Originally published in Harper's New Monthly Magazine (Harper and Brothers) vol.18 #103 (Dec 1858).
I.
"A pretty piece of business, Mrs. Barcarole—a very pretty piece of business, upon my soul—and I a husband and father of a family!"
"What are you talking about, my dear?"
"If you want to know, please to fix your naked eye upon this little bijou of a communication, just received per this morning's post."
Mrs. Barcarole stopped washing the breakfast silver, dried her fingers, and taking the letter from my hand, read aloud:
"Meliboeus Barcarole, Esq.
"Immortal Bard,—Pardon the unlaureled incense-burner before your lyric altar of undying fame, who thus informally, and (but for her uncontrollable enthusiasm) inexcusably addresses you. Though the liberty I take has, perhaps, no parallel in that circle where frigid ceremony wields her glacial sceptre, in your habitual benignity remember, I pray you, that you sit on that celestial pinnacle of fame where you are less your own than all mankind's; and even a humble heart like my own, whose slender strings have been thrilled by your songful breath, may claim a part in you.
"I need not say that, with outwelling eyes and palpitating bosom, I have read every line which your wondrous pen has contributed to the age's symphony. Still more, oh divinest of living bards! I know each word of rapture by heart—and sleep with Ticknor's blue and gold edition of you pressed close to that heart, nightly. In the name of all Time, let me thank you, Sir, for those pulses of ecstasy with which you have stirred its eternally resounding corridors.
"With what speechless sympathy do I enter into your sorrows! As I write, my tears stain this sheet, confessing my maiden weakness; for I have just come from the perusal of that bottomless utterance of lonely grief and passion recorded at page 310 of the second volume of your 'Antiphonal Antistrophies.' Need I say that I mean 'The Wail of the World-weary Wanderer?' It is no vain compliment when I say that Homer, Dante, and Tupper will not survive one verse of the many which bathed me in tears. 'Tis this:
"Headlong out of heavenly blisses
Hurled to fathomless abysses,
Dream I still of feeling kisses
Kissing me forever more;
Like the moonbeam's sparry shiver,
Quenched upon a midnight river,
Slides away the airy giver,
And in the darkness horrid
I dash my burning forehead
On the adamantine floor.'
"But I trespass on your time. I will only say a word more. You end that poem with this aspiration: 'Oh for one fountain-heart, whereof my own might drink! I believe it is my mission to be that heart—to comfort your wretchedness—to bind up your wounded spirit.
"All I wish is, to gaze into your deep blue eyes—to walk the same violet-scented turf—to breathe the same air with you. I will, therefore, be with you in that 'pastoral solitude beyond the rules of earth' (described so affectingly on your 17th page) on Monday next, by the 5 o'clock, P.M., express from New York (having to wait till then for my new mantilla from Bulpin's). With eternal ardor, your respondent dual soul,
"Lillie Taylor."
"Well, I declare!" said Mrs. Barcarole, opening those large brown eyes of hers, out of which I had so often drawn my inspiration, until they equaled in size of aperture that other vessel wherein I dipped my quills. "And what do you mean to do about it?"
"Rum-tum-tum-tum-tiddy, ramtumtiddyido—"
"What do you mean to do, I say, dear?"
"Rum-tum-tiddy—oh, beg your pardon, love—I mean to—well, that is—really I haven't the least idea."
"Well, I must say, I should know what to do under such circumstances if I were a man. I'd have a policeman ready at the cars, and have her arrested for bigamy, or whatever it is that they call running away with another lady's husband."
I intimated to Mrs. Barcarole that bigamy might be a somewhat difficult charge to sustain against my correspondent on the existing evidence; moreover, that I was not run away with yet, and, in all human probability, should not be—so long, I added, with a glance of amorous sweetness, as I possessed a niche in the heart of such a charming woman already.
Which mollified Mrs. Barcarole considerably.
"What sort of a creature do you think she is, this scandalous person?" asked my wife.
"I suppose her to be," I answered, "a tall, thin, yet sympathetic young woman, whose tendrils were, some forty years ago, more or less, torn from a robust male support, with a tendency to spectacles, short sleeves, low neck, and singing 'Go, forget me!' to a pleuritic piano. I fancy, also, that she is fond of Poe, Shelley, and—I would not be so vain before any body but you—Barcarole. Add to this description, an appetite for young clergymen who need sisterly sympathy and slippers, and I guess you have her."
"She must be very ugly, too," said my wife.
"Eminently so, of course," I assented.
"And she may stay a fortnight."
"Oh, six months, at the least; there will be no getting rid of her. It always was agony for women to tear themselves away from me."
"Impudence! Something prompt must be done, then."
"I agree with you, my love. I will try to settle on the exact thing, and let you know by dinner-time. 'Till then I must weed my strawberries. By-by, dear."
II.
I was the poet Barcarole—laying claim, I fancy, to something like a transatlantic reputation, having been reviewed in the Athenæum as the author of "Another mass of American stuff." Daily was I solicited for my autograph. I am extravagant enough to believe that I could have made a good thing out of my hair, if I had cut it up, like the submarine cable, into lengths to suit purchasers, and advertised it to my admiring public.
