned their attention to the more budding and incipient flirtations — Miss Thorneycroft and Mr. Flushings, Miss Cheeseroy with Captain Rivulet, Tommy Dipnal with Mrs. Rule. And our Mend Mr. Bunting, having got his ticket and ensconced himself in a corner of the carriage, one good stroke of the Magnet engine shot him away from sea and shore, and shells and sentiments, hats, habits, and hoops — all the cares and contentions of Roseberry Rocks; and as people who have nothing whatever to do are always in a desperate hurry, the flying express landed him in London ere he had turned the second couplet of a stanza he was weaving to the beautiful lady. He was then ejected from his comfortable cushions into a hard-featured Hansom upon the vast desert of the empty metropolis. At a touch of the whip the high-bred screw started off as if it had not had a fare for a week. Save in a dense yellow fog, when the place is unbearable, London is perhaps never seen to such disadvantage as in the dead of the autumn; there is nothing stirring but stagnation; the very cabmen sleep on their boxes or pore over books, as if being called off the stand was quite out of the question. The streets are deserted, save by the busses and a few drowsy old horses, too palpably drawing the doctor. Late hospitable houses now show you nothing but their shutters; lethargic town-bound men yawn about St. James’s Street, crawling from one club to another, to compare the thermometers and see if each copy of the paper is the same. Those great warrens of society are put away, carpets rolled up, mirrors gauzed, fenders dissected, waiters reduced, papers few, and the chiefs of the staff away on their travels. A barrier of a notice at the bottom of the staircase, announces that the drawing-rooms and library are getting cleaned. The hall porters at the great political clubs have little to do, either in the way of entries or letters. How changed the Park! Frizzled leaves and Med grass. Two donkeys and a goat-carriage compose the activity. Chairs are indeed at a discount, and the letters now have time to repair the astonishing mounds of broken ones that accumulate during the season. A few tawdry careless nurses, with pallid children, lounge listlessly up the line where lately

  “knights and dames,

  And all that wealth and lofty lineage claims,

  Appeared.”

  London is always completely oat of town in the autumn. The lodging-letters put up their notices in a sort of matter-of-course way, and a staring stranger, with a slip of paper in his hand, attracts the cupidity of the whole street. The advertising hotel-keepers, those who, like Mr. Chouscy, make out their bills by the almanac, now announce that this is the real cheap time. And so it ought, for people should be paid for staying in town.

  Our Mend Mr. Bunting, as he paced the silent streets and squares, might have an occasional hail out of a gun or cigar shop door from some passing-through sportsman recruiting or replenishing his stock as he went; but few, very few people pleaded guilty to being town-stayed altogether. Those who did, laboured hard to persuade him that this was the most sociable time of the year, when people saw their Mends without fuss or ceremony, and met with but indifferent success in their exertions. Here, however, leaving him for the present, let us follow our fair Mend to Privett Grove.

  CHAPTER XXXV.

  MISS ROSA AT MAYFIELD.

  THE FIRST THING that strikes a returning traveller after a visit to great places, is the extreme smallness and littleness of everything he before thought great and good. It is the same sort of feeling that pervades a man on revisiting the scene of his school-boy days, when he finds lofty hills reduced to very low ones, large houses become extremely small, and broad rivers mere brooks. Thus it was with our fair Mends on their return from Roseberry Rocks. Everything seemed stunted and dwarfed. The well-laurelled drive from the Thom Tree Road up to the house seemed narrow and short; the house contracted, the trim lawn lessened, and the garden half its former size.

  But it is the small country towns that show to most disadvantage after visiting such places as London or Roseberry Rocks. The people seem so sleepy and slow — the shops so small and unstocked — the keepers so easy and stupid. They are generally eating, and don’t seem to care much whether they serve a customer or not. So it was with the star-fish-shaped town of Mayfield, stretching its finger-like streets out upon the
rich green meadows around. One such is a type of the whole.

