Love Me Little, Love Me Long
by Charles Reade · English · Gutenberg #4607 · 799,125 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Love Me Little, Love Me Long
Author: Charles Reade
Release date: November 1, 2003 [eBook #4607]
Most recently updated: March 5, 2018
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4607
Credits: Produced by James Rusk and David Widger
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOVE ME LITTLE, LOVE ME LONG ***
Produced by James Rusk
LOVE ME LITTLE, LOVE ME LONG
By Charles Reade
PREFACE
SHOULD these characters, imbedded in carpet incidents, interest the
public at all, they will probably reappear in more potent scenes. This
design, which I may never live to execute, is, I fear, the only excuse
I can at present offer for some pages, forming the twelfth chapter of
this volume.
CHAPTER I.
NEARLY a quarter of a century ago, Lucy Fountain, a young lady of
beauty and distinction, was, by the death of her mother, her sole
surviving parent, left in the hands of her two trustees, Edward
Fountain, Esq., of Font Abbey, and Mr. Bazalgette, a merchant whose
wife was Mrs. Fountain's half-sister.
They agreed to lighten the burden by dividing it. She should spend
half the year with each trustee in turn, until marriage should take
her off their hands.
Our mild tale begins in Mr. Bazalgette's own house, two years after
the date of that arrangement.
The chit-chat must be your main clue to the characters. In life it is
the same. Men and women won't come to you ticketed, or explanation in
hand.
“Lucy, you are a great comfort in a house; it is so nice to have some
one to pour out one's heart to; my husband is no use at all.”
“Aunt Bazalgette!”
“In that way. You listen to my faded illusions, to the aspirations of
a nature too finely organized, ah! to find its happiness in this
rough, selfish world. When I open my bosom to him, what does he do?
Guess now--whistles.”
“Then I call that rude.”
“So do I; and then he whistles more and more.”
“Yes; but, aunt, if any serious trouble or grief fell upon you, you
would find Mr. Bazalgette a much greater comfort and a better stay
than poor spiritless me.”
“Oh, if the house took fire and fell about our ears, he would come out
of his shell, no doubt; or if the children all died one after another,
poor dear little souls; but those great troubles only come in stories.
Give me a friend that can sympathize with the real hourly
mortifications of a too susceptible nature; sit on this ottoman, and
let me go on. Where was I when Jones came and interrupted us? They
always do just at the interesting point.”
Miss Fountain's face promptly wreathed itself into an expectant smile.
She abandoned her hand and her ear, and leaned her graceful person
toward her aunt, while that lady murmured to her in low and thrilling
tones--his eyes, his long hair, his imaginative expressions, his
romantic projects of frugal love; how her harsh papa had warned Adonis
off the premises; how Adonis went without a word (as pale as death,
love), and soon after, in his despair, flung himself--to an ugly
heiress; and how this disappointment had darkened her whole life, and
so on.
Perhaps, if Adonis had stood before her now, rolling his eyes, and his
phrases hot from the annuals, the flourishing matron might have sent
him to the servants' hall with a wave of her white and jeweled hand.
But the melody disarms this sort of brutal criticism--a woman's voice
relating love's young dream; and then the picture--a matron still
handsome pouring into a lovely virgin's ear the last thing she ought;
the young beauty's eyes mimicking sympathy; the ripe beauty's soft,
delicious accents--purr! purr! purr!
Crash overhead! a window smashed aie! aie! clatter! clatter! screams
of infantine rage and feminine remonstrance, feet pattering, and a
general hullabaloo, cut the soft recital in two. The ladies clasped
hands, like guilty things surprised.
Lucy sprang to her feet; the oppressed one sank slowly and gracefully
back, inch by inch, on the ottoman, with a sigh of ostentatious
resignation, and gazed, martyr-like, on the chandelier.
“Will you not go up to the nursery?” cried Lucy, in a flutter.
“No, dear,” replied the other, faintly, but as cool as a marble slab;
“you go; cast some of your oil upon those ever-troubled waters and
then come back and let us try once more.”
Miss Fountain heard but half this sentence; she was already gliding up
the stairs. She opened the nursery door, and there stood in the middle
of the room “Original Sin.” Its name after the flesh was Master
Reginald. It was half-past six, had been baptized in church, after
which every child becomes, according to polemic divines of the day, “a
little soul of Christian fire” until it goes to a public school. And
there it straddled, two scarlet cheeks puffed out with rage, soft
flaxen hair streaming, cerulean eyes glowing, the poker grasped in two
chubby fists. It had poked a window in vague ire, and now threatened
two females with extinction if they riled it any more.
The two grown-up women were discovered, erect, but flat, in distant
corners, avoiding the bayonet and trusting to their artillery.
“Wicked boy!”
“Naughty boy!” (grape.)
“Little ruffian!” etc.
And hints as to the ultimate destination of so sanguinary a soul
(round shot).
“Ah! here's miss. Oh, miss, we are so glad you are come up; don't go
anigh him, miss; he is a tiger.”
Miss Fountain smiled, and went gracefully on one knee beside him. This
brought her angelic face level with the fallen cherub's. “What is the
matter, dear?” asked she, in a tone of soft pity.
The tiger was not prepared for this: he dropped his poker and flung
his little arm round his cousin's neck.
“I love YOU. Oh! oh! oh!”
“Yes, dear; then tell me, now--what is the matter? What have you been
doing?”
“Noth--noth--nothing--it's th--them been na--a--agging me!”
“Nagging you?” and she smiled at the word and a tiger's horror of it.
“Who has been nagging you, love?”
“Th--those--bit--bit--it.” The word was unfortunately lost in a sob.
It was followed by red faces and two simultaneous yells of
remonstrance and objurgation.
“I must ask you to be silent a minute,” said Miss Fountain, quietly.
“Reginald, what do you mean by--by--nagging?”
Reginald explained. “By nagging he meant--why--nagging.”
“Well, then, what had they been doing to him?”
No; poor Reginald was not analytical, dialectical and critical, like
certain pedanticules who figure in story as children. He was a
terrible infant, not a horrible one.
“They won't fight and they won't make it up, and they keep nagging,”
was all could be got out of him.
“Come with me, dear,” said Lucy, gravely.
“Yes,” assented the tiger, softly, and went out awestruck, holding her
hand, and paddling three steps to each of her serpentine glides.
Seated in her own room, tiger at knee, she tried topics of admonition.
During these his eyes wandered about the room in search of matter more
amusing, so she was obliged to bring up her reserve.
“And no young lady will ever marry you.”
“I don't want them to, cousin; I wouldn't let them; you will marry me,
because you promised.”
“Did I?”
“Why, you know you did--upon your honor; and no lady or gentleman ever
breaks their word when they say that; you told me so yourself,” added
he of the inconvenient memory.
“Ah! but there is another rule that I forgot to tell you.”
“What is that?”
“That no lady ever marries a gentleman who has a violent temper.”
“Oh, don't they?”
“No; they would be afraid. If you had a wife, and took up the poker,
she would faint away, and die--perhaps!”
“Oh, dear!”
“I should.”
“But, cousin, you would not _want_ the poker taken to you; you
never nag.”
“Perhaps that is because we are not married yet.”
“What, then, when we are, shall you turn like the others?”
“Impossible to say.”
“Well, then” (after a moment's hesitation), “I'll marry you all the
same.”
“No! you forget; I shall be afraid until your temper mends.”
“I'll mend it. It is mended now. See how good I am now,” added he,
with self-admiration and a shade of surprise.
“I don't call this mending it, for I am not the one that offended you;
mending it is promising me never, never to call naughty names again.
How would you like to be called a dog?”
“I'd kill 'em.”
“There, you see--then how can you expect poor nurse to like it?”
“You don't understand, cousin--Tom said to George the groom that Mrs.
Jones was an--old--stingy--b--”
“I don't want to hear anything about Tom.”
“He is such a clever fellow, cousin. So I think, if Jones is an old
one, those two that keep nagging me must be young ones. What do you
think yourself?” asked Reginald, appealing suddenly to her candor.
“And no doubt it was Tom that taught you this other vulgar word
'nagging,'” was the evasive reply.
“No, that was mamma.”
Lucy colored, wheeled quickly, and demanded severely of the terrible
infant: “Who is this Tom?”
“What! don't you know Tom?” Reginald began to lose a grain of his
respect for her. “Why, he helps in the stables; oh, cousin, he is such
a nice fellow!”
“Reginald, I shall never marry you if you keep company with grooms,
and speak their language.”
“Well!” sighed the victim, “I'll give up Tom sooner than you.”
“Thank you, dear; now I _am_ flattered. One struggle more; we
must go together and ask the nurses' pardon.”
“Must we? ugh!”
“Yes--and kiss them--and make it up.”
Reginald made a wry face; but, after a pause of solemn reflection, he
consented, on condition that Lucy would keep near him, and kiss him
directly afterward.
“I shall be sure to do that, because you will be a good boy then.”
Outside the door Reginald paused: “I have a favor to ask you,
cousin--a great favor. You see I am so very little, and you are so
big; now the husband ought to be the biggest.”
“Quite my own opinion, Reggy.”
“Well, dear, now if you would be so kind as not to grow any older till
I catch you up, I shall be so very, very, very much obliged to you,
dear.”
“I will try, Reggy. Nineteen is a very good age. I will stay there as
long as my friends will let me.”
“Thank you, cousin.”
“But that is not what we have in hand.”
The nurses were just agreeing what a shame it was of miss to take that
little vagabond's part against them, when she opened the door. “Nurse,
here is a penitent--a young gentleman who is never going to use rude
words, or be violent and naughty again.”
“La! miss, why, it is witchcraft--the dear child--soon up and soon
down, as a boy should.”
“Beg par'n, nurse--beg par'n, Kitty,” recited the dear child, late
tiger, and kissed them both hastily; and, this double formula gone
through, ran to Miss Fountain and kissed her with warmth, while the
nurses were reciting “little angel,” “all heart,” etc.
“To take the taste out of my mouth,” explained the penitent, and was
left with his propitiated females; and didn't they nag him at short
intervals until sunset! But, strong in the contemplation of his future
union with Cousin Lucy, this great heart in a little body despised the
pins and needles that had goaded him to fury before.
Lucy went down to the drawing-room. She found Mrs. Bazalgette leaning
with one elbow on the table, her hand shading her high, polished
forehead; her grave face reflecting great mental power taxed to the
uttermost. So Newton looked, solving Nature.
Miss Fountain came in full of the nursery business, but, catching
sight of so much mind in labor, approached it with silent curiosity.
The oracle looked up with an absorbed air, and delivered itself very
slowly, with eye turned inward.
“I am afraid--I don't think--I quite like my new dress.”
“That _is_ unfortunate.”
“That would not matter; I never like anything till I have altered it;
but here is Baldwin has just sent me word that her mother is dying,
and she can't undertake any work for a week. Provoking! could not the
woman die just as well after the ball?”
“Oh, aunt!”
“And my maid has no more taste than an owl. What on earth am I to do?”
“Wear another dress.”
“What other can I?”
“Nothing can be prettier than your white mousseline de soie with the
tartan trimming.”
“No, I have worn that at four balls already; I won't be known by my
colors, like a bird. I have made up my mind to wear the jaune, and I
will, in spite of them all; that is, if I can find anybody who cares
enough for me to try it on, and tell me what it wants.” Lucy offered
at once to go with her to her room and try it on.
“No--no--it is so cold there; we will do it here by the fire. You will
find it in the large wardrobe, dear. Mind how you carry it. Lucy! lots
of pins.”
Mrs. Bazalgette then rang the bell, and told the servant to say she
was out if anyone called, no matter who.
Meantime Lucy, impressed with the gravity of her office, took the
dress carefully down from the pegs; and as it would have been death to
crease it, and destruction to let its hem sweep against any of the
inferior forms of matter, she came down the stairs and into the room
holding this female weapon of destruction as high above her head as
Judith waves the sword of Holofernes in Etty's immortal picture.
The other had just found time to loosen her dress and lock one of the
doors. She now locked the other, and the rites began. Well!!??
“It fits you like a glove.”
“Really? tell the truth now; it is a sin to tell a story--about a new
gown. What a nuisance one can't see behind one!”
“I could fetch another glass, but you may trust my word, aunt. This
point behind is very becoming; it gives distinction to the waist.”
“Yes, Baldwin cuts these bodies better than Olivier; but the worst of
her is, when it comes to the trimming you have to think for yourself.
The woman has no mind; she is a pair of hands, and there is an end of
her.”
“I must confess it is a little plain, for one thing,” said Lucy.
“Why, you little goose, you don't think I am going to wear it like
this. No. I thought of having down a wreath and bouquet from Foster's
of violets and heart's-ease--the bosom and sleeves covered with blond,
you know, and caught up here and there with a small bunch of the
flowers. Then, in the center heart's-ease of the bosom, I meant to
have had two of my largest diamonds set--hush!”
The door-handle worked viciously; then came rap! rap! rap! rap!
“Tic--tic--tic; this is always the way. Who is there? Go away; you
can't come here.”
“But I want to speak to you. What the deuce are you doing?” said
through the keyhole the wretch that owned the room in a mere legal
sense.
“We are trying a dress. Come again in an hour.”
“Confound your dresses! Who is we?”
“Lucy has got a new dress.”
“Aunt!” whispered Lucy, in a tone of piteous expostulation.
“Oh, if it is Lucy. Well, good-by, ladies. I am obliged to go to
London at a moment's notice for a couple of days. You will have done
by when I come back, perhaps,” and off went Bazalgette whistling, but
not best pleased. He had told his wife more than once that the
drawing-rooms and dining-rooms of a house are the public rooms, and
the bedrooms the private ones.
Lucy colored with mortification. It was death to her to annoy anyone;
so her aunt had thrust her into a cruel position.
“Poor Mr. Bazalgette!” sighed she.
“Fiddle de dee. Let him go, and come back in a better temper--set
transparent; so then, backed by the violet, you know, they will
imitate dewdrops to the life.”
“Charming! Why not let Olivier do it for you, as poor Baldwin cannot?”
“Because Olivier works for the Claytons, and we should have that Emily
Clayton out as my double; and as we visit the same houses--”
“And as she is extremely pretty--aunt, what a generalissima you are!”
“Pretty! Snub-nosed little toad. No, she is not pretty. But she is
eighteen; so I can't afford to dress her. No. I see I shall have to
moderate my views for this gown, and buy another dress for the flowers
and diamonds. There, take it off, and let us think it calmly over. I
never act in a hurry but I am sorry for it afterward--I mean in things
of real importance.” The gown was taken off in silence, broken only by
occasional sighs from the sufferer, in whose heart a dozen projects
battled fiercely for the mastery, and worried and sore perplexed her,
and rent her inmost soul fiercely divers ways.
“Black lace, dear,” suggested Lucy, soothingly.
Mrs. B. curled her arm lovingly round Lucy's waist. “Just what I was
beginning to think,” said she, warmly. “And we can't both be mistaken,
can we? But where can I get enough?” and her countenance, that the
cheering coincidence had rendered seraphic, was once more clouded with
doubt.
“Why, you have yards of it.”
“Yes, but mine is all made up in some form or other, and it musses
one's things so to pick them to pieces.”
“So it does, dear,” replied Lucy, with gentle but genuine feeling.
“It would only be for one night, Lucy--I should not hurt it, love--you
would not like to fetch down your Brussels point scarf, and see how it
would look, would you? We need not cut the lace, dear; we could tack
it on again the next morning; you are not so particular as I am--you
look well in anything.”
Lucy was soon seated denuding herself and embellishing her aunt. The
latter reclined with grace, and furthered the work by smile and
gesture.
“You don't ask me about the skirmish in the nursery.”
“Their squabbles bore me, dear; but you can tell me who was the most
in fault, if you think it worth while.”
“Reginald, then, I am afraid; but it is not the poor boy; it is the
influence of the stable-yard; and I do advise and entreat you to keep
him out of it.”
“Impossible, my dear; you don't know boys. The stable is their
paradise. When he grows older his father must interfere; meantime, let
us talk of something more agreeable.”
“Yes; you shall go on with your story. You had got to his look of
despair when your papa came in that morning.”
“Oh, I have no time for anybody's despair just now; I can think of
nothing but this detestable gown. Lucy, I suspect I almost wish I had
made them put another breadth into the skirt.”
“Luncheon, ma'am.”
Lucy begged her aunt to go down alone; she would stay and work.
“No, you must come to luncheon; there is a dish on purpose for
you--stewed eels.”
“Eels; why, I abhor them; I think they are water-serpents.”
“Who is it that is so fond of them, then?”
“It is you, aunt.”
“So it is. I thought it had been you. Come, you must come down,
whether you eat anything or not. I like somebody to talk to me while I
am eating, and I had an idea just now--it is gone--but perhaps it will
come back to me: it was about this abominable gown. O! how I wish
there was not such a thing as dress in the world!!!”
While Mrs. Bazalgette was munching water-snakes with delicate zeal,
and Lucy nibbling cake, came a letter. Mrs. Bazalgette read it with
heightening color, laid it down, cast a pitying glance on Lucy, and
said, with a sigh, “Poor girl!”
Lucy turned a little pale. “Has anything happened?” she faltered.
“Something is going to happen; you are to be torn away from here,
where you are so happy--where we all love you, dear. It is from that
selfish old bachelor. Listen: 'Dear madam, my niece Lucy has been due
here three days. I have waited to see whether you would part with her
without being dunned. My curiosity on that point is satisfied, and I
have now only my affection to consult, which I do by requesting you to
put her and her maid into a carriage that will be waiting for her at
your door twenty-four hours after you receive this note. I have the
honor to be, madam,' an old brute!!”
“And you can smile; but that is you all over; you don't care a straw
whether you are happy or miserable.”
“Don't I?”
“Not you; you will leave this, where you are a little queen, and go
and bury yourself three months with that old bachelor, and nobody will
ever gather from your face that you are bored to death; and here we
are asked to the Cavendishes' next Wednesday, and the Hunts' ball on
Friday--you are such a lucky girl--our best invitations always drop in
while you are with us--we go out three times as often during your
months as at other times; it is your good fortune, or the weather, or
something.”
“Dear aunt, this was your own arrangement with Uncle Fountain. I used
to be six months with each in turn till you insisted on its being
three. You make me almost laugh, both you and Uncle Fountain; what
_do_ you see in me worth quarreling for?”
“I will tell you what _he_ sees--a good little spiritless
thing--”
“I am larger than you, dear.”
“Yes, in body--that he can make a slave of--always ready to nurse him
and his foe, or to put down your work and to take up his--to play at
his vile backgammon.”
“Piquet, please.”
“Where is the difference?--to share his desolation, and take half his
blue devils on your own shoulders, till he will hyp you so that to get
away you will consent to marry into his set--the county set--some
beggarly old family that came down from the Conquest, and has been
going down ever since; so then he will let you fly--with a string: you
must vegetate two miles from him; so then he can have you in to
Backquette and write his letters: he will settle four hundred a year
on you, and you will be miserable for life.”
“Poor Uncle Fountain, what a schemer he turns out!”
“Men all turn out schemers when you know them, Miss Impertinence.
Well, dear, I have no selfish views for you. I love my few friends too
single-heartedly for that; but I _am_ sad when I see you leaving
us to go where you are not prized.”
“Indeed, aunt, I am prized at Font Abbey. I am overrated there as I am
here. They all receive me with open arms.”
“So is a hare when it comes into a trap,” said Mrs. Bazalgette,
sharply, drawing upon a limited knowledge of grammar and field-sports.
“No--Uncle Fountain really loves me.”
“As much as I do?” asked the lady, with a treacherous smile.
“Very nearly,” was the young courtier's reply. She went on to console
her aunt's unselfish solicitude, by assuring her that Font Abbey was
not a solitude; that dinners and balls abounded, and her uncle was
invited to them all.
“You little goose, don't you see? all those invitations are for your
sake, not his. If we could look in on him now we should find him
literally in single cursedness. Those county folks are not without
cunning. They say beauty has come to stay with the beast; we must ask
the beast to dinner, so then beauty will come along with him.
“What other pleasure awaits you at Font Abbey?”
“The pleasure of giving pleasure,” replied Lucy, apologetically.
“Ah! that is your weakness, Lucy. It is all very well with those who
won't take advantage; but it is the wrong game to play with all the
world. You will be made a tool of, and a slave of, and use of. I speak
from experience. You know how I sacrifice myself to those I love;
luckily, they are not many.”
“Not so many as love you, dear.”
“Heaven forbid! but you are at the head of them all, and I am going to
prove it--by deeds, not words.”
Lucy looked up at this additional feature in her aunt's affection.
“You must go to the great bear's den for three months, but it shall be
the last time!” Lucy said nothing.
“You will return never to quit us, or, at all events, not the
neighborhood.”
“That--would be nice,” said the courtier warmly, but hesitatingly;
“but how will you gain uncle's consent?”
“By dispensing with it.”
“Yes; but the means, aunt?”
“A husband!”
Lucy started and colored all over, and looked askant at her aunt with
opening eyes, like a thoroughbred filly just going to start all across
the road. Mrs. Bazalgette laid a loving hand on her shoulder, and
whispered knowingly in her ear: “Trust to me; I'll have one ready for
you against you come back this time.”
“No, please don't! pray don't!” cried Lucy, clasping her hands in
feeble-minded distress.
“In this neighborhood--one of the right sort.”
“I am so happy as I am.”
“You will be happier when you are quite a slave, and so I shall save
you from being snapped up by some country wiseacre, and marry you into
our own set.”
“Merchant princes,” suggested Lucy, demurely, having just recovered
her breath and what little sauce there was in her.
“Yes, merchant princes--the men of the age--the men who could buy all
the acres in the country without feeling it--the men who make this
little island great, and a woman happy, by letting her have everything
her heart can desire.”
“You mean everything that money can buy.”
“Of course. I said so, didn't I?”
“So, then, you are tired of me in the house?” remonstrated Lucy,
sadly.
