That Boy Of Norcott's Part 19

"You think so? Well, I don't agree with you. At all events, keep what I have said to yourself, even if you don't mean to profit by it" And with this he left me.

That strange education of mine, in which M. de Balzac figured as a chief instructor, made me reflect on what I had heard in a spirit little like that of an ordinary lad of sixteen years of age. Those wonderful stories, in which pa.s.sion and emotion represent action, and where the great game of life is played out at a fireside or in a window recess, and where feeling and sentiment war and fight and win or lose,--these same tales supplied me with wherewithal to understand this man's warnings, and at the same time to suspect his motives; and from that moment my life became invested with new interests and new anxieties, and to my own heart I felt myself a hero of romance.

As I sauntered on, revolving very pleasant thoughts to myself, I came upon a party who were picnicking under a tree. Some of them graciously made a place for me, and I sat down and ate my dinner with them. They were very humble people, all of them, but courteous and civil to my quality of stranger in a remarkable degree. Nor was I less struck by the delicate forbearance they showed towards the host; for, while the servant pressed them to drink Bordeaux and champagne, they merely took the little wines of the country, perfectly content with simple fare and the courtesy that offered them better.

When one of them asked me if I had ever seen a fete of such magnificence in my own country, my mind went back to that costly entertainment of our villa, and Pauline came up before me, with her long dark eyelashes, and those l.u.s.trous eyes beaming with expression, and flas.h.i.+ng with a light that dazzled while it charmed. Coquetry has no such votaries as the young. Its artifices, its studied graces, its thousand rogueries, to them seem all that is most natural and most "nave;" and thus every toss of her dark curls, every little mock resentment of her beautiful mouth, every bend and motion of her supple figure, rose to my mind, till I pictured her image before me, and thought I saw her.

"What a hunt I have had after you, Herr Englander!" said a servant, who came up to me all flushed and heated. "I have been over the whole park in search of you."

"In search of _me?_ Surely you mistake."

"No; it is no mistake. I see no one here in a velvet jacket but yourself; and Herr Ignaz told me to find you and tell you that there is a place kept for you at his table, and they are at dinner now in the large tent before the terrace."

I took leave of my friends, who rose respectfully to make their adieux to the honored guest of the host, and I followed the servant to the house. I was not without my misgivings that the scene of the morning, with its unpleasant cross-examination of me, might be repeated, and I even canva.s.sed myself how far I ought to submit to such liberties; but the event was not to put my dignity to the test I was received on terms of perfect equality with those about me; and though the dinner had made some progress before I arrived, it was with much difficulty I could avoid being served with soup and all the earlier delicacies of the entertainment.

I will not dwell on the day that to recall seems more to me like a page out of a fairy tale than a little incident of daily life. I was, indeed, to all intents, the enchanted prince of a story, who went about with the lovely princess on his arm, for I danced the mazurka with the Fraulein Sara, and was her partner several times during the evening, and finished the fete with her in the cotillon; she declaring, in that calm quiet voice that did not seek to be unheard around, that I alone could dance the waltz a deux temps, and that I slid gently, and did not spring like a Fiumano, or bound like a French bagman,--a praise that brought on me some very menacing looks from certain commis-voyageurs near me, and which I, confident in my "skill of fence," as insolently returned.

"You are not to return to the Hof, Herr von Owen, tomorrow," said she, as we parted. "You are to wait on papa at his office at eleven o'clock."

And there was a staid dignity in her words that spoke command; but in styling me "von" there was a whole world of recognition, and I kissed her hand as I said good-night with all the deference of her slave, and all the devotion of one who already felt her power and delighted in it.

CHAPTER XX. OUR INNER LIFE

Let me open this chapter with an apology, and I mean it not only to extend to errors of the past, but to whatever similar blunders I may commit hereafter. What I desire to ask pardon for is this: I find in this attempt of mine to jot down a portion of my life, that I have laid a most disproportionate stress on some pa.s.sages the most insignificant and unimportant. Thus, in my last chapter I have dwelt unreasonably on the narrative of one day's pleasure, while it may be that a month, or several months, shall pa.s.s over with scarcely mention. For this fault--and I do not attempt to deny it is a fault--I have but one excuse. It is this: my desire has been to place before my reader the events, small as they might be, that influenced my life and decided my destiny. Had I not gone to this fetey for instance,--had I taken my holiday in some quiet ramble into the hills alone, or had I pa.s.sed it, as I have pa.s.sed scores of happy hours, in the solitude of my own room,--how different might have been my fate!

We all of us know how small and apparently insignificant are the events by which the course of our lives is shapen. A look we catch at parting, a word spoken that might have pa.s.sed unheard, a pressure of the hand that might or might not have been felt, and straightway all our sailing orders are revoked, and instead of north we go south. Bearing this in mind, my reader will perhaps forgive me, and at least bethink him that these things are not done by me through inadvertence, but of intention and with forethought.

"So we are about to part," said Hanserl to me, as I awoke and found my old companion at my bedside. "You 're the twenty-fifth that has left me," said he, mournfully. "But look to it, Knabe, change is not always betterment."

"It was none of _my_ doing, Hanserl; none of _my_ seeking."

"If you had worn the gray jacket you wear on Sundays, there would have been none of this, lad! I have seen double as many years in the yard as you have been in the world, and none have ever seen me at the master's table or waltzing with the master's daughter."

I could not help smiling, in spite of myself, at the thought of such a spectacle.

"Nor is there need to laugh because I speak of dancing," said he, quickly. "They could tell you up in Kleptowitz there are worse performers than Hans Spouer; and if he is not an Englishman, he is an honest Austrian!"

