Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson (Illustrated) (477 page)

‘A bit of a thing,’ said he. ‘I just dash them off like that. I - I dash them off,’ he added with a gesture.

‘Quite so,’ said Dick, who was appalled by the feebleness of the production.

‘Understand me,’ continued Van Tromp; ‘I am a man of the world. And yet - once an artist always an artist. All of a sudden a thought takes me in the street; I become its prey: it’s like a pretty woman; no use to struggle; I must - dash it off.’

‘I see,’ said Dick.

‘Yes,’ pursued the painter; ‘it all comes easily, easily to me; it is not my business; it’s a pleasure. Life is my business - life - this great city, Paris - Paris after dark - its lights, its gardens, its odd corners. Aha!’ he cried, ‘to be young again! The heart is young, but the heels are leaden. A poor, mean business, to grow old! Nothing remains but the COUP D’OEIL, the contemplative man’s enjoyment, Mr. - ,’ and he paused for the name.

‘Naseby,’ returned Dick.

The other treated him at once to an exciting beverage, and expatiated on the pleasure of meeting a compatriot in a foreign land; to hear him, you would have thought they had encountered in Central Africa. Dick had never found any one take a fancy to him so readily, nor show it in an easier or less offensive manner. He seemed tickled with him as an elderly fellow about town might be tickled by a pleasant and witty lad; he indicated that he was no precision, but in his wildest times had never been such a blade as he thought Dick. Dick protested, but in vain. This manner of carrying an intimacy at the bayonet’s point was Van Tromp’s stock-in- trade. With an older man he insinuated himself; with youth he imposed himself, and in the same breath imposed an ideal on his victim, who saw that he must work up to it or lose the esteem of this old and vicious patron. And what young man can bear to lose a character for vice?

At last, as it grew towards dinner-time, ‘Do you know Paris?’ asked Van Tromp.

‘Not so well as you, I am convinced,’ said Dick.

‘And so am I,’ returned Van Tromp gaily. ‘Paris! My young friend - you will allow me? - when you know Paris as I do, you will have seen Strange Things. I say no more; all I say is, Strange Things. We are men of the world, you and I, and in Paris, in the heart of civilised existence. This is an opportunity, Mr. Naseby. Let us dine. Let me show you where to dine.’

Dick consented. On the way to dinner the Admiral showed him where to buy gloves, and made him buy them; where to buy cigars, and made him buy a vast store, some of which he obligingly accepted. At the restaurant he showed him what to order, with surprising consequences in the bill. What he made that night by his percentages it would be hard to estimate. And all the while Dick smilingly consented, understanding well that he was being done, but taking his losses in the pursuit of character as a hunter sacrifices his dogs. As for the Strange Things, the reader will be relieved to hear that they were no stranger than might have been expected, and he may find things quite as strange without the expense of a Van Tromp for guide. Yet he was a guide of no mean order, who made up for the poverty of what he had to show by a copious, imaginative commentary.

‘And such,’ said he, with a hiccup, ‘such is Paris.’

‘Pooh!’ said Dick, who was tired of the performance.

The Admiral hung an ear, and looked up sidelong with a glimmer of suspicion.

‘Good night,’ said Dick; ‘I’m tired.’

‘So English!’ cried Van Tromp, clutching him by the hand. ‘So English! So BLASE! Such a charming companion! Let me see you home.’

‘Look here,’ returned Dick, ‘I have said good night, and now I’m going. You’re an amusing old boy: I like you, in a sense; but here’s an end of it for to-night. Not another cigar, not another grog, not another percentage out of me.’

‘I beg your pardon!’ cried the Admiral with dignity.

‘Tut, man!’ said Dick; ‘you’re not offended; you’re a man of the world, I thought. I’ve been studying you, and it’s over. Have I not paid for the lesson? AU REVOIR.’

