Part 54 (1/2)
”'A couple of what?' says Mr. Bloundell. 'You, of course, are aware that we are a couple of men of honour, Colonel Altamont, and not come here to trifle or to listen to abuse from you. You will either pay us or we will expose you as a cheat, and chastise you as a cheat, too,' says Bloundell.
”'Oui, parbleu,' says the Marky,--but I didn't mind him, for I could have thrown the little fellow out of the window; but it was different with Bloundell,--he was a large man, that weighs three stone more than me, and stands six inches higher, and I think he could have done for me.
”'Monsieur will pay, or Monsieur will give me the reason why. I believe you're little better than a polisson, Colonel Altamont,'--that was the phrase he used--Altamont said with a grin--and I got plenty more of this language from the two fellows, and was in the thick of the row with them, when another of our party came in. This was a friend of mine--a gent I had met at Boulogne, and had taken to the Countess's myself.
And as he hadn't played at all on the previous night, and had actually warned me against Bloundell and the others, I told the story to him, and so did the other two.
”'I am very sorry,' says he. 'You would go on playing: the Countess entreated you to discontinue. These gentlemen offered repeatedly to stop. It was you that insisted on the large stakes, not they.' In fact he charged dead against me: and when the two others went away, he told me how the Marky would shoot me as sure as my name was--was what it is.
'I left the Countess crying, too,' said he. 'She hates these two men; she has warned you repeatedly against them'( which she actually had done, and often told me never to play with them), 'and now, Colonel, I have left her in hysterics almost, lest there should be any quarrel between you, and that confounded Marky should put a bullet through your head. Its my belief,' says my friend, 'that that woman is distractedly in love with you.'
”'Do you think so?' says I; upon which my friend told me how she had actually gone down on her knees to him and 'Save Colonel Altamont!'
”As soon as I was dressed, I went and called upon that lovely woman.
She gave a shriek and pretty near fainted when she saw me. She called me Ferdinand,--I'm blest if she didn't.”
”I thought your name was Jack,” said Strong, with a laugh; at which the Colonel blushed very much behind his dyed whiskers.
”A man may have more names than one, mayn't he, Strong?” Altamont asked.
”When I'm with a lady, I like to take a good one. She called me by my Christian name. She cried fit to break your heart. I can't stand seeing a woman cry--never could--not whilst I'm fond of her. She said she could bear not to think of my losing so much money in her house. Wouldn't I take her diamonds and necklaces, and pay part?
”I swore I wouldn't touch a farthing's worth of her jewellery, which perhaps I did not think was worth a great deal,--but what can a woman do more than give you her all? That's the sort I like, and I know there's plenty of 'em. And I told her to be easy about the money, for I would not pay one single farthing.
”'Then they'll shoot you,' says she; 'they'll kill my Ferdinand.'”
”They'll kill my Jack wouldn't have sounded well in French,” Strong said, laughing.
”Never mind about names,” said the other, sulkily; ”a man of honour may take any name he chooses, I suppose.”
”Well, go on with your story,” said Strong. ”She said they would kill you.”
”'No,' says I, 'they won't: for I will not let that scamp of a Marquis send me out of the world; and if he lays a hand on me, I'll brain him, Marquis as he is.'
”At this the Countess shrank back from me as if I had said something very shocking. 'Do I understand Colonel Altamont aright?' says she: 'and that a British officer refuses to meet any person who provokes him to the field of honour?'
”'Field of honour be hanged, Countess,' says I. 'You would not have me be a target for that little scoundrel's pistol practice.'
”'Colonel Altamont,' says the Countess, 'I thought you were a man of honour--I thought, I--but no matter. Good-bye, sir.'--And she was sweeping out of the room, her voice regular choking in her pocket-handkerchief.
”'Countess!' says I, rus.h.i.+ng after her and seizing her hand.
”'Leave me, Monsieur le Colonel,' says she, shaking me off, 'my father was a General of the Grand Army. A soldier should know how to pay all his debts of honour.'
”What could I do? Everybody was against me. Caroline said I had lost the money: though I didn't remember a syllable about the business. I had taken Deuceace's money too; but then it was because he offered it to me you know, and that's a different thing. Every one of these chaps was a man of fas.h.i.+on and honour; and the Marky and the Countess of the first families in France. And, by Jove, sir, rather than offend her, I paid the money up five hundred and sixty gold Napoleons, by Jove: besides three hundred which I lost when I had my revenge.
”And I can't tell you at this minute whether I was done or not,”
concluded the Colonel, musing. ”Sometimes I think I was: but then Caroline was so fond of me. That woman would never have seen me done: never, I'm sure she wouldn't: at least, if she would, I'm deceived in woman.”
Any further revelations of his past life which Altamont might have been disposed to confide to his honest comrade the Chevalier, were interrupted by a knocking at the outer door of their chambers; which, when opened by Grady the servant, admitted no less a person than Sir Francis Clavering into the presence of the two worthies.