Part 3

There was, at this time, and I believe there is still, in the village of which I write, an "order of the garter," under the control of one Mrs. Grundy, the motto of which was: "Those are evil of whom we evil speak." Its evening meetings were familiarly known as the "nights of the sewing-circle;" and it was the duty of each member to attend to everybody's business but his own. An agent of this order promptly put Mrs. Taragon in possession of everything which had been discovered or invented concerning Mr. Pompadour, not forgetting to enlarge upon the conditions of the will. Mrs. Taragon thereupon resolved to marry Mr. Pompadour; for, in addition to other reasons, she confessed to herself that she really liked him. As may be supposed, therefore, she looked with much disfavor on the increasing intimacy between the young people; but she feared that any violent attempt to rupture it would precipitate the very result she would avoid. She sat, one day, in a brown study, regarding the subject in all its bearings, with her comely cheek resting upon her plump hand, and, at last, arrived at a conclusion.

"I think it would not be wise," she said, consulting the mirror to see if her hand had left any mark upon her cheek,--"to interfere just at present; at any rate, not till I am _sure_ of Mr. Pompadour; but I will keep a close watch upon them."

Not many days afterwards, a picturesque group occupied the bow-window of Mrs. Taragon's drawing-room. Mrs. T. herself, quite covered with an eruption of worsted measles, was the principal figure. At her feet, like Paul at Gamaliel's, sat Augustus; but, unlike Paul, he held a skein of worsted. Nestling on an ottoman in the recess of the window was Terpsichore, inventing floral phenomena in water-colors, and looking very bewitching.

"'Twas a fair scene." As under the shade of some far-spreading oak, when noon holds high revel in the heavens, the gentle flock cluster in happy security, fearing no dire irruption of lupine enemy, so--

"Mr. Pompadour," announced the servant.

"The devil!" echoed Augustus Fitz Clarence.

Mrs. Taragon's first impulse was to spring up and greet her visitor cordially. Her second, to do no such thing. Napoleon said, "An opportunity lost is an occasion for misfortune." Here was her Austerlitz or her Waterloo! With the rapidity of genius, she laid the plot for a little comedy of "The Jealous Lovers," to the success of which the actors themselves unwittingly contributed.

Half rising, she acknowledged Mr. Pompadour's elaborate bow, and, motioning him gracefully to a seat, sank back into her chair. Then, pretending that the worsted was knotted, she bent her curls so near Augustus' face, and made a whispered remark with such a conscious air, that the blood rushed to that young man's face in an instant.

"I saw you out riding yesterday, Mr. Pompadour," said the cheerful widow, pleased that her first shot had taken effect. "And what a _beautiful_ horse! and you ride _so_ gracefully!"

"Thank you, madam," said Mr. Pompadour, stiffly; "I think I may say, without vanity, that I do ride tolerably well."

"And you," to the son, "now your father is present, I must call you _Mr._ Augustus,--may I not?" she said, coaxingly. The "Mr." was emphasized, as if when alone she did not use it. But this was, of course, unintentional.

Now Augustus, for some time, had endeavored to ingratiate himself with Mrs. Taragon, but with little success, and, therefore, he was utterly unable to comprehend her sudden benignity. He glanced at his father, and met the eyes of that individual glaring on him with the look of an ogre deprived of his baby lunch. He glanced at Terpsichore, but that young lady was absorbed with a new discovery in botany. He glanced at Mrs. Taragon, but she was calmly winding worsted.

"Terpy, dear," said her mother, "_do_ show Mr. Pompadour some of your drawings. My dear little girl is _so_ devoted to art!" she exclaimed, enthusiastically, as the daughter rose to bring her portfolio. "Take care, Mr. Augustus; you know worsted is a dreadful thing to snarl." Augustus had involuntarily sprung up to offer his assistance, but he sank back in confusion.

"Are you fond of engravings, Mr. Pompadour?" asked the young lady, sweetly.

