The Bramleighs of Bishop's Folly Part 30

Scarcely was the order given when two figures, moving out of the dark, approached, and one, with a slightly foreign accent, but in admirable English, said, "What are you doing there? I have taken that place."

"Yes," cried his friend, "this gentleman secured the _coupe_ on the moment of his arrival."

"Very sorry, sir--extremely sorry; but the _coupe_ was reserved--specially reserved."

"My friend has paid for that place;" said the last, speaker; "and I can only say, if I were he, I'd not relinquish it."

"Don't bother yourself about it," whispered Jack. "Let him have his place. I 'll take the other corner; and there's an end of it."

"If you 'll allow me, Captain Bramleigh," said the official, who was now touched to the quick on that sore point, a question of his department--"if you'll allow me, I think I can soon settle this matter."

"But I will not allow you, sir," said Jack, his sense of fairness already outraged by the whole procedure. "He has as good a right to his place as I have to mine. Many thanks for your trouble. Good-bye." And so saying he stepped in.

The foreigner still lingered in earnest converse with his friend, and only mounted the steps as the train began to move. "A bientot, cher Philippe," he cried, as the door was slammed, and the next instant they were gone.

The little incident which had preceded their departure had certainly not conduced to any amicable disposition between them, and each, after a sidelong glance at the other, ensconced himself more completely within his wrappings, and gave himself up to either silence or sleep.

Some thirty miles of the journey had rolled over, and it was now day,--dark and dreary indeed,--when Jack awoke and found the carriage pretty thick with smoke. There is a sort of freemasonry in the men of tobacco which never fails them, and they have a kind of instinctive guess of a stranger from the mere character of his weed. On the present occasion Jack recognized a most exquisite Havanna odor, and turned furtively to see the smoker.

"I ought to have asked," said the stranger, "if this was disagreeable to you; but you were asleep, and I did not like to disturb you."

"Not in the least; I am a smoker too," said Jack, as he drew forth his case and proceeded to strike a light.

"Might I offer you one of mine?--they are not bad," said the other, proffering his case.

"Thanks," said Jack; "my tastes are too vulgar for Cubans. Birdseye, dashed with strong Cavendish, is what I like."

"I have tried that too, as I have tried everything English, but the same sort of half success follows me through all."

"If your knowledge of the language be the measure, I 'd say you've not much to complain of. I almost doubt whether you are a foreigner."

"I was born in Italy," said the other, cautiously, "and never in England till a few weeks ago."

"I'm afraid," said Jack, with a smile, "I did not impress you very favorably as regards British politeness, when we met this morning; but I was a little out of spirits. I was leaving home, not very likely to see it again for some time, and I wanted to be alone."

"I am greatly grieved not to have known this. I should never have thought of intruding."

"But there was no question of intruding. It was your right that you a.s.serted, and no more."

"Half the harsh things that we see in life are done merely by a.s.serting a right," said the other, in a deep and serious voice.

Jack had little taste for what took the form of a reflection; to his apprehension, it was own brother of a sermon; and warned by this sample of his companion's humor, he muttered a broken sort of a.s.sent and was silent. Little pa.s.sed between them till they met at the dinner-table, and then they only interchanged a few commonplace remarks. On their reaching their destination, they took leave of each other courteously, but half formally, and drove off their several ways.

Almost the first man, however, that Jack met, as he stepped on board the mail-packet for Holyhead, was his fellow-traveller of the rail.

This time they met cordially, and after a few words of greeting they proceeded to walk the deck together like old acquaintances.

Though the night was fresh and sharp there was a bright moon, and they both felt reluctant to go below, where a vast crowd of pa.s.sengers was a.s.sembled. The brisk exercise, the invigorating air, and a certain congeniality that each discovered in the other, soon established between them one of those confidences which are only possible in early life.

Nor do I know anything better in youth than the frank readiness with which such friendships are made. It is with no spirit of calculation--it is with no counting of the cost, that we sign these contracts. We feel drawn into companionship, half by some void within ourselves, half by some quality that seems to supply that void. The tones of our own voice in our own ears a.s.sure us that we have found sympathy; for we feel that we are speaking in a way we could not speak to cold or uncongenial listeners.

When Jack Bramleigh had told that he was going to take command of a small gunboat in the Mediterranean, he could not help going further, and telling with what a heavy heart he was going to a.s.sume his command.

"We sailors have a hard lot of it," said he; "we come home after a cruise--all is new, brilliant, and attractive to us. Our hearts are not steeled, as are landsmen's, by daily habit. We are intoxicated by what calmer heads scarcely feel excited. We fall in love, and then, some fine day, comes an Admiralty despatch ordering us to hunt slavers off Lagos, or fish for a lost cable in Behring's Straits."

