Ralph the Heir Part 56

"Polly, I sometimes feel as though I didn't know what to do."

"Tell me the whole story of how you went on down at Percycross. I was so anxious you should get in."

"Were you now?"

"Right down sick at heart about it;--that I was. Don't you think we should all be proud to know a member of Parliament?"

"Oh; if that's all--"

"I shouldn't think anything of Mr. Newton for being in Parliament.

Whether he was in Parliament or out would be all the same. Of course he's a friend, and we like him very well; but his being in Parliament would be nothing. But if you were there--!"

"I don't know what's the difference," said Moggs despondently.

"Because you're one of us."

"Yes; I am," said Moggs, rising to his legs and preparing himself for an oration on the rights of labour. "I thank my G.o.d that I am no aristocrat." Then there came upon him a feeling that this was not a time convenient for political fervour. "But, I'll tell you something, Polly," he said, interrupting himself.

"Well;--tell me something, Mr. Moggs."

"I'd sooner have a kiss from you than be Prime Minister."

"Kisses mean so much, Mr. Moggs," said Polly.

"I mean them to mean much," said Ontario Moggs. Whereupon Polly, declining further converse on that delicate subject, and certainly not intending to grant the request made on the occasion, changed the subject.

"But you will get in still;--won't you, Mr. Moggs? They tell me that those other gentlemen ain't to be members any longer, because what they did was unfair. Oughtn't that to make you member?"

"I think it ought, if the law was right;--but it doesn't."

"Doesn't it now? But you'll try again;--won't you? Never give a thing up, Mr. Moggs, if you want it really." As the words left her lips she understood their meaning,--the meaning in which he must necessarily take them,--and she blushed up to her forehead. Then she laughed as she strove to recall the encouragement she had given him. "You know what I mean, Mr. Moggs. I don't mean any silly nonsense about being in love."

"If that is silly, I am the silliest man in London."

"I think you are sometimes;--so I tell you fairly."

In the meantime Mr. Neefit had woke from his slumbers. He was in his old arm-chair in the little back room, where they had dined, while Polly with her lover was in the front parlour. Mrs. Neefit was seated opposite to Mr. Neefit, with an open Bible in her lap, which had been as potent for sleep with her as had been the gin-and-water with her husband. Neefit suddenly jumped up and growled. "Where's Polly?" he demanded.

"She's in the parlour, I suppose," said Mrs. Neefit doubtingly.

"And who is with her?"

"n.o.body as hadn't ought to be," said Mrs. Neefit.

"Who's there, I say?" But without waiting for an answer, he stalked into the front room. "It's no use in life your coming here," he said, addressing himself at once to Ontario; "not the least. She ain't for you. She's for somebody else. Why can't one word be as good as a thousand?" Moggs stood silent, looking sheepish and confounded.

It was not that he was afraid of the father; but that he feared to offend the daughter should he address the father roughly. "If she goes against me she'll have to walk out of the house with just what she's got on her back."

"I should be quite contented," said Ontario.

"But I shouldn't;--so you may just cut it. Anybody who wants her without my leave must take her in her smock."

"Oh, father!" screamed Polly.

"That's what I mean,--so let's have done with it. What business have you coming to another man's house when you're not welcome? When I want you I'll send for you; and till I do you have my leave to stay away."

"Good-bye, Polly," said Ontario, offering the girl his hand.

"Good-bye, Mr. Moggs," said Polly; "and mind you get into Parliament.

You stick to it, and you'll do it."

When she repeated this salutary advice, it must have been that she intended to apply to the double event. Moggs at any rate took it in that light. "I shall," said he, as he opened the door and walked triumphantly out of the house.

"Father," said Polly, as soon as they were alone, "you've behaved very bad to that young man."

"You be blowed," said Mr. Neefit.

"You have, then. You'll go on till you get me that talked about that I shall be ashamed to show myself. What's the good of me trying to behave, if you keep going on like that?"

"Why didn't you take that chap when he came after you down to Margate?"

"Because I didn't choose. I don't care enough for him; and it's all no use of you going on. I wouldn't have him if he came twenty times.

I've made up my mind, so I tell you."

"You're a very grand young woman."

"I'm grand enough to have a will of my own about that. I'm not going to be made to marry any man, I know."

"And you mean to take that long-legged shoemaker's apprentice."

"He's not a shoemaker's apprentice any more than I'm a breeches-maker's apprentice." Polly was now quite in earnest, and in no mood for picking her words. "He is a bootmaker by his trade; and I've never said anything about taking him."

"You've given him a promise."

"No; I've not."

"And you'd better not, unless you want to walk out of this house with nothing but the rags on your back. Ain't I doing it all for you?

Ain't I been sweating my life out these thirty years to make you a lady?" This was hard upon Polly, as she was not yet one-and-twenty.

"I don't want to be a lady; no more than I am just by myself, like.

If I can't be a lady without being made one, I won't be a lady at all."

"You be blowed."

"There are different kinds of ladies, father. I want to be such a one as neither you nor mother shall ever have cause to say I didn't behave myself."

"You'd talk the figures off a milestone," said Mr. Neefit, as he returned to his arm-chair, to his gin-and-water, to his growlings, and before long to his slumbers. Throughout the whole evening he was very unpleasant in the bosom of his family,--which consisted on this occasion of his wife only, as Polly took the opportunity of going out to drink tea with a young lady friend. Neefit, when he heard this, suggested that Ontario was drinking tea at the same house, and would have pursued his daughter but for mingled protestations and menaces which his wife used for preventing such a violation of parental authority. "Moggs don't know from Adam where she is; and you never knowed her do anything of that kind. And you'll go about with your mad schemes and jealousies till you about ruin the poor girl; that's what you will. I won't have it. If you go, I'll go too, and I'll shame you. No; you shan't have your hat. Of course she'll be off some day, if you make the place that wretched that she can't live in it. I know I would,--with the fust man as'd ask me." By these objurgations, by a pertinacious refusal as to his hat, and a little yielding in the matter of gin-and-water, Mr. Neefit was at length persuaded to remain at home.

On the following morning he said nothing before he left home, but as soon as he had opened his letters and spoken a few sharp things to the two men in Conduit Street, he went off to Mr. Moggs senior. Of the interview between Mr. Neefit and Mr. Moggs senior sufficient has already been told. Then it was, after his return to his own shop, that he so behaved as to drive the German artist into downright mutiny and unlimited beer. Through the whole afternoon he snarled at Waddle; but Waddle sat silent, bending over the ledger. One question Waddle did answer.