5
Mr. Clemens and Mr. Kipling entertained my Yale classmates with stories and small talk for the better part of an hour. My friends had saved up their earnings from summer work and were now on their way to see the sights of Europe on the cheap by crossing the Atlantic as steerage passengers, after the prime season for eastbound travel. They had brought along bicycles to reduce their expenses on the European side, and were treating the entire expedition as a jolly adventure. Indeed, it sounded like grand fun—although, having had a sample of first-class accommodations with Mr. Clemens, I suspected that my taste for steerage travel was already spoiled. Certainly, there was something to be said for going to Europe first-class and being paid for it, especially if traveling on a shoestring were the only alternative. (Although, to be honest, Mr. Clemens was on a tighter budget than it must have seemed to our fellow passengers, and he would be earning his keep on the other end by giving a series of lectures and readings.)
As I had seen many times before, for Mr. Clemens merely to sit and hold a conversation in a public area was tantamount to issuing an invitation for all who recognized him to come introduce themselves, however slight the pretext. One of my normal responsibilities as his traveling secretary was to pry him away from such intruding members of the public when their demands grew excessive. But for the time being, he was clearly enjoying the crowd’s attention, and utterly charmed not only my friends but most of the others who ventured within earshot.
Among those who introduced themselves were several Philadelphians, who as it turned out were traveling in a group to explore the museums and architectural monuments of England, France, and Italy. Julius Babson and his family we had already met; now we made the acquaintance of Mr. Vincent Mercer, a prominent banker, and the father of young Robert Babson’s fiancée, Theresa. He had a somewhat pinched countenance, and the reserved manner of a man whose station in life depends upon his ability to convince others to trust him with their money. Nevertheless, he claimed familiarity with Mr. Clemens’s writings, and seemed genuinely pleased to make my employer’s acquaintance.
With him was Wilfred Smythe, a young man of about my own age, and the son of a Methodist minister in Philadelphia. (His parents were on board the ship, but his father was another who abjured the use of tobacco, and therefore had not come to the smoking lounge.) Young Smythe had something of the seriousness I had seen in other ministers’ sons, but I caught a twinkle in his eye as he listened to Mr. Clemens’s stories, and decided that his upbringing had not left him without an independent spirit. Vincent Mercer had promoted him to a position of responsibility in his bank, and clearly looked on him as a young man of promise. Observing Smythe’s quiet demeanor and obvious intelligence, I decided that Mr. Mercer’s confidence in him would likely prove to be well-placed.
Mr. Mercer also introduced us to Signor Giorgio Rubbia, an Italian artist who was to be the Philadelphians guide to the artistic treasures of Europe. Although he stood no more than five foot six, Signor Rubbia must have weighed something over two hundred fifty pounds, and his fleshy jowls were accentuated by bushy white side whiskers. His attire was as distinctive as his figure: a wide-brimmed black felt hat, a flamboyant purple-lined cape, and a long, colorful scarf worn instead of a necktie. He seemed incapable of uttering a sentence without an extravagant gesture to accompany it. I could tell by Mr. Clemens’s expression that he was not impressed by Signor Rubbia. Amused, perhaps, but not at all impressed. For myself, I found the man an interestingly exotic specimen, and determined to see what I could learn from his observations on art (although his thick Italian accent might make that something of a challenge).
Signor Rubbia appeared to have only a vague notion of who Mr. Clemens was. But he soon discerned that my employer was the focus of all eyes in the lounge, and that even Vincent Mercer was paying more attention to the American writer than to him. Rubbia’s eyes narrowed as Mr. Mercer asked Mr. Clemens his advice on the sights to see in London; clearly, he considered this request an intrusion on his own prerogatives as guide to the Mercer party.
“What to see depends on what you like,” said Mr. Clemens. “There’s plenty to see in London. Don’t miss Westminster Abbey, the Houses of Parliament, or the British Museum—and make sure to get a look at the Tower of London. It’ll remind you how the kings and nobles have kept the people under their thumb for so long. I’ve always wondered how some Americans pretend to admire those rascals—a king’s not much better than a slaveholder, in my opinion.”
Mr. Kipling chuckled. “Now, watch yourself, Clemens. I’ll make allowance for your opinions of kings. You’re an American and a humorist besides, but don’t forget you have a loyal subject of the Queen sitting here next to you.”