It is pleasant to be famous. I like to have men poke one another in the ribs, when they see me on a railroad car, and say, "There he is—that's Barcarole!" I am fond of being called on to write sonnets for great occasions. I love to see pretty girls absorbed in my last edition, at watering-places and on steamboats.
But in some respects I sit on "a painful peak." It is not pleasant to think that the world is interested in the set of one's night-cap, or would listen breathlessly to a lecture on your peculiar method of cutting up a water-melon. There is a possibility of conceiving some things which a respectable citizen, however famous, might wish to keep private—to do, with the candle of publicity blown out, and society at large not looking through the key-hole. I have never been able to do that class of things in a frame of any calmness. There is a jealousy of observation—a nervous sense of being noteworthy—that makes a great poet go to bed, rise, put on his cravat, as if the parquet of Burton's were just the other side of the wash-stand.
Then—probably because my poems were so wondrously life-like and graphic—it never could be understood by the general reader how I was not in earnest in every thing I wrote. I am not "A Deserted Soul;" yet, if I choose, can not I write "The Battle-cry" of that unfortunate being, without disagreeably identifying myself with him? No, I can't. Can I consistently weave into lyric symphony "The Plea of the Plaster-cast Man?" No; for if I do, the next review notice of my life asserts, upon abundant authority, that I "rose out of the greatest obscurity, having originally been a vendor of gypsum praying Samuels and poll-parrots, whose talents were first discovered under the following circumstances," etc. And there is not a dyspeptic young person who does not cherish me as the representative of sublimely-gifted wretchedness, on account of those love-lorn breathings which I, the happy husband and father, have uttered histrionically in my songs and plays.
Meliboeus Barcarole—immortal bard! I do not know whether to call you an unfortunate dog or not, in this fame which you have won. But certainly, of all inflictions that follow glory, sure never was one severer than the present. A woman for whose craze your genius was responsible coming to stay an indefinite time with you, in an attitude of adoration!
My wife might not have a spare room convenient. Oh, no matter! had I not written,
'Tis sweet to sleep beneath the stars,
With moonbeams for your curtain bars?
The young woman would therefore come prepared to find me eschewing the conventional horse-hair and feathers, and boarding out-doors altogether. We might not have any cake in the house—a mortification which to the mind of Mrs. Barcarole has no parallel among the woes of life. No matter, again.
The forest berries our food shall be,
Our dishes the bark of the white birch-tree.
Had I not written it? Evidently there would be no way of discouraging the young woman.
This train of meditations was revolving in my brain as I weeded the strawberries. It got to be near mid-day. I had cleaned two beds, and was half-way through a third, but without settling on any course of prompt action.
I stopped working, and leaned to rest on my hoe-handle, when, whom should I see strolling into the garden but my nephew, Meliboeus Barcarole, Jun., a youth of parts, who was spending a month with me for the benefit of his health. The history of that young man was a sad one. He was the oldest child of rich but honest parents, and had risen from the most extreme opulence to a very honorable position among the intellectual men of society. By indomitable energy he had conquered the disadvantages of wealth, and was a hard-working, studious, and useful fellow. Though the circumstances of his family were such that I have known them compelled to subsist on turtle soup and meringues for nearly a week at a time, and their only way of keeping off the rigors of a severe winter consisted of a few black, poisonous holes in the floor, my nephew had grown into a vigorous, healthy, and handsome lad. A striking instance of what manly resolution may do against all the obstacles of fortune.
But of late a sad affliction had overshadowed him. He was evidently passing through that trying disorder—that teething complaint of the grown-up infant just weaned from tops and paper-kites—the first love. And he had it very hard. To such a degree did it affect his appetite and sleep that his parents thought my country fare would be a good change for him, and so expressed him to me, with orders to amuse him till the season opened at the Springs.
Now, as Meliboeus strolled into the garden, as aforesaid, a thought struck me. Might not the study of this interesting woman run bard-mad prove a diversion to him? Might he not at the same time rid me of my difficulty, and occupy himself healthfully in the analysis of the phenomenon?
Wandering with clasped hands, and a face full of the gentlest Idyllic melancholy, the youth approached me. Until he had stepped right upon my most fruitful clusters he did not see I was there. Then he noticed me, and started back.
"Meliboeus," said I, "you are bored in this rural quiet—confess it, boy!"
"Shall I tell you the truth? I believe I am—immensely."
"So I thought. Well, it's perfectly natural. You meet a very pretty girl at the Philharmonics—she returns your dazzled gaze with a half-venturous glance followed by a blush—your soul bathes in her till the last echo of Tannhauser dies away—you and she depart your several ways—you never see her again—her image remains ineffaceable—you arrive at the conclusion that you are necessary to one another's existence. Now, country air, fresh vegetables, my society, and nowhere to go in the evening, do not seem to be what you want for your complaint. Have I hit it?"
"Exactly, my uncle."
"I therefore proceed to prescribe a new remedy. I have discovered the very thing that you want, until every body comes into town again, and you can resume your search for l'Incognita. You need a sensation, and I've got it for you."
"Let us hear what it is."
Upon this, I pulled out of my pocket that little packet of incense, the letter of Lillie Taylor, and handed it to my nephew to read. With an amused look of puzzle he finished it, and I continued:
"Of course it isn't possible for me to meet those overtures appropriately. I am a married man—settled in life—every thing steady and quiet of that sort. I am romantic, and write about moonlight; but being rheumatic, do not walk in it. In fact, I have given up all kinds of sky-larking.
