The young gentleman who was standing in an easy attitude on the hearth, cocking his glass at the company, with his back to the blaze and his coat tucked under his arms, something as if he were Of the Poultry species and were trussed for roasting, lost countenance at this reply; he seemed about to demand further explanation, when it was discovered – through all eyes turning on the speaker – that the lady with him, who was young and beautiful, had not heard what had passed through having fainted with her head upon his shoulder.
‘I think,’ said the gentleman in a subdued tone, ‘I had best carry her straight to her room. Will you call to some one to bring a light?’ addressing his companion, ‘and to show the way? In this strange rambling place I don’t know that I could find it.’
‘Pray, let me call my maid,’ cried the taller of the young ladies.
‘Pray, let me put this water to her lips,’ said the shorter, who had not spoken yet.
Each doing what she suggested, there was no want of assistance. Indeed, when the two maids came in (escorted by the courier, lest any one should strike them dumb by addressing a foreign language to them on the road), there was a prospect of too much assistance. Seeing this, and saying as much in a few words to the slighter and younger of the two ladies, the gentleman put his wife’s arm over his shoulder, lifted her up, and carried her away.
His friend, being left alone with the other visitors, walked slowly up and down the room without coming to the fire again, pulling his black moustache in a contemplative manner, as if he felt himself committed to the late retort. While the subject of it was breathing injury in a corner, the Chief loftily addressed this gentleman.
‘Your friend, sir,’ said he, ‘is – ha – is a little impatient; and, in his impatience, is not perhaps fully sensible of what he owes to – hum – to – but we will waive that, we will waive that. Your friend is a little impatient, sir.’
‘It may be so, sir,’ returned the other. ‘But having had the honour of making that gentleman’s acquaintance at the hotel at Geneva, where we and much good company met some time ago, and having had the honour of exchanging company and conversation with that gentleman on several subsequent excursions, I can hear nothing – no, not even from one of your appearance and station, sir – detrimental to that gentleman.’
‘You are in no danger, sir, of hearing any such thing from me. In remarking that your friend has shown impatience, I say no such thing. I make that remark, because it is not to be doubted that my son, being by birth and by – ha – by education a – hum – a gentleman, would have readily adapted himself to any obligingly expressed wish on the subject of the fire being equally accessible to the whole of the present circle. Which, in principle, I – ha – for all are – hum – equal on these occasions – I consider right.’
‘Good,’ was the reply. ‘And there it ends! I am your son’s obedient servant. I beg your son to receive the assurance of my profound consideration. And now, sir, I may admit, freely admit, that my friend is sometimes of a sarcastic temper.’
‘The lady is your friend’s wife, sir?’
‘The lady is my friend’s wife, sir.’
‘She is very handsome.’
‘Sir, she is peerless. They are still in the first year of their marriage. They are still partly on a marriage, and partly on an artistic, tour.’
‘Your friend is an artist, sir?’
The gentleman replied by kissing the fingers of his right hand, and wafting the kiss the length of his arm towards Heaven. As who should say, I devote him to the celestial Powers as an immortal artist!
‘But he is a man of family,’ he added. ‘His connections are of the best. He is more than an artist: he is highly connected. He may, in effect, have repudiated his connections, proudly, impatiently, sarcastically (I make the concession of both words); but he has them. Sparks that have been struck out during our intercourse have shown me this.’
‘Well! I hope,’ said the lofty gentleman, with the air of finally disposing of the subject, ‘that the lady’s indisposition may be only temporary.’
‘Sir, I hope so.’
‘Mere fatigue, I dare say.’
‘Not altogether mere fatigue, sir, for her mule stumbled to-day, and she fell from the saddle. She fell lightly, and was up again without assistance, and rode from us laughing; but she complained towards evening of a slight bruise in the side. She spoke of it more than once, as we followed your party up the mountain.’
