Tales from Blackwood Volume Iii Part 9

"I thought this was an uncommonly pathetic wish, after the manner of the Persian poet Hafiz, but it was scarcely out of my mouth, when Ensign Brady, taking a cup of tea from Miss Dosy's hand, looking upon me with an air of infinite condescension, declared that I must be the happiest of men, as my wish was granted before it was made. I was preparing to answer, but Miss Dosy laughed so loud that I had not time, and my only resource was to swallow what I had just made. The ensign followed up his victory without mercy.

"'Talking of potatoes, Miss Theodosia,' said he, looking at me, 'puts me in mind of truffles. Do you know this most exquisite cake of yours much resembles a _gateau aux truffes_? By Gad! how Colonel Thornton, Sir Harry Millicent, Lord Mortgages.h.i.+re, and that desperate fellow, the Honourable and Reverend d.i.c.k Sellenger, and I, used to tuck in truffles when we were quartered in Paris. Mortgages.h.i.+re--an uncommon droll fellow; I used to call his Lords.h.i.+p Morty--he called me Brad--we were on such terms; and we used to live together in the Rue de la Paix, that beautiful street close by the Place Vendome, where there's the pillar.

You have been at Paris, Miss Macnamara?' asked the ensign, filling his mouth with a half-pound bite of the potato-cake at the same moment.

"Dosy confessed that she had never travelled into any foreign parts except the kingdom of Kerry; and on the same question being repeated to me, I was obliged to admit that I was in a similar predicament. Brady was triumphant.

"'It is a loss to any man,' said he, 'not to have been in Paris. I know that city well, and so I ought; but I did many naughty things there.'

"'O fie!' said Mrs Macnamara.

"'O, madam,' continued Brady, 'the fact is, that the Paris ladies were rather too fond of us English. When I say English, I mean Scotch and Irish as well; but, nevertheless, I think Irishmen had more good-luck than the natives of the other two islands.'

"'In my geography book,' said Miss Dosy, 'it is put down only as one island, consisting of England, capital London, on the Thames, in the south; and Scotland, capital Edinburgh, on the Forth, in the north; population'----

"'Gad! you are right,' said Brady--'perfectly right, Miss Macnamara. I see you are quite a blue. But, as I was saying, it is scarce possible for a good-looking young English officer to escape the French ladies.

And then I played rather deep--on the whole, however, I think, I may say I won. Mortgages.h.i.+re and I broke Frascati's one night--we won a hundred thousand francs at rouge, and fifty-four thousand at roulette. You would have thought the croupiers would have fainted; they tore their hair with vexation. The money, however, soon went again--we could not keep it. As for wine, you have it cheap there, and of a quality which you cannot get in England. At Very's, for example, I drank chambertin--it is a kind of claret--for three francs two sous a-bottle, which was, beyond all comparison, far superior to what I drank, a couple of months ago, at the Duke of Devons.h.i.+re's, though his Grace prides himself on that very wine, and sent to a particular binn for a favourite specimen, when I observed to him I had tasted better in Paris. Out of politeness, I pretended to approve of his Grace's choice; but I give you my honour--only I would not wish it to reach his Grace's ears--it was not to be compared to what I had at Very's for a moment.'

"So flowed on Brady for a couple of hours. The Tooleries, as he thought proper to call them; the Louvre, with its pictures, the removal of which he deplored as a matter of taste, a.s.suring us that he had used all his influence with the Emperor of Russia and the Duke of Wellington to prevent it, but in vain; the Boulevards, the opera, the theatres, the Champs Elysees, the Montagnes Russes--everything, in short, about Paris, was depicted to the astonished mind of Miss Dosy. Then came London--where he belonged to I do not know how many clubs--and cut a most distinguished figure in the fas.h.i.+onable world. He was of the Prince Regent's set, and a.s.sured us, on his honour, that there was never anything so ill-founded as the stories afloat to the discredit of that ill.u.s.trious person. But on what happened at Carlton House, he felt obliged to keep silence, the Prince being remarkably strict in exacting a premise from every gentleman whom he admitted to his table, not to divulge anything that occurred there--a violation of which promise was the cause of the exclusion of Brummell. As for the Princess of Wales, he would rather not say anything.

