The Wedding Guest

  “These summer wings
  Have borne me in my days of idle pleasure;
  I do discard them.”

  “And, Benedick, love on; I will requite thee,
  Taming my wild heart to thy loving hand.”

WE have a young relative, about whom we are going to relate a little anecdote connected with insect history, which requires, however, a few prefatory words.

At the age of seventeen Emily S. “came out,” gilt and lettered, from the Minerva Press of a fashionable boarding-school, and was two years afterwards bound (in white satin) as a bride.  In the short period intervening between these two important epochs, she had had a prodigious run of admiration.  Sonnets had been penned on her pencilled brow, and the brows of rival beauties had contracted at the homage paid to hers.  All this Emily had liked well enough—­perhaps a little better than she ought; but where was the wonder? for besides excuses general (such as early youth and early training) for loving the world and the world’s vanities, she had an excuse of her own, in the fact that she had nothing else to love—­no mother, no sister, no home—­no home at least in its largest and loving sense.  She was the orphan but not wealthy ward of a fashionable aunt, in whom the selfish regrets of age had entirely frozen the few sympathies left open by the selfish enjoyments of youth.

When Emily married, and for a few months previous, it was of course to be presumed that she had found something better than the world whereon to fix the affection of her warm young heart.  At all events, she had found a somebody to love her, and one who was worthy to be loved in return.  Indeed, a better fellow than our friend F—­does not live; but though fairly good-looking, and the perfect gentleman, he was not perhaps exactly the description of gentleman to excite any rapid growth of romantic attachment in the bosom of an admired girl of nineteen.

Why did she marry him?  Simply because amongst her admirers she liked nobody better, and because her aunt, who was anxious to be relieved of her charge, liked nobody so well;—­not because he had much to offer, but because it was little he required.

Soon after their marriage the happy pair set out for Paris.  F—­though his means were slender and tastes retired, made every, effort (as far as bridegroom could so feel it) to gratify his lively young wife by a stay at the capital of pleasure.  After subsequent excursion, they returned within a year to England, and settled at a pretty cottage in Berkshire, to which we speedily received a cordial invitation.  It was no less readily accepted; for we were anxious to behold the “rural felicity,” of which we little doubted our friends were in full possession.

The result, however, of a week’s sojourn at their quiet abode, was the reluctant opinion that, somehow or another, the marriage garments of the young couple did not sit quite easy; though to point out the defect in their make, or to discover where they girted, were matters on which it required more time to form a decided judgment.  One thing, however, was pretty obvious.  With her matronly title, Emily had not assumed an atom of that seriousness—­not sad, but sober—­which became her new estate; nor did she, as we shrewdly suspected, pay quite as much attention to the cares of her little menage as was rendered incumbent by the limited amount of her husband’s income.  She seemed, in short, the same thoughtless pleasure-loving, pleasure-seeking girl as ever; now that she was captured, the same volatile butterfly as when surrounded and chased by butterflies like herself.  But her captor? asks some modern Petruchio—­had he not, or could he not contrive to clip her pinions?

Poor F—! not he! he would have feared to “brush the dust” from off them; and, from something of this over-tenderness, had been feeding, with the honeyed pleasures of the French capital, those tastes which (without them) might have been reconciled already to the more spare and simple sociabilities of a retired English neighbourhood.  He was only now trying the experiment which should have been made a year ago, and that with a reluctant and undecided hand.

Poor Emily! her love of gayety had now, it is true, but little scope for its display; but it was still strongly apparent, in the rapturous regret with which she referred to pleasures past, and the rapturous delight with which she greeted certain occasional breaks in the monotony of a country life.  An approaching dinner-party would raise her tide of spirits, and a, distant ball or bow-meeting make them swell into a flood.  On one or two of such occasions, we fancied that F—­, though never stern, looked grave—­grave enough to have been set down as an unreasonable fellow; if not by every one, at least by that complex “everybody” who declared that his wife was “one of the prettiest and sweetest little women in the world,” and, as everybody must be right, so of course it was.

Rarely, indeed, had our gentle Benedick beheld the face of his “Young May Moon” absolutely obscured; but then it had always been his care to chase away from it every passing or even approaching cloud; and he would certainly have liked, in return, that its very brightest rays should have shone on him direct, instead of reaching him only, as it were, reflected from what in his eyes, certainly, were very inferior objects.

