She and I Volume I Part 5

"How I dote on Thackeray!" she exclaimed with all her natural impulsiveness. "What a dear, delicious creature Becky Sharp is; and that funny old baronet, Sir Pitt something or other, too! When I first took up _Vanity Fair_ I could not let it out of my hands until I finished it."

"That's more than I can say," said the curate. "I don't like Thackeray.

He cuts up every one and everything. Is not that a cynic for you?"

"Not everybody," said Min--I cannot call her anything else now--coming to my a.s.sistance, "not everybody, Mr Mawley. I think Thackeray, with all his satire and kindly laughter in his sleeve at persons that ought to be laughed down, has yet given us some of the most pathetic touches of human nature existing in English literature. There's the old colonel in _The Newcomes_, for instance. That little bit about his teaching his tiny grandson to say his prayers, before he put him into bed in his poor chamber in the Charter House, to which he was reduced, would make any one cry. And Henry Esmond, and Warrington, and Laura--where would you find more n.o.bly-drawn characters than those?" and she stopped, out of breath with her defence of one of the greatest writers we have ever had, indignant, with such a pretty indignation, at his merits being questioned for a moment.

"Of course I must bow to your decision, Miss Clyde," said the curate, with one of those stock ceremonial bows that stood him in such good stead amongst the female community of the parish. He was a cunning fellow, Mawley. Knew which way his interest lay; and never went against the ladies if he could help it. "But," he continued, "if we talk of pathos, there's 'the great master of fiction,' d.i.c.kens; who can come up to him?"

"Ah, yes! Mr Mawley,"--chorused the majority of the girls--"we quite agree with you: there's n.o.body like d.i.c.kens!"

It is a strange thing how perverse the divine s.e.x is, in preferring confectionery to solid food; and superficial writers, to those who dive beneath the surface of society and expose its rottenness--like as they esteem Tupper's weak-minded version of Solomon's Proverbs beyond the best poetry that ever was written!

I wasn't going to be beaten by the curate, however, prattled he never so wisely with the cunning of the serpent-charmer. "I grant you," said I, "that d.i.c.kens appeals oftener to our susceptible sympathies; but he is _unreal_ in comparison with Thackeray. The one was a far more correct student of human nature than the other. d.i.c.kens selected exceptionalities and invested them with attributes which we never see possessed by their prototypes whom we may meet in the world. He gives us either caricature, or pictures of men and women seen through a rose- coloured medium: Thackeray, on the other hand, shows you life _as it is_. He takes you behind the scenes and lets you perceive for yourself how the 'dummies' and machinery are managed, how rough the distemper painting, all beauty from the front of 'the house,' looks on nearer inspection, how the 'lifts' work, and the 'flats' are pushed on; besides disclosing all the secrets connected with masks and 'properties.' He is not content in merely allowing you to witness the piece from before the curtain, in the full glory of that distance from the place of action which lends enchantment to the view, and with all the deceptive concomitants of music and limelights and Bengal fire! To adopt another ill.u.s.tration, I should say that d.i.c.kens was the John Leech of fictional literature, Thackeray its Hogarth. Even Jerrold, I think, in his most bitter, cynical moods, was truer to life and nature than d.i.c.kens. Did you ever read the former's _Story of a Feather_, by the way?"

"No," answered Mawley, testily, "I can't say I ever did; and I don't think it likely I ever will."

"Well, I dare say you are quite right, Frank," said the kindly voice of my usual ally little Miss Pimpernell, interposing just at the right time--as she always did, indeed--to throw oil on the troubled waters.

"But, still, I like d.i.c.kens the best. Do you know, children," she went on, looking round, as we all sat watching her dear old wrinkled face beaming cheerily on us through her spectacles, "do you know, children, I've no doubt you'll laugh at me for telling you, but, when I first read 'David Copperfield'--and I was an old woman then--I cried my eyes out over the account of the death of poor Dora's little dog Gyp. Dear little fellow! Don't you recollect how he crawled out of his tiny Chinese paG.o.da house, and licked his master's hand and died? I think it's the most affecting thing in fiction I ever read in my life."