"And so forth. Now, in those days of my innocence, I believed these stories as gospel, hating the fellow all the while from the bottom of my heart, as I saw that he made a deep impression on Dosy, who sat in open-mouthed wonder, swallowing them down as a common-councilman swallows turtle. But times are changed. I have seen Paris and London since, and I believe I know both villages as well as most men, and the deuce a word of truth did Brady tell in his whole narrative. In Paris, when not in quarters (he had joined some six or eight months after Waterloo), he lived _au cinquantieme_ in a dog-hole in the Rue Git-le-Coeur (a street at what I may call the Surrey side of Paris), among carters and other such folk; and in London I discovered that his princ.i.p.al domicile was in one of the courts now demolished to make room for the fine new gimcrackery at Charing Cross; it was in Round Court, at a pieman's of the name of Dudfield."

"d.i.c.k Dudfield?" said Jack Ginger; "I knew the man well--a most particular friend of mine. He was a duffer besides being a pieman, and was transported some years ago. He is now a flouris.h.i.+ng merchant in Australasia, and will, I suppose, in due time be grandfather to a member of Congress."

"There it was that Brady lived then," continued Bob Burke, "when he was hobn.o.bbing with Georgius Quartus, and dancing at Almack's with Lady Elizabeth Conynghame. Faith, the nearest approach he ever made to royalty was when he was put into the King's own Bench, where he sojourned many a long day. What an a.s.s I was to believe a word of such stuff! but, nevertheless, it goes down with the rustics to the present minute. I sometimes sport a duke or so myself, when I find myself among yokels, and I rise vastly in estimation by so doing. What do we come to London or Paris for, but to get some touch of knowing how to do things properly? It would be devilish hard, I think, for Ensign Brady, or Ensign Brady's master, to do me nowadays by flamming off t.i.tles of high life."

The company did no more than justice to Mr Burke's experience, by unanimously admitting that such a feat was all but impossible.

"I was," he went on, "a good deal annoyed at my inferiority, and I could not help seeing that Miss Dosy was making comparisons that were rather odious, as she glanced from the gay uniform of the Ensign on my habiliments, which having been perpetrated by a Mallow tailor with a hatchet, or pitchfork, or pickaxe, or some such tool, did not stand the scrutiny to advantage. I was, I think, a better-looking fellow than Brady. Well, well--laugh if you like. I am no beauty, I know; but then, consider that what I am talking of was sixteen years ago, and more; and a man does not stand the battering I have gone through for these sixteen years with impunity. Do you call the thirty or forty thousand tumblers of punch, in all its varieties, that I have since imbibed, nothing?"

"Yes," said Jack Ginger, with a sigh, "there was a song we used to sing on board the Brimstone, when cruising about the Spanish main--

"'If Mars leaves his scars, jolly Bacchus as well Sets his trace on the face, which a toper will tell; But which a more merry campaign has pursued, The shedder of wine, or the shedder of blood?'

"I forget the rest of it. Poor Ned Nixon! It was he who made that song--he was afterwards bit in two by a shark, having tumbled overboard in the cool of the evening, one fine summer day, off Port Royal."

"Well, at all events," said Burke, continuing his narrative, "I thought I was a better-looking fellow than my rival, and was fretted at being sung down. I resolved to outstay him--and though he sate long enough, I, who was more at home, contrived to remain after him, but it was only to hear him extolled.

"'A very nice young man,' said Mrs Macnamara.

"'An extreme nice young man,' responded Miss Theodosia.

"'A perfect gentleman in his manners; he puts me quite in mind of my uncle, the late Jerry O'Regan,' observed Mrs Macnamara.

"'Quite the gentleman in every particular,' e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Miss Theodosia.

"'He has seen a great deal of the world for so young a man,' remarked Mrs Macnamara.

"'He has mixed in the best society, too,' cried Miss Theodosia.

"'It is a great advantage to a young man to travel,' quoth Mrs Macnamara.

"'And a very great disadvantage to a young man to be always sticking at home,' chimed in Miss Theodosia, looking at me; 'it shuts them out from all chances of the elegance which we have just seen displayed by Ensign Brady of the 48th Foot.'