We had passed some weeks at our entertainer’s cottage when rumours got afloat, such as had not disturbed for many a year the standing and sometimes stagnant pool of Goslington society.  The son of Lord W—­was about to come of age, and the event was to be celebrated by grand doings; a varied string of entertainments, to be wound up, so it was whispered, by a great parti-coloured or fancy ball.  Rumours were soon silenced by certainty, and our friends were amongst those who received an invitation to meet all the world of Goslington and a fragment of the world of London, about to be brought into strange conjunction at W—­Castle.  What shapes! grotesque, and gay, and gorgeous—­ghosts of things departed—­started up before the sparkling eyes of Emily, as she put the reviving talisman into F—­’s hand.  No wonder that her charmed sight failed to discover what was, however, sufficiently apparent, that her husband’s delight at the honour done them by no means equalled hers.  Indeed, we were pretty certain that not merely dissatisfaction, but even dissent, was to be read in his compressed lip, and, for once, forbidding eye.

Nothing was said then upon the subject; but we saw the next morning something very like coolness on the part of F—­towards his wife, which was returned on hers by something very like petulance.  Ah! thought we, it all comes of this unlucky fancy ball!  We had often heard it declared by our friend that he hated every species of masquerade, and would never allow (though this as certainly before his marriage) either sister, wife, or daughter of his to attend one.  But, besides this aversion for such entertainments in general, he had reasons, as we afterwards gathered, for disliking, in particular, this fancy ball of Lord W—­’s.  Amongst the “London World” Emily would be sure to meet several of her quondam acquaintances, perhaps admirers; and though he was no jealous husband, he preferred, on many accounts, that such meetings should be avoided.

The slight estrangement spoken of did not wholly pass away, though so trifling were its tokens that no eye less interested than our own might have noticed their existence.  Indeed, neither of the parties seemed really angry with the other, appearing rather to think it incumbent on them to keep up a certain show of coolness; but whenever the sunny smile of Emily broke even partially through the half-transparent cloud, it dissolved in an instant the half-formed ice of her husband’s manner.  By mutual consent the subject of the fancy ball seemed left in abeyance, and while in every circle, for miles round, it formed the central topic, in ours it was the theme forbid.  Thence we tried to infer that it was a matter abandoned, and that Emily’s better judgment, if not her good feeling, had determined her to give up her own liking, on this the very first occasion on which, we believe, her husband had ever thwarted it.

Well—­whether, as with us, awaited in silence, or, as with the many, harbingered by the music of many voices—­the grand event marched on; and a day was only wanted of its expected arrival when business called F—­to London, from whence he was not to return till late at night.  Soon after his departure, which followed an early breakfast, we left Emily, as we supposed, to the business of her little household, and repaired, as was our wont, to the library,—­a small apartment which our friend F—­had made the very bijou of his pretty cottage.  It was tastefully fitted up in the gothic style, with a window of painted glass,—­a window, by the way, especially suited to a book-room, not merely as pleasing to the eye but for a correspondence which has often struck us.  The many-coloured panes, through which the light of day finds entrance, form no unfitting symbol of a library’s contents, whereby the light of intelligence is poured upon the mind through as many varied mediums, from the deep, cold, black and blue of learned and scientific lore to the glowing flame colour and crimson of poetry and romance.  Having taken down a choice copy of the Faery Queen, we committed our person to an ebony arm-chair, and our spirit to the magic guidance of our author’s fancy.  Obedient to its leading, we were careering somewhere betwixt earth and heaven, when a slight noise brought us down for a moment to our proper sphere; yet hardly,—­for on looking up we beheld, standing in the wake of a coloured sun-beam, from which, on wing of gossamer, she seemed to have just descended, an unexpected apparition of surpassing grace and beauty.  Titania’s self, just stepped upon the moonlit earth, could scarcely have stood poised on an unbroken flower-stalk, in form more airy, in attitude more graceful, with countenance more radiant than those of Emily F—­, as, arrayed in likeness of the Faery Queen, she thus burst upon our view, and with an air half-archly playful, half-proudly triumphant, enjoyed our bewildered surprise, and received the involuntary homage of our admiration.

