AMANTIUM IRÆ
"Curse my jacket," says the drunken fellow, "if this is not the first
time I have kissed a wife in the presence of her husband."
"It shall be the last, sir," I hiccoughed furiously.
"What words are these to use before a lady?" says Mr. Fielding, amiably
measuring out glasses of wine for the three of us. "If I were not the
most easy man in the world, I vow and protest it should be coffee and
pistols at five."
"By God, sir, it shall be whatever you are," says I, holding on by the
table. "I swear I will pup--punish you for this."
"Well, as you are determined to pup--punish me," says he, "here is
another glass of Tommie's claret, another hair of the dog that bit you,
to confirm you in that meritorious resolve."
As he laughingly offered me the glass of wine, Cynthia came forward and
took it from him. But instead of giving it to me, she flung both the
wine and the glass in his face. Whereon he stood with the claret
dripping from his features, and the blood too where the broken glass
had cut his forehead, so that he made the very picture of his own
Parson Adams, when he was assailed in a similar way by the hostess of
the inn with the pan of hog's blood.
Poor Cynthia stood white and trembling, but she never once looked at me
for counsel or countenance. The tears were in her eyes too, but she
never uttered so much as a word of reproach, although I am sure her
misery was very great. I never felt such a mean villain and coward in
my life as I did then.
"Come," says she, "let us leave these--these people."
Here she threw such a glance at the sleeping justice that must have
pierced him to the marrow had he but been conscious of it. By this,
however, Mr. Fielding with the aid of his silk handkerchief had wiped a
good deal of the wine and blood from his features, and stood staunching
the wound on his forehead. A more truly whimsical expression I never
observed in any man before. There was a highly comic look of
contrition, humility, and self-abnegation in him, and withal an air of
the most perfect good-breeding, that could not possibly have been more
contrary to his appearance. Although Cynthia was white and speechless
with anger, and she had made what might easily have been construed into
a very unprovoked attack on a benefactor, Mr. Fielding behaved,
whatever his faults, as only a true gentleman could have done.
Cynthia's act had brought him to his senses; he saw that he had pushed
the matter too far; but after all he did not apprehend, as I more
shrewdly did, that the head and front of his offending lay, not so much
in his own conduct, as in that he had been the inspirer of mine.
"I crave a thousand pardons of you, madam," says he, "if I have been so
unlucky as to carry a jest farther than a jest should go. Perchance it
was not conceived in quite the best taste at the outset; but at least I
make you all amends. I am sure I am your duteous humble servant,
madam, if you will but permit me to be so."
Only a person with the instincts of a true gentleman could have shown
such a punctilious regard for the feelings of another, and such a
disregard for his own. For in a sense he had been deeply provoked, and
had suffered more indignity on his own part than any that he had
inflicted on Mrs. Cynthia. But no, my little madam refused to be
mollified by his humble demeanour. She looked steadily past him, as
though he had ceased to be there at all. Upon that my own brief spirit
of anger cooled down immediately; for certainly I thought, considering
his unhappy plight, poor Fielding was playing a very gallant part.
"I think there is enough said, sir," says I, striving to speak as
articulately as possible. "I am sure you do very well; and I am
equally sure that the apologies should not be all on your side."
Whereon we grasped the hand of one another, and were sworn friends
again. Yet although Cynthia would not deign to notice my behaviour one
way or the other, on the other hand, greatly to Mr. Fielding's
distress, she would not condone the conduct of that honest fellow. Her
imperviousness hurt him the more, I think, because he did not apprehend
the true reason for it. She could have forgiven his having smoked her
so badly, but what she could not forgive was that he had made her
husband drunk. I dare say it was that she was acting on the invariable
principle that a woman will never own her lord and master in the wrong
to a third person. And as she must vent her anger on some one, and she
could not very well vent it on me, the true culprit, Mr. Fielding was
made to suffer vicariously.
"Come, Jack," says she haughtily, disdaining Mr. Fielding's repeated
solicitude; "let us wipe the foulness of this disgraceful place off our
feet. If daylight came and caught us in it, I could never respect
myself again."
The stress of these events had done a great deal for my sobriety. I
was still acutely conscious of my condition, but I had recovered enough
of my wits to be able to battle with it successfully. That being the
case, I clearly saw that my little one was like to do a great injustice
to Mr. Fielding.
"Cynthia," says I, "I conceive you do not know what we owe to the
generosity of this gentleman. Had it not been for his friendly offices
I should have been still in the hands of the constables."
"I had rather you had," says she cruelly, "than that you should have
passed into his."
Not only was I hurt by such arbitrary behaviour; I was angered by it
too. It seemed monstrous that so small a fault in a liberal character
should be allowed to outweigh the essential goodness of it.
"Cynthia," says I, "I trust you will not refer to our benefactor in
these terms. He is far too good a friend of ours to merit your
reproaches."
Mrs. Cynthia lifted her chin again, and disdained to reply.
"Come," says I, "I would have you take back the expressions you have
used towards him. For I am sure no man merited them less."
"Never," says she.
"The lady is overwrought a little," says Mr. Fielding, coming gallantly
if somewhat unwisely to my aid. "Is she not weary and distrest? Sir
Thomas, were he not otherwise engaged, would be delighted to place a
chamber at madam's disposal for the remainder of this evening. May I
have the honour to do so in his name, for I am sure she is in a great
need of repose?"
