Jack Hinton Part 68

'Another candidate for the leg of---- Eh! what's this?' said he, as I rose and advanced to meet him; while Louisa, blushing deeply, buried her head in her hand, and then starting up, left the room.

'Captain, Captain,' said Paul gravely, 'what does this mean? Do you suppose that because there is some difference in our rank in life, that you are privileged to insult one who is under my protection? Is it because you are the Guardsman and I the attorney that you have dared to take a liberty here which in your own walk you couldn't venture on?'

'My dear Mr. Rooney, you mistake me sadly.'

'If I do not mistake you, I'll put a hole in your body as sure as my name's Paul,' was the quick reply.

'You do, then, and wrong me to boot. I have been long and ardently attached to Miss Bellew. From the hour I met her at your house I loved her. It is the first time we have met since our long separation: I determined it should not be lost. I 've asked her to be my wife.'

'You have! And what does she say?'

'She has consented.'

'Rum-ti-iddity, iddity!' said Paul, snapping his fingers, and capering about the room like a man deranged. 'Give me your hand, my buck! I 'd rather draw the settlements, so help me, than I 'd see the warrant to make me Master of the Rolls. Who 'd say there isn't luck in a leg of pork? She's a darling girl; and beautiful as she is, her looks isn't the best of her--an angel as sure as I am here! And look here'--here he dropped his voice--'seven thousand a year, that may be made nine!

Hennessy's farm is out of lease in October; and the Cluangoff estate is let at ten shillings an acre. Hurroo! maybe I won't be drunk to-night; and bad luck to the Cossack, Tartar, Bohemian, or any other blackguard I'll let into the house this day or night! Sworn, my lord.'

After some little discussion, it was arranged that if Louisa would give her consent to the arrangement, the marriage should take place before the Rooneys left Paris. Meanwhile, Paul agreed with me in keeping the whole matter a perfect secret from everybody, Mrs. Rooney herself included. Our arrangements were scarcely completed when O'Grady appeared. Having waited for me some time at his hotel, he had set out in search of me.

'I'm your man to-day, Paul,' said he. 'You got my note, I suppose?'

'All right,' said Mr. Rooney, whose double secret of the marriage and the leg of pork seemed almost too much for him to bear.

'I suppose I may tell Phil,' said I in a whisper.

'No one else,' said Paul, as we left the house, and I took O'Grady's arm down the street.

'Well, I have frightened De Vere to some purpose,' said O'Grady. 'He has made a full confession about Burke, who was even a deeper villain than we supposed. What do you think? He has been the spy of the Bonapartist faction all this time, and selling old Guillemain as regularly as the others. To indulge his pa.s.sion for play, he received the pay of four different parties, whom he pitted against one another exactly as he saw proper. Consummate clever scoundrel!--he had to deal with men whose whole lives are pa.s.sed in the very practice of every chicanery and deceit, and yet he has jockied them all. What a sad thing to think that such abilities and knowledge of mankind should be prost.i.tuted to the lowest and most debasing uses; and that the sole tendency of such talent should be to dishonour and disgrace its possessor! Some of his manufactured despatches were masterpieces of cleverness.'

'Well, where is he now? Still in Paris?'

'No. The moment he had so far forgotten himself as to strike De Vere, he forged a pa.s.sport and returned to London, carrying with him hosts of papers of the French authorities, which to our Foreign Office will be very acceptable. De Vere meanwhile feels quite at his ease. He was always afraid of his companion, yet can't forgive him his last indignity.

'No! A blow!'

'Not at all; you mistake. His regrets have a different origin. It is for not backing the "rouge" that he is inexorable towards him. Besides, he is under the impression that all these confessions he has been making establish for him a kind of moral insolvency act, by which he is to come forth irresponsible for the past, and quite ready to contract new debts for the future. At this moment his greatest point of doubt consists in whether he should marry your cousin, Lady Julia, or Miss Bellew; for, in his own phrase, "he must do something that way to come round."'

'Impudent scoundrel!'

'Fact, I a.s.sure you; and so easy, so unaffected, so free from embarra.s.sment of any kind is he, that I'm really quite a convert to this modern school of good manners, when a.s.sociating with even such as Burke conveys no feeling of shame or discomfort. More than could be said some forty years ago, I fancy.'

