it looked so happy that he never thought of grudging her her pleasure: and happy
he might have remained in this contemplation, regarding not the circle of
dancers who were galloping and whirling on at their usual swift rate, but her,
who was the centre of all joy and pleasure for him;��when suddenly a shrill
voice was heard behind him, crying, "Get out of the way, hang you!" and suddenly
there bounced against him Ringwood Twysden, pulling Miss Flora Trotter round the
room, one of the most powerful and intrepid dancers of that season at Paris.
They hurtled past Philip; they shot him forward against a pillar. He heard a
screech, an oath, and another loud laugh from Twysden, and beheld the scowls of
Miss Trotter as that rapid creature bumped at length into a place of safety.
I told you about Philip's coat. It was very tight. The daylight had long been
struggling to make an entry at the seams. As he staggered up against the wall,
crack! went a great hole at his back; and crack! one of his gold buttons came
off, leaving a rent in his chest. It was in those days when gold buttons still
lingered on the breasts of some brave men, and we have said simple Philip still
thought his coat a fine one.
There was not only a rent of the seam, there was not only a burst button, but
there was also a rip in Philip's rich cut-velvet waistcoat, with the gold
sprigs, which he thought so handsome��a great, heartrending scar. What was to be
done? Retreat was necessary. He told Miss Charlotte of the hurt he had received,
whose face wore a very comical look of pity at his misadventure��he covered part
of his wound with his gibus hat��and he thought he would try and make his way
out by the garden of the hotel, which, of course, was illuminated, and bright,
and crowded, but not so very bright and crowded as the saloons, galleries,
supper-rooms, and halls of gilded light in which the company, for the most part,
assembled.
So our poor wounded friend wandered into the garden, over which the moon was
shining with the most blank indifference at the fiddling, feasting, and
particoloured lamps. He says that his mind was soothed by the aspect of yonder
placid moon and twinkling stars, and that he had altogether forgotten his
trumpery little accident and torn coat and waistcoat: but I doubt about the
entire truth of this statement, for there have been some occasions when he, Mr.
Philip, has mentioned the subject, and owned that he was mortified and in a
rage.
Well. He went into the garden: and was calming himself by contemplating the
stars, when, just by that fountain where there is Pradier's little statue
of��Moses in the Bulrushes, let us say��round which there was a beautiful row of
illuminated lamps, lighting up a great coronal of flowers, which my dear readers
are at liberty to select and arrange according to their own exquisite
taste;��near this little fountain he found three gentlemen talking together.
The high voice of one Philip could hear, and knew from old days. Ringwood
Twysden, Esquire, always liked to talk and to excite himself with other persons'
liquor. He had been drinking the Sovereign's health with great assiduity, I
suppose, and was exceedingly loud and happy. With Ringwood was Mr. Woolcomb,
whose countenance the lamps lit up in a fine lurid manner, and whose eyeballs
gleamed in the twilight: and the third of the group was our young friend Mr.
Lowndes.
"I owed him one, you see, Lowndes," said Mr. Ringwood Twysden. "I hate the
fellow! Hang him, always did! I saw the great hulkin brute standing there.
Couldn't help myself. Give you my honour, couldn't help myself. I just drove
Miss Trotter at him ��sent her elbow well into him, and spun him up against the
wall. The buttons cracked off the beggar's coat, begad! What business had he
there, hang him? Gad, sir, he made a cannon off an old woman in blue, and went
into. ...
Here Mr. Ringwood's speech came to an end: for his cousin stood before him, grim
and biting his mustachios.
"Hullo!" piped the other. "Who wants you to overhear my conversation? Dammy, I
say! I ..."
