_IN WHICH I MAKE ANOTHER COUSIN'S ACQUAINTANCE_
My correspondence about this time was not very extensive. About once a
fortnight a letter from honest Mrs. Rusk conveyed to me how the dogs and
ponies were, in queer English, oddly spelt; some village gossip, a critique
upon Doctor Clay's or the Curate's last sermon, and some severities
generally upon the Dissenters' doings, with loves to Mary Quince, and all
good wishes to me. Sometimes a welcome letter from cheerful Cousin Monica;
and now, to vary the series, a copy of complimentary verses, without a
signature, very adoring--very like Byron, I then fancied, and now, I must
confess, rather vapid. Could I doubt from whom they came?
I had received, about a month after my arrival, a copy of verses in the
same hand, in a plaintive ballad style, of the soldierly sort, in which the
writer said, that as living his sole object was to please me, so dying I
should be his latest thought; and some more poetic impieties, asking only
in return that when the storm of battle had swept over, I should 'shed
a tear' on seeing 'the _oak lie_, where it fell.' Of course, about
this lugubrious pun, there could be no misconception. The Captain was
unmistakably indicated; and I was so moved that I could no longer retain
my secret; but walking with Milly that day, confided the little romance to
that unsophisticated listener, under the chestnut trees. The lines were so
amorously dejected, and yet so heroically redolent of blood and gunpowder,
that Milly and I agreed that the writer must be on the verge of a
sanguinary campaign.
It was not easy to get at Uncle Silas's 'Times' or 'Morning Post,' which we
fancied would explain these horrible allusions; but Milly bethought her of
a sergeant in the militia, resident in Feltram, who knew the destination
and quarters of every regiment in the service; and circuitously, from
this authority, we learned, to my infinite relief, that Captain Oakley's
regiment had still two years to sojourn in England.
I was summoned one evening by old L'Amour, to my uncle's room. I remember
his appearance that evening so well, as he lay back in his chair; the
pillow; the white glare of his strange eye; his feeble, painful smile.
'You'll excuse my not rising, dear Maud, I am so miserably ill this
evening.'
I expressed my respectful condolence.
'Yes; I _am_ to be pitied; but pity is of no use, dear,' he murmured,
peevishly. 'I sent for you to make you acquainted with your cousin, my son.
Where are you Dudley?'
A figure seated in a low lounging chair, at the other side of the fire, and
which till then I had not observed, at these words rose up a little slowly,
like a man stiff after a day's hunting; and I beheld with a shock that held
my breath, and fixed my eyes upon him in a stare, the young man whom I had
encountered at Church Scarsdale, on the day of my unpleasant excursion
there with Madame, and who, to the best of my belief, was also one of that
ruffianly party who had so unspeakably terrified me in the warren at Knowl.
I suppose I looked very much affrighted. If I had been looking at a ghost I
could not have felt much more scared and incredulous.
When I was able to turn my eyes upon my uncle he was not looking at me; but
with a glimmer of that smile with which a father looks on a son whose youth
and comeliness he admires, his white face was turned towards the young man,
in whom I beheld nothing but the image of odious and dreadful associations.
'Come, sir,' said my uncle, we must not be too modest. Here's your cousin
Maud--what do you say?'
'How are ye, Miss?' he said, with a sheepish grin.
'Miss! Come, come. Miss us, no Misses,' said my uncle; 'she is Maud, and
you Dudley, or I mistake; or we shall have you calling Milly, madame.
She'll not refuse you her hand, I venture to think. Come, young gentleman,
speak for yourself.'
'How are ye, Maud?' he said, doing his best, and drawing near, he extended
his hand. 'You're welcome to Bartram-Haugh, Miss.'
'Kiss your cousin, sir. Where's your gallantry? On my honour, I disown
you,' exclaimed my uncle, with more energy than he had shown before.
With a clumsy effort, and a grin that was both sheepish and impudent, he
grasped my hand and advanced his face. The imminent salute gave me strength
to spring back a step or two, and he hesitated.
My uncle laughed peevishly.
'Well, well, that will do, I suppose. In my time first-cousins did not meet
like strangers; but perhaps we were wrong; we are learning modesty from the
Americans, and old English ways are too gross for us.'
