General Bounce Part 20

We must return to Newton-Hollows, now mellowing in the last tints of fading autumn, its dahlias already cut off by the morning frosts, its well-kept gravel-walks, despite the gardener and his staff, strewed here and there with the withered leaves of the declining year. A light mist, rising in smoke-wreaths from the sward, antic.i.p.ates the early twilight of the shortening day, and the fire burning brightly in the library is none the less acceptable for its contrast to the gathering shades of out-of-doors, which seem to stalk nearer and nearer to the unshuttered windows.

Blanche has just come in, fresh and blooming, from an errand of mercy amongst the poor in the adjoining village. Her bonnet is even now hanging on her arm, and her long cl.u.s.tering hair is damp and limp with the dews of evening. Is that a tear clinging to her eyelashes? or is it only the moisture of heaven caught as it fell, and prisoned in those silken meshes? Blanche is often in tears now, and loves to be alone. She and Mary ride and walk together as usual, but the unreserved confidence that used to exist between them is gone. It has been dying a natural death ever since the former paid her memorable visit at Frank Hardingstone's hotel; and though it has flickered up again with an expiring flash or two, it is now finally extinct. Our young lady has aged much since her thoughtless days of only last spring. Pique, disappointment, anxiety, and self-communing have been doing their work silently and surely, shading the fair young brow, indeed, but at the same time tempering and mellowing the careless, buoyant heart. Blanche has begun to find that life is not all _couleur de rose_, even for the young, and the lesson has not been without its usual salutary effect. Though no longer the wealthy heiress--and, to do her justice, she seldom dwells upon that as a misfortune--she is beginning to feel that she too has a part to act on the stage of life, or rather that, no longer acting the vain part of every-day frivolity, she has a _reality_ to fulfil. So she is never so happy now as when busying herself about her poor people, her decrepit old women, and her little ragged children, to whom she does acts of una.s.suming kindness, in the performance of which she forgets her own annoyances and heart-burnings, though her woman nature is as yet but half-trained, and she has occasional fits of despondency and bursts of reactionary sorrow, which make her very unhappy for the time. Blanche has had a fresh grievance, too, for the last few days, connected, of all things in the world, with Cousin Charlie's return--that return which was to have been such a jubilee of rejoicing, and which she now almost dreads to look forward to. The girl feels as if she had lost her self-respect, and turn which way she will, the sting ever rankles in her breast, ever reminds her of what she chooses to consider her degradation. The fact is, she has sustained an interview with Uncle Baldwin in the formidable study; and the General, who is not given to beat about the bush when he has an object in view, has developed to her, in as few words as possible, his projects for her future welfare, and proposed to her, point blank, that on her cousin's return from abroad she should marry him forthwith. Blanche, as in nature bound, made sundry hesitating objections, all of which her uncle chose to consider as mere maiden modesty, _de rigueur_ on such an occasion; and as Blanche could not say she _didn't like him_, and as Uncle Baldwin had always been so kind, in fact, a second father to her, and made such a point of it, and it would prevent Charlie going back to those horrid Kaffirs, and was to make them all so happy, and, above all, had been her dearest mother's wish--why, the girl gave in, as girls often do on the most important topic of their lives, paralysed, as it would seem, by the amount of the stake at issue, and yielded a sort of conditional half-promise, which, notwithstanding the bursts of applause that it met with from the General, the instant it pa.s.sed her lips, she would have given worlds to be able to recall. But there was another consideration, buried deep in Blanche's little heart, which, although she would have been very angry to be told so, although she would not allow it even to herself, had far more weight in inducing her to listen favourably to these advances on the part of her unconscious cousin, than all the General's skilful sophistry and affectionate eloquence; and this was a feeling which, as it is the usual accompaniment of love, resembles that epidemic in so far that, where it rages most fiercely, it is invariably most stoutly denied.

Men take it freely enough, and when under its influence commit sundry absurdities, which, if they make "angels weep," certainly make their fellow-mortals laugh, and of which they have generally the grace to be heartily ashamed; but with women, as we believe its seeds are never altogether dormant in those gentle beings, so its virulence, when unchecked, pervades their whole system, and one of its commonest and least startling effects is that species of moral suicide which is best described by the vulgar adage of "cutting off one's nose to spite one's face," and which produces that most incomprehensible of all vagaries termed "marrying out of pique."

Now we need hardly say, that we have written in vain "for that dull elf who cannot picture to himself" how Blanche Kettering, from her very pinafore days, had been over head and ears in love with Frank Hardingstone: not a very sufficient reason, it may be said, for consenting to marry some one else; but yet a natural consequence of that inverted state of feelings we have described above, which under the name of jealousy is capable of more extravagant feats than this.

