Kitabı oku: «Arthur O'Leary: His Wanderings And Ponderings In Many Lands», sayfa 16
Pleasant this, was reflection number one, as I endeavoured to peer through the mist, and beheld a haze of weeping foliage – pleasant to be immured here during Heaven knows how many days, without the power to escape. Lucky fellow, Arthur, was my second thought; capital quarters you have fallen into. Better far the snug comforts of a Flemish chateau than the chances of a wayside inn. Besides, here is a goodly company met together; there will needs be pleasant people among them. I wish it may rain these three weeks; château life is the very thing I ‘m curious about. How do they get through the day? There’s no Times in Flanders; no one cares a farthing about who’s in and who’s out. There’s no Derby, no trials for murder. What can they do? was the question I put to myself a dozen times over. No matter; I have abundant occupation; my journal has never been posted up since – since – alas, I can scarcely tell!
It might be from reflections like these, or perhaps because I was less of a sportsman than my companions, but certainly, whatever the cause, I bore up against the disappointment of the weather with far more philosophy than they, and dispersed a sack of proverbs about patience, hope, equanimity, and contentment which Sancho Panza himself might have envied, until at length no one ventured a malediction on the day in my presence, for fear of eliciting a hailstorm of moral reflections. The company dropped down to breakfast by detachments, the elated looks and flashing eyes of the night before saddened and overcast at the unexpected change. Even the elders of the party seemed discontented; and except myself and an old gentleman with the gout, who took an airing about the hall and the drawing-room in a wheel-chair, all seemed miserable.
Each window had its occupant posted against the glass, vainly endeavouring to catch one bit of blue amid the dreary waste of cloud. A little group, sulky and silent, were gathered around the weather-glass; a literary inquirer sat down to con over the predictions of the almanac. You might as well have looked for sociability among the inhabitants of a private madhouse as here. The weather was cursed in every language from Cherokee to Sanskrit; all agreed that no country had such an abominable climate. The Yankee praised the summers of America, the Dane upheld his own, and I took a patriotic turn, and vowed I had never seen such rain in Ireland. The master of the house could scarcely show himself amid this torrent of abusive criticism; and when he did by chance appear, he looked as much ashamed as though he himself had pulled out the spigot, and deluged the whole land with water.
Meanwhile, none of those I looked for appeared. Neither the colonel’s daughter nor the baronne came down; the abbé too, did not descend to the breakfast room, and I was considerably puzzled and put out by the disappointment.
After then enduring a good hour’s boredom from the old colonel on the subject of my late lamented parent, Mark O’Leary; after submitting to a severe cross-examination from the Yankee gentleman as to the reason of my coming abroad, what property and expectations I had, my age and birthplace, what my mother died of, and whether I did not feel very miserable from the abject slavery of submitting to an English Government – I escaped into the library, a fine, comfortable old room, which I rightly conjectured I should find unoccupied.
Selecting a quaint-looking quarto with some curious illuminated pages for my companion, I drew a great deep leather chair into a recess of one window, and hugged myself in my solitude. While I listlessly turned over the leaves of my book, or sat lost in reflection, time crept along, and I heard the great clock of the château strike three; at the same moment a hand fell lightly on my shoulder; I turned about – it was the abbé.
‘I half suspected I should find you here,’ said he. ‘Do I disturb you, or may I keep you company?’
‘But too happy,’ I replied, ‘if you ‘ll do me the favour.’
‘I thought,’ said he, as he drew a chair opposite to me, – ‘I thought you’d scarcely play dominoes all day, or discuss waistcoats.’
‘In truth I was scarcely better employed; this old volume here which I took down for its plates – ’
‘Ma foi, a most interesting one; it is Guchardi’s History of Mary of Burgundy. Those quaint old processions, those venerable councils, are admirably depicted. What rich stores for a romance writer lie in the details of these old books! Their accuracy as to costume, the little traits of everyday life, are so naïvely told; every little domestic incident is so full of its characteristic era. I wonder, when the springs are so accessible, men do not draw more frequently from them, and more purely also.’
‘You forget Scott.’
