OUR HONEYMOON.
TUESDAY—MAY 28, 18—,
Shall I ever forget the day? As it comes round—if I'm spared for fifty years—I'm sure I shall always feel a chill, a pang at the thoughts of it. That dear, foolish creature, Fred! As if being shot could make it any better! And then the thought—the horrid thought would press itself—piercing like a dagger—to be sent into weeds in one's very Honeymoon!
Of course, the whole house was raised. When Josephine heard me scream, and came to the bedroom door, and found it locked, and couldn't make me sensible to open it—for I'd the key in my hand, and so had dropt it on the floor when I fell myself in a swoon—
Of course, when Josephine could make nobody hear, she very soon raised the house, and there were chambermaids and waiters at the door, and they were breaking it open, when I came enough to myself to prevent it!
"It's all right, Ma'am," said Josephine. "Master's safe: not a whit the worse, depend on't."
"Safe! Are you sure?"—
"Certain, Ma'am. 'Cause the landlord has given information to the constables, and no doubt on it, he says, they'll all be in custody afore they can shoot one another."
"Shoot!" Well—- for the moment—I did hate the creature as she spoke the word; speaking it with all the coolness in life—death, I might say.
I hastily slipped something on: went into our room. Had up the landlord, the landlady; and it really was wonderful—gave me for the time quite a shock at human nature—to see how little they were moved—in fact not moved at all—by my wretchedness, my downright misery. "Oh," I thought, every other minute, "if I once get him home again!" And then the next moment, some horrid sight would come before me—and no one, no one to help or advise me. Yes. The landlady counselled me to have a cup of tea, and the landlord advised me to make myself comfortable. "Things o' the sort"—he said—"never come to nothing, now-a-days. Besides, he'd given the word to the constables—and I might make myself easy they'd all be locked up in a jiffy."
"Could he tell me"—I asked—"the most likely road to take?"
"Why, no," he said, "some folks took one, some another. Some liked the cliffs, some the Devil's Dyke; but as he'd sent all ways, why, again he assured me, I had nothing to do but to make myself comfortable."
And even as the horrid man said this, his more dreadful wife—not but what the woman meant well; only I couldn't abide her for her composure at such a time—the woman came to me stirring a cup of tea with, as she said, just a spoonful of brandy in it to settle my spirits.
What a thought! I to take tea with brandy in it, and Frederick perhaps at that moment—
Josephine—I'll do the girl so much justice at last—was running to and fro, upstairs and downstairs—and putting the house, from one end to the other, in a ferment. At last the landlady desired her to be quiet, and not go about making noise enough to tear people out of their beds. If all the world was gone out to be shot, that was no reason why their house should be ruined!
Well, I won't attempt to describe the two hours I suffered! How, sometimes, I thought I'd have a horse and go galloping anywhere, everywhere.
"It's all over, Ma'am!"—cried Josephine, running in.
"Over!" and I saw death in the girl's face.
"Over, Ma'am. They fired two shots, Ma'am—two a-piece—they say, and"—
"Yes—yes"—
"And master"—
"Killed!"—I screamed.
"No, Ma'am! Quite the reverse!"—
(How I thanked the girl for the words, though where could she have picked 'em up?)
"He has not killed his—I mean the—other gentleman?"—
"No, Ma'am, totally the contrary. Nobody's hit—not so much as winged, though what that means I can't say—only I heard one of the men say as much. But all of 'em in custody."
"What now? Why, what for?—"
"Why, Ma'am, as I hear, for every one of the gentlemen to be bound over to keep his peace for the rest of his born days! And la! bless me—how ill you turn, Ma'am, and when it's all over?"
"Not at all, Josephine. I'm very well, now: very well, indeed," and then rose my determination. Yes, I'd go home that very day. "Josephine, pack up as much as you can. Your master shall go home, I'll take care of that directly."
"That's right, Ma'am. Now you've got him safe and sound once more, you couldn't do better, Ma'am. And for Mr. Truepenny"—
Well, his very name set me in a flame. "Mr. Truepenny! He never crosses my threshold! A very pretty friend indeed, to come and lure a man—a newly-married man"—
"Not married a month yet, quite, Ma'am," said Josephine, "which makes it hard."—
"And take him out, I may say, in cold blood"—
"Which makes it ten times wickeder," said Josephine.
"And butcher him like a lamb," said I.
"Exactly like a lamb, Ma'am," cried the girl. "Only there is this difference, Ma'am: you know master isn't a bit hurt."
"That has nothing to do with it. He might have been killed, and what would Mr. Truepenny have cared? No! I might have been left a wretched widow!"
"And much Mr. Truepenny would have helped you then, Ma'am," said the good girl.
"No, he never crosses the Flitch—never: and that I shall tell your master. The foolish, dear fellow! How I will scold him."
"Do, Ma'am; he deserves it all. To go fighting and—and after all, do you know for a certainty what he went fighting about?"—
"Folly, madness, of course," said I. "Jealous of"—
"Well, I thought so!" cried Josephine, with a strange knowing look. "I thought as much. Jealous, and of you, too, above all folks! And in your Honeymoon, too. Well, I'm sure; as if there wasn't time enough for that!"
"I don't mean to say jealous; not of me—of course not. But the fact is, he fired up at a rudeness, a liberty that"—
"You don't say so, Ma'am!" cried the girl. "La, and if you please, how was that?"
"Why, it was all folly—all nonsense—and he ought to have known better; but—there was a little flower-girl on the beach. What's the matter, Josephine?" for I saw the creature look suddenly confused.
"Nothing, Ma'am—only I—I once saw that girl—a gipsey-girl, Ma'am—with flowers, Ma'am; yes, to be sure."
"Then you know her?" I asked.
"Can't say I know. Because one should hardly lower oneself to know a creature of that sort. Only once, and perhaps twice, I've had a nosegay of her."
"Well, she would give a nosegay to me," said I.
"Just like 'em, Ma'am," replied Josephine.
"Yes. She ran to me, and put a nosegay in my hand. And in that nosegay, what, Josephine—(and I watched her narrowly as I further questioned)—what do you think there was?"
"Law! Who can answer for the gipsies," cried Josephine.
"Well, then, there was a letter—a love-letter; and that letter finding its way to your master's hand"—
"Oh, Ma'am! Do forgive me! Pray forgive me! I couldn't help it; but I see it all now. The gentleman would write—that letter was not for you!"—
"No? For whom then?"—
"If you please, Ma'am, and you'll not be angry, that letter"—said the bold creature—"that letter was for me!"—
"For you! And here has nearly been murder done—here has your master"—
But at the moment Fred ran into the room, and I was in his arms.
