The Adventures of Harry Richmond, v3
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George Meredith >> The Adventures of Harry Richmond, v3
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'C'est peut-etre le fils de son petit papa, et c'est tout dire.'
Such was her summary comment.
But not satisfied with that, she leaned out of the carriage, and, making
an extraordinary grimace appear the mother in labour of the difficult
words, said, 'Doos yo' laff?'
There was no helping it: I laughed like a madman, giving one outburst and
a dead stop.
Far from looking displeased, she nodded. I was again put to the dreadful
test.
'Can yo' mak' laff?'
It spurred my wits. I had no speech to 'mak' laff' with. At the very
instant of my dilemma I chanced to see a soberly-clad old townsman
hustled between two helpless women of the crowd, his pipe in his mouth,
and his hat, wig, and handkerchief sliding over his face, showing his
bald crown, and he not daring to cry out, for fear his pipe should be
trodden under foot.
'He can, your Highness.'
Her quick eyes caught the absurd scene. She turned to one of her ladies
and touched her forehead. Her hand was reached out to me; Temple she
patted on the shoulder.
'He can--ja: du auch.'
A grand gentleman rode up. They whispered, gazed at the tent, and
appeared to speak vehemently. All the men's faces were foreign: none of
them had the slightest resemblance to my father's. I fancied I might
detect him disguised. I stared vainly. Temple, to judge by the
expression of his features, was thinking. Yes, thought I, we might as
well be at home at old Riversley, that distant spot! We 're as out of
place here as frogs in the desert!
Riding to and fro, and chattering, and commotion, of which the margravine
was the centre, went on, and the band played beautiful waltzes. The
workmen in and out of the tent were full of their business, like seamen
under a storm.
'Fraulein Sibley,' the margravine called.
I hoped it might be an English name. So it proved to be; and the delight
of hearing English spoken, and, what was more, having English ears to
speak to, was blissful as the leap to daylight out of a nightmare.
'I have the honour to be your countrywoman,' said a lady, English all
over to our struggling senses.
We became immediately attached to her as a pair of shipwrecked boats
lacking provender of every sort are taken in tow by a well-stored vessel.
She knew my father, knew him intimately. I related all I had to tell,
and we learnt that we had made acquaintance with her pupil, the Princess
Ottilia Wilhelmina Frederika Hedwig, only child of the Prince of
Eppenwelzen.
'Your father will certainly be here; he is generally the margravine's
right hand, and it's wonderful the margravine can do without him so
long,' said Miss Sibley, and conversed with the margravine; after which
she informed me that she had been graciously directed to assure me my
father would be on the field when the cannon sounded.
'Perhaps you know nothing of Court life?' she resumed. 'We have very
curious performances in Sarkeld, and we owe it to the margravine that we
are frequently enlivened. You see the tall gentleman who is riding away
from her. I mean the one with the black hussar jacket and thick brown
moustache. That is the prince. Do you not think him handsome? He is
very kind--rather capricious; but that is a way with princes. Indeed, I
have no reason to complain. He has lost his wife, the Princess
Frederika, and depends upon his sister the margravine for amusement. He
has had it since she discovered your papa.'
'Is the gun never going off?' I groaned.
'If they would only conduct their ceremonies without their guns!'
exclaimed Miss Sibley. 'The origin of the present ceremony is this: the
margravine wished to have a statue erected to an ancestor, a renowned
soldier--and I would infinitely prefer talking of England. But never
mind. Oh, you won't understand what you gaze at. Well, the prince did
not care to expend the money. Instead of urging that as the ground of
his refusal, he declared there were no sculptors to do justice to Prince
Albrecht Wohlgemuth, and one could not rely on their effecting a
likeness. We have him in the dining-hall; he was strikingly handsome.
