CHAPTER XLV — HELPING A LAME DOG OVER A STILE
“Marry, I cannot show it in rhyme;
I have tried.... No, I was not born under a rhyming planet;
Nor I cannot woo in festival terms.”
—Much Ado About Nothing.
“Now, let the verses be bad or good, it plainly amounts to a
regular offer. I don't believe any of the lines are an inch
too long or too short; but if they were, it would be wicked
to alter them, for they are really genuine.”
—Thinks I to Myself.
“We shall have a rare letter from him.”
—Twelfth Night.
IT was usually my custom of an afternoon to read law for a couple of hours, a course of training preparatory to committing myself to the tender mercies of a special pleader; and as Sir John's well-stored library afforded me every facility for so doing, that was the venue I generally selected for my interviews with Messrs. Blackstone, Coke upon Lyttelton, and other legal luminaries. Accordingly, on the day in question, after having nearly quarrelled with my mother for congratulating me warmly on the attainment of my wishes, when I mentioned to her Lawless's proposal, found fault with Fanny's Italian pronunciation so harshly as to bring tears into her eyes, and grievously offended our old female domestic by disdainfully rejecting some pet abomination upon which she had decreed that I should lunch, I sallied forth, and, not wishing to encounter any of the family, entered the hall by a side door, and reached the library unobserved. To my surprise I discovered Lawless (whom I did not recollect ever to have seen there before, he being not much given to literary pursuits) seated, pen in hand, at the table, apparently absorbed in the mysteries of composition.
“I shall not disturb you, Lawless,” said I, taking down a book. “I am only going to read law for an hour or two.”
“Eh! disturb me?” was the reply; “I'm uncommon glad to be disturbed, I can tell you, for hang me if I can make head or tail of it! Here have I been for the last three hours trying to write an offer to your sister, and actually have not contrived to make a fair start of it yet. I wish you would lend me a hand, there's a good fellow—I know you are up to all the right dodges—just give one a sort of notion, eh? don't you see?”
“What! write an offer to my own sister? Well, of all the quaint ideas I ever heard, that's the oddest—really you must excuse me.”
“Very odd, is it?” inquired Coleman, opening the door in time to overhear the last sentence. “Pray let me hear about it, then, for I like to know of odd things particularly; but, perhaps, I'm intruding?”
“Eh? no; come along here, Coleman,” cried Lawless, “you are just the very boy I want—I am going to be married—that is, I want to be, don't you see, if she'll have me, but there's the rub; Frank Fairlegh is all right, and the old lady says she's agreeable, so everything depends on the young woman herself—if she will but say 'Yes,' we shall go ahead in style; but, unfortunately before she is likely to say anything one way or the other, you understand, I've got to pop the question, as they call it. Now, I've about as much notion of making an offer as a cow has of dancing a hornpipe—so I want you to help us a bit—eh?”
“Certainly,” replied Freddy courteously; “I shall be only too happy, and as delays are dangerous I had perhaps better be off at once—where is the young lady?”
“Eh! hold hard there! don't go quite so fast, young man,” exclaimed Lawless aghast; “if you bolt away at that pace you'll never see the end of the run; why, you don't suppose I want you to go and talk to her—pop the question viva voce, do you? You'll be advising me to be married by deputy, I suppose, next. No, no, I'm going to do the trick by letter—something like a Valentine, only rather more so, eh? but I can't exactly manage to write it properly. If it was but a warranty for a horse, now, I'd knock it off in no time, but this is a sort of thing, you see, I'm not used to; one doesn't get married as easily as one sells a horse, nor as often, eh? and it's rather a nervous piece of business—a good deal depends upon the letter.”
“You've been trying your hand at it already, I see,” observed Coleman, seating himself at the table; “pretty consumption of paper! I wonder what my governor would say to me if I were to set about drawing a deed in this style; why, the stationer's bill would run away with all the profits.”
“Never mind the profits, you avaricious Jew,” replied Lawless. “Yes, I've been trying effects, as the painters call it—putting down two or three beginnings to find out which looked the most like the time of day—you understand?”
“Two or three?” repeated Coleman, “six or seven rather, voyons. 'Mr. Lawless presents his affections to Miss Fairlegh, and requests the hon....' Not a bad idea, an offer in the third person—the only case in which a third person would not be de trop in such an affair.”
“Eh! yes, I did the respectful when I first started, you know, but I soon dropped that sort of thing when I got warm; you'll see, I stepped out no end afterwards.”
“'Honoured Miss,'” continued Coleman, reading, “'My sentiments, that is, your perfections, your splendid action, your high breeding, and the many slap-up points that may be discerned in you by any man that has an eye for a horse...'”
