A Day's Ride: A Life's Romance

“We all said, too, at the time, that Doubleton had been ‘let in.’ He gave you a good round sum for expenses on the road, did n’t he, and you sent it all back to him.”

“Every shilling of it”

“So he told us, and that was what puzzled us more than all the rest. Why did you give up the money?”

“Simply, sir, because it was not mine.”

“Yes, yes, to be sure, I know that; but I mean, what suggested the restitution?”

“Really, sir, your question leads me to suppose that the ‘we’ so often referred to are not eminently remarkable for integrity.”

“Like their neighbors, I take it, – neither better nor worse. But won’t you tell why you gave up the tin?”

“I should be hopeless of any attempt to explain my motives, sir; so pray excuse me.”

“You were right, at all events,” said he, not heeding the sarcasm of my manner. “There ‘s no chance for the knaves, now, with the telegraph system. As it was, there were orders flying through Europe to arrest Pottinger, – I – can’t forget the name. We used to have it every day in the Chancellerie: Pottinger, five feet nine, weak-looking and vulgar, low forehead, light hair and eyes, slight lisp, talks German fluently, but ill. I have copied that portrait of you twenty, ay, thirty times.”

“And yet, sir, neither the name nor the description apply. I am no more Pottinger than I am ignoble-looking and vulgar.”

“What’s the name, then? – not Harpar, nor Pottinger? But who cares a rush for the name of fellows like you? You change them just as you do the color of your coat.”

“May I take the liberty of asking, sir, just for information, as you said awhile ago, how you would take it were I to make as free with you as you have been pleased to do with me? To give a mock inventory of your external characteristics, and a false name to yourself?”

“Laugh, probably, if I were amused; throw you out of the window if you offended me.”

“The very thing I ‘d do with you this moment, if I was strong enough,” said I, resolutely. And he flung himself into a chair, and laughed as I did not believe he could laugh.

“Well,” cried he, at last, “as this room is about fifty feet or so from the ground, it’s as well as it is. But now let us wind up this affair. You want to get away from this, I suppose; and as nobody wants to detain you, the thing is easy enough. You need n’t make a fuss about compensation, for they ‘ll not give a kreutzer, and you ‘d better not write a book about it, because ‘we’ don’t stand fellows who write books; so just take a friend’s advice, and go off without military honors of any kind.”

“I neither acknowledge the friendship nor accept the advice, sir. The motives which induced me to suffer imprisonment for another are quite sufficient to raise me above any desire to make a profit of it.”

“I think I understand you,” said he, with a cunning expression in his half-closed eyes. “You go in for being a ‘character.’ Haven’t I hit it? You want to be thought a strange, eccentric sort of fellow. Now there was a time the world had a taste for that kind of thing. Romeo Coates, and Brummel, and that Irish fellow that walked to Jerusalem, and half-a-dozen others, used to amuse the town in those days, but it’s all as much bygone now as starched neckcloths and Hessian boots. Ours is an age of paletots and easy manners, and you are trying to revive what our grandfathers discarded and got rid of. It won’t do, Pottinger; it will not.”

“I am not Pottinger; my name is Algernon Sydney Potts.”

“Ah! there’s the mischief all out at last. What could come of such a collocation of names but a life of incongruity and absurdity! You owe all your griefs to your godfathers, Potts. If they ‘d have called you Peter, you ‘d have been a well-conducted poor creature. Well, I’m to give you a passport. Where do you wish to go?”

“I wish, first of all, to go to Como.”

“I think I know why. But you’re on a wrong cast there. They have left that long since.”

“Indeed, and for what place?”

“They ‘ve gone to pass the winter at Malta. Mamma Keats required a dry, warm climate, and you ‘ll find them at a little country-house about a mile from Valetta; the Jasmines, I think it’s called. I have a brother quartered in the island, and he tells me he has seen them, but they won’t receive visits, nor go out anywhere. But, of course, a Royal Highness is always sure of a welcome. Prince Potts is an ‘Open, sesame!’ wherever he goes.”

“What atrocious tobacco this is of yours, Buller!” said I, taking a cigar from his case as it lay on the table. “I suppose that you small fry of diplomacy cannot get things in duty free, eh?”

“Try this cheroot; you ‘ll find it better,” said he, opening a secret pocket in the case.

“Nothing to boast of,” said I, puffing away, while he continued to fill up the blanks in my passport.

“Would you like an introduction to my brother? He’s on the Government staff there, and knows every one. He’s a jolly sort of fellow, besides, and you ‘ll get on well together.”

“I don’t care if I do,” said I, carelessly; “though, as a rule, your red-coat is very bad style, – flippant without smartness, and familiar without ease.”

“Severe, Potts, but not altogether unjust; but you ‘ll find George above the average of his class, and I think you ‘ll like him.”

“Don’t let him ask me to his mess,” said I, with an insolent drawl. “That’s an amount of boredom I could not submit to. Caution him to make no blunder of that kind.”

He looked up at me with a strange twinkle in his eyes, which I could not interpret He was either in intense enjoyment of my smartness, or Heaven knows what other sentiment then moved him. At all events, I was in ecstasy at the success of my newly discovered vein, and walked the room, humming a tune, as he wrote the letter that was to present me to his brother.

