CHAPTER XVII. MRS. KEATS MOVES MY INDIGNATION
I am forced to the confession, Mrs. Keats was not what is popularly called an agreeable old lady. She spoke seldom, she smiled never, and she had a way of looking at you, a sort of cold astonishment, seeming to say, “How is this? explain yourself,” that kept me in a perpetual terror.
My morning's tiff with Miss Herbert had neither been condoned nor expiated when we sat down to dinner, as stiff a party of three as can well be imagined; scarcely a word was interchanged as we ate.
“If you drink wine, sir, pray order it,” said Mrs. Keats to me, in a voice that might have suited an invitation to prussic acid.
“This little wine of the country is very pleasant, madam,” said I, courteously, “and I can even venture to recommend it.”
“Not to me, sir. I drink water.”
“Perhaps Miss Herbert will allow me?”
“Excuse me; I also drink water.”
After a very dreary and painful pause, I dared to express a faint hope that Mrs. Keats had not been fatigued by the day's Journey.
She looked at me for a second or two before replying, and then said: “I am really not aware, sir, that I have manifested any such signs of weariness as would warrant your inquiry. If I should have, however—”
“Oh, I beg you will pardon me, madam,” broke I in, apologetically; “my question was not meant for more than a mere ordinary politeness, a matter-of-course expression of my solicitude.”
“It will save us both some trouble in future, sir, if I re-mark that I am no friend to matter-of-course civilities, and never reply to them.”
I felt as though my head and face had been passed across the open door of a blast furnace. I was in a perfect flame, and dared not raise my eye from my plate.
“The waiter is asking if you will take coffee, sir,” said the inexorable old lady to me, as I sat almost stunned and stupid.
“Yes—with brandy—a full glass of brandy in it,” cried I, in the half-despair of one who knew not how to rally himself.
“I think we may retire, Miss H.,” said Mrs. Keats, rising with a severe dignity that seemed to say, “We are not bound to assist at an orgy.” And with a stern stare and a defiant little bow she moved towards the door. I was so awestruck that I never moved from my place, but stood resting my hand on my chair, till she said, “Do you mean to open the door, sir, or am I to do it for myself?”
I sprang forward at once, and flung it wide, my face all scarlet with shame.
She passed out, and Miss Herbert followed her. Her dress, however, catching in the doorway, she turned back to extricate it; I seized the moment to stoop down and say, “Do let me see you for one moment this evening,—only one moment.”
She shook her head in silent negative, and went away.
I sat down at the table, and filled myself a large goblet of wine; I drank it off, and replenished it It was only this morning, a few brief hours ago, and I would not have changed fortunes with the Emperor of France. Life seemed to open before me like some beautiful alley in a garden, with a glorious vista in the distance. I would not have bartered the place in that cabriolet for the proudest throne in Europe. She was there beside me, listening in rapt attention, as I discoursed voyages, travels, memoirs, poetry, and personal adventures. With every changeful expression of lovely sympathy did she follow me through all. I was a hero to us both, myself as much captivated as she was; and now the brief drama was over, the lights were put out, and the theatre closed! How had I destroyed this golden delusion,—why had I quarrelled with her, and for what? For a certain Potts, a creature who, in reality, had no existence; “For who is Potts?” said I. “Potts is no more a substance than Caleb Williams or Peregrine Pickle; Potts is the lay figure that the artist dresses in any costume he requires—a Rachero to-day, a Railway Director to-morrow. What an absurdity in the importance we lend to mere names! Here, for instance, I take the label off the port, and I hang it round the neck of the claret decanter: have I changed the quality of the vintage? have I brought Bordeaux to the meridian of Oporto? Not a bit of it And yet a man is to be more the victim of an accident than a bottle of wine, and his intrinsic qualities—strength, flavor, and richness—are not to be tested, but simply implied from the label round his neck! How narrow-minded, after all, of her, who ought to have known better! It is thus, however, we educate our women; this is part and parcel of the false system by which we fancy we make them companionable. The North American Indians are far in advance of us in all this: they assign them their proper places and fitting duties; they feel that, in this life of ours, order and happiness depend on the due distribution of burdens, and the Snapping Alligator never feels his squaw more truly his helpmate than when she is skinning eels for his dinner.”
How I hated that old woman; I don't think I ever detested a human creature so much as that I have often speculated as to whether venomous reptiles have any gratification imparted to them when they inflict a poisonous wound. Is the mosquito the happier for having stung one's nose? And, in the same spirit, I should like to know, do the disagreeable people of this world sleep the better from the consciousness of having offended us? Is there that great ennobling sense of a mission fulfilled for every cheek they set on fire and every heart they depress? and do they quench hope and extinguish ambition with the same zeal that the Sun or the Phoenix put out a fire?
