Lesbia Newman (1889)/Chapter 8
CHAPTER VIII.
Mr Lockstable’s Courtship.
Mr Bristley did not talk about his sister’s dream, but it haunted him, and obscure hints which he let fall involuntarily betrayed the current of his thoughts.
‘What shall we name the pup, now we have got him, Uncle Spines?’ asked his niece one morning in the garden.
‘What do you say to a Scriptural name?’ he asked, in reply. ‘How would it be to call him Maher-shalal-hash-baz?’
‘A nice name to call up and down stairs!’ said Lesbia, laughing. ‘Mayors-shall’olloa-hodge-podge—that’s what people would turn it into. But what does it mean?’
‘Spoil is nigh, pillage hasteneth.’
‘No, no. I won't have my cub christened by such an ominous name, uncle. I’ve just thought of a good name for a white bulldog—Gossamer. It shortens well too. Goss! Goss!’
‘Yes, that’s a very good name, and, as you say, just suitable to a bull. Talking of dogs reminds me of another dependant of man, the horse. I want to see you start in the reformation of horseback for women, Lesbie. Having begun with the bicycle, this will come easy to you, and will be more easy for others to copy you in. It is not quite so novel, and has no element of danger.’
‘Do you mean riding astride on horseback?’
‘Just so. The lady’s side-seat is the curse of the riding world. Foolish, awkward, uncomfortable, unsafe, there is not a good word to be said for it. It belongs to the age of tattooing and nose-rings.’
‘I agree with you, Uncle Spines. I’ve often thought that circus girls riding astride are the only females who ever look well on horseback. But when and where shall I begin?’
‘We'll take out the old pony and practise you a bit over gaps. When you get beyond him, I'll find you a proper mount. I shall consider that I spend money on an important social duty.’
The pony was a tough one who could bear a little knocking about, and in a few days Lesbia was quite at home in her new and more natural position on horseback. One afternoon, while she was practising backwards and forwards over a hedge and ditch on the glebe land, her uncle watching the performance, there appeared on the scene, from a gate which opened into the bottom of the field out of a lane, screened by a high bullfinch, three visitors, two ladies and a gentleman. They came just in time to see Lesbia get her third tumble, the edge of the ditch breaking under the pony’s fore feet as he landed. The nimble young girl was up in a moment and mounted again as they came within distance to be recognised.
‘Why, uncle!’ she exclaimed, ‘if here isn’t Mr Lockstable under the protection of Letitia and Rose! How did you find us out?’ she asked them as they approached.
‘We called at the vicarage,’ answered Athelstan, ‘and that maid of yours, Feefofumsquintingpot, eh?’
‘How absurd you are, Mr Lockstable!’ Lesbia laughed; ‘you never get that precious girl’s name right. Fidgfumblasquidiot, can’t you say?’
‘Fiddlefumblehisidiot—no go—give it up.’
Lesbia shrieked.
‘Yes, you’d better give it up; why don’t you call her simply Fidge, as I do?’
‘Well, Fidge, then; she told us you had the pony out for practice, and as we knew there are no hedges about here except in this direction, we struck right.’
‘But how did you three get allied?’ asked the vicar. ‘Blemmyketts, Dimpleton, and Lockstable, an unlikely firm, eh? almost as unlikely as those people in that book, you know—what’s it called?—dear me—’
‘Oh, ah, yes, indeed,’ chimed in Mr Lockstable, ‘what the deuce is the book called, and what the devil’s the name of those people, you know, Miss Dimpleton, hang me, Miss Dimpleton—’
‘I think the subject is not worth pursuing, Mr Lockstable,’ said Rose, with a severe frown. But she might as well have frowned at a guide-post, for Athelstan was already rapt.
‘Well, Lesbia, you soon pick up the bits, I will say,’ observed Miss Blemmyketts, as she clasped her young friend’s hand. ‘And so glad to see you ride in that rational style. Some Philadelphian girls who were staying with us did it, but I guess they didn’t tumble over fences as you do.’
‘You've none of you told me yet, Miss Blemmyketts, how you three came to be in company,’ said the vicar.
‘Well, you see, Miss Dimpleton’s our mutual friend, and Mr Lockstable happened to be making tracks here too, to see Lesbia’s reformed riding, and we met him just as he reached the vicarage. That’s how we came together, Mr Bristley, and not for nothing; but I hope Lesbia won’t break her neck.’
‘If I had considered that, Letty,’ said Lesbia, ‘I should never have learnt the bicycle. One thinks very little of falls from horseback, after one has been thrown over the head of a bike. Of course, one must be reasonably prudent on the machine, and trust the rest to luck.’
‘Luck? I should prefer to place my trust higher than that, Lesbia,’ said Rose Dimpleton, with a serious look at her.
‘Quite right, Miss Dimpleton; we are all of us too thoughtless,’ said the vicar. ‘By the way, how are you progressing in your studies?’
