CHAPTER XX.

AUNT PARSLOW.

IT is a bad thing for any man to be always beating his own bounds, and treading the track of his own grounds, and pursuing the twist of his own affairs—though they be even love affairs—as a dog spins round to catch his own tail. Under the hammer of incessant thought, and in the hot pincers of perpetual yearning, I was getting as flat as a horseshoe twice removed, when Sam Henderson gave a boy twopence to slip into our grounds, when my uncle’s back was turned, and put into my hand an envelope addressed to “Samuel Henderson, Esquire, The Paddocks, Halliford, Middlesex.” At first I thought, in my slow way, that his object was to let me see what deference he had won in racing circles; and I smiled at the littleness of the man. But the boy, who was shaking in his ventilated shoes, with dread of Uncle Corny, said—“’Tain’t that side; turn ’un over.” I obeyed his instructions, and beheld in pencil—“Come down the lane a bit. I have news for you, important.”

What mortal, dwelling wholly on his own affairs, would not have concluded that this concerned him, on his own account, and unselfishly? I hurried on my coat, which had been thrown off for a job of winter pruning, and in less than two minutes I had turned the corner and was face to face with the mighty Sam.

“All right, old fellow,” he said as coolly as if I had come to recover a loan. “You needn’t turn a hair. It is not about your Kitty, but my skittish little Sally—Sally Chalker. You know I told you all about her, the daughter of the old bloke down at Ludred.”

“Oh, I remember now,” I answered, with a sudden chill of disappointment. “I might have known that it was not for me you were in such a precious hurry. You were very wise not to come into our place. My uncle is a man of short measures.”

“A man of uncommonly short measures. He will get fined some fine day, I’m afraid.” Sam laughed wonderfully at his own wit. “But I know he don’t want me to see his little tricks. Don’t bluster, beloved Kit; we all do it, and we respect one another all the more for it. Free trade has turned John Bull into Charley Fox. I can feel for you, my boy; for now there’s a foreign rogue come poaching on my preserves at Ludred. And he doesn’t know how many legs make a horse.”

Sam tapped his own dapper and well-curved legs with a light gold-headed riding-whip, and his favourite mare, who was under the charge of a lad down the lane, gave a whinny to him. “There’s nothing she don’t know,” said Sam; “and her name it is Sally.”

I was not sure which of the two fillies—for I knew that he called his sweetheart one, and her name too was “Sally”—my friend was thus commending. But I rose to the situation, and said—“Let us go, and rout the fellow out.”

“I was sure you would stand by a brother Briton,” cried Sam, shaking hands very heartily; “and you won’t find me forget it, Kit, when old Crumbly Pot comes back again. I am keeping a look-out for you there, as I gave you my word to do. It has been kettles to mend, I am told, in the fen-land where he hails from. I know a Jew fellow who brought him to book, and was very nearly quodding him. He won’t be back this side of Christmas, unless my friend is a liar, and then I shall do you as good a turn as you are going to do me now. Can you make it fit to come to-morrow? I’ll put my Sally in the spider, and call for you about ten o’clock. You can tell old Punnets, that you want to see your Aunt Parslow about important business—for important it is and no mistake. Think of a dirty Frenchman nobbling sweet Sally Chalker, and all her cash!”

Old Punnets—as he insolently called my uncle—was glad enough that I should pay a visit to my aunt, or rather my mother’s aunt, Miss Parslow, who was said to be worth at least 10,000_l._, as well as a very nice house, and large garden, and three or four meadows by the river Mole.

“You should never neglect such folk,” he said; “you have no proper sense of the plainest duty. She has only one relation as near as you are, and he has got plenty of tin of his own. You might cut him out easy enough, if you tried, and now is the nick of time for it. Hannah Parslow is as proud as Punch, I know; and if you can only put it to her, with a little of the proper grease, of course, that your mother’s son is considered unfit to marry a young lady, because he cannot cut a shine,—who can tell what she might do for you? She doesn’t spend half of her income, I know. I was thinking of it only the other night. And she might allow you two hundred a year, without stinting a pinch of Keating’s powder. You love dogs, and dogs love you. Half the dogs in the village come to see you home. Make up to Jupiter, and Juno, and the other bow-wows she has taken to her bosom, and you’ll never want my thirty shillings a week, nor yet the little balance of your father and mother’s money. You go and see her, Kit. Don’t lose a day. You may accept a lift from that fast Sam Henderson; but throw him over, as soon as you have got it.”

