A Hungarian Nabob Part 32

And still he kept on losing.

He scarce noticed now what he dealt. Fennimore again won four times the amount of his stakes. Abellino only paid him double.

"Oh, my friend, you have made a mistake! I laid as much again."

"I did not observe it."

"Why, this is pure filibustery!" cried Fennimore, with insolent indignation.

At this insulting word, Abellino instantly sprang to his feet, and flung the whole pack of cards right between Fennimore's eyes.

Fennimore's naturally pale face grew blue and green, and, seizing the chair on which he had been sitting, he made a rush at Abellino; but the company intervened, and dragged Fennimore back.

"Let me go--let me go! Give me a knife!" he roared, with foaming lips; while Abellino, breathing hard, regarded him with bloodshot eyes. Only with the greatest difficulty were they prevented from tearing each other to pieces.

At this unseemly disturbance, Mr. Kecskerey rushed in with a very alarmed expression of face, forced his way through the ranks of the wranglers, and, a.s.suming his most imposing manner, exclaimed with a voice that rang out like a clarion, "Respect the sanct.i.ty of my house!"

This intervention brought the combatants to their senses. They began to recognize that this was not the place for adjusting affairs of honour.

The appeal to the sanct.i.ty of Mr. Kecskerey's house also did something to restore the good-humour of the majority. Fennimore and Abellino were therefore advised by their friends to go home, and settle their little matter the next morning. They departed accordingly, and the company was disturbed no more. A few minutes afterwards every one knew that Fennimore and Abellino had quarrelled at cards, but every one pretended that he knew nothing at all about it.

But the quarrel in the card-room of Mr. Kecskerey's establishment had serious consequences for both the princ.i.p.al disputants. There could be no thought of a reconciliation after such a deliberate and public affront as that inflicted upon Fennimore by Abellino; so they sent their seconds to each other, and it was arranged that they should fight the matter out in the large room of The Green Tree tavern. They met accordingly, and a stubborn contest ensued, marked on both sides by an altogether unprecedented display of vindictive temper. Finally, Fennimore, after treacherously wounding Abellino in the back during a suspension of hostilities, and again on the shoulder when the fight was resumed, was himself transfixed by his adversary's sword, and died without uttering a sigh or groan, or moving a muscle of his face. As for Abellino, he was confined to his bed for a whole month, and when he had partially recovered, he received a hint from his well-wishers to the effect that, until the affair had blown over a little, it would be as well if he took the air somewhere abroad; and that, too, not in any civilized kingdom, for there they would not be very long in nabbing a man like him who had so many creditors and loved to make a stir, but in some nice Oriental empire where he would be out of harm's way. So it ended in his setting off for Palestine, to visit the Holy Sepulchre, where, said the wags, he was going to do penance for his sins. Thither we need not follow him.

But Squire John Karpathy, the happy, the more than happy Nabob, set off with his fair consort for Karpatfalva, there to spend their honeymoon.

CHAPTER X.

POOR LADY!

Poor lady!

The poor lady I mean is Madame Karpathy. She had got a husband, and along with him enormous wealth and a monstrously grand name, both rather burdens than blessings as a rule.

The day does not dawn twice for the richest man, and all the treasures in the world cannot give their possessor peace, joy, love, contentment, and a good conscience.

And then that ill.u.s.trious name; what was it after all?

The whole world knew who had inherited that name--an old gentleman with the reputation of a fool, who, to spite his nephew, had married a girl belonging to a family of ill-repute. The old gentleman was either very magnanimous or very foolish. The girl must necessarily be frivolous and forward. Every one was ready to believe the worst of her beforehand.

Poor lady!

f.a.n.n.y naturally felt miserable and lonely. There was n.o.body about her, no friend of her own age and s.e.x in whom she could confide, and she knew not where to look for such a treasure. And yet one day she found a confidant where she least expected it. Her husband had resolved to have a house-warming in her honour, and had had a list made of the intended guests which he sent to her for her approval, by the hands of old Mr.

Varga, the steward. This particular piece of attention showed, moreover, how polite and condescending Karpathy was towards his wife.

Mr. Varga took the list, and, as was his wont on his pa.s.sage through the house, continued knocking at every door he came to till he was told to come in. On perceiving his mistress, he stood on the threshold in an att.i.tude of the deepest respect, and would very much have liked to have had there and then an arm long enough to have reached from the door to the sofa.

f.a.n.n.y was strangely attracted towards the old man. There are some persons whom Fortune endows with a cast of countenance which allows you to read right through their features into their pure and honest souls, so that you feel confidence in them at the very first glance. f.a.n.n.y did not wait for Mr. Varga to come nearer to her, but arose and went to meet him, took his hand, and, despite the old man's strenuous efforts to bow low at every step he took, drew him forward, made him sit down in an armchair, and, in order that he might not get up again, threw her arms round him in childish fas.h.i.+on, which plunged the old fellow into the most unutterable confusion. Naturally, the moment f.a.n.n.y let him go, and sat down herself, up he sprang again.

