_ CHAPTER XV. MERELY A HUMBLE INTERRUPTION AND ILLUSTRATION OF THE LAST
Some peaceable afternoon when Mrs. Mesurier was enjoying a little doze on the parlour sofa, and her three elder daughters were snatching an hour or two from housework--they had already left school--for a little private reading, the drowsy house would suddenly be awakened by one loud wooden knock at the door.
"Now, whoever can that be!" the three girls would impatiently exclaim; and presently the maid would come to Miss Esther to say that there was an old man at the door asking for Mrs. Mesurier.
"What's his name, Jane?"
"He wouldn't give it, miss. He said it would be all right. Mrs. Mesurier would know him well enough."
"Whoever can it be? What's he like, Jane?"
"He looks like a workman, miss,--very old, and rather dotey."
"Who can it be? Go and ask him his name again."
Esther would then arouse her mother; and the maid would come in to say that at last the old man had been persuaded to confide his name as Clegg--Samuel Clegg.
"Tell the missus it's Samuel Clegg," the old man had said, with a certain amusing conceit. "She'll be glad enough to see Samuel Clegg."
"Why!" said Mrs. Mesurier, "it's your father's poor old uncle, Mr. Clegg. Now, girls, you mustn't run away, but try and be nice to him. He's a simple, good, old man."
Mrs. Mesurier was no more interested in Mr. Clegg than her daughters; but she had a great fund of humanity, and an inexhaustible capacity for suffering bores brilliantly.
"Why, I never!" she would say, adapting her idiom to make the old man feel at home, as he was presently ushered in, chuntering and triumphant; "you don't mean to say it's Uncle Clegg. Well, we are glad to see you! I was just having a little nap, and so you must excuse my keeping you waiting."
"Ay, Mary. It's right nice of you to make me so welcome. I got a bit misdoubtful at the door, for the young maid seemed somehow a little frightened of me; but when I told the name it was all right. 'Samuel Clegg,' I said. 'She'll be glad enough to see Samuel Clegg,' I said."
"Glad indeed," murmured Mrs. Mesurier, "I should think so. Find a chair for your uncle, Esther."
"Ay, the name did it," chuckled the old man, who as a matter of fact was anything but a humble old person, and to whom the bare fact of existence, and the name of Clegg, seemed warrant enough for thinking quite a lot of yourself.
"I'm afraid you don't remember your old uncle," said the old man to Esther, looking dimly round, and rather bewildered by the fine young ladies. Actually, he was only a remote courtesy uncle, having married their father's mother's sister.
"Oh, of course, Uncle Clegg," said Esther, a true daughter of her mother; "but, you see, it's a long time since we saw you."
"And this is Dorcas. Come and kiss your uncle, Dorcas. And this is Matilda," said Mrs. Mesurier.
"Ay," said the old man, "and you're all growing up such fine young ladies. Deary me, Mary, but they must make you feel old."
"We were just going to have some tea," said Esther; "wouldn't you like a cup, uncle?"
"I daresay your uncle would rather have a glass of beer," said Mrs. Mesurier.
"Ay, you're right there, Mary," answered the old man, "right there. A glass of beer is good enough for Samuel Clegg. A glass of beer and some bread and cheese, as the old saying is, is good enough for a king; but bread and cheese and water isn't fit for a beggar."
All laughed obligingly; and the old man turned to a bulging pocket which had evidently been on his mind from his entrance.
"I've got a little present here from Esther," he said,--"Esther" being the aunt after whom Mike's Esther had been named,--bringing out a little newspaper parcel. "But I must tell you from the beginning.
"Well, you know, Mary," he continued, "I was feeling rather low yesterday, and Esther said to me, 'Why not take a day off to-morrow, Samuel, and see Mary, it'll shake you up a bit, and I'll be bound she's right glad to see you?' 'Why, lass!' I said, 'it's the very thing. See if I don't go in the morning.'
"So this morning," he continued, "she tidies me up--you know her way--and sends me off. But before I started, she said, 'Here, Samuel, you must take this, with my love, to Mary.' I've kept it wrapped up in this drawer for thirty years, and only the other day our Mary Elizabeth said, 'Mother, you might give me that old jug. It would look nice in our little parlour.'" "But no!" I says, "Mary Elizabeth, if any one's to have that jug, it's your Aunt Mary."
"How kind of her!" murmured Mrs. Mesurier, sympathetically.
