She and I Volume I Part 13

When invited properly, he would dance a hornpipe, whistling his own music in sharp staccato notes, as from a piccolo. He could likewise "present arms" with a little straw musket which I had provided for him; besides feigning to be dead, and allowing you to take him up by the legs, his head hanging down, apparently lifeless, the while, without stirring--although he would sometimes, if you kept him too long in this position, open one of his beady black eyes, and seem to give you a sly wink, as if to say, "A joke is a joke, certainly; but you may, perhaps, carry it too far!" I could not enumerate half his accomplishments in this line; and, as for whistling operatic tunes--the most difficult ones, with unlimited roulades, were his especial choice--"Bai-ey Je- ove!" as Horner would say, you should only have heard him.

As I allowed him to go in and out of his cage at pleasure, he roamed the garden according to his own sweet will, whenever and wherever he pleased, without reservation; and he, I may add, seldom abused the privilege. Some time after I had given him to Min, he actually found his way back one morning to our house again. I shall never forget the circ.u.mstance: you should have witnessed his delight at seeing the old place and his old friends again! He flirted, he danced, he rolled in paroxysms of joy on the little table by the window, whereon he had been accustomed to go through his performances:--he chirped, he whistled; in fact, he behaved just like a mad bird.

But he did not desert his mistress, mind you. I think he even got fonder of her than he had even been of me. Still, often after discovering that he could thus vary the monotony of his existence by paying a visit to his old domicile--which only lay a short distance from his new quarters--he would come round; and, after spending an hour or two with me, when he would conscientiously insist on going through the entire round of his accomplishments without any invitation on my part, as if to show that he yet retained his early instructions well in mind, he would return to Min's house, and the no less warm affection that awaited him there.

This was the little present that I intended for a birthday gift to my darling: one that I valued beyond gold. The very next afternoon I carried him round to her in my coat-pocket--he having a tiny cage that just fitted into it comfortably "to a _t_."

Fortunately, I found Min alone in the drawing-room, when I was ushered in. She was sitting on the sofa reading, and, although she rose up on my entrance, she only bowed, looking distant, and somewhat embarra.s.sed.

This did not look well for my chances of forgiveness, and for getting her to accept d.i.c.ky Chips, did it?

I went up to her impulsively.

"Min!" I exclaimed, "can you, will you, excuse and forgive me for acting so rudely last night? I cannot forgive myself; and I shall be miserable till you pardon me!"

She looked down gravely a minute.

"What made you so naughty, sir?" she asked at length, looking up again with a dancing light in the clear grey eyes, and a smile on her pretty little mouth.

"I thought that you did not want me, Min; and I wished myself away, when I saw you speaking to every one else that came, as if you did not care to speak to me. I was very unhappy, and--"

"Oh, Frank!" she said; "unhappy!"

"Yes," I said, "I was never more so in my life. I believed you preferred speaking to Mr Mawley and Horner, to talking to me, and I thought it very unkind of you."

"Well, do not think so again, sir," she said, with such a pretty affectation of sternness, and laughing one of her light, silvery laughs.

"And you did not wish me away?" I asked, anxiously.

"Of course not," she answered. "Why should I have done so? You would not have been invited, sir, if your n.o.ble presence had not been wished for, Master Frank."

"And you didn't care so much for Mawley after all?" I continued, rendered bolder by her changed manner.

"You must not ask too many questions, sir!" she said. "This just shows how very unreasonable you were! How could I have neglected everybody else to speak to you, only, all the evening; what would they have thought, sir? what would mamma have said? Besides, you were not very entertaining, Master Frank; you were very cross, sir; you know you were!"

"But you forgive me now, Min, don't you?" I implored.

"Yes," she said, "if you promise never to be cross with me again."

"What, cross with _you_?" I exclaimed.

"You were, though, last night," she said, with a little toss of her well-shaped head.

I thought the time had now arrived for making my little peace-offering; and yet, I felt as shy and nervous about it as did poor "Young John,"

the gaoler's son of the Marshalsea, when he went to call on Little Dorrit's father in the grand Bond Street hotel, and drew his humble present of a bundle of cigars from his coat-pocket.

"Min," I said, "you have heard me speak of a clever little bird I had-- d.i.c.ky Chips?"

"Oh, yes," she said. "You mean the nice little fellow you taught to do so many funny things? Nothing has happened to him, I hope, Frank? I should be so very sorry," she added, sympathisingly, "for I know you are very fond of him."

"No," said I hesitatingly; "nothing has happened to him, exactly; that is, Min, I have brought him over for you; and, unless you accept him, I shall think you are still angry with me, and have not forgiven me."

I thereupon pulled the little chap, cage and all, out of my pocket, and presented him to her.