We saw in a moment how the matter stood; Emily was really going to the fancy ball; and this, of the Queen of Fays, was the fantastic and too bewitching costume she had chosen to assume.  Knowing her kind heart, and having believed that its best affections had been gained by her estimable husband, if not bestowed on him at first, we were vexed and disappointed in our young relation, and felt it only right to give, if we could, a check to her buoyant vanity, by letting her feel the weight of our disapproval,—­shown, if not expressed.  “So I see, Emily,” said I, in the coldest tone, “I see, after all, that you are going to this foolish ball.”

The beaming countenance of the beautiful sylph darkened in a moment, like a cosmoramic landscape.  “And why not?” returned she, pettishly; “I suppose, then, you don’t approve.”

“My approbation can be of very little import, if you possess that of your own heart, and that of your husband.  Under what character, pray, does he attend you?  I suppose he plays Oberon to your Titania?”

Emily’s face reddened.  Some strong emotion heaved her bosom, and I saw that pride alone kept the starting tears from overflowing.  “Charles,” said she, with an attempt at assumed indifference, “will not be there at all; I am to go with Lady Forrester.”

We felt more vexed than ever, and wished to say something which might yet hinder the young wife’s intention; but while considering what that something should be, or whether, indeed, our age and slight relationship gave a sufficient right to say anything, we looked down for a moment on our still open book.  Of that moment Emily availed herself to effect an escape, and on raising our eyes we only caught a glimpse of her glittering wings as she glided through the doorway.  Our first impulse was to recall her; our next thought, to leave her to herself.  If her better nature still struggled, remonstrance of ours, we considered, might only serve to set wounded pride against it; and wounded passions, like wounded bravoes, fight most desperately.  We saw no more of our young hostess till the hour of dinner, to which we sat down to a tete-a-tete. Emily’s sweet face had regained all its usual expression of good humour, and by almost an excess of attention, and an effort at more than ordinary liveliness, she strove to make amends for the slight ebullition of temper stirred up by the morning’s incident; but her sociability seemed forced, and we felt that our own was much of the same description.

Our after-dinner sitting was soon ended for an evening stroll.  It had been a sultry day towards the end of August; the lazy zephyrs had been all asleep since noontide; so, with a view to meet the first of them which should happen to be stirring, we directed our steps towards a high open heath, or common.  Its summit was crowned by a magnificent beech, towards which we slowly ascended, under a shower of darts levelled by the declining sun; and, on arriving at the tree, were right glad to seat ourselves on the circular bench which surrounded its smooth and bulky bole.

Here, in addition to the welcome boons of rest and shade, we were presented gratis with the exhibition of a finer panorama, than the Messrs. Barker ever yet produced.

What a scene of tranquil splendour lay before us! one of those glowing pictures of the declining day and declining year, whereon, like a pair of dying painters, they seem to have combined their utmost skill and richest colours in order to exceed, in a last effort, all the productions of their meridian prime.

After a few moments of silent admiration, we were on the point of exclaiming to our young companion, “Oh! who could prefer the most brilliant ball-rooms to a scene like this?” but we checked the impulse; for perhaps, thought we, the “still small voice,” which speaks from all around us, is even now whispering to her heart.  But never, we believe, was adder more deaf to the accents of the “charmer” than was Emily at that moment to those of nature.  Her mind, we are pretty sure, was still running, and all the faster as she approached it, on that fancy ball.  Perhaps she suspected that ours was following the same turn, and knowing of old our habit of making observations upon insects, she, by a little womanly artifice, availed herself of it to divert their course.  Pointing with her parasol to a long procession of brown ants, which were crossing the foot-worn area beneath the tree,—­“Look,” said she, “I suppose they are going home to bed.”

“Or perhaps to a ball,” rejoined we, “quite unable to resist the pleasure of taking our fair cousin in her own ruse; but let us follow them, and see.”