‘Thanks, my preparation goes on satisfactorily. But I should like to talk with you one day, Mr Bristley, since you are so kind as to ask me, about the Athanasian Creed.’
‘With pleasure,’ he replied. ‘But you select a very difficult subject. I am quite inclined to believe that the compilation is that of a thinker, and that the spiritual constitution of man is its real theme. But it is a pity the thoughts are wrapped up in terms so far-fetched and obscure. The literal meaning is, of course, worthless.’
‘Is it, Mr Bristley? I don’t find it so obscure, but, of course, you know best. I should have thought it was manifest enough that the main theme of the Athanasian Creed is simply the greatest of the mysteries we are bound to receive, that of—’
‘Quirk, Gammon & Snap, bless your soul and body!’ roared Mr Lockstable into her face, with the usual resounding slap on his thigh. ‘Quirk, Gammon & Snap, those are your three chappies, eh?’ still at Rose Dimpleton, and with a second slap that actually brushed the front of her black fur tippet as it descended.
‘For shame!’ cried the poor girl, flushing crimson, while the two other girls screamed, and Mr Bristley turned away before he could control himself sufficiently to say in a quiet tone,—
‘With all deference to your theological acumen, of which I have the highest opinion, Mr Lockstable, I think you are making a slight confusion between the Athanasian Creed and Ten Thousand a Year. Unless I err—which is possible—the respectable trio you name belong to the novel, not to the Creed.’
‘Aw—yes, that’s correct, Bristley,’ drawled the invocator. ‘I wasn’t thinking of creeds; in fact, I didn’t quite hear what you were all saying. Miss Dimpleton, I apologise. Sorry to have been at cross purposes; but surely you didn’t think I meant to imply that Mr Oily Gammon had anything to do with your creed? Should be awfully sorry.’
‘You only put your foot in it more the further you go, Lockstable; you’d better not apologise,’ laughed the vicar.
Rose Dimpleton gazed at him in stern silence.
‘No; but really I hope you will forgive my awkwardness, Miss Dimpleton. On your own principles as a Christian, you should,’ looking at her piteously.
Rose relented, smiling sweetly.
‘So your principles are zot those of a Christian, then? Well, say no more about it, Mr Lockstable. I see you can’t help it, and I don’t believe you mean any harm.’
‘I don’t indeed,’ he replied; ‘and in any case I should never mean any to you, I feel so uncomfortable when you are angry with me.’
‘I’m not at all angry now,’ she said gently.
‘Tell you what,’ Miss Blemmyketts half whispered to Lesbia, ‘I guess friend Rose’s forgiveness is getting a little more than Christian.’
‘No?’ exclaimed Athelstan. ‘Not angry at all! Bravo! Then I feel all jolly again, as jolly, sir, as that fellow Eno, whom his daughter Lottie translated into a pillar of Fruit Salt—eh? But I'll not quote Scripture any more in your presence, Miss Dimpleton; I only make a mess of it.’
‘Yes, you do,’ said Rose, facing him with a boldness of look and tone which none present had ever known her exhibit before, and which took Athelstan Lockstable quite aback; a pleasant tremor ran through him, and he remained silent. Miss Blemmyketts nudged Lesbia, who nodded in reply, and even Mr Bristley involuntarily raised his eyebrows for the moment.
‘I sorter kinder guess you’re potted, my mannikin,’ said Letitia, loudly enough only to be heard by Lesbia; but Lockstable met and understood the look Miss Blemmyketts fastened upon him, and he stood as one dazed with the suddenness of the prospect. He had never until now thought of Rose Dimpleton but as an acquaintance, but now there could be no doubt in his mind that she had taken a strong fancy to him, that the little collisions between them had broken the ice and ended in attraction. Why not, after all? She was a little young to marry, but they could wait a year or two if necessary. He had means to marry any girl who would have him, and he would choose her. Done; they would come to an understanding; the sooner the better. Miss Blemmyketts read everything that was passing in his mind, and good-naturedly gave him a lift.
‘Lesbia,’ she said, ‘when you have done your practising, I should like to have a talk with you.’
‘By all means,’ she rejoined. ‘I’ve knocked this poor beast about enough to-day; suppose we go back, uncle.’
On entering the house the two girls excused themselves, and retired to Lesbia’s bedroom; the vicar did his part by saying,—
‘I’m going to be unceremonious with you, Miss Dimpleton, I have business that may keep me half-an-hour or more; do you think now that if I were to leave you two alone together for that space, you could refrain from breaking each other’s heads over some knotty point in theology?’
‘I think we could, Mr Bristley,’ Rose said.
There is no need to inflict upon the reader the commonplaces of a young couple who have just discovered that they are made for each other; such interviews generally are much in the same strain and have much the same ending. Lesbia and Letitia, meanwhile, had begun their têfe-à-tête.
‘Changed in the twinkling of a bedpost, isn’t she?’ said Letitia. ‘Ah, these pious girls, when they do lay hold of their man, they grip like a grizzly b’ar, no getting out of the clutch; but I guess Lockstable will find his rose a sweet one. I like her, spite of her piety; she'll get over that when she begins married life.’
