If Joseph Willet, the denounced and proscribed of 'prentices,
had happened to be at home when his father's courtly guest presented himself
before the Maypole door--that is, if it had not perversely chanced to be one of
the half-dozen days in the whole year on which he was at liberty to absent
himself for as many hours without question or reproach--he would have contrived,
by hook or crook, to dive to the very bottom of Mr Chester's mystery, and to
come at his purpose with as much certainty as though he had been his
confidential adviser. In that fortunate case, the lovers would have had quick
warning of the ills that threatened them, and the aid of various timely and wise
suggestions to boot; for all Joe's readiness of thought and action, and all his
sympathies and good wishes, were enlisted in favour of the young people, and
were staunch in devotion to their cause. Whether this disposition arose out of
his old prepossessions in favour of the young lady, whose history had surrounded
her in his mind, almost from his cradle, with circumstances of unusual interest;
or from his attachment towards the young gentleman, into whose confidence he
had, through his shrewdness and alacrity, and the rendering of sundry important
services as a spy and messenger, almost imperceptibly glided; whether they had
their origin in either of these sources, or in the habit natural to youth, or in
the constant badgering and worrying of his venerable parent, or in any hidden
little love affair of his own which gave him something of a fellow-feeling in
the matter, it is needless to inquire--especially as Joe was out of the way, and
had no opportunity on that particular occasion of testifying to his sentiments
either on one side or the other.
It was, in fact, the twenty-fifth of March, which, as most people know to
their cost, is, and has been time out of mind, one of those unpleasant epochs
termed quarter-days. On this twenty-fifth of March, it was John Willet's pride
annually to settle, in hard cash, his account with a certain vintner and
distiller in the city of London; to give into whose hands a canvas bag
containing its exact amount, and not a penny more or less, was the end and
object of a journey for Joe, so surely as the year and day came round.
This journey was performed upon an old grey mare, concerning whom John had an
indistinct set of ideas hovering about him, to the effect that she could win a
plate or cup if she tried. She never had tried, and probably never would now,
being some fourteen or fifteen years of age, short in wind, long in body, and
rather the worse for wear in respect of her mane and tail. Notwithstanding these
slight defects, John perfectly gloried in the animal; and when she was brought
round to the door by Hugh, actually retired into the bar, and there, in a secret
grove of lemons, laughed with pride.
'There's a bit of horseflesh, Hugh!' said John, when he had recovered enough
self-command to appear at the door again. 'There's a comely creature! There's
high mettle! There's bone!'
There was bone enough beyond all doubt; and so Hugh seemed to think, as he
sat sideways in the saddle, lazily doubled up with his chin nearly touching his
knees; and heedless of the dangling stirrups and loose bridle-rein, sauntered up
and down on the little green before the door.
'Mind you take good care of her, sir,' said John, appealing from this
insensible person to his son and heir, who now appeared, fully equipped and
ready. 'Don't you ride hard.'
'I should be puzzled to do that, I think, father,' Joe replied, casting a
disconsolate look at the animal.
'None of your impudence, sir, if you please,' retorted old John. 'What would
you ride, sir? A wild ass or zebra would be too tame for you, wouldn't he, eh
sir? You'd like to ride a roaring lion, wouldn't you, sir, eh sir? Hold your
tongue, sir.' When Mr Willet, in his differences with his son, had exhausted all
the questions that occurred to him, and Joe had said nothing at all in answer,
he generally wound up by bidding him hold his tongue.
'And what does the boy mean,' added Mr Willet, after he had stared at him for
a little time, in a species of stupefaction, 'by cocking his hat, to such an
extent! Are you going to kill the wintner, sir?'
'No,' said Joe, tartly; 'I'm not. Now your mind's at ease, father.'
'With a milintary air, too!' said Mr Willet, surveying him from top to toe;
'with a swaggering, fire-eating, biling-water drinking sort of way with him! And
what do you mean by pulling up the crocuses and snowdrops, eh sir?'
'It's only a little nosegay,' said Joe, reddening. 'There's no harm in that,
I hope?'
'You're a boy of business, you are, sir!' said Mr Willet, disdainfully, 'to
go supposing that wintners care for nosegays.'
