University of Virginia Library

GETTING TO WINDWARD.

1. CHAPTER I.

London is an abominable place to dine in. I mean, of course,
unless you are free of a club, invited out, or pay a ridiculous
price for a French dinner. The unknown stranger, adrift on the
streets, with a traveller's notions of the worth of things to eat, is
much worse off, as to his venture for a meal, than he would be in
the worst town of the worst province of France—much worse off
than he would be in New York or New Orleans. There is a
“Very's,” it is true, and there are one or two restaurants, so
called, in the Haymarket; but it is true, notwithstanding, that
short of a two-guinca dinner at the Clarendon, or some hotel of
this class, the next best thing is a simple pointed steak, with potatoes,
at a chop-house. The admirable club-system (admirable
for club-members) has absorbed all the intermediate degrees of
eating-houses, and the traveller's chance and solitary meal must
be either absurdly expensive, or dismally furnished and attended.

The only real liberty one ever enjoys in a metropolis is the
interval (longer or shorter, as one is more or less a philosopher)
between his arrival and the delivery of his letters of introduction.

While perfectly unknown, dreading no rencontre of acquaintances,
subject to no care of dress, equipage, or demeanor, the stranger
feels, what he never feels afterward, a complete abandon to what
immediately surrounds him, a complete willingness to be amused
in any shape which chance pleases to offer, and, his desponding
loneliness serving him like the dark depths of a well, he sees lights
invisible from the higher level of amusement.

Tired of my solitary meals in the parlor of a hotel during my
first week in London, I made the round of such dining-places as I
could inquire out at the West End—of course, from the reserved
habits of the country toward strangers, making no acquaintances,
and scarce once exchanging a glance with the scores who sat at the
tables around me. Observation was my only amusement, and I
felt afterward indebted to those silent studies of character for
more acquaintance with the under-crust of John Bull, than can
be gathered from books or closer intercourse. It is foreign to
my present purpose, however, to tell why his pride should seem
want of curiosity, and why his caution and delicacy should show
like insensibility and coldness. I am straying from my story.

The covered promenade of the Burlington Arcade is, on rainy
days, a great allure for a small chop-house hard by, called “The
Blue Posts.” This is a snug little tavern, with the rear of its
two stories cut into a single dining-room, where chops, steaks, ale,
and punch, may be had in unusual perfection. It is frequented
ordinarily by a class of men peculiar, I should think, to England—
taciturn, methodical in their habits, and highly respectable in
their appearance—men who seem to have no amusements and no
circle of friends, but who come in at six and sit over their punch
and the newspapers till bed-time, without speaking a syllable,
except to the waiter, and apparently turning a cold shoulder of

discouragement to any one in the room who may be disposed to
offer a passing remark. They hang their hats daily on the same
peg, daily sit at the same table (where the chair is turned down
for them by Villiam, the short waiter), daily drink a small pitcher
of punch after their half-pint of sherry, and daily read, from
beginning to end, the Herald, Post, and Times, with the variation
of the Athenæum and Spectator, on Saturdays and Sundays. I
at first hazarded various conjectures as to their condition in life.
They were evidently unmarried, and men of easy, though limited
means—men of no great care, and no high hopes, and in a fixed
station; yet of that degree of intelligence and firm self-respect
which, in other countries (the United States, certainly, at least),
would have made them sought for in some more social and higher
sphere than that with which they seemed content. I afterwards
obtained something of a clue to the mystery of the “Blue Posts”
society, by discovering two of the most respectable looking of its
customers in the exercise of their daily vocations. One man, of
fine phrenological development, rather bald, and altogether very
intellectual in his “os sublime,” I met at the rooms of a fashionable
friend, taking his measure for pantaloons. He was the foreman
of a celebrated Bond-street tailor. The other was the head-shopman
of a famous haberdasher in Regent street; and either
might have passed for Godwin the novelist, or Babbidge the calculator—with
those who had seen those great intellects only in
their imaginations. It is only in England, that men who, like
these, have read or educated themselves far above their situations
in life, would quietly submit to the arbitrary disqualifications of
their pursuits, and agree unresistingly to the sentence of exile
from the society suited to their mental grade. But here again I
am getting away from my story.

