Jack Hinton: The Guardsman

Under any circumstances Louisa Bellew might be considered a very charming person; but, contrasted with those by whom she was surrounded, her attractions were very great. Indeed, her youth, her light-heartedness, and the buoyancy of her spirit, concealed to a great degree the sorrow it cost her to be associated with her present hosts; for, although they were kind to her, and she felt and acknowledged their kindness, yet the humiliating sense of a position which exposed her to the insolent familiarity of the idle, the dissipated, or the underbred visitors of the house, gradually impressed itself upon her manner, and tempered her mild and graceful nature with a certain air of hauteur and distance. A circumstance, slight in itself, but sufficiently indicative of this, took place some weeks after what I have mentioned.

Lord Dudley de Vere, who, from his rank and condition, was looked upon as a kind of privileged person in the Rooney family, sitting rather later than usual after dinner, and having drunk a great deal of wine, offered a wager that, on his appearance in the drawing-room, not only would he propose for, but be accepted by, any unmarried lady in the room. The puppyism and coxcombry of such a wager might have been pardoned, were it not that the character of the individual, when sober, was in perfect accordance with this drunken boast. The bet, which was for three hundred guineas, was at once taken up; and one of the party running hastily up to the drawing-room, obtained the names of the ladies there, which, being written on slips of paper, were thrown into a hat, thus leaving chance to decide upon whom the happy lot was to fall.

‘Mark ye, Upton,’ cried Lord Dudley, as he prepared to draw forth his prize – ‘mark ye, I didn’t say I ‘d marry her.’

‘No, no,’ resounded from different parts of the room; ‘we understand you perfectly.’

‘My bet,’ continued he, ‘is this: I have booked it.’ With these words he opened a small memorandum-book and read forth the following paragraph: – ‘Three hundred with Upton that I don’t ask and be accepted by any girl in Paul’s drawing-room this evening, after tea; the choice to be decided by lottery. Isn’t that it?’

‘Yes, yes, quite right, perfectly correct,’ said several persons round the table. ‘Come, my lord, here is the hat.’

‘Shake them up well, Upton.’

‘So here goes,’ said Herbert, as affectedly tucking up the sleeve of his coat, he inserted two fingers and drew forth a small piece of paper carefully folded in two. ‘I say, gentlemen, this is your affair; it doesn’t concern me.’ With these words he threw it carelessly on the table, and resuming his seat, leisurely filled his glass, and sipped his wine.

‘Come, read it, Blake; read it up! Who is she?’

‘Gently, lads, gently; patience for one moment. How are we to know if the wager be lost or won? Is the lady herself to declare it?’

‘Why, if you like it; it is perfectly the same to me.’

‘Well, then,’ rejoined Blake, ‘it is – Miss Bellew!’

No sooner was the name read aloud, than, instead of the roar of laughter which it was expected would follow the announcement, a kind of awkward and constrained silence settled on the party. Mr. Rooney himself, who felt shocked beyond measure at this result, had been so long habituated to regard himself as nothing at the head of his own table, accepting, not dictating, its laws, that, much as he may have wished to do so, did not dare to interfere to stay any further proceedings. But many of those around the table who knew Sir Simon Bellew, and felt how unsuitable and inadmissible such a jest as this would be, if practised upon his daughter, whispered among themselves a hope thai the wager would be abandoned, and never thought of more by either party.

‘Yes, yes,’ said Upton, who was an officer in a dragoon regiment, and although of a high family and well connected, was yet very limited in his means. ‘Yes, yes, I quite agree. This foolery might be very good fun with some young ladies we know, but with Miss Bellew the circumstances are quite different; and, for my part, I withdraw from the bet.’

‘Eh – aw! Pass down the claret, if you please. You withdraw from the bet, then? That means you may pay me three hundred guineas; for d – n me, if I do! No, no; I am not so young as that. I haven’t lost fifteen thousand on the Derby without gaining some little insight into these matters. Every bet is a p. p., if not stated to be the reverse. I leave it to any gentleman in the room.’

‘Come, come, De Vere,’ said one, ‘listen to reason, my boy!’

‘Yes, Dudley,’ cried another, ‘only think over the thing. You must see – ’

‘I only wish to see a cheque for three hundred. And I ‘ll not be done,’

‘Sir!’ said Upton, springing from his chair, as the blood mounted to his face and temples, ‘did you mean that expression to apply to me?’

