Several meetings now took place at Sir Arthur's for the purpose of
considering what plans would be best adapted to secure the safety of
Mrs. and Miss Smythe, till the dangerous madman who persecuted them
could be secured and confined, on all which occasions Captain De
Crespigny attended, as he rather enjoyed the excitement and interest
with which the story filled up his vacant hours, and, careless of the
impression he believed himself to be making on the affections of Miss
Smythe, he felt some solicitude respecting her safety, while he
expressed ten times more than he felt, and observed, in his usual
off-handed style, that this was not the only man whose head she would
probably turn; but in his own case, though she had almost put him out
of his senses already, yet he would rather make an end of himself than
of her.
Caroline drily thanked him for his obliging intentions on her behalf,
and after a lively dialogue, in which the gay huzzar actually excelled
himself, in his fervent expressions of admiration and regard, he took
leave, rather wondering to think how he had been led on in professing
so much, and giving himself a lecture as he rode home, on the
propriety of beginning to "back out," seeing that he was getting
rather beyond his depth. Still there were several of the reasons for
meeting next day, usual with those who have a natural desire to
improve an agreeable intimacy, a song to be practised, a drawing to be
admired; and Miss Smythe having made a sort of promise to let Captain
De Crespigny sit to her for his picture in the character of Dromio, as
she was an admirable artist, the offer became irresistible. He had
never yet entered their own house, as meetings were always hitherto
arranged at Sir Arthur's; and a slight feeling of curiosity likewise
helped him to the agreeable conclusion, that he must for once, and
only once, call on the "Smythes," were it only to ascertain what sort
of establishment they had.
Punctual to the appointed hour, Captain De Crespigny's groom rang a
consequential peal for his master at the gate of Rosemount Villa, such
as had not been heard there since bells were invented, and after a
considerable delay, the door was opened by a shabby awkward-looking
Irish girl, speaking with a powerful brogue, who curtsied with an
appearance of most preposterous respect to Captain De Crespigny as he
alighted, and pointed up stairs, begging him to walk in, but without
having an idea apparently that she ought herself to usher him into the
drawing-room.
Being always pretty confident of making himself welcome, Captain De
Crespigny advanced, and in his usual gay, humorous tone, announced his
own name at the drawing-room door, while he threw it open and entered.
To his surprise, he now found himself in a small, not very splendidly
furnished apartment, stretched on the only sofa belonging to which,
there lounged, in solitary indolence, with a quite-at-home look, a
young man whom he had never seen before. His aspect and dress were
equally singular, presenting that happy mixture of the ruffian and
gentleman, not very uncommon in Ireland. Attired in a military
great-coat, he wore a most preposterous pair of whiskers and
mustachios, long, coarse, and dirty, which looked as if they had been
curled over knitting wires. Taking the last remnant of a cigar out of
his mouth when the visitor entered, and showing not the smallest
surprise, with a smile which betrayed a set of dingy, decayed teeth,
and a very disfiguring squint, he watched the approaching step of
Captain De Crespigny with a _degag_ look of indifference, saying, in a
tone of easy familiarity,
"Och! sure! I always knew a milithary man, for he enters with his lift
foot first! Many deserters who would may-be have escaped, but the
thrick betrayed 'em. A curious fact! Will ye be pleased to sit on your
four quarthers, Captain?"
A smile of contempt and ridicule curled on the haughty lip of Captain
De Crespigny, while he proudly drew back, saying, in a tone of great
reserve, and with the very slightest possible _soupcon_ of a bow,
"Excuse me, sir, I must have mistaken the house!"
"Arrah! not at all! not in the very laste. Sure! I'm here for the
purpose!" exclaimed the stranger, starting up from his recumbent
position with astonishing agility, and closing the door. "Isn't it
relations we shall be before long, and why should we meet as
strangers?"
"Relations! what do you mean, sir? Here is some ridiculous blunder!"
replied Captain De Crespigny, turning contemptuously on his heel.
"Allow me to pass! Good morning!"
"Well! relations or connexions, it's all one," continued the Irishman,
with a look of easy good humor. "My aunt, Mrs. Smythe, dropped me a
line to say I would be wanted about the settlement, though, for the
matter of that, there is not much, I fancy, on either of your parts to
settle. More gold on the outside of the pocket than the inside,
Captain! Hey! excuse me! but as my aunt says, in the matther of money,
we take the will for the deed!"
"You must be slightly deranged, sir," interrupted Captain De
Crespigny, in a tone of angry perplexity; "I have heard that a madman
is loose about this neighborhood, and I need not go far, I see, to
find him."
