Off Hand Sketches, a Little Dashed with Humour

T >> T.S. Arthur >> Off Hand Sketches, a Little Dashed with Humour

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Arabella was silenced because it was folly to contend in this matter
with her father, who was a blunt, common-sense, clear-seeing man;
but she was not in the least convinced Mr. De Courci was not a
French count for all he might say, and, what was better, evidently
saw attractions in her superior to those of which any of her fair
compeers could boast.

"My dear Miss Jones," said the count, when they next met, speaking
in that delightful foreign accent, so pleasant to the ear of the
young lady, and with the frankness peculiar to his nature, "I cannot
withhold from you the honest expression of my sentiments. It would
be unjust to myself, and unjust to you; for those sentiments too
nearly involve my own peace, and, it may be, yours."

The count hesitated, and looked interesting. Arabella blushed and
trembled. The words, "You will speak to my father," were on the
young lady's tongue. But she checked herself, and remained silent.
It would not do to make that reference of the subject.

Then came a gentle pressure of hair upon her cheek, and a gentle
pressure from the gloved hand in which her own was resting.

"My dear young lady, am I understood?" Arabella answered,
delicately, by returning the gentle pressure of her hand, and
leaning perceptibly nearer the Count De Courci.

"I am the happiest of men!" said the count, enthusiastically.

"And I the happiest of women," responded Arabella, not audibly, but
in spirit.

"Your father?" said De Courci. "Shall I see him?"

"It will not be well yet," replied the maiden, evincing a good deal
of confusion. "My father is"--

"Is what?" asked the nobleman, slightly elevating his person.

"Is a man of some peculiar notions. Is, in fact, too rigidly
American. He does not like"--

Arabella hesitated.

"Doesn't like foreigners. Ah! I comprehend," and the count shrugged
his shoulders and looked dignified; that is, as dignified as a man
whose face is covered with hair can look.

"I am sorry to say that he has unfounded prejudices against every
thing not vulgarly American."

"He will not consent, then?"

"I fear not, Mr. De Courci."

"Hum-m. Ah!" and the count thought for some moments. "Will not
consent. What then? Arabella!" and he warmed in his
manner--"Arabella, shall an unfounded prejudice interpose with its
icy barriers? Shall hearts that are ready to melt into one, be kept
apart by the mere word of a man? Forbid it, love! But suppose I go
to him?"

"It will be useless! He is as unbending as iron."

Such being the case, the count proposed an elopement, to which
Arabella agreed, after the expression of as much reluctance as
seemed to be called for. A few weeks subsequently, Mr. Jones
received a letter from some person unknown, advising him of the fact
that if at a certain hour on that evening he would go to a certain
place, he would intercept Mr. De Courci in the act of running away
with his daughter. This intelligence half maddened the father. He
hurried home, intending to confront Arabella with the letter he had
received, and then lock her up in her room. But she had gone out an
hour before. Pacing the floor in a state of strong excitement, he
awaited her return until the shadows of evening began to fall.
Darkness closed over all things, but still she was away, and it soon
became evident that she did not mean to come back.

It was arranged between De Courci and Arabella that he was to wait
for her with a carriage at a retired place in the suburbs, where she
was to join him. They were then to drive to a minister's, get the
marriage ceremony performed, and proceed thence to take possession
of an elegant suite of rooms which had been engaged in one of the
most fashionable hotels in the city. To escape all danger of
interference with her movements, the young lady had left home some
hours before evening, and spent the time between that and the
blissful period looked for with such trembling delight, in the
company of a young friend and confidante. Darkness at length threw a
veil over all things, and under cover of this veil Arabella went
forth alone, and hurried to the appointed place of meeting. A lamp
showed her the carriage in waiting, and a man pacing slowly the
pavement near by, while she was a considerable distance off. Her
heart beat wildly, the breath came heavily up from her bosom. She
quickened her pace, but soon stopped suddenly in alarm, for she saw
a man advancing rapidly from another quarter. It a few moments this
individual came up to the person who was walking before the
carriage, and whom she saw to be her lover. Loud words instantly
followed, and she was near enough to hear an angry voice say--

"Ill count you, you base scoundrel!"

