Luttrell Of Arran

CHAPTER XXVI. THE DINNER IN THE SCHOOLROOM

Sir Within could not persuade Mademoiselle to accept his invitation for herself and her pupils to dinner, and was about to take his leave, when Ada suddenly said, “Why not dine with us, Sir Within?”

“Fi! donc, Mademoiselle!” broke in the governess. “How could you think of such a thing? Sir Within Wardle sit down to a schoolroom dinner!”

“But why need it be a schoolroom dinner, Mademoiselle Heinzleman? Why not tell cook that we mean to have company to-day, and make Bickards wait on us, and tell George to wear his gloves, just as if papa were at home?”

“Oh” broke in Sir Within, “I have seen quite enough – more than enough – of all that, dear Ada; but if I could be permitted to join your own little daily dinner of the schoolroom, as you call it, that would really be a treat to me.”

“I invite you, then!” said Ada. “Mademoiselle owes me a favour for that wonderful German theme I wrote, and I take this as my reward. We dine at three, Sir Within, and, I warn you, on mutton-broth and mutton something else; but Kate and I will make ourselves as fine as we may, and be as entertaining as possible.”

While the two girls scampered off, laughing merrily at the discomfiture of the governess, that respectable lady remained to offer profuse apologies to Sir Within for the liberty, childish though it was, that had been taken with him, and to excuse herself from any imputation of participating in it.

She little knew, indeed, with what honest sincerity he had accepted the proposal. Of the great game of life, as played by fine people, he had seen it to satiety. He was thoroughly wearied of all the pleasures of the table, as he was of all the captivations which witty conveners and clever talkers can throw over society. Perhaps, from his personal experience, he knew how artificial such displays are – how studied the à propos, how carefully in ambush the impromptu – and that he longed for the hearty, healthful enjoyment of young, fresh, joyous natures, just as one might turn from the oppressive odours of a perfumer’s shop to taste with ecstasy the fresh flowers of a garden. It was, therefore, as he expressed it to the governess, a perfect fête to him to assist at that little dinner, and he was deeply honoured by the invitation.

Mademoiselle was charmed with the old Baronet’s politeness. It was ceremonious enough even for Germany, he smiled so blandly and bowed so reverently, and often it was like a memory of the Fatherland just to listen to him; and, indeed, it was reassuring to her to hear from him that he had once been a Minister at the Court of a Herzog, and had acquired his “moden” in this true and legitimate fashion. And thus did they discuss for hours “aesthetic,” and idealism, and sympathy, mysterious affinity, impulsive destiny, together with all the realisms which the Butter-brod life of Germany can bring together, so that when she arose to dress for dinner, she could not help muttering to herself, as she went, that he was “a deeply skilled in the human heart-and-far acquainted with the mind’s operations – but not the less on that account a fresh-with-a-youthful sincerity-endowed man.”

The dinner, though not served in the schoolroom, was just as simple as Ada promised, and she laughingly asked Sir Within if he preferred his beer frothed or still, such being the only choice of liquor afforded him.

“Mademoiselle is shocked at the way we treat you,” said she, laughing, “but I have told her that your condescension would be ill repaid if we made any attempt to lessen its cost, and it must be a ‘rice-pudding day’ in your life.”

And how charmingly they talked, these two girls! Ada doing the honours as a hostess, and Kate, as the favoured friend, who aided her to entertain an honoured guest. They told him, too, how the fresh bouquet that decked the table had been made by themselves to mark the sense they had of his presence, and that the coffee had been prepared by their own hands.

“Now, do say, Sir Within, that dining with Royal Highnesses and Supreme Somethings is but a second-rate pleasure compared to an Irish stew in a schoolroom, and a chat round a fire that has been lighted with Bonnycastle’s Algebra. Yes, Mademoiselle,” Kate said, “I had to make light of simple equations for once! I was thinking of that story of the merchant, who lighted his fire with the King’s bond when his Majesty deigned to dine with him. I puzzled my head to remember which of our books lay nearest our heart, and I hesitated long between Ollendorff and Bonnycastle.”

“And what decided you?” asked Sir Within.

“What so often decides a doubt – convenience. Bonnycastle had the worst binding, and was easier to burn.”

“If you so burn to study algebra, Mademoiselle,” said the governess, who had misunderstood the whole conversation, “you must first show yourself more ‘eifrig’ – how you call zeal? – for your arithmetic.”

“You shall have full liberty, when you pay me a visit, to burn all the volumes on such subjects you find,” said Sir Within.

