The Daltons Volume I Part 24

"These are sentiments, sir, which would, doubtless, do you excellent service with the family upstairs, but are quite thrown away upon such a mere country gentleman as myself."

Jekyl smiled, and drew up his cravat, with his habitual simpering air, but said nothing.

"Do you purpose remaining much longer here?" asked Haggerstone, abruptly.

"A few days, at most."

"Do you turn north or south?"

"I fancy I shall winter in Italy."

"The Onslows, I believe, are bound for Rome?"

"Can't say," was the short reply.

"Just the sort of people for Italy. The fas.h.i.+onables of what the Chinese call 'second chop' go down admirably at Rome or Naples."

"Very pleasant places they are, too," said Jekyl, with a smile. "The climate permits everything, even dubious intimacies."

Haggerstone gave a short "Ha!" at the heresy of this speech, but made no other comment on it.

"They say that Miss Onslow will have about a hundred thousand pounds?"

said Haggerstone, with an air of inquiry.

"What a deal of maccaroni and parmesan that sum would buy!"

"Would you have her marry an Italian, sir?"

"Perhaps not, if she were to consult me on the matter," said Jekyl, blandly; "but as this is, to say the least, not very probable, I may own that I like the mixed marriages well enough."

"They make miserable menages, sir," broke in Haggerstone.

"But excessively agreeable houses to visit at."

"The Onslows are scarcely the people to succeed in that way," rejoined Haggerstone, whose thoughts seemed to revolve round this family without any power to wander from the theme. "Mere money, nothing but money to guide them."

"Not a bad pilot, either, as times go."

Haggerstone uttered another short, "Ha!" as though to enter a protest against the sentiment without the trouble of a refutation. He had utterly failed in all his efforts to draw Jekyl into a discussion of the banker's family, or even obtain from that excessively cautious young gentleman the slightest approach to an opinion about them; and yet it was exactly in search of this opinion that he had come down to take his walk that evening. It was in the hope that Jekyl might afford him some clew to these people's thoughts, or habits, or their intentions for the coming winter, that he had promenaded for the last hour and a half.

"If he know anything of them," thought Haggerstone, "he will be but too proud to show it, and display the intimacy to its fullest extent!"

It was, then, to his utter discomfiture, he learned that Jekyl had scarcely spoken to Lady Hester, and never even seen Sir Stafford or Miss Onslow. It was, then, pure invention of the waiter to say that they were acquainted. "Jekyl has done nothing," muttered he to himself, "and I suppose I need not throw away a dinner upon him to tell it."

Such were his reasonings; ana long did he balance in his own mind whether it were worth while to risk a bottle of Burgundy in such a cause; for often does it happen that the fluid thrown down the pump is utterly wasted, and that it is vain to moisten the sucker, if the well beneath be exhausted.

To be, or not to be? was then the eventful point he deliberated with himself. Haggerstone never threw away a dinner in his life. He was not one of those vulgarly minded folk who ask you, in a parenthesis, to come in to "manger la soupe," as they say, without more preparation than the spreading of your napkin. No; he knew all the importance of a dinner, and, be it acknowledged, how to give it also, and could have distinguished perfectly between the fare to set before an "habitual diner out," and that suitable to some newly arrived Englishman abroad: he could have measured his guest to a truffle! It was his boast that he never gave a pheasant when a poulet would have sufficed, nor wasted his "Chablis" on the man who would have been contented with "Barsac."

The difficulty was not, then, how to have treated Jekyl, but whether to treat him at all. Indeed, the little dinner itself had been all planned and arranged that morning; and the "trout" from the "Murg," and the grouse from Eberstein, had been "p.r.i.c.ked off," in the bill of fare, for "No. 24," as he was unceremoniously designated, with a special order about the dish of whole truffles with b.u.t.ter, in the fair intention of inviting Mr. Albert Jekyl to partake of them.

If a lady reveals some latent desire of conquest in the coquetry of her costume and the more than ordinary care of her appearance, so your male friend may be suspected of a design upon your confidence or your liberality by the studious propriety of his pet.i.t diner. Never fall into the vulgar error that such things are mere accident. As well ascribe to chance the rotations of the seasons, or the motions of the heavenly bodies. Your printaniere in January, your epigramme d'agneau with asparagus at Christmas, show a solicitude to please to the full as ardent, and not a whit less sincere, than the soft glances that have just set your heart a-beating from the recesses of yonder opera-box.

"Will you eat your cutlet with me to-day, Mr. Jekyl?" said Haggerstone, after a pause, in which he had weighed long and well all the pros and cons of the invitation.

