The Way We Live Now - 23

Killarney's ball; but if you wish to see me alone you had
better come before lunch.

Yours affectionately,

J. MONOGRAM.


Georgiana condescended to borrow the carriage and reached her
friend's house a little after noon. The two ladies kissed each other
when they met--of course, and then Miss Longestaffe at once began.
"Julia, I did think that you would at any rate have asked me to your
second ball."

"Of course you would have been asked if you had been up in Bruton
Street. You know that as well as I do. It would have been a matter of
course."

"What difference does a house make?"

"But the people in a house make a great deal of difference, my dear.
I don't want to quarrel with you, my dear; but I can't know the
Melmottes."

"Who asks you?"

"You are with them."

"Do you mean to say that you can't ask anybody to your house without
asking everybody that lives with that person? It's done every day."

"Somebody must have brought you."

"I would have come with the Primeros, Julia."

"I couldn't do it. I asked Damask and he wouldn't have it. When that
great affair was going on in February, we didn't know much about the
people. I was told that everybody was going and therefore I got Sir
Damask to let me go. He says now that he won't let me know them; and
after having been at their house I can't ask you out of it, without
asking them too."

"I don't see it at all, Julia."

"I'm very sorry, my dear, but I can't go against my husband."

"Everybody goes to their house," said Georgiana, pleading her cause
to the best of her ability. "The Duchess of Stevenage has dined in
Grosvenor Square since I have been there."

"We all know what that means," replied Lady Monogram.

"And people are giving their eyes to be asked to the dinner party
which he is to give to the Emperor in July;--and even to the
reception afterwards."

"To hear you talk, Georgiana, one would think that you didn't
understand anything," said Lady Monogram. "People are going to see
the Emperor, not to see the Melmottes. I dare say we might have
gone,--only I suppose we shan't now because of this row."

"I don't know what you mean by a row, Julia."

"Well;--it is a row, and I hate rows. Going there when the Emperor
of China is there, or anything of that kind, is no more than going
to the play. Somebody chooses to get all London into his house, and
all London chooses to go. But it isn't understood that that means
acquaintance. I should meet Madame Melmotte in the park afterwards
and not think of bowing to her."

"I should call that rude."

"Very well. Then we differ. But really it does seem to me that you
ought to understand these things as well as anybody. I don't find any
fault with you for going to the Melmottes,--though I was very sorry
to hear it; but when you have done it, I don't think you should
complain of people because they won't have the Melmottes crammed down
their throats."

"Nobody has wanted it," said Georgiana sobbing. At this moment
the door was opened, and Sir Damask came in. "I'm talking to your
wife about the Melmottes," she continued, determined to take the
bull by the horns. "I'm staying there, and--I think it--unkind that
Julia--hasn't been--to see me. That's all."

"How'd you do, Miss Longestaffe? She doesn't know them." And Sir
Damask, folding his hands together, raising his eyebrows, and
standing on the rug, looked as though he had solved the whole
difficulty.


[Illustration: Sir Damask solving the difficulty.]


"She knows me, Sir Damask."

"Oh yes;--she knows you. That's a matter of course. We're delighted
to see you, Miss Longestaffe--I am, always. Wish we could have had
you at Ascot. But--." Then he looked as though he had again explained
everything.

"I've told her that you don't want me to go to the Melmottes," said
Lady Monogram.

"Well, no;--not just to go there. Stay and have lunch, Miss
Longestaffe."

"No, thank you."

"Now you're here, you'd better," said Lady Monogram.

"No, thank you. I'm sorry that I have not been able to make you
understand me. I could not allow our very long friendship to be
dropped without a word."

"Don't say--dropped," exclaimed the baronet.

"I do say dropped, Sir Damask. I thought we should have understood
each other;--your wife and I. But we haven't. Wherever she might have
gone, I should have made it my business to see her; but she feels
differently. Good-bye."

