of Mrs. Taragon's drawing-room. Mrs. T. herself, quite covered with an
eruption of worsted measles, was the principal figure. At her feet,
like Paul at Gamaliel's, sat Augustus; but, unlike Paul, he held a
skein of worsted. Nestling on an ottoman in the recess of the window
was Terpsichore, inventing floral phenomena in water-colors, and
looking very bewitching.
"'Twas a fair scene." As under the shade of some far-spreading oak,
when noon holds high revel in the heavens, the gentle flock cluster in
happy security, fearing no dire irruption of lupine enemy, so--
"Mr. Pompadour," announced the servant.
"The devil!" echoed Augustus Fitz Clarence.
Mrs. Taragon's first impulse was to spring up and greet her visitor
cordially. Her second, to do no such thing. Napoleon said, "An
opportunity lost is an occasion for misfortune." Here was her
Austerlitz or her Waterloo! With the rapidity of genius, she laid the
plot for a little comedy of "The Jealous Lovers," to the success of
which the actors themselves unwittingly contributed.
Half rising, she acknowledged Mr. Pompadour's elaborate bow, and,
motioning him gracefully to a seat, sank back into her chair. Then,
pretending that the worsted was knotted, she bent her curls so near
Augustus' face, and made a whispered remark with such a conscious air,
that the blood rushed to that young man's face in an instant.
"I saw you out riding yesterday, Mr. Pompadour," said the cheerful
widow, pleased that her first shot had taken effect. "And what a
_beautiful_ horse! and you ride _so_ gracefully!"
"Thank you, madam," said Mr. Pompadour, stiffly; "I think I may say,
without vanity, that I do ride tolerably well."
"And you," to the son, "now your father is present, I must call you
_Mr._ Augustus,--may I not?" she said, coaxingly. The "Mr." was
emphasized, as if when alone she did not use it. But this was, of
course, unintentional.
Now Augustus, for some time, had endeavored to ingratiate himself with
Mrs. Taragon, but with little success, and, therefore, he was utterly
unable to comprehend her sudden benignity. He glanced at his father,
and met the eyes of that individual glaring on him with the look of an
ogre deprived of his baby lunch. He glanced at Terpsichore, but that
young lady was absorbed with a new discovery in botany. He glanced at
Mrs. Taragon, but she was calmly winding worsted.
"Terpy, dear," said her mother, "_do_ show Mr. Pompadour some of your
drawings. My dear little girl is _so_ devoted to art!" she exclaimed,
enthusiastically, as the daughter rose to bring her portfolio. "Take
care, Mr. Augustus; you know worsted is a dreadful thing to snarl."
Augustus had involuntarily sprung up to offer his assistance, but he
sank back in confusion.
"Are you fond of engravings, Mr. Pompadour?" asked the young lady,
sweetly.
"Ah! yes! I--I think I may say without vanity,"--began Mr. Pompadour,
but he finished silently to himself,--"D--me, I'll make her jealous!"
Whose Austerlitz or Waterloo should it be? He put on his eye-glass to
inspect the volume, and for a little while almost forgot his egotism in
admiration of the beauty of nature beside him, if not of the beauties
of art before him.
Augustus was not slow in perceiving that, for some unknown reason, Mrs.
Taragon's attention was gained, and he tried desperately to improve the
occasion. Every once in a while, however, his eyes would wander toward
his father, who played his part with so much skill that the bosom of
Augustus was soon filled with burnings, and the mind of the widow with
perplexities. The gentle heart of Terpsichore was grieved also, and
her mind sorely puzzled at the enigmatical conduct of those about her,
while she was somewhat annoyed at the pertinacious attentions of the
elder P.
The distinguished gentleman who wrote so graphically about the "Elbows
of the Mincio," must confess that _our_ Quadrilateral is only second
to that which he has helped to embalm in history. The Irishman's
experience with the large boot and the small one, and the other pair
similarly mismated, was here reproduced with painful reality. Some evil
genius had scattered wormwood on the air, and asphyxia, or something
worse, seemed likely to supervene, when the entrance of another visitor
broke the charm, and the _téte-à-téte_, and the gentlemen fled.
