A Day's Ride: A Life's Romance

Twixt Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee.’

“I ask, sir, is it thus the affairs of a great country can be carried on? The efforts of Russia here are incessant: a certain personage – I will mention no names – loves caviare, he likes it fresh, there is a special estaffette established to bring it! I learned, by the most insidious researches, his fondness for English cheese; I lost no time in putting the fact before the cabinet I represented, that while timid men looked tremblingly towards France, the thoughtful politician saw the peril of Hesse-Kalbbratonstadt I urged them to lose no time: ‘The Grand-Duchess has immense influence; countermine her,’ said I, – ‘countermine her with a Stilton;’ and, would you believe it, sir, they have not so much as sent out a Cheddar! What will the people of England say one of these days when they learn, as learn they shall, that at this mission here I am alone; that I have neither secretary nor attaché, paid or unpaid; that since the Crimean War the whole weight of the legation has been thrown upon me: nor is this all; but that a systematic course of treachery – I can’t call it lies – has been adopted to entrap me, if such were possible? My despatches are unreplied to, my questions all unanswered. I stand here with the peace of Europe in my hands, and none to counsel nor advise me. What will you say, sir, to the very last despatch I have received from Downing Street? It runs thus: —

“‘I am instructed by his Lordship to inform you, that he views with indifference your statement of the internal condition of the grand-duchy, but is much struck by your charge for sealing-wax.

“‘I have, sir, &c.’

“This is no longer to be endured. A public servant who has filled some of the most responsible of official stations, – I was eleven years at Tragotà, in the Argentine Republic; I was a chargé at Oohululoo for eight months, the only European who ever survived an autumn there; they then sent me special to Cabanhoe to negotiate the Salt-sprat treaty; after that – ”

Here my senses grew muddy; the gray dim light, the soft influences of a good dinner and a sufficiency of wine, the drowsy tenor of the Minister’s voice, all conspired, and I slept as soundly as if in my bed. My next conscious moment was as his Excellency moved his chair back, and said, —

“I think a cup of tea would be pleasant; let us come into the drawing-room.”

CHAPTER XV. I LECTURE THE AMBASSADOR’S SISTER

On entering the drawing-room, his Excellency presented me to an elderly lady, very thin, and very wrinkled, who received me with a cold dignity, and then went on with her crochet-work. I could not catch her name, nor, indeed, was I thinking of it; my whole mind was bent upon the question, Who could she be? For what object was she there? All my terrible doubts of the morning now rushed forcibly back to my memory, and I felt that never had I detested a human being with the hate I experienced for her. The pretentious stiffness of her manner, the haughty self-possession she wore, were positive outrages; and as I looked at her, I felt myself muttering, “Don’t imagine that your heavy black moiré, or your rich falls of lace, impose upon me. Never fancy that this mock austerity deceives one who reads human nature as he reads large print. I know, and I abhor you, old woman! That a man should be to the other sex as a wolf to the fold, the sad experience of daily life too often teaches; but that a woman should be false to woman, that all the gentle instincts we love to think feminine, should be debased to treachery and degraded into snares for betrayal, – this is an offence that cries aloud to Heaven!

“No more tea, – none!” cried I, with an energy that nearly made the footman let the tray fall, and so far startled the old lady that she dropped her knitting with a faint cry. As for his Excellency, he had covered his face with the “Globe,” and, I believe, was fast asleep.

I looked about for my hat to take my leave, when a sudden thought struck me. “I will stay. I will sit down beside this old creature, and, for once at least in her miserable life, she shall hear from the lips of a man a language that is not that of the debauchee. Who knows what effect one honest word of a true-hearted man may not work? I will try, at all events,” said I, and approached her. She did not, as I expected, make room for me on the sofa beside her, and I was, therefore, obliged to take a chair in front. This was so far awkward that it looked formal; it gave somewhat the character of accusation to my position, and I decided to obviate the difficulty by assuming a light, easy, cheerful manner at first, as though I suspected nothing.

“It’s a pleasant little capital, this Kalbbratonstadt,” said I, as I lay back in my chair.

“Is it?” said she, dryly, without looking up from her work.

“Well, I mean,” said I, “it seems to have its reasonable share of resources. They have their theatre, and their music garden, and their promenades, and their drives to – to – ”

“You’ll find all the names set down there,” said she, handing me a copy of Murray’s “Handbook” that lay beside her.

“I care less for names than facts, madam,” said I, angrily, for her retort had stung me, and routed all my previous intention of a smooth approach to the fortress. “I am one of those unfashionable people who never think the better of vice because it wears French gloves, and goes perfumed with Ess bouquet.”

She took off her spectacles, wiped them, looked at me, and went on with her work without speaking.

“If I appear abrupt, madam,” said I, “in this opening, it is because the opportunity I now enjoy may never occur again, and may be of the briefest even now. We meet by what many would call an accident, – one of those incidents which the thoughtless call chance directed my steps to this place; let me hope that that which seemed a hazard may bear all the fruits of maturest combination, and that the weak words of one frail even as yourself may not be heard by you in vain. Let me, therefore, ask you one question, – only one, – and give me an honest answer to it.”

