The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn Part 96

"Pace!" said Desborough, in his affected Irish accent; "be on this house, and all in it. The top of the morning to ye all."

"Now," said Alice, "we are going to have some fun; Captain Desborough has got his brogue on."

"Ye'll have some fun directly, Miss Brentwood," he said. "But there's some serious, sober earnest to come first. My cousin, Slievedonad, is dead."

"Lord Slievedonad?"

"The same. That small Viscount is at this moment in pur----. G.o.d forgive me, and him too."

"Poor fellow!"

"That's just half. My uncle Lord Covetown was taken with a fit when he heard of it, and is gone after him, and the Lord forgive him too. He turned me, his own brother's son, out into the world with half an education, to sink or swim; and never a kind word did he or his son ever give me in their lives. It must have broken the old man's heart to think how the estate would go. But as I said before, G.o.d forgive him."

"You must feel his loss, Captain Desborough," said Alice. "I am very sorry for you."

"Ahem! my dear young lady, you don't seem to know how this ends."

"Why, no," said Alice, looking up wonderingly; "I do not."

"Why, it ends in this," said Desborough; "that I myself am Earl of Covetown, Viscount Slievedonad, and Baron Avoca, with twenty thousand a year, me darlin, the laste penny; see to there now."

"Brogue again," said Alice. "Are you joking?"

"True enough," said Desborough. "I had a letter from my grandmother, the Dowager (she that lost the dog), only this very day. And there's a thousand pounds paid into the Bank of New South Wales to my account.

Pretty good proof that last, eh?"

"My dear Lord," said Alice, "I congratulate you most heartily. All the world are turning out to be n.o.blemen. I should not be surprised to find that I am a d.u.c.h.ess myself."

"It rests with you, Miss Brentwood," said Desborough, with a wicked glance at Sam, "to be a countess. I now formally make you an offer of me hand and heart. Oh! tell me, Miss Brentwood, will ye be Mrs. Mars--I beg pardon, Countess of Covetown?"

"No, I thank you, my lord," said Alice, laughing and blus.h.i.+ng. "I am afraid I must decline."

"I was afraid ye would," said Lord Covetown. "I had heard that a great six-foot villain had been trifling with your affections, so I came prepared for a refusal. Came prepared with this, Miss Brentwood, which I pray you to accept; shall I be too bold if I say, as a wedding present, from one of your most sincere admirers."

He produced a jewel case, and took from it a bracelet, at the sight of which Alice gave an honest womanly cry of delight. And well she might, for the bauble cost 150L. It was a bracelet of gold, representing a snake. Half-way up the reptile's back began a row of sapphires, getting larger towards the neck, each of which was surrounded by small emeralds. The back of the head contained a n.o.ble brilliant, and the eyes were two rubies. Altogether, a thorough specimen of Irish extravagance and good taste.

"Can you clasp it on for her, Sam?" said Lord Covetown.

"Oh, my Lord, I ought not to accept such a princely present!" said Alice.

"Look here, Miss Brentwood," said Covetown, laying his hand on Sam's shoulder. "I find that the n.o.blest and best fellow I know is going to marry the handsomest woman, saving your presence, that I ever saw. I myself have just come into an earldom, and twenty thousand a-year; and if, under these circ.u.mstances, I mayn't make that woman a handsome present, why then the deuce is in it, you know. Sam, my boy, your hand.

Jim, your hand, my lad. May you be as good a soldier as your father."

"Ah!" said Jim. "So you're an earl are you? What does it feel like, eh?

Do you feel the blue blood of a hundred sires coursing in your veins?

Do you feel the hereditary cla.s.s prejudices of the Norman aristocracy cutting you off from the sympathies of the inferior cla.s.ses, and raising you above the hopes and fears of the ma.s.ses? How very comical it must be! So you are going to sit among the big-wigs in the House of Lords. I hope you won't forget yourself, and cry 'Faug a Ballagh,' when one of the bishops rises to speak. And whatever you do, don't sing 'Gama crem'ah cruiskeen' in the lobby."

