The Honourable Mr. Tawnish

Chapter 2

Of the further astonishing conduct of the said Mr. Tawnish

Myself and Bentley were engaged upon our usual morning game of chess, when there came a knocking at the door, and my man, Peter, entered.

"Checkmate!" says I.

"No!" says Bentley, castelling.

"Begging your pardon, Sir Richard," says Peter, "but here's a man with a message."

"Oh, devil take your man with a message, Peter!--the game is mine in six moves," says I, bringing up my queen's knight.

"No," says Bentley, "steady up the bishop."

"From Sir John Chester," says Peter, holding the note under my nose.

"Oh! Sir John Chester--check!"

"What in the world can Jack want?" says Bentley, reaching for his wig.

"Check!" says I.

"Why, what can have put him out again?" says Bentley, pointing to the letter--"look at the blots."

Jack is a bad enough hand with the pen at all times, but when in a passion, his writing is always more or less illegible by reason of the numerous blots and smudges; on the present occasion it was very evident that he was more put out than usual.

"Some new villainy of the fellow Raikes, you may depend," says I, breaking the seal.

"No," says Bentley, "I'll lay you twenty, it refers to young Tawnish."

"Done!" I nodded, and spreading out the paper I read (with no little difficulty) as follows:

DEAR d**k AND BENTLEY,

Come round and see me at once, for the devil anoint me if I ever heard tell the like on't, and more especially after the exhibition of a week ago. To my mind, 'tis but a cloak to mask his cowardice, as you will both doubtless agree when you shall have read this note.

Yours,

JACK.

"Well, but where's his meaning? 'Tis ever Jack's way to forget the very kernel of news," grumbled Bentley.

"Pooh! 'tis plain enough," says I, "he means Raikes; any but a fool would know that."

"Lay you fifty it's Tawnish," says Bentley, in his stubborn way.

"Done!" says I.

"Stay a moment, d**k," says Bentley, as I rose, "what of our Pen,--she hasn't asked you yet how Jack hurt his foot, has she?"

"Not a word."

"Ha!" says Bentley, with a ponderous nod, "which goes to prove she doth but think the more, and we must keep the truth from her at all hazards, d**k--she'll know soon enough, poor, dear lass. Now, should she ask us--as ask us she will, 'twere best to have something to tell her--let's say, he slipped somewhere!"

"Aye," I nodded, "we'll tell her he twisted his ankle coming down the step at 'The Chequers'--would to God he had!" So saying, we clapped on our hats and sallied out together arm in arm. Jack and I are near neighbours, so that a walk of some fifteen minutes brought us to the Manor, and proceeding at once to the library, we found him with his leg upon a cushion and a bottle of Oporto at his elbow--a-cursing most lustily.

"Well, Jack," says Bentley, as he paused for breath, "and how is the leg?"

"Leg!" roars Jack, "leg, sir--look at it--useless as a log--as a cursed log of wood, sir--snapped a tendon--so Purdy says, but Purdy's a damned pessimistic fellow--the devil anoint all doctors, say I!"

"And pray, what might be the meaning of this note of yours?" and I held it out towards him.

"Meaning," cries Jack, "can't you read--don't I tell you? The insufferable insolence of the fellow."

"Faith!" says I, "if it's Raikes you mean, anything is believable of him--"

"Raikes!" roars Jack, louder than ever, "fiddle-de-dee, sir! who mentioned that rascal--you got my note?"

"In which you carefully made mention of no one."

"Well, I meant to, and that's all the difference."

"To be sure," added Bentley,--"it's young Tawnish; anybody but a fool would know that."

"To be sure," nodded Jack. "d**k," says he, turning upon me suddenly, "d**k, could you have passed over such an insult as we saw Raikes put upon him the other day?"

"No!" I answered, very short, "and you know it."

Jack turned to Bentley with a groan.

"And you, Bentley, come now," says he, "you could, eh!--come now?"

"Not unless I was asleep or stone blind, or deaf," says Bentley.

"Damme! and why not?" cries Jack, and then groaned again. "I was afraid so," says he, "I was afraid so."

"Jack, what the devil do you mean?" I exclaimed.

For answer he tossed a crumpled piece of paper across to me. "Read that," says he, "I got it not an hour since--read it aloud." Hereupon, smoothing out the creases, I read the following:

TONBRIDGE, OCTR. 30th, 1740.

MY DEAR SIR JOHN,

Fortune, that charming though much vilified dame, hath for once proved kind, for the first, and believe me by far the most formidable of my three tasks, namely, to perform that which each one of you shall avow to be beyond him, is already accomplished, and I make bold to say, successfully.