“You are a very singular person,” said she, “and seem to have strangely forgotten the very simple circumstance that we meet for the first time now.”

“I know it, I feel it; and that it may also be for the last and only time is my reason for this appeal to you. There are persons who, seeing you here, would treat you with a mock deference, address you with a counterfeit respect, and go their ways; who would say to their selfish hearts, ‘It is no concern of mine; why should it trouble me?’ But I am not one of these. I carry a conscience in my breast; a conscience that holds its daily court, and will even to-morrow ask me, ‘Have you been truthful, have you been faithful? When the occasion served to warn a fellow-creature of the shoal before him, did you cry out, “Take soundings! you are in shallow water,” or did you with slippery phrases gloss over the peril, because it involved no danger to yourself?’”

“Would that same conscience be kind enough to suggest that your present conduct is an impertinence, sir?”

“So it might, madam; just as the pilot is impertinent when he cries out, 'Hard, port! breakers ahead!’”

“I am therefore to infer, sir,” said she, with a calm dignity, “that my approach to a secret danger – of which I can have no knowledge – is a sufficient excuse for the employment of language on your part, that, under a less urgent plea, had been offensive?”

“You are,” said I, boldly.

“Speak out, then, sir, and declare what it is.”

“Nay, madam, if the warning find no echo within, my words are useless. I have said I would ask you a question.”

“Well, sir, do so.”

“Will you answer it frankly? Will you give it all the weight and influence it should bear, and reply to it with that truthful spirit that conceals nothing?”

“What is your question, sir? You had better be speedy with it, for I don’t much trust to my continued patience.”

I arose at this, and, passing behind the back of my chair, leaned my arms on the upper rail, so as to confront her directly; and then, in the voice of an accusing angel, I said, “Old woman, do you know where you are going?”

“I protest, sir,” said she, rising, with an indignation I shall not forget – “I protest, sir, you make me actually doubt if I know where I am!”

“Then let me tell you, madam,” said I, with the voice of one determined to strike terror into her heart – “let me tell you; and may my words have the power to awaken you, even now, to the dreadful consequences of what you are about!”

“Shalley! Shalley!” cried she in amazement, “is this gentleman deranged, or is it but the passing effect of your conviviality?” And with this she swept out of the room, leaving me there alone, for I now perceived – what seemed also to have escaped her – that the Minister had slipped quietly away some time before, and was doubtless at that same moment in the profoundest of slumbers.

I took my departure at once. There was no leave-taking to delay me, and I left the house in a mood little according with the spirit of one who had partaken of its hospitalities; I am constrained to admit I was the very reverse of satisfied with myself. It was cowardly and mean of me to wreak my anger on that old woman, and not upon him who was the really great offender. He it was I should have arraigned; and with the employment of a little artifice and some tact, how terrible I might have made even my jesting levity! how sarcastic my sneers at fashionable vice! Affecting utter ignorance about his life and habits, I could have incidentally thrown out little episodes of all the men who have wrecked their fortunes by abandoned habits. I would have pointed to this man who made a brilliant opening in the House, and that who had acquired such celebrity at the Bar; I would have shown the rising statesman tarnished, the future chief justice disqualified; I would have said, “Let no man, however modest his character or unfrequented his locality, imagine that the world takes no note of his conduct; in every class he is judged by his peers, and you and I, Doubleton, will as assuredly be arraigned before the bar of society as the pickpocket will be charged before the beak!”

I continued to revolve these and such like thoughts throughout the entire night. The wine I had drunk fevered and excited me, and added to that disturbed state which my own self-accusings provoked. Doubts, too, flitted across my mind whether I ought not to have maintained a perfect silence towards the others, and reserved all my eloquence for the poor girl herself. I imagined myself taking her hand between both mine, while, with averted head, she sobbed as if her heart would break, and, saying, “Be comforted, poor stricken deer! be comforted; I know all. One who is far from perfect himself, sorrows with and compassionates you; he will be your friend, your adviser, your protector. I will restore you to that home you quitted in innocence. I will bring you back to that honeysuckled porch where your pure heart expanded in home affections.” Nothing shall equal the refined delicacy of my manner; that mingled reserve and kindness – a sort of cross between a half-brother and a canon of St. Paul’s – shall win her over to repentance, and then to peace. How I fancied myself at intervals of time visiting that cottage, going, as the gardener watches some cherished plant, to gaze on the growing strength I had nurtured, and enjoy the luxury of seeing the once drooping flower expanding into fresh loveliness and perfume. “Yes, Potts, this would form one of those episodes you have so often longed to realize.” And then I went on to fancy a long heroic struggle between my love and that sentiment of respect for worldly opinion which is dear to every man, the years of conflict wearing me down in health, but exalting me immensely in every moral consideration. Let the hour of crowning victory at last come, I should take her to my bosom and say, “There is rest for thee here!”

“His Excellency begs that you will call at the legation, as early as you can, this morning,” said a waiter, entering with the breakfast tray; and I now perceived that I had never gone to bed, or closed my eyes during the night.

“How did this message come?” I asked.

“By the chasseur of his Excellency.”

“And how addressed?”