“No, ingrate; but you will be sure to marry soon or late.”
“No, I will not, if I can possibly help it.”
“But you can't help it; you are not the character to help it. The
first man that comes to you and says: 'I know you rather dislike me'
(you could not hate anybody, Lucy,) 'but if you don't take me I shall
die of a broken fiddlestick,' you will whine out, 'Oh, dear! shall
you? Well, then, sooner than disoblige you, here--take me!'”
“Am I so weak as this?” asked Lucy, coloring, and the water coming
into her eyes.
“Don't be offended,” said the other, coolly; “we won't call it
weakness, but excess of complaisance; you can't say no to anybody.”
“Yet I have said it,” replied Lucy, thoughtfully.
“Have you? When? Oh, to me. Yes; where I am concerned you have
sometimes a will of your own, and a pretty stout one; but never with
anybody else.”
The aunt then inquired of the niece, “frankly, now, between
ourselves,” whether she had no wish to be married. The niece informed
her in confidence that she had not, and was puzzled to conceive how
the bare idea of marriage came to be so tempting to her sex. Of
course, she could understand a lady wishing to marry, if she loved a
gentleman who was determined to be unhappy without her; but that women
should look about for some hunter to catch instead of waiting quietly
till the hunter caught them, this puzzled her; and as for the
superstitious love of females for the marriage rite in cases when it
took away their liberty and gave them nothing amiable in return, it
amazed her. “So, aunt,” she concluded, “if you really love me, driving
me to the altar will be an unfortunate way of showing it.”
While listening to this tirade, which the young lady delivered with
great serenity, and concluded with a little yawn, Mrs. Bazalgette had
two thoughts. The first was: “This girl is not flesh and blood; she is
made of curds and whey, or something else;” the second was: “No, she
is a shade hypocriticaler than other girls--before they are married,
that is all;” and, acting on this latter conviction, she smiled a
lofty incredulity, and fell to counting on her fingers all the moneyed
bachelors for miles.
At this Lucy winced with sensitive modesty, and for once a shade of
vexation showed itself on her lovely features. The quick-sighted,
keen-witted matron caught it, and instantly made a masterly move of
feigned retreat. “No,” cried she, “I will not tease you anymore, love;
just promise me not to receive any gentleman's addresses at Font
Abbey, and I will never drive you from my arms to the altar.”
“I promise that,” cried Lucy, eagerly.
“Upon your honor?”
“Upon my honor.”
“Kiss me, dear. I know you won't deceive me now you have pledged your
honor. This solemn promise consoles me more than you can conceive.”
“I am so glad; but if you knew how little it costs me.”
“All the better; you will be more likely to keep it,” was the dry
reply.
The conversation then took a more tender turn. “And so to-morrow you
go! How dull the house will be without you! and who is to keep my
brats in order now I have no idea. Well, there is nothing but meeting
and parting in this world; it does not do to love people, does it?
(ah!) Don't cry, love, or I shall give way; my desolate heart already
brims over--no--now don't cry” (a little sharply); “the servants will
be coming in to take away the things.”
“Will you c--c--come and h--help me pack, dear?”
“Me, love? oh no! I could not bear the sight of your things put out to
go away. I promised to call on Mrs. Hunt this afternoon; and you must
not stop in all day yourself--I cannot let your health be sacrificed;
you had better take a brisk walk, and pack afterward.”
“Thank you, aunt. I will go and finish my drawing of Harrowden Church
to take with me.”
“No, don't go there; the meadows are wet. Walk upon the Hatton road;
it is all gravel.”
“Yes; only it is so ugly, and I have nothing to do that way.”
“But I'll give you something to do,” said Mrs. Bazalgette, obligingly.
“You know where old Sarah and her daughter live--the last cottages on
that road; I don't like the shape of the last two collars they made
me; you can take them back, if you like, and lend them one of yours I
admire so for a pattern.”
“That I will, with pleasure.”
“Shall you come back through the garden? If you don't--never mind;
but, if you do, you may choose me a bouquet. The servants are
incapable of a bouquet.”
“I will; thank you, dear. How kind and thoughtful of you to give me
something to occupy me now that I am a little sad.” Mrs. Bazalgette
accepted this tribute with a benignant smile, and the ladies parted.
The next morning a traveling-carriage, with four smoking post-horses,
came wheeling round the gravel to the front door. Uncle Fountain's
factotum got down from the dicky, packed Lucy's imperial on the roof,
and slung a box below the dicky; stowed her maid away aft, arranged
the foot-cushion and a shawl or two inside, and, half obsequiously,
half bumptiously, awaited the descent of his fair charge.
Then, upstairs, came a sudden simultaneous attack of ardent lips, and
a long, clinging embrace that would have graced the most glorious,
passionate, antique love. Sculpture outdone, the young lady went down,
and was handed into the carriage. Her ardent aunt followed presently,
and fired many glowing phrases in at the window; and, just as the
carriage moved, she uttered a single word quite quietly, as much as to
say, Now, this I mean. This genuine word, the last Aunt Bazalgette
spoke, had been, two hundred years before, the last word of Charles
the First. Note the coincidences of history.
The two postboys lifted their whips level to their eyes by one
instinct, the horses tightened the traces, the wheels ground the
gravel, and Lucy was whirled away with that quiet, emphatic post-dict
ringing in her ears,
Remember!
Font Hill was sixty miles off: they reached it in less than six hours.
There was Uncle Fountain on the hall steps to receive her, and the
comely housekeeper, Mrs. Brown, ducking and smiling in the background.
While the servants were unpacking the carriage, Mr. Fountain took Lucy
to her bedroom. Mrs. Brown had gone on before to see for the third
time whether all was comfortable. There was a huge fire, all red; and
on the table a gigantic nosegay of spring flowers, with smell to them
all.
“Oh how nice, after a journey!” said Lucy, mowing down Uncle Fountain
and Mrs. Brown with one comprehensive smile.
Mrs. Brown flamed with complacency.
“What!” cried her uncle; “I suppose you expected a black fire and
impertinent apologies by way of substitute for warmth; a stuffy room,
and damp sheets, roasted, like a woodcock, twenty minutes before use.”
“No, uncle, dear, I expected every comfort at Font Abbey.” Brown
retired with a courtesy.
“Aha! What! you have found out that it is all humbug about old
bachelors not knowing comfort? Do bachelors ever put their friends
into damp sheets? No; that is the women's trick with their household
science. Your sex have killed more men with damp sheets than ever fell
by the sword.”
“Yet nobody erects monuments to us,” put in Lucy, slyly.
She missed fire. Uncle Fountain, like most Englishmen, could take in a
pun by the ear, but wit only by the eye. “Do you remember when Mrs.
Bazalgette put you into the linen sponge, and killed you?”
“Killed me?”
“Certainly, as far as in her lay. We can but do our best; well, she
did hers, and went the right way to work.”
“You see I survive.”
“By a miracle. Dinner is at six.”
“Very well, dear.”
“Yes; but six in this house means sixty minutes after five and sixty
minutes before seven. I mention this the first day because you are
just come from a place where it means twenty minutes to seven; also
let me observe that I think I have noticed soup and potatoes eat
better hot than cold, and meat tastes nicer done to a turn than--”
“To a cinder?”
“Ha! ha! and come with an appetite, please.”
“Uncle, no tyranny, I beg.”
“Tyranny? you know this is Liberty Hall; only when I eat I expect my
companion to-eat too; besides, there is nothing to be gained by humbug
to-day. There will be only us two at dinner; and when I see young
ladies fiddling with an asparagus head instead of eating their dinner,
it don't fall into the greenhorn's notion--exquisite creature! all
soul! no stomach! feeds on air, ideas, and quadrille music--no; what
do you think I say?”
“Something flattering, I feel sure.”
“On the contrary, something true. I say hypocrite! Been grubbing like
a pig all day, so can't eat like a Christian at meal time; you can't
humbug me.”
“Alas! so I see. That decides me to be candid--and hungry.”
“Well, I am off; I don't stick to my friends and bore them with my
affairs like that egotistical hussy, Jane Bazalgette. I amuse myself,
and leave them to amuse themselves; that is my notion of politeness. I
am going to see my pigs fed, then into the village. I am building a
new blacksmith's shop there (you must come and look at it the first
thing to-morrow); and at six, if you want to find me--”
“I shall peep behind the soup-tureen.”
“And there I shall be, if I am alive.” At dinner the old boy threw
himself into the work with such zeal that soon after the cloth was
removed, from fatigue and repletion, he dropped asleep, with his
shoulder toward Lucy, but his face instinctively turned toward the
fire. Lucy crept away on tiptoe, not to disturb him.
In about an hour he bustled into the drawing-room, ordered tea, blew
up the footman because the cook had not water boiling that moment,
drank three cups, then brightened up, rubbed his hands, and with a
cheerful, benevolent manner, “Now, Lucy,” cried he, “come and help me
puzzle out this tiresome genealogy.”
A smile of warm assent from Lucy, and the old bachelor and the
blooming Hebe were soon seated with a mountain of parchments by their
side, and a tree spreading before them.
It was not a finite tree like an elm or an oak; no, it was a banyan
tree; covered an acre, and from its boughs little suckers dropped to
earth, and turned to little trees, and had suckers in their turn, and
“confounded the confusion.”
Uncle Fountain's happiness depended, _pro tem,_ on proving that
he was a sucker from the great bough of the Fontaines of Melton; and
why? Because, this effected, he had only to go along that bough by an
established pedigree to the great trunk of the Funteyns of Salle, and
the first Funteyn of Salle was said to be (and this he hoped to prove
true) great-grandson of Robert de Fontibus, son of John de Fonte.
Now Uncle Fountain could prove himself the shoot of George his father
(a step at which so many pedigrees halt), who was the shoot of
William, who was the shoot of Richard; but here came a gap of eighty
years between him and that Fountain, younger son of Melton, to whom he
wanted to hook on. Now the logic of women, children, and criticasters
is a thing of gaps; they reason as marches a kangaroo; but to
mathematicians, logicians, and genealogists, a link wanting is a chain
broken. This blank then made Uncle Fountain miserable, and he cried
out for help. Lucy came with her young eyes, her woman's patience, and
her own complaisance. A great ditch yawned between a crocheteer and a
rotten branch he coveted. Our Quinta Curtia flung herself, her
eyesight, and her time into that ditch.
Twelve o'clock came, and found them still wallowing in modern
antiquity.
“Bless me!” cried Mr. Fountain when John brought up the bed-candles,
“how time flies when one is really employed.”
“Yes, indeed, uncle;” and by a gymnastic of courtesy she first crushed
and then so molded a yawn that it glided into society a smile.
“We have spent a delightful evening, Lucy.”
“Thanks to you, uncle.”
“I hope you will sleep well, child.”
“I am sure I shall, dear,” said she, sweetly and inadvertently.
CHAPTER II.
A LARGE aspiration is a rarity; but who has not some small ambition,
none the less keen for being narrow--keener, perhaps? Mrs. Bazalgette
burned to be great by dress; Mr. Fountain, member of a sex with higher
aims, aspired to be great in the county.
Unluckily, his main property was in the funds. He had acres
in ----shire; but so few that, some years ago, its lord lieutenant
declined to make him an injustice of the peace. That functionary died,
and on his death the mortified aspirant bought a coppice, christened
it Springwood, and under cover of this fringe to his three meadows,
applied to the new lord lieutenant as M'Duff approached M'Beth. The
new man made him a magistrate; so now he aspired to be a deputy
lieutenant, and attended all the boards of magistrates, and turnpike
trusts, etc., and brought up votes and beer-barrels at each election,
and, in, short, played all the cards in his pack, Lucy included, to
earn that distinction.
We may as well confess that there lurked in him a half-unconscious
hope that some day or other, in some strange collision or combination
of parties, a man profound in county business, zealous in county
interests, personally obnoxious to nobody, might drop into the seat of
county member; and, if this should be, would not he have the sense to
hold his tongue upon the noisy questions that waste Parliament's time,
and the nation's; but, on the first of those periodical attacks to
which the wretched landowner is subject, wouldn't he speak, and show
the difference between a mere member of the Commons and a member for
the county?
If anyone had asked this man plump which is the most important,
England or ----shire, he would have certainly told you England; but
our opinions are not the notions we repeat, and can defend by reasons
or even by facts: our opinions are the notions we feel and act on.
Could you have looked inside Mr. Fountain's head, you would have seen
ideas corresponding to the following diagrams:
[drawing]
Mr. Fountain courted the stomach of the county.
Without this, he knew, an angel could not reach its heart; and here
one of his eccentricities broke out. He drew a line, in his
dictatorial way, between dinner and feeding parties. “A dinner party
is two rubbers. Four gentlemen and four ladies sit round a circular
table; then each can hear what anyone says, and need not twist the
neck at every word. Foraging parties are from fourteen to thirty, set
up and down a plank, each separated from those he could talk to as
effectually as if the ocean rolled between, and bawling into one
person's ear amid the din of knives, forks, and multitude. I go to
those long strings of noisy duets because I must, but I give
_society_ at home.”
The county people had just strength of mind to like the old boy's
sociable dinners, though not to imitate them, and an invitation from
him was very rarely declined when Lucy was with him.
And she was in her glory. She could carry complaisance such a long way
at Font Abbey--she was mistress of the house.
She listened with a wonderful appearance of interest to county
matters, i.e., to minute scandal and infinitesimal politics; to
the county cricket match and archery meeting; to the past ball and the
ball to come. In the drawing-room, when a cold fit fell on the
coterie, she would glide to one egotist after another, find out the
monotope, and set the critter Peter's, the Place de Concorde, the
Square of St. Mark, Versailles, the Alhambra, the Apollo Belvidere,
the Madonna of the Chair, and all the glories of nature and the feats
of art could not warm. So, then, the fine gentleman began to act--to
walk himself out as a person who had seen and could give details about
anything, but was exalted far above admiring anything _(quel grand
homme! rien ne peut lui plaire);_ and on this, while the women were
gazing sweetly on him, and revering his superiority to all great
impressions, and the men envying, rather hating, but secretly admiring
him too, she who had launched him bent on him a look of soft pity, and
abandoned him to admiration.
“Poor Mr. Talboys,” thought she, “I fear I have done him an ill turn
by drawing him out;” and she glided to her uncle, who was sitting
apart, and nobody talking to him.
Mr. Talboys, started by Lucy, ambled out his high-pacing
_nil admirantem_ character, and derived a little quiet
self-satisfaction. This was the highest happiness he was capable of;
so he was not ungrateful to Miss Fountain, who had procured it him,
and partly for this, partly because he had been kind to her and lent
her a pony, he shook hands with her somewhat cordially at parting. As
it happened, he was the last guest.
“You have won that, man's heart, Lucy,” cried Mr. Fountain, with a
mixture of surprise and pride.
Lucy made no reply. She looked quickly into his face to see if he was
jesting.
“Writing, Lucy--so late?”
“Only a few lines, uncle. You shall see them; I note the more
remarkable phenomena of society. I am recalling a conversation between
three of our guests this evening, and shall be grateful for your
opinion on it. There! Read it out, please.”
Mrs. Luttrell. “We missed you at the archery meeting--ha! ha! ha!”
Mrs. Willis. “Mr. Willis would not let me go--he! he! he!”
Mrs. James. “Well, at all events--he! he!--you will come to the flower
show.”
Mrs. Willis. “Oh yes!--he! he!--I am so fond of flowers--ha! ha!”
Mrs. Luttrell. “So am I. I adore them--he! he!”
Mrs. Willis. “How sweetly Miss Malcolm sings--he! he!”
Mrs. Luttrell. “Yes, she shakes like a bird--ha! ha!”
Mrs. James. “A little Scotch accent though--he! he!”
Mrs. Luttrell. “She is Scotch--he! he!” (To John offering her tea.)
“No more, thank you--he! he!”
Mrs. James. “Shall you go the Assize sermon?--ha! ha!”
Mrs. Willis. “Oh, yes--he! he!--the last was very dry--he! he! Who
preaches it this term?--he!”
Mrs. James. “The Bishop--he! he!”
Mrs. Willis. “Then I shall certainly go; he is such a dear
preacher--he! he!”
“Just tell me what is the precise meaning of 'ha! ha!' and what of
'he! he!'”
“The precise meaning? There you puzzle me, uncle.”
“I mean, what do you mean by them?”
“Oh, I put 'ha! ha!' when they giggle, and 'he! he!' when they only
chuckle.”
“Then this is a caricature, my lady?”
“No, dear, you know I have no satire in me; it is taken down to the
letter, and I fear I must trouble you for the solution.”
“Well, the solution is, they are three fools.”
“No, uncle, begging your pardon, they are not,” replied Lucy, politely
but firmly.
“Well, then, three d--d fools.”
Lucy winced at the participle, but was two polite to lecture her
elder. “They have not that excuse,” said she; “they are all sensible
women, who discharge the duties of life with discretion except
society; and they can discriminate between grave and gay whenever they
are not at a party; and as for Mrs. Luttrell, when she is alone with
me she is a sweet, natural love.”
“They cackled--at every word--like that--the whole evening!!??”
“Except when you told that funny story about the Irish corporal who
was attacked by a mastiff, and killed him with his halberd, and, when
he was reproached by his captain for not being content to repel so
valuable an animal with the butt end of his lance, answered--ha! ha!”
“So, then, he answered 'Haw! haw!' did he?”
“Now, uncle! No; he answered, 'So I would, your arnr, if he had run at
me with his tail!' Now, that was genuine wit, mixed with quite enough
fun to make an intelligent person laugh; and then you told it so
drolly--ha! ha!”
“They did not laugh at _that?”_
“Sat as grave as judges.”
“And you tell me they are not fools.”
“I must repeat, they have not that excuse. Perhaps their risibility
had been exhausted. After laughing three hours _a propos de
rien,_ it is time to be serious out of place. I will tell you what
they _did_ laugh at, though. Miss Malcolm sang a song with a
title I dare not attempt. There were two lines in it which I am going
to mispronounce; but you are not Scotch, so I don't care for
_you,_ uncle, darling.
“'He had but a saxpence; he break it in twa,
And he gave me the half o't when he gaed awa.'
“They laughed at that; a general giggle went round.”
“Well, I must confess, I don't see much to laugh at in that, Lucy.”
“It would be odd if you did, uncle, dear; why, it is pathetic.”
“Pathetic? Oh, is it?”
“You naughty, cunning uncle, you know it is; it is pathetic, and
almost heroic. Consider, dear: in a world where the very newspapers
show how mercenary we all are, a poor young man is parted from his
love. He has but one coin to go through the world with, and what does
he do with it? Scheme to make the sixpence a crown, and to make the
crown a pound? No; he breaks this one treasure in two, that both the
poor things may have a silver token of love and a pledge of his
return. I am sure, if the poet had been here, he would have been quite
angry with us for laughing at that line.”
“Keep your temper. Why, this is new from you, Lucy; but you women of
sugar can all cauterize your own sex; the theme inspires you.”
“Uncle, how dare you! Are you not afraid I shall be angry one of these
days, dear!!? The gentlemen were equally concerned in this last
enormity. Poor Jemmy, or Jammy, with his devotion and tenderness that
soothed, and his high spirit that supported the weaker vessel, was as
funny to our male as to our female guests--so there. I saw but one
that understood him, and did not laugh at him.”
“Talboys, for a pound.”
“Mr. Talboys? no! _You,_ dear uncle; you did not laugh; I noticed
it with all a niece's pride.”
“Of course I didn't. Can I hear a word these ladies mew? can I tell in
what language even they are whining and miauling? I have given up
trying this twenty years and more.”
“I return to my question,” said Lucy hastily.
“And I to my solution; your three graces are three d--d fools. If you
can account for it in any other way, do.”
“No, uncle dear. If you had happened to agree with me beforehand, I
would; but as you do not, I beg to be excused. But keep the paper, and
the next time listen to the talk and unmeaning laughter; you will find
I have not exaggerated, and some day, dear, I will tell you how my
mamma used to account for similar monstrosities in society.”
“Here is a mysterious little toad. Well, Lucy, for all this you
enjoyed yourself. I never saw you in better spirits.”
“I am glad you saw that,” said Lucy, with a languid smile.
“And how Talboys came out.”
“He did,” sighed Lucy.
Here the young lady lighted softly on an ottoman, and sank gracefully
back with a weary-o'-the-world air; and when she had settled down like
so much floss silk, fixing her eye on the ceiling, and doling her
words out languidly yet thoughtfully--just above a whisper, “Uncle,
darling,” inquired she, “where are the men we have all heard of?”
“How should I know? What men?”
“Where are the men of sentiment, that can understand a woman, and win
her to reveal her real heart, the best treasure she has, uncle dear?”
She paused for a reply; none coming, she continued with decreasing
energy:
“Where are the men of spirit? the men of action? the upright,
downright men, that Heaven sends to cure us of our disingenuousness?
Where are the heroes and the wits?” (an infinitesimal yawn); “where
are the real men? And where are the women to whom such men can do
homage without degrading themselves? where are the men who elevate a
woman without making her masculine, and the women who can brighten and
polish, and yet not soften the steel of manhood--tell me, tell me
instantly,” said she, with still greater languor and want of
earnestness, and her eyes remained fixed on the ceiling in deep
abstraction.
“They are all in this house at this moment,” said Mr. Fountain,
coolly.
“Who, dear? I fear I was not attending to you. How rude!!”
“Horrid. I say the men and women you inquire for are all in this house
of mine;” and the old gentleman's eyes twinkled.
“Uncle! Heaven forgive you, and--oh, fie!”
“They are, upon my soul.”
“Then they must be in some part of it I have not visited. Are they in
the kitchen?” (with a little saucy sneer.)
“No, they are in the library.”
“In the lib--Ah! _le malin!”_
“They were never seen in the drawing-room, and never will be.”
“Yet surely they must have lived in nature before they were embalmed
in print,” said Lucy, interrogating the ceiling again.