"'For my part,' said I, 'I do not think him such an elegant fellow at all. Do you remember, Dosy Macnamara, how he looked when he got up out of the green puddle to-day?'

"'Mr Burke,' said she, 'that was an accident that might happen any man.

You were thrown yourself this day week, on clearing Jack Falvey's wall--so you need not reflect on Mr Brady.'

"'If I was,' said I, 'it was as fine a leap as ever was made; and I was on my mare in half a shake afterwards. Bob Buller of Ballythomas, or Jack Prendergast, or Fergus O'Connor, could not have it rode it better.

And you too'----

"'Well,' said she, 'I am not going to dispute with you. I am sleepy, and must get to bed.'

"'Do, poor chicken,' said Mrs Macnamara, soothingly, 'and, Bob, my dear, I wish it was in your power to go travel, and see the Booleries and the Tooleyvards, and the rest, and then you might be, in course of time, as genteel as Ensign Brady.'

"'Heigho!' said Miss Dosy, ejecting a sigh. 'Travel, Bob, travel.'

"'I will,' said I, at once, and left the house in the most abrupt manner, after consigning Ensign Brady to the particular attention of Tisiphone, Alecto, and Megaera, all compressed into one emphatic monosyllable.

CHAPTER IV.

HOW BOB BURKE, AFTER AN INTERVIEW WITH BARNEY PULVERTAFT, ASCERTAINED THAT HE WAS DESPERATELY IN LOVE WITH MISS THEODOSIA MACNAMARA.

"On leaving Dosy's lodgings, I began to consult the state of my heart.

Am I really, said I, so much in love, as to lose my temper if this prating ensign should carry off the lady? I was much puzzled to resolve the question. I walked up and down the Spa-Walk, whiffing a cigar, for a quarter of an hour, without being able to come to a decision. At last, just as the cigar was out, my eye caught a light in the window of Barney Pulvertaft, the attorney--old Six-and-Eightpence, as we used to call him. I knew he was the confidential agent of the Macnamaras; and as he had carried on sixteen lawsuits for my father, I thought I had a claim to learn something about the affairs of Miss Dosy. I understood she was an heiress, but had never, until now, thought of inquiring into the precise amount of her expectancies. Seeing that the old fellow was up, I determined to step over, and found him in the middle of law-papers, although it was then rather late, with a pot-bellied jug, of the bee-hive pattern, by his side, full of punch--or rather, I should say, half-full; for Six-and-Eightpence had not been idle. His snuff-coloured wig was c.o.c.ked on one side of his head--his old velveteen breeches open at the knee--his cravat off--his s.h.i.+rt unb.u.t.toned--his stockings half down his lean legs--his feet in a pair of worsted slippers. The old fellow was, in short, relaxed for the night, but he had his pen in his hand.

"'I am only filling copies of _capiases_, Bob,' said he; 'light and pleasant work, which does not distress one in an evening. There are a few of your friends booked here. What has brought you to me so late to-night?--but your father's son is always welcome. Ay, there were few men like your father--never stagged in a lawsuit in his life--saw it always out to the end--drove it from court to court;--if he was beat, why, so much the worse, but he never fretted--if he won, faith! he squeezed the opposite party well. Ay, he was a good-hearted, honest, straightforward man. I wish I had a hundred such clients. So here's his memory anyhow.'

"Six-and-Eightpence had a good right to give the toast, as what const.i.tuted the excellence of my father in his eyes had moved most of the good acres of Ballyburke out of the family into the hands of the lawyers; but from filial duty I complied with the attorney's request--the more readily, because I well knew, from long experience, that his skill in punch-making was unimpeachable. So we talked about my father's old lawsuits, and I got Barney into excellent humour, by letting him tell me of the great skill and infinite adroitness which he had displayed upon a multiplicity of occasions. It was not, however, until we were deep in the second jug, and Six-and-Eightpence was beginning to show symptoms of being _cut_, that I ventured to introduce the subject of my visit. I did it as cautiously as I could, but the old fellow soon found out my drift.

"'No,' hiccuped he--'Bob--'twont--'twont--do. Close as green--green wax.

Never te-tell profess-profess-professional secrets. Know her expec--hiccup--tances to a ten-ten-penny. So you are after--after--her?

