J. Buckrose - A Bachelor's Comedy

She gave to the two last words such a melancholy emphasis that Andy had a vague idea, for the moment, that she was in some new way referring to the demise of Mr. Jebb.

“The long night?” he echoed stupidly.

“I mean the final evening of the Parish Dancing Class,” said Mrs. Jebb, “which Mr. and Miss Fanny Kirke have pressed me to attend.”

“Of course,” said Andy. “I’d forgotten. It is to be held at Millsby Hall, of course, so that Mrs. Atterton may see the final practice of the country dances for the Garden Fête next week.”

“Mr. and Miss Kirke told me in confidence,” added Mrs. Jebb, with an indescribable air of being ‘in the know,’ “that Mrs. Atterton’s back would not permit of her coming to the village schoolroom.”

“Ah,” said Andy, to whom even the back of the Beloved’s mamma was sacred. “Well, go, by all means, Mrs. Jebb. I expect I shall see you dancing like a girl.”

“My girlhood’s days are over,” sighed Mrs. Jebb. “But” – she cheered up – “married ladies are very popular in ballrooms now, I understand. The gentlemen seem to like mature conversation combined with their dancing. And I do not intend to refuse. I think it neither Christian nor right, Mr. Deane, for a widow to make a suttee of herself.”

“Of course not,” agreed Andy absently. “Well – no butter – you quite understand?”

“Trust me,” said Mrs. Jebb effusively, “to understand a gentleman’s inside. For months before he died, Mr. Jebb – ”

Andy departed, and the recording angel put it down to the right side of his everlasting account that he did not say, “Damn Mr. Jebb.”

The day seemed long, and the afternoon appeared to stretch out interminably until the hour when Andy could adorn himself in a new clerical dress-suit which he now thanked the aunt and cousins in Birmingham for insisting upon; thus arrayed, he surveyed his newly plastered curls in the looking-glass, and felt that, though severely freckled and rather short than otherwise, he was the right thing.

He stepped jauntily in the cool of the evening past Brother Gulielmus asleep, and never gave him a thought, only wondering if he had buckled his braces high enough, or if his trousers were, after all, a shade too long. He paused behind the yew at the corner to adjust matters, and gazed down at his legs with a keen preoccupation that left no room for anything else.

He felt it was such an immensely important thing that Elizabeth should see him with his trousers exactly the right length, and he was very much startled to hear a voice behind him saying tentatively —

“Excuse me – as a married lady – perhaps I might oblige with a safety-pin – ”

Mrs. Jebb again! – taking the air in the congenial neighbourhood of the tombstones.

Not daring to trust himself to speech, Andy shook his head and marched out of the churchyard. He began to hate Mrs. Jebb.

But when he came in sight of Millsby Hall he forgot all about her, and approached with beating pulses the extremely ugly, modern house which sheltered the lady of his dreams. It had been built by Mr. Atterton’s father after he developed from a small county landowner into the owner of a watering-place. Marshaven, previously to 1850, had been the resort of fishermen and waterfowl only; now it was crowded from June to September with train-loads of trippers from all over the country, and Mr. Atterton found the joy and interest of his existence in supervising the erection of ever-new rows of red-brick villas, and in putting his finger into every pie which the town council of that prosperous resort made for the purpose of attracting visitors.

“I believe we’ve got that matter arranged with the Bandmaster,” he said, rubbing his hands energetically as he entered his drawing-room that evening. “I did think for a time that the situation looked serious, but I approached him informally at first, and then officially, as the Chairman of the ‘Amusements Committee,’ and I think the crisis is over.” He paused, and smiled with satisfaction at his assembled family. “I’m glad to have my mind free for the Promenade question – that will take some engineering – but of one thing I am absolutely determined,” – he hit one hand on the other – “I will not

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