It was in church I saw her first. She was seated some little way in
front of me, somewhat to one side. My eyes had been roving about, I
suppose, for I was only a boy, fifteen or thereabouts at most, and she
was--let me see--she could not have been more than nine, though by the
pose of her head, the dignity of the small figure altogether, the
immaculate demeanour--which said all over her, "I am in church, and
behaving myself accordingly"--one might well have taken her for at least
five years older.
I remember positively starting when I first caught sight of her--of
_it_, I should rather say; for _her_, in the ordinary sense of seeing a
person--that is to say, her face--I never once saw during the whole of
the first stage of our one-sided acquaintance--the first act of the
drama, so to speak. The "it" was her hair. Never--never before or
since, I do verily believe, has such hair gladdened mortal eyes.
"Golden" was no word for it, or, rather, was but one of the many words
it suggested. It was in great floods of waving and wavering shades of
reddish--reddish, not _red_, mind you--brown, dark brown. The mass of
it was certainly dark, though the little golden lights gleamed out all
over as you will see the sparkling threads of the precious metal ever
and anon through the texture of some rich antique silk with which they
are cunningly interwoven. I worried myself to find an adjective in any
sense suitable for this marvellous colour, or colours; but it was no
use, and at last, in a sort of despair, I hit upon the very inadequate
but not unsuggestive one of "bronze." It seemed to come a degree nearer
it than any other, and it struck me, too, as not commonplace. From
"bronze" I went a step further; I found I must have a name for her--a
same all my own, that no one would understand even if they heard it;
and, half without knowing it, I slipped into calling her to myself, into
thinking of my little lady-love as "Bronzie." For I had fallen in love
with her--looking back now I am sure of it--I had fallen in love with
her in the sweet, vague, wholly ridiculous, wholly poetical way that a
boy falls in love. And yet I had never seen her face; nay, stranger
still, I did not want to see it!
It was not so at first; for two or three Sundays after the fateful one
on which the glorious hair dazzled me into fairy-land, my one idea was
to catch sight of Bronzie's face. But from where I sat it was all but
impossible; she wore a shady hat, too--a hat with a long ostrich feather
drooping over the left side, which much increased the difficulty. In
time, and with patience, no doubt I should have succeeded; but, as I
have said, before long the wish to succeed left me. I was only in
London for my Christmas holidays, and, somehow, I fancied that Bronzie,
too, was but a visitor there.
"I shall never see her again," I reflected, with a certain sentimental
enjoyment of the thought; "but I can always think of her. And if her
face were not in accordance with her hair and her figure--that dear
little dignified, erect figure--what a disappointment! If she had an
ugly mouth, or if she squinted, or even if she were just commonplace and
expressionless--no, I don't want to see her."
Accident favoured me; all those Sundays, as I have said, I never did see
her face. The church was crowded; we made our exit by different aisles,
and, as I was staying with cousins who were never in time for anything,
we always came in late--later than Bronzie, any way. The little figure,
the radiant hair, were always there in the same corner for my eyes to
rest upon from the moment I ensconced myself in my place. And so it was
to the end of the holidays--somewhat longer that year than usual, from
illness of an infectious nature, having broken out among the brothers
and sisters at my home.
I went back to school, to Latin verses and football, to the mingled work
and play which make up the intense _present_ of a boy's life; I was, to
all appearance, just the same as before, and yet I was changed. I never
talked about my Bronzie to any one, I made up no dreams about her, built
no castles in the air of ever seeing her again, and yet I never forgot
her. No, truly, strange and almost incredible as it may seem, I never
did forget her; I feel almost certain there was no day in which the
remembrance of her did not flash across my mental vision.
It was three years later. School-days were over--so recently over that
I had scarcely realised the fact, not, certainly, to the extent of
feeling sad or pathetic about it--such regrets come afterwards, and come
to stay; my feeling was rather one of rejoicing in my new liberty, and
pride in being considered man enough to escort an elder sister on a
somewhat distant journey had effectually put everything else out of my
head that Christmas-time--it was always at Christmas-time--when--I saw
_her_ again. We were at a railway station, a junction; our through
carriage was being shunted and bumped about in the mysterious way
peculiar to those privileged vehicles. We had been "sided" into a part
of the station different from that where we had arrived; I was leaning
out, staring about me, when suddenly, some little way off, there gleamed
upon me for a moment the glow of that wonderful hair. The platform was
crowded; Bronzie was walking away in an opposite direction, though
slowly. She was with two ladies; as usual, it was only the hair and
figure I saw--no glimpse of the face was possible; yet I knew it was
she. Nor, of course, would the sight of a face I never had seen have
helped to identify her.
"By Jove!" I exclaimed aloud, unconscious that my sister was close
behind me; "by Jove! how she has grown!"
"Who?" Isabel exclaimed; "whom are you speaking of? Is there some one
there we know?" and in another instant she too was craning her neck out
of the window. "I don't see any one," she added, withdrawing her head,
in disappointment. "Who was it, Vic?"