The Knickerbocker Gallery/The Loves of Mary Jones
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J. M. Legaré
The Loves of Mary Jones.
By J. M. Legaré.
Corydon and Thyrsis no longer pipe to Phyllis, and Phyllis goes no more about with a wreath on her crook. This we all know—and those among us who are poets, with the down of youth upon our cheeks, remember with a sigh—and look to find in our summer rambles in the country, not shepherdesses to whom we may pay sentimental court, and with whom breathe air redolent of thyme and goat's-milk, but pensionnaires from Madame Mére de Treubleu's famous school, and scented rather too lavishly, as country belles are apt to be, with the last fashionable perfume of Mons. Lubin's laboratory. Unless one travel quite beyond the circle of the city's influence, into the purely rustic regions, where two-pronged forks at table, and sun-bonnets still hold their own, but where Corydon and Phyllis, alas! are not more recognized, it is vain to imagine the gauds and vanities of the metropolis left behind. Haughty Georgiana of last winter's balls, who, forgetting her pedigree—old MeKrell having begun life a fishmonger—suffered you to lead her to the floor by the tips of her white kids, as any other queen might a subject, finds a parallel, for example, in the persons of the two Misses Snack, co-heiresses of the little fortune accumulated by the country-practice of the late Dr. Snack, their papa; both tall, both dressy, and perfectly conscious of their superior attainments and momentary position. They differ, it is true, on most points, but are united in this-that their country admirers, the most constant of whom are Jenkins, who wears such preposterous collars, and is a clerk down the street, and Stump, the short attorney, can be tolerated only so long as there are no arrivals from the city; precisely as Miss Georgiana gave the cold shoulder to your pleasantries and bon mots the very evening that young ape, Pranelle, exhibited his waxed moustache and French graces within her circle. In like manner, chaperoning Mrs. Van Waddlevurst, all embonpoint, turban, and pomp, who carries that bashful blonde, her niece, to every Rout and At Home, under her wing, as it were, and brings it about that every young fellow of ton in the room shall be presented to her, in the vain hope of eclipsing sparkling Celeste, who sways all hearts this season, is she not reproduced in sanguine Mrs. Brown—slim though she be, and with her hair put up in a rather sparse knot on the summit of her head, and the same everlasting smile upon her face, most unlike dowager Van Waddlevurst's fat dignity of chin, who has not ceased to indulge in various secret dreams of distinction, founded on her Amelia Ann's accomplishments, ever since the return of that young lady from finishing-school. Mrs. Brown, indeed, is a woman of more energy than the dowager, having been compelled, for many years, (since Brown' demise,) to battle for herself; but she drags about and placards the attractiveness of her Amelia Ann, a shame-faced girl, who seldom answers except in monosyllables, with much the same good taste that Mrs. Van W. does her Amelia.
It is only you, O sweet Mary Jones, who have not been spoiled by living in a city. It is only you who go about singing or humming one of the songs you learned long before you came to be taught those grand symphonies from the opera of the Don, which the Miss Snacks performing together draw a chorus of bravas from the throats of moustached visitors, when the season for moustached visitors has arrived. Yes, it is certainly you, pretty, lovable Mary Jones, swinging your cottage bonnet about by its blue ribbons, and glancing here and there with eyes quite as blue, and a great deal pleasanter to behold, even were a man-milliner the arbiter, who, for the first time, perceives the young gentleman seated yonder by his fish-basket on the bank, who has been looking at you all this while with so much attention, not to say pleasure, that a perch has actually, after many delightful bobs, drawn his float under the surface and become entangled among the roots and weeds at the bottom, without his captor being any the wiser for it.
Miss Mary Jones—to assume a past tense, for these events have long gone by—halted then in her walk and in the song she was singing, in the pleasantest of voices, half aloud, and a little natural color came up into her face, partly, perhaps, because she found her self an object of attention, when she imagined the trees and birds only composed her audience; and partly, because the observation which she had courted seemed unlikely to be speedily withdrawn. The young gentleman, with his back to the trunk of a beech, and his eyes diverted from their proper occupation of watching his float, seemed to relish the effect of his curiosity, it must be admitted, and surveyed the nymph with a smile which would have appeared impertinent but for a challenge at recognition in it when his glance encountered the momentary surprise in those blue orbs of sweet Mary Jones. It did not please the nymph, however, to accept the acquaintance so proffered, and with the slightest possible moue in rejoinder, she turned into a path branching off opportunely from that by which she had approached, and would soon have left the scene of her interrupted solitude, and perhaps the memory of it, behind her. But the first comer entertained other views, it seemed. He promptly rose when about to be deserted, and finding his line tangled, as shown above, without ado snapped it in twain. Had it been too strong for him, he would have thrown the rod and all into the stream rather than be baffled, for it was part of the character of this young gentle man to take the shortest means at hand for ridding himself of the last pleasure in anticipation of the next in order. This done, he presented himself before our heroine, who, to say the truth, had not advanced far, nor seemed in much haste to go. She had stopped to pull a wild violet, but then she had dropped it again; and when she stooped to recover it, Mr. Clarence Van Trump, who was the angler, had it already in possession, and presently protested he could part with it on no terms, and would set it in water when he got home; though I believe he really put it in his vest pocket, and there forgot it, nor beheld it again for many months after all the events in this tale had transpired. This was not all either; Miss Mary Jones carried her bonnet—a pretty little bonnet with blue lining and ribbons, which must have made it become her exceedingly when on—slung over her arm for the occasion, and filled with flowers, which last, in the flutter incidental to the loss of the violet, were liberally scattered over the ground.
Her companion gathered them again, with a slight laugh: "Then you really have forgotten me?" he said, while so employed. "I who once fished and hunted for your especial benefit, and have never been in love since! Suppose I had been on the opposite side of this mill-race, and so unable to reveal myself, and you had gone away as you were doing a minute ago without recognizing me? I know I should have fallen into a state of low melancholy. Oh! by Jove! I recollect," the young gentleman added, rising in a sudden and stroking the ornament in question, "'t is this moustache—this grisly moustache which makes the difference—and come now! I lay an even wager—this violet against your bonnet of flowers—that who the present speaker really may be is a question this moment in your—a, well—lovely head."
