The Daltons Volume I Part 31

"'Tis you are the lucky girl, Kate," said he, drawing his arm around her, and pressing her to him. "This day's good luck pays me off for many a hard blow of fortune. They 're kind people you are going with, real gentry, and our own blood into the bargain."

A thick heavy sob was all the answer she could make.

"To be sure you're sorry; why would n't you be sorry, leaving your own home and going away among strangers? and 't is I am sorry to let you go."

"Are you so, dearest papa? Are you really sorry to part with me? Would you rather I 'd stay behind with you and Nelly?" cried she, looking up at him with eyes swimming in tears.

"Would it, is it?" said he, eagerly, as he kissed her forehead twice; then, suddenly checking himself, he said, in an altered voice, "but that would be selfish, Kate, nothing else than downright selfish. Ask Nelly, there, if that's my nature? Not that Nelly will ever give me too good a character!" added he, bitterly. But poor Ellen neither heard the question nor the taunt; her mind was travelling many a long mile away in realms of dreary speculation.

"I 'm sorry to interrupt a moment like this," said Sir Stafford, "but I believe I must take you away, Miss Dalton; our time is now of the shortest."

One fond and long embrace the sisters took, and Kate was led away between Sir Stafford and her father, while Nelly went through a round of leave-takings with the others in a state of semi-consciousness that resembled a dream. The courteous flatteries of Lady Hester fell as powerless on her ear as the rougher good wishes of Grounsell. George Onslow's respectful manner was as unnoticed as the flippant smartness of Albert Jekyl's. Even Sydney's gentle attempt at consolation was heard without heeding; and when one by one they had gone and left her alone in that dreary room, she was not more aware of her solitude than when they stood around her.

Couriers and waiters pa.s.sed in and out to see that nothing had been forgotten. Doors were slammed on every side, loud voices were calling, all the turmoil of a departure was there; but she knew nothing of it.

Even when the loud cracking of the postilions' whips echoed in the courtyard, and the quick clatter of horses' feet and heavy wheels resounded through the arched doorway, she was still unmoved; nor did she recover full liberty of thought till her father stood beside her, and said, "Come, Nelly, let us go home."

Then she arose, and took his arm without a word. She would have given her life to have been able to speak even a few words of comfort to the poor old man, whose cheeks were wet with tears, but she could not utter a syllable.

"Ay, indeed," muttered he, "it will be a dreary home now."

Not another word was spoken by either as they trod their way along the silent streets, over which the coming gloom of evening threw a mournful shadow. They walked, with bent-down heads, as if actually fearing to recognize the objects that they had so often looked upon with her, and, slowly traversing the little Platz, they gained their own door. There they halted, and, from habit, pulled the bell. Its little tinkle, heard in the stillness, seemed suddenly to recall them both to thought; for Dalton, with a melancholy smile, said,

"'T is old Andy is coming now! 'T is n't her foot I hear! Oh, Nelly, Nelly, how did you ever persuade me to this! Sure, I know I 'll never be happy again!"

Nelly made no answer. The injustice of the speech was well atoned for in her mind by the thought that, in s.h.i.+fting the blame from himself to her, her father might find some sort of consolation; well satisfied to become the subject of his reproach if the sacrifice could alleviate his sorrow.

"Take that chair away; throw it out of the window," cried he, angrily.

"It breaks my heart to look at it." And with this he leaned his head upon the table, and sobbed like a child.

CHAPTER XX. A VERY SMALL "INTERIOR."

