"Git along, do, with such clat."
"But, Keziah--dear--only listen to me! Here's winter coming on fast,
and what could be a better time for getting it over? What's cold got to
do with it, Keziah, when there's a warm and manly heart beating away for
you at such a rate as to keep you warm and itself too? Say yes,
Keziah!"
"I won't."
"Only think of how happy we should be, with you at your housekeeping,
and me with my tallers!"
"And smelling ten times worse of burnt mutton-chops than you do now when
you come."
"Smell, Keziah! Oh, what's smell when him as smells loves you? Ah,
Keziah! I did think you'd got a heart that I could melt like good
quality fat; but it's a stringy and gristly heart, Keziah, one as is
full of pride. On my bended knees I ask you to say yes."
"Git up, do, with your clat. The idee of going down on the carpet like
that, just for all the world like a man in a stage-play. Such stuff
indeed. If you don't get up directly I'll run out of the room, that I
will. Do you take me for a silly girl? at my time of life too."
"No, Keziah," said the man of bended knees, rising slowly to stand once
more, a fat, podgy little fellow, whose anxious face grew more ludicrous
each moment. "No, Keziah, I only take you for a very hard-hearted
woman."
"Don't be a noodles, Peter," exclaimed Keziah. "Didn't I always tell
you, when I gave consent for you to come and see me, that I'd never
think of marrying till Miss May was settled?"
"Yes, you did," said Peter, "but she's such a long time over it."
"Stuff!" said Keziah.
"But she is indeed," cried Peter, trying to catch one of the lady's
hands in his. "You see she's only nineteen, and can afford to wait a
few years. But you see, dear, I'm forty, and you are--"
"Yes, I know, I'm forty, too, and I'm not ashamed of it, so you needn't
twit me with that," said Keziah snappishly. "I'm in no hurry to change
my name into Pash--Pash indeed. I'm sure Bay's ever so much better."
"It is! I know it is," said Peter, "and I didn't twit you about your
years. Ain't I always said that you were just growing into your prime?
But I see how it is: it's pride--it's the pride of the composites,
Keziah, and you're trying to throw me over after I've been a true lover
all these years."
"Are you going to talk sense; or am I to leave you to chatter that
sickly twaddle to the cat?--true lover indeed!"
"Go it!" cried Peter, "it's pride! I can see through it all. Why don't
you be open with me? But, mark my words, Keziah, there's more sterling
substance in a short six, or even a height, than in all your grand
composites, as set themselves up for sparm or wax. I'm tallow, I am,
and I respect tallow. I like people not to be ashamed of their
position. We can't all be wax, nor yet sparm, so why not be content as
a good honest dip, or a mould! Why, even your twelve or fourteen has a
honesty about it that your sham, make-believe imitation wax don't
possess--things as won't stand so much as a draught of air without
flaring, and guttering down, and spattering all over your carpets. It's
pride, Keziah, and that's all about it."
"No, it ain't," said Keziah quietly.
"To throw me over like this," continued Mr Pash in injured tones, "and
after all my attentions and presents."
"Presents, indeed!" exclaimed the lady, "attentions!--very delicate
attentions. Kidneys, that you got out of the nasty fat that you buy of
the butchers."
"But I never brought one as was the least tainted," said Peter, "and you
always said there was nothing nicer for supper."
"And, pray, who always ate a good half?" retorted Keziah angrily.
"But I never should have touched 'em if they hadn't been so gloriously
cooked--such brown--such gravy! O, Keziah, don't be hard on me," sighed
Peter.
"Peter Pash!" exclaimed the lady indignantly, "you're a great goose; and
if I didn't know that you'd been sitting here three hours without
nothing stronger than small beer before you, I should say you'd been
drinking. Now, once for all, you can come if you like, or you can stay
away if you like. I'm not going even to think about getting married
till Miss May's settled, and that won't be well, never mind that. Now
go home."
"Yes, my dear," said Peter in a resigned way, and taking his hat off the
sideboard he began to brush the nap round and round very carefully.
"But you're very hard on me, Keziah."
"Didn't I tell you to go?" said the lady.
Peter Pash sighed and drew the back of his hand across his mouth, but
then his heart failed him, and he shook hands and said "good-night"--
words which seemed thrown back at him by the lady of his heart; directly
after he withdrew in accordance with the line in italics which appeared
at the bottom of his tallow-chandler's trade card--"N.B. Orders
punctually executed!" leaving Keziah Bay, cook and housekeeper to John
Richards, the old money-lender, of Walbrook, nipping her lips together,
beating one foot upon the fender, and frowning very fiercely at the
fire.
For this had been a very exciting affair for Mrs Keziah Bay, since,
heretofore, Peter Pash's custom had been to come three times a week to
Walbrook, where he would sit in the half kitchen, half sitting-room, of
the dingy old mansion--a house built in the days when merchants
condescended to live over their offices, with bedrooms looking down upon
warehouse or yard--sit and smoke a pipe while Keziah darned her master's
stockings; stare at her very hard, sup, and say "good-night," and then
go. That was the extent of Peter Pash's courting. He had certainly
once before said something respecting wedding, and been snubbed into
silence; but only that once; hence, then, this had been rather an
exciting time at Walbrook, and for more reasons than that one.
