A well-regulated memory has been likened to the best-regulated household—a bee-hive. It is said to contain a myriad of little cells, in which are carefully stored away all our treasures, all the sweetness we have gathered in bright days and hours, to be drawn forth thence on drowsy evenings or wakeful nights—enjoyed, and restored. In the memory of our young bridegroom a hundred little chambers at once now gave up their precious things. From remotest and darkest nooks, from the very dungeons of the hive, where they had been stored because they were so precious as to be painful to look on, they now came pouring pell-mell in bountiful confusion: and in all a beautiful young face, lit up with gold-brown eyes, and shaded by gold-brown hair, came and went in a wonderful fragmentary way. For now a massy curl, drooping over his shoulder as together they bend to read from one book; and now her eyes, with a sudden illumination of love and mirth, railing at him; and now her lips closed to reproach him in silence, or half-parted and half-pouted to receive his greeting kiss—alone filled the entire picture. In vain he endeavored to bring steadily before his eyes the integrate sweetness of that face, where a morning radiance rested all day long. Once and again, indeed, he seemed almost to accomplish his desire; and he glanced shyly at the portrait looming dimly on his vision, lest by gazing too earnestly he should disperse it. And, in a moment, the features were all rubbed out: again only a curl drooped on his shoulder, or two eyes smiled up to him, with various and fitfully-remembered meaning, out of blank darkness.
In equal hurry and confusion, the remembrance of past scenes, and groupings, and events, where still the one fair face looked grave or gay, whirled through the dreamer’s mind. Meetings and partings, the last and the first—summer lanes and winter hearths—morning and evening, all rendered up their souvenirs in sad chronological order, regardless of the unities of the pastoral to which they belonged. An old gabled house in the northern suburbs, some ten miles from St. Paul’s was, however, the chief scene of his wedding-eve reminiscences. A snug old house, stuck full of little square dull-eyed casements, it was nursed and shaded in its declining age in shrubby lawns and flower-beds—in rows of elm and straggly sycamore, with fragrant lilac and the golden abundance of laburnum-trees. House and garden, it was a very place of leaves. Except a small paddock in the rear, where an old gray horse used to stand reflectively by the hour, as still as the horse of wood over the neighboring inn, every where were dusty leaves or spruce flowers. On the walls, peeping in at the windows—clinging round one chimney-pot and drooping from another—lying in wait at doors, overhanging paths, toppling the mossy garden-wall, and stealing under the great, shabby wooden carriage-gate, where carriage never deigned to enter—box and briar and creeping plants abounded. But it was beneath the parlor windows that, like well-fed Babes in the Wood, the flowering plants clustered and prospered: nowhere beyond, except in the windows of the chambers above. In one especially. It was at the west side of the house, high up (doesn’t John Godwin remember it?) and looked down the road leading from the city, smiling radiantly. Balsams and old-fashioned scarlet-flowered geraniums, a hot, martial-looking cactus, specimens of that perfect type of blooming English womanhood, the rose, and some novelty with a lengthy Latin name, were gathered there in bright companionship—all the brighter when fanned by the snowy curtain as it flapped pleasantly above in the early morning breeze.
And if this little window high up in the old house smiled radiantly upon all the dusty wanderers who came out of London so far in search of “a mouthful of air,” the elect bridegroom, still balancing the poker there, could tell you with what special radiance it looked all down the road on him. That part of the story is what he is now recalling. How in summer mornings, sunny and still, he used to rise with the lark; how, hours before he could display the advantages of those operations, he got himself starched and pomatumed one or two degrees beyond good taste, perhaps, as he doubts now; but then some anticipation was to be made for the damages of a two hour’s walk. How at the earliest moment, almost breakfastless—for his heart by this time had overrun his stomach—he started off to spend the blessed day of rest with Jessy, to take Jessy to church. Jessy owned the bright brown eyes and the locks of bright brown hair: a compact little goddess of eighteen—a laughing, blooming, deep-hearted and very sensible little goddess, whom to worship were honor; and she used sometimes to peep through the branches of the geraniums on such Sunday mornings, to see whether her “dear boy” were coming; for the little window was the window of her chamber. Jessy innocently imagined that her dear boy had never caught her peeping; she was mistaken; and the bridegroom smiles very grimly, for a bridegroom, as he remembers that fact. And how, having walked his last mile leisurely—for, from a foolish pride, he wished Jessy to believe that the coach had conveyed him to the end of the road, and therefore endeavored to make his appearance as cool as possible—how, having walked his last mile leisurely, and flaunted the dust from his clothes, he suddenly turned an angle, and coming at once in sight, distinguished at the distance of a quarter-mile whether she looked for his coming. If so, though pretending not to see her, all the graces of which he was master were at once put in requisition, up to the last opportunity in a graceful rat-tat-tat at the door.
