MR. AND MRS. FOLLETT;
OR, THE DANGERS OF MEDDLING WITH MARRIED PEOPLE.
There are two commodities, much used by gentlemen,
neither of which will bear tinkering or tampering
with—matrimony and patent leather. Their necessities
are fair weather and untroubled wear and tear.
Ponder on the following melancholy example!
My friend Follett married a lady contrary to my
advice. I gave the advice contrary to my wont and
against my will. He would have it. The lady was a
tolerably pretty woman, on whose original destiny it
was never written that she should be a belle. How
she became one is not much matter; but nature being
thoroughly taken by surprise with her success, had
neglected to provide the counterpoise. I say it is no
great matter how she became a belle—nor is it—for if
such things were to be accounted for to the satisfaction
of the sex, the world have little time for other speculations;
but I will devote a single paragraph to the
elucidation of this one of many mysteries, for a reason
I have. Fœnam habet in cornu.
Poets are the least fastidious, and the least discriminating
of men, in their admiration of women (vide
Byron), partly because their imagination, like sunshine,
glorifies all that turns to it, and partly because
the voluptuous heart, without which they were not
poets, is both indolent and imperial, from both causes
waiting always to be sought. In some circles, bards
are rather comets than stars, and the one whose orbit
for a few days intersected that of Miss Adele Burnham,
was the exclusive marvel of the hour. Like other po
ets, the one of which I speak was concentrative in his
attentions, and he chose (why, the gods knew better
than the belles of the season) to have neither eyes nor
ears, flowers, flatteries, nor verses, for any other than
Miss Burnham. He went on his way, but the incense,
in which he had enveloped the blest Adele, lingered
like a magic atmosphere about her, and Tom Follett
and all his tribe breathed it in blind adoration. I trust
the fair reader has here nodded her head, in evidence
that this history of the belleship of Miss Burnham is
no less brief than natural and satisfactory.
When Follett came to me with the astounding information
that he intended to propose to Miss Burnham
(he had already proposed and been accepted, the
traitor)! my fancy at once took the prophetic stride so
natural on the first breaking of such news, and in the
five minutes which I took for reflection, I had travelled
far into that land of few delusions—holy matrimony.
Before me, in all the changeful variety of a magic
mirror, came and went the many phases of which that
multiform creature, woman, is susceptible. I saw her
in diamonds and satin, and in kitchen-apron and curl-papers;
in delight, and in the dumps; in supplication,
and in resistance; shod like a fairy in French shoes,
and slip-shod (as perhaps fairies are, too, in their bed-rooms
and dairies). I saw her approaching the climacteric
of age, and receding from it—a mother, a
nurse, an invalid—mum over her breakfast, chatty over
her tea—doing the honors at Tom's table, and mending
with sober diligence Tom's straps and suspenders.
The haleidoscope of fancy exhausted its combinations.
“Tom!” said I (looking up affectionately, for he
was one of my weakness, was Tom, and I indulged
myself in loving him without a reason), “Miss Burnham
is in the best light where she is. If she cease
to be a belle, as of course she will, should she marry—”
“Of course!” interrupted Tom very gravely.
Well, in that case, she lays off the goddess, trust
me! You will like her to dress plainly —”
“Quite plain!”
“And stripped of her plumage, your bird of paradise
would nothing but a very indifferent hen—with the
disadvantage of remembering that she had been a bird
of paradise.”
“But it was not her dress that attracted the brilliant
author of —”
Possibly not. But as the false gods of mythology
are only known by their insignia, Jupiter by his thunderbolt,
and Mercury by his talaria and caduceus, so
a woman, worshipped by accident, will find a change
of exterior nothing less than a laying aside of her divinity.
That's a didactic sentence, but you will know
what I mean, when I tell you that I myself can not see
a pair of coral ear-rings without a sickness of the
heart, though the woman who once wore them, and
who slighted me twenty years ago, sits before me in
church, without diverting a thought from the sermon.
Don't marry her, Tom!”
Six weeks after this conversation, I was at the wedding
and reader will please pass to the rear the
six succeeding months—short time as it seems—to
record a change in the bland sky of matrimony. It was
an ellipse in our friendship as well; for advice (contrary
to our wishes and intentions) is apt to be resented
and I fancied, from the northerly bows I received
from Mrs. Follett, that my friend had made a merit to
her of having married contrary to my counsel. At the
end of this period Tom called on me.
Follett, I should have said, was a man of that undecided
exterior which is perfectly at the mercy of a cravat
or waistcoat. He looked “snob” or “nob,” according
to the care with which he had made his toilet.
