"Ask Mamma"; or, The Richest Commoner In England. Robert Smith Surtees
the creature somewhere. There was no knowing people out of their working clothes, especially when they set up to ride inside of coaches. Altogether, it was very unpleasant.
Billy remarked his fair friend’s altered mood, and rightly attributed it to the intrusion of the nasty woman, whose gaudy headgear the few flickering rays of a December sun were now lighting up, making the feathers, so beautiful on a bird, look, to Billy’s mind, so ugly on a bonnet, at least on the bonnet that now thatched the frightful face beside him. Billy saw the fair lady was not accustomed to these sort of companions, and wished he had only had the sense to book the rest of the inside when the coach stopped to dine. However, it could not be helped now; so, having ascertained that Pheasant-feathers was going all the way to “Lunnnn,” as she called it, when the sun sunk behind its massive leadeen cloud, preparatory to that long reign of darkness with which travellers were oppressed—for there were no oil-lamps to the roofs of stage-coaches—Billy being no longer able to contemplate the beauties of his charmer, now changed his seat, for a little confidential conversation by her side.
He then, after a few comforting remarks, not very flattering to Pheasant-feathers’ beauty, resumed his expatiations about his splendid house in Doughty Street, Russell Square, omitting, of course, to mention that it had been fitted up to suit the taste of another lady, who had jilted him. He began about his dining-room, twenty-five feet by eighteen, with a polished steel fender, and “pictors” all about the walls; for, like many people, he fancied himself a judge of the fine arts, and, of course, was very frequently fleeced.
This subject, however, rather hung fire, a dining-room being about the last room in a house that a lady cares to hear about, so she presently cajoled him into the more genial region of the kitchen, which, unlike would-be fine ladies of the present day, she was not ashamed to recognise. From the kitchen they proceeded to the store-room, which Billy explained was entered by a door at the top of the back stairs, six feet nine by two feet eight, covered on both sides with crimson cloth, brass moulded in panels and mortise latch. He then got upon the endless, but “never-lady-tiring,” subject of bed-rooms—his best bed-room, with a most elegant five-feet-three canopy-top, mahogany bedstead, with beautiful French chintz furniture, lined with pink, outer and inner valance, trimmed silk tassel fringe, &c., &c., &c. And so he went maundering on, paving the way most elaborately to an offer, as some men are apt to do, instead of getting briskly to the “ask-mamma” point, which the ladies are generally anxious to have them at.
To be sure, Billy had been bowled over by a fair, or rather unfair one, who had appeared quite as much interested about his furniture and all his belongings as Miss Willing did, and who, when she got the offer, and found he was not nearly so well off as Jack Sanderson, declared she was never so surprised in her life as when Billy proposed; for though, as she politely said, every one who knew him must respect him, yet he had never even entered her head in any other light than that of an agreeable companion. This was Miss Amelia Titterton, afterwards Mrs. Sanderson. Another lady, as we said before (Miss Bowerbank), had done worse; for she had regularly jilted him, after putting him to no end of expense in furnishing his house, so that, upon the whole, Billy had cause to be cautious. A coach, too, with its jolts and its jerks, and its brandy-and-water stoppages, is but ill calculated for the delicate performance of offering, to say nothing of having a pair of nasty white-lashed, inquisitive-looking, ferrety eyes sitting opposite, with a pair of listening ears, nestling under the thatch of a pheasant-feather bonnet. All things considered, therefore, Billy may, perhaps, stand excused for his slowness, especially as he did not know but what he was addressing a countess.
And so the close of a scarcely dawned December day, was followed by the shades of night, and still the jip, jip, jipping; whip, whip, whipping; creak, creak, creaking of the heavy lumbering coach, was accompanied by Billy’s maunderings about his noble ebony this, and splendid mahogany that, varied with, here and there, a judicious interpolation of an “indeed,” or a “how beautiful,” from Miss Willing, to show how interested she was in the recital; for ladies are generally good listeners, and Miss Willing was essentially so.
The “demeanour of the witness” was lost, to be sure, in the chancery-like darkness that prevailed; and Billy felt it might be all blandishment, for nothing could be more marked or agreeable than the interest both the other ladies had taken in his family, furniture, and effects. Indeed, as he felt, they all took much the same course, for, for cool home-questioning, there is no man can compete with an experienced woman. They get to the “What-have-you-got, and What-will-you-do” point, before a man has settled upon the line of inquiry—very likely before he has got done with that interesting topic—the weather.
At length, a sudden turn of the road revealed to our friends, who were sitting with their faces to the horses, the first distant curve of glow-worm-like lamps in the distance, and presently the great white invitations to “try warren’s,” or “day and martin’s blacking,” began to loom through the darkness of the dead walls of the outskirts of London. They were fast approaching the metropolis. The gaunt elms and leafless poplars presently became fewer, while castellated and sentry-box-looking summer-houses stood dark in the little paled-off gardens. At last the villas, and semi-detached villas, collapsed into one continuous gas-lit shop-dotted street. The shops soon became better and more frequent—more ribbons and flowers, and fewer periwinkle stalls. They now got upon the stones. Billy’s heart jumped into his month at the jerk, for he knew not how soon his charmer and he might part, and as yet he had not even ascertained her locality. Now or never, thought he, rising to the occasion, and, with difficulty of utterance, he expressed a hope that he might have the pleasure of seeing her ’ome.
“Thank you, no,” replied Miss Willing, emphatically, for it was just the very thing she most dreaded, letting him see her reception by the servants.
“Humph!” grunted Billy, feeling his funds fall five-and-twenty per cent.—“Miss Titterton or Miss Bowerbank over again,” thought he.
“Not but that I most fully appreciate your kindness,” whispered Miss Willing, in the sweetest tone possible, right into his ear, thinking by Billy’s silence that her vehemence had offended him; “but,” continued she, “I’m only going to the house of a friend, a long way from you, and I expect a servant to meet me at the Green Man in Oxford Street.”
“Well, but let me see you to the”—(puff, gasp)—“Green Man,” ejaculated Billy, the funds of hope rising more rapidly than his words.
“It’s very kind,” whispered Miss Willing, “and I feel it very, very much, but”—
“But if your servant shouldn’t come,” interrupted Billy, “you’d never find your way to Brompton in this nasty dense yellow fog,” for they had now got into the thick of a fine fat one.
“Oh, but I’m not going to Brompton,” exclaimed Miss Willing, amused at this second bad shot of Billy’s at her abode.
“Well, wherever you are going, I shall only be too happy to escort you,” replied Billy, “I know Lunnun well.”
“So do I,” thought Miss Willing, with a sigh. And the coach having now reached that elegant hostelry, the George and Blue Badger, in High Holborn, Miss showed her knowledge of it by intimating to Billy that that was the place for him to alight; so taking off her glove she tendered him her soft hand, which Billy grasped eagerly, still urging her to let him see her home, or at all events to the Green Man, in Oxford Street.
Miss, however, firmly but kindly declined his services, assuring him repeatedly that she appreciated his kindness, which she evinced by informing him that she was going to a friend’s at No. —, Grosvenor Square, that she would only be in town for a couple of nights; but that if he really wished to see her again—“really wished it,” she repeated with an emphasis, for she didn’t want to be trifled with—she would be happy to see him to tea at eight o’clock on the following evening.
“Eight o’clock!” gasped Billy. “No. ——, Gruvenor Square,” repeated he. “I knows it—I’ll be with you to a certainty—I’ll be with you to a”—(puff)—“certainty.” So saying, he made a sandwich of her fair taper-fingered hand, and then responded