LUCY was not called on to write any more formal invitations to Mr.
Talboys. Her uncle used merely to say to her: “Talboys dines with us
to-day.” She made no remark; she respected her uncle's preference;
besides--the pony! Of these trios Mr. Fountain was the true soul. He
had to blow the coals of conversation right and left. It is very good
of me not to compare him to the Tropic between two frigid zones. At
first he took his nap as usual; for he said to himself: “Now I have
started them they can go on.” Besides, he had seen pictures in the
shop windows of an old fellow dozing and then the young ones
“popping.”
Dozing off with this idea uppermost, he used to wake with his eyes
shut and his ears wide open; but it was to hear drowsy monosyllables
dropping out at intervals like minute-guns, or to find Lucy gone and
Talboys reading the coals. Then the schemer sighed, and took to strong
coffee soon after dinner, and gave up his nap, and its loss impaired
his temper the rest of the evening.
He indemnified himself for these sleepless dinners by asking David
Dodd and his sister to tea thrice a week on the off-nights; this
joyous pair amused the old gentleman, and he was not the man to deny
himself a pleasure without a powerful motive.
“What, again so soon?” hazarded Lucy, one day that he bade her invite
them. “I hardly know how to word my invitation; I have exhausted the
forms.”
“If you say another word, I'll make them come every night. Am I to
have no amusement?” he added, in a deep tone of reproach; “they make
me laugh.”
“Ah! I forgot; forgive me.”
“Little hypocrite; don't they you too, pray? Why, you are as dull as
ditchwater the other evenings.”
“Me, dear, dull with you?”
“Yes, Miss Crocodile, dull with a pattern uncle and his friend--and
your admirer.” He watched her to see how she would take this last
word. Catch her taking it at all. “I am never dull with you, dear
uncle,” said she; “but a third person, however estimable, is a certain
restraint, and when that person is not very lively--” Here the
explanation came quietly to an untimely end, like those old tunes that
finish in the middle or thereabouts.
“But that is the very thing; what do I ask them for to-night but to
thaw Talboys?”
“To thaw Talboys? he! he!”
Lucy seemed so tickled by this expression that the old gentleman was
sorry he had used it.
“I mean, they will make him laugh.” Then, to turn it off, he said
hastily, “And don't forget the fiddle, Lucy.”
“Oh, yes, dear, please let me forget that, and then perhaps they may
forget to bring it.”
“Why, you pressed him to bring it; I heard you.”
“Did I?” said Lucy, ruefully.
“I am sure I thought you were mad after a fiddle, you seconded Eve so
warmly; so that was only your extravagant politeness after all. I am
glad you are caught. I like a fiddle, so there is no harm done.”
Yes, reader, you have hit it. Eve, who openly quizzed her brother, but
secretly adored him, and loved to display all his accomplishments, had
egged on Mr. Fountain to ask David to bring his violin next time. Lucy
had shivered internally. “Now, of all the screeching, whining things
that I dislike, a violin!”--and thus thinking, gushed out, “Oh, pray
do, Mr. Dodd,” with a gentle warmth that settled the matter and
imposed on all around.
This evening, then, the Dodds came to tea.
They found Lucy alone in the drawing-room, and Eve engaged her
directly in sprightly conversation, into which they soon drew David,
and, interchanging a secret signal, plied him with a few artful
questions, and--launched him. But the one sketch I gave of his manner
and matter must serve again and again. Were I to retail to the reader
all the droll, the spirited, the exciting things he told his hearers,
there would be no room for my own little story; and we are all so
egotistical! Suffice it to say, the living book of travels was
inexhaustible; his observation and memory were really marvelous, and
his enthusiasm, coupled with his accuracy of detail, had still the
power to inthrall his hearers.
“Mr. Dodd,” said Lucy, “now I see why Eastern kings have a
story-teller always about them--a live story-teller. Would not you
have one, Miss Dodd, if you were Queen of Persia?”
“Me? I'd have a couple--one to make me laugh; one miserable.”
“One would be enough if his resources were equal to your brother's.
Pray go on, Mr. Dodd. It was madness to interrupt you with small
talk.”
