"Ah! Poor Pestal! I had forgotten all about our last meeting.""You were very much excited that day," said Mrs.O'Reilly."I had no idea that your political notions--"He interrupted her"Ah! no politics to-day, dear Mrs.O'Reilly.Let us have nothing but enjoyment and harmony.See, now, I will play you something very much more cheerful."And sitting down to the piano, he played the bridal march from 'Lohengrin,' then wandered off into an improvised air, and finally treated them to some recollections of the 'Mikado.'
Lena-Houghton watched him thoughtfully as she put on her gloves; he was playing with great spirit, and the words of the opera rang in her ears:-For he's going to marry Yum-yum, Yum-yum, And so you had better be dumb, dumb, dumb!
I knew well enough that she would not follow this moral advice, and I laughed to myself because the whole scene was such a hollow mockery.The placid benevolent-looking old lady leaning back in her arm-chair; the girl in her blue gingham and straw hat preparing to go to the afternoon service; the happy lover entering heart and soul into Sullivan's charming music; the pretty room with its Chippendale furniture, its aesthetic hangings, its bowls of roses; and the sound of church bells wafted through the open window on the soft summer breeze.
Yet all the time I lingered there unseen, carrying with me all sorts of dread possibilities.I had been introduced into the world, and even if Mrs.O'Reilly had been willing to admit to herself that she had broken the ninth commandment, and had earnestly desired to recall me, all her sighs and tears and regrets would have availed nothing; so true is the saying, "Of thy word unspoken thou art master; thy spoken word is master of thee.""Thank you." "Thank you." "How I envy your power of playing!"The two ladies seemed to vie with each other in making pretty speeches, and Zaluski, who loved music and loved giving pleasure, looked really pleased.I am sure it did not enter his head that his two companions were not sincere, or that they did not wish him well.
He was thinking to himself how simple and kindly the Muddleton people were, and how great a contrast this life was to his life in London; and he was saying to himself that he had been a fool to live a lonely bachelor life till he was nearly thirty, and yet congratulating himself that he had done so since Gertrude was but nineteen.Undoubtedly, he was seeing blissful visions of the future all the time that he replied to the pretty speeches, and shook hands with Lena Houghton, and opened the drawing-room door for her, and took out his watch to assure her that she had plenty of time and need not hurry to church.
Poor Zaluski! He looked so kindly and pleasant.Though I was only a slander, and might have been supposed to have no heart at all, Idid feel sorry for him when I thought of the future and of the grief and pain which would persistently dog his steps.
MY SECOND STAGE
Bear not false witness, slander not, nor lie;Truth is the speech of inward purity.
THE LIGHT OF ASIA.
In my first stage the reader will perceive that I was a comparatively weak and harmless little slander, with merely that taint of original sin which was to be expected in one of such parentage.But I developed with great rapidity; and I believe men of science will tell you that this is always the case with low organisms.That, for instance, while it takes years to develop the man from the baby, and months to develop the dog from the puppy, the baby monad will grow to maturity in an hour.
Personally I should have preferred to linger in Mrs.O'Reilly's pleasant drawing-room, for, as I said before, my victim interested me, and I wanted to observe him more closely and hear what he talked about.But I received orders to attend evensong at the parish church, and to haunt the mind of Lena Houghton.
As we passed down the High Street the bells rang out loud and clear, and they made me feel the same slight sense of discomfort that I had felt when I looked at Zaluski; however, I went on, and soon entered the church.It was a fine old Gothic building, and the afternoon sunshine seemed to flood the whole place; even the white stones in the aisle were glorified here and there with gorgeous patches of colour from the stained glass windows.But the strange stillness and quiet oppressed me, I did not feel nearly so much at home as in Mrs.O'Reilly's drawing-room--to use a terrestrial simile, I felt like a fish out of water.
For some time, too, I could find no entrance at all into the mind of Lena Houghton.Try as I would, I could not distract her attention or gain the slightest hold upon her, and I really believe I should have been altogether baffled, had not the rector unconsciously come to my aid.
All through the prayers and psalms I had fought a desperate fight without gaining a single inch.Then the rector walked over to the lectern, and the moment he opened his mouth I knew that my time had come, and that there was a very fair chance of victory before me.
Whether this clergyman had a toothache, or a headache, or a heavy load on his mind, I cannot say, but his reading was more lugubrious than the wind in an equinoctial gale.I have since observed that he was only a degree worse than many other clerical readers, and that a strange and delightfully mistaken notion seems prevalent that the Bible must be read in a dreary and unnatural tone of voice, or with a sort of mournful monotony; it is intended as a sort of reverence, but I suspect that it often plays into the hands of my progenitor, as it most assuredly did in the present instance.
Hardly had the rector announced, "Here beginneth the forty-fourth verse of the sixteenth chapter of the book of the prophet Ezekiel,"than a sort of relaxation took place in the mind I was attacking.