Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (Illustrated)

by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

  The little gentleman as he wound up, had warmed so much, that he placed his hand on the hilt of his sword. Without one word of commentary, the major drew his, and with a nod of invitation, threw himself into an attitude of defence, and resting the point of his weapon upon the ground, awaited the attack of his adversary. Perhaps Lord Aspenly regretted the precipitate valour which had prompted him to place his hand on his sword-hilt, as much as he had ever regretted any act of his whole life; it was, however, too late to recede, and with the hurried manner of one who has made up his mind to a disagreeable thing, and wishes it soon over, he drew his also, and their blades were instantly crossed in mortal opposition.

  CHAPTER XXV.

  THE COMBAT AND ITS ISSUE.

  Lord Aspenly made one or two eager passes at his opponent, which were parried with perfect ease and coolness; and before he had well recovered his position from the last of those lunges, a single clanging sweep of the major’s sword, taking his adversary’s blade from the point to the hilt with irresistible force, sent his lordship’s weapon whirring through the air some eight or ten yards away.

  “Take your life, my lord,” said the major, contemptuously; “I give it to you freely, only wishing the present were more valuable. What do you say now, my lord, to the terms?”

  “I say, sir — what do I say?” echoed his lordship, not very coherently. “Major O’Leary, you have disarmed me, sir, and you ask me what I say to your terms. What do I say? Why, sir, I say again what I said before, that I cannot and will not subscribe to them.”

  Lord Aspenly, having thus delivered himself, looked half astonished and half frightened at his own valour.

  “Everyone to his taste — your lordship has an uncommon inclination for slaughter,” observed the major coolly, walking to the spot where lay the little gentleman’s sword, raising it, and carelessly presenting it to him: “take it, my lord, and use it more cautiously than you have done — defend yourself!”

  Little expecting another encounter, yet ashamed to decline it, his lordship, with a trembling hand, grasped the weapon once more, and again their blades were crossed in deadly combat. This time his lordship prudently forbore to risk his safety by an impetuous attack upon an adversary so cool and practised as the major, and of whose skill he had just had so convincing a proof. Major O’Leary, therefore, began the attack; and pressing his opponent with some slight feints and passes, followed him closely as he retreated for some twenty yards, and then, suddenly striking up to the point of his lordship’s sword with his own, he seized the little nobleman’s right arm at the wrist with a grasp like a vice, and once more held his life at his disposal.

  “Take your life for the second and the last time,” said the major, having suffered the wretched little gentleman for a brief pause to fully taste the bitterness of death; “mind, my lord, for the last time;” and so saying, he contemptuously flung his lordship from him by the arm which he grasped.

  “Now, my lord, before we begin for the last time, listen to me,” said the major, with a sternness, which commanded all the attention of the affrighted peer; “I desire that you should fully understand what I propose. I would not like to kill you under a mistake — there is nothing like a clear, mutual understanding during a quarrel. Such an understanding being once established, bloodshed, if it unfortunately occurs, can scarcely, even in the most scrupulous bosom, excite the mildest regret. I wish, my lord, to have nothing whatever to reproach myself with in the catastrophe which you appear to have resolved shall overtake you; and, therefore, I’ll state the whole case for your dying consolation in as few words as possible. Don’t be in a hurry, my lord, I’ll not detain you more than five minutes in this miserable world. Now, my lord, you have two strong, indeed I may call them in every sense fatal, objections to my proposal. The first is, that if you write the letter I propose, you must fight Sir Richard and young Henry Ashwoode. Now, I pledge myself, my soul, and honour, as a Christian, a soldier, and a gentleman, that I will stand between you and them — that I will protect you completely from all responsibility upon that score — and that if anyone is to fight with either of them, it shall not be you. Your second objection is, that having been fool enough to tell the world that you were coming here for a wife, you are ashamed to go away without one. Now, without meaning to be offensive, I never heard anything more idiotic in the whole course of my life. But if it must be so, and that you cannot go away without a wife, why the d —— l don’t you ask Emily Copland — a fine girl with some thousands of pounds, I believe, and at all events dying for love of you, as I am sure you see yourself? You can’t care for one more than the other, and why the deuce need you trouble your head about their gossip, if anyone wonders at the change? And now, my lord, mark me, I have said all that is to be said in the way of commentary or observation upon my proposal, and I must add a word or two about the consequences of finally rejecting it. I have spared your life twice, my lord, within these five minutes. If you refuse the accommodation I have proposed, I will a third time give you an opportunity of disembarrassing yourself of the whole affair by running me through the body — in which, if you fail, so sure as you are this moment alive and breathing before me, you shall, at the end of the next five, be a corpse. So help me God!”

