If Joseph Willet, the denounced and proscribed of ‘prentices, had
happened to be at home when his father’s courtly guest presented himself
before the Maypole door--that is, if it had not perversely chanced to be
one of the half-dozen days in the whole year on which he was at liberty
to absent himself for as many hours without question or reproach--he
would have contrived, by hook or crook, to dive to the very bottom of Mr
Chester’s mystery, and to come at his purpose with as much certainty as
though he had been his confidential adviser. In that fortunate case, the
lovers would have had quick warning of the ills that threatened them,
and the aid of various timely and wise suggestions to boot; for all
Joe’s readiness of thought and action, and all his sympathies and good
wishes, were enlisted in favour of the young people, and were staunch in
devotion to their cause. Whether this disposition arose out of his old
prepossessions in favour of the young lady, whose history had surrounded
her in his mind, almost from his cradle, with circumstances of unusual
interest; or from his attachment towards the young gentleman, into
whose confidence he had, through his shrewdness and alacrity, and the
rendering of sundry important services as a spy and messenger, almost
imperceptibly glided; whether they had their origin in either of these
sources, or in the habit natural to youth, or in the constant badgering
and worrying of his venerable parent, or in any hidden little love
affair of his own which gave him something of a fellow-feeling in the
matter, it is needless to inquire--especially as Joe was out of the way,
and had no opportunity on that particular occasion of testifying to his
sentiments either on one side or the other.
It was, in fact, the twenty-fifth of March, which, as most people
know to their cost, is, and has been time out of mind, one of those
unpleasant epochs termed quarter-days. On this twenty-fifth of March,
it was John Willet’s pride annually to settle, in hard cash, his account
with a certain vintner and distiller in the city of London; to give into
whose hands a canvas bag containing its exact amount, and not a penny
more or less, was the end and object of a journey for Joe, so surely as
the year and day came round.
This journey was performed upon an old grey mare, concerning whom John
had an indistinct set of ideas hovering about him, to the effect that
she could win a plate or cup if she tried. She never had tried, and
probably never would now, being some fourteen or fifteen years of age,
short in wind, long in body, and rather the worse for wear in respect of
her mane and tail. Notwithstanding these slight defects, John perfectly
gloried in the animal; and when she was brought round to the door by
Hugh, actually retired into the bar, and there, in a secret grove of
lemons, laughed with pride.
‘There’s a bit of horseflesh, Hugh!’ said John, when he had recovered
enough self-command to appear at the door again. ‘There’s a comely
creature! There’s high mettle! There’s bone!’
There was bone enough beyond all doubt; and so Hugh seemed to think, as
he sat sideways in the saddle, lazily doubled up with his chin nearly
touching his knees; and heedless of the dangling stirrups and loose
bridle-rein, sauntered up and down on the little green before the door.
‘Mind you take good care of her, sir,’ said John, appealing from this
insensible person to his son and heir, who now appeared, fully equipped
and ready. ‘Don’t you ride hard.’
‘I should be puzzled to do that, I think, father,’ Joe replied, casting
a disconsolate look at the animal.
‘None of your impudence, sir, if you please,’ retorted old John. ‘What
would you ride, sir? A wild ass or zebra would be too tame for you,
wouldn’t he, eh sir? You’d like to ride a roaring lion, wouldn’t you,
sir, eh sir? Hold your tongue, sir.’ When Mr Willet, in his differences
with his son, had exhausted all the questions that occurred to him, and
Joe had said nothing at all in answer, he generally wound up by bidding
him hold his tongue.
‘And what does the boy mean,’ added Mr Willet, after he had stared at
him for a little time, in a species of stupefaction, ‘by cocking his
hat, to such an extent! Are you going to kill the wintner, sir?’
‘No,’ said Joe, tartly; ‘I’m not. Now your mind’s at ease, father.’
‘With a milintary air, too!’ said Mr Willet, surveying him from top to
toe; ‘with a swaggering, fire-eating, biling-water drinking sort of way
with him! And what do you mean by pulling up the crocuses and snowdrops,
eh sir?’
‘It’s only a little nosegay,’ said Joe, reddening. ‘There’s no harm in
that, I hope?’
‘You’re a boy of business, you are, sir!’ said Mr Willet, disdainfully,
‘to go supposing that wintners care for nosegays.’
