Chapter Nine.Breakers Ahead!Oh, I see thee, old and formal, fitted to thy petty part,With a little hoard of maxims preaching down adaughter’s heart.“They were dangerous guides the feelings—she herselfwas not exempt—Truly she herself had suffer’d”—perish in thyself-contempt!Mrs Clyde’s appearance coming so suddenly upon the scene, acted as an application of the cold douche to all the loving ardour with which I was addressing Min. It completely spoiled the tableau; checking my eager impetuosity in a moment, and causing me to remain, tongue-tied, in a state of almost hopeless embarrassment.Picture the unexpected presentment of the statue of “The Commander” before Don Giovanni, and his horror at hearing words proceed from marble lips! You will, then, be able to form some faint idea of my feelings, when my pleasant position was thus interrupted by Min’s mother. I was altogether “nonplussed,” to use a vulgar but expressive word.Had she not come in so opportunely—or inopportunely, asyoumay think—I don’t know what I might not have said.You see, I was close to my darling, bending down over her and looking into her beautiful face. I was fathoming the depths of her soul-lighted, lustrous grey eyes; and, contiguity is sometimes apt in such circumstances, I am told, to hurry one into the rashness of desperation, bringing matters to a crisis. However, Mrs Clyde’s entrance stopped all this. I was brought up all at once, “with a round turn,” like a horse in full gallop pulled back on his haunches; or, “all standing,” as a boat with her head to the wind—whichever simile you may best prefer.A shower-bath is a very excellent thing in its way, when taken at the proper time and under certain conditions; but those two requirements must be carefully considered beforehand, for the human frame is a fabric of very delicate organisation. Any violent change, or hasty interference with the regular and legitimate working of its functions, may throw the whole machine out of gear, just as the sudden quickening of an engine’s motions will, probably, cause it to break down or turn it off the line; while, on the other hand, a wholesome tonic, or fillip, judiciously administered when occasion seems to demand it, like our shower-bath, may often better enable it to discharge its duties and go all the more smoothly and easily—as a tiny touch of the oil-can will affect the movements of man’s mammoth mechanical contrivances, that are so typical of himself.There are some people, I am aware, who object to the institution in toto, arguing that it hurts the system with its unexpected shock, doing more harm than good. There are others who believe in nothing but shocks, and similar methods of treatment out of the common run; and these “go in” for shower-baths, ”à discrétion”—though, without discretion, would, perhaps, be a truer description. You may not be informed, also, that the “institution” is frequently used in lunatic asylums and penal establishments as an instrument of torture and correction, being known to operate most efficaciously on obstreperous and hardened criminals, when all other means of coercion have failed.As it is with the shower-bath physically considered, so it is in regard to the moral douche, to bring my apparent digression to a pointed application. Properly taken, it nerves up the cerebral tissues; experienced unawares, at right angles to previous paths of thought and preparation, it reduces the patient to a temporary state of mental coma and bewilderment—as exemplified in my case on the present unhappy occasion.I never felt so completely “flabbergasted,” as sailors say, in my life, as when Min’s mother came into the room that afternoon, just at the moment when I was meditating a master-stroke against the fortress of my darling’s heart.I trembled in my boots.I wished the earth to open and swallow me up!Mrs Clyde was a thorough woman of the world. Judging her out of her own circle of limited diameter, you would imagine her to be cool, unimpassioned, cold-blooded, narrow-minded; but, she could be, at the same time, bigoted enough in regard to all that concerned herself, her social surroundings and her belongings—an advocate, as warm as Demosthenes, as logical as Cicero:—a partisan amongst partisans. Warm and impulsive, where fervour and a display of seemingly-generous enthusiasm would effect the object she had in view, that of compassing her ends, she could also be as frigid as an icicle, when it likewise so suited her purpose. “Respectability” and “position” were her gods:—the “world”—herworld!—her microcosm.Where persons and things agreed with these, being sympathetic to their rules and regulations, they naturally belonged to “the house beautiful” of her creed, for theymustbe good:—where they ran counter to such standards of merit, which were upheld by laws as unvarying and unchangeable as those of the Medes and Persians, and administered by a judge as stern as Draco—they were, theymustbe evil; and were, therefore, cast out into the outer darkness that existed beyond her sacred Lares and Penates.Good Heavens! how can pigmy people, atoms in the vast eternity of time, thus narrow the great universe in which they are permitted to exist; dwarfing it down, to the limit of their jaundiced vision, by the application of their miserable measuring tape of “fashionable” feet and “class” inches! How can they abase grand humanity to the level of their social organon, affecting to control it with their arbitrary absolutisms, their mammon deification, their mimic infallibility! What creeping, crawling, wretched insects we all are, taken collectively; and, of all of us, the blindest, the most insignificant, and most grub-like, are, so-called men and women “of the world!”Cold, heartless, in a general sense, and worldly as Mrs Clyde was, I could easily have excused it in her and tried to like her, for, was she not the mother of my darling, whom with all her faults she loved very dearly—her affection being judiciously tempered by those considerations paramount in the clique to which she belonged? But, Mrs Clyde did not likeme. She spurned every effort I essayed to make her my friend.I saw this the first evening I passed in her house; and the impression I then received never wore off.Just as you can tell at sight whether certain persons attract or repel you, through some unknown, nameless influence that you are unable to fathom; so, in like degree, can you decide—that is, if you possess a naturally sensitive mind—whether they are drawn towards yourself or remain antipathetical. I know thatIcan tell without asking them, if people whom I see for the first time are likely to fancy me or not; and, at all events, I had some inward monition which warned me that Mrs Clyde, contrary to my earnest wish that she should regard me in a friendly light, was not one of those amiable beings who would “cotton to me,” as the inhabitants of New England express the sentiment in their pointed vernacular.Perhaps you think me a very egotistical person, thus to dwell upon my own ideas and feelings?You must recollect, however, that I’m telling you this story myself, a story in which I am both actively and intimately interested; and how, unless I speak of my own self, are you going to learn anything about me? I have nobody to describe me, so Imustbe what you call “egotistical.”Yes, Mrs Clyde did not like me.I do not mean to say, remember, that she was impolite, or grim, or wanting in courtesy.The reverse was the case, as she was one of the smoothest, suavest persons you ever met.But, there is an exquisitely refined way in which a woman of the world can make you understand that your presence is “de trop” and your society distasteful, without saying a single word that might be construed into an offence against good breeding.Mrs Clyde was a thorough mistress of this art.Her searching eye could appraise at a glance a man’s mental calibre or a lady’s toilette. It seemed to pierce you through and through, exploring your inmost thoughts, and enlightening her as to what her course of procedure should be in regard to you, before she had spoken a word, or you either.SoIbelieved at any rate; for, to tell the honest truth, I was horribly afraid of Min’s mother. I always felt on tenter hooks in her presence, from the very first date of our acquaintanceship.On coming into the room where Min and I were regarding Dicky Chip’s performances with loving eyes, and I completely “translated” by various combinating influences, Mrs Clyde appeared to take in the situation in an instant—“an eyewink,” as a minute portion of time is happily rendered in the Teutonic tongue. Certainly, she grasped everything at a glance—even the contingency that might have possibly occurred, for, my embarrassment was not lost upon her. I saw an anxious expression hover across her face for a second, to be quickly replaced by her ordinary society look of calm, studied suavity.“Oh!” she exclaimed, in well-feigned astonishment at my presence—“Mr Lorton, how d’ye do!”“How do you do, Mrs Clyde?” said I, straightening myself up, and then bending in feeble attempt at a bow.She said nothing further for the moment, thinking it best to leave the burden of the conversation on me, so as to better promote my ease of manner and general welfare, in a “company” light. She was dexterous in fence, was Mrs Clyde.“Ah!” said I at length after an uncomfortable pause, “that was a delightful evening we had last night!” It was a polite falsehood; but then, one must say something when in “society” be it never so senseless and silly!“I am glad you enjoyed yourself,” she answered, although she knew well enough that I had done no such thing.“Oh, mamma!” said Min, coming to the rescue, “see what a dear little bird Mr Lorton has brought me! It is really so clever that it can almost do anything. Dicky, dicky, cheep!” she chirped to my young representative, who sat in the centre of the table, perched on a photographic album and with his head cocked on one side. He was staring very inquisitively at Mrs Clyde. He evidently regarded her as an enemy; for, the feathers on his crest got ruffled.“Indeed!” said her mother, in freezing accents—down to the temperature of the best Wenham Lake ice!—“I’m sure Mr Lorton is very good! Still, you know, Minnie,” she continued, “that I do not like you receiving presents in this way.”“But it is only a little bird, Mrs Clyde!” I said, at last nerved up to the speaking-point. I thought she would have told me then and there to take it back; and I awaited, in fear and trembling, what she would say next.“And he’s such a little darling, mamma!” interposed Min impulsively.Mrs Clyde could not help smiling.“That may be quite true, my dear,” she said; “but, as you know, and as Mr Lorton is probably also aware—although he is very young to have as yet mixed much in the world”—cut number two!—“it is not quite correct for young ladies to receive presents, however trifling, from gentlemen who are, comparatively, strangers to them, and to whom they have been but barely introduced!”—cut three!“Oh, mamma!” said Min, in an agony of maidenly shame. She coloured up to the eyes—at the dread of having done something she ought not to have done.Her exclamation armed me to the teeth. I would have stood up in defence of my darling against a hundred mammas, all cased in society’s best satire-proof steel. I determined to “carry the war into Egypt,” and opened fire accordingly.“Pardon me, Mrs Clyde,” said I, quite as frigidly as herself—“but the fault, if error there be on either side, lies on my shoulders. I am sure I meant no harm. I only brought the little bird as a remembrance of your daughter’s birthday, having forgotten to present it yesterday, when her other friends madetheirofferings.”My speech, however, produced no impression; she quickly parried my weak thrust, returning me tierce en carte.“But they were alloldfriends, Mr Lorton:—thatmade it quite a different thing,” she said, very coldly, although with the sweetest expression. I daresay Jael smiled very pleasantly when she drove that nail into Sisera’s temple!I thought I perceived a slight loophole for attack. “I believe,” said I, “that both Mr Horner and Mr Mawley were only introduced to Miss Clyde a short time previously to myself.”Bless you, I was a child in her practised hands! Fancy my making such a blunder as to show her where the shoe pinched me!“I think, Mr Lorton,” she replied, “thatIam the best judge as to whom I consider my daughter’s friends. Mr Mawley is a clergyman of the parish, and Mr Horner the nephew of a gentleman whom I have known for years!”—Ah! shedidknow about Horner’s expectations, then; I thought she did!—“But,” she continued, in a slightly less frigid tone, probably on account of seeing Min’s agitation, and from the belief that she had put me down sufficiently—“But, Mr Lorton, I do not wish to appear unkind; and, as you never thought of all this, most likely, my daughter may keep the bird you kindly brought her, if she likes.”“Oh, thank you, mamma,” said Min, caressing Dicky Chips, who thereupon burst into a paean of melody, in which the opening bars of the “Silver Trumpets” march and “Green grow the Rushes, O” were mixed up harmoniously, in splendid confusion. Knowing little bullfinch that he was! He succeeded, as peradventure he intended, in at once turning the conversation into a fresh channel, where Min’s constraint and my embarrassment were soon dispelled.Mrs Clyde had not been a bit put out during the entire interview.She was now, as she had been all along, as cool and collected, as suave and serene, as possible. In this respect she somewhat resembled Horner, her promising young friend—nothing could put her out—althoughhermental equilibrium resulted from habit and training; while Horner’s, in my opinion, was entirely owing to his natural apathy and inherent dulness of disposition.Shortly after hostilities had terminated between us, and a truce declared, Mrs Clyde said that she hoped that I would kindly excuse herself and Min, as they had to prepare to go out to make several calls.Thus politely dismissed, I accordingly took my leave. But, not before the astute lady of the world had contrived to impress me with the consideration that Mrs Clyde moved in a very different circle to that of Mr Lorton; and, that, if I had the assurance and audacity to aspire to the hand of “her daughter,” I need not nurse the sweet belief thatshewould lend a favourable ear to my suit. I must, in that case, be prepared to wage a war à outrance, in which there would be no quarter allowed, ononeside at least.You must not think that I make these remarks with any bitter feelings now in my heart towards Min’s mother. I only desire to tell my story truthfully; and, I may say at once that she failed in our after struggle together. I really believe that she meant honestly to do the best she could for her daughter, as “the best” was held by the articles of her social creed; and that she manoeuvred so that her “lines” should “fall in pleasant places.” Yet, those good thoughts, and best wishes, and wise plans of worldly people, effect incalculable mischief and misery and unhappiness in life.Many a sorely-tried heart has been broken by their influence—many a man and woman ruined for life and for eternity, through their means! And, although I mean no harm towards Mrs Clyde now, as I have already stated, however much I may have been opposed to her once—for the battle has been fought lang syne, and the game played out to its end—still, I can never forget that shewasmy enemy!
Oh, I see thee, old and formal, fitted to thy petty part,With a little hoard of maxims preaching down adaughter’s heart.“They were dangerous guides the feelings—she herselfwas not exempt—Truly she herself had suffer’d”—perish in thyself-contempt!
