Читать книгу The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer – Complete - Lever Charles James - Страница 13

No sooner in Liverpool, than I hastened to take my place in the earliest conveyance for London. At that time the Umpire Coach was the perfection of fast travelling; and seated behind the box, enveloped in a sufficiency of broad-cloth, I turned my face towards town with as much anxiety and as ardent expectations as most of those about me. All went on in the regular monotonous routine of such matters until we reached Northampton, passing down the steep street of which town, the near wheel-horse stumbled and fell; the coach, after a tremendous roll to one side, toppled over on the other, and with a tremendous crash, and sudden shock, sent all the outsides, myself among the number, flying through the air like sea-gulls. As for me, after describing a very respectable parabola, my angle of incidence landed me in a bonnet-maker's shop, having passed through a large plate-glass window, and destroyed more leghorns and dunstables than a year's pay would recompense. I have but light recollection of the details of that occasion, until I found myself lying in a very spacious bed at the George Inn, having been bled in both arms, and discovering by the multitude of bandages in which I was enveloped, that at least some of my bones were broken by the fall. That such fate had befallen my collar-bone and three of my ribs I soon learned; and was horror-struck at hearing from the surgeon who attended me, that four or five weeks would be the very earliest period I could bear removal with safety. Here then at once was a large deduction from my six months' leave, not to think of the misery that awaited me for such a time, confined to my bed in an inn, without books, friends, or acquaintances. However even this could be remedied by patience, and summoning up all I could command, I "bided my time," but not before I had completed a term of two months' imprisonment, and had become, from actual starvation, something very like a living transparency.

No sooner, however, did I feel myself once more on the road, than my spirits rose, and I felt myself as full of high hope and buoyant expectancy as ever. It was late at night when I arrived in London. I drove to a quiet hotel in the west-end; and the following morning proceeded to Portman-square, bursting with impatience to see my friends the Callonbys, and recount all my adventures — for as I was too ill to write from Northampton, and did not wish to entrust to a stranger the office of communicating with them, I judged that they must be exceedingly uneasy on my account, and pictured to myself the thousand emotions my appearance so indicative of illness would give rise to; and could scarcely avoid running in my impatience to be once more among them. How Lady Jane would meet me, I thought of over again and again; whether the same cautious reserve awaited me, or whether her family's approval would have wrought a change in her reception of me, I burned to ascertain. As my thoughts ran on in this way, I found myself at the door; but was much alarmed to perceive that the closed window-shutters and dismantled look of the house proclaimed them from home. I rung the bell, and soon learned from a servant, whose face I had not seen before, that the family had gone to Paris about a month before, with the intention of spending the winter there. I need not say how grievously this piece of intelligence disappointed me, and for a minute or two I could not collect my thoughts. At last the servant said:

"If you have any thing very particular, sir, that my Lord's lawyer can do, I can give you his address."

"No, thank you — nothing;" at the same time I muttered to myself, "I'll have some occupation for him though ere long. The family were all quite well, didn't you say?"

"Yes sir, perfectly well. My Lord had only a slight cold,"

"Ah — yes — and there address is 'Meurice;' very well."

So saying I turned from the door, and with slower steps than I had come, returned to my hotel.

My immediate resolve was to set out for Paris; my second was to visit my uncle, Sir Guy Lorrequer, first, and having explained to him the nature of my position, and the advantageous prospects before me, endeavour to induce him to make some settlement on Lady Jane, in the event of my obtaining her family's consent to our marriage. This, from his liking great people much, and laying great stress upon the advantages of connexion, I looked upon as a matter of no great difficulty; so that, although my hopes of happiness were delayed in their fulfilment, I believed they were only about to be the more securely realized. The same day I set out for Elton, and by ten o'clock at night reached my uncle's house. I found the old gentleman looking just as I had left him three years before, complaining a little of gout in the left foot — praising his old specific, port-wine — abusing his servants for robbing him — and drinking the Duke of Wellington's health every night after supper; which meal I had much pleasure in surprising him at on my arrival — not having eaten since my departure from London.

"Well, Harry," said my uncle, when the servants had left the room, and we drew over the spider table to the fire to discuss our wine with comfort, "what good wind has blown you down to me, my boy? for it's odd enough, five minutes before I heard the wheels on the gravel I was just wishing some good fellow would join me at the grouse — and you see I have had my wish! The old story, I suppose, 'out of cash.' Would not come down here for nothing — eh? Come, lad, tell truth; is it not so?"

"Why, not exactly, sir; but I really had rather at present talk about you, than about my own matters, which we can chat over tomorrow. How do you get on, sir, with the Scotch steward?"

"He's a rogue, sir — a cheat — a scoundrel; but it is the same with them all; and your cousin, Harry — your cousin, that I have reared from his infancy to be my heir, (pleasant topic for me!) he cares no more for me than the rest of them, and would never come near me, if it were not that, like yourself, he was hard run for money, and wanted to wheedle me out of a hundred or two."

"But you forget, sir — I told you I have not come with such an object."

"We'll see that — we'll see that in the morning," replied he, with an incredulous shake of the head.

"But Guy, sir — what has Guy done?"

"What has he not done? No sooner did he join that popinjay set of fellows, the __th hussars, than he turned out, what he calls a four-in-hand drag, which dragged nine hundred pounds out of my pocket — then he has got a yacht at Cowes — a grouse mountain in Scotland — and has actually given Tattersall an unlimited order to purchase the Wreckinton pack of harriers, which he intends to keep for the use of the corps. In a word, there is not an amusement of that villanous regiment, not a flask of champagne drank at their mess, I don't bear my share in the cost of; all through the kind offices of your worthy cousin, Guy Lorrequer."

