MIDDLE-AGED CUPID.
Being in ignorance of Tiffles's sudden fortune, she was at a loss how to explain his defection. She conjectured all things, and finally settled down to the conclusion that he was a coy young man, and had not been sufficiently encouraged by her. She remembered instances where he had exhibited signs of ardor--in one case so far as beginning to slip a hand around her waist--and she had repelled him. He was evidently waiting for some marked encouragement. How foolishly prudish she had been!
One evening, as Wesley Tiffles was passing through the hall to the door, after a rattling hour with the three bachelors, he was confronted by Miss Wilkeson, who chanced to leave the front parlor on a journey up stairs at that moment. She was dressed in a light silk, and her hair was carefully braided, and her face had a pink color in some parts, which contrasted well with the pallor in other parts; and her glass had told her that she was looking uncommonly youthful and charming. She had carefully studied her part, which was to be a bold one, throwing off all reserve.
"Good evening, Mr. Tiffles," said she, promptly offering her hand.
He took it with unsqueezing indifference. She had expected that.
"Mr. Tiffles," said she, with an air of youthful raillery, "you are a naughty man, and I had an idea of not speaking to you again."
"Naughty!" said Tiffles, astonished. "How?"
"Why, you have hardly been civil to me, of late. I do believe you wouldn't speak, or shake hands with me, if I didn't always set the example." This in a half-complaining, half-laughing way.
It suddenly flashed upon Tiffles that he had been, for some time, rather neglectful of the lady. It also forcibly occurred to him that it was wise policy to be on good terms, at all times, with the mistress of the house; and such was Miss Wilkeson's present position. He therefore clutched her hand again, gave it a faint squeeze, and said that he apologized a million times for his rudeness; but the fact was, he had so much business on hand, that he had been turned into a perfect bear, he supposed. He playfully challenged Miss Wilkeson to step into the parlor and take a glass of wine, and he would show her that he was not the brute she fancied.
Miss Wilkeson laughingly accepted the challenge. "But I do believe," she added, "that it is only the glass of wine you care for. Now tell me, Mr. Tiffles, aren't you a woman hater?"
"When a man is asked that question, categorically, by a woman, his most effective answer is to make love to her out of hand. Tiffles was not prepared to do this in the present case, but he was willing to pay compliments to any extent.
"Ah, Miss Wilkeson, there you do me great injustice," said he, with his pleasantest of laughs. "I drink this glass of wine to 'lovely woman,'" with a nod at Miss Wilkeson.
Miss Wilkeson giggled, and took a fly's sip from the brim of her glass.
Tiffles heaved a sigh. "We bachelors are poor, unhappy fellows, really to be pitied."
"You are horrid creatures--you know you are--and deserve no pity from us!" Miss Wilkeson played her frisky, juvenile part admirably.
"So charming, and yet so cruel!" said Tiffles, uttering the first preposterous compliment that he thought of.
"You flatterer!" said Miss Wilkeson, beating a breeze toward him with her fan.
Tiffles, observing that matters were coming to a crisis, paused. Miss Wilkeson interpreted his silence as another attack of timidity. Time was valuable to her, and this kind of conversation might be kept up all night, and amount to nothing. She resolved upon her final coup.
"Oh! oh! Mr. Tiffles, what--what is the matter?" She looked wildly about her.
"The matter! What matter?" exclaimed that gentleman, little suspecting what was to happen.
"The wine--the warm weather--something--oh! oh!"
"With these inexplicable remarks, Miss Wilkeson dropped her fan, uttered a slight but sharp scream, and fell back in her chair, like a withered flower on a broken stalk.
"By thunder, she has fainted!" said the excited Tiffles. He had never been in a similar dilemma, and did not know what to do. He had heard tickling of the feet highly recommended in such cases; but that was obviously impracticable. A dash of cold water in the face was also said to afford instant relief; but there was no water at hand. "I must call for help," said he.
This remark appeared to arouse Miss Wilkeson. "Support me," she murmured. "I shall be better soon."
Tiffles, all accommodation, clasped her fragile waist with an arm, and gently inclined her head upon his shoulder. She heaved a sigh, and gave other tokens of returning animation. Tiffles here noticed that her face had not the prevailing paleness which always accompanies fainting. He instantly suspected the true nature of Miss Wilkeson's complaint.
The noise of quick footsteps resounded in the entry. Marcus, Overtop, and Maltboy had heard the sharp scream, and were rushing to the rescue.
"Good heavens! what will they say?" exclaimed Tiffles. "Don't be silly, Miss Wilkeson, at your time of life." This cutting remark was wrung from him by the annoyance and confusion of the moment.
