Book: The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 1

C >> Charles James Lever >> The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 1




As it was growing late I hurriedly bade adieu to my friends, and hastened
to Colonel Carden's quarters, where I found him waiting for me, in
company with my old friend, Fitzgerald, our regimental surgeon. Our
first greetings over, the colonel drew me aside into a window, and said
that, from certain expressions Lord Callonby had made use of--certain
hints he had dropped--he was perfectly aware of the delicate position in
which I stood with respect to his lordship's family. "In fact, my dear
Lorrequer," he continued, "without wishing in the least to obtrude myself
upon your confidence, I must yet be permitted to say, you are the
luckiest fellow in Europe, and I most sincerely congratulate you on the
prospect before you."

"But, my dear Colonel, I assure you--"

"Well, well, there--not a word more; don't blush now. I know there is
always a kind of secrecy thought necessary on these occasions, for the
sake of other parties; so let us pass to your plans. From what I have
collected, you have not yet proposed formally. But, of course you desire
a leave. You'll not quit the army, I trust; no necessity for that; such
influence as yours can always appoint you to an unattached commission."

"Once more let me protest, sir, that though for certain reasons most
desirous to obtain a leave of absence, I have not the most remote--"

"That's right, quite right; I am sincerely gratified to hear you say so,
and so will be Lord Callonby; for he likes the service."

And thus was my last effort at a disclaimer cut short by the loquacious
little colonel, who regarded my unfinished sentence as a concurrence with
his own opinion.

"Allah il Allah," thought I, "it is my Lord Callonby's own plot; and his
friend Colonel Cardon aids and abets him."

"Now, Lorrequer," resumed the colonel, "let us proceed. You have, of
course, heard that we are ordered abroad; mere newspaper report for the
present; nevertheless, it is extremely difficult--almost impossible,
without a sick certificate, to obtain a leave sufficiently long for your
purpose."

And here he smirked, and I blushed, selon les regles..

"A sick certificate," said I in some surprise.

"The only thing for you," said Fitzgerald, taking a long pinch of snuff;
"and I grieve to say you have a most villainous look of good health about
you."

"I must acknowledge I have seldom felt better."

"So much the worse--so much the worse," said Fitzgerald despondingly.
"Is there no family complaint; no respectable heir-loom of infirmity, you
can lay claim to from your kindred?"

"None, that I know of, unless a very active performance on the several
occasions of breakfast, dinner, and supper, with a tendency towards port,
and an inclination to sleep ten in every twenty-four hours, be a sign of
sickness; these symptoms I have known many of the family suffer for
years, without the slightest alleviation, though, strange as it may
appear, they occasionally had medical advice."

Fitz. took no notice of my sneer at the faculty, but proceeded to strike
my chest several times, with his finger tips. "Try a short cough now,"
said he. "Ah, that will never do!"

"Do you ever flush. Before dinner I mean?"

"Occasionally, when I meet with a luncheon."

"I'm fairly puzzled," said poor Fitz. throwing himself into a chair;
"gout is a very good thing; but, then, you see you are only a sub., and
it is clearly against the articles of war, to have it before being a
field officer at least. Apoplexy is the best I can do for you; and, to
say the truth, any one who witnesses your performance at mess, may put
faith in the likelihood of it.

"Do you think you could get up a fit for the medical board," said Fitz.,
gravely.

"Why, if absolutely indispensable," said I, "and with good instruction
--something this way. Eh, is it not?"

"Nothing of the kind: you are quite wrong."

"Is there not always a little laughing and crying," said I.

"Oh, no, no; take the cue from the paymaster any evening after mess, and
you'll make no mistake--very florid about the cheeks; rather a lazy look
in one eye, the other closed up entirely; snore a little from time to
time, and don't be too much disposed to talk."

"And you think I may pass muster in this way."

"Indeed you may, if old Camie, the inspector, happen to be (what he is
not often) in a good humour. But I confess I'd rather you were really
ill, for we've passed a great number of counterfeits latterly, and we may
be all pulled up ere long."

"Not the less grateful for your kindness," said I; "but still, I'd rather
matters stood as they do."

Having, at length, obtained a very formidable statement of my 'case' from
the Doctor, and a strong letter from the Colonel, deploring the temporary
loss of so promising a young officer, I committed myself and my
portmanteau to the inside of his Majesty's mail, and started for Dublin
with as light a heart and high spirits, as were consistent with so much
delicacy of health, and the directions of my Doctor.




CHAPTER IX.

