_ CHAPTER XC. UNDER THE MISLETOE
The hand which held that of old Boniface Newt was never placed in that of any, younger man, except for a moment; but the heart that warmed the hand henceforward held all the world.
We have come to the last leaf, patient and gentle reader, and the girl we saw sitting, long ago, upon the lawn and walking in the garden of Pinewood is not yet married! Yes, and we shall close the book, and still she will be Hope Wayne.
How could we help it? How could a faithful chronicler but tell his story as it is? It is not at his will that heroes marry, and heroines are given in marriage. He merely watches events and records results; but the inevitable laws of human life are hidden in God's grace beyond his knowledge.
There is Arthur Merlin painting pictures to this day, and every year with greater beauty and wider recognition. He wears the same velvet coat of many buttons--or its successor in the third or fourth remove--and still he whistles and sings at his work, still draws back from the easel and turns his head on one side to look at his picture, and cons it carefully through the tube of his closed hand; still lays down the pallet and, lighting a cigar, throws himself into the huge easy-chair, hanging one leg over the chair-arm and gazing, as he swings his foot, at something which does not seem to be in the room. Cheerful and gay, he has always a word of welcome for the loiterer who returns to Italy by visiting the painters; even if the loiterer find him with the foot idly swinging and the cigar musingly smoking itself away.
Nor is the painter conscious of any gaping, unhealed wound that periodically bleeds. There are nights in mid-summer when, leaning from his window, he thinks of many things, and among others, of a picture he once painted of the legend of Latmos. He smiles to think that, at the time, he half persuaded himself that he might be Endymion, yet the feeling with which he smiles is of pity and wonder rather than of regret.
At Thanksgiving dinners, at Christmas parties, at New Year and Twelfth Night festivals, no guest so gay and useful, so inventive and delightful, as Arthur Merlin the painter. Just as Aunt Winnifred has abandoned her theory it has become true, and all the girls do seem to love the man who respects them as much as the younger men do with whom they nightly dance in winter. He romps with the children, has a perfectly regulated and triumphant sliding-scale of gifts and attentions; and only this Christmas, although he is now--well, Aunt Winnifred has locked up the Family Bible and begins to talk of Arthur as a young man--yet only this Christmas, at Lawrence Newt's family party, at which, so nimbly did they run round, it was almost impossible to compute the actual number of Newt, and Wynne, and Bennet children--Arthur Merlin brought in, during the evening, with an air of profound secrecy, something covered with a large handkerchief. Of course there could be no peace, and no blindman's-buff, no stage-coach, no twirling the platter, and no snap-dragon, until the mystery was revealed; The whole crowd of short frocks and trowsers, and bright ribbons, and eyes, and curls, swarmed around the painter until he displayed a green branch.
A pair of tiny feet, carrying a pair of great blue eyes and a head of golden curls, scampered across the floor to Lawrence Newt.
"Oh, papa, what is that green thing with little berries on it?"
"That's a misletoe bough, little Hope."
"But, papa, what's it for?"
The painter was already telling the children what it was for; and when he had hung it up over the folding-doors such a bubbling chorus of laughter and merry shrieks followed, there was such a dragging of little girls in white muslin by little boys in blue velvet, and such smacking, and kissing, and happy confusion, that the little Hope's curiosity was immediately relieved. Of all the ingenious inventions of their friend the painter, this of the misletoe was certainly the most transcendent.
But when Arthur Merlin himself joined the romp, and, chasing Hope Wayne through the lovely crowd of shouting girls and boys, finally caught her and led her to the middle of the room and dropped on one knee and kissed her hand under the misletoe, then the delight burst all bounds; and as Hope Wayne's bright, beautiful face glanced merrily around the room--bright and beautiful, although she is young no longer--she saw that the elders were shouting with the children, and that Lawrence Newt and his wife, and his niece Fanny, and papa and mamma Wynne, and Bennet, were all clapping their hands and laughing.
She laughed too; and Arthur Merlin laughed; and when Ellen Bennet's oldest daughter (of whom there are certain sly reports, in which her name is coupled with that of her cousin Edward, May Newt's oldest son) sat down to the piano and played a Virginia reel, it was Arthur Merlin who handed out Hope Wayne with mock gravity, and stepped about and bowed around so solemnly, that little Hope Newt, sitting upon her papa's knee and nestling her golden curls among his gray hair, laughed all the time, and wished that Christmas came every day in the year, and that she might always see Mr. Arthur Merlin dancing with dear Aunt Hope.
When the dance was over and the panting children were resting, Gabriel Newt, Lawrence's youngest boy, said to Arthur,
"Mr. Merlin, what game shall we play now? What game do you like best?"
"The game of life, my boy," replied Arthur.
"Oh, pooh!" said Gabriel, doubtfully, with a vague feeling that Mr. Merlin was quizzing him.
But the painter was in earnest; and if you are of his opinion, patient and gentle reader, it is for you to say who, among all the players we have been watching, held Trumps.
[THE END]
George William Curtis's Book: Trumps: A Novel
_