And of whom was pretty Blanche jealous? Why, of her own fast friend and dearest a.s.sociate, the peerless Mary Delaval! The more she thought over the characters of the two, so suited to each other in every possible way--which very similarity Blanche was not philosopher enough to perceive was an insuperable obstacle to any tenderer feeling than respect--the more she considered their corresponding strength of mind and hardihood of spirit, their equally high standard of worth and elevation of sentiment--the more she reflected on the opinions she had heard each of them express (the ba.s.s notes of that moral duet had sunk deep into her heart)--the more she thought over that memorable day, when, at a word from Mary, and at a moment's notice, Frank had started for South Africa, without so much as coming to wish her (Blanche) good-bye--the more her heart sank within her as she linked those two commanding figures in the halo of love, blurred even to her mental vision by the tears which filled her eyes as she contemplated the bare idea of such a union. Blanche had long struggled against this feeling; she had hoped against hope, as she firmly believed, rather than give Frank Hardingstone up; but now she would deceive herself no more; he was actually corresponding with Mrs. Delaval, which, to say the least of it, she must confess was very indelicate. This was the second letter Mary had received from him. Why had he written to Mary from the Cape? It was surely very strange; and Mary had never offered to show her either of the letters--of course she would rather die than _ask_ to see them. Poor Blanche! little do you guess the cause of your friend's unusual reserve as regarded these important missives. Mary Delaval, quickened by her own experience of a hopeless love, saw it all--saw that her high-minded, manly correspondent was devoted heart and soul to Blanche; and she pitied him, even as she pitied herself, for a misplaced attachment. But it was not for _her_, of all people, to do aught that might shake Blanche's affection for Cousin Charlie--_she_ could not be so selfish, so traitorous, as to lend her a.s.sistance to anything, however slight, that might in the most remote manner wean Blanche from her cousin, and leave him free. So Mary, treasuring the letter, as containing oft-repeated mention of the beloved name, placed it in her bosom, but did not volunteer to show a single line of it to a living soul. Therefore is Blanche desponding and unhappy; therefore, as gloomy thoughts sweep like shadows across her mind, the tears gather in her eyes, as she leans her head upon the marble chimney-piece, and sorrows all alone in the deepening twilight.

"And this is the day I thought I was to have been so happy," thinks poor Blanche--"the day I have been looking forward to ever since we heard Charlie was coming home. Ah! I wish I could meet him now as I used to do in the happy days when we knew nothing about marrying and money and family arrangements. And poor Charlie, after all his sufferings!--Uncle Baldwin says it will break his heart if I don't marry him. And dear mamma, if she had lived, she would have been so glad to see it all settled! And so I suppose it _must_ be; and then Mr. Hardingstone will very likely marry _her_, and everybody will be happy and contented but _me_. Ah! well, there must always be some one sacrificed; and I suppose I must be the victim this time; but it _is_ hard to give up all my hope, all my suns.h.i.+ne--to have no future any more. Yes; I hear the autumn wind sighing round the house. I am not yet twenty; and it will be all autumn to me for the rest of my life.

Oh, it _is_ hard--very hard!" and Blanche pressed her brow against the chimney-piece and wept bitterly.

"Blanche, dearest Blanche, what is it?" whispered a gentle voice close beside her, and she felt Mary Delaval's arm pa.s.sed caressingly round her waist. Blanche started up, and checked her tears. She could have borne anything but this. She could not endure to be consoled by her triumphant rival. "Nothing," she replied, withdrawing herself almost rudely from the encircling arm--"nothing; I'm only tired and nervous, waiting for these people. I think I'll go and dress, for it's getting late; and--I think--I think I'll go by myself, Mrs. Delaval," said Blanche; and she hurried away, leaving Mary surprised and hurt at the first unkind words she had ever heard from Blanche's lips. "Anything but that," said the girl as she walked up-stairs, swelling with indignation; "anything but that _she_ should come and _triumph_ over me." And she banged her door angrily; and Mary, in the drawing-room, heard it, and was grieved.

_Triumph_, indeed!--was that poor pale face one of _triumph_? Were those deep eyes, hollowing day by day; that sad brow, on which care seemed visibly to rest, as a cloud rests upon the hill, and softens even while it darkens--were these the outward signs of satisfied affection and _triumphant_ love? Blanche, Blanche, you think yourself very unhappy; but little do you know the struggle going on in the bosom of that faithful friend with whom you are now so unjustly at variance. Little do you guess that she has torn the one only image, the fulfilment of the ideal of a lifetime, from her heart, and vowed to wors.h.i.+p it no more; and prayed that the very thought which made the suns.h.i.+ne of her existence might pa.s.s away; and all for you. So it is in life: we make a sacrifice which costs us nothing; we give that which perhaps we are all well satisfied to get rid of; and the world says, "How n.o.ble! how generous! how disinterested!" or we yield up the one dear hope that has cheered us all our journey; we consent to travel the rest of the way in darkness and dreariness and listless despair, and the world thinks us only stupid and disagreeable; those who look below the surface perhaps suggest that we are bilious; and the one for whom we have made all this ruin, for whose well-being and security we are stretched helpless, exhausted, bleeding by the way, thanks us blandly at the most, and takes it much as a matter of course, and pa.s.ses by, very likely, on the other side.

But "fight who will and die who may," the outward world goes on much the same notwithstanding. The clock goes round, and dinner-time arrives; and whatever may be the sorrow brooded over and locked up in the inner life, we dress for dinner when the time comes, and look in the gla.s.s and dry our eyes, and have a gla.s.s of sherry after our soup; and the tyrant Custom, and the motley jester Society, bid us sit between them; and this woos from us a vapid smile, and that lays his iron hand upon our brow and dares us to stir; and we are all the better for the hypocrisy and the restraint.

Thus, although the ringing of the door-bell that announced the long-expected arrival of the guests from Africa vibrated through the very hearts of the ladies in their dressing-rooms, even as it vibrated through the ground-floors and offices of Newton-Hollows, we are not to suppose that it crumpled a fold of muslin or moved a single ringlet out of its place with its agitating summons. Below-stairs, indeed, the old butler settled himself hastily into his coat, and rushed to the door with as hearty a welcome for the travellers as if it had been his own house; whilst from a gallery that overlooked the hall divers lighted candles might be seen glancing, and pretty faces looking down from beneath smart caps, all eager to get a glimpse at Cousin Charlie, whose wounds and exploits had made him a second Roland in the estimation of these admiring damsels; while sundry exclamations might have been overheard, as, "Which is him?" "That's Master Charles, him in the pea-jacket." "Lor', how thin he's growed!" and, "Well, he's a genteel figure, let alone those 'orrid moustaches," from the upper housemaid, who was a new acquisition since Charlie's departure, and having once been engaged to a journeyman glazier, thought herself a judge of young men. But the General had rushed from his den in the meantime, half-dressed as he was, and had pulled Charlie into the well-lighted drawing-room, and had shaken Frank Hardingstone a hundred times by the hand, and was never tired of reiterating his welcome, and his delight at seeing them both once more.

