A Little World. George Manville Fenn
Pellet seemed surprised, and listened in silence. Mrs. Richard forgot herself so for as to clap her hands and call Patty “a dear little darling.” But, gazing upon the group at the piano with the eyes of her lord, she felt that this sort of thing would not do. Apparently, too, acting upon a hint from Richard, she kept framing blundering excuses for getting the young man to her side—excuses, though, so trivial, that Harry only laughed good-humouredly, and then made his way back to their young visitor.
It was nearly time for tea, and Harry had coaxed the artless girl into the little drawing-room to show her some sketches, and the photographs of the elders. Jared and his brother had their backs to them, hard and fast in a discussion upon money—Richard telling his brother what a deal a sovereign would make—Jared the while in a state of doubt, from old experience how short a road it went, whether there really were as many as twenty shillings in a pound. As for Mrs. Jared, she was seated in a low chair by the fire, and being beamed upon by Mrs. Richard, who had exhausted the weather, finished the dinner, and was now at a loss for a fresh subject.
The sketches were very interesting, so much so that Harry was obliged to explain them in a low, subdued tone, when, taking advantage of their position, he with a heightened colour took from the wall a sprig of mistletoe, and held it before Patty’s eyes.
“No, no,” she whispered in a low tone—so low that he probably did not hear it. “No, no; that is only for children.”
“The licence of the season,” Harry whispered, as with one hand he held up the sprig, and then drew towards him the yielding girl.
Well, Patty was very young, very natural, and quite unused to worldly ways; and Harry was somewhat rough and wilful. Patty had listened that night to words new to her, and where her parents had seen but pride and ostentation, she had had her eyes blinded by a couleur de rose veil, drinking deeply the while of the honied draught the young fellow in all earnestness pressed upon her.
All was so sweet, and new, and delightful. He must mean all he said; while being Christmas-time, with a scrap of the pearl-hung parasite to hallow the salute, how could she scream or struggle, as was, of course, needful under the circumstances? Patty did not resist, for being ignorant and natural, she thought that she would like it, and so allowed her soft cheek to rest for a moment where it was drawn, while the little red half-parted lips hardly shrank from the kiss they received.
“Harry!” roared Richard Pellet, leaping from his chair, for he had been seated opposite to a glass which betrayed every movement of the young people. “Harry!” he roared, and the young man with eyes cast down, but raised head, stood erect and defiant before him; “come here!” he exclaimed, striding towards the door, while as the delinquent followed him from the room, Jared and his wife distinctly heard the words, “That beggar’s brat!”
Volume One—Chapter Seven.
The Lover’s Petition.
An hour later and the party were back in Duplex Street, having travelled home in silence, with Patty weeping her sin the whole way, while she now sat sobbing by the fireside almost heedless of her mother’s consoling words. Jared had looked stern and troubled, but not cross; in fact, he had been talking the matter over to himself on the way back, and himself had had the best of the argument by declaring that it was only a custom of the season; that Harry Clayton was a fine handsome young fellow, and Patty as sweet a little girl as ever breathed; and that, though the matter had turned into an upset, the young folks were not so very much to blame.
Jared was beaten by himself, that is to say, by his own good nature, and what was more, he seemed so little put out in consequence, that he rode home the rest of the way with his arm round his wife’s waist—but then, certainly it was dark.
“There, there!” exclaimed Jared at last; “go to bed, Patty, and let’s have no more tears.”
He spoke kindly; but Patty could not be consoled, for she told herself that she had been very, very wicked, and if dear father only knew that she had almost held out her lips to be kissed, he would never, never, forgive her. So she sobbed on.
“Why, what is the matter?” exclaimed Jared at last, for Patty had thrown herself on her knees at her mother’s feet, and was crying almost hysterically in her lap. “What are you crying for?”
“Oh! oh! oh!” sobbed poor Patty, whose conscience would not let her rest until she had made a full confession of her sin, “I did-id-id-n’t try to stop him.”
“Humph!” grunted Jared, and the eyes of husband and wife met over their weeping girl, whose sobs after confession grew less laboured and hysterical.
The next day Harry Clayton called at Duplex Street, and the next day, and again after two days, and then once more after a week, but only to see Mrs. Jared, who never admitted the visitor beyond the door-sill. She was civil and pleasant; but he must call when Mr. Jared Pellet was at home, which he did at last and was ushered into the front parlour.
Jared was in his shirt sleeves, and had an apron on, for he was busy covering pianoforte hammers, and there was a very different scent in the place to that in Mrs. Richard’s drawing-room, for Jared’s glue-pot was in full steam.
Had Mr. Harry Clayton received permission from his parents to call? This from Jared very courteously, but quite en prince, though his fingers were gluey.
No, from the young man, very humbly, he had neither received nor asked permission; but if Mr. Jared would not let him see Miss Pellet before he went, he should leave town bitter, sorrowful, and disappointed; for there had been a great quarrel at home, and though he was of age, Mr. Richard Pellet wished to treat him like a child.
Only a shake of the head from Jared at this.
Would Mr. Jared be so cruel as to refuse to let him bid Miss Pellet good-bye?
Yes, Jared Pellet would, even though his wife had entered, and was looking at him with imploring eyes. For Jared had a certain pride of his own, and a respect for his brother’s high position. And besides, he told himself bitterly that it was not meet that the stepson of a Croesus should marry with “a beggar’s brat.”
So Jared would keep to his word, and Mrs. Jared could only sympathise with the young man, holding the while, though by a strange contradiction, to her husband.
Harry gave vent to a good deal of romantic saccharine stuff of twenty-one vintage, interspersed with the sea saltism of “true as the needle to the pole,” and various other high-flown sentiments, which mode of expressing himself, tending as it did to show his admiration for her daughter, and coming from a fine, handsome, and manly young suitor, Mrs. Jared thought very nice indeed; but she diluted its strength with a few tears of her own.
Jared was obstinate though, and would not look; he only screwed up his lips and covered pianoforte hammers at express speed, making his fingers sticky and wasting felt; for every hammer had to be re-covered when Harry had taken his departure.
Harry was gone, with one hand a little sticky from the touch of Jared’s gluey fingers, as he said, “Good-bye,” and one cheek wet with Mrs. Jared’s tears, as he saluted her reverently, as if she had been his mother.
“But a nice lad, dear,” said Mrs. Jared, wiping her eyes.
“Yes; I dare say,” said Jared, stirring his glue round and round; “but mighty fond of kissing.”
Then husband and wife thought of the strange tie growing out of the new estrangement, and also of the fact that they must be growing old, since their child was following in their own steps—in the footprints of those who had gone before since Adam first gazed upon the fair face of the woman given to be his companion and solace in the solitude that oppressed him.
And where was Patty?
Down