THE ROAD--TRAVELLING ACQUAINTANCES--A PACKET ADVENTURE.

I shall not stop now to narrate the particulars of my visit to the
worthies of the medical board; the rather, as some of my "confessions
to come" have reference to Dublin, and many of those that dwell therein.
I shall therefore content myself here with stating, that without any
difficulty I obtained a six months' leave, and having received much
advice and more sympathy from many members of that body, took a
respectful leave of them, and adjourned to Bilton's where I had ordered
dinner, and (as I was advised to live low) a bottle of Sneyd's claret.
My hours in Dublin were numbered; at eight o'clock on the evening of my
arrival I hastened to the Pidgeon House pier, to take my berth in the
packet for Liverpool; and here, gentle reader, let me implore you if you
have bowels of compassion, to commiserate the condition of a sorry mortal
like myself. In the days of which I now speak, steam packets were not
--men knew not then, of the pleasure of going to a comfortable bed in
Kingstown harbour, and waking on the morning after in the Clarence dock
at Liverpool, with only the addition of a little sharper appetite for
breakfast, before they set out on an excursion of forty miles per hour
through the air.

In the time I have now to commemorate, the intercourse between the two
countries was maintained by two sailing vessels of small tonnage, and
still scantier accommodation. Of the one now in question I well
recollect the name--she was called the "Alert," and certainly a more
unfortunate misnomer could scarcely be conceived. Well, there was no
choice; so I took my place upon the crowded deck of the little craft, and
in a drizzling shower of chilly rain, and amid more noise, confusion, and
bustle, than would prelude the launch of a line-of-battle ship, we
"sidled," goose-fashion, from the shore, and began our voyage towards
England.

It is not my intention, in the present stage of "my Confessions," to
delay on the road towards an event which influenced so powerfully, and so
permanently, my after life; yet I cannot refrain from chronicling a
slight incident which occurred on board the packet, and which, I have no
doubt, may be remembered by some of those who throw their eyes on these
pages.

One of my fellow-passengers was a gentleman holding a high official
appointment in the viceregal court, either comptroller of the household,
master of the horse, or something else equally magnificent; however,
whatever the nature of the situation, one thing is certain--one possessed
of more courtly manners, and more polished address, cannot be conceived,
to which he added all the attractions of a very handsome person and a
most prepossessing countenance. The only thing the most scrupulous
critic could possibly detect as faulty in his whole air and bearing, was
a certain ultra refinement and fastidiousness, which in a man of
acknowledged family and connections was somewhat unaccountable, and
certainly unnecessary. The fastidiousness I speak of, extended to
everything round and about him; he never eat of the wrong dish, nor spoke
to the wrong man in his life, and that very consciousness gave him a kind
of horror of chance acquaintances, which made him shrink within himself
from persons in every respect his equals. Those who knew Sir Stewart
Moore, will know I do not exaggerate in either my praise or censure, and
to those who have not had that pleasure, I have only to say, theirs was
the loss, and they must take my word for the facts.

The very antithesis to the person just mentioned, was another passenger
then on board. She, for even in sex they were different--she was a
short, squat, red-faced, vulgar-looking woman, of about fifty, possessed
of a most garrulous tendency, and talking indiscriminately with every one
about her, careless what reception her addresses met with, and quite
indifferent to the many rebuffs she momentarily encountered. To me by
what impulse driven Heaven knows this amorphous piece of womanhood seemed
determined to attach herself. Whether in the smoky and almost
impenetrable recesses of the cabin, or braving the cold and penetrating
rain upon deck, it mattered not, she was ever at my side, and not only
martyring me by the insufferable annoyance of her vulgar loquacity, but
actually, from the appearance of acquaintanceship such constant
association gave rise to, frightening any one else from conversing with
me, and rendering me, ere many hours, a perfect Paria among the
passengers. By not one were we--for, alas, we had become Siamese--so
thoroughly dreaded as by the refined baronet I have mentioned; he
appeared to shrink from our very approach, and avoided us as though we
had the plagues of Egypt about us. I saw this--I felt it deeply, and as
deeply and resolutely I vowed to be revenged, and the time was not long
distant in affording me the opportunity.

The interesting Mrs. Mulrooney, for such was my fair companion called,
was on the present occasion making her debut on what she was pleased to
call the "says;" she was proceeding to the Liverpool market as proprietor
and supercargo over some legion of swine that occupied the hold of the
vessel, and whose mellifluous tones were occasionally heard in all
parts of the ship. Having informed me on these, together with some
circumstances of her birth and parentage, she proceeded to narrate some
of the cautions given by her friends as to her safety when making such a
long voyage, and also to detail some of the antiseptics to that dread
scourge, sea-sickness, in the fear and terror of which she had come on
board, and seemed every hour to be increasing in alarm about.

