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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/38177-8.txt b/38177-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ef2d744 --- /dev/null +++ b/38177-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,14098 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Passionate Elopement, by Compton Mackenzie + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Passionate Elopement + +Author: Compton Mackenzie + +Release Date: November 30, 2011 [EBook #38177] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PASSIONATE ELOPEMENT *** + + + + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images available at The Internet Archive) + + + + + + + + +THE PASSIONATE ELOPEMENT + + + + +THE PASSIONATE +ELOPEMENT + +_By COMPTON MACKENZIE_ + + * * * * * + +NEW YORK + +G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS + +1916 + +BALLANTINE AND CO. LTD., TAVISTOCK STREET, COVENT GARDEN, LONDON + + +_TO FAITH_ + + + + +_Contents_ + + +I. THE TOILET 1 + +II. THE PUMP ROOM 10 + +III. THE BLUE BOAR 20 + +IV. CURTAIN MAZE 34 + +V. THE PUBLICK BREAKFAST 47 + + _The Order of the Exquisite Mob_ 49 + + THE PUBLICK BREAKFAST [_resumea_ 50 + +VI. BAVERSTOCK BARN 61 + +VII. SUNDAY MORNING 75 + +VIII. THE GREAT REBELLION 82 + +IX. THE ASSEMBLY 86 + +X. AFTER THE ASSEMBLY 104 + +XI. NOX ALBA 109 + +XII. WET DAYS 114 + +XIII. MONARCHY IN ACTION 118 + +XIV. MONARCHY IN REPOSE 127 + +XV. PHOEBUS ADEST 135 + +XVI. THE CHINESE MASQUERADE 146 + +XVII. THE GRAND MINUET OF CATHAY 157 + +XVIII. THE CONFIDANTE 165 + +XIX. BLACKHART FARM WITH A COCK-FIGHT 171 + +XX. IN WHICH EVERYTHING GROWS BUT +THE PLOT 180 + +XXI. CURTAIN POLLS 184 + +XXII. THE CURTAIN ROD 193 + +XXIII. SPACE BETWEEN AN HEROICK COUPLET 198 + +XXIV. DAISH'S ROOMS 209 + +XXV. QUARTS OF BURGUNDY 216 + +XXVI. AND THE DREGS OF THE SAME 231 + +XXVII. TIME FOR REFLECTION 236 + +XXVIII. THE LOVE CHASE 247 + +XXIX. THE BASKET OF ROSES 255 + +XXX. SIR GEORGE REPINGTON 265 + +XXXI. A TALE WITH AN INTERRUPTED MORAL 273 + +XXXII. THE HORRID ADVENTURES OF BEAU RIPPLE AND MRS. COURTEEN 277 + +XXXIII. THE HIGHWAYMEN 290 + +XXXIV. OLD ACQUAINTANCE 300 + +XXXV. THE CUTTING OF A DIAMOND 312 + +XXXVI. THE SCARLET DAWN 319 + +XXXVII. APRIL FOOLS 334 + +XXXVIII. BEAU LOVELY 340 + + + + +_The PASSIONATE ELOPEMENT_ + + + + +_Chapter the First_ + +THE TOILET + + +The meagre sun that for thirteen pallid February days had shone with no +more brilliance than a rushlight stuck amid the cobwebs of a garret, +poured down at last his profuse glories, and Curtain Wells woke up to a +fine morning and the burden of conscious existence, with an effort all +the more completely unanimous on account of its reputation as an inland +Spa. Residence there implied an almost monastick ideal of regularity. +Other shrines of Æsculapius, falling from their primitive purity of +worship, might set up for adoration a hooped Venus or bag-wigged Cupid, +but Curtain Wells would never admit so naked and misleading a pair of +Immortals. Her fountains ministered to bodily ailments--Vapours, Winds, +Gouts, Quinsies, Consumptions, Fevers quartan and tertian--without +pretending to the power of love-philtres or the sparkle of the Castalian +Spring. 'Tis true, romantick dusk or sunset candlelight might consecrate +the vows of many a shepherd and shepherdess, but those stretched hours +of dalliance were always understood to be the sensuous reward of a +strict matutinal discipline. + +Consequently Curtain Wells woke up as to a bugle-call. Casement-hangings +were flung back, shutters unbarred and, wonderful to relate, an +occasional window-sash creaked and subsided. A simultaneous toilet would +be followed by a simultaneous visit to the cleansing springs. Drums, +routs, auctions, ridottos, and masquerades did not avail to keep their +votaries abed. Perchance a velvet patch would hide the wearer's secret +blemish less artfully; beneath young Miss Kitcat's eyes there might be a +deeper violet than the state of her health warranted; my lady Bunbutter +newly arrived from scurrilous Bath might see her nose sharpen to a +richer carmine point; but half-past eight o'clock would behold them all +bound for the Pump Room, somewhat reticent perhaps, a little fretful +even, yet completely subjugated by their self-imposed renunciation. + +St. Simon's clock struck the half-hour of seven, and the birds who live +tropick days in the eternal summer of chintz curtains seemed to crow +remorsefully at any sluggard who was inclined longer to indulge his +laziness. The sun spangled their plumage with innumerable pin-points of +light until they began to glow with all the astonishing dyes of printed +fabricks. They glowed and ruffled until the sluggard forsook his couch +and, creeping over the chilly floor, flung them back into a day-long +folded tranquillity. Here, then, is an excellent opportunity to catch a +few of our fine characters unaware. Follow the guidance of my Muses and +you will see hero and heroine, comedian, villain, and chorus stripped of +all outward aids to beauty. You may trust the modesty of Clio and +Melpomene who will certainly treat their own sex with discretion and +admit you to the keyhole not a moment before it becomes your disposition +of mind. Pray do not expect a wanton exhibition because you are holding +on to the draperies of two pagan young women. + +See that fine house in the middle of the Crescent. Mark the flambeaux +guttering and sputtering into an odorous death. Note the flattened +Ionick columns which lend it such an air of superiority, and the extra +story, and the fat bow-windows on either side of the door. Look well at +the door with its cornice of airy Cupids for ever playing Hide and Seek +behind solemn urns and festoons of carven flowers. + +That is the Great House where Beau Ripple lives. Do you wonder at the +early hour of rising when you know that his decree was responsible for +the united achievement? I cannot think you do; especially if you have +read his _Epigrams_ published by Mr. Scratch at the Sign of the _Claw_ +in Paul's Churchyard--those epigrams with razor-keen edge translated +into Latin by Doctor Fumble and into Greek by the Reverend Mr. Tootell. +We read how, in ancient days, tyrants beguiled their political victims +with Impromptus of their own composition and at Curtain Wells it was +esteemed an honour to be reprimanded in such polished prose. Mr. Ripple +scorned the easy allurements of metre and, although in himself he summed +up the profound artificiality of his age, he was wont to say that Verse +as a form of composition possessed all the disadvantages of prose +without any of the advantages. + +Let us take a glimpse at the Great Man in the Great House while the +little maid is pondering the gaudy Valentine stuck in a crack of the +basement-steps by the sweep's apprentice. + +That carpet of mellow hue was presented by the Captain of an East +Indiaman, much addicted to wind. It muffles the footsteps of the +courtiers who throng the stairs, and secures a respectful calm. It even +enables us to reach the door of his bedchamber unheralded, but as, +invisible and armed with reverence, we cross the threshold, the Great +Beau is nowhere to be seen. We observe his bedclothes dignified even in +disarray, we see the open patchbox, the bottles of Eau de Luce and Eau +de Chypre, the black sattin tie and the wig on the stand, but not until, +instinct with awe, we drop our eyes, do we behold two pink feet and the +Circumference of the least austere portion of his anatomy wrapped, it is +true, in embroidered dressing gown, and with the bedspread hung about it +like a pall, yet nevertheless an unmistakeable Circumference protruding +from beneath the bed. Diana very wisely killed Actæon for overlooking +her toilet, and I doubt we deserve the same penalty, for when, the +errant button in his hand, we see the Beau emerge with purple cheeks and +oaths innumerable, a certain conviction steals over our shocked +sensibility that the Great little Man is only mortal after all, of the +same temper and anatomy as ourselves, and, as the gods know very well, +this is a mighty dangerous and revolutionary discovery. + +There stood Beau Ripple dancing and d--g, while a monologue with +appropriate action went somehow like this: + +_Beau._ D---- all buttons for being round. + +Then he danced. + +_Beau._ D---- all pins for dropping upon the floor and the chambermaids +for not picking them up, and my own feet for treading on them. + +Then he danced again. + +_Beau._ D---- all beds for being wide. + +Then he danced. + +_Beau._ D---- my eyes, I shall be late for the waters. + +Then he danced to his mirrour. And the mirrour showed a man of ripe age +with smooth round face and a pair of very blue eyes. + +_Beau._ And d---- you, Ripple, for a clumsy old fool. + +Hereupon the Great little Man beamed at himself, for the nature of him +was so truly kind that he could not be crossed by himself for long, and +as for the world, his severity never upset the balance of a well-turned +phrase. He was an urbane man, one who had presumably lived all his life +in prim and decorous cities but, since he will preside over this story +of mine, we shall learn more about him as we go along. + +Further round the Crescent, Mrs. Choke let furnished apartments to +valetudinarian bachelors, and in one of the brightest of these, Mr. +Francis Vernon sat before his looking glass contemplatively combing his +wig. His closely cropped curly hair accentuated the lines of a profile +already inclined to sharpness, just as his red lips enhanced the +surrounding paleness of his complexion. He combed his wig very much as a +man strokes a cat. The caress half-felt loses itself in speculation, and +just now Mr. Vernon was gazing at the wrought-iron balcony of the +opposite house where Miss Phyllida Courteen, all swansdown and rosy +cheeks, was plucking half a dozen snowdrops from a bough-pot. These were +to be enclosed in a note and sent by the hand of the first +pleasant-looking passer-by to Miss Sukey Morton in the Western +Colonnade. And the aforesaid Miss Morton would, in the estimation of +Miss Courteen, simper and blush and confide in her dear Phyllida that, +though she had known he admired her and indeed, had proffered her a +dropped fan more than once at the Monday Assemblies, yet never, _never_ +had she for a moment imagined that he would _dare_ to send her a +Valentine, and if he had, she would have _died_ rather than take it, +yes, _died_, for _what_ she would do when she passed him next Monday +evening, she could not _think_, especially as he was _known_ to be +partial to her, and her Mechlin pinner was quite ruined by the +_abominable_ wax-candles they would use just because the P---- of +W---- was not coming that year after all. + +Miss Courteen was so much charmed by this loquacious dream that she +began to compose an appropriate verse destined to be wrapped round the +green stalks of the flowers. + + _The snowdrop's white_ + _And so are you. . ._ + +The smallest foot in the world beat time upon the balcony making the +iron bars on which she stood vibrate in twanging chords, but failed to +summon from the caves of Poesy an echo worthy of the snowdrop's white. + +"The last line is monstrous easy," she thought. + +_The bluebell's blue!_ and the accumulation of liquids and labials has +enchanted her mouth to such a delicious pout that Mr. Vernon is leaning +forward and combing his wig more contemplatively than ever, for, +although he cannot see his charmer's lips, he feels sure from the +attitude of her whole body that her face is infernally captivating, and +the memory of her last whispered good-bye assails him and kindles a +leaping flame at the back of his hazel eyes. + +Such a merciless regard as ours penetrates to the heart and we know that +Mr. Vernon is wondering what on earth will come of his affair with Miss +Courteen, and speculating how much she will inherit, and whether +matrimony is quite so expensive a joy as his friends make out. The +thought of money writes an ugly twisted line across his high smooth +forehead, and this line broadens into a hundred little tributary lines +as he thinks of his debts. So he brings himself back to the obstacles of +life in rather a gloomy frame of mind and faces the necessity of his +toilet in such a depression of spirits that he selects a suit to match +his mood. And that is the reason why Mr. Francis Vernon wore purple +sattin on Valentine morning. + +All this while, Miss Courteen is quite unable to invent that odious +third line, and though she taps her foot to aerial musick and pulls a +chestnut curl right over her nose and twists it round her fingers and +wonders whether 'white' is a notably difficult word to rhyme, she never +succeeds, and just when she has almost succeeded, her mother's voice +sounds from the floor above. This disposes of inspiration altogether, +for though her mother's voice is very melodious and sounds prodigiously +pleasant as it murmurs 'Spadille' or 'Manille' over the card-tables, it +will allow no competition, and drives all invisible musick far away. + +"Coming, dear mamma," says Phyllida just as Mr. Vernon decides to wear +purple and just as we step out of Mrs. Choke's front door thinking it +can no longer be indiscreet to follow our Muses to the scene of Mrs. +Courteen's toilet. + +As we cross the road glittering in the sunshine with last night's rain, +we see a tall young gentleman writing busily in a set of ivory tablets +as he strolls quietly along the pavement. Mr. Lovely, the young +gentleman, looks up very quickly as a three-cornered note flutters down +and lodges in a fold of his ruffles. Miss Courteen who felt the note +falling, and thinks that after all she need not make more than a pretty +attempt to save it, peers over the railing into the upturned face of the +young gentleman who bows very low and sweeps his hat round in a very +grand curve, and begs to apologize for the awkwardness of his ruffles in +thus intercepting a lady's note. And you and I, my inquisitive +companion, stand still for a moment and watch the picture, remembering +it is merry Valentine morn. The maid with wide eyes and crimson cheeks +nestling in swansdown and the young man of the laughing expectant face, +in his peach-coloured velvet suit, seem somehow to have caught the +spirit of the day: they make us think of broken stiles, of hedges heavy +with may, of blue and white April noons, of lambs, and children with +pinafores a-flutter gathering cowslip-posies on a wind-washed down, and +of all the old and dear delights of Spring. + +Says Phyllida, "Oh! pray pardon my clumsiness." + +And "Madam," says he very gallantly, "I'm incredibly obliged, for you've +given me a rhyme." + +"Oh! pray tell me--was it to 'white'?" + +"Nay! 'twas harder than that," he murmurs. + +"But I think that is monstrous difficult." + +"Bright, sight, light," (cheerfully) "height," (regretfully) "night," +(hopefully) and "fight," (fiercely). + +"Indeed," adds Phyllida, "I thought of every one of them, but not one +would fit the sense." + +The young gentleman who is a rhymester himself, grows interested. "Might +I," says he, "without impertinence inquire your necessity?" + +"Sure, 'tis for a Valentine," and as Mr. Lovely's face darkens, she +hurriedly adds, "for a young lady, a friend of mine, you'll see the +direction writ on the flap." + +His face clears again and he asks, + +"You wish it delivered?" + +"Oh, sir! how did you guess?" + +"By accident, ma'am, or a happy intuition, I stepped out to take the air +this fine morning, and chance has discovered for me an incontrovertible +excuse for such idle exercise. To be footman to a sister of the Muses is +surely appropriate service for a poet." + +"Then you are a poet?" + +"My publisher affirms it." + +"How romantick truly!" but the tail of the sigh is interrupted by her +mother's voice, and she has bare time to murmur her thanks, drop a +genteel curtsey and vanish. As for Mr. Lovely he has registered a vow to +attend the Monday Assembly next week instead of sitting down to Hazard +at the _Blue Boar_ Inn. + +Abovestairs all is confusion because Mrs. Courteen cannot make up her +mind between yellow lutestring and orange silk. Phyllida whose heart is +full of the dancing springtide thinks her dear mamma should wear the +brightest colours and the richest stuffs in the world. + +"For if you would only allow the curtains to be drawn back, you would +see what a golden morning it is outside," she complains to her mother +who answers: + +"Women of fashion, Phyllida, dress by candlelight for candlelight." + +Betty the maid, agrees with her young mistress, "Sweet, pretty dear +lamb," as she asseverates in Hampshire accents, "Orange silk, say I, and +God bless the gaulden sun." + +Mrs. Courteen who is sitting nearly half-undressed and quite incapable +of forming a decision, bids Betty go and find out Thomas' opinion. +Thomas is the family footman and a great critick of men, women, and +religions. Presently Betty comes back and says that Tammas would prefar +yaller. + +"Why, Betty, why?" + +"Because," answers the maid, "he says silks are for the vain and +abominable and lutestrings have a pleasant twang and savour of the +psalmist." + +So Mrs. Courteen turns from yellow sack to orange sack and from +primrose-quilted petticoat to apricock-quilted petticoat in despair, +till at last Betty asks triumphantly: + +"How would it be, ma'am, if you was to wear your most elegant and truly +genteel green sattin seeing that it do be Saint Valentine with a smell +of green leaves in the air?" + +This provokes a new decision, and causes a great rummaging in drawers +and presses and closets until the gown, fragrant with last year's +lavender, is discovered, when the toilet too long neglected starts +afresh. + +"What patches, ma'am?" says Betty. + +"My Cupid's bow and the two tears of widowhood." + +"What scents, mamma?" asks Phyllida. + +"My Citron Essence, child." + +Then shoes are buckled, stockings are gartered, and a black mantua +placed gently round her shoulders. One more touch of powder, one more +brush from the rouge pot, one more flounce and one more flirt while the +watchet ribbands in the cap are hastily changed to ribbands of palest +apple-green, and a pair of emerald snaps are quickly fastened. + +"Does my hoop sit straight? Oh! Lud! I vow I shall be late." + +A breathless moment and, in place of the mantua, a tippet of pheasants' +feathers is adjusted. Down the Crescent is heard the opening of many +doors. Phyllida runs to the window, draws back the curtains so that the +sun streams in upon the sicklied candles. + +"Has the Beau appeared yet?" asks Mrs. Courteen. + +"Here he comes, and oh! mamma, he is wearing a suit of olive-green." + +"What great good fortune! what taste I shall display. Green is certainly +the fashionable colour," and Mrs. Courteen began to trill to a tune of +her own invention.... + +"I shall be _à la mode_, I shall be _à la mode_ and very _bon ton_ and +_très bon ton_." + +Radiant, she descends the stairs followed by Betty carrying an enormous +glass goblet. Outside, rubicund Thomas with heavily knobbed cane awaits +her. The widow glances over her shoulder at the crowds swinging down the +street, all equipped with glass goblets of various sizes and shapes. She +throws an anxious glance towards the head of the procession. The Beau is +certainly in green of a shade slightly darker than her own but, +nevertheless, distinctly comparable. She tosses her cap in anticipation +of the envied triumph and sails in the general direction. + +And you, Achates, who have accompanied me so early in the morning to the +toilets of some of our principal characters, pray give yourself the +additional trouble of thinking what a Great Man he must be to induce +these butterflies and moths of fashion to sally forth Cap à Pie perfect +at half-past eight o'clock of a February morning. + +"Let Bath be true to her bedgowns," he wrote, "in Curtain Wells we are +ignorant that men and women undress." + +When we think of that apoplectick Circumference which so lately +protruded, we can heartily assent to his opinion. + + + + +_Chapter the Second_ + +THE PUMP ROOM + + +As all roads are commonly reputed to lead to Earls Court, so here at +Curtain Wells all roads led to the Pump Room. It dominated the city from +the summit of a moderately steep hill as the Acropolis dominates the +almost equally famous city of Athens. In certain aspects it bore a +remarkable likeness to a Greek temple with its fluted columns and +portico haunted by many white pigeons. It was even more like a gigantick +summer-house whose interior was always open to the four winds. Any +reasonable explanation of a spring that gushed forth at the very top of +a hill always eluded those who toiled laboriously up the slope; but, as +a more religious butterfly once remarked, Providence plainly designed it +to serve some useful purpose by allowing it to gush forth at such an +unexpected elevation. The same lady used to regard volcanoes as an +uncomfortable if divine method of destroying large numbers of Papists +together, and would pertinently observe that if England had admitted the +claims of the Pretender, she was convinced what was now a cool, +health-giving fountain would have boiled over to the horrid +accompaniment of flames and lava. At precisely a quarter to nine +o'clock, Beau Ripple paused at the foot of the hill to survey through a +monocle his flurried followers. A wag once said that Ripple liked to +gaze at life through the wrong end of a spy-glass, because he himself +was of so small a stature. Whether this monocle actually diminished his +world to the size of an ant-heap, I do not know, but certainly the whole +assemblage stopped to recover their breath as if conscious of their +utter lack of importance in the eyes of the Great little Man. The +Physician-in-chief was solemnly beckoned into hearing. + +"Two minutes," said the Beau. + +Mr. Oboe the Physician opened the lid of an enormous watch attached to a +red silk fob and regarded the dial with an expression of great +intentness. He might, so complete was his abstraction, have been feeling +the pulse of the Exquisite Mob behind him. + +Slowly the minutes rolled by while the Beau took several possessive +sniffs of the young spring air. Not an unseemly whisper disturbed the +silence. So still was it that above the cooing of the sacred pigeons on +the roof of the Pump Room, far down in the valley could be heard the +lowing of cows. At thirteen minutes to nine Mr. Ripple let his monocle +drop; Mr. Oboe replaced his watch; the Pump Room bell began to clang +very fast; the Exquisite Mob started to climb the hill and innumerable +glass goblets glittered in the sun. When the summit was reached the Beau +called in a loud voice: + +"Oboe!" + +"Mr. Ripple?" bowed the Physician. + +"I allow two more minutes for panting." + +"Certainly, Mr. Ripple. Very just, sir." + +So the Exquisite Mob like the Hart panted after the Waters or perhaps +more accurately before them. + +At the expiration of the breathing-space, a diminutive negro known as +Gog advanced towards Mr. Ripple, bearing a fluted goblet upon a tray of +Chinese lacker. An equally diminutive negro called Magog presented the +goblet to Mr. Ripple who turned slightly in the direction of the company +and slowly sipped his portion with consummate meditation. When almost +half-way towards the bottom of the glass the Beau looked up as if +surprized to see his adherents still thirsty. This was understood to be +the signal for approach, and the Exquisite Mob advanced to drink while +the children, miniatures of foppery, played Hide and Seek or Touchlast +round the pillars. + +Mrs. Courteen sailed towards a thin little military man with a very long +and very crisp pigtail, whose outstanding feature in front was an +extremely conical Adam's Apple that bobbed up and down as if his throat +were a bowl of water and, rising with his choler, at boiling-point +invariably choked him into incoherence. + +The Major would have passed for one of those half-pay officers who +frequent watering-places and rely for many of their meals upon an +acquaintance with the tacticks and strategy of the late Duke of +Marlborough, with the miserable failure of Carthagena and the already +forgotten personality of his Highness the Duke of C---- d. + +As a matter of fact, he had followed Mrs. Courteen to Curtain Wells from +Hampshire where he owned a small hunting lodge known as Ramilies House, +Oudenarde Grange, and Malplaquet Place according to his humour, but for +no discoverable reason besides. He had a painted board for each +designation, but nobody ever extracted from him the principle on which, +from time to time, they were changed. When asked on one occasion why he +omitted the famous victory of Blenheim from his titular commemoration, +he replied that the omission saved the expense of continually forwarding +letters to Oxfordshire. The Major was inclined to resent the homage paid +to Beau Ripple. + +"A d----d civilian, ma'am," he muttered to Mrs. Courteen. + +"Oh! you soldiers! I protest you have no reverence for anybody." + +"Not I, ma'am. I don't bow the knee to a living soul. Not at all. +'Sblood, ma'am, the fellow's no better than a low adventurer. Would he +fight? Not he. So he forbids us to wear swords. D---- n it, ma'am, a +soldier without his hanger is like a monkey without his tail. That's +what I say." + +"So do I, Major, so do I," echoed a suave voice over his shoulder and +the Major turning round, encountered the bland half-bored, half-tolerant +smile of the Great little Man. + +"Your similes are uncommon happy, Major." + +Tarry's Apple throbbed and bubbled and rose and sank, but the Beau +passed on contemptuously, and a large flabby man in a suit of +snuff-coloured frieze treading upon the Major's toe at this moment, the +latter's wrath flowed into another channel. + +"My toe, Mr. Moon!" he said furiously. + +"Your toe?" inquired the other with great earnestness. The question of +disputed property which seemed imminent was quashed by the widow's +interruption: + +"'Tis too early for argument. Come, neighbours, let us make our +promenade. Where is Phyllida?" + +But Phyllida was making her promenade at a careful distance behind her +mother. Phyllida was taking the demurest little steps with an arm in her +beloved Betty's arm and with a swansdown muff held against her cheek to +ward off the shrewd Easterly wind, while almost level with the two maids +walked a stately gentleman of a pale complexion. And every time the +gentleman stopped to survey the promenaders over the tortoise-shell +handle of his ebony walking-stick, Phyllida and Betty stopped to see if +it was truly a quarter-past nine o'clock by St. Simon's church tower. +And every time the gentleman stopped to flick a speck of dust from his +purple sattin sleeve, by a very odd coincidence Miss Courteen always +stopped to see if her shoe had really become unbuckled. This tends to +show that in spite of all the precautions of Beau Ripple, the innermost +fane of Æsculapius had been invaded by a strange god. I doubt Miss +Courteen, considered by her mother too young for Chalybeate, was +learning to drink of that deep well whose waters will never run dry so +long as maids and men frequent its precincts. + +The Exquisite Mob continued to circle round the Pump Room because the +ritual of the Cure prescribed an hour's steady promenade before +breakfast. The scarlet heels of innumerable shoes clicked in unison and +the drowsy hum of morning small talk rose and fell upon the February +air. All agreed it was a monstrous fine day for the season of the year. +All expressed the opinion that by no stretch of imagination could such +weather be expected to last. All wished it would indeed, and everybody +asked his neighbour whether he intended to grace the next Assembly, and +the neighbour invariably replied he had every intention of doing so. +Everybody bowed or curtseyed very low to Mr. Ripple and Mr. Ripple had a +delightfully well-turned sentence for each of his subjects, as if he +would reward their energy in rising so early. Occasionally the Great +little Man would condescend to take a pinch of the best Rappee with an +elderly gentleman. But as he never took snuff with anybody under the +rank of Viscount in the peerage of England and as the peer thus honoured +was bound to be above the age of five-and-forty, it happened that the +elderly gentleman was always old Lord Vanity, the only individual +present who satisfied the double requirement. + +"How different this scene is from Hampshire to be sure, though for my +part I shall ever protest that those who have eyes to see, let them see, +and people who accuse us of wasting our time forget how persistently +they look for the arrival of the carrier." + +Whether or not Major Tarry and Mr. Moon understood this remark of Mrs. +Courteen's, they certainly both agreed with her. + +"To-day is Session day," muttered the Justice rather gloomily. + +"Well, sir, the magistrates will do their business without you," snapped +his rival. + +"Not unlikely, sir, not unlikely." + +"Well, sir, what the deuce are you grumbling at?" + +Mr. Moon replied that he was not grumbling, he was merely commenting; +and the two gentlemen bickered on across placid Mrs. Courteen like two +children over a hedge. + +Meanwhile on the farther side of the Course, as the broad path round the +Pump Room was called, Mr. Vernon was still keeping step with Phyllida +and Betty, but so delicately did the former tread and so far aloof did +he appear that no one suspected him of anything so low as ogling pretty +Miss Courteen or her maid. Sometimes he would murmur "When will my +charmer be there?" and every time he asked this question, the charmer +would send a rippling little laugh into her swansdown muff, and flash a +glance over the top towards Betty who would toss her head and imply that +such curiosity was worth a long-delayed gratification. + +At last Mr. Vernon would take out his laced handkerchief and flick +presumably at a ghostly Despair. Phyllida would be prodigiously afraid +that her dear Amor (by that name only did she know her lover) was +growing unhappy at her hard-hearted treatment and, feeling she had +tormented his patience long enough, would gently shake her muff until a +piece of paper fluttered slowly to the ground. Mr. Vernon would stoop +with indescribable grace and distinction of manner, and while Miss +Courteen looked very demure indeed and quite innocent of anything or +anybody in the world, he would put the piece of paper in his +handkerchief and press the handkerchief to his lips and look round the +corner of his eyes at Phyllida, who would just by chance be looking +round the corner of her eyes to ascertain if her Mamma were beckoning to +her. And this used to happen every fine morning during the promenade, +and continued to happen for many days afterwards. + +Half-past nine o'clock struck, and the promenaders all turned on their +heels to hear Mr. Ripple divulge the gaiety of the day. + +It is not to be supposed that Curtain Wells was careless of her +pilgrims' pleasure. On the contrary every hour of their visit was +wreathed in delightful possibilities of enjoyment. At present it was +Winter so that naturally most of the entertainments occurred indoors, +but in late Spring and Summer a series of Fêtes Champêtres and Fêtes +Aqueuses, of moonlight Concertos, harlequin Ridottos, and lantern +Masquerades made Curtain Wells a tolerably attractive stage for the +marionettes who postured and declaimed upon its boards. + +There was much tiptoe attention for the Beau as he ascended a marble +pedestal and slowly turned the pages of a notebook bound in tooled +Morocco leather, gilt-edged, and of impeccable finish and design. + +"My Lords," Mr. Ripple began, whereupon old Lord Vanity, blinking +several times at his daughter Lady Jane Vane, took an extra large pinch +of Rappee. + +"My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen, I have the extreme honour to inform you +that the Publick Breakfast given to Sir Jeremy Dummer for the purpose of +commemorating his twenty-first consecutive winter at Curtain Wells will +be held (_Deo volente_) at the Town Hall to-morrow the fifteenth +instant." + +A murmur of delighted anticipation ran round the Exquisite Mob while Sir +Jeremy Dummer who was verging on nonagenarian antiquity drew himself up +very erect, quivering and doddering with senile pride. "There will be +the usual loyal and personal toasts," continued the Beau, "and at the +conclusion of the entertainment the Company will adjourn to the Civic +Chamber, where I hope the ladies will be already arrived, in order to +partake of a dish of tea. I may add that the tea, duty paid, has been +generously presented by Mr. Hopkins of the High Street, well known to +many of you as the incomparable provider of the rarer dried delicacies +which have traced prodigal patterns over so many of your mahogany +tables." + +The Exquisite Mob murmured its gratitude for the tea and the compliment +with much condescension and affableness, while the publick spirit of the +tradesman was generally extolled. + +"To-night at precisely half-past six o'clock, Mrs. Dudding's +Conversazione. Quadrille tables for ninety-six players, Pope Joan for +the young and sprightly and--ahem--a Pharaoh table in order that our +gentlemen, Mrs. Dudding informs me, may have no valid excuse for +absenting themselves on the score of dullness. Chairs at precisely +half-past ten o'clock and I must request you, my lords, ladies and +gentlemen, to warn your chairmen that quarterstaff play with the poles +will be visited with your acutest displeasure. I am sorry to complain of +an abuse on a morning when the prospect of Nature is so vastly pleasant, +but last week the whooping and halloaing of the partizans caused me to +place Basto upon the Ponto of my Vis à Vis." + +The Exquisite Mob sighed in sympathetick consternation as, with a +perceptible break in his voice, Mr. Ripple made this confession. + +"And since I am temporarily launched upon unpleasant topicks, I must beg +for earlier and less riotous hours at the _Blue Boar_. It is exceedingly +ungenteel to throw quart bottles of Burgundy at the watch. The latter is +a fine body of men devoted to the service of an orderly and decent +society, and does not deserve a crown of plaisters as the result of +publishing the hour of the night and the state of the weather. However, +I will mention no names, gentlemen." + +Lord Vanity, not feeling himself included in the last vocative, took a +pinch of Rappee and gazed very fiercely at my Lady Bunbutter through the +rheum and water of his ancient eyes. As her ladyship showed no signs of +a guilty conscience, the Earl took a second pinch and muttered "devilish +young cubs" under his breath. + +"On Sunday," the Beau resumed with his old suavity of enunciation, "the +waters will not be drunk until the fulfilment of Divine Service. On +Monday the usual Assembly will be held, and a Cotillon will be danced at +twelve o'clock precisely. Chairs at half-past twelve o'clock precisely. +And now, my lords, ladies and gentlemen, nothing remains for me but to +wish you a vastly enjoyable breakfast, a happy issue from your divers +infirmities and a very good morning." + +This benediction was the recognized sign of dismissal; the Beau +descended from his pedestal and the Exquisite Mob betook itself down +hill, although a few individuals waited behind in order to consult with +the former on matters of etiquette, fashion and gentility, his advice +being considered the most refined in the country. + +Mrs. Courteen sailed down upon Mr. Ripple and asked whether she was +right in thinking that the moment when green should be worn was arrived. + +"I think so, ma'am," the Beau assured her. "I think so: to be sure, a +few of our more conservative fops hold that green should never appear +before the Queen's birthday. But I differ from them, ma'am, I differ. +You will observe madam, that I differ." + +Phyllida had rejoined her mother by this time, and Mr. Ripple saluted +her freshness with a courtly bow. + +"Many Valentines?" he inquired with a quizzical droop of his left +eyelid. + +Phyllida blushed, protesting, + +"No, indeed, sir." + +The Widow hastily assured Mr. Ripple that her daughter was not near old +enough to dream of such follies, while Major Tarry and Mr. Moon, whose +skirts were stiff with Valentines intended for Mrs. Courteen herself, +looked very severely at the sun as if he were in some way responsible +for the madness of love in the air. + +"Tut-tut! Youth's the time for love, as Mr. Gay sings, and though I do +not encourage the interchange of passionate sentiments among those who +are seeking to recover their health, I regard St. Valentine's Day as a +very proper festival for young men and maidens in whose hearts no +degeneration is yet apparent." With these words Mr. Ripple drooped his +left eyelid lower than ever. + +"Fie! sir, we shall have the child vapoured like any woman of fashion, +if you put such inflammable ideas into her head," complained Mrs. +Courteen, who was just beginning to be more than a little jealous of her +daughter. + +"Not at all, ma'am," said the Beau, "I swear I saw an agreeable spark +toast Miss Phyllida in Chalybeate--the irreverent dog--but I forgave +him; upon my honour, I was near doing the same thing myself." + +Now Phyllida was not at all anxious for her mother to think she had an +admirer, and yet with youth's vanity, she could not resist a +half-acknowledgment of the Beau's rally. Luckily for her, Major Tarry, +who always resented his removal from the centre of attraction, thought +it was time to assert his existence by demanding rather pompously if the +Beau saw anything unusual in the sky. + +"Yes, sir," the latter agreed. "I see the sun, which is very unusual at +this season of the year." + +Mr. Moon gaped a smile, and Tarry's Apple began to rise. He had +anticipated a surprized negative from the Beau, whereupon he intended to +look very mysterious and say that after all perhaps he was mistaken. +Thus, having impressed the bystanders with the notion that they were +talking to a man of superhuman vision, he would offer an arm to Mrs. +Courteen. + +"Run, Betty," exclaimed the latter, "and tell Mr. Thomas we await his +escort." + +Thomas was at the footman's Pump Room, a hundred yards down the hill. +Here, every morning he mused regretfully upon the decline of +beer-drinking. Chalybeate to him was a sort of Jacobite liquor which was +slowly supplanting the honest Esau ale. As for streams that spouted +inexplicably from solid rocks, these he held to be an infringement of +Moses' prerogative. He would unscrew the knob of his footman's cane for +a morsel of Parmesan cheese and chew the cud of bitter reflection, while +with the butt of his nose he would polish the silver ball till it shone +with equal splendour. + +Betty found him thus occupied and, as he stalked after her in obedience +to his summoning, she heard him mutter several times in quick +succession, "Wells of Sodom! Waters of Gomorrah! Pillars of Salt!" + +Mrs. Courteen as she curtseyed her farewells to the Beau sank to the +ground like a deflated balloon. This done she gathered her party into +hearing and occupied their outward attention as they walked in the +direction of the Crescent with a long and disjointed account of her +health. + +"Why will you shake your muff so vehemently?" complained the Widow. + +"'Tis full of dust," said Phyllida. + +If it was, I am afraid Miss Courteen was trying to throw some of it into +her mamma's eyes. + + + + +_Chapter the Third_ + +THE BLUE BOAR + + +While the Exquisite Mob circled round the central fane of Æsculapius, +Mr. Charles Lovely had enough lack of taste and orthodoxy to make a +heretick promenade in the low-lying water-meadows at the foot of the +town. + +He had knocked three times at old General Morton's house in the Western +Colonnade and delivered Miss Courteen's Valentine into the hands of Miss +Sukey Morton's maid. She, poor soul, wore round her neck a brass button +attached to a piece of string still reminiscent in tarred perfume of the +Dorsetshire jetty down which she had wandered a year ago. It was +streaking her breast with verdigris as if in some way prophetick of a +heart that all too soon would be tarnished more irreparably by that +faithless lover beyond the seas. + +Consequently Miss Morton's maid received the paquet with a sympathetick +reverence learnt in long morning dreams when the sunlight splashed the +walls of her garret in waves and ripples of faint gold. + +"Any name, your honour?" she asked. + +"I believe not." + +"And no message?" she paused in bright-eyed hope of an assignation which +was to be the first step in the softening of her mistress' hard and +imperious little heart. + +"None at all so far as I know, my dear," and Mr. Lovely passed on down +the deserted street towards the meadows. + +The little maid stood on the steps regarding him. + +"Tes a Valentoine surely," she thought, and held the envelope between +her and the discoverer sun. A red heart glowed through the paper, a red +heart pierced by a flaming arrow. + +"And who'd ha' thought she had a bow and her be so spoitful." + +She sighed as she gazed after Mr. Lovely. + +"He do look proper and happy surely." + +The elegant young gentlemen had, in fact caught some of the harlequin +grace of a fine morning in the prime of the year as he avoided the +cracks in the paving stones to bring the meadows closer and make the +Colonnade less intolerably long. + +"Wi' sech a rosy spark, for sure, she've no call to be jealous of me," +thought the little maid, as her soul went winging over the great +Atlantick whose roar filled the silence of her mind, to meet the soul of +her sailor-lover who was at the moment sitting upon an alien beach in +the company of two dusky wantons and a bottle of Jamaica rum. + +Mr. Lovely turned the corner and the little maid vanished at the sound +of a bell summoning her to tie one of her mistress' pink bows to a more +modish angle. + +Our hero, for since perfect confidence should exist between us, I will +no longer attempt to conceal his identity, continued to walk to the tune +of a lyrick always provided the measure did not compel him to step upon +one of the fatal cracks. Soon he came to a road which ended in green +fields sodden with winter rains, but soft and grateful after the arid +pavement. + +Face to face with the pale blue February sky, he took up more earnestly +the intention of the half-fledged songs that occupied his brain. Strange +songs they were, fanciful and unrestrained in the eyes of their author +and his contemporaries who did not recognize in them an echo of one Mr. +Herrick, dead, and now forgotten by the world of literature. His mother +had read the poems to him as a child. The _Hesperides_ of 1648 was the +only book owned by the lodging-house in Westminster where a dingy year +of childhood had dragged out its course. In his youth, he had loved +their sharp, elusive harmonies, and when he attained years of +composition, could never free his own lyricks from extravagance so +acquired, however assiduously he attempted to follow Augustan models. To +his credit, be it added, he was always sincerely ashamed of his +barbarick numbers and, as he grew older, was often successful in +expressing the heart of a riotous evening in a clear-cut drinking song. +Perhaps this vain pursuit of formalism in words made him neglect his +private life, which ran a wild career checked by nothing stronger than +the strings of his purse. + +As he leaned over a stile and watched the cattle in the meadows, out of +the past there came like an arrow of song shot from the gloomy depths of +London, + + _Ye have been fresh and green, + Ye have been filled with flowers, + And ye the walks have been + Where maids have spent their hours._ + +But Mr. Lovely was dissatisfied. He felt the sentiment would have +reached a larger dignity, a more epigrammatick crispness, a more +trenchant elusiveness, if it had never strayed beyond the bonds of an +heroick couplet. He deplored his ineradicable early impressions and +vowed to study the classick models with a still more fierce ardour of +imitation. + +But having formed this resolution, our hero was just as discontented as +before. The sun shining into his heart, found no reflection there. + +"These d--d late nights are killing me," he complained, ascribing his +discontent to fatiguing sessions of play. He bent down to pluck a starry +celandine and wasted a few minutes in trying to find out whether he +liked butter. The little golden oracle told him he did, but as he was +well aware of this fact already, only the flower benefited by an +enhanced reputation for infallibility. Nevertheless it was flicked +carelessly over the hedge where it lay stalk upwards in the shade like +many another prophet before it. To confess the truth at once, Mr. Lovely +had only used the butter to deceive himself, for round about his +red-heeled shoes were eight golden petals which seem to prove that a +more intimate question had been asked, and answered unfavourably if we +may judge by the banishment of the flower. To console his wounded +susceptibleness, he determined to smoke a pipe and, having made up his +mind, found the long clay stem was broken. With a pithy condemnation of +things in general, he tried to establish the reason of his depressed +spirits. Then he discovered his spirits were not depressed, merely +unsettled. Burgundy of course. Hazard without a doubt. Should he try +Chalybeate? The d--l! not if he knew it. Should he try Chalybeate? She +wore a very engaging swansdown tippet. What a fool he had been to come +to these meadows! Should he try Chalybeate? The half-fledged lyrick was +strangled: the landskip seemed pretentiously bright in proportion to the +wintry air which was still abroad and, to crown all, he felt an +extraordinary desire to drink a tankard of ale with Mr. Anthony Clare at +the _Blue Boar_. The latter might know who wore swansdown in the +Crescent. With a sigh of relief, he wrung this admission out of himself, +shivered and turned his face towards Curtain Wells, whose houses +clustered like a swarm of bees around the sacred hill. + +The _Blue Boar_, whither Mr. Charles Lovely was bound, was a hostelry of +the conventionally ample type. The rooms with exterior rows of galleries +were built round a large quadrangle to which coaches and stage waggons +were admitted through an arch that was only just high enough for the +vehicles of a more recent pattern. The fixed population consisted of +innumerable plump and shapely chambermaids, innumerable dried-up +hostlers and grooms, and a certain number of sedate waiters who were all +clothed in the same shade of rusty black, and all of whom wished they +had settled earlier in life to become footmen. However this canker of +thwarted ambition never prevented them from handling anything from a +soup-tureen to a guinea-piece with reverence and precision. + +The host, Jeremy Daish, was neither round nor rubicund. On the contrary +he was remarkably sallow and, in his suit of cinnamon cloth, bore a +vague likeness to a well-seasoned Cremona violin. He was the builder, +owner, and inventor of the famous _Daish's Rooms_ adjoining the Inn and, +as the latter served for a recognized adjunct to the more official +_Assembly Rooms_, Mr. Daish became a somewhat mildewed counterpart of +the great Beau himself, a mezzotint ill-executed of a famous painting in +oils. His back was so often crouched in servility that it had acquired a +permanent stoop. Rumour said that years ago Mr. Daish was often seen +fiddle in hand at West-country fairs and wakes, and supported the legend +by pointing out when a lady of the extremist fashion and quality graced +his dancing floor with a pair of very high red heels, the solemn +innkeeper would steal to the Dais of the musicians and, taking an +instrument, would himself bob and play my lady through a minuet with +considerable Gusto and Bravura. + +The _Blue Boar_ was patronized by a select company of fashionable young +gentlemen who lent the old hostelry something of the tone of White's or +Almack's. Bagmen were excluded from the wing occupied by these elegant +patrons, and though from time to time one of the former, with a merry +reputation, would be invited to take wine with the quality in return for +the tale of a famous and gross adventure, it was distinctly understood +that nothing low or vulgar was allowed to penetrate beyond a certain +doorway. + +Beau Ripple himself would saunter down towards twilight and exhort his +youthful subjects on the folly of vice, the futility of play and the +obligation to drink the waters at half-past eight o'clock. Mr. Ripple +was esteemed a Puritan, but such a genteel Puritan that the young +gentlemen, subdued by the length of his waistcoats and his +irreproachable ties and solitaires, listened to him willingly enough, +and overpowered by the orthodoxy of his wigs and buckles, the fullness +of his shirts and the size of his cuffs, heeded his warnings sometimes. + +Mr. Lovely strolled through the archway into the yard all fresh and +shining after the morning swill. Along the galleries, the chambermaids +were hurrying about their work, and the figure of Mrs. Grindle, the +housekeeper, glittering and jingling with keys, warned him no loitering +in the galleries would be tolerated at that hour of the day. Two horses +were being groomed in the courtyard, but as he had discussed all their +points both with their owners and the hostlers at least half a dozen +times before, he was not inclined to pursue the outworn theme farther. + +"Mr. Clare about?" he inquired. + +"Han't seen him, y'r honour," answered one of the workers. + +"'Es that Mr. Clare?" asked the other. + +"Yes, my good fellow, have you seen him?" + +"Rode over to Baverstock Regis to see a maiden aunt," the man replied. + +"Ho! ho! ho!" roared the first, "dang me if that bean't the best I ever +hard. Ho! Ho! ho!" and convulsed with merriment, the man slapped his +tight-breeched thighs with frequency and vigour. + +"You make the very d--l of a noise, Sirrah," said Mr. Lovely fretfully. + +"I axe y'r honour's pardon, but when I hard Jock there talking of maiden +aunts--ho--ho--ho! and when I minds that shaapely--ah! well it doan't do +to mention no naames, but it come over me sudden to laugh," and with +this apology, the humorous hostler picked up his mare's near fore-leg, +and continued to chuckle at intervals for the rest of the day. + +Mr. Lovely began to think Tony Clare was confoundedly young, and when +one young man begins to think another young man confoundedly young, it +is usually a convincing proof that the pensive young man is deep in +love. + +"What's a fellow to do?" he sighed as he turned into the coffee-room. It +was empty, so he called for a draught of ale, put his feet on the window +seat and surveyed the passers-by. He wondered what had become of his +friends, and why the d----l all the world was gone mad because the sun +shone with unwonted brilliance for the middle of February. Then he +remembered it was Valentine day and amused himself with the manufacture +of paper darts which he shot at the prettiest young women in range. +Unluckily, in an attempt to pierce the ripe heart of buxom Miss Page who +assisted at the cook-shop, he wounded the Rector on the nose. This set +him moralizing on the fortune of Love. Could anything be more +incongruous than Love and the Rector. Yet why not? We are all targets of +a dimpled nudity. The phrase caught his fancy. Numberless Cupids in +attitudes of attack floated before his mind's eye. "Demme!" thought Mr. +Lovely, "my brain is like an Italian ceiling. Targets of a dimpled +nudity!" He flung back the lattice to its utmost extent and leaned out +to the morning whence the chatter of the world without floated into the +sunny room. + +"Everybody is monstrous good-humoured," he concluded. But somehow it was +no longer amusing to quiz the young woman in Mrs. Tabby's ribband-shop +through his ivory rimmed perspective. Somehow since yesterday her +forearm had grown coarser. + +"All the world's growing old," he grumbled disconsolately. But the world +would not be vapoured, and laughed and chattered and bobbed and flirted +and chirped with all the selfishness of a world that is always young in +defiance of the moods of her individuals. + +Suddenly the mob of Cupids faded from his mind and the World at which he +was scoffing ceased to exist. Surely at the very end of the High Street, +he could discern something which was slowly assuming the magic shape of +a swansdown tippet. His heart began to beat very fast and he felt the +rushing crimson flood his cheeks. Life was wrapped in swansdown, as, +through clouds of the airy texture, his soul soared to unimaginable +heights. Then came the descent and, waking as from a dream, he found +himself staring down into a pair of wide blue eyes. In his embarrassment +he knocked over a pot of jacynths and, above the noise of the fall, +heard himself telling a Swansdown Muff he had delivered the paquet. +Could anything be more enchanting than the warning fore-finger, save +the lips to which it was lifted? Could anything better console his +enforced silence than the knowledge that between him and her existed a +secret? The swansdown tippet and swansdown muff had vanished, but +fragments of broken Terra Cotta strewed the pavement. The swansdown +tippet and swansdown muff had floated away to some fairyland of their +own, but a blue jacynth perfumed the air. + +Certainly the idlers of Curtain Wells had a fruitful subject for an +afternoon's debate in the sight of young Mr. Lovely climbing out of the +coffee-room window. Besides, if that were not amazing enough, the idlers +were immediately diverted by the aspect of young Mr. Lovely gathering up +the remains of a shattered flower-pot and clasping a bruised jacynth to +his silk waistcoat. They all agreed the incident had no explanation, and +were even stirred out of their perpetual lethargy to muster round the +entrance of the _Blue Boar_ in order to verify a daring speculation that +he was going to carry the fragments within. + +"Good G----!" said Mr. Ripple who was approaching the archway from the +other side. "Good G----, sir, are you mad?" To Mr. Ripple the shock was +great. He had aspirations for Mr. Lovely. To be sure, he was wild, an +extravagant young dog, but then he possessed an inimitable assurance of +manner, a pretty talent for polite verse-making, and a consummate taste +in brocades. The Beau of late had often pondered the choice of his +successor. He had aspirations for Mr. Lovely and now he saw his +favourite positively panting (the most ungenteel motion and fatal to the +fall of a waistcoat), not merely panting but smeared with mould, hugging +potsherds, and apparently quite unmoved by his degradation. Is it +wonderful that Mr. Ripple cried, + +"Good G----, sir, are you mad?" + +"Yes," shouted Mr. Lovely. + +"Or drunk?" + +"Yes," shouted Mr. Lovely. + +As he seemed inclined to answer every question in the affirmative, the +Beau remarked he wished to see a representative group of the young +gentlemen at the Blue Boar upon a matter of the gravest social and +civick importance. + +Our hero ejaculated, "With you in the twinkling of a bedpost," and raced +across the yard, up the first staircase, along the first gallery and +into the last room. + +A light broke upon Mr. Ripple's bewilderment. + +"He has discovered some prehistorick relicks. Probably Cinerary Urn, a +Lunette or possibly a gold coin of Rome." + +In pleasant anticipation, the Beau who was an intimate friend of Mr. +Sylvanus Urban, beheld the folded copper-plate illustrating the +discovery and the rounded sentences on the opposite page of the +_Gentleman's Magazine_ in which the excavations would be carefully +recorded by Horace Ripple. + +"This must assuage my wrath," he decided by the door of the coffee-room. + +To tell the truth, the Beau was on censure bent when he met our hero +outside the _Blue Boar_. + +Already, that morning, he had alluded to the riotous nocturnal +behaviour, the assaults upon the watch, the fusilade of empty bottles, +but not being able to descry a single offender, he determined that +personal and individual remonstrance would be more efficacious. To the +_Blue Boar_ therefore, he went having first exchanged his suit of olive +green for one of black sattin unrelieved by silver and terminated by +ruffles whose cambrick fell in severe folds and condemnatory lines. + +As he stepped from the Great House round the Crescent and along the High +Street, he passed in sombre eclipse upon the gaiety of subjects shining +with the reflection of his genteel rays. + +Presently Mr. Lovely came back still bearing the marks of the potted +soil. + +"Was it an Urn?" + +Mr. Lovely looked surprized. + +"A Lachrymatory perhaps? Or a Lunette? Or," Mr. Ripple grew breathless +with excitement, "not an Image of Æsculapius?" + +"Pray, sir, are you trying to humour a madman? Because on my soul, I +don't know what you are driving at." + +"So, sir, your late phrenzy was nothing more than the unbridled haste +and inconsiderate volition of youthful folly?" sternly demanded the +Beau. + +"I 'faith, I knocked over one of old Daish's precious pots, and was +making haste to remove it from the region of his laments. That's all, +and there's my hand on't." + +"You will pardon me," replied the Beau drawing back, "I have no +objection to shaking a hand stained by honest toil, but I have never +shaken a hand sullied by mere zest for uncleanliness." + +"As you will, dear Beau," laughed Mr. Lovely. + +The Beau was about to point an example to adorn his statement when he +was interrupted by the entrance of severe Mrs. Grindle clasping her nose +with one hand, and with the other holding at arm's length the offending +jacynth by a shred of its roots. + +"Mr. Lovely, sir," she began and as our hero pulled forward a chair and +the Beau leaned back to listen, she continued, "I have known a cat +kitten in one of the maids' beds." + +"How very distressing," murmured the Beau letting the firelight play in +the diamonds of his rings. + +"But never, never," proclaimed Mrs. Grindle swelling like Mr. Handel's +_Largo_, "have I known a young gentleman want to turn his bachelor bed +into a ploughed field. Mr. Lovely, sir, I'll trouble you to say if this +is your planting or did you wish to insinuate that your bed was not made +this morning?" + +"Mrs. Grindle, madam," replied the accused, "you have heard of beds and +you have heard of garden-beds. Mine is a garden-bed. A Parterre +impromptu, a Landskip in miniature, a Bucolick of slumber, a dimity +Eclogue. In a word--but pray, Mrs. Grindle, my dear Mrs. Grindle, out +of regard for me rehabilitate that jacynth without a word to Mr. Daish, +and I, out of regard for you, will certainly pay for the washing of the +bedspread." + +Mr. Lovely smiled so very engagingly and looked so completely innocent +of any desire to insinuate anything except Mrs. Grindle's good-nature +that the housekeeper gave way, condescended to smile and, as she +retired, threw a quick glance in the direction of a mirrour to notice +the angle of her snowy cap. + +Having reduced Mrs. Grindle to affableness, Mr. Lovely turned his smile +towards the Beau. The latter had watched with much satisfaction the +progress of his favourite's negociations, thinking to himself that a man +who could circumvent such a dragon as the housekeeper would be very well +able to keep in order the most self-assertive of Duchesses. He began to +relent his indignation and, as Lovely smiled at him, to see in his late +impetuousness no more than the natural activity of a jolly young man. +Moreover, for a certain reason, he had a genuine affection for the +rogue, and was glad to perceive his high spirits. + +"I came here this morning in the hope of a serious conversation with +some of your friends. Are they--are they in the--er--taproom?" + +"They're all gone after maids." + +"Tut, tut, I wish I could make it plain that Curtain Wells exists for +the continence, not the encouragement of appetites." + +"You must blame the sun, dear Beau." + +"In view of the many pleasant hours I have spent basking in the warmth, +I should not presume to do anything so ungrateful. But I will remark +that the Sun in his human guises is not to be considered a beneficial +example to young men at a stage in the history of mankind when maidens +are no longer able to transform themselves into umbrageous laurels, thus +rendering impertinent and inconvenient what at first seemed appropriate +and inevitable. I allude, sir, to the legend of Apollo and Madam Daphne. +However, my dear Charles--" here the Beau laid three tapered jewelled +fingers upon the extremity of Mr. Lovely's left shoulder. + +"You overwhelm me, sir, with your condescension. The omission of the +surname by Beau Ripple, is the bestowal of a title." + +"Very well put, Charles," said the older man contentedly. "'Fore Gad! +you do me credit. Snuff, sir?" + +Charles (we may follow the lead of Mr. Ripple) was now veritably +astonished. Never could he recall such an instance of the Beau's +condescension towards a man of his years; and he dipped his fingers into +the proffered snuff-box with greater bashfulness than he would have +displayed towards the powder-box of Titania. + +"However, though the rest of our young gentlemen are--after maids," the +Beau stumbled over the crudity of the phrase, "I am happy to see that +you are engrossed by the seemlier pastime of horticulture." Was it fancy +or did Charles really see his mentor blow a tuft of swansdown from his +cuff? "I wish," the latter went on, "to remonstrate with you on the +indecorous character of your midnight entertainments. Owls, under +providence, are allowed to shriek and hoot after sundown, but there +seems no reason for extending to men the privilege accorded by a Divine +Creator to owls. In short, Mr. Lovely, there has been the--there has +been an atrocious hurly-burly in this house every night of late. Pray do +not interrupt me," he added as Charles made a protesting movement. "I +have the fullest Data for my general observations." + +"Youth, dear Beau, hot-headed, open-handed Youth." + +"Yes, yes, I know something of Youth's anatomy from a personal +experience of the happy state, but Youth, Mr. Lovely, is a mighty +inadequate justification for a circular scar on the forehead of one of +our most respected and silver-tongued watchmen--a scar inflicted by the +unconsumed but necessary concomitant of a quart of Burgundy." + +"It was an accident, sir, young Tom Chalkley of the Foot----" + +"I have observed, Mr. Lovely, that if one of these missiles happens to +strike the body against which it is aimed the result is invariably an +accident whereas if the missile goes wide of the mark it is a d----d +poor shot. But it cannot go on, Mr. Lovely. It shall not go on. The +residents acting in conjunction with the visitors reserve the right to +expel summarily any person who causes publick offence, and I, as their +accredited representative, should be in the highest degree culpable if I +allowed it to go on. Consequently, my dear Charles, I appeal to you as +to one possessed of some influence over the more violent spirits, to do +all in your power of persuasion to prevent it from going on." + +Now as the successful quart bottle had been thrown by our hero, and as +he was usually the chief agent in promoting a disturbance, it is evident +that Mr. Ripple secured his unparalleled authority as much by tact as by +severity. + +"Dear Beau, you shall be obliged," said Charles, "and now pray tell me +who wears a white swansdown tippet and lives hard by the Great House." + +"I am not accustomed to observe the minor variations in feminine +costume," answered Mr. Ripple with some austerity. + +"Nay! But a hermit froze to his psalter must have noticed her," +protested the younger man. + +"The analogy is incomplete." + +"I shall be at the Assembly on Monday night." + +"You could not be more worthily employed." + +"And I shall effect an introduction under your patronage." + +"That very much depends." + +"On my good behaviour?" asked Charles. + +"On the immunity of my watchmen from further assaults." + +"Dear Beau, we are all targets of a--" he hesitated, "of a dimpled +nudity or an empty bottle. Love and a bottle, there's the world." + +"The flesh, I think, sir." + +"I 'faith, Satan must have a fine sieve if he can separate the pair." + +"I am no theologian." + +"Then you'll present me?" persisted Charles. + +"You will protect my watchmen?" demanded the Beau. + +"On Monday night?" urged Charles. + +"Every night," added the Beau. "Unconditional surrender is my ultimatum. +But I hope I know how to display generosity towards a vanquished enemy. +You will attend the Publick Breakfast awarded to Sir Jeremy Dummer?" + +"Truly I----" + +"Tut, tut, I insist. My old friend Lord Cinderton arrives to-day with +his invalid son, George Harthe-Brusshe. I should like the young man to +see your cherry and trout-pink cuffs." + +"Too unseasonable a combination of colours for breakfast." + +"Pshaw! your appearance will give a fillip to his impoverished +appetite." + +"I 'faith, I believe I know how to flavour my conversation with Attick +salt, but I swear I never dressed myself for the Role of condiment." + +The conversation was soon entirely of sauces. + + + + +_Chapter the Fourth_ + +CURTAIN MAZE + + +The Maze at Curtain Wells was always considered one of the principal +sights of the place. Holding this reputation, it was naturally the least +frequented. Visitors either went there the second day after their +arrival or scuttled round it with a competent escort in the twenty-four +hours that preceded their departure. But since no one went there twice +and since all the visitors and residents of the Wells were perfectly +familiar with the various shrines, its invariable emptiness may easily +be apprehended. In summer the gardens of which it was a feature were +thronged at the fashionable hours. There was also a Rotunda similar to +if less grandiose than the famous Rotunda at Ranelagh Garden. This had +not long been in existence, and was only used for balls and masquerades +through May and June, when the Maze was spangled with lamps for the +delight of the dancers. Even so, very few availed themselves of the +shelter of its yew-hedges and always spent the rest of the evening in +trying to find their way out, being lucky if they succeeded in making a +somewhat ruffled appearance during the last Cotillon. + +To Curtain Garden went Miss Phyllida Courteen and Madam Betty her maid: +to Curtain Garden they were going when they passed Mr. Charles Lovely at +the coffee-room window. + +Betty belonged to a type of womanhood that grows with age, increased fat +and pursiness, into a nurse such as Mr. Shakespeare drew in _Romeo and +Juliet_. If she had been brought up in a disreputable purlieu of the +town, she would have become a personally chaste procuress but, nurtured +among the buttercups, she merely had a perpetual desire to see her +pretty young mistress aflame through the careless progress of some gay +spark or other. Whatever there was of passion in her meadow-born soul +fed itself on objective embraces. She was never a maid for a +kissing-gate at long shadow time, but when she saw Phyllida's heart +flutter with quick emotion before the approach of Mr. Vernon, a +primitive phrenzy set her cheeks aglow and fired her eyes to a livelier +blue. She adored her mistress with a precocious maternity but, +paradoxically enough, without any of the mother's jealousy of a lover +near to his possession. Vernon with his pale face and slightly sinister +demeanour had caught her fancy. 'Let him mate with my pretty one,' she +would say to herself, 'blossom of apple looks most rare and sweet under +a grey sky of clouds.' It was this anxiety to provide a physical match +for Phyllida which had led her to encourage Vernon's addresses, and her +mistress to pay heed to his vows. Her greatest delight was to stand, +watching against interruption, in the next alley to the lovers. Here she +would thrill her imagination with the thought of frail and timid fingers +in the clasp of a strong white hand. The sudden interposition of Mr. +Lovely vexed her. Certainly he was handsome enough, but too much of a +piece with Phyllida; they might have been brother and sister. Moreover, +he was always laughing. + +"A man who always laughs is as bad as a dog who always wags his tail. +Neither is fit for a maid," she grumbled to Phyllida as they stepped +briskly along beneath the tall poplars that fringed the road leading to +the entrance of Curtain Garden. + +"Truly I vow he has a romantick air," protested Phyllida. + +"La! what's romantick? 'Tis no more than reading a book on the shady +side of the street." Betty tossed a contemptuous head. + +"Indeed, Betty, I think 'tis a great deal more than that. To be +romantick, child, is to have a noble heart, and to have a noble +heart----" + +"'Is to lead the Venite on a Sunday morning," interrupted the maid. + +"No! 'tis not." + +"Well! 'tes to kneel very obstreperous." + +"'Tis no such a thing," said Phyllida, stamping on the pavement. + +By this time, they had reached the famous wrought-iron gates of the +principal entrance, where an old man in an enormous three-cornered hat +and long heavily laced surtout walked up and down. Sometimes he would +stop and, over gnarled hands twisted round the ivory crook of his cane, +stare fiercely at the stamped effigies of Æsculapius and Flora while he +addressed the presiding deities in a wheezy monotone. + +"Curtain Garden! Curtain Garden! Lads and lasses, ye'll grow old. Fit +for maids is Curtain Garden." Thus having droned a warning to Olympus, +he would resume his walk. + +In two months the broad gravelled path which he guarded would be +thronged by the Exquisite Mob, but at present his only audience on fine +days was composed of Phyllida and Betty. On wet days, when not even they +ventured out, he would sit in a little pagoda whence every few minutes +he would pop out his head, and in the same wheezy monotone lament 'Rain! +Rain! on the windowpane!' and retire as abruptly as a cuckoo that has +told the hour. + +With this aged janitor Phyllida used to have a daily conversation which +never varied by a single letter. + +"Nobody in the garden this morning?" + +"Not a soul nor a body, young miss." + +"Are you better of your cold?" + +"Very much worse." + +As Phyllida used to tell Betty when they had left the gateway behind +them, 'he must be very ill indeed because he has been very much worse +every day.' + +This customary conversation interrupted the argument over Mr. Lovely's +romantick character of mind, and when they turned down the path which +led to the Maze all discussion went to the wind at the prospect of again +seeing her dear Amor. + +Vernon had met Phyllida in the Maze but a bare two weeks ago. It +happened to be his first visit to the Wells, and he was in the act of +being solemnly lost when he accosted her for direction. Betty had +encouraged the chance acquaintanceship and Mr. Vernon, who was tired of +the mechanick Dryads of Vauxhall, embarked upon a new pleasure. The +natural secretiveness of his disposition led him to adopt Amor as a +fantastick pseudonym, and neither Betty nor Phyllida had troubled +themselves to inquire farther into his antecedents. Indeed, it would +have puzzled them to do so, for he had but lately appeared at the Pump +Room in response to Phyllida's earnest entreaty, and absolutely refused +to meet her at the Assembly Rooms. Consequently, had she felt inclined +to indulge a suspicion, there was no one to whom she could appeal except +perhaps Beau Ripple: and he, of course, was not to be thought of in +connection with so trivial a matter. + +You will recollect that Vernon's toilet of this morning was considerably +perturbed by the image of Phyllida. Over his coffee he had reviewed the +situation with great contempt for himself. + +To begin with, he had moved into lodgings opposite his charmer's abode. +What foolish enthusiasm! worthy of a stripling of sixteen, as he told +himself. Then he had seriously contemplated matrimony. To be sure, he +had made a few cautious inquiries and heard it stated on good authority +that she was an heiress, but odds his life! was that enough to make him +commit himself irreparably. He was jaded, and the rustick seclusion (so +he characterized the Wells!) had affected his head. A boarding-school +miss with gawky tendencies--a boarding-school miss with the smile of a +young nymph--a boarding-school miss with little fingers that tugged the +manhood--the weariness--out of his heart! It was impossible. His friends +would sneer unmercifully, and he would settle in the country as he had +often wished, and by heavens! he would seek her mother's consent. Pshaw! +the chit would become more insipid than ever, more delightful, more +enthralling, more utterly subjugating. Z----ds! what an impetuous fool +he would be considered. No! No! country misses were very well in the +country, and might bear transplantation for a season, but London +bough-pots should be renewed every Spring. Meanwhile the affair was +progressing very well, and if he could pluck a pigeon or two--there were +always pigeons in the country--why a Summer in town--and after that--why +after that--meanwhile his coffee was growing cold. + +But when he saw her radiance among the dark hedges of yew, all his +cynical plans withered away, and it would have taken mighty little to +transform the libertine into as honest a lover as ever galloped across +the horizon of a romantick imagination. What grace! What charm! What +movement! What colour! It was incredible she would ever grow old. He +rose from the stone seat in the heart of the Maze and saluted her with a +sculptured bow. + +"That's true romantick," whispered Betty. "See him bow, see him stand up +tall and white like a great wax candle." + +The swansdown tippet rose and fell to the beating of the eager heart +beneath. + +"My charmer takes the sun like a flower," said Mr. Vernon, bending over +her hand. + +Betty's eyes were a very quick and fiery blue as she turned away to her +post, and, indeed, the scene would have ravished a block. + +Never were yews so dark and velvety, so full of whispered secrets, as +the gentle wind stirred their crisped leaves continually. In a silence +made by cushions of moss set with many green stars that muffled every +footstep, the stone image of Cupid, poised upon his damp-stained +pedestal caught from the February sunlight the veritable bloom and +semblance of divinity. + +Vernon, as he led Phyllida to the seat and saw her eyes flash over the +swansdown muff, was sure that such beauty must capture something of the +permanence expressed by the statue and remain for ever young, for ever +provocative of desire. + +High over their heads a flight of pigeons circled against the azure, +gathered and broke into a scattered multitude of snowy wings whose +fluttering echoes travelled along the sunlight to the sombre heart of +the Maze. + +The simple grace with which Phyllida seated herself held Vernon +entranced. He could have sworn that the stone wings of the Cupid +trembled faintly as if, animate and inanimate, the whole world stood +ready to scale the empyrean. Blinded by an ecstasy of hope, the man +forgot himself, discarded the mean ambitions that for so long had guided +his actions, and conceived the idea of a fresher existence. Great +moments, like great men, have a solitary life, and there was nothing in +Phyllida to respond to the fire which he had waked from a pile of ashes. +Actually she was wondering whether her dear Amor had remembered +Valentine day, whether, indeed, his burning gaze was a prelude to the +offer of a trinket. + +"'Tis surely a pleasant Valentine morning," she murmured screwing up her +eyes to the sun. + +Vernon cursed the want of practice with young misses which had let him +forget what every fair esteemed a man's sacred duty. However, he was a +resourceful gentleman and, without any perceptible hesitation, produced +from his pocket a paste brooch cut to the likeness of a basket of +twinkling blue forget-me-nots. + +The history of this little ornament possesses enough irony to warrant a +short digression. It used to hang in the window of a Midland toy-shop, +and had made a pretty birthday gift from a young man deep in love to his +betrothed. She wore it in her kerchief for ten years and sent it at last +to her lover in London with some other trinkets not very valuable, but +all of the same fresh beauty. At the bottom of the packet was a faded +sprig of whitethorn. The young gentleman--not quite so young now--opened +it as a London dawn empearled the city smoke. It had lain all day in his +room neglected while the dice-box rattled like a skeleton at the feast +of Love--a feast of pimps and blowsy carmine furies. The contents of the +packet went with the last of his guineas, and at the division of the +stake Mr. Vernon contemptuously accepted the brooch. The latter never +troubled himself to take the ornament out of his pocket. Now once more +it came back to Youth and Beauty. + +As she pinned it to her kerchief, Phyllida thanked him for his sweet +thoughtfulness, and wondered if he would always remember this morning. + +By this time, Vernon had clambered down from his mountain top. Perhaps +the brooch made his descent more easy. Yet I think he was sincere when +he swore he would never forget. + +Anyway Phyllida believed him and so there is nothing more to be said. + +"When we are wed," she began, and startled him with such an abrupt +disclosure of her dreams. "When we are wed, I think we will live in Hyde +Park. Where is Hyde Park?" + +"On the confines of Kensington, my dear." + +"Yes, but where is Kensington?" + +"A mile or so Westward of Temple Bar." + +"I think we will live in Kensington." + +"Nay, prithee! would you have us die of dullness." + +"Is Kensington dull?" + +"'Tis very rustick. No! my charmer shall lodge in the Haymarket." + +Phyllida pouted. There was a Haymarket in the country town to which she +made an occasional visit from the little village of Newton Candover, and +she remembered it as a dusty spot not fit for a new pair of shoes. + +"I vow I should detest the Haymarket." + +"Nay, 'tis the gayest place, with hackney coaches passing to and fro all +day. You shall sit at your window and all the fine ladies of rank and +fashion will envy you." + +"And what will my Amor be doing?" + +"He will be looking over his angel's shoulder." + +"Then they'll envy me more than ever," said Phyllida with a contented +laugh. Vernon pressed her hand and looked round quickly as a man will +before he attempts the first kiss. But Phyllida drew back. + +"What shall we do when we are tired of sitting at the windows--if one +could ever tire of anything so pleasant," she added with a sigh. + +"We'll call a hackney-coach and drive to Westminster Steps, to the +river." + +"To the river? Now that will be most diverting." + +"And we'll hail the waterman with the most elegant wherry, and row up +through the dusk to Vauxhall." + +Phyllida was staring at him with the round eyes of a child who listens +to an old fairy-tale. + +"Then what should we do?" she asked earnestly. + +"We should choose a box for two and sit with our elbows over a very +small table and look at each other just as we are looking now." + +"Yes! go on," cried Phyllida clapping her hands. + +"Then we should call for chicken-wings and eat our supper and listen to +the new song and the musick of the orchestra playing the finest tunes +high up among a thousand sparkling coloured lamps and watch the +masqueraders and row back to Westminster under a great moon." + +Mr. Vernon was so much inspired by the interest of his listener that he +began to believe in the reality of this proposed idyll, quite forgetting +that it was a chastened account of a hundred similar adventures enjoyed +with the domino passion of a night. + +"Vauxhall must be the properest place in the world," sighed Phyllida, "I +doubt everybody wears their jewels." + +"Everybody," replied her lover with a quick glance. + +"I should wear my pearls." + +"Your pearls?" + +"My necklace that was left by Grandmother Courteen. Mamma won't let me +wear it till I'm one-and-twenty." + +"But supposing you ran away?" + +"Oh I should never dare. I should be frightened." + +Vernon changed the subject, perceiving at present the courtship was +nothing more serious than a Springtime diversion. + +He told himself if the child surrendered to his blandishments, it would +be an easy matter to induce her to run away. He must weave a strong web +of personal attraction round her, and if her prudence sustained her to +the end, why perhaps he might commit himself to a serious offer of +marriage. He must inquire further into her fortune. He wished it were +not so difficult to put an arm round her waist. Innocence was very well +and the prospect of a siege amusing enough at first, but a long deferred +capitulation would be immensely fatiguing; and yet how charming she was. +Not for anything would he have her different. + +"When we are wed," he began and for the first time echoed her lately +expressed hopes. In some way he felt that she would be to blame, if harm +came of it. She had given the cue. + +"When we are wed, we shall go to routs." + +"But we shall be old and wise and able to go then. It won't be near so +diverting then as 'twould be now--if you came to the Assemblies." + +"My angel forgets the risque of discovery." + +"There could be no more danger in that than there is in sitting here in +the Maze." + +"Come!" + +"I'm sure if we were prudent nobody would suspect us of a love-affair." + +"But consider my ardour. 'Twould illuminate the whole matter." + +"Well! and if the old maids did talk, they would only talk into their +teacups and every one knows that to be monstrous ungenteel behaviour. +Lud! I've been censured before. Why, when I was but sixteen I was the +talk of the ballroom because I stepped four gavottes with Dicky +Combleton, Squire Combleton's youngest son. Every one said I was a +forward minx, and he's only a year older than me and that's only last +year." Phyllida became very indignant, and Mr. Vernon who lacked humour +became very indignant too at being compared to a bumpkin. + +"Surely my angel sees the circumstances are slightly altered?" + +He clasped her hand, and stroked it slowly, but she was not to be +pacified and drew it away. + +"For my part, I don't know how you dare say you care for my reputation +and sit here holding my hand. Walls have ears and hedges have eyes." + +"You would not withdraw your hand if you were sure we were not +observed?" + +She made no reply. + +"Possibly," he went on, "you would let me kiss those sweet lips to a +smile--if we were not observed?" + +"Indeed, I vow you should never do anything so indelicate." + +"Z----ds! my pretty Puritan----" he stopped because Phyllida's eyes +were very wide open indeed. + +"Oh Sir! no one but a father or a very old man has the right to swear so +dreadfully before a maid." + +He laughed. + +"So oaths depend on age for their propriety? I 'faith that's a new maxim +I've learned this morning. After all, my Phyllida, I am fifteen years +older than you." + +"That may be," she retorted primly, "and I have often wondered whether I +should allow a man of middle-age to make love to me." + +Vernon wrinkled with annoyance at such a description. He certainly +lacked humour. + +"But then, you see, I am in love with you, and not marrying you because +our estates join like my cousin Clarice who, we all agreed, was old +enough to know better." + +"Young enough, you mean. Morality rusts with the years." + +"I don't know what you are talking about, but it sounds like a text." + +"It is a text, my dear, the text of the man of the world." + +"I hate texts, but I don't hate goodness and you must promise never, +never to swear again, and--never, never to try to kiss me." + +"Not even when we are wed?" + +"That's another matter." + +"Perhaps when you are old and wise and able to kiss you won't like +kissing." + +"Oh! I protest, I should like it vastly," said Phyllida with great +decision. + +"But if you have never made the attempt?" + +"A young woman knows by instinct." + +"But why won't you make sure in advance?" + +"Because 'tis imprudent and wicked." + +"For my part, I believe you are playing with me." + +And then began a long argument which settled nothing at all and, after +ten minutes, left matters precisely where they started. + +What Vernon said in jest was in essence perfectly true but unfortunately +he was too vain and she was too young to believe it; for if potential +Phyllida knew very well she would not expire if her dear Amor vanished +for ever, actual Phyllida who was much younger and far more obstinate +was equally sure that a gradual decline into an interesting consumption +would be the natural result of such a calamity; while potential Vernon +who was anxious to prove himself a very fine fellow was very +contemptuous of actual Vernon and not at all willing to admit he would +find more than sufficient compensation for the loss of his Phyllida in +the ample charms of Miss Diana Flashington of the Theatre Royal, Drury +Lane. + +And this is the way a large number of world-shaking passions begin, +since at first we seldom apprehend our potentiality. + +The quarrel was interrupted by the sound of approaching voices just as +Betty came flying round the corner with the news that "Mr. Thomas and +your mamma be coming as fast as legs can carry 'em this way as ever is." + +The implication of a rapid advance is to be understood merely as +relative to their usual rate of procedure. + +In an instant all was confusion. Miss Courteen wrung her hands and +behaved quite as wildly as a grand married lady on the verge of +discovery in an ambiguous situation below stairs. Mr. Vernon flicked a +number of invisible specks of dust from his purple sattin breeches as +though he had been kneeling in devout protestation of honourable love +for the past hour, while Betty ran in turn to each of the four alleys +leading to their present position, and put a hand to an attentive ear. +She quickly ascertained by which path the enemy was advancing and +without more ado pushed Mr. Vernon hastily in the opposite direction, +thrust a tambour frame into her mistress's hands and composed herself to +spell aloud the Agricultural Calendar and Farmer's Assistant for the +current year. She was in the middle of some astonishing statisticks of +the comparative productiveness per acre of turnips and mangel-wurzels +when Mrs. Courteen followed by the majestick Thomas appeared upon the +scene. On perceiving her daughter, the latter gave a faint scream and +declared the meeting would certainly produce palpitations. + +At the utterance of this fatal word, Thomas immediately unscrewed the +knob of his cane and drew forth a bottle of salts, Phyllida performed +the same conjuring trick with her bag, while Betty after some +lace-involved rites in which a crimson garter played a prominent part +offered a third bottle not more than a moment later. By the tonick +influence of several sniffs Mrs. Courteen was sufficiently revived to +ask in a stern voice what Phyllida was doing in this ungodly place. +Thomas accompanied the query by muttering 'Canaanites' several times in +quick succession under his breath. What the commentary was intended to +imply no one knew; but there was a general belief that the footman +symbolized states of mind, people and actions of which he disapproved, +by the various hostile tribes encountered by the Israelites during their +wanderings. + +Phyllida assured her mother she was working a peacock in blue and +scarlet wool for the seat of a chair, and when Mrs. Courteen demanded +why she was not sitting on her own balcony, for the privilege of +possessing which she paid an additional five-and-sixpence a week in +rent, the daughter protested the East wind chapped her ankles. + +"Chaps your ankles, miss? What d'ye mean by chaps your ankles? At your +age, I didn't know I had ankles. Woollen hose was what I wore, and I +should have been whipped if I had ever dared to think my ankles were not +as thick as marrowbones." + +Phyllida begged her dear mamma's pardon and hoped to be forgiven, but +could not help remarking the sun was so warm that she had felt quite +positive her dear mamma would be pleased to see her take the air. + +"Twas very unkind of you," complained the widow, "to presume so far on +my acknowledged indulgence of your whims. You know the miserable state +of my health compels me to sip several glasses of the waters after +breakfast, and seize the lamentable opportunity to deceive your too +confiding parent. How am I to know you have not been sitting in this +heathen nook for days in succession?" + +Again the footman muttered 'Canaanites! Canaanites!' As this was exactly +where Phyllida had been sitting for days in succession, she looked +immensely shocked by the question. + +"Well! well," said Mrs. Courteen as if resigned to her daughter's +iniquity, "go home and pray that you may become a more dutiful child." + +Thomas murmured a low Amen and earned for his devotion a derisive and +ribald gesture from Betty. + +"Aren't you coming too, mamma?" + +"No, miss, I am not coming; I must rest myself and compose my mind and +soothe my feelings. Thomas, will you arrange my cushion." + +Thomas produced it from under the seven capes of his surtout without +perceptibly diminishing his girth. + +Said Phyllida to Betty as they stepped out of the Maze, "For my part, I +believe she only wanted to be rid of us in order to meet puffy old Moon +or skimpy little Tarry." + +And this supposition was perfectly true. + + + + +_Chapter the Fifth_ + +THE PUBLICK BREAKFAST + + +At half-past twelve o'clock of the following day, masculine Curtain +Wells began to arrive at the Town Hall determined to eat the health of +General Sir Jeremy Dummer with all the vigour of an appetite unspoiled +by a morsel of food since yesterday's supper. No procession was arranged +by those responsible for the entertainment, but the habit of punctuality +instilled by the Great little Beau secured an unrehearsed pageant. There +was no marshalled order, but since everybody set out from his abode at +the same time, the component populations of the place were compelled to +affect a military method of progress. + +It was quite unpremeditated and, therefore, the more impressive. The +Town Hall designed by Sir John Vanbrugh had been erected by publick +subscription to serve as a memorial to those gallant natives of Curtain +Wells who fought and died under the Duke of Marlborough. That the +aforesaid gallant natives were only three in number and in no case +killed in action was no cooler to the furnace of civick gratitude +kindled by the signing of the Peace of Utrecht. In their delight at the +discomfiture of the quarrelsome Whigs, the citizens expressly stipulated +there should be no hint of War and War's alarms in the construction of +their Hall. There were to be no cannon eternally belching forth stony +smoke, no image or superscription of Mars or Bellona. Greaves, bucklers, +spears, culverins, swords, scimitars and grenades were forbidden by +name. The central medallion of the pediment should enshrine Civick +Unity. + +So the reigning Mayor was represented in all the pomp of office grasping +the hands of two equally, befurred and bechained Aldermen. It was an +affecting combination of the real and the allegorical. A second +medallion contained a voluminously draped and very substantial lady who +with absent gaze spilled from a heavy Etruscan vase a large stream of +petrified Chalybeate. Her far-away look might be attributed to an effort +at ascertaining what a small Æsculapius was doing to a serpent on the +summit of a diminutive Pelion. This was Health. Finally a third +medallion held a peer in coronation robes thoughtfully regarding the +front of St. James' Palace. A curved scroll announced this pensive +aristocrat to be the representative of Society. + +Civick Unity, Health, and Society--could any other personifications so +justly convey the essential quality of Curtain Wells? And not a pike or +arquebus to frighten them out of a rigid serenity. + +Upon this sermon in stone, three streets converged, which at half-past +twelve o'clock were all thronged. Since the breakfast was essentially a +male function, the civick band by a happy inspiration of the band-master +thundered out _The Girl I left Behind Me_, as in its wake a number of +prosperous tradesmen tripped to the measure of the tune. Haberdashers +and cheesemongers, drygoodsmen and fishmongers, butchers, tailors, +saddlers, cooks and silversmiths all marched along with a pleasant +emotion of relief. Fortified by preliminary tankards of ale and +unhampered by prosaick wives and daughters, they retreated from nothing +save the business of serving customers. Vapours were dispelled by the +breeze of trumpets, and the thoughts aroused by the musick of the song +only added a pungent spice to their dreams of food and confirmed their +faith in the superiority of breeches over petticoats--at any rate when +walking away from the latter. + +Meanwhile down the central street came another crowd not marching with +the precision of movement inspired by the escort of the band, but still +urged to a certain unanimity of gait by the common object of their +advance. Mr. Mayor, preceded by his mace, set the time, and a line of +Aldermen carefully ordered their pace to his. Behind the Aldermen came +the Watch. This was a mistake. The latter should have led the +dignitaries, but had spent so much time in buttoning and unbuttoning its +capes and belts, in brushing its hats and polishing its staves that it +was late, thereby belying its name. So the Watch followed behind and +vented its contrition on a mob of boys in occasional backhanded cuffs +and current imprecations. Behind the boys marched three small +girls--Amazons heedless of the embargoe laid upon their sex. + +However both these processions were overshadowed by the prodigious +pageant that emanated from the street facing the medallion of Society. +The last deserves a chapter to itself since no appendix could do justice +to its importance. Let me therefore, without being held to have violated +the decency of orderly narration, insert at this point a supplementary +chapter which may serve as a programme to the entertainment I hope +worthily to recount. + + + + +_Chapter V a_ + +THE ORDER OF THE EXQUISITE MOB + + +_General Sir Jeremy Dummer in a sedan chair borne by two veterans of the +Militia. Beau Ripple in damson-coloured velvet coat and breeches, with +waistcoat of old rose sattin trimmed with silver and rose silk stockings +clocked with the same._ + +Mr. Ripple with admirable condescension occasionally arrested the +progress of the march in order to address a word of encouragement to Sir +Jeremy Dummer who was inclined to be querulous from want of food and the +action of the chalybeate. + +_The Earl of Cinderton in smoke-grey silk with cuffs of clouded blue._ + +_The Honourable George Harthe-Brusshe, his son, in a lighter shade of +the same._ + +_The Earl of Vanity looking like a fly, in amber._ + +_Five baronets in various degrees of_ FEUILLE MORTE. + +_Four Knights of the Shire trying to look like Baronets and horridly +bruised by the palings in their attempts._ + +_Seventeen exquisite young gentlemen all exactly alike and only to be +distinguished by the various shapes and sizes of their patches._ + +_Major Constantine Tarry who had devoted the sleep of the preceding +night to the preservation of his pigtail's rigour and appeared very pale +beside his red coat in consequence._ + +_Justice Gregory Moon looking much the same as usual save for a sprig of +yew in his buttonhole._ + +_Mr. Charles Lovely and Mr. Anthony Clare arm in arm. The former wearing +a cherry-coloured velvet coat with waistcoat and breeches of +trout-coloured silk, the latter in uniform cucumber green. Both laughed +very loudly and cheerfully from time to time._ + +_Five elegant young gentlemen including a Lieutenant of his Majesty's +Navy, a Cornet of the Grey Dragoons and an Ensign of the Foot._ + +_Twenty-three old men suffering from various diseases._ + +_Thirty-eight old men all firmly convinced that they were suffering from +gout but all perfectly healthy in truth._ + +_Forty-five old men equally firmly convinced that they were suffering +from other and various diseases, and all equally healthy in truth._ + +_Mr. Oboe the Physician watchful of his patients' demeanour and quick to +confirm the slightest suspicion of ill-health._ + +_Mr. Francis Vernon in a tawny suit of figured Manchester velvet._ + +_Fifteen or sixteen gentlemen of various ages, sizes, ranks, costumes, +complexions, and states of health._ + + + + +_Chapter V (resumed)_ + + +Beau Ripple mounted the steps that, in diminishing semi-circles, reached +the entrance of the Civick Hall and, turning his head, froze into +silence with a cold stare of surprize the concluding Crescendo of _The +Girl I left Behind Me_, as if the half-drawn breaths of the musicians +were suddenly changed to icicles. + +The good-natured band was not at all put out by Mr. Ripple's lack of +appreciation. His objection to panting was universally known, so the +band bore him no malice, but continued to pant. + +As the musick stopped, Mr. Mayor began to walk up the steps also. No +doubt his ascent would have been as active as the Beau's if he had not +been hampered by the civick robes on which he trod at every alternate +step. Possibly the freezing disdain of Mr. Ripple had made the steps +more glacial than their wont. At any rate, the Mayor whenever he avoided +the hem of his robes, always slipped and stumbled, but he achieved the +summit at last and greeted the Beau with such fervour that he effected a +perceptible thaw. + +On these occasions of supreme civick importance, it was customary for +the latter to relax his rule of never taking snuff with any one below +the rank of Viscount in the Peerage of England, so he offered his box to +the Mayor. That functionary with a reverence he had acquired over the +counter, inserted two fleshy fingers into the dainty receptacle, +withdrew them smeared with Rappee, sniffed the powder with avidity, +sneezed four times, and said he saw Sir Jeremy alighting from his chair. + +The Beau regarded the Mayor's invasion of the delicate touchstone of +quality with a smile of amused apprehension. He explained afterwards +that he felt as if he were carrying a sirloin of beef into a queen's +parlour. When the convulsions set up by the snuff had outworn their +first violence, he fixed his monocle upon the guest's chair. Sure +enough, Sir Jeremy was alighting. Mr. Ripple and the Mayor +simultaneously descended the steps, and while the former started back +with an affectation of surprise, the latter charged forward with eager +hospitality. + +"Gadslife! Sir Jeremy! You are vastly welcome, Sir. This is a great +occasion. Twenty-one years. Tet-tet." Thus Mr. Ripple. + +"How are you, Sir Jermy Dummer, Sir? Come along o' me, Sir Jermy, and I +hope yaul heat very hearty," said or rather shouted the Mayor. + +"_Eheu fugaces!_" murmured Mr. Ripple. + +"Heh?" asked the Mayor. + +"_Postume, Postume._" + +"Hoh!" said the Mayor. "I beg yaw pardon, Mr. Ripple. Will you take a +harm, Sir Jermy?" + +The poor old knight clutched at the fur of the Mayor's robe as the two +of them stumbled up the steps behind Mr. Ripple. + +In passing through the antechamber, the old man dropped his hat and +cane. + +"I shouldn't leave my hat an' cane here if I was you, Sir Jermy," said +the Mayor. "While some's heating, some'll be thieving." + +"I have not the slightest intention of doing anything so insane," +quavered the ancient soldier, "can't you see that I dropped 'em by +accident?" + +The good-natured Mayor stooped to recover the accessories. "I beg yaw +pardon, Sir Jermy. Follow me. The banquet's in here." + +The huge folding doors were flung back, and the sight of so much food +kindled a gleam in Sir Jeremy's rheumy eyes and waked a cackle from his +lean throat. + +"Glad to hear such a jovial laugh. Wittles is wittles when hall's said +an' done. Hain't that true, Mr. Ripple," said the Mayor turning to the +Beau for confirmation of this statement. + +"Victuals are victuals, sir, as you very justly observe." + +Upon these three celebrated figures broke the buzz of the excited crowd +from the centre of which Lord Cinderton and Lord Vanity withdrew +themselves. + +"Let me present Sir Jeremy Dummer, the Earl of Cinderton. Sir Jeremy +Dummer, the Earl of Vanity." The latter offered his snuff-box to the old +votary of Health who declined it saying, + +"No! thankee, my lord, not before I eat. D---- e if ever I took snuff +before I ate." + +His worship the Mayor was then presented to the two noblemen and, +discoursing amicably of the outlook on European politicks, the five +great men threaded their way towards the principal table. + +There was a tremendous shuffling among the innumerable waiters as Mr. +Daish urged them to unparalleled exertion. They ran hither and thither +like recently fertile hens. One half of them pulled out chairs from the +tables and the other half pushed them back again. Some fled bawling for +the soup. Others conversed in excited whispers. At last the assembled +company to the number of three hundred persons stood each member in the +place he had selected. + +What caused a further delay? Why did Mr. Daish hurriedly wave back the +white-capped cook bearing the first tureen? + +Through the doorway pattered little Mr. Archdeacon Conybeare. "I'm +late," he muttered, "I know it, I'm aware of it. I'm late. Maria, my +love, I'm late, I'm very late." + +The Beau was looking at the large clock below the gallery at the far end +of the hall. + +"Will you ask a grace, Mr. Archdeacon," he said. + +The Mayor smote the table with a silver hammer as the parson slipped +into his place. + +"For what we are going to receive ... my dear Mr. Ripple, 'tis no use to +tell me the contrary, I know I am very late." + +The Publick Breakfast had begun. + +I think it was the great Dr. Johnson whose forehead while he ate was +dabbled with perspiration and the veins of it red and swollen. At any +rate the Mayor had a similar appearance. He devoured his food as if he +feared the cherubs sporting in the gilded panels of the ceiling would +descend and snatch it from his plate. + +Mr. Ripple ate very modishly. One would have said he had watched the +honied meals of many butterflies. For all his fork's fastidious action, +it managed to pick the best of a Fricassée. Rounds, ribs, and sirloins, +he deplored. + +Sir Jeremy Dummer evidently felt that his sensibility to the honour +awarded to him deserved practical gratitude. He eat voraciously. The old +fighting spirit abode in him for a space and he handled his knife like +his hanger. He slashed at every course that came along, but, accuracy +being impaired by muscular fatigue, he was content to swallow much of +his food whole. + +Sir Jeremy Dummer ate: + +Two plates of turtle soup. + +The better part of a codfish. + +The wing of a capon. + +The wing of a duck. + +The breast of a pullet. + +A hot buttered apple dumpling and two or three slices of ham which he +had not noticed before. + +Sir Jeremy Dummer drank: + +Two tankards of old ale. + +One bottle of Madeira. + +Two bottles of Port. + +And on the following day, Sir Jeremy Dummer died. He had always been +famous for trencher-play until condemned by Oboe to milky sustenance to +which through twenty-one winter seasons he never willingly yielded. This +commemoration of his abstinence was his opportunity and his revenge. +Could he have made a worthier end? For my own part, I should not presume +to say so. + +Meanwhile, unconscious of this premature obituary, Sir Jeremy Dummer +enjoyed the breakfast amazingly. At first he was inclined to peevishness +through not being seated upon a sufficiently high chair. Mr. Daish, +however, with ready tact secured one of the Civick cushions and so +enabled Sir Jeremy, comfortably ensconced in crimson velvet, to eat his +last breakfast at ease. + +Mr. Lovely having made the acquaintance of the Honourable George +Harthe-Brusshe, by whom he had seated himself at the particular request +of Mr. Ripple, discussed with animation the food on his plate and the +last foppery of the town. Mr. Harthe-Brusshe, a lantern jawed young +gentleman with a sincere devotion to turtle-soup, observing that Mr. +Lovely was about to leave his portion, begged him to hand it over. +Charles who invariably encouraged every man's idiosyncrasy sent the word +down the table to pass up every neglected plateful. This request was +readily granted and presently Mr. Harthe-Brusshe found himself +surrounded by half-a-dozen portions. Thereupon he declined all other +dishes and was faithful to soup for the rest of the meal. + +"I suppose you find the difference in temperature sufficient variety?" +asked Mr. Lovely in a tone of great interest. + +"That's so, Sir," replied the other as he refused beef and veal for the +sake of a moderately warm fifth plate of soup. + +"I doubt you keep a bottle of it always to hand," remarked Lovely. + +"It would tire me too much. It tires me to keep things to hand." + +Here the Honourable George Harthe-Brusshe sighed with exhaustion and +seemed to desire silence. + +Charles turned to his other neighbour who happened to be Mr. Francis +Vernon. + +"Are you making a sojourn here, Sir?" + +Vernon noticed the richness of Mr. Lovely's attire, made a rough +calculation of the value of his buckles, brooches and solitaire, and +answered very politely he hoped so indeed. + +"I've not yet seen you at the _Blue Boar_, Sir. We make up a pleasant +party in the old Coffee-Room every night. There's young Tom Chalkley of +the Foot, Tony Clare, Peter Wingfield, Jack Winnington, Harry Golightly +of Campbell's Grey Dragoons, Blewforth of the _Lively_, and as many more +of us pass the time very pleasantly over some tolerable Port and very +excellent Burgundy." + +"I doubt the company is delightful." + +"'I faith, that's very true for when the wine makes us loquacious, d---- +e, we sing, and when it makes us mum, why, d----e, the dice-box talks +for us. You'll join us, Sir?" he added, turning to Mr. Harthe-Brusshe. + +"Proud," murmured that gentleman pensively regarding the rich scum +slowly hardening over the plate of soup to be attacked next. + +"Let me see," said Charles, "to-night we must positively keep quiet in +deference to the Beau. Monday night I've promised to go to the +Assembly." + +"What's that?" said Mr. Anthony Clare, a florid young gentleman on the +opposite side of the table. "Blewforth!" he called out to a naval +officer farther along. "Charles has forsook letters and is going to try +life for a change." + +"Good G----," said the Lieutenant solemnly. "Charles crowding all canvas +after a petticoat?" + +Charles looked somewhat disconcerted by this immediate perception of his +motives. + +"I 'faith, you're in the wrong, Blewforth," he protested, "'tis to +please Ripple and that's the whole truth of the matter." + +A roar of laughter greeted this excuse, and every young gentleman in +hearing vowed to exchange dice for dancing on Monday night. + +"I saw Charles leave a note at a house in the Western Colonnade," +remarked Ensign Chalkley of the Foot. + +"A Valentine for a hundred guineas," said Clare. + +"Name the charmer," shouted Blewforth, "name her, and egad, she shall be +the toast of the afternoon." + +Mr. Vernon felt relieved. Somehow he had half suspected Lovely was in +pursuit of Miss Courteen. If he had not decided to wear purple sattin on +the day before and buried himself in the closet to extricate the suit, +he would have been still more suspicious of Lovely. The latter ignored +the friendly jeers. + +"Shall we say Wednesday night, Sir?" + +"I shall be honoured." + +"May I beg the favour of your name, Sir? 'Tis customary with us to elect +our associates.' + +"My name is Vernon. Francis Vernon of the Crescent, Curtain Wells--and +London." + +It was Charles' turn to display apprehension. Here was a man well +dressed, of genteel appearance, living in the Crescent. + +"Ah! the Crescent! I once had a notion to lodge there myself." + +"'Tis a quiet position," said Vernon. + +"So much the better for my Muse." + +"You are a poet, Sir?" + +"I have a metrical fancy." + +"Try the Colonnade, Charles," bellowed the Lieutenant, "and your Muse'll +speedily become the most famous Toast of the time." + +"Blewforth owns a spy-glass," said some one. + +"I wish he would own a mirrour," said Charles, "his wig is infamous." + +"His head is swollen since the w-war," stammered little Peter Wingfield, +"or else he was w-wounded in the wig." Blewforth, impervious to +smoaking, gave a loud guffaw. + +Lovely and Vernon agreed to meet on the following Wednesday and the +conversation moved on general lines till the silver hammer of the Mayor +summoned the company to attend to the toasts. The eyes of the room were +on him as away up at the high table, he rose burly and majestick. + +"Mr. Alderman Jobbins," he proclaimed, "the King!" Mr. Jobbins, the +youngest of the city fathers, blessed his sovereign with unctuous pride, +and the toast was drunk amid acclamations whose echo was drowned in +broken glass. Curtain Wells knew when to borrow from military manners. + +Then the assembly tilted on its chairs after filling new glasses, and +composed itself to listen to Beau Ripple who had risen, monocle in hand. + +When the murmur of delighted anticipation had sighed itself out on the +wings of a loud 'Hush,' the Great little Man with indescribable suavity +begged the company's permission to say a few words. + +"Mr. Mayor, my lords, and gentlemen, may I say citizens? (a voice, 'You +may') for I think I am giving utterance to the sentiments of this +salubrious town when I protest that upon an occasion of such unique +interest and such immense significance, we no longer recognize any +distinction between visitors and residents (loud applause). We are +assembled this morning in order to honour a man for whom no honour is +sufficient. We are celebrating the twenty-first consecutive winter at +Curtain Wells of Sir Jeremy Dummer (loud cheers). He has been faithful +to us, gentlemen. Each year towards the close of the equinoctial gales, +his coach has clattered over the cobbles of Curtain Wells. Each year he +has alighted at the door of Number Seventeen, the Crescent. Each year he +has torn himself away from the gaiety of London in order to set us an +example of perseverance. Each year his arrival has encouraged other +gentlemen of grave address to put their faith in the cleansing springs +of Chalybeate. To be sure, his gout is as virulent as ever, but has he +despaired? No (cheers). Has he tried other remedies? No (cheers). He has +only been the more firmly convinced of the profound malignity of his +disorder and the more resolutely determined to annoy it by any and every +means in his power (continued applause). Twenty-one years ago Curtain +Wells was a different place. We had, it is true, this Civick Hall. We +had Crescent and Colonnade, Curtain Garden and Curtain Rotunda, Curtain +Wells and Curtain Pump Room, Curtain Hill and Curtain Dale. But we had +not your respected Mayor. In those days he was a younger, shall I add, a +more foolish man? I myself was still overshadowed by the reputation of +my great predecessor Beau Melon whose alabaster bust consecrates the +Assembly Rooms. + +"In those days, gentlemen, coaches very rarely exceeded the rate of four +miles an hour, and as you have heard, the new Machine proposes to travel +at an uniform speed of six. Twenty-one years! This valetudinarian +majority should make the youngest of us pause and reflect. Twenty-one +years of Chalybeate (a groan from the back of the room). + +"Mr. Mayor, my lords and gentleman, I propose the health of Sir Jeremy +Dummer and venture to assert that the time-honoured toast was never +before fraught with such significance. The health of Sir Jeremy Dummer! +It is in order to commemorate his health that we are assembled. Gout +has done many ill deeds, ruined many tempers, spoiled many legs, but for +this at least we should be grateful---- it has afforded us the spectacle +of a gallant gentleman faithful to his earliest prescription, hopeful of +an ultimate cure and charitable to the town of his adoption. (Loud and +prolonged applause.) One moment, gentlemen: let me add that the guest of +this entertainment has expressed a desire to present the town with a new +set of mugs for the publick fountains." (Volleys of applause.) + +Beau Ripple after leading the toast with three very urbane Huzzas +resumed his seat, and Sir Jeremy Dummer doddered up to make his reply. +As it consisted chiefly of a long and detailed account of his symptoms +and extended over half an hour, and as you, with knowledge of his speedy +death, will not bear it with the slumberous equanimity of his +contemporaries, I shall not recount it. It is enough to say that when it +was concluded, everybody woke with a start and cheered vociferously. +Then the Mayor proposed the health of Mr. Ripple, and somebody else +proposed the health of the Mayor, and so on until all the dignitaries +had had enough wine drunk to their long life to ensure for every one of +them an undiseased immortality. + +When the toasts were finished, the quality adjourned to the Civick +Chamber to meet the ladies over a dish of tea, while the quantity +marched off to put the seal on a great occasion by talking it over in +the various taprooms round the town. + +Vernon was not inclined to brave the extension of the affair when he +perceived his new friends cautiously escaping from the Beau. He hated to +be conspicuous, and it was a small pleasure to meet his Phyllida among +the dowagers. Indeed, he was beginning to wish he had been less hasty in +taking lodgings in the Crescent, and the prospect of the _Blue Boar_ was +already alluring enough to make him inquire the price of a room in that +merry house. So he asked if he might take Mr. Lovely's arm. + +In the square, the elegant young gentlemen made a bright knot. + +"What's to be done?" cried the Lieutenant. + +"L-l-let's ride over to B-Baverstock Regis and s-see T-Tony's m-maiden +aunt," stammered little Peter Wingfield. + +"Bravo!" shouted Charles. + +Clare looked up in surprize. Charles was seldom willing to play the game +of light love. Could that chatter of Blewforth's have gone deeper than +he thought? There was a strange excitement about him--an excitement that +was aroused by something stronger than the civick wine. Was he in love? +Mr. Anthony Clare was puzzled. + +"You must know, gentlemen," said Mr. Lovely, "that this maiden aunt is +of a very singular complexion. 'Tis usual, as we are all aware, to look +to maiden aunts for legacies and presents, but this lady, as I know by +the state of Tony's purse, gets more than she gives." + +"Fie! Charles," protested his friend, "I vow your point of view +deteriorates." What could be the matter with him? + +"Well, gentlemen," he continued, "since you are so set on meeting my +relatives, egad! you shall. We'll ride over to Baverstock to-night; +there are dances in Baverstock Barn, and the maids--maiden-aunts will +all be there. You'll come Charles?" + +"Not another word. I'll lead the love-chase or, shall we say, the legacy +hunt." + +"And you, sir?" Clare continued with a bow to Vernon. + +After a moment's hesitation due, no doubt, to bashfulness, the latter +assented, and in a trice the whole party went whooping and holloaing in +the direction of the _Blue Boar_. + +And all this time, Phyllida was counting the kisses in her teacup while +she watched Miss Sukey Morton search energetically for strangers. + + + + +_Chapter the Sixth_ + +BAVERSTOCK BARN + + +Vernon left his companions at the door of his lodgings in order to adapt +his dress to the road, having settled with them to meet presently at the +_Blue Boar_ where a horse was to be saddled in readiness. He wondered +while pulling on his riding-boots what was the monetary value of his new +friends. They talked of play; but was it high enough to make their +fellowship worth joining? They were all apparently expensive in their +tastes and habits, but seemed so young and irresponsible. That however +was rather an advantage. They belonged to the World, the World that is +of St. James' Street; yet if they were callow pigeons, why were they +learning to fly to far from the nest which bred them? + +Now Mr. Vernon had got hold of a wrong analysis. These young men of +Curtain Wells in spite of their outward freshness were not at all fit +for the table. They had tough breasts beneath an array of fine feathers. +This society of theirs, so remote from the larger society of London, +with a toleration of good and bad alike, was in its essence eclectick, +like a regiment or a college. An air of genial self-satisfaction clung +to it nourished by rules and opinions and traditions which had never +been proved to be false or harmful. The members were all clipped to a +pattern and displayed a wealth of blooms in a prim setting. Even Lovely +straggled too much, and was only allowed to disturb the fellowship on +account of his decorative qualities and because he was evidently only a +strong sport from the conventional habit of growth. + +Vernon in making up his mind to join this elegant association was quite +unaware that the condescension was on the side of youth. He was willing +to instruct them in the ways of the great world, but found what he had +been compelled to learn, they knew by inherited instinct. He was +ignorant of their existence: they on the other hand had experienced many +Mr. Vernons. Still he was endowed with too much insight not to +understand almost immediately that he must imitate their standards, and +soon caught the tone of his companions well enough to be voted an +acquisition. + +However, as he wrestled with his riding-boots, he was distinctly at a +loss. This ride to Baverstock was presumably an expedition of gallantry, +and yet he had felt it unwise to obtrude a jest appropriate to the +occasion. The conversation had possessed a certain elusive ribaldry; +women were discussed with frankness, and yet he had not ventured to +boast of his own conquests. These young men chattered of love, much as +they would have talked of fox-hunting. Love was a theory, a philosophy +with a cant terminology of its own. And yet the analogy was incomplete. +No man would hesitate to chronicle his leaps, but then no man would +confess to having shot a fox. There was the rub. He was a fox shooter; +these were hunters. Gadslife! How absurdly young they all were. And this +Lovely? He was evidently more prudish than the rest of them--a man of +sentiment who objected to either mode of death. He would like to see +this paragon of virtue who had stared so coldly at the tale of old Sir +John Columbine and his frail exquisite consort, put to the test. From +that moment he began to hate Charles, and stamped the wrinkles out of +his boots with considerable feeling. He would devote himself to emptying +Lovely's purse before he tried the rest of them. + +Vernon in a very pleasant frame of mind strolled through the chill of +approaching twilight. The humiliation of Lovely was in a way achieved as +soon as conceived. This was how Vernon always escaped from awkward +situations. He so seldom faced facts. + +An outraged husband once threatened him with a riding whip, and Vernon +promptly climbed out by the window. In the street he only remembered he +had successfully seduced the wife, and forgot the uncomfortable +epilogue. He behaved to futurity in the same generous way as he treated +the past. + +Presently he found the company assembled in the yard of the inn, with a +dozen horses pawing the cobbles impatient of the cold. They were soon +mounted and the arched entry rang again with the sound of hoofs as they +trotted through the High Street. + +"Which way?" shouted Vernon who was in front. + +"Straight ahead and turn to the right," answered Clare. "We've eight +miles to go and a good road to go on." + +"Huzza!" shouted Vernon who felt that extreme heartiness was the correct +attitude. + +In the clap and clack of the horses' hoofs, the affectation passed +unnoticed. + +How the fat shopkeepers stared to see these young gentlemen cantering +away in the late afternoon, 'Some wild frolick,' they thought and turned +half-regretfully to attend to their customers who were just as much +interested in the jolly troop as themselves. Children scrambled from the +gutters on to the pavement with yells of dismay as the horsemen +scattered their mud pies. Little girls effected heroick rescues of +favourite dolls from the very gate of death and little boys bowled their +hoops between the legs of wayfarers with more assiduity than usual, in +their struggles to avoid the legs of the horses. + +Lieutenant Blewforth like most sailors was an inferior rider, but on +this occasion he surpassed himself, and sat his horse like a Bedouin. He +only wished buxom Miss Page would step to the door of the cook-shop and +behold his prowess. Unluckily at the very moment when his ambition was +in process of achievement, his mount swerved, and the gay Lieutenant +found himself at his charmer's feet. The inevitable idler secured the +horse, and Blewforth, having no small change, was obliged to reward him +with a crown, and what is more look as if he enjoyed the expense. To +give him credit, he certainly succeeded. + +"Do you always propose yourself in that precipitous manner?" Charles +inquired as they cantered past the last house and gained the hedgerows. +"You pay very little heed to her corns." + +The Lieutenant uttered an enormous guffaw that made his mount swerve +again. + +"The Royal Navy is always so d-devilish romantick," stammered little +Peter Wingfield who looked like a precocious boy beside the burly +officer. + +"By G--," puffed Blewforth, "that reminds me of a good story I heard of +an ensign in Bolt's. He was a d--d bashful man, and couldn't abide the +women. One day he was making his compliments to the Colonel's +daughter--a gaunt hussy of thirty-five summers or winters. He hung back +outside the parlour-door for some time, mustered up courage to enter at +last, dashed into the room and, tripping over his hanger, found himself +kneeling at her feet. This was a bad beginning truly, but in trying to +retrieve the position, he clutched the air and caught hold of her skinny +hand. They were married in the spring, and the garrison said he badly +wanted her money." + +In the outburst of laughter which hailed the climax of the story, Vernon +asked with much interest what the young woman's dowry was worth. The +subject fascinated him. + +"Don't know, sir," replied Blewforth, "but I saw the jade at Portsmouth +last year, and I'm d--d if £50,000 would have made her endurable." + +They were riding through a pleasant country of meadows and small +streams; so Charles walked his mare to admire the willows empurpled by +the fast gathering dusk. Vernon seized the opportunity for conversation. + +"A fine landskip," he remarked. + +Charles looked up half-angry. He disliked a man who suited his words to +his own supposed tastes. + +"It might be finer," he said shortly. + +"Without a doubt," replied the other. "You'll pardon my ignorance, Mr. +Lovely, but of what does the entertainment before us consist?" + +Charles' face grew clear again at once--at any rate, the man did not +claim omniscience. + +"The entertainment, sir, is composed of fiddles and country dances +enjoyed by the light of tallow-dips in an old barn. There will be some +ploughboys, shepherds and farmers, with a few milkmaids and farm +wenches, and the whole will resemble a painted Dutch interior." + +"And you propose to join the merrymaking?" + +"We do." + +"It should be a diverting experience." + +"I hope so indeed. My friend Clare vows he has discovered a Venus +masquerading in fustian." + +"His maiden-aunt in short?" + +"The same. Like all small societies, sir, we have our intimate jests +which to a stranger must seem excessively threadbare." + +"On the contrary," said Vernon, "they possess an engaging spontaneity +which flatters me with the suggestion that my own youth has not vanished +irreclaimably. And yet," he sighed, "I am a man whom the world insults +by claiming as its own." + +"You have travelled?" inquired Charles. + +"I have made the Grand Tour." + +"That is a pleasure which I still owe to myself and to my country." + +"You lack energy?" + +"Of the kind expressed in gold." + +"An hour's good luck at the tables." + +"I've enjoyed some dozens," interrupted Lovely. "Almost enough to pay +for twice as many less fortunate periods." + +"Then why continue to play?" + +"Why fall in love? Why die in a consumption? Why live this life of ours +at all? Your question, sir, takes little account of mankind's innate +perversity, and no account at all of his tastes and disposition of +mind." + +"On the contrary," argued Vernon, "I esteem all these at their greatest +effect, but regard with equal reverence the doctrine of free will. I +myself--but why should I fatigue you with personal anecdotes?" + +"Pray continue," said Charles eagerly. He was always alert at a +confidence and plumed himself on his ability to read human character. In +this case curiosity outran discernment, and he failed to see the +improbability of a man like Vernon exposing his temperament without +securing a compensatory advantage. + +"I myself, Mr. Lovely, was once addicted to the equally expensive habit +of intrigue, but I found it led me into so many cursed situations that I +forced myself to enjoy less compromising pastimes. I chose cards." + +"Ah! cards!" commented Charles. + +"But here again," Vernon continued, "I found the introduction of a +passionate element ruined at once my pleasure and my skill. I was +confounded. To be sure there remained wine, but whoever heard of a man's +will exercised by wine? To be frank, Mr. Lovely, I was unwilling to take +the risque of defeat." + +"So I am to regard you as a disappointed voluptuary, a hedonist +philosopher whose premisses induced him to a false conclusion. No, no, +sir, keep your logick for speculations upon the soul, not the body." + +"Sir," answered Vernon, "I found, indeed, that pleasure tormented by +passion was no pleasure at all, but pleasure divorced from any ulterior +emotion I soon discovered to be the highest good." + +"So you would persuade me that you're an Epicurean who flings withered +rose leaves and drinks sour wine. Come, come, sir, I wager your fingers +would twitch and your lips quiver if one of us held a dice-box with a +deep stake on the main." + +"I deny that." + +"We shall see." + +"I hope we may." + +"Ay, sir, and I wager this affectation of indifference will not outlast +a week's ill luck, and as for woman, why the very dairymaids to-night +will kindle a spark in your eyes." + +"My life on't, they will not," cried Vernon. + +"Foregad! you wear too stolid a mask to convince me it is your natural +countenance." + +This duologue, which seems to show that Mr. Lovely was younger and less +wise than we might have thought, was interrupted by the shouts of the +riders in front who wanted to know whether Charles imagined they were +part of a funeral pomp. + +"For d----e!" shouted Mr. Golightly, "we are all nodding like plumes +and the twilight obscures the undeniable charms of the prospect." + +Baverstock Barn, like a great cathedral, loomed upon them at last. As +they dismounted, revelry and the drawling chatter of rustick voices, +mingled with the tuning of fiddles, came from within, while the +flickering light from the open door enchanted a heap of roots to the +appearance of huge gems. + +Clare approached the entrance while the rest stood by their horses. + +"Farmer Hogbin!" he sang out. + +"Who be caaling?" + +"Mr. Anthony Clare!" + +"Come in now, do 'ee come in." + +"I've brought over a party with me, farmer?" + +"Maids, do 'ee hear that? Maister Clare have brought wi'un a passel o' +gallantry." + +There was much jingling merriment from the maids. + +"Now then Jock, Tommas, William, Jarge, Joe, Sam, Peter, Ern, move your +shanks and stable they hosses." + +The farmer, a huge Falstaff of a man quite in proportion to his barn, +towered in the doorway obscuring the light, while the farm hands clumped +with heavy legs towards the horses. + +"Gi' they pleanty o' oats, my lads." + +"A' right," mumbled the lads in chorus. + +"Come in, my gentlemen, come in. Never mind for a speck of mud; the +maids'll dust 'ee." + +This sally provoked a ripple of laughter from the maids, and a chuckle +from the young gentlemen. + +The farmer surveyed them solemnly as they stepped into the barn. + +"Why, you be all in top-boots?" he shouted. "Ho! ho! my maids, ye'll get +thy twinkling toes rarely trod on, or shall I lend 'em my slippers to +each in turn?" + +This was considered splendid fooling, and laughter again resounded. + +"Nay, farmer, you're in the wrong," said Charles producing a pair of +pumps from the pockets of his riding coat. + +"Why! dang me, if they han't brought a King's wardrobe wi'en. Eh! maids, +you must mind your modesties to-night." + +The maids, huddled together like a bunch of red apples, were set shaking +with laughter at this warning--as if by a boisterous wind. + +"Who will help us with our boots?" asked Clare as he subsided upon a +truss of straw and flung his legs wide apart. + +There was considerable whispering from the heart of the bunch till one +of the maids was pushed by her companions out into the open with +ejaculations of "Go on, stoopid." + +"Thee needst not let on to be so backward." "Thee wast forthy enough +behind the kitchen door yester'een." "Eh! bustle thyself, great gowk," +and others of like freedom of opinion. + +The maid selected for Mr. Clare was blooming indeed. + +"Cream and claret," murmured Charles. + +"Gad! a Venus by a Dutch master truly," commented Vernon. + +"She's no g-ghost," stammered little Peter Wingfield. + + _"Farewell and adieu to you, gay Spanish ladies, + Farewell and adieu to you, ladies of Spain."