17. CHAPTER XVII. THE MODEL OF A PERFECT LOVER.
We have repeated the conversation upon the subject of
the new Act of Parliament, and we now proceed to say,
that at Vanely, as elsewhere in that earnest period, action
followed theory.
When the family descended on the next morning, they
saw ranged in a long row upon the sideboard, the japanned
tea-canisters of the house, all hermetically sealed, with the
Vanely seal upon the wax.[1]
This ceremony had been performed by Miss Bonnybel,
under the colonel's supervision, and from that time forth,
until the end of the revolutionary troubles, no tea was drunk
at Vanely, as happened at a thousand other places all over
the colony.
After breakfast, Mr. St. John and the colonel went to
witness some operations upon the lands, and Mr. Alston, as
usual, betook himself to the sitting-room.
We have busied ourselves so exclusively with the sayings
and doings of two personages of our story, that Mr.
Thomas Alston's adventures have not been even adverted to.
We say adventures, for during all these hours at Vanely
Mr. Alston has been far from idle, and has vigorously applied
himself to the prosecution of an undertaking which
we have scarcely hinted.
Let us still forbear to intrude upon this gentleman's private
interviews with his friend; let us respectfully retreat
when he closes, on this eventful morning, the sitting-room
door upon himself and that friend; let us go and return
with Mr. St. John and Colonel Vane, who get back in their
light carriage after an hour or two.
Mr. Alston's sulky stands at the door—his horse's head
held respectfully by a groom.
To the colonel's question, whether Mr. Alston intends
to depart, his friend, Mr. St. John, replies that he has not
been advised of such intention; and learning soon that his
friend has gone up stairs, he follows him, and finds him
there.
Mr. Alston is seated in an easy-chair, with one foot upon
the window sill, the other being elegantly thrown over his
knee.
He is gazing philosophically out upon the landscape, and
nods with tranquil greeting to his friend.
“What, Tom!” St. John says, “surely you're not going
away: seeing your sulky—”
“Yes, I think I'll go, Harry, my boy,” says Mr. Alston,
leaning back easily.
“Why, pray?”
“For two reasons.”
“Name them, in order that I may instantly refute them.”
A serene smile wanders over Mr. Tom Alston's countenance,
and he regards his friend with quiet superiority, as
of one impregnable.
“Do you think you'll be able, Harry, my boy?” he asks.
“I am confident of it.”
Mr. Alston smiles and shakes his head.
“Come, speak!” says St. John.
“You want my reasons?”
“Yes, both at once, if you choose.”
“I prefer mentioning them in succession, Harry,” says
Mr. Alston, “if it's all the same.”
“Entirely: well the first?”
“My first reason for departing from this elegant abode
of the muses and the graces,” says Mr. Alston, eloquently,
“is the absolute necessity I'm under of procuring a clean
——frill, let us say. Can you answer that?”
“Easily—you know my whole wardrobe's at your service.”
Mr. Alston shakes his head in the old way.
“Unfortunately your garments do not fit me, Harry,” he
replies, “and nothing but regard for your feelings has prevented
me from revealing the misery I've experienced from
the frill I borrowed of you yesterday.”
“Why, there's none better in London!”
“You're deceiving yourself, my dear friend—you do mdeed!”
says Mr. Alston, almost earnestly; “indeed you are
mistaken! Were it not from regard for your friendship I
should feel compelled to say that your linen's absolutely
terrible!”
St. John laughs.
“Well,” he says, “there's no appealing from a matter of
taste. Mutato nomine de te, you know, and I'll wager that
the weaknesses in my own wardrobe are shared by your
own. But there remains the reason in reply, that you may
easily have clothes brought to you from Moorefield.”
“I fear not.”
“Why?”
“They would necessarily be rumpled, and to wear a rumpled
frill plunges me into untold agony.”
“Hang it, Tom,” says St. John, laughing, “you're really
the most perfect maccaroni I have ever seen. There's no
arguing with such a fop—dyed in the grain!”
“My dear friend, you pain me,” says Mr. Alston, mildly;
“pray, do n't pursue this mode of talking.”
“Well, that is as you choose. Come, what's your second
famous reason for departing? I predict I'll easily refute
this one at least.”
Mr. Alston smiles.
“Do you think so?” he says.
“I am confident of it.”
Mr. Alston nods serenely, and is silent.
