|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 87
I found Mr. Mafferton interfering, as I expected, with Dicky and Isabel
in their appreciation of the west shore. He was pointing out the Villa
Carlotta at Caddenabbia, and explaining the beauties of the sculptures
there and dwelling on the tone of blue in the immediate Alps and
reminding them that the elder Pliny once picked wild flowers on these
banks, and generally making himself the intelligent nuisance that nature
intended him to be. In spite of it Isabel was radiant. She said a number
of things with the greatest ease; one saw that language, after all, was
not difficult to her, she only wanted practice and an untroubled mind. I
looked at Dicky and saw that a weight had been removed from his, and it
was impossible to avoid the conclusion that peace and satisfaction in
this life would date for these two, if all went well for the next few
days, from the Lake of Como. But all could not be relied upon to go well
so long as Mr. Mafferton hovered, quoting Claudian on the mulberry tree,
upon the brink of a proposal, so I took him away to translate his
quotation for me in the stern, which naturally suggested the past and
its emotions. We could now refer quite sympathetically to the altogether
irretrievable and gone by, and Mr. Mafferton was able to mention Lady
Torquilan without any trace of his air that she was a person, poor dear,
that brought embarrassment with her. Indeed, I sometimes thought he
dragged her in. I asked him, in appropriate phrases, of course, whether
he had decided to accept Mrs. Portheris's daughter, and he fixed
mournful eyes upon me and said he thought he had, almost. The news of my
engagement to Mr. Dod had apparently done much to bring him to a
conclusion; he said it pointed so definitely to the unlikelihood of his
ever being able to find a more stimulating companion than Miss
Portheris, with all her charms, was likely to prove. It was difficult,
of course, to see the connection, but I could not help confiding to Mr.
Mafferton, as a secret, that there was hardly any chance of my union
with Dicky--after what poppa had said. When I assured him that I had no
intention whatever of disobeying my parent in a matter of which he was
so much better qualified to be a judge than I, it was impossible not to
see Mr. Mafferton's good opinion of me rising in his face. He said he
could not help sympathising with the paternal view, but that was all he
_would_ say; he refrained magnificently from abusing Dicky. And we
parted mutually more deeply convinced than ever of the undesirability of
doing anything rash in the all important direction we had been
discussing.
As we disembarked at Colico to take the train for Chiavenna, Mrs.
Portheris, after seeing that Mr. Mafferton was collecting the
portmanteaux, gave me a word of comfort and of admonition. "Take my
advice, my child," she said, "and be faithful to poor dear Richard. Your
father must, in the end, give way. I shall keep at him in your
interests. When you left us this afternoon," continued the lady
mysteriously, "he immediately took out his fountain pen and wrote a
letter. It was directed--I saw that much--to a Mr. Arthur Page. Is he
the creature who is to be forced upon you, my child?" Mrs. Portheris in
the sentimental view was really affecting.
"I think it very likely," I said calmly, "but I have promised to be
faithful to Richard, Mrs. Portheris, and I will."
But I really felt a little nervous.
CHAPTER XXIII.
The instant we saw the diligence momma declared that if she had to sit
anywhere but in the middle of it she would remain in Chiavenna until
next day. Mrs. Portheris was of the same mind. She said that even the
_int�rieur_ would be dangerous enough going down hill, but if the
Senator would sit there too she would try not to be nervous. The _coup�_
was terrifying--one saw everything the poor dear horses did--and as to
the _banquette_ she could imagine herself flying out of it, if we so
much as went over a stone. As a party we were strangers to the
diligence; we had all the curiosity and hesitation about it, as Dicky
remarked, of the animals when Noah introduced them to the Ark. I asked
Dicky to describe the diligence for the purpose of this volume, thinking
that it might, here and there, have a reader who had never seen one, and
he said that, as soon as he had made up his mind whether it was most
like a triumphal chariot in a circus procession or a boudoir car in an
ambulance, he would; but then his eyes wandered to Isabel, who was
pinker than ever in the mountain air, and his reasoning faculties left
him. A small German with a very red nose, most incoherent in his
apparel--he might have been a Baron or again a hair-dresser--already
occupied one of the seats in the _int�rieur_, so after our elders had
been safely deposited beside him the _banquette_ and the _coup�_ were
left, as Mrs. Portheris said, to the adventurous young people. Dicky and
I had conspired, for the sustained effect on Mrs. Portheris, to sit in
the _banquette_, while Isabel was to suffer Mr. Mafferton in the
_coup�_--an arrangement which her mother viewed with entire complacency.
"After all," said Mrs. Portheris to momma, "we're not in Hyde Park--and
young people will be young people." We had not counted, however, with
the Senator, who suddenly realised, as Dicky was handing me up, that it
was his business, in the capacity of Doge, to interfere. It is to his
credit that he found it embarrassing, on account of his natural, almost
paternal, dislike to make things unpleasant for Dicky. He assumed a
sternly impenetrable expression, thought about it for a moment, and then
approached Mr. Mafferton.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|