It was the close of a London rainy day. Weary of pacing my
solitary room, I sallied out as usual, to the Burlington Arcade
(I say as usual, for in a metropolis where it rains nine days out of
ten, rainy-weather resorts become habitual.) The little shops on
either side were brightly lit, the rain pattered on the glass roof
overhead, and, to one who had not a single acquaintance in so vast
a city, even the passing of the crowd and the glittering of lights
seemed a kind of society. I began to speculate on the characters
of those who passed and repassed me in the turns of the short
gallery; and the dinner-hours coming round, and the men
gradually thinning off from the crowd, I adjourned to the Blue
Posts with very much the feeling of a reader interrupted in the
progress of a novel. One of the faces that had most interested
me was that of a foreigner, who, with a very dejected air, leaned
on the arm of an older man, and seemed promenading to kill
time, without any hope of killing his ennui. On seating myself
at one of the small tables, I was agreeably surprised to find the
two foreigners my close neighbors, and, in the national silence of
the company present, broken only by the clatter of knives and
forks, it was impossible to avoid overhearing every word spoken
by either. After a look at me, as if to satisfy themselves that I,
too, was a John Bull, they went on with their conversation in
French, which, so long as it was confined to topics of drink and
platter, weather and news, I did not care to interrupt. But, with
their progress through a second pint of sherry, personal topics
came up, and as they seemed to be conversing with an impression
that their language was not understood, I felt obliged to remind
them that I was overhearing unwillingly what they probably
meant for a private conversation. With a frankness which I
scarcely expected, they at once requested me to transfer my glass

to their table, and, calling for a pitcher of punch, they extended
their confidence by explaining to me the grounds of the remarks
I had heard, and continuing to converse freely on the subject.
Through this means, and a subsequent most agreeable acquaintance,
I possessed myself of the circumstances of the following
story; and having thus shown the reader (rather digressively, I
must own) how I came by it, I proceed in the third person,
trusting that my narration will not now seem like the “coinage
of the brain.”

The two gentlemen dining at the Blue Posts on the rainy day
just mentioned, were Frenchmen, and political exiles. With the
fortunes of the younger, this story has chiefly to do. He was a
man past the sentimental age, perhaps nearer thirty-seven than
thirty-five, less handsome than distinguished in his appearance,
yet with one of those variable faces which are handsome for single
instants once in a half hour, more or less. His companion called
him Belaccueil.

“I could come down to my circumstances,” he said to Monsicur
St. Leger, his friend, “if I knew how. It is not courage
that is wanting. I would do anything for a livelihood. But
what is the first step? What is the next step from this? This
last dinner—this last night's lodging—I am at the end of my
means; and unless I accept of charity from you, which I will not,
to-morrow must begin my descent. Where to put my foot?”

He stopped and looked down into his glass, with the air of a
man who only expects an answer to refute its reasoning.

“My dear Belaccueil,” said the other, after a moment's hesitation,
“you were famous in your better days for almost universal
accomplishment. Mimic, dancer, musician, cook—what was
there in our merry carnival-time, to which you did not descend

with success for mere amusement? Why not now for that
independence of livelihood to which you adhere so pertinaciously?”

“You will be amused to find,” he answered, “how well I
have sounded the depths of every one of these resources. The
French theatre of London has refused me point-blank, all engagement,
spite of the most humiliating exhibitions of my powers of
mimicry before the stage-manager and a fifth-rate actress. I am
not musician enough for a professor, though very well for an
amateur, and have advertised in vain for employment as a teacher
of music, and—what was your other vocation!—cook! Oh no!
I have just science enough to mend a bad dinner and spoil a good
one, though I declare to you, I would willingly don the white cap
and apron and dive for life to the basement. No, my friend, I
have even offered myself as assistant dancing-master, and failed!
Is not that enough? If it is not, let me tell you that I would
sweep the crossings, if my appearance would not excite curiosity,
or turn dustman, if I were strong enough for the labor. Come
down! Show me how to come down, and see whether I am not
prepared to do it. But you do not know the difficulty of earning
a penny in London. Do you suppose, with all the influence and
accomplishments I possess, I could get the place of this scrubby
waiter who brings us our cigars? No, indeed! His situation is
a perfect castle—impregnable to those below him. There are
hundreds of poor wretches within a mile of us who would think
themselves in Paradise to get his situation. How easy it is for
the rich to say, `go and work!' and how difficult to know how
and where!”