The lovely head was shaken half-pettishly, half in denial. "I knew you very well, Mr. Clarence," the owner of it said, "but I—"
"Well?" said Mr. Clarence.
"I—am not to be treated like a school-girl."
"No?" said Clarence, laughing.
"No. And as for your moustache disguising you"—here the blue eyes of Miss Jones glanced at the downy indication of a beard which the owner thereof had termed grisly, and whether that a moustache is always fascinating in female eyes, or that it was not in the power of such celestial orbs to long display anger toward any one, all appearance of vexation quickly vanished, and her companion held out his hand, from which he had drawn his glove. Yes, this young Brummel had been actually angling in gloves, the identical white kids in which, perhaps, he had handed Miss Georgiana McKrell, or the lively Mrs. Tomtit to supper, two weeks before, at Newport!
Indeed, if Miss Mary Jones had failed to remember in Mr. Clarence Van Trump the little boy in corduroy pantaloons who had been her assiduous "sweetheart" once upon a time years before, when he had come down to spend the vacation with his uncle, the patroon, and slept in the identical bedroom, with the chintz curtains and patchwork quilt of faded satins, manufactured by the fingers of his great grandmother, which he occupied on the occasion of his present visit to that distinguished relative from whom his expectations were so great; if Miss Mary had failed to recall the shame-faced little lover in this smart young fellow, whose costume must have astonished the fishes, and was certainly not of a kind with that they had been used to regard upon the persons of the anglers of that region, there would have been no just cause for wonder. Had he not been abroad meanwhile, and mingled, as all our countrymen do, in the best foreign society? Were not his manners now so far from being distrait as almost to fill into the opposite extreme of too great assurance? and was he not esteemed by all the young ladies of his set in the city, a love of a man and finally, was not his present nose as unlike that through which, as a boy, he had had that ugly habit of sniffling; and his face as dissimilar from the beardless and freckled cheek of that period, as time, nature, and a careful employment of art could make them?
But after all, there was no merit really in Miss Jones' recognition. She had quite forgotten the lover of these feet six, when one day, walking with Madame Treubleu's pensionnaires through Lafayette Place, two youngsters dashed by in a trotting wagon, not so fast but that Miss Simmons, who, being the chum of Miss Jones, was then, as ever, linked arm in arm with our heroine, had time to recognize a cousin, of whom she was naturally proud, and his friend.
"Why, lor!" Miss Simmons exclaimed, "if there ain't Prunelle and Mr. Van Trump. O my! such lovely eyes as Mr. Van Tramp has, you can't think! I saw him at my aunt's soirée the other night, though no body introduced him to me. They say he is going to see his great uncle, who lives in our village, you know. Won't it be funny if he waits till we go home ourselves, and pays attention to a certain some body and makes some body else jealous? You know you would fall in love with him," Miss Columbia Simmons says to her friend, giggling behind her fan; "he is so handsome, and be said he was your sweetheart when you were no bigger than Nanny Fogg there."
"Poh! what nonsense!" her friend replies, and changes the topic. But she did not dismiss it from her mind, for that very evening she wrote a name in the fly-leaf of her Italian grammar which, when her chum looked over her shoulder, she hid, or attempted to hide, with quite a show of color, and some confusion. But Miss Columbia having pulled away the hand, in school-girl fashion, read it and laughed.
"Ah! you naughty, funny thing!" said she, "'Mrs. Clarence Van Trump!' Ah, won't some body be jealous!"
Now, although tender-hearted little Mary Jones repented on that occasion, and actually shed tears upon her pillow after her chum was asleep, and called herself I don't know how many hard names for her hard-heartedness in forgetting, for an instant, all the good qualities of one Thomas Elkhart, and how devoted to her, and what a genius he was, and a great deal more; it was not in the nature of a young lady on the point of leaving boarding-school, and whose patronym was merely Jones, to despise the probability, or shun at all times the thought, of being one day received into the distinguished connection of the great Van Trump family. Was not that family the most aristocratic in America, and possessed of estates and tenantry which made them almost resemble the dear old romantic barons of feudal times? Had not old Van Trump, the major-general, pounded over and over again upon the floor or ground, as the case might be, with his splendid gold-headed cane, the better to enforce his views, and averred that—"A Van Trump, Sir, is fit to marry a princess, Sir, and ought, by right, to hold the position of perpetual chief magistrate of this country, Sir, without the fiddle-faddle of the ballot-box!" And was not the old patroon who lived in her (Mary Jones') own village, but had very little to do with any body there, so dreadfully proud that people said he ate with nothing less than gold spoons? gold spoons—think of that! The idea of one of this distinguished family paying court to so undistinguished a maiden as Miss Mary Jones was perhaps enough to turn the head of a school-girl who had devoured any quantity of romances during the past eighteen months, and was not wiser or more experienced than girls in their teens usually are.
But crotchets such as these are not the offspring of young heads only; and it might be that Mrs. Jones herself entertained some vague wishes, not to say anticipations, when, looking from her door-step on the afternoon with which this tale commences, in search of Miss Mary, for whom their early country tea waited and gave out such an odor of Bohea and fresh cakes from the back-parlor, whom should she behold but that truant, accompanied by Mr. Clarence Van Trump, elegantly flourishing his fishing-rod, now reduced to the size of a stout cane, and wonderfully resembling the paternal gold-headed one. Perhaps he was taking off that swagger of the brigadier-general, the better to illustrate an incident in which they two had had a share on the sands of Newport, at which Miss Mary and himself were now laughing. At all events, the pair of young people were as sociable as if Mr. Clarence had never lived elsewhere than with his great uncle, the patroon, and as Mrs. Jones thought, with pride in her heart, on their coming up.