"But, supposing I had a nephew—a tolerably well-looking young rascal—with a great fund of woman-talk and a boundless talent for every variety of diablery. Supposing he bore the same name as his uncle, had some approach to the same intellectual forehead, and by circumstances which we will not here dwell upon, had contracted the same look of classic sadness. And, to wind up, supposing he took it into his head to make believe he was his own uncle—to borrow the lyre of that gifted man and play the poet for a few days to a charming female adorer—Heh? what do you think of the hypothesis?"
"By Jehoshaphat! wouldn't that be rich! I declare I've the greatest mind in the world—"
"Say you will!"
"Well, I will, then. Here's my hand on it. When is she coming?"
"Didn't you read? Five o'clock train, day after to-morrow. Your aunt and I will go down with you to see her come in. Play your game well, and if we don't have some fun I'm mistaken."
The young man went away with a lighter step, and, putting up my hoe, I returned to let Mrs. B. into the plan. She was enough of a wag to assent to it heartily, and promised to get the best room ready for our romantic visitor.
III.
Meliboeus was certainly a lad of genius. He went to work rehearsing for our little comedy with a zeal and a facility worthy of any old stager on the New York boards. He had never, even in his most unhappy moments, written so much as a sonnet; so, to prepare for being a poet, he "crammed" on the large edition of my works, until he could repeat the finest passages without a single balk. He accustomed himself to part his hair in the middle, adopted rolling collars, and affected being distrait when his teacup was passed. Oh! he did it admirably! And by the time that we had to start for the station, on Monday afternoon, I was one universal chuckle at the prospect of his success.
According to my promise, Mrs. Barcarole and I accompanied him to the cars. Leaving the horses around the corner with black Jimmy, we planted ourselves on the platform and waited for the whistle.
We were not allowed the pleasure of long anticipation. Up came the train, stopped, and began to disgorge its motley contents of men, women, babies, bandboxes, and parcels, which were to stop at Middletown Centre. In vain did I search the crowd for my idea of my admirer. There were spectacles there, but they beamed with no look of inquiry for a poet; ancient maiden ladies, with a pensiveness in their tones; but it was entirely laid out upon questions as to the welfare of their trunks—they asked no one the way to Mr. Barcarole's.
I was just turning to my wife and Meliboeus, with the words, "What if it should be a sell!" when a fresh, childish voice asked, close at my back, "Can you tell me how to get to the house of the poet Barcarole?"
"Whist!" said I, in a hurry, "now's your time!" and touched Meliboeus with my elbow.
"I am Mr. Barcarole, Madam," said that young gentleman courageously, turning to the petite vailed figure whence the inquiry proceeded. "May I dare to hope that this is my fair correspondent?"
The young woman lifted her vail with a tiny hand that trembled with surprise; and lo, no Gorgon, no Sphinx was there, but a very, very pretty girl of eighteen or thereabout, blushing and downcast in a state of the most winsome trepidation.
But what is the matter with Meliboeus Jun.? What is there in that little modest sylphide to startle a young man in society, to make him swerve as from the cannon's mouth?
The youth caught my arm convulsively and just whispered brokenly in my ear, "It is she—it is she—the lady I saw at the Philharmonics!"
For a moment my astonishment was mixed with the fear that this sudden discovery would unnerve the boy from the execution of his plan—that he would let this magnificent chance slip through his fingers. But no! he did better than my utmost hope. Seeming in an instant to recognize the unsurpassed advantage of making love on a poetical basis, he regained all his self-possession and took Lillie Taylor by the hand.
"Let me lead you to my carriage, fair maiden—'tis but the rude wain of a simple bard—yet it is ennobled by waiting for you."
The two led the way, Mrs. Barcarole and myself following close behind. And as we walked we looked at one another queerly without speaking. At last I broke the silence.
"She is 'very ugly,' heh, Mrs. Barcarole?"
"Tall maiden lady, torn from robust male support,' heh, Mr. Barcarole?"
We both of us certainly had to confess our ideals of the young lady somewhat at fault. She was a girl, as I have said, of eighteen, with great dreamy brown eyes that melted in their own softness—a sweet little sympathetic face that daguerreotyped your own thought when you talked earnestly to her—and to such a woman one felt ashamed to talk in any other way. And her airy figure was just such a one as you would not be in the least surprised to come upon in wood-solitudes, lying on the tops of the lilies and violets without bending them, drinking dew and listening to fairy stories from the bees.
Meliboeus handed the young girl into our carryall, jumped in beside her on the front seat, and when his aunt and I had mounted behind actually turned around toward us with the most unblushing coolness, and said, blandly,
"Miss Taylor, permit me to make you acquainted with an uncle and aunt of mine, who had the misfortune to be born deaf and dumb. They were for a long time in the school of Mr. Weld, at Hartford, where they first knew each other. I am happy to say, however, that they have so far overcome that sad calamity that they understand your meaning by watching the motion of your lips. Though they are still unable to—"
The miserable sinner! I knew what he was going to say. "Speak!" that was the word; and Mrs. Barcarole and I stared at one another frantically, knowing that a fearful embargo was hanging over our tongues for Heaven knew how long. Thought of agony! I grasped the young villain by the arm, signed to him to wait, and wrote on the back of a letter with my pencil,
"For Heaven's sake say we talk incoherently, at least!"
