Kitabı oku: «Jack Hinton: The Guardsman», sayfa 40

CHAPTER LX. DISCLOSURES

I have more than once heard physicians remark the singular immunity a fool’s skull seems to possess from the evil effects of injury – as if Nature, when denying a governing faculty, had, in kind compensation, imparted a triple thickness to the head thus exposed. It is well known how among the educated and thinking classes many maladies are fatal which are comparatively innocuous among those whose hands alone are called on to labour. A very ingenious theory might be spun from this fact, to the manifest self-gratulation of foxhunters, sailors, gentlemen who assault the new police, tithe-proctors, and others. For the present I have no further use for the remark than as it bore upon the head-piece of Lord Dudley de Vere, whose admirable developments had received little or no damage from the rude assault of his companion. When he awoke the next morning, he was only aware that something unusual had occurred; and gradually by ‘trying back’ in his sensations, he remembered every particle that took place – had the clearest recollection of the ‘run upon red’; knew the number of bottles of champagne he had partaken of; and was only puzzled by one thing – what could possibly have suggested the courage with which he confronted Burke, and the hardihood that led to insulting him. As to any awkwardness at being brought home to the house of the person he had himself so ill-treated, he never felt anything approaching to it; the extent of his reasoning on this point only went to his satisfaction that ‘some one’ took care of him, and that he was not left to lie on the floor of the salon.

This admirable philosophy of De Vere served in a great measure to relieve me from the constraint I felt in presenting myself before him, and soon put me perfectly at my ease in our interview. After learning, that, except some headaching sensations, the only inconvenience he experienced was an unconquerable thirst, I touched lightly on the cause of his misfortune; when, what was my astonishment to discern that he not only did not entertain a particle of ill-will towards the man who had so brutally ill-treated him, but actually grew warm in his panegyric of Burkes consummate skill and address at play – such qualities in his estimation being well worthy to cover any small blemishes of villainy his character might suffer under.

‘I say, don’t you think Burke a devilish sharp fellow? He’s up to everything, and so cool, so confoundedly cool! Not last night, though; no, by Jove! he lost temper completely. I shall be marked with that knock, eh? Damn me, it was too bad; he must apologise for it. You know he was drunk, and somehow he was all wrong the whole evening; he wouldn’t let me back the “rouge,” and such a run – you saw that, I suppose?’

I assented with a nod, for I still hesitated how far I should communicate to him my knowledge of Burke’s villainy towards myself.

‘By-the-bye, it’s rather awkward my being here; you know your people have cut me. Don’t you think I might get a cab to bring me over to the Rue d’Alger?’

There was something which touched me in the simplicity of this remark, and I proceeded to assure him that any former impressions of my friends would not be remembered against him at that moment.

‘Oh, that I’m sure of; no one ever thinks it worth while to bear malice against a poor devil like me. But if I’d have backed the red – ’

‘Colonel O’Grady is in the drawing-room,’ said a servant in a low voice to me at this instant; and leaving Lord Dudley to speculate on the contingencies of his having ‘backed the red,’ I joined my friend, whom I had not seen on the previous day. We were alone, and in ten minutes I explained to him the entire discovery I had fallen upon, concealing only my affection for Louisa Bellew, which I could not bring myself even to allude to.

‘I see,’ said Phil, when I concluded – ‘I see you are half disposed to forgive De Vere all his rascality. Now, what a different estimate we take of men! Perhaps – I can’t say – it is because I am an Irishman, but I lean to the bold-faced villain Burke; the miserable, contemptible weakness of the one is far more intolerable to me than the ruffian effrontery of the other. Don’t forget the lesson I gave you many a year ago: a fool is always a blackguard. Now, if that fellow could see his companion this minute, there is not a circumstance he has noticed here that he would not retail if it bore to your disadvantage. Untouched by your kindness to him, he would sell you – ay, to the very man you saved him from! But, after all, what have we to do with him? Our first point is to rescue this poor girl’s name from being ever mixed with his; anything further is, of course, out of the question. The Rooneys are going back: I saw Paul this morning. “The Cruiskeen Lawn” has been their ruin. All the Irish officers who had taken Madame de Roni for an illustrious stranger have found out the true scent; and so many distinguished persons are involved in the ridicule of their parties that the old chef de police, my friend, has sent them a private order to leave Paris in a week. Paul is in raptures at it. He has spent eighteen thousand in two months; detests the place; is dying to be back in Dublin; and swears that except one Cossack officer he hasn’t met a pleasant fellow since he came abroad.’