"Ah! yes! I--I think I may say without vanity,"--began Mr. Pompadour, but he finished silently to himself,--"D--me, I'll make her jealous!" Whose Austerlitz or Waterloo should it be? He put on his eye-glass to inspect the volume, and for a little while almost forgot his egotism in admiration of the beauty of nature beside him, if not of the beauties of art before him.

Augustus was not slow in perceiving that, for some unknown reason, Mrs. Taragon's attention was gained, and he tried desperately to improve the occasion. Every once in a while, however, his eyes would wander toward his father, who played his part with so much skill that the bosom of Augustus was soon filled with burnings, and the mind of the widow with perplexities. The gentle heart of Terpsichore was grieved also, and her mind sorely puzzled at the enigmatical conduct of those about her, while she was somewhat annoyed at the pertinacious attentions of the elder P.

The distinguished gentleman who wrote so graphically about the "Elbows of the Mincio," must confess that _our_ Quadrilateral is only second to that which he has helped to embalm in history. The Irishman's experience with the large boot and the small one, and the other pair similarly mismated, was here reproduced with painful reality. Some evil genius had scattered wormwood on the air, and asphyxia, or something worse, seemed likely to supervene, when the entrance of another visitor broke the charm, and the _téte-à-téte_, and the gentlemen fled.

The thermometer of Mr. Pompadour's temper indicated boiling heat. He sputtered and fumed like an irascible old gentleman as he was, and managed to work himself into a crazy fit of jealousy, about his son and the too fascinating widow; and, oddly enough, this feeling thus aroused by the green-eyed monster, for the time being, quite eclipsed his mercenary muddle. So, upon poor Augustus, as the available subject, fell palpable and uncomfortable demonstrations of paternal displeasure.

For several days Mr. Pompadour stayed away from Mrs. Taragon's, and that good lady began to fear lest she had overdrawn her account at the bank of his heart, and that further drafts would be dishonored. The thought of such a catastrophe was torture of the most refined quality. By an illogical system of reasoning, peculiar to the female mind, she imagined that Terpsichore was the cause of his desertion, and that young lady thereupon became the recipient of an amount of small spite and aggravated vindictiveness, which reflected great credit upon Mrs. Taragon's inquisitorial capabilities.

She had, it must be obvious, set her heart upon having those diamonds from Tiffany's.

At the end of a week, however, Mr. Pompadour called upon Mrs. Taragon, and this time he found her alone. His countenance gave proof of some desperate resolution. His attire was more than usually elegant. His hair and whiskers were a trifle blacker and glossier than ever. He had a rose in his button-hole, and yellow kids on his hands. Solomon, in all his glory, was not arrayed (I sincerely trust) like unto him! Mrs. Taragon rose cordially, and held out to him her plump little hand; it lay a moment in his, as if asking to be squeezed. Mr. Pompadour looked as if he would like to squeeze it, and perhaps he did.

The lady's cordiality soon gave place to a timid shyness. To use a military phrase, she was "feigning a retreat." Mr. Pompadour waxed bold and advanced. The conversation skirmished awhile, the widow occasionally making a sally, and driving in the enemy's outposts, his main body meanwhile steadily approaching. The tone in which they conducted hostilities, however, gradually fell, and if one had been near enough he might have heard Mr. Pompadour remark, with a kind of quiet satisfaction, "For I think I may say, without vanity, I still possess some claim to good looks." The widow's reply was so low that our reporter failed to catch it, and then--military phraseology avaunt!--the old veteran knelt on the carpet, and surrendered at discretion.

"Good gracious, Mr. Pompadour!" exclaimed the widow, with well-feigned alarm, at the same time picking a thread off her dress, "_Do_ get up, somebody may come in!"

"Never!" said the old hero stoutly, seeing his advantage, and determined to have its full benefit, "at any rate, not till you promise to marry me!"

A form passed the window. This time Mrs. Taragon was really frightened. "I will," she said hurriedly; "now get up, and sit down."

Mr. Pompadour leaped to his feet with the agility of a boy--of sixty, and imprinted a kiss lovingly upon the lady's nose, there not being time to capture the right place on the first assault. What followed we will leave to the imagination of the reader.

