"That's true romantick," whispered Betty. "See him bow, see him stand up tall and white like a great wax candle."
The swansdown tippet rose and fell to the beating of the eager heart beneath.
"My charmer takes the sun like a flower," said Mr. Vernon, bending over her hand.
Betty's eyes were a very quick and fiery blue as she turned away to her post, and, indeed, the scene would have ravished a block.
Never were yews so dark and velvety, so full of whispered secrets, as the gentle wind stirred their crisped leaves continually. In a silence made by cushions of moss set with many green stars that muffled every footstep, the stone image of Cupid, poised upon his damp-stained pedestal caught from the February sunlight the veritable bloom and semblance of divinity.
Vernon, as he led Phyllida to the seat and saw her eyes flash over the swansdown muff, was sure that such beauty must capture something of the permanence expressed by the statue and remain for ever young, for ever provocative of desire.
High over their heads a flight of pigeons circled against the azure, gathered and broke into a scattered multitude of snowy wings whose fluttering echoes travelled along the sunlight to the sombre heart of the Maze.
The simple grace with which Phyllida seated herself held Vernon entranced. He could have sworn that the stone wings of the Cupid trembled faintly as if, animate and inanimate, the whole world stood ready to scale the empyrean. Blinded by an ecstasy of hope, the man forgot himself, discarded the mean ambitions that for so long had guided his actions, and conceived the idea of a fresher existence. Great moments, like great men, have a solitary life, and there was nothing in Phyllida to respond to the fire which he had waked from a pile of ashes. Actually she was wondering whether her dear Amor had remembered Valentine day, whether, indeed, his burning gaze was a prelude to the offer of a trinket.
"'Tis surely a pleasant Valentine morning," she murmured screwing up her eyes to the sun.
Vernon cursed the want of practice with young misses which had let him forget what every fair esteemed a man's sacred duty. However, he was a resourceful gentleman and, without any perceptible hesitation, produced from his pocket a paste brooch cut to the likeness of a basket of twinkling blue forget-me-nots.
The history of this little ornament possesses enough irony to warrant a short digression. It used to hang in the window of a Midland toy-shop, and had made a pretty birthday gift from a young man deep in love to his betrothed. She wore it in her kerchief for ten years and sent it at last to her lover in London with some other trinkets not very valuable, but all of the same fresh beauty. At the bottom of the packet was a faded sprig of whitethorn. The young gentleman--not quite so young now--opened it as a London dawn empearled the city smoke. It had lain all day in his room neglected while the dice-box rattled like a skeleton at the feast of Love--a feast of pimps and blowsy carmine furies. The contents of the packet went with the last of his guineas, and at the division of the stake Mr. Vernon contemptuously accepted the brooch. The latter never troubled himself to take the ornament out of his pocket. Now once more it came back to Youth and Beauty.
As she pinned it to her kerchief, Phyllida thanked him for his sweet thoughtfulness, and wondered if he would always remember this morning.
By this time, Vernon had clambered down from his mountain top. Perhaps the brooch made his descent more easy. Yet I think he was sincere when he swore he would never forget.
Anyway Phyllida believed him and so there is nothing more to be said.
"When we are wed," she began, and startled him with such an abrupt disclosure of her dreams. "When we are wed, I think we will live in Hyde Park. Where is Hyde Park?"
"On the confines of Kensington, my dear."
"Yes, but where is Kensington?"
"A mile or so Westward of Temple Bar."
"I think we will live in Kensington."
"Nay, prithee! would you have us die of dullness."
"Is Kensington dull?"
"'Tis very rustick. No! my charmer shall lodge in the Haymarket."
Phyllida pouted. There was a Haymarket in the country town to which she made an occasional visit from the little village of Newton Candover, and she remembered it as a dusty spot not fit for a new pair of shoes.
"I vow I should detest the Haymarket."
"Nay, 'tis the gayest place, with hackney coaches passing to and fro all day. You shall sit at your window and all the fine ladies of rank and fashion will envy you."
