II
“Down I Shall Go”
Then there came about a conversation between the two young ladies which was in itself very interesting. They had not met each other for about a fortnight when Emily Greenmantle came to Mr. Peppercorn’s house. She had been thoroughly unhappy, and among her causes for sorrow had been the severance which seemed to have taken place between her and her friend. She had discussed all her troubles with Dr. Freeborn, and Dr. Freeborn had advised her to see Polly. “Here’s Christmas-time coming on and you are all going to quarrel among yourselves. I won’t have any such nonsense. Go and see her.”
“It’s not me, Dr. Freeborn,” said Emily. “I don’t want to quarrel with anybody; and there is nobody I like better than Polly.” Thereupon Emily went to Mr. Peppercorn’s house when Peppercorn would be certainly at the brewery, and there she found Polly at home.
Polly was dressed very plainly. It was manifest to all eyes that the Polly Peppercorn of today was not the same Polly Peppercorn that had been seen about Plumplington for the last twelve months. It was equally manifest that Polly intended that everybody should see the difference. She had not meekly put on her poorer dress so that people should see that she was no more than her father’s child; but it was done with some ostentation. “If father says that Jack and I are not to have his money I must begin to reduce myself by times.” That was what Polly intended to say to all Plumplington. She was sure that her father would have to give way under such shots as she could fire at him.
“Polly, I have not seen you, oh, for such a long time.”
Polly did not look like quarrelling at all. Nothing could be more pleasant than the tone of her voice. But yet there was something in her mode of address which at once excited Emily Greenmantle’s attention. In bidding her visitor welcome she called her Miss Greenmantle. Now on that matter there had been some little trouble heretofore, in which the banker’s daughter had succeeded in getting the better of the banker. He had suggested that Miss Peppercorn was safer than Polly; but Emily had replied that Polly was a nice dear girl, very much in Dr. Freeborn’s good favours, and in point of fact that Dr. Freeborn wouldn’t allow it. Mr. Greenmantle had frowned, but had felt himself unable to stand against Dr. Freeborn in such a matter. “What’s the meaning of the Miss Greenmantle?” said Emily sorrowfully.
“It’s what I’m come to,” said Polly, without any show of sorrow, “and it’s what I mean to stick to as being my proper place. You have heard all about Jack Hollycombe. I suppose I ought to call him John as I’m speaking to you.”
“I don’t see what difference it will make.”
“Not much in the long run; but yet it will make a difference. It isn’t that I should not like to be just the same to you as I have been, but father means to put me down in the world, and I don’t mean to quarrel with him about that. Down I shall go.”
“And therefore I’m to be called Miss Greenmantle.”
“Exactly. Perhaps it ought to have been always so as I’m so poorly minded as to go back to such a one as Jack Hollycombe. Of course it is going back. Of course Jack is as good as father was at his age. But father has put himself up since that and has put me up. I’m such poor stuff that I wouldn’t stay up. A girl has to begin where her husband begins; and as I mean to be Jack’s wife I have to fit myself for the place.”
“I suppose it’s the same with me, Polly.”
“Not quite. You’re a lady bred and born, and Mr. Hughes is a gentleman. Father tells me that a man who goes about the country selling malt isn’t a gentleman. I suppose father is right. But Jack is a good enough gentleman to my thinking. If he had a share of father’s money he would break out in quite a new place.”
“Mr. Peppercorn won’t give it to him?”
“Well! That’s what I don’t know. I do think the governor loves me. He is the best fellow anywhere for downright kindness. I mean to try him. And if he won’t help me I shall go down as I say. You may be sure of this—that I shall not give up Jack.”
“You wouldn’t marry him against your father’s wishes?”
Here Polly wasn’t quite ready with her answer. “I don’t know that father has a right to destroy all my happiness,” she said at last. “I shall wait a long time first at any rate. Then if I find that Jack can remain constant—I don’t know what I shall do.”
“What does he say?”
“Jack? He’s all sugar and promises. They always are for a time. It takes a deal of learning to know whether a young man can be true. There is not above one in twenty that do come out true when they are tried.”
“I suppose not,” said Emily sorrowfully.
“I shall tell Mr. Jack that he’s got to go through the ordeal. Of course he wants me to say that I’ll marry him right off the reel and that he’ll earn money enough for both of us. I told him only this morning—”
“Did you see him?”
