MANNER.”
If our readers, gentle or simple, will obligingly stretch their
imaginations sufficiently to depict for themselves the happiness of
Alice and Harry during the first month of their married life, popularly
denominated the honeymoon, and be content to permit us to resume our
office of chronicler at the termination of that mellifluous (though, to
all but the parties concerned, especially insipid) season, the readers
aforesaid will merit our eternal gratitude, which we hereby beg to
present them with.
Alice and Harry, then, having been married one calendar mouth, during
which period they had been “up” the Rhine, and one or two of the
Swiss mountains--having seen a great many strange things and strange
people--having talked a vast amount of bad French and worse German, and
narrowly escaped an attack of cholera from listening to the dissonance
of that arch-delusion the _Ranz-des-Vaches_--having eaten such wonderful
articles, cooked in such wonderful fashion, that if the genus Bimana
were not providentially omnivorous, they would infallibly have been
poisoned--having travelled over land and water by every species of
conveyance known to the annals of locomotion, except perhaps a balloon,
or the back of an elephant--had at length made their way to Paris; and
as the inhabitants of that skittish and inconstant capital were then
figuratively patting each other on the back, by way of congratulation
on the fortunate accident which had preserved those that remained alive
after the latest revolution from having shot each other through the
head, our bride and bridegroom, established in a comfortable hotel, had
determined to remain there till such time as they should mutually agree
upon for their return to England. For, be it observed, that enough of
the halo of the honeymoon yet lingered around this young couple, to keep
them in the misty delusion that they possessed but one “will of their
own” between them. They had yet to learn that there is a higher, truer,
nobler state of association to be arrived at, even here on earth--a
state in which we recognise the deep happiness of being privileged to
sacrifice our own desires to those of the being we love better than
ourselves. A logician may stigmatise this as merely a refined phase of
selfishness; but it is such selfishness as might cling to us in heaven,
and we yet remain sinless. Be this as it may, Alice, who had never been
abroad before, found every pleasure enhanced by the charm of novelty,
and was in a perfect Elysium of happy excitement. Harry had seen and
done it all, and a great deal more besides; and would have found it a
bore, only it was sufficient amusement to him to watch his young wife’s
delight at all she saw and heard. Whether this amusement of watching,
petting, and spoiling Alice, was at all beginning to lose its charm, may
be gathered from the following conversation:--
“Harry, you sleepy old thing, this is the third time I’ve asked you
whether Madame de Beauville is certain of getting us an invitation to
Lord N--------’s picnic at Versailles; do rouse yourself and answer me!”
Thus apostrophised, Coverdale--who was stretched at full length on (and
beyond) a brocaded sofa, and had been lazily watching his wife, as with
a vast deal of unnecessary energy she stitched away at a button, which,
according to button-nature, had “come off” her husband’s glove the very
first moment he attempted to draw it on--half-raised himself on his
elbow as he replied--
“There is nothing certain under the sun; except that my little wife
has the prettiest hand and arm of any woman (I don’t care who she may
be--Jew, Turk, infidel, heretic, or Christian) in the known world. But
that old humbug, Madame de Beauville, promised me faithfully to do her
best for us--not that I’d believe her on her oath; she tried to book
me for one of her scraggy daughters, the last time I was here; but it
wouldn’t act--the trap was too visible, and the bait not sufficiently
tempting. What very high action you have with that needle-hand of yours!
you’ll overreach yourself, or get sprained in the back sinews, some of
these days, if you don’t look out.”
“I will not allow you to ‘talk stable’ in that way, sir,” returned
Alice, playfully shaking her finger at her recumbent spouse; “you shall
not go to the picnic at all, you naughty boy, unless you behave better.
Come, get up,” she continued, “if you lie down again you’ll be asleep in
a minute; you’re so idle, you’re actually growing fat!”
“Nonsense, you don’t really mean it!” exclaimed Harry, springing up with
a bound which shook the room, and startled Alice so much that she dropt
the glove, needle, thread, button, and all, pricking her finger into the
bargain. “By Jove,” he continued, regarding himself anxiously in a large
pier-glass, “so I am! I tell you what, Mrs. Coverdale, this is getting
serious, and must be put a stop to!”