Belaccueil looked at his friend as if he felt that he had justified
his own despair, and expected no comfort.

“Why not try matrimony?” said St. Leger. “I can provide
you the means for a six months' siege, and you have better
qualification for success than nine-tenths of the adventurers who
have succeeded.”

“Why—I could do even that—for, with all hope of prosperity,
I have of course given up all idea of a romantic love. But I
could not practise deceit, and, without pretending to some little
fortune of my own, the chances are small. Besides, you remember
my ill luck at Naples.”

“Ah, that was a love affair, and you were too honest.”

“Not for the girl, God bless her! She would have married
me, penniless as I was, but through the interference of that
officious and purse-proud Englishman, her friends put me hors de
combat.”

“What was his name? Was he a relative?”

“A mere chance acquaintance of their own, but he entered at
once upon the office of family adviser. He was rich, and he had
it in his power to call me an “adventurer.” I did not discover his
interference till some time after, or he would perhaps have paid
dearly for his nomenclature.”

“Who did you say it was?”

“Hitchings! Mr. Plantagenet Hitchings, of Hitchings Park,
Devonshire—and the one point, to which I cling, of a gentleman's
privileges, is that of calling him to account, should I ever meet
him.”

St. Leger smiled and sat thoughtfully silent for a while.
Belaccueil pulled apart the stems of a bunch of grapes on his
plate, and was silent with a very different expression.

“You are willing,” said the former, at last, “to teach music
and dancing, for a proper compensation?”

“Parbleu! Yes!”

“And if you could unite this mode of support with a very
pretty revenge upon Mr. Plantagenet Hitchings (with whom, by
the way, I am very well acquainted), you would not object to the
two-fold thread in your destiny?”

“They would be threads of gold, mon ami!” said the surprised
Belaccueil.

St. Leger called for pen, ink, and paper, and wrote a letter at
the Blue Posts, which the reader will follow to its destination, as
the next step in this story.

2. CHAPTER II.

A green angel (I mean an angel ignorant of the world) would
probably suppose that the feeding of these animal bodies of ours,
if not done in secret, must at least be the one act of human life
separated entirely from the more heavenly emotions. Yet the
dinner is a meal dear to lovers; and novelists and tale-tellers
choose the moments stolen from fork and plate for the birth and
interchange of the most delicious and tender sentiments of our
existence. Miss Hitchings, while unconsciously shocking Monsieur
Sansou by tilting her soup-plate for the last spoonful of vermicelli,
was controlling the beating of a heart full of feminine and
delicate tenderness; and, as the tutor was careful never to direct
his regards to the other end of the table (for reasons of his own),
Miss Henrietta laid the unction to her soul that such indifference
to the prettiest girl who had ever honored them as a guest,
proved the strength of her own magnet, and put her more at ease

on the subject of Monsieur Sansou's admiration. He, indeed, was
committing the common fault of men whose manners are naturally
agreeable—playing that passive and grateful game of courtesy
and attention so easy to the object of regard, and so delightful
to woman, who is never so blest as in bestowing. Besides, he
had an object in suppressing his voice to the lowest audible pitch,
and the rich and deep tone, sunk only to escape the ear of
another, sounded, to the watchful and desiring sense of her to
whom it was addressed, like the very key-note and harmony of
affection.

