Читать книгу The Child Wife - Майн Рид - Страница 28

“In faith, I’ve done a very foolish thing,” reflected the young Irishman, as he entered his dormitory, and flung himself into a chair. “Still there was no help for it. Such talk as that, even from a stranger like Dick Swinton, would play the deuce with me. Of course they don’t know him here; and he appears to be playing a great part among them; no doubt plucking such half-fledged pigeons as those with him below.

“Very likely he said something of the same to the girl’s mother—to herself? Perhaps that’s why I’ve been treated so uncourteously! Well, I have him on the hip now; and shall make him repent his incautious speeches. Kicked out of the British service! Lying cur, to have said it! To have thought of such a thing! And from what I’ve heard it’s but a leaf from his own history! This may have suggested it. I don’t believe he’s any longer in the Guards: else what should he be doing out here? Guardsmen don’t leave London and its delights without strong, and generally disagreeable, reasons. I’d lay all I’ve got he’s been disgraced. He was on the edge of it when I last heard of him.

“He’ll fight of course? He wouldn’t if he could help it—I know the sweep well enough for that. But I’ve given him no chance to get out of it. A kid glove across the face, to say nothing of a threat to spit in it—with a score of strange gentlemen looking on and listening! If ten times the poltroon he is, he dare not show the white feather now.

“Of course he’ll call me out; and what am I to do for a second? The three or four fellows I’ve scraped companionship with here are not the men—one of them. Besides, none of them might care to oblige me on such short acquaintance?

“What the deuce am I to do? Telegraph to the Count?” he continued, after a pause spent in reflecting. “He’s in New York, I know; and know he would come on at once. It’s just the sort of thing would delight the vieux sabreur, now that the Mexican affair is ended, and he’s once more compelled to sheathe his revolutionary sword. Come in! Who the deuce knocks at a gentleman’s door at this unceremonious hour?”

It was not yet 5 a.m. Outside the hotel could be heard carriage wheels rolling off with late roisterers, who had outstayed the ball.

“Surely it’s too soon for an emissary from Swinton? Come in!”

The door opening at the summons, discovered the night-porter of the hotel.

“Well! what want you, my man?”

“A gentleman wants you, sir.”

“Show him up!”

“He told me, sir, to give you his apologies for disturbing you at so early an hour. It’s because his business is very important.”

“Bosh! Why need he have said that?” Dick Swinton’s friend must be a more delicate gentleman than himself!

The last speech was in soliloquy, and not to the porter.

“He said, sir,” continued the latter, “that having come by the boat—”

“By the boat?”

“Yes, sir, the New York boat. She’s just in.”

“Yes—yes; I heard the whistle. Well?”

“That having come by the boat, he thought—he thought—”

“Confound it! my good fellow; don’t stay to tell me his thoughts secondhand. Where is he? Show him up here, and let him speak them for himself.”

“From New York?” continued Maynard, after the porter had disappeared. “Who of the Knickerbockers can it be? And what business of such importance as to startle a fellow from his sleep at half-past four in the morning—supposing me to have been asleep—which luckily I’m not Is the Empire city ablaze, and Fernando Wood, like a second Nero, fiddling in ruthless glee over its ruins? Ha! Roseveldt?”

“Maynard!”

The tone of the exchanged salutation told of a meeting unexpected, and after a period of separation. It was followed by a mutual embrace. Theirs was a friendship too fervent to be satisfied with the shaking of hands. Fellow campaigners—as friends—they had stood side by side under the hissing hailstorm of battle. Side by side had they charged up the difficult steep of Chapultepec, in the face of howitzers belching forth their deadly shower of shot—side by side fallen on the crest of the counterscarp, their blood streaming unitedly into the ditch.

They had not seen each other since. No wonder they should meet with emotions corresponding to the scenes through which they had passed.

Some minutes passed before either could find coherent speech. They only exchanged ejaculations. Maynard was the first to become calm.

“God bless you, my dear Count?” he said; “my grand instructor in the science of war. How glad I am to see you!”

