The Child Wife

Chapter Eleven.

Ball-Room Emotions

In addition to the “bar” at which you settle your hotel account, the Ocean House has another, exclusively devoted to drinking.

It is a snug, shady affair, partially subterranean, and reached by a stairway, trodden only by the worshippers of Bacchus.

Beyond this limited circle its locality is scarcely known.

In this underground region the talk of gentlemen, who have waxed warm over their cups, may be carried on ever so rudely, without danger of its reaching the delicate ears of those fair sylphs skimming through the corridors above.

This is as it should be; befitting a genteel establishment, such as the Ocean House undoubtedly is; adapted also to the ascetic atmosphere of New England.

The Puritan prefers taking his drink “on the quiet.”

On ball nights, the bar-room in question is more especially patronised, not only by the guests of the House, but outsiders from other hotels, and “the cottages.”

Terpsichore is a thirsty creature – one of the best customers of Bacchus; and, after dancing, usually sends a crowd of worshippers to the shrine of the jolly god.

At the Ocean House balls, drink can be had upstairs, champagne and other light wines, with jellies and ices; but only underground are you permitted to do your imbibing to the accompaniment of a cigar.

For this reason many of the gentlemen dancers, at intervals, descended the stairway that led to the drinking-saloon.

Among others was Maynard, smarting under his discomfiture.

“A brandy smash!” he demanded, pausing in front of the bar.

“Of all men, Dick Swinton!” soliloquised he while waiting for the mixture. “It’s true, then, that he’s been turned out of his regiment. No more than he deserved, and I expected. Confound the scamp! I wonder what’s brought him out here? Some card-sharping expedition, I suppose – a razzia on the pigeon-roosts of America! Apparently under the patronage of Girdwood mère, and evidently in pursuit of Girdwood fille. How has he got introduced to them? I’d bet high they don’t know much about him.”

“Brandy smash, mister?”

“Well!” he continued, as if tranquillised by a pull at the iced mixture and the narcotic smell of the mint. “It’s no business of mine; and after what’s passed, I don’t intend making it. They can have him at their own price. Caveat emptor. For this little contretemps I needn’t blame him, though I’d give twenty dollars to have an excuse for tweaking his nose!”

Captain Maynard was anything but a quarrelsome man. He only thought in this strain, smarting under his humiliation.

“It must have been the doing of the mother, who for a son-in-law prefers Mr Swinton to me. Ha! ha! ha! If she only knew him as I do?”

Another gulp out of the glass.

“But the girl was a consenting party. Clearly so; else why should she have hung fire about giving me an answer? Cut out by Dick Swinton! The devil?”

A third pull at the brandy smash.

“Hang it! It won’t do to declare myself defeated. They’d think so, if I didn’t go back to the ball-room! And what am I to do there? I don’t know a single feminine in the room and to wander about like some forlorn and forsaken spirit would but give them a chance for sneering at me. The ungrateful wretches! Perhaps I shouldn’t be so severe on the little blonde I might dance with her? But, no! I shall not go near them. I must trust to the stewards to provide me with something in the shape of a partner.”

He once more raised the glass to his lips, this time to be emptied.

Then, ascending the stairs, he sauntered back to the hall-room.

He was lucky in his intercession with the gentlemen in rosettes. He chanced upon one to whom his name was not unknown; and through the intercession of this gentleman found partners in plenty.

He had one for every dance – waltz, quadrille, polka, and schottishe – some of the “sweetest creatures” on the floor.

In such companionship he should have forgotten Julia Girdwood.

And yet he did not.

Strange she should continue to attract him! There were others fair as she – perhaps fairer; but throughout the kaleidoscopic changes of that glittering throng, his eyes were continually searching for the woman who had given him only chagrin. He saw her dancing with a man he had good reason to despise – all night long dancing with him, observed by everybody, and by many admired.

In secret unpleasantness Maynard watched this splendid woman; but it was the acmé of bitterness when he saw her give ear to the whisperings of Richard Swinton, and lean her cheek upon his shoulder as they whirled around the room, keeping time to the voluptuous strains of the Cellarius.

Again occurred to him the same thought: “I’d give twenty dollars to have an excuse for tweaking his nose!”

He did not know that, at less cost, and without seeking it, he was near to the opportunity.

Perhaps he would have sought it, but for a circumstance that turned up just in time to tranquillise him.