To be particular, you could not but notice the very objectionable conduct, I might say, the wanton insolence of Sir Harry Raikes upon the occasion of our last interview. Now, Sir John, you, together with Sir Richard Eden and Mr. Bentley, will bear witness to the fact that I not only passed over the affront, but even went so far as to apologise to him myself, wherein I think I can lay claim to having achieved that which each one of you will admit to have been beyond his powers.

Having thus fulfilled the first undertaking assigned me, there remain but two, namely, to make a laughing stock of Sir Harry Raikes (which I purpose to do at the very first opportunity) and to place you three gentlemen at a disadvantage.

So, my dear Sir John, in hopes of soon gaining your esteem and blessing (above all), I rest your most devoted, humble, obedient,

HORATIO TAWNISH.

"This passes all bounds," says I, tossing the letter upon the table, "such audacity--such presumption is beyond all belief; the question is, whether the fellow is right in his head."

"No, d**k," says Bentley, helping himself to the Oporto, "the question is rather--whether he is wrong in his assertion."

"Why, as to that--" I began, and paused, for look at it as I might 'twas plain enough that Mr. Tawnish had certainly scored his first point.

"We all agree," continued Bentley, "that we none of us could do the like; it therefore follows that this Tawnish fellow wins the first hand."

"Sheer trickery!" cries Jack, hurling his wig into the corner--"sheer trickery--damme!"

"Fore gad! Jack," says I, "this fellow's no fool, if he 'quits himself of his other two tasks as featly as this, sink me! but I must needs begin to love him, for look you, fair is fair all the world over and I agree with Bentley, for once, that Mr. Tawnish wins the first hand."

"Ha!" cries Jack, "and because the rogue has tricked us once, would you have us sit by and let Pen throw herself away upon a worthless, fortune-hunting fop--"

"Why, as to that, Jack," says Bentley, "a bargain's a bargain--"

"Pish!" roared Jack, fumbling in his pocket, "why only this very morning I came upon more of his poetry-stuff! Here," he continued, tossing a folded paper on the table in front of Bentley, "it seems the young rascal's been meeting her--over the orchard wall. Read it, Bentley--read it, and see for yourself." Obediently Bentley took up the paper and read as here followeth:

"'Dear Heart--'"

"Bah!" snorted Jack.

"'Dear Heart!'" read Bentley again and with a certain unction:

"'DEAR HEART,

I send you these few lines, poor though they be, for since they were inspired by my great love for thee, that of itself, methinks, should make them more worthy,

Thine, as ever,

HORATIO.'"

"You mark that?" cries Jack, excitedly, "'hers as ever,' and 'Horatio!' Horatio--faugh! I could ha' taken it kinder had he called himself Tom, or Will, or George, but 'Horatio'--oh, damme! And now comes the poetry-stuff."

Hereupon Bentley hummed and ha'd, and clearing his throat, read this:

"'Slumbers keep,'" snorted Jack, "the insolence of the fellow! Now look on t'other side."

"'I shall be in the orchard to-morrow at the usual hour, in the hope of a word or a look from you.'"

Bentley read, and laid down the paper.

"At the usual hour--d'ye mark that!" cries Jack, thumping himself in the chest--"'tis become a habit with 'em, it seems--and there's for ye, and a nice kettle o' fish it is!"

"Ah, Bentley," says I, "if only your nephew, the young Viscount, were here--"

"To the deuce with Bentley's nephew!" roars Jack. "I say he shouldn't marry her now, no--not if he were ten thousand times Bentley's nephew, sir--deuce take him!"

"So then," says I, "all our plans are gone astray, and she will have her way and wed this adventurer Tawnish, I suppose?"

"No, no, d**k!" cries Jack; "curse me, am I not her father?"

"And is she not--herself?" says I.

"True!" Jack nodded, "and as stubborn as--as--"

"Her father!" added Bentley. "Why, Jack--d**k--I tell you she's ruled us all with a rod of iron ever since she used to climb up our knees to pull at our wigs with her little, mischievous fingers!"

"Such very small, pink fingers!" says I, sighing. "Indeed we've spoiled her wofully betwixt us."

"Ha!" snorted Jack, "and who's responsible for all this, I say; who's petted and pampered, and coddled and condoned her every fault? Why--you, d**k and Bentley. When I had occasion to scold or correct her, who was it used to sneak behind my back with their pockets bulging with cakes and sticky messes? Why, you, d**k and Bentley!"

"You scold her, Jack?" says Bentley, "yes, egad! in a voice as mild as a sucking dove! And when she wept, you'd frown tremendously to hide thine own tears, man, and end by smothering her with your kisses. And thus it has ever been--for her dead mother's sake!"

"But now," says I after a while, "the time is come to be resolute, for her sake--and her mother's."

