THE NOVELIST

Observer, Volume 2, Issue 46, 30 July 1881, Page 516

THE NOVELIST

A FUNNY LITTLE PRANK. Part I. ' I DECLARE that uncle of mine will be the death, of me,' exclaimed young Dick Wilgoose, throwing himself into an arm-chair at the Grilled Bones Club of South«ea, and laughing with all his might. 'I was calling on the family at Laurel Grove this afternoon when my old grand- aunt, Mrs Rich worth, came in, and it was as good as a farce to see how they all toadied her. Not only Uncle Peter; by jove, but the girls and my cousins Bob and Jim. 'Pon my soul, I believe they rehearse their parts when she is not there— it was all so perfect.' ' Yes, I must say your Uncle Peter shows as fine a capacity for toad-eating as any man I've ever seen,' laughed Captain Jokler, of the 120 th Regiment of Foot, which was in garrison at Portsmouth. ' I've seen him at the game, and his daughters, too, and I felt sorry for them, for they are nice girls.' 'They're the most mercenary little devils going,' replied Dick Wilgoose ; ' I don't wonder that nobody has cared to propose to them : they seem to be thinking all day and all night of Mrs Richworth's money. I believe that every time there's a knock at the door they all start from their chairs in the hope that a messenger has come at last with news of the old lady's death.' 'Come — come, it's not so bad as that,' demurred an Artillery officer, Captain Reckener, who was known by some of his intimates (though not by Dick Wilgoose) to cherish tender sentiments towards the eldest of the pretty Miss Patters. ' You don't consider that your cousins have been brought up from their childhood in the knowledge that they had expectations from their father's aunt. They have done as their parents told them to do ; it's their misfortunes, poor girls, if they have not had better examples set them.' 'That's gammon,' answered Dick with a whistle. ' I might have had expectations from Mrs Richworth too if I had chosen to bow down to her ; but I'm hanged if I have ever so much as changed a necktie to give her pleasure. If I could make sure of getting ten thousand pounds under her will by simply passing by her door every day and blowing a kiss up to her windows I wouldn't do it.' 'I don't even think you show her civility enough, Dick, remarked Captain Jockler. ' I've heard you speak to her more pertly than was quite pleasant to hear,' 'I can't help it,' replied Dick. 'Whenever I see her, she is surrounded by hangers-on, who eye me as if I had come to take a slice of their cake. Uncle Peter looks sometimes as if he would swallow me up ; but I'll teach him a lesson one of these days. I'll play him a trick which shall show him that I am not blind to his little meannesses. But now, who's game for a rub ?' The foregoing conversation was being held in a club which was a resort for all the jolly dogs of Portsmouth and Southsea. At the Grilled Bones, men supped, played cards, and devised all manners or mischief and frolic to make the time pass nimbly. It was a select place, whose members were all known to one another ; and one of the members, though by no means a jolly one, was Dick Wilgoose's Uncle Peter, whose failings had just been discussed so publicly. Mr Peter Patter, of Laurel-grove, was an anxious, unhappy man of fifty. He presented the miserable spectacle of one whom nature had intended to be fat, and who had baggy cheeks and an underhung lip — of one who should have been jovial, but was peevish — of one who ought to have been buoyant with energy, but who had had all energy, enterprise, arid spirit of self-reliance rubbed out of him, as many rub starch out of a shirt till it becomes quite limp. A blight had been cast over his life, and this blight was his wealthy aunt, Mrs Richworth. From the time when, at the age of sixty, this lady had lost her husband and her only son, so that Peter Patter had become her nearest of kin, the latter had been her bondsman. Mrs Richworth was now past ninety, and Peter Patter's bondage had lasted over thirty years. If, as we are told, the chief of heaven's curses be a candid friend, the second is assuredly a despotic old woman from whom a man has expectations. Peter Patter would have been a happy, active, and prosperous man had his aunt's great wealth never been dangled before his eyes ; but he could not be happy under her yoke, nor shake off her yoke without renouncing his chance of getting her fortune. She was an old lady of domineering spirit — not unkind, but sharp, firm, and exacting of ■obedience. Treating her nephew Peter as a boy, she advised him about the smallest of his concerns, and he had got into the way of feeling that it was better he should follow her advice. He had taken a wife of her choosing, arid she had made of this wife her slave. As his children grew up, she decided how they were to be educated, what they were to do, and what they were to wear. A new dress was not brought into the house without her having a voice in the matter. If the children were in any doubt or difficulty, they appealed to her sooner than to their parents ; and her counsel was always as wise as it was peremptory. She was not an old lady with whom oue couid pick a quarrel, for she never showed temper or said disagreeable things. Every inch a gentlewoman, she extended to others the consideration of language which she claimed towards herself, and was punctilious in her observance of those courtesies which prevent frequency of intercourse from degenerating into undignified familiarity. But by reason of the old lady's very perfections, poor Peter Patter had been utterly cowed and subdued by her. He dared not think or act for himself. He was denied the most exciting, ennobling task of a man's life — that of working for his wife's family, for his private income was enough to enable him to live in idleness, and if he overstepped it somewhat, Mrs Richworth's occasional gifts always

