CHAPTER FOUR.
"HOPE."
"The wit, the vivid energy of sense, The truth of nature, which, with Attic point, And kind, well-temper'd satire, smoothly keen, Steals through the soul, and without pain corrects."
Yes, she it was of whom I had thought and dreamt, and built airy castleson imaginative foundations--chateaux en Espagne--that had almostcrumbled into vacancy during those long and weary weeks, and monotonousmonths, of waiting, and watching, and longing!
She entered; and the dull, disordered school-room, with its leaf-strewnfloor all covered with broken branches and naked boughs of chopped-upevergreens, its mass of piled forms, its lumbering desks and hassocks,its broken windows, its down-hanging maps of colossal continents, seemedchanged all at once, in a moment, as if by the touch of some magic wand,into an enchanted palace.
The fairy princess had at last appeared, the sleeping beauty beenawakened; and all was altered.
The semi-transparent sprig of mistletoe, which Seraphine Dasher hadmischievously suspended over the doorway, looked like a chaplet ofpearls; the pointed stems of yew became frosted in silver; thevariegated holly was transformed into branches of malachite, ornamentedwith a network of gold, its bright red berries glowing with a ruddyreflection as of interspersed rubies; while, above all, the glorioussunshine, streaming in through the shattered panes of the oriel at theeastern end, cast floods of quickening, mellow light, to the remotestcorners of the room, making the floating atoms of dust turn to waves ofpowdery amber, and enriching every object it touched with its luminousrays. Even the very representations of Europe, Asia, and Africa, on thewalls, lost their typographical characteristics, and shone out to me inthe guise of tapestried chronicles, ancient as those of Bayeux,describing deeds of gallant chivalry--so my fancy pictured--and love,and knight-errantry, painted over with oriental arabesques in crimsongilding, the cunning handiwork of the potent sun-god. Her coming ineffected all this to my mind.
What a darling she looked, sitting there, with a pretty little scarletand white sontag, of soft wool knitting, crossed over her bosom andclasped round her dainty, dainty waist; her busy fingers industriouslyweaving broad ivy garlands for the church columns, and her sweet, calmface bent earnestly over her task--the surrounding foliage, scatteredhere, there, and everywhere, bringing out her well-formed figure inrelief, just like a picture in some rustic portrait frame! Micat interomnes, as Virgil sang of "the young Marcellus," his hero: she "glistenedout before them all."
Of course she was introduced to me.
"Mr Lorton--Miss Minnie Clyde." Now, at last, I had met her and knewher name! What a pretty name she had, too, as little Miss Pimpernellhad said! Just in keeping with its owner.
As my name was pronounced, she raised her beautiful grey eyes from thegarland in her lap; and I could perceive, from a sudden gleam ofintelligence which shot through them for an instant, that I was at oncerecognised:--from my face, I'm sure, she must have noticed that _she_had not been forgotten.
I was in heaven; I would not have relinquished my position, kneeling ather feet and stripping off ivy leaves for her use, no, not for adukedom!
Our conversation became again imperceptibly of a higher tone. Hers waslight, sparkling, brilliant; and one could see that she possessed a fundof native drollery within herself, despite her demure looks and downcasteyes. She had a sweet, low voice, "that most excellent thing in woman;"while her light, silvery laughter rippled forth ever and anon, like achime of well-tuned bells, enchaining me as would chords of Offenbach'schampagne music.
In comparison with her, Lizzie Dangler's prosy platitudes, which somedeemed wit--Horner, par exemple--sank into nothingness, and Baby Blake,one of the "gushing" order of girlhood, appeared as a stick, or, rather,a too pliant sapling--her inane "yes's" and lisping "no's" having anopportunity of being "weighed in the balance," and consequently, in myopinion, "found wanting." All were mediocre beside her. Perhaps I wasprejudiced; but, now, the remarks of the other girls seemed to mesingularly silly.
From light badinage, we got talking of literature. Some one, Mr Mawleythe curate, I think, drew a parallel between Douglas Jerrold andThackeray, describing both, in his blunt, dogmatic way, as cynics.
To this I immediately demurred. In the first place, because Mawley wasso antipathetical to me, that I dearly loved to combat his assertions;and, secondly, on account of his disparaging my beau ideal of all thatis grand and good in a writer and in man.
"You make a great mistake," I said, "for Thackeray is a satirist pur etsimple. Jerrold was a cynic, if you please, although he had a wonderfulamount of kindly feeling even in his bitterest moods--indeed I wouldrather prefer calling him a one-sided advocate of the poor against therich, than apply to him your opprobrious term."
