The strange adventures of a phaeton; a novel

Front matter

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Book 5 (o g S3a.Q S'

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Contents

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I. OUR BELL 9

II. A LUNCHEON IN HOLBORN 15

Chapter I. Our Bell

“ Oh, the oak, and the ash, and the bonny ivy-tree.

They grow so green in the North Countrie !”

It was all settled one evening in the deep winter-time. Outside, a sharp east wind was whistling round the solitudes of Box Hill ; the Mole, at the foot of our garden, as it stole stealthily through the darkness, crackled the flakes of ice that lay along its level banks; and away on Mickleham Downs — and on the farther uplands towards the sea — the cold stars were shining down on a thin coating of snow.

Indoors there was another story to tell; for the mistress of the house — Queen Titania, as we call her — a small person, with a calm, handsome, pale face, an abundance of black hair, big eyes that are occasionally somewhat cold and critical in look, and a certain magnificence of manner which makes you fancy her rather a tall and stately woman — has a trick of so filling her drawing-room with dexterous traceries of grass and ferns, with plentiful flowers of her own rearing, and with a clouded glare of light, that, amidst the general warmth, the glow and perfume, and variety of brilliant colors, you would almost forget that the winter is chill and desolate and dark.

Then Bell, our guest and companion for many a year, lends herself to the deception; for the wilful young person, though there were a dozen inches of snow on the meadows, would come down to dinner in a dress of blue, with touches of white gossamer and fur about the tight wrists and neck — with a white rose

1 *

THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF A PHAETON.

and a bunch of forget-me-nots, as blue as her eyes, twisted into the soft masses of her light-brown hair, and with a certain gay and careless demeanor, meant to let us know that she, having been born and bred in the North Country, has a fine contempt for the mild rigors of our Southern winter.

But on this particular evening. Bell — our Bell, our Bonny Bell, our Lady Bell, as she is variously called when she provokes people into giving her pet names — had been sitting for a long time with an open book oi^ her knee ; and as this volume was all about the English lakes, and gay pictures of them, and placed here and there little tail-pieces of ferns and blossoms, she may have been driven to contrast the visions thus conjured up with the realities suggested by the fierce gusts of wind that were blowing coldly through the box-trees outside. All at once she placed the volume gently on the white hearth-rug, and said, with a strange wistfulness shining in the deeps of her blue eyes,

“ Tita, cannot you make us talk about the summer, and drown the noise of that dreadful wind ? Why don’t we conspire to cheat the winter and make believe it is summer again ? Doesn’t it seem to be years and years ago since we had the long light evenings ; the walks between the hedge-rows, the waiting for the moon up on the crest of the hill, and then the quiet stroll downward into the valley and home again, with the wild roses, and the meadowsweet, and the evening campions filling the warm night air? Come, let us sit close together, and make it summer ! See, Tita ! — it is a bright forenoon — you can nearly catch a glimpse of the Downs above Brighton — and we are going to shut up the house, and go away anywhere for a whole month. Round comes that dear old mail-phaeton, and my pair of bonny bays are whinnying for a bit of sugar. Papa is sulky — ”

“ As usual,” remarks my lady, without lifting her eyes from the carpet.

“ — for though the imperial has been slung on, there is scarcely enough room for the heaps of our luggage, and, like every man, he has a deadly hatred of bonnet-boxes. Then you take your seat, my dear, looking like a small empress in a gray travelling dress; and papa — after pretending to have inspected all the harness — takes the reins ; I pop in behind, for the hood, when it is turned down, makes such a pleasant cushion for your arms, and you can stick your sketch-book into it, and a row of apples and anything

OUR BELL.

else ; and Sandy touches his forelock, and Kate bobs a courtesy, and away and away we go ! How sweet and fresh the air is, Tita! and don’t you smell the honeysuckle in the hedge? Why, here we are at Dorking ! Papa pulls up to grumble about the last beer that was sent; and then Castor and Pollux toss up their heads again, and on we drive to Guildford, and to Reading, and to Oxford. And all through England we go, using sometimes the old coaching-roads, and sometimes the by-roads, stopping at the curious little inns, and chatting to the old country folks, and singing ballads of an evening as we sit upon the hill-sides, and watch the partridges dusting themselves below us in the road ; and then on and on again. Is not that the sea, Tita ? Look at the long stretch of Morecambe Bay and the yellow sands, and the steamers on the horizon ! But all at once we dive into the hills again, and we come to the old familiar places by Applethwaite and Ambleside, and then some evening — some evening, Tita — we come in sight of Grasmere, and then — and then — ”

“ Why, Bell ! what is the matter with you ?” cries the other, and the next minute her arms are round the light-brown head, crushing its white rose and its blue forget-me-nots.