‘No; far from it. He is the great exception; and from his intimate acquaintance with this class of reading is he so immeasurably superior to all other writers of his style. Not merely tinctured, but deeply imbued with the habits of the feudal period, the traits by which others attempt to paint the time with him were mere accessories in the picture; costume and architecture he used to heighten, not to convey his impressions; and while no one knew better every minute particular of dress or arms that betokened a period or a class, none more sparingly used such aid. He felt the same delicacy certain ancient artists did as to the introduction of pure white into their pictures, deeming such an unfair exercise of skill. But why venture to speak of your countryman to you, save that genius is above nationality, and Scott’s novels at least are European.’
After chatting for some time longer, and feeling struck with, the extent and variety of the abbé’s attainments, I half dropped a hint expressive of my surprise that one so cultivated as he was could apparently so readily comply with the monotonous routine of a château life, and the little prospect it afforded of his meeting congenial associates. Far from feeling offended at the liberty of my remark, he replied at once with a smile —
‘You are wrong there, and the error is a common one; but when you have seen more of life, you will learn that a man’s own resources are the only real gratifications he can count upon. Society, like a field-day, may offer the occasion to display your troops and put them through their manoeuvres; but, believe me, it is a rare and a lucky day when you go back richer by one recruit, and the chance is that even he is a cripple, and must be sent about his business. People, too, will tell you much of the advantage to be derived from associating with men of distinguished and gifted minds. I have seen something of such in my time, and give little credit to the theory. You might as well hope to obtain credit for a thousand pounds because you took off your hat to a banker.’
The abbé paused after this, and seemed to be occupied with his own thoughts; then raising his head suddenly, he said —
‘As to happiness, believe me, it lives only in the extremes of perfect vacuity or true genius. Your clever fellow, with a vivid fancy and glowing imagination, strong feeling and strong power of expression, has no chance of it. The excitement he lives in is alone a bar to the tranquil character of thought necessary to happiness; and however cold a man may feel, he should never warm himself through a burning-glass.’
There seemed through all he said something like a retrospective tone, as though he were rather giving the fruit of past personal experiences than merely speculating on the future; and I could not help throwing out a hint to this purport.
‘Perhaps you are right,’ said he; then, after a long silence, he added: ‘It is a fortunate thing after all when the faults of a man’s temperament are the source of some disappointment in early life, because then they rarely endanger his subsequent career. Let him only escape the just punishment, whatever it be, and the chances are that they embitter every hour of his after-life. His whole care and study being not correction, but concealment, he lives a life of daily duplicity; the fear of detection is over him at every step he takes; and he plays a part so constantly that he loses all real character at last in the frequency of dissimulation. Shall I tell you a little incident with which I became acquainted in early life. If you have nothing better to do, it may while away the hours before dinner.’
CHAPTER XIII. THE ABBE’S STORY
‘Without tiring you with any irrelevant details of the family and relatives of my hero, if I dare call him such, I may mention that he was the second son of an old Belgian family of some rank and wealth, and that in accordance with the habits of his house he was educated for the career of diplomacy. For this purpose, a life of travel was deemed the best preparation – foreign languages being the chief requisite, with such insight into history, national law, and national usages as any young man with moderate capacity and assiduity can master in three or four years.
‘The chief of the Dutch mission at Frankfort was an old diplomat of some distinction, but who, had it not been from causes purely personal towards the king, would not have quitted The Hague for any embassy whatever. He was a widower, with an only daughter – one of those true types of Dutch beauty which Terburg was so fond of painting. There are people who can see nothing but vulgarity in the class of features I speak of, and yet nothing in reality is farther from it. Hers was a mild, placid face, a wide, candid-looking forehead, down either side of which two braids of sunny brown hair fell; her skin, fair as alabaster, had the least tinge of colour, but her lips were full, and of a carmine hue, that gave a character of brilliancy to the whole countenance; her figure inclined to embonpoint, was exquisitely moulded, and in her walk there appeared the composed and resolute carriage of one whose temperament, however mild and unruffled, was still based on principles too strong to be shaken. She was indeed a perfect specimen of her nation, embodying in her character the thrift, the propriety, the high sense of honour, the rigid habits of order, so eminently Dutch; but withal there ran through her nature the golden thread of romance, and beneath that mild eyebrow there were the thoughts and hopes of a highly imaginative mind.
