Rattlin the Reefer Part 9

He was some time before he brought Mrs Cherfeuil over to his opinions.

It was in vain that she protested the direction of my fate was in other hands, he would not listen to it for a moment; he was obstinate, and I suppose, by what occurred, he was in the right. He declared that the navy was the only profession that deserved my spirit and my abilities.

This declaration, perhaps, was not unacceptable at head-quarters, wherever they might have been. For myself, I was nothing loath, and the gallant bearing and the graceful uniform of my gallant young friend, Frank ---, who had already seen some hard fighting, added fresh stimulants to my desires. My friend Riprapton had now the enviable task to impart to me the science of navigation; and, with his peculiar notions of longitude and lat.i.tude, there can be no question as to the merits of the tuition that I received from that very erudite person.

Shortly after I had commenced navigation under his auspices--or, more properly speaking, that he was forced to attend to it a little under mine--the harmony of our friendship was broken by a quarrel, yes, a heart-embroiling quarrel--and, strange to say, about a lady. I concede to this paragon of ushers that he was a general favourite with the s.e.x.

I was never envious of him. All the world knows that I ever did sufficient honour to his attractions,--I acknowledged always the graces that appertained to his wooden progression--but still, he was not omnipotent. Wilkes, that epitome of all manner of ugliness, often boasted that he was only an hour behind the handsomest man that ever existed, so far as regarded his position with the fair. Rip was but twenty-five minutes and a fraction. In ten minutes he would talk the generality of women into a good opinion of themselves--an easy matter, some may think, for the ladies have one ready made; but it is a different thing from having it and daring to own it. In ten minutes he would make his listener, by some act or word, avow her opinion of her own excellence; in ten more he would bring her to the same opinion as regarded himself; and the remaining five he used to occupy with his declaration of love, for he was very rapid in his execution,--and the thing was done, for if he had not made a conquest he chronicled one--and that was the same thing. He looked more for the glory than the fruition of his pa.s.sions. In one respect, he followed Chesterfield's advice with wonderful accuracy; he hazarded a declaration of love to every woman between sixteen and sixty, a little under and over also; for, with his lordship, he came to the very pertinent conclusion, that, if the act were not taken as a sincerity, it would be as a compliment. This ready-made adorer for every new-comer was as jealous as he was universal in his attachments.

Let the imaginative think, and, running over with their mind's eye all the beautiful sculptures of antiquity, endeavour to picture to themselves a personation of that commanding G.o.ddess that the ancients venerated under the t.i.tle of Juno. The figure must be tall, in proportion faultless, in majesty unrivalled, in grace enchanting; all the outlines of the form must be full, yet not swelling, and as far removed from the modern notions of _en bon point_ as possible; let us add to these the bust of Venus ere she weaned her first-born, the winged boy-G.o.d; and then we may have an adequate idea of the figure of Mrs Causand. Her face was of that style of beauty that those women who think themselves delicate are pleased to slander under the name of bold,--a style of beauty, however, that all men admire, and most men like. Thirty-five years had only written in a stronger hand those attractions which must have undergone every phase of loveliness, and which now, without appearing matronly, seemed stamped with the signs of a long-enduring maturity. The admiration she excited was general: as she pa.s.sed, men paused to look upon her, and women whispered to each other behind her back. Never, till this paragon had made her appearance, had I heard of ladies wearing supposit.i.tious portions of the human frame--now I found that envy, or the figure-maker, had improved almost every member of Mrs Causand's body. It was voted by all the female scandal of the village, that such perfection could not be natural; but, since if all were true that was said upon the subject, the object of their criticism must have been as artificial as Mr Riprapton's left leg, and she must have been nothing more than an animated lay-figure, I began to disbelieve these a.s.sertions, the more especially as the lady herself was as easy under them as she was in every gesture and motion. Whenever she made her appearance, so did my old friend Mr R; he entertained a platonic attachment for her, and that the more strongly, as each visit enabled him to entertain every one who would listen to him, with a long story about the king of Prussia. And every lady expects attention and politeness as a matter of course, equally as a matter of course did she expect the a.s.siduities and some manifestation, even stronger than gallantry, and treated it merely as a matter of course. Really, without an hyperbole, she was a woman to whom an appearance of devotion might be excusable, and looked upon more as a tribute to the abstract spirit of beauty and its divine Creator, than as a sensual testimony to the individual.