'I don't suppose anything of the kind,' returned Joe. 'Let them keep their
red noses for bottles and tankards. These are going to Mr Varden's house.'
'And do you suppose HE minds such things as crocuses?' demanded John.
'I don't know, and to say the truth, I don't care,' said Joe. 'Come, father,
give me the money, and in the name of patience let me go.'
'There it is, sir,' replied John; 'and take care of it; and mind you don't
make too much haste back, but give the mare a long rest.-- Do you mind?'
'Ay, I mind,' returned Joe. 'She'll need it, Heaven knows.'
'And don't you score up too much at the Black Lion,' said John. 'Mind that
too.'
'Then why don't you let me have some money of my own?' retorted Joe,
sorrowfully; 'why don't you, father? What do you send me into London for, giving
me only the right to call for my dinner at the Black Lion, which you're to pay
for next time you go, as if I was not to be trusted with a few shillings? Why do
you use me like this? It's not right of you. You can't expect me to be quiet
under it.'
'Let him have money!' cried John, in a drowsy reverie. 'What does he call
money--guineas? Hasn't he got money? Over and above the tolls, hasn't he one and
sixpence?'
'One and sixpence!' repeated his son contemptuously.
'Yes, sir,' returned John, 'one and sixpence. When I was your age, I had
never seen so much money, in a heap. A shilling of it is in case of
accidents--the mare casting a shoe, or the like of that. The other sixpence is
to spend in the diversions of London; and the diversion I recommend is going to
the top of the Monument, and sitting there. There's no temptation there, sir--no
drink--no young women--no bad characters of any sort--nothing but imagination.
That's the way I enjoyed myself when I was your age, sir.'
To this, Joe made no answer, but beckoning Hugh, leaped into the saddle and
rode away; and a very stalwart, manly horseman he looked, deserving a better
charger than it was his fortune to bestride. John stood staring after him, or
rather after the grey mare (for he had no eyes for her rider), until man and
beast had been out of sight some twenty minutes, when he began to think they
were gone, and slowly re-entering the house, fell into a gentle doze.
The unfortunate grey mare, who was the agony of Joe's life, floundered along
at her own will and pleasure until the Maypole was no longer visible, and then,
contracting her legs into what in a puppet would have been looked upon as a
clumsy and awkward imitation of a canter, mended her pace all at once, and did
it of her own accord. The acquaintance with her rider's usual mode of
proceeding, which suggested this improvement in hers, impelled her likewise to
turn up a bye-way, leading--not to London, but through lanes running parallel
with the road they had come, and passing within a few hundred yards of the
Maypole, which led finally to an inclosure surrounding a large, old, red-brick
mansion--the same of which mention was made as the Warren in the first chapter
of this history. Coming to a dead stop in a little copse thereabout, she
suffered her rider to dismount with right goodwill, and to tie her to the trunk
of a tree.
'Stay there, old girl,' said Joe, 'and let us see whether there's any little
commission for me to-day.' So saying, he left her to browze upon such stunted
grass and weeds as happened to grow within the length of her tether, and passing
through a wicket gate, entered the grounds on foot.
The pathway, after a very few minutes' walking, brought him close to the
house, towards which, and especially towards one particular window, he directed
many covert glances. It was a dreary, silent building, with echoing courtyards,
desolated turret-chambers, and whole suites of rooms shut up and mouldering to
ruin.
The terrace-garden, dark with the shade of overhanging trees, had an air of
melancholy that was quite oppressive. Great iron gates, disused for many years,
and red with rust, drooping on their hinges and overgrown with long rank grass,
seemed as though they tried to sink into the ground, and hide their fallen state
among the friendly weeds. The fantastic monsters on the walls, green with age
and damp, and covered here and there with moss, looked grim and desolate. There
was a sombre aspect even on that part of the mansion which was inhabited and
kept in good repair, that struck the beholder with a sense of sadness; of
something forlorn and failing, whence cheerfulness was banished. It would have
been difficult to imagine a bright fire blazing in the dull and darkened rooms,
or to picture any gaiety of heart or revelry that the frowning walls shut in. It
seemed a place where such things had been, but could be no more--the very ghost
of a house, haunting the old spot in its old outward form, and that was all.
