Part 29 (2/2)
”C'est bien, milord. Ma foi! c'est d'agir en vrai gentilhomme,” says Florac, delighted. ”Touchez-la, mon pet.i.t Kiou. Tu as du coeur. G.o.dam!
you are a brave! A brave fellow!” and the Viscount reached out his hand cordially to Lord Kew.
His purpose was evidently pacific. From Kew he turned to the great guardsman, and taking him by the coat began to apostrophise him. ”And you, mon gros,” says he, ”is there no way of calming this hot blood without a saignee? Have you a penny to the world? Can you hope to carry off your Chimene, O Rodrigue, and live by robbing afterwards on the great way? Suppose you kill ze Fazer, you kill Kiou, you kill Roostere, your Chimene will have a pretty moon of honey.”
”What the devil do you mean about your Chimene and your Rodrigue? Do you mean, Viscount----?” says Belsize, ”Jack Belsize once more, and he dashed his hand across his eyes. Kew has riled me, and he drove me half wild. I ain't much of a Frenchman, but I know enough of what you said, to say it's true, by Jove, and that Frank Kew's a trump. That's what you mean. Give us your hand, Frank. G.o.d bless you, old boy; don't be too hard upon me, you know I'm d----d miserable, that I am. Hullo! What's this?” Jack's pathetic speech was interrupted at this instant, for the Vicomte de Florac in his enthusiasm rushed into his arms, and jumped up towards his face and proceeded to kiss Jack. A roar of immense laughter, as he shook the little Viscount off, cleared the air and ended this quarrel.
Everybody joined in this chorus, the Frenchman with the rest, who said, ”he loved to laugh meme when he did not know why.” And now came the moment of the evening, when Clive, according to Lord Kew's saying, behaved so well and prevented Barnes from incurring a great danger.
In truth, what Mr. Clive did or said amounted exactly to nothing. What moments can we not all remember in our lives when it would have been so much wittier and wiser to say and do nothing?
Florac, a very sober drinker like most of his nation, was blessed with a very fine appet.i.te, which, as he said, renewed itself thrice a day at least. He now proposed supper, and poor Jack was for supper too, and especially more drink, champagne and seltzer-water; ”bring champagne and seltzer-water, there is nothing like it.” Clive could not object to this entertainment, which was ordered forthwith, and the four young men sat down to share it.
Whilst Florac was partaking of his favourite ecrevisses, giving not only his palate but his hands, his beard, his mustachios and cheeks a full enjoyment of the sauce which he found so delicious, he chose to revert now and again to the occurrences which had just pa.s.sed, and which had better perhaps have been forgotten, and gaily rallied Belsize upon his warlike humour. ”If ze pet.i.t pretendu was here, what would you have done wiz him, Jac? You would croquer im, like zis ecrevisse, hein? You would mache his bones, hein?”
Jack, who had forgotten to put the seltzer-water into his champagne, writhed at the idea of having Barnes Newcome before him, and swore, could he but see Barnes, he would take the little villain's life.
And but for Clive, Jack might actually have beheld his enemy. Young Clive after the meal went to the window with his eternal cigar, and of course began to look at That Other window. Here, as he looked, a carriage had at the moment driven up. He saw two servants descend, then two gentlemen, and then he heard a well-known voice swearing at the couriers. To his credit be it said, he checked the exclamation which was on his lips, and when he came back to the table did not announce to Kew or his right-hand neighbour Belsize, that his uncle and Barnes had arrived. Belsize, by this time, had had quite too much wine: when the viscount went away, poor Jack's head was nodding; he had been awake all the night before; sleepless for how many nights previous. He scarce took any notice of the Frenchman's departure.
Lord Kew remained. He was for taking Jack to walk, and for reasoning with him further, and for entering more at large than perhaps he chose to do before the two others upon this family dispute. Clive took a moment to whisper to Lord Kew, ”My uncle and Barnes are arrived, don't let Belsize go out; for goodness' sake let us get him to bed.”
And lest the poor fellow should take a fancy to visit his mistress by moonlight, when he was safe in his room Lord Kew softly turned the key in Mr. Jack's door.
