The Way We Live Now - Anthony Trollope (top 5 books to read txt) 📗
- Author: Anthony Trollope
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Then it was necessary to fix the day, and for this purpose it was of course essential that Ruby should be consulted. During the discussion as to the feast and the bridegroom’s entreaties that the two ladies would be present, she had taken no part in the matter in hand. She was brought up to be kissed, and having been duly kissed she retired again among the children, having only expressed one wish of her own—namely, that Joe Mixet might not have anything to do with the affair. But the day could not be fixed without her, and she was summoned. Crumb had been absurdly impatient, proposing next Tuesday—making his proposition on a Friday. They could cook enough meat for all Bungay to eat by Tuesday, and he was aware of no other cause for delay. “That’s out of the question,” Ruby had said decisively, and as the two elder ladies had supported her Mr. Crumb yielded with a good grace. He did not himself appreciate the reasons given because, as he remarked, gowns can be bought ready made at any shop. But Mrs. Pipkin told him with a laugh that he didn’t know anything about it, and when the 14th of August was named he only scratched his head and, muttering something about Thetford fair, agreed that he would, yet once again, allow love to take precedence of business. If Tuesday would have suited the ladies as well he thought that he might have managed to combine the marriage and the fair, but when Mrs. Pipkin told him that he must not interfere any further, he yielded with a good grace. He merely remained in London long enough to pay a friendly visit to the policeman who had locked him up, and then returned to Suffolk, revolving in his mind how glorious should be the matrimonial triumph which he had at last achieved.
Before the day arrived, old Ruggles had been constrained to forgive his granddaughter, and to give a general assent to the marriage. When John Crumb, with a sound of many trumpets, informed all Bungay that he had returned victorious from London, and that after all the ups and downs of his courtship Ruby was to become his wife on a fixed day, all Bungay took his part, and joined in a general attack upon Mr. Daniel Ruggles. The cross-grained old man held out for a long time, alleging that the girl was no better than she should be, and that she had run away with the baronite. But this assertion was met by so strong a torrent of contradiction, that the farmer was absolutely driven out of his own convictions. It is to be feared that many lies were told on Ruby’s behalf by lips which had been quite ready a fortnight since to take away her character. But it had become an acknowledged fact in Bungay that John Crumb was ready at any hour to punch the head of any man who should hint that Ruby Ruggles had, at any period of her life, done any act or spoken any word unbecoming a young lady; and so strong was the general belief in John Crumb, that Ruby became the subject of general eulogy from all male lips in the town. And though perhaps some slight suspicion of irregular behaviour up in London might be whispered by the Bungay ladies among themselves, still the feeling in favour of Mr. Crumb was so general, and his constancy was so popular, that the grandfather could not stand against it. “I don’t see why I ain’t to do as I likes with my own,” he said to Joe Mixet, the baker, who went out to Sheep’s Acre Farm as one of many deputations sent by the municipality of Bungay.
“She’s your own flesh and blood, Mr. Ruggles,” said the baker.
“No; she ain’t;—no more than she’s a Pipkin. She’s taken up with Mrs. Pipkin jist because I hate the Pipkinses. Let Mrs. Pipkin give ’em a breakfast.”
“She
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