At a table so surrounded with secrets, conversation flagged, of
course. Mr. Hitchings thought it very up-hill work to entertain
Miss Hervey, whose heart and senses were completely absorbed
in the riddle of Belaccueil's disguise and presence; Mr. Hervey,
the uncle, found old Mrs. Plantagenet rather absent, for the
smitten dame had eyes for every movement of Monsieur Sansou,
and the tutor himself, with his resentment toward his host, and
his suspicions of the love of his daughter, his reviving passion for
Miss Hervey, and his designs on Mrs. Plantagenet, had enough
to render him as silent as the latter could wish, and as apparently
insensible to the attraction of the fair stranger.

How little we know what is in the bosoms of those around us!
How natural it is, however, to feel and act as if we knew—to
account for all that appears on the surface by the limited
acquaintance we have with circumstances and feelings—to
resent an indifference of which we know not the cause—to approve
or condemn, without allowance for chagrin, or despair, or
love, or hope, or distress—any of the deep undercurrents for
ever at work in the depths of human bosoms. The young man
at your side at a dinner-party may have a duel on his hands for

the morning, or a disgrace imminent in credit or honor, or a refused
heart or an accepted one, newly crushed or newly made
happy; or (more common still, and less allowed for) he may
feel the first impression of disease, or the consequences of an indigestion;
and for his agreeableness or disagreeableness, you try to
account by something in yourself, some feeling toward yourself—
as if you, and you only, could affect his spirits or give a color to
his mood of manners. The old man's thought of death, the
mother's overwhelming interest in her child, the woman's upspring
of emotion or love, are visitors to the soul that come
unbidden and out of time, and you can neither feast nor mourn,
secure against their interruption. It would explain many a
coldness, could we look into the heart concealed from us. We
should often pity when we hate, love when we think we cannot
even forgive, admire where we curl the lip with scorn and indignation.
To judge without reserve of any human action is a culpable
temerity, of all our sins the most unfeeling and frequent.

I will deal frankly with you, dear reader. I have arrived at a
stage of my story which, of all the stages of story-writing, I detest
the most cordially. Poets have written about the difficulty of
beginning a story (vide Byron)—ga ne me coule pas; others of
the ending—that I do with facility, joy, and rejoicing. But
the love pathos of a story—the place where the reader is expected
to sigh, weep, or otherwise express his emotion—that is the point,
I confess, the most difficult to write, and the most unsatisfactory
when written. “Pourquoy, Sir Knight?” Not because it is
difficult to write love-scenes—according to the received mode—
not that it is difficult to please those (a large majority) who never
truly loved, and whose ideas, therefore, of love and its making,
are transcendentalized out of all truth and nature—not that it

would be more labor to do this than to copy a circular, or write a
love-letter for a modest swain (this last my besetting occupation)
—but because, just over the inkstand, there peers a face, sometimes
of a man of forty, past the nonsense of life, but oftener of
some friend, a woman who has loved, and this last more particularly
knows that true love is never readable or sensible—that if
its language be truly written, it is never in polished phrase or
musical cadence—that it is silly, but for its concealed meaning,
embarrassed and blind, but for the interpreting and wakeful heart
of one listener—that love, in short, is the god of unintelligibility,
mystery, and adorable nonsense, and, of course, that which I
have written (if readable and sensible) is out of taste and out of
sympathy, and none but fancy-lovers and enamored brains (not
hearts) will approve or believe it.

D'Israeli the younger is one of the few men of genius who,
having seen truth without a veil, dare to reveal the vision; and
he has written Henrietta Temple—the silliest yet truest love-book
of modern time. The critics (not an amative race) have
given him a benefit of the “besom” of ridicule, but D'Israeli, far
from being the effeminate intellect they would make him, is one
of the most original and intrepid men of genius living, and
whether the theme be “wine, woman, or war,” he writes with
fearless truth, piquancy, and grace. Books on love, however,
should be read by lovers only, and pity it is that there is not an
ink in chemistry, invisible save to the eye kindled with amatory
fire. But “to our muttons.”