‘My uncle would say, Letitia, that it is not desirable to get over piety. He would rather see it directed into its proper channel—woman-worship.’
‘No doubt; but how long must we wait for that?’
‘Not so long as many people suppose,’ replied Lesbia. ‘The pace is increasing, and if it increase up to a smash, all the better for the cause. But to come down from great matters to the small one we’ve been handling to-day, won’t you join me in my reformed horseback initiative? You're a good rider, I suppose?’
‘Yes, yes, as ladies go. I'll back you up by all means, and we'll go together. Blest pair of syrens, eh?’
We will suppose the curtain to drop upon the remainder of this interview and to rise again an hour afterwards upon the drawing-room, where enter our blest pair of syrens, followed by the vicar, to find Miss Dimpleton and Mr Lockstable sitting hand-in-hand upon the sofa in the bay-window, both looking radiant.
‘I publish the banns of marriage,’ gave out Mr Bristley in a nasal monotone, ‘between divers sorts and conditions of persons here assembled. If any of you know any just cause or impediment why these parties, collectively, should not be joined together in holy matrimony, ye are now to declare it.’
‘Then I declare,’ said Lesbia, on the spur of the moment, ‘that two of them are male-factors, and therefore ineligible to the agapemone.’
‘Oh, indeed, that is the reason, is it? how very interesting!’ said Mr Bristley.
Rose gave a keen glance at Lesbia and her friend, and the Vicar of Dulham looked like anything rather than a country parson as he bowed ceremoniously to his niece, gently rubbing his hands over each other.
‘But, seriously,’ he resumed, recovering his ordinary manner, ‘I trust we may felicitate both you, Miss Dimpleton, and you, Mr Lockstable, on having at least explained away your occasional misunderstandings and become fast friends?’
‘Yes, we're all right, thanks, Bristley,’ answered Athelstan; ‘in fact, one needn’t beat round the bush. Miss Dimpleton has promised to think of no man but me when the time comes for her to choose a husband.’
‘That is what I hoped, and I congratulate you heartily.’
‘And I accept your good wishes with equal heartiness, Mr Bristley,’ said Rose. ‘But, Lesbia, dear, we’ve been very selfish, monopolising the drawing-room so long. How dull Letitia and you must have been, shut up together all this time, just that Mr Lockstable—I may call him Athelstan now—might discuss affairs with me!’
‘Not a bit, my dear Rose, I asssure you,’ answered Lesbia carelessly; ‘we’ve been discussing the question of reformed horseback for women, and we’ve settled to work together in it as soon as circumstances permit.’
‘That means as soon as you have a proper mount, Lesbie,’ observed her uncle, smiling. ‘Well, I'll do my best to bring about that concourse of atoms. Miss Blemmyketts, I presume, can mount herself.’
‘Easily,’ she replied. ‘Binns of Frogmore lets out nags which will do for me. I’m pretty good at the old side seat, but I shall have to practise this new one, as Lesbia does.’
‘Then I hope to see you make an appearance together in the hunting field before long,’ said the vicar.
‘Nothing I should like better,’ said Miss Blemmyketts.
‘But, uncle,’ Lesbia objected, ‘how about our dresses? These knickers and brown gaiters of mine do well enough for pony-practice, but if we’re to appear at a meet, we ought to be dressed well.’
‘Certainly, Lesbie,’ returned her uncle. ‘I would suggest the body to be of an ordinary cloth ladies’ riding-habit. In place of the skirt, of course, tights—that is, knee-breeches of some strong stuff, say kersey or Bedford cord, buttoning, or better lacing, far enough below the knee not to ruck up and show a gap between them and the boot, which looks very untidy. Boots to be of thick patent leather and level at the top like a top-boot, not hollowed out behind like the military; I don’t like that. Plated spurs, without rowels, which I consider both cruel and dangerous. For headgear, you'll do nothing better than a stiff black felt shooting-hat, very solid. The chimney-pot, however low, is an abomination of the heathen, and the billycock is rather undress. Gloves, tan deerskin, better than dogskin. Hunting-crop without the thong, which is a nuisance, and there you are complete. Cost of the whole about seven pounds, I should say.’
‘Very nice indeed, Uncle Spines; don’t you think so Letty?’
‘Very. I'll ask you to give the order for me too, Mr Bristley; you seem to understand it.’
‘Au revoir, then, Letty,’ said Lesbia, ‘we'll drop you a line.’
The others took their leave at the same time, and at the bottom of the garden met Mrs Newman and Mrs Bristley coming in from a walk.
‘Mamma,’ said Lesbia, ‘I expect shortly to have a new surprise for you.’
‘I doubt that, Lesbie,’ replied her mother. ‘I am never surprised now at anything you may say or do. But you won't broach it at the clerical meeting to-morrow, I hope?’
‘Oh, no; it’s not important enough for that.’