Oh, I see thee, old and formal, fitted to thy petty part,With a little hoard of maxims preaching down adaughter’s heart.“They were dangerous guides the feelings—she herselfwas not exempt—Truly she herself had suffer’d”—perish in thyself-contempt!
Mrs Clyde’s appearance coming so suddenly upon the scene, acted as an application of the cold douche to all the loving ardour with which I was addressing Min. It completely spoiled the tableau; checking my eager impetuosity in a moment, and causing me to remain, tongue-tied, in a state of almost hopeless embarrassment.
Picture the unexpected presentment of the statue of “The Commander” before Don Giovanni, and his horror at hearing words proceed from marble lips! You will, then, be able to form some faint idea of my feelings, when my pleasant position was thus interrupted by Min’s mother. I was altogether “nonplussed,” to use a vulgar but expressive word.
Had she not come in so opportunely—or inopportunely, asyoumay think—I don’t know what I might not have said.
You see, I was close to my darling, bending down over her and looking into her beautiful face. I was fathoming the depths of her soul-lighted, lustrous grey eyes; and, contiguity is sometimes apt in such circumstances, I am told, to hurry one into the rashness of desperation, bringing matters to a crisis. However, Mrs Clyde’s entrance stopped all this. I was brought up all at once, “with a round turn,” like a horse in full gallop pulled back on his haunches; or, “all standing,” as a boat with her head to the wind—whichever simile you may best prefer.
A shower-bath is a very excellent thing in its way, when taken at the proper time and under certain conditions; but those two requirements must be carefully considered beforehand, for the human frame is a fabric of very delicate organisation. Any violent change, or hasty interference with the regular and legitimate working of its functions, may throw the whole machine out of gear, just as the sudden quickening of an engine’s motions will, probably, cause it to break down or turn it off the line; while, on the other hand, a wholesome tonic, or fillip, judiciously administered when occasion seems to demand it, like our shower-bath, may often better enable it to discharge its duties and go all the more smoothly and easily—as a tiny touch of the oil-can will affect the movements of man’s mammoth mechanical contrivances, that are so typical of himself.
There are some people, I am aware, who object to the institution in toto, arguing that it hurts the system with its unexpected shock, doing more harm than good. There are others who believe in nothing but shocks, and similar methods of treatment out of the common run; and these “go in” for shower-baths, ”à discrétion”—though, without discretion, would, perhaps, be a truer description. You may not be informed, also, that the “institution” is frequently used in lunatic asylums and penal establishments as an instrument of torture and correction, being known to operate most efficaciously on obstreperous and hardened criminals, when all other means of coercion have failed.
As it is with the shower-bath physically considered, so it is in regard to the moral douche, to bring my apparent digression to a pointed application. Properly taken, it nerves up the cerebral tissues; experienced unawares, at right angles to previous paths of thought and preparation, it reduces the patient to a temporary state of mental coma and bewilderment—as exemplified in my case on the present unhappy occasion.
I never felt so completely “flabbergasted,” as sailors say, in my life, as when Min’s mother came into the room that afternoon, just at the moment when I was meditating a master-stroke against the fortress of my darling’s heart.
I trembled in my boots.
I wished the earth to open and swallow me up!
Mrs Clyde was a thorough woman of the world. Judging her out of her own circle of limited diameter, you would imagine her to be cool, unimpassioned, cold-blooded, narrow-minded; but, she could be, at the same time, bigoted enough in regard to all that concerned herself, her social surroundings and her belongings—an advocate, as warm as Demosthenes, as logical as Cicero:—a partisan amongst partisans. Warm and impulsive, where fervour and a display of seemingly-generous enthusiasm would effect the object she had in view, that of compassing her ends, she could also be as frigid as an icicle, when it likewise so suited her purpose. “Respectability” and “position” were her gods:—the “world”—herworld!—her microcosm.
Where persons and things agreed with these, being sympathetic to their rules and regulations, they naturally belonged to “the house beautiful” of her creed, for theymustbe good:—where they ran counter to such standards of merit, which were upheld by laws as unvarying and unchangeable as those of the Medes and Persians, and administered by a judge as stern as Draco—they were, theymustbe evil; and were, therefore, cast out into the outer darkness that existed beyond her sacred Lares and Penates.
Good Heavens! how can pigmy people, atoms in the vast eternity of time, thus narrow the great universe in which they are permitted to exist; dwarfing it down, to the limit of their jaundiced vision, by the application of their miserable measuring tape of “fashionable” feet and “class” inches! How can they abase grand humanity to the level of their social organon, affecting to control it with their arbitrary absolutisms, their mammon deification, their mimic infallibility! What creeping, crawling, wretched insects we all are, taken collectively; and, of all of us, the blindest, the most insignificant, and most grub-like, are, so-called men and women “of the world!”
Cold, heartless, in a general sense, and worldly as Mrs Clyde was, I could easily have excused it in her and tried to like her, for, was she not the mother of my darling, whom with all her faults she loved very dearly—her affection being judiciously tempered by those considerations paramount in the clique to which she belonged? But, Mrs Clyde did not likeme. She spurned every effort I essayed to make her my friend.
I saw this the first evening I passed in her house; and the impression I then received never wore off.
Just as you can tell at sight whether certain persons attract or repel you, through some unknown, nameless influence that you are unable to fathom; so, in like degree, can you decide—that is, if you possess a naturally sensitive mind—whether they are drawn towards yourself or remain antipathetical. I know thatIcan tell without asking them, if people whom I see for the first time are likely to fancy me or not; and, at all events, I had some inward monition which warned me that Mrs Clyde, contrary to my earnest wish that she should regard me in a friendly light, was not one of those amiable beings who would “cotton to me,” as the inhabitants of New England express the sentiment in their pointed vernacular.
Perhaps you think me a very egotistical person, thus to dwell upon my own ideas and feelings?
You must recollect, however, that I’m telling you this story myself, a story in which I am both actively and intimately interested; and how, unless I speak of my own self, are you going to learn anything about me? I have nobody to describe me, so Imustbe what you call “egotistical.”
Yes, Mrs Clyde did not like me.
I do not mean to say, remember, that she was impolite, or grim, or wanting in courtesy.
The reverse was the case, as she was one of the smoothest, suavest persons you ever met.
But, there is an exquisitely refined way in which a woman of the world can make you understand that your presence is “de trop” and your society distasteful, without saying a single word that might be construed into an offence against good breeding.
Mrs Clyde was a thorough mistress of this art.
Her searching eye could appraise at a glance a man’s mental calibre or a lady’s toilette. It seemed to pierce you through and through, exploring your inmost thoughts, and enlightening her as to what her course of procedure should be in regard to you, before she had spoken a word, or you either.
SoIbelieved at any rate; for, to tell the honest truth, I was horribly afraid of Min’s mother. I always felt on tenter hooks in her presence, from the very first date of our acquaintanceship.
On coming into the room where Min and I were regarding Dicky Chip’s performances with loving eyes, and I completely “translated” by various combinating influences, Mrs Clyde appeared to take in the situation in an instant—“an eyewink,” as a minute portion of time is happily rendered in the Teutonic tongue. Certainly, she grasped everything at a glance—even the contingency that might have possibly occurred, for, my embarrassment was not lost upon her. I saw an anxious expression hover across her face for a second, to be quickly replaced by her ordinary society look of calm, studied suavity.
“Oh!” she exclaimed, in well-feigned astonishment at my presence—“Mr Lorton, how d’ye do!”
“How do you do, Mrs Clyde?” said I, straightening myself up, and then bending in feeble attempt at a bow.
She said nothing further for the moment, thinking it best to leave the burden of the conversation on me, so as to better promote my ease of manner and general welfare, in a “company” light. She was dexterous in fence, was Mrs Clyde.
“Ah!” said I at length after an uncomfortable pause, “that was a delightful evening we had last night!” It was a polite falsehood; but then, one must say something when in “society” be it never so senseless and silly!
“I am glad you enjoyed yourself,” she answered, although she knew well enough that I had done no such thing.
“Oh, mamma!” said Min, coming to the rescue, “see what a dear little bird Mr Lorton has brought me! It is really so clever that it can almost do anything. Dicky, dicky, cheep!” she chirped to my young representative, who sat in the centre of the table, perched on a photographic album and with his head cocked on one side. He was staring very inquisitively at Mrs Clyde. He evidently regarded her as an enemy; for, the feathers on his crest got ruffled.
“Indeed!” said her mother, in freezing accents—down to the temperature of the best Wenham Lake ice!—“I’m sure Mr Lorton is very good! Still, you know, Minnie,” she continued, “that I do not like you receiving presents in this way.”
“But it is only a little bird, Mrs Clyde!” I said, at last nerved up to the speaking-point. I thought she would have told me then and there to take it back; and I awaited, in fear and trembling, what she would say next.
“And he’s such a little darling, mamma!” interposed Min impulsively.
Mrs Clyde could not help smiling.
“That may be quite true, my dear,” she said; “but, as you know, and as Mr Lorton is probably also aware—although he is very young to have as yet mixed much in the world”—cut number two!—“it is not quite correct for young ladies to receive presents, however trifling, from gentlemen who are, comparatively, strangers to them, and to whom they have been but barely introduced!”—cut three!
“Oh, mamma!” said Min, in an agony of maidenly shame. She coloured up to the eyes—at the dread of having done something she ought not to have done.
Her exclamation armed me to the teeth. I would have stood up in defence of my darling against a hundred mammas, all cased in society’s best satire-proof steel. I determined to “carry the war into Egypt,” and opened fire accordingly.
“Pardon me, Mrs Clyde,” said I, quite as frigidly as herself—“but the fault, if error there be on either side, lies on my shoulders. I am sure I meant no harm. I only brought the little bird as a remembrance of your daughter’s birthday, having forgotten to present it yesterday, when her other friends madetheirofferings.”
My speech, however, produced no impression; she quickly parried my weak thrust, returning me tierce en carte.
“But they were alloldfriends, Mr Lorton:—thatmade it quite a different thing,” she said, very coldly, although with the sweetest expression. I daresay Jael smiled very pleasantly when she drove that nail into Sisera’s temple!
I thought I perceived a slight loophole for attack. “I believe,” said I, “that both Mr Horner and Mr Mawley were only introduced to Miss Clyde a short time previously to myself.”
Bless you, I was a child in her practised hands! Fancy my making such a blunder as to show her where the shoe pinched me!
“I think, Mr Lorton,” she replied, “thatIam the best judge as to whom I consider my daughter’s friends. Mr Mawley is a clergyman of the parish, and Mr Horner the nephew of a gentleman whom I have known for years!”—Ah! shedidknow about Horner’s expectations, then; I thought she did!—“But,” she continued, in a slightly less frigid tone, probably on account of seeing Min’s agitation, and from the belief that she had put me down sufficiently—“But, Mr Lorton, I do not wish to appear unkind; and, as you never thought of all this, most likely, my daughter may keep the bird you kindly brought her, if she likes.”
“Oh, thank you, mamma,” said Min, caressing Dicky Chips, who thereupon burst into a paean of melody, in which the opening bars of the “Silver Trumpets” march and “Green grow the Rushes, O” were mixed up harmoniously, in splendid confusion. Knowing little bullfinch that he was! He succeeded, as peradventure he intended, in at once turning the conversation into a fresh channel, where Min’s constraint and my embarrassment were soon dispelled.
Mrs Clyde had not been a bit put out during the entire interview.
She was now, as she had been all along, as cool and collected, as suave and serene, as possible. In this respect she somewhat resembled Horner, her promising young friend—nothing could put her out—althoughhermental equilibrium resulted from habit and training; while Horner’s, in my opinion, was entirely owing to his natural apathy and inherent dulness of disposition.
Shortly after hostilities had terminated between us, and a truce declared, Mrs Clyde said that she hoped that I would kindly excuse herself and Min, as they had to prepare to go out to make several calls.
Thus politely dismissed, I accordingly took my leave. But, not before the astute lady of the world had contrived to impress me with the consideration that Mrs Clyde moved in a very different circle to that of Mr Lorton; and, that, if I had the assurance and audacity to aspire to the hand of “her daughter,” I need not nurse the sweet belief thatshewould lend a favourable ear to my suit. I must, in that case, be prepared to wage a war à outrance, in which there would be no quarter allowed, ononeside at least.
You must not think that I make these remarks with any bitter feelings now in my heart towards Min’s mother. I only desire to tell my story truthfully; and, I may say at once that she failed in our after struggle together. I really believe that she meant honestly to do the best she could for her daughter, as “the best” was held by the articles of her social creed; and that she manoeuvred so that her “lines” should “fall in pleasant places.” Yet, those good thoughts, and best wishes, and wise plans of worldly people, effect incalculable mischief and misery and unhappiness in life.
Many a sorely-tried heart has been broken by their influence—many a man and woman ruined for life and for eternity, through their means! And, although I mean no harm towards Mrs Clyde now, as I have already stated, however much I may have been opposed to her once—for the battle has been fought lang syne, and the game played out to its end—still, I can never forget that shewasmy enemy!