That estimable lady, after the first glimpse she had obtained of her daughter's escort, had slipped into her chamber, hard by, and donned a new and famously be-bowed cap, the pretty handiwork of Mary herself, before you could say Jack Robinson; and reappeared as if she had not been guilty of that sly manœuvre. She even affected for a moment to overlook the presence of the heir of the patroon.
"Mr. Clarence Van Trump," Miss Mary said, smilingly presenting that young gentleman, who bowed elegantly, as his wont is. Mrs. Jones also dropped a courtsey in the manner of a lady's maid on the boards, which she believed to have a stylish effect, and to show her familiarity with good society. "Columbia is here," Mrs. J. remarks to her Mary, inclining her head in the direction of the parlor, "and Mr. Tom. He has something wrapped in a cloth which he will not let us see. You don't know Mr. Thomas Elkhart, do you, sir?" says Mrs. J. to Clarence.
"I really haven't the pleasure," Mr. Clarence returns, glancing at our heroine, who does not look at him, but colors, a little, perhaps. "Is tea ready?" she asks mamma, and mamma takes the hint.
"I trust you will give us the pleasure of your company at our humble board," the dear soul says, with much urbanity and state; and when our young gentleman, after pretending to hesitate on the score of the solitary condition of his uncle, whom the rogue know to be at that hour, namely, candle-light, on the eve of getting into bed, allows himself to be entreated, and declares taking tea in that house reminds him of the happy days of his boyhood. Mrs. Jones, I am bound to say, being of a sanguine turn of mind, began to speculate in earnest upon the probability of a certain desirable event.
It has just been disclosed that the elder Van Trump—not the brigadier-general, but the patroon—retired with the sun, or a little later, partly because his constitution and senile infirmities required, and partly because, having few associates among his immediate neighbors, the best way of disposing of the tedium of the evenings was to cut it short altogether. During the occasional visits of his grand-nephew and heir, it is true, the last-named motive could not be said to exist, but it was scarce worth his while, the old man thought, to break in upon a habit of years' growth for a satisfaction of ten days' standing; so Mr. Clarence, had he staid at home on the night in question, would have had a dull time of it in the library, yawning or dozing over a few dusty gazetteers or odd volumes of magazines, containing such tales as delighted our grandmothers a half century back. To own the truth, however, it was not the habit of our young gentleman to spend many hours of the evening within the recesses of the dismal pile known among the villagers as the 'Squirery, on the occasions of his visits; and occasionally he was absent—looking at the moon, perhaps—at least, that was what he told the ancient housekeeper—most of the night. But at breakfast-table, next morning, Mr. Clarence was sure to present himself, whence-ever he might last come, and make himself agreeable to the great proprietor sitting opposite, sipping his weak tea, and wagging his revered head at the sallies and gossip of his youthful kinsman. The morning after the evening spent in Miss Mary Jones's society, the Joneses were, of course, the text.
"You ought to have seen Mother Jones, Sir!" Mr. Clarence said. That was the scarcely respectful way in which he chose to designate. that worthy lady. "Such attention as she paid me! By Jove! if I had eaten half the sweet-meats, only, she put upon my plate at supper, you would have had to send for Snack's successor before morning. I was obliged to take refuge from her in the conversation of her lovely daughter, who plays the deuce-knows-what, all upon a piano that has a distinct jingle in most of the chords, as if a handful of silver were dancing a jig upon them. And then there was a sandy-haired young lady present—a hand-and-glove friend of little Mary Jones, I presume, who could not help casting admiring glances at your humble servant all the evening, and would have fallen in love at a moment's notice if I had given her half a chance. As it was, she told me she had seen me at a crush at one of Prunelle's confounded low relatives', where I wont to please him, and also somewhere in the streets, I believe. What do you think they call her, Sir? by Jove! you could never guess: 'Columbia;' patriotic, ain't it? Columbia Brown, or Smith, or something."
"Simmons, Columbia Simmons, I know," the old gentleman says, nodding and chuckling. It quite rejuvenates him to listen to the prattle of his nephew. "Ah! ah! you young rogue," the senior adds presently, while the young rogue sips his coffee, and smirks a little complacently behind his old-fashioned mug; "I see how it was; you had it all your own way. If there had been some other youngster present, you would not have thought widow Jones and the rest of them setting their caps for you, aha!"
"Why, for the matter of that," says Mr. Clarence, no ways abashed, "I was not precisely cavalier-seul, you know. There was one Buckhart, or Elkhart, or something of the sort there—a not ill-looking fellow for his station, which I take to be that of a mechanic. But his style of costume; by the lord Harry! Sir. I looked at him with as much curiosity as if he had been a South Sea Islander, and, to say the truth, he regarded me rather cavalierly in turn. He had something wrapped in a handkerchief, which might have been the remains of his dinner for any thing I know, though he had better have left it, in that case, in the passage, instead of on the centre-table in the parlor. Who is he?" Mr. Clarence asks with a short laugh. "Does he do jobs for you in brick and mortar? I fancied his hands looked rather gritty, Sir."
"No, no; not he, but his grandfather did," the great-uncle returns, "Elkhart, the potter; that water-jug was made at his pottery. And that's where he made the money this young fellow is to have directly, they say. We old fellows stand in you youngsters' shoes unreasonably long; hey, Clary, my boy?"
"Not in mine, Sir; Heaven forbid!" Mr. Clary says piously and hypocritically.
