Men's Wives. William Makepeace Thackeray
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will exercise her power upon them all: and as a lady, when she has a large wardrobe, and a taste for variety in dress, will appear every day in a different costume, so will the young and giddy beauty wear her lovers, encouraging now the black whiskers, now smiling on the brown, now thinking that the gay smiling rattle of an admirer becomes her very well, and now adopting the sad sentimental melancholy one, according as her changeful fancy prompts her. Let us not be too angry with these uncertainties and caprices of beauty; and depend on it that, for the most part, those females who cry out loudest against the flightiness of their sisters, and rebuke their undue encouragement of this man or that, would do as much themselves if they had the chance, and are constant, as I am to my coat just now, because I have no other.
“Did you see Doubleyou, 'Gina dear?” said her mamma, addressing that young lady. “He's in the bar with your Pa, and has his military coat with the king's buttons, and looks like an officer.”
This was Mr. Woolsey's style, his great aim being to look like an army gent, for many of whom he in his capacity of tailor made those splendid red and blue coats which characterise our military. As for the royal button, had not he made a set of coats for his late Majesty, George IV.? and he would add, when he narrated this circumstance, “Sir, Prince Blucher and Prince Swartzenberg's measure's in the house now; and what's more, I've cut for Wellington.” I believe he would have gone to St. Helena to make a coat for Napoleon, so great was his ardour. He wore a blue-black wig, and his whiskers were of the same hue. He was brief and stern in conversations; and he always went to masquerades and balls in a field-marshal's uniform.
“He looks really quite the thing to-night,” continued Mrs. Crump.
“Yes,” said 'Gina; “but he's such an odious wig, and the dye of his whiskers always comes off on his white gloves.”
“Everybody has not their own hair, love,” continued Mrs. Crump with a sigh; “but Eglantine's is beautiful.”
“Every hairdresser's is,” answered Morgiana, rather contemptuously; “but what I can't bear is that their fingers is always so very fat and pudgy.”
In fact, something had gone wrong with the fair Morgiana. Was it that she had but little liking for the one pretender or the other? Was it that young Glauber, who acted Romeo in the private theatricals, was far younger and more agreeable than either? Or was it, that seeing a REAL GENTLEMAN, such as Mr. Walker, with whom she had had her first interview, she felt more and more the want of refinement in her other declared admirers? Certain, however, it is, that she was very reserved all the evening, in spite of the attentions of Mr. Woolsey; that she repeatedly looked round at the box-door, as if she expected someone to enter; and that she partook of only a very few oysters, indeed, out of the barrel which the gallant tailor had sent down to the “Bootjack,” and off which the party supped.
“What is it?” said Mr. Woolsey to his ally, Crump, as they sat together after the retirement of the ladies. “She was dumb all night. She never once laughed at the farce, nor cried at the tragedy, and you know she laughs and cries uncommon. She only took half her negus, and not above a quarter of her beer.”
“No more she did!” replied Mr. Crump, very calmly. “I think it must be the barber as has been captivating her: he dressed her hair for the play.”
“Hang him, I'll shoot him!” said Mr. Woolsey. “A fat foolish effeminate beast like that marry Miss Morgiana? Never! I WILL shoot him. I'll provoke him next Saturday—I'll tread on his toe—I'll pull his nose.”
“No quarrelling at the 'Kidneys!'” answered Crump sternly; “there shall be no quarrelling in that room as long as I'm in the chair!”
“Well, at any rate you'll stand my friend?”
“You know I will,” answered the other. “You are honourable, and I like you better than Eglantine. I trust you more than Eglantine, sir. You're more of a man than Eglantine, though you ARE a tailor; and I wish with all my heart you may get Morgiana. Mrs. C. goes the other way, I know: but I tell you what, women will go their own ways, sir, and Morgy's like her mother in this point, and depend upon it, Morgy will decide for herself.”
Mr. Woolsey presently went home, still persisting in his plan for the assassination of Eglantine. Mr. Crump went to bed very quietly, and snored through the night in his usual tone. Mr. Eglantine passed some feverish moments of jealousy, for he had come down to the club in the evening, and had heard that Morgiana was gone to the play with his rival. And Miss Morgiana dreamed, of a man who was—must we say it?—exceedingly like Captain Howard Walker. “Mrs. Captain So-and-so!” thought she. “Oh, I do love a gentleman dearly!”
And about this time, too, Mr. Walker himself came rolling home from the “Regent,” hiccupping. “Such hair!—such eyebrows!—such eyes! like b-b-billiard-balls, by Jove!”
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