The Tinted Venus Part 22

"I'm afraid I can't say, not exactly; it may be a month, or it might only be a week, or again, it may be a year. I'm so dependent upon the weather. So, if you're in any kind of a hurry, I couldn't advise you, as a honest man, to wait for me."

"I will not wait a year!" she said fiercely. "You mock me with such words. I tell you again that my forbearance will last but little longer. More of this laggard love, and I will shame you before your fellow-men as an ingrate and a dastard! I will; by my zone, I will!"

"Now, mum, you're allowing yourself to get excited," said Leander, soothingly. "I wouldn't talk about it no more this evening; we shall do no good. I can't arrange to go with you just yet, and there's an end of it."

"You will find that that is not the end of it, clod-witted slave that you are!"

"Now, don't call names; it's beneath you."

"Ay, indeed! for are not _you_ beneath me? But for very shame I will not abandon what is justly mine; nor shall you, wily and persuasive hairdresser though you be, withstand my sovereign will with impunity!"

"So you say, mum!" said Leander, with a touch of his native impertinence.

"As I say, I shall act; but no more of this, or you will anger me before the time. Let me depart."

"I'm not hindering you," he said; but she did not remain long enough to resent his words. He sat down with a groan. "Whatever will become of me?" he soliloquized dismally. "She gets more pressing every evening, and she's been taking to threatening dreadful of late.... If the Count and that Braddle ever come back now, it won't be to take her off my hands; it'll more likely be to have my life for letting them into such a trap. They'll think it was some trick of mine, I shouldn't wonder....

And to-morrow's Sunday, and I've got to dine with aunt, and meet Matilda and her ma. A pretty state of mind I'm in for going out to dinner, after the awful week I've had of it! But there'll be some comfort in seeing my darling Tillie again; _she_ ain't a statue, bless her!"

"As for you, mum," he said to the unconscious statue, "I'm going to lock you up in your old quarters, where you can't get out and do mischief. I do think I'm ent.i.tled to have my Sunday quiet."

After which he contrived to toil upstairs with the image, not without considerable labour and frequent halts to recover his breath; for although, as we have already noted, the marble, after being infused with life, seemed to lose something of its normal weight, it was no light burden, even then, to be undertaken single-handed.

He slept long and late that Sunday morning; for he had been too preoccupied for the last few days to make any arrangements for attending chapel with his Matilda, and he was in sore need of repose besides. So he rose just in time to swallow his coffee and array himself carefully for his aunt's early dinner, leaving his two Sunday papers--the theatrical and the general organs--unread on his table.

It was a foggy, dull day, and Millman Street, never a cheerful thoroughfare, looked gloomier than ever as he turned into it. But one of those dingy fronts held Matilda--a circ.u.mstance which irradiated the entire district for him.

He had scarcely time to knock before the door was opened by Matilda in person. She looked more charming than ever, in a neat dark dress, with a little white collar and cuffs. Her hair was arranged in a new fas.h.i.+on, being banded by a neat braided tress across the crown; and her grey eyes, usually serene and cold, were bright and eager.

The hairdresser felt his heart swell with love at the sight of her. What a lucky man he was, after all, to have such a girl as this to care for him! If he could keep her--ah, if he could only keep her!

"I told your aunt _I_ was going to open the door to you," she said. "I wanted----Oh, Leander, you've not brought it, after all!"

"Meaning what, Tillie, my darling?" said Leander.

"Oh, you know--my cloak!"

He had had so much to think about that he had really forgotten the cloak of late.

"Well, no, I've not brought that--not the cloak, Tillie," he said slowly.

"What a time they are about it!" complained Matilda.

"You see," explained the poor man, "when a cloak like that is damaged, it has to be sent back to the manufacturers to be done, and they've so many things on their hands. I couldn't promise that you'll have that cloak--well, not this side of Christmas, at least."

"You must have been very rough with it, then, Leander," she remarked.

"I was," he said. "I don't know how I came to _be_ so rough. You see, I was trying to tear it off----" But here he stopped.

"Trying to tear it off what?"

"Trying to tear it off nothink, but trying to tear the wrapper off _it_.

It was so involved," he added, "with string and paper and that; and I'm a clumsy, unlucky sort of chap, sweet one; and I'm uncommon sorry about it, that I am!"

"Well, we won't say any more about it," said Matilda, softened by his contrition. "And I'm keeping you out in the pa.s.sage all this time. Come in, and be introduced to mamma; she's in the front parlour, waiting to make your acquaintance."

Mrs. Collum was a stout lady, with a thin voice. She struck a nameless fear into Leander's soul as he was led up to where she sat. He thought that she contained all the promise of a very terrible mother-in-law.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SHE STRUCK A NAMELESS FEAR INTO LEANDER'S SOUL.]

"This is Leander, mamma dear," said Matilda, shyly and yet proudly.

Her mother inspected him for a moment, and then half closed her eyes.

"My daughter tells me that you carry on the occupation of a hairdresser," she said.

"Quite correct, madam," said Leander; "I do."

"Ah! well," she said, with an unconcealed sigh, "I could have wished to look higher than hairdressing for my Matilda; but there are opportunities of doing good even as a hairdresser. I trust you are sensible of that."

"I try to do as little 'arm as I can," he said feebly.

"If you do not do good, you must do harm," she said uncompromisingly.

"You have it in your means to be an awakening influence. No one knows the power that a single serious hairdresser might effect with worldly customers. Have you never thought of that?"

"Well, I can't say I have exactly," he said; "and I don't see how."

"There are cheap and appropriate illuminated texts," she said, "to be had at so much a dozen; you could hang them on your walls. There are tracts you procure by the hundred; you could put them in the lining of hats as you hang them up; you could wrap them round your--your bottles and pomatum-pots. You could drop a word in season in your customer's ear as you bent over him. And you tell me you don't see how; you _will_ not see, I fear, Mr. Tweddle."

"I'm afraid, mum," he replied, "my customers would consider I was taking liberties."

"And what of that, so long as you save them?"

"Well, you see, I shouldn't--I should _lose_ 'em! And it's not done in our profession; and, to tell you the honest truth, I'm not given that way myself--not to the extent of tracks and suchlike, that is."

Matilda's mother groaned; it was hard to find a son-in-law with whom she had nothing in common, and who was a hairdresser into the bargain.

"Well, well," she said, "we must expect crosses in this life; though for my own daughter to lay this one upon me is--is----But I will not repine."

"I'm sorry you regard me in the light of a cross," said Leander; "but, whether I'm a cross or a naught, I'm a respectable man, and I love your daughter, mum, and I'm in a position to maintain her."

Leander hated to have to appear under false pretences, of which he had had more than enough of late. He was glad now to speak out plainly, particularly as he had no reason to fear this old woman.

"Hush, Leander! Mamma didn't mean to be unkind; did you, mamma?" said Matilda.

"I said what I felt," she said. "We will not discuss it further. If, in time, I see reason for bestowing my blessing upon a choice which at present----But no matter. If I see reason in time, I will not withhold it. I can hardly be expected to approve at present."

"You shall take your own time, mum; _I_ won't hurry you," said Leander.

"Tillie is blessing enough for me--not but what I shall be glad to be on a pleasant footing with you, I'm sure, if you can bring yourself to it."