It was the voice of her father! Fearful lest violence should be done
to her lover, Arabella screamed and flew to the spot. Already was
the hand of Mr. Jones at De Courci's throat, but the count in
disguise, not relishing the rough grasp of the indignant father,
disengaged himself and fled ingloriously, leaving poor Arabella to
the unbroken fury of his ire. Without much ceremony he thrust her
into the waiting carriage, and, giving the driver a few hurried
directions, entered himself. What passed between the disappointed
countess, that was to be, and her excited father, it is not our
business to relate.

Not content with having interrupted this nice little matrimonial
arrangement, Mr. Jones called at the hotel where De Courci put up,
early on the next morning. But the elegant foreigner had not
occupied his apartments during the night. He called a few hours
later, but he had not yet made his appearance; in the morning, but
De Courci was still away. On the next morning the following notice
appeared in one of the daily newspapers:--

"NIPPED IN THE BUD.--Fashionable people will remember a whiskered,
mustachioed fellow with a foreign accent, named De Courci, who has
been turning the heads of half the silly young girls in town for the
last two months. He permitted it to leak out, we believe, that he
was a French count, with immense estates near Paris, who had come to
this country in order to look for a wife. This was of course
believed, for there are people willing to credit the most improbable
stories in the world. Very soon a love affair came on, and he was
about running off with the silly daughter of a good substantial
citizen. By some means the father got wind of the matter, and
repaired to the appointed place of meeting just in time. He found De
Courci and a carriage in waiting. Without much ceremony, he laid
violent hands on the count, who thought it better to run than to
fight, and therefore fled ingloriously, just as the daughter arrived
on the ground. He has not been heard of since. We could write a
column by way of commentary upon this circumstance, but think that
the facts in the case speak so plainly for themselves, that not a
single remark is needed to give them force. We wish the lady joy at
her escape, for the count in disguise is no doubt a scheming villain
at heart."

Poor Arabella was dreadfully cut down when this notice met her eye.
It was a long time before she ventured into company again, and ever
after had a mortal aversion to mustaches and imperials. The count
never after made his appearance in Philadelphia.

The young man named Marston, who had jested with Abel Lee about the
loss of his lady-love, was seated in his room some ten minutes after
the sudden appearance of Mr. Jones at the place of meeting between
the lovers, when his door was thrown open, and in bounded De Courci,
hair and all! Cloak, hat, and hair were instantly thrown aside, and
a smooth, young, laughing face revealed itself from behind whiskers,
moustaches, imperials, and goatee.

"Where's the countess?" asked Marston, in a merry voice. "Did she
faint?"

"Dear knows. That sturdy old American father of hers got me by the
throat before I could say Jack Robinson, and I was glad to make off
with a whole skin. Arabella arrived at the moment, and gave a
glorious scream. Of any thing further, deponent sayeth not."

"She'll be cured of moustaches, or I'm no prophet."

"I guess she will. But the fact is, Marston," and the young man
looked serious, "I'm afraid this joke has been carried too far."

"Not at all. The moral effect will tell upon our silly young ladies,
whose heads are turned with a foreign accent and a hairy lip. You
acted the whiskered fop to a charm. No one could have dreamed that
all was counterfeit."

"So far as the general effect is concerned, I have no doubt; but I'm
afraid it was wrong to victimize Miss Arabella for the benefit of
the whole race of weak-minded girls. The effect upon her may be more
serious than we apprehend."

"No, I think not. The woman who could pass by as true a young man as
Abel Lee for a foreign count in disguise, hasn't heart enough to
receive a deep injury. She will be terribly mortified, but that will
do her good."

"If it turn out no worse than that, I shall be glad. But I must own,
now that the whole thing is over, that I am not as well satisfied
with myself as I thought I would be. I don't know what my good
sisters at the South would say, if they knew I had been engaged in
such a mad-cap affair. But I lay all the blame upon you. You, with
your cool head, ought to have known better than to start a young
hot-brained fellow like me, just let loose from college, upon such a
wild adventure. I'm afraid that if Jones had once got me fairly into
his clutches, he would have made daylight shine through me."

"Ha! ha! No doubt of it. But come, don't begin to look long-faced.
We will keep our own counsel, and no one need be the wiser for our
participation in this matter. Wait a while, and let us enjoy the
nine days' wonder that will follow."

But the young man, who was a relative of Marston, and who had come
to the city fresh from college, just in the nick of time for the
latter, felt, now that the excitement of his wild prank was over, a
great deal more sober about the matter than he had expected to feel.
Reason and reflection told him that he had no right to trifle with
any one as he had trifled with Arabella Jones. But it was too late
to mend the matter. No great harm, however, came of it; and perhaps,
good; for a year subsequently, Abel Lee conducted his old flame to
the altar, and she makes him a loving and faithful wife.

