CHAPTER XXXI. EXPLANATIONS.
What a sad pity it is that the great faculty of “making things comfortable,” that gifted power which blends the announcement with the explanation of misfortune, should be almost limited to that narrow guild in life to which Mademoiselle Annette belonged! The happy knack of half-informing and all-mystifying would be invaluable on the Treasury benches; and great proficients as some of our public men are in this walk, how immeasurably do they fall short of the dexterity of the “soubrette”!
So neatly and so cleverly had Annette performed her task, that when Miss Davis met Beecher at breakfast, she felt that a species of reserve was necessary as to the reasons of her father's flight; that, as he had not directly communicated with herself, her duty was simply to accept of the guidance he had dictated to her. Besides this, let it be owned, she had not yet rallied from the overwhelming astonishment of her first meeting with her father, so utterly was he unlike all that her imagination had pictured him! Nothing could be more affectionate, nothing kinder, than his reception; a thoughtful anxiety for her comfort pervaded all he said. The gloomy old Tirlemont even caught up an air of home as she passed the threshold; but still he was neither in look, manner, nor appearance what she fancied. All his self-restraint could not gloss over his vulgarity, nor all his reserve conceal his defects in breeding. His short, dictatorial manner with the servants,—his ever-present readiness to confront nobody saw what peril,—a suspectful insistence upon this or that mark of deference as a right of which he might possibly be defrauded,—all gave to his bearing a tone of insolent defiance that at once terrified and repelled her.
To all her eager questionings as to their future life, where and how it was to be passed, he would only answer vaguely or evasively. He met her inquiries about the families and friends of her schoolfellows in the same way. Of her pleasures and pursuits, her love of music, and her skill in drawing, he could not even speak with those conventionalities that disguise ignorance or indifference. Of the great world—the “swells” he would have called them—he only knew such as were on the turf. Of the opera, he might possibly tell the price of a stall, but not the name of a singer; and as to his own future, what or where it should be, Grog no more knew than who would be first favorite for the Léger a century hence. To “fence off” any attempt “to pump him” in the ring, to dodge a clever cross-examiner in a court of justice, Davis would have proved himself second to none,—these were games of skill, which he could play with the best,—but it was a very different task to thread his way through the geography of a land he had not so much as heard of, and be asked to act as guide through regions whose very names were new to him.
The utmost that Lizzy could glean from that long first evening's talk was, that her father had few or no political ambitions, rather shunned the great world, cared little for dukes or duchesses, nor set any great store on mere intellectual successes. “Perhaps,” thought she, “he has tried and found the hollowness of them all; perhaps he is weary of public life; perhaps he 'd like the quiet pleasures of a country house, and that calm existence described as the chateau life of England. Would that he were only more frank with me, and let us know each other better!”
We entreat our readers to forgive us this digression, necessary as it is to show that Lizzy, whatever her real doubts and anxieties, felt bound not to display them, but accept Beecher's counsel as her father's will.
“And so we start for Aix-la-Chapelle by two?” said she, calmly.
“Yes; and I represent papa,” said Beecher. “I hope you feel impressed with a due reverence for my authority.”
“Much will depend upon the way you exercise it,” said she; “I could very easily be a rebel if I suspected the justice of the Crown.”
“Come, come,” said he, laughing, “don't threaten me! my viceroyship will be very short-lived,—he 'll perhaps be at Aix before us.”
“And I suppose all my dreams of extravagance here are defeated,” said she. “Annette and I have been plotting and planning such rare devices in 'toilette,' not exactly aware where or upon whom the captivations were to be exercised. I actually revelled in the thought of all the smart fineries my Pensionnat life has denied me hitherto.”
There was that blending of levity with seriousness in her tone that totally puzzled Beecher; and so was it through all she said,—there ran the same half-mocking vein that left him quite unable even to fathom her meaning. He muttered out something about “dress” and “smart things” being to be found everywhere, and that most probably they should visit even more pretentious cities than Brussels erelong.
“Which means that you know perfectly well where we are going, but won't tell it. Well, I resign myself to my interesting part of 'Captive Princess' all the more submissively, since every place is new to me, every town an object of interest, every village a surprise.”
“You 'd like to see the world,—the real, the great world, I mean?” asked Beecher.
“Oh, how much!” cried she, clasping her hands in eagerness, as she arose.
Beecher watched her as she walked up and down the room, every movement of her graceful figure displaying dignity and pride, her small and beautifully shaped head slightly thrown back, while, as her hand held the folds of her dress, her march had something almost stage-like in its sweeping haughtiness. “And how she would become it!” muttered he, below his breath, but yet leaving the murmured sounds half audible.
“What are you saying, sir? Any disparaging sentiment on school-girl conceit or curiosity?”
“Something very like the opposite,” said Beecher. “I was whispering to myself that Grantley House and Rocksley Castle were the proper sphere for you.”
“Are these very splendid?” asked she, calmly.
“The best houses in England. Of their owners, one is a Duke with two hundred thousand a year, the other an Earl with nearly as much.”
“And what do they do with it?”