Philip put out that hand with the torn glove. The glove was in a dreadful state
of disruption now. He worked the hand well into his kinsman's neck, and twisting
Ringwood round into a proper position, brought that poor old broken boot so to
bear upon the proper quarter, that Ringwood was discharged into the little font,
and lighted amidst the flowers, and the water, and the oil-lamps, and made a
dreadful mess and splutter amongst them. And as for Philip's coat, it was torn
I don't know how many of the brass buttons had revolted and parted company from
the poor old cloth, which cracked, and split, and tore under the agitation of
that beating angry bosom. I blush as I think of Mr. Firmin in this ragged state,
a great rent all across his back, and his prostrate enemy lying howling in the
water, amidst the sputtering, crashing oil-lamps at his feet. When Cinderella
quitted her first ball, just after the clock struck twelve, we all know how
shabby she looked. Philip was a still more disreputable object when he slunk
away. I don't know by what side door Mr. Lowndes eliminated him. He also
benevolently took charge of Philip's kinsman and antagonist, Mr. Ringwood
Twysden. Mr. Twysden's hands, coat-tails, were very much singed and scalded by
the oil, and cut by the broken glass, which was all extracted at the Beaujon
Hospital, but not without much suffering on the part of the patient. But though
young Lowndes spoke up for Philip, in describing the scene (I fear not without
laughter), his Excellency caused Mr. Firmin's name to be erased from his party
lists: and I am sure no sensible man will defend Philip's conduct for a moment.
Of this lamentable fracas which occurred in the Hotel Garden, Miss Baynes and
her parents had no knowledge for awhile. Charlotte was too much occupied with
her dancing, which she pursued with all her might: papa was at cards with some
sober male and female veterans: and mamma was looking with delight at her
daughter, whom the young gentlemen of many embassies were charmed to choose for
a partner. When Lord Headbury, Lord Estridge's son, was presented to Miss
Baynes, her mother was so elated that she was ready to dance too. I do not envy
Mrs. Major MacWhirter, at Tours, the perusal of that immense manuscript in which
her sister recorded the events of the ball. Here was Charlotte, beautiful,
elegant, accomplished, admired everywhere, with young men, young noblemen of
immense property and expectations, wild about her; and engaged by a promise to a
rude, ragged, presumptuous, ill-bred young man, without a penny in the
world��wasn't it provoking? Ah, poor Philip! How that little sour, yellow
mother-in-law elect did scowl at him when he came with rather a shamefaced look
to pay his duty to his sweetheart on the day after the ball! Mrs. Baynes had
caused her daughter to dress with extra smartness, had forbidden the poor child
to go out, and coaxed her, and wheedled her, and dressed her with I know not
what ornamen
ts of her own, with a fond expectation that Lord Headbury, that the
yellow young Spanish attach�, that the sprightly Prussian secretary, and
Walsingham Hely, Charlotte's partners at the ball, would certainly call; and the
only equipage that appeared at Madame Smolensk's gate was a hack cab, which
drove up at evening, and out of which poor Philip's well-known tattered boots
came striding. Such a fond mother as Mrs. Baynes may well have been out of
humour.
As for Philip, he was unusually shy and modest. He did not know in what light
his friends would regard his escapade of the previous evening. He had been
sitting at home all the morning in state, and in company with a Polish colonel,
who lived in his hotel, and whom Philip had selected to be his second in case
the battle of the previous night should have any suite. He had left that colonel
in company with a bag of tobacco and an order for unlimited beer, whilst he
himself ran up to catch a glimpse of his beloved. The Bayneses had not heard of
the battle of the previous night. They were full of the ball, of Lord Estridge's
affability, of the Golconda ambassador's diamonds, of the appearance of the
royal princes who honoured the f�te, of the most fashionable Paris talk in a
word. Philip was scolded, snubbed, and coldly received by mamma; but he was used
to that sort of treatment, and greatly relieved by finding that she was
unacquainted with his own disorderly behaviour. He did not tell Charlotte about
the quarrel; a knowledge of it might alarm the little maiden; and so for once
our friend was discreet, and held his tongue.
But if he had any influence with the editor of Galignani's Messenger, why did he
not entreat the conductors of that admirable journal to forego all mention of
the fracas at the embassy ball? Two days after the f�te, I am sorry to say,
there appeared a paragraph in the paper narrating the circumstances of the
fight. And the guilty Philip found a copy of that paper on the table before Mrs.