“Oh, I’d go through the whole library,” cried Kate, eagerly, “if I could only find one such as Garret O’Moore did.”

“I never heard of his fortune.”

“Nor I. Do tell it, Kate.”

“Mademoiselle has forbidden all my legends,” said she, calmly.

“I’m sure,” said Sir Within, “she will recal the injunction for this time.”

“It is very short,” said Kate; and then with infinite archness, turning to the governess, added, “and it has a moral.”

The governess nodded a grave permission, and the other began:

“There was once on a time a great family in the west of Ireland called the O’Moores, who, by years of extravagance, spent everything they had in the world, leaving the last of the name, a young man, so utterly destitute, that he had scarcely food to eat, and not a servant to wait on him. He lived in a lonely old house, of which the furniture had been sold off, bit by bit, and nothing remained but a library of old books, which the neighbours did not care for.”

“Algebras and Ollendorff’s, I suppose,” whispered Sir Within; and she smiled and went on:

“In despair at not finding a purchaser, and pinched by the cold of the long winter’s nights, he used to bring an armful of them every night into his room to make his fire. He had not, naturally, much taste for books or learning, but it grieved him sorely to do this; he felt it like a sort of sacrilege, but he felt the piercing cold more, and so he gave in. Well, one night, as he brought in his store, and was turning over the leaves – which he always did before setting fire to them – he came upon a little square volume, with the strangest letters ever he saw; they looked like letters upside down, and gone mad, and some of them were red, and some black, and some golden, and between every page of print there was a sheet of white paper without anything on it. O’Moore examined it well, and at last concluded it must have been some old monkish chronicle, and that the blank pages were left for commentaries on it. At all events, it could have no interest for him, as he couldn’t read it, and so he put it down on the hearth till he wanted it to burn.

“It was close on midnight, and nothing but a few dying embers were on the hearth, and no other light in the dreary room, when he took up the old chronicle, and tearing it in two, threw one half on the fire.

The moment he did so the flame sprang up bright as silver, lighting up the whole room, so that he could see even the old cobwebs on the ceiling, that had not been seen for yean and years, and at the same time a delicious music filled the air, and the sounds of children’s voices singing beautifully; but, strangest of all, in the very middle of the bright fire that now filled the whole hearth, there sat a little man with a scarlet cloak on him, and a scarlet hat and a white feather in it, and he smiled very graciously at O’Moore, and beckoned him over to him, but O’Moore was so frightened and so overcome he couldn’t stir. At last, as the flames got lower, the Tittle man’s gestures grew more energetic, and O’ Moore crept down on his knees, and said, “‘Do you want anything with me, Sir?’”

“‘Yes, Garret,’ said the little man,: ‘I want to be your friend, and to save you from ruin like the rest of your family. You were wrong to burn that book.’

“‘But I couldn’t read it,’ said Garret; ‘what use was it to me?’

“‘It was your own life, Garret O’Moore,’ said the little man, ‘and take care that you keep the part you have there, and study it carefully. It would have been, better for you if you had kept the whole of it.’

“And with that the flame sprang brightly up for a second or two, and then went black out, so that O’Moore had to grope about to find tinder to strike a light. He lit the only bit of candle he had, and began to examine the part of the book that remained, and what did he find but on every blank page there was a line – sometimes two – written as if to explain the substance of the printed page, and all in such a way as to show it was somebody’s life, and adventures – as, for instance: ‘Takes to the sea – goes to America – joins an expedition to the Far West – on the plantations – marries – wife dies – off to China – marries again.’ I needn’t go on: everything that was ever to happen to him was written there till he was forty-five years of age, the rest was burned; but it was all fortunate – all, to the very end. He grew to be very rich, and prospered in everything, for whenever he was faint-hearted or depressed, he always said, ‘It wasn’t by being low and weak of heart that I begun this career of good fortune, and I must be stout and of high courage if I mean to go on with it.’ And he grew so rich that he bought back all the old acres of the O’Moores, and they have a hand rescuing a book from the flames on their arms till this day.”

“And the moral? – where’s the moral?” asked the governess.

“The moral, the moral!” said Kate, dubiously. “Well, I’m not exactly sure where it is, but I suppose it is this; that it’s far better to go to sea as a sailor than to sit down and burn your father’s library.”

“I have a notion, my dear Kate, that you yourself would like well to have a peep into destiny – am I wrong?”

“I would, Sir.”

“And you, Ada?”

“Why should she?” broke in Kate, eagerly; and then, as though shocked at her impetuosity, she went on, in a lower voice: “Ada makes her voyage in a three-decker, I am only clinging to a plank.”

