Pelham Part 17

"'Now do you know me?--thou shouldst be Alonzo.'"

I did not require the faculty of sight to recognize Lord Vincent. "My dear fellow," said I, "I am rejoiced to see you!" and thereupon I poured into his ear the particulars of my morning adventure. Lord Vincent listened to me with much apparent interest, and spoke very unaffectedly of his readiness to serve me, and his regret at the occasion.

"Pooh." said I, "a duel in France, is not like one in England; the former is a matter of course; a trifle of common occurrence; one makes an engagement to fight, in the same breath as an engagement to dine; but the latter is a thing of state and solemnity--long faces--early rising--and willmaking. But do get this business over as soon as you can, that we may dine at the Rocher afterwards."

"Well, my dear Pelham," said Vincent, "I cannot refuse you my services; and as I suppose Monsieur D'Azimart will choose swords, I venture to augur everything from your skill in that species of weapon. It is the first time I have ever interfered in affairs of this nature, but I hope to get well through the present,

"'n.o.bilis ornatur lauro collega secundo,'

as Juvenal says: au revoir," and away went Lord Vincent, half forgetting all his late anxiety for my life, in his paternal pleasure for the delivery of his quotation.

Vincent is the only punster I ever knew with a good heart. No action to that race in general is so serious an occupation as the play upon words; and the remorseless habit of murdering a phrase, renders them perfectly obdurate to the simple death of a friend. I walked through every variety the straight paths of the Tuileries could afford, and was beginning to get exceedingly tired, when Lord Vincent returned. He looked very grave, and I saw at once that he was come to particularize the circ.u.mstances of the last extreme. "The Bois de Boulogne--pistols--in one hour," were the three leading features of his detail.

"Pistols!" said I; "well, be it so. I would rather have had swords, for the young man's sake as much as my own: but thirteen paces and a steady aim will settle the business as soon. We will try a bottle of the chambertin to-day, Vincent." The punster smiled faintly, and for once in his life made no reply. We walked gravely and soberly to my lodgings for the pistols, and then proceeded to the engagement as silently as Christians should do.

The Frenchman and his second were on the ground first. I saw that the former was pale and agitated, not, I think, from fear, but pa.s.sion. When we took our ground, Vincent came to me, and said, in a low tone, "For G.o.d's sake, suffer me to accommodate this, if possible?"

"It is not in our power," said I, receiving the pistol. I looked steadily at D'Azimart, and took my aim. His pistol, owing, I suppose, to the trembling of his hand, went off a moment sooner than he had antic.i.p.ated--the ball grazed my hat. My aim was more successful--I struck him in the shoulder--the exact place I had intended. He staggered a few paces, but did not fall.

We hastened towards him--his cheek a.s.sumed a still more livid hue as I approached; he muttered some half-formed curses between his teeth, and turned from me to his second.

"You will inquire whether Monsieur D'Azimart is satisfied," said I to Vincent, and retired to a short distance.

"His second," said Vincent, (after a brief conference with that person,) "replies to my question, that Monsieur D'Azimart's wound has left him, for the present, no alternative." Upon this answer I took Vincent's arm, and we returned forthwith to my carriage.

"I congratulate you most sincerely on the event of this duel," said Vincent. "Monsieur de M--(D'Azimart's second) informed me, when I waited on him, that your antagonist was one of the most celebrated pistol shots in Paris, and that a lady with whom he had been long in love, made the death of the chain-bearer the price of her favours. Devilish lucky for you, my good fellow, that his hand trembled so; but I did not know you were so good a shot."

"Why," I answered, "I am not what is vulgarly termed 'a crack shot'--I cannot split a bullet on a penknife; but I am sure of a target somewhat smaller than a man: and my hand is as certain in the field as it is in the practice-yard."

"Le sentiment de nos forces les augmente," replied Vincent. "Shall I tell the coachman to drive to the Rocher?"

CHAPTER XXIX.

Here's a kind host, that makes the invitation, To your own cost to his fort bon collation.--Wycherly's Gent. Dancing Master.

Vous pouvez bien juger que je n'aurai pas grande peine a me consoler d'une chose donc je me suis deja console tant de fois.--Lettres de Boileau.

As I was walking home with Vincent from the Rue Mont-orgueil, I saw, on entering the Rue St. Honore, two figures before us; the tall and n.o.ble stature of the one I could not for a moment mistake. They stopped at the door of an hotel, which opened in that noiseless manner so peculiar to the Conciergerie of France. I was at the porte the moment they disappeared, but not before I had caught a glance of the dark locks and pale countenance of Warburton--my eye fell upon the number of the hotel.

"Surely," said I, "I have been in that house before."

"Likely enough," growled Vincent, who was gloriously drunk. "It is a house of two-fold utility--you may play with cards, or coquet with women, selon votre gout."

