She and I Volume I Part 9

We gradually approached her door. I was telling her that, instead of mere days, I seemed to have known her for years and could not affect to treat her as a stranger.

She said that she looked upon me almost as an old friend already.

I asked her if she would let me abandon the formal appellation of "Miss Clyde," and call her "Min?"

She said, "Yes."

I asked her then, ere the door opened, on wishing her "good-bye," with a lingering hand-clasp, whether she would not call me by my Christian name, too?

She gently whispered, "Frank"--so softly, so faintly, that the night- wind, sighing by, could not catch the accents and bear the sound to alien ears; but _I_ heard it, and my heart throbbed in a delirious tempest of happiness; I lost my senses almost: my head swam in a whirlwind of tumultuous joy: I was intoxicated with ecstasy!

"Good-night, Frank!" I heard her dear, sweet voice whispering, like strains of music in my heart, as I went homewards. I seemed to feel her warm violet breath still on my cheek. I could fancy I yet gazed into the star-depths of her soul-speaking, deep, grey eyes.

"Good-night, Frank!" The words sang in my ears all night, and I slept in fairyland.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

DOUBT.

"Thro' light and shadow thou dost range, Sudden glances sweet and strange, Delicious spites and darling angers, And airy forms of flitting change."

I had not yet had an opportunity of being introduced to Min's mother.

'Pon my word, you exclaim, this looks very serious!

I beg to differ from you. We had been brought together legitimately enough, down at the church-decoration-gathering in the school-room: we had been regularly introduced by no less a clerical authority than little Miss Pimpernell, the vicar's sister: we had then and there a.s.sociated under the safest chaperonage--good heavens! would not Miss Spight's jealous green eyes, that were certain to pick out the tiniest blot in her fellow man or woman, and Lady Dasher's stately, albeit melancholy presence, satisfy you? Thus, the "convenances," that horrid Anglo-French pseudonym, of the still more horrible bugbear "society,"

had no cause to consider themselves neglected and find an excuse for taking umbrage. From this point, our acquaintanceship naturally and gradually ripened. We got intimate: it was our fate, I suppose--what more or less would you have expected?

Besides, although, mind you, I do not consider myself in any way bound to allay your curiosity and satisfy your compunctious scruples, you should remember that all of us young parishioners of Saint Canon's-- Horner, Baby Blake, Lizzie Dangler and the rest--had known each other almost from the distant days of childhood; and, consequently, were in the habit of _tutoyer_-ing one another, using our respective "given"

names in familiar conversation. The habit may be a bad one, it is true, but you cannot prevent it sometimes. There is no practice so capable of imitation as that of calling one another by the Christian name. It is just like that of the monkeys all cleaning their teeth along the banks of the Amazon with pieces of stick, because they saw Professor Aga.s.siz setting them an example one fine morning, when engaged on his toilet in company with a tooth-brush. You can't help yourself: you must bow to the custom and follow suit.

In this instance, there was Miss Pimpernell, always addressing _her_ as "Min," and _me_ as "Frank." The Dasher girls and others soon learnt to do the same. What more likely than that we ourselves should fall into a similar friendly system? It was only reasonable; and a result which even a less alert person than yourself would have looked for. At all events, neither of us meant any harm by it; and I am willing to "take my affidavit" to that effect any day you please to name, in any Court of Justice you may appoint.

Notwithstanding the intimate footing that now existed between Min and myself, the fact of my non-acquaintance with her mother, annoyed me extremely. You need not flatter yourself, however. It was not in the least on account of any conscientious qualms, like yours.

I wished to know her personally from a totally different motive; and yet, in spite of all attempts and stratagems on my part, I never could get a chance of meeting her when I was in the company of some kind friend to act as go-between and soothe the exigencies of introduction; although, when alone I would encounter her frequently. This was very vexing--especially so after a while; and I'll tell you how it was.

As the days flew by, and the new year, born in a moment, grew with giant strides in that hasty growth common to all new years--they have a habit of shooting ahead the first few months of their existence, as if they desired to "force the pace," and make all the "running" they can--my facilities for intercourse with Min became "small by degrees and beautifully less." There you have the cause of my annoyance at once.

