"Miss Herbert, sir."
"Exactly; and who appears gentle and un.o.btrusive."
"She is a gentlewoman by birth, sir," said the old lady, tetchily.
"I have no doubt of it, madam, or she would not be found in a.s.sociation with you."
She courtesied deeply at the compliment, and I bowed as low, and, backing and bowing, I gained the door, dying with eagerness, to make my escape.
"Will you pardon me, sir, if, after all the agitation of this meeting, I may not feel equal to appear at dinner to-day?"
"You will charge that young person to give news of your health, however," said I, insinuating that I expected to see Miss Herbert.
"Certainly, sir; and if it should be your pleasure that she should dine with you, to preserve appearances--"
"You are right, madam; your remark is full of wisdom. I shall expect to meet her." And again I bowed low, and ere she recovered from another reverential courtesy I had closed the door behind me, and was half-way downstairs.
CHAPTER XX. THE MYSTERY EXPLAINED
As between the man who achieves greatness and him who has greatness thrust upon him there lies a whole world of s.p.a.ce, so is there an immense interval between one who is the object of his own delusions and him who forms the subject of delusion to others.
My reader may have already noticed that nothing was easier for me than to lend myself to the idle current of my fancy. Most men who build "castles in Spain," as the old adage calls them, do so purely to astonish their friends. _I_ indulged in these architectural extravagances in a very different spirit. I built my castle to live in it; from foundation to roof-tree, I planned every detail of it to suit my own taste, and all my study was to make it as habitable and comfortable as I could. Ay, and what"s more, live in it I did, though very often the tenure was a brief one; sometimes while breaking my egg at breakfast, sometimes as I drew on my gloves to walk out, and yet no terror of a short lease ever deterred me from finishing the edifice in the most expensive manner. I gilded my architraves and frescoed my ceilings as though all were to endure for centuries; and laid out the gardens and disposed the parterres as though I were to walk in them in my extreme old age. This faculty of lending myself to an illusion by no means adhered to me where the deception was supplied by another; from the moment I entered one of _their_ castles, I felt myself in a strange house. I continually forgot where the stairs were, what this gallery opened on, where that corridor led to. No use was it to say, "You are at home here. You are at your own fireside." I knew and I felt that I was not.
By this declaration I mean my reader to understand that, while ready for any exigency of a story devised by myself, I was perfectly miserable at playing a part written for me by a friend; nor was this feeling diminished by the thought that I really did not know the person I was believed to represent; nor had I the very vaguest clew to his antecedents or belongings.
As I set out in search of Miss Herbert, these were the reflections I revolved, occasionally asking myself, "Is the old lady at all touched in the upper story? Is there not something private-asylumish in these wanderings?" But still, apart from this special instance, she was a marvel of acuteness and good sense. I found Miss Herbert in a little arbor at her work; the newspaper on the bench beside her.
"So," said she, without looking up, "you have been making a long visit upstairs. You found Mrs. Keats very agreeable, or you were so yourself."
"Is there anything wrong hereabouts?" said I, touching my forehead with my finger.
"Nothing whatever."
"No fancies, no delusions about certain people?"
"None whatever."
"None of the family suspected of anything odd or eccentric?"
"Not that I have ever heard of. Why do you ask?"
"Well, it was a mere fancy, perhaps, on my part; but her manner to-day struck me as occasionally strange,--almost flighty."
"And on what subject?"
"I am scarcely at liberty to say that; in fact, I am not at all free to divulge it," said I, mysteriously, and somewhat gratified to remark that I had excited a most intense curiosity on her part to learn the subject of our interview.
"Oh, pray do not make any imprudent revelations to me," said she, pettishly; "which, apart from the indiscretion, would have the singular demerit of affording me not the slightest pleasure. I am not afflicted with the malady of curiosity."
"What a blessing to you! Now, I am the most inquisitive of mankind. I feel that if I were a clerk in a bank, I "d spend the day prying into every one"s account, and learning the exact state of his balance-sheet.
If I were employed in the post-office, no terror of the law could restrain me from reading the letters. Tell me that any one has a secret in his heart, and I feel I could cut him open to get at it!"
"I don"t think you are giving a flattering picture of yourself in all this," said she, peevishly.
"I am aware of that, Miss Herbert; but I am also one of those who do not trade upon qualities they have no pretension to."
She flushed a deep crimson at this, and after a moment said,--
"Has it not occurred to you, sir, that people who seldom meet except to exchange ungracious remarks would show more judgment by avoiding each other"s society?"