"Aye," cries Jack, "we must be firm with her, we must be resolute! Penelope's my daughter and shall obey us for once, if we have to lock her up for a week. I'll teach her that our will is law, for once!"

"You're in the right on 't, Jack," says I, "we must show her that she can't ride rough-shod over us any longer. We must be stern to be kind."

"We must be adamant!" says Bentley, his eyes twinkling.

"We must be harsh," says I, "if need be and--"

But here, perceiving Bentley's face to be screwed up warningly, observing his ponderous wink and eloquent thumb, I glanced up and beheld Penelope herself regarding us from the doorway. And indeed, despite the pucker at her pretty brow, she looked as sweet and fresh and fair as an English summer morning. But Jack, all innocent of her presence, had caught the word from me.

"Harsh!" cries he, thumping the table at his elbow, "I'll warrant me I'll be harsh enough--if 'twas only on account of the fellow's poetry-stuff--the jade! We'll lock her up--aye, if need be, we'll starve her on bread and water, we'll--"

But he got no further, for Penelope had stolen up behind him and, throwing her arms round his neck, kissed him into staring silence.

"Uncle Bentley!" says she, giving him one white hand to kiss, "and you, dear uncle d**k!" and she gave me the other.

"What, my pretty lass!" cries Bentley, rising, and would have kissed the red curve of her smiling lips, but she stayed him with an authoritative finger.

"Nay, sir," says she, mighty demure, "you know my new rule,--from Monday to Wednesday my hand; from Wednesday to Saturday, my cheek; and on Sunday, my lips--and to-day is Tuesday, sir!"

"Drat my memory, so it is!" says Bentley, and kissed her slender fingers obediently, as I did likewise. Hereupon she turns, very high and haughty, to eye Jack slowly from head to foot, and to shake her head at him in dignified rebuke.

"As for you, sir," says she, "you stole away my letter,--was that gentle, was it loving, was it kind? Uncle Bentley--say 'No'!"

"Why--er--no," stammered Bentley, "but you see, Pen--"

"Then, Sir John," she continued, with her calm, reproving gaze still fixed upon her father's face the while he fidgetted in his chair, "then yesterday, Sir John, when I found you'd taken it, and came to demand it back again, you heard me coming and slipped out--through the window, and hid yourself--in the stables, and rode away without even stopping to put on your riding-boots, and--in that terrible old hat! Was that behaving like a dignified, middle-aged gentleman and Justice of the Peace, sir? Uncle Richard, say 'Certainly not!'"

"Well, I--I suppose 'twas not," says I, "but under the circumstances--"

"And now I find you all with your heads very close together, hatching diabolical plots and conspiracies against poor little me--heigho!"

"Nay, Penelope," says Jack, beginning to bluster, "we--I say we are determined--"

"Oh, Sir John," she sighed, "oh, Sir John Chester, 'tis a shameful thing and most ungallant in a father to run off with his daughter's love-letter. Prithee, where is her love-letter? Give her her love-letter--this moment!"

Hereupon Jack must needs produce the letter from his pocket (where he had hidden it) and she (naughty baggage) very ostentatiously set it 'neath the tucker at her bosom. Which done, she nods at each one of us in turn, frowning a little the while.

"I vow," says she, tapping the floor with the toe of her satin shoe, "I could find it in my heart to be very angry with you--all of you, if I didn't--love you quite so well. So, needs must I forgive you. Sir John dear, stoop down and let me straighten your wig--there! Now you may kiss me, sir--an' you wish."

Hereupon Jack kissed her, of course, and thereafter catching sight of us, frowned terrifically.

"Now, look'ee here, Pen--Penelope," says he, "I say, look'ee here!"

"Yes, Sir John dear."

"I--that is to say--we," began Jack, "for d**k and Bentley are one with me, I say that--that--er, I say that--what the devil do I mean to say, d**k?"

"Why, Pen," I explained, "'tis this stranger--this--er--"

"Tawnish!" says Bentley.

"Aye, Tawnish!" nodded Jack. "Now heark'ee, Pen, I repeat--I say, I repeat--"

"Very frequently, dear," she sighed. "Well?"

"I say," continued Jack, "that I--we--utterly forbid you to see or hear from the fellow again."

"And pray, sir, what have you against him?" says she softly,--only her slender foot tapped a little faster.

"Everything!" says Jack.

"Which is as much as to say--nothing!" she retorted.

"I say," cried Jack, "the man you come to marry shall be a man and not a mincing exquisite with no ideas beyond the cut of his coat."

"And," says I, "a man of position, and no led-captain with an eye to your money, or needy adventurer hunting a dowry, Pen."

"Oh!" she sighed, "how cruelly you misjudge him! And you, Uncle Bentley, what have you to say?"