Chapter Ten.“A Fool’s Paradise.”Gather ye rose-buds while ye may,Old Time is still a-flying;And the same flower that blooms to-day,To-morrow may be dying!Rost nubila Phoebus; “after clouds, comes sunshine.”I did not allow the coldness of Min’s mother to dwell long in my mind.What, if Mrs Clyde did not appear to like me? Could I alter the obliquity of her mental vision by brooding over it, and worrying myself into a fit of misanthropy? Would it not be better for me to allow matters to run their appointed course, in accordance with the inexorable law of events, and not to anticipate those evils with which the future might be pregnant? The followers of Mahomet are wise men in their generation. They take everything that happens to them with the philosophy of their faith. Kismet! It is their fate, may Allah be praised! they say.I was perfectly satisfied to accommodate myself to circumstances; and gathered flowers, according to wise old Herrick’s advice, to my heart’s content. I did not seek to inquire about the future:—why should I?Time flew by on golden pinions, and I was as happy as the day was long. Winter made way for spring, spring gave place to summer. The halcyon hours sped brighter and brighter for me, from the time of violets—when nature’s sweetest nurslings modestly blossomed beneath the hedge-rows.Then came “the month of roses,” as the Persians appropriately style that duodecimal portion of the year. It was a happier time still; for, I loved Min, and I thought that Min loved me.The very seasons seemed to draw me nearer to her.In the spring the violets’ scented breath recalled her whenever I inhaled their fragrance; while, the nightingale’s amorous trills—we had nightingales to visit us in our suburb, closely situated as it was to London—appeared to me to embody the impassioned words that Tennyson puts in the mouth of his love-wooing sea maiden—“We will kiss sweet kisses, and speak sweet words;O listen, listen, your eyes shall glisten,With pleasure and love and jubilee!”And, in the early summer, when smiling June came in with her flowery train, making a garden of the whole earth, the twining roses, of crimson and white and red, were all emblematic of my darling. They were love-gages of her own sweet self; for, was she not my rose, my violet, that budded and blossomed in purple and pink alone for me—the idol of my heart, my fancy’s queen?With all these fond imaginings, however, I did not see much of her.I had very few opportunities for unfettered intercourse. I believe I could number on the fingers of one hand all the special little tête-à-tête conversations that Min and I ever had together. This was not owing to any fault of mine, you may be sure; but was, entirely, the result of “circumstances,” over which neither of us had “any control.”“Society” was the cause of it all. Had her mother been never so willing, and the fates never so kindly lent their most propitious aid to my suit, it is quite probable that we might not have had the chance of associating much more together than we did; nor would our interviews have happened oftener, I think.You see people of the upper and middle-classes have far less facility afforded them, than is common in lower social grades, for intimate acquaintance; and really know very little, in the long run, of those of whom they may become enamoured and subsequently marry, prior to the tying of the nuptial noose.Laura and Augustus, may, it is true, meet each other out frequently, in the houses of their mutual friends at parties, and at various gatherings of one sort and another; but what means have they of learning anything trustworthy respecting the inner self of their respective enchanter or enchantress?Do you think they can manage thus to summarise their several points and merits, during the pauses of the Trois Temps, or while nailing “a rover” at croquet, or, mayhap, when promenading at the Botanical?I doubt it much.Professor Owen, it is said, will, if you submit to his notice a couple of inches of the bone of any bird, beast, fish, or reptile, at once describe to you the characteristics of the animal to which it belonged; its habits, and everything connected with it; besides telling you when and where it lived and died, and whether it existed at the pre-Adamite period or not—and that, too, without your giving him the least previous information touching the osseous substance about which you asked his opinion.But, granting that the most gigantic theory might be built up on some slighter practical evidence, I would defy anyone—even that philosophising German who evolved a camel from the depths of his inner moral consciousness—to determine the capabilities of any young lady for the future onerous duties of wife and mother, and mistress of a household, merely from hearing her say what coloured ice she would have after the heated dance; or, from her statements that the evening was “flat” or “nice,” the season “dull” or “busy,” and the heroine of the last new novel “delightful,” while the villain was correspondingly “odious.”He couldn’t do it.The commonplace conversation of every-day society is no criterion for character.With Jemima, the maid-of-all-work, and Bob, the baker’s assistant, her “young man,” it is quite a different thing. They have no trammels placed in the way of their free association; and, I would venture to assert, know more of one another in one month of company-keeping than Augustus and Laura will achieve in the course of any number of seasons of fashionable intercourse. A “Sunday out” beats a croquet party hollow, in its opportunities for intimacy—as may readily be believed.It is, really, curious this ignorance common in middle-class husbands and wives, sons-in-law and daughters-in-law, respecting their several attributes and characteristics before they became connected by marriage, and time makes them better acquainted—very curious, indeed!An American essayist, writing on this point, says—“When your mother came and told her mother that she wasengaged, and your grandmother told your grandfather, how much did they know of the intimate nature of the young gentleman to whom she had pledged her existence? I will not be so hard as to ask how much your respected mamma knew at that time of the intimate nature of your respected papa, though, if we should compare a young girl’sman-as-she-thinks-himwith a forty-summered matron’sman-as-she-finds-him, I have my doubts as to whether the second would be a fac-simile of the first.” And yet, young men and women of respectable standing “over the way,” are allowed far greater latitude for intercommunication than our own; so much so, that I must say, I would not like our budding misses to go the lengths of the American girl, who receives her own company when she pleases, without any previous permission, and can go abroad to places of public amusement, or, indeed, anywhere she likes, without a chaperon.Still, there is a medium in all things; and, without verging to the extreme of our Transatlantic cousins, our conventionalities might be so tempered by the introduction of a little genuine human nature, as to admit of a trifling freer intercourse between our youth and young maidenhood of the upper classes.Goethe, you may remember, makes Werther, whose “sorrows” fascinated a generation in the days of our great grandmothers, fall in love with Charlotte, entirely through seeing her cutting bread and butter—nothing more or less!A very unromantic situation for fostering the growth of the tender passion, you say?Ah! but the literary lion of Weimar meant a good deal more in his description than lies on the outer surface. He wished to teach a frivolous school that true affection will ripen better under the genial influences of domestic duties and home surroundings, than the masked world believes.A girl’s chances of marriage, the usual end and aim of feminine existence, are not increased in a direct ratio with the number of her ball dresses!Let your eligible suitors but see those young ladies who may wish to change their maiden state of single blessedness,at home, where they are engaged living their simple lives out in the ordinary avocations of the family circle; and not only abroad, in the whirligig of society, where they have no opportunities for displaying theirrealnatures.Enterprising mammas might then find that their daughters would get more readily “off their hands,” at a less expense than they now incur by pursuing Coelebs through all the turnings and windings of Vanity Fair.Besides, they would have the additional assurance, that they would be better mated to those who prefer studying them under the domestic regime, than if they were hawked about to parties and concerts without end, to be angled for by the butterflies of fashion, who can only exist in the atmosphere of a ballroom and would die of nil admirari-ism if out of sight of Coote’s baton!Your man really worth marrying, in the true sense of the word and not speaking of the value of his rent-roll, likes to know something more of his future wife-that-is-to-be, beyond what he is able to pick up from meeting her in society. Think, how many of her most engaging charms he must remain ignorant of; and then, what on earth can he know of her disposition?The most hot-tempered young lady in the world will manage to control her anger, and tutor herself to smile sweetly, when her awkward, albeit rich, partner tears off her train during his elephantine gambols in the gallop. She may even say, with the most unaffected affectation of perfect candour that “really it doesn’t matter at all,” laughing at the mishap; but I should just like you to hear what she exclaims when her obnoxious little brother, Master Tommy, playfully dabbles his raspberry-jam’d fingers over her violet silk dress, or converts her new Dolly Varden hat into a temporary entomological museum!Observation in the family would enable Coelebs to mark these little episodes more closely, judging for himself the temper and tact of the idol of his fancy; while, at the same time, he might discover many admirable little traits of kindness and charity and grace, which can only be seen to advantage when displayed naturally in the home circle.The moral is obvious.Depend upon it, if there were a little more of this freedom of intercourse between our girls and young men, we would have a considerably less number of sour, disappointed virgins in our annual census; and, less vice and dissipation on the part of hot-brained youths, who, frequently, only give way to “fast life,” through feeling a void in their daily routine of existence that stereotyped fashion is unable to fill. Besides, it would be a perfect godsend to thousands of unhappy bachelors, who sigh for the realities of domesticity amidst the artificiality and rottenness of London society.Some good-natured Mayfair dame, I believe, introduced the “Kettledrum” for the especial saving of poor young men who did not know what to do with their afternoons in our arid Belgravian desert. But, a little more is wanted besides five-o’clock tea; and, until it is granted, we will continue to have matrimonial infelicity, marriages “of convenience,” and, no marriages at all!Now, I think, I have dilated enough upon the great question matrimonial. I will not apologise for my digression, because I’ve only said what I have long wished and intended to say about it on the first convenient opportunity. However, as I have at last succeeded in making a clean breast of the matter, I will revert to my original case.Owing to the fact of our suburb being unfashionable, and our society humdrum, as already explained, I had the pleasure of associating more fully with Min, and seeing more of her domestic character than I might have done if we had been both of “the world,” worldly; although, as I have also mentioned, I was not able to adore her at home very often, in consequence of my noticing that her mother did not like me—seeing which, of course I did not push my welcome at her house to too fine a point.Don’t think that Mrs Clyde was inhospitable. Nothing of the sort. She gave me a general invitation, on the contrary, to come in whenever I pleased of an evening “to have a little music;” giving expression at the same time to the sentiment, that she would be “very happy” to see me. But, after that affair connected with Dicky Chips, I learnt caution. I thought it better for me to make my approaches warily. Even to have the gratification of gazing on one’s heart’s darling, it is not comfortable, for a sensitive person, to accept too often the courtesies of a hostess, by whom you are inwardly conscious that you are not welcomed.Still, I did see her at home sometimes.I used to go there, at first only occasionally; and then, when I found Mrs Clyde did not quite eat me up, in spite of her cold manner, I went regularly once a fortnight—always making my visit on the same day and at the same hour of the evening; so, that Min learnt to expect me when the evening came round, and told me that she would have recognised my modest knock at the door, out of a hundred others.Sometimes she and her mother and myself were all alone; but, more frequently, other casual visitors would drop in, too, like me.I liked the former evenings the best, however, as I had her all to myself, comparatively speaking.I could then watch her varying moods more attentively—the tender solicitude and earnest affection she evinced for her mother:—the piquant coquetry with which she treated me.She had such dear little, characteristic ways about her—ways that were quite peculiar to herself.I got to know them all.When she was specially interested in anything that one was saying, she would lean forwards, with a deep, reflective look in her clear grey eyes, in rapt attention, resting her little dimpled chin on her bent hand:—when she disagreed with something you said, she would make such a pretty quaint moue, tossing her head defiantly, and raise her curving eyebrows in astonishment that you should dare to differ from her.She seldom laughed—I hate to hear girls continually giggling and guffawing at the merest nothings so long as they proceed from male lips!When Min laughed, her laughter was just like the rippling of silvery music and of the most catching, contagious nature. She generally only smiled, at even the most humorous incidents; and her smile was the sweetest I ever saw in anyone. It lit up her whole face with merriment, giving the grey eyes the most bewitching expression, and bringing into prominent notice a tiny, dear little dimple in her chin, which you might not have previously observed.Her smile it was that completed my captivation, that first time that I saw her in church and lost my heart in a moment:—her smile was ever and always her greatest charm.Of course I remember all her little darling ways and coquetries.Love is a great master of the art of mnemonics, and might be quoted by Mr Stokes as one of the greatest “aids to memory” that is known.Trifling trivialities, by others passed by unobserved, are graphically jotted down with indelible ink in his cordal note-book—“For indeed I knowOf no more subtle master under heaven,Than is the maiden passion for a maid.”When no other people came in, Min would always, on the evening of my visit, make a rule of turning out her workbox, and arranging its contents over again—“in order,” as she told me, although I had thought it the picture of neatness and tidiness in its original state.She was in the habit on these occasions of restoring to her mother sundry little articles which she confessed to having purloined during the week. I recollect how there used to be a regular little joke at her expense on the subject of kleptomania.How well I remember that little workbox, and its arrangements! I could tell you, now, every item of its varied contents,—the perfumed sachet, the ugly little pincushion which she had had since dollhood, the little scraps from her favourite poets, which she had copied out and kept in this sacred repository, never revealing them save to sympathising eyes. How angry she was with me once, for not thinking, with her, that Longfellow’s “Psalm of Life” was the “nicest” thing ever written:—what a long time it was afterwards before she would again allow me to inspect her secret treasures and pet things, as she had previously permitted me to do!This all used to go on while her mother was playing; and then, when the workbox was arranged in apple-pie order, Min herself would go to the piano and sing my favourite ballads, I listening to her from the opposite corner of the room, for she hated having her music turned over by any one.In addition to these rare opportunities of studying my darling and feeding my love for her, I used to see her at church every Sunday.From her window, also, when dog Catch and I took our walks abroad, I often had a bright smile