_ + +sang or rather bellowed Mr. Blewforth, slapping his thigh with a +nautical zest. + + _"Our Blewforth, careening far nearer than Cadiz + Will give to green fields what was meant for the Main."_ + +continued Charles to the same tune. + +"Give what?" asked Tom Chalkley. + +"The breezy charm of his manner," replied Charles. + +Now ensued jests, giggles, laughter, pranks, and struggles, as each +gentleman persuaded a fair to wrestle with his riding-boots. Vernon who +had forgotten to provide himself with pumps remained aloof from the +merriment not sorry for an opportunity to convince Mr. Lovely of his +remoteness from anything so vulgar as excitement. + +Great was the mirth of everybody when the Lieutenant produced an +enormous Valentine that depicted a peculiarly fat Cupid winking at a +dairymaid over a brimming bowl of milk. Greater still was the mirth when +he presented the token with much earnestness to the bashful lass they +called Margery, and it became uproarious indeed when he explained he had +wished to offer it on the preceding night, but had been deterred by Mr. +Clare's reputed jealousy. + +"Whoever heard tell of such a thing in the milk before?" + +"Tis a Cupid, Margery," said Mr. Clare. + +"There now and if I didn't go for to think it were a baby," declared +Margery. + +Farmer Hogbin coming back from attending to the horses in time to hear +this remark called out in his great voice: + +"Don't 'ee fret thyself, my lass, what thee wants'll come soon enough, I +warrant. Now my gentlemen, take your partners, we was just a-going to +begin a round dance. Tune up your squeaking boxes, fiddlers, and tip us +_Come lasses and lads_." + +The fiddlers smiled encouragement at the dancers as they struck off with +the gallant old tune. Even Mr. Vernon, boots and all, was made to give +an arm to buxom Mrs. Crumplehorn, the cowman's wife. The sanded floor of +the barn resounded with the perpetual tripping of toes and heels. + + _"Come, lasses and lads, + Take leave of your dads."_ + +The waist of every fair was encircled by a neat arm that tapered to a +fine wrist as the dancers swung down to their places. Little Peter +Wingfield unable to enfold the ample Polly was given her pinner as if he +were indeed the child his appearance and behaviour proclaimed him. + +Every one admired the first two couples that took the middle. Mr. Lovely +was so graceful and Mr. Clare was so thorough. Round they went and down +they went and across and through and over and under while the rest of +the dancers clapped and tapped their appreciation. Faster and faster +went the fiddles, faster and faster went the shoes. Thicker and thicker +rose the sand and saw-dust from the floor until the barn seemed to be +the centre of a raging storm, such a wind the petticoats made and so +dense became the atmosphere. Thunder was added when the gigantick farmer +and the burly Lieutenant, whom merry chance had thrown into the arena +together, charged through their Pas Seul, bellowing the while with +Gargantuan laughter. + +At last the fiddles stopped and, panting mutual congratulations, the +exhausted couples subsided upon the various trusses of straw laid along +the side of the barn. Even the ivory paleness of Mr. Vernon's cheeks +wore a faint tinge of carmine, and some curls of his modish wig were +very slightly ruffled. + +Jock, Tommas, William, Jarge, Joe, Samuel, Peter, and Ern, who had +gathered into a critical knot, feeling themselves eclipsed by these +active visitors, were released from their sheepishness by a demand for +the bowls of spiced ale. + +After this, they played Kiss in the Ring; and it was truly a most +exhilarating sight to see Mr. Anthony Clare with flapping coat-tails in +pursuit of the blooming Margery who was soon caught not very unwillingly +as we may suppose. It was ludicrous in the extreme to see little Peter +Wingfield darting hither and thither like a little brown rabbit. His +little white wig seemed to twinkle like a tail set too high on his +little brown body. But he let himself be caught by Polly beneath a +lingering spray of mistletoe, and how all the world laughed when she +lifted him up and gave him a resonant kiss on his little red lips. As +for the large farmer and the burly Lieutenant they thundered after +every maid in the barn quite regardless of any rules and, as I think, +kissed the most of them very heartily indeed. + +But the chief excitement of all was caused by a great white owl that +came flapping down from the rafters and put out half the candles with +his great sweeping wings. How all the lasses screamed and how earnestly +the lads reassured them, and though the former were repeatedly told that +owls while feeding on mice had not yet imbibed their habits, they +persistently held their skirts a little higher than usual and nestled +very close and comfortable to the exquisite young gentlemen from the +_Blue Boar_. + +Then, of course, they all danced _Sir Roger de Coverley_, and drank more +spiced ale while they rested. Somebody called on Charles for a song and +he gave them one of his own which everybody agreed was much too serious +for so jolly an occasion. Charles swore he had composed the tune +himself, but everybody else vowed they had heard it before, and as for +the words, there was not a trace of originality about them. However, his +voice was pleasant enough as he sang: + + _"When in the dews of early morn + My Chloe trips for may, + Across the fields of springing corn + I watch her pass, + The fairest lass, + That e'er was won with vows of love + Upon a summer's day._ + + _"Ah! shame that I should leave thee, dear, + And cross the roaring sea, + That I should leave thee lonely here: + Think not, sweetheart, + Because we part + And I to foreign lands do rove, + Thou art less dear to me."_ + +Blewforth protested he had said good-bye with almost identical rhymes +in every port of the two hemispheres, and moreover was not ashamed to +confess as much. All the maids, however, grew quite tearful and vowed +the evening was spoiled; indeed, they made such ado that Charles sang +one of Mr. d'Urfey's ballads to cheer their spirits and succeeded in +providing such a burst of laughter that the echo of it never died away +during the rest of the evening. + +Of course, it was decided they must dance _Sir Roger_ once more and, +that duty accomplished, it was discovered that Anthony Clare and Margery +had vanished. Of course everybody wondered where they could have gone, +and when they returned in time to take a last sip at the spiced ale, it +was noticed that Margery hung back in the shadows with a melancholy +expression of countenance that made her companions nudge each other with +wise looks. + +Soon word came that the horses were saddled and waiting. Good-byes were +murmured, and many a promise to come again was faithfully sworn and many +a kiss given and taken. The ousted yokels held each a soil-stained hand +for their genteel rivals to mount from. The maids stood huddled in the +flickering light of the open barn-door; Farmer Hogbin bellowed a last +farewell which was thunderously echoed by the Lieutenant, as with +flushed faces and half-regretful memories, the horsemen cantered towards +Curtain Wells under a sailing moon. + +Clare rode by Charles to hear the judgment of Paris upon his +tatterdemalion Venus. + +"I'd liefer for her sake that you were overseas next barley-harvest," +said Charles shortly. + +"Plague on the man, what a cold stream it is!" + +"My excellent Tony, your Blowzabella will be happier mating on a straw +pallet with Hodge than living under your protection in London." + +"She would see the world." + +"Pshaw! her world is a garden of gillyflowers. She was never meant to be +pushed out of sight for an importunate visitor." + +"She would return." + +"Like a spent primrose fit only for the bonfire." + +"I could secure an annuity for her." + +"You'll tire of her in London. Drain the claret from her cheeks, smear +the downy bloom, and you'll find rank lees and rotten core. Hodge never +would. No, no, the thought of so much comely maidenhood languishing for +your velvet-sleeved caresses is merely droll." + +Clare loved and admired Charles too much to despise his tirades however +self-consciously virtuous they might appear. He felt more than ever +convinced that his friend was in love, in love too with some one the +very antithesis of the dairymaid. He would try one more test. + +"But if I told I was in mind to wed my Venus?" + +Charles jerked his reins in astonishment. + +"Z----ds, Tony look round you. There are maids more fit I say. Why wed +a mountain, however rich in pasture when you can wed a mountain-nymph?" + +Clare decided his suspicion was confirmed. Lovely objected to milkmaids +on the score of a taste sharpened to an exquisite point of refinement by +an ideal passion. He was postulating mere theories of life on account of +the charms of one dear She. Who was the witch? She had not withdrawn him +from their late junketing whatever her spells. + +"Your morality, Charles, did not prevent you from entering very heartily +into the spirit of our pastoral piece." + +They had fallen behind the others, and through the silent night Charles' +voice caught a melody from the wakening year as he rhapsodized. + +"Fore Heaven! I love the country, I love these creamy hussies. I love +their swains with the sweet earth all about them. I was happy to-night! +I was happy with those dear people. I could lose my tricked-out self in +that twinkling barn. I bowed to merriment as a tree bows to the wind. I +wanted to hear the singing hopes and joys and desires of humble people. +There we were, all of us populating a frieze for some merry artist god. +We were as wax moulded to some fantastick dancing shape. On these +occasions, I can surmize at immortality and imagine the heart of the +universe. I doubt you think I'm babbling nonsense, but I'm trying to +tell you I was entirely disinterested in our merry-making of to-night." + +Clare stretched out to touch the poet's arm. + +"Try to think that I, chattering of Margery, am not more personal than +you. 'Tis true, I piped a love-ditty, but though it may trouble the bush +and brake of a small wood, it would seem thin fluting----" + +"To any but her," Charles interrupted. "The thinnest tune will charm one +who is nearer than you to the primitive animal too easily quelled by +sweet songs. Pipe to a crowd, Tony, but musick dedicated to a solitary +shepherdess at the sight of whom your mouth will be awry in a year's +time is ill work for her." + +"I doubt you're right," said Clare softly. "You are compassionate to +poor nymphs to-night, Charles. Have you met a goddess?" + +"Tony, I have." + +"May you prosper!" + +"Thank'ee. I'll tell you more of her when I know more myself." + +They urged their horses to a trot and were silent for a while. Then +Clare asked Charles what he thought of Vernon. + +"Oh! a statue positively. I doubt the whole affair was to him vastly +low. + +"Umph! there was a permanent leer carved on his lips. I dislike the +fellow." + +"Nay! you're too stern in your judgments. He has promised me an evening +for Hazard." + +Clare smiled. It was useless to remonstrate with a man whom the thought +of two dice transformed into a machine with glassy eyes and curiously +sensitive fingers. + +So they rode silently. + +Charles could see Phyllida in the moon-enchanted clouds, sometimes with +the trim waist of a dice-box. + + + + +_Chapter the Seventh_ + +SUNDAY MORNING + + +Sunday morning at Curtain Wells was eminently a day of rest. A stroke of +organizing genius on the part of Beau Ripple had abolished the fatigues +of early Chalybeate by transferring the corporeal obligations of +fashionable humanity to an hour which would not interfere with the +respect owed to the spirit. + +"A glass of Chalybeate," he had remarked, "will promote the proper +digestion of the homily. Moreover, the vanity of post-religious +promenades will be considerably mitigated by the discipline of the +Pump." + +At Curtain Wells, therefore, soon arose the pleasant custom of inviting +one's friends and neighbours to partake of a substantial breakfast +before setting out to St. Simon's parish church. The neighbours, if +gentlemen, were expected to provide a suitable escort for their +lady-hosts, and there was not a dame in the town who did not make it a +point of honour to be armed in at the great West door on fine mornings +or handed out of her chair with cautious ceremony if the weather was +unsettled. + +The Widow Courteen was not the woman to neglect or despise any +prescriptive right conferred upon her sex. It was not surprizing, +therefore, to see Major Constantine Tarry and Mr. Gregory Moon turning +solemnly into the Crescent on the first Sunday morning whose events I am +privileged to chronicle. The demeanour of neither gentleman would have +allowed us even a momentary hesitation as to the day. The Sabbath wrote +itself in the devout wrinkles of Mr. Moon's domed forehead and expressed +itself in the stiff curls of the Major's military wig. As they drew near +to Mrs. Courteen's house the latter voiced a desire to see eggs and +bacon upon the breakfast table, and the former encouraged his ambition +by repeating a legend of a fecundity among hens unusual at this season +of the year. The meditation carried the two gentlemen to Mrs. Courteen's +door in silence. + +"Your turn to knock, Tarry," said Mr. Moon, in a rather depressed voice, +as he fumbled with the steps from which the Major assaulted the door +with military abruptness. + +To them after a decent interval appeared Thomas in resplendent waistcoat +of Sunday and with nose polished to the limit of a nose's power of +brightness. + +"Is your mistress within?" inquired the Major. + +"Within and awaiting you," said solemn Mr. Thomas. + +"Then I think, Mr. Moon," said the Major with half a turn, "we will step +inside immediately." + +"I think we may venture," replied the latter. + +They were ushered into the passage where Thomas received their hats and +canes. Thomas had such a sober effect on his fellow men that the +slightest action in which he took part was conducted with a ritual at +once austere and grand. One felt that the delivery of a hat, smallsword, +cane, or message possessed at least the dignity, the entire absence of +all worldly considerations that belong to the Sunday alms. + +"Will your mistress receive us in the front parlour or the back parlour +this morning?" inquired Tarry whose legs were prepared for either +emergency. + +"In the front parlour," said Thomas. "Miss Thomasina was ill this +morning." + +"In the back parlour, I presume?" said Moon. + +"Very ill with retching and divers pains," continued Thomas. + +"Poor Thomasina," said the Major with an attempt at jocularity. + +"A feeble animal," said the footman, "and too fond of grass; and the +grass of this city is fit only for Nebuchadnezzar." + +A bright fire was crackling in the grate, and on each hob a kettle of +burnished copper sang with considerable sentiment. + +Thomas withdrew, and the Major and Mr. Moon took up the Englishman's +position on the hearthrug with coat-tails wide apart to allow the +grateful warmth free access to whatever chillness of morning air still +clung about their bodies. So they remained, silent, wrapped in the +dignified contemplation of an inferior painting in oils on the opposite +wall. No doubt in reality their thoughts were far away, possibly in the +chaste seclusion of the Widow's own room or possibly in the kitchen +whence from time to time ascended the pleasant jingle and chink that +heralds food's approach. + +No doubt they would both have stood there long enough for us to moralize +on England and the greatness of England, had not Mrs. Courteen come into +the room just then. + +Ponto, Phyllida's black spaniel, sidled in with the breakfast and +Phyllida herself followed, and the freshness of her in the morning was +strewn about the room like petals of roses. + +Conversation at breakfast suited itself to the solemnity of the day. The +widow sighed at every remark that was made, and in the gentle pathos of +her manner indicated placidly her conviction of fleeting time and +sorrow, and all those melancholy reflexions which are considered proper +to the Sabbath. However, at all times she was accustomed to preserve a +cloistral rigour of speech before her daughter. No one loved better to +gather the easier blooms on the safe side of the garden-god's perfumed +hedge, but they could only be plucked in numerous corners of ballrooms +and during secluded promenades. The presence of Phyllida made her +mother's blood so much rennet. Conversation became mere verbal curds and +whey. + +However, the Justice talked into his cup of the swift approach of +Spring, of the benefit of sun, the intolerable increase in vagrancy, the +need for repressing poachers. If platitudes were esteemed as high as +rolling hexameters, Moon would have been among the epical poets. As for +Major Tarry, he thrashed each topick at if his tongue were a little +rattan cane. One felt that any observation was regarded by that gallant +gentleman as an awkward recruit. He had an air of drilling the +conversation. After breakfast, the various members dispersed to acquire +a seemly attitude towards matters of religion. + +Since the search for attitudes occupies a vast deal of human energy, it +may not be out of place to inform my reader where the half-dozen +required for Morning Prayer at St. Simon's were found. + +The Widow Courteen found hers hidden between powder puff and patch-box. + +Miss Courteen found hers between the lines of a three-cornered note. + +Madam Betty found hers in the coral secrets of Miss Courteen's left ear. + +Mr. Thomas found his in a Bible as large and heavy as a Bible should be. + +Major Tarry found his in the stem of a churchwarden pipe. + +Mr. Moon found his in the best attitude that exists. + +Soon Mrs. Courteen's chairmen were knocking at the door and the whole +party prepared to set out. The widow seated in her chair, hummed a hymn +_tempo di minuetto_. The Major marched upon her left and the Justice +upon her right, and Thomas marched in front. Phyllida and Betty kept to +the pavement and had scarcely time to wonder if all the world would be +at church, when they arrived at the porch and found that all the world +certainly was. + +As the Major had handed the widow into her chair, Mr. Moon handed her +out, and the party of Mrs. Courteen proceeded to Mrs. Courteen's pew, +while Mrs. Courteen's chairmen carried the chair to an alley beloved of +chairmen and proceeded to doze away the Sabbath morning in its damask +recesses and were no doubt as comfortable as their mistress in the musty +cushions of St. Simon's pews. In the Western gallery, three fiddles, two +hautboys, and a bass viol squeaked and groaned with much fervour. In the +pulpit the parson squeaked and groaned with equal fervour and in the +desk below the clerk squeaked and groaned with most fervour of all. When +the parson threatened damnation, the ladies fanned themselves rapidly +and when he spoke of alms and oblations, they consoled themselves with +carraway comfits. + +The service was rather worldly and seemed remote enough from anything at +all spiritual, but nevertheless in so far as it was indigenous to fair +King Richard's land, it should exact from us as much respect as we owe +to a Chippendale chair and that is or ought to be very great indeed. If +so much condemnatory fervour was equivalent to breaking these +butterflies of fashion upon a religious wheel, it cannot be denied that +the exquisite bloom of their ruined wings was a great deal more pleasant +to regard than the spattered blood and bones of earlier and more +tangible martyrs to an extreme mode. + +The parson continued to prophesy hell-fire. But hell-fire means so many +kinds of illumination--certainly it had an invincible attraction for +these gay moths and butterflies. Perhaps they thought of it merely as a +huge aggregation of wax candles by which most of them had more than once +been morally singed. If any permanency of emotion was desirable, it +would certainty be more endurable in heat and gaiety than in chill +aerial solitudes. And, thanks to chickens, there would always be painted +fans. This was the sum of the congregation's united reflection during +the sermon; individually, no doubt, each soul played with more +particular premisses, but the ultimate conclusion was the same for all. + +After so much damnation, the blessing was a rhetorical anti-climax. +Clouds had gathered during the homily due, no doubt, to the violence of +the preacher and, as the worshippers tripped out through the great West +door, the clouds burst and the streaming rain inclined them more +favourably than ever to the prospect of eternal warmth. + +The morning's fair promise had been utterly belied, and many appealing +glances were launched at Mr. Ripple as he beckoned to his chairman. +Surely he would not be so barbarous as to force so much accumulated +fine raiment through mud and water, to drink the latter element in a +less pleasing form. But Mr. Ripple was inexorable: he stepped into his +gilded chair, regardless of appeal: the chairmen tightened their muscles +for the long pull uphill, and Gog and Magog, the diminutive negroes +balanced one on each step, guarded their master from interruption. Now +ensued shouts, whistles, cockcrows and screams. Hats were waved, canes +flourished, and lily-white hands shaken. All this uproar was due to the +fact that there were just half as many coaches and chairs as were +required, and when these were filled, and on their way to the Pump Room, +there remained in the church too many foolish virgins, too many +improvident dowagers, too many thoughtless beaux. + +The rain fell in torrents, and the last vehicle had turned the corner. + +A desolate remnant surveyed the situation. It was wet enough. + +Now arose one of those crises which are inseparable from a despotism. +Somebody, for his presumption will always remain anonymous, somebody +suggested that the idea of climbing the hill of health in such a +downpour was unimaginable. + +The stranded exquisites depended for the moment entirely on their rouge +for colour. + +"Rebellion," they muttered and the ominous word flapped over their heads +and darkened the gloom more profoundly. + +"The Beau will be furious." + +"He will never forgive us." + +"We shall be banished." + +"Curtain Wells will no longer know us." + +Again the daring voice was upraised: + +"We are strong enough to defy Ripple. He has no right to make us wade +through mud for a whim of his own. If we do so, we'll do so in shifts +and shirts." The unknown voice gathered force with each new proposition, +and the startled exquisites huddled closer in a very ecstasy of +perturbation. + +"Shall damask flowers lose their beauty, shall silver lace be tarnished +and broideries lack lustre because Ripple has commanded the impossible? +Silk is the fashion, ay! and watered silk, but not sodden silk. Well was +it named the Pump Room, for such shall we become, mere pumps exuding +moisture at the propulsion of a tyrant!" + +The apparent carelessness of the unknown tyrannicide had its effect; a +suspicion began to creep in that Mr. Ripple's domination was based on +insecurity. The thin end of this destructive wedge was enough to break +open the fortress of their duty and, the rain stopping for a moment, the +stranded exquisites hurried home to discuss the probable result of their +revolt over hot rum and lemon. Up at the Pump Room Mr. Ripple missed +many a well-known face that Sunday, and his urbane countenance lost some +of its smoothness as the minutes rolled by without the arrival of a +single person on foot. + +At the expiration of the quarter of an hour, he despatched Gog to see +what had happened and when Gog came back with the news that the stranded +exquisites had one and all departed to their own lodgings, Mr. Ripple +ascended his marble pedestal with an air of determination. + +"My lords, ladies and gentlemen," he began, and just then Magog hurried +up with the Beau's glass of chalybeate. The latter looked at it for a +moment. Pity and anger fought visibly for the mastery. Anger won, and +the remorseless Beau dashed the glass into a thousand sparkling +fragments. + +"The Pump Room will be closed until--until this--," he faltered over the +description of such ingratitude, "until the extraordinary behaviour of +certain visitors has been justified, if it can be justified. There will +be no Assembly to-morrow night." + +The company shivered unanimously and the Beau, dismissing his chairmen, +walked forth into the rain with all the dignity in the world. It is said +he ruined three suits of unparagoned cut that fatal day by walking about +the principal thoroughfares of Curtain Wells for the remainder of a very +wet afternoon. + + + + +_Chapter the Eighth_ + +THE GREAT REBELLION + + +Not unnaturally, the only topick of that memorable Sunday was the +rebellion. The excitement it raised far exceeded anything of the sort +not excepting the Jacobite rising, and the oldest inhabitant of the +Wells positively asserted that the landing of the Duke of Monmouth was +altogether inferior in the quality of emotional interest. + +Sirloins of beef were allowed to freeze into glaciers of fat, horse +radish lost its sting, and the most frothy ale was flat in the presence +of such an absorbing topick of conversation. When at last everybody, +momentarily exhausted, sought recuperation in the Sunday dinner, +everybody ate so fast to be the sooner at the coffee-house or the Town +Hall or the Assembly Rooms or some such equally renowned haunt of gossip +that everybody had a remarkably bad attack of indigestion. + +From every doorway the crowds hurried forth after dinner, scorning the +sacred forty winks. But coffee-house, Town Hall, and Assembly Rooms were +closed, bolted, barred and shuttered, and for a sign over each was a +scroll of parchment on which was inscribed in the finest gold leaf: + + _Closed till further notice. By order. Horace Ripple._ + +Disconsolately the ladies trooped home again to discuss developments +over a dish of Bohea; eagerly the gentlemen trotted to the _Blue Boar_ +only to be told that nobody save lodgers could be admitted. + +Most of them admired the decision of the Great little Man, but the +rebels who, having once started, felt bound to hold out if only against +the censure of the faithful, laughed very loudly and boldly and said it +was all very well to close the places of publick entertainment on +Sunday, that was only a loss of two hours custom to the proprietors, but +on the next day, a very different tale would be told. So they prophesied +as they tripped home to their pipes and hot rum, with a twirl of their +elegant canes, a shake of their exquisite heads, and a _Whack +row-de-dow_ from their irreverent lips. + +The faithful who had seen the Beau in the first flood of his wrath were +not so sanguine. They knew that like the late King of France he could +say _L'état, c'est moi_, and what shopkeeper, innkeeper, or porter, +would be brave enough to defy him? + +The sun set on a gloomy town and everybody went to bed at half-past +eight o'clock having nothing better to do. + +Mr. Ripple had earlier in the afternoon assured himself of Mr. Lovely's +fidelity, and in the company of the young gentlemen of the _Blue Boar_, +passed a very pleasant evening over some capital Burgundy opened at his +expense. He sent down messages to my Lord Cinderton and my Lord Vanity +begging the favour of their company, and both my lords hurried back as +fast as their dignified legs would carry them. Of course, they quite +agreed with Mr. Ripple that the outbreak was scandalous and were +determined to support his decrees against the whole of society provided +they were not included in the excommunication. The news of Sir Jeremy +Dummer's sudden decease was brought in, and Mr. Ripple, deeply moved by +the melancholy event, ascribed it to the horror with which the old +baronet was overwhelmed at the defiance of himself. It was soon +announced in every drawing-room that Sir Jeremy Dummer had died of an +apoplexy brought on by the sight of the rebel abstainers from morning +Chalybeate. + +It was arranged, almost in silence, that everybody faithful to the great +Beau, should repair to the Pump Room on the following morning, dressed +in funereal black, a quarter of an hour earlier than usual. They might +not be admitted, but their devotion would carry its own reward, and +would certainly afford the Beau confidence in the loyalty of the most of +his subjects. It was farther arranged that a deputation of the leading +visitors and residents should wait upon him at his lodgings with an +address black-edged, assuring him of their sorrow and fidelity. As for +the rebels, they must make what terms they could. + +At eleven o'clock of Monday forenoon the deputation waited upon the Beau +and was ushered over the Turkey carpet into his urbane presence. +Apparently he was quite untouched by the almost servile assurance of +loyalty contained in the address. He begged leave to inform the company +that, while sensible of their compliment, he could not permit any +publick amusement until the ringleaders of the revolt had, hat in hand, +implored his forgiveness. He added he had reluctantly despatched mounted +messengers to Leamington, Cheltenham, Bristol Well, Brighthelmstone, +Harrowgate, Scarborough, Tunbridge and the Bath, begging his brethren to +refuse admittance to any new arrivals until farther warning. He was +confident that his appeal would not be disregarded. The abashed +deputation withdrew, having effected nothing. Monday passed gloomily +enough. There were no chairmen, there were no chairs, there were no +coaches, there was no Assembly. The shops were all closed: the Pump Room +was closed: coffee-houses, chocolate-houses and taverns were all closed. + +The rebels were now merged almost imperceptibly into loyalists but a few +still held out, and two of the more callous--I will not affront the +living world with their names--went so far as to send out invitations to +a party of Quadrille. Six equally hardened rebels arrived at the time +appointed. Two tables were formed, the candles were lighted, the guineas +stood piled in glittering dozens, the cards were dealt, when suddenly +the door was flung open and Mr. Ripple in black sattin, armed with a +spade, marched into the room. + +"I think, ladies and gentlemen, that I am Spadille this evening," he +proclaimed in a voice of ice. + +The eight rebels dropped their cards. It was impossible to play with any +calmness in the presence of that menacing figure whose contempt was so +sublime. The ladies fluttered from the room in dismay. + +"Gentlemen," said the Beau, "you will call at my house to-morrow with +the humblest apologies for this evening's outrage." + +Then he vanished from the room. It only remains to add that the +gentlemen did call at the Great House on the following morning where +their humiliation was complete if we may judge by an alabaster tablet +set up in the portico of the Assembly Rooms where it remained until the +other day, when, alas! the famous old rooms, so long the most frequented +shrine of wit and beauty in England, were pulled down to make way for a +publick library. + +The tablet which was in the likeness of the Ace of Spades bore the +following inscription: + + Sacred to the Memory of Justice, Decency, and Order, + This Tablet was erected by four Gentlemen + In Token of their sincere Penitence and resolute + Amendment. + Also in the profoundest Admiration and deepest + Respect for Beau Ripple, King of Curtain Wells, + for many years + Arbiter of Fashion + and + Oracle of Wit. + The Great and Only + Spadille. + + + + +_Chapter the Ninth_ + +THE ASSEMBLY + + +The submission of the recalcitrants secured once more to Curtain Wells +her publick amusements, and the Monday Assembly was announced for +Wednesday evening. Everybody determined that it should make up in +brilliance what it lacked in punctuality, and all private +conversaziones, routs, and Quadrille parties were, by general consent, +postponed. + +We have temporarily got out of touch with the lesser intrigues of this +history, but truly all such were eclipsed by the great Rebellion whose +echoes drowned the whispered vows of lovers and the murmur of scandalous +small talk. The prospect of peace set everybody at amusement, with +vigour refreshed by the momentary lull in the gay tempest of their +lives. + +An additional excitement surrounded this Assembly because it was +everywhere reported that the young gentlemen of the _Blue Boar_ would be +present in force. This rumour was, indeed, likely to prove true, for the +young gentlemen, already determined to discover Mr. Lovely's charmer, +were confirmed in their resolve by a desire to reciprocate the Beau's +lately implied confidence in a way more likely to gratify him than any +other. + +The prospect of dancing with young Tom Chalkley of the Foot, Tony Clare, +and Peter Wingfield, or Lieutenant Blewforth of the _Lively_ fluttered +all the young ladies' hearts and very many of the old ones'. Moreover, +there were the Honourable Mr. Harthe-Brusshe and Mr. Golightly, and +above all, there was Mr. Charles Lovely who, if he were a poet, was also +a man of the extremest fashion and finest taste, and so at once genteel +and romantick. Altogether the postponed Assembly promised to be a great +success. + +Miss Phyllida Courteen hoped that her dear Amor would make an exception +for once, but Mr. Vernon declared he would by no means commit himself to +such publick adoration of his fair; so she was forced to content herself +with the prospect of teasing Miss Sukey Morton about the anonymous +Valentine. She knew that her dear Morton would suspect Mr. Chalkley who, +with the politeness for which the British Army has always been famous, +had once recovered her dropped fan. This somewhat ordinary event had led +Miss Morton to colour the whole world to the hue of a red coat. All the +dearest confidences exchanged with her beloved Courteen referred to +young Mr. Chalkley who was quite unconscious of the amount of room he +occupied in Miss Morton's heart, and was used to regard women as +musquets for the presenting of arms, but nothing more. + +The whole of Wednesday had been spent by the ladies of the Wells in +refreshing their bodies with sleep and rouge alternately, and the sickle +moon in the frore February sky looked pale and ghostly beside the sleek +tapers that twinkled in every window pane and the ruddy flambeaux of the +lackeys as they stamped up and down in waiting to escort their +mistresses to the ball. + +Phyllida was not long in putting on her white muslin nightgown with +flowered sack; and as her curls had neither to be subdued by Powder and +Pomatum, nor frizzled to a mock vivacity by restorative Tongs, she sat +in the bow-window of her bedchamber and stared at the young moon. The +curtains were drawn back, but, even so, she could still see innumerable +shepherds arming as many shepherdesses through the pattern and, as the +fire-light flickered over them, they seemed, indeed, to be stepping a +forgotten dance. + +"I should like to live in a curtain," thought Phyllida, "and be always +young and always happy and always hand in hand with--but after all +nothing could be less like a shepherd than Amor," and just then the +little flame that had been urging all the figures into motion turned to +a noisy puff of smoke; the picture faded from her mind and the voice of +her mother destroyed the last gossamer fancy that floated through her +brain. + +The widow's room was billowy with rejected petticoats on which, like +sea-wrack, floated garters, stockings, and gloves; while a large +constellation of paste gleamed fitfully through the mirk of a Paris net. +In the midst of the delicate havock sat the widow uncertain as ever what +colour and stuff would most become the evening. + +"The Major spoils my rose lustring and my orange sack makes the Justice +look----" + +"Like suet," said Betty. + +The widow was about to reprimand her for the simile, but as it perfectly +expressed what the Justice would look like, she refrained. + +"Sure, madam," said Phyllida, who was impatient to set out, "you had +best wear your blue brocade." + +"The child is right," said the widow emphatically. "Betty! my blue +brocade." + +Betty did not protest she had already tried on the blue brocade four +times because, if she had, the widow would instantly have thought that +green would be better, and the argument would have begun all over again. + +At last the widow was dressed; the coach was at the door; and in a very +short time made one of a long row of equally cumbersome vehicles that +extended far down the High Street. Mrs. Courteen peering from the window +announced she had caught a glimpse of Lady Bunbutter stepping out of her +coach in blue brocade. This dreadful anticipation of her own entrance +was extremely disconcerting, and if there had been the slightest +prospect of turning round in the crush of coaches, chairs, footmen, +linkboys and gaping cits, she would have instantly driven home to +exchange blue for any other colour in her trunk-mail or closet. However, +as she could not change her attire, she did the next best thing +possible, by blaming Phyllida for her suggestion. As this was the +prologue to every assembly, the latter was not much troubled by her +mother's annoyance and soon the coach arrived at the very steps leading +up to the Rooms. At the moment it drew up, Major Tarry and Mr. Moon +stepped forward and flung open the door and handed the widow out and +armed her up the steps and gave her name to Mr. Ripple's confidential +Secretary who passed it on to another equally confidential footman who +bawled it out at the top of his voice just as Mrs. Courteen sailed into +the ballroom where Mr. Ripple, with the rosy bloom of triumph on his +cheeks, advanced to offer two fingers vailed in gloves of diaphanous +chicken-skin. + +Curtseys, bows, and compliments lasted until the arrival of the next +guest, when the widow with her faithful Ancients surveyed the room in a +grand promenade. Phyllida made off to greet her dear Morton with half a +glance in the direction of the young gentlemen from the _Blue Boar_, who +were grouped rather stiffly at the other end of the ballroom. + +The babble of conversation and the swish of fans, the colour all compact +of movement, the innumerable tapers, the glitter of many brooches, pins, +and buckles, the mirrours, the preliminary notes of the musicians, the +shuffling feet, and the tap of the opened snuff-boxes combined in that +glorious whole--a ball at the Assembly Rooms, Curtain Wells. + +Soon the Minuets would begin, and after the Minuets, the Gavottes, and +so on to the Country Dances and the last great Cotillon. The passionate +history of the world is writ in crowquill letters on the programs of +dances. What Jealousies and yellow-winged Envies hovered on the cool air +of waving fans, what vows would be made and broken in those alcoves, now +serene and empty, before the last flambeau expired in the gutter +outside. What mean Ambitions coiled around every genteel fine hoop! + +Yet Mr. Ripple was so suave, Mrs. Courteen and my Lady Bunbutter so full +of compliments, Lieutenant Blewforth so jolly and Mr. Lovely so witty, +old Lord Vanity so generous of snuff, my Lord Cinderton so +distinguished--and as for Miss Phyllida Courteen, she was enchanted to a +magical domain where only very slowly did Mr. Francis Vernon blacken a +trinket sun with the menace of real passion. + +Suddenly her heart began to beat so fast that she feared all her friends +would observe her agitation. Surely that young gentleman in primrose +sattin and flesh-coloured brocaded waistcoat, who took the polished +floor so easily, was the poet of Valentine Day to whom she had confided +her note. Surely too, for all he stared at everybody else from time to +time, his eyes were really fixed on hers. Perhaps he was a friend of +Amor's with a message to deliver--and yet it would be more interesting, +she decided, if he were not. Presently Mr. Lovely was bowing over her +chair and asking in the politest manner possible for the honour of the +next two dances. + +She looked round at Miss Morton as if to say she could not leave her +without a partner. + +"Madam," said Mr. Lovely bowing very low indeed, "if I might be so +presumptuous, does the young lady wish for a Vis à Vis, for in that case +I shall certainly present my friend Mr. Chalkley of the Foot." + +Miss Morton, amid a deal of simpering, confessed she favoured a minuet +on occasions, so Mr. Lovely hurried off to fetch Mr. Chalkley before the +musicians began to play the opening bars of the dance. + +Phyllida was astonished at the coincidence and not sure whether, after +all, Mr. Chalkley had not employed Mr. Lovely's offices on his behalf. +However, as she had little enough envy in her and was romantically +attached to Mr. Amor, she could scarcely refuse to help her dear Morton +into the arms of an expectant lover, and if Mr. Lovely had no real +inclination to dance with her, that was no great matter, since he was a +vastly agreeable young gentleman and would pass the time very pleasantly +in the absence of another. + +Mr. Chalkley, when summoned by Charles, was extremely indignant and +swore he was not come to dance with any jade in the room. + +"Pshaw," replied his friend, "you can't stand there gaping all the +evening." + +"Why don't you make Blewforth dance with the hussy?" + +"Odds my life, Tom, why won't you tread a minuet with a handsome young +woman?" + +"You're too devilish fond of arranging matters for other people to suit +your own whims. I'll be hanged if I dance a step to-night!" But all the +other young gentlemen vowed so earnestly that Mr. Chalkley was a surly +fellow, that he gave way at last and suffered himself to be dragged to +the feet of attractive Miss Sukey Morton, whose black eyes flashed very +brightly at the sight of Mr. Chalkley's red coat. + +Charles, having disposed her friend, offered his hand to Phyllida and +soon they were stepping the minuet with infinite grace, admired by every +one who saw them. + +For her the room sank into unreality and she lived in a rainbow whose +colours moved and changed to the slow dignity of far-heard Pizzicato. + +The melody to which these marionettes were dancing possessed a strange +quality. It was emotion in quintessence, without passion, without +abandon. Whatever it had of definite character lay in the half bashful +invitation to dance, as if some ghostly puppet master, pale and stately, +were beckoning to his performers. As the opening bars of the minuet were +repeated at the close only to die away in a poignant farewell, Phyllida +felt for the first time, in the swoon of her last courtesy, that she was +a doll whose gestures served to amuse a genteel but unearthly audience +of monocled Gods. + +Actually it was a mere momentary dizziness, a sudden loss of volition on +which Charles hung a score of fancies. + +"You are feeling faint?" he inquired. + +"No, no." + +"The heat is overpowering. Shall we sit for a while in an alcove, or +shall we saunter in Curtain Garden?" They passed through the crowded +room and down a cool passage into a Baroc cloister where stone Satyrs +took the place of Angels, and the Cherubim were not easily to be +distinguished from Loves. + +The young moon was setting behind Curtain Hill larger and more golden +than before. + +The cloister was hung with amber lights and held innumerable whispers. +Somewhere close at hand was a sound of running water. + +"You are fond of dancing, madam?" + +"Oh, sir, 'tis a very delicate motion truly." + +"I fear you thought I was presumptuous in offering my hand for the +minuet." + +"No, indeed, sir," Phyllida answered quite naturally. + +Lovely was rather surprized. He had expected the customary play of a +fan. + +"You are making a long stay here?" he asked. + +"Oh, sir, I do not know, 'tis for so long as my mamma thinks proper." + +"I have not had the honour of an introduction." + +"No," said Phyllida doubtfully. She was not at all anxious to present +Mr. Lovely, and willing enough to take advantage of the Assembly rule +that the offer and acceptance of a dance was not necessarily a passport +to intimacy on the next day. She did not wish to be treated like a child +before the gallant Mr. Lovely who treated her with such deference. + +"Did you hear anything more of the Valentine?" said Phyllida with a +ripple of laughter. + +"Not a word." + +"You remember the young woman by whom I was seated?" + +"Perfectly." + +"'Twas for her," said Phyllida with more laughter. + +"Nonsense." + +"Oh, yes! indeed, 'tis true, and the best of it is she thinks the +Valentine was sent by Mr. Chalkley." + +"Never!" + +"Oh! yes, yes, yes." + +"But he has never set eyes on her." + +"No! But she thinks he has--often, just because he picked up her fan +once." + +"Truly then I did a very politick action in effecting the introduction." + +"Oh, sir, she was ravished, you may be sure." + +"Gad! I'll send her a Valentine every day of the week, and put one in +her Prayer Book on Sundays." + +"Oh, sir! but sure, it might end in a wedding, and that's a very serious +matter as all the world knows." + +"Not more serious than love," said Charles. + +"Well, no, perhaps not more than love; but then neither of 'em is in +love with t'other." + +"I swear they shall be." + +"You can't force people to fall in love." + +"Can't you?" said Charles very earnestly, so earnestly that Phyllida +thought the air was turning chill and that they ought to go back to the +ballroom. + +"Not yet," pleaded Mr. Lovely. "I thought we might walk towards the +Maze." + +"The Maze?" said she quickly. + +"Why, yes! the entrance is but a few yards from where we are." + +"I had forgot," she answered, and then with a sudden determination, "I +think we had better go back." + +"You're not frightened of the Maze?" + +"Oh, no, truly I'm not," Phyllida affirmed. "But I think I heard my +mamma's voice and if she sees me here, I shall not be allowed to come to +the next Assembly." + +Phyllida was feeling a vague emotion of infidelity to her dear Amor and +almost dreaded to see his tall shadow in the amber light. + +"As you will," he said in some disappointment, "but we han't had a deal +of conversation yet." + +"That's true," she replied, "but this is only our second meeting. Oh! +Gemini!" she went on, "you'll think me forward and bold, but I vow I +never meant it in that way." + +"Madam," said Charles with a bow, "I should never presume to put upon it +an interpretation so complimentary to myself, but, seriously, you will +give me two more dances to-night?" + +"It would be indiscreet." + +"Nay, I do not think so." + +"Your friends would laugh." + +"I do not _think_ so." + +Mr. Lovely looked so fierce that Phyllida hurriedly promised two +gavottes, and Charles who was something of a Gascon could not help +congratulating himself on his speedy success. + +They walked back to the ballroom almost in silence, and above the +chatter of folk in the lobby, heard the opening of a plaintive minuet. + +Lovely, when he had left his partner, walked over to his friends of the +_Blue Boar_ and was greeted with a shower of sallies. + +"How now, Charles, have you been smuggling rare spirits in the +cloister?" cried Blewforth. + +"Snuggling would be b-b-better!" stammered little Peter Wingfield. + +Charles glared at both the young gentlemen, who laughed very heartily +indeed, and were not at all put about by his frowns. + +"Oddslife, Charles," said Mr. Chalkley, "where have been your eyes these +past six weeks to have so lately discovered the fair Courteen?" + +"Charles looks at women through dice-boxes," said Blewforth. + +"And what's worse, sees double wherever he looks," added Mr. Chalkley. + +"Charles," added Mr. Antony Clare, "be wise. Some knave of Clubs will +trump your Queen." + +"Mr. Clare," said Charles drawing himself up very straight and looking +as grand as possible, "I'll trouble you to croak when I ask for your +noise; as for you, gentlemen, you're too free with your words, be d--d +to the lot of you." + +Thereupon Mr. Charles Lovely swung himself out of the room with such an +air that the young gentlemen looked after him in some apprehension. + +"Egad!" commented Chalkley, "the man must be madly in love for he's lost +his wit." + +"And his humour too," said Blewforth. + +"Don't rally him too hard, boys," said Tony. + +"We can't all turn parsons because Charles is bewitched by two blue +eyes," grumbled Chalkley. + +This was the opinion of the company, and though in their hearts they +excused Mr. Lovely, they were loud in their condemnation of his churlish +behaviour. + +Clare, afraid he was gone to work off his injured feelings by reckless +play, soon followed him out of the ballroom, but could not find him at +the tables. + +Charles had, in fact, turned into the garden. Cupid had pierced him with +a long sharp arrow, and he was not yet able to bear a rough hand on the +wound. The night air came over him fresh and cool. In the darkness he +was more than ever enthralled by the image and pale fancies of an ideal +passion. Yet for all he was a poet, or perhaps just because he was a +poet, his love was tinted with the hues of convention. She was like +those Madonnas who appear to peasant children, Madonnas in crude +croelean robes sown with tinsel stars. One feels that much of the +apparition is due to preconceived opinion. So with Charles, his love +made one of a list of women dating to the Queens of Babylon. There was +too much bob-a-cherry about her and too much cream. She stood, too, on +such a high pedestal that if she owned feet of cracked clay not a soul +could have seen them. + +Charles felt very angry with his bachelor friends, and when Clare joined +him at the end of an alley was in no mood to be pleasant company. + +"Sure, Charles," the latter remonstrated, "you're the last man to tie +yourself to the skirts of a goddess." + +"There's a medium between an angel and a woman of the town," said +Charles sententiously. + +"But the woman was once an angel to somebody, and 'foregad! I believe +you do your charmer an injury to make her such a paragon of air. I swear +those eyes can flash with more than saintly ecstasy." + +"Z----ds! Tony, you are bent on a quarrel. I tell you the child's name +shall not be a toast for my profligate friends." + +"You are not better than any of them." + +"But at least I can reverence purity." + +"Aye, and so can Blewforth." + +"D---- e!" swore Charles, "'tis a pity he don't exercise his talent more +openly." + +The argument would doubtless have continued, if the sound of voices +approaching had not made the two young men pause involuntarily. Two +people were passing down the adjoining alley, and it was impossible not +to overhear some of the conversation, which was sufficiently ridiculous. +A feminine voice declared that soldiers were romantick, and a voice of +opposite sex replied that as an attribute of class, it was an undeniable +quality, but not for that reason universally applicable to individual +members of that class. + +"But a scarlet coat is so dazzling," argued Treble. + +"Madam," said Bass, "I cannot claim that my profession is romantick. The +Law, Madam, has no time for romance except perhaps in the examination of +an unwilling witness, but what my profession lacks, my name possesses. +Moon, madam, I venture to affirm, is a singularly romantick name." + +"It is," murmured the widow, for, of course, it was she. + +"The moon is the method of illumination adopted by every poet of +distinction." + +"How true that is," she sighed. + +"I might add that so far as dazzling goes my name is as capable of +extreme refraction as the red coat of a soldier. Moreover, madam, the +latter is very antipathetick to the complexion of a woman of quality." + +"But the coat need not be worn, Mr. Moon. It could exist in a bottom +drawer, I should feel it was there, and I could sometimes brush it +even." + +"Good heavens! ma'am, has not the Law an equal fascination? Do you know +that my house is full of legal cases?" + +"How untidy!" said the widow reprovingly. + +"Arguments _Pro_ and _Contra_, trials!" + +"But I dislike arguments, they put my hair out of curl and we have so +many trials to bear already." + +"They need never be used, but they can exist, madam, they can exist in +calf on a bottom shelf, and they could be dusted sometimes," declared +the Justice. Then in softer accents he began to plead: + +"Think, my dear Mrs. Courteen, of Mrs. Moon. Mrs. Moon! I often murmur +that short sentence over to myself." + +"Do you, Mr. Moon? When?" said the widow, who seemed touched by his +devotion. + +"Oh! after dinner--or getting into bed, or--" but the third occasion was +never revealed, for Major Tarry charged round the corner and carried off +the dear questioner to adorn a gavotte. + +Somehow the hedges no longer seemed so mysterious and the night not +quite so large. + +"Gad! what follies!" laughed Charles. + +"D'ye know who the lady was?" inquired the other. + +"Venus grown fat by the sound of her voice." + +"That was Mrs. Courteen." + +"Eh?" + +"Your charmer's mother." + +"Then she must have had a very delightful father." + +"That's neither here nor there," said Clare. "Your angel's wings may +moult, and she who now goes tiptoe for very lightness will one day--but, +pshaw! if you love her, she will always skim the ground." + +"Tony!" said Charles, "I've made a fool of myself." + +"In the best way of folly." + +It may seem odd that Charles should have been so ready to admit the +mortality of his goddess, but after all as yet his love was an +apparition. No miracles had been worked at the shrine, and she had a +mother. + +Also Charles began to smell romance, of which he pretended to an +exaggerated horror. Like mother, like daughter. He made up his mind to +neglect Miss Phyllida Courteen, and having done so, went back to the +ballroom with the temerity of a successful anchorite. Yet when he saw +her again she was young and adorable, and he was as madly in love with +her as ever; all the more perhaps because he realized that one day she +would fade. However, he was no longer so full of heroick rebukes for his +friends. Perhaps, like the Greeks, he was beginning to understand that +romantick Troy was a menace to the common sense of the world. + +Charles found the young men in precisely the same position as that in +which he left them. + +"Oddslife," cried Blewforth, "there's Charles come back. What, man! have +you been languishing under the sky? Your mistress has been dancing +merrily with Ripple himself, while you were star-gazing." + +"'Tis a pity that none of you have enough impudence to follow his +example," retorted Charles, "for on my soul you all stand stiff and +awkward as the figures on a Gothick tombstone. Gad! I've a mind to tell +the ladies how nimbly you tripped it at Baverstock, Blewforth, and as +for you, Tom, I'm hanged if I'd be cut out by a beggarly half-pay +militia captain," continued Charles pointing to the disreputable Captain +Mann who was handing Miss Morton through the gavotte. + +"Well said!" Clare joined in, "we shall find it more difficult than ever +to believe Blewforth's tales of conquest in the ports of civilization." + +"Unless," added Charles, "like a picture by a great master he possesses +an immovable reputation and attracts by beauty in repose." + +"Ha--ha--ha," bellowed the Lieutenant, "you should have seen me at +Minorca. These finicking hussies aren't worth the shoe leather one uses +in dragging them round the room." But just as Mr. Blewforth was about to +give a discourse on the beauty, grace, and agility of feminine Spain, +Mr. Ripple scaled the rigid group: + +"Now, gentlemen, you are not dancing. Come, come this won't do. I've +let you off the Minuets and Gavottes, but I insist on the Country +Dances. Let me see, Lieutenant Blewforth, I have the very Vis à Vis you +are looking for--Mrs. Georgina Bean, widow of the late Captain Bean, of +your own Service. She will like to hear the latest Marine Information." + +Blewforth struck his colours with an almost humble salute. + +"Mr. Chalkley," the Beau continued, "Miss Margery Mansel a young lady +fresh from boarding-school, will certainly suit your accomplishments. +Treat her kindly, sir. Mr. Golightly, I insist on your dancing with Lady +Jane Vane--your father and hers were intimate friends. Mr. +Harthe-Brusshe, your respected father tells me that he has a particular +desire you should dance with Miss Mimsy; she's an heiress, sir, and as +good as she is wealthy. Come, come, gentlemen, make no doubt that I +shall find a partner for every one of you." + +The young gentlemen, a little stiffer, a little more awkward, followed +Mr. Ripple very mildly across the room. The rest of the Assembly +fluttered quite perceptibly at their approach. + +Lovely had no opportunity of asking Phyllida to dance with him as by the +time he had crossed the room, she was standing opposite Mr. Moon. So he +hurried up to Miss Sukey Morton who flashed her black eyes and took his +arm with all the grace in the world and discussed the attraction of the +British Army with much fan-play and volubility. He met Phyllida in the +course of the dance and begged her hand for the Cotillon, but she shook +her head gravely with a glance in the direction of old General Morton, +and Charles passed on to less interesting encounters much exasperated by +the impertinence of old age. + +"Why aren't you a soldier, Mr. Lovely?" asked Miss Morton in a wondering +voice. + +"I like to pull the sheets over my head when I sleep," said Charles very +solemnly, "but soldiers always have to put them on top of a pole." + +"Oh! but think of war and fortresses and sieges and bivouacks." + +"I dislike war, I object to fortresses. For sieges I lack the patience +and I abominate bivouacks." + +"But the uniform is so gay," persisted Miss Morton, "and so martial." + +"A footman's, ma'am, is twice as gay and three times as martial." + +"Nay, I vow you're jealous of the Army." + +"Madam, is that surprizing, when Miss Morton inclines so much to +scarlet?" + +"Nay, now you are laughing at me,", she pouted, "and I hate to be +laughed at. Are you a friend of Mr. Chalkley?" + +"Indeed, I hope I may describe myself as such," said Charles. + +"Does he paint landskips as an Amateur?" inquired cunning Miss Sukey +Morton. + +"Not that I am aware of." + +The disappointment visible on her countenance recalled the incident of +the Valentine, and he made haste to add: + +"Though now I come to think of it, I found him cutting out an ace of +hearts one day last week." + +"An ace of hearts?" said Miss Morton very innocently, "why what would he +do that for?" + +"I asked him as much, and he muttered something about a torn velvet +patch. But his behaviour that day was monstrous odd altogether, for I +remember I found him later on the bowling green of the _Blue Boar_ +picking snowdrops, and when I rallied him, he asked me for a rhyme to +'white.'" + +Miss Morton danced for the rest of the evening as though her scarlet +heels were little flames. + +The hands of the clock were nearing the magick hour of the last +Cotillon, and everybody was hurrying in search of partners and places; +when the appearance of Gog and Magog, with Mr. Ripple's marble pedestal, +warned everybody that the Great little Man was about to make an +announcement. Everybody waited with extreme deference and not a whisper +disturbed the religious peace. The room was quite still save for the +tinkle of jewellery and the slow sighing of the fans. + +The Beau ascended his pedestal, calm and majestick while the listeners +craned their necks to attention. + +"My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen. You are doubtless all aware that we +have to lament the sudden death of that respected model of fortitude and +perseverance, Sir Jeremy Dummer." + +A sympathetick murmur floated along the wind of the fans. + +"I am happy to tell you that he died as he lived, fighting. He died, if +I may use so vulgar a metaphor, in harness--the harness of an old +war-horse who, having fought the foes of England during his prime, +continued to fight the greatest foe of England during his decay. That +energy which erstwhile displayed itself in the trenches of War enabled +him for twenty-one years to persecute by every means in his power that +enemy of all of us--the Gout. + +"He sought to starve it into capitulation by restricted diet, he tried +to storm it by sudden charges of chalybeate. My lords, ladies and +gentlemen, it was in the middle of one of these gallant sallies that he +died. In a word, he was half-way through a glass of the cleansing liquid +when death overtook him. There it stood, that partially empty glass +beside the dead form of the veteran. May we not regard this relick as +the tears of Æsculapius? Shall we not enshrine these sparkling drops in +a lachrymatory and, having sealed the sacred fluid with the city seal, +shall we not set it in a prominent part of our civick museum? My lords, +ladies and gentlemen, we shall. I have consulted with my brother the +Mayor of this town, and he has agreed. + +"Moreover, let me remind you of the last words of the great Socrates, +his last injunction to his friend to sacrifice a cock to Æsculapius. Let +us also, in memory of our deceased exemplar, present a new tap to our +publick fountain and so sacrifice, my lords, ladies and gentlemen, not a +cock, but a turncock to Æsculapius." + +The Great little Man here paused to wipe away the tears of sorrow and +the heat of the atmosphere. "It seems," he continued, "out of place to +make any announcement of a new diversion, but pleasure is as inexorable +as death." + +Here the audience seemed to murmur a mournful assent. + +"Next Tuesday at 7 o'clock precisely will be held the Chinese +Masquerade. This, as you are aware, limits our costumes to those +authorized by gold-lackered cabinets and teacups of blue china. I myself +shall act as Gold Mandarin and my young friend Mr. Charles Lovely will +be the Blue Mandarin. There will be a grand minuet of Cathay, but I will +not detain you now with farther particulars of this entertainment. I +hope that we shall hold masquerades of assorted characters until May, +when we shall make an attempt to start the Fêtes Champêtres which were +so successful last year. + +"Finally, my lords, ladies and gentlemen, you are aware that an incident +of an unpleasantly obtrusive habit deterred us from Terpsichore on +Monday night. I am, indeed, happy to say that the curtain has fallen +upon the whole affair without a dissentient voice. I should have been +inexpressibly grieved if the gloom consequent upon the defiance of my +authority, had been at all lasting. May I add that the rebels--if I may +call them so without offence--have acted in the handsomest manner and +have offered to set up in the portico of these rooms a tablet +commemorating the temporary cloud upon your delight. I should be more +than mortal if I were not proud of such a token of confidence in my +despotism. + +"My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen, I am your very grateful, humble, and +obliged servant to command." + +The Beau's descent from his pedestal was the signal for much waving of +lace handkerchiefs and fans. There were cries of 'Bravo, Beau,' 'Viva, +Ripple!' + +Finally when old Lord Vanity stepped up to the dignified lord of +ceremonies and solemnly offered him his noted jade snuffbox full to +overflowing of the richest brown Rappee, and when the Beau, having +dropped his jewelled fingers into the modish soil, drew them forth and +raised them to his aquiline nose, a stillness fell upon the room, and +above the silence the sniffs of the great Beau, three in number, were +distinctly heard by all. It was as if he wished them Good Health. But +this was not enough for the Exquisite Mob. Somebody--it may have been +our hero--ran post haste for a bottle of champagne, and somebody else +rushed off for goblets. Presently, the prettiest Impromptu in the world +was enacted, and very proud indeed were the spectators of a scene +memorable for many years in the chronicles of fashion. + +Delicately veined hands untwisted the silver wire and tore off the gold +cap. Somebody fetched a corkscrew, somebody clenched the sombre green +bottle between his brocaded knees. An arm tapering to snowy peaks pulled +at the unwilling cork. A fairy explosion was followed by the dewy +vapours of long imprisoned sunshine. The amber liquid sparkled and +bubbled and flowed over the many faceted goblet in cream and foam. + +The Beau mounted once more upon his pedestal and drank to the pleasure, +health, and beauty of the company, while Lord Vanity and my Lady +Bunbutter quaffed an answering toast in deputy for the lords, ladies and +gentlemen present. Salvoes of well-bred applause pattered round the +room, and the Beau's triumph was hailed with acclamations. + +And you, beautiful women and fine gentlemen, roses and carnations of an +older century, nothing remains of you for us. Your very perfume is but a +name. You are no more to the world of to-day than those glossy candles +that spluttered to death in gilt sockets. And yet, from the ruin of +elegance, one relick of that famous evening remains; for the silver wire +of the bottle of champagne, flung heedless to the ground, caught in a +flounce of some Beauty's petticoat. Long ago the gossamer stuff +mouldered, long ago was Beauty herself a skeleton, but the wire +cherished by Beauty's family may still be seen in a glass-topped table +in the corner of a quiet library somewhere in the broad Midlands. O +insignificant wire, you are more durable than the flowers who despised +you! + +And now another famous ball waned to a close, and all the world of taste +and fashion went home to bed. + + + + +_Chapter the Tenth_ + +AFTER THE ASSEMBLY + + +Mr. Charles Lovely walked back with Mr. Antony Clare to the _Blue Boar_, +and joined Mr. Francis Vernon in the Coffee Room. + +The latter noticed that Clare frowned slightly when he saw him, and +explained, almost apologetically, that he had moved thither from his +lodgings in the Crescent. Charles was delighted and immediately proposed +a game of hazard. + +"You'll play, Tony?" he said eagerly. + +"Not I," his friend answered. "I'm too sleepy, for 'tis confoundedly +fatiguing to be on such polite behaviour for so long." + +"That's true indeed," cried Charles, "and therefore we need recreation +the more." With this he gave a tug at the bell-pull of flowery chintz, +and presently Mr. Daish who had sent the waiters to bed, came yawning to +answer the summons. + +"Daish, bring two bottles of Burgundy like the fine fellow and good +landlord that you are." + +"Yes, Mr. Lovely, certainly, your honour, but I hope your honour will be +careful with the bottles; it would be a terrible thing for the house if +the watch was murdered as they nearly was twice over last week," said +Mr. Daish, crumpling into obsequiousness at the impudence of his +request, and retreating sidelong from the room. + +Mr. Clare, seeing that it was useless to argue Charles out of his +determination, took a seat by the fire. + +"Egad," said Lovely, "what a jealous dog it is, he won't play, but can't +bear to go to bed." Clare gave the fire a meditative poke. + +"What shall it be, Mr. Vernon? Ecarté?" + +"With pleasure." + +"Or picket?" + +"As you will." + +"Why, then, picket, and if we find we grow too sleepy to count our +sequences, we shall, at any rate, not be too sleepy to trickle dice out +of a box, eh?" + +Charles turned with these words to take some unbroken paquets of playing +cards from a small mahogany cabinet hanging against the wall. The +picture presented was a friendly one as the two men seated themselves at +the card table. The fire was burning brightly and rosy shadows flickered +over the ceiling. The curtains were close drawn and the ample flowers of +their pattern seemed to retain somehow the warmth and the light. By the +side of the grate sat Tony in a high grandfather's chair. He had taken +off his wig and was staring meditatively at the crisp curls, as it +reposed on his knee. The buckles of his shoes spat tiny glints of +flame--red, blue and green. Presently he leaned across to a small +bookshelf and took down some dry inn volume, but the print danced in the +fire-light and very soon he was dozing peacefully, while his wig slipped +to the ground and became a pleasant couch for a large tabby cat to purr +away comfortable hours. + +At the table sat Vernon and Lovely face to face, and the green baize +made a prim battlefield for the debonair antagonists. It was a +meadow-fight viewed from towering Olympus. Here was pasture profitable +enough to some: to others barren as the unharvested sea. No crescent +moon lighted it, no sun parched the fresh greenery whose four tall +candles flickered only to chamber tempests, storms of tapestry, keyhole +zephyrs. At either end were ranged round guineas in wicked little heaps, +and along the borders stood serried packs of cards, shorn of their +meaner numbers as becomes the apparelled duel of picket. These had been +flung contemptuously on to the floor and the survivors lay face +downwards on the table with a new and alluring slimness. Their backs +were so innocent--mere festoons of flowers and bouquets of rosebuds; +yet their very innocence only served to enhance the red and black +determination of their faces. How the royal cards reflected in their +appearance the temper of their courts. How sombre-suited went the Queen +of Spades, how pensive seemed her consort, while the savage Ace was hung +with garlands of mourning and sable flowers of Proserpine. The Queen of +Diamonds looked harassed; the Knave had a lean eye and the King himself +seemed peaked and careworn. The Club Court was a swarthy and more brutal +counterpart of the gay Hearts, and the gay Hearts, with ripe dewy +mouths, had yet a certain sly sensuality that bred distrust. + +Then the tournament began. The stacked guineas sprawled in golden +disarray and dwindled and swelled and tinkled to the tune of the game. + +Charles was winning. Five times he had made the grand Repique, five +times the gallant Pique, thrice Capote had taken captive twelve hostile +cards to be redeemed with rippling guineas. Ace, King, Queen, Knave, Ten +came in sequences as month succeeds to month. His hands were palaces for +the abode of many courtiers. They were picture galleries of the oldest +kings and queens in Europe. If he threw away Spades, he took up the red +Hearts for which he longed. If he discarded Diamonds, he gained a lusty +host of Clubs to serve his purpose. + +At last Vernon, who had lost steadily for a pair of hours--six games at +an average price of thirty guineas a game--declared he would fight no +longer against his adversary's good fortune. "Moreover," he added, "so +much counting has set my brain in a whirl." + +"As you will," said Charles, who would have liked to continue with +picket, but could not refuse to give his opponent an opportunity to +avenge himself at another game. + +So they turned to Ecarté. + +And now his fortune deserted him. Each time Vernon dealt he turned up a +King, and Charles began to dread their florid appearance, as some +ambitious minister dreads the veering of his master's favour. Those +kings who had hitherto been numbered in his hands in fours and threes, +those puppet kings, had won a new dignity from the only game which +accords them their rightful place at the head of the pack; each one had +acquired, it seemed, a personality that threatened him. Time after time +were his Jeux de Règle defeated by the most astonishing combinations of +ill luck. + +So many times did those confounded monarchs affront him face upwards on +the serene baize that he began to suspect Vernon of being a sort of +gamester Warwick, a maker and unmaker of kings. Indeed, he went so far +as to watch his deals rather narrowly and, being unable to detect +anything amiss, became heartily ashamed of his suspicions. + +It was now five o'clock of a chill morning; the fire had sunk into +ashes, and dawn would soon shoot her icy arrows into the slow-flying +bulk of night. + +Clare was still asleep in the armchair, but presently the stealthy cold +waked him and he jumped up; the candles were guttering away; the +burgundy was drunk; the room smelt stale. + +"Come to bed, Charles," he cried out. + +Lovely, who had lost at Ecarté considerably more than he had won at +Picket, drew back the curtains for answer. The dawn was in the East. + +He blew out the candles one after another, and in the unreal morning +twilight, the aftermath of smoke curled like an outworn pleasure into +extinction save of a foul odour. + +"We have still a grey hour for the dice," said Charles. + +"As you will," replied Vernon. + +The dice boxes were brought out, and the ivory cubes began to dance; +strange fancies assailed Clare as he watched the gamesters; morbid +imaginations, caught from the chilly atmosphere, froze his reason, and +the rattle of the dice acquired a macabre significance. They clicked +like the hoofs of horses on an iron-bound road. Then they were the +castanets of a sinister dance. Soon they were the shaken ribs of Death, +the king of dancers, and at the end no more than a baby's rattle, +insistent, importunate, maddening. + +Charles was winning again. + +The various faces of the cubes took fantastick likenesses. _Two_ was a +patched beauty, leaden-eyed, pallid, pleasure-doomed. _Five_ was a +skewbald cat and _four_ a plum cake. Six was a ladder to some evil +house. _Three_ was a necklace of jet, _one_ a Pierrot's velvet eye. + +Charles was still winning. + +The irresponsibleness of the dice annoyed Clare. They tumbled and rolled +so gaily and it was mortifying to see a man enslaved by acrobats of +ivory. The bodies, too, with their absurd waists were like women whom +extravagant stays had driven to vomit sweetmeats. + +Charles had won. The casement swung open in the sudden winds of dawn; +the room was tinted with the cold colours of sunrise. The three men +stumbled upstairs disdainful of the morning's gold. A guinea slipped +from Lovely's pocket and tinkled down to the foot of the stairs to +reward the little scullery-maid who was even now yawning on her pallet +upstairs. + +A thrush tuned his melodies against the swift coming of spring, and the +purple leaf-buds welcomed the sun. + + + + +_Chapter the Eleventh_ + +NOX ALBA + + +Charles was tempted to deprive himself of sleep for the pleasure of +bedabbling his pale silk stockings with dew, but vanity killed romance +and the fresh light enchanted a still unruffled couch. So he flung his +coat over a chair, and the heavy pockets chinked as they fell back +against the taper legs. His prayers were all to rosy Aurora when the +fragrant linen sheets flowed like water over his parched brows. + +Sleep could not pass the melodious batteries of many birds, and Lovely's +brain had captured something of the time's clarity. The clock has many +secret hours, but those who would know them must follow their slow +pilgrimage wide awake. What castles men build to the pipes of the +morning! + +The world was waking up. Outside the talk of hostlers grew so loud that +the birds fled from the inn yard to the still deserted bowling green. + +Soon he heard the jangle of pails, the swish of mops and from time to +time the sound of a horse's hoof striking the cobbles with a clap. In +the distance a post-horn endowed the air with silver tongues. Charles +followed its course along the London road. He pictured the cumbrous +vehicle swinging in its straps between the black February hedgerows. He +saw the postillions blinking sleepy eyes to the Eastern sun. He saw the +great London road like a tape-measure unfolded from the gilded case that +was London. Already he was at Knightsbridge watching some townbred maid +gathering cresses in the little stream. Now he was spurring the horses +to a fine lather, for he could see the grooms in a black knot by the +_White Horse_ cellars. In a trice he was taking the air in St. James' +Street, and then suddenly he was a little boy picking his way through +Westminster mud beside his mother who was carrying a bouquet of violets +to their narrow house near St. John's Church. And now it was winter, and +the sea-coal was burning sullenly: there were no violets, and heavy on +the leaden afternoon he heard the bell tolling in Millbank Gaol. "God +save the poor soul, the marshes will be icy cold to-night," said his +mother, and he knew that some prisoner had escaped. + +"How late your father is," she went on as she opened a cupboard, set in +the panelled wall, to reach for plates and dishes. Then she told him to +get out the candlesticks--beautiful silver candlesticks with swan-like +necks and curious mazy lines around their bases. The candlesticks were +nowhere to be found. + +"Where can they be?" exclaimed his mother, pausing to help in the +search. Then he heard a sigh and was told to ask Mrs. Gruffle, the +landlady, for the brass bed-chamber candlesticks. He rather liked these: +there was always a delightful quagmire of grease in the little plate +where the socket rested--grease that could be moulded into queer little +pliable shapes, with shreds of tobacco stuck around for fur. When he +came back to the parlour, he saw his father with his legs on the bars of +the grate. + +"They had to go, my dear, they had to go," the latter was saying. + +"They were my mother's." + +"I know, I know, but z----ds' You wouldn't have me fail Dicky +Claribut?" + +"But sure they were not worth----" + +"Oons! I pledged my best buckles to him; the candlesticks were for his +gentleman. I'm devilish sorry, my dear, but, 'faith, 'twas not to be +avoided, and here's young Charles! Charles, my boy, never play, or, if +you do, play deep and win." + +"Don't put such ideas into the boy's mind," said his mother anxiously. + +"Oddslife, my dear, be very sure the ideas are there already." + +"How can you have the heart to persist when you know...." + +"The heart, madam?" interrupted his father. "Let me tell you that the +hearts of the Lovelys are all of a piece--and 'tis cardboard." + +Our hero came to his elegant self with a start and was back in Curtain +Wells with hot eyelids, and thoughts continually racing over the flowery +wall-paper. + +It was not long, however, before he was once more in pursuit of the +past. + +And now he was seated beside his handsome father in a chariot. They were +both in mourning and he thought how well the black frogged riding-coat +became his parent. As for himself, his black sattin breeches set his +teeth on edge as he tried to scratch his knee. + +"Where are we going?" he was asking. + +"To your mother's brother, Sir George Repington of Repington Hall." + +"That's the man whose letters made her cry?" + +"The same, young Charles," said Mr. Lovely, ogling a dairymaid through +his black-rimmed perspective, as the object of his glances shrank into a +hedge, powdered with cow-parsley, and closed her eyes against the dust +of their chariot. + +Then, without any warning, they were driving through a stately park, and +as they turned a corner, Mr. Lovely senior exclaimed "Good G...! A +cemetery indeed!" Charles looked up and saw a field full of small +cypresses with rank grass growing between them. + +His father, who was looking rather pale, signed to the postboy to stop, +and "Charles," said he, "do you go on up to the Hall, knock at the door +and ask for your uncle, Sir George Repington. I'll wait for you here." + +As he set out in obedience to his father he heard him mutter. "This was +the very place. I swear this was the place, and not an apple tree left." +And then Charles diminutive enough in his black suit with miniature +small-sword of cut steel, was asking two enormous footmen in +canary-coloured velvet for Sir George Repington. They looked at him and +laughed. + +"My uncle," said Charles solemnly. + +And they laughed again, but one of them murmured, 'This way,' and walked +up a very wide and very slippery staircase, while Charles stumped up +behind him. Half way, his sword belt came undone, and the sword +clattered down upon the polished oak stairs with a noise that seemed to +resound a dozen times through the quiet house. As he did not dare to +keep the canary-coloured gentleman waiting, he picked up the toy weapon, +clutched it tight in his left hand and entered a big dark room where a +gentleman with iron grey close cropped hair sat reading in a chair with +a very tall back, his wig balanced upon his toes. + +"What the d----l's this?" asked the grey gentleman jumping up. + +"Your honour's nephew," said the yellow gentleman. + +"Eh! what! leave us, sirrah," and "What do you want?" he said, turning +to Charles. + +Charles could only watch the long furrow over his nose and wonder how +deep it was, when the grey gentleman caught sight of the small sword. + +"Eh! what the d----l! give me that," and snatching the weapon, he broke +it over his knee and flung it into the grate. + +"Please, sir, my father sent me to see you." + +"Who's he?" + +"Valentine Lovely, sir." + +"Good G----! Good G----!" muttered the old gentleman. "And Mrs. Lovely? +Did she send you too?" + +"Mrs. Lovely's dead, sir." + +The grey gentleman looked across the room at a large painting of a girl +in a white dress skipping with a rope of roses. + +"Please, sir," said young Charles, "I think that is Mrs. Lovely." + +"It was, boy; it was." + +"I wish I had known her then," said Charles. + +"Is your name George, boy?" inquired the grey gentleman in a tone that +was half eager. + +"No, sir, 'tis Charles--after the Prince of Wales." + +"A Papist, eh?" said the grey gentleman bitterly. + +"George was too honest a name for that scoundrel. Well, boy, you can +stay." + +"Please, sir, I'd rather go back to my father," said the boy. "He's +waiting for me." + +"Then go and be d----d," said the grey gentleman, and he walked over to +the window. + +Poor little Charles was left standing alone in the big room. He waited a +moment, but as the grey gentleman did not turn his head, he edged his +way towards the great door. When he reached it, he looked round at his +uncle. The latter was still staring out of the window. The child gave a +puzzled sigh and with both hands succeeded in turning the handle. The +clocks seemed to tick very loudly as he breathlessly closed the door and +set out to descend the wide staircase. The canary-coloured gentlemen +having vanished he could hold on to the balustrade with both hands +without shame. As he crossed the green sunlit lawn, a blackbird flew +into the shrubbery with a shrill note of alarm. + +Then he was in the chariot with his father, and this time he was really +fast asleep. + +And now he was boy and man at once. The picture of the girl with roses +became his mother as he had known her, pale and sad. Then it would +change and become Miss Phyllida Courteen, strangely like his mother; and +sometimes the Queen of Diamonds would be mopping and mowing in a frame +of golden Georges. + +At last these many dancing visions forsook his brain, and he slept a +dreamless sleep, not waking until high noon of a wet and gusty day. When +he reached the coffee-room, he found Mr. Francis Vernon perusing the +latest edition of Mr. Hoyle, and as the weather was dirty, agreed to +give Mr. Francis Vernon his revenge. + +This favour was accorded in the handsomest manner possible and when, +late in the afternoon, the young gentlemen all returned from hunting, +Mr. Charles Lovely owed Mr. Francis Vernon rather more than he could +very easily pay. + +No doubt the latter's success is to be ascribed to his opportune +purchase of the latest edition of Mr. Hoyle. + + + + +_Chapter the Twelfth_ + +WET DAYS + + +If cards are the devil's playthings, wet days are certainly his select +playtime; and all the days before the Chinese Masquerade were very wet +indeed. The Exquisite Mob returned from the Pump Room remarkably +depressed in spirit. The forenoons passed away in the coffee-houses and +the shops, but in the afternoons when it was wont to exercise itself and +air its modes the stuffy parlours of Curtain Wells became vastly +tiresome. + +The result was that all the young gentlemen played very hard and very +deep and very late, and Mr. Charles Lovely hardest, deepest, and latest +of all. The old gentlemen all found their gout teazed them more +lamentably. Even Beau Ripple grew tired of reading the Epodes of Horace +and the Letters of Tully to his grey Angora cat. The ladies played +Quadrille and talked scandal, while some of them, I grieve to say, +supplied a foundation for much of the gossip. + +Candlelight intrigues flourished, and there were not a few tragedies in +porcelain, when some Sir John Vulcan, returning too soon from his +favourite coffee-house, caught my Lady Venus in too ardent converse with +some young Ensign Mars. Very red grew the gallant Ensign--near as red as +his coat, while Sir John blustered and swore so loud that he almost +cracked the walls with his fox-hunting voice, and my lady Venus +fluttered her fan to the pace of her dainty heart, tinkling out +exquisite little lies as soulless as unreal, but quite as fascinating as +some frail musical box. And the trio acted and declaimed their +time-honoured parts to a keyhole audience of lady's maid and +gentleman's gentleman. + +Very diverting the footmen of Curtain Wells found the story that +evening, and very savoury it was voted below stairs--nearly as savoury +as the stewed trotters over which it was related. + +And so the days went by. + +Pitter-pat went the rain on the window-panes, pitter-pat went the cards +on the card tables, pitter-pat went the spoons in the coffee-cups, +pitter-pat went my lady's shoes across the floor to watch for the third +person, pitter-pat went many fans and many hearts. + +Mrs. Courteen decked herself in the rosiest sattins, bade Betty close +the shutters, draw the curtains and light the candles. Then she composed +herself to read the last number of the _Prattler_ until a knock at the +door announced the arrival of Mr. Gregory Moon and Major Constantine +Tarry. Both vowed that their enchantress looked vastly well, and nodded +agreement with her assertion that she believed she had a very fresh +colour, no doubt due to the tonick air of the Wells. + +"It flushes one merely to go upstairs," she declared. "I vow I take as +much exercise in going up and down stairs as I do in taking my morning +saunter to the Pump Room." The climb was euphemistically known as the +Saunter. "Lud, lud," continued the widow, "complexions are droll +things." + +"Monstrous elusive, ma'am," said the Justice rather gloomily. + +"Ha, ha," yapped the Major, "I pickled my skin in the Low Countries." + +"That would be injudicious for a delicate surface. Height, Major," +sighed Mrs. Courteen, "height! How we pine for it. Mortals! Dear! Dear!" + +"I remember I once examined a vagabond who claimed to have been there," +remarked Mr. Moon. "We ordered him a whipping." + +"What became of him?" asked Mrs. Courteen. + +"I believe he died shortly afterwards. Well! well! Kill or cure! Kill or +cure!" + +The widow flashed her white shoulders in an elaborate shudder. + +"Talking of kill or cure," exclaimed the Major, jumping up, "did I ever +repeat my tale of the Hessian captain?" + +"Probably," said Mr. Moon mildly. + +"What do you mean, sir?" + +"You are somewhat inclined to repetition, sir." + +Mrs. Courteen hurriedly assured Major Tarry that she for one had +positively never heard it. + +"He did not say 'have you heard my story, ma'am,' the Justice went on in +the calm voice of despair. "He said 'have I repeated it?' I merely +remarked that he probably has--dozens of times!"--Mr. Moon burst out in +the nearest approach to a passionate enunciation that he ever attained. + +"I vow you do him an injustice. Pray tell us the story, Major," and the +widow tapped the sword-arm of the infuriated soldier three times. The +painted chicken-skin fell with so persuasive a touch that the Apple sank +to its normal position and, having turned his back on Mr. Moon, the +Major began his tale. + +"Well, Madam, you must know that in the year ... but before I tell this +story, I should like to give you some idea of the disposition of his +Majesty's forces." + +Mrs. Courteen sighed. She knew what giving an idea of the disposition of +the forces meant. It was useless to protest however, for the Major was +already marching round the room in search of appropriate furniture. + +He instantly declared that Mr. Moon's chair was necessary to the +illustration. + +"Pray excuse me, sir!" he rapped out. + +The Justice, with a reproachful glance at Mrs. Courteen, moved +ponderously to the couch. + +"Well, Madam, here are Thistleton's Dragoons," and he gave a twist to +the chair as he spoke. + +"Oh, yes! Very droll!" said Mrs. Courteen. + +"Here," the Major continued, seizing another chair and planting it +vigorously down by the couch, "here is Buckley's Foot." + +"Mine, sir," said the Justice. + +"Your what, sir?" + +"My foot, sir, not Buckfeast's." + +The Major withered his rival with an eloquent silence. + +"Here am I," he said, snatching from the mantelpiece a diminutive +Worcester shepherdess and placing it between the two chairs. + +The widow gazed anxiously at the pastoral soldier. It belonged to the +owner of the house. + +"Here is Tournai. You'll pardon me, sir, but I should be obliged if you +would hand me the couch," said the Major fiercely. + +The Justice moved wearily to the window-seat. That, at all events, was a +fixture, he reflected gratefully. + +After much exertion Tarry succeeded in moving the couch in front of the +door, so that if the piece of furniture in question was a poor +representation of what it was intended to convey, it certainly made of +Mrs. Courteen's front parlour something very like an impregnable +fortress. + +"I should be glad to give you some idea of the enemy's earthworks," said +the Major with a covetous glance in the direction of the chintz +window-curtains. + +Mrs. Courteen's fleeting expression of dismay warned him to prune the +luxuriance of his examples, and as at that moment a tap at the door +necessitated the instant surrender of Tournai to admit Mrs. Betty +farther operations were stopped. Moreover the sudden capitulation +involved the fracture of the Worcester shepherdess which, as Mr. Moon +sardonically supposed, served to illustrate the point of the story. + +"You're killed, Tarry; you're dead as mutton. I doubt a cure is +inconceivable." + +Betty held a note in her hands. + +"From Bow Ripple," she whispered excitedly. + + + + +_Chapter the Thirteenth_ + +MONARCHY IN ACTION + + +Mrs. Courteen scarcely believed Betty spoke the truth. Never could she +remember such a gigantick wave of elation as swept over her on receipt +of the Beau's letter. Yet, without a doubt, it was true. There was the +royal notepaper and, as she reverently examined the outside, there was +the river of the house of Ripple meandering in regular curves through +meadows of sealing-wax. She marked the colour--lilac--as if faintly to +adumbrate the imperial purple of Rome. Moreover, the sprinkled sand, a +few particles of which still adhered to the surface, smelt of Courts. +There were years of authority between the lines of the graceful +superscription; the very "C" of the Crescent bellied in the breeze of +Royal favour. Major Tarry and Mr. Moon regarded her with an expression +compounded of jealousy and respect. Who was this woman, this +correspondent with monarchs? + +"Pray excuse me, neighbours," murmured the widow, sinking into a chair. +The seal crackled musically as with smooth forefinger and shapely thumb +she gently withdrew the diaphanous paper from its waxen prison; so must +the golden bough have sounded to the touch of Æneas. + + THE GREAT HOUSE, CURTAIN WELLS, + + _February_, + + MADAM--_I shall do myself the honour of waiting upon you this + afternoon at half-past Four o'clock in order to the discussion of + an Affair of the gravest moral Importance._ + + _In expectation, Madam, I subscribe myself,_ + + _Your obliged Servant,_ + + HORACE RIPPLE. + + +"Gemini!" cried Betty, "the Bow will be here in fourteen ticks." + +"Gentlemen," said Mrs. Courteen with that stateliness which follows from +intercourse with Princes, "gentlemen, I must beg to be excused." + +The Major and the Justice solemnly advanced and, having kissed the +outstretched hand, moved sadly from the room. As they went downstairs +the former mused on the unrepeated story of the Hessian Captain, while +the latter vowed to insert a supplementary chapter to his great Essay on +Peace which should deal with the self-esteem of retired Majors. With +similar thoughts no doubt Mr. Oliver Goldsmith went home from that +famous dinner when General Oglethorpe, at the instigation of Dr. Samuel +Johnson, spilled the Port on the bare mahogany board in order to draw a +plan of the Siege of Belgrade. At any rate, old Mr. Hardcastle talks a +great deal about that famous beleaguerment in the witty and diverting +farce of _She Stoops to Conquer_. Mrs. Courteen tremulously sought her +toilet-glass. 'An affair of the gravest moral importance.' Powder +judiciously distributed removed any implied indifference in the +freshness of her widowed cheeks. Paleness and morality were certainly +akin. As for her lemon sack, Betty vowed she would find nothing more +becoming to the unique occasion. + +A dignified knock at the front door put an end to any longer hesitation, +and Mrs. Courteen, like the Queen of Sheba, presented herself +immediately. + +The Great little Man was pacing the carpet of the front parlour, but at +the widow's entrance he turned on his heels with a low bow. + +"We are quite alone?" he inquired. + +"Solitary indeed," replied the lady. Surely, surely he could not be +contemplating an offer of marriage. Yet certainly such might well be +described as an affair of the gravest moral importance. If weddings were +not moral, what would become of our weak humanity? + +"Madam," said the Beau. "'Tis only after long thought and exhaustive +research among the social archives of Curtain Wells: 'tis only after a +complete examination of my glorious predecessor, Beau Melon's notes on +the amenities of Polite Cures in which he calls attention with a red +cross to the special difficulty of tendering advice to perplexed +visitors, that I am resolved to inform you of a fact which may distress +your maternal heart, complicate your domestick arrangements, disturb +your apprehensive piety and not inconceivably lend to-morrow's goblet a +very wry flavour. Madam, your daughter is in love." + +The widow raised two anguished hands, but Mr. Ripple continued: + +"When I say in love, madam, I say so because I am not so cynical of +maiden humanity as to suppose that she would sit in vivacious discourse +with a young gentleman for the space of one hour and a half measured by +the frequent chimes of the publick clock unless she were in love." + +"You cannot mean this," palpitated the unhappy mother. "Say you cannot +mean it!" + +"Madam, I am not used to devoting so much valuable time to the +preparation of circumstantial falsehoods. Your daughter is in love." + +"But she is so young," protested the widow. "Not more than fifteen or at +the most seventeen." + +"To you, madam, deaf to Love's alarms, for evermore protected against +his showered darts, such precocious ardour must appear improbable, but I +have proof of its existence." + +"Malicious tongues! The world is so censorious. It would destroy the +reputation of the mother by insinuations against the virtue of the +child." + +"Madam, pray allow me to narrate the unhappy but indisputable facts of +the affair. You must know that it is a part of my duties--a pleasant +part, if I may say so without undue want of reserve--to inspect Curtain +Garden from time to time. You will recollect that this forenoon we +enjoyed for two hours a glimpse of the sun. Having been kept indoors +during the last two or three days, I determined to seize the balmy +occasion and perform my rural duties. I observed that the spring bulbs +were remarkably forward. I noticed with pleasant anticipation of summer +saunters that the paths were in good order, the gravel free from weeds. +From the main Promenade I turned into the Maze." + +The widow started. + +"The yew hedges were neatly trimmed and I noticed some very good +examples of topiary; I may mention in particular the transformation of +the old Noah into a peacock whose tail will doubtless gain a more +vigorous plumage from the warm weather. I wandered along contemplating +the various greens of the mosses that adorn the path and muffle the +footsteps in a manner extremely suitable to the decorous quiet of the +surroundings. During my saunters, I delight to rest my mind with the +recitation of the Odes and Epodes of my poetick and pre-Christian +namesake. I was embarked upon the apostrophe to Lyce: + + _Nec Coæ referunt jam tibi purpuræ + Nec clari lapides tempora, quæ semel + Notis condita fastis + Inclusit volucris dies._ + +"I had got so far, but egad! I could get no farther for the life of me. +I repeated the last four lines, and in my attempts to catch the +fugitive--Ah!" cried the Beau, "I have it!" + + _Quo fugit Venus? Heu quove color? decens_ + _Quo motus?_ + +or to paraphrase with an extempore couplet, + + _Where now is fled thy beauty? Where thy bloom,_ + _Those airy steps that charmed th' expectant room?_ + +"To continue, however--this elusive sentence made me lose my direction +and I found myself removed from the centre of the Maze by an +impenetrable hedge of yew. I was about to retrace my steps when I heard +voices on the other side of the hedge. It was a duet, madam--man and +maid, flute and bass viol, fife and drum, describe it how you will." + +"Did you recognize the voices?" + +"Madam, I did not." + +"Then how--since you were not able to see over the tops of the hedges +without----" + +The Great little Man drew himself up. + +"Madam," he said, "I regard the physical exertion of bobbing up and down +as ungenteel." + +"Then how do you----?" + +"Because on retracing my steps I passed your maid in an attitude of +vigilance and exactly one hour and a half later I saw Miss Courteen and +the aforesaid maid leave the Garden; and vastly well she looked, madam." + +Mrs. Courteen asked why Mr. Ripple did not interrupt them. "'Twould +surely have frightened them out of love-making for ever." + +"Madam, if I am a king, I hope I am also a gentleman." + +"I will call the hussy and you shall reproach her, Mr. Ripple." + +"Madam, that is precisely what I am anxious to avoid. On former +occasions my interference has proved futile and I cannot allow my +counsel to be exposed to contempt. In confidence let me tell you that +the last three elopements which I tried to stop were all successfully +carried through, and I hear that the parties have lived very happily +together ever since. I have vowed not to accept again the +responsibleness of a prophet. My glorious predecessor, Beau Melon, +mentions several instances of his advice being neglected without any ill +effects and notes that it is probably injudicious to interfere unless +compelled by the prospect of a duel. Let me read you his comments. +'_Elopements. Tell the father. D---- n Miss. She won't listen. Fool for +your pains. Fifteen times bitten--shy for evermore. Bodies more +important than souls in Curtain Wells._' An ill-constructed sentence, +madam, but nevertheless full of truth." + +"Then what do you advise me to do?" + +"Madam, I should recommend you to pay less attention to your own heart, +and give the most of your care to your daughter's." + +The widow rose in a state of extreme agitation and rustled about the +room to the hazard of all ware under a certain stability. Such a +reproach from Mr. Ripple was more than she could bear politely. + +However, presently she caught her placket in the wanton arm of a chair +and after a short struggle capitulated to stillness. + +She began the catalogue of her natural virtues. "I vow the child has +been reared on the Church Catechism, she was for ever learning collects, +texts, parables, miracles, question and answer, sermons, homilies, and +aspirations. If I had been allowed my own way with her education, she +would have led a life of Sundays; but the late Mr. Nicholas Courteen her +father and my husband swore the child's intelligence was become like a +Crusader's tomb, scrabbled over with pious nonsense ill-digested and +ill-writ. Have I not warned her a hundred times that gentlemen do not +love the gawky charms of a hoyden? Have I not repeated to her the +history of half a score seductions? Am I to blame? Don't I keep a maid +to look after her? What else has that hussy to do? I ask you, Mr. +Ripple, what else?" + +"Upon my soul, ma'am, I don't very well know," murmured Mr. Ripple. + +"Nothing, sir, nothing, save to dress and undress me twice a day, give +an eye to my gowns and arrange my toilet table. Apparently they think +that I should--" The widow broke off to ring violently for Betty in +order to reproach her with a careless supervision of Phyllida. + +Mr. Ripple seized the opportunity to make his farewells. He swore to +himself that nothing should induce him to remonstrate again with a +careless mother. He would say a friendly word to the child herself. + +The widow thanked the Beau for his advice and promised to be mighty +severe with Phyllida. + +"Not if you will be warned by me, madam. No, no, I beg you will not +think it was to urge severity that I made you this visit. No, no, it was +merely to suggest prudence. Your humble servant, madam." + +"Your very devoted, sir." + +The widow curtsied the Beau out of the room, and, having heard the front +door closed, she watched in prim disgust for the entrance of Betty. + +That young woman presently came into the room. + +"Well, vixen!" said the widow. + +"La! ma'am, what is it?" + +"Well, gypsy!" + +"Not a drop in my family, ma'am, and that's more than some of the +cottage-folk near by can say." + +"Well, little Impropriety, what excuse have you to hand?" + +Betty asked what Impropriety meant. + +"Would it be stealing you mean, ma'am?" + +"Well, Madam Indecency!" + +Betty suddenly saw the widow's amber petticoat gleaming through the +unfastened placket. + +"Dear love and barley breaks! However did I come to leave that undone! +Never mind, ma'am. 'Tis not as if he'd caught a sight of your smock, +though for my part I should not be afraid to show clean linen to any +man, Bow or whatsoever." + +"'Tis not to talk of plackets that I called you, hussy, but of +packets--love-packets, notes, letters, assignations." + +Betty began to understand. She remembered how they had met Mr. Ripple +that morning in Curtain Garden, and at once connected the two incidents. + +"'Twould be about this very forenoon that you are talking, ma'am?" + +The widow was surprized. She had expected an impregnable barrier of mock +stupidity. + +"It would," she answered severely. + +"Well, there now! And if I didn't say as 'twas very wrong, but indeed, +he was so genteel and made such very grand bows that I didn't think as +'twould be kind to refuse him." + +"Refuse him what?" + +"Why, direction, ma'am, for the handsome poor soul was lost in the Maze. +He was just twirling around from North to South like the weathercock on +the old Parish Church at home." + +"Does it take an hour and a half to direct a man out of a shrubbery?" + +"No, indeed, ma'am, but hearing we was from Hampshire, he fell a-talking +and said as when he was last there he was staying with my Lord Senna at +Camomile Hall, and was bosom friend of Mr. the Honourable John Squills." + +The widow grew interested. The latter had once attended a hunting +breakfast at Courteen Grange. + +"And what was the loquacious gentleman's name?" + +"Ah there! indeed, 'twas wrong of me, but if I didn't go and forget to +axe him!" + +"Idiot!" said Mrs. Courteen, "and where does he lodge?" + +"He intends to post to Bristol Well to-night." + +"Is this true?" + +"La, dearest ma'am, how does I know. But he spoke as though 'twas." + +"You are a pair of simpletons. Lud! you might have been ravished and no +one the wiser. I doubt you both deserve a whipping." + +Mrs. Courteen dismissed the subject and turned to survey the ravages of +emotion on her own face. Betty retired to warn her young mistress. + +The widow was considerably vexed. Vain woman as she was, she was not too +dull to perceive that the Beau's complaint of her daughter levelled an +indirect reproof at herself. The late Squire Courteen, a-man of +plethorick habit and a good seat, had broken his neck over a five-barred +gate more than seven years ago. Some said his recklessness was too +deliberate. Certainly the week before, young Mr. Standish had left the +neighbourhood in a great hurry. Moreover when the Will was read it +appeared that a codicil had been added the day before the Squire died by +which his lady had forfeited every halfpenny of his money if she married +before her daughter and by an ingenious stroke did the same if she +failed to find a husband during the ensuing six months. Farther, a +provision was inserted that this husband must be ten years younger than +herself. It was all very much complicated and extremely malicious. + +Mrs. Courteen fanned herself reflectively. She was perfectly happy in +the ridiculous attentions and elderly gallantries of Major Tarry and +Justice Moon. At twenty-nine she had still possessed enough florid +beauty to excuse her ill-spelled love-letters. Moreover, she had a +husband and was safe sport for young gentlemen who lost the hounds +somewhat early in the day. When she was widowed, most of her attraction +vanished. She grew fat and had to content herself with middle-aged +suitors for whom she became a placid ideal on the dull journey of their +lives. Mrs. Courteen continued to fan herself. + +That absurd codicil drifted across her thoughts. If Phyllida married she +was condemned to poverty or a young husband. Yet, after all, Moon or +Tarry had enough--not much, but enough; but then both firmly believed in +the annuity. The bitterness of her husband's dying jest stung her for +the first time. What a fool she would be made to seem! Certainly +Phyllida must not be allowed a wedding; that was the solution. + +How fatiguing solutions were, to be sure! She felt quite vapoured. At +any rate she would look after her for the future. If she had a gallant +he should be discovered. If Betty's tale were true, why, prevention was +better than cure. + +"Alas!" sighed the widow. "I shall play indifferent well and yet--no +matter. Perhaps I shall hold Spadille every hand of the game." Wafted by +this pleasant hope, the widow sailed upstairs to assume the scarlet and +black gown and the spade-patch which she wore to propitiate the cards; +also to embellish her fingers with rings; also to trim her nails to a +perfect curve and polish to whiteness the peering moon at their base. To +such cardboard emotions was this lady come whose husband broke his neck +out hunting. + + + + +_Chapter the Fourteenth_ + +MONARCHY IN REPOSE + + +On the following morning after breakfast Mrs. Courteen produced a strip +of faded rose ribband. + +"Try to match this, child," she said to Phyllida. + +"But mamma, 'tis not possible. The silk is old," expostulated the +daughter who was dressed and ready to take the air. + +"Nothing is impossible, child," generalised the widow. "Do your +best--all that is required of human beings. You may take Thomas with +you." + +"But mamma, I don't want Thomas. I would rather take Betty." + +"People can't always take what they desire in this world, and a very +good thing too," remarked Mrs. Courteen, "for the world would be a +wickeder place if they could. Betty must stay and help me." + +The widow was determined to begin the supervision of her daughter +recommended by Mr. Ripple. It was the old story of Sisyphus and the +Stones, of Tregeagle and the Thimble; as mischievous spirits are kept +occupied in Tartarus, and condemned for ever to the performance of the +impossible, so was Phyllida to be kept from the temptations of idleness, +in order to save, if not her soul, at any rate her reputation. + +The widow apprehended that obedience would be more easily secured by +guile than the direct imposition of a command. + +Miss Phyllida Courteen went out that morning with a sullen little frown +above her charming little nose, and walked so fast that Thomas was hard +put to keep his proper distance behind her as he continued to mutter, +'How long, O Lord?' with many a dolorous wheeze and mortified grunt. + +In and out of a dozen haberdashers they went. All the young women behind +the counters were very polite and amazingly hopeful, but when they came +to pull out the long drawers filled with ribbands of every size and +colour, they could only produce the gayest pinks, the most brilliant +shades of rose, and though they continued to be very cheerful and +persuaded themselves and their rather petulant customer that the match +was as near as could be expected, they were quite unsuccessful, and the +ribbands were put back in the drawers to await a less exacting +purchaser. + +Finally Phyllida, turning out of the tenth shop, heard St. Simon's clock +strike eleven. It was a moderately fine morning, and she knew her beau +was at that moment turning into Curtain Garden. She stamped her foot +with vexation and disappointment. + +"Oh Thomas, Thomas! was ever such a mad errand before?" complained his +mistress. + +"Velvet! Vanity! and a-whoring after strange silks," groaned Thomas. + +"Thomas," said Miss Courteen in her most engaging voice, "you would do +anything for me?" + +"With God's help," agreed the footman. + +"And you'd do a great deal for a shilling-piece?" + +"To spite Beelzebub," said Thomas. + +"Then, Thomas, step down to the Western Colonnade, make my compliments +to Miss Sukey Morton, say I hope she is better of her cold, and will she +give Miss Phyllida Courteen the pleasure of her company to Mrs. Pinkle's +Conversazione. But perhaps you'll forget that long message?" + +Thomas replied in accents of unctuous solemnity: + +"Better of her cold and quite recovered." + +"Yes, but there's more." + +"Waste not, want not," he answered severely. + +"Oh Lud! I suppose I were wise to write it down," with which Miss +Courteen tried the eleventh haberdasher. The pinks were just as light, +the carmines as crude and fresh as ever. + +But at the opposite counter it was possible to buy the most agreeable +paper; so Miss Courteen bought a quire, and also a box of wafers marked +with a laurel-wreathed C. Then she borrowed old Mrs. Rambone's +crow-quill pen with which the accounts were made up every evening in the +little back parlour, and Miss Lettice Rambone politely cleared a corner +of the counter and brought out a standish, while Phyllida put her +swansdown muff on the chair because, though it was high enough to pull +about haberdashery, it wasn't high enough for writing letters. After +much arrangement, she wrote: + + "MY DEAREST MISS MORTON,--_I hope you are better of your cold. I am + truly anxious that you should come and see me this afternoon at + four o'clock on a matter of great importance. I am truly distressed + by a most unlucky Event. I doubt my dearest Sukey can guess what + disturbs her. + + Ever affect. and truly devoted_ + + PHYLLIDA. + + P.S. _Pray come_. + + P.P.S. _I saw a Red Coat not unknown to a certain young lady now + resident at Curtain Wells. The said Red Coat made a most polite + bow_." + + Ph. C. + +Then Phyllida sealed the note with one of her new wafers, and Thomas +unscrewed the knob of his tall stick and put the note inside and the +shilling-piece in his waistcoat pocket and marched away down the High +Street, while Phyllida rushed off with her muff held up to the East wind +which was quite cold when one was walking so fast. For the Western +Colonnade, you turned to the right, but if you were going to Curtain +Garden, you turned to the left, and Phyllida turned to the left. + +She had to pass the end of the Crescent on her way, and hurried past, +afraid for her life to see Mrs. Courteen sailing round the corner. She +was now outside the Great House, and could not help looking up to the +big bow-windows to see if Mr. Ripple was there. There he was, very calm +and very dignified, but a little out of focus because his windows all +had such very thick glass. She caught his eye, and the Great little Man +smiled at her. She smiled back and blushed, thinking of the meeting of +yesterday. Suddenly the window shot up, and Phyllida turned her head to +see the Beau beckoning. She stopped in dismay, while Mr. Ripple, having +first spread his handkerchief on the sill, leaned out to speak to her. + +"Pray pardon this ungenteel summons, my dear Miss Courteen, but if you +would not consider yourself compromised by such an adventure, I should +be vastly honoured by your inspection of some proper new prints which +have fallen into my hands." + +Miss Courteen was overwhelmed by this invitation. What could she do but +murmur assent? + +The Beau, with a delightfully suave gesture, hurried to open the front +door for Miss Courteen who tripped up the dazzling white steps, all +swansdown and blushes. + +Mr. Ripple begged her to follow him upstairs to the drawing-room and be +seated before the fire. + +It was a fine high room of good proportions, with three large +sash-windows and a wrought-iron balcony running along the breadth of the +house. The walls were panelled and painted white, and the floor was +stained and varnished to a glaze of immense brilliancy. The rugs +scattered about it were Aubusson, of rare hues in fawn and puce and +faded lavender and old rose interwoven with queer dead greens. There +were several prints on the walls, mostly after Watteau and Fragonard. +The whole room wore the indescribable air that is only to be found in +the house of a bachelor of comfortable means, good taste and a certain +age. There was no trace of a woman's hand in its arrangement, and yet +one felt that the owner, through long seclusion from the other sex, had +softened towards it with the years until, secure at last, he was able to +admit a feminine cirrhus into the limpid and rarefied air of his remote +celibacy. + +Phyllida, as she watched the firelight ripple in orange wavelets across +the surface of the blue and white Dutch tiles set on either side of the +hob, wondered what the Beau meant by this sudden invitation. + +Just then he begged to be excused for a moment while he fetched the +portfolio containing his new purchase. + +She heard the door gently closed and looked round the room. + +How tall and white it was, just like Mr. Ripple's hand, smooth and white +and exquisitely shaped. Outside, the grey weather mellowed the ivory of +the room. There was a curious stillness as of frost, and she watched the +reflection of the fire leaping in opalescent miniature about the high +windows. There was a new spinet, set at an angle to the rest of the +furniture, in a case of light-coloured wood, painted with cupids, +zephyrs and roses, all waxen-pale. The tall, quiet chamber began to +depress her spirits, so that she felt compelled to strike the extreme +treble note of the spinet which through the stillness rang out like the +unwonted pipe of a bird in a hot August woodland. + +At last, Phyllida, whose whole body was beginning to tingle with the +effort of waiting in such breathless quiet, heard some one coming +upstairs. Gog, the Beau's diminutive negro, entered with a silver tray; +on which small and shining lake swam coffee cups like swans or fairy +shells. The Great little Man followed close upon the dusky heels of his +squire and soon Phyllida found herself sipping her coffee in easy +conversation with the King of Curtain Wells. + +"Do you know the, Maze? he was asking. + +"Oh yes," said Phyllida. + +"A pleasant spot, cool and green." + +"It is indeed." + +"I often sit there," said the Beau. + +"'Tis a pleasant spot." + +"Less fortunate than my poetick namesake, I have no plane-tree there, no +long-buried Falernian; but I am unjust to my time, for, after all, I +have Curtain Garden and Chalybeate that springs from the depths of +earth," continued the Beau, half to himself. + +Phyllida was not quite sure what he was talking about, but agreed +politely. + +"My dear Miss Courteen," said the Beau suddenly, "may I say something +very abrupt and perhaps intolerably free, but nevertheless something +which I feel ought to be said?" + +"Oh yes, sir," Phyllida replied, wishing devoutly that she was well out +of this tall, white room. + +"My dear Miss Courteen," he went on, "I am a man who knows something of +life on its merely social side. I have been an observer, if I may say +so, a naturalist of humanity. My self-chosen attitude has forbidden me +all passion, save that which is the recognized privilege of an audience. +Of love I am supposed to know nothing, save in that third person whose +company is unwelcome and superfluous. Perhaps my devotion to the _Odes_ +has led me to see too many Lalages, too many Lyces. Perhaps I regard +women too much as roses that bloom, scatter their sweets and die. In a +word, perhaps I am unsympathetick." + +"I don't think you are at all, sir," cried Phyllida, surprized by her +own boldness. + +"Thank you," said the Beau, with the merest hint of a tremour in his +equable voice. + +"But," he went on, "if I regard women as roses, I never seek to pluck +them: most men do. Miss Phyllida, pray pardon a man of some age who +cares more for Youth than he is willing to admit, who is not quite the +phantastick, the fop, the cynick that his subjects make him out. You +know what Shakespeare says: 'Each man in his time plays many parts.' I, +my dear, have remained for more than thirty years faithful to one. That +is why I am considered so eccentrick--well, well, I grow loquacious. My +dear Miss Courteen, it is very unwise to make assignations in the pride +of youth. Assignations belong to the middle-aged, the disillusioned. If +you love a young gentleman, make no secret of it, and let the whole +world join in your happiness; but if it be necessary to love this young +gentleman in Mazes and such clandestine spots, this young gentleman is +not worth so much devotion. Who is he?" + +"Mr. Amor, Sir," said Phyllida, feeling half inclined to cry. + +"Amor? Amor? I don't know the family. Is it by his wish these meetings +are kept secret? Yes! yes! I know 'tis very romantick and very +rapturous, but, believe me, my dear Miss Courteen, it is not worth the +cost. You must think of your reputation." + +"I do, Mr. Ripple, indeed I do--all the time!" + +"Come, come then, present me to your Amor at the Chinese Masquerade. +I'll talk to the rogue, and egad! we'll have the wedding in June. What +do you say?" + +"I don't think Mr. Amor would be very willing, and I'm sure my mamma +would be monstrous vexed." + +"Nonsense," said the Beau, "nonsense! You won't be happy, till you've +packed yourself into a post-chaise smelling vilely of stale tobacco and +horse-cloths. And when you've found some Fleet Street parson to marry +you, you'll wish for a fine wedding and a bride-cake, and your tenants +cheering and holloaing at the lodge-gates." + +Here the Beau showed himself too unfamiliar with the mind of a young +woman. The idea of eloping had never yet entered that dainty head of +glistening chestnut curls; but from that moment Phyllida began to play +with the notion. + +"Come, come," he went on, "let's have no more of clandestine courtship. +Heiresses and dace both attract by reason of their silver: libertines +and pike have much in common. Moreover, you must think of your mother." + +"I doubt you don't know my mamma very well. She swears I'm but a child, +but I'm not a child, am I, sir?" + +Mr. Ripple put up his monocle and solemnly stared at his fair +impenitent. + +"You are not a very old woman." + +"Besides, my mamma doesn't understand the meaning of love." + +"My dear young lady," protested the Beau, "that is a very common error +with the young. Don't you think that shaded lane once lisped to her +footsteps? Don't you think April once broke as sweet for her?" + +"Well, if it did," argued Phyllida, "she's forgotten all she ever knew." + +"Come, come, I dare swear she has a secret drawer fragrant with cedar. +Find it, my dear Miss Phyllida, and you'll find many old letters, many +withered nosegays." + +"Indeed, I've searched." + +"Perhaps her escritoire is the heart." + +"'Tis very well for you, Sir, to talk thus, but my parents were never +happy." + +The Beau mentally cursed the pertinacious memories of servants. + +"Then, if that was the case," he went on, "there is the greater reason +for your friends to secure you against such an irreparable misadventure. +Now come, you'll present me to this Mr. Amor? I may not understand all +women, but trust me, I have a tolerable knowledge of men." + +The pale February sun cast a watery beam through the high windows and +Mr. Ripple's face caught an added lustre, was in fact so bright and +kindly that Phyllida promised, subject to Mr. Amor's consent. + +And soon they were both bending over the portfolio of prints--very +diverting prints they were too, caricatures of the foibles of fashion. + +It was certainly very delightful to see tranquil monarch and fervent +maid laughing very heartily together at the most prodigious head-dress +the world ever saw. + + + + +_Chapter the Fifteenth_ + +PHOEBUS ADEST + + +The Coffee-room of the _Blue Boar_ wore a remarkably cheerful aspect on +the evening of the day on which we have seen something of Beau Ripple's +methods. There had been a splendid run from Oaktree Common across the +downs to Deadman's Coppice, where a short check only lent a spice to +that glorious final run across Baverstock Ridge until they killed just +outside Farmer Hogbin's famous barn. And after the death what delicious +musick acclaimed the deed--the baying of hounds, the chatter of maids, +the clatter of horses' hoofs, the guffaws of Lieutenant Blewforth, the +still louder guffaws of Farmer Hogbin mounted on his raw-boned hunter of +sixteen hands, the blasts of the horns, the chink of glasses and the +wind getting up in the South-west, all combined in harmonious delight. +What a splendid ride home it was and how the riders went over each +renowned minute of that for-ever-to-be-famous day. Lieutenant Blewforth +swore he would forsake the sea for the life of a country gentleman, and +everybody laughed when H.M.S. _Centaur_ (so they had named Blewforth and +his steed) shied at a belated calf. + +"Egad! B-b-Blewforth," stammered little Peter Wingfield, "'tis lucky +your stomach was trained on the roaring d-d-deep, for you pitch and roll +like a sloop making Ushant." + +"Ah! my boy," shouted Blewforth, "my pretty sloop don't shy like this +d----d bum-boat I'm pulling." + +How Mr. Golightly of Campbell's Grey Dragoons swore such a run was +better than a frontal charge at the enemy's guns and how young Tom +Chalkley of the Foot stiffened all over and muttered something about the +Cavalry. Indeed the only person to look glum was Mr. Anthony Clare who, +though he rode better than any of them and had shown them his horse's +heels all the way, missed Charles Lovely. + +As they walked along the road, fading into early dusk, and heard the +wind sighing in the trim hedges and saw the lights of Curtain Wells +seven miles away, Clare cursed that passion for cards which made a man +forsake the bleak Spring fallows for pastures of green baize. + +But later when the huge cold sirloin that sailed in so sleek, sailed out +like a battered wreck, and when pints of generous Burgundy had coloured +life to its own rich hue, and when Mr. Daish himself had coaxed the fire +to roar and blaze up the chimney, and set out the walnuts and put half a +dozen ample chairs round the fire, Mr. Clare could not resist the +universal content, but must laugh and make merry and relate the events +of the day for the seventh time, with as much zest as any of the +returned heroes. + +Charles had surely been winning: he was so flushed and talked so loudly. +Actually he did not possess a penny, and what was worse, owed Mr. Vernon +a couple of hundred guineas. Not much, but enough when you have only +cloaths to sell, and not a prospect in the world. + +Presently one by one the hunters dropped off to sleep with legs +outstretched and doffed wigs and long church-wardens' pipes, that one by +one dropped from slowly opening mouths, slid along unbuttoned waistcoats +and snapped their slender stems upon the floor, until everybody except +Mr. Vernon and our hero was snoring the eighth repetition of the events +of that famous day. + +The room was hot; the drawing of many breaths thick with fatigue, beef +and Burgundy induced a meditative atmosphere; the fire no longer blazed, +but sank to an intense crimson glow. Mr. Vernon counted up his gains, +while Mr. Lovely pondered his losses in silence. + +At last the latter got up suddenly. + +"The cards?" inquired Mr. Vernon. + +"Not to-night. I think I'll take the air," Charles replied. + +"As you will," said the other and betook himself once more to his +tablets. + +Charles paused for a moment outside the Coffee-Room to take down his +full black cloak and three-cornered hat. The night wind had brought in +its track a melancholy drizzle of rain that suited his own melancholy +mood. He wandered rather vaguely across the wide inn-yard, passed under +the arch and sauntered along the deserted High Street. + +To tell the truth, Mr. Lovely was very unpleasantly situated at this +period. His father had been the ne'er-do-weel survivor of a long line of +country squires away down in Devonshire. When he had eloped with Miss +Joan Repington, to the eternal chagrin of the young lady's brother, a +rich banker knighted for his loyal support of the Protestant Succession, +Valentine Lovely ran through his own and his wife's fortune in the first +six years of matrimony. Thence onwards they lived a hand-to-mouth +existence, dependent on Valentine's luck at the tables and the +inviolableness of an aunt's legacy of five thousand guineas. + +Mrs. Lovely died, prematurely aged, in the birth of a still-born child, +and Mr. Valentine Lovely and his young son continued to live the same +haphazard existence for another ten years. Charles spent all his time +with his father who in the intervals of drink and play taught his heir +to step a minuet, sing a merry song, and indite a witty epigram; also he +gave him a case of pistols, heavily chased with the Lovely arms, and +lent him the family tree for target. Finally he made him proficient in +the polite use of the smallsword and the dice-box. + +Once, when an early summer made the Bath intolerably hot, Mr. Lovely and +his heir posted down to Devonshire in a crimson chariot putting up at +the _Prior's Head_, in Danver Monachorum. He spent a week paying +unwelcome visits to the neighbouring gentry who looked askance at the +crimson chariot and still more askance at the degenerate heir of the +Lovelys. Valentine soon tired of so much pastoral exercise and departed +to St. Germain's, leaving young Charles in the care of an old stillroom +maid, now a prosperous farmer's wife. The boy spent placid hours in rich +meadows, ate a quantity of scalded cream, and grew out of knowledge in +the six months of his stay. He used to wander down to the park +gates--gloriously wrought-iron gates between massive stone pillars that +bore on each summit a quintett of cannon balls, the reputed trophy of +some seafaring Elizabethan Lovely. There was a picture in the great +hall, of curiously inferior execution, portraying numbers of Devon +sailormen led by a huge-ruffed gentleman with a long peaked beard, +swarming up the towering sides of the galleon _Jesu Maria_. Charles was +taken to see it when the new family was gone up to London town. He also +saw the great stone swan over the vast fireplace, with the motto of his +house, _Sum decorus_. + +Later in the autumn his father returned and the old life of lodgings, +inland Spas and long posting journeys was resumed. He had never again +visited that remote Devon village, with its cows and pastures and +dairymaids and famous chronicles. + +Then, just after Charles reached his majority, Mr. Lovely Senior died +quite suddenly, and our hero found himself in undisputed possession of +the interest on five thousand guineas and as much more in cash, owing to +a lucky run by his father in the week before his death. + +Charles now indulged the family vice of throwing money to the dogs and, +having lost the earnings of his father, set about realizing a trifle of +ready money on the five thousand guineas left him by his mother's aunt. +This step brought him into pen-and-ink contact with old Sir George +Repington who wrote him a stern letter of advice, with a postscript +offering him a stool in the Repington bank. Charles was furious and did +not reply. + +About that time he renewed the friendship with Mr. Anthony Clare begun +in that far-off summer away down in Devonshire. The latter persuaded him +to leave London and come to Curtain Wells where for a time he lived +happily enough on his small annuity. However, just before our story +opened, he had been hard hit at loo and had raised a thousand guineas by +making over the interest on his inheritance to the friendly moneylender +who advanced the needed sum. On the top of this came his losses to +Vernon, and now he was stranded indeed. + +Therefore the melancholy drizzle of rain suited his melancholy mood. Of +course he could borrow, play again and perhaps win, but if he should +lose he would be in debt to a friend, a position which he disliked. His +father, less scrupulous in this respect, was always content to lay +himself under fresh obligations. To Charles, however, something of the +pride which sustains a great financial house had descended through his +mother and, prodigal though he was, he would never borrow money from a +friend. Of course a moneylender was different, but what security could +he offer? It looked as if he would have to appeal to his uncle after +all. This alternative was thoroughly odious, and Charles racked his +brains to discover a way out of the difficulties into which he was +plunged. + +In such despondent meditation he wandered on until the dancing glare of +two large flambeaux, stuck in iron sockets, caught his attention. He +found himself outside the Great House. + +The project of consulting with the Beau entered his mind, but St. +Simon's struck the hour of ten, and he knew Mr. Ripple would be retiring +to rest, since he was accustomed to preserve his energy on those nights +when he was not called out to preside over an assembly, rout, or +masquerade. At that moment the two flambeaux, as if to proclaim their +owner's withdrawal from the claims of society, simultaneously collapsed +and strewed Mr. Ripple's fair white steps with ashes. + +The sudden darkness betrayed the opalescent windows of the Beau's +bed-chamber. He had neglected to draw the curtains, and on the blind his +suave shadow disported itself in preparation for the night and the next +morning. + +Charles watched the shadow dip giant fingers into monstrous pomade pots. +Now those fast deepening crowsfeet were being vigorously rubbed. Now +that swift creasing neck was being smoothed with slow caressing +movements. The wig-block displayed itself in generous shadowy curves. +Now, surely, the shadow's sudden inaction betokened a contemplation of +creeping age. + +"And this," thought Charles, "is the destiny marked out for me by +Ripple." + +He knew if he waited upon him on the morrow, explained his reverses, and +promised amendment, the Beau would one day procure for him the monarchy +of the Wells, but Charles was not inclined to manipulate the strings of +marionettes, himself suspended from a longer cord and dancing for the +amusement of a higher power. + +The incongruity of the situation, disclosed by the Beau's window, +tickled his sense of humour. There was the monarch of an artificial +kingdom caulking his wrinkles like a beldame in search of her youth; +there he was, that despotick king who prescribed Chalybeate as the +Panacea for all earthly ills, in ludicrous terror at the swift flight of +his complexion. + +There he was, no better than the chief eunuch of a Persian harem with +authority over women and the power of lock and key against intrusive +fops. + +Yet he was a kindly man and a gentleman. He was feared and loved, a man +whom the world called successful. Charles himself liked fine cloaths, +found talking pleasant, enjoyed the organization of splendid +entertainments, yet he could not condemn himself to eternal celibacy and +the preservation of his figure. The restriction of such an existence +would be unendurable. + +You will remember perhaps that in our first Chapter we caught Beau +Ripple in undignified pursuit of a button. We agreed how rash it was for +Gods and Goddesses to discover their anatomy to mortals, and here is the +very fact being forced home to Mr. Charles Lovely, an understudy to +divinity. + +Our hero went on his way, fortified against one ambition. + +Presently he passed by the lodgings of Mrs. Courteen as the door was +being opened to let out the satellite Moon and the appropriately named +Tarry. The pair of them paused on the steps to ascertain the state of +the weather and discuss the several games of ombre which they had played +for mother-o'-pearl counters. + +"Gadslife!" murmured Charles, "Ombre for counters! Then is great Anna +really dead?" + +The expensive lodgings of the Earl of Vanity towered above him and he +heard my Lord, with a flowered dressing-gown wrapped about his skinny +shanks, d----g his daughter's eyes for being so late at old Mrs. +Frillface's quadrille party. Farther down the Crescent was old Mrs. +Frillface's house, and outside stood two handsome chairs with the +chairmen fast asleep on the cushions, soon to be wakened from the frowsy +damask by Mrs. Frillface's bloated footman. + +And so on past all the lodgings of Curtain Wells. + +There was young Miss Kitcat who was really twenty-nine and single only +because, so they said, no one would marry her since that affair with Sir +Hector Macwrath, the young, Nova Scotia Baronet, more than ten years +ago. To be sure, the matter was never rightly explained, and everybody +excused the poor child because her mother never set her the best of +examples, and as for her father, everybody knew that he thought of +nothing but Mdlle. Dançaboute who had such trim ankles and spent so many +guineas and even wore the Kitcat rubies at a Ranelagh supper-party. So +Sir Hector married the lean heiress of Lord Glew, the chief of the +MacStikkeys, and Miss Kitcat remained young Miss Kitcat for many a long +day. There she was, swaying sleepily to the motion of the chair while +now and then her hair would catch in a splinter of wood as the first +chairman stumbled over a loose cobble. + +There was little Pinhorn whose father was a ship's chandler at Rye, but +had made money as fast as money could be made over the War commissariat; +there he was, strutting home from my Lady Bunbutter's, quite inlaid with +diamonds, and with a swinging fob near as big as his own bullet head. + +Charles gave him a curt good-night as he passed, and wondered to +himself how little Pinhorn ever dared challenge Captain Lagge to walk +with him in Curtain Meads. Unluckily the Beau had heard of the meeting +and went to remonstrate with the gallant Captain. + +"What did you say?" asked the Beau. + +"I said I would gladly cut the claws of every harpy on the transport," +answered the sailor. + +"Well, so you may, sir," said Mr. Ripple, "but by Heaven! you shan't do +so here." + +Next morning the Captain had his orders and was shot through the heart +in the Carthagena business. Poor Captain Lagge, he had a wife and a +little maid waiting for him in the prettiest cottage between Pevensey +and Brighthelmstone. + +Charles passed many others whose small histories, could I recount them, +would fill this book to overflowing. For each one he could recall some +unsavoury episode, some mean adventure that made its hero contemptible. + +"Oddslife," thought Charles, "was ever Society so corrupt, so insincere, +so entirely damnable?" + +By this time he was back in the High Street after a long circuit, and +just as he was thinking of crossing the road to reach the _Blue Boar_ +and bed, he noticed a candle was burning in his bookseller's little back +parlour. + +"I'll inquire after the sale of my poems," he decided, and without more +ado hammered loudly on the door of the shop. Presently in answer to his +continuous rappings, a foxy-faced old young man with a premature stoop +and cloaths both squalid and ill-cut, shuffled through the shop and +asked who was there. + +"A mendicant poet," cried Charles. + +"Be d----d," muttered the foxy-faced man, preparing to go back. + +"Come, Mr. Virgin, you'll open to me, Charles Lovely?" + +"Go away, Mr. Lovely, go away. I'm very busy--very busy indeed. I never +remember when I was so busy before, so full of business." + +"So much the better," cried Charles jumping up to smite the signboard +that hung over the door till it swung round on its hinges with a rattle +and a squeak. + +"Now don't be rough, Mr. Lovely. I've had the lady's face repainted. +'Tis beautifully done, Mr. Lovely. Do look. Can you see? 