“My dearest Harry, how dreadfully impetuous you are!--you’ve made me
jump so, that I’ve dropt my work, and been and gone and pricked my
favourite finger, as you say in your horrid slang--look!” So saying, the
pretty Alice pouted like a spoilt child, as she then most assuredly was,
and held up the injured finger to excite her husband’s commiseration.
When a proper degree of pity had been shown, and the necessary amount
of matrimonial felicity transacted, Alice resumed: “What a dreadfully
conceited fellow you are, to be so alarmed at growing fat! Are you
afraid of losing your beauty?”
“My how much?” was the astonished reply. “What funny ideas do come into
a woman’s head to be sure! Why, you silly child, do you think I ever set
up for a ‘beauty’ man? or care two straws what I look like? Such follies
are very well for got up puppies, like Horace D’Almayne; but they’re not
in my line.”
“I’m sure you’re fifty times as handsome as Mr. D’Almayne,” was Alice’s
eager rejoinder; “but” she continued reflectively “if you are not afraid
of your good looks, why are you so horrified at the idea of growing
fat?”
Harry coloured slightly, and tried to evade the question; but his wife’s
curiosity, being by this time excited, was not so easily baffled, and
Coverdale had nothing for it but to confess the truth, which he did
thus:--
“Well, if you must know, little wife, I’ve a bay colt by Fencer out of
a Harkaway mare, and a chesnut filly by Hercules out of Bulfinch, both
rising five (I refused 600 guineas for the pair of ’em a year ago),
which I expect to do most of my work next hunting season; but as
they’re both young unmade horses, I would not ride over twelve stone
for anything; nothing cows a young horse more than overweighting him at
starting.”
“Oh, Harry!” exclaimed Alice reproachfully, “I thought you meant to give
up hunting now--I’m sure you said so when you were----, that is, before
we were married. Why, you would be away from me more than half the day
every time you went out! besides, it’s so dangerous! Oh, no; you may go
shooting sometimes, and I can ride a pony and mark for you, as I used to
do with papa and Arthur, but you must not hunt.”
“And can’t you ride and see the hounds throw off, darling? It’s one of
the prettiest sights in the world. The first thing I mean to do when
we get back, is to buy you a perfect lady’s horse; something rather
different from that brute poor old Crane gave you.”
“Then you won’t promise to give up hunting, you naughty boy--not even
when I ask you to do so to please me?”
And, confident in her own power,
the young wife cast a look, half-imploring, half-commanding, on her lord
and master, which he would have found it no easy matter to resist to
a degree which should vindicate his right to such a title, when the
opportune entrance of the valet, with a packet of letters, extricated
him from his dilemma.
“A note from Madame de Beauville, containing an invitation to the
picnic!--how delightful!” exclaimed Alice, appealing for sympathy to
her better half; but he was engaged in perusing the following epistle,
which, owing to the peculiarities both of diction, writing, and
spelling, it was not too easy to decypher:--
“Honoured Sur,--I remain your humbel survunt and gaim-keepur as wos,
John Markum, whech I would not ’ave intruded on you injoying of
yourself in furring parts as is most fit, having married a beutiful yung
English lady, as they do tell me, and the darter of Squire Hazlehurst
likewise; which having caused a many things to go rong at home, I thort
you would be glad to hear on it, and so rite, which I ’ope is no
offence, the same being unintenshonal on my part; but the new stewart
is agoin on oudacious, a ordering of me to kill gaim for him to sell,
which, refusing to do, agin your ordurs, Honoured Sur, and he putting
the money in his durty pocket, savin your presents, am discharged with
four small childring, and a little stranger expected, which would have
been welcome, but now must be a birding on the parish with his poor
mother; which, knowin Honoured Sur, as injustice to unborn innocents is
not in your line, nor in that of any gents but dishonest stewarts spoken
agen in Scriptur, I umbly takes the liburty of trustin in Providence,
which supports his poor mother agen the thorts of workous baby-linen,
that hangs heavy on a woman accustomed to wash for the family and keep
herself respectabul; so do not give up all hope of seeing you home,
Honoured Sur, _before every hed of gaim is destroyed_, in which case
Mr. stewart may larn that honesty is the best politics arter all; and so
remain,
“Your humbel survunt to commarnd,
“John Markujm.”
“P.S.--The rabbids is agoin to town in the carriur’s cart, frightful,
likewise the peasants.”
