Godfrey Morgan | Page 9

your wedding!" said William W. Kolderup. "Not the date of mine, I suppose!"
"Perhaps that is more urgent?" said Phina.
"Hey?--what?" exclaimed the uncle--"what does that matter? We are only talking of current affairs, are we not?"
"Godfather Will," answered the lady. "It is not of a wedding that we are going to fix the date to-day, but of a departure."
"A departure!"
"Yes, the departure of Godfrey," continued Phina, "of Godfrey who, before he gets married, wants to see a little of the world!"
"You want to go away--you?" said William W. Kolderup, stepping towards the young man and raising his arms as if he were afraid that this "rascal of a nephew" would escape him.
"Yes; I do, uncle," said Godfrey gallantly.
"And for how long?"
"For eighteen months, or two years, or more, if--"
"If--"
"If you will let me, and Phina will wait for me."
"Wait for you! An intended who intends until he gets away!" exclaimed William W. Kolderup.
"You must let Godfrey go," pleaded Phina; "I have thought it carefully over. I am young, but really Godfrey is younger. Travel will age him, and I do not think it will change his taste! He wishes to travel, let him travel! The need of repose will come to him afterwards, and he will find me when he returns."
"What!" exclaimed William W. Kolderup, "you consent to give your bird his liberty?"
"Yes, for the two years he asks."
"And you will wait for him?"
"Uncle Will, if I could not wait for him I could not love him!" and so saying Phina returned to the piano, and whether she willed it or no, her fingers softly played a portion of the then fashionable "Départ du Fiancé," which was very appropriate under the circumstances. But Phina, without perceiving it perhaps, was playing in "A minor," whereas it was written in "A major," and all the sentiment of the melody was transformed, and its plaintiveness chimed in well with her hidden feelings.
But Godfrey stood embarrassed, and said not a word. His uncle took him by the head and turning it to the light looked fixedly at him for a moment or two. In this way he questioned him without having to speak, and Godfrey was able to reply without having occasion to utter a syllable.
And the lamentations of the "Départ du Fiancé" continued their sorrowful theme, and then William W. Kolderup, having made the turn of the room, returned to Godfrey, who stood like a criminal before the judge. Then raising his voice,--
"You are serious," he asked.
"Quite serious!" interrupted Phina, while Godfrey contented himself with making a sign of affirmation.
"You want to try travelling before you marry Phina! Well! You shall try it, my nephew!"
He made two or three steps and stopping with crossed arms before Godfrey, asked,--
"Where do you want to go to?"
"Everywhere."
"And when do you want to start?"
"When you please, Uncle Will."
"All right," replied William W. Kolderup, fixing a curious look on his nephew.
Then he muttered between his teeth,--
"The sooner the better."
At these last words came a sudden interruption from Phina. The little finger of her left hand touched a G#, and the fourth had, instead of falling on the key-note, rested on the "sensible," like Ralph in the "Huguenots," when he leaves at the end of his duet with Valentine.
Perhaps Phina's heart was nearly full, she had made up her mind to say nothing.
It was then that William W. Kolderup, without noticing Godfrey, approached the piano.
"Phina," said he gravely, "you should never remain on the 'sensible'!"
And with the tip of his large finger he dropped vertically on to one of the keys and an "A natural" resounded through the room.
CHAPTER IV.
IN WHICH T. ARTELETT, OTHERWISE TARTLET, IS DULY INTRODUCED TO THE READER.
If T. Artelett had been a Parisian, his compatriots would not have failed to nickname him Tartlet, but as he had already received this title we do not hesitate to describe him by it. If Tartlet was not a Frenchman he ought to have been one.
In his "Itinéraire de Paris à Jérusalem," Chateaubriand tells of a little man "powdered and frizzed in the old-fashioned style, with a coat of apple green, a waistcoat of drouget, shirt-frill and cuffs of muslin, who scraped a violin and made the Iroquois dance 'Madeleine Friquet.'"
The Californians are not Iroquois, far from it; but Tartlet was none the less professor of dancing and deportment in the capital of their state. If they did not pay him for his lessons, as they had his predecessor in beaver-skins and bear-hams, they did so in dollars. If in speaking of his pupils he did not talk of the "bucks and their squaws," it was because his pupils were highly civilized, and because in his opinion he had contributed considerably to their civilization.
Tartlet was a bachelor, and aged about forty-five at the time we introduce him to our readers.