"What! Hey! Sure you're not going to forswear all, or say thing you
have said to my pretty cousin, Caroline. We do make short work of our
courtships in Dublin, sure enough; but when my aunt told me this
morning how soon you had come to the point with Caroline, and nothing
left but to fix the day, I laughed ready to kill myself, and says I,
'you beat all Ireland to sticks!'"
"No more of this folly, sir!" exclaimed Captain De Crespigny, with
rising irritation, and in his most peremptory tone. "Detain me here
one moment longer, and I shall send you a shorter way down stairs than
you ever tried before!"
"Och, murder! you'll excuse me, sir, but I've not been dipped in the
Shannon for nothing! This must all be settled as gintlemen usually
settle these affairs in our counthry! Sure you met my cousin at Sir
Arthur's many a time, and you'll not be afther denying that she
convarsed with you every day for a matther of four hours!"
"Perhaps she had that honor, but what then?"
"Why thin, sir! such things as you said, from such a gintleman, are
not easily to be forgotten!"
"You are pleased to be complimentary!" replied Captain De Crespigny,
turning round his magnificent head with an air of bitter contempt;
"but what of that?"
"I heartily wish," continued the Irishman, with a still stronger
brogue than before, "that every young lady who meets with a gintleman
such as you, had a cousin like Paddy Smythe to take up her cause, and
I am as little to be thrifled with as any man in Ireland! The tongue
that deceives me or mine shall never spake again. I have exchanged
shots before now on a slighter occasion!"
A momentary pause ensued, during which Captain De Crespigny frowned
and bit his lip, in angry embarrassment, while, with a look of
unutterable contempt and disgust, he eyed his companion, who thrust
his hands into his ample pockets, and paced up and down the room with
rapid strides and determined emphasis. At length, stopping opposite to
his irritated companion, he eyed him for some moments with a look of
stern reproach, saying, in a stronger Irish brogue than ever, and with
a torrent of indignation, which gave almost the dignity of eloquence
to what he uttered,
"You think there are no feelings in the world to be consulted but your
own! perhaps we may prove this a slight mistake! I have married seven
of my cousins already to officers quarthered in our neighborhood at
Limerick, and Caroline is the last! Captain Mortimer was introduced to
Mary at the top of a country dance, and engaged her for life before he
reached the bottom. Lieutenant Murray gave his arm to Bessy for the
first time going down to dinner at Mrs. Fitz-Patrick's, and offered
her his hand before the fish was off the table! We understand these
things very soon in Ireland! and I would shed every drop of my blood
before Caroline shall be disappointed!"
Captain De Crespigny began now to feel seriously annoyed at his own
position! Not having lately been quartered in Ireland, he had
forgotten how such affairs are managed there, but at this moment a
thousand recollections crowded upon him, of warnings he had received
from his brother officers respecting the prudence and circumspection
to be exercised beside the Shannon, though most of what they said, had
been listened to with the same incredulous attention usually bestowed
upon stories of ghosts and witchcraft. Here he was, however, snared
like a fly in a spider's web, though without a single doubt of his own
powers to escape, and with no stronger objection to call out this
insolent ruffian beside him, than the publicity and ridicule he must
inevitably incur, if involved in a vulgar every-day duel with a
hot-headed Irishman.
Seeing that the affair was likely to take a graver turn than he had
imagined, Captain De Crespigny now slowly and resolutely strode
towards the hearth-rug, and turning his back to the fire, in that
attitude peculiar to Englishmen, calmly and sternly looked in the face
of his insolent companion, whose lip became compressed with an air of
fierce determination, while his dark eye glittered with a triumphant
smile, and in an attitude of perfect _nonchalance_, he returned
Captain De Crespigny gaze for gaze, while leisurely resuming his
lounging attitude on the sofa. Neither gentleman seemed at all
inclined to recommence the discussion immediately, and both looked
equally angry, till the Irishman at length opened a pocket-book, to
which, he frequently afterwards referred, with a business-like air,
and in a tone of conscious triumph, saying,
"Will you be afther denying all you said to my cousin only last
night?"
"I deny nothing, Sir, except the right you or any human being can
have, with what I choose to say, five minutes after it has been
uttered!" replied Captain De Crespigny, almost delirious with rage,
and drawing in his breath between his clenched teeth, while the
Irishman eyed him with provoking coolness, and merely muttered in
reply, while still referring to the pocket-book,
"That is not our way in Limerick! Scarcely one of my cousins had a
case like this! Breach of promise! Sure it would fetch a verdict
to-morrow; but the shortest way is the best! Why, Sir! you told my
cousin, poor girl! that you wished there were not another man on the
earth, in case she might prefer him to you!"
