Читать книгу One Of Them - Lever Charles James - Страница 7

When the young Marquis had made his escape from sightseeing, and all its attendant inflictions, he was mainly bent on what he would himself have called being “very jolly,” – that is to say, going his own way unmolested, strolling the road he fancied, and following out his own thoughts. Not that these same thoughts absolutely needed for their exercise or development any extraordinary advantages of solitude and retirement. He was no deep-minded sage, revolving worlds to come, – no poet, in search of the inspiring influence of nature, – no subtle politician, balancing the good and evil of some nice legislation. He was simply one of those many thousand England yearly turns out from her public schools of fine, dashing, free-hearted, careless boys, whose most marked feature in character is a wholesome horror of all that is mean or shabby. Less than a year before, he had been a midshipman in her Majesty’s gun-boat “Mosquito;” the death of an elder brother had made him a Marquis, with the future prospect of several thousands a year.

He had scarcely seen or known his brother, so he grieved very little for his loss, but he sorrowed sincerely over the change of fortune that called him from his sea life and companions to an “on-shore” existence, and instead of the gun-room and its gay guests, gave him the proprieties of station and the requirements of high rank. One of his guardians thought he ought to go into the Guards; another advised a university; both agreed upon a tutor, and Mr. Layton was found, a young man of small fortune, whose health, injured by over-reading for honors, required change of scene and rest. They had been companions for a very short time, but had, as the young Lord would have said, “hit it off” admirably together; that is to say, partly from a just appreciation of his pupil, and partly out of a natural indolence of disposition, Layton interfered very little with him, gave him no troublesome tasks, imposed no actual studies, but contented himself with a careful watch over the boy’s disposition, a gentle, scarce perceptible correction of his faults, and an honest zeal to develop any generous trait in his nature, little mindful of the disappointments his trustfulness must incur. Layton’s theory was that we all become wise too early in life, and that the world’s lessons should not be too soon implanted in a fresh unsuspecting nature. His system was not destined to be sorely tested in the present case. Harry Montserrat, Marquis of Agincourt, was a fortunate subject to illustrate it by. There never was a less suspectful nature; he was frank, generous, and brave; his faults were those of a hot, fiery temper, and a disposition to resent, too early and too far, what with a little patience he might have tolerated or even forgiven.

The fault, however, which Layton was more particularly guardful against, was a certain over-consciousness of his station and its power, which gradually began to show itself.

In his first experience of altered fortune he did nothing but regret the past. It was no compensation to him for his careless sea-life, with all its pleasant associations, to become of a sudden invested with station, and treated with what he deemed over-deference. His reefer’s jacket was pleasanter “wear” than his padded frock-coat; the nimble boy who waited on him in the gun-room he thought a far smarter attendant than his obsequious valet; and, with all his midshipman’s love of money-spending and squandering, the charm of extravagance was gone when there were no messmates to partake of it; nor did his well-groomed nag and his well-dressed tiger suggest one-half the enjoyment he had often felt in a pony ride over the cliffs of Malta, with some others of his mess, where falls were rife and tumbles frequent. These, I say, were first thoughts, but gradually others took their places. The enervation of a life of ease began soon to show itself, and he felt the power of a certain station. In the allowance his guardian made him, he had a far greater sum at his disposal than he ever possessed before; and in the title of his rank he soon discovered a magic that made the world beneath him very deferential and very obliging.

“That boy has been very ill brought up, Mr. Layton; it will be your chief care to instil into him proper notions of the place he is to occupy one of these days,” said an old Earl, one of his guardians, and who was most eager that every trace of his sea life should be eradicated.

“Don’t let him get spoiled, Layton, because he’s a Lord,” said the other guardian, who was an old Admiral. “There’s good stuff in the lad, and it would be a thousand pities it should be corrupted.”

Layton did his best to obey each; but the task had its difficulties. As to the boy himself, the past and the present, the good and the evil, the frank young middy and the rich lordling, warred and contended in his nature; nor was it very certain at any moment which would ultimately gain the mastery. Such, without dwelling more minutely, was he who now strolled along through shrubbery and parterre, half listless as to the way, but very happy withal, and very light-hearted.