David hung his head for a moment, then lifted it with a smile, and
sailed in the spirit into the China seas, and there told them how the
Chinamen used to slip on board his ship and steal with supernatural
dexterity, and the sailors catch them by the tails, which they
observing, came ever with their tails soaped like pigs at a village
feast; and how some foolhardy sailors would venture into the town at
the risk of their lives; and how one day they had to run for it, and
when they got to the shore their boat was stolen, and they had to
'bout ship and fight it out, and one fellow who knew the natives
had loaded the sailors' guns with currant jelly. Make
ready--present--fire! In a moment the troops of the Celestial Empire
smarted, and were spattered with seeming gore, and fled yelling.
Then he told how a poor comrade of his was nabbed and clapped in
prison, and his hands and feet were to be cut off at sunrise; himself
at noon. It was midnight, and strict orders from the quarterdeck had
been issued that no man should leave the ship: what was to be done? It
was a moonlight night. They met, silent as death, between
decks--daren't speak above a whisper, for fear the officers should
hear them. His messmate was crying like a child. One proposed one
thing, one another; but it was all nonsense, and we knew it was, and
at sunrise poor Tom must die.
At last up jumps one fellow, and cries, “Messmates, I've got it; Tom
isn't dead yet.”
This was the moment Mr. Fountain and Mr. Talboys chose for coming into
the drawing-room, of course. Mr. Fountain, with a shade of hesitation
and awkwardness, introduced the Dodds to Mr. Talboys: he bowed a
little stiffly, and there was a pause. Eve could not repress a little
movement of nervous impatience. “David is telling us one of his
nonsensical stories, sir,” said she to Mr. Fountain, “and it is so
interesting; go on, David.”
“Well, but,” said David, modestly, “it isn't everybody that likes
these sea-yarns as you do, Eve. No, I'll belay, and let my betters get
a word in now.”
“You are more merciful than most story-tellers, sir,” said Talboys.
Eve tossed her head and looked at Lucy, who with a word could have the
story go on again. That young lady's face expressed general
complacency, politeness, and _tout m'est egal._ Eve could have
beat her for not taking David's part. “Doubleface!” thought she. She
then devoted herself with the sly determination of her sex to trotting
David out and making him the principal figure in spite of the
new-corner.
But, as fast as she heated him, Talboys cooled him. We are all great
at something or other, small or great. Talboys was a first-rate
freezer. He was one of those men who cannot shine, but can eclipse.
They darken all but a vain man by casting a dark shadow of trite
sentences on each luminary. The vain man insults them directly, and so
gets rid of them.
Talboys kept coming across honest enthusiastic David with little
remarks, each skillfully discordant with the rising sentiment. Was he
droll, Talboys did a bit of polite gravity on him; was he warm in
praise of some gallant action, chill irony trickled on him from T.
His flashes of romance were extinguished by neat little dicta,
embodying sordid and false, but current views of life. The gauze wings
of eloquence, unsteeled by vanity, will not bear this repeated dabbing
with prose glue, so David collapsed and Talboys conquered--“spell”
benumbed “charm.” The sea-wizard yielded to the petrifier, and “could
no more,” as the poets say. Talboys smiled superior. But, as his art
was a purely destructive one, it ended with its victim; not having an
idea of his own in his skull, the commentator, in silencing his text,
silenced himself and brought the society to a standstill. Eve sat with
flashing eyes; Lucy's twinkled with sly fun: this made Eve angrier.
She tried another tack.
“You asked David to bring his fiddle,” said she, sharply, “but I
suppose now--”
“Has he brought it?” asked Mr. Fountain, eagerly.
“Yes, he has; I made him” (with a glance of defiance at Talboys).
Mr. Fountain rang the bell directly and sent for the fiddle. It came.
David took it and tuned it, and made it discourse. Lucy leaned a
little back in her chair, wore her “_tout m'est egal_ face,” and
Eve watched her like a cat. First her eyes opened with a mild
astonishment, then her lips parted in a smile; after a while a faint
color came and went, and her eyes deepened and deepened in color, and
glistened with the dewy light of sensibility.
A fiddle wrought this, or rather genius, in whose hand a jews-harp is
the lyre of Orpheus, a fiddle the harp of David, a chisel a hewer of
heroic forms, a brush or a pen the scepter of souls, and, alas! a nail
a picklock.
