OUR RETURN HOMEWARD
We started for England at noon, much against my secret wishes; but my
father would not afford the margravine time to repent of her violent
language and injustice toward him. Reflection increased his
indignation. Anything that went wrong on the first stages of the
journey caused him to recapitulate her epithets and reply to them
proudly. He confided to me in Cologne Cathedral that the entire course
of his life was a grand plot, resembling an unfinished piece of
architecture, which might, at a future day, prove the wonder of the
world: and he had, therefore, packed two dozen of hoar old (uralt: he
used comical German) Hock for a present to my grandfather Beltham, in
the hope of its being found acceptable.
'For, Richie,' said he, 'you may not know—and it is not to win your
thanks I inform you of it—that I labour unremittingly in my son's
interests. I have established him, on his majority, in Germany, at a
Court. My object now is to establish him in England. Promise me that it
shall be the decided endeavour of your energies and talents to rise to
the height I point out to you? You promise, I perceive,' he added,
sharp in detecting the unpleasant predicament of a boy who is asked to
speak priggishly. So then I could easily promise with a firm voice. He
dropped certain explosive hints, which reminded me of the funny ideas
of my state and greatness I had when a child. I shrugged at them; I
cared nothing for revelations to come by-and-by. My object was to unite
my father and grandfather on terms of friendship.
This was the view that now absorbed and fixed my mind. To have him a
frequent visitor at Riversley, if not a resident in the house,
enlivening them all, while I, perhaps, trifled a cavalry sabre, became
one of my settled dreams. The difficult part of the scheme appeared to
me the obtaining of my father's consent. I mentioned it, and he said
immediately that he must have his freedom. 'Now, for instance,' said
he, 'what is my desire at this moment? I have always a big one perched
on a rock in the distance; but I speak of my present desire. And let it
be supposed that the squire is one of us: we are returning to England.
Well, I want to show you a stork's nest. We are not far enough South
for the stork to build here. It is a fact, Richie, that I do want to
show you the bird for luck, and as a feature of the country. And in me,
a desire to do a thing partakes of the impetus of steam.
Well, you see we are jogging home to England. I resist myself for
duty's sake: that I can do. But if the squire were here with his yea
and his nay, by heavens! I should be off to the top of the Rhine like a
tornado. I submit to circumstances: I cannot, and I will not, be
dictated to by men.'
'That seems to me rather unreasonable,' I remonstrated.
'It is; I am ashamed of it,' he answered. 'Do as you will, Richie; set
me down at Riversley, but under no slight, mark you. I keep my honour
intact, like a bottled cordial; my unfailing comfort in adversity! I
hand it to you, my son, on my death-bed, and say, “You have there the
essence of my life. Never has it been known of me that I swallowed an
insult.”'
'Then, papa, I shall have a talk with the squire.'
'Make good your ground in the castle,' said he. 'I string a guitar
outside. You toss me a key from the walls. If there is room, and I have
leisure, I enter. If not, you know I am paving your way in other
quarters. Riversley, my boy, is an excellent foothold and fortress:
Riversley is not the world. At Riversley I should have to wear a double
face, and, egad! a double stomach-bag, like young Jack feeding with the
giant—one full of ambition, the other of provender. That place is our
touchstone to discover whether we have prudence. We have, I hope. And
we will have, Mr. Temple, a pleasant day or two in Paris.'
It was his habit to turn off the bent of these conversations by drawing
Temple into them. Temple declared there was no feeling we were in a
foreign country while he was our companion. We simply enjoyed strange
scenes, looking idly out of our windows. Our recollection of the
strangest scene ever witnessed filled us with I know not what scornful
pleasure, and laughed in the background at any sight or marvel
pretending to amuse us. Temple and I cantered over the great Belgian
battlefield, talking of Bella Vista tower, the statue, the margravine,
our sour milk and black-bread breakfast, the little Princess Ottilia,
with her 'It is my question,' and 'You were kind to my lambs, sir,'
thoughtless of glory and dead bones. My father was very differently
impressed. He was in an exultant glow, far outmatching the bloom on our
faces when we rejoined him. I cried,
'Papa, if the prince won't pay for a real statue, I will, and I'll
present it in your name!'
'To the nation?' cried he, staring, and arresting his arm in what
seemed an orchestral movement.