There was something in the scene that recalled England to his mind. There were more trees and turf than usually are found in Italian landscape, and there was, half hidden between hazel and alder, a clear, bright river, that brawled and fretted over rocks, or deepened into dark pools, alternately. How the circling eddies of a fast-flowing stream do appeal to young hearts! what music do they hear in the gushing waters! what a story is there in that silvery current as it courses along through waving meadows, or beneath tall mountains, and along some dark and narrow gorge, emblem of life itself in its light and shade, its peaceful intervals and its hours of struggle and conflict.

Forcing his way through the brushwood that guarded the banks, the boy gained a little ledge of rock, against which the current swept with violence, and then careered onward over a shallow, gravelly bed till lost in another bend of the stream. Just as Agincourt reached the rock, he spied a fishing-rod deeply and securely fastened in one of its fissures, but whose taper point was now bending like a whip, and springing violently under the struggling effort of a strong fish. He was nothing of an angler. Of honest “Izaak” and his gentle craft he absolutely knew nought, and of all the mysteries of hackles and green drakes he was utterly ignorant; but his sailor instinct could tell him when a spar was about to break, and this he now saw to be the case. The strain was great, and every jerk now threatened to snap either line or rod. He looked hurriedly around him for the fisherman, whose interests were in such grave peril; but seeing no one near, he endeavored to withdraw the rod. While he thus struggled, for it was fastened with care, the efforts of the fish to escape became more and more violent, and at last, just as the boy had succeeded in his task, a strong spring from the fish snapped the rod near the tip, and at the same instant snatched it from the youth’s hand into the stream. Without a second’s hesitation, Agincourt dashed into the river, which rose nearly to his shoulders, and, after a vigorous pursuit, reached the rod, but only as the fish had broken the strong gut in two, and made his escape up the rapid current.

The boy was toilfully clambering up the bank, with the broken rod in his hand, when a somewhat angry summons in Italian met his ears. It was time enough, he thought, to look for the speaker when he had gained dry land; so he patiently fought his way upwards, and at last, out of breath and exhausted, threw himself full length in the deep grass of the bank.

“I believe I am indebted to you, sir, for my smashed tackle and the loss of a heavy fish besides?” said Charles Heathcote, as he came up to where the youth was lying, his voice and manner indicating the anger that moved him.

“I thought to have saved the rod and caught the fish too,” said the other, half indolently; “but I only got a wet jacket for my pains.”

“I rather suspect, young gentleman, you are more conversant with a measuring-yard than a salmon-rod,” said Heathcote, insolently, as he surveyed the damaged fragments of his tackle.

“What do you mean by that, sir?” cried the boy, springing with a bound to his feet, and advancing boldly towards his adversary.

“Simply that it ‘s not exactly the sort of sport you follow in Bond Street,” retorted Heathcote, whose head was full of “Mosely and Trip,” and felt certain that a scion of that great house was before him.

“You must be a rare snob not to know a gentleman when you see him,” said Agincourt, with an insolent defiance in his look.

“Perhaps I’d be a better judge if I saw him after a good washing,” said Heathcote, who, with one hasty glance at the river, now turned a fierce eye on the youth.

Agincourt’s gun-room experiences had not taught him to decline an offered battle, and he threw off his cap to show that he was ready and willing to accept the challenge, when suddenly Layton sprang between them, crying out, “What’s the meaning of all this?”

“The meaning is, that your young friend there has taken the liberty, first, to smash my fishing-gear, and then to be very insolent to me, and that I had very serious intentions of sending him to look for the one and pay forfeit for the other.”

“Yes, I broke his rod, and I ‘ll pay for it, or, if he’s a gentleman, I’ll beg his pardon, or fight him,” said the boy, in a tone of ill-repressed anger.

“When there is an evident mistake somewhere,” said Layton, gently, “it only needs a moment of forbearance to set it right.”

“Here’s how it all happened,” broke in the boy, eagerly. And in a few words he related his chance arrival at the spot, how he had seen the rod in what he deemed imminent danger, and how with the best intentions he had interfered to save it.

“I beg you to accept all my excuses for what I have said to you,” said Heathcote, with a frank and manly courtesy. “I am quite ashamed of my ill-temper, and hope you’ll forgive it.”

“To be sure I will. But what about the rod, – you can’t easily get such another in these parts?”

The boy looked eagerly at Layton as he spoke. Layton as quickly gave an admonitory glance of caution, and the youth’s instinctive good breeding understood it.