"Well, well, what were we talking about? Elkhart, the potter. No, young Elkhart—Tom, I think they call him. Instead of making jugs and pots, his turn is for modelling little figures in clay, and very pretty figures, too, if Bridget here is to be credited. Bridget was in their house awhile, were n't you, Bridget?" And Bridget, who, broom in hand, chanced to be slipping through to arrive at a neighboring chamber, stops, nothing loth, and drops a low courtsey. "Sure an' he does," she says, "the beautifullest things iver was seen, Sir. Sure an' did n't he make the Blissed Virgin, Holy Mother of Hiven, out of as much mud—thrue as I'm standing here, Sir—as might go in your tay-cup! And more than that, though not wishing to be mintioned in the same breath, me and my ould blind mother, Sir, the first time we came to the old gintleman's house, my mother houlding me by the hand, and groping with her staff like, and me a-wearing the tore bonnet which the mistress Hannagan gave me in the ould country, sure, and set us up on the mantel-shelf where any body can see us to this blissed day for the asking. An' agin, my own pathron Saint Bridget, which," says Bridget, suddenly dropping a curtsey and her broom, and disappearing to return again presently and take up her sentence where interrupted, "will your honors be pleased to igxamine?"
Now, Mr. Clarence Van Trump, though at the time a fop, and, I am afraid, a little of a roué, was neither a blockhead nor so ignorant of art as most of his compeers. He had not spent all, if he had the greater part, of his time, in Paris in the cafés and hells, or places worse yet, and by mere occasional contact with artists and connoisseurs, had picked up some slight acquaintance with the subject under consideration. Neither was he ill-natured or apt to bear malice, though his self-love had been slightly wounded the evening previous by the young sculptor, or modeller, if you will, having failed to do him homage, I believe. On that occasion he had planned to avenge himself by flirting with little Mary Jones, and making her lover, as he more than suspected him to be, miserable during his (Van Trump's) stay in the vicinity. But Bridget's patron saint caused him to forget his resolve the moment he had taken the figure into his hand.
"By Jove!" said he ingenuously, "it is wonderful! by Jove, it is! and as good as What-d'ye-call-em, the great modeller's, in Paris. I can guess now what was in the cloth on the table: something pretty for Miss Mary Jones, I'll be bound. I'll ask her to show it to me, and I'll get him to let me see his Madonna, and Bridget's likeness, and the rest. I'll make friends with him, I will, by Jove!" cried our young dilletanti, and meant all he said.
Even pretty Mary Jones had not seen what the thick cloth concealed the night before, until Miss Simmons had been duly escorted home, over the way, and young Van Trump, believing the enemy to have abandoned the field, went away himself. That young gentleman, however, would have smoked his cigar with less gusto on his way to bed, had he surmised that, however his whispered flatteries had fluttered the little heart of our heroine, and for the matter of that of castle-building mamma also, not one pang of jealousy had he yet created in the breast of his single-minded rival. Why should he (Elkhart) have been miserable? He had formed his own estimate of the worth of elegant Mr. Clarence, and scarce troubled himself, save in one instance, to enter the lists into which that accomplished cavalier desired to lure him, sure of victory in the end. While Mr. Clarence was turning the music, and singing second, and otherwise manifesting his interest and admiration, though secretly amused and purposing to take it all off to a few of his friends in the city some day after dinner, Elkhart stood by with an ear only for the one voice out of three, which to him always discoursed melody. For him there were no jingling keys in the whole ricketty piano-forte, no false note in Miss Columbia's singing, even when she dropped her handkerchief and picked it up tittering, (Mr. Clarence feigning blindness on the occasion,) and fell again into her place in the concert. For him "Mary Jones" was a name interchangeable with "angel," and where she dwelt by no means the humble residence the widow's house In reality was, and such as Mr. Clarence unmistakably perceived it. All through his art, like a vein of gold in the clay he modelled, the thought of her beauty, her sweetness, her excellences ran: "If I could but model her as she appears to me!" he thought over and over; but, then, what artist who is a lover can? "With wings upon her shoulders and the softly flowing white dress she wears on mid-summer afternoons, I think all the world would stop and hold its breath for reverence and love of a figure and face so celestial?" And so, though the task seemed impossible, he had set about it in earnest, and labored on in secret and patiently, until there stood your prototype, prettier, perhaps, than yourself, but still yourself, and none other, O gentle Mary Jones! A charming figure it was, too; not a copy of an antique, or modelled after rules of ancient art; but possessing a maiden-like purity of outline which made equally consistent the muslin skirt or the wings which were not at first sight visible; they were budding wings, rather than matured, and so, perhaps, helped to embody his ideal of a person he believed to be mortally perfect.
When Senator Mecænas saw the statuette—it was nearly life-size, and the most ambitious our hero had modelled—he had much ado to persuade the young sculptor to send it to a neighboring city; but that he did so, and found himself famous, and that Senator Mecænas subsequently obtained for him the order for the great national work in marble upon which he is now engaged, we all know; for it is not a part of the policy of that great man to keep secret the good deeds he perpetrates, but rather to let both hands know what either may be doing. But let us all hope, for our hero's sake, that this great work may not resemble the wonderful pantomime in marble of Columbus perpetually performing on the steps of the national Capitol, which does so much credit to the taste of the committee who accepted it, and is so much more laughable than any pantomime that was ever acted before.
Before it went, however, young Elkhart made a copy of his earth angel in piccolo, and this it was that he brought for a gift to the fair original. She only, of all the village, had seen and praised the statuette; and with her pretty dimpled chin resting in her hand, watching the unwrapping of its lesser fac-simile, was it that she was reminded of the blissful occasion, when they two, standing before his best work, she had conceived herself honored in the love of this young artist, moustacheless though he were, and by no means so elegantly winning in address as our friend Van? But, O Mary Jones! of whom as a heroine nothing but good should be predicated, how can I bring myself to declare what really occupied your thoughts? "Did they really and truly use a service of gold up in the 'Squirery yonder? and how fine it must be to dine off plate!" were the initial words of your reverie. And when young Elkhart had unswathed the graceful copy of your own unworthy self, and asked, with a slight dash of disappointment in his voice, perhaps, Was it not like the other, and Did n't you like it? it was not a flush of pleasure that rose to your cheek, so much as a blush for your own faithlessness.