Much of this decayed and sombre look was attributable, no doubt, to the death
of its former master, and the temper of its present occupant; but remembering
the tale connected with the mansion, it seemed the very place for such a deed,
and one that might have been its predestined theatre years upon years ago.
Viewed with reference to this legend, the sheet of water where the steward's
body had been found appeared to wear a black and sullen character, such as no
other pool might own; the bell upon the roof that had told the tale of murder to
the midnight wind, became a very phantom whose voice would raise the listener's
hair on end; and every leafless bough that nodded to another, had its stealthy
whispering of the crime.
Joe paced up and down the path, sometimes stopping in affected contemplation
of the building or the prospect, sometimes leaning against a tree with an
assumed air of idleness and indifference, but always keeping an eye upon the
window he had singled out at first. After some quarter of an hour's delay, a
small white hand was waved to him for an instant from this casement, and the
young man, with a respectful bow, departed; saying under his breath as he
crossed his horse again, 'No errand for me to-day!'
But the air of smartness, the cock of the hat to which John Willet had
objected, and the spring nosegay, all betokened some little errand of his own,
having a more interesting object than a vintner or even a locksmith. So, indeed,
it turned out; for when he had settled with the vintner--whose place of business
was down in some deep cellars hard by Thames Street, and who was as purple-faced
an old gentleman as if he had all his life supported their arched roof on his
head--when he had settled the account, and taken the receipt, and declined
tasting more than three glasses of old sherry, to the unbounded astonishment of
the purple-faced vintner, who, gimlet in hand, had projected an attack upon at
least a score of dusty casks, and who stood transfixed, or morally gimleted as
it were, to his own wall--when he had done all this, and disposed besides of a
frugal dinner at the Black Lion in Whitechapel; spurning the Monument and John's
advice, he turned his steps towards the locksmith's house, attracted by the eyes
of blooming Dolly Varden.
Joe was by no means a sheepish fellow, but, for all that, when he got to the
corner of the street in which the locksmith lived, he could by no means make up
his mind to walk straight to the house. First, he resolved to stroll up another
street for five minutes, then up another street for five minutes more, and so on
until he had lost full half an hour, when he made a bold plunge and found
himself with a red face and a beating heart in the smoky workshop.
'Joe Willet, or his ghost?' said Varden, rising from the desk at which he was
busy with his books, and looking at him under his spectacles. 'Which is it? Joe
in the flesh, eh? That's hearty. And how are all the Chigwell company, Joe?'
'Much as usual, sir--they and I agree as well as ever.'
'Well, well!' said the locksmith. 'We must be patient, Joe, and bear with old
folks' foibles. How's the mare, Joe? Does she do the four miles an hour as
easily as ever? Ha, ha, ha! Does she, Joe? Eh!--What have we there, Joe--a
nosegay!'
'A very poor one, sir--I thought Miss Dolly--'
'No, no,' said Gabriel, dropping his voice, and shaking his head, 'not Dolly.
Give 'em to her mother, Joe. A great deal better give 'em to her mother. Would
you mind giving 'em to Mrs Varden, Joe?'
'Oh no, sir,' Joe replied, and endeavouring, but not with the greatest
possible success, to hide his disappointment. 'I shall be very glad, I'm sure.'
'That's right,' said the locksmith, patting him on the back. 'It don't matter
who has 'em, Joe?'
'Not a bit, sir.'--Dear heart, how the words stuck in his throat!
'Come in,' said Gabriel. 'I have just been called to tea. She's in the
parlour.'
'She,' thought Joe. 'Which of 'em I wonder--Mrs or Miss?' The locksmith
settled the doubt as neatly as if it had been expressed aloud, by leading him to
the door, and saying, 'Martha, my dear, here's young Mr Willet.'
Now, Mrs Varden, regarding the Maypole as a sort of human mantrap, or decoy
for husbands; viewing its proprietor, and all who aided and abetted him, in the
light of so many poachers among Christian men; and believing, moreover, that the
publicans coupled with sinners in Holy Writ were veritable licensed victuallers;
was far from being favourably disposed towards her visitor. Wherefore she was
taken faint directly; and being duly presented with the crocuses and snowdrops,
divined on further consideration that they were the occasion of the languor
which had seized upon her spirits. 'I'm afraid I couldn't bear the room another
minute,' said the good lady, 'if they remained here. WOULD you excuse my putting
them out of window?'
