Part 18
"Daphne is charming, and is to come out next spring; she will have £3000 a year, lucky child; all out of chocolate. What nonsense we've all talked about trade! We shall all have to take to it in time. The Lonlay-Savignac people were wise in their generation.
"And what do you think? Young Digby-Dobbs wants to marry her, out of the school-room! He'll be Lord Frognal, you know; and very soon, for his father is drinking himself to death.
"He's in your old regiment, and a great favorite; not yet twenty--he only left Eton last Christmas twelvemonth. She says she won't have him at any price, because he stammers.
"She declares you haven't written to her for three months, and that you owe her an illustrated letter in French, with priests and nuns, and dogs harnessed to a cart.
"And now for news that will delight you: She is to come abroad with me for a twelvemonth, and wishes to go with you and me to Düsseldorf first! _Isn't_ that a happy coincidence? We would all spend the summer there, and then Italy for the winter; you too, if you can (so you must be economical with that £200).
"I have already heard wonders about Dr. Hasenclever, even before your letter came; he cured General Baines, who was given up by everybody here, Lady Palmerston told me; she was here yesterday, by-the-bye, and the Duchess of Bermondsey, and both inquired most kindly after you.
"The Duchess looked as handsome as ever, and as proud as a peacock; for last year she presented her niece, Julia Royce, 'the divine Julia,' the greatest beauty ever seen, I am told--with many thousands a year, if you please--Lady Jane Royce's daughter, an only child, and her father's dead. She's six feet high, so you would go mad about her. She's already refused sixty offers, good ones; among them little Lord Orrisroot, the hunchback, who'll have £1000 a day (including Sundays) when he comes into the title--and that can't be very far off, for the wicked old Duke of Deptford has got creeping paralysis, like his father and grandfather before him, and is now quite mad, and thinks himself a postman, and rat-tats all day long on the furniture. Lady Jane is furious with her for not accepting; and when Julia told her, she slapped her face before the maid!
"There's another gigantic beauty that people have gone mad about--a Polish pianist, who's just married young Harcourt, who's a grandson of that old scamp the Duke of Towers.
"Talking of beauties, whom do you think I met yesterday in the Park? Whom but your stalwart friend Mr. Maurice (_he_ wasn't the beauty), with his sister, your old Paris playfellow, and the lovely Miss Gibson. He introduced them both, and I was delighted with them, and we walked together by the Serpentine; and after five minutes I came to the conclusion that Miss Gibson is as beautiful as it is possible for a dark beauty to be, and as nice as she looks. She isn't dark really, only her eyes and hair; her complexion is like cream: she's a freak of nature. Lucky young Maurice if she is to be his fate--and both well off, I suppose.
"Upon my word, if you were King Cophetua and she the beggar-maid, I would give you both my blessing. But how is it you never fell in love with the fair _Ida_? You never told me how handsome she is. She too complained of you as a correspondent, and declares that she gets one letter in return for three she writes you.
"I have bought you some pretty new songs, among others one by Charles Kingsley, which is lovely; about three fishermen and their wives: it reminds one of our dear Whitby! I can play the accompaniment in perfection, and all by heart!
"Give my kindest remembrances to Father Louis and the dear Abbé Lefebvre, and say kind things from me to the Torfses. Martha sends her love to little Frau, and so do I.
"We hope to be in Antwerp in a fortnight, and shall put up at the Grand Laboureur. I shall go to Malines, of course, to say good-bye to people.
"Tell the Torfses to get my things ready for moving. There will be five of us: I and Martha, and Daphne and two servants of her own; for Daphne's got to take old Mrs. Richards, who won't be parted from her.
"Good-bye for the present. My dear boy, I thank God on my knees, night and morning for having given you back to me in my old age.
"Your ever affectionate aunt,
"Caroline.
"P. S.--You remember pretty little Kitty Hardwicke you used to flirt with, who married young St. Clair, who's now Lord Kidderminster? She's just had three at a birth; she had twins only last year; the Queen's delighted. Pray be careful about never getting wet feet--"
One stormy evening in May, Mrs. Gibson drove Ida and Leah and me and Mr. Babbage, a middle-aged but very dapper War Office clerk (who was a friend of the Gibson family), to Chelsea, that we might explore Cheyne Walk and its classic neighborhood. I rode on the box by the coachman.
We alighted by the steamboat pier and explored, I walking with Leah.
We came to a very narrow street, quite straight, the narrowest street that could call itself a street at all, and rather long; we were the only people in it. It has since disappeared, with all that
## particular part of Chelsea.
Suddenly we saw a runaway horse without a rider coming along it at full gallop, straight at us, with a most demoralizing sharp clatter of its iron hoofs on the stone pavement.