from “somebody,” who happened always to be tending her cherished plants just at the moment when I passed by.Sometimes, too, I met her at Miss Pimpernell’s, or out walking:—thus, in a short time, I learnt to know all her little plans and wishes, and her sentiments about everything.Her likes and dislikes were my own. It was a strange coincidence, that if Min should express some opinion one day, I found, when we next met, that I seemed to have involuntarily come round to her view; while, if I let fall any casual remark, Min was certain, on some future occasion, to repeat it as if it were her own.I suppose the coincidence was owing to our mental “rapport,” as the French express it.The only drawback to my happiness, was Mr Mawley, whom I disliked now more than ever.Although he had all the rest of the week in which to pay his devoirs, having carte blanche from Mrs Clyde to run in and out of her house whenever he so pleased—he took it into his head to drop in regularly on the very evening that I had selected and thought especially mine. I believe he only did it to spite me, being of a most aggravating temperament!When he was there, too, he was constantly endeavouring to make me appear ridiculous.As certainly as I said anything, or advanced an opinion, he, as certainly, contradicted me, taking the opposite side of the question. This, of course, made me angry and unamiable. He was so obstinately obtuse, too, that he would not take a hint. He must have seen that his company was not wanted, by me at least, and that I did not desire any conversation with him. I’ve no doubt of his doing it on purpose!He prided himself on his eminently practical mind, being incapable of seeing romance even in the works of nature and nature’s God; and he was continually cutting jokes at my “sentimentality,” as he was pleased to style my more poetical views of life and its surroundings.Whenever I gave him the chance, he was safe to slide in some of his vulgar bathos after any heroic sentiment or personal opinion I may have uttered. This, naturally, would rouse my temper, never very pacific; and made me so cross, that I was often on the verge of quarrelling with Min on his account!The worst of it was, also, that he was always so confoundedly cool and collected, that he generally came out of these encounters in the character of an injured martyr or inoffensive person, who had to bear the unprovoked assaults of my bearish brusquerie—making me, as a matter of course, appear in a very unfavourable light.I remember, one day in particular, when he was so exceedingly irritating to me, that he goaded me on into addressing him quite rudely.Min was very much distressed at my behaviour, remonstrating with me for it; and this did not of course make me feel more kindly-disposed towards the curate, who had now become my perfect antipathy.We had been down to the church—Miss Pimpernell, the Dasher girls, Min, and myself,—to hear the organist make trial of a new stop which had been lately added to his instrument. Listening to the small sacred concert that thereupon ensued, we had remained until quite late in the evening; and, on our way home through the churchyard, as we loitered along, looking at the graves, and trying to decipher by the slowly waning light the half illegible inscriptions on the headstones, we came across Mr Mawley.Min and I were walking in front, talking seriously and reflectively, as befitted the time and place.We were moralising how—“Side by sideThe poor man and the son of prideLie calm and still.”“I wonder,” said Min, “whether it is true that the dust of the departed dead blossoms out again in flowers and trees, replenishing the earth? Just fancy, how many illustrious persons even have died since the beginning of the world! Why, in England alone we could number our heroes by thousands; and it is nice to think that they may still flourish perhaps in these old oak trees above us!”“Ah,” said I, “don’t you recollect those lines about England;—“‘Beneath each swinging forest bough,Some arm as stout in death reposes—From wave-washed foot to heaven-kissed brow,Her valour’s life-blood runs in roses;Nay, let our brothers of the WestWrite, smiling, in their florid pages,One half her soil has walked the rest,In poets, heroes, martyrs, sages!’”“What!” exclaimed Mr Mawley, who had come up close behind us before we perceived him, and at once pushed into the conversation. “‘One half our soil has walked the rest,’ Lorton? That’s a palpable absurdity! We’ll take England to be three hundred miles long and two hundred broad, on an average; and, allowing a uniform depth of twelve feet throughout for cultivable soil, that calculation will give us some—let me see, three hundred by two hundred, multiplied by seventeen hundred and sixty to bring it into yards, and then by three to reduce it to feet, when we multiply it again by twelve to get the solidity—that gives us nearly four billions cubic feet of soil, one-half of which would be two billions. Fancy, Lorton, two thousand millions cubic feet of heroes, eh! But, you havn’t told us what amount of dust and ashes you would apportion to each separate hero—” he thus proceeded, with his caustic wit, seeing that Bessie Dasher and her sister were both laughing; and even Min was smiling, at his absurdities. “Strange, perhaps Oliver Cromwell is now a mangel wurzel, and poor King Charles the First an apple tree! Depend upon it, Lorton, that is the origin of what is called the King Pippin!”He made me “as mad as a hatter,” with his “chaff” at my favourite quotation.I was almost boiling over with rage.I restrained myself, however, at the moment, and answered him in, for me, comparatively mild terms.“Mr Mawley,” said I, “you have no more imagination than a turnip-top! You must possess the taste of a Goth or Vandal, to turn such noble lines into your low ridicule!”He did not mind my retort a bit, however. He seemed to think it beneath his notice; for, he only said “Thank you, Lorton!” and dropped back behind us again with Bessie Dasher, while Seraphine joined company with little Miss Pimpernell—Min and I being still together in front.By-and-by our talk was resumed in the same strain from which the curate’s interpellation had diverted it. I had just spoken of Gay the fabulist. I told her of his sad history:—how it was shown in the bitter epitaph which he had composed for his own tomb—“Life’s a jest, and all things show it;Ithoughtso once, and now Iknowit!”From this we drifted on to Gray’s Elegy, through the near similarity of the two poets’ names.“I think,” said Min, “that that unadded verse of his which is always left out of the published poem, is nicer than any of the regular ones; for it touches on two of my favourites, the violet and the dear little robin redbreast!”“You mean, I suppose,” said I, “the one commencing—“‘There, scatter’d oft, the earliest of the year—’”“Yes,” said Min, continuing it in her low, sweet voice—“‘By hands unseen, are showers of violets found;The redbreast loves to build and warble there,And little footsteps lightly print the ground.’”“You like violets, then?” I asked. “I think you told me you did, though, before.”“Yes,” she said impulsively, “I love them, I love them, I love them!”“Ah!” thought I to myself, determining that she should never from henceforth be without an ample supply of violets, if I could help it, “Ah, I wish you would loveme!” But, I did not give utterance to the thought, contenting myself with keeping up the conversation respecting the Elegy. “It is generally considered,” said I aloud, “that the best verse of Gray’s is that in which he says—“‘Some village Hampden, that with dauntless breast,The little tyrant of his fields withstood,Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,Some Cromwell guiltless of his country’s blood!’”“Hullo, Lorton!” shouted out Mr Mawley again close at my back, when I had believed him to be some distance off. “Hullo, Lorton! Don’t you get into heroics, my boy. Does not the ‘noble bard’ make the Prince of Denmark say, that the dust of Alexander the Great might have served to fill the bung of a cask and that—“‘Imperial Caesar, dead and turn’d to clay,Might stop a hole to keep the wind away!’”This was too much of a good thing.I made up my mind to stand his nonsense no longer.“I wish you would mind your own business,” said I, as rudely as possible, “and keep your ridiculous conversation to yourself; I want none of it; I hate to hear fools prating about things they cannot understand.”He got quite red in the face; but he kept his temper admirably.“When you are cool again, Lorton,” he said to me, with an expression of amiability and mingled pity on his face, that made him look to me like Mephistopheles, “you will, I know, be sorry for what you’ve said; and when you learn good manners I will be glad to speak to you again!” and, he walked back to the church, with the air of a person who had been deeply injured, but who had yet the magnanimity to forgive if he could not forget—wishing adieu to our little party, of whom none but Min had overheard what I had said, with his usual cordiality, as if nothing had happened to disturb him.“Oh, Frank!” exclaimed Min, when he had got out of sight and we were once more alone, “how could you be so rude and un-courteous—to a clergyman, too! I’m ashamed of you! I am hurt at any friend of mine acting like that!”“But he was so provoking,” I stammered, trying to excuse myself. The tone of Min’s voice pained me. It was full of grief and reproach: I knew its every intonation. “He’s always worrying me and rubbing against me the wrong way!”“That does not matter, Frank,” she replied in the same grave accents, as coldly as if she was speaking to a stranger—“a gentleman should be a gentleman always. I tell you what,”—she continued, turning away as she spoke—“I will never speak to you again, Frank, until you apologise to Mr Mawley for the language you have used!”She then left my side, taking Miss Pimpernell’s arm and saying something about having a long chat with her.The end of it was that she had her way.I had to go back to search for the curate and ask his pardon, like a dog with its tail between its legs.I was certain he would exult over it, and he did.He had not the generosity to meet me half-way and accept my apology frankly at once.He made me humble myself to the full, seizing the opportunity to read me a long homily on Christian forbearance, in which, I fervently believed at the time, he was almost as deficient as myself.However, I had the consolation of knowing that my apology was not made on his account, but entirely for the sake of my darling Min; although, I confess, I did not like to see her taking such an interest in him as to ask it of me.
Gather ye rose-buds while ye may,Old Time is still a-flying;And the same flower that blooms to-day,To-morrow may be dying!
Gather ye rose-buds while ye may,Old Time is still a-flying;And the same flower that blooms to-day,To-morrow may be dying!
Rost nubila Phoebus; “after clouds, comes sunshine.”
I did not allow the coldness of Min’s mother to dwell long in my mind.
What, if Mrs Clyde did not appear to like me? Could I alter the obliquity of her mental vision by brooding over it, and worrying myself into a fit of misanthropy? Would it not be better for me to allow matters to run their appointed course, in accordance with the inexorable law of events, and not to anticipate those evils with which the future might be pregnant? The followers of Mahomet are wise men in their generation. They take everything that happens to them with the philosophy of their faith. Kismet! It is their fate, may Allah be praised! they say.
I was perfectly satisfied to accommodate myself to circumstances; and gathered flowers, according to wise old Herrick’s advice, to my heart’s content. I did not seek to inquire about the future:—why should I?
Time flew by on golden pinions, and I was as happy as the day was long. Winter made way for spring, spring gave place to summer. The halcyon hours sped brighter and brighter for me, from the time of violets—when nature’s sweetest nurslings modestly blossomed beneath the hedge-rows.
Then came “the month of roses,” as the Persians appropriately style that duodecimal portion of the year. It was a happier time still; for, I loved Min, and I thought that Min loved me.
The very seasons seemed to draw me nearer to her.
In the spring the violets’ scented breath recalled her whenever I inhaled their fragrance; while, the nightingale’s amorous trills—we had nightingales to visit us in our suburb, closely situated as it was to London—appeared to me to embody the impassioned words that Tennyson puts in the mouth of his love-wooing sea maiden—
“We will kiss sweet kisses, and speak sweet words;O listen, listen, your eyes shall glisten,With pleasure and love and jubilee!”
“We will kiss sweet kisses, and speak sweet words;O listen, listen, your eyes shall glisten,With pleasure and love and jubilee!”
And, in the early summer, when smiling June came in with her flowery train, making a garden of the whole earth, the twining roses, of crimson and white and red, were all emblematic of my darling. They were love-gages of her own sweet self; for, was she not my rose, my violet, that budded and blossomed in purple and pink alone for me—the idol of my heart, my fancy’s queen?
With all these fond imaginings, however, I did not see much of her.
I had very few opportunities for unfettered intercourse. I believe I could number on the fingers of one hand all the special little tête-à-tête conversations that Min and I ever had together. This was not owing to any fault of mine, you may be sure; but was, entirely, the result of “circumstances,” over which neither of us had “any control.”
“Society” was the cause of it all. Had her mother been never so willing, and the fates never so kindly lent their most propitious aid to my suit, it is quite probable that we might not have had the chance of associating much more together than we did; nor would our interviews have happened oftener, I think.
You see people of the upper and middle-classes have far less facility afforded them, than is common in lower social grades, for intimate acquaintance; and really know very little, in the long run, of those of whom they may become enamoured and subsequently marry, prior to the tying of the nuptial noose.
Laura and Augustus, may, it is true, meet each other out frequently, in the houses of their mutual friends at parties, and at various gatherings of one sort and another; but what means have they of learning anything trustworthy respecting the inner self of their respective enchanter or enchantress?
Do you think they can manage thus to summarise their several points and merits, during the pauses of the Trois Temps, or while nailing “a rover” at croquet, or, mayhap, when promenading at the Botanical?
I doubt it much.
Professor Owen, it is said, will, if you submit to his notice a couple of inches of the bone of any bird, beast, fish, or reptile, at once describe to you the characteristics of the animal to which it belonged; its habits, and everything connected with it; besides telling you when and where it lived and died, and whether it existed at the pre-Adamite period or not—and that, too, without your giving him the least previous information touching the osseous substance about which you asked his opinion.
But, granting that the most gigantic theory might be built up on some slighter practical evidence, I would defy anyone—even that philosophising German who evolved a camel from the depths of his inner moral consciousness—to determine the capabilities of any young lady for the future onerous duties of wife and mother, and mistress of a household, merely from hearing her say what coloured ice she would have after the heated dance; or, from her statements that the evening was “flat” or “nice,” the season “dull” or “busy,” and the heroine of the last new novel “delightful,” while the villain was correspondingly “odious.”
He couldn’t do it.
The commonplace conversation of every-day society is no criterion for character.
With Jemima, the maid-of-all-work, and Bob, the baker’s assistant, her “young man,” it is quite a different thing. They have no trammels placed in the way of their free association; and, I would venture to assert, know more of one another in one month of company-keeping than Augustus and Laura will achieve in the course of any number of seasons of fashionable intercourse. A “Sunday out” beats a croquet party hollow, in its opportunities for intimacy—as may readily be believed.
It is, really, curious this ignorance common in middle-class husbands and wives, sons-in-law and daughters-in-law, respecting their several attributes and characteristics before they became connected by marriage, and time makes them better acquainted—very curious, indeed!
