DE GUSTIBUS.
NOW my Uncle Cornelius Orchardson (a stout and calm fruit-grower,
called in contumely “Corny the topper” by strangers who wanted his
growth for nothing) professed and even practised a large contempt for
gossip. Nevertheless it was plain enough that his feelings were hurt,
if a thing went on, which he was bound in politeness to know, and yet
was not offered any tidings of it. With such people it is always wiser,
if you have done anything against their wishes, to let them know all
the particulars at once; and so to have it out and be done with it. And
I was beginning to love him now, which as a boy I had done but little,
inasmuch as he never gave way to me. Obstinate as he was, and sometimes
hot—if one tried to play tricks with him—I was not much afraid of Uncle
Corny, although so dependent upon him. For I knew him to be a just man
in the main, and one who kept no magnet of his own to fetch down the
balance to his own desires. Yea, rather he would set the beam against
himself, when it trembled in doubt of its duty.
With the hasty conclusions of youth, I believed that because he was now
an old bachelor, though able to afford a wife many years ago, he had
taken and held to an adverse view of the fairer and better half of the
human race. And his frequent counsels to me to keep out of their way
confirmed my conviction. The course of time proved that I was wrong in
this, as in many other matters of my judgment; and my rule, if I had to
begin again, would be to think the best of every man, till he compels
me otherwise. But the worst of Uncle Corny was that he never cared to
vindicate himself.
His countenance also was in keeping with this manner, and the build of
his body and the habit of his gait. His figure was tall, yet wide and
thick, and his face very solid and ample. He had never been comely by
line and rule, yet always very pleasant for an honest man to look at,
and likely to win the good word of a woman. Because there was strength
and decision in his face, and a power of giving full meaning to his
words, which were generally short and to the purpose. And especially he
was gifted with a very solid nose, not of any Roman or Grecian cast,
but broadly English, and expansive, and expressive, and sometimes even
waggish when he told an ancient tale.
Knowing that he would be quite sure to hear of my adventures soon, even
if he had not heard already—for Sunbury is a fine place for talk—and
trusting to his better feelings (which were always uppermost after
a solid supper, when he stirred his glass of hot rum and water, and
had his long pipe lit for him), I began upon him that very night with
what my mind was full of. For Tabby Tapscott was now gone home, after
looking at me rather queerly.
“What a knowledge of the world you have, Uncle Corny!” I exclaimed at
the end of his favourite tale concerning Covent Garden; “your advice
must be worth more than the counsel of the cleverest lawyer in London.”
“More honest at least, and no fee to pay,” he answered rather testily,
for he hated all humbug and compliments. “What have you been at, young
man? Is it my advice, or my aid, you want?”
“A little of both; or a lot of one, and a little of the other. I
have made the acquaintance of a sweet young lady, the gentlest,
and loveliest, and most graceful, and modest, and elegant, and
accomplished, and lofty-minded, and noble-hearted, and—and—”
“Angelic, angelic is the word, Kit—don’t begrudge it; it saves such a
lot of the others.”
“Yes, angelic,” I replied with firmness; “and even that is not half
good enough. You know nothing of such matters, Uncle Corny.”
“Then what is the use of my advice? You had better go to Tabby
Tapscott.”
This threw me out a little; but I would not be brow-beaten.
“If you have no wish to hear any more about her, and compare her to
an old creature like Tabby, all I can say is that I am sorry for your
taste, very sorry for your taste, Uncle Corny.”
“Well, well, go on, Kit. Let us have it all, while we are about it.
Rasp the baker told me something. He has brought down a girl from
London who can make short bread and maids of honour. No wonder you fell
in love with her.”
“You may try to provoke me, but you shall not succeed; because you
know no better. What will you say when I tell you the young lady is the
niece of Miss Coldpepper of Coldpepper Manor?”
I looked at Uncle Corny with a glance of triumph; and then stood up, to
breathe again, after my own audacity. But instead of being terrified,
he took it very coolly.
“Well, a cat may look at a king,” said he, pursuing his pipe with his
usual discretion; “and I suppose you have only looked at her; though
somebody said you pulled her out of our watercress brook.”
