Slowly and majestically Mrs Hartshorne marched into the church, and slowly and majestically Tom marched after her, carrying her large prayer-book and Bible of the size originally distributed by the Religious Tract Society—a service generally performed by the henchman “Jarge,” as he pronounced his own name—while Markworth brought up the rear of the procession.
The dowager’s pew was immediately opposite the pulpit, and, of course, facing the side pews on the other side behind the reading-desk, the front one of which was devoted to the use of the incumbent for the time being and his family, in case he had any.
Up the aisle in its onward and solemn progress the procession passed, and the dowager was soon ensconced in the extreme upper corner of the pew, with her devotional exercises arranged before her on the prie-Dieu, and her hands folded on her lap, now deprived of their customary woollen envelopes, as prim as you please. “Primness was no name for it, sir,” as Markworth said afterwards to Tom; “her position was—yes, sir, statuesque, by Jove!” The guest sat bodkin between the two, while Tom occupied the corner—by the place where the door should have been if there had been one—from which point he could command a portion of the clerical pew, otherwise obscured from general observation, at least on this side of the house, by the reading-desk.
Tom, I am sorry to say, was not particularly devout in church. He would keep his eyes straying from his book, and yet his attention did not wander over the whole edifice, for he looked straight in front of him, and none but a very curious observer could have detected his lack of devotional zeal. His mother did not notice it, for she was apparently plunged heart and soul into the liturgy, although really making up her mind as to the feasibility of raising Farmer Grigg’s rent upon having seen the daughters of that unfortunate worthy, who were esteemed the belles of the village, come into church with new bonnets and actually silk dresses! “when I can not afford them, the brazen hussies.” As for Markworth he was wondering what a rum lot the Chawbacons were, and how funny they all looked clean washed and scraped, and with their elaborately-braided white smock-frocks on over their black trowsers, looking as if they had donned surplices, or, as he hit upon a better illustration, as if they had put on their night-shirts—I beg pardon, rôbes de chambre—and come out by mistake instead of going to bed. So Tom had it all his own way.
Tom was observant, but it was nothing so very noticeable that attracted his attention. It was only a bonnet! only a little coquettish arrangement of ribbons and lace, and very little crown to it, if any,—only one of those tiny specimens of Madame Charles or Leroux, handiwork which you can see any day in Leicester Square, and which though apparently so trifling are worth far more than their weight in gold—as poor Paterfamilias knew to his cost. It is a dainty, demure little article enough, but nothing in it is there to warrant this wrapt attention on Tom’s part.
Can he be considering how two ribbons can be held together in that artful mode by a mere straw? is he a disciple of the millinery art? No, that would not make the gallant young officer gaze so entrancingly, and cause the ruddy flush of excitement to colour his budding cheek! Master Tom is not so simple as that, although he may be a most ingenuous youth. The bonnet has a wearer who will keep her eyes bent down as earnestly as Tom persists in raising his from his book, and fixing them over the way, except now and then an occasional blushing little look across, and then once more down deep into the service again. It is a pretty little bonnet and has a pretty little owner, as Tom thinks. He “considers it a shame,” but he cannot help letting his enquiring optics travel over the way. Young rogue! how he enjoys seeing the colour which his too-earnest gaze calls up—the pink signal of maidenly reserve, pleasure, coyness, consciousness.
There is no blame attached to Tom, those heavenly violet eyes have done it all. He could not help it even if he would. Tom is hopelessly in love—love at first sight—with pretty Lizzie Pringle, Mrs Hartshorne’s young incumbent’s sister. He is thoroughly in for it, as much as if he had known her for months or years.
It is all very well for you, Monsieur Cynic, or you, Madame Artless, to say that there is no such thing as “love at first sight.” Of course it is foolish, but it is not impossible; Cupid, my dear sir or madam, is a most erratic as well as erotic young gentleman, and plays some strange pranks sometimes. A glance from a pair of bright eyes will some times, one glance, effect a wonderful metamorphosis in even the sternest misogynists, create a revolution, ruin an empire. Look at history, Monsieur Cynic, and answer me if you dare. Nay, my dear sir, it is not impossible, not even improbable. A single word, one look between sympathetic souls, often establishes that cordial affinity which years of intercourse, and dictionaries of words, and oceans of sighs will not create between others who have not met their mental kindred. Philosophy cannot argue against Cupidon; he laughs Plato and his platitudes to scorn. Dixi! I have spoken. Tom has fallen in love, and it was a clear case of love at first sight, with Lizzie Pringle just the girl he was ordained—in a non-clerical sense—to fall in love with.
She was as nice a little thing as you could conceive—slim, petite, with dark brown hair nearly black, such heavenly violet eyes with liquid depths, and the most ravishing little rosebud of a mouth and piquante little nose possible for any one but a fairy to possess; she was so winning, innocent, pretty a specimen of God’s gift to man, that the fact is Master Tom would have deserved being called an eingebornen knarren, adopting the German text for fool, if he had not fallen a victim immediately to her violet eyes. And then she was dressed so bewitchingly—not in gaudy contrasts, or in the extreme of the mode, but so neatly and in such a ladylike manner that she must have attracted even wiser heads than his.
Of course she saw him looking at her—of course she did! “What a rude staring fellow he is to be sure!” she said to herself mentally, and resolved not to look that way again but to fix her attention sternly on the Thirty-nine Articles; still she would have just one peep more.—“There he is again, the great rude creature! What nice blue eyes he has, and such a little love of a moustache! and what on earth can he find to look at so persistently over here?” And down would go the long dark lashes again, and a little conscious blush would rise, and even the tender little ears and supple white neck would be encrimsoned. “It must be Mister Tom,” she determined, “that dark ugly man that went in with Mistress Hartshorne could not be him; but he is a very naughty fellow to be staring at a young lady like that.” Yet she would go on to excuse him to herself. “Perhaps he does not know any better, poor fellow; he’s very young” (she was just seventeen mind you), “and when I know him I will tell him what I think of his rudeness.” And then she would wonder to herself whether she ever would know him, and it sent a pang to her little heart when she thought she might not, and then Master Tom would catch her eye, and the tell-tale blush would hang out its pink flag again, and there would be a little flush of happiness, and so da capo. Just picture to yourself, Corydon, your little flirtation or grande passion with Phyllis, and you can easily fill up all the blanks and imagine the rest.