A Day's Ride: A Life's Romance

“And for what?”

“A life of retirement, – obscurity if you will.”

“It is what I should do if I were a man.”

“Indeed!”

“Yes. I have often reflected over the delight I have felt in walking through some man’s demesne, revelling in the enjoyment of its leafy solitude, its dreary shade, its sunlit vistas, and I have thought, ‘If all these things, not one of which are mine, can bring such pleasure to my heart, why should I not adopt the same philosophy in life, and be satisfied with enjoying without possessing? A very humble lot would suffice for one, nothing but great success could achieve the other.’”

“What becomes, then, of that great stimulus to good they call labor?”

“Oh, I should labor, too. I ‘d work at whatever I was equal to. I ‘d sew, and knit, and till my garden, and be as useful as possible.”

“And I would write,” said I, enthusiastically, as though I were plotting out my share in this garden of Eden. “I would write all sorts of things: reviews, and histories, and stories, and short poems, and, last of all, the ‘Confessions of Algernon Sydney Potts.’”

“Oh, what a shocking title! How could such names have met together? That shocking epithet Potts would vulgarize it all!”

“I really cannot agree with you,” said I, angrily. “Without,” said she, “you meant it for a sort of quiz; and that Potts was to be a creature of absurdity and folly, a pretender and a snob.”

I felt as if I was choking with passion; but I tried to laugh, and say, “Yes, of course.”

“That would be good fun enough,” went she on. “I ‘d like, if I could, to contribute to that. You should invent the situations, and leave me occasionally to supply the reflective part.”

“It would be charming; quite delightful.”

“Shall we do it, then-? Let us try it, by all means. We might begin by imagining Potts in search of this, that, or t’other, – love, happiness, solitude, climate, scenery, anything, in short. Let us fancy him on a journey, try and personate him; that would be the real way. Do you, for instance, be Potts, and I ‘ll be his sister Susan. It will be the best fun in the world, as we go along, to see everything, note everything, and discuss everything Potts-wise.”

“It would be too ridiculous, too absurd,” said I, sick with anger.

“Not a bit; we are travelling with our old grandmother, we are making the tour of Europe, and keeping our journal. Every evening we compare notes of what we have seen. Pray do so; I ‘m quite wild to try it.”

“Really,” said I, gravely, “it is a sort of trifling I should find it very difficult to descend to. I see no reason, besides, to associate the name of Potts with what you are pleased to call snobbery!”

“Could you help it? Could you, with all the best will in the world, make Potts a man of distinction? Would n’t he, in spite of you, be low, vulgar, inquisitive, and obtrusive? Wouldn’t you find him thrusting himself forward, twenty times a day, into positions he had no right to? Would n’t the creature be a butt and a dupe – ”

“Shall I own,” burst I in, “that it gives me no exalted idea of your taste, if I find that you select for ridicule a person on the mere showing that his name is a monosyllable? And, once for all, I repudiate all share in the scheme, and beg that I may not hear more of it.”

I turned away as I said this. She resumed her book, and we spoke no more to each other till we reached our halting-place for the night.

CHAPTER XVII. MRS. KEATS MOVES MY INDIGNATION

I am forced to the confession, Mrs. Keats was not what is popularly called an agreeable old lady. She spoke seldom, she smiled never, and she had a way of looking at you, a sort of cold astonishment, seeming to say, “How is this? explain yourself,” that kept me in a perpetual terror.

My morning’s tiff with Miss Herbert had neither been condoned nor expiated when we sat down to dinner, as stiff a party of three as can well be imagined; scarcely a word was interchanged as we ate.

“If you drink wine, sir, pray order it,” said Mrs. Keats to me, in a voice that might have suited an invitation to prussic acid.

“This little wine of the country is very pleasant, madam,” said I, courteously, “and I can even venture to recommend it.”

“Not to me, sir. I drink water.”

“Perhaps Miss Herbert will allow me?”

“Excuse me; I also drink water.”

After a very dreary and painful pause, I dared to express a faint hope that Mrs. Keats had not been fatigued by the day’s Journey.

She looked at me for a second or two before replying, and then said: “I am really not aware, sir, that I have manifested any such signs of weariness as would warrant your inquiry. If I should have, however – ”

“Oh, I beg you will pardon me, madam,” broke I in, apologetically; “my question was not meant for more than a mere ordinary politeness, a matter-of-course expression of my solicitude.”