"Oh, Frank!" she exclaimed, in her sweet, earnest accents, with a ring of emotion in them. "He's such a little pet of yours; and you have had him so long! I would not take him from you for the world!"

"Then," said I, just as earnestly, "you have not forgiven me. Oh, Min!

when you promised to do so!" And I took up my hat as if to go away.

We argued the point; but, the end of the matter was, that d.i.c.ky Chips was made over to his new mistress, with all his goods, chattels, and appurtenances. A happy bird he might consider himself henceforth, I knew. He would be idolised--a very nice situation, indeed, for a bullfinch!

By-and-by I got closer to Min, as we were standing up, talking together and making d.i.c.ky go through a few of his tricks on the drawing-room table.

"Min," said I, softly, bending over her and looking down into her honest, truth-telling grey eyes--"my darling!"

But, at that precise moment, the door opened; and, in walked Mrs Clyde.

CHAPTER NINE.

BREAKERS AHEAD!

Oh, I see thee, old and formal, fitted to thy petty part, With a little h.o.a.rd of maxims preaching down a daughter's heart.

"They were dangerous guides the feelings--she herself was not exempt-- Truly she herself had suffer'd"--perish in thy self-contempt!

Mrs Clyde's appearance coming so suddenly upon the scene, acted as an application of the cold douche to all the loving ardour with which I was addressing Min. It completely spoiled the tableau; checking my eager impetuosity in a moment, and causing me to remain, tongue-tied, in a state of almost hopeless embarra.s.sment.

Picture the unexpected presentment of the statue of "The Commander"

before Don Giovanni, and his horror at hearing words proceed from marble lips! You will, then, be able to form some faint idea of my feelings, when my pleasant position was thus interrupted by Min's mother. I was altogether "nonplussed," to use a vulgar but expressive word.

Had she not come in so opportunely--or inopportunely, as _you_ may think--I don't know what I might not have said.

You see, I was close to my darling, bending down over her and looking into her beautiful face. I was fathoming the depths of her soul- lighted, l.u.s.trous grey eyes; and, contiguity is sometimes apt in such circ.u.mstances, I am told, to hurry one into the rashness of desperation, bringing matters to a crisis. However, Mrs Clyde's entrance stopped all this. I was brought up all at once, "with a round turn," like a horse in full gallop pulled back on his haunches; or, "all standing," as a boat with her head to the wind--whichever simile you may best prefer.

A shower-bath is a very excellent thing in its way, when taken at the proper time and under certain conditions; but those two requirements must be carefully considered beforehand, for the human frame is a fabric of very delicate organisation. Any violent change, or hasty interference with the regular and legitimate working of its functions, may throw the whole machine out of gear, just as the sudden quickening of an engine's motions will, probably, cause it to break down or turn it off the line; while, on the other hand, a wholesome tonic, or fillip, judiciously administered when occasion seems to demand it, like our shower-bath, may often better enable it to discharge its duties and go all the more smoothly and easily--as a tiny touch of the oil-can will affect the movements of man's mammoth mechanical contrivances, that are so typical of himself.

There are some people, I am aware, who object to the inst.i.tution in toto, arguing that it hurts the system with its unexpected shock, doing more harm than good. There are others who believe in nothing but shocks, and similar methods of treatment out of the common run; and these "go in" for shower-baths, "a discretion"--though, without discretion, would, perhaps, be a truer description. You may not be informed, also, that the "inst.i.tution" is frequently used in lunatic asylums and penal establishments as an instrument of torture and correction, being known to operate most efficaciously on obstreperous and hardened criminals, when all other means of coercion have failed.

As it is with the shower-bath physically considered, so it is in regard to the moral douche, to bring my apparent digression to a pointed application. Properly taken, it nerves up the cerebral tissues; experienced unawares, at right angles to previous paths of thought and preparation, it reduces the patient to a temporary state of mental coma and bewilderment--as exemplified in my case on the present unhappy occasion.

I never felt so completely "flabbergasted," as sailors say, in my life, as when Min's mother came into the room that afternoon, just at the moment when I was meditating a master-stroke against the fortress of my darling's heart.

I trembled in my boots.

I wished the earth to open and swallow me up!

Mrs Clyde was a thorough woman of the world. Judging her out of her own circle of limited diameter, you would imagine her to be cool, unimpa.s.sioned, cold-blooded, narrow-minded; but, she could be, at the same time, bigoted enough in regard to all that concerned herself, her social surroundings and her belongings--an advocate, as warm as Demosthenes, as logical as Cicero:--a partisan amongst partisans. Warm and impulsive, where fervour and a display of seemingly-generous enthusiasm would effect the object she had in view, that of compa.s.sing her ends, she could also be as frigid as an icicle, when it likewise so suited her purpose. "Respectability" and "position" were her G.o.ds:--the "world"--_her_ world!--her microcosm.