"It is beautiful! How good you are to me!" she exclaimed, awaking with a start, and, as has been said, a blush; and leaning over the statuette, half concealed both her face and it in a cloud of curls; and be sure Elkhart repeated to himself many times on his way home those simple words, and built as many castles in Spain (though of different materials) as Mrs. Jones herself was doing about the same time.
That excellent lady, though no strategist, was as fond as her sex—and for the matter of that, ours, too—of having her own quiet way, and so the next forenoon, when our friend Van T., having yawned and bored himself to the extent of his capacity at home, bethought himself of paying the Joneses a morning visit, but in the end changed his mind, and sent a note instead, soliciting the pleasure of driving out Miss Jones in the cool of the afternoon; and when the fair recipient of the note remembered the trotting wagon in which Mr. Clarence and his friend had dashed by in Lafayette Place, and how delightful it must be, but recalled also a promise given to some body else the past evening, and sent a polite excuse, the widow, who took the message to the door in person, added a protocol to the effect that if Mary could not, Miss Columbia might: a message which amused Mr. Clarence, and of which, on cross-questioning the servant who brought it, he sagaciously divined the latent purport.
Therefore it was that without the least intention of honoring the last-named young lady, and to whom, though she had spent the major part of that very forenoon in her house, mamma Jones had not, in truth, communicated one word of the supposed treat in store for her, Mr. Clarence Van Trump presented himself at quite an early hour at the widow's door, not in the rather rickety chaise upon leathern springs, in which the patroon made his manorial progresses, but in a light wagon, which our young gentleman, knowing the style of equip age in use where he was about to go in pursuance of duty, had caused to be forwarded all the way from the city. Was it the showy elegance of the carriage, or the high-spirited horse which had brought it to the door with such marvellous celerity, and stood pawing the dust, impatient to be gone again; or the subtle charm of Mr. Clarence's moustache and pleading manner, which made the invitation now irresistible? No; Mrs. Jones, be it said, aided by good-natured and unsuspecting Miss Simmons, had carried the day beforehand. The arguments that had been used were not very strong of their kind, and were chiefly confined to truisms. They said a ride in a nice wagon with so pleasant a companion, was not to be picked up in the streets; that she, Mary Jones, could of course walk at any time; that Thomas Elkhart would not, of course, be so unreasonable as to be offended, even if she had promised to walk with him this afternoon, and much more of the sort. After all, it has not been said that Miss Mary Jones was perfect, but only that Elkhart believed her so. She was very pretty and amiable, and not naturally coquettish; but who could resist the fascinating influences concentred in Mr. Clarence Van Trump? And what was it, Mr. Clarence, that you said in the course of your drive, which so turned, for a time, the not over-strong little head beside you? And what was there in the face of young Elkhart, when you two met him taking his perforce solitary walk, which stung you into forgetting your late resolve to patronize this native artist, and caused you to commence that methodical flirtation which ended somewhat otherwise than you anticipated?
Mr. Thomas Elkhart had, in the meanwhile, indeed, enjoyed a tête-a-tête interview with the mother of the young lady in lieu of her absent self, and may not have been the better in temper for a rather odd conversation, in which Mrs. J. had been chief speaker. He had learned with surprise, and perhaps, for the first time, something approaching jealousy, that he had been unjustifiably slighted; that Mamma Jones thought Clarence a most desirable match for her Mary, and was disposed to believe his (Thomas') love for the same young lady, and their tacit engagement, and all that, mere child's play, which they would both have forgotten when he (Elkhart) had been a year in Italy. He was going there soon, wasn't he? Now that he was of age and had come into the property, of course he could travel and improve his mind, and perhaps would marry some foreign lady and settle abroad, who knows?
Elkhart know, if Mrs. Jones did not, there was only one woman in the wide world who would ever be his wife. He looked at the castle-building lady in the fine cap (donned not to do him, but Mr. Clarence, honor) without resentment, but with a hitherto unknown weight at heart. He quite understood the latent meaning in what he had just heard, and the not unkind motive in which it may have originated; there was no balm in that. He went home and chipped away at a block of marble without purpose, then threw down his tools, and walking out at random, encountered our heroine, who, however, did not see him as they flow by, her face being addressed elsewhere. But Mr. Clarence, whose eyes were just then engaged in peering admiringly under the bonnet with the fluttering blue streamers, naturally caught the rather fierce glance which proceeded from the same direction a little beyond, and involuntarily bit his lip and frowned. Confound his impudence!" he growled, below his breath, "does the fellow remember who I am, and what he is! By Jove! I suppose he is jealous, and waylaid us to frighten this little girl, who is a deuced deal too pretty for him to think of, by the bye; and I'm glad his purpose miscarried, and my stare was all he got in return for his ill-looks."
"Why, dear! how cross you look," cried Miss Mary, in great astonishment, who saw no cause for the change of countenance.
"Cross! what, to you! Did I look so? Surely not," was what Mr. Clarence replied, with a very different expression of face. "By the Lord Harry!" he added, mentally, he had been been looking, while he spoke, so earnestly at his companion that she was blushing a little, and looking prettier for it, "how charming she is! and I will flirt with her to my heart's content, if only to spite what's his name, the potter."
Perhaps it was in virtue of this resolution that he was so amiable and pleased with every thing on the widow's supper-table. What bread, and what delicious butter! and did Miss Mary really and truly make that cake! He had tasted nothing like it in New York, nor in Paris either. And this must be caravan tea; it could be no other.
