Margaret Oliphant - The Days of My Life - An Autobiography

“I am very glad to have seen him,” said I, “but he has enough of worshippers. No, thank you: but Mrs. Boulder wants to see him, Mr. Osborne.”

“Presently,” he said, once more nodding at that tantalized and impatient lady, “presently – and how do you like the party, Hester?”

“I like very well to look at it,” said I, glancing round the handsome, well-proportioned, well-lighted room, “it is a picture, but I do not know any one here.”

“We will remedy that, by and by,” said Mr. Osborne, “see there is something to look at in the meantime; and I will bring Mrs. Boulder to you here.”

As he spoke, he wheeled in a chair for me, close to a table, covered with plates and drawings. I could not help being pleased at the kindness of his manner and tone, and at the pride he seemed to have in me, as if he wished other people to see that I belonged to him. A young man was standing at the table, minutely examining some of the prints – at least, I supposed so, they occupied him so long; and the old gentleman who had been speaking to Mr. Osborne, remained by me when he went to Mrs. Boulder, and said a word now and then, to encourage me, and set me at my ease I thought – for I was shy and embarrassed, and not very comfortable at being left alone. The young man on the other side of the table – how very long he held that print! it made me impatient to watch his examination of it, and ashamed of myself for finding so little in the others to detain me. When he laid it down at last – it was one of those street landscapes of the old quaint Flemish towns – the old gentleman made some remark upon it, and the young one replied. They had both been there. I have no doubt that was the reason why he looked at it so long.

“These Low Countries – you have not seen them, Miss Southcote?” said Mr. Osborne’s friend, “they are about as dull and unimpressive as our own Cambridgeshire.” I had a great deal of local pride and was piqued at this – it restored me to my self-possession better than his kindness had done. “Do you think Cambridgeshire is unimpressive?” I asked quickly, looking up at him.

“Why, yes, I confess I think so,” said the old Fellow. “I have forgotten my native fells a little, after living here nearly fifty years; but I have never learned yet to find any beauty in the country here. Pray what are its impressive features, Miss Southcote?”

I paused a moment that I might not be angry. “There is the sky,” said I.

The youth, on the other side of the table, bent towards me to listen; the old gentleman laughed a polite little critical laugh. “The sky is scarcely a part of the Cambridgeshire scenery, I am afraid,” he said.

As I paused, not quite knowing what to answer, the young man came to my aid. “I am not sure of that, sir,” he said, with a look of eagerness, which struck me with some wonder. “The sky is as much a portion of the Cambridgeshire scenery as Michael Angelo’s roof is a part of the Sistine chapel. Where else have you such an extent of cloud and firmament? You must yield us the sky.”

“The sky belongs equally to every county in England, and to every country in the world,” said our white-haired critic. “I will yield you no such thing – there is but one Sistine chapel in the world, and one roof belonging to it. You must find a better argument.”

“You can see so far – you are bounded by nothing but heaven,” said I.

“Yes,” said my new supporter, “there is the true sense of infinitude in that wonderful vast blank of horizon; you never find the same thing in a hilly country, and it is perfect of its kind.”

“My young assailants,” said the old gentleman, smiling, “if you mean to maintain that your county has no features at all, I have no controversy with you; that is exactly my own opinion.”

It happened that as we both glanced up indignantly, and both paused, hesitating what next to say to such an obdurate infidel, our eyes met. He looked at me earnestly, almost sadly, and with a rising color – I felt my cheeks burn, yet could not help returning his gaze for an instant. It was a contemplative face, with fine and regular features, and large dark blue eyes; the oval outline of the cheeks was quite smooth, and the complexion dusky and almost colorless; but I was surprised to find myself wondering over this stranger’s features, as if they were familiar to me. Where was it possible I could have seen them before? but, indeed, if he was a Cambridgeshire man, as his words implied, it was easy to account for having seen him.

For the moment, looking at each other, we forgot the cause we were defending, and our antagonist stood contemplating us with a pleasant smile; he did not say anything, but when I looked up and caught his eye, I withdrew my own in confusion. I did not know why, and there was, indeed, no cause, but though I could not explain, I felt a strange embarrassment, and hastened to speak to shake it off.

“I know what I mean, though I may not be able to say it,” said I; “I think in our country you are never master of the landscape – you can never see it all, as you could if it was shut in with hills; it is always greater than you – and it is because our eyes are not able, and not because there is any obstacle in nature, that we cannot see twice as far – to the end of the world.”

“It is quite true,” said the young man hurriedly, “these flat fields are boundless like the sky – or like a man’s desires which are limited by nothing but heaven.”

“My dear boy, a man’s desires are limited by very trifles, sometimes,” said our old friend; “happy are they whose wishes reach like your Cambridge fields as far as the horizon. If you come to that,” he continued, going on with a smile, “and give a figurative significance to those dreary levels, I will not quarrel with you. In my north country, which, by the way, I have quite lost acquaintance with – the extent of our ambition is, to have our hills recognised as mountains, and get to the top of them; but your land, I confess, Miss Southcote, gets to the sky as soon as we do; there is no dispute about that.”

I was obliged to be content with this, satirical as it was, and began to occupy myself immediately with the prints on the table. The old gentleman fell back a step, and began conversing with some one else. The youth still stood opposite, holding an engraving in his hands and going over it minutely. It was very strange – I cannot tell how it came about – but in this crowded room, and among all these echoes of conversation, I felt myself in some extraordinary way alone with this young stranger. I never lifted my eyes from the picture before me, yet I was aware of every motion he made – and though he did not once look up, I felt his eye upon me. We did not exchange a single word, but we remained opposite each other perfectly still, watching each other with a sort of fascination. I do not know how the time went for those few moments – I know it looked like an hour to me before Mrs. Boulder came back; yet when she did come back, she exclaimed at having lost sight of me for full ten minutes, and began to overpower me with an account of the unknown lion, and the clever things he said – and to pull about and turn over the prints which had been passing so slowly and so unwittingly through my hands.

Mrs. Boulder had not been seated by our table for five minutes when she had a ring of potent people round her, whom she had called out of the crowd. I sat by her timidly on a stool, which some one brought me when I gave up my easy chair to the great lady – and bent my head, half with awkwardness and half to find breathing room, oppressed as I was by the bulky figure of the Professor leaning over me in earnest discussion with another pillar of learning. Mr. Osborne was not far off; but though this might be pleasant enough for Mrs. Boulder, who was the centre of the group, it was very much the reverse for me, stifled and overwhelmed by half-a-dozen people pressing over me to pay their court to the eminent woman, who had taken charge of a bewildered and shy girl to her own inconvenience, and who, if she ever thought of me at all, thought no doubt that I was only too greatly privileged, had I been entirely, instead of only half, stifled with the pressure of this learned crowd. But the young stranger whom I followed, not with my eyes, but with my attention, remained still very near us, and still I felt strongly that though our eyes had only met once, we had been observing each other all the time.