"My dear fellow," said he, "I am not in the House of Lords at all. Only an Irish peer. I intend to get into the Commons though, and produce a sensation by introducing the Australian 'Co'ee' into the seat of British legislature."

How long these four would have gone on talking unutterable nonsense, no man can say. But Frank Maberly coming in, greeted them courteously, and changed the conversation.

Poor Frank! Hard and incessant work was beginning to tell on that n.o.ble frame, and the hard marked features were getting more hard and marked year by year. Yet, in spite of the deep lines that now furrowed that kindly face, those who knew it best, said that it grew more beautiful than it had ever been before. As that magnificent PHYSIQUE began to fail, the n.o.ble soul within began to show clearer through its earthly tenement. That n.o.ble soul, which was getting purified and ready for what happened but a few years after this in Patagonia. When we heard that that man had earned the crown of glory, and had been thought worthy to sit beside Stephen and Paul in the Kingdom, none of us wept for him, or mourned. It seemed such a fitting reward for such a pure and n.o.ble life. But even now, when I wake in the night, I see him before me as he was described in the last scene by the only survivor.

Felled down upon the sand, with his arms before his eyes, crying out, as the spears struck him, one after another, "Lord, forgive them, they know not what they do!"

Chapter XLVI

IN WHICH SAM MEETS WITH A SERIOUS ACCIDENT, AND GETS CRIPPLED FOR LIFE.

What morning is this, when Sam, waking from silver dreams to a golden reality, turns over in his bed and looks out of the open gla.s.s door; at dog Rover, propped up against the lintel, chopping at the early flies; at the flower-garden, dark and dewy; at the black wall of forest beyond, in which the magpies were beginning to pipe cheerily; at the blessed dawn which was behind and above it, shooting long rays of primrose and crimson half-way up the zenith; hearing the sleepy ceaseless crawling of the river over the s.h.i.+ngle bars; hearing the booming of the cattle-herds far over the plain; hearing the chirrup of the gra.s.shopper among the raspberries, the chirr of the cicada among the wattles--what happy morning is this? Is it the Sabbath?

Ah, no! the Sabbath was yesterday. This is his wedding morn.

My dear brother bachelor, do you remember those old first-love sensations, or have you got too old, and too fat? Do you remember the night when you parted from her on the bridge by the lock, the night before her father wrote to you and forbade you the house? Have you got the rose she gave you there? Is it in your Bible, brother? Do you remember the months that followed--months of mad grief and wild yearning, till the yearning grew less--less wild--and the grief less desperate; and then, worst of all, the degrading consciousness that you were, in spite of yourself, getting rid of your love, and that she was not to you as she had been? Do you remember all this? When you come across the rose in your Bible, do you feel that you would give all the honour and wealth of the world to feel again those happy, wretched, old sensations? Do you not say that this world has nothing to give in comparison to that?

Not this world, I believe. You and I can never feel that again. So let us make up our minds to it--it is dead. In G.o.d's name don't let us try to galvanize an old corpse, which may rise upon us hideous, and scare us to the lower pit. Let us be content as we are. Let us read that Book we spoke of just now with the rose in it, and imitate the Perfect Man there spoken of, who was crucified 1800 years ago, believing, like Him, that all men are our brothers, and acting up to it. And then, Lord knows what may be in store for us.

Here's a digression. If I had had a good wife to keep me in order, I never should have gone so far out of the road. Here is Sam in bed, sitting up, with his happy head upon his hands, trying to believe that this dream of love is going to be realized--trying to believe that it is really his wedding morn.

It evidently is; so he gets out of bed and says his prayers like an honest gentleman--he very often forgot to do this same, but he did it this morning carefully--much I am afraid as a kind of charm or incantation, till he came to the Lord's Prayer itself, and then his whole happy soul wedded itself to the eternal words, and he arose calm and happy, and went down to bathe.

