“You think if I had shot him I should have done nobody any harm? No, sir; I waited for his challenge, but it never came and the next time I met him he begged my pardon, and said, ‘Strong, I beg your pardon; you whopped me and you served me right.’ I shook hands: but I couldn’t live with him after that. I paid him what I owed him the night before,” said Strong with a blush, “I pawned everything to pay him, and then I went with my last ten florins, and had a shy at the roulette. If I had lost, I should have let him shoot me in the morning. I was weary of my life. By Jove, sir, isn’t it a shame that a man like me, who may have had a few bills out, but who never deserted a friend, or did an unfair action, shouldn’t be able to turn his hand to anything to get bread? I made a good night, sir, at roulette, and I’ve done with that. I’m going into the wine business. My wife’s relations live at Cadiz. I intend to bring over Spanish wine and hams; there’s a fortune to be made by it, sir,—a fortune—here’s my card. If you want any sherry or hams, recollect Ned Strong is your man.” And the Chevalier pulled out a handsome card, stating that Strong and Company, Shepherd’s Inn, were sole agents of the celebrated Diamond Manzanilla of the Duke of Garbanzos, Grandee of Spain of the First Class; and of the famous Toboso hams, fed on acorns only in the country of Don Quixote. “Come and taste ’em, sir,—come and try ’em at my chambers. You see, I’ve an eye to business, and by Jove this time I’ll succeed.”
Pen laughed as he took the card. “I don’t know whether I shall be allowed to go to bachelors’ parties,” he said. “You know I’m going to——”
“But you must have sherry, sir. You must have sherry.”
“I will have it from you, depend on it,” said the other. “And I think you are very well out of your other partnership. That worthy Altamont and his daughter correspond, I hear,” Pen added after a pause.
“Yes; she wrote him the longest rigmarole letters, that I used to read: the sly little devil; and he answered under cover to Mrs. Bonner. He was for carrying her off the first day or two, and nothing would content him but having back his child. But she didn’t want to come, as you may fancy; and he was not very eager about it.” Here the Chevalier burst out in a laugh. “Why, sir, do you know what was the cause of our quarrel and boxing match? There was a certain widow at Baden, a Madame la Baronne de la Cruche-cassee, who was not much better than himself, and whom the scoundrel wanted to marry; and would, but that I told her he was married already. I don’t think that she was much better than he was. I saw her on the pier at Boulogne the day I came to England.”
And now we have brought up our narrative to the point, whither the announcement in the Chatteris Champion had already conducted us.
It wanted but very, very few days before that blissful one when Foker should call Blanche his own; the Clavering folks had all pressed to see the most splendid new carriage in the whole world, which was standing in the coach-house at the Clavering Arms; and shown, in grateful return for drink, commonly, by Mr. Foker’s head-coachman. Madame Fribsby was occupied in making some lovely dresses for the tenants’ daughters, who were to figure as a sort of bridesmaids’ chorus at the breakfast and marriage ceremony. And immense festivities were to take place at the Park upon this delightful occasion.
“Yes, Mr. Huxter, yes; a happy tenantry, its country’s pride, will assemble in the baronial hall, where the beards will wag all. The ox shall be slain, and the cup they’ll drain; and the bells shall peal quite genteel; and my father-in-law, with the tear of sensibility bedewing his eye, shall bless us at his baronial porch. That shall be the order of proceedings, I think, Mr. Huxter; and I hope we shall see you and your lovely bride by her husband’s side; and what will you please to drink, sir? Mrs. Lightfoot, madam, you will give to my excellent friend and body-surgeon, Mr. Huxter, Mr. Samuel Huxter, M.R.C.S., every refreshment that your hostel affords, and place the festive amount to my account; and Mr. Lightfoot, sir, what will you take? though you’ve had enough already, I think; yes, ha.”
So spoke Harry Foker in the bar of the Clavering Arms. He had apartments at that hotel, and had gathered a circle of friends round him there. He treated all to drink who came. He was hail-fellow with every man. He was so happy! He danced round Madame Fribsby, Mrs. Lightfoot’s great ally, as she sate pensive in the bar. He consoled Mrs. Lightfoot, who had already begun to have causes of matrimonial disquiet; for the truth must be told, that young Lightfoot, having now the full command of the cellar, had none over his own unbridled desires, and was tippling and tipsy from morning till night. And a piteous sight it was for his fond wife to behold the big youth reeling about the yard and coffee-room, or drinking with the farmers and tradesmen his own neat wines and carefully selected stock of spirits.
When he could find time, Mr. Morgan the butler came from the Park, and took a glass at the expense of the landlord of the Clavering Arms. He watched poor Lightfoot’s tipsy vagaries with savage sneers. Mrs. Lightfoot felt always doubly uncomfortable when her unhappy spouse was under his comrade’s eye. But a few months married, and to think he had got to this! Madame Fribsby could feel for her. Madame Fribsby could tell her stories of men every bit as bad. She had had her own woes too, and her sad experience of men. So it is that nobody seems happy altogether; and that there’s bitters, as Mr. Foker remarked, in the cup of every man’s life. And yet there did not seem to be any in his, the honest young fellow! It was brimming over with happiness and good-humour.