Confessions Of Con Cregan Part 60

"You'd not wish for anything farther on that head?"

"Not a syllable."

"And as to the Cuba instalment, you see the way in which the first scrip became entangled in the Chihuahua 'fives,' don't you?"

"Plain as my hand before me."

"Then, of course, you acknowledge our right to the reserve fund?"

"I don't see how it can be disputed," said I.

"And yet that is precisely what the Madrid Government contest!"

"What injustice!" exclaimed I.

"Evident as it is to your enlightened understanding, Senhor Conde, you are, nevertheless, the first man I have ever found to take the right view of this transaction. It is a real pleasure to discuss a state question with a great man."

Hereupon we both burst forth into an animated duet of compliments, in which, I am bound to confess, the Governor was the victor.

"And now, Senhor Conde," said he, after a long volley of panegyric, "may we reckon upon your support in this affair?"

"You must understand, first of all, Excellenza," replied I, "that I am not in any way an official personage. I am,"--here I smiled with a most fascinating air of mock humility,--"I am, so to speak, a humble--a very humble--individual, of unpretending rank and small fortune."

"Ah, Senhor Conde," sighed the Governor, for he had heard of my ingots from the banker.

"Being as I say," resumed I, "my influence is naturally small. If I am listened to in a matter of political importance, I owe the courtesy rather to the memory of my family's services than to any insignificant merits I may possess. The cause of justice is, however, never weak, no matter how humble the means of him who a.s.serts it. Such as I am, rely upon me."

We embraced here, and the Governor shed a few official tears at the thought of so soon separating from one he regarded as more than his brother.

"We feel, Senhor Conde," said he, "how inadequate any recognition of ours must be for services such as yours. We are a young country and a Republic; honors we have none to bestow,--wealth is already your own; we have nothing to offer, therefore, but our grat.i.tude."

"Be it so," thought I; "the burden will not increase my luggage."

"This box will remind you, however, of an interview, and recall one who deems this the happiest, as it is the proudest, hour of his life;" here he presented me with a splendid gold snuff-box containing a miniature of the President, surrounded by enormous diamonds.

Resolving not to be outdone in generosity, and at least not to be guilty of dishonesty before my own conscience, I insisted upon the Governor's acceptance of my watch,--a very costly repeater, studded with precious stones.

"The arms of my family--the Cregans are Irish--will bring me to your recollection," said I, pointing to a very magnificent heraldic display on the timepiece, wherein figured the ancient crown of Ireland over a shield, in one compartment of which was an "eye winking," the motto being the Gaelic word "Nabocklish," signifying "Maybe not," ironically.

I will not dwell upon the other particulars of an interview which lasted till nigh morning. It will be sufficient to mention that I was presented with letters of introduction and recommendation to the Mexican Ministers at Paris and Madrid, instructing them to show me every attention, and desiring them to extend to me their entire confidence, particularly to furnish me with introductions to any official personages with whom I desired to be acquainted. This was all that I wanted; for I was immensely rich, and only needed permission to pa.s.s the door of the "great world," to mingle in that society for which my heart yearned and longed unceasingly.

Some of my readers will smile at the simplicity which believed these pa.s.sports necessary, and was ignorant that wealth alone is wanting to attain any position, to frequent any society, to be the intimate of any set in Europe, and that the rich man is other than he was in cla.s.sic days,--"Honoratus, pulcher, rex denique regum."

I have lived to be wiser, and to see vulgarity, coa.r.s.eness, meanness, knavery, nay, even convicted guilt, the favored guests of royal saloons.

The moral indictments against crime have to the full as many flaws as the legal ones; and we see, in every society, men, and women too, as notoriously criminal as though they wore the red-and-yellow livery of the galleys. Physicians tell us that every drug whose sanitary properties are acknowledged in medicine, contains some ingredients of a noxious or poisonous nature. May not something similar exist in the moral world? and even in the very healthiest mixture, may not some "bitter principle" be found to lurk?

CHAPTER XXVII. THE VOYAGE OF THE 'ACADIE'

I was not sorry to leave the Havannah on the following day. I did not desire another interview with my "friend" the Governor, but rather felt impatient to escape a repet.i.tion of his arithmetic and the story of the "original debt."

