IN WHICH OBEDIAH ARRIVES.
In the meantime our worthy little Lieutenant Puddock--by this time quite
reconciled to the new state of things, walked up to Belmont, with his
head a great deal fuller--such and so great are human vagaries--of the
interview pending between him and Aunt Becky than of the little romance
which had exploded so unexpectedly about a fortnight ago.
He actually saw Miss Gertrude and my Lord Dunoran walking side by side,
on the mulberry walk by the river; and though he looked and felt a
little queer, perhaps, a little absurd, he did not sigh, or murmur a
stanza, or suffer a palpitation; but walked up to the hall-door, and
asked for Miss Rebecca Chattesworth.
Aunt Becky received him in the drawing-room. She was looking very pale,
and spoke very little, and very gently for her. In a reconciliation
between two persons of the opposite sexes--though the ages be wide
apart--there is almost always some little ingredient of sentiment.
The door was shut, and Puddock's voice was heard in an indistinct
murmur, upon the lobby. Then there was a silence, or possibly, some
speaking in a still lower key. Then Aunt Becky was crying, and the
lieutenant's voice cooing through it. Then Aunt Becky, still crying,
said--
'A longer time than _you_ think for, lieutenant; two years, and
more--_always_! And the lieutenant's voice rose again; and she
said--'What a fool I've been!' which was again lost in Puddock's
accents; and the drawing-room door opened, and Aunt Rebecca ran up
stairs, with her handkerchief to her red nose and eyes, and slammed her
bed-room door after her like a boarding-school miss.
And the general's voice was heard shouting 'luncheon' in the hall; and
Dominick repeated the announcement to Puddock, who stood, unusually pale
and very much stunned, with the handle of the open drawing-room door in
his hand, looking up toward the bed-room in an undecided sort of way, as
if he was not clear whether it was not his duty to follow Aunt Becky. On
being told a second time, however, that the general awaited him at
luncheon, he apprehended the meaning of the message, and went down to
the parlour forthwith.
The general, and my lord Dunoran, and Miss Gertrude, and honest Father
Roach, were there; and Aunt Becky being otherwise engaged, could not
come.
Puddock, at luncheon, was abstracted--frightened--silent, for the most
part; talking only two or three sentences during that sociable meal, by
fits and starts; and he laughed once abruptly at a joke he did not hear.
He also drank three glasses of port.
Aunt Rebecca met him with her hood on in the hall. She asked him, with a
faltering sort of carelessness, looking very hard at the clock, and
nearly with her back to him--
'Lieutenant, will you take a turn in the garden with me?'
To which Puddock, with almost a start--for he had not seen her till she
spoke--and, upon my word, 'tis a fact, with a blush, too--made a sudden
smile, and a bow, and a suitable reply in low tones; and forth they
sallied together, and into the garden, and up and down the same walk,
for a good while--a long while--people sometimes don't count the
minutes--with none but Peter Brian, the gardener, whom they did not see,
to observe them.
When they came to the white wicket-door of the garden, Aunt Rebecca
hastily dropped his arm, on which she had leaned; and together they
returned to the house very affably; and there Aunt Becky bid him
good-bye in a whisper, a little hastily; and Puddock, so soon as he
found Dominick, asked for the general.
He had gone down to the river; and Puddock followed. As he walked along
the court, he looked up; there was a kind of face at the window. He
smiled a great deal and raised his hat, and placed it to his heart, and
felt quite bewildered, like a man in a dream; and in this state he
marched down to the river's bank.
They had not been together for a full minute when the stout general
threw back his head, looking straight in his face; and then he stepped
first one, then another, fat little pace backward, and poked his cane
right at the ribs of the plump little lieutenant, then closing with him,
he shook both Puddock's hands in both his, with a hearty peal of
laughter.
Then he took Puddock under his arm. Puddock had to stoop to pick up his
hat which the general had dislodged. And so the general walks him slowly
towards the house; sometimes jogging his elbow a little under his ribs;
sometimes calling a halt and taking his collar in his finger and thumb,
thrusting him out a little, and eyeing him over with a sort of swagger,
and laughing and coughing, and whooping, and laughing again, almost to
strangulation; and altogether extraordinarily boisterous, and hilarious,
and familiar, as Cluffe thought, who viewed this spectacle from the
avenue.