The tea was some Mrs. J.'s brother, Captain Bluff, in the East-Indian trade, had brought home for her; and so was the preserved ginger. He must try some; it was the best thing in the world for a ———
"O ma!" cried Miss Mary here. Indeed the old lady valued it as a stomachic, and never brought it to table even when her best friends supped with her; but who, let it again be asked, could resist the blandishments of so delightful a guest! It almost brought tears to her eyes to see how he ate out of their plated spoons as if they had been the gold ones he was accustomed to, and which she began to think hot Mary would one day have the charge of counting. She longed to tell him he had her consent and blessing beforehand, and took great credit, in secret, for the adroit conversation with poor Thomas Elkhart, which no doubt caused that young gentleman's seat at table to be vacant, the first evening for weeks past. To do her justice, our heroine noticed the empty place too, and with some expressions of regret, at first, which annoyed Mr. Clarence more than he would have chosen to confess; but as the field was his for the evening, and he exerted himself to fascinate, perhaps Elkhart was in the thoughts of none of them long, Mrs. J., who, for the past hour, had been rocking herself in her state mahogany-and-mohair chair, smiling perpetually, listening and castle-building, declared him, when he was gone, to be the most talented young man she had ever laid eyes on; meaning young Van Trump! What beautiful compliments he paid! Who was that he said she was like—the Duchess who? Sweet Mary Jones did not remember the name, but she did the substance of the compliment, and of many others, and wished in her heart Elkhart were as elegant in address. Thomas Elkhart seemed to think her better than she was, she knew, but then why did n't he say so sometimes, even if she were not to believe it all? What a pity he had not been present to see how such things were done by the best society; he was so diffident of his own attainments, and so willing always to learn, that she was sure he would have been able to pick up a grace or two while looking on. Perhaps he might have been even persuaded into wearing a moustache in future, when he heard how it improved a bass voice. With a moustache now, and his large eyes to help, he would look almost like a foreigner; more so than Mr. Van Trump even, though of course not so good-looking. But then he was so good; yes, if not handsome, he was certainly good, very good to her, Miss Mary thought, before falling asleep.
If Elkhart had not had some good in him, as Mary Jones had admitted; and more than that, if he had not been so much in love with our pretty heroine, that even the self-respect which lies at the bottom of all worth had no opportunity to assert its claim to consideration, perhaps the hints thrown out by Mrs. J., in person, would have been received for the daughter's own aspirations at second-hand, and his chair at the widow's supper-table and accustomed place in her little parlor, have remained thenceforward forever untenanted. But although such was really the state of things at first, the lapse of twenty-four hours brought a change in his views. He even began to judge himself unreasonable, and to be contrite accordingly. Why should she not ride with a friend on occasion? The fact of her doing so, under the circumstances, showed a familiar confidence in his affection which he was sorry to feel himself unworthy of. Could he have seemed more a Bluebeard if he had been indeed her husband, and she anything but the angel she was? What did it matter if he should be occasionally compelled to listen, in common with sweet Mary Jones, to this Van Trump's flippancies? they both would understand the true value of the coin in which he dealt, and not be deluded by its glitter, as Mrs. Jones was. He could afford to smile now when he recalled that lady's hints and inuendoes. At least, however, he would make amends for his late ill-humor, this true lover thought, by leaving his angel free to fly about with whom she would, to ride when she willed, and be as happy as the day was long. For himself, he would look on and enjoy her happiness, which would be the best means of securing his own. And full of this fine resolve, young Elkhart, the following evening, took his usual place at table, and by the piano afterward, at which last Mr. Clarence did not fail to join them a little later. The ricketty little instrument over which the glances of these rivals occasionally met, threateningly, during subsequent evenings, became, from the first, a battle-ground for both. If Clarence sang and laughed, and was gay and audacious in his flatteries, and affected to overlook our hero's presence, for the most part, the last-named young gentleman was not likely to beat a retreat after the first instinctive recoil before Mother Jones's fusilade, unless by order expressed or implied of bewitching Mary Jones herself. For such a sign, indeed, he watched incessantly, but without jealousy, and with nothing like a scowl upon his face or perdue in the depth of his heart. He did not think to console himself with the trite proverb of "as good fish as she being to find," but in his simplicity believed all perfections met in this little girl with blue eyes, and blue ribbons to her bonnet, and set his hopes upon her accordingly. What delightful conversations those were when Mr. Clarence was absent, or had not yet arrived, and how much more pleasing, because more in keeping with the place and performer, were Miss Mary's bird-like songs, than the fine operatic performances with which she delighted the refined and travelled ear of Mr. Van Trump. Elkhart sometimes talked of art and of his aspirations, of books, of nature, of whatever he loved, and thought this élève of Madame Treubleu loved equally. It is always so with your lovers. Does not young Cuticle, whose talk is chiefly of the hospitals which he has been lately walking in Paris, believe Miss Tompkins (who had resolved to accept him long before he proposed) to be intended by nature for a surgeon's wife, because she would actually—if you are polite enough to take her word for it—prefer a walk of the above kind to even one about the Palais-Royal or on the Boulevards. The fault lies a little on both sides, but in Mary Jones's case there was at least no deception; she liked nature very well, and art, and books, and so on, very well too, and so she did music and admiration, and perhaps equally every thing agreeable you could name. I believe she had the capacity to love earnestly, as afterward appeared, but in mere matters of liking, the present object was perhaps the best liked, because more in mind. Mrs. J. would fidget a little during these confidential talks between the young people in the dusk of the afternoon, or when Elkhart, leaning over her Mary's shoulder to turn the music of some favorite air, would catch the kindly glance of those cerulean eyes, and be incited straightway to feel himself, as of old, the accepted suitor of so much loveliness. But when that exquisite Clarence arrived the tables were quickly turned. I verily believe he laid out his plan of the evening campaign during the mornings, when he had nothing better to do, and went to the extent of committing to heart daily a page or two out of an old copy of Joe Miller, one of the few books in the library our young dandy cared to kill time by reading. Whence else did he pour out such a flood of slipshod anecdote, sometimes audaciously told for his own adventures, that Miss Columbia Simmons, who was frequently present, gnawed through I don't know how many, handkerchiefs, in attempts to stifle her laughter, and Mrs. Jones came to think the narrator incomparably more talented than our hero, who, for his part, commonly sat and listened, with more philosophy and forbearance than gratification, be it said. However much his conclusions may have differed from Mrs. Jones's, he kept them to himself, and took part here and there in these conversations, on which occasions Mr. Van Trump, to show his superior station, perhaps, rather than his better breeding, usually fell to talking with some one else. In truth—and the truth will out at some time in a history such as this—a great change had been undergone since the beginning of this pastoral in the views and feelings of the young gentleman last named. He had ceased to make fun of "Mother Jones," as he had at first called her, for the entertainment of the grinning old patroon, at the breakfast-table, and some how had lost perception of the false notes in the performances upon the veteran instrument in Mrs. J.'s parlor. He did not now forget the flowers he took from Miss Mary's scarcely resisting fingers, and suffer them to perish, for want of care, in the button-hole of his coat; the glass on his bureau at home always contained one or two. He had her album to write some verses in, and was laboring with touching energy to collate some "original stanzas" which might put to shame the not ungraceful verses proceding them, sigued T. He drove her almost every afternoon in his love of a wagon, he attended. her to church, where she played the organ in lieu of a professional, and where he and Elkhart sang bass on either side of the fair musician. He considered with himself the probability of being disinherited in a certain event, and was so much in love that he gave it little heed. He had chanced to step in twice or thrice during those familiar chats by the open window, between Elkhart and our heroine, already recorded, and had been stung to jealousy in no usual degree.
