IN WHICH THE GENTLEMEN FOLLOW THE LADIES.
Having had as much claret as they cared for, the gentlemen fluttered
gaily into the drawing-room, and Puddock, who made up to Miss Gertrude,
and had just started afresh, and in a rather more sentimental vein, was
a good deal scandalised, and put out by the general's reciting with
jolly emphasis, and calling thereto his daughter's special attention,
his receipt for 'surprising a weaver,' which he embellished with two or
three burlesque improvements of his own, which Puddock, amidst his
blushes and confusion, allowed to pass without a protest. Aunt Rebecca
was the only person present who pointedly refused to laugh; and with a
slight shudder and momentary elevation of her eyes, said, 'wicked and
unnatural cruelty!' at which sentiment Puddock used his
pocket-handkerchief in rather an agitated manner.
''Tis a thing I've never done myself--that is, I've never seen it done,'
said Little Puddock, suffused with blushes, as he pleaded his cause at
the bar of humanity--for those were the days of Howard, and the fair sex
had taken up the philanthropist. 'The--the--receipt--'tis, you see, a
thing I happened to meet--and--and just read it in the--in a book--and
the--I--a----'
Aunt Becky, with her shoulders raised in a shudder, and an agonised and
peremptory 'there, there, _there_,' moved out of hearing in dignified
disgust, to the general's high entertainment, who enjoyed her assaults
upon innocent Puddock, and indeed took her attacks upon himself, when
executed with moderation, hilariously enough--a misplaced good-humour
which never failed to fire Aunt Becky's just resentment.
Indeed, the general was so tickled with this joke that he kept it going
for the rest of the evening, by sly allusions and mischievous puns. As
for instance, at supper, when Aunt Rebecca was deploring the miserable
depression of the silk manufacture, and the distress of the poor
Protestant artisans of the Liberty, the general, with a solemn wink at
Puddock, and to that officer's terror, came out with--
'Yet, who knows, Lieutenant Puddock, but the weavers, poor fellows, may
be surprised, you know, by a sudden order from the Court, as happened
last year.'
But Aunt Rebecca only raised her eyebrows, and, with a slight toss of
her head, looked sternly at a cold fowl on the other side. But, from
some cause or other--perhaps it was Miss Gertrude's rebellion in
treating the outlawed Puddock with special civility that evening, Miss
Becky's asperity seemed to acquire edge and venom as time proceeded. But
Puddock rallied quickly. He was on the whole very happy, and did not
grudge Mervyn his share of the talk, though he heard him ask leave to
send Miss Gertrude Chattesworth a portfolio of his drawings made in
Venice, to look over, which she with a smile accepted--and at supper,
Puddock, at the general's instigation, gave them a solo, which went off
pretty well, and, as they stood about the fire after it, on a similar
pressure, an imitation of Barry in Othello; and upon this, Miss Becky,
who was a furious partisan of Smock-alley Theatre and Mossop against
Barry, Woodward, and the Crow-street play-house, went off again. Indeed,
this was a feud which just then divided the ladies of all Dublin, and
the greater part of the country, with uncommon acrimony.
'Crow-street was set up,' she harangued, 'to ruin the old house in the
spirit of covetousness, _you_ say' (Puddock had not said a word on the
subject;) 'well, covetousness, we have good authority for saying, is
idolatry--nothing less--_idolatry_, Sir,--you need not stare.' (Puddock
certainly did stare.) 'I suppose you _once_ read your Bible, Sir, but
every sensible man, woman, child, and infant, Sir, in the kingdom, knows
it was malice; and malice, Holy Writ says, is _murder_--but I forgot,
that's perhaps no very great objection with Lieutenant Puddock.'
And little Puddock flushed up, and his round eyes grew rounder and
rounder, as she proceeded, every moment; and he did not know what to
say--for it had not struck him before that Messrs. Barry's and
Woodward's theatrical venture might be viewed in the light of idolatry
or murder. So dumfounded as he was, he took half of Lord Chesterfield's
advice in such cases, that is, he forgot the smile, but he made a very
low bow, and, with this submission, the combat (_si rixa est_) subsided.
Dangerfield had gone away some time--so had Mervyn--Sturk and his wife
went next, and Cluffe and Puddock, who lingered as long as was decent,
at last took leave. The plump lieutenant went away very happy,
notwithstanding the two or three little rubs he had met with, and a good
deal more in love than ever. And he and his companion were both
thoughtful, and the walk home was quite silent, though very pleasant.
Cluffe was giving shape mentally to his designs upon Miss Rebecca's
£20,000 and savings. He knew she had had high offers in her young days
and refused; but those were past and gone--and gray hairs bring
wisdom--and women grow more practicable as the time for action
dwindles--and she was just the woman to take a fancy--and 'once the
maggot bit,' to go any honest length to make it fact. And Cluffe knew
that he had the field to himself, and that he was a well-made, handsome,
agreeable officer--not so young as to make the thing absurd, yet young
enough to inspire the right sort of feeling. To be sure, there were a
few things to be weighed. She was, perhaps--well, she _was_ eccentric.
She had troublesome pets and pastimes--he knew them all--was well
stricken in years, and had a will of her own--that was all. But, then,
on the other side was the money--a great and agreeable arithmetical fact
not to be shaken--and she could be well-bred when she liked, and a
self-possessed, dignified lady, who could sail about a room, and
courtesy, and manage her fan, and lead the conversation, and do the
honours, as Mrs. Cluffe, with a certain air of _haut ton_, and in an
imposing way, to Cluffe's entire content, who liked the idea of
overawing his peers.
And the two warriors, side by side, marched over the bridge, in the
starlight, and both by common consent, halted silently, and wheeled up
to the battlement; and Puddock puffed a complacent little sigh up the
river toward Belmont; and Cluffe was a good deal interested in the
subject of his contemplation, and in fact, the more he thought of it,
the better he liked it.
And they stood, each in his reverie, looking over the battlement toward
Belmont, and hearing the hushed roll of the river, and seeing nothing
but the deep blue, and the stars, and the black outline of the trees
that overhung the bridge, until the enamoured Cluffe, who liked his
comforts, and knew what gout was, felt the chill air, and remembered
suddenly that they had stopped, and ought to be in motion toward their
beds, and so he shook up Puddock, and they started anew, and parted just
at the Phoenix, shaking hands heartily, like two men who had just done
a good stroke of business together.