A Day's Ride Part 17

"You have this letter before you, sir," says my parent, proudly.

"Algernon Sydney is, I imagine, quite competent to explain what relates to his own affairs."

"Oh, perfectly, perfectly; only that I can't really make out how he first came to this place, nor what it is that he does there now that he's in it."

My father hastily s.n.a.t.c.hes the letter from his hands, and runs his eye rapidly along to catch the pa.s.sage which shall confute the objector and cover him with shame and confusion. He cannot find it at once. "It is this. No, it is on this side. Very strange, very singular indeed; but as Algernon must have told me--" Alas! no, father, he has not told you, and for the simple reason that he does not know it himself. For though I mentioned with becoming pride the prominent stations Irishmen now hold in most of the great states of Europe, and pointed to O'Donnel in Spain, MacMahon in France, and the Field-Marshal Nugent in Austria, I utterly forgot to designate the high post occupied by Potts in the Duchy of Hesse-Kalbbratonstadt. To determine what this should be was now of imminent importance, and I gave myself up to the solution with a degree of intentness and an amount of concentration that set me off sound asleep.

Yes, benevolent reader, I will confess it, questions of a complicated character have always affected me, as the inside of a letter seems to have struck Tony Lumkin,--"all buzz." I start with the most loyal desire to be acute and penetrating; I set myself to my task with as honest a disposition to do my best as ever man did; I say, "Now, Potts, no self-indulgence, no skulking; here is a knotty problem, here is a case for your best faculties in their sharpest exercise;" and if any one come in upon me about ten minutes after this resolve, he will see a man who could beat Sancho Panza in sleeping!

Of course this tendency has often cost me dearly; I have missed appointments, forgotten a.s.signations, lost friends through it. My character, too, has suffered, many deeming me insupportably indolent, a sluggard quite unfit for any active employment. Others, more mercifully hinting at some "cerebral cause," have done me equal damage; but there happily is an obverse on the medal, and to this somnolency do I ascribe much of the gentleness and all the romance of my nature. It is your sleepy man is ever benevolent, he loves ease and quiet for others as for himself. What he cultivates is the tranquil mood that leads to slumber, and the calm that sustains it. The very operations of the mind in sleep are broken, incoherent, undelineated,--just like the waking occupations of an idle man; they are thoughts that cost so little to manufacture, that he can afford to be lavish of them. And now--Good-night!

CHAPTER XIII. I CALL AT THE BRITISH LEGATION.

Breakfast over, I took a walk through the town. Though in a measure prepared for a scene of unbustling quietude and tranquillity, I must own that the air of repose around, far surpa.s.sed all I had imagined. The streets through which I sauntered were gra.s.s-grown and untrodden; the shops were but half open; not an equipage, nor even a horseman was to be seen. In the Platz, where a sort of fruit-market was held, a few vendors of grapes, peaches, and melons sat under large crimson umbrellas, but there seemed few purchasers, except a pa.s.sing schoolboy, carefully scanning the temptations in which he was about to invest his kreutzer.

The most remarkable feature of the place, however, and it is one which, through a certain significance, has always held its place in my memory, was that, go where one would, the palace of the Grand-Duke was sure to finish the view at one extremity of the street. In fact, every alley converged to this one centre, and the royal residence stood like the governor's chamber in a panopticon jail. There did my mind for many a day picture him sitting like a huge spider watching the incautious insects that permeated his web. I imagined him fat, indolent, and apathetic, but yet, with a jailer's instincts, ever mindful of every stir and movement of the prisoners below. With a very ordinary telescope he must be master of everything that went on, and the humblest incident could not escape his notice. Was it the consciousness of this surveillance that made every one keep the house? Was it the feeling that the "Gross Herzogliche" eye never left them, that prevented men being abroad in the streets and about their affairs as in other places? I half suspected this, and set to work imagining a state of society thus scanned and scrutinized. But that the general aspect of the town so palpably proclaimed the absence of all trade and industry, I might have compared the whole to a gla.s.s hive; but they were all drones that dwelt there, there was not one "busy bee" in the whole of them.

