A Changed Man and Other Tales | Page 5

less of
exaggeration. That the Hussars, Captain Maumbry included, were the
cause of bitter tears to several young women of the town and country is
unquestionably true, despite the fact that the gaieties of the young men
wore a more staring colour in this old-fashioned place than they would
have done in a large and modern city.

CHAPTER II

Regularly once a week they rode out in marching order.
Returning up the town on one of these occasions, the romantic pelisse
flapping behind each horseman's shoulder in the soft south-west wind,
Captain Maumbry glanced up at the oriel. A mutual nod was exchanged
between him and the person who sat there reading. The reader and a
friend in the room with him followed the troop with their eyes all the
way up the street, till, when the soldiers were opposite the house in
which Laura lived, that young lady became discernible in the balcony.
'They are engaged to be married, I hear,' said the friend.
'Who--Maumbry and Laura? Never--so soon?'
'Yes.'
'He'll never marry. Several girls have been mentioned in connection
with his name. I am sorry for Laura.'
'Oh, but you needn't be. They are excellently matched.'
'She's only one more.'
'She's one more, and more still. She has regularly caught him. She is a
born player of the game of hearts, and she knew how to beat him in his
own practices. If there is one woman in the town who has any chance
of holding her own and marrying him, she is that woman.'
This was true, as it turned out. By natural proclivity Laura had from the
first entered heart and soul into military romance as exhibited in the
plots and characters of those living exponents of it who came under her

notice. From her earliest young womanhood civilians, however
promising, had no chance of winning her interest if the meanest warrior
were within the horizon. It may be that the position of her uncle's house
(which was her home) at the corner of West Street nearest the barracks,
the daily passing of the troops, the constant blowing of trumpet-calls a
furlong from her windows, coupled with the fact that she knew nothing
of the inner realities of military life, and hence idealized it, had also
helped her mind's original bias for thinking men-at-arms the only ones
worthy of a woman's heart.
Captain Maumbry was a typical prize; one whom all surrounding
maidens had coveted, ached for, angled for, wept for, had by her
judicious management become subdued to her purpose; and in addition
to the pleasure of marrying the man she loved, Laura had the joy of
feeling herself hated by the mothers of all the marriageable girls of the
neighbourhood.
The man in the oriel went to the wedding; not as a guest, for at this
time he was but slightly acquainted with the parties; but mainly
because the church was close to his house; partly, too, for a reason
which moved many others to be spectators of the ceremony; a
subconsciousness that, though the couple might be happy in their
experiences, there was sufficient possibility of their being otherwise to
colour the musings of an onlooker with a pleasing pathos of conjecture.
He could on occasion do a pretty stroke of rhyming in those days, and
he beguiled the time of waiting by pencilling on a blank page of his
prayer-book a few lines which, though kept private then, may be given
here:-
AT A HASTY WEDDING (Triolet)
If hours be years the twain are blest, For now they solace swift desire
By lifelong ties that tether zest If hours be years. The twain are blest Do
eastern suns slope never west, Nor pallid ashes follow fire. If hours be
years the twain are blest For now they solace swift desire.
As if, however, to falsify all prophecies, the couple seemed to find in
marriage the secret of perpetuating the intoxication of a courtship
which, on Maumbry's side at least, had opened without serious intent.
During the winter following they were the most popular pair in and
about Casterbridge--nay in South Wessex itself. No smart dinner in the
country houses of the younger and gayer families within driving

distance of the borough was complete without their lively presence;
Mrs. Maumbry was the blithest of the whirling figures at the county
ball; and when followed that inevitable incident of garrison-town life,
an amateur dramatic entertainment, it was just the same. The acting was
for the benefit of such and such an excellent charity--nobody cared
what, provided the play were played--and both Captain Maumbry and
his wife were in the piece, having been in fact, by mutual consent, the
originators of the performance. And so with laughter, and
thoughtlessness, and movement, all went merrily. There