"Your backs to the wall!" cried Mr. Babbage, and we flattened ourselves to let the maddened brute go by, bridle and stirrups flying--poor Mrs. Gibson almost faint with terror.
Leah, instead of flattening herself against the wall, put her arms round her mother, making of her own body a shield for her, and looked round at the horse as it came tearing up the street, striking sparks from the flag-stones.
Nobody was hurt, for a wonder; but Mrs. Gibson was quite overcome. Mr. Babbage was very angry with Leah, whose back the horse actually grazed, as he all but caught his hoofs in her crinoline and hit her with a stirrup on the shoulder.
I could only think of Leah's face as she looked round at the approaching horse, with her protecting arms round her mother. It was such a sudden revelation to me of what she really was, and its expression was so hauntingly impressive that I could think of nothing else. Its mild, calm courage, its utter carelessness of self, its immense tenderness--all blazed out in such beautiful lines, in such beautiful white and black, that I lost all self-control; and when we walked back to the pier, following the rest of the party, I asked her to be my wife.
She turned very pale again, and the flesh of her chin quivered as she told me that was _quite impossible--and could never be_.
I asked her if there was anybody else, and she said there was nobody, but that she did not wish ever to marry; that, beyond her parents and Ida, she loved and respected me more than anybody else in the whole world, but that she could never marry me. She was much agitated, and said the sweetest, kindest things, but put all hope out of the question at once.
It was the greatest blow I have ever had in my life.
Three days after, I went to America; and before I came back I had started in New York the American branch of the house of Vougeot-Conti, and laid the real foundation of the largest fortune that has ever yet been made by selling wine, and of the long political career about which I will say nothing in these pages.
On my voyage out I wrote a long blaze letter to Barty, and poured out all my grief, and my resignation to the decree which I felt to be irrevocable. I reminded him of that playful toss-up in Southampton Row, and told him that, having surrendered all claims myself, the best thing that could happen to me was that she should some day marry _him_ (which I certainly did not think at all likely).
So henceforward, reader, you will not be troubled by your obedient servant with the loves of a prosperous merchant of wines. Had those loves been more successful, and the wines less so, you would never have heard of either.
Whether or not I should have been a happier man in the long-run I really can't say--mine has been, on the whole, a very happy life, as men's lives go; but I am bound to admit, in all due modesty, that the universe would probably have been the poorer by some very splendid people, and perhaps by some very splendid things it could ill have spared; and one great and beautifully borne sorrow the less would have been ushered into this world of many sorrows.
* * * * *
It was a bright May morning (a year after this) when Barty and his aunt Caroline and his cousin Daphne and their servants left Antwerp for Düsseldorf on the Rhine.
At Malines they had to change trains, and spent half an hour at the station waiting for the express from Brussels and bidding farewell to their Mechlin friends, who had come there to wish them God-speed: the Abbé Lefebvre, Father Louis, and others; and the Torfses, père et mère; and little Frau, who wept freely as Lady Caroline kissed her and gave her a pretty little diamond brooch. Barty gave her a gold cross and a hearty shake of the hand, and she seemed quite heart-broken.
Then up came the long, full train, and their luggage was swallowed, and they got in, and the two guards blew their horns, and they left Malines behind them--with a mixed feeling of elation and regret.
They had not been very happy there, but many people had been very kind; and the place, with all its dreariness, had a strange, still charm, and was full of historic beauty and romantic associations.
Passing Louvain, Barty shook his fist at the Catholic University and its scientific priestly professors, who condemned one so lightly to a living death. He hated the aspect of the place, the very smell of it.
At Verviers they left the Belgian train; they had reached the limits of King Leopold's dominions. There was half an hour for lunch in the big refreshment-room, over which his Majesty and the Queen of the Belgians presided from the wall--nearly seven feet high each of them, and in their regal robes.
Just as the Rohans ordered their repast another English party came to their table and ordered theirs--a distinguished old gentleman of naval bearing and aspect; a still young middle-aged lady, very handsome, with blue spectacles; and an immensely tall, fair girl, very fully developed, and so astonishingly beautiful that it almost took one's breath away merely to catch sight of her; and people were distracted from ordering their mid-day meal merely to stare at this magnificent goddess, who was evidently born to be a mother of heroes.
These British travellers had a valet, a courier, and two maids, and were evidently people of consequence.
Suddenly the lady with the blue spectacles (who had seated herself close to the Rohan party) got up and came round the table to Barty's aunt and said:
"You don't remember me, Lady Caroline; Lady Jane Royce!"
And an old acquaintance was renewed in this informal manner--possibly some old feud patched up.
Then everybody was introduced to everybody else, and they all lunched together, a scramble!
It turned out that Lady Jane Royce was in some alarm about her eyes, and was going to consult the famous Dr. Hasenclever, and had brought her daughter with her, just as the London season had begun.