When I rambled thus carelessly along, I came in front of a sort of garden fenced from the street by an iron railing. The laurel and arbutus, and even the oleander, were there, gracefully blending a varied foliage, and contrasting in their luxuriant liberty so pleasantly with the dull uniformity outside. Finding a gate wide open, I strolled in, and gave myself up to the delicious enjoyment of the spot. As I was deliberating whether this was a public garden or not, I found myself before a long, low, villa-like building, with a colonnade in front. Over the entrance was a large s.h.i.+eld, which on nearer approach I recognized to contain the arms of England. This, therefore, was the legation, the residence of our minister, Sir Shalley Doubleton. I felt a very British pride and satisfaction to see our representative lodged so splendidly.

With all the taxpayer's sentiment in my heart, I rejoiced to think that he who personated the nation should, in all his belongings, typify the wealth, the style, and the grandeur of England, and in the ardor of this enthusiasm, I hastened back to the inn for the despatch-bag.

Armed with this, and a card, I soon presented myself at the door. On the card I had written, "Mr. Pottinger presents his respectful compliments, and requests his Excellency will favor him with an audience of a few minutes for an explanation."

I had made up my mind to state that my servant, in removing my smaller luggage from the train, had accidentally carried off this Foreign Office bag, which, though at considerable inconvenience, I had travelled much out of my way to restore in person. I had practised this explanation as I dressed in the morning, I had twice rehea.r.s.ed it to an orange-tree in the garden, before which I had bowed till my back ached, and I fancied myself perfect in my part. It would, I confess, have been a great relief to me to have had only the slightest knowledge of the great personage before whom I was about to present myself, to have known was he short or tall, young or old, solemn or easy-mannered, had he a loud voice and an imperious tone, or was he of the soft and silky order of his craft. I'd have willingly entertained his "gentleman" at a moderate repast for some information on these points, but there was no time for the inquiry, and so I rang boldly at the bell. The door opened of itself at the summons, and I found myself in a large hall with a plaster cast of the Laoc.o.o.n, and nothing else. I tried several of the doors on either side, but they were all locked. A very handsome and s.p.a.cious stair of white marble led up from the middle of the hall; but I hesitated about venturing to ascend this, and once more repaired to the bell outside, and repeated my summons. The loud clang re-echoed through the arched hall, the open door gave a responsive shake, and that was all. No one came; everything was still as before. I was rather chagrined at this. The personal inconvenience was less offensive than the feeling how foreigners would comment on such want of propriety, what censures they would pa.s.s on such an ill-arranged household. I rang again, this time with an energy that made the door strike some of the plaster from the wall, and, with a noise like cannon, "What the hangman"--I am translating--"is all this?"

cried a voice thick with pa.s.sion; and, on looking up, I saw a rather elderly man, with a quant.i.ty of curly yellow hair, frowning savagely on me from the balcony over the stair. He made no sign of coming down, but gazed sternly at me from his eminence.

"Can I see his Excellency, the Minister?" said I, with dignity.

"Not if you stop down there, not if you continue to ring the bell like an alarm for fire, not if you won't take the trouble to come upstairs."

I slowly began the ascent at these words, pondering what sort of a master such a man must needs have. As I gained the top, I found myself in front of a very short, very fat man, dressed in a suit of striped gingham, like an over-plethoric zebra, and wheezing painfully, in part from asthma, in part from agitation. He began again,--

"What the hangman do you mean by such a row? Have you no manners, no education? Where were you brought up that you enter a dwelling-house like a city in storm?"

"Who is this insolent creature that dares to address me in this wise? What ignorant menial can have so far forgotten my rank and his insignificance?"

"I'll tell you all that presently," said he; "there 's his Excellency's bell." And he bustled away, as fast as his unwieldy size would permit, to his master's room.

