by A. A. Milne
* * *
"Yes, exceedingly. We'd better come on," says Kicklebury, blushing rather as he returns the princess's nod.
* * *
It is wonderful how large Kicklebury's acquaintance is. He has a word and a joke, in the best German he can muster, for everybody—for the high well-born lady, as for the German peasant maiden, or the pretty little washerwoman, who comes full sail down the streets, a basket on her head and one of Mrs. Fantail's wonderful gowns swelling on each arm. As we were going to the Schloss-Garten I caught a sight of the rogue's grinning face yesterday, close at little Gretel's ear under her basket; but spying out his mother advancing, he dashed down a bystreet, and when we came up with her, Gretel was alone.
* * *
One but seldom sees the English and the holiday visitors in the ancient parts of Noirbourg; they keep to the streets of new buildings and garden villas, which have sprung up under the magic influence of M. Lenoir, under the white towers and gables of the old German town. The Prince of Trente et Quarante has quite overcome the old serene sovereign of Noirbourg, whom one cannot help fancying a prince like a prince in a Christmas pantomime—a burlesque prince with twopence-halfpenny for a revenue, jolly and irascible, a prime-minister-kicking prince, fed upon fabulous plum-puddings and enormous pasteboard joints, by cooks and valets with large heads which never alter their grin. Not that this portrait is from the life. Perhaps he has no life. Perhaps there is no prince in the great white tower, that we see for miles before we enter the little town. Perhaps he has been mediatized, and sold his kingdom to Monsieur Lenoir. Before the palace of Lenoir there is a grove of orange-trees in tubs, which Lenoir bought from another German prince; who went straightway and lost the money, which he had been paid for his wonderful orange-trees, over Lenoir's green tables, at his roulette and trente-et-quarante. A great prince is Lenoir in his way; a generous and magnanimous prince. You may come to his feast and pay nothing, unless you please. You may walk in his gardens, sit in his palace, and read his thousand newspapers. You may go and play at whist in his small drawing-rooms, or dance and hear concerts in his grand saloon—and there is not a penny to pay. His fiddlers and trumpeters begin trumpeting and fiddling for you at the early dawn—they twang and blow for you in the afternoon, they pipe for you at night that you may dance—and there is nothing to pay—Lenoir pays for all. Give him but the chances of the table, and he will do all this and more. It is better to live under Prince Lenoir than a fabulous old German Durchlaucht whose cavalry ride wicker horses with petticoats, and whose prime minister has a great pasteboard head. Vive le Prince Lenoir!
* * *
There is a grotesque old carved gate to the palace of the Durchlaucht, from which you could expect none but a pantomime procession to pass. The place looks asleep; the courts are grass-grown and deserted. Is the Sleeping Beauty lying yonder, in the great white tower? What is the little army about? It seems a sham army: a sort of grotesque military. The only charge of infantry was this: one day when passing through the old town, looking for sketches. Perhaps they become croupiers at night. What can such a fabulous prince want with anything but a sham army? My favorite walk was in the ancient quarter of the town—the dear old fabulous quarter, away from the noisy actualities of life and Prince Lenoir's new palace—out of eye and earshot of the dandies and the ladies in their grand best clothes at the promenades—and the rattling whirl of the roulette wheel—and I liked to wander in the glum old gardens under the palace wall, and imagine the Sleeping Beauty within there.
* * *
Some one persuaded us one day to break the charm, and see the interior of the palace. I am sorry we did. There was no Sleeping Beauty in any chamber that we saw; nor any fairies, good or malevolent. There was a shabby set of clean old rooms, which looked as if they had belonged to a prince hard put to it for money, and whose tin crown jewels would not fetch more than King Stephen's pantaloons. A fugitive prince, a brave prince struggling with the storms of fate, a prince in exile may be poor; but a prince looking out of his own palace windows with a dressing-gown out at elbows, and dunned by his subject washerwoman—I say this is a painful object. When they get shabby they ought not to be seen. "Don't you think so, Lady Kicklebury?" Lady Kicklebury evidently had calculated the price of the carpets and hangings, and set them justly down at a low figure. "These German princes," she said, "are not to be put on a level with English noblemen." "Indeed," we answer, "there is nothing so perfect as England: nothing so good as our aristocracy; nothing so perfect as our institutions." "Nothing! NOTHING!" says Lady K.
