Part 10 (1/2)
”In a sc.r.a.pe!” said he, with a long-drawn sigh, intended to beat the whole Minerva press in its romantic cadence.
”Well, but get on a bit,” said I, rather impatiently; ”who is the fellow you've got the row with? Not one of ours, I trust?”
”Ah, my dear Hal,” said he, in the same melting tone as before--”How your imagination does run upon rows, and broils, and duelling rencontres,” (he, the speaker, be it known to the reader, was the fire-eater of the regiment,) ”as if life had nothing better to offer than the excitement of a challenge, or the mock heroism of a meeting.”
As he made a dead pause here, after which he showed no disposition to continue, I merely added-- ”Well, at this rate of proceeding we shall get at the matter in hand, on our way out to Corfu, for I hear we are the next regiment for the Mediterranean.”
The observation seemed to have some effect in rousing him from his lethargy, and he added-- ”If you only knew the nature of the attachment, and how completely all my future hopes are concerned upon the issue--”
”Ho!” said I, ”so it's a money affair, is it? and is it old Watson has issued the writ? I'll bet a hundred.”
”Well, upon my soul, Lorrequer,” said he, jumping from his chair, and speaking with more energy than he had before evinced, ”you are, without exception, the most worldly-minded, cold-blooded fellow I ever met. What have I said that could have led you to suppose I had either a duel or a law-suit upon my hands this morning? Learn, once and for all, man, that I am in love--desperately and over head and ears in love.”
”Et puis,” said I coolly.
”And intend to marry immediately.”
”Oh, very well,” said I; ”the fighting and debt will come later, that's all. But to return--now for the lady.”
”Come, you must make a guess.”
”Why, then, I really must confess my utter inability; for your attentions have been so generally and impartially distributed since our arrival here, that it may be any fair one, from your venerable partner at whist last evening, to Mrs. Henderson, the pastry-cook inclusive, for whose macaroni and cherry-brandy your feelings have been as warm as they are constant.”
”Come, no more quizzing, Hal. You surely must have remarked that lovely girl I waltzed with at Power's ball on Tuesday last.”
”Lovely girl! Why, in all seriousness, you don't mean the small woman with the tow wig?”
”No, I do not mean any such thing--but a beautiful creature, with the brightest locks in Christendom--the very light-brown waving ringlets, Dominicheno loved to paint, and a foot--did you see her foot?”
”No; that was rather difficult, for she kept continually bobbing up and down, like a boy's cork-float in a fish-pond.”
”Stop there. I shall not permit this any longer--I came not here to listen to--”
”But, Curzon, my boy, you're not angry?”
”Yes, sir, I am angry.”
”Why, surely, you have not been serious all this time?”
”And why not, pray?”
”Oh! I don't exactly know--that is, faith I scarcely thought you were in earnest, for if I did, of course I should honestly have confessed to you that the lady in question struck me as one of the handsomest persons I ever met.”
”You think so really, Hal?”
”Certainly I do, and the opinion is not mine alone; she is, in fact universally admired.”
”Come, Harry, excuse my bad temper. I ought to have known you better --give me your hand, old boy, and wish me joy, for with you aiding and abetting she is mine to-morrow morning.”
I wrung his hand heartily--congratulating myself, meanwhile, how happily I had got out of my sc.r.a.pe; as I now, for the first time, perceived that Curzon was bona fide in earnest.
”So, you will stand by me, Hal,” said he.
”Of course. Only show me how, and I'm perfectly at your service. Any thing from riding postillion on the leaders to officiating as brides-maid, and I am your man. And if you are in want of such a functionary, I shall stand in 'loco parentis' to the lady, and give her away with as much 'onction' and tenderness as tho' I had as many marriageable daughters as king Priam himself. It is with me in marriage as in duelling--I'll be any thing rather than a princ.i.p.al; and I have long since disapproved of either method as a means of 'obtaining satisfaction.'”
”Ah, Harry, I shall not be discouraged by your sneers. You've been rather unlucky, I'm aware; but now to return: Your office, on this occasion, is an exceedingly simple one, and yet that which I could only confide to one as much my friend as yourself. You must carry my dearest Louisa off.”
”Carry her off! Where?--when?--how?”
”All that I have already arranged, as you shall hear.”
”Yes. But first of all please to explain why, if going to run away with the lady, you don't accompany her yourself.”
”Ah! I knew you would say that, I could have laid a wager you'd ask that question, for it is just that very explanation will show all the native delicacy and feminine propriety of my darling Loo; and first, I must tell you, that old Sir Alfred Jonson, her father, has some confounded prejudice against the army, and never would consent to her marriage with a red-coat--so that, his consent being out of the question, our only resource is an elopement. Louisa consents to this, but only upon one condition--and this she insists upon so firmly--I had almost said obstinately--that, notwithstanding all my arguments and representations, and even entreaties against it, she remains inflexible; so that I have at length yielded, and she is to have her own way.”
”Well, and what is the condition she lays such stress upon?”
”Simply this--that we are never to travel a mile together until I obtain my right to do so, by making her my wife. She has got some trumpery notions in her head that any slight transgression over the bounds of delicacy made by women before marriage is ever after remembered by the husband to their disadvantage, and she is, therefore, resolved not to sacrifice her principle even at such a crisis as the present.”
