CHAPTER XXXVII.—A CONCESSION, AND A “PARTIE QUARRÉE.”
The question we left Kate Crane considering in the last chapter she decided thus:—
“I should like to visit Mrs. Leonard,” she said slowly. “I feel the truth of all you urge—but there are difficulties in the way; Mr. Crane would greatly disapprove of such a proceeding on my part.”
“He need never know it,” suggested D’Almayne, in a voice little above a whisper.
“He need not,” returned Kate, calmly, “but I have since my marriage made it a point of conscience never to do anything which I should object to Mr. Crane’s hearing of; I still consider the rule a good one, and am disinclined to break through it.”
“Does not your sensitive conscience,” rejoined D’Almayne, “lead you to refine rather too much, until, adhering to the form of goodness, you in a great degree lose the substance, and thus, by a chivalrous scruple of never disobeying your husband, miss an opportunity of doing real good, by which you would neutralise the injury which Mr. Crane’s peculiarities may otherwise inflict upon this unfortunate family? I think, if you reflect on this for a minute, your excellent sense will convince you that your amiable but romantic scruple is fallacious.”
Kate did reflect, and apparently her convictions assumed the shape D’Almayne had predicted, for she replied in a less assured voice than that in which she had formerly addressed him—
“Mr. D’Almayne, you have spoken more honestly and openly to-day than you have ever done before, and I will treat you with equal frankness. You were acquainted with Mr. Crane before I had ever heard his name; you appear to know him well; you have alluded generally to his good points, and have pointed out his weak ones with equal talent and perspicuity. I neither admit nor deny your statements—but, in the individual instance before us, I believe that you are right. You have been very kind in this matter; you first introduced this poor Mrs. Leonard to my notice; you have since taken much disinterested trouble on her account; you possess great tact, and have divined the happiness it affords me to assist those who, from misfortune and poverty, have fallen from the rank of gentlewomen;—therefore, in this matter, I feel you have a claim to work with me; for the first time, therefore, I will repose confidence in you. I wish to visit this poor lady—how am I to accomplish it without my husband’s knowledge?”
Horace D’Almayne had won his point, Horace D’Almayne was happy! yet he did not clap his hands, neither did he hurrah wildly, nor dance a lively measure around Kate Crane, whom he believed he had circumvented in a different manner; but he forced his imperturbable countenance into an expression of philanthropic benevolence and gratitude, and arranged with Mrs. Crane a plan by which, during her husband’s daily worship in the temple of Mammon his god—an edifice more familiarly known in the good city of London as the Stock Exchange—she should visit unfortunate Mrs. Leonard, and witness with her own eyes how justly the prince of this world (who is identical with the monarch of a lower kingdom still) distributes his subjects’ property.
About this time all the members of this disunited party assembled, and jointly and severally ended their day’s enjoyment (?) by returning home tired, dejected, and suffering more or less from that ailment which defies those guinea-pigs, “the faculty”—an ailment as rife in St. James’s as are cholera and smallpox within the precincts of St. Giles’s—an ailment which, thanks to those bitter curses, the forms, ceremonies, requirements, and prejudices of society, afflicts and hangs heavily on many an honest man and loving woman—an ailment indigenous even in our glorious constitution, and which has as many aliases as shapes, the spleen, ennui, but truest name of all, the Heart-ache!
“Ogni Medaglia ha il suo reverso,” there is no rule without its exception! Horace D’Almayne was the exception to this particular rule—he was not troubled with heart-ache, because, in the metaphysical sense of the word, he did not possess a heart; but nature had made it up to him by giving him a very clear head, and thus it reasoned:—
“Yes, my pretty Kate, tout va bien; you have grown civil, almost kind—not yet affectionate, but that is to come. Yet she is clever; doubts, suspects me!—what children women are, even clever women; once appeal to their feelings, their impulses—bah! their reason lies captive before you—they are puppets in your hand. Ah! c’est bien drôle cette petite existence ici bas! for the rest, all goes well; the beautiful Kate shall compromise herself—the millionaire shall open wider his purse strings—the bank wins for me—the little Alfred plays my game—courage, Horace! thy star is in the ascendant, you will die a rich man yet!”
