IV
Jack Hollycombe
Mr. Peppercorn’s visit to the bank had been no doubt inspired by Dr. Freeborn. The Doctor had not actually sent him to the bank, but had filled his mind with the idea that such a visit might be made with good effect. “There are you two fathers going to make two fools of yourselves,” the Doctor had said. “You have each of you got a daughter as good as gold, and are determined to break their hearts because you won’t give your money to a young man who happens to want it.”
“Now, Doctor, do you mean to tell me that you would have married your young ladies to the first young man that came and asked for them?”
“I never had much money to give my girls, and the men who came happened to have means of their own.”
“But if you’d had it, and if they hadn’t, do you mean to tell me you’d never have asked a question?”
“A man should never boast that in any circumstances of his life he would have done just what he ought to do, much less when he has never been tried. But if the lover be what he ought to be in morals and all that kind of thing, the girl’s father ought not to refuse to help them. You may be sure of this—that Polly means to have her own way. Providence has blessed you with a girl that knows her own mind.” On receipt of this compliment Mr. Peppercorn scratched his head. “I wish I could say as much for my friend Greenmantle. You two are in a boat together, and ought to make up your minds as to what you should do.” Peppercorn resolved that he would remember the phrase about the boat, and began to think that it might be good that he should see Mr. Greenmantle. “What on earth is it you two want? It is not as though you were dukes, and looking for proper alliances for two ducal spinsters.”
Now there had no doubt been a certain amount of intended venom in this. Dr. Freeborn knew well the weak points in Mr. Greenmantle’s character, and was determined to hit him where he was weakest. He did not see the difference between the banker and the brewer nearly so clearly as did Mr. Greenmantle. He would probably have said that the line of demarcation came just below himself. At any rate, he thought that he would be doing best for Emily’s interest if he made her father feel that all the world was on her side. Therefore it was that he so contrived that Mr. Peppercorn should pay his visit to the bank.
On his return to the brewery the first person that Peppercorn saw standing in the doorway of his own little sanctum was Jack Hollycombe. “What is it you’re wanting?” he asked, gruffly.
“I was just desirous of saying a few words to yourself, Mr. Peppercorn.”
“Well, here I am!” There were two or three brewers and porters about the place, and Jack did not feel that he could plead his cause well in their presence. “What is it you’ve got to say—because I’m busy? There ain’t no malt wanted for the next week; but you know that, and as we stand at present you can send it in, without any more words, as it’s needed.”
“It ain’t about malt or anything of that kind.”
“Then I don’t know what you’ve got to say. I’m very busy just at present, as I told you.”
“You can spare me five minutes inside.”
“No, I can’t.” But then Peppercorn resolved that neither would it suit him to carry on the conversation respecting his daughter in the presence of the workmen, and he thought that he perceived that Jack Hollycombe would be prepared to do so if he were driven. “Come in if you will,” he said; “we might as well have it out.” Then he led the way into the room, and shut the door as soon as Jack had followed him. “Now what is it you have got to say? I suppose it’s about that young woman down at my house.”
“It is, Mr. Peppercorn.”
“Then let me tell you that the least said will be soonest mended. She’s not for you—with my consent. And to tell you the truth, I think that you have a mortal deal of brass coming to ask for her. You’ve no edication suited to her edication—and what’s wus, no money.” Jack had shown symptoms of anger when his deficient education had been thrown in his teeth, but had cheered up somewhat when the lack of money had been insisted upon. “Them two things are so against you that you haven’t a leg to stand on. My word! what do you expect that I should say when such a one as you comes a-courting to a girl like that?”
“I did perhaps think more of what she might say.”
“I dare say; because you knew her to be a fool like yourself. I suppose you think yourself to be a very handsome young man.”
“I think she’s a very handsome young woman. As to myself I never asked the question.”
“That’s all very well. A man can always say as much as that for himself. The fact is, you’re not going to have her.”
“That’s just what I want to speak to you about, Mr. Peppercorn.”
“You’re not going to have her. Now I’ve spoken my intentions, and you may as well take one word as a thousand, I’m not a man as was ever known to change my mind when I’d made it up in such a matter as this.”
“She’s got a mind too, Mr. Peppercorn.”
“She have, no doubt. She have a mind and so have you. But you haven’t either of you got the money. The money is here,” and Mr. Peppercorn slapped his breeches pocket. “I’ve had to do with earning it, and I mean to have to do with giving it away. To me there is no idea of honesty at all in a chap like you coming and asking a girl to marry you just because you know that she’s to have a fortune.”
“That’s not my reason.”