“The nearest approach you will meet to these paragons is Reginald
Talboys,” said Fountain, stoutly.
“Uncle, I do love you;” and Lucy rose with Juno-like slowness and
dignity, and, leaning over the old boy, kissed him with sudden small
fury.
“Why?” asked he, eagerly, connecting this majestic squirt of affection
with his last speech.
“Because you are such a nice, dear, _sarcastic_ thing. Let us
drink tea in the library to-morrow, then that will be an approach
to--”
With this illegitimate full stop the conversation ended, and Miss
Fountain took a candle and sauntered to bed.
In church next Sunday Lucy observed a young lady with a beaming face,
who eyed her by stealth in all the interstices of devotion. She asked
her uncle who was that pretty girl with a _nez retrousse._
“A cocked nose? It must be my little friend, Eve Dodd. I didn't know
she was come back.”
“What a pretty face to be in such--such a--such an impossible bonnet.
It has come down from another epoch.” This not maliciously, but with a
sort of tender, womanly concern for beauty set off to the most
disadvantage.
“O, hang her bonnet! She is full of fun; she shall drink tea with us;
she is a great favorite of mine.”
They quickened their pace, and caught Eve Dodd just as she took a
flying leap over some water that lay in her path, and showed a
charming ankle. In those days female dress committed two errors that
are disappearing: it revealed the whole foot by day, and hid a section
of the bosom at night.
After the usual greetings, Mr. Fountain asked Eve if she would come
over and drink tea with him and his niece.
Miss Dodd colored and cast a glance of undisguised admiration at Miss
Fountain, but she said: “Thank you, sir; I am much obliged, but I am
afraid I can't come. My brother would miss me.”
“What--the sailor? Is he at home?”
“Yes, sir; came home last night”; and she clapped her hands by way of
comment. “He has been with my mother all church-time; so now it is my
turn, and I don't know how to let him out of my sight yet awhile.” And
she gave a glance at Miss Fountain, as much as to say, “You
understand.”
“Well, Eve,” said Mr. Fountain good-humoredly, “we must not separate
brother and sister,” and he was turning to go.
“Perhaps, uncle,” said Lucy, looking not at Mr. Fountain, but at
Eve--“Mr.--Mr.--”
“David Dodd is my brother's name,” said Eve, quickly.
“Mr. David Dodd might be persuaded to give us the pleasure of his
company too.”
“Oh yes, if I may bring dear David with me,” burst out the child of
nature, coloring again with pleasure.
“It will add to the obligation,” said Lucy, finishing the sentence in
character.
“So that is settled,” said Mr. Fountain, somewhat dryly.
As they were walking home together, the courtier asked her uncle
rather coldly, “Who are these we have invited, dear?”
“Who are they? A pretty girl and a man she wouldn't come without.”
“And who is the gentleman? What is he?”
“A marine animal--first mate of a ship.”
“First mate? mate? Is that what in the novels is called boatswain's
mate?”
“Haw! haw! haw! I say, Lucy, ask him when he comes if he is the
bosen's mate. How little Eve will blaze!”
“Then I shall ask him nothing of the kind. Do tell me! I know
admirals--they swear--and captains, and, I think, lieutenants, and,
_above all,_ those little loves of midshipmen, strutting with
their dirks and cocked hats, like warlike bantams, but I never met
'mates.' Mates?”
“That is because you have only been introduced to the Royal Navy; but
there is another navy not so ornamental, but quite as useful, called
the East India Company's.”
“I am ashamed to say I never heard of it.”
“I dare say not. Well, in this navy there are only two kinds of
superior officers--the mates and the captain. There are five or six
mates. Young Dodd has been first mate some time, so I suppose he will
soon be a captain.”
“Uncle!”
“Well.”
“Will this--mate--swear?”
“Clearly.”
“There, now. I do not like swearing on a Sunday. That wicked old
admiral used to make me shudder.”
“Oh,” said Mr. Fountain, playing upon innocence, “he swore by the
Supreme Being, 'I bet sixpence.'”
“Yes,” said Lucy, in a low, soft voice of angelic regret.
“Ah! he was in the Royal Navy. But this is a merchantman; you don't
think he will presume to break into the monopoly of the superior
branch. He will only swear by the wind and weather. Thunder and
squalls! Donner and blitzen! Handspikes and halyards! these are the
innocent execrations of the merchant service--he! he! ho!”
“Uncle, can you be serious?” asked Lucy, somewhat coldly; “if so, be
so good as to tell me, is this gentleman--a--gentleman?”
“Well,” replied the other, coolly, “he is what I call a nondescript;
like an attorney, or a surgeon, or a civil engineer, or a banker, or a
stock-broker, and all that sort of people. He can be a gentleman if he
is thoroughly bent on it; you would in his place, and so should I; but
these skippers don't turn their mind that way. Old families don't go
into the merchant service. Indeed, it would not answer. There they
rise by--by--mere maritime considerations.”
“Then, uncle,” began Lucy, with dignified severity, “permit me to say
that, in inviting a nondescript, you showed--less consideration for me
than--you--are in the habit--of doing, dearest.”
“Well, have a headache, and can't come down.”
“So I certainly should; but, most unfortunately, I have an objection
to tell fibs on a Sunday.”
“You are quite right; we should rest from our usual employments one
day-ha! ha! and so go at it fresher to-morrow--haw! ho! Come, Lucy,
don't you be so exclusive. Eve Dodd is a merry girl. She comes and
amuses me when you are not here, and David, by all accounts, is a fine
young fellow, and as modest as a girl of fifteen; they will make me
laugh, especially Eve, and it would be hard at my age, I think, if I
might not ask whom I like--to tea.”
“So it would,” put in Lucy, hastily; she added, coaxing, “it shall
have its own way--it shall have what makes it laugh.”
Long before eight o'clock the Fountains had forgotten that they had
invited the Dodds.
Not so Eve. She was all in a flutter, and hesitated between two
dresses, and by some blessed inspiration decided for the plainest; but
her principal anxiety was, not about herself, but about David's
deportment before the Queen of Fashion, for such report proclaimed
Miss Fountain. “And those fine ladies are so satirical,” said Eve to
herself; “but I will lecture him going along.”
Dinner time, and, by consequence, tea time, came earlier in those
days; so, about eight o'clock, a tall, square-shouldered young fellow
was walking in the moonlight toward Font Abbey, Eve holding his hand,
and tripping by his side, and lecturing him on deportment very gravely
while dancing around him and pulling him all manner of ways, like your
solid tune with your gamboling accompaniment, a combination now in
vogue. All of a sudden, without with your leave or by your leave, the
said David caught this light fantastic object up in his arms, and
carried it on one shoulder.
On this she gave a little squeak; then, without a moment's interval,
continued her lecture as if nothing had happened. She looked down from
her perch like a hen from a ladder, and laid down the law to David
with seriousness and asperity.
“And just please to remember that they are people a long way above
us--at least above what we are now, since father fell into trouble; so
don't you make too free; and Miss Fountain is the finest of all the
fine ladies in the county.”
“Then I am sorry we are going.”
“No, you are not; she is a beautiful girl.”
“That alters the case.”
“No, it does not. Don't chatter so, David, interrupting forever, but
listen and mind what I say, or I'll never take you anywhere again.”
“Are you sure you are taking me now?” asked David, dryly.
“Why not, Mr. David?” retorted Eve, from his shoulder. “Didn't I hear
you tell how you took the _Combermere_ out of harbor, and how you
brought her into port; she didn't take you out and bring you home,
eh?”
“Had me there, though.”
“Yes; and, what is more, you are not skipper of the _Combermere_
yet, and never will be; but I am skipper of you.”
“Ashore--not a doubt of it,” said David, with cool indifference. He
despised terrestrial distinction, courting only such as was marine.
“Then I command you to let me down this instant. Do you hear, crew!”
“No,” objected David; “if I put you overboard you can't command the
vessel, and ten to one if the craft does not founder for want of
seawomanship on the quarterdeck. However,” added he, in a relenting
tone, “wait till we get to that puddle shining on ahead, and then I'll
disembark you.”
“No, David, do let me down, that's a good soul. I am tired,” added
she, peevishly.
“Tired! of what?”
“Of doing nothing, stupid; there, let me down, dear; won't you,
darling! then take that, love” (a box of the ear).
“Well, I've got it,” said David, dryly.
“Keep it, then, till the next. No, he won't let me down. He has got
both my hands in one of his paws, and he will carry me every foot of
the way now--I know the obstinate pig.”
“We all have our little characters, Eve. Well, I have got your wrists,
but you have got your tongue, and that is the stronger weapon of the
two, you know; and you are on the poop, so give your orders, and the
ship shall be worked accordingly; likewise, I will enter all your
remarks on good-breeding into my log.”
Here, unluckily, David tapped his forehead to signify that the log in
question was a metaphorical one, the log of memory. Eve had him again
directly. She freed a claw. “So this is your log, is it?” cried she,
tapping it as hard as she could; “well, it does sound like wood of
some sort. Well, then, David, dear--you wretch, I mean--promise me not
to laugh loud.”
“Well, I will not; it is odds if I laugh at all. I wish we were to
moor alongside mother, instead of running into this strange port.”
“Stuff! think of Miss Fountain's figure-head--nor tell too many
stories--and, above all, for heaven's sake, do keep the poor dear old
sea out of sight for once.”
“Ay, ay, that stands to reason.”
By this time they were at Font Abbey, and David deposited his fair
burden gently on the stone steps of the door. She opened it without
ceremony, and bustled into the dining-room, crying, “I have brought
David, sir; and here he is;” and she accompanied David's bow with a
corresponding movement of her hand, the knuckles downward.
The old gentleman awoke with a start, rubbed his eyes, shook hands
with the pair, and proposed to go up to Lucy in the drawing-room.
Now, it happened unluckily that Miss Fountain had been to the library
and taken down one or two of those men and women who, according to her
uncle, exist only on paper, and certain it is she was in charming
company when she heard her visitors' steps and voices coming up the
stairs. Had those visitors seen the vexed expression of her face as
she laid down the book they would have instantly 'bout ship and home
again; but that sour look dissolved away as they came through the open
door.
On coming in they saw a young lady seated on a sofa.
Apparently she did not see them enter. Her face _happened_ to be
averted; but, ere they had taken three steps, she turned her face, saw
them, rose, and took two steps to meet them, all beaming with
courtesy, kindness and quiet satisfaction at their arrival.
She gave her hand to Eve.
“This is my brother, Miss Fountain.”
Miss Fountain instantly swept David a courtesy with such a grace and
flow, coupled with an engaging smile, that the sailor was fascinated,
and gazed instead of bowing.
Eve had her finger ready to poke him, when he recovered himself and
bowed low.
Eve played the accompaniment with her hand, knuckles down.
They sat down. Cups of tea, etc., were brought round to each by John.
It was bad tea, made out of the room. Catch a human being making good
tea in which it is not to share.
Mr. Fountain was only half awake.
Eve was more or less awed by Lucy. David, tutored by Eve, held his
tongue altogether, or gave short answers.
“This must be what the novels call a sea-cub!” thought Miss Fountain.
The friends, Propriety and Restraint, presided over the innocent
banquet, and a dismal evening set in.
The first infraction of this polite tranquillity came, I blush to say,
from the descendant of John de Fonte. He exploded in a yawn of
magnitude; to cover this, the young lady began hastily to play her old
game of setting people astride their topic, and she selected David
Dodd for the experiment. She put on a warm curiosity about the sea,
and ships, and the countries men visit in them. Then occurred a droll
phenomenon: David flashed with animation, and began full and
intelligent answers; then, catching his sister's eye, came to
unnatural full stops; and so warmly and skillfully was he pressed that
it cost him a gigantic effort to avoid giving much amusement and
instruction. The courtier saw this hesitation, and the vivid flashes
of intelligence, and would not lose her prey. She drew him with all a
woman's tact, and with a warmth so well feigned that it set him on
real fire. His instinct of politeness would not let him go on all
night giving short answers to inquiring beauty. He turned his eye,
which glowed now like a live coal, toward that enticing voice, and
presently, like a ship that has been hanging over the water ever so
long on the last rollers, with one gallant glide he took the sea, and
towed them all like little cockle-boats in his wake. From sea to sea,
from port to port, from tribe to tribe, from peril to peril, from feat
to feat, David whirled his wonderstruck hearers, and held them panting
by the quadruple magic of a tuneful voice, a changing eye, an ardent
soul, and truth at first-hand.
They sat thrilled and surprised, most of all Miss Fountain. To her,
things great and real had up to that moment been mere vague outlines
seen through a mist. Moreover, her habitual courtesy had hitherto
drawn out pumps; but now, when least expected, all in a moment, as a
spark fires powder, it let off a man.
A sailor is a live book of travels. Check your own vanity (if you
possibly can) and set him talking, you shall find him full of curious
and profitable matter.
The Fountains did not know this, and, even if they had, Dodd would
have taken them by surprise; for, besides being a sailor and a
sea-enthusiast, he was a fellow of great capacity and mental vigor.
He had not skimmed so many books as we have, but I fear he had sucked
more. However, his main strength did not lie there. He was not a paper
man, and this--oh! men of paper and oh! C. R. in particular--gave him
a tremendous advantage over you that Sunday evening.
The man whose knowledge all comes from reading accumulates a great
number of what?--facts? No, of the shadows of facts; shadows often so
thin, indistinct and featureless, that, when one of the facts
themselves runs against him in real life, he does not know his old
friend, round about which he has written a smart leader in a journal
and a ponderous trifle in the Polysyllabic Review.
But this sailor had stowed into his mental hold not fact-shadows, but
the glowing facts all alive, O. For thirteen years, man and boy, he
had beat about the globe, with real eyes, real ears, and real brains
ever at work. He had drunk living knowledge like a fish, and at
fountainheads.
Yet, to utter intellectual wealth nobly, two things more are
indispensable the gift of language and a tunable voice, which last
does not always come by talking with tempests.
Well, David Dodd had sucked in a good deal of language from books and
tongues; not, indeed, the Norman-French and demi-Latin and jargon of
the schools, printed for English in impotent old trimestrials for the
further fogification of cliques, but he had laid by a fair store of
the best--of the monosyllables--the Saxon--the soul and vestal fire of
the great English tongue.
So he was never at a loss for words, simple, clear, strong, like
blasts of a horn.
His voice at this period was mellow and flexible. He was a mimic, too;
the brighter things he had seen, whether glories of nature or acts of
man, had turned to pictures in this man's mind. He flashed these
pictures one after another upon the trio; he peopled the soft and
cushioned drawing-room with twenty different tribes and varieties of
man, barbarous, semi-barbarous, and civilized; their curious customs,
their songs and chants, and dances, and struts, and actual postures.
The aspect of famous shores from the sea, glittering coasts, dark
straits, volcanic rocks defying sea and sky, and warm, delicious
islands clothed with green, that burst on the mariner's sight after
rugged places and scowling skies.
The adventures of one unlucky ship, the _Connemara,_ on a single
whaling cruise on the coast of Peru. The first slight signs of a gale,
seen only by the careful skipper. The hasty preparations for it: all
hands to shorten sail; then the moaning of the wind high up in the
sky. All hands to reef sail now--the whirl and whoo of the gale as it
came down on them. The ship careening as it caught her, the
speaking-trumpet--the captain howling his orders through it amid the
tumult.
The floating icebergs--the ship among them, picking her way in and out
a hundred deaths. Baffled by the unyielding wind off Cape Horn,
sailing six weeks on opposite tacks, and ending just where they began,
weather-bound in sight of the gloomy Horn. Then the terrors of a
land-locked bay, and a lee shore; the ship tacking, writhing,
twisting, to weather one jutting promontory; the sea and safety is on
the other side of it; land and destruction on this--the attempt, the
hope, the failure; then the stout-hearted, skillful captain would try
one rare maneuver to save the ship, cargo, and crew. He would
club-haul her, “and if that fails, my lads, there is nothing but up
mainsail, up helm, run her slap ashore, and lay her bones on the
softest bit of rock we can pick.”
Long ere this the poor ship had become a live thing to all these four,
and they hung breathless on her fate.
Then he showed how a ship is club-hauled, and told how nobly
the old _Connemara_ behaved (ships are apt to when well
handled--double-barreled guns ditto), and how the wind blew fiercer,
and the rocks seemed to open their mouths for her, and how she hung
and vibrated between safety and destruction, and at last how she
writhed and slipped between Death's lips, yet escaped his teeth, and
tossed and tumbled in triumph on the great but fair fighting sea; and
how they got at last to the whaling ground, and could not find a whale
for many a weary day, and the novices said: “They were all killed
before we sailed;” and how, as uncommon ill luck is apt to be balanced
by uncommon good luck, one fine evening they fell in with a whole
shoal of whales at play, jumping clean into the air sixty feet long,
and coming down each with a splash like thunder; even the captain had
never seen such a game; and how the crew were for lowering the boats
and going at them, but the captain would not let them; a hundred
playful mountains of fish, the smallest weighing thirty ton, flopping
down happy-go-lucky, he did not like the looks of it.
“The boat will be at the mercy of chance among all those tails, and we
are not lucky enough to throw at random. No; since the beggars have
taken to dancing, for a change, let them dance all night; to-morrow
they shall pay the piper.” How, at peep of day, the man at the
mast-head saw ten whales about two leagues off on the weather-bow; how
the ship tacked and stood toward them; how she weathered on one of
monstrous size, and how he and the other youngsters were mad to lower
the boat and go after it, and how the captain said: “Ye lubbers, can't
ye see that is a right whale, and not worth a button? Look here away
over the quarter at this whale. See how low she spouts. She is a sperm
whale, and worth seven hundred pounds if she was only dead and towed
alongside.”
“'That she shall be in about a minute,' cried one; and, indeed, we
were all in a flame; the boat was lowered, and didn't I worship the
skipper when he told me off to be one of her crew!
“I was that eager to be in at that whale's death, I didn't recollect
there might be smaller brutes in danger.
“Just before the oars fell into the water, the skipper looked down
over the bulwarks, and says he to one of us that had charge of the
rope that is fast to the boat at one end and to the harpoon at the
other, 'Now, Jack you are a new hand; mind all I told you last night,
or your mother will see me come ashore without you, and that will vex
her; and, my lads, remember, if there is a single lubberly hitch in
that line, you will none of you come up the ship's side again.'
“'All right, captain,' says Jack, and we pulled off singing,
“'And spring to your oars, and, make your boat fly,
And when you come near her beware of her eye,'
till the coxswain bade us hold our lubberly tongues, and not frighten
the whales; however, we soon found we wanted all our breath for our
work, and more too.” Then David painted the furious race after the
whale, and how the boat gradually gained, and how at last, as he was
grinding his teeth and pulling like mad, he heard a sound ahead like a
hundred elephants wallowing; and now he hoped to see the harpooner
leave his oar, and rise and fling his weapon; “but that instant, up
flukes, a tower of fish was seen a moment in the air, with a tail-fin
at the top of it just about the size of this room we are sitting in,
ladies, and down the whale sounded; then it was pull on again in her
wake, according as she headed in sounding; pull for the dear life; and
after a while the oarsmen saw the steerman's eyes, prying over the
sea, turn like hot coals. The men caught fire at this, and put their
very backbones into each stroke, and the boat skimmed and flew.
Suddenly the steersman cried out fiercely, 'Stand up, harpoon! Up rose
the harpooner, _his_ eye like a hot coal now. The men saw
nothing; they must pull fiercer than ever. The harpooner balanced his
iron, swayed his body lightly, and the harpoon hissed from him. A soft
thud--then a heaving of the water all round, a slap that sounded like
a church tower falling flat upon an acre of boards, and drenched, and
blinded, and half smothered us all in spray, and at the same moment
away whirled the boat, dancing and kicking in the whale's foaming,
bubbling wake, and we holding on like grim death by the thwarts, not
to be spun out into the sea.”
“Delightful!” cried Miss Fountain; “the waves bounded beneath you like
a steed that knows its rider. Pray continue.”
“Yes, Miss Fountain. Now of course you can see that, if the line ran
out too easy, the whale would leave us astern altogether, and if it
jammed or ran too hard, she would tow us under water.”
“Of course we see,” said Eve, ironically; “we understand everything by
instinct. Hang explanations when I'm excited; go ahead, do!”
“Then I won't explain how it is or why it is, but I'll just let you
know that two or three hundred fathom of line are passed round the
boat from stem to stern and back, and carried in and out between the
oarsmen as they sit. Well, it was all new to me then; but when the
boat began jumping and rocking, and the line began whizzing in and
out, and screaming and smoking like--there now, fancy a machine, a
complicated one, made of poisonous serpents, the steam on, and you
sitting in the middle of the works, with not an inch to spare, on the
crankest, rockingest, jumpingest, bumpingest, rollingest cradle that
ever--”
“David!” said Eve, solemnly.
“Hallo!” sang out David.
“Don't!”
“Oh, yes, do!” cried Lucy, slightly clasping her hands.
“If this little black ugly line was to catch you, it would spin you
out of the boat like a shuttlecock; if it held you, it would cut you
in two, or hang you to death, or drown you all at one time; and if it
got jammed against anything alive or dead that could stand the strain,
it would take the boat and crew down to the coral before you could
wink twice.”
“Oh, dear!” said Lucy; “then I don't think I like it now; it is too
terrible. Pray go on, Mr.--Mr.--”
“Well, Miss Fountain, when a novice like me saw this black serpent
twisting and twirling, and smoking and hissing in and out among us, I
remembered the skipper's words, and I hailed Jack--it was he had laid
the line--he was in the bow.
“'Jack,' said I.
“'Hallo!” said he.
“'For God's sake, are there any hitches in the line?' said I.
“'Not as I _knows_ on,' says he, much cooler than you sit there;
and that is a sailor all over. Well, she towed us about a mile, and
then she was blown, and we hauled up on the line, and came up with
her, and drove lances into her, till she spouted blood instead of salt
water, and went into her flurry, and rolled suddenly over our way
dead, and was within a foot of smashing us to atoms; but if she had it
would only have been an accident, for she was past malice, poor thing.