‘I don’t suppose anything of the kind,’ returned Joe. ‘Let them keep
their red noses for bottles and tankards. These are going to Mr Varden’s
house.’
‘And do you suppose HE minds such things as crocuses?’ demanded John.
‘I don’t know, and to say the truth, I don’t care,’ said Joe. ‘Come,
father, give me the money, and in the name of patience let me go.’
‘There it is, sir,’ replied John; ‘and take care of it; and mind you
don’t make too much haste back, but give the mare a long rest.--Do you
mind?’
‘Ay, I mind,’ returned Joe. ‘She’ll need it, Heaven knows.’
‘And don’t you score up too much at the Black Lion,’ said John. ‘Mind
that too.’
‘Then why don’t you let me have some money of my own?’ retorted Joe,
sorrowfully; ‘why don’t you, father? What do you send me into London
for, giving me only the right to call for my dinner at the Black Lion,
which you’re to pay for next time you go, as if I was not to be trusted
with a few shillings? Why do you use me like this? It’s not right of
you. You can’t expect me to be quiet under it.’
‘Let him have money!’ cried John, in a drowsy reverie. ‘What does he
call money--guineas? Hasn’t he got money? Over and above the tolls,
hasn’t he one and sixpence?’
‘One and sixpence!’ repeated his son contemptuously.
‘Yes, sir,’ returned John, ‘one and sixpence. When I was your age, I
had never seen so much money, in a heap. A shilling of it is in case
of accidents--the mare casting a shoe, or the like of that. The other
sixpence is to spend in the diversions of London; and the diversion
I recommend is going to the top of the Monument, and sitting there.
There’s no temptation there, sir--no drink--no young women--no bad
characters of any sort--nothing but imagination. That’s the way I
enjoyed myself when I was your age, sir.’
To this, Joe made no answer, but beckoning Hugh, leaped into the saddle
and rode away; and a very stalwart, manly horseman he looked, deserving
a better charger than it was his fortune to bestride. John stood staring
after him, or rather after the grey mare (for he had no eyes for her
rider), until man and beast had been out of sight some twenty minutes,
when he began to think they were gone, and slowly re-entering the house,
fell into a gentle doze.
The unfortunate grey mare, who was the agony of Joe’s life, floundered
along at her own will and pleasure until the Maypole was no longer
visible, and then, contracting her legs into what in a puppet would have
been looked upon as a clumsy and awkward imitation of a canter, mended
her pace all at once, and did it of her own accord. The acquaintance
with her rider’s usual mode of proceeding, which suggested this
improvement in hers, impelled her likewise to turn up a bye-way,
leading--not to London, but through lanes running parallel with the road
they had come, and passing within a few hundred yards of the Maypole,
which led finally to an inclosure surrounding a large, old, red-brick
mansion--the same of which mention was made as the Warren in the
first chapter of this history. Coming to a dead stop in a little copse
thereabout, she suffered her rider to dismount with right goodwill, and
to tie her to the trunk of a tree.
‘Stay there, old girl,’ said Joe, ‘and let us see whether there’s any
little commission for me to-day.’ So saying, he left her to browze upon
such stunted grass and weeds as happened to grow within the length of
her tether, and passing through a wicket gate, entered the grounds on
foot.
The pathway, after a very few minutes’ walking, brought him close to the
house, towards which, and especially towards one particular window, he
directed many covert glances. It was a dreary, silent building, with
echoing courtyards, desolated turret-chambers, and whole suites of rooms
shut up and mouldering to ruin.
The terrace-garden, dark with the shade of overhanging trees, had an air
of melancholy that was quite oppressive. Great iron gates, disused for
many years, and red with rust, drooping on their hinges and overgrown
with long rank grass, seemed as though they tried to sink into the
ground, and hide their fallen state among the friendly weeds. The
fantastic monsters on the walls, green with age and damp, and covered
here and there with moss, looked grim and desolate. There was a sombre
aspect even on that part of the mansion which was inhabited and kept
in good repair, that struck the beholder with a sense of sadness; of
something forlorn and failing, whence cheerfulness was banished. It
would have been difficult to imagine a bright fire blazing in the dull
and darkened rooms, or to picture any gaiety of heart or revelry that
the frowning walls shut in. It seemed a place where such things had
been, but could be no more--the very ghost of a house, haunting the old
spot in its old outward form, and that was all.
