 | CHAPTER XIV. Paul Fane, or, Parts of a life else untold |  |
14. CHAPTER XIV.
Paul's thoughts, on the morning after his tête-à-tête
dinner with the princess, were not, where they might
easily have been, amid the memories of that bewildering
day. In the visit to the strangely hidden studio of the
eccentric sculptress and in the few dream-like hours which
he had afterwards passed at her luxurious villa, there were
remembrances enough to give full employment to a mind
at leisure; but he was doubly pre-occupied, that morning
and with things very differently exciting.
On the table before him, as he dressed, lay two missives,
either of which, without the other, would have been sufficient
to monopolize his attention—the letter from his
mother, which he had read, after his return home, the
night before; and a note from Miss Paleford, just received,
and running thus:
Papa has commissioned me to act as his amanuensis, his only
hand being disabled by the neuralgic trouble to which he is
liable, and I obey—only with a little uncommissioned variation
of my own.
A young gentleman, the son of one of our old friends and
neighbors in England, has arrived in Florence, and we have just
received a note from him through the post. As papa will not
be well enough to see him to-day, he wishes me to endeavor to
time the visit more conveniently by inviting him to tea to-morrow
evening. But it occurred to me, that, as a stranger, he might not
readily find the way to us without a guide; and that perhaps you
would not object to give us the pleasure of your company the
same evening, and bring him with you. At the embassy reception
to-night, you will meet this gentleman (Mr. Ashly—I liked to have
forgotten to mention his name) and any one will introduce you;
so that you can propose and arrange it. Pray do not disappoint
us. We shall look for you at our usual early tea-hour, and, meantime,
dear Mr. Fane, I remain
The nerve out of tune in Paul's heart was struck by
that well-remembered name. And the excitement was
not alone from what it recalled—the cold eye from which
he had received his first humiliation. One evening at the
Palefords, the conversation turning upon their home associations
in England, there had been a chance mention
of the Ashlys as their wealthiest neighbors; and, by a
question or two, he identified them with those he had
seen. The young Mr. Ashly, now in Florence, he knew
also, was the eldest son, and heir to the large fortune of
the old and proud family.
Miss Paleford's note was flattering—assuming, as it did,
that there could be no doubt of the agreeableness, to Mr.
Ashly, of the proposed frank offer of a service from the
new acqaintance; and, had the stranger borne any other
name, Paul would have taken this for granted without
giving it a second thought. But, with the mere name
of Ashly came a vague presentiment of a slight; while
the compliance with the lady's request would be an
infringement upon a rule he had laid down for himself
on his first landing in Europe—one by which his sensitive
pride might shelter itself from the possibility of mortification
by rebuff—that he would ask an introduction to
no one. Thus far it had been carefully observed. His
acquaintances had been either wholly incidental, or they
were such as had made the first advance. To break this
hensive generality, which, always to be able to assert was
to have a weapon in reserve; but, to break it—now, and
for the first time—for an Ashly, and her brother!
Still, the refusal of a request so simple, and made by
Miss Sybil herself, was not to be thought of. It must
be a better reason, indeed, than a whimsical and unconfessed
sensitiveness of his own, that should stand in
the way of his shielding his invalid friend, Colonel Paleford,
from an inconvenience. The manner in which he
was to perform the duty was the only question; and,
with a thought which occurred to him on this point,
he took his hat and crossed the Square to the lodgings
of an English acquaintance.
Being a close student of men, as well as of the gentler
sex, Paul had become interested, very soon after his arrival
in Florence, in an Englishman who, by his own countrymen,
was called “a character.” This gentleman, Mr.
Tetherly, was a bachelor of about fifty years of age, who
had lived all his life independently idle, upon a small
but certain income—for the last few years having taken
up his permanent residence in Florence as the most
economical and agreeable capital of Europe, and being
now known, at the cafés and elsewhere, as one of the
“fixtures.” He was first pointed out to Paul as the man
who had refused to be presented at court—the English
it, but Mr. Tetherly declining on the ground that
he was the son of a tradesman, not presentable at his
own court at home, and therefore not entitled to it
abroad. The diplomatic official, liking him no less for
this independence, had persevered in cultivating him,
however, and, by frequent invitation and attention, he
had gradually become one of the habitués of the English
embassy.
Between Paul and him there had grown up, from their
first introduction, a cordial understanding. Meeting constantly
at the cafés and restaurants, and lingering in talk,
when they thus had the chance opportunity, as well as in
society, they soon needed nothing of a friendship but the
avowing it—just the point of intimacy, either in love or
friendship, where Mr. Tetherly's cautious reserve brought
him usually to a stand-still. Exactly to know his own
place and keep it, was his hobby; and though his education
at an English university, and his long experience
abroad, had so liberalized him that his speciality was never
obtrusive, it was still his secret habit of mind, never intermitted
or forgotten. Among ladies—with whom his kind-heartedness,
wit, and refinement made him a favorite—he
kept always his sentry-thought in the background, making
sure that he was falling into no manner of illusion; and,
among men, he was perpetually measuring his own value,
But while of the misanthropy that only measures and
depreciates others he had none—his rule and plummet
being applied only with perpetual comparison to himself—
Mr. Tetherly was the best of reference and authority as to
social distinctions, and niceties of observance and conduct.