CHAPTER x.x.x. A Retreat
As Clive lay awake revolving the strange incidents of the day, and speculating upon the tragedy in which he had been suddenly called to take a certain part, a sure presentiment told him that his own happy holiday was come to an end, and that the clouds and storm which he had always somehow foreboded, were about to break and obscure this brief pleasant period of suns.h.i.+ne. He rose at a very early hour, flung his windows open, looked out no doubt towards those other windows in the neighbouring hotel, where he may have fancied he saw a curtain stirring, drawn by a hand that every hour now he longed more to press. He turned back into his chamber with a sort of groan, and surveyed some of the relics of the last night's little feast, which still remained on the table. There were the champagne-flasks which poor Jack Belsize had emptied, the tall seltzer-water bottle, from which the gases had issued and mingled with the hot air of the previous night's talk; gla.s.ses with dregs of liquor, ashes of cigars, or their black stumps, strewing the cloth; the dead men, the burst guns of yesterday's battle. Early as it was, his neighbour J. J had been up before him. Clive could hear him singing as was his wont when the pencil went well, and the colours arranged themselves to his satisfaction over his peaceful and happy work.
He pulled his own drawing-table to the window, set out his board and colour-box, filled a great gla.s.s from the seltzer-water bottle, drank some of the vapid liquor, and plunged his brushes in the rest, with which he began to paint. The work all went wrong. There was no song for him over his labour; he dashed brush and board aside after a while, opened his drawers, pulled out his portmanteaus from under the bed, and fell to packing mechanically. J. J. heard the noise from the next room, and came in smiling, with a great painting-brush in his mouth.
”Have the bills in, J. J.,” says Clive. ”Leave your cards on your friends, old boy; say good-bye to that pretty little strawberry-girl whose picture you have been doing; polish it off to-day, and dry the little thing's tears. I read P.P.C. in the stars last night, and my familiar spirit came to me in a vision, and said, 'Clive, son of Thomas, put thy travelling-boots on.'”
Lest any premature moralist should prepare to cry fie against the good, pure-minded little J. J., I hereby state that his strawberry-girl was a little village maiden of seven years old, whose sweet little picture a bishop purchased at the next year's Exhibition.
”Are you going already?” cries J. J., removing the bit out of his mouth.
”I thought you had arranged parties for a week to come, and that the princesses and the d.u.c.h.esses had positively forbidden the departure of your lords.h.i.+p!”
”We have dallied at Capua long enough,” says Clive; ”and the legions have the route for Rome. So wills Hannibal, the son of Hasdrubal.”
”The son of Hasdrubal is quite right,” his companion answered; ”the sooner we march the better. I have always said it; I will get all the accounts in. Hannibal has been living like a voluptuous Carthaginian prince. One, two, three champagne-bottles! There will be a deuce of a bill to pay.”
”Ah! there will be a deuce of a bill to pay,” says Clive, with a groan whereof J. J. knew the portent; for the young men had the confidence of youth one in another. Clive was accustomed to pour out his full heart to any crony who was near him; and indeed had he spoken never a word, his growing attachment to his cousin was not hard to see. A hundred times, and with the glowing language and feelings of youth, with the fire of his twenty years, with the ardour of a painter, he had spoken of her and described her. Her magnanimous simplicity, her courage and lofty scorn, her kindness towards her little family, her form, her glorious colour of rich carnation and dazzling white, her queenly grace when quiescent and in motion, had constantly formed the subjects of this young gentleman's ardent eulogies. As he looked at a great picture or statue, as the Venus of Milo, calm and deep, unfathomably beautiful as the sea from which she sprung; as he looked at the rus.h.i.+ng Aurora of the Rospigliosi, or the a.s.sumption of t.i.tian, more bright and glorious than suns.h.i.+ne, or that divine Madonna and divine Infant, of Dresden, whose sweet faces must have shone upon Raphael out of heaven; his heart sang hymns, as it were, before these gracious altars; and, somewhat as he wors.h.i.+pped these masterpieces of his art, he admired the beauty of Ethel.
J. J. felt these things exquisitely after his manner, and enjoyed honest Clive's mode of celebration and rapturous fioriture of song; but Ridley's natural note was much gentler, and he sang his hymns in plaintive minors. Ethel was all that was bright and beautiful but--but she was engaged to Lord Kew. The shrewd kind confidant used gently to hint the sad fact to the impetuous hero of this piece. The impetuous hero knew this quite well. As he was sitting over his painting-board he would break forth frequently, after his manner, in which laughter and sentiment were mingled, and roar out with all the force of his healthy young lungs----
”But her heart it is another's, she never--can--be--mine;”
and then hero and confidant would laugh each at his drawing-table. Miss Ethel went between the two gentlemen by the name of Alice Grey.
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