Facing an opulent sunset, Ned made his way some three or four miles
out of Liége through scenery whose very luxuriance affected him like
the qualmish aftermath of excess. It gave him a feeling of surfeit--of
committal to a debauch of colour that it was no part of his
temperament to indulge. If his soul had attached itself to any theory
of beauty, it was to a theory of orderliness and sobriety, that took
account of barbaric dyes but to set them to an accordant pattern. Its
genius was of an adaptive rather than an imaginative bent. It desired
to shape his world to man, not man to his world--to appropriate the
accidents of nature to the uses of a wholesomely picturesque race--to
emasculate the bull of violence by withdrawing from its very
experience the hues of crimson and orange.
On any display of passion this young man looked with cool dislike. His
instincts were primarily for the gratification of the understanding.
The premeditated involutions of fancy did not engage his sympathies.
The mystery of brooding distances peopled with irisated phantoms, of
the hazy wanderings of the undefined, he was not greatly concerned to
penetrate. Claude he would have preferred to Turner, and Nasmyth to
either. Fuseli he already detested; and Blake was his very _bête
noire_. Things rude, boisterous, and ugly he would wish to crush under
a heel of iron, thinking to enforce the peace--rather after the
fashion of his times--by breaking it. But he would raise, not level,
the world to an equality--would make out of its material a very
handsome model, in which the steeples should clang and the
water-wheels turn and the seasons pulsate by a mechanism common to
all.
Such was his creed of eventual reconstruction of a social fabric, the
downfall of which was much predicted of the _jeunesse politique_ of
the day; and in the meanwhile he was very willing to acknowledge
himself to be in the condition of incomplete moral ossification--to be
travelling, indeed, for the sake of bone and gristle, and in order to
convert the misuses of other characters to the profit of his own.
Now he advanced with a certain feeling of enforced intemperance upon a
prospect of superabundant beauty. The great noontide heat was become a
salt memory, to be tasted only for emphasis of the bouquet of that
velvety wine of air that poured from the heights. Distant hills ran
along an amber sky, like the shadows of nearer ones. Far away a jagged
keep surmounting a crag stood out, deep umber, from a basin in the
valley brimming with blue mist. Closer at hand a marrowy white stream,
sliding noiseless over the crest of a slope silhouetted against the
northern vaults, seemed the very running band drawn from the heavens
to keep the earth spinning. The grasshopper shrilled in the roadside
tangle; comfortable doves, drowsing amongst the chestnut leaves,
exchanged sleepy confidences. Sometimes the clap of a cow-bell,
sometimes the hollow call of a herdsman, thrilled the prosperous calms
of light as a dropped stone scatters a water image. These were the
acuter accents on a tranquillity that no thought could wound.
At last, when the sun flamed upon the horizon like a burning house of
the Zodiac, the traveller came through a deep wood-path upon the
village he sought, and was glad to see dusk mantling its gables and
blotting out the red lights of the open valley in which it lay.
If Madame van Roon, keeper of the hostel Landlust, cut her coat
according to her cloth, she should have been in affluent
circumstances. Daniel Lambert might have furnished her his vest, a
couple of dragoons their cloaks for skirt. This, proceeding from a
mighty roll of padding--a veritable stuffed bolster--that circled her
unnamable waist, swayed in one piece, like a diving-bell in a current,
with her every movement. Her stays, hooped with steel after the Dutch
mode, would have hung slack on a kilderkin. The lobes of her fat ears
stretched under the weight of a pair of positive little censers. But
the finished pride of her was her cap, a wonder of stiff goffering,
against the erect border of which her red face lay like a ham on a
dish-paper. With so full a presence, she had only to stand in a
doorway, if inclined to argument, and not so much as a minor postulate
could evade her.
“_Qu’est-ce que c’est doncg cette manière de moogsieur là_!” she
gasped at our gentleman with a choking shrillness. “_Mais où est
vôgtre valetaille, vôgtre équipage_?”
She quarrelled gutturally, like an envious stepmother, with the speech
of her adoption.
“I am in my own service, madame,” said Ned, in no small wonder; “and
that is to own the best master a man can have.”
She slapped the three-partitioned money-pouch that hung at her middle.
“Oo, ay,” she gurgled truculently; “and a fine master of economy, I’ll
be bound.”
Ned, for short argument, fished out a palmful of pieces. She admitted
him grudgingly even then; but the young man was completely satisfied.