”All very proper, I have no doubt; but still, pray explain what I confess appears somewhat strange to me at present. How does so very delicately-minded a person reconcile herself to travelling with a perfect stranger under such circ.u.mstances?”
”That I can explain perfectly to you. You must know that when my darling Loo consented to take this step, which I induced her to do with the greatest difficulty, she made the proviso I have just mentioned; I at once showed her that I had no maiden aunt or married sister to confide her to at such a moment, and what was to be done? She immediately replied, 'Have you no elderly brother officer, whose years and discretion will put the transaction in such a light as to silence the slanderous tongues of the world, for with such a man I am quite ready and willing to trust myself.' You see I was hard pushed there. What could I do?--whom could I select? Old Hayes, the paymaster, is always tipsy; Jones is five-and-forty--but egad! I'm not so sure I'd have found my betrothed at the end of the stage. You were my only hope; I knew I could rely upon you. You would carry on the whole affair with tact and discretion; and as to age, your stage experience would enable you, with a little a.s.sistance from costume, to pa.s.s muster; besides that, I have always represented you as the very Methuselah of the corps; and in the grey dawn of an autumnal morning--with maiden bashfulness a.s.sisting--the scrutiny is not likely to be a close one. So, now, your consent is alone wanting to complete the arrangements which, before this time to-morrow, shall have made me the happiest of mortals.”
Having expressed, in fitting terms, my full sense of obligation for the delicate flattery with which he pictured me as ”Old Lorrequer” to the Lady, I begged a more detailed account of his plan, which I shall shorten for my reader's sake, by the following brief expose.
A post-chaise and four was to be in waiting at five o'clock in the morning to convey me to Sir Alfred Jonson's residence, about twelve miles distant. There I was to be met by a lady at the gate-lodge, who was subsequently to accompany me to a small village on the Nore, where an old college friend of Curzon's happened to reside, as parson, and by whom the treaty was to be concluded.
This was all simple and clear enough--the only condition necessary to insure success being punctuality, particularly on the lady's part. As to mine I readily promised my best aid and warmest efforts in my friend's behalf.
”There is only one thing more,” said Curzon. ”Louisa's younger brother is a devilish hot-headed, wild sort of a fellow; and it would be as well, just for precaution sake, to have your pistols along with you, if, by any chance, he should make out what was going forward--not but that you know if any thing serious was to take place, I should be the person to take all that upon my hands.”
”Oh! of course--I understand,” said I. Meanwhile I could not help running over in my mind the pleasant possibilities such an adventure presented, heartily wis.h.i.+ng that Curzon had been content to marry by bans or any other of the legitimate modes in use, without risking his friend's bones. The other pros and cons of the matter, with full and accurate directions as to the road to be taken on obtaining possession of the lady, being all arranged, we parted, I to settle my costume and appearance for my first performance in an old man's part, and Curzon to obtain a short leave for a few days from the commanding officer of the regiment.
When we again met, which was at the mess-table, it was not without evidence on either side of that peculiar consciousness which persons feel who have, or think they have, some secret in common, which the world wots not of. Curzon's unusually quick and excited manner would at once have struck any close observer as indicating the eve of some important step, no less than continual allusions to whatever was going on, by sly and equivocal jokes and ambiguous jests. Happily, however, on the present occasion, the party were otherwise occupied than watching him--being most profoundly and learnedly engaged in discussing medicine and matters medical with all the acute and accurate knowledge which characterises such discussions among the non-medical public.
The present conversation originated from some mention our senior surgeon Fitzgerald had just made of a consultation which he was invited to attend on the next morning, at the distance of twenty miles, and which necessitated him to start at a most uncomfortably early hour. While he continued to deplore the hard fate of such men as himself, so eagerly sought after by the world, that their own hours were eternally broken in upon by external claims, the juniors were not sparing of their mirth on the occasion, at the expense of the worthy doctor, who, in plain truth, had never been disturbed by a request like the present within any one's memory. Some a.s.serted that the whole thing was a puff, got up by Fitz. himself, who was only going to have a day's partridge-shooting; others hinting that it was a blind to escape the vigilance of Mrs. Fitzgerald --a well-known virago in the regiment--while Fitz. enjoyed himself; and a third party, pretending to sympathise with the doctor, suggested that a hundred pounds would be the least he could possibly be offered for such services as his on so grave an occasion.
”No, no, only fifty,” said Fitz. gravely.
”Fifty! Why, you tremendous old humbug, you don't mean to say you'll make fifty pounds before we are out of our beds in the morning?” cried one.
”I'll take your bet on it,” said the doctor, who had, in this instance, reason to suppose his fee would be a large one.
During this discussion, the claret had been pushed round rather freely; and fully bent, as I was, upon the adventure before me, I had taken my share of it as a preparation. I thought of the amazing prize I was about to be instrumental in securing for my friend--for the lady had really thirty thousand pounds--and I could not conceal my triumph at such a prospect of success in comparison with the meaner object of ambition. They all seemed to envy poor Fitzgerald. I struggled with my secret for some time--but my pride and the claret together got the better of me, and I called out, ”Fifty pounds on it, then, that before ten to-morrow morning, I'll make a better hit of it than you--and the mess shall decide between us afterwards as to the winner.”
”And if you will,” said I, seeing some reluctance on Fitz.'s part to take the wager, and getting emboldened in consequence, ”let the judgment be p.r.o.nounced over a couple of dozen of champaigne, paid by the loser.”