Mr. Ely's Engagement
Copyright© 2024 by Richard Marsh
Chapter 2: The Second Wooer
A very different visitor this to the first. A tall, stalwart fellow, with a guardsman’s chest, a long fair beard which hid his neck, and a huge pair of the most ridiculous moustaches. No bandbox fellow he! Dressed in a shooting suit, crowned by a soft, deer-stalker’s hat, flourishing what was a bludgeon rather than a stick in his hand, he seemed hardly the type of figure which is generally to be found in the neighbourhood of Capel Court.
“Hallo, Ash, tracked you down, old man.”
His voice was like himself: there was plenty of it. It should have been worth a fortune to him on the Stock Exchange.
“Summers! Whatever brings you here?”
“What doesn’t often bring a man to the City--love, and my lady’s eyes.”
“What!”
Mr. Ash fairly sprang out of his chair. He stared at his visitor with bewildered surprise.
“You may well stare, and stare your fill. I’m worth staring at to-day, for I just don’t feel as though I know whether I’m standing on my head or heels. The greatest stroke of luck has happened to me that ever happened to a man before--I’ve sold my picture for a thousand pounds.”
“You’ve done what?”
“Ah, I knew you wouldn’t believe it. It does sound incredible, doesn’t it? But it is a fact, though, all the same. I’ve sold my New Gallery picture, ‘A Dream of Love: an Idyll, by William Summers,’ for a thousand pounds.”
“And have you come all the way to Draper’s Gardens to tell me so? It’s very good of you, I’m sure.
“It would be good of me if that was all, but it’s not; there happens to be more. What does that sale mean? It means that I’ve made a hit--that I’ve got a commission for another at the same price--that my fortune is made. I’m a man of fortune, sir.”
“I assure you I am very glad to hear it; but I hope you will excuse my mentioning that I still have my fortune to make, and that this is the busiest hour of the day.”
“All right, wait half a jiffy, man. Keep yourself in hand, for upon my soul I can’t. What does my being a man of fortune mean? It means that I have become a marrying man--a man who has a right to marry. So I’m going to marry.”
“I congratulate you with all my heart. Do I know the lady?”
“Well, rather, considering that she’s your ward.”
“What!”
“Miss Truscott’s going to be my wife. I thought I would just drop in and let you know.”
“Drop in and let me know! If this isn’t the coolest proceeding I ever heard of in my life!”
The amazed Mr. Ash stared at his visitor, who seemed, so to speak, to be laughing all over his face. Then he dropped into his chair, and stared at the addressed letter which lay upon his desk. He appeared to be conscious of a certain confusion of mind.
“Good gad!” he told himself; “just now I was wishing that some one would come along and marry her. This is a case of one’s wishes being too plentifully granted. It strikes me there’s one too many.”
Then he addressed himself to his visitor aloud--
“Really, Mr. Summers, I fail to understand you.”
“It’s plain enough.”
“It may be plain enough to you. You must allow me to say that it is anything but plain enough to me. May I ask when you made what I must call this surreptitious request to my ward for her hand?”
“Oh, that’s just the point. I haven’t spoken to her yet.”
“You haven’t spoken to her yet! I understood you to say that she was going to marry you?”
“That’s right enough--so she is.”
“This may be plain enough to you, but it is really getting still less plain to me. You evidently think that her guardian’s consent is not required. May I ask if you think that the lady’s is unnecessary too?”
“There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy--I see that plainly, Ash! Don’t you know that there is a language more eloquent than speech? That it is possible for a man and woman to understand each other perfectly and yet not interchange a word? We understand each other like that, my friend.”
“I should be sorry to say anything which might lessen your self-conceit, but I think you are mistaken, Mr. Summers.”
“Oh, no, I’m not.”
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