Her daughter was the "divine Julia" who had refused so many splendid offers--among them the little hunchback Lord who was to have a thousand a day, "including Sundays"; a most unreasonable young woman, and a thorn in her mother's flesh.
The elderly gentleman, Admiral Royce, was Lady Jane's uncle-in-law, whose eyes were also giving him a little anxiety. He was a charming old stoic, by no means pompous or formal, or a martinet, and declared he remembered hearing of Barty as the naughtiest boy in the Guards; and took an immediate fancy to him in consequence.
They had come from Brussels in the same train that had brought the Rohans from Malines, and they all journeyed together from Verviers to Düsseldorf in the same first-class carriage, as became English swells of the first water--for in those days no one ever thought of going first-class in Germany except the British aristocracy and a few native royalties.
The divine Julia turned out as fascinating as she was fair, being possessed of those high spirits that result from youth and health and fancy-freedom, and no cares to speak of. She was evidently also a very clever and accomplished young lady, absolutely without affectation of any kind, and amiable and frolicsome to the highest degree--a kind of younger Barty Josselin in petticoats; oddly enough, so like him in the face she might have been his sister.
Indeed, it was a lively party that journeyed to Düsseldorf that afternoon in that gorgeously gilded compartment, though three out of the six were in deep mourning; the only person not quite happy being Lady Jane, who, in addition to her trouble about her eyes (which was really nothing to speak of), began to fidget herself miserably about Barty Josselin; for that wretched young detrimental was evidently beginning to ingratiate himself with the divine Julia as no young man had ever been known to do before, keeping her in fits of laughter, and also laughing at everything she said herself.
Alas for Lady Jane! it was to escape the attentions of a far less dangerous detrimental, and a far less ineligible one, that she had brought her daughter with her all the way to Riffrath--"from Charybdis to Scylla," as we used to say at Brossard's, putting the cart before the horse, _more Latino_!
I ought also to mention that a young Captain Graham-Reece was a patient of Dr. Hasenclever's just then--and Captain Graham-Reece was heir to the octogenarian Earl of Ironsides, who was one of the four wealthiest peers in the United Kingdom, and had no direct descendants.
When they reached Düsseldorf they all went to the Breidenbacher Hotel, where rooms had been retained for them, all but Barty, who, as became his humbler means, chose the cheaper hotel Domhardt, which overlooks the market-place adorned by the statue of the Elector that Heine has made so famous.
He took a long evening walk through the vernal Hof Gardens and by the Rhine, and thought of the beauty and splendor of the divine Julia; and sighed, and remembered that he was Mr. Nobody of Nowhere, _pictor ignotus_, with only one eye he could see with, and possessed of a fortune which invested in the 3 per cents would bring him in just £6 a year--and made up his mind he would stick to his painting and keep as much away from her divinity as possible.
"O Martia, Martia!" he said, aloud, as he suddenly felt the north at the right of him, "I hope that you are some loving female soul, and that you know my weakness--namely, that one woman in every ten thousand has a face that drives me mad; and that I can see just as well with one eye as with two, in spite of my _punctum coecum_! and that when that face is all but on a level with mine, good Lord! then am I lost indeed! I am but a poor penniless devil, without a name; oh, keep me from that ten-thousandth face, and cover my retreat!"
Next morning Lady Jane and Julia and the Admiral left for Riffrath--and Barty and his aunt and cousin went in search of lodgings; sweet it was, and bright and sunny, as they strolled down the broad Allée Strasse; a regiment of Uhlans came along on horseback, splendid fellows, the band playing the "Lorelei."
In the fulness of their hearts Daphne and Barty squeezed each other's hand to express the joy and elation they felt at the pleasantness of everything. She was his little sister once more, from whom he had so long been parted, and they loved each other very dearly.
"Que me voilà donc bien contente, mon petit Barty--et toi? la jolie ville, hein?"
"C'est le ciel, tout bonnement--et tu vas m'apprendre l'allemand, n'est-ce-pas, m'amour?"
"Oui, et nous lirons _Heine_ ensemble; tiens, à propos! regarde le nom de la rue qui fait le coin! _Bolker Strasse!_ c'est là qu'il est né, le pauvre Heine! Ôte ton chapeau!"
(Barty nearly always spoke French with Daphne, as he did with my sister and me, and said "thee and thou.")
They found a furnished house that suited them in the Schadow Strasse, opposite Geissler's, where for two hours every Thursday and Sunday afternoon you might sit for sixpence in a pretty garden and drink coffee, beer, or Maitrank, and listen to lovely music, and dance in the evening under cover to strains of Strauss, Lanner, and Gungl, and other heavenly waltz-makers! With all their faults, they know how to make the best of their lives, these good Vaterlanders, and how to dance, and especially how to make music--and also how to fight! So we won't quarrel with them, after all!