  Major O’Leary paused, leaving Lord Aspenly in a state of confusion and horror, scarcely short of distraction.

  There was no mistaking the major’s manner, and the old beau garçon already felt in imagination the cold steel busy with his intestines.

  “But, Major O’Leary,” said he, despairingly, “will you engage — can you pledge yourself that no mischief shall follow from my withdrawing as you say? not that I would care to avoid a duel when occasion required; but no one likes to unnecessarily risk himself. Will you indeed prevent all unpleasantness?”

  “Did I pledge my soul and honour that I would?” inquired the major sternly.

  “Well, I am satisfied. I do agree,” replied his lordship. “But is there any occasion for me to remove tonight?”

  “Every occasion,” replied the major, coolly. “You must come directly with me, and write the letter — and this evening, before supper, you must leave Morley Court. And, above all things, just remember this, let there be no trickery or treachery in this matter. So sure as I see the smallest symptom of anything of the kind, I will bring about such another piece of work as has not been for many a long day. Am I fully understood?”

  “Perfectly — perfectly, my dear sir,” replied the nobleman. “Clearly understood. And believe me, Major, when I say that nothing but the fact that I myself, for private reasons, am not unwilling to break the matter off, could have induced me to cooperate with you in this business. Believe me, sir, otherwise I should have fought until one or other of us had fallen to rise no more.”

  “To be sure you would, my lord,” rejoined the major, with edifying gravity. “And in the meantime your lordship will much oblige me by walking up to the house. There’s pen and paper in Sir Richard’s study; and between us we can compose something worthy of the occasion. Now, my lord, if you please.”

  Thus, side by side, walked the two elderly gentlemen, like the very best friends, towards the old house. And shrewd indeed would have been that observer who could have gathered from the manner of either (whatever their flushed faces and somewhat ruffled exterior might have told), as with formal courtesy they threaded the trim arbours together, that but a few minutes before each had sought the other’s life.

  CHAPTER XXVI.

  THE HELL — GORDON CHANCEY — LUCK — FRENZY AND A RESOLUTION.