He was standing by the entrance, close to a set screen. The Girdwoods were retiring from the room, Julia leaning on the arm of Swinton. As she approached the spot he saw that her eyes were upon him. He endeavoured to read their expression. Was it scornful? Or tender?

He could not tell. Julia Girdwood was a girl who had rare command of her countenance.

Suddenly, as if impressed by some bold thought, or perhaps a pang of repentance, she let go the arm of her partner, dropping behind, and leaving him to proceed with the others. Then swerving a little, so as to pass close to where Maynard stood, she said, in a hurried half-whisper:

“Very unkind of you to desert us!”

“Indeed!”

“You should have come back for an explanation,” added she, reproachfully. “I could not help it.”

Before he could make reply she was gone; but the accent of reproach left tingling in his ear was anything but disagreeable.

“A strange girl this!” muttered he, in astonished soliloquy. “Most certainly an original! After all, perhaps, not so ungrateful. It may have been due to the mother.”

Chapter Twelve.

“Après le Bal.”

The ball was almost over; the flagged and flagging dancers rapidly retiring. The belles were already gone, and among them Julia Girdwood. Only the wallflowers, yet comparatively fresh, were stirring upon the floor. To them it was the time of true enjoyment; for it is they who “dance all night till broad daylight.”

Maynard had no motive for remaining after Miss Girdwood was gone. It was, in truth, she who had retained him. But with a spirit now stirred by conflicting emotions, there would be little chance of sleep; and he resolved, before retiring to his couch, to make one more sacrifice at the shrine of Bacchus.

With this intent, he again descended the stairway leading to the cellar saloon.

On reaching the basement, he saw that he had been preceded by a score of gentlemen, who, like himself, had come down from the ball-room.

They were standing in knots – drinking, smoking, conversing.

Scarce giving any of them a glance, he stepped up to the bar, and pronounced the name of his drink – this time plain brandy and water.

While waiting to be served a voice arrested his attention. It came from one of three individuals, who, like himself, had taken stand before the counter, on which were their glasses.

The speaker’s back was toward him, though sufficient of his whisker could be seen for Maynard to identify Dick Swinton.

His companions were also recognisable as the excursionists of the row-boat, whose dog he had peppered with duck-shot.

To Mr Swinton they were evidently recent acquaintances, picked up perhaps during the course of the evening; and they appeared to have taken as kindly to him as if they, too, had learnt, or suspected him to be a lord!

He was holding forth to them in that grand style of intonation, supposed to be peculiar to the English nobleman; though in reality but the conceit of the stage caricaturist and Bohemian scribbler, who only know “my lord” through the medium of their imaginations.

Maynard thought it a little strange. But it was many years since he had last seen the man now near him; and as time produces some queer changes, Mr Swinton’s style of talking need not be an exception.

From the manner in which he and his two listeners were fraternising, it was evident they had been some time before the bar. At all events they were sufficiently obfuscated not to notice new-comers, and thus he had escaped their attention.

He would have left them equally unnoticed, but for some words striking on his ear that evidently bore reference to himself.

“By-the-way, sir,” said one of the strangers, addressing Swinton, “if it’s not making too free, may I ask you for an explanation of that little affair that happened in the ball-room?”

“Aw – aw; of what affair do yaw speak, Mr Lucas?”

“Something queer – just before the first waltz. There was a dark-haired girl with a diamond head-dress – the same you danced a good deal with – Miss Girdwood I believe her name is – and a fellow with moustache and imperial. The old lady, too, seemed to have a hand in it. My friend and I chanced to be standing close by, and saw there was some sort of a scene among you. Wasn’t it so?”

“Scene – naw – naw. Only the fellaw wanted to have a spin with the divine queetyaw, and the lady preferred dancing with yaw humble servant. That was all, gentlemen, I ashaw yaw.”

“We thought there had been a difficulty between him and you. It looked devilish like it.”

“Not with me. I believe there was a misunderstanding between him and the young lady. The twuth is, she pweaded a pwevious engagement, which she didn’t seem to have upon her cawd. For my part I had nothing to do with the fellaw – absolutely nothing – did not even speak to him.”

“You looked at him, though, and he at you. I thought you were going to have it out between you, there and then!”

“Aw – aw; he understands me bettaw – that same individual.”

“You knew him before, then?”