Baynes and the general when he came to the Champs Elys�es according to his wont.
Behind that paper sate Major-General Baynes, C. B., looking confused, and beside
him his lady frowning like Rhadamanthus. But no Charlotte was in the room.
Philip's heart beat very quickly at seeing this grim pair, and the guilty
newspaper before them, on which Mrs. Baynes' lean right hand was laid. "So,
sir," she cried, "you still honour us with your company: after distinguishing
yourself as you did the night before last. Fighting and boxing like a porter at
his Excellency's ball. It's disgusting! I have no other word for it:
disgusting!" And here I suppose she nudged the general, or gave him some look or
signal by which he knew he was to come into action; for Baynes straightway
advanced and delivered his fire.
"Faith, sir, more bub-ub-blackguard conduct I never heard of in my life! That's
the only word for it: the only word for it," cries Baynes.
"The general knows what blackguard conduct is, and yours is that conduct, Mr.
Firmin! It is all over the town: is talked of everywhere: will be in all the
newspapers. When his lordship heard of it, he was furious. Never, never, will
you be admitted into the Embassy again, after disgracing yourself as you have
done," cries the lady.
"Disgracing yourself, that's the word.��And disgraceful your conduct was,
begad!" cries the officer second in command.
"You don't know my provocation," pleaded poor Philip. "As I came up to him
Twysden was boasting that he had struck me��and��and laughing at me."
"And a pretty figure you were to come to a ball! Who could help laughing, sir?"
"He bragged of having insulted me, and I lost my temper, and struck him in
return. The thing is done and can't be helped," growled Philip.
"Strike a little man before ladies! Very brave indeed!" cries the lady.
"Mrs. Baynes!"
"I call it cowardly. In the army we consider it cowardly to quarrel before
ladies," continues Mrs. General B.
"I have waited at home for two days to see if he wanted any more," groaned
Philip.
"Oh, yes! After insulting and knocking a little man down, you want to murder
him! And you call that the conduct of a Christian��the conduct of a gentleman!"
"The conduct of a ruffian, by George!" says General Baynes.
"It was prudent of you to choose a very little man, and to have the ladies
within hearing!" continues Mrs. Baynes. "Why, I wonder you haven't beaten my
dear children next. Don't you, general, wonder he has not knocked down our poor
boys? They are quite small. And it is evident that laides being present is no
hindrance to Mr. Firmin's boxing-matches."
"The conduct is gross, and unworthy of a gentleman," reiterates the general.
"You hear what that man says��that old man, who never says an unkind word? That
veteran, who has been in twenty battles, and never struck a man before women
yet? Did you, Charles? He has given you his opinion. He has called you a name
which I won't soil my lips with repeating, but which you deserve. And do you
suppose, sir, that I will give my blessed child to a man who has acted as you
have acted, and been called a��? Charles! General! I will go to my grave rather
than see my daughter given up to such a man!"
"Good heavens!" said Philip, his knees trembling under him. "You don't mean to
say that you intend to go from your word, and��"
"Oh! you threaten about money, do you? Because your father was a cheat, you
intend to try and make us suffer, do you?" shrieks the lady. "A man who strikes
a little man before ladies will commit any act of cowardice, I daresay. And if
you wish to beggar my family, because your father was a rogue��"
"My dear!" interposes the general.
"Wasn't he a rogue, Baynes? Is there any denying it? Haven't you said so a
hundred and a hundred times? A nice family to marry into! No, Mr. Firmin! You
may insult me as you please. You may strike little men before ladies. You may
lift your great wicked hand against that poor old man, in one of your tipsy
fits: but I know a mother's love, a mother's duty��and I desire that we see you
no more."
"Great Powers!" cries Philip, aghast. "You don't mean to��to separate me from
Charlotte, general! I have your word. You encouraged me. I shall break my heart.
I'll go down on my knees to that fellow. I'll��oh!��you don't mean what you
say!" And, scared and sobbing, the poor fellow clasped his strong hands
together, and appealed to the general.