"Well, cynic or satirist, I should like to know what great differencelies between the two?" the curate retorted, glad of an argument, andwishing, as usual, to display his critical acumen by demolishing me.
"I will tell you with pleasure," said I, not a bit "put out," accordingto his evident wish and expectation, "and I will use the plainestlanguage in my exposition, so that you may be able to understand me! Acynic, I take it, is one who talks or writes bitterly, in thegratification of a malicious temperament, merely for the sake ofinflicting pain on the object of his attack, just as a bad-dispositionedboy will stick pins in a donkey, or persecute a frog, for the sheer sakeof seeing it wince: a satirist, on the contrary, is a philosopher whoridicules traits of character, customs and mannerisms, with theintention of remedying existing evils, abolishing abuses, and reformingsociety--in the same way as a surgeon performs an operation to remove aninjured limb, inflicting temporary pain on his patient, with theprospect of ultimate good resulting from it. I have never seen thisdefinition given anywhere; consequently, as it is but my own privateopinion, you need only take it for what it is worth."
"Thank you, Mr Lorton," said _somebody_, giving me a gratefullyintelligent look from a pair of deep, thinking grey eyes.
"Oh, indeed! so that's your opinion, Lorton?" put in Mr Mawley, asantagonistic as ever. "So that's your opinion, is it? I _will_ do asyou say, and take it for what it is worth--that is, keep my own still!You may be very sharp and clever, and all that sort of thing, my dearfellow; but I don't see the difference between the two that you have solucidly pointed out. Satire and cynicism are co-equal terms to my mind:your argument won't persuade me, Lorton, although I must say that youare absolutely brilliant to-day. You should really start a school ofModern Literature, my dear fellow, and set up as a professor of thesame!"
"Please get my scissors, Frank," said Miss Pimpernell, trying to stopour wordy warfare. I got them; but I had my return blow at the curateall the same.
"I suppose you'd be one of my first pupils, Mr Mawley," I said. "Ithink I could coach you up a little!"
He was going to crush me with some of his sledge-hammer declamation,being thoroughly roused, when Bessie Dasher averted the storm, byentering the arena and changing the conversation to a broader footing.
"How I dote on Thackeray!" she exclaimed with all her naturalimpulsiveness. "What a dear, delicious creature Becky Sharp is; andthat funny old baronet, Sir Pitt something or other, too! When I firsttook up _Vanity Fair_ I could not let it out of my hands until Ifinished it."
"That's more than I can say," said the curate. "I don't like Thackeray.He cuts up every one and everything. Is not that a cynic for you?"
"Not everybody," said Min--I cannot call her anything else now--comingto my assistance, "not everybody, Mr Mawley. I think Thackeray, withall his satire and kindly laughter in his sleeve at persons that oughtto be laughed down, has yet given us some of the most pathetic touchesof human nature existing in English literature. There's the old colonelin _The Newcomes_, for instance. That little bit about his teaching histiny grandson to say his prayers, before he put him into bed in his poorchamber in the Charter House, to which he was reduced, would make anyone cry. And Henry Esmond, and Warrington, and
Laura--where would youfind more nobly-drawn characters than those?" and she stopped, out ofbreath with her defence of one of the greatest writers we have ever had,indignant, with such a pretty indignation, at his merits beingquestioned for a moment.
"Of course I must bow to your decision, Miss Clyde," said the curate,with one of those stock ceremonial bows that stood him in such goodstead amongst the female community of the parish. He was a cunningfellow, Mawley. Knew which way his interest lay; and never went againstthe ladies if he could help it. "But," he continued, "if we talk ofpathos, there's `the great master of fiction,' Dickens; who can come upto him?"
"Ah, yes! Mr Mawley,"--chorused the majority of the girls--"we quiteagree with you: there's nobody like Dickens!"
It is a strange thing how perverse the divine sex is, in preferringconfectionery to solid food; and superficial writers, to those who divebeneath the surface of society and expose its rottenness--like as theyesteem Tupper's weak-minded version of Solomon's Proverbs beyond thebest poetry that ever was written!
