by R S Surtees
Land-owners are very difficult to deal with; they look as closely at one pound as a merchant does at a hundred — Solomon Skinflint excepted.
As we have undertaken to pilot Youth in this all-dangerous, but exciting and popular pursuit, we perhaps had best begin with the coverts, or likeliest places for finding game; then, Mrs Glasslike, let him catch, or try to catch, his quarry; for like Grantley Berkeley’s stag-hoppling match it’s easier attempted than done. First, of the coverts: — these, like the fox-hunter’s, may be divided into natural and artificial: the natural coverts are the home-houses where a man is known and valued (for what he has, of course); the artificial ones are your Brightons, Learning-tons, Cheltenhams, Hastings — the whole range of bathing places and spas. The home-coverts are certainly the safest, but yet the most difficult to draw.
If we were carrying the war into one of these almost impracticable fortresses we hardly know whether we would prefer having both father and mother on guard, or only a father or only a mother. Let us see: a father and mother place delightful reality a good way in the distance; few old gentlemen put off their shoes before they are quite done with them themselves.
And here let us caution nice young men against the absurd stories of disinterested papas giving up three-fourths of their income for the purpose of making an amiable and beloved daughter happy by marrying her to one of our nice, penniless pupils.
There is no such reality in life! Indeed it looks almost absurd to refute such stories were it not that they are in constant circulation, and doubtless gain credence from some — that “some” most likely being some of our nice young men whose wish, being father to the thought, bids them live in hopes of similar luck. Reader, if you are one of this class, we will tell you a secret — you will never see one of these matches come off!
Hark back to the old ‘uns: whether it is better to have to deal with a father and a mother, or only a father or only a mother?’Pon honour! it is a difficult point; we really think we would rather encounter a girl with a father alone. But then — od rot it! — he may marry again and destroy all our calculations.
Let us try the mother by herself. She is safe from that sin at all events; if she does marry again she can’t do us much harm; but, confound them! they’ve no sense of decency, and will throw over a nice young man at the last moment, just as soon as at the first. In these days of universal promotion and prize-giving we really think it would be worth offering a premium for the most impudent style of examining a nice young man as to his means — male or female, which could do it most coolly. Talk of sweating a jockey! or a sovereign! We know of no process equal to that of sweating a young man! What a shock Love’s young dream sustains the first good £ s d. overhauling it gets! How the blissful bowers, the perfumed walks consecrated by love’s impassioned lips — the long vista of cloudless, sunbright days vanish before old Plutus’ touch — the fatal inquiry.
“What have you got, and what will you do?” dispels them all.
It is an awful question! It is like the bill after a white-bait dinner. We reckon the author of “Cecil” the cleverest man we know at gold-beating an idea, and we recommend a course of six volumes, or nine, with that sentence for a thesis.
Fancy a penniless nice young man tête-à-têteing with an old drab-gaitered papa, opening with that ominous inquiry! We know only one situation to compare with it — sitting down in friend Nasmyth’s easy chair to have one’s eye-tooth taken out. Upon the whole we think we would rather undergo an overhauling by an old papa, were it not for the objection already mentioned — the possibility of a second marriage. Against that contingency no calculations can be made; for nothing but a wooden surtout makes you safe. Putting this consideration aside, however, we adhere to the opinion already expressed — that we would rather be overhauled by a loyal father than by a mother. In the first place fathers generally do it in a more business-like way; and, not having the feminine passion for parading a triumph, can afford to take you up short at the first check, and so save you and themselves an infinity of trouble.