Baynes was under his wife's eye. "I think," he said, "your conduct has been
confoundedly bad, disorderly, and ungentlemanlike. You can't support my child,
if you marry her. And if you have the least spark of honour in you, as you say
you have, it is you, Mr. Firmin, who will break off the match, and release the
poor child from certain misery. By George, sir, how is a man who fights and
quarrels in a nobleman's ball-room, to get on in the world? How is a man, who
can't afford a decent coat to his back, to keep a wife? The more I have known
you, the more I have felt tha
t the engagement would bring misery upon my child!
Is that what you want? A man of honour��" ("Honour!" in italics, from Mrs.
Baynes.) "Hush, my dear!��A man of spirit would give her up, sir. What have you
to offer but beggary, by George? Do you want my girl to come home to your
lodgings, and mend your clothes?"��"I think I put that point pretty well, Bunch,
my boy," said the general, talking of the matter afterwards. "I hit him there,
sir."
The old soldier did indeed strike his adversary there with a vital stab.
Philip's coat, no doubt, was ragged, and his purse but light. He had sent money
to his father out of his small stock. There were one or two servants in the old
house in Parr Street, who had been left without their wages, and a part of these
debts Philip had paid. He knew his own violence of temper, and his unruly
independence. He thought very humbly of his talents, and often doubted of his
capacity to get on in the world. In his less hopeful moods, he trembled to think
that he might be bringing poverty and unhappiness upon his dearest little
maiden, for whom he would joyfully have sacrificed his blood, his life. Poor
Philip sank back sickening and fainting almost under Baynes's words.
"You'll let me��you'll let me see her?" he gasped out.
"She's unwell. She is in her bed. She can't appear to-day!" cried the mother.
"Oh, Mrs. Baynes! I must��I must see her," Philip said; and fairly broke out in
a sob of pain.
"This is the man that strikes men before women!" said Mrs. Baynes. "Very
courageous, certainly!"
"By George, Eliza!" the general cried out, starting up, "it's too bad��"
"Infirm of purpose, give me the daggers!" Philip yelled out, whilst describing
the scene to his biographer in after days. "Macbeth would never have done the
murders but for that little quiet woman at his side. When the Indian prisoners
are killed, the squaws always invent the worst tortures. You should have seen
that fiend and her livid smile, as she was drilling her gimlets into my heart! I
don't know how I offended her. I tried to like her, sir. I had humbled myself
before her. I went on her errands. I played cards with her. I sate and listened
to her dreadful stories about Barrackpore and the governor-general. I wallowed
in the dust before her, and she hated me. I can see her face now: her cruel
yellow face, and her sharp teeth, and her gray eyes. It was the end of August,
and pouring a storm that day. I suppose my poor child was cold and suffering
up-stairs, for I heard the poking of a fire in her little room. When I hear a
fire poking of a fire in her little room. When I hear a fire poked over-head
now��twenty years after��the whole thing comes back to me; and I suffer over
again that infernal agony. Were I to live a thousand years, I could not forgive
her. I never did her a wrong, but I can't forgive her. Ah, my heaven, how that
woman tortured me!"
"I think I know one or two similar instances," said Mr. Firmin's biographer.
"You are always speaking ill of women!" said Mr. Firmin's biographer's wife.
"No, thank heaven!" said the gentleman. "I think I know some of whom I never
thought or spoke a word of evil. My dear, will you give Philip some more tea?"
and with this the gentleman's narrative is resumed.
The rain was beating down the avenue as Philip went into the street. He looked
up at Charlotte's window: but there was no sign. There was a flicker of a fire
there. The poor girl had the fever, and was shuddering in her little room,
weeping and sobbing on Madame Smolensk's shoulder, que c'�tait piti� � voir,
madame said. Her mother had told her she must break from Philip; had invented
and spoken a hundred calumnies against him; declared that he never cared for
her; that he had loose principles, and was for ever haunting theatres and bad
company. "It's not true, mother, it's not true!" the little girl had cried,
flaming up in revolt for a moment: but she soon subsided in tears and misery,