Читать книгу The Fortunes Of Glencore - Lever Charles James - Страница 9

“Not come, Craggs!” said Harcourt, as late on the Saturday evening the Corporal stepped on shore, after crossing the lough.

“No, sir, no sign of him. I sent a boy away to the top of ‘the Devil’s Mother,’ where you have a view of the road for eight miles, but there was nothing to be seen.”

“You left orders at the post-office to have a boat in readiness if he arrived?”

“Yes, Colonel,” said he, with a military salute; and Harcourt now turned moodily towards the Castle.

Glencore had scarcely ever been a very cheery residence, but latterly it had become far gloomier than before. Since the night of Lord Glencore’s sudden illness, there had grown up a degree of constraint between the two friends which to a man of Harcourt’s disposition was positive torture. They seldom met, save at dinner, and then their reserve was painfully evident.

The boy, too, in unconscious imitation of his father, grew more and more distant; and poor Harcourt saw himself in that position, of all others the most intolerable, – the unwilling guest of an unwilling host.

“Come or not come,” muttered he to himself, “I ‘ll bear this no longer. There is, besides, no reason why I should bear it. I ‘m of no use to the poor fellow; he does not want, he never sees me. If anything, my presence is irksome to him; so that, happen what will, I ‘ll start to-morrow, or next day at farthest.”

He was one of those men to whom deliberation on any subject was no small labor, but who, once that they have come to a decision, feel as if they had acquitted a debt, and need give themselves no further trouble in the matter. In the enjoyment of this newly purchased immunity he entered the room where Glencore sat impatiently awaiting him.

“Another disappointment!” said the Viscount, anxiously.

“Yes; Craggs has just returned, and says there’s no sign of a carriage for miles on the Oughterard road.”

“I ought to have known it,” said the other, in a voice of guttural sternness. “He was ever the same; an appointment with him was an engagement meant only to be binding on those who expected him.”

“Who can say what may have detained him? He was in London on business, – public business, too; and even if he had left town, how many chance delays there are in travelling.”

“I have said every one of these things over to myself, Harcourt; but they don’t satisfy me. This is a habit with Upton. I ‘ve seen him do the same with his Colonel, when he was a subaltern; I ‘ve heard of his arrival late to a Court dinner, and only smiling at the dismay of the horrified courtiers.”

“Egad,” said Harcourt, bluntly, “I don’t see the advantage of the practice. One is so certain of doing fifty things in this daily life to annoy one’s friends, through mere inadvertence or forgetfulness, that I think it is but sorry fun to incur their ill-will by malice prepense.”

“That is precisely why he does it.”

“Come, come, Glencore; old Rixson was right when he said, ‘Heaven help the man whose merits are canvassed while they wait dinner for him.’ I ‘ll order up the soup, for if we wait any longer we ‘ll discover Upton to be the most graceless vagabond that ever walked.”

“I know his qualities, good and bad,” said Glencore, rising, and pacing the room with slow, uncertain steps; “few men know him better. None need tell me of his abilities; none need instruct me as to his faults. What others do by accident, he does by design. He started in life by examining how much the world would bear from him; he has gone on, profiting by the experience, and improving on the practice.”

“Well, if I don’t mistake me much, he ‘ll soon appear to plead his own cause. I hear oars coming speedily in this direction.”

And so saying, Harcourt hurried away to resolve his doubts at once. As he reached the little jetty, over which a large signal-fire threw a strong red light, he perceived that he was correct, and was just in time to grasp Upton’s hand as he stepped on shore.

“How picturesque all this, Harcourt,” said he, in his soft, low voice; “a leaf out of ‘Rob Roy.’ Well, am I not the mirror of punctuality, eh?”

“We looked for you yesterday, and Glencore has been so impatient.”

“Of course he has; it is the vice of your men who do nothing. How is he? Does he dine with us? Fritz, take care those leather pillows are properly aired, and see that my bath is ready by ten o ‘clock. Give me your arm, Harcourt; what a blessing it is to be such a strong fellow!”

“So it is, by Jove! I am always thankful for it. And you – how do you get on? You look well.”

“Do I?” said he, faintly, and pushing back his hair with an almost fine-ladylike affectation. “I ‘m glad you say so. It always rallies me a little to hear I ‘m better. You had my letter about the fish?”

“Ay, and I’ll give you such a treat.”

“No, no, my dear Harcourt; a fried mackerel, or a whiting and a few crumbs of bread, – nothing more.”

“If you insist, it shall be so; but I promise you I’ll not be of your mess, that’s all. This is a glorious spot for turbot – and such oysters!”

“Oysters are forbidden me, and don’t let me have the torture of temptation. What a charming place this seems to be! – very wild, very rugged.”

“Wild – rugged! I should think it is,” muttered Harcourt.

“This pathway, though, does not bespeak much care. I wish our friend yonder would hold his lantern a little lower. How I envy you the kind of life you lead here, – so tranquil, so removed from all bores! By the way, you get the newspapers tolerably regularly?”

“Yes, every day.”

“That’s all right. If there be a luxury left to any man after the age of forty, it is to be let alone. It’s the best thing I know of. What a terrible bit of road! They might have made a pathway.”