“Slightly, vewy slightly – a long time agaw.”

“In your own country, perhaps? He appears to be an Englishman.”

“Naw – not a bit of it. He’s a demmed Iwishman.”

Maynard’s ears were becoming rapidly hot.

“What was he on your side?” inquired the junior of Swinton’s new acquaintances, who appeared quite as curious as the older one.

“What was he! Aw – aw, faw that matter nothing – nothing.”

“No calling, or profession?”

“Wah, yas; when I knew the fellaw he was an ensign in an infantry wegiment. Not one of the cwack corps, yaw knaw. We should not have weceived him in ours.”

Maynard’s fingers began to twitch.

“Of course not,” continued the “swell.”

“I have the honaw, gentlemen, to bewong to the Gawds – Her Majesty’s Dwagoon Gawds.”

“He has been in our service – in one of the regiments raised for the Mexican war. Do you know why he left yours?”

“Well, gentlemen, it’s not for me to speak too fweely of a fellaw’s antecedents. I am usually cautious about such matters – vewy cautious, indeed.”

“Oh, certainly; right enough,” rejoined the rebuked inquirer; “I only asked because it seems a little odd that an officer of your army should have left it to take service in ours.”

“If I knew anything to the fellaw’s qwedit,” continued the Guardsman, “I should be most happy to communicate it. Unfawtunately, I don’t. Quite the contwawy!”

Maynard’s muscles – especially those of his dexter arm – were becoming fearfully contracted. It wanted but little to draw him into the conversation. One more such remark would be sufficient; and unfortunately for himself, Mr Swinton made it.

“The twuth is, gentlemen,” said he, the drink perhaps having deprived him of his customary caution – “the twuth is, that Mr Ensign Maynard – or Captain Maynard, as I believe he now styles himself – was kicked out of the Bwitish service. Such was the report, though I won’t be wesponsible for its twuth.”

“It’s a lie!” cried Maynard, suddenly pulling off his kid glove, and drawing it sharply across his traducer’s cheek. “A lie, Dick Swinton! And if not responsible for originating it, as you say you shall be for giving it circulation. There never was such a report, and you know it, scoundrel!”

Swinton’s cheek turned white as the glove that had smitten it; but it was the pallor of fear rather than anger.

“Aw – indeed! you there, Mr Maynard! Well – well; I’m sure – you say it’s not twue. And you’ve called me a scoundwell! And yaw stwuck me with yaw glove?”

“I shall repeat the word and the blow. I shall spit in your face, if you don’t retract!”

“Wetwact!”

“Bah! there’s been enough pass between us. I leave you time to reflect. My room is 209, on the fourth storey. I hope you’ll find a friend who won’t be above climbing to it. My card, sir!”

Swinton took the card, and with fingers that showed trembling gave his own in exchange. While with a scornful glance, that comprehended both him and his acolytes, the other faced back to the bar, coolly completed his potation, and, without saying another word, reascended the stairway.

“You’ll meet him, won’t you?” asked the older of Swinton’s drinking companions.

It was not a very correct interrogatory; but, perhaps, judging by what had passed, the man who put it may have deemed delicacy superfluous.

“Of cawse – of cawse,” replied he of Her Majesty’s Horse Guards, without taking note of the rudeness. “Demmed awkward, too!” he continued, reflectingly. “I am here a stwanger – no fwend – ”

“Oh, for that matter,” interrupted Lucas, the owner of the Newfoundland dog, “there need be no difficulty. I shall be most happy to act as your second.”

The man who thus readily volunteered his services was as arrant a poltroon as could have been found about the fashionable hostelry in which the conversation was taking place – not excepting Swinton himself. He, too, had good cause for playing principal in a duel with Captain Maynard. But it was safer to be second; and no man knew this better than Louis Lucas.

It would not be the first time for him to act in this capacity. Twice before had he done so, obtaining by it a sort of borrowed éclat that was mistaken for bravery. For all this he was in reality a coward; and though smarting under the remembrance of his encounter with Maynard, he had allowed the thing to linger without taking further steps. The quarrel with Swinton was therefore in good time, and to his hand.

“Either I, or my friend here,” he added.

“With pleasure,” assented the other.