"And I, too, dear Miss Pimpernell," said Min, in her soft, low voice, which had a slight tremor as she spoke, and there was a misty look in her clear grey eyes--silent witnesses of the emotion that stirred her heart. "I shed more tears over poor Gyp than I can bear to think of now--except when I cried over little Tiny Tim, in the 'Christmas Carol,'

where, you remember, the spirit told Uncle Scrooge that the cripple boy would die. That affected me equally, I believe; and I could not read it dry-eyed now."

"Nor I," lisped Baby Blake, following suit, in order to keep up her reputation for sentimentality; "I would thob my eyth out!"

"See," quoted the curate, grandiloquently, "how 'one touch of nature makes the whole world kin!'"

"For my part," exclaimed Miss Spight, who had taken no share in our conversation since we had dropped personalities, "I don't see the use of people crying over the fabulous woes of a lot of fict.i.tious persons that never existed, when there is such an amount of real grief and misery going on in the world."

"That is not brought home to us," said Min, courageously; "but the troubles and trials of the people in fiction are; and I believe that every kind thought which a writer makes throb through our hearts, better enables us to pity the sorrows of actual persons."

"Bai-ey Je-ove!" exclaimed Horner, twisting his eye-gla.s.s round and making an observation for the first time--the discussion before had been apparently beyond his depth,--"Bai-ey Je-ove! Ju-ust what I was gaw-ing to say! Bai-ey Je-ove, yaas! But Miss Spight is much above human emawtion, you know, and all that sawt of thing, you know-ah!"

"Besides," continued Min, not taking any notice of our friend's original remark I was glad to see, "one does not always cry over novels. I'm sure I've laughed more than I've wept over d.i.c.kens, and other authors."

"Ah!" said Lady Dasher, with a melancholy shake of her head, "life is too serious for merry-making! It is better to mourn than to rejoice, as I've often heard my poor dear papa say when he was alive."

"Nonsense, ma!" pertly said her daughter Seraphine; "you can't believe that. I'm sure I'd rather laugh than cry, any day. And so would you, too, ma, in spite of your seriousness!"

"Your mamma is quite right in some respects, my dear," said little Miss Pimpernell. "We should not be always thinking of nothing but merry- making. Don't you recollect those lines of my favourite Herrick?--

"'Time flies away fast!

The while we never remember, How soon our life here Grows old with the year, That dies in December.'"

"Yes, I do, you cross old thing!" said the seraph, shaking her golden locks and laughing saucily; "and I remember also that your 'favourite Herrick' says something else about one's 'gathering rose-buds whilst one may.'"

"You naughty girl!" said Miss Pimpernell, trying to look angry and frown at her; but the attempt was such a palpable pretence that we all laughed at her as much as the delinquent.

"And what is your favourite style of poetry, Miss Clyde?" asked the curate, taking advantage of the introduction of Herrick to change the subject.

And then there followed a chorus of discussion: Miss Spight declared she adored Wordsworth: Mr Mawley tried to show off his superiority, and I attempted to put him down; I believe I was jealous lest Min should agree with him.

"Now, Frank," exclaimed Miss Pimpernell, "I will not have any more sparring between you and Mr Mawley, for I'm sure you've argued enough.

It is 'the merry Christmas-time,' you know; and we ought all to be at peace, and gay and happy, too! What do you say, girls?"

"But what shall we do to be merry?" asked Bessie Dasher.

"Ah! my dear," groaned her mother; "it is not right to be foolishly 'merry,' as you call it. This season of the year is a very sad one, and we ought to be thinking, as my poor dear papa used to say, of what our Saviour did for us and the other world! We have now arrived at the end of another year, and it is very sad, very sad!"

