Pesca's face and manner, on the evening when we confronted
each other at my mother's gate, were more than sufficient to
inform me that something extraordinary had happened. It was
quite useless, however, to ask him for an immediate explanation. I could only conjecture, while he was dragging me in by
both hands, that (knowing my habits) he had come to the cottage to make sure of meeting me that night, and that he had
some news to tell of an unusually agreeable kind.
We both bounced into the parlour in a highly abrupt and undignified manner. My mother sat by the open window laughing
and fanning herself. Pesca was one of her especial favourites
and his wildest eccentricities were always pardonable in her
eyes. Poor dear soul! from the first moment when she found
out that the little Professor was deeply and gratefully attached
to her son, she opened her heart to him unreservedly, and took
all his puzzling foreign peculiarities for granted, without so
much as attempting to understand any one of them.
My sister Sarah, with all the advantages of youth, was,
strangely enough, less pliable. She did full justice to Pesca's
excellent qualities of heart; but she could not accept him implicitly, as my mother accepted him, for my sake. Her insular notions of propriety rose in perpetual revolt against Pesca's constitutional contempt for appearances; and she was always more
or less undisguisedly astonished at her mother's familiarity
with the eccentric little foreigner. I have observed, not only in
my sister's case, but in the instances of others, that we of the
young generation are nothing like so hearty and so impulsive
as some of our elders. I constantly see old people flushed and
excited by the prospect of some anticipated pleasure which altogether fails to ruffle the tranquillity of their serene grandchildren. Are we, I wonder, quite such genuine boys and girls
now as our seniors were in their time? Has the great advance
in education taken rather too long a stride; and are we in these
modern days, just the least trifle in the world too well brought
up?
Without attempting to answer those questions decisively, I
may at least record that I never saw my mother and my sister
together in Pesca's society, without finding my mother much the younger woman of the two. On this occasion, for example,
while the old lady was laughing heartily over the boyish manner in which we tumbled into the parlour, Sarah was perturbedly picking up the broken pieces of a teacup, which the
Professor had knocked off the table in his precipitate advance
to meet me at the door.
"I don't know what would have happened, Walter," said my
mother, "if you had delayed much longer. Pesca has been half
mad with impatience, and I have been half mad with curiosity.
The Professor has brought some wonderful news with him, in
which he says you are concerned; and he has cruelly refused to
give us the smallest hint of it till his friend Walter appeared."
"Very provoking: it spoils the Set," murmured Sarah to herself, mournfully absorbed over the ruins of the broken cup.
While these words were being spoken, Pesca, happily and
fussily unconscious of the irreparable wrong which the crockery had suffered at his hands, was dragging a large arm chair
to the opposite end of the room, so as to command us all three,
in the character of a public speaker addressing an audience.
Having turned the chair with its back towards us, he jumped
into it on his knees, and excitedly addressed his small congregation of three from an impromptu pulpit.
"Now, my good dears," began Pesca (who always said "good
dears" when he meant "worthy friends"), "listen to me. The
time has come—I recite my good news—I speak at last."
"Hear, hear!" said my mother, humouring the joke.
"The next thing he will break, mamma," whispered Sarah,
"will be the back of the best arm-chair."
"I go back into my life, and I address myself to the noblest of
created beings," continued Pesca, vehemently apostrophising
my unworthy self over the top rail of the chair. "Who found me
dead at the bottom of the sea (through Cramp); and who pulled
me up to the top; and what did I say when I got into my own
life and my own clothes again?"
"Much more than was at all necessary," I answered as doggedly as possible; for the least encouragement in connection
with this subject invariably let loose the Professor's emotions
in a flood of tears.
"I said," persisted Pesca, "that my life belonged to my dear
friend, Walter, for the rest of my days—and so it does. I said
that I should never be happy again till I had found the opportunity of doing a good Something for Walter—and I have never
been contented with myself till this most blessed day. Now,"
cried the enthusiastic little man at the top of his voice, "the
overflowing happiness bursts out of me at every pore of my
skin, like a perspiration; for on my faith, and soul, and honour,
the something is done at last, and the only word to say now
is—Right-all-right!"
It may be necessary to explain here that Pesca prided himself
on being a perfect Englishman in his language, as well as in his
dress, manners, and amusements. Having picked up a few of
our most familiar colloquial expressions, he scattered them
about over his conversation whenever they happened to occur
to him, turning them, in his high relish for their sound and his
general ignorance of their sense, into compound words and repetitions of his own, and always running them into each other,
as if they consisted of one long syllable.
