JACK PRINGLE CALLS UPON MRS. WILLIAMS, AND TELLS HER A PIECE OF HIS
MIND UPON AFFAIRS IN GENERAL.
Jack Pringle never promised anything without an intention of performing
it, whether he could succeed or not; and accordingly, when he promised
that he would make due and diligent inquiry, for the purpose of
ascertaining if Helen Williams was indeed faithless, he proceeded at
once to do so in the most direct manner in the world, viz. by calling
upon no less a personage than Mrs. Williams herself, and popping the
question to her in a manner which almost precluded the possibility of
her returning anything but a direct answer.
This was a measure which few persons would have attempted; but having,
as it had, all the characteristics of boldness about it, it was not one
that he was likely to fail in, but, upon the contrary, calculated in
every respect to be eminently successful.
He proceeded to the town in perfect ignorance of its locality, or
even of the abode of Mrs. Williams, except so far as a very involved
description had been given to him of the route to her house by the old
sailor’s son, Tom, who certainly was not the best hand in the world at
a direction.
But Jack was never at a loss, for, some how or another, by the force
of a good-tempered manner that he had, he contrived to make friends
wherever he went, and among them he soon found one who was willing in
every respect to take pains with him, and to walk with him to the door
of Mrs. Williams.
“Thank ye, messmate,” said Jack; “and if ever I meet you again you
may make up your mind that you have met a friend. And so this is Mrs.
Williams’s is it?”
“Yes,” said the man; “this is Mrs. Williams’s.”
“And what sort of a creature is she?”
“Oh, why, as to that, she is not the sort of woman I like; but there
is no accounting for tastes, you know, and other people might like her
very well.”
“You are a sensible fellow,” said Jack; “and I should say you have
quite wit enough about you, that if you fell into the fire you would
get out again as soon as you could.”
The man hardly knew whether to take this as a compliment or not; but at
all events he bade Jack good-day civilly enough, and took no notice of
it.
Jack then boldly knocked at the door, and when the one miserable
servant of the Williamses made her appearance, and asked him what he
wanted, he replied,—
“Why, I have principally called to tell you what a remarkably fine girl
you are, and after that I should like to see mother Williams.”
“Go along with ye,” said the girl; “you are only joking, and I can tell
you that missis would just as soon give you to a constable as look at
you.”
“Oh, no, she wouldn’t,” said Jack; “for good-looking fellows are
scarce, and I dare say she knows that as well as possible, and she
would much rather keep me herself than give me to anybody.”
“Well, I’m sure!” said the girl. “You are like all the rest of the men,
and have a pretty good opinion of yourself; but, if you really want to
see missis, I may as well tell her at once.”
“To be sure,” said Jack.
Mrs. Williams, from a room on the ground floor, had heard that some
sort of conversation was going on at the street door, and she called
out—
“Susan, Susan; how dare you be talking there to anybody! Who is that,
I say—tell me who that is immediately?”
“It is me, ma’am,” cried Jack.
“And who is me?”
“Why, ma’am, I have come on a delicate mission; I have got something to
say to you as is rather particular.”
Mrs. Williams’s curiosity was excited, and perhaps some of her fears,
for when she had told Helen that she was drowned in debt, she had,
hyperbolically speaking, not far exceeded the truth, and therefore she
dreaded refusing seeing any one who came to ask for her, lest, smarting
under the aggravation of such a proceeding, the party, be he whom he
might, should leave some message that it would not be quite pleasant to
her for Susan to hear.
This was the respect, then, which placed Mrs. Williams positively at
the mercy of any one who chose to call upon her, and which induced
her to give an audience even to Jack Pringle, who, under ordinary
circumstances, she would, as Susan had correctly observed, have not
scrupled to place in the hands of some guardian of the public peace as
an intruder into her house.
When Jack was shown into the apartment where the lady waited to receive
him, he made what he considered a highly fashionable and elegant bow,
which consisted in laying hold of a lock of his hair in front, and
giving it a jerking pull at the same moment that he kicked out his foot
behind and upset a chair.
[Illustration: Jack Pringle meets Mrs. Williams.]
“How do you do, ma’am?” said Jack.
“You have the advantage of me,” said Mrs. Williams.
“I rather think I have,” said Jack, “and I mean to keep it, and an-out
and out thing it would be if I hadn’t, seeing the many voyages I have
had, when I dare say you was never out of sight of land in all your
life.”
“I certainly never was,” said Mrs. Williams; “and I hope I am speaking
to some officer, and not to anybody common.”
“Oh, yes, ma’am,” said Jack; “I’m a rear-admiral of the green, and
what I come to ask you, is, if there is going to be a marriage in your
family?”
“Rather an eccentric character,” thought Mrs. Williams; “but anybody
may see in a moment he is a gentleman, or else he would not be an
admiral of the green; I know there are admirals of all sorts of
colours—and so I have no doubt he is quite correct. Yes, sir, there is
going to be a marriage in my family, I am proud to say, for my daughter
Helen is going to marry what might be called quite a foreign potentate.”
