Springhaven : a Tale of the Great War Part 24

Mr. Swipes took his hat off to ease his poor mind, which had lost its way altogether in other people's wickedness. "May I never set eyes on that young man no more!" he exclaimed, with more pathetic force than reasoning power. "Either him or me quits this establishment to-morrow.

Ah, I know well why he left his last place, and somebody else shall know to-morrow!"

"What harm have poor Charles done?" the cook asked sharply; "it wasn't him that said it; it was Miss Dolly. Charley only told me conferentially."

"Oh, I know what 'conferentially' means, when anything once gets among the womenkind! But I know a thing or two about Miss Dolly, as will give her enough to do at home, I'll warrant, without coming spying after me and my affairs. Don't you be surprised, cook, whatever you may hear, as soon as ever the Admiral returneth. He's a soft man enough in a number of ways, but he won't put up with everything. The nasty little vixen, if she don't smart for this!"

"Oh, don't 'e, now don't 'e, Mr. Swipes, that's a dear!" cried the soft-hearted Mrs. Knuckledown; "don't 'e tell on her, the poor young thing. If her hath been carrying on a bit with some of them young hofficers, why, it's only natteral, and her such a young booty. Don't 'e be d.i.c.k-tell-tale, with a name to it, or without. And perhaps her never said half the things that Charles hath contributed to her." The truth was that poor Dolly had said scarcely one of them.

"Bain't no young hofficer," Mr. Swipes replied, contemptuously; "ten times wuss than that, and madder for the Admiral. Give me that paper, Miss, and then, perhaps, I'll tell 'e. Be no good to you, and might be useful to me."

Mary could not give up the paper, because it was a letter from one of her adorers, which, with the aid of Jenny Shanks, she had interpreted.

"No, no," she said, with a coaxing look; "by-and-by, Mr. Swipes, when you have told me who it is, and when you have promised not to tell on poor Miss Dolly. But n.o.body sha'n't see it, without your permission.

We'll have another talk about that to-morrow. But, oh my! look at the time you have kept me, with all the good things to make a hangel's mouth water! Bring me two cauliflowers in two seconds. My beef will want basting long ago; and if Dandy hathn't left his job, he'll be pretty well roasted hisself by now."

Mr. Swipes went muttering up the walk, and was forced to cut two of the finest cauliflowers intended for Cheeseman's adornment to-morrow. This turned his heart very sour again, and he shook his head, growling in self-commune: "You see if I don't do it, my young lady. You speaks again me, behind my back, and I writes again you, before your face; though, in course, I need not put my name to it."

CHAPTER x.x.xV

LOYAL, AYE LOYAL

One of the dinners at the Darling Arms, and perhaps the most brilliant and exciting of the whole, because even the waiters understood the subject, was the entertainment given in the month of December, A.D.

1803, not only by the officers of two regiments quartered for the time near Stonnington, but also by all the leading people round about those parts, in celebration of the great work done by His Majesty's 38-gun frigate Leda. Several smaller dinners had been consumed already, by way of practice, both for the cooks and the waiters and the chairman, and Mr. John Prater, who always stood behind him, with a napkin in one hand and a corkscrew in the other, and his heart in the middle, ready either to a.s.suage or stimulate. As for the guests, it was always found that no practice had been required.

"But now, but now"--as Mr. Prater said, when his wife pretended to make nothing of it, for no other purpose than to aggravate him, because she thought that he was making too much money, in proportion to what he was giving her--"now we shall see what Springhaven can do for the good of the Country and the glory of herself. Two bottles and a half a head is the lowest that can be charged for, with the treble X outside, and the punch to follow after. His lordship is the gentleman to keep the bottle going."