"Among the fine London Houses where I teach the language
of my native country," said the Professor, rushing into his longdeferred explanation without another word of preface, "there is
one, mighty fine, in the big place called Portland. You all know
where that is? Yes, yes—course-of-course. The fine house, my
good dears, has got inside it a fine family. A Mamma, fair and
fat; three young Misses, fair and fat; two young Misters, fair
and fat; and a Papa, the fairest and the fattest of all, who is a
mighty merchant, up to his eyes in gold—a fine man once, but
seeing that he has got a naked head and two chins, fine no
longer at the present time. Now mind! I teach the sublime
Dante to the young Misses, and ah!—my-soul-bless-my-soul!—it
is not in human language to say how the sublime Dante puzzles
the pretty heads of all three! No matter—all in good time—and
the more lessons the better for me. Now mind! Imagine to
yourselves that I am teaching the young Misses to-day, as usual. We are all four of us down together in the Hell of Dante. At
the Seventh Circle—but no matter for that: all the Circles are
alike to the three young Misses, fair and fat, at the Seventh
Circle, nevertheless, my pupils are sticking fast; and I, to set
them going again, recite, explain, and blow myself up red-hot
with useless enthusiasm, when—a creak of boots in the passage outside, and in comes the golden Papa, the mighty merchant with the naked head and the two chins.—Ha! my
good dears, I am closer than you think for to the business, now.
Have you been patient so far? or have you said to yourselves,
'Deuce-what-the-deuce! Pesca is long-winded to-night?'"
We declared that we were deeply interested. The Professor
went on:
"In his hand, the golden Papa has a letter; and after he has
made his excuse for disturbing us in our Infernal Region with
the common mortal Business of the house, he addresses himself to the three young Misses, and begins, as you English begin everything in this blessed world that you have to say, with
a great O. 'O, my dears,' says the mighty merchant, 'I have got
here a letter from my friend, Mr.——'(the name has slipped out
of my mind; but no matter; we shall come back to that; yes,
yes—right-all-right). So the Papa says, 'I have got a letter from
my friend, the Mister; and he wants a recommend from me, of
a drawing-master, to go down to his house in the country.' Mysoul-bless-my-soul! when I heard the golden Papa say those
words, if I had been big enough to reach up to him, I should
have put my arms round his neck, and pressed him to my bosom in a long and grateful hug! As it was, I only bounced upon
my chair. My seat was on thorns, and my soul was on fire to
speak but I held my tongue, and let Papa go on. 'Perhaps you
know,' says this good man of money, twiddling his friend's letter this way and that, in his golden fingers and thumbs, 'perhaps you know, my dears, of a drawing-master that I can recommend?' The three young Misses all look at each other, and
then say (with the indispensable great O to begin) "O, dear no,
Papa! But here is Mr. Pesca' At the mention of myself I can
hold no longer—the thought of you, my good dears, mounts like
blood to my head—I start from my seat, as if a spike had grown
up from the ground through the bottom of my chair—I address
myself to the mighty merchant, and I say (English phrase)
'Dear sir, I have the man! The first and foremost drawing-master of the world! Recommend him by the post to-night, and
send him off, bag and baggage (English phrase again—ha!),
send him off, bag and baggage, by the train to-morrow!' 'Stop,
stop,' says Papa; 'is he a foreigner, or an Englishman?' 'English
to the bone of his back,' I answer. 'Respectable?' says Papa.
'Sir,' I say (for this last question of his outrages me, and I have
done being familiar with him—) 'Sir! the immortal fire of genius burns in this Englishman's bosom, and, what is more, his
father had it before him!' 'Never mind,' says the golden barbarian of a Papa, 'never mind about his genius, Mr. Pesca. We
don't want genius in this country, unless it is accompanied by
respectability—and then we are very glad to have it, very glad
indeed. Can your friend produce testimonials—letters that
speak to his character?' I wave my hand negligently. 'Letters?'
I say. 'Ha! my-soul-bless-my-soul! I should think so, indeed!
Volumes of letters and portfolios of testimonials, if you like!'
'One or two will do,' says this man of phlegm and money. 'Let
him send them to me, with his name and address. And stop,
stop, Mr. Pesca—before you go to your friend, you had better
take a note.' 'Bank-note!' I say, indignantly. 'No bank-note, if
you please, till my brave Englishman has earned it first.' 'Banknote!' says Papa, in a great surprise, 'who talked of bank-note?