“Come, don’t grow faint-hearted. Here we are; this is Glencore.”

“Wait a moment. Just let him raise that lantern. Really this is very striking – a very striking scene altogether. The doorway excellent, and that little watch-tower, with its lone-star light, a perfect picture.”

“You ‘ll have time enough to admire all this; and we are keeping poor Glencore waiting,” said Harcourt, impatiently.

“Very true; so we are.”

“Glencore’s son, Upton,” said Harcourt, presenting the boy, who stood, half pride, half bashfulness, in the porch.

“My dear boy, you see one of your father’s oldest friends in the world,” said Upton, throwing one arm on the boy’s shoulder, apparently caressing, but as much to aid himself in ascending the stair. “I’m charmed with your old Schloss here, my dear,” said he, as they moved along. “Modern architects cannot attain the massive simplicity of these structures. They have a kind of confectionery style with false ornament, and inappropriate decoration, that bears about the same relation to the original that a suit of Drury Lane tinfoil does to a coat of Milanese mail armor. This gallery is in excellent taste.”

And as he spoke, the door in front of him opened, and the pale, sorrow-struck, and sickly figure of Glencore stood before him. Upton, with all his self-command, could scarcely repress an exclamation at the sight of one whom he had seen last in all the pride of youth and great personal powers; while Glencore, with the instinctive acuteness of his morbid temperament, as quickly saw the impression he had produced, and said, with a deep sigh, —

“Ay, Horace, a sad wreck.”

“Not so, my dear fellow,” said the other, taking the thin, cold hand within both his own; “as seaworthy as ever, after a little dry-docking and refitting. It is only a craft like that yonder,” and he pointed to Harcourt, “that can keep the sea in all weathers, and never care for the carpenter. You and I are of another build.”

“And you – how are you?” asked Glencore, relieved to turn attention away from himself, while he drew his arm within the other’s.

“The same poor ailing mortal you always knew me,” said Upton, languidly; “doomed to a life of uncongenial labor, condemned to climates totally unstated to me, I drag along existence, only astonished at the trouble I take to live, knowing pretty well as I do what life is worth.”

“‘Jolly companions every one!’ By Jove!” said Har-court, “for a pair of fellows who were born on the sunny side of the road, I must say you are marvellous instances of gratitude.”

“That excellent hippopotamus,” said Upton, “has no-thought for any calamity if it does not derange his digestion! How glad I am to see the soup! Now, Glencore, you shall witness no invalid’s appetite.”

As the dinner proceeded, the tone of the conversation grew gradually lighter and pleasanter. Upton had only to permit his powers to take their free course to be agreeable, and now talked away on whatever came uppermost, with a charming union of reflectiveness and repartee. If a very rigid purist might take occasional Gallicisms in expression, and a constant leaning to French modes of thought, none could fail to be delighted with the graceful ease with which he wandered from theme to theme, adorning each with some trait of that originality which was his chief characteristic. Harcourt was pleased without well knowing how or why, while to Glencore it brought back the memory of the days of happy intercourse with the world, and all the brilliant hours of that polished circle in which he had lived. To the pleasure, then, which his powers conferred, there succeeded an impression of deep melancholy, so deep as to attract the notice of Harcourt, who hastily asked, —

“If he felt ill?”

“Not worse,” said he, faintly, “but weak – weary; and I know Upton will forgive me if I say good-night.”

“What a wreck indeed!” exclaimed Upton, as Glencore left the room with his son. “I’d not have known him.”

“And yet until the last half-hour I have not seen him so well for weeks past. I ‘m afraid something you said about Alicia Villars affected him,” said Harcourt.

“My dear Harcourt, how young you are in all these things,” said Upton, as he lighted his cigarette. “A poor heart-stricken fellow, like Glencore, no more cares for what you would think a painful allusion, than an old weather-beaten sailor would for a breezy morning on the Downs at Brighton. His own sorrows lie too deeply moored to be disturbed by the light winds that ruffle the surface. And to think that all this is a woman’s doing! Is n’t that what’s passing in your mind, eh, most gallant Colonel?”

“By Jove, and so it was! They were the very words I was on the point of uttering,” said Harcourt, half nettled at the ease with which the other read him.

“And of course you understand the source of the sorrow?”

“I’m not quite so sure of that,” said Harcourt, more and more piqued at the tone of bantering superiority with which the other spoke.

“Yes, you do, Harcourt; I know you better than you know yourself. Your thoughts were these: Here’s a fellow with a title, a good name, good looks, and a fine fortune, going out of the world of a broken heart, and all for a woman!”

“You knew her,” said Harcourt, anxious to divert the discussion from himself.