“Why had I never hit upon this plan before?” thought I. “How was it that it had not occurred that the maxim of homoeopathy is equally true in morals as in medicine, and that similia similibus curantur! So long as I was meek, humble, and submissive, Buller’s impertinent presumption only increased at every moment With every fresh concession of mine he continued to encroach, and now that I had adopted his own strategy, and attacked, he fell back at once.” I was proud, very proud of my discovery. It is a new contribution to that knowledge of life which, notwithstanding all my disasters, I believed to be essentially my gift.

At last he finished his note, folded, sealed, and directed it, – “The Hon. George Buller, A.D.C., Government House, Malta, favored by Algernon Sydney Potts, Esq.”

“Is n’t that all right?” asked he, pointing to my name. “I was within an ace of writing Hampden-Russell too.” And he laughed at his own very meagre jest.

“I hope you have merely made this an introduction?” said I.

“Nothing more; but why so?”

“Because it’s just as likely that I never present it! I am the slave of the humor I find myself in, and I rarely do anything that costs me the slightest effort.” I said this with a close and, indeed, a servile imitation of Charles Matthews in “Used Up;” but it was a grand success, and Buller was palpably vanquished.

“Well, for George’s sake, I hope your mood may be the favorable one. Is there anything more I can do for you? Can you think of nothing wherein I may be serviceable?”

“Nothing. Stay, I rather think our people at home might with propriety show my old friend Hirsch here some mark of attention for his conduct towards me. I don’t know whether they give a C.B. for that sort of thing, but a sum, – a handsome sum, – something to mark the service, and the man to whom it was rendered. Don’t you think ‘we’ could manage that?”

“I ‘ll see what can be done. I don’t despair of success.”

“As for your share in the affair, Buller, I ‘ll take care that it shall be mentioned in the proper quarter. If I have a characteristic, – my friends say I have many, – but if I have one, it is that I never forget the most trifling service of the humblest of those who have aided me. You are young, and have your way to make in life. Go back, therefore, and carry with you the reflection that Potts is your friend.”

I saw he was affected at this, for he covered his face with his handkerchief and turned away, and for some seconds his shoulders moved convulsively.

“Yes,” said I, with a struggle to become humble, “there are richer men, there are men more influential by family ties and connections, there are men who occupy a more conspicuous position before the public eye, there are men who exercise a wider sway in the world of politics and party; but this I will say, that there is not one – no, not one – individual in the British dominions who, when you come to consider either the difficulties he has overcome, the strength of the prejudices he has conquered, the totally unassisted and unaided struggle he has had to maintain against not alone the errors, for errors are human, but still worse, the ungenerous misconceptions, the – I will go further, and call them the wilful misrepresentations of those who, from education and rank and condition, might be naturally supposed – indeed, confidently affirmed to be – to be – ”

“I am certain of it!” cried he, grasping my hand, and rescuing me from a situation very like smothering, – “I am certain of it!” And with a hurried salutation, for his feelings were evidently overcoming him, he burst away, and descended the stairs five steps at a time; and although I was sorry he had not waited till I finished my peroration, I was really glad that the act had ended and the curtain fallen.

“What a deal of bad money passes current in this world,” said I, as I was alone; “and what a damper it is upon honest industry to think how easy it is to eke out life with a forgery!”

“What do you say to a dinner with me at the ‘Swan’ in Innspruck, Potts?” cried out Boiler, from the courtyard.

“Excuse me, I mean to eat my last cutlet here, with my old Jailer. It will be an event for the poor fellow as long as he lives. Good-bye, and a safe journey to you.”

CHAPTER XLV. MY CANDID AVOWAL TO KATE HERBERT

I was now bound for the first port in the Mediterranean from which I could take ship for Malta; and the better to carry out my purpose, I resolved never to make acquaintance with any one, or be seduced by any companionship, till I had seen Miss Herbert, and given her the message I was charged with. This time, at least, I would be a faithful envoy; at least, as faithful as a man might be who had gone to sleep over his credentials for a twelvemonth. And so I reached Malta, and took my place by diligence over the Stelvio down to Lecco, never trusting myself with even the very briefest intercourse with my fellow-travellers, and suffering them to indulge in the humblest estimate of me, morally and intellectually, – all that I might be true to my object and firm to my fixed purpose. For the first time in my life I tried to present myself in an unfavorable aspect, and I was astonished to find the experiment by no means unpleasing, the reason being, probably, that it was an eminent success. I began to see how the surly people are such acute philosophers in life, and what a deal of selfish gratification they must derive from their uncurbed ill-humor. I reached Genoa in time to catch a steamer for Malta. It was crowded, and with what, in another mood, I might have called pleasant people; but I held myself estranged and aloof from all. I could mark many an impertinent allusion to my cold and distant manner, and could see that a young sub on his way to Join was even witty at the expense of my retiring disposition. The creature, Groves he was called, used to try to “trot me out,” as he phrased it; but I maintained both my resolve and my temper, and gave him no triumph.

I was almost sorry on the morning we dropped anchor in the harbor. The sense of doing something, anything, with a firm persistence, had given me cheerfulness and courage. However, I had now a task of some nicety before me, and addressed myself at once to its discharge. At the hotel I learned that the cottage inhabited by Mrs. Keats was in a small nook of one of the bays, and only an easy walk from the town; and so I despatched a messenger at once with Miss Crofton’s note to Miss Herbert, enclosed in a short one from myself, to know if she would permit me to wait upon her, with reference to the matter in the letter. I spoke of myself in the third person and as the bearer of the letter.