He placed his arm round the girl’s waist, and, drawing her head on to his shoulder, met with a blank stare the troubled gaze of Mrs. Green.
“I’m told there’s wonderful openings for carpenters in Australia,” said Mr. Green, trying to speak in level tones. “Wonderful! A good carpenter can make a fortune there in ten years, so I’m told.”
Mr. Letts, with a slight wink at Mrs. Green and a reassuring squeeze with his left arm, turned an attentive ear.
“O’ course, there’s a difficulty,” he said, slowly, as Mr. Green finished a vivid picture of the joys of carpentering in Australia.
“Difficulty?” said the other.
“Money to start with,” explained Mr. Letts. “It’s no good starting without money. I wonder how much this house and furniture would fetch? Is it all mine, mother?”
“M-m-most of it,” stammered Mrs. Green, gazing in a fascinated fashion at the contorted visage of her husband.
“All except a chair in the kitchen and three stair-rods,” said Betty.
“Speak when you’re spoke to, miss!” snarled her stepfather. “When we married we mixed our furniture up together — mixed it up so that it would be impossible to tell which is which. Nobody could.”
“For the matter o’ that, you could have all the kitchen chairs and all the stair-rods,” said Mr. Letts, generously. “However, I don’t want to do anything in a hurry, and I shouldn’t dream of going to Australia without Betty. It rests with her.”
“She’s going to be married,” said Mr. Green, hastily; “and if she wasn’t she wouldn’t turn her poor, ailing mother out of house and home, that I`m certain of. She’s not that sort. We’ve had a word or two at times — me and her — but I know a good daughter when I see one.”
“Married?” echoed Mr. Letts, as his left arm relaxed its pressure. “Who to?”
“Young fellow o’ the name of Henry Widden,” replied Mr. Green, “a very steady young fellow; a great friend of mine.”
“Oh!” said Mr. Letts, blankly.
“I’d got an idea, which I’ve been keeping as a little surprise,” continued Mr. Green, speaking very rapidly, “of them living here with us, and saving house-rent and furniture.”
Mr. Letts surveyed him with a dejected eye.
“It would be a fine start for them,” continued the benevolent Mr. Green.
Mr. Letts, by a strong effort, regained his composure.
“I must have a look at him first,” he said, briskly. “He mightn’t meet with my approval.”
“Eh?” said Mr. Green, starting. “Why, if Betty — —”
“I must think it over,” interrupted Mr. Letts, with a wave of his hand. “Betty is only nineteen, and, as head of the family, I don’t think she can marry without my consent. I’m not sure, but I don’t think so. Anyway, if she does, I won’t have her husband here sitting in my chairs, eating off my tables, sleeping in my beds, wearing out my stair-rods, helping himself — —”
“Stow it,” said Miss Foster, calmly.
Mr. Letts started, and lost the thread of his discourse. “I must have a look at him,” he concluded, lamely; “he may be all right, but then, again, he mightn’t.”
He finished his tea almost in silence, and, the meal over, emphasized his position as head of the family by taking the easy-chair, a piece of furniture sacred to Mr. Green, and subjecting that injured man to a catechism which strained his powers of endurance almost to breaking-point.
“Well, I sha’n’t make any change at present,” said Mr. Letts, when the task was finished. “There’s plenty of room here for us all, and, so long as you and me agree, things can go on as they are. To-morrow morning I shall go out and look for a job.”
He found a temporary one almost at once, and, determined to make a favorable impression, worked hard all day. He came home tired and dirty, and was about to go straight to the wash-house to make his toilet when Mr. Green called him in.
“My friend, Mr. Widden,” he said, with a satisfied air, as he pointed to a slight, fair young man with a well-trimmed moustache.
Mr. Letts shook hands.
“Fine day,” said Mr. Widden.
“Beautiful,” said the other. “I’ll come in and have a talk about it when I’ve had a wash.”
“Me and Miss Foster are going out for a bit of a stroll,” said Mr. Widden.
“Quite right,” agreed Mr. Letts. “Much more healthy than staying indoors all the evening. If you just wait while I have a wash and a bit o’ something to eat I’ll come with you.”
“Co-come with us!” said Mr. Widden, after an astonished pause.