"G.o.d bless you, Frank!" exclaimed the General for the twelfth time, as he fidgeted about the room in braces and s.h.i.+rt-sleeves. "What! you've brought him back safe and well? D----n me, sir (G.o.d forgive me for swearing), I tell you I'll _never_ forget it. Zounds, don't tell me!

Brought him back, sir, like a resurrectionist! I never thought to see this day, sir--I tell ye--Grat.i.tude! how d'ye mean? And you, Charlie, my trump of a boy--thanked in Orders--General Orders, by all the G.o.ds of war! Ah, I hadn't lectured you over the old port for nothing. You took 'em in flank, the rascals. _In flank_, or I'll eat 'em. Don't tell _me_; couldn't be done otherwise. Lads! lads! it's too much: you make me feel like a child again. What?" and the old General's eyes began to overflow with the fulness at his heart; so he relapsed into a state of unusual gruffness, and stirred the fire fiercely to conceal his emotion; and finally hurried them off to dress. "None of your licentious camp habits here, Charlie. Dine to a minute, you dog! I trust you'll find your room comfortable, Frank, my boy. I saw to the fire myself not half-an-hour ago. What? Ring for what you _want_, and my servants will bring you what they _have_." So the old gentleman toddled off to finish his own personal adornment, and the guests, with beating hearts, well concealed from each other, proceeded to dispatch theirs as quickly as might be.

If ever there was a banquet that to all appearance should have been one of triumphant hilarity, it was the sumptuous dinner to which our party sat down that day in the bright, warm, cheerful dining-room at Newton-Hollows. Notwithstanding Lady Mount Helicon's sneers, no man understood better than the General that process which is conventionally called "doing things well." The servants glided about noiselessly as if shod with velvet--the doors were never left open, still less closed with a bang--no b.u.mps and thumps of tray-corners against projecting wood-work disturbed the conversation, to irritate the host while they alarmed his guests. Nor as the different courses made their appearance, did a gush of cold air accompany them from below-stairs, tainted but not warmed by the odours borne with it from the kitchen. The soup was as hot as the plates, the champagne iced to a turn, even as the haunch was roasted. Gla.s.ses were filled noiselessly by the butler, as a matter of course (by the way, an immense pull for the ladies), and everything was handed to everybody at the instant it was wanted, and this, to our humble ideas, is no mean auxiliary to the general success of an entertainment. The old Roman _bon vivant_ evidently knew a thing or two about dinner-giving (he called them suppers), or he would not have so dilated on the necessity of attention to trifles, _vilibus in scopis_, _in mappis_, etc. The General, too, understood these details thoroughly, and therefore it was disrespectful youth voted _nem. con._ that Newton-Hollows was "a rare shop at feeding time," and that "old Bounce, if he was rather a bore out hunting, was nevertheless the boy to dine with, and no mistake!"

"The boy," however, on this occasion seemed to have all the hilarity of the meeting to himself. Of the four individuals that const.i.tuted his party, each was acting a part, each had set a guard upon his and her lips, and was originating broken, disjointed sentences, vainly endeavouring to form a matter-of-course unrestrained conversation.

The ladies were even more reserved than the gentlemen. Blanche was thinking how brown and handsome Frank looked after his voyage--so much more manly than her cousin--and wondering why he should say so little to _her_, and yet pay no attention whatever to Mary. That lady again was full of tender alarms and anxieties about Cousin Charlie, his wasted figure, and his frequent cough, and gulping down the tears she could scarcely repress, as she glanced ever and anon at his glittering eye and emaciated face. "Perhaps," she thought, "he will never live after all to be Blanche's husband." A thrill shot through her at the thought that then he would indeed be all her own: but if this was joy, good faith! it was a joy near akin to tears. As for Frank, he was more in love than ever. Nor indeed is this to be wondered at. If a gentleman having voluntarily surrendered himself to that epidemic, which, like the measles, we must all go through sooner or later, and which, like that indisposition of childhood, is p.r.o.ne to cure itself by its own progress--if a gentleman, then, having undergone a favourable eruption, and, at the very crisis of his disorder, shall voluntarily absent himself from his charmer, to return from a sea-voyage amongst rough companions, and contemplate her for the first time, attired in all the brilliancy of dinner costume, and further embellished by the favourable disposition of light, which sets off such entertainments, and which is generally considered highly conducive to female beauty, he need not be surprised to find that he is less a rational being than ever, or that the disease for which absence is considered so unfailing a cure should come out with redoubled virulence under such an interruption of that salutary course. But Frank, though in love, was also disappointed. His hopes had risen most unreasonably since Charlie's disclosures on the evening preceding their memorable s.h.i.+pwreck. He had indulged in such day-dreams as, for a sensible man--which, to do him justice, he generally was--were the acme of absurdity; and now because Blanche had neither thrown herself into his arms when they met--a feat, indeed, she could hardly have conveniently accomplished, "dinner" being announced at that interesting moment--nor had spoken to him more than she could possibly help--for which reserve she likewise had excellent reasons, the princ.i.p.al one being that she could by no means trust her voice--our philosophic gentleman was disappointed, forsooth, and consequently hurt, and the least thing sulky. Charlie, again, though more at ease in his mind than the others, was tired and exhausted: he was always tired now towards the evening; and although rejoiced to be once more at home, once more gazing his fill on the only face he had ever much cared to look at--an indulgence that partook, he knew not why, of the nature of a stolen pleasure--yet his satisfaction was of that inward kind which does not betray itself by outward signs of mirth, but which, more particularly in failing health, flows on in a deep silent current, that to the superficial observer has all the appearance of apathy and cold, selfish carelessness.

