Читать книгу The Life of Captain Sir Richard F. Burton (Vol. 1&2) - Lady Isabel Burton - Страница 25

LUNGE AND CUT IN CARTE (INSIDE).

When Richard came home, he first ran down full of joy to visit all his relations and friends. He then went to Oxford with half a mind to take his degree. He was between twenty-eight and twenty-nine years of age. In 1850 he went back to France, and devoted himself to fencing. To this day "the Burton une-deux" and notably the manchette (the upward slash, disabling the swordarm, and saving life in affairs of honour), earned him his brevet de pointe for the excellence of his swordsmanship, and he became a Maître d'armes. Indeed, as horseman, swordsman, and marksman, no soldier of his day surpassed him, and very few equalled him. His family, that is his father, mother and sister, with her two children—her husband being in India, and his brother Edward in the 37th Regiment (Queen's)—went to Boulogne, like all the rest of us, for change, quiet, and economy, and there he joined them.

Boulogne.

We did exactly the same, the object being to put me and my sisters into the Sacré Cœur to learn French. Boulogne, in those days, was a very different town to what it is now. It was "the home of the stranger who had done something wrong." The natives were of the usual merchant, or rich bourgeoisie class; there was a sprinkling of local noblesse in the Haute-Ville; the gem of the natives in the lower class were the Poissardes, who hold themselves entirely distinct from the town, are a cross between Spanish and Flemish, and in those days were headed by a handsome "Queen" called Caroline, long since dead. The English colony was very large. The créme, who did not mix with the general "smart people," were the Seymours, Dundases, Chichesters, Jerninghams, Bedingfelds, Cliffords, Molyneux-Seels, and ourselves. Maybe I have forgotten many others.

The rest of the colony, instead of living like the colonies that Richard describes at Tours, used to walk a great deal up and down the Grand Rue, which was the fashionable lounge, the Rue de l'Écu, the Quai, and the Pier. The men were handsome and smart, and beautifully dressed, with generally an immense amount of white shirt-front, as in the Park, and the girls were pretty and well dressed. So were the young married women in those days. The Établissement was a sort of Casino, where everybody passed their evening, except the créme; they had music, dancing, cards, old ladies knitting, and refreshments, and it was the hotbed, like a club, of all the gossip and flirtation, with an occasional roaring scandal.

The hardship of my life and that of my sisters, was, that our mother would never let us set foot inside of it, which was naturally the only thing we longed to do, so that we had awfully dull, slow lives. Here Richard brought out his "Goa," his two books on Scinde, and his "Falconry," and prepared a book that came out in 1853, "A Complete System of Bayonet Exercise," of which, I regret to say, the only copy I possessed has been lost with the manuscript at David Bogue's. People were now beginning to say that "Burton was an awfully clever young fellow, a man of great mark, in fact the coming man." Whilst I am speaking of that system of bayonet exercise, I may say that it was, as all he did, undervalued at the time, but still it has long been the one used by the Horseguards. Colonel Sykes, who was Richard's friend, sent for him, and sharply rebuked him with printing a book that would do far more harm than good.

Bayonet Exercise.

It was thought that bayonet exercise would make the men unsteady in the ranks. The importance of bayonet exercise was recognized everywhere except in England. Richard detected our weak point in military system, and he knew that it would be the British soldier's forte when properly used. Richard was not "in the ring," but when that was proved, his pamphlet was taken down from the dusty pigeon-hole, and a few modifications—not improvements—were added, so as to enable a just and enlightened War Office, not to send him a word of thanks, a compliment, an expression of official recognition, which was all his soul craved for, but a huge letter from the Treasury, with a seal the size of a baby's fist, with a gracious permission to draw upon the Treasury for the sum of one shilling.

Richard always appreciated humour. He went to the War Office at once, was sent to half a dozen different rooms, and, to the intense astonishment of all the clerks, after three-quarters of an hour's very hard work he drew his shilling, and instead of framing it, he gave it to the first hungry beggar that he saw as soon as he came out of the War Office.

"Lord love yer, sir," said the beggar.

"No, my man, I don't exactly expect Him to do that. But I dare say you want a drink?"

He did not lead the life that was led by the general colony at Boulogne. He had a little set of men friends, knew some of the French, had a great many flirtations, one very serious one. He passed his days in literature and fencing: at home he was most domestic; his devotion to his parents, especially to his sick mother, was beautiful.