Afterward he pretended--I'm speaking now of the existing Prince Ernest--
that it would be ages before the statue was completed. One day the
margravine induced him to agree to pay the sum stipulated for by the
sculptor, on condition of the statue being completed for public
inspection within eight days of the hour of their agreement. The whole
Court was witness to it. They arranged for the statue, horse and man, to
be exhibited for a quarter of an hour. Of course, the margravine did not
signify it would be a perfectly finished work. We are kept at a great
distance, that we may not scrutinize it too closely. They unveil it to
show she has been as good as her word, and then cover it up to fix the
rider to the horse,--a screw is employed, I imagine. For one thing we
know about it, we know that the horse and the horseman travelled hither
separately. In all probability, the margravine gave the order for the
statue last autumn in Berlin. Now look at the prince. He has his eye on
you. Look down. Now he has forgotten you. He is impatient to behold
the statue. Our chief fear is that the statue will not maintain its
balance. Fortunately, we have plenty of guards to keep the people from
pushing against it. If all turns out well, I shall really say the
margravine has done wonders. She does not look anxious; but then she is
not one ever to show it. The prince does. Every other minute he is
glancing at the tent and at his watch. Can you guess my idea? Your
father's absence leads me to think-oh! only a passing glimmer of an idea
--the statue has not arrived, and he is bringing it on. Otherwise, he
would be sure to be here. The margravine beckons me.'
'Don't go!' we cried simultaneously.
The Princess Ottilia supplied her place.
'I have sent to our stables for two little pretty Hungarian horses for
you two to ride,' she said. 'No, I have not yet seen him. He is asked
for, and de Markgrafin knows not at all. He bades in our lake; he has
been seen since. The man is exciteable; but he is so sensible. Oh, no.
And he is full of laughter. We shall soon see him. Would he not ever be
cautious of himself for a son like you?'
Her compliment raised a blush on me.
The patience of the people was creditable to their phlegm. The smoke of
pipes curling over the numberless heads was the most stirring thing about
them.
Temple observed to me,
'We'll give the old statue a British cheer, won't we, Richie?'
'After coming all the way from England!' said I, in dejection.
'No, no, Richie; you're sure of him now. He 's somewhere directing
affairs, I suspect. I say, do let us show them we can ring out the right
tune upon occasion. By jingo! there goes a fellow with a match.'
We saw the cannonier march up to the margravine's carriage for orders.
She summoned the prince to her side. Ladies in a dozen carriages were
standing up, handkerchief in hand, and the gentlemen got their horses'
heads on a line. Temple counted nearly sixty persons of quality
stationed there. The workmen were trooping out of the tent.
Miss Sibley ran to us, saying,--
'The gun-horror has been commanded. Now then: the prince can scarcely
contain himself. The gunner is ready near his gun; he has his frightful
match lifted. See, the manager-superintendent is receiving the
margravine's last injunctions. How firm women's nerves are! Now the
margravine insists on the prince's reading the exact time by her watch.
Everybody is doing it. Let us see. By my watch it is all but fifteen
minutes to eleven, A.M. Dearest,' she addressed the little princess;
'would you not like to hold my hand until the gun is fired?'
'Dearest,' replied the princess, whether in childish earnest or irony I
could not divine, 'if I would hold a hand it would be a gentleman's.'
All eyes were on the Prince of Eppenwelzen, as he gazed toward the
covered statue. With imposing deliberation his hand rose to his hat. We
saw the hat raised. The cannon was fired and roared; the band struck up
a pompous slow march: and the tent-veil broke apart and rolled off. It
was like the dawn flying and sunrise mounting.
I confess I forgot all thought of my father for awhile; the shouts of the
people, the braying of the brass instruments, the ladies cheering
sweetly, the gentlemen giving short, hearty expressions of applause,
intoxicated me. And the statue was superb-horse and rider in new bronze
polished by sunlight.
'It is life-like! it is really noble! it is a true Prince!' exclaimed
Miss Sibley. She translated several exclamations of the ladies and
gentlemen in German: they were entirely to the same effect. The horse
gave us a gleam of his neck as he pawed a forefoot, just reined in. We
knew him; he was a gallant horse; but it was the figure of the Prince
Albrecht that was so fine. I had always laughed at sculptured figures on
horseback. This one overawed me. The Marshal was acknowledging the
salute of his army after a famous victory over the infidel Turks. He sat
upright, almost imperceptibly but effectively bending his head in harmony
with the curve of his horse's neck, and his baton swept the air low in
proud submission to the honours cast on him by his acclaiming soldiery.
His three-cornered lace hat, curled wig, heavy-trimmed surcoat, and high
boots, reminded me of Prince Eugene. No Prince Eugene--nay, nor
Marlborough, had such a martial figure, such an animated high old
warrior's visage. The bronze features reeked of battle.