'Mr. Paul +Virgin. Bookseller and Publisher. At the Sign of the _Woman_.'" + +"Pshaw!" said Charles. "Will you open to me, or I'll turn the woman into +a w----!" + +"I suppose you must have your way, but oddscods, indeed I'm monstrous +busy. Oh! Mr. Lovely, I am so busy, you wouldn't believe." + +With this final protest, the old young man slowly drew the bolts of the +door and allowed Mr. Lovely to step inside. + +There was a musty smell in the shop and the shelves of calf-bound +volumes seemed alive in the uncertain flame of the candle. The counter +was heaped high with volumes and on the floor lay gigantick tomes bound +in jaundiced vellum covers. + +Lovely followed the foxy-faced man into the back parlour which in +addition to the general mustiness of the premises had a rank odour of +printer's ink and newly struck proofs. + +"I am so busy, Mr. Lovely. Mr. Antique Burrowes' great work on the +Abbeys of England and Wales must positively appear before the publick +next week; the subscription lists are filled up, and we expect a very +favourable reception, and so we ought, for the woodcuts are beautiful. +Look at this one, Mr. Lovely--this is Glastonbury--the Abbot's Kitchen. +What a place just for one man! Ah! those monks: what bellies they had." + +Charles scarcely glanced at the proof. + +"Very proper," he said, "and what about my poems?" + +"Ah! you always have your joke, Mr. Lovely. That's always the way with +poets--they will have their jokes just when I'm so busy too," said Mr. +Virgin sidling across the room to a shelf full of ledgers bound in +hideous marble boards. + +"How many sold, these three months?" + +"One, Mr. Lovely. One copy. You see it entered." + +"Who was the purchaser," said Charles with affectation of great +indifference. "Not a lady, I presume?" + +"Ha, ha, you poets--so fond of the women. Singers and poets always like +the women. There was Signor Amoroso, d'ye know him? The famous Tenore, +now singing every night at Vauxhall--he used to buy all my books about +the ladies. But, pray excuse my chatter, Mr. Lovely. I'm sure I oughtn't +to be talking, just when I'm so busy too. Let me see, who was the +purchaser--ah! here it is--it was Miss----" + +"Courteen?" Charles let slip in his eagerness. + +"Ha-ha! ha-ha!" laughed the foxy-faced bookseller, "Ha-ha! You must keep +your love-secrets better than that. No, it wasn't Miss----" he pursued. + +"Oh!" said Charles coldly. + +"It was Sir George Repington--I remember now--he wrote from the North." + +"Sir George Repington?" exclaimed Charles, completely surprized. "Humph! +I wish him joy of my effusions." + +"Oh, no doubt he'll like them or he wouldn't have sent all that way for +them. Well! well! some men are mighty whimsical in their tastes, and +there's no denying that people do read verses." + +"However," said Charles, "I take it the taste is not an extended one?" + +"Well! you mustn't complain. You had two hundred taken by subscription +and half a dozen copies sold to casual purchasers. You won't lose a vast +deal over the publication." + +"No," said Charles, "you wouldn't like that?" + +"No, indeed I shouldn't, sir, I take a pride in the success of my +clients. So did my father, sir, and he became an alderman of this town, +though he was a native of Exeter." + +"I take it, then, you are not prepared to offer a sum of money on +account of a new volume?" + +"Ho-ho!" laughed Mr. Virgin, "what a droll gentleman you are to be sure. +You will have your joke, and don't seem to regard how busy I am." + +"Very well, sir," said Charles, "I'll wish you a good night." + +"_Good_ night, Mr. Lovely, good night, sir. When I'm not so busy +perhaps, another time, I'll be most happy to talk over your--ahem--literary +projects." + +Mr. Virgin held up the candle to light Mr. Lovely through the shop. The +rays happened to fall on a pile of slim volumes reposing on the counter. + +"What are those?" Charles asked. + +"Ah, 'tis a great pity you can't write verse like that." + +"Poems?" said Mr. Lovely in accents of incredulity. + +"To be sure--poems, but such poems,--lampoons, squibs, and pasquinades. +'Tis a Satire on the characters of the Bath--very scandalous, they tell +me, but oddscods, 'tas run through nine editions in as many weeks. Now, +if your name was Lively, sir, instead of Lovely." + +"Mr. Virgin!" + +"No offence. What I mean is, if you could write something similar about +the visitors to Curtain Wells." + +"You'd publish it?" + +"Well, perhaps that's going too far, but I would give it my very best +attention." + +"Humph! Good night," and Charles went out into the drizzle. + +On his way home, he saw the Exquisite Mob and the Exquisite Mob-master +grouped before a satirist; and very soon he saw them performing their +anticks thinly disguised by initials and asterisks. + +That is how Mr. Charles Lovely sat down to indite + + _CURTAIN POLLS_ + severely lashed + by a + _Curtain Rod_. + + + + +_Chapter the Sixteenth_ + +THE CHINESE MASQUERADE + + +The Chinese Masquerade was the outstanding event of early Spring at +Curtain Wells. It was the quintessence of refined affectation, the great +fount in which many tributary delights found their source. Moreover, in +its character there was a national significance. It was not held merely +to emphasize the importance of being seriously amused; it was not one of +many entertainments sacred to Epicurus; it did not serve to commemorate +the fleetingness of life; it was no Burial Service with a ritual of +flung roseleaves and spilt wine. The Chinese Masquerade of Curtain Wells +was something far more grand than any of these, being a great national +act of homage to the beverage of Tea. Of old, Bacchus was saluted in +Samothrace, and the festival of wine was celebrated with all the absence +of restraint that might be expected from the past. Nymphs raved, Satyrs +danced, and garlanded leopards jigged to one wild inspiration. Phrenzy +footed it; troop followed troop, broke and dissolved in flashes of white +limbs when Dionysus of the sly smile and rosy cheeks bewitched thousands +with his strange madness. In fact, the whole affair was an intolerable +concession to Nature. At Curtain Wells you saw the centuries at work. +There the Bacchantes were corseted and hooped to primness; the Satyrs +had high red heels for hoofs, silken breeches for the fur of goats. +Instead of velvety leopards that used to amble over tuffets of fragrant +thyme, each with a hussy astride his supple back, went greasy chairmen +in lurching escort of dowagers and misses. Dionysus himself was changed. +He had kept his sly smile and rosy cheeks, but his vine wreaths were +become ruffles and ties, while his body glittered, not with youth and +health and immortality, but with paste buckles and brooches and +solitaires. The crashing cymbals of Thrace found a thin echo in the +delicate tinkle of tea-spoons and frail sounds of porcelain. To be sure, +the whole of the difference between the worship of Wine and the worship +of Tea was expressed by the fact that to honour the former, society took +off its cloaths, whereas in order to celebrate the latter, all the world +dressed itself up. + +Mr. Ripple wore above his suit of amber a robe resembling a golden +dressing-gown. He was the Gold Mandarin, decorated with dragons, tall +pagodas, flowers and fireworks. The Blue Mandarin, whose robe concealed +the pearl-grey suit of Mr. Charles Lovely, seemed as he moved across the +room like a blue garden, so many small landskips wrought in azure silks +trembled in the folds of his garment. Only these two officers of the +Pageant were privileged to remain unmasked. The rest of the company wore +yellow vizards whose painted eyebrows soared at a celestial angle over +eyeslits, cut almondwise. The general effect was of animated Ming +laughing, jesting, talking, and dancing with the lacker cabinets that +were used to contain it. + +The ballroom had pagodas in each of the corners where the children of +the Exquisite Mob dressed to a more exact replica[1] of the farthest +Orientals, nodded and peeped and chirped the austere maxims of Confucius +without the slightest idea of their meaning, but all convinced that it +was extremely diverting to partake of a grown-up entertainment, and far +better to drink real tea out of real cups in a delightful palace of +their own, than to play with acorns and ditchwater in the mildewed +Dorick summer-house at the head of the Park avenue. + + [1] They wore pigtails, which were considered unbecoming by the + older Follies. Besides, head-dresses were too elaborate to be ruined + for the sake of one entertainment. + +Chinese lanterns bobbed on golden wires slung from wall to wall whence +the gilt mirrours with the wax candles of the West had all been removed. +This Eastern light softened the mingled hues of blue and gold to a +gorgeous moving twilight stained by the afterglow of sunset. All along +the sides of the ballroom were placed for seats queer twisted animals, +winged dragons, squat bronzes, Chinese geese, monkeys and parrots in +crude shades of green and vermilion, while at suitable intervals were +set little houses to contain two persons. These were intended to +encourage the intimate amenities of polite conversation. + +Outside in the Rococo cloister unknown flowers expanded and curious +fruits ripened by lanternlight; and though the flowers were made of +linen dipped in scent, they served very well to pluck and offer to a +masked fair and as for the fruits, they were all filled with comfits. +Finally, here and there, smoking sandal-wood torches lent a remote +perfume to the Mise en Scène, and curled in scented wreaths about the +motley forms of the masqueraders. To say truth, the Eastern veneer was +more than usually superficial, even for a veneer. The result of the +attempt to secure reality only accentuated the difference between East +and West: still the latter enjoyed making believe so far as it consorted +with true gentility, and it may very easily be understood that nothing +low was permitted by the British Nation in the eighteenth glorious +century of Christian civilization. + +Thia was the first masked ball that had been held since Phyllida grew +enamoured of Mr. Francis Vernon, so she made no doubt he would avail +himself of the opportunity to be present. As soon as the Exquisite Mob +was assembled (at half-past seven o'clock precisely, because it was +considered vulgar to be late) there was a solemn drinking of tea, no +mere handing round of teacups and saucers, but a far more impressive +ritual, invented to mark the occasion with due importance. + +The Gold Mandarin seated himself on an ivory stool whose claw legs were +fretted with diminutive foliage, temples and flying birds. This was set +on a small platform draped with broideries at the foot of which was an +azure velvet cushion where, with crossed legs, sat the Blue Mandarin. + +Mr. Ripple clapped his hands twice to command the entrance of the +Procession of Tea. First walked two musicians slowly tapping gongs +shaped like saucers with large spoons. These were followed by six +children with nodding porcelain Mandarins whose tongues trembled in and +out of their surprized mouths. Then came the bearer of the Caddy--a +magnificently decorated specimen of lackerwork. On either side of the +Caddy was borne a Nankin jar full of milk. Finally, a lacker table on +wheels, overhung by a fringed canopy that protected an enormous bowl of +rarest Ming whither odorous vapours ascended from the flowery liquid, +was pushed along in slow and reverend state. + +The company opened its ranks to allow the procession a way until it +stopped before the Gold Mandarin's ivory throne. The Beau at once +descended, dipped a diminutive teacup into the bowl, took three sips and +sighed rapturously. The six porcelain Mandarins were set nodding with +redoubled vigour, gongs boomed from the topmost windows of the pagodas, +and the procession re-formed and passed into the upper room, whither the +assembled company followed it in order to drink in turn from teacups +filled at the sacred fountain. + +In the crush, Phyllida, who was wearing a gown faint blue like the March +sky, felt her sleeve pulled gently by a tall mask in tawny raiment. She +recognized the pointed white fingers and whispered 'Amor.' + +The mask shook his head to indicate silence, but presently Phyllida +succeeded in conveying her cup of tea to the outskirts of the crowd and +hurried through a corridor to a side-door opening into the cloister +where she waited for her lover's approach. In a minute he was sitting +beside her. + +She turned to him delightedly. + +"Dear Amor! This will be the first ball that I shall have truly +enjoyed." + +This statement scarcely did justice to the many pleasant hours she had +spent to the sound of fiddles, horns, and clarinets. + +"Why was my charmer absent yesterday? The Maze was prodigiously dull +without the sweet Nymph who loves to haunt its verdurous ways." + +"Oh! Amor, we are discovered." + +"Faith, is that so?" remarked Vernon, without any apparent concern. + +"Mr. Ripple told my mother I was conversing with a gentleman for one +hour and a half by the clock." + +"Interfering dancing-master!" + +"And yesterday I was sent to match a ribband quite impossible to match; +I'm sure 'twas done to keep me employed and when I heard eleven chime, I +could bear it no longer, but almost ran towards Curtain Garden, and on +my way the Beau beckoned me to come in and, pray don't be angry, dear +Amor, he was so vastly kind that I told him your name." + +"Here's a pretty state of affairs," muttered Vernon. + +"He asked me to present you to him to-night, and vowed we should be wed +in June." + +"Gadslife! I hope you sent him about his business?" + +"Not exactly," said Phyllida, "indeed he was so good-natured that I +promised--at least I half promised to do so." + +"Confusion take him," swore Vernon, "for a prating, meddlesome, +tailor-made gentleman. Harkee! I'll not have myself discussed by Mr. +Horace Ripple. I dare swear he patted your hands, eh? called you his +pretty dear, made old man's love, eh? A plague on his impudence!" + +Phyllida shrank from her lover's wrath. + +"Indeed, sir, I vow he did nothing of the kind. He behaved with some of +that propriety for which I could wish in my Amor." Phyllida remembered a +young woman talking something like this in the first volume of _The Fair +Inconstant_. Vernon could not keep back a smile. "I doubt I'm not +inclined to hear you farther." + +Vernon began to chuckle. + +"And let me tell you, sir, your behaviour becomes you very ill, and +moreover I told him your name, and the milk's spilt, and 'tis useless to +cry over spilt milk as all the world knows." + +A tear-drop trembled in each corner of Phyllida's eyes, making them seem +more clearly blue, as crystals that surround great sapphires enhance +their beauty. + +"Sweet indiscretion," began Vernon, who having been politick enough to +conceal his true name, could afford to be generous. + +A very faint sob was the sole response. + +"Nay, prithee, dear one," he continued, catching hold of a tremulous +hand, "let's have no quarrels at our first ball; I bear you no malice." + +"I should never have told him, had I been ashamed of you," she +interrupted. + +"Just so, adorable creature, but since we had resolved to keep our +affair secret, and since we were agreed that stolen meetings, like +stolen fruit, taste the sweetest, I was surprized to hear you had told +every one." + +"I did not tell any one." + +"But, my angel, you did." + +"Not until I was forced. 'Tis very well for you. You're a man of fashion +and independence, and I'm a young woman." + +"Incontestable truth!" + +"Now you're being satirical, and I vow I detest sarcasm. Indeed, I think +it has all been a mistake, and I'll go back to Hampshire to-morrow, and +you may go back to your Haymarket." + +"Very well, madam, since you dismiss my suit, I will go back to my +Haymarket. It may be vastly diverting for you, madam, to break a man's +heart. You, secure in the verdant meads and--er--meadows of the county +of Hampshire, you, wandering among fields of daffadillies, at peace, +beneath a summer sun." + +"Daffadillies don't grow in the summer." + +"Alas! madam, I am ignorant of these pastoral delights." + +This was perfectly true since Mr. Vernon's mother was a lady who thought +a bough-pot in Air Street worth the finest estate in the Kingdom. + +"I," he continued, "have lived my life in cities, and though I have +often hoped to hear the cuckoo wake me at dawn, 'tis very evident I must +for ever bid farewell to such vain dreams." + +Here, Mr. Vernon, who had inherited considerable histrionick ability on +the female side, contrived to get an effective break into his usually +smooth enunciation. + +"But I don't want to quarrel for ever," protested Phyllida. + +Mr. Vernon turned his head away, probably to hide a tear. + +"For my part," she went on, "I should be very willing to live always as +we are living now." + +"My angel!" + +"But since the world is so censorious and seems to concern itself with +every unimportant young woman's affairs, I thought--I thought----" + +"You thought a wedding would put a stop to scandal. How little you know +the world. Why! madam, a hasty wedding would set people's tongues +wagging at once. Come, come, pay no attention to old Ripple. He knows my +name. If he chuse, he can seek me out. I warrant I shall hear no more +about it." + +"But we shall be watched." + +"Then we'll change our trysting-place. At any rate, prithee, let us +enjoy to-night." Here Mr. Vernon put on his mask and taking off his gown +resumed it inside out. "Do you see, dear charmer, I am both porcelain +and lacker, so that no one will be able to say you prefer the one to the +other. Hark! the fiddles have begun--let's go and step our first gavotte +together." + +Phyllida took his arm and they returned to the ballroom. The vizards +made all the faces appear fixed and wooden and Miss Courteen could not +help looking very often at Mr. Charles Lovely who was sitting +cross-legged on his azure cushion and, in contrast to the rest of the +masquerade, was plainly a man. Once she fancied she caught his eye, and +when he came up and asked her to honour his arm for the third gavotte, +she knew she had not been mistaken. Mr. Vernon silently relinquished his +partner. + +"Who was your late Vis à Vis?" Charles inquired. "I beg your pardon," he +added as he saw Phyllida hesitate, "my manners grow as barbarick as my +costume." + +He had noticed with devout jealousy that Miss Courteen's fingers reposed +a moment longer than was necessary upon that sattin forearm. + +"How did you discover me?" she asked with frank interest. + +"'Twas not difficult." + +"But masked as I am?" + +"I did not regard your mask--I saw your eyes." + +Phyllida was conscious of a blush and a faint quickening of the pulses, +all over her body. There was certainly something very satisfactory in +such a compliment. It was genuine moreover, for indeed he had discovered +her through the distorted yellow vizard which concealed her roses. + +Presently the dance began, and, though Phyllida liked every moment of +it, she could not help observing Amor, half buried in the greenery of an +alcove and, as it seemed to her, forbidding too keen a pleasure. + +Charles found it difficult to extract from his partner more than the +ordinary small talk of ballrooms, and as she became more and more +absent-minded during the progress of the dance, he let her go at the end +of it without a very valiant attempt to detain her for the next. +Presently he saw her join a blue mask and lose herself in the flickering +throng. Last time he had remarked particularly that her Vis à Vis wore +brown and gold, yet the two figures were alike in movement and gesture +and he could swear the hands were identical. It was the same without a +doubt. Charles bit his nails with vexation, and fretted confoundedly. + +"My dear boy, my dear Charles, pray do not gnaw your fingers. Narcissus +admired himself, 'tis true, but without carrying his devotion to +cannibality." + +Charles turned to the well-known voice of Mr. Ripple. + +"A thousand pardons, dear Beau, I was vexed by a trifle. The masquerade +comports itself with tolerable success." + +"I think so," the Beau replied, adjusting his monocle and gazing +critically at his subjects. "I certainly think so, but I am never easy +in my mind until the Grand Minuet has concluded the entertainment, yet +even so, I do not think you will ever find me preying upon my +extremities." + +Charles laughed. + +"They take their pleasures very easily, sir." Again the Beau examined +his puppets. + +"The burden of amusement certainly weighs very lightly on them, and yet, +Charles, I sometimes fancy I detect a shade too much of +self-consciousness in their movements. I could wish for a less anxious +grace, a less ordered abandon. My monocle which diminishes their size, +diminishes their importance; and I must confess that the motion of +dancing, if one regards the Ensemble, appears to me nothing less than +idiotical. However, do not let my cynical attitude prove contagious--I +have watched so many dances." + +"Yet you are willing for me to succeed you," said Charles. "Foregad, Mr. +Ripple, I was never intended for a spectator." + +"I have energy to keep me in office long enough to let you grow older. +Come, come, Charles, admit the career I offer would tempt many more +deserving young men." + +"But I have passions, feelings, desires, ambitions." + +"All very suitable," commented the Beau, "till you grow tired of +versifying life. We write poetry, Charles, in order to improve our +prose." + +"Some men write poetry to the end." + +"Usually a bitter end; but, indeed, I would not goad you into accepting +my offer. Have your dramas, lose your money, expose your heart to Cupid, +commit the thousand and one foolish actions that will afford you a moral +occupation for your middle age." + +"What would that be?" + +"A leisurely repentance." + +"Sir, I think you spin the natural functions into silk like the +silkworm." + +"Well, Charles, and isn't silk a more durable excrement than most? You +are still devouring the tender shoots of the mulberry tree; I am +already in the cocoon and shall go down to posterity as a very reputable +moth vouched for by a cenotaph in St. Simon's Church, Curtain Wells." + +"Sir, I doubt they will never say of me 'Vive le roi!'" + +"We shall see, we shall see. By the way, do you know a Miss Phyllida +Courteen? Her mother, a widow whose charms are as ample as her dowry, is +lodging in the Crescent." + +Charles was taken aback for a moment. + +"I believe I have met her once or twice at Assemblies." + +"At any rate, you know her by sight." + +"Oh yes!" replied our hero. + +"Now, I wonder whether you could pick her out from this multitude of +masks." + +Charles at once perceived the subject of the question. + +"She is standing over there by the second pillar and talking to a mask +in porcel--no, in lacker. That's strange." + +"What is strange?" inquired Mr. Ripple mildly. + +"Nothing--a lantern effect," Charles explained. + +Surely he could not be mistaken in those taper fingers. Moreover, they +were familiar to him. Where could he have seen them? + +"So that is Miss Courteen," said the Beau, looking at her very intently. +"Yes, now that you have pointed her out, I certainly seem to recognize +her. Who is her Vis à Vis?" + +"That I do not know," said Charles rather gloomily. + +"Then, pray, be so good-natured as to make an attempt to ascertain and +you'll oblige me monstrously. Or stay--perhaps I had better inquire +myself." + +Mr. Ripple, observing that Mr. Lovely looked somewhat melancholy, patted +him on the shoulder. + +"Don't look so full of disapprobation, Charles. Inquisitiveness, with +ordinary men and women, is a breach of good manners: with kings, it is a +condescension. Dear me! how time runs!" the Beau continued, tripping +from an epigram to a truism. "I will leave you to superintend the +Country Dances. Let them be as Oriental as possible, I beg." + +With this admonition the Great little Man threaded his way through the +Exquisite Mob. + +Charles d----d the country dances very devoutly. He was not enjoying +the evening at all, and wished he were sitting in the cosy firelight of +the _Blue Boar_, lulled by the whispers of playing cards, shuffled and +dealt. Where could he raise that two hundred pounds he owed Vernon? +Vernon--by G...! now he recognized those taper fingers. Vernon! they +belonged to Vernon, he could swear to them. Too often had he watched +their delicate harvesting of his guineas. He began to fret more than +ever. Suddenly he noticed that everybody was looking in his direction, +and became aware that time was indeed running and the moment for the +Country Dances had arrived. + +Meanwhile Mr. Ripple searched in vain for Phyllida and a Vis à Vis in +brown and gold. + + + + +_Chapter the Seventeenth_ + +THE GRAND MINUET OF CATHAY + + +The Country Dances of these powderpuff Orientals were so truly +inappropriate to the celebration that they almost succeeded in +convincing by sheer want of fitness. Picture to yourselves two hundred +blue and golden marionettes jigging to _Sir Roger de Coverley_ or +bobbing to _Come Lasses and Lads_. There was Merry England underneath +this hugger mugger of yellow masks, yet the sustained motion was +decidedly Eastern. Hands across, back to back, right hand, left +hand--each change of attitude was marked by a crashing gong; and he who +sounded this barbarick instrument was Mr. Charles Lovely. He stood upon +a tripod of ebony quite high enough for a hero of comedy, as I am sure +you will admit. + +As soon as his proconsulate was over, he jumped from the pedestal and, +once more assuming our poor humanity, sought desperately for Mr. Vernon +and Miss Phyllida Courteen. + +And now the great ballroom was cleared. The Exquisite Mob refreshed +itself not with chopsticks, but with two pronged forks and stout-handled +knives. Nor was the fare ascetick rice, but pies of mutton, rounds of +beef, custards, gay jellies and dappled puddings. In the ballroom the +attendants busily ran hither and thither in preparation for the Grand +Minuet of Cathay. Four pagodas guarded four corners; little bridges +spanned little rivers of blue silk. There were miniature groves that +shielded queer little Chinese gods and goddesses, while here and there +were temples with crooked roofs, hung round with silver bells destined +to be jingled at set moments of this incomparable minuet. High up near +the ceiling among the swinging lanterns one saw the peaked faces of +giant kites gazing benignly down. Finally in the very centre of the room +was a small fountain with a pond all about it of real water, starred +with white water lilies, on the highest jet of which a little god, +inflated by air, jigged to the rise and fall of the water. Mr. Ripple +had not been able to find Miss Courteen and was interrupted in his +search by a call to inspect the scene of the Minuet. Gog was sent to +fetch Mr. Lovely and presently the Gold Mandarin and the Blue Mandarin +were stepping over each bridge, peering from each pagoda, gently trying +the bells, lending a last touch to the rivers of silk and coming to a +standstill in silent admiration of the dancing water-god. + +"I think," said Mr. Ripple, "we may venture to proclaim, the Minuet of +Cathay." + +"I think so," said Mr. Lovely as he cast a quick eye in the direction of +every entrance in turn. + +"I could not find Miss Courteen," said the Beau, "have you had better +luck?" + +Lovely hesitated a moment. + +"No," he said finally. + +The Beau looked at him a moment. + +"I cannot imagine who this Amor can be. He is not down in my list." + +"Amor?" inquired Charles, somewhat too suddenly, "is his name Amor?" + +"So the young lady informed me, when we considered the situation +together. I perceive you know him." + +"Indeed, sir, I am acquainted with no one of that name." + +"I never imagined you were," replied the Beau testily. "'Tis too plainly +a Nom d'amour; but I'll wager you are able to extract a personality from +this pseudonym." + +"Nay, indeed, I----" + +"Very well," said the Beau, cutting him short, "there is no more to be +said," and he turned away to order a burly Oriental who on less +decorated occasions was wont to assist Mr. Balhatchett the butcher, to +sound the gong of invitation. + +While the huge sullen instrument boomed a diapason that threatened more +than it cajoled, Charles wondered if he had been wise to conceal his +knowledge of Mr. Amor's identity. Ripple had obviously not believed him +and was moreover very sensitive to any concealment on the part of his +subjects. He, as his own subaltern, was especially bound to indulge this +foible. Besides, what good had he done? thought Charles. Not much +indeed, for soon Ripple would certainly find out the whole affair. He +ought to tell him all he knew. Ripple would act for the best and close +the Pump Room against the intruder. It would be kill or cure. + +But just as he was upon the point of informing the Great little Man, our +hero remembered he owed Vernon two hundred pounds. O resolute hero! Be +quick to mount your ebony pedestal or we shall think you no better than +a walking gentleman. + +The Exquisite Mob of crimped and corseted Orientals began to saunter +back from supper, and the debate between honesty and honour was +adjourned to a more meditative opportunity. By this hour of the evening +most of the Masks were tolerably sure of each other's identity, and +though it was an acknowledged custom of the Chinese Masquerade as +opposed to other masked balls that all vizards should be worn from door +to door, the Grand Minuet of Cathay afforded much scandalous talk for +the ensuing days, all the more potent because a convention of anonymity +was sedulously maintained. It was not surprizing that intrigue should +flourish at a dance where half the company was hidden for many moments +at a stretch. The Minuet lasted a whole hour. It reproduced in the +various side-figures many emotions. It was a hundred dances in a grand +Ensemble. The musick was now courtly, now passionate: sometimes it +clanged in barbarick interludes of noise: sometimes but three or four +flutes twittered above the plash of the fountain. + +Over the bridges pattered the dancers: in and out of the diminutive +groves twinkled their scarlet heels. Now a couple swayed in a stationary +boat on a motionless river: now at the topmost window of a pagoda, +cambrick handkerchief and painted fan kept time to the tune. The Gold +Mandarin lived in a golden house beside the fountain and, if he chose, +could live a century of sound and perfume in that fragrant hour of +dancing. Far away at the other corner of the room lived the Blue +Mandarin in a small house at the foot of a small volcano that +ceaselessly puffed out clouds of incense. Wherever you went in that +strange dance of dances some new delight assailed your senses. + +Here, before a temple hung with silver bells, a dozen of these blue and +golden dolls moved with grace and precision through many variations of +the Minuet. They would carry away with them that night no more than a +memory of bells and stately movement by the rosy light of many lanterns. +Purged of all feeling save for correct gesture, the vizards seemed no +more alive than their mirroured counterparts that moved with equal grace +upside down in the polished floor of parquet. + +But step over one of these bridges where false white flowers hang in +scented clusters: go softly through that Bonbon grove, and there in an +alcove fretted to the semblance of wrought ivory, you shall see two +masks that are enraptured beneath a white moon-lantern, tracing the +melody with long caresses. In one of these fanciful resorts, sat Vernon +and Phyllida making love among the shadows, as in pairs and dainty +quartetts the dancers darkened the carved portal when they passed. For +Phyllida, the Assembly Rooms had been snatched up by some powerful +magician and set down in a land of Ombres Chinoises. Many a time had she +sat in the theatre and watched these silent black and white tragedies +and comedies. Now she had joined that whimsical procession which capers +across the draughty sheet. She recalled a particular entertainment of +this character last December. First the Columbine had pirouetted across +and made a light phantastick entrance into the shadow of the house at +the extreme corner. Presently came the Pierrot with a lantern swaying +atop of a tall pole. Up and down the sheet he had danced with incredible +agility, until a Pulcinello shook his bells from the window of the +house, and he floated away gathering giant size as he went. Then came +Harlequin, dancing almost more beautifully than Pierrot, and a quiet +murder was done in the laurel shadows round the house. Pierrot lay dead +and Harlequin, the slim and debonair assassin had donned his vizard: +Columbine wept a while until the lights were turned up, when everybody +agreed that the whole performance was in the best of taste and vastly +well executed. + +Phyllida came to herself and found Mr. Vernon gazing steadily at her +with his velvet eyes, all the more disconcerting set almondwise in the +Chinese mask. She shuddered. + +To say truth, this exotick minuet of strange perfumes and processions, +was not the sanest amusement for a maid who should have lived always +among the roses. The heat was growing intolerable, and still her lover +with persistent, regular motion bewitched her hand as it lay in his. + +The dancers passed and repassed them as they sat in artificial dusk. +Phyllida began to hate them when they fluttered their fans and +handkerchiefs. They were sickly things these dancers--crotchets and +quavers and semiquavers who had captured the semblance of humanity, who +breathed and bowed and capered, merely because musick had conjured them +into existence. Suddenly an amazing clangour of gongs and cymbals waked +her completely from the fever into which she had been flung, and, +waking, she found herself encircled by her lover's arms, his eyes +burning into hers and his lips, all that was left alive by the stolid +vizard, eager to meet her own. + +"Don't," she gasped. "Don't. I hate you, I hate you when you do that." + +"Nay, my angel must not be so prudish. Come, kiss me of your own will +and we'll gallop to Gretna Green next week." + +Phyllida still repulsed him. + +"To Gretna Green," he went on. "Drawn by a pair of cream-coloured +horses, in a chaise all citron silk and rosy sattin with my Phyllida +plunged into the softest cushions and her Amor to love her so fondly +while trees and milestones fly past." + +Vernon inherited much talent from his mother, and as he breathed his +persuasions in the most refined modulations of intensity, half looked +over his shoulder, for an audience. + +"My Phyllida, your lips are soft as moths." + +"Don't, Amor, don't." + +"Soft as little moths that in wet garden paths brush the cheeks with +feathery wings." + +"Release my hand, detestable Amor. I will sit here no longer to be +tortured by your boorishness." + +"But why will you repulse me? you love me? We are to be wed almost at +once. Why were you willing to sit in this dark corner, unless for the +charms of love?" + +The Minuet was drawing to a close. Long since the musick had departed +into wilder channels. This was now no courtly measure, but a barbarick +medley of noise, fit for trumpets of India, cymbals of Ethiopia, and the +hollow booming of drums that affright wrecked pirates in the green +swamps of Madagascar. + +Vernon stood up and drew Phyllida closer. + +"By G----, child, you madden me with your prettiness. Come, I swear you +shall kiss me before the end of the dance. You shall, by G---- you +shall!" + +Miss Phyllida Courteen, all swansdown and blushes in our first chapter, +is scarcely recognizable now. She is growing old fast. She is kindling +the faggots that will warm her chill old age. + +But still, though passion tugged at her heart strings, the school-miss, +the older Eve before the Fall, made her struggle against knowledge. + +"I hate you, I hate you like this. Let me go, sir, let me go!" + +With a sudden effort, she escaped from his arms, and he, plunging back +at the same moment, struck the frail summer house of ivory so that it +toppled over in front of the Blue Mandarin who was crossing a bridge +over a silken stream that flowed in the direction of his little house +beneath the miniature volcano. The Bonbon grove was strewn with +fragments. Like Cinderella fled Miss Courteen and was quickly lost in +the gold and azure company. With careless air, Mr. Vernon stooped to +buckle his shoe and Charles, seeing the taper fingers, stood for a +moment petrified upon the ridiculous bridge over which he had been +stepping with such an affectation of importance. + +Now was his opportunity to probe Mr. Vernon, or rather to lead him +gradually into the urbane presence of Mr. Ripple who would certainly +probe him deep enough. There was every reason to admonish him for, as he +knelt over his shoe, Charles could plainly see his costume was +reversible. Such a device was a breach of etiquette, deserving publick +censure. Himself as viceroy of Society, should not be backward in +arresting a traitor to Society's rules. Of old, the favourites of +monarchs had not scrupled to owe money to those whom they denounced as +dangerous to the State. + +Charles took a step forward. + +"Sir," he said, pointing with a tasselled wand whose handle was a squat +Buddha, "you have broken a law of the Chinese Masquerade." + +"Indeed," said Vernon, rising from his knees, not at all perturbed +apparently by the accusation. + +"Yes," went on the Blue Mandarin. Pray let our hero be impersonal for a +while, "You are wearing a double costume." + +"What a monstrous breach of privilege," said Vernon chilly, unmoved. + +"And it is my duty to report the incident to Beau Ripple. Your name, +sir?" + +It was now the turn of our villain to hesitate. If he frankly avowed his +identity, Lovely was bound to say no more about it, but did the +interloping young Jackanapes know the heroine of the affair?--he had +danced with her once that night. If he said Amor, Lovely might easily +inform Ripple and plead ignorance. D---- n the young fool! Why didn't he +pass over his absurd stream and take his callow brain, stuffed with +ceremonies, to the sugar-plum atmosphere of the Beaux' ante-room? + +"Why Lovely, man, don't you know me? 'Tis I, Vernon, what the plague do +you mean by so much impertinence? Were you shocked to see me trying to +kiss a saucy school-minx, eh? That was little Miss----" + +"Her mask, sir, should conceal her name." + +With what fair Incognita Mr. Vernon intended to couple himself, will +never be known. No doubt a pseudonym as nice as his own would have been +forthcoming, since he was of an inventive disposition and had on +occasions a pretty turn of fancy. + +The musick had stopped; the Grand Minuet of Cathay was finished. Mr. +Charles Lovely was aware of a rival to whom, by cursed ill-fortune, he +owed money which he was unable to pay. + +"Shall I give you your revenge?" murmured Vernon. + +The company, still masked, were hurrying in blue and golden bunches to +their coaches and chairs. + +"Not tonight," said Charles. "But on my honour, Vernon, you must really +be careful not to offend against our rules on another occasion." + +So, lightly enough, with no appearance of mutual ill-will the rivals +passed on. Phyllida was gone home, her face afire beneath her Chinese +mask. To her virginal chamber, I shall presently take you in order to +hear what Mistress Betty has to say about the ways of lovers. And while +we walk in the direction of the Crescent, somewhat overwrought by a +plethora of colour, scent, movement and sound, we may be tolerably +certain that young Mr. Charles Lovely--no longer Blue Mandarin, but +again our admired hero--is seated furiously inditing the most satirical +verses on the residents and visitors of Curtain Wells, in order to make +money enough to pay Mr. Vernon his guineas, and be able to run him +through in Curtain Mead with a clear conscience and a clean smallsword. + + + + +_Chapter the Eighteenth_ + +THE CONFIDANTE + + +If Eve had possessed a Confidante, it is probable that the evil wrought +by Woman would have been double as great as it is reputed to be. Miss +Courteen had stepped into the mud of reality and, not unnaturally, was +eager to tell Mistress Betty of the accident and ascertain by +candlelight consultation, whether or not her glass slipper was truly +lost. + +As they drove home in the rumbling coach, Phyllida experienced an +emotion of futility as she half listened, half dozed, to the +conversation of the Major, the Justice and her mother. To this came +Youth. Bumpety-bump went the coach, bumpety-bump went the conversation, +bumpety-bump went Thomas' broad back on the Jimmy, bumpety-bump went +Phyllida's head, while her thoughts and memories kept pace in the +darkness like swift sparks that are blown along by the wind. At last the +coach drew up before their house in the Crescent: Phyllida and her +mother alighted: Betty opened the door and the coach drove off to put +down Major Tarry and Mr. Moon at their lodgings. + +The hall seemed drab and unfamiliar; the bedchamber candle-sticks set +out upon the little gate table had an air of reproof about them; they +seemed to say as they sat in a prim row: "Look at us, we are quite +content. Last night our candles burnt an inch lower, and the candle +suffers diminution, but we remain the same. We are quite content." + +"My pretty one looks pale," said Betty, full of solicitude. + +"I'm tired," said Phyllida. + +"Betty," said Mrs. Courteen, "you must help me to undress. The evening +has been most enjoyable, and my lady Bunbutter tore her gown on a +monkey's tail. Now, Phyllida, do you run quickly to bed, for to-morrow +Mr. Moon and the Major have promised to drive with us to see Melton +Abbey. You will enjoy the excursion vastly." + +"What a whimsical place to visit." + +"Whimsical! How can you be so irreverend, Phyllida?" + +"But why, mamma, do you suddenly drive to Melton Abbey?" + +"Why, child! because I wish to train your mind to be sure. Nothing tests +deportment so severely as wandering round a Gothick ruin. However, they +tell me that Gothick will soon be à la Mode, and who am I to dispute the +commands of fashion?" + +Upon the heels of this humble interrogation, the widow betook herself to +bed. + +"When you have undressed my mamma, Betty, come to my chamber, I have a +thousand things to tell you," Phyllida whispered as they went up the +narrow stairs. + +She lighted all the candles in her room and looked round in sudden +affright. It was as if some one had trespassed upon those virginal +solitudes while she was away. Yet her room was the same as usual; the +dimity covers were all in their places: the fire was burning merrily in +the hearth: the bed-cloaths were turned back, fresh, cool and +lavendered. Her slippers knelt devoutly by the fender: the fire-irons +looked just as stilted and apologetick as usual. Everything was +perfectly familiar, perfectly ordinary and perfectly safe; yet something +in the room was strange, or was it herself who was altered? Was she out +of harmony with this palace of amber morning dreams, this treasure-box +of twilight hopes and imaginations? + +Down she sat in the big flowered arm-chair and stared at the crackling +logs--a stranger to her own possessions, and, as she untied one by one +the ribbands from her glinting chestnut hair, she seemed to smell the +jasmine of Courteen Grange and hear her father calling below her +casement to come down quickly and count the buds on the York and +Lancaster rose, as he was used to call in those sweet dead Junes. + +Presently came Betty with a soft knock and Phyllida, starting away from +the host of childish memories that assailed her, sprang up as the maid +came in on tiptoe. + +"Now, sit down, Betty, and listen with all your ears, for I dearly need +your advice." + +"My sweet one, I'm listening to 'ee," said Betty, pulling forward a fat +lop-eared hassock and squeezing herself as close to the fender as +possible. + +"Betty, Mr. Amor kissed me this evening, and what should I do?" + +"What were 'ee best to do? Why think no more about it, for indeed I dare +vow you're not the first maid that was kissed." + +"But the worst of the matter is that, though I struggled hard to escape, +and though I detested him for his persistence, yet, oh! Betty, I don't +like to tell you--I did not struggle as hard as I might have done." + +As she made this confession, Phyllida went carnation red from forehead +to pointed dimpled chin. + +"There's no call for blushes," said Betty emphatically, "for you must +learn the love of man soon or late, and Mr. Vernon is a proper enough +gentleman for sure." + +"And he said we should presently elope." + +"Oh! time enough to be wed come three years or more," commented Betty. + +"Oh! but you would not have me allow a gentleman to take my hand, and +kiss me, and call me his dearest life without being married immediately. +It would be most unbecoming." + +"If all the world knew, 'twould, but then nobody don't know, and that's +the best way for all true lovers." + +"Nevertheless, Betty, I feel uneasy." + +"'Tis only the stirring of your blood, my dear. Only to think," went on +the confidante, "that last sweet Spring time you was building great +cowslip balls in the green meadows, and now you are quite grown up with +a bow of your own to arm you through the minivets and gawottes, so grand +as may be." + +"Yes, love makes one grow old, Betty. I've aged very much these weeks." + +"Well, and 'twouldn't be right otherwise, for Life bean't all a long +sweet April month, my pretty one." + +"Then truly, dear Betty, you swear you think there is no harm in what I +have done?" + +"Oh, my dear, harm? Why, what harm could there be with your great fat +Betty to watch and guard 'ee?" + +"Still, I'm not sure, Betty. There's something tells me not to be sure." + +"Then, do 'ee listen hard to me, my dear, while I tell 'ee what I do +think about life. Life! 'Tis a garden and 'tis a wilderness, and between +them there's a gaäte and 'tis a kissing gaäte. The wilderness is fine +for children--a great open plaäce fit for scampering Jack hares and such +like, but bare enough and bleak enough when you do grow old, and then +you're too fat to get through that kissing gaäte, and then you do wish +wi' all your might and main that when you was young you'd gotten into +the garden among the sweet flowers." + +Betty stopped, exhausted by the allegory. + +"Yes, Betty, that is all very well, but you must go through the gate +with the person whom you love for ever and a day." + +"Nay, you can meet him inside and say Good-day and thank you kindly to +the arm you went in on." + +"I don't believe you give me good advice. If I told you that to-morrow +morning I was going to run away with Mr. Amor to Gretna Green, what +would you say?" + +"Oh, God preserve you from the wicked thought, Gretna Green or any other +such unlawful heathenish village green!" + +"There you see," complained Phyllida, "you do not take me seriously, and +it was foolish of me ever to tell you about this evening. But now that +I have told you, you must never breathe a word to a living +soul--never--never--promise! + +"I do promise," said Betty. + +"With the old rhyme--till Christmas--you remember?" + +Betty stood up, while a ritual, sacred to the childhood of Phyllida, was +solemnly enacted. In a monotonous whispered chaunt, Betty promised: + + "_I will not tell at primrose tide, + At cherry tide I'll silent be, + At barley harvest I'll be dumb + Till Christmas come and set me free._" + +Phyllida was satisfied that her indiscreet confidence was safely locked +up in Betty's bosom, capacious, homely, sweet-savoured as an +apple-closet. + +You have seen the confidante in action. Is it not well that we have +banished her from society? No longer may she enter stark mad in white +muslin, as the play directs. We have put her away in an old chest with +hoops and tie-wigs and gibbets and pirates and Newgate ordinaries and +rotten boroughs and watchet ribbands. No longer does she play asterisk +to a heroine, because nowadays the adventures of our heroines are +entirely introspective. But, as upon all time-honoured institutions, let +us drop a tear for the confidante; she has helped a thousand perplexed +authors to unfold their simple dramas, she has helped many a +scene-shifter to leisure. + +Mr. Sheridan could laugh at Mr. Cumberland through this artful, artless +medium, but he too had his Lucy. Mr. Smollett depended upon Miss +Williams (a lady of the loosest character) in order to help his Narcissa +to reveal herself and you, Mr. Goldsmith whose name, like immortal +Madame Blaize, is 'bedizened and brocaded,' you had your dearest +Neville. + +Yet, after all, however much we may regret them, confidantes were very +bad for heroines. They would encourage them in all that was most +reprehensible. Here you see, is our own confidante encouraging her +mistress to play with Love's torch and for all you or she know, get +badly scorched by the purple flame. Such temerity is very well for +country wenches to whom a green gown is a proper delight for May +morning. Betty, with her memories of many barley breaks, junketings and +Hallowe'en festivals, where ripe lips are as common as cherries at +midsummer, was not the perfect monitor for swansdown misses brought up +under Miss Prudence Prim's long rattan, taught to sit up straight and +put into corsets almost as soon as they were out of robe-coats. In fact +she was a confidante, a match-maker, to whom a wedding-ring was a Post +Hoc horse-collar, through which to grin at the censorious world. + +After all, where's the ultimate difference between sweet sensibility a +hundred and fifty years ago and sweet sensibility today? We should +consider it _démodé_ for the latter to gossip with her maid. Now every +schoolboy and schoolgirl knows how to spell psychology, and has been +awarded a sub-conscious self to enliven the lonely hours. And this +sub-conscious self, what is it, under analysis? Why, nothing more than +the old confidante in ghostly guise with as long a tongue and as rich a +store of bad advice. + +So now, having successfully, as I hope, occupied your attention while +sweet sensibility gets into bed, let us snuff the candles and leave the +room to Phyllida and wavering firelight. + + + + +_Chapter the Nineteenth_ + +BLACKHART FARM WITH A COCK-FIGHT + + +About ten miles from Curtain Wells on the Bristol road stood a ruined +cottage. With thatch discoloured, torn by gales and sparrows, and with +windows made crooked by internal decay, its expression was grotesque and +unpleasant. A tangled bed of rotten nettles filled the space before it, +and all the vegetation beside was rank and desolate. This cottage served +as fitting lodge to a sinister bye-way covered with weeds and almost +overhung in summer by hedges dark with masses of black bryony, but in +winter and spring sufficiently open to admit the cold grey sky overhead, +and the chill Easterly rain, which on the morning after the Chinese +Masquerade fell with dreary persistence. + +Pray pardon me that I take you so far from wit, fashion, and beauty, +along this unsavoury path, but indeed the journey is inevitable if you +are at all anxious to understand something of Mr. Francis Vernon's +intentions. The road leads to Blackhart Farm, famous, no doubt, in days +gone by for the cherries of that denomination; but since the last dying +speech and confession of Mrs. Mawhood the name has acquired a new and +sinister significance. + +Now you understand my apologies; or is it possible you have forgotten +Mrs. Mawhood of Blackhart Farm, who was turned off at Tyburn amid the +execrations of the mob in 17--? Yet her long black gloves and white face +haunted many pillows on the night when she paid the ultimate penalty; +and for what was she hanged? Come, come, this history is not the Newgate +Calendar--you must search that bloody register. + +At the time, however, of Mr. Vernon's visit, Mrs. Mawhood was alive and, +I am sorry to add, flourishing. He followed the roadway for about a +quarter of a mile between tall, damp hedgerows, dismounted at a small +wicket-gate and, leading his horse, turned aside through a plantation of +close-set, withered larches under which the grass grew pale and thin, +with a sweet unhealthy odour of fungus. Blackhart Farm appeared in +view--a long, low building with slated roof, trim enough, but repulsive +and barren. From a pile of chimney stacks smoke was rising hardly +through the heavy atmosphere. + +The path by which Vernon arrived led immediately to the front door. Had +he continued along the cart track he would have reached, by way of a +bleak paved courtyard, the back of the house. Only a very shallow strip +of garden separated the front of the farm from the gloomy plantation +that served as barrier to the curious world. + +Vernon tied his horse to the gate of the garden, walked up the +moss-grown path between clipped bushes of box, and knocking with the +handle of his riding-whip on the heavy door, waited. Several moments +passed, and in the deep silence that surrounded this ill-wished abode, +he could distinctly hear a clock ticking on the other side of the heavy +door. This, the drip of trees, and the noise of his horse chewing the +rank herbage by the gate, were the only sounds that broke the stillness. + +At last footsteps shuffled over the stone-paved floor within. A small +panel slid away from a grating and a voice of that peculiar unctuous +hoarseness only heard in a prodigiously fat man or woman, inquired his +name. + +"I want to see you, old Mother Mawhood." + +"Love o'maids!" said the fat voice, "'tis Fancy Vernon, or I'm not a fat +old sinner." + +The bolts were pushed back, the latch clicked, the door swung open, and +Mrs. Mawhood, whose bulk, but little reduced by Newgate fare, was soon +to test severely the three-legged tenement, occupied the portal. + +Take a good look at Mrs. Mawhood, while with pursy greetings she makes +Fancy Vernon welcome. She is like an idol in a cavernous East Indian +temple, or a giant toadstool, or weight of unbaked dough, or in fact +anything that is slow, sleepy, and horrible. Almost buried in folds of +flesh is a pair of beady black eyes, as steady and wicked as those of a +puff-adder or seaman's parroquet. She is dressed in black, and her nails +are bitten to the quick. + +Mr. Vernon was probably less narrow-minded than the mob which howled at +her infamy during the Tyburn journey. At any rate he chatted with her +amicably enough on this grey February forenoon. + +"How's business, ma'am?" he asked. + +"Very bad," she wheezed. "Only three of 'em upstairs and none of 'em +real quality. Still, the flowers in the garden vant fresh food, +especially the blood-red toolips. Ah! it was two lips that was the +undoin' of the hussies, and, 'tis fair they should profit by the +harvest." + +This devilish joke was followed by a low rumbling chuckle echoed above +by a thin wail. + +Mrs. Mawhood waddled to the foot of the stairs. + +"Keep that d----d brat quiet, you charity bastard," she wheezed +angrily. "She'll hev to get up to-morrow," she continued, seating +herself in a wide arm-chair beside the empty grate, "and a sickly puling +jade she is. I suppose you've come for the Main?" + +"No," answered Vernon, "indeed, I did not know there was to be one. Good +birds?" + +Mrs. Mawhood nodded. "Thirty-two cocks and a Velch main. 'Tis some of +those baby gentlemen from the Vells as finks they's seeing life ven a +dozen lousy chairmen sveats thesselves 'oarse over a pair of bleeding +chickens. And ven they's 'ad their pockets picked, they goes 'ome +'appy." + +"Is Moll here?" asked Vernon. + +"No, Moll's keeping a gay house Catherine Street vay." + +"Egad, I've a pretty little job for Moll." + +"Now don't you go leading Moll astray. She ain't been in Bridewell not +these two years, and she don't vant to neither." + +"This job won't take her there. I'm in need of a housewife for a month, +and Moll's a nice homely woman." + +"'Oo's she to look after, eh?" + +"A pearl necklace," said Vernon. + +"And a pretty neck, eh?" + +"Tolerable," said Vernon. + +"When do you want her?" + +"Let me see--February. Shall we say the last week in March?" + +"I'll tell her: I shall be sending a hussy from here presently to a nice +honest sitivation." Again the chuckle was heard. + +"I want lodgings near the Haymarket. Nice and airy--with a balcony if +possible, and--well, Moll knows what attracts sweet seventeen." + +"That's young for a pearl necklace." + +"'Tis hers by inheritance. The lodgings must be cheerful because Miss is +shy." + +"Oh, Moll knows what every age likes best. She'll buy a dear little +singing goldfinch and put him in a cage and hang him up in the window. +Who knows? P'raps it'll breed a nice little nestful of goldfinches for +Moll. 'Ow many?" + +"I can discuss that with Moll herself," said Vernon. + +"Ah, but Moll's so soft 'arted. Not less than fifty goldfinches, mind, +and if a little hindrance arrives, 'tis to come down to Blackhart +Farm--mind--and be cared for by old Mother Mawhood wot's kind even to +the pore little flies on the pane." + +"You look too far into the future, old lady," said Vernon. + +"And so a body should, my fancy boy," the hag answered. "Now I wager you +ain't thought nothin' about postillions?" + +"Time enough for that." + +"Yes, time enough I dare say, but you ought to engage 'em in advance. +That's vat the quality does ven they writes to me. Have you got a pair +of good honest postboys?" + +"No, but----" + +"Vell! and good honest boys ain't so easy found in Curtain Vells! Boys +who'll do vat's vanted and no questions axed and none answered." + +"But I thought----" + +"That's all werry fine," said the monstrous old woman. "But p'raps +there'll be another elopement. Maids is thick in Curtain Vells, and +p'raps you won't find your boys so easy. There's some that don't like +the job--don't like two brace of pops behind 'em and a galloping brother +and father." + +"We shan't be followed," said Vernon contemptuously. + +"No, I dare say you von't, but 'tis as vell to be behind a couple of +good honest boys as'll use their pops when they're turning a corner and +ready to swear they thought it was two gentlemen on the high toby as vas +a followin' of 'em so fast." + +"Very well," said Vernon, "whom do you want me to employ?" + +"Vy, there's my two nephews, Charlie and Dickie Maggs, vot 'ud drive +'ard and fast all the vay to Lunnon town and no questions axed either +end, but vot could easily be ansered wiv golden Georges." + +"Let 'em wait on me when I send the word, and hark'ee, they must be +ready any time this month, for Miss may take it into her head to run +before I expect." + +Further intercourse between Mr. Francis Vernon and old Mother Mawhood +was interrupted by loud knocks on the door at the back, supported by +catcalls, yells, horn-blowing and whip-cracking. + +"That's for the Main," said Mrs. Mawhood. "Vill you stay to see the +sport?" + +"'Tis a Welch main?" + +"Ay--thirty-two birds." + +"Well, send a boy to put my horse in the stable." + +"This way, my fancy, this way," wheezed the hag, as she waddled towards +the courtyard where the noise was growing louder every minute. + +It may strike the reader as strange that the young gentlemen of the +_Blue Boar_ (they were all there save Mr. Lovely) should come ten miles +to a disreputable farm for the purpose of seeing thirty-two cocks of the +game butchered. The Welch Main was a peculiarly bloody form of +cock-fighting, as it was determined by a series of rounds fought by the +respective survivors until at the end a pair of already vilely scarred +and mutilated birds were placed beak to beak by the Feeder to determine +the ultimate victor of the Main. + +Ten miles was not too far to travel for such glorious sport in the days +of the Georges, but that they were compelled to travel at all was due to +the squeamishness of Beau Ripple, who had a singular aversion from the +game and would allow no cock-pit to be established within his +jurisdiction. He used to say the martyrdom of chickens should never +extend beyond the demand for painted fans. + +Therefore a suitable cockpit had been set up in one of the outlying +barns of Blackhart Farm, whither at discreet intervals went Lieutenant +Blewforth of the _Lively_, Mr. Golightly of Campbell's Grey Dragoons, +Mr. Tom Chalkley of the Foot, little Peter Wingfield, and many other +young gentlemen. They would sit in the first tier and allow their +exquisite necks to be blown upon by the stinking breath of the second +tier which, in turn, was not unwilling to allow the third tier to spit +over its shoulders in the intervals of yelling, 'Three to one on the +Blotch-breasted Red!' 'Six to five against the Cheshire Pile!' 'Two to +one on the Black-breasted Birchin!' and other such bewildering +proclamations of their confidence in particular cocks of the game. + +Vernon was not at all displeased that his visit to Blackhart Farm should +have ostensible justification. Looking back, as he emerged into the +courtyard, he noticed all the windows of the house were blind on that +side and wondered why so ill-favoured and disreputable a dwelling-place +had never been investigated by the servants of justice. So it was, +however, not long after this date, and a gruesome day's work it was +beneath the hot August sun: and not the least gruesome sight was old +Mother Mawhood, monstrous, flabby and terror-stricken, quivering in her +chair by the empty fireside, opposite a Robin Redbreast from Bow Street +drinking many quarts of beer and regarding her with unfavourable +glances, while he listened to the chink of the spades in the flower +garden by the plantation. The runners would never have visited Blackhart +Farm had not a certain lady of quality, who travelled in a post-chaise +with muffled windows, dallied a month too long, thereby raising the +suspicions of her eagle-nosed aunt, the Countess of----, but what has +all this to do with cock-fighting? + +In the pit the spectators were arranging themselves. In front sat +Lieutenant Blewforth and little Peter Wingfield as Masters of the Match. +In the front tier sat the leading amateurs of Curtain Wells. Behind them +were the shopkeepers, and behind the shopkeepers was the riff-raff of +the Wells and its satellite villages. + +Everybody was bawling odds at top voice, and occasionally one of the +birds crowed. This was an infringement of etiquette and, being +considered a sign of cowardice, immediately lengthened the odds against +the offender. The tallowy man in a blue kerseymere coat and breeches is +one of the Feeders, and is acting in that capacity for the Services +represented by Lieutenant Blewforth, while the civilians are employing +the good offices of Jimmy Trickett, who on less exciting occasions is +one of the hostlers of the _Blue Boar_. + +Vernon, looking for a vacant place in the front tier found himself next +to Mr. Anthony Clare, who, for all he sat so unmoved, had provided eight +cocks for the civilians and stood to lose a pretty pile of guineas. + +"Where's Lovely?" asked Vernon, shaking the sawdust from his boots. + +"He never comes to cock-fights," Clare replied rather coldly. + +"Too brutal for a poet, eh?" + +"I have never heard him say so," said Clare. + +As a matter of fact Charles strongly disapproved of the sport and it is +a significant fact that at this very moment, he was trotting along the +Bristol road, tired of lashing Curtain polls and determined, against the +advice of his conscience, to stake fifty guineas on the result of the +Main. + +The latter progressed with monotonous cruelty until, of the thirty-two +cocks who began, but two pairs were left, all bleeding profusely. And +now with a refinement of brutality, the steel gaffles, hitherto used to +shorten the earlier and less interesting matches, were removed and +silver ones fastened on in their place, because, the latter, being less +deadly, prolonged the miserable contest. + +During this momentary lull, Charles entered the barn and was greeted +with cheers in which could be detected a note of surprize. Clare moved +along in order to make room for his friend, and squeezed Mr. Vernon +somewhat unceremoniously in doing so. + +"What birds are being set to?" inquired Lovely. + +"My Knowsley and Chalkley's Cheshire Pile, and a White Pile of +Campbell's against Winnington's Cuckoo." + +The semi-final dragged out its bloody length, until for the final was +left Mr. Clare's famous Knowsley cock, his ebony breast dabbled with +blood and his red pinions ragged and broken, but still preserving some +of the smartness of their slantwise trimming--trimmed so in order that +by a lucky stroke an adversary's eye might be put out. The survivor of +the two Services was Mr. Campbell's White Pile, stained with crimson. + +"Will your bird win?" whispered Mr. Lovely. + +"I think so," said Clare, "he comes of a good breed." + +"Two to one in Tens against the Pile," shouted Mr. Lovely. + +"Done," said Vernon. + +"Two to one in Twenties against the Pile," shouted Mr. Lovely. + +"Done," said Mr. Vernon. + +"Three to one in Fifties," shouted Mr. Lovely. + +And this wager also was taken by Mr. Francis Vernon. + +The Feeders were setting the birds beak to beak. The shouting of odds +was deafening: the gallant cocks were both exhausted by the four +previous fights, but the feathers flew, the wings whirred, the gaffles +clicked, and the blood flowed fast enough to please the vile faces that +looked down through the murky atmosphere. + +At last the White Pile, blinded in one eye, began to retreat before the +Knowsley. + +"I pound the cock," shouted Charles, flinging his hat into the pit. + +The Teller of the Law, a seedy vagabond with a red nose, began to count +in raucous accents. Twice he counted twenty slowly, and + +"Vill any vun take it?" he asked. + +"Yes," said Mr. Vernon, and just as Mr. Vernon said 'Yes,' the brave +Knowsley cock, the champion of many famous fights, toppled over on his +side, dead. + +The Naval and Military Amateurs had won the Welch Main, and Mr. Charles +Lovely had lost two hundred and ten guineas, not to mention ten pounds +for so rashly pounding the cock. + +The young gentlemen went back to Curtain Wells much pleased with the +afternoon's entertainment, while the riff-raff walked or drove in queer +vehicles back to their squalid homes, all save one unfortunate +individual, unable to meet a debt of ten shillings incurred by backing +the brave Knowsley, who for all he was dying had pursued his antagonist +so confidently. He spent the night in a basket close to the roof and was +not set down till the next morning by one of the labourers on Blackhart +Farm. + + + + +_Chapter the Twentieth_ + +IN WHICH EVERYTHING GROWS BUT THE PLOT + + +You will remember, if you have not put this book upon the table +meanwhile, that in the last paragraph of the last chapter, we left an +unfortunate individual swinging in a basket hard by the roof of a barn. +He was hoisted by a pulley amid the acclamations of the mob because he +was unable to fulfil an obligation so small that half a guinea would +have covered it. There he swung amid cobwebs and bats, fearful every +time the basket creaked he should fall into the blood-stained sawdust of +the cock-pit. I cannot tell you his name, but that is no great matter +since we must examine him not as a man, but as a symbol. + +Possibly with the Beau's perspective, we might diminish him to the size +of a textual illustration, for this unfortunate man is a textual +illustration, and though not etched with the care of Mr. Stothard, will +serve his purpose well enough. + +Suspension is a disreputable attitude for the human body, whatever way +it is brought about, yet I doubt this maltreated anonymity was in better +case than our hero. He paid the penalty for laying unwise wagers and +found earth on the next morning much as he had left it on the afternoon +of the day before. Moreover, he never paid his half-guinea, which was a +real source of consolation. But our hero swung that night in an +immaterial basket that creaked thrice as damnably as the other, and +found no good-natured labouring man to put him on the ground next +morning. The only result of opposing the advice of his conscience, was +an additional debt of two hundred and twenty guineas to our villain. + +To make matters worse, he had to meet his creditor over the breakfast +table, and of the many dooms measured out to sinners, this is surely one +of the most difficult to face with equanimity. + +In despair, he took to drinking the waters with the rest of the +Exquisite Mob, and earned a few golden glances from Beau Ripple, but +nothing more tangible. Even the advantage of these was neutralized by +the chalybeate, which acted with disconcerting abruptness upon a healthy +body unused to medicinal spurs. + +The wry water served a good purpose, however, by souring his +point-of-view. The liquid iron entered into his soul and he lashed the +Curtain Polls in a variety of metres. He also took long walks into the +country, and sought by the contemplation of scenery to acquire an +impersonal attitude towards his fellow creatures. After all, there is no +better training for a mob-master than the exercise of a satirical pen, +and as time went on Mr. Lovely's book increased in bulk, although it +never achieved more than a suggestive slimness even when bound in calf. + +February faded into March, and in accordance with the season everything +began to grow. + +Mr. Lovely's book we have already noticed. + +Mr. Vernon's seductive arts grew daily more seductive, and, though for a +week or two after Mr. Ripple's warning, Mrs. Courteen arranged for the +complete occupation of Phyllida's leisure, the growth of Mrs. Courteen's +figure necessitated a stricter attention to diet and exercise, and +caused her so much anxiety that her vigilance was soon relaxed. So +whenever the forenoons were fine enough, Phyllida sat on the moss-grown +seat in the centre of the Maze, and, under the patronage of the little +stone Cupid, grew daily more powerfully enchanted by the magical +personality of Mr. Francis Vernon. + +Thomas, the footman, grew daily more unctuous owing to the visit of a +gouty dean who, being invited to occupy St. Simon's pulpit, preached a +remarkable sermon in seven divisions and twenty-three sub-divisions, +conclusively establishing the identity of the English Nation with the +tribe of Benjamin. Mr. Moon and Major Tarry grew more entirely devoted +to the widow, and Thomasina the cat also grew owing to the advent of +kittens. In fact, everybody and everything grew prodigiously in the +merry springtime. + +The list of visitors grew. Rich Mrs. Bendish arrived and made all the +dowagers jealous with her chest of precious stones that she brought back +from an island in the Caribbean Sea--buried treasure that was actually +discovered. Lord Rocquepool came, and his daughters, the Honourable +Georgina and the Honourable Caroline de Winqule. The Honourable Mrs. +Winter-Green came, and the Welch baronet, Sir Owen Ap Taffy. The +Marquess of Hurricane arrived, and several members of the great Wind +family. Also, with all these aristocratick visitors, it is not +surprizing that Mr. Ripple's snuff bill grew daily. + +March came in like a lamb that year, and the sweet season danced in the +bleak furrows over which the lank hares leaped and scampered. White +violets scented equinoctial dusks, and in every window of the Wells big +daffodils hung down their golden ruffs. March went by to the tune of +fiddles and flutes. Mr. Ripple had to attend near half a dozen routs +every night, and the weekly Assemblies were more fully thronged than +ever before. + +Every day the jolly sun grew more powerful and the noise of polite +conversation was almost drowned by the twittering of the sparrows as +they, like their betters, made a chorus of loves, jealousies, hopes, +plans and disappointments in a world of chimney-stacks and slanting +roofs. They perched in the most fashionable gutters, just as, down below +on the sunny side of the High Street, the Exquisite Mob ruffled before +the gayest shops. + +"How well that chip hat becomes me!" + +"What wonderful silks are being displayed this spring!" + +"They say that hoops and head-dresses will both show a monstrous +increase in size this year." + +As if the daffodils had intoxicated the whole race of dyers, nothing but +shades of yellow were to be seen. In these happier days for the +followers of the Mode, Blonda and Brunetta, those charming sisters, +were not compelled to rely on their natural complexions in order to wear +a certain shade. In these happier days, powder, rouge and patches +availed to make the gaudy apricock glow even beside the blooming peach +without injury to either. Therefore the artfully arranged bow-windows +with rolls of citron damasks, canary velvets, golden brocades, lemon +sattins and orange silks, dismayed not Blonda any more than the sapphire +and turquoise of the autumnal mode fretted the vanity of Brunetta. As +for young maidens, their fashion like the eternal mountains was always +white. + +But suddenly on the twenty-seventh of the month the weather changed. +Masses of wet grey clouds swept in from the Atlantick, and March +prepared to go out like a lion. + +And on this very morning _Curtain Polls severely lashed by a Curtain +Rod_ appeared on Mr. Paul Virgin's counter. + +This small work produced far greater consternation than the sudden +change in the weather. Though it rained and blew, and whistled and +streamed, nobody paid the slightest attention, nobody said 'What a +change in the weather,' for all the world was deeply engrossed in +reading about his asterisked self and his asterisked neighbour. + + + + +_Chapter the Twenty-first_ + +CURTAIN POLLS + + +There had been nothing to prepare Curtain Wells for its chastizement. No +wreathèd pamphlet warned readers in the most choice preliminary duff +that a sarcastick comet would presently singe their vices, their follies +and their vanities. Nobody had been invited to subscribe in advance to +his own ridicule. As it were on the wings of a Westerly gale, these +destructive little volumes settled upon the fields of Pleasure like +locusts on a Bedouin plantation. + +Two speculative chap-book pedlars sold the first twenty to as many +drinkers of chalybeate hastening home to breakfast. For those who +stopped to buy there was no breakfast that morning. The kidneys and the +bacon and the eggs and the ham and the loin chops and the red herrings +and the toasted bread were neglected. The vanguard of purchasers were, +in reading about neighbours, too much diverted, and, in reading about +themselves, too indignant to eat. + +Out went the kidneys and the bacon and the eggs and the ham and the loin +chops and the red herrings and the toasted bread, frozen stiff in their +own fat; and out went the vanguard to warn the main army of fashion that +scurrility, satire and malice were abroad in many metres. + +"Listen to this, Moon," ejaculated Major Tarry, as, undeterred by the +driving wind, he strode along, quoting extracts that were perfectly +inaudible to his companion. + +"Listen to this, will you listen to this," + + "_Like a lap-dog he's fed with a second-best spoon, + And bays as he should at the sight of the Moon_." + +"Yes, but listen to this," said the Justice treading heavily in a puddle +as he spoke. + + "_Do not tarry, + M**n, but marry, + While you're still upon the wax, + Though above her, + You can love her, + And avoid the window tax_." + +"Very low, very low indeed," said Tarry. + +"So 'tis," quoth the Justice, "but the next verse is lower still." + + "_For that coat of + Him we wrote of + Will be in your parlour soon, + And be reigning + When you're waning, + And we whisper hornèd M**n_." + +"Ha, ha," said Tarry, "low, d----d low! But 'sblood, the fellow has +humour." + +"Humour," said the Justice, "you call this obscene doggerel, humour?" + +"In parts, sir, in parts." + +"I call it melancholy and libidinous." + +Mrs. Courteen was seated at her window disconsolately regarding the +rain. + +"Gemini, child!" she exclaimed. "What can be the matter with Mr. Moon +and the Major that they gesticulate so wildly." + +"They're reading books, ma'am," Betty announced. + +"Reading book, but they are standing at the street corner like +Methodies!" + +"They'm beänt gone sick mad for love of 'ee, do 'ee think, Ma'am?" + +"Flatterer," sighed Mrs. Courteen. "No, child, they have probably been +converted. I detect Methodism in their madness. Te-hee! I must keep +that for Archdeacon Conybeare, who so dislikes extremes of sensibility +in anything that pertains to so sacred a thing as religion. Ah, dear! +Religion, what is it?" + +"There's many ways of it ma'am, I do think. 'Tis true religious not to +laugh when the lads tickle thy ankles wi' straws during the prayer for +Good King George!" + +"Tut-tut, how disloyal!" + +Just then the raucous voice of one of the itinerant booksellers shouted +"Curtain Polls severely lashed by a Curtain-Rod." + +"Run, Betty, and inquire the price at once," cried Mrs. Courteen +perceiving that this was the cause of the gentlemen's delay. "'Tis +evidently a rumour on the best authority about the Day of Judgment." + +Presently Betty returned. + +"'Tis a book, ma'am." + +"I know that, simpleton, how much?" + +"Four shillings and sixpence, ma'am, for a little mimsy book not so +thick as the magick history of Jack the Giant Killer." + +"But what was inside, foolish one?" + +"Oh, 'twas full of stars, ma'am." + +"'Tis certainly a work on fortune-telling. Pray buy it instantly, here +is the money." + +Back came Betty with the volume, and presently Mrs. Courteen fainted. + +Downstairs ran Betty, and upstairs walked Mr. Thomas and Betty. + +"'Twas the book as done it," said the latter vehemently. + +The offending volume lay face downwards upon the quilted apricock of +Mrs. Courteen's lap, so Thomas picked it up and began to read: + + "_At the Wells many elegant widows are seen, + But no one so modish as Mrs. C******n, + Her hoop_----" + +So far he read, but, rubicund though he was, modesty was still able to +deepen his colour. + +"Yes," said Betty, "pray do 'ee read us some more, Mr. Thomas." + +"What Jebusite wrote this book? I will smite him and all his works," +replied Thomas, flinging the volume into the fire. Whether the odour of +burning leather or the profuse drops of Sal Volatile revived the +offended lady I do not know, but she instantly sat up and, in a voice +tremulous with anxiety, bade her footman call a chair. + +"For," said she, "I must pay a visit of condolence to my Lady Bunbutter, +whose propriety has suffered an almost irreparable injury." + +She did not stay to change her dress; she passed her suitors still +quoting scurrility, one against the other in the wind and rain, without +a smile of recognition or sympathy. + +Outside my Lady Bunbutter's stood a row of sedan-chairs, and as Mrs. +Courteen walked up my Lady Bunbutter's front door-step, the knot of +chairmen packed more closely over a copy of _Curtain Polls_ indiscreetly +left behind by one of their fares. There was a rustle of pages quickly +turned by dirty thumbs, and as Mrs. Courteen was ushered in by my Lady +Bunbutter's claret-coloured footman, there followed her upstairs a burst +of ribald laughter. + +My Lady Bunbutter had, by reason of her superior bulk and wealth, +successfully repelled all rival claimants to the throne of dowagership. +She reigned supreme; moreover her advice on this gusty forenoon was +particularly valuable, inasmuch as she had just shaken off the waters of +Bath on account of the publication there of some odious verses, in which +her name and her person were treated with intolerably small respect. +Therefore it was not surprizing to find her drawing-room the haunt of +innumerable widows, old maids and long-established wives. There they +sat, supplying asterisks with immense volubleness. As it happened, they +had just tittered behind their fans over the odiously vulgar, but +undeniably appropriate--yes! the odious fellow was certainly +witty--when the subject of their malicious laughter and false blushes +entered the room. + +With the tact bred of many a Quadrille party, my lady Bunbutter advanced +to meet Mrs. Courteen, murmuring, 'poor dear little Miss Kitcat, so +spiteful and yet, my dear Mrs. Courteen, since we are all friends, alas! +how true!' + +Now young Miss Kitcat was still young Miss Kitcat, and simply would not +become old maid or dowager, and would allow herself to be ogled by that +notorious rake and disreputable--yes! disreputable, card-sharper, +Captain Mann. + +While the dowagers discussed the situation and vowed that the rogue of +an author sadly needed a lesson, Beau Ripple himself, with many an +urbane tut-tut was reading _Curtain Polls_ in his tall white +drawing-room, where the firelight danced and flickered over the gleaming +ivory panels. + +"Too bad," said the Beau to himself as he turned the scandalous pages. +He did not, however, treat them less carefully because they were +scandalous, for to Mr. Ripple a book was always a book, and he paid as +much ceremony to the emanations of Grub Street as he would have shown to +the copper plates of an elephant folio. + +"This is, indeed, too bad," said the Beau, "and yet the rascal has wit. +Oh, yes, he certainly has wit, but what an excellent example this volume +affords of the superiority of prose over verse. A poetick satirist too +often sacrifices his good breeding for the sake of the rhymes. Now I +should never have said that. No, no, that is too bad, and this--good +G----! this is unpardonable!" + +The Great little Man jumped up as red as one of the big chintz roses +that bloomed so prodigally all over his winged chair. + +The King of Fashion looked very small as he stood in the middle of an +Aubusson rug, yet I think he never looked more truly a monarch than at +this moment. Unfortunately there was nobody to see him as he stood in +his little world of mirrours and engravings. + +And what had upset his equanimity? Certainly not the following lines: + + "_Where R*****, gentlest, kindliest of Beaux, + To all the world an urbane presence shows: + Proclaims the tropick joys of China Tea, + And rules e'en Fashion with his polished sway. + At his approach the graceless ruffle shakes, + While every waistcoat in its buttons quakes; + Each conscious shoe more luminously shines, + And puckered breeches haste to smooth their lines_." + +Whatever the Curtain Rod thought of the subjects, to the Monarch he was +always complimental. + +"Intolerable! unpardonable!" cried the Beau, tapping his snuff-box so +fiercely that some of the powder was spilled over the grey Angora cat +which was purring against his gold-clocked stockings in the heart of a +faded Aubusson rose. Octavia (the cat) sneezed assent. What had upset +his equanimity? You shall take a short journey to find out, for I +perceive a break in the weather and sweet April is in the West. + +We will walk just so far as Curtain Garden, but, pray, do not turn into +the Maze where the paths are atrociously damp. Alas, the rain is +beginning again, but at the end of that long alley is a summer house, +the abode of many Rococo Dryads, although 'tis haunted at present by +amorous mortals, for I caught the glint of a buckle and a shimmer of +chestnut ringlets. + +It does not require King OEdipus to guess that those eyes which stare +so into the heavens are the blue eyes of Phyllida, while any one would +recognize in that smooth voice the careful enunciation of Mr. Francis +Vernon. + +He, like every one else that forenoon, was reading _Curtain Polls +severely lashed by a Curtain Rod_. Perchance the following lines were +they that lately enraged Mr. Horace Ripple: + + "_Now is it a hoyden, a hussy or Miss, + Who listens to love but refuses a kiss? + 'Tis said every morning she flies to the Maze, + And buries her head from the Publick's low gaze_ + + _Of Love in a Maze, pretty charmer, beware, + For under the rose there are thorns ev'rywhere, + And if you should chance the wrong turning to take, + 'Tis odds that you'll trip on a tall garden Rake._ + + _The Cits, when you pass, point you out to their Belles, + You serve as a moral all over the Wells, + And Dowagers, drinking your health in green tea, + Express a faint hope that man will not betray_." + +"Those are pretty stanzas for a lover to read," said Vernon, who, to do +him justice, did not seem very greatly perturbed by the insult. + +"Oh, Amor," said poor Phyllida, "they can't truly be intended for me!" + +"For whom else?" + +"But who would write such cruel words of a young woman?" + +"That puppy, Lovely." + +"Mr. Lovely! Oh! no, he's a gentleman and a man of family and a man of +taste and a friend of Beau Ripple." + +"He may be all this and more," declared Vernon, "but he wrote this +book." + +"I don't believe it." + +"He did, I say, for he informed me so himself--at least he as good as +informed me!" + +"Amor! you must have been mistook." + +"On my life, not at all. He owes me near five hundred guineas, and when +I hinted that the expense of inland Spas tells upon a gentleman's +resources, begged my pardon, swore he had a literary project on hand, +and promised me a hundred guineas on Lady Day. That was the day before +yesterday." + +"A gamester!" said Miss Phyllida, who, with the injustice of her age and +sex, neglected to see that her lover was as much to blame in this +particular as Lovely. + +"Ay! a gamester," said Vernon with fervid indignation. + +"And for the sake of a hundred guineas he was ready to cheapen the +honour of a maid?" + +"My angel forgets the Chinese Masquerade. Mr. Lovely was piqued by her +obvious weakness for a less fashionable, less conspicuous gentleman." + +"Oh, I will never forgive him. He has ruined me." + +"Nay, come, come, 'tis not so bad as that. Amor will never desert his +Phyllida." + +"I'm ruined, I'm ruined," she sobbed. "I shall never dare go to visit my +cousin Barbara, who is as prim and proper as----" Nothing was prim +enough for the comparison. "And she has the most delicious hot buns you +ever tasted, and the dearest spaniel and the most beautiful pugdog. Oh +dear! oh dear! oh dear! how all the neighbours will laugh, and old +Rumble the carrier will be telling tales about me in every kitchen in +the county, and 'tis all your fault." + +"My fault?" + +"Yes, yours, for asking me to come and meet you and making love, while +all the while there was somebody peeping over the hedges. I'll never +forgive you, never, never!----" + +"Dearest life, we can put a stop to scandal by being wed immediately. +Listen! I'll have a post-chaise ready at dawn, and post-boys in scarlet, +and lodgings with a balcony and a goldfinch singing in a cage. My +Phyllida, will you come?" + +"Oh! I dare not, I dare not--not yet, oh lud, oh lud! how shall I look +the world in the face?" + +Vernon thought for a moment. + +"Where are your pearls kept?" + +"In my mamma's trunkmail, but Betty could give me the key--and sometimes +in her jewel case." + +"On the thirtieth," said Vernon, "there will be a ball at Daish's Rooms, +next to the _Blue Boar_ where I lodge. You will surely be there, 'tis my +lady Bunbutter's rout." + +"Yes, we shall be there," said Phyllida. + +"At two o'clock in the morning, I will have a post-chaise waiting by St. +Simon's Church corner, opposite Leonard's toy shop. Would you have the +courage to slip out, my dearest heart, my Phyllida?" + +"Oh, no, I could not travel by night." + +"'Twould be safer," urged Vernon. + +"No, no, I could not." + +"Then for your sake, I'll take the risque and have the post-chaise in +the same place at three o'clock in the afternoon of the next day. +Promise you will come." + +"No, no, I shall never be brave enough, and I must go for I hear voices, +and I must never be seen with you again. Good-bye, good-bye," and before +Vernon could stop her, Phyllida was running down the poplar alley to +escape from Curtain Garden. + +Our villain began to wonder whether she would elope after all. If she +were shy, he might secure the necklace at any rate. With slow steps, his +mind full of silken pearls, Mr. Vernon went slowly homewards. Half way +down the High Street, he passed a narrow street known as Blood Passage +from the vicinity of a large slaughter-house. He hesitated; made up his +mind, and, turning down it, came to a crooked house over a low +tumble-down doorway. He knocked fastidiously with the amber knob of his +cane. A slatternly woman, whose last night's rouge was streaked with the +matutinal ashes, opened the door. + +"Does Mr. Maggs live here?" + +"Come in," said the frowsy light o' love. + + + + +_Chapter the Twenty-second_ + +THE CURTAIN ROD + + +The satirist stood in his publisher's back parlour, and, through the +dusty glass of the partition, observed the Exquisite Mob purchase their +castigation. + +"'Tis strange," he pondered, "that mankind should be willing to pay +four-and-sixpence to be laughed at. Yet it is!" + +Mr. Lovely was awaiting a draught for one hundred guineas, and Mr. Paul +Virgin, glad of anything that would delay for a while such an unwelcome +disbursement, continued to bow and smirk over the counter as the neat +little piles of new volumes speedily diminished. At last the hour for +the midday meal arrived with a temporary lull in the storm of +purchasers. Mr. Virgin turned with a sigh into his little back parlour +and, wading carefully through the heaps of uncatalogued tomes, set out +with a wry face to unlock his walnut writing-cabinet. + +"We were hurried too much, Mr. Lovely, sir. We han't had leisure to bind +the book as it should be bound. Ye would hurry us so, Mr. Lovely." + +"You wouldn't pay me till the book was published, and I want the money, +so d----n all grumbling and be grateful that you'll make a small +fortune." + +"A small fortune! What a jester you are, Mr. Lovely. I declare you put +me in mind of the old plays, such jests!" + +Mr. Paul Virgin seated before his cabinet, was writing the draught with +tardy fingers. + +"There ye are, Mr. Lovely, and never say I don't treat ye with +consideration, with generosity, sir, for I dare swear I shall lose fifty +pounds sterling by this adventure." + +"Be d----d, you peevish rogue. Why all the world of fashion has +thronged your shop since nine o'clock this morning." + +"Yes, but it takes a deal to make a hundred guineas. Now let me make it +pounds, Mr. Lovely, sir. Do let me make it pounds." + +The latter snatched the draught from the old young bookseller and, +having read it through with much deliberation, transferred it to the +seclusion of his innermost pocket. + +After this transaction, which was effected with a singular grace, I am +sorry to add that he put his tapered finger to his tapered nose and +winked several times at the disconsolate Mr. Virgin. + +"The books are so ill-bound, look at this one, Mr. Lovely, your honour. +The leaves are falling apart already, just because you would hurry us so +terribly." + +Mr. Lovely stooped and picked up some loose pages. + +"Ay, 'tis autumn already with this copy," he said, glancing casually at +the page he held in his hand. "Why who wrote this?" + +"You did, Mr. Lovely, you did." + +"I wrote this--this d----d vile verse, this--" and Charles read aloud +the lines that so dismayed our heroine. "I wrote this damnable doggerel? +By G----, Mr. Virgin, I never wrote this." + +"Why, who else could have written it?" + +"That's what I want to know. Come back, you hound," shouted the irate +author, grabbing his publisher by the tails of his coat, just as he was +edging his way back to the shop. "Come back," he said, jerking him over +Mr. Bayle's Dictionary. "You moth-eaten vagabond, you impostor, you +thief." Charles began to belabour Mr. Virgin with a folio copy of the +_Anatomy of Melancholy_. Round and round the little back parlour he +thumped the publisher; the dust rose from innumerable ancient tomes. +Surely never were books so rudely disturbed since the niece and the +Padre flung the library of the illustrious Don Quixote de la Mancha out +of the window, and burned a hundred volumes of chivalry. + +"How came these d----d lines into my book, eh, sir, answer me that, +sir," and having dissected the _Anatomy of Melancholy_, Charles picked +up Sir Roger L'Estrange's translation of Æsop to continue the assault. + +"I don't understand, Mr. Lovely, sir. Pray desist, Mr. Lovely, your +honour, sir. The printer must have printed them." + +"'Sdeath and fury! you rascal, I know that. Who wrote them, who wrote +them?" + +In order to supply the correct twirl to this note of interrogation, +Charles flung the little bookseller to the farthest corner of his little +back parlour, at the same time arming himself with half a dozen fresh +volumes. + +Mr. Virgin cowered in the dust and cobwebs. + +"Who wrote them?" Charles demanded. + +"I don't----" + +"What!" and the--th volume of the _Gentleman's Magazine_, newly arrived +from the binder, winged its way in the direction of the quivering +bookseller. This he ducked to avoid, but even as he ducked, the five +volumes of Mr. Ozell's revision of Urquhart and Motteux' _Rabelais_ +burst over him like an exploded hand grenade. + +"Who wrote them?" + +"Truly I don't----" + +This time Mr. Prior's _Poems on Several Occasions_ carried his wig into +obscurity, and the owner clapped a hand to his head just in time to +receive the bevelled morocco edges of the _Beggar's Opera_ full on the +fingers. + +"Mr. Lovely, sir, you are too violent." + +"Violent, you dog? By G---- if you don't give the name of the son of a +w---- that wrote these damnable lines, I'll flay you alive and bind my +next edition of poems with your lousy skin." The foxy-faced old young +man commenced to wring his hands. + +"Mr. Lovely," he almost screamed. "Mr. Lovely, you're mad--go out of my +shop." + +"Who wrote those lines? Answer, or I'll break up your shop--ay! break it +up with your own sign-board. At the Sign of the Woman--at the Sign of +the Strumpet! Answer me, you lickspittle vermin, answer me." + +Charles had now seized his wretched publisher by the neck-band, and +shook him so roughly that the latter, fearing for his teeth, the most +extravagant purchase in his mean little life, began to whine. + +"A gentleman--a gentleman----" + +"Well, you misbegotten toad, I never supposed 'twas a midwife." + +"No, certainly not, Mr. Lovely, a gentleman--a gentleman." + +"His name, dog." + +"I don't know." + +"Yes, you do, answer will you." + +"He told me 'twas Amor." + +"I knew it, I knew it, you sneaking son of a b----, and he gave you +twenty guineas to print the verses." + +"No, not twenty, only ten, Mr. Lovely, on my soul." + +"On your soul! H---- l take your soul! Why you were spawned in a ditch, +you viper. So you let my honour go for ten guineas. Give them to me." + +"Oh! Mr. Lovely." + +"Give them to me." + +The miserable little old young man produced the money, unluckily for +himself, in paper. + +"Now since you love money so dearly, by heaven, you shall eat money." +And Mr. Lovely, making a bolus of the bribe, crammed it down the +reluctant bookseller's throat with his own ruler. Then our hero walked +out of the shop. + +I hope you will not deny this scene was in the true vein of heroism. +Aye! aye! 'tis full of bombast as you very properly observe, ma'am or +sir; but that is the part of a hero. He must follow the Prince of +Denmark's directions to the players. Aye! aye! and 'tis full of wind, +but so was the great Montgolfier balloon, and surely every aeronaut is a +hero, even in his descents at the tail-end of a parachute. + +So pray judge Mr. Lovely, not as a man, but as a hero, for I think +you'll do me the justice to admit I never tried to conceal his position. + +But he owes the villain a considerable sum of money. Of course he does, +and this awkward fact is perplexing him very much indeed as he strides +down Curtain High Street. To tell the truth, when he emerged from Mr. +Virgin's shop, he found that when the Fates dipped him into Styx, they +made the same mistake as Madame Thetis, with this difference, that, +whereas Achilles was left with a vulnerable heel, our hero preserved a +vulnerable conscience. + +It would have been mighty heroick to march into the _Blue Boar_, run Mr. +Vernon through the lungs, wed the injured heroine and tread after death +the golden fields of Elysium; but his silly conscience would not allow +him to kill a man to whom he was under a monetary obligation. + +So he borrowed four hundred guineas from Mr. Antony Clare, who could ill +afford the loan, and putting this sum with what he had earned from +lashing the Curtain Polls in an extra thick paper envelope, he sealed it +with his own heroick seal. This fulfilment of earthly debts he sent up +to Mr. Francis Vernon by the hand of Mr. Daish himself, and set to work +to make his conscience less vulnerable by many consecutive pints of +heroick Burgundy. + +You thought that he was going to turn out poor humanity after bullying +Mr. Virgin so heroically? Egad, ma'am or sir, you thought wrong. You +doubt anybody can be a Burgundian hero? So he can; there has been more +than one Charles the Bold of Burgundy. + +The very word is as fire to the most pusillanimous: the very thought of +its crimson depths should set us all tilting. + +'Bring me a quart bottle of Burgundy.' The phrase is like a trumpet-call +outside the keep of Paradise. + +'Bring me another quart of Burgundy.' Down goes the portcullis before +the hero's charge. + +Port may turn a man into a hero--in his dreams; yet I doubt they are too +heavy. As for Sherry, it will serve to sharpen the wits of a dried-up +attorney, but is poor stuff to weave into heroes. On Champagne, a man +will talk like the crew of the _Argo_, but there's the end of the whole +business. + +Charles drank Burgundy and I promise you some fine heroicks presently. + + + + +_Chapter the Twenty-third_ + +SPACE BETWEEN AN HEROICK COUPLET + + +A discouraging fact for the Persii of yesterday, to-day, and to-morrow, +is that, however needle-sharp their thrusted rapiers, however thorough +their castigations, Society never shows weal or scar at the end of it +all. + +Here was profligate, card-playing, snobbish, vapoured Society, quite +recovered of its whipping and, by candletime, setting out to perform, +just those very actions Persius most bitterly abuses. + +My lady Bunbutter continued to observe every Matador in her opponents' +hands, continued to rake in ill-gotten guineas, continued to use a +quadrille pack with Manille stained, Spadille nicked, Basto dog-eared, +and Ponto scratched. The Most Honble. the Marchioness of Hurricane +continued to help herself five times to the richest Fricassées; +continued to allow her lap-dog liberty of vomit in alien drawing-rooms, +continued to breathe stertorous bawdry into the prominent ears of her +Italian son-in-law--el Conde di Scirocco--while her daughter the +Contessa snored in a corner. + +Young Miss Kitcat continued to encourage the addresses of the +disreputable Captain Mann, and even went so far as to tap that military +scoundrel three times with her fan in coy avowal of his charming +naughtiness. + +The Earl of Cinderton drank five bottles of Port that very night in +order to emphasize his indifference to satire, and slept under his own +mahogany table because his lackeys below stairs were too drunk to carry +him to bed. + +In fact, nobody save the publisher of Curtain Polls displayed sign or +sense of injury. + +Our heroine indeed was vastly affected, but her misfortunes were due to +a gloss upon the original. + +As it happened, Mrs. Courteen did not discover the reference to her +daughter's indiscretion, until she was asked by an inquisitive dowager +to explain the allusion in the twelve lines. She managed to conceal her +agitation, thanks to the permanency of the newest rouge, but presently +called for her chair and arrived home a full two hours before she was +expected. + +When she sailed into the parlour Phyllida was languishingly occupied +with a blue vase of pot-pourri, and the parlour fire was trying to burn +up beneath a weight of blackened notepaper. + +The suddenness of the widow's entrance alarmed her daughter so much that +she dropped the vase, and the contents were strewn over the carpet. The +faint perfume that slowly permeated the stuffy atmosphere of the +lodgings, should have reminded Mrs. Courteen of her youth, of long June +eves and blossoms plucked awhile ago by fingers now wrinkled and stained +with years of snuff. + +Mrs. Courteen also neglected to remember that so far as ridicule went, +she had brought enough of that upon her own head. + +However, she recalled neither memory nor fact, and was properly enraged +with her daughter's light behaviour. + +"You have ruined my good name, child. I can never again look the world +in the face. How we shall be laughed at in Hampshire, for be sure that +odious Miss Talker whose sister married the Rector of Slumber, has +already despatched a copy to her brother-in-law, and you know what +chatterboxes parsons always are: I suppose because they preach, though I +should have thought, lud! that with so much breath used on Sunday, they +might be as dumb as dumb for the rest of the week, and hurt nobody, +least of all their own wives and neighbours. But there! what good is it +to educate a young woman in the way she should go? I might better have +set an example to the village clock. At all events that does possess a +face. Put down your handkerchief, hussy." + +"Dear mamma----" + +"Don't excuse yourself, pray do not excuse yourself, I doubt 'tis all my +fault. I doubt I han't looked after you, taken you to Melton Abbey, and +prayed for you, minx, yes, prayed for you. And have you got any good +from learning the collects for Sunday and the Benedicite and the +Athanasian Creed and the thirty-nine Articles? None! A pretty thing, +truly, that after so much honourable religion, I should have my daughter +pointed out as a--as what no respectable young woman is. Pointed at! And +I, your mother, am to be laughed at, mocked at, jeered at, because you +suffer every down-at-heel fop to make gross love to you, sheltered from +the eye of men--yes! vastly well--but you forget the eye of one above +and the tongue of scandal." + +"Madam, I am truly, deeply ashamed. If I promise never, never again to +cause you the slightest uneasiness, will you forgive me for once, and +take me away from this odious town?" + +"Take you away? A pretty request truly; and give every old maid in +Curtain Wells the opportunity of saying I was afraid to show my face and +your figure. Take you away, miss? No, indeed, I shall take you around. I +shall try by exhibiting you beneath your mother's protection, to give +the lie to these atrocious reports and, next year, miss, next year, we +will pay a visit to Tunbridge Wells in order to provide a husband whom +you may kiss in the privacy of your own estate, with no one but a +wandering gamekeeper any the wiser." + +"I never kissed Mr. Amor," protested Phyllida. + +"Amor? Amor? And who is Mr. Amor?" + +"He is my true love, ma'am, whom I love with all my might and main." + +"There's indecency! there's impropriety! Lud! I vow, vixen, you are as +wanton as a goddess. You love him, eh?" + +"That is my only excuse, ma'am, for having behaved so ill." + +"What business, I should like to know, has a child of fifteen----" + +"Seventeen, ma'am." + +"Fifteen, girl." + +"Then, sure, you are reckoning by leap years, ma'am." + +"Do not be impudent. I repeat, Phyllida, I will not have impudence. You +know dear Doctor Makewell particularly enjoined me not to allow +impudence. 'Your heart won't stand it, ma'am.' Cruel Phyllida, not +content with deceiving your mother, you are willing to injure her health +by impudence." + +"You think only of yourself," said Phyllida bitterly. + +"Only of myself! Oh! Phyllida, how dare you accuse me of selfishness? My +whole life since the death of your father who was a most exacting man +and would ride Pegasus, though I told him a hundred times if I told him +once that the brute would murder him. Now I've forgotten what I was +saying, and 'tis all your fault, ungrateful child. Go to bed instantly +and to-morrow I will have all your dresses starched as stiff as leather, +so that nobody, not even that spiteful Lady Jane Vane, can say I don't +take care that whatever your mind may be, your dresses leave nothing to +be desired. Go to bed, go to bed. I can't listen to you any longer. I +feel humiliated by your abominable behaviour. Judge of my feelings when +I tell you I did not dare invite either Mr. Moon or Major Tarry to +escort me home for fear the world would say I was setting you a bad +example. Now, perhaps you'll accuse me of not possessing a conscience. +Indeed, my conscience is too tender. 'Tis the tenderest part of me, +though I have one of the most delicate skins--a skin that bruises if I +ring a bell with unwonted celerity." + +"Mamma, I----" Phyllida began. + +"Pray do not say another word, you have said enough to-night to last a +lifetime. Send Betty with my bedgown worked in crimson hollyhocks and I +will try to forget this wretched experience by attempting to +ascertain--please get the playing cards--how Miss Trumper managed to +secure codille in the last hand but four of this extremely unpleasant +and unprofitable evening. Go to bed, Phyllida, don't dally. Here is +Betty. Go to bed, Phyllida." + +So Phyllida went to bedew her lavendered pillow. Anything was better +than listening to her mother's perpetual reproaches. Anything, anything +was better. Even to be betrayed. Ha! ha! now I think for the first time +you will admit Miss Phyllida to be a true heroine. Poor Clarie Harlowe! +How Phyllida had wept over her adventures and, even in the midst of +tears, how quick she had always been to thrust the forbidden volumes out +of sight when she heard her mother's step on the stairs. + +Poor Clarie Harlowe! She began to sign her name to innumerable nobly +penitent epistles. + + _Your cruelly abandoned + Phyllida. + Your wretched, but still loving + Phyllida. + Your heartbroken, hopeless + Phyllida. + Your betrayed daughter + Phyllida. + Your forsaken, but affectionate + Phyllida. + Your seduced (or was it seducted, or abduced, or abducted?) + Phyllida_. + +Oh, dear! Oh, dear! what a muddle fine language was to be sure! + +I have not yet apologized for my very ancient story, but faith! you must +blame the period and the intolerable system of female education. Amor +had either to be a Lovelace or a Joseph at a time when young maidenhood +fainted before an ardent glance. + +After all we do not now apologize for our strong silent men and +hysterical girls. Why should we? And yet for my own part I love better +your talkative blackguard; I have known so many strong silent men, and +they were all fools or Scotsmen. + +During this digression, Phyllida has fallen asleep, her face flushed and +dabbled with spent tears, her chestnut hair in golden filigree upon the +pillow and, where the sleeve of her bedgown has retreated, a rosy arm +whose little fist is clenched in maiden despair. + +Poor foolish child! Why would you fall in love? Untenanted, your dearest +gate swings in the wind to-night, but you will not mount again upon its +topmost mossy bar. You will never again view with the same excitement +the huntsmen over the hill-top; they will mean less to you; their pink +coats will be quite dingy when next you say good morning to old Nick +Runnalls the Whip. For my part, I do not believe that hot buttered +apple-pies will taste so sweet when next you eat them in the long cool +kitchen with its pot of marjoram and shaded sunlight. + +And as for your bed-chamber with casements abob with peering rosebuds, I +doubt the shelves will not soon be disturbed to make a place for new +trophies. Once you thought it a day of days when you found the +thigh-bone of a horse or the skull of a badger. They hang on the walls +now, poor relicks of an outworn delight. + +All this shall go for a balcony in the Haymarket and a goldfinch in a +gilt cage. Foolish child! Away down in Hampshire the goldfinches build +green nests in the orchard. Phyllida! sweet, headlong, heedless +Phyllida! + + * * * * * + +"I blame you, Betty. I blame you, vixen. Why you cannot model yourself +on Thomas passes my comprehension." Thus the widow. + +"She meant no harm, poor pretty lamb," protested the maid. + +"'Tis not what we mean, but what we do that counts in this world." + +"Ah! 'tis fine for thee to talk, ma'am, you take good care to amuse +yourself, but, little miss, she must dingle-dangle all day long wi' +nought to do but dream of doing nought." + +"She has her friend, Miss Morton." + +"Ay! that black-eyed hussy what pinches the maiden who dresses her lean +skimpy rat's hair. I don't take much account o' she." + +They continued in this strain for quite two hours, and would never have +stopped if the candles had endured. + +They went up to bed just as Charles, having finished his third bottle of +Burgundy, knocked with vinous assurance at the door of the Great House. + +I am not at all certain whether this adventurous action should have been +included in this chapter, for I doubt nothing more heroick was ever done +even by Hercules at the zenith of his laborious career. It was +considered rash enough to wait upon Mr. Ripple in the middle of his +siesta. A royal Duke once succeeded in gaining admittance, if very +little else; but to wait upon Mr. Ripple when his flambeaux strewed the +steps, when the orange light in his porch was winking on its way to +annihilation, when the grey Angora cat had settled herself for repose, +when not even a mouse dared scamper in the wainscot, and when Mr. Ripple +himself sat amid the ruins of his complexion--this was defying the +lightning and inviting Jove's revenge indeed. + +Nevertheless, fortified by three bottles of a vintage that held the +heart of France in its crimson depths, Charles recklessly knocked at the +front door of the Great House, not once, but twice or thrice, with added +vigour in the repetition. The sound sent the Beau's taper fingers a full +two inches deep into a pomade compounded of some particularly fine +Provençal almonds and the fat of foxes, the whole famous for removing +those pectinated wrinkles that cluster at the edge of middle-aged lips. +The fragrant grease, wedged beneath his nails, caused him to press thumb +to fingers with an exclamation of fastidious displeasure. + +The clatter of the second and third assault froze him to his chair with +a sense of impending calamity. + +Gog and Magog were fast asleep dreaming their gaudy dreams of Africa. +Mrs. Binn, Mr. Ripple's intelligent cook, was snoring in the starlight +of an upper chamber; Polly and Molly, Mr. Ripple's equally intelligent +maids, were dreaming discreet dreams also in an upper chamber. Mr. Mink +alone of the royal household was awake, engaged upon the overwhelmingly +tricky job of frizzling his master's newest wig, and therefore quite +unable, during this capillary crisis, to attend to the affairs of the +world or the devil, knocked either never so loudly. + +Consequently Mr. Ripple had to open the door himself, for if the +knocking were to continue, many heads might peer from the Crescent +windows, and the morning's rumour of the occurrence damage his +authority. + +It is characteristick of the Beau that in this critical juncture of +affairs, he preserved his faculties so intact, that he was able without +affectation to choose deliberately between a dressing-gown of flowered +damask and a more diaphanous wrapper of dove-grey China silk. In +deference to the season he selected the latter. + +As he passed the door of his third dressing-room, he could see Mr. Mink, +apparently unconscious of anything untoward in the air, blowing with +steady breaths upon a remarkably hot pair of curling-tongs. The calm +demeanour of his gentleman restored whatever was still lacking to Mr. +Ripple's perfect equilibrium of mind. + +With gentle steps, he descended the quiet stairs and, candlestick in +hand, proceeded to draw back the cunningly wrought bolts of the front +door. + +"Mr. Ripple, I must speak to you," said Charles. + +"Charles," said the Beau, "this visit is either vastly important or--it +is vastly impertinent. Pray, what is your business, sir?" + +"Business?" repeated Charles, on whom the effort of concentration was +beginning to tell slightly. "Business?" + +"Yes, business, sir, business; for I presume you are not situated on my +doorstep for pleasure." + +"I want to speak to you." + +"Come to-morrow." + +"Nay, sir, I must speak with you now. I'm in a devilish mess and need +the advice of a man who has seen--who has seen----" + +"Well, sir?" said the Beau, shading his candle in such a way that the +pallid flickering rays lit up the young man's countenance. + +"D----! I don't know, Ripple, but for God's sake don't stand there with +that infernal candle dancing all over my face. Let me come in." + +Whether it was the note of misery in our hero's voice or his drawn face +or merely a whim of a great man's naturally eccentrick mind that made +the Beau beckon Charles to follow him upstairs to the tall white +drawing-room, where even still the fire glowed dully, will never be +known. Any way, beckon to him he did, and having set down the taper on +the high mantelpiece, seated himself beside the fire and began +meditatively to toast his embroidered morocco pumps. + +There they sat in the great drawing-room, the King and his Heir +Presumptive, and very ghostly they looked in the wan light, and very +unreal the whole experience seemed to Charles in after life. + +"'Tis about this book." + +"What book?" + +"This satire." + +"You wrote it?" + +"Aye," with great weariness. + +"_You_ wrote it? 'Foregad, Charles, I should never have believed that." + +"But I never--I never wrote those lines." + +"What lines?" Mr. Ripple, having admitted much, would admit no more. + +"About Miss Courteen and the Maze, and the whole d----d, d----d, d---- +d----" + +No substantive was strong enough to suit the emphatick epithets thrice +repeated. + +"And who, may I ask, was the author of those graceful stanzas?" + +"I know, but--but, Ripple--I owed the blackguard money--the Chinese +Masquerade--I knew his name all the while--if harm comes of this affair, +'tis my fault--but by G----, I'll call him out, yes, I'll call him out, +I'll call him out, I'll call him out, and I'll----" + +"Go to bed," said Mr. Ripple peremptorily. + +"What d'ye mean?" + +"You fool, you're drunk. We'll talk of this to-morrow. Good night, Mr. +Lovely. By the way, who was the author of those graceful stanzas?" + +"Oh! h----! Amor. Vernor--Vernon. Anon! Oh, h----!" + +"What proof have you of this?" + +"Proof, eh? what d'ye say--proof--ha-ha-ha! proof! Why the proof of the +pudding's in the eating. Isn't that so? But I've found, I've found the +author, and I'll walk with him in Curtain Mead--in Curtain Mead by +moonlight, eh? and by the powers, you shall act for me." + +"Sir, this flippancy is intolerable." + +"Who's flippant--who's intol--erol--erable, sir? I say I'll pay him with +six inches of smallsword." + +"You forget my rules, Mr. Lovely." + +"Rules? Rules? What's the good of rules? He has insulted me and her." + +I think you will agree with me that Charles was drunk enough to be very +undignified. Mr. Lovely Senior appeared again, maudlin and quarrelsome. +The Beau, who remembered him, winced at the resemblance. + +"This interview is very repugnant to my sense of decorum," he protested. +"I beg you will take your leave, sir. The whole affair needs the +elucidation of the morning; this candle is insufficient. Moreover, the +hour is late; the fire is low; I make it a rule to be asleep by +midnight whenever possible." + +"There you go again!" cried Charles, jumping up and walking with +feverish gestures and unsteady legs round about the room. "Rules! Rules! +Rules! 