“Thanks, gentlemen; thanks, both! Exceedingly kind of you! But,” continued Swinton in a hesitating manner, “I should be sowy to bwing either of you into my scwape. There are some of my old comwades in Canada, sarving with their wegiments. I shall telegwaph to them. And this fellaw must wait. Now, dem it! let’s dwop the subject, and take anothaw dwink.”

All this was said with an air of assumed coolness, of which not even the drinks already taken could cover the pretence. It was, in truth, but a subterfuge to gain time, and reflect upon some plan to escape without calling Maynard out.

There might be a chance, if left to himself; but once in the hands of another, there would be no alternative but to stand up.

These were the thoughts rapidly coursing through Mr Swinton’s mind, while the fresh drinks were being prepared.

As the glass again touched his lips, they were white and dry; and the after-conversation between him and his picked-up acquaintances was continued on his part with an air of abstraction that told of a terrible uneasiness.

It was only when oblivious with more drink that he assumed his swagger; but an hour afterward, as he staggered upstairs, even the alcoholic “buzzing” in his brain did not hinder him from having a clear recollection of the encounter with the “demmed Iwishman!”

Once inside his own apartment, the air of the nobleman a as suddenly abandoned. So, too, the supposed resemblance in speech. His talk was now that of a commoner – intoxicated. It was addressed to his valet, still sitting up to receive him.

A small ante-chamber on one side was supposed to be the sleeping-place of this confidential servant. Judging by the dialogue that ensued, he might be well called confidential. A stranger to the situation would have been surprised it listening to it.

“A pretty night you’ve made of it!” said the valet, speaking more in the tone of a master.

“Fact – fac – hic’p! you speak th’ truth, Frank! No – not pretty night. The very reverse – a d-damned ugly night.”

“What do you mean, you sot?”

“Mean – mee-an! I mean the g-gig-game’s up. ’Tis, by Jingo! Splend’d chance. Never have such ’nother. Million dollars! All spoiled – th’ infernal fella!”

“What fellow?”

“Who d’ye ’spose I’ve seen – met him in the ball – ball – bar-room – down below. Let’s have another drink! Drinks all round – who’s g-gig-goin’ drink?”

“Try and talk a little straighter! What’s this about?”

“Whas’t ’bout? What sh’d be about? Him – hic’p! ’bout him.”

“Him! who?”

“Who – who – who – why, Maynard. Of course you know Maynard? B’long to the Thirty – Thirty – Don’t reclect the number of regiment. No matter for that. He’s here – the c-c-confounded cur.”

“Maynard here!” exclaimed the valet, in a tone strange for a servant.

“B’shure he is! Straight as a trivet, curse him! Safe to spoil everything – make a reg’lar mucker of it.”

“Are you sure it was he?”

“Sure – sure! I sh’d think so. He’s give me good reason, c-curse ’im!”

“Did you speak to him?”

“Yes – yes.”

“What did he say to you?”

“Not much said – not much. It’s what he’s – what he’s done.”

“What?”

“Devil of a lot – yes – yes. Never mind now. Let’s go to bed, Frank. Tell you all ’bout in the morning. Game’s up. ’Tis by J-Jupiter!”

As if incapable of continuing the dialogue – much less of undressing himself – Mr Swinton staggered across to the bed; and, sinking down upon it, was soon snoring and asleep.

It might seem strange that the servant should lie down beside him, which he did. Not after knowing that the little valet was his wife! It was the amiable “Fan” who thus shared the couch of her inebriate husband.

Chapter Thirteen.

Challenging the Challenger

“In faith, I’ve done a very foolish thing,” reflected the young Irishman, as he entered his dormitory, and flung himself into a chair. “Still there was no help for it. Such talk as that, even from a stranger like Dick Swinton, would play the deuce with me. Of course they don’t know him here; and he appears to be playing a great part among them; no doubt plucking such half-fledged pigeons as those with him below.

“Very likely he said something of the same to the girl’s mother – to herself? Perhaps that’s why I’ve been treated so uncourteously! Well, I have him on the hip now; and shall make him repent his incautious speeches. Kicked out of the British service! Lying cur, to have said it! To have thought of such a thing! And from what I’ve heard it’s but a leaf from his own history! This may have suggested it. I don’t believe he’s any longer in the Guards: else what should he be doing out here? Guardsmen don’t leave London and its delights without strong, and generally disagreeable, reasons. I’d lay all I’ve got he’s been disgraced. He was on the edge of it when I last heard of him.

