COURTING THE MOTHER.
Mrs. Pinkerton sat in an easy-chair near the window, doing nothing, when
I marched in to begin the siege. I felt diffident and uneasy, although I
am not usually troubled that way. But if I should live to the advanced
age of Methusaleh, I could never forget Mrs. Pinkerton’s appearance on
that memorable occasion. Before I had spoken a word I saw that she knew
what was coming, and had hardened her heart against me. She had
anticipated all that I would say, had discounted my plea, as it were,
and prejudged the whole case. Her look plainly said: “Young man, I know
your pitiful story. You needn’t tell me. You may be very well as young
men go, you fancy you can more than fill a mother’s place in Bessie’s
inexperienced heart, but you can’t get me out. I am Adamant. Your
intentions are all very honorable, but you are a graceless intruder.
Your credentials are rejected on sight.” I saw the difficult task I had
undertaken. “Mrs. Pinkerton,” I said, mustering all my forces, “it is no
use mincing the matter, or beating about the shrubbery. I am in love
with your daughter, and Bessie is in love with me. I believe I can make
Bessie happy, and am sure nothing but Bessie can make me happy. I have
come to ask your consent to our marriage.” Then I hung my head like a
whipped school-boy.
Mrs. Pinkerton took off her eye-glasses, and then put them on again with
considerable care; after which she leveled a look at me and through me
that made me feel like calling out “Murder!” or making for the door. But
I stood my ground, and heard her say quietly,—
“So you are engaged to my daughter?”
A simple remark, but the tone meant “You are a puppy.” I had to muster
all my resolution to reply politely and coolly that, with her gracious
consent, such was the fact.
“Are you aware that it is customary to obtain parental consent before
proceeding to such lengths?”
“Mrs. Pinkerton, excuse me. I thought in my ignorance that it would be
just as well to do that afterwards; or rather, I didn’t think anything
about it. I was so much in love with Bessie that it was all out before I
knew it. If I had thought, of course I would have—”
“Yes, yes,” said Mrs. Pinkerton, “if your kind of people ever thought,
they would undoubtedly do differently. Bessie certainly ought to know
better. Girls rush into matrimony now-a-days with as much carelessness
as they would choose partners at a game of croquet. I should have been
consulted in this. It is all wrong to allow young people to have such
entire freedom in affairs of this kind as they are allowed in these
days.”
“But certainly, my dear Mrs. Pinkerton,” I said, becoming somewhat
impatient, “you will not refuse your consent in this case? Bessie’s
happiness—that is, the happiness of all of us, or—our
happiness—Bessie’s and mine, I would say—”
“No doubt your happiness is very important to yourself, Mr. Travers,
and as to my daughter’s well-being, I have looked to that for quite a
number of years past, and I flatter myself I shall be able to look out
for it in the future.”
“Not if you insist on parting us!” I cried, getting out of patience and
letting all my carefully prepared plans of assault go by the board. “You
may withhold your consent, but that cannot prevent our loving each
other!”
“Of course not. Nothing on earth can prevent young people who are in
love from making themselves ridiculous. But getting married and living
together soon cures them of sentimentalism.”
“Won’t you give us that chance to be cured then, my dear Mrs.
Pinkerton?” I exclaimed, regaining a little tact.
She seemed to be taking it under advisement, and my courage came up a
little. Then, looking at me with her peculiarly searching gaze, she
said, “It isn’t necessary to argue the case; I know all you would say.
You love Bessie to distraction; you could not live without her; your
heart would be hopelessly broken if you had to give her up; you will be
true to her forever and a day; you offer her all of the good things of
this world that any sane woman could desire, besides which you throw in
an eternal, undying devotion; and so on, to the end of the chapter. We
will consider that all said, and so save time and trouble. You think
that ought to end the matter and bring me to your way of thinking. I
wonder at the effrontery of young men, who walk into our households and
carelessly tell us mothers what is best for our children, and assure us,
between their puffs of tobacco smoke, that a case of three weeks’
moonshining outweighs the devotion of a lifetime.”
I began to see what course was open for me. The old lady was jealous,
and I could not blame her. Her objections were general, not specific.
Strategy must take the place of a direct assault. There flashed through
my mind the ridiculous old nonsense rhyme quotation,—
“I must soften the heart of this terrible cow.”
I said gently, “I can readily see how a mother must regard the claims of
the man who comes to her demanding her most precious treasure; and what
you say makes me feel how presumptuous my demand must seem. I love your
daughter—that must be my only excuse. And after all, what has happened
was only what a mother must expect. Your daughter’s love will not be the
less yours because she also loves the man of her choice. That she should
love and be loved was inevitable.”
“We will not go into the discussion any further,” she interrupted. “I
don’t wish to say anything uncomplimentary of you personally, but I
simply am not prepared to give my daughter up at present. My opinion of
men in general is good, so long as they do not interfere with me or
mine.”
(Mental note: “May there be precious little interference between us!”)
“Your judgment is doubtless good,” I said, smiling; “but there are
exceptions which prove the rule, and I hope you will find that even I
will improve upon acquaintance.”
“Your conceit is abominable, young man.”
“Thank you. I have found no one who could flatter me except myself, so I
lose no opportunity to give myself a good character.”
“Especially in addressing the mother of the woman you wish to marry,
eh?”
“Precisely, as she is naturally prejudiced against me. My dear Mrs.
Pinkerton, what must I do to please you?”
“Hold your tongue!”
“Anything but that. You admit that I am a good fellow enough, and that
Bessie would probably marry some one in course of time. Now, I don’t see
why you cannot make us both happy by giving your consent. It costs you a
pang to do it. I honor you for that. Give me the right to console you.”