Oh, how my heart thrilled at this pettish speech! In Hans Gruter"s "Courtship," he says, "I knew she loved me, for we never met without a quarrel." "I have thought of that, too, Miss Herbert," said I, "but there are outward observances to be kept up, conventionalities to be respected."
"None of which, however, require that you should come out and sit here while I am at my work," said she, with suppressed pa.s.sion.
"I came out here to search for the newspaper," said I, taking it up, and stretching myself on the gra.s.sy sward to read at leisure.
She arose at once, and, gathering all the articles of her work into a basket, walked away.
"Don"t let me hunt you away, Miss Herbert," said I, indolently; "anywhere else will suit me just as well. Pray don"t go." But without vouchsafing to utter a word, or even turn her head, she continued her way towards the house.
"The morning she slapped my face," says Hans, "filled the measure of my bliss, for I then saw she could not control her feelings for me."
This pa.s.sage recurred to me as I lay there, and I hugged myself in the thought that such a moment of delight might yet be mine. The profound German explains this sentiment well. "With women," says he, "love is like the idol worship of an Indian tribe; at the moment their hearts are bursting with devotion, they like to cut and wound and maltreat their G.o.d. With _them_, this is the ecstasy of their pa.s.sion."
I now saw that the girl was in love with me, and that she did not know it herself. I take it that the sensations of a man who suddenly discovers that the pretty girl he has been admiring is captivated by his attentions, are very like what a head clerk may feel at being sent for by the house, and informed that he is now one of the firm! This may seem a commercial formula to employ, but it will serve to show my meaning; and as I lay there on that velvet turf, what a delicious vision spread itself around me! At one moment we were rich, travelling in splendor through Europe, ama.s.sing art-treasures wherever we went and despoiling all the great galleries of their richest gems. I was the a.s.sociate of all that was distinguished in literature and science, and my wife the chosen friend of queens and princesses. How unaffected we were, how unspoiled by fortune! Approachable by all, our graceful benevolence seemed to elevate its object and make of the recipient the benefactor.
What a world of bliss this vile dross men call gold can scatter!
"There--there, good people," said I, blandly, waving my hand, "no illuminations, no bonfires; your happy faces are the brightest of all welcomes." Then we were suddenly poor,--out of caprice, just to see how we should like it,--and living in a little cottage under Snowden, and I was writing, Heaven knows what, for the periodicals, and my wife rocking a little urchin in a cradle, whom we constantly awoke by kissing, each pretending that it was all the other"s fault, till we ratified a peace in the same fashion. Then I remembered the night, never to be forgotten, when I received my appointment as something in the antipodes, and we went up to town to thank the great man who bestowed it, and he asked us to dinner, and he was, I fancied, more than polite to my wife, and I sulked about it when we got home, and she petted and caressed me, and we were better friends than ever, and I swore I would not accept the Minister"s bounty, and we set off back again to our cottage in Wales, and there we were when I came to myself once more.
It is always pleasant--at least, I have ever felt it so, on awaking from a dream or a revery--to know that one has borne himself well in some imaginary crisis of difficulty and peril. I like to think that I was in no hurry to get into the longboat. I am glad I gave poor d.i.c.k that last fifty-pound note,--my last in the world,--and I rejoice to remember that I did not run away from that grizzly bear, but sent the four-pound ball right into the very middle of his forehead. You feel in all these that the metal of your nature has been tested, and come out pure gold; at all events, _I_ did, and was very happy thereat. It was not till after some little time that I could get myself clear out of dreamland, and back to the actual world of small debts and difficulties, and then I bethought me of the newspaper which lay unread beside me.