"Good-bye, my dear. If you will quarrel, it isn't my doing." Then Sir
Damask led Miss Longestaffe out, and put her into Madame Melmotte's
carriage. "It's the most absurd thing I ever knew in my life," said
the wife as soon as her husband had returned to her. "She hasn't
been able to bear to remain down in the country for one season, when
all the world knows that her father can't afford to have a house
for them in town. Then she condescends to come and stay with these
abominations and pretends to feel surprised that her old friends
don't run after her. She is old enough to have known better."

"I suppose she likes parties," said Sir Damask.

"Likes parties! She'd like to get somebody to take her. It's twelve
years now since Georgiana Longestaffe came out. I remember being told
of the time when I was first entered myself. Yes, my dear, you know
all about it, I dare say. And there she is still. I can feel for her,
and do feel for her. But if she will let herself down in that way she
can't expect not to be dropped. You remember the woman;--don't you?"

"What woman?"

"Madame Melmotte?"

"Never saw her in my life."

"Oh yes, you did. You took me there that night when Prince ----
danced with the girl. Don't you remember the blowsy fat woman at the
top of the stairs;--a regular horror?"

"Didn't look at her. I was only thinking what a lot of money it all
cost."

"I remember her, and if Georgiana Longestaffe thinks I'm going
there to make an acquaintance with Madame Melmotte she is very much
mistaken. And if she thinks that that is the way to get married, I
think she is mistaken again." Nothing perhaps is so efficacious in
preventing men from marrying as the tone in which married women speak
of the struggles made in that direction by their unmarried friends.




CHAPTER XXXIII.

JOHN CRUMB.


Sir Felix Carbury made an appointment for meeting Ruby Ruggles a
second time at the bottom of the kitchen-garden belonging to Sheep's
Acre farm, which appointment he neglected, and had, indeed, made
without any intention of keeping it. But Ruby was there, and remained
hanging about among the cabbages till her grandfather returned from
Harlestone market. An early hour had been named; but hours may be
mistaken, and Ruby had thought that a fine gentleman, such as was
her lover, used to live among fine people up in London, might well
mistake the afternoon for the morning. If he would come at all she
could easily forgive such a mistake. But he did not come, and late in
the afternoon she was obliged to obey her grandfather's summons as he
called her into the house.

After that for three weeks she heard nothing of her London lover,
but she was always thinking of him;--and though she could not
altogether avoid her country lover, she was in his company as little
as possible. One afternoon her grandfather returned from Bungay and
told her that her country lover was coming to see her. "John Crumb
be a coming over by-and-by," said the old man. "See and have a bit o'
supper ready for him."

"John Crumb coming here, grandfather? He's welcome to stay away then,
for me."

"That be dommed." The old man thrust his old hat on to his head and
seated himself in a wooden arm-chair that stood by the kitchen-fire.
Whenever he was angry he put on his hat, and the custom was well
understood by Ruby. "Why not welcome, and he all one as your husband?
Look ye here, Ruby, I'm going to have an eend o' this. John Crumb is
to marry you next month, and the banns is to be said."

"The parson may say what he pleases, grandfather. I can't stop his
saying of 'em. It isn't likely I shall try, neither. But no parson
among 'em all can marry me without I'm willing."

"And why should you no be willing, you contrairy young jade, you?"

"You've been a' drinking, grandfather."

He turned round at her sharp, and threw his old hat at her
head;--nothing to Ruby's consternation, as it was a practice to which
she was well accustomed. She picked it up, and returned it to him
with a cool indifference which was intended to exasperate him. "Look
ye here, Ruby," he said, "out o' this place you go. If you go as John
Crumb's wife you'll go with five hun'erd pound, and we'll have a
dinner here, and a dance, and all Bungay."

"Who cares for all Bungay,--a set of beery chaps as knows nothing
but swilling and smoking;--and John Crumb the main of 'em all? There
never was a chap for beer like John Crumb."

"Never saw him the worse o' liquor in all my life." And the old
farmer, as he gave this grand assurance, rattled his fist down upon
the table.

"It ony just makes him stoopider and stoopider the more he swills.
You can't tell me, grandfather, about John Crumb. I knows him."

"Didn't ye say as how ye'd have him? Didn't ye give him a promise?"

"If I did, I ain't the first girl as has gone back of her word,--and
I shan't be the last."

