A DREAM.
“COME and see who we have got here,” wrote my uncle, not quite
grammatically; but the relatives are enough to puzzle any one who has
not had Latin antecedents—if on the strength of good spirits I may
venture upon a very ancient joke. I knew who it was; there could be no
suspense or doubt. With those very brief words of his came a little
note, in the hand that always made my hand shake.
“DARLING KIT,” it said; “I am so sorry to hear of
your long and fearful illness. But thank God you are
getting better now, and will soon be as well as ever,
I do hope. I cannot tell you what has happened, till
you come, for it would only excite and worry you. It
really seems as if there was something always to keep
us from one another. But we must try to get over it, my
dear; and if we keep our trust in a Good Providence,
we shall. Your uncle is the kindest of the kind to me;
and I am ever so much better, though I only came last
night. I feel that I could wander all day long in these
lovely gardens, with the blossoms, and the birds, and
be as happy and as free from care as they are. But I am
not to stay here, as your uncle thinks it better that I
should have two pretty rooms at Widow Cutthumb’s, which
are to be let very reasonably indeed, and I mean to
write to ask my father for the money. You must not come
back one day sooner, on account of my being here; mind
that, or I shall be very angry with you. This is not
because I do not long to see you, for you know better
than that, dear Kit; but because I want you to get
quite well, which is a great deal more to me than my
own health. And so it always should be, if people love
one another. Give my best regards to your aunt, Miss
Parslow, and tell her that I love dogs quite as much as
she does. And I once had a dear little dog of my own,
but he was taken from me. Now, mind what I say; for I
will be obeyed; at any rate until I have to swear to
the contrary, which is never carried out by the ladies
nowadays. My dear dear, I shall be afraid to look at
you. They tell me you are so different from what you
were. And I get long wrinkles up and down my forehead,
if I ever allow myself to think of it; and though I try
not to do it, it will come back again. But never mind;
you will be as strong as ever when you have a good kiss
from
“Your own Kitty.”
“Well, I call that something like a true love-letter;” my Aunt Parslow
said, when she had contrived almost to compel me to show it to her,
which I did not feel sure that I had any right to do. “That’s a true
woman, though I never saw her. She thinks of you ten times as much as
of herself; and no man can pretend to say that he repays it; even when
he happens to deserve it; which has never happened to any gentleman
I knew. You write, and you talk, and you go on with fine words, till
people who listen to you believe, that you mean to give up your own
ways altogether. And perhaps you do believe it, at the time, for you
never know your own minds at all. But about three days of it—that’s all
there is. I know it from friends of my own; though, thank God, I had
sense enough never to try it myself. And then it is, ‘Mary, could you
fill my pipe? It would be so sweet, dear, if you did it!’ Or—‘Louisa, I
must have left my handkerchief upstairs. Did you happen to notice where
I put it, dear?’ And she is fool enough to run for it, and kisses him
on the bottom step; and her life is a treadmill afterwards. Your Kitty
is quite of that sort, mind. I can see it in every word she writes.”
“Well, Aunt Parslow, and you would have been the same, if any gentleman
had had the luck to offer you upon his altar.”
“I believe I should,” she answered, with a snap at first; and then she
smiled slowly, and said, “No doubt I should, Kit. But try to be no
worse than you can help with her.”
If anything can rouse a lover’s indignation—and there are too many
things that do so—such a calm assumption of his levity and ferocity
is the first to set it boiling. “What are you thinking of?” I asked,
without even adding, “Aunt Parslow.”
“I am pleased to see you in that state of mind,” she continued; when
gratitude alone preserved me, without even a half-glance at her twenty
thousand pounds, from the murderous speech that was on my tongue. “But
you are very young, Kit. You will come to know better, when you have
had enough of this sweet Kitty. Enough very soon becomes too much. And
then what do you do? You neglect them, and think that you are very good
indeed, if you do no worse.”
Miss Parslow was not at all a spiteful woman; even too much the other
way, if that can be. And of such things she could have no experience,
because she had never risked it. But being deeply hurt, I said—“You
know best.”
She turned back into the house, with all her dogs at her heels; for
none of them cared a bit for the air of heaven, in comparison with
their own food and footstools. And I rather hoped that she would come
out, and say—“You have been very rude to me; get you back to Sunbury.”
Being in a fine large frame of mind—though the frame was too large for
its contents, I trow—what did I do, but pull out my Kitty’s letter, and
begin it all again; just as if every word of it were not in my heart
already? But it adds sometimes to the satisfaction of the heart, to be
assured once more by the eyes and brain, that they knew what they were
doing, when they brought it the good news.
