She and I Volume I Part 15

Time flew by on golden pinions, and I was as happy as the day was long.

Winter made way for spring, spring gave place to summer. The halcyon hours sped brighter and brighter for me, from the time of violets--when nature's sweetest nurslings modestly blossomed beneath the hedge-rows.

Then came "the month of roses," as the Persians appropriately style that duodecimal portion of the year. It was a happier time still; for, I loved Min, and I thought that Min loved me.

The very seasons seemed to draw me nearer to her.

In the spring the violets' scented breath recalled her whenever I inhaled their fragrance; while, the nightingale's amorous trills--we had nightingales to visit us in our suburb, closely situated as it was to London--appeared to me to embody the impa.s.sioned words that Tennyson puts in the mouth of his love-wooing sea maiden--

"We will kiss sweet kisses, and speak sweet words; O listen, listen, your eyes shall glisten, With pleasure and love and jubilee!"

And, in the early summer, when smiling June came in with her flowery train, making a garden of the whole earth, the twining roses, of crimson and white and red, were all emblematic of my darling. They were love- gages of her own sweet self; for, was she not my rose, my violet, that budded and blossomed in purple and pink alone for me--the idol of my heart, my fancy's queen?

With all these fond imaginings, however, I did not see much of her.

I had very few opportunities for unfettered intercourse. I believe I could number on the fingers of one hand all the special little tete-a- tete conversations that Min and I ever had together. This was not owing to any fault of mine, you may be sure; but was, entirely, the result of "circ.u.mstances," over which neither of us had "any control."

"Society" was the cause of it all. Had her mother been never so willing, and the fates never so kindly lent their most propitious aid to my suit, it is quite probable that we might not have had the chance of a.s.sociating much more together than we did; nor would our interviews have happened oftener, I think.

You see people of the upper and middle-cla.s.ses have far less facility afforded them, than is common in lower social grades, for intimate acquaintance; and really know very little, in the long run, of those of whom they may become enamoured and subsequently marry, prior to the tying of the nuptial noose.

Laura and Augustus, may, it is true, meet each other out frequently, in the houses of their mutual friends at parties, and at various gatherings of one sort and another; but what means have they of learning anything trustworthy respecting the inner self of their respective enchanter or enchantress?

Do you think they can manage thus to summarise their several points and merits, during the pauses of the Trois Temps, or while nailing "a rover"

at croquet, or, mayhap, when promenading at the Botanical?

I doubt it much.

Professor Owen, it is said, will, if you submit to his notice a couple of inches of the bone of any bird, beast, fish, or reptile, at once describe to you the characteristics of the animal to which it belonged; its habits, and everything connected with it; besides telling you when and where it lived and died, and whether it existed at the pre-Adamite period or not--and that, too, without your giving him the least previous information touching the osseous substance about which you asked his opinion.

But, granting that the most gigantic theory might be built up on some slighter practical evidence, I would defy anyone--even that philosophising German who evolved a camel from the depths of his inner moral consciousness--to determine the capabilities of any young lady for the future onerous duties of wife and mother, and mistress of a household, merely from hearing her say what coloured ice she would have after the heated dance; or, from her statements that the evening was "flat" or "nice," the season "dull" or "busy," and the heroine of the last new novel "delightful," while the villain was correspondingly "odious."

He couldn't do it.

The commonplace conversation of every-day society is no criterion for character.

With Jemima, the maid-of-all-work, and Bob, the baker's a.s.sistant, her "young man," it is quite a different thing. They have no trammels placed in the way of their free a.s.sociation; and, I would venture to a.s.sert, know more of one another in one month of company-keeping than Augustus and Laura will achieve in the course of any number of seasons of fas.h.i.+onable intercourse. A "Sunday out" beats a croquet party hollow, in its opportunities for intimacy--as may readily be believed.

It is, really, curious this ignorance common in middle-cla.s.s husbands and wives, sons-in-law and daughters-in-law, respecting their several attributes and characteristics before they became connected by marriage, and time makes them better acquainted--very curious, indeed!

An American essayist, writing on this point, says--"When your mother came and told her mother that she was _engaged_, and your grandmother told your grandfather, how much did they know of the intimate nature of the young gentleman to whom she had pledged her existence? I will not be so hard as to ask how much your respected mamma knew at that time of the intimate nature of your respected papa, though, if we should compare a young girl's _man-as-she-thinks-him_ with a forty-summered matron's _man-as-she-finds-him_, I have my doubts as to whether the second would be a fac-simile of the first." And yet, young men and women of respectable standing "over the way," are allowed far greater lat.i.tude for intercommunication than our own; so much so, that I must say, I would not like our budding misses to go the lengths of the American girl, who receives her own company when she pleases, without any previous permission, and can go abroad to places of public amus.e.m.e.nt, or, indeed, anywhere she likes, without a chaperon.

Still, there is a medium in all things; and, without verging to the extreme of our Transatlantic cousins, our conventionalities might be so tempered by the introduction of a little genuine human nature, as to admit of a trifling freer intercourse between our youth and young maidenhood of the upper cla.s.ses.

Goethe, you may remember, makes Werther, whose "sorrows" fascinated a generation in the days of our great grandmothers, fall in love with Charlotte, entirely through seeing her cutting bread and b.u.t.ter--nothing more or less!

A very unromantic situation for fostering the growth of the tender pa.s.sion, you say?

Ah! but the literary lion of Weimar meant a good deal more in his description than lies on the outer surface. He wished to teach a frivolous school that true affection will ripen better under the genial influences of domestic duties and home surroundings, than the masked world believes.

