CHAPTER X. SMALL CAUSES

A clock sounded one of the later morning hours of the night as Gower Woodseer stood at his hotel door, having left Fleetwood with a band of revellers. The night was now clear. Stars were low over the ridge of pines, dropped to a league of our strange world to record the doings. Beneath this roof lay the starry She. He was elected to lie beneath it also: and he beheld his heavenly lady floating on the lull of soft white cloud among her sister spheres. After the way of imaginative young men, he had her features more accurately now she was hidden, and he idealized her more. He could escape for a time from his coil of similes and paint for himself the irids of her large, long, grey eyes darkly rimmed; purest water-grey, lucid within the ring, beneath an arch of lashes. He had them fast; but then he fell to contemplating their exceeding rareness; And the mystery of the divinely grey swung a kindled fancy to the flight with some queen-witch of woods, of whom a youth may dream under the spell of twilights, East or West, among forest branches.

She had these marvellous eyes and the glamour for men. She had not yet met a man with the poetical twist in the brain to prize her elementally. All admitted the glamour; none of her courtiers were able to name it, even the poetical head giving it a name did not think of the witch in her looks as a witch in her deeds, a modern daughter of the mediaeval. To her giant squire the eyes of the lady were queer: they were unlit glass lamps to her French suppliant; and to the others, they were attractively uncommon; the charm for them being in her fine outlines, her stature, carriage of her person, and unalterable composure; particularly her latent daring. She had the effect on the general mind of a lofty crag-castle with a history. There was a whiff of gunpowder exciting the atmosphere in the anecdotal part of the history known.

Woodseer sat for a certain time over his note-book. He closed it with a thrilling conceit of the right thing written down; such as entomologists feel when they have pinned the rare insect. But what is butterfly or beetle compared with the chiselled sentences carved out of air to constitute us part owner of the breathing image and spirit of an adored fair woman? We repeat them, and the act of repeating them makes her come close on ours, by virtue of the eagle thought in the stamped gold of the lines.

Then, though she is not ever to be absolutely ours (and it is an impoverishing desire that she should be), we have beaten out the golden sentence—the essential she and we in one. But is it so precious after all? A suspicious ring of an adjective drops us on a sickening descent.

The author dashed at his book, examined, approved, keenly enjoyed, and he murderously scratched the adjective. She stood better without it, as a bright planet star issuing from clouds, which are perhaps an adornment to our hackneyed moon. This done, he restored the book to his coat’s breast-pocket, smiling or sneering at the rolls of bank-notes there, disdaining to count them. They stuffed an inner waistcoat pocket and his trousers also. They at any rate warranted that we can form a calculation of the chances, let Lord Fleetwood rave as he may please.

Woodseer had caught a glimpse of the elbow-point of his coat when flinging it back to the chair. There was distinctly abrasion. Philosophers laugh at such things. But they must be the very ancient pallium philosophers, ensconced in tubs, if they pretend to merriment over the spectacle of nether garments gapped at the spot where man is most vulnerable. He got loose from them and held them up to the candle, and the rays were admitted, neither winking nor peeping. Serviceable old clothes, no doubt. Time had not dealt them the final kick before they scored a good record.

They dragged him, nevertheless, to a sort of confession of some weakness, that he could not analyze for the swirl of emotional thoughts in the way; and they had him to the ground. An eagle of the poetic becomes a mere squat toad through one of these pretty material strokes. Where then is Philosophy? But who can be philosopher and the fervent admirer of a glorious lady? Ask again, who in that frowzy garb can presume to think of her or stand within fifty miles of her orbit?

A dreary two hours brought round daylight. Woodseer quitted his restless bed and entered the abjured habiliments, chivalrous enough to keep from denouncing them until he could cast the bad skin they now were to his uneasy sensations. He remembered having stumbled and fallen on the slope of the hill into this vale, and probably then the mischief had occurred though a brush would have, been sufficient, the slightest collision. Only, it was odd that the accident should have come to pass just previous to his introduction. How long antecedent was it? He belaboured his memory to reckon how long it was from the moment of the fall to the first sight of that lady.

His window looked down on the hotel stable-yard. A coach-house door was open. Odd or not—and it certainly looked like fate—that he should be bowing to his lady so shortly after the mishap expelling him, he had to leave the place. A groom in the yard was hailed, and cheerily informed him he could be driven to Carlsruhe as soon as the coachman had finished his breakfast. At Carlsruhe a decent refitting might be obtained, and he could return from exile that very day, thanks to the praiseworthy early hours of brave old Germany.

He had swallowed a cup of coffee with a roll of stale bread, in the best of moods, and entered his carriage; he was calling the order to start when a shout surprised his ear: ‘The fiddler bolts!’

Captain Abrane’s was the voice. About twenty paces behind, Abrane, Fleetwood, and one whom they called Chummy Potts, were wildly waving arms. Woodseer could hear the captain’s lowered roar: ‘Race you, Chummy, couple of louis, catch him first!’ The two came pelting up to the carriage abreast.

They were belated revellers, and had been carelessly strolling under the pinky cloudlets bedward, after a prolonged carousal with the sons and daughters of hilarious nations, until the apparition of Virgin Luck on the wing shocked all prospect of a dead fight with the tables that day.