While a bachelor, of course, he could never afford in
public a negligence or a mistake, and was invariably
an elegant man, harmonious and “pin-point” from
straps to whiskers. But alas! the security of wedded
life! When Tom entered my room, I perused him
as a walking homily. His coat, still made on the old
mersure, was buttoned only at the top, the waist being
rather sung, and his waistcoat pockets loaded with the
copper which in his gayer days he always left on the
counter. His satin cravat was frayed and brownish,
with the tie slipped almost under his ear. The heel
of his right boot (he trod straight on the other foot)
almost looked him in the face. His pantaloons (the
one article of dress in which there are no gradations—
nothing, if not perfect) were bulged and strained. He
wore a frightfully new hat, no gloves, and carried a
baggy brown umbrella, which was, in itself, a most expressive
portrait of “gone to seed.” Tom entered
with his is usual uppish carriage, and, through the how-d'ye-dos,
and the getting into his chair, carried off the
old manner to a charm. In talking of the weather, a
moment after, his eye fell on his stumpy umbrella,
which, with an unconscious memory of an old affectation
wit his cane, he was balancing on the toe of his
boot, and the married look slid over him like a mist.
Down went his head between his shoulders, and down
went the corners of his mouth—down the inflation of
his chest like a collapsed balloon; and down, in its
youth and expression it seemed to me, every muscle
of his face. He had assumed in a minute the style
and countenance of a man ten years older.
I smiled. How could I but smile!
“Then you have heard of it!” exclaimed Tom,
suddenly starting to his feet, and flushing purple to the
roots of his hair.
“Heard of what?”
My look of surprise evidently took him aback; and,
seating himself again with confused apologies, Tom
proceeded to “make a clean breast,” on a subject
which I had not anticipated.
It seemed that, far from moulting her feathers after
marriage, according to my prediction, Mrs. Follett
clearly thought that she had not yet “strutted her
hour,” and, though everything Tom could wish behind
the curtain, in society she had flaunted and flirted, not
merely with no diminution of zest from the wedding-day,
but, her husband was of opinion, with a ratio
alarmingly increasing. Her present alliance was with
a certain Count Hautenbas, the lion of the moment,
and though doubtless one in which vanity alone was
active, Tom's sense of connubial propriety was at its
last gasp. He could stand it no longer. He wished
my advice in the choice between two courses. Should
he call out the Frenchman, or should he take advantage
of the law's construction of “moral insanity,” and
shut her up in a mad-house.
My advice had been of so little avail in the first instance,
that I shrank from troubling Tom with any
more of it, and certainly should have evaded it altogether,
but for an experiment I wished to make, as
much for my own satisfaction as for the benefit of that
large class, the unhappy married.
“Your wife is out every night, I suppose, Tom?”
“Every night when she has no party at home.”
“Do you go with her always?”
“I go for her usually—but the truth is, that since
I married, parties bore me, and after seeing my wife off,
I commonly smoke and snooze, or read, or run into
Bob Thomas's and `talk horse,' till I have just time to
be in at the death.”
“And when you get there, you don't dance?”
“Not I, faith! I haven't danced since I was married!”
“But you used to be the best waltzer of the day.”
“Well, the music sometimes gets into my heels
now, but, when I remember I am married, the fit cools
off. The deuce take it! a married man shouldn't be
seen whirling round the room with a girl in his arms!”
“I presume that were you still single, you would
fancy your chance to be as good for ladies' favors as
any French count's that ever came over?”
“Ehem! why—yes!”
Tom pulled up his collar.
“And if you had access to her society all day and
all night, and the Frenchman only an hour or two in
the evening, any given lady being the object, you would
bet freely on your own head?”
“I see your drift,” said Tom, with a melancholy
smile, “but it won't do!”
“No, indeed—it is what would have done. You had
at the start a much better chance with your wife than
Count Hautenbas; but husbands and lovers are the
`hare and the tortoise' of the fable. We must resort
now to other means. Will you follow my advice, as
well as take it, should I be willing again to burn my
fingers in your affairs?”
The eagerness of Tom's protestations quite made
the amende to my mortified self-complacency, and I
entered zealousy into my little plot for his happiness.
At this moment I heartily wish I had sent him and his
affairs to the devil, and (lest I should forget it at the
close of this tale) I here caution all men, single and
double, against “meddling or making,” marring or
mending, in matrimonial matters. The alliteration
may, perhaps, impress this salutary counsel on the
mind of the reader.
I passed the remainder of the day in repairing the
damage of Tom's person. I had his whiskers curled
and trimmed even (his left whisker was an inch nearer
his nose than the right), and his teeth looked to by the
dentist. I stood by, to be sure that there was no carelessness
in his selection of patent leathers, and on his
assuring me that he was otherwise well provided, I
suffered him to go home to dress, engaging him to
dine with me at seven.