‘And Mrs. Paul?’

‘Oh, the old story. I put Guilemain up to it, and he has hinted that the Empress of Russia has heard of the Czar’s attentions; that there’s the devil to pay in St. Petersburg; and that if she doesn’t manage to steal out of Paris slyly, some confounded boyard or other will slip a sack over her head and carry her off to Tobolsk.

Elizabeth and the Exiles has formed part of her reading, and Madame de Roni will dream every night of the knout till she reaches her dear native land. – But now to business. I, too, have made my discoveries since we met. De Vere’s high play has been a matter of surprise to all who know him. I have found out his secret – he plays with forged billets de banque.’

‘And has the wretched fellow gone so far as this?’

‘He doesn’t know it; he believes that the money is the proceeds of bills he has given to Burke, who affects to get them discounted. See here – here are a handful of their notes. Guillemain knows all, and retains the secret as a hold over Burke, whose honesty to himself he already suspects. If he catch him tripping – ’

‘Then – ’

‘Why, then, the galleys for life. Such is the system; a villain with them is worthless if his life isn’t at their disposal Satan’s bond completely – all, all. But show me De Vere’s room, and leave me alone with him for half an hour. Let us then meet at my hotel, and concert future measures.’

Having left O’Grady with De Vere, I walked out upon the boulevards, my head full of the extraordinary facts so suddenly thronging one upon the other. A dash of hope, that for many a day had not visited me, was now mingled through all my meditations, and I began to think that there was yet a chance of happiness for me.

I had not gone many paces when an arm was thrust into mine, and a hearty chuckling laugh at the surprise rang in my ear. I turned: it was Mr. Paul Booney, taking his morning’s promenade of Paris, and now on his way home with an enormous bouquet for Madame, which she had taught him to present to her each day on her appearing in the drawing-room.

‘Ah, Captain, the very man I wanted! We haven’t had a moment to ourselves since your arrival. You must come and take a bit of dinner with us to-day – thank Heaven, we’ve no company! I have a leg of pork, smuggled into the house as if it was a bale of goods from Alexandria; nobody knows of it but myself and Tim.’

‘Tim! why, have you brought Tim to Paris?’

‘Hush!’ said he in a low, cautious voice; ‘I ‘d be ruined entirely if Madame was to find him out. Tim is dressed like a Tartar, and stands in the hall; and Mrs. Rooney believes that he never heard of a civil bill in his life. But here we are.’

So saying, he opened a small wicket with a latchkey, and led me into a large and well-trimmed garden, across which we walked at a rapid pace, Paul speculating from the closed shutters of his wife’s room that he needed not have hurried home so fast.

‘She’s not down yet – one o’clock as I’m a sinner! Come along and sit down in the library; I’ll join you presently.’

Scarcely had Paul left the room when I began to think over the awkwardness of my position should I meet Miss Bellew. What course to follow under the circumstances I knew not; when just at the moment the door opened, and she entered. Not perceiving me, as I stood in a deep window-recess, she drew a chair to the fire and sat down. I hardly ventured to breathe. I felt like one who had no right to obtrude himself there, and had become, as it were, a spy upon her. A long-drawn breath burst from me; she started up. I moved slightly forward, and stood before her. She leaned her hand upon the arm of the chair for support; her cheek grew deadly pale, and a tremulous quiver shook her lip.