For the Lord-Lieutenant of the county, the popular Marquis of Southdown, had promised to preside at this grand dinner; and everybody knew what that meant. "Short tongue and long throat," was his lordship's motto in the discharge of all public business, and "Bottle to the gentleman on my left!" was the practical form of his eulogies. In a small s.p.a.ce like this, there would be no chance for a sober-minded guest to escape his searching eye, and Blyth Scudamore (appointed to represent the officers of the Leda, and therefore the hero of the evening) felt as happy as a dog being led to be drowned, in view of this liquid ordeal. For Blyth was a temperate and moderate young man, neither such a savage as to turn his wine to poison, nor yet so Anti-Christian as to turn it into water.

Many finer places had been offered for the feast, and foremost amongst them the Admiral's house; but the committee with sound judgment had declined them all. The great point was to have a place within easy reach of boats, and where gallant naval officers could be recalled at once, if the French should do anything outrageous, which they are apt to do at the most outrageous time. But when a part.i.tion had been knocked down, and the breach tacked over with festoons of laurel, Mr. Prater was quite justified in rubbing his red hands and declaring it as snug a box as could be for the business. There was even a dark elbow where the staircase jutted out, below the big bressemer of the part.i.tion, and made a little gallery for ladies to hear speeches, and behold the festive heroes while still fit to be beholden. And Admiral Darling, as vice-chairman, entering into facts masculine and feminine, had promised his daughters and Miss Twemlow, under charge of the rector's wife and Mrs. Stubbard, a peep at this heroic scene, before it should become too convivial. The rescuers also of the Blonde, the flesh and bone, without which the master brain must still have lain stranded, were to have a grand supper in the covered skittle-alley, as the joints came away from their betters, this lower deck being in command of Captain Tugwell, who could rouse up his crew as fast as his lordship roused his officers.

Admiral Darling had been engaged of late in the service of his Country so continually, and kept up and down the great roads so much, or in and out of any little port where sailors grew, that his own door had nearly forgotten his shadow, and his dining-room table the reflection of his face. For, in those days, to keep a good table implied that the table must be good, as well as what was put upon it; and calico spread upon turpentine was not yet considered the proper footing for the hospitable and social gla.s.s.

"When shall Twemlow and I have a hobn.o.b again?" the Admiral asked himself many a time. "How the dear old fellow loves to see the image of his gla.s.s upon the table, and the ruby of his port reflected! Heigho!

I am getting very stiff in the back, and never a decent bit of dinner for'ard. And as for a gla.s.s of good wine--oh Lord! my timbers will be broken up, before it comes to mend them. And when I come home for even half an hour, there is all this small rubbish to attend to. I must have Frank home, to take this stuff off my hands, or else keep what I abominate, a private secretary."

Among the pile of letters that had lain unopened was one which he left to the last, because he disliked both the look and the smell of it. A dirty, ugly scrawl it was, bulged out with clumsy folding, and dabbed with wax in the creases. With some dislike he tore it open; and the dislike became loathing, as he read:

"Hon'd Sir. These foo lines comes from a umble but arty frend to command. Rekwesting of your pardon sir, i have kep a hi same been father of good dawters on the goings on of your fammeley. Miss Faith she is a hangel sir but Miss Dolly I fere no better than she ort to be, and wonderful fond of been noticed. I see her keeping company and carryin on dreadful with a tall dark young man as meens no good and lives to Widow Shankses. Too nites running when the days was short she been up to the cornder of your grounds to meat he there ever so long. Only you hask her if you don't believe me and wash her fase same time sir. Too other peple besides me nose it. Excoose hon'd sir this trubble from your obejiant servant

"FAX AND NO MISSTAKE."

The Admiral's healthy face turned blue with rage and contempt, and he stamped with his heel, as if he had the writer under it. To write a stabbing letter, and to dare to deal the stab, and yet fear to show the hand that deals it, was at that time considered a low thing to do. Even now there are people who so regard it, though a still better tool for a blackguard--the anonymous post-card--is now superseding it.

All the old man's pleasure, and cheer, and comfort, and joy in having one day at home at last, were dashed and shattered and turned into wretched anxiety by this vile scrawl. He meant to have gone down, light of heart, with a smiling daughter upon either arm, to the gallant little festival where everybody knew him, and every one admired and loved him.

