COMBINED WISDOM.
"I really cannot go on like this," said Mr. Sharp to Mrs. Sharp, quite
early on the following morning. "Thank God, I am not of a nervous
nature, and patience is one of my largest virtues. But acting, as I
have done, for the best, I cannot be expected to put up with perpetual
suspense. This very day I will settle this matter, one way or the
other." The lawyer for the first time now was flurried; he had heard
of the capture of a spy last night--for so poor Hardenow had been
described--and though he had kept that new matter to himself, he was
puzzled to see his way through with it.
"Luke, my dear," replied Mrs. Sharp, with some of her tightenings not
done up, "surely there need not be such hurry. You make me quite
shiver, when you speak like that. I shall come down to breakfast
without any power; and the Port-meadow eel will go out for the maids.
Should we ever behold it again, Luke?"
"Of course not; how could you expect it? Slippery, slippery--hard it
is to lay fast hold of anything; and the worst of all to bind is
woman. I do not mean you, my dear; you need not look like that; you
are as firm as this tag of your stays--corset, corset--I beg pardon;
how can a man tell the fashionable words?"
"But, Luke, you surely would not think of proceeding to extremities?"
"Any extremity; if it only were the last. For the good of my family, I
have worked hard; and there never should have been all this worry with
it. Miranda, I may have strayed outside the truth, and outside the
law--which is so much larger--but one thing I beg you to bear in mind.
Not a thing have I done, except for you and Kit. Money to me is the
last thing I think of; pure affection is the very first. And no one
can meddle with your settlement."
"Oh, my darling," Mrs. Sharp exclaimed, as she fell back from looking
at the looking-glass, "you are almost too good for this world, Luke!
You think of everybody in the world except yourself. It is not the
right way to get on, dear. We must try to be a little harder."
"I have thought so, Miranda; I must try to do it. Petty little
sentiments must be dropped. We must rise and face the state of things
which it has pleased Providence to bring about. I am responsible for a
great deal of it; and with your assistance, I will see it through. We
must take Kit in hand at once. My dear wife, can I rely upon you?"
"Luke, you may rely upon me for anything short of perjury; and if it
comes to that, I must think first."
"No man ever had a better any more than he could have a truer wife, or
one so perpetually young." With these words Mr. Sharp performed some
little operations, which, even in the "highest circles," are sometimes
allowed to be brought about by masculine hands, when clever enough;
and before very long this affectionate pair went down to breakfast and
enjoyed fried eel.
Kit, who had caught this fine eel, was not there; perhaps he was gone
forth to catch another; so they left him the tail to be warmed up. In
the present condition of his active mind, and the mournful absence of
his beloved, Christopher found a dark and moody pleasure in laying
night-lines. If his snare were successful, he hauled out his victim,
and, with a scornful smile, despatched him; if the line held nothing,
he cast it in again, with a sigh of habitual frustration. This
morning, however, he was not gone forth on his usual round of
inspection, but had only walked up to the livery-stables, to make sure
of his favourite hack for the day. He had made up his mind that he
must see Grace that very same day, come what would of it; he would go
much earlier, and watch the door; and if this bad fortune still
continued, he would rush up at last and declare himself.
But this bold resolve had a different issue; for no sooner had the
young man, with some reluctance and self-reproach, dealt bravely with
a solid breakfast, than he was requested by his dear mother to come
into his father's little study.
Now, this invitation was not in accordance with the present mood of
Christopher. He had made up his mind to be off right soon for the
bowers of his beloved, with a roll and some tongue in his little
fishing-creel, and a bottle of beer in each holster. In the depth of
the wood he might thus get on, and enjoy to the utmost fruition of his
heart all the beauty of nature around him. It was a cruel blow to
march just then to a lecture from the governor, whose little private
study he particularly loathed, and regarded as the den of the evil
one. However, he set up his pluck and went.
Mr. Sharp, looking (if possible) more upright and bright than usual,
sat in front of the large and strong-legged desk, where he kept his
more private records, such as never went into the office. Mrs. Sharp
also took a legal chair, and contemplated Kit with a softer gaze. He
with a beating heart stood up, like a youth under orders to construe.
"My son," began the father and the master, in a manner large and
affable, "prepare yourself for a little surprise on the part of those
whose principal object is your truest welfare. For some weeks now you
have made your dear mother anxious and unhappy, by certain proceedings
which you thought it wise and manly to conceal from her."
"Yes, you know you did, Kit!" Mrs. Sharp interposed, shaking her short
curls, and trying to look fierce. The boy, with a deep blush, looked
at her, as if everybody now was against him.
"Christopher, we will not blame you," resumed Mr. Sharp, rather
hastily, for fear that his wife should jump up and spoil all. "Our
object in calling you is not that. You have acted according to our
wishes mainly, though you need not have done it so furtively. You have
formed an attachment to a certain young lady, who leads for the
present a retired life, in a quiet part of the old Stow Wood. And she
returns your affection. Is it so, or is it not?"
"I--I--I," stammered Kit, seeking for his mother's eyes, which had
buried themselves in her handkerchief. "I can't say a word about what
she thinks. She--she--she has got such a fashion of running away so.