Temple and I felt humiliated (without cause, I granted) at the success of
a work of Art that struck us as a new military triumph of these Germans,
and it was impossible not to admire it. The little Princess Ottilia
clapped hands by fits. What words she addressed to me I know not. I
dealt out my stock of German--'Ja, ja--to her English. We were drawn by
her to congratulate the margravine, whose hand was then being kissed by
the prince: he did it most courteously and affectionately. Other
gentlemen, counts and barons, bowed over her hand. Ladies, according to
their rank and privileges, saluted her on the cheek or in some graceful
fashion. When our turn arrived, Miss Sibley translated for us, and as we
were at concert pitch we did not acquit ourselves badly. Temple's remark
was, that he wished she and all her family had been English. Nothing was
left for me to say but that the margravine almost made us wish we had
been German.
Smiling cordially, the margravine spoke, Miss Sibley translated:
'Her Royal Highness asks you if you have seen your father?'
I shook my head.
The Princess Ottilia translated, 'Her Highness, my good aunt, would know,
would you know him, did you see him?'
'Yes, anywhere,' I cried.
The margravine pushed me back with a gesture.
'Yes, your Highness, on my honour; anywhere on earth!'
She declined to hear the translation.
Her insulting disbelief in my ability to recognize the father I had come
so far to embrace would have vexed me but for the wretched thought that I
was losing him again. We threaded the carriages; gazed at the horsemen
in a way to pierce the hair on their faces. The little princess came on
us hurriedly.
'Here, see, are the horses. I will you to mount. Are they not pretty
animals?' She whispered, 'I believe your fater have been hurt in his mind
by something. It is only perhaps. Now mount, for de Markgrafin says you
are our good guests.'
We mounted simply to show that we could mount, for we would rather have
been on foot, and drew up close to the right of the margravine's
carriage.
'Hush! a poet is reading his ode,' said the princess. 'It is Count
Fretzel von Wolfenstein.'
This ode was dreadful to us, and all the Court people pretended they
liked it. When he waved his right hand toward the statue there was a
shout from the rustic set; when he bowed to the margravine, the ladies
and gentlemen murmured agreeably and smiled. We were convinced of its
being downright hypocrisy, rustic stupidity, Court flattery. We would
have argued our case, too. I proposed a gallop; Temple said,
'No, we'll give the old statue our cheer as soon as this awful fellow has
done. I don't care much for poetry, but don't let me ever have to stand
and hear German poetry again for the remainder of my life.'
We could not imagine why they should have poetry read out to them instead
of their fine band playing, but supposed it was for the satisfaction of
the margravine, with whom I grew particularly annoyed on hearing Miss
Sibley say she conceived her Highness to mean that my father was actually
on the ground, and that we neither of us, father and son, knew one
another. I swore on my honour, on my life, he was not present; and the
melancholy in my heart taking the form of extreme irritation, I spoke
passionately. I rose in my stirrups, ready to shout, 'Father! here's
Harry Richmond come to see you. Where are you!' I did utter something--
a syllable or two: 'Make haste!' I think the words were. They sprang
from my inmost bosom, addressed without forethought to that drawling
mouthing poet. The margravine's face met mine like a challenge. She had
her lips tight in a mere lip-smile, and her eyes gleamed with
provocation.
'Her Highness,' Miss Sibley translated, 'asks whether you are prepared to
bet that your father is not on the ground?'
'Beg her to wait two minutes, and I'll be prepared to bet any sum,'
said I.
Temple took one half the circle, I the other, riding through the
attentive horsemen and carriage-lines, and making sure the face we sought
was absent, more or less discomposing everybody. The poet finished his
ode; he was cheered, of course. Mightily relieved, I beheld the band
resuming their instruments, for the cheering resembled a senseless
beating on brass shields. I felt that we English could do it better.
Temple from across the sector of the circle, running about two feet in
front of the statue, called aloud,
'Richie! he's not here!'
'Not here!' cried I.
The people gazed up at us, wondering at the tongue we talked.
'Richie! now let 's lead these fellows off with a tiptop cheer!'
Little Temple crowed lustily.
The head of the statue turned from Temple to me.
I found the people falling back with amazed exclamations. I--so
prepossessed was I--simply stared at the sudden-flashing white of the
statue's eyes. The eyes, from being an instant ago dull carved balls,
were animated. They were fixed on me. I was unable to give out a
breath. Its chest heaved; both bronze hands struck against the bosom.
'Richmond! my son! Richie! Harry Richmond! Richmond Roy!'
That was what the statue gave forth.