He was punctual to the hour. By Jove, I could
scarce believe it was the same man. The consciousness
of being well dressed seemed to have brightened
his eyes and lips, as it certainly changed altogether his
address and movements. He had a narrow escape of
being handsome. After all, it is only a “man of mark,”
or an Apollo, who can well afford to neglect the outer
man; and a judicious negligence, or a judicious plainness,
is probably worth the attention of both the man
of mark and the Apollo. Tom was quite another order
of creature—a butterfly that was just now a worm—
and would have been treated with more consideration
in consequence, even by those least tolerant of “the
pomps and vanities.” We dined temperately, and I
superseded the bottle by a cup of strong green tea, at
an early moment after the removal of the cloth, determined
to have Tom's wits in as full dress as his person.
Without being at all a brilliant man, he was—
the next best thing—a steady absorbent; and as most
women are more fond of giving than receiving in all
things, but particularly in conversation. I was not uneasy
as to his power of making himself agreeable. Nor
was he, faith!
The ball of the night was at the house of an old
friend of my own, and Mr. and Mrs. Follett were but
newly introduced to the circle. I had the company
very clearly in my eye, therefore, while casting about
for dramatis personœ, and fixing upon Mrs. Beverly
Fairlie, for the prominent character, I assured success,
though being very much in love with that coquettish
widow myself, I had occasion for some self-denial
in the matter. Of Mrs. Fairlie's weak points
(on which it seemed necessary that I should enlighten
Tom), I had information not to be acquired short of
summering and wintering her, and with my eye solely
directed to its effect upon Mrs. Follett, I put the clues
into my friend's hands in a long after-dinner conversation.
As he seemed impatient to open the campaign
after getting these definite and valuable instructions, I
augured well for his success, and we entered the ballroom
in high spirits.
It was quite enough to say to the mischievous widow
that another woman was to be piqued by any attentions
she might choose to pay Mr. Follett. Having said
thus much, and presented Tom, I sought out Mrs.
Follett myself, with the double purpose of breaking
up the monopoly of Mons. Hautenbas, and of directing
her attention, should it be necessary, to the suavities
between Tom and the widow.
It was a superb ball, and the music, as Tom said,
went to the heels. The thing he did well was waltzing,
and after taking a turn or two with Mrs. Fairlie,
the rustic dame ran up to Mrs. Follett with the most
innocent air imaginable, and begged the loan of her
husband for the rest of the evening! I did not half
like the look of earnest with which she entered into
the affair, indeed, and there was little need of my
taking much trouble to enlighten Mrs. Follett; for a
woman so surprised with a six months' husband I never
saw. They were so capitally matched, Tom and the
widow, in size, motion, style of waltzing, and all, that
not we only, but the whole party, were occupied with
observing and admiring them. Mrs. Follett and I (for
a secret sympathy, somehow, drew us together, as the
thing went on) kept up a broken conversation, in which
the count was even less interested than we; and after
a few ineffectual attempts to draw her into the tea-room,
the Frenchman left us in pique, and we gave
ourselves up to the observation of the couple who (we
presumed) severally belonged to us. They carried on
the war famously, to be sure! Mrs. Fairlie was a
woman who could do as she liked, because she would;
and she cared not a straw for the very pronouncé demonstration
of engrossing one man for all the quadrilles,
waltzes, and galopades, beside being with him to supper.
Once or twice I tried to find an excuse for leaving
Mrs. Follett, to put in an oar for myself; but the
little woman clung to me as if she had not the courage
to undertake another person's amusement, and, new
and sudden as the feeling must have been, she was
pale and wretched, with a jealousy more bitter probably
than mine. Tom never gave me a look after the
first waltz; and as to the widow, she played her part
with rather more zeal than we set down for her.
I passed altogether an uncomfortable night, for a
gay one, and it was a great relief to me when
Mrs. Follett asked me to send Tom for the carriage.
“Be so kind as to send a servant for it,” said Follett,
very coolly, “and say to Mrs. Follett, that I will
join her at home. I am going to sup, or rather breakfast,
with Mrs. Beverly Fairlie!”
Here was a mess!
“Shall I send the count for your shawl?” I asked,
after giving this message, and wishing to know whether
she was this side of pride in her unhappiness.
The little woman burst into tears.
“I will sit in the cloak-room till my husband is
ready,” she said; “go to him, if you please, and implore
him to come and speak to me.”
As I said before, I wished the whole plot to the
devil. We had achieved our object, it is true—and
so did the man who knocked the breath out of his
friend's body, in killing a fly on his back. Tom is
now (this was years ago) a married flirt of some celebrity,
for after coming out of the widow's hands with a
three months' education, he had quite forgot to be
troubled about Mrs. Follett; and instead of neglecting
his dress, which was his only sin when I took him
in hand, he now neglects his wife, who sees him, as
women are apt to see their husbands, through other
women's eyes. I presume they are doomed to quite
as much unhappiness as would have fallen to their lot,
had I let them alone—had Mrs. Follett ran away with
the Frenchman, and had Tom died a divorced sloven.
But when I think that, beside achieving little for them,
I was the direct means of spoiling Mrs. Beverly Fairlie
for myself, I think I may write myself down as a
warning to meddlers in matrimony.