Much of this decayed and sombre look was attributable, no doubt, to the
death of its former master, and the temper of its present occupant;
but remembering the tale connected with the mansion, it seemed the very
place for such a deed, and one that might have been its predestined
theatre years upon years ago. Viewed with reference to this legend, the
sheet of water where the steward’s body had been found appeared to wear
a black and sullen character, such as no other pool might own; the bell
upon the roof that had told the tale of murder to the midnight wind,
became a very phantom whose voice would raise the listener’s hair on
end; and every leafless bough that nodded to another, had its stealthy
whispering of the crime.
Joe paced up and down the path, sometimes stopping in affected
contemplation of the building or the prospect, sometimes leaning against
a tree with an assumed air of idleness and indifference, but always
keeping an eye upon the window he had singled out at first. After some
quarter of an hour’s delay, a small white hand was waved to him for an
instant from this casement, and the young man, with a respectful bow,
departed; saying under his breath as he crossed his horse again, ‘No
errand for me to-day!’
But the air of smartness, the cock of the hat to which John Willet had
objected, and the spring nosegay, all betokened some little errand
of his own, having a more interesting object than a vintner or even a
locksmith. So, indeed, it turned out; for when he had settled with the
vintner--whose place of business was down in some deep cellars hard by
Thames Street, and who was as purple-faced an old gentleman as if he
had all his life supported their arched roof on his head--when he had
settled the account, and taken the receipt, and declined tasting more
than three glasses of old sherry, to the unbounded astonishment of the
purple-faced vintner, who, gimlet in hand, had projected an attack upon
at least a score of dusty casks, and who stood transfixed, or morally
gimleted as it were, to his own wall--when he had done all this, and
disposed besides of a frugal dinner at the Black Lion in Whitechapel;
spurning the Monument and John’s advice, he turned his steps towards the
locksmith’s house, attracted by the eyes of blooming Dolly Varden.
Joe was by no means a sheepish fellow, but, for all that, when he got
to the corner of the street in which the locksmith lived, he could by no
means make up his mind to walk straight to the house. First, he resolved
to stroll up another street for five minutes, then up another street for
five minutes more, and so on until he had lost full half an hour, when
he made a bold plunge and found himself with a red face and a beating
heart in the smoky workshop.
‘Joe Willet, or his ghost?’ said Varden, rising from the desk at which
he was busy with his books, and looking at him under his spectacles.
‘Which is it? Joe in the flesh, eh? That’s hearty. And how are all the
Chigwell company, Joe?’
‘Much as usual, sir--they and I agree as well as ever.’
‘Well, well!’ said the locksmith. ‘We must be patient, Joe, and bear
with old folks’ foibles. How’s the mare, Joe? Does she do the four miles
an hour as easily as ever? Ha, ha, ha! Does she, Joe? Eh!--What have we
there, Joe--a nosegay!’
‘A very poor one, sir--I thought Miss Dolly--’
‘No, no,’ said Gabriel, dropping his voice, and shaking his head, ‘not
Dolly. Give ‘em to her mother, Joe. A great deal better give ‘em to her
mother. Would you mind giving ‘em to Mrs Varden, Joe?’
‘Oh no, sir,’ Joe replied, and endeavouring, but not with the greatest
possible success, to hide his disappointment. ‘I shall be very glad, I’m
sure.’
‘That’s right,’ said the locksmith, patting him on the back. ‘It don’t
matter who has ‘em, Joe?’
‘Not a bit, sir.’--Dear heart, how the words stuck in his throat!
‘Come in,’ said Gabriel. ‘I have just been called to tea. She’s in the
parlour.’
‘She,’ thought Joe. ‘Which of ‘em I wonder--Mrs or Miss?’ The locksmith
settled the doubt as neatly as if it had been expressed aloud, by
leading him to the door, and saying, ‘Martha, my dear, here’s young Mr
Willet.’
