She and I Volume I Part 10

"Come round to-morrow afternoon, Frank," she replied. "She is going to be here by appointment, to see me about some charity in which she is interested; and I'll try and manage it for you then."

"I'll be here, Miss Pimpernell, without fail," I said. "I can never be sufficiently obliged to you, if you do it."

"All right, my boy," she said. "I'm sure I shall be very glad to help you in such a trifling matter. But I do not want any of your soft speeches, Frank! Keep them for somebody else who will appreciate them better;" and she laughed her cheery, merry laugh, wis.h.i.+ng me good-night and sending me home much easier in my mind and happier than I had been for many days past.

On the following afternoon I was introduced, as my old friend had promised; and you may be certain that I tried to make myself as agreeable as I could be to Min's mother. I think I succeeded, too; for, when I took my leave early, in order to allow Miss Pimpernell and her visitor an opportunity of discussing the best way of relieving the parish poor, Mrs Clyde gave me an invitation.

"Mr Lorton," said she, "I should be glad if you would come round and see us on Wednesday evening--I think you know our address? My daughter is going to have a few friends in for a little music; and we shall both be happy if you will join us. Miss Pimpernell tells me you are very musical."

"With great pleasure," I answered, in society's stock phraseology. With the "greatest" pleasure, I might have said, as I could almost have jumped for joy. Just fancy! all that I had longed for was accorded in a moment. My good fairy must undoubtedly have been hovering about the vicarage premises that day; and I strongly suspect my good fairy in this instance, as was the case also in many other circ.u.mstances of my life, being none other than my very unfairylike old friend, little Miss Pimpernell, the vicar's kind-hearted sister.

Did I not look forward to Wednesday evening? Did I not, when the time for me to dress at last came round after an excruciatingly long interval, bestow the most elaborate and unheard-of pains on my toilet, almost rivalling Horner's generally unimpeachable "get up"? Did I not proceed in the utmost joy and gladness towards the habitation of my darling?

I should rather think I did!

And yet, when I crossed the threshold of Miss Clyde's house, I was seized with a sudden vague impression of uneasiness. I felt a, to me, singular sensation of nervousness, shyness, "mauvais honte"--just as if a cold key had been put down my back--for which I was at a loss to account. Those who know me say that bashfulness is one of the least of my virtues; and, I do not think that I am const.i.tutionally timid--so why this feeling? Was it not a foreboding of evil? I believe it was, for everything went wrong with me that night, instead of my having a surfeit of pleasure, as I had sanguinely expected.

"Hope told a flattering tale." My good fairy deceived me. My unpropitious star was again in the ascendant.

In fact, my bad genius reigned supreme, in spite of such counteracting influences as my being at last admitted to Min's home and permitted to watch her gliding movements about the room, hear her liquid voice, catch the bright looks from her glancing grey eyes, speak to her, smile with her, adore her.

Yes, in spite of all this, my bad influence reigned supreme; and, I'm afraid, something wrong must have been done at my baptism to disgust my better genii.

In the first place, I arrived too soon, which was a calamity in itself.

There is always pardon for one who goes late to an evening party--nay, it often enhances his reputation. Absolution may even be extended to the calculating individual who ravenously times his arrival by the supper hour; but, for a simple-minded person, unaccustomed to the usages of polite society, to believe in the invariability of fixed appointments and, taking an invitation au pied de la lettre, make his appearance a full hour before any other guest would dare to "turn up," from the fear of being thought unfas.h.i.+onable, is simply monstrous! His behaviour is perfectly inexcusable; and, as a punishment, he should in future be compelled for a certain time to dine at our Saxon forefathers' early hour, and go to bed at the sound of the curfew bell inst.i.tuted by their Norman conquerors--that is how I would teach him manners!

I committed this grievous fault on the present occasion. I had been so anxious to get there in good time and not miss a minute of Min's charming company, that, like our friend Paddy who ate his breakfast over night in order to save time in the morning, I overdid it, arriving there too early. I saw this at once from Mrs Clyde's face when I was announced, the unhappy premier of all the coming guests.

Perhaps it was only my fancy, as I'm extremely sensitive on such points, for she received me courteously enough, pressing the welcoming cup of coffee and hospitable m.u.f.fin in an adjoining ante-room on my notice; but, I thought I could perceive, below the veneer of social civility, a sort of "how-tiresome-of-you-to-come-before-anybody-else" look in her eyes, which made me extremely small in my own estimation.