* * * * *

It was now October, and the trees had adorned themselves in their myriad dyes. The maple had put on crimson, the hickory a rich gold, and the oak a deep scarlet; while the pine and the hemlock "mingled with brighter tints the living green."

To the woods one balmy day Augustus and Terpsichore went together, to gather leaves for wreaths and screens. Both were carelessly happy, and the pines echoed their merry voices as they laughed and sang. At length the basket, which Augustus carried, was filled with gorgeous booty, and they sat down upon a fallen log, while Terpsichore wove a garland for her hair. No wonder that in the tranquil beauty of the scene their noisy mirth should become hushed. No wonder that, as the sun stole through the branches, and like Jove of old fell in a shower of gold about them, upon both their hearts fell the perfect peace of love! With the full tide of this feeling came to Augustus the resolve to know his fate; for he felt that upon that answer hung his destiny.

They sat in silence while he tried to teach his tongue the language of his heart. Then he glanced timidly at the maiden, but her head was drooped low over the wreath, and her cheeks reflected its crimson dye.

"Miss Taragon," he said, at length, abruptly, "were you ever in love?"

She started like a frightened bird. The rich blood fled to her heart, and left her face pallid as marble.

"I--I--don't know," she stammered. "Why do you ask me such a question?"

"Because," he said, "then you may know how I feel, and pity me! O Terpsichore!" he added passionately, "I love you with my whole soul, and if you will but bless me with your love, my whole life shall be devoted to your happiness."

And so he talked on in an impetuous strain, of mingled prayer and protestation, which was stereotyped long before the invention of printing.

Terpsichore's heart beat wildly. The color came and went in her cheeks, and she turned her head away to conceal her emotion.

The wreath lay finished in her lap; and at last, with a bright smile, she placed it on his forehead; and, clasping his hand in both her own, she kissed him on the forehead. And now we might as well leave them alone together.

Mrs. Taragon, having made sure of Mr. Pompadour, now proceeded to carry out her plan of throwing obstacles in the way of the young people. Augustus, of course, was not aware of her complete information in regard to his "property qualifications," and attributed her disfavor to personal dislike. Whatever her motives, however, her actions were unequivocal; and Terpsichore, especially, had a sorry time of it. So uncomfortable did matters become, that, upon a review of the situation, and an eloquent appeal from Augustus, she consented to take with him that irrevocable step, to which Virgil undoubtedly alluded under the fine figure of "Descensus Averni." In plain English, they resolved to run away and be married.

I will not weary the reader with details of the preliminaries. They are unimportant to my narrative. A note, dispatched by Augustus to the Rev. Ebenezer Fiscuel, informed that gentleman that about half-past ten o'clock of an appointed evening he would be waited on by a couple desirous of being united in holy matrimony.

Augustus arranged to have a carriage in waiting under Terpsichore's window about ten o'clock, and, with the aid of a ladder and the above-mentioned clergyman, he hoped to settle the vexed question of the property, and render all further opposition to their union of an _ex post facto_ character.

The evening came, and it found Mrs. Taragon and her daughter seated together in the parlor. Terpsichore was crocheting a net, which, like Penelope's, grew very slowly. She was nervous and fidgety. Her eyes wandered restlessly from her mother to the door, and she started at the slightest sound. Mrs. Taragon seemed uncommonly suspicious and alert. She was reading, but had not turned a leaf for half an hour. She glanced furtively and continually about the room.

"She has found us out," thought Terpsichore, and her heart almost stopped beating. With a great effort she controlled herself, and had recourse to stratagem.

"Mother, dear," she said, dropping the net in her lap, "you look tired; why don't you go to bed?"

"Oh, no, darling," said the widow, cheerfully, "I don't feel a bit weary. But your eyes look red, and I think _you_ had better retire."

"No, mamma, not yet," she replied. "I want to finish this net. I have done so little upon it lately."

A slight shade of vexation crossed the face of the widow.

"If you had devoted yourself to the net," she said, spitefully, "it would have been finished."

