Mathieu Ropars: et cetera Part 7

We talked of her brother George; of the pleasant house wherein I first met her, and which was still her home; of her amiable and lady-like mother who was still living; of the old pony now gathered to his sires; of the old chestnut-trees even--in short, of all those unimportant a.s.sociations, out of which, under such circ.u.mstances, one endeavours to establish a trivial and flitting but very pleasant little bond of sympathy.

I declare I was half ready to fall head over ears in love with her. And she took it all with a simple unaffected grace, that seemed to be her very nature.

But we did not have all the talk to ourselves. I had not the presumption to engross her entirely. Nor would it have been possible. She was--there is no need to go over it all again--she was Mary Verner.

Nearly opposite to us at table sat a Mr. Easton, a young barrister--young, that is professionally, for he was apparently a man of thirty or thereabouts. He would not have been singled out as a lady-killer, for he was none of your regular Adonises, such as hang by dozens, in portraiture, upon the walls of our Royal Academy Exhibitions, and lounge complacently in our Fop's Alley at the Opera. When, however, the excitement of conversation--in which he took an active and most intelligent part--developed the fine play of his features, you would have p.r.o.nounced him a man who added, to a cultivated and superior mind, a look that bespoke such gift. In fact there was a manly air about him, that claimed respect, if it did not challenge attention.

About the time when I made this notable discovery, I recollected that at the moment of my introduction to Miss Verner, Mr. Easton was gossipping with her in the secluded corner half-hidden by the drapery, though he moved away, with perfect good breeding, to give place to the new-comer.

About this time, too, there began--at which end of the table, I forget--an occasional play of badinage, whereof Mr. Easton was the subject. For a grave and earnest man, he seemed to receive it all in exceedingly good part. To my surprise also--to say nothing of annoyance--my fair neighbour was brought, after a while, within its scope. Neither did she--I was forced to acknowledge within myself--evince either _mauvaise honte_ or sensitiveness. The truth was plain. They were engaged.

As a child's card-built house tumbles down when the table is shaken, so down went one of the prettiest little castles-in-the-air, that ever simpleton built out of cards of his own shaping.

Down it went; though I flatter myself I was too much a man of the world, to let a glimpse of its dislocated plan be apparent. Indeed, in a few seconds, I had rallied myself on my own absurdity; gulped down my disappointment; and resigned myself again to the charm that Mary Verner still shed around her, if its tint was somewhat changed. Besides, I availed myself of the sudden opportunity thus afforded, for testing the practical value of one of my favourite theories, when I was a young fellow and affected to bask in the sunshine of human nature: to wit, that, apart from serious love-making, when a woman in either married or betrothed, she has therefrom an additional feather in her social cap. So have I found it through life--always provided that the attractive and companionable qualities were otherwise in abundance. And this theory has at least given heartiness to my good wishes for my fairer acquaintances and friends. Is it not better to come to such a philosophical conclusion, than to be always envying other people's good fortune?

Shifting, therefore, my ground, I was rapidly possessed by a strong interest in Miss Verner's future welfare--much of which was undoubtedly genuine.

Delicately, and by gently leading her on, I gathered something of the story of her courtship, though I must needs confess that I cannot now call to mind a word of it. It may be of more interest to state that she was to make Mr. Easton the happiest of men, within six weeks or so of that time; and that the honey-moon was to be spent in a ramble on the Continent. Very emphatically and very sincerely did I wish her a pleasant time of it.

But the most agreeable evenings will come to a close. This one--with its revival of a boy's casual acquaintance, with its momentary castle-building, and its subsequent benevolence of feeling--this one, like all others, pa.s.sed away. It did not die out, as the f.a.g-end of a dinner-party sometimes will; it was cut short to me by the "good night!"

of Mary Verner, as she took her departure, leaning on Mr. Easton's arm, in the train of an elderly female relative.

