CHAPTER XVII.
The maid-servant (for Jackeymo was in the fields) brought the table under
the awning, and with the English luxury of tea, there were other drinks
as cheap and as grateful on summer evenings,--drinks which Jackeymo had
retained and taught from the customs of the South,--unebriate liquors,
pressed from cooling fruits, sweetened with honey, and deliciously iced:
ice should cost nothing in a country in which one is frozen up half the
year! And Jackeymo, too, had added to our good, solid, heavy English
bread preparations of wheat much lighter, and more propitious to
digestion,--with those crisp grissins, which seem to enjoy being eaten,
they make so pleasant a noise between one's teeth.
The parson esteemed it a little treat to drink tea with the Riccaboccas.
There was something of elegance and grace in that homely meal at the poor
exile's table, which pleased the eye as well as taste. And the very
utensils, plain Wedgwood though they were, had a classical simplicity,
which made Mrs. Hazeldean's old India delf, and Mrs. Dale's best
Worcester china, look tawdry and barbarous in comparison. For it was
Flaxman who gave designs to Wedgwood, and the most truly refined of all
our manufactures in porcelain (if we do not look to the mere material) is
in the reach of the most thrifty.
The little banquet was at first rather a silent one; but Riccabocca threw
off his gloom, and became gay and animated. Then poor Mrs. Riccabocca
smiled, and pressed the grissins; and Violante, forgetting all her
stateliness, laughed and played tricks on the parson, stealing away his
cup of warm tea when his head was turned, and substituting iced cherry-
juice. Then the parson got up and ran after Violante, making angry
faces, and Violante dodged beautifully, till the parson, fairly tired
out, was too glad to cry "Peace," and come back to the cherry-juice.
Thus time rolled on, till they heard afar the stroke of the distant
church-clock, and Mr. Dale started up and cried, "But we shall be too
late for Leonard. Come, naughty little girl, get your father his hat."
"And umbrella!" said Riccabocca, looking up at the cloudless, moonlit
sky.
"Umbrella against the stars?" asked the parson, laughing. "The stars are
no friends of mine," said Riccabocca, "and one never knows what may
happen!"
The philosopher and the parson walked on amicably.
"You have done me good," said Riccabocca, "but I hope I am not always so
unreasonably melancholic as you seem to suspect. The evenings will
sometimes appear long, and dull too, to a man whose thoughts on the past
are almost his sole companions."
"Sole companions?--your child?"
"She is so young."
"Your wife?"
"She is so--" the bland Italian appeared to check some disparaging
adjective, and mildly added, "so good, I allow; but you must own that she
and I cannot have much in common."
"I own nothing of the sort. You have your house and your interests, your
happiness and your lives, in common. We men are so exacting, we expect
to find ideal nymphs and goddesses when we condescend to marry a mortal;
and if we did, our chickens would be boiled to rags, and our mutton come
up as cold as a stone."
"Per Bacco, you are an oracle," said Riccabocca, laughing. "But I am not
so sceptical as you are. I honour the fair sex too much. There are a
great many women who realize the ideal of men, to be found in--the
poets!"
"There's my dear Mrs. Dale," resumed the parson, not heeding the
sarcastic compliment to the sex, but sinking his voice into a whisper,
and looking round cautiously,--"there's my dear Mrs. Dale, the best woman
in the world,--an angel I would say, if the word were not profane; BUT--"
"What's the BUT?" asked the doctor, demurely.
"BUT I too might say that 'she and I have not much in common,' if I were
only to compare mind to mind, and when my poor Carry says something less
profound than Madame de Stael might have said, smile on her in contempt
from the elevation of logic and Latin. Yet when I remember all the
little sorrows and joys that we have shared together, and feel how
solitary I should have been without her--oh, then, I am instantly aware
that there is between us in common something infinitely closer and better
than if the same course of study had given us the same equality of ideas;
and I was forced to brace myself for a combat of intellect, as I am when
I fall in with a tiresome sage like yourself. I don't pretend to say
that Mrs. Riccabocca is a Mrs. Dale," added the parson, with lofty
candour,--"there is but one Mrs. Dale in the world; but still, you have
drawn a prize in the wheel matrimonial! Think of Socrates, and yet he
was content even with his--Xantippe!"
Dr. Riccabocca called to mind Mrs. Dale's "little tempers," and inly
rejoiced that no second Mrs. Dale had existed to fall to his own lot.
His placid Jemima gained by the contrast. Nevertheless he had the ill
grace to reply, "Socrates was a man beyond all imitation!--Yet I believe
that even he spent very few of his evenings at home. But /revenons a nos
moutons/, we are nearly at Mrs. Fairfield's cottage, and you have not yet
told me what you have settled as to Leonard."
The parson halted, took Riccabocca by the button, and informed him, in
very few words, that Leonard was to go to Lansmere to see some relations
there, who had the fortune, if they had the will, to give full career to
his abilities.
"The great thing, in the mean while," said the parson, "would be to
enlighten him a little as to what he calls--enlightenment."
"Ah!" said Riccabocca, diverted, and rubbing his hands, "I shall listen
with interest to what you say on that subject."
"And must aid me: for the first step in this modern march of
enlightenment is to leave the poor parson behind; and if one calls out
'Hold! and look at the sign-post,' the traveller hurries on the faster,
saying to himself, 'Pooh, pooh!--that is only the cry of the parson!'
But my gentleman, when he doubts me, will listen to you,--you're a
philosopher!"
"We philosophers are of some use now and then, even to parsons!"
"If you were not so conceited a set of deluded poor creatures already,
I would say 'Yes,'" replied the parson, generously; and, taking hold of
Riccabocca's umbrella, he applied the brass handle thereof, by way of a
knocker, to the cottage door.