“Everything; all that money can have—and what is there it cannot?—is there. Gorgeous houses, horses, dress, dinners, pictures, plate, the best people to visit them, the best cook, the best deer-park, the fastest yacht at Cowes, the best hunting-stable at Melton.”
“I should like that; it sounds very fascinating, all of it. How it submerges at once, too, all the petty cares and contrivances, perpetually asking, 'Can we do this?' 'Dare we do that?' It makes existence the grand, bold, free thing one dreams it ought to be.”
“You 're right there; it does make life very jolly.”
“Are you very rich?” asked she, abruptly.
“No, by Jove! poor as a church mouse,” said he, laughing at the strangeness of the question, whose sincere simplicity excluded all notion of impertinence. “I'm what they call a younger son, which means one who arrives in the world when the feast is over. I have a brother with a very tidy fortune, if that were of any use to me.”
“And is it not the same? You share your goods together, I suppose?”
“I should be charmed to share mine with him, on terms of reciprocity,” said Beecher; “but I 'm afraid he 'd not like it.”
“So that he is rich, and you poor?”
“Exactly so.”
“And this is called brotherhood? I own I don't understand it.”
“Well, it has often puzzled me too,” said Beecher, laughingly; “but I believe, if I had been born first, I should have had no difficulty in it whatever.”
“And papa?” asked she, suddenly,—“what was he,—an elder or a younger son?”
It was all that Beecher could do to maintain a decent gravity at this question. To be asked about Grog Davis's parentage seemed about the drollest of all possible subjects of inquiry; but, with an immense effort of self-restraint, he said,—
“I never exactly knew; I rather suspect, however, he was an only child.”
“Then there is no title in our family?” said she, inquiringly.
“I believe not; but you are aware that this is very largely the case in England. We are not all 'marquises' and 'counts' and 'chevaliers,' like foreigners.”
“I like a title; I like its distinctiveness: the sense of carrying out a destiny, transmitting certain traits of race and kindred, seems a fine and ennobling thing; and this one has not, one cannot have, who has no past. So that,” said she, after a pause, “papa is only what you would call a 'gentleman.'”
“'Gentleman' is a very proud designation, believe me,” said he, evading an answer.
“And how would they address me in England,—am I 'my Lady'?”
“No, you are Miss Davis.”
“How meanly it sounds,—it might be a governess, a maid.”
“When you are married, you take the rank and title of your husband,—a duchess, if he be a duke.”
“A duchess be it, then,” said she, in that light, volatile tone she was ever best pleased to employ, while, with a rattling gayety, she went on: “How I should love to be one of those great people you have described to me,—soaring away in all that ideal splendor which would come of a life of boundless cost, the actual and the present being only suggestive of a thousand fancied enjoyments! What glorious visions might one conjure up out of the sportiveness of an untrammelled will! Yes, Mr. Beecher, I have made up my mind,—I 'll be a duchess!”
“But you might have all these as a marchioness, a countess—”
“No, I 'll be a duchess; you sha'n't cheat me out of my just claims.”
“Will your Grace please to give orders about packing up, for we must be away soon after one o'clock,” said he, laughing.
“If I were not humility itself, I'd say the train should await my convenience,” said she, as she left the room with a proud and graceful dignity that would have become a queen.
For a few moments Beecher sat silent and thoughtful in his chair, and then burst out into a fit of immoderate laughing,—he laughed till his eyes ran over and his sides ached. “If this ain't going the pace, I 'd like to know what speed is!” cried he, aloud. “I wonder what old Grog would say if he heard her; and the best of the joke is, she is serious all the while. She is in the most perfect good faith about it all. And this comes of the absurdity of educating her out of her class. What a strange blunder for so clever a head to make! You might have guessed, Master Grog, that she never could be a 'plater.' Let her only enter for a grand match, and she 'll be 'scratched' from one end of England to the other. Ay, Davis, my boy, you fancy pedigrees are only cared for on the turf; but there is a Racing Calendar, edited by a certain Debrett, that you never heard of.”
Again, he thought of Davis as a peer,—“Viscount Davis!” Baron Grog, as he muttered it, came across him, and he burst out once more into laughter; then suddenly checking himself, he said, “I must take right good care, though, that he never hears of this same conversation; he's just the fellow to say I led her on to laugh at and ridicule him; he 'd suspect in a moment that I took her that pleasant gallop,—and if he did—” A long, wailing whistle finished the sentence for him.
Other and not very agreeable reflections succeeded these. It was this very morning that he himself had determined on “levanting,” and there he was, more securely moored than ever. He looked at his watch, and muttered, “Eleven o'clock; by this time I should have been at Verviers, and on the Rhine before midnight. In four days more, I 'd have had the Alps between us, and now here I am without the chance of escape; for if I bolted and left his daughter here, he'd follow me through the world to shoot me!”
He sat silent for some minutes, and then, suddenly springing up from his chair, he cried out,—
“Precious hard luck it is! but I can neither get on with this fellow nor without him;” and with this “summing up” he went off to his room to finish his preparations for the road.