"You means you won't have him?"

"That's about it, grandfather."

"Then you'll have to have somebody to fend for ye, and that pretty
sharp,--for you won't have me."

"There ain't no difficulty about that, grandfather."

"Very well. He's a coming here to-night, and you may settle it along
wi' him. Out o' this ye shall go. I know of your doings."

"What doings! You don't know of no doings. There ain't no doings. You
don't know nothing ag'in me."

"He's a coming here to-night, and if you can make it up wi' him, well
and good. There's five hun'erd pound, and ye shall have the dinner
and the dance and all Bungay. He ain't a going to be put off no
longer;--he ain't."

"Whoever wanted him to be put on? Let him go his own gait."

"If you can't make it up wi' him--"

"Well, grandfather, I shan't anyways."

"Let me have my say, will ye, yer jade, you? There's five hun'erd
pound! and there ain't ere a farmer in Suffolk or Norfolk paying
rent for a bit of land like this can do as well for his darter as
that,--let alone only a granddarter. You never thinks o' that;--you
don't. If you don't like to take it,--leave it. But you'll leave
Sheep's Acre too."

"Bother Sheep's Acre. Who wants to stop at Sheep's Acre? It's the
stoopidest place in all England."

"Then find another. Then find another. That's all aboot it. John
Crumb's a coming up for a bit o' supper. You tell him your own mind.
I'm dommed if I trouble aboot it. On'y you don't stay here. Sheep's
Acre ain't good enough for you, and you'd best find another home.
Stoopid, is it? You'll have to put up wi' places stoopider nor
Sheep's Acre, afore you've done."

In regard to the hospitality promised to Mr. Crumb, Miss Ruggles went
about her work with sufficient alacrity. She was quite willing that
the young man should have a supper, and she did understand that,
so far as the preparation of the supper went, she owed her service
to her grandfather. She therefore went to work herself, and gave
directions to the servant girl who assisted her in keeping her
grandfather's house. But as she did this, she determined that she
would make John Crumb understand that she would never be his wife.
Upon that she was now fully resolved. As she went about the kitchen,
taking down the ham and cutting the slices that were to be broiled,
and as she trussed the fowl that was to be boiled for John Crumb, she
made mental comparisons between him and Sir Felix Carbury. She could
see, as though present to her at the moment, the mealy, floury head
of the one, with hair stiff with perennial dust from his sacks, and
the sweet glossy dark well-combed locks of the other, so bright,
so seductive, that she was ever longing to twine her fingers among
them. And she remembered the heavy, flat, broad honest face of the
meal-man, with his mouth slow in motion, and his broad nose looking
like a huge white promontory, and his great staring eyes, from the
corners of which he was always extracting meal and grit;--and then
also she remembered the white teeth, the beautiful soft lips, the
perfect eyebrows, and the rich complexion of her London lover. Surely
a lease of Paradise with the one, though but for one short year,
would be well purchased at the price of a life with the other! "It's
no good going against love," she said to herself, "and I won't try.
He shall have his supper, and be told all about it, and then go home.
He cares more for his supper than he do for me." And then, with this
final resolution firmly made, she popped the fowl into the pot. Her
grandfather wanted her to leave Sheep's Acre. Very well. She had a
little money of her own, and would take herself off to London. She
knew what people would say, but she cared nothing for old women's
tales. She would know how to take care of herself, and could always
say in her own defence that her grandfather had turned her out of
Sheep's Acre.