“ If you two young creatures,” it is remarked, “ would seriously settle where we are to go next summer, you would be better employed than in rubbing your heads together like a couple of baby calves.”

“ Settle !” says Lady Tita, with a smile of gentle impertinence on her face ; “ we know who is allowed to settle things in this house. If we were to settle anything, some wonderful discovery would be made about the horses’ feet, or the wheels of that valuable phaeton, which was made, I should fancy, about the time the owner of it was born — ”

“The wife who mocks at her husband’s gray hairs,” I remark, calmly, “knowing the share she has had in producing them — ”

Here our Bonny Bell interfered, and a truce was concluded. The armistice was devoted to consideration of Bell’s project, which at length it was resolved to adopt. Why, after going year after year round the Southern counties in that big, old-fashioned phaeton which had become as a house to us, should we not strike fairly northward ? These circles round the South would resemble the swinging of a stone in the sling before it is projected ; and, once

THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF A PHAETON.

we were started on the straight path, who could tell how far we might not go?

“ Then,” said I — for our thoughts at this time were often directed to the great masses of men who were marching through the wet valleys of France, or keeping guard amidst cold and fog in the trenches around Paris — “ suppose that by July next the war may be over; Count Von Rosen says he means to pay us a visit, and have a look at England. Why should not he join our party, and become a companion for Bell ?”

I had inadvertently probed a hornets’ nest. The women of our household were at that time bitter against the Germans ; and but half an hour before Bell herself had been eloquently denouncing the doings of the Prussians. Had they not in secrecy been preparing to steal back Alsace and Lorraine ; had they not taken advantage of the time when the good and gentle France was averse from war to provoke a quarrel ; had not the king openly insulted the French ambassador in the promenade at Ems; and had not their hordes of men swarmed into the quiet villages, slaying and destroying, robbing the poor and aged, and winning battles by mere force of numbers ? Besides, the suggestion that this young lieutenant of cavalry might be a companion for Bell appeared to be an intentional injury done to a certain amiable young gentleman, of no particular prospects, living in the Temple ; and so Bell forthwith declared her dislike not only of the German oflScers, but of all oflScers whatsoever.

“And as for Count Von Rosen,” she said, “ I can remember him at Bonn only as a very rude and greedy boy, who showed a great row of white teeth when he laughed, and made bad jokes about my mistakes in German. And now I dare say he is a tall fellow, with a stiff neck, a brown face, perhaps a beard, a clanking sword, and the air of a Bobadil, as he stalks into an inn and calls out, ^Kellnare ! eene Pulle Sect ! und sagen Sie mal^ was haben Sie fur Zeitungen — die Alljemeene ”

I ventured to point out to Bell that she might alter her opinion when Von Rosen actually came over with all the glamour of a hero about him ; and that, indeed, she could not do better than marry him.

Bell opened her eyes.

“ Marry him, because he is a hero ! No ! I would not marry a hero, after he had become a hero. It would be something to

OUR BELL.

marry a man wlio was afterward to become great, and be with him all the time of his poverty and his struggles. That would be worth something — to comfort him when he was in despair, to be kind to him when he was suffering ; and then, when it was all over, and he had got his head above these troubles, he would say to you, ‘ Oh, Kate, or Nell,’ as your name might be, ‘ how good you were during the old time when we were poor and friendless !’ But when he has become a hero, he thinks he will overawe you with the shadow of his great reputation. He thinks he has only to come, and hold out the tips of his fingers, and say, ‘ I am a great person. Everybody worships me. I will allow you to share my brilliant fortune, and you will dutifully kiss me. Merer., monsieur ! but if any man were to come to me like that, I would answer him as Canning’s knife-grinder was answered — ‘I give you kisses ? I will see you — ’ ”

“ Bell !” cried my lady, peremptorily.

Bell stopped, and then blushed, and dropped her eyes.

“ What is one to do,” she asked, meekly, “ when a quotation comes in?”

“You used to be a good girl,” said Queen Tita, in her severest manner ; “ but you are becoming worse and worse every day. I hear you sing the refrains of horrid street songs. Your love of sitting up at night is dreadful. The very maid-servants are shocked by your wilful provincialisms. And you treat me, for whom you ought to show some respect, with a levity and familiarity without example. I will send a report of your behavior to — ” And here the look of mischief in Bell’s eyes — which had been deepening just as you may see the pupil of a cat widening before she makes a spring — suddenly gave way to a glance of urgent and meek entreaty, which was recognized in the proper quarter. Tita named no names ; and the storm blew over.