Then we took possession, planted our flagstaff in her spouting-hole,
you know, and pulled back to the ship, and she came down and anchored
to the whale, and then, for the first time, I saw the blubber stripped
off a whale and hoisted by tackles into the ship's hold, which is as
curious as any part of the business, but a dirtyish job, and not fit
for the present company, and I dare say that is enough about whales.”
“No! no! no!”
“Well, then, shall I tell you how one old whale knocked our boat clean
into the air, bottom uppermost, and how we swam round her and managed
to right her?”
“And went back to the ship and had your tea in bed and your clothes
dried?”
“No, Eve,” replied David, with the utmost simplicity; “we got in and
to work again, and killed the whale in less than half an hour, and
planted our flag on her, and away after another.”
Then he told them how they harpooned one right whale, and by good luck
were able to make her fast to the stern of the ship. “And, if you
will believe me, Miss Fountain, though there was just a breath on and
off right aft, and the foresail, jib and mizzen all set to catch it,
she towed the ship astern a good cable's length, and the last thing
was she broke the harpoon shaft just below the line, and away she swam
right in the wind's eye.”
“And there was an end of her and your nasty, cruel, harpoon, and--oh,
I'm so pleased!”
“No, there wasn't, Eve; we heard of both fish and harpoon again, but
not for a good many years.”
“Mr. Dodd!”
“Yes, Miss Fountain. It is curious, like many things that fall out at
sea, but not so wonderful as her towing a ship of four hundred tons,
with the foresail, mizzen, and jib all aback. Well, sir, did you ever
hear of Nantucket? It is a port in the United States; and our
harpooner happened to be there full four years after we lost this
whale. Some Yankee whalers were treating him to the best of grog, and
it was brag Briton, brag Yankee, according to custom whenever these
two met. Well, our man had no more invention than a stone; so he was
getting the worst of it till he bethought him of this whale; so he up
and told how he had struck a right whale in the Pacific, and she had
towed the ship with her sails aback, at least her foresail, mizzen,
and jib, only he didn't tell it short like me, but as long as the Red
Sea, with the day and the hour, the latitude (within four or five
degrees, I take it), and what we had done a week before, and what we
had not done, all by way of prologue, and for fear of weathering the
horn--tic, tic--the point of the story too soon. When he had done
there was a general howl of laughter, and they began to cap lies with
him, and so they bantered him most cruelly, by all accounts; but at
last a long silent chap, weather-beaten to the color of rosewood, put
in his word.
“'What was the ship's name, mate?'
“'The _Connemara_,' says he.
“'And what is your name?' So he told him, 'Jem Green.'
“The other brings a great mutton fist down on the table, and makes all
the glasses dance. 'You stay at your moorings till I come back,' says
he. 'I have got something belonging to you, Jem Green,' and he sheered
off. The others lay to and passed the grog. Presently the long
one comes back with a harpoon steel in his hand; there was
_Connemara_ stamped on it, and also 'James Green' graved with a
knife. 'Is that yours?' 'Is my hand mine?' says Jem; 'but wasn't there
a broken shaft to it!”
“'There was,' says the Yankee harpooner; 'I cut it out.'
“'Well!' says Jem, 'that is the harpoon we were fast by to this very
whale. Where did you kill her?'
“'In the Greenland seas.' And he whips out his private log. 'Here you
are,' says he; 'March 25, 1820, latitude so and so, killed a right
whale; lost half the blubber, owing to the carcass sinking; cut an
English harpoon out of her.'
“'Avast there, mate!' cried Jem, and he whips, out _his_ log;
'overhaul that.' The other harpooner overhauled it. 'Mates, look,
here,' says he; 'I reckon we hain't fathomed the critters yet. The
Britisher struck her in the Pacific on the 5th of March, and we killed
her off Greenland on the 25th, five thousand miles of water by the
lowest reckoning.' By this time there were a dozen heads jammed
together, like bees swarming, over the two logs. 'She got a wound in
the Pacific! “Hallo!” says she; “this is no sea for a lady to live
in;” so she up helm, and right away across the pole into the Atlantic,
and met her death.'”
“Your story has an interest you little suspect, young gentleman. If
this is true, the northwest passage is proved.”
“That has been proved a hundred times, sir, and in a hundred ways; the
only riddle is to find it. The man that tells you there is not a
northwest passage is no sailor, and the fish that can't find it is not
a whale; for there is not a young suckling no bigger than this room
that does not know that passage as well as a mid on his first voyage
knows the way to the mizzen-top through lubber's hole. How tired you
must be of whales, ladies?”
“Oh no.”
“Kill us one more, David. I love bloodshed--to hear of.”
“Well, now, I don't think that can be Miss Fountain's taste, to look
at her.”
Then David told them how he had fallen in with a sperm whale, dead of
disease, floating as high as a frigate; how, with a very light breeze,
the skipper had crept down toward her; how, at half a mile distance
the stench of her was severe, but, as they neared her, awful; then so
intolerable that the skipper gave the crew leave to go below and close
the lee ports. So there were but two men left on the brig's deck, and
a ship's company that a hurricane would not have driven from their
duty skulked before a foul smell; but such a smell! a smell that
struck a chill and a loathing to the heart, and soul, and marrow-bone;
a smell like the gases in a foul mine; “it would have suffocated us in
a few moments if we had been shut up along with it.” Then he told how
the skipper and he stuffed their noses and ears with cotton steeped in
aromatic vinegar, and their mouths with pig-tail (by which, as it
subsequently appeared, Lucy understood pork or bacon in some form
unknown to her narrow experience), and lighted short pipes, and
breached the brig upon the putrescent monster, and grappled to it, and
then the skipper jumped on it, a basket slung to his back, and a rope
fast under his shoulders in case of accident, and drove his spade in
behind the whale's side-fin.”
“His spade, Mr. Dodd?”
“His whale-spade; it is as sharp as a razor;” and how the skipper dug
a hole in the whale as big as a well and four feet deep, and, after a
long search, gave a shout of triumph, and picked out some stuff that
looked like Gloucester cheese; and, when he had nearly filled his
basket with this stuff, he slacked the grappling-iron, and David
hauled him on board, and the carcass dropped astern, and the captain
sang out for rum, and drank a small tumbler neat, and would have
fainted away, spite of his precautions, but for the rum, and how a
heavenly perfume was now on deck fighting with that horrid odor; and
how the crew smelled it, and crept timidly up one by one, and how “the
Glo'ster cheese was a great favorite of yours, ladies. It was the king
of perfumes--amber-gas; there is some of it in all your richest
scents; and the knowing skipper had made a hundred guineas in the turn
of the hand. So knowledge is wealth, you see, and the sweet can be got
out of the sour by such as study nature.”
“Don't preach, David, especially after just telling a fib. A hundred
guineas!”
“I am wrong,”' said David.
“Very wrong, indeed.”
“There were eight pounds; and he sold it at a guinea the ounce to a
wholesale chemist, so that looks to me like 128 pounds.”
Then David left the whales, and encouraged by bright eyes and winning
smiles, and warm questions, sang higher strains.
Ships in dire distress at sea, yet saved by God's mercy, and the cool,
invincible courage of captain and crew--great ships run ashore--the
waves breaking them up--the rigging black with the despairing crew,
eying the watery death that tumbled and gaped and roared for them
below; and then little shore boats, manned by daring hearts, launched
into the surf, and going out to the great ship and her peril, risking
more life for the chance of saving life. And he did not present the
bare skeletons of daring acts; those grand morgues, the journals, do
that. There lie the dry bones of giant epics waiting Genius's hand to
make them live. He gave them not only the broad outward facts--the
bones; but those smaller touches that are the body and soul of a
story, true or false, wanting which the deeds of heroes sound an
almanac; above all, he gave them glimpses, not only of what men acted,
but what they felt: what passed in the hearts of men perishing at sea,
in sight of land, houses, fires on the hearth, and outstretched hands,
and in the hearts of the heroes that ran their boats into the surf and
Death's maw to save them, and of the lookers on, admiring, fearing,
shivering, glowing, and of the women that sobbed and prayed ashore
with their backs to the sea, just able to risk lover, husband, and son
for the honor of manhood and the love of Christ, but not able to look
on at their own flesh and blood diving so deep, and lost so long in
cockle-shells between the hills of waves.
Such great acts, great feelings, great perils, and the gushes that
crowned all of holy triumph when the boats came in with the dripping
and saved, and man for a moment looked greater than the sea and the
wind and death, this seaman poured hot from his own manly heart into
quick and womanly bosoms, that heaved visibly, and glowed with
admiring sympathy, and fluttered with gentle fear.
And after a while, though not at first, David's yarns began to contain
a double interest to one of the party--Miss Fountain. Those who live
to please get to read character at sight, and David, though in these
more noble histories he scarcely named himself, was laying a
full-length picture of his own mind bare to these keen feminine eyes.
As for old Fountain, he was charmed, and saw nothing more than David
showed him outright. But the women sat flashing secret intelligence
backward and forward from eye to eye after the manner of their sex.
“Do you see?” said one lady's eyes.
“Yes,” replied the other. “He was concerned in this feat, though he
does not say so.”
“Oh, you agree with me? Then we are right,” replied the first pair of
speakers.
“There again: look; this sailor, whom he describes as a fellow that
happened to be ashore at that foreign port with nothing better to do,
and who went out with the English smugglers to save the brig when the
natives durst not launch a boat?”
“Himself! not a doubt of it.”
And so the blue and hazel lightning went dancing to and fro; ay, even
when the tale took a sorrowful turn, and dimmed these bright orbs of
intelligence, the lightning struggled through the dew, and David was
read and discussed by gleams, and glances, and flashes, without a word
spoken. And he, all unconscious that he sat between a pair of
telegraphs, and heating more and more under his great recollections
and his hearers' sympathy, inthralled them with his tuneful voice, his
glowing face, his lion eye, and his breathing, burning histories.
Heart to dare and do, yet heart to feel, and brain and tongue to tell
a deed well, are rare allies, yet here they met.
He mastered his hearers, and played on their breasts as David played
the harp, and perhaps Achilles; Bochsa never, nor any of his tribe. He
made the old man forget his genealogies, his small ambition, his gout,
his years, and be a boy again an hour or two in thought, and blood,
and early fire. He made the women's bosoms pant and swell, and seem to
aspire to be the nests and cradles of heroes, and their eyes flash and
glisten, and their cheeks flush and grow pale by turns; and the four
little papered walls that confined them seemed to fall without noise,
and they were away in thought out of a carpeted temple of wax, small
talk, nonentity, and nonentities, away to sea-breezes that they almost
felt in their hair and round their temples as their hearts rose and
fell upon a broad swell of passion, perils, waves, male men,
realities. The spell was at its height, when the sea-wizard's eye fell
on the mantel-piece. Died in a moment his noble ardor: “Why, it is
eight bells,” said he, servilely; then, doggedly, “time to turn in.”
“Hang that clock!” shouted Mr. Fountain; “I'll have it turned out of
the room.”
Said Lucy, with gentle enthusiasm, “It must be beautiful to be a
sailor, and to have seen the real world, and, above all, to be brave
and strong like Mr. ----,. must it not, uncle?” and she looked askant
at David's square shoulders and lion eye, and for the first time in
her life there crossed her an undefined instinct that this gentleman
must be the male of her species.
“As for his courage,” said Eve, “that we have only his own word for.”
David grinned.
“Not even that,” replied Lucy, “for I observed he spoke but little of
himself.”
“I did not notice that,” said Eve, pertly; “but as for his strength,
he certainly is as strong as a great bear, and as rude. What do you
think? my lord carried me all the way from the top of the green lane
to your house, and I am no feather.”
“No, a skein of silk,” put in David.
“I asked the gentleman politely to put me down, and he wouldn't, so
then I boxed his ears.”
“Oh, how could you?”
“Oh, bless you, he never hits me again; he is too great a coward. And
the great mule carried me all the more--carried me to your very door.”
“I almost think--I believe I could guess why he carried you, if you
will not be offended at my assuming the interpreter,” said Lucy,
looking at Eve and speaking at David. “You have thin shoes on, Miss
Dodd; now I remember the gravel ends at green lane, and the grass
begins; so, from what we know of Mr. Dodd, perhaps he carried you that
you might not have damp feet.”
“Nothing of the kind--yes, it was, though, by his coloring up. La!
David, dear boy!”
“What is a man alongside for but to keep a girl out of mischief?” said
David, bruskly.
“Pray convert all your sex to that view,” laughed Lucy.
So now they were going. Then Mr. Fountain thanked David for the
pleasant evening he had given them; then David blushed and stammered.
He had a veneration for old age--another of his superstitions.
Her uncle's lead gave Lucy an opportunity she instantly seized. “Mr.
Dodd, you have taken us into a new world of knowledge; we never were
so interested in our lives.” At this pointblank praise David blushed,
and was anything but comfortable, and began to back out of it all with
a curt bow. Then, as the ladies can advance when a man of merit
retreats, Lucy went the length of putting out her hand with a sweet,
grateful smile; so he took it, and, in the ardor of encouraging so
much spirit and modesty, she unconsciously pressed it. On this
delicious pressure, light as it was, he raised his full brown eye, and
gave her such a straightforward look of manly admiration and pleasure
that she blushed faintly and drew back a little in her turn.
“Well, Davy, dear, how do you like the Fountains?”
“Eve, she is a clipper!”
“And the old gentleman?”
“He was very friendly. What do _you_ think of her?”
“She is an out-and-out woman of the world, and very agreeable, as
insincere people generally are. I like her because she was so polite
to you.”
“Oh, that is your reading of her, is it?”
The rest of the walk passed almost in silence.
“Uncle, I am not sleepy to-night.”
“Who is? that young rascal has set me on fire with his yarns. Who
would have thought that awkward cub had so much in him?”
“Awkward, but not a cub; say rather a black swan; and you know, uncle,
a swan is an awkward thing on land, but when it takes the water it is
glorious, and that man was glorious; but--Da--vid Do--dd.”
“I don't know whether he was glorious, but I know he amused me, and
I'll have him to tea three times a week while he lasts.”
“Uncle, do you believe such an unfortunate combination of sounds is
his real name?” asked Lucy, gravely.
“Why, who would be mad enough to feign such a name?”
“That is true; but now tell me--if he should ever, think of marrying
with such a name?”
“Then there will be two David Dodd's in the world, Mr. and Mrs.”
“I don't think so; he will be merciful, and take her name instead of
she his; he is so good-natured.”
“Ordinary sponsors would have been content with Samuel or Nathan; but
no, this one's must, call in 'apt alliteration's artful aid,' and have
the two 'd's.'”
Lucy assented with a smile, and so, being no longer under the spell of
the enthusiast and the male, the genealogist and the fine lady took
the rise out of what Miss Fountain was pleased to call his impossible
title,
Da--vid Dodd.
CHAPTER III.
LUCY was not called on to write any more formal invitations to Mr.
Talboys. Her uncle used merely to say to her: “Talboys dines with us
to-day.” She made no remark; she respected her uncle's preference;
besides--the pony! Of these trios Mr. Fountain was the true soul. He
had to blow the coals of conversation right and left. It is very good
of me not to compare him to the Tropic between two frigid zones. At
first he took his nap as usual; for he said to himself: “Now I have
started them they can go on.” Besides, he had seen pictures in the
shop windows of an old fellow dozing and then the young ones
“popping.”
Dozing off with this idea uppermost, he used to wake with his eyes
shut and his ears wide open; but it was to hear drowsy monosyllables
dropping out at intervals like minute-guns, or to find Lucy gone and
Talboys reading the coals. Then the schemer sighed, and took to strong
coffee soon after dinner, and gave up his nap, and its loss impaired
his temper the rest of the evening.
He indemnified himself for these sleepless dinners by asking David
Dodd and his sister to tea thrice a week on the off-nights; this
joyous pair amused the old gentleman, and he was not the man to deny
himself a pleasure without a powerful motive.
“What, again so soon?” hazarded Lucy, one day that he bade her invite
them. “I hardly know how to word my invitation; I have exhausted the
forms.”
“If you say another word, I'll make them come every night. Am I to
have no amusement?” he added, in a deep tone of reproach; “they make
me laugh.”
“Ah! I forgot; forgive me.”
“Little hypocrite; don't they you too, pray? Why, you are as dull as
ditchwater the other evenings.”
“Me, dear, dull with you?”
“Yes, Miss Crocodile, dull with a pattern uncle and his friend--and
your admirer.” He watched her to see how she would take this last
word. Catch her taking it at all. “I am never dull with you, dear
uncle,” said she; “but a third person, however estimable, is a certain
restraint, and when that person is not very lively--” Here the
explanation came quietly to an untimely end, like those old tunes that
finish in the middle or thereabouts.
“But that is the very thing; what do I ask them for to-night but to
thaw Talboys?”
“To thaw Talboys? he! he!”
Lucy seemed so tickled by this expression that the old gentleman was
sorry he had used it.
“I mean, they will make him laugh.” Then, to turn it off, he said
hastily, “And don't forget the fiddle, Lucy.”
“Oh, yes, dear, please let me forget that, and then perhaps they may
forget to bring it.”
“Why, you pressed him to bring it; I heard you.”
“Did I?” said Lucy, ruefully.
“I am sure I thought you were mad after a fiddle, you seconded Eve so
warmly; so that was only your extravagant politeness after all. I am
glad you are caught. I like a fiddle, so there is no harm done.”
Yes, reader, you have hit it. Eve, who openly quizzed her brother, but
secretly adored him, and loved to display all his accomplishments, had
egged on Mr. Fountain to ask David to bring his violin next time. Lucy
had shivered internally. “Now, of all the screeching, whining things
that I dislike, a violin!”--and thus thinking, gushed out, “Oh, pray
do, Mr. Dodd,” with a gentle warmth that settled the matter and
imposed on all around.
This evening, then, the Dodds came to tea.
They found Lucy alone in the drawing-room, and Eve engaged her
directly in sprightly conversation, into which they soon drew David,
and, interchanging a secret signal, plied him with a few artful
questions, and--launched him. But the one sketch I gave of his manner
and matter must serve again and again. Were I to retail to the reader
all the droll, the spirited, the exciting things he told his hearers,
there would be no room for my own little story; and we are all so
egotistical! Suffice it to say, the living book of travels was
inexhaustible; his observation and memory were really marvelous, and
his enthusiasm, coupled with his accuracy of detail, had still the
power to inthrall his hearers.
“Mr. Dodd,” said Lucy, “now I see why Eastern kings have a
story-teller always about them--a live story-teller. Would not you
have one, Miss Dodd, if you were Queen of Persia?”
“Me? I'd have a couple--one to make me laugh; one miserable.”
“One would be enough if his resources were equal to your brother's.
Pray go on, Mr. Dodd. It was madness to interrupt you with small
talk.”
David hung his head for a moment, then lifted it with a smile, and
sailed in the spirit into the China seas, and there told them how the
Chinamen used to slip on board his ship and steal with supernatural
dexterity, and the sailors catch them by the tails, which they
observing, came ever with their tails soaped like pigs at a village
feast; and how some foolhardy sailors would venture into the town at
the risk of their lives; and how one day they had to run for it, and
when they got to the shore their boat was stolen, and they had to
'bout ship and fight it out, and one fellow who knew the natives
had loaded the sailors' guns with currant jelly. Make
ready--present--fire! In a moment the troops of the Celestial Empire
smarted, and were spattered with seeming gore, and fled yelling.
Then he told how a poor comrade of his was nabbed and clapped in
prison, and his hands and feet were to be cut off at sunrise; himself
at noon. It was midnight, and strict orders from the quarterdeck had
been issued that no man should leave the ship: what was to be done? It
was a moonlight night. They met, silent as death, between
decks--daren't speak above a whisper, for fear the officers should
hear them. His messmate was crying like a child. One proposed one
thing, one another; but it was all nonsense, and we knew it was, and
at sunrise poor Tom must die.
At last up jumps one fellow, and cries, “Messmates, I've got it; Tom
isn't dead yet.”
This was the moment Mr. Fountain and Mr. Talboys chose for coming into
the drawing-room, of course. Mr. Fountain, with a shade of hesitation
and awkwardness, introduced the Dodds to Mr. Talboys: he bowed a
little stiffly, and there was a pause. Eve could not repress a little
movement of nervous impatience. “David is telling us one of his
nonsensical stories, sir,” said she to Mr. Fountain, “and it is so
interesting; go on, David.”
“Well, but,” said David, modestly, “it isn't everybody that likes
these sea-yarns as you do, Eve. No, I'll belay, and let my betters get
a word in now.”
“You are more merciful than most story-tellers, sir,” said Talboys.
Eve tossed her head and looked at Lucy, who with a word could have the
story go on again. That young lady's face expressed general
complacency, politeness, and _tout m'est egal._ Eve could have
beat her for not taking David's part. “Doubleface!” thought she. She
then devoted herself with the sly determination of her sex to trotting
David out and making him the principal figure in spite of the
new-corner.
But, as fast as she heated him, Talboys cooled him. We are all great
at something or other, small or great. Talboys was a first-rate
freezer. He was one of those men who cannot shine, but can eclipse.
They darken all but a vain man by casting a dark shadow of trite
sentences on each luminary. The vain man insults them directly, and so
gets rid of them.
Talboys kept coming across honest enthusiastic David with little
remarks, each skillfully discordant with the rising sentiment. Was he
droll, Talboys did a bit of polite gravity on him; was he warm in
praise of some gallant action, chill irony trickled on him from T.
His flashes of romance were extinguished by neat little dicta,
embodying sordid and false, but current views of life. The gauze wings
of eloquence, unsteeled by vanity, will not bear this repeated dabbing
with prose glue, so David collapsed and Talboys conquered--“spell”
benumbed “charm.” The sea-wizard yielded to the petrifier, and “could
no more,” as the poets say. Talboys smiled superior. But, as his art
was a purely destructive one, it ended with its victim; not having an
idea of his own in his skull, the commentator, in silencing his text,
silenced himself and brought the society to a standstill. Eve sat with
flashing eyes; Lucy's twinkled with sly fun: this made Eve angrier.
