THE DINNER.
It may easily be imagined that I had little inclination to keep my promise
of dining that day with Sir George Dashwood. However, there was nothing
else for it; the die was cast,--my prospects as regarded Lucy were ruined
forever. We were not, we never could be anything to each other; and as for
me, the sooner I braved my altered fortunes the better; and after all, why
should I call them altered. She evidently never had cared for me; and even
supposing that my fervent declaration of attachment had interested her, the
apparent duplicity and falseness of my late conduct could only fall the
more heavily upon me.
I endeavored to philosophize myself into calmness and indifference. One by
one I exhausted every argument for my defence, which, however ingeniously
put forward, brought no comfort to my own conscience. I pleaded the
unerring devotion of my heart, the uprightness of my motives, and when
called on for the proofs,--alas! except the blue scarf I wore in memory of
another, and my absurd conduct at the villa, I had none. From the current
gossip of Lisbon, down to my own disgraceful folly, all, all was against
me.
Honesty of intention, rectitude of purpose, may be, doubtless they are,
admirable supports to a rightly constituted mind; but even then they must
come supported by such claims to probability as make the injured man feel
he has not lost the sympathy of all his fellows. Now, I had none of these,
had even my temperament, broken by sickness and harassed by unlucky
conjectures, permitted my appreciating them.
I endeavored to call my wounded pride to my aid, and thought over the
glance of haughty disdain she gave me as she passed on to her carriage; but
even this turned against me, and a humiliating sense of my own degraded
position sank deeply into my heart. “This impression at least,” thought I,
“must be effaced. I cannot permit her to believe--”
“His Excellency is waiting dinner, sir,” said a lackey, introducing a
finely powdered head gently within the door. I looked at my watch, it was
eight o’clock; so snatching my sabre, and shocked at my delay, I
hastily followed the servant down-stairs, and thus at once cut short my
deliberations.
The man must be but little observant or deeply sunk in his own reveries,
who, arriving half-an-hour too late for dinner, fails to detect in the
faces of the assembled and expectant guests a very palpable expression of
discontent and displeasure. It is truly a moment of awkwardness, and one
in which few are found to manage with success; the blushing, hesitating,
blundering apology of the absent man, is scarcely better than the
ill-affected surprise of the more practised offender. The bashfulness of
the one is as distasteful as the cool impertinence of the other; both are
so thoroughly out of place, for we are thinking of neither; our thoughts
are wandering to cold soups and rechaufféd pâtés, and we neither care for
nor estimate the cause, but satisfy our spleen by cursing the offender.
Happily for me I was clad in a triple insensibility to such feelings,
and with an air of most perfect unconstraint and composure walked into
a drawing-room where about twenty persons were busily discussing what
peculiar amiability in my character could compensate for my present
conduct.
“At last, O’Malley, at last!” said Sir George. “Why, my dear boy, how very
late you are!”
I muttered something about a long walk,--distance from Lisbon, etc.
“Ah! that was it. I was right, you see!” said an old lady in a spangled
turban, as she whispered something to her friend beside her, who appeared
excessively shocked at the information conveyed; while a fat, round-faced
little general, after eying me steadily through his glass, expressed a
_sotto voce_ wish that I was upon _his_ staff. I felt my cheek reddening
at the moment, and stared around me like one whose trials were becoming
downright insufferable, when happily dinner was announced, and terminated
my embarrassment.
As the party filed past, I perceived that Miss Dashwood was not among them;
and with a heart relieved for the moment by the circumstance, and inventing
a hundred conjectures to account for it, I followed with the aides-de-camp
and the staff to the dinner-room.
The temperament is very Irish, I believe, which renders a man so elastic
that from the extreme of depression to the very climax of high spirits,
there is but one spring. To this I myself plead guilty, and thus, scarcely
was I freed from the embarrassment which a meeting with Lucy Dashwood must
have caused, when my heart bounded with lightness.
When the ladies withdrew, the events of the campaign became the subject of
conversation, and upon these, very much to my astonishment, I found myself
consulted as an authority. The Douro, from some fortunate circumstance, had
given me a reputation I never dreamed of, and I heard my opinions quoted
upon topics of which my standing as an officer, and my rank in the service,
could not imply a very extended observation. Power was absent on duty; and
happily for my supremacy, the company consisted entirely of generals in the
commissariat or new arrivals from England, all of whom knew still less than
myself.