Inside every fiddle is a soul, but a coy one. The nine hundred and
ninety-nine never win it. They play rapid tunes, but the soul of
beautiful gayety is not there; slow tunes, very slow ones, wherein the
spirit of whining is mighty, but the sweet soul of pathos is absent;
doleful, not nice and tearful. Then comes the Heaven-born fiddler,*
who can make himself cry with his own fiddle. David had a touch of
this witchcraft. Though a sound musician and reasonably master of his
instrument, he could not fly in a second up and down it, tickling the
fingerboard and scratching the strings without an atom of tone, as the
mechanical monkeys do that boobies call fine players.
* This is a definition of the Heaven-born fiddler by Pate
Bailey, a gypsy tinker and celestial violinist. Being asked
for a test of proficiency on that instrument, he replied
that no man is a fiddler “till he can gar himsel greet wi a
feddle.”
“Great Orpheus played so well he moved Old Nick,
But these move nothing but their fiddlestick.” *
* See how unjust satire is! Don't they move their finger-
nails?
But he could make you laugh and crow with his fiddle, and could make
you jump up, aetat. 60, and snap your fingers at old age and
propriety, and propose a jig to two bishops and one master of the
rolls, and, they declining, pity them without a shade of anger, and
substitute three chairs; then sit unabashed and smiling at the past;
and the next minute he could make you cry, or near it. In a word he
could evoke the soul of that wonderful wooden shell, and bid it
discourse with the souls and hearts of his hearers.
Meantime Lucy Fountain's face would have interested a subtle student
of her sex.
Her sensibility to music was great, and the feeling strains stole into
her nature, and stirred the treasures of the deep to the surface. Eve,
a keen if not a profound observer, was struck by the rising beauty of
this countenance, over which so many moods chased one another. She
said to herself: “Well, David is right, after all; she is a lovely
girl. Her features are nothing out of the way. Her nose is neither one
thing nor the other, but her expression is beautiful. None of your
wooden faces for me. And, dear heart, how her neck rises! La! how her
color comes and goes! Well, I do love the fiddle myself dearly; and
now, if her eyes are not brimming; I could kiss her! La! David,” cried
she, bursting the bounds of silence, “that is enough of the tune the
old cow died of; take and play something to keep our hearts up--do.”
Eve's good-humor and mirth were restored by David's success, and now
nothing would serve her turn but a duet, pianoforte and violin. Miss
Fountain objected, “Why spoil the violin?” David objected too, “I had
hoped to hear the piano-forte, and how can I with a fiddle sounding
under my chin?” Eve overruled both peremptorily.
“Well, Miss Dodd, what shall we select? But it does not matter; I feel
sure Mr. Dodd can play _a livre ouvert.”_
“Not he,” said Eve, hypocritically, being secretly convinced he could.
“Can you play 'a leevre ouvert,' David?”
“Who is it by, Miss Fountain?” Lucy never moved a muscle.
After a rummage a duet was found that looked promising, and the
performance began. In the middle David stopped.
“Ha! ha! David's broke down,” shrieked Eve, concealing her uneasiness
under fictitious gayety. “I thought he would.”
“I beg your pardon,” explained David to Miss Fountain, “but you are
out of time.”
“Am I?” said Lucy, composedly.
“And have been, more or less, all through.”
“David, you forget yourself.”
“No, no; set me right, by all means, Mr. Dodd. I am not a hardened
offender.”
“Is it not just possible the violin may be the instrument that is out
of time?” suggested Talboys, insidiously.
“No,” said David, simply, “I was right enough.”
“Let us try again, Mr. Dodd. Play me a few bars first in exact time.
Thank you. Now.”
“All went merry as a marriage bell” for a page and a half; then David,
fiddling away, cried out, “You are getting too fast; 'ri tum tiddy,
iddy ri tum ti;” then, by stamping and accenting very strongly, he
kept the piano from overflowing its bounds. The piece ended. Eve
rubbed her hands. “Now you'll catch it, Mr. David!”
“I am afraid I gave you a great deal of trouble, Mr. Dodd.”
_“En revanche,_ you gave us a great deal of pleasure,” put in Mr.
Talboys.
Lucy turned her head and smiled graciously. “But piano-forte players
play so much by themselves, they really forget the awful importance of
time.”
“I profit by your confession that they do sometimes play by
themselves,” said Mr. Talboys. “Be merciful, and let us hear you by
yourself.”' Eve turned as red as fire.
David backed the request sincerely.