Now, this little speech was as like as two peas to Uncle Corny’s nature. He had never said a word about meaning to give me any one pound ten a week—though Heaven knows that I was worth it; for let the weather be what it would, there was I making the best of it. On the contrary, I had very seldom put into the purse (which I carried more for the husk than kernel) so much as five shillings on a Sunday morning, which was my uncle’s particular time for easing his conscience about me. Of course I had my victuals, and my clothes to a certain extent, and the power to pay his bills (which made people offer me something sometimes); also I could talk as if the place belonged to me; but people knew better for at least three miles away. So that his talking of thirty shillings proved, without another word on his part, his high and holy views of marriage.

And again it was like him, to try to put me up to get something good out of good Aunt Parslow. Whatever I could get from her would mean so much relief for the Orchardson firm—as he often called us in his prouder times; though if I had asked for a penny of the proceeds, he would have banged his big desk upon my knuckles. But do not let me seem to say a word against him; for a better uncle never lived; and I felt his generosity very deeply, until I began to think of it.

Few things have been more successful yet, and very few have been better managed, than that drive of ours to Leatherhead. Possibly Sam was a luckier fellow than myself; and I think it likely, because he was less deserving. Not that there was much harm about him, except a kind of laxity in talk, and a strained desire to be accounted sharp, and a strong ambition to rise in the world, without cleaning the steps ere he mounted them. But he showed a fine heart by his words just now—although he was much ashamed of it—and the pace we were going at brought it out, for a brisk air stirs up the best part of us.

“Ain’t she a stepper?” he said, as we crossed Walton bridge, and dashed through the flood-water, for the high-road was not made up then; “wet or dry is all alike to Sally. That’s the way to go through the world, my boy. Julius Cæsar crossed the river here; and I have got a yearling named after him. What makes it all the kinder on my part is that he hasn’t got Latin in his family. How proud the old chap would have been for me to go out of the custom so! It will set a whole lot of the Emperors going, if the colt cuts the shine I expect of him.”

Knowing nothing about the turf, and caring very little, I let him rattle on about pedigrees, and strains of double blood, and Waxy, and Whalebone, and I know not what, as bad as the Multiplication table; and I wondered that such stuff should form his discourse, when he should have been full of young ladies. Even the beauty of the country, which was more than enough to delight the eyes and hold the mind still with pleasure, seemed nothing to Sam beyond—“Yes, very pretty. Nice bit of training-ground up there. That’s the sort of grass that suits milk teeth.”

At last, as we came within a mile of our mark, and followed the fair valley of the river, I brought him to the business of the day, having heard enough of Spider-wheels, and flyers, and so forth; and requiring to know what he expected of me. We had gone at such a pace, up hill and down, scarcely ever varying from one long stride, which left every other “trap” far in the lurch, that but for my boyish remembrance of the place, I could scarcely have believed that we were almost in the village.

“Fifteen or five,” he said, “that’s her pace; there’s no halfway house for Sally. She walks a good five. Walk is the word, old gal. Well, all you have got to do, Kit, is just this. I put up at the ‘Dolphin,’ and you make a call, with your best gloves on, and your hat brushed up, at Valley-view House, where your good aunt lives. You have not seen her for years. So much the better. Tell her that a distinguished friend of yours, especially esteemed by your uncle, and well known in the best London circles, has important business in the town; and that you took occasion to pay your respects, where they have been due so long. Admire her dogs, and all that sort of thing; and when she insists on your staying to lunch, regret very deeply that you cannot leave your distinguished friend, etc. Then if she is any good, she will say—‘Do you think he would waive formality?’ and so on. And you say—‘If he is not engaged at Lord Nethersole’s, I will endeavour to fetch him.’ I shall happen to be lounging up the hill, and shall pull out my watch and be doubtful. But the attractions of the spot are too many for me. I throw over his lordship, and get over the old lady.”

I promised to do my best towards this, but without any fictions concerning him; for his best chance lay, as I told him, in moderation and simplicity. For my aunt, according to my remembrance, was rather a shrewd old lady; and Sam had shown some little sense of this, in the choice of what he called his toggery. All rich adornments, and gorgeous hues, had been for once discarded; his clothes were all of a quiet gray, and his tone had subsided from the solar to the lunar rainbow. In short, he looked more like a gentleman than I had ever known him look before; and seeing what a fine young man he was, I felt heartily glad that he had fixed his affections where they could not imperil mine.

