Charles Lever - A Day's Ride - A Life's Romance

“Algy,” said he, calling me by my Christian name, which he very rarely did, “I have something to say to you. Can I be quite certain that you ‘ll take my frankness in good part?”

“You can,” I said, with a great effort to seem calm and assured.

“You give me your word upon it?”

“I do,” said I, trying to appear bold; “and my hand be witness of it”

“Well,” he resumed, drawing a long breath, “here it is. I have remarked that for above a week back you have never waited for the postboy’s return to the cottage, but always have come down to the village yourself.”

I nodded assent, but said nothing.

“I have remarked, besides,” said he, “that when told at the office there was no letter for you, you came away sad-looking and fretted, scarcely spoke for some time, and seemed altogether downcast and depressed.”

“I don’t deny it,” I said calmly.

“Well,” continued he, “some old experiences, of mine have taught me that this sort of anxiety has generally but one source, with fellows of our age, and which simply means that the remittance we have counted upon as certain has been, from some cause or other, delayed. Is n’t that the truth?”

“No,” said I, joyfully, for I was greatly relieved by his words; “no, on my honor, nothing of the kind.”

“I may not have hit the thing exactly,” said he, hurriedly, “but I ‘ll be sworn it is a money matter; and if a couple of hundred pounds be of the least service – ”

“My dear, kind-hearted fellow,” I broke in, “I can’t endure this longer: it is no question of money; it is nothing that affects my means, though I half wish it were, to show you how cheerfully I could owe you my escape from a difficulty, – not, indeed, that I need another tie to bind me to you – ” But I could say no more, for my eyes were swimming over, and my lips trembling.

“Then,” cried he, “I have only to ask pardon for thus obtruding upon your confidence.”

I was too full of emotion to do more than squeeze his hand affectionately, and thus we walked along, side by side, neither uttering a word. At last, and as it were with an effort, by a bold transition, to carry our thoughts into another and very different channel, he said: “Here’s a letter from old Dyke, our landlord. The worthy father has been enjoying himself in a tour of English watering-places, and has now started for a few weeks up the Rhine. His account of his holiday, as he calls it, is amusing; nor less so is the financial accident to which he owes the excursion. Take it, and read it,” he added, giving me the epistle. “If the style be the man, his reverence is not difficult to decipher.”

I bestowed little attention on this speech, uttered, as I perceived, rather from the impulse of starting a new topic than anything else, and, taking the letter half mechanically, I thrust it in my pocket. One or two efforts we made at conversation were equally failures, and it was a relief to me when Crofton, suddenly remembering some night-lines be had laid in a mountain lake a few miles off, hastily shook my hand, and said, “Good-bye till dinner-time.”

When I reached the cottage, instead of entering I strolled into the garden, and sought out a little summer-house of sweet-brier and honeysuckle, on the edge of the river. Some strange, vague impression was on me, that I needed time and place to commune with myself and be alone; that a large unsettled account lay between me and my conscience, which could not be longer deferred; but of what nature, how originating, and how tending, I know nothing whatever.

I resolved to submit myself to a searching examination, to ascertain what I might about myself. In my favorite German authors I had frequently read that men’s failures in life were chiefly owing to neglect of this habit of self-investigation; that though we calculate well the dangers and difficulties of an enterprise, we omit the more important estimate of what may be our capacity to effect an object, what are our resources, wherein our deficiencies.

“Now for it,” I thought, as I entered the little arbor, – “now for it, Potts; kiss the book, and tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth.”

As I said this, I took off my hat and bowed respectfully around to the members of an imaginary court. “My name,” said I, in a clear and respectful voice, “is Algernon Sydney Potts. If I be pushed to the avowal, I am sorry it is Potts. Algernon Sydney do a deal, but they can’t do everything, – not to say that captious folk see a certain bathos in the collocation with my surname. Can a man hope to make such a name illustrious? Can be aspire to the notion of a time when people will allude to the great Potts, the celebrated Potts, the immortal Potts?” I grew very red, I felt my cheek on fire as I uttered this, and I suddenly bethought me of Mr. Pitt, and I said aloud, “And, if Pitt, why not Potts?” That was a most healing recollection. I revelled in it for a long time. “How true is it,” I continued, “that the halo of greatness illumines all within its circle, and the man is merged in the grandeur of his achievements. The men who start in life with high sounding designations have but to fill a foregone pledge, – to pay the bill that fortune has endorsed. Not so was our case, Pitt. To us is it to lay every foundation stone of our future greatness. There was nothing in your surname to foretell you would be a Minister of State at one-and-thirty, – there is no letter of mine to indicate what I shall be. But what is it that I am to be? Is it Poet, Philosopher, Politician, Soldier, or Discoverer? Am I to be great in Art, or illustrious in Letters? Is there to be an ice tract of Behring’s Straits called Potts’s Point, or a planet styled Pottsium Sidus? And when centuries have rolled over, will historians have their difficulty about the first Potts, and what his opinions were on this subject or that?”

Then came a low soft sound of half-suppressed laughter, and then the rustle of a muslin dress hastily brushing through the trees. I rushed out from my retreat, and hurried down the walk. No one to be seen, – not a soul; not a sound, either, to be heard.

“No use hiding, Mary,” I called out, “I saw you all the time; my mock confession was got up merely to amuse you. Come out boldly and laugh as long as you will.” No answer. This refusal amazed me. It was like a disbelief in my assertion. “Come, come!” I cried, “you can’t pretend to think I was serious in all this vainglorious nonsense. Come, Mary, and let us enjoy the laugh at it together. If you don’t, I shall be angry. I’ll take it ill, – very ill.”

Still no reply. Could I, then, have been deceived? Was it a mere delusion? But no; I heard the low laugh, and the rustle of the dress, and the quick tread upon the gravel, too plainly for any mistake, and so I returned to the cottage in chagrin and ill-temper. As I passed the open windows’ of the little drawing-room I saw Mary seated at her work, with, as was her custom, an open book on a little table beside her. Absorbed as she was, she did not lift her head, nor notice my approach till I entered the room.

“You have no letter for me?” she cried, in a voice of sorrowful meaning.

“None,” said I scrutinizing her closely, and sorely puzzled what to make of her calm deportment. “Have you been out in the garden this morning?” I asked, abruptly.

“No,” said she, frankly.

“Not quitted the house at all?”

“No. Why do you ask?” cried she, in some surprise.

“I ‘ll tell you,” I said, sitting down at her side, and speaking in a low and confidential tone; “a strange thing has just happened to me.” And with that I narrated the incident, glossing over, as best I might, the absurdity of my soliloquizing, and the nature of the self-examination I was engaged in. Without waiting for me to finish, she broke in suddenly with a low laugh, and said, —