She and I Volume I Part 16

Her smile it was that completed my captivation, that first time that I saw her in church and lost my heart in a moment:--her smile was ever and always her greatest charm.

Of course I remember all her little darling ways and coquetries.

Love is a great master of the art of mnemonics, and might be quoted by Mr Stokes as one of the greatest "aids to memory" that is known.

Trifling trivialities, by others pa.s.sed by un.o.bserved, are graphically jotted down with indelible ink in his cordal note-book--

"For indeed I know Of no more subtle master under heaven, Than is the maiden pa.s.sion for a maid."

When no other people came in, Min would always, on the evening of my visit, make a rule of turning out her workbox, and arranging its contents over again--"in order," as she told me, although I had thought it the picture of neatness and tidiness in its original state.

She was in the habit on these occasions of restoring to her mother sundry little articles which she confessed to having purloined during the week. I recollect how there used to be a regular little joke at her expense on the subject of kleptomania.

How well I remember that little workbox, and its arrangements! I could tell you, now, every item of its varied contents,--the perfumed sachet, the ugly little pincus.h.i.+on which she had had since dollhood, the little sc.r.a.ps from her favourite poets, which she had copied out and kept in this sacred repository, never revealing them save to sympathising eyes.

How angry she was with me once, for not thinking, with her, that Longfellow's "Psalm of Life" was the "nicest" thing ever written:--what a long time it was afterwards before she would again allow me to inspect her secret treasures and pet things, as she had previously permitted me to do!

This all used to go on while her mother was playing; and then, when the workbox was arranged in apple-pie order, Min herself would go to the piano and sing my favourite ballads, I listening to her from the opposite corner of the room, for she hated having her music turned over by any one.

In addition to these rare opportunities of studying my darling and feeding my love for her, I used to see her at church every Sunday.

From her window, also, when dog Catch and I took our walks abroad, I often had a bright smile from "somebody," who happened always to be tending her cherished plants just at the moment when I pa.s.sed by.

Sometimes, too, I met her at Miss Pimpernell's, or out walking:--thus, in a short time, I learnt to know all her little plans and wishes, and her sentiments about everything.

Her likes and dislikes were my own. It was a strange coincidence, that if Min should express some opinion one day, I found, when we next met, that I seemed to have involuntarily come round to her view; while, if I let fall any casual remark, Min was certain, on some future occasion, to repeat it as if it were her own.

I suppose the coincidence was owing to our mental "rapport," as the French express it.

The only drawback to my happiness, was Mr Mawley, whom I disliked now more than ever.

Although he had all the rest of the week in which to pay his devoirs, having carte blanche from Mrs Clyde to run in and out of her house whenever he so pleased--he took it into his head to drop in regularly on the very evening that I had selected and thought especially mine. I believe he only did it to spite me, being of a most aggravating temperament!

When he was there, too, he was constantly endeavouring to make me appear ridiculous.

As certainly as I said anything, or advanced an opinion, he, as certainly, contradicted me, taking the opposite side of the question.

This, of course, made me angry and unamiable. He was so obstinately obtuse, too, that he would not take a hint. He must have seen that his company was not wanted, by me at least, and that I did not desire any conversation with him. I've no doubt of his doing it on purpose!

He prided himself on his eminently practical mind, being incapable of seeing romance even in the works of nature and nature's G.o.d; and he was continually cutting jokes at my "sentimentality," as he was pleased to style my more poetical views of life and its surroundings.

Whenever I gave him the chance, he was safe to slide in some of his vulgar bathos after any heroic sentiment or personal opinion I may have uttered. This, naturally, would rouse my temper, never very pacific; and made me so cross, that I was often on the verge of quarrelling with Min on his account!

The worst of it was, also, that he was always so confoundedly cool and collected, that he generally came out of these encounters in the character of an injured martyr or inoffensive person, who had to bear the unprovoked a.s.saults of my bearish brusquerie--making me, as a matter of course, appear in a very unfavourable light.

I remember, one day in particular, when he was so exceedingly irritating to me, that he goaded me on into addressing him quite rudely.

Min was very much distressed at my behaviour, remonstrating with me for it; and this did not of course make me feel more kindly-disposed towards the curate, who had now become my perfect antipathy.

