While I strolled into the garden to select a table for our dinner,
Eccles went in search of Mr. Delorme; and though he had affected to say
that the important duty of devising the feast should be confided to the
host, I could plainly see that my respected tutor accepted his share in
that high responsibility.
I will only say of the feast in question, that, though I was daily
accustomed to the admirable dinners of my father's table, I had no
conception of what exquisite devices in cookery could be produced by the
skill of an accomplished restaurateur, left free to his own fancy, and
without limitation as to the bill.
One thing alone detracted from the perfect enjoyment of the banquet It
was the appearance of Mr. Delorme himself, white-cravated and gloved,
carrying in the soup. It was an attention that he usually reserved for
great personages, royalties, or high dignitaries of the court; and I was
shocked that he should have selected me for the honor, not the less as
it was only a few hours before he and I had been drinking champagne
with much clinking of glasses together, and interchanging the most
affectionate vows of eternal friendship.
I arose from my chair to salute him; but, as he deposited the tureen
upon the table, he stepped back and bowed low, and retreated in this
fashion, with the same humble reverence at every step, till he was lost
in the distance.
“Sit down,” said Eccles, with a peculiar look, as though to warn me that
I was forgetting my dignity; and then, to divert my attention, he added,
“That green seal is an attention Delorme offers you,--a very rare
favor, too,--a bottle of his own peculiar Johannisberg. Let us drink his
health. Now, Digby, I call this something very nigh perfection.”
It was a theme my tutor understood thoroughly, and there was not a dish
nor a wine that he did not criticise.
“I was always begging your father to take this cook, Digby,” said
he, with half sigh. “Even with a first-rate artist you need change,
otherwise your dinners become manneristic, as ours have become of late.”
He then went on to show me that the domestic cook, always appealing to
the small public of the family, gets narrowed in his views and bounded
in his resources. He compared them, I remember, to the writers in
certain religious newspapers, who must always go on spicing higher and
higher as the palates of their clients grow more jaded. How he worked
out his theme afterwards I cannot tell, for I was watching the windows
of the house, and stealing glances down the alleys in the garden,
longing for one look, ever so fleeting, of my lovely partner of the
night before.
“I see, young gentleman,” said he, evidently nettled at my inattention,
“your thoughts are not with me.”
“How long have we to stay, sir?” said I, reverting to the respect I
tendered him at my lessons.
“You have thirty-eight minutes,” said he, examining his watch: “which I
purpose to apportion in this wise,--eight for the douceur, five for the
cheese, fifteen for the dessert, five for coffee and a glass of curaçoa.
The bill and our parting compliments will take the rest, giving us three
minutes to walk across to the station.”
These sort of pedantries were a passion with him, and I did not
interpose a word as he spoke.
“What a pineapple!” cried a young fellow from an adjoining table, as
a waiter deposited a magnificent pine in the midst of the bouquet that
adorned our table.
“Monsieur Delorme begs to say, sir, this has just arrived from Laeken.”
“Don't you know who that is?” said a companion, in a low voice; but my
hearing, ever acute, caught the words, “He's that boy of Norcott's.”
I started as if I had received a blow. It was time to resent these
insolences, and make an end of them forever.
“You heard what that man yonder has called me?” said I to Eccles.
“No; I was not minding him.”
“The old impertinence,--'That boy of Norcott's.'”
I arose, and took the cane I had laid against a chair. What I was about
to do I knew not. I felt I should launch some insolent provocation. As
for what should follow, the event might decide _that_.
“I'd not mind him, Digby,” said Eccles, carelessly, as he lit his
cigarette, and stretched his legs on a vacant chair. I took no notice
of his words, but walked on. Before, however, I had made three steps
my eyes caught the flutter of a dress at the end of the alley. It was
merely the last folds of some floating muslin, but it was enough to rout
all other thoughts from my head, and I flew down the walk with lightning
speed. I was right; it was Pauline. In an instant I was beside her.
“Dearest, darling Pauline,” I cried, seizing her round the waist and
kissing her cheek, before she well knew, “how happy it makes me to see
you even for a few seconds.”
“Ah, milord, I did not expect to see you here,” said she, half
distantly.
“I am not milord; I am your own Digby--Digby Nor-cott, who loves you,
and will make you his wife.”