'To the margravine!'
He heard, but had to gather his memory. He had been fighting the
battle, and made light of Bella Vista. I found that incidents over
which a day or two had rolled lost their features to him. He never
smiled at recollections. If they were forced on him noisily by persons
he liked, perhaps his face was gay, but only for a moment. The gaiety
of his nature drew itself from hot-springs of hopefulness: our arrival
in England, our interviews there, my majority Burgundy, my revisitation
of Germany—these events to come gave him the aspect children wear out
a-Maying or in an orchard. He discussed the circumstances connected
with the statue as dry matter-of-fact, and unless it was his duty to be
hilarious at the dinner-table, he was hardly able to respond to a call
on his past life and mine. His future, too, was present tense: 'We do
this,' not 'we will do this'; so that, generally, no sooner did we
speak of an anticipated scene than he was acting in it. I studied him
eagerly, I know, and yet quite unconsciously, and I came to no
conclusions. Boys are always putting down the ciphers of their
observations of people beloved by them, but do not add up a sum total.
Our journey home occupied nearly eleven weeks, owing to stress of money
on two occasions. In Brussels I beheld him with a little beggar-girl in
his arms.
'She has asked me for a copper coin, Richie,' he said, squeezing her
fat cheeks to make cherries of her lips.
I recommended him to give her a silver one.
'Something, Richie, I must give the little wench, for I have kissed
her, and, in my list of equivalents, gold would be the sole form of
repayment after that. You must buy me off with honour, my boy.'
I was compelled to receive a dab from the child's nose, by way of a
kiss, in return for buying him off with honour.
The child stumped away on the pavement fronting our hotel, staring at
its fist that held the treasure.
'Poor pet wee drab of it!' exclaimed my father. 'One is glad, Richie,
to fill a creature out of one's emptiness. Now she toddles; she is
digesting it rapidly. The last performance of one's purse is rarely so
pleasant as that. I owe it to her that I made the discovery in time.'
In this manner I also made the discovery that my father had no further
supply of money, none whatever. How it had run out without his
remarking it, he could not tell; he could only assure me that he had
become aware of the fact while searching vainly for a coin to bestow on
the beggar-girl. I despatched a letter attested by a notary of the
city, applying for money to the banker to whom Colonel Goodwin had
introduced me on my arrival on the Continent. The money came, and in
the meantime we had formed acquaintances and entertained them; they
were chiefly half-pay English military officers, dashing men. One, a
Major Dykes, my father established in our hotel, and we carried him on
to Paris, where, consequent upon our hospitalities, the purse was again
deficient.
Two reasons for not regretting it were adduced by my father; firstly,
that it taught me not to despise the importance of possessing money;
secondly, that we had served our country by assisting Dykes, who was on
the scent of a new and terrible weapon of destruction, which he
believed to be in the hands of the French Government. Major Dykes
disappeared on the scent, but we had the satisfaction of knowing that
we had done our best toward saving the Navy of Great Britain from being
blown out of water. Temple and I laughed over Major Dykes, and he
became our puppet for by-play, on account of his enormous whiskers, his
passion for strong drinks, and his air of secresy. My father's faith in
his patriotic devotedness was sufficient to withhold me from suspicions
of his character. Whenever my instinct, or common sense, would have led
me to differ with my father in opinion fun supervened; I was willing
that everything in the world should be as he would have it be, and took
up with a spirit of laughter, too happy in having won him, in having
fished him out of the deep sea at one fling of the net, as he said, to
care for accuracy of sentiment in any other particular.
Our purse was at its lowest ebb; he suggested no means of replenishing
it, and I thought of none. He had heard that it was possible to live in
Paris upon next to nothing with very great luxury, so we tried it; we
strolled through the lilac aisles among bonnes and babies, attended
military spectacles, rode on omnibuses, dined on the country heights,
went to theatres, and had a most pleasurable time, gaining everywhere
front places, friendly smiles, kind little services, in a way that
would have been incomprehensible to me but for my consciousness of the
magical influence of my father's address, a mixture of the ceremonious
and the affable such as the people could not withstand.
'The poet is perhaps, on the whole, more exhilarating than the
alderman,' he said.
These were the respective names given by him to the empty purse and the
full purse. We vowed we preferred the poet.
