Volume I Part 28 (1/2)
”Started!” exclaimed I,--”which way?”
”On the high-road to Munich.”
”She left no letter,--no note for me?”
”No, sir.”
”Poor thing,--overcome, I suppose. She was crying, wasn't she?”
”No, sir, she looked very much as usual, but hurried, perhaps; for she nearly forgot the ham sandwiches she had ordered to be got ready for her.”
”The ham sandwiches!” exclaimed I, and they nearly choked me. ”I 'm going to be shot for a woman that, in the very extremity of her ruin, has the heart to order ham sandwiches!” That was the reflection that arose to my mind, and can you fancy a more bitter one?
”Are you sure,” asked I, ”the sandwiches weren't for Madame Virginie, or the little dog?”
”They might, sir, but my Lady desired us to be sure and put plenty of mustard on them.”
This was the d.a.m.ning circ.u.mstance, Tom. She was fond of mustard,--I had often remarked it; and just see, now, on what a trivial thing a man's happiness can hang. For I own to you, so long as I was strong in what I fancied to be her good graces, I could have fought the whole regiment of Blues; but when I thought to myself, ”She doesn't care a bra.s.s farthing for you, Kenny Dodd; she may be laughing at you this minute over the ham sandwiches,”--I felt like a drowning man that had nothing to grapple on. Talk of unhappy and injured men, indeed! Wasn't I in that category myself? Not even a husband's selfishness could dispute the palm of misery with _me!_ In the matter of desertion we were both in the same boat, and for the life of me, I don't see what we could have to fight about. I never heard of two sailors rescued from s.h.i.+pwreck quarrelling as to who it was lost the vessel!
”The best thing for us to do,” thought I, ”would be to try and console each other; and if he be a sensible, good-hearted fellow, he 'll maybe take the same view of it. I 'll ask him and my Lord to dinner; I'll make the landlord give us some of that wonderful old Stein berger that was bottled three hundred years ago; I 'll treat them to a regular Saxon dish of venison with capers washed down with Marcobrunner, and if we 're not brothers before morning, my name is n't Kenny Dodd.”
I was on ”these hospitable thoughts intent,” when Lord Harvey Bruce was again announced. He had found out an old sergeant-major of artillery, who for a consideration would undertake the duties of my second,--kindly adding that he and his family, a very large one, would also attend my obsequies.
I interrupted his Lords.h.i.+p to remark that an event bad just occurred to modify the circ.u.mstances of the case, and mentioned Mrs. Gore Hampton's departure.
”I really cannot perceive, sir,” replied he, ”that this in any way affects the matter in hand. Is my friend less injured--is his honor less tarnished because this unhappy woman has at last awoke to a sense of her degraded and pitiable condition?”
I thought of the sandwiches, Tom, but could say nothing.
”Are you less his greatest enemy on earth, sir?” cried he, pa.s.sionately.
”Now listen to me patiently, my Lord,” said I. ”I 'll be as brief as I can, for both our sakes. I don't value it one rush whether I go out with your friend or not. If you want a proof of what I say, step into the little garden here and I 'll give it to you. I 'm neither boasting nor bloodthirsty, when I say that I know how to stand at either end of a pistol; but there's nothing to fight about between us.”
”Oh, if you renew that line of argument,” cried he, interrupting me, ”It is totally impossible I can listen.”
”And why not?” said I. ”Is it a greater satisfaction to your friend to believe himself injured and dishonored than to know that he is neither one nor the other?”
”Then why did you come away with her?”
”I can't tell,” said I, for my head was quite confused with all the discussion.
”And why call yourself by _my_ name at Ems?”
”I cannot tell.”
”Nor what do you mean by the att.i.tude in which I found you when I entered the room?”
”I can't tell that, either,” cried I, driven to desperation by sheer embarra.s.sment ”It's no use asking me any more. I have been living for the last five or six weeks like one under a spell of enchantment. I can no more account for my actions than a patient in Swift's Hospital. I 'm afraid to commit my scattered thoughts to paper, lest they might convict me of insanity. I know and feel that I am a responsible being, but somehow my notions of right and wrong are so confused, I have learned to look on so many things differently from what I used, that I 'd cut a sorry figure under cross-examination on any matter of morality. There's the whole truth of it now. I 'd have kept it to myself if I could; I 'm heartily ashamed at owning to it--but I can't help it--it would come out. Therefore, don't bother me with, 'Why did you do this?' 'What made you do that?' for I can give you no reasons for anything.”
”By Jove! this is a very singular affair,” said he, leaning over the back of a chair, and staring me steadfastly in the face. ”Your age--your standing in society--your appearance generally, Mr. Dodd, would, I feel bound to say, rather--” Here he hesitated and faltered, as if the right word was not forthcoming; and so I continued for him,--
”Just so, my Lord; would rather refute than fix upon me such an imputation. I 'm not very like the kind of man that figures usually in these sort of cases.”