A Day's Ride Part 26

CHAPTER XXII. INCIDENTS OF THE SECOND DAY'S JOURNEY.

We continued our journey the next morning, but it was not without considerable difficulty that I succeeded in maintaining my former place in the cabriolet. That stupid old woman fancied that princes were born to be bored, and suggested accordingly that I should travel inside with her, leaving the macaw and the toy terriers to keep company with Miss Herbert. It was only by insisting on an outside place as a measure of health that I at last prevailed, telling her that Dr. Corvisart was peremptory on two points regarding me. "Let him," said he, "have abundance of fresh air, and never be without some young companion."

And so we were again in our little leathern tent, high up in the fresh breezy atmosphere, above dusty roads, and with a glorious view over that lovely country that forms the approach to the Black Forest. The road was hilly, and the carriage-way a heavy one; but we had six horses, who trotted along briskly, shaking their merry bells, and flouris.h.i.+ng their scarlet ta.s.sels, while the postilions cracked their whips or broke out into occasional bugle performances, princ.i.p.ally intended to announce to the pa.s.sing peasants that we were very great folk, and well able to pay for all the noise we required.

I was not ashamed to confess my enjoyment in thus whirling along at some ten miles the hour, remembering how that great sage Dr. Johnson had confessed to a like pleasure, and, animated by the inspiriting air and the lovely landscape, could not help asking Miss Herbert if she did not feel it "very jolly."

She a.s.sented with a sort of constrained courtesy that by no means responded to the warmth of my own sensations, and I felt vexed and chafed accordingly.

"Perhaps you prefer travelling inside?" said I, with some pique.

"No, sir."

"Perhaps you dislike travelling altogether?"

"No, sir."

"Perhaps--" But I checked myself, and with a somewhat stiff air, I said, "Would you like a book?"

"If it would not be rude to read, sir, while you--"

"Oh, not at all, never mind me, I have more than enough to think of.

Here are some things by Dumas, and Paul Feval, and some guide-book trash." And with that I handed her several volumes, and sank back into my corner in sulky isolation.

Here was a change! Ten minutes ago all Nature smiled on me; from the lark in the high heavens to the chirping gra.s.shopper in the tall maize-field, it was one song of joy and gladness. The very clouds as they swept past threw new and varied light over the scene, as though to show fresh effects of beauty on the landscape,--the streams went by in circling eddies, like smiles upon a lovely face,--and now all was sad and c.r.a.pe-covered! "What has wrought this dreary change?" thought I; "is it possible that the cold looks of a young woman, good-looking, I grant, but no regular downright beauty after all, can have altered the aspect of the whole world to you? Are you so poor a creature in yourself, Potts, so beggared in your own resources, so barren in all the appliances of thought and reflection, that if your companion, whoever she or he may be, sulk, you must needs reflect the humor? Are you nothing but the mirror that displays what is placed before it?"

I set myself deliberately to scan the profile beside me; her black veil, drawn down on the side furthest from me, formed a sort of background, which displayed her pale features more distinctly. All about the brow and orbit was beautifully regular, but the mouth was, I fancied, severe; there was a slight retraction of the upper lip that seemed to imply over-firmness, and then the chin was deeply indented,--"a sign," Lavater says, "of those who have a will of their own." "Potts," thought I, "she 'd rule you,--that's a nature would speedily master yours. I don't think there's any softness either, any of that yielding gentleness there, that makes the poetry of womanhood; besides, I suspect she's worldly,--those sharply cut nostrils are very worldly! She is, in fact,"--and here I unconsciously uttered my thoughts aloud,--"she is, in fact, one to say, 'Potts, how much have you got a-year? Let us have it in figures.'"

"So you are still ruminating over the life of that interesting creature," said she, laying down her book to laugh; "and shall I confess, I lay awake half the night, inventing incidents and imagining situations for him."

"For whom?" said I, innocently.

"For Potts, of course. I cannot get him out of my head such as I first fancied he might be, and I see now, by your unconscious allusion to him, that he has his place in your imagination also."