  A square stone-towered church on one side of a market-place, a brick town-hall upon arches in the middle, with a perpetually “going” but never gone mugger behind, large stone or flaming red brick houses with green doors and bright brass knockers alternating with inns and smaller housed around, and the aforesaid finger-like streets stretching out in all directions, generally tapering towards turnpike gates in the distance. And yet these outlandish places generally contain an amazing amount of comfortable self-complacency — the residents thinking there are no such people as themselves, that they give the tone to the rest of the world. The men stand staring with their great gummy hands deep in their trouser-pockets, criticising each horse and passer-by, and regulating the affairs of the nation, while the ladies sweep about like meandering shower-baths, thinking they set the fashion and all others follow them. Then on a Thursday, the market-day, when the natives ferment into activity, what a conglomeration of consequence takes place, town and country stupidity amalgamate, and everything is settled off-hand — George Brown, the wise man of the place, saying a thing, and everybody else repeating it, for what “George” says must be right, and from his decision there is no appeal.

  It was on a fine autumnal day that our fair friend drove herself and Mamma in their neat basket-carriage drawn by the pretty white pony, Miss, with her glossy hair in braids, under the piquant Spanish hat and blue feather, into the good town of Mayfield, just at the high ’Change of market time, to the delight of the Hawbucks and the charm of the Chawbacons, who declared they had never seen “nothin’ so pretty afore.” She created quite a sensation. Mrs. Winfield, the eating-house-keeper, desisted from carving a goose; Mr. Sanders, the grocer, upset all the currants; Geordey Ribstone, the itinerant apple-man, trundled his laden barrow over Mrs. Cream, the butter-woman’s toes; while Mr. Shepherd, the grazier, who was handling a heifer, broke clean away, and came bounding over the cattle-pens to get a nearer look at the lady. All were in ecstasies about her, and her health was drunk at the farmers’ ordinary at the Fox and Hounds, the Hare and Hounds, and the Greyhound and Hare. Still Miss felt the insignificance of the triumph, and would gladly have exchanged it for a glorious hour at Roseberry Rocks — with the gentlemen all praising, and the ladies abusing her. And when having purchased a pennyworth of pins at one place, and a halfpennyworth of ribbon at another, she drove to Mrs. Muslins, the modiste at the corner of Hay Street, who has her millinery on one side of the shop, and books and muffins on the other, Rosa saw a painful difference between it and Madame Bergamotte’s beautiful bonnet-shop, to which she had paid so many satisfactory visits. And having looked at the “World of Fashion,” and bought the current Number of “Punch,” she resumed her charioteership, and trotted briskly up the south side of the Market Place to our banker’s private door. Mrs. Goldspink, of course, being at home, the pony was left in charge of the boy, while “Sairey,” the maid, announced file visitors; and the healthy looks and smart hat having been duly discussed, our travellers proceeded to pour out all their watering-place exploits and intelligence, Mamma drawing Mr. Bunting’s name to and fro in a triumphant sort of way, as if to let Mrs. Goldspink see they were not wholly dependent upon Jasper.

  That genius was playing skittles at the Bear and Bagged Staff skittle-ground, and this being market-day, and the time of year when farmers mortgage their stack-yards to raise the forthcoming rent, our Banker himself sported his oak or rather his wainscot, on which was nailed a card containing the following characteristic notice: —

  “Call on a Business man in Business Hours only on Business.

  Transact your Business and go about your Business, in order to give him time to finish his Business.

  “MATFIELD BANK,

  “Established 1774.”

  With which caution staring him in the face, it would require a bold man to intrude into our Banker’s den. So the ladies having talked till they were tired, at length took their departure, to the great delight of many half-holiday children all crowding round the pretty white pony with the beautiful blue ribbons at its head. And Mamma having resumed her seat, Miss gathered her smart wash-leather reins, and at a light touch of the parasol’s whip, the pony whisked its long silky tail and trotted off gaily with its head towards home. Mrs. Goldspink then resolved herself into a committee of taste, and decided that Miss had come home very airified, and might have Mr. Bunting, if she liked. Their Jasper was not a young man to be sneezed at. Indeed she didn’t know such another, and altogether Mrs. Goldspink was not very well pleased, and thought that the “girl” looked a great deal better with her hair in ringlets than as she now had it. Wished she mightn’t have got her head turned by her trip.

  CHAPTER XXXVI.

  SIVIN AND FOURS ELIVIN.

