第 十一 章 · 第11章

. The next morning saw Theobald in his rooms coaching a pupil, and the

Miss Allabys in the eldest Miss Allaby’s bedroom playing at cards with

Theobald for the stakes.

The winner was Christina, the second unmarried daughter, then just

twenty-seven years old and therefore four years older than Theobald.

The younger sisters complained that it was throwing a husband away to

let Christina try and catch him, for she was so much older that she had

no chance; but Christina showed fight in a way not usual with her, for

she was by nature yielding and good tempered. Her mother thought it

better to back her up, so the two dangerous ones were packed off then

and there on visits to friends some way off, and those alone allowed to

remain at home whose loyalty could be depended upon. The brothers did

not even suspect what was going on and believed their father’s getting

assistance was because he really wanted it.

The sisters who remained at home kept their words and gave Christina

all the help they could, for over and above their sense of fair play

they reflected that the sooner Theobald was landed, the sooner another

deacon might be sent for who might be won by themselves. So quickly was

all managed that the two unreliable sisters were actually out of the

house before Theobald’s next visit—which was on the Sunday following

his first.

This time Theobald felt quite at home in the house of his new

friends—for so Mrs Allaby insisted that he should call them. She took,

she said, such a motherly interest in young men, especially in

clergymen. Theobald believed every word she said, as he had believed

his father and all his elders from his youth up. Christina sat next him

at dinner and played her cards no less judiciously than she had played

them in her sister’s bedroom. She smiled (and her smile was one of her

strong points) whenever he spoke to her; she went through all her

little artlessnesses and set forth all her little wares in what she

believed to be their most taking aspect. Who can blame her? Theobald

was not the ideal she had dreamed of when reading Byron upstairs with

her sisters, but he was an actual within the bounds of possibility, and

after all not a bad actual as actuals went. What else could she do? Run

away? She dared not. Marry beneath her and be considered a disgrace to

her family? She dared not. Remain at home and become an old maid and be

laughed at? Not if she could help it. She did the only thing that could

reasonably be expected. She was drowning; Theobald might be only a

straw, but she could catch at him and catch at him she accordingly did.

If the course of true love never runs smooth, the course of true

match-making sometimes does so. The only ground for complaint in the

present case was that it was rather slow. Theobald fell into the part

assigned to him more easily than Mrs Cowey and Mrs Allaby had dared to

hope. He was softened by Christina’s winning manners: he admired the

high moral tone of everything she said; her sweetness towards her

sisters and her father and mother, her readiness to undertake any small

burden which no one else seemed willing to undertake, her sprightly

manners, all were fascinating to one who, though unused to woman’s

society, was still a human being. He was flattered by her unobtrusive

but obviously sincere admiration for himself; she seemed to see him in

a more favourable light, and to understand him better than anyone

outside of this charming family had ever done. Instead of snubbing him

as his father, brother and sisters did, she drew him out, listened

attentively to all he chose to say, and evidently wanted him to say

still more. He told a college friend that he knew he was in love now;

he really was, for he liked Miss Allaby’s society much better than that

of his sisters.

Over and above the recommendations already enumerated, she had another

in the possession of what was supposed to be a very beautiful contralto

voice. Her voice was certainly contralto, for she could not reach

higher than D in the treble; its only defect was that it did not go

correspondingly low in the bass: in those days, however, a contralto

voice was understood to include even a soprano if the soprano could not

reach soprano notes, and it was not necessary that it should have the

quality which we now assign to contralto. What her voice wanted in

range and power was made up in the feeling with which she sang. She had

transposed “Angels ever bright and fair” into a lower key, so as to

make it suit her voice, thus proving, as her mamma said, that she had a

thorough knowledge of the laws of harmony; not only did she do this,

but at every pause added an embellishment of arpeggios from one end to

the other of the keyboard, on a principle which her governess had

taught her; she thus added life and interest to an air which

everyone—so she said—must feel to be rather heavy in the form in which

Handel left it. As for her governess, she indeed had been a rarely

accomplished musician: she was a pupil of the famous Dr Clarke of

Cambridge, and used to play the overture to _Atalanta_, arranged by

Mazzinghi. Nevertheless, it was some time before Theobald could bring

his courage to the sticking point of actually proposing. He made it

quite clear that he believed himself to be much smitten, but month

after month went by, during which there was still so much hope in

Theobald that Mr Allaby dared not discover that he was able to do his

duty for himself, and was getting impatient at the number of

half-guineas he was disbursing—and yet there was no proposal.