I wasn't going to be beaten by the curate, however, prattled he never sowisely with the cunning of the serpent-charmer. "I grant you," said I,"that Dickens appeals oftener to our susceptible sympathies; but he is_unreal_ in comparison with Thackeray. The one was a far more correctstudent of human nature than the other. Dickens selectedexceptionalities and invested them with attributes which we never seepossessed by their prototypes whom we may meet in the world. He givesus either caricature, or pictures of men and women seen through a rose-coloured medium: Thackeray, on the other hand, shows you life _as itis_. He takes you behind the scenes and lets you perceive for yourselfhow the `dummies' and machinery are managed, how rough the distemperpainting, all beauty from the front of `the house,' looks on nearerinspection, how the `lifts' work, and the `flats' are pushed on; besidesdisclosing all the secrets connected with masks and `properties.' He isnot content in merely allowing you to witness the piece from before thecurtain, in the full glory of that distance from the place of actionwhich lends enchantment to the view, and with all the deceptiveconcomitants of music and limelights and Bengal fire! To adopt anotherillustration, I should say that Dickens was the John Leech of fictionalliterature, Thackeray its Hogarth. Even Jerrold, I think, in his mostbitter, cynical moods, was truer to life and nature than Dickens. Didyou ever read the former's _Story of a Feather_, by the way?"
"No," answered Mawley, testily, "I can't say I ever did; and I don'tthink it likely I ever will."
"Well, I dare say you are quite right, Frank," said the kindly voice ofmy usual ally little Miss Pimpernell, interposing just at the righttime--as she always did, indeed--to throw oil on the troubled waters."But, still, I like Dickens the best. Do you know, children," she wenton, looking round, as we all sat watching her dear old wrinkled facebeaming cheerily on us through her spectacles, "do you know, children,I've no doubt you'll laugh at me for telling you, but, when I first read`David Copperfield'--and I was an old woman then--I cried my eyes outover the account of the death of poor Dora's little dog Gyp. Dearlittle fellow! Don't you recollect how he crawled out of his tinyChinese pagoda house, and licked his master's hand and died? I thinkit's the most affecting thing in fiction I ever read in my life."
"And I, too, dear Miss Pimpernell," said Min, in her soft, low voice,which had a slight tremor as she spoke, and there was a misty look inher clear grey eyes--silent witnesses of the emotion that stirred herheart. "I shed more tears over poor Gyp than I can bear to think ofnow--except when I cried over little Tiny Tim, in the `Christmas Carol,'where, you remember, the spirit told Uncle Scrooge that the cripple boywould die. That affected me equally, I believe; and I could not read itdry-eyed now."
"Nor I," lisped Baby Blake, following suit, in order to keep up herreputation for sentimentality; "I would thob my eyth out!"
"See," quoted the curate, grandiloquently, "how `one touch of naturemakes the whole world kin!'"
"For my part," exclaimed Miss Spight, who had taken no share in ourconversation since we had dropped personalities, "I don't see the use ofpeople crying over the fabulous woes of a lot of fictitious persons thatnever existed, when there is such an amount of real grief and miserygoing on in the world."
"That is not brought home to us," said Min, courageously; "but thetroubles and trials of the people in fiction are; and I believe thatevery kind thought which a writer makes throb through our hearts, betterenables us to pity the sorrows of actual persons."
"Bai-ey Je-ove!" exclaimed Horner, twisting his eye-glass round andmaking an observation for the first time--the discussion before had beenapparently beyond his depth,--"Bai-ey Je-ove! Ju-ust what I was gaw-ingto say! Bai-ey Je-ove, yaas! But Miss Spight is much above humanemawtion, you know, and all that sawt of thing, you know-ah!"
"Besides," continued Min, not taking any notice of our friend's originalremark I was glad to see, "one does not always cry over novels. I'msure I've laughed more than I've wept over Dickens, and other authors."
"Ah!" said Lady Dasher, with a melancholy shake of her head, "life istoo serious for merry-making! It is better to mourn than to rejoice, asI've often heard my poor dear papa say when he was alive."
"Nonsense, ma!" pertly said her daughter Seraphine; "you can't believethat. I'm sure I'd rather laugh than cry, any day. And so would you,too, ma, in spite of your seriousness!"
"Your mamma is quite right in some respects, my dear," said little MissPimpernell. "We should not be always thinking of nothing but merry-making. Don't you recollect those lines of my favourite Herrick?--
"`Time flies away fast! The while we never remember, How soon our life here Grows old with the year, That dies in December.'"
"Yes, I do, you cross old thing!" said the seraph, shaking her goldenlocks and laughing saucily; "and I remember also that your `favouriteHerrick' says something else about one's `gathering rose-buds whilst onemay.'"
"You naughty girl!" said Miss Pimpernell, trying to look angry and frownat her; but the attempt was such a palpable pretence that we all laughedat her as much as the delinquent.