Mrs Keziah Bay had not been thoughtfully tapping the old-fashioned
brass fender with her foot for more than five minutes before the door
softly opened and a slight girlish figure entered, to steal quietly to
the comely dame's side, kneel down, and clasp two little white hands
round her waist.
"That means trouble, I know," said Keziah sharply, but all the same one
of her hands was passed caressingly over the soft brown hair, and her
lips were pressed to the white upturned forehead. "That means trouble,
and worry, and upsets, or you wouldn't come to me. Now, what is it?
But there: I know: you've been thinking about Frank Marr; haven't you?"
A sigh was taken for an affirmative answer, and Keziah continued:
"What's Mr Brough been here for to-night?"
"Don't talk about it--don't ask me!" cried the kneeling girl, who now
burst out into a passion of weeping. "O, 'Ziah, what shall I do, what
shall I do?"
"Why, tell me all about what you're crying for, to be sure," cried
Keziah sharply; but all the same with a motherly attempt or two at
soothing. "Surely master hasn't been at you again about Mr Frank, has
he?"
"O, yes--yes," sobbed the girl; "and it does seem so cruel and hard. O,
'Ziah, I've no one to talk to but you--no one to ask for help. He talks
as if Frank could help being poor, and not prospering in his business,
when, poor fellow, he strove so hard."
"But what did he bring all that up for?" cried Keziah. "Mr Frank
hasn't been here these two months, I'll swear. Did you say anything?"
"No, no!" sobbed the girl, bursting into a fresh paroxysm of weeping.
"Then some one must have brought it up. There, I see plain as plain.
Bless him! He ought to be boiled in his own sugar, that he ought! He's
a nice fellow, he is, for a sugar-baker, to come here tattling and
setting people against other people."
"What do you mean?" sobbed May Richards, gazing wonderingly at her
comforter.
"Mean? Why, that that old Tom Brough ought to be ashamed of himself to
come tattling to master about Mr Frank. That was it, wasn't it?"
"No, no!" sobbed the poor girl wearily.
"Then what did he come for?" said Keziah.
There was a pause, during which May wept bitterly.
"I shall go and ask master myself," said Keziah authoritatively, as she
half rose. "I'm not going to have my child upset like this for
nothing."
"No, no, no!" sobbed May. "Pray stay, 'Ziah--dear 'Ziah, don't be
angry, and I'll tell you all."
"Then what is it?" said Keziah.
"Mr Brough--"
"Well?"
"Mr Brough has been to talk to papa."
"Well, go on, child, for goodness' sake, and do wipe your eyes. He's
been to talk to master, and what about, pray?"
"About me," sobbed May.
"Well, and pray what about you?"
"He came to propose, and papa gave him leave."
"To propose what?" said Keziah. "There, for goodness gracious in heaven
sake, child, speak out and do not keep on riddle-me-riddle-me-reeing in
that way. What did he want? Why!" she exclaimed, as a sudden light
seemed to break upon her, "he ain't broke, and come after money? Not he
though, he's as rich as a Jew. What does it all mean?"
"He came to propose, and papa ordered me to accept him," sobbed Mary;
"and when I told papa that I considered myself engaged to poor Frank, he
was ready to strike me, and he cursed him, and called him horrible
names, and said he would sooner see me dead than married to such a
beggar, and that I was to accept Mr Brough's offer."
"What!" exclaimed Keziah, her eyes dilating as she caught May by the
shoulders, and seemed to look her through and through. "Do you mean to
tell me that old Tom Brough, the sugar-baker, wants to marry you, and
that master said he should?"
"Yes, yes," sobbed May. "O, 'Ziah, I'm half brokenhearted. What shall
I do?"
"Do!" cried Keziah fiercely; "I'd have knocked their heads together.
Old Tom Brough! An old villain! An old rascal! He's sixty, if he's an
hour. It's a good job for him he's gone. Sneaking out as he did, and
giving me five shillings when he went. Ah! if I'd have known when he
was with me there in the passage, I'd have given it him!"
May clung to her, sobbing more than ever. "I'd--I'd--I'd have wrung his
neck," cried Keziah furiously; and then she burst out into a
contemptuous laugh, as she strove to comfort the weeping girl, kissing
her, wiping her eyes, and holding her to her breast. "There--there,"
she said, "let it be now, and I'll talk to them both. I'll let them see
that money is not going to do everything. Tom Brough, indeed! A
carneying old rascal, with his smooth tongue and pleasant ways; an old
deceiver. I thought better things of him. But I haven't done with them
all yet; I don't believe there's a man under the sun good for anything.
But there goes the bell."
Keziah Bay rose to leave the room, but May clung to her imploringly.
"You will not say a word?" she said pleadingly.
"And why not, pray?" Then seeing the agitation and fear in the poor
girl's face she continued, "Then I won't--not to him; for it would be
like trying to turn a rushing bull;--but I'm not married yet, Peter
Pash," she muttered as she left the room, "nor she isn't married yet,
John Richards and Thomas Brough, alderman and big man as you are. We're
a poor weak, helpless lot, that we are, and it's my belief that men are
born with but one idea, and that is that they ought to persecute us
women."
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