Jack Hinton: The Guardsman

Thoughts like these came rushing on my mind as I reflected on my passion for Louisa Bellew; and as I walked my room my heart bounded with elation, and my step grew firm in its tread, for I felt that already a new influence was beaming on me, a new light was shining upon my path in life. Musing thus, I paid but little attention to my servant who had just left a letter upon my table; my eye, at length, glanced at the address, which I perceived was in my mother’s handwriting. I opened it somewhat carelessly, for somehow my dear mother’s letters had gradually decreased in their interest as my anti-Irish prejudices grew weaker by time; her exclusively English notions I could no longer respond to so freely as before; and as I knew the injustice of some of her opinions, I felt proportionably dispose to mistrust the truth of many others.

The letter, as usual, was crossed and recrossed; for nothing, after all, was so thorough a criterion of fashion as a penurious avoidance of postage, and in consequence scarcely a portion of the paper was uncovered by ink. The detail of balls and dinners, the gossip of the town, the rumoured changes in the ministry – who was to come in and who to go out; whether Lord Arthur got a regiment, or Lady Mary a son – had all become comparatively uninteresting to me. What we know and what we live in, is the world to us; and the arrival of a new bear is as much a matter of interest in the prairies of the far west as the first night of a new ballet in the circles of Paris. In all probability, therefore, after satisfying myself that my friends were well, I should have been undutiful enough to put my mother’s letter to bed in a card-rack without any very immediate intention of disturbing its slumbers, when suddenly the word ‘Rooney’ attracted my eye, and at once awakened my curiosity. How the name of these people should have come to my mother’s aristocratic ears I could not conceive; for although I had myself begun a letter about them, yet, on second thoughts, I deemed it better to consign it to destruction than risk a discovery, by no means necessary.

I now sat patiently down before the fire, resolved to spell over the letter from beginning to end, and suffer nothing to escape me. All her letters, like the preamble of a deed, began with a certain formula – a species of lamentation over her wretched health; the difficulty of her case, which, consisting in the absence of all symptoms, had puzzled the Faculty for years long; the inclemency of the weather, which by some fatality of fortune was sure to be rainy when Dr. Y – said it ought to be fine, and oppressively hot when he assured her she required a bracing element; besides, it was evident the medical men mistook her case, and what chance had she, with Providence and the College of Physicians against her! Then every one was unkind – nobody believed her sick, or thought her valuable life in danger, although from four o’clock in the afternoon to the same hour the next morning she was continually before their eyes, driving in the park, visiting, dining, and even dancing, too; in fact, exerting herself in every imaginable shape and form for the sake of an ungrateful world that had nothing but hollow civilities to show her, instead of tears for her sufferings. Skimming my eye rapidly over this, I came at length to the well-known paragraph which always concluded this exordium, and which I could have repeated by heart – the purport of it being simply a prophetic menace of what would be the state, and what the feelings, of various persons unknown, when at her demise they discovered how unjustly, how ungenerously, how cruelly, they had once or twice complimented her upon her health and looks, during her lifetime. The undying remorse of those unfeeling wretches, among whom it was very plain my father was numbered, was expatiated upon with much force and Christian charity; for as certain joint-stock companies contrive in their advertisements to give an apparent stability to their firm, by quoting some well-known Coutts or Drummond as their banker, so my poor mother, by simply introducing the word ‘Providence’ into all her worldly transactions, thought she was discharging the most rigid of Christian duties, and securing a happy retreat for herself when that day should arrive when neither rouge nor false hair would supply the deficiencies of youth, and death should unlock the jaw the dentist had furnished.

After this came the column of court gossip, the last pun of the prince, and a mot of Mr. Canning. ‘We hope,’ continued she, ‘poor Somerset will go to Madrid as ambassador: to refuse him would be a great cruelty, as he has been ordered by his medical men to try a southerly climate.’ Hum; ah! – ‘Lady Jane to replace Miss Barclay with the Landgravine.’ Very stupid all this. But come, here we have it, the writing too changes as if a different spirit had dictated it.