“My dearest Harry, there is to be a _bal costumé_ after the picnic, and
that kind Madame de Beauville sends us tickets for both! How charming!”
exclaimed Alice, so engrossed in her pleasant anticipations that she
had not observed the gloom gathering upon her husband’s brow, and was,
therefore, quite unprepared when he broke out suddenly--
“’Pon my word, it’s enough to drive a man distracted! the moment one
turns one’s back everything goes to------Ahem!--
“Here’s a scoundrel, who lived eight years with Lord Flashipan, and who
came to me with a character fit for a bishop, and now he’s not only
selling my game by cart-loads, but has actually dared to discharge
Markum!--as honest, trustworthy a fellow, and as good a keeper as man
need to require. Oh, if I was but near him with a horse-whip, I wouldn’t
mind paying for the assault! I’d give him something to remember Harry
Coverdale by--he might thank his stars if I didn’t break every bone in
his skin. And that poor fellow Markum turned out, and all his little
curly-headed brats, too--that makes me as mad as any of it!” He strode
up and down the room angrily, his wife watching him in terrified
amazement. At length he exclaimed abruptly--“Alice, my dear, we must
start for England to-morrow morn----”
“But the picnic and the _bal costumé,_ Harry, dearest, do not come
off till the day after that; and Madame de Beauville has just sent me
tickets for them both!” urged his wife, timidly.
“I’m sorry, my love, that it should have happened so, but go we must,”
was the unyielding reply.
“But Madame de Beauville has taken so much trouble, and been so kind,”
murmured Alice.
“The devil fly away with the old hag and her kindness too!” was the
angry rejoinder. “I wish to heaven she’d attend to her own affairs, and
not try to inspire you with a taste for dissipation. However, there is
a quiet way of settling this question: if you choose to stay and go to
this party, stay; and when I’ve been to Coverdale, and settled scores
with that rascal Cribbins, I’ll come back and fetch you; so please
yourself.”
Poor Alice! this was her first experience of Harry’s “quiet way;” the
implied indifference was more than she could bear, and murmuring, in a
broken voice, “Do you wish to leave me already!” she burst into a flood
of tears.
Of course, that settled the question. Harry called himself a brute, and
thought he was one, and felt as if he could have cried too, when he saw
the bright drops glistening in Alice’s soft, loving eyes, and so set
himself to work in earnest to console her; and succeeded to such an
extent that ere a quarter of an hour had elapsed, Alice pronounced
herself to be a silly child, and wondered how she could have been so
foolish as to cry because Harry, the kindest and most affectionate of
husbands, had evinced his just indignation on learning how the miscreant
Cribbins had tyrannized over the faithful and unfortunate Markum, and
his dear little interesting, curly-pated family. Then, as a personal
favour to herself, she begged Harry would let her give up the picnic,
and start for England next morning; she would be quite ready to go at
five A.M., or earlier, if he wished it. To which Harry replied that
nothing should induce him to deprive her of a pleasure he knew she had
set her heart on; that a French picnic and _bal costumé_ were things she
could never see in England, and that as they _were_ there it would be
really a pity not to avail themselves of so good an opportunity; and he
begged she would instantly sit town and write his thanks, as well as
her own, to that thoroughly friendly, kind-hearted woman, Madame de
Beauville.
While Alice was thus engaged, Harry took pen in hand, and dashed off a
hurried epistle to Arthur, begging him to run down to Coverdale Park
by the next train, and in his name cashier Cribbins, and re-instate
the ill-used Markum and his much-enduring wife, if possible, before the
arrival of the expected little stranger should add another small item to
his embarrassments.
The picnic was a very gay one, and the _bal costumé_ all that Alice’s
“fancy had painted it,”--and a few over, as her slang husband was
pleased to express it. The young couple went dressed as Romeo and
Juliet. Harry, if left to himself, would have chosen a clown’s suit of
motley; but Alice considered the romantic preferable to the ridiculous,
and so he yielded; though it must be confessed that he afforded the most
stalwart, robust, and cheerful representation of the forlorn Veronese
lover that can well be imagined. Alice (although she also would have
looked the part better if her damask cheek had not glowed quite so
brightly with health and happiness) made an extremely fascinating little
Juliet, and produced a sensation which delighted her husband, and bid
fair to turn her own pretty head.