“‘To the gentleman who dined yesterday at the legation. ‘”

I asked these questions to ascertain how far he persisted in the impertinence of giving me a name that was not mine, and I was glad to find that on this occasion no transgression had occurred.

I hesitated considerably about going to him. Was I to accept that slippery morality that says, “I see no more than I please in the man I dine with,” or was I to go boldly on and denounce this offender to himself? What if he were to say, “Potts, let us play fair; put your own cards on the table, and let us see are you always on the square? Who is your father? how does he live? Why have you left home, and how? What of that horse you have – ”

“No, no, not stolen – on my honor, not stolen!” “Well, ain’t it ugly? Is n’t the story one that any relating might, without even a spice of malevolence, make marvellously disagreeable? Is the tale such as you ‘d wish to herald you into any society you desired to mix with?” It was in this high, easy, and truly companionable style that conscience kept me company, while I ate two eggs and a plate of buttered toast “After all,” thought I, “might it not prove a great mistake not to wait on him? How if, in our talk over politics last night, I may have dropped some remarkable expression, a keen appreciation of some statesman, an extraordinary prediction of some coming crisis? Maybe it is to question me more fully about my ‘views’ of the state of Europe.” Now I am rather given to “views of the state of Europe.” I like that game of patience, formed by shuffling up all the governments of the Continent, and then seeing who is to have the most “tricks,” who’s to win all the kings, and who the knaves. “Yes,” thought I, “this is what he is at. These diplomatic people are consummately clever at pumping; their great skill consists in extracting information from others and adapting it to their own uses. Their social condition confers the great advantage of intercourse with whatever is remarkable for station, influence, and ability; and I think I hear his Excellency muttering to himself, ‘remarkable man that – large views – great reach of thought – wish I could see more of him; must try what polite attentions may accomplish.’ Well,” said I, with a half sigh, “it is the old story, Sic vos non vobis; and I suppose it is one of the curses on Irishmen that, from Edmund Burke to Potto, they should be doomed to cram others. I will go. What signifies it to me? I am none the poorer in dispensing my knowledge than is the nightingale in discoursing her sweet music to the night air, and flooding the groves with waves of melody: like her, I give of an affluence that never fails me.” And so I set out for the legation.

As I walked along through the garden, a trimly-dressed French maid passed me, turned, and repassed, with a look that had a certain significance. “It was monsieur dined here yesterday?” said she, interrogatively; and as I smiled assent, she handed me a very small sealed note, and disappeared.

It bore no address but the word “Mr. – ;” a strange, not very ceremonious direction. “But, poor girl!” thought I, “she knows me not as Potts, but as Protector. I am not the individual, but the representative of that wide-spread benevolence that succors the weak and consoles the afflicted. I wonder has she been touched by my devotion? has she imagined – oh, that she would! – that I have followed her hither, that I have sworn a vow to rescue and to save her? Or is this note the cry of a sorrow-struck spirit, saying, ‘Come to my aid ere I perish '?”

My fingers trembled as I broke the seal; I had to wipe a tear from my eye ere I could begin to read. My agitation was great; it was soon to be greater. The note contained very few words; they were these: —

“Sir, – I have not communicated to my brother, Sir Shafley Doubleton, any circumstance of your unaccountable conduct yesterday evening. I hope that my reserve will be appreciated by you, and

“I am, your faithful servant,

“‘Martha Keats.”

I did not faint, but I sat down on the grass, sick and faint, and I felt the great drops of cold perspiration burst out over my forehead and temples. “So,” muttered I, “the venerable person I have been lecturing is his Excellency’s own sister! My exhortations to a changed life have been addressed to a lady doubtless as rigid in morals as austere in manners.” Though I could recall none of the words I employed, I remembered but too well the lesson I intended to convey, and I shuddered with disgust at my own conduct. Many a time have I heard severest censure on the preacher who has from the pulpit scattered words of doubtful application to the sinners beneath; but here was I making a direct and most odious attack upon the life and habits of a lady of immaculate behavior! Oh, it was too – too bad! A whole year of sackcloth and ashes would not be penance for such iniquity. How could she have forgiven it? What consummate charity enabled her to pardon an offence so gross and so gratuitous? Or is it that she foresaw consequences so grave, in the event of disclosure, that she dreaded to provoke them? What might not an angry brother, in such a case, be warranted in doing? Would the world call any vengeance exorbitant? I studied her last phrase over and over, “I hope my reserve will be appreciated by you.” This may mean, “I reserve the charge, – I hold it over you as a bail bond for the future; diverge ever so little from the straight road, and I will say, ‘Potts, stand forward and listen to your indictment.’ She may have some terrible task in view for me, some perilous achievement, which I cannot now refuse. This old woman may be to me as was the Old Man of the Sea to Sinbad. I may be fated to carry her forever on my back, and the dread of her be a living nightmare to me.” “At such a price, existence has no value,” said I, in despair. “Worse even than the bondage is the feeling that I am no longer, to my own heart, the great creature I love to think myself. Instead of Potts the generous, the high-spirited, the confiding, the self-denying, I am Potts the timorous, the terror-stricken, and the slave.”