CHAPTER XVI
SHAM LOVE
One day Phemy went to Castle Weelset to see her aunt, and, walking down
the garden to find her, met the young laird.
Through respect for the memory of his father, he had just received from
the East India Company a commission in his father's regiment; and
having in about six weeks to pass the slight examination required, and
then sail to join it, had come to see his mother and bid her goodbye.
He was a youth no longer, but a handsome young fellow, with a pale face
and a rather weary, therefore what some would call an interesting look.
For many months he had been leading an idle life.
He lifted his hat to Phemy, looked again, and recognised her. They had
been friends when she was a child, but since he saw her last she had
grown a young woman. She was gliding past him with a pretty bow, and a
prettier blush and smile, when he stopped and held out his hand.
'It's not possible!' he said; 'you can't be little Phemy!--Yet you must
be!--Why, you're a grown lady! To think how you used to sit on my knee,
and stroke my face! How is your father?'
Phemy murmured a shy answer, a little goose but blushing a very
flamingo. In her heart she saw before her the very man for her hero. A
woman's hero gives some measure, not of what she is, hardly of what she
would like to be, but of what she would like to pass for: here was the
ideal for which Phemy had so long been waiting, and wherein consisted
his glory? In youth, position, and good looks! She gazed up at him with
a mixture of shyness and boldness not uncommon in persons of her silly
kind, and Francis not only saw but felt that she was an unusually
pretty girl: although he had long ceased to admire his mother, he still
admired the sort of beauty she once had. He saw also that she was very
prettily dressed, and, being one of those men who, imagining themselves
gentlemen, feel at liberty to take liberties with women socially their
inferiors, he plucked a pheasant-eye-narcissus in the border, and
said--at the same time taking the leave he asked,--
'Let me finish your dress by adding this to it! Have you got a
pin?--There!--all you wanted to make you just perfect!'
Her face was now in a very flame. She saw he was right in the flower he
had chosen, and he saw, not his artistic success only, but her
recognition of it as well, and was gratified. He had a keen feeling of
harmony in form and colour, and flattered women, while he paraded his
own insight, by bringing it to bear on their dress.
The flower, in its new position, seemed radiant with something of the
same beauty in which it was set; it was _like_ the face above it, and
hinted a sympathetic relation with the whole dainty person of the girl.
But in truth there was more expression in the flower than was yet in
the face. The flower expressed what God was thinking of when he made
it; the face what the girl was thinking of herself. When she ceased
thinking of herself then, like the flower, she would show what God was
thinking of when he made her.
Francis, like the man he was, thought what a dainty little lady she
would make if he had the making of her, and at once began talking as he
never would have talked had she been what is conventionally called a
lady--with a familiarity, namely, to which their old acquaintance gave
him no right, and which showed him not his sister's keeper. She, poor
child, was pleased with his presumption, taking it for a sign that he
regarded her as a lady; and from that moment her head at least was full
of the young laird. She had forgotten all she came about. When he
turned and walked down the garden, she walked alongside of him like a
linnet by a tall stork, who thought of her as a very pretty green frog.
Lost in delight at his kindness, and yet more at his admiration, she
felt as safe in his hands as if he had been her guardian angel: had he
not convinced her that her notion of herself was correct! Who should
know better whether she was a lady, whether she was lovely or not, than
this great, handsome, perfect gentleman! Unchecked by any question of
propriety, she accompanied him without hesitation into a little arbour
at the bottom of the garden, and sat down with him on the bench there
provided for the weary and the idle--in this case a going-to-be gallant
officer, bored to death by a week at home with his mother, and a girl
who spent the most of her time in making, altering, and wearing her
dresses.
'How good it was of you, Phemy,' he said, 'to come and see me! I was
ready to cut my throat for want of something pretty to look at. I was
thinking it the ugliest place with the ugliest of people, wondering how
I had ever been able to live in it. How unfair I was! The whole country
is beautiful now!'
'I am so glad,' answered poor Phemy, hardly knowing what she said: it
was to her the story of a sad gentleman who fell in love at first sight
with a beautiful lady who was learning to love him through pity.
Her admiration of him was as clear as the red and white on her face;
and foolish Francis felt in his turn flattered, for he too was fond of
himself. There is no more pitiable sight to lovers of their kind, or
any more laughable to its haters, than two persons falling into the
love rooted in self-love. But possibly they are neither to be pitied
nor laughed at; they may be plunging thus into a saving hell.
'You would like to make the world beautiful for me, Phemy?' rejoined
Francis.
'I should like to make it a paradise!' returned Phemy.
'A garden of Eden, and you the Eve in it?' suggested Francis.
Phemy could find no answer beyond a confused look and a yet deeper
blush.
Talk elliptical followed, not unmingled with looks bold and shy. They
had not many objects of thought in common, therefore not many subjects
for conversation. There was no poetry in Gordon, and but the flimsiest
sentiment in Phemy. Her mind was feebly active, his full of tedium.
Hers was open to any temptation from him, and his to the temptation of
usurping the government of her world, of constituting himself the
benefactor of this innocent creature, and enriching her life with the
bliss of loving a noble object. Of course he meant nothing serious!
Equally of course he would do her no harm! To lose him would make her
miserable for a while, but she would not die of love, and would have
something to think about all her dull life afterward!
Phemy at length got frightened at the thought of being found with him,
and together they went to look for her aunt. Finding her in an outhouse
that was used for a laundry, Francis told Mrs. Bremner that they had
been in the garden ever so long searching for her, and he was very glad
of the opportunity of hearing about his old friend, Phemy's father! The
aunt was not quite pleased, but said little.
The following Sunday she told the schoolmaster what had taken place,
and came home in a rage at the idiocy of a man who would not open his
eyes when his house was on fire. It was all her sister's fault, she
said, for having married such a book-idiot! She felt indeed very
uncomfortable, and did her best in the way of warning; but Phemy seemed
so incapable of understanding what ill could come of letting the young
laird talk to her, that she despaired of rousing in her any sense of
danger, and having no authority over her was driven to silence for the
present. She would have spoken to her mistress, had she not plainly
foreseen that it would be of no use, that she would either laugh, and
say young men must have their way, or fly into a fury with Phemy for
trying to entrap her son, and with Mrs. Bremner for imagining he would
look at the hussey; while one thing was certain--that, if his mother
opposed him, Francis would persist.