‘Sit down, Mr. Upton, for the love of Heaven! Sit down; do, sir; his lordship never meant it at all. See, now, I’ll pay the money myself. Give me a pen and ink. I’ll give you a cheque on the bank this minute. What the devil signifies a trifle like that!’ stammered out poor Paul, as he wiped his forehead with his napkin, and looked the very picture of terror. ‘Yes, my lord and gentlemen of the jury, we agree to pay the whole costs of this suit.’

A perfect roar of laughter interrupted the worthy attorney, and as it ran from one end of the table to the other, seemed to promise a happier issue to this unpleasant discussion.

‘There, now,’ said honest Paul, ‘the Lord be praised, it is all settled! So let us have another cooper up, and then we ‘ll join the ladies.’

‘Then I understand it thus,’ said Lord Dudley: ‘you pay the money for Mr. Upton, and I may erase the bet from my book?’

‘No, sir!’ cried Upton passionately. ‘I pay my own wagers; and if you still insist – ’

‘No, no, no!’ cried several voices; while, at the same time, to put an end at once to any further dispute, the party suddenly rose to repair to the drawing-room.

On passing through the hall, chance, or perhaps design, on Lord Dudley’s part, brought him beside Upton. ‘I wish you to understand, once more,’ said he, in a low whisper, ‘that I consider this bet to hold.’

‘Be it so,’ was the brief reply, and they separated.

O’Grady and myself, having dined that day in the country, only arrived in the Rooneys’ drawing-room as the dinner-party was entering it. Contrary to their wont, there was less of loud talking, less of uproarious and boisterous mirth, as they came up the stairs, than usual O’Grady remarked this to me afterwards. At the time, however, I paid but little attention to it. The fact was, my thoughts were principally running in another channel Certain innuendoes of Lord Dudley de Vere, certain broad hints he had ventured upon even before Mrs. Rooney, had left upon my mind a kind of vague, undecided impression that, somehow or other, I was regarded as their dupe. Miss Bellow’s manner was certainly more cordial, more kind to me than to any of the others who visited the house. The Rooneys themselves omitted nothing to humour my caprices, and indulge my fancies, affording me, at all times, opportunities of being alone with Louisa, joining in her walks, and accompanying her on horseback. Could there be anything in all this? Was this the quarter in which the mine was to explode? This painful doubt hanging upon my mind I entered the drawing-room.

The drawing-room of 42 Stephen’s Green had often afforded me an amusing study. Its strange confusion of ranks and classes; its mélange of lordly loungers and city beauties; the discordant tone of conversation, where each person discussed the very thing he knew least of; the blooming daughters of a lady mayoress talking ‘fashion and the musical glasses’; while the witless scion of a noble house was endeavouring to pass himself as a sayer of good things. These now, however, afforded me neither interest nor pleasure; bent solely upon one thought, eager alone to ascertain how far Louisa Bellow’s manner towards me was the fruit of artifice, or the offspring of an artless and unsuspecting mind, I left O’Grady to entertain a whole circle of turbaned ladies, while I directed my course towards the little boudoir where Louisa usually sat.

In a house where laxity of etiquette and a freedom of manner prevailed to the extent I have mentioned, Miss Bellow’s more cautious and reserved demeanour was anything but popular; and, as there was no lack of beauty, men found it more suitable to their lounging and indolent habits to engage those in conversation who were less exigeante in their demands for amusement, and were equally merry themselves, as mercifully disposed when the mirth became not only easy but free.

Miss Bellew, therefore, was permitted to indulge many of her tastes unmolested; and as one of these was to work at embroidery in the small room in question, few persons intruded themselves upon her – and even they but for a short time, as if merely paying their required homage to a member of the family.

As I approached the door of the boudoir, my surprise was not a little to hear Lord Dudley de Vere’s voice, the tones of which, though evidently subdued by design, had a clear distinctness that made them perfectly audible where I stood.

‘Eh! you can’t mean it, though. ‘Pon my soul, it is too bad! You know I shall lose my money if you persist.’

‘I trust Lord Dudley de Vere is too much of a gentleman to make my unprotected position in this house the subject of an insolent wager. I’m sure nothing in my manner could ever have given encouragement to such a liberty.’