  The night which followed this day found young Henry Ashwoode, his purse replenished with banknotes, that day advanced by Craven, to the amount of one thousand pounds, once more engaged in the delirious prosecution of his favourite pursuit — gaming. In the neighbourhood of the theatre, in that narrow street now known as Smock Alley, there stood in those days a kind of coffee-house, rather of the better sort. From the public-room, in which actors, politicians, off
icers, and occasionally a member of parliament, or madcap Irish peer, chatted, lounged, and sipped their sack or coffee — the initiated, or, in short, any man with a good coat on his back and a few pounds in his pocket, on exchanging a brief whisper with a singularly sleek-looking gentleman, who sate in the prospective of the background, might find his way through a small, baize-covered door in the back of the chamber, and through a lobby or two, and thence upstairs into a suite of rooms, decently hung with gilded leather, and well lighted with a profusion of wax candles, where hazard and cards were played for stakes unlimited, except by the fortunes and the credit of those who gamed. The ceaseless clang of the dice-box and rattle of the dice upon the table, and the clamorous challenging and taking of the odds upon the throwing, accompanied by the ferocious blasphemies of desperate losers, who, with clenched hands and distracted gestures, poured, unheeded, their frantic railings and imprecations, as they, in unpitied agony, withdrew from the fatal table; and now and then the scarcely less hideous interruptions of brutal quarrels, accusations, and recriminations among the excited and half-drunken gamblers, were the sounds which greeted the ear of him who ascended toward this unhallowed scene. The rooms were crowded — the atmosphere hot and stifling, and the company in birth and pretensions, if not in outward attire, to the full as mixed and various as the degrees of fortune, which scattered riches and ruin promiscuously among them. In the midst of all this riotous uproar, several persons sate and played at cards as if (as, perhaps, was really the case), perfectly unconscious of the ceaseless hubbub going on around them. Here you might see in one place the hare-brained young squire, scarcely three months launched upon the road to ruin, snoring in drunken slumber, in his deep-cushioned chair, with his cravat untied, and waistcoat loosened, and his last cup of mulled sack upset upon the table beside him, and streaming upon his velvet breeches and silken hose — while his lightly-won bank notes, stuffed into the loose coat pocket, and peeping temptingly from the aperture, invited the fingers of the first chevalier d’industrie who wished to help himself. In another place you might behold two sharpers fulfilling the conditions of their partnership, by wheedling a half-tipsy simpleton into a quiet game of ombre. And again, elsewhere you might descry some bully captain, whose occupation having ended with the Irish wars, indemnified himself as best he might by such contributions as he could manage to levy from the young and reckless in such haunts as this, busily and energetically engaged in browbeating a timid greenhorn, who has the presumption to fancy that he has won something from the captain, which the captain has forgotten to pay. In another place you may see, unheeded and unheeding, the wretch who has played and lost his last stake; with white, unmeaning face and idiotic grin, glaring upon the floor, thought and feeling palsied, something worse, and more appalling than a maniac.

  The whole character of the assembly bespoke the recklessness and the selfishness of its ingredients. There was, too, among them a certain coarse and revolting disregard and defiance of the etiquettes and conventional decencies of social life. More than half the men were either drunk or tipsy; some had thrown off their coats and others wore their hats; altogether the company had more the appearance of a band of reckless rioters in a public street, than of an assembly of persons professing to be gentlemen, and congregated in a drawingroom.

  By the fireplace in the first and by far the largest and most crowded of the three drawingrooms, there sate a person whose appearance was somewhat remarkable. He was an ill-made fellow, with long, lank, limber legs and arms, and an habitual lazy stoop. His face was sallow; his mouth, heavy and sensual, was continually moistened with the brandy and water which stood beside him upon a small spider-table, placed there for his especial use. His eyes were long-cut, and seldom more than half open, and carrying in their sleepy glitter a singular expression of treachery and brute cunning. He wore his own lank and grizzled hair, instead of a peruke, and sate before the fire with a drowsy inattention to all that was passing in the room; and, except for the occasional twinkle of his eye as it glanced from the corner of his half-closed lids, he might have been believed to have been actually asleep. His attitude was lounging and listless, and all his movements so languid and heavy, that they seemed to be rather those of a somnambulist than of a waking man. His dress had little pretension, and less neatness; it was a suit of threadbare, mulberry-coloured cloth, with steel buttons, and evidently but little acquainted with the clothes-brush. His linen was soiled and crumpled, his shoes ill-cleaned, his beard had enjoyed at least two days’ undisturbed growth; and the dingy hue of his face and hands bespoke altogether the extremest negligence and slovenliness of person.

  This slovenly and ungainly being, who sate apparently unconscious of the existence of any other earthly thing than the fire on which he gazed, and the grog which from time to time he lazily sipped, was Gordon Chancey, Esquire, of Skycopper Court, Whitefriar Street, in the city of Dublin, barrister-at-law — a gentleman who had never been known to do any professional business, but who managed, nevertheless, to live, and to possess, somehow or other, the command of very considerable sums of money, which he most advantageously invested by discounting, at exorbitant interest, short bills and promissory notes in such places as that in which he now sate — one of his favourite resorts, by the way. At intervals of from five to ten minutes he slowly drew from the vast pocket of his clumsy coat a bulky pocketbook, and sleepily conned over certain memoranda with which its leaves were charged — then having looked into its well-lined receptacles, to satisfy himself that no miracle of legerdemain had abstracted the treasure on which his heart was set, he once more fastened the buckle of the leathern budget, and deposited it again in his pocket. This procedure, and his attentions to the spirits and water, which from time to time he swallowed, succeeded one another with a monotonous regularity altogether undisturbed by the uproarious scene which surrounded him.