There was not such a moment in any week as that which elapsed between this rapping at the door and the opening of it. A world of tumult, and impatience, and hesitation were compressed in that small instant: ’twas precisely such a hurly-burly of feeling as that which caused his fingers to tremble over the unbroken seal of the first letter he received from her: and loving-kindness always followed the opening of the door as it had followed the opening of the seal. Even dreaming these scenes into renewed life, Godwin hastened thus to arrive at the porch; for on the threshold he will meet, not the good old servant, she knows well enough how impertinent it would be to answer such a knock as that; but, listening, he hears light swift feet come pit-a-pat, pat-a-pat down the stairs, with just a little jump to finish, the door is flung wide open, and there stands the flower-goddess smiling and shaking her curls, her face irradiate with a positive glory of happiness, only softened by the faintest and least shame-faced of blushes. They say nothing at present; but while with one hand she closes the door, the other is placed upon his shoulder, and, a-tiptoe, she bestows a sharp, uncertain little kiss upon his cheek; whereupon they find themselves in the parlor.
When that sturdy old Viking, Jessy’s papa, makes his appearance, they all go to church; but this the sturdy old Viking does not till the latest moment, defeating his object therein by storming the room-door just, maybe, as Godwin insists upon tying the strings of Jessy’s bonnet, and while, laughing and blushing, she uplifts the white round chin in a naughty, ambiguous way, to assist (or confuse) the operation. For halfpay-captain Burton, a man of war when grog, bluster, and the cat were national bulwarks—brown, boisterous, and the most tarry of tars—was at the same time the most bashful person concerned in the love between his daughter and John Godwin, principally or remotely. When full twelve months had elapsed since the evening that, restlessly pondering the matter upon stepping into bed, he had confirmed his suspicions in a nervous conversation with his wife that John was a-wearing up to our Jess, that nervousness still continued. Not a word in reference to the subject had he ever uttered to his daughter, or to any one after that dreadful evening; for, with a vasty sigh, he then felt himself compelled to avow that he had no reason to say nay if Jess said yea, which her mother communicated to her by-and-by, when Jessy sought her confidence, and which the affectionate little flower-goddess revealed to her dear boy one anxious dusky evening with all her delicacy. And so the matter settled itself; but Captain Burton at once took to the thoughtful and uncongenial pursuit of angling, and so enthusiastically, that, though quite unsuccessful, he did not meet his daughter at breakfast for an entire fortnight. With the countenance of a cheerful martyr, he went up and down into all the chambers of the house, whistling or humming notes that had no pretence to cohesion, or harmony, or to any thing but doleful monotony, and in a thousand other ways displayed the wretchedness of his mind.
And long after the lovers—from frequent communion and from other causes well wotted of by old and young—had outgrown the restraints of bashfulness, and were become sister and brother in manner and wedded in heart, the old sea-captain still felt qualmish on the approach of John’s visits. So it was that on Sunday mornings he usually delayed his greeting to the last moment, when, his grisly hair brushed no way in particular, and tucked under the brim of a very rakish and curley-looking hat, he was prepared to accompany them to church. Along the dusty, pebbly footpath, with here a church-going worshiper from the cottage, and there a church-going worshiper from the hall, the school-children defiling irregularly and dustily in the road. Across the common—down the long lane shadowed, almost darkened, by trees that overhung from high and weedy banks on either side, where birds chattered and sung, and the church-bells rang with softened resonance; at the end the sunshine gloriously outspread, with the tumble-down old church and the tumble-down old gravestones drowsing in the midst: and all like a picture framed in the foliage of the lane. Pleasant enough in reality and destitute of association, that walk was beautiful indeed as remembered by the apothecary. Cool summer airs floated past his face, the freshness of morning moistened on his lips, in his eyes was light, in his heart all happiness, as the recollection rose in fullness before the dreaming bridegroom, and passed gently away. Again as they entered the porch together, in the shadow of a real and earnest thoughtfulness; again as together they knelt down; again as organ and children intoned an old meandering psalm, that ever found an easy path from earth to heaven—the memory came with a shock like electricity and left him confusedly trembling. And the loose afternoon rambles while papa dozed, the botanical excursions into all the shady, shrubby nooks of the garden, where Jessy gathered her hair under that wonderful muslin scarf—pleasant converse or pleasanter silence by open windows, when rain-drops drummed among the leaves—cozy evenings when, determined to be happy (for at heart he was almost as proud of Godwin’s frank openheartedness and sound intelligence as his daughter,) the old captain brought forth a tobacco-pouch that might also have served for a carpet-bag, mixed a pint of grog in a half-gallon bowl, and sat down to talk morals and politics over the table with his guest, while at the same time, beneath the shadow of the table, the joined hands of Jessy and the happy guest talked love—and ceremonial suppers, for parting had to follow—parting itself, when Jessy and her father accompanied him into the porch, and her father wandered uneasily somewhere out of it, and Jessy shook hands with her dear boy where the shadow was deepest, returned his salute with modest fervor, and accompanied her final “God bless you” by a glance lingering and tremulous—and that was the end.