We had been down to the church--Miss Pimpernell, the Dasher girls, Min, and myself,--to hear the organist make trial of a new stop which had been lately added to his instrument. Listening to the small sacred concert that thereupon ensued, we had remained until quite late in the evening; and, on our way home through the churchyard, as we loitered along, looking at the graves, and trying to decipher by the slowly waning light the half illegible inscriptions on the headstones, we came across Mr Mawley.

Min and I were walking in front, talking seriously and reflectively, as befitted the time and place.

We were moralising how--

"Side by side The poor man and the son of pride Lie calm and still."

"I wonder," said Min, "whether it is true that the dust of the departed dead blossoms out again in flowers and trees, replenis.h.i.+ng the earth?

Just fancy, how many ill.u.s.trious persons even have died since the beginning of the world! Why, in England alone we could number our heroes by thousands; and it is nice to think that they may still flourish perhaps in these old oak trees above us!"

"Ah," said I, "don't you recollect those lines about England;--

"'Beneath each swinging forest bough, Some arm as stout in death reposes-- From wave-washed foot to heaven-kissed brow, Her valour's life-blood runs in roses; Nay, let our brothers of the West Write, smiling, in their florid pages, One half her soil has walked the rest, In poets, heroes, martyrs, sages!'"

"What!" exclaimed Mr Mawley, who had come up close behind us before we perceived him, and at once pushed into the conversation. "'One half our soil has walked the rest,' Lorton? That's a palpable absurdity! We'll take England to be three hundred miles long and two hundred broad, on an average; and, allowing a uniform depth of twelve feet throughout for cultivable soil, that calculation will give us some--let me see, three hundred by two hundred, multiplied by seventeen hundred and sixty to bring it into yards, and then by three to reduce it to feet, when we multiply it again by twelve to get the solidity--that gives us nearly four billions cubic feet of soil, one-half of which would be two billions. Fancy, Lorton, two thousand millions cubic feet of heroes, eh! But, you havn't told us what amount of dust and ashes you would apportion to each separate hero--" he thus proceeded, with his caustic wit, seeing that Bessie Dasher and her sister were both laughing; and even Min was smiling, at his absurdities. "Strange, perhaps Oliver Cromwell is now a mangel wurzel, and poor King Charles the First an apple tree! Depend upon it, Lorton, that is the origin of what is called the King Pippin!"

He made me "as mad as a hatter," with his "chaff" at my favourite quotation.

I was almost boiling over with rage.

I restrained myself, however, at the moment, and answered him in, for me, comparatively mild terms.

"Mr Mawley," said I, "you have no more imagination than a turnip-top!

You must possess the taste of a Goth or Vandal, to turn such n.o.ble lines into your low ridicule!"

He did not mind my retort a bit, however. He seemed to think it beneath his notice; for, he only said "Thank you, Lorton!" and dropped back behind us again with Bessie Dasher, while Seraphine joined company with little Miss Pimpernell--Min and I being still together in front.

By-and-by our talk was resumed in the same strain from which the curate's interpellation had diverted it. I had just spoken of Gay the fabulist. I told her of his sad history:--how it was shown in the bitter epitaph which he had composed for his own tomb--

"Life's a jest, and all things show it; I _thought_ so once, and now I _know_ it!"

From this we drifted on to Gray's Elegy, through the near similarity of the two poets' names.

"I think," said Min, "that that unadded verse of his which is always left out of the published poem, is nicer than any of the regular ones; for it touches on two of my favourites, the violet and the dear little robin redbreast!"

"You mean, I suppose," said I, "the one commencing--

"'There, scatter'd oft, the earliest of the year--'"

"Yes," said Min, continuing it in her low, sweet voice--

"'By hands unseen, are showers of violets found; The redbreast loves to build and warble there, And little footsteps lightly print the ground.'"

"You like violets, then?" I asked. "I think you told me you did, though, before."

"Yes," she said impulsively, "I love them, I love them, I love them!"

"Ah!" thought I to myself, determining that she should never from henceforth be without an ample supply of violets, if I could help it, "Ah, I wish you would love _me_!" But, I did not give utterance to the thought, contenting myself with keeping up the conversation respecting the Elegy. "It is generally considered," said I aloud, "that the best verse of Gray's is that in which he says--

"'Some village Hampden, that with dauntless breast, The little tyrant of his fields withstood, Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest, Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood!'"