Читать книгу Sir Jasper Carew: His Life and Experience - Charles James Lever - Страница 7

Table of Contents

To do the honors of another man's house is a tremendous test of tact. In point of skill or address, we know of few things more difficult. The ease which sits so gracefully on a host becomes assurance when practised by a representative; and there is a species of monarchy about the lord of a household that degenerates into usurpation in the hands of a pretender. It is not improbable, then, Dan MacNaghten's success in this trying part was mainly attributable to the fact that he had never thought of its difficulty. He had gone through a fine property in a few years of dissipation, during which he had played the entertainer so often and so well that nothing seemed to him more natural than a seat at the head of a table, nor any task more simple or agreeable than to dispense its hospitalities.

The servants of the Castle were well accustomed to obey him, and when he gave his orders for breakfast to be speedily laid out in the conservatory, they set about the preparations with zeal and activity. With such promptitude, indeed, were the arrangements made that by the time MacNaghten had conducted his guests to the spot, all was in readiness awaiting them.

The place was admirably chosen, being a central point in the conservatory, from which alleys branched out in different directions; some opening upon little plots of flowers or ornamental shrubbery, others disclosing views of the woodland scenery or the distant mountains beyond it. The table was spread beside a marble basin, into which a little group of sportive Titans were seen spouting. Great Nile lilies floated on the crystal surface, and gold and silver fish flashed and glittered below. The board itself, covered with luscious fruit, most temptingly arranged amidst beautiful flowers, displayed, besides, some gorgeous specimens of Sèvres and Saxony, hastily taken from their packing-cases, while a large vase of silver, richly chased, stood in the centre, and exhibited four views of the Castle, painted in medallions on its sides.

“If you'll sit here, Miss Polly,” said MacNaghten, “you'll have a prettier view, for you'll see the lake, and catch a peep, too, of the Swiss Cottage on the crag above it. I must show you the cottage after breakfast. It was a bit of fancy of my own,—copied, I am free to confess, from one I saw in the Oberland.—Fagan, help yourself; you 'll find these cutlets excellent. Our friend Carew has made an admirable choice of a cook.”

“You treat us in princely fashion, sir,” said Fagan, whose eyes glanced from the splendor before him to his daughter, and there tried to read her thoughts.

“You gave me no time for that; had you told me you were coming down, I 'd have tried to receive you properly. As it is, pray make up your mind to stay a day or two,—Carew will be so delighted; nothing flatters him so much as to hear praise of this place.”

“Ah, sir, you forget that men like myself have but few holidays.”

“So much the worse, Fagan; remember what the adage says about all work and no play. Not, by Jove, but I 'm sure that the converse of the proposition must have its penalty, too; for if not, I should have been a marvellously clever fellow.—Ay, Miss Polly, my life has been all play.”

“A greater fault than the other, sir, and with this addition, too, that it makes proselytes,” said she, gravely; “my father's theory finds fewer followers.”

“And you not one of them?” said MacNaghten, rapidly; while he fixed a look of shrewd inquiry on her.

“Assuredly not,” replied she, in a calm and collected tone.

“By Jove, I could have sworn to it,” cried he, with a burst of enthusiastic delight. “There, Fagan, you see Miss Polly takes my side, after all.”

“I have not said so,” rejoined she, gravely. “Gain and waste are nearer relatives than they suspect.”

“I must own that I have never known but one of the family,” said Dan, with one of those hearty laughs which seemed to reconcile him to any turn of fortune.

Fagan all this time was ill at ease and uncomfortable; the topic annoyed him, and he gladly took occasion to change it by an allusion to the wine.

“And yet there are people who will tell you not to drink champagne for breakfast,” exclaimed Dan, draining his glass as he spoke; “as if any man could be other than better with this glorious tipple. Miss Polly, your good health, though it seems superfluous to wish you anything.”

She bowed half coldly to the compliment, and Fagan added hurriedly, “We are at least contented with our lot in life, Mr. MacNaghten.”

“Egad, I should think you were, Tony, and no great merit in the resignation, after all. Put yourself in my position, however,—fancy yourself Dan MacNaghten for one brief twenty-four hours. Think of a fellow who began the world—ay, and that not so very long ago either—with something over five thousand a-year, and a good large sum in bank, and who now, as he sits here, only spends five shillings when he writes his name on a stamp; who once had houses and hounds and horses, but who now sits in the rumble, and rides a borrowed hack. If you want to make a virtue of your contentment, Fagan, change places with me.”