But the General was in his glory. Fond of eating and drinking himself, his delight was to see his friends eat and drink too; and as he urged on his guests the different good things for both purposes that smoked on the table or sparkled on the sideboard, he monopolised the conversation with the same zest that he demolished a considerable share of the entertainment.

"Charlie, you eat nothing, my boy," said the General: "that haunch was roasted a turn too much; let me give you a bit of the grouse. Zounds!

we must fatten you up here--what? commissariat disgraceful at the Cape! 'Gad, sir, we wouldn't stand it in India. I broke three commissaries myself in the Deccan, because there was no soda-water in camp--fact, I pledge you my honour, Mrs. Delaval. I don't believe Charlie's had a morsel to eat since he went into training for the steeple-chase."

"You wouldn't have said so if you'd seen him getting well at Fort Beaufort," remarked Frank, rousing himself from his fit of abstraction; "his voracity was perfectly frightful! I wish you could have seen him, Miss Kettering, in a black skull-cap, as thin as a thread-paper, on crutches, asking every ten minutes what o'clock it was, dreading to die of starvation between two o'clock dinner and five o'clock tea; you never beheld anything so thin and so hungry."

Blanche laughed her old merry laugh; and Charlie, stealing a look at Mary Delaval, saw her eyes were full of tears. How his heart leapt within him, and how a chill seemed to gather round it the moment after, and curdle his very life-blood, as the possibility flashed across him, that even now it might be _too late_. Too late!--he was but twenty-one, yet something warned him that his was no secure tenure, that there might be truth in the startling suspicion that had of late obtruded itself like a death's head on his moments of enjoyment--that the world might be no world for him when autumn again shed her leaves, and the browning copses and cleared fields brought back the merry field-sports he loved so well. No more football--no more cricket--no more panting excitement and rosy out-of-doors exertion--no more sharp gun-shot ringing through the woodland, nor hound making music in the dale, nor airy steed careering after the pack, fleeting noiselessly o'er the upland. And though these were hard, bitter hard to leave, 'twas harder still to give up the opening dream of ambition, the budding promise of manhood; and harder, harder than all, the first glowing reality of woman's love. It is well to perish with trust unshaken in that glorious myth; to sleep before that too is discovered to be a dream. But Charlie shook off these moments of despondency with the elasticity of his age and character. In that bright, luxurious room, with those friendly faces around him, encircled by beauty, wealth, and refinement, death seemed _impossible_. Have we never felt thus wrapped in security ourselves; and when some "silver cord has been loosed--some golden bowl broken"

from amongst our own immediate a.s.sociates, have we not felt almost angry at the unmannerly visitor who intrudes thus without knocking, and pauses not to wipe his shoes for Turkey carpet more than sanded floor? "_Pauperum tabernas regumque turres_," he has the _entree_ of them all.

The General was a little disappointed with his guests, when, on the retirement of the ladies, a magnum of undeniable claret exhaled its aroma for their immediate benefit, and he found it did not by any means disappear with that military rapidity to which he was accustomed in his younger days. Charlie's cough was a sufficient excuse for his abstemiousness; and Frank Hardingstone, though he could drink a bucketful on occasion, would not open his lips on compulsion; so the General found himself in consequence obliged to grapple with the giant almost single-handed. This, to do him justice, he undertook with considerable _gusto_, and by the time he had got to the bottom of his measure, had arrived at that buoyant state in which gentlemen are more p.r.o.ne to broach such matters of business as they may think it expedient to undertake, than to explain clearly the method by which their desired ends can most readily be attained. Accordingly, when Frank and Charlie rose to join the ladies in the drawing-room, our old soldier called the latter back to the fire-place, and filling himself a large b.u.mper of sherry as an orthodox conclusion to the whole, bid his nephew sit down again for five minutes, and have a little quiet conversation on a subject which should not be too long postponed.

"Just three words, Charlie," said the General, sipping his sherry; "won't you have a whitewash, my boy? Three hundred and sixty-five more gla.s.ses in the year, you know. You won't? Well, Charlie, I'm right glad to see you back again. To-morrow I must go over everything with you as regards money matters. Frank has told you all about the will.

What? Zounds! it was very singular--I confess I expected it all along." The General was one of those truest of prophets whose predictions are reserved until the fulfilment of events. Finding that Charlie took this extraordinary instance of foresight very coolly, he proceeded, as he thought, to beat about the bush in a most skilful manner.

"Well, Charlie, and how d'ye think we're all looking, eh? Wear well and struggle on, don't we? I've taken pretty good care of your cousin for you, my boy, during your absence. How d'ye think she's looking, eh?"

Charlie, who had not thought about it at all, answered, "Very well."

And the General filled himself another gla.s.s of sherry and went on--"By Jove, Charlie, I congratulate you on _that_, eh? Shake hands, my lad. Zounds! we'll drink Blanche's health. Now I've put everything _en train_. We can have the lawyers down at a moment's notice.

Blanche's _things_, to be sure, will have to be got; women can't do without such a quant.i.ty of clothes. Why, when Rummagee Bang's widow was burnt--however, that's neither here nor there. Now tell me, Charlie, when do you think it ought to come off?"

"My dear uncle, I can't think what you're talking about," replied Charlie, trying to look as if he didn't understand; "I don't see what I've got to do with Blanche's things."