The head of the large retinue, who was gracious but not familiar, appeared by this time to think that he had condescended more than enough. He said no more, and there was silence for some quarter of an hour until supper appeared.
With the supper came one of the young Fathers (there seemed to be no old Fathers) to take the head of the table. It was like the supper of an ordinary Swiss hotel, and good red wine grown by the convent in more genial air was not wanting. The artist traveller calmly came and took his place at table when the rest sat down, with no apparent sense upon him of his late skirmish with the completely dressed traveller.
‘Pray,’ he inquired of the host, over his soup, ‘has your convent many of its famous dogs now?’
‘Monsieur, it has three.’
‘I saw three in the gallery below. Doubtless the three in question.’
The host, a slender, bright-eyed, dark young man of polite manners, whose garment was a black gown with strips of white crossed over it like braces, and who no more resembled the conventional breed of Saint Bernard monks than he resembled the conventional breed of Saint Bernard dogs, replied, doubtless those were the three in question.
‘And I think,’ said the artist traveller, ‘I have seen one of them before.’
It was possible. He was a dog sufficiently well known. Monsieur might have easily seen him in the valley or somewhere on the lake, when he (the dog) had gone down with one of the order to solicit aid for the convent.
‘Which is done in its regular season of the year, I think?’
Monsieur was right.
‘And never without a dog. The dog is very important.’
Again Monsieur was right. The dog was very important. People were justly interested in the dog. As one of the dogs celebrated everywhere, Ma’amselle would observe.
Ma’amselle was a little slow to observe it, as though she were not yet well accustomed to the French tongue. Mrs General, however, observed it for her.
‘Ask him if he has saved many lives?’ said, in his native English, the young man who had been put out of countenance.
The host needed no translation of the question. He promptly replied in French, ‘No. Not this one.’
‘Why not?’ the same gentleman asked.
‘Pardon,’ returned the host composedly, ‘give him the opportunity and he will do it without doubt. For example, I am well convinced,’ smiling sedately, as he cut up the dish of veal to be handed round, on the young man who had been put out of countenance, ‘that if you, Monsieur, would give him the opportunity, he would hasten with great ardour to fulfil his duty.’
The artist traveller laughed. The insinuating traveller (who evinced a provident anxiety to get his full share of the supper), wiping some drops of wine from his moustache with a piece of bread, joined the conversation.
‘It is becoming late in the year, my Father,’ said he, ‘for tourist-travellers, is it not?’
‘Yes, it is late. Yet two or three weeks, at most, and we shall be left to the winter snows.’
‘And then,’ said the insinuating traveller, ‘for the scratching dogs and the buried children, according to the pictures!’
‘Pardon,’ said the host, not quite understanding the allusion. ‘How, then the scratching dogs and the buried children according to the pictures?’
The artist traveller struck in again before an answer could be given.
‘Don’t you know,’ he coldly inquired across the table of his companion, ‘that none but smugglers come this way in the winter or can have any possible business this way?’
‘Holy blue! No; never heard of it.’
‘So it is, I believe. And as they know the signs of the weather tolerably well, they don’t give much employment to the dogs – who have consequently died out rather – though this house of entertainment is conveniently situated for themselves. Their young families, I am told, they usually leave at home. But it’s a grand idea!’ cried the artist traveller, unexpectedly rising into a tone of enthusiasm. ‘It’s a sublime idea. It’s the finest idea in the world, and brings tears into a man’s eyes, by Jupiter!’ He then went on eating his veal with great composure.
There was enough of mocking inconsistency at the bottom of this speech to make it rather discordant, though the manner was refined and the person well-favoured, and though the depreciatory part of it was so skilfully thrown off as to be very difficult for one not perfectly acquainted with the English language to understand, or, even understanding, to take offence at: so simple and dispassionate was its tone. After finishing his veal in the midst of silence, the speaker again addressed his friend.