This was an exceedingly pleasant expose for me, to hear of my cousin indulged in every excess of foolish extravagance by his rich uncle, while I, the son of an elder brother who unfortunately called me by his own name, Harry, remained the sub. in a marching regiment, with not three hundred pounds a year above my pay, and whom any extravagance, if such had been proved against me would have deprived of even that small allowance. My uncle however did not notice the chagrin with which I heard his narrative, but continued to detail various instances of wild and reckless expense the future possessor of his ample property had already launched into.

Anxious to say something without well-knowing what, I hinted that probably my good cousin would reform some of these days, and marry.

"Marry," said my uncle; "yes, that, I believe, is the best thing we can do with him; and I hope now the matter is in good train — so the latest accounts say, at least."

"Ah, indeed," said I, endeavouring to take an interest where I really felt none — for my cousin and I had never been very intimate friends, and the differences in our fortunes had not, at least to my thinking, been compensated by any advances which he, under the circumstances, might have made to me.

"Why, Harry, did you not hear of it?" said my uncle.

"No — not a word, sir."

"Very strange, indeed — a great match, Harry — a very great match, indeed."

"Some rich banker's daughter," thought I. "What will he say when he hears of my fortune?"

"A very fine young woman, too, I understand — quite the belle of London — and a splendid property left by an aunt."

I was bursting to tell him of my affair, and that he had another nephew, to whom if common justice were rendered, his fortune was as certainly made for life.

"Guy's business happened this way," continued my uncle, who was quite engrossed by the thought of his favourite's success. "The father of the young lady met him in Ireland, or Scotland, or some such place, where he was with his regiment — was greatly struck with his manner and address — found him out to be my nephew — asked him to his house — and, in fact, almost threw this lovely girl at his head before they were two months acquainted."

"As nearly as possible my own adventure," thought I, laughing to myself.

"But you have not told me who they are, sir," said I, dying to have his story finished, and to begin mine.

"I'm coming to that — I'm coming to that. Guy came down here, but did not tell me one word of his having ever met the family, but begged me to give him an introduction to them, as they were in Paris, where he was going on a short leave; and the first thing I heard of the matter was a letter from the papa, demanding from me if Guy was to be my heir, and asking 'how far his attentions in his family, met with my approval.'"

"Then how did you know sir that they were previously known to each other?"

"The family lawyer told me, who heard it all talked over."

"And why, then, did Guy get the letter of introduction from you, when he was already acquainted with them?"

"I am sure I cannot tell, except that you know he always does every thing unlike every one else, and to be sure the letter seems to have excited some amusement. I must show you his answer to my first note to know how all was going on; for I felt very anxious about matters, when I heard from some person who had met them, that Guy was everlastingly in the house, and that Lord Callonby could not live without him."

"Lord who, sir?" said I in a voice that made the old man upset his glass, and spring from his chair in horror.

"What the devil is the matter with the boy. What makes you so pale?"

"Whose name did you say at that moment, sir," said I with a slowness of speech that cost me agony.

"Lord Callonby, my old schoolfellow and fag at Eton."

"And the lady's name, sir?" said I, in scarcely an audible whisper.

"I'm sure I forget her name; but here's the letter from Guy, and I think he mentions her name in the postscript."

I snatched rudely the half-opened letter from the old man, as he was vainly endeavouring to detect the place he wanted, and read as follows:

"My adored Jane is all your fondest wishes for my happiness could picture, and longs to see her dear uncle, as she already calls you on every occasion." I read no more — my eyes swam — the paper, the candles, every thing before me, was misty and confused; and although I heard my uncle's voice still going on, I knew nothing of what he said.

For some time my mind could not take in the full extent of the base treachery I had met with, and I sat speechless and stupified. By degrees my faculties became clearer, and with one glance I read the whole business, from my first meeting with them at Kilrush to the present moment. I saw that in their attentions to me, they thought they were winning the heir of Elton, the future proprietor of fifteen thousand per annum. From this tangled web of heartless intrigue I turned my thoughts to Lady Jane herself. How had she betrayed me! for certainly she had not only received, but encouraged my addresses — and so soon, too. — To think that at the very moment when my own precipitate haste to see her had involved me in a nearly fatal accident, she was actually receiving the attentions of another! Oh, it was too, too bad.

But enough — even now I can scarcely dwell upon the memory of that moment, when the hopes and dreams of many a long day and night were destined to be thus rudely blighted. I seized the first opportunity of bidding my uncle good night; and having promised him to reveal all my plans on the morrow, hurried to my room.

My plans! alas, I had none — that one fatal paragraph had scattered them to the winds; and I threw myself upon my bed, wretched and almost heart-broken.

I have once before in these "Confessions" claimed to myself the privilege, not inconsistent with a full disclosure of the memorabilia of my life, to pass slightly over those passages, the burden of which was unhappy, and whose memory is painful. I must now, therefore, claim the "benefit of this act," and beg of the reader to let me pass from this sad portion of my history, and for the full expression of my mingled rage, contempt, disappointment, and sorrow, let me beg of him to receive instead, what a learned pope once gave as his apology for not reading a rather polysyllabic word in a Latin letter — "As for this," said he, looking at the phrase in question, "soit qui'l dit," so say I. And now — en route.