I am about to make a very original observation. I hope its truth may
equal its originality. It is, that the man who has never had a sister
is, at his first entrance into life, far more the slave of feminine
captivations than he who has been brought up in a “house full of girls.”
“Oh, for shame, Mr. Potts! Is this the gallantry we have heard so
much of? Is this the spirit of that chivalrous devotion you have been
incessantly impressing upon us?” Wait a moment, fair creature; give me
one half-minute for an explanation. He who has not had sisters has had
no experiences of the behind-scene life of the female world; he has
never heard one syllable about the plans and schemes and devices by
which hearts are snared. He fancies Mary stuck that moss-rose in her
hair in a moment of childish caprice; that Kate ran after her little
sister and showed the prettiest of ankles in doing it, out of the
irrepressible gayety of her buoyant spirits. In a word, he is one who
only sees the play when the house is fully lighted, and all the actors
in their grand costume; he has never witnessed a rehearsal, and has not
the very vaguest suspicion of a prompter.
To him, therefore, who has only experienced the rough companionship
of brothers--or worse still, has lived entirely alone--the first
acquaintanceship with the young-lady world is such a fascination as no
words can describe. The gentle look, the graceful gestures, the silvery
voices, all the play and action of natures so infinitely more refined
than any he has ever witnessed, are inexpressibly captivating. It is not
alone the occupations of their hours, light, graceful, and picturesque
as they are, but all their topics, their thoughts, seem to soar out
of the commonplace world he has lived in, and rise to ideal realms of
poetry and beauty. I say it advisedly: I do not know of anything so
truly Elysian in life as our first--our very first--experiences of this
kind.
Werther's passion for Charlotte received a powerful impulse from
watching her as she cut bread-and-butter for the children. There are
vulgar natures who will smile at this; who cannot enter into the intense
far-sightedness of that poetic conception; that could in one trait
of simplicity embody a whole lifetime with its ennobling duties, its
cheerful sacrifices, its gracefully borne cares. Let him, therefore, who
could sneer at Werther, scoff at Potts, as he owns that he never felt
his heart so powerfully drawn to Kate Herbert as when he watched her
making tea for breakfast. Dressed in a muslin that represented mourning,
her rich hair plainly enclosed in a net, with a noiseless motion, she
glided about, an ideal of gentle sadness, more fascinating than I can
tell. If she bore any unpleasant memory of our little difference, she
did not show it; her manner was calm and even kind. She felt, perhaps,
that some compensation was due to me for the rudeness of that old woman,
and was not unwilling to make it.
“You know we are to rest here to-day?” said she, as she busied herself
at the table.
“I heard it by a mere chance, and from the courier,” said I, peevishly.
“I am not quite certain in what capacity Mrs. Keats condescends to
regard me, that I am treated with such scant courtesy. Probably you
would be kind enough to ascertain this point for me?”
“I shall assuredly not ask,” said she, with a smile.
“I certainly promised her brother--I could not do less for a colleague,
not to say something more--that I 'd see this old lady safe over the
Alps. They are looking out for me anxiously enough at Constantinople
all this while; in fact, I suspect there will be a nice confusion there
through my delay, and I 'd not be a bit surprised if they begin to
believe that stupid story in the 'Nord.' I suppose you saw it?”
“No. What is it about?”
“It is about your humble servant, Miss Herbert, and hints that he has
received one hundred parses from the sheiks of the Lebanon not to
reach the Golden Horn before they have made their peace with the Grand
Vizier.”
“And is of course untrue?”
“Of course, every word of it is a falsehood; but there are _gobemouches_
will believe anything. Mark my words, and see if this allegation be not
heard in the House of Commons, and some Tower Hamlets member start up
to ask if the Foreign Secretary will lay on the table copies of the
instructions given to a certain person, and supposed to be credentials
of a nature to supersede the functions of our ambassador at the Porte.
In confidence, between ourselves, Miss Herbert, so they are! I am
intrusted with full powers about the Hatti Homayoun, as the world shall
see in good time.”
“Do you take your tea strong?” asked she; and there was something so odd
and so inopportune in the question, that I felt it as a sort of covert
sneer; but when I looked up and beheld that pale and gentle face
turned towards me, I banished the base suspicion, and forgetting all my
enthusiasm, said,--
“Yes, dearest; strong as brandy!”
She tried to look grave, perhaps angry; but in spite of herself, she
burst out a-laughing.
“I perceive, sir,” said she, “that Mrs. Keats was quite correct when she
said that you appear to have moments in which you are unaware of what
you say.”
Before I could rally to reply, she had poured out a cup of tea for Mrs.
Keats, and left the room to carry it to her.
“'Moments in which I am unaware of what I say,'--'incoherent intervals'
Forbes Winslow would call them: in plain English, I am mad. Old woman,
have you dared to cast such an aspersion on me, and to disparage me,
too, in the quarter where I am striving to achieve success? For her
opinion of me I am less than indifferent; for her Judgment of my
capacity, my morals, my manners, I am as careless as I well can be of
anything; but these become serious disparagements when they reach
the ears of one whose heart I would make my own. I will insist on an
explanation--no, but an apology--for this. She shall declare that she
used these words in some non-natural sense,--that I am the sanest of
mortals: she shall give it under her hand and seal: 'I, the undersigned,
having in a moment of rash and impatient Judgment imputed to the bearer
of this document, Algernon Sydney Potts,'--no, Pottinger--ha, there is a
difficulty! If I be Pottinger, I can never re-become Potts; if Potts,
I am lost,--or rather, Miss Herbert is lost to me forever. What a dire
embarrassment! Not to mention that in the passport I was Ponto!”
“Mrs. Keats desired me to beg you will step up to her room after
breakfast, and bring your account-books with you.” This was said by Miss
Herbert as she entered and took her place at the table.