“I think you came over with a party of friends to see the villa,” said Heathcote, to relieve the awkward pause between them.

“Not friends, exactly; people of our hotel.”

Heathcote smiled faintly, and rejoined, —

“Some of our pleasantest acquaintances come of chance intimacies, – don’t you think so?”

“Oh, for the matter of that, they ‘re jolly enough. There’s a wonderful Londoner, and a rare Yankee, and there’s an Irishman would make the fortune of the Haymarket.”

“You must own, Harry, they are all most kind and good-natured to you,” said Layton, in a tone of mild half-rebuke.

“Well, ain’t I just as – what shall I call it? – polite and the like to them? Ay, Layton, frown away as much as you like, they’re a rum lot.”

“It is young gentlemen of this age who nowadays are most severe on the manners and habits of those they chance upon in a journey, not at all aware that, as the world is all new to them, their criticism may have for its object things of every-day frequency.”

The youth looked somewhat vexed at this reproof, but said nothing.

“I have the same unlucky habit myself,” said Heathcote, good-humoredly. “I pronounce upon people with wonderfully little knowledge of them, and no great experience of the world neither; and – case in point – your American acquaintance is exactly one of those I feel the very strongest antipathy to. We have met at least a dozen times during the winter and autumn, and the very thought of finding him in a place would decide me to leave it.”

It was not Layton’s business to correct what he deemed faulty in this sentiment; but in the sharp glance he threw towards his pupil, he seemed to convey his disapproval of it.

“‘My Coach,’ Mr. Layton, is dying to tell us both we are wrong, sir,” said the boy; “he likes the ‘kernal.’” And this he said with a nasal twang whose imitation was not to be mistaken.

Though Heathcote laughed at the boy’s mimicry, his attention was more taken by the expression “my Coach,” which not only revealed the relations of tutor and pupil between them, but showed, by its familiarity, that the youth stood in no great awe of his preceptor.

Perhaps Layton had no fancy for this liberty before a stranger; perhaps he felt ashamed of the position itself; perhaps he caught something in Heathcote’s quick glance towards him, – whatever it was, he was irritated and provoked, and angrily bit his lip, without uttering a word.

“Oh, here come the sight-seers! they are doing the grounds, and the grottos, and the marble fountains,” cried the boy, as a large group came out from a flower-garden and took their way towards an orangery. As they issued forth, however, Mrs. Morris stopped to caress a very large St. Bernard dog, who lay chained at the foot of an oak-tree. Charles Heathcote had not time to warn her of her danger, when the animal sprang fiercely at her. Had she not fallen suddenly backward, she must have been fearfully mangled; as it was, she received a severe wound in the wrist, and, overcome by pain and terror together, sank fainting on the sward.

For some time the confusion was extreme. Some thought that the dog was at liberty, and fled away in terror across the park; others averred that he was – must be – mad, and his bite fatal; a few tried to be useful; but Quackinboss hurried to the river, and, filling his hat with water, sprinkled the cold face of the sufferer and washed the wound, carefully binding it up with his handkerchief in a quick, business-like way, that showed he was not new to such casualties.

Layton meanwhile took charge of the little girl, whose cries and screams were heartrending.

“What a regular day of misfortunes, this!” said Agincourt, as he followed the mournful procession while they carried the still fainting figure back to the house. “I fancy you ‘ll not let another batch of sight-seers into your grounds in a hurry.”

“The ill-luck has all befallen our guests,” said Heathcote. “Our share of the mishap is to be associated with so much calamity.”

All that care and kindness could provide waited on Mrs. Morris, as she was carried into the villa and laid on a bed. May Leslie took all upon herself, and while the doctor was sent for, used such remedies as she had near. It was at once decided that she should not be removed, and after some delay the company departed without her; the day that had dawned so pleasantly thus closing in gloom and sadness, and the party so bent on amusement returned homeward depressed and dispirited.

“They ‘re mean vicious, these Alp dogs, and never to be trusted,” said Quackinboss.

“Heroines will be heroines,” said Mrs. Morgan, gruffly.

“Or rather won’t be heroines when the occasion comes for it. She fainted off like a school-girl,” growled out Morgan.

“I should think she did!” muttered Mosely, “when she felt the beast’s teeth in her.”