‘Here, come, no, by Jove, you, Mr. Woodsir! won’t do, not a bit! can’t let you go,’ cried Abrane, as he puffed. ‘What! cut and run and leave us, post winnings—bankers—knock your luck on the head! What a fellow! Can’t let you. Countess never forgive us. You promised—swore it—play for her. Struck all aheap to hear of your play! You’ve got the trick. Her purse for you in my pocket. Never a fellow played like you. Cool as a cook over a-gridiron! Comme un phare! St. Ombre says—that Frenchman. You astonished the Frenchman! And now cut and run? Can’t allow it. Honour of the country at stake.’

‘Hands off!’ Woodseer bellowed, feeling himself a leaky vessel in dock, his infirmities in danger of exposure. ‘If you pull!—what the deuce do you want? Stop!’

‘Out you come,’ said the giant, and laughed at the fun to his friends, who were entirely harmonious when not violently dissenting, as is the way with Night’s rollickers before their beds have reconciled them to the day-beams.

Woodseer would have had to come and was coming; he happened to say: ‘Don’t knock my pipe out of my mouth,’ and touched a chord in the giant.

‘All—right; smoke your pipe,’ was answered to his remonstrance.

During the amnesty, Fleetwood inquired: ‘Where are you going?’

‘Far a drive,—to be sure. Don’t you see!’

‘You’ll return?’

‘I intend to return.’

‘He’s beastly excited,’ quoth Abrane.

Fleetwood silenced him, though indeed Woodseer appeared suspiciously restive.

‘Step down and have a talk with me before you start. You’re not to go yet.’

‘I must. I’m in a hurry.’

‘What ‘s the hurry?’

‘I want to smoke and think.’

‘Takes a carriage on the top of the morning to smoke and think! Hark at that!’ Abrane sang out. ‘Oh, come along quietly, you fellow, there’s a good fellow! It concerns us all, every man Jack; we’re all bound up in your fortunes. Fellow with luck like yours can’t pretend to behave independently. Out of reason!’

‘Do you give me your word you return?’ said Fleetwood.

Woodseer replied: ‘Very well, I do; there, I give my word. Hang it! now I know what they mean by “anything for a quiet life.” Just a shake brings us down on that cane-bottomed chair!’

‘You return to-day?’

‘To-day, yes, yes.’

Fleetwood signified the captive’s release; and Abrane immediately suggested:

‘Pop old Chummy in beside the fellow to mount guard.’

Potts was hustled and precipitated into the carriage by the pair, with whom he partook this last glimmer of their night’s humorous extravagances, for he was an easy creature. The carriage drove off.

‘Keep him company!’ they shouted.

‘Escort him back!’ said he, nodding.

He remarked to Woodseer: ‘With your permission,’ concerning the seat he took, and that ‘a draught of morning air would do him good.’ Then he laughed politely, exchanged wavy distant farewells with his comrades, touched a breast-pocket for his case of cigars, pulled forth one, obtained ‘the loan of a light,’ blew clouds and fell into the anticipated composure, quite understanding the case and his office.

Both agreed as to the fine morning it was. Woodseer briefly assented to his keeper’s reiterated encomium on the morning, justified on oath. A fine morning, indeed. ‘Damned if I think I ever saw so fine a morning!’ Potts cried. He had no other subject of conversation with this hybrid: and being equally disposed for hot discourse or for sleep, the deprivation of the one and the other forced him to seek amusement in his famous reading of character; which was profound among the biped equine, jockeys, turfmen, sharpers, pugilists, demireps. He fronted Woodseer with square shoulders and wide knees, an elbow on one, a fist on the other, engaged in what he termed the ‘prodding of his eel,’ or ‘nicking of his man,’ a method of getting straight at the riddle of the fellow by the test of how long he could endure a flat mute stare and return look for look unblinking. The act of smoking fortifies and partly covers the insolence. But if by chance an equable, not too narrowly focussed, counterstare is met, our impertinent inquisitor may resemble the fisherman pulled into deep waters by his fish. Woodseer perused his man, he was not attempting to fathom him: he had besides other stuff in his head. Potts had naught, and the poor particle he was wriggled under detection.

‘Tobacco before breakfast!’ he said disgustedly tossing his cigar to the road. ‘Your pipe holds on. Bad thing, I can tell you, that smoking on an empty stomach. No trainer’d allow it, not for a whole fee or double. Kills your wind. Let me ask you, my good sir, are you going to turn? We’ve sat a fairish stretch. I begin to want my bath and a shave, linen and coffee. Thirsty’ as a dog.’

He heard with stupefaction, that he could alight on the spot, if he pleased, otherwise he would be driven into Carlsruhe. And now they had a lingual encounter, hot against cool; but the eyes of Chummy Potts having been beaten, his arguments and reproaches were not backed by the powerful looks which are an essential part of such eloquence as he commanded. They fled from his enemy’s currishly, even while he was launching epithets. His pathetic position subjected him to beg that Woodseer would direct the driver to turn, for he had no knowledge of ‘their German lingo.’ And said he: ‘You’ve nothing to laugh at, that I can see. I’m at your mercy, you brute; caught in a trap. I never walk;—and the sun fit to fry a mackerel along that road! I apologize for abusing you; I can’t do more. You’re an infernally clever player—there! And, upon my soul, I could drink ditchwater! But if you’re going in for transactions at Carlsruhe, mark my words, your luck’s gone. Laugh as much as you like.’

