第203章

Mr. Jiffin was in his glory. Mr. Jiffin's house was the same. Both were in apple-pie order to receive Miss Afy Hallijohn, who was, in a very short period, indeed, to be converted into Mrs. Jiffin.

Mr. Jiffin had not seen Afy for some days--had never been able to come across her since the trial at Lynneborough. Every evening had he danced attendance at her lodgings, but could not get admitted. "Not at home--not at home," was the invariable answer, though Afy might be sunning herself at the window in his very sight. Mr. Jiffin, throwing off as best he could the temporary disappointment, was in an ecstasy of admiration, for he set it all down to Afy's retiring modesty on the approach of the nuptial day. "And they could try to calumniate her!" he indignantly replied.

But now, one afternoon, when Mr. Jiffin and his shopman, and his shop, and his wares, were all set out to the best advantage--and very tempting they looked, as a whole, especially the spiced bacon--Mr. Jiffin happening to cast his eyes to the opposite side of the street, beheld his beloved sailing by. She was got up in the fashion. A mauve silk dress with eighteen flounces, and about eighteen hundred steel buttons that glittered your sight away; a "zouave" jacket worked with gold; a black turban perched on the top of her skull, garnished in front with what court milliners are pleased to term a "plume de coq," but which, by its size and height, might have been taken for a "coq" himself, while a white ostrich feather was carried round and did duty behind, and a spangled hair net hung down to her waist. Gloriously grand was Afy that day and if I had but a photographing machine at hand--or whatever may be the scientific name of the thing--you should certainly have been regaled with the sight of her. Joyce would have gone down in a fit had she encountered her by an unhappy chance. Mr. Jiffin, dashing his apron anywhere, tore across.

"Oh, it is you!" said Afy, freezingly, when compelled to acknowledge him, but his offered hand she utterly repudiated. "Really, Mr. Jiffin, I should feel obliged if you would not come out to me in this offensive and public manner."

Mr. Jiffin grew cold. "Offensive! Not come out?" gasped he. "I do trust I have not been so unfortunate as to offend you, Miss Afy!"

"Well--you see," said Afy, calling up all her impudence to say what she had made up her mind to say, "I have been considering it well over, Jiffin, and I find that to carry out the marriage will not be for my--for our happiness. I intended to write to inform you of this; but I shall be spared the trouble--as you /have/ come out to me."

The perspiration, cold as ice, began to pour off Mr. Jiffin in his agony and horror. You might have wrung every thread he had on. "You--don't mean--to--imply--that--you--give--me--up--Miss--Afy?" he jerked out, unevenly.

"Well, yes, I do," replied Afy. "It's as good to be plain, and then there can be no misapprehension. I'll shake hands now with you, Jiffin, for the last time; and I am very sorry that we both made such a mistake."

Poor Jiffin looked at her. His gaze would have melted a heart of stone. "Miss Afy, you /can't/ mean it! You'd never, sure, crush a fellow in this manner, whose whole soul is yours; who trusted you entirely? There's not an earthly thing I would not do to please you.

You have been the light of my existence."

"Of course," returned Afy, with a lofty and indifferent air, as if to be "the light of his existence" was only her due. "But it's all done and over. It is not at all a settlement that will suit me, you see, Jiffin. A butter and bacon factor is so very--so very--what I have not been accustomed to! And then, those aprons! I never could get reconciled to them."

"I'll discard the aprons altogether," cried he, in a fever. "I'll get a second shopman, and buy a little gig, and do nothing but drive you out. I'll do anything if you will but have me still, Miss Afy. I have bought the ring, you know."

"Your intentions are very kind," was the distant answer, "but it's a thing impossible; my mind is fully made up. So farewell for good, Jiffin; and I wish you better luck in your next venture."

Afy, lifting her capacious dress, for the streets had just been watered, minced off. And Mr. Joe Jiffin, wiping his wet face as he gazed after her, instantly wished that he could be nailed up in one of his pickled pork barrels, and so be out of his misery.

"That's done with, thank goodness," soliloquized Afy. "Have /him/, indeed. After what Richard let out on the trial. As if I should look after anybody less than Dick Hare! I shall get him, too. I always knew Dick Hare loved me above everything on earth; and he does still, or he'd never had said what he did in open court. 'It's better to be born lucky than rich.' Won't West Lynne envy me! Mrs. Richard Hare of the Grove. Old Hare is on his last legs, and then Dick comes into his own.

Mrs. Hare must have her jointure house elsewhere, for we shall want the Grove for ourselves. I wonder if Madame Barbara will condescend to recognize me. And that blessed Corny? I shall be a sort of cousin of Corny's then. I wonder how much Dick comes into--three or four thousand a year? And to think that I had nearly escaped this by tying myself to that ape of a Jiffin! What sharks do get in our unsuspecting paths in this world!"

On went Afy, through West Lynne, till she arrived close to Mr. Justice Hare's. Then she paced slowly. It had been a frequent walk of hers since the trial. Luck favored her to-day. As she was passing the gate, young Richard Hare came up from the direction of East Lynne. It was the first time Afy had obtained speech of him.

"Good day, Richard. Why! you were never going to pass an old friend?"

"I have so many friends," said Richard, "I can scarcely spare time for them individually."

"But you might for me. Have you forgotten old days?" continued she, bridling and flirting, and altogether showing herself off to advantage.

"No, I have not," replied Richard. "And I am not likely to do so," he pointedly added.