When the drawing-room door closed upon her graceful figure, I felt for a moment as though the gas had been suddenly turned off. I recollect, however, the hostess's observation, dropped to the accompaniment of a playfully malicious smile:

"Didn't I tell you, you would like my friend Mary Verner?"

"Yes," was the reply, "and I have pa.s.sed a most delightful evening; but I don't think it quite fair, Mrs. F."--here there was a terrible smash of the theory--"to open the gates of Paradise, and then slam them in a poor fellow's face?"

I was to have gone, that night, to a ball in Devonshire Place, expressly to meet--Never mind; I was not in the humour for dancing or flirting. I went straight home, and to bed. I tossed about a good deal, and finally dreamed about George and the pony, and that I was climbing the old chestnut-trees. As for Mary Verner, I couldn't in my sleep conjure up her image. When I thought I had it--as is the way in dreams, you know, if you ever studied them--I couldn't get nearer to her than the plaguy old family coachman. It was only when broad awake, the next morning, that I found myself strongly impressed by this, my second meeting. But again--such is life and such is youth--the impression was soon stowed away on an upper shelf in memory's garret.

III.

Two years later; two years and two months.

Did you ever notice the marked difference between youth and old age--aye, and middle age, too--in the matter of reading newspapers?

We--I speak of myself now as the writer--who are in the vanguard of the march through life, must have our _Times_ or our _Chronicle_, as regularly as our morning meal. Is it, as some spitefully a.s.sert, that we grow more self-complacent as we pore over the misfortunes or the errors of our fellows; or is it, that we seek refuge from the cares and disappointments of our own lot, in a close scrutiny of that of all the world beside, with the minutiae of which the diligent, prying, gossipping press so unceasingly plies our curiosity? It is folly, perhaps, to raise the question, since this is not the place to discuss it; though it were not far from the truth to attribute much of the pettiness of our race, in these days, to this habit of abandoning our thoughts and impulses to the guidance of journalists who trade in them.

I only mean to say that being still youthful at twenty-three, I "cared for none of these things," As for heeding who was born, or buried, or married, beyond the circle of one's own intimate connections--I should as soon have set to work to trace the pedigree of a New Zealander.

Probably, I heard in due time that Mary Verner had become Mrs. Easton.

Certainly I did not learn it from the usual printed record. In short, I then very seldom read newspapers at all; and this I beg you to bear in mind. What a shocking ignoramus I should be voted, if I were to say so of this present time.

That, too, was the season of darkness, ere Albert Smith was the Lecturer _par excellence_; ere Oxford and Cambridge men, returning from their "long-vacation" rambles, disputed in the daily papers their respective prowess in scaling the precipices of Monte Rosa, or discovering new pathways up Mont Blanc. How changed are we to-day! Save for the voluminous records of the Crimean war, what Mamelons and Malakoffs would the pedestrians, Smith and Jones, be now fighting over, in the _Times_!

Nevertheless, though they made less fuss about it, Englishmen were then, as now, p.r.o.ne to scurrying off to Switzerland in the Autumn--some in the true c.o.c.kney spirit--some because they found there the most sublime of all spectacles, together with the most exhilarating exercise for the body, and relaxation of mind in its fullest sense. With myself it amounted to a pa.s.sion; "Cuthbert's hobby" it was dubbed by acquaintances, who could eke out delight from Leamington and Cheltenham.

Profiting by the leisure afforded me during successive seasons, I had become tolerably familiar with the Alps; with what exquisite and inexhaustible enjoyment I am not going here to trouble you. But August had come round again. The knapsack was st.i.tched, where it wanted mending. The Alpenstock was dragged to light, from the lumber-room. The thick-soled gaiter-boots were freshly studded with hobnails. The well-worn Swiss map was conned over once more, and a new route, leading over yet untrodden pa.s.ses, was set down in the Autumnal programme.

Suddenly I changed my mind--under the influence of an hour's talk with an enthusiastic mountaineer--who had, during the previous season, explored the Pyrenees. "You may not find," said he, "quite so much grandeur; but the valleys are decidedly more picturesque, the foliage more varied, the very tints of the mountains glowing with warmer colours." Thereupon, a change of plan and pa.s.sport. Behold me at Cauterets in France, instead of at Grindelwald in Switzerland!

