‘How did the intelligence reach you?’ asked Mr. Pickwick.
‘Oh, it came to my girls, of course,‘replied Wardle. ‘Arabella wrote, the day before yesterday, to say she had made a stolen match without her husband’s father’s consent, and so you had gone down to get it when his refusing it couldn’t prevent the match, and all the rest of it. I thought it a very good time to say something serious to my girls; so I said what a dreadful thing it was that children should marry without their parents’ consent, and so forth; but, bless your hearts, I couldn’t make the least impression upon them. They thought it such a much more dreadful thing that there should have been a wedding without bridesmaids, that I might as well have preached to Joe himself.’ Here the old gentleman stopped to laugh; and having done so to his heart’s content, presently resumed—
‘But this is not the best of it, it seems. This is only half the love–making and plotting that have been going forward. We have been walking on mines for the last six months, and they’re sprung at last.’
‘What do you mean?’ exclaimed Mr. Pickwick, turning pale; ‘no other secret marriage, I hope?’
‘No, no,’ replied old Wardle; ‘not so bad as that; no.’
‘What then?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick; ‘am I interested in it?’
‘Shall I answer that question, Perker?’ said Wardle.
‘If you don’t commit yourself by doing so, my dear Sir.’
‘Well then, you are,’ said Wardle.
‘How?’ asked Mr. Pickwick anxiously. ‘In what way?’
‘Really,’ replied Wardle, ‘you’re such a fiery sort of a young fellow that I am almost afraid to tell you; but, however, if Perker will sit between us to prevent mischief, I’ll venture.’
Having closed the room door, and fortified himself with another application to Perker’s snuff–box, the old gentleman proceeded with his great disclosure in these words—
‘The fact is, that my daughter Bella—Bella, who married young Trundle, you know.’
‘Yes, yes, we know,’ said Mr. Pickwick impatiently.
‘Don’t alarm me at the very beginning. My daughter Bella—Emily having gone to bed with a headache after she had read Arabella’s letter to me—sat herself down by my side the other evening, and began to talk over this marriage affair. “Well, pa,” she says, “what do you think of it?” “Why, my dear,” I said, “I suppose it’s all very well; I hope it’s for the best.” I answered in this way because I was sitting before the fire at the time, drinking my grog rather thoughtfully, and I knew my throwing in an undecided word now and then, would induce her to continue talking. Both my girls are pictures of their dear mother, and as I grow old I like to sit with only them by me; for their voices and looks carry me back to the happiest period of my life, and make me, for the moment, as young as I used to be then, though not quite so light–hearted. “It’s quite a marriage of affection, pa,” said Bella, after a short silence. “Yes, my dear,” said I, “but such marriages do not always turn out the happiest.”’
‘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 old gentleman. ‘At last I got tired of rendering myself unpleasant and making everybody miserable; so I hired a carriage at Muggleton, and, putting my own horses in it, came up to town, under pretence of bringing Emily to see Arabella.’
‘Miss Wardle is with you, then?’ said Mr. Pickwick.
‘To be sure she is,’ replied Wardle. ‘She is at Osborne’s Hotel in the Adelphi at this moment, unless your enterprising friend has run away with her since I came out this morning.’
‘You are reconciled then?’ said Perker.
‘Not a bit of it,’ answered Wardle; ‘she has been crying and moping ever since, except