“I wrote him—out quite plainly. And I told him that there were other people had hearts in their bodies besides him and me. I’m not going to break father’s heart—not if I can help it. It would go very hard with him if I were to walk out of this house and marry Jack Hollycombe, quite plain like.”
“I would never do it,” said Emily with energy.
“You are a little different from me, Miss Greenmantle. I suppose my mother didn’t think much about such things, and as long as she got herself married decent, didn’t trouble herself much what her people said.”
“Didn’t she?”
“I fancy not. Those sort of cares and bothers always come with money. Look at the two girls in this house. I take it they only act just like their mothers, and if they’re good girls, which they are, they get their mothers’ consent. But the marriage goes on as a matter of course. It’s where money is wanted that parents become stern and their children become dutiful. I mean to be dutiful for a time. But I’d rather have Jack than father’s money.”
“Dr. Freeborn says that you and I are not to quarrel. I am sure I don’t see why we should.”
“What Dr. Freeborn says is very well.” It was thus that Polly carried on the conversation after thinking over the matter for a moment or two. “Dr. Freeborn is a great man in Plumplington, and has his own way in everything. I’m not saying a word against Dr. Freeborn, and goodness knows I don’t want to quarrel with you, Miss Greenmantle.”
“I hope not.”
“But I do mean to go down if father makes me, and if Jack proves himself a true man.”
“I suppose he’ll do that,” said Miss Greenmantle. “Of course you think he will.”
“Well, upon the whole I do,” said Polly. “And though I think father will have to give up, he won’t do it just at present, and I shall have to remain just as I am for a time.”
“And wear—” Miss Greenmantle had intended to inquire whether it was Polly’s purpose to go about in her second-rate clothes, but had hesitated, not quite liking to ask the question.
“Just that,” said Polly. “I mean to wear such clothes as shall be suitable for Jack’s wife. And I mean to give up all my airs. I’ve been thinking a deal about it, and they’re wrong. Your papa and my father are not the same.”
“They are not the same, of course,” said Emily.
“One is a gentleman, and the other isn’t. That’s the long and the short of it. I oughtn’t to have gone to your house drinking tea and the rest of it; and I oughtn’t to have called you Emily. That’s the long and the short of that,” said she, repeating herself.
“Dr. Freeborn thinks—”
“Dr. Freeborn mustn’t quite have it all his own way. Of course Dr. Freeborn is everything in Plumplington; and when I’m Jack’s wife I’ll do what he tells me again.”
“I suppose you’ll do what Jack tells you then.”
“Well, yes; not exactly. If Jack were to tell me not to go to church—which he won’t—I shouldn’t do what he told me. If he said he’d like to have a leg of mutton boiled, I should boil it. Only legs of mutton wouldn’t be very common with us, unless father comes round.”
“I don’t see why all that should make a difference between you and me.”
“It will have to do so,” said Polly with perfect self-assurance. “Father has told me that he doesn’t mean to find money to buy legs of mutton for Jack Hollycombe. Those were his very words. I’m determined I’ll never ask him. And he said he wasn’t going to find clothes for Jack Hollycombe’s brats. I’ll never go to him to find a pair of shoes for Jack Hollycombe or one of his brats. I’ve told Jack as much, and Jack says that I’m right. But there’s no knowing what’s inside a young man till you’ve tried him. Jack may fall off, and if so there’s an end of him. I shall come round in time, and wear my fine clothes again when I settle down as an old maid. But father will never make me wear them, and I shall never call you anything but Miss Greenmantle, unless he consents to my marrying Jack.”
Such was the eloquence of Polly Peppercorn as spoken on that occasion. And she certainly did fill Miss Greenmantle’s mind with a strong idea of her persistency. When Polly’s last speech was finished the banker’s daughter got up, and kissed her friend, and took her leave. “You shouldn’t do that,” said Polly with a smile. But on this one occasion she returned the caress; and then Miss Greenmantle went her way thinking over all that had been said to her.
“I’ll do it too, let him persuade me ever so.” This was Polly’s soliloquy to herself when she was left alone, and the “him” spoken of on this occasion was her father. She had made up her own mind as to the line of action she would follow, and she was quite resolved never again to ask her father’s permission for her marriage. Her father and Jack might fight that out among themselves, as best they could. There had already been one scene on the subject between herself and her father in which the brewer’s foreman had acted the part of stern parent with considerable violence. He had not beaten his girl, nor used bad words to her, nor, to tell the truth, had he threatened her with any deprivation of those luxuries to which she had become accustomed; but he had sworn by all the oaths which he knew by heart that if she chose to marry Jack Hollycombe she should go “bare as a tinker’s brat.” “I don’t want anything better,” Polly had said. “He’ll want something else though,” Peppercorn had replied, and had bounced out of the room and banged the door.