Mr. Sterling would not have been quite so amused at a similar freak of
Mrs. Hidleberg's--but our honest general was no especial worshipper of
money--he was rich, too, and his daughter, well dowered, was about to
marry a peer, and beside all this, though he loved 'Sister Becky,' her
yoke galled him; and I think he was not altogether sorry at the notion
of a little more liberty.
At the same moment honest Peter Brien, having set his basket of winter
greens down upon the kitchen-table, electrified his auditory by telling
them, with a broad grin and an oath, that he had seen Lieutenant Puddock
and Aunt Rebecca kiss in the garden, with a good smart smack, 'by the
powers, within three yards of his elbow, when he was stooping down
cutting them greens!' At which profanity, old Mistress Dorothy, Aunt
Rebecca's maid, was so incensed that she rose and left the kitchen
without a word. The sensation there, however, was immense; and Mistress
Dorothy heard the gabble and laughter fast and furious behind her until
she reached the hall.
Captain Cluffe was asking for Aunt Rebecca when Puddock and the general
reached the hall-door, and was surprised to learn that she was not to be
seen. 'If she knew 'twas I,' he thought, 'but no matter.'
'Oh, _we_ could have told you that; eh, Puddock?' cried the general;
''tisn't everybody can see my sister to-day, captain; a very peculiar
engagement, eh, Puddock?' and a sly wink and a chuckle.
Cluffe smiled a little, and looked rather conscious and queer, but
pleased with himself; and his eyes wandered over the front windows
hastily, to see if Aunt Becky was looking out, for he fancied there was
something in the general's quizzing, and that the lady might have said
more than she quite intended to poor little Puddock on the subject of
the gallant mediator; and that, in fact, he was somehow the theme of
some little sentimental disclosure of the lady's. What the plague else
could they both mean by quizzing Cluffe about her?
Puddock and he had not gone half-way down the short avenue, when Cluffe
said, with a sheepish smile:
'Miss Rebecca Chattesworth dropped something in her talk with you,
Puddock, I see that plain enough, my dear fellow, which the general has
no objection I should hear, and, hang it, I don't see any myself. I say,
I may as well hear it, eh? I venture to say there's no great harm in it.'
At first Puddock was reserved, but recollecting that he had been left
quite free to tell whom he pleased, he made up his mind to unbosom; and
suggested, for the sake of quiet and a longer conversation, that they
should go round by the ferry.
'No, I thank you, I've had enough of that; we can walk along as quietly
as you like, and turn a little back again if need be.'
So slowly, side by side, the brother-officers paced toward the bridge;
and little Puddock, with a serious countenance and blushing cheeks, and
looking straight before him, made his astounding disclosure.
Puddock told things in a very simple and intelligible way, and Cluffe
heard him in total silence; and just as he related the crowning fact,
that he, the lieutenant, was about to marry Miss Rebecca Chattesworth,
having reached the milestone by the footpath, Captain Cluffe raised his
foot thereupon, without a word to Puddock, and began tugging at the
strap of his legging, with a dismal red grin, and a few spluttering
curses at the artificer of the article.
'And the lady has had the condescension to say that she has liked me for
at least _two years_.'
'And she hating you like poison, to my certain knowledge,' laughed
Captain Cluffe, very angrily, and swallowing down his feelings. So they
walked on a little way in silence, and Cluffe, who, with his face very
red, and his mouth a good deal expanded, and down in the corners, was
looking steadfastly forward, exclaimed suddenly,--
'_Well_?'
'I see, Cluffe,' said Puddock; 'you don't think it prudent--you think we
mayn't be happy?'
'_Prudent_,' laughed Cluffe, with a variety of unpleasant meanings; and
after a while--'And the general knows of it?'
'And approves it most kindly,' said Puddock.
'What else can he do?' sneered Cluffe; ''tis a precious fancy--they
_are_ such cheats! Why you might be almost her _grand_-son, my dear
Puddock, ha, ha, ha. 'Tis preposterous; you're sixteen years younger
than I.'