She tried another tack.
“You asked David to bring his fiddle,” said she, sharply, “but I
suppose now--”
“Has he brought it?” asked Mr. Fountain, eagerly.
“Yes, he has; I made him” (with a glance of defiance at Talboys).
Mr. Fountain rang the bell directly and sent for the fiddle. It came.
David took it and tuned it, and made it discourse. Lucy leaned a
little back in her chair, wore her “_tout m'est egal_ face,” and
Eve watched her like a cat. First her eyes opened with a mild
astonishment, then her lips parted in a smile; after a while a faint
color came and went, and her eyes deepened and deepened in color, and
glistened with the dewy light of sensibility.
A fiddle wrought this, or rather genius, in whose hand a jews-harp is
the lyre of Orpheus, a fiddle the harp of David, a chisel a hewer of
heroic forms, a brush or a pen the scepter of souls, and, alas! a nail
a picklock.
Inside every fiddle is a soul, but a coy one. The nine hundred and
ninety-nine never win it. They play rapid tunes, but the soul of
beautiful gayety is not there; slow tunes, very slow ones, wherein the
spirit of whining is mighty, but the sweet soul of pathos is absent;
doleful, not nice and tearful. Then comes the Heaven-born fiddler,*
who can make himself cry with his own fiddle. David had a touch of
this witchcraft. Though a sound musician and reasonably master of his
instrument, he could not fly in a second up and down it, tickling the
fingerboard and scratching the strings without an atom of tone, as the
mechanical monkeys do that boobies call fine players.
* This is a definition of the Heaven-born fiddler by Pate
Bailey, a gypsy tinker and celestial violinist. Being asked
for a test of proficiency on that instrument, he replied
that no man is a fiddler “till he can gar himsel greet wi a
feddle.”
“Great Orpheus played so well he moved Old Nick,
But these move nothing but their fiddlestick.” *
* See how unjust satire is! Don't they move their finger-
nails?
But he could make you laugh and crow with his fiddle, and could make
you jump up, aetat. 60, and snap your fingers at old age and
propriety, and propose a jig to two bishops and one master of the
rolls, and, they declining, pity them without a shade of anger, and
substitute three chairs; then sit unabashed and smiling at the past;
and the next minute he could make you cry, or near it. In a word he
could evoke the soul of that wonderful wooden shell, and bid it
discourse with the souls and hearts of his hearers.
Meantime Lucy Fountain's face would have interested a subtle student
of her sex.
Her sensibility to music was great, and the feeling strains stole into
her nature, and stirred the treasures of the deep to the surface. Eve,
a keen if not a profound observer, was struck by the rising beauty of
this countenance, over which so many moods chased one another. She
said to herself: “Well, David is right, after all; she is a lovely
girl. Her features are nothing out of the way. Her nose is neither one
thing nor the other, but her expression is beautiful. None of your
wooden faces for me. And, dear heart, how her neck rises! La! how her
color comes and goes! Well, I do love the fiddle myself dearly; and
now, if her eyes are not brimming; I could kiss her! La! David,” cried
she, bursting the bounds of silence, “that is enough of the tune the
old cow died of; take and play something to keep our hearts up--do.”
Eve's good-humor and mirth were restored by David's success, and now
nothing would serve her turn but a duet, pianoforte and violin. Miss
Fountain objected, “Why spoil the violin?” David objected too, “I had
hoped to hear the piano-forte, and how can I with a fiddle sounding
under my chin?” Eve overruled both peremptorily.
“Well, Miss Dodd, what shall we select? But it does not matter; I feel
sure Mr. Dodd can play _a livre ouvert.”_
“Not he,” said Eve, hypocritically, being secretly convinced he could.
“Can you play 'a leevre ouvert,' David?”
“Who is it by, Miss Fountain?” Lucy never moved a muscle.
After a rummage a duet was found that looked promising, and the
performance began. In the middle David stopped.
“Ha! ha! David's broke down,” shrieked Eve, concealing her uneasiness
under fictitious gayety. “I thought he would.”
“I beg your pardon,” explained David to Miss Fountain, “but you are
out of time.”
“Am I?” said Lucy, composedly.
“And have been, more or less, all through.”
“David, you forget yourself.”
“No, no; set me right, by all means, Mr. Dodd. I am not a hardened
offender.”
“Is it not just possible the violin may be the instrument that is out
of time?” suggested Talboys, insidiously.
“No,” said David, simply, “I was right enough.”
“Let us try again, Mr. Dodd. Play me a few bars first in exact time.
Thank you. Now.”
“All went merry as a marriage bell” for a page and a half; then David,
fiddling away, cried out, “You are getting too fast; 'ri tum tiddy,
iddy ri tum ti;” then, by stamping and accenting very strongly, he
kept the piano from overflowing its bounds. The piece ended. Eve
rubbed her hands. “Now you'll catch it, Mr. David!”
“I am afraid I gave you a great deal of trouble, Mr. Dodd.”
_“En revanche,_ you gave us a great deal of pleasure,” put in Mr.
Talboys.
Lucy turned her head and smiled graciously. “But piano-forte players
play so much by themselves, they really forget the awful importance of
time.”
“I profit by your confession that they do sometimes play by
themselves,” said Mr. Talboys. “Be merciful, and let us hear you by
yourself.”' Eve turned as red as fire.
David backed the request sincerely.
Lucy played a piece composed expressly for the piano by a pianist of
the day. David sat on her left hand and watched intently how she did
it.
When it was over, Talboys did a bit of rapture; Eve another.
“That is playing.”
“I would not have believed it if I had not seen it done,” said David.
“Eve, you should have seen her beautiful fingers thread in and out
among the keys; it was like white fire dancing; and as for her hand,
it is not troubled with joints like ours, I should say.”
“The music, Mr. Dodd,” said Lucy, severely.
“Oh, the music! Well, I could hardly take on me to say. You see I
heard it by the eye, and that was all in its favor; but I should say
the music wasn't worth a button.”
“David!”
“How you run off with one's words, Eve! I mean, played by anybody but
her. Why, what was it, when you come to think? Up and down the gamut,
and then down and up. No more sense in it than _a b c_--a
scramble to the main-masthead for nothing, and back to no good. I'd as
lief see you play on the table, Miss Fountain.”
“Poor Moscheles!” said Lucy, dryly.
“Revenge is in your power,” said Talboys; “play no more; punish us all
for this one heretic.”
Lucy reflected a moment; she then took from the canterbury a thick old
book. “This was my mother's. Her taste was pure in music, as in
everything. I shall be sorry if you do not _all_ like this,”
added she, softly.
It was an old mass; full, magnificent chords in long succession,
strung together on a clear but delicate melody. She played it to
perfection: her lovely hands seemed to grasp the chords. No fumbling
in the base; no gelatinizing in the treble. Her touch, firm and
masterly, yet feminine, evoked the soul of her instrument, as David
had of his, and she thought of her mother as she played. These were
those golden strains from which all mortal dross seems purged. Hearing
them so played, you could not realize that he who writ them had ever
eaten, drunk, smoked, snuffed, and hated the composer next door. She
who played them felt their majesty and purity. She lifted her beaming
eye to heaven as she played, and the color receded from her cheek; and
when her enchantment ended she was silent, and all were silent, and
their ears ached for the departed charm.
Then she looked round a mute inquiry.
Talboys applauded loudly.
But the tear stood in David's eye, and he said nothing.
“Well, David,” said Eve, reproachfully, “I'm sure if that does not
please you--”
“Please me,” cried David, a little fretfully; “more shame for me if it
does not. Please is not the word. It is angel music, I call it--ah!”
“Well, you need not break your heart for that: he is going to cry--ha!
ha!”
“I'm no such thing,” cried David, indignantly, and blew his
nose--promptly, with a vague air of explanation and defiance.
But why the male of my species blows its nose to hide its sensibility
a deeper than I must decide.
Mr. Talboys for some time had not been at his ease. He had been
playing too, and an instrument he hated--second fiddle. He rose and
joined Mr. Fountain, who was sitting half awake on a distant sofa.
“Aha!” thought Eve, exulting, “we have driven him away.”
Judge her mortification when Lucy, after shutting the piano, joined
her uncle and Mr. Talboys. Eve whispered David: “Gone to smooth him
down: the high and mighty gentleman wasn't made enough of.”
“Every one in their turn,” said David, calmly; “that is manners. Look!
it is the old gentleman she is being kind to. She could not be unkind
to anyone, however.”
Eve put her lips to David's ear: “She will be unkind to you if you are
ever mad enough to let her see what I see,” said she, in a cutting
whisper.
“What do you see? More than there is to see, I'll wager,” said David,
looking down.
“Ah! that is the way with young men, the moment they take a fancy;
their sister is nothing to them, their best friend loses their
confidence.”
“Don't ye say that, Eve--now don't say that!”
“No, no, David, never mind me. I am cross. And if you saw a sore heart
in store for anyone you had a regard for, wouldn't you be cross? Young
men are so stupid, they can't read a girl no more than Hebrew. If she
is civil and affable to them, oh, they are the man directly, when,
instead of that, if it was so, she would more likely be shy and half
afraid to come near them. David, you are in a fool's paradise. In
company, and even in flirtation, all sorts meet and part again; but it
isn't so with marriage. There 'it is beasts of a kind that in one are
joined, and birds of a feather that came together.' Like to like,
David. She is a fine lady and she will marry a fine gentleman, and
nothing else, with a large income. If she knew what has been in your
head this month past, she would open her eyes and ask if the man was
mad.”
“She has a right to look down on me, I know,” murmured David, humbly;
“but” (his eye glowing with sudden rapture) “she doesn't--she
doesn't.”
“Look down on you! You are better company than she is, or anyone she
can get in this-out-of-the-way place; it is her interest to be civil
to you. I am too hard upon her. She is a lady--a perfect lady--and
that is why she is above giving herself airs. No, David, she is not
the one to treat us with disrespect, if we don't forget ourselves. But
if ever you let her see that you are in love with her, you will get an
affront that will make your cheek burn and my heart smart--so I tell
you.”
“Hush! I never told you I was in love with her.”
“Never told me? Never told me? Who asked you to tell me? I have eyes,
if you have none.”
“Eve,” said David imploringly, “I don't hear of any lover that she
has. Do you?”
“No,” said Eve carelessly. “But who knows? She passes half the year a
hundred miles from this, and there are young men everywhere. If she
was a milkmaid, they'd turn to look at her with such a face and figure
as that, much more a young lady with every grace and every charm. She
has more than one after her that we never see, take my word.”
Eve had no sooner said this than she regretted it, for David's face
quivered, and he sighed like one trying to recover his breath after a
terrible blow.
What made this and the succeeding conversation the more trying and
peculiar was, that the presence of other persons in the room, though
at a considerable distance, compelled both brother and sister, though
anything but calm, to speak _sotto voce._ But in the history of
mankind more strange and incongruous matter has been dealt with in an
undertone, and with artificial and forced calmness.
“My poor David!” said Eve sorrowfully; “you who used to be so proud,
so high-spirited, be a man! Don't throw away such a treasure as your
affection. For my sake, dear David, your sister's sake, who does love
you so very, very dearly!”
“And I love you, Eve. Thank you. It was hard lines. Ah! But it is
wholesome, no doubt, like most bitters. Yes. Thank you, Eve. I do
admire her v-very much,” and his voice faltered a little. “But I am a
man for all that, and I'll stand to my own words. I'll never be any
woman's slave.”
“That is right, David.”
“I will not give hot for cold, nor my heart for a smile
or two. I can't help admiring her, and I do hope she will
be--happy--ah!--whoever she fancies. But, if I am never to command
her, I won't carry a willow at my mast-head, and drift away from
reason and manhood, and my duty to you, and mother, and myself.”
“Ah! David, if you could see how noble you look now. Is it a promise,
David? for I know you will keep your word if once you pass it.”
“There is my hand on it, Eve.”
The brother and sister grasped hands, and when David was about to
withdraw his, Eve's soft but vigorous little hand closed tighter and
kept it firmer, and so they sat in silence.
“Eve.”
“My dear!”
“Now don't you be cross.”
“No, dear. Eve is sad, not cross; what is it?
“Well, Eve--dear Eve.”
“Don't be afraid to speak your mind to me--why should you?”
“Well, then, Eve, now, if she had not some little kindness for me,
would she be so pleased with these thundering yarns I keep spinning
her, as old as Adam, and as stale as bilge-water? You that are so
keen, how comes it you don't notice her eyes at these times? I feel
them shine on me like a couple of suns. They would make a statue pay
the yarn out. Who ever fancied my chat as she does?”
“David,” said Eve, quietly, “I have thought of all this; but I am
convinced now there is nothing in it. You see, David, mother and I are
used to your yarns, and so we take them as a matter of course; but the
real fact is, they are very interesting and very enticing, and you
tell them like a book. You came all fresh to this lady, and, as she is
very quick, she had the wit to see the merit of your descriptions
directly. I can see it myself _now._ All young women like to be
amused, David, and, above all, _excited;_ and your stories are
very exciting; that is the charm; that is what makes her eyes fire;
but if that puppy there, or that book-shelf yonder, could tell her
your stories, she would look at either the puppy or the book-stand
with just the same eyes she looks on you with, my poor David.”
“Don't say so, Eve. Let me think there is some little feeling for me
inside those sweet eyes, that look so kind on me--”
“And on me, and on everybody. It is her manner. I tell you she is so
to all the world. She isn't the first I've met. Trust me to read a
woman, David; what can you know?”
“I know nothing; but they tell me you can fathom one another better
than any man ever could,” said David, sorrowfully.
“'David, just now you were telling as interesting a story as ever was.
You had just got to the thrilling part.”
“Oh, had I? What was I saying?”
“I can't tell you to the very word; I am not your sweetheart any more
than she is; but one of the sailors was in danger of his life, and so
on. You never told me the story before; I was not worth it. Well, just
then does not that affected puppy choose his time to come meandering
in?”
“Puppy! I call him a fine gentleman.”
“Well, there isn't so much odds. In he comes; your story is broken off
directly. Does she care? No, she has got one of her own set; he is not
a very bright one; he is next door to a fool. No matter; before he
came, to judge by her crocodile eyes, she was hot after your story;
the moment he did come, she didn't care a pin for you _nor_ your
story. I gave her more than one opening to bring it on again; not she.
I tell you, you are nothing but a _pass_ time;* you suit her turn
so long as none of her own set are to be had. If she would leave you
for such a jackanapes as that, what would she do for a real gentleman?
such a man as she is a woman, for instance, and as if there weren't
plenty such in her own set--oh, you goose!”
* I write this word as the lady thought proper to pronounce
it.
David interrupted her. “I have been a vain fool, and it is lucky no
one has seen it but you,” and he hid his face in his hands a moment;
then, suddenly remembering where he was, and that this was an attitude
to attract attention, he tried to laugh--a piteous effort; then he
ground his teeth and said: “Let us go home. All I want now is to get
out of the house. It would have been better for me if I had never set
foot in it.”
“Hush! be calm, David, for Heaven's sake. I am only waiting to catch
her eye, and then we'll bid them good-evening.”
“Very well, I'll wait”; and David fixed his eyes sadly and doggedly on
the ground. “I won't look at her if I can help it,” said he,
resolutely, but very sadly, and turned his head away.
“Now, David,” whispered Eve.
David rose mechanically and moved with his sister toward the other
group. Miss Fountain turned at their approach. Somewhat to David's
surprise, Eve retreated as quickly as she had advanced.
“We are to stay.”
“What for?”
“She made me a signal.”
“Not that I saw,” said David, incredulously.
“What! didn't you see her give me a look?”
“Yes, I did. But what has that to do with it?”
“That look was as much as to say, Please stay a little longer; I have
something to say to you.”
“Good Heavens!”
“I think it is about a bonnet, David. I asked her to put me in the way
of getting one made like hers. She does wear heavenly bonnets.”
“Ay. I did well to listen to you, Eve; you see I can't even read her
face, much less her heart. I saw her look up, but that was all. How is
a poor fellow to make out such craft as these, that can signal one
another a whole page with a flash of the eye? Ah!”
“There, David, he is going. Was I right?”
Mr. Talboys was, in fact, taking leave of Miss Fountain. The old
gentleman convoyed his friend. As the door closed on them Miss
Fountain's face seemed to catch fire. Her sweet complacency gave way
to a half-joyous, half-irritated small energy. She came gliding
swiftly, though not hurriedly, up to Eve. “Thank you for seeing.” Then
she settled softly and gradually on an ottoman, saying, “Now, Mr.
Dodd.”
David looked puzzled. “What is it?” and he turned to his interpreter,
Eve.
But it was Lucy who replied: “'His messmate was crying like a child.
At sunrise poor Tom must die. Then up rose one fellow' (we have not
any idea who one fellow means in these narratives--have we, Miss
Dodd?) 'and cried, “I have it, messmates. Tom isn't dead yet.”' Now,
Mr. Dodd, between that sentence and the one that is to follow all that
has happened in this room was a hideous dream. On that understanding
we have put up with it. It is now happily dispersed, and we--go ahead
again.”
“I see, Eve, she thinks she would like some more of that China yarn.”
“Her sentiments are not so tame. She longs for it, thirsts for it, and
must and will have it--if you will be so very obliging, Mr. Dodd.” The
contrast between all this singular vivacity of Miss Fountain and the
sudden return to her native character and manner in the last sentence
struck the sister as very droll--seemed to the brother so winning,
that, scarcely master of himself, he burst out: “You shan't ask me
twice for that, or anything I can give you;” and it was with burning
cheeks and happy eyes he resumed his tale of bold adventure and skill
on one side, of numbers, danger and difficulty on the other. He told
it now like one inspired, and both the young ladies hung panting and
glowing on his words.
David and Eve went home together.
David was in a triumphant state, but waited for Eve to congratulate
him. Eve was silent.
At last David could refrain no longer. “Why, you say nothing.”
“No. Common sense is too good to be wasted; don't go so fast.”
“No. There--I heave to for convoy to close up. Would it be wasted on
me? ha! ha!”
“To-night. There you go pelting on again.”
“Eve, I can't help it. I feel all canvas, with a cargo of angels'
feathers and sunshine for ballast.”
“Moonshine.”
“Sun, moon, and stars, and all that is bright by night or day. I'll
tell you what to do; you keep your head free, and come on under easy
sail; I'll stand across your bows with every rag set and drawing, so
then I shall be always within hail.”
This sober-minded maneuver was actually carried out. The little
corvette sailed steadily down the middle of the lane; the great
merchantman went pitching and rolling across her bows; thus they kept
together, though their rates of sailing were so different.
Merry Eve never laughed once, but she smiled, and then sighed.
David did not heed her. All of a moment his heart vented itself in a
sea-ditty so loud, and clear, and mellow, that windows opened, and out
came nightcapped heads to hear him carol the lusty stave, making night
jolly.
Meantime, the weather being balmy, Mr. Fountain had walked slowly with
Mr. Talboys in another direction. Mr. Talboys inquired, “Who were
these people?”
“Oh, only two humble neighbors,” was the reply.
“I never met them anywhere. They are received in the neighborhood?”
“Not in society, of course.”
“I don't understand you. Have not I just met them here?”
“That is not the way to put it,” said the old gentleman, a little
confused. “You did not meet them; you did me and my niece the honor to
dine with us, and the Dodds dropped in to tea--quite another matter.”
“Oh, is it?”
“Is it not? I see you have been so long out of England you have
forgotten these little distinctions; society would go to the deuce
without them. We ask our friends, and persons of our own class, to
dinner, but we ask who we like to tea in this county. Don't you like
her? She is the prettiest girl in the village.”
“Pretty and pert.”
“Ha! ha! that is true. She is saucy enough, and amusing in
proportion.”
“It is the man I alluded to.”
“What, David? ay, a very worthy lad. He is a downright modest,
well-informed young man.”
“I don't doubt his general merits, but let me ask you a serious
question: his evident admiration of Miss Fountain?”
“His ad-mi-ration of Miss Fountain?”
“Is it agreeable to you?”
“It is a matter of consummate indifference to me.”
“But not, I think, to her. She showed a submission to the cub's
impertinence, and a desire to please instead of putting him down, that
made me suspect. Do you often ask Mr. Dodd--what a name!--to tea?”
“My dear friend, I see that, with all your accomplishments, you have
something to learn. You want insight into female character. Now I, who
must go to school to you on most points, can be of use to you here.”
Then, seeing that Talboys was mortified at being told thus gently
there was a department of learning he had not fathomed, he added: “At
all events, I can interpret my own niece to you. I have known her much
longer than you have.”
Mr. Talboys requested the interpreter to explain the pleasure his
niece took in Mr. Dodd's fiddle.
“Part politeness, part sham. Why, she wanted not to ask them this
evening, the fiddle especially. I'll give you the clue to Lucy; she is
a female Chesterfield, and the droll thing is she is polite at heart
as well. Takes it from her mother: she was something between an angel
and a duchess.”
“Politeness does not account for the sort of partiality she showed for
these Dodds while I was in the room.”
“Pure imagination, my dear friend. I was there; and had so monstrous a
phenomenon occurred I must have seen it. If you think she could really
prefer their society to yours, you are as unjust to her as yourself.
She may have concealed her real preference out of _finesse,_ or
perhaps she has observed that our inferiors are touchy, and ready to
fancy we slight them for those of our own rank.”
Talboys shrugged his shoulders; he was but half convinced. “Her
enthusiasm when the cub scraped the fiddle went beyond mere
politeness.”
“Beyond other people's, you mean. Nothing on earth ever went beyond
hers--ha! ha! ha! To-morrow night, if you like, we will have my
gardener, Jack Absolom, in to tea.”
“No, I thank you. I have no wish to go beyond Mr. and Miss Dodd.”
