Jasper Republican, Volume 1, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 July 1875 — GODIVA’S HANDKERCHIEF. [ARTICLE]

GODIVA’S HANDKERCHIEF.

Godiva was going to town, hair and all, and that implies a good deal (as it did when one rode through Coventry). From her feet to her hands her appointments were perfect. Her chestnut brown hair threw its curling tassels down over a suit of lighter shade, her brown hat served as foil for the pheasant’s plume erected thereon, her gloves were No. 6, her boots No. 2. She felt that she did herself credit, and was disposed to beam on the world generally in consequence. “Town” that morning meant some shopping, some visits, a girl from the intelligence office for “ Ma” —a little saunter generally, for Godiva was unspoiled enough to enjoy the window side of pictures and pretty things, and was not wholly averse to the prolific view of herself the glass was complaisant enough to hold up for her amusementDid I say she was very pretty? Yes, she was, except when she cried or had a cold in her head, under which circumstances nobody that ever I heard of looked well. So this dainty little lady reached the station without ruffling a feather and, seating herself in the cars, she glanced about her for subjects for mental discussion as young damsels will. There was the usual young woman with the saffron-hued baby in a blue cap with narrow white taste ribbons falling into its eyes—and the two masculines in attendance, one apparently the father and the other the uncle, each taking turns at holding the baby in the most unnatural position possible while the mother tied her bonnet-strings and clucked, with a pin in her mouth, to her winking progeny. Godiva recalled the wicked publican as she murmured to herself: “ I never did see so many ugly people in my whole life! that woraanreally makes me ache, she is so sinfully plain, poor thing! But I dare say her husband dotes on her. Achee! achee!” her sentence ended, abruptly. “ Oh, thou base conductor,” thought she, “ how couldst thou leave open that door?” feeling* immediately, her fate was sealed, as a fatal shiver ran over her. She put her hand in her pocket for her handkerchief, but her Russia leather pocket-book and a small key alone showed themselves in answer. “It isn’t possible that I have been off and forgotten my handkerchief!” ejaculated she, the color coming to her cheeks as a hitherto unnoticed pair of blue eyes, belonging to a young man, glanced at her from a seat near. “ Dear, dear me! what shall I do? I shall have to sniff, in spite of good manners.” Here she gave a gentle drawing of breath and held her face close to the window, absorbed, apparently, in the uninviting prospect; but the tickling in her throat, the coming drops in her eyes, ah, no! betokened a cold already upon her. Godiva groaned in spirit. “If only I was that ugly woman over there, whom I laughed at— I wish now I hadn’t —and wore cotton gloves, I could give a sly pinch to my nose, as she does, but —O! what can I do till I reach town? I feel worse every moment and I must have a handkerchief now. I can’t wipe my eyes *on my dress or my petticoat because I can’t get at them, nor my starched linen sleeves —sniff, sniff—who ever heard of a lady without a pocket-handkerchief before! Achee! achee-e!” This very audible reverberation startled the gentleman opposite into giving his fair neighbor a quick glance through his eye-glasses. Then he palled his mustache with a perplexed expression. What does that girl look at me for, I wonder? the glance seemed to say, and he took off the eye-glasses, which, O aggravation ! he proceeded to polish nicely on the whitest of handkerchiefs. This was too much for Godiva’s watering eyes. “ If,” murmured she, “ I thought he was married I would ask him to lend me his handkerchief, I declare I would! He couldn’t think I had any design on his heart if he only knew how I felt—o dear me! dear me! lam a wretched being and I shall certainly go wild before long. I have to keep my mouth wide open now, and I neverjean get through a day in town, never.” Poor Godiva, what avails your fine feathers?

Necessity, they say, knows no law, and Godiva was desperate. She rose from her seat and touched the gemteman genUjH>*t his arm, hunying him to his feet with a bow and a look of “at your service, ma’am,” which deepened into a mingled expression of doubt and amazement as his fair neighbor held out her hand and said: “ May I trouble you to lend me your handkerchief, sir?” He blushed very red indeed and so did she, bnt he gave her the handkerchief and sat meekly down again, wondering like Chicken Little if the sky wasn’t falling. Godiva had possession, which is nine points in the law, to be sure, but after the first satisfaction she could not but be aware that she had unlawfully possessed herself of what wasn’t hers. The click of the car-wheels would fall into the jingle of “What will that young gentleman do —do—if he should need his handkerchief too—too —but perhaps he has another. Some people do carry two—two!” and rattle it unceasingly as the train flew on; but the final query: “What will he think of me?” remained unmoved by any philosophy. She felt the blue eyes stealthily regarding her with a comical look. At last the train stopped and Godiva got out and walked away with the pockethandkerchief—and the young man got out and walked away also without any. When one is very wretched or very anything you don’t want to be, work is the best specific, and so, as shopping is the severest toil a woman is ever known to accomplish and live, Godiva endeavored to busy her thoughts and shopped energetically; but there was more frequent resurrection of them than was agreeable, since every time she used the big cambric she thought of the young man and blushed. After she had bought every bargain she could find, and engaged from the intelligence office a graceful Hibernian with a face tied up in a dingy towel, and who submitted, perhaps, on that account to the misery of living with an Hinglish cook, as “them Hinglish has orful tempers, mem,” Godiva lunched very satisfactorily to herself and felt her cold diminishing every moment. Let me leave her eating strawberry-ice, and follow our hero awhile. He was quite an elegant fellow, blessed with a

