Chương Chương 7 · YOUNG ADAM CUPID

. YOUNG ADAM CUPID

NO one would have suspected Edward of being in love, but that after

breakfast, with an over-acted carelessness, “Anybody who likes,” he

said, “can feed my rabbits,” and he disappeared, with a jauntiness that

deceived nobody, in the direction of the orchard. Now, kingdoms might

totter and reel, and convulsions change the map of Europe; but the iron

unwritten law prevailed, that each boy severely fed his own rabbits.

There was good ground, then, for suspicion and alarm; and while

the lettuce-leaves were being drawn through the wires, Harold and I

conferred seriously on the situation.

It may be thought that the affair was none of our business; and indeed

we cared little as individuals. We were only concerned as members of a

corporation, for each of whom the mental or physical ailment of one of

his fellows might have far-reaching effects. It was thought best that

Harold, as least open to suspicion of motive, should be despatched to

probe and peer. His instructions were, to proceed by a report on the

health of our rabbits in particular; to glide gently into a discussion

on rabbits in general, their customs, practices, and vices; to pass

thence, by a natural transition, to the female sex, the inherent flaws

in its composition, and the reasons for regarding it (speaking broadly)

as dirt. He was especially to be very diplomatic, and then to return and

report progress. He departed on his mission gaily; but his absence was

short, and his return, discomfited and in tears, seemed to betoken some

want of parts for diplomacy. He had found Edward, it appeared, pacing

the orchard, with the sort of set smile that mountebanks wear in their

precarious antics, fixed painfully on his face, as with pins. Harold had

opened well, on the rabbit subject, but, with a fatal confusion between

the abstract and the concrete, had then gone on to remark that Edward's

lop-eared doe, with her long hindlegs and contemptuous twitch of the

nose, always reminded him of Sabina Larkin (a nine-year-old damsel,

child of a neighbouring farmer): at which point Edward, it would seem,

had turned upon and savagely maltreated him, twisting his arm and

punching him in the short ribs. So that Harold returned to the

rabbit-hutches preceded by long-drawn wails: anon wishing, with sobs,

that he were a man, to kick his love-lorn brother: anon lamenting that

ever he had been born.

I was not big enough to stand up to Edward personally, so I had to

console the sufferer by allowing him to grease the wheels of the

donkey-cart--a luscious treat that had been specially reserved for me,

a week past, by the gardener's boy, for putting in a good word on his

behalf with the new kitchen-maid. Harold was soon all smiles and grease;

and I was not, on the whole, dissatisfied with the significant hint that

had been gained as to the fons et origo mali.

Fortunately, means were at hand for resolving any doubts on the subject,

since the morning was Sunday, and already the bells were ringing for

church. Lest the connexion may not be evident at first sight, I should

explain that the gloomy period of church-time, with its enforced

inaction and its lack of real interest--passed, too, within sight of all

that the village held of fairest--was just the one when a young man's

fancies lightly turned to thoughts of love. For such trifling the rest

of the week afforded no leisure; but in church--well, there was really

nothing else to do! True, naughts-and-crosses might be indulged in on

fly-leaves of prayer-books while the Litany dragged its slow length

along; but what balm or what solace could be found for the sermon?

Naturally the eye, wandering here and there among the serried ranks,

made bold, untrammelled choice among our fair fellow-supplicants. It was

in this way that, some months earlier, under the exceptional strain of

the Athanasian Creed, my roving fancy had settled upon the baker's wife

as a fit object for a life-long devotion. Her riper charms had conquered

a heart which none of her be-muslined, tittering juniors had been able

to subdue; and that she was already wedded had never occurred to me

as any bar to my affection. Edward's general demeanour, then, during

morning service, was safe to convict him; but there was also a special

test for the particular case. It happened that we sat in a transept,

and, the Larkins being behind us, Edward's only chance of feasting on

Sabina's charms was in the all-too fleeting interval when we swung round

eastwards. I was not mistaken. During the singing of the Benedictus the

impatient one made several false starts, and at last he slewed fairly

round before “As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be” was

half finished. The evidence was conclusive: a court of law could have

desired no better.

The fact being patent, the next thing was to grapple with it; and my

mind was fully occupied during the sermon. There was really nothing

unfair or unbrotherly in my attitude. A philosophic affection such as

mine own, which clashed with nothing, was (I held) permissible; but the

volcanic passions in which Edward indulged about once a quarter were

a serious interference with business. To make matters worse, next week

there was a circus coming to the neighbourhood, to which we had all been

strictly forbidden to go; and without Edward no visit in contempt of law

and orders could be successfully brought off. I had sounded him as to

the circus on our way to church, and he had replied briefly that the

very thought of a clown made him sick. Morbidity could no further

go. But the sermon came to an end without any line of conduct having

suggested itself; and I walked home in some depression, feeling sadly

that Venus was in the ascendant and in direful opposition, while

Auriga--the circus star--drooped declinant, perilously near the horizon.

