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 d.u.c.h.ess, 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 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!
CHAPTER IV
A 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_Original Poem by H. B. J. (unpublished)._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 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 unknown whom he had last beheld engaged in repelling the a.s.sault 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 plunging his fervid body into a foot-bath, he showed himself once more in society, a.s.suming 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 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 a.s.sisted 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.
[Ill.u.s.tration: DISMAYED THE BEAST BY HIS DETERMINED AND FEROCIOUS ASPECT (Ill.u.s.tration III)]
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 d.u.c.h.ess 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 pa.s.sed Bar Exam!" and so forth and so on.
The princess readily fell into this insidious b.o.o.by-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 d.u.c.h.ess.
"_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 d.u.c.h.ess. "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 impa.s.sioned love-letter, in which she a.s.sured Mr Bhosh that she had divined his secret pa.s.sion 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 d.u.c.h.ess 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.
CHAPTER V
THE 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 repet.i.tion of such treatment, he 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 _fiancee_, I, on mine, am ready to forget my unmerciful kickings."
But Lord Jolly violently rejected such a give-and-take compromise, and again declared that if Mr Bhosh declined to fight he was to receive further kicks. Upon this Chunder demanded time for reflection; he was no bellicose, but he reasoned thus with his soul: "It is not certain that a bullet will hit--whereas, it is impossible for a kick to miss its mark."
So, weeping to find himself between a deep sea and the devil of a kicking, he accepted the challenge, feeling like Imperial Caesar, when he found himself compelled to climb up a rubicon after having burnt his boots!
Being naturally reluctant to kick his br.i.m.m.i.n.g bucket of life while still a l.u.s.ty juvenile, Mr Bhosh was occupied in lamenting the injudiciousness of Providence when he was most unexpectedly relieved by the entrance of his lady-love, the Princess Jones, who, having heard that her letter had fallen into Lord Jack"s hands, and that a sanguinary encounter would shortly transpire, had cast off every rag of maidenly propriety, and sought a clandestine interview.