I began it now, resolved to examine it from end to end, till I discovered the pa.s.sage that alluded to me. It was so far pleasant reading, that it was novel and original. A very able leader set forth that nothing could equal the blessings of the Pope"s rule at Rome,--no people were so happy, so prosperous, or so contented,--that all the granaries were full, and all the jails empty, and the only persons of small incomes in the state were the cardinals, and that they were too heavenly-minded to care for it. After this, there came some touching anecdotes of that good man the late King of Naples. And then there was a letter from Frohsdorf, with fifteen francs enclosed to the inhabitants of a village submerged by an inundation. There were pleasant little paragraphs, too, about England, and all the money she was spending to propagate infidelity and spread the slave-trade,--the two great and especial objects of her policy,--after which came insults to France and injustice to Ireland. The general tone of the print was war with every one but some twenty or thirty old ladies and gentlemen living in exile somewhere in Bohemia. Now, none of these things touched _me_, and I was growing very weary of my search when I lighted upon the following:--
"We are informed, on authority that we cannot question, that the young C. de P. is now making the tour of Germany alone and in disguise, his object being to ascertain for himself how the various relatives of his house, on the maternal side, would feel affected by any movement in France to renew his pretensions. Strange, undignified, and ill advised as such a step must seem, there is nothing in it at all repulsive to the well-known traditions of the younger branch. Our informant himself met the P. at Mayence, and speedily recognized him, from the marked resemblance he bears to the late d.u.c.h.ess, his mother; he addressed him at once by his t.i.tle, but was met by the cold a.s.surance that he was mistaken, and that a casual similarity in features bad already led others into the same error. The General--for our informant is an old and honored soldier of France--confessed he was astounded at the _aplomb_ and self-possession displayed by so young a man; and although their conversation lasted for nearly an hour, and ranged over a wide field, the C. never for an instant exposed himself to a detection, nor offered the slightest clew to his real rank and station. Indeed, he affected to be English by birth, which his great facility in the language enabled him to do. When he quitted Mayence, it was for Central Germany."
Here was the whole mystery revealed, and I was no less a person than a royal prince,--very like my mother, but neither so tall nor robust as my distinguished father! "Oh, Potts! in all the wildest ravings of your most florid moments you never arrived at this!"
A very strange thrill went through me as I finished this paragraph. It came this wise. There is, in one of Hoffman"s tales, the story of a man who, in a compact with the Fiend, acquired the power of personating whomsoever he pleased, but who, sated at last with the enjoyment of this privilege, and eager for a new sensation, determined he would try whether the part of the Devil himself might not be amusing. Apparently Mephistopheles won"t stand joking, for he resented the liberty by depriving the transgressor of his ident.i.ty forever, and made him become each instant whatever character occurred to the mind of him he talked to.
Though the parallel scarcely applied, the very thought of it sent an aguish thrill through me,--a terror so great and acute that it was very long before I could turn the medal round and read it on the reverse.
There, indeed, was matter for vainglory! "It was but t"other day,"
thought I, "and Lord Keldrum and his friends fancied I was their intimate acquaintance, Jack Burgoyne; and though they soon found out the mistake, the error led to an invitation to dinner, a delightful evening, and, alas! that I should own, a variety of consequences, some of which proved less delightful. Now, however, Fortune is in a more amiable mood; she will have it that I resemble a prince. It is a project which I neither aid nor abet; but I am not childish enough to refuse the _role_ any more than I should spoil the Christmas revelries of a country-house by declining a part in a tableau or in private theatricals. I say, in the one case as in the other, "Here is Potts! make of him what you will.
Never is he happier than by affording pleasure to his friends." To what end, I would ask, should I rob that old lady upstairs at No. 12, evidently a widow, and with not too many enjoyments to solace her old age,--why should I rob her of what she herself called the proudest episode in her life? Are not, as the moralists tell us, all our joys fleeting? Why, then, object to this one that it may only last for a few days? Let us suppose it only to endure throughout our journey, and the poor old soul will be so happy, never caring for the fatignes of the road, never fretting about the inn-keepers* charges, but delighted to know that his Royal Highness enjoys himself, and sits over his bottle of Chambertin every evening in the garden, apparently as devoid of care as though he were a bagman."
I cannot say how it may be with others, but, for myself, I have always experienced an immense sense of relief, actual repose, whenever I personated somebody else; I felt as though I had left the man Potts at home to rest and refresh himself, and took an airing as another gentleman; just as I might have spared my own paletot by putting on a friend"s coat in a thunderstorm. Now I _did_ wish for a little repose, I felt it would be good for me. As to the special part allotted me, I took it just as an obliging actor plays Hamlet or the c.o.c.k to convenience the manager. Mrs. Keats likes it, and, I repeat, I do not object to it.
It was evident that the old lady was not going to communicate her secret to her companion, and this was a great source of satisfaction to me.
Whatever delusions I threw around Miss Herbert I intended should be lasting. The traits in which I would invest myself to _her_ eyes, my personal prowess, coolness in danger, skill in all manly exercises, together with a large range of general gifts and acquirements, I meant to accompany me through all time; and I am a sufficient believer in magnetism to feel a.s.sured that by imposing upon _her_ I should go no small part of the road to deceiving myself, and that the first step in any gift is to suppose you are eminently suited to it, is a well-known and readily acknowledged maxim. Women grow pretty from looking in the gla.s.s; why should not men grow brave from constantly contemplating their own courage?