To Paul, with his republican newness to that part of
foreign life which was artificial, this was an invaluable
quality in a mind to which he had daily access; and it
was therefore with a happy sense of relief that he now
turned to his English friend for advice as to the execution
of Miss Paleford's commission.
“Just in time for a cup of tea, my dear Fane!” exclaimed
the bachelor, as Paul opened the door. “I was that
moment comforting my loneliness with offering one to the
Baronet. Down You-Sir! and give that chair to Mr.
Fane!”
Mr. Tetherly was breakfasting alone—or rather with his
usual companion, a very sagacious Scotch terrier, seated
upright in the opposite chair, his paws on the edge of the
table, and his eyes fixed with nervous attentiveness on his
master. The hairy countenance of the animal was really
intelligent enough to talk to, as was the solitary Englishman's
habit, and he understood much that was said to him,
and looked as if he understood all of it! His name of
that under which he came to his present owner—a certain
baronet's coachman, of whom he was bought, having given
the pup the title of his own master, Sir John—“The
Baronet” his name, “You-Sir,” for shortness, as Tetherly
expressed it. With nothing to occupy him, and his peculiarities
preventing his forming even an intimacy which
should make any demand on his time, the leisure of the
bachelor was divided pretty equally between his books and
the education of his favorite dog.
“Allow me to wonder at this lonely breakfast of yours,”
said Paul, as he took the vacated seat—the terrier becoming
his vis-à-vis, by occupying his master's lap, with his
paws again on the edge of the table—“you might so easily
come round to the café, and give us the pleasure of your
company every morning.”
“I have thought of it,” replied his friend, hesitating,
and evidently making some little effort of frankness, before
finishing the sentence, “but the fact is I can't afford it.”
“Surely,” said Paul, looking at the well-spread table,
“you could breakfast for much less”—
“Pardon me,” interrupted Tetherly, “I forgot that you
were not aware of what I am obliged to economize most.
It is not money, but self-esteem, that I was thinking of
saving. I get tired of myself if I begin too early—or,
rather, I need to feel like a flower new-blown, or a gentleman
to people. Don't you think, yourself, that a man
who has breakfasted out, comes stale and second-hand, for
instance, to a dinner-party?”
“Why,” said Paul, laughing, “I might confess to a more
sentimental cherishing of the same idea. It has often
occurred to me that marriage, if it had no other privilege
than that of breakfasting alone with a beloved woman,
would be an invaluable happiness—looking into her eyes
when first opened after the sacredness of sleep—hearing
her voice with the first words uttered after dream-talk
with angels. Night, it always seemed to me, re-hallows
the presence and re-virgins the beauty of woman.”
“Um!—that is putting rather too fine an edge upon it,”
said Tetherly, smiling at Paul's poetical innocence, “or, at
least, I never came so near breakfasting, that way, with a
nice woman, as to inquire what made it agreeable. But I
mean to say that, as a social principle, common to both
sexes, privacy is dignifying; and the more recent our
arrival from it, or the more impregnated is our presence
with the known fact or the effects of it, the more precious
our company to others.”
“Yes,” said Paul, whose artistic finger of thought was
immediately laid upon the nice line of the definition, “I
have once or twice in my life seen faces which owed their
charm to that expression—looking always sacredly fresh
not be cultivated as a beauty.”
“A flushed face is the opposite of it,” said Tetherly,
“and that is, perhaps, why paleness gives so distinguished
a look. Calmness of countenance might be cultivated;
and so might the unwinking or unalarmed tranquillity of
eye which betokens thoughts coming reluctantly from elsewhere;
and then the tone of voice might express something
of it, both by slower enunciation and by being
pitched a half-note lower than the key of the conversation
around.
“It would require to be so well done,” said Paul, “that
it must be classed among the reserved weapons of the
gifted. A failure at it would be blank stupidity. Fortunately
there is beauty which can belong, thus, to only
Nature's picked people.”
“And what is to console the unpicked?” asked Tetherly
—both he and Paul lapsing into a reverie of a moment or
two, the silence of which was broken, at last, by the barking
of the terrier.
“Silence, You-Sir!” quietly said the master, as he reprovingly
pulled the ear of his dog; “pray pardon the Baronet's
lack of discrimination, my dear Fane! He has been taught
to vary conversation, when visitors are dull, by barking in
the `awkward pauses.' He did not appreciate the resting
on our oars while thought was under headway.”
“If he lack discrimination, he lacks what his master is
very rich in,” replied Paul, laughing at the novelty of
dog-supply for the gaps of conversation; “and, if you will
pardon the digression, my dear Tetherly, it is just that
volume of wisdom which I have called to consult, this
morning.”
“A poor oracle, my dear fellow, but it shall at least be
vocal at your summons. What is the myth?” The
eccentric bachelor smiled and looked genially happy, as he
always did, when there was a chance to do a kindness.
