II
Twenty-one—what a change from fourteen! How the pulse of life beats and bounds! I was running a tilt at the pastimes, and doffing aside the cares of early manhood, when for the second time, I came across Mary Verner. Plump upon her, I would say, if I thought you would pardon the coarseness of the expression. At any rate—and to be genteel—it was unexpectedly. Twenty-one gives very few thoughts to fourteen. It may be a much longer distance thither, when one starts at seventy to go back; but it is surprising how much more quickly you get over the intermediate ground. Let that be; only I don't believe I had given a thought to Mary Verner, since the week or two that followed my first interview with her.
"Do come and dine with us on Monday," said my friend Mrs. F.; "there will be a very charming girl here, whom you would like to see."
"Positively?"
"Then keep a place for me; I'll come."
I went. It was a formal dinner-party. In the drawing-room, before going to table, Mrs. F. came across to me.
"Now I'll introduce you to our belle of the evening. You may escort her down to dinner. There she is, half-hidden behind that drapery. You can't have noticed her."
"Miss Verner, let me present Mr. Cuthbert."
I should have recognized Mary Verner, as she looked up, with those widely-opening brown eyes of hers, if her name had not been mentioned. As it was, it was quite natural for me to remark that I believed I had had the pleasure of seeing Miss Verner before.
And so in a few moments we were gossipping cosily about "old times," as we, not very old people, called them.
The beautiful child had expanded into a very lovely woman, preserving still the same characteristics of person and expression. The charm of her voice was the same. You may be sure that when seated by her side, with the becoming glow of lamp-light overhead heightening, if possible, those attractions which I rather hint than attempt to describe—you may be sure, I say, that I found her very captivating.
We talked of her brother George; of the pleasant house wherein I first met her, and which was still her home; of her amiable and lady-like mother who was still living; of the old pony now gathered to his sires; of the old chestnut-trees even—in short, of all those unimportant associations, out of which, under such circumstances, one endeavours to establish a trivial and flitting but very pleasant little bond of sympathy.
I declare I was half ready to fall head over ears in love with her. And she took it all with a simple unaffected grace, that seemed to be her very nature.
But we did not have all the talk to ourselves. I had not the presumption to engross her entirely. Nor would it have been possible. She was—there is no need to go over it all again—she was Mary Verner.
Nearly opposite to us at table sat a Mr. Easton, a young barrister—young, that is professionally, for he was apparently a man of thirty or thereabouts. He would not have been singled out as a lady-killer, for he was none of your regular Adonises, such as hang by dozens, in portraiture, upon the walls of our Royal Academy Exhibitions, and lounge complacently in our Fop's Alley at the Opera. When, however, the excitement of conversation—in which he took an active and most intelligent part—developed the fine play of his features, you would have pronounced him a man who added, to a cultivated and superior mind, a look that bespoke such gift. In fact there was a manly air about him, that claimed respect, if it did not challenge attention.
About the time when I made this notable discovery, I recollected that at the moment of my introduction to Miss Verner, Mr. Easton was gossipping with her in the secluded corner half-hidden by the drapery, though he moved away, with perfect good breeding, to give place to the new-comer.
About this time, too, there began—at which end of the table, I forget—an occasional play of badinage, whereof Mr. Easton was the subject. For a grave and earnest man, he seemed to receive it all in exceedingly good part. To my surprise also—to say nothing of annoyance—my fair neighbour was brought, after a while, within its scope. Neither did she—I was forced to acknowledge within myself—evince either mauvaise honte or sensitiveness. The truth was plain. They were engaged.
As a child's card-built house tumbles down when the table is shaken, so down went one of the prettiest little castles-in-the-air, that ever simpleton built out of cards of his own shaping.
Down it went; though I flatter myself I was too much a man of the world, to let a glimpse of its dislocated plan be apparent. Indeed, in a few seconds, I had rallied myself on my own absurdity; gulped down my disappointment; and resigned myself again to the charm that Mary Verner still shed around her, if its tint was somewhat changed. Besides, I availed myself of the sudden opportunity thus afforded, for testing the practical value of one of my favourite theories, when I was a young fellow and affected to bask in the sunshine of human nature: to wit, that, apart from serious love-making, when a woman in either married or betrothed, she has therefrom an additional feather in her social cap. So have I found it through life—always provided that the attractive and companionable qualities were otherwise in abundance. And this theory has at least given heartiness to my good wishes for my fairer acquaintances and friends. Is it not better to come to such a philosophical conclusion, than to be always envying other people's good fortune?
Shifting, therefore, my ground, I was rapidly possessed by a strong interest in Miss Verner's future welfare—much of which was undoubtedly genuine.
Delicately, and by gently leading her on, I gathered something of the story of her courtship, though I must needs confess that I cannot now call to mind a word of it. It may be of more interest to state that she was to make Mr. Easton the happiest of men, within six weeks or so of that time; and that the honey-moon was to be spent in a ramble on the Continent. Very emphatically and very sincerely did I wish her a pleasant time of it.
But the most agreeable evenings will come to a close. This one—with its revival of a boy's casual acquaintance, with its momentary castle-building, and its subsequent benevolence of feeling—this one, like all others, passed away. It did not die out, as the fag-end of a dinner-party sometimes will; it was cut short to me by the "good night!" of Mary Verner, as she took her departure, leaning on Mr. Easton's arm, in the train of an elderly female relative.
When the drawing-room door closed upon her graceful figure, I felt for a moment as though the gas had been suddenly turned off. I recollect, however, the hostess's observation, dropped to the accompaniment of a playfully malicious smile:
"Didn't I tell you, you would like my friend Mary Verner?"
"Yes," was the reply, "and I have passed a most delightful evening; but I don't think it quite fair, Mrs. F."—here there was a terrible smash of the theory—"to open the gates of Paradise, and then slam them in a poor fellow's face?"
I was to have gone, that night, to a ball in Devonshire Place, expressly to meet—Never mind; I was not in the humour for dancing or flirting. I went straight home, and to bed. I tossed about a good deal, and finally dreamed about George and the pony, and that I was climbing the old chestnut-trees. As for Mary Verner, I couldn't in my sleep conjure up her image. When I thought I had it—as is the way in dreams, you know, if you ever studied them—I couldn't get nearer to her than the plaguy old family coachman. It was only when broad awake, the next morning, that I found myself strongly impressed by this, my second meeting. But again—such is life and such is youth—the impression was soon stowed away on an upper shelf in memory's garret.