A Bayard From Bengal<br />Being some account of the Magnificent and Spanking Career of Chunder Binda by F. Anstey (websites to read books for free .TXT) 📖
- Author: F. Anstey
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So he very tactfully contrived by engaging the Duchess's attention to substitute his card-hand for hers, and thus effect the exchange which is no robbery, and she, finally observing his finesse, and struck by the delicacy with which he had so unostentatiously rebuked her duplicity, earnestly desired his further acquaintance.
For a time Mr Bhosh, doubtless obeying[19] one of those supernatural and presentimental monitions which were undreamt of in the Horatian philosophy, resisted all her advances—but alas! the hour arrived in which he became as Simpson with Delilah.
It was at the very summit of the Season, during a brilliantly fashionable ball at the Ladbroke Hall, Archer Street, Bayswater, whither all the élites of tiptop London Society had congregated.
Mr Bhosh was present, but standing apart, overcome with bashfulness at the paucity of upper feminine apparel and designing to take his premature hook, when the beauteous Duchess in passing surreptitiously flung over him a dainty nosehandkerchief deliciously perfumed with extract of cherry blossoms.
With native penetration into feminine coquetries he interpreted this as an intimation that she desired to dance with him, and, though not proficient in such exercises, he made one or two revolutions round the room with her co-operation, after which they retired[20] to an alcove and ate raspberry ices and drank lemonade. Mr Bhosh's sparkling tittle-tattle completely achieved the Duchess's conquest, for he possessed that magical gift of the gab which inspired the tender passion without any connivance on his own part.
And, although the Duchess was no longer the chicken, having attained her thirtieth lustre, she was splendidly well preserved; with huge flashing eyes like searchlights in a face resembling the full moon; of tall stature and proportionate plumpness; most young men would have been puffed out by pride at obtaining such a tiptop admirer.
Not so our hero, whose manly heart was totally monopolised by the image of the fair unknown whom he had rescued at Cambridge from the savage clutches of a horned cow, and although, after receiving from the Duchess a musk-scented postal card, requesting his company on a certain evening, he decided to keep the appointed tryst, it was only against his will and after heaving many sighs.[21]
On reaching the Duchess's palace, which was situated in Pembridge Square, Bayswater, he had the mortification to perceive that he was by no means the only guest, since the reception halls were thickly populated by gilded worldlings. But the Duchess advanced to greet him in a very kind, effusive manner, and, intimating that it was impossible to converse with comfort in such a crowd, she led him to a small side-room, where she seated him on a couch by her side and invited him to discourse.
Mr Bhosh discoursed accordingly, paying her several high-flown compliments by which she appeared immoderately pleased, and discoursed in her turn of instinctive sympathies, until our hero was wriggling like an eel with embarrassment at what she was to say next, and at this point Duke Dickinson suddenly entered and reminded his spouse in rather abrupt fashion that she was neglecting her remaining guests.
After the Duchess's departure, Mr Bhosh,[22] with the feelings of an innate gentleman, felt constrained to make his sincere apologies to his ducal entertainer for having so engrossed his better half, frankly explaining that she had exhibited such a marked preference for his society that he had been deprived of all option in the matter, further assuring his dukeship that he by no means reciprocated the lady's sentiments, and delicately recommending that he was to keep a rather more lynxlike eye in future upon her proceedings.
To which the Duke, greatly agitated, replied that he was unspeakably obliged for the caution, and requested Mr Bhosh to depart at once and remain an absentee for the future. Which our friend cheerfully undertook to perform, and, in taking leave of the Duchess, exhorted her, with an eloquence that moved all present, to abandon her frivolities and levities and adopt a deportment more becoming to her matronly exterior.
The reader would naturally imagine that she would have been grateful for so friendly and well-meant a hint—but oh, dear! it was quite[23] the reverse, for from a loving friend she was transformed into a bitter and most unscrupulous enemy, as we shall find in forthcoming chapters.
