The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer Part 28

"The devil, you have," thought I. "How very civil that." And, although I had heard innumerable anecdotes of the free-and-easy habits of the Bavarian court, this certainly surprized me, so that I actually, to prevent a blunder, said, "Am I to understand you, Monsieur le Comte, that his majesty was graciously pleased"-- "If you will follow me," replied the courtier, motioning with his chapeau; and in another moment I was elbowing my way through the mob of marquisses and d.u.c.h.esses, on my way to the raised platform where the king was standing.

"Heaven grant I have not misunderstood all he has been saying," was my last thought as the crowd of courtiers fell back on either side, and I found myself bowing before his majesty. How the grand mareschal ent.i.tled me I heard not; but when the king addressed me immediately in English, saying, "I hope your excellency has had a good journey?"

I felt, "Come, there is no mistake here, Harry; and it is only another freak of fortune, who is now in good humour with you."

The king, who was a fine, tall, well-built man, with a large, bushy moustache, possessed, though not handsome, a most pleasing expression; his utterance was very rapid, and his English none of the best, so that it was with the greatest difficulty I contrived to follow his questions, which came thick as hail upon me. After some commonplaces about the roads, the weather, and the season, his majesty said, "My Lord Callonby has been residing some time here. You know him?" And then, not waiting for a reply, added, "Pleasant person--well informed --like him much, and his daughters, too, how handsome they are." Here I blushed, and felt most awkwardly, while the king continued.

"Hope they will remain some time--quite an ornament to our court. Monsieur le Comte, his excellency will dance?" I here muttered an apology about my sprained ankle, and the king turned to converse with some of the ladies of the court. His majesty's notice brought several persons now around me, who introduced themselves; and, in a quarter of an hour, I felt myself surrounded by acquaintances, each vieing with the other in showing me attention.

Worse places than Munich, Master Harry, thought I, as I chaperoned a fat d.u.c.h.ess, with fourteen quarterings, towards the refreshment-room, and had just accepted invitations enough to occupy me three weeks in advance.

"I have been looking every where for your excellency," said the grand mareschal, bustling his way to me, breathless and panting. "His majesty desires you will make one of his party at whist, so pray come at once."

"Figaro qua, Figaro la," muttered I. "Never was man in such request. G.o.d grant the whole royal family of Bavaria be not mad, for this looks very like it. Lady Jane had better look sharp, for I have only to throw my eyes on an archd.u.c.h.ess, to be king of the Tyrol some fine morning."

"You play whist, of course; every Englishman does," said the king. "You shall be my partner."

Our adversaries were the Prince Maximilian, brother to his Majesty and the Prussian Amba.s.sador. As I sat down at the table, I could not help saying in my heart, "now is your time, Harry, if my Lord Callonby should see you, your fortune is made." Waller pa.s.sed at this moment, and as he saluted the king, I saw him actually start with amazement as he beheld me--"better fun this than figuring in the yellow plush, Master Jack," I muttered as he pa.s.sed on actually thunder-struck with amazement. But the game was begun, and I was obliged to be attentive. We won the first game, and the king was in immense good humour as he took some franc pieces from the Prussian minister, who, small as the stake was, seemed not to relish losing. His majesty now complimented me upon my play, and was about to add something when he perceived some one in the crowd, and sent an Aide de camp for him.

"Ah, my Lord, we expected you earlier," and then said some words in too low a tone for me to hear, motioning towards me as he spoke. If Waller was surprised at seeing me where I was, it was nothing to the effect produced upon the present party, whom I now recognized as Lord Callonby. Respect for the presence we were in, restrained any expression on either side, and a more ludicrous tableau than we presented can scarcely be conceived. What I would have given that the whist party was over, I need not say, and certainly his majesty's eulogy upon my play came too soon, for I was now so "destrait and unhinged," my eyes wandering from the table to see if Lady Jane was near, that I lost every trick, and finished by revoking. The king rose half pettishly, observing that "Son Excellence a apparement perdu la tete," and I rushed forward to shake hands with Lord Callonby, totally forgetting the royal censure in my delight at discovering my friend.

"Lorrequer, I am indeed rejoiced to see you, and when did you arrive."

"This evening."

"This evening! and how the deuce have you contrived already, eh? why you seem quite chez vous here?"

"You shall hear all," said I hastily, "but is Lady Callonby here?"

"No. Kilkee only is with me, there he is figuranting away in a gallope. The ladies were too tired to come, particularly as they dine at court to-morrow, the fatigue would be rather much."

"I have his majesty's order to invite your Excellency to dinner to-morrow," said the grand Mareschal coming up at this instant.

I bowed my acknowledgments, and turned again to Lord Callonby, whose surprise now seemed to have reached the climax.

"Why Lorrequer, I never heard of this? when did you adopt this new career?"