Now, Mrs Varden, regarding the Maypole as a sort of human mantrap,
or decoy for husbands; viewing its proprietor, and all who aided and
abetted him, in the light of so many poachers among Christian men; and
believing, moreover, that the publicans coupled with sinners in Holy
Writ were veritable licensed victuallers; was far from being favourably
disposed towards her visitor. Wherefore she was taken faint directly;
and being duly presented with the crocuses and snowdrops, divined on
further consideration that they were the occasion of the languor which
had seized upon her spirits. ‘I’m afraid I couldn’t bear the room
another minute,’ said the good lady, ‘if they remained here. WOULD you
excuse my putting them out of window?’
Joe begged she wouldn’t mention it on any account, and smiled feebly as
he saw them deposited on the sill outside. If anybody could have known
the pains he had taken to make up that despised and misused bunch of
flowers!--
‘I feel it quite a relief to get rid of them, I assure you,’ said Mrs
Varden. ‘I’m better already.’ And indeed she did appear to have plucked
up her spirits.
Joe expressed his gratitude to Providence for this favourable
dispensation, and tried to look as if he didn’t wonder where Dolly was.
‘You’re sad people at Chigwell, Mr Joseph,’ said Mrs V.
‘I hope not, ma’am,’ returned Joe.
‘You’re the cruellest and most inconsiderate people in the world,’ said
Mrs Varden, bridling. ‘I wonder old Mr Willet, having been a married
man himself, doesn’t know better than to conduct himself as he does. His
doing it for profit is no excuse. I would rather pay the money twenty
times over, and have Varden come home like a respectable and sober
tradesman. If there is one character,’ said Mrs Varden with great
emphasis, ‘that offends and disgusts me more than another, it is a sot.’
‘Come, Martha, my dear,’ said the locksmith cheerily, ‘let us have tea,
and don’t let us talk about sots. There are none here, and Joe don’t
want to hear about them, I dare say.’
At this crisis, Miggs appeared with toast.
‘I dare say he does not,’ said Mrs Varden; ‘and I dare say you do not,
Varden. It’s a very unpleasant subject, I have no doubt, though I
won’t say it’s personal’--Miggs coughed--‘whatever I may be forced to
think’--Miggs sneezed expressively. ‘You never will know, Varden, and
nobody at young Mr Willet’s age--you’ll excuse me, sir--can be expected
to know, what a woman suffers when she is waiting at home under such
circumstances. If you don’t believe me, as I know you don’t, here’s
Miggs, who is only too often a witness of it--ask her.’
‘Oh! she were very bad the other night, sir, indeed she were, said
Miggs. ‘If you hadn’t the sweetness of an angel in you, mim, I don’t
think you could abear it, I raly don’t.’
‘Miggs,’ said Mrs Varden, ‘you’re profane.’
‘Begging your pardon, mim,’ returned Miggs, with shrill rapidity, ‘such
was not my intentions, and such I hope is not my character, though I am
but a servant.’
‘Answering me, Miggs, and providing yourself,’ retorted her mistress,
looking round with dignity, ‘is one and the same thing. How
dare you speak of angels in connection with your sinful
fellow-beings--mere’--said Mrs Varden, glancing at herself in a
neighbouring mirror, and arranging the ribbon of her cap in a more
becoming fashion--‘mere worms and grovellers as we are!’
‘I did not intend, mim, if you please, to give offence,’ said Miggs,
confident in the strength of her compliment, and developing strongly in
the throat as usual, ‘and I did not expect it would be took as such. I
hope I know my own unworthiness, and that I hate and despise myself and
all my fellow-creatures as every practicable Christian should.’
‘You’ll have the goodness, if you please,’ said Mrs Varden, loftily, ‘to
step upstairs and see if Dolly has finished dressing, and to tell her
that the chair that was ordered for her will be here in a minute, and
that if she keeps it waiting, I shall send it away that instant.--I’m
sorry to see that you don’t take your tea, Varden, and that you don’t
take yours, Mr Joseph; though of course it would be foolish of me to
expect that anything that can be had at home, and in the company of
females, would please YOU.’
This pronoun was understood in the plural sense, and included both
gentlemen, upon both of whom it was rather hard and undeserved, for
Gabriel had applied himself to the meal with a very promising appetite,
until it was spoilt by Mrs Varden herself, and Joe had as great a liking
for the female society of the locksmith’s house--or for a part of it at
all events--as man could well entertain.