Desirous of supporting my character as a great personage, and at the same time to secure for myself the pleasure of being unmolested during the voyage, I obtained the sole right to the entire cabin accommodation of the "Acadie" for myself and suite; my equipages, baggage, and some eight or ten Mexican horses occupying the deck.

A salute of honor was fired as I ascended the ladder, and replied to by the forts,--a recognition of my dignity at which I took occasion to seem offended; a.s.suring the captain that I was travelling in the strictest incognito; leaving it to his powers of calculation to compute what amount of retinue and followers I should have when journeying in the full blaze of acknowledged ident.i.ty.

I sat upon the p.o.o.p-deck as they weighed the anchor, contrasting in my mind my present condition with that of my first marine experiences on board the "Firefly." I am richer, thought I. Am I better? Have I become more generous, more truthful, more considerate, more forgiving?

Has my knowledge of the world developed more of good in me, or of evil; have my own successes ministered rather to my self-esteem than to my gratefulness; and have I learned to think meanly of all who have been beaten in the race of fortune? Alas! there was not a count of this indictment to which I dared plead "Not guilty." I had seen knavery thrive too often, not to feel a kind of respect for its ability; I saw honesty too often worsted, not to feel something like contempt for its meekness. It was difficult to feel a reverence for poverty, whose traits were frequently ridiculous; and it was hard to censure wealth, which dispensed its abundance in splendid hospitalities. Oh, the cunning sophistries by which we cover up our real feelings in this life, smothering every healthy impulse and every generous aspiration, under the guise of some "conventionality."

My conscience was less lenient than I expected. I cut but a sorry figure "in the dock," and was obliged to throw myself upon the mercy of the court. I will be more considerate in future, said I to myself; I will be less exacting with my servants, and more forgiving to their delinquencies; I will try and remember that there is an acid property in poverty that sours even the sweetest "milk of human kindness." I will be trustful, too,--a "gentleman" ought not to be suspicious; it is eminently becoming a Bow Street officer, but suits not the atmosphere of good society. These excellent resolutions were to a certain extent "a propos;" for just as "the foresail began to draw," a boat came alongside and hailed the ship. I did not deign any attention to a circ.u.mstance so trivial to "one of my condition," and never noticed the conversation which in very animated tones was kept up between the captain and the stranger, until the former, approaching me with the most profound humility, and asking forgiveness for the great liberty he was about to take, said that a gentleman whom urgent business recalled to Europe humbly entreated permission to take his pa.s.sage on board the "Acadie."

"Are you not aware it is impossible, my good friend?" said I, listlessly. "The accommodation is lamentably restricted, as it is; my secretary's cabin is like a dog-kennel, and my second cook has actually to lie round a corner, like a snake."

The captain reddened, and bit his lip in silence.

"As for myself," said I, heroically, "I never complain. Let me have any little cabin for my bed, a small bath-room, a place to lounge in during the day, with a few easy sofas, and a snug crib for a dinner-room, and I can always rough it. It was part of my father's system never to make Sybarites of his boys." This I a.s.serted with all the st.u.r.dy vehemence of truth.

"We will do everything to make your Excellency comfortable," said the captain, who clearly could not see the reasons for my self-praise. "And as to the Consul, what shall we say to him?"

"Consul, did you say?" said I.

"Yes, Senhor Conde, he is the French Consul for the Republic of 'Campecho.'" That this was a State I had never heard of before, was quite true; yet it was clearly one which the French Government were better informed upon, and deigned to recognize by an official agent.

"Hold on there a bit!" shouted out the captain to the boat's crew.

"What shall I say, Senhor Conde? The Chevalier de la Boutonerie is very anxious on the subject."

"Let this man have his pa.s.sage," said I, indolently, and lighted a cigar, as if to turn my thoughts in another direction, not even noticing the new arrival, who was hoisted up the side with his portmanteau in a very undignified fashion for an official character. He soon, however, baffled this indifference on my part, by advancing towards me, and, in a manner where considerable ease and tact were evident, thanked me for my polite consideration regarding him, and expressed a hope that he might not in any way inconvenience me during the voyage.