At these words I remembered the hotel and its inmates immediately. It belonged to an old n.o.bleman, who, though on the brink of the grave, was still grasping at the good things on the margin. He lived with a pretty and clever woman, who bore the name and honours of his wife. They kept up two salons, one pour le pet.i.t souper, and the other pour le pet.i.t jeu. You saw much ecarte and more love-making, and lost your heart and your money with equal facility. In a word, the marquis and his jolie pet.i.te femme were a wise and prosperous couple, who made the best of their lives, and lived decently and honourably upon other people.

"Allons, Pelham," cried Vincent, as I was still standing at the door in deliberation; "how much longer will you keep me to congeal in this 'eager and nipping air'--'Quamdiu nostram patientiam abutere Catilina.'"

"Let us enter," said I. "I have the run of the house, and we may find--"

"'Some young vices--some fair iniquities'" interrupted Vincent, with a hiccup--

"'Leade on good fellowe,' quoth Robin Hood, Lead on, I do bid thee.'"

And with these words, the door opened in obedience to my rap, and we mounted to the marquis's tenement au premiere.

The room was pretty full--the soi-disante marquise was flitting from table to table--betting at each, and coquetting with all; and the marquis himself, with a moist eye and a shaking hand, was affecting the Don Juan with the various Elviras and Annas with which his salon was crowded. Vincent was trying to follow me through the crowd, but his confused vision and unsteady footing led him from one entanglement to another, till he was quite unable to proceed. A tall, corpulent Frenchman, six foot by five, was leaning, (a great and weighty objection,) just before him, utterly occupied in the vicissitudes of an ecarte table, and unconscious of Vincent's repeated efforts, first on one side, and then on the other, to pa.s.s him.

At last, the perplexed wit, getting more irascible as he grew more bewildered, suddenly seized the vast inc.u.mbrance by the arm, and said to him in a sharp, querulous tone, "Pray, Monsieur, why are you like the lote tree in Mahomet's Seventh Heaven?"

"Sir!" cried the astonished Frenchman.

"Because," (continued Vincent, answering his own enigma)--"because, beyond you there is no pa.s.sing!"

The Frenchman (one of that race who always forgive any thing for a bon mot) smiled, bowed, and drew himself aside. Vincent steered by, and, joining me, hiccuped out, "In rebus adversis opponite pectora fortia."

Meanwhile I had looked round the room for the objects of my pursuit: to my great surprise I could not perceive them; they may be in the other room, thought I, and to the other room I went; the supper was laid out, and an old bonne was quietly helping herself to some sweetmeat. All other human beings (if, indeed, an old woman can be called a human being) were, however, invisible, and I remained perfectly bewildered as to the non-appearance of Warburton and his companion. I entered the Salle a Jouer once more--I looked round in every corner--I examined every face--but in vain; and with a feeling of disappointment very disproportioned to my loss, I took Vincent's arm, and we withdrew.

The next morning I spent with Madame D'Anville. A Frenchwoman easily consoles herself for the loss of a lover--she converts him into a friend, and thinks herself (nor is she much deceived) benefited by the exchange. We talked of our grief in maxims, and bade each other adieu in ant.i.theses. Ah! it is a pleasant thing to drink with Alcidonis (in Marmontel's Tale) of the rose-coloured phial--to sport with the fancy, not to brood over the pa.s.sion of youth. There is a time when the heart, from very tenderness, runs over, and (so much do our virtues as well as vices flow from our pa.s.sions) there is, perhaps, rather hope than anxiety for the future in that excess. Then, if Pleasure errs, it errs through heedlessness, not design; and Love, wandering over flowers, "proffers honey, but bears not a sting." Ah! happy time! in the lines of one who can so well translate feeling into words--

"Fate has not darkened thee; Hope has not made The blossoms expand it but opens to fade; Nothing is known of those wearing fears Which will shadow the light of our after years."--The Improvisatrice.

Pardon this digression--not much, it must be confessed, in my ordinary strain--but let me, dear reader, very seriously advise thee not to judge of me yet. When thou hast got to the end of my book, if thou dost condemn it or its hero--why "I will let thee alone (as honest Dogberry advises) till thou art sober; and, if thou make me not, then, the better answer, thou art not the man I took thee for."

VOLUME III.

CHAPTER x.x.x.

It must be confessed, that flattery comes mighty easily to one's mouth in the presence of royalty.--Letters of Stephen Montague.

'Tis he.--How came he thence--what doth he here?--Lara.

I had received for that evening (my last at Paris) an invitation from the d.u.c.h.esse de B----. I knew that the party was to be small, and that very few besides the royal family would compose it. I had owed the honour of this invitation to my intimacy with the----s, the great friends of the d.u.c.h.esse, and I promised myself some pleasure in the engagement.

There were but eight or nine persons present when I entered the royal chamber. The most distingue of these I recognized immediately as the--.

He came forward with much grace as I approached, and expressed his pleasure at seeing me.

"You were presented, I think, about a month ago," added the--, with a smile of singular fascination; "I remember it well."

I bowed low to this compliment.