“This thirty years. I’ve been a married man myself this half-a-century.”
“Why, you don’t mean to say——” said I.
“Yes, I do,” he interrupted. “Of course I do. Charlotte has been my wife too long, I hope, to be jealous now of either Kate or Mary; but I loved them each in turn almost as dearly as I love her. Charlotte,” he added, turning towards her as she sat in the great arm-chair, “you don’t mind George being told about my other two wives, do you?”
“I don’t mind your talking of Mary much,” she answered, “but get over that young Kate’s story as quickly as you can, please.”
And I really thought I detected a blush come over her dear old face while she was speaking.
“It is rather less than half a century ago,” he began, “since I first set foot in this beautiful Devon county. I came down on a short holiday from London, in the summer time, to fish, and I brought with me, besides my rod and basket, a portmanteau full of clothes and about twenty-five pounds in gold, which was the whole amount of my savings. I was junior clerk in a house at that day, with one hundred and twenty pounds a-year, and with as much chance of becoming a partner as you, my dear briefless Charles, have of sitting on the woolsack. From the top of Tremadyn House I could point you out the farm-house where I lodged, and will some day take you to see it,—a mighty homestead, with a huge portico of stone and flights of stone steps leading to the upper chambers from without. On one side was the farm-yard, filled with swine and poultry, with open stalls for cattle, and enormous barns, not so well kept or neat, perhaps, as the present day requires, but a perfect picture of plenty; on the other stood the cider-presses, and beyond, the apple orchards, white with promise, red with fruit, made the air faint with fragrance; half orchard was the garden, too, in fruit, through which, beneath a rustic bridge, my trout stream wandered. Charlotte, you know the place—have I not painted it?”
“You have, Robert,” she said. The tears were in her eyes, ready to fall, I saw.
“There, then, I met Katie. The good man of the house was childless, and she, his cousin, was well cared for as his child. It was no wonder, George: the dark oak parlour seemed to need no light when she shone in it. Like a sunbeam gliding over common places, whatever household matters busied her she graced. Some sweet art seemed to lie in her, superior to mere neatness, as high-heartedness excelleth pride. I put on salmon flies to catch trout. I often fished without any hook at all. I strove to image her fair face and form in the clear waters, by the side of that hapless similitude of myself—the reflex of a forlorn youth in his first love. I did my best at haymaking to please her. I took eternal lessons in the art of making Devon cheese. I got at last so far as to kiss her hand. I drew a little, and she sat to me for her portrait. We sallied out a mushrooming and getting wild flowers, and on our way sang pleasant songs together, and interchanged our little stores of reading. On the eve before my long put-off departure we were thus roaming: we had to cross a hundred stiles—the choicest blessings of this country I used to think them—and once, instead of offering my hand to help her over, I held out both my arms, and, upon my life, George, the dear girl jumped right into them; and that was how I got to kiss her cheek.”
“What shocking stories you are telling, Robert,” said Mrs. Chetwood, and certainly she was then blushing up under her lace cap to her white hair.
“Well, my dear, nobody was there except Kate and myself, and I think I must know what happened, at least as well as you do: so,” he continued, “after one more visit to the farm-house, Kate and I were married; she gave up all her healthy ways and country pleasures to come and live with me in the busy town; studious of others’ happiness, careful for others’ pain; at all times forgetful of herself: active and diligent, she had ever leisure for a pleasant word and a kind action; and for beauty, no maid nor wife in the world was fit, I believe, to compare with her; to you, George, who knew and loved our dearest Gertrude, I need not describe her mother. She was not long with me, but it soon seemed as if it must have cost my life to have parted with her; yet the girlish glory faded, and the sparkling spirit fled, and the day has been forgiven, though forgotten never, which took my darling Katie from my side.”