* * *
An English princess was once brought to reign here; and almost the whole of the little court was kept upon her dowry. The people still regard her name fondly; and they show, at the Schloss, the rooms which she inhabited. Her old books are still there—her old furniture brought from home; the presents and keepsakes sent by her family are as they were in the princess's lifetime: the very clock has the name of a Windsor maker on its face; and portraits of all her numerous race decorate the homely walls of the now empty chambers. There is the benighted old king, his beard hanging down to the star on his breast; and the first gentleman of Europe—so lavish of his portrait everywhere, and so chary of showing his royal person—all the stalwart brothers of the now all but extinct generation are there; their quarrels and their pleasures, their glories and disgraces, enemies, flatterers, detractors, admirers—all now buried. Is it not curious to think that the King of Trumps now virtually reigns in this place, and has deposed the other dynasty?
* * *
Very early one morning, wishing to have a sketch of the White Tower in which our English princess had been imprisoned, I repaired to the gardens, and set about a work, which, when completed, will no doubt have the honor of a place on the line at the Exhibition; and, returning homewards to breakfast, musing upon the strange fortunes and inhabitants of the queer, fantastic, melancholy place, behold, I came suddenly upon a couple of persons, a male and a female; the latter of whom wore a blue hood or "ugly," and blushed very much on seeing me. The man began to laugh behind his moustaches, the which cachinnation was checked by an appealing look from the young lady; and he held out his hand and said, "How d'ye do, Titmarsh? Been out making some cawickachaws, hay?"
* * *
I need not say that the youth before me was the heavy dragoon, and that the maiden was Miss Fanny Kicklebury. Or need I repeat that, in the course of my blighted being, I never loved a young gazelle to glad me with its dark blue eye, but when it came to, &c., the usual disappointment, was sure to ensue? There is no necessity why I should allude to my feelings at this most manifest and outrageous case. I gave a withering glance of scorn at the pair, and, with a stately salutation, passed on.
* * *
Miss Fanny came tripping after me. She held out her little hand with such a pretty look of deprecation, that I could not but take it; and she said, "Mr. Titmarsh, if you please, I want to speak to you, if you please;" and, choking with emotion, I bade her speak on.
* * *
"My brother knows all about it, and, highly approves of Captain Hicks," she said, with her head hanging down; "and oh, he's very good and kind: and I know him MUCH better now, than I did when we were on board the steamer."
* * *
I thought how I had mimicked him, and what an ass I had been.
* * *
"And you know," she continued, "that you have quite deserted me for the last ten days for your great acquaintances."
* * *
"I have been to play chess with Lord Knightsbridge, who has the gout."
* * *
"And to drink tea constantly with that American lady; and you have written verses in her album; and in Lavinia's album; and as I saw that you had quite thrown me off, why I—my brother approves of it highly; and—and Captain Hicks likes you very much, and says you amuse him very much—indeed he does," says the arch little wretch. And then she added a postscript, as it were to her letter, which contained, as u
sual, the point which she wished to urge:—
* * *
"You—won't break it to mamma—will you be so kind? My brother will do that"—and I promised her; and she ran away, kissing her hand to me. And I did not say a word to Lady Kicklebury, and not above a thousand people at Noirbourg knew that Miss Kicklebury and Captain Hicks were engaged.