Lucy played a piece composed expressly for the piano by a pianist of
the day. David sat on her left hand and watched intently how she did
it.
When it was over, Talboys did a bit of rapture; Eve another.
“That is playing.”
“I would not have believed it if I had not seen it done,” said David.
“Eve, you should have seen her beautiful fingers thread in and out
among the keys; it was like white fire dancing; and as for her hand,
it is not troubled with joints like ours, I should say.”
“The music, Mr. Dodd,” said Lucy, severely.
“Oh, the music! Well, I could hardly take on me to say. You see I
heard it by the eye, and that was all in its favor; but I should say
the music wasn't worth a button.”
“David!”
“How you run off with one's words, Eve! I mean, played by anybody but
her. Why, what was it, when you come to think? Up and down the gamut,
and then down and up. No more sense in it than _a b c_--a
scramble to the main-masthead for nothing, and back to no good. I'd as
lief see you play on the table, Miss Fountain.”
“Poor Moscheles!” said Lucy, dryly.
“Revenge is in your power,” said Talboys; “play no more; punish us all
for this one heretic.”
Lucy reflected a moment; she then took from the canterbury a thick old
book. “This was my mother's. Her taste was pure in music, as in
everything. I shall be sorry if you do not _all_ like this,”
added she, softly.
It was an old mass; full, magnificent chords in long succession,
strung together on a clear but delicate melody. She played it to
perfection: her lovely hands seemed to grasp the chords. No fumbling
in the base; no gelatinizing in the treble. Her touch, firm and
masterly, yet feminine, evoked the soul of her instrument, as David
had of his, and she thought of her mother as she played. These were
those golden strains from which all mortal dross seems purged. Hearing
them so played, you could not realize that he who writ them had ever
eaten, drunk, smoked, snuffed, and hated the composer next door. She
who played them felt their majesty and purity. She lifted her beaming
eye to heaven as she played, and the color receded from her cheek; and
when her enchantment ended she was silent, and all were silent, and
their ears ached for the departed charm.
Then she looked round a mute inquiry.
Talboys applauded loudly.
But the tear stood in David's eye, and he said nothing.
“Well, David,” said Eve, reproachfully, “I'm sure if that does not
please you--”
“Please me,” cried David, a little fretfully; “more shame for me if it
does not. Please is not the word. It is angel music, I call it--ah!”
“Well, you need not break your heart for that: he is going to cry--ha!
ha!”
“I'm no such thing,” cried David, indignantly, and blew his
nose--promptly, with a vague air of explanation and defiance.
But why the male of my species blows its nose to hide its sensibility
a deeper than I must decide.
Mr. Talboys for some time had not been at his ease. He had been
playing too, and an instrument he hated--second fiddle. He rose and
joined Mr. Fountain, who was sitting half awake on a distant sofa.
“Aha!” thought Eve, exulting, “we have driven him away.”
Judge her mortification when Lucy, after shutting the piano, joined
her uncle and Mr. Talboys. Eve whispered David: “Gone to smooth him
down: the high and mighty gentleman wasn't made enough of.”
“Every one in their turn,” said David, calmly; “that is manners. Look!
it is the old gentleman she is being kind to. She could not be unkind
to anyone, however.”
Eve put her lips to David's ear: “She will be unkind to you if you are
ever mad enough to let her see what I see,” said she, in a cutting
whisper.
“What do you see? More than there is to see, I'll wager,” said David,
looking down.
“Ah! that is the way with young men, the moment they take a fancy;
their sister is nothing to them, their best friend loses their
confidence.”
“Don't ye say that, Eve--now don't say that!”
“No, no, David, never mind me. I am cross. And if you saw a sore heart
in store for anyone you had a regard for, wouldn't you be cross? Young
men are so stupid, they can't read a girl no more than Hebrew. If she
is civil and affable to them, oh, they are the man directly, when,
instead of that, if it was so, she would more likely be shy and half
afraid to come near them. David, you are in a fool's paradise. In
company, and even in flirtation, all sorts meet and part again; but it
isn't so with marriage. There 'it is beasts of a kind that in one are
joined, and birds of a feather that came together.' Like to like,
David. She is a fine lady and she will marry a fine gentleman, and
nothing else, with a large income. If she knew what has been in your
head this month past, she would open her eyes and ask if the man was
mad.”