The morning after the Horticultural Fête, Coverdale suggested to his wife that they had, in his opinion, spent sufficient time and money in the gay metropolis, and that agricultural and manorial duties called him to the country forthwith; but Alice pleaded so earnestly for only one week more of dissipation, with Lady Tattersall Trottemout’s soirée dansante at the end of it, that Harry could not find it in his heart to refuse her. Scarcely had he yielded the point, when a letter arrived from Tom Rattleworth, Magistrate, and Master of Fox-hounds, to inform him that, owing to the baneful influence of a certain grand seigneur in the neighbourhood, it was proposed to enclose a common and turn a road, which would destroy a favourite fox cover, and give Coverdale half-a-mile further to drive to the nearest railway-station—that the matter was to be decided at the next meeting of Magistrates—that he (Thomas) had striven tooth and nail to get up an opposition, in which he had been tolerably successful, and that he considered it only required Coverdale’s presence to prevent the evil altogether. Thus urged, Harry had but one course to pursue, viz., commend his wife to Mrs. Crane’s safe custody, and start for Coverdale Park forthwith, promising to return in time for “Lady Tat. Trott.‘s benefit,” as he was pleased to term it. Alice at first opposed his going, but when she found the question resolved itself into one of these alternatives, either that she must let him go alone, or give up her ball and accompany him, her opposition ceased. So Harry packed his carpet-bag and departed—and the hours rolled by on their patent noiseless wheels, until the time appointed for that notable solemnity, Lady Tattersall Trottemout’s soirée dansante, arrived.
On that day Lord Alfred Courtland invited to a quiet dinner, at his comfortable bachelor lodgings, Horace D’Almayne, Monsieur Guillemard, and a youth who, because he was in every particular Lord Alfred’s exact opposite, was an especial crony of his.
Jack Beaupeep, ætatis twenty-five, was a clerk in a public office with a salary of £150 per annum, on which, by means of his talents, he contrived to live at the rate of——anything under a thousand. As, however, we shall not have very much to do with him in the course of this history, we will spare the reader further details by summing up his character in the two expressive words, “fast” and “funny.” Everybody knows a fast, funny man; and his was a bad case of the complaint. At a quarter to eight, P.M., on the day in question, this excellent young buffoon of private life betook himself to Lord Alfred’s lodgings, and finding himself first in the field, looked around with a practised eye for the best means of turning the situation to comic effect. First he perceived a valuable statuette of Venus, as she appeared before the discovery of the art of dress-making, for which his innate sense of propriety led him to improvise a petticoat, by means of a doyley and a small portion of the red tape of old England, purloined from her Britannic Majesty’s stores that morning, and secreted by the delinquent for any possible exigencies of practical jesting. Having attired this young lady to his satisfaction, he obligingly bestowed on her a real Havannah cigar, which, thrust through an opening left by the sculptor in her clenched hand, with the end resting against her ambrosial lips, resembled a speaking-trumpet, and gave her that “ship-ahoy!” kind of appearance with which early engravers were pleased to endow Fame. He then wrote and watered on the pedestal of the statuette thus embellished a label, bearing the inscription, “Eugénie, Empress of the French,” murmuring to himself, “Delicate little compliment to the illustrious foreigner who is coming.” Next he availed himself of a pair of boxing-gloves; “unearthing,” as he termed it, the rolls inserted in two of the dinner napkins, and substituting for them these elementary instructors in the noble art of self-defence; and, lastly, espying the cruet-stand, he had just time to reverse the contents of the pepper and sugar casters, and confuse all the sauces, when to him entered Lord Alfred Courtland.
This young nobleman’s appearance had considerably changed since first we had the pleasure of describing him. By abstruse study, and unflagging attention to the sayings and doings of men-about-town, he had acquired many noble attributes—he could lounge and dawdle, and walk with a pert yet lazy roll in his gait, as of a tipsy dancing-master, or of a cock-sparrow afflicted with sciatica; he could lisp as though his very tongue was too about-town-ish to speak plain, unadulterated English; he could make play with his eyes half shut, like a timid girl, or stare with them offensively wide open, like an insolent coxcomb, though he was not quite perfect in this last manœuvre as yet. Also, his clothes were large and loose enough for himself and half another man-about-town besides; and he had a bunch of baby’s toys, modelled in gold, dangling from his watch-chain—Lilliputian house furniture, and a gun, and a sword, and a pistol to match, and a little man in armour with impossible features, accompanied by a horrid little skull of the same after his decease, with two of his little golden marrow-bones crossed under it, as if they were saying their prayers; there was likewise a ridiculous fish, which wagged its tail, and a fox’s mask, as it is “knowing” to term the physiognomy of that astute quadrupedal martyr; the whole to conclude with a limp and jointed Punchinello, or Tomfool, as a pendant (in every sense of the word) to the fool of larger growth who wore these childish absurdities. Thus attired and adorned, Lord Alfred Courtland withdrew one white hand from a pocket of his liberal trousers, and, laying it on Beaupeep’s shoulder, with a want of energy, general lassitude, and fish-out-of-water-ishness of manner, which did him infinite credit, drawled forth—
“Ah! my dear fellar! this is very good of you, to come at such short notice!”