An American essayist, writing on this point, says—“When your mother came and told her mother that she wasengaged, and your grandmother told your grandfather, how much did they know of the intimate nature of the young gentleman to whom she had pledged her existence? I will not be so hard as to ask how much your respected mamma knew at that time of the intimate nature of your respected papa, though, if we should compare a young girl’sman-as-she-thinks-himwith a forty-summered matron’sman-as-she-finds-him, I have my doubts as to whether the second would be a fac-simile of the first.” And yet, young men and women of respectable standing “over the way,” are allowed far greater latitude for intercommunication than our own; so much so, that I must say, I would not like our budding misses to go the lengths of the American girl, who receives her own company when she pleases, without any previous permission, and can go abroad to places of public amusement, or, indeed, anywhere she likes, without a chaperon.
Still, there is a medium in all things; and, without verging to the extreme of our Transatlantic cousins, our conventionalities might be so tempered by the introduction of a little genuine human nature, as to admit of a trifling freer intercourse between our youth and young maidenhood of the upper classes.
Goethe, you may remember, makes Werther, whose “sorrows” fascinated a generation in the days of our great grandmothers, fall in love with Charlotte, entirely through seeing her cutting bread and butter—nothing more or less!
A very unromantic situation for fostering the growth of the tender passion, you say?
Ah! but the literary lion of Weimar meant a good deal more in his description than lies on the outer surface. He wished to teach a frivolous school that true affection will ripen better under the genial influences of domestic duties and home surroundings, than the masked world believes.
A girl’s chances of marriage, the usual end and aim of feminine existence, are not increased in a direct ratio with the number of her ball dresses!
Let your eligible suitors but see those young ladies who may wish to change their maiden state of single blessedness,at home, where they are engaged living their simple lives out in the ordinary avocations of the family circle; and not only abroad, in the whirligig of society, where they have no opportunities for displaying theirrealnatures.
Enterprising mammas might then find that their daughters would get more readily “off their hands,” at a less expense than they now incur by pursuing Coelebs through all the turnings and windings of Vanity Fair.
Besides, they would have the additional assurance, that they would be better mated to those who prefer studying them under the domestic regime, than if they were hawked about to parties and concerts without end, to be angled for by the butterflies of fashion, who can only exist in the atmosphere of a ballroom and would die of nil admirari-ism if out of sight of Coote’s baton!
Your man really worth marrying, in the true sense of the word and not speaking of the value of his rent-roll, likes to know something more of his future wife-that-is-to-be, beyond what he is able to pick up from meeting her in society. Think, how many of her most engaging charms he must remain ignorant of; and then, what on earth can he know of her disposition?
The most hot-tempered young lady in the world will manage to control her anger, and tutor herself to smile sweetly, when her awkward, albeit rich, partner tears off her train during his elephantine gambols in the gallop. She may even say, with the most unaffected affectation of perfect candour that “really it doesn’t matter at all,” laughing at the mishap; but I should just like you to hear what she exclaims when her obnoxious little brother, Master Tommy, playfully dabbles his raspberry-jam’d fingers over her violet silk dress, or converts her new Dolly Varden hat into a temporary entomological museum!
Observation in the family would enable Coelebs to mark these little episodes more closely, judging for himself the temper and tact of the idol of his fancy; while, at the same time, he might discover many admirable little traits of kindness and charity and grace, which can only be seen to advantage when displayed naturally in the home circle.
The moral is obvious.
Depend upon it, if there were a little more of this freedom of intercourse between our girls and young men, we would have a considerably less number of sour, disappointed virgins in our annual census; and, less vice and dissipation on the part of hot-brained youths, who, frequently, only give way to “fast life,” through feeling a void in their daily routine of existence that stereotyped fashion is unable to fill. Besides, it would be a perfect godsend to thousands of unhappy bachelors, who sigh for the realities of domesticity amidst the artificiality and rottenness of London society.
Some good-natured Mayfair dame, I believe, introduced the “Kettledrum” for the especial saving of poor young men who did not know what to do with their afternoons in our arid Belgravian desert. But, a little more is wanted besides five-o’clock tea; and, until it is granted, we will continue to have matrimonial infelicity, marriages “of convenience,” and, no marriages at all!
Now, I think, I have dilated enough upon the great question matrimonial. I will not apologise for my digression, because I’ve only said what I have long wished and intended to say about it on the first convenient opportunity. However, as I have at last succeeded in making a clean breast of the matter, I will revert to my original case.
Owing to the fact of our suburb being unfashionable, and our society humdrum, as already explained, I had the pleasure of associating more fully with Min, and seeing more of her domestic character than I might have done if we had been both of “the world,” worldly; although, as I have also mentioned, I was not able to adore her at home very often, in consequence of my noticing that her mother did not like me—seeing which, of course I did not push my welcome at her house to too fine a point.
Don’t think that Mrs Clyde was inhospitable. Nothing of the sort. She gave me a general invitation, on the contrary, to come in whenever I pleased of an evening “to have a little music;” giving expression at the same time to the sentiment, that she would be “very happy” to see me. But, after that affair connected with Dicky Chips, I learnt caution. I thought it better for me to make my approaches warily. Even to have the gratification of gazing on one’s heart’s darling, it is not comfortable, for a sensitive person, to accept too often the courtesies of a hostess, by whom you are inwardly conscious that you are not welcomed.
Still, I did see her at home sometimes.
I used to go there, at first only occasionally; and then, when I found Mrs Clyde did not quite eat me up, in spite of her cold manner, I went regularly once a fortnight—always making my visit on the same day and at the same hour of the evening; so, that Min learnt to expect me when the evening came round, and told me that she would have recognised my modest knock at the door, out of a hundred others.
Sometimes she and her mother and myself were all alone; but, more frequently, other casual visitors would drop in, too, like me.
I liked the former evenings the best, however, as I had her all to myself, comparatively speaking.
I could then watch her varying moods more attentively—the tender solicitude and earnest affection she evinced for her mother:—the piquant coquetry with which she treated me.
She had such dear little, characteristic ways about her—ways that were quite peculiar to herself.
I got to know them all.
When she was specially interested in anything that one was saying, she would lean forwards, with a deep, reflective look in her clear grey eyes, in rapt attention, resting her little dimpled chin on her bent hand:—when she disagreed with something you said, she would make such a pretty quaint moue, tossing her head defiantly, and raise her curving eyebrows in astonishment that you should dare to differ from her.
She seldom laughed—I hate to hear girls continually giggling and guffawing at the merest nothings so long as they proceed from male lips!
When Min laughed, her laughter was just like the rippling of silvery music and of the most catching, contagious nature. She generally only smiled, at even the most humorous incidents; and her smile was the sweetest I ever saw in anyone. It lit up her whole face with merriment, giving the grey eyes the most bewitching expression, and bringing into prominent notice a tiny, dear little dimple in her chin, which you might not have previously observed.
Her smile it was that completed my captivation, that first time that I saw her in church and lost my heart in a moment:—her smile was ever and always her greatest charm.
Of course I remember all her little darling ways and coquetries.
Love is a great master of the art of mnemonics, and might be quoted by Mr Stokes as one of the greatest “aids to memory” that is known.
Trifling trivialities, by others passed by unobserved, are graphically jotted down with indelible ink in his cordal note-book—
“For indeed I knowOf no more subtle master under heaven,Than is the maiden passion for a maid.”
“For indeed I knowOf no more subtle master under heaven,Than is the maiden passion for a maid.”
When no other people came in, Min would always, on the evening of my visit, make a rule of turning out her workbox, and arranging its contents over again—“in order,” as she told me, although I had thought it the picture of neatness and tidiness in its original state.
She was in the habit on these occasions of restoring to her mother sundry little articles which she confessed to having purloined during the week. I recollect how there used to be a regular little joke at her expense on the subject of kleptomania.
How well I remember that little workbox, and its arrangements! I could tell you, now, every item of its varied contents,—the perfumed sachet, the ugly little pincushion which she had had since dollhood, the little scraps from her favourite poets, which she had copied out and kept in this sacred repository, never revealing them save to sympathising eyes. How angry she was with me once, for not thinking, with her, that Longfellow’s “Psalm of Life” was the “nicest” thing ever written:—what a long time it was afterwards before she would again allow me to inspect her secret treasures and pet things, as she had previously permitted me to do!
This all used to go on while her mother was playing; and then, when the workbox was arranged in apple-pie order, Min herself would go to the piano and sing my favourite ballads, I listening to her from the opposite corner of the room, for she hated having her music turned over by any one.
In addition to these rare opportunities of studying my darling and feeding my love for her, I used to see her at church every Sunday.
From her window, also, when dog Catch and I took our walks abroad, I often had a bright smile from “somebody,” who happened always to be tending her cherished plants just at the moment when I passed by.
Sometimes, too, I met her at Miss Pimpernell’s, or out walking:—thus, in a short time, I learnt to know all her little plans and wishes, and her sentiments about everything.
Her likes and dislikes were my own. It was a strange coincidence, that if Min should express some opinion one day, I found, when we next met, that I seemed to have involuntarily come round to her view; while, if I let fall any casual remark, Min was certain, on some future occasion, to repeat it as if it were her own.
I suppose the coincidence was owing to our mental “rapport,” as the French express it.
The only drawback to my happiness, was Mr Mawley, whom I disliked now more than ever.
Although he had all the rest of the week in which to pay his devoirs, having carte blanche from Mrs Clyde to run in and out of her house whenever he so pleased—he took it into his head to drop in regularly on the very evening that I had selected and thought especially mine. I believe he only did it to spite me, being of a most aggravating temperament!
When he was there, too, he was constantly endeavouring to make me appear ridiculous.
As certainly as I said anything, or advanced an opinion, he, as certainly, contradicted me, taking the opposite side of the question. This, of course, made me angry and unamiable. He was so obstinately obtuse, too, that he would not take a hint. He must have seen that his company was not wanted, by me at least, and that I did not desire any conversation with him. I’ve no doubt of his doing it on purpose!
He prided himself on his eminently practical mind, being incapable of seeing romance even in the works of nature and nature’s God; and he was continually cutting jokes at my “sentimentality,” as he was pleased to style my more poetical views of life and its surroundings.
Whenever I gave him the chance, he was safe to slide in some of his vulgar bathos after any heroic sentiment or personal opinion I may have uttered. This, naturally, would rouse my temper, never very pacific; and made me so cross, that I was often on the verge of quarrelling with Min on his account!
The worst of it was, also, that he was always so confoundedly cool and collected, that he generally came out of these encounters in the character of an injured martyr or inoffensive person, who had to bear the unprovoked assaults of my bearish brusquerie—making me, as a matter of course, appear in a very unfavourable light.
I remember, one day in particular, when he was so exceedingly irritating to me, that he goaded me on into addressing him quite rudely.
Min was very much distressed at my behaviour, remonstrating with me for it; and this did not of course make me feel more kindly-disposed towards the curate, who had now become my perfect antipathy.
We had been down to the church—Miss Pimpernell, the Dasher girls, Min, and myself,—to hear the organist make trial of a new stop which had been lately added to his instrument. Listening to the small sacred concert that thereupon ensued, we had remained until quite late in the evening; and, on our way home through the churchyard, as we loitered along, looking at the graves, and trying to decipher by the slowly waning light the half illegible inscriptions on the headstones, we came across Mr Mawley.
Min and I were walking in front, talking seriously and reflectively, as befitted the time and place.
We were moralising how—
“Side by sideThe poor man and the son of prideLie calm and still.”
“Side by sideThe poor man and the son of prideLie calm and still.”
“I wonder,” said Min, “whether it is true that the dust of the departed dead blossoms out again in flowers and trees, replenishing the earth? Just fancy, how many illustrious persons even have died since the beginning of the world! Why, in England alone we could number our heroes by thousands; and it is nice to think that they may still flourish perhaps in these old oak trees above us!”
“Ah,” said I, “don’t you recollect those lines about England;—
“‘Beneath each swinging forest bough,Some arm as stout in death reposes—From wave-washed foot to heaven-kissed brow,Her valour’s life-blood runs in roses;Nay, let our brothers of the WestWrite, smiling, in their florid pages,One half her soil has walked the rest,In poets, heroes, martyrs, sages!’”
“‘Beneath each swinging forest bough,Some arm as stout in death reposes—From wave-washed foot to heaven-kissed brow,Her valour’s life-blood runs in roses;Nay, let our brothers of the WestWrite, smiling, in their florid pages,One half her soil has walked the rest,In poets, heroes, martyrs, sages!’”
“What!” exclaimed Mr Mawley, who had come up close behind us before we perceived him, and at once pushed into the conversation. “‘One half our soil has walked the rest,’ Lorton? That’s a palpable absurdity! We’ll take England to be three hundred miles long and two hundred broad, on an average; and, allowing a uniform depth of twelve feet throughout for cultivable soil, that calculation will give us some—let me see, three hundred by two hundred, multiplied by seventeen hundred and sixty to bring it into yards, and then by three to reduce it to feet, when we multiply it again by twelve to get the solidity—that gives us nearly four billions cubic feet of soil, one-half of which would be two billions. Fancy, Lorton, two thousand millions cubic feet of heroes, eh! But, you havn’t told us what amount of dust and ashes you would apportion to each separate hero—” he thus proceeded, with his caustic wit, seeing that Bessie Dasher and her sister were both laughing; and even Min was smiling, at his absurdities. “Strange, perhaps Oliver Cromwell is now a mangel wurzel, and poor King Charles the First an apple tree! Depend upon it, Lorton, that is the origin of what is called the King Pippin!”