"Talking of?" resumed the General, "why, the wedding, to be sure. What else should I be talking of? You're quite prepared, I suppose. I've arranged it all with Blanche; she cried and all that, but _I_ know the s.e.x, Charlie, and _I_ could see--zounds, sir! she's _de_-lighted.

Never was such an arrangement--keeps all the money together, fulfils everyone's intentions. What?--and then it's been such a long attachment, ever since you were both children, corals and long petticoats. Petticoats! How d'ye mean?"

"But, Uncle Baldwin," pleaded Charlie, with some difficulty getting in a word edgeways, "don't you think all this is somewhat premature?"

"Premature! what the devil?" replied the General--"zounds, sir! not at all premature; quite the contrary, been put off too long, in fact.

Never mind, better late than never. These things should be done out of hand. Why, sir, when I was at Cheltenham in '25, the very year of that claret, by the way," pointing to the empty magnum, "there was a handsome widow wanted to marry me at twelve hours' notice. Did I ever tell you how I got off, Charlie? 'Gad, sir, Mulligatawney, of the Civil Service, got me out of the town in a return hea.r.s.e; but even death couldn't part us, my boy--zounds! she followed me to Bath, and I was laid up on the second-floor of the York House with the scarlet fever--_the scarlet fever!_ and I was as well as you are--till we starved her out; and when they said I was disfigured for life she gave in." The General chuckled till the tears came into his eyes; then, recollecting his moral was somewhat anti-matrimonial, checked himself into supernatural gravity, and resumed on the other tack. "But marriage is a respectable state, Charlie; there's nothing like it, so Mulligatawney tells me, to sober a man. Marriage, Charlie," said the General, oracularly, with a solemn shake of the head, "marriage is like that empty decanter. It comes in sparkling and blus.h.i.+ng, like sunrise on a May morning. What?--You draw the cork, and the first gla.s.s is heaven upon earth--that's the honeymoon; then you fill another--same flavour, but not quite equal to the first. Never mind, try again; so you keep sipping and sipping, to a.n.a.lyse, if you can, the real taste of the beverage, and before you satisfy yourself you come to the end of the bottle; then, sir, when you get to the bottom you can see through it, and you find how empty it is! Not that I mean exactly that," said the General, again catching himself up, as he found that his metaphor, having taken a wrong turn, had led to a somewhat unexpected conclusion. "But we can't stop here all night,"

added he; "so tell me, my boy, when I may begin to send out invitations for the breakfast."

Charlie blushed up all over his emaciated face, as he replied, pulling vehemently at his moustaches, "Why, uncle, it's best to be explicit, and I like to be straightforward about everything, so I may as well tell you at once, I--I'm hardly prepared to marry--in fact, I'm rather adverse to it--in short," said Charlie, gaining courage as he went on, "I've no immediate idea of marrying at all, and, with all my respect and brotherly affection for her, certainly not Blanche."

"_Certainly not Blanche!_" repeated the General, in something between a shriek and a moan. "_Certainly not Blanche!_--and why, in the name of all that's de--de--disgusting? _Certainly not Blanche!_ Zounds! I see it all now; you've got a _black wife_--don't deny it!--a black wife and a swarm of piebald picaninnies. Oh dear! oh dear! that I should live to see this day--I shall never get over it--it's killing me now;----, I feel it here, sir, in the pit of my stomach! I'll go to bed," he vociferated, untying his neckcloth on the spot; "I'll go to bed this instant, and never get up again!" With which lugubrious threat the General, regardless of Charlie's protestations and remonstrances, did in effect stump furiously off to his den, whence his dressing-room bell was forthwith heard pealing with alarming violence; nor did he appear any more that evening, leaving the gentlemen to drag out a weary sitting, still at cross purposes, each in the society of her he loved best in the world.

CHAPTER XXVI

"EUDaeMON"

NIGHT-WALKERS--A "NICE JOB"--CLEARING THE PLATE-BASKET--JUST IN TIME--DRUM-HEAD COURT-MARTIAL--FIRST LOVE--A RAT BEHIND THE ARRAS--ON THE TRAIL--AN EFFECTUAL OPIATE

It was a soft dark night--such a night as is peculiar to our temperate climate towards the close of autumn. There was no moon, and not a star to be seen, yet was it not _pitch_ dark, save under the gigantic trees or in the close shrubberies that surrounded Newton-Hollows. A man could see about ten yards before him, and one bound on an evil errand, by cat-like vigilance and circ.u.mspection, might have made out the figure of an honest man at that distance, and remained himself unseen.

The night-wind sighed gently through the half-stripped hedges; and the fragrance of the few remaining autumnal flowers floated lightly on the breeze. It was a beautiful night for the purpose. "Quite providential," Mr. Fibbes said, as, clad in a long great-coat, he stumbled up the dark lane that led from Newton station to General Bounce's residence. His companion made no answer; Tom Blacke was pre-occupied and nervous. It may be that the stillness of the hour, the soothing tendency of all around him, brought back too painfully the innocent days of the past--it may be that he contemplated with some misgivings the hazardous undertaking of the immediate future. Mr.

Fibbes, however, allowed no such gloomy reflections to influence his spirits, and the pair proceeded in silence, save where the latter, stumbling in some unseen rut, anathematised the slovenly finish of "these here country roads," and sighed for the gas-lit pavement of his beloved London. Once Tom halted, grasping his comrade's arm with a low "Hus.h.!.+" and whispering in his ear, "that there was a step behind them, walking when they walked, and stopping when they stopped."

