“Jump out, sir. You’ve only ten minutes; that’s the second bell. There’s some of them in the drawing-room already,” cried Falvey, as he flung my portmanteau to a solemn-looking domestic, who gazed at me as though he were engaged in a deep mental calculation as to the length of my coffin and the exact quantity of linen necessary for the formation of a shroud. Following this grim apparition across a low-ceiled, wainscoted hall, in which a billiard-table of the present contrasted strangely with oaken furniture of the sixteenth century, and up an old oak staircase decorated with battered corselets, deeply-dented morions, halberds, matchlocks, steel gloves, and broadswords, along a wainscoted passage as dark as Erebus, and up a spiral stone staircase the ascent of which took all the breath out of my body, I was finally deposited in a little stone chamber in one of the towers of the Castle.
“Your keys, please, sir,” demanded my janitor.
“Oh! never mind; thanks; I’ll get out my things myself.” I feared the penetrating gaze of this man. I shuddered as I thought of the frayed linings and the inked seams.
“Very good, sir,” uttered like a parting benediction; and with a bow which plainly said, “We shall never meet at this side of the grave again,” the dread apparition vanished. The old saying, “More haste, less speed,” never exemplified itself more unhappily than in my case. With the thoughts of the last gong ringing through my brain, I vainly endeavored to open my portmanteau. My keys had got mixed up, and, as they were nearly all of a size, I had to travel round the entire ring before I could manage to induce one to enter the keyhole. Then, when I came to turn it, it got blocked and wouldn’t move either backwards or forwards. I withdrew it, whistled it, probed it with my breast-pin, tugged and strained until my backbone ached again, but without effect. What was I to do? Break it open. But how? I possessed no implements. Perceiving a bronze figure poised upon one leg on the chimney-piece, I resolved upon utilizing the outstretched limb of the harlequin, and, having inserted it in the ring of the key, I finally, to my unspeakable delight, succeeded in detaching the bolt.
Throwing open the portmanteau, I plunged my hand into the corner where I had deposited my brushes, but found that they must have shifted during the journey. I tried the other corner, with similar success. I then probed and groped in the lower compartment. Here was a pretty go. I must have forgotten to pack them, although I could have sworn not only to their having been packed, but as to the precise spot in which I had deposited them. Mechanically I drew forth my linen and laid it on the bed, in order to mount my studs.
I was somewhat astonished to find that the breast was most elaborately adorned with floriated needlework.
Some mistake of the laundress. I detest worked shirt-fronts, which are only worn by cads and shoddy lords, so I picked out another. If number one was embroidered, number two was done in fresco, and, in addition to the vast tumuli of birds, beasts, fishes, and flowers, an edging of lace played a prominent part. What could this mean? Surely I put up my own time-honored linen myself, and here were bosom decorations fit for a fop of the year 1815. Hastily turning out the contents of the portmanteau upon the floor, in order to realize my own property, what were my sensations in discovering that this pile of snowy drapery did not contain one single article of male apparel!
The truth flashed across me now in all its appalling reality: Heavens and earth! I had taken the young widow’s portmanteau for my own.
I do not know what the exact sensation of fainting comes to, but this I do know: that if I did not faint, I went within a pip of it. A cold perspiration burst out all over me, and I felt as if I was on board the Dover and Calais boat and about to call the steward. How could I appear to the assembled company? With what ridicule would I be overwhelmed when the true state of the case came to light! And then what would she think? She would write me down an ass—a donkey unfit to be allowed to wander from a thistle-grove. Her key would open my leathern “conveniency,” and the ghastly condition of my wardrobe would be laid bare, whilst I had profaned the sanctity of—but it was too dreadful to contemplate. How could I meet her? How could I look into that beautiful face again? How was I to recover my wandering wardrobe? My whole stock of clothes, save those I wore, were now in the possession of another, whilst in exchange I had received a commodity of no value to me whatever. On the contrary, my prize was worse than valueless—it was contraband.
Bang-ang-ang-ang-oong-ang! went the gong.