"Do you think then sir, that pork is no good agin the sickness? Mickey,
that's my husband, sir, says it's the only thing in life for it, av it's
toasted."

"Not the least use, I assure you."

"Nor sperits and wather?"

"Worse and worse, ma'am."

"Oh, thin, maybe oaten mail tay would do? it's a beautiful thing for the
stomick, any how."

"Rank poison on the present occasion, believe me."

"Oh, then, blessed Mary, what am I to do--what is to become of me?"

"Go down at once to your berth, ma'am; lie still and without speaking
till we come in sight of land; or," and here a bright thought seized me,
"if you really feel very ill, call for that man there, with the fur
collar on his coat; he can give you the only thing I ever knew of any
efficacy; he's the steward, ma'am, Stewart Moore; but you must be on your
guard too as you are a stranger, for he's a conceited fellow, and has
saved a trifle, and sets up for a half gentleman; so don't be surprised
at his manner; though, after all, you may find him very different; some
people, I've heard, think him extremely civil."

"And he has a cure, ye say?"

"The only one I ever heard of; it is a little cordial of which you take,
I don't know how much, every ten or fifteen minutes."

"And the naygur doesn't let the saycret out, bad manners to him?"

"No, ma'am; he has refused every offer on the subject.'

"May I be so bowld as to ax his name again?"

"Stewart Moore, ma'am. Moore is the name, but people always call him
Stewart Moore; just say that in a loud clear voice, and you'll soon have
him."

With the most profuse protestations of gratitude and promises of pork "a
discretion," if I ever sojourned at Ballinasloe, my fair friend proceeded
to follow my advice, and descended to the cabin.

Some hours after, I also betook myself to my rest, from which, however,
towards midnight I was awoke by the heavy working and pitching of the
little vessel, as she laboured in a rough sea. As I looked forth from my
narrow crib, a more woe-begone picture can scarcely be imagined than that
before me. Here and there through the gloomy cabin lay the victims of
the fell malady, in every stage of suffering, and in every attitude of
misery. Their cries and lamentings mingled with the creaking of the
bulk-heads and the jarring twang of the dirty lamp, whose irregular swing
told plainly how oscillatory was our present motion. I turned from the
unpleasant sight, and was about again to address myself to slumber with
what success I might, when I started at the sound of a voice in the very
berth next to me--whose tones, once heard, there was no forgetting. The
words ran as nearly as I can recollect thus:--

"Oh, then, bad luck to ye for pigs, that ever brought me into the like of
this. Oh, Lord, there it is again." And here a slight interruption to
eloquence took place, during which I was enabled to reflect upon the
author of the complaint, who, I need not say, was Mrs. Mulrooney.

"I think a little tay would settle my stomach, if I only could get it;
but what's the use of talking in this horrid place? They never mind me
no more than if I was a pig. Steward, steward--oh, then, it's wishing
you well I am for a steward. Steward, I say;" and this she really did
say, with an energy of voice and manner that startled more than one
sleeper. "Oh, you're coming at last, steward."

"Ma'am," said a little dapper and dirty personage, in a blue jacket, with
a greasy napkin negligently thrown over one arm "ex officio," "Ma'am, did
you call?"

"Call, is it call? No; but I'm roaring for you this half hour. Come
here. Have you any of the cordial dhrops agin the sickness?--you know
what I mean."

"Is it brandy, ma'am?"

"No, it isn't brandy;"

"We have got gin, ma'am, and bottled porter--cider, ma'am, if you like."

"Agh, no! sure I want the dhrops agin the sickness."

"Don't know indeed, ma'am."

"Ah, you stupid creature; maybe you're not the real steward. What's your
name?"

"Smith, ma'am."

"Ah, I thought so; go away, man, go away."

This injunction, given in a diminuendo cadence, was quickly obeyed, and
all was silence for a moment or two. Once more was I dropping asleep,
when the same voice as before burst out with--

"Am I to die here like a haythen, and nobody to come near me? Steward,
steward, steward Moore, I say."

"Who calls me?" said a deep sonorous voice from the opposite side of the
cabin, while at the same instant a tall green silk nightcap, surmounting
a very aristocratic-looking forehead, appeared between the curtains of
the opposite berth.