Not understanding the gist of the question, and conceiving that it applied to my success at court, I answered at random, something about "falling upon my legs, good luck, &c.," and once more returned to the charge, enquiring most anxiously for Lady Callonby's health.

"Ah! she is tolerably well. Jane is the only invalid, but then we hope Italy will restore her." Just at this instant, Kilkee caught my eye, and rushing over from his place beside his partner, shook me by both hands, saying, "Delighted to see you here Lorrequer, but as I can't stay now, promise to sup with me to-night at the 'Cross'."

I accepted of course, and the next instant, he was whirling along in his waltze, with one of the most lovely German girls I ever saw. Lord Callonby saw my admiration of her, and as it were replying to my gaze, remarked, "Yes, very handsome indeed, but really Kilkee is going too far with it. I rely upon you very much to reason him out of his folly, and we have all agreed that you have most influence over him, and are most likely to be listened to patiently."

Here was a new character a.s.signed me, the confidential friend and adviser of the family, trusted with a most delicate and important secret, likely to bring me into most intimate terms of intercourse with them all, for the "we" of Lord Callonby bespoke a family consultation, in which I was deputed as the negociator. I at once promised my a.s.sistance, saying, at the same time, that if Kilkee really was strongly attached, and had also reason to suppose that the Lady liked him, it was not exactly fair; that in short, if the matter had gone beyond flirtation, any interference of mine would be imprudent, if not impertinent. Lord Callonby smiled slightly as he replied, "Quite right, Lorrequer, I am just as much against constraint as yourself, if only no great barriers exist; but here with a difference of religion, country, language, habits, in fact, everything that can create disparity, the thing is not to be thought of."

I suspected that his Lordship read in my partial defence of Kilkee, a slight attempt to prop up my own case, and felt confused and embarra.s.sed beyond measure at the detection.

"Well, we shall have time enough for all this. Now let us hear something of my old friend Sir Guy. How is he looking?"

"I am unfortunately unable to give you any account of him. I left Paris the very day before he was expected to arrive there."

"Oh then, I have all the news myself in that case, for in his letter which I received yesterday, he mentions that we are not to expect him before Tuesday."

"Expect him. Is he coming here then?"

"Yes. Why, I thought you were aware of that, he has been long promising to pay us a visit, and at last, by great persuasion, we have succeeded in getting him across the sea, and, indeed, were it not that he was coming, we should have been in Florence before this."

A gleam of hope shot through my heart as I said to myself, what can this visit mean? and the moment after I felt sick, almost to fainting, as I asked if "my cousin Guy were also expected."

"Oh yes. We shall want him I should think" said Lord Callonby with a very peculiar smile.

I thought I should have fallen at these few words. Come, Harry, thought I, it is better to learn your fate at once. Now or never; death itself were preferable to this continued suspense. If the blow is to fall, it can scarcely sink me lower than I now feel: so reasoning, I laid my hand upon Lord Callonby's arm, and with a face pale as death, and a voice all but inarticulate, said, "My Lord, you will pardon, I am sure--"

"My dear Lorrequer," said his lordship interrupting me, "for heaven's sake sit down. How ill you are looking, we must nurse you, my poor fellow."

I sank upon a bench--the light danced before my eyes--the clang of the music sounded like the roar of a waterfall, and I felt a cold perspiration burst over my face and forehead; at the same instant, I recognized Kilkee's voice, and without well knowing why, or how, discovered myself in the open air.

"Come, you are better now," said Kilkee, "and will be quite well when you get some supper, and a little of the tokay, his majesty has been good enough to send us."

"His majesty desires to know if his excellency is better," said an aide de camp.

I muttered my most grateful acknowledgments.

"One of the court carriages is in waiting for your excellency," said a venerable old gentleman in a tie wig, whom I recognized as the minister for foreign affairs--as he added in a lower tone to Lord Callonby, "I fear he has been greatly overworked lately--his exertions on the subject of the Greek loan are well known to his majesty."

"Indeed," said Lord Callonby, with a start of surprise, "I never heard of that before."

If it had not been for that start of amazement, I should have died of terror. It was the only thing that showed me I was not out of my senses, which I now concluded the old gentleman must be, for I never had heard of the Greek loan in my life before.

"Farewell, mon cher colleague," said the venerable minister as I got into the carriage, wondering as well I might what singular band of brotherhood united one of his majesty's th with the minister for foreign affairs of the Court of Bavaria.

When I arrived at the White-cross, I found my nerves, usually proof to any thing, so shaken and shattered, that fearing with the difficult game before me any mistake, however trivial, might mar all my fortunes for ever, I said a good night to my friends, and went to bed.

CHAPTER LIV.

A DISCOVERY.