“What is there to see in the way of art?” asked Mr. Mercer, ignoring Mr. Kipling’s sally.
“I’d suggest the National Portrait Gallery,” said Mr. Clemens. “Don’t bother with the other National Gallery—if you want my opinion, the portraits are the only paintings in London worth a second look. Even if most of them are of dead people, at least they’re real people. There’s no other art in England worth walking across the street for.”
Signor Rubbia instantly seized this opening. “No art in England? What sort of foolishness is this? Have you not seen The Hay Wain’ of Constable? Or the ‘Fighting Temeraire’ of Turner? Did you not see the Elgin Marbles?”
Mr. Clemens looked up at the Italian, raising his eyebrows. His pipe had burnt out, and he carefully tapped the ashes into the ashtray before he replied. “Sure, I’ve seen all of ’em. I’d rather sit by the Thames and watch the boats passing, if you want to know the truth. Nature’s the oldest master of them all, and the only one that’s never let me down.”
“Aha! A man after my own heart!” exclaimed a hearty voice from the back of the room. I looked up to see Prinz Heinrich Karl von Ruckgarten, who had just come through the door. “Herr Mark Twain, I hope you have received the magnum of champagne I had sent to your cabin! I consider it a doubly deserved gift after hearing your astute criticism. No man who follows the teachings of Nature can go far wrong.” He gave a little bow; out of the corner of my eye I saw Mr. Clemens smile.
For his part, Signor Rubbia was far from pleased with the new arrival. “That theory no doubt does very well in Germania,” he said loudly. “Without imagination or brio, the artists there can only draw what they see—one Giotto is worth the whole bunch of them.”
“I’ve heard of Jotto,” said Mr. Clemens. “Is he dead?” The audience burst into laughter, although I was not quite certain what the joke was, and Signor Rubbia turned red.
Before the laughter had subsided, Mr. Clemens stood. “Well, Prinz Karl, Kipling and I were just about to go down to my cabin to see if your bottle was there. Why don’t you come along and find out if you got your money’s worth? Sounds as if there’s plenty for all of us.”
“I would be most delighted to join Herr Mark Twain,” said the prince, and the four of us swept out the door together, leaving a smiling crowd behind—with the exception of Signor Rubbia, who looked as if he had a sudden case of indigestion.
The champagne had indeed been delivered, and was already well chilled. I pulled the cork and filled four glasses. Mr. Clemens waited for the bubbles to subside a bit, then turned to the prince and said, “To your health, and many thanks for the fine going-away present!”
“My pleasure entirely, Herr Twain,” said the prince, beaming. We clinked our glasses and drank. The champagne was sweeter than most I had tasted, but very full-bodied and delightfully cool. All except Prinz Karl took seats in the comfortable chairs and sofa provided. Mr. Kipling propped his feet up and said, “If you don’t mind my asking, what brings a German prince to America? Most of the time, the poor Yankees have to go to your side of the pond to rub elbows with royalty.”
“Ah, that is a long story,” said Prinz Karl. He had remained standing, and his erect posture gave a lively sense of his aristocratic upbringing. “I will give you the brief ve
rsion. America is now what Europe will be—almost for certain in the lifetimes of you two young gentlemen. Now is the last act of the play for kings and princes, I believe, and the start of the time for parliaments and ministers. In my great-grandfather’s time, things were different—a whole division our little principality raised, for him to go to Austerlitz and fight against Napoleon. Alas, the French artillery did not let him bring many of his men home again. My father still believed for many years that our principality could exist by itself, but Prinz von Bismarck became more and more insistent. The Prussians can be very persuasive, you know.”
“I believe so,” said Mr. Kipling. “The man with a big enough army can usually get his way.” There was general nodding of heads in agreement with this.
“Though another fellow with a bigger army can often make him stop and think before he does something stupid,” said Mr. Clemens. “So I take it that Ruckgarten has been swallowed up by the German empire.”
