Nancy by Rhoda Broughton - CHAPTER XII
Three long days�all blue and gold�blue sky and gold sunshine�roll away. If Schmidt, the courier, has a fault, it is over-driving us. We visit the Gr�ne Gew�lbe, the Japanese Palace, the Zwinger�and we visit them alone. Dresden is not a very large place, yet in no part of it, in none of its bright streets�in neither its old nor its new market, in none of its public places, do I catch a glimpse of my new acquaintance. Neither does he come to call. This last fact surprises me a little, and disappoints me a good deal. Our walk at the Linnisches Bad in the gay lamplight, his character, his conversation, even his appearance, begin to undergo a transformation in my mind. After all, he was not really dark�not one of those black men, against whom Barbara and I have always lifted up our testimonies; by daylight, I think his eyes would have been hazel. He certainly was very easy to talk to. One had not to pump up conversation for him, and I do not suppose that, as men go, he was really very touchy. One cannot expect everybody to be so jest-hardened and robustly good-tempered as the boys. Often before now I have only been able to gauge the unfortunateness of my speeches to men, by the rasping effect they have had on their tempers, and which has often taken me honestly by surprise.
"Again, Mr. Musgrave has not been to call," say I, one afternoon, on returning from a long and rather grilling drive, speaking in a slightly annoyed tone.
"Did you expect that he would?" asks Sir Roger, with a smile. "I think that, after the searching snub you gave him, he would have been a bolder man than I take him for, if he had risked his head in the lion's mouth."
"Am I such a lion?" say I, with an accent of vexation. "Did I snub him? I am sure I had no more idea of snubbing him than I had of snubbing you; that is the way in which I always cut my own throat!"
I draw a chair into the balcony, where he has already established himself with his cigar, and sit down beside him.
"I foresee," say I, beginning to laugh rather grimly, "that a desert will spread all round our house! your friends will disappear before my tongue, like morning mist."
"Let them!"
After a pause, edging a little nearer to him, and, regardless of the hay-carts in the market below�laying my fair-haired head on his shoulder:
"What could have made you marry such a shrew? I believe it was the purest philanthropy."
"That was it!" he answers, fondly. "To save any other poor fellow from such an infliction!"
"Quite unnecessary!" rejoin I, shaking my head. "If you had not married me, it is very certain that nobody else would!"
Another day has come. It is hot afternoon. Sir Roger is reading the Times in our balcony, and I am strolling along the dazzling streets by myself. What can equal the white glare of a foreign town? I am strolling along by myself under a big sun-shade. My progress is slow, as my nose has a disposition to flatten itself against every shop-window�saving, perhaps, the cigar ones. A grave problem is engaging my mind. What present am I to take to father? It is this question which moiders our young brains as often as his birthday recurs. My thoughts are trailing back over all our former gifts to him. This year we gave him a spectacle-case (he is short-sighted); last year a pocket-book; the year before, an inkstand. What is there left to give him? A cigar-case? He does not smoke. A hunting-flask? He has half a dozen. A Norwegian stove? He does not approve of them, but says that men ought to be satisfied with sandwiches out shooting. A telescope? He never lifts his eyes high enough above our delinquencies to look at the stars. I cannot arrive at any approximation to a decision. As I issue from a china-shop, with a brown-paper parcel under my arm, and out on the hot and glaring flags, I see a young man come stepping down the street, with a long, loose, British stride; a young man, pale and comely, and a good deal worn out by the flies, that have also eaten most of me.
"How are you?" cry I, hastily shifting my umbrella to the other hand, so as to have my right one ready to offer him. "Are not these streets blinding? I am blinking like an owl in daylight!�so you never came to see us, after all!"
"It was so likely that I should!" he answers, with his nose in the air.
"Very likely!" reply I, taking him literally; "so likely that I have been expecting you every day."
"You seem to forget�confound these flies!"�(as a stout blue-bottle blunders into one flashing eye)�"you seem to forget that you told me, in so many words, to stay away."
"You were huffy, then!" say I, with an accent of incredulity. "Sir Roger was right! he said you were, and I could not believe it; he was quite sorry for you. He said I had snubbed you so."
"Snubbed me!" reddening self-consciously, and drawing himself up as if he did not much relish the application of the word. "I do not often give any one the chance of doing that twice!"
"You are not going to be offended again, I suppose," say I, apprehensively; "it must be with Sir Roger this time, if you are! it was he that was sorry for you, not I."
We look at each other under my green sun-shade (his eyes are hazel, by daylight), and then we both burst into a duet of foolish friendly laughter.
"I want you to give me your advice," say I, as we toddle amicably along, side by side. "What would be a nice present for a gentleman�an elderly gentleman�at least rather elderly, who has a spectacle-case, a pocket-book, an inkstand, six Church services, and who does not smoke."
"But he does smoke," says Mr. Musgrave, correcting me. "I saw him the other day."
"Saw whom? What�do you mean?"