For the present, therefore, the project of adding this young Uhlan to our party was dropped ; but the idea of our northward trip remained, and gradually assumed definite consistency. Indeed, as it developed itself during those long winter evenings, it came to be a thing to dream about. But all the same I could see that Tita sometimes returned to the notion of providing a companion for Bell ; and, whatever may have been her dislike of the Germans in general. Lieutenant Von Rosen was not forgotten. At odd times, when

THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF A PHAETON.

“ In her hazel eyes her thoughts lay clear As pebbles in a brook,”

it seemed to me that she was busy with those forecasts which are dear to the hearts of women. One night we three were sitting as quietly as usual, talking about something else, when she suddenly remarked,

“ I suppose that Count Von Rosen is as poor as Prussian lieutenants generally are ?”

“On the contrary,” said I, “he enjoys a very handsome Familien-Stiftung, or family bequest, which gives him a certain sum of money every six months, on condition that during that time he has either travelled so much or gone through such and such a course of study. I wish the legacies left in our country had sometimes those provisions attached.”

“ He has some money, then ?” said my lady, thoughtfully.

“ My dear,” said I, “ you seem to be very anxious about the future, like the man whose letter I read to you yesterday.^ Have you any further questions to ask ?”

“ I suppose he cares for nothing but eating and drinking and smoking, like other officers ? He has not been troubled by any very great sentimental crisis ?”

“ On the contrary,” I repeated, “ he wrote me a despairing letter, some fortnight before the war broke out, about that same Fraulein Fallersleben whom we saw acting in the theatre at Hanover. She had treated him very badly — she had — ”

“ Oh, that is all nothing,” said Tita, hastily — and here she glanced rather nervously at Bell.

Bell, for her part, was unconcernedly fitting a pink collar on a white cat, and talking to that pretty but unresponsive animal.

“ He left her,” I remarked again, “ in paroxysms of anger and mutual reproach. He accused her of having — ”

“ Well, well, that will do,” says Queen Titania, in her coldest manner ; and then, of course, everybody obeys the small woman.

* This is the letter :

“ To th£ Editor of the ^Hampshire ^ss.’

“ Sir, — If the Republicans who are endeavoring to introduce a Republic into this great country should accomplish their disgusting purpose, do you think they will repudiate the National Debt, and pay no more interest on the Consols ? I am, sir, your obedient servant, A Lover op Mankind,

“ Bogmere, January 18th, 18T1.”

A LUNCHEON IN HOLBORN.

That was the last that was heard of Von Rosen for many a day ; and it was not until some time after the war was over that he favored us with a communication. He was still in France. He hoped to get over to England at the end of July ; and as that was the time we had fixed for our journey from London to Edinburgh, along the old coach -roads, he became insensibly mixed up with the project;^ until it was finally resolved to ask him to join the party.

“ I know you mean to marry these two,” I said to the person who rules over us all.

“ How absurd you are !” she replied, with a vast assumption of dignity. “Bell is as good as engaged — even if there was any fear of a handsome young Englishwoman falling in love with a Prussian lieutenant who is in despair about an actress.”

“ You had better take a wedding-ring with you.”

“A wedding-ring!” said Tita, with a little curl of her lips. “You fancy that a girl thinks of nothing but that. Every wedding-ring that is worn represents a man’s impertinence and a woman’s folly.”

“Ask Bell,” said I.

Chapter II. A Luncheon In Holborn

“ From the bleak coast that hears The German Ocean roar, deep-blooming, strong.

And yellow-haired, the blue-eyed Saxon came.”

No more fitting point of departure could have been chosen than the Old Bell Inn in Holbom, an ancient hostelry which used in by-gone times to send its relays of stage-coaches to Oxford, Cheltenham, Enfield, Abingdon, and a score of other places. Now, from the quaint little yard, which is surrounded by frail and dilapidated galleries of wood, that tell of the grandeur of other days, there starts but a solitary omnibus, which daily whisks a few country people and their parcels down to Uxbridge, and Chalfont, and Amersham, and Wendover. The vehicle which Mr. Thoroughgood has driven for many a year is no magnificent blue-and-scarlet drag, with teams costing six hundred guineas apiece, with silver harness, a post-boy blowing a silver horn, and a lord handling the reins ; but a rough and serviceable little coach which is worked for profit, and which is of vast convenience to the folks living in quiet Buckinghamshire villages apart from railways. From this old-fashioned inn, now that the summer had come round, and our long-looked-for journey to the North had come near, we had resolved to start ; and Bell having gravely pointed out the danger of letting our young Uhlan leave London hungry — lest habit should lead him to seize something by the way, and so get us into trouble — it was further proposed that we should celebrate our setting-out with a luncheon of good roast beef and ale, in the snug little parlor which abuts on the yard.

