110.
CHAPTER CX.
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 dilligent 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 characteristcs 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.
"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 solemny 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."
—