That wretch looked at us with a sweet smile, and scribbled under my sentence,
"Suppose she'd been old and ugly—who'd have had to stand it then? I guess you can put up with paying for that risk?"
Mrs. Barcarole and I sat, in all senses, literally dumb. Meliboeus whipped up the horses, finished his sentence with, "Utterly unable to articulate," and the young girl shook hands with us over the back of the seat, her face full of childish pity.
"Poor, poor people!" she said, sadly, to the wicked humbug. "Yet they look so kind, so intelligent indeed. The lady is quite good-looking, and the gentleman has a very healthy, animated countenance, though I should never have taken him for a poet's relative."
"Why, sweet little maiden?"
Lillie blushed, but answered, "I oughtn't to say it when the poor man is your uncle; but his look seems unappreciative—matter-of-fact. Did he ever read any of your beautiful poetry?"
"I'll ask him. Uncle, did you ever read any of my beautiful poetry?"
I was enraged enough at the young man already, and this last was said with such a provoking ostentation of distinctness to conform to the assumed necessities of my case, that I became conscious of being very red in the face, and made an insulting gesture of abhorrence, pointing to the mud under the carriage-wheels.
"He says, Miss Taylor, that he never did, and thinks it vile stuff."
"Oh, the monster! I'm sure it's very kind of you to let him stay with you."
"He feels it to be so; don't you, uncle?"
The conversation happily now took a turn.
"Do you know, Mr. Barcarole," said the young girl to my nephew, "that in some respects you are—I hardly know what to call it—perhaps 'surprise' is the word—somewhat of a surprise to me?"
"A disagreeable one, is it?"
"No—oh no! not that. But as I was riding in the cars to-day I began thinking what a strange thing I was doing. You must never tell; but my guardian thinks I have gone into the country to spend the summer with an old aunt. I don't like guardians; but then, you know, one has to have such a thing—a young lady, especially, just out of Madame Gaie-Cherie's, and all finished up, with what they call large expectations, I believe, and no near relations in this country. Well, as I said, I was thinking, and I began to wonder what every body would say if they knew I had run away. Then, said I, supposing the poet Barcarole should be like other people after all—even such a person as that poor fellow on the back seat, for instance—and should have some terrible wife who would think me impudent, and all that sort of thing, for coming to see how a poet looked, without being invited. And supposing he should be very stern and cold, and she should be unkind, and not even ask me to take off my things and sit down, and all of them should say I was crazy, perhaps. I hadn't looked at the matter in this light at all before, and when I did I was one tremble all over. I came near not asking where you lived at all, but half made up my mind to stay at the station till the next train down, and go right back. And now it is so delightful to find you are not angry with me, but, in every thing, just like your poetry—just as I thought you would be, except—"
"Except what, Miss Taylor?"
The little creature looked down, with half-shut eyes, and grew all damask-rosy as she whispered—"Younger and better looking. You aren't at all like your portrait."
Pleasant for the deaf-and-dumb man on the back seat! Oh! decidedly. Mrs. Barcarole and I looked at one another with indignation that could hardly be kept speechless. The picture referred to was taken some twenty years ago, just after I was married. Exactly as I looked when the beloved woman struck her colors to my fascination. Peale did it, and considered it a privilege. It had been the work of months. There were six fresh blush roses in my button-hole at each sitting. And every curl was conscientiously educated into symmetry with the best adipose secretion of Canada bears. Yet Meliboeus Barcarole—having lived to an age when there was no opportunity of going back and getting it done better—hears a graceless scamp, who plasters his short hair on his temples, and wears whiskers, shaped like a breakfast-roll, inclined toward his shoulders, called "younger, better looking" than that exquisite chef-d'œuvre.
Oh, times and manners, you are going to the devil!
Necessarily both Mrs. Barcarole and I were in the sweetest of humors when our carryall reached the piazza of Eclogue Cottage. To the manifest wonder of my little rhyme-struck devotee, or more properly, now, my nephew's, she found that rural solitude not altogether one of nature's wilds, but a country residence, with its parallel in common life—gravel walks, box around the front flower beds, a shorn lawn, and glimpses in the rear of something very like the vegetable garden and picket fence of an unnatural state of society. She was dispatched, immediately on arriving, into a very civilized and pretty little bedroom, and, while she attended to the details of her after-travel toilet, Mrs. Barcarole and myself embraced the opportunity, in the other end of the house, to unburden ourselves of our opinion of Mr. M. Barcarole, Jun., in a very un-deaf-and-dumb manner, and to that young gentleman personally.
"Well, Sir! I suppose you consider what you've been doing a very delicate and graceful joke?"
"I confess it wears a little of that aspect, my dear aunt."
"To set your uncle and me in such a ridiculous light before a total stranger!—a young woman in New York society too, who probably knows the Summergoods, and the Fallstocks, and all the first families of our circle (I've often heard them speak of a very rich Miss Taylor), and who will go back and let it all out, and then we'll be in a pretty fix, won't we? I sha'n't dare to lift up my head next winter!"
"My precious aunt, I intend this whole affair to be an entire secret between me and—my wife."
"What are you talking about?"
