Comin' Thro' the Rye (Mathers)/Seed Time/Chapter 9
CHAPTER IX.
"Love is a familiar, love is a devil; there is no evil angel but love. Yet Samson was so tempted, and he had an excellent strength: yet was Solomon so seduced, and he had a very good wit."
It was a year ago that I waved my nightcap out of the window at Alice's lovers; she has left school altogether now, and is home for good. She has been the terror of her schoolmistress, the admiration of her school-mates, the delight of her pastors, masters, and every pair of male eyes that have lit upon her, in the straight and narrow precincts of her sheltered, quiet life; and now she has come back to us lovelier, waywarder, more bewitching than ever. Strictly speaking we are at home; we are not at St. Swithins, whither papa, having no very pleasant memory of Periwinkle, has brought us for the holidays, and for the setting-up of mother's health, which of late has been indifferent.
St. Swithins is a long, long way from Silverbridge, and the governor's doughty reputation, not having spread so far, the residents of the place actually call upon us (Oh! it makes me smile to think of it) quite comfortably, and as a matter of course, without the slightest notion of the danger they are running, and he, in the most baffling and unaccountable manner, not only forbears to shout "Not at home?" in their faces, or hold the door wide open for them to walk out, but permits mother to return these visits; and though he never goes out himself, does not forbid her partaking of the very mild and temperate amusements offered—croquet, five o'clock tea, and the like. With mother goes Alice, who has, I think, high jinks. Whether papa is tired of living like Diogenes in his tub, or whether he finds it a new sensation to be treated just like any other man, I know not; at any rate a change has come "o'er the spirit of his dream," and it is positively refreshing to see him sinking the misanthrope in the moderately ill-tempered, retiring English gentleman. If he goes on at this rate he will be quite convivial by the time he is sixty, and excellent company at seventy; while at eighty years he will be so jovial that he will be quite sorry to have to go away; he will be beginning to enjoy life so much. (Happy thought! why did not he begin earlier?) It was only yesterday I saw him shake hands and walk down the street with old Mr. Tempest, who has, it appears, a place near Silverbridge; but as the latter has never lived there within the memory of man, papa has had no chance of falling out with him. As it is, he is probably saving up the old gentleman as a bonne bouche to demolish at some future day. Mr. Tempest is an invalid who spends his life in wandering about the world in search of health, thus he has chanced on St. Swithins, which is by the faculty considered salubrious. He has a son, tall, straight, yellow-haired, with brave blue eyes that might belong to us Adairs. He looks nice, but neither Jack nor I have ever spoken to him yet.
St. Swithins is a dull little place, but none the less does that pretty young woman, Miss Alice, in all the pomp of her seventeen-year-old, pink-and-white beauty, quickly gather about her as fine an army as she did at Periwinkle. She was only a bit of a girl then, she is grown up now, so there are no more unseemly scrimmages of admirers behind hedges, or flying columns on the beach; things are conducted respectably, and it is no longer a question of a kiss of the hand or a love-letter, but of love and marriage. Yes, love and marriage; and if we don't look very sharp after our Alice she will be carried off by somebody or other, to a dead certainty. Over and above half a dozen indiscriminate lovers, she has a shadow, a tall, bronzed, dark-faced, handsome shadow, that every young woman in St. Swithins has vainly tried to make her own. Captain Lovelace, however, has his own ideas about female beauty, and until his eyes lit on our sister's fresh, saucy, charming face he has never felt inclined to lose his own identity; but now—one, two, three, and away!—head over heels into love he falls, and Alice follows at a respectful distance. There have been some half-dozen public meetings, one stolen one, a rose given and exchanged, eager words spoken, a proposal made and answered, a kiss or two (who knows?), and Alice, with a promptitude that does her credit, has made up her mind that she loves him; that she will marry him; and that, if papa does not see things in the same light as she does, he must be brought to reason.
Young people are very intolerant, very daring; they defy circumstance, and would rule the world in their own way, and in return receive many a hard knock before learning the inevitable lesson of giving in. So, one fine morning, when the governor is unsuspiciously swearing over the weekly bills in the library, Captain Lovelace is announced, and with a pluck that does him infinite credit, requests the honour of Miss Alice Adair's hand in marriage. (We are all listening at the door, Alice in the post of honour at the key-hole, the rest of us spread out behind her, anxiously looking forward to the excitement of seeing the bold wooer shoot out through the open door with considerable assistance from behind.) We can almost hear papa's gasp of amazement as he sits in the midst of his disordered papers (he usually dances on bills) and stares at the young man; then he pulls himself together and refuses the proposed honour with a clearness and brevity that admit of no mistake. He has, however, met his match for once.
Captain Lovelace hears him out, then quietly remarks that having obtained Miss Adair's promise, he is content to wait to time for the fulfilment of his wishes, and is sure that, although Colonel Adair may refuse to give his consent now, he will do so at no very distant date. Papa gasps again; but I think an unpleasant recollection of his daughter's wilfulness crosses his mind, and in his next speech, although he still repudiates the wooer's pretensions, there is more bluster and less determination than in the first, and oh!—miracle of miracles!—he has not yet tried to kick him! After that the deluge; and it would not astonish us if the governor suddenly fell on the young man's neck and kissed him, and, sending for Alice, wept holy tears over them both, saying, "Bless you, my children!"
