第214章

On the seventh night of cribbage, when Mrs. Todgers, sitting by, proposed that instead of gambling they should play for `love,' Mr. Moddle was seen to change colour. On the fourteenth night, he kissed Miss Pecksniff's snuffers, in the passage, when she went upstairs to bed: meaning to have kissed her hand, but missing it.

In short, Mr. Moddle began to be impressed with the idea that Miss Pecksniff's mission was to comfort him; and Miss Pecksniff began to speculate on the probability of its being her mission to become ultimately Mrs. Moddle.

He was a young gentleman (Miss Pecksniff was not a very young lady) with rising prospects, and `almost' enough to live on. Really it looked very well.

Besides, besides, he had been regarded as devoted to Merry. Merry had joked about him, and had once spoken of it to her sister as a conquest.

He was better looking, better shaped, better spoken, better tempered, better mannered than Jonas. He was easy to manage, could be made to consult the humours of his Betrothed, and could be shown off like a lamb when Jonas was a bear. There was the rub!

In the meantime the cribbage went on, and Mrs. Todgers went off; for the youngest gentleman, dropping her society, began to take Miss Pecksniff to the play. He also began, as Mrs. Todgers said, to slip home `in his dinner-times,' and to get away from `the office' at unholy seasons; and twice, as he informed Mrs. Todgers himself, he received anonymous letters, enclosing cards from Furniture Warehouses--clearly the act of that ungentlemanly ruffian Jinkins: only he hadn't evidence enough to call him out upon. All of which, so Mrs. Todgers told Miss Pecksniff, spoke as plain English as the shining sun.

`My dear Miss Pecksniff, you may depend upon it,' said Mrs. Todgers, `that he is burning to propose.'

`My goodness me, why don't he then?' cried Cherry.

`Men are so much more timid than we think 'em, my dear,' returned Mrs.

Todgers. `They baulk themselves continually. I saw the words on Todgers's lips for months and months and months, before he said 'em.'

Miss Pecksniff submitted that Todgers might not have been a fair specimen.

`Oh yes, he was. Oh bless you, yes, my dear. I was very particular in those days, I assure you,' said Mrs. Todgers, bridling. `No, no. You give Mr. Moddle a little encouragement, Miss Pecksniff, if you wish him to speak; and he'll speak fast enough, depend upon it.'

`I am sure I don't know what encouragement he would have, Mrs. Todgers,' returned Charity. `He walks with me, and plays cards with me and he comes and sits alone with me.'

`Quite right,' said Mrs. Todgers. `That's indispensable, my dear.'

`And he sits very close to me.'

`Also quite correct,' said Mrs. Todgers.

`And he looks at me.'

`To be sure he does,' said Mrs. Todgers.

`And he has his arm upon the back of the chair or sofa, or whatever it is--behind me, you know.'

` I should think so,' said Mrs. Todgers.

`And then he begins to cry!'

Mrs. Todgers admitted that he might do better than that; and might undoubtedly profit by the recollection of the great Lord Nelson's signal at the battle of Trafalgar. Still, she said, he would come round, or, not to mince the matter, would be brought round, if Miss Pecksniff took up a decided position, and plainly showed him that it must be done.

Determining to regulate her conduct by this opinion, the young lady received Mr. Moddle, on the earliest subsequent occasion, with an air of constraint and gradually leading him to inquire, in a dejected manner, why she was so changed, confessed to him that she felt it necessary for their mutual peace and happiness to take a decided step. They had been much together lately, she observed, much together, and had tasted the sweets of a genuine reciprocity of sentiment. She never could forget him, nor could she ever cease to think of him with feelings of the liveliest friendship, but people had begun to talk, the thing had been observed, and it was necessary that they should be nothing more to each other, than any gentleman and lady in society usually are. She was glad she had had the resolution to say thus much before her feelings had been tried too far; they had been greatly tried, she would admit; but though she was weak and silly, she would soon get the better of it, she hoped.

Moddle, who had by this time become in the last degree maudlin, and wept abundantly, inferred from the foregoing avowal, that it was his mission to communicate to others the blight which had fallen on himself; and that, being a kind of unintentional Vampire, he had had Miss Pecksniff assigned to him by the Fates, as Victim Number One. Miss Pecksniff controverting this opinion as sinful, Moddle was goaded on to ask whether she could be contented with a blighted heart; and it appearing on further examination that she could be, plighted his dismal troth, which was accepted and returned.

He bore his good fortune with the utmost moderation. Instead of being triumphant, he shed more tears than he had ever been known to shed before: and, sobbing, said:

`Oh! what a day this has been! I can't go back to the office this afternoon.

Oh, what a trying day this has been, Good Gracious!'