He made me “as mad as a hatter,” with his “chaff” at my favourite quotation.
I was almost boiling over with rage.
I restrained myself, however, at the moment, and answered him in, for me, comparatively mild terms.
“Mr Mawley,” said I, “you have no more imagination than a turnip-top! You must possess the taste of a Goth or Vandal, to turn such noble lines into your low ridicule!”
He did not mind my retort a bit, however. He seemed to think it beneath his notice; for, he only said “Thank you, Lorton!” and dropped back behind us again with Bessie Dasher, while Seraphine joined company with little Miss Pimpernell—Min and I being still together in front.
By-and-by our talk was resumed in the same strain from which the curate’s interpellation had diverted it. I had just spoken of Gay the fabulist. I told her of his sad history:—how it was shown in the bitter epitaph which he had composed for his own tomb—
“Life’s a jest, and all things show it;Ithoughtso once, and now Iknowit!”
“Life’s a jest, and all things show it;Ithoughtso once, and now Iknowit!”
From this we drifted on to Gray’s Elegy, through the near similarity of the two poets’ names.
“I think,” said Min, “that that unadded verse of his which is always left out of the published poem, is nicer than any of the regular ones; for it touches on two of my favourites, the violet and the dear little robin redbreast!”
“You mean, I suppose,” said I, “the one commencing—
“‘There, scatter’d oft, the earliest of the year—’”
“‘There, scatter’d oft, the earliest of the year—’”
“Yes,” said Min, continuing it in her low, sweet voice—
“‘By hands unseen, are showers of violets found;The redbreast loves to build and warble there,And little footsteps lightly print the ground.’”
“‘By hands unseen, are showers of violets found;The redbreast loves to build and warble there,And little footsteps lightly print the ground.’”
“You like violets, then?” I asked. “I think you told me you did, though, before.”
“Yes,” she said impulsively, “I love them, I love them, I love them!”
“Ah!” thought I to myself, determining that she should never from henceforth be without an ample supply of violets, if I could help it, “Ah, I wish you would loveme!” But, I did not give utterance to the thought, contenting myself with keeping up the conversation respecting the Elegy. “It is generally considered,” said I aloud, “that the best verse of Gray’s is that in which he says—
“‘Some village Hampden, that with dauntless breast,The little tyrant of his fields withstood,Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,Some Cromwell guiltless of his country’s blood!’”
“‘Some village Hampden, that with dauntless breast,The little tyrant of his fields withstood,Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,Some Cromwell guiltless of his country’s blood!’”
“Hullo, Lorton!” shouted out Mr Mawley again close at my back, when I had believed him to be some distance off. “Hullo, Lorton! Don’t you get into heroics, my boy. Does not the ‘noble bard’ make the Prince of Denmark say, that the dust of Alexander the Great might have served to fill the bung of a cask and that—
“‘Imperial Caesar, dead and turn’d to clay,Might stop a hole to keep the wind away!’”
“‘Imperial Caesar, dead and turn’d to clay,Might stop a hole to keep the wind away!’”
This was too much of a good thing.
I made up my mind to stand his nonsense no longer.
“I wish you would mind your own business,” said I, as rudely as possible, “and keep your ridiculous conversation to yourself; I want none of it; I hate to hear fools prating about things they cannot understand.”
He got quite red in the face; but he kept his temper admirably.
“When you are cool again, Lorton,” he said to me, with an expression of amiability and mingled pity on his face, that made him look to me like Mephistopheles, “you will, I know, be sorry for what you’ve said; and when you learn good manners I will be glad to speak to you again!” and, he walked back to the church, with the air of a person who had been deeply injured, but who had yet the magnanimity to forgive if he could not forget—wishing adieu to our little party, of whom none but Min had overheard what I had said, with his usual cordiality, as if nothing had happened to disturb him.
“Oh, Frank!” exclaimed Min, when he had got out of sight and we were once more alone, “how could you be so rude and un-courteous—to a clergyman, too! I’m ashamed of you! I am hurt at any friend of mine acting like that!”
“But he was so provoking,” I stammered, trying to excuse myself. The tone of Min’s voice pained me. It was full of grief and reproach: I knew its every intonation. “He’s always worrying me and rubbing against me the wrong way!”
“That does not matter, Frank,” she replied in the same grave accents, as coldly as if she was speaking to a stranger—“a gentleman should be a gentleman always. I tell you what,”—she continued, turning away as she spoke—“I will never speak to you again, Frank, until you apologise to Mr Mawley for the language you have used!”
She then left my side, taking Miss Pimpernell’s arm and saying something about having a long chat with her.
The end of it was that she had her way.
I had to go back to search for the curate and ask his pardon, like a dog with its tail between its legs.
I was certain he would exult over it, and he did.
He had not the generosity to meet me half-way and accept my apology frankly at once.
He made me humble myself to the full, seizing the opportunity to read me a long homily on Christian forbearance, in which, I fervently believed at the time, he was almost as deficient as myself.
However, I had the consolation of knowing that my apology was not made on his account, but entirely for the sake of my darling Min; although, I confess, I did not like to see her taking such an interest in him as to ask it of me.
Chapter Eleven.Jealousy.Whispering tongues can poison truth;And constancy lives in realms above;And life is thorny, and youth is vain;And to be wroth with one we love,Doth work like madness in the brain!Some weeks after our conversation in the churchyard, I met old Shuffler one day waddling along the Terrace in a state of great excitement.He told me he was going to an auction, and pressed me to accompany him, that he might have the benefit of my advice and opinion concerning certain objects of “bigotry and virtue,” as he styled them, which he designed purchasing—should he be able to get them knocked down cheap.On asking the reason for such an unwonted outlay on his part, he said that he was about furnishing a new villa for which he had just found a tenant.“A fresh tenant!” said I with surprise, a newcomer in our suburb being always regarded as a sort of rare bird. “A fresh tenant! Who is he, or she, or whoever it may be?”“Well, sir,” said Shuffler, “it’s a secret as yet; but I don’t mind telling you, Mr Lorton, as I know you won’t let it out—Mr Mawley, the parsun, has took the villa!”“Mr Mawley!” I exclaimed, with redoubled astonishment. “Why, what on earth doeshewant a house for?”“I believe, sir,” said Shuffler, blinking his sound eye furiously the while, to give a facetious effect to his words, “he’s agoin’ to get married. So my missus says at least, sir; and she gen’rally knows wot’s agoin’ on. Wemmenfolk finds out them things somehow or other!”“Mawley going to be married!” I repeated. “Nonsense, Shuffler! it is probably some mistake. You and your wife must have let your brains run wool-gathering, and made the story up between you!”“No, sir,” he replied, “it’s as true as you are a standin’ there. We’ve no call to tell a lie about the matter, sir,” and he drew himself up with native dignity.“And you have really heard it for a fact, Shuffler?”“I ’ave so, sir; and I could tell you, too, the party as he is agoin’ to join!”“Can you?” I asked. “Whoisthe favoured she?”“Well, sir,” said he with a sly wink, screwing up his mouth tightly as if wild horses would not tear the information from him against his will, “that would be tellin’?”“I know it would,” said I, “but as you have already told me so much, I think you might now let me know the lady’s name.”“Mr Lorton,” he answered, “you know I would do anything for you I honestly could, for you ’ave been a friend to me many a time, specially when I got into that row with the tax collector, when you be’aved ’andsome. But to speak to the rights of the matter, I can’t say Iknowthe lady’s name wot the parsun is agoin’ to marry: I only has my suspicions like.”“Well, and whom do you think to be the one?” said I.“She don’t live far from here!” he said in a stage whisper, dropping his voice, and looking round cautiously, as he pointed along the row of houses composing “the Terrace,” where our most fashionable parishioners resided—our Belgravia, so to speak.“You don’t mean one of the Miss Dashers?” I said, thinking of Bessie.“Lord, no!” he replied, “it ain’t one of ‘my lady’s’ young ladies!”“Then who is it?” I said, getting quite impatient at his tergiversation.“Oh! she comed here later than them!” he answered, still beating about the bush; “she comed here later than them,” he repeated, nodding his head knowingly.A sudden fear shot through me. “Is it?—no, it cannot be—is it Miss Clyde?” I asked.“Ah!” he grunted, oracularly. “You knows best about that, sir!”“Well, don’t you dare, Shuffler,” I savagely retorted, “to couple that lady’s name with Mr Mawley’s!” I was literally boiling over with fury at the very suspicion:—it was the realisation of my worst fears!“You’ve no cause to get angry, Mr Lorton,” said he. “I didn’t name no names, sir; tho’ you might be further out, as far as that goes! I didn’t know as you was interested in the lady, or I shouldn’t ’a mentioned it.”“You’re quite wrong—quite wrong altogether, Shuffler. Why, the thing’s absurd!” I said.“Well, you know you axed me, sir; and what could I say?” he said apologetically.“That may be,” I said, less hotly. “But you had better not couple people’s names together in that way. Why, it’s actionable!” I added, knowing the house-agent’s mortal dread of anything connected with the law.“But you won’t spread it no further, Mr Lorton?” he said, anxiously, the sound eye looking at me with a beseeching expression.“Iwon’t, Shuffler,” I answered; “take care thatyoudon’t!”“I’ll take my davy, sir, as how it shan’t cross my lips again,” he replied in a convincing tone.“Very well, Shuffler,” I replied, turning away from him. “Only keep to that, and it will be best for you. Good day!”“Good day, sir; and you won’t come to the auction along o’ me?”“No,” said I. “I can’t spare the time to-day. I’ll try and come to-morrow, if that will do as well.”I did not wish to be angry with him; for, after all, I had brought the bitter information he conveyed entirely upon myself. He was only repeating what was, probably, already the gossip of the whole suburb. Besides, he really had mentioned no names:—the allusion to Min, had been as much my suggestion as his; so, I tried to be affable with him before we parted. “I’ll try and come to-morrow, Shuffler, if that will do as well, to look at the things you want me,” I said, more cordially than I had previously spoken to him.“All right, sir,” he replied, all beaming once more, withtheeye as jovial as ever. “That’ll suit me jest as well, sir; and I’m very much obleeged, too, I’m sure.”He, thereupon and then, waddled off on his mission of beating down opposition brokers; while I paced along sadly, thinking about the news I had just heard.I was going to call on Lady Dasher, who would be able to confirm it, or settle that it was a mere idle report; consequently, I would not have to remain long in suspense.I would soon know the truth, one way or the other.Prior, however, to my reaching this haven of rumour, I met little Miss Pimpernell. She was trotting along, with a basket on her arm, according to her usual wont when district visiting.“Hi! Frank,” she exclaimed, on seeing me. “What is the matter with you now? Why, my dear boy, you’ve got a face as long as my arm, and look the picture of misery!”“Oh, I’ve just heard something that surprised me,” I said. “I’ve been told that Mr Mawley is going to get married.”“Well, that’s news to me,” she said. “I haven’t heard it before. But what if heisgoing to be married—are you so sorry on his account, or for the lady?” she continued, in a bantering tone—she always liked a bit of a joke—“I never thought you took such an interest in Mr Mawley!”“I’m sure I don’t know,” I said. “It has surprised me, that’s all.”“Soit has me, Frank,” said she. “Who told you?”“I don’t know whether I ought to tell, Miss Pimpernell,” I replied, hesitatingly. “It was disclosed to me in confidence, and—”“No matter, no matter, my clear boy,” said the old lady briskly. “Then you oughtnotto tell me. But, at the same time, Frank, I don’t believe a word of it! If Mr Mawley had been meditating anything of the sort,Iwould have been his first confidante! I don’t think there’s a word of truth in it, Frank, no matter who your informant was. I daresay the rumour has got about just because he has taken a house, which he can very well afford, having got tired of living in lodgings; and small blame to him, say I! He’s no more going to get married thanIam, Frank; and I do not believe that likely, do you?”She laughed cheerily, tapping me on the cheek with her glove.She was always petting and caressing me; and, I believe, considered me a sort of big baby exclusively her own property.“But his taking a house looks suspicious,” I said, willing to be more convinced.“Not a bit of it,” said Miss Pimpernell, sturdily. “Why, if Monsieur Parole d’Honneur took a house, would that be any reason forhisgetting married? Ah, I know, Frank, who has put all this nonsense in your head! It is that gossiping old Shuffler. I’ll give him a lecture when I next catch him,” and she shook her fist comically in the air, to the intense wonderment of Miss Spight, who was crossing the road.“But, mind, I didn’t tell you so, Miss Pimpernell. Don’t tell him that I repeated what he said?”“Stuff and nonsense,” she said. “Why, he’ll tell everybody he meets the news in confidence, just the same as he did you. I’ll give him a good wigging, I tell you! Mr Mawley is not going to be married in a hurry; and if he is, not to the young person you think, Master Frank.”“I did not mention anybody, Miss Pimpernell,” I said, in confusion; for, her keen black eyes seemed to penetrate into my very heart, and search out my secret fears.She looked very sagacious.