The Virginians
Page 29
CHAPTER XXIX. In which Harry continues to enjoy Otium sine Dignitate
Whilst there were card-players enough to meet her at her lodgings andthe assembly-rooms, Madame de Bernstein remained pretty contentedly atthe Wells, scolding her niece, and playing her rubber. At Harry's agealmost all places are pleasant, where you can have lively company,fresh air, and your share of sport and diversion. Even all pleasure ispleasant at twenty. We go out to meet it with alacrity, speculate uponits coming, and when its visit is announced, count the days until it andwe shall come together. How very gently and coolly we regard it towardsthe close of Life's long season! Madam, don't you recollect your firstball; and does not your memory stray towards that happy past, sometimes,as you sit ornamenting the wall whilst your daughters are dancing? I,for my part, can remember when I thought it was delightful to walk threemiles and back in the country to dine with old Captain Jones. Fancyliking to walk three miles, now, to dine with Jones and drink hishalf-pay port! No doubt it was bought from the little country-townwine-merchant, and cost but a small sum; but 'twas offered with a kindlywelcome, and youth gave it a flavour which no age of wine or man canimpart to it nowadays. Viximus nuper. I am not disposed to look soseverely upon young Harry's conduct and idleness, as his friend thestern Colonel of the Twentieth Regiment. O blessed idleness! Divine lazynymph! Reach me a novel as I lie in my dressing-gown at three o'clock inthe afternoon; compound a sherry-cobbler for me, and bring me a cigar!Dear slatternly, smiling Enchantress! They may assail thee with badnames--swear thy character away, and call thee the Mother of Evil; but,for all that, thou art the best company in the world!
My Lord of March went away to the North; and my Lord Chesterfield,finding the Tunbridge waters did no good to his deafness, returned tohis solitude at Blackheath; but other gentlemen remained to sport andtake their pleasure, and Mr. Warrington had quite enough of companionsat his ordinary at the White Horse. He soon learned to order a Frenchdinner as well as the best man of fashion out of St. James's; couldtalk to Monsieur Barbeau, in Monsieur B.'s native language, much morefluently than most other folks,--discovered a very elegant and decidedtaste in wines, and could distinguish between Clos Vougeot and Romandewith remarkable skill. He was the young King of the Wells, of whichthe general frequenters were easygoing men of the world, who were by nomeans shocked at that reputation for gallantry and extravagance whichHarry had got, and which had so frightened Mr. Wolfe.
Though our Virginian lived amongst the revellers, and swam and sportedin the same waters with the loose fish, the boy had a natural shrewdnessand honesty which kept him clear of the snares and baits which arecommonly set for the unwary. He made very few foolish bets with thejolly idle fellows round about him, and the oldest hands found itdifficult to take him in. He engaged in games outdoors and in, becausehe had a natural skill and aptitude for them, and was good to holdalmost any match with any fair competitor. He was scrupulous to playonly with those gentlemen whom he knew, and always to settle his owndebts on the spot. He would have made but a very poor figure at acollege examination; though he possessed prudence and fidelity, keen,shrewd perception, great generosity, and dauntless personal courage.
And he was not without occasions for showing of what stuff he was made.For instance, when that unhappy little Cattarina, who had brought himinto so much trouble, carried her importunities beyond the mark at whichHarry thought his generosity should stop, he withdrew from the advancesof the Opera-House Siren with perfect coolness and skill, leaving herto exercise her blandishments upon some more easy victim. In vain themermaid's hysterical mother waited upon Harry, and vowed that a cruelbailiff had seized all her daughter's goods for debt, and that hervenerable father was at present languishing in a London gaol. Harrydeclared that between himself and the bailiff there could be nodealings, and that because he had had the good fortune to become knownto Mademoiselle Cattarina, and to gratify her caprices by presenting herwith various trinkets and knick-knacks for which she had a fancy, he wasnot bound to pay the past debts of her family, and must decline beingbail for her papa in London, or settling her outstanding accounts atTunbridge. The Cattarina's mother first called him a monster and aningrate, and then asked him, with a veteran smirk, why he did not takepay for the services he had rendered to the young person? At first, Mr.Warrington could not understand what the nature of the payment might be:but when that matter was explained by the old woman, the honest ladrose up in horror, to think that a woman should traffic in her child'sdishonour, told her that he came from a country where the very savageswould recoil from such a bargain; and, having bowed the old ladyceremoniously to the door, ordered Gumbo to mark her well, and neveradmit her to his lodgings again. No doubt she retired breathingvengeance against the Iroquois: no Turk or Persian, she declared, wouldtreat a lady so: and she and her daughter retreated to London as soonas their anxious landlord would let them. Then Harry had his perils ofgaming, as well as his perils of gallantry. A man who plays at bowls,as the phrase is, must expect to meet with rubbers. After dinner at theordinary, having declined to play piquet any further with Captain Batts,and being roughly asked his reason for refusing, Harry fairly told theCaptain that he only played with gentlemen who paid, like himself:but expressed himself so ready to satisfy Mr. Batts, as soon as theiroutstanding little account was settled, that the Captain declaredhimself satisfied d'avance, and straightway left the Wells withoutpaying Harry or any other creditor. Also he had an occasion to showhis spirit by beating a chairman who was rude to old Miss Whiffler oneevening as she was going to the assembly: and finding that the calumnyregarding himself and that unlucky opera-dancer was repeated by Mr.Hector Buckler, one of the fiercest frequenters of the Wells, Mr.Warrington stepped up to Mr. Buckler in the pump-room, where the latterwas regaling a number of water-drinkers with the very calumny, andpublicly informed Mr. Buckler that the story was a falsehood, and thathe should hold any person accountable to himself who henceforth utteredit. So that though our friend, being at Rome, certainly did as Rome did,yet he showed himself to be a valorous and worthy Roman; and, hurlantavec les loups, was acknowledged by Mr. Wolfe himself to be as brave asthe best of the wolves.
If that officer had told Colonel Lambert the stories which had given thelatter so much pain, we may be sure that when Mr. Wolfe found his youngfriend was innocent, he took the first opportunity to withdraw theodious charges against him. And there was joy among the Lamberts,in consequence of the lad's acquittal--something, doubtless, of thatpleasure, which is felt by higher natures than ours, at the recovery ofsinners. Never had the little family been so happy--no, not even whenthey got the news of Brother Tom winning his scholarship--as whenColonel Wolfe rode over with the account of the conversation which hehad with Harry Warrington. "Hadst thou brought me a regiment, James,I think I should not have been better pleased," said Mr. Lambert. Mrs.Lambert called to her daughters who were in the garden, and kissedthem both when they came in, and cried out the good news to them. Hettyjumped for joy, and Theo performed some uncommonly brilliant operationsupon the harpsichord that night; and when Dr. Boyle came in for hisbackgammon, he could not, at first, account for the illumination in alltheir faces, until the three ladies, in a happy chorus, told him howright he had been in his sermon, and how dreadfully they had wrongedthat poor dear, good young Mr. Warrington.
"What shall we do, my dear?" says the Colonel to his wife. "The hay isin, the corn won't be cut for a fortnight,--the horses have nothing todo. Suppose we..." And here he leans over the table and whispers in herear.
"My dearest Martin! The very thing!" cries Mrs. Lambert, taking herhusband's hand and pressing it.
"What's the very thing, mother?" cries young Charley, who is home forhis Bartlemytide holidays.
"The very thing is to go to supper. Come, Doctor! We will have a bottleof wine to-night, and drink repentance to all who think evil."
"Amen," says the Doctor; "with all my heart!" And with this the worthyfamily went to their supper.