I was outraged and indignant There was I, Potts,--no, Pottinger,--Algernon Sydney Pottinger,--on my way to Italy and Greece, turning from my direct road to consign with safety a despatch-bag which many a less conscientious man would have chucked out of his carriage window and forgotten; there I stood to be insulted by a miserable stone-polis.h.i.+ng, floor-scrubbing, carpet-twigging Haus-knecht? Was this to be borne? Was it to be endured? Was a man of station, family, and attainments to be the object of such indignity?

Just as I had uttered this speech aloud, a very gentle voice addressed me, saying,--

"Perhaps I can a.s.sist you? Will you be good enough to say what you want?"

I started suddenly, looked up, and whom should I see before me but that Miss Herbert, the beautiful girl in deep mourning that I had met at Milford, and who now, in the same pale loveliness, turned on me a look of kind and gentle meaning.

"Do you remember me?" said I, eagerly. "Do you remember the traveller--a pale young man, with a Glengarry cap and a plaid overcoat--who met you at Milford?"

"Perfectly," said she, with a slight twitch about the mouth like a struggle against a smile. "Will you allow me to repay you now for your politeness then? Do you wish to see his Excellency?"

I 'm not very sure what it was I replied, but I know well what was pa.s.sing through my head. If my thoughts could have spoken, it would have been in this wise,--

"Angel of loveliness, I don't care a bra.s.s farthing for his Excellency.

It is not a matter of the slightest moment to me if I never set eyes on him. Let me but speak to you, tell you the deep impression you have made upon my heart; how, in my ardor to serve you, I have already been involved in an altercation that might have cost me my life; how I still treasure up the few minutes I pa.s.sed beside you as the Elysian dream of all my life--"

"I am certain, sir," broke she in while I spoke, I repeat, I know not what,--"I am certain, sir, that you never came here to mention all this to his Excellency."

There was a severe gravity in the way that she said these words that recalled me to myself, but not to any consciousness of what I had been saying; and so, in my utter discomfiture, I blundered out something about the lost despatches and the cause of my coming.

"If you 'll wait a moment here," said she, opening a door into a neatly furnished room, "his Excellency shall hear of your wish to see him." And before I could answer, she was gone.

I was now alone, but in what wild perplexity and anxiety! How came she here? What could be the meaning of her presence in this place? The Minister was an unmarried man, so much my host had told me. How then reconcile this fact with the presence of one who had left England but a few days ago, as some said, to be a governess or a companion? Oh, the agony of my doubts, the terrible agony of my dire misgivings! What a world of iniquity do we live in, what vice and corruption are ever around us! It was but a year or two ago, I remember, that the "Times"

newspaper had exposed the nefarious schemes of a wretch who had deliberately invented a plan to entrap those most unprotected of all females. The adventures of this villain had become part of the police literature of Europe. Young and attractive creatures, induced to come abroad by promises of the most seductive kind, had been robbed by this man of all they possessed, and deserted here and there throughout the Continent. I was so horror-stricken by the terrors my mind had so suddenly conjured up, that I could not acquire the calm and coolness requisite for a process of reasoning. My over-active imagination, as usual, went off with me, clearing obstacles with a sweeping stride, and steeplechasing through fact as though it were only a gallop over gra.s.s land.

"Poor girl, well might you look confused and overwhelmed at meeting me!

well might the flush of shame have spread over your neck and shoulders, and well might you have hurried away from the presence of one who had known you in the days of your happy innocence!" I am not sure that I did n't imagine I had been her playfellow in childhood, and that we had been brought up from infancy together. My mind then addressed itself to the practical question, What was to be done? Was I to turn my head away while this iniquity was being enacted? was I to go on my way, forgetting the seeds of that misery whose terrible fruits must one day be a shame and an open ignominy? or was I to arraign this man, great and exalted as he was, and say to him, "Is it thus you represent before the eyes of the foreigner the virtues of that England we boast to be the model of all morality? Is it thus you ill.u.s.trate the habits of your order? Do you dare to profane what, by the fiction of diplomacy, is called the soil of your country, by a life that you dare not pursue at home? The Parliament shall hear of it; the 'Times' shall ring with it; that magnificent inst.i.tution, the common sense of England, long sick of what is called secret diplomacy, shall learn at last to what uses are applied the wiles and snares of this deceitful craft, its extraordinary and its private missions, its hurried messengers with their bags of corruption--"

I was well "into my work," and was going along slappingly, when a very trim footman, in a nankeen jacket, said,--

"If you will come this way, sir, his Excellency will see you."