“Ma foi! children don't marry,--at least demoiselles don't marry them,”
said she, with a saucy laugh.
“I am no more an 'enfant,'” said I, with a passionate stress on the
word, “than I was last night, when you never left my arm except to sit
at my side at supper.”
“But you are going away,” said she, pouting; “else why that
travelling-dress, and that sack strapped at your side?”
“Only for a few weeks. A short tour up the Rhine, Pauline, to see the
world, and complete my education; and then I will come back and marry
you, and you shall be mistress of a beautiful house, and have everything
you can think of.”
“Vrai?” asked she, with a little laugh.
“I swear it by this kiss.”
“Pardie, Monsieur? you are very adventurous,” said she, repulsing me;
“you will make me not regret that you are going so soon.”
“Oh, Pauline! when you know that I adore you, that I only value wealth
to share it with you; that all I ask of life is to devote it to you.”
“And that you have n't got full thirty seconds left for that admirable
object,” broke in Eccles. “We must run for it like fury, boy, or we
shall be late.”
“I'll not go.”
“Then I 'll be shot if I stay here and meet your father,” said he,
turning away.
“Oh, Pauline, dearest, dearest of my heart!” I sobbed out, as I fell
upon her neck; and the vile bell of the railway rang out with its
infernal discord as I clasped her to my heart.
“Come along, and confound you,” cried Eccles; and with a porter on
one side and Eccles on the other, I was hurried along down the garden,
across a road, and along a platform, where the station-master, wild with
passion, stamped and swore in a very different mood from that in which
he smiled at me across the supper-table the night before.
“We're waiting for that boy of Norcott's, I vow,” said an old fellow
with a gray moustache; and I marked him out for future recognition.
Unlike my first journey, where all seemed confusion, trouble, and
annoyance, I now saw only pleasant faces, and people bent on enjoyment.
We were on the great tourist road of Europe, and it seemed as though
every one was bound on some errand of amusement. Eccles, too, was a
pleasant contrast to the courier who took charge of me on my first
journey. Nothing could be more genial than his manner. He treated me
with a perfect equality, and by that greatest of all flatteries to one
of my age, induced me to believe that I was actually companionable to
himself.
I will not pretend that he was an instructive companion.
He had neither knowledge of history nor feeling for art, and rather
amused himself with sneering at both, and quizzing such of our
fellow-travellers as the practice was safe with. But he was always
gay, always in excellent spirits, ready to make light of the passing
annoyances of the road, and, as he said himself, he always carried a
quart-bottle of condensed sunshine with him against a rainy day; and, of
my own knowledge, I can say his supply seemed inexhaustible.
His cheery manner, his bright good looks, and his invariable good-humor
won upon every one, and the sourest and least genial people thawed into
some show of warmth under his contagious pleasantry.
He did not care in what direction we went, and would have left
it entirely to me to decide, had I been able to determine. All he
stipulated for was: “No barbarism, no Oberland or glacier humbug. No
Saxon Switzerland abominations. So long as we travel in a crowd, and
meet good cookery every day, you 'll find me charming.”
Into this philosophy he inducted me. “Make life pleasant, Digby;
never go in search of annoyances. Duns and disagreeables will come of
themselves, and it's no bad fun dodging them. It's only a fool ever
keeps their company.”
A more shameless immorality might have revolted me, but this peddling
sort of wickedness, this half-jesting with right and wrong,--giving
to morals the aspect of a game in which a certain kind of address was
practicable,--was very seductive to one of my age and temper. I fancied,
too, that I was becoming a consummate man of the world, and his praises
of my proficiency were unsparingly bestowed.
Attaching ourselves to this or that party of travellers, we would go
off here or there, in any direction, for four or five days; and though I
usually found myself growing fond of those I became more intimate
with, and sorry to part from them, Eccles invariably wearied of
the pleasant-est people after a day or two. Incessant change seemed
essential to him, and his nature and his spirits flagged when denied it.
What I least liked about him, however, was a habit he had of “trotting”
me out--his own name for it--before strangers. My knowledge of
languages, my skill at games, my little musical talents, he would parade
in a way that I found positively offensive. Nor was this all, for I
found he represented me as the son of a man of immense wealth and of a
rank commensurate with his fortune.