“Come speak, thou unconscionable Sphynx! Thou enigma
of mystery, unfold thy logic.”
Mr. Alston smiles again.
“I will ask you a question first, my dear Harry,” he says.
“If you had laid siege to a fortress for many months—had
plied the enemy with your heaviest chain shot, and red-hot
cannon balls—if you had sounded the trumpet at last, and
so advanced bravely to the assault with your colors flying,
and your charger neighing—and in this, the final and conclusive
onset, been ignominiously beaten back—do you understand?”
“Yes, so far.”
“I ask, under such a state of things, would you be likely
to remain in presence of the victorious enemy; be cut, and
hacked, and wounded; worse still, be cut to pieces and disposed
of in a bloody trench, as some one of my friends, the
poets, says? Answer me, or rather do n't, for I see, from
your dumb-foundered look, that my reasoning has been conclusive.”
And Mr. Alston smooths his peruke gently, smiling.
“You do n't mean to say—” cries St. John, with an outburst.
“I do indeed, my friend. I have the honor of observing
that this morning my addresses were respectfully declined
by Mistress Helen, and you behold, really, the most unfortunate
of men!”
St. John stands, for a moment, looking at his friend in
silence; his friend returns the look with pleasing smiles.
“Well, Tom,” says St. John, “I will say that you are the
most philosophical discarded lover I have ever seen.”
“Philosophical?”
“Intensely.”
“Why, Harry, my boy, you do n't think that propriety
requires me to strew ashes on my head, do you? If you
think so, there's the fire-place, and, doubtless, sackcloth is
convenient.”
“What a philosopher!” cries his friend in admiration.
“Well, well, I arrogate no praise. Why should I?
Why should I pull a long face and groan? My friend, 't is
the fortune of war, and I add, in the unsuspecting and confiding
simplicity of my nature, that this event has happened
to me with the same young lady twice before. This should,
doubtless, be estimated in the matter, for, you see, I am
used to it.”
St. John received this declaration with a burst of laughter.
“And you are not desperate?” he says.
“Not at all. After that decent interval which propriety
requires, I shall again request Miss Helen's acceptance of
my hand, and if she refuses, I shall probably ask her again.
Who knows? Some day I am likely to win her, and she's
worth the trouble. She's no soft peach, my boy, ready to
fall into your mouth. The happy fellow who gets her will
be obliged to shake hard, and, you see, I've been shaking.
Perhaps the fruit's looser, and will some day fall—patience,
and shuffle the cards!”
Having delivered himself of these remarks, Mr. Alston
rises and adds,
“I waited to see you, Harry, before going, and I hope
you'll come to Moorefield soon. If you're here a week
I'll probably see you again, as I've promised Miss Helen
to repeat my visit. There, my dear boy, do n't stare and
laugh so. One would think you were surprised at such a
thing as a young fellow's making the attack and being beaten.
I confess I was somewhat precipitate. I thought I
saw a defect in the wall of the fortress—in fact Miss Seraphina
told me that Miss Helen admired my peruke, and
thought I'd make a very amiable husband. I should not
have been so much deceived—but nothing's lost. I'll soon
be back.”
And after the young men had exchanged some more conversation—serene
on Mr. Alston's part, and full of pent-up
laughter on St. John's—they descended to the hall.
Mr. Alston went round, in the Virginia fashion, and took
separate leave of everybody, with a friendly and smiling remark
for each.
He trusted that the colonel's gout would soon leave him,
and that the road to the river would be all he expected.
He hoped Aunt Mabel would not have a return of her
cough—these colds must be very painful.
He thought Miss Seraphina's coiffure was the handsomest
he'd ever seen.
He begged Miss Bonnybel to give him the rose in her
hair or one of the two in her cheeks.
And he expressed to the blushing and quiet Helen the
most graceful thanks for the thousand kind things she had
done for him during his most delightful visit—a visit which
he should ever continue to remember, and would certainly
repeat before many days had passed.
Having gone through these various friendly and complimentary
speeches, Mr. Alston pressed his cocked hat on
his heart, and smiling with the utmost courtesy, bowed
low, and issued forth.
In ten minutes his light sulky, with its rapid trotter, had
disappeared in the forest, was seen to glitter with revolving
flashes on the road, and then finally it disappeared, carrying
away the discarded model of a lover, or the model of a discarded
lover, whichever our fair friends please.