"Thanks, but I dine with the Onslows!" lisped out Jekyl, with a languid indifference, that however did not prevent his remarking the almost incredulous amazement in the colonel's face; "and I perceive," added he, "that it 's time to dress."

Haggerstone looked after him as he left the room; and then ringing the bell violently, gave orders to his servant to "pack up," for he would leave Baden next morning.

CHAPTER XVII. A FAMILY DISCUSSION.

SOMETHING more than a week after the scenes we have just related had occurred, the Daltons were seated round the fire, beside which, in the place of honor, in an old armchair, propped by many a cus.h.i.+on, reclined Hans Roeckle. A small lamp of three burners such as the peasants use stood upon the table, of which only one was lighted, and threw its fitful gleam over the board, covered by the materials of a most humble meal. Even this was untasted; and it was easy to mark in the downcast and depressed countenances of the group that some deep care was weighing upon them.

Dalton himself, with folded arms, sat straight opposite the fire, his heavy brows closely knit, and his eyes staring fixedly at the blaze, as if expecting some revelation of the future from it; an open letter, which seemed to have dropped from his hand, was lying at his feet.

Nelly, with bent-down head, was occupied in arranging the little tools and implements she was accustomed to use in carving; but in the tremulous motion of her fingers, and the short, quick heaving of her chest, might be read the signs of a struggle that cost heavily to subdue.

Half-concealed beneath the projection of the fireplace sat Kate Dalton she was sewing. Although to all seeming intent upon her work, more than once did her fingers drop the needle to wipe the gus.h.i.+ng tears from her eyes, while at intervals a short sob would burst forth, and break the stillness around.

As for Hans, he seemed lost in a dreamy revery, from which he rallied at times to smile pleasantly at a little wooden figure the same which occasioned his disaster placed beside him.

There was an air of sadness over everything; and even the old spaniel, Joan, as she retreated from the heat of the fire, crept with stealthy step beneath the table, as if respecting the mournful stillness of the scene. How different the picture from what that humble chamber had so often presented! What a contrast to those happy evenings, when, as the girls worked, Hans would read aloud some of those strange mysteries of Jean Paul, or the wild and fanciful imaginings of Chamisso, while old Dalton would lay down his pipe and break in upon his memories of Ireland, to ask at what they were laughing, and Frank look up distractedly from his old chronicles of German war to join in the mirth!

How, at such moments, Hans would listen to the interpretation, and with what greedy ears follow the versions the girls would give of some favorite pa.s.sage, as if dreading lest its force should be weakened or its beauty marred by transmission! And then those outbreaks of admiration that would simultaneously gush forth at some sentiment of high and glorious meaning, some G.o.dlike gleam of bright intelligence, which, though clothed in the language of a foreign land, spoke home to their hearts with the force that truth alone can speak!

Yes, they were, indeed, happy evenings! when around their humble hearth came thronging the groups of many a poet's fancy, bright pictures of many a glorious scene, emotions of heart that seemed to beat in unison with their own. They felt no longer the poverty of their humble condition, they had no memory for the little straits and trials of the bygone day, as they trod with Tieck the alley beneath the lindens of some rural village, or sat with Auerbach beneath the porch of the Vorsteher's dwelling. The dull realities of life faded before the vivid conceptions of fiction, and they imbibed lessons of patient submission and trustfulness from those brothers and sisters who are poets'

children.

And yet what no darkness of adversity could rob them of the first gleam of what, to worldly minds at least, would seem better fortune, had already despoiled them. Like the traveller in the fable, who had grasped his cloak the faster through the storm, but who threw it away when the hot, rays scorched him, they could brave the hurricane, but not face the suns.h.i.+ne.

The little wooden clock behind the door struck nine, and Dalton started up suddenly.

"What did it strike, girls?" asked he, quickly.

"Nine, papa," replied Kate, in a low voice.

"At what hour was he to come for the answer?"

"At ten," said she, still lower.

"Well, you 'd better write it at once," said he, with a peevishness very different from his ordinary manner. "They've remained here already four days isn't it four days she says? to give us time to make up our minds; we cannot detain them any longer."

"Lady Hester has shown every consideration for our difficulty," said Kate. "We cannot be too grateful for her kindness."

"Tell her so," said he, bitterly. "I suppose women know when to believe each other."

"And what reply am I to make, sir?" said she, calmly, as having put aside her work, she took her place at the writing-table.

"Faith, I don't care," said he, doggedly. "Nor is it much matter what opinion I give. I am n.o.body now; I have no right to decide upon anything."

"The right and duty are both yours, papa."