Read Ebook: Men's Wives by Thackeray William Makepeace

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Ebook has 844 lines and 66439 words, and 17 pages

"What then? Why, I bet you five pounds to one, that in three months those bills are paid."

"Done! five pounds to one. I take it."

This sudden closing with him made the perfumer rather uneasy; but he was not to pay for three months, and so he said, "Done!" too, and went on: "What would you say if your bills were paid?"

"Not mine; Pike's."

"Well, if Pike's were paid; and the Minories' man paid, and every single liability I have cleared off; and that Mossrose flung out of winder, and me and my emporium as free as hair?"

"You don't say so? Is Queen Anne dead? and has she left you a fortune? or what's the luck in the wind now?"

"It's better than Queen Anne, or anybody dying. What should you say to seeing in that very place where Mossrose now sits --seeing the FINEST HEAD OF 'AIR NOW IN EUROPE? A woman, I tell you--a slap-up lovely woman, who, I'm proud to say, will soon be called Mrs. Heglantine, and will bring me five thousand pounds to her fortune."

"Well, Tiny, this IS good luck indeed. I say, you'll be able to do a bill or two for ME then, hay? You won't forget an old friend?"

"That I won't. I shall have a place at my board for you, Capting; and many's the time I shall 'ope to see you under that ma'ogany."

"What will the French milliner say? She'll hang herself for despair, Eglantine."

"Hush! not a word about 'ER. I've sown all my wild oats, I tell you. Eglantine is no longer the gay young bachelor, but the sober married man. I want a heart to share the feelings of mine. I want repose. I'm not so young as I was: I feel it."

"Pooh! pooh! you are--you are--"

"Well, but I sigh for an 'appy fireside; and I'll have it."

"And give up that club which you belong to, hay?"

"'The Kidneys?' Oh! of course, no married man should belong to such places: at least, I'LL not; and I'll have my kidneys broiled at home. But be quiet, Captain, if you please; the ladies appointed to--"

"And is it THE lady you expect? eh, you rogue!"

"Well, get along. It's her and her Ma."

But Mr. Walker determined he wouldn't get along, and would see these lovely ladies before he stirred.

The operation on Mr. Walker's whiskers being concluded, he was arranging his toilet before the glass in an agreeable attitude: his neck out, his enormous pin settled in his stock to his satisfaction, his eyes complacently directed towards the reflection of his left and favourite whisker. Eglantine was laid on a settee, in an easy, though melancholy posture; he was twiddling the tongs with which he had just operated on Walker with one hand, and his right-hand ringlet with the other, and he was thinking--thinking of Morgiana; and then of the bill which was to become due on the 16th; and then of a light-blue velvet waistcoat with gold sprigs, in which he looked very killing, and so was trudging round in his little circle of loves, fears, and vanities. "Hang it!" Mr. Walker was thinking, "I AM a handsome man. A pair of whiskers like mine are not met with every day. If anybody can see that my tuft is dyed, may I be--" When the door was flung open, and a large lady with a curl on her forehead, yellow shawl, a green-velvet bonnet with feathers, half-boots, and a drab gown with tulips and other large exotics painted on it--when, in a word, Mrs. Crump and her daughter bounced into the room.

"Here we are, Mr. E," cries Mrs. Crump, in a gay folatre confidential air. "But law! there's a gent in the room!"

"Don't mind me, ladies," said the gent alluded to, in his fascinating way. "I'm a friend of Eglantine's; ain't I, Egg? a chip of the old block, hay?"

"THAT you are," said the perfumer, starting up.

"An 'air-dresser?" asked Mrs. Crump. "Well, I thought he was; there's something, Mr. E., in gentlemen of your profession so exceeding, so uncommon distangy."

"Madam, you do me proud," replied the gentleman so complimented, with great presence of mind. "Will you allow me to try my skill upon you, or upon Miss, your lovely daughter? I'm not so clever as Eglantine, but no bad hand, I assure you."

"Nonsense, Captain," interrupted the perfumer, who was uncomfortable somehow at the rencontre between the Captain and the object of his affection. "HE'S not in the profession, Mrs. C. This is my friend Captain Walker, and proud I am to call him my friend." And then aside to Mrs. C., "One of the first swells on town, ma'am--a regular tiptopper."

Humouring the mistake which Mrs. Crump had just made, Mr. Walker thrust the curling-irons into the fire in a minute, and looked round at the ladies with such a fascinating grace, that both, now made acquainted with his quality, blushed and giggled, and were quite pleased. Mamma looked at 'Gina, and 'Gina looked at mamma; and then mamma gave 'Gina a little blow in the region of her little waist, and then both burst out laughing, as ladies will laugh, and as, let us trust, they may laugh for ever and ever. Why need there be a reason for laughing? Let us laugh when we are laughy, as we sleep when we are sleepy. And so Mrs. Crump and her demoiselle laughed to their hearts' content; and both fixed their large shining black eyes repeatedly on Mr. Walker.

"I won't leave the room," said he, coming forward with the heated iron in his hand, and smoothing it on the brown paper with all the dexterity of a professor --"I won't leave the room, Eglantine my boy. My lady here took me for a hairdresser, and so, you know, I've a right to stay."

"He can't stay," said Mrs. Crump, all of a sudden, blushing as red as a peony.

"I shall have on my peignoir, Mamma," said Miss, looking at the gentleman, and then dropping down her eyes and blushing too.

"But he can't stay, 'Gina, I tell you: do you think that I would, before a gentleman, take off my--"

"Mamma means her FRONT!" said Miss, jumping up, and beginning to laugh with all her might; at which the honest landlady of the "Bootjack," who loved a joke, although at her own expense, laughed too, and said that no one, except Mr. Crump and Mr. Eglantine, had ever seen her without the ornament in question.