Barty found for himself a cheap bedroom, high up in an immense house tenanted by many painters--some of them English and some American. He never forgot the delight with which he awoke next morning and opened his window and saw the silver Rhine among the trees, and the fir-clad hills of Grafenberg, and heard the gay painter fellows singing as they dressed; and he called out to the good-humored slavy in the garden below:
"Johanna, mein Frühstück, bitte!"
A phrase he had carefully rehearsed with Daphne the evening before.
And, to his delight and surprise, Johanna understood the mysterious jargon quite easily, and brought him what he wanted with the most good-humored grin he had ever seen on a female face.
Coffee and a roll and a pat of butter.
First of all, he went to see Dr. Hasenclever at Riffrath, which was about half an hour by train, and then half an hour's walk--an immensely prosperous village, which owed its prosperity to the famous doctor, who attracted patients from all parts of the globe, even from America. The train that took Barty thither was full of them; for some chose to live in Düsseldorf.
The great man saw his patients on the ground-floor of the König's Hotel, the principal hotel in Riffrath, the hall of which was always crowded with these afflicted ones--patiently waiting each his turn, or hers; and there Barty took his place at four in the afternoon; he had sent in his name at 10 A.M., and been told that he would be seen after four o'clock. Then he walked about the village, which was charming, with its gabled white houses, ornamented like the cottages in the Richter albums by black beams--and full of English, many of them with green shades or blue spectacles or a black patch over one eye; some of them being led, or picking their way by means of a stick, alas!
Barty met the three Royces, walking with an old gentleman of aristocratic appearance, and a very nice-looking young one (who was Captain Graham-Reece). The Admiral gave him a friendly nod--Lady Jane a nod that almost amounted to a cut direct. But the divine Julia gave him a look and a smile that were warm enough to make up for much maternal frigidity.
Later on, in a tobacconist's shop, he again met the Admiral, who introduced him to the aristocratic old gentleman, Mr. Beresford Duff, secretary to the Admiralty--who evidently knew all about him, and inquired quite affectionately after Lady Caroline, and invited him to come and drink tea at five o'clock: a new form of hospitality of his own invention--it has caught on!
Barty lunched at the König's Hotel table d'hôte, which was crowded, principally with English people, none of whom he had ever met or heard of. But from these he heard a good deal of the Royces and Captain Graham-Reece and Mr. Beresford Duff, and other smart people who lived in furnished houses or expensive apartments away from the rest of the world, and were objects of general interest and curiosity among the smaller British fry.
Riffrath was a microcosm of English society, from the lower middle class upwards, with all its respectabilities and incompatibilities and disabilities--its narrownesses and meannesses and snobbishnesses, its gossipings and backbitings and toadyings and snubbings--delicate little social things of England that foreigners don't understand!
The sensation of the hour was the advent of Julia, the divine Julia! Gossip was already rife about her and Captain Reece. They had taken a long walk in the woods together the day before--with Lady Jane and the Admiral far behind, out of ear-shot, almost out of sight.
In the afternoon, between four and five, Barty had his interview with the doctor--a splendid, white-haired old man, of benign and intelligent aspect, almost mesmeric, with his assistant sitting by him.
He used no new-fangled ophthalmoscope, but asked many questions in fairly good French, and felt with his fingers, and had many German asides with the assistant. He told Barty that he had lost the sight of his left eye forever; but that with care he would keep that of the right one for the rest of his life--barring accidents, of course. That he must never eat cheese nor drink beer. That he (the doctor) would like to see him once a week or fortnight or so for a few months yet--and gave him a prescription for an eye-lotion and dismissed him happy.
Half a loaf is so much better than no bread, if you can only count upon it!
Barty went straight to Mr. Beresford Duff's, and there found a very agreeable party, including the divine Julia, who was singing little songs very prettily and accompanying herself on a guitar.
"'You ask me why I look so pale?'" sang Julia, just as Barty entered: and red as a rose was she.
Lady Jane didn't seem at all overjoyed to see Barty, but Julia did, and did not disguise the seeming.
There were eight or ten people there, and they all appeared to know about him, and all that concerned or belonged to him. It was the old London world over again, in little! the same tittle-tattle about well-known people, and nothing else--as if nothing else existed; a genial, easy-going, good-natured world, that he had so often found charming for a time, but in which he was never quite happy and had no proper place of his own, all through that fatal bar-sinister--la barre de bâtardise; a world that was his and yet not his, and in whose midst his position was a false one, but where every one took him for granted at once as one of _them_, so long as he never trespassed beyond that sufferance; that there must be no love-making to lovely young heiresses by the bastard of Antoinette Josselin was taken for granted also!
[Illustration: "'YOU ASK ME WHY I LOOK SO PALE?'"]