Ruggles of Red Gap/Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
THE sight was a fair crumpler after the outrageous slander that had been put upon me by this elderly inebriate and his accomplice. I sat up at once, prepared to bully him down a bit. Although I was not sure that I engaged his attention, I told him that his reading could be very well done without and that he might take himself off. At this he became silent and regarded me solemnly.
"Why did Charing Cross the Strand? Because three rousing cheers," said he.
Of course he had the wheeze all wrong and I saw that he should be in bed. So with gentle words I lured him to his own chamber. Here, with a quite unexpected perversity, he accused me of having kept him up the night long and begged now to be allowed to retire. This he did with muttered complaints of my behaviour, and was almost instantly asleep. I concealed the constable's cap in one of his boxes, for I feared that he had not come by this honestly. I then returned to my own room, where for a long time I meditated profoundly upon the situation that now confronted me.
It seemed probable that I should be shopped by Mrs. Effie for what she had been led to believe was my rowdyish behaviour. However dastardly the injustice to me, it was a solution of the problem that I saw I could bring myself to meet with considerable philosophy. It meant a return to the quiet service of the Honourable George and that I need no longer face the distressing vicissitudes of life in the back blocks of unexplored America. I would not be obliged to muddle along in the blind fashion of the last two days, feeling a frightful fool. Mrs. Effie would surely not keep me on, and that was all about it. I had merely to make no defence of myself. And even if I chose to make one I was not certain that she would believe me, so cunning had been the accusations against me, with that tiny thread of fact which I make no doubt has so often enabled historians to give a false colouring to their recitals without stating downright untruths. Indeed, my shameless appearance in the garb of a cow person would alone have cast doubt upon the truth as I knew it to be.
Then suddenly I suffered an illumination. I perceived all at once that to make any sort of defence of myself would not be cricket. I mean to say, I saw the proceedings of the previous day in a new light. It is well known that I do not hold with the abuse of alcoholic stimulants, and yet on the day before, in moments that I now confess to have been slightly elevated, I had been conscious of a certain feeling of fellowship with my two companions that was rather wonderful. Though obviously they were not university men, they seemed to belong to what in America would be called the landed gentry, and yet I had felt myself on terms of undoubted equality with them. It may be believed or not, but there had been brief spaces when I forgot that I was a gentleman's man. Astoundingly I had experienced the confident ease of a gentleman among his equals. I was obliged to admit now that this might have been a mere delusion of the cup, and yet I wondered, too, if perchance I might not have caught something of that American spirit of equality which is said to be peculiar to republics. Needless to say I had never believed in the existence of this spirit, but had considered it rather a ghastly jest, having been a reader of our own periodical press since earliest youth. I mean to say, there could hardly be a stable society in which one had no superiors, because in that case one would not know who were one's inferiors. Nevertheless, I repeat that I had felt a most novel enlargement of myself; had, in fact, felt that I was a gentleman among gentlemen, using the word in its strictly technical sense. And so vividly did this conviction remain with me that I now saw any defence of my course to be out of the question.
I perceived that my companions had meant to have me on toast from the first. I mean to say, they had started a rag with me—a bit of chaff—and I now found myself rather preposterously enjoying the manner in which they had chivied me. I mean to say, I felt myself taking it as one gentleman would take a rag from other gentlemen—not as a bit of a sneak who would tell the truth to save his face. A couple of chaffing old beggars they were, but they had found me a topping dead sportsman of their own sort. Be it remembered I was still uncertain whether I had caught something of that alleged American spirit, or whether the drink had made me feel equal at least to Americans. Whatever it might be, it was rather great, and I was prepared to face Mrs. Effie without a tremor—to face her, of course, as one overtaken by a weakness for spirits.