“'If you drink wine, sir, pray order it,'” said I, mimicking her imperious tone. “Yes, madam, I do drink wine, and I mean to order it, and liberally. I travel at the expense of that noble old paymaster who only wags his tail the more, the more he has to pay—the British Lion. I go down in the extraordinaires. I 'm on what is called a special service. 'Keep an account of your expenses, Paynter!' Confound his insolence, he would say 'Paynter.' By the way, I have never looked how he calls me in my passport. I 'm curious to see if I be Paynter there.” I had left the bag containing this and my money in my room, and I rang the bell, and told the waiter to fetch it.
The passport set forth in due terms all the dignities, honors, and decorations of the great man who granted it, and who bespoke for the little man who travelled by it all aid and assistance possible, and to let him pass freely, &c. “Mr. Ponto,—British subject.” “Ponto, What an outrage! This comes of a man making his maître d'hôtel his secretary. That stupid French flunkey has converted me into a water-dog. This may explain a good deal of the old lady's rudeness; how could she be expected to be even ordinarily civil to a man called Ponto? She 'd say at once, 'His father was an Italian, and, of course, a courier, or a valet; or he was a foundling, and called after a favorite spaniel.' Ill rectify this without loss of time. If she has not the tact to discover the man of education and breeding by the qualities he displays in intercourse, she shall be brought to admit them by the demands of his self-respect.”
I opened my writing-desk and wrote just two lines,—a polite request for a few moments of interview, signed “A. S. Pottinger.” I wrote the name in a fine text hand, as though to say, “No more blunders, madam, this is large as print.”
“Take this to your mistress, François,” said I to the courier.
“Gone to bed, sir.”
“Gone to bed! why, it's only eight o'clock.”
A shrug and a smile were all he replied.
“And Miss Herbert,—can I speak to her?”
“Fear not, sir; she went to her room, and told Clementina not to disturb her.”
“It is of consequence, however, that I should see her. I want to make arrangements for to-morrow,—the hour we are to start—”
“Oh! but we are to stop here over to-morrow; I thought monsieur knew that,” said the fellow, with the insolent grin of a menial at knowing more than his betters.
“Oh, to be sure we are,” said I, laughingly, and affecting to have suddenly remembered it. “I forgot all about it, François; you are quite right. Take a glass of wine, Francois,—or take the bottle with you, that's better.” And I handed him a flask of Hocheimer of eight florins, right glad to get rid of his presence and escape further scrutiny from his prying glances.
How relieved I felt when the fellow closed the door after him and left me to “blow off the steam” of my indignation all alone! And was I not indignant? Only to fancy this insolent old woman giving her orders without so much as condescending to communicate with me! I am left to learn her whim by a mere accident, or not learn it at all, and exhibit myself ready to depart at the inn door, and then hear, for the first time, that I may unpack again.
This was unquestionably a studied rudeness, and demanded an equally studied reprisal. She means to discredit my station, and disparage my influence; how shall I reply to her? A vast variety of expedients offered themselves to my mind: I could go off, leaving a fearful letter behind me,—a document that would cut her to the very soul with the sarcastic bitterness of its tone; but could I leave without a reconciliation with Miss Herbert,—without the fond hope of our meeting as friends. I meant a great deal more, though I would n't trust myself to say so. Besides, were I to go away, there were financial considerations to be entertained. I could not, of course, carry off that crimson bag with its gold and silver contents, and yet it was very hard to tear myself from such a treasure.
I say it under correction, for I have never been rich, and, consequently, never in the position to assert it positively; but I declare my firm conviction to be that no man has ever tasted the unbounded pleasures of a careless liberality on a Journey, who has not travelled at some other person's expense. Be as wealthy as you like, let your portmanteau be stuffed full of circular notes, and there will be present at moments of payment the thought, “If I do not allow myself to be cheated here, I shall have all the more to squander there.” But, drawing from the bag of another, no such mean reflection obtrudes. You might as well defraud your lungs of a long inspiration out of the fear of taking more than your share of the atmosphere. There is enough, and will be enough there when you are dust and ashes.
In fact, if I had on one side the “three courses” of the great statesman, I had on the other full thirty reasons against each, and, therefore, I resolved to suspend action and do nothing. And let me here passingly remark that, much as we hear every day about the merits of promptitude and quick-wittedness, in nine cases out of ten in life, I 'd rather “give the move than take it.” The waiting policy is a rare one; it is the secret of success in love, and of victory in an equity court And so I determined I 'd wait and see what should come of it. I appealed to myself thus: “Potts, you are eminently a man of the world, one who accepts life as it is, with all its crosses and untoward incidents; who knows well that he must play bad cards even oftener than good ones. No impatience, therefore, no rashness; give at least twenty-four hours' thought to any important decision, and let a night's sleep intervene between your first conception of a plan and its adoption.” Oh, if the people who are fretting themselves about what is to happen this day ten years, would only remember what a long time it is,—that is, counting by the number of events that will occur between this and to-morrow,—not to say what incidents are happening at the antipodes that will yet bring joy or sorrow to their hearts,—they would keep more of their sympathies for present use, and perhaps be the happier for doing so.