“But would you take mine, Mr. MacNaghten? Would you toil, and slave, and fag,—would you shut out the sun, that your daily labor should have no suggestive temptings to enjoyment,—would you satisfy yourself that the world should be to you one everlasting struggle, till at last the very capacity to feel it otherwise was lost to you forever?”

“That's more than I am able to picture to myself,” said MacNaghten, sipping his wine. “I 've lain in a ditch for two hours with a broken thigh-bone, thinking all the time of the jolly things I 'd do when I 'd get well again; I 've spent some very rainy weeks in a debtor's prison, weaving innumerable enjoyments for the days when I should be at liberty; so that as to any conception of a period when I should not be able to be happy, it 's clean and clear beyond me.”

Polly's eyes were fixed on him as he spoke, and while their expression was almost severe, the heightened color of her cheeks showed that she listened to him with a sense of pleasure.

“I suppose it's in the family,” continued Dan, gayly. “My poor father used to say that no men have such excellent digestion as those that have nothing to eat.”

“And has it never occurred to you, sir,” said Polly, with a degree of earnestness in her voice and manner,—“has it never occurred to you that this same buoyant temperament could be turned to other and better account than mere “—she stopped, and blushed, and then, as if by an effort, went on—“mere selfish enjoyment? Do you not feel that he who can reckon on such resources but applies them to base uses when he condescends to make them the accessories of his pleasures? Is there nothing within your heart to whisper that a nature such as this was given for higher and nobler purposes; and that he who has the spirit to confront real danger should not sit down contented with a mere indifference to shame?”

“Polly, Polly!” cried her father, alike overwhelmed by the boldness and the severity of her speech.

“By Jove, the young lady has given me a canter,” cried MacNaghten, who, in spite of all his good temper, grew crimson; “and I only wish the lesson had come earlier. Yes, Miss Polly,” added he, in a voice of more feeling, “it 's too late now.”

“You must forgive my daughter, Mr. MacNaghten,—she is not usually so presumptuous,” said Fagan, rising from the table, while he darted a reproving glance towards Polly; “besides, we are encroaching most unfairly on your time.”

“Are you so?” cried Dan, laughing. “I never heard it called mine before! Why, Tony, it's yours, and everybody's that has need of it. But if you 'll not eat more, let me show you the grounds. They are too extensive for a walk, Miss Polly, so, with your leave, we 'll have something to drive; meanwhile I'll tell the gardener to pluck you some flowers.”

Fagan waited till MacNaghten was out of hearing, and then turned angrily towards his daughter.

“You have given him a sorry specimen of your breeding, Polly; I thought, indeed, you would have known better.”

“You forget already, then, the speech with which he accosted us,” said she, haughtily; “but my memory is better, sir.”

“His courtesy might have effaced the recollection, I think,” said Fagan, testily.

“His courtesy! Has he not told you himself that every gift he possesses is but an emanation of his selfishness? The man who can be anything so easily, will be nothing if it cost a sacrifice.”

“I don't care what he is,” said Fagan, in a low, distinct voice, as though he wanted every word to be heard attentively. “For what he has been, and what he will be, I care just as little. It is where he moves, and lives, and exerts influence,—these are what concern me.”

“Are the chance glimpses that we catch of that high world so attractive, father?” said she, in an accent of almost imploring eagerness. “Do they, indeed, requite us for the cost we pay for them? When we leave the vulgar circle of our equals, is it to hear of generous actions, exalted sentiments, high-souled motives; or is it not to find every vice that stains the low pampered up into greater infamy amongst the noble?”

“This is romance and folly, girl. Who ever dreamed it should be otherwise? Nature stamped no nobility on gold, nor made copper plebeian. This has been the work of men; and so of the distinctions among themselves, and it will not do for us to dispute the ordinance. Station is power, wealth is power; he who has neither, is but a slave; he who has both, may be all that he would be!”

A sudden gesture to enforce caution followed these words; and at the same time MacNaghten's merry voice was heard, singing as he came along,—

“'Kneel down there, and say a prayer,

Before my hounds shall eat you.'

'I have no prayer,' the Fox replied,

'For I was bred a Quaker.'

“All right, Miss Polly. Out of compliment to you, I suppose, Kitty Dwyer, that would never suffer a collar over her head for the last six weeks, has consented to be harnessed as gently as a lamb; and my own namesake, 'Dan the Smasher,' has been traced up, without as much as one strap broken. They 're a little pair I have been breaking in for Carew; for he's intolerably lazy, and expects to find his nags trained to perfection. Look at them, how they come along,—no bearing reins, no blinkers. That 's what I call a very neat turn-out.”

The praise was, assuredly, not unmerited, as two highbred black ponies swept past with a beautiful phaeton, and drew up at the door of the conservatory.

