Mrs. Corklemore was now, perhaps, twenty–five years old, possibly turning thirty; for that lustrum of a ladyʼs life is a hard one to beat the bounds of; at any rate, she had never looked better than she did at the present moment. She was just at the age to spread open, with the memory of shyness upon them (like the dew when the sun is up), the curving petals of beauty. Who understands the magnetic current? Who can analyze ozone? Is there one of us able to formularize the polarity of light? Will there ever be an age when chemists metaphysical will weigh – no more by troy weight, and carat, as now the mode is, but by subtle heart–gas – our liking for a woman? Let us hope there never will be.
That soft Georgiana Corklemore, so lively, lovely, and gushing, focussed all her fascinations upon Rufus Hutton. She knew that she had to deal with a man of much inborn acuteness, and who must have seen a hundred ladies quite as fair as Georgie. But had he seen one with her – well, she knew not what to call it, though she thoroughly knew how to use it? So she magnetized him with all her skill; and Rufus, shrewdly suspecting her object, and confiding in a certain triarian charge, a certain thrust Jarnacian, which he would deliver at the proper moment, allowed her to smile, and to show her white teeth and dimples of volatile velvet (so natural, so inevitable, at his playful, delightful humour), and to loose whole quiverfuls of light shafts from the arch flash under her eyelids. What sweet simplicity she was, what innocent desire to learn, what universal charity. “How dreadful, Dr. Hutton! Oh, please not to tell me of it! How could any ladies do it? I should have fainted at once, and died half an hour afterwards.” She turned up her large mild eyes, deeply beaming with centralized light, in a way that said, “If I died, is there any one who would think it a very, very great pity?”
Rufus had been describing historically, not dramatically, the trials of the ladies, when following their regiment during a sudden movement in the perils of the mutiny. With a manʼs far stiffer identity, he did not expect or even imagine that his delicate listener would be there, and go through every hour of it. But so it was, and without any sham; although she was misusing her strange sympathetic power. Mrs. Nowell Corklemore would have made a very great actress; she had so much self–abandonment, such warm introjection, and hot indignant sympathy; and yet enough of self–reservation to hoop them all in with judgment. Meanwhile Mrs. Kettledrum, a lady of ordinary sharpness, like a good pudding–apple – Georgie being a peach of the very finest quality – she, I say, at the top of the table was watching them very intently – delighted, amused, indignant; glad that none of her children were there to store up Auntieʼs doings. As for Mr. Corklemore, he was quite accustomed to it; and looking down complacently upon the little doctor, thought to himself, “How beautifully my Georgie will cold–shoulder him, when we have got all we want out of the conceited chattering jackanapes.”
When the ladies were gone, Mr. Bailey Kettledrum, who had no idea of playing dummy even to Mrs. Corklemore, made a trick or two from his own hand.
“Corklemore, my dear fellow, you think we are all tee–totallers. On with the port, if you please, ‘cessantem Bibuli Consulis amphoram,’ never shall forget that line. The bibulous consul, eh! Capital idea. Corklemore, you can construe that?”
“Haw! Perhaps I canʼt. Really donʼt know; they beat a heap of stuff into me when I was a very small boy; and it was like whipping – ha, haw, something like whipping – ”
“Eggs,” said Rufus Hutton, “all came to bubbles, eh?”
“Not at all, sir, not at all; you entirely misunderstand me. I mean that it was similar to – to the result produced by the whipping of a top.”
“Only made your head go round,” said Mr. Kettledrum, winking at Rufus; and thenceforth had established a community of interest in the baiting of “long Corklemore.” “Well, at any rate,” he continued, “Hutton is a scholar – excuse my freedom, my dear sir; we are such rustics here, that I seldom come across a man who appreciates my quotations. You are a great acquisition, sir, the very greatest, to this neighbourhood. How can we have let you remain so long without unearthing you?”
“Because,” said Rufus to himself, “you did not happen to want me; when are you going to offer to introduce me to ‘the Dook?’”
“And now, gentlemen,” continued Mr. Kettledrum, rising, swelling his chest out, and thumping it athletically, “it is possible that I may be wrong; I have never been deaf to conviction; but if I am wrong, gentlemen, the fault is in yourselves. Mark me now, I am ready, such is the force of truth, I am ready here at my own board (humble as it is) once for all to admit that the fault is in yourselves. But the utterance I swell with, the great thought that is within me, is strife – no, I beg your pardon – is – is – rife and strongly inditing of a certain lady, who is an honour to her sex. I rise to the occasion, friends; I say an honour to her sex, and a blessing to the other one. Gentlemen, no peroration of mine is equal in any way to the greatness of the occasion; could I say, with Cicero, ‘Veni, vidi, vici,’ where would be my self–approval? I mean – you understand me. It is the privilege of a man in this blessed country, the first gem of the ocean – no, I donʼt mean that; it applies, I believe, to Scotland, and the immortal Burns – but this, sir, I will say, and challenge contradiction, a Briton, sir, a Briton, never, never, never will be free! And now, sir, in conclusion, is there one of you, let me ask, who will not charge his eyes, gentlemen, and let his glass run over – ”
“Haw,” cried Mr. Corklemore, “charge his glass, come, Kettledrum, and let his eyes run over – haw – I think that is the way we read it, Dr. Hutton.”
“Gentlemen, I sit down; finding it impossible to obtain an adequate bearing, I close my poor attempt at cleansing my bosom of the perilous stuff, sir – you know the rest – the health of Mrs. Hutton, that most remarkable children – excuse me, most remarkable woman, whose children, I am quite convinced, will be an honour to their age and sex. Port of ‘51, gentlemen; a finer vintage than ‘47.”
He had told them that it was ‘34, but both knew better; and now “in vino veritas.”
At last Mr. Bailey Kettledrum had hit the weak point of Rufus, and, what was more, he perceived it. Himself you might butter and soap for a month, and he would take it at all its value; but magnify his Rosa, exalt the name of his Rosa, and you had him at discretion.
“Remarkable, sir,” he inquired, with a twinkle of fruity port stealing out from his keen little eyes, “you really do injustice; so many ladies are remarkable – ”
“Haw, well, I never heard – ”
“Confound you, Corklemore,” said Kettledrum to him aside, “can you never hold your tongue? Sir,” – to Rufus – “I beg your pardon, if I said ‘remarkable;’ I meant to say, sir, ‘most remarkable!’ The most remarkable lady” – this to Corklemore, in confidence – “I have ever been privileged to meet. ‘What children,’ I said to my wife, but yesterday, ‘what children they will be blest with!’ Oh, heʼs a lucky dog. The luckiest dog in the world, my boy.”
However, they were not so very far from the sloping shores of sobriety when they rejoined the ladies, and made much of the small Misses Kettledrum, tidy children, rather pretty, and all of the pink ribbon pattern. After some melting melodies from soft Georgieʼs lips and fingers, Mrs. Kettledrum said,
“Oh, Dr. Hutton, do you ever play chess? We are such players here; all except my poor self; I am a great deal too stupid.”
“I used to play a little when I was in India. We are obliged to play all sorts of games in India.” Dr. Hutton piqued himself not a little on his skill in the one true game. At a sign from their mother, the small Kettledrums rushed for the board most zealously, and knocked their soft heads together. Mrs. Corklemore was declared by all to be the only antagonist worthy of an Indian player, and she sat down most gracefully, protesting against her presumption. “Just to take a lesson, you know; only to take a lesson, dear. Oh, please, donʼt let any one look at me.” Rufus, however, soon perceived that he had found his match, if not his superior, in the sweet impulsive artless creature, who threw away the game so neatly when she was quite sure of