“Sir, I have had two delightful talks with her; and I mean to have
another to-morrow. Not that I have any hope—of course, I am well aware—”
“That you are unworthy to worship her shoe-string, and lie down for her
peg-heels to tread on. If she likes you, I don’t see why you shouldn’t
have her. By-and-by, I mean, when you get a little wiser. But has the
girl got any money?”
“I hope not; I hope not, from the bottom of my heart. It would be yet
another obstacle. She is as high above me, as the heaven is above the
earth, without—without even a penny in her pockets.”
“Flies all the higher, because her pockets are so light.” He spoke with
a jocosity, which appeared to me most vulgar. “Don’t look as if you
longed to knock me over, Kit. By the way, I heard that you had floored
Sam Henderson. If so, you deserve the best maid that ever looked into
a looking-glass. What do you want me to do, my lad? I know a little of
those people.”
I wondered what people he meant, but feared to ask him for the moment,
lest I might lose the chance of getting the favour I had set my heart
on. “It is a very simple thing,” I said, “and need not take your time
up. Mrs. Marker is longing to see your garden; and if she may come
to-morrow afternoon, she will bring the young lady, and I can show them
round. You need not stir a step, or even turn your head.”
“It is quite enough to have one head turned. They may come, if they
choose, but they must not bother me. Hand me the jar of tobacco, Kit,
and be off to the books, instead of spooning.”
My uncle might easily have taken a more ample and cordial view of
the question; still I was pleased not to find him worse, and ordered
our crock-boy on the Tuesday morning to fetch a little round while
he ate his breakfast, and leave a note for Mrs Marker at the lodge
of the Coldpepper grounds, near the dairy, which the housekeeper
visited early. And then I went to gather, and basket a quarter of
Keswick codlin and Quarantines. This occupied all the forenoon, and
what with seeing that they were picked aright, and sorted into firsts
and seconds, and fairly packed, with no rubbish at the bottom, into
bushel-baskets, and yet presented smiling with their eyes upward to
meet the gaze of the purchaser, the day went so fast that it was
dinner-time, before I could sit down, and dwell upon my heart. Then at
a reproachful glance from Selsey Bill, our orchard foreman, who had
heard the church clock strike one, and felt it to the depths of his
capable stomach, I set three fingers to my teeth, and blew the signal,
which is so welcome to the men who have lived upon nothing but hope,
ever since half-past eight o’clock.
It is not to be denied, however, that I had taken pretty sharp
advantage of being well mounted from time to time on the upper rungs
of a ladder, which gave me command of the Halliford Road—the higher
road, I mean, for the lower now was stopped and except to carts and
carriages—in such a manner that none could come from that part of the
world, without my knowledge. Seeing only a pedlar and some few women
(highly interesting to themselves no doubt, but not concerning my state
of mind), I went in to dine with Uncle Corny, and took care to eat none
of his onions.
“What cheeks you have got, Kit!” he cried with a laugh; “and it is
not from eating too much dinner. You have stolen the colour of my
Quarantines. Eat, boy, eat; or how will you pull through it? No more
visits from young ladies, if you are to go off your head like this.
You have put the new mustard-spoon into the salt. A pretty muddle, I’m
afraid, among my apples.”
Being always very dutiful, I let him have his grumble; and presently he
lit his pipe, and made off for the packing-shed, though the load was
not going till to-morrow night. Then I put myself into a little better
trim, feeling that the best I did could never make me fit to look round
the corner of a wall at somebody. Although I was considered in our
village a smart and tidy and well-built young fellow, and one of the
girls at the linendraper’s had sent me a Valentine last spring, said to
be of her own composition, beginning—“Thou noble and majestic youth,
Thy curls and thy ruddy cheeks proclaim the truth, That whenever I
think of thee, I have a sigh, And if thou provest false, I shall jump
into the Thames and die!” But it was in vain for me to think of this at
present; it gave me no support at all worth having; and even a book of
poetry, which I put into my pocket, might just as well have been the
list of pots and pans from Turnham Green.
