Майн Рид
The Child Wife
Chapter Sixteen.
A Safe Challenge
From the time of the hack’s departure, till the moment when the valet was so hastily sent out of the room, Mr Swinton had been acting as a man in full possession of his senses. The drink taken during the day had but restored his intellect to its usual strength; and with a clear brain he had written the note inviting Mr Louis Lucas to an interview. He had solicited this interview in his own apartment – accompanying the request with an apology for not going to that of Mr Lucas. The excuse was that he was “laid up.”
All this he could have done in a steady hand, and with choice diction; for Richard Swinton was neither dunce nor ignoramus.
Instead, the note was written in scribble, and with a chaotic confusion of phraseology – apparently the production of one suffering from the “trembles.”
In this there was a design; as also, in the behaviour of Mr Swinton, when he heard the footfall of his expected visitor coming along the corridor in the direction of his room. His action was of the most eccentric kind – as much so as any of his movements during the day.
It might have been expected that the ci-devant habitué of the Horse Guards, in conformity with past habits, would have made some attempt to arrange his toilet for the reception of a stranger. Instead, he took the opposite course; and while the footsteps of Mr Lucas were resounding through the gallery, the hands of Mr Swinton were busy in making himself as unpresentable as possible.
Whipping off the dress-coat he had worn at the ball, and which in his distraction he had all day carried on his shoulders; flinging the waistcoat after, and then slipping his arms out of the braces; in shirt-sleeves and with hair dishevelled, he stood to await the incoming of his visitor. His look was that of one just awakened from the slumber of intoxication.
And this character – which had been no counterfeit in the morning – he sustained during the whole time that the stranger remained in his room.
Mr Lucas had no suspicion that the Englishman was acting. He was himself in just that condition to believe in its reality; feeling, and as he confessed, “seedy as the devil.” This was his speech, in return to the salutations of Swinton.
“Yas, ba Jawve! I suppose yaw do. I feel just the same way. Aw – aw – I must have been asleep for a week?”
“Well, you’ve missed three meals at least, and I two of them. I was only able to show myself at the supper-table.”
“Suppaw! Yaw don’t mean to say it’s so late as that?”
“I do indeed. Supper we call it in this country; though I believe in England it’s the hour at which you dine. It’s after eight o’clock.”
“Ba heavins! This is bad. I wemembaw something that occurred last night. Yaw were with me, were you not?”
“Certainly I was. I gave you my card.”
“Yas – yas. I have it. A fellaw insulted me – a Mr Maynard. If I wemembaw awight, he stwuck me in the face.”
“That’s true; he did.”
“Am I wight too in my wecollection that yaw, sir, were so vewy obliging as to say yaw would act for me as – as – a fwend?”
“Quite right,” replied the willing Lucas, delighted with the prospect of obtaining satisfaction for his own little private wrong, and without danger to himself. “Quite right. I’m ready to do as I said, sir.”
“Thanks, Mr Lucas! a world of thanks! And now there’s no time left faw fawther talking. By Jawve! I’ve slept so long as to be in danger of having committed myself! Shall I wite out the challenge, or would yaw pwefer to do it yawself? Yaw know all that passed, and may word it as yaw wish.”
“There need be no difficulty about the wording of it,” said the chosen second, who, from having acted in like capacity before, was fairly acquainted with the “code.”
“In your case, the thing’s exceedingly simple. This Mr or Captain Maynard, as he’s called, insulted you very grossly. I hear it’s the talk of the hotel. You must call upon him to go out, or apologise.”
“Aw, sawtingly. I shall do that. Wite faw me, and I shall sign.”
“Hadn’t you better write yourself? The challenge should be in your own hand. I am only the bearer of it.”
“Twue – twue! Confound this dwink. It makes one obwivious of everything. Of cawse I should wite it.”
Sitting down before the table, with a hand that showed no trembling, Mr Swinton wrote:
“Sir – Referring to our interview of last night, I demand from you the satisfaction due to a gentleman, whose honour you have outraged. That satisfaction must be either a meeting, or an ample apology. I leave you to take your choice. My friend, Mr Louis Lucas, will await your answer.
“Richard Swinton.”
“Will that do, think you?” asked the ex-guardsman, handing the sheet to his second.
“The very thing! Short, if not sweet. I like it all the better without the ‘obedient servant.’ It reads more defiant, and will be more likely to extract the apology. Where am I to take it? You have his card, if I mistake not. Does it tell the number of his room?”