"Never mind," said the other; "so long as there 's a goal to reach, so long as there's a prize to win, all can be borne. It's only when life is a sh.o.r.eless ocean--when, seek where you will, no land will come in sight--when, in fact, existence offers nothing to speculate on--then, indeed, the world is a dreary blank."

"I don't suppose any fellow's lot is as bad as that."

"Not perhaps completely, thoroughly so; but that a man's fate can approach such a condition--that a man can cling to so small a hope that he is obliged to own to himself that it is next to no hope at all,--that there could be, and is, such a lot in existence, I who speak to you now am able unfortunately to vouch for."

"I am sorry to hear it," said Jack, feelingly; "and I am sorry, besides, to have obtruded my own small griefs before one who has such a heavy affliction."

"Remember," said the Frenchman, "I never said it was all up with me.

I have a plank still to cling to, though it be only a plank. My case is simply this: I have come over to this country to prefer a claim to a large property, and I have nothing to sustain it but my right. I know well you Englishmen have a theory that your laws are so admirably and so purely administered that if a man asks for justice,--be he poor, or unknown, or a foreigner, it matters not,--he is sure to obtain it. I like the theory, and I respect the man who believes in it, but I don't trust it myself. I remember reading in your debates, how the House of Lords sat for days over a claim of a French n.o.bleman who had been ruined by the great Revolution in France, and for whose aid, with others, a large sum had once been voted, of which, through a series of misadventures, not a shilling had reached him. That man's claim, upheld and maintained by one of the first men in England, and with an eloquence that thrilled through every heart around, was rejected, ay, rejected, and he was sent out of court a beggar. They could n't call him an impostor, but they left him to starve!" He paused for a secondhand in a slower voice continued, "Now, it may be that my case shall one of these days be heard before that tribunal, and I ask you, does it not call for great courage and great trustfulness to have a hope on the issue?"

"I'll stake my head on it, they'll deal fairly by you," said Jack, stoutly.

"The poor baron I spoke of had powerful friends: men who liked him well, and fairly believed in his claim. Now I am utterly unknown, and as devoid of friends as of money. I think nineteen out of twenty Englishmen would call me an adventurer to-morrow; and there are few t.i.tles that convey less respect in this grand country of yours."

"There you are right; every one here must have a place in society, and be in it."

"My landlady where I lodged thought me an adventurer; the tailor who measured me whispered adventurer as he went downstairs; and when a cabman, in grat.i.tude for an extra sixpence, called me 'count,' it was to proclaim me an adventurer to all who heard him."

"You are scarcely fair to us," said Jack, laughing. "You have been singularly unlucky in your English acquaintance."

"No. I have met a great deal of kindness, but always after a certain interval of doubt--almost of mistrust. I tell you frankly, you are the very first Englishman with whom I have ventured to talk freely on so slight an acquaintance, and it has been to me an unspeakable relief to do it."

"I am proud to think you had that confidence in me."

"You yourself suggested it. You began to tell me of your plans and hopes, and I could not resist the temptation to follow you. A French hussar is about as outspoken an animal as an English sailor, so that we were well met."

"Are you still in the service?"

"No; I am in what we call _disponibilite_, I am free till called on--and free then if I feel unwilling to go back."

The Frenchman now pa.s.sed on to speak of his life as a soldier,--a career so full of strange adventures and curious incidents that Jack was actually grieved when they glided into the harbor of Holyhead, and the steamer's bell broke up the narrative.

CHAPTER XX. A MORNING OF PERPLEXITIES.

Colonel Bramleigh turned over and over, without breaking the seal, a letter which, bearing the postmark of Rome and in a well-known hand, he knew came from Lady Augusta.

That second marriage of his had been a great mistake. None of the social advantages he had calculated on with such certainty bad resulted from it. His wife's distinguished relatives had totally estranged themselves from her, as though she had made an unbecoming and unworthy alliance; his own sons and daughters had not concealed their animosity to their new stepmother; and, in fact, the best compromise the blunder admitted of was that they should try to see as little as possible of each other; and as they could not obliterate the compact, they should, as far as in them lay, endeavor to ignore it.

There are no more painful aids to a memory unwilling to be taxed than a banker's half-yearly statement; and in the long record which Christmas had summoned, and which now lay open before Bramleigh's eyes, were frequent and weighty reminders of Lady Augusta's expensive ways.

He had agreed to allow her a thousand napoleons--about eight hundred pounds--quarterly, which was, and which she owned was, a most liberal and sufficient sum to live on alone, and in a city comparatively cheap.

He had, however, added, with a courtesy that the moment of parting might have suggested, "Whenever your tastes or your comforts are found to be hampered in any way by the limits I have set down, you will do me the favor to draw directly on 'the house,' and I will take care that your checks shall be attended to."