“It will save us both some trouble in future, sir, if I re-mark that I am no friend to matter-of-course civilities, and never reply to them.”

I felt as though my head and face had been passed across the open door of a blast furnace. I was in a perfect flame, and dared not raise my eye from my plate.

“The waiter is asking if you will take coffee, sir,” said the inexorable old lady to me, as I sat almost stunned and stupid.

“Yes – with brandy – a full glass of brandy in it,” cried I, in the half-despair of one who knew not how to rally himself.

“I think we may retire, Miss H.,” said Mrs. Keats, rising with a severe dignity that seemed to say, “We are not bound to assist at an orgy.” And with a stern stare and a defiant little bow she moved towards the door. I was so awestruck that I never moved from my place, but stood resting my hand on my chair, till she said, “Do you mean to open the door, sir, or am I to do it for myself?”

I sprang forward at once, and flung it wide, my face all scarlet with shame.

She passed out, and Miss Herbert followed her. Her dress, however, catching in the doorway, she turned back to extricate it; I seized the moment to stoop down and say, “Do let me see you for one moment this evening, – only one moment.”

She shook her head in silent negative, and went away.

I sat down at the table, and filled myself a large goblet of wine; I drank it off, and replenished it It was only this morning, a few brief hours ago, and I would not have changed fortunes with the Emperor of France. Life seemed to open before me like some beautiful alley in a garden, with a glorious vista in the distance. I would not have bartered the place in that cabriolet for the proudest throne in Europe. She was there beside me, listening in rapt attention, as I discoursed voyages, travels, memoirs, poetry, and personal adventures. With every changeful expression of lovely sympathy did she follow me through all. I was a hero to us both, myself as much captivated as she was; and now the brief drama was over, the lights were put out, and the theatre closed! How had I destroyed this golden delusion, – why had I quarrelled with her, and for what? For a certain Potts, a creature who, in reality, had no existence; “For who is Potts?” said I. “Potts is no more a substance than Caleb Williams or Peregrine Pickle; Potts is the lay figure that the artist dresses in any costume he requires – a Rachero to-day, a Railway Director to-morrow. What an absurdity in the importance we lend to mere names! Here, for instance, I take the label off the port, and I hang it round the neck of the claret decanter: have I changed the quality of the vintage? have I brought Bordeaux to the meridian of Oporto? Not a bit of it And yet a man is to be more the victim of an accident than a bottle of wine, and his intrinsic qualities – strength, flavor, and richness – are not to be tested, but simply implied from the label round his neck! How narrow-minded, after all, of her, who ought to have known better! It is thus, however, we educate our women; this is part and parcel of the false system by which we fancy we make them companionable. The North American Indians are far in advance of us in all this: they assign them their proper places and fitting duties; they feel that, in this life of ours, order and happiness depend on the due distribution of burdens, and the Snapping Alligator never feels his squaw more truly his helpmate than when she is skinning eels for his dinner.”

How I hated that old woman; I don’t think I ever detested a human creature so much as that I have often speculated as to whether venomous reptiles have any gratification imparted to them when they inflict a poisonous wound. Is the mosquito the happier for having stung one’s nose? And, in the same spirit, I should like to know, do the disagreeable people of this world sleep the better from the consciousness of having offended us? Is there that great ennobling sense of a mission fulfilled for every cheek they set on fire and every heart they depress? and do they quench hope and extinguish ambition with the same zeal that the Sun or the Phoenix put out a fire?

“‘If you drink wine, sir, pray order it,’” said I, mimicking her imperious tone. “Yes, madam, I do drink wine, and I mean to order it, and liberally. I travel at the expense of that noble old paymaster who only wags his tail the more, the more he has to pay – the British Lion. I go down in the extraordinaires. I ‘m on what is called a special service. ‘Keep an account of your expenses, Paynter!’ Confound his insolence, he would say 'Paynter.’ By the way, I have never looked how he calls me in my passport. I ‘m curious to see if I be Paynter there.” I had left the bag containing this and my money in my room, and I rang the bell, and told the waiter to fetch it.