Were my object merely to fill a certain number of pages, I might here descant at length upon the comparative beauties of the Alps and the Pyrenees--the latter having, at present, the advantage of not being done to death by tourists. But I will abstain. I will speak only of one day's adventure; the day whereon, for the third and last time, I found myself a.s.sociated with Mary Verner.

Cauterets may be a pleasant place enough to those who bathe in, or imbibe for medicinal purposes, the mineral waters that have made its fame. It is finely placed too, pitched in, as it were, into a nook, with lofty peaks and fringes of fir forests over-topping its somewhat formal streets. It does not, however, offer much attraction to the connoisseur in fine scenery. One excursion alone is to be made. Its objects are the Pont d'Espagne and the Lac de Gaube. The former is a group of pine trunks bridging a cascade. The latter is a tarn at the foot of the glaciers of the Vignemale, which, you know, is one of the mountain-monarchs hereabouts.

Before proceeding further, I may mention that I am enabled to set down my reminiscences of this particular time and place, by reference to my rough notes penned on the spot, journal-wise. The little memorandum book lies under my hand, with its pages written in ink of various tints, as hotel, or cabaret, or hut furnished the material at the moment. I like to preserve these records. Such _souvenirs_ are the _bonnes fortunes_ of those whose travels are ended. You see that I incline to be sentimental as I draw towards the _denouement_ of my story.

Heavens and earth, how it rains in the Pyrenees! What a young deluge swept down the steep stone-guttered pavements, on the morning of the 29th of August! Still, I did not choose to devote more than one day to the neighbourhood of Cauterets; and so, having made, from my window, a few such profound observations as the one just set down, I ordered a horse and guide. The polite waiter was astonished, and protested, to the extent of two or three "_Mais Monsieur!_" The guide thought the storm would expend itself in twenty-four hours; but on my hinting that the path would not be difficult to find, without his aid, nor impracticable, on foot, he subsided, with an air of conviction, into the accustomed "_Bien, Monsieur!_"

And so we started. I had borrowed one of the long, thick, hooded Spanish cloaks, commonly used in that region which borders on Spain; and a very effectual protection it was against the steady down-pouring of the rain.

But what is perfect in this world? A German counterpane, on a summer's night, is not more oppressive than was this excellent protection from the wet.

Handing, then, the heavy enc.u.mbrance to the guide, I was drenched to the skin in about two minutes. This was a comfort. It settled the point. I dislike uncertainty. I could be at my ease, and look about. Remember it was yet August.

And the Val de Jeret, up which I was riding, was so grandly gloomy; the state of the weather excluding all but close views! My note-book thus speaks of it, the writer never dreaming that his impressions would be told to the readers of a newspaper, with many of whom Niagara and Montmorenci are familiar sights: "The valley presents a succession of splendid waterfalls; and, singularly enough, as your route lies upwards, they increase in size and beauty, from the Mahourat, the first, to the Pont d'Espagne, the last and most celebrated. The three intervening, that are dignified with names, are the Cerizet, the Bousse, and the Pas de l'Ours. Besides these, there are an infinity of smaller falls, the whole course of the Gave (or torrent) de Marcadaou--along which the path lies--boiling over broken ma.s.ses of rock. The eye is charmed by endless variety, amid perpetual repet.i.tion. The deluge of rain, which covered the lofty rocks on each side of the defile with clouds, had gloriously swollen the turbulent waters. I know of nothing in natural scenery--thus the ma.n.u.script rather enthusiastically proceeds--that impresses one so forcibly as a cascade of large dimensions. By large I mean broad, not lofty. The effect is apt to diminish, with vast height. These, in the Val de Jeret, I found absolutely bewitching; for is it not a sort of infatuation, by which we are beguiled into drawing nearer and nearer, until you almost touch the foaming sheets as they flurry past, and are yourself driven back, for your pains, half blind and breathless? One fine waterfall would be enough to digest in a day. During these two or three hours, I had a very feast of them."