“You will laugh at the commonplaceness of my `myth,'”
said Paul. “To you it is as little of a mystery, probably,
as the meaning of a fence or a hedge; yet please
remember that what is shut in and shut out by English
hedges and fences, might, at first, puzzle the Arab who had
ridden his blood barb or his camel, only in the unfenced
desert.”
“And to what Yankee Sahara are you willing to `own
up, then, my dear republican?” asked Tetherly, with a
remembrance of some of their former arguments on the
respective perfections of their native countries.
“Social distinctions,” answered Paul—“or that part of
them which may be described as the ethics of introductions
between gentlemen. We are a prairie on this subject, as
yet—with here and there an obstinate squatter, perhaps, or
a temporary encampment.”
“Do you mean to inquire what gives a right to an introduction,
then?”
As Paul hesitated a moment, turning over in his mind
how he might best present the handle of his dilemma,
“You-Sir” broke the silence with his inquisitive bark.
“Bow, says the baronet, you observe,” replied Paul
(“though, with a slight stammer, he prolongs it into bowwow),
and he is right, as far as he goes. But it is what
we bow to, that I am seeking light upon—what is implied
or involved, that is to say, in the asking of an introduction.”
“Well, then—to begin at the beginning—it means that
you desire the person's acquaintance.”
“But, does the request claim equality, or does it confess
inferiority?”
“Of course it is asked as a favor—and, so far, it is an
admission of lacking something yourself which the other
has power to bestow—a favor sometimes overbalanced,
however, by the compliment of asking.”
“Yet, is there not, after thus taking the position of applicant,
a certain irreversible inferiority, likely always to be
remembered in the mutual consciousness of intercourse,
and certain to be appealed to, in case of a collision of dignity
or other quarrel?”
“Why, I begin to comprehend how there might be
`flower of courtesy,' above ground, seems at first glance to
be very simple. Let us see! There may be such a thing
as equality so well understood between two persons, that
the asking an introduction is a mere convenience—like
turning out for each other on the sidewalk.”
“That, in our republic, is the general understanding of
the matter.”
“Then there is a homage to eminence of any kind—to
genius and achievements such as have given a position
separate from rank or wealth—and, in seeking introductions
to such men, the question of relative position does
not come up.”
“Two points disposed of,” said Paul.
“We come now to differences of rank such as are accidental
or unachieved—men of old families and new, commoners
and noblemen, gentlemen and tradesmen, the more
rich and the less, the professional and industrial classes.”
“And how—between these?”
“Why, each individual case would have its modifications.
An introduction, asked for merely the pleasure of acquaintance,
might chance to confer, in almost any case, more
than it sought.”
“But is it not common in England and on the continent,
for a man of inferior position, but still mingling in the
is to be an understood condescension on the other's part—
so admitted at the time, so acknowledged ever after?”
“Certainly—very common.”
“And where the different shades of position are doubtful,
or so near that they might otherwise be disputed, does
not the seeking of the acquaintance of one man by
another, amount to an admission of the other's inferiority?”
“Why, it might be so construed, without a doubt.”
“And there, I take it then, is just the point where the
American and English feeling would divide. Our people
would not accept of introductions in society on these
terms.”
“The desert-bred Arab, you mean to say, on coming to
England, instead of following the roads like an Englishman,
would ride across the country as he has been accustomed
to do, paying no regard to hedges or fences!”
“An illustration that contains a forcible argument, I
admit,” said Paul. “And the difference between the two
countries (monarchical distinctions in one and republican
equality in the other), fully accounts for the difference of
feeling in the matter. But, till we have the substance we
are not likely to observe the shadow—and, till we submit
to monarchy and rank, we are likely to insist on intercourse
with all people as their equals.”
“And so I am sure you are fully allowed to do,” said
believe, that having no rank, the American may mingle
with any rank suitable to his education and manners.
Your countrymen have no reason to complain. But, after
all, these are vague generalities, from which the deductions
to suit any particular case might be very unreliable. And,
by the way, if I may ask the question, to what particular
circumstances are you applying our argument?—for something
seems to have given you more than a theoretic
interest in the matter.”
Paul mentioned Miss Paleford's commission, and the
necessity it put him under, of breaking his own rule as to
asking introductions, still reserving to himself, however,
the secret which linked a separate nervousness with the
stranger's name.
“Why, of course, the man will be very happy indeed
to accept of your offer to take him out there,” said
Tetherly, smiling at what he evidently thought to be a
very needless sensitiveness on the subject, “but I can manage
the introduction for you, if that is all, so that, at least,
he will never know of your asking it. I am to meet him
at dinner at the embassy to-day; and at the soirée afterwards,
you can come up when you see me talking with
him. I will introduce you simply as a friend of mine
whom I wish him to know. Will that do?
Paul felt more relieved than he could explain to his
were very abundant, and he took his leave with half the
load, at least, gone from his heart. Too uneasy, still, for
his accustomed work, he took his mother's letter for company,
and, in the lonely and luxurious solitudes of the
duke's gardens, wiled away, with meditative idleness, the
day that was to precede the evening of trial
| CHAPTER XIV. Paul Fane, or, Parts of a life else untold | |