Guy Livingstone Part 9

"It serves you right," interposed Guy, "for speaking to a man on his shot. Don't you remember quarreling with me the other day for doing so, Charley?"

Charley's face of perplexity and disgust was irresistible. We all laughed. "What a _guignon_ I have," he said. "Mr. Raymond, I believe you were in the robbery."

"Not I," was the answer. "I was as much surprised as any one. I think,"

he went on, lowering his tone, "Guy is right; he changed his aim, as you spoke, involuntarily, or he _must_ have missed."

Then we turned homeward through the twilight.

I do not know if the reminiscence of his lost "pony" was rankling in Forrester's mind, or if he was only affected by the presence of Sir Henry Fallowfield--an immoral Upas, under whose shadow the most flouris.h.i.+ng of good resolutions were apt to wither and die; but certainly, after dinner, he broke through the cautious reserve which he had always in public maintained toward Miss Raymond since Bruce's arrival. He not only talked to her incessantly, but tempted her to sing with him, during which performance they seemed rapidly lapsing into the old confidential style.

Bruce sat apart, the shades on his rugged face gradually deepening from sullenness into ferocity. He looked quite wolfish at last, for it was a habit he had to show his white teeth more when he was savage than when he smiled. But the music went on its way rejoicing,

"Unconscious of their doom, The little victims played."

Isabel was too happy, and Charley too careless to be prudent. Once I caught his glance as it crossed with Bruce's scowl. There was an expression on his pleasant face that few men had ever seen there, approaching nearly to an insolent defiance. Looking at those two, a child might have known that between them there was bitter hate.

But what of that? Are not the laws of society and the amenities of civilized life supreme over such trifles as personal animosities? How many women are there who never meet without mingling in a close embrace, when each is to the other a Brinvilliers in heart? My gentle cousin Kate, only last night I saw you greet your intimate enemy. It was the moat gus.h.i.+ng thing I ever imagined. The kisses were profuse and tantalizing in the extreme; yet I wish, if thoughts could kill, dearest Emma's neck would have been safer in the hug of a Norway bear than in the clasp of your white willowy arms.

Are there not men, sitting constantly at each other's tables, who, in the Golden Age, when people spoke and acted as they felt, would only have encountered at the sword's point?

If we hear that our mortal foe is ruined irretrievably, we betray no indecorous exultation, but smile complacently and say, "We are not surprised;" or, if we have the chance, give him a last push to send him over the precipice on whose brink he is staggering. But as for any violent demonstration--bah! the _Vendetta_ is going out of fas.h.i.+on, even in Corsica, nowadays; only on the boards of the "Princess's" does it have a run.

It is better so. Is it not far more creditable and less ridiculous for two of our reverend seniors, between whom there exists a deadly feud, to comport themselves with decent reserve toward each other, than to go vaporing about on crutches, stamping the foot that is not gouty, and blaspheming in a weak, cracked treble, like Capulet and Montague? Hot rooms and cold draughts are dangerous, but not so fatal as the Aqua Tofana, and other pleasant beverages more revolting and rapid in their effects. Could any thing be more harrowing to a well regulated mind than to see, in the midst of a neatly-turned compliment, one's partner literally _look black_ at one, and expire incontinently in great torments?

It is less romantic, but I prefer to be given an unmedicated rose. When I win a pair of gloves, it is a satisfaction to me to reflect that in Houbigant or Pivert there is no venom or guile.

All these consoling thoughts, and more, pa.s.sed through my mind that evening; yet I could not get rid of a strange, indistinct impression that it was only the presence of Livingstone which averted some great danger imminent over his cousin and Forrester.

CHAPTER XIII.

"This is all The gain we reap, from all the wisdom sown Through ages. Nothing doubted those first sons Of time; while we, the schooled of centuries, Nothing believe--"

We were scattered round the smoking-room, about midnight, in different att.i.tudes of repose. Bruce was of the party, decidedly out of his element. He did not like tobacco much, and only took a cigar as a sacrifice to the exigencies of the occasion, consuming the same with great toil and exertion of the lungs, and when he removed it from his lips, holding it at arm's length, like a viper or other venomous beast.

"Charley," asked Fallowfield, at length, from the depths of his divan, "how is the regiment going on? Insolvent as ever?"