“This is excellent tonic,” he thought, “after an enervating
experience. In Méricourt, it seems, there is food for study.”
He appeared to have struck a sort of Franco-Flemish neutral ground. He
was put to wait in a little kitchen like a bright toy. The floor was
ruddy brick, the walls were white tiles. Outside the window a shallow
awning tinkled sleepily, in spasms of draught, with the stirring of
innumerable small bells. The stove or range, a shining cold example of
continence, seemed innocent of the least tradition of heat. On the
polished dark dresser vessels of copper, of pewter, and of
brass--stewpans, lidded flagons, and the narrow-necked,
wood-stoppered, resonant jugs, in which it was the Dutch fashion to
bring milk from the fields--shone with a demure sobriety of tone in
the falling light.
But the meal, when it came, was served in the French manner and
without stint. The traveller, seeing no preparations toward in the
spick room he inhabited, was falling into a mood of gentle depression
before his fears were dissipated. Then he ventured an inquiry of the
solemn wench who brought in his tray. She almost dropped the load in
her amazement.
“Holy Saints! Cook here! in the show kitchen!”
She put down, with crushing emphasis, a fresh table-napkin, a small
blunt knife, a silver fork, and a silver spoon--all _à la
française_. This was luxury as compared with recent experiences. Ned
looked serious over the knife. He did not know that French meat stewed
to the melting-point dismembers itself at a touch.
He had a very succulent salmis; and no fewer than four hot eggs,
cuddled in a white clout, were served to him.
“Am I to devour them all?” he asked of the girl.
“With the help of God,” she answered ambiguously, in her soft
Picardian.
By-and-by madame _l’hôtesse_ condescended to come and talk with him
while he ate. She was veritably _chargée de cuisine_; she seemed to
fill the place, width and height.
“What is your condition in your own country?” she asked, with fat
asperity.
“I am grand-nephew to a monseigneur, to whose title and estates I
shall succeed.”
“_Vraigment_!” she clucked incredulously. “How arrives it, then, that
you ‘pad the hoof’ like a _colporteur_?”
“I travel for discipline and for experience, madame. Wisdom is not an
heirloom.”
She nodded her head.
“Truly, it must be bought. I myself am a merchant of it.”
“Doubtless,” said Mr Murk. “Witness your politeness to one who can
afford to pay for politeness.”
She seemed an atom disconcerted.
“Well,” she said, “there is no accounting for the vagaries of the
quality. And is his meal to moogsieur’s liking?”
“It is very well, indeed.”
“_Tout va biend_! I was in the half mind that you would wish your meat
raw _à l’anglaise_.”
“That is not the English fashion.”
“_Oh, pardon_! they tear it with their hands and teeth, for I know.
And sometimes it is worse.”
“How worse, then?”
She nodded again pregnantly.
“Vampires! They will prey on the lowly of their kind. Oh, it is
infamous! My cousin, _le bon_ Gaspard, saw a dish of theirs once in
Barbade--_le Maure dans le bain_, they called it--a slave’s head
served in sauce. This will be unknown to moogsieur?”
“Unquestionably.”
“It is possible. It is possible, also, that gentlemen who travel
_incognito_ may learn some vulgar truths. I accept your ignorance in
proof of your aristocracy. Those who sit in high places look only at
the stars.”
“You alarm me, madame. Indeed, I remember now that in my country it is
possible to procure for eating ‘ladies’ fingers.’”
“Oh, the barbarians! Is it not as I said?”
Ned rose.
“May I suggest to madame that I have not yet seen my bedroom?”
“_Plaît-il, doncg_? if it will give you any gratification. But there
is company there at present.”
The gentleman stared. Madame van Roon backed from the doorway, gave an
inaudible direction, and disappeared. The solemn girl took her place.
“By permission of monsieur,” she said; and Ned followed her out of the
room. She led him down one short passage straight into the
_practicable_ kitchen. A rather melodious sound of singing greeted him
on the threshold. He stopped in considerable wonder, postponing his
entrance while he listened.
“Little Lady Dormette,
Hark to my crying!
Would not you come to me
Though I were dying?
Little Lady Dormette,
Kiss my hot eyes,
Make me forget!
Little Lady Dormette,
Why have you left me?
Sure not to lie with him
That hath bereft me?
Little Lady Dormette,
Oh, do not kiss him,
Lest he forget!
Little Lady Dormette,
Thee I so grieve for;
If thou forsakest me,
What shall I live for!