"Hecho," replied Mr. Fibbes, accounting for the phenomenon by natural causes, but prefixing a superfluous aspirate to the name of the invisible nymph. "Hecho," said he; "I've often knowed it so--'specially at night. But, Tom, what's up, man? blessed if you ain't a-shakin' all over,--have a drain, man, have a drain!" and the never-failing remedy was forthwith produced in a goodly case-bottle from the great-coat pocket. Nor did the doctor neglect his own prescription, and much refreshed the twain proceeded on their way. A slight difficulty occurred in scaling the park-railings, Mr. Fibbes affirming with many oaths that nothing but his weight and the age of his nether garments saved him from being impaled there for life; and the tremendous disturbance occasioned by a panic-stricken c.o.c.k-pheasant compelled a halt of several minutes' duration, lest the inmates of the Hall should have been aroused by the vociferous rooster. All was at length still--the church clock at Guyville chimed the half-hour after one. The night grew more cloudy, and the wind died away into a low, moaning whisper. The pair stole across the lawn, like two foul shades returning to the nether world. A heavy foot-mark crushed Blanche's last pet geranium into the mould. Tom shook like an aspen leaf, much to the covert indignation of Mr. Fibbes, and they reached the scullery window unheard and unsuspected.

"Gently, now!" Why does Tom shake so, and even Mr. Fibbes, with his bull strength and iron nerves, feel so ill at ease, so willing even now to go back a guiltless trespa.s.ser, and leave the job undone? But no--it has been boasted of in antic.i.p.ation at their flash resorts; what would the professionals think? Why, the very detectives would sneer to learn that "Leary Tom" and "the Battersea Big 'un" had been frightened at their own shadows, and after a long journey into the country had returned bootyless to London, the sleepers undisturbed--the "crib uncracked." "Gently, again!"--a jackdaw on the roof brings their hearts into their mouths; were it not for the case-bottle they would "drop it" even now. Another pause, and Mr.

Fibbes, summoning all his energies, proceeds to act. Gently and stealthily he produces the brown paper, and the treacle with which it is to be smeared. Lightly he applies it to the selected pane, Tom turning the dark-lantern deftly on the job. How ghastly the white face on which a chance ray happens to gleam! Warily--gradually--the heavy hand presses harder, harder still, and the gla.s.s gives way; but the faithful treacle absorbs every stray fragment, and not a particle reaches the ground either without or within. Fortune favours the rogues; the shutters have not been put up. They are in for it now, and both gather confidence, Mr. Fibbes a.s.suming the initiative. A large dirty hand gropes through the broken pane, and the hasp of the window is moved cautiously back; but with all their care it gives a slight click, and again they pause and listen with beating hearts. "The grease," whispers Mr. Fibbes to his confederate, and the sashes being plentifully smeared with that application, the window opens noiselessly to the top. Admittance thus gained to the body of the place, our housebreakers are now fairly embarked on their enterprise.

Their shoes are pulled off and stowed away in their pockets. The centre-bit is got in readiness, and Mr. Fibbes feels the edge of his long knife with a grim sense of dogged, bloodthirsty resolution. All is, however, in their favour. The scullery door is left open, and they reach the pa.s.sage on the ground-floor without the slightest noise or hindrance. And here we may remark for the benefit of those who are affected by nervous apprehensions of their houses being "burglariously entered and their property feloniously abstracted," to use the beautiful language of the law--that there is no precautionary measure better worth observing than that of carefully locking _on the outside_ the door of every room on the ground-floor, and leaving the key in the lock. There are three things, it is said, of which the housebreaker has a professional horror--a little dog loose, an infant unweaned, and a sick person _in extremis_. The first is an abomination seldom permitted where there is anything worth stealing; the second, a misfortune which Nature kindly suffers only to exist at considerable intervals; the third, a calamity to which we may hope not to be subjected _very_ often in a lifetime. In the absence, then, of these unwelcome defences, every door secured as above makes an additional fortification against the enemy. The thief having perhaps effected a skilful and elaborate entrance into your dining-room, where he finds no booty but an extinguished lamp and a volume of family prayers, must commit a fresh burglary before he can reach your study, or wherever you keep your small stock of ready money for household expenses; and though he came in at the window, reversing the usual order of things with an unwelcome visitor, he finds it no easy matter to get out at the door. The probability is he will hardly work through three solid inches of mahogany, for he cannot conveniently pick the lock, if the key is left in it, without some little noise. Thus (although to the damage of your upholstery) you get an additional chance of being aroused, and a few minutes more time to betake yourself to your weapons, whether they consist of an unloaded blunderbuss, a twelve-barrelled revolver (out of order), or a hand-candlestick and a short bra.s.s poker. In the meantime, your _placens uxor_, uttering piercing shrieks out at the window, alarms the country for miles round, and, what is more to the purpose, frightens the robber out of his wits, who decamps incontinently, leaving no further marks of his visit than a window-frame spoilt, an inkstand or a jar of curry-powder upset, and a small box of lucifer-matches, his own property, and seized on by you as the _spolia opima_ of this bloodless victory.

Stealthily, noiselessly, like the tiger on his velvet footfall, our two ruffians glide along the pa.s.sage towards the butler's sleeping-room, where the plate is kept. Small need have they of the dark lantern, so accurately have they studied the plan of the house, so apt are they in their nefarious trade. But they have reckoned without their host upon that official's absence at Bubbleton; the late arrivals from Africa have kept him at home. However, he has been celebrating their return so cordially that, as far as being aroused and making an alarm goes, he might as well be a hundred miles off.

They pa.s.s the lantern twice or thrice across his sleeping, open-mouthed face, and Fibbes feels the edge of his knife once more, with devilish ferocity, ere the centre-bit is brought into play, and a hole bored in the plate-cupboard, which soon makes the robbers masters of its contents. That receptacle is emptied, and its treasures transferred to the blue bag, with astonis.h.i.+ng silence and celerity.