If I extract this somewhat rhapsodical pa.s.sage, it is to show that my inward man was not dampened, by the dampening process externally applied. On the contrary, I am disposed to be jubilant, almost defiant, in proportion to the fury of the storm; that is to say when no serious personal inconvenience is caused by stress of weather. In a mountain region too, above all others, clouds play so great a part in the combination of fine effects, that I have many times fairly welcomed a tempestuous spell.

Thus from the Pont d'Espagne I continued my ride an hour or so further, in order to reach the Lac de Gaube, knowing perfectly well that the chances were a hundred to one against my getting a glimpse of the glaciers of the Vignemale, at whose feet this small sheet of water is imbedded. Small it may well be termed, for it is not quite three miles in circ.u.mference, though the largest lake in the Pyrenees.

On the rocky sh.o.r.e where the rough pathway terminates, stands, or stood at the period of which I write, a solitary hut. There, during the short summer season, might be found a family who earned a scanty subsistence, by catching the lake trout and serving them up to chance travellers; by rowing, in the solitary punt, any one who cared to paddle about the dark waters; or by escorting any still more adventurous stranger desirous of exploring the glaciers above-named, or ascending the lower heights of the Vignemale.

Stepping up to the door of this cabin, I entered into conversation with its chief occupant, who probably combined in his own person the various offices of restaurateur, fisherman, muleteer, guide, and smuggler.

Possibly I libel him in the last respect; but along that frontier of France and Spain, it is rare to find a mountaineer guiltless of the contraband trade.

A visitor on such a day was a welcome sight to the poor fellow, who was eloquent in regrets that _his_ mountain and _his_ glaciers and _his_ other local points of interest were all wrapped in the impenetrable mist. He seemed, I remember now, to care more about it than I did; for I had revelled in the exhibition of cascades, and was rather tickled at the notion of having come up to this lone and savage spot, where nothing whatever was to be seen.

If a spirit had whispered me, that the moment of my third _rencontre_ was close at hand, I should have smiled incredulously.

The fog lifted. I could see to a distance of half a dozen yards.

"What's that?"

"If Monsieur will give himself the trouble of walking up to it, he will see."

It was on a jutting promontory of rock, close at hand. A small enclosure was railed in. It held what was obviously a monumental tablet, in white marble, but discoloured by exposure.

"A favourite poodle, perhaps, of the d.u.c.h.esse de Berri--or one of our eccentric Englishmen doing honour to a Pyrenean bear!" Such I thought it might be, as I carelessly lounged up to it, and stooped to read the inscription.

It was in French and English. I took no copy of the words. But it was placed there in memory of Mr. and Mrs. Easton, drowned in the lake, within one month of their marriage, on the 20th of September, 18--! The facts were simply stated. I wish the record of them had been placed a little further off from the rendezvous of the thoughtless and light-hearted.

This was the last of my a.s.sociations with her. But it would not interest the reader, to be told with what feelings of surprise and sorrow I thus learned the close of a career, which bid so fair for happiness and usefulness. Poor Mary Verner!

Before setting-off on my return to Cauterets, I heard, from the lips of the man with whom I had been conversing, the sad particulars of this harrowing event. Never could the common phrase, that speaks of "painful curiosity," have been more applicable than it was in my case, as I stood and listened to him. Poor fellow; he had been an eye-witness. He saw my emotion. "Monsieur knew the young couple?"--thus did he break the thread of his little narrative, more than once.

I cannot pretend to set down his words. This is the substance of what he told me.

The season was nearly over. The weather was splendidly fine, but very cold. Travellers were scarcely expected; when on that brilliant September morning, up rode the bride and bridegroom. After resting awhile, they took the single skiff that was there, Mr. Easton offering to row his wife across the lake, to which she very reluctantly a.s.sented.

I recollect the narrator dwelling on this fact.