'Foregad, Sir, I tell you, you cannot make rules for life and +death." + +"But you can make many excellent rules for living and dying. One of the +best of these is moderation in liquor." + +Charles went back to the _Blue Boar_ not quite sure whether he had told +Beau Ripple a very great deal or nothing at all. He remembered so little +of what he had said that next morning he came to the conclusion that it +was nothing at all. He was glad of this, for somehow when the effects of +the Burgundy wore off, he did not feel disposed to attempt the barricade +of the Great little Man's modish prejudice. Anything in the nature of an +intrigue would be distasteful to such an emotional ascetick. + +So Charles stayed late in bed on Tuesday morning and took no advantage +of the invitation grimly issued the night before. + +In the afternoon, being dejected in spirits, and finding all the world +gone a-hunting, or a-fishing, or a-wenching, he betook himself to the +_World Turned Upside Down_, a noted house for old red wines. While he +sat in the taproom discussing life with an elderly bagman, one of the +hostlers of the _Blue Boar_ to whom he had confided his destination +brought him a note. + +"D---- his eyes," said Charles, crumpling the paper to a perfumed ball, +and flicking it towards the undulating surface of the elderly bagman's +rubied nose. + +"D---- his eyes," and, turning to his target, he inquired whether the +latter would drink Port or Burgundy. + + + + +_Chapter the Twenty-fourth_ + +DAISH'S ROOMS[2] + + +Mr. Jeremy Daish, as I told you many pages back, was remarkably like a +Cremona violin. Conceive then this elderly instrument of the Muses +making a final inspection of his polished floor, preparatory to the +invasion of my lady Bunbutter's red-heeled rout. + + [2] I went into Daish's Rooms the other day, for they still + exist as the storehouse of a prosperous ironmonger who is not above + unbending at Christmas time so far as to display a variety of choice + knick-knacks wrought by the Curtain Wells Amateur Copper-Beaters' + Association. The famous frieze carved by an Italian immigrant still + exists, and makes a suitable background for the exhibition of patent + mouse-traps. Among all the brass gongs and Japanese flower-pots, above + the mowing machines and oil-stoves of varied price and power I was + pleased to detect the old iron hooks whence long ago hung the gilt + mirrors that held the unimpaired reflections of this gay history's + characters. For a moment, amid the bleak utility of the stores, I half + fancied the swish of a broidered petticoat and the whisper of a painted + fan, smelt Eau de Chypre and heard the Minuet in _Ariadne_. I shall not + visit Daish's Rooms again; the ghosts have too much power to wring my + heart with the tears and laughter of spent joys. + + "It's a very inconvenient store-room," said the dapper manager, "I think + Mr. Bugloss intends to pull it down next year." + +Everything portended a successful evening's entertainment. The hautboys, +the flutes, the fiddles and the harp were drinking hot negus extra +strong in order to spur them to unwonted achievements of melody. +Prudence and Deborah, Mr. Daish's comely daughters, who never appeared +in the galleries of the _Blue Boar_ so that their attendance on +occasions like the present might possess the charm at once of +condescension and novelty, were busily puffing their caps and smoothing +their pinners, and from time to time glancing in the direction of the +gilt mirrours just to see that the wax candles were not forming ominous +shrouds liable to mar the gaiety of my lady Bunbutter's agreeable +entertainment. + +Waiters came and peeped through a door which probably led to the +supper-room and the three footmen in black plush laced with silver braid +were engaged in a dignified consultation over the glittering knobs of +their tall Malacca canes. + +The wheels of the first coach crackle suddenly above the murmurous quiet +of preparation. Tremendously hooped and highly wigged, my lady Bunbutter +has arrived and is entirely approving of the arrangements made by Mr. +Jeremy Daish for the fitting entertainment of a distinguished and +fashionable company. + +Here comes the latter very splendid, prodigiously well-bred and +thoroughly determined to criticize the musick and the supper and my lady +Bunbutter herself with merciless perseverance. Here comes the Most +Honourable the Marquis of Hurricane and his eldest son the Earl of +Squall and his second son Lord Augustus Wind and Lady Mary Wind and Lady +Winifred Wind, and his son-in-law El Conde de Scirocco and the sleepy +Contessa, but lud! my lady, her ladyship was unable to appear and begs +to send her apologies. Her dog, my lady, has developed a quinsy, most +unaccountable. + +Here come the Earl of Cinderton and the Honourable Mr. Harthe-Brusshe, +and the Lady Angela Tongs, his married daughter. + +Here comes Mrs. Courteen and Miss Phyllida Courteen with Major +Constantine Tarry and Mr. Gregory Moon close behind. + +Here is young Miss Kitcat with Captain Mann who for all he was so +disreputable was nevertheless tantamount to the success of the Cotillon. + +Here come old General Morton and Miss Susan Morton. + +In fact, here comes everybody of any importance in Curtain Wells; and +the fiddlers are tuning up. + +Yet for all the fiddlers are inviting the world to dance, for all the +world declares the whole entertainment promises to be a grand success +(though not so grand as it should be, considering the ample means at the +disposal of my lady Bunbutter whose father was able to leave a large +fortune to a milliner in Soho), her ladyship herself casts many an +anxious glance towards the entrance. The courtiers have arrived but the +King is still absent, and absent he is likely to remain having caught a +slight nasal catarrh from his contact with the night weather, brought +about by Mr. Lovely. For this story his absence was even more important +in its consequences than my Lady Bunbutter dreamed, since if the Beau +had been present on this occasion I doubt he would have persuaded our +heroine to give up all thoughts of elopements, seductions, stratagems +and rope-ladder courtships. As it fell out, there was nobody to +encourage the unromantick side of her, that is to say, nobody whose +opinion she could honestly respect. + +Mr. Francis Vernon had hired the old dancing hall for a midnight party +of farewell; and the old dancing hall still possessed an oak door which +opened on a long corridor which in its turn opened into the new and +improved dancing hall of Daish's Rooms. Halfway along this corridor was +a recessed glasshouse now bare of vegetation, bleak and unfriendly in +the chilly moonlight but a very convenient place for the renewal of +true-lovers' vows when one of the lovers had not been invited to my Lady +Bunbutter's rout. So in the press of the opening gavottes, as Phyllida +passed down the side of the room to wait beside her mother's empty +chair, long white fingers plucked at the black silk mittens that netted +her soft little hand. Phyllida started and, looking up, saw the fingers +withdraw themselves through the space left by a half-opened door. + +She looked round in affright, but the fiddlers were busy over the gentle +tune and all the world of scandal was dancing or about to dance. The +thrill of his touch gave her strength enough to make up her mind and, +without more than a moment's hesitation, she slipped through the doorway +whose opening was obscured by greenery. + +A solitary candle lit the long corridor with fitful draughty light. + +"Come," said Vernon; and, taking his arm, she went down the passage +which seemed to stretch far away--to ruin perhaps, but the end was not +perceptible owing to the scarce illumination. + +Soon they were alone in the chilly glasshouse with the moon and a star +or two besides. + +"To-morrow, my dearest life," he whispered. + +"No, no," said Phyllida. + +"To-morrow," he went on, "a post-chaise will be waiting by the toyshop, +and on the seat a riding hood of peacock blue that to-day I bought for +my love." + +"No! No! Amor, dear Amor, I am afraid." + +"Afraid, dear heart, afraid?" + +Far off sounded the musick and far off the laughter of the world. + +"Afraid that misery will come of it." + +"Misery, my beloved? I will cherish you for ever." + +"Amor! Amor! I'm afraid. Something, I cannot say what, I cannot explain +my feelings, but something frightens me, I feel--oh! I feel as if I were +walking in a dark wet garden. I feel as if--as if the laurels and the +evergreens held a knife." + +Vernon clasped her to him. + +"My dear and my dear, they hold no more than an arrow; the arrow that +has pierced our hearts." + +Certainly our villain was play-acting, but he was his own audience and +that juxtaposition is as near to sincerity as even your hero attains. + +"You won't betray your Phyllida?" + +The appeal caught fire from the flaming cheeks of a maid and burned a +way direct, poignant, passionate, right through the lustre and tinsel of +his emotional costume. + +"You won't betray your Phyllida?" The question was such an one as +circulating libraries knew very well. It was asked by many a +contemporary Musidora or Clarinda of fiction. Yet so tremulous were the +lips that asked it, lips frail as rose-leaves and, withal, ardent as +wine, that Vernon shuddered. For the first time in his life he had +raised a force. He was at home with Ranelagh romps, with patched +beauties of Vauxhall, mistresses of intrigue whose fans had become a +part of their bodies, or better, whose bodies were no more than the +appendage of their fans, light, airy things where Love danced in a mask +and could be shut up at will. + +Now for the first time he stared into eyes which held immortality. He +saw himself Point de Vise but intolerably diminished. + +Vernon noticed that the cheek nearer to him flamed more crimson and for +a while he was troubled by the mystery of Love's birth. Elation swung +him to the skies and, catching Phyllida to his heart, he whispered of +constancy, swore that love would endure for ever and hardly knew himself +for a liar. + +He never spoke again of pearls, and from that moment truly desired her +for the youth and the mystery of herself. + +With a pang of tenderness he let her go, watched her hurry down the +corridor like a crimson Autumn leaf that is blown along by the wind. By +the little door she looked back at him, and from the tips of her fingers +sped elfin kisses which on the wings of the musick of flutes and fiddles +were borne in grace and beauty. + +She had promised. With a sigh Mr. Francis Vernon went back to +superintend the arrangements for his farewell party. She had promised, +and, as she slipped unobserved into the glitter and heat of Daish's +famous Rooms, never seemed like one who has stood a long while in +moonlight. + +What mattered the censorious world? The softness of his black velvet +sleeve thrilled her, and, forgetting all else, she began to build her +house of dreams. What a house it was, with casements that looked on +every month of the marching years. Now it was December when the +snowflakes were falling. Down the corridor she and her lover moved in +the grey light, but the casements were lined with ferns and stars and +jewels of frost, so they sought Spring in the changing fire-gardens of +burning logs. February went by with her showers and her celandines, her +snowdrops and thrushes that sing on bare branches. That casement in her +house of dreams was gilded round and the sill carved with posies and +true-lovers' knots, for through it she had seen Love for the first time. +March came in by night with a great noise of wind, yet even in the gusty +darkness she could put out her hands to touch a velvet sleeve as black +as the gloom enclosed by the open lattice. Every casement in her house +of dreams was full of delight, even the quaint little window at the very +end of the corridor whose ledge was the haunt of drifted leaves. In the +far-off autumn he would still be by her side. + +Somebody asked her to step a minuet, yet while her body danced, while +her feet kept tune to the twinkling rhythm, while her fan fluttered to +mortal harmonies, her soul was away with Love--God knows the spot, but +'twas somewhere mighty near the top of this green world. Now she was +rocking a wooden cradle while the wind in the wide black chimney crooned +an echo to the old nursery song she was singing. Ah! sir or madam, when +a young maiden starts to build her house of dreams, I think, if she be a +wise maid, she builds the nursery first of all. + +This wonderful house had a number of clocks, tall clocks, short clocks, +thin clocks, fat clocks, round clocks, square clocks, clocks on the +wall, clocks on the mantelpiece, clocks in the corners; and every clock +was ticking away to a tune of its own, for in the house of dreams there +was never a moment that did not deserve perpetual commemoration. + +Somebody asked her to step a gavotte. At the end of the garden of this +wonderful house was a green wicket, and when you had walked through a +coppice of birches and wild raspberries that ripen with the corn, you +found yourself on the London road. It ran straight as a dart over hill +and down dale, through villages whose cottages were only built to stare +at the gay equipages that rattled past, for nothing alive was visible +save a few geese on a blue and white pond beneath a blue and white sky. +Phyllida's mind was a book of old wives' tales and her London was the +golden London of Dick Whittington. + +Fled were all the outraged heroines of dog-eared novels in greasy +circulation. The long reproaches, stilted protestations, vows, regrets +and declarations had vanished. The nodding spinsters behind country +counters who selected the literature of their clients and declared how +affecting was this tale, how full of sensibility was that one, had +gradually lost all definite shape like the volumes they doled out so +assiduously. Fled, too, with the vapours of young maidenhood, were some +of the sweets. Nevertheless I doubt there was not a soul to regret the +old Phyllida save perhaps Betty and Dick Combleton, the Squire's +youngest son away down in Hampshire. + +Miss Sukey Morton began to talk to her of young Tom Chalkley. She told +how he had passed their house, how he had looked up at the window, and +how by the greatest ill luck she happened to be rather pale that +morning. She babbled on about the imagined progress of an affair which +had never truly existed. To Phyllida who should have been sympathetick, +it was rather wearisome chatter. Suddenly Miss Morton shocked her dear +Courteen very much by asking if she had discovered who was satirized in +those twelve lines beginning ... Phyllida interrupted with a curt +negative, so curt that her darling Morton regarded her with black-eyed +curiosity. + +"And how should I know, Sukey, how should I know?" + +"My dearest Miss Courteen, there is no need to be angry about a simple +question." + +"These discoveries are all so low," complained Phyllida. + +"Oh, vastly low, though for my part I think the hussy deserves censure +since she has made every young woman ridiculous." + +With this commentary Miss Morton left her friend, and Phyllida, +wondering all the while if she knew the whole affair, was more than ever +firmly determined to elope to-morrow afternoon with her Amor. + + + + +_Chapter the Twenty-fifth_ + +QUARTS OF BURGUNDY + + +The old ballroom of the famous Daish's Rooms looked mighty cheerful on +the evening of my Lady Bunbutter's rout and Mr. Francis Vernon's +farewell entertainment. + +The circular mahogany table with finely carved claw legs shone like the +fine old piece of Spanish wood it was, that is to say, wherever it could +secure a clear space for shining, being almost entirely clouded over by +innumerable dishes of gruit and nuts, plates, silver knives and silver +forks, two large horns of snuff and half-dozen pairs of branched +candlesticks, while in the very centre surrounded by lesser fruits stood +a magnificent pineapple. + +Round the table stood a dozen or more solid Windsor wheelback chairs +that were warranted to stand firm, though the fattest gentleman that +ever sat down to dessert tipped perpetually back on them to the utmost +limit of his balance. A magnificent fire blazed and roared in the +hearth, and round the walls were hung prints of racehorses, cock-fights, +steeplechases, prize bullocks, and fat sheep, with bills of sale beneath +them and announcements of forthcoming diversions for the young gentlemen +of the _Blue Boar_ and the more wealthy agriculturalists of the +neighbourhood. + +It was ten o'clock of a wet windy night and the chairmen were growing +quarrelsome as they stamped up and down in the street below. + +Mr. Jeremy Daish had been rather unwilling for Mr. Vernon to give his +party on a night when he himself would be unable to superintend the +commissariat owing to his services being required for my Lady +Bunbutter's rout close at hand. However, he had left the strictest +injunctions with John the senior waiter to carry off at once all empty +bottles in order to the protection of the Curtain Wells watch, which was +wont to suffer considerably in their persons on such an hilarious +occasion as a party in the old ballroom of Daish's Rooms. + +The host stood with his back to the fire complacently surveying the +preparations. Vernon's extraction was somewhat ambiguous, and his father +may or may not have been the fine gentleman that his mother swore he +was. So, as he stood regarding the well-covered table and the tall +armchair at the head of it where he would presently take his seat, a +distinct feeling of elation seized him at the prospect of being in a +position to pass the decanter round a circle of such undeniable +breeding. He went over their names--names famous on many a battlefield +and many a hunting field. They belonged to a world of broad acres and +park gates and double lodges and Corinthian hunting-boxes. They were +revered at home by many peasants and wore the mantle of life with an air +of easy proprietorship. They possessed something like the dignified +stability of the Church of England. They were a force, an institution, a +product of insular civilization. In fact, they were English Gentlemen, +and Mr. Vernon contemplated their existence with great self-satisfaction. +He, too, was an English Gentleman, he reassured himself. It was the +consciousness of being one which gave him that pleasant sense of +superiority to the rest of the world when he found himself in the +congenial company of his peers. + +Yet poor Mr. Vernon (I am rather sorry for poor Mr. Vernon) could not +conceal from his shrewd self that he had no business to be at all unduly +elated at the prospect of entertaining young Tom Chalkley of the Foot, +Lieutenant Blewforth of the _Lively_, Mr. Harry Golightly of Campbell's +Grey Dragoons, Mr. Anthony Clare, little Peter Wingfield, Jack +Winnington, the Honourable Mr. Harthe-Brusshe, my Lord Squall, Lord +Augustus Wind and Mr. Charles Lovely. + +It was Mr. Vernon's note of invitation to the last which had caused him +to d---- Vernon's hazel eyes, in the taproom of the _World turned Upside +Down_. Presently came a sound of laughter and careless talk as the young +gentlemen of the _Blue Boar_ came swaggering in. Was it merely a sense +of eccentricity that made the host fancy he detected a note of +condescension in their loud and jovial greeting to himself? Probably. + +The early guests talked, as early guests always will, with half an eye +on the clock and the other half on the table. + +"Squall is late," said Vernon. + +"Squall coming?" inquired Blewforth. + +"L-l-ook out for squalls," stammered little Peter Wingfield. + +"Squall's an ass," said Mr. Golightly. + +"So is his brother," said Chalkley. + +"Always was," said Clare. + +"Wind is coming too," said Vernon. "Augustus, that is, and +Harthe-Brusshe." + +The young gentlemen of the _Blue Boar_ looked peevish; it was tactless +of that fellow Vernon to keep them waiting for three such asses as +these. + +"They are late," said Blewforth very emphatically. + +"I'm expecting Lovely, too," said Vernon almost humbly. Somehow or other +he felt the slightest inclination to apologize, exactly what for he did +not know. + +"Charles is always late. He's a d----d careless fellow," said Mr. +Golightly, and one felt the final judgment upon Charles had been passed. + +"Charles is not jigging with old Butterbun, is he?" asked little Peter +Wingfield. + +"Oh! the d----l! not he," said Blewforth. "He's found a red-cheeked +hussy with whom he's carrying on an intrigue." + +"Eh, what! Never?" exclaimed a chorus. + +"What's his charmer's name?" said Chalkley. + +"Burgundy," replied Blewforth with a great guffaw that made all the +glasses and goblets and decanters on the big oak dresser ring an echo. + +"I never thought Charles cared much for wine or women," said Golightly. + +"Nor he don't," Blewforth put in. "Nor he don't. That's what beats me. +But I tell you I saw Charles Lovely sitting in the taproom of the _World +Turned Upside Down_. Nobody goes there unless he wishes to be drunk by +nightfall. Eh, boys? So depend on't when Charles does arrive, he'll +arrive drunk. But why? That's the riddle." + +"Perhaps the fair Courteen has slighted him," said Chalkley. "Serve him +right. He had no business to take himself so seriously. 'Tis very +fashionable to be a poet, but egad! 'tis devilish low to behave like +one." + +"Is that Miss Phyllida Courteen?" said Vernon, trying to speak as though +he had read her name in the list of visitors published every week by the +proprietors of the _Curtain Wells Chronicle and Pump Room +Intelligencer_. + +"Aye! d'ye know her? Blooming seventeen with a short upper lip, blue +eyes and hair the colour of that chestnut gelding, What's His Name sold +'tother day." + +"Very poor animal," said Golightly. + +"Not at all. I disagree with you." + +"Very poor animal indeed," said Golightly. + +"It fetched a very pretty price." + +"Oh," said Mr. Golightly and the argument was over. + +"Does she carry a white swansdown muff?" asked Vernon. + +"Who?" + +"Miss Courteen." + +"Eh? Oh! I don't know," and since Mr. Chalkley's tone of voice implied a +lack of further interest on the subject, the subject was dropped. + +"My belief is," said Lieutenant Blewforth loudly, and moving as he spoke +in the direction of the fireplace. "Egad, Vernon would you take it +unkind if I rang for a tankard of ale? I'm as dry as a gunner in action. +My belief is," he went on spreading his coat-tails to the genial warmth, +"my belief is----" + +"Gadslife! B-B-lewforth," interrupted Peter Wingfield, "pray get on with +the recitation of your c-creed." + +"Don't get excited, little man," said Blewforth. "My belief is Charles +wrote that book." + +"What book?" said Chalkley, whose acquaintance with the literature of +the day was remarkably small. + +"Curtain Polls." + +"Never heard of it," said Mr. Chalkley. + +"Rubbish!" said Clare, entering suddenly into the conversation. +"Rubbish!" and yet Mr. Anthony Clare was one of the two people in the +room who knew for certain that Charles was, indeed, the author of that +satirical trifle. + +"It has caused a terrible amount of talk," Blewforth went on. "My old +aunt Seaworthy to whom I paid my annual visit yesterday tells me that +all the world is very much hurt at being treated with such freedom." + +"I d-don't see why Charles should take to drink because he's wrote a +book." This was from Peter Wingfield. + +"Ripple may have been annoyed. He's confoundedly touchy about a little +matter like that and Charles thinks Ripple is a demigod." + +The Earl of Squall, Lord Augustus Wind and the Honourable Mr. +Harthe-Brusshe came into the room at that moment, and Mr. Vernon, who +had been feeling a little outside the intimacy of the company, made +haste to propose that, everybody save Charles being present, the wine +should be brought in. + +Everybody agreed that nothing fitted in more exactly with their wishes +than Mr. Vernon's timely suggestion and everybody selected his chair +with that preciseness which stamps the beginning of an entertainment. +Everybody sat down and the nuts were circulated. + +Presently John entered with twelve quart-bottles of Burgundy on a huge +tray. All of them had been gently warmed before a slow fire, and all of +them were wiped clean of the cobwebs and dust of the several years spent +in the ample cellars of the _Blue Boar_. + +Vernon had prepared a short oration for the entrance of the liquor and +while John reverently stationed a bottle at everybody's right hand, he +made haste to deliver it. Perhaps his utterance was a shade too +reminiscent of one of the many prologues spoken by his mother at the +theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields, but that did not matter since nobody in +the room was old enough to remember that lady's inimitable delivery of +Mr. Dryden's rhymed Alexandrines. + +"The life of Burgundy," said Mr. Vernon, "is very like the life of a +butterfly. At first the grape or caterpillar-grub, feeding upon the +richness of the soil, then the cocoon or bottle stage when it languishes +for many years in darkness below the earth until--until it emerges +glowing with a thousand varied tints of crimson--and, like a butterfly, +wings its airy way into the brain of mankind." + +The company, with the exception of my Lord Squall who was sometimes +taken in the old family coach of the Winds to hear his father speak in +the House of Lords, were not accustomed to lengthy speeches and looked +at each other bashfully. + +Lieutenant Blewforth with nautical tact saved the situation by drinking +Mr. Vernon's health in a very large and brimming pint bumper which he +emptied in two sonorous gulps. + +As everybody else proceeded to follow this good example, everybody was +soon very cheerful, and the advent of the second dozen of bottles was +mightily applauded. + +However, the master mind was still absent and the drinking, though +steady, had not yet enlivened the company to uproarious spirits. + +"Where's Charles?" bellowed Blewforth munching a devilled biscuit. +"Where's that fellow Charles. Demme! He'll never catch us up at this +rate and we shall have him sober as a post-captain when we are beginning +to amuse ourselves." + +"What, you rogue," cried our hero entering just as the Lieutenant +bellowed his inquiry. "I wager five guineas, I am two bottles ahead of +any gentleman present." In order to clinch the bet he flung his purse in +the direction of the table. The gauntlet snuffed in its course two of +the candles and fell with a plump into a piping bowl of punch splashing +Tom Chalkley as high as his stock and imparting to His Majesty's uniform +an odour of hot squeezed lemons that lasted for quite a couple of weeks. + +"Charles! Charles!" bellowed the burly Lieutenant, "Huzza for Charles!" + +The latter lurched into the vacant chair next to his friend Tony without +a word to the host. However, nobody observed this breach of good +manners, because everybody was anxiously leaning over to fill every +glass in reach of the newcomer as a preliminary to drinking his very +good health a score of times, without a heeltap to any one of them. + +"Z--ds! Charles. Where have you been?" said Chalkley. + +"Drinking old Burgundy with a rogue of a bagman who looked like Ranelagh +Garden en Fête, for his face was illuminated with every hue of crimson +lamp and I stake my wig his nose was as large and round as the Rotunda." + +With the arrival of Charles, everybody woke up and there were calls for +a song. The gallant Lieutenant was the first to respond with my Lord +Dorset's _To you fair ladies now at Land_. + +Let me remind you of that fine old ballad: + + _To you fair ladies now at Land + We men at Sea indite; + But first would have you understand + How hard it is to write_. + +"Not at all," cried Charles. + + _The Muses now, and Neptune too, + We must implore to write to you;_ + +"and chorus, gentlemen, please," + + _With a Fa, la, la, la, la, la + The Muses now, and Neptune too, + We must implore to write to you_. + +and so on to the last + + _With a Fa, la, la, la, la + Let us hear of no Inconstancy + We have too much of that at Sea_. + +And a proper noise everybody made with the _Fa la-la-la-la_ accentuating +every _Fa_ with a bottle and every _La_ with one of Mr. Jeremy Daish's +handsome silver spoons. + +The song being a very lengthy one allowed everybody plenty of time to +drink another quart of Burgundy before its rousing conclusion, and if +the company cheered loudly at the beginning, by heavens, they cheered so +loudly at the end that the noise was heard above the fiddlers in the new +ballroom of Daish's famous Rooms and put everybody out of step in the +last Cotillon notwithstanding the heroick efforts of the disreputable, +but nimble-footed Captain Mann. + +Then Charles gave a new ballad (new that is in the reign of Queen Anne) +sung first at Messieurs Brook and Hellier's Club at the Temple Tavern in +Fleet Street, but slightly altered by him to suit present company, + + _Since I'm in the Chair and every one here + Appears in gay humour and easy; + Say, why should not I, a new Ballad try, + Bright Brethren o' the Bottle to please ye. + This wine is my theme, this is all on's Esteem, + For Jeremy Daish cannot wrong us; + Let them get Wealth who keeps us in health. + By bringing neat liquor among us_. + +(with chorus of last two lines repeated). + + _Each Vintner of late, has got an Estate + By brewing and Sophistication + With cyder and sloes, they've made a d----d dose, + Has poisoned one half of the nation_. + +and so on until + + _Now God Bless the King, Peers, Parliament Men, + And keep 'em like us in true concord; + And grant that all those, who dare be his foes, + At Tyburn may swing in a strong cord; + We'll Loyalists be, and bravely agree + With lives and estates to defend her--him + So then we'll not care come Peace or come War + For Lewis, the Pope, or Pretender._ + +"Ah!" said Mr. Antony Clare whose father had been a Jacobite, "you've +spoilt more than the rhyme by the last word." + +This treasonable remark was the signal for more noise than ever because +all the young gentlemen of the _Blue Boar_ who held His Majesty King +George's commission felt bound to uphold the honour of the Royal Navy +and the British Army by flinging a large number of Spanish nuts at the +head of the disloyal Clare who retorted by emptying a whole ram's horn +of snuff over Mr. Golightly so that for a while nothing was to be heard +but vollies of gigantick sneezes. Exhaustion reigned for a moment, but +presently the sound of hustling and bustling in the street outside +roused everybody to fresh vigour of mischief. + +My Lady Bunbutter's rout was over, and those of the Exquisite Mob who +had been invited were standing on tiptoe on the steps of Daish's Rooms +peering into the darkness and blinking in the glare of waving flambeaux. +The chairmen were so busy quarrelling over their positions that they +paid no attention to their fares and everything was in a very great +state of confusion indeed; nor was the clamour abated by Mr. Lovely +cleverly hitting the long red ear of the nearest chairmen with a +Barcelona nut because the injured chairman instantly floored a linkboy +who was standing by his side and the linkboy's torch severely burnt the +legs of Lord Cinderton's tall footman in his ash-grey livery and the +tall footman with a yell of dismay punched a flat-footed waiter on the +nose and the flat-footed waiter butted an inoffensive fop in the middle +of his sprigged silk waistcoat and the inoffensive fop struck out with +his tasselled cane left and right with such force that presently +everybody in the street below was fighting with his next door neighbour +to the entire delight of the young gentlemen from the _Blue Boar_. Their +next diversion was to empty the dregs of the Burgundy bottles upon the +heads of the crowd, whereupon all the ladies of Curtain Wells screamed +very loud to see such a number of bloody polls and faces. + +Then Charles snatched off little Peter Wingfield's tie-wig and, having +set fire to it, began to drop tufts of burning hair out of the window, +which tufts made an immense smell and blew round and round in the gusty +March air in a very alarming manner. + +Little Peter Wingfield, having lost his own wig and being too little to +snatch Lovely's wig, mounted one of the stout Windsor wheelback chairs +and, taking down the print of a famous cock-fight extracted the hook +from the wall and laid an embargo on the black silk ties of three of his +friends in order to fish from the window for another wig. He succeeded +in catching the Marquis of Hurricane's to the intense delight of his +undutiful sons the Earl of Squall and Lord Augustus Wind. Of course +after such a successful display of angling, everybody else had to try +his hand with the picture hook and two more wigs were captured but +proved so frowsy that they were burnt immediately. However, Mr. Chalkley +caught the hem of Lady Jane Vane's petticoat just as she was stepping +into her chair and would without doubt have injured that virgin's modest +reputation for ever, had the garment been made of more durable stuff; as +it was, the hook would not hold and nothing was disclosed beyond what is +allowed by any wet day. + +Then Mr. Daish came hurrying in and begged their honours to desist +because the watch was coming, and what Mr. Ripple would say when he +heard of the riot he did not dare surmize. + +Poor Mr. Daish bowed and scraped and was so full of excuses that all the +young gentlemen felt quite sorry for him and put ham seat foremost into +the biggest bowl of punch in order to drown his troubles, whereupon Mr. +Daish grew quite cholerick and vowed he would never let one of 'em enter +his inn again and made such ado that the culprits all protested he was +more noisy than anybody else, and offered to fetch in the watch and have +him arrested in his own bowl of punch. + +But presently they lifted him out and subscribed ten guineas by sending +round Mr. Golightly's hat; and poor Mr. Daish was more full of excuses +than ever and hoped that anything he had said that could by the most +spirited gentleman be considered derogatory would be forgiven and +ascribed to the dismay caused by the hot punch scalding his hinder parts +and goading him beyond the bounds of polite remonstrance. + +Everybody vowed that withered little Daish was a prince of good fellows +and begged him to buy himself a new pair of cinnamon cloth breeches as +soon as possible, while Thomas Chalkley of the Foot created much +amusement by shouting that he was holding Dunquerque against the French. +In order to hold Dunquerque against the French, it was very necessary +that Mr. Chalkley should fling out of the window nineteen quart-bottles +of Burgundy in quick succession, whereupon Lieutenant Blewforth of the +_Lively_ not to be outdone vowed Portobello must be taken and proceeded +to take it by climbing with amazing dexterity on to the mantelpiece +armed only with a long Churchwarden's pipe. Yet notwithstanding all the +efforts of Ensign Chalkley to hold Dunquerque against the French, +notwithstanding that he was valiantly assisted by Cornet Golightly of +the Grey Dragoons, who led a desperate cavalry charge round the whole +room mounted upon one of the stout Windsor chairs, Dunquerque +capitulated. In other words the dignified Curtain Wells watch marched +upstairs with their lanterns and their staves and, standing in a knot by +the doorway, demanded the reason for such a riotous breach of the King's +peace, not to mention Mr. Ripple's and the Mayor's. But the young +gentlemen were all so merry and the watch was so cold that it consented +to taste the punch and presently left Dunquerque in the hands of the +Allies and marched off warmer in mind and body to a quieter quarter of +the ancient borough of Curtain Wells. I am sorry to add that, in passing +the door of the Great House, they so far forgot their standing orders as +to cry with enormous fervour the hour and the weather exactly underneath +Mr. Ripple's window. + +With the departure of the watch, peace fell upon the company for a +while; a dice box was produced and some packs of cards, but play lasted +a very short time and was voted too confoundedly dull for so joyful an +evening. So more songs were sung, and it was exceedingly pleasant to +hear these young gentlemen shouting the refrains and hammering Encores +upon the polished mahogany table. It was exceedingly pleasant to see the +wigs on their knees and the long clay pipes keeping time to the tune; +but perhaps the pleasantest sight of all was the two sleepy waiters who +leaned against the jambs of the door and, with kindly grins on their +tired faces, tapped their flat feet to the more alluring measures. + +The night was wearing away when somebody called 'Vernon for a song!' + +The latter, to tell the truth, had felt out of his element, except +during the brief interval of play, but on being called upon to occupy +the centre of the room, he cheered up and announced his very great +pleasure in acceding to the gentlemen's request. + +I wonder if you are at all sorry for Mr. Vernon. + +He was very lonely sitting in his high armchair at the head of the +table. I wonder if you will forgive him for singing this song, which you +will find in Mr. D'Urfey's _Pills to Purge Melancholy_. + + _In the merry month of May, + On a morn by break of day, + Forth I walked the wood so wide, + When as May was in her Pride + Here I spy'd all alone, all alone, + Phyllida and Coridon._ + + _Much ado there was God wot, + He did love, but she could not, + He said his love was to woo, + He said none was false to you; + He said he had lov'd her long, + He said love should take no wrong._ + + _Coridon would have kissed her then, + She said Maids must kiss no men + Till they kiss for good and all; + Then she bade the shepherds call + All the Gods to witness truth, + Ne'er was loved so fair a youth._ + + _Then with many a pretty oath, + As Yea and Nay and Faith and Troth, + Such as silly shepherds use, + When they would not love abuse; + Love which had been long deluded + Was with kisses sweet concluded._ + + _And Phyllida with garlands gay + Was crowned the Lady May._ + +The words were poor, as you will allow, and the tune a mere tinkle, but +it had the effect of rousing our hero from the half-sleep into which he +had fallen. + +"Sing that song again, will you." + +"G---- forbid," whispered little Peter Wingfield. + +"Nay, sir," said Mr. Vernon, "'Tis too long to sing over again, but I'll +toast the heroine if that will please your zest." + +"No, sir," said Charles, "it will not please me at all." + +The rest of the company began to wake up to the fact that something was +happening. + +"I should have thought," Vernon replied, "that Mr. Lovely would have +cordially welcomed such a toast, for we all know his partiality to the +name." + +"Gentlemen," said our hero. Did I not promise you some pretty heroicks a +score of pages back? "Gentlemen, I have a tale to tell you." + +Charles looked very stiff and very fierce as, clapping on his wig, he +began: + +"A short while ago I perpetrated an indiscretion in mistaking Mr. +Francis Vernon for a gentleman, for which I beg the pardon of everybody +present. Mr. Vernon for some reason best known to himself saw fit to +bribe my bookseller to insert in a volume I have just published twelve +scurrilous lines reflecting upon the character of a young lady whom +I--whom I----" + +"Admire," suggested our villain. + +"No, sir, respect." + +"Sir, your virtue should make us all blush," sneered Vernon, cold and +contemptuous. + +"D---- n you and your blushes; blush deeper, then," shouted Charles, +slinging the contents of a wineglass into Mr. Vernon's pallid face. + +There was silence for a moment until the honourable Mr. Harthe-Brusshe +proclaimed---- + +"The affair should be settled at once." + +And this was the only remark that the Honourable gentleman uttered in +the whole of the evening. + +"With all my heart," cried Charles. "Tony, you'll act for me?" + +Mr. Vernon had delicately wiped his face with a handkerchief of Mechlin +lace. A single drop of the wine lingered above his left cheekbone. +There, it was not unbecoming. + +"I shall be proud to walk with Mr. Lovely in a month's time," said our +villain, "but for the present my honour is pledged to a lady." + +"Sure, you borrow on mighty small security, sir," said Charles. + +The lingering drop of wine that stained Mr. Vernon's cheek seemed to +expand for a brief moment. + +"I have named my day," was all he answered. + +"Mr. Vernon is within his rights, Charles," said Mr. Golightly, "and +moreover the weather will be finer next month and we can make up a +jovial party." + +"'Tis hardly fair to poor Daish to fight in his rooms," said Blewforth. +"Ripple would put his shutters up at once." + +"H---- take you all," cried Charles, in an access of fury, as he sprang +to strike Vernon. + +The latter stepped back and with a well-aimed blow sent Charles flying +backwards over two chairs. + +"'Slife, Charles," said Mr. Golightly very stiffly. "Your conduct is +d----d irregular, Sir." + +"Most improper," said Mr. Chalkley. + +"Devilish unrestrained," said little Peter Wingfield. + +"Charles was two bottles ahead of us, gentlemen," said Blewforth who +held a broad mind in a broad body. + +Our hero was still lying where Vernon had sent him among cards and +broken glass. + +"D---- n you all," cried Clare. "Charles is worth the rest of you +puppies in red and blue coats put together, and by G----, Mr. Vernon, he +shall kill you for that blow." + +Everybody was so surprized to hear Mr. Anthony Clare, cool and placid +Tony Clare, break out like this that a wave of embarrassment swept over +the room. One by one they hurried from the scene of such an irregular +quarrel. + +It was very entertaining to see them march out so stiff and straight, +with nutshells crackling underneath their feet. + + + + +_Chapter the Twenty-sixth_ + +AND THE DREGS OF THE SAME + + +Mr. Anthony Clare stayed behind to help our hero home to bed. His effort +to achieve sobriety had completely exhausted such faculties as remained +after so many quarts of Burgundy, and he babbled to his companion +foolish threats and impotent defiance in such an incoherent voice that I +doubt his enemy, had he been present, would scarcely have been able to +discover common sense in any one of his remarks. Charles woke up in the +morning full of bile, dressed himself in a splenetick fury and ate a +breakfast, conspicuous for its peppery flavours, with petulance and +aversion. Then he crammed his gold-laced Kevenhuller hat on his head and +went out to interview Mr. Horace Ripple. + +In crossing the courtyard of the inn he passed Mr. Chalkley, and for a +moment debated seriously the wisdom of challenging him out of hand. This +he was the more inclined to do because he fancied the gallant Ensign was +regarding him with some disfavour. However, the latter gave him a 'good +morning,' and excused his want of geniality on the score of a liver +teased out of endurance by hard and violent exercise. + +So Charles forgave him his supposed breach of good manners and decided +to hear from Tony a full account of the evening's events. + +Clare presently overtook him under the archway, and, on being informed +of our hero's destination, tried to dissuade him from the projected +visit to the Beau. + +"Z----ds! I tell you that blackguard shall be turned out of the Wells +with ignominy." So much Charles vowed. + +"But 'tis no business of yours, Charles," argued his friend. + +"No business of mine? Eh! is that so? Then, by heaven! I'll make it my +business." + +"Ripple does not believe in settling disputes of this nature by the +personal encounter." + +"Then, by heaven!" said Charles, "that being the case there is the +greater necessity for expelling him from the company of gentlemen." + +"That is all very well," expostulated Clare, "but you are neither the +young woman's brother nor, as I believe, her lover. What right have you +to interfere?" + +"I tell you, Tony," said Charles, "that Ripple has already pondered the +advisableness of interfering with Mr. Francis Amor-Vernon and, indeed, +begged me to disclose his pseudonym, but I would not." + +"You owed him money, in fact?" said Clare, gently tapping the kerb of +the pavement with his cane. + +"Yes, I owed the dog money." + +"And now he is paid?" + +"Thanks to your generosity he is paid." + +"Charles," said Mr. Clare, laying his hand affectionately on that +indignant gentleman's right shoulder, "oblige me, who was able and glad +to oblige you, by not proceeding further in this affair." + +"'Tis monstrous ill-bred in you to remind me of an obligation under +which I laid myself with the most profound disinclination." Charles was +growing angry. + +"Nay, you know that is not my meaning, but, consider Charles, this +confounded, pasquinading pamphlet book has placed you in such an ill +light that the world will be very loth to believe any good of you." + +"Ripple is wiser than the raree-show over which he presides." + +"Ay! but depend on't, he has already been informed of last night's +affair and will be prejudiced against you on account of your quarrelsome +overtures." + +"'Sdeath! Tony, pray desist from further argument; you do not convince +me and will soon rouse my choler." + +"As you will," said Tony, and, leaving the company of his friend, betook +himself to the solitude of green fields. In the pleasures of country +sights and sounds he found some consolation for the undeserved +reproaches of a gentleman whom he had gratified at considerable expense +to himself. + +Charles continued in the direction of the Great House. Being arrived on +the topmost doorstep he rang the bell with complete assurance and +knocked thrice with the heavy brass knocker. + +He was admitted to an audience and walked upstairs to the tall white +drawing-room without trepidation or bashfulness. Mr. Ripple had favoured +him with so many compliments lately, had begged his advice on so many +trifles of publick importance, had in fact adopted him so completely +into intimate conversation, that Charles may be pardoned for supposing +that, notwithstanding his unceremonious conduct of the night before +last, notwithstanding his notoriety as the author of a book of satirical +poems, he would still be received with that inimitable and charming +condescension which the Great little Man reserved for few indeed. + +He found the Beau seated among the roses of his wide-winged armchair +sipping what looked uncommonly like a cordial physick. He did not rise +to Mr. Lovely's entrance, did not even turn his head, but merely said in +a tone, indifferent, lifeless and chill, + +"To what may I ascribe the honour of this visit, sir?" + +Conceive the shocked feelings of Madam Semele when he, whom she had +hitherto regarded with the familiarity born of many amorous meetings, +assumed at her own request the attributes of divinity. She died, if you +can recall the sad event. + +Charles experienced a particle of that dismay when the Great little Man +for whom he had hitherto felt an almost playful affection suddenly +appeared to him with the attributes of majesty--remoteness, scorn, and +inaccessibleness. The pattern upon the Aubusson rug swam before his eyes +in changes of tint and form as frequent as a child's Kaleidoscope, and +he found himself in humble obeisance. The Beau twirled the fluted stem +of the green Venetian glass that contained his physick and waited for +Mr. Lovely to explain his business. + +"Well, sir," he said at last. + +The abashed favourite stammered his reasons for the visit. + +"Pooh, pooh," said the Beau. "Pooh, pooh! a likely story. Your brain, +sir, addled by the ridiculous rhymes it has already born with obvious +labour, refuses to hatch further monstrous fancies, and is content to +send into the world an abortion. The night before last, Mr. Lovely, you +waited upon me at an hour both indiscreet and inconvenient. I was ready +to overlook this horrid breach of decorum and was indeed willing to +receive your apologies on the following day. You found, however, a more +engaging diversion in cracking bottles with a bagman. For this I do not +blame you--and, indeed, think you will do well to cultivate a manner of +company for which you seem to me singularly adapted. Pray understand, +however, that, in finding your level, you have had to make a very +considerable descent. The rider who has been thrown into a ditch is +unable to cry 'View! Holloa!' to the master of the hunt. In other words, +Mr. Lovely, you have put yourself in a position where your estimate of +polite intrigue is incredible and impertinent. I am very well able to +look after the morals of the Beau Monde without the assistance of the +kitchen or the tap-room." + +"Mr. Ripple," said our hero, "you insult me." + +"Unfortunately, sir, I recognize no responsibleness in that direction. I +have always claimed the right to speak my mind. If you find my +strictures intolerable, the door affords you an easy remedy." + +"Mr. Ripple," Charles replied, "I think you are making a fool of +yourself." + +The Great little Man clutched the arms of his wide-winged chair and +gasped. It was certainly twenty years since any one had dared to address +him with such a want of reverence. + +"You wrap yourself in paint and sattin," continued Charles. "You strut +about as if you were indeed the king of a puppet show. But don't forget, +Mr. Ripple, that when the puppets perform, when they make miniature love +and die small deaths, the publick regards them, not the wire-puller +above. The world, your world, will forget you, Mr. Ripple, when it still +remembers the inconsiderable passions of your dolls." + +"It does not matter, sir," the Beau interrupted in a voice tremulous +with well-bred anger. "It does not matter what the world thinks of me, +so long as my puppets comport themselves with taste and discretion." + +"You fool," shouted Charles, "the wires are twisted." + +It is improbable that any one had ever shouted in this tall white room +before, and the lustres shivered at the unwonted sound, while a +diminutive Dresden shepherdess, fragile as a sea-shell, lost her head, +which rolled into the grate with a tinkle of dismay. + +"Leave my house," said the Beau. + +"Ay! and you dislike to be told that your show will presently appear +ludicrous." + +"Leave my house." + +"Good G----! Ripple. I know I have been to blame; I know my story seems +to you absurd; but, by Heaven! I swear those cursed lines were never +writ by me, and since Vernon wrote them, why, z----ds, man! Can't you +see his intention?" + +"Leave my house." + +"Very well, sir, your obedient servant." + +With a very grand bow, Mr. Lovely took his leave of the Great little +Man. + +When he was gone, the Beau stooped to pick up the head of the diminutive +Dresden shepherdess. + +"Tut-tut, I doubt the join will be plainly visible," he murmured to +himself. + + + + +_Chapter the Twenty-seventh_ + +TIME FOR REFLECTION + + +Mr. Lovely left the Great House enraged with the owner, with Society +and, to say truth, with his own heroick self. + +I do not think he was very wildly in love with Miss Courteen, but I do +believe he was sincerely vexed with himself for letting her fall into +Vernon's power. For a moment he seriously pondered the wisdom of warning +her mother of the lengths to which the affair had gone, but upon +reflection shrank from a step which would savour, in the eyes of the +world, of ill-bred intrusion. After all, the girl was nothing to him, +and her reputation--plague on her reputation! I trust you observe the +unheroick aftermath of heroick Burgundy. Such bathos of indifference +would have sounded strange in the days preceding this forenoon. + +Just then my lady Bunbutter went by in her capacious chair and Charles +prepared to make an elaborate bow, but her ladyship merely stared at him +in cold disdain, and he was forced to buckle his shoe to save his +countenance. + +"So everybody knows," said Charles to himself, "Well! I shall always +regard Curtain Wells with affection and remember it with regret." + +He walked down the Colonnade where Miss Morton lived and, as he passed +the house, thought with half a smile of Valentine Day. It seemed a +century ago--that merry morning. Soon he was in the fields, where the +hedges were splashed with the silver of blackthorn in profuse bloom. + +He crossed a winding path, begun and ended with a notched and scrabbled +kissing-gate, and, passing through a small plantation where the +daffodils grew tall, went up a rounded hillside along whose clear-cut +horizon great fleecy clouds moved solemnly. He stopped for a moment to +glance back at Curtain Wells with the March sun spangling the rain-wet +roofs before he dipped with a sigh into one of those serene valleys that +are only found in England--valleys whose slopes are often darkened by +the long shadows of sheep and cattle, whose hollows are bright with +moist grass and in summer fragrant with spearmint and creamy +meadowsweet. + +He took the devious course of a narrow stream and knew the grave +delights of rural meditation; yet somehow the image of Phyllida danced +before him all the time and whenever he paused, the wind far away over +the hillside had a melancholy and foreboding sound. + +He met an elderly gentleman--a parson by the colour of his cloth--who +was poking some decayed herbage with a long cane. The elderly gentleman +looked up as Charles went by, gave him a 'very good morning,' and said +he believed he had seen an adder enter the herbage. + +"Indeed," said Charles, who thought the information given demanded an +attitude of respectful surprize. + +"But nothing amazes me after that wonderful February. When I tell you +that half an hour ago I saw an Orange Tip butterfly, you will understand +that nothing amazes me." + +Charles left the Elderly Gentleman still investigating the decayed +herbage reputed to contain an adder, and found himself envying a mind +that could invest a day with such easy fame. He had seen an Orange Tip +butterfly. Had he met grey-eyed Athene, or beheld the roses and doves of +Cytherea, the day would scarcely have held a more splendid memory. + +He envied the Elderly Gentleman. To be sure, with a Stoick complacency, +he had announced that nothing strange in the natural order could startle +him after that wonderful February, but his tone of triumphant excitement +foretold an entry in his diary that very night, perhaps was the prelude +to a paragraph in the _Gentleman's Magazine_. + +He began to imagine the Elderly Gentleman sipping his Port before the +Rectory fire, on his knees an open Concordance whose pages were +illuminated by dancing butterflies, precocious heralds of the scented +spring. He heard the dignified butler told of his reverend master's +lucky discovery, heard him asked to hand down the calf-bound diary of +such and such a faded year, heard the Elderly Gentleman's chuckle when +he found, as he suspected, that the date in his own experience was +unprecedented and finally heard him order a bottle of the Port in bin +twelve, the first-fruits of the Assiento Agreement. + +Charles fell to comparing himself to the Elderly Gentleman, greatly to +his own disadvantage. + +Certainly the image of Phyllida danced before him in the water meadows, +eluded him at every turn and twist of the little stream, and beckoned +him along this secluded valley; but his own heart did not beat with the +proper amount of answering fervour. + +Six weeks ago when he saw her first, all swansdown and blushes, he had +been duly elated. She had occupied much of his meditations ever since, +but he had no sensation of triumph, no delight in the great fact of her +existence. Perhaps that was because she belonged to the world. The +butterfly had belonged, as a phenomenon, to the Elderly Gentleman alone. +To the rest of mankind it was a legend. The discovery would be recorded +in print, but the discovery itself would flutter in secret pale wings +powdered with vivid gold, and this March morning would remain a +permanent fact in that Elderly Gentleman's heart. He would suffer no +disillusion. If others saw that butterfly, why, then, he would enjoy the +discussion of it, whether in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ beneath a +learned pseudonym or over two or three glasses of Port, with details +long drawn out to protract the delicious memory. + +The ink is faded on the pages of those calf-bound diaries, the Latin +epitaph on the Elderly Gentleman's tombstone is now nearly illegible, +but since he went down to Elysium alert and heedful of the changing +seasons, I believe that his spirit still listens on summer eves to the +blackbirds in his beloved orchard and observes with interest and +curiosity each separate harebell that blossoms above his mortal remains. + +Charles went on his way with much the same thoughts about the Elderly +Gentleman as I have set down for my own, and continued to envy his gift +of youth. + +Presently he met Margery of Baverstock Farm. + +Let me remind you, she was the wench to whom Mr. Anthony Clare had paid +light court back in the winter. Charles reproved him for his behaviour +and apparently his friend had given up his addresses, for the milkmaid +looked happy and blooming and seemed not at all displeased to giggle +over a hazel wand at Mr. Charles Lovely. + +"Good morning, Margery." + +"Oh, good morning, zur," said Margery. + +"No longer with Farmer Hogbin?" + +"I be with Farmer Hogbin's brother Jahn to High Corner Farm." + +"And happy?" + +"Oh, 'ess, proud and happy." + +"Seen Mr. Clare lately?" + +Margery blushed expansively. + +"Oh! naw! I an't seen him since Baverstock Barn. I be courting." + +"Eh, indeed," said Charles, "and who is the shepherd?" + +"Wully Pearce." + +"And you'll be married soon?" + +"Come barley harvest--'ess." + +"I will dance at your wedding, Margery." + +"We shaänt have daäncing, because Wully says it leads to what oughtn't +to happen." + +Charles made a wry face. + +"Going to wed a Puritan, eh?" + +"Nay," said the buxom maid. "He's carter to Farmer Jahn Hogbin." + +"Then, surely, he will let you have a merry junketing at the bride-ale." + +"Naw, indeed an' he wawnt, because his sister Molly when they were +thrawing the stocking last year fell on her back, and Wully's fam'ly is +a proud and proper fam'ly and Wully says we mun be married wi' no such +nonsense." + +This long proclamation of propriety made Margery quite breathless, so +Charles, with a bow and the present of a crown, passed on his way. +Margery's case gave him more food for meditation. There was a buxom hale +wench with the bloom of a peach, throwing away her ample charms upon a +puritanical clod whose only ambition seemed to be the preservation of a +mealy-mouthed decorum. Pshaw! such prime beauty deserved a better fate. +Such a wedding as hers should have made old wives' fireside gossip for a +score of years and the tale of it quickened the hearts of every lover +and his lass that listened beneath the golden summer moon. Had he the +control of the ceremony, by Heaven! they should have danced the dawn in, +and every man and every maid should have gone to sleep with a face as +pale as the morning sky. It was ridiculous that young Cupid should be +breeched for the bidding of a lubberly half-baked ploughboy. + +And yet, to be honest with himself, was not he behaving in much the same +way as the despised Wully Pearce? Was not his chief objection to Vernon +based on the latter's reputation as a man of intrigue? It was Phyllida's +attraction to Vernon that made him indignant. Had she chosen to bestow +herself on a middle-aged squire with acres and a gaunt square hall and a +pack of hounds, would he have been at all seriously disconcerted by the +prospect? And Vernon could have no honest love for her, because if a man +means to wed a young woman, he does not stigmatize her behaviour in +scurrilous verses, even to secure an advantage over a supposed rival. Or +does he--when he is not quite a gentleman? + +Then occurred to him the story he had heard many years ago of a thin +unhappy-looking woman who had spoken kindly to him at some crowded Al +Fresco entertainment where he and his father and mother had gone one +fine July afternoon. He had asked about her as they drove home to the +lodgings, and he remembered his mother's warning finger, while his +father laughed over Lord B---- and Mrs. D----. + +At the end of the tale his mother, a gentle Christian soul, had said it +served the baggage right, and bade him never talk to people to whom he +had not been presented by his parents. No doubt the circumstances of the +two cases were totally different, but he connected them vaguely in his +mind. + +Moreover, without any doubt, Phyllida had caught his fancy. She +disturbed his view. Yet there was nothing that singled her out from a +dozen handsome young women with whom he had danced, whose existence save +as a bevy he no longer recognized. Still, whatever he thought about the +affair, his opinion would never again be invited and, disinherited by +Beau Ripple, he must consider his own position with an eye to the +future. + +He was bracing himself preparatory to this great mental effort, when he +perceived round the next bend of the stream Mr. Anthony Clare, pensively +leaning against the rugged stem of a pollard willow-tree. + +"Tony," said Charles, "Ripple has dismissed me." + +"I know," said his friend, "your writ of banishment, signed, sealed and +delivered, is pasted on the window of every coffee-house and occupies a +large and distinguished space in the vestibule of the Assembly Rooms. +What do you propose to do?" + +"I might hire myself out to the amiable Hogbin as carter." + +"Pshaw," said Tony, "be serious." + +"Or I might take to the road." + +"Nonsense, man." + +"Nay! I vow such a career has many advantages for a poor man, since he +may live and, what is more, die at the public charge." + +"You are not in earnest, Charles?" said Mr. Clare, laying an anxious +hand upon his friend's wrist. + +"And why not, i' faith?" + +"What would you gain by such an impulse of folly?" + +"My livelihood and, as I said, very possibly my funeral expenses." + +"Such flippancy is ill-timed," said Mr. Clare, who was a serious young +man and spent much of his leisure with the theory of estate-management. + +"Nay! I am not treating the matter as a jest, but truly considering the +benefit of adopting such a novel method of existence in these hard +times." + +"Novel!" said Clare, with a scoffing laugh. "Novel! why, every +ne'er-do-weel blackguard for the past hundred years has tried this novel +method of existence and every one of them has come at last to the same +windy death." + +"Oh, as to the last scene," interrupted Charles, "indeed I vow 'tis the +best in the play, for it never fails to please the populace, and sure in +this dull world a man should try to give a little amusement; I hold that +the author of a diverting comedy and the thief who makes a brave exit +are the truest benefactors of humanity." + +"All this is very pretty fooling, but leads nowhere," said Clare, who +had a proposal to make and was vexed by Charles' levity. + +"But ponder, Tony, the Gothick atmosphere of such an escapade. Imagine +the moated grange, the haunted lane, the shadowy coppice, the +phantastick oaths and gestures, the pursuit by moonlight, the clatter of +hoofs, the jingle of spurs--all this appeals to an aspect of my +character too long subdued by the bonds of convention and the trammels +of polite society." + +"But, you fool, you would be taken at once. You have no cant of the road +and, as a Dilettante, would certainly be regarded with odious suspicion +by every regular highway-man between Berwick and Dover. Oddslife, I'll +not argue with you further, for I do not believe you mean a word of what +you say, and, harkee, I have a plan that will suit either of us better +than your cut-throat Braggadocio." + +As a matter of fact, Charles had once or twice thought quite seriously +of taking to the road. After all, it was in accordance with every +precedent of outlawry. As soon as a man was banished from Society, he +should compensate himself for the discomfort he incurred. Tony, however, +now came forward with a project which, while it preserved much of the +charm of highway robbery, held none of its dangers or difficulties. He +suggested that since neither he nor Charles had very many ties to attach +them fast to Curtain Wells, they should spend a year in making the Grand +Tour of the British Islands. + +Charles objected on the score of money. + +"I have three hundred guineas," said Clare. "That will equip us with all +that we require as travellers, and I am sure the world will entertain us +for our pleasant appearance and company." + +"In fact we are to become beggars--in velvet gowns," Charles commented. + +"Adventurers, knights at arms, what you will," added Clare. + +Charles was enraptured with the idea, so deeply enraptured that he saw +no absurdity in grave Mr. Anthony Clare setting out upon such a career +of folly. In fact, it seemed the most natural thing in the world for his +friend to spend three hundred guineas on a whim. He himself would have +spent treble that sum (had he possessed it) in order to the exploitation +of such a witty, ingenious and romantick method of wasting time. + +"We must equip ourselves for the parts we are about to play. There must +be no shilly-shally, and above all no one must think us anything but +eccentrick men of fashion, itinerant beaux, fops on pilgrimage, +wandering wits." + +"The last phrase is unfortunate," said Clare. Charles laughed hugely. + +By this time Phyllida had faded like a summer joy, Vernon was forgotten, +nothing mattered except this new and exceedingly entertaining project. + +"What is the first thing to be done?" inquired Clare. + +"Egad, what should always precede any undertaking of importance--a visit +to the tailor." + +The two young men beneath a sky growing rapidly overcast, walked +quickly through the lush meadows towards Curtain Wells, discussing as +they went the merits of rival tailors with infinite vivacity. + +Meanwhile in the Crescent, our heroine was engaged upon much the same +problem. Possibly the reason that so many timid young women have been +brave enough to plunge into an elopement, is the obfuscation of the real +issue, the vital stakes, by the need of deciding what they shall leave +behind to console their abandoned virtue. + +So it was, at any rate, with Phyllida. She was deterred from soft +regrets by the desperate necessity of making up her mind between the +charms of a muslin frock overlaid with pink rosebuds and a muslin frock +sprigged with the palest blue forget-me-nots. + +There were a thousand sentiments that might well have restrained her +from the wild step she was taking, but everything was forgotten for a +trifle; and when finally she slipped out of the door, the only living +creature for whom she indulged herself in the luxury of a protracted +farewell, was Thomasina the tabby cat, and that was considerably +interrupted by the attenuated miaouws of a large family lately arrived. +Even Ponto the spaniel had sidled off to a favourite heap of rubbish. +Pray do not suppose I am sneering at Phyllida. Heaven forbid that you or +I should sneer at a young woman, however impetuous, however foolish. +Still, I cannot help observing that the heroism of most heroick actions +is to be sought for in the obscure preliminaries to a grand event. +Phyllida had known the agony of making up her mind through many a +firelit, sleepless night. When the moment arrived for carrying out her +resolve, she spent most of the forenoon reading the advertizement of a +fashionable mantua-maker. As to her devices for getting rid of her +mother and Betty and the landlady and Thomas and Miss Sukey Morton, who +called to inquire whether Mrs. Featherbrain's new novel was called _The +Affectionate Aunt_ or _The Disconsolate Uncle_,--why, they were as old +as the first writer of tales and I will not weary you with their +repetition. And why should I delay you with the narrative of the +attempt to open her mother's jewel-case with a bodkin and a silver +paper-knife? Like most toilet receptacles, it was very easily broken. + +She hurried down the Crescent with a small parcel of cloaths wrapped up +in brown paper and tied with a green ribbon. If you are anxious to know +what was inside, I will refer you to Miss Howe, Mr. Richardson's Miss +Howe, to whom Miss Clarissa Harlowe confided a parcel of much the same +dimensions and contents. + +She did not forget her swansdown muff nor her swansdown tippet, and +altogether she looked just the same as she looked a good many pages ago +and was flushed to just the same frail hue of carmine. + +Ding-dong went St. Simon's husky clock, ding-dong, ding-dong. + +Pitter-pat went Phyllida's heart and pitter-pitter-pitter-pitter-pat +went Phyllida's heart when, exactly opposite the toy-shop, she saw a +post chariot and four bay horses and two postillions staring very +intently at the sky. + +It struck Phyllida how clever it was of her dear Amor to chuse such a +time and such a place; for all the world was engaged in directing the +start of the Invincible Stage Coach that ploughed once a week between +Curtain Wells and London. + +Tootle-a-tootle-a-tootle went the long brass horn of the guard and +plump-plump went two large parcels into his basket and crack-crack went +the coachman's long whip, and 'Now then Miss, jump in,' said one of the +post-boys, still staring intently at the March sky, and before Phyllida +knew where she was, she found herself sitting on a rather damp cushion +with a peacock-blue riding hood lined with swansdown on the seat beside +her, but no sign of Mr. Francis Amor. + +In dismay she put her head out of the window and cried to the nearest +postillion. + +"Mr. Harmor's followin' on 'orseback," he said, with a thumping thwack +on the ribs of his mount and a vicious prod with his rusty spurs. + +Phyllida drew back with tears of disappointment starting to her wide +blue eyes; but before she could make up her mind to stop the chariot and +never elope again, she caught the glance of Thomas in open-mouthed +amazement. Instinctively, she pulled the musty curtains close, and, +lifting the leather flap at her back, could not help laughing aloud to +see dignified Thomas mopping his brow with his right hand and waving his +tall cane with the left; and just as the chariot tore round the corner +of the street, she saw that Thomas had knocked off Lord Cinderton's grey +beaver hat. The Love Chase had begun. + + + + +_Chapter the Twenty-eighth_ + +THE LOVE CHASE + + +John Gilpin never rode so fast through Edmonton as, on that memorable +afternoon in March, Major Constantine Tarry pounded over the cobbles of +Curtain High Street. His scarlet uniform was very bright against the +huge iron-grey steed on whose broad back he nodded with hat pressed down +as far as his fierce prickly eyebrows, with pigtail bobbing to the +motion and with sword whose martial clangour recalled every famous +battle in the history of the world. He was conversing with the widow +when Thomas burst upon them with the news of Phyllida's elopement. + +"Gone, gone!" wailed the footman. "Oh Tyre! Oh Sidon! Hittites on +horseback and two Amorites in a chariot!" + +"What the d----l do you mean, sir?" snapped the Major, "who is gone?" + +"Miss Phyllida," groaned Thomas. + +"Gone," breathed the widow, and the odour of diffused Sanspareil +permeated the room. + +"Gone where?" shouted the Major. + +"To the desert beyond Jordan," answered the footman. + +"With what viper in sheep's clothing?" gasped Mrs. Courteen. + +"Which way, which way, sirrah?" interrupted practical Major Tarry. + +"Lunnon," ejaculated Thomas, fainting into the arms of a chair. + +This was why the inhabitants of the Wells saw a veteran of the Low +Countries shaken up like a cherry in a basket. The sedate glories of the +town were never more nicely displayed than on this famous occasion. +From each bow-windowed shop came forth a bland shopkeeper and half a +dozen inquisitive customers. + +The little Miss Pettitoes trilled in bird-like accents: 'What an +adventure!' and returned to a counter spangled with their gay little +purchases, for the Miss Pettitoes were twin sisters and to-morrow was +their birthday. + +"What an adventure!" they trilled to each other over a dish of Hyson and +'What an adventure!' they trilled as they kissed each other 'good-night' +and went each to their bed chambers, identical save for the ribbons of +their fascinating little spinster night-caps. + +"Hurrah! hurrah!" shouted the boys, as they pushed the maids into the +puddles the better to follow so surprizing a cavalier. + +"Rot me!" said Mr. Golightly of the Grey Dragoons, as he lifted his +tortoise-shell rimmed monocle to his supercilious left eye, and 'Rot +you!' he ejaculated, as an enthusiastick trio of youth sheltered between +his remarkably tight-breeched legs. + +"Shall we make such an impressive entrance, d'ye think?" asked Mr. +Lovely, as he and Mr. Clare came out of Mr. Canticle's shop, followed by +Mr. Canticle himself and Mr. Canticle's apprentice loaded with a huge +brown-paper parcel. + +"Good day, Canticle," said Charles. + +"Good day, Mr. Lovely, good day, sir, and depend on't, grey will be the +modish colour for gentlemen of quality; and I beg you not to be uneasy +about the light-blue lining. That, sir, I venture to predict, will +supply the exact touch of genteel eccentricity that consorts so amiably +with the friendly madness of the season. I envy you, gentlemen, I envy +you; and I beg to wish you many a pleasant adventure. The cut of that +riding-coat, Mr. Lovely, will enthral the most fastidious glance, and as +for your breeches, Mr. Clare, I should perhaps be considered boastful if +I said that they impart a tone, sir, a very distinguished tone to the +landskip. Good day, gentlemen." + +The two young gentlemen laughed over Mr. Canticle's prophecies, and +excused his loquacity because he had been a limner till the vogue for +foreign painters compelled him to apply his art in another direction. + +It was certainly a stroke of irony that the offer of a sartorial uncle +should make him, a very tolerable exponent of nudity, take up the +occupation of devizing cloaths. + +By this time, Major Tarry's coat-tails were flapping to hedge-row winds, +and his astonishing course was less universally regarded; although, even +in open country, the clamorous transit caused much confusion to +itinerant carters, while a pair of blackbirds forsook their hardly built +nest and retired in voluble dismay to the densest coppice between +Baverstock Regis and Curtain Wells. + +Mr. Jeremy Daish met our hero with a very lugubrious expression, as he +strolled into the coffee-room. + +"What has your honour been doing to enrage Mr. Ripple? Oh, Mr. Lovely, +read this." + +Charles took the proffered note, and half-smiling, half-sighing, perused +his decree of banishment. + + THE GREAT HOUSE. + + CURTAIN WELLS, PRIDIE KAL. AP. + + MR. DAISH,--_The uncomfortable events of Wednesday evening compel + me to announce that I cannot contemplate with equanimity the + protracted Sojourn of Mr. Lovely at your hitherto peaceful House. I + have no desire to inflict upon you the invidious course of summary + Ejection, but at the same time I am bound to invite a trifle less + cordiality in your Reception of all young gentlemen unperturbed by + the Gout. The town of Curtain Wells exists for the supply of + hygiastick Waters; and, since red wine is a notorious antidote to + chalybeate, my civick brother the Mayor begs me to point out that + we cannot lend our patronage to a house which studiously encourages + the circulation of this antipathetick Beverage. In expectation, Mr. + Daish, that you will presently reconstruct at once your list of + wines and your list of visitors,_ + + _I am, Mr. Daish, your obliged_ + + HORACE RIPPLE. + + +"Console yourself, Daish," said our hero, as he handed back the Beau's +exquisitely written epistle, "Mr. Clare and I propose to make a long +excursion into the country this very afternoon. Have the goodness to +order our horses to be in the yard at six o'clock." + +"Certainly, your honour, but I hope that nothing I may have said or done +or hinted--or--or--or--" poor Mr. Daish stumbled over the awkwardness of +the interview, and was more like a Cremona violin than ever, a violin +whose strings were snapping one by one. + +"Console yourself, Daish," said our hero with an incredibly magnanimous +air, "you are not to blame. You must know, Daish, that for a long time +past I have had a curiosity to survey this small green earth, unhampered +by anything more serious than the impulse of the moment. To-night, +Daish, when you retire to rest, when you gather the curtains of your +serene bed, when you hark to the clock in the passage striking the +moderate and orderly hour of ten o'clock, when you reflect with a sigh +of proprietary contentment that you have offended no one in the course +of an innkeeper's promiscuous day, when, in a word, your respectable +head sinks into your respectable pillow, dally for a moment in the +imagination of Charles Lovely and Anthony Clare mocking society, +laughing at convention, seated in the parlour of some remote inn and +dozing gratefully before a pile of logs. + +"Think of us, Daish, in the cool dusks and azure silences of April, at +the top of some gentle hill whence we can regard with exhilaration the +prospect of a good dinner, a crimson glass, and genial intercourse with +travellers. Behold us in your mind's eye, walking our horses down +through the twilight, as one by one in cottage lattices the candles +twinkle and, high above, the stars betray the night with silver spears. +For my part, already I can hear the evening gossip of housewives, and +the babble of children in small gardens, and clear against the green +West, I can see the many lovers of a little town moving with slow steps +along their customary path. + +"Thus, my excellent Daish, each solemn nightfall will discover for us a +new world, and, when the sun rises on the merry unknown streets of our +pilgrimage, we shall think to ourselves what a vast number of jolly +people exist in this remarkably jolly world. Oddslife--"Mr. Lovely broke +off--"what a surprizing alliance." + +As he looked out of the window, we had better look out of the window +too, and I think you will be quite disposed to agree with Charles when I +show you that vivid yellow chaise drawn by two fiery chestnut horses, +and driven by that extraordinarily diminutive coachman, for inside are +seated Beau Ripple and the Widow Courteen, and neither you nor I nor +anybody else ever saw both so nearly disconcerted. + +"Now what the deuce can be the meaning of that?" continued Mr. Lovely. + +"Of what you were saying?" inquired Mr. Daish in a deprecating voice. + +"The horses! the horses!" was all that Mr. Lovely saw fit to reply. + +Major Tarry's earlier progress might well have been the meteor which +heralds a cataclysm, for cataclysm this later apparition certainly was. +I vow the noise of conversation it caused far exceeded anything of the +sort that was ever known. + +The Beau found the publicity of such an exit unendurable to his polite +soul. That his sacred chaise, which had once bowled along at a high but +decorous speed in order to meet the H--r A---- t of Great Britain, +should achieve such a vulgar notoriety nearly upset the sit of his +waistcoat. + +His contemporaries felt the Great little Man's humiliation. + +Yet compassion did not prevent them from forming numberless conjectures +as to the cause of this strange affair. Some said 'Debt!'; others boldly +affirmed an intrigue; but as usual nobody guessed the true reason, which +was that beneath a gorgeous exterior lurked the gentlest, kindliest +heart. + +When the Widow, with a very noisy tale of seduction, poured forth her +tears upon his cushions, Mr. Ripple instantly reproached himself and +nobody else with the disaster, immediately decided he must atone for his +negligence by immediately ringing his flowered bell-pull and commanding +Magog, who immediately appeared, to run immediately to the stables and +command the immediate harnessing of the royal horses to the royal chaise +and the immediate buttoning of his diminutive coachman's slender +gaiters. + +It was with a shudder, if a much polished shudder, that he handed Mrs. +Courteen to a place amid the fawn and ivory of the interior of his +chaise. With a barely repressed shudder, too, he observed the dabbled +rouge of her cheeks, and the open mouths of the cits, and the bobbing of +heads at windows, and a horrid bank of black clouds in the extreme +South-west that seemed to betoken a night full of rain, and last but +perhaps worst of all, the lean sign-post 'To London,' a prologue to +G---- knows what unendurable discomfort. + +"We have an adventure to hand," said Charles to Clare, as they strolled +across the yard of the _Blue Boar_. "We'll follow Ripple!" + +"Ripple?" + +"Ay! Which way did Mr. Ripple's chaise go?" demanded Charles of a knot +of idlers. + +"Lunnon Road," they replied unanimously. + +"We must get ready at once," declared Charles. + + * * * * * + +"How pleasant 'twould be," thought Phyllida, "if I were not alone." + +Even alone, it was very pleasant to bowl along a level road at an +equable rate of speed. It was very pleasant to try on the peacock-blue +riding hood that so became her. It was very pleasant to see the cheerful +faces of the many wayfarers encountered by the chariot. The backs of the +postillions glowed with scarlet, and a gay contrast they made to the +flaming gorse of a wild open stretch of country. Every cottage that +nestled back from the road with clipped yews to guard the gate seemed to +Phyllida a desirable place to live and love in for ever. It was +pleasant to watch the lambs in the meadows, and exciting indeed to count +the still sparse primroses starring the hedgerows. It was pleasant to +watch the children stand on the topmost rung of a five-barred gate and +cheer as they rattled past. Very pleasant it was, though the sight +brought a slight lump in her throat, as she thought how often she had +done the same thing with Dick Combleton the Squire's youngest son. + +Up-hill with many a groan and grunt, and down-hill with a clatter and a +dash, and along the level with a ring and a jingle went the post-chariot +in the afternoon sunlight. Past farm-house and farm-yard, past villages +and churches, and inns with waving signs, past ponds and geese, past +many a tired woman trudging home from market and many a jovial carter; +past sign-posts and cross-roads and milestones; past smithies with +roaring fires and monstrous bellows, past lowing cows and crowing cocks, +past journeymen tinkers and journeymen barbers, past a great dancing +bear which, had Phyllida but known it, danced not a whit more foolishly +for bumpkins than rose-pink Phyllida herself for the malicious eyes of +the world of fashion. + +After a long climb up a heavy hill, whence a very fair champagne spread +before her, the great black and purple cloud caught the westering sun, +and suffused the whole landskip with a queer metallick sheen. It made +the rooks that swayed in the bare branches of a windy clump of elms take +on a strange green lustre over their plumage, and cast a stillness over +the world. That view remained with Phyllida all her life, as a pause +wherein she had contemplated existence for the briefest moment. Years +afterwards, an old woman, sitting in a dim ingle-nook, would see that +fair champagne in the clouds of smoke that curled ceaselessly up the +wide chimney, and, above the scent of burning logs, would be wafted the +perfume of the white March violets that blossomed at the foot of those +swaying elms where the rooks cawed and the dead leaves raced round and +round. + +"Stop, you blackguards," cried a rasping voice above the noise of fast +approaching hoofs. + +"Crack! crack!" went Dickie Maggs' big pistol. + +"'Ighwayman, Miss," he added cheerfully, as the sound of something soft +falling was heard, followed by horse-hoofs in mad retreat down the long +heavy hill. + +In a moment, the chariot was rocking in a wild gallop down the opposite +decline. + +Raindrops began to fall, deliberately at first, but soon fast enough, +while the earth was slowly blotted out by storm and rain and twilight. + +On the summit of the hill, Major Constantine Tarry lay face downwards, +having paid the extreme penalty of interference with other people's +business. Poor Tarry, he was a bore and a braggart, and had not the +slightest intention of being killed, yet I for one regret the manner of +his death, up there on the top of that wind-swept hill. And for all he +told you such very long stories when he asked you to dine with him at +Oudenarde Grange and Malplaquet Lodge and Ramilies House, he gave you +some capital Port, and Sherry nearly as dry as his own anecdotes. +Moreover, he really fought in that bloody fight of Fontenoy, and that +was a very great honour and should make us forgive a very great deal. + +A flash of lightning illuminated the dead body of the veteran lying face +downwards in the mud of an English high-road, and a distant volley of +thunder accorded military honours to his somewhat grotesque death. + + + + +_Chapter the Twenty-ninth_ + +THE BASKET OF ROSES + + +Some four-and-twenty miles from Curtain Wells on the Great West Road is +a tangle of briers among whose blossoms an old damask rose is sometimes +visible. If the curious traveller should pause and examine this fragrant +wilderness, he will plainly perceive the remains of an ancient garden, +and if he be of an imaginative character of mind will readily recall the +legend of the Sleeping Beauty in her mouldering palace; for some +enchantment still enthralls the spot, so that he who bravely dares the +thorns is well rewarded with pensive dreams and, as he lingers a while +gathering the flowers or watching their petals flutter to the green +shadows beneath, will haply see elusive Beauty hurry past. + +Here at the date of this tale stood the _Basket of Roses_ Inn, a mile or +so away from a small village. When coaches ceased to run, the house +began to lose its custom and, as stone is scarce hereabouts, was +presently pulled down in order to provide the Parson with a peculiarly +bleak Parochial Hall. + +However, this melancholy fate was still distant, and old Simon Tabrum +had a fine custom from the coaches and private travellers who delighted +to spend a night in so sweet a lodging. + +The _Basket of Roses_ was the fairest, dearest inn down all that billowy +London road. The counter, sheathed in a case of pewter, the glasses all +in a row, the sleek barrels and the irregular lines of home-brewed +cordials, charmed the casual visitor to a more intimate acquaintance. +Behind the tap was the Travellers' Room, and what a room it was--with +great open fireplaces and spits and bubbling kettles and blackened +ingles. Long-buried ancestors of the village had carved their rude +initials over each high-backed bench and battered the bottoms of the +great tankards into unexpected dents by many rollicking choruses in the +merry dead past. The walls of this room knew the pedigree of every +bullock and the legend of every ghost for many miles round. Here was the +cleanest floor, the clearest fire in England. + +Old Tabrum the landlord was the very man for the house--the very man to +bring out all that was most worthy in his guests. He always produced +good wine and a piping hot supper, never asked for his money till his +guests were satisfied and always wore an apron as white as the foam of +his cool deep ale. + +He was eighty years old now, with a bloom on his cheeks like an autumn +pippin and two limpid blue eyes that looked straight into yours and, if +you had any reverence at all, made the tears well involuntarily at the +sight of such gentle beauty. + +Once he was a famous Basso Profundo, but now his voice was high and +thin, and seemed already fraught with faint aerial music. The ancient +man was a great gardener as properly became a landlord whose sign was a +swinging posy. What a garden there was at the back of this glorious inn. +The bowling-green surrounded by four grey walls was the finest ever +known, and as for the borders, deep borders twelve feet wide, they were +full of every sweet flower. There were Columbines and Canterbury Bells +and blue Bells of Coventry and Lilies and Candy Goldilocks with Penny +flowers or White Sattin and Fair Maids of France and Fair Maids of Kent +and London Pride. + +There was Herb of Grace and Rosemary and Lavender to pluck and crush +between your fingers, while some one rolled the jack across the level +green of the ground. In Spring there were Tulips and Jacynths, Dames' +Violets and Primroses, Cowslips of Jerusalem, Daffodils and Pansies, +Lupins like spires in the dusk, and Ladies' Smocks in the shadowed +corners. As for Summer, why the very heart of high June and hot July +dwelt in that fragrant enclosure. Sweet Johns and Sweet Williams with +Dragon flowers and crimson Peaseblossom and tumbling Peonies, Blue +Moonwort and the Melancholy Gentlemen, Larksheels, Marigolds, Hearts, +Hollyhocks and Candy Tufts. There was Venus' Looking Glass and Flower of +Bristol and Apple of Love and Blue Helmets and Herb Paris and Campion +and Love in a Mist and Ladies' Laces and Sweet Sultans or Turkey +Cornflowers, Gillyflower Carnations (Ruffling Rob of Westminster amongst +them) with Dittany and Sops in Wine and Floramor, Widow Wail and +Bergamot, True Thyme and Gilded Thyme, Good Night at Noon and Flower de +Luce, Golden Mouse-ear, Princes' Feathers, Pinks, and deep-red Damask +Roses. + +It was a very wonderful garden indeed. + +And because the old man loved flowers, tending them in the early +twilight with water and releasing them from many a small weed which he +was fain to destroy, but in the end always replanted in a small clearing +on the shady side of his farthest meadow, because he loved flowers, the +old man, whose first wife died years and years ago on a long past +primrose-tide, married in the hale winter of his life a comfortable +wench whom he could trust as he trusted his flowers to be true to their +seasons. This second wife, more like a daughter than a wife, he +delighted to surprize with fragrant rolls of gaily sprigged cloths; and +never a summer morning broke but he was abroad in the dewy grass to +gather her such a posy of freshness and beauty as can only be taken in +the earliest hours of the morning. Mrs. Tabrum, for all she was so young +and rosy, had a great feeling for the importance of her position as +mistress of a famous hostelry and ordered about little Polly Patch, +newly arrived from Mrs. Margery Severe's select charity school, with a +great air of ladyship. Little Polly Patch was a very important young +woman too; for the _Basket of Roses_ was not a large galleried inn full +of grooms and hostlers and waiters and chambermaids, but a house of +quite another character, where you were never bewildered by superfluous +service but always received with a quiet dignity. Therefore you paid a +great deal of respectful attention to little Polly Patch who had a great +deal to do with your night's rest and your morning's breakfast. I think +Mr. Vernon was a very wise man to choose a domestick fairyland so apt to +soothe the sweet alarms of his Phyllida. + +Here they would sup while the horses were being changed, and hence they +would set out in the darkness, preserving, as they galloped along, a +sense of peace and quiet beauty that should be to her the fortunate +prelude of a happy adventure. + +Vernon had sent word to the house of their arrival, hinted at the +fatigues of a gay bridal, and let it be supposed they desired no +intrusion. + +To the ancient man such a confidence was enough to set his old brain +agog with the gallant scenes of his youth. He chuckled over every +tankard of ale he drew, told every one of his daffodils the merry secret +and piped away at long forgotten melodies until his wife in despair sat +him down in the ingle, put a broken fiddle in his hand and bade him play +his fancies to sleep. The storm that rose at sunset shrieked about the +inn, and the hollow groaning in the mazes of the huge chimney consorted +in fitting harmonies with the old man's eerie tunes. + +"March is going out wi' thunder and tempest like a roaring lion," he +muttered, as a sudden gust of hail was blown against the lattice which +pattered and rattled as if a crowd of elfin drummers were beating a wild +tattoo without. + +"Aye, 'tis a main ugly night," said Mrs. Dorothy Tabrum, who was laying +the shining silver about the snowy tablecloth. + +"So 'tis, my peony, so 'tis! A main ugly night for daffodils and young +brides. Is her chamber ready?" he went on. + +"Aye! Aye!" + +"Wi' rosy curtains drawn close?" + +Mrs. Tabrum nodded. + +"Wi' candlelight and the cracking of logs and green bayleaves in the +presses?" + +"Why, do'ee think I'm gone daft to forget suchlike?" + +"And a vase of daffodils by her mirrour?" the ancient one persisted. + +Polly Patch came in at that moment. + +"All be ready, mistress," she said in a slow voice, solemnly nodding her +enormous mobcap while she spoke. + +"Now Polly," said Mrs. Tabrum, "lend a hand wi' this table and lets put +'un a thought nearer to the fire. Ugh! how it blows!" A vivid flash of +lightning illuminated the room, and on the heels of a terrifick roar of +thunder there was a cry of 'House! House!' + +"Hurry, hurry, my daisies, and make who comes there welcome. Jacob! +Jacob!" cried the old landlord as, much excited, he rose from his seat +in the ingle and quavered towards the taproom. + +"You are sure the candles are lighted, Polly?" + +"Sarten, mistress." + +"And the logs burning brightly?" + +"'Ess mistress." + +"And the curtains pinned together?" + +"'Ess mistress." + +"Then stand by the door, curtsey when you're spoken to, and don't put +your thumb in the soup." + +"No, mistress." + +"Is Mary Maria watching the fowls?" + +"Wi' both her eyes, mistress." + +"Hark!" + +"I'm harking away, mistress." + +And while the mistress and the maid harked vigilantly the ancient +landlord ushered Miss Phyllida Courteen into the Travellers' Room of the +_Basket of Roses_ Inn. + +As he entered, old Tabrum looked very much like a sexton leading a shy +maid to the altar. She, flustered, expectant, murmured soft thanks into +the farthest recesses of her swansdown muff, stumbled frequently to the +voluble distress of her guide, and seemed afraid to look round the +well-ordered comfortable room after so many miles of wind and driving +rain. + +"Dear soul! And where's the bridegroom?" exclaimed Mrs. Tabrum, as she +led Phyllida to a high-backed chair right before the heart of the +blazing fire. + +Phyllida blushed as she explained Mr. Amor was travelling on horseback. + +"Indeed, I expected to find him here," she stammered, "Oh! I hope +nothing has happened to him." + +"Now, don't 'ee fret thyself, sweet marjoram," said the ancient one, +humming round her like a bee. "A'most anything might have happened to +him on such a dreadful night." + +"Don't 'ee hark to the ancient dodderer," interrupted the dodderer's +wife. + +"Killed by a falling tree, withered to a cinder by bloody lightning." + +"You alarm me," exclaimed Phyllida, jumping up. + +"Hold thy ancient foolish tongue," commanded Mrs. Tabrum peremptorily, +"and go see that Mary Maria keeps the fowls turning a while yet." + +"Very well, my gillyflower, very well," piped senility, "but don't 'ee +take on, my little blue love-in-a-mist, happen 'tis no more than a +broken leg has overtook your husband." + +"Polly," said Mrs. Tabrum, who saw that Phyllida was on the verge of +tears, "take thy ancient master away. Hark," she finished, with an +impressive forefinger. + +"What are us to hark to, pretty pink?" + +"Ef I doant hear a great tom-cat a-scratching in the tulips, my name +be'ant Dorothy Ann Tabrum." + +As at this moment the tempest outside was howling with unsurpassed fury, +it is extremely doubtful whether the buxom lady spoke the truth, but her +husband was alert at once and hastily snatching down a blunderbuss +labelled 'Loaded on Tuesday sennight' Simon Tabrum moved stealthily from +the room. + +"You must pardon my ancient old husband for his flowery manner of +speech. 'Tis not disrespect he do mean, but love and charity wi' his +neighbour, having as it were been sown a power of years ago and being +now apt to let his withered branches fall on the heads of all manner of +folk." + +As this long sentence was evidently considered a full and proper +explanation of the dodderer's inconvenient habit of prophecy, Phyllida +smiled very charmingly and said she quite understood. + +"And now let us gossip of thy wedding," said Mrs. Tabrum in a cosy tone +of voice, "or would 'ee rather go to thy chamber, pretty miss?" + +"Oh! indeed I will stay here, thank you. Mr. Amor might come at any +moment." + +"Polly! Polly Patch!" + +"'Ess, mistress." + +"What for are 'ee standing there, lolloping thy great cap, dollop. Be +off, great clockface, be off, pundle, to Mary Maria, and tell her to +keep the fowls a-turning and a-turning." + +Polly Patch curtseyed solemnly and retreated slowly, murmuring to +herself, "and not to put my thumbs in the soup." + +"Do you think he will be a very long time?" asked Phyllida, turning +suddenly to the landlady and looking indescribably wistful. + +"What I can't make out, my lamb, is how he came to leave 'ee on such a +night. That's what I can't make out at all. Now at my bride-ale, for all +I was wedding a man old enough to be my ancestor, why it was bride-ale, +I do warrant. My aged husband being a publican and a sinner, there was a +mort of merry-making, I tell 'ee, and 'twas only when Tabrum slipped on +the floor and cracked the back of his faded head as we finished, and me +forced to use the holland smock as I won at Ascensiontide smock-racing. +Oh! his head was so raw as an egg, and running faster than ever I run +for the smock." + +"How dreadful," murmured Phyllida, not quite sure whether the narrative +should offend her maiden sensibility or not. + +"But he was out wi' the hens next morning," the talkative lady +continued, "out wi' the hens and scratching away in the garden as hard +as any of 'em. But, I tell 'ee, I did souse his head wi' vinegar when I +got 'un indoors. The house smelt like a jar of pickle for a week o' +Sundays after. But there! Tabrum he gets ascited. Don't matter whether +'tis his own or another's wedding, he's all the while jumping around +like a Shrovetide pancake. And talk--well, 'tis babble, babble, and all +of men and maids as was under yews twenty green years ago. I tell 'ee, +we all laffed when he began telling 'ow he kissed my grandmother coming +out of Evening Prayer one frosty night. 'The moon was on her back,' he +says, 'ay, and ecod! so was she!' Pretty times, pretty times!" + +What farther free confessions would have rippled from Mrs. Tabrum's +cherry-ripe lips, it would ill become a modest writer or reader to +speculate. They were cut short by the lurching entrance of Charlie and +Dicky Maggs, the two postillions. + +It would have been hard to find a more ill-favoured pair of ruffians in +a day's posting. Both of them had dismounted very regularly at every +house of call on the road and arrived at the _Basket of Roses_ with a +considerable cargo of bad spirits. The prospect of a long wait, while +the horses were changed and their fares supped, encouraged them to +farther excesses, and a lucky summons to the drawer to reach down a +special cordial gave them an opportunity to finish off the greater part +of a bottle of Plymouth Gin. + +Fortified by this, annoyed to find that Vernon had not arrived, and half +afraid they would lose their wages, they had come in to extract from +Miss Courteen as much money as they could, being willing and anxious to +drink away every minute of the wait. + +"Ve're vet, Miss," said Charles. + +"And it vouldn't be amiss if ve could 'ave a little piece of gold as 'ud +varm us wiv its shining," said Dicky. + +"Mr. Amor will settle your charges," said Phyllida. + +"And be off, you ruffians," exclaimed Mrs. Tabrum, enraged by this +impudent invasion of the Travellers' Room. + +"Shut your mouth, mother Appleface," hiccoughed Charlie. + +"And fork out somefink on account, Miss," oozed from his brother. + +The latter began to move with uncertain steps after Phyllida, who shrank +towards the shelter of the inglenook. + +"Jacob! Jacob! Simon Tabrum! Polly Patch! Mary Maria!" screamed the +landlady, snatching at the only article of offence in reach, which +happened to be a pair of bellows. With these she puffed away furiously, +to the enormous delight of the drunken postillions, who continued to +advance and indeed probably found the air of the bellows very grateful +to their heated brains. + +It is unlikely that anything more serious than a volley of oaths would +have occurred, if a tall elderly gentleman in a chestnut-brown frogged +riding-coat had not come in at that moment; but as he did come in, no +doubt the room was the sweeter for the interruption. + +"Oh, your honour," said Mrs. Tabrum, "will 'ee please turn out these +drunken rogues, seeing as all the house is away at their business and no +one near by." + +The elderly gentleman clenched his riding-stick a trifle more firmly and +directed his steel-grey eyes--equally potent weapons--towards the +abashed brothers. They did not wait to be addressed, but hurried as +quickly as the fumes of liquor allowed them, to the more congenial +atmosphere of the taproom. It is comforting to reflect, while they +twisted their way out, that Charlie and Dicky Maggs were hanged at +Tyburn for a peculiarly atrocious robbery and brutal assault upon a +blind rat-tamer, who, with many clinging rats and mice and a +scarlet-frilled dog, was a familiar figure in the villages round London. +It is not perhaps so comforting to reflect upon the poor old man lying +insensible in a puddle, with his tame rats and mice wandering aimlessly +in and out of his innumerable pockets and his scarlet-frilled dog with +three broken ribs moaning in the middle of a quickset bush. Egad! I vow +the Tyburn horse never responded so readily to Jack Ketch's whip and +never a pair of rogues went so ashen grey at the tide of a mob's +execrations in all the livid chronicles of quick and evil ends. + +The elderly gentleman in the chestnut Surtout turned from the exit of +Charlie and Dickie Maggs to survey the subject of their insolence. It +would have puzzled an onlooker to say precisely what effect was produced +on the elderly gentleman's countenance by this deliberate inspection of +Miss Phyllida Courteen, now melting in tears of apprehension and only +barely restrained from hystericks by Mrs. Tabrum's plump hands in +extensive motion. + +When the iron-grey clouds of a chill December afternoon dissolve for a +moment in the scud of a high gale and shed a ray of pallid sunlight on a +spent blossom, we are almost glad to see the thin azure thus displayed +as quickly veiled, and welcome the sullen twilight that succeeds. The +elderly gentleman's countenance took on for a brief moment a strange +light, but the frosted smile betrayed so much grim sorrow behind that it +was quite a relief to see his face resume a normal frigidity as he +muttered a regret and inquired into the chances of a good night's +lodging. + + + + +_Chapter the Thirtieth_ + +SIR GEORGE REPINGTON + + +"It is now eight o'clock," said the elderly gentleman, "if this young +lady has no objection, I will eat a light supper in this apartment; and +if you, ma'am, have no objection, I will retire to my bedchamber +immediately after the meal. I do not require a heavy supper," he added +as Mrs. Tabrum's jolly face began to pucker with the impatience of a +good housewife to enumerate the plentiful dainties of a well-stocked +larder. + +The latter perceiving that Phyllida was recovered of her alarm, and +anxious to prove to the elderly gentleman that his appetite was in the +wrong by producing a flock of savoury dishes as speedily as possible, +hereupon curtseyed, and was soon audible in shrill pursuit of little +Polly Patch. + +The Travellers' Room of the _Basket of Roses_ was plunged into rosy +quiet. The Dutch clock swung a languid pendulum to and fro with gentle +tick; the fire whispered and crackled faintly; the lattices occasionally +shook before a more unruly blast; a mouse stood up in a dark corner and +squeaked; the huge oak dresser occasionally tapped; two unknown birds, +screened till morning by chintz foliage, sometimes stirred on their +perches; the elderly gentleman sometimes rapped his mother-o'-pearl +snuff-box; Phyllida sometimes smoothed her forget-me-not flowered +skirts; and away in the taproom was a tinkle and murmur of taproom +sounds muffled by several intervening doors. Yet, however fair the +surroundings, it is impossible for two people, unacquainted, to maintain +a graceful silence for long. The elderly gentleman began to tap his +snuff-box more frequently, while Phyllida would smooth her skirts more +persistently and from time to time cast a sidelong glance in the +direction of the elderly gentleman. The latter felt the undercurrent of +strong emotion so keenly that he was worried by this steady inaction +into a curiosity quite alien to his character, and plunged into a +conversation consisting principally of a large number of direct +questions on his side and a small number of indirect replies on the part +of Phyllida. At last, after a tiresome quarter of an hour in which the +only solid piece of information given and offered was the fact that he +was going to, she departing from the salubrious town of Curtain Wells, +the elderly gentleman produced from the upper left-hand pocket of his +waistcoat an oval case of worn Morocco leather. Phyllida observed that +he rapped this in just the same decided way as he rapped his snuff-box +and felt a certain incongruity in his manner, as he took from it the +miniature of a young girl and offered the portrait for her inspection, +asking whether she detected a likeness. + +The girl, depicted with the meticulous art of the worker on a small +scale, recalled at once the features of Mr. Charles Lovely. Phyllida +hesitated for a moment before assigning the likeness to such a man. + +"You observe, Madam, the resemblance to yourself?" said the elderly +gentleman. + +"To myself?" replied Miss Courteen taken aback. + +"For what other reason should I show it to you?" + +"To say truth, sir, it reminds me more of a gentleman----" + +"Eh! what's that," he interrupted. "Not young Charles Lovely?" + +"Indeed, sir--'twas he occurred to my mind." + +"You know him?" + +"I have stepped a minuet with him," replied Phyllida, now more than ever +on her guard against the steel-grey eyes of the elderly gentleman. + +"This was my sister, his mother." + +If you had asked the stranger what prompted him to confide so suddenly +in Miss Courteen, I doubt he would have been unable to tell you. If his +clerks could have seen Sir George Repington, head of the great banking +house of Repington, at this moment they would have been indescribably +shocked to hear him announce this piece of personal information. The +clerks in busy Throgmorton Street firmly believed that the great Sir +George Repington lived a desolate and severe life surrounded by +calculating machines of enormous complication; they would have gasped to +imagine his bleak financial solitudes disturbed by a young woman in an +inn-parlour. The chief cashier, indeed, might have emitted one of his +dry hacking little laughs; but then the chief cashier had grown old in +the service of the Repingtons and, having known Sir George as a young +man, enjoyed a privileged cynicism. Moreover, the chief cashier when he +was junior clerk had carried half a score sealed notes to Thistlegrove +Cottage--a diminutive paradise five or six miles along the Hounslow +Road. There, amid the chirping of many linnets, young Master Repington +would swear eternal fidelity while the sun-dyed sleepy air coloured his +dear one's lips as deep as rubies and enchanted with gold her soft brown +hair. No doubt the present scene of this small history would have +awakened a delightful memory from the dusty recesses of the chief +cashier's brain, for all that the end of Thistlegrove Cottage was a +businesslike affair on a level with many other successful monetary +transactions of the great house of Repington and Son. + +Phyllida was somewhat embarrassed by the sudden announcement of his +relationship to that dreadful Mr. Lovely, who had lampooned the whole of +the fashionable world. She wondered if the elderly gentleman was aware +of his nephew's late indiscretion, whether she ought to break the news +of his odium, and finally with a maid's inconsequence fell to wishing +she had never eloped since the step had involved her in so awkward an +adventure. + +Sir George, noticing her embarrassment, introduced himself, + +"My name is Repington, ma'am--Sir George Repington." As he said this he +received the miniature from Phyllida, and having, as it were, fondled +the oval for a second, replaced it in the upper left-hand pocket of his +waistcoat. + +The introduction put Phyllida deeper than ever into a quandary. She felt +the genteel movement to be a low curtsey coupled with the graceful +revelation of her name, but this was just the act she could not bring +herself to perform. What a vast number of polite difficulties attached +themselves to an elopement, and how she wished with all her heart she +had never been so foolish as to brave them unaccompanied. + +"The resemblance is certainly very remarkable," said Sir George +Repington. + +Phyllida clutched this conversational straw. + +"I doubt, sir, 'twould ill become me to allow the compliment." + +The stilted reply did not seem to offend the elderly gentleman, for he +bowed very gallantly and tapped the lid of his snuff-box with an air. + +"And my nephew, ma'am, what does Curtain Wells think of my nephew?" + +Luckily for Phyllida who was racking her brains to devize a polite +method of informing Sir George Repington that his nephew had offended +the whole world, that is to say the whole world known to the residents +and visitors of Curtain Wells, Mrs. Tabrum came back to say that a pair +of fowls were on their way. + +"A morsel of cheese is all that I require, thank'ee," said Sir George to +this information. "A morsel of cheese, well-aired sheets and----" + +"A bit off the breast," murmured Mrs. Tabrum coaxingly. + +"Well-aired sheets and----" + +"A grilled drumstick," insinuated the landlady. + +"Well-aired sheets and----" + +"The liver wing." + +Sir George Repington capitulated and sat down to supper with Phyllida +opposite and a great bowl of daffadillies between them. + +Nobody ever found out what exactly was the elderly gentleman's unspoken +requirement. + +Sir George was enjoying himself--a very unusual occupation for that grim +and solid man of business. + +Phyllida, on the contrary, was becoming more deeply embarrassed every +moment. She could not help picturing to herself the awkwardness of +greeting her dear Amor in the presence of such a man. Moreover, she +could not understand why the latter preserved such a lack of curiosity. +She, a heroine to herself, was unable to appreciate the point of view +that took her and her adventure for granted. She almost resented Sir +George's acceptation of her as part of the furniture of a wayside inn. + +As a matter of fact, the banker was abroad to enjoy himself, and the +discovery of a maid sitting solitary in the firelight of an inn parlour +only struck him as whimsical in so far as she resembled his dead sister. +Having, after a lapse of many grey years, put on once more the mantle of +youth, he was very ready to welcome a face that consorted so perfectly +with his mood. + +But as supper went on, and the elderly gentleman inquired no farther +into the well-being of Mr. Charles Lovely, while Mr. Amor did not +arrive, and the drunken postillions remained in the tap-room, and the +Dutch clock ticked on quite unperturbed by the raging of the storm +without, Phyllida began to regain her equanimity, and even to converse +so trippingly with the elderly gentleman that elopements and Gretna +Green marriages floated away while she chattered of her dearest Morton, +betrayed the latter's partiality for young Mr. Chalkley, compared her +boldness with the more modest behaviour of a certain Miss Jenny West, +who was the third daughter of a parson who lived four--no five miles +from where they lived in Hampshire, jumped from the tale of Miss West to +the tale of Miss West's brother who scandalized the country by stepping +eight consecutive gavottes with his cousin from Hertfordshire; and +ultimately confided to Sir George her profound contempt for Mr. Moon and +her immense distrust of Major Tarry. Yet, at the very moment when she +was telling Sir George of a ludicrous chase of the Major's wig one windy +March morning in the preceding year the furious gale was blowing his +sodden pigtail to and fro without a curse from the little soldier in +whom stern death had begotten a divine and everlasting indifference to +the minor amenities of polite appearance. Sir George Repington was near +to the capture of his fled youth that fire-lit evening. He was back in +the old South Gallery at Repington Hall sitting in the wide window seat +at the West End, and opposite to him with flushed exquisite face sat his +sister Joan, rippling joyfully through the fair meadows of life like a +glittering brook. The musick of Phyllida's conversation revived for the +elderly gentleman many a crimson dusk. He thought with a sigh of the +South Gallery now, with its hollow echoes, its dust and long line of +contemptuous ancestors, and of himself as, with severe tread, he ran the +batteries of many immutable eyes. + +Old Tabrum would quaver in from time to time to survey the comfort of +his guests, regaling them with some particularly choice floral anecdote. +His wife too would peep to inquire whether the roasted fowls fulfilled +her expectations, and once little Polly Patch put her cap round the door +and asked if his honour would like the warming-pan left in his bed or +merely whisked three or four times over his already well-aired sheets. + + * * * * * + +Phyllida made a careless remark about her mother, and Sir George +Repington hoped that Mrs. Courteen (Phyllida had some time ago divulged +her name) would not be alarmed by the strife of the elements. Phyllida +made a very careless reply to this, by reassuring Sir George about her +mother, who, as she pointed out, would be not at all likely to observe +the wildness of the night in her anxiety to secure her hand against the +prying glances of my lady Bunbutter. + +"Is that Sir Moffyn Bunbutter's lady?" said Sir George. + +"Yes, indeed, sir." + +"Sure to be, sure to be," Sir George commented. "Who'd have thought of +seeing poor old Sir Moffyn's lady here of all places?" + +"But she's not here, sir. She is at Curtain Wells." + +"But your mother?" + +Phyllida saw her mistake, but, being unused to falsehoods, made no +attempt to extricate herself from the situation provoked by her own +carelessness. As a happy compromise, she blushed and made queer little +excavations in the salt-cellar. + +"You've no brother and your father is dead?" went on Sir George, fixing +the abashed young woman with his sharp eyes. "Then you are alone in this +inn?" + +The statement, put so baldly, sounded very dreadful to Miss Courteen. +Moreover, she had an uneasy idea that the elderly gentleman was +beginning to feel himself compromised by her company, so she made +patterns in the salt-cellar more fantastick than ever, blushed till the +shells of her ears seemed veritably to crack in the furnace of outraged +sensibility, and looked very guilty. + +"Alone?" the elderly gentleman repeated. + +Phyllida's whispered 'yes' was only just audible above the languid +ticking of the Dutch clock. + +The antique landlord broke the tension by putting his head round the +door and demanding from Sir George whether he preferred to sleep in the +Dorick Summerhouse with a view of the surrounding country, or in the +Green Vista with a more comfortable bed, if not so wide a view. +Antiquity was followed by his wife, who hustled him fairly into the +candlelight and explained that all their bedchambers were named to suit +the flowery eccentricity of her husband. + +"Thus we have the Parterre," said old Simon in support of his wife's +explanation, "the Pleached Alley (though that is more truly a passage). +The Sun Dial (a warm attick), the Quincunx, the Bosquet, the Arbour, the +Green Gallery, the Cascade (or stairway) and for my dear hollyhock and +myself, the Columbary." + +"God bless you, sirrah," said Sir George rather testily, "I'm no Dutch +garden-maker that I should fret about such vagaries of taste. Oons! +plant me where you will, I wager I shall not open till daybreak." + +This quip pleased the old landlord enormously, and he retired upon a +chuckle prolonged sufficiently to convey him to the farthest ends of the +house, whither he was followed by his anxious wife. + +Left alone once more, Phyllida and Sir George looked at each other over +the remains of that genial supper. + +Neither broke the silence for a while. The elderly gentleman was the +first to speak. + +"Don't you think it is somewhat unwise to travel alone, especially as +your postillions do not seem a very trusty pair?" + +"I am not really alone," said Phyllida, +"I'm--I'm--expecting--a--a--companion." + +Sir George Repington raised his eyebrows and seemed about to make a +severe comment upon this halting explanation, but, leaning his elbow on +the table and his cheek on his hand, he changed his mind and in cold +deliberate accents, so cold and so deliberate that you would have sworn +a weight of emotion was sunk beneath them, began a tale. Since this tale +must either be told by me or by Sir George himself, inasmuch as it +concerns one or two of our characters, I will let the original author +give it to you in his own words, nay I will give the story the +distinction of a chapter to itself. + + + + +_Chapter the Thirty-first_ + +A TALE WITH AN INTERRUPTED MORAL + + +Sir George Repington filled up his glass (he was drinking Port wine), +motioned Phyllida to a seat on the right, sat himself down opposite, +and, to the accompaniment of thunder and lightning and wind and rain, +proceeded to entertain her with some vastly interesting details of his +domestick history. + +"I have already shown you the portrait of my sister Joan, and you will +remember that I remarked upon the resemblance between you and her--I did +not think at the time that such a coincidence would fulfil itself even +more completely. + +"We were left orphans soon after I reached my twenty-fifth birthday, and +I will admit that I experienced a keen sensation of pride in the +responsibleness of a great financial house and a very attractive young +woman. Pray, remember I was still young. We lived when we were in London +at a pleasant house in Soho Square, on the side nearest to the Oxford +Road, but spent much of our leisure at Repington Hall, a fine old family +mansion in the county of Surrey, near enough to the town to make our +visits there very frequent." + +Sir George sighed at the pleasant memories as he sipped his glass of +Port wine. + +"We spent many golden days at Repington Hall and our friends, carefully +selected, as all young people's friends are, found the long June +evenings on the great sloping lawn not less pleasant than we did. Egad! +I can see them all now and hear over the long silences that invariably +punctuate such intimate conversation the lowing of the cows in the home +farm and the deer crunching the sweet long grass beneath the broad +oak-trees. And in Spring what a choir of nightingales sang in the +gnarled whitethorn trees by the sunk fence, and in late summer what +myriads of grasshoppers chirruped in the twilight. Yes, yes, I can see +them all--young Harbottle Ramsey--he's my Lord Sodor and Man +now--succeeded his uncle who was executed after the rising in +'45--well--well, Harbottle was always a staunch Whig, and by gad, so +were all of us in those evenings at Repington. Then there was Burnet, +Cinderton's eldest son--he is Cinderton now--Burnet was always monstrous +careful about his cloaths and always carried a small Persian rug to sit +upon. I remember we used to call it the hearthrug--Harthe-Brusshe is the +family name--and now they tell me he's a positive martyr to the lumbago. +Yes, yes, Ramsey and Burnet and Belladine, I wonder what's become of +Belladine--he was a famous fop--poor Belladine, poor Belladine--he never +recovered from the blow. And then there was Roger Quain. + +"He was my best friend, and the happiest day of my life was that on +which he was betrothed to my sister Joan. I tell you no such rousing +toast was given at Repington since the news of the Boyne victory was +brought in to my father. She and Roger were betrothed in July and should +have been wed in April." + +The old man--for, with the progress of his tale, such the elderly +gentleman seemed to become--took a longer sip at his glass of Port as if +to brace himself for the climax of the narrative. + +"They should have been wed in April. But that winter was a busy one in +Throgmorton Street, and my sister Joan, having caught a chill, was +ordered to remain in the country--her only companion, a foolish cousin +of my mother's. I was not at home more than twice all the winter. I +never knew of that blackguard's visits till March. He used to come every +day--every day until I forbade him the house--a white cockade papist +crammed with disloyalty--always bragging of some outlandish petty +rebellion on the top of some d----d Scottish mountain or other. He +filled her head with his Jacobite twaddle--a fool who, earning his +livelihood by dice and cards, was willing enough to upset all law and +order for the sake of the plunder which he and his fellows might very +well have acquired at the expense of better and honester and more loyal +men. + +"He wound himself round her heart with his false French oaths and cursed +lovemaking. + +"I sent for Roger; he came down with Belladine--I shall always believe +that Belladine loved her too--and I told Roger he must keep an eye on +his treasure, or 'twould be stolen from him. The wedding was fixed; the +guests were invited; and one fine morning I went down to the orchard to +see how the apples were setting (there had been a shrewd Easterly wind +for some days)--and--and--I found him dead--Roger Quain--my dearest, +oldest friend--Roger Quain dead. Gadslife! young Madam, if you had seen, +as I saw, the fallen apple-blossoms reddened by his blood, I do not +think you would be making a runaway match; and she, my beloved sister, +eloped with his murderer--with Valentine Lovely, Esq., Jacobite, Papist, +rake, spendthrift, drunkard, gamester, and prodigal!" + +Sir George Repington rose from his seat and in the passion of +remembrance broke with his grip the thin stem of his wineglass, so that +the spilt liquid as it trickled over the hearth stones and stained the +ashes conjured up the old scene all too vividly and horribly for poor +Phyllida. + +"But why did Belladine let her go with that blackguard--that is what I +never knew--that is what I would like to ask Belladine--what can have +happened to Belladine?" the old man muttered to himself, "and why do I +tell you this?" he went on, "why--because----" + +But unfortunately the moral of this story was never properly related, +though 'tis easy enough to guess the import, for at that moment in came +the long-awaited Mr. Francis Vernon, splashed from head to foot in mud +and wearing a deep cut over his left temple. After all, Major +Constantine Tarry did succeed in delaying the elopement if only for an +hour or two because Mr. Vernon's mare had shied at the dead body and +flung her rider over the hedge in her unwillingness to pass so damp and +gloomy an obstacle. If the veteran's ghost was able to spare a moment +from his enthralling conversations with Alexander the Great and other +notable captains in Elysium, I make no doubt at the sight he gave vent +to an attenuated cackle of pleasure. + +Nothing sets a woman off to such disadvantage as the need to introduce a +pair of men whom instinctively she knows to be hostile to each other. +They never make the slightest attempt to help her out of the awkward +position, and, indeed, add to it by such haughty behaviour, such +ruffling of crests and bristling of limbs that under the circumstances +the most polished gentlemen become uncouth savages or dogs eager to +squabble over a debated bone. + +In this instance Mr. Vernon stared Sir George Repington up and down, +while the latter, who was not accustomed to such freedom of regard, took +snuff very aggressively and looked as if he would like to give the +intruder a moment's notice, as indeed he would. Phyllida tried to stem +the tide of embarrassment by remarking in a hushed voice that Sir George +had been kindly entertaining her in the absence of Mr. Amor. + +"Has he?" was the latter's frigid response. + +"And oh, Amor," she went on, "those odious postillions pushed their way +to the room and wanted money and Sir George kindly came to the rescue +and bade them begone." + +"Did he?" was all that Vernon would vouchsafe in thanks to this timely +assistance. + +Phyllida, abashed by her lover's bad manners, seemed inclined to +apologize for them with tears. And now Sir George did what most +Englishmen would have done under the circumstances--he walked out of the +room in a very stately way. No doubt the banker thought the strength of +feeling which had led him to reveal his life's tragedy would kindle an +equal emotion in the heart of Miss Courteen and that when he returned he +would find the raffish intruder gone. + +This was in fact the precise result of his withdrawal. When he returned, +Mr. Vernon was gone. But neither was Miss Phyllida Courteen anywhere in +sight. + + + + +_Chapter the Thirty-second_ + +THE HORRID ADVENTURES OF BEAU RIPPLE AND MRS. COURTEEN + + +We will, if you please, take for granted the persuasions used by Mr. +Vernon to induce Phyllida to continue upon her headlong course. He rode +beside her on this second stage of her adventure, and I shall have +something to say of that drive together through the darkness of wind and +rain. We will take for granted Sir George Repington's indignation, +expressed with many a z----ds and many a pinch of snuff, and since +there are a number of fine folk abroad on this most atrocious evening, +it is only just that we should pay them the compliment of relating their +horrid adventures. + +You have not forgotten, I hope, the sensation created in Curtain Wells +by the sight of Beau Ripple and Mrs. Courteen ensconced in the former's +vivid yellow postchaise, driven by the former's diminutive groom +Pridgeon. You made one of a host of conjectures, or rather you would +have done had you not been in the heart of the secret, thanks to the +honest, straightforward way in which I have treated you throughout this +story. + +They went off with 'Tally-ho' and 'Whoo-whoop, gone away!' They rattled +over the cobbles and clattered over the kidney stones and jolted +prodigiously over a kerb that protruded too far into the road. They +bumped over a log of wood dropped by old Mother Hubbard in her frantick +endeavours to gain the protection of the pavement, they ground the face +of little Miss Muffet's favourite wax doll to minutest grains of powder. +They experienced a second's muffled progress as with two wheels they +rolled over little Tommy Trout's Easter coat and with the others made a +broad smear over little Sammy Green's satchel and cracked his new Horn +Book into a thousand splinters. + +As for Mr. Ripple, every time he rose to a wayside obstacle and fell +with a genteel plump into Mrs. Courteen's wide lap, he had a sensation +of the acutest disgust; with disgust, too, he viewed his cushions of +fawn silk and ivory sattin bedabbled with the widow's copious +tears--these cushions made salt with a mortal widow's grief that were +never intended to be spoiled with anything less ethereal than the +glittering milk of the Queen of Heaven. + +Extreme dizziness overtook the Great little Man when, in accents hoarse +with hysterical sorrow, the wretched woman by his side begged the loan +of his handkerchief. Then, indeed, he nearly called to Pridgeon to check +their mad course, turn the horses' heads stablewards, brooding for a +sensuous second upon the delights of a warm meditative bath, made +sweeter with Citron Essence. + +Poor Mr. Ripple! As the mile-stones fled past and the chilly March +twilight crept over the dusky fallows and peered above the black +hedgerows, he thought with unutterable pangs of the cheerful and +comfortable town of Curtain Wells. His china shepherds and shepherdesses +called to him over the bleak country, and in the distance like elfin +bells he heard the reproachful tinkle of his elegant lustres. + +At the turnpike Mr. Ripple asked the keeper whether a post-chariot had +lately come under his jurisdiction. + +"Dick who?" inquired the janitor. + +"Have you seen a post-chariot?" said Mr. Ripple, petulantly. + +"No, I ain't. Have you seen two bullocks as 'ave lost, stolen and +strayed theyselves hereabouts--the red 'un with a----" + +"Drive on," said Mr. Ripple. + +"That's gentry," commented the gatekeeper as, spitting on the bust of +King George which reposed in the palm of his dirty hand, he retired to +brood over a well-thumbed pamphlet that set forth with convincing +ribaldry, the imminent danger of another Popish plot. + +"Drive on," said Mr. Ripple, "we shall have a heavy shower presently." + +They were bowling down a broad village street with a merry jingle of +harness and rhythmical clatter of hoofs, while the cracking of little +Pridgeon's whip, nearly as big as himself, made many inquisitive bodies +huddle in the low doorways of the cottages to survey the gallant +equipage. + +"Reg'lar delooge, your honour," said Pridgeon, turning round on the box. + +Mrs. Courteen was already so wet with the tears of outraged motherhood +that the addition of rain could scarcely have affected her comfort. +Nevertheless she shuddered so expansively that she squeezed her +companion closer than ever to the side of the chaise. + +"Shall we put up at the _Green Dragon_?