BY JEROME K. JEROME.
The fault that most people will find with this story is that it is unconvincing. Its scheme is improbable, its atmosphere artificial. To confess that the thing really happened—not as I am about to set it down, for the pen of the professional writer cannot but adorn and embroider, even to the detriment of his material—is, I am well aware, only an aggravation of my offence; for the facts of life are the impossibilities of fiction. A truer artist would have left this story alone, or at most have kept it for the irritation of his private circle. My lower instinct is to make use of it. A very old man told me the tale; he was landlord of the Cromlech Arms, the only inn of a small, rock-sheltered village on the northeast coast of Cornwall, and had been so for nine-and-forty years. It is called the Cromlech Hotel now, and is under new management, and during the season some four coach-loads of tourists sit down each day to table d'hôte lunch in the low-ceilinged parlor. But I am speaking of some time ago when the place was a mere fishing-harbor, undiscovered by the guide-books.
The old landlord talked, and I harkened, the while we both sat drinking thin ale from earthen-ware mugs late one summer's evening, on the bench that runs along the wall just beneath the latticed windows; and during the many pauses when the old landlord stopped to puff his pipe in silence and lay in a new stock of breath, there came to us the deep voices of the Atlantic, and often, mingled with the pompous roar of the big breakers further out, we would hear the rippling laugh of some small wave that, maybe, had crept in to listen to the tale the landlord told.
The mistake that Charles Seabohn, junior partner of the firm of Seabohn & Son, civil engineers, of London and Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and Mivanway Evans, youngest daughter of the Rev. Thomas Evans, pastor of the Presbyterian church at Bristol, made originally was in marrying too young. Charles Seabohn could hardly have been twenty years of age, and Mivanway could have been little more than seventeen, when they first met upon the cliffs two miles above the Cromlech Arms. Young Charles Seabohn, coming upon the village in the course of a walking-tour, had decided to spend a day or two exploring the picturesque coast; and Mivanway's father had hired a neighboring farm-house wherein to spend his summer vacation. Early one morning—for, at twenty, one takes exercise before breakfast—as young Charles Seabohn lay upon the cliffs, watching the white waters come and go upon the black rocks beneath him, he became aware of a form rising from the waves. The figure was too far off for him to see it clearly, but, judging from the costume, it was a female figure, and promptly the mind of Charles, poetically inclined, turned to thoughts of Venus or Aphrodite, as he, being a gentleman of delicate taste, would have preferred to term her. He saw the figure disappear behind a headland, but still waited. In about ten minutes or a quarter of an hour it reappeared clothed in the garments of the eighteen-sixties, and came towards him. Hidden from sight himself behind a group of rocks, he could watch it at his leisure ascending the steep path from the beach; and an exceedingly sweet and dainty figure it would have appeared even to eyes less susceptible than those of twenty. Sea-water—I stand open to correction—is not, I believe, considered anything of a substitute for curling-tongs, but to the hair of the youngest Miss Evans it had given an additional and most fascinating wave. Nature's red and white had been most cunningly laid on, and the large childish eyes seemed to be searching the world for laughter with which to feed a pair of delicious, pouting lips. Charles's upturned face, petrified into admiration, appeared to be just the sort of thing for which they were on the lookout. A startled "Oh!" came from the slightly parted lips, followed by the merriest of laughs, which in its turn was suddenly stopped by a deep blush. Then the youngest Miss Evans looked offended, as though the whole affair had been Charles's fault, which is the way of women. And Charles, feeling himself guilty under that stern gaze of indignation, rose awkwardly and apologized meekly, whether for being on the cliffs at all or for having got up too early he would have been unable to explain.
The youngest Miss Evans graciously accepted the apology thus tendered with a bow, and passed on, and Charles stood staring after her till the valley gathered her into its spreading arms and hid her from his view.
That was the beginning of all things—I am speaking of the universe as viewed from the stand-point of Charles and Mivanway.
Six months later they were man and wife; or perhaps it would be more correct to say boy and wifelet. Seabohn senior counselled delay, but was overruled by his junior partner. The Rev. Mr. Evans, in common with most theologians, possessed a goodly supply of unmarried daughters and a limited income. Personally he saw no necessity for postponement of the marriage.
The month's honeymoon was spent in the New Forest. That was a mistake to begin with. The New Forest in February is depressing, and they had chosen the loneliest spot they could find. A fortnight in Paris or Rome would have been more helpful. As yet they had nothing to talk about except love, and that they had been talking and writing about steadily all through the winter. On the tenth morning Charles yawned, and Mivanway had a quiet half-hour's cry about it in her own room. On the sixteenth evening Mivanway, feeling irritable, and wondering why (as though fifteen damp, chilly days in the New Forest were not sufficient to make any woman irritable), requested Charles not to disarrange her hair; and Charles, speechless with astonishment, went out into the garden and swore before all the stars that he would never caress Mivanway's hair again as long as he lived.
One supreme folly they had conspired to commit even before the commencement of the honeymoon. Charles, after the manner of very young lovers, had earnestly requested Mivanway to impose upon him some task. He desired to do something great and noble to show his devotion. Dragons were the things he had in his mind, though he may not have been aware of it. Dragons also, no doubt, flitted through Mivanway's brain; but unfortunately for lovers, the supply of dragons has lapsed. Mivanway, liking the conceit, however, thought over it, and then decided that Charles must give up smoking. She had discussed the matter with her favorite sister, and that was the only thing the girls could think of. Charles's face fell. He suggested some more herculean labor, some sacrifice more worthy to lay at Mivanway's feet. But Mivanway had spoken. She might think of some other task, but the smoking prohibition would in any case remain. She dismissed the subject with a pretty hauteur that would have graced Marie Antoinette.