IN one of the most favored spots of that pleasant quay which goes by the name of the Lungo l'Arno, at Florence, there stood a small, miserable-looking, rickety old building, of two stories high, wedged in between two ma.s.sive and imposing palaces, as though a buffer to deaden the force of collision. In all probability it owed its origin to some petty usurpation, and had gradually grown up, from the un.o.btrusive humility of a cobbler's bulk, to the more permanent nuisance of stone and mortar. The s.p.a.ce occupied was so small as barely to permit of a door and a little window beside it, within which hung a variety of bridles, halters, and such-like gear, with here and there the bra.s.s-mounted harnessing of a Calasina, or the gay worsted ta.s.sels and fringed finery of a peasant's Barroccino. The little spot was so completely crammed with wares, that for all purposes of traffic it was useless; hence, everything that pertained to sale was carried on in the street, thus contributing by another ingredient to the annoyance of this misplaced residence. Threats, tyranny, bribery, seductions of twenty kinds, intimidation in as many shapes, had all failed in inducing its owner to remove to another part of the town. Gigi every one in Florence is known by his Christian name, and we never heard him called by any other resisted oppressions as manfully as he was proof against softer influences, and held his ground, hammering away at his old "demi-piques," burnis.h.i.+ng bits and scouring housings, in utter indifference to the jarred nerves and chafed susceptibilities of his fine neighbors. It was not that the man was indifferent to money. It was not that the place was a.s.sociated with any family reminiscences. It was not from its being very favorable to the nature of his dealings, since his chief customers were usually the frequenters of the less fas.h.i.+onable localities. It was the simple fact that Gigi was a Florentine, and, like a Florentine, he saw no reason why he should n't have the sun and the Arno as well as the Guiciardoni, who lived at his right, or the Rinuncini, who dwelt on his left hand.

Small and contracted as that miserable frontage was, the sun did s.h.i.+ne upon it just as pleasantly as on its proud neighbors, and the bright Arno glided by with its laughing ripples; while, from the little window above stairs, the eye ranged over the cypress-clad hill of San Miniato and the fair gardens of the Boboli. On one side lay the quaint old structure of the Ponte Vecchio, with its glittering stores of jewelry, and on the other the graceful elliptic arches of St. Trinita spanned the stream. The quay before the door was the chosen rallying-point of all Florence; the promenade where lounged all its fas.h.i.+onables of an evening, as they descended from their carriages after the accustomed drive in the Cascini. The Guardie n.o.bili pa.s.sed daily, in all their scarlet bravery, to and from the Pitti Palace; the Grand Ducal equipage never took any other road. A continual flow of travellers to the great hotels on the quay contributed its share of bustle and animation to the scene; so that here might be said to meet, as in a focus, all that made up the life, the stir, and the movement of the capital.

Full of amus.e.m.e.nt and interest as that morning panorama often is, our object is less to linger beside it, than, having squeezed our way between the chaotic wares of Gigi's shop, to ascend the little, dark, and creaking stairs which lead to the first story, and into which we now beg to introduce our reader. There are but two rooms, each of them of the dimensions of closets, but furnished with a degree of pretension that cannot fail to cause amazement as you enter. Silk draperies, carved cabinets, bronzes, china, chairs of ebony, tables of buhl, a Persian rug on the floor, an alabaster lamp suspended from the ceiling, miniatures in handsome frames, and armor, cover the walls; while, scattered about, are richly bound books, and prints, and drawings in water-color. Through the half-drawn curtain that covers the doorway for there is no door you can peep into the back room, where a lighter and more modern taste prevails; the gold-sprigged curtains of a French bed, and the Bohemian gla.s.s that glitters everywhere, bespeaking another era of decorative luxury.

It is not with any invidious pleasure for depreciation, but purely in the interests of truth, that we must now tell our reader that, of all this seeming elegance and splendor, nothing absolutely nothing is real.

The brocaded silks have been old petticoats; the ebony is lacquer; the ivory is bone; the statuettes are plaster, glazed so as to look like marble; the armor is papier mache, even to the owner himself, all is imposition, for he is no other than Albert Jekyl.