“It’s uncommon like it. Now you see there’s somebody else that’s got to be asked. You think I’m a good-natured fellow. So I am, but I’m not soft like that.”
“I never thought anything of the kind, Mr. Peppercorn.”
“Polly told you so, I don’t doubt. She’s right in thinking so, because I’d give Polly anything in reason. Or out of reason for the matter of that, because she is the apple of my eye.” This was indiscreet on the part of Mr. Peppercorn, as it taught the young man to think that he himself must be in reason or out of reason, and that in either case Polly ought to be allowed to have him. “But there’s one thing I stop at; and that is a young man who hasn’t got either edication, or money—nor yet manners.”
“There’s nothing against my manner, I hope, Mr. Peppercorn.”
“Yes; there is. You come a-interfering with me in the most delicate affair in the world. You come into my family, and want to take away my girl. That I take it is the worst of manners.”
“How is any young lady to get married unless some young fellow comes after her?”
“There’ll be plenty to come after Polly. You leave Polly alone, and you’ll find that she’ll get a young man suited to her. It’s like your impudence to suppose that there’s no other young man in the world so good as you. Why;—dash my wig; who are you? What are you? You’re merely acting for them corn-factors over at Barsester.”
“And you’re acting for them brewers here at Plumplington. What’s the difference?”
“But I’ve got the money in my pocket, and you’ve got none. That’s the difference. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. Now if you’ll please to remember that I’m very busy, you’ll walk yourself off. You’ve had it out with me, which I didn’t intend; and I’ve explained my mind very fully. She’s not for you;—at any rate my money’s not.”
“Look here, Mr. Peppercorn.”
“Well?”
“I don’t care a farthing for your money.”
“Don’t you, now?”
“Not in the way of comparing it with Polly herself. Of course money is a very comfortable thing. If Polly’s to be my wife—”
“Which she ain’t.”
“I should like her to have everything that a lady can desire.”
“How kind you are.”
“But in regard to money for myself I don’t value it that.” Here Jack Hollycombe snapped his fingers. “My meaning is to get the girl I love.”
“Then you won’t.”
“And if she’s satisfied to come to me without a shilling, I’m satisfied to take her in the same fashion. I don’t know how much you’ve got, Mr. Peppercorn, but you can go and found a Hiram’s Hospital with every penny of it.” At this moment a discussion was going on respecting a certain charitable institution in Barchester—and had been going on for the last forty years—as to which Mr. Hollycombe was here expressing the popular opinion of the day. “That’s the kind of thing a man should do who don’t choose to leave his money to his own child.” Jack was now angry, having had his deficient education twice thrown in his teeth by one whom he conceived to be so much less educated than himself. “What I’ve got to say to you, Mr. Peppercorn, is that Polly means to have me, and if she’s got to wait—why, I’m so minded that I’ll wait for her as long as ever she’ll wait for me.” So saying Jack Hollycombe left the room.
Mr. Peppercorn thrust his hat back upon his head, and stood with his back to the fire, with the tails of his coat appearing over his hands in his breeches pockets, glaring out of his eyes with anger which he did not care to suppress. This man had presented to him a picture of his future life which was most unalluring. There was nothing he desired less than to give his money to such an abominable institution as Hiram’s Hospital. Polly, his own dear daughter Polly, was intended to be the recipient of all his savings. As he went about among the beer barrels, he had been a happy man as he thought of Polly bright with the sheen which his money had provided for her. But it was of Polly married to some gentleman that he thought at these moments;—of Polly surrounded by a large family of little gentlemen and little ladies. They would all call him grandpapa; and in the evenings of his days he would sit by the fire in that gentleman’s parlour, a welcome guest, because of the means which he had provided; and the little gentlemen and the little ladies would surround him with their prattle and their noise and caresses. He was not a man whom his intimates would have supposed to be gifted with a strong imagination, but there was the picture firmly set before his mind’s eye. “Edication,” however, in the intended son-in-law was essential. And the son-in-law must be a gentleman. Now Jack Hollycombe was not a gentleman, and was not educated up to that pitch which was necessary for Polly’s husband.
But Mr. Peppercorn, as he thought of it all, was well aware that Polly had a decided will of her own. And he knew of himself that his own will was less strong than his daughter’s. In spite of all the severe things which he had just said to Jack Hollycombe, there was present to him a dreadful weight upon his heart as he thought that Polly would certainly get the better of him. At this moment he hated Jack Hollycombe with most unchristian rancour. No misfortune that could happen to Jack, either sudden death, or forgery with flight to the antipodes, or loss of his good looks—which Mr. Peppercorn most unjustly thought would be equally efficacious with Polly—would at the present moment of his wrath be received otherwise than as a special mark of good fortune. And yet he was well aware that if Polly were to come and tell him that she had by some secret means turned herself into Mrs. Jack Hollycombe, he knew very well that for Polly’s sake he would have to take Jack with all his faults, and turn him into the dearest son-in-law that the world could have provided for him. This was a very trying position, and justified him in standing there for a quarter of an hour with his back to the fire, and his coattails over his arms, as they were thrust into his trousers pockets.
