Amusement Only Part 52

"Mr. Johns, you will either apologise for the words which you have just now used, or take a thras.h.i.+ng."

"I will take a thras.h.i.+ng," said Mr. Johns.

He took it. What is more, he took it there and then. The meeting was immediately adjourned; and in the moonlight, the little argument came off. The proceedings were a trifle irregular; perhaps over here we should deem them so. I am not prepared to say that any dignitaries were actually present. Still there was a goodly gathering. The two men "peeled." In a very short s.p.a.ce of time the little man had knocked the big man senseless. This is not a fairy tale. It is a simple record of a sober matter-of-fact. It almost seems as if Mr. Johns was a lineal descendant of the Admirable Crichton. Looking back, I really fancy that he must have been.

When Mr. Bean's satisfaction had been signified in what, I believe, is the usual manner, Mr. Johns addressed the lookers-on:

"Is there any other gentleman present who would like to thrash me--for the honour of Ahmednugger?"

Someone came out of the shadow--someone who, in those parts, was a very great man indeed.

"Mr. Johns, you will be so good as to leave Ahmednugger within four-and-twenty-hours."

Mr. Johns looked the great man up and down. He seemed to be in no way awed, even though he stood there in the moonlight without his s.h.i.+rt.

"I am at a loss, sir, to understand by what authority you address yourself to me in such a manner. I am in no way answerable for my movements to you. I have not broken the law. I have not even broken the peace. As it happens, I do intend to leave Ahmednugger, and in less than four-and-twenty hours. Not in deference to your orders, but simply because I have had enough of Ahmednugger, having taught your compatriots hereabouts what, it strikes me, was a much-needed lesson--the next time they encounter strangers, except in the scriptural sense--not to take them in."

The next day Mr. Johns did leave Ahmednugger. And I went too. He went his way, I went mine. I have neither seen nor heard of him since. But, as I continued on my journeyings, I felt that after all I had been even, and more than even, with the men of Ahmednugger--by deputy.

MR. WHITING AND MARY ANN.

I did not mean to kiss her; it was a pure accident. Her face was close to mine, or my face was close to hers, and then her lips came into contact with my lips, or my lips came into contact with her lips--I don't know which it was--and then at that moment her mother came into the room, and she said, "Mr. Whiting, may I ask what is the meaning of this?" I said it meant nothing--nothing! Absolutely nothing! Only I found it difficult to explain, and when I did explain she would not understand. Her manner was not at all the sort of thing I care for.

The result is that I am engaged to Mary Ann Snelling without being conscious of having entertained any intention of the kind.

Not that I have a word to say against Mary Ann, except that I never knew a girl with quite so many relations. To begin with she had six brothers and five sisters, and she is the eldest of the batch, and there's not one of the brothers whom I feel drawn to. Her father is a most remarkable person, to say the least.

After they had arranged between them that I was engaged to Mary Ann (I was really not allowed to have a voice in the matter) her father remarked, with a pointed air, which I cannot but think, under the circ.u.mstances, was unusual, that he thought it was about time that I did come to the scratch, and that if I had kept on dilly-dallying much longer he would have had a word to say to me of a kind. I do not know what he meant, and would rather not attempt to imagine. But it is quite plain to me that all the arrangements for my wedding are going to be made by the Snellings.

I do not know when it is going to be, but it will be either next week or the week after, certainly at the earliest possible moment, and I shouldn't be at all surprised to learn that all Mary Ann's "things"

had been already bought, and perhaps some of them marked.

We are to live in a house which belongs to a cousin of Mr. Snelling; it is to be furnished by a brother of Mrs. Snelling, the house linen is to be supplied by the father of the young man to whom Jane Matilda is engaged, and the ironmongery by the uncle to whom George Frederic is apprenticed. All, apparently, that is left for me to do, is to pay for everything. It is most delightful. It might just as well be some one else's wedding, so unimportant is the part which I am set to play in it.

And it is all the result of an accident. I deny that for the last six months I have been using Mr. Snelling's home as if it were a boarding-house. Nothing of the kind. The mere suggestion is absurd. It is true that I have dropped in to dinner now and then, or to spend the evening, or for an afternoon call, or for an hour or two in the morning; but that has been simply and solely because the Snelling family have evinced so marked a desire for my society. The alteration which has taken place in their demeanour since my accident with Mary Ann is, therefore, all the more amazing. For instance, look at their behaviour in the matter of the ring.

The accident in question occurred upon the Sunday evening. I had been with Mary Ann to church, and had seen her home, and had had a little supper, and it was after supper that it happened. I did not go and purchase the engagement ring the first thing on the Monday morning, I own it. Certainly not. Nor did I take any steps in that direction during the whole of that week. I was not pressed for time.

Besides, I was turning things over in my mind. But that was no reason why, the Monday week following, four of her brothers should have called on me on their way to the office, when I was scarcely out of bed, and actually breakfasting, and a.s.sailed me in the way in which they did.

There was William Henry, John Frank, Ferdinand Augustus, and Stephen Arthur. Each of them twice my size and all of them frightfully ignorant and wholly regardless of the sensitive little points of those with whom they came in contact. There is no circ.u.mlocution about them.