But I--I--I--well, then, it's no good telling a lie about it; I am
deucedly fond of her!"
"That is exactly what I wished to know; though not expressed very
tastefully. Well, and do you know who she is, my son?"
"Yes, I know all that quite well; as much as any fellow wants to know.
She is a young lady, and she knows all the flowers, and the birds, and
the names of the trees almost. She can put me right about the kings of
England; and she knows my dogs as well as I do."
"A highly accomplished young lady, in short?"
"Yes, I should say a great deal more than that. I care very little for
accomplishments. But--but if I must come to the point--I do like her,
and no mistake!"
"Then you would not like some other man to come, and run away with
her, quite against her will?"
"That man must run over my body first," cried Kit, with so much spirit
that his father looked proud, and his poor mother trembled.
"Well, well, my boy," continued the good lawyer, "it will be your own
fault if the villain gets the chance. I am doing all I can to provide
against it; and am even obliged to employ some means of a nature not
at all congenial to me, for--for that very reason. You are sure that
you love this young lady, Kit?"
"Father, I would not say anything strong; but I would go on my knees,
all the way from here to there, for the smallest chance of getting
her!"
"Very good. That is as it should be. I would have done the very same
for your dear mother. Mamma, you have often reminded me of it, when
anything--well, those are reminiscences; but they lie at the bottom of
everything. A mercenary marriage is an outrage to all good feeling."
"She has not got a sixpence, father; she told me so. She makes all the
bread, and she puts by all the dripping."
"My dear boy, you know then what a good wife is. Mamma, we shall have
to clear out the room where the rocking-horse is, and the old
magic-lantern, and let this young couple go into it."
"My dear, it would be a long job; and there are a great many cracks in
the paper; but still we could have in old Josephine."
"Those are mere details, Momma. But this is a serious question; and
the boy must not be hurried. He may not have made up his mind; or he
may desire to change it to-morrow. He is too young to have any settled
will; and there is no reason why he should not wait----"
"Not a day will I wait--not an hour would I wait; in ten minutes I
could pack everything!"
"He might wait for a twelvemonth, my dear Miranda, and sound his own
feelings, and the young girl's too, if we could only be certain that
the young man of rank, with the four bay horses, was not in earnest
when he swore to carry her off to-morrow."
"My dear husband," Mrs. Sharp said, softly; "let us hope that he meant
nothing by it. Such things are frequently said, and come to nothing."
"I tell you what it is," Kit almost shouted, with his fist upon the
sacred desk; "you cannot in any way enter into my feelings upon such
matters! I beg your pardon, that is not what I mean, and I ought never
to have said it. But still, comparatively speaking, you can take these
things easily, and go on, and think people foolish--but I cannot. I
know when my mind is made up, and I do it. And to stop me with all
sorts of nonsense--at least, to find fifty reasons why I should do
nothing--is the surest of all ways to make me do it. I have many
people who will follow me through thick and thin; though you may not
believe it, because you cannot understand me, and your views are
confined to propriety. Mine are not. And you may find that out in a
very short time. At any rate, if I do a thing that brings you, father
and mother, into any evil words, all I can say is, you never should
have stopped me."
With this very lucid expression of ideas, Christopher strode away, and
left his parents petrified--as he thought. Mrs. Sharp was inclined to
be a dripping well; but Mr. Sharp was dry enough. "Exactly, exactly,"
he said, as he always said when a thing had come up to his reckoning;
"nothing could have been done much better. Put the money in his best
breeches' pocket, my dear, without my knowledge; and at the back-door
kiss him. Adjure him to do nothing rash; and lend him your own
wedding-ring, and weep. For a runaway match the most lucky of all
things is the boy's mother's wedding-ring. And above all things, not a
word about his rival, until he asks--and then all mystery; only you
know a great deal more than you dare tell."
"Oh, Luke, are you sure that it will all go aright?"
"Miranda, tell me anything we can be sure of, and you will have given
me a new idea. And I want ideas; I want them sadly. My power of
invention is failing me, or at any rate that of combining my
inventions. You did not observe that I was nervous, did you?"
"Nervous! Luke--you nervous! I should think that the end of the world
was coming if I saw any nervousness in you! And in the presence of a
boy, indeed----"
"My dear wife, I will give you my word that I felt--well, I will not
say 'nervous,' if you dislike it--but a little uncomfortable, and not
quite clear, when I saw how Kit was taking things. Real affection is a
dreadful thing. I did not want so much of it. I meant to have told him
who she is, till the turn of things made me doubt about it. But he is
quite up for anything now, I believe, though he must be told before he
goes. He is such a calf that he must not imagine that she has a
sixpence to bless herself. He would fly off in a moment if he guessed
the truth. He must know her name; and that you must tell him; and you
know how to explain it all a thousand-fold better than I do."
"Possibly I do," replied Mrs. Sharp; "I may have some very few ideas
of my own; although according to you, Mr. Sharp, I am only the mother
of a calf!"
"Very well said, my dear. And I have the honour of being his father."
They smiled at one another, for they both knew how to give and take.