'Ay,' said he, 'but for all that the alderman is lighter on his feet: I
back him to be across the Channel first. The object of my instructions
to you will be lost, Richie, if I find you despising the Alderman's
Pegasus. On money you mount. We are literally chained here, you know,
there is no doubt about it; and we are adding a nail to our fetters
daily. True, you are accomplishing the Parisian accent. Paris has also
this immense advantage over all other cities: 'tis the central hotel on
the high-road of civilization. In Paris you meet your friends to a
certainty; it catches them every one in turn; so now we must abroad
early and late, and cut for trumps.' A meeting with a friend of my
father, Mr. Monterez Williams, was the result of our resolute adoption
of this system. He helped us on to Boulogne, where my father met
another friend, to whom he gave so sumptuous a dinner that we had not
money enough to pay the hotel bill.
'Now observe the inconvenience of leaving Paris,' said he. 'Ten to one
we shall have to return. We will try a week's whistling on the jetty;
and if no luck comes, and you will admit, Richie—Mr. Temple, I call
your attention to it—that luck will scarcely come in profuse expedition
through the narrow neck of a solitary seaport, why, we must return to
Paris.'
I proposed to write to my aunt Dorothy for money, but he would not hear
of that. After two or three days of whistling, I saw my old friend, Mr.
Bannerbridge, step out of the packetboat. On condition of my writing to
my aunt to say that I was coming home, he advanced me the sum we were
in need of, grudgingly though, and with the prediction that we should
break down again, which was verified. It occurred only a stage from
Riversley, where my grandfather's name was good as coin of the realm.
Besides, my father remained at the inn to guarantee the payment of the
bill, while Temple and I pushed on in a fly with the two dozen of Hock.
It could hardly be called a break-down, but my father was not unwilling
for me to regard it in that light. Among his parting remarks was an
impressive adjuration to me to cultivate the squire's attachment at all
costs.
'Do this,' he said, 'and I shall know that the lesson I have taught you
on your journey homeward has not been thrown away. My darling boy! my
curse through life has been that the sense of weight in money is a
sense I am and was born utterly a stranger to. The consequence is, my
grandest edifices fall; there is no foundation for them. Not that I am
worse, understand me, than under a temporary cloud, and the blessing of
heaven has endowed me with a magnificent constitution. Heaven forefend
that I should groan for myself, or you for me! But digest what you have
learnt, Richie; press nothing on the squire; be guided by the advice of
that esteemed and admirable woman, your aunt Dorothy. And, by the way,
you may tell her confidentially of the progress of your friendship with
the Princess Ottilia. Here I shall employ my hours in a tranquil study
of nature until I see you.' Thus he sped me forward.
We sighted Riversley about mid-day on a sunny June morning. Compared
with the view from Bella Vista, our firs looked scanty, our
heath-tracts dull, as places having no page of history written on them,
our fresh green meadows not more than commonly homely. I was so full of
my sense of triumph in my adventurous journey and the recovery of my
father, that I gazed on the old Grange from a towering height. The
squire was on the lawn, surrounded by a full company: the Ilchesters,
the Ambroses, the Wilfords, Captain and Squire Gregory Bulsted, the
Rubreys, and others, all bending to roses, to admire, smell, or pluck.
Charming groups of ladies were here and there; and Temple whispered as
we passed them:
'We beat foreigners in our women, Richie.'
I, making it my business to talk with perfect unconcern, replied
'Do you think so? Perhaps. Not in all cases'; all the while I was
exulting at the sweet beams of England radiating from these dear
early-morning-looking women.
My aunt Dorothy swam up to me, and, kissing me, murmured:
'Take no rebuff from your grandpapa, darling.'
My answer was: 'I have found him!'
Captain Bulsted sang out our names; I caught sight of Julia Rippenger's
face; the squire had his back turned to me, which reminded me of my
first speech with Captain Jasper Welsh, and I thought to myself, I know
something of the world now, and the thing is to keep a good temper.
Here there was no wire-coil to intercept us, so I fronted him quickly.
'Hulloa!' he cried, and gave me his shoulder.
'Temple is your guest, sir,' said I.
He was obliged to stretch out his hand to Temple.
A prompt instinct warned me that I must show him as much Beltham as I
could summon.
'Dogs and horses all right, sir?' I asked.
