MISS MIDDLETON AND MR. VERNON WHITFORD
Looking upward, not quite awakened out of a transient doze, at a fair
head circled in dazzling blossom, one may temporize awhile with common
sense, and take it for a vision after the eyes have regained direction
of the mind. Vernon did so until the plastic vision interwound with
reality alarmingly. This is the embrace of a Melusine who will soon
have the brain if she is encouraged. Slight dalliance with her makes
the very diminutive seem as big as life. He jumped to his feet, rattled
his throat, planted firmness on his brows and mouth, and attacked the
dream-giving earth with tremendous long strides, that his blood might
be lively at the throne of understanding. Miss Middleton and young
Crossjay were within hail: it was her face he had seen, and still the
idea of a vision, chased from his reasonable wits, knocked hard and
again for readmission. There was little for a man of humble mind
toward the sex to think of in the fact of a young lady's bending rather
low to peep at him asleep, except that the poise of her slender figure, between an air of spying and of listening, vividly recalled his likening of her to the Mountain Echo. Man or maid sleeping in the open air provokes your tiptoe curiosity. Men, it is known, have in that state cruelly been kissed; and no rights are bestowed on them, they are teased by a vapourish rapture; what has happened to them the poor fellows barely divine: they have a crazy step from that day. But a vision is not so distracting; it is our own, we can put it aside and return to it, play at rich and poor with it, and are not to be summoned before your laws and rules for secreting it in our treasury. Besides, it is the golden key of all the possible; new worlds expand beneath the dawn it brings us. Just outside reality, it illumines, enriches and softens real things;—and to desire it in preference to the simple fact is a damning proof of enervation.
Such was Vernon's winding up of his brief drama of fantasy. He was
aware of the fantastical element in him and soon had it under. Which
of us who is of any worth is without it? He had not much vanity to
trouble him, and passion was quiet, so his task was not gigantic. Especially be it remarked, that he was a man of quick pace, the sovereign remedy for the dispersing of the mental fen-mist. He had tried it and knew that nonsense is to be walked off.
Near the end of the park young Crossjay overtook him, and after acting
the pumped one a trifle more than needful, cried: "I say, Mr. Whitford, there's Miss Middleton with her handkerchief out."
"What for, my lad?" said Vernon.
"I'm sure I don't know. All of a sudden she bumped down. And, look what
fellows girls are!—here she comes as if nothing had happened, and I
saw her feel at her side."
Clara was shaking her head to express a denial. "I am not at all
unwell," she said, when she came near. "I guessed Crossjay's business
in running up to you; he's a good-for-nothing, officious boy. I was
tired, and rested for a moment."
Crossjay peered at her eyelids. Vernon looked away and said: "Are you
too tired for a stroll?"
"Not now."
"Shall it be brisk?"
"You have the lead."
He led at a swing of the legs that accelerated young Crossjay's to the
double, but she with her short, swift, equal steps glided along easily
on a fine by his shoulder, and he groaned to think that of all the
girls of earth this one should have been chosen for the position of
fine lady.
"You won't tire me," said she, in answer to his look.
"You remind me of the little Piedmontese Bersaglieri on the march."
"I have seen them trotting into Como from Milan."
"They cover a quantity of ground in a day, if the ground's flat. You
want another sort of step for the mountains."
"I should not attempt to dance up."
"They soon tame romantic notions of them."
"The mountains tame luxurious dreams, you mean. I see how they are
conquered. I can plod. Anything to be high up!"
"Well, there you have the secret of good work: to plod on and still
keep the passion fresh."
"Yes, when we have an aim in view."
"We always have one."
"Captives have?"
"More than the rest of us."
Ignorant man! What of wives miserably wedded? What aim in view have
these most woeful captives? Horror shrouds it, and shame reddens
through the folds to tell of innermost horror.