"Steward Moore," said the lady again, with her eyes straining in the
direction of the door by which she expected him to enter.

"This is most strange," muttered the baronet, half aloud. "Why, madam,
you are calling me!"

"And if I am," said Mrs. Mulrooney, "and if ye heerd me, have ye no
manners to answer your name, eh? Are ye steward Moore?"

"Upon my soul ma'am I thought so last night, when I came on board; but
you really have contrived to make me doubt my own identity."

"And is it there ye're lying on the broad of yer back, and me as sick as
a dog fornent ye?"

"I concede ma'am the fact; the position is a most irksome one on every
account."

"Then why don't ye come over to me?" and this Mrs. Mulrooney said with a
voice of something like tenderness--wishing at all hazards to conciliate
so important a functionary.

"Why, really you are the most incomprehensible person I ever met."

"I'm what?" said Mrs. Mulrooney, her blood rushing to her face and
temples as she spoke--for the same reason as her fair townswoman is
reported to have borne with stoical fortitude every harsh epithet of the
language, until it occurred to her opponent to tell her that "the divil a
bit better she was nor a pronoun;" so Mrs. Mulrooney, taking "omne
ignotum pro horribili," became perfectly beside herself at the unlucky
phrase. "I'm what? repate it av ye dare, and I'll tear yer eyes out? Ye
dirty bla--guard, to be lying there at yer ease under the blankets,
grinning at me. What's your thrade--answer me that--av it isn't to wait
on the ladies, eh?"

"Oh, the woman must be mad," said Sir Stewart.

"The devil a taste mad, my dear--I'm only sick. Now just come over to
me, like a decent creature, and give me the dhrop of comfort ye have.
Come, avick."

"Go over to you?"

"Ay, and why not? or if it's so lazy ye are, why then I'll thry and cross
over to your side."

These words being accompanied by a certain indication of change of
residence on the part of Mrs. Mulrooney, Sir Stewart perceived there was
no time to lose, and springing from his berth, he rushed half-dressed
through the cabin, and up the companion-ladder, just as Mrs. Mulrooney
had protruded a pair of enormous legs from her couch, and hung for a
moment pendulous before she dropped upon the floor, and followed him to
the deck. A tremendous shout of laughter from the sailors and deck
passengers prevented my hearing the dialogue which ensued; nor do I yet
know how Mrs. Mulrooney learned her mistake. Certain it is, she no more
appeared among the passengers in the cabin, and Sir Stewart's manner the
following morning at breakfast amply satisfied me that I had had my
revenge.




CHAPTER X.

UPSET--MIND--AND BODY.

No sooner in Liverpool, than I hastened to take my place in the earliest
conveyance for London. At that time the Umpire Coach was the perfection
of fast travelling; and seated behind the box, enveloped in a sufficiency
of broad-cloth, I turned my face towards town with as much anxiety and as
ardent expectations as most of those about me. All went on in the
regular monotonous routine of such matters until we reached Northampton,
passing down the steep street of which town, the near wheel-horse
stumbled and fell; the coach, after a tremendous roll to one side,
toppled over on the other, and with a tremendous crash, and sudden shock,
sent all the outsides, myself among the number, flying through the air
like sea-gulls. As for me, after describing a very respectable parabola,
my angle of incidence landed me in a bonnet-maker's shop, having passed
through a large plate-glass window, and destroyed more leghorns and
dunstables than a year's pay would recompense. I have but light
recollection of the details of that occasion, until I found myself lying
in a very spacious bed at the George Inn, having been bled in both arms,
and discovering by the multitude of bandages in which I was enveloped,
that at least some of my bones were broken by the fall. That such fate
had befallen my collar-bone and three of my ribs I soon learned; and was
horror-struck at hearing from the surgeon who attended me, that four or
five weeks would be the very earliest period I could bear removal with
safety. Here then at once was a large deduction from my six months'
leave, not to think of the misery that awaited me for such a time,
confined to my bed in an inn, without books, friends, or acquaintances.
However even this could be remedied by patience, and summoning up all I
could command, I "bided my time," but not before I had completed a term
of two months' imprisonment, and had become, from actual starvation,
something very like a living transparency.