“Twue – twue! I have his cawd. We shall see.”
Taking up his coat from the floor, where he had flung it; Swinton fished out the card. There was no number, only the name.
“No matter,” said the second, clutching at the bit of pasteboard. “Trust me to discover him. I’ll be back with his answer before you’ve smoked out that cigar.”
With this promise, Mr Lucas left the room.
As Mr Swinton sat smoking the cigar, and reflecting upon it, there was an expression upon his face that no man save himself could have interpreted. It was a sardonic smile worthy of Machiavelli.
The cigar was about half burned out, when Mr Lucas was heard hurrying back along the corridor.
In an instant after he burst into the room, his face showing him to be the bearer of some strange intelligence.
“Well?” inquired Swinton, in a tone of affected coolness. “What says our fellaw?”
“What says he? Nothing.”
“He has pwomised to send the answer by a fwend, I pwesume?”
“He has promised me nothing: for the simple reason that I haven’t seen him!”
“Haven’t seen him?”
“No – nor ain’t likely neither. The coward has ‘swartouted.’”
“Swawtuated?”
“Yes; G.T.T. – gone to Texas!”
“Ba Jawve! Mr Lucas; I don’t compwehend yaw?”
“You will, when I tell you that your antagonist has left Newport. Gone off by the evening boat.”
“Honaw bwight, Mr Lucas?” cried the Englishman, in feigned astonishment. “Shawley you must be jawking.”
“Not in the least, I assure you. The clerk tells me he paid his hotel bill, and was taken off in one of their hacks. Besides, I’ve seen the driver who took him, and who’s just returned. He says that he set Mr Maynard down, and helped to carry his baggage aboard the boat. There was another man, some foreign-looking fellow, along with him. Be sure, sir, he’s gone.”
“And left no message, no addwess, as to where I may find him?”
“Not a word, that I can hear of.”
“Ba Gawd?”
The man who had called forth this impassioned speech was at that moment upon the deck of the steamer, fast cleaving her track towards the ocean. He was standing by the after-guards, looking back upon the lights of Newport, that struggled against the twilight.
His eyes had become fixed on one that glimmered high up on the summit of the hill, and which he knew to proceed from a window in the southern end of the Ocean House.
He had little thought of the free use that was just then being made of his name in that swarming hive of beauty and fashion – else he might have repented the unceremonious haste of his departure.
Nor was he thinking of that which was carrying him away. His regrets were of a more tender kind: for he had such. Regrets that even his ardour in the sacred cause of Liberty did not prevent him from feeling.
Roseveldt, standing by his side, and observing the shadow on his face, easily divined its character.
“Come, Maynard!” said he, in a tone of banter, “I hope you won’t blame me for bringing you with me. I see that you’ve left something behind you!”
“Left something behind me!” returned Maynard, in astonishment, though half-conscious of what was meant.
“Of course you have,” jocularly rejoined the Count. “Where did you ever stay six days without leaving a sweetheart behind you? It’s true, you scapegrace!”
“You wrong me, Count. I assure you I have none – ”
“Well, well,” interrupted the revolutionist, “even if you have, banish the remembrance, and be a man! Let your sword now be your sweetheart. Think of the splendid prospect before you. The moment your foot touches European soil, you are to take command of the whole student army. The Directory have so decided. Fine fellows, I assure you, these German students: true sons of Liberty —à la Schiller, if you like. You may do what you please with them, so long as you lead them against despotism. I only wish I had your opportunity.”
As he listened to these stirring words, Maynard’s eyes were gradually turned away from Newport – his thoughts from Julia Girdwood.
“It may be all for the best,” reflected he, as he gazed down upon the phosphoric track. “Even could I have won her, which is doubtful, she’s not the sort for a wife; and that’s what I’m now wanting. Certain, I shall never see her again. Perhaps the old adage will still prove true,” he continued, as if the situation had suggested it: “‘Good fish in the sea as ever were caught.’ Scintillations ahead, yet unseen, brilliant as those we are leaving behind us!”
Chapter Seventeen.
“The Coward!”
The steamer that carried Captain Maynard and his fortunes out of the Narraganset Bay, had not rounded Point Judith before his name in the mouths of many became a scorned word. The gross insult he had put upon the English stranger had been witnessed by a score of gentlemen, and extensively canvassed by all who had heard of it. Of course there would be a “call out,” and some shooting. Nothing less could be expected after such an affront.
