Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon Volume I Part 26

DEAR P.,--

Please pay to my credit,--and soon, mark ye!--the two ponies lost this evening. I have done myself the pleasure of enjoying your ball, kissed the lady, quizzed the papa, and walked into the cunning Fred Power. Yours, FRANK WEBBER.

"The Widow Malone, ohone!" is at your service.

Had a thunderbolt fallen at his feet, his astonishment could not have equalled the result of this revelation. He stamped, swore, raved, laughed, and almost went deranged. The joke was soon spread through the room, and from Sir George to poor Lucy, now covered with blushes at her part in the transaction, all was laughter and astonishment.

"Who is he? That is the question," said Sir George, who, with all the ridicule of the affair hanging over him, felt no common relief at the discovery of the imposition.

"A friend of O'Malley's," said Power, delighted, in his defeat, to involve another with himself.

"Indeed!" said the general, regarding me with a look of a very mingled cast.

"Quite true, sir," said I, replying to the accusation that his manner implied; "but equally so, that I neither knew of his plot nor recognized him when here."

"I am perfectly sure of it, my boy," said the general; "and, after all, it was an excellent joke,--carried a little too far, it's true; eh, Lucy?"

But Lucy either heard not, or affected not to hear; and after some little further a.s.surance that he felt not the least annoyed, the general turned to converse with some other friends; while I, burning with indignation against Webber, took a cold farewell of Miss Dashwood, and retired.

CHAPTER XX.

THE LAST NIGHT IN TRINITY.

How I might have met Master Webber after his impersonation of Miss Macan, I cannot possibly figure to myself. Fortunately, indeed, for all parties, he left town early the next morning; and it was some weeks ere he returned.

In the meanwhile I became a daily visitor at the general's, dined there usually three or four times a week, rode out with Lucy constantly, and accompanied her every evening either to the theatre or into society. Sir George, possibly from my youth, seemed to pay little attention to an intimacy which he perceived every hour growing closer, and frequently gave his daughter into my charge in our morning excursions on horseback. As for me, my happiness was all but perfect. I loved, and already began to hope that I was not regarded with indifference; for although Lucy's manner never absolutely evinced any decided preference towards me, yet many slight and casual circ.u.mstances served to show me that my attentions to her were neither unnoticed nor uncared for. Among the many gay and das.h.i.+ng companions of our rides, I remarked that, however anxious for such a distinction, none ever seemed to make any way in her good graces; and I had already gone far in my self-deception that I was destined for good fortune, when a circ.u.mstance which occurred one morning at length served to open my eyes to the truth, and blast by one fatal breath the whole harvest of my hopes.

We were about to set out one morning on a long ride, when Sir George's presence was required by the arrival of an officer who had been sent from the Horse Guards on official business. After half an hour's delay, Colonel Cameron, the officer in question, was introduced, and entered into conversation with our party. He had only landed in England from the Peninsula a few days before, and had abundant information of the stirring events enacting there. At the conclusion of an anecdote,--I forget what,--he turned suddenly round to Miss Dashwood, who was standing beside me, and said in a low voice:--

"And now, Miss Dashwood, I am reminded of a commission I promised a very old brother officer to perform. Can I have one moment's conversation with you in the window?"

As he spoke, I perceived that he crumpled beneath his glove something like a letter.

"To me?" said Lucy, with a look of surprise that sadly puzzled me whether to ascribe it to coquetry or innocence,--"to me?"

"To you," said the colonel, bowing; "and I am sadly deceived by my friend Hammersley--"

"Captain Hammersley?" said she, blus.h.i.+ng deeply as she spoke.

I heard no more. She turned towards the window with the colonel, and all I saw was that he handed her a letter, which, having hastily broken open and thrown her eyes over, she grew at first deadly pale, then red, and while her eyes filled with tears, I heard her say, "How like him! How truly generous this is!" I listened for no more; my brain was wheeling round and my senses reeling. I turned and left the room; in another moment I was on my horse, galloping from the spot, despair, in all its blackness, in my heart, and in my broken-hearted misery, wis.h.i.+ng for death.

I was miles away from Dublin ere I remembered well what had occurred, and even then not over clearly. The fact that Lucy Dashwood, whom I imagined to be my own in heart, loved another, was all that I really knew. That one thought was all my mind was capable of, and in it my misery, my wretchedness were centred.

Of all the grief my life has known, I have had no moments like the long hours of that dreary night. My sorrow, in turn, took every shape and a.s.sumed every guise. Now I remembered how the Dashwoods had courted my intimacy and encouraged my visits,--how Lucy herself had evinced in a thousand ways that she felt a preference for me. I called to mind the many unequivocal proofs I had given her that my feeling at least was no common one; and yet, how had she sported with my affections, and jested with my happiness! That she loved Hammersley I had now a palpable proof. That this affection must have been mutual, and prosecuted at the very moment I was not only professing my own love for her, but actually receiving all but an avowal of its return,--oh, it was too, too base! and in my deepest heart I cursed my folly, and vowed never to see her more.

It was late on the next day ere I retraced my steps towards town, my heart sad and heavy, careless what became of me for the future, and pondering whether I should not at once give up my college career and return to my uncle. When I reached my chambers, all was silent and comfortless; Webber had not returned; my servant was from home; and I felt myself more than ever wretched in the solitude of what had been so oft the scene of noisy and festive gayety. I sat some hours in a half-musing state, every sad depressing thought that blighted hopes can conjure up rising in turn before me. A loud knocking at the door at length aroused me. I got up and opened it. No one was there. I looked around as well as the coming gloom of evening would permit, but saw nothing. I listened, and heard, at some distance off, my friend Power's manly voice as he sang,--

"Oh, love is the soul of an Irish dragoon!"