"DO go now, you provoking thing, you!" continued Miss C. to Mr. Walker; "I wish to hear the hoverture, and it's six o'clock now, and we shall never be done against then:" but the way in which Morgiana said "DO go," clearly indicated "don't" to the perspicacious mind of Mr. Walker.

"Perhaps you 'ad better go," continued Mr. Eglantine, joining in this sentiment, and being, in truth, somewhat uneasy at the admiration which his "swell friend" excited.

"I'll see you hanged first, Eggy my boy! Go I won't, until these ladies have had their hair dressed: didn't you yourself tell me that Miss Crump's was the most beautiful hair in Europe? And do you think that I'll go away without seeing it? No, here I stay."

"You naughty wicked odious provoking man!" said Miss Crump. But, at the same time, she took off her bonnet, and placed it on one of the side candlesticks of Mr. Eglantine's glass , and then said, "Give me the peignoir, Mr. Archibald, if you please;" and Eglantine, who would do anything for her when she called him Archibald, immediately produced that garment, and wrapped round the delicate shoulders of the lady, who, removing a sham gold chain which she wore on her forehead, two brass hair-combs set with glass rubies, and the comb which kept her back hair together--removing them, I say, and turning her great eyes towards the stranger, and giving her head a shake, down let tumble such a flood of shining waving heavy glossy jetty hair, as would have done Mr. Rowland's heart good to see. It tumbled down Miss Morgiana's back, and it tumbled over her shoulders, it tumbled over the chair on which she sat, and from the midst of it her jolly bright-eyed rosy face beamed out with a triumphant smile, which said, "A'n't I now the most angelic being you ever saw?"

"'I heard a guitar, On the blue waters clear, And knew by its mu-u-sic, That Selim was near!'

You remember that in the 'Bagdad Bells'? Fatima, Delancy; Selim, Benlomond . It was done to the tambourine, and dancing between each verse,--

"'Tink-a-tink, tink-a-tink, How the soft music swells, And I hear the soft clink Of the minaret bells!

"'Tink-a--'"

"Oh!" here cried Miss Crump, as if in exceeding pain --"Oh, you are killing me, Mr. Eglantine!"

And with this mamma, who was in her attitude, holding up the end of her boa as a visionary tambourine, and Mr. Walker, who was looking at her, and in his amusement at the mother's performances had almost forgotten the charms of the daughter--both turned round at once, and looked at her with many expressions of sympathy, while Eglantine, in a voice of reproach, said, "KILLED you, Morgiana! I kill YOU?"

"I'm better now," said the young lady, with a smile--"I'm better, Mr. Archibald, now." And if the truth must be told, no greater coquette than Miss Morgiana existed in all Mayfair--no, not among the most fashionable mistresses of the fashionable valets who frequented the "Bootjack." She believed herself to be the most fascinating creature that the world ever produced; she never saw a stranger but she tried these fascinations upon him; and her charms of manner and person were of that showy sort which is most popular in this world, where people are wont to admire most that which gives them the least trouble to see; and so you will find a tulip of a woman to be in fashion when a little humble violet or daisy of creation is passed over without remark. Morgiana was a tulip among women, and the tulip fanciers all came flocking round her.

And as for Morgiana showing her hair, I hope none of my readers will entertain a bad opinion of the poor girl for doing so. Her locks were her pride; she acted at the private theatre "hair parts," where she could appear on purpose to show them in a dishevelled state; and that her modesty was real, and not affected may be proved by the fact that when Mr. Walker, stepping up in the midst of Eglantine's last speech, took hold of a lock of her hair very gently with his hand, she cried "Oh!" and started with all her might. And Mr. Eglantine observed very gravely, "Capting! Miss Crump's hair is to be seen and not to be touched, if you please."

"No more it is, Mr. Eglantine!" said her mamma. "And now, as it's come to my turn, I beg the gentleman will be so obliging as to go."

"MUST I?" cried Mr. Walker; and as it was half-past six, and he was engaged to dinner at the "Regent Club," and as he did not wish to make Eglantine jealous, who evidently was annoyed by his staying, he took his hat just as Miss Crump's coiffure was completed, and saluting her and her mamma, left the room.

"A tip-top swell, I can assure you," said Eglantine, nodding after him: "a regular bang-up chap, and no MISTAKE. Intimate with the Marquess of Billingsgate, and Lord Vauxhall, and that set."

"He's very genteel," said Mrs. Crump.

"Law! I'm sure I think nothing of him," said Morgiana.

And Captain Walker walked towards his club, meditating on the beauties of Morgiana. "What hair," said he, "what eyes the girl has! they're as big as billiard-balls; and five thousand pounds. Eglantine's in luck! five thousand pounds--she can't have it, it's impossible!"

No sooner was Mrs. Crump's front arranged, during the time of which operation Morgiana sat in perfect contentment looking at the last French fashions in the Courrier des Dames, and thinking how her pink satin slip would dye, and make just such a mantilla as that represented in the engraving--no sooner was Mrs. Crump's front arranged, than both ladies, taking leave of Mr. Eglantine, tripped back to the "Bootjack Hotel" in the neighbourhood, where a very neat green fly was already in waiting, the gentleman on the box of which gave a knowing touch to his hat, and a salute with his whip, to the two ladies, as they entered the tavern.

"Mr. W.'s inside," said the man--a driver from Mr. Snaffle's establishment; "he's been in and out this score of times, and looking down the street for you." And in the house, in fact, was Mr. Woolsey, the tailor, who had hired the fly, and was engaged to conduct the ladies that evening to the play.

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