The passport set forth in due terms all the dignities, honors, and decorations of the great man who granted it, and who bespoke for the little man who travelled by it all aid and assistance possible, and to let him pass freely, &c. “Mr. Ponto, – British subject.” “Ponto, What an outrage! This comes of a man making his maître d’hôtel his secretary. That stupid French flunkey has converted me into a water-dog. This may explain a good deal of the old lady’s rudeness; how could she be expected to be even ordinarily civil to a man called Ponto? She ‘d say at once, ‘His father was an Italian, and, of course, a courier, or a valet; or he was a foundling, and called after a favorite spaniel.’ Ill rectify this without loss of time. If she has not the tact to discover the man of education and breeding by the qualities he displays in intercourse, she shall be brought to admit them by the demands of his self-respect.”

I opened my writing-desk and wrote just two lines, – a polite request for a few moments of interview, signed “A. S. Pottinger.” I wrote the name in a fine text hand, as though to say, “No more blunders, madam, this is large as print.”

“Take this to your mistress, François,” said I to the courier.

“Gone to bed, sir.”

“Gone to bed! why, it’s only eight o’clock.”

A shrug and a smile were all he replied.

“And Miss Herbert, – can I speak to her?”

“Fear not, sir; she went to her room, and told Clementina not to disturb her.”

“It is of consequence, however, that I should see her. I want to make arrangements for to-morrow, – the hour we are to start – ”

“Oh! but we are to stop here over to-morrow; I thought monsieur knew that,” said the fellow, with the insolent grin of a menial at knowing more than his betters.

“Oh, to be sure we are,” said I, laughingly, and affecting to have suddenly remembered it. “I forgot all about it, François; you are quite right. Take a glass of wine, Francois, – or take the bottle with you, that’s better.” And I handed him a flask of Hocheimer of eight florins, right glad to get rid of his presence and escape further scrutiny from his prying glances.

How relieved I felt when the fellow closed the door after him and left me to “blow off the steam” of my indignation all alone! And was I not indignant? Only to fancy this insolent old woman giving her orders without so much as condescending to communicate with me! I am left to learn her whim by a mere accident, or not learn it at all, and exhibit myself ready to depart at the inn door, and then hear, for the first time, that I may unpack again.

This was unquestionably a studied rudeness, and demanded an equally studied reprisal. She means to discredit my station, and disparage my influence; how shall I reply to her? A vast variety of expedients offered themselves to my mind: I could go off, leaving a fearful letter behind me, – a document that would cut her to the very soul with the sarcastic bitterness of its tone; but could I leave without a reconciliation with Miss Herbert, – without the fond hope of our meeting as friends. I meant a great deal more, though I would n’t trust myself to say so. Besides, were I to go away, there were financial considerations to be entertained. I could not, of course, carry off that crimson bag with its gold and silver contents, and yet it was very hard to tear myself from such a treasure.

I say it under correction, for I have never been rich, and, consequently, never in the position to assert it positively; but I declare my firm conviction to be that no man has ever tasted the unbounded pleasures of a careless liberality on a Journey, who has not travelled at some other person’s expense. Be as wealthy as you like, let your portmanteau be stuffed full of circular notes, and there will be present at moments of payment the thought, “If I do not allow myself to be cheated here, I shall have all the more to squander there.” But, drawing from the bag of another, no such mean reflection obtrudes. You might as well defraud your lungs of a long inspiration out of the fear of taking more than your share of the atmosphere. There is enough, and will be enough there when you are dust and ashes.

In fact, if I had on one side the “three courses” of the great statesman, I had on the other full thirty reasons against each, and, therefore, I resolved to suspend action and do nothing. And let me here passingly remark that, much as we hear every day about the merits of promptitude and quick-wittedness, in nine cases out of ten in life, I ‘d rather “give the move than take it.” The waiting policy is a rare one; it is the secret of success in love, and of victory in an equity court And so I determined I 'd wait and see what should come of it. I appealed to myself thus: “Potts, you are eminently a man of the world, one who accepts life as it is, with all its crosses and untoward incidents; who knows well that he must play bad cards even oftener than good ones. No impatience, therefore, no rashness; give at least twenty-four hours’ thought to any important decision, and let a night’s sleep intervene between your first conception of a plan and its adoption.” Oh, if the people who are fretting themselves about what is to happen this day ten years, would only remember what a long time it is, – that is, counting by the number of events that will occur between this and to-morrow, – not to say what incidents are happening at the antipodes that will yet bring joy or sorrow to their hearts, – they would keep more of their sympathies for present use, and perhaps be the happier for doing so.

