A Day's Ride Part 23

I knocked twice before I heard the permission to enter; but scarcely had I closed the door behind me, than the old lady advanced, and, courtesying to me with a manner of most reverential politeness, said, "When you learn, sir, that my conduct has been dictated in the interest of your safety, you will, I am sure, graciously pardon many apparent rudenesses in my manner towards you, and only see in them my zeal to serve you."

I could only bow to a speech not one syllable of which was in the least intelligible to me. She conducted me courteously to a seat, and only took her own after I was seated.

"I feel, sir," said she, "that there will be no end to our embarra.s.sments if I do not go straight to my object and say at once that I know you. I tell you frankly, sir, that my brother did not betray your secret. The instincts of his calling--to _him_ second nature--were stronger than fraternal love, and all he said to me was, 'Martha, I have found a gentleman who is going south, and who, without inconvenience, can see you safely as far as Como.' I implicitly accepted his words, and agreed to set out immediately. I suspected nothing,--I knew nothing. It was only before going down to dinner that the paragraph in the 'Courrier du Dimanche' met my eye, and as I read it, I thought I should have fainted. My first determination was not to appear at dinner. I felt that something or other in my manner would betray my knowledge of your secret. My next was to go down and behave with more than usual sharpness. You may have remarked that I was very abrupt, almost, shall I say, rude?"

I tried to enter a dissent at this, but did not succeed so happily as I meant; but she resumed:--

"At any cost, however, sir, I determined that I alone should be the depositary of your confidence. Miss Herbert is to me a comparative stranger; she is, besides, very young; she would be in no wise a suitable person to intrust with such a secret, and so I said, I will pretend illness, and remain here for a day; I will make some pretext of dissatisfaction about the expense of the journey; I will affect to have had some pa.s.sing difference, and he can thus leave us ere he be discovered. Not that I desire this, sir, far from it; this is the brightest episode in a long life. I never imagined that I should have enjoyed such an honor; but I have only to think of your safety, and if an old woman, un.o.bservant and unremarking as myself, could penetrate your disguise, why not others more keen-sighted and inquisitive? Don't you agree with me?"

"There is much force in what you say, madam," said I; with dignity, "and your words touch me profoundly." I thought this a happy expression, for it conveyed a sort of grand condescension that seemed to hit off the occasion.

"You would never guess how I recognized you, sir," said she.

"Never, madam." I could have given my oath to this, if required.

"Well," said she, with a bland smile, "it was from the resemblance to your mother!"

"Indeed!"

"Yes; you are far more like her, than your father, and you are scarcely so tall as he was."

"Perhaps not, madam."

"But you have his manner, sir, the graceful and captivating dignity that distinguished all your house; this would betray you to the eyes of all who have enjoyed the high privilege of knowing your family."

The allusion to our house showed that we were royalties, and I laid my hand on my heart, and bowed as a prince ought, blandly but haughtily.

"Ah, sir," said she, with a deep sigh, "your present enterprise fills me with apprehension. Are you not afraid, yourself, of the consequences?"

I sighed, too; and if the truth were to be told, I was very much afraid.

"But, of course, you are acting under advice, and with the counsel of those well able to guide you."

"I cannot say I am, madam; I am free to tell you that every step I am now taking is self-suggested."

"Oh, then, let me implore you to pause, sir," said she, falling on her knees before me; "let me thus entreat of you not to go further in a path so full of danger."

"Shall I confess, madam," said I, proudly, "that I do not _see_ these dangers you speak of?"

I thought that on this hint she would talk out, and I might be able to pierce the veil of the mystery, and discover who I was; for though very like my mother, and shorter than my father, I was sorely puzzled about my parentage; but she only went off into generalities about the state of the Continent and the condition of Europe generally. I saw now that my best chance of ascertaining something about myself was to obtain from her the newspaper that first suggested her discovery of me, and I said half carelessly, "Let me see the paragraph which struck you in the 'Courrier.'"

