The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green Part 40

"And, can you have forgotten!" was the reply. "Do you not remember, that, as we came up the hill, I put a certain

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question to you about Mr. Delaval having proposed and having been accepted?"

"Yes! I remember it very well! And, what then?"

"And, what then!" echoed Mr. Verdant Green, in the greatest wonder at the young lady's calmness; "what then! why, when you told me that he ~had~ been accepted, was not that sufficient for me to know? - to know that all my love had been given to one who was another's, and that all my hopes were blighted! was not this sufficient to crush me, and to change the colour of my life?" And Verdant's face showed that, though he might be quoting from his ~Legend~, he was yet speaking from his heart.

"Oh! I little expected this!" faltered Miss Patty, in real grief; "I little thought of this. Why did you not speak sooner to some one - to me, for instance - and have spared yourself this misery? If you had been earlier made acquainted with Frederick's attachment, you might then have checked your own. I did not ever dream of this!" And Miss Patty, who had turned pale, and trembled with agitation, could not restrain a tear.

"It is very kind of you thus to feel for me!" said Verdant; "and all I ask is, that you will still remain my friend."

"Indeed, I will. And I am sure Kitty will always wish to be the same. She will be sadly grieved to hear of this; for, I can a.s.sure you that she had no suspicion you were attached to her."

"Attached to HER!" cried Verdant, with vast surprise. "What ever do you mean?"

"Have you not been telling me of your secret love for her?" answered Miss Patty, who again turned her thoughts to the champagne.

"Love for ~her~? No! nothing of the kind."

"What! and not spoken about your grief when I told you that Frederick Delaval had proposed to her, and had been accepted?"

"Proposed to ~her~?" cried Verdant, in a kind of dreamy swoon.

"Yes! to whom else do you suppose he would propose?"

"To ~you~!"

"To ME!"

"Yes, to you! Why, have you not been telling me that you were engaged to him?"

"Telling you that ~I~ was engaged to Fred!" rejoined Miss Patty.

"Why, what could put such an idea into your head? Fred is engaged to Kitty. You asked me if it was not so; and I told you, yes, but that it was a secret at present. Why, then of whom were ~you~ talking?"

[AN OXFORD FRESHMAN 279]

"Of ~you~!"

"Of ~me~?"

"Yes, of you!" And the scales fell from the eyes of both, and they saw their mutual mistake.

There was a silence, which Verdant was the first to break.

"It seems that love is really blind. I now perceive how we have been playing at cross questions and crooked answers. When I asked you about Mr. Delaval, my thoughts were wholly of you, and I spoke of you, and not of your sister, as you imagined; and I fancied that you answered not for your sister but for yourself. When I spoke of my attachment, it did not refer to your sister, but to you."

"To me?" softly said Miss Patty, as a delicious tremor stole over her. "To you, and to you alone," answered Verdant. The great stumbling-block of his doubts was now removed, and his way lay clear before him. Then, after a momentary pause to nerve his determination, and without further prelude, or beating about the bush, he said, "Patty - my dear Miss Honeywood - I love you! do you love me?"

There it was at last! The dreaded question over which he had pa.s.sed so many hours of thought, was at length spoken. The elaborate sentences that he had devised for its introduction, had all been forgotten; and his artificial flowers of oratory had been exchanged for those simpler blossoms of honesty and truth - "I love you - do you love me?" He had imagined that he should put the question to her when they were alone in some quiet room; or, better still, when they were wandering together in some sequestered garden walk or shady lane; and, now, here he had unexpectedly, and undesignedly, found his opportunity at a pic-nic dinner, with half a hundred people close beside him, and his ears a.s.saulted with a songster's praises of piracy and murder. Strange accompaniments to a declaration of the tender pa.s.sion! But, like others before him, he had found that there was no such privacy as that of a crowd - the fear of interruption probably adding a spur to determination, while the laughter and busy talking of others a.s.sist to fill up awkward pauses of agitation in the converse of the loving couple.

Despite the heat, Miss Patty's cheeks paled for a moment, as Verdant put to her that question, "Do you love me?" Then a deep blush stole over them, as she whispered "I do."

What need for more? what need for pressure of hands or lips, and vows of love and constancy? What need even for the elder and more desperate of the Miss Morkins to maliciously suggest that Mr.

Poletiss - who had concluded, amid a great display of approbation (probably because it ~was~ concluded) his mild piratical chant, and his imitations of King George the

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Third - should call upon Mr. Verdant Green, who, as she understood, was a very good singer? "And, dear me! where could he have gone to, when he was here just now, you know! and, good gracious! why there he was, under the cart-tilt - and well, I never was so surprised - Miss Martha Honeywood with him, flirting now, I dare say? shouldn't you think so?"

No need for this stroke of generalship! No need for Miss Let.i.tia Jane Morkin to prompt Miss f.a.n.n.y Green to bring her brother out of his retirement. No need for Mr. Frederick Delaval to say "I thought you were never going to slip from your moorings!" Or for little Mr.

Bouncer to cry, "Yoicks! unearthed at last!" No need for anything, save the parental sanction to the newly-formed engagement. Mr.

Verdant Green had proposed, and had been accepted; and Miss Patty Honeywood could exclaim with Schiller's heroine, "Ich habe gelebt und geliebet! - I have lived, and have loved!"

CHAPTER IX.

MR. VERDANT GREEN ASKS PAPA.

