Brings Back Sam, His Wife, Aunt, and Diamond, to London
We pleased ourselves during the honeymoon with forming plans for our life in London, and a pretty paradise did we build for ourselves! Well, we were but forty years old between us; and, for my part, I never found any harm come of castle-building, but a great deal of pleasure.
Before I left London I had, to say the truth, looked round me for a proper place, befitting persons of our small income; and Gus Hoskins and I, who hunted after office-hours in couples, bad fixed on a very snug little cottage in Camden Town, where there was a garden that certain small people might play in when they came: a horse and gig-house, if ever we kept one,— and why not, in a few years?— and a fine healthy air, at a reasonable distance from ‘Change; all for 30_l. a year. I had described this little spot to Mary as enthusiastically as Sancho describes Lizias to Don Quixote; and my dear wife was delighted with the prospect of housekeeping there, vowed she would cook all the best dishes herself (especially jam-pudding, of which I confess I am very fond), and promised Gus that he should dine with us at Clematis Bower every Sunday: only he must not smoke those horrid cigars. As for Gus, he vowed he would have a room in the neighbourhood too, for he could not bear to go back to Bell Lane, where we two had been so happy together; and so good-natured Mary said she would ask my sister Winny to come and keep her company. At which Hoskins blushed, and said, “Pooh! nonsense now.”
But all our hopes of a happy snug Clematis Lodge were dashed to the ground on our return from our little honeymoon excursion; when Mrs. Hoggarty informed us that she was sick of the country, and was determined to go to London with her dear nephew and niece, and keep house for them, and introduce them to her friends in the metropolis.
What could we do? We wished her at — Bath: certainly not in London. But there was no help for it; and we were obliged to bring her: for, as my mother said, if we offended her, her fortune would go out of our family; and were we two young people not likely to want it?
So we came to town rather dismally in the carriage, posting the whole way; for the carriage must be brought, and a person of my aunt’s rank in life could not travel by the stage. And I had to pay 14_l. for the posters, which pretty nearly exhausted all my little hoard of cash.
First we went into lodgings,— into three sets in three weeks. We quarrelled with the first landlady, because my aunt vowed that she cut a slice off the leg of mutton which was served for our dinner; from the second lodgings we went because aunt vowed the maid would steal the candles; from the third we went because Aunt Hoggarty came down to breakfast the morning after our arrival with her face shockingly swelled and bitten by — never mind what. To cut a long tale short, I was half mad with the continual choppings and changings, and the long stories and scoldings of my aunt. As for her great acquaintances, none of them were in London; and she made it a matter of quarrel with me that I had not introduced her to John Brough, Esquire, M.P., and to Lord and Lady Tiptoff, her relatives.
Mr. Brough was at Brighton when we arrived in town; and on his return I did not care at first to tell our Director that I had brought my aunt with me, or mention my embarrassments for money. He looked rather serious when perforce I spoke of the latter to him and asked for an advance; but when he heard that my lack of money had been occasioned by the bringing of my aunt to London, his tone instantly changed. “That, my dear boy, alters the question; Mrs. Hoggarty is of an age when all things must be yielded to her. Here are a hundred pounds; and I beg you to draw upon me whenever you are in the least in want of money.” This gave me breathing-time until she should pay her share of the household expenses. And the very next day Mr. and Mrs. John Brough, in their splendid carriage-and-four, called upon Mrs. Hoggarty and my wife at our lodgings in Lamb’s Conduit Street.
It was on the very day when my poor aunt appeared with her face in that sad condition; and she did not fail to inform Mrs. Brough of the cause, and to state that at Castle Hoggarty, or at her country place in Somersetshire, she had never heard or thought of such vile odious things.
“Gracious heavens!” shouted John Brough, Esquire, “a lady of your rank to suffer in this way!— the excellent relative of my dear boy, Titmarsh! Never, madam — never let it be said that Mrs. Hoggarty of Castle Hoggarty should be subject to such horrible humiliation, while John Brough has a home to offer her,— a humble, happy, Christian home, madam; though unlike, perhaps, the splendour to which you have been accustomed in the course of your distinguished career. Isabella my love!— Belinda! speak to Mrs. Hoggarty. Tell her that John Brough’s house is hers from garret to cellar. I repeat it, madam, from garret to cellar. I desire — I insist — I order, that Mrs. Hoggarty of Castle Hoggarty’s trunks should be placed this instant in my carriage! Have the goodness to look to them yourself, Mrs. Titmarsh, and see that your dear aunt’s comforts are better provided for than they have been.”
