"Shall I--assist you?" I asked. (I might have known that this was goingtoo far.)
"No, thank you," she said, with polar frigidity. "Good-afternoon." Andshe hopped back to her aunt Celia without another word.
I don't know how to approach aunt Celia. She is formidable. By acurious accident of feature, for which she is not in the leastresponsible, she always wears an unfortunate expression as of oneperceiving some offensive odor in the immediate vicinity. This may be amere accident of high birth. It is the kind of nose often seen in the"first families," and her name betrays the fact that she is of good oldKnickerbocker origin. We go to Wells to-morrow. At least I think we do.
SHE
GLOUCESTER, _June_ 9 The Spread Eagle.
I met him at Wells, and again at Bath. We are always being ridiculous,and he is always rescuing us. Aunt Celia never really sees him, and thusnever recognizes him when he appears again, always as the flower ofchivalry and guardian of ladies in distress. I will never again travelabroad without a man, even if I have to hire one from a Feeble-MindedAsylum. We work like galley slaves, aunt Celia and I, finding out abouttrains and things. Neither of us can understand Bradshaw, and I can'teven grapple with the lesser intricacies of the A B C railway guide. Thetrains, so far as I can see, always arrive before they go out, and I cannever tell whether to read up the page or down. It is certainly veryqueer that the stupidest man that breathes, one that barely escapesidiocy, can disentangle a railway guide, when the brightest woman fails.Even the Boots at the inn in Wells took my book, and, rubbing hisfrightfully dirty finger down the row of puzzling figures, found theplace in a minute, and said, "There ye are, miss." It is veryhumiliating. All the time I have left from the study of routes andhotels I spend on guide-books. Now I'm sure that if any one of the men Iknow were here, he could tell me all that is necessary as we walk alongthe streets. I don't say it in a frivolous or sentimental spirit in theleast, but I do affirm that there is hardly any juncture in life whereone isn't better off for having a man about. I should never dare divulgethis to aunt Celia, for she doesn't think men very nice. She excludesthem from conversation as if they were indelicate subjects.
But, to go on, we were standing at the door of Ye Olde Bell and Horns, atBath, waiting for the fly which we had ordered to take us to the station,when who should drive up in a four-wheeler but the flower of chivalry.Aunt Celia was saying very audibly, "We shall certainly miss the train ifthe man doesn't come at once."
"Pray take this fly," said the flower of chivalry. "I am not leavingtill the next train."
Aunt Celia got in without a murmur; I sneaked in after her. I don'tthink she looked at him, though she did vouchsafe the remark that heseemed to be a civil sort of person.
At Bristol, I was walking about by myself, and I espied a sign, "MarthaHuggins, Licensed Victualer." It was a nice, tidy little shop, with afire on the hearth and flowers in the window, and, as it was rainingsmartly, I thought no one would catch me if I stepped inside to chat withMartha. I fancied it would be so delightful and Dickensy to talk quietlywith a licensed victualer by the name of Martha Huggins.
Just after I had settled myself, the flower of chivalry came in andordered ale. I was disconcerted at being found in a dramshop alone, forI thought, after the bag episode, he might fancy us a family ofinebriates. But he didn't evince the slightest astonishment; he merelylifted his hat, and walked out after he had finished his ale. Hecertainly has the loveliest manners!
And so it goes on, and we never get any further. I like his politenessand his evident feeling that I can't be flirted and talked with like aforward boarding-school miss, but I must say I don't think much of hisingenuity. Of course one can't have all the virtues, but, if I were he,I would part with my distinguished air, my charming ease, in fact almostanything, if I could have in exchange a few grains of common sense, justenough to guide me in the practical affairs of life.
I wonder what he is? He might be an artist, but he doesn't seem quitelike an artist; or a dilettante, but he doesn't seem in the least like adilettante. Or he might be an architect; I think that is the mostprobable guess of all. Perhaps he is only "going to be" one of thesethings, for he can't be more than twenty-five or twenty-six. Still helooks as if he were something already; that is, he has a kind ofself-reliance in his mien,--not self-assertion, nor self-esteem, butbelief in self, as if he were able, and knew that he was able, to conquercircumstances.
HE
GLOUCESTER, _June_ 10 The Bell.
Nothing accomplished yet. Her aunt is a Van Tyck, and a stiff one, too.I am a Copley, and that delays matters. Much depends upon the manner ofapproach. A false move would be fatal. We have six more towns (as peritinerary), and if their thirst for cathedrals isn't slaked when theseare finished we have the entire continent to do. If I could only succeedin making an impression on the retina of aunt Celia's eye! Though I havebeen under her feet for ten days, she never yet has observed me. Thisabsent-mindedness of hers serves me ill now, but it may prove a blessinglater on.
SHE
OXFORD, _June_ 12 The Mitre.