The thermometer of Mr. Pompadour's temper indicated boiling heat. He
sputtered and fumed like an irascible old gentleman as he was, and
managed to work himself into a crazy fit of jealousy, about his son
and the too fascinating widow; and, oddly enough, this feeling thus
aroused by the green-eyed monster, for the time being, quite eclipsed
his mercenary muddle. So, upon poor Augustus, as the available subject,
fell palpable and uncomfortable demonstrations of paternal displeasure.
For several days Mr. Pompadour stayed away from Mrs. Taragon's, and
that good lady began to fear lest she had overdrawn her account at the
bank of his heart, and that further drafts would be dishonored. The
thought of such a catastrophe was torture of the most refined quality.
By an illogical system of reasoning, peculiar to the female mind, she
imagined that Terpsichore was the cause of his desertion, and that
young lady thereupon became the recipient of an amount of small spite
and aggravated vindictiveness, which reflected great credit upon Mrs.
Taragon's inquisitorial capabilities.
She had, it must be obvious, set her heart upon having those diamonds
from Tiffany's.
At the end of a week, however, Mr. Pompadour called upon Mrs. Taragon,
and this time he found her alone. His countenance gave proof of some
desperate resolution. His attire was more than usually elegant. His
hair and whiskers were a trifle blacker and glossier than ever. He had
a rose in his button-hole, and yellow kids on his hands. Solomon, in
all his glory, was not arrayed (I sincerely trust) like unto him! Mrs.
Taragon rose cordially, and held out to him her plump little hand; it
lay a moment in his, as if asking to be squeezed. Mr. Pompadour looked
as if he would like to squeeze it, and perhaps he did.
The lady's cordiality soon gave place to a timid shyness. To use a
military phrase, she was "feigning a retreat." Mr. Pompadour waxed
bold and advanced. The conversation skirmished awhile, the widow
occasionally making a sally, and driving in the enemy's outposts,
his main body meanwhile steadily approaching. The tone in which they
conducted hostilities, however, gradually fell, and if one had been
near enough he might have heard Mr. Pompadour remark, with a kind of
quiet satisfaction, "For I think I may say, without vanity, I still
possess some claim to good looks." The widow's reply was so low that
our reporter failed to catch it, and then--military phraseology
avaunt!--the old veteran knelt on the carpet, and surrendered at
discretion.
"Good gracious, Mr. Pompadour!" exclaimed the widow, with well-feigned
alarm, at the same time picking a thread off her dress, "_Do_ get up,
somebody may come in!"
"Never!" said the old hero stoutly, seeing his advantage, and
determined to have its full benefit, "at any rate, not till you promise
to marry me!"
A form passed the window. This time Mrs. Taragon was really frightened.
"I will," she said hurriedly; "now get up, and sit down."
Mr. Pompadour leaped to his feet with the agility of a boy--of sixty,
and imprinted a kiss lovingly upon the lady's nose, there not being
time to capture the right place on the first assault. What followed we
will leave to the imagination of the reader.
* * * * *
It was now October, and the trees had adorned themselves in their
myriad dyes. The maple had put on crimson, the hickory a rich gold, and
the oak a deep scarlet; while the pine and the hemlock "mingled with
brighter tints the living green."
To the woods one balmy day Augustus and Terpsichore went together, to
gather leaves for wreaths and screens. Both were carelessly happy, and
the pines echoed their merry voices as they laughed and sang. At length
the basket, which Augustus carried, was filled with gorgeous booty,
and they sat down upon a fallen log, while Terpsichore wove a garland
for her hair. No wonder that in the tranquil beauty of the scene their
noisy mirth should become hushed. No wonder that, as the sun stole
through the branches, and like Jove of old fell in a shower of gold
about them, upon both their hearts fell the perfect peace of love! With
the full tide of this feeling came to Augustus the resolve to know his
fate; for he felt that upon that answer hung his destiny.
They sat in silence while he tried to teach his tongue the language
of his heart. Then he glanced timidly at the maiden, but her head was
drooped low over the wreath, and her cheeks reflected its crimson dye.
"Miss Taragon," he said, at length, abruptly, "were you ever in love?"
She started like a frightened bird. The rich blood fled to her heart,
and left her face pallid as marble.
"I--I--don't know," she stammered. "Why do you ask me such a question?"
"Because," he said, "then you may know how I feel, and pity me! O
Terpsichore!" he added passionately, "I love you with my whole soul,
and if you will but bless me with your love, my whole life shall be
devoted to your happiness."
And so he talked on in an impetuous strain, of mingled prayer and
protestation, which was stereotyped long before the invention of
printing.