‘Mr. Hinton,’ she began; and then as if the very sound of her voice had terrified her, she paused. ‘Mr. Hinton,’ resumed she, ‘I am sure – nay, I know – if you were aware of the reasons of my conduct towards you, you would not only acquit me of all blame, but spare me the pain of our ever meeting again.’

‘I know them – I do know them,’ said I passionately. ‘I have been slandered.’

‘No, you do not, cannot know what I mean,’ interrupted she. ‘It is a secret between my own heart and one who is now no more.’

The last words fell from her one by one, while a single tear rolled from her eyelid and trickled along her cheek.

‘Yes, yes, Louisa; I do know it – I know all. A chance has told me how your dear father’s name has been used to banish me for ever from your sight; how a forgery of his handwriting – ’

‘What! who could have told you what my father’s last note contained?’

‘He who wrote it confessed it in my hearing – Ulick Burke. Nay, I can even repeat the words’ But as I spoke, a violent trembling seized her; her lips became bloodless; she tottered, and sank upon the chair. I had only time to spring forward and catch her in my arms, and her head fell heavily back, and dropped on my shoulder.

I cannot, if I would, repeat the words which in all the warm eloquence of affection I spoke. I could mark by her heightened colour that the life-blood again coursed freely in her veins, and could see that she heard me. I told her how through every hardship and suffering, in all the sorrow of disappointed ambition, in the long hours of captivity, my heart had ever turned to her; and then, when we did meet, to see her changed!

‘But you do not blame – you cannot blame me if I believed – ’

‘No, if you tell me now that but for this falsehood you have not altered; that your heart is still as much my own as I once thought it.’

A faint smile played on her lips as her eyes were turned upon me; while her voice muttered —

‘And do you still love me?’

I pressed her hand to my lips in rapture, when suddenly the door opened and Paul Rooney rushed in.

‘Another candidate for the leg of – Eh! what’s this?’ said he, as I rose and advanced to meet him; while Louisa, blushing deeply, buried her head in her hand, and then starting up, left the room.

‘Captain, Captain,’ said Paul gravely, ‘what does this mean? Do you suppose that because there is some difference in our rank in life, that you are privileged to insult one who is under my protection? Is it because you are the Guardsman and I the attorney that you have dared to take a liberty here which in your own walk you couldn’t venture on?’

‘My dear Mr. Rooney, you mistake me sadly.’

‘If I do not mistake you, I’ll put a hole in your body as sure as my name’s Paul,’ was the quick reply.

‘You do, then, and wrong me to boot. I have been long and ardently attached to Miss Bellew. From the hour I met her at your house I loved her. It is the first time we have met since our long separation: I determined it should not be lost. I ‘ve asked her to be my wife.’

‘You have! And what does she say?’

‘She has consented.’

‘Rum-ti-iddity, iddity!’ said Paul, snapping his fingers, and capering about the room like a man deranged. ‘Give me your hand, my buck! I ‘d rather draw the settlements, so help me, than I ‘d see the warrant to make me Master of the Rolls. Who ‘d say there isn’t luck in a leg of pork? She’s a darling girl; and beautiful as she is, her looks isn’t the best of her – an angel as sure as I am here! And look here’ – here he dropped his voice – ‘seven thousand a year, that may be made nine! Hennessy’s farm is out of lease in October; and the Cluangoff estate is let at ten shillings an acre. Hurroo! maybe I won’t be drunk to-night; and bad luck to the Cossack, Tartar, Bohemian, or any other blackguard I’ll let into the house this day or night! Sworn, my lord.’

After some little discussion, it was arranged that if Louisa would give her consent to the arrangement, the marriage should take place before the Rooneys left Paris. Meanwhile, Paul agreed with me in keeping the whole matter a perfect secret from everybody, Mrs. Rooney herself included. Our arrangements were scarcely completed when O’Grady appeared. Having waited for me some time at his hotel, he had set out in search of me.

‘I’m your man to-day, Paul,’ said he. ‘You got my note, I suppose?’

‘All right,’ said Mr. Rooney, whose double secret of the marriage and the leg of pork seemed almost too much for him to bear.