--very comfortable Inn, the +_Green Dragon_." + +"No, no, Pridgeon, drive on. If it rains, it rains." + +Such a platitude from Beau Ripple can only have been provoked by the +intensest despair. A ploughboy's epigram would not have seemed more out +of place. The Nine Muses were certainly waked from their harmonious +lethargy, and a small boy, playing _Sally in our Alley_ on a Jew's harp, +twanged a discordant echo of their shocked sensibility. A platitude from +Beau Ripple! The very chaise collapsed in ignominy. Bump--bang--whooooo! +The gay vehicle was on its side and the front off-wheel was whirling +madly down the broad slope of the street, to the enormous delight of the +boy with the Jew's harp and the immense consternation of a flock of +geese in whose company it made a noisy entrance into the village pond. + +Pridgeon turned once more on the Jimmy and, having pulled up the horses +and gazed at the Tableau, remarked: + +"Blow me tight if I didn't think the wheel'd do that afore we started. +Blow me right and tight!" + +By this time, all the village stood in a circle and supplied an +exhaustive commenting upon the sad event. + +"She's putt her futt through her petticutt," whooped grandmother. + +"So her 'ave and toored 'un proper." + +"Blarm 'un if the old buoy's knee ain't streaked like somebody's baäd +baäcon." + +"So it be, buoy, so it be," came the delighted rejoinder. + +"Look, see the seat of his breeches!" cried a shapely hussy. + +"I never saw such a power o' mud, why 'e's like a brown paäper plaster +behind. Poor soul!" + +"Horse ain't hurt?" asked a sharp-featured, bow-legged individual with +professional anxiety. + +Four or five hobbledehoys had assisted the Beau to his feet and +volunteered to show him the way to the _Green Dragon_. As that hostelry +stood exactly opposite the scene of the disaster, the offer savoured of +something more than mere friendliness. + +Mrs. Courteen was whirling round and round, like a kitten after her +tail, trying to ascertain the precise amount of damage close to her +train; a good-natured booby stuck his foot on the skirt to steady it for +her inspection, and in doing so made the rent more irreparable. + +"Better go to the _Green Dragon_, your honour," said Pridgeon, as spruce +as when he started. + +"Better go to h----, you dunderhead," said the Beau, very white with +well-bred passion and the shock of the catastrophe. No fragile vase of +Dresden or of azure Sêvres, no figure of opalescent Worcester, no +violet-flowered teapot of Lowestoft that ever fell from a proud cabinet +through the careless sweep of a chambermaid's broom, was to be so deeply +commiserated as Mr. Horace Ripple. These painted monuments of care +betray their inherent beauty even in the dainty particles that proclaim +their wreckage, but a fop with muddied breeches--why, in the very first +chapter of this story we trembled to behold the circumference of the +least dignified part of the Beau's anatomy protruding from beneath a +bedstead; and on that occasion, it was gay with the flowers of a silk +dressing-gown. + +I do not think that the Great little Man ever recovered from this +outrage to his personal attire, for to the very end of his modish days, +he would wear a coat cut an inch or two lower than was readily allowed +by the least conservative tailor in his employment. + +As for Mrs. Courteen, who followed meekly in the wake of her wounded +escort, she could not refrain from wishing that the Major and the +Justice were at hand to console her with jealous attentions and rival +sympathies, and when the first round drop of the swift-approaching storm +hit her plump on the nose and washed away in its downward course the +last vestige of powder from her face, she regretted also the tributary +fingers of Betty. + +In the hall of the _Green Dragon_ their reception was almost servile. +Great Cobblebury, for all its pompous name, was too near to Curtain +Wells to attract the attention of many travellers, and the _Green +Dragon_ depended for custom almost entirely on the thirstiness of the +surrounding population. Guests, therefore, received very excellent +service for their money. The host, one George Upex, had watched the +advance of the chaise with sleek arms beneath a protuberant apron and +thumbs that twiddled sleepily; but the smash aroused his hospitable +instincts, and by the time Mr. Ripple and Mrs. Courteen had reached the +doorway of the inn, he was back from the kitchen, where he had hastily +ordered the immediate insertion into the capacious oven of several +dishes, and was ready to usher the stranded travellers into the parlour. + +"And what will your good lady take?" he inquired, with his rubicund face +cocked at what he considered a very appetizing angle. + +"She is not my good lady, sirrah," rapped out the Beau. + +"Not at all, your honour--beg pardon," said Mr. Upex, putting up a +gigantick hand to an equally gigantick mouth as if he would force the +latter feature to eat the indiscreet question it had so grossly emitted. + +"How long will it take to mend the damage to my chaise?" demanded Mr. +Ripple. + +The landlord made a rough calculation in his mind. + +"About an hour to cook the--to mend the--er--chaise," he replied. + +"Have you a bed?" asked the Beau. + +The landlord beamed. They were going to spend the night under his roof, +and mentally he saw himself on the next day obscuring the sunlight of +the parlour with a very long bill. + +"A bed, your honour? Yes, indeed! Oh! yes." Mr. Upex paused. "A bed?" + +"Yes! a bed--a b-e-d--bed." + +"For one night?" + +"One night--no! now, sirrah, now." Mr. Ripple stamped his little foot, +probably to shake off the mud of the humiliating accident. + +"Now?" Mr. Upex looked surprized, that is to say the mouth of Mr. Upex +remained fixed in a cavernous gape. + +"Why not now?" exclaimed the peremptory Beau. "Ain't your beds aired, +landlord? Ain't they made yet?" + +"Oh, certainly, your honour." + +"Then show me upstairs at once. I shall lie down until the wheel of my +chaise is mended. And shew this lady another room, and send two or three +chambermaids to attend to her." + +Mr. Upex looked much relieved. + +It was not such a shameless affair as he had been led by wanton +ambiguity of phrase to believe. + +"What about the duck?" + +"What duck? What duck?" asked Mr. Ripple fretfully. + +"The duck your honour ordered--that is, was about to order when I +interrupted your honour." + +"Send up three slices of the breast on a small tray to my chamber, and +don't put any stuffing on the plate, the odour of sage upsets my +appetite." + +"Indeed?" said Mr. Upex, quite frankly interested by such a nasal +idiosyncrasy. + +"Yes, and send out a woman of taste and discretion to purchase a +nightcap." + +"I wouldn't say, your honour, as how one of the maids wouldn't oblige +your--er--the good lady." + +"For myself, landlord, for myself." + +"I beg your honour's pardon." + +Mr. Upex hurried off to execute his guest's requirement and presently +returned to escort them to their rooms. + +"When my man comes in," said the Beau, "send him up to me with the +nightcap." + +Pridgeon had rescued the wheel from the pond and, having successfully +directed two bumpkins to trundle it to the blacksmith, arrived at the +inn with an admiring retinue of idlers, whom he regaled with quarts of +bitter beer. The woman of taste entrusted with the purchase of the +nightcap (she was the scullerymaid) returned with the vestment neatly +wrapped in paper, and, meeting her master on the stairs, was told to +hand it to the diminutive groom, who chucked her under the chin with the +parcel and took his bow-legged way upstairs to Mr. Ripple's temporary +apartment. + +Outside he rapped smartly on the door, which was cautiously opened +sufficiently wide to allow the urbane countenance of the Beau to peer +round the corner. + +"Is that you, Pridgeon?" + +"Me, y'r honour, with a present from Great Cobblebury." + +The Beau took the nightcap, and in its place handed muddied +smallcloaths, smeared coat, and wrinkled waistcoat. + +"Have these cloaths thoroughly brushed." + +"Yes, y'r honour." + +"And bring me three slices of breast in an hour's time." + +"Yes, y'r honour." + +"And don't get drunk to celebrate your carelessness." + +"No, y'r honour." + +"Poor clod," murmured the Beau to his polite self, as he closed the door +of his chamber and double locked it against intrusion. + +I think it would certainly be indiscreet to spy upon Mr. Ripple's +retirement. How did he spend his time in bed? The whisper of book-leaves +tempts me to suppose that he read several of the bitterest odes, very +possibly a whole satire of Quintus Horatius Flaccus, that poet so fierce +but withal so urbane. Meanwhile Mrs. Courteen, surrounded by three +maids, respectively known as Susan, Joan, and Elizabeth, held forth upon +her misfortunes to a sympathetick audience. + +She stood in the middle of her chamber, a massive figure pouring forth +ludicrous complaint. It was as if a stork should seek to emulate a +nightingale. + +Susan knelt on the floor and industriously stitched away at the ragged +train; Joan knelt with innumerable pins stuck between her pearly teeth +and judiciously fastened several gaps in her attire, while Elizabeth, +who was being courted by Johnny, the _Green Dragon's_ sibilant hostler, +rubbed away at the mud with as near an imitation of the sounds produced +by her lover's stringy throat as the softness of her own would allow. + +"I have been greatly distressed," said the widow, "grossly deceived, +intolerably put about for, though Mr. Ripple has the character of a +block of marble, it don't become a woman to be seen alone with a man +anywhere, especially in a yellow chaise which attracts everybody's +attention. I vow I heard that odious young Miss Kitcat laugh from her +balcony as we flew past--yes, flew--and such bumping! I dare swear I'm +bruised from head to foot, and my skin shows the smallest mark. I +remember when I was a young woman, I stepped a minuet with young Mr. +Heavibois of Heavibois Hall, and I declare he might have been taking the +grossest liberties all through the evening, for the way my wrist was +marked. Lud! it was as purple as my grandmother's silk coverlet that was +given to her by a young lieutenant in the Navy, and was thought to +belong to the wife of the Cham of Tartary, though I dare say he bought +it in Cheapside for ten shillings, being a young gentleman on whose word +nobody could rely, that is the worst of men, young women, you cannot +trust 'em. And now my own daughter has run away with a London spark, and +I, her own mother, must give up half a score routs and my Lady +Pickadilly's drum--the most fashionable affair of the kind that will +ever be known in Curtain Wells, for my Lady Pickadilly is newly come +from town with her second son the Hon. John Hyde, as quiet a young +gentleman as ever said Bo! to a goose, and here we are nearly into +April, and if my daughter drowns herself from London Bridge, why then I +shall be wearing black at the Fêtes Champêtres and a pretty figure I +shall be truly! though, indeed, if one had the courage to wear a white +velvet vizard, I might very well pass for an Allegory of Moonlight--and +yet that would never do, for to be sure that malicious creature Mrs. +Dudding, whose Conversazione last month was the completest failure ever +known, would make one of her odious epigrams about poor Mr. Moon, the +best natured of gentlemen and the very personification of the milk of +human kindness. To be sure, his ankles are very big, but indeed I vow if +one were to regard all the defects in humanity, very few of us would be +able to hold up our heads. Mr. Ripple himself is the smallest man in the +Wells, but nobody esteems him the less for that. To be sure, I think he +was very ill-advised,--though for that matter he was never known to take +anybody's advice but his own--very ill-advised, I say, not to speak more +severely to my daughter. I was always so careful of her modesty that I +never allowed her to sit in the Maze with an odious little nudity in +stone always hovering about, till I declare they should have planted ivy +to climb up his shameless legs. I'm sure nothing could be more Biblical +than such vegetable apparel. Cupid they call him: Stupid I call it." +Mrs. Courteen here paused to take a longer breath and Susan exclaimed: + +"La! ma'am, what to do wi' your petticoat I doan't know. It comes +peaping through your gown like Tom o' Coventry in the Christmas +mumming." + +"Pin it, child, pin it," said the widow. + +"La! ma'am, we ha' used nigh forty pins already, and thee'll be like a +hedgehog soon." + +"No matter, child, no matter how I appear. I must do my duty as a +mother, but I vow I blush when I think that near everybody takes us for +man and wife. To be sure, I don't mind, and always say that if the world +wishes to talk, the world will talk; and there once was a time when I +was talked about from one corner of the county to the other. And now +this improper affair of my daughter's will set every idle tongue wagging +again. My own maid Betty, who was privy to the whole unhappy intrigue, +was truly frightened when she found how far ignorance and wilfulness had +taken her. 'What will they say at Courteen Grange, ma'am, and what will +Mr. Rumble the carrier say, and Mrs. Rumble and the old widow who keeps +the shop and poor old Jonas the gardener and all the good folk of the +shire?' 'Ah,' said I, 'what indeed?' Ugh! child, you're running pins +into my--into my legs!" + +"Dear life, ma'am," said Susan the culprit, apparently not much abashed +by the accusation, "'tis difficult to find a bit of leg to run a pin +into, for, O my soul and body, you're shining like a starlight night, +wi' pins all over 'ee." + +So the rehabilitation of Mrs. Courteen went on with diffuse anecdotes on +the side of the widow, with similes from deft-fingered Susan, with much +displaying of pearly teeth from Joan, and with a gentle cooing from +Elizabeth, who was betrothed to the hostler of the _Green Dragon_ Inn. + +Outside it was raining faster than ever, and the wind was beginning to +moan under the eaves and away in the remote corners of the house. A +flash of lightning and a terrifick burst of thunder that followed +immediately upon its heels undid half an hour's steady pinning, owing to +the violent tremours with which it afflicted poor Mrs. Courteen. + +It made Mr. Ripple break a Cæsura and, worse, it made him try to mend it +with a false quantity. Altogether the prospect was extremely uninviting, +and the succulent odour of roast duck was certainly no temptation to +precipitate his departure. However, the duck came to an end, and the +morsels of it which began to freeze upon his plate made him so impatient +of farther delay that when Pridgeon knocked at the door and informed him +the chaise was once more fit for the roads, he called for his bill and, +as I believe, (such a sweet change had Horace and roast duck wrought in +his mind) hummed a popular jig while he buttoned up his breeches. Soon +he was tapping delicately at the door of Mrs. Courteen's chamber, +saying: + +"Come, ma'am, I hope you're rested. Our horses are waiting--'tis a most +atrocious night--but never mind, ma'am, never mind, we shall sleep the +sounder," he had almost said "for having done our duty," but not even +the stress of an untoward adventure could condemn his spirit to a second +platitude that stormy night, and he altered the unfinished sentence to +"for not having to endure Mrs. Dudding's epigrams. Foregad, ma'am," he +went on, "she churns the sour cream of her intellect and produces, after +infinite toil, a very rancid wit." + +Then the Great little Man pattered downstairs, condescended to +felicitate Mr. Upex upon his timely meal, inquired the name of his cook, +said she was a good woman and would go far, listened to Farmer Gruby's +opinion that this rain would do a power o' good to the land, condoled +with him upon a bovine loss which he was still lamenting, bade Pridgeon +stand another quart of ale each to the good fellows who had assisted to +talk about the accident, raised his monocle to a bill of sale affixed to +the wall, inquired into the state of the roads before them, evoked an +atmosphere of respectful adoration by presenting the landlord with a +card inscribed 'Horace Ripple, The Great House,' and finally won the +perpetual devotion of Mr. George Upex by writing in his neatest hand at +the top right corner of the engraved card 'Recommended by.' The landlord +vowed he would have the precious voucher of identity framed and hung up +in the parlour underneath a painting on glass of his gracious Majesty +K---- G----, and in close proximity to a likeness of Lord Breda's prize +bullock Jupiter, which several drunken loyalists had been known to +salute in mistake for the K----. + +Mrs. Courteen sailed downstairs, followed by Susan, Joan and Elizabeth, +all of whom were kept busy picking up pins, which they stuck between +their teeth, to the great disappointment of Mr. Pridgeon, who would have +very much liked to snatch a kiss from each Hebe in turn, and, seeing +that the hostler was standing outside in the rain, I dare swear that but +for the pins he would have been successful in his amorous project. Off +went the chaise into the gathering gloom, spattering the onlookers with +mud, and almost drowning with its clatter the hearty cheers of the +inhabitants of Great Cobblebury. + +And now the Beau, whose urbanity had been restored by Horace and roast +duck, entertained Mrs. Courteen with delightful tales of fashionable +society. The most violent jolt no longer availed to upset the balance of +his sentences. The widow was deeply impressed by Mr. Ripple's charming +behaviour and, though she could not appreciate his anecdotes at their +value, was put into a very pleasant disposition of mind by a +half-fledged fancy that the Great little Man was slowly succumbing to +her ample fascination. As for little Pridgeon, his diminutive inside was +so replete with cordials and old Jamaica rum that he was quite +impervious to the weather and he sang a large number of country ballads +in a very engaging Alto voice. + +Suddenly, as they were driving over a wild stretch of commonland, dotted +with huge clumps of gorse and a number of stunted and wind-bent +thorn-trees, the chaise stopped with a jerk, spoiling the climax of one +of the Beau's best stories, describing how he had compelled the Duchess +of Hereford to apologize to a flower girl. + +"What's the matter?" he cried out. + +"Nothing," said Pridgeon, "but we're just underneath the gallows with a +very notorious reskel swingin' over our heads--reg'lar old scarecrow he +is--can't you hear the chains, y'r honour? He's bobbin' about in the +wind like a cork in a puddle." + +"Drive on, rogue," commanded Mr. Ripple sternly. + +"It 'ud be a pity not to see 'im. Blue Jenkins vas his name--I'll hold +up one of the lamps and you can take a good look at 'im. There was +hundreds used to walk 'ere of a Sunday afternoon when he was just +turned off, ecod, y'r honour ought to take a look at him." + +"Will you drive on, sirrah!" + +Suddenly Mrs. Courteen uttered a loud scream; and very uncanny it +sounded in the tempest. + +"What in the name of--what's the matter?" exclaimed Mr. Ripple. + +"I hear horses," said Mrs. Courteen, and screamed again. + +Pridgeon cocked up his ears. + +"She's right," he shouted. "There's a couple of 'em coming up behind +us!" + +"Good G----! Highwaymen!" said Mrs. Courteen, clinging to Mr. Ripple. +The latter did not lose his presence of mind. + +"Drive on, you puppy! I'll see to the priming of my pistols." With these +words the Courageous little Man dived between the widow's agitated legs +and groped for the elegant walnut case of his exquisitely chased +pistols. + +"'Tain't no good," shouted Pridgeon, as he lashed the horse to a gallop. +"'Tis only a mile afore we reaches Long Hill and they'll catch us +walkin' there." + +"I warn you, madam," said Mr. Ripple calmly, while the postchaise +rattled through the storm, "I warn you that I shall certainly shoot +once, if not twice." + +But Mrs. Courteen had fainted away and only half a dozen pins released +from their responsibleness whispered a faint and ineffective answer. + + + + +_Chapter the Thirty-third_ + +THE HIGHWAYMEN + + +The rumour of Phyllida's elopement took definite shape just as the +candles were being lighted for the nuts and wine. It lent quite a +flavour even to the inferior Port that disgraced most of the +dinner-tables at Curtain Wells. And if a flavour was lent to moderately +bad wine, what a truly celestial aroma was given off by the fragrant +pots of tea in the parlours. Curtain Wells was always famous for the +finest blends, and I venture to think that the sad affair of Miss +Courteen inspired every hostess to a perfection of art unequalled before +or since. Never were the gentlemen so quick to follow the ladies from +the spent dinner. Moreover, the absence of Beau Ripple permitted a +recklessness of conjecture, a venom of Innuendo that would have made the +rumour famous, even had it proved devoid of the slightest foundation. + +Many inclined to the theory that Mr. Ripple had arranged the prologue to +suit himself, and vowed they had seen fervent stares exchanged between +him and Mrs. Courteen. One inventive young gentleman started a report +that Mr. Vernon was the Pretender; but this was contradicted by old Lady +Loch Lomond who, having been one of the ladies-in-waiting at St. +Germain's and watched the young prince in his bath, was positive that +Mr. Vernon did not resemble him at all. The young gentleman's ingenious +suggestion lent a momentary glamour to the heroine of the affair, but +with the destruction of his story by Lady Loch Lomond, publick attention +was again concentrated upon Beau Ripple. An extravagant explanation of +his roundabout method of courtship was found in a whispered legend that +in early youth he had married one of the daughters of the Grand Turk +and escaping from the turbaned alliance four months afterwards through +the friendly offices of a fig merchant from Smyrna who smuggled him out +of the Bosphorous and landed him at Lyme Regis in Dorsetshire, had spent +the rest of his enforced celibacy in dread of vengeful scimitars. + +Then somebody remembered the codicil to Squire Courteen's will, and the +story of young Mr. Standish who left the neighbourhood in such a hurry. +One of the abetters of this last tale mentioned that Mr. Ripple was +badly in need of money, and finally everybody agreed that here at last +was the true explanation of the yellow chaise. The Beau was trying to +make up his losses by wedding Mrs. Courteen secretly so that the lawyers +should not lay violent hands upon her inheritance. This was such a +satisfactory and circumstantial account that everybody sat down to +Quadrille without their play being the more distracted than usual. +Meanwhile the author of the latest explanation went from house to house +to burble the news in the company of his two witnesses. The three of +them were received everywhere with acclamation as soon as it transpired +they were the bearers of the authoritative account; and though they were +all of them bores of the finest calibre, they enjoyed a considerable +popularity which compensated for all the slights and snubs they had +received in the past at the hands of rank and fashion. Having discovered +their talents, they all three existed for ever afterwards on the sources +of false information and published books of memoirs and thought +themselves great men and, in fact, are to this very day consulted by +social historians. + +Meanwhile another rumour was flying furiously round all the shops that +Mr. Lovely was on the verge of making a hurried departure from Curtain +Wells. Mr. Ripple owed nothing to the tradesmen; consequently his yellow +chaise caused no consternation in commercial hearts, but Mr Charles +Lovely owed large amounts. Every shopkeeper in the High Street vowed he +would know the true facts of this reported flight. Under the great +archway of the _Blue Boar_, they pattered--all of them dressed in +snuff-coloured suits and all of them with suspiciously long envelopes +protruding from their left-hand pockets. There was Mr. Crumpett the +Confectioner and Mr. Frieze the Tailor and another tailor called Charges +and a third called Trimmings. There was Mr. Cuffe the hosier, and Mr. +Trinket of one toyshop and Mr. Leonard of another, and Mr. Wheeler the +coach-builder; there was fat Mrs. Leafy of one flower-shop and little +Miss Bunch of the other flower-shop, and old Mrs. Tabby of the ribband +shop, there was Mr. Filigree the Goldsmith, and Mr. Tree the bootmaker, +and Mr. Buckle the saddler, and young Washball the barber's senior +apprentice. In fact, the only creditors absent were Mr. Daish who was at +that very moment listening to a plausible demonstration of Mr. Lovely's +prospects, and the ex-limner Mr. Canticle who would have scorned to +associate himself with such a snuff-coloured rabble and had, moreover, +been paid something on account more lately than the rest. + +"What the deuce is this seditious gathering?" exclaimed Lieutenant +Blewforth to little Peter Wingfield as they swung round the corner and +plunged into the voluble assemblage. Suddenly there was a noise of a +window being thrown up, and a stillness fell upon the dingy throng as +they beheld the debonair countenance of our hero. + +"Speak up, Charles," bellowed the Lieutenant, "I support your +candidature. D---- e," he muttered to Wingfield, "d----e, if I knew +Charles was a Parliament man." + +"L-listen," said Mr. Wingfield, standing on tip-toe and craning his +little neck to hear Charles' views on the political situation. + +"Gentlemen," Mr. Lovely began, with a hand gracefully buried in the +opening of his embroidered waistcoat, "Gentlemen, I am sensibly +flattered by this deputation." + +A simultaneous grunt acclaimed this remark. + +"I say, I am sensibly flattered. It is always a pleasure to--to----" + +"Charles'll never be elected, if he talks to 'em so slow," commented Mr. +Blewforth with a shake of his burly head. + +"I say, I am sensibly flattered." + +"That's all very fine, Mr. Lovely, but what about my bill?" shouted Mr. +Filigree who being better able to stand a loss was bolder than his +companions. + +"Ay--yes--to be sure, your money," Charles started off again. "Well, +gentlemen, I say, gentlemen, money is a very wonderful thing. It is the +panacea or cure of all earthly ills, like sleep in the play it knits up +the ravelled sleeve of care. Money! to be sure!" + +"He's trying to make 'em swallow the new taxes," said Blewforth sagely. + +At that moment somebody twitched Mr. Lovely's coat from behind, and he +retired from the open window; the angry snuff-coloured crowd looked at +each other, conferred for a moment, then pattered quickly back by the +way they had come. From the tangle of their murmured confabulations, two +ominous words floated back to the Lieutenant and little Peter +Wingfield--'Sheriff's Officers!' + +It was Clare's announcement of the arrival of Betty in the best parlour +of the _Blue Boar_ that had distracted Charles' attention from his +creditors. He found her trembling from head to foot and playing with the +buttons of her scarlet cloak. + +"My young mistress, your honour, my pretty lamb has gone." + +"Miss Courteen?" + +"Little Miss Phyllida." + +"With Vernon." + +"No, wi' Amor." + +"How long ago?" + +"Nigh three hours or more. The Bow and the Widow have galloped after +'em, but what I do say is, 'tis no work to set an old couple to catch a +young couple: oh! your honour, if ever in this sweet Springtime you +loved my dear one, will 'ee follow her now and bring her back to me?" + +The news of Phyllida's elopement so crudely announced staggered him, +notwithstanding his anticipation of such an event. + +Hitherto his love for the maid had been a pleasant fancy, an impulse to +day-dreams but nothing more material. + +That very morning as he wandered in the water-meadows, he had been so +full of the outside effect of his attitude there had been no room for +the personal desire. He had tried to convince himself he was sincerely +anxious for Phyllida's future happiness; but the true position he should +have taken up was a determination to possess her for himself whatever +the cost. She was young and fair, rose-flushed and adorable, and 'twas a +pity to waste so much freshness on Vernon dulled by pleasure and--not +quite well-bred. + +Now a sense of personal loss stung him into action. Besides, he and Tony +had vowed to transform life into a gay adventure. Here already was a +quest worthy of their highest hopes. + +"I will certainly go," said Charles. + +"Ah! you have a true heart." + +"Have I, Betty, have I?" + +"'Twas on merry Valentine morn, you saw my pretty one." + +"So 'twas." + +"When thrushes and blackbirds do maäte." + +"So they say." + +"Take it for a sign, will 'ee?" + +"I will." + +"And say when you come to her and have sent that wagabone packing off to +his Lunnon, say the linnets are piping away down in Hampshire, will +'ee?" + +"I will." + +"Say that us'll soon be harking for the cuckoo in the greenwood, and +look see, give her this; 'tis a little white daisy I picked. Bid her +look 'tes none the less beautiful because the edge of her petals are +gone red wi' the cold March wind. 'Tes a däisy, the same as before--a +little white däisy." + +Hastily putting the frail flower in Mr. Lovely's hand, the maid ran to +the door. There she stayed a moment. + +"And say, will 'ee, that I'm coming to kiss her and hug her and comfort +her as soon as the Wells waggon can bring me." + +"That's a good maid--a loyal maid," said Charles to himself when Betty +was gone, and, as he looked at the tender blossom somewhat shrivelled by +captivity, a fallen tear trembled like a dew-diamond on the golden heart +of the gathered flower. + +And now the problem of escaping his duns vexed Mr. Lovely more acutely +than before. Daish had been pacified by generous Clare with £50 on +account. The horses were saddled and ready; and by the greatest good +fortune when Charles looked out into the inn-yard, there was not a +snuff-coloured soul in sight. + +Blewforth came in with the news of Sheriff's officers, and Clare +appeared in the gallery all buttoned up for the journey: "Where shall I +tell Daish to send our baggage by the Wells' stage waggon? there's a +good inn called _The Basket of Roses_ about twenty five miles away, dy'e +know it?" + +"No," said Charles, "is it on the London Road?" + +"Yes, on the London Road." + +"Then 'twill suit me very well. Shall we set out at once, Tony?" + +"No time to lose," shouted Blewforth. + +Daish came shuffling in to say the horses were growing impatient of the +cold. + +Off went our romantick adventurers: up they got on their horses: down +tinkled a couple of new silver crowns on the cobbles. + +"Thank 'ee, yer honours!" shouted Jimmy Trickett the hostler; and the +third detachment of the Love Chase set out amid the thunderous farewells +of Lieutenant Blewforth of the _Lively_, as jolly a sound to put heart +into a pair of handsome young gentlemen on a gallant quest as they were +likely to hear throughout their wanderings. + +They were gone when the snuff-coloured crowd pattered back with a +Sheriff's officer in tow, and Mr. Jeremy Daish was a person of +sufficient importance to be able to despise their snuff-coloured +threats. After all he had fifty pounds on account and there wasn't a +brewer amongst them. + +As they cantered along the same road which we have already followed +three times, Charles told his friend of Betty's request and Tony was as +urgent as he to do all in his power to thwart Mr. Vernon. Honest Anthony +Clare was very proud of the handsome rider by his side. I do not think +he would have allowed that any one was quite the equal of Mr. Charles +Lovely in accomplishment or bearing. He could not avoid a feeling of +self-congratulation when he saw the maids among the daffodils of narrow +cottage gardens run to lean over their green gates and watch their +course away down the road. What a fine fellow he was in his full trimmed +grey riding-coat and brown buckskin breeches. How well the azure +waistcoat became him; how eagerly his blue eyes danced to the rhythm of +their horses. How far ahead down the billowy road he gazed, as if to +conjure up the vision of the galloping chariot that held his hope of +happiness. + +And when they, too, rode into the storm, muffled in their full cloaks of +black Bavarian cloth, what a romantick figure Charles made as he spurred +his iron-grey steed to farther exertions. + +There was musick in the south-west wind of that tempestuous twilight. It +sighed through the bare hedgerows and whistled round the broad brims of +their beaver hats. There was musick in the clap of horses' hoofs on the +wet road. There was musick in the big horse-pistols tapping against the +saddle-bows. + +They were passing a great barn where a host of yokels were thrashing a +stack that had lain too long, and a rare sight these were, knee-deep in +the amber corn whence the rats fled ceaselessly. + +"Shall we catch them, Tony?" asked Charles. + +"I think we shall." + +"But in time?" Charles dug his spurs in deep to cover the blush that was +flaming over his cheeks. + +"And will she turn back? Oh! Tony, Tony, she must, she shall, turn +back." + +In Great Cobblebury they stopped to give their horses a feed, and heard +of the accident of the yellow chaise. + +"Z----ds, these clumsy vehicles travel fast enough," muttered Charles. + +When they started again, the darkness clung round them like a pall. The +blown branch of a tree brushed against Lovely's elbow in a narrow part +of the road and he shuddered, as though an unseen hand were warning him +to pause. + +"'Tis a plaguey rough night," he shouted over the wind, clapping his hat +tighter and leaning close to his grey's warm slim neck. + +They were crossing Dry Tree Common where Blue Jenkins was swinging in a +shameful cradle, and Clare shouted he could see the lights of a chaise +in front. + +"That's Ripple for a hundred," cried Charles spurring on his horse, +"gadslife, what a speed they are making. Hurry, Tony, hurry." + +A dazzling flash of lightning seared the sky long enough to illuminate +the ghastly figure on the gallows. Clare's chestnut mare shied violently +and threw her rider head foremost into a large clump of gorse. It was a +matter of some difficulty to catch the frightened animal, but Charles by +mere determination succeeded in doing so, for all the night was now +black before the rising of the moon. By this mishap, Clare was in much +the same state of prickles as the Widow, without the help of +deft-fingered Susan. + +"What the plague made you do that?" said Charles fretfully. They had +lost five valuable minutes through the behaviour of the mare. Tony +laughed with great good humour. + +When they reached the foot of Long Hill, they could see the lights of +the chaise once again. It was finding the heavy pull very difficult. The +rain was pouring down the ditches on either side with a gurgling sound, +heard all the more clearly, because in the shelter of the slope the wind +was quiet. Just before the summit, the carriage stopped and a bullet +sang between Clare and Lovely who were now a bare twenty yards behind. +Mr. Ripple believed in the advantage of an offensive campaign. + +"Stop! stop!" shouted Charles, "we are not highwaymen." + +The Beau recognized the voice, and in accents wherein could be detected +the faintest note of relief said: + +"Charles--Mr. Lovely! and why, may I inquire, are you abroad on such an +unpleasant night?" + +"Why, sir," called out Charles, "what have you been about? There's a +dead man lying in the road." + +"Good G----!" said Mr. Ripple, "a dead man?" + +"Bring a lamp," called Clare. + +Pridgeon descended from the box and, having tied the horses to a +withered fir-tree, snatched one of the lamps from its socket. + +As he came along, Charles observed by the wavering light primroses in +flower. + +"Surely, surely," said the Beau, "I cannot have killed this man." + +"N! No!" cried Clare who was kneeling beside the body. "He has been dead +some time. Z----ds! 'Tis the little Major." + +"The little Major?" echoed Ripple sharply. "So 'tis! So 'tis!" + +"All alone in the storm," said Charles in a low voice. + +"It may have been highwaymen," said Ripple. + +"So it may, so it may," Clare agreed. + +"And it may have been Vernon," said Charles, "d--n him." + +"Charles," said the Beau, "I owe you an apology. I have been obstinate. +This should never have been allowed to happen." + +Charles grasped his hand in the darkness. + +After all, Mr. Ripple was not in his kingdom and they were all levelled +by the presence of Death. + +"We cannot leave the body here," said Tony. + +"It must travel in the chaise," said Charles. + +"What about Mrs. Courteen?" questioned Mr. Ripple. + +"She is in a swoon." + +"You are sure he is quite dead?" asked Charles and wondered at the +futility of the remark. + +Nobody troubled to reply. + +"Perhaps it would be better to send a waggon," said Clare. "We are not +many miles from Roseland-in-the-Vale." + +"Somebody has cut off his epaulettes," said Charles. + +"Then it may have been footpads," said the Beau. "No wayfarer would rob +the dead." + +"It is a very dark night," said Clare simply. + +"He fought at Fontenoy. Let us lift him out of the mud," said Mr. +Ripple, vaguely recalling long stories which the dead soldier had poured +into his ears. + +"He gave his life for her. We must certainly lift him out of the mud," +said Charles. + +"A dead body is dangerous to horses," said Clare, "I will take his +head." + +Just then the widow screamed again. + +"Say nothing of this to Mrs. Courteen," said Mr. Ripple to the +diminutive coachman. + +"I knew something 'd 'appen," replied the latter. "I knew something 'd +'appen when I see'd as how somebody had stuck a bunch of primmerroses in +Blue Jenkins's toes." + + + + +_Chapter the Thirty-fourth_ + +OLD ACQUAINTANCE + + +Charles said he would ride on to the _Basket of Roses_ and bid the +landlord prepare a supper against the arrival of the rest. Clare stayed +behind to protect the Beau from the hysterical excitement of Mrs. +Courteen, who would not be pacified by anything less formidable than an +armed escort. She had made up her mind that highwaymen were abroad, +refused to allow the chaise to drive fast lest they might gallop unaware +into a thieves' ambush, and alarmed herself with so many imaginary +bogies that she almost succeeded in making Mr. Ripple fire point blank +at Mr. Anthony Clare's shadow looming huge in the hedgerow. + +Charles reached the _Basket of Roses_ not long after the departure of +the lovers, and on hearing the news immediately spurred his grey horse +to pursuit. For a couple of miles he plunged along a road that was +almost a swamp, fired to greater exertions each minute by the sight of +the ruts made by the chariot in front. Suddenly his horse began to go +lame; the road grew worse; the ruts proved to be those of a country +waggon. He was riding in the wrong direction, so he turned his grey +round and walked her back to the inn. While he was inquiring into the +possibility of securing a fresh mount, a voice from the parlour called +out to know if any person was inquiring into the whereabouts of a young +woman. + +"She supped alone with the old gentleman," whispered Mrs. Tabrum. + +Charles was not proof against a natural curiosity, and decided to wait +at the inn till the arrival of the others. He ascertained that Vernon +had changed horses so it was evident that he intended to post as fast +as possible Eastward. His own horse must be tended if they were to +proceed that night. There was no other in the stables, and as he was +sure of catching the chariot before morning, he felt there would be no +harm in learning why Phyllida had supped at a wayside inn, alone with an +elderly gentleman. What was Vernon about meanwhile? Why had he not +accompanied her? Charles ordered supper and stepped into the Travellers' +Room. + +"You were asking about a certain young woman," said Sir George, fixing +him with deep set eyes of cold steel. + +"I was indeed, sir," answered Mr. Lovely pulling forward an armchair +into the blaze and stretching his damp legs towards the genial warmth. + +"My name is Repington," said the old gentleman. + +"Eh! What?" + +"Sir George Repington." + +Charles stared at him. + +"And mine, sir, is Lovely, Charles Lovely." + +"My nephew--humph--'tis your existence which has attracted me so many +miles West." + +"I did not think you knew of my existence," said Charles half sneering. + +"You never condescended to inform your uncle of your movements." + +"Sir," said the nephew, a smile of bitter recollection twisting the +corners of his mouth. "I did not flatter myself that any attention on my +side was welcome." + +"What! you remember our only interview?" + +"I was eight years old, sir." + +"Is that a date in youth's short calendar that breeds a specially +sensitive disposition of mind?" + +"You turned me out of your house." + +"On the contrary, nephew, you chose to go back to your father." + +"Why wasn't he admitted, too?" + +"Because," replied the uncle, "on a former occasion I was unfortunately +compelled to invite your father to leave my house." + +"By what right?" + +Sir George raised his eyebrows. + +"Truly, nephew, I think you are indiscreet for a young man of such +fashion." + +"I have the right to know," Charles burst out. "In all that I can +remember of my childhood, you stood like a shadow in the corner of the +room, you were the nightmare that haunted my pillow. You used to write +sometimes--oh! I can remember your letters in their fat pursy envelopes. +I can smell the sealing wax, black sealing wax, now. My father would go +out with an oath and my mother would sit by a window with your letter in +her lap, weeping, weeping." + +"Did she weep, boy?" + +"Ah! that pleases you, eh?" + +"No, no, I was thinking what a laugh she had once--what a laugh. I +expect I was hard--I was--Charles, nephew, give me your hand--I----" + +The old man faltered in his speech and, as if the room were dark, groped +for our hero's hand; the latter drew back. + +"No! thank 'ee, Uncle, once is enough." + +The old man did not heed the insult. + +"Perhaps I understand your feelings, boy, I've read your poems." + +Charles was touched for a moment, but hardened himself as he thought of +that wide staircase down which, clutching the balustrade with both +hands, he had stumbled alone. A child does not easily forgive a slight, +and Charles still regarded his uncle with the eyes of a child. + +"Did she speak of me before she died?" murmured the old man with a +wistful eagerness. + +"She may have spoken," said Mr. Lovely, "the fever was high." + +"Or laugh--before she died? Nephew! to-night a young woman came to this +inn alone. She smiled like my sister, she laughed like my--like your +mother and like your mother she went away with the wrong man." + +"What do you mean?" cried Charles too much startled by the sudden +violence of his uncle's speech to resent the criticism of his father. + +"And you have ridden in pursuit? Then you are her lover--eh? She's +played you false as Joan played Roger false, and you are riding after +her, and you will shoot him and marry her, and bring her to Repington +Hall. 'Fore Heaven, I would give all my fortune to hear that laughter +ripple along the lonely corridors of Repington Hall. They used to sit in +the sunny window seat; and he would lean over the sill to pluck the +roses that blew beneath. I cut the tree down when he was killed, and in +the orchard where Lovely murdered him I planted cypresses." + +"Murdered him?" cried Charles impressed against his will by the old +man's passion. + +"Aye, murdered him. Roger was no swordsman, he was a gentle kindly +creature who loved old books and old friends, that's why I cannot +understand Belladine, why did Belladine let him fight, and what became +of--Good G----!" said the old man, "he's come back." Charles looked up +and, seeing only Beau Ripple standing in the doorway, concluded that his +uncle was gone mad. + +"A pinch of snuff, George?" said Mr. Ripple. + +"Thank'e, William," said Sir George. "This is my nephew, William--young +Charles Lovely." + +"We are already very good friends," said the Beau. + +The exchange of courtesies effected by the Beau with that unfailing tact +which characterized his least actions shed a new serenity over the +situation and, though Charles was completely puzzled by a surprizing +junction of personalities, he, too, with a profound instinct for the +correct attitude, bore a part in what was apparently nothing more out of +the way than a conversational episode in a social evening; yet three +twigs in a whirlpool do not jostle one another much more roughly than +the same three twigs in a puddle. + +"How's the gout, George? You threatened at one time to become an easy +prey to our physical Alectro." + +"Better, William, thankee, far better. I found that hard work kept it +off; or else I grew to drink less Port. I've dined solitary for a round +number of years now." + +"Your uncle looks well, Charles. Egad, I believe after all gold is +better than iron for a man's health whatever the apothecaries tell us. +Where is Clare?--a good fellow that friend of yours, Charles. I like Mr. +Clare." + +Tony came in from the stables at that moment and was presented to Sir +George Repington. + +He had often heard Charles rail against his uncle, but, perceiving no +strain in the relation between them, entered yhe gathering with an easy +grace, and gave a very humorous account of their departure from the +Wells. + +"Tut, tut," exclaimed Mr. Ripple, for Ripple he must remain, since as +Ripple he achieved immortality. + +"Tut, tut, I cannot have these riotous assemblies. This comes of leaving +Curtain Wells. By the way, where is Mrs. Courteen?" + +"She has an audience, sir," said Clare, "and is, therefore, as happy as +can be expected under the circumstances." + +"Who is Mrs. Courteen?" This from Sir George. + +"A lady in whose company I have set out upon a very restless adventure. +Cupid, George, has been shooting his arrows of late, without much regard +to our mortal comfort. I believe the young rogue was unduly elated by +the success of his Valentines." + +"Sure, you aren't abroad on a love-affair, too, William?" + +"Not of my own, George, but I have an onus in the matter. Some one has +stolen a porcelain shepherdess from my booth in Vanity Fair." + +"That would be the young woman with whom I supped to-night in this inn. +Her name was Courteen." + +"What! then we all have an interest in this matter, and can discuss the +proper conduct of it over the very excellent supper whose arrival I +anticipate without apprehension. This is a capital house, George." + +"The landlord is an oddity," said Clare, "called me tulip and onion in a +breath, and begged to be allowed to brush the mud off my boots which he +said was a famous manure for carnation gillyflowers. I 'faith, the old +boy made me feel devilish unclean." + +Mrs. Tabrum came in to say the widow would not take supper with the +gentlemen. She was much fatigued, and would be glad to retire to bed if +Mr. Pipple--or was it Ripple--had no objection. + +"None whatsoever," replied the latter in a pensive tone of voice. He was +meditating rather sadly upon the circumscription of human fame. + +A mere five-and-twenty miles from Curtain Wells, and already there was a +doubt as to whether he were Pipple or Ripple. + +"The widow don't intend to proceed," said Charles, when Mrs. Tabrum had +curtseyed her way out. + +"She is a foolish woman," said the Beau. + +"But you are not going to leave the daughter to her fate," asked Sir +George. "As you----" he stopped. + +Charles looked up; Mr. Ripple gravely took a pinch of snuff. "I think," +said the former, "that I shall be more likely to catch the chariot. +What's o'clock?" + +"Half-past ten," said Clare. "Your horse must rest an hour or two yet; +I'll ride with you." + +"That would be wiser," said Sir George eagerly. "Then nobody will say +Charles took an unfair advantage of him. Although--" Again he stopped in +a sentence, and again Mr. Ripple took a pinch of snuff. + +It was strange how Sir George had identified himself with Phyllida's +fortunes. It seemed as if he were staking his hope of a happy old age +upon the result of this love chase. The meeting with Phyllida had filled +up the rift which time and disappointment had created. He felt that +fortune owed him reparation for his sister's loss; and could not help +thinking what an appropriate instrument of the Fates had risen up in the +person of his nephew. Sir George Repington had become so much accustomed +in his large financial experience to the theory of just exchange that he +was inclined to put too blind a confidence in the scales, and was too +sure that the balance would adjust itself at some time or other. His +nephew had not shown himself greatly enraptured by this late +reconciliation, and Sir George had been lonely long enough. He was +anxious at eventide for company. Death came suddenly like a clock that +strikes in the night, and Sir George was afraid of the grey dawn +stealing over the tree tops through the gaunt windows of Repington Hall. +When the time came for him to face the vast uneasy realms of +immortality, he would like to feel that somewhere on this small green +earth, some hand would wave a sorrowful, a last farewell. He would +cherish these two lovers; the maid would bring him and Charles together +in friendship and charity. Everything pointed to a fortunate issue. He +no longer brooded resentfully over calamities that were forgotten long +ago. Belladine had come back. He and Belladine would sit on the sloping +Repington lawns. June was in front of them. Already, like balm upon the +old man's wounded heart, there stole the murmurous peace of the longest +day. He saw the golden light, and the long shadows of the elms. He heard +the caw of homing rooks and the flutter of thrushes in the great Hall +shrubberies. In dignity and in rustick ease he would move with measured +meditative steps like an English squire to his last account--not +account, that savoured too much of Throgmorton Street--to his last bed, +his virtues recorded in a Latin eulogy and for a memorial Charles and +Phyllida, perhaps a grandson George, certainly four weeping cherubs to +guard the four corners of his cenotaph. + +Our hero was in that state when a host of conflicting emotions fight for +the mastery. So much had happened in this eventful day. Everything and +everybody appeared in a new perspective. Beau Ripple, seen by the +firelight of the Travellers' Room, was no longer the exquisite despot of +a world in miniature, the impersonal porcelain monarch, the rarest and +most valuable piece in an universe of Bric-a-brac. He was in some way +connected with the tragedy of his uncle's early life. The sovereign +marionette of amber and tortoise-shell, of perfumes and pomades, whom +Charles had known hitherto, was only an elegant exterior. Underneath +the sattin, it seemed, there lived a man--one Belladine, of whose +existence Fashion was ignorant. The well-dressed Attitude called Horace +Ripple would be revered long after his decease. His epigrams would be +quoted. He would represent a period in the frivolous archives of Curtain +Wells, but Belladine whose heart had quickened to something more vital +than a pretty measure, Belladine who had known tears and laughter, +Belladine the Man would be forgotten. Charles pondered with passionate +commiseration the myriad heartaches of poor humanity that were once +esteemed worthy of exaggeration until a new intrigue caught the publick +tongue, and contemplated regretfully the inevitable and gradual +insignificance of all scandal. Truly, it was more consoling to regard +Beau Ripple, that inexplicable phenomenon, than try to gain the +acquaintance of Mr. William Belladine who had once played an important +part in his uncle's life. + +The latter, too, was different. He had only existed in Charles' mind as +an aversion of childhood, but Charles no longer objected to sleep in the +dark--the habit had come to him unconsciously. After all he owed Sir +George Repington no grudge; it would be absurd to cherish an animosity +that was based on a jejune domestick patriotism. The time had long gone +by when he thought his own father the finest gentleman in the world. Yet +was not this power of taking so much for granted, this passive +acceptance of change and decline, a surrender of his youth? Was he, in +fact, already divesting himself of all passionate reality? Charles +experienced the despair of the devout man whose faith deserts him. He +wrestled with his doubts and suddenly (it seemed a miracle) beheld on +the ingle seat a swansdown muff. Youth returned--a harlequin with the +supple wand of illusion. He stood once more in peach-coloured velvet +coat, staring up to a balcony over whose railing dimpled the most +enchanting face in England. + +"This was your mother, boy," said Sir George almost timidly, breaking in +upon his dreams. + +Very tenderly, Charles took the locket from the old man, and the sight +of the fresh young face brought back to his mind queer old nursery +rhymes, and his mother's voice and the smell of a pot of musk and the +cries of London coming in through an open window. There was a mist over +Charles' eyes and a lump in Charles' throat as he shook his uncle's +hand. + +The latter wondered at himself for having been content to remain so long +without the consolation of an acknowledged heir. For all these years, he +had worked without an object. Now the great house of Repington and Son +should be incorporated with some equally famous house and a delightful +leisure was at last imaginable. + +It warmed the old man's heart to hear Charles declare the importance of +immediate pursuit, to hear him shout for his horse to be saddled, lame +or sound, to see Mr. Clare look to the priming of the pistols and when, +on the threshold of departure, the old man saw his nephew pick up the +swansdown muff and cram it into the deep pocket of his great cloak, he +could scarcely forbear a loud huzza, such vigour and determination were +plainly visible on his nephew's attractive countenance. + +One incident, just before he set out, served to chill our hero's fervour +and discount his conviction of success. He was coming back from the +stable and, as he passed the staircase that led to the bedchambers, +perceived Mrs. Courteen beckoning from the corridor. He stopped to bow; +and in a tone where politeness and condolence and hopefulness were +pleasantly mingled, as good as promised the speedy restoration of Miss +Phyllida Courteen. + +"Sir," said the mother, "you are generous indeed to a fallen young +woman." + +Our hero frowned at this description of his love. + +"And equally generous," she continued, "towards the fault." + +Charles made a movement, but the widow plaintively ignored the +interruption. + +"They have told me of your generous resolve, but I would warn you, Mr. +Lovely, that interference in these matters is generally disastrous. The +child has done wrong--I do not wish to extenuate her crime--for crime +it is when you consider her mother's indulgence of every whim. I know +nothing of the eligibleness of the gentleman in whose company she has +chosen to shock the sensibility of her mother's small and select circle +of intimate friends." + +Charles began to fidget. + +"He may for all I know be a man of fashion, of rank, of fortune. He may, +on the other hand, be a play-actor, an attorney's clerk, or a journeyman +tinker. In either case it seems unlikely he will make an offer of +marriage. Pray do not put such an idea into his head. Marriages forced +upon reluctant suitors commonly turn out unhappy for both parties." + +The widow must have been immensely in earnest, monstrously eager to +secure her ambition, for never before had her speech betrayed such power +of coherent expression. + +"Let her go on her way," said the mother. "Let her find out for herself +the results of rebellion; when the villain deserts her, she may not be +quite so unwilling to stone the damsons next August. Let her learn her +lesson, Mr. Lovely, and pray do not persuade her to come back. Her +reputation is tarnished; and I am not at all inclined to bear the burden +of her ill-behaviour, as I should do, Mr. Lovely, as I certainly should +do since the world is censorious, and apt to visit the sins of the +children upon the heads of the father, as the Bible says." + +Charles could scarcely believe that Mrs. Courteen was in earnest. + +He knew her for a worldly-minded woman, careless of everything save her +own pleasures, but for such depths of callousness he was not prepared. + +"Indeed, madam," he said coldly, "my only excuse for obtruding my +presence upon Miss Courteen at such a time is my sincere hope that she +will honour my solicitous regard with the bestowal of her hand." + +"The child must be punished," insisted the mother. + +"Indeed, madam, I venture to think we may safely leave that office to +the small and select circle of your intimate friends." + +"I cannot understand what attracts--" Mrs. Courteen began, then changed +to "what makes men so generous." + +Mr. Lovely regarded her contemptuously. + +"So I should think." + +"Cruel Mr. Lovely," moaned the widow, "Cruel to suggest that I am +ungenerous. Why, I have never mentioned the pearls which were taken out +of my jewel-case." + +"They say that Miss Courteen's necklace vastly becomes her mother." + +"Do they, indeed, sir?" said the widow with an affected sigh. + +Charles made an impatient gesture. + +"Do you imagine, madam, that I am going to tire a good-hearted horse for +the sake of allowing you to bask in the flattery of your friends? By +G----! I tell you that one of 'em is already dead--shot for the sake of +that daughter whose ruin you contemplate so tranquilly." + +The widow turned pale. + +"At any rate," Charles continued; "at any rate, the little Major with +all his strut died like a cock of the game." + +"The Major dead," half screamed the widow; and even that information, so +brutally delivered, provided the thought that now more than ever was it +necessary to prevent Phyllida's marriage. + +"Aye, dead! He'll be here in the morning when the Wells waggon arrives." + +Charles turned away from the widow, thinking how impossible it was to +believe that a mother could be so heartless. The desire to cherish +Phyllida surged over him in a wave of tenderness; but when presently he +and Clare set out from the inn-door, under the tail of the storm-cloud +shedding stars in slow retreat across the sky, he felt Despair upon his +heels and pondered the infamy of this beautiful world. Poor hero! he was +a gamester even in his emotions and, having staked his hope in one wild +throw, was fearfully watching the issue. What a maddening melody the +cubes made when rattled by the hands of Fate. + +Pray remember, before you dismiss the widow to your eternal disdain, +that she may have loved young Mr. Standish, that rugged Squire Courteen +may have been very brutal in his cups, that such a malicious Codicil +might have soured a woman less dependent upon the amenity of life. +Finally, pray remember that she was a woman who did not wrinkle easily, +and the consequent temptations of a deceitful mirrour. Looking-glasses, +like human beings, lie more often than is commonly supposed, but possess +an unlucky reputation for truthfulness which seldom hampers humanity. + +Left alone with Sir George, Mr. Ripple took advantage of the opportunity +to explain to his old friend certain events on which the latter had long +brooded in vain. + + + + +_Chapter the Thirty-fifth_ + +THE CUTTING OF A DIAMOND + + +"And what is your life, William?" asked Sir George Repington, leaning +back in his chair and removing his wig. + +"My life, George," replied Mr. Ripple, "is a gem carved by a cunning +workman to stamp any material sufficiently plastick to record an +impression. My life, George, is a conductor of musick. Of itself it +produces no sweet sounds, but evokes a fair harmony from many and +diverse instruments." + +"You had ambitions once." + +"I have gratified the most of them." + +"Yet your life has not been active." + +"No?" + +"As for example mine has been." + +"I do not know, George, that my contemplative existence has produced +less than your phrenzied encounters with mathematical alliances and +numerical intrigues. The manipulation of human beings is quite as +active. We have neither of us done a vast deal." + +"I have had a great influence upon the political situation, more than +once," said Sir George proudly. + +"So have I," said the Beau. + +"Indeed?" + +"I have tamed the wives of the most of our ministers." + +"But you are not a man of intrigue?" + +"Heaven forbid!" said the Beau devoutly. "No, no George, my knowledge of +Olympian intrigue taught me to be wise. I found that the gods never +improved their dignity by amorous descents. To be sure, on one or two +occasions, they made an effort to assert their divinity by dramatical +effects unworthy of a country conjurer, but I do not believe that they +ever recovered from the indiscretion of familiarity with their +inferiors. No! no! George, I am not a man of intrigue." + +"Then what is your life? How do you pass your time?" + +Sir George Repington had lit a churchwarden pipe and accentuated the +inquiry by waving the long stem. Mr. Ripple took a pinch of snuff and, +settling himself deeper in his chair, began to relate his manner of +existence in a clear and modulated tone that agreed well with the +comfort of the room. The narrative took its own course and reminded one +of the purring of a cat amid the flickering shadows cast by firelight on +a gaudy rug. + +"I assumed my present name--Horace Ripple--partly out of respect to the +poet, partly out of respect to my father's mother. Belladine was too +metallick, too lustrous an appellation for a man without any desire to +agitate the peace of the world. Besides, there were other reasons why I +should forget my patronymick. As Horace Ripple, I rode one fine morning +into the town of Curtain Wells, procured a pleasant house in the Eastern +Colonnade and waited upon Beau Melon. The latter received me very +graciously and was pleased to compliment me upon the trimming of my +waistcoat. (I have often contemplated the revival of that auspicious +fashion.) I was lucky enough to render the great Beau a trifling +service, in the matter of adjusting the discordant claims of two +dairymaids who were quarrelling rather loudly over the young Earl +of---- well, his name don't matter. Melon had been entrusted with the +harvesting of the young nobleman's wild oats. After that I was able to +lend him five hundred pounds and half a dozen epigrams, also to put him +in the way of a neat translation of a song by the passionate Catullus, +whereby he secured the hand of the famous, wealthy, and eccentrick +Contessa Dilettante. He married, bequeathed to me his house, his +notebooks, and his goodwill, so that in a paltry five years I succeeded +to the sovereignty of Curtain Wells. Our season endures from October +until June. During that time I am as busy as a monarch should expect to +be. I have made many alterations during the years of my rule; for +instance, the Assemblies once held every Wednesday are now invariably +held every Monday." + +"But what the d----l does it matter which day they are held?" +interrupted Sir George. + +"Of course, it does not matter. Nothing matters. Nevertheless, George, +when I announced the change, I tell you my throne, for a moment, +tottered. However, I triumphed over the malcontents, and I venture to +think it would take a very bold man to suggest they should ever again be +held upon Wednesday." + +"But, my dear William!" said his friend, "this is nonsense. 'Tis absurd +for you to sit there and congratulate yourself as though this were doing +something." + +"My dear George," said the Beau very blandly. "Did I not read last year +in the _Intelligence_ that you were agitating yourself confoundedly in +order to secure some great financial advantage by altering the date of +the despatch of bullion to Portugal?" + +"You did, William, you did," said Sir George, setting his shoulders back +at the proud thought of a great victory won. + +"And what the d----l does it matter whether the ships sail in February +or March?" + +"You don't understand--the depression of the markets, the----" + +"Precisely so," interrupted Mr. Ripple, "and you, my dear friend, do not +understand the depression of Monday and Tuesday in the time before my +great reform." + +"But mine was an affair of international importance." + +"And mine was an affair of domestick and social importance. Gadslife, do +you suppose that my subjects care a jot about your schemes, if their own +bodies are uncomfortable? Do you realize that many an election +depends--yet why should I dispute the question. Nothing matters, but +everything is of the very greatest importance." + +Sir George was bewildered by the Beau's sophistry and argued no +farther. After all, as he told himself, the atmosphere of Throgmorton +Street had probably stultified his outlook. He himself only regarded it +as a necessary, if purgatorial prologue to the paradise of the life of a +man of leisure. Belladine was a man of leisure, and if Aristotle's +politicks were not corrupt, must know more than himself about the +affairs of the whole world. So Sir George kindled a fresh pipe with a +burning coal, and listened to the continuation of Mr. Ripple's placid +narrative. + +"I perceived," the latter went on, "that pleasure was the most +inexorable fact, setting aside birth and death, in the human economy. +Before my time, the diversions of Curtain Wells, though conducted on a +lavish scale of expense were somewhat haphazard. They did not always fit +in with the moods of the pilgrims of Æsculapius. Too much was left to +private enterprize. There was not enough organization and, worst of all, +there was not enough stress laid upon the ascetick duties, whose +fulfilment would lend such a flavour and zest to relaxation. I +instituted, therefore, a rigour of exercise and diet, I insisted upon +the sacred character of the Pump Room, I glorified the taking of +chalybeate by a ritual at once subtle and magnificent. In a word, I +founded a new religion and, as the auctioneers have it, made of Curtain +Wells a true Temple of Hygeia. Having trained my subjects to make +themselves uncomfortable in a modish way, I was soon able to urge the +necessity of enjoying themselves on the same principle. To this end I +arranged that every month should have its specifick pleasures, which +would be welcomed as we welcome each flower that succeeds in its season. +I will not fatigue you with too much detail, but I can honestly affirm +that when the great Aquatick Gala or Fête Aqueuse comes to a dazzling +conclusion, when the showers of bursting crimson, violet, and golden +rockets dim the lustre of the Dog Star on the last night of June, the +whole of the fashionable world retires to verdant solitudes with a +profound admiration for me and a fixed determination to grace the grand +opening Assembly on the first night of October." + +"Indeed," said Sir George Repington, on whose mind a new prospect was +breaking, "and how do you pass your time during the intervening months?" + +"I meditate, George, I meditate in a charming rural retreat which I +possess in the green heart of Devonshire. There I spend leafy days in +pastoral seclusion. I have my plane tree, my jug of old Falernian. I +have my spaniel, Lalage, and an impoverished female cousin who performs +very engagingly upon the spinet. I sit in the austere musick-chamber +with shadowy white walls, empty save for two or three tall black oaken +chairs and the curiously painted instrument. I listen to the cool +melodies of Couperin and admire his unimpassioned symbols of the +Passions where a purple domino is the most violent, the most fervid +emotion. I hear above the chirping of the crickets, the faint harmonies +of Archangelo Corelli and the fugues of Domenico Scarlatti, whose name +is so vivid, but whose musick like the morning is a mist of gold. I sit +in a library hung with faded rose brocades and tarnished silver +broideries. There I meditate upon the bloody deaths of Emperors and the +grey hairs of Helen of Troy. There I move serenely from shelf to shelf +and hark to the muffled thunder of volumes clapped together to exclude +the odorous dust. I ponder Religion and Urn Burial and pore over the +lurid histories of notable comets. At dusk of a fine day, I step out +into the dewy garden to watch the colour fade from the flowers and the +stars wink in the lucent green of the western sky. Presently I step +indoors, light a tall wax candle set in a silver candlestick, go +sedately to bed and fall asleep to the perfume of roses and jasmine and +the echo of a cadence from the _Anatomy of Melancholy_." + +"And that is your life?" said Sir George. + +"That is my life." + +"William, would it have been your life if things had been different on +that April morning? I thought my life was as I would have wished to +spend it; I have worshipped dull columns of figures and the dust of +counting-houses, but to-night when I saw that child, when I saw that +nephew of mine, I feared old age and wished I could somehow have +thought less, calculated less, striven less, and loved more." + +"George," said Mr. Ripple, tapping the lid of his snuff box with not so +brave an air as usual, and, as he spoke, his friend apprehended in a +moment's illumination that all this decorated narrative had been evoked +to defer an explanation which he had felt all the while was inevitable. + +"George," said Mr. Ripple, "if upon that morning in April, I could have +made up my mind, I should, I believe, have--and yet I don't know," he +broke off, "I doubt I was never intended to be a man of commonplace +action." + +"You did not interfere?" + +"I loved her, too." + +"You loved her?" + +"I saw she cared for him alone, and, when Roger fell, though I had my +pistol loaded and levelled, I had no heart to fire. But I was never +brave enough to tell you I had let him escape and, having waited too +long--oh! well there it is--I waited and could not bear to resume my old +life. And indeed, George, I think I have been a happy man. You have +conjured up the ghost of Belladine to-night and Belladine was and is and +will be miserable to the end of his days, but pray dismiss him, vex not +his ghost, and take snuff with Horace Ripple of the Great House, Curtain +Wells. We are both too old, George, to do anything now. We must depend +on young Charles." + +"And if he should fail?" + +"We are both old men. We should, therefore, both be able to suffer +another disillusion." + +"I suppose that is true," said Sir George rather sadly. "William----" + +"Horace," corrected Mr. Ripple. + +"William," persisted the other, "did I ever mention Thistlegrove Cottage +to you?" + +"Not that I can remember." + +"'Tis a fine night, full of stars," said Mrs. Tabrum, entering the room +with a tray full of brightly burning candles, "and what time would your +honours like to be waked up in the morning?" + +"I will ring my bell," said Mr. Ripple. + +"I will ring my bell," said Sir George Repington. + +The two old friends took each a candle, and went upstairs to bed. From +the corridor casement they looked out. + +"What a laugh she had," says Sir George. A gust of wind extinguished his +candle, and he shuddered. + +"That is the way I shall go out." + +"That is the way we shall all go out," said Mr. Ripple. + +"And nothing afterwards?" + +"Darkness." + +"And nothing else?" + +"Perhaps a hand in the darkness." + + + + +_Chapter the Thirty-sixth_ + +THE SCARLET DAWN + + +The post-chariot that held in its musty recesses Miss Phyllida Courteen +and Mr. Francis Vernon rattled on its way with all the vigour imparted +by four fresh horses and the exhilarating effect of Plymouth Gin upon +the post-boys. + +A smell of saddlecloths and damp cushions, of leather straps and the +dust of oat and hay, clung to the vehicle while over them was wafted the +permeating steam of horses' flanks and the pungent odour of hot lamps. + +"Phyllida, my Phyllida, at last." + +"Why did you let me travel alone? I was frightened." + +"My dear," said Vernon, "indeed, I do not know how to explain my +neglect, but I wanted to ride out of the darkness and find you alone in +the firelight like a maid in an old tale. It must have seemed cowardice +to you." + +"I was frightened," murmured Phyllida, growing breathless at the +recollection of Mr. Charlie and Mr. Dicky Maggs lurching round the table +in the Travellers' Room. + +"You longed for me?" Vernon moved closer to his love and took her hand. + +"Amor," said the girl shuddering, "I think I am frightened now. I think +we will go back. I think I have done wrong." + +"You think all these foolish thoughts, dear life. I know that to-day +will be to you a day of days for ever." + +He held her now in his arms, and she with a sigh yielded herself into +his keeping. Soft she was and timid, like a bird which has fallen from +the nest, and in the gloom he could still see her wide blue eyes and +above the jangle of the chariot he could hear her whisper, + +"I love you, Amor, I love you." + +"My Phyllida." + +"Amor, dear, dear Amor." + +"'Tis not my name, dear one." + +"'Tis the name you told me." + +"My name is Vernon." + +"To me you will always be Amor. Amor means Love. I asked the Archdeacon +and he told me that Amor meant Love." + +Vernon was taken outside of himself. As he kissed those lips more soft +than the petals of flowers, the other lips he had known seemed cracked +and dry. In the darkness, he felt her eyelashes upon his cheek as they +drooped to a blush, and a passion of remorse swept over him. He would +wed this child at the end of the journey. He would love her for ever. +That was certain. Oh, yes, there was no doubt he would love her for +ever. He had plucked this flower in a wanton moment, had thought to wear +her for a scented month and fling her away. O execrable intent! + +"My Phyllida, my Phyllida! Why do you love me?" + +"Why do you love me?" Her hand nestled in his. + +"I don't know, because--because--oh, because I do love you, because you +have driven me mad with your blue eyes and your hair and your lips. My +Phyllida, my Phyllida!" + +Vernon was no longer conscious of acting. This was no scene set with +chairs at appropriate angles. The raffish Mr. Francis Vernon of London, +the clever Mr. Francis Vernon who vowed every woman had her price, Mr. +Vernon the hero of half a hundred squalid intrigues was dead. Why should +he not forget him, taking for his own that fortunate pseudonym which had +set him as high as the angels? With a gesture of dismay, he drew from +his cuff a greasy King of Hearts and spurned the dishonourable cardboard +with his foot. + +"Amor!" + +"My dear! My lovely one! My heart!" + +"Once I climbed up a high hill at home in Hampshire." + +He held her more closely. + +"I climbed a hill and stared for a long while right into the sun. I was +giddy. Amor! Amor! I feel now as I did when I stared for a long while +into the sun." + +"Phyllida! Phyllida!" + +"You'll never not love me, Amor?" + +"Never, I swear it." + +"I could not bear you not to love me. Once I knew a young woman whose +lover forsook her and she used to work woollen flowers all day long with +a tambour frame, because she was working woollen flowers when he told +her that he loved her, and she never did anything else all the years +that we knew her; and, Amor, she is working them now, and oh, I'm afraid +when I think of her working those woollen flowers." + +Vernon in his new frame of mind could scarcely forbear telling his love +of the ills he had intended towards her. He had caught a passion for +frankness and would have poured into her ears the whole of his past. He +could not endure, to such elation had he been carried, that Phyllida +should be ignorant of the worst of him in order that for the future she +should know more truly the very best of him. But he was wise and, though +Cupid had lent him his own wings, he would not play too many aerial +pranks, soar too near the sun, fall and break his neck. It was indeed a +form of abnegation that prevented him from showing Phyllida his own bad +self. It was bitter to hear her murmur, with a white hand on his sleeve. + +"I knew you were true, my true love, all the time, all the time." + +Nothing tugs at the heart-strings of a man like a young maid's plighting +of her troth. Nothing makes his brain reel like her first kiss freely +given. + +"Oh, Phyllida, Phyllida! I'm not fit for you." + +"Foolish Amor." + +"Are you happy, my dearest?" + +"Oh, so happy." + +"We shall never be parted again." + +"Never!" + +"I did not know that life was so wonderful." + +"I thought it was," she murmured, as she nestled to his heart, "because +Spring was always so sweet, and now I need never mind the Winter." + +"All the years I did not know you, my Phyllida, were wasted years." + +"Amor!" + +"Phyllida!" + +"How I shall always love you." + +"Always?" + +"To the end." + +"Once," she said with a sigh, "I longed to grow old, and now I would +like to be always young." + +"Ah! Phyllida, my Phyllida, don't speak of age. I've wasted so much of +my life." + +He thought with anguish of the dead Summers he had known and wondered +with a great dread whether they would come again. If, while he could +still feel this splendid passion, they should be grey and dismal, he +would never forgive himself for having revelled in the warmth and gaiety +of those irrevocable seasons. + +"You are not sad?" she asked, jealous of his silence. + +"I wish that life were not so short." + +Our villain was beginning to examine the foundations of his existence +upon this earth, where hitherto he had jogged along, accepting the most +outrageous calamity and good luck with placid superficial mind. +Meditation upon the brevity of a life, which at any moment a tavern +brawl might extinguish, would have seemed to him before this passionate +conversation a lunatick method of spending time. Poor villain! he had +not enjoyed much leisure for meditation. He was born in a hurry, his +mother being under contract to appear as Millamant a long while before +she should. He was brought up in a hurry at Alleyn's School to be +murdered in a hurry by some Richard III. Moreover, in youth he had +assisted at so many tinsel deaths that it was not surprizing he should +regard them lightly. Even his mother's death within sound of the orange +girls outside Drury Lane struck him as nothing more final than a last +appearance. + +Now for the first time, there broke upon him the stunning fact of +inevitable decay and, being a self-indulgent man, he had for the moment +nothing more dignified than petulant despair with which to meet this +sudden apprehension of mortality. + +"'Tis monstrous," he declared, "a fearful thought that you and I should +ever grow old and die. I cannot bear to think of your brown hair growing +white. Phyllida, you cannot grow old." + +Love had made a woman of Phyllida and already, with gentle touch, she +soothed his anguish. + +"Dear Amor, I know that if we love each other truly, we shall never grow +old to each other." + +"Phyllida, I love you," and clasping her lissome body breathless to his, +he defied the lightning of the Gods. + +And now a new fear assailed him. 'We shan't be followed,' he had +contemptuously informed old Mother Mawhood at Blackhart Farm. In sudden +dread he leaned out of the window of the chariot, and strained his eyes +to pierce the darkness. He could see nothing save the shadows of the +postillions against the hedge, hear nothing save the clatter of the +horses. The loneliness and gloom affected his spirits and with a shudder +he sought again the musty interior of the vehicle. He caught his love to +his heart. + +"What did you see?" she asked. + +"Nothing, but I was afraid, I could not bear to lose you now." + +"You saw nothing?" + +"Nothing." + +"And heard nothing?" + +"Nothing. Why do you ask?" + +"Oh, Amor, I thought I saw the shadow of a man on horseback." + +"Fancy, my sweet, fancy." Then, with a sinking fear, he remembered he +had told Mother Mawhood of the pearls. He called to mind the postboys' +insolence, the look that passed between Charlie and Dickie when he told +them he would ride in the chariot. He sprang in alarm to open the +window, but the carriage pulled up with a jerk which flung him back +against Phyllida. The glass crashed to the heavy butt of a pistol and, +as he stretched out for his own fire-arms, he saw the postboys resting +long barrels on the sill and, by the lamp which one of them held, a +masked face that with thick brutal voice demanded their money. + +"Hand 'em over." + +"Hand what over?" said Vernon, in a futile attempt to delay his +humiliation. + +"The pops first," said one of the Maggs, winking humorously in the +direction of Vernon's pistols that in leathern holsters lay harmless on +the dusty floor of the chariot. + +Now occurred one of those astonishing coincidences that have tempted the +speculation of many sages since the beginning. A field-mouse chose that +very moment to cross the road. A large white owl spied the diminutive +pilgrim and, having tasted no food that stormy night, swooped daringly +upon his prey under the heads of the standing horses. Terrified by the +soft white apparition, the leaders plunged forward. In a moment the +chariot was bumping and jolting at a wild pace down the road, having +broken Charlie Maggs' big toe in transit. The blackguard deserved a scar +for his carelessness, if for nothing else, and the limp he earned that +night was some time afterwards the means of proving his complicity in +the affair of the blind mouse-tamer, thereby ridding the world of a very +dirty rascal. Mice were fatal to Charlie Maggs. It is satisfactory to +know that the adventurous animal avoided the owl, and it is also +consoling to learn that the latter never adorned a gamekeeper's pole, +but died a natural death in the hollow trunk where it had spent actually +all the days of its life. + +It was a moment or two before Vernon understood that the danger was +averted; then he bent low to reassure Phyllida, who was crouching in the +darkest corner of the chariot. + +"My dear," he cried, and for all the swaying motion caught her to him +with a certain grace. "My dear, there is nothing to be afraid of now." + +"Oh! Amor!" she sobbed, abandoning herself to the horror of remembrance, +"that face--that black face." + +"My sweet, you shall never see it again." + +"It will follow us." + +"If he should I have something here that will frighten him away fast +enough." + +Vernon waved a pistol which he had picked up even as he caught hold of +Phyllida. But the masked face did not pursue them and, after a mile or +so of noisy swaying progress, Vernon began to consider the possibility +of stopping the carriage. He leaned out of the window and nearly had his +eyes put out by a bramble sucker. A survey from the other side, where +the remaining lamp lent a wavering illumination, showed they were +travelling at an alarming pace down a deep rocky lane. Vernon noticed +that the boulders in places trespassed considerably upon the road with +projecting points, and there seemed every likelihood of the chariot +being presently wrecked like a rudderless boat. However, runaway horses +and drunken men share a large amount of the world's luck between them, +and notwithstanding the headlong speed, every boulder in turn was +successfully avoided. Farther along, the surface of the road grew worse +and, every other second, one of the wheels would grate against the side +of a deep rut with a horrid jar. They were going downhill now and Vernon +strained his eyes to discover the lie of the country. The pace was +harder than ever, and it seemed impossible for four horses to survive +the roughness of the road and the steepness of the descent. + +Suddenly above the clatter they heard the roar of water: at the same +moment the front wheel struck some permanent obstacle: the chariot +dipped forward: Phyllida and Vernon were flung in a tangled heap on the +floor, while the sudden cessation of movement made the noise of the +water sound very portentous in the gloom. Vernon extricated himself from +the vehicle on the lighted side and, jumping out, splashed his way +through mire and puddles to the horses' heads. The two leaders with that +unexpected philosophy which in horses often succeeds the most fervid +excitement were cropping the young herbage peacefully, while the +wheelers were only slightly more restive through their inability to +reach the same sweet pasture. Vernon snatched the solitary lamp from the +socket and went to help Phyllida alight. As she stood upon the step and +gave him her little hand, he divined with a sense of awe, begotten by +the solitude of the surroundings, that she was truly his. He was Adam +greeting Eve with the mystery of woman all about her in that primæval +Spring. + +The scene of the catastrophe was peculiarly solemn. The chariot had +struck a column of stone that rose suddenly out of the ground as if the +finger of a Titan had been frozen into perpetuity to mark some early and +gigantick travail of his mother Earth. The lamp with feeble yellow light +made monstrous shadows of the huge features it sought vainly to +illuminate. So far as he could judge they were nearly at the bottom of a +deep ravine along which swept a torrent whose magnitude was impossible +to estimate, since the roar of the waterfall gave it in the darkness a +dreadful importance. + +"It must be close on two o'clock," said Vernon, "let's leave this +disastrous vehicle. We may find shelter somewhere over this valley." + +Phyllida drew the riding hood round her and, taking her lover's arm, +silently acquiesced in this proposal. + +As they drew near the waterfall, the thunder of it made her shiver. They +crossed the torrent by a stone bridge that seemed to have become a +natural feature in the landskip. + +On the far side by a common impulse they stopped and Vernon leaned down +to kiss her face. + +"My Phyllida," he murmured; and held the lamp so that he could see the +shimmer and gleam of love in her eyes. They stood silent, enraptured, +and the hot yellow lamp away down in the depths of this world-forsaken +valley became the very torch of Hymen. + +With slow steps they climbed the opposite hill, deserting the waters and +the rocks, the ferns, the little bridge, for the grey starshine above +the gloom. Yet the awe of that solemn ravine, which they had reached +after such peril, enthralled them still and I think both felt as if +somehow their love had been consecrated by a divine being. It was quite +a relief from the strain of reverence when Vernon informed Phyllida that +there was no sign of any human habitation. + +"What shall we do with the carriage?" asked the latter. + +"Don't fret about that." + +"And the horses?" + +"They must take their chance. I wish I knew the hour." + +"You said it must be two o'clock." + +"The sun does not rise till half-past five. Three hours and a half. I +wonder why we left the chariot. It would be wiser to go back. You will +be cold in this open country." + +The wind was blowing shrewdly up there in the starlight, and Phyllida +would not deny she was cold and tired. + +"We had better go back to the chaise. 'Twas warmer in the valley." + +Yet both of them felt a strange disinclination to risk the disillusion +of return till, suddenly, up there in the wind and starlight, terror +caught them, and the noise of water tumbling over rocks gave them a +sense of security from this wide place of silence. + +"'Tis a monstrous uneasy country," said Vernon, voicing in common speech +the sense of woe that oppressed him. + +"I feel frightened," Phyllida agreed, "let us go back to the water." + +They stopped to listen as people will whose minds have been much wrought +upon. There was nothing but the lisp of the wind in the bents of last +year's grass and a melo-dious sighing in the boughs of larches. Yet +never throughout that adventurous night had Phyllida's heart pattered at +such a pace, never had she been so near to shrieking aloud. Without +longer delay they turned back in the direction of the coombe, walking +with quick steps as if to avoid an invisible pursuit. Half-way down the +hill, Vernon stooped to gather a primrose. + +"Here's a daisy," he said. + +"A daisy," Phyllida cried. "Why, foolish Amor, 'tis a primrose," and +whatever fiend or goblin followed in their wake fled in affright at the +sound of her rippling laughter. + +I think nothing shows more conclusively that Mr. Vernon was in love with +Miss Courteen than his indifference to her ridicule. + +"Sweetest," he said, "I'm ignorant of the best things like flowers," and +forthwith began to tell Phyllida of his life in London, so that when +presently they stood again upon the bridge, he was raising his voice in +order to describe his first impressions of rustick Marybone, to which he +added a very nice account of the view of the Hampstead Hills. + +Under the influence of this narrative, the scene lost some of its +grandeur. An air of grottoes, of stone embellishments, arbours, and +cunning recesses shed itself over the landskip. One heard comparisons +with this or that famous haunt of sight-seeing mobs. In fact both Vernon +and Phyllida, being English, felt their late raptures were unbecoming, +and having excused a lapse into sensibility by the fright they had +suffered, proceeded to declare that the chasm, far from being Titanick, +would make a mighty fine site for an excursion of pleasure. At least +Vernon clothed the opinion in words, Phyllida was too much fatigued to +do more than murmur a weary assent. + +They found the chariot just as they had left it and the four horses +browsing upon the grass. He handed her into the vehicle, made her +comfortable with what rugs and cloaks he could collect and left her to +rest with the assurance he would remain close at hand. She gave his hand +a tired clasp and almost immediately fell fast asleep. Vernon tethered +the horses to various stumps in the vicinity, and proceeded to doze and +dream away the cold hours before dawn in the shelter of a particularly +large and overhanging ledge of rock. The sound of the falling water that +deafened him with its roar when first he heard it, now soothed him like +a gentle lullaby. + +I cannot do justice to the scene: Rembrandt with his powerful and gloomy +imagination could have etched it. He would have made the two lovers +present themselves to the onlooker in their right proportions to the +scenery. You and I are too near to the candlelight of Curtain Wells to +believe in the romantick desolation wherein they seemed of no more +importance than the ferns that hung down their green tongues to the +limpid pools hollowed from jagged rocks. Vernon, huddled in the shelter +of the crag, with his hat pressed over his eyes, his knees arched as +high as his chin, might well have been a belated herdsman who, having +flung himself into this valley to avoid the upland wind, had been +bewitched by the magick of running water to dream away the night. The +horses in the black shadows and the ruined chariot had an air of Gothick +melancholy; the yellow lamp that glimmered fitfully in the heart of the +abyss served only to throw into more huge relief the neighbouring rocks, +while it lighted the thresholds of gaping caverns that stretched beyond +to unimaginable depths of solitude and gloom. The night wore on and over +the hill the lovers had found so depressing to their spirits, like a +sword in the twilight, lay the first grey streak of dawn. Phyllida and +her lover slept while the features of the landskip began to win again +their own outlines, while the rocks that were wrapped in the warm velvet +of night appeared with a cold sheen. The grey streak widened to a broad +lake whose margin was flecked with the faint hues of lavender and mauve. +Birds began to twitter and chirp in the trees and bushes that overhung +the rocks below, while the winds of dawn fluted in the small withy bed +beside the bridge. + +Very wan in the morning twilight, Mr. Charles Lovely and Mr. Anthony +Clare clattered down the deep lane that led to the valley. Their horses' +flanks glistened with the sweat of hard travel and the riders rose +hardly to the jerking downhill motion. + +Just as the rose-tipped fingers of Aurora plucked the lavender from the +skies, Charles and Tony caught sight of the chariot and just as they +pulled their horses to a standstill, Mr. Vernon woke up. It is +characteristick of the latter's new-found consideration that his first +action was to warn them with a gesture of Phyllida's presence fast +asleep inside. Charles tapped his holsters in reply and pointed up the +opposite slope. Vernon rose to follow his pursuers with a backward +glance in the direction of the chariot. + +When they were over the bridge and out of Phyllida's hearing Charles +reined in his walking horse and inquired if Vernon was willing to give +him satisfaction. + +"For what?" said the latter with a sneer. + +"For insulting my Muse," said Charles, determined if possible not to +make Phyllida the subject of the quarrel. + +"Your muse?" echoed Vernon, with the faintest intonation of surprise, +"but I promised you satisfaction for that a month hence." + +Vernon was equally determined that Phyllida should be the direct +occasion of the duel, if duel there must be. + +The rosy heavens became a sheet of vivid scarlet intersected with the +golden bars of the fast rising sun. Up he came in a blaze and dazzle of +glory, lustrous and invigorating; still the colour was not quite +effaced, and on the three men that scarlet dawn made an invincible +impression of disaster and woe. A red sky is a warning to shepherds and +sailors, no doubt it was ominous to lovers. + +The summit of the hill was reached and involuntarily the three paused in +their wrangling to marvel at the extensive landslip suffused with the +amber haze of earliest morn. The homesteads in sight seemed untenanted: +there was not a single column of curling smoke to mark the presence of +humanity. + +Where they were standing, the road was bordered on either side by a wide +stretch of level sward. On the left was a spinney of larches showing as +yet no crimson plumes of Spring, round which numbers of rabbits +gambolled in air that sparkled like golden wine. It seemed indeed more +like July than April, and only the bare trees told the true tale of the +season's youthfulness. Up here on the top of the world the three men +drank in the beauty of the universe and, having as it were performed +their orisons, turned to arrange the details of a bloody encounter. + +"I promised I would meet you where you would in a month's time," +repeated Vernon obstinately. + +"But I prefer to meet you now," replied Charles. + +"I have no one to act for me." + +"Mr. Clare will act for both of us." + +"That is an irregular proceeding." + +"I don't care." + +"And Miss Courteen?" Vernon was resolved to drag Charles to the real +point at issue. "What is to become of Miss Courteen?" + +"In either event, Mr. Clare will be able to escort her back to Curtain +Wells." + +"D---- n you," said Vernon, roused by his enemy's assumption of +guardianship. "And what if she wishes to stay with me?" + +"Mr. Lovely has her mother's authority to conduct her home," interposed +Clare. + +"What you two prim busybodies don't appear to understand is that Miss +Courteen prefers to remain with me." + +"Miss Courteen is not her own mistress. She is not of age," said Clare. + +"And pray how do you propose to make her accompany you?" + +"Why, in this way," interrupted Charles, shaking off his friend's arm, +"in this way, Mr. Vernon. If you decline to meet me with pistols, by +G---- I'll thrash you senseless with my crop." + +Vernon's hands twitched for a moment, but he had learned a new +restraint, gained a new dignity from the wondrous ride and with scarcely +a perceptible quiver in his voice begged to point out to his friend Mr. +Lovely that if he shot him, he should not scruple to shoot Mr. Clare +were the latter to stand in his way. + +"But what if you're shot, Sir?" cried Charles, betraying in his +eagerness the true reason for his desire to force an instant encounter, +"as by G---- you deserve to be for murdering the poor little Major." + +Vernon was perplexed. + +"The Major? Is he dead? I had nothing to do with his death." The +simplicity of the denial almost convinced his listeners that he was +speaking the truth. + +"Come, Sirrah, will you meet me? said Charles, lifting his crop. + +"Listen, you pair of puppies," said Vernon between his teeth. "I could +have put a bullet into either of you at any time during the last five +minutes, and by heavens, I don't know why I kept my finger from the +trigger. Yes, I do," he shouted. "I've got a chance of happiness and I'm +not going to throw it away by having your blood on my head. You're an +interfering pair of fools, but I cheated one of you at cards and I +played a low game over the book, and by G----, I believe my father was a +gentleman. I'll meet you, Mr. Lovely, now." + +With these words he flung down on the grass at Charles' feet the two +pistols which the skirts of his riding-coat had concealed. + +"I'll step fifteen paces," said Mr. Clare, hiding his emotion with a +piece of practical utility. And, as he began to measure the ground, away +down in the broken chariot, Phyllida woke with a start. She was +surprized by the daylight and called to her lover. Only birdsong +answered her voice. In sudden dismay, presentiment hanging over her like +the aftermath of an evil dream, she jumped from the chariot. Intuition, +perhaps the remembrance of last night's fear, made her look towards the +summit of the slope. In silhouette against the golden sky, she saw three +figures. Breathless with horror she ran in their direction. Up the hill +she laboured. It was still cold from the night air and foreboding was +heavy upon her heart. Up the hill she struggled, leaving in her path +many fluttering pieces of muslin where eager feet had torn the frail +flounces. Down the road, she saw them level their weapons. "One, two, +three," came in measured tones along the still air of the morning. There +were two shots, the scud of frightened rabbits to their burrows, a +reeling figure, a cloud across the sun, a mist over life, and she was +kneeling in the dewy grass beside Amor. + +"Oh, God!" she screamed, "He's dead. Oh! Oh! Oh!" + +That anguished cry wounded Lovely deeper than any leaden bullet, for it +killed his hopes. + +At the touch of his dear one, Vernon opened his dark eyes. + +"Here's a bunch of primroses," he murmured, "not daisies. I picked them, +Phyllida ... for you ... not daisies ... primroses...." + +And so with thoughts of flowers, Mr. Francis Vernon died. Pray let that +sentence be his epitaph. + +Charles, watching the maid stare into the sun with eyes whose light +seemed fled with the swift-flying soul of the dead man, wished +passionately--wildly--that he were the quiet body there in the dewy +grass. + +"What shall we do?" he murmured brokenly to Clare. + +"Leave her alone for a while." + +"What a mistake it has been." + +They walked away with cautious steps and spoke in whispers as if they +were afraid. + +"What right had I to interfere between lovers?" + +"You did it for the best." + +"I know, I know, but what a d----d number of silly actions are done for +the best." + +"To-day is the first of April," said Clare, seeking with a commonplace +to relieve the tension of Charles's distracted mind. + +"Is it? What an April fool fortune has made of me." + + + + +_Chapter the Thirty-seventh_ + +APRIL FOOLS + + +The last ejaculation of Chapter XXXVI will serve as an admirable summary +of the positions in which a number of our characters found themselves on +April the First, in the year whose annals include this small history. + +There is a peculiar happiness of choice in making the first day of that +treacherous and feminine month coincide with the humiliation of a large +number of worthy people. We plunge into April with a prodigious +expectation of jollity: we delight in the sound of her name, liquid as +the song of a thrush; we strut in the sunshine, fling off our surtouts, +recline on banks where the painted adder lurks and the East wind cuts +down from the high pastures, and altogether behave in a very foolish +fashion. The heavens have taken a deeper blue; so among the cowslips we +contemplate their azure until a black squall blows along, stings our +rash necks with perilous hailstones and drives us headlong to the +shelter of the pale green hedgerows. There on the drifted leaves of dead +Octobers, we are scratched by the crimson thorns of briers and, slowly +acquiring an extensive rheumatism, wish very sincerely we had never +stirred from the hearth where the wise pages of Montaigne or La +Rochefoucauld lie dog-eared through our precipitate adventure. + +Yet, after all, it is better to be a fool in April than a wise man in +November. Pit and boxes hear the ravings of the mad Ophelia with the +sense of superiority secured by plush, but the most of them would be +better men and women for having gathered that nosegay of columbines and +rue. + +So drop a tear for Phyllida. She was the heroine of the piece, the +gentlest, tenderest maid. Sorrow has laid his grey fingers upon her +heart and, though she may grow old and wise and wed a squire with +well-tilled acres and spacious hall, to the end of her life a poignant +experience, on which you have been the privileged intruder, will +modulate her lightest laugh with a deeper harmony. + +At the _Basket of Roses_ there were April fools that day. + +"Charles made up his mind and did no good," said Mr. Ripple. "I +hesitated, and was in no better case. What is one to do?" + +Sir George Repington was quite broken up by the affair. Years ago he had +built a bower in April which was destroyed in a morning. In old age, +Spring fooled him again. + +Like the heavy footnote of a tragedy, Mr. Moon, lately arrived by the +Wells waggon, employed himself with practical suggestions. Mr. Lovely +must retire over the water for a while, the sooner the better. Mrs. +Courteen and Miss Phyllida must return to Hampshire. He would make +posting arrangements; their baggage must be sent after them. Tarry must +be buried in the parish church at home; he could not allow a neighbour +to lie in a strange churchyard. For once in his life, Mr. Moon was of +real use to a situation and, in the protracted discussions of expedients +for hushing the matter up and conveying the principals safely into +seclusion, the grief of many hearts was temporarily allayed. + +"You must come back with me to Curtain Wells, George," decided Mr. +Ripple, "we must not allow the world to invent any more explanations of +the affair. I doubt the wildest rumours are flying round. In a month or +two, Charles can return if he will; meanwhile you and I, George, will +give ourselves the pleasure of paying his debts." + +In the dusk of to-morrow's dawn, the vivid yellow chaise of Beau Ripple +rattled over the cobbles of Curtain Wells, and drew up before the Great +House. A dexterous and hurried toilet was performed with Mr. Mink's +assistance and the watchers from the windows, ignorant whether the Great +little Man was returned, were immensely gratified to see him emerge from +his front door, goblet in hand, and wearing a new buff suit of +unparagoned cut with very full trimming round the skirts. + +The Exquisite Mob buzzed around the Beau's pedestal with a scarcely +contained curiosity. Mr. Oboe, the Physician, was almost more +subservient than usual, and not a single person inquired after his +neighbour's health or expatiated upon his own. Gog and Magog exposed +their ivory teeth in a permanent smile of welcome, and in the kitchen of +the Great House, Mrs. Binn, the Beau's intelligent cook, prepared a +breakfast of the most savoury character. His ascent to the rostrum +produced an expectant silence. + +"My lords, ladies and gentlemen," he began, "I owe you a profound +apology. You will, of course, understand that in my capacity as Master +of the Ceremonies of Curtain Wells, I am under no obligation to any one, +but as Horace Ripple, I feel that my conduct in deserting you yesterday +morning without any notice of my intention deserves an explanation. When +I inform you that a domestick difficulty not entirely unconnected with +my censorious office called for hasty adjustment, you will, I am sure, +pardon me for not divulging the details of a very unfortunate affair. If +I may trespass to such an extent upon your good nature, I should like to +make my late adventure the subject of a short admonition. As you are +aware, I am not accustomed to mingle with the practical politicks of my +matutinal oration any allusion to your moral welfare: I should esteem it +highly impertinent on my part, were I to usurp in such a way the +prerogative of our friend the Rector. Nevertheless I am inclined to make +an exception to my rule this morning, the more so as I feel it my duty +to inform you of my impending resignation." + +The Beau raised his monocle in order to regard the consternation of the +Exquisite Mob. + +"That event may not occur yet a while; at any rate I shall remain in my +present position during this season. Next October, however, I hope to +present you with a younger, I will not say worthier, successor. +Naturally I shall still spend the greater part of my time in Curtain +Wells, but with the advance of years, I shall wish to be excused from +many of your more nocturnal gaieties. That desire I could not gratify +were I still to hold the reins of responsibleness. However, this is not +an oration of farewell, so I will not longer emphasize the melancholy +topick of mutability. + +"The advice I would offer you this morning is, next to the duty of a +regular course of chalybeate, the most important item in human +happiness. My lords, ladies and gentlemen, never meddle with other +people's business when it happens to concern the heart or the soul of a +human creature. Do not, because you are older or because you have read +more widely or because you have travelled across Europe or because you +have dined with a Minister, or because you suffer from any of the +numerous delusions of superiority, do not be too sure that you are +competent to interfere with somebody who has enjoyed none of these +accidental advantages. Admonish the erring child, warn the impetuous +young woman, chide the libertine, reproach the gamester, set an example +of continence to all the world, but abstain from direct interference; +and if an unpleasant doom overwhelms the object of your interest, pray +do not suppose that you would have been able to avert it. My lords, +ladies and gentlemen, you are one and all the genteelest of companions, +but so far as my theology has taken me, you are none of you gods or +goddesses, except in the hyperbole of poetick dedications. + +"You have already heard the announcement of your forthcoming +entertainments; let me add to their number with a very cordial +invitation to the Great House, next Tuesday week. Finally, let me add +that during my tenure of office, I shall hope to make these personal +encounters a very frequent delight to your obliged humble servant Horace +Ripple. Oh, and pray let me assure you that my absence yesterday morning +was in no way due to any desire on my part to celebrate the festival of +the First of April. My lords, ladies and gentlemen, your very obedient." + +With these words the Great little Man descended from his pedestal, and +was presently in affable conversation with a number of men and women of +rank and fashion. + +You will remember that when, it seems an age ago, we first saw Beau +Ripple and the Exquisite Mob, we also met Mr. Vernon and Miss Phyllida +Courteen. For my own part, I feel that the Pump Room on this morning +lacked vitality for all its glitter and stir of elegant movement. I miss +the swansdown muff and the blushing, eager face of Phyllida. I miss +those little notes that dropped like feathers from the wings of Love. I +miss the ingenuous artifice and sweet stratagems of Phyllida and Betty +and for all it would nearly break my heart to see her misery, I would +fain be walking behind them away down in some budding Hampshire lane. +They are still in a postchaise, however, and the musty odour is wringing +her heart with an agony of regret. In what a world of memories will she +live the summer through. The cuckoo will call in the green wood and the +nightingale thrill the moonshine with her passionate song, but Phyllida +will stare into the sun. + +In a dip of the billowy downs, the harebells wave from their fragile +stems and ladies' slippers glow with red and orange flames. Far below +you can see the flashing wings of kestrels and hear the lapwing's +desolate cry. The beech trees rustle and in the long dry grass the wind +sighs continually. There she will sit hour after hour in the summer +heat, until she can forget. + +And yet, little heroine of a sad tale, I wonder whether you would not +have drooped in London and spent long lonely evenings while the twilight +stole in from the murmurous streets of the city. I wonder whether after +all you were not happier with a flock of rosy children, a portrait by +Mr. Romney, and the most comfortable corner in the great Hall pew. Upon +my soul, I am not competent to give an opinion. + +Phyllida's mother certainly thought that everything was for the best. In +her case optimism brought its reward, and she secured Courteen Grange as +a dower house, where she continued for many years to be very spritely +company for all the dowagers and many of the old bachelors in the +neighbourhood. It is perhaps strange she did not marry Mr. Moon, but to +confess the truth, the death of Major Tarry destroyed some of his +charm. Without that brisk veteran to stir his ponderous courtship, the +Justice became wearisome, possibly with greater opportunity of intimacy, +more cautious. No doubt in the course of his legal researches, he came +upon the Codicil to Squire Courteen's Will, and his election to the +Chairmanship of the Bench rendered him oblivious to anything more +trivial than Immortal Renown. If we can judge of his qualities by the +epitaph in the South Aisle of the Church, he united in one person the +austerity of Solon, the severity of Draco, the wisdom of Solomon, and +the domination of Aaron. He never finished his great essay on Peace, but +as his mural biographer justly remarked, 'His was now the Peace that +passeth all Understanding,' so that presumably the publication of his +fragment would have been a superfluous tribute. One particular +distinction belongs to Mr. Moon. He was never made an April fool. And if +the quiet tea-tables of Newton Candover were temporarily disturbed by +the escapade of Miss Phyllida Courteen, why the parson benefited by an +increase in his congregation. But even the most impudent curiosity could +not long survive Mrs. Courteen's circumambient frankness. + + + + +_Chapter the Thirty-eighth_ + +BEAU LOVELY + + +Charles was perfectly right when he said Fortune had made an April fool +of him. He should have accepted the ill omen of Valentine morning, for +it was certainly very unlucky to mock the God of Love with a false +pledge of affection. He was never intended for Phyllida. As Betty +rightly pointed out, they were too much alike. Pray do not suppose that +he was not an utterly miserable man for a long time. He was; but, in +compensation for being born a poet, he possessed the latter's faculty +for enshrining a reality in a sentiment. Phyllida came in time to stand +for the symbol of elusive youth. During his retreat abroad he suddenly +discovered that what he suspected was true, he had grown old. His father +had enjoyed a perennial inducement to commit foolish actions in the +quiet disapproval of his wife. Charles, however, in receipt of a +handsome allowance from his uncle found he no longer had the slightest +inclination to play. Wine had never attracted him save in moments of +high excitement and he was willing to let his love for Phyllida occupy +for ever the sacred inmost shrine of his heart. + +Clare remained with him as long as he thought Charles needed his +company, but word arriving that his cousin had died, he returned to +Devonshire, and in the following year you might have read in the +_Gentleman's Magazine_ 'Sir Anthony Clare of Clare Court, Devon, to Miss +Arabella Hopley with £10,000.' + +To the end of his days he always said that if he lived his youth over +again, he should not have acted otherwise than he did upon the first of +April 17--. But Tony Clare was obstinate in many ways, and, as I +believe, never admitted the virtue of even a new manure very willingly. +Before Clare left Charles had received a letter from Beau Ripple +inviting him to reside once more at Curtain Wells. + +"That is impossible," said Tony stiffly. + +"I suppose it is." + +"You forget that foolish satire." + +"I take it that Ripple intends me to succeed him as King of the Wells." + +"The publication of _Curtain Polls_ has made that impossible." + +"I don't know. It might incline them to respect me." + +Charles was very lonely in Paris after Tony had gone, and when war broke +out again, he decided to go back to England. Just before he started he +received a second epistle from the Beau. + + THE GREAT HOUSE, + + June 15. + + MY DEAR CHARLES,--_Our season will presently evaporate in this + atrocious heat, and your Uncle and I intend to visit Repington + Hall. He is now somewhat recovered of his Disappointment and very + anxious to consult with you as to the advisableness of selling the + Property. I agree with him in thinking that you would not enjoy the + somewhat gross seclusion of a rustick Squire, so that you will + oblige him by returning to England and letting him know your + feelings in the Matter._ + + _I cannot see you can do better than take up your permanent + residence in Curtain Wells. I do not wish to urge you into a + contemplative Existence too prematurely, but to a man of your + temperament the opportunities of observing human Character must + make an imperious appeal. These I can offer you together with the + pleasant pastime of ruling the fashionable World. You need not fret + yourself with any early indiscretions. They will very soon acquire + a romantick Interest of their own, and I confidently look forward + to your success in the splendid Office I have long wished you to + fulfil. You will have the benefit of my Advice which I hope you + will not find too obtrusive. Come, what do you say? There is a + capital house contiguous to Curtain Garden. I fear I cannot yet + resign the Great House. Your Uncle is willing to buy this property + for you and eagerly looks forward to your acceptance of his Offer. + In this hope he is cordially joined by_ + + _Your devoted_ + + HORACE RIPPLE. + +Charles hesitated no longer and hurried as quickly as possible to +Repington Hall. The canary-coloured footmen received him with extreme +deference, and he found the wide polished staircase quite easy to climb. +He had been a little afraid of his uncle's sentimental reminiscence, but +as it turned out his fears were groundless. Nothing was said about the +past and the conversation was almost entirely of a financial character. +He spent the remainder of the summer with Sir George Repington at +Scarborough, returning early in the autumn to form the establishment of +his new residence, Dragon Lodge. + +He bought a monocle of such thickness that the human countenance seen +through its glass was reduced to the merest pin-point. He procured two +Chinese mutes--Heaven knows how or where--but their names were Ho and +No. His eccentricities would exhaust another volume of description. He +was the famous Beau who appeared on the first of the month in a +light-coloured suit that gradually deepened until, on the last day of +the month, it always achieved blackness. When asked by somebody the +reason of this mode he replied that he was mourning the flight of time: +when asked farther why he was not perpetually funereal in his costume he +replied that the first day of the month always revived his hopes of +immortality. It was observed, however, that in April his dress did not +alter and those who rashly inquired the reason for this exception were +severely rebuked for their curiosity. His library was one of the finest +in England, although it did not contain a single copy of _Curtain +Polls_. The Great Dr. Johnson on one occasion complimented him upon the +selection of his authors, the decorousness of his bindings, and the +rigidity of his ladders. + +As Mr. Ripple had prophesied, the indiscretions of his past in course of +time acquired a romantick mystery of their own. He was credited in turn +with a faithless wife immured in a Gothick dungeon in the North-West of +the Island of Sicily, with a prodigiously passionate affair with a +German princess in which he was said to have pinked four Royal Dukes, +and with innumerable other entanglements quite impossible to recount. +All these tales only added to his prestige, while his wealth and +amiability gave him a reputation second to none of the Beaux of the +past. He wrote a number of verses, but never published another volume, +and was probably the original whom Sir Benjamin Backbite copied, though +his reasons for not printing were quite different from those of the +later fop. + +He would sometimes return early from assembly, rout, or ridotto to pay a +visit to Mr. Ripple. He would usually find the latter engaged in a game +of picket with Sir George Repington; and, after entertaining the two old +gentlemen with a witty and satirical account of the evening's +entertainment, he would walk slowly back to Dragon Lodge, stare +meditatively at the new motto he had adopted, _Fui decorus_, step into a +small ivory room that opened out of the massive library and take from a +cedar-wood drawer a white swansdown muff. + +EXPLICIT + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Passionate Elopement, by Compton Mackenzie + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PASSIONATE ELOPEMENT *** + +***** This file should be named 38177-8.txt or 38177-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/8/1/7/38177/ + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images available at The Internet Archive) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Passionate Elopement + +Author: Compton Mackenzie + +Release Date: November 30, 2011 [EBook #38177] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PASSIONATE ELOPEMENT *** + + + + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images available at The Internet Archive) + + + + + + +</pre> + +<hr class="full" /> + +<p class="cb">THE PASSIONATE ELOPEMENT</p> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<a href="images/cover_lg.jpg"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="344" height="550" alt="image of the book's cover" title="" /></a> +</p> + +<h1>THE PASSIONATE<br /> +E L O P E M E N T<br /> +<span class="un"><small><i>By COMPTON MACKENZIE</i></small></span></h1> + +<p class="cb"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> +NEW YORK<br /> +G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS<br /> +1916</p> + +<p class="c"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> +<small>BALLANTINE AND CO. LTD., TAVISTOCK STREET, COVENT GARDEN, LONDON</small></p> + +<p class="cb"><br /><br /> +<i>TO FAITH</i><br /><br /> +</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><th colspan="2" align="left"><a name="Contents" id="Contents"></a><big><big><i>Contents</i></big></big></th></tr> + +<tr><td valign="top" align="right">I.</td><td> THE TOILET</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_001">1</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td valign="top" align="right">II.</td><td> THE PUMP ROOM</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_010">10</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td valign="top" align="right">III.</td><td> THE BLUE BOAR</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_020">20</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td valign="top" align="right">IV.</td><td> CURTAIN MAZE</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_034">34</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td valign="top" align="right">V.</td><td> THE PUBLICK BREAKFAST</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_047">47</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td valign="top"> </td><td align="left"><i>The Order of the Exquisite Mob</i></td><td align="right"> <a href="#page_049">49</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td valign="top"> </td><td align="left">THE PUBLICK BREAKFAST [<i>resumea</i></td><td align="right"> <a href="#page_050">50</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td valign="top" align="right">VI.</td><td> BAVERSTOCK BARN</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_061">61</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td valign="top" align="right">VII.</td><td> SUNDAY MORNING</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_075">75</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td valign="top" align="right">VIII.</td><td> THE GREAT REBELLION</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_082">82</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td valign="top" align="right">IX.</td><td> THE ASSEMBLY</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_086">86</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td valign="top" align="right">X.</td><td> AFTER THE ASSEMBLY</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_104">104</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td valign="top" align="right">XI.</td><td> NOX ALBA</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_109">109</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td valign="top" align="right">XII.</td><td> WET DAYS</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_114">114</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td valign="top" align="right">XIII.</td><td> MONARCHY IN ACTION</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_118">118</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td valign="top" align="right">XIV.</td><td> MONARCHY IN REPOSE</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_127">127</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td valign="top" align="right">XV.</td><td> PHŒBUS ADEST</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_135">135</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td valign="top" align="right">XVI.</td><td> THE CHINESE MASQUERADE</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_146">146</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td valign="top" align="right">XVII.</td><td> THE GRAND MINUET OF CATHAY</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_157">157</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td valign="top" align="right">XVIII.</td><td> THE CONFIDANTE</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_165">165</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td valign="top" align="right">XIX.</td><td> BLACKHART FARM WITH A COCK-FIGHT</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_171">171</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td valign="top" align="right">XX.</td><td> IN WHICH EVERYTHING GROWS BUT<br /> +THE PLOT</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_180">180</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td valign="top" align="right">XXI.</td><td> CURTAIN POLLS</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_184">184</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td valign="top" align="right">XXII.</td><td> THE CURTAIN ROD</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_193">193</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td valign="top" align="right">XXIII.</td><td> SPACE BETWEEN AN HEROICK COUPLET</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_198">198</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td valign="top" align="right">XXIV.</td><td> DAISH'S ROOMS</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_209">209</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td valign="top" align="right">XXV.</td><td> QUARTS OF BURGUNDY</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_216">216</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td valign="top" align="right">XXVI.</td><td> AND THE DREGS OF THE SAME</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_231">231</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td valign="top" align="right">XXVII.</td><td> TIME FOR REFLECTION</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_236">236</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td valign="top" align="right">XXVIII.</td><td> THE LOVE CHASE</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_247">247</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td valign="top" align="right">XXIX.</td><td> THE BASKET OF ROSES</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_255">255</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td valign="top" align="right">XXX.</td><td> SIR GEORGE REPINGTON</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_265">265</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td valign="top" align="right">XXXI.</td><td> A TALE WITH AN INTERRUPTED MORAL</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_273">273</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td valign="top" align="right">XXXII.</td><td> THE HORRID ADVENTURES OF BEAU<br /> +RIPPLE AND MRS. COURTEEN</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_277">277</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td valign="top" align="right">XXXIII.</td><td> THE HIGHWAYMEN</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_290">290</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td valign="top" align="right">XXXIV.</td><td> OLD ACQUAINTANCE</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_300">300</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td valign="top" align="right">XXXV.</td><td> THE CUTTING OF A DIAMOND</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_312">312</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td valign="top" align="right">XXXVI.</td><td> THE SCARLET DAWN</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_319">319</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td valign="top" align="right">XXXVII.</td><td> APRIL FOOLS</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_334">334</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td valign="top" align="right">XXXVIII.</td><td> BEAU LOVELY</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_340">340</a></td></tr> +</table> + +<p><a name="page_001" id="page_001"></a></p> + +<p class="cb"><br /><br /><br /><br /> <span class="un"><big><i>The PASSIONATE ELOPEMENT</i></big></span></p> + +<h2><i>Chapter the First</i><br /><br /> +THE TOILET</h2> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HE meagre sun that for thirteen pallid February days had shone with no +more brilliance than a rushlight stuck amid the cobwebs of a garret, +poured down at last his profuse glories, and Curtain Wells woke up to a +fine morning and the burden of conscious existence, with an effort all +the more completely unanimous on account of its reputation as an inland +Spa. Residence there implied an almost monastick ideal of regularity. +Other shrines of Æsculapius, falling from their primitive purity of +worship, might set up for adoration a hooped Venus or bag-wigged Cupid, +but Curtain Wells would never admit so naked and misleading a pair of +Immortals. Her fountains ministered to bodily ailments—Vapours, Winds, +Gouts, Quinsies, Consumptions, Fevers quartan and tertian—without +pretending to the power of love-philtres or the sparkle of the Castalian +Spring. 'Tis true, romantick dusk or sunset candlelight might consecrate +the vows of many a shepherd and shepherdess, but those stretched hours +of dalliance were always understood to be the sensuous reward of a +strict matutinal discipline.