What a sad pity it is that the great faculty of “making things
comfortable,” that gifted power which blends the announcement with the
explanation of misfortune, should be almost limited to that narrow
guild in life to which Mademoiselle Annette belonged! The happy knack
of half-informing and all-mystifying would be invaluable on the Treasury
benches; and great proficients as some of our public men are in this
walk, how immeasurably do they fall short of the dexterity of the
“soubrette”!
So neatly and so cleverly had Annette performed her task, that when Miss
Davis met Beecher at breakfast, she felt that a species of reserve was
necessary as to the reasons of her father's flight; that, as he had not
directly communicated with herself, her duty was simply to accept of the
guidance he had dictated to her. Besides this, let it be owned, she had
not yet rallied from the overwhelming astonishment of her first meeting
with her father, so utterly was he unlike all that her imagination had
pictured him! Nothing could be more affectionate, nothing kinder, than
his reception; a thoughtful anxiety for her comfort pervaded all he
said. The gloomy old Tirlemont even caught up an air of home as she
passed the threshold; but still he was neither in look, manner, nor
appearance what she fancied. All his self-restraint could not gloss over
his vulgarity, nor all his reserve conceal his defects in breeding. His
short, dictatorial manner with the servants,--his ever-present readiness
to confront nobody saw what peril,--a suspectful insistence upon this
or that mark of deference as a right of which he might possibly be
defrauded,--all gave to his bearing a tone of insolent defiance that at
once terrified and repelled her.
To all her eager questionings as to their future life, where and how it
was to be passed, he would only answer vaguely or evasively. He met her
inquiries about the families and friends of her schoolfellows in the
same way. Of her pleasures and pursuits, her love of music, and her
skill in drawing, he could not even speak with those conventionalities
that disguise ignorance or indifference. Of the great world--the
“swells” he would have called them--he only knew such as were on the
turf. Of the opera, he might possibly tell the price of a stall, but not
the name of a singer; and as to his own future, what or where it should
be, Grog no more knew than who would be first favorite for the Léger a
century hence. To “fence off” any attempt “to pump him” in the ring, to
dodge a clever cross-examiner in a court of justice, Davis would have
proved himself second to none,--these were games of skill, which he
could play with the best,--but it was a very different task to thread
his way through the geography of a land he had not so much as heard of,
and be asked to act as guide through regions whose very names were new
to him.
The utmost that Lizzy could glean from that long first evening's talk
was, that her father had few or no political ambitions, rather shunned
the great world, cared little for dukes or duchesses, nor set any great
store on mere intellectual successes. “Perhaps,” thought she, “he has
tried and found the hollowness of them all; perhaps he is weary of
public life; perhaps he 'd like the quiet pleasures of a country house,
and that calm existence described as the chateau life of England.
Would that he were only more frank with me, and let us know each other
better!”
We entreat our readers to forgive us this digression, necessary as it is
to show that Lizzy, whatever her real doubts and anxieties, felt bound
not to display them, but accept Beecher's counsel as her father's will.
“And so we start for Aix-la-Chapelle by two?” said she, calmly.
“Yes; and I represent papa,” said Beecher. “I hope you feel impressed
with a due reverence for my authority.”
“Much will depend upon the way you exercise it,” said she; “I could very
easily be a rebel if I suspected the justice of the Crown.”
“Come, come,” said he, laughing, “don't threaten me! my viceroyship will
be very short-lived,--he 'll perhaps be at Aix before us.”
“And I suppose all my dreams of extravagance here are defeated,” said
she. “Annette and I have been plotting and planning such rare devices
in 'toilette,' not exactly aware where or upon whom the captivations
were to be exercised. I actually revelled in the thought of all the
smart fineries my Pensionnat life has denied me hitherto.”
There was that blending of levity with seriousness in her tone that
totally puzzled Beecher; and so was it through all she said,--there ran
the same half-mocking vein that left him quite unable even to fathom
her meaning. He muttered out something about “dress” and “smart things”
being to be found everywhere, and that most probably they should visit
even more pretentious cities than Brussels erelong.
“Which means that you know perfectly well where we are going, but
won't tell it. Well, I resign myself to my interesting part of 'Captive
Princess' all the more submissively, since every place is new to me,
every town an object of interest, every village a surprise.”
“You 'd like to see the world,--the real, the great world, I mean?”
asked Beecher.
“Oh, how much!” cried she, clasping her hands in eagerness, as she
arose.
Beecher watched her as she walked up and down the room, every movement
of her graceful figure displaying dignity and pride, her small and
beautifully shaped head slightly thrown back, while, as her hand held
the folds of her dress, her march had something almost stage-like in its
sweeping haughtiness. “And how she would become it!” muttered he, below
his breath, but yet leaving the murmured sounds half audible.
“What are you saying, sir? Any disparaging sentiment on school-girl
conceit or curiosity?”
“Something very like the opposite,” said Beecher. “I was whispering to
myself that Grantley House and Rocksley Castle were the proper sphere
for _you_.”
“Are these very splendid?” asked she, calmly.
“The best houses in England. Of their owners, one is a Duke with two
hundred thousand a year, the other an Earl with nearly as much.”
“And what do they do with it?”
