The Wolves and the Lamb | Page 8

am only regretting her loss for our sake. She tyrannized over you; turned your friends out of doors; took your name out of your clubs; dragged you about from party to party, though you can no more dance than a bear, and from opera to opera, though you don't know "God Save the Queen" from "Rule Britannia." You don't, sir; you know you don't. But Arabella was better than her mother, who has taken possession of you since your widowhood.
MILLIKEN.--My dear fellow! no, she hasn't. There's MY mother.
TOUCHIT.--Yes, to be sure, there's Mrs. Bonnington, and they quarrel over you like the two ladies over the baby before King Solomon.
MILLIKEN.--Play the satirist, my good friend! laugh at my weakness!
TOUCHIT.--I know you to be as plucky a fellow as ever stepped, Milliken, when a man's in the case. I know you and I stood up to each other for an hour and a half at Westminster.
MILLIKEN.--Thank you! We were both dragons of war! tremendous champions! Perhaps I am a little soft as regards women. I know my weakness well enough; but in my case what is my remedy? Put yourself in my position. Be a widower with two young children. What is more natural than that the mother of my poor wife should come and superintend my family? My own mother can't. She has a half-dozen of little half brothers and sisters, and a husband of her own to attend to. I dare say Mr. Bonnington and my mother will come to dinner to-day.
TOUCHIT.--Of course they will, my poor old Milliken, you don't dare to dine without them.
MILLIKEN.--Don't go on in that manner, George Touchit! Why should not my step-father and my mother dine with me? I can afford it. I am a domestic man and like to see my relations about me. I am in the city all day.
TOUCHIT.--Luckily for you.
MILLIKEN.--And my pleasure of an evening is to sit under my own vine and under my own fig-tree with my own olive-branches round about me; to sit by my fire with my children at my knees: to coze over a snug bottle of claret after dinner with a friend like you to share it; to see the young folks at the breakfast-table of a morning, and to kiss them and so off to business with a cheerful heart. This was my scheme in marrying, had it pleased heaven to prosper my plan. When I was a boy and came from school and college, I used to see Mr. Bonnington, my father-in-law, with HIS young ones clustering round about him, so happy to be with him! so eager to wait on him! all down on their little knees round my mother before breakfast or jumping up on his after dinner. It was who should reach his hat, and who should bring his coat, and who should fetch his umbrella, and who should get the last kiss.
TOUCHIT.--What? didn't he kiss YOU? Oh, the hard-hearted old ogre!
MILLIKEN.--DON'T, Touchit! Don't laugh at Mr. Bonnington! he is as good a fellow as ever breathed. Between you and me, as my half brothers and sisters increased and multiplied year after year, I used to feel rather lonely, rather bowled out, you understand. But I saw them so happy that I longed to have a home of my own. When my mother proposed Arabella for me (for she and Lady Kicklebury were immense friends at one time), I was glad enough to give up clubs and bachelorhood, and to settle down as a married man. My mother acted for the best. My poor wife's character, my mother used to say, changed after marriage. I was not as happy as I hoped to be; but I tried for it. George, I am not so comfortable now as I might be. A house without a mistress, with two mothers-in-law reigning over it--one worldly and aristocratic, another what you call serious, though she don't mind a rubber of whist: I give you my honor my mother plays a game at whist, and an uncommonly good game too--each woman dragging over a child to her side: of course such a family cannot be comfortable. [Bell rings.] There's the first dinner-bell. Go and dress, for heaven's sake.
TOUCHIT.--Why dress? There is no company!
MILLIKEN.--Why? ah! her ladyship likes it, you see. And it costs nothing to humor her. Quick, for she don't like to be kept waiting.
TOUCHIT.--Horace Milliken! what a pity it is the law declares a widower shall not marry his wife's mother! She would marry you else,--she would, on my word.
Enter JOHN.
JOHN.--I have took the Captain's things in the blue room, sir. [Exeunt gentlemen, JOHN arranges tables, &c.]
Ha! Mrs. Prior! I ain't partial to Mrs. Prior. I think she's an artful old dodger, Mrs. Prior. I think there's mystery in her unfathomable pockets,