They go straight at what they want; and were scarcely inside my door before they blurted out the purport of their coming. It was Frederick Augustus; if the thing is possible he is, if anything, more direct even than the rest of his family.

"Look here, Whiting, how about Mary Ann's ring? The girl is fretting, but you don't seem to notice it. And as you don't appear to know what is the proper thing to do in a case of this kind, and don't understand that the ring ought to be bought straight away, we've bought it for you."

I gasped--positively gasped.

"Am I to understand that you've purchased my engagement ring?"

"That's it; on your account. From a cousin of ours who's in that line."

I never saw people like the Snellings for possessing relatives in all sorts of "lines." No matter what you want, or do not want, and never will want, they are sure to have some relative who has dealt in it, his or her whole life long.

They produced the ring, and told me what I had to pay for it. A handsome price it was. I was persuaded that somebody besides that cousin got a profit out of Mary Ann's engagement ring. But I handed over the amount. I did not want any unpleasantness; and I am quite sure there would have been unpleasantness had I demurred.

Later in the day I took it with me when I went to call on Mary Ann.

She appeared to be surprised almost into speechlessness when I presented it to her. Her head dropped on my shoulder, and she kissed me under the chin, observing, "You dear old Sam." The moments when I am alone with Mary Ann are alleviations for those more frequent moments when I am not alone with Mary Ann. Still I noticed that the ring fitted her perfectly, and I could not but wonder if she had tried it on before.

At the same time I am beginning to be comforted by a suspicion that Mary Ann is on my side; on my side, that is, as against the rest of her family. There has been a difference of opinion as to where we are to spend our honeymoon. It is from her action in that matter that my suspicion springs.

The Snellings have an aunt who lives in an out-of-the-way hole at the other end of nowhere. The woman's name is Brady. There she owns a cottage, or it may be a pigstye for all I know. When she heard of my engagement with Mary Ann, she wrote and suggested that we should spend our honeymoon in her cottage, or pigstye, and that I should pay her rent for it. The matter was talked about at dinner. Mary Ann was silent for some time; then she quietly remarked:

"Don't trouble yourselves to discuss Aunt Brady's proposal. I shall do nothing of the kind."

This observation was followed by perfect silence. The members of the family looked at one another. But, after a very considerable pause, her mother said, with quite unusual mildness, "Very well, my dear.

Then, it's settled."

After dinner I took advantage of an opportunity which offered to thank Mary Ann for her action in the matter, because, of course, I had no wish to spend my honeymoon in a place of which I knew nothing, to oblige an aunt of whom I knew still less. Mary Ann beamed at me, and she said, "You dear old man!" Presently she continued:

"Do you know that in marrying me you are doing the best thing for yourself that you ever did in all your life?"

I endeavoured to explain to her that I felt sure of it; but I fear that my explanation was a little stumbling. But she went on with the most perfect fluency. There were no signs of faltering about her flow of language.

"You want someone who can look after you; and you could not, by any chance, have chosen a person who will look after you better than I shall."

Such an a.s.surance was most satisfactory. We had a long confidential chat on matters of business. I found that as a woman of business she was beyond all my expectations.

I told her exactly what my income was; and the source from which it came, and all about it. She drew up a plan on which we were to lay it out. It was an admirable plan. I had never had one, but I saw clearly that in that way the money would go twice as far.

It turned out that she had a little money of her own; about a hundred and thirty pounds a year. And, of course, I had my expectations, and she had hers. It was plain that together we should manage most comfortably. Delightfully, in fact. On the subject of wedding presents, too, her ideas were the most lucid I ever yet encountered.

It was wonderful to listen to her--really wonderful.

"I shall make papa give me five hundred pounds, at least. 'A bird in the hand is worth two in a bush'--and it will be something to have by us."

I quite agreed with her remarks about the bird in the hand; and it certainly will be something to have by us.

"I know what mamma can afford to give, and I will see she gives it.

And I will see that there is no s.h.i.+rking about the boys--or about the girls either. I will take care that my relations do their duty. I have drawn up a list of all the people who ought to give us a present, and I shall tell them what they ought to give--it won't be my fault if I don't get it. Of course there are some people with whom you can't be perfectly plain, but I shall be as plain as I can; there's a way and a manner of doing that kind of thing. I have no intention of being presented with an endless collection of duplicates, or a lot of useless rubbish which I don't know what to do with. If you take my advice you will follow in my footsteps."

I endeavoured to. At least I drew up a list of people who ought to meet the occasion, and I tried in more than one instance to drop a hint of what, as I felt, they ought to meet it with.

But I am bound to admit that so far my success has been as nothing compared with hers. Hers has been prodigious. It is certain that we have a large collection of really valuable property about the house--the wedding presents to Mary Ann. She has a knack of getting people to do what she wishes and to give her what she wants, which is a little short of miraculous.

A singular feature about the situation is that people are actually beginning to pity me--to sympathise with me for being about to marry Mary Ann. I notice that they are generally persons who have already tendered their offerings. The fact of having given Mary Ann a wedding present seems to fill them with a feeling of rancorous acidity which, to me, is inexplicable. My belief is that they have been induced to spend at least twice as much as they intended, and that they resent it. Such is the selfishness of human nature. But why, on that account, they should pity me, I altogether fail to understand.