‘There, now, I knew you didn’t understand it. The whole thing was a chance; the odds were at least eighteen to one against you – ha, ha! I mean in your favour. Devilish good mistake that of mine. They were all shaken up in a hat. You see there was no collusion – could be none.’

‘My lord, this impertinence becomes past enduring; and if you persist – ’

‘Well, then, why not enter into the joke? It’ll be a devilish expensive one to me if you don’t; that I promise you. What a confounded fool I was not to draw out when Upton wished it! D – n it! I ought to have known there is no trusting to a woman.’ As he said this, he walked twice or thrice hurriedly to and fro, muttering as he went, with ill-suppressed passion: ‘Laughed at, d – n me! that I shall be, all over the kingdom. To lose the money is bad enough; but the ridicule of the thing, that’s the devil! Stay, Miss Bellew, stop one minute; I have another proposition to make. Begad, I see nothing else for it. This, you know, was all a humbug – mere joke, nothing more. Now, I can’t stand the way I shall be quizzed about it at all. So, here goes! hang me, if I don’t make the proposition in real earnest! There, now, say yes at once, and we ‘ll see if I can’t turn the laugh against them.’

There was a pause for an instant, and then Miss Bellew spoke. I would have given worlds to have seen her at that moment; but the tone of her voice, firm and unshaken, sank deep into my heart.

‘My lord,’ said she, ‘this must now cease; but, as your lordship is fond of a wager, I have one for your acceptance. The sum shall be your own choosing. Whatever it be, I stake it freely, that, as I walk from this room, the first gentleman I meet – you like a chance, my lord, and you shall have one – will chastise you before the world for your unworthy, unmanly insult to a weak and unoffending girl.’

As she spoke, she sprang from the room, her eyes flashing with indignant fire, while her cheek, pale as death, and her heaving bosom, attested how deep was her passion. As she turned the corner of the door, her eyes met mine. In an instant the truth flashed upon her mind. She knew I had overheard all that passed. She gasped painfully for breath; her lips moved with scarce a sound; a violent trembling shook her from head to foot, and she fell fainting to the ground.

I followed her with my eyes as they bore her from the room; and then, without a thought for anything around me, I hurriedly left the room, dashed downstairs, and hastened to my quarters in the Castle.

CHAPTER XIII. A NIGHT OF TROUBLE

Until the moment when I reached the room and threw myself into a chair, my course respecting Lord Dudley de Vere seemed to present not a single difficulty. The appeal so unconsciously made to me by Miss Bellew, not less than my own ardent inclination, decided me on calling him out. No sooner, however, did calm reflection succeed to the passionate excitement of the moment, than at once I perceived the nicety of my position. Under what possible pretext could I avow myself as her champion, not as of her own choosing? for I knew perfectly well that the words she uttered were merely intended as a menace, without the slightest idea of being acted on. To suffer her name, therefore, to transpire in the affair would be to compromise her in the face of the world. Again, the confusion and terror she evinced when she beheld me at the door proved to me that, perhaps of all others, I was the last person she would have wished to have been a witness to the interview.

What was to be done? The very difficulty of the affair only made my determination to go through with it the stronger. I have already said my inclination also prompted me to this course. Lord Dudley’s manner to me, without being such as I could make a plea for resenting, had ever been of a supercilious and almost offensive character. If there be anything which more deeply than another wounds our self-esteem, it is the assumed superiority of those whom we heartily despise. More than once he ventured upon hinting at the plans of the Rooneys respecting me, suggesting that their civilities only concealed a deeper object; and all this he did with a tone of half insolence that irritated me ten times more than an open affront. Often and often had I promised myself that a day of retribution must come. Again and again did I lay this comfort to my heart – that, one time or other, his habitual prudence would desert him; that his transgression would exceed the narrow line that separates an impertinent freedom from an insult, and then – Now this time had come at last. Such a chance might not again present itself, and must not be thrown away.

My reasonings had come to this point, when a tremendous knocking at my door, and a loud shout of ‘Jack! Jack Hinton!’ announced O’Grady. This was fortunate. He was the only man whom I knew well enough to consult in such a matter; and of all others, he was the one on whose advice and counsel I could place implicit reliance.

‘What the deuce is all this, my dear Hinton?’ said he, as he grasped my hand in both of his. ‘I was playing whist with the tabbies when it occurred, and saw nothing of the whole matter. She fainted, didn’t she? What the deuce could you have said or done?’