Joe begged she wouldn't mention it on any account, and smiled feebly as he
saw them deposited on the sill outside. If anybody could have known the pains he
had taken to make up that despised and misused bunch of flowers!--
'I feel it quite a relief to get rid of them, I assure you,' said Mrs Varden.
'I'm better already.' And indeed she did appear to have plucked up her spirits.
Joe expressed his gratitude to Providence for this favourable dispensation,
and tried to look as if he didn't wonder where Dolly was.
'You're sad people at Chigwell, Mr Joseph,' said Mrs V.
'I hope not, ma'am,' returned Joe.
'You're the cruellest and most inconsiderate people in the world,' said Mrs
Varden, bridling. 'I wonder old Mr Willet, having been a married man himself,
doesn't know better than to conduct himself as he does. His doing it for profit
is no excuse. I would rather pay the money twenty times over, and have Varden
come home like a respectable and sober tradesman. If there is one character,'
said Mrs Varden with great emphasis, 'that offends and disgusts me more than
another, it is a sot.'
'Come, Martha, my dear,' said the locksmith cheerily, 'let us have tea, and
don't let us talk about sots. There are none here, and Joe don't want to hear
about them, I dare say.'
At this crisis, Miggs appeared with toast.
'I dare say he does not,' said Mrs Varden; 'and I dare say you do not,
Varden. It's a very unpleasant subiect, I have no doubt, though I won't say it's
personal'--Miggs coughed--'whatever I may be forced to think'--Miggs sneezed
expressively. 'You never will know, Varden, and nobody at young Mr Willet's
age--you'll excuse me, sir--can be expected to know, what a woman suffers when
she is waiting at home under such circumstances. If you don't believe me, as I
know you don't, here's Miggs, who is only too often a witness of it--ask her.'
'Oh! she were very bad the other night, sir, indeed she were, said Miggs. 'If
you hadn't the sweetness of an angel in you, mim, I don't think you could abear
it, I raly don't.'
'Miggs,' said Mrs Varden, 'you're profane.'
'Begging your pardon, mim,' returned Miggs, with shrill rapidity, 'such was
not my intentions, and such I hope is not my character, though I am but a
servant.'
'Answering me, Miggs, and providing yourself,' retorted her mistress, looking
round with dignity, 'is one and the same thing. How dare you speak of angels in
connection with your sinful fellow-beings--mere'--said Mrs Varden, glancing at
herself in a neighbouring mirror, and arranging the ribbon of her cap in a more
becoming fashion--'mere worms and grovellers as we are!'
'I did not intend, mim, if you please, to give offence,' said Miggs,
confident in the strength of her compliment, and developing strongly in the
throat as usual, 'and I did not expect it would be took as such. I hope I know
my own unworthiness, and that I hate and despise myself and all my
fellow-creatures as every practicable Christian should.'
'You'll have the goodness, if you please,' said Mrs Varden, loftily, 'to step
upstairs and see if Dolly has finished dressing, and to tell her that the chair
that was ordered for her will be here in a minute, and that if she keeps it
waiting, I shall send it away that instant.--I'm sorry to see that you don't
take your tea, Varden, and that you don't take yours, Mr Joseph; though of
course it would be foolish of me to expect that anything that can be had at
home, and in the company of females, would please YOU.'
This pronoun was understood in the plural sense, and included both gentlemen,
upon both of whom it was rather hard and undeserved, for Gabriel had applied
himself to the meal with a very promising appetite, until it was spoilt by Mrs
Varden herself, and Joe had as great a liking for the female society of the
locksmith's house--or for a part of it at all events--as man could well
entertain.