“Oh, only for an experiment. The first minute Jack will be wretched,
and want to sink through the floor; but in five minutes you will fancy
Lucy will have made Jack Absolom at home in my drawing-room. He will
be laying down the law about Jonquilles, and she all sweetness,
curiosity, and enthusiasm outside--_ennui_ in.”
“Can her eyes glisten out of politeness?” inquired Talboys, with a
subdued sneer.
“Why not?”
“They could shed tears, perhaps, for the same motive?” said Talboys,
with crushing irony.
“Well! Hum! I'd back them at four to seven.”
Mr. Talboys was silent, and his manner showed that he was a little
mortified at a subject turning to joke which he had commenced
seriously. He must stop this annoyance. He said severely, “It is time
to come to an understanding with you.”
At these words, and, above all, at their solemn tone, the senior
pricked his ears and prepared his social diplomacy.
“I have visited very frequently at your house, Mr. Fountain.”
“Never without being welcome, my dear sir.”
“You have, I think, divined one reason of my very frequent visits
here.”
“I have not been vain enough to attribute them entirely to my own
attractions.”
“You approve the homage I render to that other attraction?”
“Unfeignedly.”
“Am I so fortunate as to have her suffrage, too?”
“I have no better means of knowing than you have.”
“Indeed! I was in hopes you might have sounded her inclinations.”
“I have scrupulously avoided it,” replied the veteran. “I had no right
to compromise you upon mere conjecture, however reasonable. I awaited
your authority to take any move in so delicate a matter. Can you blame
me? On one side my friend's dignity, on the other a young lady's peace
of mind, and that young lady my brother's daughter.”
“You were right, my dear sir; I see and appreciate your reserve, your
delicacy, though I am about to remove its cause. I declare myself to
you your niece's admirer; have I your permission to address her?”
“You have, and my warmest wishes for your success.”
“Thank you. I think I may hope to succeed, provided I have a fair
chance afforded me.”
“I will take care you shall have that.”
“I should prefer not to have others buzzing about the lady whose
affection I am just beginning to gain.”
“You pay this poor sailor an amazing compliment,” said Mr. Fountain, a
little testily; “if he admires Lucy it can only be as a puppy is
struck with the moon above. The moon does not respond to all this
wonder by descending into the whelp's jaws--no more will my niece. But
that is neither here nor there; you are now her declared suitor, and
you have a right to stipulate; in short, you have only to say the
word, and 'exeunt Dodds,' as the play-books say.”
“Dodds? I have no objection to the lady. Would it not be possible to
invite her to tea alone?”
“Quite possible, but useless. She would not stir out without her
brother.”
“She seems a little person likely to give herself airs. Well, then, in
that case, though as you say I am no doubt raising Mr. Dodd to a false
importance, still--”
“Say no more; we should indulge the whims of our friends, not attack
them with reasons. You will see the Dodds no more in my house.”
“Oh, as to that, just as you please. Perhaps they would be as well out
of it,” said Talboys, with a sudden affectation of carelessness. “I
must not take you too far. Good-night.”
“Go-o-d night!”
Poor David. He was to learn how little real hold upon society has the
man who can only instruct and delight it.
Mr. Fountain bustled home, rubbing his hands with delight. “Aha!”
thought he; “jealous! actually jealous! absurdly jealous! That is a
good sign. Who would have thought so proud a man could be jealous of a
sailor? I have found out your vulnerable point, my friend. I'll tell
Lucy; how she will laugh. David Dodd! Now we know how to manage him,
Lucy and I. If he freezes back again, we have but to send for David
Dodd and his fiddle.” He bustled home, and up into the drawing-room to
tell Lucy Mr. Talboys had at last declared himself. His heart felt
warm. He would settle six thousand pounds on Mrs. Talboys during his
life and his whole fortune after his death.
He found the drawing-room empty. He rang the bell. “Where is Miss
Fountain?” John didn't know, but supposed she had gone to her room.
“You don't know? You never know anything. Send her maid to me.”
The maid came and courtesied demurely at the door.
“Tell your mistress I want to speak to her directly--before she
undresses.”
The maid went out, and soon returned to say that her mistress had
retired to rest; but that, if he pleased, she would rise, and just
make a demi-toilet, and come to him. This smooth and fair-sounding
proposal was not, I grieve to say, so graciously received as offered.
“Much obliged,” snapped old Fountain. “Her _demi-toilette_ will
keep me another hour out of my bed, and I get no sleep after dinner
now _among you._ Tell her to-morrow at breakfast time will do.”
CHAPTER IV.
DAVID DODD was so radiant and happy for a day or two that Eve had not
the heart to throw cold water on him again.
Three days elapsed, and no invitation to Font Abbey; on this his
happiness cooled of itself. But when day after day rolled by, and no
Font Abbey, he was dashed, uneasy, and, above all, perplexed. What
could be the reason? Had he, with his rough ways, offended her? Had
she been too dignified to resent it at the time? Was he never to go to
Font Abbey again? Eve's first feeling was unmixed satisfaction. We
have seen already that she expected no good from this rash attachment.
For a single moment her influence and reasons had seemed to wean David
from it; but his violent agitation and joy at two words of kindly
curiosity from Miss Fountain, and the instant unreasonable revival of
love and hope, showed the strange power she had acquired over him. It
made Eve tremble.
But now the Fountains were aiding her to cure this folly. She had read
them right, had described them to David aright. A wind of caprice had
carried him and her into Font Abbey; another such wind was carrying
them out. No event had happened. Mr. and Miss Fountain had been seen
more than once in the village of late. “They have dropped us, and
thank Heaven!” said Eve, in her idiomatic way.
She pitied David deeply, and was kinder and kinder to him now, to show
him she felt for him; but she never mentioned the Font Abbey people to
him either to praise or blame them, though it was all she could do to
suppress her satisfaction at the turn their insolent caprice had
taken.
That satisfaction was soon clouded. This time, instead of rousing
himself and his pride, David sank into a moody despondency; varied by
occasional fretfulness. His appetite went, and his bright color, and
his elastic step. This silent sadness was so new in him, such a
contrast to his natural temperature, large, genial, and ever cheerful,
that Eve could not bear it. “I must shake him out of this, at all
hazards,” thought she: yet she put off the experiment, and put it off,
partly in hopes that David would speak first, partly because she saw
the wound she would probe was deep, and she winced beforehand for her
patient.
Meantime, prolonged doubt and suspense now goaded with their
intolerable stings the active spirit that chill misgivings had at
first benumbed. Spurred into action by these torments, David had
already watched several days in the neighborhood of Font Abbey,
determined to speak to Miss Fountain, and find out whether he had
given her offense; for this was still his uppermost idea. Having
failed in this attempt at an interview with her, he was now meditating
a more resolute course, and he paced the little gravel-walk at home
debating in himself the pros and cons. Raising his head suddenly, he
saw his sister walking slowly at the other end of the path. She was
coming toward him, but her eyes were bent thoughtfully on the ground.
David slipped behind some bushes, not to have his unhappiness and his
meditations interrupted. The lover and the lunatic have points in
common.
He had been there some time when a grave little voice spoke quietly to
him from the lawn. “David, I want to speak to you.” David came out.
“Here am I.”
“Oh, I knew where you were. Don't do that again, sir, please, or
you'll catch it.”
“Oh, I didn't think you saw me,” said David, somewhat confusedly.
“What has that to do with it, stupid? David,” continued she, assuming
a benevolent, cheerful, and somewhat magnificent nonchalance, “I
sometimes wonder you don't come to me with your troubles. I might
advise you as well as here and there one. But perhaps you think now,
because I am naturally gay, I am not sensible. You mustn't go by that
altogether. Manner is very deceiving. The most foolishly conducted men
and women ever I met were as grave as judges, and as demure as cats
after cream. Bless you, there is folly in every heart. Your slow ones
bottle it up for use against the day wisdom shall be most needed. My
sort let it fizz out at their mouths in their daily talk, and keep
their good sense for great occasions, like the present.”
“Have we drifted among the proverbs of Solomon?” inquired David,
dryly. “No need to make so many tacks, Eve. Haven't I seen your sense
and profited by it--I and one or two more? Who but you has steered the
house this ten years, and commanded the lubberly crew?” *
* The reader must not be misled by the familiar phraseology
of these two speakers to suppose that anything the least
droll or humorous was intended by either of them at any part
of this singular dialogue. Their hearts were sad and their
faces grave.
“And then again, David, where the heart is concerned, young women are
naturally in advance of young men.”
“God knows. He made them both. I don't.”
“Why, all the world knows it. And then, besides, I am five years older
than you.
“So mother says; but I don't know how to believe it. No one would say
so to look at you.”
“I'll tell you, David. Folk that have small features look a deal
younger than their years; and you know poor father used to say my face
was the pattern of a flat-iron. So nobody gives me my age; but I am
five good years older than you, only you needn't go and tell the town
crier.”
“Well, Eve?”
“Well, then, put all these together, and now, why not come to me for
friendly advice and the voice of reason?”
“Reason! reason! there are other lights besides reason.”
“Jack-o'-lantern, eh? and Will-o'-the-wisp.”
“Eve, nobody can advise me that can't feel for me. Nobody can feel for
me that doesn't know my pain; and you don't know that, because you
were never in love.”
“Oh, then, if I had ever been in love, you would listen.”
“As I would to an angel from Heaven.”
“And be advised by me.”
“Why not? for then you'd be competent to advise; but now you haven't
an idea what you are talking about.”
“What a pity! Don't you think it would be as well if you were not to
speak to me so sulky?”
“I ask your pardon; Eve. I did not mean to offend you.”
“Davy, dear--for God's sake what is this chill that has come between
you and me? You are a man. Speak out like a man.”
David turned his great calm, sorrowful eye full upon her.
“Well, then, Eve, if the truth must be told, I am disappointed in
you.”
“Oh, David.”
“A little. You are not the girl I took you for. You know which way my
fancy lies, yet you keep steering me in the teeth of it; then you see
how down-hearted I am this while, but not a word of comfort or hope
comes from you, and me almost dried up for want of one.”
“Make one word of it, David--I am not a sister to you.”
“I don't say that, but you might be kinder; you are against me just
when I want you with me the most.”
“Now this is what I like,” said Eve, cheerfully; “this is plain
speaking. So now it is my turn, my lad. Do you remember Balaam and his
ass?”
“Sure,” said David; but, used as he was to Eve's transitions, he
couldn't help staring a little at being carried eastward ho so
suddenly.
“Then what did the ass say when she broke silence at last?”
“Well, you know, Eve; I take shame to say I don't remember her very
words, but the tune of them I do. Why, she sang out, 'Avast there! it
is first fault, so you needn't be so hasty with your thundering rope's
end.”'
“There! You'd make a nice commentator. You haven't taken it up one
bit; you are as much in the dark as our parson. He preached on her the
very Sunday you came home, and it was all I could do to help whipping
up into the pulpit, and snatching away his book, and letting daylight
in on them.”
David was scandalized at the very idea of such a breach of discipline.
“That is ridiculous,” said he; “one can't have two skippers in a
church any more than in a ship, brig, or bark. But you can let
daylight in on me.”
“I mean. To begin: the ass was in the right and Balaam in the wrong;
so what becomes of your 'first fault?' She was frugal of her words,
but every syllable was a needle; the worst is, some skins are so thick
our needles won't enter 'em. Says she, 'This seven years you have
known me; always true to the bridle and true to you. Did ever I
disobey you before? Then why go and fancy I do it without some great
cause that you can't see?' Then the man's eyes were open, and he saw
it was destruction his old friend had run back from, and galled his
foot to save his life; so of course he thanked her, and blessed her
then. Not he. He was too much of a man.”
“Ay, ay, I see; but what is the moral? for I have no heart to expound
riddles.”
“Oh, I'll tell you the moral sooner than you'll like, perhaps. The ass
is a type, David. In Holy Writ you know almost everything is a type.
When a thing means one thing and stands for another, that's a type.”
“Ducks can swim--at least I've heard so. Now if you could tell me what
she is a type of?”
“What, the ass? Don't you know? Why, of women, to be sure--of us poor
creatures of burden, underrated and misunderstood all the world over.
And Balaam he stands for men, and for you at the head of them,” cried
she, turning round with flashing eyes on David; “you have known me and
my true affection more than seven years, or seventeen. I carried you
in my arms when you were a year old and I was six. You were my little
curly-headed darling, and have been from that day to this. Did ever I
cross you, or be cold or unkind to you, till the other day?”
“No, Eve, no, no, no! Come sit beside me.
“Then shouldn't you have said, 'Don't slobber _me;_ I won't have
it; you and I are bad friends.' Oughtn't you to have said, 'Eve could
never give herself the pain of crossing me' (no, there isn't a man in
the world with gumption enough to say that--that is a woman's
thought); but at least you might have said, 'She sees rocks ahead that
I can't.' (Balaam couldn't see the drawn sword ahead, but there it
was.) it was for you to say, 'My sister Eve would not change from gay
to grave all at once, and from indulging me in everything to thwarting
me and vexing me, unless she saw some great danger threatening your
peace of mind, your career in life, your very reason, perhaps.'”
“I have been to blame, Eve; but speak out and let me know the worst.
You have heard something against her character? Speak plain out, for
Heaven's sake!”
“It is all very well of you to say speak plain out, but there are
things girls don't like to speak about to any man. But after what you
said, that you would listen to me if I--so it is my duty. You will see
my face red enough in about a minute. Two years ago I couldn't have
done this even for you. It is hard I must expose my own folly--my own
crime.”
“Why, Eve, lass, how you tremble! Drop it now! drop it!”
“Hold your tongue!” said Eve, sharply, but in considerable agitation.
“It is too late now, after something you have said to me. If I didn't
speak out now, I should be like that bad man you told us of, who let
out the beacon light when the wind was blowing hard on shore. Listen,
David, and take my words to heart. The road you are on now I have been
upon, only I went much farther on it than you shall go.” She resumed
after a short pause: “You remember Henry Dyke?”
“What, the young clergyman, who used to be always alongside you at our
last anchorage?”
“Yes. He was just such a man as Miss Fountain is a woman. He was but a
dish of skim-milk, yet he could poison my life.”
Then Eve told the story of her heart. She described her lover as he
appeared to her in the early days of courtship, young, handsome, good,
noble in sentiment, and warm and tender in manner. Halcyon days--not a
speck to be seen on love's horizon.
Then she delineated the fine gradations by which the illusion faded,
too slowly and too late for her to withdraw the love she had conceived
for his person at that time when person and mind seemed alike
superior. She painted with the delicate touch of her sex the portrait
of a man and a scholar born to please all the world, and incapable of
condensing his affections; a pious flirt, no longer stimulated to
genuine ardor by doubts of success, but too kind-hearted to pain her
beyond measure when a little factitious warmth from time to time would
give her hours of happiness, keep her, on the whole, content, and,
above all, retain her his. Then she shifted the mirror to herself, the
fiery and faithful one, and showed David what centuries of torture a
good little creature like this Dyke, with its charming exterior, could
make a quick, and ardent, and devoted nature suffer in a year or two.
Came out in her narrative, link by link, the gentle delicious
complacency of the first period, the chill airs that soon ruffled it,
the glowing hopes, the misgivings that dashed them; then the
diminution of confidence, more complexing and exasperating than its
utter loss; the alternations of joy and doubt, the fever and the ague
of the wounded spirit; then the gusts of hatred followed by deeper
love; later still, the periodical irritation at hopes long deferred,
and still gleams of bliss between the paroxysms, so that now, as the
vulgar say in their tremendous Saxon, she “spent her time between
heaven and hell”; last of all, the sickness and recklessness of the
wornout and wearied heart over which melancholy or fury impended.
It was at this crisis when, as she could now see on a calm retrospect,
her mind was distempered, a new and terrible passion stepped upon the
scene--jealousy. A friend came and whispered her, “Mr. Dyke was
courting another woman at the same time, and that other woman was
rich.”
“David, at that word a flash of lightning seemed to go through me, and
show me the man as he really was.”
“The mean scoundrel, to sell himself for money!!”
“No, David, he would not have sold himself, with his eyes open, any
more than perhaps your Miss Fountain would; but what little heart he
had he could give to any girl that was not a fright. He was a
self-deceiver and a general lover, and such characters and their
affections sink by nature to where their interest lies. Iron is not
conscious, yet it creeps toward the loadstone. Well, while she was
with me I held up and managed to question her as coldly as I speak to
you now, but as soon as she left me I went off in violent hysterics.”
“Poor Eve!”
“She had not been gone an hour when doesn't the Devil put it into
_his_ head to send me a long, affectionate letter, and in the
postscript he invited himself to supper the same afternoon. Then I got
up and dried my eyes, and I seemed to turn into stone with resolution.
'Come!' I said, 'but don't think you shall ever go back to her. Your
troubles and mine shall end to-night.'”
“Why, Eve, you turn pale with thinking of it. I fear you have had
worse thoughts pass through your mind than any man is worth.”
“David, your blood was in my veins, and mine is in yours.
“If I didn't think so! The Lord deliver us from temptation! We don't
know ourselves nor those we love.”
“He had driven me mad.”
“Mad, indeed. What! had you the heart to see the man bleed to
death--the man you had loved--you, my little gentle Eve?”
“Oh no, no; no blood!” said Eve, with a shudder. “Laudanum!”
“Good God!”
“Oh, I see your thought. No, I was not like the men in the newspapers,
that kill the poor woman with a sure hand, and then give themselves a
scratch. It was to be one spoonful for him, but two for me. I can't
dwell on it” (and she hid her face in her hands); “it is too terrible
to remember how far I was misled. Who, think you, saved us both?”
David could not guess.
“A little angel--my good angel, that came home from sea that very
afternoon. When I saw your curly head, and your sweet, sunburned face
come in at the door, guess if I thought of putting death in the pot
after that? Ah! the love of our own flesh and blood, that is the
love--God and good angels can smile on it.”
“Yes; but go on,” said David, impatiently.
“It is ended, David. They say a woman's heart is a riddle, and perhaps
you will think so when I tell you that when he had brought me down to
this, and hadn't died for it, I turned as cold as ice to him that
minute, once and forever. I looked back at the precipice, and I hated
him. Ay, from that evening he was like the black dog to my eye. I used
to slip anywhere to hide out of his way--just as you did out of mine
but now.”
“Can't you forget that? Well, to be sure. Well?”
“So then (now you may learn what these skim-milk cheeses are made of),
when he found he was my aversion, he fell in love with me again as hot
as ever; tried all he could think of to win me back; wrote a letter
every day; came to me every other day; and when he saw it was all over
for good between us he cried and bellowed till my hate all went, and
scorn came in its place. Next time we met he played quite another
part--the calm, heart-broken Christian; gave me his blessing; went
down on his knees, and prayed a beautiful prayer, that took me off my
guard and made me almost respect him; then went away, and quietly
married the girl with money; and six months after wrote to me he was
miserable, dated from the vicarage her parents had got him.”
“Now, you know, if he wasn't a parson, d--n me if I'd turn in to-night
till I'd rope's-ended that lubber!”
“As if I'd let you dirty your hands with such rubbish! I sent the note
back to him with just one line, 'Such a fool as you are has no right
to be a villain.' There, David, there is your poor sister's life. Oh,
what I went through for that man! Often I said, is Heaven just, to let
a poor, faithful, loving girl, who has done no harm, be played with on
the hook, and tortured hot and cold, day after day, month after month,
year after year, as I was? But now I see why it was permitted; it was
for your sake, that you might profit by my sharp experience, and not
fling your heart away on frozen mud, as I did;” and, happy in this
feminine theory of Divine justice, Eve rested on her brother a look
that would have adorned a seraph, then took him gently round the neck
and laid her little cheek flat to his.
She felt as if she had just saved a beloved life.
Who can estimate the value of a happiness so momentary, yet so holy?
Presently looking up, she saw David's face illuminated. “What is it?”
she asked joyously; “you look pleased.”
David was “pleased because now he was sure she could feel for him, and
would side with him.”
“That I do; but, David, as it is all over between you and her--”
“All over? Am I dead then?”
Eve gasped with astonishment: “Why, what have I been telling you all
this for?”
“Who should you tell your trouble to but your own brother? Why,
Eve--ha! ha!--you don't really see any likeness between your case and
mine, do you? You are not so blind as to compare her with that
thundering muff?”
“They are brother and sister, as we are,” was the reply. “Ever since I
saw you looked her way, my eye has hardly been off her, and she is
Henry Dyke in petticoats.”
“I don't thank you for saying that. Well, and if she is, what has that
to do with it? I am not a woman. I am not forced to lie to waiting for
a wind, as the girls are. I am a man. I can work for the wish of my
heart, and, if it does not come to meet me, I can overhaul it.” Eve
was a little staggered by this thrust, but she was not one to show an
antagonist any advantage he had obtained. “David,” said she, coldly,
“it must come to one of two things; either she will send you about
your business in form, which is a needless affront for you and me
both, or she will hold you in hand, and play with you and drive you
_mad._ Take warning; remember what is in our blood. Father was as
well as you are, but agitation and vexation robbed him of his reason
for a while; and you and I are his children. Milk of roses creeps
along in that young lady's veins, but fire gallops in ours. Give her
up, David, as she has you. She has let you escape; don't fly back like
a moth to the candle! You shan't, however; I won't let you.”
“Eve,” said David, quietly, “you argue well, but you can't argue light
into dark, nor night into day. She is the sun to me. I have seen her
light; and now I can't live without it.”
He added, more calmly: “It is her or none. I never saw a girl but this
that I wanted to see twice, and I never shall.”
“But it is that which frightens me for you, David. Often I have wished
I could see you flirt a bit and harden your heart.”
“And break some poor girl's.”
“Oh, hang them! they always contrive to pass it on. What do I care for
girls! they are not my brother. But no, David, I can't believe you
will go against me and my judgment after the insult she has put on
you. No more about it, but just you choose between my respect and this
wild-goose chase.”