"I thank you, sir," says Cynthia coldly, "but I am surprised that you
should presume to propose a service that you must know, after what hath
passed, must be highly distasteful to me."
"You do the gentleman a great wrong," says I, with some heat. "And I
am sure, madam, when you look at this matter more reasonably, you will
be the first to acknowledge it. I thank you, sir, from the bottom of
my heart for this kind offer, also for those other services you have
rendered to us; and I beg to accept it of you, sir, in the name of my
wife, in the spirit in which it is given."
I thought that some such speech was no more than Mr. Fielding's due,
but the effect of it was greatly marred by Cynthia's unreasonable
conduct. Drawing herself up into all the majesty of her five feet
nothing, she bowed to us both in an imperious manner.
"I wish you a good evening, Mr.----, I did not catch your name," says
she. "You also, my lord, as you choose to remain."
Before we could reply, or any attempt could be made to detain her, she
turned on her heel and swept forth of the room, straight out of the
house into the black midnight. There was no other course open to me
but to follow her. But ere I did so, I clasped Mr. Fielding warmly by
the hand, again thanked him for his generous behaviour, and made some
sort of an apology for that of Cynthia. He, good fellow, although
evidently perturbed that he should have so distrest her, was yet very
warm on his part too, and as I was going out, slipped the only guinea
he had in the world into my hand. I protested strongly and refused to
take it.
"My dear fellow," says he, "you are ill-advised to refuse it. I know
what even that sum must mean to one in your condition, when the hand of
every man is against you. To be sure by accepting it you will be a
guinea better off than your benefactor. But at least I have a few
friends left, however little I may merit them; and although it be ever
my fate to have my character judged by those foibles that I am least
willing to have it judged by."
Indeed he so insisted on my accepting this highly desirable guinea,
that there was no other course than to take it, however reluctantly;
for to have refused it might have seemed churlish. And Heaven knows
that it is the last thing I would have risked after what had happened.
"Sir," says I, "I can wish no better than that we should meet again,
and in happier circumstances. You have been a true friend, and I hope
I may live to requite you. And I hope, sir, you will think no more of
the humours of my poor little wife; you who have shown such a knowledge
of the ways of her adorable sex will be the first to condone them in
her. You will not forget, sir, that she hath lately been called on to
endure a great deal."
"More than enough of that matter, my dear fellow," says he heartily.
I am sure he must have been hurt, but he was by far too true-bred a
gentleman to betray as much. I fear we were both still a little drunk,
but I do not think the fervour of our leave-takings owed anything to
the heat of our brains. To this day I have always thought of this fine
spirit, this great master of the science of human nature, with the same
degree of affection. As for him, I do not suppose he ever gave me a
second thought, or if he did, I could be nothing more than a whimsical
circumstance, a piece of romantical history. But at the time of our
parting, his pitiful, generous heart enabled him to feel a very real
concern for my welfare, and also for that of my wayward little one who
had treated him so harshly.
No sooner had I left Mr. Fielding waving his frank good-bye from the
steps of the house, than I set off running in hot pursuit of Cynthia.
The gate of the porter's lodge at the end of the long dark avenue of
overhanging trees was just closing upon her, when I overtook her. She
was in too proud and defiant a mood to pay any attention to the fact
that I had done so, and that I was walking greatly out of breath by her
side.
I followed her implicitly into the weary darkness. I did not dare to
break the dogged silence she maintained, and therefore maintained one
too. For I had not walked a mile in the cool night air before I was as
sober as any man could be. And perfect sobriety brought a new shame
and a fuller measure of repentance. Lord knows, I had been drunk often
enough before; more completely and uproariously so; I had committed far
greater excesses in that state than any I had been guilty of that
evening; and yet now for almost the first time I conceived a disgust
for such a folly. Lord knows, I am so little of a pietist that the
sense of humiliation which came upon me as I walked by the side of the
silent Cynthia was so foreign to my character, that I almost laughed at
myself for suffering it. Yet at the same time I was bitterly angry
with myself. No man's weaknesses could have led him to play a more
unworthy part.
As we walked mile upon mile on the dark, tree-shadowed highway that led
to anywhere, everywhere, and nowhere, there never was so moral a person
as I outside the moral pages of Mr. Richardson. Self-abasement creaked
out of my boots, self-reproach fluttered out of my brains,
self-abnegation beat out of my heart. I forget the name of the Moral
Muse; indeed, now I come to think of it, there is most probably none
such among them, for I fear they are baggages all. But in the name of
the righteous lady, whoever she be, was there ever such a hang-dog
rogue as I?--such a whipt cur with his tail between his legs?
Hours came and hours went, the steeples of neighbouring village
churches chimed two o'clock, three and four, but still we wandered on,
while never a word passed from one to the other. At times I feared my
poor little one was crying softly to herself, but I had not the courage
to attempt to find out if that were so. Instead, my fingers would
tighten on Mr. Fielding's guinea, whereon such a poignancy would be
added to my sufferings that I was tempted at times to cast his money
incontinently to the road, as a heroic but not very intelligible
concession to them, in the hope that I might purchase at that price a
moment's surcease to my pains.