‘I suppose I may tell Phil,’ said I in a whisper.

‘No one else,’ said Paul, as we left the house, and I took O’Grady’s arm down the street.

‘Well, I have frightened De Vere to some purpose,’ said O’Grady. ‘He has made a full confession about Burke, who was even a deeper villain than we supposed. What do you think? He has been the spy of the Bonapartist faction all this time, and selling old Guillemain as regularly as the others. To indulge his passion for play, he received the pay of four different parties, whom he pitted against one another exactly as he saw proper. Consummate clever scoundrel! – he had to deal with men whose whole lives are passed in the very practice of every chicanery and deceit, and yet he has jockied them all. What a sad thing to think that such abilities and knowledge of mankind should be prostituted to the lowest and most debasing uses; and that the sole tendency of such talent should be to dishonour and disgrace its possessor! Some of his manufactured despatches were masterpieces of cleverness.’

‘Well, where is he now? Still in Paris?’

‘No. The moment he had so far forgotten himself as to strike De Vere, he forged a passport and returned to London, carrying with him hosts of papers of the French authorities, which to our Foreign Office will be very acceptable. De Vere meanwhile feels quite at his ease. He was always afraid of his companion, yet can’t forgive him his last indignity.

‘No! A blow!’

‘Not at all; you mistake. His regrets have a different origin. It is for not backing the “rouge” that he is inexorable towards him. Besides, he is under the impression that all these confessions he has been making establish for him a kind of moral insolvency act, by which he is to come forth irresponsible for the past, and quite ready to contract new debts for the future. At this moment his greatest point of doubt consists in whether he should marry your cousin, Lady Julia, or Miss Bellew; for, in his own phrase, “he must do something that way to come round.”’

‘Impudent scoundrel!’

‘Fact, I assure you; and so easy, so unaffected, so free from embarrassment of any kind is he, that I’m really quite a convert to this modern school of good manners, when associating with even such as Burke conveys no feeling of shame or discomfort. More than could be said some forty years ago, I fancy.’

It was the hour of my mother’s morning reception, and we found the drawing-room crowded with loungers and fashionable idlers, discussing the news of the day, and above all the Roni fête, the extraordinary finale to which gave rise to a hundred conjectures – some asserting that Monsieur de Roni’s song was a violent pasquinade against the Emperor Alexander; others, equally well informed, alleging it was the concerted signal for a general massacre of the Allies, which was to have begun at the same moment in the Rue Montmartre. She is a Bonapartist, a Legitimist, a Neapolitan, an Anversoise,’ contended one after another – my only fear being that some one would enlighten the party by saying she was the wife of an Irish attorney. All agreed, however, she was bien mauvais ton; that her fête was, with all its magnificence, anything but select; her supper superb, but too crowded by half; and, in fact, that Madame Roni had enjoyed the pleasure of ruining herself to very little other purpose than that of being generally ridiculed and laughed at.

‘And this niece, or ward, or whatever it is – who can tell anything of her?’ said my mother.

‘Ah, pardieu! she’s very handsome,’ said Grammont, with a malicious smile.

‘Perfect,’ said another; ‘quite perfect; but a little, a very little too graceful Don’t you think so?’

‘Why what do you mean?’ said Lady Charlotte, as her eyes sparkled with animation at the thought of a secret.

‘Nothing,’ replied the last speaker carelessly; ‘except that one always detects the danseuse. She was thinner when I saw her at Naples.’

I whispered one word – but one – in his ear, and his face became purple with shame and confusion.

‘Eh, what is it?’ said my mother eagerly. ‘John knows something of her too. John, dearest, let us hear it?’