“She has a right to look down on me, I know,” murmured David, humbly;
“but” (his eye glowing with sudden rapture) “she doesn't--she
doesn't.”
“Look down on you! You are better company than she is, or anyone she
can get in this-out-of-the-way place; it is her interest to be civil
to you. I am too hard upon her. She is a lady--a perfect lady--and
that is why she is above giving herself airs. No, David, she is not
the one to treat us with disrespect, if we don't forget ourselves. But
if ever you let her see that you are in love with her, you will get an
affront that will make your cheek burn and my heart smart--so I tell
you.”
“Hush! I never told you I was in love with her.”
“Never told me? Never told me? Who asked you to tell me? I have eyes,
if you have none.”
“Eve,” said David imploringly, “I don't hear of any lover that she
has. Do you?”
“No,” said Eve carelessly. “But who knows? She passes half the year a
hundred miles from this, and there are young men everywhere. If she
was a milkmaid, they'd turn to look at her with such a face and figure
as that, much more a young lady with every grace and every charm. She
has more than one after her that we never see, take my word.”
Eve had no sooner said this than she regretted it, for David's face
quivered, and he sighed like one trying to recover his breath after a
terrible blow.
What made this and the succeeding conversation the more trying and
peculiar was, that the presence of other persons in the room, though
at a considerable distance, compelled both brother and sister, though
anything but calm, to speak _sotto voce._ But in the history of
mankind more strange and incongruous matter has been dealt with in an
undertone, and with artificial and forced calmness.
“My poor David!” said Eve sorrowfully; “you who used to be so proud,
so high-spirited, be a man! Don't throw away such a treasure as your
affection. For my sake, dear David, your sister's sake, who does love
you so very, very dearly!”
“And I love you, Eve. Thank you. It was hard lines. Ah! But it is
wholesome, no doubt, like most bitters. Yes. Thank you, Eve. I do
admire her v-very much,” and his voice faltered a little. “But I am a
man for all that, and I'll stand to my own words. I'll never be any
woman's slave.”
“That is right, David.”
“I will not give hot for cold, nor my heart for a smile
or two. I can't help admiring her, and I do hope she will
be--happy--ah!--whoever she fancies. But, if I am never to command
her, I won't carry a willow at my mast-head, and drift away from
reason and manhood, and my duty to you, and mother, and myself.”
“Ah! David, if you could see how noble you look now. Is it a promise,
David? for I know you will keep your word if once you pass it.”
“There is my hand on it, Eve.”
The brother and sister grasped hands, and when David was about to
withdraw his, Eve's soft but vigorous little hand closed tighter and
kept it firmer, and so they sat in silence.
“Eve.”
“My dear!”
“Now don't you be cross.”
“No, dear. Eve is sad, not cross; what is it?
“Well, Eve--dear Eve.”
“Don't be afraid to speak your mind to me--why should you?”
“Well, then, Eve, now, if she had not some little kindness for me,
would she be so pleased with these thundering yarns I keep spinning
her, as old as Adam, and as stale as bilge-water? You that are so
keen, how comes it you don't notice her eyes at these times? I feel
them shine on me like a couple of suns. They would make a statue pay
the yarn out. Who ever fancied my chat as she does?”
“David,” said Eve, quietly, “I have thought of all this; but I am
convinced now there is nothing in it. You see, David, mother and I are
used to your yarns, and so we take them as a matter of course; but the
real fact is, they are very interesting and very enticing, and you
tell them like a book. You came all fresh to this lady, and, as she is
very quick, she had the wit to see the merit of your descriptions
directly. I can see it myself _now._ All young women like to be
amused, David, and, above all, _excited;_ and your stories are
very exciting; that is the charm; that is what makes her eyes fire;
but if that puppy there, or that book-shelf yonder, could tell her
your stories, she would look at either the puppy or the book-stand
with just the same eyes she looks on you with, my poor David.”
“Don't say so, Eve. Let me think there is some little feeling for me
inside those sweet eyes, that look so kind on me--”
“And on me, and on everybody. It is her manner. I tell you she is so
to all the world. She isn't the first I've met. Trust me to read a
woman, David; what can you know?”
“I know nothing; but they tell me you can fathom one another better
than any man ever could,” said David, sorrowfully.
“'David, just now you were telling as interesting a story as ever was.
You had just got to the thrilling part.”