Truly it is not possible to fathom the perversities of the feminine disposition![24]
CHAPTER IVA KICK FROM A FRIENDLY FOOT
She is a radiant damsel with features fair and fine;
But since betrothed to Bosom's friend she never can be mine!
Original Poem by H. B. J. (unpublished).
MR Bhosh's bosom-friend, the Lord Jack Jolly, had kindly undertaken to officiate as his Palinurus and steer him safely from the Scylla to the Charybdis of the London Season, and one day Lord Jolly arrived at our hero's apartments as the bearer of an invite from his honble parent the Baronet, to partake of tiffin at their ancestral abode in Chepstow Villas, which Bindabun gratefully accepted.
Arrived at the Jollies' sumptuous interior, a numerous retinue of pampered menials and gilded flunkies divested Mr Bhosh of his hat[25] and umbrella and ushered him into the hall of audience.
"Bhosh, my dear old pal," said Lord Jack, "I have news for you. I am engaged as a Benedict, and am shortly to celebrate matrimony with a young goodlooking female—the Princess Petunia Jones."
"My lord," replied Mr Bhosh, "suffer me to hang around your patrician neck the floral garland of my humble congratulations."
"My dear Bhosh," responded the youthful peer of the realm, "I regard you as more than a brother, and am confident that when my betrothed beholds your countenance, she will conceive for you a similar lively affection. But hush! here she comes to answer for herself.... Princess, permit me to present to you the best and finest friend I possess, Mr Bindabun Bhosh."
Mr Bhosh modestly lowered his optics as he salaamed with inimitable grace, and it was not until he had resumed his perpendicular that he recognised in the Princess Jones the charming[26] unknown whom he had last beheld engaged in repelling the assault of a distracted cow!
Their eyes were no sooner crossed than he knew that she regarded him as her deliverer, and was consumed by the most ardent affection for him. But Mr Bhosh repressed himself with heroic magnanimity, for he reflected that she was the affianced of his dearest friend and that it was contrary to bon ton to poach another's jam.
So he merely said; "How do you do? It is a very fine day. I am delighted to make your acquaintance," and turning on his heels with a profound curtsey, he left her flabbergasted with mortification.
But those only who have compressed their souls in the shoe of self-sacrifice know how devilishly it pinches, and Mr Bhosh's grief was so acute that he rolled incessantly on his couch while the radiant image of his divinity danced tantalisingly before his bloodshot vision.
Eventually he became calmer, and after[27] plunging his fervid body into a foot-bath, he showed himself once more in society, assuming an air of meretricious waggishness to conceal the worm that was busily cankering his internals, and so successful was he that Lord Jack was entirely deceived by his vis comica, and invited him to spend the Autumn up the country with his respectable parents.
Mr Bhosh accepted—but when he knew that Princess Petunia was also to be one of the amis de la maison, he was greatly concerned at the prospect of infallibly reviving her love by his propinquity, and thereby inflicting the cup of calamity on his best friend. Willingly would he have imparted the whole truth to his Lordship and counselled him to postpone the Princess's visit until he, himself, should have departed—but, ah me! with all his virtue he was not a Roman Palladium that he should resist the delight of philandery with the radiant queen of his soul. So he kept his tongue in his cheek.
However, when they met in the ancient and[28] rural castle he constrained himself, in conversing with her, to enlarge enthusiastically upon the excellences of Lord Jack. "What a good, ripping, gentlemanly fellow he was, and how certain to make a best quality husband!" Princess Jones listened to these encomiums with tender sighing, while her soft large orbs rested on Mr Bhosh with ever-increasing admiration.
No one noticed how, after these elephantine efforts at self-denial, he would silently slip away and weep salt and bitter tears as he weltered dolefully on a doormat; nor was it perceived that the Princess herself was become thin as a weasel with disappointed love.
Being the ardent sportsman, Mr Bhosh sought to drown his sorrow with pleasures of the chase.