"Yes, those were her words, Mary," said the old man, unfolding the newspaper parcel, and revealing an ugly little jug of metallically glistening earthenware, such as were turned out with strange pride from certain English potteries about seventy years ago. It seemed made in imitation of metal,--a sort of earthenware pewter; and evidently it had been a great aesthetic treasure in the eyes of Mrs. Clegg. Mrs. Mesurier received it accordingly.
"How pretty," she said, "and how kind of Aunt Esther! They don't make such things nowadays."
"No, it's a vallyble relic," said the old man; "but you're worthy of it, Mary. I'd rather see you have it than any of them. My word, but I'm glad I've got it here safely. Esther would never have forgiven me.' Now, Samuel,' she said, as I left, 'mind you get home before dark, and don't sit on the jug, whatever you do.'"
Meanwhile the "young ladies" were in imminent danger of convulsions; and, at that moment, further to enhance the situation, an old lady of the neighbourhood, who occasionally dropped in for a gossip, was announced. She was a prim little lady, with "Cranford" curls, and a certain old-world charm and old-world vanity about her, and very deaf. She too was a "character" in her way, but so different from old Mr. Clegg that the entertainment to be expected from their conjunction was irresistible even to anticipate.
"This is Mr. Clegg, an uncle of Mr. Mesurier," said poor Mrs. Mesurier, by way of introduction.
"Howd'ye do, marm?" said Mr. Clegg, without rising.
Mrs. Turtle bowed primly. "Are you sure, my dear, I don't interrupt?" she said to Mrs. Mesurier; "shall I not call in some other day?"
"Oh, dear, no!" said Mrs. Mesurier. "Esther, get Mrs. Turtle a little whisky and water."
"Oh, my dear!" exclaimed Mrs. Turtle, "only the least little drop in the world, Esther dear. My heart, you know, my dear. Even so short a walk as this tires me out."
Mrs. Mesurier responded sympathetically; and then, by way of making himself pleasant, Mr. Clegg suddenly broke in with such an extraordinary amenity of old-world gallantry that everybody's hair stood on end.
"How old do you be?" he said, bowing to the new-comer.
"I beg your pardon," said Mrs. Turtle, putting her hand to her ear; "but I'm slightly deaf."
"How old do you be?" shouted the old man.
Though not unnaturally taken aback at such an unwonted conception of conversational intercourse, Mrs. Turtle recovered herself with considerable humour, and, bridling, with an old-world shake of her head, said,--
"What would you take me for?"
"I should say you were seventy, if you're a day," promptly answered the old man.
"Oh, dear, no!" replied Mrs. Turtle, with some pique; "I was only sixty last January."
"Well, you carry your age badly," retorted the old man, not to be beaten.
"What does he say, my dear?" said the poor old lady turning to Mrs. Mesurier.
"You carry your age badly," shouted the determined old man; "she should see our Esther, shouldn't she, Mary?"
The silence here of the young people was positively electric with suppressed laughter. Two of them escaped to explode in another room, and Esther and her mother were left to save the situation. But on such occasions as these Mrs. Mesurier grew positively great; and the manner in which she contrived to "turn the conversation," and smooth over the terrible hiatus, was a feat that admits of no worthy description.
Presently the old man rose to go, as the clock neared five. He had promised to be home before dark, and Esther would think him "benighted" if he should be late. He evidently had been to America and back in that short afternoon.
"Well, Mary, good-bye," he said; "one never knows whether we shall meet again. I'm getting an old man."
"Eh, Uncle Clegg, you're worth twenty dead ones yet," said Mrs. Mesurier, reassuringly.
"What a strange old gentleman!" said Mrs. Turtle, somewhat bewildered, as this family apparition left the room.
"Good-bye, Uncle Clegg," Esther was heard singing in the hall. "Good-bye, be careful of the steps. Good-bye. Give our love to Aunt Esther."
Then the door would bang, and the whole house breathe a gigantic sigh of humorous relief.
(This was the kind of thing girls at home had to put up with!)
"Well, mother, did you ever see such a funny old person?" said Esther, on her return to the parlour.
"You mustn't laugh at him," Mrs. Mesurier would say, laughing herself; "he's a good old man."
"No doubt he's good enough, mother dear; but he's unmistakably funny," Esther would reply, with a whimsical thought of the family tree. Yes, they were a distinguished race! _