“Not at all, not at all,” was the brisk reply, for Beaupeep did not go in for, or revere, the all-to-pieces style, but rather made it a theme for playful jesting; “when I got your invite, I just scribbled off a line to Palmerston to say I’d dine with him to-morrow instead of to-day.”
Lord Alfred quietly raised his eyebrows, while, nothing abashed, Beaupeep continued—
“It’s very jolly to be on those terms with a man like ‘Pam.,’ and I consider it quite sufficient recompense for my unwearying devotion to my public duties.”
“It really won’t do with me, my dear Jack,” interrupted Lord Alfred, in a tone of affectionate remonstrance; “reflect how long we’ve known each other!”
“By the way,” recommenced Jack, ignoring the interruptional rebuke, “talking of ‘Pam.’ puts me in mind of the Foreign Office, which, not unnaturally, leads to the inquiry of who may be the illustrious ‘Mossoo’ who is to make our fourth to-day?”
“Monsieur Guillemard! oh, he is a very gentlemanly and intelligent Frenchman, and a particular friend of Horace D’Almayne’s.”
“But what is he?” continued Beaupeep, pertinaciously; “is he a noble political exile, or a perruquier from the Palais Royal, who can’t meet his liabilities? does he gain a frugal living by imparting a knowledge of his native tongue in six lessons, at half-a-crown each? or——”
“Hush! here he is,” interrupted Lord Alfred, as a smart rat-tat-tat at the house-door announced an arrival; “he has something to do with the funds, and the financial interests, and the Rothschilds, and all that mysterious pounds, shillings, and pence business, in regard to which I have, I am afraid, no clearly defined ideas.”
“Except to spend ’em first, and make your governor shell-out afterwards, you lucky beggar you!” was the plainly audible aside, as the servant announced Monsieur Guillemard and Mr. D’Almayne.
After the ceremony of introducing the volatile Jack to the new comers had been performed, that individual immediately attached himself, and devoted his conversation to Monsieur Guillemard, whom he persisted in addressing as “Mossoo le Comte,” and whom he seemed to imagine just caught in some very foreign country indeed, and ignorant of the simplest English manners and customs; a delusion to which that gentleman’s limited acquaintance with Bindley Murray’s, or, indeed, any other British grammar, lent some slight colouring.
“I think I observed, Mossoo le Comte, that you came in a Hansom cab?” remarked Jack.
“Yers, we promenaded in a ver handsome carb, a handsome hors also; you shall drive some much more handsome hors in your street than with us,” was the reply.
“The native British cab is a great and noble product of the liberal institutions of this free and happy land,” returned Jack, oratorically; “if an Englishman chooses to walk, an enlightened legislature not only allows him to do so, but provides him with a granite pavement to walk upon; if he chooses to ride, the legislature has a cab awaiting his slightest wink—a mere contraction of the eyelid, Mossoo le Comte, obtains for the wearied Englishman a luxurious vehicle, a swift and steady horse, and a skilful driver, prepared to convey him one mile in any conceivable direction, for the trifling outlay of sixpence sterling.”
“With the advantage of studying the patois of Billingsgate in for the money, when the cabman returns thanks for his fare,” added D’Almayne.
Jack Beaupeep favoured him with a glance of inquiry which, if it had been framed in words, would have run thus—“Are you a knave or a fool?” Apparently deciding in favour of the former hypothesis, he resumed—
“The additional attraction to which you so perspicuously allude, my dear sir, involves yet another striking peculiarity—viz., this driver, who so carefully conducts you through the crowded thoroughfares of our colossal metropolis, is no servile hireling, no parasitical serf to crouch at your feet, but a man, sir—a freeborn Briton—with as much vested right in ‘Rule Britannia’ as yourself. Sir! when a dissatisfied cabman alludes to my eyes and limbs, I open widely those aspersed optics, proudly draw up those vituperated limbs, and rejoice that he and I are fellow-countrymen!”
“My dear Jack, we’re not upon the hustings; we have none of us the slightest intention of coming in for anywhere; and dinner has been served for the last five minutes,” suggested his host, mildly.
