And the Countess looked superb in the pride with which she said she was what she would have given her hand not to be. But few feelings are single on this globe, and junction of sentiments need not imply unity in our yeasty compositions.
After it was overmy supplice, continued the Countess, I was questioned by all the ladiesI mean our ladiesnot your English. They wanted to know how I could be so civil to that intolerable man. I gained a deal of credit, my dears. I laid it all onDiplomacy. The Countess laughed bitterly. Diplomacy bears the burden of it all. I pretended that Combleman could be useful to Silva! Oh! what hypocrites we all are, mio Deus!
The ladies listening could not gainsay this favourite claim of universal brotherhood among the select who wear masks instead of faces.
With regard to Evan, the Countess had far outstripped her sisters in her views. A gentleman she had discovered must have one of two thingsa title or money. He might have all the breeding in the world; he might be as good as an angel; but without a title or money he was under eclipse almost total. On a gentleman the sun must shine. Now, Evan had no title, no money. The clouds were thick above the youth. To gain a title he would have to scale aged mountains. There was one break in his firmament through which the radiant luminary might be assisted to cast its beams on him still young. That divine portal was matrimony. If he could but make a rich marriage he would blaze transfigured; all would be well! And why should not Evan marry an heiress, as well as another?
I know a young creature who would exactly suit him, said the Countess. She is related to the embassy, and is in Lisbon now. A charming childjust sixteen! Dios! how the men rave about her! and she isnt a beauty,theres the wonder; and she is a little too gauche too English in her habits and ways of thinking; likes to be admired, of course, but doesnt know yet how to set about getting it. She rather scandalizes our ladies, but when you know her!She will have, they say, a hundred thousand pounds in her own right! Rose Jocelyn, the daughter of Sir Franks, and that eccentric Lady Jocelyn. She is with her uncle, Melville, the celebrated diplomate though, to tell you the truth, we turn him round our fingers, and spin him as the boys used to do the cockchafers. I cannot forget our old Fallow field school-life, you see, my dears. Well, Rose Jocelyn would just suit Evan. She is just of an age to receive an impression. And I would take care she did. Instance me a case where I have failed?
Or there is the Portuguese widow, the Rostral. Shes thirty, certainly; but she possesses millions! Estates all over the kingdom, and the sweetest creature. But, no. Evan would be out of the way there, certainly. Butour women are very nice: they have the dearest, sweetest ways: but I would rather Evan did not marry one of them. And then there s the religion!
This was a sore of the Countesss own, and she dropped a tear in coming across it.
No, my dears, it shall be Rose Jocelyn! she concluded: I will take Evan over with me, and see that he has opportunities. It shall be Rose, and then I can call her mine; for in verity I love the child.
It is not my part to dispute the Countesss love for Miss Jocelyn; and I have only to add that Evan, unaware of the soft training he was to undergo, and the brilliant chance in store for him, offered no impediment to the proposition that he should journey to Portugal with his sister (whose subtlest flattery was to tell him that she should not be ashamed to own him there); and ultimately, furnished with cash for the trip by the remonstrating brewer, went.
So these Parcae, daughters of the shears, arranged and settled the young mans fate. His task was to learn the management of his mouth, how to dress his shoulders properly, and to direct his eyesrare qualities in man or woman, I assure you; the management of the mouth being especially admirable, and correspondingly difficult. These achieved, he was to place his battery in position, and win the heart and hand of an heiress.
Our comedy opens with his return from Portugal, in company with Miss Rose, the heiress; the Honourable Melville Jocelyn, the diplomate; and the Count and Countess de Saldar, refugees out of that explosive little kingdom.
CHAPTER IV. ON BOARD THE JOCASTA
From the Tagus to the Thames the Government sloop-of-war, Jocasta, had made a prosperous voyage, bearing that precious freight, a removed diplomatist and his family; for whose uses let a sufficient vindication be found in the exercise he affords our crews in the science of seamanship. She entered our noble river somewhat early on a fine July morning. Early as it was, two young people, who had nothing to do with the trimming or guiding of the vessel, stood on deck, and watched the double-shore, beginning to embrace them more and more closely as they sailed onward. One, a young lady, very young in manner, wore a black felt hat with a floating scarlet feather, and was clad about the shoulders in a mantle of foreign style and pattern. The other you might have taken for a wandering Don, were such an object ever known; so simply he assumed the dusky sombrero and dangling cloak, of which one fold was flung across his breast and drooped behind him. The line of an adolescent dark moustache ran along his lip, and only at intervals could you see that his eyes were blue and of the land he was nearing. For the youth was meditative, and held his head much down. The young lady, on the contrary, permitted an open inspection of her countenance, and seemed, for the moment at least, to be neither caring nor thinking of what kind of judgement would be passed on her. Her pretty nose was up, sniffing the still salt breeze with vivacious delight.