“I choose both,” said David, quietly. “Both you shan't have”; and,
with this, up bounced Eve, and stood before him bristling like a
cat-o'mountain. David tried to soothe her--to coax her--in vain; her
cheek was on fire, and her eyes like basilisks'. It was a picture to
see the pretty little fury stand so erect and threatening, great David
so humble and deprecating, yet so dogged. At last he took out his
knife; it was not one of your stabbing-knives, but the sort of
pruning-knife that no sailor went without in those days. “Now,” said
he, sadly, “take and cut my head off--cut me to pieces, if you will--I
won't wince or complain; and then you will get your way; but while I
do live I shall love her, and I can't afford to lose her by sitting
twiddling my thumbs, waiting for luck. I'll try all I know to win her,
and if I lose her I won't blame her, but myself for not finding out
how to please her; and with that I'll live a bachelor all my days for
her, or else die, just as God wills--I shan't much care which.”
“Oh, I know you, you obstinate toad,” said Eve, clinching her teeth
and her little hand. Then she burst out furiously: “Are you quite
resolved?”
“Quite, dear Eve,” said David, sadly--but somehow it was like a rock
speaking.
“Then there is my hand,” said Eve, with an instant transition to
amiable cheerfulness that dazzled a body like a dark lantern flying
open. Used as David was to her, it stupefied him; he stared at her,
and was all abroad. “Well, what is the wonder now?” inquired Eve;
“there are but two of us. We must be together somehow or another must
we not? You won't be wise with me; well, then, I'll be a fool with
you. I'll help you with this girl.”
“Oh, my dear Eve!”
“You won't gain much. Without me you hadn't the shadow of a chance,
and with me you haven't a chance, that is all the odds.”
“I have! I have! you have taken away my breath with joy;” and David
was quite overcome with the turn Eve had taken in his favor.
“Oh, you need not thank me,” said Eve, tossing her head with a
hypocrisy all her own. “It is not out of affection for you I do it,
you may be very sure of that; but it looks so ridiculous to see my
brother slipping out of my way behind a tree as soon as he sees me
coming--oh! oh! oh! oh!” And a violent burst of sobs and tears
revealed how that incident had rankled in this stoical little heart.
David, with the tear in his own eye, clasped her in his arms, and
kissed her and coaxed her and begged her again and again to forgive
him. This she did internally at the first word; but externally no;
pouted and sobbed till she had exacted her full tribute, then cleared
up with sudden alacrity and inquired his plans.
“I am going to call at Font Abbey, and find out whether I have
offended her.”
Eve demurred, “That would never do. You would betray yourself and
there would be an end of you. How good I am not to let you go. No,
I'll call there. I shall quietly find out whether it is her doing that
we have not been invited so long, or whose it is. You stay where you
are. I won't be a minute.”
When the minute was thirty-five, David came under her window and
called her. She popped her head out: “Well?”
“What are you doing?”
“Putting on my bonnet.”
“Why, you have been an hour.”
“You wouldn't have me go there a fright, would you?”
At last she came down and started for Font Abbey, and David was left
to count the minutes till her return. He paced the gravel sailor-wise,
taking six steps and then turning, instead of going in each direction
as far as he could. He longed and feared his sister's return. One
hour--two hours elapsed; still he walked a supposed deck on the little
lawn--six steps and then turn. At last he saw her coming in the
distance; he ran to meet her; but when he came up with her he did not
speak, but looked wistfully in her face, and tried hard to read it and
his fate.
“Now, David, don't make a fool of yourself, or I won't tell you.”
“No, no. I'll be calm, I will--be--calm.”
“Well, then, for one thing, she is to drink tea with us this evening.”
“She? Who? What? Where? Oh!”
“Here.”
CHAPTER V.
MR. FOUNTAIN sat at breakfast opposite his niece with a twinkle set in
his eye like a cherry-clack in a tree, relishing beforehand her
smiles, and blushes, and gratitude to him for having hooked and played
his friend, so that now she had but to land him. “I'll just finish
this delicious cup of coffee,” thought he, “and then I'll tell you, my
lady.” While he was slowly sipping said cup, Lucy looked up and said
graciously to him, “How silly Mr. Talboys was last night--was he not,
dear?”
“Talboys? silly? what? do you know? Why, what on earth do you mean?”
“Silly is a harsh word--injudicious, then--praising me _a tort et a
travers,_ and was downright ill-bred--was discourteous to another
of our guests, Mr. Dodd.”
“Confound Mr. Dodd! I wish I had never invited him.”
“So do I. If you remember, I dissuaded you.”
“I do remember now. What! you don't like him, either?”
“There you are mistaken, dear. I esteem Mr. Dodd highly, and Miss
Dodd, too, in spite of her manifest defects; but in making up parties,
however small, we should choose our guests with reference to each
other, not merely to ourselves. Now, forgive me, it was clear
beforehand that Mr. Talboys and the Dodds, especially Miss Dodd, would
never coalesce; hence my objection in inviting them; but you overruled
me--with a rod of iron, dear.”
“Yes; but why? Because you gave me such a bad reason; you never said a
word about this incongruity.”
“But it was in my mind all the time.”
“Then why didn't it come out?”
“Because--because something else would come out instead. As if one
gave one's real reasons for things!! Now, uncle dear, you allow me
great liberties, but would it have been quite the thing for me to
lecture you upon the selection of your own _convives?”_
“Why, you have ended by doing it.”
Lucy colored. “Not till the event proves--not till--”
“Not till your advice is no longer any use.”
Lucy, driven into a corner, replied by an imploring look, which had
just the opposite effect of argument. It instantly disarmed the old
boy; he grinned superior, and spared his supple antagonist three
sarcasms that were all on the tip of his tongue. He was rewarded for
his clemency by a little piece of advice, delivered by his niece with
a sort of hesitating and penitent air he did not understand one bit,
eyes down upon the cloth all the time.
It came to this. He was to listen to her suggestions with a prejudice
in their favor if he could, and give them credit for being backed by
good reasons; at all events, he was never to do them the injustice to
suppose they rested on those puny considerations she might put forward
in connection with them.
“Silly” is a term carrying with it a certain promptness and decision;
above all, it was a very remarkable word for Lucy to use. “The girl is
a martinet in these things,” thought he; “she can't forgive the least
bit of impoliteness. I suppose he snubbed Jack Tar. What a crime! But
I had better let this blow over before I go any farther.” So he
postponed his disclosure till to-morrow.
But, before to-morrow came, he had thought it over again, and
convinced himself it would be the wiser course not to interfere at all
for the present, except by throwing the young people constantly
together. He had lived long enough to see that, in nine cases out of
ten, husband and wife might be defined “a man and a woman that were
thrown a good deal together--generally in the country.” A marries B,
and C D; but, under similar circumstances, i.e., thrown
together, A would have married D, and C B. This applies to puppy dogs,
male and female, as well as to boys and girls.
Perhaps a personal feeling had some little share, too, in bringing him
to the above conclusion. He was a bit of a schemer--liked to play
puppets. At present, his niece and friend were the largest and finest
puppets he had on hand; the day he should bring them to a mutual,
rational understanding, the puppet-strings would fall from his hands
and the puppets turn independent agents. He represented to Talboys
that Lucy was young and very innocent in some respects; that marriage
did not seem to run in her head as in most girls'; that a precipitate
avowal might startle her, and raise unnecessary difficulties by
putting her on her guard too early in their acquaintance. “You have no
rival,” he concluded; “best win her quietly by degrees. Undermine the
coy jade! she is worth it.” Cool Talboys acquiesced. David had spurred
him out of his pace one night; but David was put out of the way; the
course was clear; and, as he could walk over it now, why gallop?
Childish as his friend's jealousy of this poor sailor had seemed to
Mr. Fountain, still, the idea once started, he could not help
inspecting Lucy to see how she would take his sudden exclusion from
these parties. Now Lucy missed the Dodds very much, and was surprised
to see them invited no more. But it was not in her character to
satisfy a curiosity of this sort by putting a point-blank question to
the person who could tell her in two words. She was one of those
thorough women whose instinct it is to find out little things, not to
ask about them. When day after day passed by, and the Dodds were not
invited, it flashed through her mind, first, that there must be some
reason for this; secondly, that she had only to take no notice, and
the reason, if any, would be sure to pop out. She half suspected
Talboys, but gave him no sign of suspicion. With unruffled demeanor
and tranquil patience, she watched demurely for disclosures from her
uncle or from him like the prettiest little velvet panther conceivable
lying flat in a blind path, deranging nobody, but waiting with amiable
tranquillity for her friends to come her way.
Thus, under the smooth surface of the little society at Font Abbey
_finesse_ was cannily at work. But the surface of every society
is like the skin of a man--hides a deal of secret machinery.
Here were two undermining a “coy jade” (perhaps, on the whole, Uncle
Fountain, it might be more prudent in you not to call her that name
again; you see she is my heroine, and I am a man that could cut you
out of this story, and nobody miss you), and the coy jade watching for
the miners like a sweet little velvet panther, and, to fling away
metaphor, an honest heart set aching sore, hard by, for having come
among such a lot.
CHAPTER VI.
A FABLE tells us a fowler one day saw sitting in tree a wood-pigeon.
This is a very shy bird, so he had to creep and maneuver to get within
gunshot unseen, unheard. He stole from tree to tree, and muffled his
footsteps in the long grass so adroitly that, just as he was going to
pull the trigger, he stepped light as a feather on a venomous snake.
It bit; he died.
This is instructive and pointed, but a trifle severe.
What befell Uncle Fountain, busy enmeshing his cock and hen pheasant,
netting a niece and a friend, went to the same tune, but in a lower
key, as befitted a domestic tale.*
* “Domestic,” you are aware, is Latin for “tame.” Ex.,
“domestic fowl,” “domestic drama,” “story of domestic
intereet,” “or chronicle of small beer,”
Among his letters at breakfast-time came one which he had no sooner
read than he flung on the table and went into a fury. Lucy sat aghast;
then inquired in tender anxiety what was the matter.
Angry explanations are apt to be dark ones. “It is a confounded
shame--it is a trick, child--it is a do.”
“Ah! what is that, uncle? 'a do'?--'a do'?”
“Yes, 'a do.' He knew I hated figures; can't bear the sight of them,
and the cursed responsibility of adding them up right.”
“But who knew all this?”
“He came over here bursting with health, and asked me to be one of his
executors--mind, one. I consented on a distinct understanding I was
never to be called upon to act. He was twenty years my junior, and
like so much mahogany. It was just a form; I did it to soothe a man
who called himself my friend, and set his mind at rest.”
“But, uncle dear, I don't understand even now. Can it be possible that
a friend has abused your good nature?”
“A little,” with an angry sneer.
“Has he betrayed your confidence?”
“Hasn't he?”
“Oh dear! What has he done?”
“Died, that is all,” snarled the victim.
“Oh, uncle! Poor man!”
“Poor man, no doubt. But how about poor me? Why, it turns out I am
sole executor.”
“But, dear uncle, how could the poor soul help dying?”
“That is not candid, Lucy,” said Mr. Fountain, severely. “Did ever I
say he could help dying? But he could help coming here under false
colors, a mahogany face, and trapping his friend.”
“Uncle, what is the use--your trying to play the misanthrope with me,
who know how good you are, in spite of your pretenses to the contrary?
To hide your emotion from your poor niece, you go into a feigned fury,
and all the time you know how sorry you are your poor friend is gone.”
“Of course I am. He has secured one mourner. He might have died to all
eternity if he hadn't nailed me first. See how selfish men are, and
bad-hearted into the bargain. I believe that young fellow had been to
a doctor, and found out he was booked in spite of his mahogany cheeks;
so then he rides out here and wheedles an unguarded friend--I'm
wired--I'm trapped--I'm snared.”
Lucy set herself to soothe her injured relative. “You must say to
yourself, _'C'est un petit matheur.'”_
“Tell myself a falsehood? What shall I gain by that? Let me tell you,
it is these minor troubles that send a man to Bedlam. One breeds
another, till they swarm and buzz you distracted, and sting you dead.
_'Petit maiheur!'_ it is a greater one than you have ever
encountered since you have been under _my_ wing.”
“It is, dear, it is; but I hope to encounter much greater ones before
I am your age.”
“The deuce you do!”
“Or else I shall die without ever having lived--a vegetable, not a
human being.”
“Bombast! a 'flower' your lovers will call you.”
“And men of sense a 'weed.' But don't let us discuss me. What I wish
to know is the nature of your annoyance, dear.” He explained to her
with a groan that he should have to wind up all the affairs of an
estate of 8,000 pounds a year, pay the annual and other encumbrances,
etc., etc.
“Well, but, dear, you will be quite at home in this, you have such a
turn for business.”
“For my own,” shrieked the old bachelor, angrily, “not for other
people's. Why, Lucy, there will be half a dozen separate accounts, all
of four figures. It is not as if executors were paid. And why are they
not paid? There ought to be a law compelling the estates they
administer to pay them, and handsomely. It never occurred to me
before, but now I see the monstrous iniquity of amateur executors,
amateur trustees, amateur guardians. They take business out of the
hands of those who live by business. I sincerely regret my share in
this injustice. If a snob works, he always expects to be paid! how
much more a gentleman. He ought to be paid double--once for the work,
and once for giving up his natural ease. Here am I, guardian gratis to
a cub of sixteen--the worst age--done school, and not begun Oxford and
governesses.”
“Tutors, you mean.”
“Do I? Is it the tutors the whelps fall in love with, little goose?
Stop; I'll describe my 'interesting charge,' as the books call it. He
has hair you could not tell from tow. He has no eyebrows--a little
unfledged slippery horror. He used to come in to dessert, and turn all
our stomachs except his silly father's.”
“Poor orphan!”
“When you speak to him he never answers--blushes instead.”
“Poor child!”
“He has read of eloquent blushes, and thinks there is no need to reply
in words--blushing must be such an interesting and effective
substitute.”
“Poor boy, he wants a little judicious kindness. We will have him
here.”
“Here!” cried the old gentleman, with horror. “What! make Font Abbey a
kennel!!! No, Lucy, no, this house is sacred; no nuisances admitted
here. Here, on this single spot of earth, reigns comfort, and shall
reign unruffled while I live. This is the temple of peace. If I must
be worried, I must, but not beneath this hallowed roof.”
This eloquence, delivered as it was with a sudden solemnity, told upon
the mind.
“Dear Font Abbey,” murmured Lucy, half closing her eyes, “how well you
describe it! Societies of the cosey; the walls seem padded, the
carpets velvet, and the whole structure care-proof; all is quiet
gayety and sweet punctuality. Here comfort and good humor move by
clock-work; that is Font Abbey. Yet you are right; if you were to be
seen in it no more, it would lose the life of its charm, dear Uncle
Fountain.”
“Thank you, my dear--thank you. I do like to see my friends about me
comfortable, and, above all, to be comfortable myself. The place is
well enough, and I am bitterly sorry I must leave it, and sorry to
leave you, my dear.”
“Leave us? not immediately?”
“This very day. Why, the funeral is to be this week--a grand
funeral--and I have to order it all. Then there are relatives to be
invited--thirty letters--others to be asked to the reading of the
will. It will be one hurry-scurry till we get the house clear of the
corpse and the vultures; then at it I must go, head-foremost, into
fathomless addition--subtraction--multiplication, and vexation. 'Oh,
now forever farewell, something or other--farewell content!' You talk
of misanthropy. I shall end there. Lucy.”
“Yes, dear uncle.”
“I never--do--a good-natured thing--but--I--bitterly--repent it. By
Jupiter! the coffee is cold; the first time that has befallen me since
I turned off seven servants that battled that point of comfort with
me.”
Lucy suggested that the coffee might have cooled a little while he was
being so kind as to answer her question at unusual length. Then she
came round to him bringing a fresh supply of fragrant slow poison, and
sat beside him and soothed him till his ire went down, and came the
calm depression of a man who, accustomed for many years to do just
what he liked, found himself suddenly obliged to do something he did
not like--a thing out of the groove of his habits too.
Sure enough, he left Font Abbey the same day, with a promise, exacted
by Lucy, that he should make her the partner of all his vexations by
writing to her every day.
“And, Lucy,” said the old Parthian, as he stepped into his
traveling-carriage, “my friend Talboys will miss me; pray be kind to
him while I am away. He is a particular friend of mine. I may be
wrong, but I do like men of known origin--of old family.”
“And you are right. I will be kind to him for your sake, dear.”
A slight cold confined Lucy to the house for three or four days after
her uncle's departure (by the by, I think this must have been the
reason of David's ill success in his endeavors to get an interview
with her out of doors).
Thus circumstanced, ladies rummage.
Lucy found in a garret a chest containing a quantity of papers and
parchments, and the beautifulest dust. No such dust is made in these
degenerate days. Some of these MSS. bore recent dates, and were easily
legible, though not so easily intelligible, being written as Gratiano
spake.* The writers had omitted to put the idea'd words into red ink,
so they had to be picked out with infinite difficulty from the
multitude of unidea'd ones.
* “Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing . . . . his
reasons are as three grains of wheat in two bushels of
chaff.”
Other of the MSS., more ancient, wore a double veil. They hid their
sense in verbiage, and also in narrow Germanifled letters, farther
deformed by contractions and ornamental flourishes, whose joint effect
made a word look like a black daddy-long-legs, all sprawling fantastic
limbs and the body a dot.
The perusal of these pieces was slow and painful; it was like walking
or slipping about among broken ruins overgrown with nettles. But then
Uncle Fountain was so anxious to hook on to the Flunkeys--oh, Ciel!
what am I saying?--the Funteyns, and his direct genealogical evidence
had so completely broken down. She said to herself, “Oh dear! if I
could find something among these old writings, and show it him on his
return.” She had them all dusted and brought down, and a table-cloth
laid on a long table in the drawing-room, and spelled them with a
good-humored patience that belonged partly to her character, partly to
her sex. A female who undertakes this sort of work does not skip as we
should; the habit of needle-work in all its branches reconciles that
portion of mankind to invisible progress in other matters.
Besides this, they are naturally careful, and, above all, born to
endure, they carry patience into nearly all they do.*
* At about the third rehearsal of a new play our actresses
bring the author's words into their heads, our actors are
still all abroad, and at the first performance the breaks-
down are sure to be among the males; the female jumenta
carry their burden (be it of pig-lead) safe from wing to
wing.
Lucy made her way manfully through all the well-written
circumlocution, and in a very short time considering; but the antique
[Greek] tried her eyes too much at night, so she gave nearly her whole
day to it, for she was anxious to finish all before her uncle's
return. It was a curious picture--Venus immersed in musty records.
One day she had studied and spelled four mortal hours, when a visitor
was suddenly announced--Miss Dodd. That young lady came briskly in at
the heels of the servant and caught Lucy at her work. After the first
greeting, her eye rested with such undisguised curiosity on the
“mouldy records” that Lucy told her in general terms what she was
trying to do for her uncle. “La!” said Eve, “you will ruin your
eye-sight; why not send them over to us? I will make David read them.”
“And his eyesight?”
“Oh, bless you, he has a knack at reading old writing. He has made a
study of it.”
“If I thought I was not presuming too far on Mr. Dodd's good nature, I
would send one or two of them.”
“Do; and I will make him draw up a paper of the contents; I have seen
him at this sort of work before now. But there, la! I suppose you know
it is all vanity.”
“I do it to please my poor uncle.”
“And very good you are. But what the better will the poor old
gentleman be? We are here to act our own part well; we can't ride up
to heaven on our great-grandfather.”
These maxims were somewhat coldly received, so Eve shifted her ground.
“After all, I don't know why I should be the one to say that, for my
own name is older than your uncle's a pretty deal.”
Lucy looked puzzled; then suddenly fancying she had caught Eve's
meaning, she said: “That is true. Hail mother of mankind!!” and bowed
her head with graceful reverence.
Eve stared and colored, not knowing what on earth her companion meant.
I am afraid it must be owned that Eve steadily eschewed books and
always had. What little book-learning she had came to her filtered
through David, and by this channel she accepted it willingly, even
sought it at odd times, when there was no bread, pudding, dress,
theology, scandal, or fun going on. She turned it off by a sudden
inquiry where Mr. Fountain was; “they told me in the village he was
away.” Now several circumstances combined to make Lucy more
communicative than usual. First, she had been studying hard; and,
after long study, when a lively person comes to us, it is a great
incitement to talk. Pitiful by nature, I spare you the “bent bow.”
Secondly, she was a little anxious lest her uncle's sudden neglect
should have mortified Miss Dodd, and a neutral topic handled at length
tends to replace friendly feeling without direct and unpleasant
explanations. She therefore answered every question in full; told her
that her uncle had lost a dear friend; that he was executor and
guardian to the poor boy, now entirely an orphan. Her uncle, with his
usual zeal on behalf of his friends; had gone off at once, and
doubtless would not return till he had fulfilled in every respect the
wishes of the deceased.
To this general sketch she added many details, suppressing the
misanthropy Mr. Fountain had exhibited or affected at the first
receipt of the intelligence.
In short, angelic gossip. Earthly gossip always backbites, you know.
Eve missed something somehow, no doubt the human or backbiting
element; still, it was gossip, sacred gossip, far dearer than
Shakespeare to the female heart, and Eve's eyes glowed with pleasure
and her tongue plied eager questions.
With all this, such instinctive artists are these delicate creatures,
both these ladies were secretly in ambush, Lucy to learn whether Eve
and David were hurt or surprised at not being invited of late, and why
she and he had not called since; Eve to find out what was the cause
David and she had been so suddenly dropped: was it Lucy's doing or
whose?
Each lady being bent on receiving, not on making revelations, nothing
transpired on either side. Seeing this, Eve became impatient and made
a bold move.
“Miss Fountain,” said she, “you are all alone. I wish you would come
over to us this evening and have tea.”
Lucy did not immediately reply. Eve saw her hesitation. “It is but a
poor place,” said she, “to ask you to.”