“Not more than I to see you, cher camarade!”

“But say, why are you here? I did not expect you; though strange enough I was this moment thinking of you!”

“I’m here to see you—specially you!”

“Ah! For what, my dear Roseveldt?”

“You’ve said that I instructed you in the science of war. Be it so. But the pupil now excels his teacher—has gone far beyond him in fame. That’s why I’m here.”

“Explain yourself, Count!”

“Read this. It will save speech. You see it is addressed to yourself.”

Maynard took the sealed letter handed to him. It bore the superscription:

“Captain Maynard.”

Breaking it open, he read:

“The committee of German refugees in New York, in view of the late news from Europe, have hopes that freedom is not yet extinguished in their ancient fatherland. They have determined upon once more returning to it, and taking part in the struggle again begun in Baden and the Palatinate. Impressed by the gallantry displayed by you in the late Mexican war, with your protective kindness to their countrymen who served under you—and above all, your well-known devotion to the cause of liberty—they have unanimously resolved to offer you the leadership in this enterprise. While aware of its perils—as also of your courage to encounter them—they can promise you no reward save that of glory and a nation’s gratitude. To achieve this, they offer you a nation’s trust. Say, sir, are you prepared to accept it?”

Some half-dozen names were appended, at which Maynard simply glanced. He knew the men, and had heard of the movement.

“I accept,” he said, after a few seconds spent in reflection. “You can carry that answer back to the committee.”

“Carry back an answer! My dear Maynard, I come to carry you back.”

“Must I go directly?”

“This very day. The rising in Baden has begun, and you know revolutions won’t wait for any one. Every hour is important. You are expected back by the next boat. I hope there’s nothing to prevent it? What! There is something?”

“There is; something rather awkward.”

“Not a woman? No—no! You’re too much of a soldier for that.”

“No; not a woman.”

As Maynard said this a strange expression came over his countenance, as if he was struggling against the truth.

“No—no!” he continued, with a forced smile. “Not a woman. It’s only a man; indeed only a thing in the shape of one.”

“Explain, captain! Who, or what is he?”

“Well, it’s simply an affair. About an hour ago I slapped a fellow in the face.”

“Ha!”

“There’s been a ball to-night—in the hotel, here.”

“I know it. I met some of the people going away. Well?”

“There was a young lady—”

“I might have known that, too. Who ever heard of an affair without a lady, young or old, at the bottom of it? But excuse me for interrupting you.”

“After all,” said Maynard, apparently changing his tack, “I needn’t stay to tell you about the lady. She had little or nothing to do with it. It occurred in the bar-room after the ball was over, and she in her bed, I suppose.”

“Leave her to one side then, and let her sleep.”

“I had gone into this bar-room to take a drink, by way of night-cap, and was standing by the counter, when I heard some one making rather free use of my name. Three men were close beside me, talking in a very fast style, and, as I soon discovered, about myself. They had been imbibing a good deal, and did not chance to see me.

“One of the three I had known in England, when we were both in the British service.

“The other two—Americans I suppose them—I had only seen for the first time some two days ago. Indeed, I had then a little difficulty with them, which I needn’t stay to trouble you about now; though I more than half expected to have had a challenge for that. It didn’t come, however; and you may guess what sort they are.

“It was my quondam acquaintance of the English army who was taking liberties with my character, in answer to inquiries the other two were putting to him.”

“What was he telling them?”

“No end of lies; the worst of them being that I had been kicked out of the British service! Of course it was also his last. After that—”

“After that you kicked him out of the bar-room. I fancy I can see you engaged in that little bit of foot practice!”

“I was not quite so rude as that. I only slashed him across the cheek with my glove, and then handed him my card.

“In truth, when you were announced I thought it was his friend, and not mine: though, knowing the man as I do, the idea of his sending a messenger so early rather surprised me.

“I’m glad you’ve come, Count. I was in a devil of a dilemma—being acquainted with nobody here who could have served me for a second. I suppose I can reckon upon you?”

