Page:Once a Week Volume V.djvu/142

27, 1861.] “Well, but some are sensible men; why don’t you try to love one of them?—you will in time if you try?”

“Pshaw!” burst in Middy. “How can you talk such nonsense, and profane the name of love in that way? If I were driven to seek a home, or, like a very young girl, had no experience, the case might be different. Even then in a short time I should find out that I had acted wickedly.”

“Well, but Middy—” said I.

“Now, don’t go on in that way, Mr. Special Pleader. You are not holding a brief for which you are paid, so you are not bound to speak what you do not believe.”

In the course of eighteen months, towards the close of the London season, Middy and I one afternoon were together in the garden, I lying on the grass smoking, she seated near me.

“Middy,” said I, “give me joy: the old relation who stood between me and matrimony is supposed at last to be dying, and probably in the course of six or eight months I shall no longer be a bachelor.”

“What, Frank!” she cried. “What, going to be married?”

“Yes, Middy,” said I, somewhat puzzled. “You knew full well I was engaged.”

“Yes, but, but—”

She said no more, but fell on her face fainting.

Here’s a mess, thought I, as I rushed to a neighbouring friendly fountain. “Here is a mess!” exclaimed I, as, on returning with water, I saw that my picture and a locket with hair in it of the same colour as mine had, by the fall, been shaken out from her bosom and lay beside her. I had often noticed a small gold chain round her neck, which, descending into the folds of her dress, was lost to view; but little fancying what was appended to it, I had thought it intrusive on my part to ask what was at the end of the chain. And she had called me Frank, too, for the first time in her life. “Oh, what a mess!” groaned I. Well, I dashed water in her face. In the course of a few minutes she came round, sat up, replaced my picture and the locket. Her eyes encountered mine: for a very brief space of time we gazed steadily at each other. For once in my life I was fairly at a loss to know what my eyes said. She quickly recovered.

“Let us walk,” she said, “it will do me good.”

Up and down the garden we sauntered for a short time, talking of my wedding, she congratulating me, I answering in monosyllables, and wishing myself anywhere but there. As soon as possible I said good morning, and went out at the garden-gate. It were impossible otherwise I should like to analyse the way in which we shook hands with each other.

“Cab, sir?”	. ,

“Yes,” replied I, opening the door at once and shutting myself in.

“Where to, sir?”

“Oh, Jericho!” replied I.

And, now, being alone, I began to meditate. Middy loved me to distraction, that was clear; ay, and loved me, too, in the fullest, truest sense of the word, purely and for ever. Now for self-examination.

“Where to, sir, did you say?” interrupted cabby, putting his ugly frontispiece round to the window.

“Jericho!” replied I angrily. “Can’t you hear?”

Cabby shuffled on his seat, lashed the horse, scratched his head,—lashed the horse again. Now for self-examination. And lest the reader should have his or her curiosity excited, and take me for a patent fool, let me at once say that I have not been a barrister for twenty years without having a wholesome dread of putting myself into a witness-box. My self-examination and answers I keep to myself. Suffice it to say, I have been married fourteen years and have eight children; but, inasmuch as my income is not large, I should have been just as well pleased with four, if the other four had not come. Each child, however, has added a fresh link to the chain that binds me closely to my affectionate wife, and were she on trial, I defy the united abilities of a hundred horse-power attorney-general and ditto solicitor-general to elicit from her that I have been anything but, in word and deed, a most kind, tender, and attached husband.

Owing to a crowd of vehicles we came to a stand-still in Oxford Street.

“I say, Bill,” exclaimed my driver to a brother Jehu, “have you ever heard of Jericho? Where is it? Gent inside wants to go there.”

“Can’t say, Jim,’’responded whip No. 2, “unless it be smack through the city or t’other side of the water. Try ’em both and then swear you have lost your way.”

This recalled me to my senses, and made me think of the insane address I had given my driver.

“Cabby, I will go to the Temple instead of Jericho.”

“All right, sir,” said he evidently much relieved, and such is the sympathy between man (when a good driver) and beast that the horse likewise was evidently much relieved.

My long-lived relation, I need hardly say, did not die that bout, and so another season saw Middy and myself again in town together. We met, we were friends, talked to each other, sometimes rode together, but neither of us ever alluded to the garden-scene. Each clearly wished, each as evidently dreaded so to do. Somehow or other I was obliged, as I explained to Lady Clanmer and herself, to apply more steadily to my increasing practice. Somehow or other, too, when I called, Middy occasionally was not at home, pleading when we met indisposition as her excuse for not receiving me. The chain still hung round her neck; whether or not its appendages were there I could not tell.

Towards the close of the season 18“my relation at length departed this life. In the following autumn my bride and myself entered on our new life and went abroad. Cards, of course were sent to Lady Clanmer. On our return I found, forwarded to our new house in Curzon Street, Mayfair, from my chambers in the Temple, Middy’s wedding-cards.

Thank goodness she has got over it at last, thought I. She had married the eldest son of a