</p> + +<p>Consequently Curtain Wells woke up as to a bugle-call. Casement-hangings +were flung back, shutters unbarred and, wonderful to relate, an +occasional window-sash creaked and subsided. A simultaneous toilet would +be followed by a simultaneous visit to the cleansing springs. Drums, +routs, auctions, ridottos, and masquerades did not avail to keep their +votaries abed. Perchance a velvet patch would hide the wearer's secret +blemish less artfully; beneath young Miss Kitcat's eyes there might be a +deeper violet than the state of her health warranted; my lady Bunbutter +newly<a name="page_002" id="page_002"></a> arrived from scurrilous Bath might see her nose sharpen to a +richer carmine point; but half-past eight o'clock would behold them all +bound for the Pump Room, somewhat reticent perhaps, a little fretful +even, yet completely subjugated by their self-imposed renunciation.</p> + +<p>St. Simon's clock struck the half-hour of seven, and the birds who live +tropick days in the eternal summer of chintz curtains seemed to crow +remorsefully at any sluggard who was inclined longer to indulge his +laziness. The sun spangled their plumage with innumerable pin-points of +light until they began to glow with all the astonishing dyes of printed +fabricks. They glowed and ruffled until the sluggard forsook his couch +and, creeping over the chilly floor, flung them back into a day-long +folded tranquillity. Here, then, is an excellent opportunity to catch a +few of our fine characters unaware. Follow the guidance of my Muses and +you will see hero and heroine, comedian, villain, and chorus stripped of +all outward aids to beauty. You may trust the modesty of Clio and +Melpomene who will certainly treat their own sex with discretion and +admit you to the keyhole not a moment before it becomes your disposition +of mind. Pray do not expect a wanton exhibition because you are holding +on to the draperies of two pagan young women.</p> + +<p>See that fine house in the middle of the Crescent. Mark the flambeaux +guttering and sputtering into an odorous death. Note the flattened +Ionick columns which lend it such an air of superiority, and the extra +story, and the fat bow-windows on either side of the door. Look well at +the door with its cornice of airy Cupids for ever playing Hide and Seek +behind solemn urns and festoons of carven flowers.</p> + +<p>That is the Great House where Beau Ripple lives. Do you wonder at the +early hour of rising when you know that his decree was responsible for +the united achievement? I cannot think you do; especially if you have +read his <i>Epigrams</i> published by Mr. Scratch at the Sign of the <i>Claw</i> +in Paul's Churchyard—those epigrams with razor-keen edge translated +into Latin by Doctor Fumble and into Greek by the Reverend Mr. Tootell. +We read how, in ancient<a name="page_003" id="page_003"></a> days, tyrants beguiled their political victims +with Impromptus of their own composition and at Curtain Wells it was +esteemed an honour to be reprimanded in such polished prose. Mr. Ripple +scorned the easy allurements of metre and, although in himself he summed +up the profound artificiality of his age, he was wont to say that Verse +as a form of composition possessed all the disadvantages of prose +without any of the advantages.</p> + +<p>Let us take a glimpse at the Great Man in the Great House while the +little maid is pondering the gaudy Valentine stuck in a crack of the +basement-steps by the sweep's apprentice.</p> + +<p>That carpet of mellow hue was presented by the Captain of an East +Indiaman, much addicted to wind. It muffles the footsteps of the +courtiers who throng the stairs, and secures a respectful calm. It even +enables us to reach the door of his bedchamber unheralded, but as, +invisible and armed with reverence, we cross the threshold, the Great +Beau is nowhere to be seen. We observe his bedclothes dignified even in +disarray, we see the open patchbox, the bottles of Eau de Luce and Eau +de Chypre, the black sattin tie and the wig on the stand, but not until, +instinct with awe, we drop our eyes, do we behold two pink feet and the +Circumference of the least austere portion of his anatomy wrapped, it is +true, in embroidered dressing gown, and with the bedspread hung about it +like a pall, yet nevertheless an unmistakeable Circumference protruding +from beneath the bed. Diana very wisely killed Actæon for overlooking +her toilet, and I doubt we deserve the same penalty, for when, the +errant button in his hand, we see the Beau emerge with purple cheeks and +oaths innumerable, a certain conviction steals over our shocked +sensibility that the Great little Man is only mortal after all, of the +same temper and anatomy as ourselves, and, as the gods know very well, +this is a mighty dangerous and revolutionary discovery.</p> + +<p>There stood Beau Ripple dancing and d—g, while a monologue with +appropriate action went somehow like this:</p> + +<p><i>Beau.</i> D—— all buttons for being round.</p> + +<p>Then he danced.<a name="page_004" id="page_004"></a></p> + +<p><i>Beau.</i> D—— all pins for dropping upon the floor and the chambermaids +for not picking them up, and my own feet for treading on them.</p> + +<p>Then he danced again.</p> + +<p><i>Beau.</i> D—— all beds for being wide.</p> + +<p>Then he danced.</p> + +<p><i>Beau.</i> D—— my eyes, I shall be late for the waters.</p> + +<p>Then he danced to his mirrour. And the mirrour showed a man of ripe age +with smooth round face and a pair of very blue eyes.</p> + +<p><i>Beau.</i> And d—— you, Ripple, for a clumsy old fool.</p> + +<p>Hereupon the Great little Man beamed at himself, for the nature of him +was so truly kind that he could not be crossed by himself for long, and +as for the world, his severity never upset the balance of a well-turned +phrase. He was an urbane man, one who had presumably lived all his life +in prim and decorous cities but, since he will preside over this story +of mine, we shall learn more about him as we go along.</p> + +<p>Further round the Crescent, Mrs. Choke let furnished apartments to +valetudinarian bachelors, and in one of the brightest of these, Mr. +Francis Vernon sat before his looking glass contemplatively combing his +wig. His closely cropped curly hair accentuated the lines of a profile +already inclined to sharpness, just as his red lips enhanced the +surrounding paleness of his complexion. He combed his wig very much as a +man strokes a cat. The caress half-felt loses itself in speculation, and +just now Mr. Vernon was gazing at the wrought-iron balcony of the +opposite house where Miss Phyllida Courteen, all swansdown and rosy +cheeks, was plucking half a dozen snowdrops from a bough-pot. These were +to be enclosed in a note and sent by the hand of the first +pleasant-looking passer-by to Miss Sukey Morton in the Western +Colonnade. And the aforesaid Miss Morton would, in the estimation of +Miss Courteen, simper and blush and confide in her dear Phyllida that, +though she had known he admired her and indeed, had proffered her a +dropped fan more than once at the Monday Assemblies, yet never, <i>never</i> +had she for a moment imagined that he would <i>dare</i> to<a name="page_005" id="page_005"></a> send her a +Valentine, and if he had, she would have <i>died</i> rather than take it, +yes, <i>died</i>, for <i>what</i> she would do when she passed him next Monday +evening, she could not <i>think</i>, especially as he was <i>known</i> to be +partial to her, and her Mechlin pinner was quite ruined by the +<i>abominable</i> wax-candles they would use just because the P—— of +W—— was not coming that year after all.</p> + +<p>Miss Courteen was so much charmed by this loquacious dream that she +began to compose an appropriate verse destined to be wrapped round the +green stalks of the flowers.</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry" style="font-style:italic;"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">The snowdrop's white</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">And so are you. . .</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>The smallest foot in the world beat time upon the balcony making the +iron bars on which she stood vibrate in twanging chords, but failed to +summon from the caves of Poesy an echo worthy of the snowdrop's white.</p> + +<p>"The last line is monstrous easy," she thought.</p> + +<p><i>The bluebell's blue!</i> and the accumulation of liquids and labials has +enchanted her mouth to such a delicious pout that Mr. Vernon is leaning +forward and combing his wig more contemplatively than ever, for, +although he cannot see his charmer's lips, he feels sure from the +attitude of her whole body that her face is infernally captivating, and +the memory of her last whispered good-bye assails him and kindles a +leaping flame at the back of his hazel eyes.</p> + +<p>Such a merciless regard as ours penetrates to the heart and we know that +Mr. Vernon is wondering what on earth will come of his affair with Miss +Courteen, and speculating how much she will inherit, and whether +matrimony is quite so expensive a joy as his friends make out. The +thought of money writes an ugly twisted line across his high smooth +forehead, and this line broadens into a hundred little tributary lines +as he thinks of his debts. So he brings himself back to the obstacles of +life in rather a gloomy frame of mind and faces the necessity of his +toilet in such a depression of spirits that he selects a suit to match +his mood. And<a name="page_006" id="page_006"></a> that is the reason why Mr. Francis Vernon wore purple +sattin on Valentine morning.</p> + +<p>All this while, Miss Courteen is quite unable to invent that odious +third line, and though she taps her foot to aerial musick and pulls a +chestnut curl right over her nose and twists it round her fingers and +wonders whether 'white' is a notably difficult word to rhyme, she never +succeeds, and just when she has almost succeeded, her mother's voice +sounds from the floor above. This disposes of inspiration altogether, +for though her mother's voice is very melodious and sounds prodigiously +pleasant as it murmurs 'Spadille' or 'Manille' over the card-tables, it +will allow no competition, and drives all invisible musick far away.</p> + +<p>"Coming, dear mamma," says Phyllida just as Mr. Vernon decides to wear +purple and just as we step out of Mrs. Choke's front door thinking it +can no longer be indiscreet to follow our Muses to the scene of Mrs. +Courteen's toilet.</p> + +<p>As we cross the road glittering in the sunshine with last night's rain, +we see a tall young gentleman writing busily in a set of ivory tablets +as he strolls quietly along the pavement. Mr. Lovely, the young +gentleman, looks up very quickly as a three-cornered note flutters down +and lodges in a fold of his ruffles. Miss Courteen who felt the note +falling, and thinks that after all she need not make more than a pretty +attempt to save it, peers over the railing into the upturned face of the +young gentleman who bows very low and sweeps his hat round in a very +grand curve, and begs to apologize for the awkwardness of his ruffles in +thus intercepting a lady's note. And you and I, my inquisitive +companion, stand still for a moment and watch the picture, remembering +it is merry Valentine morn. The maid with wide eyes and crimson cheeks +nestling in swansdown and the young man of the laughing expectant face, +in his peach-coloured velvet suit, seem somehow to have caught the +spirit of the day: they make us think of broken stiles, of hedges heavy +with may, of blue and white April noons, of lambs, and children with +pinafores a-flutter gathering cowslip-posies on a wind-washed down, and +of all the old and dear delights of Spring.<a name="page_007" id="page_007"></a></p> + +<p>Says Phyllida, "Oh! pray pardon my clumsiness."</p> + +<p>And "Madam," says he very gallantly, "I'm incredibly obliged, for you've +given me a rhyme."</p> + +<p>"Oh! pray tell me—was it to 'white'?"</p> + +<p>"Nay! ’twas harder than that," he murmurs.</p> + +<p>"But I think that is monstrous difficult."</p> + +<p>"Bright, sight, light," (cheerfully) "height," (regretfully) "night," +(hopefully) and "fight," (fiercely).</p> + +<p>"Indeed," adds Phyllida, "I thought of every one of them, but not one +would fit the sense."</p> + +<p>The young gentleman who is a rhymester himself, grows interested. "Might +I," says he, "without impertinence inquire your necessity?"</p> + +<p>"Sure, 'tis for a Valentine," and as Mr. Lovely's face darkens, she +hurriedly adds, "for a young lady, a friend of mine, you'll see the +direction writ on the flap."</p> + +<p>His face clears again and he asks,</p> + +<p>"You wish it delivered?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, sir! how did you guess?"</p> + +<p>"By accident, ma'am, or a happy intuition, I stepped out to take the air +this fine morning, and chance has discovered for me an incontrovertible +excuse for such idle exercise. To be footman to a sister of the Muses is +surely appropriate service for a poet."</p> + +<p>"Then you are a poet?"</p> + +<p>"My publisher affirms it."</p> + +<p>"How romantick truly!" but the tail of the sigh is interrupted by her +mother's voice, and she has bare time to murmur her thanks, drop a +genteel curtsey and vanish. As for Mr. Lovely he has registered a vow to +attend the Monday Assembly next week instead of sitting down to Hazard +at the <i>Blue Boar</i> Inn.</p> + +<p>Abovestairs all is confusion because Mrs. Courteen cannot make up her +mind between yellow lutestring and orange silk. Phyllida whose heart is +full of the dancing springtide thinks her dear mamma should wear the +brightest colours and the richest stuffs in the world.</p> + +<p>"For if you would only allow the curtains to be drawn<a name="page_008" id="page_008"></a> back, you would +see what a golden morning it is outside," she complains to her mother +who answers:</p> + +<p>"Women of fashion, Phyllida, dress by candlelight for candlelight."</p> + +<p>Betty the maid, agrees with her young mistress, "Sweet, pretty dear +lamb," as she asseverates in Hampshire accents, "Orange silk, say I, and +God bless the gaulden sun."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Courteen who is sitting nearly half-undressed and quite incapable +of forming a decision, bids Betty go and find out Thomas' opinion. +Thomas is the family footman and a great critick of men, women, and +religions. Presently Betty comes back and says that Tammas would prefar +yaller.</p> + +<p>"Why, Betty, why?"</p> + +<p>"Because," answers the maid, "he says silks are for the vain and +abominable and lutestrings have a pleasant twang and savour of the +psalmist."</p> + +<p>So Mrs. Courteen turns from yellow sack to orange sack and from +primrose-quilted petticoat to apricock-quilted petticoat in despair, +till at last Betty asks triumphantly:</p> + +<p>"How would it be, ma'am, if you was to wear your most elegant and truly +genteel green sattin seeing that it do be Saint Valentine with a smell +of green leaves in the air?"</p> + +<p>This provokes a new decision, and causes a great rummaging in drawers +and presses and closets until the gown, fragrant with last year's +lavender, is discovered, when the toilet too long neglected starts +afresh.</p> + +<p>"What patches, ma'am?" says Betty.</p> + +<p>"My Cupid's bow and the two tears of widowhood."</p> + +<p>"What scents, mamma?" asks Phyllida.</p> + +<p>"My Citron Essence, child."</p> + +<p>Then shoes are buckled, stockings are gartered, and a black mantua +placed gently round her shoulders. One more touch of powder, one more +brush from the rouge pot, one more flounce and one more flirt while the +watchet ribbands in the cap are hastily changed to ribbands of palest +apple-green, and a pair of emerald snaps are quickly fastened.<a name="page_009" id="page_009"></a></p> + +<p>"Does my hoop sit straight? Oh! Lud! I vow I shall be late."</p> + +<p>A breathless moment and, in place of the mantua, a tippet of pheasants' +feathers is adjusted. Down the Crescent is heard the opening of many +doors. Phyllida runs to the window, draws back the curtains so that the +sun streams in upon the sicklied candles.</p> + +<p>"Has the Beau appeared yet?" asks Mrs. Courteen.</p> + +<p>"Here he comes, and oh! mamma, he is wearing a suit of olive-green."</p> + +<p>"What great good fortune! what taste I shall display. Green is certainly +the fashionable colour," and Mrs. Courteen began to trill to a tune of +her own invention....</p> + +<p>"I shall be <i>à la mode</i>, I shall be <i>à la mode</i> and very <i>bon ton</i> and +<i>très bon ton</i>."</p> + +<p>Radiant, she descends the stairs followed by Betty carrying an enormous +glass goblet. Outside, rubicund Thomas with heavily knobbed cane awaits +her. The widow glances over her shoulder at the crowds swinging down the +street, all equipped with glass goblets of various sizes and shapes. She +throws an anxious glance towards the head of the procession. The Beau is +certainly in green of a shade slightly darker than her own but, +nevertheless, distinctly comparable. She tosses her cap in anticipation +of the envied triumph and sails in the general direction.</p> + +<p>And you, Achates, who have accompanied me so early in the morning to the +toilets of some of our principal characters, pray give yourself the +additional trouble of thinking what a Great Man he must be to induce +these butterflies and moths of fashion to sally forth Cap à Pie perfect +at half-past eight o'clock of a February morning.</p> + +<p>"Let Bath be true to her bedgowns," he wrote, "in Curtain Wells we are +ignorant that men and women undress."</p> + +<p>When we think of that apoplectick Circumference which so lately +protruded, we can heartily assent to his opinion.<a name="page_010" id="page_010"></a></p> + +<h2><i>Chapter the Second</i><br /><br /> +THE PUMP ROOM</h2> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">A</span>S all roads are commonly reputed to lead to Earls Court, so here at +Curtain Wells all roads led to the Pump Room. It dominated the city from +the summit of a moderately steep hill as the Acropolis dominates the +almost equally famous city of Athens. In certain aspects it bore a +remarkable likeness to a Greek temple with its fluted columns and +portico haunted by many white pigeons. It was even more like a gigantick +summer-house whose interior was always open to the four winds. Any +reasonable explanation of a spring that gushed forth at the very top of +a hill always eluded those who toiled laboriously up the slope; but, as +a more religious butterfly once remarked, Providence plainly designed it +to serve some useful purpose by allowing it to gush forth at such an +unexpected elevation. The same lady used to regard volcanoes as an +uncomfortable if divine method of destroying large numbers of Papists +together, and would pertinently observe that if England had admitted the +claims of the Pretender, she was convinced what was now a cool, +health-giving fountain would have boiled over to the horrid +accompaniment of flames and lava. At precisely a quarter to nine +o'clock, Beau Ripple paused at the foot of the hill to survey through a +monocle his flurried followers. A wag once said that Ripple liked to +gaze at life through the wrong end of a spy-glass, because he himself +was of so small a stature. Whether this monocle actually diminished his +world to the size of an ant-heap, I do not know, but certainly the whole +assemblage stopped to recover their breath as if conscious of their +utter lack of importance in the eyes of the Great little Man. The +Physician-in-chief was solemnly beckoned into hearing.<a name="page_011" id="page_011"></a></p> + +<p>"Two minutes," said the Beau.</p> + +<p>Mr. Oboe the Physician opened the lid of an enormous watch attached to a +red silk fob and regarded the dial with an expression of great +intentness. He might, so complete was his abstraction, have been feeling +the pulse of the Exquisite Mob behind him.</p> + +<p>Slowly the minutes rolled by while the Beau took several possessive +sniffs of the young spring air. Not an unseemly whisper disturbed the +silence. So still was it that above the cooing of the sacred pigeons on +the roof of the Pump Room, far down in the valley could be heard the +lowing of cows. At thirteen minutes to nine Mr. Ripple let his monocle +drop; Mr. Oboe replaced his watch; the Pump Room bell began to clang +very fast; the Exquisite Mob started to climb the hill and innumerable +glass goblets glittered in the sun. When the summit was reached the Beau +called in a loud voice:</p> + +<p>"Oboe!"</p> + +<p>"Mr. Ripple?" bowed the Physician.</p> + +<p>"I allow two more minutes for panting."</p> + +<p>"Certainly, Mr. Ripple. Very just, sir."</p> + +<p>So the Exquisite Mob like the Hart panted after the Waters or perhaps +more accurately before them.</p> + +<p>At the expiration of the breathing-space, a diminutive negro known as +Gog advanced towards Mr. Ripple, bearing a fluted goblet upon a tray of +Chinese lacker. An equally diminutive negro called Magog presented the +goblet to Mr. Ripple who turned slightly in the direction of the company +and slowly sipped his portion with consummate meditation. When almost +half-way towards the bottom of the glass the Beau looked up as if +surprized to see his adherents still thirsty. This was understood to be +the signal for approach, and the Exquisite Mob advanced to drink while +the children, miniatures of foppery, played Hide and Seek or Touchlast +round the pillars.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Courteen sailed towards a thin little military man with a very long +and very crisp pigtail, whose outstanding feature in front was an +extremely conical Adam's Apple that<a name="page_012" id="page_012"></a> bobbed up and down as if his throat +were a bowl of water and, rising with his choler, at boiling-point +invariably choked him into incoherence.</p> + +<p>The Major would have passed for one of those half-pay officers who +frequent watering-places and rely for many of their meals upon an +acquaintance with the tacticks and strategy of the late Duke of +Marlborough, with the miserable failure of Carthagena and the already +forgotten personality of his Highness the Duke of C—— d.</p> + +<p>As a matter of fact, he had followed Mrs. Courteen to Curtain Wells from +Hampshire where he owned a small hunting lodge known as Ramilies House, +Oudenarde Grange, and Malplaquet Place according to his humour, but for +no discoverable reason besides. He had a painted board for each +designation, but nobody ever extracted from him the principle on which, +from time to time, they were changed. When asked on one occasion why he +omitted the famous victory of Blenheim from his titular commemoration, +he replied that the omission saved the expense of continually forwarding +letters to Oxfordshire. The Major was inclined to resent the homage paid +to Beau Ripple.</p> + +<p>"A d——d civilian, ma'am," he muttered to Mrs. Courteen.</p> + +<p>"Oh! you soldiers! I protest you have no reverence for anybody."</p> + +<p>"Not I, ma'am. I don't bow the knee to a living soul. Not at all. +'Sblood, ma'am, the fellow's no better than a low adventurer. Would he +fight? Not he. So he forbids us to wear swords. D—— n it, ma'am, a +soldier without his hanger is like a monkey without his tail. That's +what I say."</p> + +<p>"So do I, Major, so do I," echoed a suave voice over his shoulder and +the Major turning round, encountered the bland half-bored, half-tolerant +smile of the Great little Man.</p> + +<p>"Your similes are uncommon happy, Major."</p> + +<p>Tarry's Apple throbbed and bubbled and rose and sank, but the Beau +passed on contemptuously, and a large flabby man in a suit of +snuff-coloured frieze treading upon the<a name="page_013" id="page_013"></a> Major's toe at this moment, the +latter's wrath flowed into another channel.</p> + +<p>"My toe, Mr. Moon!" he said furiously.</p> + +<p>"Your toe?" inquired the other with great earnestness. The question of +disputed property which seemed imminent was quashed by the widow's +interruption:</p> + +<p>"'Tis too early for argument. Come, neighbours, let us make our +promenade. Where is Phyllida?"</p> + +<p>But Phyllida was making her promenade at a careful distance behind her +mother. Phyllida was taking the demurest little steps with an arm in her +beloved Betty's arm and with a swansdown muff held against her cheek to +ward off the shrewd Easterly wind, while almost level with the two maids +walked a stately gentleman of a pale complexion. And every time the +gentleman stopped to survey the promenaders over the tortoise-shell +handle of his ebony walking-stick, Phyllida and Betty stopped to see if +it was truly a quarter-past nine o'clock by St. Simon's church tower. +And every time the gentleman stopped to flick a speck of dust from his +purple sattin sleeve, by a very odd coincidence Miss Courteen always +stopped to see if her shoe had really become unbuckled. This tends to +show that in spite of all the precautions of Beau Ripple, the innermost +fane of Æsculapius had been invaded by a strange god. I doubt Miss +Courteen, considered by her mother too young for Chalybeate, was +learning to drink of that deep well whose waters will never run dry so +long as maids and men frequent its precincts.</p> + +<p>The Exquisite Mob continued to circle round the Pump Room because the +ritual of the Cure prescribed an hour's steady promenade before +breakfast. The scarlet heels of innumerable shoes clicked in unison and +the drowsy hum of morning small talk rose and fell upon the February +air. All agreed it was a monstrous fine day for the season of the year. +All expressed the opinion that by no stretch of imagination could such +weather be expected to last. All wished it would indeed, and everybody +asked his neighbour whether he intended to grace the next Assembly, and +the neighbour<a name="page_014" id="page_014"></a> invariably replied he had every intention of doing so. +Everybody bowed or curtseyed very low to Mr. Ripple and Mr. Ripple had a +delightfully well-turned sentence for each of his subjects, as if he +would reward their energy in rising so early. Occasionally the Great +little Man would condescend to take a pinch of the best Rappee with an +elderly gentleman. But as he never took snuff with anybody under the +rank of Viscount in the peerage of England and as the peer thus honoured +was bound to be above the age of five-and-forty, it happened that the +elderly gentleman was always old Lord Vanity, the only individual +present who satisfied the double requirement.</p> + +<p>"How different this scene is from Hampshire to be sure, though for my +part I shall ever protest that those who have eyes to see, let them see, +and people who accuse us of wasting our time forget how persistently +they look for the arrival of the carrier."</p> + +<p>Whether or not Major Tarry and Mr. Moon understood this remark of Mrs. +Courteen's, they certainly both agreed with her.</p> + +<p>"To-day is Session day," muttered the Justice rather gloomily.</p> + +<p>"Well, sir, the magistrates will do their business without you," snapped +his rival.</p> + +<p>"Not unlikely, sir, not unlikely."</p> + +<p>"Well, sir, what the deuce are you grumbling at?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Moon replied that he was not grumbling, he was merely commenting; +and the two gentlemen bickered on across placid Mrs. Courteen like two +children over a hedge.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile on the farther side of the Course, as the broad path round the +Pump Room was called, Mr. Vernon was still keeping step with Phyllida +and Betty, but so delicately did the former tread and so far aloof did +he appear that no one suspected him of anything so low as ogling pretty +Miss Courteen or her maid. Sometimes he would murmur "When will my +charmer be there?" and every time he asked this question, the charmer +would send a rippling little laugh<a name="page_015" id="page_015"></a> into her swansdown muff, and flash a +glance over the top towards Betty who would toss her head and imply that +such curiosity was worth a long-delayed gratification.</p> + +<p>At last Mr. Vernon would take out his laced handkerchief and flick +presumably at a ghostly Despair. Phyllida would be prodigiously afraid +that her dear Amor (by that name only did she know her lover) was +growing unhappy at her hard-hearted treatment and, feeling she had +tormented his patience long enough, would gently shake her muff until a +piece of paper fluttered slowly to the ground. Mr. Vernon would stoop +with indescribable grace and distinction of manner, and while Miss +Courteen looked very demure indeed and quite innocent of anything or +anybody in the world, he would put the piece of paper in his +handkerchief and press the handkerchief to his lips and look round the +corner of his eyes at Phyllida, who would just by chance be looking +round the corner of her eyes to ascertain if her Mamma were beckoning to +her. And this used to happen every fine morning during the promenade, +and continued to happen for many days afterwards.</p> + +<p>Half-past nine o'clock struck, and the promenaders all turned on their +heels to hear Mr. Ripple divulge the gaiety of the day.</p> + +<p>It is not to be supposed that Curtain Wells was careless of her +pilgrims' pleasure. On the contrary every hour of their visit was +wreathed in delightful possibilities of enjoyment. At present it was +Winter so that naturally most of the entertainments occurred indoors, +but in late Spring and Summer a series of Fêtes Champêtres and Fêtes +Aqueuses, of moonlight Concertos, harlequin Ridottos, and lantern +Masquerades made Curtain Wells a tolerably attractive stage for the +marionettes who postured and declaimed upon its boards.</p> + +<p>There was much tiptoe attention for the Beau as he ascended a marble +pedestal and slowly turned the pages of a notebook bound in tooled +Morocco leather, gilt-edged, and of impeccable finish and design.</p> + +<p>"My Lords," Mr. Ripple began, whereupon old Lord<a name="page_016" id="page_016"></a> Vanity, blinking +several times at his daughter Lady Jane Vane, took an extra large pinch +of Rappee.</p> + +<p>"My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen, I have the extreme honour to inform you +that the Publick Breakfast given to Sir Jeremy Dummer for the purpose of +commemorating his twenty-first consecutive winter at Curtain Wells will +be held (<i>Deo volente</i>) at the Town Hall to-morrow the fifteenth +instant."</p> + +<p>A murmur of delighted anticipation ran round the Exquisite Mob while Sir +Jeremy Dummer who was verging on nonagenarian antiquity drew himself up +very erect, quivering and doddering with senile pride. "There will be +the usual loyal and personal toasts," continued the Beau, "and at the +conclusion of the entertainment the Company will adjourn to the Civic +Chamber, where I hope the ladies will be already arrived, in order to +partake of a dish of tea. I may add that the tea, duty paid, has been +generously presented by Mr. Hopkins of the High Street, well known to +many of you as the incomparable provider of the rarer dried delicacies +which have traced prodigal patterns over so many of your mahogany +tables."</p> + +<p>The Exquisite Mob murmured its gratitude for the tea and the compliment +with much condescension and affableness, while the publick spirit of the +tradesman was generally extolled.</p> + +<p>"To-night at precisely half-past six o'clock, Mrs. Dudding's +Conversazione. Quadrille tables for ninety-six players, Pope Joan for +the young and sprightly and—ahem—a Pharaoh table in order that our +gentlemen, Mrs. Dudding informs me, may have no valid excuse for +absenting themselves on the score of dullness. Chairs at precisely +half-past ten o'clock and I must request you, my lords, ladies and +gentlemen, to warn your chairmen that quarterstaff play with the poles +will be visited with your acutest displeasure. I am sorry to complain of +an abuse on a morning when the prospect of Nature is so vastly pleasant, +but last week the whooping and halloaing of the partizans caused me to +place Basto upon the Ponto of my Vis à Vis."<a name="page_017" id="page_017"></a></p> + +<p>The Exquisite Mob sighed in sympathetick consternation as, with a +perceptible break in his voice, Mr. Ripple made this confession.</p> + +<p>"And since I am temporarily launched upon unpleasant topicks, I must beg +for earlier and less riotous hours at the <i>Blue Boar</i>. It is exceedingly +ungenteel to throw quart bottles of Burgundy at the watch. The latter is +a fine body of men devoted to the service of an orderly and decent +society, and does not deserve a crown of plaisters as the result of +publishing the hour of the night and the state of the weather. However, +I will mention no names, gentlemen."</p> + +<p>Lord Vanity, not feeling himself included in the last vocative, took a +pinch of Rappee and gazed very fiercely at my Lady Bunbutter through the +rheum and water of his ancient eyes. As her ladyship showed no signs of +a guilty conscience, the Earl took a second pinch and muttered "devilish +young cubs" under his breath.</p> + +<p>"On Sunday," the Beau resumed with his old suavity of enunciation, "the +waters will not be drunk until the fulfilment of Divine Service. On +Monday the usual Assembly will be held, and a Cotillon will be danced at +twelve o'clock precisely. Chairs at half-past twelve o'clock precisely. +And now, my lords, ladies and gentlemen, nothing remains for me but to +wish you a vastly enjoyable breakfast, a happy issue from your divers +infirmities and a very good morning."</p> + +<p>This benediction was the recognized sign of dismissal; the Beau +descended from his pedestal and the Exquisite Mob betook itself down +hill, although a few individuals waited behind in order to consult with +the former on matters of etiquette, fashion and gentility, his advice +being considered the most refined in the country.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Courteen sailed down upon Mr. Ripple and asked whether she was +right in thinking that the moment when green should be worn was arrived.</p> + +<p>"I think so, ma'am," the Beau assured her. "I think so: to be sure, a +few of our more conservative fops hold that green should never appear +before the Queen's birthday.<a name="page_018" id="page_018"></a> But I differ from them, ma'am, I differ. +You will observe madam, that I differ."</p> + +<p>Phyllida had rejoined her mother by this time, and Mr. Ripple saluted +her freshness with a courtly bow.</p> + +<p>"Many Valentines?" he inquired with a quizzical droop of his left +eyelid.</p> + +<p>Phyllida blushed, protesting,</p> + +<p>"No, indeed, sir."</p> + +<p>The Widow hastily assured Mr. Ripple that her daughter was not near old +enough to dream of such follies, while Major Tarry and Mr. Moon, whose +skirts were stiff with Valentines intended for Mrs. Courteen herself, +looked very severely at the sun as if he were in some way responsible +for the madness of love in the air.</p> + +<p>"Tut-tut! Youth's the time for love, as Mr. Gay sings, and though I do +not encourage the interchange of passionate sentiments among those who +are seeking to recover their health, I regard St. Valentine's Day as a +very proper festival for young men and maidens in whose hearts no +degeneration is yet apparent." With these words Mr. Ripple drooped his +left eyelid lower than ever.</p> + +<p>"Fie! sir, we shall have the child vapoured like any woman of fashion, +if you put such inflammable ideas into her head," complained Mrs. +Courteen, who was just beginning to be more than a little jealous of her +daughter.</p> + +<p>"Not at all, ma'am," said the Beau, "I swear I saw an agreeable spark +toast Miss Phyllida in Chalybeate—the irreverent dog—but I forgave +him; upon my honour, I was near doing the same thing myself."</p> + +<p>Now Phyllida was not at all anxious for her mother to think she had an +admirer, and yet with youth's vanity, she could not resist a +half-acknowledgment of the Beau's rally. Luckily for her, Major Tarry, +who always resented his removal from the centre of attraction, thought +it was time to assert his existence by demanding rather pompously if the +Beau saw anything unusual in the sky.</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir," the latter agreed. "I see the sun, which is very unusual at +this season of the year."<a name="page_019" id="page_019"></a></p> + +<p>Mr. Moon gaped a smile, and Tarry's Apple began to rise. He had +anticipated a surprized negative from the Beau, whereupon he intended to +look very mysterious and say that after all perhaps he was mistaken. +Thus, having impressed the bystanders with the notion that they were +talking to a man of superhuman vision, he would offer an arm to Mrs. +Courteen.</p> + +<p>"Run, Betty," exclaimed the latter, "and tell Mr. Thomas we await his +escort."</p> + +<p>Thomas was at the footman's Pump Room, a hundred yards down the hill. +Here, every morning he mused regretfully upon the decline of +beer-drinking. Chalybeate to him was a sort of Jacobite liquor which was +slowly supplanting the honest Esau ale. As for streams that spouted +inexplicably from solid rocks, these he held to be an infringement of +Moses' prerogative. He would unscrew the knob of his footman's cane for +a morsel of Parmesan cheese and chew the cud of bitter reflection, while +with the butt of his nose he would polish the silver ball till it shone +with equal splendour.</p> + +<p>Betty found him thus occupied and, as he stalked after her in obedience +to his summoning, she heard him mutter several times in quick +succession, "Wells of Sodom! Waters of Gomorrah! Pillars of Salt!"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Courteen as she curtseyed her farewells to the Beau sank to the +ground like a deflated balloon. This done she gathered her party into +hearing and occupied their outward attention as they walked in the +direction of the Crescent with a long and disjointed account of her +health.</p> + +<p>"Why will you shake your muff so vehemently?" complained the Widow.</p> + +<p>"'Tis full of dust," said Phyllida.</p> + +<p>If it was, I am afraid Miss Courteen was trying to throw some of it into +her mamma's eyes.<a name="page_020" id="page_020"></a></p> + +<h2><i>Chapter the Third</i><br /><br /> +THE BLUE BOAR</h2> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">W</span>HILE the Exquisite Mob circled round the central fane of Æsculapius, +Mr. Charles Lovely had enough lack of taste and orthodoxy to make a +heretick promenade in the low-lying water-meadows at the foot of the +town.</p> + +<p>He had knocked three times at old General Morton's house in the Western +Colonnade and delivered Miss Courteen's Valentine into the hands of Miss +Sukey Morton's maid. She, poor soul, wore round her neck a brass button +attached to a piece of string still reminiscent in tarred perfume of the +Dorsetshire jetty down which she had wandered a year ago. It was +streaking her breast with verdigris as if in some way prophetick of a +heart that all too soon would be tarnished more irreparably by that +faithless lover beyond the seas.</p> + +<p>Consequently Miss Morton's maid received the paquet with a sympathetick +reverence learnt in long morning dreams when the sunlight splashed the +walls of her garret in waves and ripples of faint gold.</p> + +<p>"Any name, your honour?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"I believe not."</p> + +<p>"And no message?" she paused in bright-eyed hope of an assignation which +was to be the first step in the softening of her mistress' hard and +imperious little heart.</p> + +<p>"None at all so far as I know, my dear," and Mr. Lovely passed on down +the deserted street towards the meadows.</p> + +<p>The little maid stood on the steps regarding him.</p> + +<p>"Tes a Valentoine surely," she thought, and held the envelope between +her and the discoverer sun. A red heart glowed through the paper, a red +heart pierced by a flaming arrow.<a name="page_021" id="page_021"></a></p> + +<p>"And who'd ha' thought she had a bow and her be so spoitful."</p> + +<p>She sighed as she gazed after Mr. Lovely.</p> + +<p>"He do look proper and happy surely."</p> + +<p>The elegant young gentlemen had, in fact caught some of the harlequin +grace of a fine morning in the prime of the year as he avoided the +cracks in the paving stones to bring the meadows closer and make the +Colonnade less intolerably long.</p> + +<p>"Wi' sech a rosy spark, for sure, she've no call to be jealous of me," +thought the little maid, as her soul went winging over the great +Atlantick whose roar filled the silence of her mind, to meet the soul of +her sailor-lover who was at the moment sitting upon an alien beach in +the company of two dusky wantons and a bottle of Jamaica rum.</p> + +<p>Mr. Lovely turned the corner and the little maid vanished at the sound +of a bell summoning her to tie one of her mistress' pink bows to a more +modish angle.</p> + +<p>Our hero, for since perfect confidence should exist between us, I will +no longer attempt to conceal his identity, continued to walk to the tune +of a lyrick always provided the measure did not compel him to step upon +one of the fatal cracks. Soon he came to a road which ended in green +fields sodden with winter rains, but soft and grateful after the arid +pavement.</p> + +<p>Face to face with the pale blue February sky, he took up more earnestly +the intention of the half-fledged songs that occupied his brain. Strange +songs they were, fanciful and unrestrained in the eyes of their author +and his contemporaries who did not recognize in them an echo of one Mr. +Herrick, dead, and now forgotten by the world of literature. His mother +had read the poems to him as a child. The <i>Hesperides</i> of 1648 was the +only book owned by the lodging-house in Westminster where a dingy year +of childhood had dragged out its course. In his youth, he had loved +their sharp, elusive harmonies, and when he attained years of +composition, could never free his own lyricks from extravagance<a name="page_022" id="page_022"></a> so +acquired, however assiduously he attempted to follow Augustan models. To +his credit, be it added, he was always sincerely ashamed of his +barbarick numbers and, as he grew older, was often successful in +expressing the heart of a riotous evening in a clear-cut drinking song. +Perhaps this vain pursuit of formalism in words made him neglect his +private life, which ran a wild career checked by nothing stronger than +the strings of his purse.</p> + +<p>As he leaned over a stile and watched the cattle in the meadows, out of +the past there came like an arrow of song shot from the gloomy depths of +London,</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry" style="font-style:italic;"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Ye have been fresh and green,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Ye have been filled with flowers,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">And ye the walks have been</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Where maids have spent their hours.</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>But Mr. Lovely was dissatisfied. He felt the sentiment would have +reached a larger dignity, a more epigrammatick crispness, a more +trenchant elusiveness, if it had never strayed beyond the bonds of an +heroick couplet. He deplored his ineradicable early impressions and +vowed to study the classick models with a still more fierce ardour of +imitation.</p> + +<p>But having formed this resolution, our hero was just as discontented as +before. The sun shining into his heart, found no reflection there.</p> + +<p>"These d—d late nights are killing me," he complained, ascribing his +discontent to fatiguing sessions of play. He bent down to pluck a starry +celandine and wasted a few minutes in trying to find out whether he +liked butter. The little golden oracle told him he did, but as he was +well aware of this fact already, only the flower benefited by an +enhanced reputation for infallibility. Nevertheless it was flicked +carelessly over the hedge where it lay stalk upwards in the shade like +many another prophet before it. To confess the truth at once, Mr. Lovely +had only used the butter to deceive himself, for round about his +red-heeled shoes were eight<a name="page_023" id="page_023"></a> golden petals which seem to prove that a +more intimate question had been asked, and answered unfavourably if we +may judge by the banishment of the flower. To console his wounded +susceptibleness, he determined to smoke a pipe and, having made up his +mind, found the long clay stem was broken. With a pithy condemnation of +things in general, he tried to establish the reason of his depressed +spirits. Then he discovered his spirits were not depressed, merely +unsettled. Burgundy of course. Hazard without a doubt. Should he try +Chalybeate? The d—l! not if he knew it. Should he try Chalybeate? She +wore a very engaging swansdown tippet. What a fool he had been to come +to these meadows! Should he try Chalybeate? The half-fledged lyrick was +strangled: the landskip seemed pretentiously bright in proportion to the +wintry air which was still abroad and, to crown all, he felt an +extraordinary desire to drink a tankard of ale with Mr. Anthony Clare at +the <i>Blue Boar</i>. The latter might know who wore swansdown in the +Crescent. With a sigh of relief, he wrung this admission out of himself, +shivered and turned his face towards Curtain Wells, whose houses +clustered like a swarm of bees around the sacred hill.</p> + +<p>The <i>Blue Boar</i>, whither Mr. Charles Lovely was bound, was a hostelry of +the conventionally ample type. The rooms with exterior rows of galleries +were built round a large quadrangle to which coaches and stage waggons +were admitted through an arch that was only just high enough for the +vehicles of a more recent pattern. The fixed population consisted of +innumerable plump and shapely chambermaids, innumerable dried-up +hostlers and grooms, and a certain number of sedate waiters who were all +clothed in the same shade of rusty black, and all of whom wished they +had settled earlier in life to become footmen. However this canker of +thwarted ambition never prevented them from handling anything from a +soup-tureen to a guinea-piece with reverence and precision.</p> + +<p>The host, Jeremy Daish, was neither round nor rubicund. On the contrary +he was remarkably sallow and, in<a name="page_024" id="page_024"></a> his suit of cinnamon cloth, bore a +vague likeness to a well-seasoned Cremona violin. He was the builder, +owner, and inventor of the famous <i>Daish's Rooms</i> adjoining the Inn and, +as the latter served for a recognized adjunct to the more official +<i>Assembly Rooms</i>, Mr. Daish became a somewhat mildewed counterpart of +the great Beau himself, a mezzotint ill-executed of a famous painting in +oils. His back was so often crouched in servility that it had acquired a +permanent stoop. Rumour said that years ago Mr. Daish was often seen +fiddle in hand at West-country fairs and wakes, and supported the legend +by pointing out when a lady of the extremist fashion and quality graced +his dancing floor with a pair of very high red heels, the solemn +innkeeper would steal to the Dais of the musicians and, taking an +instrument, would himself bob and play my lady through a minuet with +considerable Gusto and Bravura.</p> + +<p>The <i>Blue Boar</i> was patronized by a select company of fashionable young +gentlemen who lent the old hostelry something of the tone of White's or +Almack's. Bagmen were excluded from the wing occupied by these elegant +patrons, and though from time to time one of the former, with a merry +reputation, would be invited to take wine with the quality in return for +the tale of a famous and gross adventure, it was distinctly understood +that nothing low or vulgar was allowed to penetrate beyond a certain +doorway.</p> + +<p>Beau Ripple himself would saunter down towards twilight and exhort his +youthful subjects on the folly of vice, the futility of play and the +obligation to drink the waters at half-past eight o'clock. Mr. Ripple +was esteemed a Puritan, but such a genteel Puritan that the young +gentlemen, subdued by the length of his waistcoats and his +irreproachable ties and solitaires, listened to him willingly enough, +and overpowered by the orthodoxy of his wigs and buckles, the fullness +of his shirts and the size of his cuffs, heeded his warnings sometimes.</p> + +<p>Mr. Lovely strolled through the archway into the yard all fresh and +shining after the morning swill. Along the<a name="page_025" id="page_025"></a> galleries, the chambermaids +were hurrying about their work, and the figure of Mrs. Grindle, the +housekeeper, glittering and jingling with keys, warned him no loitering +in the galleries would be tolerated at that hour of the day. Two horses +were being groomed in the courtyard, but as he had discussed all their +points both with their owners and the hostlers at least half a dozen +times before, he was not inclined to pursue the outworn theme farther.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Clare about?" he inquired.</p> + +<p>"Han't seen him, y'r honour," answered one of the workers.</p> + +<p>"'Es that Mr. Clare?" asked the other.</p> + +<p>"Yes, my good fellow, have you seen him?"</p> + +<p>"Rode over to Baverstock Regis to see a maiden aunt," the man replied.</p> + +<p>"Ho! ho! ho!" roared the first, "dang me if that bean't the best I ever +hard. Ho! Ho! ho!" and convulsed with merriment, the man slapped his +tight-breeched thighs with frequency and vigour.</p> + +<p>"You make the very d—l of a noise, Sirrah," said Mr. Lovely fretfully.</p> + +<p>"I axe y'r honour's pardon, but when I hard Jock there talking of maiden +aunts—ho—ho—ho! and when I minds that shaapely—ah! well it doan't do +to mention no naames, but it come over me sudden to laugh," and with +this apology, the humorous hostler picked up his mare's near fore-leg, +and continued to chuckle at intervals for the rest of the day.</p> + +<p>Mr. Lovely began to think Tony Clare was confoundedly young, and when +one young man begins to think another young man confoundedly young, it +is usually a convincing proof that the pensive young man is deep in +love.</p> + +<p>"What's a fellow to do?" he sighed as he turned into the coffee-room. It +was empty, so he called for a draught of ale, put his feet on the window +seat and surveyed the passers-by. He wondered what had become of his +friends, and why the d——l all the world was gone mad because the sun +shone with unwonted brilliance for the middle of<a name="page_026" id="page_026"></a> February. Then he +remembered it was Valentine day and amused himself with the manufacture +of paper darts which he shot at the prettiest young women in range. +Unluckily, in an attempt to pierce the ripe heart of buxom Miss Page who +assisted at the cook-shop, he wounded the Rector on the nose. This set +him moralizing on the fortune of Love. Could anything be more +incongruous than Love and the Rector. Yet why not? We are all targets of +a dimpled nudity. The phrase caught his fancy. Numberless Cupids in +attitudes of attack floated before his mind's eye. "Demme!" thought Mr. +Lovely, "my brain is like an Italian ceiling. Targets of a dimpled +nudity!" He flung back the lattice to its utmost extent and leaned out +to the morning whence the chatter of the world without floated into the +sunny room.</p> + +<p>"Everybody is monstrous good-humoured," he concluded. But somehow it was +no longer amusing to quiz the young woman in Mrs. Tabby's ribband-shop +through his ivory rimmed perspective. Somehow since yesterday her +forearm had grown coarser.</p> + +<p>"All the world's growing old," he grumbled disconsolately. But the world +would not be vapoured, and laughed and chattered and bobbed and flirted +and chirped with all the selfishness of a world that is always young in +defiance of the moods of her individuals.</p> + +<p>Suddenly the mob of Cupids faded from his mind and the World at which he +was scoffing ceased to exist. Surely at the very end of the High Street, +he could discern something which was slowly assuming the magic shape of +a swansdown tippet. His heart began to beat very fast and he felt the +rushing crimson flood his cheeks. Life was wrapped in swansdown, as, +through clouds of the airy texture, his soul soared to unimaginable +heights. Then came the descent and, waking as from a dream, he found +himself staring down into a pair of wide blue eyes. In his embarrassment +he knocked over a pot of jacynths and, above the noise of the fall, +heard himself telling a Swansdown Muff he had delivered the paquet. +Could anything be more enchanting than the<a name="page_027" id="page_027"></a> warning fore-finger, save +the lips to which it was lifted? Could anything better console his +enforced silence than the knowledge that between him and her existed a +secret? The swansdown tippet and swansdown muff had vanished, but +fragments of broken Terra Cotta strewed the pavement. The swansdown +tippet and swansdown muff had floated away to some fairyland of their +own, but a blue jacynth perfumed the air.</p> + +<p>Certainly the idlers of Curtain Wells had a fruitful subject for an +afternoon's debate in the sight of young Mr. Lovely climbing out of the +coffee-room window. Besides, if that were not amazing enough, the idlers +were immediately diverted by the aspect of young Mr. Lovely gathering up +the remains of a shattered flower-pot and clasping a bruised jacynth to +his silk waistcoat. They all agreed the incident had no explanation, and +were even stirred out of their perpetual lethargy to muster round the +entrance of the <i>Blue Boar</i> in order to verify a daring speculation that +he was going to carry the fragments within.</p> + +<p>"Good G——!" said Mr. Ripple who was approaching the archway from the +other side. "Good G——, sir, are you mad?" To Mr. Ripple the shock was +great. He had aspirations for Mr. Lovely. To be sure, he was wild, an +extravagant young dog, but then he possessed an inimitable assurance of +manner, a pretty talent for polite verse-making, and a consummate taste +in brocades. The Beau of late had often pondered the choice of his +successor. He had aspirations for Mr. Lovely and now he saw his +favourite positively panting (the most ungenteel motion and fatal to the +fall of a waistcoat), not merely panting but smeared with mould, hugging +potsherds, and apparently quite unmoved by his degradation. Is it +wonderful that Mr. Ripple cried,</p> + +<p>"Good G——, sir, are you mad?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," shouted Mr. Lovely.</p> + +<p>"Or drunk?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," shouted Mr. Lovely.</p> + +<p>As he seemed inclined to answer every question in the affirmative, the +Beau remarked he wished to see a representative<a name="page_028" id="page_028"></a> group of the young +gentlemen at the Blue Boar upon a matter of the gravest social and +civick importance.</p> + +<p>Our hero ejaculated, "With you in the twinkling of a bedpost," and raced +across the yard, up the first staircase, along the first gallery and +into the last room.</p> + +<p>A light broke upon Mr. Ripple's bewilderment.</p> + +<p>"He has discovered some prehistorick relicks. Probably Cinerary Urn, a +Lunette or possibly a gold coin of Rome."</p> + +<p>In pleasant anticipation, the Beau who was an intimate friend of Mr. +Sylvanus Urban, beheld the folded copper-plate illustrating the +discovery and the rounded sentences on the opposite page of the +<i>Gentleman's Magazine</i> in which the excavations would be carefully +recorded by Horace Ripple.</p> + +<p>"This must assuage my wrath," he decided by the door of the coffee-room.</p> + +<p>To tell the truth, the Beau was on censure bent when he met our hero +outside the <i>Blue Boar</i>.</p> + +<p>Already, that morning, he had alluded to the riotous nocturnal +behaviour, the assaults upon the watch, the fusilade of empty bottles, +but not being able to descry a single offender, he determined that +personal and individual remonstrance would be more efficacious. To the +<i>Blue Boar</i> therefore, he went having first exchanged his suit of olive +green for one of black sattin unrelieved by silver and terminated by +ruffles whose cambrick fell in severe folds and condemnatory lines.</p> + +<p>As he stepped from the Great House round the Crescent and along the High +Street, he passed in sombre eclipse upon the gaiety of subjects shining +with the reflection of his genteel rays.</p> + +<p>Presently Mr. Lovely came back still bearing the marks of the potted +soil.</p> + +<p>"Was it an Urn?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Lovely looked surprized.</p> + +<p>"A Lachrymatory perhaps? Or a Lunette? Or," Mr. Ripple grew breathless +with excitement, "not an Image of Æsculapius?"<a name="page_029" id="page_029"></a></p> + +<p>"Pray, sir, are you trying to humour a madman? Because on my soul, I +don't know what you are driving at."</p> + +<p>"So, sir, your late phrenzy was nothing more than the unbridled haste +and inconsiderate volition of youthful folly?" sternly demanded the +Beau.</p> + +<p>"I 'faith, I knocked over one of old Daish's precious pots, and was +making haste to remove it from the region of his laments. That's all, +and there's my hand on't."</p> + +<p>"You will pardon me," replied the Beau drawing back, "I have no +objection to shaking a hand stained by honest toil, but I have never +shaken a hand sullied by mere zest for uncleanliness."</p> + +<p>"As you will, dear Beau," laughed Mr. Lovely.</p> + +<p>The Beau was about to point an example to adorn his statement when he +was interrupted by the entrance of severe Mrs. Grindle clasping her nose +with one hand, and with the other holding at arm's length the offending +jacynth by a shred of its roots.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Lovely, sir," she began and as our hero pulled forward a chair and +the Beau leaned back to listen, she continued, "I have known a cat +kitten in one of the maids' beds."</p> + +<p>"How very distressing," murmured the Beau letting the firelight play in +the diamonds of his rings.</p> + +<p>"But never, never," proclaimed Mrs. Grindle swelling like Mr. Handel's +<i>Largo</i>, "have I known a young gentleman want to turn his bachelor bed +into a ploughed field. Mr. Lovely, sir, I'll trouble you to say if this +is your planting or did you wish to insinuate that your bed was not made +this morning?"</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Grindle, madam," replied the accused, "you have heard of beds and +you have heard of garden-beds. Mine is a garden-bed. A Parterre +impromptu, a Landskip in miniature, a Bucolick of slumber, a dimity +Eclogue. In a word—but pray, Mrs. Grindle, my dear Mrs. Grindle, out +of regard for me rehabilitate that jacynth without a word to Mr. Daish, +and I, out of regard for you, will certainly pay for the washing of the +bedspread."<a name="page_030" id="page_030"></a></p> + +<p>Mr. Lovely smiled so very engagingly and looked so completely innocent +of any desire to insinuate anything except Mrs. Grindle's good-nature +that the housekeeper gave way, condescended to smile and, as she +retired, threw a quick glance in the direction of a mirrour to notice +the angle of her snowy cap.</p> + +<p>Having reduced Mrs. Grindle to affableness, Mr. Lovely turned his smile +towards the Beau. The latter had watched with much satisfaction the +progress of his favourite's negociations, thinking to himself that a man +who could circumvent such a dragon as the housekeeper would be very well +able to keep in order the most self-assertive of Duchesses. He began to +relent his indignation and, as Lovely smiled at him, to see in his late +impetuousness no more than the natural activity of a jolly young man. +Moreover, for a certain reason, he had a genuine affection for the +rogue, and was glad to perceive his high spirits.</p> + +<p>"I came here this morning in the hope of a serious conversation with +some of your friends. Are they—are they in the—er—taproom?"</p> + +<p>"They're all gone after maids."</p> + +<p>"Tut, tut, I wish I could make it plain that Curtain Wells exists for +the continence, not the encouragement of appetites."</p> + +<p>"You must blame the sun, dear Beau."</p> + +<p>"In view of the many pleasant hours I have spent basking in the warmth, +I should not presume to do anything so ungrateful. But I will remark +that the Sun in his human guises is not to be considered a beneficial +example to young men at a stage in the history of mankind when maidens +are no longer able to transform themselves into umbrageous laurels, thus +rendering impertinent and inconvenient what at first seemed appropriate +and inevitable. I allude, sir, to the legend of Apollo and Madam Daphne. +However, my dear Charles—" here the Beau laid three tapered jewelled +fingers upon the extremity of Mr. Lovely's left shoulder.</p> + +<p>"You overwhelm me, sir, with your condescension. The<a name="page_031" id="page_031"></a> omission of the +surname by Beau Ripple, is the bestowal of a title."</p> + +<p>"Very well put, Charles," said the older man contentedly. "'Fore Gad! +you do me credit. Snuff, sir?"</p> + +<p>Charles (we may follow the lead of Mr. Ripple) was now veritably +astonished. Never could he recall such an instance of the Beau's +condescension towards a man of his years; and he dipped his fingers into +the proffered snuff-box with greater bashfulness than he would have +displayed towards the powder-box of Titania.</p> + +<p>"However, though the rest of our young gentlemen are—after maids," the +Beau stumbled over the crudity of the phrase, "I am happy to see that +you are engrossed by the seemlier pastime of horticulture." Was it fancy +or did Charles really see his mentor blow a tuft of swansdown from his +cuff? "I wish," the latter went on, "to remonstrate with you on the +indecorous character of your midnight entertainments. Owls, under +providence, are allowed to shriek and hoot after sundown, but there +seems no reason for extending to men the privilege accorded by a Divine +Creator to owls. In short, Mr. Lovely, there has been the—there has +been an atrocious hurly-burly in this house every night of late. Pray do +not interrupt me," he added as Charles made a protesting movement. "I +have the fullest Data for my general observations."</p> + +<p>"Youth, dear Beau, hot-headed, open-handed Youth."</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes, I know something of Youth's anatomy from a personal +experience of the happy state, but Youth, Mr. Lovely, is a mighty +inadequate justification for a circular scar on the forehead of one of +our most respected and silver-tongued watchmen—a scar inflicted by the +unconsumed but necessary concomitant of a quart of Burgundy."</p> + +<p>"It was an accident, sir, young Tom Chalkley of the Foot——"</p> + +<p>"I have observed, Mr. Lovely, that if one of these missiles happens to +strike the body against which it is aimed the result is invariably an +<a name="page_032" id="page_032"></a>accident whereas if the missile goes wide of the mark it is a d——d +poor shot. But it cannot go on, Mr. Lovely. It shall not go on. The +residents acting in conjunction with the visitors reserve the right to +expel summarily any person who causes publick offence, and I, as their +accredited representative, should be in the highest degree culpable if I +allowed it to go on. Consequently, my dear Charles, I appeal to you as +to one possessed of some influence over the more violent spirits, to do +all in your power of persuasion to prevent it from going on."</p> + +<p>Now as the successful quart bottle had been thrown by our hero, and as +he was usually the chief agent in promoting a disturbance, it is evident +that Mr. Ripple secured his unparalleled authority as much by tact as by +severity.</p> + +<p>"Dear Beau, you shall be obliged," said Charles, "and now pray tell me +who wears a white swansdown tippet and lives hard by the Great House."</p> + +<p>"I am not accustomed to observe the minor variations in feminine +costume," answered Mr. Ripple with some austerity.</p> + +<p>"Nay! But a hermit froze to his psalter must have noticed her," +protested the younger man.</p> + +<p>"The analogy is incomplete."</p> + +<p>"I shall be at the Assembly on Monday night."</p> + +<p>"You could not be more worthily employed."</p> + +<p>"And I shall effect an introduction under your patronage."</p> + +<p>"That very much depends."</p> + +<p>"On my good behaviour?" asked Charles.</p> + +<p>"On the immunity of my watchmen from further assaults."</p> + +<p>"Dear Beau, we are all targets of a—" he hesitated, "of a dimpled +nudity or an empty bottle. Love and a bottle, there's the world."</p> + +<p>"The flesh, I think, sir."</p> + +<p>"I 'faith, Satan must have a fine sieve if he can separate the pair."</p> + +<p>"I am no theologian."</p> + +<p>"Then you'll present me?" persisted Charles.</p> + +<p>"You will protect my watchmen?" demanded the Beau.</p> + +<p>"On Monday night?" urged Charles.<a name="page_033" id="page_033"></a></p> + +<p>"Every night," added the Beau. "Unconditional surrender is my ultimatum. +But I hope I know how to display generosity towards a vanquished enemy. +You will attend the Publick Breakfast awarded to Sir Jeremy Dummer?"</p> + +<p>"Truly I——"</p> + +<p>"Tut, tut, I insist. My old friend Lord Cinderton arrives to-day with +his invalid son, George Harthe-Brusshe. I should like the young man to +see your cherry and trout-pink cuffs."</p> + +<p>"Too unseasonable a combination of colours for breakfast."</p> + +<p>"Pshaw! your appearance will give a fillip to his impoverished +appetite."</p> + +<p>"I 'faith, I believe I know how to flavour my conversation with Attick +salt, but I swear I never dressed myself for the Role of condiment."</p> + +<p>The conversation was soon entirely of sauces.<a name="page_034" id="page_034"></a></p> + +<h2><i>Chapter the Fourth</i><br /><br /> +CURTAIN MAZE</h2> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HE Maze at Curtain Wells was always considered one of the principal +sights of the place. Holding this reputation, it was naturally the least +frequented. Visitors either went there the second day after their +arrival or scuttled round it with a competent escort in the twenty-four +hours that preceded their departure. But since no one went there twice +and since all the visitors and residents of the Wells were perfectly +familiar with the various shrines, its invariable emptiness may easily +be apprehended. In summer the gardens of which it was a feature were +thronged at the fashionable hours. There was also a Rotunda similar to +if less grandiose than the famous Rotunda at Ranelagh Garden. This had +not long been in existence, and was only used for balls and masquerades +through May and June, when the Maze was spangled with lamps for the +delight of the dancers. Even so, very few availed themselves of the +shelter of its yew-hedges and always spent the rest of the evening in +trying to find their way out, being lucky if they succeeded in making a +somewhat ruffled appearance during the last Cotillon.</p> + +<p>To Curtain Garden went Miss Phyllida Courteen and Madam Betty her maid: +to Curtain Garden they were going when they passed Mr. Charles Lovely at +the coffee-room window.</p> + +<p>Betty belonged to a type of womanhood that grows with age, increased fat +and pursiness, into a nurse such as Mr. Shakespeare drew in <i>Romeo and +Juliet</i>. If she had been brought up in a disreputable purlieu of the +town, she would have become a personally chaste procuress but, nurtured<a name="page_035" id="page_035"></a> +among the buttercups, she merely had a perpetual desire to see her +pretty young mistress aflame through the careless progress of some gay +spark or other. Whatever there was of passion in her meadow-born soul +fed itself on objective embraces. She was never a maid for a +kissing-gate at long shadow time, but when she saw Phyllida's heart +flutter with quick emotion before the approach of Mr. Vernon, a +primitive phrenzy set her cheeks aglow and fired her eyes to a livelier +blue. She adored her mistress with a precocious maternity but, +paradoxically enough, without any of the mother's jealousy of a lover +near to his possession. Vernon with his pale face and slightly sinister +demeanour had caught her fancy. 'Let him mate with my pretty one,' she +would say to herself, 'blossom of apple looks most rare and sweet under +a grey sky of clouds.' It was this anxiety to provide a physical match +for Phyllida which had led her to encourage Vernon's addresses, and her +mistress to pay heed to his vows. Her greatest delight was to stand, +watching against interruption, in the next alley to the lovers. Here she +would thrill her imagination with the thought of frail and timid fingers +in the clasp of a strong white hand. The sudden interposition of Mr. +Lovely vexed her. Certainly he was handsome enough, but too much of a +piece with Phyllida; they might have been brother and sister. Moreover, +he was always laughing.</p> + +<p>"A man who always laughs is as bad as a dog who always wags his tail. +Neither is fit for a maid," she grumbled to Phyllida as they stepped +briskly along beneath the tall poplars that fringed the road leading to +the entrance of Curtain Garden.</p> + +<p>"Truly I vow he has a romantick air," protested Phyllida.</p> + +<p>"La! what's romantick? 'Tis no more than reading a book on the shady +side of the street." Betty tossed a contemptuous head.</p> + +<p>"Indeed, Betty, I think 'tis a great deal more than that. To be +romantick, child, is to have a noble heart, and to have a noble +heart——"<a name="page_036" id="page_036"></a></p> + +<p>"'Is to lead the Venite on a Sunday morning," interrupted the maid.</p> + +<p>"No! 'tis not."</p> + +<p>"Well! ’tes to kneel very obstreperous."</p> + +<p>"'Tis no such a thing," said Phyllida, stamping on the pavement.</p> + +<p>By this time, they had reached the famous wrought-iron gates of the +principal entrance, where an old man in an enormous three-cornered hat +and long heavily laced surtout walked up and down. Sometimes he would +stop and, over gnarled hands twisted round the ivory crook of his cane, +stare fiercely at the stamped effigies of Æsculapius and Flora while he +addressed the presiding deities in a wheezy monotone.</p> + +<p>"Curtain Garden! Curtain Garden! Lads and lasses, ye'll grow old. Fit +for maids is Curtain Garden." Thus having droned a warning to Olympus, +he would resume his walk.</p> + +<p>In two months the broad gravelled path which he guarded would be +thronged by the Exquisite Mob, but at present his only audience on fine +days was composed of Phyllida and Betty. On wet days, when not even they +ventured out, he would sit in a little pagoda whence every few minutes +he would pop out his head, and in the same wheezy monotone lament 'Rain! +Rain! on the windowpane!' and retire as abruptly as a cuckoo that has +told the hour.</p> + +<p>With this aged janitor Phyllida used to have a daily conversation which +never varied by a single letter.</p> + +<p>"Nobody in the garden this morning?"</p> + +<p>"Not a soul nor a body, young miss."</p> + +<p>"Are you better of your cold?"</p> + +<p>"Very much worse."</p> + +<p>As Phyllida used to tell Betty when they had left the gateway behind +them, 'he must be very ill indeed because he has been very much worse +every day.'</p> + +<p>This customary conversation interrupted the argument over Mr. Lovely's +romantick character of mind, and when<a name="page_037" id="page_037"></a> they turned down the path which +led to the Maze all discussion went to the wind at the prospect of again +seeing her dear Amor.</p> + +<p>Vernon had met Phyllida in the Maze but a bare two weeks ago. It +happened to be his first visit to the Wells, and he was in the act of +being solemnly lost when he accosted her for direction. Betty had +encouraged the chance acquaintanceship and Mr. Vernon, who was tired of +the mechanick Dryads of Vauxhall, embarked upon a new pleasure. The +natural secretiveness of his disposition led him to adopt Amor as a +fantastick pseudonym, and neither Betty nor Phyllida had troubled +themselves to inquire farther into his antecedents. Indeed, it would +have puzzled them to do so, for he had but lately appeared at the Pump +Room in response to Phyllida's earnest entreaty, and absolutely refused +to meet her at the Assembly Rooms. Consequently, had she felt inclined +to indulge a suspicion, there was no one to whom she could appeal except +perhaps Beau Ripple: and he, of course, was not to be thought of in +connection with so trivial a matter.</p> + +<p>You will recollect that Vernon's toilet of this morning was considerably +perturbed by the image of Phyllida. Over his coffee he had reviewed the +situation with great contempt for himself.</p> + +<p>To begin with, he had moved into lodgings opposite his charmer's abode. +What foolish enthusiasm! worthy of a stripling of sixteen, as he told +himself. Then he had seriously contemplated matrimony. To be sure, he +had made a few cautious inquiries and heard it stated on good authority +that she was an heiress, but odds his life! was that enough to make him +commit himself irreparably. He was jaded, and the rustick seclusion (so +he characterized the Wells!) had affected his head. A boarding-school +miss with gawky tendencies—a boarding-school miss with the smile of a +young nymph—a boarding-school miss with little fingers that tugged the +manhood—the weariness—out of his heart! It was impossible. His friends +would sneer unmercifully, and he would settle in the country as he had<a name="page_038" id="page_038"></a> +often wished, and by heavens! he would seek her mother's consent. Pshaw! +the chit would become more insipid than ever, more delightful, more +enthralling, more utterly subjugating. Z—— ds! what an impetuous fool +he would be considered. No! No! country misses were very well in the +country, and might bear transplantation for a season, but London +bough-pots should be renewed every Spring. Meanwhile the affair was +progressing very well, and if he could pluck a pigeon or two—there were +always pigeons in the country—why a Summer in town—and after that—why +after that—meanwhile his coffee was growing cold.</p> + +<p>But when he saw her radiance among the dark hedges of yew, all his +cynical plans withered away, and it would have taken mighty little to +transform the libertine into as honest a lover as ever galloped across +the horizon of a romantick imagination. What grace! What charm! What +movement! What colour! It was incredible she would ever grow old. He +rose from the stone seat in the heart of the Maze and saluted her with a +sculptured bow.</p> + +<p>"That's true romantick," whispered Betty. "See him bow, see him stand up +tall and white like a great wax candle."</p> + +<p>The swansdown tippet rose and fell to the beating of the eager heart +beneath.</p> + +<p>"My charmer takes the sun like a flower," said Mr. Vernon, bending over +her hand.</p> + +<p>Betty's eyes were a very quick and fiery blue as she turned away to her +post, and, indeed, the scene would have ravished a block.</p> + +<p>Never were yews so dark and velvety, so full of whispered secrets, as +the gentle wind stirred their crisped leaves continually. In a silence +made by cushions of moss set with many green stars that muffled every +footstep, the stone image of Cupid, poised upon his damp-stained +pedestal caught from the February sunlight the veritable bloom and +semblance of divinity.</p> + +<p>Vernon, as he led Phyllida to the seat and saw her eyes flash over the +swansdown muff, was sure that such beauty must capture something of the +permanence expressed by<a name="page_039" id="page_039"></a> the statue and remain for ever young, for ever +provocative of desire.</p> + +<p>High over their heads a flight of pigeons circled against the azure, +gathered and broke into a scattered multitude of snowy wings whose +fluttering echoes travelled along the sunlight to the sombre heart of +the Maze.</p> + +<p>The simple grace with which Phyllida seated herself held Vernon +entranced. He could have sworn that the stone wings of the Cupid +trembled faintly as if, animate and inanimate, the whole world stood +ready to scale the empyrean. Blinded by an ecstasy of hope, the man +forgot himself, discarded the mean ambitions that for so long had guided +his actions, and conceived the idea of a fresher existence. Great +moments, like great men, have a solitary life, and there was nothing in +Phyllida to respond to the fire which he had waked from a pile of ashes. +Actually she was wondering whether her dear Amor had remembered +Valentine day, whether, indeed, his burning gaze was a prelude to the +offer of a trinket.</p> + +<p>"'Tis surely a pleasant Valentine morning," she murmured screwing up her +eyes to the sun.</p> + +<p>Vernon cursed the want of practice with young misses which had let him +forget what every fair esteemed a man's sacred duty. However, he was a +resourceful gentleman and, without any perceptible hesitation, produced +from his pocket a paste brooch cut to the likeness of a basket of +twinkling blue forget-me-nots.</p> + +<p>The history of this little ornament possesses enough irony to warrant a +short digression. It used to hang in the window of a Midland toy-shop, +and had made a pretty birthday gift from a young man deep in love to his +betrothed. She wore it in her kerchief for ten years and sent it at last +to her lover in London with some other trinkets not very valuable, but +all of the same fresh beauty. At the bottom of the packet was a faded +sprig of whitethorn. The young gentleman—not quite so young now—opened +it as a London dawn empearled the city smoke. It had lain all day in his +room neglected while the dice-box rattled like a skeleton at<a name="page_040" id="page_040"></a> the feast +of Love—a feast of pimps and blowsy carmine furies. The contents of the +packet went with the last of his guineas, and at the division of the +stake Mr. Vernon contemptuously accepted the brooch. The latter never +troubled himself to take the ornament out of his pocket. Now once more +it came back to Youth and Beauty.</p> + +<p>As she pinned it to her kerchief, Phyllida thanked him for his sweet +thoughtfulness, and wondered if he would always remember this morning.</p> + +<p>By this time, Vernon had clambered down from his mountain top. Perhaps +the brooch made his descent more easy. Yet I think he was sincere when +he swore he would never forget.</p> + +<p>Anyway Phyllida believed him and so there is nothing more to be said.</p> + +<p>"When we are wed," she began, and startled him with such an abrupt +disclosure of her dreams. "When we are wed, I think we will live in Hyde +Park. Where is Hyde Park?"</p> + +<p>"On the confines of Kensington, my dear."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but where is Kensington?"</p> + +<p>"A mile or so Westward of Temple Bar."</p> + +<p>"I think we will live in Kensington."</p> + +<p>"Nay, prithee! would you have us die of dullness."</p> + +<p>"Is Kensington dull?"</p> + +<p>"'Tis very rustick. No! my charmer shall lodge in the Haymarket."</p> + +<p>Phyllida pouted. There was a Haymarket in the country town to which she +made an occasional visit from the little village of Newton Candover, and +she remembered it as a dusty spot not fit for a new pair of shoes.</p> + +<p>"I vow I should detest the Haymarket."</p> + +<p>"Nay, 'tis the gayest place, with hackney coaches passing to and fro all +day. You shall sit at your window and all the fine ladies of rank and +fashion will envy you."</p> + +<p>"And what will my Amor be doing?"</p> + +<p>"He will be looking over his angel's shoulder."</p> + +<p>"Then they'll envy me more than ever," said Phyllida<a name="page_041" id="page_041"></a> with a contented +laugh. Vernon pressed her hand and looked round quickly as a man will +before he attempts the first kiss. But Phyllida drew back.</p> + +<p>"What shall we do when we are tired of sitting at the windows—if one +could ever tire of anything so pleasant," she added with a sigh.</p> + +<p>"We'll call a hackney-coach and drive to Westminster Steps, to the +river."</p> + +<p>"To the river? Now that will be most diverting."</p> + +<p>"And we'll hail the waterman with the most elegant wherry, and row up +through the dusk to Vauxhall."</p> + +<p>Phyllida was staring at him with the round eyes of a child who listens +to an old fairy-tale.</p> + +<p>"Then what should we do?" she asked earnestly.</p> + +<p>"We should choose a box for two and sit with our elbows over a very +small table and look at each other just as we are looking now."</p> + +<p>"Yes! go on," cried Phyllida clapping her hands.</p> + +<p>"Then we should call for chicken-wings and eat our supper and listen to +the new song and the musick of the orchestra playing the finest tunes +high up among a thousand sparkling coloured lamps and watch the +masqueraders and row back to Westminster under a great moon."</p> + +<p>Mr. Vernon was so much inspired by the interest of his listener that he +began to believe in the reality of this proposed idyll, quite forgetting +that it was a chastened account of a hundred similar adventures enjoyed +with the domino passion of a night.</p> + +<p>"Vauxhall must be the properest place in the world," sighed Phyllida, "I +doubt everybody wears their jewels."</p> + +<p>"Everybody," replied her lover with a quick glance.</p> + +<p>"I should wear my pearls."</p> + +<p>"Your pearls?"</p> + +<p>"My necklace that was left by Grandmother Courteen. Mamma won't let me +wear it till I'm one-and-twenty."</p> + +<p>"But supposing you ran away?"</p> + +<p>"Oh I should never dare. I should be frightened."<a name="page_042" id="page_042"></a></p> + +<p>Vernon changed the subject, perceiving at present the courtship was +nothing more serious than a Springtime diversion.</p> + +<p>He told himself if the child surrendered to his blandishments, it would +be an easy matter to induce her to run away. He must weave a strong web +of personal attraction round her, and if her prudence sustained her to +the end, why perhaps he might commit himself to a serious offer of +marriage. He must inquire further into her fortune. He wished it were +not so difficult to put an arm round her waist. Innocence was very well +and the prospect of a siege amusing enough at first, but a long deferred +capitulation would be immensely fatiguing; and yet how charming she was. +Not for anything would he have her different.</p> + +<p>"When we are wed," he began and for the first time echoed her lately +expressed hopes. In some way he felt that she would be to blame, if harm +came of it. She had given the cue.</p> + +<p>"When we are wed, we shall go to routs."</p> + +<p>"But we shall be old and wise and able to go then. It won't be near so +diverting then as 'twould be now—if you came to the Assemblies."</p> + +<p>"My angel forgets the risque of discovery."</p> + +<p>"There could be no more danger in that than there is in sitting here in +the Maze."</p> + +<p>"Come!"</p> + +<p>"I'm sure if we were prudent nobody would suspect us of a love-affair."</p> + +<p>"But consider my ardour. 'Twould illuminate the whole matter."</p> + +<p>"Well! and if the old maids did talk, they would only talk into their +teacups and every one knows that to be monstrous ungenteel behaviour. +Lud! I've been censured before. Why, when I was but sixteen I was the +talk of the ballroom because I stepped four gavottes with Dicky +Combleton, Squire Combleton's youngest son. Every one said I was a +forward minx, and he's only a year older than me and that's only last +year." Phyllida became very indignant, and<a name="page_043" id="page_043"></a> Mr. Vernon who lacked humour +became very indignant too at being compared to a bumpkin.</p> + +<p>"Surely my angel sees the circumstances are slightly altered?"</p> + +<p>He clasped her hand, and stroked it slowly, but she was not to be +pacified and drew it away.</p> + +<p>"For my part, I don't know how you dare say you care for my reputation +and sit here holding my hand. Walls have ears and hedges have eyes."</p> + +<p>"You would not withdraw your hand if you were sure we were not +observed?"</p> + +<p>She made no reply.</p> + +<p>"Possibly," he went on, "you would let me kiss those sweet lips to a +smile—if we were not observed?"</p> + +<p>"Indeed, I vow you should never do anything so indelicate."</p> + +<p>"Z—— ds! my pretty Puritan——" he stopped because Phyllida's eyes +were very wide open indeed.</p> + +<p>"Oh Sir! no one but a father or a very old man has the right to swear so +dreadfully before a maid."</p> + +<p>He laughed.</p> + +<p>"So oaths depend on age for their propriety? I 'faith that's a new maxim +I've learned this morning. After all, my Phyllida, I am fifteen years +older than you."</p> + +<p>"That may be," she retorted primly, "and I have often wondered whether I +should allow a man of middle-age to make love to me."</p> + +<p>Vernon wrinkled with annoyance at such a description. He certainly +lacked humour.</p> + +<p>"But then, you see, I am in love with you, and not marrying you because +our estates join like my cousin Clarice who, we all agreed, was old +enough to know better."</p> + +<p>"Young enough, you mean. Morality rusts with the years."</p> + +<p>"I don't know what you are talking about, but it sounds like a text."</p> + +<p>"It is a text, my dear, the text of the man of the world."</p> + +<p>"I hate texts, but I don't hate goodness and you must<a name="page_044" id="page_044"></a> promise never, +never to swear again, and—never, never to try to kiss me."</p> + +<p>"Not even when we are wed?"</p> + +<p>"That's another matter."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps when you are old and wise and able to kiss you won't like +kissing."</p> + +<p>"Oh! I protest, I should like it vastly," said Phyllida with great +decision.</p> + +<p>"But if you have never made the attempt?"</p> + +<p>"A young woman knows by instinct."</p> + +<p>"But why won't you make sure in advance?"</p> + +<p>"Because 'tis imprudent and wicked."</p> + +<p>"For my part, I believe you are playing with me."</p> + +<p>And then began a long argument which settled nothing at all and, after +ten minutes, left matters precisely where they started.</p> + +<p>What Vernon said in jest was in essence perfectly true but unfortunately +he was too vain and she was too young to believe it; for if potential +Phyllida knew very well she would not expire if her dear Amor vanished +for ever, actual Phyllida who was much younger and far more obstinate +was equally sure that a gradual decline into an interesting consumption +would be the natural result of such a calamity; while potential Vernon +who was anxious to prove himself a very fine fellow was very +contemptuous of actual Vernon and not at all willing to admit he would +find more than sufficient compensation for the loss of his Phyllida in +the ample charms of Miss Diana Flashington of the Theatre Royal, Drury +Lane.</p> + +<p>And this is the way a large number of world-shaking passions begin, +since at first we seldom apprehend our potentiality.</p> + +<p>The quarrel was interrupted by the sound of approaching voices just as +Betty came flying round the corner with the news that "Mr. Thomas and +your mamma be coming as fast as legs can carry 'em this way as ever is."</p> + +<p>The implication of a rapid advance is to be understood merely as +relative to their usual rate of procedure.<a name="page_045" id="page_045"></a></p> + +<p>In an instant all was confusion. Miss Courteen wrung her hands and +behaved quite as wildly as a grand married lady on the verge of +discovery in an ambiguous situation below stairs. Mr. Vernon flicked a +number of invisible specks of dust from his purple sattin breeches as +though he had been kneeling in devout protestation of honourable love +for the past hour, while Betty ran in turn to each of the four alleys +leading to their present position, and put a hand to an attentive ear. +She quickly ascertained by which path the enemy was advancing and +without more ado pushed Mr. Vernon hastily in the opposite direction, +thrust a tambour frame into her mistress's hands and composed herself to +spell aloud the Agricultural Calendar and Farmer's Assistant for the +current year. She was in the middle of some astonishing statisticks of +the comparative productiveness per acre of turnips and mangel-wurzels +when Mrs. Courteen followed by the majestick Thomas appeared upon the +scene. On perceiving her daughter, the latter gave a faint scream and +declared the meeting would certainly produce palpitations.</p> + +<p>At the utterance of this fatal word, Thomas immediately unscrewed the +knob of his cane and drew forth a bottle of salts, Phyllida performed +the same conjuring trick with her bag, while Betty after some +lace-involved rites in which a crimson garter played a prominent part +offered a third bottle not more than a moment later. By the tonick +influence of several sniffs Mrs. Courteen was sufficiently revived to +ask in a stern voice what Phyllida was doing in this ungodly place. +Thomas accompanied the query by muttering 'Canaanites' several times in +quick succession under his breath. What the commentary was intended to +imply no one knew; but there was a general belief that the footman +symbolized states of mind, people and actions of which he disapproved, +by the various hostile tribes encountered by the Israelites during their +wanderings.</p> + +<p>Phyllida assured her mother she was working a peacock in blue and +scarlet wool for the seat of a chair, and when Mrs. Courteen demanded +why she was not sitting on her own<a name="page_046" id="page_046"></a> balcony, for the privilege of +possessing which she paid an additional five-and-sixpence a week in +rent, the daughter protested the East wind chapped her ankles.</p> + +<p>"Chaps your ankles, miss? What d'ye mean by chaps your ankles? At your +age, I didn't know I had ankles. Woollen hose was what I wore, and I +should have been whipped if I had ever dared to think my ankles were not +as thick as marrowbones."</p> + +<p>Phyllida begged her dear mamma's pardon and hoped to be forgiven, but +could not help remarking the sun was so warm that she had felt quite +positive her dear mamma would be pleased to see her take the air.</p> + +<p>"Twas very unkind of you," complained the widow, "to presume so far on +my acknowledged indulgence of your whims. You know the miserable state +of my health compels me to sip several glasses of the waters after +breakfast, and seize the lamentable opportunity to deceive your too +confiding parent. How am I to know you have not been sitting in this +heathen nook for days in succession?"</p> + +<p>Again the footman muttered 'Canaanites! Canaanites!' As this was exactly +where Phyllida had been sitting for days in succession, she looked +immensely shocked by the question.</p> + +<p>"Well! well," said Mrs. Courteen as if resigned to her daughter's +iniquity, "go home and pray that you may become a more dutiful child."</p> + +<p>Thomas murmured a low Amen and earned for his devotion a derisive and +ribald gesture from Betty.</p> + +<p>"Aren't you coming too, mamma?"</p> + +<p>"No, miss, I am not coming; I must rest myself and compose my mind and +soothe my feelings. Thomas, will you arrange my cushion."</p> + +<p>Thomas produced it from under the seven capes of his surtout without +perceptibly diminishing his girth.</p> + +<p>Said Phyllida to Betty as they stepped out of the Maze, "For my part, I +believe she only wanted to be rid of us in order to meet puffy old Moon +or skimpy little Tarry."</p> + +<p>And this supposition was perfectly true.<a name="page_047" id="page_047"></a></p> + +<h2><i>Chapter the Fifth</i><br /><br /> +THE PUBLICK BREAKFAST</h2> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">A</span>T half-past twelve o'clock of the following day, masculine Curtain +Wells began to arrive at the Town Hall determined to eat the health of +General Sir Jeremy Dummer with all the vigour of an appetite unspoiled +by a morsel of food since yesterday's supper. No procession was arranged +by those responsible for the entertainment, but the habit of punctuality +instilled by the Great little Beau secured an unrehearsed pageant. There +was no marshalled order, but since everybody set out from his abode at +the same time, the component populations of the place were compelled to +affect a military method of progress.</p> + +<p>It was quite unpremeditated and, therefore, the more impressive. The +Town Hall designed by Sir John Vanbrugh had been erected by publick +subscription to serve as a memorial to those gallant natives of Curtain +Wells who fought and died under the Duke of Marlborough. That the +aforesaid gallant natives were only three in number and in no case +killed in action was no cooler to the furnace of civick gratitude +kindled by the signing of the Peace of Utrecht. In their delight at the +discomfiture of the quarrelsome Whigs, the citizens expressly stipulated +there should be no hint of War and War's alarms in the construction of +their Hall. There were to be no cannon eternally belching forth stony +smoke, no image or superscription of Mars or Bellona. Greaves, bucklers, +spears, culverins, swords, scimitars and grenades were forbidden by +name. The central medallion of the pediment should enshrine Civick +Unity.</p> + +<p>So the reigning Mayor was represented in all the pomp of office grasping +the hands of two equally, befurred and<a name="page_048" id="page_048"></a> bechained Aldermen. It was an +affecting combination of the real and the allegorical. A second +medallion contained a voluminously draped and very substantial lady who +with absent gaze spilled from a heavy Etruscan vase a large stream of +petrified Chalybeate. Her far-away look might be attributed to an effort +at ascertaining what a small Æsculapius was doing to a serpent on the +summit of a diminutive Pelion. This was Health. Finally a third +medallion held a peer in coronation robes thoughtfully regarding the +front of St. James' Palace. A curved scroll announced this pensive +aristocrat to be the representative of Society.</p> + +<p>Civick Unity, Health, and Society—could any other personifications so +justly convey the essential quality of Curtain Wells? And not a pike or +arquebus to frighten them out of a rigid serenity.</p> + +<p>Upon this sermon in stone, three streets converged, which at half-past +twelve o'clock were all thronged. Since the breakfast was essentially a +male function, the civick band by a happy inspiration of the band-master +thundered out <i>The Girl I left Behind Me</i>, as in its wake a number of +prosperous tradesmen tripped to the measure of the tune. Haberdashers +and cheesemongers, drygoodsmen and fishmongers, butchers, tailors, +saddlers, cooks and silversmiths all marched along with a pleasant +emotion of relief. Fortified by preliminary tankards of ale and +unhampered by prosaick wives and daughters, they retreated from nothing +save the business of serving customers. Vapours were dispelled by the +breeze of trumpets, and the thoughts aroused by the musick of the song +only added a pungent spice to their dreams of food and confirmed their +faith in the superiority of breeches over petticoats—at any rate when +walking away from the latter.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile down the central street came another crowd not marching with +the precision of movement inspired by the escort of the band, but still +urged to a certain unanimity of gait by the common object of their +advance. Mr. Mayor, preceded by his mace, set the time, and a line of +Aldermen carefully ordered their pace to his. Behind the<a name="page_049" id="page_049"></a> Aldermen came +the Watch. This was a mistake. The latter should have led the +dignitaries, but had spent so much time in buttoning and unbuttoning its +capes and belts, in brushing its hats and polishing its staves that it +was late, thereby belying its name. So the Watch followed behind and +vented its contrition on a mob of boys in occasional backhanded cuffs +and current imprecations. Behind the boys marched three small +girls—Amazons heedless of the embargoe laid upon their sex.</p> + +<p>However both these processions were overshadowed by the prodigious +pageant that emanated from the street facing the medallion of Society. +The last deserves a chapter to itself since no appendix could do justice +to its importance. Let me therefore, without being held to have violated +the decency of orderly narration, insert at this point a supplementary +chapter which may serve as a programme to the entertainment I hope +worthily to recount.</p> + +<h2><i>Chapter V a</i><br /><br /> +THE ORDER OF THE EXQUISITE MOB</h2> + +<p><i>General Sir Jeremy Dummer in a sedan chair borne by two veterans of the +Militia. Beau Ripple in damson-coloured velvet coat and breeches, with +waistcoat of old rose sattin trimmed with silver and rose silk stockings +clocked with the same.</i></p> + +<p>Mr. Ripple with admirable condescension occasionally arrested the +progress of the march in order to address a word of encouragement to Sir +Jeremy Dummer who was inclined to be querulous from want of food and the +action of the chalybeate.</p> + +<p><i>The Earl of Cinderton in smoke-grey silk with cuffs of clouded blue.</i></p> + +<p><i>The Honourable George Harthe-Brusshe, his son, in a lighter shade of +the same.</i></p> + +<p><i>The Earl of Vanity looking like a fly, in amber.</i></p> + +<p><i>Five baronets in various degrees of</i> <small>FEUILLE MORTE</small>.<a name="page_050" id="page_050"></a></p> + +<p><i>Four Knights of the Shire trying to look like Baronets and horridly +bruised by the palings in their attempts.</i></p> + +<p><i>Seventeen exquisite young gentlemen all exactly alike and only to be +distinguished by the various shapes and sizes of their patches.</i></p> + +<p><i>Major Constantine Tarry who had devoted the sleep of the preceding +night to the preservation of his pigtail's rigour and appeared very pale +beside his red coat in consequence.</i></p> + +<p><i>Justice Gregory Moon looking much the same as usual save for a sprig of +yew in his buttonhole.</i></p> + +<p><i>Mr. Charles Lovely and Mr. Anthony Clare arm in arm. The former wearing +a cherry-coloured velvet coat with waistcoat and breeches of +trout-coloured silk, the latter in uniform cucumber green. Both laughed +very loudly and cheerfully from time to time.</i></p> + +<p><i>Five elegant young gentlemen including a Lieutenant of his Majesty's +Navy, a Cornet of the Grey Dragoons and an Ensign of the Foot.</i></p> + +<p><i>Twenty-three old men suffering from various diseases.</i></p> + +<p><i>Thirty-eight old men all firmly convinced that they were suffering from +gout but all perfectly healthy in truth.</i></p> + +<p><i>Forty-five old men equally firmly convinced that they were suffering +from other and various diseases, and all equally healthy in truth.</i></p> + +<p><i>Mr. Oboe the Physician watchful of his patients' demeanour and quick to +confirm the slightest suspicion of ill-health.</i></p> + +<p><i>Mr. Francis Vernon in a tawny suit of figured Manchester velvet.</i></p> + +<p><i>Fifteen or sixteen gentlemen of various ages, sizes, ranks, costumes, +complexions, and states of health.</i></p> + +<h2><i>Chapter V (resumed)</i></h2> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">B</span>EAU Ripple mounted the steps that, in diminishing semi-circles, reached +the entrance of the Civick Hall and, turning his head, froze into +silence with a cold stare of surprize the concluding Crescendo of <i>The +Girl I left<a name="page_051" id="page_051"></a> Behind Me</i>, as if the half-drawn breaths of the musicians +were suddenly changed to icicles.</p> + +<p>The good-natured band was not at all put out by Mr. Ripple's lack of +appreciation. His objection to panting was universally known, so the +band bore him no malice, but continued to pant.</p> + +<p>As the musick stopped, Mr. Mayor began to walk up the steps also. No +doubt his ascent would have been as active as the Beau's if he had not +been hampered by the civick robes on which he trod at every alternate +step. Possibly the freezing disdain of Mr. Ripple had made the steps +more glacial than their wont. At any rate, the Mayor whenever he avoided +the hem of his robes, always slipped and stumbled, but he achieved the +summit at last and greeted the Beau with such fervour that he effected a +perceptible thaw.</p> + +<p>On these occasions of supreme civick importance, it was customary for +the latter to relax his rule of never taking snuff with any one below +the rank of Viscount in the Peerage of England, so he offered his box to +the Mayor. That functionary with a reverence he had acquired over the +counter, inserted two fleshy fingers into the dainty receptacle, +withdrew them smeared with Rappee, sniffed the powder with avidity, +sneezed four times, and said he saw Sir Jeremy alighting from his chair.</p> + +<p>The Beau regarded the Mayor's invasion of the delicate touchstone of +quality with a smile of amused apprehension. He explained afterwards +that he felt as if he were carrying a sirloin of beef into a queen's +parlour. When the convulsions set up by the snuff had outworn their +first violence, he fixed his monocle upon the guest's chair. Sure +enough, Sir Jeremy was alighting. Mr. Ripple and the Mayor +simultaneously descended the steps, and while the former started back +with an affectation of surprise, the latter charged forward with eager +hospitality.</p> + +<p>"Gadslife! Sir Jeremy! You are vastly welcome, Sir. This is a great +occasion. Twenty-one years. Tet-tet." Thus Mr. Ripple.</p> + +<p>"How are you, Sir Jermy Dummer, Sir? Come along<a name="page_052" id="page_052"></a> o' me, Sir Jermy, and I +hope yaul heat very hearty," said or rather shouted the Mayor.</p> + +<p>"<i>Eheu fugaces!</i>" murmured Mr. Ripple.</p> + +<p>"Heh?" asked the Mayor.</p> + +<p>"<i>Postume, Postume.</i>"</p> + +<p>"Hoh!" said the Mayor. "I beg yaw pardon, Mr. Ripple. Will you take a +harm, Sir Jermy?"</p> + +<p>The poor old knight clutched at the fur of the Mayor's robe as the two +of them stumbled up the steps behind Mr. Ripple.</p> + +<p>In passing through the antechamber, the old man dropped his hat and +cane.</p> + +<p>"I shouldn't leave my hat an' cane here if I was you, Sir Jermy," said +the Mayor. "While some's heating, some'll be thieving."</p> + +<p>"I have not the slightest intention of doing anything so insane," +quavered the ancient soldier, "can't you see that I dropped 'em by +accident?"</p> + +<p>The good-natured Mayor stooped to recover the accessories. "I beg yaw +pardon, Sir Jermy. Follow me. The banquet's in here."</p> + +<p>The huge folding doors were flung back, and the sight of so much food +kindled a gleam in Sir Jeremy's rheumy eyes and waked a cackle from his +lean throat.</p> + +<p>"Glad to hear such a jovial laugh. Wittles is wittles when hall's said +an' done. Hain't that true, Mr. Ripple," said the Mayor turning to the +Beau for confirmation of this statement.</p> + +<p>"Victuals are victuals, sir, as you very justly observe."</p> + +<p>Upon these three celebrated figures broke the buzz of the excited crowd +from the centre of which Lord Cinderton and Lord Vanity withdrew +themselves.</p> + +<p>"Let me present Sir Jeremy Dummer, the Earl of Cinderton. Sir Jeremy +Dummer, the Earl of Vanity." The latter offered his snuff-box to the old +votary of Health who declined it saying,</p> + +<p>"No! thankee, my lord, not before I eat. D—— e if ever I took snuff +before I ate."<a name="page_053" id="page_053"></a></p> + +<p>His worship the Mayor was then presented to the two noblemen and, +discoursing amicably of the outlook on European politicks, the five +great men threaded their way towards the principal table.</p> + +<p>There was a tremendous shuffling among the innumerable waiters as Mr. +Daish urged them to unparalleled exertion. They ran hither and thither +like recently fertile hens. One half of them pulled out chairs from the +tables and the other half pushed them back again. Some fled bawling for +the soup. Others conversed in excited whispers. At last the assembled +company to the number of three hundred persons stood each member in the +place he had selected.</p> + +<p>What caused a further delay? Why did Mr. Daish hurriedly wave back the +white-capped cook bearing the first tureen?</p> + +<p>Through the doorway pattered little Mr. Archdeacon Conybeare. "I'm +late," he muttered, "I know it, I'm aware of it. I'm late. Maria, my +love, I'm late, I'm very late."</p> + +<p>The Beau was looking at the large clock below the gallery at the far end +of the hall.</p> + +<p>"Will you ask a grace, Mr. Archdeacon," he said.</p> + +<p>The Mayor smote the table with a silver hammer as the parson slipped +into his place.</p> + +<p>"For what we are going to receive ... my dear Mr. Ripple, 'tis no use to +tell me the contrary, I know I am very late."</p> + +<p>The Publick Breakfast had begun.</p> + +<p>I think it was the great Dr. Johnson whose forehead while he ate was +dabbled with perspiration and the veins of it red and swollen. At any +rate the Mayor had a similar appearance. He devoured his food as if he +feared the cherubs sporting in the gilded panels of the ceiling would +descend and snatch it from his plate.</p> + +<p>Mr. Ripple ate very modishly. One would have said he had watched the +honied meals of many butterflies. For all his fork's fastidious action, +it managed to pick the best of a Fricassée. Rounds, ribs, and sirloins, +he deplored.<a name="page_054" id="page_054"></a></p> + +<p>Sir Jeremy Dummer evidently felt that his sensibility to the honour +awarded to him deserved practical gratitude. He eat voraciously. The old +fighting spirit abode in him for a space and he handled his knife like +his hanger. He slashed at every course that came along, but, accuracy +being impaired by muscular fatigue, he was content to swallow much of +his food whole.</p> + +<p>Sir Jeremy Dummer ate:</p> + +<p>Two plates of turtle soup.</p> + +<p>The better part of a codfish.</p> + +<p>The wing of a capon.</p> + +<p>The wing of a duck.</p> + +<p>The breast of a pullet.</p> + +<p>A hot buttered apple dumpling and two or three slices of ham which he +had not noticed before.</p> + +<p>Sir Jeremy Dummer drank:</p> + +<p>Two tankards of old ale.</p> + +<p>One bottle of Madeira.</p> + +<p>Two bottles of Port.</p> + +<p>And on the following day, Sir Jeremy Dummer died. He had always been +famous for trencher-play until condemned by Oboe to milky sustenance to +which through twenty-one winter seasons he never willingly yielded. This +commemoration of his abstinence was his opportunity and his revenge. +Could he have made a worthier end? For my own part, I should not presume +to say so.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, unconscious of this premature obituary, Sir Jeremy Dummer +enjoyed the breakfast amazingly. At first he was inclined to peevishness +through not being seated upon a sufficiently high chair. Mr. Daish, +however, with ready tact secured one of the Civick cushions and so +enabled Sir Jeremy, comfortably ensconced in crimson velvet, to eat his +last breakfast at ease.</p> + +<p>Mr. Lovely having made the acquaintance of the Honourable George +Harthe-Brusshe, by whom he had seated himself at the particular request +of Mr. Ripple, discussed with animation the food on his plate and the +last foppery of the town. Mr. Harthe-Brusshe, a lantern jawed young<a name="page_055" id="page_055"></a> +gentleman with a sincere devotion to turtle-soup, observing that Mr. +Lovely was about to leave his portion, begged him to hand it over. +Charles who invariably encouraged every man's idiosyncrasy sent the word +down the table to pass up every neglected plateful. This request was +readily granted and presently Mr. Harthe-Brusshe found himself +surrounded by half-a-dozen portions. Thereupon he declined all other +dishes and was faithful to soup for the rest of the meal.</p> + +<p>"I suppose you find the difference in temperature sufficient variety?" +asked Mr. Lovely in a tone of great interest.</p> + +<p>"That's so, Sir," replied the other as he refused beef and veal for the +sake of a moderately warm fifth plate of soup.</p> + +<p>"I doubt you keep a bottle of it always to hand," remarked Lovely.</p> + +<p>"It would tire me too much. It tires me to keep things to hand."</p> + +<p>Here the Honourable George Harthe-Brusshe sighed with exhaustion and +seemed to desire silence.</p> + +<p>Charles turned to his other neighbour who happened to be Mr. Francis +Vernon.</p> + +<p>"Are you making a sojourn here, Sir?"</p> + +<p>Vernon noticed the richness of Mr. Lovely's attire, made a rough +calculation of the value of his buckles, brooches and solitaire, and +answered very politely he hoped so indeed.</p> + +<p>"I've not yet seen you at the <i>Blue Boar</i>, Sir. We make up a pleasant +party in the old Coffee-Room every night. There's young Tom Chalkley of +the Foot, Tony Clare, Peter Wingfield, Jack Winnington, Harry Golightly +of Campbell's Grey Dragoons, Blewforth of the <i>Lively</i>, and as many more +of us pass the time very pleasantly over some tolerable Port and very +excellent Burgundy."</p> + +<p>"I doubt the company is delightful."</p> + +<p>"'I faith, that's very true for when the wine makes us loquacious, d—— +e, we sing, and when it makes us mum, why, d——e, the dice-box talks +for us. You'll join us, Sir?" he added, turning to Mr. Harthe-Brusshe.</p> + +<p>"Proud," murmured that gentleman pensively regarding<a name="page_056" id="page_056"></a> the rich scum +slowly hardening over the plate of soup to be attacked next.</p> + +<p>"Let me see," said Charles, "to-night we must positively keep quiet in +deference to the Beau. Monday night I've promised to go to the +Assembly."</p> + +<p>"What's that?" said Mr. Anthony Clare, a florid young gentleman on the +opposite side of the table. "Blewforth!" he called out to a naval +officer farther along. "Charles has forsook letters and is going to try +life for a change."</p> + +<p>"Good G——," said the Lieutenant solemnly. "Charles crowding all canvas +after a petticoat?"</p> + +<p>Charles looked somewhat disconcerted by this immediate perception of his +motives.</p> + +<p>"I 'faith, you're in the wrong, Blewforth," he protested, "'tis to +please Ripple and that's the whole truth of the matter."</p> + +<p>A roar of laughter greeted this excuse, and every young gentleman in +hearing vowed to exchange dice for dancing on Monday night.</p> + +<p>"I saw Charles leave a note at a house in the Western Colonnade," +remarked Ensign Chalkley of the Foot.</p> + +<p>"A Valentine for a hundred guineas," said Clare.</p> + +<p>"Name the charmer," shouted Blewforth, "name her, and egad, she shall be +the toast of the afternoon."</p> + +<p>Mr. Vernon felt relieved. Somehow he had half suspected Lovely was in +pursuit of Miss Courteen. If he had not decided to wear purple sattin on +the day before and buried himself in the closet to extricate the suit, +he would have been still more suspicious of Lovely. The latter ignored +the friendly jeers.</p> + +<p>"Shall we say Wednesday night, Sir?"</p> + +<p>"I shall be honoured."</p> + +<p>"May I beg the favour of your name, Sir? 'Tis customary with us to elect +our associates.'</p> + +<p>"My name is Vernon. Francis Vernon of the Crescent, Curtain Wells—and +London."</p> + +<p>It was Charles' turn to display apprehension. Here was a man well +dressed, of genteel appearance, living in the Crescent.<a name="page_057" id="page_057"></a></p> + +<p>"Ah! the Crescent! I once had a notion to lodge there myself."</p> + +<p>"'Tis a quiet position," said Vernon.</p> + +<p>"So much the better for my Muse."</p> + +<p>"You are a poet, Sir?"</p> + +<p>"I have a metrical fancy."</p> + +<p>"Try the Colonnade, Charles," bellowed the Lieutenant, "and your Muse'll +speedily become the most famous Toast of the time."</p> + +<p>"Blewforth owns a spy-glass," said some one.</p> + +<p>"I wish he would own a mirrour," said Charles, "his wig is infamous."</p> + +<p>"His head is swollen since the w-war," stammered little Peter Wingfield, +"or else he was w-wounded in the wig." Blewforth, impervious to +smoaking, gave a loud guffaw.</p> + +<p>Lovely and Vernon agreed to meet on the following Wednesday and the +conversation moved on general lines till the silver hammer of the Mayor +summoned the company to attend to the toasts. The eyes of the room were +on him as away up at the high table, he rose burly and majestick.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Alderman Jobbins," he proclaimed, "the King!" Mr. Jobbins, the +youngest of the city fathers, blessed his sovereign with unctuous pride, +and the toast was drunk amid acclamations whose echo was drowned in +broken glass. Curtain Wells knew when to borrow from military manners.</p> + +<p>Then the assembly tilted on its chairs after filling new glasses, and +composed itself to listen to Beau Ripple who had risen, monocle in hand.</p> + +<p>When the murmur of delighted anticipation had sighed itself out on the +wings of a loud 'Hush,' the Great little Man with indescribable suavity +begged the company's permission to say a few words.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Mayor, my lords, and gentlemen, may I say citizens? (a voice, 'You +may') for I think I am giving utterance to the sentiments of this +salubrious town when I protest that upon an occasion of such unique +interest and such immense significance, we no longer recognize any +distinction<a name="page_058" id="page_058"></a> between visitors and residents (loud applause). We are +assembled this morning in order to honour a man for whom no honour is +sufficient. We are celebrating the twenty-first consecutive winter at +Curtain Wells of Sir Jeremy Dummer (loud cheers). He has been faithful +to us, gentlemen. Each year towards the close of the equinoctial gales, +his coach has clattered over the cobbles of Curtain Wells. Each year he +has alighted at the door of Number Seventeen, the Crescent. Each year he +has torn himself away from the gaiety of London in order to set us an +example of perseverance. Each year his arrival has encouraged other +gentlemen of grave address to put their faith in the cleansing springs +of Chalybeate. To be sure, his gout is as virulent as ever, but has he +despaired? No (cheers). Has he tried other remedies? No (cheers). He has +only been the more firmly convinced of the profound malignity of his +disorder and the more resolutely determined to annoy it by any and every +means in his power (continued applause). Twenty-one years ago Curtain +Wells was a different place. We had, it is true, this Civick Hall. We +had Crescent and Colonnade, Curtain Garden and Curtain Rotunda, Curtain +Wells and Curtain Pump Room, Curtain Hill and Curtain Dale. But we had +not your respected Mayor. In those days he was a younger, shall I add, a +more foolish man? I myself was still overshadowed by the reputation of +my great predecessor Beau Melon whose alabaster bust consecrates the +Assembly Rooms.</p> + +<p>"In those days, gentlemen, coaches very rarely exceeded the rate of four +miles an hour, and as you have heard, the new Machine proposes to travel +at an uniform speed of six. Twenty-one years! This valetudinarian +majority should make the youngest of us pause and reflect. Twenty-one +years of Chalybeate (a groan from the back of the room).</p> + +<p>"Mr. Mayor, my lords and gentleman, I propose the health of Sir Jeremy +Dummer and venture to assert that the time-honoured toast was never +before fraught with such significance. The health of Sir Jeremy Dummer! +It is in order to commemorate his health that we are assembled. Gout<a name="page_059" id="page_059"></a> +has done many ill deeds, ruined many tempers, spoiled many legs, but for +this at least we should be grateful—— it has afforded us the spectacle +of a gallant gentleman faithful to his earliest prescription, hopeful of +an ultimate cure and charitable to the town of his adoption. (Loud and +prolonged applause.) One moment, gentlemen: let me add that the guest of +this entertainment has expressed a desire to present the town with a new +set of mugs for the publick fountains." (Volleys of applause.)</p> + +<p>Beau Ripple after leading the toast with three very urbane Huzzas +resumed his seat, and Sir Jeremy Dummer doddered up to make his reply. +As it consisted chiefly of a long and detailed account of his symptoms +and extended over half an hour, and as you, with knowledge of his speedy +death, will not bear it with the slumberous equanimity of his +contemporaries, I shall not recount it. It is enough to say that when it +was concluded, everybody woke with a start and cheered vociferously. +Then the Mayor proposed the health of Mr. Ripple, and somebody else +proposed the health of the Mayor, and so on until all the dignitaries +had had enough wine drunk to their long life to ensure for every one of +them an undiseased immortality.</p> + +<p>When the toasts were finished, the quality adjourned to the Civick +Chamber to meet the ladies over a dish of tea, while the quantity +marched off to put the seal on a great occasion by talking it over in +the various taprooms round the town.</p> + +<p>Vernon was not inclined to brave the extension of the affair when he +perceived his new friends cautiously escaping from the Beau. He hated to +be conspicuous, and it was a small pleasure to meet his Phyllida among +the dowagers. Indeed, he was beginning to wish he had been less hasty in +taking lodgings in the Crescent, and the prospect of the <i>Blue Boar</i> was +already alluring enough to make him inquire the price of a room in that +merry house. So he asked if he might take Mr. Lovely's arm.</p> + +<p>In the square, the elegant young gentlemen made a bright knot.<a name="page_060" id="page_060"></a></p> + +<p>"What's to be done?" cried the Lieutenant.</p> + +<p>"L-l-let's ride over to B-Baverstock Regis and s-see T-Tony's m-maiden +aunt," stammered little Peter Wingfield.</p> + +<p>"Bravo!" shouted Charles.</p> + +<p>Clare looked up in surprize. Charles was seldom willing to play the game +of light love. Could that chatter of Blewforth's have gone deeper than +he thought? There was a strange excitement about him—an excitement that +was aroused by something stronger than the civick wine. Was he in love? +Mr. Anthony Clare was puzzled.</p> + +<p>"You must know, gentlemen," said Mr. Lovely, "that this maiden aunt is +of a very singular complexion. 'Tis usual, as we are all aware, to look +to maiden aunts for legacies and presents, but this lady, as I know by +the state of Tony's purse, gets more than she gives."</p> + +<p>"Fie! Charles," protested his friend, "I vow your point of view +deteriorates." What could be the matter with him?</p> + +<p>"Well, gentlemen," he continued, "since you are so set on meeting my +relatives, egad! you shall. We'll ride over to Baverstock to-night; +there are dances in Baverstock Barn, and the maids—maiden-aunts will +all be there. You'll come Charles?"</p> + +<p>"Not another word. I'll lead the love-chase or, shall we say, the legacy +hunt."</p> + +<p>"And you, sir?" Clare continued with a bow to Vernon.</p> + +<p>After a moment's hesitation due, no doubt, to bashfulness, the latter +assented, and in a trice the whole party went whooping and holloaing in +the direction of the <i>Blue Boar</i>.</p> + +<p>And all this time, Phyllida was counting the kisses in her teacup while +she watched Miss Sukey Morton search energetically for strangers.<a name="page_061" id="page_061"></a></p> + +<h2><i>Chapter the Sixth</i><br /><br /> +BAVERSTOCK BARN</h2> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">V</span>ERNON left his companions at the door of his lodgings in order to adapt +his dress to the road, having settled with them to meet presently at the +<i>Blue Boar</i> where a horse was to be saddled in readiness. He wondered +while pulling on his riding-boots what was the monetary value of his new +friends. They talked of play; but was it high enough to make their +fellowship worth joining? They were all apparently expensive in their +tastes and habits, but seemed so young and irresponsible. That however +was rather an advantage. They belonged to the World, the World that is +of St. James' Street; yet if they were callow pigeons, why were they +learning to fly to far from the nest which bred them?</p> + +<p>Now Mr. Vernon had got hold of a wrong analysis. These young men of +Curtain Wells in spite of their outward freshness were not at all fit +for the table. They had tough breasts beneath an array of fine feathers. +This society of theirs, so remote from the larger society of London, +with a toleration of good and bad alike, was in its essence eclectick, +like a regiment or a college. An air of genial self-satisfaction clung +to it nourished by rules and opinions and traditions which had never +been proved to be false or harmful. The members were all clipped to a +pattern and displayed a wealth of blooms in a prim setting. Even Lovely +straggled too much, and was only allowed to disturb the fellowship on +account of his decorative qualities and because he was evidently only a +strong sport from the conventional habit of growth.</p> + +<p>Vernon in making up his mind to join this elegant association was quite +unaware that the condescension was on<a name="page_062" id="page_062"></a> the side of youth. He was willing +to instruct them in the ways of the great world, but found what he had +been compelled to learn, they knew by inherited instinct. He was +ignorant of their existence: they on the other hand had experienced many +Mr. Vernons. Still he was endowed with too much insight not to +understand almost immediately that he must imitate their standards, and +soon caught the tone of his companions well enough to be voted an +acquisition.</p> + +<p>However, as he wrestled with his riding-boots, he was distinctly at a +loss. This ride to Baverstock was presumably an expedition of gallantry, +and yet he had felt it unwise to obtrude a jest appropriate to the +occasion. The conversation had possessed a certain elusive ribaldry; +women were discussed with frankness, and yet he had not ventured to +boast of his own conquests. These young men chattered of love, much as +they would have talked of fox-hunting. Love was a theory, a philosophy +with a cant terminology of its own. And yet the analogy was incomplete. +No man would hesitate to chronicle his leaps, but then no man would +confess to having shot a fox. There was the rub. He was a fox shooter; +these were hunters. Gadslife! How absurdly young they all were. And this +Lovely? He was evidently more prudish than the rest of them—a man of +sentiment who objected to either mode of death. He would like to see +this paragon of virtue who had stared so coldly at the tale of old Sir +John Columbine and his frail exquisite consort, put to the test. From +that moment he began to hate Charles, and stamped the wrinkles out of +his boots with considerable feeling. He would devote himself to emptying +Lovely's purse before he tried the rest of them.</p> + +<p>Vernon in a very pleasant frame of mind strolled through the chill of +approaching twilight. The humiliation of Lovely was in a way achieved as +soon as conceived. This was how Vernon always escaped from awkward +situations. He so seldom faced facts.</p> + +<p>An outraged husband once threatened him with a riding whip, and Vernon +promptly climbed out by the window.<a name="page_063" id="page_063"></a> In the street he only remembered he +had successfully seduced the wife, and forgot the uncomfortable +epilogue. He behaved to futurity in the same generous way as he treated +the past.</p> + +<p>Presently he found the company assembled in the yard of the inn, with a +dozen horses pawing the cobbles impatient of the cold. They were soon +mounted and the arched entry rang again with the sound of hoofs as they +trotted through the High Street.</p> + +<p>"Which way?" shouted Vernon who was in front.</p> + +<p>"Straight ahead and turn to the right," answered Clare. "We've eight +miles to go and a good road to go on."</p> + +<p>"Huzza!" shouted Vernon who felt that extreme heartiness was the correct +attitude.</p> + +<p>In the clap and clack of the horses' hoofs, the affectation passed +unnoticed.</p> + +<p>How the fat shopkeepers stared to see these young gentlemen cantering +away in the late afternoon, 'Some wild frolick,' they thought and turned +half-regretfully to attend to their customers who were just as much +interested in the jolly troop as themselves. Children scrambled from the +gutters on to the pavement with yells of dismay as the horsemen +scattered their mud pies. Little girls effected heroick rescues of +favourite dolls from the very gate of death and little boys bowled their +hoops between the legs of wayfarers with more assiduity than usual, in +their struggles to avoid the legs of the horses.</p> + +<p>Lieutenant Blewforth like most sailors was an inferior rider, but on +this occasion he surpassed himself, and sat his horse like a Bedouin. He +only wished buxom Miss Page would step to the door of the cook-shop and +behold his prowess. Unluckily at the very moment when his ambition was +in process of achievement, his mount swerved, and the gay Lieutenant +found himself at his charmer's feet. The inevitable idler secured the +horse, and Blewforth, having no small change, was obliged to reward him +with a crown, and what is more look as if he enjoyed the expense. To +give him credit, he certainly succeeded.<a name="page_064" id="page_064"></a></p> + +<p>"Do you always propose yourself in that precipitous manner?" Charles +inquired as they cantered past the last house and gained the hedgerows. +"You pay very little heed to her corns."</p> + +<p>The Lieutenant uttered an enormous guffaw that made his mount swerve +again.</p> + +<p>"The Royal Navy is always so d-devilish romantick," stammered little +Peter Wingfield who looked like a precocious boy beside the burly +officer.</p> + +<p>"By G—," puffed Blewforth, "that reminds me of a good story I heard of +an ensign in Bolt's. He was a d—d bashful man, and couldn't abide the +women. One day he was making his compliments to the Colonel's +daughter—a gaunt hussy of thirty-five summers or winters. He hung back +outside the parlour-door for some time, mustered up courage to enter at +last, dashed into the room and, tripping over his hanger, found himself +kneeling at her feet. This was a bad beginning truly, but in trying to +retrieve the position, he clutched the air and caught hold of her skinny +hand. They were married in the spring, and the garrison said he badly +wanted her money."</p> + +<p>In the outburst of laughter which hailed the climax of the story, Vernon +asked with much interest what the young woman's dowry was worth. The +subject fascinated him.</p> + +<p>"Don't know, sir," replied Blewforth, "but I saw the jade at Portsmouth +last year, and I'm d—d if £50,000 would have made her endurable."</p> + +<p>They were riding through a pleasant country of meadows and small +streams; so Charles walked his mare to admire the willows empurpled by +the fast gathering dusk. Vernon seized the opportunity for conversation.</p> + +<p>"A fine landskip," he remarked.</p> + +<p>Charles looked up half-angry. He disliked a man who suited his words to +his own supposed tastes.</p> + +<p>"It might be finer," he said shortly.</p> + +<p>"Without a doubt," replied the other. "You'll pardon my ignorance, Mr. +Lovely, but of what does the entertainment before us consist?"<a name="page_065" id="page_065"></a></p> + +<p>Charles' face grew clear again at once—at any rate, the man did not +claim omniscience.</p> + +<p>"The entertainment, sir, is composed of fiddles and country dances +enjoyed by the light of tallow-dips in an old barn. There will be some +ploughboys, shepherds and farmers, with a few milkmaids and farm +wenches, and the whole will resemble a painted Dutch interior."</p> + +<p>"And you propose to join the merrymaking?"</p> + +<p>"We do."</p> + +<p>"It should be a diverting experience."