It was not leap-year, but Monsieur Belaccueil, on the day of
the dinner-party at Hitchings park, was made aware (I will not
say by proposals, for ladies make known their inclinations in ways
much less formidable)—he was made aware, I say, that the hearts

of three of the party were within the flight of his arrow. Probably
his humble situation reversed the usual relative position of
the sexes in the minds of the dame and damsels—and certainly
there is no power woman exercises so willingly as a usurpation of
the masculine privilege. I have stated my objection to detail the
dialogue between Miss Hitchings and her tutor at the dinner-table.
To be recorded faithfully, the clatter of silver forks on
China, the gurgle of wine, the interruptions of the footmen with
champagne and vegetables, should all be literally interspersed—
for, to all the broken sentences, (so pathetic when properly punctuated—vide
Neal's novels) these were the sequels and the accompaniments:
“No, thank you!” and “If you please,” and “May
I fill your glass?”—have filled out, to the perfect satisfaction of
the lady, many an unfinished sentence upon which depended the
whole destiny of her affections; and, as I said before, the truth is
not faithfully rendered when these interstices are unsupplied.

It was dark when the ladies left the dinner-table, followed by
Monsieur Sansou, and, at the distance of a few feet from the
windows opening on the lawn, the air was black and impenetrable.
There were no stars visible and no moon, but the clouds which
were gathering after a drought, seemed to hush the air with their
long expected approach, and it was one of those soft, still, yet
murky and fragrant nights, when the earth seems to breathe only—
without light, sound, or motion. What lover does not remember
such a night?

Oppressed with the glaring lights and the company of people
she cared nothing about, Miss Hervey stepped out upon the lawn,
and, with her face lifted as if to draw deeper inhalations of the
dew and freshness, she strolled Ieisurely over the smooth carpet
of grass. At a slight turn to avoid a clump of shrubbery, she

encountered Belaccueil, who was apologizing and about to pass
her, when she called him by his name, and passing her arm
through his, led him on to the extremity of the lawn. A wire fence
arrested their progress, and, leaning against it, Miss Hervey
inquired into the cause of the disguise she had penetrated, and
softened and emboldened by the fragrant darkness, said all that a
woman might say of tenderness and encouragement. Belaccueil's
heart beat with pride and gratified amour propre, but he confined
himself to the expression of this feeling, and, living the
subject open, took advantage of Mrs. Plantagenet's call to Miss
Hervey from the window, to leave her and resume his ramble
through the grounds.

The supper tray had been brought in, and the party were just
taking their candles to separate, when the tutor entered at the
glass door and arrested the steps of Mrs. Plantagenet. She set
down her candle and courtesied a good-night to the ladies (Mr.
Hitchings had gone to bed, for wine made him sleepy, and Mr.
Hervey always retired early—where he was bored), and, closing
the windows, mixed a glass of negus for Monsieur Sansou; and,
herself pulling a sandwich to pieces, deliberately, and it must be
confessed, somewhat patronisingly, invited the Frenchman to
become her lord. And after a conversation, which (la verité
avant tout) turned mainly on will and investments, the widow
dame sailed blissfully to bed, and Belaccueil wrote the following
letter to his friend and adviser:

In one of the most fashionable squares of London lives, “in the
season,” Monsieur Belaccueil, one of the most hospitable foreigners
in that great metropolis. He is a pensive and rather melancholy-looking
man by day; but society, which he seems to seek

like an opiate to restless feeling, changes him to a gay man, the
most mirth-loving of Amphytrions. His establishment is presided
over by his wife, who, as his society is mostly French, preserves
a respectable silence, but seems contented with her lot, and proud
of her husband; while in Miss Plantagenet (ci-devant Miss
Hitchings) his guests find his table's chief attraction—one of the
prettiest heiresses and most loveable girls in London. How
deeply Monsieur Belaccueil still rejoices at his success in “getting
to windward,” is a matter of problem. Certainly there is one
chariot which passes him in his solitary ride in the park, to which
he bows with a pang of unabating and miserable anguish. And, if
the occupant of that plain chariot share at all in his suffering, she
has not the consolation to which he flies in society—for a more
secluded and lonely woman lives not in the great solitude of London,
than Constantia Hervey.