Her first appearance even silenced the hitherto dauntless loquacity of Rip--for half a minute. But he made fearful amends for this involuntary display of modesty afterwards. _Secundum artem_, he opened all the batteries of his fascination upon her. He rolled his eyes at her with a violence approaching to agony; he bowed; he displayed in every possible and captivating att.i.tude his one living leg--but his surpa.s.sing strength was in the adulation of his serpent tongue--and she bore it all so stoically; she would smile upon him when he made a good hit, as upon an actor on the boards--she would, at times, even condescend to improve some of his compliments upon herself; and when her easy manners had perchance overset him at the very _debut_ of one of his finest speeches, she would begin it again for him; taking up the dropped sentence, and then settle herself into a complacent att.i.tude for listening.

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.

EVIDENCES OF GOOD TASTE IN FAVOUR OF MASTER RALPH--JEALOUSY USHERS IN REVENGE, REVENGE RETALIATION, WHICH HE IS COMPELLED TO CHRONICLE ON THE USHER'S FACE, AND WHAT PUNISHMENT THEREUPON ENSUED.

When Mrs Causand came to Stickenham, she made universal jubilee. The orderly routine of scholastic life had no longer place. She almost ruined Riprapton in clean linen, perfumes, and Windsor soap. Cards and music enlivened every evening; and the games she played were those of the fashion of the day, and she always played high, and always won. Her ascendancy over Mrs Cherfeuil was complete. The latter was treated with much apparent affection, but still with the airs of a patroness. I do not know that the handsome schoolmistress lent her money, for I do not think that she stood in need of it; but I feel a.s.sured that her whole property was at her disposal. She stood in awe of her. _She knew her secret_.

With his usual acuteness, my good old friend discovered this immediately; and he began to woo her also, more for her secret than for her heart. But she was a perfect mystery--I never knew till her death who she was. Her residence was at no time mentioned, and I believe that no one knew it but the lady of the house and myself, when Mrs Causand herself gave it me at the eve of my departing for my ship. She came without notice, stayed as long as she chose, and departed with an equal disregard to ceremony.

She loved me to a folly. She would hold me at her knees by the hour, and scan every feature of my countenance, as Ophelia said of Hamlet, "as she would draw it." And then she smiled and looked grave, and sighed and laughed; and I, like a little fool, set all these symptoms of perturbation down to my own unfledged attractions, whilst during their perusal she would often exclaim, "So like him!--so like him!" I do not know whether I ought to mention it, for it is a censorious world; but, as I cannot enter into, or be supposed to understand, the feelings of a fine woman of thirty-five caressing a lad of fifteen, I have a right to suppose all such demonstrations of fondness highly virtuous and purely maternal; though, perhaps, to the fair bestower a little pleasant! I found them exquisitely so. I bore all her little blandishments with a modest pleasure; for, observing the high respect in which she was generally held, I looked upon these testimonials of affection as a great honour, sought them with eagerness, and remembered them with grat.i.tude.

Manner is perhaps more seducing than mere beauty; but where they are allied, the captivation is irresistible. That subduing alliance was to be found, in perfection, in the person of Mrs Causand. As she always dressed up to the very climax of the fashion, possessed a great variety of rich bijouterie, and never came down to us in the stage, but always posted it, I concluded that she was in very easy circ.u.mstances.

I cannot speak as to the extent of her mental powers, as her surface was so polished and dazzling, that the eye neither could nor wished to look more deeply into her. I believe that she had no other accomplishment but that gorgeous cloak for all deficiency--an inimitable manner. Her remarks were always shrewd, and replete with good sense; her language was choice; her style of conversation varying, sometimes of that joyous nature that has all the effect, without the pedantry of wit, upon the hearer, and, at times, she could be really quite energetic. This is, after all, but an imperfect description of one who took upon herself the task of forming my address, revising my gait after the dancing-master, and making me to look the gentleman.