It was the hour of my mother's morning reception, and we found the drawing-room crowded with loungers and fashionable idlers, discussing the news of the day, and above all the Roni _fete_, the extraordinary finale to which gave rise to a hundred conjectures--some a.s.serting that Monsieur de Roni's song was a violent pasquinade against the Emperor Alexander; others, equally well informed, alleging it was the concerted signal for a general ma.s.sacre of the Allies, which was to have begun at the same moment in the Rue Montmartre. She is a Bonapartist, a Legitimist, a Neapolitan, an Anversoise,' contended one after another--my only fear being that some one would enlighten the party by saying she was the wife of an Irish attorney. All agreed, however, she was _bien mauvais ton_; that her _fete_ was, with all its magnificence, anything but select; her supper superb, but too crowded by half; and, in fact, that Madame Roni had enjoyed the pleasure of ruining herself to very little other purpose than that of being generally ridiculed and laughed at.

'And this niece, or ward, or whatever it is--who can tell anything of her?' said my mother.

'Ah, _pardieu!_ she's very handsome,' said Grammont, with a malicious smile.

'Perfect,' said another; 'quite perfect; but a little, a very little too graceful Don't you think so?'

'Why what do you mean?' said Lady Charlotte, as her eyes sparkled with animation at the thought of a secret.

'Nothing,' replied the last speaker carelessly; 'except that one always detects the _danseuse_. She was thinner when I saw her at Naples.'

I whispered one word--but one--in his ear, and his face became purple with shame and confusion.

'Eh, what is it?' said my mother eagerly. 'John knows something of her too. John, dearest, let us hear it?'

'I am in your ladyship's debt as regards one secret,' said O'Grady, interrupting; 'perhaps I may be permitted to pay it on this occasion.

The lady in question is the daughter of an Irish baronet, the descendant of a family as old as any of those who now hear me. That baronet would have been a peer of the realm had he consented to vote once--but once--with the minister, on a question where his conscience told him to oppose him. His refusal was repaid by neglect; others were promoted to rank and honours before him; but the frown of a minister could neither take away the esteem of his country nor his own self-respect. He is now dead; but his daughter is the worthy inheritor of his virtues and his name. Perhaps I might interest the present company as much in her favour by adding, she possesses something like eight thousand per annum.'

'Two hundred thousand _livres de rente!_ said Grammont, smacking his lips with astonishment, 'and perfectly insensible to the tone of mockery in which O'Grady's last words were spoken.

'And you are sure of all this?' said my mother.

O'Grady bowed deeply, but without speaking, while his features a.s.sumed an expression of severe determination I had never witnessed before. I could not help remarking, that, amid the dismay such an announcement created in that gossiping and calumnious a.s.sembly, my cousin Julia's eyes shone with an added l.u.s.tre, and her whole face beamed with a look of proud and exalted beauty.

This was now the time to tell O'Grady my secret; and drawing him towards a window, I said--

'Phil, I can wait no longer--you must hear it. I'm going to be married.'

The words had not left my lips, when O'Grady started back, his face as pale as death, and his whole frame trembling with eagerness. By a violent effort, however, he rallied; and as he clutched my arm with his fingers, he said--

'I must be going; these good people have made me forget an appointment.

Make my respectful homage to her ladyship--and the bride. I shall see you before I leave.'

'Leave! Why, where are you thinking of going?'

'To India.'

'To India!' said Julia, starting round as he spoke.

'To India!' said I, in amazement.

He nodded, and turning quickly round, left the room.

I hastened after him with all my speed, and dashing downstairs was making for the _porte cochere_, when a shadow beside the doorway caught my eye. I stopped. It was O'Grady; he was leaning against the wall, his head buried in his hands. A horrible doubt shot through my heart.

I dared not dwell upon it; but rushing towards him, I called him by his name. He turned quickly round, while a fierce, wild look glistened in his eyes.

'Not now, Hinton, not now!' said he, motioning me away with his hand; and then, as a cold shudder pa.s.sed over him, he drew his hand across his face, and added in a lower tone, 'I never thought to have betrayed myself thus. Good-bye, my dear fellow, good-bye! It were better we shouldn't meet again.'

'My dearest, best friend! I never dreamed that the brightest hour of my life was to throw this gloom over your heart.'

'Yes, Jack,' said he, in a voice low and broken, 'from the first hour I saw her I loved her. The cold manner she maintained towards me at your father's house----'

'In my father's house! What do you mean?'

'When in London, I speak of--when I joined first--your cousin--'

'My cousin!'