It was a surprise, when the discovery came, that the insulter had stolen off; for this was the interpretation put upon it.
To many it was a chagrin. Not much was known of Captain Maynard, beyond that public repute the newspapers had given to his name, in connection with the Mexican war.
This, however, proved him to have carried a commission in the American army; and as it soon became understood that his adversary was an officer in that of England, it was but natural there should be some national feeling called forth by the affair. “After all,” said they, “Maynard is not an American!” It was some palliation of his supposed poltroonery that he had stayed all day at the hotel, and that his adversary had not sent the challenge till after he was gone.
But the explanation of this appeared satisfactory enough; and Swinton had not been slow in making it known. Notwithstanding some shame to himself, he had taken pains to give it a thorough circulation; supposing that no one knew aught of the communication he had received from Roseveldt.
And as no one did appear to know of it, the universal verdict was, that the hero of C – , as some of the newspapers pronounced him, had fled from a field where fighting honours might be less ostentatiously obtained.
There were many, however, who did not attribute his departure to cowardice, and who believed or suspected that there must have been some other motive – though they could not conceive what.
It was altogether an inexplicable affair; and had he left Newport in the morning, instead of the evening, he would have been called by much harder names than those that were being bestowed upon him. His stay at the hotel for what might be considered a reasonable time, in part protected him from vituperation.
Still had he left the field to Mr Swinton, who was elevated into a sort of half-hero by his adversary’s disgraceful retreat.
The lord incognito carried his honours meekly as might be. He was not without apprehension that Maynard might return, or be met again in some other corner of the world – in either case to call him to account for any triumphant swaggering. Of this he made only a modest display, answering when questioned:
“Confound the fellaw! He’s given me the slip, and I don’t knaw where to find him! It’s a demmed baw!”
The story, as thus told, soon circulated through the hotel, and of course reached that part of it occupied by the Girdwood family. Julia had been among the first who knew of Maynard’s departure – having herself been an astonished eye-witness of it.
Mrs Girdwood, only too glad to hear he had gone, cared but little about the cause. Enough to know that her daughter was safe from his solicitations.
Far different were the reflections of this daughter. It was only now that she began to feel that secret longing to possess the thing that is not to be obtained. An eagle had stooped at her feet – as she thought, submitting itself to be caressed by her. It was only for a moment. She had withheld her hand; and now the proud bird had soared resentfully away, never more to return to her taming!
She listened to the talk of Maynard’s cowardice without giving credence to it. She knew there must be some other cause for that abrupt departure; and she treated the slander with disdainful silence.
For all this, she could not help feeling something like anger toward him, mingled with her own chagrin.
Gone without speaking to her – without any response to that humiliating confession she had made to him before leaving the ball-room! On her knees to him, and not one word of acknowledgment!
Clearly he cared not for her.
The twilight had deepened down as she returned into the balcony, and took her stand there, with eyes bent upon the bay. Silent and alone, she saw the signal-light of the steamer moving like an ignis fatuus along the empurpled bosom of the water – at length suddenly disappearing behind the battlements of the Fort.
“He is gone?” she murmured to herself, heaving a deep sigh. “Perhaps never more to be met by me. Oh, I must try to forget him!”
Chapter Eighteen.
Down with the Despots!
Time was – and that not “long, long ago” – when the arrival of a European steamer at New York was an event, as was also the departure. There were only “Cunarders” that came and went once a fortnight; at a later period making the trip hebdomadally.
Any one who has crossed the Atlantic by the Cunard steamers need not be told that, in New York, their point of landing and leaving is upon the Jersey shore.
In the days when such things were “sensations,” a crowd used to collect at the Cunard wharf, attracted thither by the presence of the vast leviathan.
Now and then were occasions when the motive was different or rather the attraction – when, instead of the steamer, it was some distinguished individual aboard of her: prince, patriot, singer, or courtesan. Gay, unreflecting Gotham stays not to make distinction, honouring all kinds of notoriety alike; or at all events giving them an equal distribution of its curiosity.
One of these occasions was peculiar. It was a departure; the boat being the Cambria, one of the slowest, at the same time most comfortable, steamers on the “line.”
She has been long since withdrawn from it; her keel, if I mistake not, now ploughing the more tranquil waters of the Indian Ocean.