"A note for Monsieur," said the waiter, awaking me at the same time from the soundest sleep and most delightful dream. The billet was thus:-- "If your excellency does not intend to slumber during the next twenty-four hours, it might be as well to remember that we are waiting breakfast. Ever yours, "Kilkee."

"It is true, then," said I--following up the delusion of my dream. "It is true, I am really domesticated once more with the Callonbys. My suit is prospering, and at length the long-sought, long-hoped for moment is come--"

"Well, Harry," said Kilkee, as he dashed open the door. "Well, Harry, how are you, better than last night, I hope?"

"Oh yes, considerably. In fact, I can't think what could have been the matter with me; but I felt confoundedly uncomfortable."

"You did! Why, man, what can you mean; was it not a joke?"

"A joke," said I, with a start.

"Yes, to be sure. I thought it was only the sequel of the other humbug."

"The sequel of the other humbug!" Gracious mercy! thought I, getting pale with horror, is it thus he ventures to designate my attachment to his sister?

"Come, come, it's all over now. What the devil could have persuaded you to push the thing so far?"

"Really, I am so completely in the dark as to your meaning that I only get deeper in mystery by my chance replies. What do you mean?"

"What do I mean! Why, the affair of last night of course. All Munich is full of it, and most fortunately for you, the king has taken it all in the most good-humoured way, and laughs more than any one else about it."

Oh, then, thought I, I must have done or said something last night during my illness, that I can't remember now. "Come, Kilkee, out with it. What happened last night, that has served to amuse the good people of Munich? for as I am a true man, I forget all you are alluding to."

"And don't remember the Greek Loan--eh?"

"The Greek Loan!"

"And your Excellency's marked reception by his Majesty? By Jove though, it was the rarest piece of impudence I ever heard of; hoaxing a crowned head, quizzing one of the Lord's anointed is un peu trop fort."

"If you really do not wish to render me insane at once, for the love of mercy say, in plain terms, what all this means."

"Come, come, I see you are incorrigible; but as breakfast is waiting all this time, we shall have your explanations below stairs."

Before I had time for another question Kilkee pa.s.sed his arm within mine, and led me along the corridor, pouring out, the entire time a whole rhapsody about the practical joke of my late illness, which he was pleased to say would ring from one end of Europe to the other.

Lord Callonby was alone in the breakfast-room when we entered, and the moment he perceived me called out, "Eh, Lorrequer, you here still? Why, man, I thought you'd have been over the frontier early this morning?"

"Indeed, my lord, I am not exactly aware of any urgent reason for so rapid a flight."

"You are not! The devil, you are not. Why, you must surely have known his majesty to be the best tempered man in his dominions then, or you would never have played off such a ruse, though I must say, there never was anything better done. Old Heldersteen, the minister for foreign affairs, is nearly deranged this morning about it--it seems that he was the first that fell into the trap; but seriously speaking, I think it would be better if you got away from this; the king, it is true, has behaved with the best possible good feeling; but--"

"My lord, I have a favour to ask, perhaps, indeed in all likelihood the last I shall ever ask of your lordship, it is this--what are you alluding to all this while, and for what especial reason do you suggest my immediate departure from Munich?"

"Bless my heart and soul--you surely cannot mean to carry the thing on any further--you never can intend to a.s.sume your ministerial functions by daylight?"

"My what!--my ministerial functions."

"Oh no, that were too much--even though his majesty did say--that you were the most agreeable diplomate he had met for a long time."

"I, a diplomate."

"You, certainly. Surely you cannot be acting now; why, gracious mercy, Lorrequer! can it be possible that you were not doing it by design, do you really not know in what character you appeared last night?"

"If in any other than that of Harry Lorrequer, my lord, I pledge my honour, I am ignorant."

"Nor the uniform you wore, don't you know what it meant?"

"The tailor sent it to my room."

"Why, man, by Jove, this will kill me," said Lord Callonby, bursting into a fit of laughter, in which Kilkee, a hitherto silent spectator of our colloquy, joined to such an extent, that I thought he should burst a bloodvessel. "Why man, you went as the Charge d'Affaires."

"I, the Charge d'Affaires!"

"That you did, and a most successful debut you made of it."

While shame and confusion covered me from head to foot at the absurd and ludicrous blunder I had been guilty of, the sense of the ridiculous was so strong in me, that I fell upon a sofa and laughed on with the others for full ten minutes.

"Your Excellency is, I am rejoiced to find, in good spirits," said Lady Callonby, entering and presenting her hand.

"He is so glad to have finished the Greek Loan," said Lady Catherine, smiling with a half malicious twinkle of the eye. Just at this instant another door opened, and Lady Jane appeared. Luckily for me, the increased mirth of the party, as Lord Callonby informed them of my blunder, prevented their paying any attention to me, for as I half sprung forward toward her, my agitation would have revealed to any observer, the whole state of my feelings. I took her hand which she extended to me, without speaking, and bowing deeply over it, raised my head and looked into her eyes, as if to read at one glance, my fate, and when I let fall her hand, I would not have exchanged my fortune for a kingdom.

