“DULCE DOMUM”
HALF-ENGAGED--THE GREEN-EYED MONSTER--SELF-SACRIFICE--“DINNER’S
ON THE TABLE”--“THE MEMENTO MORI”--AN ADVOCATE FOR MATRIMONY--A
FAIR GOOD-NIGHT
We must return to Newton-Hollows, now mellowing in the last tints of
fading autumn, its dahlias already cut off by the morning frosts, its
well-kept gravel-walks, despite the gardener and his staff, strewed
here and there with the withered leaves of the declining year. A light
mist, rising in smoke-wreaths from the sward, anticipates the early
twilight of the shortening day, and the fire burning brightly in the
library is none the less acceptable for its contrast to the gathering
shades of out-of-doors, which seem to stalk nearer and nearer to the
unshuttered windows.
Blanche has just come in, fresh and blooming, from an errand of mercy
amongst the poor in the adjoining village. Her bonnet is even now
hanging on her arm, and her long clustering hair is damp and limp with
the dews of evening. Is that a tear clinging to her eyelashes? or is
it only the moisture of heaven caught as it fell, and prisoned in
those silken meshes? Blanche is often in tears now, and loves to be
alone. She and Mary ride and walk together as usual, but the
unreserved confidence that used to exist between them is gone. It has
been dying a natural death ever since the former paid her memorable
visit at Frank Hardingstone’s hotel; and though it has flickered up
again with an expiring flash or two, it is now finally extinct. Our
young lady has aged much since her thoughtless days of only last
spring. Pique, disappointment, anxiety, and self-communing have been
doing their work silently and surely, shading the fair young brow,
indeed, but at the same time tempering and mellowing the careless,
buoyant heart. Blanche has begun to find that life is not all _couleur
de rose_, even for the young, and the lesson has not been without its
usual salutary effect. Though no longer the wealthy heiress--and, to
do her justice, she seldom dwells upon that as a misfortune--she is
beginning to feel that she too has a part to act on the stage of life,
or rather that, no longer acting the vain part of every-day frivolity,
she has a _reality_ to fulfil. So she is never so happy now as when
busying herself about her poor people, her decrepit old women, and her
little ragged children, to whom she does acts of unassuming kindness,
in the performance of which she forgets her own annoyances and
heart-burnings, though her woman nature is as yet but half-trained,
and she has occasional fits of despondency and bursts of reactionary
sorrow, which make her very unhappy for the time. Blanche has had a
fresh grievance, too, for the last few days, connected, of all things
in the world, with Cousin Charlie’s return--that return which was to
have been such a jubilee of rejoicing, and which she now almost dreads
to look forward to. The girl feels as if she had lost her
self-respect, and turn which way she will, the sting ever rankles in
her breast, ever reminds her of what she chooses to consider her
degradation. The fact is, she has sustained an interview with Uncle
Baldwin in the formidable study; and the General, who is not given to
beat about the bush when he has an object in view, has developed to
her, in as few words as possible, his projects for her future welfare,
and proposed to her, point blank, that on her cousin’s return from
abroad she should marry him forthwith. Blanche, as in nature bound,
made sundry hesitating objections, all of which her uncle chose to
consider as mere maiden modesty, _de rigueur_ on such an occasion; and
as Blanche could not say she _didn’t like him_, and as Uncle Baldwin
had always been so kind, in fact, a second father to her, and made
such a point of it, and it would prevent Charlie going back to those
horrid Kaffirs, and was to make them all so happy, and, above all, had
been her dearest mother’s wish--why, the girl gave in, as girls often
do on the most important topic of their lives, paralysed, as it would
seem, by the amount of the stake at issue, and yielded a sort of
conditional half-promise, which, notwithstanding the bursts of
applause that it met with from the General, the instant it passed her
lips, she would have given worlds to be able to recall. But there was
another consideration, buried deep in Blanche’s little heart, which,
although she would have been very angry to be told so, although she
would not allow it even to herself, had far more weight in inducing
her to listen favourably to these advances on the part of her
unconscious cousin, than all the General’s skilful sophistry and
affectionate eloquence; and this was a feeling which, as it is the
usual accompaniment of love, resembles that epidemic in so far that,
where it rages most fiercely, it is invariably most stoutly denied.