‘Look,’ said he, in his former tone, ‘at this gentleman our host, not yet in the prime of life, who in so graceful a way and with such courtly urbanity and modesty presides over us! Manners fit for a crown! Dine with the Lord Mayor of London (if you can get an invitation) and observe the contrast. This dear fellow, with the finest cut face I ever saw, a face in perfect drawing, leaves some laborious life and comes up here I don’t know how many feet above the level of the sea, for no other purpose on earth (except enjoying himself, I hope, in a capital refectory) than to keep an hotel for idle poor devils like you and me, and leave the bill to our consciences! Why, isn’t it a beautiful sacrifice? What do we want more to touch us? Because rescued people of interesting appearance are not, for eight or nine months out of every twelve, holding on here round the necks of the most sagacious of dogs carrying wooden bottles, shall we disparage the place? No! Bless the place. It’s a great place, a glorious place!’
The chest of the grey-haired gentleman who was the Chief of the important party, had swelled as if with a protest against his being numbered among poor devils. No sooner had the artist traveller ceased speaking than he himself spoke with great dignity, as having it incumbent on him to take the lead in most places, and having deserted that duty for a little while.
He weightily communicated his opinion to their host, that his life must be a very dreary life here in the winter.
The host allowed to Monsieur that it was a little monotonous. The air was difficult to breathe for a length of time consecutively. The cold was very severe. One needed youth and strength to bear it. However, having them and the blessing of Heaven —
Yes, that was very good. ‘But the confinement,’ said the grey-haired gentleman.
There were many days, even in bad weather, when it was possible to walk about outside. It was the custom to beat a little track, and take exercise there.
‘But the space,’ urged the grey-haired gentleman. ‘So small. So – ha – very limited.’
Monsieur would recall to himself that there were the refuges to visit, and that tracks had to be made to them also.
Monsieur still urged, on the other hand, that the space was so – ha – hum – so very contracted. More than that, it was always the same, always the same.
With a deprecating smile, the host gently raised and gently lowered his shoulders. That was true, he remarked, but permit him to say that almost all objects had their various points of view. Monsieur and he did not see this poor life of his from the same point of view. Monsieur was not used to confinement.
‘I – ha – yes, very true,’ said the grey-haired gentleman. He seemed to receive quite a shock from the force of the argument.
Monsieur, as an English traveller, surrounded by all means of travelling pleasantly; doubtless possessing fortune, carriages, and servants —
‘Perfectly, perfectly. Without doubt,’ said the gentleman.
Monsieur could not easily place himself in the position of a person who had not the power to choose, I will go here to-morrow, or there next day; I will pass these barriers, I will enlarge those bounds. Monsieur could not realise, perhaps, how the mind accommodated itself in such things to the force of necessity.
‘It is true,’ said Monsieur. ‘We will – ha – not pursue the subject. You are – hum – quite accurate, I have no doubt. We will say no more.’
The supper having come to a close, he drew his chair away as he spoke, and moved back to his former place by the fire. As it was very cold at the greater part of the table, the other guests also resumed their former seats by the fire, designing to toast themselves well before going to bed. The host, when they rose from the table, bowed to all present, wished them good night, and withdrew. But first the insinuating traveller had asked him if they could have some wine made hot; and as he had answered Yes, and had presently afterwards sent it in, that traveller, seated in the centre of the group, and in the full heat of the fire, was soon engaged in serving it out to the rest.
At this time, the younger of the two young ladies, who had been silently attentive in her dark corner (the fire-light was the chief light in the sombre room, the lamp being smoky and dull) to what had been said of the absent lady, glided out. She was at a loss which way to turn when she had softly closed the door; but, after a little hesitation among the sounding passages and the many ways, came to a room in a corner of the main gallery, where the servants were at their supper. From these she obtained a lamp, and a direction to the lady’s room.
It was up the great staircase on the story above. Here and there, the bare white walls were broken by an iron grate, and she thought as she went along that the place was something like a prison. The arched door of the lady’s room, or cell, was not quite shut. After knocking at it two or three times without receiving an answer, she pushed it gently open, and looked in.