When I entered the gate of Valley-view, nine or ten small dogs came scampering out, all giving tongue, and all making believe to be born for one end, namely my end. There were pugs, and Skye-terriers, and Blenheim-spaniels, and wiry-coated terriers, and Italian greyhounds, and little ridiculous toy-dogs fit for a child’s Noah’s ark, and I know not what else, but no dog of the name of “Silence.” “What a pack of curs!” I said rather gruffly, and with a gesture of contempt, for I never did hear such a medley of barks. As dogs are the most humorous creatures in the world, they immediately looked at one another and laughed, each applying my remark to his neighbours. If they had been curs, they would have felt it more; being all of fine breeding, they took it lightly, as I said it, for I had no real meaning to offend them. Then, a great deal more quickly than we settle matters, they referred the whole question to a grand old pug, with his face pulled up short, like a plaited blind, by the cords of disgust at the tricks of mankind, and lots of little pimples, like a turbot’s moles, upon it. As a chairman of committee he came up to me, reserving his stump in a very strict line, till my character passed through the test of his nose. Then he gave a little doubtful trepidation to his tail, and after another sniff, a very hearty wag; and with one accord all the doggies set off to the house to announce that an honest dog was coming.

Miss Parslow was inclined, as appeared thereafter, to attach more importance to the verdict of her dogs, even as a Roman admiral should have consulted his holy chickens. When the dogs came to say that they believed me to be safe, their mistress put them all into their own room and came out to the porch to meet me. She knew me at once, though I might have forgotten her, except for a great event in my life, when she gave me the first sovereign I ever possessed. Being a small and slim lady, she rested her head upon the upper pocket of my waistcoat, which seemed to be an excellent omen.

“Oh, how you do take after your dear mother!” she exclaimed, with a genial tear or two; “you are not like an Orchardson, my dear boy, but a Parslow, a Parslow all over! Why have you kept away from Valley-view till now?”

This was a difficult question to answer, and therefore I naturally asked another. “How are you getting on, my dear aunt? And will it put you out that I should come like this? I wrote last night, but it may have been too late.”

“Oh, the posts are always wrong. Come and sit here by the fire. We shall have a sharp winter; I am sure of that. _Jupiter_ knows the weather as well as if he made it. Now come and tell me all about your own affairs.”

At first I was not at all inclined to do that, preferring to talk about hers, and desiring some knowledge of her character and opinions before I began to spread forth my own. But she took the lead of me, and contrived to get out of me all about Uncle Corny, and everybody else I had to do with, and even the whole of my hopes and fears concerning the main object of my life. For the old can always pump the young, when they know the right way to hold the handle.

“I cannot see where the presumption is,” she said as she took my hand and placed it in one of hers and patted it; “your mother was Annie Parslow, as sweet a young lady as any Miss Fairthorn. Her father would have been Lord Mayor of London if he had only lived long enough. The Parslows were in the tea line, which is equal to almost any. It is true that she dropped several grades in life by marrying George Orchardson—”

“And Miss Fairthorn’s friends, if she ever does it, will say that she dropped several grades in life by marrying Kit Orchardson.” I felt that I had her there; but she would not see it.

“Don’t talk nonsense, Kit. The case is wholly different. You may be counted as half a Parslow, while nobody knows what she is. And you must not consider what her friends will say, but your own, who are sensible people. You have acted very wisely in coming over to tell me all about this affair. I am sorry that the girl is so poor through her father’s stupid carelessness. You know that I like your Uncle Cornelius, although he is such a queer character. One of the most obstinate men on earth, and nearly all men are obstinate. But he is apt to put things off. He is always waiting for something else to be ready. I shall pay him a visit as soon as Mr. Parker’s fly has got its new cushions in, and his bay horse recovered from his lameness. Then we will settle something about you. I never let the grass grow below my feet. I shall make your Uncle Corny come to book. I am quite convinced in my own mind that he has been keeping all these years a nice little lump of your father’s money, as well as your dear mother’s property. No Parslow was ever a beggar yet. There was none of them but had a silver teapot, as was only decent in the business. And most of them could fill it with bank-notes, though I’m not saying that your mother could. Dear me, what a dreadful to-do there was when she ran away with George Orchardson! My dear brother vowed he would never forgive her, although she was his favourite child; so upright, and fair, and so ladylike, and cheeks like damask roses! You never see such a sweet face now. All their education is to learn to stare, and all their polish is like a brass knocker’s. What they all want is a good stepmother, to starve and to slap their ears out of them. That may have made your Kitty nicer than you can expect to find them now. If I were a young man I wouldn’t marry any girl who had not been ten years under a strong stepmother. Why, how many more times is that young man to lounge up and down the road over there? He is very like the one who comes from somewhere near you, and has taken a fancy to Sally Chalker.”

“My dear aunt,” I said, “your delightful conversation has driven him out of my head altogether. It must be Mr. Henderson who drove me over, a sporting man, but a landlord, and a very fashionable fellow. He is waiting for me to go back with him, no doubt, and he will not take the liberty of ringing your bell. I must not keep him any more. Good-bye, dear aunt.”

“Do you think that I would let you go without a morsel? We shall have luncheon in about five minutes. Ask your friend to join us if he will oblige me. Oh, I do like a shy man, he is getting so scarce!”