'I will, Ben.'
'Ah, do; and I'll give him another lesson if he should, and I'll tell you how I'll do it. I'll get a free admission to the wild beastesses in the Tower, and when he comes to see 'em, for them 'ere sort of fellows always goes everywhere they can go for nothing, I'll just manage to pop him into a cage along of some of the most cantankerous creatures as we have.'
'But would that not be dangerous?'
'Oh dear no! we has a laughing hyena as would frighten him out of his wits; but I don't think as he'd bite him much, do you know. He's as playful as a kitten, and very fond of standing on his head.'
'Well, then, Ben, I have, of course, no objection, although I do think that the lesson you have already given to the reverend gentleman will and ought to be fully sufficient for all purposes, and I don't expect we shall see him again.'
'But how does Mrs O. behave to you?' asked Ben.
'Well, Ben, I don't think there's much difference; sometimes she's a little civil, and sometimes she ain't; it's just as she takes into her head.'
'Ah! all that comes of marrying.'
'I have often wondered, though, Ben, that you never married.'
Ben gave a chuckle as he replied, 'Have you, though, really? Well, Cousin Oakley, I don't mind telling you, but the real fact is, once I was very near being served out in that sort of way.
'Indeed!'
'Yes. I'll tell you how it was: there was a girl called Angelina Day, and a nice-looking enough creature she was as you'd wish to see, and didn't seem as if she'd got any claws at all; leastways, she kept them in, like a cat at meal times.'
'Upon my word, Ben, you have a great knowledge of the world.'
'I believe you, I have! Haven't I been brought up among the wild beasts in the Tower all my life? That's the place to get a knowledge of the world in, my boy. I ought to know a thing or two, and in course I does.'
'Well, but how was it, Ben, that you did not marry this Angelina you speak of?'
'I'll tell you: she thought she had me as safe as a hare in a trap, and she was as amiable as a lump of cotton. You'd have thought, to look at her, that she did nothing but smile; and, to hear her, that she said nothing but nice, mild, pleasant things, and I really began to think as I had found the proper sort of animal.'
'But you were mistaken?'
'I believe you, I was. One day I'd been there to see her, I mean, at her father's house, and she'd been as amiable as she could be; I got up to go away, with a determination that the next time I got there I would ask her to say yes, and when I had got a little way out of the garden of the house where they lived - it was out of town some distance - I found I had left my little walking-cane behind me, so I goes back to get it, and when I got into the garden, I heard a voice.
'Whose voice?'
'Why Angelina's to be sure; she was a-speaking to a poor little dab of a servant they had; and oh, my eye! how she did rap out, to be sure! Such a speech as I never heard in all my life. She went on for a matter of ten minutes without stopping, and every other word was some ill name or another, and her voice - oh, gracious! it was like a bundle of wire all of a tangle - it was!'
'And what did you do, then, upon making such a discovery as that in so very odd and unexpected a manner?'
'Do? What do you suppose I did?'
'I really cannot say, as you are rather an eccentric fellow.'
'Well then, I'll tell you. I went up to the house, and just popped in my head, and says I, "Angelina, I find out that all cats have claws after all; good-evening, and no more from your humble servant, who don't mind the job of taming a wild animal, but a woman... "and then off I walked, and I never heard of her afterwards.'
'Ah, Ben, it's true enough! You never know them beforehand; but, after a little time, as you say, then out come the claws.'
'They does - they does.'
'And I suppose you since then made up your mind to be a bachelor for the rest of your life, Ben?'
'Of course I did. After such experience as that I should have deserved all I got, and no mistake, I can tell you; and if you ever catches me paying any attention to a female woman, just put me in mind of Angelina Day, and you'll see how I shall be off at once like a shot.'
'Ah!' said Mr Oakley, with a sigh, 'everybody, Ben, ain't born with your good luck, I can tell you. You are a most fortunate man, Ben, and that's a fact. You must have been born under some lucky planet I think, Ben, or else you never would have had such a warning as you have had about the claws. I found 'em out, Ben, but it was a deal too late; so I had to put up with my fate, and put the best face I could upon the matter.'
'Yes, that's what learned folks call - what's its name - fill - fill -something.'
'Philosophy, I suppose you mean, Ben.'
'Ah, that's it - you must put up with what you can't help, it means, I take it. It's a fine name for saying you must grin and bear it.'
'I suppose that is about the truth, Ben.'
It cannot, however, be exactly said that the little incident connected with Mr Lupin had no good effect upon Mrs Oakley, for it certainly shook most alarmingly her confidence in that pious individual.
In the first place, it was quite clear that he shrank from the horrors of martyrdom; and, indeed, to escape any bodily inconvenience was perfectly willing to put up with any amount of degradation or humiliation that he could be subjected to; and that was, to the apprehension of Mrs Oakley, a great departure from what a saint ought to be.
Then again, her faith in the fact that Mr Lupin was such a chosen morsel as he had represented himself, was shaken from the circumstance that no miracle in the shape of a judgement had taken place to save him from the malevolence of big Ben, the beefeater; so that, taking one thing in connection with another, Mrs Oakley was not near so religious a character after that evening as she had been before it, and that was something gained.
Then circumstances soon occurred, of which the reader will very shortly be fully aware, which were calculated to awaken all the feelings of Mrs Oakley, if she really had any feelings to awaken, and to force her to make common cause with her husband in an affair that touched him to the very soul, and did succeed in awakening some feelings in her heart that had lain dormant for a long time, but which were still far from being completely destroyed.
These circumstances were closely connected with the fate of one in whom we hope that, by this time, the reader has taken a deep and kindly interest - we mean Johanna - that young and beautiful, and artless creature, who seemed to have been created to be so very happy, and yet whose fate had become so clouded by misfortune, and who appears now to be doomed through her best affections to suffer so great an amount of sorrow, and to go through so many sad difficulties.
Alas, poor Johanna Oakley! Better had you loved someone of less aspiring feelings, and of less ardent imagination, than him to whom you have given your heart's young affections.
It is true that Mark Ingestrie possessed genius, and perhaps it was the glorious light that hovers around that fatal gift which prompted you to love him. But genius is not only a blight and a desolation to its possessor, but it is so to all who are bound to the gifted being by the ties of fond affection.
It brings with it that unhappy restlessness of intellect which is ever straining after the unattainable, and which is never content to know the end and ultimatum of earthly hopes and wishes; no, the whole life of such persons is spent in one long struggle for a fancied happiness, which like the ignis-fatuus of the swamp glitters but to betray those who trust to its delusive and flickering beams.
XIII. Johanna's Interview