The adepts, growing bold with impunity, almost regret the deep slumbers of the inmates, sufficiently attested by the prolonged snores resounding from that portion of the bas.e.m.e.nt where the other male servants repose, and arguing that the jollifications of the evening have not been confined to the somnolent butler alone: had the garrison been more on the alert, think the invaders, there would have been more satisfaction in foiling them, and it would have been a "more creditable job" altogether. Hus.h.!.+ is that a footfall along the pa.s.sage? They stop and listen intently. The kitchen clock ticks loudly throughout the darkness, but other sound is there none. They resume their labours. By this time the plate is packed; the great object of the foray has been attained--melted silver tells no tales--and there is nothing further to be done than to strip the drawing-room of such portable articles as are worth the carrying, and so decamp in triumph.

Up the back-stairs they steal. The General hates a door to _slam_, in which aversion we cordially agree with him; and the green-baize one communicating with the offices revolves noiselessly on its hinges. So they glide through without hindrance, and on past that statue the nudity of which had shocked Tom's sense of propriety on a previous occasion. Mr. Fibbes, who is of a facetious humour when under excitement, seizes the dark-lantern, and turns its glare full upon this work of art, with a high-seasoned joke. They reach the drawing-room door; for the s.p.a.ce of a minute they listen intently; prolonged snores from the direction of the General's apartment pervade the house; other sounds there are none. Cautiously the lock is turned, and the door thrown quickly open, that no creaking hinge may betray them by its moan. A gleam of light well-nigh blinds them, accustomed to the darkness of the pa.s.sages through which they have been groping; and Mr. Fibbes, who enters first, starts back, paralysed for a moment by the unexpected apparition of a female figure robed in white, and s.h.i.+ning like some unearthly being in the strong light of his lantern turned full upon the place she occupies. The figure starts up, and utters a long piercing shriek. There is no time for deliberation; Tom hisses a frightful oath into his confederate's ear, and the big ruffian gripes Blanche's white throat in one hand, whilst the other gropes in his dress for the long knife. Already the blade quivers aloft in the candle-light. Cras.h.!.+--a terrific blow levels the villain to the floor. Tom, turning madly to escape, finds himself in the powerful grasp of Frank Hardingstone, who shakes him as a terrier would shake a rat--Frank's extremely airy costume being highly favourable to such muscular exertions. Bells peal all over the house; lights are seen glancing along the pa.s.sages; female voices rise shrill and high, in scream and sob and voluble inquiry. Charlie and Mary Delaval meet on the stairs, and he only exclaims, "What is it? Thank G.o.d, _you_ are safe!" The General rushes tumultuously down in a scanty cotton garment, disclosing the greater portion of a pair of extremely st.u.r.dy supporters, and in which, crowned with a red nightcap, and armed moreover with a short bra.s.s poker, he presents the appearance of some ancient Roman of "the baser sort," inciting his brother-plebeians to an agrarian tumult. "Guard, turn out!" shouts the General, in a voice of thunder. "Murder, thieves! Let me get at 'em; _only let me get at 'em_!" And he bursts into the drawing-room, where he beholds Frank still shaking Tom Blacke, who is by this time nearly strangled; Blanche in a "dead faint" on the sofa; Mr. Fibbes' huge body extended senseless on the floor, and standing over him, apparently ready to knock him to s.h.i.+vers again the very instant he should show the slightest symptom of vitality, our old friend, rough, honest, undaunted Hairblower!

"Drum-head court-martial!" exclaimed the General, as he struggled hastily into a somewhat warmer costume than that which he had worn during the brunt of the action--"drum-head court-martial at three in the morning. Zounds! I only wish I was in India, I'd have 'em hanged in front of the house before breakfast-time. Frank--hollo!--march the prisoners into my study, under escort, my boy, and be d----d to them.

No, I will _not_ swear," and the General took his place at his study-table, with all the pomp and circ.u.mstance of a district court-martial, as the hapless housebreakers, with their arms pinioned behind them, and guarded by the whole male strength of the establishment, were paraded before him, Hairblower bringing up the rear, and keeping his eye steadily fixed on Mr. Fibbes, as if only watching his opportunity for an insubordinate movement on the part of that individual to knock him down again. Mr. Fibbes maintained a dogged silence throughout; save once, when he muttered a complimentary remark, containing the figurative expression, "white-livered son of a ----," supposed to be explanatory of the state of prostration in which he saw his fellow-prisoner. Tom Blacke was utterly unnerved; he cried, and shook, and staggered like a man with the palsy, and would have gone down on his knees to the General, had he not been forcibly held up by the two tall footmen, who seemed to mistrust even the slightest movement as preparatory to a fresh outbreak of ferocity. "This once,"

pleaded the wretched coward, "forgive me this once, General, for the sake of my poor wife--Miss Blanche's maid she was, sir--only this once, and I'll confess all--the forgery and everything--you might transport me for life, but you won't be hard upon me, General--this job wasn't my doing, 'twas him that set me on it; 'twas his plan, I'll swear," pointing to Mr. Fibbes, whose countenance was expressive of intense contempt and disgust. "Well," muttered that gentleman, as if this was indeed a climax, "well, I am ----," something which he certainly was _not_, however much the mode of life he affected might eventually lead to such a consummation. "Forgery!" exclaimed the General, "what? Zounds! here's something of importance! swear him--no, he's on his trial--take his words down in writing--forgery indeed!--here's a pretty discovery!" As Blacke became more composed, out it all came--how his wife had forged Mrs. Kettering's name, and obtained the legacy, and got the will proved, through that knowledge of the law which he was always ready to turn to evil account--the whole confession, which was indeed full and satisfactory, for he was frightened into telling the truth, closing with another earnest appeal for mercy, and another denunciation of his dogged confederate.