Now, my dear reader, you and I see these things precisely in the same light. The illusion of a first glance stripped off, we smile as we examine, one by one, the ingenious devices meant to counterfeit ancient art or modern elegance. It is possible, too, that we derive as much amus.e.m.e.nt from the ingenuity exercised, as we should have had pleasure in contemplating the realities so typified. Still, there is one individual to whom this consciousness brings no alloy of enjoyment; Jekyl has persuaded himself to accept all as fact. Like the Indian, who first carves and then wors.h.i.+ps his G.o.d, he has gone through the old process of fabrication, and now gazes on his handiwork with the eyes of a true believer. Gracefully reclined upon an ottoman, the mock amber mouthpiece of a gilt hooka between his lips, he dreams, with half-closed eyes, of Oriental luxury! A Sybarite in every taste, he has invented a little philosophy of his own. He has seen enough of life to know that thousands might live in enjoyment out of the superfluities of rich men, and yet make them nothing the poorer. What banquet would not admit of a guest the more? What fete to which another might not be added? What four-in-hand prances by without some vacant seat, be it even in the rumble? What gilded gondola has not a place to spare? To be this "complement" to the world's want is then his mission.

No man invents a metier without a strong element of success. The very creative power is an earnest of victory. It is true that there had been great men before Agamemnon. So had there been a race of "diners-out"

before Jekyl; but he first reduced the practice to system, showing that all the triumphs of cookery, all the splendor of equipage, all the blandishments of beauty, all the fascinations of high society, may be enjoyed by one who actually does not hold a "share in the company," and, without the qualification of scrip, takes his place among the directors.

Had he brought to this new profession commonplace abilities and inferior acquirements, he would have been lost amid that vulgar herd of indistinguishables which infest every city, and whose names are not even "writ in water." Jekyl, however, possessed many and varied gifts.

He might have made a popular preacher in a watering-place; a very successful doctor for nervous invalids; a clever pract.i.tioner at the bar; an admirable member of the newspaper press. He might have been very good as an actor; he would have been glorious as an auctioneer. With qualities of this order, a most plastic wit, and an india-rubber conscience, what bound need there be to his success! Nor was there.

He was, in all the society of the capital, not alone an admitted and accepted, but a welcome guest. He might have failed to strike this man as being clever, or that as being agreeable. Some might be disappointed in his smartness; some might think his social claims overrated; none were ever offended by anything that fell from him. His great secret seemed to lie in the fact that, if generally easy to be found when required, he was never in the way when not wanted. Had he possessed the gift of invisibility, he could scarcely have been more successful in this latter good quality. He never interrupted a confidence; never marred a tete-a-tete. A kind of instinct would arrest his steps as he approached a boudoir where his presence would be undesirable; and he has been known to retire from a door on which he had already placed his hand, with a sudden burst of intelligence suggesting "to come another day."

These, however, seem mere negative qualities; his positive ones were, however, not less remarkable. The faculties which some men might have devoted to abstract science or metaphysical inquiry, he, with a keen perception of his own fitness, resolved to exercise upon the world around him. His botany was a human cla.s.sification, all his chemistry an a.n.a.lysis of men's motives. It is true, perhaps, that the poet's line may have been received by him with a peculiar limitation, and that, if "the proper study of mankind is man," his investigations took a shape scarcely contemplated by the writer. It was not man in his freedom of thought and action, not man in all the consciousness of power, and in the high hope of a great destiny that attracted him; no! it was for small humanity that he cared, for all the struggles and wiles and plots and schemings of this wicked world; for man amid its pomps and vanities, its b.a.l.l.s, its festivals, its intrigues, and its calamities.

He felt, with the great dramatist, that "all the world's a stage,"

and, the better to enjoy the performance, he merely took a "walking character," that gave him full leisure to watch the others. Such was our friend Albert Jekyl, or, as he was popularly called by his acquaintance, Le Due de Dine-out, to distinguish him from the Talleyrands, who are Dues de Dino.

Let us now, without further speculation, come back to him, as with his window open to admit the "Arno sun," he lay at full length upon his ottoman, conning over his dinner list. He had been for some time absent from Florence, and in the interval a number of new people had arrived, and some of the old had gone away. He was, therefore, running over the names of the present and the missing, with a speculative thought for the future.

"A bad season, it would seem!" muttered he, as his eye traced rapidly the list of English names, in which none of any distinction figured.

"This comes of Carbonari and Illuminati humbug. They frighten John Bull, and he will not come abroad to see a barricade under his window. Great numbers have gone away, too, the Scotts, the Carringdons, the Hopleys!

three excellent houses; and those dear Milnwoods, who, so lately 'reconciled to Rome,' as the phrase is, 'took out their piety' in Friday fish-dinners.

