It happened that Mr. Barnes Newcome came to dine at Greenwich on the same day when our little party took place. He had come down to meet Rooster and one or two other noble friends whose names he took care to give us, cursing them at the same time for having thrown him over. Having missed his own company, Mr. Barnes condescended to join ours, Warrington gravely thanking him for the great honour which he conferred upon us by volunteering to take a place at our table. Barnes drank freely, and was good enough to resume his acquaintance with Monsieur de Florac, whom he perfectly well recollected at Baden, but had thought proper to forget on the one or two occasions when they had met in public since the Vicomte’s arrival in this country. There are few men who can drop and resume an acquaintance with such admirable self-possession as Barnes Newcome. When, over our dessert, by which time all tongues were unloosed and each man talked gaily, George Warrington feelingly thanked Barnes in a little mock speech, for his great kindness in noticing us, presenting him at the same time to Florac as the ornament of the City, the greatest banker of his age, the beloved kinsman of their friend Clive, who was always writing about him; Barnes said, with one of his accustomed curses, he did not know whether Mr. Warrington was “chaffing” him or not, and indeed could never make him out. Warrington replied that he never could make himself out: and if ever Mr. Barnes could, George would thank him for information on that subject.
Florac, like most Frenchmen very sober in his potations, left us for a while over ours, which were conducted after the more liberal English manner, and retired to smoke his cigar on the terrace. Barnes then freely uttered his sentiments regarding him, which were not more favourable than those which the young gentleman generally emitted respecting gentlemen whose backs were turned. He had known a little of Florac the year before at Baden: he had been mixed up with Kew in that confounded row in which Kew was hit; he was an adventurer, a pauper, a blackleg, a regular Greek; he had heard Florac was of old family, that was true; but what of that? He was only one of those d—— French counts; everybody was a count in France confound ’em! The claret was beastly—not fit for a gentleman to drink!—He swigged off a great bumper as he was making the remark: for Barnes Newcome abuses the men and things which he uses, and perhaps is better served than more grateful persons.
“Count!” cries Warrington, “what do you mean by talking about beggarly counts? Florac’s family is one of the noblest and most ancient in Europe. It is more ancient than your illustrious friend, the barber-surgeon; it was illustrious before the house, ay, or the pagoda of Kew was in existence.” And he went on to describe how Florac by the demise of his kinsman, was now actually Prince de Moncontour, though he did not choose to assume that title. Very likely the noble Gascon drink in which George had been indulging, imparted a certain warmth and eloquence to his descriptions of Florac’s good qualities, high birth, and considerable patrimony; Barnes looked quite amazed and scared at these announcements, then laughed and declared once more that Warrington was chaffing him.
“As sure as the Black Prince was lord of Acquitaine—as sure as the English were masters of Bordeaux—and why did we ever lose the country?” cries George, filling himself a bumper,—“every word I have said about Florac is true;” and Florac coming in at this juncture havin just finished his cigar, George turned round and made him a fine speech in the French language, in which he lauded his constancy and good-humour under evil fortune, paid him two or three more cordial compliments, and finished by drinking another great bumper to his good health.
Florac took a little wine, replied “with effusion” to the toast which his excellent, his noble friend had just carried. We rapped our glasses at the end of the speech. The landlord himself seemed deeply touched by it as he stood by with a fresh bottle. “It is good wine—it is honest wine—it is capital wine” says George, “and honni soit qui mal y pence! What business have you, you little beggar, to abuse it? My ancestor drank the wine and wore the motto round his leg long before a Newcome ever showed his pale face in Lombard Street.” George Warrington never bragged about his pedigree except under certain influences. I am inclined to think that on this occasion he really did find the claret very good.
“You don’t mean to say,” says Barnes, addressing Florac in French, on which he piqued himself, “que vous avez un tel manche à votre nom, et que vous ne l’usez pas?”
Florac shrugged his shoulders; he at first did not understand that familiar figure of English speech, or what was meant by “having a handle to your name.” “Moncontour cannot dine better than Florac,” he said. “Florac has two louis in his pocket, and Moncontour exactly forty shillings. Florac’s proprietor will ask Moncontour to-morrow for five weeks’ rent; and as for Florac’s friends, my dear, they will burst out laughing to Moncontour’s nose!” “How droll you English are!” this acute French observer afterwards said, laughing, and recalling the incident. Did you not see how that little Barnes, as soon as he knew my title of Prince, changed his manner and became all respect towards me? This, indeed, Monsieur de Florac’s two friends remarked with no little amusement. Barnes began quite well to remember their pleasant days at Baden, and talked of their acquaintance there: Barnes offered the Prince the vacant seat in his brougham, and was ready to set him down anywhere that he wished in town.
“Bah!” says Florac; “we came by the steamer, and I prefer the péniboat.” But the hospitable Barnes, nevertheless, called upon Florac the next day. And now having partially explained how the Prince de Moncontour was present at Mr. Barnes Newcome’s wedding, let us show how it was that Barnes’s first-cousin, the Earl of Kew, did not attend that ceremony.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
Returns to Lord Kew
We do not propose to describe at length or with precision the circumstances of the duel which ended so unfortunately for young Lord Kew. The meeting was inevitable: after the public acts and insult of the morning, the maddened Frenchman went to it convinced that his antagonist had wilfully outraged him, eager to show his bravery upon the body of an Englishman, and as proud as if he had been going into actual war. That commandment, the sixth in our decalogue, which forbids the doing of murder, and the injunction which directly follows on the same table, have been repealed by a very great number of Frenchmen for many years past; and to take the neighbour’s wife, and his life subsequently, has not been an uncommon practice with the politest people in the world. Castillonnes had no idea but that he was going to the field of honour; stood with an undaunted scowl before his enemy’s pistol; and discharged his own and brought down his opponent with a grim satisfaction, and a comfortable conviction afterwards that he had acted en galant homme. “It was well for this milor that he fell at the first shot, my dear,” the exemplary young Frenchman remarked; “a second might have been yet more fatal to him; ordinarily I am sure of my coup, and you conceive that in an affair so grave it was absolutely necessary that one or other should remain on the ground.” Nay, should M. de Kew recover from his wound, it was M. de Castillonnes’ intention to propose a second encounter between himself and that nobleman. It had been Lord Kew’s determination never to fire upon his opponent, a confession which he made not to his second, poor scared Lord Rooster, who bore the young Earl to Kehl, but to some of his nearest relatives, who happened fortunately to be not far from him when he received his wound, and who came with all the eagerness of love to watch by his bedside.