Emily was delighted at having, as she thought, so ingeniously set us on our hobby, and attended us to the spot whither we had traced the little labourers.  Their populous settlement bore no appearance of evening repose.  Other trains were approaching in various directions, to meet that which we had followed, and a multitude was covering the conical surface of, the ant-hill, as if taking a farewell bask in the glowing sunset.  Amidst the congregated many, and distinguished from the common herd by very superior bulk and four resplendent wings, were several individual ants, which Emily (as well she might) mistook for flies, and inquired accordingly what could be their business in such incongruous society.  “They are no flies,” said we, “but ants themselves—­female ants,—­though with somewhat of the air, certainly, of being in masquerade or fancy costume.  But say what we will of their attire, we must needs confess that they are in their proper places; for they are the matrons of the community, and, as we see, they are at home.”

Our young companion made no reply; but stooping down, seemed wholly engrossed by examination of the ant-hill.  “Look,” exclaimed she, presently; “there is one of these portly dames without any wings at all.  I suppose some of her neighbours have taken up a spite against her, and combined to strip her of her glittering appendages.”

“By no means,” we answered, “she has laid them aside by her own voluntary act. Only see, my dear Emily, here is one of her sisters even now employed in the business of disrobing.”

We both stooped, and watched narrowly the curious operation to which we had directed our young friend’s attention.  One of the larger insects in question was actively employed in agitating her wings, bringing them before her head, crossing them in every direction, throwing them from side to side, and producing so many singular contortions as to cause them all four to fall off at the same moment, leaving her reduced to the same condition as her wingless sister.  Fatigued, apparently, by her late efforts, she reposed awhile, after the accomplishment of her purpose, brushed her denuded corselet with her feet, and then proceeding to burrow in the soft earth of the hillock, was speedily lost to our observation.  “How very odd!” said Emily; “what can possibly be the meaning of such a strange, unnatural proceeding?”

“I will tell you,” replied we, “that which has been thought fully to explain its intention.  This insect female, in common with her sisters, has hitherto been privileged to lead a life of entire indolence and pleasure.  A few days since, having risen from her lowly birth-place on those discarded pinions, we might have seen her disporting in the air with some gay and gallant companions, of inferior size, but winged like herself.  But now her career of pleasure, though not of happiness, being at an end, her life of usefulness is about to begin, and, in character of a matron, she is called to the performance of such domestic duties as will henceforth confine her to the precincts of her home.

“Of what use now, therefore, are the glittering wings which adorned and became her in her earlier youth?  Their possession might only, perchance, have tempted her to desert the post which Nature, under Divine guidance, has instructed her to fill.  Obedient to its teaching, she has thus despoiled herself of the showy pinions which (essential to her enjoyment in the fields of air) would only have encumbered her in the narrower but more important sphere of home.”

Emily listened in silence to our lecture on Entomology, which must have been delivered, we suppose, with peculiar clearness, as she did not, according to her usual custom, follow it up by any further inquiry or comment.  We soon afterwards bid adieu to the insect community, and wended our way homewards.

F—­returned from London the same evening; but availing ourselves of an old friend’s freedom, we had retired to bed before his arrival.

Next morning ushered in the day, “the great, the important day” of the fancy ball—­neither “heavily” nor “in clouds;” yet greatly did we fear that the pleasant sunshine which greeted our opening eyes would be met with no answering beams at the breakfast-table of our friends.

How agreeably, therefore, were we surprised, when, on entering the parlour, we at once perceived an expression of more perfect serenity on the countenances both of F—­and his pretty wife, than had been worn by either since the day of that confounded invitation.

“Ah!” thought we, “it’s pretty plain how the matter is ended; that wicked little fairy has wrought her charms for something—­has carried her point—­and will carry her willing captive to the ball.  What poor weak fools fond husbands are!  Thank heaven that—­Well! perhaps better so than worse.”

Breakfast proceeded; chat in plenty; but not a syllable about the fancy ball; till, bursting to know how the case, so long pending, had really ended, we ventured on a pumping query—­“At what hour, Emily,” said we, “does Lady Forrester come to take you to the ball?”

“I have written to prevent her calling.”

“Oh, then, you are going under other escort?” and we looked slyly at F—.

“I am not going at all,” said Emily.

Here she put in ours her little white hand, and looked up archly in our face,—­“I am not going, for I have laid aside my wings!”

“My good fellow!” said F—­, as he took our other hand; “you deserve to be made President of the Entomological Society.”