"You mistake, Miss Herbert,--at least you very much misapprehend my conception of that character. The Potts family has a high historic tradition. Sir Constantine Potts was cup-bearer to Henry H., and I really see no reason why ridicule should attach to one who may be, most probably, his descendant."

"I 'm very sorry, sir, if I should have dared to differ with you; but when I heard the name first, and in connection with two such names as Algernon Sydney, and when I thought by what strange accident did they ever meet in the one person--"

"You are very young, Miss Herbert, and therefore not removed from the category of the teachable," said I, with a grand didactic look. "Let me guard you, therefore, against the levity of chance inferences. What would you say if a person named Potts were to make the offer of his hand? I mean, if he were a man in all respects acceptable, a gentleman captivating in manner and address, agreeable in person, graceful and accomplished,--what would you reply to his advances?"

"Really, sir, I am shocked to think of the humble opinion I may be conveying of my sense and judgment, but I'm afraid I should tell him it is impossible I could ever permit myself to be called Mrs. Potts."

"But, in Heaven's name, why?--I ask you why?"

"Oh, sir! don't be angry with me; it surely does not deserve such a penalty; at the worst, it is a mere caprice on my part."

"I am not angry, young lady, I am simply provoked; I am annoyed to think that a prejudice so unworthy of you should exercise such a control over your judgment."

"I am quite ashamed, sir, to have been the occasion of so much displeasure to you. I hope and trust you will ascribe it to my ignorance of life and the world."

"If you are dissatisfied with yourself, Miss Herbert, I have no more to say," said I, taking up a book, and pretending to read, while I felt such a disgust with myself that if I had n't been strapped up with a leather ap.r.o.n up to my chin, I think I should have thrown myself headlong down and let the wheel pa.s.s over me. "What is it, Potts, that is corrupting and destroying the naturally fine and n.o.ble nature you are certainly endowed with? Is it this confounded elevation to princely rank? If you were not a Royal Highness, would you have dared to utter such cruelties as these? Would you, in your most savage of moods, have presumed to make that pale cheek paler, and forced a tear-drop into that liquid eye? I always used to think that the greatest effort of a man was to keep him on a level with those born above him. I now find it is far harder to stoop than to stand on tiptoe. Such a pain in the back comes of always bending, and it is so difficult to do it gracefully!"

I was positively dying to be what the French call _bon prince_, and yet I didn't know how to set about it. I could not take off one of my decorations,--a cross or a ribbon,--for I had none; nor give it, because she, being a woman, could n't wear it. I could n't make her one of the court ladies, for there was no court; and yet it was clear something should be done, if one only knew what it was. "I suppose now," said I to myself, "a real R. H. would see his way here at once; the right thing to do, the exact expression to use would occur as naturally to his mind as all this embarra.s.sment presents itself to mine. 'Whenever your head cannot guide you,' says a Spanish proverb, 'ask your heart;' and so I did, and my heart spoke thus: 'Tell her, Potts, who you are, and what; say to her, "Listen, young lady, to the words of truth from one who could tell you far more glibly, far more freely, and far more willingly, a whole bushel of lies. It will sit light on his heart that he deceive the old lady inside, but _you_ he cannot, will not deceive. Do not deem the sacrifice a light one; it cost St. George far less to go out dragon-hunting than it costs me to slay this small monster who ever prompts me to feats of fancy."'"

"I am very sorry to be troublesome, sir, but as we change horses here, I will ask you to a.s.sist me to alight; the weather looks very threatening, and some drops of rain have already fallen."

These words roused me from my revery to action, and I got down, not very dexterously either, for I slipped, and made the postilion laugh, and then I helped her, who accomplished the descent so neatly, so gracefully, showing the least portion of such an ankle, and accidentally giving me such a squeeze of the hand! The next moment she was lost to me, the clanking steps were drawn up, the harsh door banged to, and I was alone,--all alone in the world.

Like a sulky eagle, sick of the world, I climbed up to my eyry. I no longer wished for suns.h.i.+ne or scenery; nay, I was glad to see the postboys put on their overcoats and prepare for a regular down-pour. I liked to think there are some worse off than even Potts. In half an hour _they_ will be drenched to the skin, and I 'll not feel a drop of it!