Mr. Letts nodded. “You see, I don’t know you yet,” he explained, “and as head of the family I want to see how you behave yourself. Properly speaking, my consent ought to have been asked before you walked out with her; still, as everybody thought I was drowned, I’ll say no more about it.”
“Mr. Green knows all about me,” said Mr. Widden, rebelliously.
“It’s nothing to do with him,” declared Mr. Letts. “And, besides, he’s not what I should call a judge of character. I dare say you are all right, but I’m going to see for myself. You go on in the ordinary way with your love-making, without taking any notice of me. Try and forget I’m watching you. Be as natural as you can be, and if you do anything I don’t like I’ll soon tell you of it.”
The bewildered Mr. Widden turned, but, reading no hope of assistance in the infuriated eyes of Mr. Green, appealed in despair to Betty.
“I don’t mind,” she said. “Why should I?”
Mr. Widden could have supplied her with many reasons, but he refrained, and sat in sulky silence while Mr. Letts got ready. From his point of view the experiment was by no means a success, his efforts to be natural being met with amazed glances from Mr. Letts and disdainful requests from Miss Foster to go home if he couldn’t behave himself. When he relapsed into moody silence Mr. Letts cleared his throat and spoke.
“There’s no need to be like a monkey-on-a-stick, and at the same time there’s no need to be sulky,” he pointed out; “there’s a happy medium.”
“Like you, I s’pose?” said the frantic suitor. “Like me,” said the other, gravely. “Now, you watch; fall in behind and watch.”
He drew Miss Foster’s arm through his and, leaning towards her with tender deference, began a long conversation. At the end of ten minutes Mr. Widden intimated that he thought he had learned enough to go on with.
“Ah! that’s only your conceit,” said Mr. Letts over his shoulder. “I was afraid you was conceited.”
He turned to Miss Foster again, and Mr. Widden, with a despairing gesture, abandoned himself to gloom. He made no further interruptions, but at the conclusion of the walk hesitated so long on the door-step that Mr. Letts had to take the initiative.
“Good-night,” he said, shaking hands. “Come round to-morrow night and I’ll give you another lesson. You’re a slow learner, that’s what you are; a slow learner.”
He gave Mr. Widden a lesson on the following evening, but cautioned him sternly against imitating the display of brotherly fondness of which, in a secluded lane, he had been a wide-eyed observer.
“When you’ve known her as long as I have — nineteen years,” said Mr. Letts, as the other protested, “things’ll be a bit different. I might not be here, for one thing.”
By exercise of great self-control Mr. Widden checked the obvious retort and walked doggedly in the rear of Miss Foster. Then, hardly able to believe his ears, he heard her say something to Mr. Letts.
“Eh?” said that gentleman, in amazed accents.
“You fall behind,” said Miss Foster.
“That — that’s not the way to talk to the head of the family,” said Mr. Letts, feebly.
“It’s the way I talk to him,” rejoined the girl.
It was a position for which Mr. Letts was totally unprepared, and the satisfied smile of Mr. Widden as he took the vacant place by no means improved matters. In a state of considerable
dismay Mr. Letts dropped farther and farther behind until, looking up, he saw Miss Foster, attended by her restive escort, quietly waiting for him. An odd look in her eyes as they met his gave him food for thought for the rest of the evening.
At the end of what Mr. Letts was pleased to term a month’s trial, Mr. Widden was still unable to satisfy him as to his fitness for the position of brother-in-law. In a spirit of gloom he made suggestions of a mutinous nature to Mr. Green, but that gentleman, who had returned one day pale and furious, but tamed, from an interview that related to his treatment of his wife, held out no hopes of assistance.
“I wash my hands of him,” he said bitterly. “You stick to it; that’s all you can do.”
“They lost me last night,” said the unfortunate. “I stayed behind just to take a stone out of my shoe, and the earth seemed to swallow them up. He’s so strong. That’s the worst of it.”
“Strong?” said Mr. Green.
Mr. Widden nodded. “Tuesday evening he showed her how he upset a man once and stood him on his head,” he said, irritably. “I was what he showed her with.”
