A Rent In A Cloud Part 9

"Not a bit of it; we got our leave on the same day, pa.s.sed the Board the same day, and for exactly the same time. My leave expired on the tenth of August. I'll show you the paper; I have it here."

"Do so. Let me see it."

Barnard opened his desk, and quickly found the paper he sought for. It was precisely as Barnard said. The Board of Calcutta had confirmed the regimental recommendation, and granted a two-years' leave, which ended on the tenth of August.

"Never mind, man," said Barnard; "get back to London as hard as you can, furbish up some sick certificate to say that you were unable to quit your bed--"

"That is not so easy as you imagine; I have a little affair in hand, which may end in more publicity than I have any fancy for." And he told him of his approaching meeting with Graham, and asked him to be his friend.

"What was the quarrel about?" asked Barnard.

"A jealousy; he was going to marry a little cousin I used to flirt with, and we got to words about it. In fact, it is what Sir Lucius would call a very pretty quarrel, and there's nothing to be done but finish it.

You'll stand by me, won't you?"

"I don't see how I can. Old Rep, our governor, never leaves me. I'm obliged to report myself about four times a day."

"But you know that can never go on. You needn't be told by me that no man can continue such a system of slavery, nor is there anything could recompense it. You'll have to teach her better one of these days; begin at once. My being here gives you a pretext to begin. Start at once--to-day. Just say, 'I'll have to show Calvert the lions; he'll want to hunt up galleries,' and such-like."

"Hush! here comes my wife. f.a.n.n.y, let me present to you one of my oldest friends, Calvert It's a name you have often heard from me."

The young lady--she was not more than twenty--was pleasing-looking and well mannered. Indeed, Calvert was amazed to see her so unlike what he expected; she was neither pretentious nor shy; and, had his friend not gone into the question of pedigree, was there anything to mark a cla.s.s in life other than his own. While they talked together they were joined by her father, who, however, more than realised the sketch drawn by Barnard.

He was a morose, down-looking old fellow, with a furtive expression, and a manner of distrust about him that showed itself in various ways. From the first, though Calvert set vigorously to work to win his favour, he looked with a sort of misgiving at him. He spoke very little, but in that little there were no courtesies wasted; and when Barnard whispered, "You had better ask him to dine with us, the invitation will come better from you!" the reply was, "I won't; do you hear that? I won't."

"But he's an old brother-officer of mine, Sir; we served several years together."

"The worse company yours, then."

"I say, Calvert," cried Barnard, aloud, "I must give you a peep at our gay doings here. I'll take you a drive round the town, and out of the Porta Orientale, and if we should not be back at dinner-time, f.a.n.n.y--"

"We'll dine without you, that's all!" said the old man; while, taking his daughter's hand, he led her out of the room.

"I say, Bob, I'd not change with you, even for the difference," said Calvert.

"I never saw him so bad before," said the other, sheepishly.

"Because you never tried him! Hitherto you have been a spaniel, getting kicked and cuffed, and rather liking it; but, now that the sight of an old friend has rallied you to a faint semblance of your former self, you are shocked and horrified. You made a bad start, Bob; that was the mistake. You ought to have begun by making him feel the immeasurable distance there lay between him and a gentleman; not only in dress, language, and behaviour, but in every sentiment and feeling. Having done this, he would have tacitly submitted to ways that were not his own, by conceding that they might be those of a cla.s.s he had never belonged to.

You might, in short, have ruled him quietly and const.i.tutionally. Now you have nothing for it but one thing."

"Which is--"

"A revolution! Yes, you must overthrow the whole government, and build up another out of the smash. Begin to-day. We'll dine together wherever you like. We'll go to the Scala if it's open. We'll sup--"

"But f.a.n.n.y?"

"She'll stand by her husband. Though, probably, she'll have you 'up' for a little private discipline afterwards. Come, don't lose time. I want to do my cathedral, and my gallery, and my other curiosities in one day, for I have some matters to settle at Orto before I start for Basle. Have they a club, a casino, or anything of the sort here, where they play?"

"There is a place they call the Gettone, but I've never been there but once."

"Well, we'll finish there this evening; for I want to win a little money, to pay my journey."

"If I can help you--"

"No, no. Not to be thought of. I've got some fifty Naps by me--tame elephants--that are sure to entrap others. You must come with me to Basle, Bob. You can't desert me in such a crisis," said Calvert, as they left the inn together.

"We'll see. I'll think over it. The difficulty will be--"

"The impossibility is worse than a difficulty; and that is what I shall have to face if you abandon me. Why, only think of it for a moment Here I am, jilted, out of the army--for I know I shall lose my commission--without a guinea; you'd not surely wish me to say, without a friend! If it were not that it would be so selfish, I'd say the step will be the making of you. You'll have that old bear so civilised on your return, you'll not know him."

"Do you really think so?"

"I know it. He'll see at once that you'll not stand this sort of bullying. That if you did, your friends would not stand it. We shan't be away above four days, and those four days will give him a fright he'll never forget."

"I'll think over it"

"No. You'll do it--that's better; and I'll promise you--if Mr. Graham does not enter a fatal objection--to come back with you and stand to you through your troubles."

Calvert had that about him in his strong will, his resolution, and his readiness at reply, which exercised no mean despotism over the fellows of his own age. And it was only they who disliked and avoided him who ever resisted him. Barnard was an easy victim, and before the day drew to its close., he had got to believe that it was by a rare stroke of fortune Calvert had come to Milan-come to rescue him from the "most degrading sort of bondage a good fellow could possibly fall into."

They dined splendidly, and sent to engage a box at the Opera; but the hours pa.s.sed so pleasantly over their dinner, that they forgot all about it, and only reached the theatre a few minutes before it closed.

"Now for the--what do you call the place?" cried Calvert.

"The Gettone."

"That's it. I'm eager to measure my luck against these Milanais. They say, besides, no fellow has such a vein as when his life is threatened; and I remember myself, when I had the yellow fever at Galle, I pa.s.sed twenty-one times at ecarte', all because I was given over!"

"What a fellow you are, Calvert!" said the other, with a weak man's admiration for whatever was great, even in infamy.

"You'll see how I'll clear them out But what have I done with my purse?

Left it on my dressing table, I suppose they are honest in the hotel?"

"Of course they are. It's all safe; and I've more money about me than you want Old Rep handed me three thousand francs this morning to pay the bill, and when I saw you, I forgot all about it."

"Another element of luck," cried Calvert, joyously. "The money that does not belong to a man always wins. Why, there's five thousand francs here," said Calvert, as he counted over the notes.

"Two of them are f.a.n.n.y's, She got her quarter's allowance yesterday.

Stingy, isn't it? Only three hundred a year."

"It's downright disgraceful. She ought to have eight at the very least; but wait till we come back from Basle. You'll not believe what a change I'll work in that old fellow, when I take him in hand."

By this time they had reached the Gettone, and, after a brief colloquy, were suffered to pa.s.s up stairs and enter the rooms.

"Oh, it's faro they play; my own game," whispered Calvert, "I was afraid the fellows might have indulged in some of their own confounded things, which no foreigner can compete in. At faro I fear none."

While Barnard joined a group of persons round a roulette-table, where fashionably-dressed women adventured their franc pieces along with men clad in the most humble mode, Calvert took his place among the faro players. The boldness of his play, and the reckless way he adventured his money, could not conceal from their practised acuteness that he was master of the game, and they watched him attentively.

"I think I have nearly cleaned them out, Bob," cried he to his friend, as he pointed to a heap of gold and silver, which lay promiscuously piled up before him.