MR. MOGGS WALKS TOWARDS EDGEWARE.
The judge's decision in Percycross as to the late election was no
sooner known than fresh overtures were made to Ontario Moggs by the
Young Men's Association. A letter of triumph was addressed to him at
the Cheshire Cheese, in which he was informed that Intimidation and
Corruption had been trodden under foot in the infamous person of Mr.
Griffenbottom, and that Purity and the Rights of Labour were still
the watchwords of that wholesome party in the borough which was
determined to send Mr. Moggs to Parliament. Did not Mr. Moggs think
it best that he should come down at once to the borough and look
after his interests? Now Mr. Moggs junior, when he received this
letter, had left the borough no more than three or four days since,
having been summoned there as a witness during the trial of the
petition;--and such continued attendance to the political interests
of a small and otherwise uninteresting town, without the advantage of
a seat in Parliament, was felt by Mr. Moggs senior to be a nuisance.
The expense in all these matters fell of course upon the shoulders
of the father. "I don't believe in them humbugs no longer," said Mr.
Moggs senior. Moggs junior, who had felt the enthusiasm of the young
men of Percycross, and who had more to get and less to lose than his
father, did believe. Although he had been so lately at Percycross,
he went down again, and again made speeches to the young men at the
Mechanics' Institute. Nothing could be more triumphant than his
speeches, nothing more pleasant than his popularity; but he could
not fail to become aware, after a further sojourn of three days at
Percycross, of two things. The first was this,--that if the borough
were spared there would be a compromise between the leading men on
the two sides, and Mr. Westmacott would be returned together with a
young Griffenbottom. The second conviction forced upon him was that
the borough would not be spared. There was no comfort for him at
Percycross,--other than what arose from a pure political conscience.
On the very morning on which he left, he besought his friends, the
young men,--though they were about to be punished, degraded, and
disfranchised for the sins of their elders, though it might never be
allowed to them again to stir themselves for the political welfare
of their own borough,--still to remember that Purity and the Rights
of Labour were the two great wants of the world, and that no man
could make an effort, however humble, in a good cause without doing
something towards bringing nearer to him that millennium of political
virtue which was so much wanted, and which would certainly come
sooner or later. He was cheered to the echo, and almost carried down
to the station on the shoulders of a chairman, or president, and
a secretary; but he left Percycross with the conviction that that
borough would never confer upon him the coveted honour of a seat in
Parliament.
All this had happened early in March, previous to that Sunday on
which Mr. Neefit behaved so rudely to him at the cottage. "I think as
perhaps you'd better stick to business now a bit," said old Moggs. At
that moment Ontario was sitting up at a high desk behind the ledger
which he hated, and was sticking to business as well as he knew how
to stick to it. "No more Cheshire Cheeses, if you please, young man,"
said the father. This was felt by the son to be unfair, cruel, and
even corrupt. While the election was going on, as long as there was
a hope of success at Percycross, Moggs senior had connived at the
Cheshire Cheese, had said little or nothing about business, had even
consented on one occasion to hear his son make a speech advocating
the propriety of combination among workmen. "It ain't my way of
thinking," Moggs senior had said; "but then, perhaps, I'm old." To
have had a member of the firm in Parliament would have been glorious
even to old Moggs, though he hardly knew in what the glory would have
consisted. But as soon as he found that his hopes were vain, that the
Cheshire Cheese had been no stepping-stone to such honour, and that
his money had been spent for nothing, his mind reverted to its old
form. Strikes became to him the work of the devil, and unions were
once more the bane of trade.
"I suppose," said Ontario, looking up from his ledger, "if I work for
my bread by day, I may do as I please with my evenings. At any rate
I shall," he continued to say after pausing awhile. "It's best we
should understand each other, father." Moggs senior growled. At a
word his son would have been off from him, rushing about the country,
striving to earn a crust as a political lecturer. Moggs knew his son
well, and in truth loved him dearly. There was, too, a Miss Moggs
at home, who would give her father no peace if Ontario were turned
adrift. There is nothing in the world so cruel as the way in which
sons use the natural affections of their fathers, obtaining from
these very feelings a power of rebelling against authority! "You must
go to the devil if you please, I suppose," said Moggs senior.