His two pretty daughters would sit upstairs, watching from a bow-window (though themselves unseen) all the dashing arrivals and the grand apparel. Then when the Marquis made his speech, and the King and Queen and Royal Family rode upon the clouds, and the grandeur of Great Britain was above the stars of heaven, the ladies in the gallery would venture just to show themselves, not for one moment with a dream of being looked at, but from romantic loyalty, and the fervour of great sentiments.

People pretending not to know would ask, "Who are those very lovely ladies?" And he would make believe to know nothing at all about it, but his heart would know whether he knew it or not.

On the very eve of all this well-earned bliss, when it would have refreshed his f.a.gged body and soul--which were now not so young as they used to be--to hear from some scoundrel without a name, that his pet child, the life of his life, was no better than she ought to be, which being said of a woman means that she is as bad as she can be! This fine old gentleman had never received such a cowardly back-handed blow till now, and for a moment he bent under it.

Then, greatly ashamed of himself, he arose, and with one strong word, which even Mr. Twemlow might have used under such provocation, he trod the vile stuff under foot, and pitched it with the fire-tongs into the fire. After this he felt better, and resolving most stoutly that he never would let it cross his mind again, made a light and cheerful answer to the profligate one--his young girl who came seeking him.

"Oh, father, and you ought to be dressed!" she cried. "Shall we keep His Majesty the Lord-Lieutenant waiting? Don't let us go at all. Let us stop at home, papa. We never see you now, more than once in a month; and we don't want to see you from a staircase hole, where we mustn't even blow a kiss to you. I have got such a lot of things to tell you, dear father; and I could make you laugh much more than they will."

"But, my darling--all these grand things?" said the father, gently fingering but half afraid to look at her, because of what had been in his own mind; "the sweetest Navy blue, and the brightest Army red, and little bits of silver lace so quiet in between them! I am sure I don't know what to call a quarter of it; but the finest ship ever seen under full sail, with the sun coming through her from her royals to her courses--"

"Now, papa, don't be so ridiculous. You know that I am not a fine ship at all, but only a small frigate, about eighteen guns at the outside, I should say--though she would be a sloop of war, wouldn't she?--and come here at any rate for you to command her, if you are not far too lofty an Admiral."

"Do you love your old father, my dear?" said he, being carried beyond his usual state by the joy in her eyes as she touched him.

"What a shame to ask me such a question? Oh, papa, I ought to say, 'Do you love me?' when you go away weeks and months almost together! Take that, papa; and be quite ashamed of yourself."

She swept all her breast-knots away anyhow--that had taken an hour to arbitrate--and flung back her hair that would never be coiled, and with a flash of tears leaping into laughing eyes, threw both arms round her father's neck, and pressed her cool sweet lips to his, which were not at all in the same condition.

"There, see what you've done for me now!" she cried. "It will take three-quarters of an hour, papa, to make me look fit to be looked at again. The fashions are growing so ridiculous now--it is a happy thing for us that we are a hundred years behind them, as Eliza Twemlow had the impudence to say; and really, for the daughter of a clergyman--"

"I don't care that for Eliza Twemlow," the Admiral exclaimed, with a snap of his thumb. "Let her show herself as much as there is demand for.

Or rather, what I mean to say is, let Miss Twemlow be as beautiful as nature has made her, my dear; and no doubt that is very considerable.

But I like you to be different; and you are. I like you to be simple, and shy, and retiring, and not to care twopence what any one thinks of you, so long as your father is contented."

Dolly looked at her father, as if there were no other man in the world for the moment. Then her conscience made her bright eyes fall, as she whispered: "To be sure, papa. I only put these things on to please you; and if you don't like them, away they go. Perhaps I should look nicer in my great-aunt's shawl. And my feet would be warmer, oh ever so much! I know where it is, and if you prefer the look of it--"

"No, no!" cried the simple old father, as the girl tripped away in hot haste to seek for it; "I forbid you to make such a guy of yourself. You must not take my little banter, darling, in such a matter-of-fact way, or I must hold my tongue."