The _bal_ and picnic being safely accomplished, and Alice perceiving
that, although he did not again openly broach the subject, Harry’s
thoughts were continually wandering to Coverdale Park, pretended (like
a loving little hypocrite as she was) that she also began to feel
home-sick; and that, although Paris was all very charming and agreeable
for a little while, she should be very sorry to stay there long. Thus,
the day of their departure was fixed, so that Harry should be enabled to
reach home before the first of September,--as Alice (choosing the lesser
of two evils) meant to encourage his shooting (occasionally for a few
hours), as a bribe to induce him to give up that senseless and dangerous
pastime, hunting; and she actually believed that her influence could
accomplish all this--dear, innocent little Alice!
On the morning before they were to start, a letter arrived from the
Grange. Alice read it eagerly.
“Oh, Harry!” she exclaimed, “what do you think Emily tells me? What a
strange, extraordinary, wretched thing!--it seems quite impossible!”
“What is it, little wife?” returned Harry. “Has your father turned
free-trader, and invited Messrs. Cobden and Bright to stay with him; or
has Arthur been made Lord Chancellor?”
“Something almost as wonderful,” was the rejoinder. “Mr. Crane has
proposed for my cousin Kate’s hand, and she has positively accepted
him!”
“And a very sensible thing, too,” replied Harry, who, leaning over the
back of his wife’s chair, was wickedly and surreptitiously attaching an
ornamental pen-wiper to the end of one of her long, silky ringlets;
“I dare say, now, you’re bitterly repenting your own folly in having
allowed her the chance.”
Alice, turning her head quickly to administer condign punishment for
this speech, by a tug at her lord and master’s ample whiskers, became
aware of the scheme laid against her unconscious ringlet by reason of a
twitch, which Harry, unprepared for her sudden movement, was unable to
avoid giving it.
“You silly boy! what are you doing to me? oh! you’ve tied a horrid thing
to my pet curl; take it off directly, sir! But seriously, now, about
Kate;--dearest Harry--do be sensible, please, and let me talk to you.”
This exhortation was called forth by the fact of the incorrigible
Coverdale having placed the pen-wiper--which was a sort of cross between
a three-barrelled cocked hat and an improbable pyramid--on the top of
his wife’s head, just where the cross-roads in the parting of her hair
occurred.
“Talk away, darling; I’m about as sensible as it’s at all likely you’ll
ever find me,” was the reply.
“‘Well, don’t you really and truly think it very shocking that such a
girl as Kate--so clever and handsome, so unusually superior in every
point--should throw herself away upon that silly old man, whom she
cannot even respect?” rejoined Alice.
“If I must speak the plain truth,” replied Harry, “I should say that a
girl who could make such a sacrifice of her own free will isn’t worth
pitying for it; she must be both mercenary and ambitious--serious faults
in a man, but positive vices in a woman, because in yielding to them she
is sinning against all the better instincts of her nature: for such a
character I can feel no sympathy.”
“But indeed, Harry, she is not such a dreadful heartless creature as you
imagine her; at least, she never used to be. On the contrary, when we
were all children together, she was rather high-flown and romantic.
It was during the time that she was at school, and under the care of a
horrid woman, a Miss Crofton--”
“A Miss how much?” inquired Harry.
“Miss Crofton.”
“What was her Christian name?” continued Harry.
“Arabella,” was the reply.
“By Jove! did you ever see her? Was she a tall, dark-looking creature,
with great flashing eyes like a gipsy’s?”
“Yes, that is an exact description of her,” returned Alice, in surprise;
“but why do you ask? What do you know of her?”
“No good,” returned Harry, mysteriously, shaking his head; “but never
mind, go on.”
“I was only going to say that I feel sure Kate must have some better
reason than a mere wish to become a great lady, to induce her to marry
Mr. Crane. You know her father and mother are very poor, and she has
several younger brothers and sisters; perhaps she wishes to help them.”
“I dare say she does,” replied Harry, turning away to conceal a
yawn; “nobody is all bad, any more than they are all the other thing.
Characters are like zebras--alternate stripes of black and white; the
only difference is, that in some one colour predominates, in some the
other.”