It was here in Oxford that a grain of common sense entered the brain ofthe flower of chivalry. You might call it the dawn of reason. We hadspent part of the morning in High Street, "the noblest old street inEngland," as our dear Hawthorne calls it. As Wordsworth had written asonnet about it, aunt Celia was armed for the fray,--a volume ofWordsworth in one hand, and one of Hawthorne in the other. (I wishBaedeker didn't give such full information about what one ought to readbefore one can approach these places in a proper spirit.) When we haddone High Street, we went to Magdalen College, and sat down on a bench inAddison's Walk, where aunt Celia proceeded to store my mind with theprincipal facts of Addison's career, and his influence on the literatureof the something or other century. The cramming process over, wewandered along, and came upon "him" sketching a shady corner of the walk.
Aunt Celia went up behind him, and, Van Tyck though she is, she could notrestrain her admiration of his work. I was surprised myself: I didn'tsuppose so good looking a youth could do such good work. I retired to asafe distance, and they chatted together. He offered her the sketch; sherefused to take advantage of his kindness. He said he would "dash off"another that evening, and bring it to our hotel,--"so glad to do anythingfor a fellow-countryman," etc. I peeped from behind a tree and saw himgive her his card. It was an awful moment; I trembled, but she read itwith unmistakable approval, and gave him her own with an expression thatmeant, "Yours is good, but beat that if you can!"
She called to me, and I appeared. Mr. John Quincy Copley, Cambridge, waspresented to her niece, Miss Katharine Schuyler, New York. It was over,and a very small thing to take so long about, too.
He is an architect, and of course has a smooth path into aunt Celia'saffections. Theological students, ministers, missionaries, heroes, andmartyrs she may distrust, but architects never!
"He is an architect, my dear Katharine, and he is a Copley," she told meafterwards. "I never knew a Copley who was not respectable, and many ofthem have been more."
After the introduction was over, aunt Celia asked him guilelessly if hehad visited any other of the English cathedrals. Any others, indeed!This to a youth who had been all but in her lap for a fortnight! It wasa blow, but he rallied bravely, and, with an amused look in my direction,replied discreetly that he had visited most of them at one time oranother. I refused to let him see that I had ever noticed him before;that is, particularly.
Memoranda: "The very stones and mortar of this historic town seemimpregnated w
ith the spirit of restful antiquity." (Extract from one ofaunt Celia's letters.) Among the great men who have studied here are thePrince of Wales, Duke of Wellington, Gladstone, Sir Robert Peel, SirPhilip Sidney, William Penn, John Locke, the two Wesleys, Ruskin, BenJonson, and Thomas Otway. (Look Otway up.)
HE
OXFORD, _June_ 13 The Angel.
I have done it, and if I hadn't been a fool and a coward I might havedone it a week ago, and spared myself a good deal of delicious torment.I have just given two hours to a sketch of Addison's Walk and carried itto aunt Celia at the Mitre. Object, to find out whether they make a longstay in London (our next point), and if so where. It seems they godirectly through. I said in the course of conversation, "So MissSchuyler is willing to forego a London season? Marvelous self-denial!"
"My niece did not come to Europe for a London season," replied Miss VanTyck. "We go through London this time merely as a cathedral town, simplybecause it chances to be where it is geographically. We shall visit St.Paul's and Westminster Abbey, and then go directly on, that our chain ofimpressions may have absolute continuity and be free from any disturbingelements."
Oh, but she is lovely, is aunt Celia!
LINCOLN, _June_ 20 The Black Boy Inn.
I am stopping at a beastly little hole, which has the one merit of beingopposite Miss Schuyler's lodgings. My sketch-book has deteriorated inartistic value during the last two weeks. Many of its pages, whileinteresting to me as reminiscences, will hardly do for family or studioexhibition. If I should label them, the result would be something likethis:--
1. Sketch of a footstool and desk where I first saw Miss Schuylerkneeling.
2. Sketch of a carved-oak chair, Miss Schuyler sitting in it.
3. "Angel Choir." Heads of Miss Schuyler introduced into the carving.
4. Altar screen. Full length figure of Miss Schuyler holding lilies.
5. Tomb of a bishop, where I tied Miss Schuyler's shoe.
6. Tomb of another bishop, where I had to tie it again because I did itso badly the first time.
7. Sketch of the shoe; the shoe-lace worn out with much tying.
8. Sketch of the blessed verger who called her "madam," when we werewalking together.
9. Sketch of her blush when he did it the prettiest thing in the world.
10. Sketch of J. Q. Copley contemplating the ruins of his heart.
"How are the mighty fallen!"
SHE
LINCOLN, _June_ 22 At Miss Brown's, Castle Garden.
Mr. Copley _has_ done something in the world; I was sure that he had. Hehas a little income of his own, but he is too proud and ambitious to bean idler. He looked so manly when he talked about it, standing upstraight and strong in his knickerbockers. I like men in knickerbockers.Aunt Celia doesn't. She says she doesn't see how a well-brought-upCopley can go about with his legs in that condition. I would give worldsto know how aunt Celia ever unbent sufficiently to get engaged. But, asI was saying, Mr. Copley has accomplished something, young as he is. Hehas built three picturesque suburban churches suitable for weddings, anda state lunatic asylum.