"Nay, my dear Mr. Varga, do sit down, or else I must stand up."

"I am not worthy of such an honour," stammered the old steward, very circ.u.mspectly letting himself down into the chair again, as if he were about to beg pardon for being so bold as to sit in it at all, and bending forward so that he might not lean upon it too heavily.

"What have you brought me, my dear, good Mr. Varga?" asked f.a.n.n.y, with a smile. "If you have brought nothing but yourself, I should be all the better pleased. Now you can see how pleased I am to see you."

Varga murmured something to the effect that he did not know what he had done to deserve so much favour, and hastened to hand her the doc.u.ment, at the same time delivering Squire John's message; then he prepared to take his leave. But f.a.n.n.y antic.i.p.ated him.

"Pray remain," said she. "I have a few questions to put to you."

This was a command, so he felt bound to sit down again. He had never felt so bad before any other examination. What could her ladys.h.i.+p have to ask him? He devoutly wished that some other person was sitting there in his stead.

f.a.n.n.y took the list and ran her eye down it, and as she did so, her heart sank within her. There were so many strange names, and all she knew about them was that they were all the names of great and ill.u.s.trious men in high positions, and unexceptionable women. She had not a single acquaintance among all these women, and had no idea which of them she would find attractive, or which of them she might have cause to fear. How was she to comport herself in the society of all these high and haughty dames? If she put on a bold and confident air, they would snub her; if she humbled herself before them, they would ridicule her.

They would not credit her with any good qualities. Her very beauty would make them suspicious of her; a hidden meaning, a secret insinuation, would lurk behind all the friendly words they addressed to her. Woe to her if she did not realize this, and woe to her also if she realized it and did not keep her feelings to herself! Woe to her if she did not give back as good as she got, and woe to her if she did! Poor lady!

So she ran her eyes down the long list of names before her from end to end.

How she longed to find among them some good-natured, generous, tender-hearted woman whom she might look upon as a dear mother--not another Mrs. Meyer, but a dear ideal mother such as all good people imagine every mother to be! how she longed, too, to find among them many a gentle girl, many a young sympathetic damsel whom she might love like sisters--though not such sisters as hers! But how was she to recognize; how was she to approach them? how was she to win their hearts, their confidence?

Again and again she read through the list of names aloud, as if she would have discovered from the _sound_ of the names the disposition of their bearers; then she laid it down before her with a sigh, and turned an inquiring look upon the steward.

"My dear Mr. Varga, pardon me if I trouble you with a question."

Mr. Varga hastened to a.s.sure her that he was her most humble servant, and only awaited her commands.

"But this question is very, very important."

Mr. Varga a.s.sured her that he was ready for anything in the world; even if her ladys.h.i.+p should require him to leap through the window, he was prepared to do so.

"I am going to ask you a question, to which I require a perfectly sincere answer. You must be perfectly frank towards me. Fancy yourself for the moment my dear father, about to give to me, your daughter, good counsel on the eve of my entering into the world."

She said these words with so much feeling, and in a voice that seemed to come so directly from the bottom of her heart, that Mr. Varga, for the life of him, could not help drawing from the inside pocket of his dolman a checkered cotton pocket-handkerchief, with which he dried his eyes.

"What is it your ladys.h.i.+p deigns to command?" he inquired, in a voice that sounded as if every syllable he uttered were shod with as tight jackboots as the ones he was himself wearing.

"I want you to be so good as to go through all the names written on this list, one by one, and tell me quite frankly, quite openly, what your opinion is of each one of them, what their dispositions are, how the world regards them, which of them are likely to love one, and which are likely to give one the cold shoulder."

In all his life Mr. Varga had never had to face so rigorous an ordeal.

If Lady Karpathy had charged him to call out five or six of the persons who were down on the list, or take a message to each one of them individually and to go on foot, or to work out the genealogy of every one of them in the shortest conceivable s.p.a.ce of time, he would have considered all such commissions as mere trifles compared with what was required of him now. What! he, the humblest of retainers in his own estimation, who regarded with such boundless respect every member of the higher circles that he would have considered himself the most miserable of men had he failed, in addressing them, to give them every t.i.ttle of their proper t.i.tles and designations--he, forsooth, was now to sit in judgment on these great gentlemen and ladies who did him too much honour in allowing him to address them at all?

In his despair Mr. Varga scoured the floor with his heel, and his forehead with the checkered handkerchief.

f.a.n.n.y, perceiving the confusion of the good old man, turned towards him with a look of tender encouragement.

"My dear friend, look upon yourself as my father, as the one person whom I can ask for advice in this new and strange world, of which I know absolutely nothing. _I_ cannot help looking upon you as my father. Why are you so good and kind to me?"