‘The mission consisted of an old secretary of embassy, Van Dohein, a veteran diplomat of some sixty years, and Edward Norvins, the youth I speak of. Such was the family party, for you are aware that they all lived in the same house, and dined together every day – the attachés of the mission being specially intrusted to the care and attention of the head of the mission, as if they were his own children. Norvins soon fell in love with the pretty Marguerite. How could it be otherwise? They were constantly together; he was her companion at home, her attendant at every ball; they rode out together, walked, read, drew, and sang together, and in fact very soon became inseparable. In all this there was nothing which gave rise to remark. The intimate habits of a mission permitted such; and as her father, deeply immersed in affairs of diplomacy, had no time to busy himself about them, no one else did. The secretary had followed the same course at every mission for the first ten years of his career, and only deemed it the ordinary routine of an attachés life.
‘Such, then, was the pleasant current of their lives, when an event occurred which was to disturb its even flow – ay, and alter the channel for ever. A despatch arrived one morning at the mission, informing them that a certain Monsieur von Halsdt, a son of one of the ministers, who had lately committed some breach of discipline in a cavalry regiment, was about to be attached to the mission. Never was such a shock as Marguerite and her lover sustained. To her the idea of associating with a wild, and unruly character like this was insupportable. To him it was misery; he saw at once all his daily intimacy with her interrupted; he perceived how their former habits could no longer be followed – that with this arrival must cease the companionship that made him the happiest of men. Even the baron himself was indignant at the arrangement to saddle him with a vaurien to be reclaimed; but then he was the minister’s son. The king himself had signed the appointment, and there was no help for it.
‘It was indeed with anything but feelings of welcome that they awaited the coming of the new guest. Even in the short interval between his appointment and his coming, a hundred rumours reached them of his numerous scrapes and adventures, his duels, his debts, his gambling, and his love exploits. All of course were duly magnified. Poor Marguerite felt as though an imp of Satan was about to pay them a visit, and Norvins dreaded him with a fear that partook of a presentiment.
‘The day came, and the dinner-hour, in respect for the son of the great man, was delayed twenty minutes in expectation of his coming; and they went to table at last without him, silent and sad – the baron, annoyed at the loss of dignity he should sustain by a piece of politeness exercised without result; the secretary, fretting over the entrées that were burned; Marguerite and Edward, mourning over happiness never to return. Suddenly a calèche drove into the court at full gallop, the steps rattled, and a figure wrapped in a cloak sprang out. Before the first surprise permitted them to speak, the door of the salle opened, and he appeared.
‘It would, I confess, have been a difficult matter to fix on that precise character of looks and appearances which might have pleased all the party. Whatever were the sentiments of others I know not, but Norvins’ wishes would have inclined to see him short and ill-looking, rude in speech and gesture – in a word, as repulsive as possible. It is indeed a strange thing – you must have remarked it, I’m certain – that the disappointment we feel at finding people we desire to like inferior to our own conceptions of them, is not one-half so great as is our chagrin at discovering those we are determined to dislike very different from our preconceived notions, with few or none of the features we were prepared to find fault with, and, in fact, altogether unlike the bugbear we had created for ourselves. One would suppose that such a revulsion in feeling would be pleasurable rather than otherwise. Not so, however; a sense of our own injustice adds poignancy to our previous prejudice, and we dislike the object only the more for lowering us in our own esteem.
‘Van Halsdt was well calculated to illustrate my theory. He was tall and well made; his face, dark as a Spaniard’s (his mother was descended from a Catalonian family), was manly-looking and frank, at once indicating openness of temperament, and a dash of heroic daring that would like danger for itself alone; his carriage had the easy freedom of a soldier, without anything bordering on coarseness or effrontery. Advancing with a quiet bow, he tendered his apologies for being late, rather as a matter he owed to himself, to excuse his want of punctuality, than from any sense of inconvenience to others, and ascribed the delay to the difficulty of finding post-horses. “While waiting, therefore,” said he, “I resolved to economise time, and so dressed for dinner at the last stage.”