My sisters and I were kept at French all day, music and other studies, but were frequently turned into the Ramparts, which would give one a mile's walk around, to do our reading; then we had a turn down the Grande Rue, the Rue de l'Écu, the Quai, and the Pier at the fashionable hour, for a treat, or else we were taken a long country walk, or a long row up the river Liane in the summer time, where we occasionally saw a Guingette; but we were religiously marched home at half-past eight to supper and bed, unless one of the créme gave a dull tea-party.

Meets me at Boulogne at School.

One day, when we were on the Ramparts, the vision of my awakening brain came towards us. He was five feet eleven inches in height, very broad, thin, and muscular;1 he had very dark hair, black, clearly defined, sagacious eyebrows, a brown weather-beaten complexion, straight Arab features, a determined-looking mouth and chin, nearly covered by an enormous black moustache. I have since heard a clever friend say "that he had the brow of a God, the jaw of a Devil." But the most remarkable part of his appearance was, two large black flashing eyes with long lashes, that pierced you through and through. He had a fierce, proud, melancholy expression, and when he smiled, he smiled as though it hurt him, and looked with impatient contempt at things generally. He was dressed in a black, short, shaggy coat, and shouldered a short thick stick as if he was on guard.

He looked at me as though he read me through and through in a moment, and started a little. I was completely magnetized, and when we had got a little distance away I turned to my sister, and whispered to her, "That man will marry me." The next day he was there again, and he followed us, and chalked up, "May I speak to you?" leaving the chalk on the wall, so I took up the chalk and wrote back, "No, mother will be angry;" and mother found it—and was angry; and after that we were stricter prisoners than ever. However, "destiny is stronger than custom." A mother and a pretty daughter came to Boulogne, who happened to be a cousin of my father's; they joined the majority in the Society sense, and one day we were allowed to walk on the Ramparts with them. There I met Richard, who—agony!—was flirting with the daughter; we were formally introduced, and the name made me start. I will say why later.

I did not try to attract his attention; but whenever he came to the usual promenade I would invent any excuse that came, to take another turn to watch him, if he was not looking. If I could catch the sound of his deep voice, it seemed to me so soft and sweet, that I remained spell-bound, as when I hear gypsy-music. I never lost an opportunity of seeing him, when I could not be seen, and as I used to turn red and pale, hot and cold, dizzy and faint, sick and trembling, and my knees used to nearly give way under me, my mother sent for the doctor, to complain that my digestion was out of order, and that I got migraines in the street, and he prescribed me a pill which I put in the fire. All girls will sympathize with me. I was struck with the shaft of Destiny, but I had no hopes (being nothing but an ugly schoolgirl) of taking the wind out of the sails of the dashing creature, with whom he was carrying on a very serious flirtation.

In early days Richard had got into a rather strong flirtation with a very handsome and very fast girl, who had a vulgar, middle-class sort of mother. One day he was rather alarmed at getting a polite but somewhat imperious note from the mother, asking him to call upon her. He obeyed, but he took with him his friend Dr. Steinhaüser, a charming man, who looked as if his face was carved out of wood. After the preliminaries of a rather formal reception, in a very prim-looking drawing-room, the lady began, looking severely at him, "I sent for you, Captain Burton, because I think it my dooty to ask what your intentions are, with regard to my daughter?" Richard put on his most infantile face of perplexity as he said, "Your dooty, madam—" and, then, as if he was trying to recall things, and after a while suddenly seizing the facts of the case, he got up and said, "Alas! madam, strictly dishonourable," and shaking his head as if he was going to burst into tears at his own iniquities, "I regret to say, strictly dishonourable;" and bowed himself out with Dr. Steinhaüser, who never moved a muscle of his face. Richard had never done the young lady a scrap of harm, beyond talking to her a little more than the others, because she was so "awfully jolly," but the next time he met her he said, "Look here, young woman, if I talk to you, you must arrange that I do not have 'mamma's dooty' flung at my head any more." "The old fool!" said the girl, "how like her!"

The only luxury I indulged in was a short but heartfelt prayer for him every morning. I read all his books, and was seriously struck as before by the name when I came to the Játs in Scinde—but this I will explain later on. My cousin asked him to write something for me, which I used to wear next to my heart. One night an exception was made to our dull rule of life. My cousins gave a tea-party and dance, and "the great majority" flocked in, and there was Richard like a star amongst rushlights. That was a Night of nights; he waltzed with me once, and spoke to me several times, and I kept my sash where he put his arm round my waist to waltz, and my gloves. I never wore them again. I did not know it then, but the "little cherub who sits up aloft" is not only occupied in taking care of poor Jack, for I came in also for a share of it.