The restless eyes, the wide-spread nostrils and quivering flanks of the animals, not less than the noiseless caution of the grooms at their heads, showed that their education had not yet been completed; and so Fagan remarked at once.

“They look rakish,—there's no denying it!” said Mac-Naghten; “but they are gentleness itself. The only difficulty is to put the traps on them; once fairly on, there's nothing to apprehend. You are not afraid of them, Miss Polly?” said he, with a strong emphasis on the “you.”

“When you tell me that I need not be, I have no fears,” said she, calmly.

“I must be uncourteous enough to say that I do not concur in the sentiment,” said Fagan; “and, with your leave, Mr. MacNaghten, we will walk.”

“Walk! why, to see anything, you'll have twelve miles a-foot. It must n't be thought of, Miss Polly,—I cannot hear of it!” She bowed, as though in half assent; and he continued: “Thanks for the confidence; you shall see it is not misplaced. Now, Fagan—”

“I am decided, Mr. MacNaghten; I'll not venture; nor will I permit my daughter to risk her life.”

“Neither would I, I should hope,” said MacNaghten; and, although the words were uttered with something of irritation, there was that in the tone that made Polly blush deeply.

“It's too bad, by Jove!” muttered he, half aloud, “when a man has so few things that he really can do, to deny his skill in the one he knows best.”

“I am quite ready, sir,” said Polly, in that tone of determination which she was often accustomed to assume, and against which her father rarely or never disputed.

“There now, Fagan, get up into the rumble. I 'll not ask you to be the coachman. Come, come,—no more opposition; we shall make them impatient if we keep them standing much longer.”

As he spoke, he offered his arm to Polly, who, with a smile,—the first she had deigned to give him,—accepted it, and then, hastily leading her forward, he handed her into the carriage. In an instant MacNaghten was beside her. With the instinct of hot-tempered cattle, they no sooner felt a hand upon the reins than they became eager to move forward, and, while one pawed the ground with impatience, the other, retiring to the very limit of the pole-strap, prepared for a desperate plunge.

“Up with you, Fagan; be quick—be quick!” cried Dan. “It won't do to hold them in. Let them go, lads, or they 'll smash everything!” and the words were hardly out, when, with a tremendous bound, that carried the front wheels off the road, away they went. “Meet us at the other gate,—they 'll show you the way,” cried MacNaghten, as, standing up, he pointed with his whip in the direction he meant. He had no time for more; for all his attention was now needed to the horses, as, each exciting the other, they dashed madly on down the road.

“This comes of keeping them standing,” muttered Dan; “and the scoundrels have curbed them up too tight. You're not afraid, Miss Polly? By Jove, that was a dash,—Kitty showed her heels over the splash-board. Look at that devil Dan,—see how he 's bearing on the pole-piece!—an old trick of his.”

A tremendous cut on his flank now drove him almost furious, and the enraged animal set off at speed.

“We must let them blow themselves, Miss Polly. It all comes of their standing so long. You're not afraid?—Well, then, they may do their worst.”

By this time the pace had become a tearing gallop, and seeing that nothing short of some miles would suffice to tame them down, MacNaghten turned their heads in the direction of a long avenue which led towards the sea.

It was all in vain that Fagan fastened through the flower-garden, and across a private shrubbery; when he reached the “gate,” there was no sign of the phaeton. The cuckoo and the thrush were the only voices heard in the stillness; and, at intervals, the deep booming of the sea, miles distant, told how unbroken was the silence around. His mind was a conflict of fear and anger; terrible anxieties for his daughter were mixed up with passion at this evidence of her wayward nature, and he walked along, reproaching himself bitterly for having accepted the civilities of MacNaghten.

Fagan's own schemes for a high alliance for his daughter had made him acquainted with many a counterplot of adventurers against himself. He well knew what a prize Polly Fagan was deemed amongst the class of broken-down and needy spendthrifts who came to him for aid. Often and often had he detected the first steps of such machinations, till at length he had become suspectful of everything and everybody. Now, MacNaghten was exactly the kind of man he most dreaded in this respect. There was that recklessness about him that comes of broken fortune; he was the very type of a desperate adventurer, ready to seize any chance to restore himself to fortune and independence. Who could answer for such a man in such an emergency?

Driven almost mad with these terrors, he now hastened his steps, stopping at times to listen, and at times calling on his daughter in the wildest accents. Without knowing whither he went, he soon lost himself in the mazes of the wood, and wandered on for hours in a state bordering upon distraction. Suspicion had so mastered his reason that he had convinced himself the whole was a deliberate scheme,—that MacNaghten had planned all beforehand. In his disordered fancies, he did not scruple to accuse his daughter of complicity, and inveighed against her falsehood and treachery in the bitterest words.