Van Tromp laughed gaily, shook hands up to the elbows, hoped cordially they would meet again and that often, but looked after Dick as he departed with a tremor of indignation. After that they two not unfrequently fell in each other’s way, and Dick would often treat the old boy to breakfast on a moderate scale and in a restaurant of his own selection. Often, too, he would lend Van Tromp the matter of a pound, in view of that gentleman’s contemplated departure for Australia; there would be a scene of farewell almost touching in character, and a week or a month later they would meet on the same boulevard without surprise or embarrassment. And in the meantime Dick learned more about his acquaintance on all sides: heard of his yacht, his chaise and four, his brief season of celebrity amid a more confiding population, his daughter, of whom he loved to whimper in his cups, his sponging, parasitical, nameless way of life; and with each new detail something that was not merely interest nor yet altogether affection grew up in his mind towards this disreputable stepson of the arts. Ere he left Paris Van Tromp was one of those whom he entertained to a farewell supper; and the old gentleman made the speech of the evening, and then fell below the table, weeping, smiling, paralysed.

CHAPTER II - A LETTER TO THE PAPERS

OLD Mr. Naseby had the sturdy, untutored nature of the upper middle class. The universe seemed plain to him. ‘The thing’s right,’ he would say, or ‘the thing’s wrong’; and there was an end of it. There was a contained, prophetic energy in his utterances, even on the slightest affairs; he SAW the damned thing; if you did not, it must be from perversity of will; and this sent the blood to his head. Apart from this, which made him an exacting companion, he was one of the most upright, hot-tempered, hot-headed old gentlemen in England. Florid, with white hair, the face of an old Jupiter, and the figure of an old fox-hunter, he enlivened the vale of Thyme from end to end on his big, cantering chestnut.

He had a hearty respect for Dick as a lad of parts. Dick had a respect for his father as the best of men, tempered by the politic revolt of a youth who has to see to his own independence. Whenever the pair argued, they came to an open rupture; and arguments were frequent, for they were both positive, and both loved the work of the intelligence. It was a treat to hear Mr. Naseby defending the Church of England in a volley of oaths, or supporting ascetic morals with an enthusiasm not entirely innocent of port wine. Dick used to wax indignant, and none the less so because, as his father was a skilful disputant, he found himself not seldom in the wrong. On these occasions, he would redouble in energy, and declare that black was white, and blue yellow, with much conviction and heat of manner; but in the morning such a licence of debate weighed upon him like a crime, and he would seek out his father, where he walked before breakfast on a terrace overlooking all the vale of Thyme.

‘I have to apologise, sir, for last night - ‘ he would begin.

‘Of course you have,’ the old gentleman would cut in cheerfully. ‘You spoke like a fool. Say no more about it.’

‘You do not understand me, sir. I refer to a particular point. I confess there is much force in your argument from the doctrine of possibilities.’

‘Of course there is,’ returned his father. ‘Come down and look at the stables. Only,’ he would add, ‘bear this in mind, and do remember that a man of my age and experience knows more about what he is saying than a raw boy.’

He would utter the word ‘boy’ even more offensively than the average of fathers, and the light way in which he accepted these apologies cut Richard to the heart. The latter drew slighting comparisons, and remembered that he was the only one who ever apologised. This gave him a high station in his own esteem, and thus contributed indirectly to his better behaviour; for he was scrupulous as well as high-spirited, and prided himself on nothing more than on a just submission.

So things went on until the famous occasion when Mr. Naseby, becoming engrossed in securing the election of a sound party candidate to Parliament, wrote a flaming letter to the papers. The letter had about every demerit of party letters in general; it was expressed with the energy of a believer; it was personal; it was a little more than half unfair, and about a quarter untrue. The old man did not mean to say what was untrue, you may be sure; but he had rashly picked up gossip, as his prejudice suggested, and now rashly launched it on the public with the sanction of his name.

‘The Liberal candidate,’ he concluded, ‘is thus a public turncoat. Is that the sort of man we want? He has been given the lie, and has swallowed the insult. Is that the sort of man we want? I answer No! With all the force of my conviction, I answer, NO!’

And then he signed and dated the letter with an amateur’s pride, and looked to be famous by the morrow.

Dick, who had heard nothing of the matter, was up first on that inauspicious day, and took the journal to an arbour in the garden. He found his father’s manifesto in one column; and in another a leading article. ‘No one that we are aware of,’ ran the article, ‘had consulted Mr. Naseby on the subject, but if he had been appealed to by the whole body of electors, his letter would be none the less ungenerous and unjust to Mr. Dalton. We do not choose to give the lie to Mr. Naseby, for we are too well aware of the consequences; but we shall venture instead to print the facts of both cases referred to by this red-hot partisan in another portion of our issue. Mr. Naseby is of course a large proprietor in our neighbourhood; but fidelity to facts, decent feeling, and English grammar, are all of them qualities more important than the possession of land. Mr. - is doubtless a great man; in his large gardens and that half-mile of greenhouses, where he has probably ripened his intellect and temper, he may say what he will to his hired vassals, but (as the Scotch say) -

here He mauna think to domineer.