There was a pause, then in a lower voice Alice resumed--
“Harry, did it ever occur to you (of course, I do not want you to
betray confidence even to me), but did you ever suspect that Arthur was
attached to Kate?”
“Never in my life,” was the unhesitating reply. “Arthur always laughed
the tender passion, as he used to call it, to scorn.”
“I felt almost certain it was so,” continued Alice; “but I most
earnestly hope, for his sake, that I was mistaken; if not, only conceive
how wretched this engagement will make him!”
“Judging by my own feelings, when I fancied you had accepted the
irresistible cotton-spinner,” returned Coverdale, “I should say that
Prometheus, who had a perennial vulture making ‘no end’ of a meal on his
liver (which I take to be simply a metaphorical method of stating that
the unfortunate Titan was afflicted with hepatic disease), was, by
comparison, ‘a gentleman who lived at home at ease.’”
“I used to fancy sometimes,” pursued Alice, “that Kate returned his
affection; but she was so reserved, and her manner was always so calm
and self-possessed, that it was impossible to judge, with any degree of
certainty, what her feelings might be. However, this settles the point
so far as she is concerned; if she had really cared about him, she could
never have consented to marry Mr. Crane.”
“Hum! well I don’t know that,” returned Harry, meditatively; “it is
not all women who have such simple, true, loving hearts as you, my own
darling; and a pupil of Arabella Crofton’s may very well be capable of
loving one man and marrying another.”
“Why, how came you to know anything about Miss Crofton, Harry?”
exclaimed Alice, her curiosity being thoroughly roused by her husband’s
second allusion to some previous acquaintance with her cousin’s
_ci-devant_ governess.
“I met her in Italy, if you must know,” returned Coverdale “She lived as
governess in a family where I visited, and I saw a good deal of her at
one time.”
There was something so odd and conscious in his manner of speaking, that
Alice exclaimed, “She fell in love with you, I am certain of it. Come,
confess now that I am right.”
“Do you think that every woman must needs be as foolish as yourself,
you silly child?” was the uncomplimentary reply. “I can assure you, Miss
Crofton is as utterly unlike you in tastes, habits, and opinions, as she
is in person; and that is a pretty considerable assertion, I take it.
And now it is time for you to get ready for our last drive in the Bois
de Boulogne, and I must go out and buy a clean pair of gloves; so for
ten minutes I shall wish you an affectionate farewell.”
Thus saying, Harry quitted the apartment; and Alice, going to prepare
for her drive, forgot, for the time, her husband’s mysterious intimacy
with Miss Crofton--it occurred to her afterwards, indeed, when----, but
we must not anticipate. The next morning saw them _en route_. As they
were about to embark at Boulogne, a sensation was created, at the hotel
at which they waited till the tide served for the packet to start, by
the arrival of a travelling carriage drawn by four horses, with a lady
inside, and her _soubrette_, and an outlandish, courier-like creature in
the rumble.
“By Jove!” exclaimed Harry, who, ensconced behind a window-curtain, had
been examining the turn out with all the interest with which a position
of enforced idleness invests every trifle. “By the powers there’s a
foreign coronet on the carriage, and ditto on Don Whiskerando’s buttons!
I wonder what she is like! Young and pretty, by all that is interesting
and romantic! I dare say she is going to cross in the same boat as we
are. Yes! Whiskerandos is gesticulating and explaining, and the landlord
waves his hand in the direction of the pier. Now comes the bore of being
a married man: what a splendid adventure I am shut out from! If I
were but single, an opportunity now offers of captivating a lovely
and accomplished foreign Countess, with a dowry of diamonds in her
dressing-box, and a gold mine in her precious pocket: there’s a good
opening for a nice young man!”
“Pray avail yourself of it,” returned Alice. “Don’t let me be any
obstacle; carry off the Countess, and I will remain behind with that
noble creature whom you style Don Whiskerandos. I prefer him infinitely
to you, he is so like a very well-trained baboon.”