Men take it freely enough, and when under its influence commit sundry
absurdities, which, if they make “angels weep,” certainly make their
fellow-mortals laugh, and of which they have generally the grace to be
heartily ashamed; but with women, as we believe its seeds are never
altogether dormant in those gentle beings, so its virulence, when
unchecked, pervades their whole system, and one of its commonest and
least startling effects is that species of moral suicide which is best
described by the vulgar adage of “cutting off one’s nose to spite
one’s face,” and which produces that most incomprehensible of all
vagaries termed “marrying out of pique.”
Now we need hardly say, that we have written in vain “for that dull
elf who cannot picture to himself” how Blanche Kettering, from her
very pinafore days, had been over head and ears in love with Frank
Hardingstone: not a very sufficient reason, it may be said, for
consenting to marry some one else; but yet a natural consequence of
that inverted state of feelings we have described above, which under
the name of jealousy is capable of more extravagant feats than this.
And of whom was pretty Blanche jealous? Why, of her own fast friend
and dearest associate, the peerless Mary Delaval! The more she thought
over the characters of the two, so suited to each other in every
possible way--which very similarity Blanche was not philosopher enough
to perceive was an insuperable obstacle to any tenderer feeling than
respect--the more she considered their corresponding strength of mind
and hardihood of spirit, their equally high standard of worth and
elevation of sentiment--the more she reflected on the opinions she had
heard each of them express (the bass notes of that moral duet had sunk
deep into her heart)--the more she thought over that memorable day,
when, at a word from Mary, and at a moment’s notice, Frank had started
for South Africa, without so much as coming to wish her (Blanche)
good-bye--the more her heart sank within her as she linked those two
commanding figures in the halo of love, blurred even to her mental
vision by the tears which filled her eyes as she contemplated the bare
idea of such a union. Blanche had long struggled against this feeling;
she had hoped against hope, as she firmly believed, rather than give
Frank Hardingstone up; but now she would deceive herself no more; he
was actually corresponding with Mrs. Delaval, which, to say the least
of it, she must confess was very indelicate. This was the second
letter Mary had received from him. Why had he written to Mary from the
Cape? It was surely very strange; and Mary had never offered to show
her either of the letters--of course she would rather die than _ask_
to see them. Poor Blanche! little do you guess the cause of your
friend’s unusual reserve as regarded these important missives. Mary
Delaval, quickened by her own experience of a hopeless love, saw it
all--saw that her high-minded, manly correspondent was devoted heart
and soul to Blanche; and she pitied him, even as she pitied herself,
for a misplaced attachment. But it was not for _her_, of all people,
to do aught that might shake Blanche’s affection for Cousin
Charlie--_she_ could not be so selfish, so traitorous, as to lend her
assistance to anything, however slight, that might in the most remote
manner wean Blanche from her cousin, and leave him free. So Mary,
treasuring the letter, as containing oft-repeated mention of the
beloved name, placed it in her bosom, but did not volunteer to show a
single line of it to a living soul. Therefore is Blanche desponding
and unhappy; therefore, as gloomy thoughts sweep like shadows across
her mind, the tears gather in her eyes, as she leans her head upon the
marble chimney-piece, and sorrows all alone in the deepening twilight.
“And this is the day I thought I was to have been so happy,” thinks
poor Blanche--“the day I have been looking forward to ever since we
heard Charlie was coming home. Ah! I wish I could meet him now as I
used to do in the happy days when we knew nothing about marrying and
money and family arrangements. And poor Charlie, after all his
sufferings!--Uncle Baldwin says it will break his heart if I don’t
marry him. And dear mamma, if she had lived, she would have been so
glad to see it all settled! And so I suppose it _must_ be; and then
Mr. Hardingstone will very likely marry _her_, and everybody will be
happy and contented but _me_. Ah! well, there must always be some one
sacrificed; and I suppose I must be the victim this time; but it _is_
hard to give up all my hope, all my sunshine--to have no future any
more. Yes; I hear the autumn wind sighing round the house. I am not
yet twenty; and it will be all autumn to me for the rest of my life.
