CHAPTER LXXXVII

MAMMA INSTEAD OF MISS

THE same want that we named before—that of some instrument or invention whereby people may be enabled to ascertain the hidden thoughts and feelings of others, again beset our friend Mr. Bunting in his pursuit of the fair and beautiful Miss Rosa. “Dear Mamma,” as he had now begun to call Mrs. McDermott, who had thereto been all smiles and confidence, suddenly changed, and became so pressingly urgent to know all about him and his affairs, that he could not imagine what had happened. The morning after her visit to Mrs. Goldspink, at Mayfield, instead of descending as he expected upon Miss Rosa alone in the drawingroom, he was shown up a step into the parlour, where sat Mamma, hemming a stout Baden Baden towel, who at once two-fingered him into a very uneasy high-backed low chair, saying with a keen eye and a somewhat compressed mouth, that she wished to have a few minutes’ conversation with him before he saw Miss Rosa; laying a slight emphasis on the word Miss.

Mr. Bunting of course knew what was coming, and demeaned himself accordingly, taking his seat with the air of a man entering a dentist’s throne. Mrs. McDermott did not begin as some of his lady confessors had done, by asking about his religious principles, his political opinions, or speaking on any extraneous subject, but after a dry prefatory hem, she glanced at the compliment he had paid to her daughter, and the high opinion they both entertained of him, and then proceeded to say that she was sure Mr. Bunting would agree with her, that it was desirable to come to a distinct understanding as soon as possible, for that long engagements were always to be deprecated, and people did talk so that it made her quite nervous and uncomfortable, and in short she should like exceedingly to have the thing settled forthwith. And after a few repetitions she began to pinch the Baden Baden towel severely, as if in search of fresh ideas.

Mr. Bunting, who during this exordium had been twirling his turban hat, then dropped it on the floor, and clasping his hands, with upturned eyes, proceeded to indulge in the most high-flown panegyrics on the beauty of her daughter, the sweetness of her smile, the perfection of her figure, the elegance of her walk; declaring that her electric eyes had quite penetrated his heart the first moment he had seen her. To all which compliments Mrs. McDermott kept smirking and smiling and pinching the Baden towel, considering how she should get him worked round into the right tack.

“Well, I’m sure Rosa has cause to be proud of your good opinion,” at length interposed she; “but courtship and matrimony, you know, are proverbially different, and it won’t do to marry smiles and dimples and pretty figures alone; there must be prudence and consideration for the future, and now, you know, is the proper time for making all necessary arrangements.”

“Undoubtedly,” replied Mr. Bunting, “undoubtedly; though with the girl of one’s heart these matters are of very minor importance.” And before Mrs. McDermott could interpose her opinion to the contrary, our poetical friend had broken right away with his favourite quotation:

going right through to the end of it.

Mrs. McDermott, however, kept the point steadily in her mind, and when he had concluded she looked up from her towel, and drily observed that love in a cottage was very well in theory, but it did not do in practice— that all ladies liked large houses, and concluded by asking him point blank if he hadn’t a castle in Scotland.

“Well—ye-as,” drawled Mr. Bunting, looking at the tip of his Balmoral boot.

“Rosa would like a castle,” observed Mrs. McDermott, drily. “What was it called?”

“Buntingbury Castle,” replied our hero.

“Buntingbury Castle, indeed—called after himself?”

“After my grandfather, Admiral Bunting,” replied our friend.

“Oh, indeed! a family place, is it?” observed Mrs. McDermott, perking up—Goldspink and Garlandale rather going down.

“Was it large?” asked she.

“Well, no—not large—usual size of a castle, I suppose,” replied our hero; (just as if there was ever a usual size for a castle—Little Belvoir, and real Belvoir, for instance).

Mrs. McDermott then applied herself assiduously to her Baden Baden towel, taking some rapid stitches, and an equally rapid retrospect of the Roseberry Rocks anonymous letter. The writer, if she recollected right, couldn’t say that Mr. Bunting hadn’t a castle—only told her to question him about his castle. Well, she had questioned him about his castle, and he said he had one. What more could she do? She really thought the writer had just wanted to spoil Rosa’s chance. And Goldspink and Garlandale sunk still lower in her estimation. Buntingbury Castle on the top of a letter would sound far finer than Garlandale, Garlandale Lodge, or Garlandale Villa, or whatever they decided to call it.

“Well,” said Mrs. McDermott, looking up from her work with a smile, “I suppose it will be all right.”