“I will come,” said the lady, directly. “I will come with great
pleasure.”
“Will seven be too early for you?”
“Oh, no, I don't dine now my uncle is away. I call luncheon dinner.”
“Perhaps, six, then?”
“Pray let me come at your usual hour. Why derange your family for one
person?” Six o'clock was settled.
“I must take some of this rubbish with me,” said Eve; “come along, my
dears”; and with an ample and mock enthusiastic gesture she caught up
an armful of manuscripts.
“The servant shall take them over for you.”
“Oh, bother the servant; I am my own servant--if you will lend me a
pin or two.”
Lucy drew six pins out from different parts of her dress. Eve noticed
this, but said nothing. She pinned up her apron so as to make an
enormous pocket, and went gayly off with the “spoils of time.”
CHAPTER VII.
“Is that what you call being calm, David? Let me alone--don't slobber
me. I am sure I wish she had said, 'No.' If I had thought she would
come I would never have asked her.”
“You would, Eve; you would, for love of me.”
“Who knows? Perhaps I might. I am more indulgent than kind.”
“Eve, do tell me all. Is she well? does she come of her own good will?
Dear Eve!”
“Well, I'll tell you: first we had a bit of a talk for a blind like;
and her uncle is away; so then I asked her plump to come to tea. Well,
David, first she looked 'No'--only for a single moment, though; she
soon altered her mind, and so then, the moment it was to be 'Yes,' she
cleared up, and you would have thought she had been asked to the
king's banquet. Ah! David, my lad, you have fallen into good
hands--you have launched your heart on a deeper ocean than ever your
ship sailed on.”
David took no notice. He was in a state of exaltation for one thing,
and, besides, Eve's simile was sent to the wrong address; we
terrestrials fear water in proportion to its depth, but these mariners
dread their native element only when it is shallow.
David now kept asking in an excited way what they could do for her.
“What could they get to do her honor? Wouldn't she miss the luxuries
of her fine place?”
“Now you be quiet, David; we need not put ourselves about, for she
will be the easiest girl to please you have ever seen here; or, if she
isn't, she'll act it so that you'll be none the wiser. However, you
can go and buy some flowers for me.”
“That I will; we have none good enough for her here.”
“And, David, tea under the catalpa, as we always do on fine nights.”
“You don't mean that.”
“Ah! but I do. These fine ladies are all for novelties. Now I'm much
mistaken if this one has ever had her tea out of doors in all her born
days. What! do you think our little stuffy room would be any treat to
her, after the drawing-room at Font Abbey? Come, you be off till
half-past five; you'll fidget yourself and fidget me else.”
David recognized her superiority, obeyed and vanished.
Eve, having got rid of him, showed none of the insouciance she had
recommended. She darted into the kitchen, bared her arms, and made
wheaten cakes with unequaled rapidity, the servant looking on with
demure admiration all the while. These put into the oven, she got her
keys and put out the silver teapot, cream jug and sugar basin, things
not used every day, I can tell you; item, the best old china tea
service; item, some rare tea, of which David had brought home a small
quantity from China. At six o'clock Miss Fountain came; a footman
marched twenty yards behind her. She dismissed him at the door, and
Eve invited her at once into the garden. There David joined them, his
heart beating violently. She put out her hand kindly and calmly, and
shook hands with him in the most unembarrassed way imaginable. At the
touch of her soft hand every fiber in him thrilled and the color
rushed into his face. At this a faint blush tinged her own, but no
more than the warm welcome she was receiving might account for.
They seated her in a comfortable chair under the catalpa. Presently
out came a nice, clean maid, her white neck half hidden, half
revealed, by plain, unfigured muslin worn where the frock ended. She
put the tea things on the table, and courtesied to Lucy, who returned
her salute by a benignant smile. Out came another stouter one with the
kettle, hung it from a hoop between two stout sticks, and lighted a
fire she had laid underneath, retiring with a parting look at the
kettle as soon as it hissed. Then returned maid one with bread, and
wheaten cakes, and fruit, butter nice and hard from the cellar, and
yellow cream, and went off smiling.
A gentle zeal seemed to animate these domestics, as if they, also, in
relative proportions, gave the fete, or at least contributed good
will. Lucy's quick eye caught this. It was new to her.
The tea was soon made, and its Oriental fragrance mingled with the
other odors that filled the balmy air. Gay golden broken lights
flickered in patches on the table, the china cups, the ladies'
dresses, and the grass, all but in one place, where the cool deep
shadow lay undisturbed around the foot of the tree-stem. Looking up to
see whence the flickering gold came that sprinkled her white hand,
Lucy saw one of the loveliest and commonest things in nature. The sky
was blue--the sun fiery--the air potable gold outside the tree, so
that, as she looked up, the mellow green leaves of the catalpa, coming
between her and the bright sky and glowing air, shone like transparent
gold--staircase upon staircase of great exotic translucent leaves,
with specks of lovely blue sky that seemed to come down and perch
among the top branches. Charming as these sights were, contrast
doubled their beauties; for all these dimples of bright blue and
flakes of translucent gold were eyed from the cool and from the deep
shade.
The light, it is true, came down and danced on the turf here and
there, but it left its heat behind through running the gauntlet of the
myriad leaves. Over Lucy's head hung by a silk line from one of the
branches a huge globe of humble but fragrant flowers; they were, in
point of fact, fastened with marvelous skill all round a damp sponge,
but she did not know that. Thus these simple hosts honored their
lovely guest. And while these sights and smells stole into her deep
eyes and her delicate nostrils, “Fiddle, David,” said Eve, loftily,
and straightway a simple mellow tune rang sweetly on the cheerful
chords--a rustic, dulcet, and immortal ditty, in tune with summer and
afternoon, with gold-checkered grass, and leaves that slumbered, yet
vibrated, in the glowing air.
A bright, dreamy hour; the soul and senses floated gently in color,
fragrance, melody, and great calm. “Each sound seemed but an echo of
tranquillity.”
Lucy looked up and absorbed the scene, then closed her eyes and
listened; and presently her lips parted gradually in so ravishing a
smile, her eyes remaining closed, that even Eve, who saw her in her
true light, a terrible girl come there to burn and destroy David,
remaining cool as a cucumber, could hardly forbear seizing and
mumbling her.
In certain companies you shall see a boisterous cordiality, which at
bottom is as hollow as diplomacy; but there is a modest geniality
which is to society what the bloom is to the plum.
And this charm Lucy found in her hosts of the catalpa. For this very
reason that they were her hosts, their manner to her changed a little,
and becomingly; they made no secret that it was a downright pleasure
to them to have her there. They petted her, and showed her so much
simple kindness, that what with the scene, the music, and her
companions' goodness, the coy bud opened--timidly at first--but in a
way it never had expanded at Font Abbey.
She even developed a feeble sense of fun, followed suit demurely when
Eve came out sprightly, laughed like a brook gurgling to Eve's peal of
bells, and lo and behold, when the two girls got together, and faced
the man, strong in numbers, a favorite trick, backed her ally as
cowards back the brave, and set her on to sauce David. They cast
doubts upon his skill in navigation. They perplexed him with
treacherous questions in geography, put with an innocent affectation
of a humble desire for information. In short, they played upon him
lightly as they touch the piano. And Eve carolled a song, and David
accompanied her on the fiddle; and at the third verse Lucy chimed in
spontaneously with a second, and the next verse David struck in with a
base, and the tepid air rang with harmony, and poor David thrilled
with happiness. His heart felt his voice mingle and blend with hers,
and even this contact was delicious to his imagination. And they were
happy. But all must end; the shades of evening came down, and the
pleasant little party broke up, and, as John had not come, David asked
leave to escort her home. Oh no, she could not think of giving him
that trouble; so saying, she went home with him. When they were alone,
his deep love made him timid and confused. He walked by her side, and
did not speak to her. She waited with some surprise at this silence,
and then, as he was shy, she talked to him, uttered many airy
nothings, and then put questions to him. “Did he always drink tea out
of doors?”
“On fine nights in summer. Eve settled all such matters.”
“Have you not a voice?”
“I have a voice, but no vote. She is skipper ashore.”
“Oh, is she? Who taught her how delicious it is to drink tea out of
doors?”
David did not know--fancied it was her own idea. “Did you really like
it, Miss Fountain?”
“Like it, Mr. Dodd! It was Elysium. I never passed a sweeter evening
in my life.”
David colored all over. “I wish I could believe that.”
“Was it the tulip-tree, or the violin, or was it your conversation,
Mr. Dodd, I wonder?” asked she demurely, looking mock-innocent in his
face.
“It was your goodness to be so easily pleased,” said Dodd, with a gush
that made her color. She smiled, however. “Well, that is one way of
looking at things,” said she. _“Entre nous,_ I think Miss Dodd
was the enchantress.”
“Eve is capital company, for that matter.”
“Indeed she is; you must be very happy together. Your mutual affection
is very charming, Mr. Dodd, but sometimes it almost makes me sad.
Forgive me! I have no brother.”
“You will never want one to love you a thousand times better than a
brother can love.”
“Oh, shan't I?” said the lady, and opened her eyes.
“No; and there is more than one that worships the ground you tread on
at this moment; but you know that.”
“Oh, do I?” She opened her eyes still wider.
David longed to tell how he loved her, but dared not. He looked
wistfully at her face. It was quite calm and had suddenly became a
little reserved. He felt he was on new and dangerous ground; he sighed
and was silent. He turned away his face. When this involuntary sigh
broke from him she turned her head a little and looked at him. He felt
her eye dwell on him, and his cheeks burned under it.
The next moment they were at Font Hill, and Lucy seemed to David to
hesitate whether to give him her hand at parting or not.
She did give him her hand, though not so freely, David thought, as she
had done on his own little lawn three hours before, and this dashed
his spirits. It seemed to him a step lost, and he had hoped to gain a
step somehow by walking home with her. He felt like one who has
undertaken to catch some skittish timorous thing, that, if you stand
still, will come within a certain small but safe distance, but you
must not move a step toward it, or, whir, away it is. He went slowly
home, his heart warm and cold by turns; warm when he remembered the
sweet hours he had just spent, and her sweet looks and heavenly tones,
every one of which he saw and heard again; cold when he thought of the
social distance that separated them, and the hundred chances to one
against his love. Then he said to himself: “Time was I thought I could
never bring a yard down from the foretop to the deck, but I mastered
that. Time was I thought I could never work out a logarithm without a
formula, but I mastered that. Time was the fiddle beat me so I was
ready to cry over it, but at last I learned to make it sing, and now I
can make her smile with it (God bless her!) instead of stopping her
ears. I can hardly mind the thing that didn't beat me dead for a long
while, but I persevered and got the upper hand. Ay, but this is higher
and harder than them all--a hundred times harder and higher.
“I'll hold my course, let the wind blow high or low, and if I can't
overhaul the wish of my heart, well, I'll carry her flag to the last.
I'll die a bachelor for her sake, as sure as you are the moon, my
lass, and you the polar star, and from this hour I'll never look at
you, but I'll make believe it is her I am looking up at; for she is as
high above me, and as bright as you are. God bless her! and to think I
never even said good-night to her! I stood there like a mummy.” And
David reproached himself for his unkindness.
Lucy, on entering the drawing-room, was surprised to find it blazing
with candles, but she was more surprised at what she saw seated calmly
in an armchair--Mrs. Bazalgette. Lucy stood transfixed; the audacious
intruder laughed at her astonishment; the next moment they
intertwined, and fell to kissing one another with tender violence.
“Well, love, the fact is, I was passing here on my way home from
Devonshire, and I wanted particularly to speak to you, so I thought I
would venture just to pop in for a passing call, and lo! I find the
old ogre is absent, and not expected back for ever so long, so I have
installed myself at his Font Abbey, partly out of love for you, dear,
partly, I confess it, out of hate to him. You will write and tell me
his face when he comes home and hears I have been living and enjoying
myself in his den. I ordered my imperial into his bedroom. I took it
for granted that would be the only comfortable one in his house.”
“Aunt Bazalgette!” cried Lucy, turning pale; “oh, aunt, what will
become of us?”
“Don't be frightened; the gray-haired monster that dyes his whiskers,
and gets him up to look only sixty, interposed and forbade the
consecration.”
“I am glad of it. You shall sleep in mine, dear, and I will go into
the east room. It is a sweet little room.”
“Is it? then why not put me there?” Lucy colored a little. “I think
mine would suit you better, dear, because it is larger and airier,
and--”
“I see. As you please; you know I never make difficulties.”
“And how long have you been here, aunt?”
“About three hours.”
“Three hours, and not send for me! I was only in the village. Did no
one tell you?”
“Yes; but you know it is not my way to make a fuss and put people out.
How could I tell? You might be agreeably employed, and I was sure of
you before bedtime.”
Mighty-fine! but the truth is, she came to Font Abbey to pry. She had
heard a vague report about Lucy and a gentleman.
She was very glad to find Lucy was out; it gave her an opportunity.
She sent for Lucy's maid to help her unpack a dress or two--thirteen.
This girl was paid out of Lucy's estate, but did not know that. Mrs.
Bazalgette handed her her wages, and that gives an influence. The wily
matron did not trust to that alone. In unpacking she gave the girl a
dress and several smaller presents, and, this done, slowly and
cautiously pumped her. Jane, to fulfill her share of a bargain, which,
though never once alluded to, was perfectly understood between both
the parties, told her all she knew and all she conjectured; told her,
in particular, how constantly Mr. Talboys was in the house, and how,
one night, the old gentleman had walked part of the way home with him,
“which Mr. Thomas says he didn't think his master would do it for the
king, mum!” and had come in all of a flurry, and sent up for miss, and
swore* awful when she couldn't come because she was abed. “So you may
depend, mum, it is so; leastways, the gentlemen they are willing. We
talk it over mostly every day in the servants' hall, mum, and we are
all of a mind so fur; but whether it will come to a wedding, that we
haven't a settled yet. It's miss beats us; she is like no other young
lady ever I came anigh. A man or woman--it is all the same to her--a
kind word for everybody, and pass on. But I do really think she likes
her own side of the house a trifle the best.”
*The ladies of the bedchamber will embellish. After all, it
is their business.
“And there you don't agree with her, Jane?”
“Well, mum--being as we are alone--now is it natural? But Mr. Thomas
he says, 'The cold ones take the first offer that comes when there is
money ahind it. It isn't us they wants,' says he. I told him I should
think not the likes of him--'but our house and land,' says he, 'and
hopera box and cetera.' 'But I don't think that of our one,' says I;
'bless you, she is too high-minded.' But what I think, mum, is, she
wouldn't say 'no' to her uncle; her mouth don't seem made for saying
no, especially to him; and he is bent on Talboys, mum, you take my
word.”
To return to the drawing-room: Mrs. Bazalgette, after the above
delicate discussion, sat there in ambush, knowing more of Lucy's
affairs than Lucy knew. Her next point was to learn Lucy's sentiments,
and to find whether she was deliberately playing false and breaking
her promise, vide.
“Well, Lucy, any lovers yet?”
“No, aunt.”
“Take care, Lucy, a little bird whispers in my ear.”
“Then it is a humming-bird,” and Lucy pouted. “Now, aunt, did you
really come to Font Abbey to tease me about such nonsense
as--as--gentlemen?” and Lucy looked hurt.
“Here's an actress for you,” thought Mrs. Bazalgette; but she calmly
dropped the subject, and never recurred to it openly all the evening,
but lay secretly in watch, and put many subtle but seeming innocent
questions to her niece about her habits, her uncle's guest, whether
her uncle kept a horse for her, whether he bought it for her, etc.,
etc.
The next morning Mrs. Bazalgette breakfasted in bed, during which
process she rang her bell seven times. Lucy received at the
breakfast-table a letter from her uncle.
“MY DEAR NIECE--The funeral was yesterday, and, I flatter myself, well
performed: there were five-and-twenty carriages. After that a
luncheon, in the right style, and then to the reading of the will. And
here I shall surprise you, but not more than I was myself: I am left
5,000 pounds consols. My worthy friend, whose loss we are called on so
suddenly to deplore, accompanied this bequest in his will with many
friendly expressions of esteem, which I have always studied and shall
study to deserve. He bequeathed to me also, during minority, the care
of his boy, the heir to this fine property, which far exceeds the
value I had imagined. There is a letter attached to the will; in
compliance with it Arthur is to go to Cambridge, but not until he has
been well prepared. He will therefore accompany me to Font Abbey
to-morrow, and I must contrive somehow or other to find him a
mathematical tutor in the neighborhood. There is a handsome allowance
made out of the estate for his board, etc., etc.
“He is an interesting boy, and has none of the rudeness and
mischievousness they generally have--blue eyes, soft, silky, flaxen
hair, and as modest as a girl. His orphaned state merits kindness, and
his prospects entitle him to consideration. I mention this because I
fancy, when we last discussed this matter, I saw a little disposition
on your part to be satirical at the poor boy's expense. I am sure,
however, that you will restrain this feeling at my request, and treat
him like a younger brother. I only wish he was three or four years
older--you understand me, miss.
“To-morrow afternoon, then, we shall be at Font Abbey. Let him have
the east room, and tell Brown to light a blazing fire in my bedroom.
and warm and air every mortal thing, on pain of death.
“Your affectionate uncle,
“JOHN FOUNTAIN.”
On reading this letter Lucy formed an innocent scheme. It had long
been matter of regret to her that Aunt Bazalgette could not see the
good qualities of Uncle Fountain, and Uncle Fountain of Aunt
Bazalgette. “It must be mere prejudice,” said she, “or why do I love
them both?” She had often wished she could bring them together, and
make them know one another better; they would find out one another's
good qualities then, and be friends. But how? As Shakespeare says,
“Oxen and wain-ropes would not haul them, together.”
At last chance aided her--Mrs. Bazalgette was at Font Abbey actually.
Lucy knew that if she announced Mr. Fountain's expected return the B
would fly off that minute, so she suppressed the information, and,
giving up to young Arthur as she had to Mrs. B., moved into a still
smaller room than the east room.
And now her heart quaked a little. “But, after all, Uncle Fountain is
a gentleman,” thought she, “and not capable of showing hostility to
her under his own roof. Here she is safe, though nowhere else; only I
must see him, and explain to him before he sees her.” With this view
Lucy declined demurely her aunt's proposal for a walk. No, she must be
excused; she had work to do in the drawing-room that could not be
postponed.
“Work! that alters the case. Let me see it.” She took for granted it
was some useful work--something that could be worn when done. “What!
is this it--these dirty parchments? Oh! I see; it is for that selfish
old man; who but he would set a lady to parchments!”
“A bad guess,” cried Lucy, joyously. “I found them myself, and set
myself to work on them.”
“Don't tell me! He is at the bottom of it. If it was for yourself you
would give it up directly. How amusing for me to see you work at
that!” Lucy rose and brought her the new novel. Mrs. Bazalgette took
it and sat down to it, but she could not fix her attention long on it.
Ladies whose hearts are in dress have no taste for books, however
frivolous; can't sit them for above a second or two. Mrs. Bazalgette
fidgeted and fidgeted, and at last rose and left the room, book in
hand. “How unkind I am!” said Lucy to herself.
She was sitting sentinel till the carriage should arrive; then she
could run down and prepare her uncle for his innocent and accidental
visitor. It would not be prudent to let him receive the information
from a servant, or without the accompanying explanation. This it was
that made her so unnaturally firm when the little idle B pressed her
to waste in play the shining hours.
Mrs. Bazalgette went book in hand to her bedroom, and had not been
there long before she found employment. Many of Lucy's things were
still in the wardrobes. Mrs. B. rummaged them, inspected them at the
window, and ended by ringing for her maid and trying divers of her
niece's dresses on. “They make her dresses better than they do mine;
they take more pains.” At last she found one that was new to her,
though Lucy had worn it several times at Font Abbey.
“Where did she get this, Jane?”
“Present from the old gentleman, mum; he had it down from London for
her all at one time with this shawl and twelve puragloves.”
Lucy looked two inches taller than Mrs. B., but somehow, I can't tell
how, this dress of hers fitted the latter like a glove. It embraced
her; it held her tenderly, but tight, as gowns and lovers should. The
poor dear could not get out of it. “I _must_ wear it an hour or
two,” said she. “Besides, it will save my own, knocking about in these
country lanes.” Thus attired she went into the drawing-room to
surprise Lucy. Now Lucy was determined not to move; so, not to be
enticed, she did not even look up from her work; on this the other
took a mild huff and whisked out.
So keen are the feminine senses, that Lucy, on reflection, recognized
something brusk, perhaps angry, in the rustle of that retiring dress,
and soon after rang the bell and inquired where Mrs. Bazalgette was.
John would make henquiries.
“Your haunt is in the back garden, miss.”
“Walking, or what?”
John would make henquiries.
“She is reading, miss; and she is sitting on the seat master 'ad made
for _you,_ miss.
“Very well: thank you.”
“Any more commands, miss?”
“Not at present.” John retired with a regretful air, as one capable of
executing important commissions, but lost for lack of opportunity. All
the servants in this house liked to come into contact with Lucy. She
treated them with a dignified kindness and reserved politeness that
wins these good creatures more than either arrogance or familiarity.
“Jeames is not such a fool as he looks.”
Lucy was glad. Her aunt had got her book. It is an interesting story;
she will not miss me now, and the carriage will soon be here, and then
I will make up for my unkindness. Curiously enough, at this very
juncture, the fair student found something in her parchment which gave
her some little hopes of a favorable result.
She was following this clue eagerly, when all of a sudden she started.
Her ear had caught the rattle of a carriage over the stones of the
stable yard. She rang the bell, and inquired if that was not the
carriage.
“Yes, miss.
“My uncle has sent it back, then? He is not coming to-day?”
John would inquire of the coachman.
“Oh yes, miss, master is come, but he got out at the foot of the hill,
and walked up through the shrubbery with the young gentleman to show
him the grounds.” On this news Lucy rose hastily, snatched up a garden
hat, and, without any other pr
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