This person quite destroyed Riprapton's equanimity. During her three or four first visits he was all hope and animation. She permitted him, as she did everybody else, as far as words were concerned, to make love as fast as he pleased. But beyond this, even his intrepid a.s.surance could not carry him. So his hope and animation gradually gave place to incert.i.tude and chagrin; and then, by a very natural transition, he fell into envy and jealousy. Though but fifteen, I was certainly taller than the man who thought he honoured me by considering me as his rival.

Though affairs remained in this unsatisfactory state so far as he was concerned, for certain very valid reasons he had not yet chosen to vent upon me any access of his spleen. But this procrastination of actual hostilities was terminated in the following manner:--

Mrs Causand and I were standing, one fine evening, lovingly, side by side, in the summer-house that overhung the river at the bottom of the garden. Mr Riprapton, washed, brushed, and perfumed--for the scholastic duties of the day were over--was standing directly in front of us, enacting most laboriously the agreeable, smiling with a sardonic grin, and looking actually yellow with spite, in the midst of his complimentary grimaces. As Mrs Causand and I stood contemplating the tranquil and beautiful scene, trying to see as little of the person before us as possible, one of her beautiful arms hung negligently over my shoulder, and now she would draw me with a fond pressure to her side, and now her exquisite hand would dally with the ringlets on my forehead, and then its velvety softness would crumple up and indent my blushing cheek, that burned certainly more with pleasure than with bashfulness.

I cannot say that the usher bore all this very stoically, but he betrayed his annoyance by his countenance only. His speech was as bland as ever. His trials were not yet over: at some very silly remark of mine the joyous widow pressed some half-dozen rapid kisses on the cheek that was glowing so near her own. Either this act emboldened Riprapton, or he egregiously mistook her character, and judged that a mere voluptuary stood before him, for he immediately went on the vacant side and endeavoured to possess himself of her hand.

Face, neck, and arms flushed up, in one indignant crimson of the most unsophisticated anger I ever beheld. She threw herself back with a perceptible shudder, as if she had come unexpectedly in contact with something cold, or dead, or unnatural.

"Mr Riprapton," she exclaimed, after a s.p.a.ce of real emotion, "I have never yet boxed the ears of a gentleman; but had you been one, I should most a.s.suredly have so far forgotten my feminine dignity, as to have expressed my deep resentment by a blow. I cannot touch anything so mean. While you confined your persecutions to words, I bore with it.

Sir, I only speak from my own sensations; but judging by these, any female who could abide your touch without repugnance, must have long lost all womanly feelings: and now that we are upon this subject, let me give you a little friendly advice. When you are permitted to sit at the same table with ladies, and wish by the means of your feet to establish a secret intercourse with anyone, take care, in future, that you do not use the wooden leg. Females may be more tender in their toes than in their hearts. You may go, sir; and remember, if you wish to preserve your station in this house--know it. When you behave as a gentleman, that t.i.tle may be conceded to you: but the moment your conduct is inconsistent with that character, those around you will not forget that you are no more than a hired servant, and but one degree above a menial.

Here, Ralph," she continued, giving me the violated hand, "cleanse it from that fellow's profanation." I brought it to my mouth very gallantly, and covered it with kisses.

For the first time, I saw my usher-friend not only confounded, but dumb with consternation, and his whitened face became purple even into the depths of his deep pock-marks, with an emotion that no courtesy could characterise as amiable. He moved off with none of his usual grace; but retired like a very common place wooden-legged man, in a truly miserable dot-and-go-one style. What Mrs Causand and I said to each other on the subject, when she went and seated herself in the summer-house to recover from her excitement, would, I am sure, have formed the groundwork and arguments of twelve good moral essays; but unfortunately I have forgotten everything about it, except that we stayed there till not only the dews had fallen upon the flowers, but the shades of evening upon the dews.

As my stay at school was to be so short, I was treated more as a familiar friend by all, than as a pupil. I stayed up with the family, and took tea and supper with them. Rip made no appearance the evening after his lecture, but retired to his chamber much indisposed. While Mrs Causand was on her visit, I always breakfasted with her _tete-a-tete_ in the little parlour, whose French windows opened upon the garden; and it was on those occasions that I found her most amusing.