“So it has,” said the prince, spreading his left hand in front of him, as if balancing something on the palm. “To console him in his old age, my father still has his title and his little palace and his hereditary honors, but I do not think they will much benefit me. In fact, I am sure they will not—since I have been so improvident to have been born my father’s second son. To be perfectly frank with you, I do not in the least regret it. My brother Heinrich Maximillian is quite competent, and very serious. And as I say, I think the time for kings and princes is not long. So I travel about the globe, and enjoy what there is to enjoy in life, and let my brother govern as best he can without consulting me.”
“A melancholy thought, in a way,” said Mr. Kipling. He sipped at his champagne, a meditative expression on his face. “I hope that England will never find itself in such condition, but I’m not such a fool to think it will avoid those straits without strenuous efforts to stem the tide of history.”
“Well, if there’s any kind of tide in history, it rolls in and out just like the ocean,” said Mr. Clemens. “You can’t bet on progress, only on change. I’ll tell you one thing about democracy, Prinz Karl. A senator can rob you just as blind as a duke—there ain’t hardly any difference between them, except when you get tired of one senator you can usually bring in another one to rob you some new way.”
Prinz Karl and Mr. Kipling laughed heartily, and Kipling raised his glass. “Well, Clemens, I see you haven’t taken up diplomacy in your old age. I look forward to watching you properly scandalize the British lecture audiences, it should be a sight to remember.”
Mr. Clemens waved his hand disparagingly. “Scandalizing the British is child’s play—Wentworth could do it, if he put his mind to it. Now, a real challenge would be scandalizing a Frenchman—or possibly an Italian.”
“You didn’t seem to have much difficulty with that artist, Signor Rubbia,” I remarked.
“Oh, that was no challenge at all,” said Mr. Clemens, grinning broadly. “You can always rile up an Italian by making fun of art—or opera, if you’re in the mood for a real argument. I knew Signor Rubbia for a sham the instant I saw that scarf of his. It was hard to resist exposing him right on the spot. But I guess we should be glad he’s aboard—if we run out of other entertainment on the crossing, we can get hours of amusement pulling his leg.”
I was at a loss to understand Mr. Clemens’s reaction to Signor Rubbia. For all I knew, the artist was a sham. But I was not so confident of my own knowledge of art (though I knew what I liked) to judge another’s expertise. Still, a few minutes’ conversation in the lounge seemed to me too short a time to dismiss Rubbia’s opinions entirely, or to decide to make him the target of jokes and taunts. But I was not being paid to contradict my employer, or to chide him for behavior that appeared unseemly to me. Certainly, neither Mr. Kipling nor Prinz Karl took exception to his remarks, except in a spirit of fun. So I held my tongue, and resolved to listen and learn—from Signor Rubbia as well as Mr. Clemens, and even from Prinz Kail, who seemed a pleasant enough fellow when he managed to keep his temper under control.
After the first glass of champagne, Mr. Clemens suggested that we invite Mrs. Kipling to join us. “Of course,” said Mr. Kipling. “I’ll go fetch Carrie directly.”
“No need of that,” I said. “Tell me where to find her and I’ll bring her back. I’ll trust you gentlemen to save at least one glass for me.”
“And one for the lady, as well,” said Prinz Karl, smiling. “To invite her to share an empty bottle with us, it would be most inhospitable!”
“We can order up another bottle, if it comes to that,” said Mr. Clemens. “But I reckon there’ll be some left by the time Wentworth gets back, if he don’t get lost—or spend all afternoon stopping to gawk at the boat.”
“No danger of that,” I said. “I’ve got most of a week to see the ship. Where should I expect to find Mrs. Kipling?”
“She was going to the Grand Saloon,” said Mr. Kipling. “If she’s not there, she’ll probably be back in our cabin—number seventeen. Around the corner—do you know where it is?”
“I think I can find it,” I said. “If not, I’ll come back and ask directions.” I drank up the half-inch remaining in my glass, and went to look for Mrs. Kipling.
There was a good bit of activity on the decks, with passengers gathering at the rail to enjoy their last view of New York City, and crewmen wrestling with a few last pieces of latecomers’ baggage. The anticipation of our departure was a tonic in the air, and most of the passengers I passed were talking animatedly, or pointing out the sights to their companions. The excitement was contagious, and I found myself smiling and nodding to my fellow passengers as if we were all old friends, instead of people who had never laid eyes on one another before this very moment.