“Ah! that was where I spoiled it,” sighed Lawless.
“Here's a very pretty one,” resumed Freddy. “'Adorable and adored Miss Fanny Fairlegh, seeing you as I do with the eyes' (Why she would not think you saw her with your nose, would she?)' of fond affection, probably would induce me to overlook any unsoundness or disposition to vice...'”
“That one did not turn out civilly, you see,” said Lawless, “or else it wasn't such a bad beginning.”
“Here's a better,” rejoined Coleman. “'Exquisitely beautiful Fanny, fairest of that lovely sex, which to distinguish it from us rough-and-ready fox-hunters, who, when once we get our heads at any of the fences of life, go at it, never mind how stiff it may be (matrimony has always appeared to me one of the stiffest), and generally contrive to find ourselves on the other side, with our hind legs well under us;—a sex, I say, which to distinguish it from our own, is called the fair sex, a stock of which I never used to think any great things, reckoning them only fit to canter round the parks with, until I saw you brought out, when I at once perceived that your condition—that is, my feelings—were so inexpressible that...!'” “Ah!” interposed Lawless, “that's where I got bogged, sank in over the fetlocks, and had to give it up as a bad job.”
“In fact your feelings became too many for you,” returned Coleman; “but what have we here?—verses, by all that's glorious!”
“No, no! I'm not going to let you read them,” exclaimed Lawless, attempting to wrest the paper out of his hand.
“Be quiet, Lawless,” rejoined Coleman, holding him off, “sit down directly, sir, or I won't write a word for you: I must see what all your ideas are in order to get some notion of what you want to say; besides, I've no doubt they'll be very original.”
I
“'Sweet Fanny, there are moments
When the heart is not one's own,
When we fain would clip its wild wing's tip,
But we find the bird has flown.
II
“'Dear Fanny, there are moments
When a loss may be a gain,
And sorrow, joy—for the heart's a toy,
And loving's such sweet pain.
III
“'Yes, Fanny, there are moments
When a smile is worth a throne,
When a frown can prove the flower of love,
Must fade, and die alone.'
—“Why, you never wrote those, Lawless?”
“Didn't I?” returned Lawless, “but I know I did, though—copied them out of an old book I found up there, and wrote some more to 'em, because I thought there wasn't enough for the money, besides putting in Fanny's name instead of—what, do you think?—Phillis!—there's a name for you; the fellow must have been a fool. Why, I would not give a dog such an ill name for fear somebody should hang him; but go on.”
“Ah, now we come to the original matter,” returned Coleman, “and very original it seems.”
IV
“'Dear Fanny, there are moments
When love gets you in a fix,
Takes the bit in his jaws, and, without any pause,
Bolts away with you like bricks.
V
“'Yes, Fanny, there are moments
When affection knows no bounds,
When I'd rather be talking with you out a-walking,
Than rattling after the hounds.
VI
“'Dear Fanny, there are moments
When one feels that one's inspired, And... and...'
—“It does not seem to have been one of those moments with you just then,” continued Freddy, “for the poem comes to an abrupt and untimely conclusion, unless three blots, and something that looks like a horse's head, may be a hieroglyphic mode of recording your inspirations, which I'm not learned enough to decipher.”
“Eh! no; I broke down there,” replied Lawless; “the muse deserted me, and went off in a canter for—where was it those young women used to hang out?—the 'Gradus ad' place, you know?”
“The tuneful Nine, whom you barbarously designate young women,” returned Coleman, “are popularly supposed to have resided on Mount Parnassus, which acclivity I have always imagined of a triangular or sugar-loaf form, with Apollo seated on the apex or extreme point, his attention divided between preserving his equilibrium and keeping up his playing, which latter necessity he provided for by executing difficult passages on a golden (or, more probably, silver-gilt) lyre.”
“Eh! nonsense,” rejoined Lawless; “now, do be serious for five minutes, and go ahead with this letter, there's a good fellow; for, 'pon my word, I'm in a wretched state of mind—I am indeed. It's a fact, I'm nearly half a stone lighter than I was when I came here; I know I am, for there was an old fellow weighing a defunct pig down at the farm yesterday, and I made him let me get into the scales when he took piggy out. I tell you what, if I'm not married soon I shall make a job for the sexton; such incessant wear and tear of the sensibilities is enough to kill a prize-fighter in full-training, let alone a man that has been leading such a molly-coddle life as I have of late, lounging about drawing-rooms like a lapdog.”
“Well, then, let us begin at once,” said Freddy, seizing a pen; “now, what am I to say?”