Oh, it _is_ hard--very hard!” and Blanche pressed her brow against the
chimney-piece and wept bitterly.
“Blanche, dearest Blanche, what is it?” whispered a gentle voice close
beside her, and she felt Mary Delaval’s arm passed caressingly round
her waist. Blanche started up, and checked her tears. She could have
borne anything but this. She could not endure to be consoled by her
triumphant rival. “Nothing,” she replied, withdrawing herself almost
rudely from the encircling arm--“nothing; I’m only tired and nervous,
waiting for these people. I think I’ll go and dress, for it’s getting
late; and--I think--I think I’ll go by myself, Mrs. Delaval,” said
Blanche; and she hurried away, leaving Mary surprised and hurt at the
first unkind words she had ever heard from Blanche’s lips. “Anything
but that,” said the girl as she walked up-stairs, swelling with
indignation; “anything but that _she_ should come and _triumph_ over
me.” And she banged her door angrily; and Mary, in the drawing-room,
heard it, and was grieved.
_Triumph_, indeed!--was that poor pale face one of _triumph_? Were
those deep eyes, hollowing day by day; that sad brow, on which care
seemed visibly to rest, as a cloud rests upon the hill, and softens
even while it darkens--were these the outward signs of satisfied
affection and _triumphant_ love? Blanche, Blanche, you think yourself
very unhappy; but little do you know the struggle going on in the
bosom of that faithful friend with whom you are now so unjustly at
variance. Little do you guess that she has torn the one only image,
the fulfilment of the ideal of a lifetime, from her heart, and vowed
to worship it no more; and prayed that the very thought which made the
sunshine of her existence might pass away; and all for you. So it is
in life: we make a sacrifice which costs us nothing; we give that
which perhaps we are all well satisfied to get rid of; and the world
says, “How noble! how generous! how disinterested!” or we yield up the
one dear hope that has cheered us all our journey; we consent to
travel the rest of the way in darkness and dreariness and listless
despair, and the world thinks us only stupid and disagreeable; those
who look below the surface perhaps suggest that we are bilious; and
the one for whom we have made all this ruin, for whose well-being and
security we are stretched helpless, exhausted, bleeding by the way,
thanks us blandly at the most, and takes it much as a matter of
course, and passes by, very likely, on the other side.
But “fight who will and die who may,” the outward world goes on much
the same notwithstanding. The clock goes round, and dinner-time
arrives; and whatever may be the sorrow brooded over and locked up in
the inner life, we dress for dinner when the time comes, and look in
the glass and dry our eyes, and have a glass of sherry after our soup;
and the tyrant Custom, and the motley jester Society, bid us sit
between them; and this woos from us a vapid smile, and that lays his
iron hand upon our brow and dares us to stir; and we are all the
better for the hypocrisy and the restraint.
Thus, although the ringing of the door-bell that announced the
long-expected arrival of the guests from Africa vibrated through the
very hearts of the ladies in their dressing-rooms, even as it vibrated
through the ground-floors and offices of Newton-Hollows, we are not to
suppose that it crumpled a fold of muslin or moved a single ringlet
out of its place with its agitating summons. Below-stairs, indeed, the
old butler settled himself hastily into his coat, and rushed to the
door with as hearty a welcome for the travellers as if it had been his
own house; whilst from a gallery that overlooked the hall divers
lighted candles might be seen glancing, and pretty faces looking down
from beneath smart caps, all eager to get a glimpse at Cousin Charlie,
whose wounds and exploits had made him a second Roland in the
estimation of these admiring damsels; while sundry exclamations might
have been overheard, as, “Which is him?” “That’s Master Charles, him
in the pea-jacket.” “Lor’, how thin he’s growed!” and, “Well, he’s a
genteel figure, let alone those ’orrid moustaches,” from the upper
housemaid, who was a new acquisition since Charlie’s departure, and
having once been engaged to a journeyman glazier, thought herself a
judge of young men. But the General had rushed from his den in the
meantime, half-dressed as he was, and had pulled Charlie into the
well-lighted drawing-room, and had shaken Frank Hardingstone a hundred
times by the hand, and was never tired of reiterating his welcome, and
his delight at seeing them both once more.