"And what will my Amor be doing?"
"He will be looking over his angel's shoulder."
"Then they'll envy me more than ever," said Phyllida with a contented laugh. Vernon pressed her hand and looked round quickly as a man will before he attempts the first kiss. But Phyllida drew back.
"What shall we do when we are tired of sitting at the windows--if one could ever tire of anything so pleasant," she added with a sigh.
"We'll call a hackney-coach and drive to Westminster Steps, to the river."
"To the river? Now that will be most diverting."
"And we'll hail the waterman with the most elegant wherry, and row up through the dusk to Vauxhall."
Phyllida was staring at him with the round eyes of a child who listens to an old fairy-tale.
"Then what should we do?" she asked earnestly.
"We should choose a box for two and sit with our elbows over a very small table and look at each other just as we are looking now."
"Yes! go on," cried Phyllida clapping her hands.
"Then we should call for chicken-wings and eat our supper and listen to the new song and the musick of the orchestra playing the finest tunes high up among a thousand sparkling coloured lamps and watch the masqueraders and row back to Westminster under a great moon."
Mr. Vernon was so much inspired by the interest of his listener that he began to believe in the reality of this proposed idyll, quite forgetting that it was a chastened account of a hundred similar adventures enjoyed with the domino passion of a night.
"Vauxhall must be the properest place in the world," sighed Phyllida, "I doubt everybody wears their jewels."
"Everybody," replied her lover with a quick glance.
"I should wear my pearls."
"Your pearls?"
"My necklace that was left by Grandmother Courteen. Mamma won't let me wear it till I'm one-and-twenty."
"But supposing you ran away?"
"Oh I should never dare. I should be frightened."
Vernon changed the subject, perceiving at present the courtship was nothing more serious than a Springtime diversion.
He told himself if the child surrendered to his blandishments, it would be an easy matter to induce her to run away. He must weave a strong web of personal attraction round her, and if her prudence sustained her to the end, why perhaps he might commit himself to a serious offer of marriage. He must inquire further into her fortune. He wished it were not so difficult to put an arm round her waist. Innocence was very well and the prospect of a siege amusing enough at first, but a long deferred capitulation would be immensely fatiguing; and yet how charming she was. Not for anything would he have her different.
"When we are wed," he began and for the first time echoed her lately expressed hopes. In some way he felt that she would be to blame, if harm came of it. She had given the cue.
"When we are wed, we shall go to routs."
"But we shall be old and wise and able to go then. It won't be near so diverting then as 'twould be now--if you came to the Assemblies."
"My angel forgets the risque of discovery."
"There could be no more danger in that than there is in sitting here in the Maze."
"Come!"
"I'm sure if we were prudent nobody would suspect us of a love-affair."
"But consider my ardour. 'Twould illuminate the whole matter."
"Well! and if the old maids did talk, they would only talk into their teacups and every one knows that to be monstrous ungenteel behaviour. Lud! I've been censured before. Why, when I was but sixteen I was the talk of the ballroom because I stepped four gavottes with Dicky Combleton, Squire Combleton's youngest son. Every one said I was a forward minx, and he's only a year older than me and that's only last year." Phyllida became very indignant, and Mr. Vernon who lacked humour became very indignant too at being compared to a bumpkin.
"Surely my angel sees the circumstances are slightly altered?"
He clasped her hand, and stroked it slowly, but she was not to be pacified and drew it away.
"For my part, I don't know how you dare say you care for my reputation and sit here holding my hand. Walls have ears and hedges have eyes."
"You would not withdraw your hand if you were sure we were not observed?"
She made no reply.
"Possibly," he went on, "you would let me kiss those sweet lips to a smile--if we were not observed?"
"Indeed, I vow you should never do anything so indelicate."
"Z----ds! my pretty Puritan----" he stopped because Phyllida's eyes were very wide open indeed.
"Oh Sir! no one but a father or a very old man has the right to swear so dreadfully before a maid."