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Love Me Little, Love Me Long, a novel by Charles Reade |
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Chapter 9 |
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_ CHAPTER IX ARTHUR was bundled off to a private tutor, and the Dodds invited to Font Abbey no more, and Talboys dined there three days a week. So far, David Dodd was in a poor and miserable position compared with Talboys, who visited Lucy at pleasure, and could close the very street door against a rival, real or imaginary. But the street door is not the door of the heart, and David had one little advantage over his powerful antagonist; it was a slender one, and he owed it to a subtle source--female tact. His sister had long been aware of Talboys. The gossip of the village had enlightened her as to his visits and supposed pretensions. She had deliberately withheld this information from her brother, for she said to herself: "Men always make _such_ fools of themselves when they are jealous. No. David shan't even know he has got a rival; if he did he would be wretched and live on thorns, and then he would get into passions, and either make a fool of himself in her eyes, or do something rash and be shown to the door." Thus far Eve, defending her brother. And with this piece of shrewdness she did a little more for him than she intended or was conscious of; for Talboys, either by feeble calculation or instinct of petty rivalry, constantly sneered at David before Lucy; David never mentioned Talboys' name to her. Now superior ignores, inferior detracts. Thus Talboys lowered himself and rather elevated David; moreover, he counteracted his own strongest weapon, the street door. After putting David out of sight, this judicious rival could not let him fade out of mind too; he found means to stimulate the lady's memory, and, as far as in him lay, made the absent present. May all my foes unweave their webs as cleverly! David knew nothing of this. He saw himself shut out from Paradise, and he was sad. He felt the loss of Arthur too. The orphan had been medicine to him. When a man is absorbed in a hopeless passion, to be employed every day in a good action has a magical soothing influence on the racked heart. Try this instead of suicide, despairing lover. It is a quack remedy; no M. D. prescribes it. Never you mind; in desperate ills a little cure is worth a deal of etiquette. Poor David had lost this innocent comfort--lost, too, the pleasure of going every day to the house she lived in. To be sure, when he used to go he seldom caught a glimpse of her, but he did now and then, and always enjoyed the hope. "I see how it is," said he to Eve one day; "I am not welcome to the master of the house. Well, he is the master; I shall not force my way where I am not welcome"; but after these spirited words he hung his head. "Oh, nonsense," said Eve. "It isn't him. There are mischief-makers behind." "Ay? just you tell me who they are. I'll teach them to come across my hawse"; and David's eyes flashed. "Don't you be silly," said Eve, and turned it off; "and don't be so downhearted. Why, you are not half a man." "No more I am, Eve. What has come to me?" "What, indeed? just when everything goes swimmingly." "Eve, how can you say so?" "Why, David, she leaves this in a few days for Mrs. Bazalgette's house. You tell me you have got a warm invitation there. Then make the play there, and, if you can't win her, say you don't deserve her, twiddle your thumb, and see a bolder lover carry her off. You foolish boy, she is only a woman; she is to be won. If you don't mind, some man will show you it was as easy as you think it is hard. Timid wooers make a mountain of a mole-hill." "Why, it is you who have kept me backing and filling all this time, Eve." "Of course. Prudence at first starting, but that isn't to say courage is never to come in. First creep within the fortification wall; but, once inside, if you don't storm the city that minute, woe be unto you. Come, cheer up! it is only for a few days, and then she goes where you will have her all to yourself; besides, you shall have one sweet delicious evening with her all alone before she goes. What! have you forgotten the pedigree? Wasn't I right to keep that back? and now march and take a good long walk." Her tongue was a spur. It made David's drooping manhood rear and prance--a trumpet, and pealed victory to come. David kissed her warmly and strode away radiant. She looked sadly after him. She had never spoken so hopefully, so encouragingly. The reason will startle such of my readers as have not taken the trouble to comprehend her. It was that she had never so thoroughly desponded. Such was Eve. When matters went smoothly, she itched to torment and take the