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64 A SHABBY GENTEEL STORY
shouted out to Mr. Fitch, with a loud disconcerting tone, which only
made that young painter feel more awkward than ever he had been.
Fitch made some clumsy speech regarding his dinner,—whether that
meal was to be held, in the absence of the parents, at the usual
hour, and then took his leave.
The poor fellow had been pleasing himself with the notion of
taking this daily meal tete-a-tete with Caroline. What progress
would he make in her heart during the absence of her parents !
Did it not seem as if the first marriage had been arranged on purpose
to facilitate his own ? He determined thus his plan of campaign.
He would make, in the first place, the most beautiful drawing of
Caroline that ever was seen. "The conversations I'll 'ave with
her during the sittings," says he, " will carry me a pretty long way ;
the drawing itself will be so beautiful, that she can't resist that.
I'll write her verses in her halbum, and make designs hallusive of
my passion for her." And so our pictorial Alnaschar dreamed
and dreamed. He had, ere long, established himself in a house in
Newman Street, with a footman to open the door. Caroline was
upstairs, his wife, and her picture the crack portrait of the Exhibition.
With her by his side, Andrea Fitch felt he could do anything.
Half-a-dozen carriages at his door,—a hundred guineas for a Kit-Cat
portrait. Lady Fitch, Sir Andrew Fitch, the President's chain,—
all sorts of bright visions floated before his imagination; and as
Caroline was the first precious condition of his preferment, he
determined forthwith to begin, and realise that.
But 0 disappointment ! on coming down to dinner at three
o'clock to that charming tete-a-tete, he found no less than four covers
laid on the table, Miss Caroline blushing (according to custom) at
the head of it ; Becky, the maid, grinning at the foot ; and Mr.
Brandon sitting quietly on one side, as much at home, forsooth, as
if he had held that position for a year.
The fact is, that the moment after Fitch retired. Brandon,
inspired by jealousy, had made the same request which had been
brought forward by the painter ; nor must the ladies be too angry
with Caroline if, after some scruples and struggles, she yielded to
the proposal. Remember that the girl was the daughter of a
boarding-house, accustomed to continual dealings with her mamma's
lodgers, and up to the present moment thinking herself as safe
among them as the young person who walked through Ireland
with a bright gold wand, in the song of Mr. Thomas Moore. On
the point, however, of Brandon's admission, it must be confessed,
for Caroline's honour, that she did hesitate. She felt that she
entertained very different feelings towards him to those with which
any other lodger or man had inspired her, and made a little move-