“ And I hope,” said Queen Titania, as we escaped from the roar of Holborn into the archway of the inn, “that the stupid fellow has got himself decently dressed. Otherwise, we shall be mobbed.”

The fact was that Count Von Rosen, not being aware that English oflScers rarely appear when off duty in uniform, had come straight from St. Denis to Calais, and from Calais to London, and from London to Leatherhead, without ever dreaming that he ought not to go about in his regimentals. He drew no distinction between Herr Graf Von Rosen and Seiner Majestat Lieutenant im — ten Uhlanen-Regimente ; although he told us that when he issued from his hotel at Charing Cross to get into a cab, he was surprised to see a small crowd collect around the hansom, and no less surprised to observe the absence of military costume in the streets. Of course, the appearance of an Uhlan in the quiet village of Leatherhead caused a profound commotion ; and had not Castor and Pollux been able to distance the crowd of little boys who fiocked around him at the station, it is probable he would have arrived at our house attended by that concourse of admirers.

You should have seen the courteous and yet half-defiant way in which the women received him, as if they were resolved not to be overawed by the tall, browned, big -bearded man; and how, in about twenty minutes, they had insensibly got quite familiar with him, apparently won over by his careless laughter, by the honest stare of his light-blue eyes, and by a very boyish blush that sometimes overspread his handsome face when he stammered

A LUNCHEON IN HOLBORN.

over an idiom, or was asked some question about his own exploits. Bell remained the most distant ; but I could see that our future companion had produced a good impression on my lady, for she began to take the management of him, and to give him counsel in a minute and practical manner, which is a sure mark of her favor. She told him he must put aside his uniform while in England. She described to him the ordinary costume worn by English gentlemen in travelling. And then she hoped he would take a preparation of quinine with him, considering that we should have to stay in a succession of strange inns, and might be exposed to damp.

He went up to London that night, armed with a list of articles which he was to buy for himself before starting with us.

There was a long pause when we three found ourselves together again. At length Bell said, with rather an impatient air,

“ He is only a school-boy, after all. Why should he continue to call you Madame^ and me Mademoiselle, just as he did when he knew us first at Bonn, and gave us these names as a joke ? Then he has the same irritating habit of laughing that he used to have there. I hate a man who has his mouth always open — like a swallow in the air, trying to catch anything that may come. And he is worse, I think, when he closes his lips and tries to give himself an intellectual look, like — like — ”

“Like what, Belir

“ Like a calf posing itself, and trying to look like a red deer,” said Bell, with a sort of contemptuous warmth.

“ I wish. Bell,” said my lady, coldly and severely, “ that you would give up those rude metaphors. You talk just as you did when you came fresh from Westmoreland — you have learned nothing.”

Bell’s only answer was to walk, with rather a proud air, to the piano, and there she sat down and played a few bars. She would not speak ; but the well-known old air spoke for her, for it said, as plain as words could say,

“A North-country maid up to London had strayed.

Although with her nature it did not agree ;

She wept, and she sighed, and she bitterly cried,

‘ I wish once again in the North I could be !’ ”

“ I think,” continued Tita, in measured tones, “ that he is a very agreeable and trustworthy young man — not very polished,

THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF A PHAETON.

perhaps — but, then, he is a German. I look forward with great interest to see in what light our English country life will strike him ; and I hope. Bell, that he will not have to complain of the want of courtesy shown him by Englishwomen.”

This was getting serious ; so, being to some small and undefined extent master in my own house, I commanded Bell to sing the song she was petulantly strumming. That “fetched” Tita. Whenever Bell began to sing one of those old English ballads, which she did for the most part from morning till night, there was a strange and tremulous thrill in her voice that would have disarmed her bitterest enemy ; and straightway my lady would be seen to draw over to the girl, and put her arm round her shoulder, and then reward her, when the last chord of the accompaniment had been struck, with a grateful kiss. In the present instance the charm worked as usual ; but no sooner had these two young people been reconciled than they turned on their mutual benefactor. Indeed, an observant stranger might have remarked in this household, that when anything remotely bearing on a quarrel was made up between any two of its members, the third, the peace-maker, was expected to propose a dinner at Greenwich. The custom would have been more becoming, had the cost been equally distributed ; but there were three losers to one payer.

