IN WHICH CAPTAIN DEVEREUX'S FIDDLE PLAYS A PRELUDE TO 'OVER THE HILLS
AND FAR AWAY.'
There was some little undefinable coolness between old General
Chattesworth and Devereux. He admired the young fellow, and he liked
good blood in his corps, but somehow he was glad when he thought he was
likely to go. When old Bligh, of the Magazine, commended the handsome
young dog's good looks, the general would grow grave all at once, and
sniff once or twice, and say, 'Yes, a good-looking fellow certainly, and
might make a good officer, a mighty good officer, but he's wild, a
troublesome dog.' And, lowering his voice, 'I tell you what, colonel, as
long as a young buck sticks to his claret, it is all fair; but hang it,
you see, I'm afraid he likes other things, and he won't wait till after
dinner--this between ourselves, you know. 'Tis not a button to me, by
Jupiter, what he does or drinks, off duty; but hang it, I'm afraid some
day he'll break out; and once or twice in a friendly way, you know, I've
had to speak with him, and, to say truth, I'd rather he served under
anyone else. He's a fine fellow, 'tis a pity there should be anything
wrong, and it would half break my heart to have to take a public course
with him; not, you know, that it has ever come to anything like
that--but--but I've heard things--and--and he must pull up, or he'll not
do for the service.' So, though the thing did not amount to a scandal,
there was a formality between Devereux and his commanding officer, who
thought he saw bad habits growing apace, and apprehended that ere long
disagreeable relations might arise between them.
Lord Athenry had been no friend to Devereux in his nonage, and the
good-natured countess, to make amends, had always done her utmost to
spoil him, and given him a great deal more of his own way, as well as of
plum-cake, and Jamaica preserves, and afterwards a great deal more
money, than was altogether good for him. Like many a worse person, she
was a little bit capricious, and a good deal selfish; but the young
fellow was handsome. She was proud of his singularly good looks, and his
wickedness interested her, and she gave him more money than to all the
best public charities to which she contributed put together. Devereux,
indeed, being a fast man, with such acres as he inherited, which
certainly did not reach a thousand, mortgaged pretty smartly, and with
as much personal debt beside, of the fashionable and refined sort, as
became a young buck of bright though doubtful expectations--and if the
truth must be owned, sometimes pretty nearly pushed into a corner--was
beholden, not only for his fun, but, occasionally for his daily bread
and even his liberty, to those benevolent doles.
He did not like her peremptory summons; but he could not afford to
quarrel with his bread and butter, nor to kill by undutiful behaviour
the fair, plump bird whose golden eggs were so very convenient. I don't
know whether there may not have been some slight sign in the
handwriting--in a phrase, perhaps, or in the structure of the
composition, which a clever analysis might have detected, and which only
reached him vaguely, with a foreboding that he was not to see Chapelizod
again so soon as usual when this trip was made. And, in truth, his aunt
had plans. She designed his retirement from the Royal Irish Artillery,
and had negociated an immediate berth for him on the Staff of the
Commander of the Forces, and a prospective one in the household of Lord
Townshend; she had another arrangement 'on the anvil' for a seat in
Parliament, which she would accomplish, if that were possible; and
finally a wife. In fact her ladyship had encountered old General
Chattesworth at Scarborough only the autumn before, and they had had, in
that gay resort, a good deal of serious talk (though serious talk with
the good countess never lasted very long), between their cards and other
recreations, the result of which was, that she began to think, with the
good general, that Devereux would be better where one unlucky
misadventure would not sully his reputation for life. Besides, she
thought Chapelizod was not safe ground for a young fellow so eccentric,
perverse, and impetuous, where pretty faces were plentier than good
fortunes, and at every tinkling harpsichord there smiled a possible
_mesalliance_. In the town of Chapelizod itself, indeed, the young
gentleman did not stand quite so high in estimation as with his aunt,
who thought nothing was good or high enough for her handsome nephew,
with his good blood and his fine possibilities. The village folk,
however, knew that he was confoundedly dipped; that he was sometimes
alarmingly pestered by duns, and had got so accustomed to hear that his
uncle, the earl, was in his last sickness, and his cousin, the next
heir, dead, when another week disclosed that neither one nor the other
was a bit worse than usual, that they began to think that Devereux's
turn might very possibly never come at all. Besides, the townspeople had
high notions of some of their belles, and not without reason. There was
Miss Gertrude Chattesworth, for instance, with more than fourteen
thousand pounds to her fortune, and Lilias Walsingham, who would inherit
her mother's money, and the good rector's estate of twelve hundred a
year beside, and both with good blood in their veins, and beautiful
princesses too. However, in those days there was more parental despotism
than now. The old people kept their worldly wisdom to themselves, and
did not take the young into a scheming partnership; and youth and
beauty, I think, were more romantic, and a great deal less venal.
Such being the old countess's programme--a plan, according to her
lights, grand and generous, she might have dawdled over it, for a good
while, for she did not love trouble. It was not new; the airy castle had
been some years built, and now, in an unwonted hurry, she wished to
introduce the tenant to the well-aired edifice, and put him in actual
possession. For a queer little attack in her head, which she called a
fainting fit, and to which nobody dared afterwards to make allusion, and
which she had bullied herself and everybody about her into forgetting,
had, nevertheless, frightened her confoundedly. And when her helpless
panic and hysterics were over, she silently resolved, if the thing were
done, then 'twere well 'twere done quickly.