Terpsichore blushed guiltily. Augustus had spent more than two hours with her that day; and she felt a presentiment that impending wrath was about to descend on her devoted head.

"I am sure, mother," she said, quietly, "_you_ can't complain of my seeing too much company."

This shot told; for Mr. Pompadour had been very attentive of late.

Mrs. Taragon nearly tore a leaf out of her book.

"At any rate," she retorted, "my visitors are respectable."

Terpsichore's lip quivered. The remark was cruel, but it roused her spirit.

"If my company is not respectable," she said, with an incipient sob, "it is the fault of his bringing up."

Mr. Pompadour was hit this time, right between his eyes. The widow blazed.

"You--you--you minx," she said, angrily, "I believe you'd like to see me dead, and out of your way!"

The remark was utterly irrelevant; but she saw it in the book, and thought it would be dramatic.

Terpsichore burst into tears, and beat a retreat in disorder. As she left the room, Mrs. Taragon said to herself, with a sigh of relief,--

"Well, the coast is clear for Pompadour,--and she's safe for to-night, any way."

Which was a slight mistake.

Ten o'clock came, and with it the carriage. A man glided silently underneath Terpsichore's window, and a ladder was reared against the wall. Silently the window opened, and a form descended the ladder, and was clasped in an equally silent embrace at the foot. Terpsichore had not entirely recovered her spirits, but she stifled her emotions for the sake of Augustus. For the same reason she did not scold him for rumpling her bonnet. Hurrying into the carriage, they drove rapidly away.

As they turned the corner into the principal street, another carriage, going in the same direction, came up behind them at a quick trot. Augustus sprang to his feet, and peered out into the darkness. "Betrayed," was the thought which flashed through his mind, and he muttered an eighteen-cornered oath. Terpsichore clung to his coat with an energy which indirectly reflected lasting credit upon his tailor.

"Put on more steam," whispered Augustus hoarsely to the driver, and the horses dashed onward at a break-neck pace, soon leaving the other carriage far behind.

At the rate they were going, it took but a few minutes to reach the parsonage. Directing the coachman to drive round the corner and wait, Augustus half-led, half-carried the trembling girl into the house. The Rev. Fiscuel's family and one or two neighbors were assembled in the parlor. The ceremony was soon performed, and an earnest blessing invoked upon the married life of the young people. As they were receiving the congratulations suited to the occasion, a juvenile Fiscuel came in, and whispered something to his father. Mr. Fiscuel, with a smile, turned to Augustus, saying, "My son tells me that your father is coming in at the gate with a lady."

The newly-married looked at each other in mute surprise. "I'll bet a hat," exclaimed Augustus, suddenly, "it's your mother; and they've come to get married!"

The Rev. Ebenezer spoke eagerly: "Did you send me two messages this morning?"

"No!" said Augustus; "of course I did not."

"Then they have, verily," exclaimed the clergyman, in a tone of very unclerical excitement; "for I received two messages from 'Mr. Pompadour.' I spoke of the singularity at the time."

"Can you hide us somewhere?" said Augustus, "till you've 'done' the old gentleman?"

"Come in here," said Mrs. Fiscuel, who had her share of that leaven of unrighteousness which is usually called fun. As she spoke, she opened the drawing-room door.

The Rev. Ebenezer sat down to write a certificate for Augustus; and, as one door closed upon the young couple, the other opened to admit the older one. If not in as great a hurry as their children, they seemed equally desirous of making assurance doubly sure. The family and the witnesses, who had followed Mrs. Fiscuel out of the apartment, were again summoned, and, for a second time that evening, the words were spoken which made a Pompadour and a Taragon "one bone and one flesh." Watching the proceedings through the crevice of the half-opened door, was a couple not counted among the "witnesses," and certainly not invited by the principals.

When the ceremony was over, Augustus and Terpsichore entered the room. Their appearance created what "Jenkins" would call "a profound sensation." Mr. Pompadour looked bowie-knives and six-shooters, Mrs. P., darning-needles and stilettoes. Augustus was self-possessed. Perhaps he remembered the old saying, "Let those laugh who win."

