“IT WON’T DO, AFY!”
Mr. Jiffin was in his glory. Mr. Jiffin’s house was the same. Both were
in apple-pie order to receive Miss Afy Hallijohn, who was, in a very
short period, indeed, to be converted into Mrs. Jiffin.
Mr. Jiffin had not seen Afy for some days--had never been able to come
across her since the trial at Lynneborough. Every evening had he danced
attendance at her lodgings, but could not get admitted. “Not at home--
not at home,” was the invariable answer, though Afy might be sunning
herself at the window in his very sight. Mr. Jiffin, throwing off as
best he could the temporary disappointment, was in an ecstasy of
admiration, for he set it all down to Afy’s retiring modesty on the
approach of the nuptial day. “And they could try to calumniate her!” he
indignantly replied.
But now, one afternoon, when Mr. Jiffin and his shopman, and his shop,
and his wares, were all set out to the best advantage--and very tempting
they looked, as a whole, especially the spiced bacon--Mr. Jiffin
happening to cast his eyes to the opposite side of the street, beheld
his beloved sailing by. She was got up in the fashion. A mauve silk
dress with eighteen flounces, and about eighteen hundred steel buttons
that glittered your sight away; a “zouave” jacket worked with gold; a
black turban perched on the top of her skull, garnished in front with
what court milliners are pleased to term a “plume de coq,” but which, by
its size and height, might have been taken for a “coq” himself, while a
white ostrich feather was carried round and did duty behind, and a
spangled hair net hung down to her waist. Gloriously grand was Afy that
day and if I had but a photographing machine at hand--or whatever may be
the scientific name of the thing--you should certainly have been regaled
with the sight of her. Joyce would have gone down in a fit had she
encountered her by an unhappy chance. Mr. Jiffin, dashing his apron
anywhere, tore across.
“Oh, it is you!” said Afy, freezingly, when compelled to acknowledge
him, but his offered hand she utterly repudiated. “Really, Mr. Jiffin, I
should feel obliged if you would not come out to me in this offensive
and public manner.”
Mr. Jiffin grew cold. “Offensive! Not come out?” gasped he. “I do trust
I have not been so unfortunate as to offend you, Miss Afy!”
“Well--you see,” said Afy, calling up all her impudence to say what she
had made up her mind to say, “I have been considering it well over,
Jiffin, and I find that to carry out the marriage will not be for my--
for our happiness. I intended to write to inform you of this; but I
shall be spared the trouble--as you have come out to me.”
The perspiration, cold as ice, began to pour off Mr. Jiffin in his agony
and horror. You might have wrung every thread he had on. “You--don’t
mean--to--imply--that--you--give--me--up--Miss--Afy?” he jerked out,
unevenly.
“Well, yes, I do,” replied Afy. “It’s as good to be plain, and then
there can be no misapprehension. I’ll shake hands now with you, Jiffin,
for the last time; and I am very sorry that we both made such a
mistake.”
Poor Jiffin looked at her. His gaze would have melted a heart of stone.
“Miss Afy, you can’t mean it! You’d never, sure, crush a fellow in this
manner, whose whole soul is yours; who trusted you entirely? There’s not
an earthly thing I would not do to please you. You have been the light
of my existence.”
“Of course,” returned Afy, with a lofty and indifferent air, as if to be
“the light of his existence” was only her due. “But it’s all done and
over. It is not at all a settlement that will suit me, you see, Jiffin.
A butter and bacon factor is so very--so very--what I have not been
accustomed to! And then, those aprons! I never could get reconciled to
them.”
“I’ll discard the aprons altogether,” cried he, in a fever. “I’ll get a
second shopman, and buy a little gig, and do nothing but drive you out.
I’ll do anything if you will but have me still, Miss Afy. I have bought
the ring, you know.”
“Your intentions are very kind,” was the distant answer, “but it’s a
thing impossible; my mind is fully made up. So farewell for good,
Jiffin; and I wish you better luck in your next venture.”
Afy, lifting her capacious dress, for the streets had just been watered,
minced off. And Mr. Joe Jiffin, wiping his wet face as he gazed after
her, instantly wished that he could be nailed up in one of his pickled
pork barrels, and so be out of his misery.
“That’s done with, thank goodness,” soliloquized Afy. “Have him, indeed.
After what Richard let out on the trial. As if I should look after
anybody less than Dick Hare! I shall get him, too. I always knew Dick
Hare loved me above everything on earth; and he does still, or he’d
never had said what he did in open court. ‘It’s better to be born lucky
than rich.’ Won’t West Lynne envy me! Mrs. Richard Hare of the Grove.
Old Hare is on his last legs, and then Dick comes into his own. Mrs.
Hare must have her jointure house elsewhere, for we shall want the Grove
for ourselves. I wonder if Madame Barbara will condescend to recognize
me. And that blessed Corny? I shall be a sort of cousin of Corny’s then.
I wonder how much Dick comes into--three or four thousand a year? And to
think that I had nearly escaped this by tying myself to that ape of a
Jiffin! What sharks do get in our unsuspecting paths in this world!”
