I leave you to picture the sensations of the unfortunate so addressed and so described. She advanced slowly, square and sodden, but with an unmistakable look of anguish in her poor harassed eyes, of a blue as dull and troubled as her complexion; and a certain twitching of her thin tight lips was eloquent enough of her unprovoked hurt.
Mr. Parker, with his simpering disgusted air of ill-natured little dandy, flourished a perfumed handkerchief about her face, to sustain his affronted nerves, no doubt, placed an arm gingerly about the flat square waist, clasped her outer hand in evident revulsion, and began to scamper and drag her round the room in the steps of a wild schottische. Most of us tittered—could we be expected to measure the misery of the girl, while nature made us excruciatingly alive to the absurdity of her tormentor?
As a girl myself I have often laughed in recalling the incident; but I own that the brute should have been kicked out of the establishment for such an object-lesson in the art of communicating grace. As for his boasted achievement, even we babies could perfectly understand that there was not much to choose between his jerky waxwork steps and the heavy stamp of his partner. She at least was true to nature and moved as she looked, an honest cow-like creature, whom you were at liberty not to admire, but who offered you no reason to despise her. While he, her vindictive enemy, mean unnatural little body, sheathing a base, affected, silly little soul, fiddling and scraping away his days which were neither dignified nor manly, he offered himself to the unlimited contempt of even such microscopic humanity as ours. We felt he was not a man with the large capacity of manhood, but a disgraced and laughable thing, a puppet moving upon springs and speaking artificially, manufactured as dolls are, for the delectation of little folk.
We enjoyed Mr. Parker, but we never regarded him as more human than the clown or the harlequin of the pantomime. We imitated him together; we played at him, as we played at soldiers or fairies or social entertainment. Had we learnt that he was dead or ill, or driven to the poorhouse, it would have been just as if we had heard such news of harlequin, or heard that Peeping Tom had fallen from his window and smashed his head. Mr. Parker was not a person at the Ivies; he was a capital joke.
Chapter XIX. EPISCOPAL PROTECTION.
The succeeding years in Lysterby are obscured. Here and there I recall a vivid episode, an abiding impression. Papa came over with one of my elder sisters. They arrived at night, and I, half asleep, was dressed hurriedly and taken down to the parlour. A big warm wave of delight overwhelmed me as my stepfather caught me in his arms and whisked me up above his fair head. It was heaven to meet his affectionate blue eyes dancing so blithely to the joy of my own. Seated upon his shoulder, I touched a mole on his broad forehead, and cried, as if I had made a discovery—
"You've got the same little ball on your forehead, papa, that you had when you used to come down to Kildare."
Bidding me good-night, he promised to come for me early next day, and told me I should sleep in the Craven Arms, and spend two whole days driving about the country with him. How comforting the well-filled table, the cold ham, the bacon and eggs at breakfast, the bread and marmalade, all served on a spotless tablecloth, and outside the smell of the roses and honeysuckle, and the exciting rumble of flies up and down the narrow street! I was so happy that I quite forgot my woes, and did not remember to complain of my enemies. There was so much to eat, to see, to think of, to feel, to say! I not only wanted to know all about everybody at home, but I wanted to see and understand all about me.