"Thank G.o.d," he continued to himself, as Miss Dolly ran away, to repair her damages; "the simple little soul thinks of n.o.body but me! How could I be such a fool as to imagine harm of her? Why, she is quite a child, a bigger child than I am. I shall enjoy my evening all the more for this."

And truly there seemed to be no reason why all the guests at that great festival, save those who had speeches to make, should not enjoy their evening thoroughly. Great preparations had been made, and goodly presents contributed; plenty of serving-men would be there, and John Prater (now growing white-headed and portly) was becoming so skilful a caterer that if anything was suggested to him, he had always thought of it long ago. The only grief was that the hour should be so late--five o'clock, an unchristian time, as they said, for who could have manners after starving so long?

There was some sense in this; but the unreasonable lateness of the hour could not be helped, because the Lord-Lieutenant had to wait upon the King at eight o'clock that morning. That he could do so, and yet be in Springhaven by five, seemed almost impossible; for only ten years ago the journey took two days. But the war seemed to make everything go quicker, and it was no use to wonder at anything. Only if everything else went quicker, why should dinner (the most important of them all) come slower? And as yet there was n.o.body to answer this; though perhaps there is no one to ask it now.

All things began very beautifully. The young ladies slipped in un.o.bserved, and the elder blessings of mankind came after, escorting themselves with dignity. Then the heroes who had fought, and the gallants who had not had the luck yet, but were eager for it, came pleasantly clanking in, well girt to demolish ox and sheep, like Ajax, in lack of loftier carnage. The rector said grace, and the Marquis amen, and in less than two minutes every elbow was up, and every mouth at business. There was very little talking for the first half hour. In those days emptiness was not allowed to make the process of filling a misery.

While these fine fellows were still in the prime of their feeding, bent over and upon it, two men with empty stomachs, and a long way between them and their victuals, stood afar regarding them. That is to say, just far enough to be quite out of sight from the windows, in the gloom of the December evening; but at the same time near enough, to their own unhappiness, to see and even smell the choice affairs across the road.

"For what, then, hast thou brought me here?" the shorter man sharply asked the tall one, both being in an uncomfortable place in a hedge, and with briars that scratched them. "Is it to see other people eat, when to eat myself is impossible? You have promised to show me a very fine thing, and leagues have I traversed to please you. Fie, then, what is it? To see eat, eat, eat, and drink, drink, drink, and have nothing for myself!"

"My friend," said the tall man, "I have not brought you here with any desire to improve your appet.i.te, which is always abundant, and cannot be gratified for several hours, and with poor stuff then, compared to what you are beholding. Those men are feeding well. You can see how they enjoy it. There is not a morsel in their mouths that has not a very choice flavour of its own distinguished relish. See, there is the venison just waiting to be carved, and a pheasant between every two of them. If only the wind was a little more that way, and the covers taken off the sauce-boats, and the gravy--ah, do I perceive a fine fragrance, or is it a desirous imagination?"

"Bah! you are of the cold-blood, the wicked self-command. For me it is either to rush in, or rush away. No longer can I hold my nose and mouth.

And behold they have wine--grand wine--the wine of Sillery, of Medoc, of Barsac, and of Burgundy! By the bottles I can tell them, and by all the Saints--"

"Be not so excited, for you cannot smack the lips. It is too late now to envy them their solids, because they have made such speed with them. But listen, my dear friend"--and here the tall man whispered into the ear of his brisk companion, who danced with delight in the ungenial hedge, till his face was scarred with brambles.

"It is magnificent, it is droll, it is what you call in England one grand spree, though of that you understand not the signification. But, my faith, it is at the same time barbarous, and almost too malignant."

"Too benevolent Charron," said the tall stern man, "that shall rest upon my conscience, not on yours. The object is not to spoil their noisy revel, but to gain instruction of importance. To obtain a clear idea of the measures they adopt--ah, you see, you are as quick as lightning.