“Oh, of course not,” returned Frere viciously. “Patent double-actioned, high-pressure, sky-blue revolvers, made to look every way at once, see through mill-stones, and peep round the corner into the bargain, they are, no doubt; but if she could use them to no better purpose than to lure out, at the risk of his life, a foolish boy that ought to have had more sense—but it’s a mere waste of words talking to you,” he continued, catching a smile on Lewis’s features; “and here have I gone and ruined my other shirt, and this one is at the wash—psha! I mean to say, ruined my other wash—that is, washed my other ruin—hang me if I know what I mean to say—only if you’re not the worse for this—bother the boy, how absurdly happy he’s looking! So it’s all right between you, eh! Lewis? Well, Heaven knows, you have suffered enough to deserve that it should be so, my poor fellow, and though you must have been mad to go out, and I ought to be very angry with you, yet, as it has ended, and always supposing it does not do you any harm, why I am heartily glad you did it;” and so saying, Frere, whose feelings, and the heat together, were decidedly too many for him, made a precipitate retreat into the bedroom, where, for the present, we will leave him.
CHAPTER LXVIII.—LEWIS OUT-GENERALS THE GENERAL, AND THE TRAIN STOPS.
Lewis’s recovery was not retarded by his imprudent visit to the Palazzo Grassini; and Frere had the satisfaction, ere many weeks elapsed, of perceiving that he was strong enough to render their return to England practicable. Accordingly, the “Giaour” pictures and the sketch of Annie and Faust were carefully packed (Lewis having determined to retain them as mementos of the eventful portion of his career which led to their execution), old Antonelli received a present of money sufficient to enable him to carry out the darling wish of his heart—viz., to bestow upon his son the education of a painter; and Lewis and Frere, having wound up their affairs in Venice, quitted that city, which, filled with a rabble of revolutionary demagogues and their dupes, had become no longer a desirable place of residence. The friends reached England without any adventures worthy of record; and Rose was compensated for many a weary hour of anxiety and suspense by her joy in welcoming her brother, and learning from his lips the unmitigated satisfaction with which he had heard of her engagement to Richard Frere; and how that “glorious fellow” had redoubled all his former obligations to him by his sound advice and tender and judicious nursing. If for a moment Frere could have regretted the part he had played, the loving smile of warm approval with which Rose received him would have compensated him for any far greater expenditure of time and trouble. But Lewis had much to tell, which gave rise to very different emotions in his auditor; and Rose, as she grieved for the untimely fate of poor Jane Hardy, and shuddered at the awful retribution which had overtaken her betrayer, breathed a silent thanksgiving that her brother had been restrained from any deed of violence, to which his impetuous disposition, keen sensibilities, and quick sense of injury might have impelled him. Lewis had also something to hear as well as to communicate.
Mrs. Arundel, in her spirit of opposition to the artless and bereaved relict of the late Colonel Brahmin, had carried her flirtation with that victim of literary ambition, Dackerel Dace, Esq., to such a pitch, that when the blighted barrister determined to resign his destiny altogether in favour of matrimony, and made her an offer of his limp hand, flabby heart, and five thousand a year to give piquancy and flavour to the tasteless and insipid “trifle” he tendered for her acceptance, that volatile matron felt that she had committed herself too deeply to retract, and that, setting off the money against the man, the bargain after all might not be such a bad one, and so said “Yes.” Rose disliked the match greatly, and fearing Lewis would do so still more strongly, ventured upon a mild remonstrance; but when once she had taken a thing into her head, Mrs. Arundel was very determined, and Rose gained nothing but an intimation, half earnest, half playful, that as she (Mrs. Arundel) had not interfered with her daughter when she chose to engage herself to Ursa Major, she expected the same forbearance (and she emphasised the vile pun most unmistakably) to be exercised towards her and her odd fish, by which nickname she irreverently paraphrased the ichthyological appellation of her “future.”
Lewis, as Rose had feared, was both hurt and annoyed at this fresh and convincing proof of his mother’s volatile and worldly nature, but there was nothing in the connection to justify his taking measures to break off the match; Mrs. Arundel was perfectly free to do as she pleased, and competent to decide her own course in life; so after one conversation with her on the subject, the nature of which may be gathered from the result, he left the affair to take its own course. His first step on reaching London was to seek an interview with his legal adviser; their conference proving satisfactory, eventuated (to use an affected but expressive word) in sending for a patent cab, wherein Lewis ensconced himself, in company with a small lawyer and a large blue bag, and the trio drove to Park Crescent.
The feelings with which Lewis once again stood within the library of General Grant’s mansion—that library where he had first been engaged to act as poor Walter’s tutor—the chamber into which he and Annie had been shown on the night when he had rescued her from insult in the crush-room of the opera—the night of the unhappy Mellerton’s suicide—may well be imagined. Then he had been poor, friendless, in the situation of a dependant, and made to feel that situation, alike by the open insults of Lord Bellefield and the frigid courtesy of the General and Miss Livingstone, his youth, his inexperience, sensitive disposition, and proud, impassioned nature rendering all these trials doubly galling to him; while, still more to embitter his lot, came that “sorrow’s crown of sorrow,” his hopeless attachment to Annie. Now heir to an ancient and honourable name and an ample fortune, his affection returned by her he loved, his rival swept from his path without his having to reproach himself with participation in the act which wrought his downfall, his mind strengthened, his principles raised, and his faults diminished, if not eradicated, by the struggle he had undergone, and above all, his soul fortified by the recollection that, through God’s grace, he had been enabled, at the turning-point of his career, to sacrifice everything rather than sin against his Maker’s law, how different was his position! He received a moderately cordial welcome from General Grant, which tepid reception was occasioned by a conflict in the mind of that noble commander, between his strong regard for Lewis, a sense of the obligations he lay under to him, and an uncomfortable recollection of his attachment to Annie, together with the moral impossibility of allowing his daughter to marry a man whose present income consisted of the savings of an ex-tutorship, and whose prospects embraced the doubtful gainings of a professional artist; Lewis perceived his embarrassment, and rightly conjectured its cause, which it was the object of his visit to remove. But General Grant’s cold imperturbability had caused him so much annoyance in bygone hours, that a slight spice of what the French term esprit malin actuated him, and under its influence he began, after a few desultory remarks—
“It may possibly not have escaped your mind, General, that during a conversation I had the honour to hold with you before I finally quitted Broadhurst, I mentioned to you my devoted attachment to Miss Grant.”
The General bowed in token of assent, but the cloud upon his brow grew darker. Not heeding this, Lewis continued—