Oh! she cried, clapping her hands, there goes a dear old English gull! How I have wished to see him! I havent seen one for two years and seven months. When I m at home, I ll leave my window open all night, just to hear the rooks, when they wake in the morning. There goes another!
She tossed up her nose again, exclaiming:
I m sure I smell England nearer and nearer! I smell the fields, and the cows in them. Id have given anything to be a dairy-maid for half an hour! I used to lie and pant in that stifling air among those stupid people, and wonder why anybody ever left England. Arent you glad to come back?
This time the fair speaker lent her eyes to the question, and shut her lips; sweet, cold, chaste lips she had: a mouth that had not yet dreamed of kisses, and most honest eyes.
The young man felt that they were not to be satisfied by his own, and after seeking to fill them with a doleful look, which was immediately succeeded by one of superhuman indifference, he answered:
Yes! We shall soon have to part! and commenced tapping with his foot the cheerful martyrs march.
Speech that has to be hauled from the depths usually betrays the effort. Listening an instant to catch the import of this cavernous gasp upon the brink of sound, the girl said:
Part? what do you mean?
Apparently it required a yet vaster effort to pronounce an explanation. The doleful look, the superhuman indifference, were repeated in due order: sound, a little more distinct, uttered the words:
We cannot be as we have been, in England! and then the cheerful martyr took a few steps farther.
Why, you dont mean to say youre going to give me up, and not be friends with me, because weve come back to England? cried the girl in a rapid breath, eyeing him seriously.
Most conscientiously he did not mean it! but he replied with the quietest negative.
No? she mimicked him. Why do you say No like that? Why are you so mysterious, Evan? Wont you promise me to come and stop with us for weeks? Havent you said we would ride, and hunt, and fish together, and read books, and do all sorts of things?
Speech that has to be hauled from the depths usually betrays the effort. Listening an instant to catch the import of this cavernous gasp upon the brink of sound, the girl said:
Part? what do you mean?
Apparently it required a yet vaster effort to pronounce an explanation. The doleful look, the superhuman indifference, were repeated in due order: sound, a little more distinct, uttered the words:
We cannot be as we have been, in England! and then the cheerful martyr took a few steps farther.
Why, you dont mean to say youre going to give me up, and not be friends with me, because weve come back to England? cried the girl in a rapid breath, eyeing him seriously.
Most conscientiously he did not mean it! but he replied with the quietest negative.
No? she mimicked him. Why do you say No like that? Why are you so mysterious, Evan? Wont you promise me to come and stop with us for weeks? Havent you said we would ride, and hunt, and fish together, and read books, and do all sorts of things?
He replied with the quietest affirmative.
Yes? What does Yes! mean? She lifted her chest to shake out the dead-alive monosyllable, as he had done. Why are you so singular this morning, Evan? Have I offended you? You are so touchy!
The slur on his reputation for sensitiveness induced the young man to attempt being more explicit.
I mean, he said, hesitating; why, we must part. We shall not see each other every day. Nothing more than that. And away went the cheerful martyr in sublimest mood.
Oh! and that makes you, sorry? A shade of archness was in her voice.
The girl waited as if to collect something in her mind, and was now a patronizing woman.
Why, you dear sentimental boy! You dont suppose we could see each other every day for ever?
It was perhaps the cruelest question that could have been addressed to the sentimental boy from her mouth. But he was a cheerful martyr!
You dear Don Doloroso! she resumed. I declare if you are not just like those young Portugals this morning; and over there you were such a dear English fellow; and thats why I liked you so much! Do change! Do, please, be lively, and yourself again. Or mind; Ill call you Don Doloroso, and that shall be your name in England. See there!thatsthats? whats the name of that place? Hoy! Mr. Skerne! She hailed the boatswain, passing, Do tell me the name of that place.
