Part 58

It was the greatest blow I have ever had in my life.

Three days after, I went to America; and before I came back I had started in New York the American branch of the house of Vougeot-Conti, and laid the real foundation of the largest fortune that has ever yet been made by selling wine, and of the long political career about which I will say nothing in these pages.

On my voyage out I wrote a long blaze letter to Barty, and poured out all my grief, and my resignation to the decree which I felt to be irrevocable. I reminded him of that playful toss-up in Southampton Row, and told him that, having surrendered all claims myself, the best thing that could happen to me was that she should some day marry him (which I certainly did not think at all likely).

So henceforward, reader, you will not be troubled by your obedient servant with the loves of a prosperous merchant of wines. Had those loves been more successful, and the wines less so, you would never have heard of either.

Whether or not I should have been a happier man in the long-run I really can't say--mine has been, on the whole, a very happy life, as men's lives go; but I am bound to admit, in all due modesty, that the universe would probably have been the poorer by some very splendid people, and perhaps by some very splendid things it could ill have spared; and one great and beautifully borne sorrow the less would have been ushered into this world of many sorrows.

* * * * *

It was a bright May morning (a year after this) when Barty and his aunt Caroline and his cousin Daphne and their servants left Antwerp for Düsseldorf on the Rhine.

At Malines they had to change trains, and spent half an hour at the station waiting for the express from Brussels and bidding farewell to their Mechlin friends, who had come there to wish them God-speed: the Abbé Lefebvre, Father Louis, and others; and the Torfses, père et mère; and little Frau, who wept freely as Lady Caroline kissed her and gave her a pretty little diamond brooch. Barty gave her a gold cross and a hearty shake of the hand, and she seemed quite heart-broken.

Then up came the long, full train, and their luggage was swallowed, and they got in, and the two guards blew their horns, and they left Malines behind them--with a mixed feeling of elation and regret.

They had not been very happy there, but many people had been very kind; and the place, with all its dreariness, had a strange, still charm, and was full of historic beauty and romantic associations.

Passing Louvain, Barty shook his fist at the Catholic University and its scientific priestly professors, who condemned one so lightly to a living death. He hated the aspect of the place, the very smell of it.

At Verviers they left the Belgian train; they had reached the limits of King Leopold's dominions. There was half an hour for lunch in the big refreshment-room, over which his Majesty and the Queen of the Belgians presided from the wall--nearly seven feet high each of them, and in their regal robes.

Just as the Rohans ordered their repast another English party came to their table and ordered theirs--a distinguished old gentleman of naval bearing and aspect; a still young middle-aged lady, very handsome, with blue spectacles; and an immensely tall, fair girl, very fully developed, and so astonishingly beautiful that it almost took one's breath away merely to catch sight of her; and people were distracted from ordering their mid-day meal merely to stare at this magnificent goddess, who was evidently born to be a mother of heroes.

These British travellers had a valet, a courier, and two maids, and were evidently people of consequence.

Suddenly the lady with the blue spectacles (who had seated herself close to the Rohan party) got up and came round the table to Barty's aunt and said:

"You don't remember me, Lady Caroline; Lady Jane Royce!"

And an old acquaintance was renewed in this informal manner--possibly some old feud patched up.

Then everybody was introduced to everybody else, and they all lunched together, a scramble!

It turned out that Lady Jane Royce was in some alarm about her eyes, and was going to consult the famous Dr. Hasenclever, and had brought her daughter with her, just as the London season had begun.

Her daughter was the "divine Julia" who had refused so many splendid offers--among them the little hunchback Lord who was to have a thousand a day, "including Sundays"; a most unreasonable young woman, and a thorn in her mother's flesh.

The elderly gentleman, Admiral Royce, was Lady Jane's uncle-in-law, whose eyes were also giving him a little anxiety. He was a charming old stoic, by no means pompous or formal, or a martinet, and declared he remembered hearing of Barty as the naughtiest boy in the Guards; and took an immediate fancy to him in consequence.

They had come from Brussels in the same train that had brought the Rohans from Malines, and they all journeyed together from Verviers to Düsseldorf in the same first-class carriage, as became English swells of the first water--for in those days no one ever thought of going first-class in Germany except the British aristocracy and a few native royalties.

The divine Julia turned out as fascinating as she was fair, being possessed of those high spirits that result from youth and health and fancy-freedom, and no cares to speak of. She was evidently also a very clever and accomplished young lady, absolutely without affectation of any kind, and amiable and frolicsome to the highest degree--a kind of younger Barty Josselin in petticoats; oddly enough, so like him in the face she might have been his sister.

Indeed, it was a lively party that journeyed to Düsseldorf that afternoon in that gorgeously gilded compartment, though three out of the six were in deep mourning; the only person not quite happy being Lady Jane, who, in addition to her trouble about her eyes (which was really nothing to speak of), began to fidget herself miserably about Barty Josselin; for that wretched young detrimental was evidently beginning to ingratiate himself with the divine Julia as no young man had ever been known to do before, keeping her in fits of laughter, and also laughing at everything she said herself.

Alas for Lady Jane! it was to escape the attentions of a far less dangerous detrimental, and a far less ineligible one, that she had brought her daughter with her all the way to Riffrath--"from Charybdis to Scylla," as we used to say at Brossard's, putting the cart before the horse, more Latino!

I ought also to mention that a young Captain Graham-Reece was a patient of Dr. Hasenclever's just then--and Captain Graham-Reece was heir to the octogenarian Earl of Ironsides, who was one of the four wealthiest peers in the United Kingdom, and had no direct descendants.

When they reached Düsseldorf they all went to the Breidenbacher Hotel, where rooms had been retained for them, all but Barty, who, as became his humbler means, chose the cheaper hotel Domhardt, which overlooks the market-place adorned by the statue of the Elector that Heine has made so famous.

He took a long evening walk through the vernal Hof Gardens and by the Rhine, and thought of the beauty and splendor of the divine Julia; and sighed, and remembered that he was Mr. Nobody of Nowhere, pictor ignotus, with only one eye he could see with, and possessed of a fortune which invested in the 3 per cents would bring him in just £6 a year--and made up his mind he would stick to his painting and keep as much away from her divinity as possible.