  ALTHOUGH OLD SIVIN and Four was one of that numerous tribe who see no beauty in anything but a good balance-sheet, yet the instinctive promptings of an ambitious wife, coupled with the fact of his odious rival Mr. Dibworth having set up a country house (Discount Park as it was called, its real name being Daisy Bank), made him rayther incline to follow suit — provided, of course, he could do so without any very grievous sacrifice of his beloved cash. It took him a long, long time, and many careful calculations, before he came to any such conclusion. “Sivin and four’s elivin,” he used to begin in the gloomy solitude of his sweating room, with the pertinent notice outside, “Sivin and four’s elivin, and sivin’s eighteen, and three’s twenty-one, don’t know that it would cost much more to live in the country than it does here, and eight is twenty-nine — might kill one’s own mutton and save twopence i’ pund that way, and nine is thirty-eight — would have to keep a chay, but then the nag would lead the coals, and sivin is forty-five — might turn him to account in other ways, and six is fifty-one — a cow would come in capital, and sivin is fifty-eight, and help to keep a pig, and eight is sixty-six — might have some poultry too, and sivin is sivinty-three, and eggs at summut like trade price.”

  The idea having once entered his mind, when it was not at all encumbered with company, he worked it up and down and round about with all the variation of figures until he got it firmly fixed, and then he began to talk incontinently to masons and joiners, and painters and plumbers, and people when they came on their usual excursions to the Bank, about land and labour, and sand and plaster, and prices generally. And here let us observe, that in addition to immunity from abuse, bankers enjoy another advantage, namely, that of not getting cheated, and of having everything they want at trade or nearly trade price; no one daring to impose upon them lest they should retaliate the next time the unlucky wight wanted a slip of stamped paper converted into sovereigns or nice crisp £5 notes. So each tradesman told our friend in a quiet confidential sort of way what their usual charges were, but what they could do such and such things for if he should happen to want them. And having sifted and sorted, and “sivin and tour’d” these matters well in his mind, and arrived at some sort of conclusion as to what he could build such a house as would serve his purpose for, he next began casting about in quest of an estate to place it upon. The first purchasing symptoms that developed themselves were when our banker, having got a glass, began button-holeing his man — generally some one whom he knew hadn’t the means — and asking if he was going to buy — buy Selwood Hill, Beechwood Grove, the Haw, or whatever estate was in the market. All glorious glass! that can unlock the inmost heart of such a man as this, and make him tell what the rack would hardly extort in cool sobriety. How his cold grey eye glistened as he brought his great protuberant stomach and nasty brandy-smelling breath to bear against some unfortunate wight while he poured forth the history of his wealth — his bonds, his mortgages, his money in the funds, his intended purchases of property. He seemed to have a design upon every place, large or small, rich or poor, near or distant. But when the sobering dawn of day returned, he took no steps to realise his grand prospects and enable him to show off as Peter Pounce showed off to poor Parso
n Adams, when the latter rode with Peter in his chariot, by exclaiming, “Ah! my heir will have reason to wish I had loved money more and land less;” for if reminded of his grand monopolising land scheme, Sivin and Pour would seem to have forgotten all about it, and would hurry away as if afraid of committing himself by a single indiscreet word.

  At length things took a different turn. The reader may remember the Sivin and Four prognostication of a déuce of an overdraw, by the Duke of Tergiversation, on account of the present, of the haunch of venison; and His Grace did not disappoint the prophet’s expectations, for cheque after cheque came dribbling in, till our friend was almost frantic. First there came one for a hundred and twenty-three pounds for Mathtub the brewer, next one for seventy-nine pounds for Charbon the coal merchant, then one for fifty on account for Mulcture the miller, and lastly one for two hundred and ninety for Spanker the horse-dealer of Dunchurch. “Sivin and four’s elivin, and ninety-nine’s a hundred and ten; how the deuce can any man carry on business in this way?” exclaimed he, as the latter was brought in to him; “and sivinty’s a ‘undred and eighty — might just as well throw open the door and give him the run of the till, and ninety’s two ‘underd and sivinty — wish most heartily Dibworth had him — would stop his gallop in no time — soon set his ricketty concern to rest.”