Mr. Skerne righted about to satisfy her minutely, and then coming up to Evan, he touched his hat, and said:
I maynt have another opportunitywe shall be busy up thereof thankin you again, sir, for what you did for my poor drunken brother Bill, and you may take my word I wont forget it, sir, if he does; and I suppose hell be drowning his memory just as he was near drowning himself.
Evan muttered something, grimaced civilly, and turned away. The girls observant brows were moved to a faintly critical frown, and nodding intelligently to the boatswains remark, that the young gentleman did not seem quite himself, now that he was nearing home, she went up to Evan, and said:
Im going to give you a lesson in manners, to be quits with you. Listen, sir. Why did you turn away so ungraciously from Mr. Skerne, while he was thanking you for having saved his brothers life? Now theres where youre too English. Cant you bear to be thanked?
I dont want to be thanked because I can swim, said Evan.
But it is not that. Oh, how you trifle! she cried. Theres nothing vexes me so much as that way you have. Wouldnt my eyes have sparkled if anybody had come up to me to thank me for such a thing? I would let them know how glad I was to have done such a thing! Doesnt it make them happier, dear Evan?
My dear Miss Jocelyn!
What?
The honest grey eyes fixed on him, narrowed their enlarged lids. She gazed before her on the deck, saying:
Im sure I cant understand you. I suppose its because Im a girl, and I never shall till Im a woman. Heigho!
A youth who is engaged in the occupation of eating his heart, cannot shine to advantage, and is as much a burden to himself as he is an enigma to others. Evan felt this; but he could do nothing and say nothing; so he retired deeper into the folds of the Don, and remained picturesque and scarcely pleasant.
They were relieved by a summons to breakfast from below.
She brightened and laughed. Now, what will you wager me, Evan, that the Countess doesnt begin:
Sweet child! how does she this morning? blooming? when she kisses me?
Her capital imitation of his sisters manner constrained him to join in her laugh, and he said:
Ill back against that, I get three fingers from your uncle, and Morrow, young sir!
Down they ran together, laughing; and, sure enough, the identical words of the respective greetings were employed, which they had to enjoy with all the discretion they could muster.
Rose went round the table to her little cousin Alec, aged seven, kissed his reluctant cheek, and sat beside him, announcing a sea appetite and great capabilities, while Evan silently broke bread. The Count de Saldar, a diminutive tawny man, just a head and neck above the tablecloth, sat sipping chocolate and fingering dry toast, which he would now and then dip in jelly, and suck with placidity, in the intervals of a curt exchange of French with the wife of the Hon. Melville, a ringleted English lady, or of Portuguese with the Countess; who likewise sipped chocolate and fingered dry toast, and was mournfully melodious. The Hon. Melville, as became a tall islander, carved beef, and ate of it, like a ruler of men. Beautiful to see was the compassionate sympathy of the Countesss face when Rose offered her plate for a portion of the world-subjugating viand, as who should say: Sweet child! thou knowest not yet of sorrows, thou canst ballast thy stomach with beef! In any other than an heiress, she would probably have thought: This is indeed a disgusting little animal, and most unfeminine conduct!
Rose, unconscious of praise or blame, rivalled her uncle in enjoyment of the fare, and talked of her delight in seeing England again, and anything that belonged to her native land. Mrs. Melville perceived that it pained the refugee Countess, and gave her the glance intelligible; but the Countess never missed glances, or failed to interpret them. She said:
Let her. I love to hear the sweet childs prattle.
It was fortunate (she addressed the diplomatist) that we touched at Southampton and procured fresh provision!
Very lucky for US! said he, glaring shrewdly between a mouthful.
The Count heard the word Southampton, and wished to know how it was comprised. A passage of Portuguese ensued, and then the Countess said:
Silva, you know, desired to relinquish the vessel at Southampton. He does not comprehend the word expense, but (she shook a dumb Alas!) I must think of that for him now!
Oh! always avoid expense, said the Hon. Melville, accustomed to be paid for by his country.
At what time shall we arrive, may I ask, do you think? the Countess gently inquired.
The watch of a man who had his eye on Time was pulled out, and she was told it might be two hours before dark. Another reckoning, keenly balanced, informed the company that the days papers could be expected on board somewhere about three oclock in the afternoon.
And then, said the Hon. Melville, nodding general gratulation, we shall know how the world wags.
How it had been wagging the Countesss straining eyes under closed eyelids were eloquent of.