I mean a note of the terms—a memorandum of what he is expected to do. Go on with your lesson, Mr. Pesca, and I will give
you the necessary extract from my friend's letter.' Down sits
the man of merchandise and money to his pen, ink, and paper;
and down I go once again into the Hell of Dante, with my three
young Misses after me. In ten minutes' time the note is written,
and the boots of Papa are creaking themselves away in the passage outside. From that moment, on my faith, and soul, and
honour, I know nothing more! The glorious thought that I have
caught my opportunity at last, and that my grateful service for
my dearest friend in the world is as good as done already, flies
up into my head and makes me drunk. How I pull my young
Misses and myself out of our Infernal Region again, how my
other business is done afterwards, how my little bit of dinner
slides itself down my throat, I know no more than a man in the
moon. Enough for me, that here I am, with the mighty
merchant's note in my hand, as large as life, as hot as fire, and
as happy as a king! Ha! ha! ha! right-right-right-all-right!"
Here the Professor waved the memorandum of terms over his
head, and ended his long and voluble narrative with his shrill
Italian parody on an English cheer."
My mother rose the moment he had done, with flushed
cheeks and brightened eyes. She caught the little man warmly
by both hands.
"My dear, good Pesca," she said, "I never doubted your true
affection for Walter but I am more than ever persuaded of it
now!"
"I am sure we are very much obliged to Professor Pesca, for
Walter's sake," added Sarah. She half rose, while she spoke, as
if to approach the arm-chair, in her turn; but, observing that
Pesca was rapturously kissing my mother's hands, looked serious, and resumed her seat. "If the familiar little man treats my
mother in that way, how will he treat ME?" Faces sometimes
tell truth; and that was unquestionably the thought in Sarah's
mind, as she sat down again.
Although I myself was gratefully sensible of the kindness of
Pesca's motives, my spirits were hardly so much elevated as
they ought to have been by the prospect of future employment
now placed before me. When the Professor had quite done with
my mother's hand, and when I had warmly thanked him for his
interference on my behalf, I asked to be allowed to look at the
note of terms which his respectable patron had drawn up for
my inspection.
Pesca handed me the paper, with a triumphant flourish of the
hand.
"Read!" said the little man majestically. "I promise you my
friend, the writing of the golden Papa speaks with a tongue of
trumpets for itself."
The note of terms was plain, straightforward, and comprehensive, at any rate. It informed me,
First, That Frederick Fairlie, Esquire, of Limmeridge House.
Cumberland, wanted to engage the services of a thoroughly
competent drawing-master, for a period of four months certain.
Secondly, That the duties which the master was expected to
perform would be of a twofold kind. He was to superintend the
instruction of two young ladies in the art of painting in watercolours; and he was to devote his leisure time, afterwards, to
the business of repairing and mounting a valuable collection of
drawings, which had been suffered to fall into a condition of
total neglect.
Thirdly, That the terms offered to the person who should undertake and properly perform these duties were four guineas a
week; that he was to reside at Limmeridge House; and that he
was to be treated there on the footing of a gentleman.
Fourthly, and lastly, That no person need think of applying
for this situation unless he could furnish the most unexceptionable references to character and abilities. The references were
to be sent to Mr. Fairlie's friend in London, who was empowered to conclude all necessary arrangements. These instructions were followed by the name and address of Pesca's
employer in Portland Place—and there the note, or memorandum, ended.
The prospect which this offer of an engagement held out was
certainly an attractive one. The employment was likely to be
both easy and agreeable; it was proposed to me at the autumn
time of the year when I was least occupied; and the terms,
judging by my personal experience in my profession, were surprisingly liberal. I knew this; I knew that I ought to consider
myself very fortunate if I succeeded in securing the offered employment and yet, no sooner had I read the memorandum
than I felt an inexplicable unwillingness within me to stir in the
matter. I had never in the whole of my previous experience
found my duty and my inclination so painfully and so unaccountably at variance as I found them now.
"Oh, Walter, your father never had such a chance as this!"
said my mother, when she had read the note of terms and had
handed it back to me.
"Such distinguished people to know," remarked Sarah,
straightening herself in the chair; "and on such gratifying
terms of equality too!"