“Oh, had I? What was I saying?”
“I can't tell you to the very word; I am not your sweetheart any more
than she is; but one of the sailors was in danger of his life, and so
on. You never told me the story before; I was not worth it. Well, just
then does not that affected puppy choose his time to come meandering
in?”
“Puppy! I call him a fine gentleman.”
“Well, there isn't so much odds. In he comes; your story is broken off
directly. Does she care? No, she has got one of her own set; he is not
a very bright one; he is next door to a fool. No matter; before he
came, to judge by her crocodile eyes, she was hot after your story;
the moment he did come, she didn't care a pin for you _nor_ your
story. I gave her more than one opening to bring it on again; not she.
I tell you, you are nothing but a _pass_ time;* you suit her turn
so long as none of her own set are to be had. If she would leave you
for such a jackanapes as that, what would she do for a real gentleman?
such a man as she is a woman, for instance, and as if there weren't
plenty such in her own set--oh, you goose!”
* I write this word as the lady thought proper to pronounce
it.
David interrupted her. “I have been a vain fool, and it is lucky no
one has seen it but you,” and he hid his face in his hands a moment;
then, suddenly remembering where he was, and that this was an attitude
to attract attention, he tried to laugh--a piteous effort; then he
ground his teeth and said: “Let us go home. All I want now is to get
out of the house. It would have been better for me if I had never set
foot in it.”
“Hush! be calm, David, for Heaven's sake. I am only waiting to catch
her eye, and then we'll bid them good-evening.”
“Very well, I'll wait”; and David fixed his eyes sadly and doggedly on
the ground. “I won't look at her if I can help it,” said he,
resolutely, but very sadly, and turned his head away.
“Now, David,” whispered Eve.
David rose mechanically and moved with his sister toward the other
group. Miss Fountain turned at their approach. Somewhat to David's
surprise, Eve retreated as quickly as she had advanced.
“We are to stay.”
“What for?”
“She made me a signal.”
“Not that I saw,” said David, incredulously.
“What! didn't you see her give me a look?”
“Yes, I did. But what has that to do with it?”
“That look was as much as to say, Please stay a little longer; I have
something to say to you.”
“Good Heavens!”
“I think it is about a bonnet, David. I asked her to put me in the way
of getting one made like hers. She does wear heavenly bonnets.”
“Ay. I did well to listen to you, Eve; you see I can't even read her
face, much less her heart. I saw her look up, but that was all. How is
a poor fellow to make out such craft as these, that can signal one
another a whole page with a flash of the eye? Ah!”
“There, David, he is going. Was I right?”
Mr. Talboys was, in fact, taking leave of Miss Fountain. The old
gentleman convoyed his friend. As the door closed on them Miss
Fountain's face seemed to catch fire. Her sweet complacency gave way
to a half-joyous, half-irritated small energy. She came gliding
swiftly, though not hurriedly, up to Eve. “Thank you for seeing.” Then
she settled softly and gradually on an ottoman, saying, “Now, Mr.
Dodd.”
David looked puzzled. “What is it?” and he turned to his interpreter,
Eve.
But it was Lucy who replied: “'His messmate was crying like a child.
At sunrise poor Tom must die. Then up rose one fellow' (we have not
any idea who one fellow means in these narratives--have we, Miss
Dodd?) 'and cried, “I have it, messmates. Tom isn't dead yet.”' Now,
Mr. Dodd, between that sentence and the one that is to follow all that
has happened in this room was a hideous dream. On that understanding
we have put up with it. It is now happily dispersed, and we--go ahead
again.”
“I see, Eve, she thinks she would like some more of that China yarn.”
“Her sentiments are not so tame. She longs for it, thirsts for it, and
must and will have it--if you will be so very obliging, Mr. Dodd.” The
contrast between all this singular vivacity of Miss Fountain and the
sudden return to her native character and manner in the last sentence
struck the sister as very droll--seemed to the brother so winning,
that, scarcely master of himself, he burst out: “You shan't ask me
twice for that, or anything I can give you;” and it was with burning
cheeks and happy eyes he resumed his tale of bold adventure and skill
on one side, of numbers, danger and difficulty on the other. He told
it now like one inspired, and both the young ladies hung panting and
glowing on his words.
David and Eve went home together.
David was in a triumphant state, but waited for Eve to congratulate
him. Eve was silent.