gloss off David; but now the affair looked really desperate, so it would have been unkind not to sustain him with all her soul. The cause of her despondency and consequent cheerfulness shall now be briefly related. Scarce an hour ago she had met Miss Fountain in the village and accompanied her home. For David's sake she had diverted the conversation by easy degrees to the subject of marriage, in order to sound Miss Fountain. "You would never give your hand without your heart, I am sure." "Heaven forbid," was the reply. "Not even to a coronet?" "Not even to a crown." So far so good; but Miss Fountain went on to say that the heart was not the only thing to be consulted in a matter so important as marriage. "It is the only thing I would ever consult," said Eve. As Lucy did not reply, Eve asked her next what she would do if she loved a poor man. Lucy replied coldly that it was not her present intention to love anybody but her relations; that she should never love any gentleman until she had been married to him, or, correcting herself, at all events, been some time engaged to him, and she should certainly never engage herself to anyone who would not rather improve her position in society than deteriorate it. Eve met these pretty phrases with a look of contempt, as much as to say, "While you speak I am putting all that into plain vulgar English." The other did not seem to notice it. "To leave this interesting topic for a while," said she, languidly, "let me consult you, Miss Dodd. I have not, as you may have noticed, great abilities, but I have received an excellent education. To say nothing of those _soi-disant_ accomplishments with which we adorn and sometimes weary society, my dear mother had me well grounded in languages and history. Without being eloquent, I have a certain fluency, in which, they tell me, even members of Parliament are deficient, smoothly as their speeches read made into English by the newspapers. Like yourself, Miss Dodd, and all our sex, I am not destitute of tact, and tact, you know, is 'the talent of talents.' I feel," here she bit her lip, "myself fit for public life. I am ambitious." "Oh, you are, are you?" "Very; and perhaps you will kindly tell me how I had best direct that ambition. The army? No; marching against daisies, and dancing and flirting in garrison towns, is frivolous and monotonous too. It isn't as if war was raging, trumpets ringing, and squadrons charging. Your brother's profession? Not for the world; I am a coward" [consistent]. "Shall I lower my pretensions to the learned professions?" "I don't doubt your cleverness, but the learned professions?" "A woman has a tongue, you know, and that is their grand requisite. I interrupted you, Miss Dodd; pray forgive me." "Well, then, let us go through them. To be a clergyman, what is required? To preach, and visit the sick, and feel for them, and understand what passes in the sorrowful hearts of the afflicted. Is that beyond our sex?" "That last is far more beyond a man at most times; and oh, the discourses one has to sit out in church!" "Portia made a very passable barrister, Miss Dodd." "Oh, did she?" "Why, you know she did; and as for medicine, the great successes there are achieved by honeyed words, with a long word thrown in here and there. I've heard my own mamma say so. Now which shall I be?" "I suppose you are making fun of me," said Eve; "but there is many a true word spoken in jest. You could be a better, parson, lawyer or doctor than nine out of ten, but they won't let us. They know we could beat them into fits at anything but brute strength and wickedness, so they have shut all those doors in us poor girls' faces." "There; you see," said Lucy archly, "but two lines are open to our honorable ambition, marriage and--water-colors. I think marriage the more honorable of the two; above all, it is the more fashionable. Can you blame me, then, if my ambition chooses the altar and not the easel?" "So that is what you have been bringing me to." "You came of your own accord," was the sly retort. "Let me offer you some luncheon." "No, thank you; I could not eat a morsel just now." Eve went away, her bright little face visibly cast down. It was not Miss Fountain's words only, and that new trait of hard satire, which she had so suddenly produced from her secret recesses. Her very tones were cynical and worldly to Eve's delicate sense of hearing. "Poor, poor David!" she thought, and when she got to the door of the room she sighed; and as she went home she said more than once to herself, "No more heart than a marble statue. Oh, how true our first thought is! I come back to mine--" Lucy (sola). _"Then_ what right had she to come here and try to turn me inside out?" _ |
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