</p> + +<p>"I hope so indeed. My friend Clare vows he has discovered a Venus +masquerading in fustian."</p> + +<p>"His maiden-aunt in short?"</p> + +<p>"The same. Like all small societies, sir, we have our intimate jests +which to a stranger must seem excessively threadbare."</p> + +<p>"On the contrary," said Vernon, "they possess an engaging spontaneity +which flatters me with the suggestion that my own youth has not vanished +irreclaimably. And yet," he sighed, "I am a man whom the world insults +by claiming as its own."</p> + +<p>"You have travelled?" inquired Charles.</p> + +<p>"I have made the Grand Tour."</p> + +<p>"That is a pleasure which I still owe to myself and to my country."</p> + +<p>"You lack energy?"</p> + +<p>"Of the kind expressed in gold."</p> + +<p>"An hour's good luck at the tables."</p> + +<p>"I've enjoyed some dozens," interrupted Lovely. "Almost enough to pay +for twice as many less fortunate periods."</p> + +<p>"Then why continue to play?"</p> + +<p>"Why fall in love? Why die in a consumption? Why live this life of ours +at all? Your question, sir, takes little account of mankind's innate +perversity, and no account at all of his tastes and disposition of +mind."</p> + +<p>"On the contrary," argued Vernon, "I esteem all these at their greatest +effect, but regard with equal reverence the<a name="page_066" id="page_066"></a> doctrine of free will. I +myself—but why should I fatigue you with personal anecdotes?"</p> + +<p>"Pray continue," said Charles eagerly. He was always alert at a +confidence and plumed himself on his ability to read human character. In +this case curiosity outran discernment, and he failed to see the +improbability of a man like Vernon exposing his temperament without +securing a compensatory advantage.</p> + +<p>"I myself, Mr. Lovely, was once addicted to the equally expensive habit +of intrigue, but I found it led me into so many cursed situations that I +forced myself to enjoy less compromising pastimes. I chose cards."</p> + +<p>"Ah! cards!" commented Charles.</p> + +<p>"But here again," Vernon continued, "I found the introduction of a +passionate element ruined at once my pleasure and my skill. I was +confounded. To be sure there remained wine, but whoever heard of a man's +will exercised by wine? To be frank, Mr. Lovely, I was unwilling to take +the risque of defeat."</p> + +<p>"So I am to regard you as a disappointed voluptuary, a hedonist +philosopher whose premisses induced him to a false conclusion. No, no, +sir, keep your logick for speculations upon the soul, not the body."</p> + +<p>"Sir," answered Vernon, "I found, indeed, that pleasure tormented by +passion was no pleasure at all, but pleasure divorced from any ulterior +emotion I soon discovered to be the highest good."</p> + +<p>"So you would persuade me that you're an Epicurean who flings withered +rose leaves and drinks sour wine. Come, come, sir, I wager your fingers +would twitch and your lips quiver if one of us held a dice-box with a +deep stake on the main."</p> + +<p>"I deny that."</p> + +<p>"We shall see."</p> + +<p>"I hope we may."</p> + +<p>"Ay, sir, and I wager this affectation of indifference will not outlast +a week's ill luck, and as for woman, why the very dairymaids to-night +will kindle a spark in your eyes."<a name="page_067" id="page_067"></a></p> + +<p>"My life on't, they will not," cried Vernon.</p> + +<p>"Foregad! you wear too stolid a mask to convince me it is your natural +countenance."</p> + +<p>This duologue, which seems to show that Mr. Lovely was younger and less +wise than we might have thought, was interrupted by the shouts of the +riders in front who wanted to know whether Charles imagined they were +part of a funeral pomp.</p> + +<p>"For d——e!" shouted Mr. Golightly, "we are all nodding like plumes +and the twilight obscures the undeniable charms of the prospect."</p> + +<p>Baverstock Barn, like a great cathedral, loomed upon them at last. As +they dismounted, revelry and the drawling chatter of rustick voices, +mingled with the tuning of fiddles, came from within, while the +flickering light from the open door enchanted a heap of roots to the +appearance of huge gems.</p> + +<p>Clare approached the entrance while the rest stood by their horses.</p> + +<p>"Farmer Hogbin!" he sang out.</p> + +<p>"Who be caaling?"</p> + +<p>"Mr. Anthony Clare!"</p> + +<p>"Come in now, do 'ee come in."</p> + +<p>"I've brought over a party with me, farmer?"</p> + +<p>"Maids, do 'ee hear that? Maister Clare have brought wi'un a passel o' +gallantry."</p> + +<p>There was much jingling merriment from the maids.</p> + +<p>"Now then Jock, Tommas, William, Jarge, Joe, Sam, Peter, Ern, move your +shanks and stable they hosses."</p> + +<p>The farmer, a huge Falstaff of a man quite in proportion to his barn, +towered in the doorway obscuring the light, while the farm hands clumped +with heavy legs towards the horses.</p> + +<p>"Gi' they pleanty o' oats, my lads."</p> + +<p>"A' right," mumbled the lads in chorus.</p> + +<p>"Come in, my gentlemen, come in. Never mind for a speck of mud; the +maids'll dust 'ee."</p> + +<p>This sally provoked a ripple of laughter from the maids, and a chuckle +from the young gentlemen.<a name="page_068" id="page_068"></a></p> + +<p>The farmer surveyed them solemnly as they stepped into the barn.</p> + +<p>"Why, you be all in top-boots?" he shouted. "Ho! ho! my maids, ye'll get +thy twinkling toes rarely trod on, or shall I lend 'em my slippers to +each in turn?"</p> + +<p>This was considered splendid fooling, and laughter again resounded.</p> + +<p>"Nay, farmer, you're in the wrong," said Charles producing a pair of +pumps from the pockets of his riding coat.</p> + +<p>"Why! dang me, if they han't brought a King's wardrobe wi'en. Eh! maids, +you must mind your modesties to-night."</p> + +<p>The maids, huddled together like a bunch of red apples, were set shaking +with laughter at this warning—as if by a boisterous wind.</p> + +<p>"Who will help us with our boots?" asked Clare as he subsided upon a +truss of straw and flung his legs wide apart.</p> + +<p>There was considerable whispering from the heart of the bunch till one +of the maids was pushed by her companions out into the open with +ejaculations of "Go on, stoopid."</p> + +<p>"Thee needst not let on to be so backward." "Thee wast forthy enough +behind the kitchen door yester'een." "Eh! bustle thyself, great gowk," +and others of like freedom of opinion.</p> + +<p>The maid selected for Mr. Clare was blooming indeed.</p> + +<p>"Cream and claret," murmured Charles.</p> + +<p>"Gad! a Venus by a Dutch master truly," commented Vernon.</p> + +<p>"She's no g-ghost," stammered little Peter Wingfield.</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry" style="font-style:italic;"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"Farewell and adieu to you, gay Spanish ladies,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Farewell and adieu to you, ladies of Spain."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p class="nind">sang or rather bellowed Mr. Blewforth, slapping his thigh with a +nautical zest.</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry" style="font-style:italic;"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"Our Blewforth, careening far nearer than Cadiz</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Will give to green fields what was meant for the Main."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p class="nind">continued Charles to the same tune.<a name="page_069" id="page_069"></a></p> + +<p>"Give what?" asked Tom Chalkley.</p> + +<p>"The breezy charm of his manner," replied Charles.</p> + +<p>Now ensued jests, giggles, laughter, pranks, and struggles, as each +gentleman persuaded a fair to wrestle with his riding-boots. Vernon who +had forgotten to provide himself with pumps remained aloof from the +merriment not sorry for an opportunity to convince Mr. Lovely of his +remoteness from anything so vulgar as excitement.</p> + +<p>Great was the mirth of everybody when the Lieutenant produced an +enormous Valentine that depicted a peculiarly fat Cupid winking at a +dairymaid over a brimming bowl of milk. Greater still was the mirth when +he presented the token with much earnestness to the bashful lass they +called Margery, and it became uproarious indeed when he explained he had +wished to offer it on the preceding night, but had been deterred by Mr. +Clare's reputed jealousy.</p> + +<p>"Whoever heard tell of such a thing in the milk before?"</p> + +<p>"Tis a Cupid, Margery," said Mr. Clare.</p> + +<p>"There now and if I didn't go for to think it were a baby," declared +Margery.</p> + +<p>Farmer Hogbin coming back from attending to the horses in time to hear +this remark called out in his great voice:</p> + +<p>"Don't 'ee fret thyself, my lass, what thee wants'll come soon enough, I +warrant. Now my gentlemen, take your partners, we was just a-going to +begin a round dance. Tune up your squeaking boxes, fiddlers, and tip us +<i>Come lasses and lads</i>."</p> + +<p>The fiddlers smiled encouragement at the dancers as they struck off with +the gallant old tune. Even Mr. Vernon, boots and all, was made to give +an arm to buxom Mrs. Crumplehorn, the cowman's wife. The sanded floor of +the barn resounded with the perpetual tripping of toes and heels.</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry" style="font-style:italic;"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"Come, lasses and lads,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Take leave of your dads."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>The waist of every fair was encircled by a neat arm that<a name="page_070" id="page_070"></a> tapered to a +fine wrist as the dancers swung down to their places. Little Peter +Wingfield unable to enfold the ample Polly was given her pinner as if he +were indeed the child his appearance and behaviour proclaimed him.</p> + +<p>Every one admired the first two couples that took the middle. Mr. Lovely +was so graceful and Mr. Clare was so thorough. Round they went and down +they went and across and through and over and under while the rest of +the dancers clapped and tapped their appreciation. Faster and faster +went the fiddles, faster and faster went the shoes. Thicker and thicker +rose the sand and saw-dust from the floor until the barn seemed to be +the centre of a raging storm, such a wind the petticoats made and so +dense became the atmosphere. Thunder was added when the gigantick farmer +and the burly Lieutenant, whom merry chance had thrown into the arena +together, charged through their Pas Seul, bellowing the while with +Gargantuan laughter.</p> + +<p>At last the fiddles stopped and, panting mutual congratulations, the +exhausted couples subsided upon the various trusses of straw laid along +the side of the barn. Even the ivory paleness of Mr. Vernon's cheeks +wore a faint tinge of carmine, and some curls of his modish wig were +very slightly ruffled.</p> + +<p>Jock, Tommas, William, Jarge, Joe, Samuel, Peter, and Ern, who had +gathered into a critical knot, feeling themselves eclipsed by these +active visitors, were released from their sheepishness by a demand for +the bowls of spiced ale.</p> + +<p>After this, they played Kiss in the Ring; and it was truly a most +exhilarating sight to see Mr. Anthony Clare with flapping coat-tails in +pursuit of the blooming Margery who was soon caught not very unwillingly +as we may suppose. It was ludicrous in the extreme to see little Peter +Wingfield darting hither and thither like a little brown rabbit. His +little white wig seemed to twinkle like a tail set too high on his +little brown body. But he let himself be caught by Polly beneath a +lingering spray of mistletoe, and how all the world laughed when she +lifted him up and gave him a resonant kiss on his little red lips. As +for the large farmer and<a name="page_071" id="page_071"></a> the burly Lieutenant they thundered after +every maid in the barn quite regardless of any rules and, as I think, +kissed the most of them very heartily indeed.</p> + +<p>But the chief excitement of all was caused by a great white owl that +came flapping down from the rafters and put out half the candles with +his great sweeping wings. How all the lasses screamed and how earnestly +the lads reassured them, and though the former were repeatedly told that +owls while feeding on mice had not yet imbibed their habits, they +persistently held their skirts a little higher than usual and nestled +very close and comfortable to the exquisite young gentlemen from the +<i>Blue Boar</i>.</p> + +<p>Then, of course, they all danced <i>Sir Roger de Coverley</i>, and drank more +spiced ale while they rested. Somebody called on Charles for a song and +he gave them one of his own which everybody agreed was much too serious +for so jolly an occasion. Charles swore he had composed the tune +himself, but everybody else vowed they had heard it before, and as for +the words, there was not a trace of originality about them. However, his +voice was pleasant enough as he sang:</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry" style="font-style:italic;"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"When in the dews of early morn</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">My Chloe trips for may,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Across the fields of springing corn</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">I watch her pass,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">The fairest lass,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">That e'er was won with vows of love</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Upon a summer's day.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"Ah! shame that I should leave thee, dear,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">And cross the roaring sea,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">That I should leave thee lonely here:</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Think not, sweetheart,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Because we part</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">And I to foreign lands do rove,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Thou art less dear to me."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>Blewforth protested he had said good-bye with almost<a name="page_072" id="page_072"></a> identical rhymes +in every port of the two hemispheres, and moreover was not ashamed to +confess as much. All the maids, however, grew quite tearful and vowed +the evening was spoiled; indeed, they made such ado that Charles sang +one of Mr. d'Urfey's ballads to cheer their spirits and succeeded in +providing such a burst of laughter that the echo of it never died away +during the rest of the evening.</p> + +<p>Of course, it was decided they must dance <i>Sir Roger</i> once more and, +that duty accomplished, it was discovered that Anthony Clare and Margery +had vanished. Of course everybody wondered where they could have gone, +and when they returned in time to take a last sip at the spiced ale, it +was noticed that Margery hung back in the shadows with a melancholy +expression of countenance that made her companions nudge each other with +wise looks.</p> + +<p>Soon word came that the horses were saddled and waiting. Good-byes were +murmured, and many a promise to come again was faithfully sworn and many +a kiss given and taken. The ousted yokels held each a soil-stained hand +for their genteel rivals to mount from. The maids stood huddled in the +flickering light of the open barn-door; Farmer Hogbin bellowed a last +farewell which was thunderously echoed by the Lieutenant, as with +flushed faces and half-regretful memories, the horsemen cantered towards +Curtain Wells under a sailing moon.</p> + +<p>Clare rode by Charles to hear the judgment of Paris upon his +tatterdemalion Venus.</p> + +<p>"I'd liefer for her sake that you were overseas next barley-harvest," +said Charles shortly.</p> + +<p>"Plague on the man, what a cold stream it is!"</p> + +<p>"My excellent Tony, your Blowzabella will be happier mating on a straw +pallet with Hodge than living under your protection in London."</p> + +<p>"She would see the world."</p> + +<p>"Pshaw! her world is a garden of gillyflowers. She was never meant to be +pushed out of sight for an importunate visitor."</p> + +<p>"She would return."<a name="page_073" id="page_073"></a></p> + +<p>"Like a spent primrose fit only for the bonfire."</p> + +<p>"I could secure an annuity for her."</p> + +<p>"You'll tire of her in London. Drain the claret from her cheeks, smear +the downy bloom, and you'll find rank lees and rotten core. Hodge never +would. No, no, the thought of so much comely maidenhood languishing for +your velvet-sleeved caresses is merely droll."</p> + +<p>Clare loved and admired Charles too much to despise his tirades however +self-consciously virtuous they might appear. He felt more than ever +convinced that his friend was in love, in love too with some one the +very antithesis of the dairymaid. He would try one more test.</p> + +<p>"But if I told I was in mind to wed my Venus?"</p> + +<p>Charles jerked his reins in astonishment.</p> + +<p>"Z—— ds, Tony look round you. There are maids more fit I say. Why wed +a mountain, however rich in pasture when you can wed a mountain-nymph?"</p> + +<p>Clare decided his suspicion was confirmed. Lovely objected to milkmaids +on the score of a taste sharpened to an exquisite point of refinement by +an ideal passion. He was postulating mere theories of life on account of +the charms of one dear She. Who was the witch? She had not withdrawn him +from their late junketing whatever her spells.</p> + +<p>"Your morality, Charles, did not prevent you from entering very heartily +into the spirit of our pastoral piece."</p> + +<p>They had fallen behind the others, and through the silent night Charles' +voice caught a melody from the wakening year as he rhapsodized.</p> + +<p>"Fore Heaven! I love the country, I love these creamy hussies. I love +their swains with the sweet earth all about them. I was happy to-night! +I was happy with those dear people. I could lose my tricked-out self in +that twinkling barn. I bowed to merriment as a tree bows to the wind. I +wanted to hear the singing hopes and joys and desires of humble people. +There we were, all of us populating a frieze for some merry artist god. +We were as wax moulded to some fantastick dancing shape. On these +occasions, I can surmize at immortality and imagine the heart of<a name="page_074" id="page_074"></a> the +universe. I doubt you think I'm babbling nonsense, but I'm trying to +tell you I was entirely disinterested in our merry-making of to-night."</p> + +<p>Clare stretched out to touch the poet's arm.</p> + +<p>"Try to think that I, chattering of Margery, am not more personal than +you. 'Tis true, I piped a love-ditty, but though it may trouble the bush +and brake of a small wood, it would seem thin fluting——"</p> + +<p>"To any but her," Charles interrupted. "The thinnest tune will charm one +who is nearer than you to the primitive animal too easily quelled by +sweet songs. Pipe to a crowd, Tony, but musick dedicated to a solitary +shepherdess at the sight of whom your mouth will be awry in a year's +time is ill work for her."</p> + +<p>"I doubt you're right," said Clare softly. "You are compassionate to +poor nymphs to-night, Charles. Have you met a goddess?"</p> + +<p>"Tony, I have."</p> + +<p>"May you prosper!"</p> + +<p>"Thank'ee. I'll tell you more of her when I know more myself."</p> + +<p>They urged their horses to a trot and were silent for a while. Then +Clare asked Charles what he thought of Vernon.</p> + +<p>"Oh! a statue positively. I doubt the whole affair was to him vastly +low.</p> + +<p>"Umph! there was a permanent leer carved on his lips. I dislike the +fellow."</p> + +<p>"Nay! you're too stern in your judgments. He has promised me an evening +for Hazard."</p> + +<p>Clare smiled. It was useless to remonstrate with a man whom the thought +of two dice transformed into a machine with glassy eyes and curiously +sensitive fingers.</p> + +<p>So they rode silently.</p> + +<p>Charles could see Phyllida in the moon-enchanted clouds, sometimes with +the trim waist of a dice-box.<a name="page_075" id="page_075"></a></p> + +<h2><i>Chapter the Seventh</i><br /><br /> +SUNDAY MORNING</h2> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">S</span>UNDAY morning at Curtain Wells was eminently a day of rest. A stroke of +organizing genius on the part of Beau Ripple had abolished the fatigues +of early Chalybeate by transferring the corporeal obligations of +fashionable humanity to an hour which would not interfere with the +respect owed to the spirit.</p> + +<p>"A glass of Chalybeate," he had remarked, "will promote the proper +digestion of the homily. Moreover, the vanity of post-religious +promenades will be considerably mitigated by the discipline of the +Pump."</p> + +<p>At Curtain Wells, therefore, soon arose the pleasant custom of inviting +one's friends and neighbours to partake of a substantial breakfast +before setting out to St. Simon's parish church. The neighbours, if +gentlemen, were expected to provide a suitable escort for their +lady-hosts, and there was not a dame in the town who did not make it a +point of honour to be armed in at the great West door on fine mornings +or handed out of her chair with cautious ceremony if the weather was +unsettled.</p> + +<p>The Widow Courteen was not the woman to neglect or despise any +prescriptive right conferred upon her sex. It was not surprizing, +therefore, to see Major Constantine Tarry and Mr. Gregory Moon turning +solemnly into the Crescent on the first Sunday morning whose events I am +privileged to chronicle. The demeanour of neither gentleman would have +allowed us even a momentary hesitation as to the day. The Sabbath wrote +itself in the devout wrinkles of Mr. Moon's domed forehead and expressed +itself in the stiff curls of the Major's military wig. As they drew near +to Mrs.<a name="page_076" id="page_076"></a> Courteen's house the latter voiced a desire to see eggs and +bacon upon the breakfast table, and the former encouraged his ambition +by repeating a legend of a fecundity among hens unusual at this season +of the year. The meditation carried the two gentlemen to Mrs. Courteen's +door in silence.</p> + +<p>"Your turn to knock, Tarry," said Mr. Moon, in a rather depressed voice, +as he fumbled with the steps from which the Major assaulted the door +with military abruptness.</p> + +<p>To them after a decent interval appeared Thomas in resplendent waistcoat +of Sunday and with nose polished to the limit of a nose's power of +brightness.</p> + +<p>"Is your mistress within?" inquired the Major.</p> + +<p>"Within and awaiting you," said solemn Mr. Thomas.</p> + +<p>"Then I think, Mr. Moon," said the Major with half a turn, "we will step +inside immediately."</p> + +<p>"I think we may venture," replied the latter.</p> + +<p>They were ushered into the passage where Thomas received their hats and +canes. Thomas had such a sober effect on his fellow men that the +slightest action in which he took part was conducted with a ritual at +once austere and grand. One felt that the delivery of a hat, smallsword, +cane, or message possessed at least the dignity, the entire absence of +all worldly considerations that belong to the Sunday alms.</p> + +<p>"Will your mistress receive us in the front parlour or the back parlour +this morning?" inquired Tarry whose legs were prepared for either +emergency.</p> + +<p>"In the front parlour," said Thomas. "Miss Thomasina was ill this +morning."</p> + +<p>"In the back parlour, I presume?" said Moon.</p> + +<p>"Very ill with retching and divers pains," continued Thomas.</p> + +<p>"Poor Thomasina," said the Major with an attempt at jocularity.</p> + +<p>"A feeble animal," said the footman, "and too fond of grass; and the +grass of this city is fit only for Nebuchadnezzar."</p> + +<p>A bright fire was crackling in the grate, and on each<a name="page_077" id="page_077"></a> hob a kettle of +burnished copper sang with considerable sentiment.</p> + +<p>Thomas withdrew, and the Major and Mr. Moon took up the Englishman's +position on the hearthrug with coat-tails wide apart to allow the +grateful warmth free access to whatever chillness of morning air still +clung about their bodies. So they remained, silent, wrapped in the +dignified contemplation of an inferior painting in oils on the opposite +wall. No doubt in reality their thoughts were far away, possibly in the +chaste seclusion of the Widow's own room or possibly in the kitchen +whence from time to time ascended the pleasant jingle and chink that +heralds food's approach.</p> + +<p>No doubt they would both have stood there long enough for us to moralize +on England and the greatness of England, had not Mrs. Courteen come into +the room just then.</p> + +<p>Ponto, Phyllida's black spaniel, sidled in with the breakfast and +Phyllida herself followed, and the freshness of her in the morning was +strewn about the room like petals of roses.</p> + +<p>Conversation at breakfast suited itself to the solemnity of the day. The +widow sighed at every remark that was made, and in the gentle pathos of +her manner indicated placidly her conviction of fleeting time and +sorrow, and all those melancholy reflexions which are considered proper +to the Sabbath. However, at all times she was accustomed to preserve a +cloistral rigour of speech before her daughter. No one loved better to +gather the easier blooms on the safe side of the garden-god's perfumed +hedge, but they could only be plucked in numerous corners of ballrooms +and during secluded promenades. The presence of Phyllida made her +mother's blood so much rennet. Conversation became mere verbal curds and +whey.</p> + +<p>However, the Justice talked into his cup of the swift approach of +Spring, of the benefit of sun, the intolerable increase in vagrancy, the +need for repressing poachers. If platitudes were esteemed as high as +rolling hexameters, Moon would have been among the epical poets. As for +Major Tarry, he thrashed each topick at if his tongue were<a name="page_078" id="page_078"></a> a little +rattan cane. One felt that any observation was regarded by that gallant +gentleman as an awkward recruit. He had an air of drilling the +conversation. After breakfast, the various members dispersed to acquire +a seemly attitude towards matters of religion.</p> + +<p>Since the search for attitudes occupies a vast deal of human energy, it +may not be out of place to inform my reader where the half-dozen +required for Morning Prayer at St. Simon's were found.</p> + +<p>The Widow Courteen found hers hidden between powder puff and patch-box.</p> + +<p>Miss Courteen found hers between the lines of a three-cornered note.</p> + +<p>Madam Betty found hers in the coral secrets of Miss Courteen's left ear.</p> + +<p>Mr. Thomas found his in a Bible as large and heavy as a Bible should be.</p> + +<p>Major Tarry found his in the stem of a churchwarden pipe.</p> + +<p>Mr. Moon found his in the best attitude that exists.</p> + +<p>Soon Mrs. Courteen's chairmen were knocking at the door and the whole +party prepared to set out. The widow seated in her chair, hummed a hymn +<i>tempo di minuetto</i>. The Major marched upon her left and the Justice +upon her right, and Thomas marched in front. Phyllida and Betty kept to +the pavement and had scarcely time to wonder if all the world would be +at church, when they arrived at the porch and found that all the world +certainly was.</p> + +<p>As the Major had handed the widow into her chair, Mr. Moon handed her +out, and the party of Mrs. Courteen proceeded to Mrs. Courteen's pew, +while Mrs. Courteen's chairmen carried the chair to an alley beloved of +chairmen and proceeded to doze away the Sabbath morning in its damask +recesses and were no doubt as comfortable as their mistress in the musty +cushions of St. Simon's pews. In the Western gallery, three fiddles, two +hautboys, and a bass viol squeaked and groaned with much fervour. In the +pulpit the parson squeaked and groaned with equal fervour and in<a name="page_079" id="page_079"></a> the +desk below the clerk squeaked and groaned with most fervour of all. When +the parson threatened damnation, the ladies fanned themselves rapidly +and when he spoke of alms and oblations, they consoled themselves with +carraway comfits.</p> + +<p>The service was rather worldly and seemed remote enough from anything at +all spiritual, but nevertheless in so far as it was indigenous to fair +King Richard's land, it should exact from us as much respect as we owe +to a Chippendale chair and that is or ought to be very great indeed. If +so much condemnatory fervour was equivalent to breaking these +butterflies of fashion upon a religious wheel, it cannot be denied that +the exquisite bloom of their ruined wings was a great deal more pleasant +to regard than the spattered blood and bones of earlier and more +tangible martyrs to an extreme mode.</p> + +<p>The parson continued to prophesy hell-fire. But hell-fire means so many +kinds of illumination—certainly it had an invincible attraction for +these gay moths and butterflies. Perhaps they thought of it merely as a +huge aggregation of wax candles by which most of them had more than once +been morally singed. If any permanency of emotion was desirable, it +would certainty be more endurable in heat and gaiety than in chill +aerial solitudes. And, thanks to chickens, there would always be painted +fans. This was the sum of the congregation's united reflection during +the sermon; individually, no doubt, each soul played with more +particular premisses, but the ultimate conclusion was the same for all.</p> + +<p>After so much damnation, the blessing was a rhetorical anti-climax. +Clouds had gathered during the homily due, no doubt, to the violence of +the preacher and, as the worshippers tripped out through the great West +door, the clouds burst and the streaming rain inclined them more +favourably than ever to the prospect of eternal warmth.</p> + +<p>The morning's fair promise had been utterly belied, and many appealing +glances were launched at Mr. Ripple as he beckoned to his chairman. +Surely he would not be so<a name="page_080" id="page_080"></a> barbarous as to force so much accumulated +fine raiment through mud and water, to drink the latter element in a +less pleasing form. But Mr. Ripple was inexorable: he stepped into his +gilded chair, regardless of appeal: the chairmen tightened their muscles +for the long pull uphill, and Gog and Magog, the diminutive negroes +balanced one on each step, guarded their master from interruption. Now +ensued shouts, whistles, cockcrows and screams. Hats were waved, canes +flourished, and lily-white hands shaken. All this uproar was due to the +fact that there were just half as many coaches and chairs as were +required, and when these were filled, and on their way to the Pump Room, +there remained in the church too many foolish virgins, too many +improvident dowagers, too many thoughtless beaux.</p> + +<p>The rain fell in torrents, and the last vehicle had turned the corner.</p> + +<p>A desolate remnant surveyed the situation. It was wet enough.</p> + +<p>Now arose one of those crises which are inseparable from a despotism. +Somebody, for his presumption will always remain anonymous, somebody +suggested that the idea of climbing the hill of health in such a +downpour was unimaginable.</p> + +<p>The stranded exquisites depended for the moment entirely on their rouge +for colour.</p> + +<p>"Rebellion," they muttered and the ominous word flapped over their heads +and darkened the gloom more profoundly.</p> + +<p>"The Beau will be furious."</p> + +<p>"He will never forgive us."</p> + +<p>"We shall be banished."</p> + +<p>"Curtain Wells will no longer know us."</p> + +<p>Again the daring voice was upraised:</p> + +<p>"We are strong enough to defy Ripple. He has no right to make us wade +through mud for a whim of his own. If we do so, we'll do so in shifts +and shirts." The unknown voice gathered force with each new proposition, +and the startled exquisites huddled closer in a very ecstasy of +perturbation.</p> + +<p>"Shall damask flowers lose their beauty, shall silver lace be<a name="page_081" id="page_081"></a> tarnished +and broideries lack lustre because Ripple has commanded the impossible? +Silk is the fashion, ay! and watered silk, but not sodden silk. Well was +it named the Pump Room, for such shall we become, mere pumps exuding +moisture at the propulsion of a tyrant!"</p> + +<p>The apparent carelessness of the unknown tyrannicide had its effect; a +suspicion began to creep in that Mr. Ripple's domination was based on +insecurity. The thin end of this destructive wedge was enough to break +open the fortress of their duty and, the rain stopping for a moment, the +stranded exquisites hurried home to discuss the probable result of their +revolt over hot rum and lemon. Up at the Pump Room Mr. Ripple missed +many a well-known face that Sunday, and his urbane countenance lost some +of its smoothness as the minutes rolled by without the arrival of a +single person on foot.</p> + +<p>At the expiration of the quarter of an hour, he despatched Gog to see +what had happened and when Gog came back with the news that the stranded +exquisites had one and all departed to their own lodgings, Mr. Ripple +ascended his marble pedestal with an air of determination.</p> + +<p>"My lords, ladies and gentlemen," he began, and just then Magog hurried +up with the Beau's glass of chalybeate. The latter looked at it for a +moment. Pity and anger fought visibly for the mastery. Anger won, and +the remorseless Beau dashed the glass into a thousand sparkling +fragments.</p> + +<p>"The Pump Room will be closed until—until this—," he faltered over the +description of such ingratitude, "until the extraordinary behaviour of +certain visitors has been justified, if it can be justified. There will +be no Assembly to-morrow night."</p> + +<p>The company shivered unanimously and the Beau, dismissing his chairmen, +walked forth into the rain with all the dignity in the world. It is said +he ruined three suits of unparagoned cut that fatal day by walking about +the principal thoroughfares of Curtain Wells for the remainder of a very +wet afternoon.<a name="page_082" id="page_082"></a></p> + +<h2><i>Chapter the Eighth</i><br /><br /> +THE GREAT REBELLION</h2> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">N</span>OT unnaturally, the only topick of that memorable Sunday was the +rebellion. The excitement it raised far exceeded anything of the sort +not excepting the Jacobite rising, and the oldest inhabitant of the +Wells positively asserted that the landing of the Duke of Monmouth was +altogether inferior in the quality of emotional interest.</p> + +<p>Sirloins of beef were allowed to freeze into glaciers of fat, horse +radish lost its sting, and the most frothy ale was flat in the presence +of such an absorbing topick of conversation. When at last everybody, +momentarily exhausted, sought recuperation in the Sunday dinner, +everybody ate so fast to be the sooner at the coffee-house or the Town +Hall or the Assembly Rooms or some such equally renowned haunt of gossip +that everybody had a remarkably bad attack of indigestion.</p> + +<p>From every doorway the crowds hurried forth after dinner, scorning the +sacred forty winks. But coffee-house, Town Hall, and Assembly Rooms were +closed, bolted, barred and shuttered, and for a sign over each was a +scroll of parchment on which was inscribed in the finest gold leaf:</p> + +<p class="c"><i>Closed till further notice. By order. Horace Ripple.</i></p> + +<p>Disconsolately the ladies trooped home again to discuss developments +over a dish of Bohea; eagerly the gentlemen trotted to the <i>Blue Boar</i> +only to be told that nobody save lodgers could be admitted.</p> + +<p>Most of them admired the decision of the Great little Man, but the +rebels who, having once started, felt bound to hold out if only against +the censure of the faithful, laughed<a name="page_083" id="page_083"></a> very loudly and boldly and said it +was all very well to close the places of publick entertainment on +Sunday, that was only a loss of two hours custom to the proprietors, but +on the next day, a very different tale would be told. So they prophesied +as they tripped home to their pipes and hot rum, with a twirl of their +elegant canes, a shake of their exquisite heads, and a <i>Whack +row-de-dow</i> from their irreverent lips.</p> + +<p>The faithful who had seen the Beau in the first flood of his wrath were +not so sanguine. They knew that like the late King of France he could +say <i>L'état, c'est moi</i>, and what shopkeeper, innkeeper, or porter, +would be brave enough to defy him?</p> + +<p>The sun set on a gloomy town and everybody went to bed at half-past +eight o'clock having nothing better to do.</p> + +<p>Mr. Ripple had earlier in the afternoon assured himself of Mr. Lovely's +fidelity, and in the company of the young gentlemen of the <i>Blue Boar</i>, +passed a very pleasant evening over some capital Burgundy opened at his +expense. He sent down messages to my Lord Cinderton and my Lord Vanity +begging the favour of their company, and both my lords hurried back as +fast as their dignified legs would carry them. Of course, they quite +agreed with Mr. Ripple that the outbreak was scandalous and were +determined to support his decrees against the whole of society provided +they were not included in the excommunication. The news of Sir Jeremy +Dummer's sudden decease was brought in, and Mr. Ripple, deeply moved by +the melancholy event, ascribed it to the horror with which the old +baronet was overwhelmed at the defiance of himself. It was soon +announced in every drawing-room that Sir Jeremy Dummer had died of an +apoplexy brought on by the sight of the rebel abstainers from morning +Chalybeate.</p> + +<p>It was arranged, almost in silence, that everybody faithful to the great +Beau, should repair to the Pump Room on the following morning, dressed +in funereal black, a quarter of an hour earlier than usual. They might +not be admitted, but their devotion would carry its own reward, and +would certainly afford the Beau confidence in the loyalty of the most of +his subjects. It was farther arranged that a deputation<a name="page_084" id="page_084"></a> of the leading +visitors and residents should wait upon him at his lodgings with an +address black-edged, assuring him of their sorrow and fidelity. As for +the rebels, they must make what terms they could.</p> + +<p>At eleven o'clock of Monday forenoon the deputation waited upon the Beau +and was ushered over the Turkey carpet into his urbane presence. +Apparently he was quite untouched by the almost servile assurance of +loyalty contained in the address. He begged leave to inform the company +that, while sensible of their compliment, he could not permit any +publick amusement until the ringleaders of the revolt had, hat in hand, +implored his forgiveness. He added he had reluctantly despatched mounted +messengers to Leamington, Cheltenham, Bristol Well, Brighthelmstone, +Harrowgate, Scarborough, Tunbridge and the Bath, begging his brethren to +refuse admittance to any new arrivals until farther warning. He was +confident that his appeal would not be disregarded. The abashed +deputation withdrew, having effected nothing. Monday passed gloomily +enough. There were no chairmen, there were no chairs, there were no +coaches, there was no Assembly. The shops were all closed: the Pump Room +was closed: coffee-houses, chocolate-houses and taverns were all closed.</p> + +<p>The rebels were now merged almost imperceptibly into loyalists but a few +still held out, and two of the more callous—I will not affront the +living world with their names—went so far as to send out invitations to +a party of Quadrille. Six equally hardened rebels arrived at the time +appointed. Two tables were formed, the candles were lighted, the guineas +stood piled in glittering dozens, the cards were dealt, when suddenly +the door was flung open and Mr. Ripple in black sattin, armed with a +spade, marched into the room.</p> + +<p>"I think, ladies and gentlemen, that I am Spadille this evening," he +proclaimed in a voice of ice.</p> + +<p>The eight rebels dropped their cards. It was impossible to play with any +calmness in the presence of that menacing figure whose contempt was so +sublime. The ladies fluttered from the room in dismay.<a name="page_085" id="page_085"></a></p> + +<p>"Gentlemen," said the Beau, "you will call at my house to-morrow with +the humblest apologies for this evening's outrage."</p> + +<p>Then he vanished from the room. It only remains to add that the +gentlemen did call at the Great House on the following morning where +their humiliation was complete if we may judge by an alabaster tablet +set up in the portico of the Assembly Rooms where it remained until the +other day, when, alas! the famous old rooms, so long the most frequented +shrine of wit and beauty in England, were pulled down to make way for a +publick library.</p> + +<p>The tablet which was in the likeness of the Ace of Spades bore the +following inscription:</p> + +<p class="c">Sacred to the Memory of Justice, Decency, and Order,<br /> + This Tablet was erected by four Gentlemen<br /> + In Token of their sincere Penitence and resolute<br /> + Amendment.<br /> + Also in the profoundest Admiration and deepest<br /> + Respect for Beau Ripple, King of Curtain Wells,<br /> + for many years<br /> + Arbiter of Fashion<br /> + and<br /> + Oracle of Wit.<br /> + The Great and Only<br /> + Spadille.</p> + +<p><a name="page_086" id="page_086"></a></p> + +<h2><i>Chapter the Ninth</i><br /><br /> +THE ASSEMBLY</h2> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HE submission of the recalcitrants secured once more to Curtain Wells +her publick amusements, and the Monday Assembly was announced for +Wednesday evening. Everybody determined that it should make up in +brilliance what it lacked in punctuality, and all private +conversaziones, routs, and Quadrille parties were, by general consent, +postponed.</p> + +<p>We have temporarily got out of touch with the lesser intrigues of this +history, but truly all such were eclipsed by the great Rebellion whose +echoes drowned the whispered vows of lovers and the murmur of scandalous +small talk. The prospect of peace set everybody at amusement, with +vigour refreshed by the momentary lull in the gay tempest of their +lives.</p> + +<p>An additional excitement surrounded this Assembly because it was +everywhere reported that the young gentlemen of the <i>Blue Boar</i> would be +present in force. This rumour was, indeed, likely to prove true, for the +young gentlemen, already determined to discover Mr. Lovely's charmer, +were confirmed in their resolve by a desire to reciprocate the Beau's +lately implied confidence in a way more likely to gratify him than any +other.</p> + +<p>The prospect of dancing with young Tom Chalkley of the Foot, Tony Clare, +and Peter Wingfield, or Lieutenant Blewforth of the <i>Lively</i> fluttered +all the young ladies' hearts and very many of the old ones'. Moreover, +there were the Honourable Mr. Harthe-Brusshe and Mr. Golightly, and +above all, there was Mr. Charles Lovely who, if he were a poet, was also +a man of the extremest fashion and finest<a name="page_087" id="page_087"></a> taste, and so at once genteel +and romantick. Altogether the postponed Assembly promised to be a great +success.</p> + +<p>Miss Phyllida Courteen hoped that her dear Amor would make an exception +for once, but Mr. Vernon declared he would by no means commit himself to +such publick adoration of his fair; so she was forced to content herself +with the prospect of teasing Miss Sukey Morton about the anonymous +Valentine. She knew that her dear Morton would suspect Mr. Chalkley who, +with the politeness for which the British Army has always been famous, +had once recovered her dropped fan. This somewhat ordinary event had led +Miss Morton to colour the whole world to the hue of a red coat. All the +dearest confidences exchanged with her beloved Courteen referred to +young Mr. Chalkley who was quite unconscious of the amount of room he +occupied in Miss Morton's heart, and was used to regard women as +musquets for the presenting of arms, but nothing more.</p> + +<p>The whole of Wednesday had been spent by the ladies of the Wells in +refreshing their bodies with sleep and rouge alternately, and the sickle +moon in the frore February sky looked pale and ghostly beside the sleek +tapers that twinkled in every window pane and the ruddy flambeaux of the +lackeys as they stamped up and down in waiting to escort their +mistresses to the ball.</p> + +<p>Phyllida was not long in putting on her white muslin nightgown with +flowered sack; and as her curls had neither to be subdued by Powder and +Pomatum, nor frizzled to a mock vivacity by restorative Tongs, she sat +in the bow-window of her bedchamber and stared at the young moon. The +curtains were drawn back, but, even so, she could still see innumerable +shepherds arming as many shepherdesses through the pattern and, as the +fire-light flickered over them, they seemed, indeed, to be stepping a +forgotten dance.</p> + +<p>"I should like to live in a curtain," thought Phyllida, "and be always +young and always happy and always hand in hand with—but after all +nothing could be less like a shepherd than Amor," and just then the +little flame that had been urging all the figures into motion turned to +a noisy puff of smoke;<a name="page_088" id="page_088"></a> the picture faded from her mind and the voice of +her mother destroyed the last gossamer fancy that floated through her +brain.</p> + +<p>The widow's room was billowy with rejected petticoats on which, like +sea-wrack, floated garters, stockings, and gloves; while a large +constellation of paste gleamed fitfully through the mirk of a Paris net. +In the midst of the delicate havock sat the widow uncertain as ever what +colour and stuff would most become the evening.</p> + +<p>"The Major spoils my rose lustring and my orange sack makes the Justice +look——"</p> + +<p>"Like suet," said Betty.</p> + +<p>The widow was about to reprimand her for the simile, but as it perfectly +expressed what the Justice would look like, she refrained.</p> + +<p>"Sure, madam," said Phyllida, who was impatient to set out, "you had +best wear your blue brocade."</p> + +<p>"The child is right," said the widow emphatically. "Betty! my blue +brocade."</p> + +<p>Betty did not protest she had already tried on the blue brocade four +times because, if she had, the widow would instantly have thought that +green would be better, and the argument would have begun all over again.</p> + +<p>At last the widow was dressed; the coach was at the door; and in a very +short time made one of a long row of equally cumbersome vehicles that +extended far down the High Street. Mrs. Courteen peering from the window +announced she had caught a glimpse of Lady Bunbutter stepping out of her +coach in blue brocade. This dreadful anticipation of her own entrance +was extremely disconcerting, and if there had been the slightest +prospect of turning round in the crush of coaches, chairs, footmen, +linkboys and gaping cits, she would have instantly driven home to +exchange blue for any other colour in her trunk-mail or closet. However, +as she could not change her attire, she did the next best thing +possible, by blaming Phyllida for her suggestion. As this was the +prologue to every assembly, the latter was not much troubled by her +mother's annoyance and soon the coach arrived at the<a name="page_089" id="page_089"></a> very steps leading +up to the Rooms. At the moment it drew up, Major Tarry and Mr. Moon +stepped forward and flung open the door and handed the widow out and +armed her up the steps and gave her name to Mr. Ripple's confidential +Secretary who passed it on to another equally confidential footman who +bawled it out at the top of his voice just as Mrs. Courteen sailed into +the ballroom where Mr. Ripple, with the rosy bloom of triumph on his +cheeks, advanced to offer two fingers vailed in gloves of diaphanous +chicken-skin.</p> + +<p>Curtseys, bows, and compliments lasted until the arrival of the next +guest, when the widow with her faithful Ancients surveyed the room in a +grand promenade. Phyllida made off to greet her dear Morton with half a +glance in the direction of the young gentlemen from the <i>Blue Boar</i>, who +were grouped rather stiffly at the other end of the ballroom.</p> + +<p>The babble of conversation and the swish of fans, the colour all compact +of movement, the innumerable tapers, the glitter of many brooches, pins, +and buckles, the mirrours, the preliminary notes of the musicians, the +shuffling feet, and the tap of the opened snuff-boxes combined in that +glorious whole—a ball at the Assembly Rooms, Curtain Wells.</p> + +<p>Soon the Minuets would begin, and after the Minuets, the Gavottes, and +so on to the Country Dances and the last great Cotillon. The passionate +history of the world is writ in crowquill letters on the programs of +dances. What Jealousies and yellow-winged Envies hovered on the cool air +of waving fans, what vows would be made and broken in those alcoves, now +serene and empty, before the last flambeau expired in the gutter +outside. What mean Ambitions coiled around every genteel fine hoop!</p> + +<p>Yet Mr. Ripple was so suave, Mrs. Courteen and my Lady Bunbutter so full +of compliments, Lieutenant Blewforth so jolly and Mr. Lovely so witty, +old Lord Vanity so generous of snuff, my Lord Cinderton so +distinguished—and as for Miss Phyllida Courteen, she was enchanted to a +magical domain where only very slowly did Mr. Francis<a name="page_090" id="page_090"></a> Vernon blacken a +trinket sun with the menace of real passion.</p> + +<p>Suddenly her heart began to beat so fast that she feared all her friends +would observe her agitation. Surely that young gentleman in primrose +sattin and flesh-coloured brocaded waistcoat, who took the polished +floor so easily, was the poet of Valentine Day to whom she had confided +her note. Surely too, for all he stared at everybody else from time to +time, his eyes were really fixed on hers. Perhaps he was a friend of +Amor's with a message to deliver—and yet it would be more interesting, +she decided, if he were not. Presently Mr. Lovely was bowing over her +chair and asking in the politest manner possible for the honour of the +next two dances.</p> + +<p>She looked round at Miss Morton as if to say she could not leave her +without a partner.</p> + +<p>"Madam," said Mr. Lovely bowing very low indeed, "if I might be so +presumptuous, does the young lady wish for a Vis à Vis, for in that case +I shall certainly present my friend Mr. Chalkley of the Foot."</p> + +<p>Miss Morton, amid a deal of simpering, confessed she favoured a minuet +on occasions, so Mr. Lovely hurried off to fetch Mr. Chalkley before the +musicians began to play the opening bars of the dance.</p> + +<p>Phyllida was astonished at the coincidence and not sure whether, after +all, Mr. Chalkley had not employed Mr. Lovely's offices on his behalf. +However, as she had little enough envy in her and was romantically +attached to Mr. Amor, she could scarcely refuse to help her dear Morton +into the arms of an expectant lover, and if Mr. Lovely had no real +inclination to dance with her, that was no great matter, since he was a +vastly agreeable young gentleman and would pass the time very pleasantly +in the absence of another.</p> + +<p>Mr. Chalkley, when summoned by Charles, was extremely indignant and +swore he was not come to dance with any jade in the room.</p> + +<p>"Pshaw," replied his friend, "you can't stand there gaping all the +evening."<a name="page_091" id="page_091"></a></p> + +<p>"Why don't you make Blewforth dance with the hussy?"</p> + +<p>"Odds my life, Tom, why won't you tread a minuet with a handsome young +woman?"</p> + +<p>"You're too devilish fond of arranging matters for other people to suit +your own whims. I'll be hanged if I dance a step to-night!" But all the +other young gentlemen vowed so earnestly that Mr. Chalkley was a surly +fellow, that he gave way at last and suffered himself to be dragged to +the feet of attractive Miss Sukey Morton, whose black eyes flashed very +brightly at the sight of Mr. Chalkley's red coat.</p> + +<p>Charles, having disposed her friend, offered his hand to Phyllida and +soon they were stepping the minuet with infinite grace, admired by every +one who saw them.</p> + +<p>For her the room sank into unreality and she lived in a rainbow whose +colours moved and changed to the slow dignity of far-heard Pizzicato.</p> + +<p>The melody to which these marionettes were dancing possessed a strange +quality. It was emotion in quintessence, without passion, without +abandon. Whatever it had of definite character lay in the half bashful +invitation to dance, as if some ghostly puppet master, pale and stately, +were beckoning to his performers. As the opening bars of the minuet were +repeated at the close only to die away in a poignant farewell, Phyllida +felt for the first time, in the swoon of her last courtesy, that she was +a doll whose gestures served to amuse a genteel but unearthly audience +of monocled Gods.</p> + +<p>Actually it was a mere momentary dizziness, a sudden loss of volition on +which Charles hung a score of fancies.</p> + +<p>"You are feeling faint?" he inquired.</p> + +<p>"No, no."</p> + +<p>"The heat is overpowering. Shall we sit for a while in an alcove, or +shall we saunter in Curtain Garden?" They passed through the crowded +room and down a cool passage into a Baroc cloister where stone Satyrs +took the place of Angels, and the Cherubim were not easily to be +distinguished from Loves.<a name="page_092" id="page_092"></a></p> + +<p>The young moon was setting behind Curtain Hill larger and more golden +than before.</p> + +<p>The cloister was hung with amber lights and held innumerable whispers. +Somewhere close at hand was a sound of running water.</p> + +<p>"You are fond of dancing, madam?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, sir, 'tis a very delicate motion truly."</p> + +<p>"I fear you thought I was presumptuous in offering my hand for the +minuet."</p> + +<p>"No, indeed, sir," Phyllida answered quite naturally.</p> + +<p>Lovely was rather surprized. He had expected the customary play of a +fan.</p> + +<p>"You are making a long stay here?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Oh, sir, I do not know, 'tis for so long as my mamma thinks proper."</p> + +<p>"I have not had the honour of an introduction."</p> + +<p>"No," said Phyllida doubtfully. She was not at all anxious to present +Mr. Lovely, and willing enough to take advantage of the Assembly rule +that the offer and acceptance of a dance was not necessarily a passport +to intimacy on the next day. She did not wish to be treated like a child +before the gallant Mr. Lovely who treated her with such deference.</p> + +<p>"Did you hear anything more of the Valentine?" said Phyllida with a +ripple of laughter.</p> + +<p>"Not a word."</p> + +<p>"You remember the young woman by whom I was seated?"</p> + +<p>"Perfectly."</p> + +<p>"’Twas for her," said Phyllida with more laughter.</p> + +<p>"Nonsense."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes! indeed, 'tis true, and the best of it is she thinks the +Valentine was sent by Mr. Chalkley."</p> + +<p>"Never!"</p> + +<p>"Oh! yes, yes, yes."</p> + +<p>"But he has never set eyes on her."</p> + +<p>"No! But she thinks he has—often, just because he picked up her fan +once."<a name="page_093" id="page_093"></a></p> + +<p>"Truly then I did a very politick action in effecting the introduction."</p> + +<p>"Oh, sir, she was ravished, you may be sure."</p> + +<p>"Gad! I'll send her a Valentine every day of the week, and put one in +her Prayer Book on Sundays."</p> + +<p>"Oh, sir! but sure, it might end in a wedding, and that's a very serious +matter as all the world knows."</p> + +<p>"Not more serious than love," said Charles.</p> + +<p>"Well, no, perhaps not more than love; but then neither of 'em is in +love with t'other."</p> + +<p>"I swear they shall be."</p> + +<p>"You can't force people to fall in love."</p> + +<p>"Can't you?" said Charles very earnestly, so earnestly that Phyllida +thought the air was turning chill and that they ought to go back to the +ballroom.</p> + +<p>"Not yet," pleaded Mr. Lovely. "I thought we might walk towards the +Maze."</p> + +<p>"The Maze?" said she quickly.</p> + +<p>"Why, yes! the entrance is but a few yards from where we are."</p> + +<p>"I had forgot," she answered, and then with a sudden determination, "I +think we had better go back."</p> + +<p>"You're not frightened of the Maze?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, truly I'm not," Phyllida affirmed. "But I think I heard my +mamma's voice and if she sees me here, I shall not be allowed to come to +the next Assembly."</p> + +<p>Phyllida was feeling a vague emotion of infidelity to her dear Amor and +almost dreaded to see his tall shadow in the amber light.</p> + +<p>"As you will," he said in some disappointment, "but we han't had a deal +of conversation yet."</p> + +<p>"That's true," she replied, "but this is only our second meeting. Oh! +Gemini!" she went on, "you'll think me forward and bold, but I vow I +never meant it in that way."</p> + +<p>"Madam," said Charles with a bow, "I should never presume to put upon it +an interpretation so complimentary to myself, but, seriously, you will +give me two more dances to-night?"<a name="page_094" id="page_094"></a></p> + +<p>"It would be indiscreet."</p> + +<p>"Nay, I do not think so."</p> + +<p>"Your friends would laugh."</p> + +<p>"I do not <i>think</i> so."</p> + +<p>Mr. Lovely looked so fierce that Phyllida hurriedly promised two +gavottes, and Charles who was something of a Gascon could not help +congratulating himself on his speedy success.</p> + +<p>They walked back to the ballroom almost in silence, and above the +chatter of folk in the lobby, heard the opening of a plaintive minuet.</p> + +<p>Lovely, when he had left his partner, walked over to his friends of the +<i>Blue Boar</i> and was greeted with a shower of sallies.</p> + +<p>"How now, Charles, have you been smuggling rare spirits in the +cloister?" cried Blewforth.</p> + +<p>"Snuggling would be b-b-better!" stammered little Peter Wingfield.</p> + +<p>Charles glared at both the young gentlemen, who laughed very heartily +indeed, and were not at all put about by his frowns.</p> + +<p>"Oddslife, Charles," said Mr. Chalkley, "where have been your eyes these +past six weeks to have so lately discovered the fair Courteen?"</p> + +<p>"Charles looks at women through dice-boxes," said Blewforth.</p> + +<p>"And what's worse, sees double wherever he looks," added Mr. Chalkley.</p> + +<p>"Charles," added Mr. Antony Clare, "be wise. Some knave of Clubs will +trump your Queen."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Clare," said Charles drawing himself up very straight and looking +as grand as possible, "I'll trouble you to croak when I ask for your +noise; as for you, gentlemen, you're too free with your words, be d—d +to the lot of you."</p> + +<p>Thereupon Mr. Charles Lovely swung himself out of the room with such an +air that the young gentlemen looked after him in some apprehension.<a name="page_095" id="page_095"></a></p> + +<p>"Egad!" commented Chalkley, "the man must be madly in love for he's lost +his wit."</p> + +<p>"And his humour too," said Blewforth.</p> + +<p>"Don't rally him too hard, boys," said Tony.</p> + +<p>"We can't all turn parsons because Charles is bewitched by two blue +eyes," grumbled Chalkley.</p> + +<p>This was the opinion of the company, and though in their hearts they +excused Mr. Lovely, they were loud in their condemnation of his churlish +behaviour.</p> + +<p>Clare, afraid he was gone to work off his injured feelings by reckless +play, soon followed him out of the ballroom, but could not find him at +the tables.</p> + +<p>Charles had, in fact, turned into the garden. Cupid had pierced him with +a long sharp arrow, and he was not yet able to bear a rough hand on the +wound. The night air came over him fresh and cool. In the darkness he +was more than ever enthralled by the image and pale fancies of an ideal +passion. Yet for all he was a poet, or perhaps just because he was a +poet, his love was tinted with the hues of convention. She was like +those Madonnas who appear to peasant children, Madonnas in crude +crœlean robes sown with tinsel stars. One feels that much of the +apparition is due to preconceived opinion. So with Charles, his love +made one of a list of women dating to the Queens of Babylon. There was +too much bob-a-cherry about her and too much cream. She stood, too, on +such a high pedestal that if she owned feet of cracked clay not a soul +could have seen them.</p> + +<p>Charles felt very angry with his bachelor friends, and when Clare joined +him at the end of an alley was in no mood to be pleasant company.</p> + +<p>"Sure, Charles," the latter remonstrated, "you're the last man to tie +yourself to the skirts of a goddess."</p> + +<p>"There's a medium between an angel and a woman of the town," said +Charles sententiously.</p> + +<p>"But the woman was once an angel to somebody, and 'foregad! I believe +you do your charmer an injury to make her such a paragon of air. I swear +those eyes can flash with more than saintly ecstasy."<a name="page_096" id="page_096"></a></p> + +<p>"Z—— ds! Tony, you are bent on a quarrel. I tell you the child's name +shall not be a toast for my profligate friends."</p> + +<p>"You are not better than any of them."</p> + +<p>"But at least I can reverence purity."</p> + +<p>"Aye, and so can Blewforth."</p> + +<p>"D—— e!" swore Charles, "'tis a pity he don't exercise his talent more +openly."</p> + +<p>The argument would doubtless have continued, if the sound of voices +approaching had not made the two young men pause involuntarily. Two +people were passing down the adjoining alley, and it was impossible not +to overhear some of the conversation, which was sufficiently ridiculous. +A feminine voice declared that soldiers were romantick, and a voice of +opposite sex replied that as an attribute of class, it was an undeniable +quality, but not for that reason universally applicable to individual +members of that class.</p> + +<p>"But a scarlet coat is so dazzling," argued Treble.</p> + +<p>"Madam," said Bass, "I cannot claim that my profession is romantick. The +Law, Madam, has no time for romance except perhaps in the examination of +an unwilling witness, but what my profession lacks, my name possesses. +Moon, madam, I venture to affirm, is a singularly romantick name."</p> + +<p>"It is," murmured the widow, for, of course, it was she.</p> + +<p>"The moon is the method of illumination adopted by every poet of +distinction."</p> + +<p>"How true that is," she sighed.</p> + +<p>"I might add that so far as dazzling goes my name is as capable of +extreme refraction as the red coat of a soldier. Moreover, madam, the +latter is very antipathetick to the complexion of a woman of quality."</p> + +<p>"But the coat need not be worn, Mr. Moon. It could exist in a bottom +drawer, I should feel it was there, and I could sometimes brush it +even."</p> + +<p>"Good heavens! ma'am, has not the Law an equal fascination? Do you know +that my house is full of legal cases?"<a name="page_097" id="page_097"></a></p> + +<p>"How untidy!" said the widow reprovingly.</p> + +<p>"Arguments <i>Pro</i> and <i>Contra</i>, trials!"</p> + +<p>"But I dislike arguments, they put my hair out of curl and we have so +many trials to bear already."</p> + +<p>"They need never be used, but they can exist, madam, they can exist in +calf on a bottom shelf, and they could be dusted sometimes," declared +the Justice. Then in softer accents he began to plead:</p> + +<p>"Think, my dear Mrs. Courteen, of Mrs. Moon. Mrs. Moon! I often murmur +that short sentence over to myself."</p> + +<p>"Do you, Mr. Moon? When?" said the widow, who seemed touched by his +devotion.</p> + +<p>"Oh! after dinner—or getting into bed, or—" but the third occasion was +never revealed, for Major Tarry charged round the corner and carried off +the dear questioner to adorn a gavotte.</p> + +<p>Somehow the hedges no longer seemed so mysterious and the night not +quite so large.</p> + +<p>"Gad! what follies!" laughed Charles.</p> + +<p>"D'ye know who the lady was?" inquired the other.</p> + +<p>"Venus grown fat by the sound of her voice."</p> + +<p>"That was Mrs. Courteen."</p> + +<p>"Eh?"</p> + +<p>"Your charmer's mother."</p> + +<p>"Then she must have had a very delightful father."</p> + +<p>"That's neither here nor there," said Clare. "Your angel's wings may +moult, and she who now goes tiptoe for very lightness will one day—but, +pshaw! if you love her, she will always skim the ground."</p> + +<p>"Tony!" said Charles, "I've made a fool of myself."</p> + +<p>"In the best way of folly."</p> + +<p>It may seem odd that Charles should have been so ready to admit the +mortality of his goddess, but after all as yet his love was an +apparition. No miracles had been worked at the shrine, and she had a +mother.</p> + +<p>Also Charles began to smell romance, of which he pretended to an +exaggerated horror. Like mother, like daughter.<a name="page_098" id="page_098"></a> He made up his mind to +neglect Miss Phyllida Courteen, and having done so, went back to the +ballroom with the temerity of a successful anchorite. Yet when he saw +her again she was young and adorable, and he was as madly in love with +her as ever; all the more perhaps because he realized that one day she +would fade. However, he was no longer so full of heroick rebukes for his +friends. Perhaps, like the Greeks, he was beginning to understand that +romantick Troy was a menace to the common sense of the world.</p> + +<p>Charles found the young men in precisely the same position as that in +which he left them.</p> + +<p>"Oddslife," cried Blewforth, "there's Charles come back. What, man! have +you been languishing under the sky? Your mistress has been dancing +merrily with Ripple himself, while you were star-gazing."</p> + +<p>"'Tis a pity that none of you have enough impudence to follow his +example," retorted Charles, "for on my soul you all stand stiff and +awkward as the figures on a Gothick tombstone. Gad! I've a mind to tell +the ladies how nimbly you tripped it at Baverstock, Blewforth, and as +for you, Tom, I'm hanged if I'd be cut out by a beggarly half-pay +militia captain," continued Charles pointing to the disreputable Captain +Mann who was handing Miss Morton through the gavotte.</p> + +<p>"Well said!" Clare joined in, "we shall find it more difficult than ever +to believe Blewforth's tales of conquest in the ports of civilization."</p> + +<p>"Unless," added Charles, "like a picture by a great master he possesses +an immovable reputation and attracts by beauty in repose."</p> + +<p>"Ha—ha—ha," bellowed the Lieutenant, "you should have seen me at +Minorca. These finicking hussies aren't worth the shoe leather one uses +in dragging them round the room." But just as Mr. Blewforth was about to +give a discourse on the beauty, grace, and agility of feminine Spain, +Mr. Ripple scaled the rigid group:</p> + +<p>"Now, gentlemen, you are not dancing. Come, come<a name="page_099" id="page_099"></a> this won't do. I've +let you off the Minuets and Gavottes, but I insist on the Country +Dances. Let me see, Lieutenant Blewforth, I have the very Vis à Vis you +are looking for—Mrs. Georgina Bean, widow of the late Captain Bean, of +your own Service. She will like to hear the latest Marine Information."</p> + +<p>Blewforth struck his colours with an almost humble salute.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Chalkley," the Beau continued, "Miss Margery Mansel a young lady +fresh from boarding-school, will certainly suit your accomplishments. +Treat her kindly, sir. Mr. Golightly, I insist on your dancing with Lady +Jane Vane—your father and hers were intimate friends. Mr. +Harthe-Brusshe, your respected father tells me that he has a particular +desire you should dance with Miss Mimsy; she's an heiress, sir, and as +good as she is wealthy. Come, come, gentlemen, make no doubt that I +shall find a partner for every one of you."</p> + +<p>The young gentlemen, a little stiffer, a little more awkward, followed +Mr. Ripple very mildly across the room. The rest of the Assembly +fluttered quite perceptibly at their approach.</p> + +<p>Lovely had no opportunity of asking Phyllida to dance with him as by the +time he had crossed the room, she was standing opposite Mr. Moon. So he +hurried up to Miss Sukey Morton who flashed her black eyes and took his +arm with all the grace in the world and discussed the attraction of the +British Army with much fan-play and volubility. He met Phyllida in the +course of the dance and begged her hand for the Cotillon, but she shook +her head gravely with a glance in the direction of old General Morton, +and Charles passed on to less interesting encounters much exasperated by +the impertinence of old age.</p> + +<p>"Why aren't you a soldier, Mr. Lovely?" asked Miss Morton in a wondering +voice.</p> + +<p>"I like to pull the sheets over my head when I sleep," said Charles very +solemnly, "but soldiers always have to put them on top of a pole."<a name="page_100" id="page_100"></a></p> + +<p>"Oh! but think of war and fortresses and sieges and bivouacks."</p> + +<p>"I dislike war, I object to fortresses. For sieges I lack the patience +and I abominate bivouacks."</p> + +<p>"But the uniform is so gay," persisted Miss Morton, "and so martial."</p> + +<p>"A footman's, ma'am, is twice as gay and three times as martial."</p> + +<p>"Nay, I vow you're jealous of the Army."</p> + +<p>"Madam, is that surprizing, when Miss Morton inclines so much to +scarlet?"</p> + +<p>"Nay, now you are laughing at me,", she pouted, "and I hate to be +laughed at. Are you a friend of Mr. Chalkley?"</p> + +<p>"Indeed, I hope I may describe myself as such," said Charles.</p> + +<p>"Does he paint landskips as an Amateur?" inquired cunning Miss Sukey +Morton.</p> + +<p>"Not that I am aware of."</p> + +<p>The disappointment visible on her countenance recalled the incident of +the Valentine, and he made haste to add:</p> + +<p>"Though now I come to think of it, I found him cutting out an ace of +hearts one day last week."</p> + +<p>"An ace of hearts?" said Miss Morton very innocently, "why what would he +do that for?"</p> + +<p>"I asked him as much, and he muttered something about a torn velvet +patch. But his behaviour that day was monstrous odd altogether, for I +remember I found him later on the bowling green of the <i>Blue Boar</i> +picking snowdrops, and when I rallied him, he asked me for a rhyme to +'white.'"</p> + +<p>Miss Morton danced for the rest of the evening as though her scarlet +heels were little flames.</p> + +<p>The hands of the clock were nearing the magick hour of the last +Cotillon, and everybody was hurrying in search of partners and places; +when the appearance of Gog and Magog, with Mr. Ripple's marble pedestal, +warned everybody that the Great little Man was about to make an +announcement. Everybody waited with extreme deference and not<a name="page_101" id="page_101"></a> a whisper +disturbed the religious peace. The room was quite still save for the +tinkle of jewellery and the slow sighing of the fans.</p> + +<p>The Beau ascended his pedestal, calm and majestick while the listeners +craned their necks to attention.</p> + +<p>"My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen. You are doubtless all aware that we +have to lament the sudden death of that respected model of fortitude and +perseverance, Sir Jeremy Dummer."</p> + +<p>A sympathetick murmur floated along the wind of the fans.</p> + +<p>"I am happy to tell you that he died as he lived, fighting. He died, if +I may use so vulgar a metaphor, in harness—the harness of an old +war-horse who, having fought the foes of England during his prime, +continued to fight the greatest foe of England during his decay. That +energy which erstwhile displayed itself in the trenches of War enabled +him for twenty-one years to persecute by every means in his power that +enemy of all of us—the Gout.</p> + +<p>"He sought to starve it into capitulation by restricted diet, he tried +to storm it by sudden charges of chalybeate. My lords, ladies and +gentlemen, it was in the middle of one of these gallant sallies that he +died. In a word, he was half-way through a glass of the cleansing liquid +when death overtook him. There it stood, that partially empty glass +beside the dead form of the veteran. May we not regard this relick as +the tears of Æsculapius? Shall we not enshrine these sparkling drops in +a lachrymatory and, having sealed the sacred fluid with the city seal, +shall we not set it in a prominent part of our civick museum? My lords, +ladies and gentlemen, we shall. I have consulted with my brother the +Mayor of this town, and he has agreed.</p> + +<p>"Moreover, let me remind you of the last words of the great Socrates, +his last injunction to his friend to sacrifice a cock to Æsculapius. Let +us also, in memory of our deceased exemplar, present a new tap to our +publick fountain and so sacrifice, my lords, ladies and gentlemen, not a +cock, but a turncock to Æsculapius."</p> + +<p>The Great little Man here paused to wipe away the tears<a name="page_102" id="page_102"></a> of sorrow and +the heat of the atmosphere. "It seems," he continued, "out of place to +make any announcement of a new diversion, but pleasure is as inexorable +as death."</p> + +<p>Here the audience seemed to murmur a mournful assent.</p> + +<p>"Next Tuesday at 7 o'clock precisely will be held the Chinese +Masquerade. This, as you are aware, limits our costumes to those +authorized by gold-lackered cabinets and teacups of blue china. I myself +shall act as Gold Mandarin and my young friend Mr. Charles Lovely will +be the Blue Mandarin. There will be a grand minuet of Cathay, but I will +not detain you now with farther particulars of this entertainment. I +hope that we shall hold masquerades of assorted characters until May, +when we shall make an attempt to start the Fêtes Champêtres which were +so successful last year.</p> + +<p>"Finally, my lords, ladies and gentlemen, you are aware that an incident +of an unpleasantly obtrusive habit deterred us from Terpsichore on +Monday night. I am, indeed, happy to say that the curtain has fallen +upon the whole affair without a dissentient voice. I should have been +inexpressibly grieved if the gloom consequent upon the defiance of my +authority, had been at all lasting. May I add that the rebels—if I may +call them so without offence—have acted in the handsomest manner and +have offered to set up in the portico of these rooms a tablet +commemorating the temporary cloud upon your delight. I should be more +than mortal if I were not proud of such a token of confidence in my +despotism.</p> + +<p>"My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen, I am your very grateful, humble, and +obliged servant to command."</p> + +<p>The Beau's descent from his pedestal was the signal for much waving of +lace handkerchiefs and fans. There were cries of 'Bravo, Beau,' 'Viva, +Ripple!'</p> + +<p>Finally when old Lord Vanity stepped up to the dignified lord of +ceremonies and solemnly offered him his noted jade snuffbox full to +overflowing of the richest brown Rappee, and when the Beau, having +dropped his jewelled fingers into the modish soil, drew them forth and +raised them to his aquiline nose, a stillness fell upon the room, and +above the<a name="page_103" id="page_103"></a> silence the sniffs of the great Beau, three in number, were +distinctly heard by all. It was as if he wished them Good Health. But +this was not enough for the Exquisite Mob. Somebody—it may have been +our hero—ran post haste for a bottle of champagne, and somebody else +rushed off for goblets. Presently, the prettiest Impromptu in the world +was enacted, and very proud indeed were the spectators of a scene +memorable for many years in the chronicles of fashion.</p> + +<p>Delicately veined hands untwisted the silver wire and tore off the gold +cap. Somebody fetched a corkscrew, somebody clenched the sombre green +bottle between his brocaded knees. An arm tapering to snowy peaks pulled +at the unwilling cork. A fairy explosion was followed by the dewy +vapours of long imprisoned sunshine. The amber liquid sparkled and +bubbled and flowed over the many faceted goblet in cream and foam.</p> + +<p>The Beau mounted once more upon his pedestal and drank to the pleasure, +health, and beauty of the company, while Lord Vanity and my Lady +Bunbutter quaffed an answering toast in deputy for the lords, ladies and +gentlemen present. Salvoes of well-bred applause pattered round the +room, and the Beau's triumph was hailed with acclamations.</p> + +<p>And you, beautiful women and fine gentlemen, roses and carnations of an +older century, nothing remains of you for us. Your very perfume is but a +name. You are no more to the world of to-day than those glossy candles +that spluttered to death in gilt sockets. And yet, from the ruin of +elegance, one relick of that famous evening remains; for the silver wire +of the bottle of champagne, flung heedless to the ground, caught in a +flounce of some Beauty's petticoat. Long ago the gossamer stuff +mouldered, long ago was Beauty herself a skeleton, but the wire +cherished by Beauty's family may still be seen in a glass-topped table +in the corner of a quiet library somewhere in the broad Midlands. O +insignificant wire, you are more durable than the flowers who despised +you!</p> + +<p>And now another famous ball waned to a close, and all the world of taste +and fashion went home to bed.<a name="page_104" id="page_104"></a></p> + +<h2><i>Chapter the Tenth</i><br /><br /> +AFTER THE ASSEMBLY</h2> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">M</span>R. CHARLES Lovely walked back with Mr. Antony Clare to the <i>Blue Boar</i>, +and joined Mr. Francis Vernon in the Coffee Room.</p> + +<p>The latter noticed that Clare frowned slightly when he saw him, and +explained, almost apologetically, that he had moved thither from his +lodgings in the Crescent. Charles was delighted and immediately proposed +a game of hazard.</p> + +<p>"You'll play, Tony?" he said eagerly.</p> + +<p>"Not I," his friend answered. "I'm too sleepy, for 'tis confoundedly +fatiguing to be on such polite behaviour for so long."</p> + +<p>"That's true indeed," cried Charles, "and therefore we need recreation +the more." With this he gave a tug at the bell-pull of flowery chintz, +and presently Mr. Daish who had sent the waiters to bed, came yawning to +answer the summons.</p> + +<p>"Daish, bring two bottles of Burgundy like the fine fellow and good +landlord that you are."</p> + +<p>"Yes, Mr. Lovely, certainly, your honour, but I hope your honour will be +careful with the bottles; it would be a terrible thing for the house if +the watch was murdered as they nearly was twice over last week," said +Mr. Daish, crumpling into obsequiousness at the impudence of his +request, and retreating sidelong from the room.</p> + +<p>Mr. Clare, seeing that it was useless to argue Charles out of his +determination, took a seat by the fire.</p> + +<p>"Egad," said Lovely, "what a jealous dog it is, he won't play, but can't +bear to go to bed." Clare gave the fire a meditative poke.<a name="page_105" id="page_105"></a></p> + +<p>"What shall it be, Mr. Vernon? Ecarté?"</p> + +<p>"With pleasure."</p> + +<p>"Or picket?"</p> + +<p>"As you will."</p> + +<p>"Why, then, picket, and if we find we grow too sleepy to count our +sequences, we shall, at any rate, not be too sleepy to trickle dice out +of a box, eh?"</p> + +<p>Charles turned with these words to take some unbroken paquets of playing +cards from a small mahogany cabinet hanging against the wall. The +picture presented was a friendly one as the two men seated themselves at +the card table. The fire was burning brightly and rosy shadows flickered +over the ceiling. The curtains were close drawn and the ample flowers of +their pattern seemed to retain somehow the warmth and the light. By the +side of the grate sat Tony in a high grandfather's chair. He had taken +off his wig and was staring meditatively at the crisp curls, as it +reposed on his knee. The buckles of his shoes spat tiny glints of +flame—red, blue and green. Presently he leaned across to a small +bookshelf and took down some dry inn volume, but the print danced in the +fire-light and very soon he was dozing peacefully, while his wig slipped +to the ground and became a pleasant couch for a large tabby cat to purr +away comfortable hours.</p> + +<p>At the table sat Vernon and Lovely face to face, and the green baize +made a prim battlefield for the debonair antagonists. It was a +meadow-fight viewed from towering Olympus. Here was pasture profitable +enough to some: to others barren as the unharvested sea. No crescent +moon lighted it, no sun parched the fresh greenery whose four tall +candles flickered only to chamber tempests, storms of tapestry, keyhole +zephyrs. At either end were ranged round guineas in wicked little heaps, +and along the borders stood serried packs of cards, shorn of their +meaner numbers as becomes the apparelled duel of picket. These had been +flung contemptuously on to the floor and the survivors lay face +downwards on the table with a new and alluring slimness. Their backs +were so innocent—mere festoons of flowers and<a name="page_106" id="page_106"></a> bouquets of rosebuds; +yet their very innocence only served to enhance the red and black +determination of their faces. How the royal cards reflected in their +appearance the temper of their courts. How sombre-suited went the Queen +of Spades, how pensive seemed her consort, while the savage Ace was hung +with garlands of mourning and sable flowers of Proserpine. The Queen of +Diamonds looked harassed; the Knave had a lean eye and the King himself +seemed peaked and careworn. The Club Court was a swarthy and more brutal +counterpart of the gay Hearts, and the gay Hearts, with ripe dewy +mouths, had yet a certain sly sensuality that bred distrust.</p> + +<p>Then the tournament began. The stacked guineas sprawled in golden +disarray and dwindled and swelled and tinkled to the tune of the game.</p> + +<p>Charles was winning. Five times he had made the grand Repique, five +times the gallant Pique, thrice Capote had taken captive twelve hostile +cards to be redeemed with rippling guineas. Ace, King, Queen, Knave, Ten +came in sequences as month succeeds to month. His hands were palaces for +the abode of many courtiers. They were picture galleries of the oldest +kings and queens in Europe. If he threw away Spades, he took up the red +Hearts for which he longed. If he discarded Diamonds, he gained a lusty +host of Clubs to serve his purpose.</p> + +<p>At last Vernon, who had lost steadily for a pair of hours—six games at +an average price of thirty guineas a game—declared he would fight no +longer against his adversary's good fortune. "Moreover," he added, "so +much counting has set my brain in a whirl."</p> + +<p>"As you will," said Charles, who would have liked to continue with +picket, but could not refuse to give his opponent an opportunity to +avenge himself at another game.</p> + +<p>So they turned to Ecarté.</p> + +<p>And now his fortune deserted him. Each time Vernon dealt he turned up a +King, and Charles began to dread their florid appearance, as some +ambitious minister dreads the veering of his master's favour. Those +kings who had hitherto<a name="page_107" id="page_107"></a> been numbered in his hands in fours and threes, +those puppet kings, had won a new dignity from the only game which +accords them their rightful place at the head of the pack; each one had +acquired, it seemed, a personality that threatened him. Time after time +were his Jeux de Règle defeated by the most astonishing combinations of +ill luck.</p> + +<p>So many times did those confounded monarchs affront him face upwards on +the serene baize that he began to suspect Vernon of being a sort of +gamester Warwick, a maker and unmaker of kings. Indeed, he went so far +as to watch his deals rather narrowly and, being unable to detect +anything amiss, became heartily ashamed of his suspicions.</p> + +<p>It was now five o'clock of a chill morning; the fire had sunk into +ashes, and dawn would soon shoot her icy arrows into the slow-flying +bulk of night.</p> + +<p>Clare was still asleep in the armchair, but presently the stealthy cold +waked him and he jumped up; the candles were guttering away; the +burgundy was drunk; the room smelt stale.</p> + +<p>"Come to bed, Charles," he cried out.</p> + +<p>Lovely, who had lost at Ecarté considerably more than he had won at +Picket, drew back the curtains for answer. The dawn was in the East.</p> + +<p>He blew out the candles one after another, and in the unreal morning +twilight, the aftermath of smoke curled like an outworn pleasure into +extinction save of a foul odour.</p> + +<p>"We have still a grey hour for the dice," said Charles.</p> + +<p>"As you will," replied Vernon.</p> + +<p>The dice boxes were brought out, and the ivory cubes began to dance; +strange fancies assailed Clare as he watched the gamesters; morbid +imaginations, caught from the chilly atmosphere, froze his reason, and +the rattle of the dice acquired a macabre significance. They clicked +like the hoofs of horses on an iron-bound road. Then they were the +castanets of a sinister dance. Soon they were the shaken ribs of Death, +the king of dancers, and at the end no more than a baby's rattle, +insistent, importunate, maddening.</p> + +<p>Charles was winning again.<a name="page_108" id="page_108"></a></p> + +<p>The various faces of the cubes took fantastick likenesses. <i>Two</i> was a +patched beauty, leaden-eyed, pallid, pleasure-doomed. <i>Five</i> was a +skewbald cat and <i>four</i> a plum cake. Six was a ladder to some evil +house. <i>Three</i> was a necklace of jet, <i>one</i> a Pierrot's velvet eye.</p> + +<p>Charles was still winning.</p> + +<p>The irresponsibleness of the dice annoyed Clare. They tumbled and rolled +so gaily and it was mortifying to see a man enslaved by acrobats of +ivory. The bodies, too, with their absurd waists were like women whom +extravagant stays had driven to vomit sweetmeats.</p> + +<p>Charles had won. The casement swung open in the sudden winds of dawn; +the room was tinted with the cold colours of sunrise. The three men +stumbled upstairs disdainful of the morning's gold. A guinea slipped +from Lovely's pocket and tinkled down to the foot of the stairs to +reward the little scullery-maid who was even now yawning on her pallet +upstairs.</p> + +<p>A thrush tuned his melodies against the swift coming of spring, and the +purple leaf-buds welcomed the sun.<a name="page_109" id="page_109"></a></p> + +<h2><i>Chapter the Eleventh</i><br /><br /> +NOX ALBA</h2> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">C</span>HARLES was tempted to deprive himself of sleep for the pleasure of +bedabbling his pale silk stockings with dew, but vanity killed romance +and the fresh light enchanted a still unruffled couch. So he flung his +coat over a chair, and the heavy pockets chinked as they fell back +against the taper legs. His prayers were all to rosy Aurora when the +fragrant linen sheets flowed like water over his parched brows.</p> + +<p>Sleep could not pass the melodious batteries of many birds, and Lovely's +brain had captured something of the time's clarity. The clock has many +secret hours, but those who would know them must follow their slow +pilgrimage wide awake. What castles men build to the pipes of the +morning!</p> + +<p>The world was waking up. Outside the talk of hostlers grew so loud that +the birds fled from the inn yard to the still deserted bowling green.</p> + +<p>Soon he heard the jangle of pails, the swish of mops and from time to +time the sound of a horse's hoof striking the cobbles with a clap. In +the distance a post-horn endowed the air with silver tongues. Charles +followed its course along the London road. He pictured the cumbrous +vehicle swinging in its straps between the black February hedgerows. He +saw the postillions blinking sleepy eyes to the Eastern sun. He saw the +great London road like a tape-measure unfolded from the gilded case that +was London. Already he was at Knightsbridge watching some townbred maid +gathering cresses in the little stream. Now he was spurring the horses +to a fine lather, for he could see the grooms in a black knot by the +<i>White Horse</i> cellars. In a<a name="page_110" id="page_110"></a> trice he was taking the air in St. James' +Street, and then suddenly he was a little boy picking his way through +Westminster mud beside his mother who was carrying a bouquet of violets +to their narrow house near St. John's Church. And now it was winter, and +the sea-coal was burning sullenly: there were no violets, and heavy on +the leaden afternoon he heard the bell tolling in Millbank Gaol. "God +save the poor soul, the marshes will be icy cold to-night," said his +mother, and he knew that some prisoner had escaped.</p> + +<p>"How late your father is," she went on as she opened a cupboard, set in +the panelled wall, to reach for plates and dishes. Then she told him to +get out the candlesticks—beautiful silver candlesticks with swan-like +necks and curious mazy lines around their bases. The candlesticks were +nowhere to be found.</p> + +<p>"Where can they be?" exclaimed his mother, pausing to help in the +search. Then he heard a sigh and was told to ask Mrs. Gruffle, the +landlady, for the brass bed-chamber candlesticks. He rather liked these: +there was always a delightful quagmire of grease in the little plate +where the socket rested—grease that could be moulded into queer little +pliable shapes, with shreds of tobacco stuck around for fur. When he +came back to the parlour, he saw his father with his legs on the bars of +the grate.</p> + +<p>"They had to go, my dear, they had to go," the latter was saying.</p> + +<p>"They were my mother's."</p> + +<p>"I know, I know, but z——ds' You wouldn't have me fail Dicky +Claribut?"</p> + +<p>"But sure they were not worth——"</p> + +<p>"Oons! I pledged my best buckles to him; the candlesticks were for his +gentleman. I'm devilish sorry, my dear, but, 'faith, ’twas not to be +avoided, and here's young Charles! Charles, my boy, never play, or, if +you do, play deep and win."</p> + +<p>"Don't put such ideas into the boy's mind," said his mother anxiously.</p> + +<p>"Oddslife, my dear, be very sure the ideas are there already."<a name="page_111" id="page_111"></a></p> + +<p>"How can you have the heart to persist when you know...."</p> + +<p>"The heart, madam?" interrupted his father. "Let me tell you that the +hearts of the Lovelys are all of a piece—and 'tis cardboard."</p> + +<p>Our hero came to his elegant self with a start and was back in Curtain +Wells with hot eyelids, and thoughts continually racing over the flowery +wall-paper.</p> + +<p>It was not long, however, before he was once more in pursuit of the +past.</p> + +<p>And now he was seated beside his handsome father in a chariot. They were +both in mourning and he thought how well the black frogged riding-coat +became his parent. As for himself, his black sattin breeches set his +teeth on edge as he tried to scratch his knee.</p> + +<p>"Where are we going?" he was asking.</p> + +<p>"To your mother's brother, Sir George Repington of Repington Hall."</p> + +<p>"That's the man whose letters made her cry?"</p> + +<p>"The same, young Charles," said Mr. Lovely, ogling a dairymaid through +his black-rimmed perspective, as the object of his glances shrank into a +hedge, powdered with cow-parsley, and closed her eyes against the dust +of their chariot.</p> + +<p>Then, without any warning, they were driving through a stately park, and +as they turned a corner, Mr. Lovely senior exclaimed "Good G...! A +cemetery indeed!" Charles looked up and saw a field full of small +cypresses with rank grass growing between them.</p> + +<p>His father, who was looking rather pale, signed to the postboy to stop, +and "Charles," said he, "do you go on up to the Hall, knock at the door +and ask for your uncle, Sir George Repington. I'll wait for you here."</p> + +<p>As he set out in obedience to his father he heard him mutter. "This was +the very place. I swear this was the place, and not an apple tree left." +And then Charles diminutive enough in his black suit with miniature +small-sword of cut steel, was asking two enormous footmen in +canary-coloured velvet for Sir George Repington. They looked at him and +laughed.</p> + +<p>"My uncle," said Charles solemnly.<a name="page_112" id="page_112"></a></p> + +<p>And they laughed again, but one of them murmured, 'This way,' and walked +up a very wide and very slippery staircase, while Charles stumped up +behind him. Half way, his sword belt came undone, and the sword +clattered down upon the polished oak stairs with a noise that seemed to +resound a dozen times through the quiet house. As he did not dare to +keep the canary-coloured gentleman waiting, he picked up the toy weapon, +clutched it tight in his left hand and entered a big dark room where a +gentleman with iron grey close cropped hair sat reading in a chair with +a very tall back, his wig balanced upon his toes.</p> + +<p>"What the d——l's this?" asked the grey gentleman jumping up.</p> + +<p>"Your honour's nephew," said the yellow gentleman.</p> + +<p>"Eh! what! leave us, sirrah," and "What do you want?" he said, turning +to Charles.</p> + +<p>Charles could only watch the long furrow over his nose and wonder how +deep it was, when the grey gentleman caught sight of the small sword.</p> + +<p>"Eh! what the d——l! give me that," and snatching the weapon, he broke +it over his knee and flung it into the grate.</p> + +<p>"Please, sir, my father sent me to see you."</p> + +<p>"Who's he?"</p> + +<p>"Valentine Lovely, sir."</p> + +<p>"Good G——! Good G——!" muttered the old gentleman. "And Mrs. Lovely? +Did she send you too?"</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Lovely's dead, sir."</p> + +<p>The grey gentleman looked across the room at a large painting of a girl +in a white dress skipping with a rope of roses.</p> + +<p>"Please, sir," said young Charles, "I think that is Mrs. Lovely."</p> + +<p>"It was, boy; it was."</p> + +<p>"I wish I had known her then," said Charles.</p> + +<p>"Is your name George, boy?" inquired the grey gentleman in a tone that +was half eager.</p> + +<p>"No, sir, 'tis Charles—after the Prince of Wales."</p> + +<p>"A Papist, eh?" said the grey gentleman bitterly.<a name="page_113" id="page_113"></a></p> + +<p>"George was too honest a name for that scoundrel. Well, boy, you can +stay."</p> + +<p>"Please, sir, I'd rather go back to my father," said the boy. "He's +waiting for me."</p> + +<p>"Then go and be d——d," said the grey gentleman, and he walked over to +the window.</p> + +<p>Poor little Charles was left standing alone in the big room. He waited a +moment, but as the grey gentleman did not turn his head, he edged his +way towards the great door. When he reached it, he looked round at his +uncle. The latter was still staring out of the window. The child gave a +puzzled sigh and with both hands succeeded in turning the handle. The +clocks seemed to tick very loudly as he breathlessly closed the door and +set out to descend the wide staircase. The canary-coloured gentlemen +having vanished he could hold on to the balustrade with both hands +without shame. As he crossed the green sunlit lawn, a blackbird flew +into the shrubbery with a shrill note of alarm.</p> + +<p>Then he was in the chariot with his father, and this time he was really +fast asleep.</p> + +<p>And now he was boy and man at once. The picture of the girl with roses +became his mother as he had known her, pale and sad. Then it would +change and become Miss Phyllida Courteen, strangely like his mother; and +sometimes the Queen of Diamonds would be mopping and mowing in a frame +of golden Georges.</p> + +<p>At last these many dancing visions forsook his brain, and he slept a +dreamless sleep, not waking until high noon of a wet and gusty day. When +he reached the coffee-room, he found Mr. Francis Vernon perusing the +latest edition of Mr. Hoyle, and as the weather was dirty, agreed to +give Mr. Francis Vernon his revenge.</p> + +<p>This favour was accorded in the handsomest manner possible and when, +late in the afternoon, the young gentlemen all returned from hunting, +Mr. Charles Lovely owed Mr. Francis Vernon rather more than he could +very easily pay.</p> + +<p>No doubt the latter's success is to be ascribed to his opportune +purchase of the latest edition of Mr. Hoyle.<a name="page_114" id="page_114"></a></p> + +<h2><i>Chapter the Twelfth</i><br /><br /> +WET DAYS</h2> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">I</span>F cards are the devil's playthings, wet days are certainly his select +playtime; and all the days before the Chinese Masquerade were very wet +indeed. The Exquisite Mob returned from the Pump Room remarkably +depressed in spirit. The forenoons passed away in the coffee-houses and +the shops, but in the afternoons when it was wont to exercise itself and +air its modes the stuffy parlours of Curtain Wells became vastly +tiresome.</p> + +<p>The result was that all the young gentlemen played very hard and very +deep and very late, and Mr. Charles Lovely hardest, deepest, and latest +of all. The old gentlemen all found their gout teazed them more +lamentably. Even Beau Ripple grew tired of reading the Epodes of Horace +and the Letters of Tully to his grey Angora cat. The ladies played +Quadrille and talked scandal, while some of them, I grieve to say, +supplied a foundation for much of the gossip.</p> + +<p>Candlelight intrigues flourished, and there were not a few tragedies in +porcelain, when some Sir John Vulcan, returning too soon from his +favourite coffee-house, caught my Lady Venus in too ardent converse with +some young Ensign Mars. Very red grew the gallant Ensign—near as red as +his coat, while Sir John blustered and swore so loud that he almost +cracked the walls with his fox-hunting voice, and my lady Venus +fluttered her fan to the pace of her dainty heart, tinkling out +exquisite little lies as soulless as unreal, but quite as fascinating as +some frail musical box. And the trio acted and declaimed their +time-honoured<a name="page_115" id="page_115"></a> parts to a keyhole audience of lady's maid and +gentleman's gentleman.</p> + +<p>Very diverting the footmen of Curtain Wells found the story that +evening, and very savoury it was voted below stairs—nearly as savoury +as the stewed trotters over which it was related.</p> + +<p>And so the days went by.</p> + +<p>Pitter-pat went the rain on the window-panes, pitter-pat went the cards +on the card tables, pitter-pat went the spoons in the coffee-cups, +pitter-pat went my lady's shoes across the floor to watch for the third +person, pitter-pat went many fans and many hearts.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Courteen decked herself in the rosiest sattins, bade Betty close +the shutters, draw the curtains and light the candles. Then she composed +herself to read the last number of the <i>Prattler</i> until a knock at the +door announced the arrival of Mr. Gregory Moon and Major Constantine +Tarry. Both vowed that their enchantress looked vastly well, and nodded +agreement with her assertion that she believed she had a very fresh +colour, no doubt due to the tonick air of the Wells.</p> + +<p>"It flushes one merely to go upstairs," she declared. "I vow I take as +much exercise in going up and down stairs as I do in taking my morning +saunter to the Pump Room." The climb was euphemistically known as the +Saunter. "Lud, lud," continued the widow, "complexions are droll +things."</p> + +<p>"Monstrous elusive, ma'am," said the Justice rather gloomily.</p> + +<p>"Ha, ha," yapped the Major, "I pickled my skin in the Low Countries."</p> + +<p>"That would be injudicious for a delicate surface. Height, Major," +sighed Mrs. Courteen, "height! How we pine for it. Mortals! Dear! Dear!"</p> + +<p>"I remember I once examined a vagabond who claimed to have been there," +remarked Mr. Moon. "We ordered him a whipping."</p> + +<p>"What became of him?" asked Mrs. Courteen.<a name="page_116" id="page_116"></a></p> + +<p>"I believe he died shortly afterwards. Well! well! Kill or cure! Kill or +cure!"</p> + +<p>The widow flashed her white shoulders in an elaborate shudder.</p> + +<p>"Talking of kill or cure," exclaimed the Major, jumping up, "did I ever +repeat my tale of the Hessian captain?"</p> + +<p>"Probably," said Mr. Moon mildly.</p> + +<p>"What do you mean, sir?"</p> + +<p>"You are somewhat inclined to repetition, sir."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Courteen hurriedly assured Major Tarry that she for one had +positively never heard it.</p> + +<p>"He did not say 'have you heard my story, ma'am,' the Justice went on in +the calm voice of despair. "He said 'have I repeated it?' I merely +remarked that he probably has—dozens of times!"—Mr. Moon burst out in +the nearest approach to a passionate enunciation that he ever attained.</p> + +<p>"I vow you do him an injustice. Pray tell us the story, Major," and the +widow tapped the sword-arm of the infuriated soldier three times. The +painted chicken-skin fell with so persuasive a touch that the Apple sank +to its normal position and, having turned his back on Mr. Moon, the +Major began his tale.</p> + +<p>"Well, Madam, you must know that in the year ... but before I tell this +story, I should like to give you some idea of the disposition of his +Majesty's forces."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Courteen sighed. She knew what giving an idea of the disposition of +the forces meant. It was useless to protest however, for the Major was +already marching round the room in search of appropriate furniture.</p> + +<p>He instantly declared that Mr. Moon's chair was necessary to the +illustration.</p> + +<p>"Pray excuse me, sir!" he rapped out.</p> + +<p>The Justice, with a reproachful glance at Mrs. Courteen, moved +ponderously to the couch.</p> + +<p>"Well, Madam, here are Thistleton's Dragoons," and he gave a twist to +the chair as he spoke.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes! Very droll!" said Mrs. Courteen.</p> + +<p>"Here," the Major continued, seizing another chair<a name="page_117" id="page_117"></a> and planting it +vigorously down by the couch, "here is Buckley's Foot."</p> + +<p>"Mine, sir," said the Justice.</p> + +<p>"Your what, sir?"</p> + +<p>"My foot, sir, not Buckfeast's."</p> + +<p>The Major withered his rival with an eloquent silence.</p> + +<p>"Here am I," he said, snatching from the mantelpiece a diminutive +Worcester shepherdess and placing it between the two chairs.</p> + +<p>The widow gazed anxiously at the pastoral soldier. It belonged to the +owner of the house.</p> + +<p>"Here is Tournai. You'll pardon me, sir, but I should be obliged if you +would hand me the couch," said the Major fiercely.</p> + +<p>The Justice moved wearily to the window-seat. That, at all events, was a +fixture, he reflected gratefully.</p> + +<p>After much exertion Tarry succeeded in moving the couch in front of the +door, so that if the piece of furniture in question was a poor +representation of what it was intended to convey, it certainly made of +Mrs. Courteen's front parlour something very like an impregnable +fortress.</p> + +<p>"I should be glad to give you some idea of the enemy's earthworks," said +the Major with a covetous glance in the direction of the chintz +window-curtains.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Courteen's fleeting expression of dismay warned him to prune the +luxuriance of his examples, and as at that moment a tap at the door +necessitated the instant surrender of Tournai to admit Mrs. Betty +farther operations were stopped. Moreover the sudden capitulation +involved the fracture of the Worcester shepherdess which, as Mr. Moon +sardonically supposed, served to illustrate the point of the story.</p> + +<p>"You're killed, Tarry; you're dead as mutton. I doubt a cure is +inconceivable."</p> + +<p>Betty held a note in her hands.</p> + +<p>"From Bow Ripple," she whispered excitedly.<a name="page_118" id="page_118"></a></p> + +<h2><i>Chapter the Thirteenth</i><br /><br /> +MONARCHY IN ACTION</h2> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">M</span>RS. COURTEEN scarcely believed Betty spoke the truth. Never could she +remember such a gigantick wave of elation as swept over her on receipt +of the Beau's letter. Yet, without a doubt, it was true. There was the +royal notepaper and, as she reverently examined the outside, there was +the river of the house of Ripple meandering in regular curves through +meadows of sealing-wax. She marked the colour—lilac—as if faintly to +adumbrate the imperial purple of Rome. Moreover, the sprinkled sand, a +few particles of which still adhered to the surface, smelt of Courts. +There were years of authority between the lines of the graceful +superscription; the very "C" of the Crescent bellied in the breeze of +Royal favour. Major Tarry and Mr. Moon regarded her with an expression +compounded of jealousy and respect. Who was this woman, this +correspondent with monarchs?</p> + +<p>"Pray excuse me, neighbours," murmured the widow, sinking into a chair. +The seal crackled musically as with smooth forefinger and shapely thumb +she gently withdrew the diaphanous paper from its waxen prison; so must +the golden bough have sounded to the touch of Æneas.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="r">T<small>HE</small> G<small>REAT</small> H<small>OUSE</small>, C<small>URTAIN</small> W<small>ELLS</small>,<br /> +<i>February</i>,</p> + +<p>M<small>ADAM</small>—<i>I shall do myself the honour of waiting upon you this +afternoon at half-past Four o'clock in order to the discussion of +an Affair of the gravest moral Importance.</i></p> + +<p><i>In expectation, Madam, I subscribe myself,</i></p> + +<p class="r"> +<i>Your obliged Servant, </i><br /> +H<small>ORACE</small> R<small>IPPLE</small>. +</p></div> + +<p>"Gemini!" cried Betty, "the Bow will be here in fourteen ticks."</p> + +<p>"Gentlemen," said Mrs. Courteen with that stateliness which follows from +intercourse with Princes, "gentlemen, I must beg to be excused."</p> + +<p>The Major and the Justice solemnly advanced and, having kissed the +outstretched hand, moved sadly from the room. As they went downstairs +the former mused on the unrepeated story of the Hessian Captain, while +the latter vowed to insert a supplementary chapter to his great Essay on +Peace which should deal with the self-esteem of retired Majors. With +similar thoughts no doubt Mr. Oliver Goldsmith went home from that +famous dinner when General Oglethorpe, at the instigation of Dr. Samuel +Johnson, spilled the Port on the bare mahogany board in order to draw a +plan of the Siege of Belgrade. At any rate, old Mr. Hardcastle talks a +great deal about that famous beleaguerment in the witty and diverting +farce of <i>She Stoops to Conquer</i>. Mrs. Courteen tremulously sought her +toilet-glass. 'An affair of the gravest moral importance.' Powder +judiciously distributed removed any implied indifference in the +freshness of her widowed cheeks. Paleness and morality were certainly +akin. As for her lemon sack, Betty vowed she would find nothing more +becoming to the unique occasion.</p> + +<p>A dignified knock at the front door put an end to any longer hesitation, +and Mrs. Courteen, like the Queen of Sheba, presented herself +immediately.</p> + +<p>The Great little Man was pacing the carpet of the front parlour, but at +the widow's entrance he turned on his heels with a low bow.</p> + +<p>"We are quite alone?" he inquired.</p> + +<p>"Solitary indeed," replied the lady. Surely, surely he could not be +contemplating an offer of marriage. Yet certainly such might well be +described as an affair of the gravest moral importance. If weddings were +not moral, what would become of our weak humanity?</p> + +<p>"Madam," said the Beau. "'Tis only after long thought and exhaustive +research among the social archives of Curtain<a name="page_120" id="page_120"></a> Wells: 'tis only after a +complete examination of my glorious predecessor, Beau Melon's notes on +the amenities of Polite Cures in which he calls attention with a red +cross to the special difficulty of tendering advice to perplexed +visitors, that I am resolved to inform you of a fact which may distress +your maternal heart, complicate your domestick arrangements, disturb +your apprehensive piety and not inconceivably lend to-morrow's goblet a +very wry flavour. Madam, your daughter is in love."</p> + +<p>The widow raised two anguished hands, but Mr. Ripple continued:</p> + +<p>"When I say in love, madam, I say so because I am not so cynical of +maiden humanity as to suppose that she would sit in vivacious discourse +with a young gentleman for the space of one hour and a half measured by +the frequent chimes of the publick clock unless she were in love."</p> + +<p>"You cannot mean this," palpitated the unhappy mother. "Say you cannot +mean it!"</p> + +<p>"Madam, I am not used to devoting so much valuable time to the +preparation of circumstantial falsehoods. Your daughter is in love."</p> + +<p>"But she is so young," protested the widow. "Not more than fifteen or at +the most seventeen."</p> + +<p>"To you, madam, deaf to Love's alarms, for evermore protected against +his showered darts, such precocious ardour must appear improbable, but I +have proof of its existence."</p> + +<p>"Malicious tongues! The world is so censorious. It would destroy the +reputation of the mother by insinuations against the virtue of the +child."</p> + +<p>"Madam, pray allow me to narrate the unhappy but indisputable facts of +the affair. You must know that it is a part of my duties—a pleasant +part, if I may say so without undue want of reserve—to inspect Curtain +Garden from time to time. You will recollect that this forenoon we +enjoyed for two hours a glimpse of the sun. Having been kept indoors +during the last two or three days, I determined to seize the balmy +occasion and perform my rural duties. I observed that the spring bulbs +were remarkably forward.<a name="page_121" id="page_121"></a> I noticed with pleasant anticipation of summer +saunters that the paths were in good order, the gravel free from weeds. +From the main Promenade I turned into the Maze."</p> + +<p>The widow started.</p> + +<p>"The yew hedges were neatly trimmed and I noticed some very good +examples of topiary; I may mention in particular the transformation of +the old Noah into a peacock whose tail will doubtless gain a more +vigorous plumage from the warm weather. I wandered along contemplating +the various greens of the mosses that adorn the path and muffle the +footsteps in a manner extremely suitable to the decorous quiet of the +surroundings. During my saunters, I delight to rest my mind with the +recitation of the Odes and Epodes of my poetick and pre-Christian +namesake. I was embarked upon the apostrophe to Lyce:</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry" style="font-style:italic;"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Nec Coæ referunt jam tibi purpuræ</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Nec clari lapides tempora, quæ semel</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Notis condita fastis</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Inclusit volucris dies.</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>"I had got so far, but egad! I could get no farther for the life of me. +I repeated the last four lines, and in my attempts to catch the +fugitive—Ah!" cried the Beau, "I have it!"</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry" style="font-style:italic;"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Quo fugit Venus? Heu quove color? decens</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Quo motus?</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p class="nind">or to paraphrase with an extempore couplet,</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry" style="font-style:italic;"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Where now is fled thy beauty? Where thy bloom,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Those airy steps that charmed th' expectant room?</span></td></tr> +</table> +<p>"To continue, however—this elusive sentence made me lose my direction +and I found myself removed from the centre of the Maze by an +impenetrable hedge of yew. I was about to retrace my steps when I heard +voices on the other side of the hedge. It was a duet, madam—man and +maid, flute and bass viol, fife and drum, describe it how you will."<a name="page_122" id="page_122"></a></p> + +<p>"Did you recognize the voices?"</p> + +<p>"Madam, I did not."</p> + +<p>"Then how—since you were not able to see over the tops of the hedges +without——"</p> + +<p>The Great little Man drew himself up.</p> + +<p>"Madam," he said, "I regard the physical exertion of bobbing up and down +as ungenteel."</p> + +<p>"Then how do you——?"</p> + +<p>"Because on retracing my steps I passed your maid in an attitude of +vigilance and exactly one hour and a half later I saw Miss Courteen and +the aforesaid maid leave the Garden; and vastly well she looked, madam."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Courteen asked why Mr. Ripple did not interrupt them. "'Twould +surely have frightened them out of love-making for ever."</p> + +<p>"Madam, if I am a king, I hope I am also a gentleman."</p> + +<p>"I will call the hussy and you shall reproach her, Mr. Ripple."</p> + +<p>"Madam, that is precisely what I am anxious to avoid. On former +occasions my interference has proved futile and I cannot allow my +counsel to be exposed to contempt. In confidence let me tell you that +the last three elopements which I tried to stop were all successfully +carried through, and I hear that the parties have lived very happily +together ever since. I have vowed not to accept again the +responsibleness of a prophet. My glorious predecessor, Beau Melon, +mentions several instances of his advice being neglected without any ill +effects and notes that it is probably injudicious to interfere unless +compelled by the prospect of a duel. Let me read you his comments. +'<i>Elopements. Tell the father. D—— n Miss. She won't listen. Fool for +your pains. Fifteen times bitten—shy for evermore. Bodies more +important than souls in Curtain Wells.</i>' An ill-constructed sentence, +madam, but nevertheless full of truth."</p> + +<p>"Then what do you advise me to do?"</p> + +<p>"Madam, I should recommend you to pay less attention to your own heart, +and give the most of your care to your daughter's."<a name="page_123" id="page_123"></a></p> + +<p>The widow rose in a state of extreme agitation and rustled about the +room to the hazard of all ware under a certain stability. Such a +reproach from Mr. Ripple was more than she could bear politely.</p> + +<p>However, presently she caught her placket in the wanton arm of a chair +and after a short struggle capitulated to stillness.</p> + +<p>She began the catalogue of her natural virtues. "I vow the child has +been reared on the Church Catechism, she was for ever learning collects, +texts, parables, miracles, question and answer, sermons, homilies, and +aspirations. If I had been allowed my own way with her education, she +would have led a life of Sundays; but the late Mr. Nicholas Courteen her +father and my husband swore the child's intelligence was become like a +Crusader's tomb, scrabbled over with pious nonsense ill-digested and +ill-writ. Have I not warned her a hundred times that gentlemen do not +love the gawky charms of a hoyden? Have I not repeated to her the +history of half a score seductions? Am I to blame? Don't I keep a maid +to look after her? What else has that hussy to do? I ask you, Mr. +Ripple, what else?"</p> + +<p>"Upon my soul, ma'am, I don't very well know," murmured Mr. Ripple.</p> + +<p>"Nothing, sir, nothing, save to dress and undress me twice a day, give +an eye to my gowns and arrange my toilet table. Apparently they think +that I should—" The widow broke off to ring violently for Betty in +order to reproach her with a careless supervision of Phyllida.</p> + +<p>Mr. Ripple seized the opportunity to make his farewells. He swore to +himself that nothing should induce him to remonstrate again with a +careless mother. He would say a friendly word to the child herself.</p> + +<p>The widow thanked the Beau for his advice and promised to be mighty +severe with Phyllida.</p> + +<p>"Not if you will be warned by me, madam. No, no, I beg you will not +think it was to urge severity that I made you this visit. No, no, it was +merely to suggest prudence. Your humble servant, madam."<a name="page_124" id="page_124"></a></p> + +<p>"Your very devoted, sir."</p> + +<p>The widow curtsied the Beau out of the room, and, having heard the front +door closed, she watched in prim disgust for the entrance of Betty.</p> + +<p>That young woman presently came into the room.</p> + +<p>"Well, vixen!" said the widow.</p> + +<p>"La! ma'am, what is it?"</p> + +<p>"Well, gypsy!"</p> + +<p>"Not a drop in my family, ma'am, and that's more than some of the +cottage-folk near by can say."</p> + +<p>"Well, little Impropriety, what excuse have you to hand?"</p> + +<p>Betty asked what Impropriety meant.</p> + +<p>"Would it be stealing you mean, ma'am?"</p> + +<p>"Well, Madam Indecency!"</p> + +<p>Betty suddenly saw the widow's amber petticoat gleaming through the +unfastened placket.</p> + +<p>"Dear love and barley breaks! However did I come to leave that undone! +Never mind, ma'am. 'Tis not as if he'd caught a sight of your smock, +though for my part I should not be afraid to show clean linen to any +man, Bow or whatsoever."</p> + +<p>"'Tis not to talk of plackets that I called you, hussy, but of +packets—love-packets, notes, letters, assignations."</p> + +<p>Betty began to understand. She remembered how they had met Mr. Ripple +that morning in Curtain Garden, and at once connected the two incidents.</p> + +<p>"'Twould be about this very forenoon that you are talking, ma'am?"</p> + +<p>The widow was surprized. She had expected an impregnable barrier of mock +stupidity.</p> + +<p>"It would," she answered severely.</p> + +<p>"Well, there now! And if I didn't say as ’twas very wrong, but indeed, +he was so genteel and made such very grand bows that I didn't think as +'twould be kind to refuse him."</p> + +<p>"Refuse him what?"</p> + +<p>"Why, direction, ma'am, for the handsome poor soul was lost in the Maze. +He was just twirling around from<a name="page_125" id="page_125"></a> North to South like the weathercock on +the old Parish Church at home."</p> + +<p>"Does it take an hour and a half to direct a man out of a shrubbery?"</p> + +<p>"No, indeed, ma'am, but hearing we was from Hampshire, he fell a-talking +and said as when he was last there he was staying with my Lord Senna at +Camomile Hall, and was bosom friend of Mr. the Honourable John Squills."</p> + +<p>The widow grew interested. The latter had once attended a hunting +breakfast at Courteen Grange.</p> + +<p>"And what was the loquacious gentleman's name?"</p> + +<p>"Ah there! indeed, ’twas wrong of me, but if I didn't go and forget to +axe him!"</p> + +<p>"Idiot!" said Mrs. Courteen, "and where does he lodge?"</p> + +<p>"He intends to post to Bristol Well to-night."</p> + +<p>"Is this true?"</p> + +<p>"La, dearest ma'am, how does I know. But he spoke as though ’twas."</p> + +<p>"You are a pair of simpletons. Lud! you might have been ravished and no +one the wiser. I doubt you both deserve a whipping."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Courteen dismissed the subject and turned to survey the ravages of +emotion on her own face. Betty retired to warn her young mistress.</p> + +<p>The widow was considerably vexed. Vain woman as she was, she was not too +dull to perceive that the Beau's complaint of her daughter levelled an +indirect reproof at herself. The late Squire Courteen, a-man of +plethorick habit and a good seat, had broken his neck over a five-barred +gate more than seven years ago. Some said his recklessness was too +deliberate. Certainly the week before, young Mr. Standish had left the +neighbourhood in a great hurry. Moreover when the Will was read it +appeared that a codicil had been added the day before the Squire died by +which his lady had forfeited every halfpenny of his money if she married +before her daughter and by an ingenious stroke did the same if she +failed to find a husband during the ensuing six months.<a name="page_126" id="page_126"></a> Farther, a +provision was inserted that this husband must be ten years younger than +herself. It was all very much complicated and extremely malicious.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Courteen fanned herself reflectively. She was perfectly happy in +the ridiculous attentions and elderly gallantries of Major Tarry and +Justice Moon. At twenty-nine she had still possessed enough florid +beauty to excuse her ill-spelled love-letters. Moreover, she had a +husband and was safe sport for young gentlemen who lost the hounds +somewhat early in the day. When she was widowed, most of her attraction +vanished. She grew fat and had to content herself with middle-aged +suitors for whom she became a placid ideal on the dull journey of their +lives. Mrs. Courteen continued to fan herself.</p> + +<p>That absurd codicil drifted across her thoughts. If Phyllida married she +was condemned to poverty or a young husband. Yet, after all, Moon or +Tarry had enough—not much, but enough; but then both firmly believed in +the annuity. The bitterness of her husband's dying jest stung her for +the first time. What a fool she would be made to seem! Certainly +Phyllida must not be allowed a wedding; that was the solution.</p> + +<p>How fatiguing solutions were, to be sure! She felt quite vapoured. At +any rate she would look after her for the future. If she had a gallant +he should be discovered. If Betty's tale were true, why, prevention was +better than cure.</p> + +<p>"Alas!" sighed the widow. "I shall play indifferent well and yet—no +matter. Perhaps I shall hold Spadille every hand of the game." Wafted by +this pleasant hope, the widow sailed upstairs to assume the scarlet and +black gown and the spade-patch which she wore to propitiate the cards; +also to embellish her fingers with rings; also to trim her nails to a +perfect curve and polish to whiteness the peering moon at their base. To +such cardboard emotions was this lady come whose husband broke his neck +out hunting.<a name="page_127" id="page_127"></a></p> + +<h2><i>Chapter the Fourteenth</i><br /><br /> +MONARCHY IN REPOSE</h2> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">O</span>N the following morning after breakfast Mrs. Courteen produced a strip +of faded rose ribband.</p> + +<p>"Try to match this, child," she said to Phyllida.</p> + +<p>"But mamma, 'tis not possible. The silk is old," expostulated the +daughter who was dressed and ready to take the air.</p> + +<p>"Nothing is impossible, child," generalised the widow. "Do your +best—all that is required of human beings. You may take Thomas with +you."</p> + +<p>"But mamma, I don't want Thomas. I would rather take Betty."</p> + +<p>"People can't always take what they desire in this world, and a very +good thing too," remarked Mrs. Courteen, "for the world would be a +wickeder place if they could. Betty must stay and help me."</p> + +<p>The widow was determined to begin the supervision of her daughter +recommended by Mr. Ripple. It was the old story of Sisyphus and the +Stones, of Tregeagle and the Thimble; as mischievous spirits are kept +occupied in Tartarus, and condemned for ever to the performance of the +impossible, so was Phyllida to be kept from the temptations of idleness, +in order to save, if not her soul, at any rate her reputation.</p> + +<p>The widow apprehended that obedience would be more easily secured by +guile than the direct imposition of a command.</p> + +<p>Miss Phyllida Courteen went out that morning with a sullen little frown +above her charming little nose, and walked so fast that Thomas was hard +put to keep his proper distance<a name="page_128" id="page_128"></a> behind her as he continued to mutter, +'How long, O Lord?' with many a dolorous wheeze and mortified grunt.</p> + +<p>In and out of a dozen haberdashers they went. All the young women behind +the counters were very polite and amazingly hopeful, but when they came +to pull out the long drawers filled with ribbands of every size and +colour, they could only produce the gayest pinks, the most brilliant +shades of rose, and though they continued to be very cheerful and +persuaded themselves and their rather petulant customer that the match +was as near as could be expected, they were quite unsuccessful, and the +ribbands were put back in the drawers to await a less exacting +purchaser.</p> + +<p>Finally Phyllida, turning out of the tenth shop, heard St. Simon's clock +strike eleven. It was a moderately fine morning, and she knew her beau +was at that moment turning into Curtain Garden. She stamped her foot +with vexation and disappointment.</p> + +<p>"Oh Thomas, Thomas! was ever such a mad errand before?" complained his +mistress.</p> + +<p>"Velvet! Vanity! and a-whoring after strange silks," groaned Thomas.</p> + +<p>"Thomas," said Miss Courteen in her most engaging voice, "you would do +anything for me?"</p> + +<p>"With God's help," agreed the footman.</p> + +<p>"And you'd do a great deal for a shilling-piece?"</p> + +<p>"To spite Beelzebub," said Thomas.</p> + +<p>"Then, Thomas, step down to the Western Colonnade, make my compliments +to Miss Sukey Morton, say I hope she is better of her cold, and will she +give Miss Phyllida Courteen the pleasure of her company to Mrs. Pinkle's +Conversazione. But perhaps you'll forget that long message?"</p> + +<p>Thomas replied in accents of unctuous solemnity:</p> + +<p>"Better of her cold and quite recovered."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but there's more."</p> + +<p>"Waste not, want not," he answered severely.</p> + +<p>"Oh Lud! I suppose I were wise to write it down," with which Miss +Courteen tried the eleventh haberdasher.<a name="page_129" id="page_129"></a> The pinks were just as light, +the carmines as crude and fresh as ever.</p> + +<p>But at the opposite counter it was possible to buy the most agreeable +paper; so Miss Courteen bought a quire, and also a box of wafers marked +with a laurel-wreathed C. Then she borrowed old Mrs. Rambone's +crow-quill pen with which the accounts were made up every evening in the +little back parlour, and Miss Lettice Rambone politely cleared a corner +of the counter and brought out a standish, while Phyllida put her +swansdown muff on the chair because, though it was high enough to pull +about haberdashery, it wasn't high enough for writing letters. After +much arrangement, she wrote:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"M<small>Y</small> D<small>EAREST</small> M<small>ISS</small> M<small>ORTON</small>,—<i>I hope you are better of your cold. I am +truly anxious that you should come and see me this afternoon at +four o'clock on a matter of great importance. I am truly distressed +by a most unlucky Event. I doubt my dearest Sukey can guess what +disturbs her.</i></p> + +<p class="r"><i>Ever affect. and truly devoted</i> <br /> +P<small>HYLLIDA</small>.</p> + +<p>P.S. <i>Pray come</i>.</p> + +<p>P.P.S. <i>I saw a Red Coat not unknown to a certain young lady now +resident at Curtain Wells. The said Red Coat made a most polite +bow</i>."</p> + +<p class="r"> +Ph. C.</p></div> + +<p>Then Phyllida sealed the note with one of her new wafers, and Thomas +unscrewed the knob of his tall stick and put the note inside and the +shilling-piece in his waistcoat pocket and marched away down the High +Street, while Phyllida rushed off with her muff held up to the East wind +which was quite cold when one was walking so fast. For the Western +Colonnade, you turned to the right, but if you were going to Curtain +Garden, you turned to the left, and Phyllida turned to the left.