"I don't know why you say that. What do I do devilish?"
"Them Unions is devilish."
"I think they're Godlike," said Moggs junior. After that they were
silent for a while, during which Moggs senior was cutting his nails
with a shoemaker's knife by the fading light of the evening, and
Moggs junior was summing up an account against a favoured aristocrat,
who seemed to have worn a great many boots, but who was noticeable to
Ontario, chiefly from the fact that he represented in Parliament the
division of the county in which Percycross was situated. "I thought
you was going to make it all straight by marrying that girl," said
Moggs senior.
Here was a subject on which the father and the son were in
unison;--and as to which the romantic heart of Miss Moggs, at home at
Shepherd's Bush, always glowed with enthusiasm. That her brother was
in love, was to her, of whom in truth it must be owned that she was
very plain, the charm of her life. She was fond of poetry, and would
read to her brother aloud the story of Juan and Haidee, and the
melancholy condition of the lady who was loved by the veiled prophet.
She sympathised with the false Queen's passion for Launcelot, and,
being herself in truth an ugly old maid very far removed from things
romantic, delighted in the affairs of the heart when they did not run
smooth. "O Ontario," she would say, "be true to her;--if it's for
twenty years." "So I will;--but I'd like to begin the twenty years
by making her Mrs. Moggs," said Ontario. Now Mr. Moggs senior knew
to a penny what money old Neefit could give his daughter, and placed
not the slightest trust in that threat about the smock in which she
stood upright. Polly would certainly get the better of her father as
Ontario always got the better of him. Ontario made no immediate reply
to his father, but he found himself getting all wrong among the boots
and shoes which had been supplied to that aristocratic young member
of Parliament. "You don't mean as it's all off?" asked Moggs senior.
"No; it isn't all off."
"Then why don't you go in at it?"
"Why don't I go in at it?" said Ontario, closing the book in hopeless
confusion of mind and figures. "I'd give every pair of boots in this
place, I'd give all the business, to get a kind word from her."
"Isn't she kind?"
"Kind;--yes, she's kind enough in a way. She's everything just
what she ought to be. That's what she is. Don't you go on about it,
father. I'm as much in earnest as you can be. I shan't give it up
till she calls somebody else her husband; and then,--; why then
I shall just cut it, and go off to uncle in Canada. I've got my
mind made up about all that." And so he left the shop, somewhat
uncourteously perhaps. But he had worked his way back into his
father's good graces by his determination to stick to Neefit's girl.
A young man ought to be allowed to attend trades' unions, or any
other meetings, if he will marry a girl with twenty thousand pounds.
That evening Ontario Moggs went to the Cheshire Cheese, and was
greater than ever.
It has been already told how, on a Sunday subsequent to this, he
managed to have himself almost closeted with Polly, and how he was
working himself into her good graces, when he was disturbed by Mr.
Neefit and turned out of the house. Polly's heart had been yielding
during the whole of that interview. There had come upon her once a
dream that it would be a fine thing to be the lady of Newton;--and
the chance had been hers. But when she set herself to work to
weigh it all, and to find out what it was that young Newton really
wanted,--and what he ought to want, she shook off from herself that
dream before it had done her any injury. She meant to be married
certainly. As to that she had no doubt. But then Ontario Moggs was
such a long-legged, awkward, ugly, shambling fellow, and Moggs as
a name was certainly not euphonious. The gasfitter was handsome,
and was called Yallolegs, which perhaps was better than Moggs. He
had proposed to her more than once; but the gasfitter's face meant
nothing, and the gasfitter himself hadn't much meaning in him. As to
outside appearance, young Newton's was just what he ought to be,--but
that was a dream which she had shaken off. Onty Moggs had some
meaning in him, and was a man. If there was one thing, too, under the
sun of which Polly was quite sure, it was this,--that Onty Moggs did
really love her. She knew that in the heart, and mind, and eyes of
Onty Moggs she possessed a divinity which made the ground she stood
upon holy ground for him. Now that is a conviction very pleasant to a
young woman.
