Works of Charles Dickens - Charles Dickens [267]
'My dear ma'am,' said Mr Chester, 'you embolden me to be plain with you. My son and I are at variance on this point. The young lady and her natural guardian differ upon it, also. And the closing point is, that my son is bound by his duty to me, by his honour, by every solemn tie and obligation, to marry some one else.'
'Engaged to marry another lady!' quoth Mrs Varden, holding up her hands.
'My dear madam, brought up, educated, and trained, expressly for that purpose. Expressly for that purpose.--Miss Haredale, I am told, is a very charming creature.'
'I am her foster-mother, and should know--the best young lady in the world,' said Mrs Varden.
'I have not the smallest doubt of it. I am sure she is. And you, who have stood in that tender relation towards her, are bound to consult her happiness. Now, can I--as I have said to Haredale, who quite agrees--can I possibly stand by, and suffer her to throw herself away (although she IS of a Catholic family), upon a young fellow who, as yet, has no heart at all? It is no imputation upon him to say he has not, because young men who have plunged deeply into the frivolities and conventionalities of society, very seldom have. Their hearts never grow, my dear ma'am, till after thirty. I don't believe, no, I do NOT believe, that I had any heart myself when I was Ned's age.'
'Oh sir,' said Mrs Varden, 'I think you must have had. It's impossible that you, who have so much now, can ever have been without any.'
'I hope,' he answered, shrugging his shoulders meekly, 'I have a little; I hope, a very little--Heaven knows! But to return to Ned; I have no doubt you thought, and therefore interfered benevolently in his behalf, that I objected to Miss Haredale. How very natural! My dear madam, I object to him--to him--emphatically to Ned himself.'
Mrs Varden was perfectly aghast at the disclosure.
'He has, if he honourably fulfils this solemn obligation of which I have told you--and he must be honourable, dear Mrs Varden, or he is no son of mine--a fortune within his reach. He is of most expensive, ruinously expensive habits; and if, in a moment of caprice and wilfulness, he were to marry this young lady, and so deprive himself of the means of gratifying the tastes to which he has been so long accustomed, he would--my dear madam, he would break the gentle creature's heart. Mrs Varden, my good lady, my dear soul, I put it to you--is such a sacrifice to be endured? Is the female heart a thing to be trifled with in this way? Ask your own, my dear madam. Ask your own, I beseech you.'
'Truly,' thought Mrs Varden, 'this gentleman is a saint. But,' she added aloud, and not unnaturally, 'if you take Miss Emma's lover away, sir, what becomes of the poor thing's heart then?'
'The very point,' said Mr Chester, not at all abashed, 'to which I wished to lead you. A marriage with my son, whom I should be compelled to disown, would be followed by years of misery; they would be separated, my dear madam, in a twelvemonth. To break off this attachment, which is more fancied than real, as you and I know very well, will cost the dear girl but a few tears, and she is happy again. Take the case of your own daughter, the young lady downstairs, who is your breathing image'--Mrs Varden coughed and simpered--'there is a young man (I am sorry to say, a dissolute fellow, of very indifferent character) of whom I have heard Ned speak--Bullet was it--Pullet--Mullet--'
'There is a young man of the name of Joseph Willet, sir,' said Mrs Varden, folding her hands loftily.
'That's he,' cried Mr Chester. 'Suppose this Joseph Willet now, were to aspire to the affections of your charming daughter, and were to engage them.'
'It would be like his impudence,' interposed Mrs Varden, bridling, 'to dare to think of such a thing!'
'My dear madam, that's the whole case. I know it would be like his impudence. It is like Ned's impudence to do as he has done; but you would not