Kitabı oku: «Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1», sayfa 25
CHAPTER XXXIX
THE VILLA
The first object which presented itself to my eye the next morning was the midshipman’s packet intrusted to my care by Power. I turned it over to read the address more carefully, and what was my surprise to find that the name was that of my fair friend Donna Inez.
“This certainly thickens the plot,” thought I. “And so I have now fallen upon the real Simon Pure, and the reefer has had the good fortune to distance the dragoon. Well, thus far, I cannot say that I regret it. Now, however, for the parade, and then for the villa.”
“I say, O’Malley,” cried out Monsoon, as I appeared on the Plaza, “I have accepted an invitation for you to-day. We dine across the river. Be at my quarters a little before six, and we’ll go together.”
I should rather have declined the invitation; but not well knowing why, and having no ready excuse, acceded, and promised to be punctual.
“You were at Don Emanuel’s last night. I heard of you!”
“Yes; I spent a most delightful evening.”
“That’s your ground, my boy. A million of moidores, and such a campagna in Valencia. A better thing than the Dalrymple affair. Don’t blush. I know it all. But stay; here they come.”
As he spoke, the general commanding, with a numerous staff, rode forward. As they passed, I recognized a face which I had certainly seen before, and in a moment remembered it was that of the dragoon of the evening before. He passed quite close, and fixing his eyes steadfastly on me, evinced no sign of recognition.
The parade lasted above two hours; and it was with a feeling of impatience I mounted a fresh horse to canter out to the villa. When I arrived, the servant informed me that Don Emanuel was in the city, but that the senhora was in the garden, offering, at the same time, to escort me. Declining this honor, I intrusted my horse to his keeping and took my way towards the arbor where last I had seen her.
I had not walked many paces, when the sound of a guitar struck on my ear. I listened. It was the senhora’s voice. She was singing a Venetian canzonetta in a low, soft, warbling tone, as one lost in a revery; as though the music was a mere accompaniment to some pleasant thought. I peeped through the dense leaves, and there she sat upon a low garden seat, an open book on the rustic table before her, beside her, embroidery, which seemed only lately abandoned. As I looked, she placed her guitar upon the ground and began to play with a small spaniel that seemed to have waited with impatience for some testimony of favor. A moment more, and she grew weary of this; then, heaving a long but gentle sigh, leaned back upon her chair and seemed lost in thought. I now had ample time to regard her, and certainly never beheld anything more lovely. There was a character of classic beauty, and her brow, though fair and ample, was still strongly marked upon the temples; the eyes, being deep and squarely set, imparted a look of intensity to her features which their own softness subdued; while the short upper lip, which trembled with every passing thought, spoke of a nature tender and impressionable, and yet impassioned. Her foot and ankle peeped from beneath her dark robe, and certainly nothing could be more faultless; while her hand, fair as marble, blue-veined and dimpled, played amidst the long tresses of her hair, that, as if in the wantonness of beauty, fell carelessly upon her shoulders.
It was some time before I could tear myself away from the fascination of so much beauty, and it needed no common effort to leave the spot. As I made a short détour in the garden before approaching the arbor, she saw me as I came forward, and kissing her hand gayly, made room for me beside her.
“I have been fortunate in finding you alone, Senhora,” said I, as I seated myself by her side, “for I am the bearer of a letter to you. How far it may interest you, I know not, but to the writer’s feelings I am bound to testify.”
“A letter to me? You jest, surely?”
“That I am in earnest, this will show,” said I, producing the packet.
She took it from my hands, turned it about and about, examined the seal; while, half doubtingly, she said: —
“The name is mine; but still – ”
“You fear to open it; is it not so? But after all, you need not be surprised if it’s from Howard; that’s his name, I think.”
“Howard! from little Howard!” exclaimed she, enthusiastically; and tearing open the letter, she pressed it to her lips, her eyes sparkling with pleasure and her cheek glowing as she read. I watched her as she ran rapidly over the lines; and I confess that, more than once, a pang of discontent shot through my heart that the midshipman’s letter could call up such interest, – not that I was in love with her myself, but yet, I know not how it was, I had fancied her affections unengaged; and without asking myself wherefore, I wished as much.
“Poor dear boy!” said she, as she came to the end. How these few and simple words sank into my heart, as I remembered how they had once been uttered to myself, and in perhaps no very dissimilar circumstances.
“But where is the souvenir he speaks of?” said she.
“The souvenir. I’m not aware – ”
“Oh, I hope you’ve not lost the lock of hair he sent me!” I was quite dumfounded at this, and could not remember whether I had received it from Power or not, so answered, at random, —
“Yes; I must have left it on my table.”
“Promise me, then, to bring it to-morrow with you?”
