I was always thinking of Min, also, and fretting at her absence--for, she did not come back to Saint Canon"s for months after I got my appointment.
My whole thoughts were filled with her image. The difficulty of my position with regard to her and her mother likewise troubled me.
So, taking all these points into consideration, my office life was not a happy one,--though, if matters had been arranged more comfortably for me, touching the future, I would have cheerfully put up with more temporary annoyances than I actually suffered, slaving on indefinitely under Smudge"s rule.
As it was, I couldn"t.
I used to dream of Min all day, imagining what she might be doing down in the country.
I fancied all sorts of things about her.
I thought that she would forget me and like some one else better, knowing how joyfully Mrs Clyde would encourage any wooer whose presence might tend to make her turn from me.
The worst of it was, too, that I had no one to sympathise with me. I could not, exactly, go round asking people to "pity the sorrows of a disappointed lover!"
As Lamartine sings in his "Tear of Consolation":--
"Qu"importe a ces hommes mes freres Le coeur brise d"un malheureux?
Trop au-dessus de mes miseres, Mon infortune est si loin d"eux!"
How could I implore sympathy? Would you have given me yours?
I would be almost ashamed to tell how I was in the habit of "mooning away my time," thinking of Min--when, the first novelty of the office having worn off, I found my duties so wearisome and easily got through, that I had nothing to keep me from thinking!
I used to idle sadly.
I often wasted hours, in dreamily composing intricate monograms on my blotting-paper, in which Min"s name was twisted into all sorts of flowery characters, which were intermingled so as to be nearly incomprehensible to any one unacquainted with my secret.
My fellow-clerks got an inkling of it, however.
They used to ask me, who "M" was; and, when I got savage, and told them to mind their own business, they would "chaff" me, inquiring whether "the unknown fair" was obdurately "cruel," or no!
Little Miss Pimpernell tried to cheer me up--telling me to "hope on, hope ever;" and, to stick steadily to my work, for, that Min would be certain to come back soon, when all would be well. But, I could not content myself.
I got pale and thin, worrying myself to death.--Even Lady Dasher saw the change in me, hinting one day to the vicar, in my hearing, that she was positive I was in a decline, or suffering from heart-disease, and that office-work was really too hard for me.
And when Min _did_ come back, things were but little brighter for me.
The first opportunity I had of speaking alone to her, I asked her if I might still call her by her Christian name. She said, "certainly," with a little tremor in her dear voice and a warm blush which almost tempted me to say more. But, I remembered having pledged my word to Mrs Clyde, and did not urge my suit, then or thereafter, by words or looks--as far as I could help the latter.
We did not meet often now; and, perhaps, it was as well that we did not, for our position was awkward for both of us.
When we did, however, it seemed very hard for me to speak to her in cold conventional terms--when, my heart was overflowing with love towards her; and, this made me appear constrained; while, she showed a shy avoidance of me, which, only natural as it was, pained me--although I was certain, all the time, that she had not changed towards me in the least.
Really, if it had not been for the kind contrivances of dear little Miss Pimpernell, I don"t think we would have met for a long, long time, at all.
Now, that my days were fully occupied at "the office," you know, I could not meet her out, or see her at the window; and, in spite of her mother"s gracious intimation that I might call occasionally, I did not care about going there in the evening to be stared into formality under her icy eye.
When Christmastide came round again, too, there were no more of the happy days that had occurred on its previous anniversary.
Although I had obtained special leave from my chief, through working up an enormous number of old accounts beforehand, and thus gaining his good will, it was entirely thrown away:--Min did not present herself at the room of the evergreens once!
Mrs Clyde had checkmated me, again, there.
Had it not been for Miss Pimpernell"s pleadings, I think I would now have gone against her advice, and brought matters to an issue by another proposal before the year was out.
My better judgment, however, restrained me from this, when I reflected over all the circ.u.mstances of the case in more reasoning moments.
I saw that it was best for me to wait until the full probationary period which my old friend had prescribed should elapse. I waited accordingly; but, my heart was daily torn with a despair and longing, that very much altered me from the merry Frank Lorton of former times.
Could I hope?
Would she only wait for me, too?
Should my trust and my devotion be finally rewarded?
Miss Pimpernell said "yes," and Min, when I saw her, _looked_ it; but, my heart frequently said "no"--and, I was miserable in consequence!
It is a truism, that, when one loves truly, one is never satisfied.
CHAPTER SIX.
"MY LIFE, I LOVE THEE!"
--Then, in that time and place I spoke to her, Requiring, tho" I knew it was mine own, Yet for the pleasure that I took to hear, Requiring, at her hand, the greatest gift, A woman"s heart, the heart of her I loved.
When "hope deferred," and baffled love combined, had well-nigh made me as miserable and woebegone as I could possibly be, I heard a piece of news one day which almost nerved up my halting resolution to bring affairs to a final issue by speaking out again to Mrs Clyde--no matter what might be the result.
The joyful intelligence was circulated by the pleased Lady Dasher, that, Mr Mawley had at length proposed for her daughter, Bessie. It was time for it, as he had angled around and nibbled warily at the tempting bait offered him--like the knowing fish that he was--for months before he would permit himself to be caught!
The curate had, doubtless, noticed at length that the damsel was comely withal; and, his heart yearned towards her. The reverend gentleman, however, had not been un.o.bservant of the charms of other maidens with whom he had been brought in contact, so, it may be presumed that his heart had "yearned" in vain for them; or, peradventure, these had not played with him so dexterously, when once hooked, as did the fair Bessie--who had not been the granddaughter of an Irish peer for nothing!
Still, there is no object to be gained now in raking up all of Mr Mawley"s old conquests or defeats, ere his present "wooing and a":"--he had been accepted, in this his most recent venture, and was engaged explicitly--Lady Dasher taking very good care to inform everybody of her acquaintance of the fact, in order that there might arise no such little mistake as that of the curate"s backing out of the alliance.
Her ladyship only wished for one thing more to make her "happy," so she said; and that was, that her "poor dear papa" were but alive, so that she might tell him, too, about the coming event. This was impossible though, as she added, with her customary melancholy shake of the head, and a return to her normal expression of poignant grief; for, as she said very truly, "one can never expect to be thoroughly happy in this weary pilgrimage of ours!"
Her complete gratification would, certainly, have been little less than a miracle.
The engagement was of very short duration, Bessie"s mamma acting up to the Hibernian policy of "cooking her fish," as soon as she had captured him. There"s "many a slip," you know, ""twixt cup and lip."
Mawley would probably have gladly lingered yet awhile longer amid the festive scenes of clerical bachelorhood, flirting--in a devout way, of course--under the shade of the church, with Chloe and Daphne, those unappropriated spinsters of the parish who took pleasure in ministering to the social wants of the curate and others of his cloth.
But, it was not to be. Lady Dasher was, for a wonder, wise in her generation; and, the twain--not my lady and Mawley, but her daughter and ditto--were married within a month after the public announcement of their attachment, much to the surprise of Saint Canon"s, the mortification of sundry single ladies thereof, and the well-disguised delight of Lady Dasher, who, even on such a festive occasion, looked more melancholic than ever.
It was this, that nerved me up to desperation. Why, thought I, the day after the wedding, as I paced along the Prebend"s Walk--over which the long-branched elms and waving oaks and thickly-growing lime-trees formed a perfect arch, in all the panoply of their new summer leaves, sheltering one from rain and sun alike--why, thought I, should that fellow, Mawley, be made happy, and I not?