Ah, Bo-bob! She'll be a ca-catch--but not a wo-word from me. No--never.

Bar-ney Pe-pulverfta-taft is game to the last. Never be-betrayed ye-your father. G.o.d rest his soul--he was a wo-worthy man.'

"On this recollection of the merits of my sainted sire, the attorney wept; and in spite of all his professional determinations, whether the potency of the fluid or the memory of the deceased acted upon him, I got at the facts. Dosy had not more than a couple of hundred pounds in the world--her mother's property was an annuity which expired with herself; but her uncle, by the father's side, Mick Macnamara of Kawleash, had an estate of at least five hundred a-year, which, in case of his dying without issue, was to come to her--besides a power of money saved; Mick being one who, to use the elegant phraseology of my friend the attorney, would skin a flea for the sake of selling the hide. All this money, ten thousand pounds, or something equally musical, would in all probability go to Miss Dosy--the 500 a-year was hers by entail. Now, as her uncle was eighty-four years old, unmarried, and in the last stage of the palsy, it was a thing as sure as the bank, that Miss Dosy was a very rich heiress indeed.

"'So--so,' said Six-and-Eightpence--'this--this--is strictly confiddle-confid-confiddledential. Do--do not say a word about it. I ought not to have to-told it--but, you do-dog, you wheedled it out of me. Da-dang it, I co-could not ref-refuse your father's son. You are ve-very like him--as I sa-saw him sitting many a ti-time in that cha-chair. But you nev-never will have his x.x.xX spu-s.p.u.n.k in a sho-shoot (suit). There, the lands of x.x.xx.x.xx.x.xXX Arry-arry-arry-bally-bally-be-beg-clock-clough-macde-de-duagh--confound the wo-word--of Arryballybegcloughmacduagh, the finest be-bog in the co-country--are ye-yours--but you haven't spu-s.p.u.n.k to go into Cha-chancery for it, like your worthy fa-father, Go-G.o.d rest his soul.

Blow out that se-second ca-candle, Bo-bob, for I hate waste.'

"'There's but one in the room, Barney,' said I.

"'You mean to say,' hiccuped he, 'that I am te-te-tipsy? Well, well, ye-young fe-fellows, well, I am their je-joke. However, as the je-jug is out, you must be je-jogging. Early to bed, and early to rise, is the way to be----. However, le-lend me your arm up the sta-stairs, for they are very slip-slippery to-night.'

"I conducted the attorney to his bedchamber, and safely stowed him into bed, while he kept stammering forth praises on my worthy father, and up-braiding me with want of s.p.u.n.k in not carrying on a Chancery suit begun by him some twelve years before, for a couple of hundred acres of bog, the value of which would scarcely have amounted to the price of the parchment expended on it. Having performed this duty, I proceeded homewards, labouring under a variety of sensations.

"How delicious is the feeling of love, when it first takes full possession of a youthful bosom! Before its balmy influence vanish all selfish thoughts--all grovelling notions. Pure and sublimated, the soul looks forward to objects beyond self, and merges all ideas of personal ident.i.ty in aspirations of the felicity to be derived from the being adored. A thrill of rapture pervades the breast--an intense but bland flame permeates every vein--throbs in every pulse. Oh, blissful period, brief in duration, but crowded with thoughts of happiness never to recur again! As I gained the Walk, the moon was high and bright in heaven, pouring a flood of mild light over the trees. The stars shone with sapphire l.u.s.tre in the cloudless sky--not a breeze disturbed the deep serene. I was alone. I thought of my love--of what else could I think?

What I had just heard had kindled my pa.s.sion for the divine Theodosia into a quenchless blaze. Yes, I exclaimed aloud, I _do_ love her. Such an angel does not exist on the earth. What charms! What innocence! What horsewomans.h.i.+p! Five hundred a-year certain! Ten thousand pounds in perspective! I'll repurchase the lands of Ballyburke--I'll rebuild the hunting-lodge in the Galtees--I'll keep a pack of hounds, and live a sporting life. Oh, dear, divine Theodosia, how I _do_ adore you! I'll shoot that Brady, and no mistake. How dare he interfere where my affections are so irrevocably fixed?