The Actress in High Life | Page 7

you to its length?" asked Lady Mabel.
"Not in the least. I think nothing so heterodox as a long grace, while soup and fish grow cold."
"I am told," said Lady Mabel, ascending to the apartment above, "that this was the abbot's own room."
"That is very likely," said Captain Hatton, "from its neighborhood to the kitchen."
"It is not exactly the apartment," she continued, "which I would design for a lady's withdrawing room. But, if it satisfied the holy father before it was thus improved, it is too good for a heretic like me. I sometimes feel myself a profane intruder here, and, when I call to mind whom this building belongs to, and see so many red-coated gentry stalking at ease through dormitory, refectory and cloisters, I think of rooks who have fled the rookery, before a flock of flamingoes who usurp their place."
"The pious crows," said Captain Hatton, "would forgive our intrusion, did they see the bird of paradise that attracts us hither."
"Put a weight on your fancy, Captain Hatton," said Lady Mabel. "Such another flight and it may soar away altogether. Pray observe the admirable effect of those hangings, with which Captain Cranfield has concealed the dark and narrow passage that leads to the oratory."
Major Warren was provoked at the general admiration of Cranfield's taste and skill, and stung by the repeated thanks with which Lady Mabel repaid his labors, so he endeavored to turn them into ridicule.
"It is a thousand pities, Cranfield, that these happy designs should perish with their temporary use. Let me beg you to send a sketch of them to Colonel Sturgeon, the head of your department. They should be preserved among the draughts and plans of the engineer corps."
Cranfield was about to make angry answer, but Lady Mabel anticipated him by saying: "doubtless, whenever Colonel Sturgeon has occasion to turn monkish cloisters into ladies' bowers, it will save him a world of trouble to avail himself of these designs."
At this moment dinner was announced. Colonel Bradshawe, resolving that his juniors should not have Lady Mabel all to themselves, availed himself of his right of precedence, to hand her into the room, and seated himself at her right hand.
Full thirty guests occupied the space between her father's portly, but martial figure, and her seat at the head of the table; and though, Minerva-like in air and form, she presided there with exquisite grace, she shrunk from this long array, and sought a kind of privacy in devoting her attention, somewhat exclusively, to the senior colonel of the brigade. Knowing how important a matter dining was in his estimation, she soon made a conquest of him, by her judicious care in supplying his wants, tickling his palate, and coinciding in his tastes. She even, for his benefit, called into requisition the unwilling service of old Moodie, who had habitually taken his post behind her, like a sentinel, not troubling himself about the wants of the guests. The colonel might have choked with thirst before he spontaneously handed him a decanter.
Colonel Bradshawe having made himself comfortable, next sought to make himself agreeable. "What a delightful contrast between my situation to-day, and this day year, Lady Mabel."
"Where were you then?"
"About this hour we were fording the Aguada, in a snow storm, to invest Ciudad Rodrigo."
"That was somewhat different from our present occupation."
"We soon finished that little job, however, before we had suffered many privations there. But it proved to be but the opening of a campaign, which I began, after a time, to think would never come to an end."
"And, unhappily," said Lady Mabel, "it did not end quite so well as it promised to do."
"Fortune is a fickle mistress, and fond of showing her character in war," said the colonel. "Sometimes she favors one party with a run of luck, then shifts suddenly over to the other side. So with individuals, only there she is most apt to work at cross purposes. One pretty fellow deserves to live forever, and gets knocked on the head in the first skirmish; another deserves to rise, and all his good service is overlooked or forgotten; another gets praise and promotion for what he never did, or ought never to have done. Some men have such luck! There is L'Isle now, who, after being pushed on as fast as money and family interest could shove him; what next happens to him? Why just for blundering into a Spanish village, and being nearly taken with his whole command, he is made a lieutenant-colonel on the spot."
"That is a curious result of such a blunder."
"Curious, but true. This is capital port," interjected the colonel, emptying his glass. "We drank no such stuff as this during the last campaign. I would not disgust you with a detail of our privations; but you must know, Lady