WE PASS A DELIGHTFUL EVENING, AND I HAVE A MORNING VISION
In a long saloon ornamented with stags' horns and instruments of the
chase, tusks of boars, spear-staves, boarknives, and silver horns, my
father, I, and Temple sat down to a memorable breakfast, my father in
his true form, dressed in black silken jacket and knee-breeches,
purple-stockings and pumps; without a wig, I thanked heaven to see. How
blithely he flung out his limbs and heaved his chest released from
confinement! His face was stained brownish, but we drank old Rhine
wine, and had no eye for appearances.
'So you could bear it no longer, Richie?' My father interrupted the
narrative I doled out, anxious for his, and he began, and I interrupted
him.
'You did think of me often, papa, didn't you?'
His eyes brimmed with tenderness.
'Think of you!' he sighed.
I gave him the account of my latest adventures in a few panting
breaths, suppressing the Bench. He set my face to front him.
'We are two fools, Mr. Temple,' he said.
'No, sir,' said Temple.
'Now you speak, papa,' said I.
He smiled warmly.
'Richie begins to remember me.'
I gazed at him to show it was true.
'I do, papa—I'm not beginning to.'
At his request, I finished the tale of my life at school. 'Ah, well!
that was bad fortune; this is good!' he exclaimed. 'Tis your father, my
son: 'tis day-light, though you look at it through a bed-curtain, and
think you are half-dreaming. Now then for me, Richie.'
My father went on in this wise excitedly:
'I was laying the foundation of your fortune here, my boy. Heavens!
when I was in that bronze shell I was astonished only at my continence
in not bursting. You have grown,—you have shot up and filled out. I
register my thanks to your grandfather Beltham; the same, in a minor
degree, to Captain Jasper Welsh. Between that man Rippenger and me
there shall be dealings. He flogged you: let that pass. He exposed you
to the contempt of your school-fellows because of a breach in my
correspondence with a base-born ferule-swinger. What are we coming to?
Richie, my son, I was building a future for you here. And Colonel
Goodwin—Colonel Goodwin, you encountered him too, and his marriageable
daughter—I owe it to them that I have you here! Well, in the event of
my sitting out the period this morning as the presentment of Prince
Albrecht, I was to have won something would have astonished that
unimpressionable countryman of ours. Goodness gracious, my boy! when I
heard your English shout, it went to my marrow. Could they expect me to
look down on my own flesh and blood, on my son—my son Richmond—after a
separation of years, and continue a statue? Nay, I followed my paternal
impulse. Grant that the show was spoilt, does the Markgräfin insist on
my having a bronze heart to carry on her pastime? Why, naturally, I
deplore a failure, let the cause be what it will. Whose regrets can
eclipse those of the principal actor? Quotha! as our old Plays have it.
Regrets? Did I not for fifteen minutes and more of mortal time sit in
view of a multitude, motionless, I ask you, like a chiselled block of
stone,—and the compact was one quarter of an hour, and no farther? That
was my stipulation. I told her—I can hold out one quarter of an hour: I
pledged myself to it. Who, then, is to blame? I was exposed to view
twenty-three minutes, odd seconds. Is there not some ancient story of a
monstrous wretch baked in his own bull? My situation was as bad. If I
recollect aright, he could roar; no such relief was allowed to me. And
I give you my word, Richie, lads both, that while that most infernal
Count Fretzel was pouring forth his execrable humdrum, I positively
envied the privilege of an old palsied fellow, chief boatman of the
forest lake, for, thinks I, hang him! he can nod his head and I can
not. Let me assure you, twenty minutes of an ordeal like that,—one
posture, mind you, no raising of your eyelids, taking your breath
mechanically, and your heart beating—jumping like an enraged
balletdancer boxed in your bosom—a literal description, upon my honour;
and not only jumping, jumping every now and then, I may say, with a toe
in your throat: I was half-choked:—well, I say, twenty minutes,
twenty-seven minutes and a half of that, getting on, in fact, to
half-an-hour, it is superhuman!—by heavens, it is heroical!
And observe my reward: I have a son—my only one. I have been divided
from him for years; I am establishing his fortune; I know he is
provided with comforts: Richie, you remember the woman Waddy? A
faithful soul! She obtained my consent at last—previously I had
objections; in fact, your address was withheld from the woman—to call
at your school. She saw Rippenger, a girl of considerable attractions.
She heard you were located at Riversley: I say, I know the boy is
comfortably provided for; but we have been separated since he was a
little creature with curls on his forehead, scarce breeched.'
I protested:
'Papa, I have been in jacket and trousers I don't know how long.'