At last David could refrain no longer. “Why, you say nothing.”
“No. Common sense is too good to be wasted; don't go so fast.”
“No. There--I heave to for convoy to close up. Would it be wasted on
me? ha! ha!”
“To-night. There you go pelting on again.”
“Eve, I can't help it. I feel all canvas, with a cargo of angels'
feathers and sunshine for ballast.”
“Moonshine.”
“Sun, moon, and stars, and all that is bright by night or day. I'll
tell you what to do; you keep your head free, and come on under easy
sail; I'll stand across your bows with every rag set and drawing, so
then I shall be always within hail.”
This sober-minded maneuver was actually carried out. The little
corvette sailed steadily down the middle of the lane; the great
merchantman went pitching and rolling across her bows; thus they kept
together, though their rates of sailing were so different.
Merry Eve never laughed once, but she smiled, and then sighed.
David did not heed her. All of a moment his heart vented itself in a
sea-ditty so loud, and clear, and mellow, that windows opened, and out
came nightcapped heads to hear him carol the lusty stave, making night
jolly.
Meantime, the weather being balmy, Mr. Fountain had walked slowly with
Mr. Talboys in another direction. Mr. Talboys inquired, “Who were
these people?”
“Oh, only two humble neighbors,” was the reply.
“I never met them anywhere. They are received in the neighborhood?”
“Not in society, of course.”
“I don't understand you. Have not I just met them here?”
“That is not the way to put it,” said the old gentleman, a little
confused. “You did not meet them; you did me and my niece the honor to
dine with us, and the Dodds dropped in to tea--quite another matter.”
“Oh, is it?”
“Is it not? I see you have been so long out of England you have
forgotten these little distinctions; society would go to the deuce
without them. We ask our friends, and persons of our own class, to
dinner, but we ask who we like to tea in this county. Don't you like
her? She is the prettiest girl in the village.”
“Pretty and pert.”
“Ha! ha! that is true. She is saucy enough, and amusing in
proportion.”
“It is the man I alluded to.”
“What, David? ay, a very worthy lad. He is a downright modest,
well-informed young man.”
“I don't doubt his general merits, but let me ask you a serious
question: his evident admiration of Miss Fountain?”
“His ad-mi-ration of Miss Fountain?”
“Is it agreeable to you?”
“It is a matter of consummate indifference to me.”
“But not, I think, to her. She showed a submission to the cub's
impertinence, and a desire to please instead of putting him down, that
made me suspect. Do you often ask Mr. Dodd--what a name!--to tea?”
“My dear friend, I see that, with all your accomplishments, you have
something to learn. You want insight into female character. Now I, who
must go to school to you on most points, can be of use to you here.”
Then, seeing that Talboys was mortified at being told thus gently
there was a department of learning he had not fathomed, he added: “At
all events, I can interpret my own niece to you. I have known her much
longer than you have.”
Mr. Talboys requested the interpreter to explain the pleasure his
niece took in Mr. Dodd's fiddle.
“Part politeness, part sham. Why, she wanted not to ask them this
evening, the fiddle especially. I'll give you the clue to Lucy; she is
a female Chesterfield, and the droll thing is she is polite at heart
as well. Takes it from her mother: she was something between an angel
and a duchess.”
“Politeness does not account for the sort of partiality she showed for
these Dodds while I was in the room.”
“Pure imagination, my dear friend. I was there; and had so monstrous a
phenomenon occurred I must have seen it. If you think she could really
prefer their society to yours, you are as unjust to her as yourself.
She may have concealed her real preference out of _finesse,_ or
perhaps she has observed that our inferiors are touchy, and ready to
fancy we slight them for those of our own rank.”
Talboys shrugged his shoulders; he was but half convinced. “Her
enthusiasm when the cub scraped the fiddle went beyond mere
politeness.”
“Beyond other people's, you mean. Nothing on earth ever went beyond
hers--ha! ha! ha! To-morrow night, if you like, we will have my
gardener, Jack Absolom, in to tea.”
“No, I thank you. I have no wish to go beyond Mr. and Miss Dodd.”
“Oh, only for an experiment. The first minute Jack will be wretched,
and want to sink through the floor; but in five minutes you will fancy
Lucy will have made Jack Absolom at home in my drawing-room. He will
be laying down the law about Jonquilles, and she all sweetness,
curiosity, and enthusiasm outside--_ennui_ in.”