The old women, lord love them! have no feeling of that sort. Their first object is to secure admiration for their daughters, conscious that admiration is the best way of producing competition. This is a feeling we all understand; it is the same with bipeds as quadrupeds. A dealer always has “another gen’leman waiting to take the ‘oss if you don’t.” Old sportsmen, we read, used to enter their foxhounds at hares, martin-cats, badgers — all sorts of vermin — and then steady them off by dint of rating and whipcord to the animal they were destined to hunt. Some old women pursue a similar course with their daughters, and run them at anything that comes in the way — foot-soldiers, curates, sucking lawyers — detrimentals of all sorts — just for the gratification of seeing them admired, and in hopes of starting better game in the chase — or as farmers run hares with their trencher-fed hounds in hopes of starting a fox. Women like to make a show of a man, to parade him, as they call it; to assist their daughters in stringing offers together, just as idle boys string birds’ eggs, with the exception that a lady’s “biggest egg” is generally the last on the string: the egg, in fact.
II.
MEN AND WOMEN argue differently on the subject of offers. We have heard many nice young men exclaim against the injury done to girls by indiscriminate flirtations; but as offers cannot well be had without flirtations of some sort, and as offers are considered the criterion of merit — the victim’s brush, in fact — we may infer that, like charitable donations, the smallest offer is thankfully received. Nay, we may go further, and say that among ladies, letting a man escape without bringing him to book is very like losing a fox after digging him out. Their principle is — either to bag him or account for him.
Now from this species of coquetry old papas are free; they are generally of the same opinion as the nice young man, and think a girl none the better for handling. Papa’s object is to get an eligible offer with as little trouble as possible. They must therefore be on the look-out, and where such an anomaly in the country turns up as an unappropriated follower, the sooner they bring him to book with that question, the sooner they get rid of his troublesome company, or close the bargain. We don’t know a greater bore than to have a fellow constantly hanging about one’s house “spooning,” as the expression is.
Mammas, however, think otherwise, and go on quite a different tack. To them, if they have nothing better in view, all nice young men are equally dear. They don’t want money! Bless you, they’d rather have a man without! To be sure there is generally a little mental reservation contained in a muttered something about competence, with, not infrequently, a playful, point-blank enquiry, “What have you got?” But in no one instance, within the range of our experience, do we know of an old lady closing a negotiation on discovering a deficiency of what tradespeople call “assets.” They know better what to do with a man; they “hold him on,” as a huntsman does his hounds on a weak scent; there is none of the “you won’t do” style about them; for, let the youth have nothing but his many virtues to settle, they always profess, as far as they are concerned, to be perfectly satisfied. But in these cases the daughters are generally too young to marry just yet. Let the nice young man wait a little till Jemima knows her own mind — that is, till Jemima starts something better or runs down somebody in hand; when they turn our friend over on his back as coolly as a fisherman turns a trout.
Some Englishmen, especially those with high-stool, mercantile minds (which by the way are usually the best specs.) are oftentimes uncommonly slow at coming to book, and monstrous anxious times the mothers have with them. These men, when the Great Western shares are rising, or Spanish Bonds quotable, begin to think of making love, and the quicksilver of their ardour keeps rising and falling according to the vagaries of their stock. They are dry, hard, matter-of-fact sort of men — men that would just as soon marry by sample as see the whole piece, provided a substantial broker would pass his word for its equality; but they are what bankers and old lad
ies call ‘monstrous respectable.’
There’s where the mothers use a ‘nice young man’ to advantage — we mean to their own advantage. The golden age then returns; money is a disqualification; affection and competence is all they seek, and under the pleasing delusion that he is preferred, our nice young man is hurried into an offer which acts like an extinguisher on a candle by putting him out. John Plutus then walks in.
We know an old lady in the suburbs who kept the spare bed aired a whole winter by a couple of suitors of this sort: first came John Plutus; John was slow, calculating, dense, backward in coming — funds were down, in fact — no offer. He came and left, and came and left again; and again; and again. They tried him in all shapes and ways, and with all sorts of dresses, but they could never get him beyond brother-and-sistering. In this emergency the ‘nice young man’ was called in. At it he went like a house on fire — such kissing! Such squeezing! — such love-in-a-cottageing! Such determined indifference to everything but their own two elegant selves! The old lady was all smiles and benevolence. She didn’t wish for money! Not she! She never had liked John Plutus after she heard he was so rich. Tim Dapper was the man! And Tim thought so too. In due course he came with a most flattering proposal, unadulterated ardour and adoration in presenti — concentrated essence of affection in futuro; but devil a word about tin.