“What has the old woman got in her head?” said I, angrily. “I have no
account-books,--I never had such in my life. When I travel alone, I say
to my courier, 'Diomede'--he is a Greek--'Diomede, pay;' and he pays.
When Diomede is not with me, I ask, 'How much?' and I give it.”
“It certainly simplifies travel,” said she, gravely.
“It does more, Miss Herbert: it accomplishes the end of travel. Your
doctor says, 'Go abroad,--take a holiday--turn your back on Downing
Street, and bid farewell to cabinet councils.' Where is the benefit
of such a course, I ask, if you are to pass the vacation cursing
customhouse officers, bullying landlords, and browbeating waiters? I
say always, 'Give me a bad dinner if you must, but do not derange my
digestion; rather a damp bed than thorns in the pillow.'”
“I am to say that you will see her, however,” said she, with that
matter-of-fact adhesiveness to the question that never would permit her
to join in my digressions.
“Then I go under protest, Miss Herbert,--under protest, and, as the
lawyers say, without prejudice,--that is, I go as a private gentleman,
irresponsible and independent. Tell her this, and say, I know nothing
of figures: arithmetic may suit the Board of Trade; in the Foreign
Department we ignore it You may add, too, if you like, that from what
you have seen of me, I am of a haughty disposition, easily offended, and
very vindictive,--very!”
“But I really don't think this,” said she, with a bewitching smile.
“Not to _you_ de--” I was nearly in it again: “not to _you_,” said I,
stammering and blushing till I felt on fire. I suspect that she saw all
the peril of the moment, for she left the room hurriedly, on the pretext
of asking Mrs. Keats to take more tea.
“She is sensible of your devotion, Potts; but is she touched by it? Has
she said to herself, 'That man is my fate, my destiny,--it is no use
resisting him; dark and mysterious as he is, I am drawn towards him
by an inscrutable sympathy'--or is she still struggling in the toils,
muttering to her heart to be still, and to wait? Flutter away, gentle
creature,” said I, compassionately, “but raffle not your lovely plumage
too roughly; the bars of your cage are not the less impassable that they
are invisible. You _shall_ love me, and you _shall_ be mine!”
To these rapturous fancies there now succeeded the far less captivating
thought of Mrs. Keats, and an approaching interview. Can any reader
explain why it is, that one sits in quiet admiration of some old woman
by Teniers or Holbein, and never experiences any chagrin or impatience
at trials which, if only represented in life, would be positively
odious? Why is it that art transcends nature, and that ugliness in
canvas is more endurable than ugliness in the flesh? Now, for my own
part, I'd rather have faced a whole gallery of the Dutch school, from
Van Eyck to Verbagen, than have confronted that one old lady who sat
awaiting me in No. 12.
Twice as I sat at my breakfast did François put in his head, look at me,
and retire without a word. “What is the matter? What do you mean?” cried
I, impatiently, at the third intrusion.
“It is madam that wishes to know when monsieur will be at leisure to go
upstairs to her.”
I almost bounded on my chair with passion. How was I, I would ask, to
maintain any portion of that dignity with which I ought to surround
myself if exposed to such demands as this? This absurd old woman would
tear off every illusion in which I draped myself. What availed all the
romance a rich fancy could conjure up, when that wicked old enchantress
called me to her presence, and in a voice of thunder said, “Strip off
these masqueradings, Potts, I know the whole story.” “Ay, but,” thought
I, “she cannot do so; of me and my antecedents she knows positively
nothing.” “Halt there!” interposes Conscience; “it is quite enough to
pronounce the coin base, without being able to say at what mint it was
fabricated. She knows you, Potts, she knows you.”
There is one great evil in castle-building, and I have thought very long
and anxiously, and I must own fruitlessly, over how to meet it: it is
that one never can get a lease of the ground to build on. One is always
like an Irish cottier, a tenant at will, likely to be turned out at a
moment's notice, and dispossessed without pity or compassion. The same
language applies to each: “You know well, my good fellow, you had no
right to be there; pack up and be off!” It's no use saying that it was
a bit of waste land unfenced and untilled; that, until you took it in
hand, it was overgrown with nettles and duckweed; that you dispossessed
no one, and such like. The answer is still the same, “Where's your
title? Where's your lease?”
Now, I am curious to hear what injury I was inflicting on that old woman
at No. 12 by any self-deceptions of mine? Could the most exaggerated
estimate I might form of myself, my present, or my future, in any degree
affect _her?_ Who constituted her a sort of ambulatory conscience, to
call people's hearts to account at a moment's notice? It may be seen
by the tone of these reflections, that I was fully impressed with the
belief through some channel, or by some clew, Mrs. Keats knew all my
history, and intended to use her knowledge tyrannically over me.
Oh that I could only retaliate! Oh that I had only the veriest fragment
of her past life, out of which to construct her whole story! Just as out
of a mastodon's molar, Cuvier used to build up the whole monster, never
omitting a rib, nor forgetting a vertebra! How I should like to say to
her, and with a most significant sigh, “I knew poor Keats well!” Could
I not make even these simple words convey a world of accusation, blended
with sorrow and regret?
François again, and on the same errand. “Say I am coming; that I have
only finished a hasty breakfast, and that I am coming this instant,”
cried I. Nor was it very easy for me to repress the more impatient
expressions which struggled for utterance, particularly as I saw, or
fancied I saw, the fellow pass his hand over his mouth to hide a grin at
my expense.
“Is Miss Herbert upstairs?”
“No, sir, she is in the garden.”
This was so far pleasant. I dreaded the thought of her presence at this
interview, and I felt that punishment within the precincts of the jail
was less terrible than on the drop before the populace; and with this
consoling reflection I mounted the stairs.