Mary went away rather wondering at this order. But, to be sure, Mr. Brough was a great man, and her Samuel’s benefactor; and though the silly child absolutely began to cry as she packed and toiled at Aunt’s enormous valises, yet she performed the work, and came down with a smiling face to my aunt, who was entertaining Mr. and Mrs. Brough with a long and particular account of the balls at the Castle, in Dublin, in Lord Charleville’s time.
“I have packed the trunks, Aunt, but I am not strong enough to bring them down,” said Mary.
“Certainly not, certainly not,” said John Brough, perhaps a little ashamed. “Hallo! George, Frederic, Augustus, come upstairs this instant, and bring down the trunks of Mrs. Hoggarty of Castle Hoggarty, which this young lady will show you.”
Nay, so great was Mr. Brough’s condescension, that when some of his fashionable servants refused to meddle with the trunks, he himself seized a pair of them with both bands, carried them to the carriage, and shouted loud enough for all Lamb’s Conduit Street to hear, “John Brough is not proud — no, no; and if his footmen are too high and mighty, he’ll show them a lesson of humility.”
Mrs. Brough was for running downstairs too, and taking the trunks from her husband; but they were too heavy for her, so she contented herself with sitting on one, and asking all persons who passed her, whether John Brough was not an angel of a man?
In this way it was that my aunt left us. I was not aware of her departure, for I was at the office at the time; and strolling back at five with Gus, saw my dear Mary smiling and bobbing from the window, and beckoning to us both to come up. This I thought was very strange, because Mrs. Hoggarty could not abide Hoskins, and indeed had told me repeatedly that either she or he must quit the house. Well, we went upstairs, and there was Mary, who had dried her tears and received us with the most smiling of faces, and laughed and clapped her hands, and danced, and shook Gus’s hand. And what do you think the little rogue proposed? I am blest if she did not say she would like to go to Vauxhall!
As dinner was laid for three persons only, Gus took his seat with fear and trembling; and then Mrs. Sam Titmarsh related the circumstances which had occurred, and how Mrs. Hoggarty had been whisked away to Fulham in Mr. Brough’s splendid carriage-and-four. “Let her go,” I am sorry to say, said I; and indeed we relished our veal-cutlets and jam-pudding a great deal more than Mrs. Hoggarty did her dinner off plate at the Rookery.
We had a very merry party to Vauxhall, Gus insisting on standing treat; and you may be certain that my aunt, whose absence was prolonged for three weeks, was heartily welcome to remain away, for we were much merrier and more comfortable without her. My little Mary used to make my breakfast before I went to office of mornings; and on Sundays we had a holiday, and saw the dear little children eat their boiled beef and potatoes at the Foundling, and heard the beautiful music: but, beautiful as it is, I think the children were a more beautiful sight still, and the look of their innocent happy faces was better than the best sermon. On week-days Mrs. Titmarsh would take a walk about five o’clock in the evening on the left-hand side of Lamb’s Conduit Street (as you go to Holborn)— ay, and sometimes pursue her walk as far as Snow Hill, when two young gents from the I. W. D. Fire and Life were pretty sure to meet her; and then how happily we all trudged off to dinner! Once we came up as a monster of a man, with high heels and a gold-headed cane, and whiskers all over his face, was grinning under Mary’s bonnet, and chattering to her, close to Day and Martin’s Blacking Manufactory (not near such a handsome thing then as it is now)— there was the man chattering and ogling his best, when who should come up but Gus and I? And in the twinkling of a pegpost, as Lord Duberley says, my gentleman was seized by the collar of his coat and found himself sprawling under a stand of hackney-coaches; where all the watermen were grinning at him. The best of it was, he left his head of hair and whiskers in my hand: but Mary said, “Don’t be hard upon him, Samuel; it’s only a Frenchman.” And so we gave him his wig back, which one of the grinning stable-boys put on and carried to him as he lay in the straw.
He shrieked out something about “arretez,” and “Francais,” and “champ-d’honneur;” but we walked on, Gus putting his thumb to his nose and stretching out his finger at Master Frenchman. This made everybody laugh; and so the adventure ended.
About ten days after my aunt’s departure came a letter from her, of which I give a copy:—
“My Dear Nephew,— It was my earnest whish e’er this to have returned to London, where I am sure you and my niece Titmarsh miss me very much, and where she, poor thing, quite inexperienced in the ways of ‘the great metropulus,’ in aconamy, and indeed in every qualaty requasit in a good wife and the mistress of a famaly, can hardly manidge, I am sure, without me.