Before I could get into any real courage, there came a gentle double
knock, as if from the handle of a parasol, at the green door near the
corner of the wall, and then a little laugh; and then a sweet voice
said, “Oh, Jenny, don’t you think we had better go back? Are you sure
that Auntie said that I might come?” In dread of further doubts, I ran
up promptly, and opened the door, and brought them in, and locked it.
“This young lady,” began Mrs. Marker, as if they were come for
her sake only, “has never seen any fruit-garden, fruit-orchard,
fruit-establishment, or whatever the proper name is. And I thought
perhaps before she goes back to London, this would enlarge her store
of knowledge; and her father, who is a very learned man, might like
to hear her account of it. Now keep your eyes open, Miss Kitty, and
see all. You would fancy that she noticed nothing, Mr. Orchardson, by
the way she goes on, and her quietness. And yet when you come to talk
afterwards, it turns out that nothing has escaped her blue eyes; and
she can tell ten times as much as I can, and I am considered pretty
accurate too. But we must pay our respects to your Uncle, Mr. Cornelius
Orchardson. I always like to do the proper thing. Business first, and
pleasure afterwards.”
“He will smile, when he hears how you have put it. He is very busy now
at the packing-shed. But he told me to take you wherever you liked; and
he will come down, when he has made out his list. On the left you have
the peach-wall, and on the right the plums; and the figs are getting
very ripe down this alley. We very seldom eat much fruit ourselves,
because we have such a lot of it. But we always long to get ladies’
opinions, because of the delicacy of their taste.”
“It is a perfect shame,” said Mrs. Marker, while making up her mind
what to begin with, “that, in such a Paradise, there should be no
lady, to give you the knowledge of good and evil. I brought a silver
knife with me, in case of being tempted. Not that I mean to taste
anything of course, unless my opinion should be absolutely required.
My constitution is not strong, Mr. Kit; and I am compelled to be very
careful.”
I knew what was meant by that, having heard it often. “You shall have
nothing, madam, but the very best,” I answered; “for we never throw
away an opportunity like this. What shall we offer first for your
judgment?”
“Kitty, what do you say?” She turned as if in doubt. “You know, my
dear, how careful we must be. This young lady, Mr. Kit, allows me to
call her ‘Kitty,’ in our private moments. Kit and Kitty—what a very
strange coincidence!”
I could not help looking at the beautiful Miss Fairthorn; and to my
eyes she became more beautiful than ever. For a deep blush spread upon
her lovely cheeks, and she turned away, and said, “I leave it quite to
you.”
If Mrs. Marker had been planning all the morning how to get the best
of the tasting to herself, and to render her judgment supreme, she
could hardly have hit upon a better device than this. For her young
companion became so nervous and so much confused, and I myself so
diffident and deeply occupied, that our only object was to fill the
lady housekeeper’s mouth, and keep it running over with nothing worse
than fruit. Now and then I ventured to steal a glance at the one with
whom my heart was filled, as if to ask whether she would ever forgive
me for my sad name of Kit. But her eyes were afraid to encounter mine;
or if by any chance they did so, the light that was in them wavered
like a timid gleam pursued by cloud. To relieve this trouble, I began
to chatter vague nonsense to the other visitor, who was falling to in
earnest.
“Everything is out of time this year, and nothing up to character.
There has been no sunshine on this wall, until you ladies shone upon
it; and what amazes me most is to find that anything has any colour
at all. Here is a Grosse Mignonne now, a week ago as green as a leek,
and covered now with downy crimson, except just where a leaf has made
a pale curve across it, like the pressure of a finger on your cheek.
Taste it, Mrs. Marker; you are not getting on at all.”
“Let me see, that makes seven, I think. I shall have lost my taste
before we get among the gages. Thank you, I am sure. Oh, how lovely,
and delicious! Luscious perhaps is the better expression. There goes
ever so much more juice on my dress. I ought to have brought a bib, Mr.
Kit; and I will, if I ever come again. But would not you say it was
just the least thought woolly?” She had never heard of such a thing
before, but I had taught her, and she was growing critical. “Kitty
dear, you are tasting nothing. Don’t you consider that just an atom
woolly?”