blonde mustache and an admirable temper, but his name was Peter Brown. One cannot have everything in this world, so Peter comforted himself by mental sympathy with Romeo and felt as sweet as if he were called Caesar de Montmorenci. He was fastidiously delicate in his tastes, and a woman with a cold in her head was a horror to him, so, when he found himself regarding with interest the young lady in the cars who had such an evident influenza, he felt he had a new sensation,’ and it was wholly novel to have her march off with his embroidered cambric; but Peter was a youthful sage, and believed profoundly in all women being “temples of pure marble, lighted by lamps fed by holy oil,” and thought no ill of any. So he went his way; on it he met a special friend of his, a Mrs. Darry, who was overjoyed at the meeting, since she wanted him of all things for some private theatricals she was about to get up, in which Peter would be “altogether lovely,” as she graphically said. Who could resist such a speech from such lovely lips ? Not Peter Brown; and so it came about that in a month after the handkerchief episode the drawing-rooms of Mrs. Darry were brilliantly lighted, and half the world stood on tiptoe to see the other half move on fantastic ones upon the mimic stage set off from the end of the long room. The curtain rose to the entrance of our friend Miss Godiva, got up after the fashion of Louis XIY., and beautiful to look upon. When in the course of the play my lady has to say: “Ah! I have seen Monsieur before,” Godiva gave a very natural start, for in the lover entering she sees neither the stage Marquis nor the real Peter Brown, but the young man whose handkerchief lies in her upper drawer, and whose wrought initials, P. 8., are a frequent reproach to her. Godiva saw quickly that her Marquis did not in the least connect the patched and rouged lady before him with the catarrhal era, and the play went on and off with grand success ; everybody outdid himself. Peter congratulated himself that he had not fallen prostrate over his long sword or harpooned anyone with his spurs, and Godiva herself that she had escaped with her life from her three-inch heeled slippers (this was before their introduction into society). Aften the incense pouring was over and Peter had emptied his censer at the fair Marquise’ feet Mrs. Darry presented Mr. Peter Brown in due form to Miss Godiva —why should I tell her other name since the reader sees it must be speedily merged in Brown —dear neutral tint? Godiva and Peter were neighbors, and what says moral and immortal Miss Maria Edgeworth? “Propinquity is the origin of love.” When this fact was ascertained bouquets with the young gentleman began to arrive frequently at Miss Godiva’s door, and suddenly Peter desired to learn German, Godiva being proficient therein. Why is it people in love avoid their mother-tongue so? Even Bottom was translated when he fell in love! And so the golden winter passed on into the rose-colored summer, and the young people walked in the garden as lovers should. Godiva, half in jest, asked Peter if he could furnish German enough to translate for her two lines of Heine’s version of greeting: “ Wmn du tine Bom schant sag Ich lam tie gusten." (“If you see a Rose, "say I send my love to her.”) Peter’s heart swelled within him. He thought nothing was ever prettier than the rose blushing before him, and said so. “If only she would bloom for him! Would she?” Bo they entered Paradise and spoke a new language from that day, and they found not the slightest difficulty in

expressing themselves In It, as had been sometimes the case in German. A year after all this behold Peter and Mrs. Brown, nee Godiva, at home; there is a charming little library opening from their drawing-room; a wood fire enjoys itself on the hearth and glows over hyacinths which are opening in heavy spikes of white mid cream-colored towers; before the fire Mr. Peter smokes his cigar and lazily tries to puff the smoke through the fur of an unoffending cat near him white he remarks to Mrs. Brown that it’s singular cats shouldn’t like cigar smoke; then relapses into silence. “ Well?” said Godiva. “Yes, dear—l was thinking just then by a queer chain of thought, first of this cat’s sneezing, then of colds in one’s head, then of a funny little thing that happened tome once in the cars when I was coming in town. Did I ever tell you about the young woman who carried off my pocket—hullo! eh?” as Godiva blushed suddenly and nestled in her chair. “Go on, dear,” said she, calmly. So Peter related the tale twice told, concluding with: “She was really a very pretty young woman, too, Puss. Perhaps I should have called on her if I’d known where she lived, or if. I had not gone to the Darry theatricals, met you, and tumbled into matrimony in consequence. Who knows what might have been?” The cigar rings ascended regularly, and the smoker appeared to reflect on past virions, but Mrs. Brown kept demure silence. “ What in the world are you thinking of now, my heart’s delight?” said Peter, half hoping that his lady wife was faintly stirred by jealousy. “ Thinking of, Peter? Why, the moral of your story.” “Moral! What is it?” “Me, Peter, Commend me to the discernment of men! Did you never really discover till this moment that your sniffling friend and your wife were one and the same? Yes, dear, I’m the moral.” So saying, Mrs. Brown rose, and produced from her work-table a small white packet, which she unfolded as she approached her wideeyed husband —“ and here’s the pockethandkerchief.” “By Jove!” quoth Peter Brown. — Portland Press.