He led me through three or four _salons_ handsomely furnished and ornamented with pictures, the most conspicuous of which, in each room, was a life-sized portrait of the same gentleman, though in a different costume,--now in the Windsor uniform, now as a Guardsman, and, lastly, in the full dress of the diplomatic order. I had but time to guess that this must be his Excellency, when the servant announced me and retired.

It is in deep shame that I own that the aspect of the princely apartments, the silence, the implied awe of the footman's subdued words as he spoke, had so routed all my intentions about calling his Excellency to account that I stood in his presence timid and abashed.

It is an ign.o.ble confession wrung out of the very heart of my sn.o.bbery, that no sooner did I find myself before that thin, pale, gray-headed man, who in a light silk dressing-gown and slippers sat writing away, than I gave up my brief, and inwardly resigned my place as a counsel for injured innocence.

He never raised his head as I entered, but continued his occupation without noticing me, muttering below his breath the words as they fell from his pen. "Take a seat," said he, curtly, at last. Perceiving now that he was fully aware of my presence, I sat down without reply. "This bag is late, Mr. Paynter," said he, blandly, as he laid down his pen and looked me in the face.

"Your Excellency will permit me, _in limine_, to observe that my name is not Paynter."

"Possibly, sir," said he, haughtily; "but you are evidently before me for the first time, or you would know that, like my great colleague and friend, Prince Metternich, I have made it a rule through life never to burden my memory with whatever can be spared it, and of these are the patronymics of all subordinate people; for this reason, sir, and to this end, every cook in my establishment answers to the name of Honore, my valet is always Pierre, my coach-. man Jacob, my groom is Charles, and all foreign messengers I call Paynter. The original of that appellation is, I fancy, superannuated or dead, but he lives in some twenty successors who carry canvas reticules as well as he."

"The method may be convenient, sir, but it is scarcely complimentary,"

said I, stiffly.

"Very convenient," said he, complacently. "All consuls I address as Mr.

Sloper. You can't fail to perceive how it saves time, and I rather think that in the end they like it themselves. When did you leave town?"

"I left on Sat.u.r.day last. I arrived at Dover by the express train, and it was there that the incident befell me by which I have now the honor to stand before your Excellency."

Instead of bestowing the slightest attention on this exordium of mine, he had resumed his pen and was writing away glibly as before. "Nothing new stirring, when you left?" said he, carelessly.

"Nothing, sir. But to resume my narrative of explanation--"

"Come to dinner, Paynter; we dine at six," said he, rising hastily; and, opening a gla.s.s door into a conservatory, walked away, leaving me in a mingled state of shame, anger, humiliation, and, I will state, of ludicrous embarra.s.sment, which I have no words to express.

"Dinner! No," exclaimed I, "if the alternative were a hard crust and a gla.s.s of spring water I not if I were to fast till this time to-morrow!

Dine with a man who will not condescend to acknowledge even my ident.i.ty, who will not deign to call me by my name, but only consents to regard me as a pebble on the seash.o.r.e, a blade of gra.s.s in a wide meadow! Dine with him, to be addressed as Mr. Paynter, and to see Pierre, and Jacob, and the rest of them looking on me as one of themselves! By what prescriptive right does this man dare to insult those who, for aught he can tell, are more than his equals in ability? Does the accident--and what other can it be than accident?--of his station confer this privilege? How would he look if one were to retort with his own impertinence? What, for instance, if I were to say, 'I always call small diplomatists Bluebottles! You 'll not be offended if, just for memory's sake, I address you as Bluebottle,--Mr. Bluebottle, of course'?"