Happy, I said. Was he really happy? He ought to have been; for every wish he had in this life was fulfilled. And yet, when Jim, and he, and Halbert, were walking, towel in hand down the garden, they held this conversation:--

"Sam, my dear old brother, at last," said Jim, "are you happy?"

"I ought to be, Jim," said Sam; "but I'm in the most confounded fright, sir."--They generally are in a fright, when they are going to be married, those Benedicts. What the deuce are they afraid of?

Our dear Jim was in anything but an enviable frame of mind. He had found out several things which did not at all conduce to his happiness; he had found out that it was one thing to propose going to India, or No-man'sland, and cutting off every tie and a.s.sociation which he had in the world; and that it was quite another thing to do that same. He had found out that it was one thing to leave his sister in the keeping of his friend Sam, and another to part from her probably for ever; and, last of all, he had found out, ever since his father had put his arm round his neck and kissed him, that night we know of, that he loved that father beyond all men in this world. It was a new discovery; he had never known it till he found he had got to part with him. And now, when he woke in the night, our old merry-hearted Jim sat up in bed, and wept; aye, and no shame to him for it, when he thought of that handsome, calm, bronzed face tearless and quiet there, over the fortifications and the mathematics, when he was far away.

"He will never say a word, Sam," said Jim, as they were walking down to bathe this very morning of the wedding; "but he'll think the more. Sam, I am afraid I have done a selfish thing in going; but if I were to draw back now, I should never be the same to him again. He couldn't stand that. But I am sorry I ever thought of it."

"I don't know, Jim," said Halbert, pulling off his trowsers, "I really don't know of any act of parliament pa.s.sed in favour of the Brentwood family, exempting them from the ordinary evils of humanity. Do you think now, that when John Nokes, aged nineteen, goes into market at Cambridge, or elsewhere, and 'lists, and never goes home again; do you think, I say, that that lad don't feel a very strange emptiness about the epigastric region when he thinks of the grey-headed old man, that is sitting waiting for him at the cottage-door? And," added Halbert, standing on the plunging-stage Adamically, without a rag upon him, pointing at Jim with his finger in an oratorical manner; "do you think that the old man who sits there, year after year, waiting for him who never comes, and telling the neighbours that his lad who is gone for a sodger, was the finest lad in the village, do you think that old man feels nothing? Give up fine feelings, Jim. You don't know what trouble is yet."

And so he went souse into the water.

And after the bathe all came up and dressed;--white trowsers and brilliant ties being the order of the day. Then we all, from the bachelor side of the house, a.s.sembled in the verandah, for the ceremony was not to be performed till eight, and it was not more than halfpast seven. There was the promise of a very awkward half hour, so I was glad of a diversion caused by my appearing in a blue coat with gilt b.u.t.tons, and pockets in the tails,--a coat I had not brought out for twenty years, but as good as new, I give you my honour. Jim was very funny about that coat, and I encouraged him by defending it, and so we got through ten minutes, and kept Sam amused. Then one of the grooms, a lad I mentioned before as bringing a note to Baroona on one occasion, a long brown-faced lad, born of London parents in the colony, made a diversion by coming round to look at us. He admired us very much, but my gilt b.u.t.tons took his attention princ.i.p.ally. He guessed they must have cost a matter of twenty pound, but on my telling him that the whole affair was bought for three pounds, he asked, I remember:--

"What are they made on, then?"

Bra.s.s I supposed, and gilt. So he left me in disgust, and took up with Jim's trowsers, wanting to know "if they was canvas."

"Satin velvet," Jim said; and then the Major came out and beckoned us into the drawing-room.

And there she was, between Mrs. Buckley and Mary Hawker, dressed all in white, looking as beautiful as morning. Frank Maberly stood beside a little table, which the women had made into an altar, with the big Prayer-book in his hand. And we all stood around, and the servants thronged in, and Sam, taking Alice's hand, went up and stood before Frank Maberly.