It was a horrible interval waiting for the other guests to come and support me. I made a vow there and then that I would never again present myself wherever I might be invited out until a full hour beyond the specified time--and I've generally kept it, too!

Min did not treat me cavalierly, however, notwithstanding that I had arrived in advance of expectation. _She_ was all kindness and grace, endeavouring to make the "mauvais quart d'heure" of my solitary guesthood pa.s.s away as little uncomfortably to me as possible.

She asked me to come and see her flowers in the bay window of the drawing-room, which she had fitted up as a tiny conservatory; while her mother sat down to the piano and played dreamy music in a desultory fas.h.i.+on. I like dreamy music, although it always makes me melancholy-- indeed, all music affects me the same way, in spite of my not being by any means what you would call a sad person. On the contrary, I am supposed to be one of the most light-hearted fellows imaginable, and, certainly, laugh more than I ever cry. However, mirth and sadness are closer allies than people generally suspect. All emotion proceeds, more or less, from hysteria.

While Mrs Clyde was playing, Min and I got talking. She thanked me for coming early; and upbraided the absent guests for thinking it fas.h.i.+onable to come later than bidden.

We discussed the rival merits of a scarlet j.a.ponica and a double fuchsia, giving the palm of merit to the former, though the latter had some wondrous lobes; and I was also asked my opinion whether her favourite maidenhair fern would survive a sudden and unaccountable blight which had fallen upon it a few days before.

She then showed me the identical violets I had given her that Christmas morning, now so long pa.s.sed by: she had tipped the stalks with sealing wax and preserved them in cotton wool, so that they looked as fresh as when first gathered.

"There!" she said, with an air of triumph. "There, Mr Lorton! I have kept them ever since."

"Mr Lorton!" I repeated, "who is he? I don't know him."

"Well, 'Frank,' then--will that please you better, you tiresome thing?"

"You know you promised," I said, apologetically.

"Did I?" she asked, with charming naivete.

"Why, have you forgotten that night already?" I said, in a melancholy tone.

"Don't be so lugubrious," she said. "You have to amuse me. You mustn't remember all my promises."

"Are they so unsubstantial?" I asked.

"No, they're not, sir!" she said, stamping her foot in affected anger.

"But what do you say to my keeping your violets so long, Frank?"

"What do I say?" I repeated after her, looking my delight into her eyes; when, a frantic chord, struck deep down in the ba.s.s by Mrs Clyde, marking the finish of some piece of Wagner's, recalled us both to every- day life.

As n.o.body else had yet arrived, Min challenged me to a game of chess.

I allowed her to win the first game easily.

She pouted, saying that she supposed I thought it below my dignity to put forth my best energies in playing against a lady!

Thereupon, I _did_ exert myself; but, she was just as provokingly dissatisfied.

I took her queen. She protested it was unfair.

I offered to restore it to her; she would not have it at any price;--she wished me to play the game, she said, just as if I were playing with a man.

I checkmated her. She got up in a pet, saying that chess was a nasty, stupid, tiresome thing, and that she would not play it any longer.

O, the contrariness of feminine nature!

Other people now began to drop in; and it was _my_ turn to get put out.

I heard it was Min's birthday, which I had not known before. I saw that they remembered it; while, I, had not brought her even a paltry flower!

Everybody was wis.h.i.+ng her "many happy returns of the day." I had not done so; neither had I any opportunity of atoning for my neglect, as she was too busy receiving the new comers; but, indeed, I would have been too proud to excuse myself after witnessing Mr Mawley's "effusion."

He seemed to me to be guilty of unpardonable effrontery in holding Min's hand such an unconscionably long time in his, when presenting a miserable shop-bouquet; and, as for the lackadaisical airs of that insufferable donkey, Horner--I can find no words adequate wherewith to express what I thought; he was positively sickening!

I did not have another chance of speaking to Min either; that is, unless I chose to bawl what I had to say across a crowded room; and, I need hardly say, I did not exactly care about that!

She appeared to me to be very inconsistent, too.

She seemed really much more interested in Mawley's conversation than _I_ thought any reasonable person could be; while _he_ was grinning and carrying on at a rate, which, if I had been Mrs Clyde, I would not have allowed for a moment.

O, the equilibriant temperament of the "superior" s.e.x!

Min teased me yet further.

She sang every song that Mawley and Horner asked her for, playing the accompaniments for the latter when he favoured the company with his idea of ballad vocalisation.