Evan Harrington — Complete. George Meredith
Mrs. Mel's maxim, that it was a necessary relief to all talking creatures.
'Now, take off your apron,' she said, 'and wash your hands, dirty pig, and go and wait at table in there'; she pointed to the parlour-door: 'Come straight to me when everybody has left.'
'Well, there I am with the bottles again,' returned Dandy. 'It 's your fault this time, mind! I'll come as straight as I can.'
Dandy turned away to perform her bidding, and Mrs. Mel ascended to the drawing-room to sit with Mrs. Wishaw, who was, as she told all who chose to hear, an old flame of Mel's, and was besides, what Mrs. Mel thought more of, the wife of Mel's principal creditor, a wholesale dealer in cloth, resident in London.
The conviviality of the mourners did not disturb the house. Still, men who are not accustomed to see the colour of wine every day, will sit and enjoy it, even upon solemn occasions, and the longer they sit the more they forget the matter that has brought them together. Pleading their wives and shops, however, they released Evan from his miserable office late in the afternoon.
His mother came down to him—and saying, 'I see how you did the journey—you walked it,' told him to follow her.
'Yes, mother,' Evan yawned, 'I walked part of the way. I met a fellow in a gig about ten miles out of Fallow field, and he gave me a lift to Flatsham. I just reached Lymport in time, thank Heaven! I wouldn't have missed that! By the way, I've satisfied these men.'
'Oh!' said Mrs. Mel.
'They wanted—one or two of them—what a penance it is to have to sit among those people an hour!—they wanted to ask me about the business, but I silenced them. I told them to meet me here this day week.'
Mrs. Mel again said 'Oh!' and, pushing into one of the upper rooms, 'Here's your bedroom, Van, just as you left it.'
'Ah, so it is,' muttered Evan, eyeing a print. 'The Douglas and the Percy: “he took the dead man by the hand.” What an age it seems since I last saw that. There's Sir Hugh Montgomery on horseback—he hasn't moved. Don't you remember my father calling it the Battle of Tit-for-Tat? Gallant Percy! I know he wished he had lived in those days of knights and battles.'
'It does not much signify whom one has to make clothes for,' observed Mrs. Mel. Her son happily did not mark her.
'I think we neither of us were made for the days of pence and pounds,' he continued. 'Now, mother, sit down, and talk to me about him. Did he mention me? Did he give me his blessing? I hope he did not suffer. I'd have given anything to press his hand,' and looking wistfully at the Percy lifting the hand of Douglas dead, Evan's eyes filled with big tears.
'He suffered very little,' returned Mrs. Mel, 'and his last words were about you.'
'What were they?' Evan burst out.
'I will tell you another time. Now undress, and go to bed. When I talk to you, Van, I want a cool head to listen. You do nothing but yawn yard-measures.'
The mouth of the weary youth instinctively snapped short the abhorred emblem.
'Here, I will help you, Van.'
In spite of his remonstrances and petitions for talk, she took off his coat and waistcoat, contemptuously criticizing the cloth of foreign tailors and their absurd cut.
'Have you heard from Louisa?' asked Evan.
'Yes, yes—about your sisters by-and-by. Now, be good, and go to bed.'
She still treated him like a boy, whom she was going to force to the resolution of a man.
Dandy's sleeping-room was on the same floor as Evan's. Thither, when she had quitted her son, she directed her steps. She had heard Dandy tumble up-stairs the moment his duties were over, and knew what to expect when the bottles had been in his way; for drink made Dandy savage, and a terror to himself. It was her command to him that, when he happened to come across liquor, he should immediately seek his bedroom and bolt the door, and Dandy had got the habit of obeying her. On this occasion he was vindictive against her, seeing that she had delivered him over to his enemy with malice prepense. A good deal of knocking, and summoning of Dandy by name, was required before she was admitted, and the sight of her did not delight him, as he testified.
'I 'm drunk!' he bawled. 'Will that do for ye?'
Mrs. Mel stood with her two hands crossed above her apron-string, noting his sullen lurking eye with the calm of a tamer of beasts.
'You go out of the room; I'm drunk!' Dandy repeated, and pitched forward on the bed-post, in the middle of an oath.
She understood that it was pure kindness on Dandy's part to bid her go and be out of his reach; and therefore, on his becoming so abusive as to be menacing, she, without a shade of anger, and in the most unruffled manner, administered to him the remedy she had reserved, in the shape of a smart box on the ear, which sent him flat to the floor. He rose, after two or three efforts, quite subdued.
'Now, Dandy, sit on the edge of the bed.'
Dandy sat on the extreme edge, and Mrs. Mel pursued:
'Now, Dandy, tell me what your master said at the table.'
'Talked at 'em like a lord, he did,' said Dandy, stupidly consoling the boxed ear.
'What were his words?'
Dandy's peculiarity was, that he never remembered anything save when drunk, and Mrs. Mel's dose had rather sobered him. By degrees, scratching at his head haltingly, he gave the context.
“'Gentlemen, I hear for the first time, you've claims against my poor father. Nobody shall ever say he died, and any man was the worse for it. I'll meet you next week, and I'll bind myself by law. Here's Lawyer Perkins. No; Mr. Perkins. I'll pay off every penny. Gentlemen, look upon me as your debtor, and not my father.”'
Delivering this with tolerable steadiness, Dandy asked, 'Will that do?'
'That will do,' said Mrs. Mel. 'I'll send you up some tea presently. Lie down, Dandy.'
The house was dark and silent when Evan, refreshed by his rest, descended to seek his mother. She was sitting alone in the parlour. With a tenderness which Mrs. Mel permitted rather than encouraged, Evan put his arm round her neck, and kissed her many times. One of the symptoms of heavy sorrow, a longing for the signs of love, made Evan fondle his mother, and bend over her yearningly. Mrs. Mel said once: 'Dear Van; good boy!' and quietly sat through his caresses.
'Sitting up for me, mother?' he whispered.
'Yes, Van; we may as well have our talk out.'
'Ah!' he took a chair close by her side, 'tell me my father's last words.'
'He said he hoped you would never be a tailor.'
Evan's forehead wrinkled up. 'There's not much fear of that, then!'
His mother turned her face on him, and examined him with a rigorous placidity; all her features seeming to bear down on him. Evan did not like the look.
'You object to trade, Van?'
'Yes, decidedly, mother-hate it; but that's not what I want to talk to you about. Didn't my father speak of me much?'
'He desired that you should wear his militia sword, if you got a commission.'
'I have rather given up hope of the Army,' said Evan.
Mrs. Mel requested him to tell her what a colonel's full pay amounted to; and again, the number of years it required, on a rough calculation, to attain that grade. In reply to his statement she observed: 'A tailor might realize twice the sum in a quarter of the time.'
'What if he does-double, or treble?' cried Evan, impetuously; and to avoid the theme, and cast off the bad impression it produced on him, he rubbed his hands, and said: 'I want to talk to you about my prospects, mother.'
'What are they?' Mrs. Mel inquired.
The severity of her mien and sceptical coldness