‘Two o’clock. I’ve just returned from the Grevilles, seriously ill from the effect of the news that has reached me. Wretched boy! what have you done? What frightful career of imprudence have you entered upon? Write to me at once; for although I shall take immediate steps for your recall, I shall be in a fever of impatience till you tell me all about it. Poor dear Lord Dudley de Vere, how I love him for the way he speaks of you! for although, evidently, your conduct to him has been something very gross, yet his language respecting you is marked not only by forbearance, but by kindness. Indeed, he attributes the spirit you have manifested to the instigation of another member of the staff, whose name, with his habitual delicacy, we could not prevail upon him to disclose. His account of that wretched country is distressing indeed; the frightful state of society, the barbarism of the natives, and the frequency of bloodshed. I shall not close my eyes to-night thinking of you; though he has endeavoured to reassure me, by telling us, that as the Castle is a strong place, and a considerable military force always there, you are in comparative safety. But, my dear child, who are these frightful Rooneys, with the odious house where all this gambling and ruin goes forward? How feelingly poor Lord Dudley spoke of the trials young men are exposed to! His parents have indeed a treasure in him. Rooney appears to be a money-lender, a usurer – most probably a Jew. His wretched wife, what can she be? And that designing minx, niece, daughter, or whatever this Miss Belloo – what a shocking name! – may be? To think you should have fallen among such people! Lord George’s debts are, they say, very considerable, all owing, as he assures me, to his unfortunate acquaintance with this Rooney, with whom he appears to have had bill transactions for some time past. If your difficulties were only on the score of money I should think little of it; but a quarrelsome, rancorous spirit, a taste for low company, and vulgar associates, and a tendency to drink – these, indeed, are very shocking features, and calculated to inflict much misery on your parents.

‘However, let us, as far as possible, endeavour to repair the mishap. I write by this post to this Mr. Rooney, requesting him to send in his account to your father, and that in future any dinners, or wine, you may have at his house will not be paid for, as you are under age. I shall also let him know that the obscurity of his rank in life, and the benighted state of the country he lives in, shall prove no safeguard to him from our vigilance; and as the chancellor dines with us to-morrow, I think of asking him if he couldn’t be punished some way. Transportation, they tell me, has already nearly got rid of the gypsies. As for yourself, make your arrangements to return immediately; for, although your father knows nothing about it, I intend to ask Sir Henry Gordon to call on the Duke of York, and contrive an exchange for you. How I hate this secret adviser of yours! how I detest the Rooneys! how I abhor the Irish! You have only to come back with long hair, and the frightful accent, to break the heart of your affectionate but afflicted mother.

‘Your cousin Julia desires her regards. I must say she has not shown a due respect to my feelings since the arrival of this sad intelligence; it is only this minute she has finished a caricature of you making love to a wild Irish girl with wings. This is not only cruel towards me, but an unbecoming sarcasm towards a wretched people, to whom the visitations of Providence should not be made matters of reproach.’

Thus concluded this famous epistle, at which, notwithstanding that every line offended me deeply, I could not refrain from bursting into laughter. My opinion of Lord Dudley had certainly not been of the highest; but yet was I totally unprepared for the apparent depth of villainy his character possessed. But I knew not, then, how strong an alloy of cunning exists in every fool; and how, almost invariably, a narrow intellect and a malevolent disposition are associated in the same individual.

There is no prejudice more popular, nor is there any which is better worth refuting, than that which attributes to folly certain good qualities of heart, as a kind of compensation for the deficiency in those of the head. Now, although there are of course instances to the contrary, yet will the fact be found generally true, that mediocrity of mind has its influence in producing a mischievous disposition. Unable to carry on any lengthened chain of reasoning, the man of narrow intellect looks for some immediate result; and in his anxiety to attain his object, forgetful of the value of both character and credit, he is prepared to sacrifice the whole game of life, provided he secure but the odd trick. Besides, the very insufficiency of his resources leads him out of himself for his enjoyments and his occupations. Watching, therefore, the game of life, he gradually acquires a certain low and underhand cunning, which, being mistaken by himself for ability, he omits no occasion to display; and hence begins the petty warfare of malice he wages against the world with all the spiteful ingenuity and malevolence of a monkey.

I could trace through all my mother’s letter the dexterity with which Lord Dudley avoided committing himself respecting me, while his delicacy regarding O’Grady’s name was equally conspicuous to a certain extent. He might have been excused if he bore no good-will to one or other of us; but what could palliate his ingratitude to the Rooneys? What could gloss over the base return he made them for all their hospitalities and attention? for nothing was more clear than that the light in which he represented them to my mother made them appear as low and intriguing adventurers.