“Stick to it!” counselled Mr. Green again. “A brother and sister are bound to get tired of each other before long; it’s nature.”
Mr. Widden sighed and obeyed. But brother and sister showed no signs of tiring of each other’s company, while they displayed unmistakable signs of weariness with his. And three weeks later Mr. Letts, in a few well-chosen words, kindly but firmly dismissed him.
“I should never give my consent,” he said, gravely, “so it’s only wasting your time. You run off and play.”
Mr. Widden ran off to Mr. Green, but before he could get a word out discovered that something unusual had happened. Mrs. Green, a picture of distress, sat at one end of the room with a handkerchief to her eyes; Mr. Green, in a condition compounded of joy and rage, was striding violently up and down the room.
“He’s a fraud!” he shouted. “A fraud! I’ve had my suspicions for some time, and this evening I got it out of her.”
Mr. Widden stared in amazement.
“I got it out of her,” repeated Mr. Green, pointing at the trembling woman. “He’s no more her son than what you are.”
“What?” said the amazed listener.
“She’s been deceiving me,” said Mr. Green, with a scowl, “but I don’t think she’ll do it again in a hurry. You stay here,” he shouted, as his wife rose to leave the room. “I want you to be here when he comes in.”
Mrs. Green stayed, and the other two, heedless of her presence, discussed the situation until the front door was heard to open, and Mr. Letts and Betty came into the room. With a little cry the girl ran to her mother.
“What’s the matter?” she cried.
“She’s lost another son,” said Mr. Green, with a ferocious sneer— “a flash, bullying, ugly chap of the name o’ Letts.”
“Halloa!” said Mr. Letts, starting.
“A chap she picked up out of the street, and tried to pass off on me as her son,” continued Mr. Green, raising his voice. “She ain’t heard the end of it yet, I can tell you.”
Mr. Letts fidgeted. “You leave her alone,” he said, mildly. “It’s true I’m not her son, but it don’t matter, because I’ve been to see a lawyer about her, and he told me that this house and half the furniture belongs by law to Betty. It’s got nothing to do with you.”
“Indeed!” said Mr. Green. “Now you take yourself off before I put the police on to you. Take your face off these premises.”
Mr. Letts, scratching his head, looked vaguely round the room.
“Go on!” vociferated Mr. Green. “Or will you have the police to put you out?”
Mr. Letts cleared his throat and moved towards the door. “You stick up for your rights, my girl,” he said, turning to Betty. “If he don’t treat your mother well, give him back his kitchen chair and his three stair-rods and pack him off.”
“Henry,” said Mr. Green, with dangerous calm, “go and fetch a policeman.”
“I’m going,” said Mr. Letts, hastily. “Good-by, Betty; good-by, mother. I sha’n’t be long. I’m only going as far as the post-office. And that reminds me. I’ve been talking so much that I quite forget to tell you that Betty and me were married yesterday morning.”
He nodded pleasantly at the stupefied Mr. Green, and, turning to Mr. Widden, gave him a friendly dig in the ribs with his finger.
“What’s mine is Betty’s,” he said, in a clear voice, “and what’s Betty’s is MINE! D’ye understand, step-father?”
He stepped over to Mrs. Green, and putting a strong arm around her raised her to her feet. “And what’s mine is mother’s,” he concluded, and, helping her across the room, placed her in the best arm-chair.
PRIZE MONEY
The old man stood by the window, gazing at the frozen fields beyond. The sign of the Cauliflower was stiff with snow, and the breath of a pair of waiting horses in a wagon beneath ascended in clouds of steam.
“Amusements” he said slowly, as he came back with a shiver and, resuming his seat by the tap-room fire, looked at the wayfarer who had been idly questioning him. “Claybury men don’t have much time for amusements. The last one I can call to mind was Bill Chambers being nailed up in a pig-sty he was cleaning out, but there was such a fuss made over that — by Bill — that it sort o’ disheartened people.”
He got up again restlessly, and, walking round the table, gazed long and hard into three or four mugs.
“Sometimes a little gets left in them,” he explained, meeting the stranger’s inquiring glance. The latter started, and, knocking on the table with the handle of his knife, explained that he had been informed by a man outside that his companion was the bitterest teetotaller in Claybury.