“Certainly,” said I, with something of pique in my manner. “If I find such a means of making my visit an agreeable one, I shall certainly not omit it.”
“You are quite right,” said she, either not noticing or not caring for the tone of my reply. “You will, indeed, be a welcome messenger. Do you know, he was one of my lovers?”
“One of them, indeed! Then pray how many do you number at this moment?”
“What a question; as if I could possibly count them! Besides, there are so many absent, – some on leave, some deserters, perhaps, – that I might be reckoning among my troops, but who, possibly, form part of the forces of the enemy. Do you know little Howard?”
“I cannot say that we are personally acquainted, but I am enabled through the medium of a friend to say that his sentiments are not strange to me. Besides, I have really pledged myself to support the prayer of his petition.”
“How very good of you! For which reason you’ve forgotten, if not lost, the lock of hair.”
“That you shall have to-morrow,” said I, pressing my hand solemnly to my heart.
“Well, then, don’t forget it. But hush; here comes Captain Trevyllian. So you say Lisbon really pleases you?” said she, in a tone of voice totally changed, as the dragoon of the preceding evening approached.
“Mr. O’Malley, Captain Trevyllian.”
We bowed stiffly and haughtily to each other, as two men salute who are unavoidably obliged to bow, with every wish on either side to avoid acquaintance. So, at least, I construed his bow; so I certainly intended my own.
It requires no common tact to give conversation the appearance of unconstraint and ease when it is evident that each person opposite is laboring under excited feelings; so that, notwithstanding the senhora’s efforts to engage our attention by the commonplaces of the day, we remained almost silent, and after a few observations of no interest, took our several leaves. Here again a new source of awkwardness arose; for as we walked together towards the house, where our horses stood, neither party seemed disposed to speak.
“You are probably returning to Lisbon?” said he, coldly.
I assented by a bow; upon which, drawing his bridle within his arm, he bowed once more, and turned away in an opposite direction; while I, glad to be relieved of an unsought-for companionship, returned alone to the town.
CHAPTER XL
THE DINNER
It was with no peculiar pleasure that I dressed for our dinner party. Major O’Shaughnessy, our host, was one of that class of my countrymen I cared least for, – a riotous, good-natured, noisy, loud-swearing, punch-drinking western; full of stories of impossible fox hunts, and unimaginable duels, which all were acted either by himself or some member of his family. The company consisted of the adjutant, Monsoon, Ferguson, Trevyllian, and some eight or ten officers with whom I was acquainted. As is usual on such occasions, the wine circulated freely, and amidst the din and clamor of excited conversation, the fumes of Burgundy, and the vapor of cigar smoke, we most of us became speedily mystified. As for me, my evil destiny would have it that I was placed exactly opposite Trevyllian, with whom upon more than one occasion I happened to differ in opinion, and the question was in itself some trivial and unimportant one; yet the tone which he assumed, and of which, I too could not divest myself in reply, boded anything rather than an amicable feeling between us. The noise and turmoil about prevented the others remarking the circumstance; but I could perceive in his manner what I deemed a studied determination to promote a quarrel, while I felt within myself a most unchristian-like desire to indulge his fancy.
“Worse fellows at passing the bottle than Trevyllian and O’Malley there I have rarely sojourned with,” cried the major; “look if they haven’t got eight decanters between them, and here we are in a state of African thirst.”
“How can you expect him to think of thirst when such perfumed billets as that come showering upon him?” said the adjutant, alluding to a rose-colored epistle a servant had placed within my hands.
“Eight miles of a stone-wall country in fifteen minutes, – devil a lie in it!” said O’Shaughnessy, striking the table with, his clinched fist; “show me the man would deny it.”
“Why, my dear fellow – ”
“Don’t be dearing me. Is it ‘no’ you’ll be saying me?”
“Listen, now; there’s O’Reilly, there – ”
“Where is he?”
“He’s under the table.”
“Well, it’s the same thing. His mother had a fox – bad luck to you, don’t scald me with the jug – his mother had a fox-cover in Shinrohan.”
When O’Shaughnessy had got thus far in his narrative, I had the opportunity of opening my note, which merely contained the following words: “Come to the ball at the Casino, and bring the Cadeau you promised.”
I had scarcely read this over once, when a roar of laughter at something said attracted my attention. I looked up, and perceived Trevyllian’s eyes bent upon me with the fierceness of a tiger; the veins in his forehead were swollen and distorted, and the whole expression of his face betokened rage and passion. Resolved no longer to submit to such evident determination to insult, I was rising from my place at table, when, as if anticipating my intention, he pushed back his chair and left the room. Fearful of attracting attention by immediately following him, I affected to join in the conversation around me, while my temples throbbed, and my hands tingled with impatience to get away.