This was all bad enough; but what should I say of the threatened letter to them? In what a position would it place me, before those who had been uniformly kind and good-natured towards me! The very thought of this nearly drove me to distraction, and I confess it was in no dutiful mood I crushed up the epistle in my hand, and walked my room in an agony of shame and vexation.

CHAPTER XVI. A MORNING IN TOWN

The morning after the receipt of the letter, the contents of which I have in part made known to the reader, O’Grady called on me to accompany him into the city.

‘I am on a borrowing expedition, Jack,’ cried he; ‘and there’s nothing like having a new face with one. Cavendish, Hopeton, and the rest of them, are so well known, it’s of no use having them. But you, my boy, you ‘re fresh; your smooth chin does not look like a protested bill, and you’ve got a dégagé, careless manner, a kind of unsuspicious look about you, a man never has, after a bailiff has given him an epaulette of five dirty fingers.’

‘But, Phil,’ said I, ‘if you really want money – ’

‘My very excellent young friend,’ interrupted he, in a kind of sermon voice, ‘don’t finish it, I beseech you; that is the very last thing in the way of exchequer a gentleman is ever driven to – borrowing from a friend. Heaven forbid! But even supposing the case that one’s friend has money, why, the presumption is, that he must have borrowed it himself; so that you are sponging upon his ingenuity, not his income. Besides, why riddle one’s own ships, while there is an enemy before us to fight? Please to remember the money-lenders, the usurers, the stockbroking knaves at fifty per cent, that the world is glutted with; these are the true game for a sporting gentleman, who would rather harpoon a shark any day, than spear a salmon.’

‘But what’s become of Paul? Is he not available.’

‘Don’t you know what has happened there? But I was forgetting you ‘ve kept the house this week past. In the first place, La Belle Louise has gone home, Paul has taken his departure for the circuit, and Mrs. Paul, after three days’ sharp hysterics, has left town for her villa, near Bray – old Harvey finding it doubtless more convenient to visit her there, with twenty guineas for his fee, than to receive one for his call at Stephen’s Green.’

‘And what is supposed to be the cause of all this?’ said I, scarce able to conceal my agitation.

‘The report goes,’ replied he, ‘that some bank has broke in Calcutta or the Caucasus, or somewhere, or that some gold-mine in Peru, in which Paul had a share, has all turned out to be only plated goods; for it was on the receipt of a letter, on the very morning of Paul’s departure, that she took so dangerously ill; and as Paul, in his confusion, brought the attorney, instead of the surgeon-general, the case became alarming, and they gave her so much ether and sal-volatile that it required the united strength of the family to keep her from ascending like a balloon. However, the worst of it all is, the house is shut, the windows closed, and where lately on the door-steps a pair of yellow plush breeches figured bright and splendent as the glorious sun, a dusky-looking planet in threadbare black now informs you that the family are from home, and not expected back for the summer.’

‘Perhaps I can explain the mystery,’ said I, as a blush of shame burned on my cheek. Read this.’

So saying, I handed O’Grady the letter, doubled down at the part where Lord Dudley’s mention of the Rooneys began. Grieved as I felt thus to expose the absurd folly of my mother’s conduct, yet I felt the necessity of having at least one friend to advise with, and that, to render his counsel of any value, a perfect candour on my part was equally imperative.

While his eye glanced over the lines, I walked towards the window, expecting at each moment some open burst of indignation would escape him – some outbreak of passionate warmth, at the cold-blooded ingratitude and malevolence of one whom previously we had regarded but as a fool. Not so; on the contrary, he read the letter to the end with an unchanged countenance, folded it up with great composure, and then turning his back to the fire, he burst out into a fit of the most immoderate laughter.