The little gla.s.s slide at my back was now withdrawn, and Miss Herbert's pale, sweet face appeared at it. She was saying that Mrs. Keats urgently entreated I would come inside, that she was so uneasy at my being exposed to such a storm.

I refused, and was about to enter into an account of my ascent of Mont Blanc, when the slide was closed and my listener lost to me.

"Is it possible, Potts," said I, "that she has detected this turn of yours for the imaginative line, and that she will not encourage it, even tacitly? Has she said, 'There is a young man of genius, gifted marvellously with the richest qualities, and yet such is the exuberance of his fancy that he is positively its slave. Not content to let him walk the earth like other men, she attaches wings to him and carries him off into the upper air. I will endeavor, however hard the task, to clip his feathers and bring him back to the common haunts of men'? Try it, fair enchantress, try it!"

The rain was now coming down in torrents, and with such swooping gusts of wind that I was forced to fasten the leather curtain in front of me, and sit in utter darkness, denied even the pa.s.sing pleasure of seeing the drenched postboys bobbing up and down on the wet saddles. I grew moody and sad. Every Blue Devil of my acquaintance came to pay his visit to me, and brought a few more of his private friends. I bethought me that I was hourly travelling away further and further from my home; that all this long road must surely be retraced one day or other, though not in a carriage and post, but probably in a one-horse cart, with a mounted gendarme on either side of it, and a string to my two wrists in their bridle hands. I thought of that vulgar herd of mankind so ready to weep over a romance, and yet send the man who acts one to a penal settlement. I thought how I should be described as the artful knave, the accomplished swindler. As if I was the first man who ever took an exaggerated estimate of his own merits! Go into the House of Commons, visit the National Gallery, dine at a bar or a military mess, frequent, in one word, any of the haunts of men, and with what _pieces pour servir a l'histoire_ of self-deception will you come back loaded!

The sliding window at my back was again drawn aside, and I heard Miss Herbert's voice,--

"If I am not giving you too much trouble, sir, would you kindly see if I have not dropped a bracelet--a small jet bracelet--in the _coupe?_"

"I 'm in the dark here, but I'll do my best to find it."

"We are very nearly so, too," said she; "and Mrs. Keats is fast asleep, quite unmindful of the thunder."

With some struggling I managed to get down on my knees, and was soon engaged in a very vigorous search. To aid me, I lighted a lucifer match, and by its flickering glare I saw right in front of me that beautiful pale face, enclosed as it were in a frame by the little window. She blushed at the fixedness of my gaze, for I utterly forgot myself in my admiration, and stared as though at a picture. My match went out, and I lit another. Alas! there she was still, and I could not force myself to turn away, but gazed on in rapture.

"I'm sorry to give you this trouble, sir," said she, in some confusion.

"Pray never mind it. It will doubtless be found this evening when we arrive."

Another lucifer, and now I pretended to be in most eager pursuit; but somehow my eyes would look up and rest upon her sweet countenance.

"A diamond bracelet, you said?" muttered I, not knowing what I was saying.

"No, sir, mere jet, and of no value whatever, save to myself. I am really distressed at all the inconvenience I have occasioned you. I entreat you to think no more of it."

My match was out, and I had not another. "Was ever a man robbed of such ecstasy for a mere pennyworth of stick and a little sulphur? O Fortune!

is not this downright cruelty?"

As I mumbled my complaints, I searched away with an honest zeal, patting the cus.h.i.+ons all over, and poking away into most inscrutable pockets and recesses, while she, in a most beseeching tone, apologized for her request and besought me to forget it.

"Found! found!" cried I, in true delight, as I chanced upon the treasure at my feet.

"Oh, sir, you have made me so happy, and I am so much obliged, and so grateful to you!"

"Not another word, I beseech you," whispered I; "you are actually turning my head with ecstasy. Give me your hand, let me clasp it on your arm, and I am repaid."