"But luckily there are many, or she would have little chance of a
husband!" replied Captain De Crespigny, almost beside himself with
rage. "I have said the same thing a thousand times, to a thousand
different young ladies, without expecting them ever to think of it
more!"
The Irishman looked away for a moment, as if some irresistible feeling
had come over him, which he could scarcely suppress, and with a slight
quiver in his voice, as if on the very eve of laughter, though Captain
De Crespigny was too angry to notice it, he sang, while looking out of
the window, these words, with a very marked emphasis,--
"Erin, oh! Erin's the land of delight, Where the women all love, and
the men they all fight."
At length, Captain De Crespigny, losing all patience, followed his
antagonist to the window, and said, in a tone of angry command,
"Let there be a truce to this most contemptible farce! If you are a
gentleman, which I very much doubt, send any respectable friend--a man
of honor, if you happen by chance to know such a person--to my
barracks, and before to-morrow I shall find, if possible, some
blundering Irishman who can understand you, to settle this absurd
affair."
"That may soon be done," replied Mr. Smythe, "if I am not satisfied
with your intentions."
"Intentions!" re-echoed Captain De Crespigny, in a frenzy of contempt.
"My intentions were merely to amuse myself for an hour or two with a
rather pleasing young lady, and----"
"Rather pleasing!! you may be proud of your gallantry!" replied the
Irishman, with more real indignation in his voice, than it had yet
exhibited. "Perhaps, Sir, being the lady's cousin----"
"It is no matter who you are! I am not here to be questioned like a
member before his constituents. I did not know the young lady had a
relation on earth."
"The more shame to you, Sir, for meaning to deceive her!" replied the
Irishman in a tone of stern reproach. "If I were to get all Ireland
for holding my tongue, you should hear the truth. But maybe you would
be after giving me satisfaction in another way. I'm not such a wild
beast as to thirst for blood, it can be done with pen and ink!"
Captain De Crespigny fixed his eyes with stern contempt upon his free
and easy companion, who passed his fingers through his long bushy wig,
stretched his legs upon the sofa, and spoke with a yawning voice,
while he added in a careless off-hand way, "If my cousin could only be
persuaded you meant nothing from first to last, there's an ensign in
the 42d, with very good prospects, she might have for the asking! Here
is a paper. I prepared it in case you might object to the match; and
if you'll only sign this assurance that you meant nothing, for the
lady's own satisfaction, you are a free man. It will save us both a
deal of bother and fighting. A man who has fought a dozen times like
me, may go out once too often; and my pistols are all at Dublin!"
Captain De Crespigny paused a moment, irresolute what to do. It was a
condescension quite intolerable to have another moment's intercourse
with such a man, and to sign any paper at his request, seemed almost a
degradation; but then he saw before him a long vista of vulgar
annoyance from this forward Irishman. He was aware that hundreds of
gentlemen would laugh if the story got any publicity, and that dozens
of young ladies would feel themselves aggrieved if it became
circulated that his attentions had been so very marked to an obscure
Miss Smythe.
The tea-tables, the newspapers, the club, and the mess, were all to be
dreaded; and seeing that the Irishman had, with an air of perfect
_nonchalance_, buried himself behind a double number of the "Times,"
which he seemed to be attentively reading, Captain De Crespigny glanced
his eye over the paper, and finding that it contained only a short and
simple declaration that he never had intended to marry the young lady
introduced to him by Sir Charles Dunbar, he hastily signed his name,
tossed the paper contemptuously across the table, and with infinite
dignity, strode out of the house.
Great was his surprise, when descending the staircase, to hear, in the
room he had so recently left a simultaneous burst of smothered
laughter from several persons. He could not be mistaken! It seemed
even as if there were female voices in the number; but almost
bewildered with anger, and happy also to escape, he hastened onwards,
threw himself on horseback, and galloped for three hours before he had
regained any portion of his usual equanimity.
Had Captain De Crespigny followed his first impulse, on hearing the
laughter behind him, it would have been to retrace his steps and
re-enter the drawing-room of Mrs. Smythe, when his astonishment would
certainly not have been small to see Henry De Lancey laughingly
disencumbering himself of his whiskers, wig, and mustachios, while
Mrs. Smith exclaimed, in accents of almost convulsive risibility,
"Well done, my adopted nephew! You deserve to be my heir! I have often
heard that my old aversion Louis De Crespigny's exploits were
inimitable in his line; but we needed such a specimen as this. I
bestow the fright upon him with all the pleasure in life!"
