The announcement of luncheon, by Victor"s butler Arlington, opportunely followed and freighted the remark with a happy recognition of that which comes to us from the hands of conquerors. Dr. Schlesien himself, no antagonist to England, but like Colney Durance, a critic, speculated in view of the spread of pic-nic provision beneath the great gla.s.s dome, as to whether it might be, that these English were on another start out of the dust in vigorous commercial enterprise, under leadership of one of their chance masterly minds-merchant, in this instance: and be debated within, whether Genius, occasionally developed in a surprising superior manner by these haphazard English, may not sometimes wrest the prize from Method; albeit we count for the long run, that Method has a.s.surance of success, however late in the race to set forth.
Luncheon was a merry meal, with Victor and Nataly for host and hostess; Fenellan, Colney Durance, and Lady Grace Halley for the talkers. A gusty bosom of sleet overhung the dome, rattled on it, and rolling Westward, became a radiant mountain-land, partly worthy of Victor"s phrase: "A range of Swiss Alps in air."
"With periwigs Louis Quatorze for peaks," Colney added.
And Fenellan improved on him: "Or a magnified Bench of Judges at the trial of your caerulean Phryne."
The strip of white cloud flew on a whirl from the blue, to confirm it.
But Victor and Lady Grace rejected any play of conceits upon nature.
Violent and horrid interventions of the counterfeit, such mad similes appeared to them, when pure coin was offered. They loathed the Rev.
Septimus Barmby for proclaiming, that he had seen "Chapters of Hebrew History in the grouping of clouds."
His gaze was any one of the Chapters upon Nesta. The clerical gentleman"s voice was of a depth to claim for it the profoundest which can be thought or uttered; and Nesta"s tender youth had taken so strong an impression of sacredness from what Fenellan called "his chafer tones," that her looks were often given him in grat.i.tude, for the mere sound. Nataly also had her sense of safety in acquiescing to such a voice coming from such a garb. Consequently, whenever Fenellan and Colney were at him, drawing him this way and that for utterances cathedral in sentiment and sonorousness, these ladies shed protecting beams; insomuch that he was inspired to the agreeable conceptions whereof frequently rash projects are an issue.
Touching the neighbours of Lakelands, they were princ.i.p.ally enriched merchants, it appeared; a snippet or two of the fringe of aristocracy lay here and there among them; and one racy-of-the-soil old son of Thames, having the manners proper to last century"s yeoman. Mr. Pempton knew something of this quaint Squire of Hefferstone, Beaves Urmsing by name; a ruddy man, right heartily Saxon; a still glowing brand amid the ashes of the Heptarchy hearthstone; who had a song, The Marigolds, which he would troll out for you anywhere, on any occasion. To have so near to the metropolis one from the centre of the venerable rotundity of the country, was rare. Victor exclaimed "Come!" in ravishment over the picturesqueness of a neighbour carrying imagination away to the founts of England; and his look at Nataly proposed. Her countenance was inapprehensive. He perceived resistance, and said: "I have met two or three of them in the train: agreeable men: Gladding, the banker; a General Fanning; that man Blathenoy, great billbroker. But the fact is, close on London, we"re independent of neighbours; we mean to be.
Lakelands and London practically join."
"The mother city becoming the suburb," murmured Colney, in report of the union.
"You must expect to be invaded, sir," said Mr. Sowerby; and Victor shrugged: "We are pretty safe."
"The lock of a door seems a potent security until some one outside is heard fingering the handle nigh midnight," Fenellan threw out his airy nothing of a remark.
It struck on Nataly"s heart. "So you will not let us be lonely here,"
she said to her guests.
The Rev. Septimus Barmby was mouthpiece for congregations. Sound of a subterranean roar, with a blast at the orifice, informed her of their "very deep happiness in the privilege."
He comforted her. Nesta smiled on him thankfully.
"Don"t imagine, Mrs. Victor, that you can be shut off from neighbours, in a house like this; and they have a claim," said Lady Grace, quitting the table.
Fenellan and Colney thought so:
"Like mice at a cupboard."
"Beetles in a kitchen."
"No, no-no, no!" Victor shook head, pitiful over the good people likened to things unclean, and royally upraising them: in doing which, he scattered to vapour the leaden incubi they had been upon his flatter moods of late. "No, but it"s a rapture to breathe the air here!" His lifted chest and nostrils were for the encouragement of Nataly to soar beside him.
She summoned her smile and nodded.
He spoke aside to Lady Grace: "The dear soul wants time to compose herself after a grand surprise."
She replied: "I think I could soon be reconciled. How much land?"
"In treaty for some hundred and eighty or ninety acres... in all at present three hundred and seventy, including plantations, lake, outhouses."
"Large enough; land paying as it does--that is, not paying. We shall be having to gamble in the City systematically for subsistence."
"You will not so much as jest on the subject."
Coming from such a man, that was clear sky thunder. The lady played it off in a shadowy pout and shrug while taking a stamp of his masterfulness, not so volatile.
She said to Nataly: "Our place in Worcestershire is about half the size, if as much. Large enough when we"re not crowded out with gout and can open to no one. Some day you will visit us, I hope."
"You we count on here, Lady Grace."
It was an over-accentuated response; unusual with this well-bred woman; and a bit of speech that does not flow, causes us to speculate. The lady resumed: "I value the favour. We"re in a horsey-doggy-foxy circle down there. We want enlivening. If we had your set of musicians and talkers!"
Nataly smiled in vacuous kindness, at a loss for the retort of a compliment to a person she measured. Lady Grace also was an amiable hostile reviewer. Each could see, to have cited in the other, defects common to the lower species of the race, admitting a superior personal quality or two; which might be pleaded in extenuation; and if the apology proved too effective, could be dispersed by insistence upon it, under an implied appeal to benevolence. When we have not a liking for the creature whom we have no plain cause to dislike, we are minutely just.
During the admiratory stroll along the ground-floor rooms, Colney Durance found himself beside Dr. Schlesien; the latter smoking, striding, emphasizing, but bearable, as the one of the party who was not perpetually at the gape in laudation. Colney was heard to say: "No doubt: the German is the race the least mixed in Europe: it might challenge aboriginals for that. Oddly, it has invented the Cyclopaedia for knowledge, the sausage for nutrition! How would you explain it?"
Dr. Schlesien replied with an Atlas shrug under fleabite to the insensately infantile interrogation.
He in turn was presently heard.
"But, my good sir! you quote me your English Latin. I must beg of you you write it down. It is orally incomprehensible to Continentals."
"We are Islanders!" Colney shrugged in languishment.
"Oh, you do great things..." Dr. Schlesien rejoined in kindness, making his voice a musical intimation of the smallness of the things.
"We build great houses, to employ our bricks"
"No, Colney, to live in," said Victor.
"Scarcely long enough to warm them."
"What do you... fiddle!"
"They are not Hohenzollerns!"
"It is true," Dr. Schlesien called. "No, but you learn discipline; you build. I say wid you, not Hohenzollerns you build! But you shall look above: Eyes up. Ire necesse est. Good, but mount; you come to something.
Have ideas."
"Good, but when do we reach your level?"
"Sir, I do not say more than that we do not want instruction from foreigners."
"Pupil to paedagogue indeed. You have the wreath in Music, in Jurisprudence, Chemistry, Scholarship, Beer, Arms, Manners."
Dr. Schlesien puffed a tempest of tobacco and strode.
"He is chiselling for wit in the Teutonic block," Colney said, falling back to Fenellan.