It served as a wonderful anodyne; for Miss Wilkeson Jerked herself into an erect position, and said, "You're a fool!"
At this juncture, before Tiffles had quite uncoiled his serpentine arms from her, and while she was looking fiery indignation at him, the door was pushed open, and the three bachelors rushed in.
"I really beg pardon," said Marcus. "No occasion for my services, I see--ahem!"
"Heard a scream--thought it was here--no intention to intrude," added Overtop.
The tableau reminded Maltboy of his own innumerable little affairs, and he laughed. "It's a lovers' quarrel," said he, "and not to be interrupted, of course."
The three bachelors hastily evacuated the room, and their merry laughs rang in the entry.
"Miss Wilkeson," said Times, consulting his watch--he carried a gold one, with an enormous gold chain--"you must really excuse me. Important business engagement at nine. Good evening." So saying, Tiffles precipitately retired, with the determination not to enter the house again until he knew that Miss Wilkeson was out of it.
A week from that memorable day, Tiffles met Marcus Wilkeson on Broadway.
"Why haven't you been to see us?" said Marcus.
"Not been very smart, of late," explained Tiffles.
"Fainting fits, perhaps. Maybe they are catching, eh?"
Tiffles smiled, for he saw that Marcus knew the truth. "How is Miss Wilkeson?" he asked, respectfully.
"She has gone into the country for her health, and will probably stay away a number of years. In short, I have engaged for her the position of first preceptress of a female seminary in the middle of the State. She said she was quite sick of the hollow and heartless life of New York."
Marcus spoke truly. Miss Wilkeson had retired to the country with a thorough feeling of disgust for town existence. She has taught for several years, and is still teaching in the ---- Young Ladies' Seminary, with eminent success, though her fair pupils complain, with much pretty pouting, of her savage restrictions upon all walks and talks with the eligible young beaux of the village. They say that she hates the men; and they call her a cross old maid, and a great number of other hard epithets.
But, sometimes, a tear is observed in the corner of her eye, which she hastily wipes away. That tear is an oblation upon the memory of a lost love. That lost love was, and is, and always will be, Wesley Tiffles.
CHAPTER III.
SLAPMAN vs. SLAPMAN.
The case of Slapman vs. Slapman occupied the attention of the referee, Samuel Goldfinch, Esq., over two months. That gentleman was corpulent, fond of good dinners, and had a highly cultivated taste for scandal. It had been his custom to give this interesting case a hearing one or two hours every afternoon, daily, after court. It was a relief from the heavy business of the day; for Goldfinch had heavy business, which came to him because he was a fat and pleasant fellow, with a large head, and a great circle of miscellaneous acquaintance. The real work of the office was done by a modest, unappreciated man named Mixer. On the occasion of these antimatrimonial audiences, Mixer sat in the back room, grubbing among his dusty papers; while Samuel Goldfinch, Esq., in the front room, with shut doors, leaned back in his easy chair and surrendered himself to enjoyment.
In the case of Slapman vs. Slapman, a great number of witnesses had been examined on each side. Affidavits, amounting to hundreds of pages, had been obtained in distant States--some as far away as California. The lawyers had spared neither their own time nor the money of their clients in raking together testimony which would bear in the slightest degree upon the interests which they represented. All the relatives of Mr. Slapman had testified that he was a gentleman uniformly kind and courteous, possessing a singular placidity of temper, and indulgent to his wife to a degree where indulgence became a fault. Those relatives, and they were numerous--particularly in the country branch--who had passed anniversary weeks at Mr. Slapman's house, were very severe on Mrs. Slapman. She was a proud, disagreeable woman. She was continually snubbing her husband before people. She had a great many male friends, whose acquaintance she had retained in defiance of his wishes. She was known to have received letters from men, and when her husband had desired to peruse them, had laughed at him. It is true that she pretended to be a patroness of literature, science, and the arts; but anybody could see that those things were only the cover of the grossest improprieties. She had been heard to listen without remonstrance, to declarations of love from several young men. It turned out, upon cross-examination, that these irregularities took place in charades and plays, of which Mr. Slapman's relatives had been shocked spectators. With regard to Mr. Overtop's transactions in the family, they could say nothing; for they had long since ceased to visit Mrs. Slapman, on account of her disgraceful conduct--and also (they might have added, but they did not add) because Mrs. Slapman latterly had her house full of Jigbees, and put her husband's relatives into obscure rooms in the third story, and quite forgot their existence afterward.
