General Bounce; Or, The Lady and the Locusts. G. J. Whyte-Melville
as he was whirled along on the London and North-Western, how the young soldier’s thoughts ran riot in the future. Would he have changed places with any dignitary in the world, monarch, prince, or peer, or even with the heretofore much-admired Frank Hardingstone? Not he. None of these held a commission in the 20th Lancers; and were to be pitied, if not despised, accordingly. What a lot was his! Two months’ leave at least, and at his time of life two months is an age, to be spent in the gaieties of Newton-Hollows, and the attenuation of Haphazard, Hyacinth, and Mayfly, the mettle of which very excellent steeds Master Charlie had fully resolved to prove. All the delights of Bubbleton and the county gaieties, with the companionship of Blanche, that more than sister, without whom, from his earliest boyhood, no enjoyment could be half enjoyed. And then the flattering pride she would feel in her officer-cousin (Charlie felt for his moustaches so perseveringly, that a short-sighted fellow-traveller thought he had a sore lip), and the request he should be in amongst the young ladies of the neighbourhood, with a romantic conviction that love was not for him, that “the sword was the soldier’s bride,” etc. Then the dreamer looked forward into the vistas of the future; the parade, the bivouac, and the charge; night-watches in a savage country—for the 20th were even then in Kaffirland—the trumpet alarum, the pawing troop-horses, the death-shock and the glittering blade; a certain cornet hurraing in the van, the admiration of brother officers, and the veteran colonel’s applause; a Gazette promotion and honourable mention in dispatches; Uncle Baldwin’s uproarious glee at home; and Blanche’s quiet smile. Who would not be a boy again? Yet not with the stipulation we hear so often urged, of knowing as much as we do now. That knowledge would destroy it all. No, let us have boyhood once more, with its vigorous credulity and its impossible romance, with that glorious ignorance which turns everything to gold, that sanguine temperament which sheds its rosy hues even over the bleak landscape of future old age. “Poor lad! how green he is,” says worldly experience, with a sneer of affected pity at those raptures it would give its very existence to feel again. “Happy fellow; he’s a boy still!” says good-natured philosophy with a smile, half saddened at the thoughts of the coming clouds, which shall too surely darken that sunny horizon. But each has been through the crucible, each recognises that sparkle of the virgin gold which shall never again appear on the dead surface of the metal, beaten and stamped and fabricated into a mere conventional coin. The train whizzes on, the early evening sets in, tired post-horses grope their way up the dark avenue, wheels are heard grinding round the gravel sweep before the house, and the expected guest arrives at Newton-Hallows.
“Goodness! Charlie, how you have been smoking,” exclaims Blanche, after their first affectionate greeting, while she shrinks a little from the cousinly embrace somewhat redolent of tobacco; “and how you’re grown, dear—I suppose you don’t like to be told you are grown now—and moustaches, I declare,” she adds, bursting out laughing, as she catches Charlie’s budding honours en profil; “ ’pon my word they’re a great improvement.” Charlie winced a little. There is always a degree of awkwardness even amongst the nearest and dearest, when people meet after a long absence, and the less artificial the character, the more it betrays itself; but Blanche was in great spirits and rattled on, till the General made his appearance, bustling in perfectly radiant with hospitality.
“Glad to see ye, my lad—glad to see ye; have been expecting ye this half-hour—trains always late—and always will be till they hang a director—I’ve hanged many a man for less, myself, ‘up the country.’ Fact, Blanche, I assure you. You’ll have lots of time to dress,” he observed, glancing at the clock’s white face shining in the fire-light—and adding, with a playful dig of his fingers into Charlie’s lean ribs, “We dine in half-an-hour, temps militaire, you dog! We must teach you that punctuality and good commissariat are the two first essentials for a soldier.” So the General rang a peal for hand candles that might have brought a house down.