I could see her at the window, certainly. I also frequently pa.s.sed her mother and herself in the street, or on The Terrace, or along the Prebend's Walk, when I was taking an airing abroad with dog Catch at my heels; yet, I don't know how it was, but I invariably chanced to be on the opposite side of the street, or road, or terrace, whenever I thus pa.s.sed them. I never failed to receive the timid little bow and smile from Min, with a rosy heightening of her complexion the while--to which I had now got so accustomed that, should I have been debarred from their receipt, I would have considered myself very hardly used and felt a morbid inclination to go mad and drown myself. But, Min's bow was hardly sufficient to introduce me to her mother, even if people could be introduced from opposite sides of roads. Thus it was that I remained a stranger to Mrs Clyde, and did not have a chance of meeting her daughter and talking to her, as I might have done if I could but have visited her at home.

I never was able to have a word with her now, never could hear her darling voice repeat my name in those soft accents I loved so well. It was very hard--very hard, indeed! You see, I had ample reasons, beyond the requirements of mere social etiquette, for wishing to know Mrs Clyde.

Our suburb, you must know, was an extremely quiet place--"remote, unfriended, solitary, slow."

Although everybody knew everybody, who happened to be anybody at all, there was not much of current sociability and party giving. We were not sociable. On the contrary, we were a very humdrum lot; rising early and going to town to our business and daily toil--such of us as had any sort of business to attend to--and coming back at a fixed regular hour. We were in the habit of having our respective dinners and teas, and, mayhap, suppers, at certain appointed times and seasons--also duly regulated--and subsequently going to bed, to recruit for the same routine on the morrow, without any excitements, or renovation and destruction of tissue worth speaking of.

A "tea-party" was quite a sensation in the parish of Saint Canon's-- equivalent to one of the queen's garden fetes. Beyond school treats and working parties, to which latter only the clergy and Lady Dorcases were admitted, and the anniversary of Christmas, when we sometimes _did_ indulge a little in wholesome but subdued gaiety, we went on from year's beginning to year's end without b.a.l.l.s, or dinners, or dances, or any of those resources which fashionable people have for killing time and keeping up acquaintanceship.

We were not "high-toned" people; quite the reverse, in fact, as, I believe, I have previously described. We only "dropped in" of an evening to see friends, and spend a quiet hour or two over bezique and music. On these occasions, a carpet cotillon or quadrille has been sometimes indulged in; but it was the exception and not the rule. We were generally satisfied with much milder pastime; our visits rarely exceeding the interval between tea and "supper" time, when we partook of a friendly, though seedy, abernethy and gla.s.s of wine or beer; and then went home virtuously to bed.

Our society being thus const.i.tuted, it became a matter almost of impossibility to meet any one particular person frequently, excepting out in the street, unless you had the entree of their house. Hence, I never could chat with Min, as I had done at the decorations; and, naturally, I felt very much aggrieved thereanent.

What made it additionally provoking to me was, that Horner had contrived to get introduced to Mrs Clyde almost as soon as she had settled in the place, before I had returned from Paris; and there was Mr Mawley the curate, too, exercising the privilege of his cloth by continually frequenting her house. He drove me to desperation by going in and out, apparently just as the fancy suited him, as if he were a tame cat about the place.

His conduct was perfectly odious--that is, to any right-thinking person.

Curates and cousins are, I consider, two of the greatest obstacles to an innocent layman's intimacy with the diviner portion of creation; and, in these days of reform and disestablishment, of hereditary and other conservative grievances, something ought to be done to abolish the persons in question, or at least handicap them so that other deserving young men might have a fair chance in the race for beauty's smile and Hymen's chain. They have an enormous advantage, at present, over outside men-folk. Girls like to have a sort of good-natured lap-dog about them, to play with occasionally and run their errands, "do this"

and "that" for the asking--like Cornelius the centurion's obedient servant--and make himself generally useful, without looking for any ulterior reward on account of services rendered. You see, cousins and curates are regarded as "harmless"--"detrimentals with the chill off,"

so to speak. His sc.r.a.p of relationship throws a glimmer of possession around the one, endowing with inherent right every act of his ministry; while his "cloth" invests the other with a halo of sanct.i.ty and Platonic freedom that disarms gossip of the usual clothes-peg whereon it hangs its scandal. "Cousin Tom"--by-the-way, did you ever read Mackworth Praed's lines on the same theme?--is allowed opportunities for, and lat.i.tude in, flirtation, which poor Corydon, not a cousin never so remote, may sigh in vain for; and, who would be so despicable as to impute secular motives to the Reverend Hobplush's tender ministrations towards those sweet young "sisters," who dote on his sucking sermons and work him carpet slippers and text-markers without limit? Certainly, not I.