Per contra, all the Jigbees--and they were a prolific race--swore that their distinguished relative was a pattern of artlessness and innocence. That she was remarkable from early childhood for a charming frankness and transparent candor. That when this bright ornament of the Jigbee stock was sought in marriage by the defendant, the whole family, with one mind and voice, opposed the match. They had felt that a being of her exalted intellectual tastes was too good for a sordid money-getting creature like Slapman. But that man, by his ingenious artifices, had succeeded in winning the hand of their gifted kinswoman, and married her against their unanimous protests. There was but one consolation for this family misfortune. Mr. Slapman was reported to be wealthy, and could afford to indulge his wife in the exercise of her noble longings for TRUTH. They were willing to say that Mr. Slapman had not been illiberal, so far as vulgar money was concerned. He had given to his wife the house and lot which she occupied, and had never stinted her in respect of allowances. But what was money to a woman of Mrs. Slapman's soul, when her husband withheld from her his confidence and trust, regarded her innocent labors in behalf of Art, Literature, and the Drama, with a cold, unsympathizing eye, and finally descended so low as to feel a brutal jealousy of those gentlemen of talent, of whom she was the revered patroness?
"Money" (we are quoting here from the remarks of Mrs. Slapman's eminent counsel) "is very desirable in its way, but is it not the vilest dross, your Honor, when compared with the pure gold of connubial trust and sympathy?" Mr. Goldfinch nodded his head, as if to say that he rather thought it was.
The testimony of two servant girls established the fact that Mr. Slapman had several times been overheard to tell his wife that she would regret it; and that the time was fast coming when forbearance would cease to be a virtue; also that the worm, when trodden on repeatedly, might at last turn and sting, and many other enigmatical sayings of that character. The very vagueness of these threats, implying unknown horrors, had inspired his wife with a mortal dread of him. She did not know at what moment this jealous and revengeful man might strike her dead. She had been living in the fear of her life for six years, and, during all this time, had never complained, or expressed that fear to one of her relatives or friends.
"Such is the noble, uncomplaining nature," said the eminent counsel, in reference to this fact, "of the woman that Fate has thrown into the arms of a fiend."
But the most striking proof of Mr. Slapman's murderous designs upon his wife, was his conduct at the last dramatic soirée. Twenty witnesses swore that it was his evident intention to spring on her and strangle her, and that he was only thwarted in this horrid purpose by the noble courage of Fayette Overtop, Esq. Mr. Overtop briefly and modestly testified to this effect also; and, furthermore, narrated all the particulars of his acquaintance with Mrs. Slapman, holding before her a shield, from which the arrows of calumny, aimed by her husband, fell harmless.
Mr. Slapman had not shown himself in the referee's office since the investigation began. He had become convinced that he had lost the case into which his mad jealousy and his lawyer's advice had plunged him. Mrs. Slapman, according to the testimony of the two servants and several others, was immured in her house, and brooding over this saddest episode in her unhappy history.
"Nothing but that instinct of self-preservation," said the eminent counsel, "which bids the dove to fly from the hawk, and the rabbit to evade the pursuing hounds, could have induced that delicate, shrinking lady to lay bare the horrors of her prison house to the world, and to ask, in the name of common humanity, a release from the tyrant, and a liberal alimony."
The eminent counsel repeated this flight of fancy in the ear of Mrs. Slapman, at the opera that evening, whither she was accompanied by a few of the Jigbees, and she smiled, and said that it was really beautiful.
The protracted case--of which we have given a mere sketch--was decided by Samuel Goldfinch, Esq., in favor of the lady, a separation was decreed, and alimony fixed at six thousand dollars a year, that being only a wife's fair proportion of Mr. Slapman's income. Mrs. Slapman, with a well-assumed appearance of levity, gave a grande soirée musicale et dramatique at her house, in honor of the event, at which Overtop was a favored guest. Mr. Slapman went direct to Slapmanville, and raised the rent on all his tenants, turned a superannuated non-paying couple into the street, and took a general account of his property, to see how much he could sell out for, preparatory to leaving for Europe, and so dodging the payment of the alimony.
The illustrated papers published two portraits--one of an angel, the other of a demon. The angel was Mrs. Slapman: the demon was her husband. The comic papers served him up in puns, conundrums, and acrostics, of the most satirical import. The daily papers, always on the look out for subjects to write about, improved the occasion to overhaul the question of divorce, in its statistical, moral, social, and religious bearings. Two editors, in pursuance of a previous agreement, continued to discuss the question with great warmth in their respective journals, until they had written about two hundred octavo pages, when the debate was published in book form, with paper covers, and sold for their joint benefit.