"Are not you talking of Sir Roger?" he asks, with an accent of surprise.
"Sir Roger!" (indignantly). "No, indeed! do you think he wants spectacles? No! I was talking of my father."
"Your father? You are not, like me, a poor misguided orphan, then; you have a father."
"I should think I had," reply I, expressively.
"Any brothers? Oh, yes, by-the-by, I know you have! you held them up for my imitation the other day�half a dozen fellows who never take offense at any thing."
"No more they do!" cry I, firing up. "If I tell them when I go home, as I certainly shall, if I remember, that you were out of humor and bore malice for three whole days, because I happened to say that we were generally out-of-doors most of the day�they will not believe it�simply they will not."
"And have you also six sisters?" asks the young man, dexterously shifting the conversation a little.
"No, two."
"And are they all to have presents?�six and two is eight, and your father nine, and�I suppose you have a mother, too?"
"Yes."
"Nine and one is ten�ten brown-paper parcels, each as large as the one you now have under your arm�by-the-by, would you like me to carry it? What a lot you will have to pay for extra luggage!"
His offer to carry my parcel is so slightly and incidentally made, and is so unaccompanied by any gesture suited to the words, that I decline the attention. The people pass to and fro in the sun as we pace leisurely along.
"Have you nearly done your shopping?" asks my companion, presently.
"Very nearly."
"What do you say to taking a tour through the gallery?" he says, "or are you sick of the pictures?"
"Far from it," say I, briskly, "but, all the same, I cannot do it; I am going back at once to Sir Roger; we are to drive to Loschwitz: I only came out for a little prowl by myself, to think about father's present! Sir Roger cannot help me at all," I continue, marching off again into the theme which is uppermost in my thoughts. "He suggested a traveling-bag, but I know that father would hate that."
"To drive! this time of day!" cried Mr. Musgrave, in a tone of extreme disapprobation; "will not you get well baked?"
"I dare say," I answer, absently; then, in a low tone to myself, "why does not he smoke? it would be so easy then�a smoking-cap, a tobacco-pouch, a cigar-holder, a hundred things!"
"Is it quite settled about Loschwitz?" asks the young man, with an air of indifference.
"Quite," say I, still not thinking of what I am saying. "That is, no�not quite�nearly�a bag is useful, you know."
"I passed the Saxe just now," he says, giving his hat a little tilt over his nose, "and saw Sir Roger sitting in the balcony, with his cigar and his Times, and he looked so luxuriously comfortable that it seemed a sin to disturb him. Do not you think, taking the dust and the blue-bottles into consideration, that it would be kinder to leave him in peace in his arm-chair?"
"No, I do not," reply I, flatly. "I suppose he knows best what he likes himself; and why a strong, hearty man in the prime of life should be supposed to wish to spend a whole summer afternoon nodding in an arm-chair, any more than you would wish it yourself, I am at a loss to inquire!" The suggestion has irritated me so much that for the moment I forget the traveling-bag.
"When I am as old as he," replies the young man, coldly, shaking the ash off his cigar, "if I ever am, which I doubt, and have knocked about the world for as many years, and imperiled my liver in as many climates, and sent as many Russians, and Chinamen, and Sikhs to glory as he has, I shall think myself entitled to sit in an arm-chair�yes, and sleep in it too�all day, if I feel inclined."
I do not answer, partly because I am exasperated, partly because at this moment my eye is caught by an object in a shop-window�a traveling-bag, with its mouth invitingly open, displaying all manner of manly conveniences. I hastily furl my green umbrella, and step in. My squire does not follow me. I hardly notice the fact, but suppose that he is standing outside in the sun. However, when I reissue forth, I find that he has disappeared. I look up the street, down the street. There is no trace of him. I walk away, feeling a little mortified. I go into a few more shops: I dawdle over some china. Then I turn my steps homeward.
At a narrow street-corner, in the grateful shade cast by some tall houses, I come face to face with him again.
"Did not you wonder where I had disappeared to?" he asks; "or perhaps you never noticed that I had?"
He is panting a little, as if he had been running, or walking fast.
"I thought that most likely you had taken offense again," reply I, with a laugh, "and that I had lost sight of you for three more days."
"I have been to the H�tel de Saxe," he replies, with a rather triumphant smile on his handsome mustacheless lips. "I thought I would find out about Loschwitz."
"Find out what?" cry I, standing still, raising my voice a little, and growing even redder than the sun, the flies, the brown-paper parcel, and the heavy umbrella, have already made me. "There was nothing to find out! I wish you would leave things alone; I wish you would let me manage my own business."
The smile disappears rather rapidly.
"You have not been telling the general," continue I, in a tone of rapid apprehension, "that I did not want to go with him? because, if you have, it was a great, great mistake."
"I told him nothing of the kind," replies Mr. Musgrave, looking, like me, fierce, but�unlike me�cool and pale. "I was not so inventive. I merely suggested that sunstroke would most likely be your portion if you went now, and that it would be quite as easy, and a great deal pleasanter, to go three hours later."