Actually, I realized, that wasn’t quite true. Ahead of me I saw young Robert Babson, leaning over the rail and pointing out the sights of the docks below and of the city beyond to his pretty fiancée, Miss Theresa Mercer. I smiled and touched the brim of my hat as I passed them, but they had eyes only for each other, and so I went on my way.
A short distance after, I encountered another familiar face: Wilfred Smythe, the young assistant to Miss Mercer’s father. He was ambling slowly along the deck toward me, a pensive expression on his face. I was surprised—he had seemed an eminently cheerful fellow when his employer had introduced him to Mr. Clemens and me, a short while ago in the smoking room. Then I saw his gaze light on something behind me, and a frown came across his face; for a moment, I considered whether it would best to walk on by, pretending not to notice him. Then he saw me coming toward him, and he managed a little smile, and a quiet “Hello,” as we passed. I replied in kind, and went on my way, wondering at what could have caused his evident annoyance.
It was some time later when it occurred to me that he must have been looking at Robert Babson and Theresa Mercer, whom I had just passed as he came into my view. And it was later still that I understood what had caused him to frown so.
6
I returned with Mrs. Kipling to the cabin, where in the company of Mr. Clemens, Mr. Kipling, and Prinz Karl, we finished the magnum of champagne, laughing a good deal. I think the anticipation of our departure had as much to do with our high spirits as anything we drank. Certainly, between my employer and Prinz Karl, the quips flew fast and furious. I think Mrs. Kipling had never been so outrageously flattered in her life. Had her husband not been present, and making as many jokes as Mr. Clemens and the Prince, I think she would have been scandalized.
When the bottle was at last emptied, we strolled out on deck to observe the final preparations for casting off. Already I could feel from somewhere deep below the throbbing rhythm of the great steam engines—a feeling with which I had become familiar (though on a smaller scale) during my trip down the Mississippi with Mr. Clemens. A glance upward showed smoke gathering above the three tall smokestacks of our vessel. Alas, it also revealed a bank of dark clouds swarming over the New Jersey Palisades to our west; we would b
e lucky to get out of the harbor without a rainstorm.
But we were not about to let something as trivial as an impending storm spoil our jolly moods. Somewhere in the direction of the ship’s bow, a band was playing, and we let the music draw us toward it. On the foredeck we found many of the first-class passengers gathered to watch half a dozen smartly uniformed fellows, in blue jackets, peaked caps, and white trousers, playing a sprightly march on an assortment of wind instruments. A tall fellow with hawkish features and an iron-gray “Imperial” beard directed them with a slender white baton. While his erect posture and gold-braided uniform radiated authority, he was clearly enjoying the music as much as any of the listeners. It would have been difficult, in the foulest of moods, to resist tapping a foot and breaking into a smile.
Though mid-October was well past the prime season for ocean travel, the ship appeared to have attracted a goodly complement of passengers. I had already met many of those whom I saw watching the scene with the same evident enjoyment as I. The Babson family stood in a group along the starboard rail, the father nodding his head in time to the rhythm, and his wife and daughter—a pretty young woman in a black traveling dress that set off her blond hair to good effect—arm in arm beside him. Robert Babson and his fiancée, Theresa Mercer, stood slightly apart from them. Young Babson leaned back with one foot propped against a lower rung of the railing behind him, and a straw hat cocked at a rakish angle on his head; Miss Mercer whispered something to him and he nodded, smiling. Not far away stood Vincent Mercer, the banker, next to a severe-looking woman wearing a fur wrap, evidently his wife.
One young man waved to the Babsons and said, “Here, stand right where you are, against the rail and I’ll take your picture.” He was carrying a little black box in his hands, which on closer inspection I recognized as one of the Kodak portable cameras that had become such a fad the last few years. One of my uncles had bought one of the first models the year I went away to Yale, and had spent almost the entire summer lining people up and telling them to smile, then locking himself in a dark closet to mix up strange-smelling chemicals so as to develop his films. Despite everyone’s skepticism, the little camera actually made quite acceptable photographs. The Babsons dutifully posed, with artificial-looking smiles, and the young man pressed the button. He thanked them, then wandered off in search of other photographic subjects. I wondered how he was going to keep his chemicals from spilling on board the rolling ship.
[Mark Twain Mysteries 03] - The Prince and the Prosecutor Page 5