The lady lay with closed eyes on the outside of the bed, protected from the cold by the blankets and wrappers with which she had been covered when she revived from her fainting fit. A dull light placed in the deep recess of the window, made little impression on the arched room. The visitor timidly stepped to the bed, and said, in a soft whisper, ‘Are you better?’
The lady had fallen into a slumber, and the whisper was too low to awake her. Her visitor, standing quite still, looked at her attentively.
‘She is very pretty,’ she said to herself. ‘I never saw so beautiful a face. O how unlike me!’
It was a curious thing to say, but it had some hidden meaning, for it filled her eyes with tears.
‘I know I must be right. I know he spoke of her that evening. I could very easily be wrong on any other subject, but not on this, not on this!’
With a quiet and tender hand she put aside a straying fold of the sleeper’s hair, and then touched the hand that lay outside the covering.
‘I like to look at her,’ she breathed to herself. ‘I like to see what has affected him so much.’
She had not withdrawn her hand, when the sleeper opened her eyes and started.
‘Pray don’t be alarmed. I am only one of the travellers from down-stairs. I came to ask if you were better, and if I could do anything for you.’
‘I think you have already been so kind as to send your servants to my assistance?’
‘No, not I; that was my sister. Are you better?’
‘Much better. It is only a slight bruise, and has been well looked to, and is almost easy now. It made me giddy and faint in a moment. It had hurt me before; but at last it overpowered me all at once.’
‘May I stay with you until some one comes? Would you like it?’
‘I should like it, for it is lonely here; but I am afraid you will feel the cold too much.’
‘I don’t mind cold. I am not delicate, if I look so.’ She quickly moved one of the two rough chairs to the bedside, and sat down. The other as quickly moved a part of some travelling wrapper from herself, and drew it over her, so that her arm, in keeping it about her, rested on her shoulder.
‘You have so much the air of a kind nurse,’ said the lady, smiling on her, ‘that you seem as if you had come to me from home.’
‘I am very glad of it.’
‘I was dreaming of home when I woke just now. Of my old home, I mean, before I was married.’
‘And before you were so far away from it.’
‘I have been much farther away from it than this; but then I took the best part of it with me, and missed nothing. I felt solitary as I dropped asleep here, and, missing it a little, wandered back to it.’
There was a sorrowfully affectionate and regretful sound in her voice, which made her visitor refrain from looking at her for the moment.
‘It is a curious chance which at last brings us together, under this covering in which you have wrapped me,’ said the visitor after a pause; ‘for do you know, I think I have been looking for you some time.’
‘Looking for me?’
‘I believe I have a little note here, which I was to give to you whenever I found you. This is it. Unless I greatly mistake, it is addressed to you? Is it not?’
The lady took it, and said yes, and read it. Her visitor watched her as she did so. It was very short. She flushed a little as she put her lips to her visitor’s cheek, and pressed her hand.
‘The dear young friend to whom he presents me, may be a comfort to me at some time, he says. She is truly a comfort to me the first time I see her.’
‘Perhaps you don’t,’ said the visitor, hesitating – ‘perhaps you don’t know my story? Perhaps he never told you my story?’
‘No.’
‘Oh no, why should he! I have scarcely the right to tell it myself at present, because I have been entreated not to do so. There is not much in it, but it might account to you for my asking you not to say anything about the letter here. You saw my family with me, perhaps? Some of them – I only say this to you – are a little proud, a little prejudiced.’
‘You shall take it back again,’ said the other; ‘and then my husband is sure not to see it. He might see it and speak of it, otherwise, by some accident. Will you put it in your bosom again, to be certain?’
She did so with great care. Her small, slight hand was still upon the letter, when they heard some one in the gallery outside.
‘I promised,’ said the visitor, rising, ‘that I would write to him after seeing you (I could hardly fail to see you sooner or later), and tell him if you were well and happy. I had better say you were well and happy.’