She knew everyone and everything connected with fashionable life.

Private and piquant, and I am sure authentic, anecdotes of every n.o.ble family, she possessed in an exhaustless profusion. Nor was this knowledge confined to the n.o.bility: she knew more of the sayings and doings of some of the princes of the blood than any other person living, out of their domestic circle, and she knew many things with which that circle were never acquainted. I am sure she could have made splendid fortunes for twelve fashionable novel-writers.

I had breakfasted with Mrs Causand in the morning after Rip's discomfiture, and then went to prosecute my studies in the schoolroom.

This was the first time that my tutor and I had met since his rebuff.

Monsieur Cherfeuil had not yet taken his place at his desk. As I pa.s.sed the a.s.sistant who a.s.sisted me so little, I gave him my usual smile of greeting; but his countenance, instead of the good-humoured return, was black as evil pa.s.sions could make it. However, I paid but little attention to this unfriendly demonstration, and, taking my seat, began, as I was long privileged to do, to converse with my neighbour.

"Silence!" vociferated the man in authority. I conversed on. "Silence!

I say."

Not supposing that I was included in this authoritative demand, or not caring if I were, I felt no inclination to suspend the exercise of my conversational powers. After the third order for silence, this sudden disciple of Harpocrates left his seat, cane in hand, and coming behind me, I dreaming of no such temerity on his part, he applied across my shoulders one of the most hearty _con amore_ swingers that ever left a wale behind it, exclaiming at the same time, "Silence, Master Rattlin."

Here was a stinging degradation to me, almost an officer on the quarter-deck of one of his Majesty's frigates! However, without taking time to weigh exactly my own dignity, I seized a large slate, and, turning sharply round, sent it hissing into his very teeth. I wish I had knocked one or two of them out. I wished it then fervently, and of that wish, wicked though it be, I have never repented. He was for some time occupied with holding his hand to his mouth, and in a rapid and agonising examination of the extent of the damage. When he could spare an instant for me, he was as little satisfied with the expression of my features as with the alteration in his; so he hopped down to Monsieur Cherfeuil, while the blood was streaming between his fingers, to lay his complaint in form against me. I had two sure advocates below, so he took nothing by his motion, but a lotion to wash his mouth with; and, after staying below for a couple of hours, he came up with a swelled face, but his teeth all perfect.

That morning Monsieur Cherfeuil, in very excellent bad English, made a most impressive speech; the pith of it was, that, had I not taken the law into my own hands, he would most certainly have discharged Mr Riprapton, for having exceeded his authority in striking me, but as my conduct had been very unjustifiable, I was sentenced to transcribe the whole of the first book of the Aeneid. Before dinner my schoolfellows had begged off one-half of the task.--Mrs Cherfeuil, at dinner, begged off one-half of that half: when things had gone thus far, Mrs Causand interfered, and argued for a commutation of punishment; the more especially, as she thought an example ought to be made for so heinous an offence. As she spake with a very serious air, the good-natured Frenchman acquiesced in her wishes, and pledged himself to allow her to inflict the penalty, which she promulgated to the following effect: "That I should be forced to swallow an extra b.u.mper of port for not having knocked out, at least, one of the wretch's teeth;" and she then related enough of his conduct to bring Monsieur Cherfeuil into her way of thinking upon the subject.

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.

A RECONCILIATION--A WALK PLANNED, AND A MAN PLANTED--THE LATTER FOUND TO GROW IMPATIENT--RALPH AT LENGTH RIGGED OUT AS A REEFER.

For two days Mr Rip and myself were not upon speaking terms. On the third day, a Master Barnard brings me up a slate-full of plusses, minusses, _x, y, z's_, and other letters of the alphabet, in a most amiable algebraical confusion.

"Take it to Mr Riprapton," said I. The lad took it, and the mathematical master looked over it with a perplexed gravity, truly edifying. "Take it to Master Rattlin--I have no time," was the result of his cogitations.

It was brought to me again. "Take it to the usher," said I.

"It is of no use; he don't know anything about it."

"Take it then to Monsieur Cherfeuil, and tell him so."