Terpsichore's heart beat wildly. The color came and went in her cheeks,
and she turned her head away to conceal her emotion.
The wreath lay finished in her lap; and at last, with a bright smile,
she placed it on his forehead; and, clasping his hand in both her own,
she kissed him on the forehead. And now we might as well leave them
alone together.
Mrs. Taragon, having made sure of Mr. Pompadour, now proceeded to carry
out her plan of throwing obstacles in the way of the young people.
Augustus, of course, was not aware of her complete information in
regard to his "property qualifications," and attributed her disfavor
to personal dislike. Whatever her motives, however, her actions were
unequivocal; and Terpsichore, especially, had a sorry time of it. So
uncomfortable did matters become, that, upon a review of the situation,
and an eloquent appeal from Augustus, she consented to take with him
that irrevocable step, to which Virgil undoubtedly alluded under the
fine figure of "Descensus Averni." In plain English, they resolved to
run away and be married.
I will not weary the reader with details of the preliminaries. They
are unimportant to my narrative. A note, dispatched by Augustus to the
Rev. Ebenezer Fiscuel, informed that gentleman that about half-past
ten o'clock of an appointed evening he would be waited on by a couple
desirous of being united in holy matrimony.
Augustus arranged to have a carriage in waiting under Terpsichore's
window about ten o'clock, and, with the aid of a ladder and the
above-mentioned clergyman, he hoped to settle the vexed question of the
property, and render all further opposition to their union of an _ex
post facto_ character.
The evening came, and it found Mrs. Taragon and her daughter seated
together in the parlor. Terpsichore was crocheting a net, which, like
Penelope's, grew very slowly. She was nervous and fidgety. Her eyes
wandered restlessly from her mother to the door, and she started at
the slightest sound. Mrs. Taragon seemed uncommonly suspicious and
alert. She was reading, but had not turned a leaf for half an hour. She
glanced furtively and continually about the room.
"She has found us out," thought Terpsichore, and her heart almost
stopped beating. With a great effort she controlled herself, and had
recourse to stratagem.
"Mother, dear," she said, dropping the net in her lap, "you look tired;
why don't you go to bed?"
"Oh, no, darling," said the widow, cheerfully, "I don't feel a bit
weary. But your eyes look red, and I think _you_ had better retire."
"No, mamma, not yet," she replied. "I want to finish this net. I have
done so little upon it lately."
A slight shade of vexation crossed the face of the widow.
"If you had devoted yourself to the net," she said, spitefully, "it
would have been finished."
Terpsichore blushed guiltily. Augustus had spent more than two hours
with her that day; and she felt a presentiment that impending wrath was
about to descend on her devoted head.
"I am sure, mother," she said, quietly, "_you_ can't complain of my
seeing too much company."
This shot told; for Mr. Pompadour had been very attentive of late.
Mrs. Taragon nearly tore a leaf out of her book.
"At any rate," she retorted, "my visitors are respectable."
Terpsichore's lip quivered. The remark was cruel, but it roused her
spirit.
"If my company is not respectable," she said, with an incipient sob,
"it is the fault of his bringing up."
Mr. Pompadour was hit this time, right between his eyes. The widow
blazed.
"You--you--you minx," she said, angrily, "I believe you'd like to see
me dead, and out of your way!"
The remark was utterly irrelevant; but she saw it in the book, and
thought it would be dramatic.
Terpsichore burst into tears, and beat a retreat in disorder. As she
left the room, Mrs. Taragon said to herself, with a sigh of relief,--
"Well, the coast is clear for Pompadour,--and she's safe for to-night,
any way."
Which was a slight mistake.
Ten o'clock came, and with it the carriage. A man glided silently
underneath Terpsichore's window, and a ladder was reared against the
wall. Silently the window opened, and a form descended the ladder, and
was clasped in an equally silent embrace at the foot. Terpsichore had
not entirely recovered her spirits, but she stifled her emotions for
the sake of Augustus. For the same reason she did not scold him for
rumpling her bonnet. Hurrying into the carriage, they drove rapidly
away.
As they turned the corner into the principal street, another carriage,
going in the same direction, came up behind them at a quick trot.
Augustus sprang to his feet, and peered out into the darkness.
"Betrayed," was the thought which flashed through his mind, and he
muttered an eighteen-cornered oath. Terpsichore clung to his coat with
an energy which indirectly reflected lasting credit upon his tailor.