‘Could I have said or done! What do you mean, O’Grady?’

‘Come, come, be frank with me; what was it? If you are in a scrape, I am not the man to leave you in it.’

‘First of all,’ said I, assuming with all my might a forced and simulated composure, ‘first of all, tell me what you heard in the drawing-room.’

‘What I heard? Egad, it was plain enough. In the beginning, a young lady came souse down upon the floor; screams and smelling-bottles followed; a general running hither and thither, in which confusion, by-the-bye, our adversaries contrived to manage a new deal, though I had four by honours in my hand. Old Miss Macan upset my markers, drank my negus, and then fainted off herself, with a face like an apothecary’s rose.’

‘Yes, yes; but,’ said I impatiently, ‘what of Miss Bellew?’

‘What of her! that you must know best. You know, of course, what occurred between you.’

‘My dear O’Grady,’ said I, with passionate eagerness, ‘do be explicit. What did they say in the drawing-room? What turn has been given to this affair?’

‘‘Faith, I can’t tell you; I am as much in the dark as my neighbours. After the lady was carried out and you ran away, they all began talking it over. Some said you had been proposing an elopement: others said you hadn’t. The Rileys swore you had asked to have your picture back again; and old Mrs. Ram, who had planted herself behind a curtain to overhear all, forgot, it seems, that the window was open, and caught such a cold in her head, and such a deafness, that she heard nothing. She says, however, that your conduct was abominable; and in fact, my dear Hinton, the whole thing is a puzzle to us all.’

‘And Lord Dudley de Vere,’ said I, ‘did he offer no explanation?’

‘Oh yes, something pretty much in his usual style; pulled up his stock, ran his fingers through his hair, and muttered some indistinct phrases about lovers’ quarrels.’

‘Capital!’ exclaimed I with delight; ‘nothing could be better, nothing more fortunate than this! Now, O’Grady, listen to my version of the matter, and then tell me how to proceed in it.’

I here detailed to my friend every circumstance that had occurred from the moment of my entering to my departure from the drawing-room. ‘As to the wager,’ said I, ‘what it was when made, and with whom, I know not.’

‘Yes, yes; I know all that,’ interrupted O’Grady; ‘I have the whole thing perfectly before me. Now let us see what is to be done: and first of all, allow me to ring the bell for some sherry and water – that’s the head and front of a consultation.’

When O’Grady had mixed his glass, sipped, corrected, and sipped again, he beat the bars of the grate a few moments contemplatively with the poker, and then turning to me, gravely said: ‘We must parade him, Jack, that’s certain. Now for the how. Our friend Dudley is not much given to fighting, and it will be rather difficult to obtain his consent. Indeed, if it had not been for the insinuation he threw out, after you had left the room, I don’t well see how you could push him to it.’

‘Why, my dear O’Grady, wasn’t there quite cause enough?’

‘Plenty, no doubt, my dear Jack, as far as feeling goes; but there are innumerable cases in this life which, like breaches of trust in law, escape with slight punishment. Not but that, when you owe a man a grudge, you have it always in your power to make him sensible of it; and among gentlemen there is the same intuitive perception of a contemplated collision as you see at a dinner-party, when one fellow puts his hand on a decanter; his friend at the end of the table smiles, and cries, “With pleasure my boy!” There is one thing, however, in your favour.’

‘What is that?’ said I eagerly.

‘Why, he has lost his wager; that’s pretty clear; and, as that won’t improve his temper, it’s possible – mind, I don’t say more, but it’s possible he may feel better disposed to turn his irritation into valour; a much more common process in metaphysical chemistry than the world wots of. Under these circumstances the best thing to do, as it strikes me, is to try the cause, as our friend Paul would say, on the general issue; that is, to wait on Herbert; tell him we wish to have a meeting; that, after what has passed – that ‘s a sweet phrase isn’t it? and has got more gentlemen carried home on a door than any other I know – that after what has passed, the thing is unavoidable, and the sooner it comes off the better. He can’t help referring me to a friend, and he can scarcely find any one that won’t see the thing with our eyes. It’s quite clear Miss Bellow’s name must be kept out of the matter; and now, my boy, if you agree with me, leave the whole affair in my hands, tumble into bed, and go to sleep as fast as you can.’