MISS MORKIN met with her reward before many hours. The pic-nic party were on their way home, and had reached within a short distance of the inn where their wagons had to be exchanged for carriages. It has been mentioned that, among the difficulties of the way, they had to drive through bridgeless brooks; and one of these was not half-a-mile distant from the inn.

It happened that the mild Mr. Poletiss was seated at the tail end of the wagon, next to the fair Miss Morkin, who was laying violent siege to him, with a battery of words, if not of charms. If the position of Mr. Poletiss, as to deliverance from his fair foe, was a difficult one, his position, as to maintaining his seat during the violent throes and tossings to and fro of the wagon, was even more difficult; for Mr. Poletiss's mildness of voice was surpa.s.sed by his mildness of manner, and he was far too timid to grasp at the side of the wagon by placing his arm behind the fair Miss Morkin, lest it should be supposed that he was a.s.suming the privileged position of a partner in a ~valse~. Mr. Poletiss, therefore, whenever they jolted through ruts or brooks, held on to his hay ha.s.sock, and preserved his equilibrium as best he could.

[AN OXFORD FRESHMAN 281]

On the same side of the wagon, but at its upper and safer end, was seated Mr. Bouncer, who was not slow to perceive that a very slight ~accident~ would destroy Mr. Poletiss's equilibrium; and the little gentleman's fertile brain speedily concocted a plan, which he forthwith communicated to Miss f.a.n.n.y Green, who sat next to him. It was this:- that when they were plunging through the brook, and every one was swaying to and fro, and was thrown off their balance, Mr.

Bouncer should take advantage of the critical moment, and (by accident, of course!) give Miss f.a.n.n.y Green a heavy push; this would drive her against her next neighbour, Miss Patty Honeywood; who, from the recoil, would literally be precipitated into the arms of Mr.

Verdant Green, who would be pushed against Miss Let.i.tia Jane Morkin, who would be driven against her sister, who would be propelled against Mr. Poletiss, and thus give him that ~coup de grace~, which, as Mr. Bouncer hoped, would have the effect of quietly tumbling him out of the wagon, and partially ducking him in the brook. "It won't hurt him," said the little gentleman; "it'll do him good. The brook ain't deep, and a bath will be pleasant such a day as this. He can dry his clothes at the inn, and get some steaming toddy, if he's afraid of catching cold. And it will be such a lark to see him in the water. Perhaps Miss Morkin will take a header, and plunge in to save him; and he will promise her his hand, and a medal from the Humane Society! The wagon will be sure to give a heavy lurch as we come up out of the brook, and what so natural as that we should all be jolted, against each other?" It is not necessary to state whether or no Miss f.a.n.n.y Green seconded or opposed Mr. Bouncer's motion; suffice it to say that it was carried out.

They had reached the brook. Miss Morkin was exclaiming, "Oh, dear!

here's another of those dreadful brooks - the last, I hope, for I always feel so timid at water, and I never bathe at the sea-side without shutting my eyes and being pushed into it by the old woman - and, my goodness! here we are, and I feel convinced that we shall all be thrown in by those dreadful wagoners, who are quite tipsy I'm sure - don't you think so, Mr. Poletiss?"

But, ere Mr. Poletiss could meekly respond, the horses had been quickened into a trot, the wagon had gone down into the brook - through it - and was bounding up the opposite side - everybody was holding tightly to anything that came nearest to hand - when, at that fatal moment, little Mr. Bouncer gave the preconcerted push, which was pa.s.sed on, unpremeditatedly, from one to another, until it had gained its electrical climax in the person of Miss Morkin, who, with a shriek, was propelled against Mr. Poletiss, and gave the necessary momentum that

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toppled him from the wagon into the brook. But, dreadful to relate, Mr. Bouncer's practical joke did not terminate at this fixed point.

Mr. Poletiss, in the suddenness of his fall, naturally struck out at any straw that might save him; and the straw that he caught was the dress of Miss Morkin. She being at that moment off her balance, and the wagon moving rapidly at an angle of 45, was unable to save herself from following the example of Mr. Poletiss, and she also toppled over into the brook. A third victim would have been added to Mr. Bouncer's list, had not Mr. Verdant Green, with considerable presence of mind, plucked Miss Let.i.tia Jane Morkin from the violent hands that her sister was laying upon her, in making the same endeavours after safety that had been so futilely employed by the luckless Mr. Poletiss.

No sooner had he fallen with a splash into the brook, than Miss Eleonora Morkin was not only after but upon him. This was so far fortunate for the lady, that it released her with only a partial wetting, and she speedily rolled from off her submerged companion on to the sh.o.r.e; but it rendered the ducking of Mr. Poletiss a more complete one, and he scrambled from the brook, dripping and heavy with wet, like an old ewe emerging from a sheep-shearing tank. The wagon had been immediately stopped, and Mr. Bouncer and the other gentlemen had at once sprung down to Miss Morkin's a.s.sistance. Being thus surrounded by a male bodyguard, the young lady could do no less than go into hysterics, and fall into the nearest gentleman's arms, and as this gentleman was little Mr. Bouncer he was partially punished for his practical joke. Indeed, he afterwards declared that a severe cold which troubled him for the next fortnight was attributable to his having held in his arms the damp form of the dishevelled naiad. On her recovery - which was effected by Mr.

Bouncer giving way under his burden, and lowering it to the ground - she utterly refused to be again carried in the wagon; and, as walking was perhaps better for her under the circ.u.mstances, she and