Only an Ensign: A Tale of the Retreat from Cabul (Complete)
9781465655110
100 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
Le jour viendra—it is the motto of our family—given to us by Henry VI. 'The day will come,' said old Lord Lamorna, proudly, as he lay back in his easy chair, with his elbows resting on the arms thereof, and the tips of his upraised fingers placed together, as if he was about to pray; "and most applicable is that motto to you, nephew Richard, for I am sure that when you are my age you will regret not having taken my advice." Richard Trevelyan smiled, but looked somewhat uneasily at his younger brother Downie. "You are too rich to throw yourself away, and too well-born even for the most highly accomplished daughter of a cotton-lord, or knighted mill-owner," resumed his stately old uncle, sententiously; "a fellow knighted too probably for dirty ministerial work; but assume a virtue if you have it not, and let us see you——" "Excuse me, my lord—excuse me, my dear uncle. I have no desire to—to marry; why you—yourself——" "Don't cite me, Richard. You are only forty-three, if so much" (and here, for the information of our young lady readers, we may mention that Richard is not the hero of these pages). "I am past seventy, yet I may marry yet, and do you all out of the title," added Lamorna, with a laugh like a cackle. "My brother Dick is certainly the most listless of men," said Downie, as he selected some grapes with the embossed scissors, and filled his glass with chateau d'Yquem. "I don't think that I am so," retorted Richard. "Downie is right," said Lord Lamorna. "Why do you not go into Parliament?—I have two snug pocket boroughs here in Cornwall—and on one hand attack routine and red-tapeism like a Radical; on the other hand, denounce retrenchment and cowardly peace-at-any-price, like a Tory of the old school. You would certainly be popular with both parties by that rôle, and do good to the country at large." "I have no turn for politics, uncle." "Diplomacy then—many of our family have figured as diplomats; I was ambassador to Russia, after Waterloo, and in the olden time more than one of our family have been so to the Courts of Scotland, France, and Brandenburg; and I trust we all refuted the axiom of Sir Henry Wotton, 'that an ambassador was an honest man sent abroad to lie for the good of his country.'" "I have no taste for diplomacy." "What the devil have you a taste for?" asked his uncle, testily; "not domestic life, as I can't get you to marry, like Downie here; and you soon left the army, or tired of Her Majesty's service." Richard flushed for a moment, and held his full wine glass between him and the light, as if to test the colour and purity of its contents. "I know what bachelor London life is—another style of thing, of course, from yours, Downie—that which someone calls the hard-working life, which begins at two P.M. one day, and ends at four A.M. next morning. There are the parks; the club, with its bow-window; flirtations at balls and assemblies; the opera, and parties to Greenwich; and then there is the darker picture of doing business with old Messrs. Bill Stamp and Cent.-per-Cent., in some dingy little den off the Strand. A bad style of thing it is to meddle with the long-nosed fellows in the discounting line; just as bad as—and often the sequence to—running after actresses or opera-singers. You may love them if you like; but, great Heavens! never stoop to the madness of committing matrimony with any of them, or for a moment forget the family to which you belong, and the ancient title that is your inheritance."