I do not mean to say, however, that curates and cousins have it all their own way always. There's a sweet little cupid who "sits up aloft,"

like Jack's guardian angel, to watch o'er the loves of poor laymen.

Still, it is very galling, to one of an ardent temperament especially, to mark the anxious solicitude with which "Cousin Tom" may hang over the divine creature--whom you can only look upon from afar as some distant star--without attracting any observations anent his "attentions." The confounded airs of possession he gives himself, while you are languishing "out in the cold," in the expressive vernacular, are frightful to contemplate. As for curate Hobplush, he may drop in whenever he pleases, being treated like one of the family circle; while you, miserable creature, can only call at stated intervals, always dreading the horrid possibility of out-staying your welcome, and receiving the metaphorical "cold shoulder"--though love may prompt you to the sacrifice.

Such was my position now.

There was Mr Mawley visiting at Mrs Clyde's house some half-a-dozen times a week, for all I knew to the contrary--and of course I imagined the worst--and having endless chances and opportunities of conversing with my darling, in the morning, at noontide, and at night; while poor, wretched _I_ had to content myself with a pa.s.sing bow and smile when we chanced to meet abroad, or I should happen to see her dainty figure at the window as I promenaded past her house.

You say I ought to have considered myself lucky to get even that slight modic.u.m of notice?

But I did _not_ so consider myself. I was not by any means contented.

Where did you ever find a lover worth his salt who was?

To tell the truth, I was horribly jealous of Mawley. He was not at all a bad-looking fellow; and, with all his dogmatic tone and love of argument, had a wonderfully taking way with ladies. Besides, his connection with the Church gave him a considerable pull over me--girls are so impressionable, as a rule, with regard to nice young curates, that they generally have the pick of the parish! Really, all things considered, I'm very much afraid that I had not that kind Christian feeling and charity in my heart towards Mawley that the vicar had enjoined in his Christmas sermon. I did not regard the curate even with that reverence which his Oxford waistcoat should have inspired. I believe that at that particular time I looked upon him with somewhat of the same feeling with which the homicidal Cain regarded his brother Abel about the sacrificing business.

Then, there was Horner, too, who was generally looked upon as an "eligible" person, having a respectable position of his own in addition to considerable expectations from his rich uncle, as I told you before.

I could see that Mrs Clyde encouraged him. He was always going there, and frequently walking out with them also. I saw him, and it made my heart bitter. One evening, I met him in full costume, with an opera- gla.s.s slung round his shoulders, just before he reached their door. He told me that Mrs Clyde had asked him to accompany her daughter and herself to Covent Garden and share their box. They would have waited a considerable time, I thought, before they would have been invited to share _his_! I watched them drive off, and I went home mad. It was getting too grievous for mortal to bear.

The house felt suffocating to me that evening. I could not stop in. I determined to go and call on my old friend Miss Pimpernell, and see what she could do to cheer me up.

"My dear boy," she said, as I entered the parlour, where she sat darning the vicar's socks by the light of a moderator lamp, which stood on a little table close beside her. "My dear boy, what is the matter with you? You look quite haggard, and like a wild man from the woods! Have you had your tea yet? I can ring for some in a moment."

"No, pray don't, thank you," I answered. "Miss Pimpernell," I continued, in a determined voice, "I have had tea enough to-night to last me for a twelvemonth! I can't bear this any longer. You must introduce me to Mrs Clyde. I have never been able as yet to make her acquaintance, and I want to go to her house as Horner does, and that fellow Mawley."

"Hush, my dear boy!" she said, in her soothing way, as if she were stroking me down the back like she stroked her tabby Tom--one of the mousiest and most petted of cats. "You should not speak so of a clergyman, my dear Frank. Think what the vicar would say if he heard you!"

"Oh, never mind Mr Mawley," I said, somewhat petulantly; "I want to know Mrs Clyde."

"Ah! that's what's the matter, is it, Frank? Then why did you not come to old Sally before?"

"Well, Miss Pimpernell," I replied, "I never thought of you until to- night."

"Never thought of me! You _are_ ungallant, Master Frank! But think of me next time, my dear boy, whenever you find yourself in a difficulty; and if Sally Pimpernell can help you out of it, she will, you may depend!"

"Oh, thank you, dear Miss Pimpernell! And when will you introduce me to Mrs Clyde?" I asked, thinking it best to "strike the iron" whilst it was "hot."