Miss Greenmantle, in whose nature there was perhaps something of the lugubrious tendencies which her father exhibited, walked away home from Mr. Peppercorn’s house with a sad heart. She was very sorry for Polly Peppercorn’s grief, and she was very sorry also for her own. But she had not that amount of high spirits which sustained Polly in her troubles. To tell the truth Polly had some hope that she might get the better of her father, and thereby do a good turn both to him and to herself. But Emily Greenmantle had but little hope. Her father had not sworn at her, nor had he banged the door, but he had pressed his lips together till there was no lip really visible. And he had raised his forehead on high till it looked as though one continuous poker descended from the crown of his head passing down through his entire body. “Emily, it is out of the question. You had better leave me.” From that day to this not a word had been spoken on the “subject.” Young Gresham had been once asked to dine at the bank, but that had been the only effort made by Mr. Greenmantle in the matter.
Emily had felt as she walked home that she had not at her command weapons so powerful as those which Polly intended to use against her father. No change in her dress would be suitable to her, and were she to make any it would be altogether inefficacious. Nor would her father be tempted by his passion to throw in her teeth the lack of either boots or legs of mutton which might be the consequence of her marriage with a poor man. There was something almost vulgar in these allusions which made Emily feel that there had been some reason for her papa’s exclusiveness—but she let that go by. Polly was a dear girl, though she had found herself able to speak of the brats’ feet without even a blush. “I suppose there will be brats, and why shouldn’t she—when she’s talking only to me. It must be so I suppose.” So Emily had argued to herself, making the excuse altogether on behalf of her friend. But she was sure that if her father had heard Polly he would have been offended.
But what was Emily to do on her own behalf? Harry Gresham had come to dinner, but his coming had been altogether without effect. She was quite sure that she could never care for Harry Gresham, and she did not quite believe that Harry Gresham cared very much for her. There was a rumour about in the country that Harry Gresham wanted money, and she knew well that Harry Gresham’s father and her own papa had been closeted together. She did not care to be married after such a fashion as that. In truth Philip Hughes was the only young man for whom she did care.
She had always felt her father to be the most impregnable of men—but now on this subject of her marriage he was more impregnable than ever. He had never yet entirely digested that poker which he had swallowed when he had gone so far as to tell his daughter that it was “entirely out of the question.” From that hour her home had been terrible to her as a home, and had not been in the least enlivened by the presence of Harry Gresham. And now how was she to carry on the battle? Polly had her plans all drawn out, and was preparing herself for the combat seriously. But for Emily, there was no means left for fighting.
And she felt that though a battle with her father might be very proper for Polly, it would be highly unbecoming for herself. There was a difference in rank between herself and Polly of which Polly clearly understood the strength. Polly would put on her poor clothes, and go into the kitchen, and break her father’s heart by preparing for a descent into regions which would be fitting for her were she to marry her young man without a fortune. But to Miss Greenmantle this would be impossible. Any marriage, made now or later, without her father’s leave, seemed to her out of the question. She would only ruin her “young man” were she to attempt it, and the attempt would be altogether inefficacious. She could only be unhappy, melancholy—and perhaps morose; but she could not be so unhappy and melancholy—or morose, as was her father. At such weapons he could certainly beat her. Since that unhappy word had been spoken, the poker within him had not been for a moment lessened in vigour. And she feared even to appeal to Dr. Freeborn. Dr. Freeborn could do much—almost everything in Plumplington—but there was a point at which her father would turn even against Dr. Freeborn. She did not think that the Doctor would ever dare to take up the cudgels against her father on behalf of Philip Hughes. She felt that it would be more becoming for her to abstain and to suffer in silence than to apply to any human being for assistance. But she could be miserable;—outwardly miserable as well as inwardly;—and very miserable she was determined that she would be! Her father no doubt would be miserable too; but she was sad at heart as she bethought herself that her father would rather like it. Though he could not easily digest a poker when he had swallowed it, it never seemed to disagree with him. A state of misery in which he would speak to no one seemed to be almost to his taste. In this way poor Emily Greenmantle did not see her way to the enjoyment of a happy Christmas.