My head was like a ringing pan. I knew it was my father, but my father
with death and strangeness, earth, metal, about him; and his voice was
like a human cry contending with earth and metal-mine was stifled. I saw
him descend. I dismounted. We met at the ropes and embraced. All his
figure was stiff, smooth, cold. My arms slid on him. Each time he spoke
I thought it an unnatural thing: I myself had not spoken once.
After glancing by hazard at the empty saddle of the bronze horse, I
called to mind more clearly the appalling circumstance which had
stupefied the whole crowd. They had heard a statue speak--had seen a
figure of bronze walk. For them it was the ancestor of their prince; it
was the famous dead old warrior of a hundred and seventy years ago set
thus in motion. Imagine the behaviour of people round a slain tiger that
does not compel them to fly, and may yet stretch out a dreadful paw!
Much so they pressed for a nearer sight of its walnut visage, and shrank
in the act. Perhaps I shared some of their sensations. I cannot tell:
my sensations were tranced. There was no warmth to revive me in the
gauntlet I clasped. I looked up at the sky, thinking that it had fallen
dark.
CHAPTER XVII
MY FATHER BREATHES, MOVES, AND SPEAKS
The people broke away from us like furrowed water as we advanced on each
side of the ropes toward the margravine's carriage.
I became a perfectly mechanical creature: incapable, of observing, just
capable of taking an impression here and there; and in such cases the
impressions that come are stamped on hot wax; they keep the scene fresh;
they partly pervert it as well. Temple's version is, I am sure, the
truer historical picture. He, however, could never repeat it twice
exactly alike, whereas I failed not to render image for image in clear
succession as they had struck me at the time. I could perceive that the
figure of the Prince Albrecht, in its stiff condition, was debarred from
vaulting, or striding, or stooping, so that the ropes were a barrier
between us. I saw the little Princess Ottilia eyeing us with an absorbed
comprehensive air quite unlike the manner of a child. Dots of heads,
curious faces, peering and starting eyes, met my vision. I heard sharp
talk in German, and a rider flung his arm, as if he wished to crash the
universe, and flew off. The margravine seemed to me more an implacable
parrot than a noble lady. I thought to myself: This is my father, and I
am not overjoyed or grateful. In the same way, I felt that the daylight
was bronze, and I did not wonder at it: nay, I reasoned on the
probability of a composition of sun and mould producing that colour.
The truth was, the powers of my heart and will were frozen; I thought
and felt at random. And I crave excuses for dwelling on such trifling
phenomena of the sensations, which have been useful to me by helping me
to realize the scene, even as at the time they obscured it.
According to Temple's description, when the statue moved its head toward
him, a shudder went through the crowd, and a number of forefingers were
levelled at it, and the head moved toward me, marked of them all. Its
voice was answered by a dull puling scream from women, and the men gaped.
When it descended from the saddle, the act was not performed with one
bound, as I fancied, but difficultly; and it walked up to me like a
figure dragging logs at its heels. Half-a-dozen workmen ran to arrest
it; some townswomen fainted. There was a heavy altercation in German
between the statue and the superintendent of the arrangements. The sun
shone brilliantly on our march to the line of carriages where the Prince
of Eppenwelzen was talking to the margravine in a fury, and he dashed
away on his horse, after bellowing certain directions to his foresters
and the workmen, by whom we were surrounded; while the margravine talked
loudly and amiably, as though everything had gone well. Her watch was
out. She acknowledged my father's bow, and overlooked him. She seemed
to have made her courtiers smile. The ladies and gentlemen obeyed the
wave of her hand by quitting the ground; the band headed a long line of
the commoner sort, and a body of foresters gathered the remnants and
joined them to the rear of the procession. A liveried groom led away
Temple's horse and mine. Temple declared he could not sit after seeing
the statue descend from its pedestal.
Her Highness's behaviour roughened as soon as the place was clear of
company. She spoke at my father impetuously, with manifest scorn and
reproach, struck her silver-mounted stick on the carriage panels, again
and again stamped her foot, lifting a most variable emphatic countenance.
Princess Ottilia tried to intercede. The margravine clenched her hands,
and, to one not understanding her speech, appeared literally to blow the
little lady off with the breath of her mouth. Her whole bearing
consisted of volleys of abuse, closed by magisterial interrogations.