"The Russians, too, have left us; the Geroboffskys gone back to their snows again, and expiating their 'liberal tendencies' by a tour in Siberia. The Chaptowitsch, recalled in disgrace for asking one of Louis Philippe's sons to a breakfast! We have got in exchange a few Carlists, half a dozen 'Legitimists,' with very stately manners and small fortunes. But a good house to dine at, a good salon for a lounge, a pleasant haunt for all seasons and at all hours, what is there? Nothing, absolutely nothing. And what a city this was once! crammed, as it used to be, with dear, delightful 'ruined families;' that is, those who left ruin to their creditors at home, to come out and live gloriously abroad. And now I look down my list, and, except my little Sunday dinner at 'Marescotte's,' and that half luncheon thing I take at the Villa Pessarole, I really see nothing for the whole week. The Onslows, alone, figure in strong capitals. Let me see, then, how they must be treated. I have already housed them at the Palazzo Mazzarini, and, for some days at least, their time will be filled up with upholsterers, decorators, and such-like. Then the campaign will open, and I can but watch eventualities, and there will be no lack of these. The young Guardsman likes play. I must see that Prince Carini does not get hold of him. Miss Onslow has a taste for Gothic and stained gla.s.s; that, nowadays, often ends in a love of saints' s.h.i.+n-bones and other relics. My lady is disposed to be a 'fast one;' and, in fact, except the gruff old doctor, who is a confounded bore, the whole craft is deficient in ballast. But I was forgetting 'the Dalton,' shame on me, for she is very pretty, indeed!" He seemed to ruminate and reflect for some minutes, and then said aloud, "Yes, ma belle Catharine, with the aid of Albert Jekyl, with his counsel to guide, and his head to direct you, there 's no saying what your destiny might not be! It would be, I know well, very hard to convince you of the fact, and, possibly, were I to try it, you 'd be silly enough to fancy me in love with you!" Albert Jekyl in love! The idea was so excellent that he lay back and laughed heartily at it. "And yet," said he, after a pause, "you 'll see this fact aright one of these days. You 'll learn the immense benefit my knowledge would be when joined to your own beauty. Ay, Kate! but it will be too late, just so, too late; then, like every one else, you 'll have played all your trumps before you begin to learn the game. A girl who has caught up every trick of manner, every little tactic of society within a month, and who, at this hour, would stand the scrutiny of the most fastidious eye, is a great prize in the wheel. This apt.i.tude might lead to great things, though, in all probability, it will never conduce, save to very little ones!"

With this reflection Jekyl arose to begin his toilet, an occupation which, less from dandyism than pure self-love, he usually prolonged during the whole morning. It was to him a period of self-examination.

He seemed, to use a mercantile figure, to be taking stock of his own capabilities, and investigating his own means of future success.

It was an "open day," that is, he knew not where he should dine; so that his costume, while partaking of all the characteristics of the morning, had yet combined certain little decorative traits that would not be unsuitable if pressed to accept an unpremeditated hospitality.

There were very few, indeed, with whom Jekyl would have condescended so to dine, not only from the want of dignity incurred, but that on principle he would have preferred the humblest fare at home to the vulgarity of a pot-luck dinner, which invariably, as he said himself, deranged your digestion, and led to wrong intimacies.

His dress being completed, he looked out along the crowd to see in whose carriage he was to have a seat to the Cascini. More than one inviting gesture motioned him to a place, as equipage after equipage pa.s.sed on; but although some of those who sought him were high in rank, and others distinguished for beauty and attraction, Jekyl declined the courtesies with that little wave of the hand so significative in all Italian intercourse. Occasionally, indeed, a bland, regretful smile seemed to convey the sorrow the refusal cost him; and once he actually placed his hand over where his heart might be, as though to express a perfect pang of suffering; but still he bided his time.