"Simply that the young lady who is now arranging the hair of Miss Lillie Taylor will return to New York Mrs. Meliboeus Barcarole, Jun. I know that it seems hard to deprive you of the noble gift of speech. I myself shall suffer more severely than you can imagine by the deprivation of your kindly tones and my uncle's inspired utterances; but recollect what you gain to balance the loss. You may both be present at the best scenes of all our piquant courtship—you can assist me, oh, indescribably, if you will! and then think, my beloved lyric kinsman, what an opportunity you will have for the gradual development of a drama, upon the basis of this joke, which will eclipse all your past fame on both continents. Just fancy it! Already, how the titles for the surpassing work crowd on me! 'The Delicious Deception, a Dithyrambic of the Deaf-and-Dumb!' Or, 'Love Lassoed by a Lute-String!!' Or, 'Pseudo-Meliboeus, and his Marriage with a Muse-Mad Maiden!!!"
"Meliboeus, you hair-brained rogue!—"
"Put it in any shape you please. Drama—five acts. Romance—ten cantos—Maud style—I., II, III., IV., big Roman numerals. Oh, delicious! And won't it take? Dear me!"
"Wife, I don't know but the young scamp's right! Shall we forgive him?"
"Oh, it's all very well for you, Mr. Barcarole, you get paid for keeping your mouth shut now, by being able to sing poems with it by-and-by; but I'm only a poor little woman, and no poet—my mouth goes unrewarded—unused utterly—"
Both the Meliboei jumped up at once and falsified the statement by occupying opposite sides of that pretty little wronged aperture with a sonorous, long kiss.
"Forgive me, deary, deary aunt! Be good and help me! Oh, do help me! I have been joking; but I tell you seriously now, that all my happiness for the rest of my days depends on this thing's turning out well—and I know you will be as good to me as you always have been—do, dear Aunt Barcarole!"
So it ended with our both being merciful to the rogue.
IV.
Things went on delightfully. Mrs. Barcarole and I lived, day after day, in a delicious atmosphere of courtship, all fragrant and full of sunny sparkles as the one wherein we first kissed and cooed twenty years ago. Seeing those young people together, hearing their long, sweet, silly talks, watching their innocent dalliance, knowing that every hour they grew deeper, and still deeper enamored—all this lifted us quite out again from the sober, settled marriage twilight into which we, like even the warmest of lovers, had passed with the course of years.
And Lillie Taylor was so beautiful, so original, so good—an emigrant from Arcadia, just "come over"—a citizen of the unfallen virgin world. In her life there was none of that stiltedness which had appeared in her letter, or, if there was the same pure enthusiasm and rhapsody, now that we knew her it did not seem stilted. She was a most impassioned creature—but her fire burned without smoke or soot—there was no taint of bad self-consciousness in her emotion. She never was ashamed of herself, as most impulsive people happen to be fifty times a day—there was nothing to be ashamed of. Yet I blessed Heaven, over and over again, that it had cast her, fresh-risen, like the yet pure Venus, above the waters of this world, upon our poetic shores. There were few places where she could possibly have been understood but Eclogue Cottage—elsewhere she would have been the horror of appropriate beings, or, if tolerated at all, only under the shadow of that insulting protection known as "making allowances" for one. As for us, though we had been startled at first by the pureness of a pearl which was so unusual as to challenge suspicion lest it were mock, we soon came to make the only allowance that was made for our own worldliness—not her unworldliness.
I do not suppose that she ever once gave a name to the feeling she was cherishing for Meliboeus. She was perfectly satisfied; she drank in happiness to the full, and that was all she knew, as she walked lingeringly through the woody lanes with that naughty make-believe poet's arm folding her waist, her hand on his shoulder, and their tongues alternately, or in duet, running on to the music of his borrowed verses, quoted at all times and in all places with an admiration on her part great enough to have flattered the rogue into an inspiration of his own.
Meanwhile the deaf-and-dumb man and his wife sat by, looking on, seeing and hearing many sweet, and a number of funny things, with an exhilaration that almost boiled over. As yet the pastoral affection of the pair had not reached that tender spot on the stair-case of love, the landing-place of the first kiss. Mrs. Barcarole and I were favored enough to be close by when they did come to it. And the manner thereof was droll exceedingly.
The whole of one dreamy, lotus-eating afternoon, the two had been sitting together on the turf between the great roots of my favorite lawn elm, talking poetry and romance as usual, while my wife and I amused ourselves with the pretended occupations of knitting and reading, upon a rustic seat within easy ear-shot. By-and-by we heard Lillie say, "Mr. Barcarole, there is one favor I want you to do me, that I have never asked yet. Make me an impromptu."
My eye caught Meliboeus's just then, and a more comical look of agony I never saw in the world. The struggle going on between Humbug, whose existence depended on asserting its indefinite capacity for all things poetic, and Truth, groaning to say "Never did such a thing in my life!" showed on his face like a very bad fit of toothache. I gave a maliciously good-humored chuckle in spite of myself, and pretended it was something very rich in the volume of Bibb's Discourses I was reading that did it. Meliboeus threw a pleading glance at me, and answered with a desperate sprightliness,
"Oh! do you like impromptus? Now really, for my part, I think they are the very shallowest pools in the stream of song. I don't recollect when I have made one."