“Eh! why, you don't expect me to know, do you?” exclaimed Lawless aghast; “I might just as well write it myself as have to tell you; no, no, you must help me, or else I'd better give the whole thing up at once.”
“I'll help you, man, never fear,” rejoined Freddy, “but you must give me something to work upon; why, it's all plain sailing enough; begin by describing your feelings.”
“Feelings, eh?” said Lawless, rubbing his ear violently, as if to arouse his dormant faculties, “that's easier said than done. Well, here goes for a start: 'My dear Miss Fairlegh'”.
“'My dear Miss Fairlegh,'” repeated Coleman, writing rapidly, “yes.”
“Have you written that?” continued Lawless; “ar—let me think—'I have felt for some time past very peculiar sensations, and have become, in many respects, quite an altered man'.” “'Altered man,'” murmured Freddy, still writing. “'I have given up hunting,'” resumed Lawless, “'which no longer possesses any interest in my eyes, though I think you'd have said, if you had been with us the last time we were out, that you never saw a prettier run in your life; the meet was at Chorley Bottom, and we got away in less than ten minutes after the hounds had been in cover, with as plucky a fox as ever puzzled a pack—'”
“Hold hard there!” interrupted Coleman, “I can't put all that in; nobody ever wrote an account of a fox-hunt in a love-letter—no, 'You've given up hunting, which no longer possesses any interest in your eyes'; now go on.”
“My eyes,” repeated Lawless reflectively; “yes: 'I am become indifferent to everything; I take no pleasure in the new dog-cart, King in Long Acre is building for me, with cane sides, the wheels larger, and the seat, if possible, still higher than the last, and which, if I am not very much out in my reckoning, will follow so light—'”
“I can't write all that trash about a dog-cart,” interrupted Freddy crossly; “that's worse than the fox-hunting; stick to your feelings, man, can't you?”
“Ah! you little know the effect such feelings produce,” sighed Lawless.
“That's the style,” resumed Coleman with delight; “that will come in beautifully—'such feelings produce'; now, go on.”
“'At night my slumbers are rendered distracting by visions of you—as—as——'”
“'The bride of another,'” suggested Coleman.
“Exactly,” resumed Lawless; “or, 'sleep refusing to visit my——'”
“'Aching eye-balls,'” put in Freddy. “'I lie tossing restlessly from side to side, as if bitten by——'”
“'The gnawing tooth of Remorse;' that will do famously,” added his scribe; “now tell her that she is the cause of it.”
“'All these unpleasantnesses are owing to you,'” began Lawless.
“Oh! that won't do,” said Coleman; “no—'These tender griefs' (that's the term, I think) 'are some of the effects, goods and chattels'—psha! I was thinking of drawing a will—'the effects produced upon me by——'”
“'The wonderful way in which you stuck to your saddle when the mare bolted with you,'” rejoined Lawless enthusiastically; “what, won't that do either?”
“No, be quiet, I've got it all beautifully now, if you don't interrupt me: 'Your many perfections of mind and person—perfections which have led me to centre my ideas of happiness solely in the fond hope of one day calling you my own'.”
“That's very pretty indeed,” said Lawless; “go on.”
“'Should I be fortunate enough,'” continued Coleman '“to succeed in winning your affection, it will be the study of my future life to prevent your every wish—'”
“Eh! what do you mean? not let her have her own way? Oh! that will never pay; why, the little I know of women, I'm sure that, if you want to come over them, you must flatter 'em up with the idea that you mean to give 'em their heads on all occasions—let 'em do just what they like. Tell a woman she should not go up the chimney, it's my belief you'd see her nose peep out of the top before ten minutes were over. Oh! that'll never do!”
“Nonsense,” interrupted Freddy; “'prevent' means to forestall in that sense; however, I'll put it 'forestall,' if you like it better.”
“I think it will be safest,” replied Lawless, shaking his head solemnly.
“'In everything your will shall be law,'” continued Coleman, writing.
“Oh! I say, that's coming it rather strong, though,” interposed Lawless, “query about that?”
“All right,” rejoined Coleman, “it's always customary to say so in these cases, but it means nothing; as to the real question of mastery, that is a matter to be decided post-nuptially; you'll be enlightened on the subject before long in a series of midnight discourses, commonly known under the title of curtain-lectures.”
“Pleasant, eh?” returned Lawless; “well, I bet two to one on the grey mare, for I never could stand being preached to, and shall consent to anything for the sake of a quiet life—so move on.”
“'If this offer of my heart and hand should be favourably received by the loveliest of her sex,'” continued Coleman, “'a line, a word, a smile, a——'”
“'Wink,'” suggested Lawless.