Aunt Celia says we shall have no worthy architecture until every buildingis made an exquisitely sincere representation of its deepest purpose,--asymbol, as it were, of its indwelling meaning. I should think it wouldbe very difficult to design a lunatic asylum on that basis, but I didn'tdare say so, as Mr. Copley seemed to think it all right. Theirconversation is absolutely sublimated when they get to talking ofarchitecture. I have just copied two quotations from Emerson, and amstudying them every night for fifteen minutes before I go to sleep. I'mgoing to quote them some time offhand, just after morning service, whenwe are wandering about the cathedral grounds. The first is this: "TheGothic cathedral is a blossoming in stone, subdued by the insatiabledemand of harmony in man. The mountain of granite blooms into an eternalflower, with the lightness and delicate finish as well as the aerialproportion and perspective of vegetable beauty." Then when he hasrecovered from the shock of this, here is my second: "Nor can any loverof nature enter the old piles of Oxford and English cathedrals withoutfeeling that the forest overpowered the mind of the builder, and that hischisel, his saw and plane, still reproduced its ferns, its spikes offlowers, its locust, elm, pine, and spruce."
Memoranda: _Lincoln choir is an example of Early English or FirstPointed_, _which can generally be told from something else by boldprojecting buttresses and dog-tooth moulding round the abacusses_. (Theplural is my own, and it does not look right.) _Lincoln Castle was thescene of many prolonged sieges_, _and was once taken by Oliver Cromwell_.
HE
YORK, _June_ 24 The Black Swan.
Kitty Schuyler is the concentrated essence of feminine witchery.Intuition strong, logic weak, and the two qualities so balanced as toproduce an indefinable charm; will-power large, but docility equal, if aman is clever enough to know how to manage her; knowledge of factsabsolutely nil, but she is exquisitely intelligent in spite of it. Shehas a way of evading, escaping, eluding, and then gives you anintoxicating hint of sudden and complete surrender. She is divinelyinnocent, but roguishness saves her from insipidity. Her looks? Shelooks as you would imagine a person might look who possessed thesegraces; and she is worth looking at, though every time I do it I have arush of love to the head. When you find a girl who combines all thequalities you have imagined in the ideal, and who has added a dozen ortwo on her own account, merely to distract you past all hope, why standup and try to resist her charm? Down on your knees like a man, say I!
* * * * *
I'm getting to adore aunt Celia. I didn't care for her at first, but sheis so deliciously blind! Anything more exquisitely unserviceable as achaperon I can't imagine. Absorbed in antiquity, she ignores the babbleof contemporaneous lovers. That any man could look at Kitty when hecould look at a cathedral passes her comprehension. I do not presume toogreatly on her absent-mindedness, however, lest she should turnunexpectedly and rend me. I always remember that inscription on thebacks of the little mechanical French toys,--"Quoiqu'elle soit tressolidement montee, il faut ne pas brutaliser la machine."
And so my courtship progresses under aunt Celia's very nose. I say"progresses," but it is impossible to speak with any certainty ofcourting, for the essence of that gentle craft is hope, rooted in laborand trained by love.
I set out to propose to her during service this afternoon by writing myfeelings on the fly-leaf of the hymn-book, or something like that; but Iknew that aunt Celia would never forgive such blasphemy, and I thoughtthat Kitty herself might consider it wicked. Besides, if she shouldchance to accept me, there was nothing I could do, in a cathedral, torelieve my feelings. No; if she ever accepts me, I wish it to be in alarge, vacant spot of the universe, peopled by two only, and those two soindistinguishably blended, as it were, that they would appear as one tothe casual observer. So I practiced repression, though the wall of myreserve is worn to the thinness of thread-paper, and I tried to keep mymind on the droning minor canon, and not to look at her, "for that waymadness lies."
SHE
YORK, _June_ 26 High Petersgate Street.
My taste is so bad! I just begin to realize it, and I am feeling my"growing pains," like Gwendolen in "Daniel Deronda." I admired thestained glass in the Lincoln Cathedral, especially the Nuremberg window.I
thought Mr. Copley looked pained, but he said nothing. When I went tomy room, I looked in a book and found that all the glass in thatcathedral is very modern and very bad, and the Nuremberg window is theworst of all. Aunt Celia says she hopes that it will be a warning to meto read before I speak; but Mr. Copley says no, that the world would losemore in one way than it would gain in the other. I tried my quotationsthis morning, and stuck fast in the middle of the first.
Mr. Copley says that aunt Celia has been feeing the vergers altogethertoo much, and I wrote a song about it called "The Ballad of the Vergersand the Foolish Virgin," which I sang to my guitar. Mr. Copley says itis cleverer than anything he ever did with his pencil, but of course hesays that only to be agreeable.