A Cathedral Courtship - Kate Douglas Wiggin (best sci fi novels of all time TXT) 📗

shoe, you know, not the caterpillar." Hereupon she came in sight, and I witnessed the somewhat unusual spectacle of my nut-brown mayde hopping on one foot, like a divine stork, and ever and anon emitting a feminine shriek as her off foot, clad in a delicate silk stocking, came in contact with the ground. I rose quickly, and, polishing the patent leather ostentatiously, inside and out, with my handkerchief, I offered it to her with distinguished grace. She swayed on her one foot with as much dignity as possible, and then recognizing me as the person who picked up the contents of aunt Celia's bag, she said, dimpling in the most distracting manner (that's another thing there ought to be a law against), "Thank you again; you seem to be a sort of knight-errant!"

"Shall I--assist you?" I asked. (I might have known that this was going too far.)

"No, thank you," she said, with polar frigidity. "Good-afternoon." And she hopped back to her aunt Celia without another word.

I don't know how to approach aunt Celia. She is formidable. By a curious accident of feature, for which she is not in the least responsible, she always wears an unfortunate expression as of one perceiving some offensive odor in the immediate vicinity. This may be a mere 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 old Knickerbocker 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 thus never recognizes him when he appears again, always as the flower of chivalry and guardian of ladies in distress. I will never again travel abroad without a man, even if I have to hire one from a Feeble-Minded Asylum. We work like galley slaves, aunt Celia and I, finding out about trains and things. Neither of us can understand Bradshaw, and I can't even grapple with the lesser intricacies of the A B C railway guide. The trains, so far as I can see, always arrive before they go out, and I can never tell whether to read up the page or down. It is certainly very queer that the stupidest man that breathes, one that barely escapes idiocy, can disentangle a railway guide, when the brightest woman fails. Even the Boots at the inn in Wells took my book, and, rubbing his frightfully dirty finger down the row of puzzling figures, found the place in a minute, and said, "There ye are, miss." It is very humiliating. All the time I have left from the study of routes and hotels I spend on guide-books. Now I'm sure that if any one of the men I know were here, he could tell me all that is necessary as we walk along the streets. I don't say it in a frivolous or sentimental spirit in the least, but I do affirm that there is hardly any juncture in life where one isn't better off for having a man about. I should never dare divulge this to aunt Celia, for she doesn't think men very nice. She excludes them from conversation as if they were indelicate subjects.

But, to go on, we were standing at the door of Ye Olde Bell and Horns, at Bath, 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 if the man doesn't come at once."

"Pray take this fly," said the flower of chivalry. "I am not leaving till the next train."

Aunt Celia got in without a murmur; I sneaked in after her. I don't think she looked at him, though she did vouchsafe the remark that he seemed to be a civil sort of person.

At Bristol, I was walking about by myself, and I espied a sign, "Martha Huggins, Licensed Victualer." It was a nice, tidy little shop, with a fire on the hearth and flowers in the window, and, as it was raining smartly, I thought no one would catch me if I stepped inside to chat with Martha. I fancied it would be so delightful and Dickensy to talk quietly with a licensed victualer by the name of Martha Huggins.

Just after I had settled myself, the flower of chivalry came in and ordered ale. I was disconcerted at being found in a dramshop alone, for I thought, after the bag episode, he might fancy us a family of inebriates. But he didn't evince the slightest astonishment; he merely lifted his hat, and walked out after he had finished his ale. He certainly has the loveliest manners!

And so it goes on, and we never get any further. I like his politeness and his evident feeling that I can't be flirted and talked with like a forward boarding-school miss, but I must say I don't think much of his ingenuity. 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 almost anything, if I could have in exchange a few grains of common sense, just enough to guide me in the practical affairs of life.

I wonder what he is? He might be an artist, but he doesn't seem quite like an artist; or a dilettante, but he doesn't seem in the least like a dilettante. Or he might be an architect; I think that is the most probable guess of all. Perhaps he is only "going to be" one of these things, for he can't be more than twenty-five or twenty-six. Still he looks as if he were something already; that is, he has a kind of self-reliance in his mien,--not self-assertion, nor self-esteem, but belief in self, as if he were able, and knew that he was able, to conquer circumstances.


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 of approach. A false move would be fatal. We have six more towns (as per itinerary), and if their thirst for cathedrals isn't slaked when these are finished we have the entire continent to do. If I could only succeed in making an impression on the retina of aunt Celia's eye! Though I have been under her feet for ten days, she never yet has observed me. This absent-mindedness of hers serves me ill now, but it may prove a blessing later on.


SHE


OXFORD, _June_ 12

The Mitre.

It was here in Oxford that a grain of common sense entered the brain of the flower of chivalry. You might call it the dawn of reason. We had spent part of the morning in High Street, "the noblest old street in England," as our dear Hawthorne calls it. As Wordsworth had written a sonnet about it, aunt Celia was armed for the fray,--a volume of Wordsworth in one hand, and one of Hawthorne in the other. (I wish Baedeker didn't give such full information about what one ought to read before one can approach these places in a proper spirit.) When we had done High Street, we went to Magdalen College, and sat down on a bench in Addison's Walk, where aunt Celia proceeded to store my mind with the principal facts of Addison's career, and his influence on the literature of the something or other century. The cramming process over, we wandered 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 not restrain her admiration of his work. I was surprised myself: I didn't suppose so good looking a youth could do such good work. I retired to a safe distance, and they chatted together. He offered her the sketch; she refused 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 anything for a fellow-countryman," etc. I peeped from behind a tree and saw him give her his card. It was an awful moment; I trembled, but she read it with unmistakable approval, and gave him her own with an expression that meant, "Yours is good, but beat that if you can!"

She called to me, and I appeared. Mr. John Quincy Copley, Cambridge, was presented to her niece, Miss Katharine Schuyler, New York. It was over, and a very small thing