'If you can't congratulate me, 'twould be kinder not to say anything,
Captain Cluffe; and nobody must speak in my presence of that lady but
with proper respect; and I--I thought, Cluffe, you'd have wished me
well, and shaken hands and said something--something--'
'Oh, as for that,' said Cluffe, swallowing down his emotions again, and
shaking hands with Puddock rather clumsily, and trying to smile, 'I wish
you well, Heaven knows--everything good; why shouldn't I, by George? You
know, Puddock, 'twas I who brought you together. And--and--am I at
liberty to mention it?'
Puddock thought it better the news should be proclaimed from Belmont.
'Well, so I think myself,' said Cluffe, and relapsed into silence till
they parted, at the corner of the broad street of Chapelizod and Cluffe
walked at an astounding pace on to his lodgings.
'Here's Captain Cluffe,' said Mrs. Mason, to a plump youth, who had just
made the journey from London, and was standing with the driver of a
low-backed car, and saluted the captain, who was stalking in without
taking any notice.
'Little bill, if you please, captain.'
'What is it?' demanded the captain, grimly.
'Obediar's come, Sir.'
'Obediar!' said the captain. 'What the plague do you mean, Sir?'
'Obediar, Sir, is the name we give him. The pelican, Sir, from Messrs.
Hamburgh and Slighe.'
And the young man threw back a piece of green baize, and disclosed
Obediar, who blinked with a tranquil countenance upon the captain
through the wires of a strong wooden cage. I doubt if the captain ever
looked so angry before or since. He glared at the pelican, and ground
his teeth, and actually shook his cane in his fist; and if he had been
one bit less prudent than he was, I think Obediar would then and there
have slept with his fathers.
Cluffe whisked himself about, and plucked open the paper.
'And what the devil is all this for, Sir? ten--twelve pounds ten
shillings freightage and care on the way--and twenty-five, by George,
Sir--not far from forty pounds, Sir,' roared Cluffe.
'Where'll I bring him to, Sir?' asked the driver.
The captain bellowed an address we sha'n't print here.
'Curse him--curse the brute! forty pounds!' and the captain swore
hugely, 'you scoundrel! Drive the whole concern out of that, Sir. Drive
him away, Sir, or by Jove, I'll break every bone in your body, Sir.'
And the captain scaled the stairs, and sat down panting, and outside the
window he heard the driver advising something about putting the
captain's bird to livery, 'till sich time as he'd come to his sinses;'
and himself undertaking to wait opposite the door of his lodgings until
his fare from Dublin was paid.
Though Cluffe was occasionally swayed by the angry passions, he was, on
the whole, in his own small way, a long-headed fellow. He hated law,
especially when he had a bad case; and accordingly he went down again,
rumpling the confounded bill in his hand, and told the man that he did
not blame _him_ for it--though the whole thing was an imposition; but
that rather than have any words about it, he'd pay the account, and have
done with it; and he stared again in the face of the pelican with an
expression of rooted abhorrence and disgust, and the mild bird clapped
its bill, perhaps expecting some refreshment, and looking upon the
captain with a serene complacency very provoking under the
circumstances.
'How the devil people can like such misshapen, idiotic-looking, selfish,
useless brutes; and, by George, it smells like a polecat--curse it! but
some people have deuced queer fancies in more matters than one. The
brute! on my soul, I'd like to shoot it.'
However, with plenty of disputation over the items, and many oaths and
vows, the gallant captain, with a heavy and wrathful heart, paid the
bill; and although he had sworn in his drawing-room that he'd eat the
pelican before Aunt Rebecca should have it, he thought better also upon
this point too, and it arrived that evening at Belmont, with his
respectful compliments.
Cluffe was soon of opinion that he was in absolute possession of his own
secret, and resolved to keep it effectually. He hinted that very evening
at mess, and afterwards at the club, that he had been managing a very
nice and delicate bit of diplomacy which not a soul of them suspected,
at Belmont; and that by George, he thought they'd stare when they heard
it. He had worked like a lord chancellor to bring it about; and he
thought all was pretty well settled, now. And the Chapelizod folk, in
general, and Puddock, as implicitly as any, and Aunt Rebecca, for that
matter, also believed to their dying day that Cluffe had managed that
match, and been a true friend to little Puddock.
Cluffe never married, but grew confoundedly corpulent by degrees, and
suffered plaguily from gout; but was always well dressed, and
courageously buckled in, and, I dare say, two inches less in girth,
thanks to the application of mechanics, than nature would have presented
him.