When the bell at last rang I donned my service coat and, assuming a look of profound remorse, I went to the drawing-room to serve the morning coffee. As I suspected, only Mrs. Effie was present. I believe it has been before remarked that she is a person of commanding presence, with a manner of marked determination. She favoured me with a brief but chilling glance, and for some moments thereafter affected quite to ignore me. Obviously she had been completely greened the night before and was treating me with a proper contempt. I saw that it was no use grousing at fate and that it was better for me not to go into the American wilderness, since a rolling stone gathers no moss. I was prepared to accept instant dismissal without a character.
She began upon me, however, after her first cup of coffee, more mildly than I had expected.
"Ruggles, I'm horribly disappointed in you."
"Not more so than I myself, Madam," I replied.
"I am more disappointed," she continued, "because I felt that Cousin Egbert had something in him"
"Something in him, yes, Madam," I murmured sympathetically.
"And that you were the man to bring it out. I was quite hopeful after you got him into those new clothes. I don't believe any one else could have done it. And now it turns out that you have this weakness for drink. Not only that, but you have a mania for insisting that other men drink with you. Think of those two poor fellows trailing you over Paris yesterday trying to save you from yourself."
"I shall never forget it, Madam," I said.
"Of course I don't believe that Jeff Tuttle always has to have it forced on him. Jeff Tuttle is an Indian. But Cousin Egbert is different. You tore him away from that art gallery where he was improving his mind, and led him into places that must have been disgusting to him. All he wanted was to study the world's masterpieces in canvas and marble, yet you put a cabman's hat on him and made him ride an antelope, or whatever the thing was. I can't think where you got such ideas."
"I was not myself. I can only say that I seemed to be subject to an attack." And the Tuttle person was one of their Indians! This explained so much about him.
"You don't look like a periodical souse," she remarked.
"Quite so, Madam."
"But you must be a wonder when you do start. The point is: am I doing right to intrust Cousin Egbert to you again?"
"Quite so, Madam."
"It seems doubtful if you are the person to develop his higher nature."
Against my better judgment I here felt obliged to protest that I had always been given the highest character for quietness and general behaviour and that I could safely promise that I should be guilty of no further lapses of this kind. Frankly, I was wishing to be shopped, and yet I could not resist making this mild defence of myself. Such I have found to be the way of human nature. To my surprise I found that Mrs. Effie was more than half persuaded by these words and was on the point of giving me another trial. I cannot say that I was delighted at this. I was ready to give up all Americans as problems one too many for me, and yet I was strangely a little warmed at thinking I might not have seen the last of Cousin Egbert, whom I had just given a tuckup.
"You shall have your chance," she said at last, "and just to show you that I'm not narrow, you can go over to the sideboard there and pour yourself out a little one. It ought to be a lifesaver to you, feeling the way you must this morning."
"Thank you, Madam," and I did as she suggested. I was feeling especially fit, but I knew that I ought to play in character, as one might say.
"Three rousing cheers!" I said, having gathered the previous day that this was a popular American toast. She stared at me rather oddly, but made no comment other than to announce her departure on a shopping tour. Her bonnet, I noted, was quite wrong. Too extremely modish it was, accenting its own lines at the expense of a face to which less attention should have been called. This is a mistake common to the sex, however. They little dream how sadly they mock and betray their own faces. Nothing I think is more pathetic than their trustful unconsciousness of the tragedy—the rather plainish face under the contemptuous structure that points to it and shrieks derision. The rather plain woman who knows what to put upon her head is a woman of genius. I have seen three, perhaps.
I now went to the room of Cousin Egbert. I found him awake and cheerful, but disinclined to arise. It was hard for me to realize that his simple, kindly face could mask the guile he had displayed the night before. He showed no sign of regret for the false light in which he had placed me. Indeed he was sitting up in bed as cheerful and independent as if he had paid two-pence for a park chair.
"I fancy," he began, "that we ought to spend a peaceful day indoors. The trouble with these foreign parts is that they don't have enough home life. If it isn't one thing it's another."
"Sometimes it's both, sir," I said, and he saw at once that I was not to be wheedled. Thereupon he grinned brazenly at me, and demanded:
"What did she say?"