Christina’s mother assured him that she was the best daughter in the

whole world, and would be a priceless treasure to the man who married

her. Theobald echoed Mrs Allaby’s sentiments with warmth, but still,

though he visited the Rectory two or three times a week, besides coming

over on Sundays—he did not propose. “She is heart-whole yet, dear Mr

Pontifex,” said Mrs Allaby, one day, “at least I believe she is. It is

not for want of admirers—oh! no—she has had her full share of these,

but she is too, too difficult to please. I think, however, she would

fall before a _great and good_ man.” And she looked hard at Theobald,

who blushed; but the days went by and still he did not propose.

Another time Theobald actually took Mrs Cowey into his confidence, and

the reader may guess what account of Christina he got from her. Mrs

Cowey tried the jealousy manoeuvre and hinted at a possible rival.

Theobald was, or pretended to be, very much alarmed; a little

rudimentary pang of jealousy shot across his bosom and he began to

believe with pride that he was not only in love, but desperately in

love or he would never feel so jealous. Nevertheless, day after day

still went by and he did not propose.

The Allabys behaved with great judgement. They humoured him till his

retreat was practically cut off, though he still flattered himself that

it was open. One day about six months after Theobald had become an

almost daily visitor at the Rectory the conversation happened to turn

upon long engagements. “I don’t like long engagements, Mr Allaby, do

you?” said Theobald imprudently. “No,” said Mr Allaby in a pointed

tone, “nor long courtships,” and he gave Theobald a look which he could

not pretend to misunderstand. He went back to Cambridge as fast as he

could go, and in dread of the conversation with Mr Allaby which he felt

to be impending, composed the following letter which he despatched that

same afternoon by a private messenger to Crampsford. The letter was as

follows:—

“Dearest Miss Christina,—I do not know whether you have guessed the

feelings that I have long entertained for you—feelings which I have

concealed as much as I could through fear of drawing you into an

engagement which, if you enter into it, must be prolonged for a

considerable time, but, however this may be, it is out of my power to

conceal them longer; I love you, ardently, devotedly, and send these

few lines asking you to be my wife, because I dare not trust my tongue

to give adequate expression to the magnitude of my affection for you.

“I cannot pretend to offer you a heart which has never known either

love or disappointment. I have loved already, and my heart was years in

recovering from the grief I felt at seeing her become another’s. That,

however, is over, and having seen yourself I rejoice over a

disappointment which I thought at one time would have been fatal to me.

It has left me a less ardent lover than I should perhaps otherwise have

been, but it has increased tenfold my power of appreciating your many

charms and my desire that you should become my wife. Please let me have

a few lines of answer by the bearer to let me know whether or not my

suit is accepted. If you accept me I will at once come and talk the

matter over with Mr and Mrs Allaby, whom I shall hope one day to be

allowed to call father and mother.

“I ought to warn you that in the event of your consenting to be my wife

it may be years before our union can be consummated, for I cannot marry

till a college living is offered me. If, therefore, you see fit to

reject me, I shall be grieved rather than surprised.—Ever most

devotedly yours,

“THEOBALD PONTIFEX.”

And this was all that his public school and University education had

been able to do for Theobald! Nevertheless for his own part he thought

his letter rather a good one, and congratulated himself in particular

upon his cleverness in inventing the story of a previous attachment,

behind which he intended to shelter himself if Christina should

complain of any lack of fervour in his behaviour to her.

I need not give Christina’s answer, which of course was to accept. Much

as Theobald feared old Mr Allaby I do not think he would have wrought

up his courage to the point of actually proposing but for the fact of

the engagement being necessarily a long one, during which a dozen

things might turn up to break it off. However much he may have

disapproved of long engagements for other people, I doubt whether he

had any particular objection to them in his own case. A pair of lovers

are like sunset and sunrise: there are such things every day but we

very seldom see them. Theobald posed as the most ardent lover

imaginable, but, to use the vulgarism for the moment in fashion, it was

all “side.” Christina was in love, as indeed she had been twenty times

already. But then Christina was impressionable and could not even hear

the name “Missolonghi” mentioned without bursting into tears. When

Theobald accidentally left his sermon case behind him one Sunday, she

slept with it in her bosom and was forlorn when she had as it were to

disgorge it on the following Sunday; but I do not think Theobald ever

took so much as an old toothbrush of Christina’s to bed with him. Why,

I knew a young man once who got hold of his mistress’s skates and slept

with them for a fortnight and cried when he had to give them up.