'I have--I've seen him before--that is;' and at this point I stopped.
My uncle turned his strange glare, in a sort of scowl of enquiry, upon me.
'Oh!--hey! why this is news. You never told me. Where have you met--eh,
Dudley?'
'Never saw her in my days, so far as I'm aweer on,' said the young man.
'No! Well, then, Maud, will _you_ enlighten us?' said Uncle Silas, coldly.
'I _did_ see that young gentleman before,' I faltered.
'Meaning _me_, ma'am?' he asked, coolly.
'Yes--certainly _you_. I _did_, uncle,' answered I.
'And where was it, my dear? Not at Knowl, I fancy. Poor dear Austin did not
trouble me or mine much with his hospitalities.'
This was not a pleasant tone to take in speaking of his dead brother and
benefactor; but at the moment I was too much engaged upon the one point to
observe it.
'I met'--I could not say my cousin--'I met him, uncle--your son--that young
gentleman--I _saw_ him, I should say, at Church Scarsdale, and afterwards
with some other persons in the warren at Knowl. It was the night our
gamekeeper was beaten.'
'Well, Dudley, what do you say to that?' asked Uncle Silas.
'I never _was_ at them places, so help me. I don't know where they be; and
I never set eyes on the young lady before, as I hope to be saved, in all
my days,' said he, with a countenance so unchanged and an air so confident
that I began to think I must be the dupe of one of those strange
resemblances which have been known to lead to positive identification in
the witness-box, afterwards proved to be utterly mistaken.
'You look so--so _uncomfortable_, Maud, at the idea of having seen him
before, that I hardly wonder at the vehemence of his denial. There was
plainly something disagreeable; but you see as respects him it is a total
mistake. My boy was always a truth-telling fellow--you may rely implicitly
on what he says. You were _not_ at those places?'
'I wish I may----,' began the ingenuous youth, with increased vehemence.
'There, there--that will do; your honour and word as a gentleman--and
_that_ you are, though a poor one--will quite satisfy your cousin Maud. Am
I right, my dear? I do assure you, as a gentleman, I never knew him to say
the thing that was not.'
So Mr. Dudley Ruthyn began, not to curse, but to swear, in the prescribed
form, that he had never seen me before, or the places I had named, 'since I
was weaned, by----'
'That's enough--now shake hands, if you won't kiss, like cousins,'
interrupted my uncle.
And very uncomfortably I did lend him my hand to shake.
'You'll want some supper, Dudley, so Maud and I will excuse your going.
Good-night, my dear boy,' and he smiled and waved him from the room.
'That's as fine a young fellow, I think, as any English father can boast
for his son--true, brave, and kind, and quite an Apollo. Did you observe
how finely proportioned he is, and what exquisite features the fellow has?
He's rustic and rough, as you see; but a year or two in the militia--I've a
promise of a commission for him--he's too old for the line--will form and
polish him. He wants nothing but manner; and I protest when he has had a
little drilling of that kind, I do believe he'll be as pretty a fellow as
you'd find in England.'
I listened with amazement. I could discover nothing but what was
disagreeable in the horrid bumpkin, and thought such an instance of the
blindness of parental partiality was hardly credible.
I looked down, dreading another direct appeal to my judgment; and Uncle
Silas, I suppose, referred those downcast looks to maiden modesty, for he
forbore to task mine by any new interrogatory.
Dudley Ruthyn's cool and resolute denial of ever having seen me or the
places I had named, and the inflexible serenity of his countenance while
doing so, did very much shake my confidence in my own identification of
him. I could not be _quite_ certain that the person I had seen at Church
Scarsdale was the very same whom I afterwards saw at Knowl. And now, in
this particular instance, after the lapse of a still longer period, could I
be perfectly certain that my memory, deceived by some accidental points of
resemblance, had not duped me, and wronged my cousin, Dudley Ruthyn?
I suppose my uncle had expected from me some signs of acquiesence in his
splendid estimate of his cub, and was nettled at my silence. After a short
interval he said--
'I've seen something of the world in my day, and I can say without a
misgiving of partiality, that Dudley is the material of a perfect English
gentleman. I am not blind, of course--the training must be supplied; a year
or two of good models, active self-criticism, and good society. I simply
say that the _material_ is there.'