“Intimately. Ninetta della Torre was the belle of Florence – what am I saying? of all Italy – when Glencore met her, about eighteen years ago. The Palazzo della Torre was the best house in Florence. The old Prince, her grandfather, – her father was killed in the Russian campaign, – was spending the last remnant of an immense fortune in every species of extravagance. Entertainments that surpassed those of the Pitti Palace in splendor, fêtes that cost fabulous sums, banquets voluptuous as those of ancient Rome, were things of weekly occurrence. Of course every foreigner, with any pretension to distinction, sought to be presented there, and we English happened just at that moment to stand tolerably high in Italian estimation. I am speaking of some eighteen or twenty years back, before we sent out that swarm of domestic economists who, under the somewhat erroneous notion of foreign cheapness, by a system of incessant higgle and bargain, cutting down every one’s demand to the measure of their own pockets, end by making the word ‘Englishman’ a synonym for all that is mean, shabby, and contemptible. The English of that day were of another class; and assuredly their characteristics, as regards munificence and high dealing, must have been strongly impressed upon the minds of foreigners, seeing how their successors, very different people, have contrived to trade upon the mere memory of these qualities ever since.”

“Which all means that ‘my lord’ stood cheating better than those who came after him,” said Harcourt, bluntly.

“He did so; and precisely for that very reason he conveyed the notion of a people who do not place money in the first rank of all their speculations, and who aspire to no luxury that they have not a just right to enjoy. But to come back to Glencore. He soon became a favored guest at the Palazzo della Torre. His rank, name, and station, combined with very remarkable personal qualities, obtained for him a high place in the old Prince’s favor, and Ninetta deigned to accord him a little more notice than she bestowed on any one else. I have, in the course of my career, had occasion to obtain a near view of royal personages and their habits, and I can say with certainty that never in any station, no matter how exalted, have I seen as haughty a spirit as in that girl. To the pride of her birth, rank, and splendid mode of life were added the consciousness of her surpassing beauty, and the graceful charm of a manner quite unequalled. She was incomparably superior to all around her, and, strangely enough, she did not offend by the bold assertion of this superiority. It seemed her due, and no more. Nor was it the assumption of mere flattered beauty. Her house was the resort of persons of the very highest station, and in the midst of them – some even of royal blood – she exacted all the deference and all the homage that she required from others.”

“And they accorded it?” asked Harcourt, half contemptuously.

“They did; and so had you also if you had been in their place! Believe me, most gallant Colonel, there is a wide difference between the empty pretension of mere vanity and the daring assumption of conscious power. This girl saw the influence she wielded. As she moved amongst us she beheld the homage, not always willing, that awaited her. She felt that she had but to distinguish any one man there, and he became for the time as illustrious as though touched by the sword or ennobled by the star of his sovereign. The courtier-like attitude of men, in the presence of a very beautiful woman, is a spectacle full of interest. In the homage vouchsafed to mere rank there enters always a sense of humiliation, and in the observances of respect men tender to royalty, the idea of vassalage presents itself most prominently; whereas in the other case, the chivalrous devotion is not alloyed by this meaner servitude, and men never lift their heads more haughtily than after they have bowed them in lowly deference to loveliness.”

A thick, short snort from Harcourt here startled the speaker, who, inspired by the sounds of his own voice and the flowing periods he uttered, had fallen into one of those paroxysms of loquacity which now and then befell him. That his audience should have thought him tiresome or prosy, would, indeed, have seemed to him something strange; but that his hearer should have gone off asleep, was almost incredible.

“It is quite true,” said Upton to himself; “he snores ‘like a warrior taking his rest.’ What wonderful gifts some fellows are endowed with! and, to enjoy life, there is none of them all like dulness. Can you show me to my room?” said he, as Craggs answered his ring at the bell.

The Corporal bowed an assent.

“The Colonel usually retires early, I suppose?” said Upton.

“Yes, sir; at ten to a minute.”

“Ah! it is one – nearly half-past one – now, I perceive,” said he, looking at his watch. “That accounts for his drowsiness,” muttered he, between his teeth. “Curious vegetables are these old campaigners. Wish him good night for me when he awakes, will you?”

And so saying, he proceeded on his way, with all that lassitude and exhaustion which it was his custom to throw into every act which demanded the slightest exertion.

“Any more stairs to mount, Mr. Craggs?” said he, with a bland but sickly smile.

“Yes, sir; two flights more.”

“Oh, dear! couldn’t you have disposed of me on the lower floor? – I don’t care where or how, but something that requires no climbing. It matters little, however, for I’m only here for a day.”

“We could fit up a small room, sir, off the library.”

“Do so, then. A most humane thought; for if I should remain another night – Not at it yet?” cried he, peevishly, at the aspect of an almost perpendicular stair before him.

“This is the last flight, sir; and you’ll have a splendid view for your trouble, when you awake in the morning.”

“There is no view ever repaid the toil of an ascent, Mr. Craggs, whether it be to an attic or the Righi. Would you kindly tell my servant, Mr. Schöfer, where to find me, and let him fetch the pillows, and put a little rosemary in a glass of water in the room, – it corrects the odor of the night-lamp. And I should like my coffee early, – say at seven, though I don’t wish to be disturbed afterwards. Thank you, Mr. Craggs, – good-night. Oh! one thing more. You have a doctor here: would you just mention to him that I should like to see him to-morrow about nine or half-past? Good night, good night.”

And with a smile worthy of bestowal upon a court beauty, and a gentle inclination of the head, the very ideal of gracefulness, Sir Horace dismissed Mr. Craggs, and closed the door.