What will not iced champagne and flattery do? Singly, they are strong
impulses; combined, their power is irresistible. I now heard for the first
time that our great leader had been elevated to the peerage by the title of
Lord Wellington, and I sincerely believe--however now I may smile at the
confession--that, at the moment, I felt more elation at the circumstance
than he did. The glorious sensation of being in any way, no matter how
remotely, linked with the career of those whose path is a high one, and
whose destinies are cast for great events, thrilled through me; and in
all the warmth of my admiration and pride for our great captain, a secret
pleasure stirred within me as I whispered to myself, “And I, too, am a
soldier!”
I fear me that very little flattery is sufficient to turn the head of a
young man of eighteen; and if I yielded to the “pleasant incense,” let my
apology be that I was not used to it; and lastly, let me avow, if I did get
tipsy, I liked the liquor. And why not? It is the only tipple I know of
that leaves no headache the next morning to punish you for the glories of
the past night. It may, like all other strong potations, it is true, induce
you to make a fool of yourself when under its influence; but like the
nitrous-oxide gas, its effects are passing, and as the pleasure is an
ecstasy for the time, and your constitution none the worse when it is over,
I really see no harm in it.
Then the benefits are manifest; for while he who gives becomes never the
poorer for his benevolence, the receiver is made rich indeed. It matters
little that some dear, kind friend is ready with his bitter draught to
remedy what he is pleased to call its unwholesome sweetness; you betake
yourself with only the more pleasure to the “blessed elixir,” whose
fascinations neither the poverty of your pocket, nor the penury of your
brain, can withstand, and by the magic of whose spell you are great and
gifted. “_Vive la bagatelle!_” saith the Frenchman. “Long live flattery!”
say I, come from what quarter it will,--the only wealth of the poor man,
the only reward of the unknown one; the arm that supports us in failure;
the hand that crowns us in success; the comforter in our affliction; the
gay companion in our hours of pleasure; the lullaby of the infant; the
staff of old age; the secret treasure we lock up in our own hearts, and
which ever grows greater as we count it over. Let me not be told that the
coin is fictitious, and the gold not genuine; its clink is as musical to
the ear as though it bore the last impression of the mint, and I’m not the
man to cast an aspersion upon its value.
This little digression, however seemingly out of place, may serve to
illustrate what it might be difficult to convey in other words,--namely,
that if Charles O’Malley became, in his own estimation, a very considerable
personage that day at dinner, the fault lay not entirely with himself, but
with his friends, who told him he was such. In fact, my good reader, I was
the lion of the party, the man who saved Laborde, who charged through a
brigade of guns, who performed feats which newspapers quoted, though he
never heard of them himself. At no time is a man so successful in society
as when his reputation heralds him; and it needs but little conversational
eloquence to talk well, if you have but a willing and ready auditory. Of
mine, I could certainly not complain; and as, drinking deeply, I poured
forth a whole tide of campaigning recital, I saw the old colonels of
recruiting districts exchanging looks of wonder and admiration with
officers of the ordnance; while Sir George himself, evidently pleased at my
_début_, went back to an early period of our acquaintance, and related the
rescue of his daughter in Galway.
In an instant the whole current of my thoughts was changed. My first
meeting with Lucy, my boyhood’s dream of ambition, my plighted faith,
my thought of our last parting in Dublin, when, in a moment of excited
madness, I told my tale of love. I remembered her downcast look, as her
cheek now flushing, now growing pale, she trembled while I spoke. I thought
of her, as in the crash of battle her image flashed across my brain, and
made me feel a rush of chivalrous enthusiasm to win her heart by “doughty
deeds.”
I forgot all around and about me. My head reeled, the wine, the excitement,
my long previous illness, all pressed upon me; and as my temples throbbed
loudly and painfully, a chaotic rush of discordant, ill-connected ideas
flitted across my mind. There seemed some stir and confusion in the room,
but why or wherefore I could not think, nor could I recall my scattered
senses, till Sir George Dashwood’s voice roused me once again to
consciousness.
“We are going to have some coffee, O’Malley. Miss Dashwood expects us in
the drawing-room. You have not seen her yet?”
I know not my reply; but he continued:--
“She has some letters for you, I think.”
I muttered something, and suffered him to pass on; no sooner had he done
so, however, than I turned towards the door, and rushed into the street.
The cold night air suddenly recalled me to myself, and I stood for a moment
endeavoring to collect myself; as I did so, a servant stopped, and saluting
me, presented me with a letter. For a second, a cold chill came over me; I
knew not what fear beset me. The letter, I at last remembered, must be that
one alluded to by Sir George, so I took it in silence, and walked on.