Woodseer happened to be smiling over the excellent reason for not turning back which inflicted the wofulness. He was not without sympathy for a thirsty wretch, and guessing, at the sight of an avenue of limes to the left of the road, that a wayside inn was below, he said: ‘You can have coffee or beer in two minutes,’ and told the driver where to pull up.

The sight of a grey-jacketed, green-collared sportsman, dog at heel, crossing the flat land to the hills of the forest, pricked him enviously, and caused him to ask what change had come upon him, that he should be hurrying to a town for a change of clothes. Just as Potts was about to jump out, a carriage, with a second behind it, left the inn door. He rubbed a hand on his unshaven chin, tried a glance at his shirt-front, and remarking: ‘It won’t be any one who knows me,’ stood to let the carriages pass. In the first were a young lady and a gentleman: the lady brilliantly fair, an effect of auburn hair and complexion, despite the signs of a storm that had swept them and had not cleared from her eyelids. Apparently her maid, a damsel sitting straight up, occupied the carriage following; and this fresh-faced young person twice quickly and bluntly bent her head as she was driven by. Potts was unacquainted with the maid. But he knew the lady well, or well enough for her inattention to be the bigger puzzle. She gazed at the Black Forest hills in the steadiest manner, with eyes betraying more than they saw; which solved part of the puzzle, of course. Her reasons for declining to see him were exposed by the presence of the gentleman beside her. At the same time, in so highly bred a girl, a defenceless exposure was unaccountable. Half a nod and the shade of a smile would have been the proper course; and her going along on the road to the valley seemed to say it might easily have been taken; except that there had evidently been a bit of a scene.

Potts ranked Henrietta’s beauty far above her cousin Livia’s. He was therefore personally offended by her disregard of him, and her bit of a scene with the fellow carrying her off did him injury on behalf of his friend Fleetwood. He dismissed Woodseer curtly. Thirsting more to gossip than to drink, he took a moody draught of beer at the inn, and by the aid of a conveyance, hastily built of rotten planks to serve his needs, and drawn by a horse of the old wars,’ as he reported on his arrival at Baden,—reached that home of the maltreated innocents twenty minutes before the countess and her party were to start for lunch up the Lichtenthal. Naturally, he was abused for letting his bird fly: but as he was shaven, refreshed, and in clean linen, he could pull his shirt-cuffs and take seat at his breakfast-table with equanimity while Abrane denounced him.

‘I’ll bet you the fellow’s luck has gone,’ said Potts. ‘He ‘s no new hand and you don’t think him so either, Fleet. I’ve looked into the fellow’s eye and seen a leery old badger at the bottom of it. Talks vile stuff. However, ‘perhaps I didn’t drive out on that sweltering Carlsruhe road for nothing.’

He screwed a look at the earl, who sent Abrane to carry a message and heard the story Potts had to tell.

‘Henrietta Fakenham! no mistake about her; driving out from a pothouse; man beside her, military man; might be a German. And, if you please, quite unacquainted with your humble servant, though we were as close as you to me. Something went wrong in that pothouse. Red eyes. There had been a scene, one could swear. Behind the lady another carriage, and her maid. Never saw the girl before, and sets to bowing and smirking at me, as if I was the-fellow of all others! Comical. I made sure they were bound for this place. They were on the Strasburg road. No sign of them?’

‘You speak to me?’ said Fleetwood.

Potts muttered. He had put his foot into it.

‘You have a bad habit of speaking to yourself,’ Fleetwood remarked, and left him. He suffered from the rustics he had to deal with among his class, and it was not needed that he should thunder at them to make his wrath felt.

Livia swam in, asking: ‘What has come to Russett? He passed me in one of his black fits.’

The tale of the Carlsruhe road was repeated by Potts. She reproved him. ‘How could you choose Russett for such a report as that! The admiral was on the road behind. Henrietta—you’re sure it was she? German girls have much the same colouring. The gentleman with her must have been one of the Court equerries. They were driving to some chateau or battlefield the admiral wanted to inspect. Good-looking man? Military man?’

‘Oh! the man! pretty fair, I dare say,’ Potts rejoined. ‘If it wasn’t Henrietta Fakenham, I see with the back of my head. German girl! The maid was a German girl.’

‘That may well be,’ said Livia.

She conceived the news to be of sufficient importance for her to countermand the drive up the Lichtenthal, and take the Carlsruhe road instead; for Henrietta was weak, and Chillon Kirby an arch-plotter, and pleader too, one of the desperate lovers. He was outstaying his leave of absence already, she believed; he had to be in England. If he feared to lose Henrietta, he would not hesitate to carry her off. Livia knew him, and knew the power of his pleading with a firmer woman than Henrietta.