This he said with a sort of defiance, and as if he expected a reply.

"I have told you already, Hans," said I, soothingly, "that it was none of my seeking if I am to be transferred from the yard. I was very happy there,--very happy to be with you. We were good comrades in the past, as I hope we may be good friends in the future."

"That can scarcely be," said he, sorrowfully. "I can have no friend in the man I must say 'sir' to. It's Herr Ignaz's order," went he on, "he sent for me this morning, and said, 'Hanserl, when you address Herr von Owen,'--aye, he said Herr _von_ Owen,--'never forget he is your superior; and though he once worked with you here in the yard, that was his caprice, and he will do so no more."

"But, Hans, my dear old friend."

"Ja, ja," said he, waving his hand. "Jetzt ist aus! It is all over now.

Here's your reckoning," and he laid a slip of paper on the bed: "Twelve gulden for the dinners, three-fifty for wine and beer, two gulden for the wash. There were four kreutzers for the girl with the guitar; you bade me give her ten, but four was plenty,--that makes seventeen-six-and-sixty: and you've twenty-three gulden and thirty-four kreutzers in that packet, and so Lebwohl."

And, with a short wave of his hand, he turned away; and as he left the room, I saw that the other hand had been drawn over his eyes, for Hanserl was crying; but I buried my face in the clothes, and sobbed bitterly.

My orders were to present myself at Herr Ignaz's private office by noon. Careful not to presume on what seemed at least a happy turn in my destiny, I dressed in my everyday clothes, studious only that they should be clean and well-brushed.

"I had forgotten you altogether, boy," said Herr Ignaz, as I entered the office, and he went on closing his desk and his iron safe before leaving for dinner. "What was it I had to say to you? Can you help me to it, lad?"

"I'm afraid not, sir; I only know that you told me to be here at this hour."

"Let me see," said he, thoughtfully. "There was no complaint against you?"

"None, sir, that I know of."

"Nor have you any to make against old Hanserl?"

"Far from it, sir. I have met only kindness from him."

"Wait, wait, wait," said he. "I believe I am coming to it. It was Sara's doing. Yes, I have it now. Sara said you should not be in the yard; that you had been well brought up and cared for. A young girl's fancy, perhaps. Your hands were white. But there is more bad than good in this.

Men should be in the station they 're fit for; neither above nor below it. And you did well in the yard; ay, and you liked it?"

"I certainly was very happy there, sir."

"And that's all one strives for," said he, with a faint sigh; "to be at rest,--to be at rest: and why would you change, boy?"

"I am not seeking a change, sir. I am here because you bade me."

"That's true. Come in and eat your soup with us, and we 'll see what the girl says, for I have forgotten all about it."

He opened a small door which led by a narrow stair into a back street, and, shuffling along, with his hat drawn over his eyes, made for the little garden over the wooden bridge, and to his door. This he unlocked, and then bidding me follow, he ascended the stairs.

The room into which we entered was furnished in the most plain and simple fas.h.i.+on. A small table, with a coa.r.s.e cloth and some common ware, stood ready for dinner, and a large loaf on a wooden platter, occupied the middle. There were but two places prepared; but the old man speedily arranged a third place, muttering to himself the while, but what I could not catch.

As he was thus engaged, the Fraulein entered. She was dressed in a sort of brown serge, which, though of the humblest tissue, showed her figure to great advantage, for it fitted to perfection, and designed the graceful lines' of her shoulders, and her taper waist to great advantage. She saluted me with the faintest possible smile, and said: "You are come to dine with us?"

"If there be enough to give him to eat," said the old man, gruffly. "I have brought him here, however, with other thoughts. There was something said last night,--what was it, girl?--something about this lad,--do you remember it?"

"Here is the soup, father," said she, calmly. "We'll bethink us of these things by and by." There was a strange air of half-command in what she said, the tone of one who a.s.serted a certain supremacy, as I was soon to see she did in the household. "Sit here, Herr von Owen," said she, pointing to my place, and her words were uttered like an order.

In perfect silence the meal went on; a woman-servant entering to replace the soup by a dish of boiled meat, but not otherwise waiting on us, for Sara rose and removed our plates and served us with fresh ones,--an office I would gladly have taken from her, and indeed essayed to do, but at a gesture, and a look that there was no mistaking, I sat down again, and, unmindful of my presence, they soon began to talk of business matters, in which, to my astonishment, the young girl seemed thoroughly versed. Cargoes of grain for Athens consigned to one house, were now to be transferred to some other. There were large orders from France for staves, to meet which some one should be promptly despatched into Hungary. Hemp, too, was wanted for England. There was a troublesome litigation with an Insurance Company at Ma.r.s.eilles, which was evidently going against the House of Oppovich. So unlike was all this the tone of dinner conversation I was used to that I listened in wonderment how they could devote the hour of social enjoyment and relaxation to details so perplexing and so vulgar.

"There is that affair of the leakage, too," cried Herr Ignaz, setting down his gla.s.s before drinking; "I had nigh forgotten it."

"I answered the letter this morning," said the girl, gravely. "It is better it should be settled at once, while the exchanges are in our favor."

"And pay--pay the whole amount," cried he, angrily.

"Pay it all," replied she, calmly. "We must not let them call us litigious, father. You have _friends_ here," and she laid emphasis on the word, "that would not be grieved to see you get the name."

"Twenty-seven thousand gulden!" exclaimed he, with a quivering lip. "And how am I to save money for your dowry, girl, with losses like these?"