“Tell her on no account to pay more than 6.5_d. for the prime pieces, 4.75_d. for soup meat; and that the very best of London butter is to be had for 8.5_d.; of course, for pudns and the kitchin you’ll employ a commoner sort. My trunks were sadly packed by Mrs. Titmarsh, and the hasp of the portmantyou-lock has gone through my yellow satn. I have darned it, and woar it already twice, at two ellygant (though quiat) evening-parties given by my hospatable host; and my pegreen velvet on Saturday at a grand dinner, when Lord Scaramouch handed me to table. Everything was in the most sumptious style. Soup top and bottom (white and brown), removed by turbit and sammon with immense boles of lobster-sauce. Lobsters alone cost 15_s. Turbit, three guineas. The hole sammon, weighing, I’m sure, 15 lbs., and never seen at table again; not a bitt of pickled sammon the hole weak afterwards. This kind of extravigance would just suit Mrs. Sam Titmarsh, who, as I always say, burns the candle at both ends. Well, young people, it is lucky for you you have an old aunt who knows better, and has a long purse; without witch, I dare say, some folks would be glad to see her out of doors. I don’t mean you, Samuel, who have, I must say, been a dutiful nephew to me. Well, I dare say I shan’t live long, and some folks won’t be sorry to have me in my grave.
“Indeed, on Sunday I was taken in my stomick very ill, and thought it might have been the lobster-sauce; but Doctor Blogg, who was called in, said it was, he very much feared, cumsumptive; but gave me some pills and a draft wh made me better. Please call upon him — he lives at Pimlico, and you can walk out there after office hours — and present him with 1_l. 1_s., with my compliments. I have no money here but a 10_l. note, the rest being locked up in my box at Lamb’s Cundit Street.
“Although the flesh is not neglected in Mr. B.‘s sumptious establishment, I can assure you the sperrit is likewise cared for. Mr. B. reads and igspounds every morning; and o but his exorcises refresh the hungry sole before breakfast! Everything is in the handsomest style,— silver and goold plate at breakfast, lunch, and dinner; and his crest and motty, a beehive, with the Latn word industria, meaning industry, on everything — even on the chany juggs and things in my bedd-room. On Sunday we were favoured by a special outpouring from the Rev. Grimes Wapshot, of the Amabaptist Congrigation here, and who egshorted for 3 hours in the afternoon in Mr. B.‘s private chapel. As the widow of a Hoggarty, I have always been a staunch supporter of the established Church of England and Ireland; but I must say Mr. Wapshot’s stirring way was far superior to that of the Rev. Bland Blenkinsop of the Establishment, who lifted up his voice after dinner for a short discourse of two hours.
“Mrs. Brough is, between ourselves, a poor creature, and has no sperrit of her own. As for Miss B., she is so saucy that once I promised to box her years; and would have left the house, had not Mr. B. taken my part, and Miss made me a suitable apollogy.
“I don’t know when I shall return to town, being made really so welcome here. Dr. Blogg says the air of Fulham is the best in the world for my simtums; and as the ladies of the house do not choose to walk out with me, the Rev. Grimes Wapshot has often been kind enough to lend me his arm, and ’tis sweet with such a guide to wander both to Putney and Wandsworth, and igsamin the wonderful works of nature. I have spoke to him about the Slopperton property, and he is not of Mr. B.‘s opinion that I should sell it; but on this point I shall follow my own counsel.
“Meantime you must gett into more comfortable lodgings, and lett my bedd be warmed every night, and of rainy days have a fire in the grate: and let Mrs. Titmarsh look up my blue silk dress, and turn it against I come; and there is my purple spencer she can have for herself; and I hope she does not wear those three splendid gowns you gave her, but keep them until better times. I shall soon introduse her to my friend Mr. Brough, and others of my acquaintances; and am always
“Your loving Aunt.
“I have ordered a chest of the Rosolio to be sent from Somersetshire. When it comes, please to send half down here (paying the carriage, of course). ’Twill be an acceptable present to my kind entertainer, Mr. B.”
This letter was brought to me by Mr. Brough himself at the office, who apologised to me for having broken the seal by inadvertence; for the letter had been mingled with some more of his own, and he opened it without looking at the superscription. Of course he had not read it, and I was glad of that; for I should not have liked him to see my aunt’s opinion of his daughter and lady.
The next day, a gentleman at “Tom’s Coffee-house,” Cornhill, sent me word at the office that he wanted particularly to speak to me: and I stopped thither, and found my old friend Smithers, of the house of Hodge and Smithers, just off the coach, with his carpet-bag between his legs.
“Sam my boy,” said he, “you are your aunt’s heir, and I have a piece of news for you regarding her property which you ought to know. She wrote us down a letter for a chest of that home-made wi............