Temple compared her Highness's language to the running out of Captain
Welsh's chaincable, and my father's replies to the hauling in: his
sentences were short, they sounded like manful protestations; I barely
noticed them. Temple's version of it went: 'And there was your father
apologizing, and the margravine rating him,' etc. My father, as it
happened, was careful not to open his lips wide on account of the
plaster, or thick coating of paint on his face. No one would have
supposed that he was burning with indignation; the fact being, that to
give vent to it, he would have had to exercise his muscular strength; he
was plastered and painted from head to foot. The fixture of his wig and
hat, too, constrained his skin, so that his looks were no index of his
feelings. I longed gloomily for the moment to come when he would present
himself to me in his natural form. He was not sensible of the touch of
my hand, nor I of his. There we had to stand until the voluble portion
of the margravine's anger came to an end. She shut her eyes and bowed
curtly to our salute.
'You have seen the last of me, madam,' my father said to her whirling
carriage-wheels.
He tried to shake, and strained in his ponderous garments. Temple gazed
abashed. I knew not how to act. My father kept lifting his knees on the
spot as if practising a walk.
The tent was in its old place covering the bronze horse. A workman
stepped ahead of us, and we all went at a strange leisurely pace down the
hill through tall pinetrees to where a closed vehicle awaited us. Here
were also a couple of lackeys, who deposited my father on a bed of moss,
and with much effort pulled his huge boots off, leaving him in red silk
stockings. Temple and I snatched his gauntlets; Temple fell backward,
but we had no thought of laughter; people were seen approaching, and the
three of us jumped into the carriage. I had my father's living hand in
mine to squeeze; feeling him scarcely yet the living man I had sought,
and with no great warmth of feeling. His hand was very moist. Often I
said, 'Dear father!--Papa, I'm so glad at last,' in answer to his short-
breathed 'Richie, my little lad, my son Richmond! You found me out; you
found me!' We were conscious that his thick case of varnished clothing
was against us. One would have fancied from his way of speaking that he
suffered from asthma. I was now gifted with a tenfold power of
observation, and let nothing escape me.
Temple, sitting opposite, grinned cheerfully at times to encourage our
spirits; he had not recovered from his wonderment, nor had I introduced
him. My father, however, had caught his name. Temple (who might as well
have talked, I thought) was perpetually stealing secret glances of
abstracted perusal at him with a pair of round infant's eyes, sucking his
reflections the while. My father broke our silence.
'Mr. Temple, I have the honour,' he said, as if about to cough; 'the
honour of making your acquaintance; I fear you must surrender the hope of
making mine at present.'
Temple started and reddened like a little fellow detected in straying
from his spelling-book, which was the window-frame. In a minute or so
the fascination proved too strong for him; his eyes wandered from the
window and he renewed his shy inspection bit by bit as if casting up a
column of figures.
'Yes, Mr. Temple, we are in high Germany,' said my father.
It must have cost Temple cruel pain, for he was a thoroughly gentlemanly
boy, and he could not resist it. Finally he surprised himself in his
stealthy reckoning: arrived at the full-breech or buttoned waistband,
about half-way up his ascent from the red silk stocking, he would pause
and blink rapidly, sometimes jump and cough.
To put him at his ease, my father exclaimed, 'As to this exterior,' he
knocked his knuckles on the heaving hard surface, 'I can only affirm that
it was, on horseback--ahem! particularly as the horse betrayed no
restivity, pronounced perfect! The sole complaint of our interior
concerns the resemblance we bear to a lobster. Human somewhere, I do
believe myself to be. I shall have to be relieved of my shell before I
can at all satisfactorily proclaim the fact. I am a human being, believe
me.'
He begged permission to take breath a minute.
'I know you for my son's friend, Mr. Temple: here is my son, my boy,
Harry Lepel Richmond Roy. Have patience: I shall presently stand
unshelled. I have much to relate; you likewise have your narrative in
store. That you should have lit on me at the critical instant is one of
those miracles which combine to produce overwhelming testimony--ay,
Richie! without a doubt there is a hand directing our destiny.' His
speaking in such a strain, out of pure kindness to Temple, huskily, with
his painful attempt to talk like himself, revived his image as the father
of my heart and dreams, and stirred my torpid affection, though it was
still torpid enough, as may be imagined, when I state that I remained
plunged in contemplation of his stocking of red silk emerging from the
full bronzed breech, considering whether his comparison of himself to a
shell-fish might not be a really just one. We neither of us regained our
true natures until he was free of every vestige of the garb of Prince
Albrecht Wohlgemuth. Attendants were awaiting him at the garden-gate of
a beautiful villa partly girdled by rising fir-woods on its footing of
bright green meadow. They led him away, and us to bath-rooms.
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