Comedies of Courtship Part 1

Comedies of Courts.h.i.+p.

by Anthony Hope.

THE WHEEL OF LOVE

CHAPTER I

THE VIRTUOUS HYPOCRITES

AT first sight they had as little reason for being unhappy as it is possible to have in a world half full of sorrow. They were young and healthy; half a dozen times they had each declared the other more than common good-looking; they both had, and never knew what it was not to have, money enough for comfort and, in addition that divine little superfluity wherefrom joys are born. The house was good to look at and good to live in; there were horses to ride, the river to go a-rowing on, and a big box from Mudie's every week. No one worried them; Miss Bussey was generally visiting the poor; or, as was the case at this moment, asleep in her arm-chair, with Paul, the terrier, in his basket beside her, and the cat on her lap. Lastly, they were plighted lovers, and John was staying with Miss Bussey for the express purpose of delighting and being delighted by his fiancee, Mary Travers. For these and all their mercies certainly they should have been truly thankful.

However the heart of man is wicked. This fact alone can explain why Mary sat sadly in the drawing-room, feeling a letter that was tucked inside her waistband and John strode moodily up and down the gravel walk, a cigar, badly bitten, between his teeth, and his hand over and again covertly stealing toward his breast-pocket and pressing a scented note that lay there. In the course of every turn John would pa.s.s the window of the drawing-room; then Mary would look up with a smile and blow him a kiss, and he nodded and laughed and returned the salute.

But, the window pa.s.sed, both sighed deeply and returned to lingering those hidden missives.

"Poor little girl! I must keep it up," said John.

"Dear good John! He must never know," thought Mary.

And the two fell to thinking just what was remarked a few lines back, namely, that the human heart is very wicked; they were shocked at themselves; the young often are.

Miss Bussey awoke, sat up, evicted the cat, and found her spectacles.

"Where are those children?" said she. "Billing and cooing somewhere, I suppose. Bless me, why don't they get tired of it?"

They had--not indeed of billing and cooing in general, for no one at their age does or ought to get tired of that--but of billing and cooing with one another.

It will be observed that the situation promised well for a tragedy.

Nevertheless this is not the story of an unhappy marriage.

If there be one thing which Government should forbid, it is a secret engagement. Engagements should be advertised as marriages are; but unless we happen to be persons of social importance, or considerable notoriety, no such precautions are taken. Of course there are engagement rings; but a man never knows one when he sees it on a lady's hand--it would indeed be impertinent to look too closely--and when he goes out alone he generally puts his in his pocket, considering that the evening will thus be rendered more enjoyable. The Ashforth--Travers engagement was not a secret now, but it had been, and had been too long. Hence, when Mary went to Scotland and met Charlie Ellerton, and when John went to Switzerland and met Dora Bellairs-the truth is, they ought never to have separated, and Miss Bussey (who was one of the people in the secret) had been quite right when she remarked that it seemed a curious arrangement. John and Mary had scoffed at the idea of a few weeks' absence having any effect on their feelings except, if indeed it were possible, that of intensifying them.

"I really think I ought to go and find them," said Miss Bussey. "Come, Paul!"

She took a parasol, for the April sun was bright, and went into the garden. "When she came to the drawing-room window John was away at the end of the walk. She looked at him: he was reading a letter. She looked in at the window: Mary was reading a letter.

"Well!" exclaimed Miss Bussey. "Have they had a tiff?" And she slowly waddled (truth imposes this word-she was very stout) toward the unconscious John. He advanced toward her still reading; not only did he not see her, but he failed to notice that Paul had got under his feet.

He fell over Paul, and as he stumbled the letter fluttered out of his hand. Paul seized it and began to toss it about in great glee.

"Good doggie!" Cried Miss Bussey. "Come then! Bring it to me, dear.

Good Paul!"

John's face was distorted with agony. He darted toward Paul, fell on him, and gripped him closely. Paul yelped and Miss Bussey observed, in an indignant tone, that John need not throttle the dog. John muttered something.