‘Liberalism,’ continued the anonymous journalist, ‘is of too free and sound a growth,’ etc.

Richard Naseby read the whole thing from beginning to end; and a crushing shame fell upon his spirit. His father had played the fool; he had gone out noisily to war, and come back with confusion. The moment that his trumpets sounded, he had been disgracefully unhorsed. There was no question as to the facts; they were one and all against the Squire. Richard would have given his ears to have suppressed the issue; but as that could not be done, he had his horse saddled, and furnishing himself with a convenient staff, rode off at once to Thymebury.

The editor was at breakfast in a large, sad apartment. The absence of furniture, the extreme meanness of the meal, and the haggard, bright-eyed, consumptive look of the culprit, unmanned our hero; but he clung to his stick, and was stout and warlike.

‘You wrote the article in this morning’s paper?’ he demanded.

‘You are young Mr. Naseby? I PUBLISHED it,’ replied the editor, rising.

‘My father is an old man,’ said Richard; and then with an outburst, ‘And a damned sight finer fellow than either you or Dalton!’ He stopped and swallowed; he was determined that all should go with regularity. ‘I have but one question to put to you, sir,’ he resumed. ‘Granted that my father was misinformed, would it not have been more decent to withhold the letter and communicate with him in private?’

‘Believe me,’ returned the editor, ‘that alternative was not open to me. Mr. Naseby told me in a note that he had sent his letter to three other journals, and in fact threatened me with what he called exposure if I kept it back from mine. I am really concerned at what has happened; I sympathise and approve of your emotion, young gentleman; but the attack on Mr. Dalton was gross, very gross, and I had no choice but to offer him my columns to reply. Party has its duties, sir,’ added the scribe, kindling, as one who should propose a sentiment; ‘and the attack was gross.’

Richard stood for half a minute digesting the answer; and then the god of fair play came upper-most in his heart, and murmuring ‘Good morning,’ he made his escape into the street.

His horse was not hurried on the way home, and he was late for breakfast. The Squire was standing with his back to the fire in a state bordering on apoplexy, his fingers violently knitted under his coat tails. As Richard came in, he opened and shut his mouth like a cod-fish, and his eyes protruded.

‘Have you seen that, sir?’ he cried, nodding towards the paper.

‘Yes, sir,’ said Richard.

‘Oh, you’ve read it, have you?’

‘Yes, I have read it,’ replied Richard, looking at his foot.

‘Well,’ demanded the old gentleman, ‘and what have you to say to it, sir?’

‘You seem to have been misinformed,’ said Dick.

‘Well? What then? Is your mind so sterile, sir? Have you not a word of comment? no proposal?’

‘I fear, sir, you must apologise to Mr. Dalton. It would be more handsome, indeed it would be only just, and a free acknowledgment would go far - ‘ Richard paused, no language appearing delicate enough to suit the case.

‘That is a suggestion which should have come from me, sir,’ roared the father. ‘It is out of place upon your lips. It is not the thought of a loyal son. Why, sir, if my father had been plunged in such deplorable circumstances, I should have thrashed the editor of that vile sheet within an inch of his life. I should have thrashed the man, sir. It would have been the action of an ass; but it would have shown that I had the blood and the natural affections of a man. Son? You are no son, no son of mine, sir!’

‘Sir!’ said Dick.

‘I’ll tell you what you are, sir,’ pursued the Squire. ‘You’re a Benthamite. I disown you. Your mother would have died for shame; there was no modern cant about your mother; she thought - she said to me, sir - I’m glad she’s in her grave, Dick Naseby. Misinformed! Misinformed, sir? Have you no loyalty, no spring, no natural affections? Are you clockwork, hey? Away! This is no place for you. Away!’ (waving his hands in the air). ‘Go away! Leave me!’

At this moment Dick beat a retreat in a disarray of nerves, a whistling and clamour of his own arteries, and in short in such a final bodily disorder as made him alike incapable of speech or hearing. And in the midst of all this turmoil, a sense of unpardonable injustice remained graven in his memory.