CHAPTER XXXVIII. VERY OUTSPOKEN ON THE WORLD AT LARGE
And there came a next morning to all this. Oh, these same next mornings of life!—strange leaves in that book of our daily existence, now dark and black-lettered, now bright in all the glories of golden tracery! For so is it, each day is a fresh page to be written “with chalk or charcoal,” as it may be.
Two travelling-carriages took their way from Florence on that morning,—one for Bologna, with Mr. Stocmar and Clara; the other for Rome, with the Heathcotes, Captain Holmes having his place in the rumble. Old soldier that he was, he liked the open-air seat, where he could smoke his cigar and see the country. Of all those who journeyed in either, none could vie with him in the air of easy enjoyment that he wore; and even the smart Swiss maid at his side, though she might have preferred a younger companion, was fain to own, in her own peculiar English, that he was full of little bounties (bontés) in her regard. And when they halted to bait, he was so amiable and full of attentions to every one, exerting the very smallest vocabulary to provide all that was needed; never abashed by failure or provoked by ridicule; always good-tempered, always gay. It was better than colchicum to Sir William to see the little fat man washing the salad himself at the fountain, surrounded by all the laughing damsels of the hostel, who jeered him on every stage of his performance; and even May, whose eyes were red with crying after Clara, had to laugh at the disasters of his cookery and the blunders of his Italian. And then he gossiped about with landlords and postboys, till he knew of every one who had come or was coming; what carriages, full of Russian Princes, could not get forward for want of horses, and what vetturinos, full of English, had been robbed of everything. He had the latest intelligence about Garibaldi, and the names of the last six Sicilian Dukes shot by the King of Naples. Was he not up, too, in his John Murray, which he read whenever Mademoiselle Virginia was asleep, and sold out in retail at every change of post-horses?
Is it not strange that this is exactly the sort of person one needs on a journey, and yet is only by the merest accident to be chanced upon? We never forget the courier, nor the valet, nor the soubrette, but the really invaluable creature,—the man who learns the name of every village, the value of all coinage, the spot that yields good wine, the town where the peaches are fullest of flavor, or the roses richest in perfume; we leave him to be picked up at hazard, if picked up at all. It is an unaccountable prejudice that makes the parasite unpopular. For who is it that relieves life of much of its asperities,—who is it that provides so unceasingly that our capon should be well roasted and our temper unruffled,—who, like him, to secure all the available advantages of the road, and, when disasters will occur, to make them food for laughter?
How patient, how self-sacrificing, how deferential to caprices and indulgent to whims is the man whose daily dinner you pay for! If you would see humanity in holiday attire, look out for one like him. How blandly does he forgive the rascalities of your servants and the robberies of your tradesmen! No fretfulness about trifles disfigures the calm serenity of his features. He knows that if the travelling-carriage be thought heavy, it is only two leaders the more are required; if the wine be corked, it is but ordering another bottle. Look at life from his point of view, and it is surprising how little there is to complain of. It would be too much to say that there was not occasionally a little acting in all this catholic benevolence and universal satisfaction, but no more, perhaps, than the fervor of a lawyer for his client,—that nisi prius enthusiasm marked five guineas on the brief.
The Captain understood his part like an artist; and through all the condescending forgiveness he bestowed on the shortcomings of inns and innkeepers, he suffered, ever half imperceptibly, to peer out the habits of a man accustomed to the best of everything, who always had been sedulously served and admirably cared for. His indulgence was thus generosity, not ignorance, and all irritability in such a presence would stand rebuked at once.
Sir William declared he had never seen his equal,—such temper, such tact, such resources in difficulty, such patience under all trials. May pronounced him charming. He could obtain something eatable in the veriest desolation, he could extract a laugh out of disasters that seemed to defy drollery; and, lastly, Mrs. Morris herself averred “that he was unlike every old Indian she had ever seen, for he seemed not to know what selfishness meant,—but so, indeed, 'poor Penthony' had always described him.” And here she would wipe her eyes and turn away in silence.
As they rolled along the road, many a little scheme was devised for detaining him at Rome, many a little plot laid for making him pass the carnival with them. Little knew they the while, how, seated in the rumble close behind, he too revolved the self-same thoughts, asking himself by what means he could secure so pleasant a harbor of refuge. Will it not occasionally occur in life that some of those successes on which we pride ourselves have been in a measure prepared by others, and that the adversary has helped us to win the game we are so vain of having scored?
“Well, how do you like them?” said Mrs. Morris, as she smoked her cigarette at the end of the little garden at Viterbo, after Sir William and May had said good-night,—“how do you like them, pa?”