THE CONFIDENCE.
“I have changed the venue, Charley,” said Power, as he came into my room
the following morning,--“I’ve changed the venue, and come to breakfast with
you.”
I could not help smiling as a certain suspicion crossed my mind; perceiving
which, he quickly added,--
“No, no, boy! I guess what you’re thinking of. I’m not a bit jealous in
that quarter. The fact is, you know, one cannot be too guarded.”
“Nor too suspicious of one’s friends, apparently.”
“A truce with quizzing. I say, have you reported yourself?”
“Yes; and received this moment a most kind note from the general. But it
appears I’m not destined to have a long sojourn among you, for I’m desired
to hold myself in readiness for a journey this very day.”
“Where the deuce are they going to send you now?”
“I’m not certain of my destination. I rather suspect there are despatches
for Badajos. Just tell Mike to get breakfast, and I’ll join you
immediately.”
When I walked into the little room which served as my _salon_, I found
Power pacing up and down, apparently wrapped in meditation.
“I’ve been thinking, Charley,” said he, after a pause of about ten
minutes,--“I’ve been thinking over our adventures in Lisbon. Devilish
strange girl that senhora! When you resigned in my favor, I took it for
granted that all difficulty was removed. Confound it! I no sooner began to
profit by your absence, in pressing my suit, than she turned short round,
treated me with marked coldness, exhibited a hundred wilful and capricious
fancies, and concluded one day by quietly confessing to me you were the
only man she cared for.”
“You are not serious in all this, Fred?” said I.
“Ain’t I though, by Jove! I wish to Heaven I were not! My dear Charley,
the girl is an inveterate flirt,--a decided coquette. Whether she has a
particle of heart or not, I can’t say; but certainly her greatest pleasure
is to trifle with that of another. Some absurd suspicion that you were in
love with Lucy Dashwood piqued her vanity, and the anxiety to recover a
lapsing allegiance led her to suppose herself attached to you, and made her
treat all my advances with the most frigid indifference or wayward caprice;
the more provoking,” continued he, with a kind of bitterness in his tone,
“as her father was disposed to take the thing favorably; and, if I must say
it, I felt devilish spooney about her myself.
“It was only two days before I left, that in a conversation with Don
Emanuel, he consented to receive my addresses to his daughter on my
becoming lieutenant-colonel. I hastened back with delight to bring her the
intelligence, and found her with a lock of hair on the book before her,
over which she was weeping. Confound me, if it was not yours! I don’t
know what I said, nor what she replied; but when we parted, it was with a
perfect understanding we were never to meet again. Strange girl! She came
that evening, put her arm within mine as I was walking alone in the garden,
and half in jest, half in earnest, talked me out of all my suspicions, and
left me fifty times more in love with her than ever. Egad! I thought I used
to know something about women, but here is a chapter I’ve yet to read.
Come, now, Charley, be frank with me; tell me all you know.”
“My poor Fred, if you were not head and ears in love, you would see as
plainly as I do that your affairs prosper. And after all, how invariable
is it that the man who has been the veriest flirt with women,--sighing,
serenading, sonneteering, flinging himself at the feet of every pretty girl
he meets with,--should become the most thorough dupe to his own feelings
when his heart is really touched. Your man of eight-and-thirty is always
the greatest fool about women.”
“Confound your impertinence! How the devil can a fellow with a mustache not
stronger that a Circassian’s eyebrow read such a lecture to _me?_”
“Just for the very reason you’ve mentioned. You _glide_ into an attachment
at _my_ time of life; you _fall_ in love at _yours_.”
“Yes,” said Power, musingly, “there is some truth in that. This flirting is
sad work. It is just like sparring with a friend; you put on the gloves in
perfect good humor, with the most friendly intentions of exchanging a few
amicable blows; you find yourself insensibly warm with the enthusiasm of
the conflict, and some unlucky hard knock decides the matter, and it ends
in a downright fight.
“Few men, believe me, are regular seducers; and among those who behave
‘vilely’ (as they call it), three-fourths of the number have been more
sinned against than sinning. You adventure upon love as upon a voyage to
India. Leaving the cold northern latitudes of first acquaintance behind
you, you gradually glide into the warmer and more genial climate of
intimacy. Each day you travel southward shortens the miles and the hours of
your existence; so tranquil is the passage, and so easy the transition, you
suffer no shock by the change of temperature about you. Happy were it for
us that in our courtship, as in our voyage, there were some certain Rubicon
to remind us of the miles we have journeyed! Well were it if there were
some meridian in love!”
“I’m not sure, Fred, that there is not that same shaving process they
practise on the line, occasionally performed for us by parents and
guardians at home; and I’m not certain that the iron hoop of old Neptune is
not a pleasanter acquaintance than the hair-trigger of some indignant
and fire-eating brother. But come, Fred, you have not told me the most
important point,--how fare your fortunes now; or in other words, what are
your present prospects as regards the senhora?”
“What a question to ask me! Why not request me to tell you where Soult will
fight us next, and when Marmont will cross the frontier? My dear boy, I
have not seen her for a week, an entire week,--seven full days and nights,
each with their twenty-four hours of change and vacillation.”
“Well, then, give me the last bulletin from the seat of war; that at least
you can do. Tell me how you parted.”