"But just try it, please, for once. I know you can improvise. I saw a notice of you in the Lady's Magazine as long ago as I can remember, that said you were only equaled in that way, though not surpassed, by the Italian improvisatori. Come, that's a dear man. I shall keep it forever to remember you by."
And the little creature took out a note-book of visiting-card dimensions, and a pencil like a button-needle, to be ready.
For a moment Meliboeus caught his breath, and then, with the sudden determination of getting as much as possible for the terrific risk to his laurels, he said,
"Yes, I do it on one condition. You grant me a favor in return, and pay it beforehand. Sooner or later I must have taken it without asking, for I'm wanting it more and more every minute. Give me one of your very sweetest kisses, Lillie Taylor!"
The young girl hesitated for a moment and blushed, glanced askance at Mrs. Barcarole and me, saw us very busy, and remembered we were deaf and dumb, then made up one of the most witching little mouths, and looked "Well, if you must" at Meliboeus.
The yong man did not expect this promptness, evidently. He had flirted in town, among the window-curtains at parties, out of town, on watering-place piazzas, but I doubt exceedingly if he ever asked for a kiss in so matter-of-fact and direct a style before, and had it granted so pure-heartedly and quickly.
But he adapted himself to this new phase of woman's character very creditably. And when his lips settled, with all the chivalric gentleness of a humming-bird dipping into a fuschia, upon those of Lillie Taylor, I wondered, peeping over my spectacles, whether he was thinking of the impromptu. He assured me afterward that that consideration for the moment was entirely banished from his mind. If so, and it be true that the verse he made was as entirely without immediate forethought as mine would have been likely to be at that age, just after the absorption of my first kiss from the girl I loved, then I must say I consider the effort a clear case of Cupid's own inspiration, for I never imagined before that that boy could realize the coincidence in termination of "frog" and "log."
"And now for the impromptu," said Lillie Taylor. "It ought to be a very good one, naughty poet, for you have broken the bouquet in my belt all to pieces."
With a desperate enthusiasm Meliboeus began:
"Sweet girl, those damaged roses speak
More—hold on a minute—oh, yes—than my lips could in a week;
My heart just touched them, they were—were—well, say—shattered;
It must be contagious—to be—battered."
Lillie Taylor clapped her hands.
"Is that the way they improvise?" said she. "It's very funny. I like it, though. Is that one of your best?"
"Better than any thing I ever said. Better than any thing in my published poems." And Meliboeus looked over at me with a triumphant relief which silenced sarcasm. I did not chuckle; but Mrs. Barcarole did, very quietly, in a gentle, approving way, as women do when they see a thing of that sort going all right. Lillie Taylor put down the impromptu on her note-book. So did Meliboeus on his. And he has written for the journals ever since—a striking instance of the revelation of slumbering powers which may be effected by a pretty woman, who moreover is good and loving.
It was proposed that same afternoon, when the sun had reached a comfortable nearness to his bedtime, that we should ride to the village of Middletown Centre behind the bays. That idea seemed acceptable, and after a very pleasant hour, we all stood on the platform of the station enjoying, what to us simple country folk was a pleasant exhilaration, seeing the evening train come in. Among the passengers there stepped from the cars a small boy, with a bundle of placards under his arm, and a very mussy paste-pot hanging from his hand. Lillie and Meliboeus were now separated by the crowd from my wife and me, and did not notice him. We did, and saw him plaster up in a very conspicuous position on the outer wall of the station-house one of the bills from his package.
"Perhaps it is a circus coming," said Mrs. Barcarole. "The children will like to see the monkeys. They come back from school next week, you know."
No. It was no circus—monkeys were not even indirectly mentioned—and with faces of mingled perplexity and horror we read and saw it was—something else.
I left my wife standing by the bill for a moment, and sought out my nephew. Signing my excuse to Lillie, I drew him aside, and whispered to him to go to his aunt; then took the young lady under my protection, while he hurried off to the spot.
When he reached there he read as follows, with what emotions I leave to be imagined:
"$500 REWARD!
"The above sum will be paid to any one who will give information leading to the discovery of Miss Lillie Taylor, a young lady who left the house of her guardian, the subscriber, on the 8th ult., and has not since been seen or heard from."
Here followed her description. Then the placard continued:
"At the time of her departure her intention was the paying a visit to her aunt, Mrs. Tabitha Sears of Chelmsford; but as that lady has not the slightest knowledge of her whereabouts, it is feared she has been forcibly abducted, or that other foul play has been instrumental in her disappearance. Persons able to give the slightest clew to her present situation will receive the reward above stated, and the sincere thanks of her very anxious relatives.
Cottin Bayles,
"No. — Broad St."
"Now what have you got to say?" asked Mrs. Barcarole.
The only opinion Meliboeus vouchsafed was, that it was a very pretty kettle of fish. To which his aunt acceded cordially.
"And what are you going to do about it?"
"Discover her whereabouts to her guardian, and claim the $500. That amount I shall invest, one half in a saddle horse for my uncle, the other in furs for you, to pay you for being such good dummies."
"So you will back out after all?"
"Wait till to-morrow morning, and see if I do."
The whistle was just blowing for the departure of the train when Meliboeus tapped the placard boy on the shoulder.