JOB'S COMFORTERS;

OR, THE LADY WITH NERVES.

WHAT a blessed era in the world's history that was when the ladies
had no nerves! Alas! I was born too late instead of too early, as
the complaint of some is. I am cursed with nerves, and, as a
consequence, am ever and anon distressed with nervous fears of some
direful calamity or painful affliction. I am a simpleton for this, I
know; but then, how can I help it? I try to be a woman of sense, but
my nerves are too delicately strung. Reason is not sufficient to
subdue the fears of impending evil that too often haunt me.

It would not be so bad with me, if I did not find so many good souls
ready to add fuel to the flames of my fears. One of my most horrible
apprehensions, since I have been old enough to think about it, has
been of that dreadful disease, cancer. I am sure I shall die of
it,--or, if not, some time in life have to endure a frightful
operation for its removal.

I have had a dull, and sometimes an acute pain in one of my breasts,
for some years. I am sure it is a cancer forming, though my husband
always ridicules my fears. A few days ago a lady called in to see
me. The pain had been troubling me, and I felt nervous and
depressed.

"You don't look well," said my visitor.

"I am not very well," I replied.

"Nothing serious, I hope?"

"I am afraid there is, Mrs. A--" I looked gloomy, I suppose, for I
felt so.

"You really alarm me. What can be the matter?"

"I don't know that I have ever mentioned it to you, but I have, for
a long time, had a pain in my left breast, where I once had a
gathering, and in which hard lumps have ever since remained. These
have increased in size, of late, and I am now confirmed in my fears
that a cancer is forming."

"Bless me!" And my visitor lifted both hands and eyes. "What kind of
a pain is it?"

"A dull, aching pain, with occasional stitches running out from one
spot, as if roots were forming."

"Just the very kind of pain that Mrs. N--had for some months
before the doctors pronounced her affection cancer. You know Mrs.
N--?"

"Not personally. I have heard of her."

"You know she had one of her breasts taken off?"

"Had she?" I asked, in a husky voice. I had horrible feelings.

"Oh, yes!" My visitor spoke with animation.

"She had an operation performed about six months ago. It was
dreadful! Poor soul!"

My blood fairly curdled; but my visitor did not notice the effect of
her words.

"How long did the operation last?" I ventured to inquire.

"Half an hour."

"Half an hour! So long?"

"Yes; it was a full half hour from the time the first incision was
made until the last little artery was taken up."

"Horrible! horrible!" I ejaculated, closing my eyes, and shuddering.

"If so horrible to think of, what must it be in reality?" said my
thoughtless visitor. "If it were my case, I would prefer death. But
Mrs. N--is not an ordinary woman. She possesses unusual fortitude,
and would brave any thing for the sake of her husband and children.
It took even her, however, a long time to make up her mind to have
the operation performed; and it was only when she was satisfied that
further delay would endanger her life, that she consented to have it
done. I saw her just the day before; she looked exceedingly pale,
and said but little. A very intimate friend was with her, whom I was
surprised to hear talk to her in the liveliest manner, upon subjects
of the most ordinary interest. She was relating a very amusing story
which she had read; when I entered, and was laughing at the
incidents. Even Mrs. N--smiled. It seemed to me very much out of
place, and really a mockery to the poor creature; it was downright
cruel. How any one could do so I cannot imagine. 'My dear madam,' I
said as soon as I could get a chance to speak to her, 'how do you
feel? I am grieved to death at the dreadful operation you will have
to go through. But you must bear it bravely; it will soon be over.'
She thanked me with tears in her eyes for my kind sympathies, and
said that she hoped she would be sustained through the severe trial.
Before I could get a chance to reply, her friend broke in with some
nonsensical stuff that made poor Mrs. N--laugh in spite of
herself, even though the tears were glistening on her eyelashes. I
felt really shocked. And then she ran on in the wildest strain you
ever heard, turning even the most serious remark I could make into
fun. And, would you believe it? she treated with levity the
operation itself whenever I alluded to it, and said that it was
nothing to fear--a little smarting and a little pain, but not so bad
as a bad toothache, she would wager a dollar.

"'That is all very well for you to say,' I replied, my feelings of
indignation almost boiling over, 'but if you had the operation to
bear, you would find it a good deal worse than a bad toothache, or
the severest pain you ever suffered in your life.'