“I suppose so,” replied Mr. Bunting, who had rather his misgivings about the castle. He could have wished that “dear mamma” had led off with some exposition of what she herself would do than thus throw the onus of the whole arrangement upon him. If she married the Jug, who was evidently after her, there would be very small chance of getting her to give up any part of her life interest in what there was to dear Rosa. Altogether Mr. Bunting was as depressed as Mrs. McDermott was elated. He was tired of the returns made to the castle inquiries, and would gladly have left that property out of the reckoning, or only brought it in incidentally.

Now, if the before-mentioned much-wanted invention or instrument were in existence and use, our hero would have seen his way clearly through his dilemma—would have said at once when John Thomas ushered him up stairs instead of down, “Ah, my dear Mrs. McDermott, I know how it is—I know how it is—Mrs. Goldspink and you have had an imparlance, and as I can’t compete in the cash way, I must withdraw.” For want of that knowledge, as we shall now show, he was led on to the lawyers.

“I have no doubt it will be all right,” again observed Mrs. McDermott, who having considered the matter further over remembered what Mrs. Trattles had said about the property. “I have no doubt it will be all right,” repeated she, thinking Mr. Bunting was modest and did not wish to magnify his means.

Our friend inwardly wished that it might be all right.

“Well, then,” resumed Mrs. McDermott, measuring the towel off with her forefinger, “as ladies are not great hands at business, and I really know nothing about it (here she did herself injustice, for she was a dab hand at it, and always thought herself cheated, whatever she got)—as ladies are not great hands at business, and I really know nothing whatever about it, perhaps the best thing will be to leave the further arrangements to our respective lawyers.”

“Perhaps it will,” assented Mr. Bunting, who had a very wholesome dread of their perplexing interference. How many promising matches he had known them nip in the bud! In fact no man should say he is going to be married until he gets their assent. There are far more fires stamped out than fanned up.

“Mr. Ballivant—Mr. George Ballivant, of Hassenden, is my solicitor,” observed Mrs. McDermott. “There are two Ballivants, George and John—but I don’t like John, he let a party rather get the advantage of me in the matter of a cow. George is my man, and I’ll send for him to come over, say to-morrow—the sooner these matters are settled the better, and then we shall have nothing but pleasurable arrangements to occupy us.”

“So be it,” said Mr. Bunting, with a bow, and certain inward qualms as to the result.

“Well, then, shall we go and see Rosa?” asked Mamma, rising and folding her Baden Baden towel as she spoke.

“If you please,” said Mr. Bunting, getting up from the stool of repentance and proceeding to open the door.

Mamma then led the way down the step, and along the little passage to where a yellow ochre sheep-skin denoted the descent to the drawing-room. The door opened, when lo! who should appear but our fat friend Jasper; Jasper in the full swing of Miss Rosa’s work-box, just as if it were his own—Miss too smiling through her Ringlets at something he was saying.

“Holloa, old boy! how are you?” said Mr. Bunting haughtily, after squeezing Rosa’s soft hand with a gloveless embrace. He had come in with the full expectation of saluting her more enthusiastically, and was much disappointed at the result.

“Holloa, old boy, how are you?” was the familiar inquiry he now made of the destroyer of all his expected bliss.

“Tol-lol,” replied Jasper, now carelessly rolling a pink and a green silk winder backwards and forwards on the table in a race.

Mr. Bunting then took a seat on the other side of the charmer, who was busy pricking her fingers pretending to work, though in reality much perplexed at this unlucky meeting of her suitors. She well knew what Mamma had been doing, and now judged from her face that things had gone right, and that she ought not to have been in Ringlets. But Rosa maintained an equitable equilibrium between the two gentlemen notwithstanding, giving as much of her attention to one as the other. And each ultimately left with a comfortable anticipation of the future. Jasper, who dined earliest, having to go first, Mamma was enabled to inform Mr. Bunting at parting that she had written to Mr. Ballivant to be at Privett Grove at twelve on the morrow, when she hoped Mr. Bunting would be able to come. And Mr. Bunting promised that he would; and being called away with her keys, our hero drew for the bliss and interest that he had been obliged to leave in Cupid’s treasury before.

The house being then quiet, Mamma and Miss had an anxious confab, in which each told the other what their respective guests had said and done—Jasper having in fact been, as Miss Rosa expressed it, quite “as rude to her as Mr. Bunting.” Mamma said well, that there would soon be an end of that work, inasmuch as she had written to Mr. Ballivant to come in the morning, and put things upon a proper footing, for she was getting tired of procrastination; and moreover she thought (though this she kept to herself), that these wild youths might be the means of keeping the steady old Jug away from the house. So she determined to close the accounts one way or other.