"What!" exclaimed Min, "wrong to be merry at Christmas? The vicar said in his sermon last Sunday, that our hearts ought to expand with joy at this time; and that we should try, not only to be glad and happy in ourselves, but also to make others glad and happy, too. It appears to me," and her face flushed with excitement as she spoke, "a very erroneous idea of religion that would only a.s.sociate it with gloom and sadness. The same Creator endowed us with the faculty to laugh as well as cry; and we must take poor comfort in him if we cannot be glad in his company, to which the Christmas season always brings us nearer and into more intimate connection, as it were."

"Bravo, my little champion!" said the vicar, who had again stolen in unperceived by us all. "That is the spirit of true Christianity. You have preached a more practical sermon than I, my dear." Then, seeing her confusion at being thus singled out and her embarra.s.sment at having, as she thought, been too forward in speaking out impulsively on the spur of the moment, the vicar created a diversion. "And now, young ladies,"

he said, "as we are going to be merry, what shall we play at?"

"Oh, puss in the corner!" cried Seraphine Dasher. "That will be delightful!"

"With all my heart; puss in the corner be it," said the vicar, who could be a boy again on fitting occasions, and play with the best of us.

"Come, Mawley," he added, "come and exert yourself; and help to pull these forms out of the way," setting to work vigorously at the same time, himself.

In another minute or two we were in the middle of a wild romp, wherein little Miss Pimpernell and the vicar were the most active partic.i.p.ants-- they showing themselves to be quite as active as the younger hands; while Miss Spight and Lady Dasher were the only idle spectators. Min at first did not join in, as she was not accustomed to the ways of us old habitues, but she presently partic.i.p.ated, being soon as gay and noisy as any. What fun we had in blindfolding Horner, and manoeuvring so that he should rush into the arms of Miss Spight! What a shout of laughter there was when he exclaimed, clasping her the while, "Bai-ey Je-ove!

Yaas, I've cawght you at lawst!"

The look of pious horror which settled on the face of the elderly maiden was a study.

Thus our working day ended; and it became time to separate and go home.

I had the further happiness of seeing Min to her door, both of us living in the same direction.

It was the same on the morrow, and on the morrow after that, for a whole week.

Of course, we did not talk "Shakspeare and the musical gla.s.ses" always.

Our discourse was generally composed of much lighter elements, especially when Mr Mawley and I did not come in contact--argument being then, naturally, as a dead letter. Our conversation during these peaceful interregnums mainly consisted in friendly banter, parish news, and gossip. Scandal Miss Pimpernell never permitted; indeed, no one would have had the heart to say an ill-natured thing of anybody else in her presence.

Day after day Min and I were closely a.s.sociated together, learning to know more of one another than we might have acquired in years of ordinary society intercourse; day after day, I would watch her dainty figure, and study her beautiful face, and gaze into the fathomless depths of her honest grey eyes, my love towards her increasing by such rapid strides, that, at length, I almost wors.h.i.+pped the very ground on which she trod.

And so the week wore by, until Christmas Eve arrived. Then our task was finished, and we decorated Saint Canon's old church with all the wreaths and garlands, the crosses and illuminations, on which we had been so busy in the school-room; making it look quite modern in its festal preparation for the ensuing day, when the result of our handiwork would be displayed to the admiration, we hoped, of the congregation at large.

On parting with Min late in the evening at her door--for our work at the church had occupied us longer than usual--I thought it the happiest Christmas Eve I had ever pa.s.sed; and, as I went to bed that night, I wondered, dreamily, if the morning's sun would rise for another as happy a day, while I prayed to G.o.d that He would shape my life in accordance with the fervent desire of my heart.

CHAPTER FIVE.

"JOY."

"Love took up the gla.s.s of Time, and turn'd it in his glowing hands; Every moment, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden sands.

Love took up the harp of life, and smote on all the chords with might; Smote the chord of self that, trembling, pa.s.s'd in music out of sight!"

It was a regular joyous, jolly, old-fas.h.i.+oned Christmas morning: bright, sparkling, exhilarating.