"Well, sir," I said, "she was highly indignant at me for taking you and Mr. Tuttle into public houses and forcing you to drink liquor, but she was good enough, after I had expressed my great regret and promised to do better in the future, to promise that I should have another chance. It was more than I could have hoped, sir, after the outrageous manner in which I behaved."
He grinned again at this, and in spite of my resentment I found myself grinning with him. I am aware that this was a most undignified submission to the injustice he had put upon me, and it was far from the line of stern rebuke that I had fully meant to adopt with him, but there seemed no other way. I mean to say, I couldn't help it.
"I'm glad to hear you talk that way," he said. "It shows you may have something in you after all. What you want to do is to learn to say no. Then you won't be so much trouble to those who have to look after you."
"Yes, sir," I said, "I shall try, sir."
"Then I'll give you another chance," he said sternly.
I mean to say, it was all spoofing, the way we talked. I am certain he knew it as well as I did. and I am sure we both enjoyed it. I am not one of those who think it shows a lack of dignity to unbend in this manner on occasion. True, it is not with every one I could afford to do so, but Cousin Egbert seemed to be an exception to almost every rule of conduct.
At his earnest request I now procured for him another carafe of iced water (he seemed already to have consumed two of these), after which he suggested that I read to him. The book he had was the well-known story, "Robinson Crusoe," and I began a chapter which describes some of the hero's adventures on his lonely island.
Cousin Egbert, I was glad to note, was soon sleeping soundly, so I left him and retired to my own room for a bit of needed rest. The story of "Robinson Crusoe" is one in which many interesting facts are conveyed regarding life upon remote islands where there are practically no modern conveniences and one is put to all sorts of crude makeshifts, but for me the narrative contains too little dialogue.
For the remainder of the day I was left to myself, a period of peace that I found most welcome. Not until evening did I meet any of the family except Cousin Egbert, who partook of some light nourishment late in the afternoon. Then it was that Mrs. Effie summoned me when she had dressed for dinner, to say:
"We are sailing for home the day after to-morrow. See that Cousin Egbert has everything he needs."
The following day was a busy one, for there were many boxes to be packed against the morrow's sailing, and much shopping to do for Cousin Egbert, although he was much against this.
"It's all nonsense," he insisted, "her saying all that truck helps to 'finish' me. Look at me! I've been in Europe darned near four months and I can't see that I'm a lick more finished than when I left Red Gap. Of course it may show on me so other people can see it, but I don't believe it does, at that." Nevertheless, I bought him no end of suits and smart haberdashery.
When the last box had been strapped I hastened to our old lodgings on the chance of seeing the Honourable George once more. I found him dejectedly studying an ancient copy of the "Referee." Too evidently he had dined that night in a costume which would, I am sure, have offended even Cousin Egbert. Above his dress trousers he wore a golfing waistcoat and a shooting jacket. However, I could not allow myself to be distressed by this. Indeed, I knew that worse would come. I forebore to comment upon the extraordinary choice of garments he had made. I knew it was quite useless. From any word that he let fall during our chat, he might have supposed himself to be dressed as an English gentleman should be.
He bade me seat myself, and for some time we smoked our pipes in a friendly silence. I had feared that, as on the last occasion, he would row me for having deserted him, but he no longer seemed to harbour this unjust thought. We spoke of America, and I suggested that he might some time come out to shoot big game along the Ohio or the Mississippi. He replied moodily, after a long interval, that if he ever did come out it would be to set up a cattle plantation. It was rather agreed that he would come should I send for him. "Can't sit around forever waiting for old Nevil's toast crumbs," said he.
We chatted for a time of home politics, which was, of course, in a wretched state. There was a time when we might both have been won to a sane and reasoned liberalism, but the present so-called government was coming it a bit too thick for us. We said some sharp things about the little Welsh attorney who was beginning to be England's humiliation. Then it was time for me to go.