On went Afy, through West Lynne, till she arrived close to Mr. Justice
Hare’s. Then she paced slowly. It had been a frequent walk of hers since
the trial. Luck favored her to-day. As she was passing the gate, young
Richard Hare came up from the direction of East Lynne. It was the first
time Afy had obtained speech of him.
“Good day, Richard. Why! you were never going to pass an old friend?”
“I have so many friends,” said Richard, “I can scarcely spare time for
them individually.”
“But you might for me. Have you forgotten old days?” continued she,
bridling and flirting, and altogether showing herself off to advantage.
“No, I have not,” replied Richard. “And I am not likely to do so,” he
pointedly added.
“Ah, I felt sure of that. My heart told me so. When you went off, that
dreadful night, leaving me to anguish and suspense, I thought I should
have died. I never have had, so to say, a happy moment until this, when
I meet you again.”
“Don’t be a fool, Afy!” was Richard’s gallant rejoinder, borrowing the
favorite reproach of Miss Carlyle. “I was young and green once; you
don’t suppose I have remained so. We will drop the past, if you please.
How is Mr. Jiffin?”
“Oh, the wretch!” shrieked Afy. “Is it possible that you can have fallen
into the popular scandal that I have anything to say to him? You know
I’d never demean myself to it. That’s West Lynne all over! Nothing but
inventions in it from week’s end to week’s end. A man who sells cheese!
Who cuts up bacon! Well, I am surprised at you, Mr. Richard!”
“I have been thinking what luck you were in to get him,” said Richard,
with composure. “But it is your business not mine.”
“Could you bear to see me stooping to him?” returned Afy, dropping her
voice to the most insinuating whisper.
“Look you, Afy. What ridiculous folly you are nursing in your head I
don’t trouble myself to guess, but, the sooner you get it out again the
better. I was an idiot once, I don’t deny it; but you cured me of that,
and cured me with a vengeance. You must pardon me for intimating that
from henceforth we are strangers; in the street as elsewhere. I have
resumed my own standing again, which I periled when I ran after you.”
Afy turned faint. “How can you speak those cruel words?” gasped she.
“You have called them forth. I was told yesterday that Afy Hallijohn,
dressed up to a caricature, was looking after me again. It won’t do,
Afy.”
“Oh-o-o-oh!” sobbed Afy, growing hysterical, “and is this to be all my
recompense for the years I have spent pining after you, keeping single
for your sake!”
“Recompense! Oh, if you want that, I’ll get my mother to give Jiffin her
custom.” And with a ringing laugh, which, though it had nothing of
malice in it, showed Afy that he took her reproach for what it was
worth, Richard turned in at his own gate.
It was a deathblow to Afy’s vanity. The worst it had ever received; and
she took a few minutes to compose herself, and smooth her ruffled
feathers. Then she turned and sailed back toward Mr. Jiffin’s, her
turban up in the skies and the plume de coq tossing to the admiration of
all beholders, especially of Miss Carlyle, who had the gratification of
surveying her from her window. Arrived at Mr. Jiffin’s, she was taken
ill exactly opposite his door, and staggered into the shop in a most
exhausted state.
Round the counter flew Mr. Jiffin, leaving the shopman staring behind
it. What was the matter? What could he do for her?
“Faint--heat of the sun--walked too fast--allowed to sit down for five
minutes!” gasped Afy, in disjointed sentences.
Mr. Jiffin tenderly conducted her through the shop to his parlor. Afy
cast half an eye round, saw how comfortable were its arrangements, and
her symptoms of faintness increased. Gasps and hysterical sobs came
forth together. Mr. Jiffin was as one upon spikes.
“She’d recover better there than in the public shop--if she’d only
excuse his bringing her in, and consent to stop for a few minutes. No
harm could come to her, and West Lynne could never say it. He’d stand at
the far end of the room, right away from her; he’d prop open the two
doors and the windows; he’d call in the maid--anything she thought
right. Should he get her a glass of wine?”
Afy declined the wine by a gesture, and sat fanning herself. Mr. Jiffin
looking on from a respectful distance. Gradually she grew composed--grew
herself again. As she gained courage, Mr. Jiffin lost it, and he
ventured upon some faint words of reproach, of him.
Afy burst into a laugh. “Did I not do it well?” she exclaimed. “I
thought I’d play off a joke upon you, so I came out this afternoon and
did it.”
Mr. Jiffin clasped his hands. “Was it a joke” he returned, trembling
with agitation, uncertain whether he was in paradise or not. “Are you
still ready to let me call you mine?”
“Of course it was a joke,” said Afy. “What a soft you must have been,
Mr. Jiffin, not to see through it! When young ladies engage themselves
to be married, you can’t suppose they run back from it, close upon the
wedding-day?”
“Oh, Miss Afy!” And the poor little man actually burst into delicious
tears, as he caught hold of Afy’s hand and kissed it.
“A great green donkey!” thought Afy to herself, bending on him, however
the sweetest smile.
Rather. But Mr. Jiffin is not the only great donkey in the world.