‘This apology at least showed a desire on his part to be in time, and at once disposed the secretary in his favour. The baron himself spoke little; and as for Marguerite, she never opened her lips to him the whole time of dinner; and Norvins could barely get out the few commonplaces of table, and sat eyeing him from time to time with an increasing dislike.
‘Van Halsdt could not help feeling that his reception was of the coldest; yet either perfectly indifferent to the fact, or resolved to overcome their impressions against him, he talked away unceasingly of everything he could think of – the dinners at court, the theatres, the diplomatic soirées, the news from foreign countries, all of which he spoke of with knowledge and intimacy. Yet nothing could he extract in return. The old baron retired, as was his wont, immediately after dinner; the secretary dropped off soon after; Marguerite went to take her evening drive on the boulevards; and Norvins was left alone with his new comrade. At first he was going to pretend an engagement. Then the awkwardness of the moment came forcibly before him, and he sat still, silent and confused.
‘“Any wine in that decanter?” said Van Halsdt, with a short abrupt tone, as he pointed to the bottle beside him. “Pray pass it over here. I have only drunk three glasses. I shall be better aware to-morrow how soon your party breaks up here.”
‘“Yes,” said Edward timidly, and not well knowing what to say. “The baron retires to his study every evening at seven.”
‘“With all my heart,” said he gaily; “at six, if he prefer it, and he may even take the old secretary with him. But the mademoiselle, shall we see any more of her during the evening? Is there no salon? Eh, what do you do after dinner?”
‘“Why, sometimes we drive, or we walk out on the boulevards; the other ministers receive once or twice a week, and then there’s the opera.”
‘“Devilishly slow you must find all this,” said Van Halsdt, filling a bumper, and taking it off at a draught. “Are you long here?”
‘“Only three months.”
‘“And well sick of it, I ‘ll be sworn.”
‘“No, I feel very happy; I like the quiet.”
‘“Oh dear! oh dear!” said he, with a long groan, “what is to become of me?”
‘Norvins heartily wished he could have replied to the question in the way he would have liked; but he said nothing.
‘“It’s past eight.” said Van Halsdt, as he perceived him stealing a look at his watch. “Never mind me, if you’ve any appointment; I ‘ll soon learn to make myself at home here. Perhaps you’d better ring for some more claret, however, before you go; they don’t know me yet.”
‘Edward almost started from his chair at this speech. Such a liberty had never before been heard of as to call for more wine; indeed, it was not their ordinary habit to consume half what was placed on the table; but so taken by surprise was he, that he actually rose and rang the bell, as he was desired.
‘“Some claret, Johann,” said he with a gulp, as the old butler entered.
‘The man started back, and fixed his eyes on the empty decanter.
‘“And I say, ancient,” said Van Halsdt, “don’t decant it; you shook the last bottle confoundedly. It’s old wine, and won’t bear that kind of usage.”
‘The old man moved away with a deep sigh, and returned in about ten minutes with a bottle from the cellar.
‘“Didn’t Providence bless you with two hands, friend?” said Van Halsdt. “Go down for another.”
‘“Go, Johann,” said Norvins, as he saw him hesitate, and not knowing what his refusal might call forth; and then, without waiting for further parley, he arose and withdrew.
‘“Well,” thought he, when he was once more alone, “if he is a good-looking fellow, and there’s no denying that, one comfort is, he is a confirmed drunkard. Marguerite will never be able to endure him”; for such, in his secret heart, was the reason of his premature dislike and dread of his new companion; and as he strolled along he meditated on the many ways he should be able to contrast his own acquirements with the other’s deficiencies, for such he set them down at once, and gradually reasoned himself into the conviction that the fear of all rivalry from him was mere folly; and that whatever success his handsome face and figure might have elsewhere, Marguerite was not the girl to be caught by such attractions, when coupled with an unruly temper and an uneducated mind.
‘And he was right. Great as his own repugnance was towards Van Halsdt, hers was far greater. She not only avoided him on every occasion, but took pleasure, as it seemed, in marking the cold distance of her manner to him, and contrasting it with her behaviour to others. It is true he appeared to care little for this; and only replied to it by a half-impertinent style of familiarity – a kind of jocular intimacy most insulting to a woman, and horribly tantalising for those to witness who are attached to her.
