Works of Charles Dickens - Charles Dickens [6115]
'I question that, mind!' interposed Mr. Pickwick warmly. 'Very good,' responded Wardle, 'question anything you like when it's your turn to speak, but don't interrupt me.'
'I beg your pardon,' said Mr. Pickwick.
'Granted,' replied Wardle. '"I am sorry to hear you express your opinion against marriages of affection, pa," said Bella, colouring a little. "I was wrong; I ought not to have said so, my dear, either," said I, patting her cheek as kindly as a rough old fellow like me could pat it, "for your mother's was one, and so was yours." "It's not that I meant, pa," said Bella. "The fact is, pa, I wanted to speak to you about Emily."'
Mr. Pickwick started.
'What's the matter now?' inquired Wardle, stopping in his narrative.
'Nothing,'replied Mr. Pickwick. 'Pray go on.'
'I never could spin out a story,' said Wardle abruptly. 'It must come out, sooner or later, and it'll save us all a great deal of time if it comes at once. The long and the short of it is, then, that Bella at last mustered up courage to tell me that Emily was very unhappy; that she and your young friend Snodgrass had been in constant correspondence and communication ever since last Christmas; that she had very dutifully made up her mind to run away with him, in laudable imitation of her old friend and school-fellow; but that having some compunctions of conscience on the subject, inasmuch as I had always been rather kindly disposed to both of them, they had thought it better in the first instance to pay me the compliment of asking whether I would have any objection to their being married in the usual matter-of- fact manner. There now, Mr. Pickwick, if you can make it convenient to reduce your eyes to their usual size again, and to let me hear what you think we ought to do, I shall feel rather obliged to you!'
The testy manner in which the hearty old gentleman uttered this last sentence was not wholly unwarranted; for Mr. Pickwick's face had settled down into an expression of blank amazement and perplexity, quite curious to behold.
'Snodgrass!-since last Christmas!' were the first broken words that issued from the lips of the confounded gentleman.
'Since last Christmas,' replied Wardle; 'that's plain enough, and very bad spectacles we must have worn, not to have discovered it before.'
'I don't understand it,' said Mr. Pickwick, ruminating; 'I cannot really understand it.'
'It's easy enough to understand it,' replied the choleric old gentleman. 'If you had been a younger man, you would have been in the secret long ago; and besides,' added Wardle, after a moment's hesitation, 'the truth is, that, knowing nothing of this matter, I have rather pressed Emily for four or five months past, to receive favourably (if she could; I would never attempt to force a girl's inclinations) the addresses of a young gentleman down in our neighbourhood. I have no doubt that, girl-like, to enhance her own value and increase the ardour of Mr. Snodgrass, she has represented this matter in very glowing colours, and that they have both arrived at the conclusion that they are a terribly- persecuted pair of unfortunates, and have no resource but clandestine matrimony, or charcoal. Now the question is, what's to be done?'
'What have YOU done?' inquired Mr. Pickwick.
'I!'
'I mean what did you do when your married daughter told you this?'
'Oh, I made a fool of myself of course,' rejoined Wardle.
'Just so,' interposed Perker, who had accompanied this dialogue with sundry twitchings of his watch-chain, vindictive rubbings of his nose, and other symptoms of impatience. 'That's very natural; but how?'
'I went into a great passion and frightened my mother into a fit,' said Wardle.
'That was judicious,' remarked Perker; 'and what else?'
'I fretted and fumed all next day, and raised a great disturbance,' rejoined the