“Strangely enough. You must know we had a grand dinner at the villa the
day before I left; and when we adjourned for our coffee to the garden, my
spirits were at the top of their bent. Inez never looked so beautiful,
never was one half so gracious; and as she leaned upon my arm, instead
of following the others towards the little summer-house, I turned, as if
inadvertently, into a narrow, dark alley that skirts the lake.”
“I know it well; continue.”
Power reddened slightly, and went on:--
“‘Why are we taking this path?’ said Donna Inez; ‘this is, surely, not a
short way?’
“‘Oh, I wished to make my adieux to my old friends the swans. You know I go
to-morrow.’
“‘Ah, that’s true,’ added she. ‘I’d quite forgotten it.’
“This speech was not very encouraging; but as I felt myself in for the
battle, I was not going to retreat at the skirmish. ‘Now or never,’ thought
I. I’ll not tell you what I said. I couldn’t, if I would. It is only with
a pretty woman upon one’s arm; it is only when stealing a glance at her
bright eyes, as you bend beyond the border of her bonnet,--that you know
what it is to be eloquent. Watching the changeful color of her cheek with
a more anxious heart than ever did mariner gaze upon the fitful sky above
him, you pour out your whole soul in love; you leave no time for doubt, you
leave no space for reply. The difficulties that shoot across her mind you
reply to ere she is well conscious of them; and when you feel her hand
tremble, or see her eyelids fall, like the leader of a storming party when
the guns slacken in their fire, you spring boldly forward in the breach,
and blind to every danger around you, rush madly on, and plant your
standard upon the walls.”
“I hope you allow the vanquished the honors of war,” said I, interrupting.
Without noticing my observation, he continued:--
“I was on my knee before her, her hand passively resting in mine, her eyes
bent _upon_ me softly and tearfully--”
“The game was your own, in fact.”
“You shall hear.
“‘Have we stood long enough thus, Senhor?’ said she, bursting into a fit of
laughter.
“I sprang to my legs in anger and indignation.
“‘There, don’t be passionate; it is so tiresome. What do you call that tree
there?’
“‘It is a tulip-tree,’ said I, coldly.
“‘Then, to put your gallantry to the test, do climb up there and pluck me
that flower. No, the far one. If you fall into the lake and are drowned,
why it would put an end to this foolish interview.’
“‘And if not?’ said I.
“‘Oh, then I shall take twelve hours to consider of it; and if my decision
be in your favor, I’ll give you the flower ere you leave to-morrow.’
“It’s somewhat about thirty years since I went bird-nesting, and hang me,
if a tight jacket and spurs are the best equipment for climbing a tree; but
up I went, and, amidst a running fire of laughter and quizzing, reached the
branch and brought it down safely.
“Inez took especial care to avoid me the rest of the evening. We did not
meet until breakfast the following morning. I perceived then that she wore
the flower in her belt; but, alas! I knew her too well to augur favorably
from that; besides that, instead of any trace of sorrow or depression at my
approaching departure, she was in high spirits, and the life of the party.
‘How can I manage to speak with her?’ said I to myself. ‘But one word,--I
already anticipate what it must be; but let the blow fall--anything is
better than this uncertainty.’
“‘The general and the staff have passed the gate, sir,’ said my servant at
this moment.
“‘Are my horses ready?’
“‘At the door, sir; and the baggage gone forward.’
“I gave Inez one look--
“‘Did you say more coffee?’ said she, smiling.
“I bowed coldly, and rose from the table. They all assembled upon the
terrace to see me ride away.
“‘You’ll let us hear from you,’ said Don Emanuel.
“‘And pray don’t forget the letter to my brother,’ cried old Madame Forjas.
“Twenty similar injunctions burst from the party, but not a word said Inez.
“‘Adieu, then!’ said I. ‘Farewell.’
“‘Adios! Go with God!’ chorused the party.
“‘Good-by, Senhora,’ said I. ‘Have _you_ nothing to tell me ere we part?’
“‘Not that I remember,’ said she, carelessly. ‘I hope you’ll have good
weather.’
“‘There is a storm threatening,’ said I, gloomily.
“‘Well, a soldier cares little for a wet jacket.’
“‘Adieu!’ said I, sharply, darting at her a look that spoke my meaning.
“‘Farewell!’ repeated she, curtsying slightly, and giving one of her
sweetest smiles.
“I drove the spurs into my horse’s flanks, but holding him firmly on the
curb at the same moment, instead of dashing forward, he bounded madly in
the air.
“‘What a pretty creature!’ said she, as she turned towards the house; then
stopping carelessly, she looked round,--
“‘Should you like this bouquet?’
“Before I could reply, she disengaged it from her belt, and threw it
towards me. The door closed behind her as she spoke. I galloped on to
overtake the staff, _et voilà tout_. Now, Charley, read my fate for me, and
tell me what this portends.”
“I confess I only see one thing certain in the whole.”
“And that is?” said Power.
“That Master Fred Power is more irretrievably in love than any gentleman on
full pay I ever met with.”
“By Jove, I half fear as much! Is that orderly waiting for you, Charley?
Who do you want my man?”
“Captain O’Malley, sir. General Crawfurd desires to see you at headquarters
immediately.”
“Come, Charley, I’m going towards Fuentes. Take your cap; we’ll walk down
together.”
So saying, we cantered towards the village, where we separated,--Power to
join some Fourteenth men stationed there on duty, and I to the general’s
quarters to receive my orders.