One must have gone through the ordeal of such a representation to
understand its vexations, to know all the impertinences it can evoke
from some, all the slavish attentions from others. I feel a hot flush
of shame on my cheek now, after long years, as I think of the
mortifications I went through, as Eccles would suggest that I should
buy some princely chateau that we saw in passing, or some lordly park
alongside of which our road was lying.
As to remonstrating with him on this score, or, indeed, on any other,
it was utterly hopeless; not to say that it was just as likely he would
amuse the first group of travellers we met by a ludicrous version of my
attempt to coerce him into good behavior.
One day he pushed my patience beyond all limit, and I grew downright
angry with him. I had been indulging in that harmless sort of
half-flirtation with a young lady, a fellow-traveller; which, not
transgressing the bounds of small attentions, does not even excite
remark or rebuke.
“Don't listen to that young gentleman's blandishments,” said he,
laughing; “for, young as he looks, he is already engaged. Come, come,
don't look as though you'd strike me, Digby, but deny it if you can.”
We were, fortunately for me, coming into a station as he spoke. I sprang
out, and travelled third-class the rest of the day to avoid him, and
when we met at night, I declared that with one such liberty more I 'd
part company with him forever.
The hearty good-humor with which he assured me I should not be offended
again almost made me ashamed of my complaint. We shook hands over our
reconciliation, and vowed we were better friends than ever.
What it cost him to abandon this habit of exalting me before strangers,
how nearly it touched one of the chief pleasures of his life, I was, as
I thought, soon to see in the altered tone of his manner. In fact, it
totally destroyed the easy flippancy he used to wield, and a facility
with strangers that once seemed like a special gift with him. I tried in
vain to rally him out of this half depression; but it was clear he was
not a man of many resources, and that I had already sapped a principal
one.
While we thus journeyed, he said to me one day, “I find, Digby, our
money is running short; we must make for Zurich: it is the nearest of
the places on our letter of credit.”
I assented, of course, and we bade adieu to a pleasant family with whom
we had been travelling, and who were bound for Dresden, assuring them we
should meet them on the Elbe.
Eccles had grown of late more and more serious: not alone had his gayety
deserted him, but he grew absent and forgetful to an absurd extent;
and it was evident some great preoccupation had hold of him. During
the entire of the last day before we reached Zurich he scarcely spoke a
word, and as I saw that he had received some letters at Schaffhausen, I
attributed his gloom to their tidings. As he had not spoken to me of
bad news, I felt ashamed to obtrude myself on his confidence and kept
silent, and not a word passed between us as we went. He had telegraphed
to the banker, a certain Mr. Heinfetter, to order rooms for us at the
hotel; and as we alighted at the door, the gentleman himself was there
to meet us.
“Herr Eccles?” said he, eagerly, lifting his hat as we descended; and
Eccles moved towards him, and, taking his arm, walked away to some
distance, leaving me alone and unnoticed. For several minutes they
appeared in closest confab, their heads bent close together, and at last
I saw Eccles shake himself free from the other's arm, and throw up both
his hands in the air with a gesture of wild despair. I began to suspect
some disaster had befallen our remittances, that they were lost or
suppressed, and that Eccles was overwhelmed by the misfortune. I own
I could not participate in the full measure of the misery it seemed to
cause him, and I lighted a cigar and sat down on a stone bench to wait
patiently his return.
“I believe you are right; it is the best way, after all,” said Ecoles,
hurriedly. “You say you'll look after the boy, and I 'll start by the
ten o'clock train.”
“Yes, I'll take the boy,” said the other; “but you'll have to look sharp
and lose no time. They will be sequestering the moment they hear of it,
and I half suspect old Engler will be before you.”
“But my personal effects? I have things of value.”
“Hush, hush! he 'll overhear you. Come, young gentleman,” said he to
me,--“come home and sup with me. The hotel is so full, they 've no
quarters for you. I 'll try if I can't put you up.”
Eccles stood with his head bent down as we moved away, then lifted his
eyes, waved his hand a couple of times, and said, “By-bye.”
“Isn't he coming with us?” asked I.
“Not just yet: he has some business to detain him,” said the banker; and
we moved on.