Captain Lovelace is speaking. He is asking what reasons Colonel Adair has to give for this summary refusal? Can any exception be taken to his character, means, or position? Has Colonel Adair other views for his daughter? No; he has none, and he knows nothing to the detriment of Captain Lovelace's character, pocket, or place in life, and he is forced to say so, for this is no woman to be stormed at, or child to be whipped, but a man who will have his answer. It is not easy to say no, no, no, over and over again, because it is no to a question that requires a more reasonable answer; thus papa, pressed for his reasons, can find none, save that Alice is a mere child, far too young to think of marrying for many years, etc.
"I am told," says Captain Lovelace, "that Mrs. Adair was no older when you married her; you did not then consider her youth a drawback?"
"What Mrs. Adair did is no affair of yours, sir," says papa, fiercely.
"None whatever," says Captain Lovelace, "save that it forms a precedent."
There is a pause, and Alice makes a significant face, to convey to us that the governor's countenance is the reverse of angelic. The fact is, he is in a dilemma. He has had some experience of his daughter's admirers already, and he knows perfectly well that, if Tom is not in love with, and wanting to marry her, it will be Dick or Harry, and that if this young man is sent to the right about, there will be fifty others popping up before him asking the same troublesome question. He also knows that Miss Alice has a spice of his own wilful, perverse temper in her (as, indeed, it would be odd if she had not; I often wonder we are not all demons), and that she is not very likely to prove a meek little fool, who will see all her lovers rapped on the head, and sent about their business, without knowing the reason why; and altogether for once in his life, he is compelled to think instead of to act.
There is some more conversation, and pretty sharp practice, between the two men too; and more than once it seems probable that our expectations will be fulfilled, and the parting guest sped over our listening ranks, but in the end—oh! wonder?—the lover prevails and wrings a most reluctant permission from the governor to pay his addresses to our sister for six months, and if at the end of that time no specks are discovered upon his character, or vice in his ways or words, he shall be considered engaged to Alice for an indefinite period, matrimony appearing dimly in the far horizon. (Papa is a sly old fox, he means to make fools of them both; as soon as ever they press for anything tangible, he will send Captain Lovelace adrift, he only wants to gain time.)
Our faces express even more amazement than delight. We had so confidently reckoned on a violent scene, an unseemly exodus, and, behold! . . . . We all tumble backwards over each other, as the door opens, and her victorious sweetheart comes out, and catches her up in his arms like a baby, and what happens next I don't know, for we all scamper away like mad.
For many a day papa's face is black as ink, and he surveys Alice with a wonderfully equal mixture of scorn, impatience, and wrath, as though he found her a most indelicate and unpleasant spectacle.
It is very strange that fathers who fell in love so naturally and comfortably when they were young, should so bitterly resent, and feel so utterly disgusted at their children's doing the same. If he had his way he would keep all his daughters withering for ever on their virgin stalks, and when they were miserable peaky old maids turn round upon them, and twit them with their incapacity to get a man to marry either of them.
For the first time in my life I am in a position to critically study the ways, looks, and words of a real handsome young pair of lovers. (I think all lovers should be young and good-looking: I can't fancy faded or elderly people peering into each other's dull faces.) I should not have so much opportunity, but that, after patient and dispassionate trial of all her elder brothers and sisters as gooseberries, she has fixed her choice upon me, as being the sharpest, most unseeming and most unhearing of the lot, and fully one-half my time is spent in boudoir, garden, or summer-house, craning my neck round corners, in anxious watch against the governor.
Charles Lovelace is supposed to pay two or three decorous visits a week, and sit in the drawing-room opposite Alice, with mother for dragon, talking of the weather. In reality he is here every day, and twice a day; but he is not proud or above being towed in and out, and on occasion hidden in the shrubbery or a cupboard. Once or twice it has been a very close shave, and nothing but a special Providence and good luck has saved him from ignominious discovery. Their two faces look rarely well together, dark and fair; the bold, manly beauty of the one against the round, feminine, dainty perfection of the other. I think no woman's face ever shows its beauty to such advantage as when seen beside that of a man. How unweariedly they make love! How untiredly they utter their love-talk, of which now and then a word or two comes to my ears (I always turn my back upon them)—pretty, fanciful, tender stuff, that makes me smile and vaguely stirs my heart. If ever I have a sweetheart (and why should I not, since it is a well-known fact that all the plainest women marry before the good-looking ones, and to be married one must of course be courted) I hope Dolly will make as excellent a gooseberry as I do.
When Charles is paying lawful visits he brings with him a little book, called "The Bundle of Sticks;" where he picked it up it would be hard to say; and this he reads diligently if papa ever comes into the room where they are sitting. The sarcastic twitch of the governor's nose and lips as he looks from the one lover to the other is something to wonder at. Now and then, when his back is safely turned, they go out together for a stirring spin in Charles's dog-cart, in which he drives two fiery grey ponies tandem, and a very charming turn-out it looks, with the two handsome young people smiling over the white rug; and every one thinks so, save the disappointed old and young maids of St. Swithins