By the irony of fate, Aunt Eliza, of all people, turned out to be the

Dea ex machina: which thing fell out in this wise. It was that lady's

obnoxious practice to issue forth, of a Sunday afternoon, on a visit of

state to such farmers and cottagers as dwelt at hand; on which occasion

she was wont to hale a reluctant boy along with her, from the mixed

motives of propriety and his soul's health. Much cudgelling of brains,

I suppose, had on that particular day made me torpid and unwary. Anyhow,

when a victim came to be sought for, I fell an easy prey, while the

others fled scatheless and whooping. Our first visit was to the Larkins.

Here ceremonial might be viewed in its finest flower, and we conducted

ourselves, like Queen Elizabeth when she trod the measure, “high and

disposedly.” In the low, oak-panelled parlour, cake and currant wine

were set forth, and after courtesies and compliments exchanged, Aunt

Eliza, greatly condescending, talked the fashions with Mrs Larkin; while

the farmer and I, perspiring with the unusual effort, exchanged remarks

on the mutability of the weather and the steady fall in the price of

corn. (Who would have thought, to hear us, that only two short days ago

we had confronted each other on either side of a hedge,--I triumphant,

provocative, derisive; he flushed, wroth, cracking his whip, and

volleying forth profanity? So powerful is all-subduing ceremony!) Sabina

the while, demurely seated with a Pilgrim's Progress on her knee, and

apparently absorbed in a brightly coloured presentment of “Apollyon

Straddling Right across the Way,” eyed me at times with shy interest;

but repelled all Aunt Eliza's advances with a frigid politeness for

which I could not sufficiently admire her.

“It's surprising to me,” I heard my aunt remark presently, “how my

eldest nephew, Edward, despises little girls. I heard him tell Charlotte

the other day that he wished he could exchange her for a pair

of Japanese guinea-pigs. It made the poor child cry. Boys are so

heartless!” (I saw Sabina stiffen as she sat, and her tip-tilted nose

twitched scornfully.) “Now this boy here--” (my soul descended into my

very boots. Could the woman have intercepted any of my amorous glances

at the baker's wife?) “Now this boy,” my aunt went on, “is more human

altogether. Only yesterday he took his sister to the baker's shop, and

spent his only penny buying her sweets. I thought it showed such a nice

disposition. I wish Edward were more like him!”

I breathed again. It was unnecessary to explain my real motives for that

visit to the baker's. Sabina's face softened, and her contemptuous nose

descended from its altitude of scorn; she gave me one shy glance of

kindness, and then concentrated her attention upon Mercy knocking at the

Wicket Gate. I felt awfully mean as regarded Edward; but what could I

do? I was in Gaza, gagged and bound; the Philistines hemmed me in.

The same evening the storm burst, the bolt fell, and--to continue the

metaphor--the atmosphere grew serene and clear once more. The evening

service was shorter than usual, the vicar, as he ascended the pulpit

steps, having dropped two pages out of his sermon-case,--unperceived by

any but ourselves, either at the moment or subsequently when the hiatus

was reached; so as we joyfully shuffled out I whispered Edward that

by racing home at top speed we should make time to assume our bows and

arrows (laid aside for the day) and play at Indians and buffaloes with

Aunt Eliza's fowls--already strolling roostwards, regardless of their

doom--before that sedately stepping lady could return. Edward hung at

the door, wavering; the suggestion had unhallowed charms.

At that moment Sabina issued primly forth, and, seeing Edward, put out

her tongue at him in the most exasperating manner conceivable; then

passed on her way, her shoulders rigid, her dainty head held high. A

man can stand very much in the cause of love: poverty, aunts, rivals,

barriers of every sort,--all these only serve to fan the flame. But

personal ridicule is a shaft that reaches the very vitals. Edward led

the race home at a speed which one of Ballantyne's heroes might have

equalled but never surpassed; and that evening the Indians dispersed

Aunt Eliza's fowls over several square miles of country, so that

the tale of them remaineth incomplete unto this day. Edward himself,

cheering wildly, pursued the big Cochin-China cock till the bird sank

gasping under the drawing-room window, whereat its mistress stood

petrified; and after supper, in the shrubbery, smoked a half-consumed

cigar he had picked up in the road, and declared to an awe-stricken

audience his final, his immitigable, resolve to go into the army.

The crisis was past, and Edward was saved!... And yet... sunt lachrymae

rerem... to me watching the cigar-stump alternately pale and glow

against the dark background of laurel, a vision of a tip-tilted nose,

of a small head poised scornfully, seemed to hover on the gathering

gloom--seemed to grow and fade and grow again, like the grin of the

Cheshire cat--pathetically, reproachfully even; and the charms of the

baker's wife slipped from my memory like snow-wreaths in thaw. After

all, Sabina was nowise to blame: why should the child be punished?

To-morrow I would give them the slip, and stroll round by her garden

promiscuous-like, at a time when the farmer was safe in the rick-yard.

If nothing came of it, there was no harm done; and if on the

contrary...!