Captain Bulsted sauntered near.
'Here, William,' said the squire, 'tell this fellow about my stables.'
'In excellent condition, Harry Richmond,' returned the captain.
'Oh! he's got a new name, I'll swear,' said the squire.
'Not I!'
'Then what have you got of your trip, eh?'
'A sharper eye than I had, sir.'
'You've been sharpening it in London, have you?'
'I've been a little farther than London, squire.'
'Well, you're not a liar.'
'There, you see the lad can stand fire!' Captain Bulsted broke in.
'Harry Richmond, I'm proud to shake your hand, but I'll wait till
you're through the ceremony with your grandad.'
The squire's hands were crossed behind him. I smiled boldly in his
face.
'Shall I make the tour of you to get hold of one of them, sir?' He
frowned and blinked.
'Shuffle in among the ladies; you seem to know how to make friends
among them,' he said, and pretended to disengage his right hand for the
purpose of waving it toward one of the groups.
I seized it, saying heartily, 'Grandfather, upon my honour, I love you,
and I'm glad to be home again.'
'Mind you, you're not at home till you've begged Uberly's pardon in
public, you know what for,' he rejoined.
'Leaving the horse at that inn is on my conscience,' said I.
The squire grumbled: 'All the better; keep him there a bit.'
'Suppose he kicks?' said I; and the captain laughed, and the squire
too, and I was in such high spirits I thought of a dozen witty
suggestions relative to the seat of the conscience, and grieved for a
minute at going to the ladies.
Captain Bulsted convoyed me to pretty Irish-eyed Julia Rippenger.
Temple had previously made discovery of Janet Ilchester. Relating our
adventures on different parts of the lawn, we both heard that Colonel
Goodwin and his daughter had journeyed down to Riversley to smooth the
way for my return; so my easy conquest of the squire was not at all
wonderful; nevertheless, I maintained my sense of triumph, and was
assured in my secret heart that I had a singular masterfulness, and
could, when I chose to put it forth, compel my grandfather to hold out
his hand to my father as he had done to me.
Julia Rippenger was a guest at Riversley through a visit paid to her by
my aunt Dorothy in alarm at my absence. The intention was to cause the
squire a distraction. It succeeded; for the old man needed lively
prattle of a less childish sort than Janet Ilchester's at his elbow,
and that young lady, though true enough in her fashion, was the ardent
friend of none but flourishing heads; whereas Julia, finding my name
under a cloud at Riversley, spoke of me, I was led to imagine by
Captain Bulsted, as a ballad hero, a gloriful fellow, a darling whose
deeds were all pardonable—a mere puff of smoke in the splendour of his
nature.
'To hear the young lady allude to me in that style!' he confided to my
ear, with an ineffable heave of his big chest.
Certain good influences, at any rate, preserved the squire from
threatening to disinherit me. Colonel Goodwin had spoken to him very
manfully and wisely as to my relations with my father. The squire, it
was assumed by my aunt, and by Captain Bulsted and Julia, had
undertaken to wink at my father's claims on my affection. All three
vehemently entreated me to make no mention of the present of Hock to
him, and not to attempt to bring about an interview. Concerning the
yellow wine I disregarded their advice, for I held it to be a point of
filial duty, and an obligation religiously contracted beneath a
cathedral dome; so I performed the task of offering the Hock, stating
that it was of ancient birth. The squire bunched his features; he
tutored his temper, and said not a word. I fancied all was well. Before
I tried the second step, Captain Bulsted rode over to my father, who
himself generously enjoined the prudent course, in accordance with his
aforegone precepts. He was floated off, as he termed it, from the inn
where he lay stranded, to London, by I knew not what heaven-sent gift
of money, bidding me keep in view the grand career I was to commence at
Dipwell on arriving at my majority. I would have gone with him had he
beckoned a finger. The four-and-twenty bottles of Hock were ranged in a
line for the stable-boys to cock-shy at them under the squire's
supervision and my enforced attendance, just as revolutionary criminals
are executed. I felt like the survivor of friends, who had seen their
blood flow.
He handed me a cheque for the payment of debts incurred in my recent
adventures. Who could help being grateful for it? And yet his
remorseless spilling of the kindly wine full of mellow recollections of
my father and the little princess, drove the sense of gratitude out of
me.