‘Look ye, Jack,’ cried he, in a voice almost suffocated with the emotion, ‘I am a poor man, have scarcely a guinea I can call my own, yet I ‘d have given the best hack in my stable to have seen the Rooneys reading that letter. There, there! don’t talk to me, boy, about villainy, ingratitude, and so forth. The fun of it, man, covers all the rest. Only to think of Mr. Paul Rooney, the Amphytrion of viceroys, chancellors, bishops, major-generals, and lord mayors, asked for his bill – to score up all your champagne and your curacoa, your turtle, your devilled kidneys; all the heavy brigade of your grand dinners, and all the light infantry of luncheons, breakfasts, grilled bones, and sandwiches! The Lord forgive your mother for putting it in his head! My chalk would be a fearful one, not to speak of the ugly item of “cash advanced.” Oh, it ‘ll kill me, I know that! Don’t look so serious, man; you may live fifty years, and never have so good a joke to laugh at. Tell me, Jack, do you think your mother has kept a copy of the letter? I would give my right eye for it. What a fearful temper Paul will be in, on circuit! and as to Mrs. Rooney, it will go hard with her but she cuts the whole aristocracy for at least a week. There never was anything like it. To hint at transporting the Princess O’Toole, whose ancestor was here in the time of Moses. Ah, Jack, how little respect your mother appears to have for an old family! She evidently has no classical associations to hallow her memory withal.’

‘I confess,’ said I, somewhat tartly, ‘had I anticipated the spirit with which you have taken up this matter, I doubt whether I should have shown you the letter.’

‘And if you had not,’ replied he, ‘I ‘d not have forgiven you till the day of my death. Next to a legacy, a good laugh is the best thing I know; indeed, sometimes it is better, for you can’t be choused out of it by your lawyer.’

‘Laughing is a very excellent practice, no doubt, but I looked for some advice – ’

‘Advice! to be sure, my boy; and so you shall have it. Only give me a good training canter of a hearty laugh, and you ‘ll see what running I’ ll make, when it comes to sound discretion afterwards. The fun of a man’s temperament is like the froth on your champagne; while it gives a zest to the liquor of life by its lightness and its sparkle, it neither detracts from the flavour nor the strength of the beverage. At the same time, when I begin to froth up, don’t expect me to sober down before twenty-four hours. So take your hat, come along into town, and thank your stars that you have been able to delight the heart of a man who’s trying to get a bill discounted. Now hear me, Jack,’ said he, as we descended the stairs; ‘if you expect me to conduct myself with becoming gravity and decorum, you had better avoid any mention of the Rooneys for the rest of the day. And now to business!’

As we proceeded down Dame Street my friend scientifically explained to me the various modes there were of obtaining money on loan.

‘I don’t speak,’ said he, ‘of those cases where a man has landed security, or property of one kind or other, or even expectations, because all these are easy – the mere rule of three in financial arithmetic What I mean are the decimal fractions of a man’s difficulties, when, with as many writs against him as would make a carpet for his bedroom, he can still go out with an empty pocket in the morning and come back with it furnished at night. And now to begin. The maxims of the sporting world are singularly applicable to the practice before us. You’re told that before you enter a preserve your first duty is to see that your gun is properly loaded – all the better if it be a double-barrelled one. Now, look here’ – as he spoke he drew from his sabretache five bills for one hundred pounds each; ‘you see I am similarly prepared. The game may get up at any moment, and not find me at half-cock; and although I only go out for a single bird – that is, but one hundred, yet, if by good-luck I flush a covey, you see I am ready for them all. The doctrine of chances shows us that five to one is better than an even bet; so, by scattering these five bills in different directions, the odds are exactly so many in my favour that I raise a hundred somewhere.’ ‘And now,’ said I, ‘where does the game lie?’ ‘I’m coming to that, Jack. Your rich preserves are all about the neighbourhood of Clare Street, Park Street, Merrion Street, and that direction. With them, alas! I have nothing to do. My broad acres have long since taken wings to themselves; and I fear a mortgage upon Mount O’Grady, as it at present exists, would be a poor remedy for an empty pocket. The rich money-lenders despise poor devils like me; they love not contingencies; and, as Macbeth says, “They have no speculation in their eyes.” For them, my dear Jack, you must have messuages and tenements, and outhouses, townlands, and turbaries; corn, cattle, and cottages; pigs, potatoes, and peasantry. They love to let their eyes range over a rich and swelling scene of woodland and prairie; for they are the landscape-gardeners of usury – they are the Hobbimas and Berghems of the law.