* * *
And now let those who are too confident of their virtue listen to the truthful and melancholy story which I have to relate, and humble themselves, and bear in mind that the most perfect among us are occasionally liable to fall. Kicklebury was not perfect,—I do not defend his practice. He spent a great deal more time and money than was good for him at M. Lenoir's gaming-table, and the only thing which the young fellow never lost was his good humor. If Fortune shook her swift wings and fled away from him, he laughed at the retreating pinions, and you saw him dancing and laughing as gayly after losing a rouleau, as if he was made of money, and really had the five thousand a year which his mother said was the amount of the Kicklebury property. But when her ladyship's jointure, and the young ladies' allowances, and the interest of mortgages were paid out of the five thousand a year, I grieve to say that the gallant Kicklebury's income was to be counted by hundreds and not by thousands; so that, for any young lady who wants a carriage (and who can live without one?) our friend the baronet is not a desirable specimen of bachelors. Now, whether it was that the presence of his mamma interrupted his pleasures, or certain of her ways did not please him, or that he had lost all his money at roulette and could afford no more, certain it is, that after about a fortnight's stay at Noirbourg, he went off to shoot with Count Einhorn in Westphalia; he and Hicks parting the dearest of friends, and the baronet going off on a pony which the captain lent to him. Between him and Millikin, his brother-in-law, there was not much sympathy: for he pronounced Mr. Milliken to be what is called a muff; and had never been familiar with his elder sister Lavinia, of whose poems he had a mean opinion, and who used to tease and worry him by teaching him French, and telling tales of him to his mamma, when he was a schoolboy home for the holidays. Whereas, between the baronet and Miss Fanny there seemed to be the closest affection: they walked together every morning to the waters; they joked and laughed with each other as happily as possible. Fanny was almost ready to tell fibs to screen her brother's malpractices from her mamma: she cried when she heard of his mishaps, and that he had lost too much money at the green table; and when Sir Thomas went away, the good little soul brought him five louis; which was all the money she had: for you see she paid her mother handsomely for her board; and when her little gloves and milliner's bills were settled how much was there left out of two hundred a year? And she cried when she heard that Hicks had lent Sir Thomas money, and went up and said, "Thank you, Captain Hicks;" and shook hands with the captain so eagerly, that I thought he was a lucky fellow, who had a father a wealthy attorney in Bedford Row. Heighho! I saw how matters were going. The birds MUST sing in the spring-time, and the flowers bud.
* * *
Mrs. Milliken, in her character of invalid, took the advantage of her situation to have her husband constantly about her, reading to her, or fetching the doctor to her, or watching her whilst she was dozing, and so forth; and Lady Kicklebury found the life which this pair led rather more monotonous than that sort of existence which she liked, and would leave them alone with Fanny (Captain Hicks not uncommonly coming in to take tea with the three), whilst her ladyship went to the Redoute to hear the music, or read the papers, or play a game of whist there.
* * *
The newspaper-room at Noirbourg is next to the roulette-room, into which the doors are always open; and Lady K. would come, with newspaper in hand, into this play-room, sometimes, and look on at the gamesters. I have mentioned a little Russian boy, a little imp with the most mischievous intelligence and good humor in his face, who was suffered by his parents to play as much as he chose, and who pulled bonbons out of one pocket and Napoleons out of the other, and seemed to have quite a diabolical luck at the table.
* * *
Lady Kicklebury's terror and interest at seeing this boy were extreme. She watched him and watched him, and he seemed always to win; and at last her ladyship put down just a florin—only just one florin—on one of the numbers at roulette which the little Russian imp was backing. Number twenty-seven came up, and the croupiers flung over three gold pieces and five florins to Lady Kicklebury, which she raked up with a trembling hand.