“Ah! Frank, you did notsayanything; but your looks betrayed you. Sothat’sthe reason why the report of the curate’s marriage affected you so, is it? But you needn’t blush, my dear boy! You need not blush!Iwill not tell tales out of school; so you may set your mind at rest. It is not, however, as you think, Frank. Cheer up; and good-bye, my dear boy. I must be trotting off now, or my poor blind woman will think I’m never coming to read to her.”And off she went, leaving me much happier than old Shuffler had done.Confound him! What did he mean, with his cock-and-a-bull story?On reaching Lady Dasher’s house, however, the house-agent’s rumour was, to my great distress, confirmed; and, that in the most authoritative manner.It must be true then, in spite of Miss Pimpernell’s denial!My lady was in one of her most morbid and melancholy moods, too, which did not help to mend matters.I praised her fuchsias on entering; but even this homage to her favourite hobby failed to rouse her.She had heard that Mrs Clyde had some of the most beautiful pelargonia; and what wereherpaltry flowers in comparison?Alas! she was poor, and could only afford a few miserable fuchsias to decorate her drawing-room—or rather the better to exhibit its poverty!If her poor, dear papa had been alive, things of course would have been very different; and she could have had petunias, or orchids, or any of the rarest hot-house flowers she pleased; but, now, she was poor, although proud, and could not afford them like that rich parvenue.How, good things always seemed given to those who are above their need!There was Mrs Clyde getting her only daughter engaged to be married also, she heard; while no suitor came forward forhertwo poor orphan girls!Such was the staple of her conversation—enlivening, at any rate.“Oh, ma!” exclaimed Bessie Dasher at this juncture; “you should not say so to Mr Lorton! He’ll think you wish him to propose at once!” and both she and her sister burst out laughing at the idea.“So I would,” said I, jokingly, notwithstanding that I felt as melancholy and little inclined for raillery as their mother, whose words seemed to clinch what old Shuffler had said. “So I would, too, if there weren’t a pair of you, and bigamy contrary to law. ‘How happy could I be with either, were t’other dear charmer away.’ But,” I continued, turning to Lady Dasher, with an assumption of easy indifference which I found it hard to counterfeit under the searching glances of the two wild Irish girls, her daughters, “is it really true what you said just now about Mrs Clyde’s daughter, Lady Dasher?”“Yes, Mr Lorton,” she replied, “to the best of my belief it is; for, I have heard, on the most unimpeachable authority, that she is engaged to Mr Mawley. He is always going there, you know.”“But that is no proof, ma,” said Bessie Dasher, who, as I have hinted before, was suspected of a slight tenderness towards the curate. “Mr Mawley is always coming here, too!”“True, my dear,” said her mother; “still there are comings and comings. You may depend he only goes there so oftenfor a purpose! Indeed, I asked Mrs Clyde whether there was not something in it only yesterday, and she smiled and said nothing; and, ifthatisn’t proof,” she concluded, triumphantly, “I don’t knowwhatis!”Bessie remained silent, but her sister said impulsively, “I don’t believe it, ma—not what you say, but about Minnie Clyde’s engagement. Mr Mawley’s going there proves nothing, as Bessie said; and, as for Mrs Clyde, I believe she would smile in that graceful way of hers—I hate fine people!—and say nothing if you told her that her house was on fire! The curate is always gadding about, and Minnie is a pretty girl; so, of course, he likes to go there and see her; but, I know, that she does not care twopence for him.”“Ah, you may say so, my dear; butIknow better. She would jump to have him. All girls like handsome young clergymen, as I know to my cost. Ah, Mr Lorton,” went on Lady Dasher, with a sad expressive shake of her head, “marriage is a sad lottery, a sad lottery! I once thought of marrying into the church, too, when my poor dear papa was alive. Perhaps it would have been a happier lot for me if I had done so! He was such a dear, nice clergyman, and looked so well in his canonicals—such a truly evangelical minister! I could listen to his sermons for hours without feeling the slightest fatigue!”“Thank goodness, then, he wasn’t our papa!” exclaimed the saucy Seraphine. “I’m certain thatIwouldn’t have been able to listen to his sermons so long!”“Ah, my dear,” groaned her mother at her levity, “always frivolous, Seraphine! I’m afraid you will never marry a pious, holy man, as I would wish!”“Not if I know it, ma!” she retorted, so heartily that both her sister Bessie and I—in spite of my anxiety about Min—could not but join in her catching laughter. “No,” continued the pert and impetuous young lady, “when I enter the holy estate of matrimony I shall choose a gay soldier laddie. None of your solemn-faced parsons for me! If they were all like our good old vicar, whom I would take to-morrow if he asked me, it would be quite a different thing; but they are not. They are all too steady and starch and stiff now-a-days. They look as if butter would not melt in their mouths!”“Ah, my dear!” said her mother, “you will not think so by-and-by. ‘Beggars mustn’t be choosers.’ You have got nothing but your face for your fortune, you know, although it would have been very different if my poor dear papa had been alive!”“What, my face, ma?” said her dutiful daughter, “I’m sure I hope not! Really, I’m very well satisfied with it;” and, getting up and going to the mirror, she set about altering the riband in her hair, humming the while the old ballad—“‘My face is my fortune, kind sir,’ she said,‘Kind sir,’ she said, ‘sir,’ she said;‘My face is my fortune, kind sir,’ she said.”I did not like to press any more inquiries with reference to Mr Mawley’s rumoured engagement, thinking they would look too pointed, disclosing my interest in the affair,—however much I was transported with the feelings of mingled jealousy, doubt, and uncertainty, that were preying on my heart; consequently, I now took my leave, all the suspicions and fears, which Shuffler’s news had given rise to, more rife than ever:—the renewed hope that Miss Pimpernell’s cheery address had inspired me with, completely dispelled.I’m afraid my anxiety was only too apparent; for, Seraphine Dasher whispered to me as I went out, “I don’t believe a word of it, there! It is only one of those absurd ‘true stories’ that ma is always getting hold of.”But I wouldn’t be comforted.It was only likely enough. Mawley was constantly going there, as Lady Dasher had said, and Mrs Clyde encouraged him, there could be no doubt; there must be something in it, or these reports would never have got about. “There is never any smoke without fire.”Besides, Min herself did not dislike the curate as I did.I could see that plainly for myself the night of that birthday party at her house. His insinuating address and treacherous advances had probably succeeded at last in entrapping her affections.False, cruel girl that she was, how could she encourage me as she had done, to nurse delusive hopes which, as she must have known, would only end in disappointment! What had been probably sport to her was death to me!And yet, Icouldnot believe it of her.My pure angel-natured Min, with her darling madonna-like face and honest, trustful grey eyes, to act like this?No. It could not be. It was impossible.Still, the very next day I saw her walking out alone with the curate.It must be true, then, I thought; and I ground my teeth in anguish.I determined to avoid her, never passing her house as I had been previously accustomed to; and, only bowing coldly when I met her in the street.At last she spoke to me one day, as I was coming out of the vicarage.She was just going to knock at the door; so I encountered her face to face on the step, without a chance of escape.She held out her hand to me.I took it mechanically, and then let it drop; raising my hat at the same time, without saying a word.She addressed me with heightened colour and a wistful look in the deep, grey eyes.“Why are you so angry with me, Frank?” she asked in her sweet, low voice, which had a slight tremble in it as she spoke. “What have I done to offend you? You never stop and speak to me now, never call at our house, and always pass me by with a cold frigid bow! Have I done anything to offend you, Frank?” she entreated again. “If so, tell me; and I will beg your pardon, for it must have been unintentional on my part?”I was foolish, and proud, and conceited. I thought that I would not allow myself to be deceived twice.I was bitter and rude. I made a mockery of all the friendly overtures which she made so lovingly with all the coy bashfulness of her maiden heart.I could have strangled myself afterwards, when I thought it all over!“I’m not aware, Miss Clyde,” said I, as stiffly as you please—just as if she were a stranger to me, and not the dear Min whom I knew and loved so well—“I am not aware that there is any necessity for your asking my forgiveness:—if you cannot suggest to yourself the reason for my altered manner, words on my part would be useless indeed!”I spoke thus harshly to her, and coldly, when my heart was almost breaking the while.“And is that all you have got to say to me, Frank?” she said, still in the same dear, tender, entreating voice, and with glistening eyes.My sternness was nearly melted; but I continued to hold out and stand upon my dignity.“I have nothing more to add, Miss Clyde,” I said, with another Grandisonian bow.“Then, Mr Lorton,” she said, her grey eyes flashing, and her whole dear little self roused into a fiery, impulsive little Min—she looked glorious in her pique!—“then, Mr Lorton, I will not seek to detain you further—let me pass, sir!” she added passionately, as, relenting of my behaviour, I tried to stop her and explain my conduct—“Let me pass, sir! I do not wish to hear another word from you!”And she walked, as stately as a little queen, into the hall of the vicarage, tossing up her sweet little dimpled chin proudly; while, I?—went back disconsolately home, my heart torn with conflicting emotions.Was I right, or wrong?Perhaps the rumour of her engagement had not the slightest foundation, in fact.However, it was too late now to think about that!All was over.We were parted for ever!
Whispering tongues can poison truth;And constancy lives in realms above;And life is thorny, and youth is vain;And to be wroth with one we love,Doth work like madness in the brain!
Whispering tongues can poison truth;And constancy lives in realms above;And life is thorny, and youth is vain;And to be wroth with one we love,Doth work like madness in the brain!
Some weeks after our conversation in the churchyard, I met old Shuffler one day waddling along the Terrace in a state of great excitement.
He told me he was going to an auction, and pressed me to accompany him, that he might have the benefit of my advice and opinion concerning certain objects of “bigotry and virtue,” as he styled them, which he designed purchasing—should he be able to get them knocked down cheap.
On asking the reason for such an unwonted outlay on his part, he said that he was about furnishing a new villa for which he had just found a tenant.
“A fresh tenant!” said I with surprise, a newcomer in our suburb being always regarded as a sort of rare bird. “A fresh tenant! Who is he, or she, or whoever it may be?”
“Well, sir,” said Shuffler, “it’s a secret as yet; but I don’t mind telling you, Mr Lorton, as I know you won’t let it out—Mr Mawley, the parsun, has took the villa!”
“Mr Mawley!” I exclaimed, with redoubled astonishment. “Why, what on earth doeshewant a house for?”
“I believe, sir,” said Shuffler, blinking his sound eye furiously the while, to give a facetious effect to his words, “he’s agoin’ to get married. So my missus says at least, sir; and she gen’rally knows wot’s agoin’ on. Wemmenfolk finds out them things somehow or other!”
“Mawley going to be married!” I repeated. “Nonsense, Shuffler! it is probably some mistake. You and your wife must have let your brains run wool-gathering, and made the story up between you!”
“No, sir,” he replied, “it’s as true as you are a standin’ there. We’ve no call to tell a lie about the matter, sir,” and he drew himself up with native dignity.
“And you have really heard it for a fact, Shuffler?”
“I ’ave so, sir; and I could tell you, too, the party as he is agoin’ to join!”
“Can you?” I asked. “Whoisthe favoured she?”
“Well, sir,” said he with a sly wink, screwing up his mouth tightly as if wild horses would not tear the information from him against his will, “that would be tellin’?”
“I know it would,” said I, “but as you have already told me so much, I think you might now let me know the lady’s name.”
“Mr Lorton,” he answered, “you know I would do anything for you I honestly could, for you ’ave been a friend to me many a time, specially when I got into that row with the tax collector, when you be’aved ’andsome. But to speak to the rights of the matter, I can’t say Iknowthe lady’s name wot the parsun is agoin’ to marry: I only has my suspicions like.”
“Well, and whom do you think to be the one?” said I.
“She don’t live far from here!” he said in a stage whisper, dropping his voice, and looking round cautiously, as he pointed along the row of houses composing “the Terrace,” where our most fashionable parishioners resided—our Belgravia, so to speak.
“You don’t mean one of the Miss Dashers?” I said, thinking of Bessie.
“Lord, no!” he replied, “it ain’t one of ‘my lady’s’ young ladies!”
“Then who is it?” I said, getting quite impatient at his tergiversation.
“Oh! she comed here later than them!” he answered, still beating about the bush; “she comed here later than them,” he repeated, nodding his head knowingly.
A sudden fear shot through me. “Is it?—no, it cannot be—is it Miss Clyde?” I asked.
“Ah!” he grunted, oracularly. “You knows best about that, sir!”
“Well, don’t you dare, Shuffler,” I savagely retorted, “to couple that lady’s name with Mr Mawley’s!” I was literally boiling over with fury at the very suspicion:—it was the realisation of my worst fears!
“You’ve no cause to get angry, Mr Lorton,” said he. “I didn’t name no names, sir; tho’ you might be further out, as far as that goes! I didn’t know as you was interested in the lady, or I shouldn’t ’a mentioned it.”
“You’re quite wrong—quite wrong altogether, Shuffler. Why, the thing’s absurd!” I said.
“Well, you know you axed me, sir; and what could I say?” he said apologetically.
“That may be,” I said, less hotly. “But you had better not couple people’s names together in that way. Why, it’s actionable!” I added, knowing the house-agent’s mortal dread of anything connected with the law.
“But you won’t spread it no further, Mr Lorton?” he said, anxiously, the sound eye looking at me with a beseeching expression.
