He Knew He Was Right by Anthony Trollope (ebook reader with internet browser txt) 📖

CHAPTER XXXVII

MONT CENIS

 

The night had been fine and warm, and it was now noon on a fine

September day when the train from Paris reached St. Michael, on the

route to Italy by Mont Cenis; as all the world knows St. Michael is, or

was a year or two back, the end of the railway travelling in that

direction. At the time Mr Fell’s grand project of carrying a line of

rails over the top of the mountain was only in preparation, and the

journey from St. Michael to Susa was still made by the diligences those

dear old continental coaches which are now nearly as extinct as our

own, but which did not deserve death so fully as did our abominable

vehicles. The coupe of a diligence, or, better still, the banquette,

was a luxurious mode of travelling as compared with anything that our

coaches offered. There used indeed to be a certain halo of glory round

the occupant of the box of a mail-coach. The man who had secured that

seat was supposed to know something about the world, and to be such a

one that the passengers sitting behind him would be proud to be allowed

to talk to him. But the prestige of the position was greater than the

comfort. A night on the box of a mail-coach was but a bad time, and a

night inside a mail-coach was a night in purgatory. Whereas a seat up

above, on the banquette of a diligence passing over the Alps, with room

for the feet, and support for the back, with plenty of rugs and plenty

of tobacco, used to be on the Mont Cenis, and still is on some other

mountain passes, a very comfortable mode of seeing a mountain route.

For those desirous of occupying the coupe, or the three front seats of

the body of the vehicle, it must be admitted that difficulties

frequently arose; and that such difficulties were very common at St.

Michael. There would be two or three of those enormous vehicles

preparing to start for the mountain, whereas it would appear that

twelve or fifteen passengers had come down from Paris armed with

tickets assuring them that this preferable mode of travelling should be

theirs. And then assertions would be made, somewhat recklessly, by the

officials, to the effect that all the diligence was coupe. It would

generally be the case that some middle-aged Englishman who could not

speak French would go to the wall, together with his wife. Middle-aged

Englishmen with their wives, who can’t speak French, can nevertheless

be very angry, and threaten loudly, when they suppose themselves to be

ill-treated. A middle-aged Englishman, though he can’t speak a word of

French, won’t believe a French official who tells him that the

diligence is all coupe, when he finds himself with his unfortunate

partner in a roundabout place behind with two priests, a dirty man who

looks like a brigand, a sick maidservant, and three agricultural

labourers. The attempt, however, was frequently made, and thus there

used to be occasionally a little noise round the bureau at St. Michael.

 

On the morning of which we are speaking, two Englishmen had just made

good their claim, each independently of the other, each without having

heard or seen the other, when two American ladies, coming up very

tardily, endeavoured to prove their rights. The ladies were without

other companions, and were not fluent with their French, but were

clearly entitled to their seats. They were told that the conveyance was

all coupe, but perversely would not believe the statement. The official

shrugged his shoulders and signified that his ultimatum had been

pronounced. What can an official do in such circumstances, when more

coupe passengers are sent to him than the coupes at his command will

hold? ‘But we have paid for the coupe,’ said the elder American lady,

with considerable indignation, though her French was imperfect, for

American ladies understand their rights. ‘Bah; yes; you have paid and

you shall go. What would you have?’ ‘We would have what we have paid

for,’ said the American lady. Then the official rose from his stool and

shrugged his shoulders again, and made a motion with both his hands,

intended to shew that the thing was finished. ‘It is a robbery,’ said

the elder American lady to the younger. ‘I should not mind, only you

are so unwell.’ ‘It will not kill me, I dare say,’ said the younger.

Then one of the English gentlemen declared that his place was very much

at the service of the invalid and the other Englishman declared that

his also was at the service of the invalid’s companion. Then, and not

till then, the two men recognised each other. One was Mr Glascock, on

his way to Naples, and the other was Mr Trevelyan, on his way he knew

not whither.

 

Upon this, of course, they spoke to each other. In London they had been

well acquainted, each having been an intimate guest at the house of old

Lady Milborough. And each knew something of the other’s recent history.

