PAGE 18
The Fatal Boots
by
Upon this speech the old lady said nothing, but she gave a screech loud enough to be heard from here to York, and down she fell–kicking and struggling in a regular fit.
*****
I did not see Mrs. Stubbs for some days after this, and the girls used to come down to meals, and never speak; going up again and stopping with their mother. At last, one day, both of them came in very solemn to my study, and Eliza, the eldest, said, “Robert, mamma has paid you our board up to Michaelmas.”
“She has,” says I; for I always took precious good care to have it in advance.
“She says, Robert, That on Michaelmas day–we’ll–we’ll go away, Robert.”
“Oh, she’s going to her own house, is she, Lizzy? Very good. She’ll want the furniture, I suppose, and that she may have too, for I’m going to sell the place myself.” And so THAT matter was settled.
*****
On Michaelmas day–and during these two months I hadn’t, I do believe, seen my mother twice (once, about two o’clock in the morning, I woke and found her sobbing over my bed)–on Michaelmas-day morning, Eliza comes to me and says, “ROBERT, THEY WILL COME AND FETCH US AT SIX THIS EVENING.” Well, as this was the last day, I went and got the best goose I could find (I don’t think I ever saw a primer, or ate more hearty myself), and had it roasted at three, with a good pudding afterwards; and a glorious bowl of punch. “Here’s a health to you, dear girls,” says I, “and you, Ma, and good luck to all three; and as you’ve not eaten a morsel, I hope you won’t object to a glass of punch. It’s the old stuff, you know, Ma’am, that that Waters sent to my father fifteen years ago.”
Six o’clock came, and with it came a fine barouche. As I live, Captain Waters was on the box (it was his coach); that old thief, Bates, jumped out, entered my house, and before I could say Jack Robinson, whipped off mamma to the carriage: the girls followed, just giving me a hasty shake of the hand; and as mamma was helped in, Mary Waters, who was sitting inside, flung her arms round her, and then round the girls; and the Doctor, who acted footman, jumped on the box, and off they went; taking no more notice of ME than if I’d been a nonentity.
Here’s a picture of the whole business:–Mamma and Miss Waters are sitting kissing each other in the carriage, with the two girls in the back seat: Waters is driving (a precious bad driver he is too); and I’m standing at the garden door, and whistling. That old fool Mary Malowney is crying behind the garden gate: she went off next day along with the furniture; and I to get into that precious scrape which I shall mention next.
SEPTEMBER.–PLUCKING A GOOSE.
After my papa’s death, as he left me no money, and only a little land, I put my estate into an auctioneer’s hands, and determined to amuse my solitude with a trip to some of our fashionable watering-places. My house was now a desert to me. I need not say how the departure of my dear parent, and her children, left me sad and lonely.
Well, I had a little ready money, and, for the estate, expected a couple of thousand pounds. I had a good military-looking person: for though I had absolutely cut the old North Bungays (indeed, after my affair with Waters, Colonel Craw hinted to me, in the most friendly manner, that I had better resign)–though I had left the army, I still retained the rank of Captain; knowing the advantages attendant upon that title in a watering-place tour.
Captain Stubbs became a great dandy at Cheltenham, Harrogate, Bath, Leamington, and other places. I was a good whist and billiard player; so much so, that in many of these towns, the people used to refuse, at last, to play with me, knowing how far I was their superior. Fancy my surprise, about five years after the Portsmouth affair, when strolling one day up the High Street, in Leamington, my eyes lighted upon a young man, whom I remembered in a certain butcher’s yard, and elsewhere–no other, in fact, than Dobble. He, too, was dressed en militaire, with a frogged coat and spurs; and was walking with a showy-looking, Jewish-faced, black-haired lady, glittering with chains and rings, with a green bonnet and a bird-of-Paradise–a lilac shawl, a yellow gown, pink silk stockings, and light-blue shoes. Three children, and a handsome footman, were walking behind her, and the party, not seeing me, entered the “Royal Hotel” together.