The General was in raptures--Blanche was an heiress once more--even Charlie's contumacious refusal to be married against his will was now a matter of secondary importance. In his delight he would have let both the rogues go, and pledged himself not to prosecute them, had Frank Hardingstone not reminded him that the duty he owed to civilised society would hardly admit of such injudicious lenity; so the prisoners were marched off, still under a numerous and voluble escort, and carefully locked into a coal-house, whence, it is needless to observe, they made an easy escape within two hours, when their temporary gaolers, after beer all round, returned to their repose--nor should we omit to mention that they were retaken by the London police within five days, and eventually transported--Mr. Fibbes for fourteen years, and Tom Blacke, in consideration of divers little matters that came up against him, for the term of his natural life.

But in the meantime, the General, his guests, and servants, returned to their respective couches. Blanche, after the administration of such restoratives as ladies alone understand, was put to bed by Mary Delaval, who would not leave her till she saw her sink into a quiet refres.h.i.+ng slumber--then the governess too sought her room, and oh!

what a happy heart she carried with her to her rest. "Thank G.o.d, _you_ are safe!" It was but five words--yet what depths of joy and hope and tenderness that short sentence opened up--what a different world it was now--true, they were far apart as ever in reality, but she felt that in the bright realms of fancy they were linked in a bond that could never be forgotten--"yes, he loved her." 'Twas _his cousin's_ scream that had disturbed him in his chamber; 'twas _his cousin_, his betrothed wife, as she had once thought, who was in peril and distress; yet in all the hurry and confusion of the moment, _she_, the poor governess, was uppermost in his thoughts. "Thank G.o.d!" he said, "_you_ are safe!"--yes, he loved her, he loved her, and he was hers for evermore. They would never be united in the material world; other duties, other affections would supplant her in his outer life, his every-day existence--but when the cloud of sorrow overshadowed him--when joy more than common flooded him in its golden light--when a strain of music, or a gleam of suns.h.i.+ne, or the song of a bird, or the ripple of a stream touched his higher nature--whenever the springs of feeling gushed up in his inmost heart, then would her image rise to vindicate its sovereignty over its spiritual being--then would she claim him and possess him as her own, her _very_ own. First love is a fatal illusion--the plant may never come into full bloom--it may blossom but to be cut down--it may be nipped by bitter frosts or rent by the bl.u.s.tering gale--it may be trodden into the dirt by rude feet, and covered by gra.s.s mould, or spotted by the slime of trailing reptiles. For years it may be buried and forgotten, yet when the south wind breathes its fragrance over earth, when the gentle rain descends from heaven, its fibres will again put forth their leaves; from its burial-place the meek plant will again raise its head above the surface, and its perfume will steal over the senses like a sigh from Paradise. So thought Mary with regard to that superst.i.tion. To do them justice, women in general cling with wonderful tenacity to this article of their faith. Poor things! they seldom have it in their power to observe it practically, but their adoration in theory for the holiness and inviolability of first love is all the more disinterested and edifying. So Mary lay awake for hours in an ecstasy of happiness, and when she did close her eyes what wonder that her dreams, take whatever shape they would at first, invariably resolved themselves into a circle of merry-makers, and in the middle a figure on its knees before her, with fair, upturned face, and tender, smiling lips, whispering, "Thank G.o.d, _you_ are safe!"

It is now high time that we should explain by what fortunate train of circ.u.mstances Hairblower and Blanche should have met at that critical moment, when the astonished girl found herself in the grasp of a ruffian, who but for the timely intervention of the seaman's arm, would in all probability have murdered her on the spot. Her champion's own account of his proceeding was so intermixed with professional terms and peculiar phrases, which in his vocabulary possessed an entirely different meaning from that which is found attached to them in Johnson's Dictionary, or any other standard authority on the English language, that we prefer giving it in our own words, merely observing that the whole robbery and rescue was a proceeding which he designated "special," and should, indeed, be considered, so he said, "a circ.u.mstance from beginning to end." Hairblower, then, having transacted his fis.h.i.+ng affairs with his "governor," as he called him, in which interview, we have since been informed, the "governor," a shrewd, hard-headed man of business, got very much the better of the seaman; and having failed in his intention of making a ceremonious call on his foreign friends, "the True-blues," who were then making a tour of the provinces, was irresistibly impelled by a species of morbid curiosity to revisit the scene of his former misfortunes. So he actually turned into the very public-house where he had been robbed on his previous visit to London; and finding no one there but the bar-maid (a late acquisition), very quietly had his dinner and drank his beer in the small snuggery of the bar, which we have mentioned as being lighted by a window from the identical room in which Tom Blacke and Mr. Fibbes were in the habit of holding their nefarious consultations. The seaman had paid for his liquor, and was in the act of departing--in fact, the girl thought he had already gone, when the two housebreakers entered the door, and Hairblower, resisting his first impulse, which was to do battle on the spot with the twain, "one down, t'other come on," shrank back un.o.bserved into the little room he had been occupying, and taking off his shoes, concealed himself behind an old-fas.h.i.+oned chest that stood against the wall. His first idea was to remain in hiding till the two worthies should have arrived at the height of their jollification, and then, bursting in upon their banquet, to administer to each what he termed "his allowance." The conversation, however, which he overheard was of such a nature as to modify considerably this desire for immediate blows, and when the horrid method of silencing the alarm likely to be raised by some female watcher was discussed in cold blood as a matter of regular business, the listener's hair stood on end as he resolved, come what might, to prevent this deliberate and inhuman murder.