Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 1/La fille bien gardée
LA FILLE BIEN GARDÉE.
(AN INTERCEPTED LETTER.)
No, Edith, I have got no briefs—I want no briefs at all, I want to know that you’re come back, and safe at Shirley Hall; And till I get a note from yon, announcing that return, I’ve neither head nor heart for Chitty, Sugden, Hayes, or Fearne.
Your letter speaks about “hard work,” and “rising at the bar;” I read it, Edith, at my window, smoking a cigar; And I’m to work while you’re away?—a likely thing, indeed! Yes, I’m in one Assizes case,—the one in Adam Bede.
You can believe, or disbelieve me, Edith, as you please,A fellow’s work’s all bosh unless a fellow’s mind’s at ease;And studying Cross Remainders Over is no use, I fear,While you’re in France, and I’m a cross remainder over here.
Don’t, Edith, write about myself, I want to hear of you,And what you’re doing day by day, and also how you do;And whether Mrs. Armington (whom I don’t like, and shan’t),Is really acting like a friend, or only like an aunt;
And takes you, Edith, everywhere, and shows you what’s to see,And in society performs what’s due to you—and me;Nor, while her own long girls are push’d wherever she can get,Permits you to be talk’d to by the billiard-playing set.
And, Edith, as she’s full of spite (she is, from wig to toes,And hates me for that harmless sketch that show’d her Roman nose);Inform me if those vicious inuendos she contrives,And talks at briefless barristers, and pities poor men’s wives.
Or if she ever gives you, Edith darling, half a hint(There’s nothing that a woman wouldn’t do with such a squint)That I’ve been fast, and people say, “who really ought to know,”That at getting briefs and paying bills alone they think I’m slow;
Or talks of our engagement in a way that isn’t kind,Makes it, at pic-nics, an excuse for leaving you behind;And drawls, that cold old lip of hers maliciously up-curl’d,“Of course, engaged Miss Ediths do not care about the world.”
You’ll call me such a worry, Edith, but it is not funTo be stuck in Temple chambers when October has begun;So pity for a lover who’s condemned in town to stay,When She—and everybody else—are off and far away.
I wander in our Gardens when the dusk makes all things dim,The gardener tells me not to smoke, but much I care for him;And Paper Buildings, Edith, in a sketch by fancy drawn,Grows an old baronial mansion, with the grassplat for its lawn:
The Thames, its lake; myself, its Lord (his income, lucky chance,Exactly fifty thousand pounds paid yearly in advance);Then at the eastern turret a sweet form is conjur’d up,And Edith waves a kerchief white, and calls me in—to sup.
Well, bless you, Edith. When you sail’d, I put aboard your shipVanity Fair, by Thackeray, and my dear old Hound, by Grip;And to no girl her destiny more sure protection sends,S. B.Than such a dog to bite her foes, such book to bite her friends.
Queen’s Bar Ride, Temple.