Spinster of This Parish

by W. B. Maxwell

Mrs. Verinder went slowly up the stairs, feeling seriously perturbed. In spite of all that had been said just now, had Emmeline gone out to meet that man? But Mrs. Verinder held to her determination of postponing her chat with Mr. Verinder till after dinner. If you cannot avoid worry, it is better to take it on a full stomach.

Emmeline gave one glance back at the house, noticed that it too had changed, and hurried on.

Open carriages with a footman as well as a coachman on each box seat were streaming up the road. Quite young ladies in the carriages wore bonnets with strings tied under their chins, daintily small bonnets of delicate colours, primrose, heliotrope, and peach; those that wore hats had them perched in the queerest manner, on the back of the head, sideways, at angles; all of them held up flounced or laced parasols of rich dark tints, and their great sleeves ballooned so widely as almost to conceal gentlemen who were accompanying them—elderly gentlemen, these, like father, in top hats and open frock coats; or comparatively youthful gentlemen, like our brother Eustace, in top hats and buttoned frock coats. A horn sounded joyously, and round the corner from Prince’s Gardens there came a four-in-hand—four beautiful grey horses prancing, the whole coach shining in the sunlight, a bevy of ladies, a flower-bed of female elegance, on top; and the two grooms, one standing up to blow the horn and the other sitting down with folded arms. There was another, a plain-clothes groom, concealed within the shuttered doors, but ready to pop out should the gentleman driving meet any difficulties. “So-ho, there. Steady.”

The top hat of the gentleman driving shone prodigiously; he wore a button-hole of gardenias and had a light holland cloth round his middle dividing the frock coat from the shepherd’s plaid trousers; although his face was red and anxious, he looked very grand. The whole prosperous essentially respectable neighbourhood was rolling through the slanted sunbeams to enjoy its drive of ceremony in Hyde Park.

At Alexandra Gate a mounted policeman held up his white hand and stopped the traffic of the main road, in order to allow all these equipages to roll flashing past unimpeded. The stout plebeian horses of two omnibuses had to be pulled up short with a jerk, the ponies in several tradesmen’s carts skidded a little on the macadam; a small squad of lads riding on those new safety bicycles—not the ugly high ones—jumped from the pedals and held their machines sloping to the pavement. Within the rails of the semi-private sanctuary of Hyde Park, Mayfair and Belgravia on wheels at once mingled with and absorbed Kensington on wheels. It was a gay and enchantingly polite spectacle.

But Emmeline turned her back on it and walked swiftly into the cool shadow cast by Albert Hall Mansions—the only edifice in the locality of which Mr. Verinder did not approve. Then, before she reached the Albert Hall, her heart leaped. A tall, excitable man was coming towards her, waving a slouch hat. They should have met on the Broad Walk; she had told him to wait there; but he was not able to wait.

How had he captivated her? She did not know. Was it only because he was the incarnate antithesis of Kensington; because he was individual, unlike the things on each side of him, not arranged on any pattern, not dull, monotonous, or flat; a thing alive in a place where all else was sleeping or dead? Neither then nor at any future time did she attempt mentally to differentiate between the impression he had made upon her as himself all complete, with the dark hair, the penetrating but impenetrable eyes, the record, the fame, and the impression she might have received if any of these attributes had been taken away from him. Say, if he had been an unknown Mr. Tomkins instead of a known Mr. Dyke. Absurd. The man and the name were one. So very much so indeed that yesterday morning when, at the museum, she had asked for a new map of the Antarctic, and was poring over it in order to feast herself with a sight of those magic words Anthony Dyke Land, it was not only that the little black letters of which the names was composed shone like rubies and burned like fire, she felt distinctly the man’s hand on her shoulder and heard his voice at her ear, although at this moment he was miles away. He was Anthony Dyke. He was her lord, her prince, her lover.

Yet hitherto she had not been a romantic girl. She had felt nothing irksome in her surroundings, had been content with these broad streets and platitudinous façades; her pulses had not stirred at contact with masculinity; life with the family had seemed pleasant, and the prospect of ultimate union with some good-natured nonentity like Pratt, a well-managed nursery, some humdrum babies, had not appeared repellent. She was not irregular either in thought or conduct. Indeed, she had inherited a fair portion of her father’s love of order; showing this characteristic in many ways, keeping her room very neat and tidy, liking, even when she was quite small, to have boxes and convenient places in which to keep her belongings, not leaving books on sofas or dropping her handkerchief on the stairs. Beyond the sensation of possessing latent powers and capabilities upon which there had been no call, there had not come to her herself the slightest indication of the likelihood of what was happening now. It was unexpected, miraculous. As though that Virginia creeper which was so neatly bound upon its wires from the wide area to the top of the ground floor windows of their house had been metamorphosed into an overwhelming growth, with tendrils strong enough to bind a man’s limbs, huge pulp-laden leaves, and blazing red tropical passion flowers.