No sooner, however, did I feel myself once more on the road, than my
spirits rose, and I felt myself as full of high hope and buoyant
expectancy as ever. It was late at night when I arrived in London.
I drove to a quiet hotel in the west-end; and the following morning
proceeded to Portman-square, bursting with impatience to see my friends
the Callonbys, and recount all my adventures--for as I was too ill to
write from Northampton, and did not wish to entrust to a stranger the
office of communicating with them, I judged that they must be exceedingly
uneasy on my account, and pictured to myself the thousand emotions my
appearance so indicative of illness would give rise to; and could
scarcely avoid running in my impatience to be once more among them. How
Lady Jane would meet me, I thought of over again and again; whether the
same cautious reserve awaited me, or whether her family's approval would
have wrought a change in her reception of me, I burned to ascertain. As
my thoughts ran on in this way, I found myself at the door; but was much
alarmed to perceive that the closed window-shutters and dismantled look
of the house proclaimed them from home. I rung the bell, and soon
learned from a servant, whose face I had not seen before, that the family
had gone to Paris about a month before, with the intention of spending
the winter there. I need not say how grievously this piece of
intelligence disappointed me, and for a minute or two I could not
collect my thoughts. At last the servant said:

"If you have any thing very particular, sir, that my Lord's lawyer can
do, I can give you his address."

"No, thank you--nothing;" at the same time I muttered to myself, "I'll
have some occupation for him though ere long. The family were all quite
well, didn't you say?"

"Yes sir, perfectly well. My Lord had only a slight cold,"

"Ah--yes--and there address is 'Meurice;' very well."

So saying I turned from the door, and with slower steps than I had come,
returned to my hotel.

My immediate resolve was to set out for Paris; my second was to visit my
uncle, Sir Guy Lorrequer, first, and having explained to him the nature
of my position, and the advantageous prospects before me, endeavour to
induce him to make some settlement on Lady Jane, in the event of my
obtaining her family's consent to our marriage. This, from his liking
great people much, and laying great stress upon the advantages of
connexion, I looked upon as a matter of no great difficulty; so that,
although my hopes of happiness were delayed in their fulfilment, I
believed they were only about to be the more securely realized. The same
day I set out for Elton, and by ten o'clock at night reached my uncle's
house. I found the old gentleman looking just as I had left him three
years before, complaining a little of gout in the left foot--praising his
old specific, port-wine--abusing his servants for robbing him--and
drinking the Duke of Wellington's health every night after supper; which
meal I had much pleasure in surprising him at on my arrival--not having
eaten since my departure from London.

"Well, Harry," said my uncle, when the servants had left the room, and we
drew over the spider table to the fire to discuss our wine with comfort,
"what good wind has blown you down to me, my boy? for it's odd enough,
five minutes before I heard the wheels on the gravel I was just wishing
some good fellow would join me at the grouse--and you see I have had my
wish! The old story, I suppose, 'out of cash.' Would not come down here
for nothing--eh? Come, lad, tell truth; is it not so?"

"Why, not exactly, sir; but I really had rather at present talk about
you, than about my own matters, which we can chat over tomorrow. How do
you get on, sir, with the Scotch steward?"

"He's a rogue, sir--a cheat--a scoundrel; but it is the same with them
all; and your cousin, Harry--your cousin, that I have reared from his
infancy to be my heir, (pleasant topic for me!) he cares no more for me
than the rest of them, and would never come near me, if it were not that,
like yourself, he was hard run for money, and wanted to wheedle me out of
a hundred or two."

"But you forget, sir--I told you I have not come with such an object."

"We'll see that--we'll see that in the morning," replied he, with an
incredulous shake of the head.

"But Guy, sir--what has Guy done?"

"What has he not done? No sooner did he join that popinjay set of
fellows, the __th hussars, than he turned out, what he calls a
four-in-hand drag, which dragged nine hundred pounds out of my pocket
--then he has got a yacht at Cowes--a grouse mountain in Scotland--and
has actually given Tattersall an unlimited order to purchase the
Wreckinton pack of harriers, which he intends to keep for the use of the
corps. In a word, there is not an amusement of that villanous regiment,
not a flask of champagne drank at their mess, I don't bear my share in
the cost of; all through the kind offices of your worthy cousin, Guy
Lorrequer."

This was an exceedingly pleasant expose for me, to hear of my cousin
indulged in every excess of foolish extravagance by his rich uncle, while
I, the son of an elder brother who unfortunately called me by his own
name, Harry, remained the sub. in a marching regiment, with not three
hundred pounds a year above my pay, and whom any extravagance, if such
had been proved against me would have deprived of even that small
allowance. My uncle however did not notice the chagrin with which I
heard his narrative, but continued to detail various instances of wild
and reckless expense the future possessor of his ample property had
already launched into.

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