"Even this was turned into sport. I never saw such a woman. I
believe she would have laughed in a cholera hospital. I left,
assuring Mrs. N--of my deepest sympathies, and urged her to nerve
herself for the sad trial to which she was so soon to be subjected.
I was not present when the operation was performed, but one who
attended all through the fearful scene gave me a minute description
of every thing that occurred."

The thought of hearing the details of a dreadful operation made me
sick at heart, and yet I felt a morbid desire to know all about it.
I could not ask my visitor to pause; and yet I dreaded to hear her
utter another sentence. Such was the strange disorder of my
feelings! But it mattered not what process of thought was going on
in my mind, or what was the state of my feelings; my visitor went
steadily on with her story, while every fifth word added a beat to
my pulse per minute.

The effect of this detail was to increase all the cancerous symptoms
in my breast, or to cause me to imagine that they were increased.
When my husband came home, I was in a sad state of nervous
excitement. He anxiously inquired the cause.

"My breast feels much worse than it has felt for a long time," said
I. "I am sure a cancer is forming. I have all the symptoms."

"Do you know the symptoms?" he asked.

"Mrs. N--had a cancer in her breast, and my symptoms all resemble
hers."

"How do you know?"

"Mrs. A--has been here, and she is quite intimate with Mrs. N--.
All my symptoms, she says, are precisely like hers."

"I wish Mrs. A--was in the deserts of Arabia!" said my husband, in
a passion. "Even if what she said were true, what business had she
to say it? Harm, not good, could come of it. But I don't believe you
have any more cancer in your breast than I have. There is an
obstruction and hardening of the glands, and that is about all."

"But Mrs. N--'s breast was just like mine, for Mrs. A--says so.
She described the feeling Mrs. N--had, and mine is precisely like
it."

"Mrs. A--neither felt the peculiar sensation in Mrs. N--'s breast
nor in yours; and, therefore, cannot know that they are alike. She
is an idle, croaking gossip, and I wish she would never cross our
threshold. She always does harm."

I felt that she had done me harm, but I wouldn't say so. I was a
good deal vexed at the way my husband treated the matter, and
accused him of indifference as to whether I had a cancer or not. He
bore the accusation very patiently, as, indeed, he always does any
of my sudden ebullitions of feeling. He knows my weakness.

"If I thought there were danger," he mildly said, "I would be as
much troubled as you are."

"As to danger, that is imminent enough," I returned, fretfully.

"On the contrary, I am satisfied that there is none. One of your
symptoms makes this perfectly clear."

"Indeed! What symptom?" I eagerly asked.

"Your terrible fears of a cancer are an almost certain sign that you
will never have one. The evil we most fear, rarely, if ever, falls
upon us."

"That is a very strange way to talk," I replied.

"But a true way, nevertheless," said my husband.

"I can see no reason in it. Why should we be troubled to death about
a thing that is never going to happen?"

"The trouble is bad enough, without the reality, I suppose. We are
all doomed to have a certain amount of anxiety and trouble here,
whether real or imaginary. Some have the reality, and others the
imagination. Either is bad enough; I don't know which is worse."

"I shall certainly be content to have the imaginary part," I
replied.

"That part you certainly have, and your full share of it. I believe
you have, at some period or other, suffered every ill that flesh is
heir to. As for me, I would rather have a good hearty fit of
sickness, a broken leg or arm, or even a cancer, and be done with
it, than become a living Pandora's box, even in imagination."

"As you think I am?"

"As I know you are."

"Then you would really like to see me have a cancer in my breast,
and be done with it?" I said this pretty sharply.

"Don't look so fiercely at me," returned my husband, smiling. "I
didn't say I would rather you would have a cancer; I said I would
rather have one, and be done with it, than suffer as you do from the
fear of it, and a hundred other evils."

"I must say you are quite complimentary to your wife," I returned,
in a little better humour than I had yet spoken. The fact was, my
mind took hold of what my husband said about real and imaginary
evils, and was somewhat braced up. Of imaginary evils I had
certainly had enough to entitle me to a whole lifetime exemption
from real ones.

From the time Mrs. A--left me until my husband came in, the pain
in my breast had steadily increased, accompanied by a burning and
stinging sensation. In imagination, I could clearly feel the entire
cancerous nucleus, and perceive the roots eating their way in all
directions around it. This feeling, when I now directed my thoughts
to my breast, was gone--very little pain remained.