At last a very dark visage, surrounded by a whisker of blackest hair, peeped from beneath the head of a very shabby caleche, whose horse and coachman were all of the "seediest;" and Jekyl cried out, "Morlache!"

while he made a sign towards the Cascini. The other replied by spreading out his hand horizontally from his mouth, and blowing along the surface, a pantomime meant to express a railroad. Jekyl immediately descended and took his place beside him.

CHAPTER XXI. A FAMILY PICTURE

THE fas.h.i.+onable life of a great city has a character of sameness which defies all attempts at portraiture. Well-bred people, and their amus.e.m.e.nts, are all constructed so perfectly alike, certain family traits pervading them throughout, that every effort at individualization is certain to be a failure. You may change the venue, if you will, from London to Paris, to Vienna, or St. Petersburg, but the issue is always the same; the very same interests are at work, and the same pa.s.sions exercised, by the self-same kind of people. If such be the rule among the first-rate capitals of Europe, it is very far from being the case in those smaller cities which belong to inferior States, and which, from reasons of health, pleasure, or economy, are the resort of strangers from different parts of the world. In these society is less disciplined, social rank less defined; conflicting claims and rival nationalities disturb the scene, and there is, so to say, a kind of struggle for pre-eminence, which in better regulated communities is never witnessed.

If, as is unquestionably true, such places rarely present the attractions of good society, they offer to the mere observer infinitely more varied and amusing views of life than he would ever expect to see elsewhere. As in the few days of a revolution, when the "barricades are up," and all hurrying to the conflict, more of national character will be exhibited than in half a century of tame obedience to the law; so here are displayed, to the sun and the noonday, all those pa.s.sions and pretensions which rarely see the light in other places.

The great besetting sin of this social state is the taste for NOTORIETY.

Everything must contribute to this. Not alone wealth, splendor, rank, and genius, but vice, in all its shapes and forms, must be notorious.

"Better be calumniated in all the moods and tenses than untalked of," is the grand axiom. Do something that can be reported of you, good, if you will, bad, if you must; but do it. If you be not rich enough to astonish by the caprices of your wealth, do something by your wits, or even your whiskers. The color of a man's gloves has sufficed to make his fortune.

Upon this strange ocean, which, if rarely storm-shaken, was never perfectly tranquil, the Onslows were now launched, as well pleased as people usually are who, from being of third or fourth-rate importance in their own country, suddenly awake to the fact that they are celebrities abroad.

The Mazzarini Palace had long been untenanted; its last occupant had been one of the Borghese family, whose princely fortune was still unable to maintain the splendor of a residence fitted only for royalty. To learn, therefore, that a rich "milordo" had arrived there with the intention of pa.s.sing his winter, was a piece of news that occupied every tongue in the city. Gossips were questioned about the private history, the peerage consulted for such facts as were public. Sir Stafford's wealth was actively discussed, and all possible inroads upon it his son's extravagance might have made debated and decided on. A minute investigation into their probable reasons for leaving England was also inst.i.tuted, in which conjectures far more ingenious than true figured prominently. What they were like what they said, did, and meant to do was the sole table-talk of the capital.

"They've had their horses out from England," said one; "They 've taken the best box at the Pergola," said another; "They've engaged Midchekoff's cook," said a third; "They 've been speaking to Gridani about his band," chimed in a fourth; and so on. All their proceedings were watched and followed by that eager vulturehood which hungers for ortolans, and thirsts for iced champagne.

Nor were the Onslows without offering food for this curious solicitude.

From the hour of her arrival, Lady Hester had been deeply engaged, in concert with her grand vizier, Albert Jekyl, in preparations for the coming campaign. An army of upholsterers, decorators, and such-like, beset the Palazzo with enormous vans crammed full of wares. Furniture, that had served royal guests, and was even yet in high preservation, was condemned, to give way to newer and more costly decoration. Rich stuffs and hangings that had been the admiration of many a visitor, were ruthlessly pulled down, to be replaced by even more gorgeous materials; till at last it was whispered about that, except some antique cabinets, the pictures, and a few tables of malachite or marble, little or nothing remained of what once const.i.tuted the splendor of the place.