‘I don’t wish to make my story a long one; nor could I without entering into the details of everyday life, which now became so completely altered. Marguerite and Norvins met only at rare intervals, and then less to cultivate each other’s esteem than expatiate on the many demerits of him who had estranged them so utterly. All the reports to his discredit that circulated in Frankfort were duly conned over; and though they could lay little to his charge of their own actual knowledge, they only imagined the more, and condemned him accordingly.
‘To Norvins he became hourly more insupportable. There was in all his bearing towards him the quiet, measured tone of a superior to an inferior, the patronising protection of an elder to one younger and less able to defend himself – and which, with the other’s consciousness of his many intellectual advantages over him, added double bitterness to the insult. As he never appeared in the bureau of the mission, nor in any way concerned himself with official duties, they rarely met save at table; there, his appearance was the signal for constraint and reserve – an awkwardness that made itself felt the more, as the author of it seemed to exult in the dismay he created.
‘Such, then, was the state of events when Norvins received his nomination as secretary of legation at Stuttgart. The appointment was a surprise to him; he had not even heard of the vacancy. The position, however, and the emoluments were such as to admit of his marrying; and he resolved to ask the baron for his daughter’s hand, to which the rank and influence of his own family permitted him to aspire without presumption.
‘The baron gave his willing consent; Marguerite accepted; and the only delay was now caused by the respect for an old Dutch custom – the bride should be at least eighteen, and Marguerite yet wanted three months of that age. This interval Norvins obtained leave to pass at Frankfort; and now they went about to all public places together as betrothed; paid visits in company, and were recognised by all their acquaintances as engaged to each other.
‘Just at this time a French cuirassier regiment marched into garrison in the town; they were on their way to the south of Germany, and only detained in Frankfort to make up their full complement of horses. In this regiment was a young Dutch officer, who once belonged to the same regiment as Van Halsdt, and who was broke by the court-martial for the same quarrel. They had fought twice with swords, and only parted with the dire resolve to finish the affair at the next opportunity. This officer was a man of an inferior class, his family being an obscure one of North Holland; and thus, when dismissed the service, he had no other resource than to enter the French army, at that time at war with Austria. He was said to be a man of overbearing temper and passion, and it was not likely that the circumstance of his expatriation and disgrace had improved him. However, some pledge Van Halsdt had made to his father decided him in keeping out of the way. The report ran that he had given a solemn promise never to challenge nor accept any challenge from the other on any pretext whatsoever. Whatever the promise, certain it was he left Frankfort the same day the regiment marched into town, and retired to Wiesbaden.
‘The circumstance soon became the subject of town gossip, and plenty there were most willing to attribute Van Halsdt’s departure to prudential motives, rather than to give so wild a character any credit for filial ones. Several who felt offended at his haughty, supercilious manner now exulted in this, as it seemed, fall to his pride; and Norvins, unfortunately, fell into the same track, and by many a sly innuendo and half allusion to his absence gave greater currency to the report that his absence was dictated by other considerations than those of parental respect.
‘Through all the chit-chat of the time, Marguerite showed herself highly indignant at Van Halsdt’s conduct. The quiet timid girl, who detested violence and hated crime in any shape, felt disgusted at the thought of his poltroonery, and could not hear his name mentioned without an expression of contempt. All this delighted Edward; it seemed to be the just retribution on the former insolence of the other, and he longed for his return to Frankfort to witness the thousand slights that awaited him.
‘Such a strange and unaccountable thing is our triumph over others for the want of those qualities in which we see ourselves deficient. No one is so loud in decrying dishonesty and fraud as the man who feels the knave in his own heart. Who can censure female frailty like her who has felt its sting in her own conscience? You remember the great traveller, Mungo Park, used to calculate the depths of rivers in Africa by rolling heavy stones over their banks and watching the air-bubbles that mounted to the surface; so, oftentimes, may you measure the innate sense of a vice by the execration some censor of morals bestows upon it. Believe me, these heavy chastisements of crime are many times but the cries of awakened conscience. I speak strongly, but I feel deeply on this subject.
