“It has been represented to me again and again that this is the course I ought to pursue,” replied Miss Lillerton, “but pardon my feelings of delicacy, Mr. Tottle—pray excuse this embarrassment—I have peculiar ideas on such subjects, and I am quite sure that I never could summon up fortitude enough to name the day to my future husband.”
“Then allow ME to name it,” said Tottle eagerly.
“I should like to fix it myself,” replied Miss Lillerton, bashfully, but I cannot do so without at once resorting to a third party.”
“A third party!” thought Watkins Tottle; “who the deuce is that to be, I wonder!”
“Mr. Tottle,” continued Miss Lillerton, “you have made me a most disinterested and kind offer—that offer I accept. Will you at once be the bearer of a note from me to—to Mr. Timson?”
“Mr. Timson!” said Watkins.
“After what has passed between us,” responded Miss Lillerton, still averting her head, “you must understand whom I mean; Mr. Timson, the—the—clergyman.”
“Mr. Timson, the clergyman!” ejaculated Watkins Tottle, in a state of inexpressible beatitude, and positive wonder at his own success. “Angel! Certainly—this moment!”
“I'll prepare it immediately,” said Miss Lillerton, making for the door; “the events of this day have flurried me so much, Mr. Tottle, that I shall not leave my room again this evening; I will send you the note by the servant.”
“Stay,—stay,” cried Watkins Tottle, still keeping a most respectful distance from the lady; “when shall we meet again?”
“Oh! Mr. Tottle,” replied Miss Lillerton, coquettishly, “when we are married, I can never see you too often, nor thank you too much;” and she left the room.
Mr. Watkins Tottle flung himself into an arm-chair, and indulged in the most delicious reveries of future bliss, in which the idea of “Five hundred pounds per annum, with an uncontrolled power of disposing of it by her last will and testament,” was somehow or other the foremost. He had gone through the interview so well, and it had terminated so admirably, that he almost began to wish he had expressly stipulated for the settlement of the annual five hundred on himself.
“May I come in?” said Mr. Gabriel Parsons, peeping in at the door.
“You may,” replied Watkins.
“Well, have you done it?” anxiously inquired Gabriel.
“Have I done it!” said Watkins Tottle. “Hush—I'm going to the clergyman.”
“No!” said Parsons. “How well you have managed it!”
“Where does Timson live?” inquired Watkins.
“At his uncle's,” replied Gabriel, “just round the lane. He's waiting for a living, and has been assisting his uncle here for the last two or three months. But how well you have done it—I didn't think you could have carried it off so!”
Mr. Watkins Tottle was proceeding to demonstrate that the Richardsonian principle was the best on which love could possibly be made, when he was interrupted by the entrance of Martha, with a little pink note folded like a fancy cocked-hat.
“Miss Lillerton's compliments,” said Martha, as she delivered it into Tottle's hands, and vanished.
“Do you observe the delicacy?” said Tottle, appealing to Mr. Gabriel Parsons. “COMPLIMENTS, not LOVE, by the servant, eh?”
Mr. Gabriel Parsons didn't exactly know what reply to make, so he poked the forefinger of his right hand between the third and fourth ribs of Mr. Watkins Tottle.
“Come,” said Watkins, when the explosion of mirth, consequent on this practical jest, had subsided, “we'll be off at once—let's lose no time.”
“Capital!” echoed Gabriel Parsons; and in five minutes they were at the garden-gate of the villa tenanted by the uncle of Mr. Timson.
“Is Mr. Charles Timson at home?” inquired Mr. Watkins Tottle of Mr. Charles Timson's uncle's man.
“Mr. Charles IS at home,” replied the man, stammering; “but he desired me to say he couldn't be interrupted, sir, by any of the parishioners.”
“I am not a parishioner,” replied Watkins.
“Is Mr. Charles writing a sermon, Tom?” inquired Parsons, thrusting himself forward.
“No, Mr. Parsons, sir; he's not exactly writing a sermon, but he is practising the violoncello in his own bedroom, and gave strict orders not to be disturbed.”
“Say I'm here,” replied Gabriel, leading the way across the garden; “Mr. Parsons and Mr. Tottle, on private and particular business.”