‘Others again, of smaller range and humbler practice, there are, to whom, upon occasion, you assign your grandfather’s plate and the pictures of your grand-aunts for certain monied conveniences you stand in need of. These are a kind of Brobdingnag pawnbrokers, who have fine houses, the furniture of which is everlastingly changing, each creditor sending his representative, like a minister to a foreign court; with them, also, I have nothing to do. The family have had so little to eat for the last two generations that they trouble themselves but slightly on the score of silver dishes; and as to pictures, I possess but one in the world – a portrait of my father in his wig and robes. This, independent of other reasons, I couldn’t part with, as it is one of the only means I possess of controlling Corny when his temper becomes more than usually untractable. Upon these occasions, I hang up the “jidge” over the chimney-piece, and the talisman has never failed yet.

‘Now, Jack, my constituency live about fleet Street, and those small, obscure, dingy-looking passages that branch from it on either side. Here live a class of men who, having begun life as our servants or valets, are in perfect possession of all our habits of life, our wants, and our necessities. Having amassed enough by retail robbery of us while in our service, to establish some petty tavern, or some low livery-stable, they end by cheating us wholesale, for the loan of our own money, at their rate of interest. Well aware that, however deferred, we must pay eventually, they are satisfied – good, easy souls! – to renew and renew bills, whose current percentage varies from five-and-twenty to forty. And even, notwithstanding all this, Jack, they are difficult devils to deal with, any appearance of being hard up, any show of being out-at-elbows, rendering a negotiation as difficult as the assurance of a condemned ship for a China voyage. No, my boy; though your house be besieged by duns, though in every passenger you see a bailiff, and never nap after dinner without dreaming of the Marshalsea, yet still, the very moment you cross the precincts of their dwelling, you must put your care where your cash ought to be – in your pocket. You must wear the easy smile of a happy conscience, and talk of your want of a few hundreds as though it were a question of a pinch of snuff, or a glass of brandy-and-water, while you agree to the exorbitant demands they exact, with the careless indifference of one to whom money is no object, rather than with the despair of a wretch who looks for no benefit in life save in the act for insolvent debtors. This you ‘ll say is a great bore, and so I once thought too; now, however, I have got somewhat used to it, and sometimes don’t actually dislike the fun. Why, man, I have been at it for three months at a time. I remember when I never blew my nose without pulling out a writ along with my pocket-handkerchief, and I never was in better spirits in all my life. But here we are. This is Bill Fagan’s, a well-known drysalter; you’ll have to wait for me in the front parlour for a moment while I negotiate with Billy.’

Elbowing our way through a squalid and miserable-looking throng of people that filled the narrow hall of a house in fleet Street, we forced on till we reached an inner door in which a sliding panel permitted those within to communicate with others on the outside. Tapping at this with his cane, O’Grady called out something which I could not catch, the panel at once flew back, a red carbuncled face appeared at the opening, the owner of which, with a grin of very peculiar signification, exclaimed – ’ Ah, it’s yourself, Captain? Walk in, sir.’ With these words the door was opened, and we were admitted into the inner hall. This was also crowded, but with a different class from what I had seen without. These were apparently men in business, shopkeepers and traders, who, reduced by some momentary pressure, to effect a loan, were content to prop up their tottering credit by sapping the very core of their prosperity. Unlike the others, on whom habitual poverty and daily misery had stamped its heavy impress, and whose faces too, inured to suffering, betrayed no shame at being seen – these, on the contrary, looked downward or aside; seemed impatient, fretful, and peevish, and indicated in a hundred ways how unused they were to exigencies of this nature, muttering to themselves in angry mood at being detained, and feigning a resolution to depart at every moment. O’Grady, after a conference of a few moments with the rubicund Cerberus I have mentioned, beckoned to me to follow him. We proceeded accordingly up a narrow creaking stair, into a kind of front drawing-room, in which about a dozen persons were seated, or listlessly lounging in every imaginable attitude – some on chairs, some on the window-sills, some on the tables, and one even on the mantel-piece, with his legs gracefully dangling in front of the fire. Perfectly distinct from the other two classes I have mentioned, these were all young men whose dress, look, and bearing bespoke them of rank and condition. Chatting away gaily, laughing, joking, and telling good stories, they seemed but little to care for the circumstances which brought them there; and, while they quizzed one another about their various debts and difficulties, seemed to think want of money as about the very best joke a gentleman could laugh at. By all of these O’Grady was welcomed with a burst of applause, as they eagerly pressed forward to shake hands with him.