“Oh, that of course,” answered the Count, with as much insouciance as if he had been only asked for a cigar. “But,” he added, “is there no way by which this meeting may be avoided?”

It was not any craven thought that dictated the interrogatory. A glance at Count Roseveldt would have satisfied any one of this.

Full forty years of age, with moustache and whisker just beginning to show steel-grey, of true martial bearing, he at once impressed you as a man who had seen much practice in the terrible trade of the duello. At the same time there was about him no air either of the bully or bravado. On the contrary, his features were marked by an expression of mildness—on occasions only changing to stern.

One of these changes came over them, as Maynard emphatically made answer: “No.”

“Sacré!” he said, hissing out a French exclamation. “How provoking! To think such an important matter—the liberty of all Europe—should suffer from such a paltry mischance! It has been well said that woman is the curse of mankind!

“Have you any idea,” he continued, after this ungallant speech, “when the fellow is likely to send in?”

“Not any. Some time during the day, I take it. There can be no cause for delay that I can think of. Heaven knows, we’re near enough each other, since both are stopping in the same hotel.”

“Challenge some time during the day. Shooting, or whatever it may be, to-morrow morning. No railway from here, and boat only once a day. Leaves Newport at 7 p.m. A clear twenty-four hours lost! Sac-r-ré!”

These calculations were in soliloquy; Count Roseveldt, as he made them, torturing his great moustache, and looking at some imaginary object between his feet Maynard remained silent.

The Count continued his sotto voce speeches, now and then breaking into ejaculations delivered in a louder tone, and indifferently in French, English, Spanish, and German.

“By heavens, I have it?” he at length exclaimed, at the same time starting to his feet. “I have it, Maynard! I have it?”

“What has occurred to you, my dear Count?”

“A plan to save time. We’ll go back to New York by the evening’s boat!”

“Not before fighting! I presume you include that in your calculations?”

“Of course I do. We’ll fight, and be in time all the same.”

If Maynard had been a man of delicate susceptibilities he might have reflected on the uncertainty of such a programme.

He merely asked for its explanation.

“Perfectly simple,” responded the Count. “You are to be the challenged party, and, of course, have your choice both of time and weapons. No matter about the weapons. It’s the time that concerns us so.”

“You’d bring off the affair to-day?”

“Would, and will.”

“How if the challenge arrive too late—in the evening say?”

“Carrambo!—to use our old Mexican shibboleth—I’ve thought of that—of everything. The challenge shall come early—must come, if your adversary be a gentleman. I’ve hit upon a plan to force it out of him in good time.”

“Your plan?”

“You’ll write to him—that is, I shall—to say you are compelled to leave Newport to-night; that a matter of grand importance has suddenly summoned you away. Appeal to him, as a man of honour, to send in his invitation at once, so that you may arrange a meeting. If he don’t do so, by all the laws of honour you will be free to go, at any hour you may name.”

“That will be challenging the challenger. Will it be correct?”

“Of course it will. I’ll be answerable. It’s altogether en règle—strictly according to the code.”

“I agree to it, then.”

“Enough! I must set about composing the letter. Being a little out of the common, it will require some thought. Where are your pens and ink?”

Maynard pointed to a table, on which were the writing materials.

Drawing up a chair, Roseveldt seated himself beside it.

Then, taking hold of a pen, and spreading a sheet of “cream laid” before him, he proceeded to write the premonitory epistle, scarce consulting the man most interested in what it might contain. Thinking of the revolution in Baden, he was most anxious to set free his friend from the provoking compromise, so that both might bear the flag of freedom through his beloved fatherland.

The note was soon written; a copy carefully taken, folded up, and shoved into an envelope. Maynard scarce allowed the opportunity of reading it!

It had to be addressed by his directions, and was sent to Mr Richard Swinton, just as the great gong, screaming through the corridors of the Ocean House, proclaimed to its guests the hour for déjeuner à la fourchette.