“Can her eyes glisten out of politeness?” inquired Talboys, with a
subdued sneer.
“Why not?”
“They could shed tears, perhaps, for the same motive?” said Talboys,
with crushing irony.
“Well! Hum! I'd back them at four to seven.”
Mr. Talboys was silent, and his manner showed that he was a little
mortified at a subject turning to joke which he had commenced
seriously. He must stop this annoyance. He said severely, “It is time
to come to an understanding with you.”
At these words, and, above all, at their solemn tone, the senior
pricked his ears and prepared his social diplomacy.
“I have visited very frequently at your house, Mr. Fountain.”
“Never without being welcome, my dear sir.”
“You have, I think, divined one reason of my very frequent visits
here.”
“I have not been vain enough to attribute them entirely to my own
attractions.”
“You approve the homage I render to that other attraction?”
“Unfeignedly.”
“Am I so fortunate as to have her suffrage, too?”
“I have no better means of knowing than you have.”
“Indeed! I was in hopes you might have sounded her inclinations.”
“I have scrupulously avoided it,” replied the veteran. “I had no right
to compromise you upon mere conjecture, however reasonable. I awaited
your authority to take any move in so delicate a matter. Can you blame
me? On one side my friend's dignity, on the other a young lady's peace
of mind, and that young lady my brother's daughter.”
“You were right, my dear sir; I see and appreciate your reserve, your
delicacy, though I am about to remove its cause. I declare myself to
you your niece's admirer; have I your permission to address her?”
“You have, and my warmest wishes for your success.”
“Thank you. I think I may hope to succeed, provided I have a fair
chance afforded me.”
“I will take care you shall have that.”
“I should prefer not to have others buzzing about the lady whose
affection I am just beginning to gain.”
“You pay this poor sailor an amazing compliment,” said Mr. Fountain, a
little testily; “if he admires Lucy it can only be as a puppy is
struck with the moon above. The moon does not respond to all this
wonder by descending into the whelp's jaws--no more will my niece. But
that is neither here nor there; you are now her declared suitor, and
you have a right to stipulate; in short, you have only to say the
word, and 'exeunt Dodds,' as the play-books say.”
“Dodds? I have no objection to the lady. Would it not be possible to
invite her to tea alone?”
“Quite possible, but useless. She would not stir out without her
brother.”
“She seems a little person likely to give herself airs. Well, then, in
that case, though as you say I am no doubt raising Mr. Dodd to a false
importance, still--”
“Say no more; we should indulge the whims of our friends, not attack
them with reasons. You will see the Dodds no more in my house.”
“Oh, as to that, just as you please. Perhaps they would be as well out
of it,” said Talboys, with a sudden affectation of carelessness. “I
must not take you too far. Good-night.”
“Go-o-d night!”
Poor David. He was to learn how little real hold upon society has the
man who can only instruct and delight it.
Mr. Fountain bustled home, rubbing his hands with delight. “Aha!”
thought he; “jealous! actually jealous! absurdly jealous! That is a
good sign. Who would have thought so proud a man could be jealous of a
sailor? I have found out your vulnerable point, my friend. I'll tell
Lucy; how she will laugh. David Dodd! Now we know how to manage him,
Lucy and I. If he freezes back again, we have but to send for David
Dodd and his fiddle.” He bustled home, and up into the drawing-room to
tell Lucy Mr. Talboys had at last declared himself. His heart felt
warm. He would settle six thousand pounds on Mrs. Talboys during his
life and his whole fortune after his death.
He found the drawing-room empty. He rang the bell. “Where is Miss
Fountain?” John didn't know, but supposed she had gone to her room.
“You don't know? You never know anything. Send her maid to me.”
The maid came and courtesied demurely at the door.
“Tell your mistress I want to speak to her directly--before she
undresses.”
The maid went out, and soon returned to say that her mistress had
retired to rest; but that, if he pleased, she would rise, and just
make a demi-toilet, and come to him. This smooth and fair-sounding
proposal was not, I grieve to say, so graciously received as offered.
“Much obliged,” snapped old Fountain. “Her _demi-toilette_ will
keep me another hour out of my bed, and I get no sleep after dinner
now _among you._ Tell her to-morrow at breakfast time will do.”