They were shown into the parlour, and the servant departed to deliver his message. The distant groaning of the violoncello ceased; footsteps were heard on the stairs; and Mr. Timson presented himself, and shook hands with Parsons with the utmost cordiality.
“How do you do, sir?” said Watkins Tottle, with great solemnity.
“How do YOU do, sir?” replied Timson, with as much coldness as if it were a matter of perfect indifference to him how he did, as it very likely was.
“I beg to deliver this note to you,” said Watkins Tottle, producing the cocked-hat.
“From Miss Lillerton!” said Timson, suddenly changing colour. “Pray sit down.”
Mr. Watkins Tottle sat down; and while Timson perused the note, fixed his eyes on an oyster-sauce-coloured portrait of the Archbishop of Canterbury, which hung over the fireplace.
Mr. Timson rose from his seat when he had concluded the note, and looked dubiously at Parsons. “May I ask,” he inquired, appealing to Watkins Tottle, “whether our friend here is acquainted with the object of your visit?”
“Our friend is in MY confidence,” replied Watkins, with considerable importance.
“Then, sir,” said Timson, seizing both Tottle's hands, “allow me in his presence to thank you most unfeignedly and cordially, for the noble part you have acted in this affair.”
“He thinks I recommended him,” thought Tottle. “Confound these fellows! they never think of anything but their fees.”
“I deeply regret having misunderstood your intentions, my dear sir,” continued Timson. “Disinterested and manly, indeed! There are very few men who would have acted as you have done.”
Mr. Watkins Tottle could not help thinking that this last remark was anything but complimentary. He therefore inquired, rather hastily, “When is it to be?”
“On Thursday,” replied Timson,—“on Thursday morning at half-past eight.”
“Uncommonly early,” observed Watkins Tottle, with an air of triumphant self-denial. “I shall hardly be able to get down here by that hour.” (This was intended for a joke.)
“Never mind, my dear fellow,” replied Timson, all suavity, shaking hands with Tottle again most heartily, “so long as we see you to breakfast, you know—”
“Eh!” said Parsons, with one of the most extraordinary expressions of countenance that ever appeared in a human face.
“What!” ejaculated Watkins Tottle, at the same moment.
“I say that so long as we see you to breakfast,” replied Timson, “we will excuse your being absent from the ceremony, though of course your presence at it would give us the utmost pleasure.”
Mr. Watkins Tottle staggered against the wall, and fixed his eyes on Timson with appalling perseverance.
“Timson,” said Parsons, hurriedly brushing his hat with his left arm, “when you say “us,” whom do you mean?”
Mr. Timson looked foolish in his turn, when he replied, “Why—Mrs. Timson that will be this day week: Miss Lillerton that is—”
“Now don't stare at that idiot in the corner,” angrily exclaimed Parsons, as the extraordinary convulsions of Watkins Tottle's countenance excited the wondering gaze of Timson,—“but have the goodness to tell me in three words the contents of that note?”
“This note,” replied Timson, “is from Miss Lillerton, to whom I have been for the last five weeks regularly engaged. Her singular scruples and strange feeling on some points have hitherto prevented my bringing the engagement to that termination which I so anxiously desire. She informs me he
re, that she sounded Mrs. Parsons with the view of making her her confidante and go-between, that Mrs. Parsons informed this elderly gentleman, Mr. Tottle, of the circumstance, and that he, in the most kind and delicate terms, offered to assist us in any way, and even undertook to convey this note, which contains the promise I have long sought in vain—an act of kindness for which I can never be sufficiently grateful.”
“Good night, Timson,” said Parsons, hurrying off, and carrying the bewildered Tottle with him.
“Won't you stay—and have something?” said Timson.
“No, thank ye,” replied Parsons; “I've had quite enough;” and away he went, followed by Watkins Tottle in a state of stupefaction.
Mr. Gabriel Parsons whistled until they had walked some quarter of a mile past his own gate, when he suddenly stopped, and said—
“You are a clever fellow, Tottle, ain't you?”
“I don't know,” said the unfortunate Watkins.
“I suppose you'll say this is Fanny's fault, won't you?” inquired Gabriel.
“I don't know anything about it,” replied the bewildered Tottle.
“Well,” said Parsons, turning on his heel to go home, “the next time you make an offer, you had better speak plainly, and don't throw a chance away. And the next time you're locked up in a spunging-house, just wait there till I come and take you out, there's a good fellow.”