"You needn't go any farther up the road. Take the next train back to town, and tell Mr. Bayles to meet me—no matter what my name is—at this station to-morrow at twelve o'clock. I will give him the information he wants."
The boy stared for a minute, not knowing whether he was being victimized. But Meliboeus quietly drew the placards from under his arm, thus leaving him no option, paid him for them at the rate of a cent a piece, and said, "Mind me," in a voice which reassured him. He then scratched down the still wet bill from the wall, and returned with his aunt to me.
That night we were all sitting after tea in the library by one of the windows which opened upon the veranda. Meliboeus and Lillie had taken their places upon the sill—it was their favorite seat, for it had no back, and that gave the young man a pretext for supporting the waist of the little girl with his arm. She was now leaning with her elbow on his knee, and looking up rapturously into his face as he recited one of my poems:
"To be great, yet not for glory—
To be famed, yet not for pride—
Sung in songs, rehearsed in story,
Lifted up, yea, deified—
Only to feel that you
Were given your queenly due
In being honored by my side."
Finishing the poem, his voice grew yet more earnest.
"Lillie Taylor, when you came to Eclogue Cottage, or rather when you started for it, what was your feeling for that person known as Meliboeus Barcarole—the exact nature and extent of it, I mean, if you can define it?"
She thought for a few seconds, and then answered considerately:
"It was intense admiration—reverence for your great mind."
'You are sure you would have come just as soon if you had known me to be the father of a family—an old man already married?"
I could see that Lillie Taylor caught the hint contained in these words, for even in the moonlight her face suddenly flushed scarlet, and with a manner of wounded pride, or as if she would withdraw misplaced confidence, she removed her elbow from the young man's knee and said, spiritedly,
"I came to enjoy seeing and hearing the poet—I do not have to leave New York to find a man."
"Do not be offended. I meant nothing unpleasant. You will understand why I ask the question in a moment. You have been here now a month. When your letter came I expected to receive you as a devotee. Lillie Taylor!—every day you have been here has made me yours—you have grown dearer to me than all the fame I could win if I were a Homer! And tell me—sincerely, from your deep, true woman's heart—has any such charge happened in your feeling for me? Do you love me, dearest?"
Prubably she awoke to know it for the first time. For she became pale again as the moon that was silvering them both, and trembled from head to foot as she faltered out,
"It has all been like some long, beautiful dream—yet I know now that I do—yes, I do love you with all my heart."
I checked myself just in time not to say "Hurrah." But they would not have heard me, or any thing but their own hearts, which were now throbbing close together in the strange gladness of their first love embrace. Meliboeus spoke first.
"And you are sure, dearest love, perfectly sure that it is not admiration for my talents in the least degree that makes you love me?"
"If you had never written a line—if you hated poetry—if you were as unknown and untalented as your poor uncle—I would love you just as much."
"Then I will dare to make a confession to you. Forgive me, if you can; but what you just supposed, for the mere question's sake, is true—a fact. I am not the Meliboeus Barcarole who is a poet—I am not famous—I am nothing but a man who loves you with his whole soul! Lillie, can you love me yet?"
"Why, what in the world do you mean?"
"This, sweet one—that I have worn a mask ever since you have been here—I have made believe that I was the poet, only because I feared that without that you would never, never think of me, care for me, love me. For, absorbed in the famous uncle, how could you ever have looked even at the unheard-of nephew? Oh! it was very wrong to be such a cheat; but think what a temptation beset me when I knew that I might thus be deciding a whole life's happiness."
"You amaze me! Who is the poet? Is there one at all?"
"It is my uncle, Barcarole, who sits right behind us on the divan. Bless his dear soul for giving you to me!"
"And is he really deaf and dumb?"
"Not a bit of it, nor my aunt either. Can you—can you forgive me?"
"Oh, you shameful, wicked sham! You bad man! You imitation pearl—you paste diamond! I am so angry with you I hardly know how to speak!"
"Well, Lillie! It is all as I feared—I have sinned too much to be forgiven. I am not worthy of you—the rest of my life must be spent in repentance for the folly that has lost you. I will go to-morrow."
He rose to leave her, with a face that was full of intense pain; but just then the conflicting feelings in Lillie Taylor's bosom grew too much to keep in, and woman's ready relief came, as she threw herself upon the breast of the penitent young humbug, sobbing, and saying in a choked voice, "Oh, don't—don't—I do love you—I do!"
Mrs. Barcarole and I had borne it as long as possible. We threw ourselves into the affecting seene, and mixed up our arms and lips inextricably with those of the two lovers, kissing and hugging, crying and laughing, hurrahing and soothing. And when we had all exhausted ourselves we sat down.
"It has all ended so happily now," said I, feeling called on to address the meeting, "that I am hardly sorry that we were all such rascals. Lillie Taylor, forgive me as well as Melly. Wife, I am a humbug, thou art a humbug, he is a humbug—we, ye, they are humbugs; but, future, indicative, and negative, we will never do it again. I am the poet you admired, Lillie. If you've
"'The slightest particle
Of that pleasant article—'
left for me, do me the favor to let me ring for the waiter, send after our minister and give you to the man that loves you. And thank your aunt, Meliboeus, for having fallen in love with me and carried me off twenty years syne—or, you may be sure, you'd never have been my proxy in the entertainment of this visitor!"