‘I am in your ladyship’s debt as regards one secret,’ said O’Grady, interrupting; ‘perhaps I may be permitted to pay it on this occasion. The lady in question is the daughter of an Irish baronet, the descendant of a family as old as any of those who now hear me. That baronet would have been a peer of the realm had he consented to vote once – but once – with the minister, on a question where his conscience told him to oppose him. His refusal was repaid by neglect; others were promoted to rank and honours before him; but the frown of a minister could neither take away the esteem of his country nor his own self-respect. He is now dead; but his daughter is the worthy inheritor of his virtues and his name. Perhaps I might interest the present company as much in her favour by adding, she possesses something like eight thousand per annum.’

‘Two hundred thousand livres de rente! said Grammont, smacking his lips with astonishment, ‘and perfectly insensible to the tone of mockery in which O’Grady’s last words were spoken.

‘And you are sure of all this?’ said my mother.

O’Grady bowed deeply, but without speaking, while his features assumed an expression of severe determination I had never witnessed before. I could not help remarking, that, amid the dismay such an announcement created in that gossiping and calumnious assembly, my cousin Julia’s eyes shone with an added lustre, and her whole face beamed with a look of proud and exalted beauty.

This was now the time to tell O’Grady my secret; and drawing him towards a window, I said —

‘Phil, I can wait no longer – you must hear it. I’m going to be married.’

The words had not left my lips, when O’Grady started back, his face as pale as death, and his whole frame trembling with eagerness. By a violent effort, however, he rallied; and as he clutched my arm with his fingers, he said —

‘I must be going; these good people have made me forget an appointment. Make my respectful homage to her ladyship – and the bride. I shall see you before I leave.’

‘Leave! Why, where are you thinking of going?’

‘To India.’

‘To India!’ said Julia, starting round as he spoke.

‘To India!’ said I, in amazement.

He nodded, and turning quickly round, left the room.

I hastened after him with all my speed, and dashing downstairs was making for the porte cochère, when a shadow beside the doorway caught my eye. I stopped. It was O’Grady; he was leaning against the wall, his head buried in his hands. A horrible doubt shot through my heart. I dared not dwell upon it; but rushing towards him, I called him by his name. He turned quickly round, while a fierce, wild look glistened in his eyes.

‘Not now, Hinton, not now!’ said he, motioning me away with his hand; and then, as a cold shudder passed over him, he drew his hand across his face, and added in a lower tone, ‘I never thought to have betrayed myself thus. Good-bye, my dear fellow, good-bye! It were better we shouldn’t meet again.’

‘My dearest, best friend! I never dreamed that the brightest hour of my life was to throw this gloom over your heart.’

‘Yes, Jack,’ said he, in a voice low and broken, ‘from the first hour I saw her I loved her. The cold manner she maintained towards me at your father’s house – ’

‘In my father’s house! What do you mean?’

‘When in London, I speak of – when I joined first – your cousin – ’

‘My cousin!’

‘Yes, Lady Julia. Are you so impatient to call her wife that you will not remember her as cousin?’

‘Call her wife! My dear boy, you’re raving. It’s Louisa Bellew!’

‘What! Is it Miss Bellew you are to marry?’

‘To be sure – ’

But I could not finish the sentence, as O’Grady fell upon my shoulder, and his strong frame was convulsed with emotion.

In an instant, however, I tore myself away; and calling out, ‘Wait for me, O’Grady!’ I rushed upstairs, peeped hastily into the drawing-room, and then hurrying along the corridor opened a door at the end. The blinds of the windows were down, and the room so dark that I could scarcely perceive if any one were there had not my steps been guided by a low sob which I heard issue from the end of the sofa.

‘Julia,’ said I, rushing forward – ‘Julia, my dearest cousin! this is no time to deceive ourselves. He loves you – loved you from the first hour he met you. Let me have but one word. Can he, dare he hope that you are not indifferent to him? Let him but see you, but speak to you. Believe me, you have bent a heart as proud and haughty as your own; and you will have broken it if you refuse him. There, dearest girl – Thanks! my heart’s thanks for that!’

The slightest pressure of her taper fingers sent a thrill through me, as I sprang up and dashed down the stairs. In an instant I had seized O’Grady’s arm, and the next moment whispered in his ear —

‘You ‘ve won her!’