This advice was overheard by the party most concerned, and he called the boy to him, who shortly returned to me with a note, full of friendship, apology, and sorrow; ending with an earnest request that I would again put him right with Mrs Causand, as well as the sum on the slate. I replied, for I was still a little angry, that he was very ungrateful, but that, as we were so soon to part, perhaps for ever, I accepted the reconciliation. So far was well. I told Mrs Causand what had pa.s.sed, and then interceded with her for her forgiveness; for her anger debarred him from many comforts, as it obliged him to take his solitary tea and supper in the schoolroom. She consented, as she did to almost everything that I requested of her; and that afternoon I brought up to her the penitent hand-presser. Her natural good temper, and blandness of manner, soon put him again at his ease, and his love-speeches flowed as fluently as ever.

We proposed a walk; and, accompanied by some half-dozen of the elder boys, we began to stroll upon the common. By some _gaucherie_ the conversation took a disagreeable turn on our late misunderstanding, and I could not help repeating what I had said in my note, that Mr Rip had proved himself ungrateful, considering the many difficulties from which I had extricated him. At this last a.s.sertion before the lady, he took fire, and flatly denied it. I was too proud to enumerate the many instances of scholastic a.s.sistance that he had received at my hands, so I became sullen and silent, my opponent in an equal degree brisk and loquacious. My fair companion rather enjoyed the encounter, and began to tally me.

"Come, come," said I, "I'll lay him a crown that he will beg me to extricate him from some difficulty before the week's over."

The wager was accepted with alacrity, and Mrs Causand begged to lay an equal stake against me, which I took. I then purposely turned the conversation; and after some time, when we were fairly in the hollow made by the surrounding hills, I exclaimed, "Rip, if you'll give me five-and-twenty yards, I'll run you three hops and a step, a hundred yards, for another crown."

"Done, done!" exclaimed the usher, joyously, chuckling with the idea of exhibiting so triumphantly his prowess before the blooming widow. The ground was duly stepped, and the goal fixed, whilst my antagonist, all animation and spirits, was pouring his liquid nonsense into the lady's ear. I took care that, in about the middle of the distance, our race-ground should pa.s.s over where some rushes were growing. Now Riprapton had a most uncommon speed in this manner of progressing. He would, with his leg of flesh, take three tremendous hops, and then step down with his leg of wood one, and then three live hops again, and one dead step, the step being a kind of respite from the fatigue of the hops.

All the preliminaries being arranged, off we started, I taking, of course, my twenty-five yards in advance. The exhibition and the gait were so singular, that Mrs Causand could scarcely stand for laughter, whilst the boys shouted, "Go it, Ralph!"--"Well done, peg!"--"Dot-and-go-one will beat him."

In the midst of these exhilarating cries, what I had calculated upon happened. Rip, before we had gone half the distance, was close behind me; but lo! after three of his gigantic hops, that seemed to be performed with at least one seven-leagued boot turned into a slipper, he came down heavily upon his step with his wood among the rushes. The stiff clay there being full of moisture and unsound, he plunged up to his hip nearly, in the adhesive soil, and there he remained, as much a fixture, and equally astonished, as Lot's wife. First of all, taking care to go the distance, and thus win the wager, we, all frantic with laughter, gathered round the man thus firmly attached to his mother earth. Whilst the tears ran down Mrs Causand's cheeks, and proved that her radiant colour was quite natural, she endeavoured to a.s.sume an air of the deepest commiseration, which was interrupted, every moment, by involuntary bursts of laughter. For himself, no wretch in the pillory ever wore a more lugubrious aspect, and his sallow visage turned first to one, and then to another, with a look so ridiculously imploring that it was irresistible.

"I am sorry, very sorry," said the lady, "to see you look so pale--I may say, so livid--but poor man, it is but natural, seeing already that you have _one foot in the grave_."

The mender of pens groaned in the spirit.

"I say," said the school-boy wag of the party, applying an old Joe Miller to the occasion, "why is Mr Riprapton like pens, ink, and paper?"

"Because he is stationary," vociferated five eager voices, at once, in reply.

The caster-up of sums cast a look at the delinquent, the tottle of the whole of which was, "you sha'n't be long on the debit side of our account."

"But what is to be done?" was now the question.