A girl's chances of marriage, the usual end and aim of feminine existence, are not increased in a direct ratio with the number of her ball dresses!

Let your eligible suitors but see those young ladies who may wish to change their maiden state of single blessedness, _at home_, where they are engaged living their simple lives out in the ordinary avocations of the family circle; and not only abroad, in the whirligig of society, where they have no opportunities for displaying their _real_ natures.

Enterprising mammas might then find that their daughters would get more readily "off their hands," at a less expense than they now incur by pursuing Coelebs through all the turnings and windings of Vanity Fair.

Besides, they would have the additional a.s.surance, that they would be better mated to those who prefer studying them under the domestic regime, than if they were hawked about to parties and concerts without end, to be angled for by the b.u.t.terflies of fas.h.i.+on, who can only exist in the atmosphere of a ballroom and would die of nil admirari-ism if out of sight of Coote's baton!

Your man really worth marrying, in the true sense of the word and not speaking of the value of his rent-roll, likes to know something more of his future wife-that-is-to-be, beyond what he is able to pick up from meeting her in society. Think, how many of her most engaging charms he must remain ignorant of; and then, what on earth can he know of her disposition?

The most hot-tempered young lady in the world will manage to control her anger, and tutor herself to smile sweetly, when her awkward, albeit rich, partner tears off her train during his elephantine gambols in the gallop. She may even say, with the most unaffected affectation of perfect candour that "really it doesn't matter at all," laughing at the mishap; but I should just like you to hear what she exclaims when her obnoxious little brother, Master Tommy, playfully dabbles his raspberry- jam'd fingers over her violet silk dress, or converts her new Dolly Varden hat into a temporary entomological museum!

Observation in the family would enable Coelebs to mark these little episodes more closely, judging for himself the temper and tact of the idol of his fancy; while, at the same time, he might discover many admirable little traits of kindness and charity and grace, which can only be seen to advantage when displayed naturally in the home circle.

The moral is obvious.

Depend upon it, if there were a little more of this freedom of intercourse between our girls and young men, we would have a considerably less number of sour, disappointed virgins in our annual census; and, less vice and dissipation on the part of hot-brained youths, who, frequently, only give way to "fast life," through feeling a void in their daily routine of existence that stereotyped fas.h.i.+on is unable to fill. Besides, it would be a perfect G.o.dsend to thousands of unhappy bachelors, who sigh for the realities of domesticity amidst the artificiality and rottenness of London society.

Some good-natured Mayfair dame, I believe, introduced the "Kettledrum"

for the especial saving of poor young men who did not know what to do with their afternoons in our arid Belgravian desert. But, a little more is wanted besides five-o'clock tea; and, until it is granted, we will continue to have matrimonial infelicity, marriages "of convenience,"

and, no marriages at all!

Now, I think, I have dilated enough upon the great question matrimonial.

I will not apologise for my digression, because I've only said what I have long wished and intended to say about it on the first convenient opportunity. However, as I have at last succeeded in making a clean breast of the matter, I will revert to my original case.

Owing to the fact of our suburb being unfas.h.i.+onable, and our society humdrum, as already explained, I had the pleasure of a.s.sociating more fully with Min, and seeing more of her domestic character than I might have done if we had been both of "the world," worldly; although, as I have also mentioned, I was not able to adore her at home very often, in consequence of my noticing that her mother did not like me--seeing which, of course I did not push my welcome at her house to too fine a point.

Don't think that Mrs Clyde was inhospitable. Nothing of the sort. She gave me a general invitation, on the contrary, to come in whenever I pleased of an evening "to have a little music;" giving expression at the same time to the sentiment, that she would be "very happy" to see me.

But, after that affair connected with d.i.c.ky Chips, I learnt caution. I thought it better for me to make my approaches warily. Even to have the gratification of gazing on one's heart's darling, it is not comfortable, for a sensitive person, to accept too often the courtesies of a hostess, by whom you are inwardly conscious that you are not welcomed.

Still, I did see her at home sometimes.

I used to go there, at first only occasionally; and then, when I found Mrs Clyde did not quite eat me up, in spite of her cold manner, I went regularly once a fortnight--always making my visit on the same day and at the same hour of the evening; so, that Min learnt to expect me when the evening came round, and told me that she would have recognised my modest knock at the door, out of a hundred others.

Sometimes she and her mother and myself were all alone; but, more frequently, other casual visitors would drop in, too, like me.

I liked the former evenings the best, however, as I had her all to myself, comparatively speaking.

I could then watch her varying moods more attentively--the tender solicitude and earnest affection she evinced for her mother:--the piquant coquetry with which she treated me.

She had such dear little, characteristic ways about her--ways that were quite peculiar to herself.

I got to know them all.

When she was specially interested in anything that one was saying, she would lean forwards, with a deep, reflective look in her clear grey eyes, in rapt attention, resting her little dimpled chin on her bent hand:--when she disagreed with something you said, she would make such a pretty quaint moue, tossing her head defiantly, and raise her curving eyebrows in astonishment that you should dare to differ from her.

She seldom laughed--I hate to hear girls continually giggling and guffawing at the merest nothings so long as they proceed from male lips!

When Min laughed, her laughter was just like the rippling of silvery music and of the most catching, contagious nature. She generally only smiled, at even the most humorous incidents; and her smile was the sweetest I ever saw in anyone. It lit up her whole face with merriment, giving the grey eyes the most bewitching expression, and bringing into prominent notice a tiny, dear little dimple in her chin, which you might not have previously observed.