"You have heard, Jane, how our friend opened his campaign in Munich last night."

"Oh, I hope, Mr. Lorrequer, they are only quizzing. You surely could not--"

"Could not. What he could not--what he would not do, is beyond my calculation to make out," said Kilkee, laughing, "anything in life, from breaking an axletree to hoaxing a king;" I turned, as may be imagined, a deaf ear to this allusion, which really frightened me, not knowing how far Kilkee's information might lead, nor how he might feel disposed to use it. Lady Jane turned a half reproachful glance at me, as if rebuking my folly; but in the interest she thus took in me, I should not have bartered it for the smile of the proudest queen in Christendom.

Breakfast over, Lord Callonby undertook to explain to the Court the blunder, by which I had unwittingly been betrayed into personating the newly arrived minister, and as the mistake was more of their causing than my own, my excuses were accepted, and when his lordship returned to the hotel, he brought with him an invitation for me to dine at Court in my own unaccredited character. By this time I had been carrying on the siege as briskly as circ.u.mstances permitted; Lady Callonby being deeply interested in her newly arrived purchases, and Lady Catherine being good-natured enough to pretend to be so also, left me, at intervals, many opportunities of speaking to Lady Jane.

As I feared that such occasions would not often present themselves, I determined on making the best use of my time, and at once led the conversation towards the goal I aimed at, by asking, "if Lady Jane had completely forgotten the wild cliffs and rocky coast of Clare, amid the tall mountains and glaciered peaks of the Tyrol?"

"Far from it," she replied. "I have a most clear remembrance of bold Mogher and the rolling swell of the blue Atlantic, and long to feel its spray once more upon my cheek; but then, I knew it in childhood--your acquaintance with it was of a later date, and connected with fewer happy a.s.sociations."

"Fewer happy a.s.sociations--how can you say so? Was it not there the brightest hours of my whole life were pa.s.sed, was it not there I first met--"

"Kilkee tells me," said Lady Jane, interrupting me shortly, "that Miss Bingham is extremely pretty."

This was turning my flank with a vengeance; so I muttered something about differences of tastes, &c. and continued, "I understand my worthy cousin Guy, had the good fortune to make your acquaintance in Paris."

It was now her turn to blush, which she did deeply, and said nothing.

"He is expected, I believe, in a few days at Munich," said I, fixing my eyes upon her, and endeavouring to read her thoughts; she blushed more deeply, and the blood at my own heart ran cold, as I thought over all I had heard, and I muttered to myself "she loves him."

"Mr. Lorrequer, the carriage is waiting, and as we are going to the Gallery this morning, and have much to see, pray let us have your escort."

"Oh, I am sure," said Catherine, "his a.s.sistance will be considerable --particularly if his knowledge of art only equals his tact in botany. Don't you think so, Jane?"--But Jane was gone.

They left the room to dress, and I was alone--alone with my anxious, now half despairing thoughts, crowding and rushing upon my beating brain. She loves him, and I have only come to witness her becoming the wife of another. I see it all, too plainly;--my Uncle's arrival--Lord Callonby's familiar manner--Jane's own confession. All--all convince me, that my fate is decided. Now, then, for one last brief explanation, and I leave Munich, never to see her more. Just as I had so spoken, she entered. Her gloves had been forgotten in the room, and she came in not knowing that I was there. What would I not have given at that moment, for the ready witted a.s.surance, the easy self-possession, with which I should have made my advances had my heart not been as deeply engaged as I now felt it. Alas! My courage was gone; there was too much at stake, and I preferred, now, that the time was come, any suspense, any vacillation, to the dreadful certainty of refusal.

These were my first thoughts, as she entered; how they were followed, I cannot say. The same evident confusion of my brain, which I once felt when mounting the breach in a storm-party, now completely beset me; and as then, when death and destruction raged on every side, I held on my way regardless of every obstacle, and forgetting all save the goal before me; so did I now, in the intensity of my excitement, disregard every thing, save the story of my love, which I poured forth with that fervour which truth only can give. But she spoke not,--her averted head,--her cold and tremulous hand, and half-drawn sigh were all that replied to me, as I waited for that one word upon which hung all my fortune. At length her hand, which I scarcely held within my own, was gently withdrawn. She lifted it to her eyes, but still was silent.

"Enough," said I, "I seek not to pain you more. The daring ambition that prompted me to love you, has met its heaviest retribution. Farewell, --You, Lady Jane, have nothing to reproach yourself with--You never encouraged, you never deceived me. I, and I alone have been to blame, and mine must be the suffering. Adieu, then once more, and now for ever."