“By making myself an object of pity? No, not yet, not yet. I must, at
least, have time to think.”
I inwardly cursed my luck. How long was this sort of thing going to
last? I was about to rise and take my leave, when an inspiration struck
me.
“Mrs. Pinkerton,” I said gravely, “what you have said of the ties that
exist between you and your daughter has touched me deeply. I believe we
young people do not half appreciate a mother’s unchanging love. It lies
so far beneath the surface that we are too apt to forget its constant
blessing. My mother died when I was very young. Ah, if she were only
here now, to plead my cause for me!”
With these words, I turned on my heel and hastily got out of the room. I
went into the garden and lighted a cigar, the better to think over the
situation. I could not determine what progress, if any, I had made in
the good graces of Mrs. Pinkerton. While I was cogitating, Bessie came
out and approached me with an inquiring look. I am afraid my returning
glance did not greatly reassure her. As she came up and took my arm, she
said,—
“Well?”
“Well! No, it’s not very well. I am beaten, my dear. Your mother is
simply a stony-hearted parent!”
“What did she say?”
“Oh, she wants you to grow up an old maid—as if such a thing were
possible!—and says that lovers have no idea of what a mean, cruel thing
it is to rob people of only daughters; and that she shall require time
to think of it. What do you think of that?”
Bessie knitted her pretty brows, and dug her toes into the walk.
“Perhaps I had better go to her?” she said.
“Of course you must. But I know it won’t be of any use just yet. We
must, as she says, give her time. She will come around all right at the
end of nine or ten years. The fact is, Bessie, she’s a little bit
jealous of me and regards me as an intruder.”
“Poor, dear mamma!” said Bessie, her eyes becoming moist.
“Poor, dear pussy-cat! You should have seen her shoot me with her eyes
and ridicule my honest sentiment. She used me roughly, my dear, and I
can’t help wondering at my amazing politeness to her.”
Bessie was not discouraged. She had several interviews with her mother,
in which protestations, tears, smiles, and coaxings played a part, but
there was no apparent change of heart on the part of the old lady, after
all. I don’t know how long this disagreeable state of affairs would have
continued under ordinary circumstances, had not an unexpected,
thrilling, and, as it happened, fortunate occurrence hastened a crisis
and brought an end to the siege. It was a very singular thing, and it
seemed to have been pre-arranged to bring me glory, and, what was
better, the desired goodwill of the “stony-hearted parent.”
If there was any one thing that the worthy Mrs. Pinkerton detested more
than men and tobacco, that thing was a burglar. Add fear to detestation,
and you will see that when I defended the old lady from the attentions
of a burglar, I had taken a long step into her good graces.
It was a week after the interview narrated above, and in the early
summer, Mrs. Pinkerton had gone down to a quiet sea-side resort for a
short stay, thinking to get away from me; but I was not to be put off
so. I followed her, taking a room at the same hotel.
About one o’clock at night, the particular burglar to whom I owe so
much, effected an entrance into the hotel through a basement window, and
quietly made his way up stairs. Every one was asleep except myself, and
I was planning all sorts of expedients to conquer the prejudices of my
mother-in-law that was to be. Mrs. Pinkerton’s room opened on a long
corridor, near the end of which my modest seven-by-nine snuggery was
situated. It was a warm night, and the transoms over the doors of almost
all the bed-chambers had been left open to admit the air. A gleam of
light from a dark-lantern, coming through my transom, was what led me to
hastily don a pair of trousers and take my revolver from my valise. Then
I opened my door very cautiously, without having struck a light, and
could see—nothing! I waited a few moments, almost holding my breath. At
the end of those few moments I could make out the form of a man swarming
over the top of the door of Mrs. Pinkerton’s room. His head and
shoulders were already inside the room, and I could see his legs wriggle
about as he noiselessly wormed his way through the narrow transom. It
took me but a brief second of time to glide forward on tiptoe and mount
the same chair which had been used by the intruder in climbing to the
transom. This done, I seized both the wriggling legs simultaneously, and
gave a tremendous pull.
My excitement must have imbued me with double my natural strength, and
the result of that pull was simply indescribable. Burglar,
transom-glass, chair and all, went in a heap on the floor of the
corridor, producing the most appalling and unearthly racket conceivable.
The whole house was in an uproar in a moment. People seemed to spring up
from every square foot of floor in the corridor as if by magic. Cries of
“Fire!” “Murder!” “Help!” and screams of frightened women, rose on every
hand. The costumes which I beheld on that momentous occasion were not
only varied but exceedingly amusing and picturesque as well. The
assembled multitude found nothing to interest them, however. I alone was
to be seen, seated on a broken chair, with a rapidly swelling black eye,
while broken glass and an extinguished lantern lay on the floor. I told
the male guests what had happened. The burglar had not waited to ask for
my card, but had contented himself with planting one blow from the
shoulder on my left eye, before I could get upon my legs. And my
revolver. Well, I had not had the ghost of a chance to use it. It was in
my pocket. Fifteen minutes after the fracas, Mrs. Pinkerton came to my
room, completely dressed, and insisted upon coming in to hear all about
it and to overwhelm me with thanks and admiration. I was as modest as
heroes proverbially are, and then and there told her never to refer to
the subject again unless she addressed me as Bessie’s betrothed.
We went riding together, Bessie, Mrs. Pinkerton, and I, the day after
this episode; and without any previous indication of an approaching
thaw, that singular old lady began to talk freely about what should be
worn at “the wedding,” referring to it as though she had been the
principal agent in bringing it about.