"Put on more steam," whispered Augustus hoarsely to the driver, and
the horses dashed onward at a break-neck pace, soon leaving the other
carriage far behind.
At the rate they were going, it took but a few minutes to reach the
parsonage. Directing the coachman to drive round the corner and wait,
Augustus half-led, half-carried the trembling girl into the house.
The Rev. Fiscuel's family and one or two neighbors were assembled in
the parlor. The ceremony was soon performed, and an earnest blessing
invoked upon the married life of the young people. As they were
receiving the congratulations suited to the occasion, a juvenile
Fiscuel came in, and whispered something to his father. Mr. Fiscuel,
with a smile, turned to Augustus, saying, "My son tells me that your
father is coming in at the gate with a lady."
The newly-married looked at each other in mute surprise. "I'll bet a
hat," exclaimed Augustus, suddenly, "it's your mother; and they've
come to get married!"
The Rev. Ebenezer spoke eagerly: "Did you send me two messages this
morning?"
"No!" said Augustus; "of course I did not."
"Then they have, verily," exclaimed the clergyman, in a tone of
very unclerical excitement; "for I received two messages from 'Mr.
Pompadour.' I spoke of the singularity at the time."
"Can you hide us somewhere?" said Augustus, "till you've 'done' the old
gentleman?"
"Come in here," said Mrs. Fiscuel, who had her share of that leaven of
unrighteousness which is usually called fun. As she spoke, she opened
the drawing-room door.
The Rev. Ebenezer sat down to write a certificate for Augustus; and, as
one door closed upon the young couple, the other opened to admit the
older one. If not in as great a hurry as their children, they seemed
equally desirous of making assurance doubly sure. The family and the
witnesses, who had followed Mrs. Fiscuel out of the apartment, were
again summoned, and, for a second time that evening, the words were
spoken which made a Pompadour and a Taragon "one bone and one flesh."
Watching the proceedings through the crevice of the half-opened door,
was a couple not counted among the "witnesses," and certainly not
invited by the principals.
When the ceremony was over, Augustus and Terpsichore entered the
room. Their appearance created what "Jenkins" would call "a profound
sensation." Mr. Pompadour looked bowie-knives and six-shooters, Mrs.
P., darning-needles and stilettoes. Augustus was self-possessed.
Perhaps he remembered the old saying, "Let those laugh who win."
"We happened here not knowing you were coming," he said, addressing
both; "wont you accept our congratulations."
Suddenly Mrs. Pompadour _née_ Trelawney, gave a scream, and fell back
in a chair, with symptoms of hysterics. She had caught sight of the
_ring_ on her daughter's finger, and comprehended everything in an
instant,--the carriage which had fled before them as they left the
house; this "accidental" visit to the minister's; and, worse than all,
how she had been outwitted!
Terpsichore sprang forward to assist her.
"Go away from me! Go away! Don't let her touch me!" she screamed,
throwing her arms about like a wind-mill. "I wont have it! I wont! I
wont!"
Mr. Pompadour, during this outburst, showed signs of exasperation;
apparently, however, he did not see the point, but was fast concluding
that he had married a lunatic.
Terpsichore was frightened and began to cry. Augustus, to reässure her,
put his arm around her waist. At this, the senior Mrs. Pompadour sprang
up, and seized her husband by the arm, so energetically that it made
him wince. Pointing to the tell-tale ring with a gesture worthy of
Ristori, she managed to articulate: "Don't you see it? That undutiful
girl has married Augustus, and--and he has married _her_!"
Mr. Pompadour "saw it," and uttered some words which were not a
blessing.
THE PROPER USE OF GRANDFATHERS.
THE PROPER USE OF GRANDFATHERS.