Ontario was very near his victory on that Sunday. When he told her
that he would compass the death of Ralph Newton if Ralph Newton was
to cause her to break her heart, she believed that he would do it,
and she felt obliged to him,--although she laughed at him. When he
declared to her that he didn't know what to do because of his love,
she was near to telling him what he might do. When he told her that
he would sooner have a kiss from her than be Prime Minister, she
believed him, and almost longed to make him happy. Then she had
tripped, giving him encouragement which she did not intend,--and had
retreated, telling him that he was silly. But as she said so she made
up her mind that he should be perplexed not much longer. After all,
in spite of his ugliness, and awkwardness, and long legs, this was
to be her man. She recognised the fact, and was happy. It is so much
for a girl to be sure that she is really loved! And there was no word
which fell from Ontario's mouth which Polly did not believe. Ralph
Newton's speeches were very pretty, but they conveyed no more than
his intention to be civil. Ontario's speeches really brought home to
her all that the words could mean. When he told her father that he
was quite contented to take her just as she was, without a shilling,
she knew that he would do so with the utmost joy. Then it was that
she resolved that he should have her, and that for the future all
doubtings, all flirtations, all coyness, should be over. She had been
won, and she lowered her flag. "You stick to it, and you'll do it,"
she said;--and this time she meant it. "I shall," said Ontario;--and
he walked all the way back to London, with his head among the clouds,
disregarding Percycross utterly, forgetful of all the boots and
aristocrats' accounts, regardless almost of the Cheshire Cheese, not
even meditating a new speech in defence of the Rights of Labour. He
believed that on that day he had gained the great victory. If so,
life before him was one vista of triumph. That he himself was what
the world calls romantic, he had no idea,--but he had lived now for
months on the conviction that the only chance of personal happiness
to himself was to come from the smiles and kindness and love of a
certain human being whom he had chosen to beatify. To him Polly
Neefit was divine, and round him also there would be a halo of
divinity if this goddess would consent to say that she would become
his wife.
It was impossible that many days should be allowed to pass before he
made an effort to learn from her own lips, positively, the meaning
of those last words which she had spoken to him. But there was
a difficulty. Neefit had warned him from the house, and he felt
unwilling to knock at the door of a man in that man's absence, who,
if present, would have refused to him the privilege of admittance.
That Mrs. Neefit would see him, and afford him opportunity of
pleading his cause with Polly, he did not doubt;--but some idea that
a man's house, being his castle, should not be invaded in the owner's
absence, restrained him. That the man's daughter might be the dearer
and the choicer, and the more sacred castle of the two, was true
enough; but then Polly was a castle which, as Moggs thought, ought to
belong to him rather than to her father. And so he resolved to waylay
Polly.
His weekdays, from nine in the morning till seven in the evening,
were at this time due to Booby and Moggs, and he was at present
paying that debt religiously, under a conviction that his various
absences at Percycross had been hard upon his father. For there was,
in truth, no Booby. Moggs senior, and Moggs junior, constituted the
whole firm;--in which, indeed, up to this moment Moggs junior had no
recognised share,--and if one was absent, the other must be present.
But Sunday was his own, and Polly Neefit always went to church.