The valley of the Mole was very lovely, in this flush of the fair
Spring-tide. Bend after bend, bud after bud, tint upon tint, all as
soft to the eye as the sense of them is to the spirit within; with the
twinkle of the sun stealing through them shyly, as a youth, in the
morning of his love, quivers as he glances at the beauty of his maiden.
All these delights double their enchantment to the weak, as the lights
of heaven multiply, when the eyes are full of tears.
_Jupiter_ (who was the greatest light, at least of the earth, to Miss
Parslow) ran up and sniffed at me, and said “Look out!” as clearly
as the dog of a most observant and genial writer has learned to say
it—up to the last advices. And after him came his mistress, no longer
didactic, but deprecative. The beauty of woman is that they change so
rapidly. Who does not love a Kaleidoscope?
“I have been thinking over your affairs,” she said, that she might seem
consistent; “and I find my first opinion quite confirmed. The moment I
knew what your condition was, I said—as you must remember, Kit—‘There
is only one thing to do, and the sooner we get it done the better.’ I
will not place myself under any obligation to Mr. Henderson, though I
feel that he has behaved very well, in not coming over to bother me.
I have sent down and ordered the fly with a pole—I forget what they
call it, I daresay you know—and I have ordered the green room to be got
ready. She must not think at all of her complexion in the glass. It
will be as right as ever, when she gets downstairs.”
“I have no idea what you mean, Aunt Parslow. But you must not be put
out, because I was always slow.”
“And they talk of the masculine mind! Oh dear, any girl of your age
would have known in a second. There is such a place as Leatherhead.
Isn’t there now?”
“Beyond a doubt. And you the first lady in it.”
“Very well. And there is such a place as Sunbury, and a road between
them, though not at all a good one. Well then, at Leatherhead there
is a young man, crotchety, grumpy, whatever you like to call him, but
horribly stubborn, and possessed with one idea. And at Sunbury there is
a young lady to be found, very little better, I daresay, and possessed
with the same idea, only upside down, as women are supposed to see
everything. They have got it into their stupid heads, that they cannot
live without one another. It would cost more to take the young man to
her, and perhaps he would never come back again. It is cheaper to fetch
the young lady to him; though it can’t he done under a guinea. And the
fly with two horses will start in half an hour.”
I told her she was the best woman in the world; and she answered that
I was a hypocrite, yet seemed pleased with my hypocrisy. Then we had a
debate whether Kitty would come, in which I maintained the negative,
for the sake of being convinced, not against my will.
“You are a perfect stupe,” said my aunt, with sound judgment; “you
don’t know what a woman is, half so well as _Jupiter_. Not to talk of
affection, or any of that stuff, a woman thinks ten times as much as
a man does of the wickedness of wasting money. If I went myself, she
would think I came for a drive, and her conscience would be easy. If I
sent one horse, she would hesitate a great deal, if she did not want
to come. But when she sees two horses and an empty carriage, do you
think she would let the man get all the money for nothing? It would
take four horses going the other way, to prevent her jumping in and
saying, ‘Well, I suppose I must.’ I shall write her a very pretty note,
of course. You had better not be well enough to send anything but your
love.”
I was only afraid that Uncle Corny might take it as rather a slur upon
him, to have his new visitor stolen like this. But Miss Parslow (who
was always extremely desirous to have her own way, when her mind was
made up) declared that she would make that all right with him. And so
she did by reasoning which I did not try to penetrate, and which she
put vaguely in her note to him. For it was something about clothing,
and deficiency of wardrobe, which men cannot understand, and are
impressed with readily, when the duty of paying for it falls on some
one else.
“Not that I intend to pay,” said Miss Parslow, in confidence to me,
though my uncle was led by her letter to a contrary conclusion; “but my
credit is good in Leatherhead. I shall get a few things of a becoming
style and tone for her, and have the bill made out to Professor
Fairthorn. Messrs. Flounce and Furbelow may have only got one window,
but they get their goods direct from Paris; and I see from their
circular they expect a large consignment of very chaste articles, and
the latest mode, to-morrow. It will be most fatiguing at my time of
life. But if I like the girl, as I know I shall, I can scarcely refuse
her the benefit of my judgment.”
“I think I shall go down the hill a little way, and see what they have
got in the window now,” I answered, for the two horses now had been
gone some four hours; “and then I shall know the old stuff, if they
attempt to mix it with the latest mode. You can scarcely be too sharp
in these little places. It is not that they want to cheat anybody, and
they would rather not do it to a native. But I should just like to see
how much they have got now.”