"More so," was the reply. "When I came away they were thinking of framing a 5 note, and hanging it up in the ante-room, to show that we had _some_ money--just like the man who pitched loaves over the city-walls when they were dying of famine--but there was a difficulty about procuring one. However, we have been promised the son of an opulent brewer or distiller (I forget which, but I know he makes something to drink), who is to join before Easter. Perhaps he may set us afloat again."

"Yes," Guy remarked; "fortunately, a martial spirit is abroad in the Third Estate. _Walbrook s'en va t'en guerre_. If there is one moneyed man in the lot, it seems sufficient to keep the others going. I often wonder how you manage; for, to do you justice, you don't plunder your Croesus. You deserve statues--as Sydney Smith would have said--_aeris alieni_."

"I am not the rose, but I have lived with her," responded Forrester, sententiously. "That's the principle of the thing. When a subaltern arrives laden with gold, the barrack-yard is a perfect garden of Bendemeer to the tradesmen."

"I believe it is precisely such regiments," remarked Bruce, "that the political economists have in view when they attack the army estimates."

The observation was aggressive; but Charley's countenance was unruffled as the Dead Sea as he answered, "Personal, but correct. You are intimate with Joseph Hume, probably? You look as if you were." (These last words were a stage aside, not quite so inaudible as could be wished.) "I think we should fight, if we had a chance, though."

His lip wore a curious smile, and he raised himself on his arm to look the last speaker full in the face.

"Of course you would," broke in Sir Henry; "that's not a peculiarity of crack regiments or second sons. It's only in their baptism of fire that the young ones shrink and start; after that, the meekest of men develop themselves wonderfully. I heard an old Indian, the other day, speak of a case in point.

"There was an officer in his service, mild and stupid to a degree. He had been a b.u.t.t all his life; bullied at school, at Addis...o...b.., and in his corps worst of all.

"They were attacking a hill-fort, and the fire from wall-pieces and matchlocks was so heavy that the storming-party would not face it. Among those who retreated were two of his superior officers and chief tormentors. The junior lieutenant saw them cowering away to seek shelter, and laughed out loud; then he flung his shako before him into the fort, and led the sepoys back to the charge, and right over the breastwork--bareheaded and cheering. He was shot down inside, and lived only a few hours, all the time in horrible agony; but Western told us that Bayard or Sidney could have made no braver or calmer ending."

"You are right," Livingstone said. "The Roundheads fought fully as well as the Cavaliers. I only know of two instances where the thoroughbreds had the advantage of a contrast. One was when the Scottish regiment took the island in the Rhine; the other was the exploit of the _Gants Glaces_. Don't you know it? It's worth hearing.

"They were attacking some town in the wars of the Fronde. The breach was scarcely practicable, and the best of the besieging army had recoiled from it with great loss. The Black Mousquetaires stood by in all the coquetry of scarf, and plume, and fringed scented gloves, laughing louder at each repulse of the Linesmen. The soldiers heard them and gnashed their teeth. At last there was a murmur, and then a shout--_'En avant les Gants Glaces!'_ They wanted to see 'the swells' beaten too.

Then the Household Brigade went up and carried the breach, leaving a third of their number on it. The general in command made the whole army defile past their _guidon_, and salute it with sloped standards.

"No; very few men are physical cowards in battle, whatever they may be across country. I don't believe Paris was, when he ran from Menelaus; and Helen did not think so, though she teased him about it, or she would never have spoken to him again. I rather imagine his feeling was that of a certain Guardsman of our acquaintance, who said, declining the ordeal of combat, that 'his first duty was to his partners, and this did not allow him to risk a black eye.'"

"Might not remorse at the sight of the man he had injured have had something to do with his flight?" Bruce asked.

He was full of moral sentiments--that man; only you could not look at him without fancying that they sprung more from an inclination to be contradictious and disagreeable than from any depth of principle.

"Absurd," Guy retorted. "Wasn't he a heathen, and rather an immoral one?

It was of profligates with far greater advantages of education that some one said, '_'Le remords nait de l'abandon, et non de la faute_.' The walls of Troy were strong then, and the Destroyer-of-s.h.i.+ps safe behind them, 'getting herself up alarmingly' for his return. No wonder Menelaus was eager for the duel: he was staking his loneliness against Paris's nine points of the law."