'Let me pursue,' said my father. 'And to show you, Richie, it is a
golden age ever when you and I are together, and ever shall be till we
lose our manly spirit, and we cling to that,—till we lose our princely
spirit, which we never will abandon—perish rather!—I drink to you, and
challenge you; and, mind you, old Hock wine has charms. If Burgundy is
the emperor of wines, Hock is the empress. For youngsters, perhaps, I
should except the Hock that gets what they would fancy a trifle pique,
turned with age, so as to lose in their opinion its empress flavour.'
Temple said modestly: 'I should call that the margravine of wines.'
My father beamed on him with great approving splendour. 'Join us, Mr.
Temple; you are a man of wit, and may possibly find this specimen
worthy of you. This wine has a history. You are drinking wine with
blood in it. Well, I was saying, the darling of my heart has been torn
from me; I am in a foreign land; foreign, that is, by birth, and on the
whole foreign. Yes!—I am the cynosure of eyes; I am in a singular
posture, a singular situation; I hear a cry in the tongue of my native
land, and what I presume is my boy's name: I look, I behold him, I
follow a parent's impulse. On my soul! none but a fish-father could
have stood against it.
Well, for this my reward is—and I should have stepped from a cathedral
spire just the same, if I had been mounted on it—that I, I,—and the
woman knows all my secret—I have to submit to the foul tirade of a
vixen.
She drew language, I protest, from the slums. And I entreat you, Mr.
Temple, with your “margravine of wines”—which was very neatly said, to
be sure—note you this curious point for the confusion of Radicals in
your after life; her Highness's pleasure was to lend her tongue to the
language—or something like it—of a besotted fish-wife; so! very well,
and just as it is the case with that particular old Hock you youngsters
would disapprove of, and we cunning oldsters know to contain more
virtues in maturity than a nunnery of May-blooming virgins, just so the
very faults of a royal lady—royal by birth and in temper a
termagant—impart a perfume! a flavour! You must age; you must live in
Courts, you must sound the human bosom, rightly to appreciate it. She
is a woman of the most malicious fine wit imaginable.
She is a generous woman, a magnanimous woman; wear her chains and she
will not brain you with her club. She is the light, the centre of every
society where she appears, like what shall I say? like the moon in a
bowl of old Rhenish. And you will drain that bowl to the bottom to
seize her, as it were—catch a correct idea of her; ay, and your brains
are drowned in the attempt. Yes, Richie; I was aware of your residence
at Riversley. Were you reminded of your wandering dada on Valentine's
day? Come, my boy, we have each of us a thousand things to relate. I
may be dull—I do not understand what started you on your journey in
search of me. An impulse? An accident? Say, a directing angel! We rest
our legs here till evening, and then we sup. You will be astonished to
hear that you have dined. 'Tis the fashion with the Germans. I promise
you good wine shall make it up to you for the return to school-habits.
We sup, and we pack our scanty baggage, and we start tonight. Brook no
insult at Courts if you are of material value: if not, it is
unreservedly a question whether you like kickings.'
My father paused, yawned and stretched, to be rid of the remainder of
his aches and stiffness. Out of a great yawn he said:
'Dear lads, I have fallen into the custom of the country; I crave your
permission that I may smoke. Wander, if you choose, within hail of me,
or sit by me, if you can bear it, and talk of your school-life, and
your studies. Your aunt Dorothy, Richie? She is well? I know not her
like. I could bear to hear of any misfortune but that she suffered
pain.
My father smoked his cigar peacefully. He had laid a guitar on his
knees, and flipped a string, or chafed over all the strings, and
plucked and thrummed them as his mood varied. We chatted, and watched
the going down of the sun, and amused ourselves idly, fermenting as we
were. Anything that gave pleasure to us two boys pleased and at once
occupied my father. It was without aid from Temple's growing admiration
of him that I recovered my active belief and vivid delight in his
presence. My younger days sprang up beside me like brothers. No one
talked, looked, flashed, frowned, beamed, as he did! had such prompt
liveliness as he! such tenderness! No one was ever so versatile in
playfulness. He took the colour of the spirits of the people about him.
His vivacious or sedate man-of-the-world tone shifted to playfellow's
fun in a twinkling. I used as a little fellow to think him larger than
he really was, but he was of good size, inclined to be stout; his eyes
were grey, rather prominent, and his forehead sloped from arched
eyebrows. So conversational were his eyes and brows that he could
persuade you to imagine he was carrying on a dialogue without opening
his mouth. His voice was charmingly clear; his laughter confident,
fresh, catching, the outburst of his very self, as laughter should be.
Other sounds of laughter were like echoes.
Strange to say, I lost the links of my familiarity with him when he
left us on a short visit to his trunks and portmanteaux, and had to
lean on Temple, who tickled but rejoiced me by saying: 'Richie, your
father is just the one I should like to be secretary to.'