“He’ll fight of course? He wouldn’t if he could help it – I know the sweep well enough for that. But I’ve given him no chance to get out of it. A kid glove across the face, to say nothing of a threat to spit in it – with a score of strange gentlemen looking on and listening! If ten times the poltroon he is, he dare not show the white feather now.

“Of course he’ll call me out; and what am I to do for a second? The three or four fellows I’ve scraped companionship with here are not the men – one of them. Besides, none of them might care to oblige me on such short acquaintance?

“What the deuce am I to do? Telegraph to the Count?” he continued, after a pause spent in reflecting. “He’s in New York, I know; and know he would come on at once. It’s just the sort of thing would delight the vieux sabreur, now that the Mexican affair is ended, and he’s once more compelled to sheathe his revolutionary sword. Come in! Who the deuce knocks at a gentleman’s door at this unceremonious hour?”

It was not yet 5 a.m. Outside the hotel could be heard carriage wheels rolling off with late roisterers, who had outstayed the ball.

“Surely it’s too soon for an emissary from Swinton? Come in!”

The door opening at the summons, discovered the night-porter of the hotel.

“Well! what want you, my man?”

“A gentleman wants you, sir.”

“Show him up!”

“He told me, sir, to give you his apologies for disturbing you at so early an hour. It’s because his business is very important.”

“Bosh! Why need he have said that?” Dick Swinton’s friend must be a more delicate gentleman than himself!

The last speech was in soliloquy, and not to the porter.

“He said, sir,” continued the latter, “that having come by the boat – ”

“By the boat?”

“Yes, sir, the New York boat. She’s just in.”

“Yes – yes; I heard the whistle. Well?”

“That having come by the boat, he thought – he thought – ”

“Confound it! my good fellow; don’t stay to tell me his thoughts secondhand. Where is he? Show him up here, and let him speak them for himself.”

“From New York?” continued Maynard, after the porter had disappeared. “Who of the Knickerbockers can it be? And what business of such importance as to startle a fellow from his sleep at half-past four in the morning – supposing me to have been asleep – which luckily I’m not Is the Empire city ablaze, and Fernando Wood, like a second Nero, fiddling in ruthless glee over its ruins? Ha! Roseveldt?”

“Maynard!”

The tone of the exchanged salutation told of a meeting unexpected, and after a period of separation. It was followed by a mutual embrace. Theirs was a friendship too fervent to be satisfied with the shaking of hands. Fellow campaigners – as friends – they had stood side by side under the hissing hailstorm of battle. Side by side had they charged up the difficult steep of Chapultepec, in the face of howitzers belching forth their deadly shower of shot – side by side fallen on the crest of the counterscarp, their blood streaming unitedly into the ditch.

They had not seen each other since. No wonder they should meet with emotions corresponding to the scenes through which they had passed.

Some minutes passed before either could find coherent speech. They only exchanged ejaculations. Maynard was the first to become calm.

“God bless you, my dear Count?” he said; “my grand instructor in the science of war. How glad I am to see you!”

“Not more than I to see you, cher camarade!”

“But say, why are you here? I did not expect you; though strange enough I was this moment thinking of you!”

“I’m here to see you – specially you!”

“Ah! For what, my dear Roseveldt?”

“You’ve said that I instructed you in the science of war. Be it so. But the pupil now excels his teacher – has gone far beyond him in fame. That’s why I’m here.”

“Explain yourself, Count!”

“Read this. It will save speech. You see it is addressed to yourself.”

Maynard took the sealed letter handed to him. It bore the superscription:

“Captain Maynard.”

Breaking it open, he read:

“The committee of German refugees in New York, in view of the late news from Europe, have hopes that freedom is not yet extinguished in their ancient fatherland. They have determined upon once more returning to it, and taking part in the struggle again begun in Baden and the Palatinate. Impressed by the gallantry displayed by you in the late Mexican war, with your protective kindness to their countrymen who served under you – and above all, your well-known devotion to the cause of liberty – they have unanimously resolved to offer you the leadership in this enterprise. While aware of its perils – as also of your courage to encounter them – they can promise you no reward save that of glory and a nation’s gratitude. To achieve this, they offer you a nation’s trust. Say, sir, are you prepared to accept it?”

Some half-dozen names were appended, at which Maynard simply glanced. He knew the men, and had heard of the movement.