Favouring him with a melodramatic scowl, which, at “Sadler’s Wells” or the “Victoria,” would, in theatrical parlance, have “brought down the house,” Jack exclaimed—
“Is it thus a haughty aristocracy strives to trample on the honest poor man! it is not well in ye, my lord, and before an illustrious foreigner, too; alas, my country!”—then perceiving that Guillemard was regarding him with a glance which evinced extreme doubts as to his sanity, that D’Almayne was looking supercilious, and Lord Alfred annoyed at his absurdity, Jack experienced the proud conviction that he had attained his object—viz., to astonish, confuse, and discomfit everybody. Having done so, he dropped the heroic, and condescended to make himself agreeable after the fashion of ordinary mortals, which, as he was really clever and well-informed, he succeeded in doing to a degree that, in great measure, effaced his previous misconduct from the recollection of his associates. He prefaced his reformation, however, by contriving to seat Guillemard by one of the boxing-gloved napkins, a manœuvre which elicited from that perplexed foreigner the exclamation, “Mais que diable! vot shall zies be?” and a reproving “Jack, you idiot, how can you!” from Lord Alfred, who was equally amused and scandalised at his friend’s absurdities. But a Frenchman’s tact is seldom long at fault; and by the time Guillemard had extricated the boxing-glove from its envelope, he continued—
“Ah, je comprends, I apprehend! Monsieur Jacques Pipbo! il est gai, il est farceur, he vos play vot you call von practicable joke, n’est-ce-pas, Milor?—bien comique! ver fonney, ha! ha!”
So, harmony being established, they ate, drank, and were merry; Champagne, Moselle, Rhine wines, French wines, wines with names we know but cannot pronounce, wines with names we do not know and could not spell if we did, were produced, and done justice to, during dinner and dessert; and then they quietly settled down to Claret at 80s. the dozen, which tasted best, as they agreed, out of tumblers; Fribourg’s finest cigars also made their appearance and were not neglected; and for some time these four lords of the creation enjoyed life undisturbed. But Frenchmen seldom sit long over their wine. D’Almayne had too many schemes, which required a cool head to carry them out, to venture to inflame his brain with the juice of the grape; and by ten o’clock Lord Alfred proposed a hand at piquet, to while away an hour or so, until it should be time to adjourn to Lady Tattersall Trottemout’s ball, to which Mentor and his pupil were invited; so Guillemard and his host began to play, Jack Beaupeep and his companion watching them, and betting half-crowns on the varying chances of the game. At first, fortune seemed inclined to befriend Lord Alfred, for he won three times consecutively; and Jack, who, as he observed, was resolved “to back the thorough-bred colt,” realised capital to the amount of seven-and-sixpence.
“Ah! bah! Horace, mon cher! you shall bet wis me contre moi-même! I cannot play for a so little stake, he does not agree wis me!” exclaimed Monsieur Guillemard, tossing down the cards pettishly.
“Let us double them, Monsieur,” began Lord Alfred, eagerly; “I was just going to propose it when you spoke; nothing is more ennuyant than playing for inadequate stakes.”
“Mais oui! you have reason, my Lord. Horace, mon ami, mix me de Veau sucrée wis a Ouinam Laque ice in him; I have thirst; he makes hot this evening.”
“Not a bad idea, only I’ve a better one,” rejoined Lord Alfred; “brew some Sherry-cobbler, Jack; ring the bell, and order the materials: it’s your deal, Monsieur Guillemard.”
Sherry-cobbler is not a safe thing to play piquet upon, especially when your opponent confines himself to eau sucrée. Lord Alfred lost, grew excited, doubled the stakes again and lost, trebled them and won, then played on recklessly against a run of ill-luck, until D’Almayne interfered.
“It is twelve o’clock, Alfred, mon cher; we shall be late for Lady Tatt.‘s.”
“——Lady Tatt.!” was the uncomplimentary reply; “I shall not go.”
D’Almayne leaned over him, and observing in a whisper, “You forget la belle Alice is expecting you,” drew the cards from his reluctant hand.
Rising sulkily, Lord Alfred walked with a slightly unsteady step to a writing-table, took pen and ink, and hastily tracing a few words, handed the paper to Monsieur Guillemard—it was a cheque for £500!
“Ring for the brougham, D’Almayne,” he continued; “Monsieur Guillemard, you must give me my revenge at an early opportunity; good night, Jack;” then turning away with a laugh, as he perceived that youthful legislator, who had “gone in” for Sherry-cobbler rather too zealously, fast asleep on the sofa, he retired to his dressing-room to remove, as far as he was able, the outward effects of wine and excitement.
As he quitted the apartment, D’Almayne, after a hasty glance at the “used up” Jack, drew Guillemard aside, and speaking French, said in an eager whisper, “You are much too precipitate, and will ruin everything; what could persuade you to win so large a sum from him at one sitting?”
“You conceive it that I am too impressed! Regarde! One gave to me this billet at the dinner-table,” was the reply.
Hastily snatching it, D’Almayne read as follows:—
“—— Street, Eleven, p.m.
“Prince Ratrapski, the Russian nobleman, has been playing deeply; has had a run of unparalleled luck, and broken the bank; unless you can come by £500 immediately, there will be an unpleasant exposure, and D’Almayne and yourself will be, before morning, the tenants of a debtor’s prison, with
“Your devoted,
“Le Roux.”