Elkhart himself had not been without his trials of this sort; and It was about this time, one evening, that Miss Mary's handkerchief—a very pretty little embroidered handkerchief—having fallen to the floor, Mr. Van Trump hastened to possess himself of it, but instead of restoring the estray first pressed it, half-jestingly, to his moustached lips, and finally deposited it under his vest on the left side. He caught his rival's eye while doing so, and there was a fierce wrath in its blare which caused Mr. Clarence to quake a little, it must be admitted; perhaps he discerned, by some curious instinct, what was passing just then in the other's mind. As for Miss Jones, she smiled, I am sure, when she turned her head aside. It is certain she affected to see nothing of the impertinence; yet, when Van Trump took his leave, a little later, and our hero, following suite, overtook the latter in the street, close to the door, and there intimated, in a tone more imperious than was his wont, or in truth, than members of that distinguished family are accustomed to be addressed, a purpose to speak with Clarence as they walked, Miss Mary Jones suddenly appeared on the doorstep they had just quitted, and called out "Mr. Elkhart!" in her most persuasive manner. Then, as he only looked back and nodded, with a somewhat sardonic smile, she called him a second time, by his Christian name, and what lover could resist that! Tom, as has been noticed, is not an harmonious syllable in itself, but in Miss Mary Jones's pretty mouth it became quite irresistible; and the owner came, as would any well-trained dog—Mr. Clarence sauntering slowly on.
"Don't ask him for it; please don't ask him?" the young lady supplicated; meaning, of course, the handkerchief, which she could not have seen Mr. Clarence Van Tramp slip under his vest. Elkhart saw the inconsistency, and paused in what he was about to say.
"Yes, yes; thank you: I know," Miss Jones ran on; "but I will send for it in the morning. I can send a note to ask if he took it by mistake, or mamma can, if that will be more proper. He would never return it to you, I am almost sure."
"No?" said Elkhart.
"No; and how cross you are! Why you can have another handkerchief just like it to keep as long as he keeps that. Come in, please, or promise me to remain there, and I will fetch you one."
"No," our hero said a second time, perhaps a little scornfully, but with wonderful coolness, the number of emotions by which his mind had been agitated during this short debate, being considered, "Mr. Van Trump has nothing to fear under your protection," he added, and held out his hand. "Good night; good bye!" poor Thomas Elkhart ended by saying, somewhat less steadily, and walked away from the woman he loved, with a resolution never to see her more. "If she ever loved me, as I once thought, she certainly does not now, and my presence encumbers her. I know. I am not worthy of her. Who is? I will at least be in Italy before the sacrifice is complete, and may never hear that she is the unhappy wife of this man," were the meditations which went with our hero to his pillow that night. They had been less orderly upon his first arrival home, two hours earlier, or those bitter tears, which had forced themselves between the fingers of the hands in which his face was so long buried upon the bed-side, would not have been to chronicle. Afterward he dreamed that he was engaged upon a colossal statue of some great personage; and when it was done, lo! there stood the exact resemblance of Mr. Clarence Van Trump, in marble, oven to his favorite short cutaway coat and light fancy trousers. But when, in a fit of ungovernable rage, he had seized a mighty sledge to demolish the figure, which was, oddly enough, grinning at him, and stroking a finely-chiselled mustache, on a sudden the likeness of sweet Mary Jones, as he had carved her, occupied the pedestal instead; then the hammer, checked in mid career, alighted on his own head, and he awoke to find it broad day, and his temples throbbing as fiercely as if the blow had fallen where he had dreamed. Indeed, a fever had set in, which not only induced numberless greater vagaries than that of a colossal statue to Van Trump, during the succeeding ten days, but postponed, for a much longer time, the voyage to Italy, which our unhappy young friend had previously arranged should commence the next day but one.
Mr. Clarence Van Trump woke about the same hour, but with widely different sensations, and, to argue from his countenance, none of an unpleasant kind. He had leisurely pursued his homeward course undisturbed the previous night, and had triumphantly brought off the little perfumed handkerchief, which had so nearly proved a casus belli.
What could there have been in the retention of that trifle which had caused our young gentleman, on retiring to his chamber, to regard it with such complacency, when produced and laid upon his dressing-table? Had he feared any opposition to the laudable purpose of elevating one of the Joneses to be a Van any thing? None, certainly, from Mrs. Jones herself, who would have lost a finger rather than such a son-in-law, and was, perhaps, more open in that respect than the other ladies in the village who had marriageable daughters, judged becoming. The old sea-captain in the India trade, Mary's uncle, had paid them a short visit, too, and had expressed his bluff concurrence, but not until his sister had clearly manifested that Elkhart could never have thought of marrying her Mary; how could he, when he certainly was not a lover, and had not paid Mary a compliment, such as Mr. Van Trump was always doing, once in his whole life-time, she believed? As for Miss Columbia Simmons, let it suffice to know that she had already arranged what dress she would wear on a certain grand occasion, as likewise during the first subsequent visit to her friend's palatial mansion in the city.