And her captain, the brave, amiable Shannon! He, too, has been transferred to another service, where the cares of steam navigation and the storms of the Atlantic shall vex him no more.
He is not forgotten. Reading these words, many hearts will be stirred up to remember him – true hearts – still beating in New York, still holding in record that crowd on the Jersey shore alongside the departing steamer.
Though assembled upon American soil, but few of the individuals composing it were American. The physiognomy was European, chiefly of the Teutonic type, though with an intermingling of the Latinic. Alongside the North German, with light-coloured skin and huge tawny moustache, stood his darker cousin of the Danube; and beside both the still swarthier son of Italy, with gleaming dark eyes, and thick chevelure of shining black. Here could be noted, too, a large admixture of Frenchmen, some of them still wearing the blouse brought over from their native land; most of them of that brave ouvrier class, who but the year before, and two years after, might have been seen resolutely defending the barricades of Paris.
Only here and there could be distinguished an American face, or a word spoken in the English language – the speaker being only a spectator who had chanced upon the spot.
The main body of the assemblage was composed of other elements – men who had come there out of motives quite apart from mere curiosity. There were women, too – young girls with flaxen hair and deep blue eyes, recalling their native Rhineland, with others of darker skin, but equally pretty faces, from the country of Corinne.
Most of the cabin-passengers – there are no others in a Cunarder – had ascended to the upper deck, as is usual at the departure of a steamer. It was but a natural desire of all to witness the withdrawal of the stage-plank – the severance of that last link binding them to a land they were leaving with varied emotions.
Despite their private thoughts, whether of joy or sorrow, they could not help scanning with curiosity that sea of faces spread out before them upon the wharf.
Standing in family parties over the deck, or in rows leaning against the rail, they interrogated one another as to the cause of the grand gathering, as also the people who composed it.
It was evident to all that the crowd was not American; and equally so, that not any of them were about to embark upon the steamer. There was no appearance of baggage, though that might have been aboard. But most of them were of a class not likely to be carried by a Cunarder. Besides, there were no signs of leave-taking – no embracing or hand-shaking, such as may be seen when friends are about to be separated by the sea. For this they were on the wrong side of the Atlantic.
They stood in groups, close touching; the men smoking cigars, many of them grand meerschaum pipes, talking gravely to one another, or more jocosely to the girls – a crowd earnest, yet cheerful.
It was plain, too, the steamer was not their attraction. Most of them faced from her, casting interrogative glances along the wharf, as if looking for something expected to appear to them in this direction.
“Who are they?” was the question passed round among the passengers.
A gentleman who appeared specially informed – there is always one such in an assemblage – vouchsafed the desired information.
“They’re the refugees,” he said. “French, Germans, Poles, and what not, driven over here by the late revolutions in Europe.”
“Are they going back again?” inquired one who wanted further information.
“Some of them are, I believe,” answered the first speaker. “Though not by the steamer,” he added. “The poor devils can’t afford that.”
“Then why are they here?”
“They have some leaders who are going. One of them, a man named Maynard, who made some figure in the late Mexican war.”
“Oh, Captain Maynard! But he’s not one of them! He isn’t a foreigner.”
“No. But the men he commanded in Mexico were, most of them! That’s why they have chosen him for their leader.”
“Captain Maynard must be a fool,” interposed a third speaker. “The rising reported in Europe has no chance of success. He’ll only get his neck into a halter. Are there any Americans taking part in the movement?”
He of supposed special information guessed not.
He guessed correctly, though it was a truth not over creditable to his country – which, by his speech, could be no other than the “States.”
At that crisis, when filibustering might have been of some service to the cause of European freedom, the only American who volunteered for it was Maynard; and he was an American-Irishman! Still, to this great country – to a residence among its people, and a study of its free institutions – was he indebted for the inspiration that had made him what he was – a lover of Liberty.
Among those listening to the conversation was a group of three individuals: a man of more than fifty years of age, a girl of less than fourteen, and a woman whose summers and winters might number about midway between.
The man was tall, with an aspect of the kind usually termed aristocratic. It was not stern; but of that mild type verging upon the venerable – an expression strengthened by hair nearly white, seen under the selvedge of his travelling-cap.
The girl was an interesting creature. She was still but a mere child and wearing the dress of one – a gown sleeveless, and with short skirt – the hair hanging loose over her shoulders.
But under the skirt were limbs of a tournure that told of approaching puberty; while her profuse locks, precious on account of their rich colour, appeared to call for pins and a comb.