And Charlie was well acquainted with all the inmates of Newton-Hollows save Mrs. Delaval. Of her he had often heard Blanche speak as the most delightful of companions, and indulgent of governesses, but he had never set eyes on her in person; so as he effected his tie before the glass, and drew his fingers over those precious moustaches to discover if change of air had already influenced their growth, he began to speculate on the character and appearance of the lady who was to complete their family party. “A middle-aged woman,” thought Charlie—for Blanche, on whom some ten years of seniority made a great impression, had always described her as such—“forty, or thereabouts—stout, jolly-looking and good-humoured, I’ll be bound—I know I shall like her—wears a cap, I’ve no doubt, and a front, too, most probably—sits very upright, and talks like a book, till one knows her well—spectacles, I shouldn’t wonder (it’s no use making much of a tie for her)—pats Blanche on the shoulder when she gives her precedence, and keeps her hands in black lace mittens, I’ll bet a hundred!” With which mental wager Master Charlie blew his candles out, and swaggered down-stairs, feeling in his light evening costume, as indeed he looked, well-made, well-dressed, and extremely like a gentleman.
Mischievous Blanche was enchanted at the obvious start of astonishment with which her introduction was received by her cousin—“Mr. Kettering, Mrs. Delaval.” Charlie looked positively dismayed. Was this the comfortable, round-about, good-humoured body he had expected to see?—was that tall, stately figure, dressed in the most perfect taste, with an air of more than high-breeding, almost of command, such as duchesses may be much admired without possessing—was that the dowdy middle-aged governess?—were those long, deep-set eyes, the orbs that should have glared at him through spectacles, and would black lace mittens have been an improvement on those white taper hands, beautiful in their perfect symmetry without a single ornament? Charlie bowed low to conceal the blush that overspread his countenance. The boy was completely taken aback, and, when he led her in to dinner, and heard those thrilling tones murmuring in his ear, the spell, we may be sure, lost none of its power. “She is beautiful,” thought Charlie, “and nearly as tall as I am;” and he was pleased to recollect that Blanche had thought him grown. Ladies, we opine, are not so impressionable as men—at least they do not allow themselves to appear so. Either they are more cautious in their judgments, which we have heard denied by those who plume themselves on knowledge of the sex, or their hypocrisy is more perfect; certainly a young lady’s education is based upon principles of the most frigid reserve, and her decorous bearing, we believe, is never laid aside, even in tea-rooms, conservatories, shaded walks, and other such resorts, fatal to the equanimity of masculine understanding; therefore Mary Delaval did by no means lose her presence of mind on being introduced to the young gentleman, of whose deeds and sentiments she had heard so much. Woman as she was, she could not but be gratified at the evident admiration her appearance created in this new acquaintance, and truth to speak, “Cousin Charlie” was a youth whose allegiance few female hearts would have entirely scorned to possess; yet there was no occasion to tell the young gentleman as much to his face.
A very good-looking face it was too, with its wide, intellectual brow, round which the brown silky hair waved in such becoming clusters—its perfect oval and delicate high-bred features, if they had a fault, too girlish in their soft, winning expression—in fact, he was as like Blanche as possible; and had his moustaches been shaved, could he indeed have submitted to the sacrifice, his stature lowered, and a bonnet and shawl put on, he might well have passed for his pretty cousin. There was nothing effeminate though about Charlie, save his countenance and his smile. That slender, graceful figure was lithe and wiry as the panther’s—those symmetrical limbs could toil, those little feet could walk and run, after a Hercules would have been blown and overpowered; and when standing up to his wicket, rousing a horse, or putting him at a fence, there was a game sparkle in his eye that, to use Frank Hardingstone’s expression, “meant mischief.” Some of these good-looking young gentlemen are “ugly customers” enough when their blood is up, and Cousin Charlie, like the rest, had quite as much “devil” in his composition as was good for him. The “pretty page” only wanted a few years over his head, a little more beard upon his lip, to be a perfect Paladin.
But the spell went on working the whole of dinner-time; in vain the General told his most wondrous anecdotes, scolded his servants at intervals, and pressed his good cheer on the little party—Charlie could not get over his astonishment. Mrs. Delaval sat by him, looking like a queen, and talked in