Читать книгу Mr. Claghorn's Daughter - Hilary Trent - Страница 8

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It was midsummer. The Marquise was in Brittany, Monsieur in Germany; or, as Madame de Fleury patriotically expressed it, among the barbarians, he having penetrated into barbaric wilds in order to reclaim his daughter, whose education, for the past two years, had been progressing under barbaric auspices.

There is, not far from Heidelberg, and in that part of the country of the barbarians known as the Odenwald, a quaint village called Forellenbach; and hard by the village, which is clustered against a steep hill-side, there dashes in cascades that foam and roar, a stream, from the dark pools whereof are drawn trout, which, by the excellent host of the Red-Ox are served hot, in a sauce compounded of white wine and butter; and these things render the place forever memorable to him who loves fish or scenery, or both.

Monsieur Claghorn and his daughter were seated in the garden of the Red-Ox. They had arrived at the inn in a carriage, being on their way to Heidelberg. From Natalie's school they had journeyed by rail to Bad Homburg; and from that resort, having despatched the girl's maid ahead by train, they had commenced a mode of travel which Natalie secretly hoped would not end as soon as had been originally anticipated; for the trip thus far had been the most delightful experience of her life.

There were reasons for this delight besides the joy derived from driving in pleasant weather, over smooth roads, through curious villages, beside winding rivers whose vineclad hills echoed the raftsman's song; beneath the trees of many a forest, passing often the ruins of some grim keep, which silently told to the girl its story of the time that, being past, was a time of romance when life was more beautiful, more innocent, less sordid than now. Not that Natalie knew much of the unpleasing features of modern life, or of any life (else had her self-made pictures of other days borne a different aspect), still the past had its attraction for her, as it has for all that love to dream; and from her Baedeker she had derived just enough information to form the basis of many a tender scene that had never taken place, in days that never were or could have been. Her dreams were not wholly of the past, but of the future as well; all impossible and as charming as innocence and imagination could paint them. School was behind her, her face toward France, a home fireside, liberty and happiness for all time to come. No vision of the days in which she had not lived could be more alluring than the visions of the days in which she was to live, nor more delusive.

Beverley Claghorn looking upon his daughter, perhaps, also saw a visionary future. He loved her, of course. He respected her, too, for had not her mother been of the ancient House of Fleury? It was no ignoble blood which lent the damask tint to cheeks upon which he gazed with complacent responsibility for their being. The precious fluid, coursing beneath the fair skin, if carefully analyzed, should exhibit corpuscles tinged with royal azure. For, was it not true that a demoiselle of her mother's line had been, in ancient days, graciously permitted to bear a son to a king of France, from which son a noble House had sprung with the proud privilege of that bar sinister which proclaimed its glory? These were facts well worthy to be the foundation of a vision in which he saw the maid before him a wife of one of the old noblesse; a mother of sons who would uphold the sacred cause of Legitimacy, as their ancestors (including himself, for he was a furious Legitimist) had done before them. It would solace the dreaded status of grandfather.

"What are you thinking of, Natalie?" he asked in French.

"Of many things; principally that I am sorry he showed them to us."

"The trout?"

"Yes, I am so hungry."

"They have sharpened your appetite. They are beautiful fish."

"I'm glad they haven't spoiled it. Why, papa, they were alive! Did you see their gills palpitate?"

"They are very dead now."

"And we shall eat them. It seems a pity."

He laughed. "Grief will not prevent your enjoyment," he said; "you will have a double luxury—of woe, and——"

"You are ashamed of my capacity for eating, papa. It is very unromantic."

Papa smiled, raising his eyelids slightly. He seemed, and in fact was, a little bored. "Haven't we had enough of this?" he asked.

"But we haven't had any yet."

"I don't mean trout—I only hope they won't be drowned in bad butter—I mean of this," and he lazily stretched his arms, indicating the Odenwald.