Seven had been the hour named, and punctually at that hour John
Crumb knocked at the back door of Sheep's Acre farm-house. Nor did
he come alone. He was accompanied by his friend Joe Mixet, the
baker of Bungay, who, as all Bungay knew, was to be his best man
at his marriage. John Crumb's character was not without many fine
attributes. He could earn money,--and having earned it could spend
and keep it in fair proportion. He was afraid of no work, and,--to
give him his due,--was afraid of no man. He was honest, and ashamed
of nothing that he did. And after his fashion he had chivalrous ideas
about women. He was willing to thrash any man that ill-used a woman,
and would certainly be a most dangerous antagonist to any man who
would misuse a woman belonging to him. But Ruby had told the truth of
him in saying that he was slow of speech, and what the world calls
stupid in regard to all forms of expression. He knew good meal from
bad as well as any man, and the price at which he could buy it so
as to leave himself a fair profit at the selling. He knew the value
of a clear conscience, and without much argument had discovered for
himself that honesty is in truth the best policy. Joe Mixet, who was
dapper of person and glib of tongue, had often declared that any one
buying John Crumb for a fool would lose his money. Joe Mixet was
probably right; but there had been a want of prudence, a lack of
worldly sagacity, in the way in which Crumb had allowed his proposed
marriage with Ruby Ruggles to become a source of gossip to all
Bungay. His love was now an old affair; and, though he never talked
much, whenever he did talk, he talked about that. He was proud of
Ruby's beauty, and of her fortune, and of his own status as her
acknowledged lover,--and he did not hide his light under a bushel.
Perhaps the publicity so produced had some effect in prejudicing Ruby
against the man whose offer she had certainly once accepted. Now when
he came to settle the day,--having heard more than once or twice
that there was a difficulty with Ruby,--he brought his friend Mixet
with him as though to be present at his triumph. "If here isn't Joe
Mixet," said Ruby to herself. "Was there ever such a stoopid as John
Crumb? There's no end to his being stoopid."

The old man had slept off his anger and his beer while Ruby had been
preparing the feast, and now roused himself to entertain his guests.
"What, Joe Mixet; is that thou? Thou'rt welcome. Come in, man. Well,
John, how is it wi' you? Ruby's a stewing o' something for us to
eat a bit. Don't 'e smell it?"--John Crumb lifted up his great nose,
sniffed and grinned.

"John didn't like going home in the dark like," said the baker, with
his little joke. "So I just come along to drive away the bogies."

"The more the merrier;--the more the merrier. Ruby 'll have enough
for the two o' you, I'll go bail. So John Crumb's afraid of
bogies;--is he? The more need he to have some 'un in his house to
scart 'em away."

The lover had seated himself without speaking a word; but now he was
instigated to ask a question. "Where be she, Muster Ruggles?" They
were seated in the outside or front kitchen, in which the old man
and his granddaughter always lived; while Ruby was at work in the
back kitchen. As John Crumb asked this question she could be heard
distinctly among the pots and the plates. She now came out, and
wiping her hands on her apron, shook hands with the two young men.
She had enveloped herself in a big household apron when the cooking
was in hand, and had not cared to take it off for the greeting of
this lover. "Grandfather said as how you was a coming out for your
supper, so I've been a seeing to it. You'll excuse the apron, Mr.
Mixet."

"You couldn't look nicer, miss, if you was to try it ever so. My
mother says as it's housifery as recommends a girl to the young men.
What do you say, John?"

"I loiks to see her loik o' that," said John rubbing his hands down
the back of his trowsers, and stooping till he had brought his eyes
down to a level with those of his sweetheart.


[Illlustration: "I loiks to see her loik o' that."]


"It looks homely; don't it, John?" said Mixet.

"Bother!" said Ruby, turning round sharp, and going back to the other
kitchen. John Crumb turned round also, and grinned at his friend, and
then grinned at the old man.

"You've got it all afore you," said the farmer,--leaving the lover to
draw what lesson he might from this oracular proposition.

"And I don't care how soon I ha'e it in hond;--that I don't," said
John.

"That's the chat," said Joe Mixet. "There ain't nothing wanting in
his house;--is there, John? It's all there,--cradle, caudle-cup, and
the rest of it. A young woman going to John knows what she'll have to
eat when she gets up, and what she'll lie down upon when she goes to
bed." This he declared in a loud voice for the benefit of Ruby in the
back kitchen.

"That she do," said John, grinning again. "There's a hun'erd and
fifty poond o' things in my house forbye what mother left behind
her."