Despite the difficulty of comparing the features of a man of fifty and a child of fourteen, there was enough resemblance between these two to give the idea of father and daughter. It was confirmed by the relative position in which they stood; he holding her paternally by the hand.
Between them and the woman the relationship was of quite a different nature, and needed only a glance to make it known. The buff complexion of the latter, with the “white turban” upon her head, told her to be a servant.
She stood a little behind them.
The man alone appeared to heed what was being said; the girl and servant were more interested in the movements of the people upon the wharf.
The brief conversation ended, he approached the original speaker with the half-whispered question:
“You say there are no Americans in this movement. Is Captain Maynard not one?”
“I guess not,” was the reply. “He’s been in the American army; but I’ve heard say he’s Irish. Nothing against him for that.”
“Of course not,” answered the aristocratic-looking gentleman. “I merely asked out of curiosity.”
It must have been a strong curiosity that caused him, after retiring a little, to take out his note-book, and enter in it a memorandum, evidently referring to the revolutionary leader.
Furthermore, the information thus received appeared to have increased his interest in the crowd below.
Dropping the hand of his daughter, and pressing forward to the rail, he watched its evolutions with eagerness.
By this time the assemblage had warmed into a more feverish state of excitement. Men were talking in a louder strain, with more rapid gesticulations – some pulling out their watches, and looking impatiently at the time. It was close upon twelve o’clock – the hour of the steamer’s starting. She had already sounded the signal to get aboard.
All at once the loud talk ceased, the gesticulation was suspended, and the crowd stood silent, or spoke only in whispers. A spark of intelligence had drifted mysteriously amongst them.
It was explained by a shout heard afar off, on the outer edge of the assemblage.
“He is coming?”
The shout was taken up in a hundred repetitions, and carried on to the centre of the mass, and still on to the steamer.
It was succeeded by a grand huzza, and the cries: “Nieder mit dem tyrannen!” ”À bas les tyrants! Vive la République!”
Who was coming? Whose advent had drawn forth that heart-inspiring hail – had elicited those sentiments of patriotism simultaneously spoken in almost every language of Europe?
A carriage came forward upon the wharf. It was only a common street hack that had crossed in the ferryboat. But men gave way for it with as much alacrity as if it had been a grand gilded chariot carrying a king!
And those men far more. Ten, twenty times quicker, and a thousand times more cheerfully, did they spring out of its way. Had there been a king inside it, there would have been none to cry, “God bless His Majesty!” and few to have said, “God help him!”
A king in that carriage would have stood but slight chance of reaching the steamer in safety.
There were two inside it – a man of nigh thirty, and one of maturer age. They were Maynard and Roseveldt.
It was upon the former all eyes were fixed, towards whom all hearts were inclining. It was his approach had called forth that cry: “He is coming?”
And now that he had come, a shout was sent from the Jersey shore, that echoed along the hills of Hoboken, and was heard in the streets of the great Empire City.
Why this wonderful enthusiasm for one who belonged neither to their race nor their country? On the contrary, he was sprung from a people to them banefully hostile!
It had not much to do with the man. Only that he was the representative of a principle – a cause for which most of them had fought and bled, and many intended fighting, and, if need be, bleeding again. He was their chosen chief, advancing toward the van, flinging himself forward into the post of peril – for man’s and liberty’s sake, risking the chain and the halter. For this was he the recipient of such honours.
The carriage, slowly working its way through the thick crowd, was almost lifted from its wheels. In their enthusiastic excitement those who surrounded it looked as if they would have raised it on their shoulders and carried it, horses included, up the staging of the steamer.
They did this much for Maynard. Strong-bearded men threw their arms around him, kissing him as if he had been a beautiful girl, while beautiful girls clasped him by the hand, or with their kerchiefs waved him an affectionate farewell.
A colossus, lifting him from his feet, transported him to the deck of the steamer, amidst the cheers of the assembled multitude.
And amidst its cheers, still continued, the steamer swung out from the wharf.
“It is worth while to be true to the people,” said Maynard, his breast glowing with proud triumph, as he heard his name rise above the parting hurrah.
He repeated the words as the boat passed the Battery, and he saw the German Artillery Corps – those brave scientific soldiers who had done so much for their adopted land – drawn up on the esplanade of Castle Garden.
And once again, as he listened to their farewell salvo, drowning the distant cheers sent after him across the widening water.