How, or at what hour, Mr. Watkins Tottle returned to Cecil-street is unknown. His boots were seen outside his bedroom-door next morning; but we have the authority of his landlady for stating that he neither emerged therefrom nor accepted sustenance for four-andtwenty hours. At the expiration of that period, and when a council of war was being held in the kitchen on the propriety of summoning the parochial beadle to break his door open, he rang his bell, and demanded a cup of milk-and-water. The next morning he went through the formalities of eating and drinking as usual, but a week afterwards he was seized with a relapse, while perusing the list of marriages in a morning paper, from which he never perfectly recovered.
A few weeks after the last-named occurrence, the body of a gentleman unknown, was found in the Regent's canal. In the trousers-pockets were four shillings and threepence halfpenny; a matrimonial advertisement from a lady, which appeared to have been cut out of a Sunday paper: a tooth-pick, and a card-case, which it is confidently believed would have led to the identification of the unfortunate gentleman, but for the circumstance of there being none but blank cards in it. Mr. Watkins Tottle absented himself from his lodgings shortly before. A bill, which has not been taken up, was presented next morning; and a bill, which has not been taken down, was soon afterwards affixed in his parlour-window.
CHAPTER XI
THE BLOOMSBURY CHRISTENING
Mr. Nicodemus Dumps, or, as his acquaintance called him, “long Dumps,” was a bachelor, six feet high, and fifty years old: cross, cadaverous, odd, and ill-natured. He was never happy but when he was miserable; and always miserable when he had the best reason to be happy. The only real comfort of his existence was to make everybody about him wretched—then he might be truly said to enjoy life. He was afflicted with a situation in the Bank worth five hundred a-year, and he rented a “first-floor furnished,” at Pentonville, which he originally took because it commanded a dismal prospect of an adjacent churchyard. He was familiar with the face of every tombstone, and the burial service seemed to excite his strongest sympathy. His friends said he was surly—he insisted he was nervous; they thought him a lucky dog, but he protested that he was “the most unfortunate man in the world.” Cold as he was, and wretched as he declared himself to be, he was not wholly unsusceptible of attachments. He revered the memory of Hoyle, as he was himself an admirable and imperturbable whist-player, and he chuckled with delight at a fretful and impatient adversary. He adored King Herod for his massacre of the innocents; and if he hated one thing more than another, it was a child. However, he could hardly be said to hate anything in particular, because he disliked everything in general; but perhaps his greatest antipathies were cabs, old women, doors that would not shut, musical amateurs, and omnibus cads. He subscribed to the “Society for the Suppression of Vice” for the pleasure of putting a stop to any harmless amusements; and he contributed largely towards the support of two itinerant methodist parsons, in the amiable hope that if circumstances rendered any people happy in this world, they might perchance be rendered miserable by fears for the next.
Mr. Dumps had a nephew who had been married about a year, and who was somewhat of a favourite with his uncle, because he was an admirable subject to exercise his misery-creating powers upon. Mr. Charles Kitterbell was a small, sharp, spare man, with a very large head, and a broad, good-humoured countenance. He looked like a faded giant, with the head and face partially restored; and he had a cast in his eye which rendered it quite impossible for any one with whom he conversed to know where he was looking. His eyes appeared fixed on the wall, and he was staring you out of countenance; in short, there was no catching his eye, and perhaps it is a merciful dispensation of Providence that such eyes are not catching. In addition to these characteristics, it may be added that Mr. Charles Kitterbell was one of the most credulous and matter-of-fact little personages that ever took TO himself a wife, and FOR himself a house in Great Russell-street, Bedford-square. (Uncle Dumps always dropped the “Bedford-square,” and inserted in lieu thereof the dreadful words “Tottenham-court-road. “)
“No, but, uncle, “pon my life you must—you must promise to be godfather,” said Mr. Kitterbell, as he sat in conversation with his respected relative one morning.
“I cannot, indeed I cannot,” returned Dumps.
“Well, but why not? Jemima will think it very unkind. It's very little trouble.”