After this there was no more conversation till Ruby reappeared with
the boiled fowl, and without her apron. She was followed by the girl
with a dish of broiled ham and an enormous pyramid of cabbage. Then
the old man got up slowly and opening some private little door of
which he kept the key in his breeches pocket, drew a jug of ale and
placed it on the table. And from a cupboard of which he also kept the
key, he brought out a bottle of gin. Everything being thus prepared,
the three men sat round the table, John Crumb looking at his chair
again and again before he ventured to occupy it. "If you'll sit
yourself down, I'll give you a bit of something to eat," said Ruby
at last. Then he sank at once into his chair. Ruby cut up the fowl
standing, and dispensed the other good things, not even placing a
chair for herself at the table,--and apparently not expected to do
so, for no one invited her. "Is it to be spirits or ale, Mr. Crumb?"
she said, when the other two men had helped themselves. He turned
round and gave her a look of love that might have softened the heart
of an Amazon; but instead of speaking he held up his tumbler, and
bobbed his head at the beer jug. Then she filled it to the brim,
frothing it in the manner in which he loved to have it frothed. He
raised it to his mouth slowly, and poured the liquor in as though to
a vat. Then she filled it again. He had been her lover, and she would
be as kind to him as she knew how,--short of love.

There was a good deal of eating done, for more ham came in, and
another mountain of cabbage; but very little or nothing was said.
John Crumb ate whatever was given to him of the fowl, sedulously
picking the bones, and almost swallowing them; and then finished
the second dish of ham, and after that the second instalment of
cabbage. He did not ask for more beer, but took it as often as
Ruby replenished his glass. When the eating was done, Ruby retired
into the back kitchen, and there regaled herself with some bone or
merry-thought of the fowl, which she had with prudence reserved,
sharing her spoils however with the other maiden. This she did
standing, and then went to work, cleaning the dishes. The men lit
their pipes and smoked in silence, while Ruby went through her
domestic duties. So matters went on for half an hour; during which
Ruby escaped by the back door, went round into the house, got into
her own room, and formed the grand resolution of going to bed. She
began her operations in fear and trembling, not being sure but that
her grandfather would bring the man up-stairs to her. As she thought
of this she stayed her hand, and looked to the door. She knew well
that there was no bolt there. It would be terrible to her to be
invaded by John Crumb after his fifth or sixth glass of beer. And,
she declared to herself, that should he come he would be sure to
bring Joe Mixet with him to speak his mind for him. So she paused and
listened.

When they had smoked for some half hour the old man called for his
granddaughter, but called of course in vain. "Where the mischief is
the jade gone?" he said, slowly making his way into the back kitchen.
The maid as soon as she heard her master moving, escaped into the
yard and made no response, while the old man stood bawling at the
back door. "The devil's in them. They're off some gates," he said
aloud. "She'll make the place hot for her, if she goes on this way."
Then he returned to the two young men. "She's playing off her games
somwheres," he said. "Take a glass of sperrits and water, Mr. Crumb,
and I'll see after her."

"I'll just take a drop of y'ell," said John Crumb, apparently quite
unmoved by the absence of his sweetheart.

It was sad work for the old man. He went down the yard and into the
garden, hobbling among the cabbages, not daring to call very loud, as
he did not wish to have it supposed that the girl was lost; but still
anxious, and sore at heart as to the ingratitude shown to him. He was
not bound to give the girl a home at all. She was not his own child.
And he had offered her £500! "Domm her," he said aloud as he made his
way back to the house. After much search and considerable loss of
time he returned to the kitchen in which the two men were sitting,
leading Ruby in his hand. She was not smart in her apparel, for
she had half undressed herself, and been then compelled by her
grandfather to make herself fit to appear in public. She had
acknowledged to herself that she had better go down and tell John
Crumb the truth. For she was still determined that she would never be
John Crumb's wife. "You can answer him as well as I, grandfather,"
she had said. Then the farmer had cuffed her, and told her that she
was an idiot. "Oh, if it comes to that," said Ruby, "I'm not afraid
of John Crumb, nor yet of nobody else. Only I didn't think you'd go
to strike me, grandfather." "I'll knock the life out of thee, if thou
goest on this gate," he had said. But she had consented to come down,
and they entered the room together.

"We're a disturbing you a'most too late, miss," said Mr. Mixet.