Little Lady Dormette,
Crush thy heart to mine,
Make it forget!”
The voice was small, sweet, emotional, but a man’s; the soft throb of
a guitar accompanied it. All bespoke a certain melting effeminacy that
was disagreeable to Ned. He pushed open the door however, made his
salutation, and stood to take stock of his surroundings.
Here, in truth, was revealed the working heart of the model--the
stokehole of that vessel of which the outer room exhibited but the
polished bearings. The fat air was heavy with the smell of lately
cooked food; the pots, the trenchers, the waste parings that had
served to the preparation of the latter were even now in huddled
process of removal by a panting _cuisinière_, with whom the company
present did not hesitate to exchange a dropping-fire of badinage. A
foul litter of vegetable and other rubbish disgraced the white deal of
the table--cabbage leaves and broken egg-shells and a clump of smoking
bones. In the scuttle was a mess of turnip peelings, on the hearth an
iron pail brimming with gobbets of grease and coffee-grounds and the
severed head of a cock.
“A Dutchman’s cleanliness,” thought Ned (and he had some experience of
it), “is like the elf maid’s face, a particularly hollow mask. He
reeks fustian while he washes his windows three times a-day.”
The room was long and low, with black beams to its ceiling, from which
hung bushes of herbs. A steaming scullery opened from it on the fire
side; on the other, against the distempered wall, stood a row of
curtained cupboards, half-a-dozen of them like confessional-boxes; and
in the intervals of these were, perched on brackets, five or six
absurd little figures--saints and Virgins, the latter with smaller
dolls, to represent the Christ, pinned to their stomachers. There was
but a single window to this kitchen, at its far end; and a couple of
lamps burning rancid oil seemed the very smoking nucleus of an
atmosphere as stifling as that of a ship’s caboose in the tropics.
A figure seated on the table struck a tinkling cord as Ned advanced,
and sang up a little impertinent stave of welcome.
“Behold, Endymion wakes from Latmus!” said he, and flourishing a great
flagon of wine to his mouth, he tilted it and drank.
He was a smooth-cut young fellow, with features modelled like a
girl’s. His hair, his brows, the shade on his upper lip toned from
brown to rough gold. His eyes were soft umber, his cheeks flushed
sombrely like autumn leaves. He was as assured of himself as a
gillian, and a little theatrical withal in his pose and the cock of
his hat.
There were two others in company--a serene large man, with deliberate
lids to his eyes and straight long hair, and a round-faced sizar from
the University of Liége. These latter smoked, and all three drank
according to their degree of wine, hollands, or brandy-and-water.
“You flatter me, monsieur,” said Ned a trifle grimly, and he sat
himself down by the table and returned with a pretty hardihood the
glances directed at him.
For some moments no one spoke. The placid man--a prosperous farmer by
token of his button-bestrewed jacket and substantial small-cloths--put
a piece of sugar-candy in his mouth and drank down his glass of
hollands over it in serial sips. The student, looking to him on the
table for his cue, sat with the expression of a chorister whom a
comrade secretly tickles. Mr Murk felt himself master of the situation
so long as he resisted the temptation to be the first to break the
silence.
Suddenly the young man with the guitar unbonneted himself, kicked his
hat up to the ceiling, gave an insane laugh on a melodious note, and
turned to the new-comer.
“I surrender,” said he; “I would rather lack wine than speech.”
“Both are good in moderation,” said Ned.
“Bah! a monk’s aphorism, monsieur; moderation makes no history. It is
to grow fat under one’s fig-tree--like Lambertine here” (he signified
the contented farmer, who chuckled and shut his eyes).
“And what of the wise Ulysses?” quoth Ned.
“He saved himself for the orgy,” cried the stranger. “He was moderate
only that he might taste the full of enjoyment. I go with you there.”
“Not with me, indeed.”
“No, of course. There are blind-worms amongst men. For me I swear that
human life has an infinite capacity for pleasure.”
He took another great pull at his pot and laughed foolishly. His face
was ruddy and his eyes glazed with drink.
“You were singing when I came in,” said Ned. “Don’t let me interrupt
you.”
The student sniggered, the _cuisinière_ sniggered, the farmer waved a
tolerant hand.
“You see?” said the musician. “We make no business here of any man’s
convenience but our own. I shall sing if I want to.”
He twitched the strings with some loose defiance, and swerved into a
little vacant amorous song.
