Part 45 (1/2)
”And Cantworth, where is he?”
”He's off for Vienna, and a short trip to Hungary. I met him at dinner at the mess while waiting for the Dover packet. By the way, I saw a friend of your Excellency's,--Harcourt.”
”Not gone to India?”
”No. They've made him a governor or commander-in-chief of something in the Mediterranean; I forget exactly where or what.”
”You have brought me a mighty bag, Stevins,” said Upton, sighing. ”I had hoped for a little ease and rest now that the House is up.”
”They are all blue-books, I believe,” replied Stevins. ”There's that blacking your Excellency wrote about, and the cricket-bats; the lathe must come out by the frigate, and the down mattress at the same time.”
”Just do me the favor to open the bag, my dear Stevins. I am utterly without aid here,” said Upton, sighing drearily; and the other proceeded to litter the table and the floor with a variety of strange and incongruous parcels.
”Report of factory commissioners,” cried he, throwing down a weighty quarto. ”Yarmouth bloaters; Atkinson's cerulean paste for the eyebrows; Worcester sauce; trade returns for Tahiti; a set of shoemaking tools; eight bottles of Darby's pyloric corrector; buffalo flesh-brushes,--devilish hard they seem; Hume's speech on the reduction of foreign legations; novels from Bull's; top-boots for a tiger; and a ma.s.s of letters,” said Stevins, throwing them broadcast over the sofa.
”No despatches?” cried Upton, eagerly.
”Not one, by Jove!” said Stevins.
”Open one of those Darby's. I 'll take a teaspoonful at once. Will you try it, Stevins?”
”Thanks, your Excellency, I never take physic.”
”Well, you dine here, then,” said he, with a sly look at the Princess.
”Not to-day, your Excellency. I dine with Grammont at eight.”
”Then I'll not detain you. Come back here to-morrow about eleven or a little later. Come to breakfast if you like.”
”At what hour?”
”I don't know,--at any hour,” sighed Upton, as he opened one of his letters and began to read; and Stevins bowed and withdrew, totally unnoticed and unrecognized as he slipped from the room.
One after another Upton threw down, after reading half a dozen lines, muttering some indistinct syllables over the dreary stupidity of letter-writers in general. Occasionally he came upon some pressing appeal for money,--some urgent request for even a small remittance by the next post; and these he only smiled at, while he refolded them with a studious care and neatness. ”Why will you not help me with this chaos, dear Princess?” said he, at last.
”I am only waiting to be asked,” said she; ”but I feared that there might be secrets--”
”From you?” said he, with a voice of deep tenderness, while his eyes sparkled with an expression far more like raillery than affection. The Princess, however, had either not seen or not heeded it, for she was already deep in the correspondence.
”This is strictly private. Am I to read it?” said she.
”Of course,” said he, bowing courteously. And she read:--
”Dear Upton,--Let us have a respite from tariffs and trade-talk for a month or two, and tell me rather what the world is doing around you. We have never got the right end of that story about the Princess Celestine as yet. Who was he? Not Labinsky, I'll be sworn. The K---- insists it was Roseville, and I hope you may be able to a.s.sure me that he is mistaken. He is worse tempered than ever. That Glencore business has exasperated him greatly. Could n't your Princess,--the world calls her yours [”How good of the world, and how delicate of your friend!” said she, smiling superciliously. ”Let us see who the writer is. Oh! a great man,--the Lord Adderley,” and went on with her reading:] couldn't your Princess find out something of real consequence to us about the Q----”
”What queen does he mean?” cried she, stopping.
”The Queen of Sheba, perhaps,” said Upton, biting his lips with anger, while he made an attempt to take the letter from her.
”Pardon! this is interesting,” said she, and went on:
”We shall want it soon; that is, if the manufacturing districts will not kindly afford us a diversion by some open-air demonstrations and a collision with the troops. We have offered them a most taking bait, by announcing wrongfully the departure of six regiments for India; thus leaving the large towns in the North apparently ungarrisoned. They are such poltroons that the chances are they 'll not bite! You were right about Emerson. We have made his brother a Bishop, and he voted with us on the Arms Bill. Cole is a sterling patriot and an old Whig. He says nothing shall seduce him from his party, save a Lords.h.i.+p of the Admiralty. Corruption everywhere, my dear Upton, except on the Treasury benches!