‘I leave it all to you, Phil,’ said I, shaking his hand warmly, ‘and to prove my obedience, I’ll be in bed in ten minutes.’

O’Grady finished the decanter of sherry, buttoned up his coat, and slapping his boots with his cane, sauntered downstairs, whistling an Irish quick step as he went.

When I had half accomplished my undressing, I sat down before the fire, and, unconsciously to myself, fell into a train of musing about my present condition. I was very young; knew little of the world: the very character of my education had been so much under the eye and direction of my mother, that my knowledge was even less than that of the generality of young men of my own time of life. It is not surprising, then, if the events which my new career hurried so rapidly one upon another, in some measure confused me. Of duelling I had, of course, heard repeatedly, and had learned to look upon the necessity of it as more or less imperative upon every man in the outset of his career. Such was, in a great measure, the tone of the day; and the man who attained a certain period of life, without having had at least one affair of honour, was rather suspected of using a degree of prudent caution in his conduct with the world than of following the popular maxim of the period, which said, ‘Be always ready with the pistol.’

The affair with Lord De Vere, therefore, I looked upon rather as a lucky hit; I might as well make my début with him as with any other. So much, then, for the prejudice of the period. Now, for my private feelings on the subject, they were, I confess, anything but satisfactory. Without at all entering into any anticipation I might have felt as to the final result, I could not avoid feeling ashamed of myself for my total ignorance about the whole matter; not only, as I have said, had I never seen a duel, but I never had fired a pistol twice in my life. I was naturally a nervous fellow, and the very idea of firing at a word, would, I knew, render me more so. My dread that the peculiarity of my constitution might be construed into want of courage, increased my irritability; while I felt that my endeavour to acquit myself with all the etiquette and punctilio of the occasion would inevitably lead me to the commission of some mistake or blunder.

And then, as to my friends at home, what would my father say? His notions on the subject I knew were very rigid, and only admitted the necessity of an appeal to arms as the very last resort. What account could I give him, sufficiently satisfactory, of my reasons for going out? How would my mother feel, with all her aristocratic prejudices, when she heard of the society where the affair originated, when some glowing description of the Rooneys should reach her? and this some kind friend or other was certain to undertake. And, worse than all, Lady Julia, my high-born cousin, whose beauty and sarcasm had inspired me with a mixture of admiration and dread – how should I ever bear the satirical turn she would give the whole affair? Her malice would be increased by the fact that a young and pretty girl was mixed up in it; for somehow, I must confess, a kind of half-flirtation had always subsisted between my cousin and me. Her beauty, her wit, her fascinating manner, rendered me at times over head and ears in love with her; while, at others, the indifference of her manner towards me, or, still worse, the ridicule to which she exposed me, would break the spell and dissipate the enchantment.

Thoughts like these were far from assuring me, and contributed but little towards that confidence in myself I stood so much in need of. And, again, what if I were to fall? As this thought settled on my mind, I resolved to write home. Not to my father, however: I felt a kind of constraint about unburdening myself to him at such a moment. My mother was equally out of the question; in fact, a letter to her could only be an apologetic narrative of my life in Ireland – softening down what she would call the atrocities of my associates, and giving a kind of Rembrandt tint to the Rooneys, which might conceal the more vivid colouring of their vulgarity. At such a moment I had no heart for this: such trifling would ill suit me now. To Lady Julia, then, I determined to write: she knew me well. Besides, I felt that, when I was no more, the kindliness of her nature would prevail, and she would remember me but as the little lover that brought her bouquets from the conservatory; who wrote letters to her from Eton; who wore her picture round his neck at Sandhurst, and, by-the-bye, that picture I had still in my possession: this was the time to restore it. I opened my writing-desk and took it out. It was a strange love-gift, painted when she was barely ten years old. It represented a very lovely child, with blue eyes, and a singular regularity of feature, like a Grecian statue. The intensity of look that after years developed more fully, and the slight curl of the lip that betrayed the incipient spirit of mockery, were both there; still was she very beautiful I placed the miniature before me and fixed my eyes upon it. Carried away by the illusion of the moment, I burst into a rhapsody of proffered affection, while I vindicated myself against any imputation my intimacy with Miss Bellew might give rise to. As I proceeded, however, I discovered that my pleading scarce established my innocence even to myself; so I turned away, and once more sat down moodily before the fire.