“Poor McManus,” said O’Shaughnessy, “rest his soul! he’d have puzzled the bench of bishops for hard words. Upon my conscience, I believe he spent his mornings looking for them in the Old Testament. Sure ye might have heard what happened to him at Banagher, when he commanded the Kilkennys, – ye never heard the story? Well, then, ye shall. Push the sherry along first, though, – old Monsoon there always keeps it lingering beside his left arm.
“Well, when Peter was lieutenant-colonel of the Kilkennys, – who, I may remark, en passant, as the French say, were the neediest-looking devils in the whole service, – he never let them alone from morning till night, drilling and pipe-claying and polishing them up. ‘Nothing will make soldiers of you,’ said Peter, ‘but, by the rock of Cashel! I’ll keep you as clean as a new musket!’ Now, poor Peter himself was not a very warlike figure, – he measured five feet one in his tallest boots; but certainly if Nature denied him length of stature, she compensated for it in another way, by giving him a taste of the longest words in the language. An extra syllable or so in a word was always a strong recommendation; and whenever he could not find one to his mind, he’d take some quaint, outlandish one that more than once led to very awkward results. Well, the regiment was one day drawn up for parade in the town of Banagher, and as M’Manus came down the lines he stopped opposite one of the men whose face, hands, and accoutrements exhibited a most woeful contempt of his orders. The fellow looked more like a turf-stack than a light-company man.
“‘Stand out, sir!’ cried M’Manus, in a boiling passion. ‘Sergeant O’Toole, inspect this individual.’ Now, the sergeant was rather a favorite with Mac; for he always pretended to understand his phraseology, and in consequence was pronounced by the colonel a very superior man for his station in life. ‘Sergeant,’ said he, ‘we shall make an exemplary illustration of our system here.’
“‘Yes, sir,’ said the sergeant, sorely puzzled at the meaning of what he spoke.
“‘Bear him to the Shannon, and lave him there.’ This he said in a kind of Coriolanus tone, with a toss of his head and a wave of his right arm, – signs, whenever he made them, incontestibly showing that further parley was out of the question, and that he had summed up and charged the jury for good and all.
“‘Lave him in the river?’ said O’Toole, his eyes starting from the sockets, and his whole face working in strong anxiety; ‘is it lave him in the river yer honor means?’
“‘I have spoken,’ said the little man, bending an ominous frown upon the sergeant, which, whatever construction he may have put upon his words, there was no mistaking.
“‘Well, well, av it’s God’s will he’s drowned, it will not be on my head,’ says O’Toole, as he marched the fellow away between two rank and file.
“The parade was nearly over, when Mac happened to see the sergeant coming up all splashed with water and looking quite tired.
“‘Have you obeyed my orders?’ said he.
“‘Yes, yer honor; and tough work we had of it, for he struggled hard.’
“‘And where is he now?’
“‘Oh, troth, he’s there safe. Divil a fear he’ll get out.’
“‘Where?’ said Mac.
“‘In the river, yer honor.’
“‘What have you done, you scoundrel?’
“‘Didn’t I do as you bid me?’ says he; ‘didn’t I throw him in and lave [leave] him there?’
“And faith so they did; and if he wasn’t a good swimmer and got over to Moystown, there’s little doubt but he’d have been drowned, and all because Peter McManus could not express himself like a Christian.”
In the laughter which followed O’Shaughnessy’s story I took the opportunity of making my escape from the party, and succeeded in gaining the street unobserved. Though the note I had just read was not signed, I had no doubt from whom it came; so I hastened at once to my quarters, to make search for the lock of Ned Howard’s hair to which the senhora alluded. What was my mortification, however, to discover that no such thing could be found anywhere. I searched all my drawers; I tossed about my papers and letters; I hunted every likely, every unlikely spot I could think of, but in vain, – now cursing my carelessness for having lost it, now swearing most solemnly to myself that I never could have received it. What was to be done? It was already late; my only thought was how to replace it. If I only knew the color, any other lock of hair would, doubtless, do just as well. The chances were, as Howard was young and an Englishman, that his hair was light; light-brown, probably, something like my own. Of course it was; why didn’t that thought occur to me before? How stupid I was. So saying, I seized a pair of scissors, and cut a long lock beside my temple; this in a calm moment I might have hesitated about. “Yes,” thought I, “she’ll never discover the cheat; and besides, I do feel, – I know not exactly why, – rather gratified to think that I shall have left this souvenir behind me, even though it call up other recollections than of me.” So thinking, I wrapped my cloak about me and hastened towards the Casino.
CHAPTER XLI
THE ROUTE
I had scarcely gone a hundred yards from my quarters when a great tramp of horses’ feet attracted my attention. I stopped to listen, and soon heard the jingle of dragoon accoutrements, as the noise came near. The night was dark but perfectly still; and before I stood many minutes I heard the tones of a voice which I well knew could belong to but one, and that Fred Power.
