CHAPTER XIV. SHAMEFUL NEGLECT OF A PUBLIC SERVANT.
“Don't keep a place for me at the table d'hôte to-day, Kramm,” said I, in an easy carelessness; “I dine with his Excellency. I could n't well get off the first day, but tomorrow I promise you to pronounce upon your good cheer.”
I suppose I am not the first man who has derived consequence from the invitation it had cost him misery to accept. How many in this world of snobbery have felt that the one sole recompense for long nights of ennui was the fact that their names figured amongst the distinguished guests in the next day's “Post”?
“It is not a grand dinner to-day, is it?” asked Kramm.
“No, no, merely a family party; we are very old chums, and have much to talk over.”
“You will then go in plain black, and with nothing but your 'decorations.'”
“I will wear none,” said I, “none; not even a ribbon.” And I turned away to hide the shame and mortification his suggestion had provoked.
Punctually at six o'clock I arrived at the legation; four powdered footmen were in the hall, and a decent-looking personage in black preceded me up the stairs, and opened the double doors into the drawing-room, without, however, announcing me, or paying the slightest attention to my mention of “Mr. Pottinger.”
Laying down his newspaper as I entered, his Excellency came forward with his hand out, and though it was the least imaginable touch, and his bow was grandly ceremonious, his smile was courteous and his manner bland.
“Charmed to find you know the merit of punctuality,” said he. “To the untravelled English, six means seven, or even later. You may serve dinner, Robins. Strange weather we are having,” continued he, turning to me; “cold, raw, and uncongenial.”
We talked “barometer” till, the door opening, the maître d'hôtel announced, “His Excellency is served;” a rather unpolite mode, I thought, of ignoring his company, and which was even more strongly impressed by the fact that he walked in first, leaving me to follow.
At the table a third “cover” was just being speedily removed as we entered, a fact that smote at my heart like a blow. The dinner began, and went on with little said; a faint question from the Minister as to what the dish contained and a whispered reply constituted most of the talk, and an occasional cold recommendation to me to try this or that entrée. It was admirable in all its details, the cookery exquisite, the wines delicious, but there was an oppression in the solemnity of it all that made me sigh repeatedly. Had the butler been serving a high mass, his motions at the sideboard could scarcely have been more reverential.
“If you don't object to the open air, we 'll take our coffee on the terrace,” said his Excellency; and we soon found ourselves on a most charming elevation, surrounded on three sides with orange-trees, the fourth opening a magnificent view over a fine landscape with the Taunus mountains in the distance.
“I can offer you, at least, a good cigar,” said the Minister, as he selected with great care two from a number on a silver plateau before him. “These, I think, you will find recommendable; they are grown for myself at Cuba, and prepared after a receipt only known to one family.”
In all this there was a dignified civility, not at all like the impertinent freedom of his manner in the morning. He never, besides, addressed me as Mr. Paynter; in fact, he did not advert to a name at all, not giving me the slightest pretext for that reprisal I had come so charged with; and, as to opening the campaign myself, I 'd as soon have commenced acquaintance with a tiger by a pull at his tail. We were now alone; the servants had retired, and there we sat, silently smoking our cigars in apparent ease, but one of us, at least, in a frame of mind the very opposite to tranquillity.
What a rush and conflict of thought was in my head! Why had not she dined with us? Was her position such as that the presence of a stranger became an embarrassment? Good heaven! was I to suppose this, that, and the other? What was there in this man that so imposed on me, that when I wanted to speak I only could sigh, and that I felt his presence like some overpowering spell? It was that calm, self-contained, quiet manner—cold rather than austere, courteous without cordiality—that chilled me to the very marrow of my bones. Lecture him on the private moralities of his life! ask him to render me an account of his actions! address him as Bluebottle!—
“With such tobacco as that, one can drink Bordeaux,” said he. “Help yourself.”
And I did help myself,—freely, repeatedly. I drank for courage, as a man might drink from thirst or fever, or for strength in a moment of fainting debility. The wine was exquisite, and my heart beat more forcibly, and I felt it.
I cannot follow very connectedly the course of events; I neither know how the conversation glided into politics, nor what I said on that subject. As to the steps by which I succeeded in obtaining his Excellency's confidence, I know as little as a man does of the precise moment in which he is wet through in a Scotch mist. I have a dim memory of talking in a very dictatorial voice, and continually referring to my “entrance into public life,” with reference to what Peel “said,” and what the Duke “told me.”
“What's the use of writing home?” said his Excellency, in a desponding voice. “For the last five years I have called attention to what is going on here; nobody minds, nobody heeds it. Open any blue-book you like, and will you find one solitary despatch from Hesse-Kalbbratonstadt?”
“I cannot call one to mind.”
“Of course you can't. Would you believe it, when the Zeringer party went out, and the Schlaffdorfers came in, I was rebuked—actually rebuked—for sending off a special messenger with the news? And then came out a despatch in cipher, which being interpreted contained this stupid doggerel:—
“'Strange that men difference should be
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.”