“God bless you, Frank!” exclaimed the General for the twelfth time, as
he fidgeted about the room in braces and shirt-sleeves. “What! you’ve
brought him back safe and well? D----n me, sir (God forgive me for
swearing), I tell you I’ll _never_ forget it. Zounds, don’t tell me!
Brought him back, sir, like a resurrectionist! I never thought to see
this day, sir--I tell ye--Gratitude! how d’ye mean? And you, Charlie,
my trump of a boy--thanked in Orders--General Orders, by all the gods
of war! Ah, I hadn’t lectured you over the old port for nothing. You
took ’em in flank, the rascals. _In flank_, or I’ll eat ’em. Don’t
tell _me_; couldn’t be done otherwise. Lads! lads! it’s too much: you
make me feel like a child again. What?” and the old General’s eyes
began to overflow with the fulness at his heart; so he relapsed into a
state of unusual gruffness, and stirred the fire fiercely to conceal
his emotion; and finally hurried them off to dress. “None of your
licentious camp habits here, Charlie. Dine to a minute, you dog! I
trust you’ll find your room comfortable, Frank, my boy. I saw to the
fire myself not half-an-hour ago. What? Ring for what you _want_, and
my servants will bring you what they _have_.” So the old gentleman
toddled off to finish his own personal adornment, and the guests, with
beating hearts, well concealed from each other, proceeded to dispatch
theirs as quickly as might be.
If ever there was a banquet that to all appearance should have been
one of triumphant hilarity, it was the sumptuous dinner to which our
party sat down that day in the bright, warm, cheerful dining-room at
Newton-Hollows. Notwithstanding Lady Mount Helicon’s sneers, no man
understood better than the General that process which is
conventionally called “doing things well.” The servants glided about
noiselessly as if shod with velvet--the doors were never left open,
still less closed with a bang--no bumps and thumps of tray-corners
against projecting wood-work disturbed the conversation, to irritate
the host while they alarmed his guests. Nor as the different courses
made their appearance, did a gush of cold air accompany them from
below-stairs, tainted but not warmed by the odours borne with it from
the kitchen. The soup was as hot as the plates, the champagne iced to
a turn, even as the haunch was roasted. Glasses were filled
noiselessly by the butler, as a matter of course (by the way, an
immense pull for the ladies), and everything was handed to everybody
at the instant it was wanted, and this, to our humble ideas, is no
mean auxiliary to the general success of an entertainment. The old
Roman _bon vivant_ evidently knew a thing or two about dinner-giving
(he called them suppers), or he would not have so dilated on the
necessity of attention to trifles, _vilibus in scopis_, _in mappis_,
etc. The General, too, understood these details thoroughly, and
therefore it was disrespectful youth voted _nem. con._ that
Newton-Hollows was “a rare shop at feeding time,” and that “old
Bounce, if he was rather a bore out hunting, was nevertheless the boy
to dine with, and no mistake!”
“The boy,” however, on this occasion seemed to have all the hilarity
of the meeting to himself. Of the four individuals that constituted
his party, each was acting a part, each had set a guard upon his and
her lips, and was originating broken, disjointed sentences, vainly
endeavouring to form a matter-of-course unrestrained conversation.