That was the end. The hollow fire broke down sullenly in ruins, and the bridegroom rose slowly to his feet much troubled. But meeting the reflection of his face full in the chimney-glass, he sat down again still more troubled; for the emotion he saw there spoke accusingly. Many months these recollections had lain nearly dormant in his mind: he had thrown them off uneasily from time to time; and to-night, when, more than all days and nights in the past year, he ought least to indulge them, least to be troubled by them or yearn to them, what right had they to swarm all the avenues of thought in this way? Jessy Burton was a dead name, the old house a mere haunted house, so far as he was now concerned. Had they not quarreled and parted long ago? And whose fault was that but Jessy’s? True, his part in the quarrel had been the most active, and she might, perhaps, accuse him of caprice, or something of that sort; but then she had been very passive, and seemed to care very little—he had never seen her cry, or look reproachful, even when matters had come to a crisis; she had very quietly received back all her notes (quite a little heap they were, square and three-cornered, scented and unscented, neatly-written notes and some with words sprawling all about the paper, still “in haste—Yours,” and one with some dead leaves in it)—and did not return his letters in reply. From which, of course, any one could only assume that they had mutually—got——
Well, suppose we think no more about it. Jessy could not work such a pair of slippers as that; and Godwin planted his feet, slippers and all, on each side of the fire-place. Nor could she embroider such chair-covers, or work such curtains, or cut such lamp-screens, or finger the piano so rapidly as Sybilla—nothing like it: he became acquainted with Sybilla two whole months before he parted with Jessy, and therefore he had opportunities of immediate comparison, and ought to know. Sybilla was a handsome, brilliant girl, with a fine high spirit, and excessively fond of him—no doubt of it. He was a pretty fellow to sit dreaming away in that sentimental style, when to-morrow he was to marry such a woman as that, and become the proudest husband to-morrow would shine on! Jessy was well enough in her way, a nice, amiable, pretty girl; but, dear me!—and John made up his mouth to whistle an air, and did not whistle it.
Well! John thought he had better go to bed. The fire was out—no wonder he felt so miserable!—and there was the boy peeping hard through the curtain again; for he was getting hungry and wanted to shut up. The fat fingers of the little maid below had ceased from their labors—the cap was finished, and looked beautiful; and she sat at the fire with her chin on her hands and her elbows on her knees, brooding matrimony in an earnest and lively spirit. In half an hour the buttons ate himself to sleep, Polly found sleep in the realms of speculation, and John, become more comfortable over a renewed fire and a glass of weak toddy, went really whistling up to bed shortly after. “Good night, John,” said he, as he rolled himself up like a chrysalis; “good night, young man! Good night, Sybilla!” And a moment after, with tenderness and an ominous sort of resignation, “Good night, Jessy!”
An hour after dawn, the little bird whose cage hung in the chamber window, trilling, quavering, rattling out his earliest fantasia, roused the bridegroom from sleep. About an hour after dawn, rattling, quavering, trilling his morning song, the little bird (brother to the above) whose cage hung in Jessy’s chamber window, roused her also from sleep. In morning toilette, and bright as any Diana from the bath, Jessy soon put her bloomy face in comparison with her flowers, as, admiring here, plucking a dead leaf there, she busied herself with her bow-pots. Presently she went with a serious air to a battered old trunk in a corner, and carefully took thence a small ivory box. It contained various minute packages of flower-seeds; and the serious expression of her face deepened into a sadness that seemed at home there, as she came to one carefully sealed paper at the bottom of the box. Jessy opened it, and half-a-dozen balsam-seeds fell into a slightly trembling hand: small, dusty, withered-looking seeds—smaller, more dusty and withered-looking than balsam-seeds usually are, and more precious.