We thought it a pity to have to leave this nice foreign place
immediately. I liked the scenery, and the wine, and what I supposed to
be the habit of the gentlemen here to dress in silks. On my father's
return to us I asked him if we could not stay till morning.
'Till morning, then,' he said: 'and to England with the first lark.'
His complexion was ruddier; his valet had been at work to restore it;
he was getting the sanguine hue which coloured my recollection of him.
Wearing a black velvet cap and a Spanish furred cloak, he led us over
the villa. In Sarkeld he resided at the palace, and generally at the
lake-palace on the removal of the Court thither. The margravine had
placed the villa, which was her own property, at his disposal, the
better to work out their conspiracy.
'It would have been mine!' said my father, bending suddenly to my ear,
and humming his philosophical 'heigho,' as he stepped on in minuet
fashion. We went through apartments rich with gilded oak and pine
panellings: in one was a rough pattern of a wooden horse opposite a
mirror; by no means a figure of a horse, but apparently a number of
pieces contributed by a carpenter's workshop, having a rueful seat in
the middle. My father had practised the attitude of Prince Albrecht
Wohlgemuth on it. 'She timed me five and twenty minutes there only
yesterday,' he said; and he now supposed he had sat the bronze horse as
a statue in public view exactly thirty-seven minutes and a quarter.
Tubs full of colouring liquid to soak the garments of the prince, pots
of paint, and paint and plaster brushes, hinted the magnitude of the
preparations.
'Here,' said my father in another apartment, 'I was this morning
apparelled at seven o'clock: and I would have staked my right arm up to
the collar-bone on the success of the undertaking!'
'Weren't they sure to have found it out in the end, papa?' I inquired.
'I am not so certain of that,' he rejoined: 'I cannot quaff consolation
from that source. I should have been covered up after exhibition; I
should have been pronounced imperfect in my fitting-apparatus; the
sculptor would have claimed me, and I should have been enjoying the
fruits of a brave and harmless conspiracy to do honour to an
illustrious prince, while he would have been moulding and casting an
indubitable bronze statue in my image. A fig for rumours! We show
ourself; we are caught from sight; we are again on show. Now this being
successfully done, do you see, Royalty declines to listen to vulgar
tattle. Presumably, Richie, it was suspected by the Court that the
margravine had many months ago commanded the statue at her own cost,
and had set her mind on winning back the money. The wonder of it was my
magnificent resemblance to the defunct. I sat some three hours before
the old warrior's portraits in the dining-saloon of the lake-palace.
Accord me one good spell of meditation over a tolerable sketch, I
warrant myself to represent him to the life, provided that he was a
personage: I incline to stipulate for handsome as well. On my word of
honour as a man and a gentleman, I pity the margravine—my poor good
Frau Feldmarschall! Now, here, Richie,'—my father opened a side-door
out of an elegant little room into a spacious dark place, 'here is her
cabinet-theatre, where we act German and French comediettas in Spring
and Autumn. I have superintended it during the two or more years of my
stay at the Court. Humph! 'tis over.'
He abruptly closed the door. His dress belonged to the part of a
Spanish nobleman, personated by him in a Play called The Hidalgo
Enraged, he said, pointing a thumb over his shoulder at the melancholy
door, behind which gay scenes had sparkled.
'Papa!' said I sadly, for consolation.
'You're change for a sovereign to the amount of four hundred and
forty-nine thousand shillings every time you speak!' cried he, kissing
my forehead.
He sparkled in good earnest on hearing that I had made acquaintance
with the little Princess Ottilia. What I thought of her, how she looked
at me, what I said to her, what words she answered, how the
acquaintance began, who were observers of it,—I had to repair my
omission to mention her by furnishing a precise description of the
circumstances, describing her face and style, repeating her pretty
English.
My father nodded: he thought I exaggerated that foreign English of
hers; but, as I said, I was new to it and noticed it. He admitted the
greater keenness of attention awakened by novelty.
'Only,' said he, 'I rather wonder—' and here he smiled at me
inquiringly. ''Tis true,' he added, 'a boy of fourteen or fifteen—ay,
Richie, have your fun out. A youngster saw the comic side of her. Do
you know, that child has a remarkable character? Her disposition is
totally unfathomable. You are a deep reader of English poetry, I hope;
she adores it, and the English Navy. She informed me that if she had
been the English people she would have made Nelson king. The Royal
family of England might see objections to that, I told her. Cries she:
“Oh! anything for a sea-hero.” You will find these young princes and
princesses astonishingly revolutionary when they entertain brains. Now
at present, just at present, an English naval officer, and a poet,
stand higher in the esteem of that young Princess Ottilia than dukes,
kings, or emperors. So you have seen her!' my father ejaculated
musingly, and hummed, and said: 'By the way, we must be careful not to
offend our grandpapa Beltham, Richie. Good acres—good anchorage; good
coffers—good harbourage. Regarding poetry, my dear boy, you ought to be
writing it, for I do—the diversion of leisure hours, impromptus. In
poetry, I would scorn anything but impromptus. I was saying, Richie,
that if tremendous misfortune withholds from you your legitimate
prestige, you must have the substantial element. 'Tis your springboard
to vault by, and cushions on the other side if you make a miss and
fall. 'Tis the essence if you have not the odour.'