Harry’s conjecture that the mysterious Countess meant to cross in the
same vessel with, himself and his wife proved correct; for, scarcely
had he seen Alice comfortably established on a snug bench, where, if
the sea-fiend should be so uncourteous as to attack her, she could on an
emergency lie down, when daintily tripped along the human chicken-ladder
which connected the vessel with the shore, the graceful, _bien chaussé_,
little feet of the Countess. Then ensued a grand scene. Whiskerandos
either did not comprehend, or refused to comply with some demand of
the hotel commissionaire, who had taken upon himself the charge of
the baggage, and who accordingly resisted his conveying his mistress’s
luggage on board. Whiskerandos grimaced and chattered in a polyglot
jargon, apparently compounded of every language under heaven, and
utterly incomprehensible to the deepest philologist extant:
the commissionaire was immovable. Whiskerandos implored--the
commissionaire was deaf to his entreaties. Whiskerandos stormed--the
commissionaire was inexorable. Whiskerandos, unable to endure his
fate with calmness, went raving mad--he swore oaths so replete with
improbable consonants that it is only a wonder they did not smash every
tooth in his head; he stumped, shrieked, clenched his fists, and shook
them in the face of his adversary--in vain; the commissionaire remained
adamant, and prepared actually to carry off the offending luggage.
“Look at that ape,” observed Harry to his wife, who was watching the
scene, half in amusement, half in terror; “he’s going into sky-blue
fits apparently: of all absurd sights an angry foreigner is the most
ridiculous. Do you see his moustaches?--they actually stand on end with
fury, like the hairs on the tail of an excited cat. But see, the Don
appeals to his mistress; the Countess will have to settle the affair
_in propriâ personâ_.” This affair, however, was not to be arranged
so easily; for the inflexible commissionaire proved as deaf to the
entreaties of the mistress as he had shown himself to the threatenings
of the man; and the Countess, if countess she was, having remonstrated
to no purpose in a gentle, timid voice, looked helplessly round,
as though she would appeal to society at large to aid her in her
difficulty.
“Poor thing! those men have frightened her; she looks ready to cry!”
exclaimed Alice. “Harry, dear, do go and see if you cannot assist
her--you understand how to manage those people so well; besides, they
always attend to a gentleman.”
Thus urged, Harry crossed the deck, and Alice saw him take off his
hat and address the interesting foreigner; she bowed her head, and was
evidently making a grateful answer; then Harry turned to the disputants,
who both assailed him with a volley of words, upon which he first
silenced Whiskerandos, then he exchanged a few cabalistic sentences with
the commissionaire, and slipped a talisman into his hand, whereupon,
with the celerity of some harlequinade trick, he changed into an
amiable, obliging creature, only too anxious to please everybody, and
went off, patting Whiskerandos on the back, and calling him a _brave
garçon_, to assist with his own silver-absorbing fingers in conveying
the Countess’s luggage on board. Then the Countess overwhelmed Harry
with thanks, and Harry smiled benignantly upon the Countess, and they
“talked conversation” for a few minutes; after which they both looked at
Alice, and Harry with his best company manner on (which was merely his
own natural manner _brushed smooth_), crossed over to her.
“She is really a Countess,” he began, “and a very charming, refined
style of young woman too. She wants to be introduced to you, so come
along.”
“But, Harry, dear, I shall break my neck, or tumble into the sea, if I
attempt to walk; just look how its rolling about!” remonstrated Alice,
whose essentially terrestrial education had given her rather a horror of
all nautical matters.
“We’ll fall in together then,” returned Harry, laughing; “at all events
don’t let us fall out about it. Come along, little wife, and trust
yourself to me; I’ve paced a vessel’s deck when the sea’s shown rather a
different sort of surface from that which it wears to-day.”
As he spoke, he placed his arm round his wife’s slender waist, and half
supported, half led her across the deck in safety.
“What is her name, Harry?” inquired Alice, as they were effecting the
transit.
“Bertha seems to be her Christian name--of course her surname is
something unpronounceable and appalling; but if you call her Countess
Bertha that will do; at all events, as long as our acquaintance with her
is likely to last,” was the reply.
Alice having never before encountered a real, live Countess, felt
a little shy at first; but the young foreigner’s manner, which was
perfectly easy without being too familiar, soon re-assured her, and the
two girls (for the Countess appeared little older than Alice) chatted
away, at first in French, but when it came out that the stranger
likewise understood English, in that language, to their mutual
satisfaction. But in about half-an-hour a breeze (not metaphorical, but
literal) sprung up, and the Countess signified her wish to retire to the
cabin, upon which Coverdale summoned her maid, and then assisted her to
effect the desired change of locality.