‘But to my story. It was the custom for Marguerite and her lover each evening to visit the theatre, where the minister had a box; and as they were stepping into the carriage one night as usual, Van Halsdt drove up to the door and asked if he might accompany them. Of course, a refusal was out of the question; he was a member of the mission; he had done nothing to forfeit his position there, however much he had lost in the estimation of society generally; and they acceded to his request, still with a species of cold courtesy that would, by any other man, have been construed into a refusal.
‘As they drove along in silence, the constraint increased at every moment, and had it not been for the long-suppressed feeling of hated rivalry, Norvins could have pitied Van Halsdt as he sat, no longer with his easy smile of self-satisfied indifference, but with a clouded, heavy brow, mute and pale. As for Marguerite, her features expressed a species of quiet, cold disdain whenever she looked towards him, far more terrible to bear than anything like an open reproach. Twice or thrice he made an effort to start some topic of conversation, but in vain; his observations were either unreplied to, or met a cold, distant assent more chilling still. At length, as if resolved to break through their icy reserve towards him, he asked in a tone of affected indifference —
‘“Any changes in Frankfort, mademoiselle, since I had the pleasure of seeing you last?”
‘“None, sir, that I know of, save that the French cuirassier regiment marched this morning for Baden, of which, however, it is more than probable you are aware already.”
‘On each of these latter words she laid an undue stress, fixing her eyes steadfastly on him, and speaking in a slow, measured tone. He grew deeply red, almost black for a moment or two; his moustache seemed almost to bristle with the tremulous convulsion that shook his upper lip; then as suddenly he became lividly pale, while the great drops of perspiration stood on his brow, and fell upon his cheek. Not another word was spoken. They soon reached the theatre, when Norvins offered Marguerite his arm, Van Halsdt slowly following them upstairs.
‘The play was one of Lessing’s and well acted; but somehow Norvins could pay no attention to the performance, his whole soul being occupied by other thoughts. Marguerite appeared to him in a different light from what he had ever seen her – not less to be loved, but altogether different. The staid, placid girl, whose quiet thoughts seemed never to rest on topics of violent passion or excitement, who fled from the very approach of anything bordering on overwrought feeling, now appeared carried away by her abhorrence of a man to the very extreme of hatred for conduct which Norvins scarcely thought she should have considered even faulty. If, then, his triumph over Van Halsdt brought any pleasure to his heart, a secret sense of his own deficiency in the very quality for which she condemned him made him shudder.
‘While he reflected thus, his ear was struck with a conversation in the box next his, in which were seated a large party of young men, with two or three ladies, whose air, dress, and manners were at least somewhat equivocal. ‘“And so, Alphonse, you succeeded after all?” said a youth to a large, powerful, dark-moustached man, whose plain blue frock could not conceal the soldier.
‘“Yes,” replied he, in a deep sonorous voice; “our doctor managed the matter for me. He pronounced me unable to march before to-morrow; he said that my old wound in the arm gave symptoms of uneasiness, and required a little more rest. But, by Saint Denis, I see little benefit in the plan, after all. This ‘white feather’ has not ventured back, and I must leave in the morning without meeting him.”
‘These words, which were spoken somewhat loudly, could be easily heard in any part of the adjoining box; and scarcely were they uttered when Van Halsdt, who sat the entire evening far back, and entirely concealed from view, covered his face with both hands, and remained in that posture for several minutes. When he withdrew them, the alteration in his countenance was actually fearful. Though his cheeks were pale as death, his eyes were bloodshot, and the lids swelled and congested; his lips, too, were protruded, and trembled like one in an ague, and his clasped hands shook against the chair.
‘Norvins would have asked him if he were ill, but was afraid even to speak to him, while again his attention was drawn off by the voices near him.
‘“Not got a bouquet?” said the large man to a lady beside him; “pardi, that’s too bad. Let me assist you. I perceive that this pretty damsel, who turns her shoulder so disdainfully towards us, makes little use of hers, and so avec permission, mademoiselle!” With that he stood up, and leaning across the division into their box, stretched over his hand and took the bouquet that lay before Marguerite, and handed it to the lady at his side.