"Is the letter so very precious?" asked his hostess ironically.

"Precious!" cried John. "Yes!--No!--It's nothing at all."

But he opened Paul's mouth and took out his treasure with wonderful care.

"And why," inquired Miss Bussey, "are you not with Mary, young man?

You're very neglectful."

"Neglectful! Surely, Miss Bussey, you haven't noticed anything--like neglect? Don't say----"

"Bless the boy! I was only joking. You're a model lover."

"Thank you, thank you. I'll go to her at once," and he sped towards the window, opened it and walked up to Mary. Miss Bussey followed him and arrived just in time to see the lovers locked in one another's arms, their faces expressing all appropriate rapture.

"There's nothing much wrong," said Miss Bussey; wherein Miss Bussey herself was much wrong.

"What a shame! I've left you alone for more than an hour!" said John.

"Have you been very unhappy?" and he added, "darling." It sounded like an afterthought.

"I have been rather unhappy," answered Mary, and her answer was true.

As she said it she tucked in a projecting edge of her letter. John had hurriedly slipped his (it was rather the worse for its mauling) into his trousers-pocket.

"You--you didn't think me neglectful?"

"Oh, no."

"I was thinking of you all the time,"

"And I was thinking of you, dear."

"Are you very happy?"

"Yes, John; aren't you?"

"Of course I am. Happy! I should think so," and he kissed her with unimpeachable fervor.

When a conscientious person makes up his mind that he ought, for good reasons, to deceive somebody, there is no one like him for thorough-paced hypocrisy. When two conscientious people resolve; to deceive one another, on grounds of duty, the acme of duplicity is in a fair way to be reached. John Ashforth and Mary Travers ill.u.s.trated this proposition. The former had been all his life a good son, and was now a trustworthy partner, to his father, who justly relied no less on his character than on his brains. The latter, since her parents' early death had left her to her aunt's care, had been the comfort and prop of Miss Bussey's life. It is difficult to describe good people without making them seem dull; but luckily nature is defter than novelists, and it is quite possible to be good without being dull. Neither Mary nor John was dull; a trifle limited, perhaps, they were, a thought severe in their judgments of others as well as of themselves; a little exacting with their friends and more than a little with themselves.

One description paints them both; doubtless their harmony of mind had contributed more than Mary's sweet expression and finely cut features, or John's upstanding six feet, and honest capable face, to produce that attachment between them which had, six months before this story begins, culminated in their engagement. Once arrived at, this ending seemed to have been inevitable. Everybody discovered that they had foretold it from the first, and modestly disclaimed any credit for antic.i.p.ating a union between a couple so obviously made for one another.

The distress into which lovers such as these fell when they discovered by personal experience that sincerely to vow eternal love is one thing, and sincerely to give it quite another, may be well imagined, and may well be left to be imagined. They both went through a terrible period of temptation, wherein they listened longingly to the seductive pleading of their hearts; but both emerged triumphant, resolved to stifle their mad fancy, to prefer good faith to mere inclination, and to avoid, at all costs, wounding one to whom they had sworn to be true.

Thus far their steadfastness carried them, but not beyond. They could part from their loved ones, and they did; but they could not leave them without a word. Each wrote, after leaving Scotland and Switzerland respectively, a few lines of adieu, confessing the love they felt, but with resolute sadness saying farewell forever. They belonged to another.

It was the answers that Mary and John were reading when Miss Bussey discovered them.

Mary's ran:

"MY DEAR MISS TRAVERS: I have received your letter. I can't tell you what it means to me. You say all must be over between us. Don't be offended--but I won't say that yet. It can't be your duty to marry a man you don't love. You forbid me to write or come to you; and you ask only for a word of good-by. I won't say good-by. I'll say _Au revoir--au revoir_, my darling."

"Charlie."

"Burn this."