“No, no, dearest,” said Ada, tenderly; “don’t say that.”

“Mademoiselle is looking at her watch,” said Sir Within, “and I must accept the signal.” And though she protested, elaborately too, that it was a mere habit with her, he arose to ring for his carriage. “I am not going without the sketch you promised me, Ada,” said he – “the pencil sketch of the old fountain.”

“Oh, Kate’s is infinitely better. I am ashamed to see mine after it.”

“Why not let me have both?”

“Yes,” said the governess, “that will be best. I’ll go and fetch them.”

Ada stood for a moment irresolute, and then muttering, “Mine is really too bad,” hastened out of the room after Mademoiselle Heinzle-man.

“You are less merry than usual, Kate,” said Sir Within, as he took her hand and looked at her with interest. “What is the reason?”

A faint, scarce perceptible motion of her brow was all she made in answer.

“Have you not been well?”

“Yes, Sir. I am quite well.”

“Have you had news that has distressed you?”

“Where from?” asked she, hurriedly.

“From your friends – from home.”

“Don’t you know, Sir, that I have neither!”

“I meant, my dear child – I meant to say, that perhaps you had heard or learned something that gave you pain.”

“Yes, Sir,” broke she in, “that is it. Oh, if I could tell you – ”

“Why not write it to me, dear child?”

“My writing is coarse and large, and I misspell words; and, besides, it is such a slow way to tell what one’s heart is full of – and then I’d do it so badly,” faltered she out with pain.

“Suppose, then, I were to settle some early day for you all to come over to Dalradern; you could surely find a moment to tell me then?”

“Yes, Sir – yes,” cried she; and, seizing his hand, she kissed it passionately three or four times.

“Here they are,” said Ada, merrily – “here they are! And if Kate’s does ample justice to your beautiful fountain, mine has the merit of showing how ugly it might have been. Isn’t this hideous?”

After a few little pleasant common-places, Sir Within turned to Mademoiselle Heinzleman, and said: “I have rather an interesting book at Dalradern; at least, it would certainly have its interest for you, Mademoiselle. It is a copy of ‘Clavigo,’ with Herder’s marginal suggestions. Goethe had sent it to him for his opinion, and Herder returned it marked and annotated. You will do me an infinite favour to accept it.”

“Ach Gott!” said the governess, perfectly overwhelmed with the thought of such a treasure.

“Well, then, if the weather be fine on Tuesday, Mademoiselle, will you and my young friends here come over and dine with me? We shall say three o’clock for dinner, so that you need not be late on the road. My carriage will be here to fetch you at any hour you appoint.”

A joyous burst of delight from Ada, and a glance of intense gratitude from Kate, accompanied the more formal acceptance of the governess; and if Sir Within had but heard one tithe of the flattering things that were said of him, as he drove away, even his heart, seared as it was, would have been touched.

Kate, indeed, said least; but when Ada, turning abruptly to her, asked, “Don’t you love him?” a slight colour tinged her cheek, as she said, “I think he’s very kind, and very generous, and very – ”

“Go on, dear – go on,” cried Ada, throwing her arm around her – “finish; and very what?”

“I was going to say an impertinence,” whispered she, “and I’ll not.”

“Nine o’clock, young ladies, and still in the drawing-room!” exclaimed the governess, in a tone of reproach. “These are habits of dissipation, indeed – come away. Ach Gott! der Clavigo!” muttered she, with clasped hands. And the girls were hardly able to restrain a burst of laughter at the fervour of her voice and manner.

CHAPTER XXVII. KITTY

The wished-for Tuesday came at last, and with a fortune not always so favouring, brought with it a glorious morning, one of those bright, sharp, clear days, with a deep blue sky and frosty air, and with that sense of elasticity in the atmosphere which imparts itself to the spirits, and makes mere existence enjoyment. The girls were in ecstasy; they had set their hearts so much on this visit, that they would not let themselves trust to the signs of the weather on the night before, but were constantly running out to ask George the gardener, if that circle round the moon meant anything? – why were the stars so blue? – and why did they twinkle so much? – and was it a sign of fine weather that the river should be heard so clearly? Rickards, too, was importuned to consult the barometer, and impart his experiences of what might be expected from its indications. The gardener augured favourably, was pronounced intelligent, and tipped by Ada in secret. Rickards shook his head at the aspect of the mercury, and was called a “conceited old ass” for his pains. Not either of them treated with different measure than is meted by the public to those great organs of information which are supposed to be their guides, but are just as often their flatterers, for the little world of the family is marvellously like the great world of the nation.