Nevertheless, on the first Sunday he failed. He failed, though he saw
her, walking with two other ladies, and though, to the best of his
judgment, she also saw him. On the second Sunday he was at Hendon
from ten till three, hanging about in the lanes, sitting on gates,
whiling away the time with a treatise on political economy which he
had brought down in his pocket, thinking of Polly while he strove
to confine his thoughts to the great subject of man's productive
industry. Is there any law of Nature,--law of God, rather,--by which
a man has a right to enough of food, enough of raiment, enough of
shelter, and enough of recreation, if only he will work? But Polly's
cheeks, and Polly's lips, the eager fire of Polly's eye as she would
speak, and all the elastic beauty of Polly's gait as she would walk,
drove the great question from his mind. Was he ever destined to hold
Polly in his arms,--close, close to his breast? If not, then the laws
of Nature and the laws of God, let them be what they might, would not
have been sufficient to protect him from the cruellest wrong of all.
It was as she went to afternoon church that he hoped to intercept
her. Morning church with many is a bond. Afternoon church is a virtue
of supererogation,--practised often because there is nothing else to
do. It would be out of the question that he should induce her to give
up the morning service; but if he could only come upon her in the
afternoon, a little out of sight of others, just as she would turn
down a lane with which he was acquainted, near to a stile leading
across the fields towards Edgeware, it might be possible that he
should prevail. As the hour came near, he put the useless volume into
his pocket, and stationed himself on the spot which he had selected.
Almost at the first moment in which he had ventured to hope for her
presence, Polly turned into the lane. It was six months after this
occurrence that she confessed to him that she had thought it just
possible that he might be there. "Of course you would be there,--you
old goose; as if Jemima hadn't told me that you'd been about all day.
But I never should have come, if I hadn't quite made up my mind."
Then Ontario administered to her one of those bear's hugs which were
wont to make Polly declare that he was an ogre. It was thus that
Polly made her confession after the six months, as they were sitting
very close to each other on some remote point of the cliffs down
on the Kentish coast. At that time the castle had been altogether
transferred out of the keeping of Mr. Neefit.
But Polly's conduct on this occasion was not at all of a nature to
make it supposed that Jemima's eyes had been so sharp. "What, Mr.
Moggs!" she said. "Dear me, what a place to find you in! Are you
coming to church?"
"I want you just to take a turn with me for a few minutes, Polly."
"But I'm going to church."
"You can go to church afterwards;--that is, if you like. I can't come
to the house now, and I have got something that I must say to you."
"Something that you must say to me!" And then Polly followed him over
the stile.
They had walked the length of nearly two fields before Ontario had
commenced to tell the tale which of necessity must be told; but
Polly, though she must have known that her chances of getting back to
church were becoming more and more remote, waited without impatience.
"I want to know," he said, at last, "whether you can ever learn to
love me."
"What's the use, Mr. Moggs?"
"It will be all the use in the world to me."
"Oh, no it won't. It can't signify so very much to anybody."
"Nothing, I sometimes think, can ever be of any use to me but that."
"As for learning to love a man,--I suppose I could love a man without
any learning if I liked him."
"But you don't like me, Polly?"
"I never said I didn't like you. Father and mother always used to
like you."
"But you, Polly?"
"Oh, I like you well enough. Don't, Mr. Moggs."
"But do you love me?" Then there was a pause, as they stood leaning
upon a gateway. "Come, Polly; tell a fellow. Do you love me?"
"I don't know." Then there was another pause; but he was in a seventh
heaven, with his arm round her waist. "I suppose I do; a little,"
whispered Polly.
"But better than anybody else?"
"You don't think I mean to have two lovers;--do you?"
"And I am to be your lover?"
"There's father, you know. I'm not going to be anybody's wife because
he tells me; but I wouldn't like to vex him, if we could help it."
"But you'll never belong to any one else?"
"Never," said she solemnly.
"Then I've said what I've got to say, and I'm the happiest man in all
the world, and you may go to church now if you like." But his arm was
still tight round her waist.
"It's too late," said Polly, in a melancholy tone,--"and it's all
your doing."
The walk was prolonged not quite to Edgeware; but so far that Mr.
Neefit was called upon to remark that the parson was preaching a very
long sermon. Mrs. Neefit, who perhaps had also had communication
with Jemima, remarked that it was not to be expected, but that Polly
should take a ramble with some of her friends. "Why can't she ramble
where I want her to ramble?" said Mr. Neefit.