The personage chiefly interested in this pleasing little drama, however, did not at first give in her acquiescence. It is true, she rode and walked with the sous-hero of this tale, and was not a little carried away by his delightfully fashionable, conversation. But was it not enough to flatter Miss Jones into a passion—meaning la grande passion—that the man who had waltzed with and made love to Countesses and High-Mightinesses at the German spas, to say nothing of his home position, should run after her in the way he did? Had he not given her flowers? then a book—a Book of Beauty, of course—then a ring, and finally a perfumed pink paper note, an answer to which was to be conveyed in the tacit gift of the handkerchief? There would have been no want of opportunity to have given either a verbal or written response, it may be remarked, in a more usual manner; but the worth of a romantic incident with the more youthful of your sex, ladies, was not unknown to this young Alcibiades. Beside, he entertained other views—views which I shall take great pains to avoid the mention of here. Indeed, they were not expressed in the pink billet, nor even hinted at, nor were they directly referred to in any of the pink perfumed notes which followed this forerunner. But in each and all there was thenceforward a more open avowal of his passionate affection, and much reiteration of the unbounded sacrifices he would make for her, sweet Mary Jones's, sake. This, too, was the burden of most of his conversations. To do him justice, he spoke the truth here, so far as it went. It has been incidentally shown in the first pages of this history, that a gratification of any sort would be purchased by this patrician off-shoot at the cost of the whole future, if necessary; and in the present instance he certainly would not have scrupled to risk the paternal and avuncular favor and inheritance at once, rather than forego his wishes.
Perhaps, though, there might be some safer means for attaining his end. If he were so disposed to risk every thing, should not she make some sacrifice! It would be safer to delay their marriage until, at least, his uncle, the patroon, should have left him his heir—in a year, possibly, or at the end of a few months or weeks. Meanwhile, should greater delay be required by after events, or should either weary of the other——— But let us not record the musings, held in private with his segar, of this delightful young roué, whose moustache and cane, or lorgnette, we are always secretly flattered to see promenading, or at the opera, with our sisters and daughters. He was crazy with love at times, kissing over and over again a likeness of Mary he had taken from the parlor table, and he was content to be the sacrifice in the event of her refusing to be. On the whole, it is not saying too much, that there are honester and more honorable men wearing the striped uniform of Sing-Sing at the present day, than Mr. Clarence was in heart at this juncture.
If the poor child had fallen into the snare, who would have been to blame? Not you, of course, most excellent and moral Mrs. Jones; nor would it have been the fault of her education, of course. We Americans are intolerant of an hereditary nobility, but consent to worship any pretender. We brag of our republicanism, and cringe to self-assumed superiority. In what was this son of a patroon better than the son of a potter? and in how much and how immeasurably inferior? Observe, gentle render, the present writer is far from believing all men equal; but let superiority be purchased by something more than lawful dollars or the counterfeit coin of assurance.
How could Elkhart contend alone against this social ill, or hope to uproot it? While he stood looking on, vexed at heart and conscious of the wrong, the love of the woman he would have given his life for was cajoled out of his keeping. She had been flattered into believing Elkhart's to be friendship, and Van Trump's true love; how could both be love which were so different? The descent to Avernus is so proverbially easy, that in the end who can say she may not have fallen, as natures as sweet and good have fallen before? But "when the tale of bricks is double, Moses comes."
Moses came now in the person of one Miss Keziah, the maiden aunt who had kept Elkhart's house for him since his falling heir to it. She came straight from his bedside, from hearing him raving of Mary Jones, and believing him on the verge of death. Mrs. Jones, from some feminine instinct not easily definable, had settled it in her own mind, that upon this especial forenoon young Van Trump would propose; and, taking her work with her somewhere, had left a clear field to these two lovers. There was no one else in the house, and when Miss Keziah, with her cap-strings undone, rushed unannounced into the parlor, Clarence was down upon his knees, protesting, imploring, almost crying, and poor frightened Mary Jones weeping for very bewilderment and helplessness.
But Miss Keziah cared for none of these things. It is doubtful if she even saw Clarence at all; but sat upon the sofa, with her face buried in her apron, and rocked herself to and fro.
"Oh! he's dying, I feel he is!" she sobbed aloud; "he that promised to be such a great man, and would have been, I know. And all for love of you, Mary Jones; he raves of nothing but you, day and night. He's dying for love of you, cruel, cruel Mary Jones! and you will have his life to answer for one of these days. Come, come and see him before it is too late."
"Dying—dying for love of me!" Mary Jones cried, standing up, pale and wild, the tears running fast down her cheeks.
What a frightful past was that she had just escaped! It made her shudder. Was there time to make peace with the man she had so injured, and now knew that she loved so with the whole depth and strength of her nature? Like Margaret, she breathed one prayer aloud; and was that Faust hurriedly groping for his hat, and cursing his fate, in the entry? Then she flung her arms about the neck of Miss Keziah, and sobbed upon her breast.
"Save me, save me, O Keziah!" she said, "and take me with you. I will never leave his bedside while he lives, until he is my husband."
Elkhart lived—of course he did—under such careful nursing. Mrs. Jones plead, and half the village held up their hands, but Mary Jones was not to be moved. She became Mrs. Elkhart in time, and what sweeter face or better wife was there known to artists in all Rome? We all saw and admired lately the greatest work, thus far, of Elkhart's chisel; but what that work is I am not going to say, for then every one would know the true and proper name of our seulptor, and, perhaps, next Sunday in church, would be staring at still pretty Mrs. Elkhart, and, by inference, condemning young Van Trump, in place of attending to the Collect for the day, or crying—as every one of us has occasion to do, not less than Mr. Clarence, perhaps—"God be merciful to me a sinner!"