The old lady smirked and smiled and declared she was most flatteringly overjoyed; competence was all she sought, and she could not wish Matilda greater happiness than wedding into the Dapper family. Tim thought he had lighted on his feet, and forthwith ordered a new blue coat with a Genoa velvet collar and bright buttons, and unmentionables to match; but lo and behold! When he went to exhibit himself in them he found John Plutus had the bed!
Now John had been standing on three events, as they say on the Turf: — first that the funds would rise to 92, ex-dividend; second that Berbice coffee would average 75s a cask; and third, that the Dey of Algiers would win the Derby. The first two events had taken place, and John’s quick-silver, or slow silver, had risen proportionately, when he received an anonymous “twopenny” — for we need not say the “Dey’s” year was before penny postage came into being — saying that Miss Matilda Dodger was about to marry Mr Timothy Dapper, “an exceedingly nice young man.”
Though he wasn’t a sharp chap John had nevertheless a something in his carroty head that did the work of an idea; and he recollected having seen a portmanteau in the passage addressed to Timothy Dapper, Esq., High Street, Islington, the last time he was “down”; and, though no great believer in witchcraft and anonymous letters, he thought there might be something in it. Well, he bored and blundered, and considering the unaccommodating tenets of ecclesiastical law which prevents a man taking a woman off another’s hands as one would a horse at Tattersall’s by a mere transfer in the books, he saw that if he didn’t get Tilley then, he couldn’t get her afterwards; and, having passed a resolution to that effect in his own mind he next determined that it wouldn’t do to lose his chance; so at last he decided that, though not exactly in the position he had prescribed to himself for purchasing Miss Matilda Dodger’s affections, yet, as two of the events had come off satisfactorily, and by applying to Crockey, or that prepossessing-looking old gentleman the late Sir James Bland, as the Court Guide dubbed him, he could hedge the other, he might under the circumstance be excused so unbusiness-like a proceeding as not making love exactly by book. Accordingly he took sixpennyworth of ‘bus to Peckham Rise. Mrs Dodger was overjoyed at seeing him, for she saw that the physic was beginning to work.
Well, she was sure he would be glad to hear that Tilley was going to be married to Mr Timothy Dapper, an exceedingly nice young man; a young man after her own heart — as all young men are in the eyes of elderly ladies. John stared and gaped, and hummed and hawed, and scratched his head, and blundered; and at last blurted out something about “having hoped to marry Miss Matilda himself.” Mrs Dodger, having got him thus far, and knowing he was not a man given to much blandishment, took up the running herself, and very soon squeezed a most unexceptionable offer out of him — £100 a year, paid quarterly, for clothes, a superb 6f octave rosewood, grand cabinet pianoforte with string-plate and selfadjusting action, a pair of strawberry roans and a milk-white palfrey for the Park. A much better offer, in fact, than she would have got if John had been allowed his own time, and Tim had not been on the horizon. To be sure John had a look at Tilley, and we needn’t say she hadn’t her worst gown on; indeed, if the truth be told it was her best, with lace cuffs and a precious fine 3-guinea collar into the bargain. Well, John entered it all in his book, leaving Mrs Dodger to settle the matter with her daughter as she liked; and while Tim in his new blue coat was still on the way, John took possession of the spare bedroom. Which is just the point at which we throw up.
Tim arrived, wanted the bed, and John had it. Tim was shown into the usual love-making room, where sat John Plutus alone on the sofa, though a critical eye might have detected something like a swelling seat-mark at his side, rising slowly. Be the case what it may, the hare — no, Tilley — had left her form.