"Ah, sir, you must excuse me, these ign.o.ble writers have little delicacy in alluding to the misfortunes of the great; they seem to revenge the littleness of their own station on every such occasion."

"You can well imagine, madam, how time has accustomed me to such petty insults: show me the paper."

"Pray let me refuse you, sir; I would not, however blamelessly, be a.s.sociated in your mind with what might offend you."

Again I protested that I was used to such attacks, that I knew all about the wretched hireling creatures who wrote them, and that instead of offending, they positively amused me,--actually made me laugh.

Thus urged, she proceeded to search for the newspaper, and only after some minutes was it that she remembered Miss Herbert had taken it away to read in the garden. She proposed to send the servant to fetch it, but this I would not permit, pretending at last to concur in her own previously expressed contempt for the paragraph,--but secretly promising myself to go in search of it the moment I should be at liberty,--and once more she resumed the theme of my rashness, and my dangers, and all the troubles I might possibly bring upon my family, and the grief I might occasion my grandmother.

Now, as there are few men upon whom the ties of family and kindred imposed less rigid bonds, I was rather provoked at being reminded of obligations to my grandmother, and was almost driven to declare that she weighed for very little in the balance of my plans and motives. The old lady, however, rescued me from the indiscretion by a fervent entreaty that I would at least ask a certain person what he thought of my present step.

"Will you do this?" said she, with tears in her eyes. "Will you do it now?"

I promised her faithfully.

"Will you do it here, sir, at this table, and let me have the proudest memory in my life to recall the incident."

"I should like an hour or two for reflection," said I, pushed very hard by this insistence of hers, for I was sorely puzzled whom I was to write to.

"Oh," said she, still tearfully, "is it not the habit of hesitating, sir, has cost your house so dearly?"

"No," said I, "we have been always accounted prompt in action and true to our engagements."

Heaven forgive me! but in this vainglorious speech I was alluding to the motto of the Potts crest,--"Vigilanti-bus omnia fausta;" or, as some one rendered it, "Potts answers to the night-bell."

She smiled faintly at my remark. I wonder how she would have looked had she read the thought that suggested it.

"But you _will_ write to him, sir?" said she, once more.

I laid my hand over what anatomists call the region of the heart, and tried to look like Charles Edward in the prints. Meanwhile my patience was beginning to fail me, and I felt that if the mystification were to last much longer, I should infallibly lose my presence of mind.

Fortunately, the old lady was so full of her theme that she only asked to be let talk away without interruption, with many an allusion to the dear Count and the adored d.u.c.h.ess, and a fervent hope that I might be ultimately reconciled to them both,--a wish which I had tact enough to perceive required the most guarded reserve on my part.

"I know I am indiscreet, sir," said she, at last; "but you must pardon one whose zeal outruns her reason."

And I bowed grandly, as I might have done in extending mercy to some captive taken in battle.

"There is but one favor more, sir, I have to beg."

"Speak it, madam. As the courtier remarked, if it be possible it _is_ done, if impossible it _shall_ be done."

"Well, sir, it is that you will not leave us till you hear from--" She hesitated as if afraid to say the name, and then added, "the Rue St.

Georges. Will you give me this pledge?"

Now, though this would have been, all things considered, an arrangement very like to have lasted my life, I could not help hesitating ere I a.s.sented, not to say that our dear friend of the Rue St Georges, whoever he was, might possibly not concur in all the delusions indispensable to my happiness. I therefore demurred,--that is, in legal acceptance, I deferred a.s.sent,--as though to say, "We'll see."

"At all events, sir, you 'll accompany us to Como?"

"You have my pledge to that, madam."

"And meanwhile, sir, you agree with me that it is better I should continue to behave towards you with a cold and distant reserve."

"Unquestionably."

"Barely meeting, seldom or never conversing."

"I should say never, madam; making, in fact, any communication you may desire to reach me through the intervention of that young person,--I forget her name."