“A regular day of misfortunes!” repeated Agincourt.

“And we lost the elegant fine luncheon, too, into the bargain,” said O’Shea. “Every one seemed to think it wouldn’t be genteel to eat after the disaster.”

“It is the fate of pleasure parties,” said Layton, moodily. And so they jogged on in silence.

And thus ended a day of pleasure, as many have ended before it.

Assuredly, they who plan picnics are not animated by the spirit of an actuary. There is a marvellous lack of calculation in their composition, since, of all species of entertainment, there exists not one so much at the mercy of accident, so thoroughly dependent for success on everything going right. Like the Walcheren expedition, the “wind must not only blow from the right point, but with a certain graduated amount of force.” What elements of sunshine and shade, what combinations of good spirits and good temper and good taste! what guidance and what moderation, what genius of direction and what “respect for minorities”! We will not enter upon the material sources of success, though, indeed, it should be owned they are generally better looked to, and more cared for, than the moral ingredients thus massed and commingled.

It was late when the party reached the Bagni, and, wishing each other a half-cold good-night, separated.

And now, one last peep at the villa, where we have left the sufferer. It was not until evening that the Heathcotes had so far recovered from the shock of the morning’s disaster and its consequences as to be able to meet and talk over the events, and the actors in them.

“Well,” said Sir William, as they all sat round the tea-table, “what do you say to my Yankee now? Of all that company, was there one that showed the same readiness in a difficulty, a quick-witted aptitude to do the right thing, and at the same time so unobtrusively and quietly that when everything was over it was hard to say who had done it?”

“I call him charming. I’m in ecstasies with him,” said May, whose exaggerations of praise or censure were usually unbounded.

“I ‘m quite ready to own he ‘came out’ strong in the confusion,” said Charles, half unwillingly; “but it was just the sort of incident that such a man was sure to figure well in.”

“Show me the man who is active and ready-minded in his benevolence, and I ‘ll show you one who has not to go far into his heart to search for generous motives. I maintain it, Quackinboss is a fine fellow!” There was almost a touch of anger in Sir William’s voice as he said these words, as though he would regard any disparagement of the American as an offence to himself.

“I think Charley is a little jealous,” said May, with a sly malice; “he evidently wanted to carry the wounded lady himself, when that great giant interposed, and, seizing the prize, walked away as though he were only carrying a baby.”

“I fancied it was the tutor was disappointed,” said Charles; “and the way he devoted his cares to the little girl, when deprived of the mamma, convinced me he was the party chiefly interested.”

“Which was the tutor?” asked May, hastily. “You don’t mean the man with all the velvet on his coat?”

“No, no; that was Mr. O’Shea, the Irish M.P., who, by the way, paid you the most persevering attention.”

“A hateful creature, insufferably pretentious and impertinent! The tutor was, then, the pale young man in black?”

“A nice, modest fellow,” broke in Sir William; “and a fine boy that young Marquis of Agincourt. I ‘m glad you asked him up here, Charles. He is to come on Tuesday, is he not?”

“Yes, I said Tuesday, because I can’t get my tackle to rights before that; and I promised to make him a fly-fisher. I owe him the reparation.”

“You included the tutor, of course, in your invitation?” asked his father.

“No. How stupid! I forgot him altogether.”

“Oh! that was too bad,” said May.

“Indeed,” cried Charles, turning towards her with a look of such malicious significance that she blushed deeply, and averted her head.

“Let us invite them all up here for Tuesday, May,” said Sir William. “It would be very unfair if they were to carry away only a disagreeable memory of this visit. Let us try and efface the first unhappy impression.”

“All right,” said Charles, “and I’ll dash off a few lines to Mr. Layton, I think his name is, to say that we expect he will favor us with his company for a few days here. Am I not generosity itself, May?” said he, in a low whisper, as he passed behind her chair.

A blush still deeper than the first, and a look of offended pride, were her only answer.

“I must go in search of these good people’s cards, for I forget some of their names,” said Charles; “though I believe I remember the important ones.”

This last sally was again directed towards May, but she, apparently, did not hear it.

“Who knows but your patient upstairs may be well enough to meet her friends, May?” said Sir William.

“Perhaps so. I can’t tell,” answered she, vaguely; for she had but heard him imperfectly, and scarcely knew what she was replying.