Sir Henry Fallowfield smiled approvingly.

"Yes," he observed, not answering what had been said, but evidently following out a train of his own thought. "Modern exquisites have courage, and self-possession, and conceit--great elements of success with women, I own--but they have not much more. I am certain Charley, who is a favorable specimen of the cla.s.s, often affects silence because he has nothing on earth to say. There is a decadence since my younger days (I hope I speak dispa.s.sionately), and how very far we fell short of the _roues_ of the Regence! We could no more match them than a fighting-man in good training could stand up to one of the old Pict giants. Look at Richelieu: good at all points--in the battle, in the boudoir, in the Bastille--a dangerous rival at the two ages of ordinary men's first and second childhood."

"He was a great man in his way," I a.s.sented. "Do you remember his answer to the d.u.c.h.esse de Maine, when she asked him, for a political purpose, if he could remain faithful for one week to an intrigue then twenty-four hours old? '_Madame, quand une fois j'embra.s.se un parti, je suis capable des plus grandes sacrifices pour le soutenir._' The object of that heroic constancy was the Marechale de Villars, one of the loveliest women in France. It was the sublime of fatuity--was it not?"

"Well, I don't know," said Charley, settling himself comfortably in his cus.h.i.+ons, and glancing almost imperceptibly at Bruce; "they seem to fancy us, notwithstanding. We have only one great obstacle--the mothers that _bore_ us."

Be it known that "they," used simply, stood in his vocabulary for the fair s.e.x in general.

"Nonsense," replied Fallowfield; "don't be so ungrateful. You don't know what you owe to those anxious parents. It helps you enormously, being the objects of perpetual warnings from husbands and chaperons, the first considering you _mauvais sujets_, the last _mauvais partis_; for you _are_ 'detrimentals,' for the most part, you will own."

"_Vet.i.tum ergo cupitum_," interrupted Livingstone. "A good many moralists before and since old Rabelais have discoursed on that text.

The Chief of Errington was probably much more agreeable, besides being a better match than Jock of Hazeldean, who clearly was what an old Frenchman lately described to me--'_un vaurien, mon cher, qui court les filles et qui n'a pas le son_.' But then poor Frank was the government candidate; so, of course, in a popular election, he went to the wall."

Sir Henry's face grew more pensive and grave as he said, "It is very hard on the women, certainly, that our race should have degenerated so, for I believe in my conscience they are as clever and wicked, and appreciate temptation as much as ever." (The gusto with which he said this is indescribable.) "There is the Bellasys, for instance, with a calculating sensuality, an astuteness of stratagem, an utter contempt of truth, and a general apt.i.tude for making fools of men, that poor Philip the Regent would have wors.h.i.+ped. When she had no one better to corrupt, I have seen her take in hand an older, sadder, wiser, uglier man than myself, and in three days bring him to the verge of insanity, so that he would scowl at his wife, his companion for forty years, the blameless mother of six grown-up children, with a hideous expression indicative of carving-knives and strychnine. Guy suits her best. His thews and sinews awe her a little sometimes; and he has a certain hardness of character and pitilessness of purpose, improved by my instructions, which will carry him far, but not far enough, I think. You're right not to look flattered" (Guy's face had moved no more than the marble Memnon's); "you are only a shade better than the rest. Our effete world is not worthy of that rare creature: she was born a century too late."

"I quite differ with you," Bruce said, in his harshest voice; "I am certain the great plurality of the women of our day would resist any temptation, from fear of the consequences, if not from principle."

Fancy the feelings of the Greek professor interrupted in his lecture by a controverting freshman, and you will have some idea of Fallowfield's.

His eye lighted on the last speaker, glittering like a hooded snake's, as it were caressing him with a lambent scorn.

I never guessed how much sneering provocation could reside in tones usually so very soft and musical till I heard him answer, "I suppose you _do_ differ with me. We probably both speak from experience. On one point you are scarcely practical, though. You think you can frighten a woman into propriety. Try it."

"Are you not too general in your strictures or encomiums?" I suggested, wis.h.i.+ng to relieve the awkwardness which ensued; "surely there are many instances to the contrary. Take Lady Clanronald, for instance, married to a man her elder by twenty years, and not very clever or agreeable, I should think. No one ever breathed a whisper against her, and it has not been through default of aspirants."