* * *
She did not play any more that night, but sat in the playroom, pretending to read the Times newspaper; but you could see her eye peering over the sheet, and always fixed on the little imp of a Russian. He had very good luck that night, and his winning made her very savage. As he retired, rolling his gold pieces into his pocket and sucking his barley-sugar, she glared after him with angry eyes; and went home, and scolded everybody, and had no sleep. I could hear her scolding. Our apartments in the Tissisch House overlooked Lady Kicklebury's suite of rooms: the great windows were open in the autumn. Yes; I could hear her scolding, and see some other people sitting whispering in the embrasure, or looking out on the harvest moon.
* * *
The next evening, Lady Kicklebury shirked away from the concert; and I saw her in the play-room again, going round and round the table; and, lying in ambush behind the Journal des Debats, I marked how, after looking stealthily round, my lady whipped a piece of money under the croupier's elbow, and (there having been no coin there previously) I saw a florin on the Zero.
* * *
She lost that, and walked away. Then she came back and put down two florins on a number, and lost again, and became very red and angry; then she retreated, and came back a third time, and a seat being vacated by a player, Lady Kicklebury sat down at the verdant board. Ah me! She had a pretty good evening, and carried off a little money again that night. The next day was Sunday: she gave two florins at the collection at church, to Fanny's surprise at mamma's liberality. On this night of course there was no play. Her ladyship wrote letters, and read a sermon.
* * *
But the next night she was back at the table; and won very plentifully, until the little Russian sprite made his appearance, when it seemed that her luck changed. She began to bet upon him, and the young Calmuck lost too. Her ladyship's temper went along with her money: first she backed the Calmuck, and then she played against him. When she played against him, his luck turned; and he began straightway to win. She put on more and more money as she lost: her winnings went: gold came out of secret pockets. She had but a florin left at last, and tried it on a number, and failed. She got up to go away. I watched her, and I watched Mr. Justice Aeacus, too, who put down a Napoleon when he thought nobody was looking.
* * *
The next day my Lady Kicklebury walked over to the money-changers, where she changed a couple of circular notes. She was at the table that night again: and the next night, and the next night, and the next.
* * *
By about the fifth day she was like a wild woman. She scolded so, that Hirsch, the courier, said he should retire from monsieur's service, as he was not hired by Lady Kicklebury: that Bowman gave warning, and told another footman in the building that he wouldn't stand the old cat no longer, blow him if he would: that the maid (who was a Kicklebury girl) and Fanny cried: and that Mrs. Milliken's maid, Finch, complained to her mistress, who ordered her husband to remonstrate with her mother. Milliken remonstrated with his usual mildness, and, of course, was routed by her ladyship. Mrs. Milliken said, "Give me the daggers," and came to her husband's rescue. A battle royal ensued; the scared Milliken hanging about his blessed Lavinia, and entreating and imploring her to be calm. Mrs. Milliken WAS calm. She asserted her dignity as mistress of her own family: as controller of her own household, as wife of her adored husband; and she told her mamma, that with her or here she must not interfere; that she knew her duty as a child: but that she also knew it as a wife, as a— The rest of the se
ntence was drowned, as Milliken, rushing to her, called her his soul's angel, his adored blessing.
* * *
Lady Kicklebury remarked that Shakspeare was very right in stating how much sharper than a thankless tooth it is to have a serpent child.
* * *
Mrs. Milliken said, the conversation could not be carried on in this manner: that it was best her mamma should now know, once for all, that the way in which she assumed the command at Pigeoncot was intolerable; that all the servants had given warning, and it was with the greatest difficulty they could be soothed: and that, as their living together only led to quarrels and painful recriminations (the calling her, after her forbearance, A SERPENT CHILD, was an expression which she would hope to forgive and forget,) they had better part.
* * *
Lady Kicklebury wears a front, and, I make no doubt, a complete jasey; or she certainly would have let down her back hair at this minute, so overpowering were her feelings, and so bitter her indignation at her daughter's black ingratitude. She intimated some of her sentiments, by ejaculatory conjurations of evil. She hoped her daughter might NOT feel what ingratitude was; that SHE might never have children to turn on her and bring her to the grave with grief.