Now, the Chevalier was not in himself a very prepossessing personage, while his dress was of the very shabbiest, being a worn-out suit of black, covered by a coa.r.s.e brown Mexican mantle; and yet his fluency, his quiet a.s.surance, his seeming self-satisfaction, gained an ascendancy over me at once. I saw that he was a master in a walk in which I myself had so long been a student, and that he was a consummate adept in the "art of impudence."

And how mistaken is the world at large in the meaning of that art!

How p.r.o.ne to call the unblushing effrontery of every underbred man impudence! The rudeness that dares any speech, or adventures upon any familiarity; the soul less, heartless, selfish intrusiveness that scruples not to invade any society,--these are not impudence, or they are such specimens of the quality as men only possess in common with inferior animals. I speak of that educated, cultivated "impudence"

which, never abashed by an inferiority, felt acutely, is resolved to overbear worldly prejudices by the exercise of gifts that a.s.sert a mastery over others,--a power of rising, by the expansive force of self-esteem, into something almost estimable. Ordinary mortals tell lies at intervals, _per saltum_, as the doctors say; but these people's whole life is a lie. The Chevalier was a fine specimen of the cla.s.s, and seemed as indifferent to a hundred little adverse circ.u.mstances as though everything around him went well and pleasantly.

There was a suave dignity in the way he moved a very dubious hand over his unshaven chin, in the graceful negligence he exhibited when disposing the folds of his threadbare cloak, in the jaunty lightness with which, after saluting, he replaced his miserable hat on the favored side of his head, that conveyed the whole story of the man.

What a model for my imitation had he been, thought I, if I had seen him in the outset of life! what a study he had presented! And yet there he was, evidently in needy circ.u.mstances, pressed on by even urgent want, and I, Con Cregan, the outcast, the poor, friendless street-runner, had become a "millionnaire."

I don't know how it was, but certainly I felt marvellously ill at ease with my new friend. A real aristocrat, with all the airs of a.s.sumption and haughtiness, would have been a blessing compared with the submissive softness of the "Chevalier." Through all his flattery there seemed a sly consciousness that his honeyed words were a snare, and his smile a delusion; and I could never divest myself of the feeling that he saw into the very secret of my heart, and knew me thoroughly.

I must become his dupe, thought I, or it is all over with me. The fellow will detect me for a "parvenu" long before we reach Malaga!

No man born and bred to affluence could have acquired the keen insight into life that I possessed. I must mask this knowledge, then, if I would still be thought a "born gentleman." This was a wise resolve,--at least, its effects were immediately such as I hoped for. The Chevalier's little sly sarcasms, his half-insinuated "equivoques," were changed for a tone of wonder and admiration for all I said. How one so young could have seen and learned so much!--what natural gifts I must possess!--how remarkably just my views were!--how striking the force of my observations!--and all this while I was discoursing what certainly does not usually pa.s.s for "consummate wisdom." I soon saw that the Chevalier set me down for a fool; and from that moment we changed places,--_he_ became the dupe versus _me_. To be sure, the contrivance cost me something, as we usually spent the evenings at piquet or ecarte, and the consul was the luckiest of men; to use his own phrase, applied to one he once spoke of, "savait corriger la fortune."

Although he spoke freely of the fashionable world of Paris and London, with all whose celebrities he affected a near intimacy, he rarely touched upon his New World experiences, and blinked all allusion whatever to the republic of "Campecho." His own history was comprised in the brief fact that he was the cadet of a great family of Provence,--all your French rogues, I remark, come from the South of France,--that he had once held a high diplomatic rank, from which, in consequence of the fall of a ministry, he was degraded, and, after many vicissitudes of fortune, he had become Consul-General at Campecho. "My friends," continued he, "are now looking up again in the world, so that I entertain hopes of something better than perpetual banishment."

Of English people, their habits, modes of life, and thought, the Chevalier spoke to me with a freedom he never would have used if he had not believed me to be a Spaniard, and only connected with Ireland through the remote chain of ancestry. This deceit of mine was one he never penetrated, and I often thought over the fact with satisfaction.