She sighed. Her secret hope that the journey by carriage might be extended further than planned was waning. "I was never so happy in my life," she exclaimed. "I shall never forget the pine-forests, the hills, the castles; nor the geese in the villages; nor the horrible little cobblestones——"

"Nor the sour wine——"

"That is your French taste, papa. The vin du pays is no better in France. The wine is good enough, if you pay enough."

"The Lützelsachser is drinkable, the Affenthaler even good," admitted Monsieur, indulgent to barbaric vintage; "but think of yesterday!"

"Think of an epicure who expected to get Affenthaler in that poor little village! They gave you the best they had."

"Which was very bad." He laughed good-naturedly. "I dread a similar experience if we continue this method of travel."

"I could travel this way forever and forever!" She sighed and extended her arms, then clasped her hands upon her breast. It was an unaffected gesture of youth and pleasure and enthusiasm.

It made him smile. "Wait until you have seen Paris," he said.

"But I have seen Paris."

"With the eyes of a child; now you are a woman."

"That is so," somewhat dreamily, as though this womanhood were no new subject of reverie. "I am eighteen—but why should Paris be especially attractive to a woman?"

"Paris is the world."

"And so is this."

"This, my dear——" the remonstrance on his lips was interrupted by the arrival of the fish.

They were very good: "Ravissant!" exclaimed Natalie, who displayed a very pitiless appreciation of them. "Not so bad," admitted papa.

"And so I am to stay with my cousin, the Marquise," said the girl, after the cravings of an excellent appetite had been satisfied. "Papa, even you can find no fault with this Deidesheimer," filling her glass as she spoke.

"With your cousin for a time, anyhow. It is very kind of her, and for you nothing better could be wished. She sees the best world of Paris."

"And as I remember, is personally very nice."

"A charming woman—with a fault. She is devout."

"I have known some like her," observed Natalie. "There was Fräulein Rothe, our drawing-mistress, a dear old lady, but very religious."

"I hope none of them attempted to influence you in such matters," he said, frowning slightly.

"No. It was understood that you had expressly forbidden it. I was left out of the religious classes; they called me 'The Pagan.'"

"No harm in that," commented Monsieur rather approvingly.

"Oh, no! It was all in good-nature. The Pagan was a favorite. But, of course, I have had some curiosity. I have read a little of the Bible." She made her confession shyly, as though anticipating reproach.

"There is no objection to that," he said. "At your age you should have a mind of your own. Use it and I have no fear as to the result. My view is that in leaving you uninfluenced I have done my duty much more fully than if I had early impressed upon you ideas which I think pernicious, and which only the strongest minds can cast aside in later life. What impression has your Bible reading left?"

"The Jews of the Old Testament were savages, and their book is unreadable for horrors. The Gospel narratives seem written by men of another race. The character of Jesus is very noble. He must have lived, for he could not have been invented by Jews. Of course, he was not God, but I don't wonder that his followers thought so."

"He was a Great Philosopher," answered Monsieur Claghorn with high approval. "The incarnation of pure stoicism, realizing the ideal more truly than even Seneca or Marcus. And what of the literary quality of the book?"

"The gospels are equal to the Vicar of Wakefield or Paul and Virginia. As to the rest," she shrugged her shoulders after the French fashion—"Revelation was written by a maniac."

"Or a modern poet," observed the gentleman.

Now while these latest exponents of the Higher Criticism were thus complacently settling the literary standing of Luke and John, placing them on as high a level as that attained by Goldsmith and St. Pierre, the man smoking and the girl sipping wine (for the fish had been devoured and their remains removed), two persons came into the garden. They carried knapsacks and canes, wore heavy shoes, were dusty and travel-stained. The elder of the pair had the clerical aspect; the youth was simply a very handsome fellow of twenty or thereabout, somewhat provincial in appearance.

Beverley Claghorn glanced at the pair, and with an almost imperceptible shrug of the shoulders, which, if it referred to the newcomers, was not complimentary, continued to smoke without remark. The girl was more curious.

"They are English," she said.

"Americans," he answered, with a faint shade of disapproval in his tone.

"But so are we," she remonstrated, noting the tone.

"We can't help it," he replied, resenting one of his grievances. "You can hardly be called one."