"Yes? and he said�what?"
"He was foolish enough to agree with me."
We are standing in a little quiet street, all shade and dark shops. There are very few passers-by. I feel rather ashamed of myself, and my angry eyes peruse the pavement. Neither does he speak. Presently I look up at him rather shyly.
"How about the gallery? the pictures?"
"Do you wish to go there?" he asks, with rather the air of a polite martyr. "I shall be happy to take you if you like."
"Do!" say I, heartily, "and let us try to be friends, and to spend five minutes without quarreling!"
We have spent more than five, a great deal more�thirty, forty, perhaps, and our harmony is still unbroken, uncracked even. We have sat in awed and chastened silence before the divine meekness of the Sistine Madonna. We have turned away in disgust from Jordain's brutish "Triumphs of Silenus," and tiresome repetitions of Hercules in drink. We have admired the exuberance of St. Mary of Egypt's locks, and irreverently compared them to the effects of Mrs. Allen's "World-wide Hair Restorer." We have observed that the forehead of Holbein's great Virgin is too high to please us, and made many other connoisseur-like remarks. I have pointed out to Mr. Musgrave the Saint Catherine which has a look of Barbara, and we have both grown rather tired of St. Sebastian, stuck as full of darts as a pin-cushion of pins. Now we are sitting down resting our eyes and our strained powers of criticism, and have fallen into easy talk.
"I am glad you are coming to dine at our table d'h�te to-night," say I, in a friendly tone. "It will be nice for the general to have an Englishman to talk to. I hope you will sit by him; he has been so much used to men all his life that he must get rather sick of having nothing but the chatter of one woman to depend upon."
"At least he has no one but himself to blame for that," replies the young fellow, laughing. "I suppose it was his own doing."
"How do you know that?" cry I, gayly, and then the recollection of my hint to Sir Roger�a remembrance that always makes me rather hot�comes over me, and causes me to turn my head quickly away with a red blush. "It certainly has a look of Barbara," I say, glancing toward the Saint Catherine, and rushing quickly into another subject.
"Has it?" he says, apparently unaware of the rapidity of my transition. "Then I wish I knew Barbara."
I laugh.
"I dare say you do."
"She is not much like you, I suppose?" he says, turning from the saint's straight and strict Greek profile to the engaging irregularity of mine.
"Not exactly," say I, with emphasis. "Ah!" (in a tone of prospective triumph), "wait till you see her!"
"I am afraid that I shall have to wait some time."
"The Brat�that is one of my brothers, you know�is the one like me," I say, becoming diffuse, as I always do, when the theme of my family is started; "we are like! We can see it ourselves."
"Is he one of the thick-skinned six that you told me about?"
"There are not six," cry I, impatiently. "I do not know what put it into your head that there were six; there are only three."
"You certainly told me there were six."
"I am he in petticoats," say I, resuming the thread of my own narrative; "everybody sees the likeness. One day when he was three or four years younger, we dressed him up in my things�my gown and bonnet, you know�and all the servants took him for me; they only found him out because he held up his gown so awkwardly high, and gave it such great kicks to keep it out of his way, that they saw his great nailed boots! Sir Roger thought we were twins the first time he saw us."
"Sir Roger!" repeats the young man, as if reminded by the name of something he had meant to say. "Oh, by-the-by, if you will not think me impertinent for asking, where did you first fall in with Sir Roger? I should have thought that he was rather out of your beat; you do not hail from his part of the world, do you?"
"No," reply I, my thoughts traveling back to the day when we made taffy, and tumbled over each other, hot and sticky to the window, to see the dog-cart bearing the stranger roll up the drive. "I never saw him till this last March, when he came to stay with us."
"To stay with you?"
"Yes," reply I, thinking of our godless jokes about his wig and his false calves, and smiling gently to myself; "he was an old friend of father's."
"A contemporary, I suppose?" (a little inquisitively).
"Yes, he was at school with father," I answer; and the moment I have given utterance to the abhorred formula I repent.
"At school with him?" (speaking rather slowly, and looking at me, with a sort of flickering smile in lips and eyes). "Oh, I see!"
"What do you see?" cry I, sharply.
"Nothing, nothing! I only meant to say I understand, I comprehend."
"There is nothing to understand," reply I, brusquely, and rising. "I am tired�I shall go home!"
We walk back rather silently; there is nothing so trying to eyes and mind as picture-seeing, and I am fagged, and also indefinitely, yet certainly, cross. As we reach the door of the Saxe, I hold out my hand.
"Now that we have come to the end of our walk," say I, "and that you cannot think that I am hinting to you, I will tell you that I think it was very ill-mannered and selfish of you not to insist on carrying this" (holding out the brown-paper parcel); "there is not one of the boys�not even Bobby, whom we always call so rough, who would have dreamed of letting a lady carry a parcel for herself, when he was by to take it. There! I am better now! I had to tell you; I wish you good-day!" |
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