‘Yes, yes, yes! Say I was very well and very happy. And that I thanked him affectionately, and would never forget him.’
‘I shall see you in the morning. After that we are sure to meet again before very long. Good night!’
‘Good night. Thank you, thank you. Good night, my dear!’
Both of them were hurried and fluttered as they exchanged this parting, and as the visitor came out of the door. She had expected to meet the lady’s husband approaching it; but the person in the gallery was not he: it was the traveller who had wiped the wine-drops from his moustache with the piece of bread. When he heard the step behind him, he turned round – for he was walking away in the dark.
His politeness, which was extreme, would not allow of the young lady’s lighting herself down-stairs, or going down alone. He took her lamp, held it so as to throw the best light on the stone steps, and followed her all the way to the supper-room. She went down, not easily hiding how much she was inclined to shrink and tremble; for the appearance of this traveller was particularly disagreeable to her. She had sat in her quiet corner before supper imagining what he would have been in the scenes and places within her experience, until he inspired her with an aversion that made him little less than terrific.
He followed her down with his smiling politeness, followed her in, and resumed his seat in the best place in the hearth. There with the wood-fire, which was beginning to burn low, rising and falling upon him in the dark room, he sat with his legs thrust out to warm, drinking the hot wine down to the lees, with a monstrous shadow imitating him on the wall and ceiling.
The tired company had broken up, and all the rest were gone to bed except the young lady’s father, who dozed in his chair by the fire. The traveller had been at the pains of going a long way up-stairs to his sleeping-room to fetch his pocket-flask of brandy. He told them so, as he poured its contents into what was left of the wine, and drank with a new relish.
‘May I ask, sir, if you are on your way to Italy?’
The grey-haired gentleman had roused himself, and was preparing to withdraw. He answered in the affirmative.
‘I also!’ said the traveller. ‘I shall hope to have the honour of offering my compliments in fairer scenes, and under softer circumstances, than on this dismal mountain.’
The gentleman bowed, distantly enough, and said he was obliged to him.
‘We poor gentlemen, sir,’ said the traveller, pulling his moustache dry with his hand, for he had dipped it in the wine and brandy; ‘we poor gentlemen do not travel like princes, but the courtesies and graces of life are precious to us. To your health, sir!’
‘Sir, I thank you.’
‘To the health of your distinguished family – of the fair ladies, your daughters!’
‘Sir, I thank you again, I wish you good night. My dear, are our – ha – our people in attendance?’
‘They are close by, father.’
‘Permit me!’ said the traveller, rising and holding the door open, as the gentleman crossed the room towards it with his arm drawn through his daughter’s. ‘Good repose! To the pleasure of seeing you once more! To to-morrow!’
As he kissed his hand, with his best manner and his daintiest smile, the young lady drew a little nearer to her father, and passed him with a dread of touching him.
‘Humph!’ said the insinuating traveller, whose manner shrunk, and whose voice dropped when he was left alone. ‘If they all go to bed, why I must go. They are in a devil of a hurry. One would think the night would be long enough, in this freezing silence and solitude, if one went to bed two hours hence.’
Throwing back his head in emptying his glass, he cast his eyes upon the travellers’ book, which lay on the piano, open, with pens and ink beside it, as if the night’s names had been registered when he was absent. Taking it in his hand, he read these entries.
William Dorrit, Esquire
Frederick Dorrit, Esquire
Edward Dorrit, Esquire
Miss Dorrit
Miss Amy Dorrit
Mrs General and Suite.
From France to Italy.
Mr and Mrs Henry Gowan.
From France to Italy.
To which he added, in a small complicated hand, ending with a long lean flourish, not unlike a lasso thrown at all the rest of the names:
Blandois. Paris.
From France to Italy.
And then, with his nose coming down over his moustache and his moustache going up and under his nose, repaired to his allotted cell.