The ladies were even more reserved than the gentlemen. Blanche was
thinking how brown and handsome Frank looked after his voyage--so much
more manly than her cousin--and wondering why he should say so little
to _her_, and yet pay no attention whatever to Mary. That lady again
was full of tender alarms and anxieties about Cousin Charlie, his
wasted figure, and his frequent cough, and gulping down the tears she
could scarcely repress, as she glanced ever and anon at his glittering
eye and emaciated face. “Perhaps,” she thought, “he will never live
after all to be Blanche’s husband.” A thrill shot through her at the
thought that then he would indeed be all her own: but if this was joy,
good faith! it was a joy near akin to tears. As for Frank, he was more
in love than ever. Nor indeed is this to be wondered at. If a
gentleman having voluntarily surrendered himself to that epidemic,
which, like the measles, we must all go through sooner or later, and
which, like that indisposition of childhood, is prone to cure itself
by its own progress--if a gentleman, then, having undergone a
favourable eruption, and, at the very crisis of his disorder, shall
voluntarily absent himself from his charmer, to return from a
sea-voyage amongst rough companions, and contemplate her for the first
time, attired in all the brilliancy of dinner costume, and further
embellished by the favourable disposition of light, which sets off
such entertainments, and which is generally considered highly
conducive to female beauty, he need not be surprised to find that he
is less a rational being than ever, or that the disease for which
absence is considered so unfailing a cure should come out with
redoubled virulence under such an interruption of that salutary
course. But Frank, though in love, was also disappointed. His hopes
had risen most unreasonably since Charlie’s disclosures on the evening
preceding their memorable shipwreck. He had indulged in such
day-dreams as, for a sensible man--which, to do him justice, he
generally was--were the acme of absurdity; and now because Blanche had
neither thrown herself into his arms when they met--a feat, indeed,
she could hardly have conveniently accomplished, “dinner” being
announced at that interesting moment--nor had spoken to him more than
she could possibly help--for which reserve she likewise had excellent
reasons, the principal one being that she could by no means trust her
voice--our philosophic gentleman was disappointed, forsooth, and
consequently hurt, and the least thing sulky. Charlie, again, though
more at ease in his mind than the others, was tired and exhausted: he
was always tired now towards the evening; and although rejoiced to be
once more at home, once more gazing his fill on the only face he had
ever much cared to look at--an indulgence that partook, he knew not
why, of the nature of a stolen pleasure--yet his satisfaction was of
that inward kind which does not betray itself by outward signs of
mirth, but which, more particularly in failing health, flows on in a
deep silent current, that to the superficial observer has all the
appearance of apathy and cold, selfish carelessness.
But the General was in his glory. Fond of eating and drinking himself,
his delight was to see his friends eat and drink too; and as he urged
on his guests the different good things for both purposes that smoked
on the table or sparkled on the sideboard, he monopolised the
conversation with the same zest that he demolished a considerable
share of the entertainment.
“Charlie, you eat nothing, my boy,” said the General: “that haunch was
roasted a turn too much; let me give you a bit of the grouse. Zounds!
we must fatten you up here--what? commissariat disgraceful at the
Cape! ’Gad, sir, we wouldn’t stand it in India. I broke three
commissaries myself in the Deccan, because there was no soda-water in
camp--fact, I pledge you my honour, Mrs. Delaval. I don’t believe
Charlie’s had a morsel to eat since he went into training for the
steeple-chase.”
“You wouldn’t have said so if you’d seen him getting well at Fort
Beaufort,” remarked Frank, rousing himself from his fit of
abstraction; “his voracity was perfectly frightful! I wish you could
have seen him, Miss Kettering, in a black skull-cap, as thin as a
thread-paper, on crutches, asking every ten minutes what o’clock it
was, dreading to die of starvation between two o’clock dinner and five
o’clock tea; you never beheld anything so thin and so hungry.”