Well, when we got into the yard of the Old Bell, the Buckinghamshire omnibus was being loaded ; and among the first objects we saw was the stalwart figure of Von Rosen, who was talking to Mr. Thoroughgood as if he had known him all his life, and examining with a curious and critical eye the construction and accommodation of the venerable old vehicle. We saw with some satisfaction that he was now dressed in a suit of gray garments, with a wide-awake hat; and, indeed, there was little to distinguish him from an Englishman but the curious blending of color — from the tawny yellow of his mustache to the deep brown of his cropped beard — which is seldom absent from the hirsute decoration of a Prussian face.

He came forward with a grave and ceremonious politeness to Queen Titania, who received him in her dignified, quaint, maternal fashion ; and he shook hands with Bell with an obviously unconscious air of indifference. Then, not noticing her silence, he talked to her, after we had gone inside, of the old-fashioned air of homeliness and comfort noticeable in the inn, of the ancient

A LUNCHEON IN HOLBORN.

portraits, and the quaint fireplace, and the small busts placed about. Bell seemed rather vexed that he should address himself to her, and uttered scarcely a word in reply.

But when our plain and homely meal was served, this restraint gradually wore away ; and in the talk over our coming adventures, Bell abandoned herself to all sorts of wild anticipations. She forgot the presence of the German lieutenant. Her eyes were fixed on the North Country, and on summer nights up amidst the Westmoreland hills, and on bright mornings up by the side of the Scotch lochs ; and while the young soldier looked gravely at her, and even seemed a trifle surprised, she told us of all the dreams and visions she had had of the journey, for weeks and months back, and how the pictures of it had been with her night and day until she was almost afraid the reality would not bear them out. Then she described — as if she were gifted with second-sight — the various occupations we should have to follow during the long afternoons in the North ; and how she had brought her guitar that Queen Titania might sing Spanish songs to it; and how we should listen to the corn-crake ; and how she would make studies of all the favorite places we came to, and perhaps might even construct a picture of our phaeton and Castor and Pollux — with a background of half a dozen counties — for some exhibition ; and how, some day in the far future, when the memory of our long excursion had grown dim, Tita would walk into a room in Pall Mall, and there, with the picture before her, would turn round with wonder in her eyes, as if it were a revelation.

“ Because,” said Bell, turning seriously to the young Uhlan, and addressing him as though she had talked familiarly to him for years, “you mustn’t suppose that our Tita is anything but a hypocrite. All her coldness and affectation of grandeur are only a pretence ; and sometimes if you watch her eyes — and she is not looking at you — you will see something come up to the surface of them as if it were her real heart and soul there, looking out in wonder and softness at some beautiful thing — just like a dabchick, you know, when you are watching among bushes by a river, and are quite still ; and then, if you make the least remark, if you rustle your dress, snap ! down goes the dabchick, and you see nothing, and my lady turns to you quite proudly and coldly — though there may be tears in her eyes — and dares you to think that she has shown any emotion.”

“ That is, when she is listening to your singing,” said the lieutenant, gravely and politely ; and at this moment Bell seemed to become conscious that we were all amused by her vehemence, blushed prodigiously, and was barely civil to our Uhlan for half an hour after.

Nevertheless, she had every reason to be in a good humor ; for we had resolved to limit our travels that day to Twickenham, where, in the evening, Tita was to see her two boys who were at school there. And as the young gentleman of the Temple, who has already been briefly mentioned in this narrative, is a son of the school-master with whom the boys were then living, and as he was to be of the farewell party assembled in Twickenham at night. Bell had no unpleasant prospects before her for that day at least. And of one thing she was probably by that time thoroughly assured ; no flres of jealousy were in danger of being kindled in any sensitive breast by the manner of Count Von Rosen towards her. Of course he was very courteous and obliging to a pretty young woman ; but he talked almost exclusively to my lady ; while, to state the plain truth, he seemed to pay more attention to his luncheon than to both of them together.

Behold, then, our phaeton ready to start ! The pair of pretty bays are pawing the hard stones and pricking their ears at the unaccustomed sounds of Holborn. Sandy is at their head, regarding them rather dolefully, as if he feared to let them slip from his care to undertake so long and perilous a voyage : Queen Titania has arranged that she shall sit behind, to show the young Prussian all the remarkable things on our route; and Bell, as she gets up in front, begs to have the reins given her so soon as we get away from the crowded thoroughfares. There are still a few loiterers on the pavement who had assembled to see the Wendover omnibus leave ; and these regard with a languid sort of curiosity the setting-out of the party in the big dark-green phaeton.