"It ain't that at all, Mr. Mixet. If grandfather chooses to have
a few friends, I ain't nothing against it. I wish he'd have a few
friends a deal oftener than he do. I likes nothing better than to do
for 'em;--only when I've done for 'em and they're smoking their pipes
and that like, I don't see why I ain't to leave 'em to 'emselves."

"But we've come here on a hauspicious occasion, Miss Ruby."

"I don't know nothing about auspicious, Mr. Mixet. If you and Mr.
Crumb've come out to Sheep's Acre farm for a bit of supper--"

"Which we ain't," said John Crumb very loudly;--"nor yet for
beer;--not by no means."

"We've come for the smiles of beauty," said Joe Mixet.

Ruby chucked up her head. "Mr. Mixet, if you'll be so good as to stow
that! There ain't no beauty here as I knows of, and if there was it
isn't nothing to you."

"Except in the way of friendship," said Mixet.

"I'm just as sick of all this as a man can be," said Mr. Ruggles,
who was sitting low in his chair, with his back bent, and his head
forward. "I won't put up with it no more."

"Who wants you to put up with it?" said Ruby. "Who wants 'em to come
here with their trash? Who brought 'em to-night? I don't know what
business Mr. Mixet has interfering along o' me. I never interfere
along o' him."

"John Crumb, have you anything to say?" asked the old man.

Then John Crumb slowly arose from his chair, and stood up at his full
height. "I hove," said he, swinging his head to one side.

"Then say it."

"I will," said he. He was still standing bolt upright with his hands
down by his side. Then he stretched out his left to his glass which
was half full of beer, and strengthened himself as far as that would
strengthen him. Having done this he slowly deposited the pipe which
he still held in his right hand.

"Now speak your mind, like a man," said Mixet.

"I intends it," said John. But he still stood dumb, looking down upon
old Ruggles, who from his crouched position was looking up at him.
Ruby was standing with both her hands upon the table and her eyes
intent upon the wall over the fire-place.

"You've asked Miss Ruby to be your wife a dozen times;--haven't you,
John?" suggested Mixet.

"I hove."

"And you mean to be as good as your word?"

"I do."

"And she has promised to have you?"

"She hove."

"More nor once or twice?" To this proposition Crumb found it only
necessary to bob his head. "You're ready,--and willing?"

"I om."

"You're wishing to have the banns said without any more delay?"

"There ain't no delay 'bout me;--never was."

"Everything is ready in your own house?"

"They is."

"And you will expect Miss Ruby to come to the scratch?"

"I sholl."

"That's about it, I think," said Joe Mixet, turning to the
grandfather. "I don't think there was ever anything much more
straightforward than that. You know, I know, Miss Ruby knows all
about John Crumb. John Crumb didn't come to Bungay yesterday,--nor
yet the day before. There's been a talk of five hundred pounds, Mr.
Ruggles." Mr. Ruggles made a slight gesture of assent with his head.
"Five hundred pounds is very comfortable; and added to what John has
will make things that snug that things never was snugger. But John
Crumb isn't after Miss Ruby along of her fortune."

"Nohow's," said the lover, shaking his head and still standing
upright with his hands by his side.

"Not he;--it isn't his ways, and them as knows him'll never say it of
him. John has a heart in his buzsom."

"I has," said John, raising his hand a little above his stomach.

"And feelings as a man. It's true love as has brought John Crumb to
Sheep's Acre farm this night;--love of that young lady, if she'll let
me make so free. He's a proposed to her, and she's a haccepted him,
and now it's about time as they was married. That's what John Crumb
has to say."

"That's what I has to say," repeated John Crumb, "and I means it."

"And now, miss," continued Mixet, addressing himself to Ruby, "you've
heard what John has to say."

"I've heard you, Mr. Mixet, and I've heard quite enough."

"You can't have anything to say against it, miss; can you? There's
your grandfather as is willing, and the money as one may say counted
out,--and John Crumb is willing, with his house so ready that there
isn't a ha'porth to do. All we want is for you to name the day."

"Say to-morrow, Ruby, and I'll not be agon it," said John Crumb,
slapping his thigh.