The Way of All Flesh

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.