After tea, my husband went out and returned in about an hour. He
said he had been round to consult with our physician, who assured
him that he had seen hundreds of cases like mine, not one of which
terminated in cancer; that such glandular obstructions were common,
and might, under certain circumstances, unless great care were used,
cause inflammation and suppuration; but were no more productive of
cancer, a very rare disease, and consequent upon hereditary
tendencies, than were any of the glandular obstructions or
gatherings in other parts of the body.

"But the breast is so tender a place," I said.

"And yet," returned my husband, "the annals of surgery show ten
cancers in other parts of the body to one in the breast."

In this way my husband dissipated my fears, and restored my mind to
a comparatively healthy state. This, however, did not long remain; I
was attacked on the next day with a dull, deeply-seated pain in one
of my jaw-teeth. At first, I did not regard it much, but its longer
continuance than usual began to excite my fears, especially as the
tooth was, to all appearance, sound.

While suffering from this attack, I had a visit from another friend
of the same class with Mrs. A--. She was a kind, good-natured
soul, and would watch by your sick-bed untiringly, night after
night, and do it with real pleasure. But she had, like Mrs. A--, a
very thoughtless habit of relating the many direful afflictions and
scenes of human suffering it had been her lot to witness and hear
of, unconscious that she often did great harm thereby, particularly
when these things were done, as was too often the case, _apropos_.

"You are not well," she said, when she came in and saw the
expression of pain in my face.

"What is the matter?"

"Nothing more than a very troublesome tooth-ache," I replied.

"Use a little kreosote," said she.

"I would; but the tooth is sound."

"A sound tooth, is it?" My visitor's tone and look made my heart
beat quicker.

"Yes, it is perfectly sound."

"I am always afraid of an aching tooth that is perfectly sound,
since poor Mrs. P--had such a time with her jaw."

"What was that?" I asked, feeling instantly alarmed.

"Which tooth is it that aches?" my friend asked.

I pointed it out.

"The very same one that troubled Mrs. P--for several months, night
and day."

"Was the pain low and throbbing?" I eagerly asked.

"Yes; that was exactly the kind of pain she had."

"And did it continue so long as several months?"

"Oh, yes. But that wasn't the worst! the aching was caused by the
formation of an abscess."

"A what?" A cold chill passed over me.

"An abscess."

"At the root of her tooth?"

"Yes. But that wasn't so bad as its consequences; the abscess caused
the bone to decay, and produced what the doctors called a disease of
the antrum, which extended until the bone was eaten clear through,
so that the abscess discharged itself by the nostrils."

"Oh, horrible!" I exclaimed, feeling as sick as death, while the
pain in my tooth was increased fourfold. "How long did you say this
abscess was in forming?"

"Some months."

"Did she have an operation performed?" I have a terrible fear of
operations.

"Oh, yes. It was the only thing that saved her life. They scraped
all the flesh away on one cheek and then cut a hole through the
bone. This was after the tooth had been drawn, in doing which the
jaw-bone was broken dreadfully. It was months before it healed, or
before she could eat with any thing but a spoon."

This completely unmanned, or, rather, unwomanned me. I asked no more
questions, although my visitor continued to give me a good deal of
minute information on the subject of abscesses, and the dreadful
consequences that too frequently attended them. After she left
another friend called, to whom I mentioned the fact of having a very
bad tooth-ache, and asked her if she had ever known any one to have
an abscess at the root of a sound tooth.

She replied that tooth-ache from that cause was not unfrequent, and
that, sometimes, very bad consequences resulted from it. She advised
me, by all means, to have the tooth extracted.

"I can't bear the thought of that," I replied. "I never had but one
tooth drawn, and when I think of having another extracted I grow
cold all over."

"Still, that is much better than having caries of the jaw, which has
been known to attend an abscess at the root of a tooth."

"But this does not always follow?"

"No. It is of rare occurrence, I believe. Though no one knows when
such a disease exists, nor where it is going to terminate. Even
apart from caries of the jaw, the thing is painful enough. Mrs.
T--, an intimate friend of mine, suffered for nearly a mouth,
night and day, and finally had to have the tooth extracted, when her
mouth was so much inflamed, and so tender, that the slightest touch
caused the most exquisite pain. A tumor was found at the root of the
tooth as large as a pigeon's egg!"

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