CHAPTER XVIII. AN IMPATIENT SUMMONS

I am about to make a very original observation. I hope its truth may equal its originality. It is, that the man who has never had a sister is, at his first entrance into life, far more the slave of feminine captivations than he who has been brought up in a “house full of girls.” “Oh, for shame, Mr. Potts! Is this the gallantry we have heard so much of? Is this the spirit of that chivalrous devotion you have been incessantly impressing upon us?” Wait a moment, fair creature; give me one half-minute for an explanation. He who has not had sisters has had no experiences of the behind-scene life of the female world; he has never heard one syllable about the plans and schemes and devices by which hearts are snared. He fancies Mary stuck that moss-rose in her hair in a moment of childish caprice; that Kate ran after her little sister and showed the prettiest of ankles in doing it, out of the irrepressible gayety of her buoyant spirits. In a word, he is one who only sees the play when the house is fully lighted, and all the actors in their grand costume; he has never witnessed a rehearsal, and has not the very vaguest suspicion of a prompter.

To him, therefore, who has only experienced the rough companionship of brothers – or worse still, has lived entirely alone – the first acquaintanceship with the young-lady world is such a fascination as no words can describe. The gentle look, the graceful gestures, the silvery voices, all the play and action of natures so infinitely more refined than any he has ever witnessed, are inexpressibly captivating. It is not alone the occupations of their hours, light, graceful, and picturesque as they are, but all their topics, their thoughts, seem to soar out of the commonplace world he has lived in, and rise to ideal realms of poetry and beauty. I say it advisedly: I do not know of anything so truly Elysian in life as our first – our very first – experiences of this kind.

Werther’s passion for Charlotte received a powerful impulse from watching her as she cut bread-and-butter for the children. There are vulgar natures who will smile at this; who cannot enter into the intense far-sightedness of that poetic conception; that could in one trait of simplicity embody a whole lifetime with its ennobling duties, its cheerful sacrifices, its gracefully borne cares. Let him, therefore, who could sneer at Werther, scoff at Potts, as he owns that he never felt his heart so powerfully drawn to Kate Herbert as when he watched her making tea for breakfast. Dressed in a muslin that represented mourning, her rich hair plainly enclosed in a net, with a noiseless motion, she glided about, an ideal of gentle sadness, more fascinating than I can tell. If she bore any unpleasant memory of our little difference, she did not show it; her manner was calm and even kind. She felt, perhaps, that some compensation was due to me for the rudeness of that old woman, and was not unwilling to make it.

“You know we are to rest here to-day?” said she, as she busied herself at the table.

“I heard it by a mere chance, and from the courier,” said I, peevishly. “I am not quite certain in what capacity Mrs. Keats condescends to regard me, that I am treated with such scant courtesy. Probably you would be kind enough to ascertain this point for me?”

“I shall assuredly not ask,” said she, with a smile.

“I certainly promised her brother – I could not do less for a colleague, not to say something more – that I ‘d see this old lady safe over the Alps. They are looking out for me anxiously enough at Constantinople all this while; in fact, I suspect there will be a nice confusion there through my delay, and I ‘d not be a bit surprised if they begin to believe that stupid story in the ‘Nord.’ I suppose you saw it?”

“No. What is it about?”

“It is about your humble servant, Miss Herbert, and hints that he has received one hundred parses from the sheiks of the Lebanon not to reach the Golden Horn before they have made their peace with the Grand Vizier.”

“And is of course untrue?”

“Of course, every word of it is a falsehood; but there are gobemouches will believe anything. Mark my words, and see if this allegation be not heard in the House of Commons, and some Tower Hamlets member start up to ask if the Foreign Secretary will lay on the table copies of the instructions given to a certain person, and supposed to be credentials of a nature to supersede the functions of our ambassador at the Porte. In confidence, between ourselves, Miss Herbert, so they are! I am intrusted with full powers about the Hatti Homayoun, as the world shall see in good time.”