I hallooed out, "Power!"

"Eh, O'Malley, is that you?" inquired he. "Why, then, it seems it required some deliberation whether you opened your door or not. Why, man, you can have no great gift of prophecy, or you wouldn't have kept me so long there."

"And have you been so?"

"Only twenty minutes; for as I saw the key in the lock, I had determined to succeed if noise would do it."

"How strange! I never heard it."

"Glorious sleeper you must be; but come, my dear fellow, you don't appear altogether awake yet."

"I have not been quite well these few days."

"Oh, indeed! The Dashwoods thought there must have been something of that kind the matter by your brisk retreat. They sent me after you yesterday; but wherever you went, Heaven knows. I never could come up with you; so that your great news has been keeping these twenty-four hours longer than need be."

"I am not aware what you allude to."

"Well, you are not over likely to be the wiser when you hear it, if you can a.s.sume no more intelligent look than that. Why, man, there's great luck in store for you."

"As how, pray? Come, Power, out with it; though I can't pledge myself to feel half as grateful for my good fortune as I should do. What is it?"

"You know Cameron?"

"I have seen him," said I, reddening.

"Well, old Camy, as we used to call him, has brought over, among his other news, your gazette."

"My gazette! What do you mean?"

"Confound your uncommon stupidity this evening! I mean, man, that you are one of us,--gazetted to the 14th Light,--the best fellows for love, war, and whiskey that ever sported a sabretasche.

'Oh, love is the soul of an Irish dragoon!'

By Jove, I am as delighted to have rescued you from the black harness of the King's Bench as though you had been a prisoner there! Know, then, friend Charley, that on Wednesday we proceed to Fermoy, join some score of gallant fellows,--all food for powder,--and, with the aid of a rotten transport and the stormy winds that blow, will be bronzing our beautiful faces in Portugal before the month's out. But come, now, let's see about supper. Some of ours are coming over here at eleven, and I promised them a devilled bone; and as it's your last night among these cla.s.sic precincts, let us have a s.h.i.+ndy of it."

While I despatched Mike to Morrison's to provide supper, I heard from Power that Sir George Dashwood had interested himself so strongly for me that I had obtained my cornetcy in the 14th; that, fearful lest any disappointment might arise, he had never mentioned the matter to me, but that he had previously obtained my uncle's promise to concur in the arrangement if his negotiation succeeded. It had so done, and now the long-sought-for object of many days was within my grasp. But, alas, the circ.u.mstance which lent it all its fascinations was a vanished dream; and what but two days before had rendered my happiness perfect, I listened to listlessly and almost without interest. Indeed, my first impulse at finding that I owed my promotion to Sir George was to return a positive refusal of the cornetcy; but then I remembered how deeply such conduct would hurt my poor uncle, to whom I never could give an adequate explanation. So I heard Power in silence to the end, thanked him sincerely for his own good-natured kindness in the matter, which already, by the interest he had taken in me, went far to heal the wounds that my own solitary musings were deepening in my heart. At eighteen, fortunately, consolations are attainable that become more difficult at eight-and-twenty, and impossible at eight-and-thirty.

While Power continued to dilate upon the delights of a soldier's life--a theme which many a boyish dream had long since made hallowed to my thoughts--I gradually felt my enthusiasm rising, and a certain throbbing at my heart betrayed to me that, sad and dispirited as I felt, there was still within that buoyant spirit which youth possesses as its privilege, and which answers to the call of enterprise as the war-horse to the trumpet.

That a career worthy of manhood, great, glorious, and inspiriting, opened before me, coming so soon after the late downfall of my hopes, was in itself a source of such true pleasure that ere long I listened to my friend, and heard his narrative with breathless interest. A lingering sense of pique, too, had its share in all this. I longed to come forward in some manly and das.h.i.+ng part, where my youth might not be ever remembered against me, and when, having brought myself to the test, I might no longer be looked upon and treated as a boy.

We were joined at length by the other officers of the 14th, and, to the number of twelve, sat down to supper.

It was to be my last night in Old Trinity, and we resolved that the farewell should be a solemn one. Mansfield, one of the wildest young fellows in the regiment, had vowed that the leave-taking should be commemorated by some very decisive and open expressions of our feelings, and had already made some progress in arrangements for blowing up the great bell, which had more than once obtruded upon our morning convivialities; but he was overruled by his more discreet a.s.sociates, and we at length a.s.sumed our places at table, in the midst of which stood a _hecatomb_ of all my college equipments, cap, gown, bands, etc. A funeral pile of cla.s.sics was arrayed upon the hearth, surmounted by my "Book on the Cellar," and a punishment-roll waved its length, like a banner, over the doomed heroes of Greece and Rome.

It is seldom that any very determined attempt to be gay _par excellence_ has a perfect success, but certainly upon this evening ours had. Songs, good stories, speeches, toasts, high visions of the campaign before us, the wild excitement which such a meeting cannot be free from, gradually, as the wine pa.s.sed from hand to hand, seized upon all, and about four in the morning, such was the uproar we caused, and so terrific the noise of our proceedings, that the acc.u.mulated force of porters, sent one by one to demand admission, was now a formidable body at the door, and Mike at last came in to a.s.sure us that the bursar,--the most dread official of all collegians,--was without, and insisted, with a threat of his heaviest displeasure in case of refusal, that the door should be opened.