"I only hope, if we ever, in the course of years, meet again, that my
cousin will not recognise me," added Caroline, smiling. "It was not
particularly flattering to see Louis in so much alarm! Yesterday,
however, when he saw me last, I was certainly looking my very worst."
"Your worst is better than the best of anybody else," exclaimed Henry,
in a tone so exactly resembling that of Captain De Crespigny, that
Mrs. Smythe started, and looked round with alarm; while Caroline and
young De Lancey burst into a simultaneous laugh of frolicsome glee,
and continued the dialogue during several minutes, with great spirit
and vivacity, till Henry suddenly became conscious, that in imagining
the words of another, he was gradually betrayed into expressing his
own real feelings, and that, too, with a depth and fervor which
sincerity alone could have dictated.
Checking himself in a moment, while the color rushed to his face,
dyeing it red to the very roots of his hair, and instantly receded
again, he took a hurried leave of Mrs. Smythe, and turning to Caroline
with a quivering lip, he said, in a voice which none but herself could
hear, "I must not say in jest what I feel in earnest! Farewell! There
are wishes known only to my own heart, and never to be realized, which
I must try to forget. You go to-morrow, and we shall probably meet no
more! Forgive me, then, if I say, that so long as I live you shall be
first in my most respectful and devoted affections; and death only can
ever make me forget you."
Before Henry left the ante-room, being in search of his hat, he found
it laid beside an open portfolio on the table, which, having, in his
haste, accidentally thrown down, he began hastily collecting its
contents, when his surprise was great, on turning up one sheet of the
drawing paper, to find there a finely-executed sketch, done with all
the skill and spirit of an accomplished artist, representing the
venerable head of Sir Arthur; and on the same paper--could it be
possible!--an almost living representation of himself. The likeness
very much flattered, he thought--exceedingly flattered; but still it
could be no other; and the picture dropped from his hand in the
transport of his delight.
Henry again returned to the portfolio, hurriedly turning the leaves
over; and amidst a variety of superbly-finished miniatures, he found
his own countenance over and over again grouped in animated contrast
with that of Sir Arthur. His heart throbbed with joy, when, after
hastily turning to the title-page, he discovered, according to his
hopes and wishes, the name of Caroline Smythe; and he leaned his head
on his hand, contemplating that name in silent ecstacy, while
indulging for one moment the pleasing, but perhaps presumptuous hope,
that he had been remembered with unacknowledged partiality, and that
the secret was here portrayed with her own pencil.
He was about then to withdraw, when suddenly the raised and irritated
tones of Mrs. Smythe became unavoidably audible to him, from the room
he had so recently left, saying, in accents of angry remonstrance,
"That look of girlish joy when he comes, and the sadness of your eye
when he departs, might betray it to any one less interested than
myself; but he has met few ladies hitherto, and on his part it is a
mere boyish fancy, which, if properly discouraged, will of itself wear
out."
Henry had fled to avoid hearing what was not intended for him, before
Caroline replied, in a low, agitated voice,
"I think and hope you are mistaken; but his constancy and
disinterestedness shall be tried and proved. I would rather any man
should cut my throat for money, than marry me for it. A girl of
fortune, like Midas, turns all who look on her into gold; and I am not
a gem to attract many lovers, without a very brilliant setting. I have
a romantic desire to be chosen for myself alone--a vain dream perhaps
never to be realized, unless young De Lancey prove constant. If not, I
mean to declare war upon all mankind--to be a perfect Captain De
Crespigny for flirtations!--to talk to gentlemen, ridicule, mortify,
and humble them!--to do everything, in short, but love or marry any
one of them!"
Though Caroline spoke these words in a tone of lively _badinage_,
there was a tremulous bitterness in her manner, as she turned away,
and contemptuously threw upon the table a massive gold chain which she
usually wore, saying, "Lovers! I'll get fifty, and break the heart of
every one of them!"
When Captain De Crespigny next visited Portobello, during a review
of his regiment, he was surprised to see the well-remembered windows
of Rosemount Villa closed, and a ticket suspended over the door,
intimating that it was "to be sold or let, furnished or unfurnished;
entrance immediately; rent moderate!" and with a feeling of relief he
dismissed the whole affair from his thoughts, and the whole family of
Smythes from his memory for ever, while humming one of his favorite
airs,
"It is good to be merry and wise,
It is good to be honest and true;
It is good to be off with the old love,
Before you be on with the new."