“Very likely it is. I don’t know enough to say. But I never remember
tasting wool, with so fine a flavour in it.”
Perhaps I was not in a proper mood to judge; but verily this appeared
to me to show an inborn aptitude for taking the management of the
fruit, and the government of the grower. To exaggerate is altogether
out of my nature, and I find it a great mistake to be ecstatic; but in
spite of all that, I would have given every sixpence allowed me by my
Uncle Corny—who was always afraid of allowing me too much—if only I
could have conveyed to this exquisite judge my opinion of her sentence.
But that blessed discovery of Mrs. Marker’s about the everlasting
fitness of our names,—upon which I had been dwelling in my heart, long
before her stupid slowness blurted it—this, I say, had acted in a very
awkward manner upon a mind infinitely higher than hers; and yet I hoped
humbly that it might suggest something, which might be for the best, if
let alone.
Things being so, it was not at all amiss that a loud voice reached us
from the clipped yew-hedge, which was set across to break the north
winds here—“Kit, where the deuce are you gone mooning? I thought you
would have come up with the ladies, long ago.”
“Here we are, looking from a distance at your peaches. Oh, Mr.
Orchardson, how lovely they do seem!” Mrs. Marker lost her dignity by
giving me a wink, believing as she did—and many others thought the
same—that I was next to nobody in these gardens, and my Uncle a tiger
over every fruit he grew.
“We have had as many peaches as we can eat, sir,” I said, without any
wish to contradict her, but simply to show the position I held.
“Ladies will excuse my present plight;” he had no coat on, and his
sleeves were tucked up, showing a pair of thick brown arms. “My peaches
are very poor this year, and many have split their stones, and rot
instead of ripening. We have not had such a season since 1852. I hope
you will not judge us by the wretched things you see. But come on a
little further, and try something else. All fruit is water, such a year
as we have had. But possibly I may find a plum or two worth eating.”
“Allow me the pleasure, sir,” said Mrs. Marker, who always insisted on
proper forms, “of introducing you to Miss Fairthorn, the only daughter
of Captain, or as he now is considered, Professor Fairthorn—a gentleman
of the highest scientific tendencies.”
“To be sure,” said Uncle Corny, as he took his hat off, and smiled with
surprise at her beauty; “I knew Captain Fairthorn, years ago, and a
very noble man he is. I have very good cause to remember him—but I will
not trouble you with that now. Mrs. Marker, if you would just turn this
corner—take care of your most becoming bonnet, young lady”—this pleased
the good housekeeper more than twenty plums,—“our trees are not as
sensitive as we are.”
His urbanity amazed me, for I never could have thought a good man
could be so inconsistent; and I said to myself that after all there
is something irresistible in women. So I ventured to sidle up to Miss
Fairthorn, as he led the way with his convoy, and asked her what she
thought of him.
“Oh, I think he is so nice,” she replied smiling at me, as if she was
pleased with my question; “so upright, and manly, and such a fine
countenance. No wonder, I’m sure, that his fruit is good.”
“Did you notice how much he was surprised at you, at your very pretty
dress, and exceedingly sweet smile, and most ladylike appearance, and
silvery voice, and lovely—lovely way of holding your parasol?”
“How can you talk such nonsense, Mr. Orchardson? And your Uncle appears
such a sensible man! Dear me, we are losing all the wise things he can
say. Let us hurry on—it was this way, I think.”
“No, no! Don’t you hear their voices down this path? Not twenty yards
off, if it were not for these trees. Oh, do let me carry your parasol.
You will want both hands to get along. Before you know where we are, we
shall be in the broad road. Oh, I am so sorry—it was all my fault. You
must let me undo the mischief I have done. May I show you how well I
understand all roses?”
By good luck, combined with some little skill of mine, her simple yet
wholly adorable frock was captured in three places by gooseberries
whom I envied. I expected great delight from this. But she showed at
once the sweetness of her temper, and her height above me. Instead of
blushing stupidly, she smiled, and said—“Thank you, I will do it for
myself. You can hardly be expected to understand such things.”