Eliza Leslie - Pencil Sketches - or, Outlines of Character and Manners

"This assemblage," said the baron, "somewhat reminds me of the annual fêtes I give to my serfs in the park that surrounds my castle, at the cataract of the Rhine."

Miss Turretville had just come up, leaning on the arm of Myrtilla Cheston. "Let us try to get nearer to the baron," said she; "he is talking about castles. Oh! I am so glad that I have been introduced to him. I met him the other evening at Mrs. De Mingle's select party, and he took my fan out of my hand and fanned himself with it. There is certainly an elegant ease about European gentlemen that our Americans can never acquire."

"Where is the ease and elegance of Mr. Smith?" thought Myrtilla, as she looked over at that forlorn individual shrinking behind Aunt Quimby.

"As I was saying," pursued the baron, lolling back in his chair and applying to his nose Mrs. Bentley's magnificent essence-bottle, "when I give these fêtes to my serfs, I regale them with Westphalia hams from my own hunting-grounds, and with hock from my own vineyards."

"Dear me! ham and hock!" ejaculated Mrs. Quimby.

"Baron," said Miss Turretville, "I suppose you have visited the Hartz mountains?"

"My castle stands on one of them."

"Charming! Then you have seen the Brocken?"

"It is directly in front of my ramparts."

"How delightful! Do you never imagine that on a stormy night you hear the witches riding through the air, to hold their revels on the Brocken? Are there still brigands in the Black Forest?"

"Troops of them. The Black Forest is just back of my own woods. The robbers were once so audacious as to attack my castle, and we had a bloody fight. But we at length succeeded in taking all that were left alive."

"What a pity! Was their captain anything like Charles de Moor?"

"Just such a man."

"Baron," observed Myrtilla, a little mischievously, "the situation of your castle must be unique ; in the midst of the Hartz mountains, at the falls of the Rhine, with the Brocken in front, and the Black Forest behind."

"You doat on the place, don't you?" asked Miss Turretville. "Do you live there always?"

"No; only in the hunting season. I am equally at home in all the capitals of the continent. I might, perhaps, be chiefly at my native place, Vienna, only my friend, the emperor, is never happy but when I am with him; and his devotion to me is rather overwhelming. The truth is, one gets surfeited with courts, and kings, and princes; so I thought it would be quite refreshing to take a trip to America, having great curiosity to see what sort of a place it is. I recollect, at the last court ball, the emperor was teazing me to waltz with his cousin, the Archduchess of Hesse Hoblingen, who, he feared, would be offended if I neglected her. But her serene highness dances as if she had a cannon-ball chained to each foot, and so I got off by flatly telling my friend the emperor that if women chose to go to balls in velvet and ermine, and with coronets on their heads, they might get princes or some such people to dance with them; as for my part, it was rather excruciating to whirl about with persons in heavy royal robes!"

"Is it possible!" exclaimed Miss Turretville, "did you venture to talk so to an emperor? Of course before next day you were loaded with chains and immured in a dungeon; from which I suppose you escaped by a subterranean passage."

"Not at all; my old crony the emperor knows his man; so he only laughed and slapped me on the shoulder, and I took his arm, and we sauntered off together to the other end of the grand saloon. I think I was in my hussar uniform; I recollect that evening I broke my quizzing glass, and had to borrow the Princess of Saxe Blinkenberg's."

"Was it very elegant – set round with diamonds?" asked Miss Matilda Bentley, putting up to her face a hand on which glittered a valuable brilliant.

"Quite likely it was, but I never look at diamonds; one gets so tired of them. I have not worn any of mine these seven years; I often joke with my friend Prince Esterhazy about his diamond coat, that he will persist in wearing on great occasions. Its glitter really incommodes my eyes when he happens to be near me, as he generally is. Whenever he moves you may track him by the gems that drop from it, and you may hear him far off by their continual tinkling as they fall."

"Only listen to that, Mr. Smith," said Aunt Quimby aside to her protegée, "I do not believe there is such a man in the world as that Hester Hazy with his diamond coat, that he's telling all this rigmarole about. It sounds like one of Mother Bunch's tales."

"I rather think there is such a man," said Mr. Smith.

"Nonsense, Mr. Smith, why you're a greater goose than I supposed!"

Mr. Smith assented by a meek bow.

Dinner was now announced. The gentlemen conducted the ladies, and Aunt Quimby led Mr. Smith; but she could not prevail on him to take a seat beside her, near the head of the table, and directly opposite to the Baron and his party. He humbly insisted on finding a place for himself very low down, and seemed glad to get into the neighbourhood of Captain Cheston, who presided at the foot.

The Blake Bentley party all levelled their glasses at Aunt Quimby; but the old lady stood fire amazingly well, being busily engaged in preparing her silk gown against the chance of injury from any possible accident, tucking a napkin into her belt, pinning a pocket handkerchief across the body of her dress, turning up her cuffs, and tying back the strings of her cap to save the ribbon from grease-spots.

The dinner was profuse, excellent, and handsomely arranged: and for a while most of the company were too earnestly occupied in satisfying their appetites to engage much in conversation. Aunt Quimby sent a waiter to Captain Cheston to desire him to take care of poor Mr. Smith: which message the waiter thought it unnecessary to deliver.

Mrs. Blake Bentley and her daughter Matilda sat one on each side of the Baron, and showed rather more assiduity in helping him than is customary from ladies to gentlemen. Also their solicitude in anticipating his wants was a work of super-erogation, for the Baron could evidently take excellent care of himself, and was unremitting in his applications to every one round him for everything within their reach, and loud and incessant in his calls to the waiters for clean plates and clean glasses.

When the dessert was set on, and the flow of soul was succeeding to the feast which, whether of reason or not, had been duly honoured, Mrs. Quimby found leisure to look round, and resume her colloquy.

"I believe, madam, your name is Bentley," said she to the lofty looking personage directly opposite.

"I am Mrs. Blake Bentley," was the reply, with an imperious stare that was intended to frown down all further attempts at conversation. But Aunt Quimby did not comprehend repulsion, and had never been silenced in her life – so she proceeded —

"I remember your husband very well. He was a son of old Benny Bentley up Second street, that used to keep the sign of the Adam and Eve, but afterwards changed it to the Liberty Tree. His wife was a Blake – that was the way your husband came by his name. Her father was an upholsterer, and she worked at the trade before she was married. She made two bolsters and three pillows for me at different times; though I'm not quite sure it was not two pillows and three bolsters. He had a brother, Billy Blake, that was a painter: so he must have been your husband's uncle."

"Excuse me," said Mrs. Blake Bentley, "I don't understand what you are talking about. But I'm very sure there were never any artist people in the family."

"Oh! Billy Blake was a painter and glazier both," resumed Mrs. Quimby; "I remember him as well as if he was my own brother. We always sent for him to mend our broken windows. I can see him now – coming with his glass box and his putty. Poor fellow, he was employed to put a new coat of paint on Christ Church steeple, which we thought would be a good job for him: but the scaffold gave way and he fell down and broke his leg. We lived right opposite, and saw him tumble. It's a mercy he wasn't killed right out. He was carried home on a hand-barrow. I remember the afternoon as well as if it were yesterday. We had a pot-pie for dinner that day; and I happened to have on a new calico gown, a green ground with a yellow sprig in it. I have some of the pieces now in patch-work."