Nancy by Rhoda Broughton - CHAPTER XIII
"If he does not like it," say I, setting it on the floor, and regarding it from a little distance, with my head on one side, while friendly criticism and admiration meet in happy wedlock in my eyes, "I can give it to you; I had much rather make you a present than him."
"Then Heaven grant that it may find disfavor in his sight!" says Sir Roger, piously.
We are talking of the traveling-bag, which at last, in despair of any thing suitable occurring to my mind, I have bought, and now regard with a sort of apprehensive joy. The blinds are half lowered for the heat, but, through them and under them, the broad gold sunshine is streaming and pushing itself, washing the careful twists of my flax hair, the bag's stout red leather sides, and Sir Roger's nose, as he leans over it, with manly distrust, trying the clasp by many searching snappings.
"I never gave you a present in my life�never�did I?" say I, squatting down on the floor beside him, crumpling my nice crisp muslin frock with the recklessness of a woman who knows that there are many more such frocks in the cupboard, and to whom this knowledge has but newly come; "never mind! next birthday I will give you one�a really nice, handsome, rather expensive one�all bought with your own money, too�there!"
This is on the morning of our last day in Dresden. Yes! to-morrow we set off homeward. Our wedding-tour is nearly ended: tyrant Custom, which sent us off, permits us to rejoin our fellows. Well, it really has not been so bad! I do not know that I should care to have it over again�that is, just immediately; but it has gone off very well altogether�quite as well as most other people's, I fancy. These are my thoughts in the afternoon, as (Sir Roger having gone to the post-office, and I having made myself very hot by superintending the packing of the presents�most of them of a brittle, crackable nature) I am leaning, to cool myself, over our balcony, and idly watching the little events that are happening under my nose. The omnibus stands, as usual, in the middle of the square, about to start for Blasewitz. Mysterious 'bus! always about to start�always full of patient passengers, and that yet was never seen by mortal man to set off. As I watch it with the wondering admiration with which I have daily regarded it, I hear the door of our sitting-room open, and Vick give a little shrewish shrill bark, speedily changed into an apologetic and friendly whiffling and whoffling.
"Is that you?" cry I, holding on by the balcony, and leaning back to peep over my own shoulder into the interior. "Come out here, if it is."
"Sir Roger is out," I say, a second later, putting my hand into that of Mr. Musgrave (for it is he), as he comes stepping, in his usual unsmiling, discontented beauty, to meet me.
"I know he is! I met him!"
"I am seeing the people start for Blasewitz for the last time! it makes me quite low!" I say, replacing my arms on the balcony, and speaking with an irrepressibly jovial broad smile on my face that rather contradicts my words.
"You look low," he answers, ironically, standing beside me, and looking rather provoked at my urbanity.
"This time to-morrow we shall be off," say I, beginning to laugh out of pure light-heartedness, though there is no joke within a mile of me, and to count on my fingers; "this time the day after to-morrow we shall be at Cologne�this time the day after that we shall be getting toward Brussels�this time the day after that, we shall be getting toward Dover�this time the day after that�"
"You will all be rushing higgledy-piggledy, helter-skelter, into each other's arms," interrupts my companion, looking at me with a lowering eye.
"Yes," say I, my eyes dancing. "You are quite right."
"Algy, and the Brat, and�what is the other fellow's name?�Dicky?�Jacky?�Jemmy?�"
"Bobby," say I, correcting him. "But you are not quite right; the Brat will not be there!�worse luck�he is in Paris!"
"Well, Barbara will not be in Paris," says the young man, still in the same discontented, pettish voice. "She will be there, no doubt�well to the front�in the thickest of the osculations."
"That she will!" cry I, heartily. "But you must give up calling her Barbara; that is not at all pretty manners."
"We will make a bargain," he says, beginning to smile a little, but rather as if it were against his will and intention. "I will allow her to call me 'Frank,' if she will allow me to call her 'Barbara.'"
"I dare say you will" (laughing).
A little pause. Another person has got into the omnibus; it is growing extremely full.
"I hate last days," says my companion, hitting viciously at the iron balcony rails with his stick, and scowling.
"'The Last Days of Pompeii,'" say I, stupidly, and yet laughing again; not because I think my witticism good, which no human being could do, but because I must laugh for very gladness. Another longer pause. (Shall I present the bag the night we arrive, or wait till next day?)