[Illustration]
If people without grandfathers are in need of any particular solace,
they may find it in the fact that those cumbrous contingencies of
existence cannot be continually stuck in their faces. A wise man has
remarked, that the moderns are pigmies standing upon the shoulders of
giants. He would have been wiser still, had he observed how frequently
the giants change places with the pigmies, and ride them to death like
Old Men of the Sea. If, at sixteen, I have the dyspepsia and a tendency
to reflect on the problems of my being, I am begged to notice that,
at a corresponding period old Jones, of the alternate generation, was
gambolling o'er the dewy meads, a gleesome boy. If my baby cries and
is puny at teething-time, the oracles, with an intuitive perception
how my grandfather behaved a hundred years before they were born, tell
me it was not so in his day; that heaven lay about him in his infancy;
but that none of the article exists either in that loose condition or
otherwise for the immature human animal who breaks out of darkness
and mystery into this day of gum-rings. If the tremendous pace at
which the modern world is going knocks me up at forty, and compels
me to keep my stall for a year of valetudinarianism, I am asked to
remember what a hale old fellow the same inevitable ancestor was at
ninety; I am inundated with his exuberance of spirits, overwhelmed
with the statistics of his teeth; and invited in the mind's eye (in my
own, too, if I know myself!) to take six-mile walks with him before
breakfast unassisted by a cane. It is not a pleasant state of mind to
be disgusted with one's forefathers, who would, probably have been
very jolly fellows to know, and not the least in the world like the
people who are all the time boring us about them. If there is truth in
spiritualism, a delegation from those fine old boys will, some of these
days, take advantage of a sitting, and rap out an indignant disclaimer
of the bosh that is talked in their name. If my grandfather was not
a much more unpleasant person than myself, he would scorn to be made
a boguey of for the annoyance of his own flesh and blood. Any man of
well-regulated mind must prefer utter oblivion among his descendants to
such perpetuation as that of Mr. Wilfer.
"Your grandpapa," retorted Mrs. Wilfer, with an awful look, and in
an awful tone, "was what I describe him to have been, and would have
struck any of his grandchildren to the earth who presumed to question
it."
If our ancestors could return to the earth, it is little likely
that their first inclination would be to goody themselves over the
excellence of their own period, or pull faces at the degeneracy of
ours. Sleepers in ill-ventilated, or rather entirely non-ventilated
apartments, eaters of inordinate late suppers, five-bottle men, and
for the most part wearers of sadly unphilosophical raiment, those
sturdy old fox-hunters would acknowledge it just cause for astonishment
that their children have any constitutions at all. Little motive
for self-laudation would they find in the fact, that, after drawing
out their account with Nature to the last dime, they had taken a
respectable first-cabin passage to the Infinite Boulogne just before
the great Teller said "No funds," and shoved back their checks through
the window, leaving to their children the heritage of a spotless name
and the declaration of physiological bankruptcy.
Nor would they content themselves, I fancy, with the negative ground
of mere humility. They would have something very decided to say to the
wiseacres, who taunt our wives in the agony of tic-doloureux with the
statement that their grandmothers knew nothing of neuralgia. "No!"
these generous ancients would retort, "that is the residuary legacy
of a generation to whom we left a nervous system of worn-out fiddle
strings." To such as talk of that woful novelty diphtheria as a crime
of the present age, they would point out the impossibility of a race's
throat descending to it without tenderness, a race's blood flowing to
it without taint, from ancestors who swaddled their necks in fathoms
of cravat, and despised the question of sewage. When I had the gout,
and could not stand up for myself, those brave _vieilles moustaches_
would stand up for me. "Many a fine old bin of our port," would they
exclaim, "has been emptied down through the æons into those innocent
toes of thine. I mind me how I smacked my lips over that very bottle
whose broken glass now grinds around, red-hot, in the articulation
of thy metatarsal phalanges. Dancing at thy fair great-grandmother's
wedding, I slaked the thirst of many vigorous sarabands in that
identical ruby nectar, which, turned by the alchemy of generations
into acid blood, now through thy great toe distils in gouts of fiery
torture. I danced;--thou, poor Serò-natus, dancest not, but dost pay
the piper."
Suppose that our returning ancestors regarded us in the intellectual
and spiritual, as well as the physical aspect, they must find still
less reason to put on airs of superiority. If, in the sphere where they
have been lately moving, improvement goes on as fast as we believe,
they may be expected to wonder that the theological and scholastic
training of their own earthly day has not resulted in a present race
of imbeciles and fetish-worshippers, or Torquemadas and madmen. With
thankful astonishment will they revere that nature whose boundless
elasticity and self-repair has brought bright and self-reliant, even
though sometimes a trifle too pert and iconoclastic, Young America
from loins burdened, through all their period of cartilage, with five
days and a half per week of grammar-grinding, a Saturday afternoon of
"keeping in for marks," and a seventh day which should have been the
Lord's, but was conspicuously liker the devil's.