Blanche laughed her old merry laugh; and Charlie, stealing a look at
Mary Delaval, saw her eyes were full of tears. How his heart leapt
within him, and how a chill seemed to gather round it the moment
after, and curdle his very life-blood, as the possibility flashed
across him, that even now it might be _too late_. Too late!--he was
but twenty-one, yet something warned him that his was no secure
tenure, that there might be truth in the startling suspicion that had
of late obtruded itself like a death’s head on his moments of
enjoyment--that the world might be no world for him when autumn again
shed her leaves, and the browning copses and cleared fields brought
back the merry field-sports he loved so well. No more football--no
more cricket--no more panting excitement and rosy out-of-doors
exertion--no more sharp gun-shot ringing through the woodland, nor
hound making music in the dale, nor airy steed careering after the
pack, fleeting noiselessly o’er the upland. And though these were
hard, bitter hard to leave, ’twas harder still to give up the opening
dream of ambition, the budding promise of manhood; and harder, harder
than all, the first glowing reality of woman’s love. It is well to
perish with trust unshaken in that glorious myth; to sleep before that
too is discovered to be a dream. But Charlie shook off these moments
of despondency with the elasticity of his age and character. In that
bright, luxurious room, with those friendly faces around him,
encircled by beauty, wealth, and refinement, death seemed
_impossible_. Have we never felt thus wrapped in security ourselves;
and when some “silver cord has been loosed--some golden bowl broken”
from amongst our own immediate associates, have we not felt almost
angry at the unmannerly visitor who intrudes thus without knocking,
and pauses not to wipe his shoes for Turkey carpet more than sanded
floor? “_Pauperum tabernas regumque turres_,” he has the _entrée_ of
them all.
The General was a little disappointed with his guests, when, on the
retirement of the ladies, a magnum of undeniable claret exhaled its
aroma for their immediate benefit, and he found it did not by any
means disappear with that military rapidity to which he was accustomed
in his younger days. Charlie’s cough was a sufficient excuse for his
abstemiousness; and Frank Hardingstone, though he could drink a
bucketful on occasion, would not open his lips on compulsion; so the
General found himself in consequence obliged to grapple with the giant
almost single-handed. This, to do him justice, he undertook with
considerable _gusto_, and by the time he had got to the bottom of his
measure, had arrived at that buoyant state in which gentlemen are more
prone to broach such matters of business as they may think it
expedient to undertake, than to explain clearly the method by which
their desired ends can most readily be attained. Accordingly, when
Frank and Charlie rose to join the ladies in the drawing-room, our old
soldier called the latter back to the fire-place, and filling himself
a large bumper of sherry as an orthodox conclusion to the whole, bid
his nephew sit down again for five minutes, and have a little quiet
conversation on a subject which should not be too long postponed.
“Just three words, Charlie,” said the General, sipping his sherry;
“won’t you have a whitewash, my boy? Three hundred and sixty-five more
glasses in the year, you know. You won’t? Well, Charlie, I’m right
glad to see you back again. To-morrow I must go over everything with
you as regards money matters. Frank has told you all about the will.
What? Zounds! it was very singular--I confess I expected it all
along.” The General was one of those truest of prophets whose
predictions are reserved until the fulfilment of events. Finding that
Charlie took this extraordinary instance of foresight very coolly, he
proceeded, as he thought, to beat about the bush in a most skilful
manner.
“Well, Charlie, and how d’ye think we’re all looking, eh? Wear well
and struggle on, don’t we? I’ve taken pretty good care of your cousin
for you, my boy, during your absence. How d’ye think she’s looking,
eh?”
Charlie, who had not thought about it at all, answered, “Very well.”
And the General filled himself another glass of sherry and went
on--“By Jove, Charlie, I congratulate you on _that_, eh? Shake hands,
my lad. Zounds! we’ll drink Blanche’s health. Now I’ve put everything
_en train_. We can have the lawyers down at a moment’s notice.
Blanche’s _things_, to be sure, will have to be got; women can’t do
without such a quantity of clothes. Why, when Rummagee Bang’s widow
was burnt--however, that’s neither here nor there. Now tell me,
Charlie, when do you think it ought to come off?”
“My dear uncle, I can’t think what you’re talking about,” replied
Charlie, trying to look as if he didn’t understand; “I don’t see what
I’ve got to do with Blanche’s things.”