“As to the trouble,” rejoined the most unhappy man in existence, “I don't mind that; but my nerves are in that state—I cannot go through the ceremony. You know I don't like going out.—For God's sake, Charles, don't fidget with that stool so; you'll drive me mad.” Mr. Kitterbell, quite regardless of his uncle's nerves, had occupied himself for some ten minutes in describing a circle on the floor with one leg of the office-stool on which he was seated, keeping the other three up in the air, and holding fast on by the desk.
“I beg your pardon, uncle,” said Kitterbell, quite abashed, suddenly releasing his hold of the desk, and bringing the three wandering legs back to the floor, with a force sufficient to drive them through it.
“But come, don't refuse. If it's a boy, you know, we must have two godfathers.”
“IF it's a boy!” said Dumps; “why can't you say at once whether it IS a boy or not?”
“I should be very happy to tell you, but it's impossible I can undertake to say whether it's a girl or a boy, if the child isn't born yet.”
“Not born yet!” echoed Dumps, with a gleam of hope lighting up his lugubrious visage. “Oh, well, it MAY be a girl, and then you won't want me; or if it is a boy, it MAY die before it is christened.”
“I hope not,” said the father that expected to be, looking very grave.
“I hope not,” acquiesced Dumps, evidently pleased with the subject. He was beginning to get happy. “I hope not, but distressing cases frequently occur during the first two or three days of a child's life; fits, I am told, are exceedingly common, and alarming convulsions are almost matters of course.”
“Lord, uncle!” ejaculated little Kitterbell, gasping for breath.
“Yes; my landlady was confined—let me see—last Tuesday: an uncommonly fine boy. On the Thursday night the nurse was sitting with him upon her knee before the fire, and he was as well as possible. Suddenly he became black in the face, and alarmingly spasmodic. The medical man was instantly sent for, and every remedy was tried, but—”
“How frightful!” interrupted the horror-stricken Kitterbell.
“The child died, of course. However, your child MAY not die; and if it should be a boy, and should LIVE to be christened, why I suppose I must be one
of the sponsors.” Dumps was evidently goodnatured on the faith of his anticipations.
“Thank you, uncle,” said his agitated nephew, grasping his hand as warmly as if he had done him some essential service. “Perhaps I had better not tell Mrs. K. what you have mentioned.”
“Why, if she's low-spirited, perhaps you had better not mention the melancholy case to her,” returned Dumps, who of course had invented the whole story; “though perhaps it would be but doing your duty as a husband to prepare her for the WORST.”
A day or two afterwards, as Dumps was perusing a morning paper at the chop-house which he regularly frequented, the followingparagraph met his eyes:—
“BIRTHS.—On Saturday, the 18th inst., in Great Russell-street, the lady of Charles Kitterbell, Esq., of a son.”
“It IS a boy!” he exclaimed, dashing down the paper, to the astonishment of the waiters. “It IS a boy!” But he speedily regained his composure as his eye rested on a paragraph quoting the number of infant deaths from the bills of mortality.
Six weeks passed away, and as no communication had been received from the Kitterbells, Dumps was beginning to flatter himself that the child was dead, when the following note painfully resolved his doubts:—
“GREAT RUSSELL-STREET, MONDAY MORNING.
DEAR UNCLE,—You will be delighted to hear that my dear Jemima has left her room, and that your future godson is getting on capitally. He was very thin at first, but he is getting much larger, and nurse says he is filling out every day. He cries a good deal, and is a very singular colour, which made Jemima and me rather uncomfortable; but as nurse says it's natural, and as of course we know nothing about these things yet, we are quite satisfied with what nurse says. We think he will be a sharp child; and nurse says she's sure he will, because he never goes to sleep. You will readily believe that we are all very happy, only we're a little worn out for want of rest, as he keeps us awake all night; but this we must expect, nurse says, for the first six or eight months. He has been vaccinated, but in consequence of the operation being rather awkwardly performed, some small particles of glass were introduced into the arm with the matter. Perhaps this may in some degree account for his being rather fractious; at least, so nurse says. We propose to have him christened at twelve o'clock on Friday, at Saint George's church, in Hart-street, by the name of Frederick Charles William. Pray don't be later than a quarter before twelve. We shall have a very few friends in the evening, when of course we shall see you. I am sorry to say that the dear boy appears rather restless and uneasy to-day: the cause, I fear, is fever.
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