I followed my father's meaning as the shadow of a bird follows it in
sunlight; it made no stronger an impression than a flying shadow on the
grass; still I could verify subsequently that I had penetrated him—I
had caught the outline of his meaning—though I was little accustomed to
his manner of communicating his ideas: I had no notion of what he
touched on with the words, prestige, essence, and odour.
My efforts to gather the reason for his having left me neglected at
school were fruitless. 'Business, business! sad necessity! hurry,
worry-the-hounds!' was his nearest approach to an explicit answer; and
seeing I grieved his kind eyes, I abstained. Nor did I like to defend
Mr. Rippenger for expecting to be paid. We came to that point once or
twice, when so sharply wronged did he appear, and vehement and
indignant, that I banished thoughts which marred my luxurious
contentment in hearing him talk and sing, and behave in his old ways
and new habits.
Plain velvet was his dress at dinner. We had a yellow Hock. Temple's
meditative face over it, to discover the margravine, or something, in
its flavour, was a picture. It was an evening of incessant talking; no
telling of events straightforwardly, but all by fits—all here and
there. My father talked of Turkey, so I learnt he had been in that
country; Temple of the routine of our life at Riversley; I of Kiomi,
the gipsy girl; then we two of Captain Jasper Welsh; my father of the
Princess Ottilia. When I alluded to the margravine, he had a word to
say of Mrs. Waddy; so I learnt she had been in continual correspondence
with him, and had cried heavily about me, poor soul. Temple laughed out
a recollection of Captain Bulsted's 'hic, haec, hoc'; I jumped Janet
Ilchester up on the table; my father expatiated on the comfort of a
volume of Shakespeare to an exiled Englishman. We drank to one another,
and heartily to the statue. My father related the history of the
margravine's plot in duck-and-drake skips, and backward to his first
introduction to her at some Austrian Baths among the mountains. She
wanted amusement—he provided it; she never let him quit her sight from
that moment.
'And now,' he said, 'she has lost me!' He drew out of his pocket-book a
number of designs for the statue of Prince Albrecht, to which the
margravine's initials were appended, and shuffled them, and sighed, and
said: 'Most complete arrangements! most complete! No body of men were
ever so well drilled as those fellows up at Bella Vista—could not have
been! And at the climax, in steps the darling boy for whom I laboured
and sweated, and down we topple incontinently! Nothing would have
shaken me but the apparition of my son! I was proof against everything
but that! I sat invincible for close upon an hour—call it an hour! Not
a muscle of me moved: I repeat, the heart in my bosom capered like an
independent organ; had it all its own way, leaving me mine, until Mr.
Temple, take my word for it, there is a guiding hand in some families;
believe it, and be serene in adversity. The change of life at a merry
Court to life in a London alley will exercise our faith. But the
essential thing is that Richie has been introduced here, and I intend
him to play a part here. The grandson and heir of one of the richest
commoners in England—I am not saying commoner as a term of
reproach—possessed of a property that turns itself over and doubles
itself every ten years, may—mind you, may—on such a solid foundation as
that!—and as to birth, your Highness has only to grant us a private
interview.'
Temple was dazed by this mystifying address to him; nor could I
understand it.
'Why, papa, you always wished for me to go into Parliament,' said I.
'I do,' he replied, 'and I wish you to lead the London great world.
Such topics are for by-and-by. Adieu to them!' He kissed his wafting
finger-tips.
We fell upon our random talk again with a merry rattle.
I had to give him a specimen of my piano-playing and singing.
He shook his head. 'The cricketer and the scholar have been developed
at the expense of the musician; and music, Richie, music unlocks the
chamber of satinrose.'
Late at night we separated. Temple and I slept in companion-rooms.
Deadly drowsy, the dear little fellow sat on the edge of my bed
chattering of his wonder. My dreams led me wandering with a ship's
diver under the sea, where we walked in a light of pearls and exploded
old wrecks. I was assuring the glassy man that it was almost as clear
beneath the waves as above, when I awoke to see my father standing over
me in daylight; and in an ecstasy I burst into sobs.
'Here, Richie'—he pressed fresh violets on my nostrils—'you have had a
morning visitor. Quick out of bed, and you will see the little fairy
crossing the meadow.'
I leapt to the window in time to have in view the little Princess
Ottilia, followed by her faithful gaunt groom, before she was lost in
the shadow of the fir-trees.