"That whoso he be, we would have him in all things worthy of thee, Pen."

"Aye!" nodded Jack, "so my lass, forego this whim--no more o' this Tawnish fellow--forget him."

"Forget!" says she, "how lightly you say it! Oh, prithee don't you see that I am a child no longer--don't you understand?"

"Pooh!" cries Jack. "Fiddle-de-dee! What-a-plague! This fellow is no fit mate for our Pen, a stranger whom nobody knows! a languid fop! a pranked-out, patched and powdered puppy-dog! So Penelope, let there be an end on't!"

Pen's little foot had ceased its tattoo, but her eyes were bright and her cheeks glowed when she spoke again.

"Oh!" says she, scornfully. "Oh, most noble, most fair-minded gentlemen--all three of you, to condemn thus, out of hand, one of whom you know nothing, and without allowing him one word in his own behalf! Aye, hang your heads! Oh, 'tis most unworthy of you--you whom I have ever held to be in all things most just and honourable!"

And here she turned her back fairly upon us and crossed to the window, while we looked at one another but with never a word betwixt us; wherefore she presently went on again.

"And yet," says she, and now her voice was grown wonderfully tender, "you all loved the mother I never knew--loved her passing well, and, for her sake, have borne with my foolish whims all these years, and given me a place deep within your hearts. And because of this," says she, turning and coming back to us, "yes, because of this I love thee, Uncle d**k!" Here she stooped and kissed me (God bless her). "And you too, Uncle Bentley!" Here she kissed Bentley. "And you, dear, tender father!" Here she kissed Jack. "Indeed," she sighed, "methinks I love you all far more than either of you, being only men, can ever understand. But because I am a woman, needs must I do as my heart bids me in this matter, or despise myself utterly. As for the worth of this gentleman, oh! think you I am so little credit to your upbringing as not to know the real from the base? Ah! trust me! And indeed I know this for a very noble gentleman, and what's more, I will never--never--wed any other than this gentleman!" So saying, she sobbed once, and turning about, sped from the room, banging the door behind her.

Hereupon Jack sighed and ruffled up his wig, while Bentley, lying back in his chair, nodded up at the ceiling, and as for myself I stared down at the floor, lost in sombre thought.

"Well," exclaimed Jack at last, "what the devil are you shaking your heads over? Had you aided me just now instead of sitting there mumchance like two graven images--say like two accursed graven images--"

"Why," retorted Bentley, "didn't I say--"

"Say," cries Jack, "no sooner did you clap eyes on her than it's 'My sweet lass!' 'My pretty maid!' and such toys! And after all your talk of being 'harsh to be kind!' Oh, a cursed nice mess you've made on't betwixt you. Lord knows I tried to do my best--"

"To be sure," nodded Bentley, "'Come let me straighten your wig' says she, and there you sat like--egad, like a furious lamb!"

"Jack and Bentley," says I, "'tis time we realized that our Pen's a woman grown and we--old men, though it seems but yesterday we were boys together at Charterhouse. But the years have slipped away, as years will, and everything is changed but our friendship. As we, in those early days lived, and fought, and worked together, so we loved together, and she--chose Jack. And because of our love, her choice was ours also. And in a little while she died, but left us Pen--to comfort Jack if such might be, and to be our little maid. Each day she hath grown more like to what her sweet mother was, and so we have loved her--very dearly until--to-day we have waked to find our little maid a woman grown--to think, and act, and choose for herself, and we--old men."

And so I sighed, and rising crossed to the window and stood there awhile.

"Lord!" says Bentley at last, "how the years do gallop upon a man!"

"Aye!" sighed Jack, "I never felt my age till now."

"Nor I!" added Bentley.

"And now," says Jack, "what of Raikes; have you seen aught of him lately?"

"No, Jack."

"But I met Hammersley this morning," says Bentley, "and he was anxious to know when the--the--"

"Meeting was likely to take place?" put in Jack, as he paused; "Purdy tells me I shan't be able to use this foot of mine for a month or more."

"That will put it near Christmas," added Bentley.

"Yes," nodded Jack, "I think we could do no better than Christmas Day."

"A devilish strange time for a duel," says Bentley, "peace on earth, and all that sort of thing, you know."

"Why, it's Pen," says Jack, staring hard into the fire, "she will be at her Aunt Sophia's then, which is fortunate on the whole. I shouldn't care for her to see me--when they bring me home."

For a long time it seemed to me none of us spoke. I fumbled through all my pockets for my snuff-box without finding it (which was strange), and looking up presently, I saw that Bentley had upset his wine, which was trickling down his satin waistcoat all unnoticed.

"Jack," says I at last, "a Gad's name, lend me your snuff-box!"

"And now," says he, "suppose we have a hand at picquet."