“Do you take your tea strong?” asked she; and there was something so odd and so inopportune in the question, that I felt it as a sort of covert sneer; but when I looked up and beheld that pale and gentle face turned towards me, I banished the base suspicion, and forgetting all my enthusiasm, said, —

“Yes, dearest; strong as brandy!”

She tried to look grave, perhaps angry; but in spite of herself, she burst out a-laughing.

“I perceive, sir,” said she, “that Mrs. Keats was quite correct when she said that you appear to have moments in which you are unaware of what you say.”

Before I could rally to reply, she had poured out a cup of tea for Mrs. Keats, and left the room to carry it to her.

“‘Moments in which I am unaware of what I say,’ – ‘incoherent intervals’ Forbes Winslow would call them: in plain English, I am mad. Old woman, have you dared to cast such an aspersion on me, and to disparage me, too, in the quarter where I am striving to achieve success? For her opinion of me I am less than indifferent; for her Judgment of my capacity, my morals, my manners, I am as careless as I well can be of anything; but these become serious disparagements when they reach the ears of one whose heart I would make my own. I will insist on an explanation – no, but an apology – for this. She shall declare that she used these words in some non-natural sense, – that I am the sanest of mortals: she shall give it under her hand and seal: ‘I, the undersigned, having in a moment of rash and impatient Judgment imputed to the bearer of this document, Algernon Sydney Potts,’ – no, Pottinger – ha, there is a difficulty! If I be Pottinger, I can never re-become Potts; if Potts, I am lost, – or rather, Miss Herbert is lost to me forever. What a dire embarrassment! Not to mention that in the passport I was Ponto!”

“Mrs. Keats desired me to beg you will step up to her room after breakfast, and bring your account-books with you.” This was said by Miss Herbert as she entered and took her place at the table.

“What has the old woman got in her head?” said I, angrily. “I have no account-books, – I never had such in my life. When I travel alone, I say to my courier, ‘Diomede’ – he is a Greek – ‘Diomede, pay;’ and he pays. When Diomede is not with me, I ask, ‘How much?’ and I give it.”

“It certainly simplifies travel,” said she, gravely.

“It does more, Miss Herbert: it accomplishes the end of travel. Your doctor says, ‘Go abroad, – take a holiday – turn your back on Downing Street, and bid farewell to cabinet councils.’ Where is the benefit of such a course, I ask, if you are to pass the vacation cursing customhouse officers, bullying landlords, and browbeating waiters? I say always, ‘Give me a bad dinner if you must, but do not derange my digestion; rather a damp bed than thorns in the pillow.’”

“I am to say that you will see her, however,” said she, with that matter-of-fact adhesiveness to the question that never would permit her to join in my digressions.

“Then I go under protest, Miss Herbert, – under protest, and, as the lawyers say, without prejudice, – that is, I go as a private gentleman, irresponsible and independent. Tell her this, and say, I know nothing of figures: arithmetic may suit the Board of Trade; in the Foreign Department we ignore it You may add, too, if you like, that from what you have seen of me, I am of a haughty disposition, easily offended, and very vindictive, – very!”

“But I really don’t think this,” said she, with a bewitching smile.

“Not to you de – ” I was nearly in it again: “not to you,” said I, stammering and blushing till I felt on fire. I suspect that she saw all the peril of the moment, for she left the room hurriedly, on the pretext of asking Mrs. Keats to take more tea.

“She is sensible of your devotion, Potts; but is she touched by it? Has she said to herself, ‘That man is my fate, my destiny, – it is no use resisting him; dark and mysterious as he is, I am drawn towards him by an inscrutable sympathy’ – or is she still struggling in the toils, muttering to her heart to be still, and to wait? Flutter away, gentle creature,” said I, compassionately, “but raffle not your lovely plumage too roughly; the bars of your cage are not the less impassable that they are invisible. You shall love me, and you shall be mine!”

To these rapturous fancies there now succeeded the far less captivating thought of Mrs. Keats, and an approaching interview. Can any reader explain why it is, that one sits in quiet admiration of some old woman by Teniers or Holbein, and never experiences any chagrin or impatience at trials which, if only represented in life, would be positively odious? Why is it that art transcends nature, and that ugliness in canvas is more endurable than ugliness in the flesh? Now, for my own part, I’d rather have faced a whole gallery of the Dutch school, from Van Eyck to Verbagen, than have confronted that one old lady who sat awaiting me in No. 12.