But he had no opportunity to say anything in his own defence, for at that
moment Dolly herself appeared, and struck him quite dumb with her beauty. Never
had Dolly looked so handsome as she did then, in all the glow and grace of
youth, with all her charms increased a hundredfold by a most becoming dress, by
a thousand little coquettish ways which nobody could assume with a better grace,
and all the sparkling expectation of that accursed party. It is impossible to
tell how Joe hated that party wherever it was, and all the other people who were
going to it, whoever they were.
And she hardly looked at him--no, hardly looked at him. And when the chair
was seen through the open door coming blundering into the workshop, she actually
clapped her hands and seemed glad to go. But Joe gave her his arm--there was
some comfort in that--and handed her into it. To see her seat herself inside,
with her laughing eyes brighter than diamonds, and her hand--surely she had the
prettiest hand in the world--on the ledge of the open window, and her little
finger provokingly and pertly tilted up, as if it wondered why Joe didn't
squeeze or kiss it! To think how well one or two of the modest snowdrops would
have become that delicate bodice, and how they were lying neglected outside the
parlour window! To see how Miggs looked on with a face expressive of knowing how
all this loveliness was got up, and of being in the secret of every string and
pin and hook and eye, and of saying it ain't half as real as you think, and I
could look quite as well myself if I took the pains! To hear that provoking
precious little scream when the chair was hoisted on its poles, and to catch
that transient but not-to-be-forgotten vision of the happy face within-- what
torments and aggravations, and yet what delights were these! The very chairmen
seemed favoured rivals as they bore her down the street.
There never was such an alteration in a small room in a small time as in that
parlour when they went back to finish tea. So dark, so deserted, so perfectly
disenchanted. It seemed such sheer nonsense to be sitting tamely there, when she
was at a dance with more lovers than man could calculate fluttering about
her--with the whole party doting on and adoring her, and wanting to marry her.
Miggs was hovering about too; and the fact of her existence, the mere
circumstance of her ever having been born, appeared, after Dolly, such an
unaccountable practical joke. It was impossible to talk. It couldn't be done. He
had nothing left for it but to stir his tea round, and round, and round, and
ruminate on all the fascinations of the locksmith's lovely daughter.
Gabriel was dull too. It was a part of the certain uncertainty of Mrs
Varden's temper, that when they were in this condition, she should be gay and
sprightly.
'I need have a cheerful disposition, I am sure,' said the smiling housewife,
'to preserve any spirits at all; and how I do it I can scarcely tell.'
'Ah, mim,' sighed Miggs, 'begging your pardon for the interruption, there
an't a many like you.'
'Take away, Miggs,' said Mrs Varden, rising, 'take away, pray. I know I'm a
restraint here, and as I wish everybody to enjoy themselves as they best can, I
feel I had better go.'
'No, no, Martha,' cried the locksmith. 'Stop here. I'm sure we shall be very
sorry to lose you, eh Joe!' Joe started, and said 'Certainly.'
'Thank you, Varden, my dear,' returned his wife; 'but I know your wishes
better. Tobacco and beer, or spirits, have much greater attractions than any I
can boast of, and therefore I shall go and sit upstairs and look out of window,
my love. Good night, Mr Joseph. I'm very glad to have seen you, and I only wish
I could have provided something more suitable to your taste. Remember me very
kindly if you please to old Mr Willet, and tell him that whenever he comes here
I have a crow to pluck with him. Good night!'
Having uttered these words with great sweetness of manner, the good lady
dropped a curtsey remarkable for its condescension, and serenely withdrew.
And it was for this Joe had looked forward to the twenty-fifth of March for
weeks and weeks, and had gathered the flowers with so much care, and had cocked
his hat, and made himself so smart! This was the end of all his bold
determination, resolved upon for the hundredth time, to speak out to Dolly and
tell her how he loved her! To see her for a minute--for but a minute--to find
her going out to a party and glad to go; to be looked upon as a common pipe-
smoker, beer-bibber, spirit-guzzler, and tosspot! He bade farewell to his friend
the locksmith, and hastened to take horse at the Black Lion, thinking as he
turned towards home, as many another Joe has thought before and since, that here
was an end to all his hopes--that the thing was impossible and never could
be--that she didn't care for him--that he was wretched for life--and that the
only congenial prospect left him, was to go for a soldier or a sailor, and get
some obliging enemy to knock his brains out as soon as possible.
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