"I have got a riddle to ask you," says Frank, abruptly, and firing the observation off somewhat like a bomb-shell.
"Have you?" say I, absently. "I hope it is a good one."
"Of course, you must judge of that�'Mon premier�'"
"It is in French!" cry I, with an accent of disgust.
"Well, why should not it be?" (rather tartly).
"No reason whatever, only that I warn you beforehand I shall not understand it: I always shiver when people tell me a French anecdote; I never know when the point has arrived: I always laugh too soon or too late."
He says nothing, but looks black.
"Go on!" say I, laughing. "We will try, if you like."
"Mon�premier�est�le�premier�de tout," he says, pronouncing each word very separately and distinctly. "Do you understand that?"
I nod. "My first is the first of all�yes."
"Mon second n'a pas de second."
"My second has no second�yes."
"Mon tout"�(turning his long, sleepy eyes sentimentally toward me)�"je ne saurai vous le dire."
"My whole�I cannot tell it you!�then why on earth did you ask me?" cry I, breaking out into hearty, wholesome laughter.
Again he blackens.
"Well, have you guessed it?"
"Guessed it!" I echo, recovering my gravity. "Not I!�my first is the first of all�my second has no second�my whole, I cannot tell it you!�I do not believe it is a riddle at all! it is a hoax�a take-in, like 'Why does a miller wear a white hat?'"
"It is nothing of the kind," he answers, looking thoroughly annoyed. "Must I tell you the answer?"
"I shall certainly never arrive at it by my unassisted genius," I reply, yawning. "Ah! there is M. Dom going out riding! Alas! never again shall I see him mount that peacocking steed!"
"It is 'Adieu!'" says my companion, blurting it out in a rage, seeing that I will not be interested in or excited by it.
"Adieu!" repeat I, standing with my mouth wide open, looking perfectly blank. "How?"
"You do not see?" he says. (His face has grown scarlet.) "Well, you must excuse me for saying that you are rather�" He breaks off and begins again, very fast this time. "My first is the first of all�is not A the first letter in the alphabet? My second has no second�has God (Dieu) any second? My whole�I cannot say it to you�Adieu!"
The contrast between the sentimentality of the words, and the brusque and defiant anger of his tone, is so abrupt, that I am sorry to say, I laugh again: indeed, I retire from the balcony into the saloon inside, throw myself into a chair, and, covering my face with my handkerchief, roar�
"It is very good," say I, in a choked voice; "very�so civil and pretty�but it is not very funny, is it?"
I receive no answer. I am still in my pocket-handkerchief, and he might be gone, but that I hear his quick, angry breathing, and know, by instinct, that he is standing over me, looking like a handsome thunder-cloud. I dare not look up at him, lest another mad cachinnation, such as sometimes overtakes one for the punishment of one's sins in church, should again lay violent hands upon me.
"I think I like 'Why was Balaam like a Life-Guardsman?' better, on the whole," I say, presently, peeping through my fingers, and speaking with a suspicious tremble in my voice.
"I have no doubt it is far superior," he answers, in a fierce and sulky tone, that he in vain tries to make sound playful. "'Balaam like a Life-Guardsman?' and why was he, may I ask? Something humorous about his donkey, I suppose."
"Because he had a queer ass (cuirass)," reply I, again exploding, and hiding my face in the back of the chair.
"A queer ass!" (in a tone of the profoundest contempt); "you have no more sentiment in you than this table!" smiting it with his bare hand.
"I know I have not," say I, sitting up, and holding my hand to my side to ease the pain my excessive mirth has caused; "they always said so at home. Oh, here is the general! we will make him umpire, which is funniest, yours or mine!"
Sir Roger enters, and glances in some surprise from Frank's crimson face to my convulsed one.
"Oh, general, do we not look as if we had been having an affecting parting?" cry I, jumping up and running to him. "Do not I look as if I had been crying? Quite the contrary, I assure you. But Musgrave and I have been asking each other such amusing riddles�would you like to hear them? Mine is good, plain, vulgar English, but his is French, so we will begin with it�'Mon premier�'"
I stop suddenly, for Mr. Musgrave is looking at me with an expression simply murderous.
"Well, what are you stopping for? I am on the horns of expectation�'Mon premier�'"
"After all, it is not so funny as I thought," I answer, brusquely. "I think we will keep it for some wet Sunday afternoon, when we are short of something to do." |
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