“Ah, there is a fine view from the pavement there. You can see right
into Middlesex, and even Berkshire, I am told, when the day is
unusually fine. But I never knew it fine enough to see five miles. You
might as well go and play with the dogs, my dear.”
To play with the dogs was very well in its way, and had lightened many
a listless hour, when the body was slack for its to and fro of action,
and the mind could take no food, except as a dog bites grass. Then the
tricks of the doggies, their sprightly flashing eyes, and perception
of one’s meaning almost before it knew itself, as well as their good
nature and enjoyment of a joke, and readiness to time their wits by
the slower pulse of mine—take it as I would or might, here was always
something to teach me that one is not every one.
But I could not see the beauty of this lesson now. Selfish love had
got me by the button-hole, and there never is much humour in the tale
he tells. It is all about himself, and the celestial one who sent him;
and he is so much in earnest that he cannot bear a laugh. Even the
crinolines in the little narrow window of Messrs. Flounce and Co.,
where they had to hang alternate, one high and one low, not to poke
each other’s ribs, although they reminded me of what I had seen in
church, suggested it without a single smile to follow; for my mind,
in the reverence of love, was able to people them with the sacred
form inside. And yet at any other time I must have laughed, recalling
as it did the ingenuity of ladies, who contrived in our narrow pews
to reconcile their worship of a Higher Power with that of their own
frocks. And the ladies who now go limp may be glad—when fashion comes
round in its cycle—to remember how their mothers made the best of it.
Each lady alternate stood on a high hassock, each lady intermediate
upon the church boards; and so their cages underlapped or overlapped
each other; and when it came to kneeling one could hear them all
contract. There were quite as clever women then in balloons, as those
who end in serpents now.
Vainly I looked down the hill, and vainly back at the crinolines. The
only way to get the thing desired is to leave off hoping for it. When
the sun was gone, and the silver mist was gliding like a slow-worm up
the vale, and all the good people of Leatherhead had lit their pipes
and come out to talk, I went back slowly to Valley-view, with many a
futile turn of head, and ears too ready to be deceived. But the only
wheels I heard were those of the fishmonger’s cart going quite the
wrong way, for I knew that he had been with a middle cut of salmon to
the hospitable gate of Miss Parslow.
“You had better go to sleep. Here is Betty, nearly wild,” my aunt cried
as she pushed me in; “that blessed butcher has only just sent the lamb,
and the boy let it fall in the middle of the road. I hope to goodness
she won’t come for two hours. If she does, she will want sandwiches;
and there is nothing in the house to make them of. Go and lie down,
Kit; don’t you see you are in the way? What a lucky thing I told the
man to rest the horses for at least two hours at the _Flowerpot_. When
he gets into the tap, he is pretty sure to make it four. You look as
white as a ghost, poor boy! Bother that love, it spoils everybody’s
dinner! I haven’t got a bit of appetite myself; and the first bit of
salmon for the season, except one! Go in, get in; lie down there and
roll. Why, you couldn’t even tell where to find the mint!”
This was all the sympathy I got in my distress; and when she had poked
me into the little room, or lobby, with a horsehair sofa, where to roll
meant to roll off, she locked me up, as if I had been a pot of jam;
and all I could hear was the rattle of the dripping-pan, or the clink
of the plates in the warmer. It was worse than useless to repine; so I
turned my back to everything and went to sleep.
In sleep, as it has been said of old, the fairest and sweetest gifts
of heaven descend upon helpless mortals. Then alone is a man devoid of
harm, and gone back to his innocence, and the peopling of his mind is
not an array of greed and selfishness. Then only is he far away from
malice, and corrupting care, and small impatience of the wrongs (which
only sting, when they strike himself), and bitter sense of having
failed through the jealousy of others. And only then—if his angel still
returns, though seared and scouted—does he know the taste of simple
joys, and smile the smile of childhood. What wonder, then, that his
Father comes, with returning love to him, while he sleeps?
Then if the greatest gift of God to man, that he can see and feel
while in this lower world of life, is that which was the first
vouchsafed,—the love of one, who thinks and tries to make him nobler
than herself—though she generally fails in that—how can it come more
gently to him than as it came, the first time of all, when he has been
cast into deep sleep?
It seemed to be no time for words, and even thoughts found little room.
Without a whisper or a thought, my cheeks were wet with loving tears,
and gentle sobs came to my heart, and faithful hands were locked in
mine. A sweeter dream never came from heaven; and if sleep were always
so endowed, it would be well to sleep for ever.