“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.