“Fred Power!” said I, shouting at the same time at the top of my voice, – “Power!”
“Ah, Charley, is that you? Come along to the adjutant-general’s quarters. I’m charged with some important despatches, and can’t stop till I’ve delivered them. Come along, I’ve glorious news for you!” So saying, he dashed spurs to his horse, and followed by two mounted dragoons, galloped past. Power’s few and hurried words had so excited my curiosity that I turned at once to follow him, questioning myself, as I walked along, to what he could possibly allude. He knew of my attachment to Lucy Dashwood, – could he mean anything of her? But what could I expect there; by what flattery could I picture to myself any chance of success in that quarter; and yet, what other news could I care for or value than what bore upon her fate upon whom my own depended? Thus ruminating, I reached the door of the spacious building in which the adjutant-general had taken up his abode, and soon found myself among a crowd of persons whom the rumor of some important event had assembled there, though no one could tell what had occurred. Before many minutes the door opened, and Power came out; bowing hurriedly to a few, and whispering a word or two as he passed down the steps, he seized me by the arm and led me across the street. “Charley,” said he, “the curtain’s rising; the piece is about to begin; a new commander-in-chief is sent out, – Sir Arthur Wellesley, my boy, the finest fellow in England is to lead us on, and we march to-morrow. There’s news for you!” A raw boy, unread, uninformed as I was, I knew but little of his career whose name had even then shed such lustre upon our army; but the buoyant tone of Power as he spoke, the kindling energy of his voice roused me, and I felt every inch a soldier. As I grasped his hand in delightful enthusiasm I lost all memory of my disappointment, and in the beating throb that shook my head; I felt how deeply slept the ardor of military glory that first led me from my home to see a battle-field.
“There goes the news!” said Frederick, pointing as he spoke to a rocket that shot up into the sky, and as it broke into ten thousand stars, illuminated the broad stream where the ships of war lay darkly resting. In another moment the whole air shone with similar fires, while the deep roll of the drum sounded along the silent streets, and the city so lately sunk in sleep became, as if by magic, thronged with crowds of people; the sharp clang of the cavalry trumpet blended with the gay carol of the light-infantry bugle, and the heavy tramp of the march was heard in the distance. All was excitement, all bustle; but in the joyous tone of every voice was spoken the longing anxiety to meet the enemy. The gay, reckless tone of an Irish song would occasionally reach us, as some Connaught Ranger or some 78th man passed, his knapsack on his back; or the low monotonous pibroch of the Highlander, swelling into a war-cry, as some kilted corps drew up their ranks together. We turned to regain our quarters, when at the corner of a street we came suddenly upon a merry party seated around a table before a little inn; a large street lamp, unhung for the occasion, had been placed in the midst of them, and showed us the figures of several soldiers in undress; at the end, and raised a little above his compeers, sat one whom, by the unfair proportion he assumed of the conversation, not less than by the musical intonation of his voice, I soon recognized as my man, Mickey Free.
“I’ll be hanged if that’s not your fellow there, Charley,” said Power, as he came to a dead stop a few yards off. “What an impertinent varlet he is; only to think of him there, presiding among a set of fellows that have fought all the battles in the Peninsular war. At this moment I’ll be hanged if he is not going to sing.”
Here a tremendous thumping upon the table announced the fact, and after a few preliminary observations from Mike, illustrative of his respect to the service in which he had so often distinguished himself, he began, to the air of the “Young May Moon,” a ditty of which I only recollect the following verses: —
“The pickets are fast retreating, boys,
The last tattoo is beating, boys,
So let every man
Finish his can,
And drink to our next merry meeting, boys.
The colonel so gayly prancing, boys,
Has a wonderful trick of advancing, boys,
When he sings out so large,
‘Fix bayonets and charge!’
He sets all the Frenchmen a-dancing, boys.
Let Mounseer look ever so big, my boys,
Who cares for fighting a fig, my boys?
When we play ‘Garryowen,’
He’d rather go home;
For somehow, he’s no taste for a jig, my boys.”
This admirable lyric seemed to have perfect success, if one were only to judge from the thundering of voices, hands, and drinking vessels which followed; while a venerable, gray-haired sergeant rose to propose Mr. Free’s health, and speedy promotion to him.
We stood for several minutes in admiration of the party, when the loud roll of the drums beating to arms awakened us to the thought that our moments were numbered.
“Good-night, Charley!” said Power, as he shook my hand warmly, “good-night! It will be your last night under a curtain for some months to come; make the most of it. Adieu!”
So saying, we parted; he to his quarters, and I to all the confusion of my baggage, which lay in most admired disorder about my room.
