The Initials. Baroness Jemima Montgomery Tautphoeus
signify—but—he would have preferred the daughter, who, although not in the least pretty, had a merry expression of countenance, and looked so fresh that he involuntarily thought of the tub of cold water out of which she had probably sprung half an hour before.
“I fear, madame, you will think me an intruder,” he began, with an affection of diffidence which he was far from feeling.
“Oh, by no mean,” cried the elder lady, in English, nodding her head two or three times; “by no mean! You are an Englishman; I am very glad to have occasion to spick English. Man lose all practice in both! I estimate me very happy to make acquaintance with you.”
Hamilton assured her he felt extremely obliged—hoped, however, to prove that he had a better claim to her notice than his being an Englishman. This she did not comprehend, for, like most Germans who are learning English, she seldom understood when spoken to, and preferred continuing to talk herself to waiting or asking for an answer in a language which she knew by sight but not by sound. Accordingly, “We have a very fine nature here!” was the reply he received to an observation which he had intended to have led to an interesting discovery of his being the son of her Munich correspondent. “We have a very fine nature here!”
Hamilton looked puzzled, or she thought him a little deaf, for she spoke louder as she said, “A very beautiful nature!”
He bowed, and coloured slightly.
“Mamma will say, our prospects are very good,” said the younger lady, in explanation.
“Ha!—prospects!” he repeated.
“What you call lanskip—paysage? Is not good English? No?”
“Oh, very good English,” he answered, looking round him, prepared to admire anything or everything he could see. Now, they were in an arbour thickly covered with foliage in order to render it impervious to the sun’s rays, and the entrance being from the garden, there was no view whatever deserving the name of prospect. Hamilton knew not what to say, and was beginning to feel embarrassed, when the Rosenbergs luckily appeared and made a diversion in his favour. Crescenz and her sister advanced to meet their step-mother, who now entered the garden dressed in a most unbecoming dark-coloured cotton morning-gown partly covered by an old shawl thrown negligently over her shoulders, and her hair still twisted round those odious leather things used for curling refractory ringlets.
“Who is that?” asked the Countess, to his great relief speaking German. “Who is that person?”
“I believe her name is Rosenberg,” he answered; “she came from Munich yesterday.”
“Ah, I know. That is the person who screamed in the gallery last night.”
“No, mamma, it was one of her daughters who screamed.”
“Oh, one of her daughters! They are very pretty,” said the Countess, raising her double lorgnette to her eyes—“really very pretty! and I think I have seen them somewhere before, but where I cannot recollect——”
“Oh, mamma, I know where you have seen them; they were in the same school with my cousin Thérèse, and we saw them at the examinations last year. Don’t you remember the two sisters who were so like each other? And as we drove home with the Princess N——, she said that one of them was the handsomest creature she had ever seen! I think, too, she said she had known their mother!”
“Not that person in the odious dishabille! You are dreaming, child!”
“No, no—their mother was noble—she was a Raimund, had no fortune, and married a nobody, when she was old enough to have been wiser; her relations never forgave her, but after her death they offered to educate these two girls for governesses; their father would not part with them; but when he afterwards married a rich goldsmith’s daughter, she immediately insisted on his sending them to school.”
“I believe I do remember something of this—most probably a sister of our friend Count Raimund, Agnes?”
“Mademoiselle’s name is Agnes,” said Hamilton, quickly. “Then, perhaps, you are the person who was so kind as to write me the letter which—” and he searched in his pocket for A. Z.’s letter.
“What!—what is that about a letter?” asked the old lady, hastily.
“Some mistake, mamma.”
“But he says you wrote to him, my dear.”
“No, mamma, I did not write to him; but I think it extremely probable that papa did. I know he wrote lately to an Englishman in Munich. He will be glad to see you, I am sure,” she added, turning to Hamilton; “for although he speaks English very tolerably, he finds writing it extremely difficult; and the little note in question occupied him nearly an hour. When you have breakfasted, I can go with you to his room.”
Hamilton pushed away his coffee-cup, and stood up directly.
“Agnes, Agnes!” cried her mother gravely, “you know your father is sweating!”
“Yes, mamma, I know; but papa wishes very much to see his English correspondent. You have, probably, just returned from Graefenberg?” she said, addressing Hamilton. “Have you no letter from Preissnitz?”
“Letters from Preissnitz! I have no letter except that which I received the day before yesterday from Count Zedwitz.”
“You wish, perhaps, to speak to papa before you decide on going to Graefenberg?”
“I—I have no intention whatever of going there, mademoiselle,” said Hamilton, who did not exactly know who Preissnitz was, or where Graefenberg might be situated; for ten years ago, Preissnitz’s name was little known in Germany, and scarcely at all in England.
“Well, at all events, you had better speak to papa: I know he expects to see you.”
“If that be the case,” said Hamilton, “I am sure I shall be very happy to make his acquaintance—I only feared the letter might have been intended for my father, as he has foreign acquaintances, and I have as yet none.”
“It is quite the same thing, I should think,” said the young Countess, as she led the way out of the garden. “You can let your father know that you have seen us here. Papa was only sorry that he could not receive you at home; but our house is not at present habitable, and——”
“Ah!” cried Hamilton, springing up the stairs after her, “that is exactly what he said in his letter.”
“Wait here until I have told him that you have arrived,” she said, tapping gently at one of the doors, which closed upon her immediately afterwards.
She did not return, but a tall, gaunt servant appeared to conduct him to Count Zedwitz’s apartment. On entering, he perceived that a figure lay on a bed, but so wrapped in blankets and covered with down beds, that nothing was visible but the face, down which the perspiration rolled copiously. A reading-desk was placed on the breast, and a long quill, tightly pressed between the teeth, served to turn over the leaves of his book. Hamilton would have required some time to discover the use of the quill, had it not been performing its office as he entered.
“I am rejoice to see you—very glad you have become my letter, and seem to profit by it. You are good on the feet again?”
“Thank you,” said Hamilton, rather puzzled by this address, and half-disposed to refuse the chair placed for him by the servant.
“You have been to Graefenberg?—No?”
“No.”
“You have recover without Preissnitz?”
“Recover!” repeated Hamilton; “I have never been seriously ill in my life, colds and all that sort of thing excepted—mere trifles, after all!”
“Trifles! well, you Englishmen have odd idea!—Rheumatism is trifle!”
“Gout is more common with us,” observed Hamilton, somewhat amused.