Richard Hare, meanwhile, had entered his mother’s presence. She was
sitting at the open window, the justice opposite to her, in an invalid
chair, basking in the air and the sun. This last attack of the justice’s
had affected the mind more than the body. He was brought down to the
sitting-room that day for the first time; but, of his mind, there was
little hope. It was in a state of half imbecility; the most wonderful
characteristic being, that all its self-will, its surliness had gone.
Almost as a little child in tractability, was Justice Hare.
Richard came up to his mother, and kissed her. He had been to East
Lynne. Mrs. Hare took his hand and fondly held it. The change in her was
wonderful; she was a young and happy woman again.
“Barbara has decided to go to the seaside, mother. Mr. Carlyle takes her
on Monday.”
“I am glad, my dear, it will be sure to go her good. Richard”--bending
over to her husband, but still retaining her son’s hand--“Barbara has
agreed to go to the seaside, I will set her up.”
“Ay, ay,” nodded the justice, “set her up. Seaside? Can’t we go?”
“Certainly, dear, if you wish it; when you shall be a little stronger.”
“Ay, ay,” nodded the justice again. It was his usual answer now.
“Stronger. Where’s Barbara?”
“She goes on Monday, sir,” said Richard, likewise bending his head.
“Only for a fortnight. But they talk of going again later in the
autumn.”
“Can’t I go, too?” repeated the justice, looking pleadingly in Richard’s
face.
“You shall, dear father. Who knows but a month or two’s bracing would
bring you quite round again? We might go all together, ourselves and the
Carlyles. Anne comes to stay with us next week, you know, and we might
go when her visit is over.”
“Aye, all go together. Anne’s coming?”
“Have you forgotten, dear Richard? She comes to stay a month with us,
and Mr. Clitheroe and the children. I am so pleased she will find you
better,” added Mrs. Hare, her gentle eyes filling. “Mr. Wainwright says
you may go out for a drive to-morrow.”
“And I’ll be coachman,” laughed Richard. “It will be the old times come
round again. Do you remember, father, my breaking the pole, one
moonlight night, and your not letting me drive for six months
afterwards?”
The poor justice laughed in answer to Richard, laughed till the tears
ran down his face, probably not knowing in the least what he was
laughing at.
“Richard,” said Mrs. Hare to her son, almost in an apprehensive tone,
her hand pressing his nervously, “was not that Afy Hallijohn I saw you
speaking with at the gate?”
“Did you? What a spectacle she had made of herself! I wonder she is not
ashamed to go through the streets in such a guise! Indeed, I wonder she
shows herself at all.”
“Richard, you--you--will not be drawn in again?” were the next whispered
words.
“Mother!” There was a sternness in his mild blue eyes as he cast them
upon his mother. Those beautiful eyes--the very counterpart of
Barbara’s, both his and hers the counterpart of Mrs. Hare’s. The look
had been sufficient refutation without words.
“Mother mine, I am going to belong to you in the future, and to nobody
else. West Lynne is already busy for me, I understand, pleasantly
carving out my destiny. One marvels whether I shall lose myself with
Miss Afy; another, that I shall set on offhand, and court Louisa Dobede.
They are all wrong; my place will be with my darling mother,--at least,
for several years to come.”
She clasped his hand to her bosom in her glad delight.
“We want happiness together, mother, to enable us to forget the past;
for upon none did the blow fall, as upon you and upon me. And the
happiness we shall find, in our own home, living for each other, and
striving to amuse my poor father.”
“Aye, aye,” complacently put in Justice Hare.
So it would be. Richard had returned to his home, had become, to all
intent and purposes, its master; for the justice would never be in a
state to hold sway again. He had resumed his position; and regained the
favor of West Lynne, which, always in extremes, was now wanting to kill
him with kindness. A happy, happy home from henceforth; and Mrs. Hare
lifted up her full heart in thankfulness to God. Perhaps Richard’s went
up also.
One word touching that wretched prisoner in the condemned cell at
Lynneborough. As you must have anticipated, the extreme sentence was not
carried out. And, little favorite as Sir Francis is with you and with
me, we can but admit that justice did not demand that it should be. That
he had willfully killed Hallijohn, was certain; but the act was
committed in a moment of wild rage; it had not been premeditated. The
sentence was commuted to transportation. A far more disgraceful one in
the estimation of Sir Francis; a far more unwelcome one in the eyes of
his wife. It is no use to mince the truth, one little grain of comfort
had penetrated to Lady Levison; the anticipation of the time when she
and her ill-fated child should be alone, and could hide themselves in
some hidden nook of the wide world; he, and his crime, and his end gone;
forgotten. But it seems he was not to go and be forgotten; she and the
boy must be tied to him still; and she was lost in horror and rebellion.
He envied the dead Hallijohn, did that man, as he looked forth on the
future. A cheering prospect truly! The gay Sir Francis Levison working
in chains with his gang! Where would his diamonds and his perfumed
handkerchiefs and his white hands be then? After a time he might get a
ticket-of-leave. He groaned in agony as the turnkey suggested it to him.
A ticket-of-leave for him! Oh, why did they not hang him? he wailed
forth as he closed his eyes to the dim light. The light of the cell, you
understand; he could not close them to the light of the future. No;
never again; it shone out all too plainly, dazzling his brain as with a
flame of living fire.