“Everything; all that money can have--and what is there it cannot?--is
there. Gorgeous houses, horses, dress, dinners, pictures, plate, the
best people to visit them, the best cook, the best deer-park, the
fastest yacht at Cowes, the best hunting-stable at Melton.”
“I should like that; it sounds very fascinating, all of it. How
it submerges at once, too, all the petty cares and contrivances,
perpetually asking, 'Can we do this?' 'Dare we do that?' It makes
existence the grand, bold, free thing one dreams it ought to be.”
“You 're right there; it does make life very jolly.”
“Are _you_ very rich?” asked she, abruptly.
“No, by Jove! poor as a church mouse,” said he, laughing at the
strangeness of the question, whose sincere simplicity excluded all
notion of impertinence. “I'm what they call a younger son, which means
one who arrives in the world when the feast is over. I have a brother
with a very tidy fortune, if that were of any use to me.”
“And is it not the same? You share your goods together, I suppose?”
“I should be charmed to share mine with him, on terms of reciprocity,”
said Beecher; “but I 'm afraid he 'd not like it.”
“So that he is rich, and you poor?”
“Exactly so.”
“And this is called brotherhood? I own I don't understand it.”
“Well, it has often puzzled me too,” said Beecher, laughingly; “but I
believe, if I had been born first, I should have had no difficulty in it
whatever.”
“And papa?” asked she, suddenly,--“what was he,--an elder or a younger
son?”
It was all that Beecher could do to maintain a decent gravity at this
question. To be asked about Grog Davis's parentage seemed about the
drollest of all possible subjects of inquiry; but, with an immense
effort of self-restraint, he said,--
“I never exactly knew; I rather suspect, however, he was an only child.”
“Then there is no title in our family?” said she, inquiringly.
“I believe not; but you are aware that this is very largely the case in
England. We are not all 'marquises' and 'counts' and 'chevaliers,' like
foreigners.”
“I like a title; I like its distinctiveness: the sense of carrying out
a destiny, transmitting certain traits of race and kindred, seems a fine
and ennobling thing; and this one has not, one cannot have, who has no
past. So that,” said she, after a pause, “papa is only what you would
call a 'gentleman.'”
“'Gentleman' is a very proud designation, believe me,” said he, evading
an answer.
“And how would they address me in England,--am I 'my Lady'?”
“No, you are Miss Davis.”
“How meanly it sounds,--it might be a governess, a maid.”
“When you are married, you take the rank and title of your husband,--a
duchess, if he be a duke.”
“A duchess be it, then,” said she, in that light, volatile tone she was
ever best pleased to employ, while, with a rattling gayety, she went on:
“How I should love to be one of those great people you have described to
me,--soaring away in all that ideal splendor which would come of a life
of boundless cost, the actual and the present being only suggestive of a
thousand fancied enjoyments! What glorious visions might one conjure
up out of the sportiveness of an untrammelled will! Yes, Mr. Beecher, I
have made up my mind,--I 'll be a duchess!”
“But you might have all these as a marchioness, a countess--”
“No, I 'll be a duchess; you sha'n't cheat me out of my just claims.”
“Will your Grace please to give orders about packing up, for we must be
away soon after one o'clock,” said he, laughing.
“If I were not humility itself, I'd say the train should await my
convenience,” said she, as she left the room with a proud and graceful
dignity that would have become a queen.
For a few moments Beecher sat silent and thoughtful in his chair, and
then burst out into a fit of immoderate laughing,--he laughed till his
eyes ran over and his sides ached. “If this ain't going the pace, I 'd
like to know what speed is!” cried he, aloud. “I wonder what old Grog
would say if he heard her; and the best of the joke is, she is serious
all the while. She is in the most perfect good faith about it all. And
this comes of the absurdity of educating her out of her class. What a
strange blunder for so clever a head to make! You might have guessed,
Master Grog, that she never could be a 'plater.' Let her only enter for
a grand match, and she 'll be 'scratched' from one end of England to the
other. Ay, Davis, my boy, you fancy pedigrees are only cared for on the
turf; but there _is_ a Racing Calendar, edited by a certain Debrett,
that you never heard of.”
Again, he thought of Davis as a peer,--“Viscount Davis!” Baron Grog,
as he muttered it, came across him, and he burst out once more into
laughter; then suddenly checking himself, he said, “I must take right
good care, though, that he never hears of this same conversation; he's
just the fellow to say _I_ led her on to laugh at and ridicule him;
he 'd suspect in a moment that I took her that pleasant gallop,--and if
he did--” A long, wailing whistle finished the sentence for him.
Other and not very agreeable reflections succeeded these. It was this
very morning that he himself had determined on “levanting,” and there
he was, more securely moored than ever. He looked at his watch, and
muttered, “Eleven o'clock; by this time I should have been at Verviers,
and on the Rhine before midnight. In four days more, I 'd have had the
Alps between us, and now here I am without the chance of escape; for if
I bolted and left his daughter here, he'd follow me through the world to
shoot me!”
He sat silent for some minutes, and then, suddenly springing up from his
chair, he cried out,--
“Precious hard luck it is! but I can neither get on _with_ this fellow
nor _without_ him;” and with this “summing up” he went off to his room
to finish his preparations for the road.