第92章

"That depends," said the gruff old smoker, "how I like ye.Afortune, scraped up in forty years in Ingy, ain't to be thrown away in a minute.But what a house this is to live in!"; the uncomfortable old relative went on, throwing a contemptuous glance round the humble cottage."Is this all of it?""In the winter it is all of it," I said, flushing up; but in the summer, when the doors and windows are open, it is as large as anybody's house.And," I went on, with some warmth, "it was large enough just before you came in, and pleasant enough.And besides, Isaid, rising into indignation, "you can not get anything much better in this city short of eight hundred dollars a year, payable first days of January, April, July, and October, in advance, and my salary....""Hang your salary, and confound your impudence and your seven-by-nine hovel! Do you think you have anything to say about the use of my money, scraped up in forty years in Ingy? THINGS HAVE GOT TO BECHANGED!" he burst out, in a voice that rattled the glasses on the sideboard.

I should think they were.Even as I looked into the little fireplace it enlarged, and there was an enormous grate, level with the floor, glowing with seacoal; and a magnificent mantel carved in oak, old and brown; and over it hung a landscape, wide, deep, summer in the foreground with all the gorgeous coloring of the tropics, and beyond hills of blue and far mountains lying in rosy light.I held my breath as I looked down the marvelous perspective.Looking round for a second, I caught a glimpse of a Hindoo at each window, who vanished as if they had been whisked off by enchantment; and the close walls that shut us in fled away.Had cohesion and gravitation given out?

Was it the "Great Consummation" of the year 18-? It was all like the swift transformation of a dream, and I pinched my arm to make sure that I was not the subject of some diablerie.

The little house was gone; but that I scarcely minded, for I had suddenly come into possession of my wife's castle in Spain.I sat in a spacious, lofty apartment, furnished with a princely magnificence.

Rare pictures adorned the walls, statues looked down from deep niches, and over both the dark ivy of England ran and drooped in graceful luxuriance.Upon the heavy tables were costly, illuminated volumes; luxurious chairs and ottomans invited to easy rest; and upon the ceiling Aurora led forth all the flower-strewing daughters of the dawn in brilliant frescoes.Through the open doors my eyes wandered into magnificent apartment after apartment.There to the south, through folding-doors, was the splendid library, with groined roof, colored light streaming in through painted windows, high shelves stowed with books, old armor hanging on the walls, great carved oaken chairs about a solid oaken table, and beyond a conservatory of flowers and plants with a fountain springing in the center, the splashing of whose waters I could hear.Through the open windows Ilooked upon a lawn, green with close-shaven turf, set with ancient trees, and variegated with parterres of summer plants in bloom.It was the month of June, and the smell of roses was in the air.

I might have thought it only a freak of my fancy, but there by the fireplace sat a stout, red-faced, puffy-looking man, in the ordinary dress of an English gentleman, whom I had no difficulty in recognizing as my uncle from India.

"One wants a fire every day in the year in this confounded climate,"remarked that amiable old person, addressing no one in particular.

I had it on my lips to suggest that I trusted the day would come when he would have heat enough to satisfy him, in permanent supply.Iwish now that I had.

I think things had changed.For now into this apartment, full of the morning sunshine, came sweeping with the air of a countess born, and a maid of honor bred, and a queen in expectancy, my Polly, stepping with that lofty grace which I always knew she possessed, but which she never had space to exhibit in our little cottage, dressed with that elegance and richness that I should not have deemed possible to the most Dutch duchess that ever lived, and, giving me a complacent nod of recognition, approached her uncle, and said in her smiling, cheery way, "How is the dear uncle this morning?" And, as she spoke, she actually bent down and kissed his horrid old cheek, red-hot with currie and brandy and all the biting pickles I can neither eat nor name, kissed him, and I did not turn into stone.

"Comfortable as the weather will permit, my darling!"--and again Idid not turn into stone.

"Wouldn't uncle like to take a drive this charming morning?" Polly asked.

Uncle finally grunted out his willingness, and Polly swept away again to prepare for the drive, taking no more notice of me than if I had been a poor assistant office lawyer on a salary.And soon the carriage was at the door, and my uncle, bundled up like a mummy, and the charming Polly drove gayly away.

How pleasant it is to be married rich, I thought, as I arose and strolled into the library, where everything was elegant and prim and neat, with no scraps of paper and piles of newspapers or evidences of literary slovenness on the table, and no books in attractive disorder, and where I seemed to see the legend staring at me from all the walls, "No smoking." So I uneasily lounged out of the house.

And a magnificent house it was, a palace, rather, that seemed to frown upon and bully insignificant me with its splendor, as I walked away from it towards town.

And why town? There was no use of doing anything at the dingy office.Eight hundred dollars a year! It wouldn't keep Polly in gloves, let alone dressing her for one of those fashionable entertainments to which we went night after night.And so, after a weary day with nothing in it, I went home to dinner, to find my uncle quite chirruped up with his drive, and Polly regnant, sublimely engrossed in her new world of splendor, a dazzling object of admiration to me, but attentive and even tender to that hypochondriacal, gouty old subject from India.