  As the night wore apace, and fortune played her wildest pranks, many an applicant — some successfully, and some in vain — sought Chancey’s succour.

  “Come, my fine fellow, tip me a cool hundred,” exclaimed a fashionably-dressed young man, flushed with the combined excitement of wine and the dice, and tapping Chancey on the back impatiently with his knuckles— “this moment — will you, and be d — — “

  “Oh, dear me, dear me, Captain Markham,” drawled the barrister in a low, drowsy tone, as he turned sleepily toward the speaker, “have you lost the other hundred so soon? Oh, dear! — oh, dear!”

  “Never you mind, old fox. Shell out, if you’re going to do it,” rejoined the applicant. “What is it to you?”

  “Oh, dear me, dear me!” murmured Chancey, as he languidly drew the pocketbook from his pocket. “When shall I make it payable? Tomorrow?”

  “D —— n tomorrow,” replied the captain. “I’ll sleep all tomorrow. Won’t a fortnight do, you harpy?”

  “Well, well — sign — sign it here,” said the usurer, handing the paper, with a pen, to the young gentleman, and indicating with his finger the spot where the name was to be written.

  The roué wrote his name without ever reading the paper; and Chancey carefully deposited it in his book.

  “The money — the money — d —— n you, will you never give it!” exclaimed the young man, actually stamping with impatience, as if every moment’s absence from the hazard-table cost him a fortune. “Give — give — give them.”

  He seized the notes, and without counting, stuffed them into his coatpocket, and plunged in an instant again among the gamblers who crowded the table.

  “Mr. Chancey — Mr. Chancey,” said a slight young man, whose whole appearance betokened a far progress in the wasting of a mortal decline. His face was pale as death itself, and glittering with the cold, clammy dew of weakness and excitement. The eye was bright, wild, and glassy; and the features of this attenuated face trembled and worked in the spasms of agonized anxiety and despair — with timid voice, and with the fearful earnestness of one pleading for his life — with knees half bent, an
d head stretched forward, while his thin fingers were clutched and knotted together in restless feverishness. He still repeated at intervals in low, supplicating accents— “Mr. Chancey — Mr. Chancey — can you spare a moment, sir — Mr. Chancey, good sir — Mr. Chancey.”

  For many minutes the worthy barrister gazed on apathetically into the fire, as if wholly unconscious that this piteous spectacle was by his side, and all but begging his attention.

  “Mr. Chancey, good sir — Mr. Chancey, kind sir — only one moment — one word — Mr. Chancey.”

  This time the wretched young man advanced one of his trembling hands, and laid it hesitatingly upon Chancey’s knee — the seat of mercy, as the ancients thought; but truly here it was otherwise. The hand was repulsed with insolent rudeness; and the wretched suppliant stood trembling in silence before the bill-discounter, who looked upon him with a scowl of brute ferocity, which the timid advances he had made could hardly have warranted.

  “Well,” growled Chancey, keeping his baleful eyes fixed not very encouragingly upon the poor young man.

  “I have been unfortunate, sir — I have lost my last shilling — that is, the last I have about me at present.”

  “Well,” repeated he.

  “I might win it all back,” continued the suppliant, becoming more voluble as he proceeded. “I might recover it all — it has often happened to me before. Oh, sir, it is possible — certain, if I had but a few pounds to play on.”

  “Ay, the old story,” rejoined Chancey.

  “Yes, sir, it is indeed — indeed it is, Mr. Chancey,” said the young man, eagerly, catching at this improvement upon his first laconic address as an indication of some tendency to relent, and making, at the same time, a most woeful attempt to look pleasant— “it is, sir — the old story, indeed; but this time it will come out true — indeed it will. Will you do one little note for me — a little one — twenty pounds?”