“'Will be sufficient to acquaint me with my happiness.'”
“Tell-her to look sharp about sending an answer,” exclaimed Lawless; “if she keeps me waiting long after that letter's sent, I shall go off pop, like a bottle of ginger-beer; I know I shall—string won't hold me, or wire either.”
“'When once this letter is despatched, I shall enjoy no respite from the tortures of suspense till the answer arrives, which shall exalt to the highest pinnacle of happiness, or plunge into the lowest abysses of despair, one who lives but in the sunshine of your smile, and who now, with the liveliest affection, tempered by the most profound respect, ventures to sign himself, Your devotedly attached—'”
“'And love-lorn,'” interposed Lawless in a sharp, quick tone.
“Love-lorn!” repeated Coleman, looking up with an air of surprise; “sentimental and ridiculous in the extreme! I shall not write any such thing.”
“I believe, Mr. Coleman, that letter is intended to express my feelings, and not yours?” questioned Lawless in a tone of stern investigation.
“Yes, of course it is,” began Coleman.
“Then write as I desire, sir,” continued Lawless authoritatively; “I ought to know my own feelings best, I imagine; I feel love-lorn, and 'love-lorn' it shall be.”
“Oh! certainly,” replied Coleman, slightly offended, “anything you please, 'Your devotedly attached and lovelorn admirer'; here, sign it yourself, 'George Lawless'.”
“Bravo!” said Lawless, relapsing into his accustomed good humour the moment the knotty point of the insertion of “love-lorn” had been carried; “if that isn't first-rate, I'm a Dutchman; why, Freddy, boy, where did you learn it? how does it all come into your head?”
“Native talent,” replied Coleman, “combined with a strong and lively appreciation of the sublime and beautiful, chiefly derived from my maternal grandmother, whose name was Burke.”
“That wasn't the Burke who wrote a book about it, was it?” asked Lawless.
“Ah! no, not exactly,” replied Coleman; “she would have been, I believe, had she been a man.”
“Very likely,” returned Lawless, whose attention was absorbed in folding, sealing and directing the important letter, “Miss Fairlegh”. “Now, if she does but regard my suit favourably.”
“You'll be suited with a wife,” punned Coleman.
“But suppose she should say 'No,'” continued Lawless, musing.
“Why, then, you'll be non-suited, that's all,” returned the incorrigible Freddy; and making a face at me, which (as I was to all appearance immersed fathoms deep in Blackstone) he thought I should not observe, he sauntered out of the room, humming the following scrap of some elegant ditty, with which he had become acquainted:—
“'If ever I marry a wife,
I'll marry a publican's daughter,
I 'll sit all day long in the bar,
And drink nothing but brandy-and-water'”.
Lawless having completed his arrangements to his satisfaction, hastened to follow Coleman's example, nodding to me as he left the room, and adding, “Good-bye, Fairlegh; read away, old boy, and when I see you again, I hope I shall have some good news for you”.
Good news for me! The news that my sister would be pledged to spend her life as the companion, or, more properly speaking, the plaything, of a man who had so little delicacy of mind, so little self-respect, as to have allowed his feelings (for that he was attached to Fanny, as far as he was capable of forming a real attachment, I could not for a moment doubt) to be laid bare to form a subject for Freddy Coleman to sharpen his wit upon; and to reflect that I had in any way assisted in bringing this result about, had thrown thorn constantly together—oh! as I thought upon it, the inconceivable folly of which I had been guilty nearly maddened me. Somehow, I had never until this moment actually realised the idea of my sister's marrying him; even that night, when I had spoken to my mother on the subject, my motive had been more to prevent her from lecturing and worrying Fanny than anything else. But the real cause of my indifference was, that during the whole progress of the affair my thoughts and feelings had been so completely engrossed by, and centred in, my own position in regard to Clara Saville, that although present in body, my mind was in great measure absent. I had never given my attention to it; but had gone on in a dreamy kind of way, letting affairs take their own course, and saying and doing whatever appeared most consonant to the wishes of other people at the moment, until the discovery of Oaklands' unhappy attachment had fully aroused me, when, as it appeared, too late to remedy the misery which my carelessness and inattention had in a great measure contributed to bring about.
The only hope which now remained (and when I remembered the evident pleasure she took in his society, it appeared a very forlorn one) was that Fanny might, of her own accord, refuse Lawless. By this time the precious document produced by the joint exertions of Lawless and Coleman must have reached its destination; and it was with an anxiety little inferior to that of the principals themselves that I looked forward to the result, and awaited with impatience the verdict which was to decide whether joy should brighten, or sorrow shade, the future years of Harry Oaklands.