Mr Glascock was aware, as was all the world, that Trevelyan had

quarrelled with his wife; and Trevelyan was aware that Mr Glascock had

been spoken of as a suitor to his own sister-in-law. Of that visit

which Mr Glascock had made to Nuncombe Putney, and of the manner in

which Nora had behaved to her lover, Trevelyan knew nothing. Their

greetings spoken, their first topic of conversation was, of course, the

injury proposed to be done to the American ladies, and which would now

fall upon them. They went into the waiting-room together, and during

such toilet as they could make there, grumbled furiously. They would

take post horses over the mountain, not from any love of solitary

grandeur, but in order that they might make the company pay for its

iniquity. But it was soon apparent to them that they themselves had no

ground of complaint, and as everybody was very civil, and as a seat in

the banquette over the heads of the American ladies was provided for

them, and as the man from the bureau came and apologised, they

consented to be pacified, and ended, of course, by tipping half-a-dozen

of the servants about the yard. Mr Glascock had a man of his own with

him, who was very nearly being put on to the same seat with his master

as an extra civility; but this inconvenience was at last avoided.

Having settled these little difficulties, they went into breakfast in

the buffet.

 

There could be no better breakfast than used to be given in the buffet

at the railway terminus at St. Michael. The company might occasionally

be led into errors about that question of coupe seats, but in reference

to their provisions, they set an example which might be of great use to

us here in England. It is probably the case that breakfasts for

travellers are not so frequently needed here as they are on the

Continent; but, still, there is often to be found a crowd of people

ready to eat if only the wherewithal were there. We are often told in

our newspapers that England is disgraced by this and by that; by the

unreadiness of our army, by the unfitness of our navy, by the

irrationality of our laws, by the immobility of our prejudices, and

what not; but the real disgrace of England is the railway sandwich—that

whited sepulchre, fair enough outside, but so meagre, poor, and

spiritless within, such a thing of shreds and parings, such a dab of

food, telling us that the poor bone whence it was scraped had been made

utterly bare before it was sent into the kitchen for the soup pot. In

France one does get food at the railway stations, and at St. Michael

the breakfast was unexceptional.

 

Our two friends seated themselves near to the American ladies, and

were, of course, thanked for their politeness. American women are

taught by the habits of their country to think that men should give way

to them more absolutely than is in accordance with the practices of

life in Europe. A seat in a public conveyance in the States, when

merely occupied by a man, used to be regarded by any woman as being at

her service as completely as though it were vacant. One woman

indicating a place to another would point with equal freedom to a man

or a space. It is said that this is a little altered now, and that

European views on this subject are spreading themselves. Our two

ladies, however, who were pretty, clever-looking, and attractive even

after the night’s journey, were manifestly more impressed with the

villainy of the French officials than they were with the kindness of

their English neighbours.

 

‘And nothing can be done to punish them?’ said the younger of them to

Mr Glascock.

 

‘Nothing, I should think,’ said he. ‘Nothing will, at any rate.’

 

‘And you will not get back your money?’ said the elder who, though the

elder, was probably not much above twenty.

 

‘Well no. Time is money, they say. It would take thrice the value of

the time in money, and then one would probably fail. They have done

very well for us, and I suppose there are difficulties.’

 

‘It couldn’t have taken place in our country,’ said the younger lady.

‘All the same, we are very much obliged to you. It would not have been

nice for us to have to go up into the banquette.’

 

‘They would have put you into the interior.’

 

‘And that would have been worse. I hate being put anywhere as if I were

a sheep. It seems so odd to us, that you here should be all so tame.’

 

‘Do you mean the English, or the French, or the world in general on

this side of the Atlantic?’

 

‘We mean Europeans,’ said the younger lady, who was better after her

breakfast. ‘But then we think that the French have something of

compensation, in their manners, and their ways of life, their climate,

the beauty of their cities, and their general management of things.’

 

‘They are very great in many ways, no doubt,’ said Mr Glascock.

 

‘They do understand living better than you do,’ said the elder.

 

‘Everything is so much brighter with them,’ said the younger.

 

‘They contrive to give a grace to every-day existence,’ said the elder.

 

‘There is such a welcome among them for strangers,’ said the younger.

 

‘Particularly in reference to places taken in the coupe,’ said

Trevelyan, who had hardly spoken before.

 

‘Ah, that is an affair of honesty,’ said the elder. ‘If we want

honesty, I believe we must go back to the stars and stripes.’

 

Mr Glascock looked up from his plate almost aghast. He said nothing,

however, but called for the waiter, and paid for his breakfast.

Nevertheless, there was a considerable amount of travelling friendship

engendered between the ladies and our two friends before the diligence

had left the railway yard. They were two Miss