“Does that please you?” he asked at the finish.
“It neither pleases nor disgusts me,” said Ned. “It is simply not
worth considering.”
“You must not say that,” said the round-faced student.
Mr Murk turned upon him gravely.
“I am a foreigner, sir, as you see,” said he. “I come amongst you to
enlarge my experience and to correct a certain insular habit of
prejudice. To this end I use a sketch-book, and sometimes I paint
portraits. I shall have the honour of depicting you as a starling.”
“Oh, eh!” said the student. “That is funny. And why?”
“It feeds on the leavings of my lord the rook,” said Ned.
The farmer chuckled heartily, and the musician burst into a wobble of
laughter.
“I am the rook!” he cried--“I am milord the rook! You are a man of
penetration, monsieur, and I take you to my heart.”
He endeavoured to do so literally, and fell flat off the table on the
top of his guitar, which he smashed to pieces. And then he composed
himself to slumber on the floor, and in a minute was snoring.
“He acts up to his creed,” said the farmer, in a tone of unruffled
admiration. “You must not misjudge him, monsieur the artist. M. de St
Denys is generous to a fault.”
“St Denys! Is that M. de St Denys?”
The other swang his large head.
“It is so. His reputation extends itself, it would appear. He makes
himself a name beyond Méricourt for the most liberal principles.”
“Liberal to excess, indeed.”
The student ventured again.
“He illustrates what he professes.”
“An infinite capacity for piggishness?”
“No, monsieur; but to extend the prerogatives of pleasure; to set the
example of a cultivated licence that the _canaille_ may learn to
elevate itself to the higher hedonism.”
Ned had nothing to say to this boozy ethology. The other two chorused
crapulous praise of the fallen musician.
“He is the soul of honour,” said the farmer, who seemed a man of
simple ideas.
“He devotes himself, his oratory, his purse, to the cause of
intellectual emancipation,” cried the student.
“And what does his father, M. de St Denys, say to all this?” asked
Ned.
Lambertine shook his perplexed head. The student humoured a little
snigger of deprecation.
“There is no father,” said he. “M. de St Denys the younger reigns at
the Château Méricourt. I see you sneer, monsieur. It is natural for
a victim of insular despotism. Here the prospect widens--the
atmosphere grows fresh. You will not have heard of it, no; but it is
true that there is a sound in the air. Monsieur, I will not be sneered
at!”
“And what is to be the upshot of it all?” inquired Ned, ignoring the
protest.
“According to M. de St Denys, a universe of gentlemen.”
“He is, at the same time, the soul of honour,” said Lambertine.
“Well,” said Mr Murk, “I think I will go to bed.”
He appealed to the cook, who still fussed among her pans, with a look
of puzzled inquiry. She answered sourly--
“You can take your pick. There are plenty to choose from.”
It was then he discovered, to his profound astonishment, that the
confessional-boxes were sleeping-places, to the use of one of which he
was unblushingly invited in the very face of his company.
“Well,” thought he, “I am travelling for experience;” and he took his
knapsack, chose that cupboard nearest the window and farthest from the
table, and, withdrawing himself behind the curtains, undressed, folded
and laid his clothes aside, and philosophically composed himself to
slumber on a little bed that smelt of onions.
Conditions were not favourable to rest. The heat was suffocating; the
atmosphere unspeakable. In the distance the voices of his late
companions droned like hornets in a bottle--sometimes swelled, it
seemed, into a thick passion of tearfulness. Without brooded an
apoplectic silence, broken only by a spasmodic rumbling sound that
might have signified dogs or cattle, or, indeed, nothing more than the
earth turning in its sleep, or the rolling heavenwards of the wheel of
the moon. Now and then some winged creature would boom past the
window, its vibrant note dying like the voice of a far-off multitude;
now and again the seething rush of a bat would seem to stir up the
very grounds of stagnation. Suddenly a heart-wrung voice spoke up
outside his curtain--
“Monsieur! I am not to be laughed at. Bear that in mind!”
There followed a sound of sobbing--of footsteps unsteadily receding;
and thereafter a weary peace was vouchsafed the traveller, and he
dreamed that he was put to bake in the selfsame oven that had provided
his supper.
“That is a fine economy,” he heard the cook say--“to roast the
rooster!”
The words troubled him excessively. He thought them instinct with a
dreadful humour--too diabolically witty to admit of repartee; and so,
lapped in despondency, oblivion overtook him.