In the meantime Jack had succeeded in obtaining a few minutes’ talk with Polly, or rather the success had been on Polly’s side, for she had managed the business. On coming out from the brewery Jack had met her in the street, and had been taken home by her. “You might as well come in, Jack,” she had said, “and have a few words with me. You have been talking to father about it, I suppose.”
“Well, I have. He says I am not sufficiently educated. I suppose he wants to get some young man from the colleges.”
“Don’t you be stupid, Jack. You want to have your own way, I suppose.”
“I don’t want him to tell me I’m uneducated. Other men that I’ve heard of ain’t any better off than I am.”
“You mean himself—which isn’t respectful.”
“I’m educated up to doing what I’ve got to do. If you don’t want more, I don’t see what he’s got to do with it.”
“As the times go of course a man should learn more and more. You are not to compare him to yourself; and it isn’t respectful. If you want to say sharp things against him, Jack, you had better give it all up;—for I won’t bear it.”
“I don’t want to say anything sharp.”
“Why can’t you put up with him? He’s not going to have his own way. And he is older than you. And it is he that has got the money. If you care about it—”
“You know I care.”
“Very well. Suppose I do know, and suppose I don’t. I hear you say you do, and that’s all I’ve got to act upon. Do you bide your time if you’ve got the patience, and all will come right. I shan’t at all think so much of you if you can’t bear a few sharp words from him.”
“He may say whatever he pleases.”
“You ain’t educated—not like Dr. Freeborn, and men of that class.”
“What do I want with it?” said he.
“I don’t know that you do want it. At any rate I don’t want it; and that’s what you’ve got to think about at present. You just go on, and let things be as they are. You don’t want to be married in a week’s time.”
“Why not?” he asked.
“At any rate I don’t; and I don’t mean to. This time five years will do very well.”
“Five years! You’ll be an old woman.”
“The fitter for you, who’ll still be three years older. If you’ve patience to wait leave it to me.”
“I haven’t over much patience.”
“Then go your own way and suit yourself elsewhere.”
“Polly, you’re enough to break a man’s heart. You know that I can’t go and suit myself elsewhere. You are all the world to me, Polly.”
“Not half so much as a quarter of malt if you could get your own price for it. A young woman is all very well just as a plaything; but business is business;—isn’t it, Jack?”
“Five years! Fancy telling a fellow that he must wait five years.”
“That’ll do for the present, Jack. I’m not going to keep you here idle all the day. Father will be angry when I tell him that you’ve been here at all.”
“It was you that brought me.”
“Yes, I did. But you’re not to take advantage of that. Now I say, Jack, hands off. I tell you I won’t. I’m not going to be kissed once a week for five years. Well. Mark my words, this is the last time I ever ask you in here. No; I won’t have it. Go away.” Then she succeeded in turning him out of the room and closing the house door behind his back. “I think he’s the best young man I see about anywhere. Father twits him about his education. It’s my belief there’s nothing he can’t do that he’s wanted for. That’s the kind of education a man ought to have. Father says it’s because he’s handsome I like him. It does go a long way, and he is handsome. Father has got ideas of fashion into his head which will send him crazy before he has done with them.” Such was the soliloquy in which Miss Peppercorn indulged as soon as she had been left by her lover.
“Educated! Of course I’m not educated. I can’t talk Latin and Greek as some of those fellows pretend to—though for the matter of that I never heard it. But two and two make four, and ten and ten make twenty. And if a fellow says that it don’t he is trying on some dishonest game. If a fellow understands that, and sticks to it, he has education enough for my business—or for Peppercorn’s either.” Then he walked back to the inn yard where he had left his horse and trap.
As he drove back to Barchester he made up his mind that Polly Peppercorn would be worth waiting for. There was the memory of that kiss upon his lips which had not been made less sweet by the severity of the words which had accompanied it. The words indeed had been severe; but there had been an intention and a purpose about the kiss which had altogether redeemed the words. “She is just one in a thousand, that’s about the truth. And as for waiting for her;—I’ll wait like grim death, only I hope it won’t be necessary!” It was thus he spoke of the lady of his love as he drove himself into the town under Barchester Towers.