And what was Dan MacNaghten doing all this time? Anything, everything, in short, but what he was accused of! In good truth, he had little time for love-making, had such a project even entered his head, so divided were his attentions between the care of the cattle and his task of describing the different scenes through which they passed at speed,—the prospect being like one of those modern inventions called dissolving views,—no sooner presenting an object than superseding it by another. In addition to all this, he had to reconcile Miss Polly to what seemed a desertion of her father; so that, what with his “cares of coachman, cicerone, and consoler,” as he himself afterwards said, it was clean beyond him to slip in even a word on his own part. It is no part of my task to inquire how Polly enjoyed the excursion, or whether the dash of recklessness, so unlike every incident of her daily life, did not repay her for any discomfort of her father's absence: certain is it that when, after about six miles traversed in less than half an hour, they returned to the Castle, her first sense of apprehension was felt by not finding her father to meet her. No sooner had MacNaghten conducted her to the library than he set out himself in search of Fagan, having despatched messengers in all directions on the same errand. Dan, it must be owned, had far rather have remained to reassure Miss Polly, and convince her that her father's absence would be but momentary; but he felt that it was a point of duty with him to go—and go he did.

It chanced that, by dint of turning and winding, Fagan had at length approached the Castle again, so that MacNaghten came up with him within a few minutes after his search began. “Safe, and where?” were the only words the old man could utter as he grasped the other's arm. Dan, who attributed the agitation to but one cause, proceeded at once to reassure him on the score of his daughter's safety, detailing, at the same time, the circumstances which compelled him to turn off in a direction the opposite of that he intended. Fagan drank in every word with eagerness, his gray eyes piercingly fixed on the speaker all the while. Great as was his agitation throughout, it became excessive when MacNaghten chanced to allude to Polly personally, and to speak of the courage she displayed.

“She told you that she was not afraid?—she said so to yourself?” cried he, eagerly.

“Ay, a dozen times,” replied Dan, freely. “It was impossible to have behaved better.”

“You said so,—you praised her for it, I have no doubt,” said the other, with a grim effort at a smile.

“To be sure I did, Tony. By Jove, you've reason to be proud of her. I don't speak of her beauty,—that every one can see; but she's a noble-minded girl. She would grace any station in the land.”

“She heard you say as much with pleasure, I 'm certain,” said Fagan, with a smile that was more than half a sneer.

“Nay, faith, Tony, I did not go so far. I praised her courage. I told her that not every man could have behaved so bravely.”

MacNaghten paused at this.

“And then—and then, sir,” cried Fagan, impatiently.

Dan turned suddenly towards him, and, to his amazement, beheld a countenance tremulous with passionate excitement.

“What then, sir? Tell me what then? I have a right to ask, and I will know it. I 'm her father, and I demand it.”

“Why, what in Heaven's name is the matter?” exclaimed MacNaghten. “I have told you she is safe,—that she is yonder.”

“I speak not of that, sir; and you know it,” cried Fagan, imperiously. “The dissimulation is unworthy of you. You ought to be a man of honor.”

“Egad, good temper would be the best quality for me just now,” said the other, with a smile; “for you seem bent on testing it.”

“I see it all,” cried Fagan, in a voice of anguish. “I see it all. Now hear me, Mr. MacNaghten. You are one who has seen much of the world, and will readily comprehend me. You are a man reputed to be kind-hearted, and you will not pain me by affecting a misunderstanding. Will you leave this to-morrow, and go abroad, say for a year or two? Give me your hand on it, and draw on me for one thousand pounds.”

“Why, Tony, what has come over you? Is it the air of the place has disordered your excellent faculties? What can you mean?”

“This is no answer to my question, sir,” said Fagan, rudely.

“I cannot believe you serious in putting it,” said MacNaghten, half proudly. “Neither you nor any other man has the right to make such a proposal to me.”

“I say that I have, sir. I repeat it. I am her father, and by one dash of my pen she is penniless to-morrow. Ay, by Heaven, it is what I will do if you drive me to it.”

“At last I catch your meaning,” said MacNaghten, “and I see where your suspicions have been pointing at. No, no; keep your money. It might be a capital bargain for me, Tony, if I had the conscience to close with it; and if you knew but all, you 've no right to offer so much temptation. That path will bring you to the Castle. You 'll find Miss Polly in the library. Good-bye, Fagan.”

And without waiting for a reply, MacNaghten turned abruptly away, and disappeared in the wood.

Fagan stood for a second or two deep in thought, and then bent his steps towards the Castle.