“That’s one o’ Bob Pretty’s larks,” said the old man, flushing. “I see you talking to ‘im, and I thought as ‘ow he warn’t up to no good. Biggest rascal in Claybury, he is. I’ve said so afore, and I’ll say so agin.”
He bowed to the donor and buried his old face in the mug.
“A poacher!” he said, taking breath. “A thief!” he continued, after another draught. “I wonder whether Smith spilt any of this a-carrying of it in?”
He put down the empty mug and made a careful examination of the floor, until a musical rapping on the table brought the landlord into the room again.
“My best respects,” he said, gratefully, as he placed the mug on the settle by his side and slowly filled a long clay pipe. Next time you see Bob Pretty ask ‘im wot happened to the prize hamper. He’s done a good many things has Bob, but it’ll be a long time afore Claybury men’ll look over that.
It was Henery Walker’s idea. Henery ‘ad been away to see an uncle of ‘is wife’s wot had money and nobody to leave it to — leastways, so Henery thought when he wasted his money going over to see ‘im — and he came back full of the idea, which he ‘ad picked up from the old man.
“We each pay twopence a week till Christmas,” he ses, “and we buy a hamper with a goose or a turkey in it, and bottles o’ rum and whiskey and gin, as far as the money’ll go, and then we all draw lots for it, and the one that wins has it.”
It took a lot of explaining to some of ’em, but Smith, the landlord, helped Henery, and in less than four days twenty-three men had paid their tuppences to Henery, who ‘ad been made the seckitary, and told him to hand them over to Smith in case he lost his memory.
Bob Pretty joined one arternoon on the quiet, and more than one of ’em talked of ‘aving their money back, but, arter Smith ‘ad explained as ‘ow he would see fair play, they thought better of it.
“He’ll ‘ave the same chance as all of you,” he ses. “No more and no less.”
“I’d feel more easy in my mind, though, if’e wasn’t in it,” ses Bill Chambers, staring at Bob. “I never knew ‘im to lose anything yet.”
“You don’t know everything, Bill,” ses Bob, shaking his ‘ead. “You don’t know me; else you wouldn’t talk like that.
I’ve never been caught doing wrong yet, and I ‘ope I never shall.”
“It’s all right, Bill,” ses George Kettle. “Mr. Smith’ll see fair, and I’d sooner win Bob Pretty’s money than anybody’s.”
“I ‘ope you will, mate,” ses Bob; “that’s what I joined for.”
“Bob’s money is as good as anybody else’s,” ses George Kettle, looking round at the others. “It don’t signify to me where he got it from.”
“Ah, I don’t like to hear you talk like that George,” ses Bob Pretty. “I’ve thought more than once that you ‘ad them ideas.”
He drank up his beer and went off ‘ome, shaking his ‘cad, and, arter three or four of’em ‘ad explained to George Kettle wot he meant, George went off ‘ome, too.
The week afore Christmas, Smith, the landlord, said as ‘ow he ‘ad got enough money, and three days arter we all came up ‘ere to see the prize drawn. It was one o’ the biggest hampers Smith could get; and there was a fine, large turkey in it, a large goose, three pounds o’ pork sausages, a bottle o’ whiskey, a bottle o’ rum, a bottle o’ brandy, a bottle o’ gin, and two bottles o’ wine. The hamper was all decorated with holly, and a little flag was stuck in the top.
On’y men as belonged was allowed to feel the turkey and the goose, and arter a time Smith said as ‘ow p’r’aps they’d better leave off, and ‘e put all the things back in the hamper and fastened up the lid.
“How are we going to draw the lottery?” ses John Biggs, the blacksmith.
“There’ll be twenty-three bits o’ paper,” ses Smith, “and they’ll be numbered from one to twenty-three. Then they’ll be twisted up all the same shape and put in this ‘ere paper bag, which I shall ‘old as each man draws. The chap that draws the paper with the figger on it wins.”
He tore up twenty-three bits o’ paper all about the same size, and then with a black-lead pencil ‘e put the numbers on, while everybody leaned over ‘im to see fair play. Then he twisted every bit o’ paper up and held them in his ‘and.
Works of W. W. Jacobs Page 232