And the two were married that very night.
As I came up into our cozy little bedroom I saw the last review, with a flattering notice of me on the table, and then I looked at my good, smiling, happy wife. As a symbolic act, I threw the magazine on the floor, kicked it across the room, and kissed Mrs. Barcarole with a fervent enthusiasm, crying,
"Oh, ye gods! how much better to be loved than to be admired!"
V.
The next morning broke on us as clear and smiling as it ought, to honor worthily those dear young people's first married day. And all our faces were as clear—the masks gone forever—the tongues untied—and the naughtiness of the past weeks forgiven by Lillie, and forgotten in the dove-like, before-breakfast kisses which she gave us all.
"And now, my dear wife," said Meliboeus, in the serene and lovely dignity of being married, which fitted him so much better than laurels—"how would you like to go with me this morning and give somebody a delightful surprise? Your guardian, as I learned indirectly yesterday, is a little worried at your absence, and to put his mind at ease I have invited him to come up in the twelve o'clock train and hear all about you. Will you go down with me to meet him?"
Lillie looked a little confused. Then said she, "Dear deaf-and-dumb-ies, will you promise to be really dumb if I'll tell you something? You too, Melly—I never said a word about it before, for I wouldn't have it get out for the world—but now, as it's all in the family, I'll speak it. Just the day before I ran away, I got a little note from my guardian, Mr. Bayles, and it actually asked me to be his wife, just like any matter of business, and ended with promising to build a green-house if I would. I haven't any doubt it was written in the very same style that his letters about coffee, and tea, and molasses are, down in Broad Street. I never answered it—it frightened me out of my wits—and then I came up here. Oh my! won't he be angry when he sees me! But then, the idea of my being step-mother to young Cottin Bayles, who's older than I am, and does nothing but dress and cultivate horrid habits. Nobody'd like to be it, I'm sure. It's too ridiculous. But never mind—I'll go with you—only don't let him make you angry or say any thing rude, dear."
We had been so long practicing ruses that we couldn't quite yet consent to abjure them utterly, and so contrived one which was carried out as follows:
Lillie, Meliboeus, Mrs. B., and myself, made up our usual partie carrée and drove down to the station. When we heard the train coming the two ladies and I hid in the baggage room, leaving the door just enough ajar to let us watch the operations of my nephew.
Among the very first passengers that leaped to the ground, was the Dr. Bartolo of our dear little Rosina. Meliboeus knew him instantly—who does not know Cottin Bayles, Senior, that has ever been in New York, operated on Change, and attended Leviathan Anniversary Meetings of Brobdignagian Societies? And, in spite of his intense anxiety, he seemed to stand existence remarkably well, and to be as beaming with intense well-to-doishness as ever. Before he could look around or make inquiries of any body Meliboeus had taken him pathetically by the immaculate olive right glove, and observed to him, in a tone of profound sympathy,
"I am the person, Mr. Bayles, who sent to confer with you upon the painful subject of the unfortunate young lady."
"My dear Sir, you will oblige me by instantly relieving the deep solicitude under which I labor. For days past I have neglected all the fluctuations of the market—sugars have risen and fallen—I pay no attention to them whatever—to speak vulgarly, my business is by the ears—I am preoccupied, abstracted. I hope she isn't dead!"
"No—she still lives."
"And can you tell me where I may find her? It is of the utmost importance to her prospects that she returns with me. In strict confidence, I will tell you that one of the wealthiest and most prominent men in New York has made overtures for her hand. I feel as if I should like to aid him. Let us come to business—what do you know of her?"
"Yes—just as you say—business—and that includes the $500 reward. You may notice, in looking at me, that I do not suffer from the want of it; but I wish to aid a literary man not over-rich, who has been prominent in acts of the greatest kindness to your ward. Give me your check, then, and I produce her."
I rushed out of my concealment.
"No no, Meliboeus, that is carrying the joke a little too far. I am authorized by that literary man to say he will receive no money—being satisfied with the consciousness of a noble action."
Mr. Bayles stared at us both—not knowing in the least what to make of it.
"Perhaps you are right, uncle—more especially as Mr. Bayles might think his money thrown away, when he discovered how little we are able to assist his prominent wealthy friend. Aunt, Lillie darling! will you favor us with your presence?"
The two ladies emerged from their hiding-place, and with mingled condescension, and a proper guardianly displeasure at the conduct of his ward, Mr. Bayles took Lillie by the hand, saying,
"In spite of the past, I am glad to see you again, Miss Taylor."
"Thank you, Mr. Bayles, you are very kind."
"Oh dear me!" cried Meliboeus. "You needn't be so fearfully reserved, Mr. Bayles. I shall always consider you as a venerable friend of the family. You may kiss my wife."
"Sir, this is no joking matter!"
"I never was more cheerfully serious in my life."
"Are you his wife, Mistress Lillie?"
"I am so happy as to be that person."
"Then I consider you all a precious set of scamps, and bid you a correspondingly respectful good-morning. You may suffer for this yet, Sir!"
But he never has. On the contrary, he is rejoicing to this day in the results of that month at Eclogue Cottage, when his uncle's verses were the prelude to that sweet music which thus far fills his heart and Lillie's in their happy married life—when the gift of a wife, better than all laurels, crowned the loan of a Lyre!