“A foreign potato. None of your gammon—don’t be poking your fun at me.”
“A foreign potentate, I said, sir—a kind of monarch—a potentate, you
know.”
“Oh, I understands; I dare say them fellows lives on potatoes, and
that’s why they calls them such. But are you sure it’s your daughter
Helen, because I was thinking of proposing for her myself?”
“Really, then, Admiral Green, I am very sorry, but she is going to be
married to the Baron Stolmuyer, of Saltzburgh.”
“The baron what? did you say? Stonemason and Saltpot? What a d—d odd
name, to be sure.”
“Dear me, what an eccentric character!” thought Mrs. Williams; “but
quite the gentleman. Admiral Green, it’s Stolmuyer of Saltzburgh is the
baron’s name.”
“Oh, I knew it was something about salt; but, however, it don’t matter;
and when is the ceremony to come off, ma’am?”
“It is left to me, sir, to fix the day, and I shall do so, of course,
at my convenience; and I can only express my great regret, Admiral
Green, that you should have been too late; but, you see, the baron’s
offer was so unexceptionable, and he is really quite a wealthy
individual—which his offering me a cheque for five hundred pounds, is a
convincing proof—that I really could not think of refusing him.”
“What! five hundred pounds?”
“Yes; I assure you, Admiral Green, that he had pressed upon my
acceptance five hundred pounds.”
“The stingy devil.”
“Stingy!”
“Rather. Why, I meant to have asked you to accept of a couple of
thousands, and a large estate that I have got, which brings in as much
every year, and that I really don’t want.”
“Two thousand pounds and a estate! Gracious Providence! I don’t know
what to say to that; really Admiral Green, you are so very liberal,
that, upon my word, I am quite puzzled. Two thousand pounds, and an
estate worth two thousand pounds a year!—did you really mean that,
Admiral Green?”
“To be sure I did. What else could I mean? but I don’t want to
interfere with a foreign potato and a Baron Saltbox.”
“Well, but, my dear sir, stop a moment—let me think.”
“No, ma’am,” said Jack, “I ain’t quite such a humbug as you takes me
for. I say nothing, but it’s very likely that your baron will turn out
to be some half-starved swindler who is going to wind up his affairs by
doing you, and sarves you right, too—I wishes you good morning, ma’am.”
So saying, Jack, despite the remonstrances of Mrs. Williams, whose
cupidity was so strongly excited by what he had said, that she would
gladly have thrown overboard the baron, and who now began to look with
something like contempt upon the five hundred pounds which she had
before thought was quite a large sum.
“How odd it is,” she exclaimed, when she was alone; “how odd it is,
that after I have been looking about, I don’t know how long, for a
decent match for some of the girls, all the men should come at once,
and want Helen—it’s an extraordinary thing to me, very extraordinary.
Dear me, if I could but have secured Admiral Green for Juliana, and so
got her married on the same day with Helen, there would have been two
thousand five hundred pounds for me at once. What a capital thing! I
would not have spoken of it to anybody, but I would have paid all the
tradespeople about here eightpence in the pound as a composition, and
then I could have gone and lived in London quite comfortably.
Thus is it ever with such schemers as Mrs. Williams—success brings with
it quite as many evils and distressful feelings as failure, and now the
agony of what she thought she had lost, much more than counterbalanced
any satisfaction she might have had in procuring her daughter’s consent
to the marriage with the baron.
This consent, although we know how it was wrung from Helen, we
certainly much blame her for giving, because no human power could
really force her to marry any one who was not her choice, and the mere
fact that her mother represented how deeply she was in debt, ought not
to have been sufficient to induce Helen to consent.
She might and ought to have taken a much higher view of the subject—a
view which should have excluded a consideration of James Anderson:
that view should have been a refusal to commit the perjury of solemnly
vowing before Heaven to love and honour a man for whom she entertained
such opposite feelings.
But Helen was not a close reasoner, and although all the argument was
upon her side, and all the propriety, and all the justice, we grieve to
say that she did not avail herself of either to the extent she ought to
have done; but, on the contrary, gave up those moments to regret which
should have been far better employed in resistance.
When the consent which we have recorded had been wrung from her,
she gave herself up to the most melancholy reflections, weeping
incessantly, and calling upon Heaven to help her from the pressure of
circumstances which she was quite competent to relieve herself from, if
she could have persuaded herself to make the necessary efforts.
At last it seemed to her that she had hit upon a plan which might
afford her some relief, but in projecting it, she little knew the real
character of the man she had to deal with.
This scheme was to tell the baron candidly that she loved another, and,
whether that other was living of dead, his remembrance would so cling
to her, that she could never love another, and that, in making her his
wife, he, the baron, would be laying up for himself a source of regret
and disquietude, in the feeling that he possessed one whose affections
he could never hope to obtain.
“Surely,” thought Helen, “if he be at all human, and if he have any of
the natural pride of manhood about him, he will shrink from attempting
to continue a suit that must be mortifying in every one of its stages,
and which cannot confer upon him even the shadow of happiness.”