enabled him to meet his Christmas bills. So he was thriftless as well as idle ; and yet he had not enough money to make a show with, or to embark on any useful enterprise. He had once or twice timidly hinted to his aunt that if she would put him in possession of a landed estate during her life-time, he might avail himself of her advice in managing it, and find an occupation for himself at the same time. But she had coldly ignored these insinuations that she should forestall her nephew in his inheritance. She liked her money for the power it gave her, and was not going to part with it lightly. ' You'll get your own before long, Peter,' she used to answer, in her usual placid tone. ' I have one foot in the grave already, and the other must step down soon.' This was all very well, but the second foot was keeping the first a long time waiting. At sixty Mrs Richworth was said to be in weak health, and at the point of death ; at seventy she had a severe ilness, which well-nigh carried her off; at eighty her doctors told Peter he ' must prepare for the worst ;' but at ninety she was in much the same condition of soundness as she had ever been. Twenty times in the course of thirty years had Peter sat beside what he, and all others, believed to be his aunt's deathbed. Twenty times had she pressed his hand in what seemed to be a faint, parting squeeze, thanking him for all his dutifulness, and repeating that she had left him 'everything;' but she had always recovered, and sometimes Peter, in his bitter moments, would exclaim to his affrighten wife, 'She will bury us all, egad ! You, me, and the children ; and then she will leave all her money to that graceless scamp, Dick Wilgoose.' Peter Patter hated his kinsman Dick, because of the prouder spirit which the latter showed towards Mrs Richworth ; and Dick, as we have seen, had but a small opinion of his uncle Peter. During the rubbers Avhich he played at the Grilled Bones Club, he frequently I recurred in a humourous way to the servile comedy which he had seen played at Laurel Grove that afternoon ; and, at last, when he rose from the card-table, he exclaiiiied, chuckling, ' I say Jockler, I'll tell you what I'll do : I'll dress up as old Mrs Richworth, and sjo and pay Uncle Peter a visit. I'll pretend to be in high dudgeon about something, and stamp and threaten till I frighten the whole family out of their souls.' ' What will be the fun of that ?' asked Captain Reckener, who was not particularly fond of Dick, and was displeased to see the family of the lady whom he hoped to make his wife, held up to ridicule. 'Oh, there'll be every fun in it,' answered Dick gleefully. 'I shall enjoy the sight of Uncle Peter's consternation, make Aunt Ellen yell, aud the girls shiver. I'll threaten to alter my will because they've taken a new cook who squints, without my leave ; and when I've played the devil's own delight at Laurel Grove, then I'll chuck off my wig and have a good laugh at their expense.' ' And get kicked out of the house, no doubt, as a finale," observed Captain Reckner, drily. ' Uncle Peter shall kick me out if he can,' said Dick, lightly ; ' but the prospect of that won't make me give up my plan. Don't you think it's a good one, you fellows ?' 'Yes, yes,' chorused half-a-dozen voices, in amusement, and it was unanimously agreed that Dick was just the fellow to mimic Mrs Richworth. finely. He was a small, dapper little fellow with twinkling eyes, who had often achieved success in comic parts at private theatricals ; and. as he remarked, the ' make up ' as Mrs Richworth would be no difficult matter, for the old lady wore a wig and false teeth, walked bent double with a stick to lean upon, and was always enwrapped in a silk cloak lined with fur. 'As for her complexion,' he added, 'it's like parchment ; but I'll imitate it by drawing gold-beater's skin tightly over mine, and a little painting with the hare's-foot will do the rest.' (To be continued. )