“Talking of?” resumed the General, “why, the wedding, to be sure. What
else should I be talking of? You’re quite prepared, I suppose. I’ve
arranged it all with Blanche; she cried and all that, but _I_ know the
sex, Charlie, and _I_ could see--zounds, sir! she’s _de_-lighted.
Never was such an arrangement--keeps all the money together, fulfils
everyone’s intentions. What?--and then it’s been such a long
attachment, ever since you were both children, corals and long
petticoats. Petticoats! How d’ye mean?”
“But, Uncle Baldwin,” pleaded Charlie, with some difficulty getting in
a word edgeways, “don’t you think all this is somewhat premature?”
“Premature! what the devil?” replied the General--“zounds, sir! not at
all premature; quite the contrary, been put off too long, in fact.
Never mind, better late than never. These things should be done out of
hand. Why, sir, when I was at Cheltenham in ’25, the very year of that
claret, by the way,” pointing to the empty magnum, “there was a
handsome widow wanted to marry me at twelve hours’ notice. Did I ever
tell you how I got off, Charlie? ’Gad, sir, Mulligatawney, of the
Civil Service, got me out of the town in a return hearse; but even
death couldn’t part us, my boy--zounds! she followed me to Bath, and I
was laid up on the second-floor of the York House with the scarlet
fever--_the scarlet fever!_ and I was as well as you are--till we
starved her out; and when they said I was disfigured for life she gave
in.” The General chuckled till the tears came into his eyes; then,
recollecting his moral was somewhat anti-matrimonial, checked himself
into supernatural gravity, and resumed on the other tack. “But
marriage is a respectable state, Charlie; there’s nothing like it, so
Mulligatawney tells me, to sober a man. Marriage, Charlie,” said the
General, oracularly, with a solemn shake of the head, “marriage is
like that empty decanter. It comes in sparkling and blushing, like
sunrise on a May morning. What?--You draw the cork, and the first
glass is heaven upon earth--that’s the honeymoon; then you fill
another--same flavour, but not quite equal to the first. Never mind,
try again; so you keep sipping and sipping, to analyse, if you can,
the real taste of the beverage, and before you satisfy yourself you
come to the end of the bottle; then, sir, when you get to the bottom
you can see through it, and you find how empty it is! Not that I mean
exactly that,” said the General, again catching himself up, as he
found that his metaphor, having taken a wrong turn, had led to a
somewhat unexpected conclusion. “But we can’t stop here all night,”
added he; “so tell me, my boy, when I may begin to send out
invitations for the breakfast.”
Charlie blushed up all over his emaciated face, as he replied, pulling
vehemently at his moustaches, “Why, uncle, it’s best to be explicit,
and I like to be straightforward about everything, so I may as well
tell you at once, I--I’m hardly prepared to marry--in fact, I’m rather
adverse to it--in short,” said Charlie, gaining courage as he went on,
“I’ve no immediate idea of marrying at all, and, with all my respect
and brotherly affection for her, certainly not Blanche.”
“_Certainly not Blanche!_” repeated the General, in something between
a shriek and a moan. “_Certainly not Blanche!_--and why, in the name
of all that’s de--de--disgusting? _Certainly not Blanche!_ Zounds! I
see it all now; you’ve got a _black wife_--don’t deny it!--a black
wife and a swarm of piebald picaninnies. Oh dear! oh dear! that I
should live to see this day--I shall never get over it--it’s killing
me now;----, I feel it here, sir, in the pit of my stomach! I’ll go to
bed,” he vociferated, untying his neckcloth on the spot; “I’ll go to
bed this instant, and never get up again!” With which lugubrious
threat the General, regardless of Charlie’s protestations and
remonstrances, did in effect stump furiously off to his den, whence
his dressing-room bell was forthwith heard pealing with alarming
violence; nor did he appear any more that evening, leaving the
gentlemen to drag out a weary sitting, still at cross purposes, each
in the society of her he loved best in the world.