The moment was rather awkward, for the Honourable George, to my great embarrassment, pressed upon me his dispatch-case, one that we had carried during all our travels and into which tidily fitted a quart flask. Brandy we usually carried in it. I managed to accept it with a word of thanks, and then amazingly he shook hands twice with me as we said good-night. I had never dreamed he could be so greatly affected. Indeed, I had always supposed that there was nothing of the sentimentalist about him.
So the Honourable George and I were definitely apart for the first time in our lives.
It was with mingled emotions that I set sail next day for the foreign land to which I had been exiled by a turn of the cards. Not only was I off to a wilderness where a life of daily adventure was the normal life, but I was to mingle with foreigners who promised to be quite almost impossibly queer, if the family of Flouds could be taken as a sample of the native American—knowing Indians like the Tuttle person; that sort of thing. If some would be less queer, others would be even more queer, with queerness of a sort to tax even my savoir faire, something which had been sorely taxed, I need hardly say, since that fatal evening when the Honourable George's intuitions had played him false in the game of drawing poker. I was not the first of my countrymen, however, to find himself in desperate straits, and I resolved to behave as England expects us to.
I have said that I was viewing the prospect with mingled emotions. Before we had been out many hours they became so mingled that, having crossed the Channel many times, I could no longer pretend to ignore their true nature. For three days I was at the mercy of the elements, and it was then I discovered a certain hardness in the nature of Cousin Egbert which I had not before suspected. It was only by speaking in the sharpest manner to him that I was able to secure the nursing my condition demanded. I made no doubt he would actually have left me to the care of a steward had I not been firm with him. I have known him leave my bedside for an hour at a time when it seemed probable that I would pass away at any moment. And more than once, when I summoned him in the night to administer one of the remedies with which I had provided myself, or perhaps to question him if the ship were out of danger, he exhibited something very like irritation. Indeed he was never properly impressed by my suffering, and at times when he would answer my call it was plain to be seen that he had been passing idle moments in the smoke-room or elsewhere, quite as if the situation were an ordinary one.
It is only fair to say, however, that toward the end of my long and interesting illness I had quite broken his spirit and brought him to be as attentive as even I could wish. By the time I was able with his assistance to go upon deck again he was bringing me nutritive wines and jellies without being told, and so attentive did he remain that I overheard a fellow-passenger address him as Florence Nightingale. I also overheard the Senator tell him that I had got his sheep, whatever that may have meant—a sheep or a goat—some domestic animal. Yet with all his willingness he was clumsy in his handling of me; he seemed to take nothing with any proper seriousness, and in spite of my sharpest warning he would never wear the proper clothes, so that I always felt he was attracting undue attention to us. Indeed, I should hardly care to cross with him again, and this I told him straight.
Of the so-called joys of ship-life, concerning which the boat companies speak so enthusiastically in their folders, the less said the better. It is a childish mind, I think, that can be impressed by the mere wabbly bulk of water. It is undoubtedly tremendous, but nothing to kick up such a row about. The truth is that the prospect from a ship's deck lacks that variety which one may enjoy from almost any English hillside. One sees merely water, and that's all about it.
It will be understood, therefore, that I hailed our approach to the shores of foreign America with relief if not with enthusiasm. Even this was better than an ocean which has only size in its favour and has been quite too foolishly overrated.
We were soon steaming into the harbour of one of their large cities. Chicago, I had fancied it to be, until the chance remark of an American who looked to be a well-informed fellow identified it as New York. I was much annoyed now at the behaviour of Cousin Egbert, who burst into silly cheers at the slightest excuse, a passing steamer, a green hill, or a rusty statue of quite ungainly height which seemed to be made of crude iron. Do as I would, I could not restrain him from these unseemly shouts. I could not help contrasting his boisterousness with the fine reserve which, for example, the Honourable George would have maintained under these circumstances.
A further relief it was, therefore, when we were on the dock and his mind was diverted to other matters. A long time we were detained by customs officials who seemed rather overwhelmed by the gowns and millinery of Mrs. Effie, but we were at last free and taken through the streets of the crude new American city of New York to a hotel overlooking what I dare say in their simplicity they call their Hyde Park.