"Is it disgraceful?"

"Not at all; but I don't flaunt it."

"But, papa, surely you are not ashamed of it?"

"Certainly not. But it is a little tiresome. Our countrymen are so oppressively patriotic. They demand of you that you glory in your nativity. I don't. I am not proud of it. I shouldn't be proud of being an Englishman, or a Frenchman, or an Italian, or——"

"In fact, papa, you are not proud at all."

"Natalie," proceeded the philosopher, not noticing the interruption, "one may be well-disposed toward the country of one's birth; one may even recognize the duty of fighting, if need be, for its institutions. But the pretence of believing in one's country, of fulsome adoration for imperfect institutions, is to welcome intellectual slavery, to surrender to the base instinct of fetichism."

"Like religion," she said, recognizing the phrase.

"Like religion," he assented. "You will find when you are as old as I am that I am right."

"Yet people do believe in religion. There's Fräulein Rothe——"

"Natalie, no reasoning being can believe what is called Christianity, but many beings think that they believe."

"But why don't they discover that they don't think what they think they think?"

"There's nothing strange in that. When they were young they were told that they believed, and have grown up with that conviction. The same people would scorn to accept a new and incredible story on the evidence which is presented in favor of the Christian religion."

The girl sighed as though the paternal wisdom was somewhat unsatisfactory. Meantime the slight raising of Monsieur's voice had attracted the attention of the dusty wayfarers who, in default of other occupation, took to observing the pair.

"She is very pretty," said the youth.

The elder did not answer. He was intently scrutinizing Beverley Claghorn. After a moment of hesitation he surprised his companion by rising and approaching that person with outstretched hand.

"I cannot be mistaken," he exclaimed in a loud, hearty voice. "This is a Claghorn."

"That is my name," replied the would-be Gallic owner of the appellation in English. "I have the honor of seeing——" but even as he uttered the words he recognized the man who was now shaking a somewhat reluctant hand with gushing heartiness.

"I am Jared. You remember me, of course. I see it in your eyes. And so this is really you—Eliphalet! 'Liph, as we called you at the old Sem. 'Liph, I am as glad to see you as a mother a long-lost son."

"And I," replied the other, "am charmed." He bore it smiling, though his daughter looked on in wonder, and he felt that the secret of his baptism had been heartlessly disclosed.

"This," said Jared, "is my son, Leonard," and while the son grew red and bowed, the clergyman looked at the girl to whom his son's bow had been principally directed.

"My daughter, Natalie de Fleury-Claghorn," said her father. "My dear, this is my cousin, Professor Claghorn, whom I have not seen for many years."

"Not since we were students together at Hampton Theological Seminary," added Jared, smilingly. He habitually indulged in a broad smile that indicated satisfaction with things as he found them. It was very broad now, as he offered his hand, saying, "And so you are 'Liph's daughter, and your name is Natalidaflurry—that must be French. And your mother, my dear, I hope——"

"My wife has been dead since my daughter's birth," interrupted Monsieur, "and I," he added, "long ago discarded my baptismal name and assumed that of my mother."

"Discarded the old name!" exclaimed the Reverend Jared, surprised. "Had I been aware of that, I surely would have given it to Leonard. I regarded it, as in some sort, the property of the elder branch. Surely, you don't call yourself Susan?"

"My mother's name was Susan Beverley; I assumed her family name." The philosopher uttered the words with a suavity that did him credit. Then, apologetically, and in deference to his cousin's evident grief: "You see, Eliphalet was somewhat of a mouthful for Frenchmen."

"And so the old name has fallen into disuse," murmured Jared regretfully. "We must revive it. Leonard, upon you——"

But Leonard had taken Natalie to look at the cascades.

So, lighting fresh cigars, the two former fellow-students commenced a revival of old memories. Their discourse, especially on the part of the clergyman, contained frequent allusion to family history, which to the reader would be both uninteresting and incomprehensible. But, since some knowledge of that history is requisite to the due understanding of the tale that is to be told, the respected personage indicated is now invited to partake of that knowledge.