"Yes, yes; the terms, in every sense, are tempting enough," I
replied impatiently. "But before I send in my testimonials, I
should like a little time to consider "
"Consider!" exclaimed my mother. "Why, Walter, what is the
matter with you?"
"Consider!" echoed my sister. "What a very extraordinary
thing to say, under the circumstances!"
"Consider!" chimed in the Professor. "What is there to consider about? Answer me this! Have you not been complaining
of your health, and have you not been longing for what you call
a smack of the country breeze? Well! there in your hand is the
paper that offers you perpetual choking mouthfuls of country
breeze for four months' time. Is it not so? Ha! Again you want
money. Well! Is four golden guineas a week nothing? My soul
bless-my-soul! only give it to me and my boots shall creak like
the golden Papa's, with a sense of the overpowering richness of
the man who walks in them! Four guineas a week, and, more
than that, the charming society of two young misses! and, more
than that, your bed, your breakfast, your dinner, your gorging
English teas and lunches and drinks of foaming beer, all for
nothing—why, Walter, my dear good friend deuce what the deuce! for the first time in my life I have not eyes enough in my head to look, and wonder at you!"
Neither my mother's evident astonishment at my behaviour,
nor Pesca's fervid enumeration of the advantages offered to me
by the new employment, had any effect in shaking my unreasonable disinclination to go to Limmeridge House. After starting
all the petty objections that I could think of to going to Cumberland, and after hearing them answered, one after another,
to my own complete discomfiture, I tried to set up a last
obstacle by asking what was to become of my pupils in London
while I was teaching Mr. Fairlie's young ladies to sketch from
nature. The obvious answer to this was, that the greater part of
them would be away on their autumn travels, and that the few
who remained at home might be confided to the care of one of
my brother drawing-masters, whose pupils I had once taken off
his hands under similar circumstances. My sister reminded me
that this gentleman had expressly placed his services at my
disposal, during the present season, in case I wished to leave
town; my mother seriously appealed to me not to let an idle
caprice stand in the way of my own interests and my own
health; and Pesca piteously entreated that I would not wound
him to the heart by rejecting the first grateful offer of service
that he had been able to make to the friend who had saved his
life.
The evident sincerity and affection which inspired these remonstrances would have influenced any man with an atom of
good feeling in his composition. Though I could not conquer my
own unaccountable perversity, I had at least virtue enough to
be heartily ashamed of it, and to end the discussion pleasantly
by giving way, and promising to do all that was wanted of me.
The rest of the evening passed merrily enough in humorous
anticipations of my coming life with the two young ladies in
Cumberland. Pesca, inspired by our national grog, which
appeared to get into his head, in the most marvellous manner,
five minutes after it had gone down his throat, asserted his
claims to be considered a complete Englishman by making a
series of speeches in rapid succession, proposing my mother's
health, my sister's health, my health, and the healths, in mass,
of Mr. Fairlie and the two young Misses, pathetically returning
thanks himself, immediately afterwards, for the whole party. "A
secret, Walter," said my little friend confidentially, as we
walked home together. "I am flushed by the recollection of my
own eloquence. My soul bursts itself with ambition. One of
these days I go into your noble Parliament. It is the dream of
my whole life to be Honourable Pesca, M.P.!"
The next morning I sent my testimonials to the Professor's
employer in Portland Place. Three days passed, and I concluded, with secret satisfaction, that my papers had not been
found sufficiently explicit. On the fourth day, however, an answer came. It announced that Mr. Fairlie accepted my services, and requested me to start for Cumberland immediately.
All the necessary instructions for my journey were carefully
and clearly added in a postscript.
I made my arrangements, unwillingly enough, for leaving
London early the next day. Towards evening Pesca looked in,
on his way to a dinner-party, to bid me good-bye.
"I shall dry my tears in your absence," said the Professor
gaily, "with this glorious thought. It is my auspicious hand that
has given the first push to your fortune in the world. Go, my
friend! When your sun shines in Cumberland (English proverb),
in the name of heaven make your hay. Marry one of the two
young Misses; become Honourable Hartright, M.P.; and when
you are on the top of the ladder remember that Pesca, at the
bottom, has done it all!"
I tried to laugh with my little friend over his parting jest, but
my spirits were not to be commanded. Something jarred in me
almost painfully while he was speaking his light farewell
words.
When I was left alone again nothing remained to be done but
to walk to the Hampstead cottage and bid my mother and
Sarah good-bye.