"We happened here not knowing you were coming," he said, addressing both; "wont you accept our congratulations."

Suddenly Mrs. Pompadour _née_ Trelawney, gave a scream, and fell back in a chair, with symptoms of hysterics. She had caught sight of the _ring_ on her daughter's finger, and comprehended everything in an instant,--the carriage which had fled before them as they left the house; this "accidental" visit to the minister's; and, worse than all, how she had been outwitted!

Terpsichore sprang forward to assist her.

"Go away from me! Go away! Don't let her touch me!" she screamed, throwing her arms about like a wind-mill. "I wont have it! I wont! I wont!"

Mr. Pompadour, during this outburst, showed signs of exasperation; apparently, however, he did not see the point, but was fast concluding that he had married a lunatic.

Terpsichore was frightened and began to cry. Augustus, to reässure her, put his arm around her waist. At this, the senior Mrs. Pompadour sprang up, and seized her husband by the arm, so energetically that it made him wince. Pointing to the tell-tale ring with a gesture worthy of Ristori, she managed to articulate: "Don't you see it? That undutiful girl has married Augustus, and--and he has married _her_!"

Mr. Pompadour "saw it," and uttered some words which were not a blessing.

THE PROPER USE OF GRANDFATHERS.

THE PROPER USE OF GRANDFATHERS.

If people without grandfathers are in need of any particular solace, they may find it in the fact that those cumbrous contingencies of existence cannot be continually stuck in their faces. A wise man has remarked, that the moderns are pigmies standing upon the shoulders of giants. He would have been wiser still, had he observed how frequently the giants change places with the pigmies, and ride them to death like Old Men of the Sea. If, at sixteen, I have the dyspepsia and a tendency to reflect on the problems of my being, I am begged to notice that, at a corresponding period old Jones, of the alternate generation, was gambolling o'er the dewy meads, a gleesome boy. If my baby cries and is puny at teething-time, the oracles, with an intuitive perception how my grandfather behaved a hundred years before they were born, tell me it was not so in his day; that heaven lay about him in his infancy; but that none of the article exists either in that loose condition or otherwise for the immature human animal who breaks out of darkness and mystery into this day of gum-rings. If the tremendous pace at which the modern world is going knocks me up at forty, and compels me to keep my stall for a year of valetudinarianism, I am asked to remember what a hale old fellow the same inevitable ancestor was at ninety; I am inundated with his exuberance of spirits, overwhelmed with the statistics of his teeth; and invited in the mind's eye (in my own, too, if I know myself!) to take six-mile walks with him before breakfast unassisted by a cane. It is not a pleasant state of mind to be disgusted with one's forefathers, who would, probably have been very jolly fellows to know, and not the least in the world like the people who are all the time boring us about them. If there is truth in spiritualism, a delegation from those fine old boys will, some of these days, take advantage of a sitting, and rap out an indignant disclaimer of the bosh that is talked in their name. If my grandfather was not a much more unpleasant person than myself, he would scorn to be made a boguey of for the annoyance of his own flesh and blood. Any man of well-regulated mind must prefer utter oblivion among his descendants to such perpetuation as that of Mr. Wilfer.

"Your grandpapa," retorted Mrs. Wilfer, with an awful look, and in an awful tone, "was what I describe him to have been, and would have struck any of his grandchildren to the earth who presumed to question it."

If our ancestors could return to the earth, it is little likely that their first inclination would be to goody themselves over the excellence of their own period, or pull faces at the degeneracy of ours. Sleepers in ill-ventilated, or rather entirely non-ventilated apartments, eaters of inordinate late suppers, five-bottle men, and for the most part wearers of sadly unphilosophical raiment, those sturdy old fox-hunters would acknowledge it just cause for astonishment that their children have any constitutions at all. Little motive for self-laudation would they find in the fact, that, after drawing out their account with Nature to the last dime, they had taken a respectable first-cabin passage to the Infinite Boulogne just before the great Teller said "No funds," and shoved back their checks through the window, leaving to their children the heritage of a spotless name and the declaration of physiological bankruptcy.