“Oh, let _me_ have the back seat,” said Minnie, rising, “I’d so like it.”
For answer the coachman put both his hands on her shoulders. He was a
heavy man, and she sat down again.
“Now then, mum,” said the clerk, addressing the stout lady, “are you
going up there in the middle, or are you coming up here at the back?”
“But why not let one of them take the back seat?” demanded the stout
lady, pointing her reticule at Minnie and myself; “they say they’d like
it. Let them have it.”
The coachman rose, and addressed his remarks generally.
“Put her up at the back, or leave her behind,” he directed. “Man and
wife have never been separated on this coach since I started running it
fifteen year ago, and they ain’t going to be now.”
A general cheer greeted this sentiment. The stout lady, now regarded as
a would-be blighter of love’s young dream, was hustled into the back
seat, the whip cracked, and away we rolled.
So here was the explanation. We were in a honeymoon district, in
June—the most popular month in the whole year for marriage. Every two
out of three couples found wandering about the New Forest in June are
honeymoon couples; the third are going to be. When they travel anywhere
it is to the Isle of Wight. We both had on new clothes. Our bags
happened to be new. By some evil chance our very umbrellas were new.
Our united ages were thirty-seven. The wonder would have been had we
_not_ been mistaken for a young married couple.
A day of greater misery I have rarely passed. To Minnie, so her aunt
informed me afterwards, the journey was the most terrible experience of
her life, but then her experience, up to that time, had been limited.
She was engaged, and devotedly attached, to a young clergyman; I was
madly in love with a somewhat plump girl named Cecilia who lived with her
mother at Hampstead. I am positive as to her living at Hampstead. I
remember so distinctly my weekly walk down the hill from Church Row to
the Swiss Cottage station. When walking down a steep hill all the weight
of the body is forced into the toe of the boot, and when the boot is two
sizes too small for you, and you have been living in it since the early
afternoon, you remember a thing like that. But all my recollections of
Cecilia are painful, and it is needless to pursue them.
Our coach-load was a homely party, and some of the jokes were
broad—harmless enough in themselves, had Minnie and I really been the
married couple we were supposed to be, but even in that case unnecessary.
I can only hope that Minnie did not understand them. Anyhow, she looked
as if she didn’t.
I forget where we stopped for lunch, but I remember that lamb and mint
sauce was on the table, and that the circumstance afforded the greatest
delight to all the party, with the exception of the stout lady, who was
still indignant, Minnie and myself. About my behaviour as a bridegroom
opinion appeared to be divided. “He’s a bit standoffish with her,” I
overheard one lady remark to her husband; “I like to see ’em a bit
kittenish myself.” A young waitress, on the other hand, I am happy to
say, showed more sense of natural reserve. “Well, I respect him for it,”
she was saying to the barmaid, as we passed through the hall; “I’d just
hate to be fuzzled over with everybody looking on.” Nobody took the
trouble to drop their voices for our benefit. We might have been a pair
of prize love birds on exhibition, the way we were openly discussed. By
the majority we were clearly regarded as a sulky young couple who would
not go through their tricks.
I have often wondered since how a real married couple would have faced
the situation. Possibly, had we consented to give a short display of
marital affection, “by desire,” we might have been left in peace for the
remainder of the journey.
Our reputation preceded us on to the steamboat. Minnie begged and prayed
me to let it be known we were not married. How I was to let it be known,
except by requesting the captain to summon the whole ship’s company on
deck, and then making them a short speech, I could not think. Minnie
said she could not bear it any longer, and retired to the ladies’ cabin.
She went off crying. Her trouble was attributed by crew and passengers
to my coldness. One fool planted himself opposite me with his legs
apart, and shook his head at me.
“Go down and comfort her,” he began. “Take an old man’s advice. Put
your arms around her.” (He was one of those sentimental idiots.) “Tell
her that you love her.”
I told him to go and hang himself, with so much vigour that he all but
fell overboard. He was saved by a poultry crate: I had no luck that day.
At Ryde the guard, by superhuman effort, contrived to keep us a carriage
to ourselves. I gave him a shilling, because I did not know what else to
do. I would have made it half-a-sovereign if he had put eight other
passengers in with us. At every station people came to the window to
look in at us.
I handed Minnie over to her father on Ventnor platform; and I took the
first train the next morning, to London. I felt I did not want to see
her again for a little while; and I felt convinced she could do without a
visit from me. Our next meeting took place the week before her marriage.
“Where are you going to spend your honeymoon?” I asked her; “in the New
Forest?”
“No,” she replied; “nor in the Isle of Wight.”
To enjoy the humour of an incident one must be at some distance from it
either in time or relationship. I remember watching an amusing scene in
Whitefield Street, just off Tottenham Court Road, one winter’s Saturday
night. A woman—a rather respectable looking woman, had her hat only been
on straight—had just been shot out of a public-house. She was very
dignified, and very drunk. A policeman requested her to move on. She
called him “Fellow,” and demanded to know of him if he considered that
was the proper tone in which to address a lady. She threatened to report
him to her cousin, the Lord Chancellor.
“Yes; this way to the Lord Chancellor,” retorted the policeman. “You
come along with me;” and he caught hold of her by the arm.
She gave a lurch, and nearly fell. To save her the man put his arm round
her waist. She clasped him round the neck, and together they spun round
two or three times; while at the very moment a piano-organ at the
opposite corner struck up a waltz.
“Choose your partners, gentlemen, for the next dance,” shouted a wag, and
the crowd roared.
I was laughing myself, for the situation was undeniably comical, the
constable’s expression of disgust being quite Hogarthian, when the sight
of a child’s face beneath the gas-lamp stayed me. Her look was so full
of terror that I tried to comfort her.
“It’s only a drunken woman,” I said; “he’s not going to hurt her.”
“Please, sir,” was the answer, “it’s my mother.”
Our joke is generally another’s pain. The man who sits down on the
tin-tack rarely joins in the laugh.