Each man looked at the other, as much as to say “I pity you!” and Timothy took a chair and cocked up the toe of his shiny leather, greenlegged boot as if he was looking to see that it was ready for kicking. John presently creaked away in his great double soles, and then Mrs Dodger came and took Timothy through hands. Having smoothed down her apron, and given two or three preparatory ‘hems,’ she trusted she need not assure Tim what unmitigated pleasure his society had afforded Miss Matilda and herself. She might safely say that no young man had ever bored such a hole in her daughter’s heart as he had — a regular Thames Tunnel — and she looked forward with the greatest pleasure to the union of the Dodger and Dapper families; that union she trusted would involve the production of a score or two of little Dappers; and to make a long story short, she wanted to know what had he got, and what would he do?
Tim stared with astonishment; for ever since he had made Miss Matilda’s acquaintance, at a ball at the Homs at Kennington Common, he conceived that he had been taken up by an heiress solely on account of his looks and accomplishments — hair-curling, dancing, flute-playing, poetry-repeating, eye-languishing propensities. And now to be thrown on his back with “What have you got, and what will you do?” was more than his philosophy had reckoned on.
Our readers we daresay, will anticipate the result. Tim talked about “competence” and that Miss Matilda had it. Mrs Dodger retorted that competence meant a carriage, competence, carriage; carriage, competence — just as poor old Mathews used to reiterate the Oxford joke of “pint of wine and candle — candle and pint of wine.” In vain Tim talked of his unimpeachable character, his passionate adoration; vowed the strongest chain-cable vows ever riveted; called upon Venus, Juno — all the softer matrimonial sisters, to witness the truth of his assertions; but Mrs Dodger was a true line-hunter; she let him have his fling, but always brought him back to the old point: What had he got; what would he do?
Our readers again can anticipate the answer; “Nil — no effects.” In vain Tim urged that the flame of his love was unquenchable; that his mother would never forgive him. Mrs Dodger remained unmoved — even by thought of Tim’s mother’s unforgiving nature. And at last, heartbroken, distracted and reckless, Tim took his departure.
Poor Tim! We knew him well. He was a rising man among the genteel young people at Swan and Edgar’s; and but for that unfortunate rencontre with the dark eyes of Tilley Dodger (now Tilley Plutus) at the Homs ball, might have become a great gun in the hosiery line. As it was he threw away his chance; he shortly afterwards married the barmaid of the Peacock at Islington, turned sot and sloven, and has never been good for anything since. Had he but said “Better luck next time,” and tried his hand again, there is no saying how his experience at Peckham Rise might have profited him.
A man is never really done till he’s married: so said our uncle Solomon Skinflint.
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bsp; But Tim’s wrongs have led us wide of our subject — consideration whether it is better to have dealings with Papa or Mamma. Oh, we decidedly opinionate, as the Americans say, that papas are better. A man has no chance with a mamma; she fibs, she shuffles, she juggles, she sticks at nothing to carry her point. We laugh at the French for their method of conducting matrimonial affairs by the mutual arrangement of parents; but really we think it infinitely better than the English, and must save the recording angel in Heaven’s High Chancery that old Sterne talks about, an infinite deal of ink and trouble in registering all the fibs that are told on such occasions. In England we do exactly the same thing as the French, with the hypocritical pretence that the girl has free choice. We all know that, with the exception of the daughters of labourers and those who five by the sweat of their brow, all girls, at least all girls worth catching, are regularly drilled and tutored on the subject of matrimony. No home-bred girl ever gets an offer without expecting it — at least nothing that a woman would think of accepting. Our volatile neighbours of the Emerald Isle, to be sure, sometimes pop the question after a dance, but that is more a watering-place (artificial cover) proceeding, and one of which we will treat in its proper place. Your steady, regular-going family coaches are never taken by surprise that way, especially in the country where every marketable man’s pretensions are weighed and considered as soon as he is born.