He would sally forth alone, with no other armament than a breechloading rifle, and endeavour to slay the wild rabbits which infested the Baronet's domains, and sometimes he had the good fortune to slaughter one or two. Or he would take a Rod and hooks and a few worms, and angle for salmons; or else he would stalk partridges, and once he even assisted in a foxhunt, when he easily outstripped all the dogs and singly confronted Master Reynard, who had turned to bay savagely at his nose. But Bindabun undauntedly descended from his horse, and, drawing his hunting dagger, so dismayed the beast by his determined and ferocious aspect that it turned its tail and fled into some other part of the country, which earned him the heartfelt thanks from his fellow Nimrods.
DISMAYED THE BEAST BY HIS DETERMINED AND FEROCIOUS ASPECT
Naturally, such feats of arms as these only served to inflame the ardour of the Princess, to whom it was a constant wonderment that Mr Bhosh did never, even in the most roundabout style, allude to the fact that he had saved her life from perishing miserably on the pointed horn of an enraged cow.
She could not understand that the Native temperament is too sheepishly modest to flaunt its deeds of heroism.
Those who are au fait in knowledge of the world are aware that when there are combustibles concealed in any domestic interior, there is always a person sooner or later who will contrive to blow them off; and here, too, the Serpent of Mischief was waiting to step in with cloven hoof and play the very deuce.
It so happened that the Duchess occupied the adjacent bungalow to that of Baronet Jolly and his lady, with whom she was hail-fellow-well-met, and this perfidious female set herself to ensnare the confidence of the young and innocent Princess by discreetly lauding the praises of Mr Bhosh.
"What an admirable Indian Crichton! How many rabbits and salmons had he laid low that week? Truly, she regarded him as a favourite son, and marvelled that any youthful feminine could prefer an ordinary peer like Lord Jolly to a Native paragon who was not only a university B.A., but had successfully passed Bar Exam!" and so forth and so on.
The princess readily fell into this insidious booby-trap, and confessed the violence of her attachment, and how she had striven to acquaint Mr Bhosh with her sentiments but was rendered inarticulate by maidenly bashfulness.
"Can you not then slip a love-letter into his hand?" inquired the Duchess.
"Cui bono?" responded the Princess, sadly. "Seeing that he never approaches near enough to me to receive such a missive, and I dare not entrust it to one of my maidens!"
"Why not to Me?" said the Duchess. "He will not refuse it coming from myself; moreover, I have influence over him and will soften his heart towards thee."
Accordingly the Princess indicted a rather impassioned love-letter, in which she assured Mr Bhosh that she had divined his secret passion and fully reciprocated it, also that she was the total indifferent to Lord Jack, with much other similar matters.
Having obtained possession of this litera scripta, what does the unscrupulous Duchess next but deliver it impromptu into the hands of Lord Jack, who, after perusing it, was overcome by uncontrollable wrath and instantaneously summoned our hero to his presence.
Here was the pretty kettle of fish—but I must reserve the sequel for the next chapter.
[29]
CHAPTER VTHE DUEL TO THE DEATH
The ordinary valour only works
At those rare intervals when peril lurks;
There is a courage, scarcer far, and stranger,
Which nothing can intimidate but danger.
Original Stanza by H. B. J.
NO sooner had Mr Bhosh obeyed the summons of Lord Jack, than the latter not only violently reproached him for having embezzled the heart of his chosen bride, but inflicted upon him sundry severe kicks from behind, barbarously threatening to encore the proceeding unless Chunder instantaneously agreed to meet him in a mortal combat.
Our hero, though grievously hurt, did not abandon his presence of mind in his tight fix. Seating himself upon a divan, so as to obviate any repetition of such treatment, he[34] thus addressed his former friend: "My dear Jack, Plato observes that anger is an abbreviated form of insanity. Do not let us fall out about so mere a trifle, since one friend is the equivalent of many females. Is it my fault that feminines overwhelm me with unsought affections? Let us both remember that we are men of the world, and if you on your side will overlook the fact that I have unwittingly fascinated your fiancée, I, on mine, am ready to
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