"And what is your favourite style of poetry, Miss Clyde?" asked thecurate, taking advantage of the introduction of Herrick to change thesubject.
And then there followed a chorus of discussion: Miss Spight declared sheadored Wordsworth: Mr Mawley tried to show off his superiority, and Iattempted to put him down; I believe I was jealous lest Min should agreewith him.
"Now, Frank," exclaimed Miss Pimpernell, "I will not have any moresparring between you and Mr Mawley, for I'm sure you've argued enough.It is `the merry Christmas-time,' you know; and we ought all to be atpeace, and gay and happy, too! What do you say, girls?"
"But what shall we do to be merry?" asked Bessie Dasher.
"Ah! my dear," groaned her mother; "it is not right to be foolishly`merry,' as you call it. This season of the year is a very sad one, andwe ought to be thinking, as my poor dear papa used to say, of what ourSaviour did for us and the other world! We have now arrived at the endof another year, and it is very sad, very sad!"
"What!" exclaimed Min, "wrong to be merry at Christmas? The vicar saidin his sermon last Sunday, that our hearts ought to expand with joy atthis time; and that we should try, not only to be glad and happy inourselves, but also to make others glad and happy, too. It appears tome," and her face flushed with excitement as she spoke, "a veryerroneous idea of religion that would only associate it with gloom andsadness. The same Creator endowed us with the faculty to laugh as wellas cry; and we must take poor comfort in him if we cannot be glad in hiscompany, to which the Christmas season always brings us nearer and intomore intimate connection, as it were."
"Bravo, my little champion!" said the vicar, who had again stolen inunperceived by us all. "That is the spirit of true Christianity. Youhave preached a more practical sermon than I, my dear." Then, seeingher confusion at being thus singled out and her embarrassment at having,as she thought, been too forward in speaking out impulsively
on the spurof the moment, the vicar created a diversion. "And now, young ladies,"he said, "as we are going to be merry, what shall we play at?"
"Oh, puss in the corner!" cried Seraphine Dasher. "That will bedelightful!"
"With all my heart; puss in the corner be it," said the vicar, who couldbe a boy again on fitting occasions, and play with the best of us."Come, Mawley," he added, "come and exert yourself; and help to pullthese forms out of the way," setting to work vigorously at the sametime, himself.
In another minute or two we were in the middle of a wild romp, whereinlittle Miss Pimpernell and the vicar were the most active participants--they showing themselves to be quite as active as the younger hands;while Miss Spight and Lady Dasher were the only idle spectators. Min atfirst did not join in, as she was not accustomed to the ways of us oldhabitues, but she presently participated, being soon as gay and noisy asany. What fun we had in blindfolding Horner, and manoeuvring so that heshould rush into the arms of Miss Spight! What a shout of laughterthere was when he exclaimed, clasping her the while, "Bai-ey Je-ove!Yaas, I've cawght you at lawst!"
The look of pious horror which settled on the face of the elderly maidenwas a study.
Thus our working day ended; and it became time to separate and go home.I had the further happiness of seeing Min to her door, both of us livingin the same direction.
It was the same on the morrow, and on the morrow after that, for a wholeweek.
Of course, we did not talk "Shakspeare and the musical glasses" always.Our discourse was generally composed of much lighter elements,especially when Mr Mawley and I did not come in contact--argument beingthen, naturally, as a dead letter. Our conversation during thesepeaceful interregnums mainly consisted in friendly banter, parish news,and gossip. Scandal Miss Pimpernell never permitted; indeed, no onewould have had the heart to say an ill-natured thing of anybody else inher presence.
Day after day Min and I were closely associated together, learning toknow more of one another than we might have acquired in years ofordinary society intercourse; day after day, I would watch her daintyfigure, and study her beautiful face, and gaze into the fathomlessdepths of her honest grey eyes, my love towards her increasing by suchrapid strides, that, at length, I almost worshipped the very ground onwhich she trod.
And so the week wore by, until Christmas Eve arrived. Then our task wasfinished, and we decorated Saint Canon's old church with all the wreathsand garlands, the crosses and illuminations, on which we had been sobusy in the school-room; making it look quite modern in its festalpreparation for the ensuing day, when the result of our handiwork wouldbe displayed to the admiration, we hoped, of the congregation at large.
On parting with Min late in the evening at her door--for our work at thechurch had occupied us longer than usual--I thought it the happiestChristmas Eve I had ever passed; and, as I went to bed that night, Iwondered, dreamily, if the morning's sun would rise for another as happya day, while I prayed to God that He would shape my life in accordancewith the fervent desire of my heart.