Here was another interval of silence.
'And now tell me, child, what these recollections of
Church--Church--_what_?'
'Church Scarsdale,' I replied.
'Yes, thank you--Church Scarsdale and Knowl--are?'
So I related my stories as well as I could.
'Well, dear Maud, the adventure of Church Scarsdale is hardly so terrific
as I expected,' said Uncle Silas with a cold little laugh; 'and I don't
see, if he had really been the hero of it, why he should shrink from
avowing it. I know I should not. And I really can't say that your pic-nic
party in the grounds of Knowl has frightened me much more. A lady waiting
in the carriage, and two or three tipsy young men. Her presence seems to
me a guarantee that no mischief was meant; but champagne is the soul of
frolic, and a row with the gamekeepers a natural consequence. It happened
to me once--forty years ago, when I was a wild young buck--one of the worst
rows I ever was in.'
And Uncle Silas poured some eau-de-cologne over the corner of his
handkerchief, and touched his temples with it.
'If my boy had been there, I do assure you--and I know him--he would say so
at once. I fancy he would rather _boast_ of it. I never knew him utter an
untruth. When you know him a little you'll say so.'
With these words Uncle Silas leaned back exhausted, and languidly poured
some of his favourite eau-de-cologne over the palms of his hands, nodded a
farewell, and, in a whisper, wished me good-night.
'Dudley's come,' whispered Milly, taking me under the arm as I entered the
lobby. 'But I don't care: he never gives me nout; and he gets money from
Governor, as much as he likes, and I never a sixpence. It's a shame!'
So there was no great love between the only son and only daughter of the
younger line of the Ruthyns.
I was curious to learn all that Milly could tell me of this new inmate of
Bartram-Haugh; and Milly was communicative without having a great deal to
relate, and what I heard from her tended to confirm my own disagreeable
impressions about him. She was afraid of him. He was a 'woundy ugly
customer in a wax, she could tell me.' He was the only one 'she ever knowed
as had pluck to jaw the Governor.' But he was 'afeard on the Governor,
too.'
His visits to Bartram-Haugh, I heard, were desultory; and this, to my
relief, would probably not outlast a week or a fortnight. 'He _was_ such a
fashionable cove:' he was always 'a gadding about, mostly to Liverpool and
Birmingham, and sometimes to Lunnun, itself.' He was 'keeping company
one time with Beauty, Governor thought, and he was awfully afraid he'd a
married her; but that was all bosh and nonsense; and Beauty would have none
of his chaff and wheedling, for she liked Tom Brice;' and Milly thought
that Dudley never 'cared a crack of a whip for her.' He used to go to the
Windmill to have 'a smoke with Pegtop;' and he was a member of the Feltram
Club, that met at the 'Plume o' Feathers.' He was 'a rare good shot,' she
heard; and 'he was before the justices for poaching, but they could make
nothing of it.' And the Governor said 'it was all through spite of him--for
they hate us for being better blood than they.' And 'all but the squires
and those upstart folk loves Dudley, he is so handsome and gay--though he
be a bit cross at home.' And, 'Governor says, he'll be a Parliament man
yet, spite o' them all.'
Next morning, when our breakfast was nearly ended, Dudley tapped at the
window with the end of his clay pipe--a 'churchwarden' Milly called
it--just such a long curved pipe as Joe Willet is made to hold between his
lips in those charming illustrations of 'Barnaby Rudge'--which we all know
so well--and lifting his 'wide-awake' with a burlesque salutation, which, I
suppose, would have charmed the 'Plume of Feathers,' he dropped, kicked and
caught his 'wide-awake,' with an agility and gravity, as he replaced it, so
inexpressibly humorous, that Milly went off in a loud fit of laughter, with
the ejaculation--
'Did you ever?'
It was odd how repulsively my confidence in my original identification
always revived on unexpectedly seeing Dudley after an interval.
I could perceive that this piece of comic by-play was meant to make a
suitable impression on me. I received it, however, with a killing gravity;
and after a word or two to Milly, he lounged away, having first broken his
pipe, bit by bit, into pieces, which he balanced in turn on his nose and
on his chin, from which features he jerked them into his mouth, with a
precision which, along with his excellent pantomime of eating them, highly
excited Milly's mirth and admiration.