But he had no opportunity to say anything in his own defence, for at
that moment Dolly herself appeared, and struck him quite dumb with her
beauty. Never had Dolly looked so handsome as she did then, in all the
glow and grace of youth, with all her charms increased a hundredfold by
a most becoming dress, by a thousand little coquettish ways which nobody
could assume with a better grace, and all the sparkling expectation of
that accursed party. It is impossible to tell how Joe hated that party
wherever it was, and all the other people who were going to it, whoever
they were.
And she hardly looked at him--no, hardly looked at him. And when
the chair was seen through the open door coming blundering into the
workshop, she actually clapped her hands and seemed glad to go. But Joe
gave her his arm--there was some comfort in that--and handed her into
it. To see her seat herself inside, with her laughing eyes brighter
than diamonds, and her hand--surely she had the prettiest hand in
the world--on the ledge of the open window, and her little finger
provokingly and pertly tilted up, as if it wondered why Joe didn’t
squeeze or kiss it! To think how well one or two of the modest snowdrops
would have become that delicate bodice, and how they were lying
neglected outside the parlour window! To see how Miggs looked on with
a face expressive of knowing how all this loveliness was got up, and
of being in the secret of every string and pin and hook and eye, and
of saying it ain’t half as real as you think, and I could look quite as
well myself if I took the pains! To hear that provoking precious little
scream when the chair was hoisted on its poles, and to catch that
transient but not-to-be-forgotten vision of the happy face within--what
torments and aggravations, and yet what delights were these! The very
chairmen seemed favoured rivals as they bore her down the street.
There never was such an alteration in a small room in a small time as in
that parlour when they went back to finish tea. So dark, so deserted,
so perfectly disenchanted. It seemed such sheer nonsense to be sitting
tamely there, when she was at a dance with more lovers than man could
calculate fluttering about her--with the whole party doting on and
adoring her, and wanting to marry her. Miggs was hovering about too; and
the fact of her existence, the mere circumstance of her ever having been
born, appeared, after Dolly, such an unaccountable practical joke. It
was impossible to talk. It couldn’t be done. He had nothing left for it
but to stir his tea round, and round, and round, and ruminate on all the
fascinations of the locksmith’s lovely daughter.
Gabriel was dull too. It was a part of the certain uncertainty of Mrs
Varden’s temper, that when they were in this condition, she should be
gay and sprightly.
‘I need have a cheerful disposition, I am sure,’ said the smiling
housewife, ‘to preserve any spirits at all; and how I do it I can
scarcely tell.’
‘Ah, mim,’ sighed Miggs, ‘begging your pardon for the interruption,
there an’t a many like you.’
‘Take away, Miggs,’ said Mrs Varden, rising, ‘take away, pray. I know
I’m a restraint here, and as I wish everybody to enjoy themselves as
they best can, I feel I had better go.’
‘No, no, Martha,’ cried the locksmith. ‘Stop here. I’m sure we shall be
very sorry to lose you, eh Joe!’ Joe started, and said ‘Certainly.’
‘Thank you, Varden, my dear,’ returned his wife; ‘but I know your wishes
better. Tobacco and beer, or spirits, have much greater attractions than
any I can boast of, and therefore I shall go and sit upstairs and look
out of window, my love. Good night, Mr Joseph. I’m very glad to have
seen you, and I only wish I could have provided something more suitable
to your taste. Remember me very kindly if you please to old Mr Willet,
and tell him that whenever he comes here I have a crow to pluck with
him. Good night!’
Having uttered these words with great sweetness of manner, the good
lady dropped a curtsey remarkable for its condescension, and serenely
withdrew.
And it was for this Joe had looked forward to the twenty-fifth of March
for weeks and weeks, and had gathered the flowers with so much care, and
had cocked his hat, and made himself so smart! This was the end of all
his bold determination, resolved upon for the hundredth time, to speak
out to Dolly and tell her how he loved her! To see her for a minute--for
but a minute--to find her going out to a party and glad to go; to be
looked upon as a common pipe-smoker, beer-bibber, spirit-guzzler, and
tosspot! He bade farewell to his friend the locksmith, and hastened to
take horse at the Black Lion, thinking as he turned towards home, as
many another Joe has thought before and since, that here was an end to
all his hopes--that the thing was impossible and never could be--that
she didn’t care for him--that he was wretched for life--and that the
only congenial prospect left him, was to go for a soldier or a sailor,
and get some obliging enemy to knock his brains out as soon as possible.