Many things were settled during that walk. Within five minutes of
the time in which she had declared that it was too late for her
to go to church, she had brought herself to talk to him with all
the delightful confidence of a completed engagement. She made him
understand at once that there was no longer any doubt. "A girl must
have time to know," she said, when he half-reproached her with the
delay. A girl wasn't like a man, she said, who could just make up his
mind at once,--a girl had to wait and see. But she was quite sure of
this,--that having once said the word she would never go back from
it. She didn't quite know when she had first begun to love him, but
she thought it was when she heard that he had made up his mind to
stand for Percycross. It seemed to her to be such a fine thing,--his
going to Percycross. "Then," said Ontario, gallantly, "Percycross has
done ten times more for me than it would have done, had it simply
made me a member of Parliament." Once, twice, and oftener he was
made happier than he could have been had fortune made him a Prime
Minister. For Polly, now that she had given her heart and promised
her hand, would not coy her lips to the man she had chosen.
Many things were settled between them. Polly told her lover all her
trouble about Ralph Newton, and it was now that she received that
advice from her "very particular friend, Mr. Moggs," which she
followed in writing to her late suitor. The letter was to be written
and posted that afternoon, and then shown to her father. We know
already that in making the copy for her father she omitted one
clause,--having resolved that she would tell her mother of her
engagement, and that her mother should communicate it to her father.
As for naming any day for their marriage, "That was out of the
question," she said. She did not wish to delay it; but all that
she could do was to swear to her father that she would never marry
anybody else. "And he'll believe me too," said Polly. As for eloping,
she would not hear of it. "Just that he might have an excuse to give
his money to somebody else," she said.
"I don't care for his money," protested Moggs.
"That's all very well; but money's a good thing in its way. I hate a
man who'd sell himself; he's a mean fellow;--or a girl either. Money
should never be first. But as for pitching it away just because
you're in a hurry, I don't believe in that at all. I'm not going
to be an old woman yet, and you may wait a few months very well."
She walked with him direct up to the gate leading up to their own
house,--so that all the world might see her, if all the world
pleased; and then she bade him good-bye. "Some day before very long,
no doubt," she said when, as he left her, he asked as to their next
meeting.
And so Polly had engaged herself. I do not know that the matter
seemed to her to be of so much importance as it does to many girls.
It was a piece of business which had to be done some day, as she had
well known for years past; and now that it was done, she was quite
contented with the doing of it. But there was not much of that
ecstasy in her bosom which was at the present moment sending Ontario
Moggs bounding up to town, talking, as he went, to himself,--to the
amazement of passers by, and assuring himself that he had triumphed
like an Alexander or a Cæsar. She made some steady resolves to do her
duty by him, and told herself again and again that nothing should
ever move her now that she had decided. As for beauty in a man;--what
did it signify? He was honest. As for awkwardness;--what did it
matter? He was clever. And in regard to being a gentleman; she rather
thought that she liked him better because he wasn't exactly what some
people call a gentleman. Whatever sort of a home he would give her
to live in, nobody would despise her in it because she was not grand
enough for her place. She was by no means sure that a good deal of
misery of that kind might not have fallen to her lot had she become
the mistress of Newton Priory. "When the beggar woman became a queen,
how the servants must have snubbed her," said Polly to herself.
That evening she showed her letter to her father. "You haven't sent
it, you minx?" said he.
"Yes, father. It's in the iron box."
"What business had you to write to a young man?"
"Come, father. I had a business."
"I believe you want to break my heart," said old Neefit.
That evening her mother asked her what she had been doing that
afternoon. "I just took a walk with Ontario Moggs," said Polly.
"Well?"
"And I've just engaged myself straight off, and you had better tell
father. I mean to keep to it, mother, let anybody say anything. I
wouldn't go back from my promise if they were to drag me. So father
may as well know at once."