“Iwon’t, Shuffler,” I answered; “take care thatyoudon’t!”
“I’ll take my davy, sir, as how it shan’t cross my lips again,” he replied in a convincing tone.
“Very well, Shuffler,” I replied, turning away from him. “Only keep to that, and it will be best for you. Good day!”
“Good day, sir; and you won’t come to the auction along o’ me?”
“No,” said I. “I can’t spare the time to-day. I’ll try and come to-morrow, if that will do as well.”
I did not wish to be angry with him; for, after all, I had brought the bitter information he conveyed entirely upon myself. He was only repeating what was, probably, already the gossip of the whole suburb. Besides, he really had mentioned no names:—the allusion to Min, had been as much my suggestion as his; so, I tried to be affable with him before we parted. “I’ll try and come to-morrow, Shuffler, if that will do as well, to look at the things you want me,” I said, more cordially than I had previously spoken to him.
“All right, sir,” he replied, all beaming once more, withtheeye as jovial as ever. “That’ll suit me jest as well, sir; and I’m very much obleeged, too, I’m sure.”
He, thereupon and then, waddled off on his mission of beating down opposition brokers; while I paced along sadly, thinking about the news I had just heard.
I was going to call on Lady Dasher, who would be able to confirm it, or settle that it was a mere idle report; consequently, I would not have to remain long in suspense.
I would soon know the truth, one way or the other.
Prior, however, to my reaching this haven of rumour, I met little Miss Pimpernell. She was trotting along, with a basket on her arm, according to her usual wont when district visiting.
“Hi! Frank,” she exclaimed, on seeing me. “What is the matter with you now? Why, my dear boy, you’ve got a face as long as my arm, and look the picture of misery!”
“Oh, I’ve just heard something that surprised me,” I said. “I’ve been told that Mr Mawley is going to get married.”
“Well, that’s news to me,” she said. “I haven’t heard it before. But what if heisgoing to be married—are you so sorry on his account, or for the lady?” she continued, in a bantering tone—she always liked a bit of a joke—“I never thought you took such an interest in Mr Mawley!”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” I said. “It has surprised me, that’s all.”
“Soit has me, Frank,” said she. “Who told you?”
“I don’t know whether I ought to tell, Miss Pimpernell,” I replied, hesitatingly. “It was disclosed to me in confidence, and—”
“No matter, no matter, my clear boy,” said the old lady briskly. “Then you oughtnotto tell me. But, at the same time, Frank, I don’t believe a word of it! If Mr Mawley had been meditating anything of the sort,Iwould have been his first confidante! I don’t think there’s a word of truth in it, Frank, no matter who your informant was. I daresay the rumour has got about just because he has taken a house, which he can very well afford, having got tired of living in lodgings; and small blame to him, say I! He’s no more going to get married thanIam, Frank; and I do not believe that likely, do you?”
She laughed cheerily, tapping me on the cheek with her glove.
She was always petting and caressing me; and, I believe, considered me a sort of big baby exclusively her own property.
“But his taking a house looks suspicious,” I said, willing to be more convinced.
“Not a bit of it,” said Miss Pimpernell, sturdily. “Why, if Monsieur Parole d’Honneur took a house, would that be any reason forhisgetting married? Ah, I know, Frank, who has put all this nonsense in your head! It is that gossiping old Shuffler. I’ll give him a lecture when I next catch him,” and she shook her fist comically in the air, to the intense wonderment of Miss Spight, who was crossing the road.
“But, mind, I didn’t tell you so, Miss Pimpernell. Don’t tell him that I repeated what he said?”
“Stuff and nonsense,” she said. “Why, he’ll tell everybody he meets the news in confidence, just the same as he did you. I’ll give him a good wigging, I tell you! Mr Mawley is not going to be married in a hurry; and if he is, not to the young person you think, Master Frank.”
“I did not mention anybody, Miss Pimpernell,” I said, in confusion; for, her keen black eyes seemed to penetrate into my very heart, and search out my secret fears.
She looked very sagacious.
“Ah! Frank, you did notsayanything; but your looks betrayed you. Sothat’sthe reason why the report of the curate’s marriage affected you so, is it? But you needn’t blush, my dear boy! You need not blush!Iwill not tell tales out of school; so you may set your mind at rest. It is not, however, as you think, Frank. Cheer up; and good-bye, my dear boy. I must be trotting off now, or my poor blind woman will think I’m never coming to read to her.”
And off she went, leaving me much happier than old Shuffler had done.
Confound him! What did he mean, with his cock-and-a-bull story?
On reaching Lady Dasher’s house, however, the house-agent’s rumour was, to my great distress, confirmed; and, that in the most authoritative manner.
It must be true then, in spite of Miss Pimpernell’s denial!
My lady was in one of her most morbid and melancholy moods, too, which did not help to mend matters.
I praised her fuchsias on entering; but even this homage to her favourite hobby failed to rouse her.
She had heard that Mrs Clyde had some of the most beautiful pelargonia; and what wereherpaltry flowers in comparison?
Alas! she was poor, and could only afford a few miserable fuchsias to decorate her drawing-room—or rather the better to exhibit its poverty!
If her poor, dear papa had been alive, things of course would have been very different; and she could have had petunias, or orchids, or any of the rarest hot-house flowers she pleased; but, now, she was poor, although proud, and could not afford them like that rich parvenue.
How, good things always seemed given to those who are above their need!
There was Mrs Clyde getting her only daughter engaged to be married also, she heard; while no suitor came forward forhertwo poor orphan girls!
Such was the staple of her conversation—enlivening, at any rate.
“Oh, ma!” exclaimed Bessie Dasher at this juncture; “you should not say so to Mr Lorton! He’ll think you wish him to propose at once!” and both she and her sister burst out laughing at the idea.
“So I would,” said I, jokingly, notwithstanding that I felt as melancholy and little inclined for raillery as their mother, whose words seemed to clinch what old Shuffler had said. “So I would, too, if there weren’t a pair of you, and bigamy contrary to law. ‘How happy could I be with either, were t’other dear charmer away.’ But,” I continued, turning to Lady Dasher, with an assumption of easy indifference which I found it hard to counterfeit under the searching glances of the two wild Irish girls, her daughters, “is it really true what you said just now about Mrs Clyde’s daughter, Lady Dasher?”
“Yes, Mr Lorton,” she replied, “to the best of my belief it is; for, I have heard, on the most unimpeachable authority, that she is engaged to Mr Mawley. He is always going there, you know.”
“But that is no proof, ma,” said Bessie Dasher, who, as I have hinted before, was suspected of a slight tenderness towards the curate. “Mr Mawley is always coming here, too!”
“True, my dear,” said her mother; “still there are comings and comings. You may depend he only goes there so oftenfor a purpose! Indeed, I asked Mrs Clyde whether there was not something in it only yesterday, and she smiled and said nothing; and, ifthatisn’t proof,” she concluded, triumphantly, “I don’t knowwhatis!”
Bessie remained silent, but her sister said impulsively, “I don’t believe it, ma—not what you say, but about Minnie Clyde’s engagement. Mr Mawley’s going there proves nothing, as Bessie said; and, as for Mrs Clyde, I believe she would smile in that graceful way of hers—I hate fine people!—and say nothing if you told her that her house was on fire! The curate is always gadding about, and Minnie is a pretty girl; so, of course, he likes to go there and see her; but, I know, that she does not care twopence for him.”
“Ah, you may say so, my dear; butIknow better. She would jump to have him. All girls like handsome young clergymen, as I know to my cost. Ah, Mr Lorton,” went on Lady Dasher, with a sad expressive shake of her head, “marriage is a sad lottery, a sad lottery! I once thought of marrying into the church, too, when my poor dear papa was alive. Perhaps it would have been a happier lot for me if I had done so! He was such a dear, nice clergyman, and looked so well in his canonicals—such a truly evangelical minister! I could listen to his sermons for hours without feeling the slightest fatigue!”
“Thank goodness, then, he wasn’t our papa!” exclaimed the saucy Seraphine. “I’m certain thatIwouldn’t have been able to listen to his sermons so long!”
“Ah, my dear,” groaned her mother at her levity, “always frivolous, Seraphine! I’m afraid you will never marry a pious, holy man, as I would wish!”
“Not if I know it, ma!” she retorted, so heartily that both her sister Bessie and I—in spite of my anxiety about Min—could not but join in her catching laughter. “No,” continued the pert and impetuous young lady, “when I enter the holy estate of matrimony I shall choose a gay soldier laddie. None of your solemn-faced parsons for me! If they were all like our good old vicar, whom I would take to-morrow if he asked me, it would be quite a different thing; but they are not. They are all too steady and starch and stiff now-a-days. They look as if butter would not melt in their mouths!”
“Ah, my dear!” said her mother, “you will not think so by-and-by. ‘Beggars mustn’t be choosers.’ You have got nothing but your face for your fortune, you know, although it would have been very different if my poor dear papa had been alive!”
“What, my face, ma?” said her dutiful daughter, “I’m sure I hope not! Really, I’m very well satisfied with it;” and, getting up and going to the mirror, she set about altering the riband in her hair, humming the while the old ballad—
“‘My face is my fortune, kind sir,’ she said,‘Kind sir,’ she said, ‘sir,’ she said;‘My face is my fortune, kind sir,’ she said.”
“‘My face is my fortune, kind sir,’ she said,‘Kind sir,’ she said, ‘sir,’ she said;‘My face is my fortune, kind sir,’ she said.”
I did not like to press any more inquiries with reference to Mr Mawley’s rumoured engagement, thinking they would look too pointed, disclosing my interest in the affair,—however much I was transported with the feelings of mingled jealousy, doubt, and uncertainty, that were preying on my heart; consequently, I now took my leave, all the suspicions and fears, which Shuffler’s news had given rise to, more rife than ever:—the renewed hope that Miss Pimpernell’s cheery address had inspired me with, completely dispelled.
I’m afraid my anxiety was only too apparent; for, Seraphine Dasher whispered to me as I went out, “I don’t believe a word of it, there! It is only one of those absurd ‘true stories’ that ma is always getting hold of.”
But I wouldn’t be comforted.
It was only likely enough. Mawley was constantly going there, as Lady Dasher had said, and Mrs Clyde encouraged him, there could be no doubt; there must be something in it, or these reports would never have got about. “There is never any smoke without fire.”
Besides, Min herself did not dislike the curate as I did.
I could see that plainly for myself the night of that birthday party at her house. His insinuating address and treacherous advances had probably succeeded at last in entrapping her affections.
False, cruel girl that she was, how could she encourage me as she had done, to nurse delusive hopes which, as she must have known, would only end in disappointment! What had been probably sport to her was death to me!
And yet, Icouldnot believe it of her.
My pure angel-natured Min, with her darling madonna-like face and honest, trustful grey eyes, to act like this?
No. It could not be. It was impossible.
Still, the very next day I saw her walking out alone with the curate.
It must be true, then, I thought; and I ground my teeth in anguish.
I determined to avoid her, never passing her house as I had been previously accustomed to; and, only bowing coldly when I met her in the street.
At last she spoke to me one day, as I was coming out of the vicarage.
She was just going to knock at the door; so I encountered her face to face on the step, without a chance of escape.
She held out her hand to me.
I took it mechanically, and then let it drop; raising my hat at the same time, without saying a word.
She addressed me with heightened colour and a wistful look in the deep, grey eyes.
“Why are you so angry with me, Frank?” she asked in her sweet, low voice, which had a slight tremble in it as she spoke. “What have I done to offend you? You never stop and speak to me now, never call at our house, and always pass me by with a cold frigid bow! Have I done anything to offend you, Frank?” she entreated again. “If so, tell me; and I will beg your pardon, for it must have been unintentional on my part?”
I was foolish, and proud, and conceited. I thought that I would not allow myself to be deceived twice.
I was bitter and rude. I made a mockery of all the friendly overtures which she made so lovingly with all the coy bashfulness of her maiden heart.
I could have strangled myself afterwards, when I thought it all over!
“I’m not aware, Miss Clyde,” said I, as stiffly as you please—just as if she were a stranger to me, and not the dear Min whom I knew and loved so well—“I am not aware that there is any necessity for your asking my forgiveness:—if you cannot suggest to yourself the reason for my altered manner, words on my part would be useless indeed!”
I spoke thus harshly to her, and coldly, when my heart was almost breaking the while.
“And is that all you have got to say to me, Frank?” she said, still in the same dear, tender, entreating voice, and with glistening eyes.
My sternness was nearly melted; but I continued to hold out and stand upon my dignity.
“I have nothing more to add, Miss Clyde,” I said, with another Grandisonian bow.
“Then, Mr Lorton,” she said, her grey eyes flashing, and her whole dear little self roused into a fiery, impulsive little Min—she looked glorious in her pique!—“then, Mr Lorton, I will not seek to detain you further—let me pass, sir!” she added passionately, as, relenting of my behaviour, I tried to stop her and explain my conduct—“Let me pass, sir! I do not wish to hear another word from you!”
And she walked, as stately as a little queen, into the hall of the vicarage, tossing up her sweet little dimpled chin proudly; while, I?—went back disconsolately home, my heart torn with conflicting emotions.
Was I right, or wrong?
Perhaps the rumour of her engagement had not the slightest foundation, in fact.
However, it was too late now to think about that!
All was over.
We were parted for ever!