</p> + +<p>She had to pass the end of the Crescent on her way, and hurried past, +afraid for her life to see Mrs. Courteen sailing round the corner. She +was now outside the Great House,<a name="page_130" id="page_130"></a> and could not help looking up to the +big bow-windows to see if Mr. Ripple was there. There he was, very calm +and very dignified, but a little out of focus because his windows all +had such very thick glass. She caught his eye, and the Great little Man +smiled at her. She smiled back and blushed, thinking of the meeting of +yesterday. Suddenly the window shot up, and Phyllida turned her head to +see the Beau beckoning. She stopped in dismay, while Mr. Ripple, having +first spread his handkerchief on the sill, leaned out to speak to her.</p> + +<p>"Pray pardon this ungenteel summons, my dear Miss Courteen, but if you +would not consider yourself compromised by such an adventure, I should +be vastly honoured by your inspection of some proper new prints which +have fallen into my hands."</p> + +<p>Miss Courteen was overwhelmed by this invitation. What could she do but +murmur assent?</p> + +<p>The Beau, with a delightfully suave gesture, hurried to open the front +door for Miss Courteen who tripped up the dazzling white steps, all +swansdown and blushes.</p> + +<p>Mr. Ripple begged her to follow him upstairs to the drawing-room and be +seated before the fire.</p> + +<p>It was a fine high room of good proportions, with three large +sash-windows and a wrought-iron balcony running along the breadth of the +house. The walls were panelled and painted white, and the floor was +stained and varnished to a glaze of immense brilliancy. The rugs +scattered about it were Aubusson, of rare hues in fawn and puce and +faded lavender and old rose interwoven with queer dead greens. There +were several prints on the walls, mostly after Watteau and Fragonard. +The whole room wore the indescribable air that is only to be found in +the house of a bachelor of comfortable means, good taste and a certain +age. There was no trace of a woman's hand in its arrangement, and yet +one felt that the owner, through long seclusion from the other sex, had +softened towards it with the years until, secure at last, he was able to +admit a feminine cirrhus into the limpid and rarefied air of his remote +celibacy.<a name="page_131" id="page_131"></a></p> + +<p>Phyllida, as she watched the firelight ripple in orange wavelets across +the surface of the blue and white Dutch tiles set on either side of the +hob, wondered what the Beau meant by this sudden invitation.</p> + +<p>Just then he begged to be excused for a moment while he fetched the +portfolio containing his new purchase.</p> + +<p>She heard the door gently closed and looked round the room.</p> + +<p>How tall and white it was, just like Mr. Ripple's hand, smooth and white +and exquisitely shaped. Outside, the grey weather mellowed the ivory of +the room. There was a curious stillness as of frost, and she watched the +reflection of the fire leaping in opalescent miniature about the high +windows. There was a new spinet, set at an angle to the rest of the +furniture, in a case of light-coloured wood, painted with cupids, +zephyrs and roses, all waxen-pale. The tall, quiet chamber began to +depress her spirits, so that she felt compelled to strike the extreme +treble note of the spinet which through the stillness rang out like the +unwonted pipe of a bird in a hot August woodland.</p> + +<p>At last, Phyllida, whose whole body was beginning to tingle with the +effort of waiting in such breathless quiet, heard some one coming +upstairs. Gog, the Beau's diminutive negro, entered with a silver tray; +on which small and shining lake swam coffee cups like swans or fairy +shells. The Great little Man followed close upon the dusky heels of his +squire and soon Phyllida found herself sipping her coffee in easy +conversation with the King of Curtain Wells.</p> + +<p>"Do you know the, Maze? he was asking.</p> + +<p>"Oh yes," said Phyllida.</p> + +<p>"A pleasant spot, cool and green."</p> + +<p>"It is indeed."</p> + +<p>"I often sit there," said the Beau.</p> + +<p>"'Tis a pleasant spot."</p> + +<p>"Less fortunate than my poetick namesake, I have no plane-tree there, no +long-buried Falernian; but I am unjust to my time, for, after all, I +have Curtain Garden and Chalybeate that springs from the depths of +earth," continued the Beau, half to himself.<a name="page_132" id="page_132"></a></p> + +<p>Phyllida was not quite sure what he was talking about, but agreed +politely.</p> + +<p>"My dear Miss Courteen," said the Beau suddenly, "may I say something +very abrupt and perhaps intolerably free, but nevertheless something +which I feel ought to be said?"</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, sir," Phyllida replied, wishing devoutly that she was well out +of this tall, white room.</p> + +<p>"My dear Miss Courteen," he went on, "I am a man who knows something of +life on its merely social side. I have been an observer, if I may say +so, a naturalist of humanity. My self-chosen attitude has forbidden me +all passion, save that which is the recognized privilege of an audience. +Of love I am supposed to know nothing, save in that third person whose +company is unwelcome and superfluous. Perhaps my devotion to the <i>Odes</i> +has led me to see too many Lalages, too many Lyces. Perhaps I regard +women too much as roses that bloom, scatter their sweets and die. In a +word, perhaps I am unsympathetick."</p> + +<p>"I don't think you are at all, sir," cried Phyllida, surprized by her +own boldness.</p> + +<p>"Thank you," said the Beau, with the merest hint of a tremour in his +equable voice.</p> + +<p>"But," he went on, "if I regard women as roses, I never seek to pluck +them: most men do. Miss Phyllida, pray pardon a man of some age who +cares more for Youth than he is willing to admit, who is not quite the +phantastick, the fop, the cynick that his subjects make him out. You +know what Shakespeare says: 'Each man in his time plays many parts.' I, +my dear, have remained for more than thirty years faithful to one. That +is why I am considered so eccentrick—well, well, I grow loquacious. My +dear Miss Courteen, it is very unwise to make assignations in the pride +of youth. Assignations belong to the middle-aged, the disillusioned. If +you love a young gentleman, make no secret of it, and let the whole +world join in your happiness; but if it be necessary to love this young +gentleman in Mazes and such clandestine spots, this young gentleman is +not worth so much devotion. Who is he?"<a name="page_133" id="page_133"></a></p> + +<p>"Mr. Amor, Sir," said Phyllida, feeling half inclined to cry.</p> + +<p>"Amor? Amor? I don't know the family. Is it by his wish these meetings +are kept secret? Yes! yes! I know 'tis very romantick and very +rapturous, but, believe me, my dear Miss Courteen, it is not worth the +cost. You must think of your reputation."</p> + +<p>"I do, Mr. Ripple, indeed I do—all the time!"</p> + +<p>"Come, come then, present me to your Amor at the Chinese Masquerade. +I'll talk to the rogue, and egad! we'll have the wedding in June. What +do you say?"</p> + +<p>"I don't think Mr. Amor would be very willing, and I'm sure my mamma +would be monstrous vexed."</p> + +<p>"Nonsense," said the Beau, "nonsense! You won't be happy, till you've +packed yourself into a post-chaise smelling vilely of stale tobacco and +horse-cloths. And when you've found some Fleet Street parson to marry +you, you'll wish for a fine wedding and a bride-cake, and your tenants +cheering and holloaing at the lodge-gates."</p> + +<p>Here the Beau showed himself too unfamiliar with the mind of a young +woman. The idea of eloping had never yet entered that dainty head of +glistening chestnut curls; but from that moment Phyllida began to play +with the notion.</p> + +<p>"Come, come," he went on, "let's have no more of clandestine courtship. +Heiresses and dace both attract by reason of their silver: libertines +and pike have much in common. Moreover, you must think of your mother."</p> + +<p>"I doubt you don't know my mamma very well. She swears I'm but a child, +but I'm not a child, am I, sir?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Ripple put up his monocle and solemnly stared at his fair +impenitent.</p> + +<p>"You are not a very old woman."</p> + +<p>"Besides, my mamma doesn't understand the meaning of love."</p> + +<p>"My dear young lady," protested the Beau, "that is a very common error +with the young. Don't you think that shaded lane once lisped to her +footsteps? Don't you think April once broke as sweet for her?"<a name="page_134" id="page_134"></a></p> + +<p>"Well, if it did," argued Phyllida, "she's forgotten all she ever knew."</p> + +<p>"Come, come, I dare swear she has a secret drawer fragrant with cedar. +Find it, my dear Miss Phyllida, and you'll find many old letters, many +withered nosegays."</p> + +<p>"Indeed, I've searched."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps her escritoire is the heart."</p> + +<p>"'Tis very well for you, Sir, to talk thus, but my parents were never +happy."</p> + +<p>The Beau mentally cursed the pertinacious memories of servants.</p> + +<p>"Then, if that was the case," he went on, "there is the greater reason +for your friends to secure you against such an irreparable misadventure. +Now come, you'll present me to this Mr. Amor? I may not understand all +women, but trust me, I have a tolerable knowledge of men."</p> + +<p>The pale February sun cast a watery beam through the high windows and +Mr. Ripple's face caught an added lustre, was in fact so bright and +kindly that Phyllida promised, subject to Mr. Amor's consent.</p> + +<p>And soon they were both bending over the portfolio of prints—very +diverting prints they were too, caricatures of the foibles of fashion.</p> + +<p>It was certainly very delightful to see tranquil monarch and fervent +maid laughing very heartily together at the most prodigious head-dress +the world ever saw.<a name="page_135" id="page_135"></a></p> + +<h2><i>Chapter the Fifteenth</i><br /><br /> +PHŒBUS ADEST</h2> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HE Coffee-room of the <i>Blue Boar</i> wore a remarkably cheerful aspect on +the evening of the day on which we have seen something of Beau Ripple's +methods. There had been a splendid run from Oaktree Common across the +downs to Deadman's Coppice, where a short check only lent a spice to +that glorious final run across Baverstock Ridge until they killed just +outside Farmer Hogbin's famous barn. And after the death what delicious +musick acclaimed the deed—the baying of hounds, the chatter of maids, +the clatter of horses' hoofs, the guffaws of Lieutenant Blewforth, the +still louder guffaws of Farmer Hogbin mounted on his raw-boned hunter of +sixteen hands, the blasts of the horns, the chink of glasses and the +wind getting up in the South-west, all combined in harmonious delight. +What a splendid ride home it was and how the riders went over each +renowned minute of that for-ever-to-be-famous day. Lieutenant Blewforth +swore he would forsake the sea for the life of a country gentleman, and +everybody laughed when H.M.S. <i>Centaur</i> (so they had named Blewforth and +his steed) shied at a belated calf.</p> + +<p>"Egad! B-b-Blewforth," stammered little Peter Wingfield, "'tis lucky +your stomach was trained on the roaring d-d-deep, for you pitch and roll +like a sloop making Ushant."</p> + +<p>"Ah! my boy," shouted Blewforth, "my pretty sloop don't shy like this +d——d bum-boat I'm pulling."</p> + +<p>How Mr. Golightly of Campbell's Grey Dragoons swore such a run was +better than a frontal charge at the enemy's guns and how young Tom +Chalkley of the Foot stiffened all over and muttered something about the +Cavalry. Indeed<a name="page_136" id="page_136"></a> the only person to look glum was Mr. Anthony Clare who, +though he rode better than any of them and had shown them his horse's +heels all the way, missed Charles Lovely.</p> + +<p>As they walked along the road, fading into early dusk, and heard the +wind sighing in the trim hedges and saw the lights of Curtain Wells +seven miles away, Clare cursed that passion for cards which made a man +forsake the bleak Spring fallows for pastures of green baize.</p> + +<p>But later when the huge cold sirloin that sailed in so sleek, sailed out +like a battered wreck, and when pints of generous Burgundy had coloured +life to its own rich hue, and when Mr. Daish himself had coaxed the fire +to roar and blaze up the chimney, and set out the walnuts and put half a +dozen ample chairs round the fire, Mr. Clare could not resist the +universal content, but must laugh and make merry and relate the events +of the day for the seventh time, with as much zest as any of the +returned heroes.</p> + +<p>Charles had surely been winning: he was so flushed and talked so loudly. +Actually he did not possess a penny, and what was worse, owed Mr. Vernon +a couple of hundred guineas. Not much, but enough when you have only +cloaths to sell, and not a prospect in the world.</p> + +<p>Presently one by one the hunters dropped off to sleep with legs +outstretched and doffed wigs and long church-wardens' pipes, that one by +one dropped from slowly opening mouths, slid along unbuttoned waistcoats +and snapped their slender stems upon the floor, until everybody except +Mr. Vernon and our hero was snoring the eighth repetition of the events +of that famous day.</p> + +<p>The room was hot; the drawing of many breaths thick with fatigue, beef +and Burgundy induced a meditative atmosphere; the fire no longer blazed, +but sank to an intense crimson glow. Mr. Vernon counted up his gains, +while Mr. Lovely pondered his losses in silence.</p> + +<p>At last the latter got up suddenly.</p> + +<p>"The cards?" inquired Mr. Vernon.</p> + +<p>"Not to-night. I think I'll take the air," Charles replied.<a name="page_137" id="page_137"></a></p> + +<p>"As you will," said the other and betook himself once more to his +tablets.</p> + +<p>Charles paused for a moment outside the Coffee-Room to take down his +full black cloak and three-cornered hat. The night wind had brought in +its track a melancholy drizzle of rain that suited his own melancholy +mood. He wandered rather vaguely across the wide inn-yard, passed under +the arch and sauntered along the deserted High Street.</p> + +<p>To tell the truth, Mr. Lovely was very unpleasantly situated at this +period. His father had been the ne'er-do-weel survivor of a long line of +country squires away down in Devonshire. When he had eloped with Miss +Joan Repington, to the eternal chagrin of the young lady's brother, a +rich banker knighted for his loyal support of the Protestant Succession, +Valentine Lovely ran through his own and his wife's fortune in the first +six years of matrimony. Thence onwards they lived a hand-to-mouth +existence, dependent on Valentine's luck at the tables and the +inviolableness of an aunt's legacy of five thousand guineas.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Lovely died, prematurely aged, in the birth of a still-born child, +and Mr. Valentine Lovely and his young son continued to live the same +haphazard existence for another ten years. Charles spent all his time +with his father who in the intervals of drink and play taught his heir +to step a minuet, sing a merry song, and indite a witty epigram; also he +gave him a case of pistols, heavily chased with the Lovely arms, and +lent him the family tree for target. Finally he made him proficient in +the polite use of the smallsword and the dice-box.</p> + +<p>Once, when an early summer made the Bath intolerably hot, Mr. Lovely and +his heir posted down to Devonshire in a crimson chariot putting up at +the <i>Prior's Head</i>, in Danver Monachorum. He spent a week paying +unwelcome visits to the neighbouring gentry who looked askance at the +crimson chariot and still more askance at the degenerate heir of the +Lovelys. Valentine soon tired of so much pastoral exercise and departed +to St. Germain's, leaving young<a name="page_138" id="page_138"></a> Charles in the care of an old stillroom +maid, now a prosperous farmer's wife. The boy spent placid hours in rich +meadows, ate a quantity of scalded cream, and grew out of knowledge in +the six months of his stay. He used to wander down to the park +gates—gloriously wrought-iron gates between massive stone pillars that +bore on each summit a quintett of cannon balls, the reputed trophy of +some seafaring Elizabethan Lovely. There was a picture in the great +hall, of curiously inferior execution, portraying numbers of Devon +sailormen led by a huge-ruffed gentleman with a long peaked beard, +swarming up the towering sides of the galleon <i>Jesu Maria</i>. Charles was +taken to see it when the new family was gone up to London town. He also +saw the great stone swan over the vast fireplace, with the motto of his +house, <i>Sum decorus</i>.</p> + +<p>Later in the autumn his father returned and the old life of lodgings, +inland Spas and long posting journeys was resumed. He had never again +visited that remote Devon village, with its cows and pastures and +dairymaids and famous chronicles.</p> + +<p>Then, just after Charles reached his majority, Mr. Lovely Senior died +quite suddenly, and our hero found himself in undisputed possession of +the interest on five thousand guineas and as much more in cash, owing to +a lucky run by his father in the week before his death.</p> + +<p>Charles now indulged the family vice of throwing money to the dogs and, +having lost the earnings of his father, set about realizing a trifle of +ready money on the five thousand guineas left him by his mother's aunt. +This step brought him into pen-and-ink contact with old Sir George +Repington who wrote him a stern letter of advice, with a postscript +offering him a stool in the Repington bank. Charles was furious and did +not reply.</p> + +<p>About that time he renewed the friendship with Mr. Anthony Clare begun +in that far-off summer away down in Devonshire. The latter persuaded him +to leave London and come to Curtain Wells where for a time he lived +happily enough on his small annuity. However, just before our<a name="page_139" id="page_139"></a> story +opened, he had been hard hit at loo and had raised a thousand guineas by +making over the interest on his inheritance to the friendly moneylender +who advanced the needed sum. On the top of this came his losses to +Vernon, and now he was stranded indeed.</p> + +<p>Therefore the melancholy drizzle of rain suited his melancholy mood. Of +course he could borrow, play again and perhaps win, but if he should +lose he would be in debt to a friend, a position which he disliked. His +father, less scrupulous in this respect, was always content to lay +himself under fresh obligations. To Charles, however, something of the +pride which sustains a great financial house had descended through his +mother and, prodigal though he was, he would never borrow money from a +friend. Of course a moneylender was different, but what security could +he offer? It looked as if he would have to appeal to his uncle after +all. This alternative was thoroughly odious, and Charles racked his +brains to discover a way out of the difficulties into which he was +plunged.</p> + +<p>In such despondent meditation he wandered on until the dancing glare of +two large flambeaux, stuck in iron sockets, caught his attention. He +found himself outside the Great House.</p> + +<p>The project of consulting with the Beau entered his mind, but St. +Simon's struck the hour of ten, and he knew Mr. Ripple would be retiring +to rest, since he was accustomed to preserve his energy on those nights +when he was not called out to preside over an assembly, rout, or +masquerade. At that moment the two flambeaux, as if to proclaim their +owner's withdrawal from the claims of society, simultaneously collapsed +and strewed Mr. Ripple's fair white steps with ashes.</p> + +<p>The sudden darkness betrayed the opalescent windows of the Beau's +bed-chamber. He had neglected to draw the curtains, and on the blind his +suave shadow disported itself in preparation for the night and the next +morning.</p> + +<p>Charles watched the shadow dip giant fingers into monstrous pomade pots. +Now those fast deepening crowsfeet<a name="page_140" id="page_140"></a> were being vigorously rubbed. Now +that swift creasing neck was being smoothed with slow caressing +movements. The wig-block displayed itself in generous shadowy curves. +Now, surely, the shadow's sudden inaction betokened a contemplation of +creeping age.</p> + +<p>"And this," thought Charles, "is the destiny marked out for me by +Ripple."</p> + +<p>He knew if he waited upon him on the morrow, explained his reverses, and +promised amendment, the Beau would one day procure for him the monarchy +of the Wells, but Charles was not inclined to manipulate the strings of +marionettes, himself suspended from a longer cord and dancing for the +amusement of a higher power.</p> + +<p>The incongruity of the situation, disclosed by the Beau's window, +tickled his sense of humour. There was the monarch of an artificial +kingdom caulking his wrinkles like a beldame in search of her youth; +there he was, that despotick king who prescribed Chalybeate as the +Panacea for all earthly ills, in ludicrous terror at the swift flight of +his complexion.</p> + +<p>There he was, no better than the chief eunuch of a Persian harem with +authority over women and the power of lock and key against intrusive +fops.</p> + +<p>Yet he was a kindly man and a gentleman. He was feared and loved, a man +whom the world called successful. Charles himself liked fine cloaths, +found talking pleasant, enjoyed the organization of splendid +entertainments, yet he could not condemn himself to eternal celibacy and +the preservation of his figure. The restriction of such an existence +would be unendurable.</p> + +<p>You will remember perhaps that in our first Chapter we caught Beau +Ripple in undignified pursuit of a button. We agreed how rash it was for +Gods and Goddesses to discover their anatomy to mortals, and here is the +very fact being forced home to Mr. Charles Lovely, an understudy to +divinity.</p> + +<p>Our hero went on his way, fortified against one ambition.</p> + +<p>Presently he passed by the lodgings of Mrs. Courteen as<a name="page_141" id="page_141"></a> the door was +being opened to let out the satellite Moon and the appropriately named +Tarry. The pair of them paused on the steps to ascertain the state of +the weather and discuss the several games of ombre which they had played +for mother-o'-pearl counters.</p> + +<p>"Gadslife!" murmured Charles, "Ombre for counters! Then is great Anna +really dead?"</p> + +<p>The expensive lodgings of the Earl of Vanity towered above him and he +heard my Lord, with a flowered dressing-gown wrapped about his skinny +shanks, d——g his daughter's eyes for being so late at old Mrs. +Frillface's quadrille party. Farther down the Crescent was old Mrs. +Frillface's house, and outside stood two handsome chairs with the +chairmen fast asleep on the cushions, soon to be wakened from the frowsy +damask by Mrs. Frillface's bloated footman.</p> + +<p>And so on past all the lodgings of Curtain Wells.</p> + +<p>There was young Miss Kitcat who was really twenty-nine and single only +because, so they said, no one would marry her since that affair with Sir +Hector Macwrath, the young, Nova Scotia Baronet, more than ten years +ago. To be sure, the matter was never rightly explained, and everybody +excused the poor child because her mother never set her the best of +examples, and as for her father, everybody knew that he thought of +nothing but Mdlle. Dançaboute who had such trim ankles and spent so many +guineas and even wore the Kitcat rubies at a Ranelagh supper-party. So +Sir Hector married the lean heiress of Lord Glew, the chief of the +MacStikkeys, and Miss Kitcat remained young Miss Kitcat for many a long +day. There she was, swaying sleepily to the motion of the chair while +now and then her hair would catch in a splinter of wood as the first +chairman stumbled over a loose cobble.</p> + +<p>There was little Pinhorn whose father was a ship's chandler at Rye, but +had made money as fast as money could be made over the War commissariat; +there he was, strutting home from my Lady Bunbutter's, quite inlaid with +diamonds, and with a swinging fob near as big as his own bullet head.</p> + +<p>Charles gave him a curt good-night as he passed, and<a name="page_142" id="page_142"></a> wondered to +himself how little Pinhorn ever dared challenge Captain Lagge to walk +with him in Curtain Meads. Unluckily the Beau had heard of the meeting +and went to remonstrate with the gallant Captain.</p> + +<p>"What did you say?" asked the Beau.</p> + +<p>"I said I would gladly cut the claws of every harpy on the transport," +answered the sailor.</p> + +<p>"Well, so you may, sir," said Mr. Ripple, "but by Heaven! you shan't do +so here."</p> + +<p>Next morning the Captain had his orders and was shot through the heart +in the Carthagena business. Poor Captain Lagge, he had a wife and a +little maid waiting for him in the prettiest cottage between Pevensey +and Brighthelmstone.</p> + +<p>Charles passed many others whose small histories, could I recount them, +would fill this book to overflowing. For each one he could recall some +unsavoury episode, some mean adventure that made its hero contemptible.</p> + +<p>"Oddslife," thought Charles, "was ever Society so corrupt, so insincere, +so entirely damnable?"</p> + +<p>By this time he was back in the High Street after a long circuit, and +just as he was thinking of crossing the road to reach the <i>Blue Boar</i> +and bed, he noticed a candle was burning in his bookseller's little back +parlour.</p> + +<p>"I'll inquire after the sale of my poems," he decided, and without more +ado hammered loudly on the door of the shop. Presently in answer to his +continuous rappings, a foxy-faced old young man with a premature stoop +and cloaths both squalid and ill-cut, shuffled through the shop and +asked who was there.</p> + +<p>"A mendicant poet," cried Charles.</p> + +<p>"Be d——d," muttered the foxy-faced man, preparing to go back.</p> + +<p>"Come, Mr. Virgin, you'll open to me, Charles Lovely?"</p> + +<p>"Go away, Mr. Lovely, go away. I'm very busy—very busy indeed. I never +remember when I was so busy before, so full of business."</p> + +<p>"So much the better," cried Charles jumping up to<a name="page_143" id="page_143"></a> smite the signboard +that hung over the door till it swung round on its hinges with a rattle +and a squeak.</p> + +<p>"Now don't be rough, Mr. Lovely. I've had the lady's face repainted. +'Tis beautifully done, Mr. Lovely. Do look. Can you see? 'Mr. Paul +Virgin. Bookseller and Publisher. At the Sign of the <i>Woman</i>.'"</p> + +<p>"Pshaw!" said Charles. "Will you open to me, or I'll turn the woman into +a w——!"</p> + +<p>"I suppose you must have your way, but oddscods, indeed I'm monstrous +busy. Oh! Mr. Lovely, I am so busy, you wouldn't believe."</p> + +<p>With this final protest, the old young man slowly drew the bolts of the +door and allowed Mr. Lovely to step inside.</p> + +<p>There was a musty smell in the shop and the shelves of calf-bound +volumes seemed alive in the uncertain flame of the candle. The counter +was heaped high with volumes and on the floor lay gigantick tomes bound +in jaundiced vellum covers.</p> + +<p>Lovely followed the foxy-faced man into the back parlour which in +addition to the general mustiness of the premises had a rank odour of +printer's ink and newly struck proofs.</p> + +<p>"I am so busy, Mr. Lovely. Mr. Antique Burrowes' great work on the +Abbeys of England and Wales must positively appear before the publick +next week; the subscription lists are filled up, and we expect a very +favourable reception, and so we ought, for the woodcuts are beautiful. +Look at this one, Mr. Lovely—this is Glastonbury—the Abbot's Kitchen. +What a place just for one man! Ah! those monks: what bellies they had."</p> + +<p>Charles scarcely glanced at the proof.</p> + +<p>"Very proper," he said, "and what about my poems?"</p> + +<p>"Ah! you always have your joke, Mr. Lovely. That's always the way with +poets—they will have their jokes just when I'm so busy too," said Mr. +Virgin sidling across the room to a shelf full of ledgers bound in +hideous marble boards.</p> + +<p>"How many sold, these three months?"</p> + +<p>"One, Mr. Lovely. One copy. You see it entered."<a name="page_144" id="page_144"></a></p> + +<p>"Who was the purchaser," said Charles with affectation of great +indifference. "Not a lady, I presume?"</p> + +<p>"Ha, ha, you poets—so fond of the women. Singers and poets always like +the women. There was Signor Amoroso, d'ye know him? The famous Tenore, +now singing every night at Vauxhall—he used to buy all my books about +the ladies. But, pray excuse my chatter, Mr. Lovely. I'm sure I oughtn't +to be talking, just when I'm so busy too. Let me see, who was the +purchaser—ah! here it is—it was Miss——"</p> + +<p>"Courteen?" Charles let slip in his eagerness.</p> + +<p>"Ha-ha! ha-ha!" laughed the foxy-faced bookseller, "Ha-ha! You must keep +your love-secrets better than that. No, it wasn't Miss——" he pursued.</p> + +<p>"Oh!" said Charles coldly.</p> + +<p>"It was Sir George Repington—I remember now—he wrote from the North."</p> + +<p>"Sir George Repington?" exclaimed Charles, completely surprized. "Humph! +I wish him joy of my effusions."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no doubt he'll like them or he wouldn't have sent all that way for +them. Well! well! some men are mighty whimsical in their tastes, and +there's no denying that people do read verses."</p> + +<p>"However," said Charles, "I take it the taste is not an extended one?"</p> + +<p>"Well! you mustn't complain. You had two hundred taken by subscription +and half a dozen copies sold to casual purchasers. You won't lose a vast +deal over the publication."</p> + +<p>"No," said Charles, "you wouldn't like that?"</p> + +<p>"No, indeed I shouldn't, sir, I take a pride in the success of my +clients. So did my father, sir, and he became an alderman of this town, +though he was a native of Exeter."</p> + +<p>"I take it, then, you are not prepared to offer a sum of money on +account of a new volume?"</p> + +<p>"Ho-ho!" laughed Mr. Virgin, "what a droll gentleman you are to be sure. +You will have your joke, and don't seem to regard how busy I am."<a name="page_145" id="page_145"></a></p> + +<p>"Very well, sir," said Charles, "I'll wish you a good night."</p> + +<p>"<i>Good</i> night, Mr. Lovely, good night, sir. When I'm not so busy +perhaps, another time, I'll be most happy to talk over +your—ahem—literary projects."</p> + +<p>Mr. Virgin held up the candle to light Mr. Lovely through the shop. The +rays happened to fall on a pile of slim volumes reposing on the counter.</p> + +<p>"What are those?" Charles asked.</p> + +<p>"Ah, 'tis a great pity you can't write verse like that."</p> + +<p>"Poems?" said Mr. Lovely in accents of incredulity.</p> + +<p>"To be sure—poems, but such poems,—lampoons, squibs, and pasquinades. +'Tis a Satire on the characters of the Bath—very scandalous, they tell +me, but oddscods, 'tas run through nine editions in as many weeks. Now, +if your name was Lively, sir, instead of Lovely."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Virgin!"</p> + +<p>"No offence. What I mean is, if you could write something similar about +the visitors to Curtain Wells."</p> + +<p>"You'd publish it?"</p> + +<p>"Well, perhaps that's going too far, but I would give it my very best +attention."</p> + +<p>"Humph! Good night," and Charles went out into the drizzle.</p> + +<p>On his way home, he saw the Exquisite Mob and the Exquisite Mob-master +grouped before a satirist; and very soon he saw them performing their +anticks thinly disguised by initials and asterisks.</p> + +<p>That is how Mr. Charles Lovely sat down to indite</p> + +<p class="c"><i>CURTAIN POLLS</i><br /> + severely lashed<br /> + by a<br /> + <i>Curtain Rod</i>.</p> + +<p><a name="page_146" id="page_146"></a></p> + +<h2><i>Chapter the Sixteenth</i><br /><br /> +THE CHINESE MASQUERADE</h2> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HE Chinese Masquerade was the outstanding event of early Spring at +Curtain Wells. It was the quintessence of refined affectation, the great +fount in which many tributary delights found their source. Moreover, in +its character there was a national significance. It was not held merely +to emphasize the importance of being seriously amused; it was not one of +many entertainments sacred to Epicurus; it did not serve to commemorate +the fleetingness of life; it was no Burial Service with a ritual of +flung roseleaves and spilt wine. The Chinese Masquerade of Curtain Wells +was something far more grand than any of these, being a great national +act of homage to the beverage of Tea. Of old, Bacchus was saluted in +Samothrace, and the festival of wine was celebrated with all the absence +of restraint that might be expected from the past. Nymphs raved, Satyrs +danced, and garlanded leopards jigged to one wild inspiration. Phrenzy +footed it; troop followed troop, broke and dissolved in flashes of white +limbs when Dionysus of the sly smile and rosy cheeks bewitched thousands +with his strange madness. In fact, the whole affair was an intolerable +concession to Nature. At Curtain Wells you saw the centuries at work. +There the Bacchantes were corseted and hooped to primness; the Satyrs +had high red heels for hoofs, silken breeches for the fur of goats. +Instead of velvety leopards that used to amble over tuffets of fragrant +thyme, each with a hussy astride his supple back, went greasy chairmen +in lurching escort of dowagers and misses. Dionysus himself was changed. +He had kept his sly smile and rosy cheeks, but his vine wreaths were +become ruffles and ties,<a name="page_147" id="page_147"></a> while his body glittered, not with youth and +health and immortality, but with paste buckles and brooches and +solitaires. The crashing cymbals of Thrace found a thin echo in the +delicate tinkle of tea-spoons and frail sounds of porcelain. To be sure, +the whole of the difference between the worship of Wine and the worship +of Tea was expressed by the fact that to honour the former, society took +off its cloaths, whereas in order to celebrate the latter, all the world +dressed itself up.</p> + +<p>Mr. Ripple wore above his suit of amber a robe resembling a golden +dressing-gown. He was the Gold Mandarin, decorated with dragons, tall +pagodas, flowers and fireworks. The Blue Mandarin, whose robe concealed +the pearl-grey suit of Mr. Charles Lovely, seemed as he moved across the +room like a blue garden, so many small landskips wrought in azure silks +trembled in the folds of his garment. Only these two officers of the +Pageant were privileged to remain unmasked. The rest of the company wore +yellow vizards whose painted eyebrows soared at a celestial angle over +eyeslits, cut almondwise. The general effect was of animated Ming +laughing, jesting, talking, and dancing with the lacker cabinets that +were used to contain it.</p> + +<p>The ballroom had pagodas in each of the corners where the children of +the Exquisite Mob dressed to a more exact replica<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> of the farthest +Orientals, nodded and peeped and chirped the austere maxims of Confucius +without the slightest idea of their meaning, but all convinced that it +was extremely diverting to partake of a grown-up entertainment, and far +better to drink real tea out of real cups in a delightful palace of +their own, than to play with acorns and ditchwater in the mildewed +Dorick summer-house at the head of the Park avenue.</p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> They wore pigtails, which were considered unbecoming by the +older Follies. Besides, head-dresses were too elaborate to be ruined for +the sake of one entertainment.</p></div> + +<p>Chinese lanterns bobbed on golden wires slung from wall to wall whence +the gilt mirrours with the wax candles of the West had all been removed. +This Eastern light softened the<a name="page_148" id="page_148"></a> mingled hues of blue and gold to a +gorgeous moving twilight stained by the afterglow of sunset. All along +the sides of the ballroom were placed for seats queer twisted animals, +winged dragons, squat bronzes, Chinese geese, monkeys and parrots in +crude shades of green and vermilion, while at suitable intervals were +set little houses to contain two persons. These were intended to +encourage the intimate amenities of polite conversation.</p> + +<p>Outside in the Rococo cloister unknown flowers expanded and curious +fruits ripened by lanternlight; and though the flowers were made of +linen dipped in scent, they served very well to pluck and offer to a +masked fair and as for the fruits, they were all filled with comfits. +Finally, here and there, smoking sandal-wood torches lent a remote +perfume to the Mise en Scène, and curled in scented wreaths about the +motley forms of the masqueraders. To say truth, the Eastern veneer was +more than usually superficial, even for a veneer. The result of the +attempt to secure reality only accentuated the difference between East +and West: still the latter enjoyed making believe so far as it consorted +with true gentility, and it may very easily be understood that nothing +low was permitted by the British Nation in the eighteenth glorious +century of Christian civilization.</p> + +<p>Thia was the first masked ball that had been held since Phyllida grew +enamoured of Mr. Francis Vernon, so she made no doubt he would avail +himself of the opportunity to be present. As soon as the Exquisite Mob +was assembled (at half-past seven o'clock precisely, because it was +considered vulgar to be late) there was a solemn drinking of tea, no +mere handing round of teacups and saucers, but a far more impressive +ritual, invented to mark the occasion with due importance.</p> + +<p>The Gold Mandarin seated himself on an ivory stool whose claw legs were +fretted with diminutive foliage, temples and flying birds. This was set +on a small platform draped with broideries at the foot of which was an +azure velvet cushion where, with crossed legs, sat the Blue Mandarin.</p> + +<p>Mr. Ripple clapped his hands twice to command the<a name="page_149" id="page_149"></a> entrance of the +Procession of Tea. First walked two musicians slowly tapping gongs +shaped like saucers with large spoons. These were followed by six +children with nodding porcelain Mandarins whose tongues trembled in and +out of their surprized mouths. Then came the bearer of the Caddy—a +magnificently decorated specimen of lackerwork. On either side of the +Caddy was borne a Nankin jar full of milk. Finally, a lacker table on +wheels, overhung by a fringed canopy that protected an enormous bowl of +rarest Ming whither odorous vapours ascended from the flowery liquid, +was pushed along in slow and reverend state.</p> + +<p>The company opened its ranks to allow the procession a way until it +stopped before the Gold Mandarin's ivory throne. The Beau at once +descended, dipped a diminutive teacup into the bowl, took three sips and +sighed rapturously. The six porcelain Mandarins were set nodding with +redoubled vigour, gongs boomed from the topmost windows of the pagodas, +and the procession re-formed and passed into the upper room, whither the +assembled company followed it in order to drink in turn from teacups +filled at the sacred fountain.</p> + +<p>In the crush, Phyllida, who was wearing a gown faint blue like the March +sky, felt her sleeve pulled gently by a tall mask in tawny raiment. She +recognized the pointed white fingers and whispered 'Amor.'</p> + +<p>The mask shook his head to indicate silence, but presently Phyllida +succeeded in conveying her cup of tea to the outskirts of the crowd and +hurried through a corridor to a side-door opening into the cloister +where she waited for her lover's approach. In a minute he was sitting +beside her.</p> + +<p>She turned to him delightedly.</p> + +<p>"Dear Amor! This will be the first ball that I shall have truly +enjoyed."</p> + +<p>This statement scarcely did justice to the many pleasant hours she had +spent to the sound of fiddles, horns, and clarinets.</p> + +<p>"Why was my charmer absent yesterday? The Maze was<a name="page_150" id="page_150"></a> prodigiously dull +without the sweet Nymph who loves to haunt its verdurous ways."</p> + +<p>"Oh! Amor, we are discovered."</p> + +<p>"Faith, is that so?" remarked Vernon, without any apparent concern.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Ripple told my mother I was conversing with a gentleman for one +hour and a half by the clock."</p> + +<p>"Interfering dancing-master!"</p> + +<p>"And yesterday I was sent to match a ribband quite impossible to match; +I'm sure ’twas done to keep me employed and when I heard eleven chime, I +could bear it no longer, but almost ran towards Curtain Garden, and on +my way the Beau beckoned me to come in and, pray don't be angry, dear +Amor, he was so vastly kind that I told him your name."</p> + +<p>"Here's a pretty state of affairs," muttered Vernon.</p> + +<p>"He asked me to present you to him to-night, and vowed we should be wed +in June."</p> + +<p>"Gadslife! I hope you sent him about his business?"</p> + +<p>"Not exactly," said Phyllida, "indeed he was so good-natured that I +promised—at least I half promised to do so."</p> + +<p>"Confusion take him," swore Vernon, "for a prating, meddlesome, +tailor-made gentleman. Harkee! I'll not have myself discussed by Mr. +Horace Ripple. I dare swear he patted your hands, eh? called you his +pretty dear, made old man's love, eh? A plague on his impudence!"</p> + +<p>Phyllida shrank from her lover's wrath.</p> + +<p>"Indeed, sir, I vow he did nothing of the kind. He behaved with some of +that propriety for which I could wish in my Amor." Phyllida remembered a +young woman talking something like this in the first volume of <i>The Fair +Inconstant</i>. Vernon could not keep back a smile. "I doubt I'm not +inclined to hear you farther."</p> + +<p>Vernon began to chuckle.</p> + +<p>"And let me tell you, sir, your behaviour becomes you very ill, and +moreover I told him your name, and the milk's spilt, and 'tis useless to +cry over spilt milk as all the world knows."<a name="page_151" id="page_151"></a></p> + +<p>A tear-drop trembled in each corner of Phyllida's eyes, making them seem +more clearly blue, as crystals that surround great sapphires enhance +their beauty.</p> + +<p>"Sweet indiscretion," began Vernon, who having been politick enough to +conceal his true name, could afford to be generous.</p> + +<p>A very faint sob was the sole response.</p> + +<p>"Nay, prithee, dear one," he continued, catching hold of a tremulous +hand, "let's have no quarrels at our first ball; I bear you no malice."</p> + +<p>"I should never have told him, had I been ashamed of you," she +interrupted.</p> + +<p>"Just so, adorable creature, but since we had resolved to keep our +affair secret, and since we were agreed that stolen meetings, like +stolen fruit, taste the sweetest, I was surprized to hear you had told +every one."</p> + +<p>"I did not tell any one."</p> + +<p>"But, my angel, you did."</p> + +<p>"Not until I was forced. 'Tis very well for you. You're a man of fashion +and independence, and I'm a young woman."</p> + +<p>"Incontestable truth!"</p> + +<p>"Now you're being satirical, and I vow I detest sarcasm. Indeed, I think +it has all been a mistake, and I'll go back to Hampshire to-morrow, and +you may go back to your Haymarket."</p> + +<p>"Very well, madam, since you dismiss my suit, I will go back to my +Haymarket. It may be vastly diverting for you, madam, to break a man's +heart. You, secure in the verdant meads and—er—meadows of the county +of Hampshire, you, wandering among fields of daffadillies, at peace, +beneath a summer sun."</p> + +<p>"Daffadillies don't grow in the summer."</p> + +<p>"Alas! madam, I am ignorant of these pastoral delights."</p> + +<p>This was perfectly true since Mr. Vernon's mother was a lady who thought +a bough-pot in Air Street worth the finest estate in the Kingdom.</p> + +<p>"I," he continued, "have lived my life in cities, and<a name="page_152" id="page_152"></a> though I have +often hoped to hear the cuckoo wake me at dawn, 'tis very evident I must +for ever bid farewell to such vain dreams."</p> + +<p>Here, Mr. Vernon, who had inherited considerable histrionick ability on +the female side, contrived to get an effective break into his usually +smooth enunciation.</p> + +<p>"But I don't want to quarrel for ever," protested Phyllida.</p> + +<p>Mr. Vernon turned his head away, probably to hide a tear.</p> + +<p>"For my part," she went on, "I should be very willing to live always as +we are living now."</p> + +<p>"My angel!"</p> + +<p>"But since the world is so censorious and seems to concern itself with +every unimportant young woman's affairs, I thought—I thought——"</p> + +<p>"You thought a wedding would put a stop to scandal. How little you know +the world. Why! madam, a hasty wedding would set people's tongues +wagging at once. Come, come, pay no attention to old Ripple. He knows my +name. If he chuse, he can seek me out. I warrant I shall hear no more +about it."</p> + +<p>"But we shall be watched."</p> + +<p>"Then we'll change our trysting-place. At any rate, prithee, let us +enjoy to-night." Here Mr. Vernon put on his mask and taking off his gown +resumed it inside out. "Do you see, dear charmer, I am both porcelain +and lacker, so that no one will be able to say you prefer the one to the +other. Hark! the fiddles have begun—let's go and step our first gavotte +together."</p> + +<p>Phyllida took his arm and they returned to the ballroom. The vizards +made all the faces appear fixed and wooden and Miss Courteen could not +help looking very often at Mr. Charles Lovely who was sitting +cross-legged on his azure cushion and, in contrast to the rest of the +masquerade, was plainly a man. Once she fancied she caught his eye, and +when he came up and asked her to honour his arm for the third gavotte, +she knew she had not been mistaken. Mr. Vernon silently relinquished his +partner.<a name="page_153" id="page_153"></a></p> + +<p>"Who was your late Vis à Vis?" Charles inquired. "I beg your pardon," he +added as he saw Phyllida hesitate, "my manners grow as barbarick as my +costume."</p> + +<p>He had noticed with devout jealousy that Miss Courteen's fingers reposed +a moment longer than was necessary upon that sattin forearm.</p> + +<p>"How did you discover me?" she asked with frank interest.</p> + +<p>"’Twas not difficult."</p> + +<p>"But masked as I am?"</p> + +<p>"I did not regard your mask—I saw your eyes."</p> + +<p>Phyllida was conscious of a blush and a faint quickening of the pulses, +all over her body. There was certainly something very satisfactory in +such a compliment. It was genuine moreover, for indeed he had discovered +her through the distorted yellow vizard which concealed her roses.</p> + +<p>Presently the dance began, and, though Phyllida liked every moment of +it, she could not help observing Amor, half buried in the greenery of an +alcove and, as it seemed to her, forbidding too keen a pleasure.</p> + +<p>Charles found it difficult to extract from his partner more than the +ordinary small talk of ballrooms, and as she became more and more +absent-minded during the progress of the dance, he let her go at the end +of it without a very valiant attempt to detain her for the next. +Presently he saw her join a blue mask and lose herself in the flickering +throng. Last time he had remarked particularly that her Vis à Vis wore +brown and gold, yet the two figures were alike in movement and gesture +and he could swear the hands were identical. It was the same without a +doubt. Charles bit his nails with vexation, and fretted confoundedly.</p> + +<p>"My dear boy, my dear Charles, pray do not gnaw your fingers. Narcissus +admired himself, 'tis true, but without carrying his devotion to +cannibality."</p> + +<p>Charles turned to the well-known voice of Mr. Ripple.</p> + +<p>"A thousand pardons, dear Beau, I was vexed by a trifle. The masquerade +comports itself with tolerable success."</p> + +<p>"I think so," the Beau replied, adjusting his monocle and<a name="page_154" id="page_154"></a> gazing +critically at his subjects. "I certainly think so, but I am never easy +in my mind until the Grand Minuet has concluded the entertainment, yet +even so, I do not think you will ever find me preying upon my +extremities."</p> + +<p>Charles laughed.</p> + +<p>"They take their pleasures very easily, sir." Again the Beau examined +his puppets.</p> + +<p>"The burden of amusement certainly weighs very lightly on them, and yet, +Charles, I sometimes fancy I detect a shade too much of +self-consciousness in their movements. I could wish for a less anxious +grace, a less ordered abandon. My monocle which diminishes their size, +diminishes their importance; and I must confess that the motion of +dancing, if one regards the Ensemble, appears to me nothing less than +idiotical. However, do not let my cynical attitude prove contagious—I +have watched so many dances."</p> + +<p>"Yet you are willing for me to succeed you," said Charles. "Foregad, Mr. +Ripple, I was never intended for a spectator."</p> + +<p>"I have energy to keep me in office long enough to let you grow older. +Come, come, Charles, admit the career I offer would tempt many more +deserving young men."</p> + +<p>"But I have passions, feelings, desires, ambitions."</p> + +<p>"All very suitable," commented the Beau, "till you grow tired of +versifying life. We write poetry, Charles, in order to improve our +prose."</p> + +<p>"Some men write poetry to the end."</p> + +<p>"Usually a bitter end; but, indeed, I would not goad you into accepting +my offer. Have your dramas, lose your money, expose your heart to Cupid, +commit the thousand and one foolish actions that will afford you a moral +occupation for your middle age."</p> + +<p>"What would that be?"</p> + +<p>"A leisurely repentance."</p> + +<p>"Sir, I think you spin the natural functions into silk like the +silkworm."</p> + +<p>"Well, Charles, and isn't silk a more durable excrement than most? You +are still devouring the tender shoots of the<a name="page_155" id="page_155"></a> mulberry tree; I am +already in the cocoon and shall go down to posterity as a very reputable +moth vouched for by a cenotaph in St. Simon's Church, Curtain Wells."</p> + +<p>"Sir, I doubt they will never say of me 'Vive le roi!'"</p> + +<p>"We shall see, we shall see. By the way, do you know a Miss Phyllida +Courteen? Her mother, a widow whose charms are as ample as her dowry, is +lodging in the Crescent."</p> + +<p>Charles was taken aback for a moment.</p> + +<p>"I believe I have met her once or twice at Assemblies."</p> + +<p>"At any rate, you know her by sight."</p> + +<p>"Oh yes!" replied our hero.</p> + +<p>"Now, I wonder whether you could pick her out from this multitude of +masks."</p> + +<p>Charles at once perceived the subject of the question.</p> + +<p>"She is standing over there by the second pillar and talking to a mask +in porcel—no, in lacker. That's strange."</p> + +<p>"What is strange?" inquired Mr. Ripple mildly.</p> + +<p>"Nothing—a lantern effect," Charles explained.</p> + +<p>Surely he could not be mistaken in those taper fingers. Moreover, they +were familiar to him. Where could he have seen them?</p> + +<p>"So that is Miss Courteen," said the Beau, looking at her very intently. +"Yes, now that you have pointed her out, I certainly seem to recognize +her. Who is her Vis à Vis?"</p> + +<p>"That I do not know," said Charles rather gloomily.</p> + +<p>"Then, pray, be so good-natured as to make an attempt to ascertain and +you'll oblige me monstrously. Or stay—perhaps I had better inquire +myself."</p> + +<p>Mr. Ripple, observing that Mr. Lovely looked somewhat melancholy, patted +him on the shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Don't look so full of disapprobation, Charles. Inquisitiveness, with +ordinary men and women, is a breach of good manners: with kings, it is a +condescension. Dear me! how time runs!" the Beau continued, tripping +from an epigram to a truism. "I will leave you to superintend the +Country Dances. Let them be as Oriental as possible, I beg."<a name="page_156" id="page_156"></a></p> + +<p>With this admonition the Great little Man threaded his way through the +Exquisite Mob.</p> + +<p>Charles d——d the country dances very devoutly. He was not enjoying +the evening at all, and wished he were sitting in the cosy firelight of +the <i>Blue Boar</i>, lulled by the whispers of playing cards, shuffled and +dealt. Where could he raise that two hundred pounds he owed Vernon? +Vernon—by G...! now he recognized those taper fingers. Vernon! they +belonged to Vernon, he could swear to them. Too often had he watched +their delicate harvesting of his guineas. He began to fret more than +ever. Suddenly he noticed that everybody was looking in his direction, +and became aware that time was indeed running and the moment for the +Country Dances had arrived.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile Mr. Ripple searched in vain for Phyllida and a Vis à Vis in +brown and gold.<a name="page_157" id="page_157"></a></p> + +<h2><i>Chapter the Seventeenth</i><br /><br /> +THE GRAND MINUET OF CATHAY</h2> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HE Country Dances of these powderpuff Orientals were so truly +inappropriate to the celebration that they almost succeeded in +convincing by sheer want of fitness. Picture to yourselves two hundred +blue and golden marionettes jigging to <i>Sir Roger de Coverley</i> or +bobbing to <i>Come Lasses and Lads</i>. There was Merry England underneath +this hugger mugger of yellow masks, yet the sustained motion was +decidedly Eastern. Hands across, back to back, right hand, left +hand—each change of attitude was marked by a crashing gong; and he who +sounded this barbarick instrument was Mr. Charles Lovely. He stood upon +a tripod of ebony quite high enough for a hero of comedy, as I am sure +you will admit.</p> + +<p>As soon as his proconsulate was over, he jumped from the pedestal and, +once more assuming our poor humanity, sought desperately for Mr. Vernon +and Miss Phyllida Courteen.</p> + +<p>And now the great ballroom was cleared. The Exquisite Mob refreshed +itself not with chopsticks, but with two pronged forks and stout-handled +knives. Nor was the fare ascetick rice, but pies of mutton, rounds of +beef, custards, gay jellies and dappled puddings. In the ballroom the +attendants busily ran hither and thither in preparation for the Grand +Minuet of Cathay. Four pagodas guarded four corners; little bridges +spanned little rivers of blue silk. There were miniature groves that +shielded queer little Chinese gods and goddesses, while here and there +were temples with crooked roofs, hung round with silver bells destined +to be jingled at set moments of this incomparable minuet. High up near<a name="page_158" id="page_158"></a> +the ceiling among the swinging lanterns one saw the peaked faces of +giant kites gazing benignly down. Finally in the very centre of the room +was a small fountain with a pond all about it of real water, starred +with white water lilies, on the highest jet of which a little god, +inflated by air, jigged to the rise and fall of the water. Mr. Ripple +had not been able to find Miss Courteen and was interrupted in his +search by a call to inspect the scene of the Minuet. Gog was sent to +fetch Mr. Lovely and presently the Gold Mandarin and the Blue Mandarin +were stepping over each bridge, peering from each pagoda, gently trying +the bells, lending a last touch to the rivers of silk and coming to a +standstill in silent admiration of the dancing water-god.</p> + +<p>"I think," said Mr. Ripple, "we may venture to proclaim, the Minuet of +Cathay."</p> + +<p>"I think so," said Mr. Lovely as he cast a quick eye in the direction of +every entrance in turn.</p> + +<p>"I could not find Miss Courteen," said the Beau, "have you had better +luck?"</p> + +<p>Lovely hesitated a moment.</p> + +<p>"No," he said finally.</p> + +<p>The Beau looked at him a moment.</p> + +<p>"I cannot imagine who this Amor can be. He is not down in my list."</p> + +<p>"Amor?" inquired Charles, somewhat too suddenly, "is his name Amor?"</p> + +<p>"So the young lady informed me, when we considered the situation +together. I perceive you know him."</p> + +<p>"Indeed, sir, I am acquainted with no one of that name."</p> + +<p>"I never imagined you were," replied the Beau testily. "'Tis too plainly +a Nom d'amour; but I'll wager you are able to extract a personality from +this pseudonym."</p> + +<p>"Nay, indeed, I——"</p> + +<p>"Very well," said the Beau, cutting him short, "there is no more to be +said," and he turned away to order a burly Oriental who on less +decorated occasions was wont to assist Mr. Balhatchett the butcher, to +sound the gong of invitation.<a name="page_159" id="page_159"></a></p> + +<p>While the huge sullen instrument boomed a diapason that threatened more +than it cajoled, Charles wondered if he had been wise to conceal his +knowledge of Mr. Amor's identity. Ripple had obviously not believed him +and was moreover very sensitive to any concealment on the part of his +subjects. He, as his own subaltern, was especially bound to indulge this +foible. Besides, what good had he done? thought Charles. Not much +indeed, for soon Ripple would certainly find out the whole affair. He +ought to tell him all he knew. Ripple would act for the best and close +the Pump Room against the intruder. It would be kill or cure.</p> + +<p>But just as he was upon the point of informing the Great little Man, our +hero remembered he owed Vernon two hundred pounds. O resolute hero! Be +quick to mount your ebony pedestal or we shall think you no better than +a walking gentleman.</p> + +<p>The Exquisite Mob of crimped and corseted Orientals began to saunter +back from supper, and the debate between honesty and honour was +adjourned to a more meditative opportunity. By this hour of the evening +most of the Masks were tolerably sure of each other's identity, and +though it was an acknowledged custom of the Chinese Masquerade as +opposed to other masked balls that all vizards should be worn from door +to door, the Grand Minuet of Cathay afforded much scandalous talk for +the ensuing days, all the more potent because a convention of anonymity +was sedulously maintained. It was not surprizing that intrigue should +flourish at a dance where half the company was hidden for many moments +at a stretch. The Minuet lasted a whole hour. It reproduced in the +various side-figures many emotions. It was a hundred dances in a grand +Ensemble. The musick was now courtly, now passionate: sometimes it +clanged in barbarick interludes of noise: sometimes but three or four +flutes twittered above the plash of the fountain.</p> + +<p>Over the bridges pattered the dancers: in and out of the diminutive +groves twinkled their scarlet heels. Now a couple swayed in a stationary +boat on a motionless river:<a name="page_160" id="page_160"></a> now at the topmost window of a pagoda, +cambrick handkerchief and painted fan kept time to the tune. The Gold +Mandarin lived in a golden house beside the fountain and, if he chose, +could live a century of sound and perfume in that fragrant hour of +dancing. Far away at the other corner of the room lived the Blue +Mandarin in a small house at the foot of a small volcano that +ceaselessly puffed out clouds of incense. Wherever you went in that +strange dance of dances some new delight assailed your senses.</p> + +<p>Here, before a temple hung with silver bells, a dozen of these blue and +golden dolls moved with grace and precision through many variations of +the Minuet. They would carry away with them that night no more than a +memory of bells and stately movement by the rosy light of many lanterns. +Purged of all feeling save for correct gesture, the vizards seemed no +more alive than their mirroured counterparts that moved with equal grace +upside down in the polished floor of parquet.</p> + +<p>But step over one of these bridges where false white flowers hang in +scented clusters: go softly through that Bonbon grove, and there in an +alcove fretted to the semblance of wrought ivory, you shall see two +masks that are enraptured beneath a white moon-lantern, tracing the +melody with long caresses. In one of these fanciful resorts, sat Vernon +and Phyllida making love among the shadows, as in pairs and dainty +quartetts the dancers darkened the carved portal when they passed. For +Phyllida, the Assembly Rooms had been snatched up by some powerful +magician and set down in a land of Ombres Chinoises. Many a time had she +sat in the theatre and watched these silent black and white tragedies +and comedies. Now she had joined that whimsical procession which capers +across the draughty sheet. She recalled a particular entertainment of +this character last December. First the Columbine had pirouetted across +and made a light phantastick entrance into the shadow of the house at +the extreme corner. Presently came the Pierrot with a lantern swaying +atop of a tall pole. Up and down the sheet he had danced with incredible +agility, until a<a name="page_161" id="page_161"></a> Pulcinello shook his bells from the window of the +house, and he floated away gathering giant size as he went. Then came +Harlequin, dancing almost more beautifully than Pierrot, and a quiet +murder was done in the laurel shadows round the house. Pierrot lay dead +and Harlequin, the slim and debonair assassin had donned his vizard: +Columbine wept a while until the lights were turned up, when everybody +agreed that the whole performance was in the best of taste and vastly +well executed.</p> + +<p>Phyllida came to herself and found Mr. Vernon gazing steadily at her +with his velvet eyes, all the more disconcerting set almondwise in the +Chinese mask. She shuddered.</p> + +<p>To say truth, this exotick minuet of strange perfumes and processions, +was not the sanest amusement for a maid who should have lived always +among the roses. The heat was growing intolerable, and still her lover +with persistent, regular motion bewitched her hand as it lay in his.</p> + +<p>The dancers passed and repassed them as they sat in artificial dusk. +Phyllida began to hate them when they fluttered their fans and +handkerchiefs. They were sickly things these dancers—crotchets and +quavers and semiquavers who had captured the semblance of humanity, who +breathed and bowed and capered, merely because musick had conjured them +into existence. Suddenly an amazing clangour of gongs and cymbals waked +her completely from the fever into which she had been flung, and, +waking, she found herself encircled by her lover's arms, his eyes +burning into hers and his lips, all that was left alive by the stolid +vizard, eager to meet her own.</p> + +<p>"Don't," she gasped. "Don't. I hate you, I hate you when you do that."</p> + +<p>"Nay, my angel must not be so prudish. Come, kiss me of your own will +and we'll gallop to Gretna Green next week."</p> + +<p>Phyllida still repulsed him.</p> + +<p>"To Gretna Green," he went on. "Drawn by a pair of cream-coloured +horses, in a chaise all citron silk and rosy sattin with my Phyllida +plunged into the softest cushions<a name="page_162" id="page_162"></a> and her Amor to love her so fondly +while trees and milestones fly past."</p> + +<p>Vernon inherited much talent from his mother, and as he breathed his +persuasions in the most refined modulations of intensity, half looked +over his shoulder, for an audience.</p> + +<p>"My Phyllida, your lips are soft as moths."</p> + +<p>"Don't, Amor, don't."</p> + +<p>"Soft as little moths that in wet garden paths brush the cheeks with +feathery wings."</p> + +<p>"Release my hand, detestable Amor. I will sit here no longer to be +tortured by your boorishness."</p> + +<p>"But why will you repulse me? you love me? We are to be wed almost at +once. Why were you willing to sit in this dark corner, unless for the +charms of love?"</p> + +<p>The Minuet was drawing to a close. Long since the musick had departed +into wilder channels. This was now no courtly measure, but a barbarick +medley of noise, fit for trumpets of India, cymbals of Ethiopia, and the +hollow booming of drums that affright wrecked pirates in the green +swamps of Madagascar.</p> + +<p>Vernon stood up and drew Phyllida closer.</p> + +<p>"By G——, child, you madden me with your prettiness. Come, I swear you +shall kiss me before the end of the dance. You shall, by G—— you +shall!"</p> + +<p>Miss Phyllida Courteen, all swansdown and blushes in our first chapter, +is scarcely recognizable now. She is growing old fast. She is kindling +the faggots that will warm her chill old age.</p> + +<p>But still, though passion tugged at her heart strings, the school-miss, +the older Eve before the Fall, made her struggle against knowledge.</p> + +<p>"I hate you, I hate you like this. Let me go, sir, let me go!"</p> + +<p>With a sudden effort, she escaped from his arms, and he, plunging back +at the same moment, struck the frail summer house of ivory so that it +toppled over in front of the Blue Mandarin who was crossing a bridge +over a silken stream that flowed in the direction of his little house +beneath the miniature<a name="page_163" id="page_163"></a> volcano. The Bonbon grove was strewn with +fragments. Like Cinderella fled Miss Courteen and was quickly lost in +the gold and azure company. With careless air, Mr. Vernon stooped to +buckle his shoe and Charles, seeing the taper fingers, stood for a +moment petrified upon the ridiculous bridge over which he had been +stepping with such an affectation of importance.</p> + +<p>Now was his opportunity to probe Mr. Vernon, or rather to lead him +gradually into the urbane presence of Mr. Ripple who would certainly +probe him deep enough. There was every reason to admonish him for, as he +knelt over his shoe, Charles could plainly see his costume was +reversible. Such a device was a breach of etiquette, deserving publick +censure. Himself as viceroy of Society, should not be backward in +arresting a traitor to Society's rules. Of old, the favourites of +monarchs had not scrupled to owe money to those whom they denounced as +dangerous to the State.</p> + +<p>Charles took a step forward.</p> + +<p>"Sir," he said, pointing with a tasselled wand whose handle was a squat +Buddha, "you have broken a law of the Chinese Masquerade."</p> + +<p>"Indeed," said Vernon, rising from his knees, not at all perturbed +apparently by the accusation.</p> + +<p>"Yes," went on the Blue Mandarin. Pray let our hero be impersonal for a +while, "You are wearing a double costume."</p> + +<p>"What a monstrous breach of privilege," said Vernon chilly, unmoved.</p> + +<p>"And it is my duty to report the incident to Beau Ripple. Your name, +sir?"</p> + +<p>It was now the turn of our villain to hesitate. If he frankly avowed his +identity, Lovely was bound to say no more about it, but did the +interloping young Jackanapes know the heroine of the affair?—he had +danced with her once that night. If he said Amor, Lovely might easily +inform Ripple and plead ignorance. D—— n the young fool! Why didn't he +pass over his absurd stream and take his callow brain, stuffed with +ceremonies, to the sugar-plum atmosphere of the Beaux' ante-room?<a name="page_164" id="page_164"></a></p> + +<p>"Why Lovely, man, don't you know me? 'Tis I, Vernon, what the plague do +you mean by so much impertinence? Were you shocked to see me trying to +kiss a saucy school-minx, eh? That was little Miss——"</p> + +<p>"Her mask, sir, should conceal her name."</p> + +<p>With what fair Incognita Mr. Vernon intended to couple himself, will +never be known. No doubt a pseudonym as nice as his own would have been +forthcoming, since he was of an inventive disposition and had on +occasions a pretty turn of fancy.</p> + +<p>The musick had stopped; the Grand Minuet of Cathay was finished. Mr. +Charles Lovely was aware of a rival to whom, by cursed ill-fortune, he +owed money which he was unable to pay.</p> + +<p>"Shall I give you your revenge?" murmured Vernon.</p> + +<p>The company, still masked, were hurrying in blue and golden bunches to +their coaches and chairs.</p> + +<p>"Not tonight," said Charles. "But on my honour, Vernon, you must really +be careful not to offend against our rules on another occasion."</p> + +<p>So, lightly enough, with no appearance of mutual ill-will the rivals +passed on. Phyllida was gone home, her face afire beneath her Chinese +mask. To her virginal chamber, I shall presently take you in order to +hear what Mistress Betty has to say about the ways of lovers. And while +we walk in the direction of the Crescent, somewhat overwrought by a +plethora of colour, scent, movement and sound, we may be tolerably +certain that young Mr. Charles Lovely—no longer Blue Mandarin, but +again our admired hero—is seated furiously inditing the most satirical +verses on the residents and visitors of Curtain Wells, in order to make +money enough to pay Mr. Vernon his guineas, and be able to run him +through in Curtain Mead with a clear conscience and a clean smallsword.<a name="page_165" id="page_165"></a></p> + +<h2><i>Chapter the Eighteenth</i><br /><br /> +THE CONFIDANTE</h2> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">I</span>F Eve had possessed a Confidante, it is probable that the evil wrought +by Woman would have been double as great as it is reputed to be. Miss +Courteen had stepped into the mud of reality and, not unnaturally, was +eager to tell Mistress Betty of the accident and ascertain by +candlelight consultation, whether or not her glass slipper was truly +lost.</p> + +<p>As they drove home in the rumbling coach, Phyllida experienced an +emotion of futility as she half listened, half dozed, to the +conversation of the Major, the Justice and her mother. To this came +Youth. Bumpety-bump went the coach, bumpety-bump went the conversation, +bumpety-bump went Thomas' broad back on the Jimmy, bumpety-bump went +Phyllida's head, while her thoughts and memories kept pace in the +darkness like swift sparks that are blown along by the wind. At last the +coach drew up before their house in the Crescent: Phyllida and her +mother alighted: Betty opened the door and the coach drove off to put +down Major Tarry and Mr. Moon at their lodgings.</p> + +<p>The hall seemed drab and unfamiliar; the bedchamber candle-sticks set +out upon the little gate table had an air of reproof about them; they +seemed to say as they sat in a prim row: "Look at us, we are quite +content. Last night our candles burnt an inch lower, and the candle +suffers diminution, but we remain the same. We are quite content."</p> + +<p>"My pretty one looks pale," said Betty, full of solicitude.</p> + +<p>"I'm tired," said Phyllida.<a name="page_166" id="page_166"></a></p> + +<p>"Betty," said Mrs. Courteen, "you must help me to undress. The evening +has been most enjoyable, and my lady Bunbutter tore her gown on a +monkey's tail. Now, Phyllida, do you run quickly to bed, for to-morrow +Mr. Moon and the Major have promised to drive with us to see Melton +Abbey. You will enjoy the excursion vastly."</p> + +<p>"What a whimsical place to visit."</p> + +<p>"Whimsical! How can you be so irreverend, Phyllida?"</p> + +<p>"But why, mamma, do you suddenly drive to Melton Abbey?"</p> + +<p>"Why, child! because I wish to train your mind to be sure. Nothing tests +deportment so severely as wandering round a Gothick ruin. However, they +tell me that Gothick will soon be à la Mode, and who am I to dispute the +commands of fashion?"</p> + +<p>Upon the heels of this humble interrogation, the widow betook herself to +bed.</p> + +<p>"When you have undressed my mamma, Betty, come to my chamber, I have a +thousand things to tell you," Phyllida whispered as they went up the +narrow stairs.</p> + +<p>She lighted all the candles in her room and looked round in sudden +affright. It was as if some one had trespassed upon those virginal +solitudes while she was away. Yet her room was the same as usual; the +dimity covers were all in their places: the fire was burning merrily in +the hearth: the bed-cloaths were turned back, fresh, cool and +lavendered. Her slippers knelt devoutly by the fender: the fire-irons +looked just as stilted and apologetick as usual. Everything was +perfectly familiar, perfectly ordinary and perfectly safe; yet something +in the room was strange, or was it herself who was altered? Was she out +of harmony with this palace of amber morning dreams, this treasure-box +of twilight hopes and imaginations?</p> + +<p>Down she sat in the big flowered arm-chair and stared at the crackling +logs—a stranger to her own possessions, and, as she untied one by one +the ribbands from her glinting<a name="page_167" id="page_167"></a> chestnut hair, she seemed to smell the +jasmine of Courteen Grange and hear her father calling below her +casement to come down quickly and count the buds on the York and +Lancaster rose, as he was used to call in those sweet dead Junes.</p> + +<p>Presently came Betty with a soft knock and Phyllida, starting away from +the host of childish memories that assailed her, sprang up as the maid +came in on tiptoe.</p> + +<p>"Now, sit down, Betty, and listen with all your ears, for I dearly need +your advice."</p> + +<p>"My sweet one, I'm listening to 'ee," said Betty, pulling forward a fat +lop-eared hassock and squeezing herself as close to the fender as +possible.</p> + +<p>"Betty, Mr. Amor kissed me this evening, and what should I do?"</p> + +<p>"What were 'ee best to do? Why think no more about it, for indeed I dare +vow you're not the first maid that was kissed."</p> + +<p>"But the worst of the matter is that, though I struggled hard to escape, +and though I detested him for his persistence, yet, oh! Betty, I don't +like to tell you—I did not struggle as hard as I might have done."</p> + +<p>As she made this confession, Phyllida went carnation red from forehead +to pointed dimpled chin.</p> + +<p>"There's no call for blushes," said Betty emphatically, "for you must +learn the love of man soon or late, and Mr. Vernon is a proper enough +gentleman for sure."</p> + +<p>"And he said we should presently elope."</p> + +<p>"Oh! time enough to be wed come three years or more," commented Betty.</p> + +<p>"Oh! but you would not have me allow a gentleman to take my hand, and +kiss me, and call me his dearest life without being married immediately. +It would be most unbecoming."</p> + +<p>"If all the world knew, 'twould, but then nobody don't know, and that's +the best way for all true lovers."</p> + +<p>"Nevertheless, Betty, I feel uneasy."</p> + +<p>"'Tis only the stirring of your blood, my dear. Only<a name="page_168" id="page_168"></a> to think," went on +the confidante, "that last sweet Spring time you was building great +cowslip balls in the green meadows, and now you are quite grown up with +a bow of your own to arm you through the minivets and gawottes, so grand +as may be."</p> + +<p>"Yes, love makes one grow old, Betty. I've aged very much these weeks."</p> + +<p>"Well, and 'twouldn't be right otherwise, for Life bean't all a long +sweet April month, my pretty one."</p> + +<p>"Then truly, dear Betty, you swear you think there is no harm in what I +have done?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, my dear, harm? Why, what harm could there be with your great fat +Betty to watch and guard 'ee?"</p> + +<p>"Still, I'm not sure, Betty. There's something tells me not to be sure."</p> + +<p>"Then, do 'ee listen hard to me, my dear, while I tell 'ee what I do +think about life. Life! 'Tis a garden and 'tis a wilderness, and between +them there's a gaäte and 'tis a kissing gaäte. The wilderness is fine +for children—a great open plaäce fit for scampering Jack hares and such +like, but bare enough and bleak enough when you do grow old, and then +you're too fat to get through that kissing gaäte, and then you do wish +wi' all your might and main that when you was young you'd gotten into +the garden among the sweet flowers."</p> + +<p>Betty stopped, exhausted by the allegory.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Betty, that is all very well, but you must go through the gate +with the person whom you love for ever and a day."</p> + +<p>"Nay, you can meet him inside and say Good-day and thank you kindly to +the arm you went in on."</p> + +<p>"I don't believe you give me good advice. If I told you that to-morrow +morning I was going to run away with Mr. Amor to Gretna Green, what +would you say?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, God preserve you from the wicked thought, Gretna Green or any other +such unlawful heathenish village green!"</p> + +<p>"There you see," complained Phyllida, "you do not take me seriously, and +it was foolish of me ever to tell you<a name="page_169" id="page_169"></a> about this evening. But now that +I have told you, you must never breathe a word to a living +soul—never—never—promise!</p> + +<p>"I do promise," said Betty.</p> + +<p>"With the old rhyme—till Christmas—you remember?"</p> + +<p>Betty stood up, while a ritual, sacred to the childhood of Phyllida, was +solemnly enacted. In a monotonous whispered chaunt, Betty promised:</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry" style="font-style:italic;"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"I will not tell at primrose tide,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">At cherry tide I'll silent be,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">At barley harvest I'll be dumb</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Till Christmas come and set me free."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>Phyllida was satisfied that her indiscreet confidence was safely locked +up in Betty's bosom, capacious, homely, sweet-savoured as an +apple-closet.</p> + +<p>You have seen the confidante in action. Is it not well that we have +banished her from society? No longer may she enter stark mad in white +muslin, as the play directs. We have put her away in an old chest with +hoops and tie-wigs and gibbets and pirates and Newgate ordinaries and +rotten boroughs and watchet ribbands. No longer does she play asterisk +to a heroine, because nowadays the adventures of our heroines are +entirely introspective. But, as upon all time-honoured institutions, let +us drop a tear for the confidante; she has helped a thousand perplexed +authors to unfold their simple dramas, she has helped many a +scene-shifter to leisure.</p> + +<p>Mr. Sheridan could laugh at Mr. Cumberland through this artful, artless +medium, but he too had his Lucy. Mr. Smollett depended upon Miss +Williams (a lady of the loosest character) in order to help his Narcissa +to reveal herself and you, Mr. Goldsmith whose name, like immortal +Madame Blaize, is 'bedizened and brocaded,' you had your dearest +Neville.</p> + +<p>Yet, after all, however much we may regret them, confidantes were very +bad for heroines. They would encourage<a name="page_170" id="page_170"></a> them in all that was most +reprehensible. Here you see, is our own confidante encouraging her +mistress to play with Love's torch and for all you or she know, get +badly scorched by the purple flame. Such temerity is very well for +country wenches to whom a green gown is a proper delight for May +morning. Betty, with her memories of many barley breaks, junketings and +Hallowe'en festivals, where ripe lips are as common as cherries at +midsummer, was not the perfect monitor for swansdown misses brought up +under Miss Prudence Prim's long rattan, taught to sit up straight and +put into corsets almost as soon as they were out of robe-coats. In fact +she was a confidante, a match-maker, to whom a wedding-ring was a Post +Hoc horse-collar, through which to grin at the censorious world.</p> + +<p>After all, where's the ultimate difference between sweet sensibility a +hundred and fifty years ago and sweet sensibility today? We should +consider it <i>démodé</i> for the latter to gossip with her maid. Now every +schoolboy and schoolgirl knows how to spell psychology, and has been +awarded a sub-conscious self to enliven the lonely hours. And this +sub-conscious self, what is it, under analysis? Why, nothing more than +the old confidante in ghostly guise with as long a tongue and as rich a +store of bad advice.</p> + +<p>So now, having successfully, as I hope, occupied your attention while +sweet sensibility gets into bed, let us snuff the candles and leave the +room to Phyllida and wavering firelight.<a name="page_171" id="page_171"></a></p> + +<h2><i>Chapter the Nineteenth</i><br /><br /> +BLACKHART FARM WITH A COCK-FIGHT</h2> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">A</span>BOUT ten miles from Curtain Wells on the Bristol road stood a ruined +cottage. With thatch discoloured, torn by gales and sparrows, and with +windows made crooked by internal decay, its expression was grotesque and +unpleasant. A tangled bed of rotten nettles filled the space before it, +and all the vegetation beside was rank and desolate. This cottage served +as fitting lodge to a sinister bye-way covered with weeds and almost +overhung in summer by hedges dark with masses of black bryony, but in +winter and spring sufficiently open to admit the cold grey sky overhead, +and the chill Easterly rain, which on the morning after the Chinese +Masquerade fell with dreary persistence.</p> + +<p>Pray pardon me that I take you so far from wit, fashion, and beauty, +along this unsavoury path, but indeed the journey is inevitable if you +are at all anxious to understand something of Mr. Francis Vernon's +intentions. The road leads to Blackhart Farm, famous, no doubt, in days +gone by for the cherries of that denomination; but since the last dying +speech and confession of Mrs. Mawhood the name has acquired a new and +sinister significance.</p> + +<p>Now you understand my apologies; or is it possible you have forgotten +Mrs. Mawhood of Blackhart Farm, who was turned off at Tyburn amid the +execrations of the mob in 17—? Yet her long black gloves and white face +haunted many pillows on the night when she paid the ultimate penalty; +and for what was she hanged? Come, come, this history is not the Newgate +Calendar—you must search that bloody register.<a name="page_172" id="page_172"></a></p> + +<p>At the time, however, of Mr. Vernon's visit, Mrs. Mawhood was alive and, +I am sorry to add, flourishing. He followed the roadway for about a +quarter of a mile between tall, damp hedgerows, dismounted at a small +wicket-gate and, leading his horse, turned aside through a plantation of +close-set, withered larches under which the grass grew pale and thin, +with a sweet unhealthy odour of fungus. Blackhart Farm appeared in +view—a long, low building with slated roof, trim enough, but repulsive +and barren. From a pile of chimney stacks smoke was rising hardly +through the heavy atmosphere.</p> + +<p>The path by which Vernon arrived led immediately to the front door. Had +he continued along the cart track he would have reached, by way of a +bleak paved courtyard, the back of the house. Only a very shallow strip +of garden separated the front of the farm from the gloomy plantation +that served as barrier to the curious world.</p> + +<p>Vernon tied his horse to the gate of the garden, walked up the +moss-grown path between clipped bushes of box, and knocking with the +handle of his riding-whip on the heavy door, waited. Several moments +passed, and in the deep silence that surrounded this ill-wished abode, +he could distinctly hear a clock ticking on the other side of the heavy +door. This, the drip of trees, and the noise of his horse chewing the +rank herbage by the gate, were the only sounds that broke the stillness.</p> + +<p>At last footsteps shuffled over the stone-paved floor within. A small +panel slid away from a grating and a voice of that peculiar unctuous +hoarseness only heard in a prodigiously fat man or woman, inquired his +name.</p> + +<p>"I want to see you, old Mother Mawhood."</p> + +<p>"Love o'maids!" said the fat voice, "'tis Fancy Vernon, or I'm not a fat +old sinner."</p> + +<p>The bolts were pushed back, the latch clicked, the door swung open, and +Mrs. Mawhood, whose bulk, but little reduced by Newgate fare, was soon +to test severely the three-legged tenement, occupied the portal.</p> + +<p>Take a good look at Mrs. Mawhood, while with pursy<a name="page_173" id="page_173"></a> greetings she makes +Fancy Vernon welcome. She is like an idol in a cavernous East Indian +temple, or a giant toadstool, or weight of unbaked dough, or in fact +anything that is slow, sleepy, and horrible. Almost buried in folds of +flesh is a pair of beady black eyes, as steady and wicked as those of a +puff-adder or seaman's parroquet. She is dressed in black, and her nails +are bitten to the quick.</p> + +<p>Mr. Vernon was probably less narrow-minded than the mob which howled at +her infamy during the Tyburn journey. At any rate he chatted with her +amicably enough on this grey February forenoon.</p> + +<p>"How's business, ma'am?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Very bad," she wheezed. "Only three of 'em upstairs and none of 'em +real quality. Still, the flowers in the garden vant fresh food, +especially the blood-red toolips. Ah! it was two lips that was the +undoin' of the hussies, and, 'tis fair they should profit by the +harvest."</p> + +<p>This devilish joke was followed by a low rumbling chuckle echoed above +by a thin wail.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Mawhood waddled to the foot of the stairs.</p> + +<p>"Keep that d——d brat quiet, you charity bastard," she wheezed +angrily. "She'll hev to get up to-morrow," she continued, seating +herself in a wide arm-chair beside the empty grate, "and a sickly puling +jade she is. I suppose you've come for the Main?"</p> + +<p>"No," answered Vernon, "indeed, I did not know there was to be one. Good +birds?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Mawhood nodded. "Thirty-two cocks and a Velch main. 'Tis some of +those baby gentlemen from the Vells as finks they's seeing life ven a +dozen lousy chairmen sveats thesselves 'oarse over a pair of bleeding +chickens. And ven they's 'ad their pockets picked, they goes 'ome +'appy."</p> + +<p>"Is Moll here?" asked Vernon.</p> + +<p>"No, Moll's keeping a gay house Catherine Street vay."</p> + +<p>"Egad, I've a pretty little job for Moll."</p> + +<p>"Now don't you go leading Moll astray. She ain't been in Bridewell not +these two years, and she don't vant to neither."<a name="page_174" id="page_174"></a></p> + +<p>"This job won't take her there. I'm in need of a housewife for a month, +and Moll's a nice homely woman."</p> + +<p>"'Oo's she to look after, eh?"</p> + +<p>"A pearl necklace," said Vernon.</p> + +<p>"And a pretty neck, eh?"</p> + +<p>"Tolerable," said Vernon.</p> + +<p>"When do you want her?"</p> + +<p>"Let me see—February. Shall we say the last week in March?"</p> + +<p>"I'll tell her: I shall be sending a hussy from here presently to a nice +honest sitivation." Again the chuckle was heard.</p> + +<p>"I want lodgings near the Haymarket. Nice and airy—with a balcony if +possible, and—well, Moll knows what attracts sweet seventeen."</p> + +<p>"That's young for a pearl necklace."</p> + +<p>"'Tis hers by inheritance. The lodgings must be cheerful because Miss is +shy."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Moll knows what every age likes best. She'll buy a dear little +singing goldfinch and put him in a cage and hang him up in the window. +Who knows? P'raps it'll breed a nice little nestful of goldfinches for +Moll. 'Ow many?"</p> + +<p>"I can discuss that with Moll herself," said Vernon.</p> + +<p>"Ah, but Moll's so soft 'arted. Not less than fifty goldfinches, mind, +and if a little hindrance arrives, 'tis to come down to Blackhart +Farm—mind—and be cared for by old Mother Mawhood wot's kind even to +the pore little flies on the pane."</p> + +<p>"You look too far into the future, old lady," said Vernon.</p> + +<p>"And so a body should, my fancy boy," the hag answered. "Now I wager you +ain't thought nothin' about postillions?"</p> + +<p>"Time enough for that."</p> + +<p>"Yes, time enough I dare say, but you ought to engage 'em in advance. +That's vat the quality does ven they writes to me. Have you got a pair +of good honest postboys?"<a name="page_175" id="page_175"></a></p> + +<p>"No, but——"</p> + +<p>"Vell! and good honest boys ain't so easy found in Curtain Vells! Boys +who'll do vat's vanted and no questions axed and none answered."</p> + +<p>"But I thought——"</p> + +<p>"That's all werry fine," said the monstrous old woman. "But p'raps +there'll be another elopement. Maids is thick in Curtain Vells, and +p'raps you won't find your boys so easy. There's some that don't like +the job—don't like two brace of pops behind 'em and a galloping brother +and father."</p> + +<p>"We shan't be followed," said Vernon contemptuously.</p> + +<p>"No, I dare say you von't, but 'tis as vell to be behind a couple of +good honest boys as'll use their pops when they're turning a corner and +ready to swear they thought it was two gentlemen on the high toby as vas +a followin' of 'em so fast."</p> + +<p>"Very well," said Vernon, "whom do you want me to employ?"</p> + +<p>"Vy, there's my two nephews, Charlie and Dickie Maggs, vot 'ud drive +'ard and fast all the vay to Lunnon town and no questions axed either +end, but vot could easily be ansered wiv golden Georges."</p> + +<p>"Let 'em wait on me when I send the word, and hark'ee, they must be +ready any time this month, for Miss may take it into her head to run +before I expect."</p> + +<p>Further intercourse between Mr. Francis Vernon and old Mother Mawhood +was interrupted by loud knocks on the door at the back, supported by +catcalls, yells, horn-blowing and whip-cracking.</p> + +<p>"That's for the Main," said Mrs. Mawhood. "Vill you stay to see the +sport?"</p> + +<p>"'Tis a Welch main?"</p> + +<p>"Ay—thirty-two birds."</p> + +<p>"Well, send a boy to put my horse in the stable."</p> + +<p>"This way, my fancy, this way," wheezed the hag, as she waddled towards +the courtyard where the noise was growing louder every minute.<a name="page_176" id="page_176"></a></p> + +<p>It may strike the reader as strange that the young gentlemen of the +<i>Blue Boar</i> (they were all there save Mr. Lovely) should come ten miles +to a disreputable farm for the purpose of seeing thirty-two cocks of the +game butchered. The Welch Main was a peculiarly bloody form of +cock-fighting, as it was determined by a series of rounds fought by the +respective survivors until at the end a pair of already vilely scarred +and mutilated birds were placed beak to beak by the Feeder to determine +the ultimate victor of the Main.</p> + +<p>Ten miles was not too far to travel for such glorious sport in the days +of the Georges, but that they were compelled to travel at all was due to +the squeamishness of Beau Ripple, who had a singular aversion from the +game and would allow no cock-pit to be established within his +jurisdiction. He used to say the martyrdom of chickens should never +extend beyond the demand for painted fans.</p> + +<p>Therefore a suitable cockpit had been set up in one of the outlying +barns of Blackhart Farm, whither at discreet intervals went Lieutenant +Blewforth of the <i>Lively</i>, Mr. Golightly of Campbell's Grey Dragoons, +Mr. Tom Chalkley of the Foot, little Peter Wingfield, and many other +young gentlemen. They would sit in the first tier and allow their +exquisite necks to be blown upon by the stinking breath of the second +tier which, in turn, was not unwilling to allow the third tier to spit +over its shoulders in the intervals of yelling, 'Three to one on the +Blotch-breasted Red!' 'Six to five against the Cheshire Pile!' 'Two to +one on the Black-breasted Birchin!' and other such bewildering +proclamations of their confidence in particular cocks of the game.</p> + +<p>Vernon was not at all displeased that his visit to Blackhart Farm should +have ostensible justification. Looking back, as he emerged into the +courtyard, he noticed all the windows of the house were blind on that +side and wondered why so ill-favoured and disreputable a dwelling-place +had never been investigated by the servants of justice. So it was, +however, not long after this date, and a gruesome day's work it was +beneath the hot August sun: and not the least<a name="page_177" id="page_177"></a> gruesome sight was old +Mother Mawhood, monstrous, flabby and terror-stricken, quivering in her +chair by the empty fireside, opposite a Robin Redbreast from Bow Street +drinking many quarts of beer and regarding her with unfavourable +glances, while he listened to the chink of the spades in the flower +garden by the plantation. The runners would never have visited Blackhart +Farm had not a certain lady of quality, who travelled in a post-chaise +with muffled windows, dallied a month too long, thereby raising the +suspicions of her eagle-nosed aunt, the Countess of——, but what has +all this to do with cock-fighting?</p> + +<p>In the pit the spectators were arranging themselves. In front sat +Lieutenant Blewforth and little Peter Wingfield as Masters of the Match. +In the front tier sat the leading amateurs of Curtain Wells. Behind them +were the shopkeepers, and behind the shopkeepers was the riff-raff of +the Wells and its satellite villages.</p> + +<p>Everybody was bawling odds at top voice, and occasionally one of the +birds crowed. This was an infringement of etiquette and, being +considered a sign of cowardice, immediately lengthened the odds against +the offender. The tallowy man in a blue kerseymere coat and breeches is +one of the Feeders, and is acting in that capacity for the Services +represented by Lieutenant Blewforth, while the civilians are employing +the good offices of Jimmy Trickett, who on less exciting occasions is +one of the hostlers of the <i>Blue Boar</i>.</p> + +<p>Vernon, looking for a vacant place in the front tier found himself next +to Mr. Anthony Clare, who, for all he sat so unmoved, had provided eight +cocks for the civilians and stood to lose a pretty pile of guineas.</p> + +<p>"Where's Lovely?" asked Vernon, shaking the sawdust from his boots.</p> + +<p>"He never comes to cock-fights," Clare replied rather coldly.</p> + +<p>"Too brutal for a poet, eh?"</p> + +<p>"I have never heard him say so," said Clare.</p> + +<p>As a matter of fact Charles strongly disapproved of the<a name="page_178" id="page_178"></a> sport and it is +a significant fact that at this very moment, he was trotting along the +Bristol road, tired of lashing Curtain polls and determined, against the +advice of his conscience, to stake fifty guineas on the result of the +Main.</p> + +<p>The latter progressed with monotonous cruelty until, of the thirty-two +cocks who began, but two pairs were left, all bleeding profusely. And +now with a refinement of brutality, the steel gaffles, hitherto used to +shorten the earlier and less interesting matches, were removed and +silver ones fastened on in their place, because, the latter, being less +deadly, prolonged the miserable contest.</p> + +<p>During this momentary lull, Charles entered the barn and was greeted +with cheers in which could be detected a note of surprize. Clare moved +along in order to make room for his friend, and squeezed Mr. Vernon +somewhat unceremoniously in doing so.</p> + +<p>"What birds are being set to?" inquired Lovely.</p> + +<p>"My Knowsley and Chalkley's Cheshire Pile, and a White Pile of +Campbell's against Winnington's Cuckoo."</p> + +<p>The semi-final dragged out its bloody length, until for the final was +left Mr. Clare's famous Knowsley cock, his ebony breast dabbled with +blood and his red pinions ragged and broken, but still preserving some +of the smartness of their slantwise trimming—trimmed so in order that +by a lucky stroke an adversary's eye might be put out. The survivor of +the two Services was Mr. Campbell's White Pile, stained with crimson.</p> + +<p>"Will your bird win?" whispered Mr. Lovely.</p> + +<p>"I think so," said Clare, "he comes of a good breed."</p> + +<p>"Two to one in Tens against the Pile," shouted Mr. Lovely.</p> + +<p>"Done," said Vernon.</p> + +<p>"Two to one in Twenties against the Pile," shouted Mr. Lovely.</p> + +<p>"Done," said Mr. Vernon.</p> + +<p>"Three to one in Fifties," shouted Mr. Lovely.</p> + +<p>And this wager also was taken by Mr. Francis Vernon.</p> + +<p>The Feeders were setting the birds beak to beak. The<a name="page_179" id="page_179"></a> shouting of odds +was deafening: the gallant cocks were both exhausted by the four +previous fights, but the feathers flew, the wings whirred, the gaffles +clicked, and the blood flowed fast enough to please the vile faces that +looked down through the murky atmosphere.</p> + +<p>At last the White Pile, blinded in one eye, began to retreat before the +Knowsley.</p> + +<p>"I pound the cock," shouted Charles, flinging his hat into the pit.</p> + +<p>The Teller of the Law, a seedy vagabond with a red nose, began to count +in raucous accents. Twice he counted twenty slowly, and</p> + +<p>"Vill any vun take it?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Mr. Vernon, and just as Mr. Vernon said 'Yes,' the brave +Knowsley cock, the champion of many famous fights, toppled over on his +side, dead.</p> + +<p>The Naval and Military Amateurs had won the Welch Main, and Mr. Charles +Lovely had lost two hundred and ten guineas, not to mention ten pounds +for so rashly pounding the cock.</p> + +<p>The young gentlemen went back to Curtain Wells much pleased with the +afternoon's entertainment, while the riff-raff walked or drove in queer +vehicles back to their squalid homes, all save one unfortunate +individual, unable to meet a debt of ten shillings incurred by backing +the brave Knowsley, who for all he was dying had pursued his antagonist +so confidently. He spent the night in a basket close to the roof and was +not set down till the next morning by one of the labourers on Blackhart +Farm.<a name="page_180" id="page_180"></a></p> + +<h2><i>Chapter the Twentieth</i><br /><br /> +IN WHICH EVERYTHING GROWS BUT THE PLOT</h2> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">Y</span>OU will remember, if you have not put this book upon the table +meanwhile, that in the last paragraph of the last chapter, we left an +unfortunate individual swinging in a basket hard by the roof of a barn. +He was hoisted by a pulley amid the acclamations of the mob because he +was unable to fulfil an obligation so small that half a guinea would +have covered it. There he swung amid cobwebs and bats, fearful every +time the basket creaked he should fall into the blood-stained sawdust of +the cock-pit. I cannot tell you his name, but that is no great matter +since we must examine him not as a man, but as a symbol.</p> + +<p>Possibly with the Beau's perspective, we might diminish him to the size +of a textual illustration, for this unfortunate man is a textual +illustration, and though not etched with the care of Mr. Stothard, will +serve his purpose well enough.</p> + +<p>Suspension is a disreputable attitude for the human body, whatever way +it is brought about, yet I doubt this maltreated anonymity was in better +case than our hero. He paid the penalty for laying unwise wagers and +found earth on the next morning much as he had left it on the afternoon +of the day before. Moreover, he never paid his half-guinea, which was a +real source of consolation. But our hero swung that night in an +immaterial basket that creaked thrice as damnably as the other, and +found no good-natured labouring man to put him on the ground next +morning. The only result of opposing the advice of his conscience, was +an additional debt of two hundred and twenty guineas to our villain.</p> + +<p>To make matters worse, he had to meet his creditor over<a name="page_181" id="page_181"></a> the breakfast +table, and of the many dooms measured out to sinners, this is surely one +of the most difficult to face with equanimity.</p> + +<p>In despair, he took to drinking the waters with the rest of the +Exquisite Mob, and earned a few golden glances from Beau Ripple, but +nothing more tangible. Even the advantage of these was neutralized by +the chalybeate, which acted with disconcerting abruptness upon a healthy +body unused to medicinal spurs.</p> + +<p>The wry water served a good purpose, however, by souring his +point-of-view. The liquid iron entered into his soul and he lashed the +Curtain Polls in a variety of metres. He also took long walks into the +country, and sought by the contemplation of scenery to acquire an +impersonal attitude towards his fellow creatures. After all, there is no +better training for a mob-master than the exercise of a satirical pen, +and as time went on Mr. Lovely's book increased in bulk, although it +never achieved more than a suggestive slimness even when bound in calf.</p> + +<p>February faded into March, and in accordance with the season everything +began to grow.</p> + +<p>Mr. Lovely's book we have already noticed.</p> + +<p>Mr. Vernon's seductive arts grew daily more seductive, and, though for a +week or two after Mr. Ripple's warning, Mrs. Courteen arranged for the +complete occupation of Phyllida's leisure, the growth of Mrs. Courteen's +figure necessitated a stricter attention to diet and exercise, and +caused her so much anxiety that her vigilance was soon relaxed. So +whenever the forenoons were fine enough, Phyllida sat on the moss-grown +seat in the centre of the Maze, and, under the patronage of the little +stone Cupid, grew daily more powerfully enchanted by the magical +personality of Mr. Francis Vernon.</p> + +<p>Thomas, the footman, grew daily more unctuous owing to the visit of a +gouty dean who, being invited to occupy St. Simon's pulpit, preached a +remarkable sermon in seven divisions and twenty-three sub-divisions, +conclusively establishing the identity of the English Nation with the +tribe<a name="page_182" id="page_182"></a> of Benjamin. Mr. Moon and Major Tarry grew more entirely devoted +to the widow, and Thomasina the cat also grew owing to the advent of +kittens. In fact, everybody and everything grew prodigiously in the +merry springtime.</p> + +<p>The list of visitors grew. Rich Mrs. Bendish arrived and made all the +dowagers jealous with her chest of precious stones that she brought back +from an island in the Caribbean Sea—buried treasure that was actually +discovered. Lord Rocquepool came, and his daughters, the Honourable +Georgina and the Honourable Caroline de Winqule. The Honourable Mrs. +Winter-Green came, and the Welch baronet, Sir Owen Ap Taffy. The +Marquess of Hurricane arrived, and several members of the great Wind +family. Also, with all these aristocratick visitors, it is not +surprizing that Mr. Ripple's snuff bill grew daily.</p> + +<p>March came in like a lamb that year, and the sweet season danced in the +bleak furrows over which the lank hares leaped and scampered. White +violets scented equinoctial dusks, and in every window of the Wells big +daffodils hung down their golden ruffs. March went by to the tune of +fiddles and flutes. Mr. Ripple had to attend near half a dozen routs +every night, and the weekly Assemblies were more fully thronged than +ever before.</p> + +<p>Every day the jolly sun grew more powerful and the noise of polite +conversation was almost drowned by the twittering of the sparrows as +they, like their betters, made a chorus of loves, jealousies, hopes, +plans and disappointments in a world of chimney-stacks and slanting +roofs. They perched in the most fashionable gutters, just as, down below +on the sunny side of the High Street, the Exquisite Mob ruffled before +the gayest shops.</p> + +<p>"How well that chip hat becomes me!"</p> + +<p>"What wonderful silks are being displayed this spring!"</p> + +<p>"They say that hoops and head-dresses will both show a monstrous +increase in size this year."</p> + +<p>As if the daffodils had intoxicated the whole race of dyers, nothing but +shades of yellow were to be seen. In these happier days for the +followers of the Mode, Blonda and<a name="page_183" id="page_183"></a> Brunetta, those charming sisters, +were not compelled to rely on their natural complexions in order to wear +a certain shade. In these happier days, powder, rouge and patches +availed to make the gaudy apricock glow even beside the blooming peach +without injury to either. Therefore the artfully arranged bow-windows +with rolls of citron damasks, canary velvets, golden brocades, lemon +sattins and orange silks, dismayed not Blonda any more than the sapphire +and turquoise of the autumnal mode fretted the vanity of Brunetta. As +for young maidens, their fashion like the eternal mountains was always +white.</p> + +<p>But suddenly on the twenty-seventh of the month the weather changed. +Masses of wet grey clouds swept in from the Atlantick, and March +prepared to go out like a lion.</p> + +<p>And on this very morning <i>Curtain Polls severely lashed by a Curtain +Rod</i> appeared on Mr. Paul Virgin's counter.</p> + +<p>This small work produced far greater consternation than the sudden +change in the weather. Though it rained and blew, and whistled and +streamed, nobody paid the slightest attention, nobody said 'What a +change in the weather,' for all the world was deeply engrossed in +reading about his asterisked self and his asterisked neighbour.<a name="page_184" id="page_184"></a></p> + +<h2><i>Chapter the Twenty-first</i><br /><br /> +CURTAIN POLLS</h2> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HERE had been nothing to prepare Curtain Wells for its chastizement. No +wreathèd pamphlet warned readers in the most choice preliminary duff +that a sarcastick comet would presently singe their vices, their follies +and their vanities. Nobody had been invited to subscribe in advance to +his own ridicule. As it were on the wings of a Westerly gale, these +destructive little volumes settled upon the fields of Pleasure like +locusts on a Bedouin plantation.</p> + +<p>Two speculative chap-book pedlars sold the first twenty to as many +drinkers of chalybeate hastening home to breakfast. For those who +stopped to buy there was no breakfast that morning. The kidneys and the +bacon and the eggs and the ham and the loin chops and the red herrings +and the toasted bread were neglected. The vanguard of purchasers were, +in reading about neighbours, too much diverted, and, in reading about +themselves, too indignant to eat.</p> + +<p>Out went the kidneys and the bacon and the eggs and the ham and the loin +chops and the red herrings and the toasted bread, frozen stiff in their +own fat; and out went the vanguard to warn the main army of fashion that +scurrility, satire and malice were abroad in many metres.</p> + +<p>"Listen to this, Moon," ejaculated Major Tarry, as, undeterred by the +driving wind, he strode along, quoting extracts that were perfectly +inaudible to his companion.</p> + +<p>"Listen to this, will you listen to this,"</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry" style="font-style:italic;"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"Like a lap-dog he's fed with a second-best spoon,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">And bays as he should at the sight of the Moon."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>"Yes, but listen to this," said the Justice treading heavily in a puddle +as he spoke.</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry" style="font-style:italic;"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"Do not tarry,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">M**n, but marry,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">While you're still upon the wax,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Though above her,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">You can love her,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">And avoid the window tax."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>"Very low, very low indeed," said Tarry.</p> + +<p>"So 'tis," quoth the Justice, "but the next verse is lower still."</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry" style="font-style:italic;"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"For that coat of</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Him we wrote of</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Will be in your parlour soon,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">And be reigning</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">When you're waning,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">And we whisper hornèd M**n."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>"Ha, ha," said Tarry, "low, d——d low! But 'sblood, the fellow has +humour."</p> + +<p>"Humour," said the Justice, "you call this obscene doggerel, humour?"</p> + +<p>"In parts, sir, in parts."</p> + +<p>"I call it melancholy and libidinous."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Courteen was seated at her window disconsolately regarding the +rain.</p> + +<p>"Gemini, child!" she exclaimed. "What can be the matter with Mr. Moon +and the Major that they gesticulate so wildly."</p> + +<p>"They're reading books, ma'am," Betty announced.</p> + +<p>"Reading book, but they are standing at the street corner like +Methodies!"</p> + +<p>"They'm beänt gone sick mad for love of 'ee, do 'ee think, Ma'am?"</p> + +<p>"Flatterer," sighed Mrs. Courteen. "No, child, they have probably been +converted. I detect Methodism in their<a name="page_186" id="page_186"></a> madness. Te-hee! I must keep +that for Archdeacon Conybeare, who so dislikes extremes of sensibility +in anything that pertains to so sacred a thing as religion. Ah, dear! +Religion, what is it?"</p> + +<p>"There's many ways of it ma'am, I do think. 'Tis true religious not to +laugh when the lads tickle thy ankles wi' straws during the prayer for +Good King George!"</p> + +<p>"Tut-tut, how disloyal!"</p> + +<p>Just then the raucous voice of one of the itinerant booksellers shouted +"Curtain Polls severely lashed by a Curtain-Rod."</p> + +<p>"Run, Betty, and inquire the price at once," cried Mrs. Courteen +perceiving that this was the cause of the gentlemen's delay. "'Tis +evidently a rumour on the best authority about the Day of Judgment."</p> + +<p>Presently Betty returned.</p> + +<p>"'Tis a book, ma'am."</p> + +<p>"I know that, simpleton, how much?"</p> + +<p>"Four shillings and sixpence, ma'am, for a little mimsy book not so +thick as the magick history of Jack the Giant Killer."</p> + +<p>"But what was inside, foolish one?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, ’twas full of stars, ma'am."</p> + +<p>"'Tis certainly a work on fortune-telling. Pray buy it instantly, here +is the money."</p> + +<p>Back came Betty with the volume, and presently Mrs. Courteen fainted.</p> + +<p>Downstairs ran Betty, and upstairs walked Mr. Thomas and Betty.</p> + +<p>"’Twas the book as done it," said the latter vehemently.</p> + +<p>The offending volume lay face downwards upon the quilted apricock of +Mrs. Courteen's lap, so Thomas picked it up and began to read:</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry" style="font-style:italic;"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"At the Wells many elegant widows are seen,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">But no one so modish as Mrs. C******n,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Her hoop——"</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>So far he read, but, rubicund though he was, modesty was still able to +deepen his colour.</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Betty, "pray do 'ee read us some more, Mr. Thomas."</p> + +<p>"What Jebusite wrote this book? I will smite him and all his works," +replied Thomas, flinging the volume into the fire. Whether the odour of +burning leather or the profuse drops of Sal Volatile revived the +offended lady I do not know, but she instantly sat up and, in a voice +tremulous with anxiety, bade her footman call a chair.</p> + +<p>"For," said she, "I must pay a visit of condolence to my Lady Bunbutter, +whose propriety has suffered an almost irreparable injury."</p> + +<p>She did not stay to change her dress; she passed her suitors still +quoting scurrility, one against the other in the wind and rain, without +a smile of recognition or sympathy.</p> + +<p>Outside my Lady Bunbutter's stood a row of sedan-chairs, and as Mrs. +Courteen walked up my Lady Bunbutter's front door-step, the knot of +chairmen packed more closely over a copy of <i>Curtain Polls</i> indiscreetly +left behind by one of their fares. There was a rustle of pages quickly +turned by dirty thumbs, and as Mrs. Courteen was ushered in by my Lady +Bunbutter's claret-coloured footman, there followed her upstairs a burst +of ribald laughter.</p> + +<p>My Lady Bunbutter had, by reason of her superior bulk and wealth, +successfully repelled all rival claimants to the throne of dowagership. +She reigned supreme; moreover her advice on this gusty forenoon was +particularly valuable, inasmuch as she had just shaken off the waters of +Bath on account of the publication there of some odious verses, in which +her name and her person were treated with intolerably small respect. +Therefore it was not surprizing to find her drawing-room the haunt of +innumerable widows, old maids and long-established wives. There they +sat, supplying asterisks with immense volubleness. As it happened, they +had just tittered behind their fans over the odiously vulgar, but +undeniably appropriate—yes! the odious fellow was<a name="page_188" id="page_188"></a> certainly +witty—when the subject of their malicious laughter and false blushes +entered the room.</p> + +<p>With the tact bred of many a Quadrille party, my lady Bunbutter advanced +to meet Mrs. Courteen, murmuring, 'poor dear little Miss Kitcat, so +spiteful and yet, my dear Mrs. Courteen, since we are all friends, alas! +how true!'</p> + +<p>Now young Miss Kitcat was still young Miss Kitcat, and simply would not +become old maid or dowager, and would allow herself to be ogled by that +notorious rake and disreputable—yes! disreputable, card-sharper, +Captain Mann.</p> + +<p>While the dowagers discussed the situation and vowed that the rogue of +an author sadly needed a lesson, Beau Ripple himself, with many an +urbane tut-tut was reading <i>Curtain Polls</i> in his tall white +drawing-room, where the firelight danced and flickered over the gleaming +ivory panels.</p> + +<p>"Too bad," said the Beau to himself as he turned the scandalous pages. +He did not, however, treat them less carefully because they were +scandalous, for to Mr. Ripple a book was always a book, and he paid as +much ceremony to the emanations of Grub Street as he would have shown to +the copper plates of an elephant folio.</p> + +<p>"This is, indeed, too bad," said the Beau, "and yet the rascal has wit. +Oh, yes, he certainly has wit, but what an excellent example this volume +affords of the superiority of prose over verse. A poetick satirist too +often sacrifices his good breeding for the sake of the rhymes. Now I +should never have said that. No, no, that is too bad, and this—good +G——! this is unpardonable!"</p> + +<p>The Great little Man jumped up as red as one of the big chintz roses +that bloomed so prodigally all over his winged chair.</p> + +<p>The King of Fashion looked very small as he stood in the middle of an +Aubusson rug, yet I think he never looked more truly a monarch than at +this moment. Unfortunately there was nobody to see him as he stood in +his little world of mirrours and engravings.</p> + +<p>And what had upset his equanimity? Certainly not the following lines:<a name="page_189" id="page_189"></a></p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry" style="font-style:italic;"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"Where R*****, gentlest, kindliest of Beaux,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">To all the world an urbane presence shows:</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Proclaims the tropick joys of China Tea,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">And rules e'en Fashion with his polished sway.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">At his approach the graceless ruffle shakes,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">While every waistcoat in its buttons quakes;</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Each conscious shoe more luminously shines,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">And puckered breeches haste to smooth their lines."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>Whatever the Curtain Rod thought of the subjects, to the Monarch he was +always complimental.</p> + +<p>"Intolerable! unpardonable!" cried the Beau, tapping his snuff-box so +fiercely that some of the powder was spilled over the grey Angora cat +which was purring against his gold-clocked stockings in the heart of a +faded Aubusson rose. Octavia (the cat) sneezed assent. What had upset +his equanimity? You shall take a short journey to find out, for I +perceive a break in the weather and sweet April is in the West.</p> + +<p>We will walk just so far as Curtain Garden, but, pray, do not turn into +the Maze where the paths are atrociously damp. Alas, the rain is +beginning again, but at the end of that long alley is a summer house, +the abode of many Rococo Dryads, although 'tis haunted at present by +amorous mortals, for I caught the glint of a buckle and a shimmer of +chestnut ringlets.</p> + +<p>It does not require King Œdipus to guess that those eyes which stare +so into the heavens are the blue eyes of Phyllida, while any one would +recognize in that smooth voice the careful enunciation of Mr. Francis +Vernon.</p> + +<p>He, like every one else that forenoon, was reading <i>Curtain Polls +severely lashed by a Curtain Rod</i>. Perchance the following lines were +they that lately enraged Mr. Horace Ripple:</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry" style="font-style:italic;"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">"Now is it a hoyden, a hussy or Miss,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Who listens to love but refuses a kiss?</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">'Tis said every morning she flies to the Maze,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">And buries her head from the Publick's low gaze<a name="page_190" id="page_190"></a></span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Of Love in a Maze, pretty charmer, beware,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">For under the rose there are thorns ev'rywhere,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">And if you should chance the wrong turning to take,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">'Tis odds that you'll trip on a tall garden Rake.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">The Cits, when you pass, point you out to their Belles,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">You serve as a moral all over the Wells,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">And Dowagers, drinking your health in green tea,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Express a faint hope that man will not betray."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>"Those are pretty stanzas for a lover to read," said Vernon, who, to do +him justice, did not seem very greatly perturbed by the insult.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Amor," said poor Phyllida, "they can't truly be intended for me!"</p> + +<p>"For whom else?"</p> + +<p>"But who would write such cruel words of a young woman?"</p> + +<p>"That puppy, Lovely."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Lovely! Oh! no, he's a gentleman and a man of family and a man of +taste and a friend of Beau Ripple."</p> + +<p>"He may be all this and more," declared Vernon, "but he wrote this +book."</p> + +<p>"I don't believe it."</p> + +<p>"He did, I say, for he informed me so himself—at least he as good as +informed me!"</p> + +<p>"Amor! you must have been mistook."</p> + +<p>"On my life, not at all. He owes me near five hundred guineas, and when +I hinted that the expense of inland Spas tells upon a gentleman's +resources, begged my pardon, swore he had a literary project on hand, +and promised me a hundred guineas on Lady Day. That was the day before +yesterday."</p> + +<p>"A gamester!" said Miss Phyllida, who, with the injustice of her age and +sex, neglected to see that her lover was as much to blame in this +particular as Lovely.</p> + +<p>"Ay! a gamester," said Vernon with fervid indignation.</p> + +<p>"And for the sake of a hundred guineas he was ready to cheapen the +honour of a maid?"<a name="page_191" id="page_191"></a></p> + +<p>"My angel forgets the Chinese Masquerade. Mr. Lovely was piqued by her +obvious weakness for a less fashionable, less conspicuous gentleman."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I will never forgive him. He has ruined me."</p> + +<p>"Nay, come, come, 'tis not so bad as that. Amor will never desert his +Phyllida."</p> + +<p>"I'm ruined, I'm ruined," she sobbed. "I shall never dare go to visit my +cousin Barbara, who is as prim and proper as——" Nothing was prim +enough for the comparison. "And she has the most delicious hot buns you +ever tasted, and the dearest spaniel and the most beautiful pugdog. Oh +dear! oh dear! oh dear! how all the neighbours will laugh, and old +Rumble the carrier will be telling tales about me in every kitchen in +the county, and 'tis all your fault."</p> + +<p>"My fault?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, yours, for asking me to come and meet you and making love, while +all the while there was somebody peeping over the hedges. I'll never +forgive you, never, never!—--"</p> + +<p>"Dearest life, we can put a stop to scandal by being wed immediately. +Listen! I'll have a post-chaise ready at dawn, and post-boys in scarlet, +and lodgings with a balcony and a goldfinch singing in a cage. My +Phyllida, will you come?"</p> + +<p>"Oh! I dare not, I dare not—not yet, oh lud, oh lud! how shall I look +the world in the face?"</p> + +<p>Vernon thought for a moment.</p> + +<p>"Where are your pearls kept?"</p> + +<p>"In my mamma's trunkmail, but Betty could give me the key—and sometimes +in her jewel case."</p> + +<p>"On the thirtieth," said Vernon, "there will be a ball at Daish's Rooms, +next to the <i>Blue Boar</i> where I lodge. You will surely be there, 'tis my +lady Bunbutter's rout."</p> + +<p>"Yes, we shall be there," said Phyllida.</p> + +<p>"At two o'clock in the morning, I will have a post-chaise waiting by St. +Simon's Church corner, opposite Leonard's toy shop. Would you have the +courage to slip out, my dearest heart, my Phyllida?"<a name="page_192" id="page_192"></a></p> + +<p>"Oh, no, I could not travel by night."</p> + +<p>"'Twould be safer," urged Vernon.</p> + +<p>"No, no, I could not."</p> + +<p>"Then for your sake, I'll take the risque and have the post-chaise in +the same place at three o'clock in the afternoon of the next day. +Promise you will come."</p> + +<p>"No, no, I shall never be brave enough, and I must go for I hear voices, +and I must never be seen with you again. Good-bye, good-bye," and before +Vernon could stop her, Phyllida was running down the poplar alley to +escape from Curtain Garden.</p> + +<p>Our villain began to wonder whether she would elope after all. If she +were shy, he might secure the necklace at any rate. With slow steps, his +mind full of silken pearls, Mr. Vernon went slowly homewards. Half way +down the High Street, he passed a narrow street known as Blood Passage +from the vicinity of a large slaughter-house. He hesitated; made up his +mind, and, turning down it, came to a crooked house over a low +tumble-down doorway. He knocked fastidiously with the amber knob of his +cane. A slatternly woman, whose last night's rouge was streaked with the +matutinal ashes, opened the door.</p> + +<p>"Does Mr. Maggs live here?"</p> + +<p>"Come in," said the frowsy light o' love.<a name="page_193" id="page_193"></a></p> + +<h2><i>Chapter the Twenty-second</i><br /><br /> +THE CURTAIN ROD</h2> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HE satirist stood in his publisher's back parlour, and, through the +dusty glass of the partition, observed the Exquisite Mob purchase their +castigation.</p> + +<p>"'Tis strange," he pondered, "that mankind should be willing to pay +four-and-sixpence to be laughed at. Yet it is!"</p> + +<p>Mr. Lovely was awaiting a draught for one hundred guineas, and Mr. Paul +Virgin, glad of anything that would delay for a while such an unwelcome +disbursement, continued to bow and smirk over the counter as the neat +little piles of new volumes speedily diminished. At last the hour for +the midday meal arrived with a temporary lull in the storm of +purchasers. Mr. Virgin turned with a sigh into his little back parlour +and, wading carefully through the heaps of uncatalogued tomes, set out +with a wry face to unlock his walnut writing-cabinet.</p> + +<p>"We were hurried too much, Mr. Lovely, sir. We han't had leisure to bind +the book as it should be bound. Ye would hurry us so, Mr. Lovely."</p> + +<p>"You wouldn't pay me till the book was published, and I want the money, +so d——n all grumbling and be grateful that you'll make a small +fortune."</p> + +<p>"A small fortune! What a jester you are, Mr. Lovely. I declare you put +me in mind of the old plays, such jests!"</p> + +<p>Mr. Paul Virgin seated before his cabinet, was writing the draught with +tardy fingers.</p> + +<p>"There ye are, Mr. Lovely, and never say I don't treat ye with +consideration, with generosity, sir, for I dare swear I shall lose fifty +pounds sterling by this adventure."<a name="page_194" id="page_194"></a></p> + +<p>"Be d——d, you peevish rogue. Why all the world of fashion has +thronged your shop since nine o'clock this morning."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but it takes a deal to make a hundred guineas. Now let me make it +pounds, Mr. Lovely, sir. Do let me make it pounds."</p> + +<p>The latter snatched the draught from the old young bookseller and, +having read it through with much deliberation, transferred it to the +seclusion of his innermost pocket.</p> + +<p>After this transaction, which was effected with a singular grace, I am +sorry to add that he put his tapered finger to his tapered nose and +winked several times at the disconsolate Mr. Virgin.</p> + +<p>"The books are so ill-bound, look at this one, Mr. Lovely, your honour. +The leaves are falling apart already, just because you would hurry us so +terribly."</p> + +<p>Mr. Lovely stooped and picked up some loose pages.</p> + +<p>"Ay, 'tis autumn already with this copy," he said, glancing casually at +the page he held in his hand. "Why who wrote this?"</p> + +<p>"You did, Mr. Lovely, you did."</p> + +<p>"I wrote this—this d——d vile verse, this—" and Charles read aloud +the lines that so dismayed our heroine. "I wrote this damnable doggerel? +By G——, Mr. Virgin, I never wrote this."</p> + +<p>"Why, who else could have written it?"</p> + +<p>"That's what I want to know. Come back, you hound," shouted the irate +author, grabbing his publisher by the tails of his coat, just as he was +edging his way back to the shop. "Come back," he said, jerking him over +Mr. Bayle's Dictionary. "You moth-eaten vagabond, you impostor, you +thief." Charles began to belabour Mr. Virgin with a folio copy of the +<i>Anatomy of Melancholy</i>. Round and round the little back parlour he +thumped the publisher; the dust rose from innumerable ancient tomes. +Surely never were books so rudely disturbed since the niece and the +Padre flung the library of the illustrious Don Quixote de la Mancha out +of the window, and burned a hundred volumes of chivalry.</p> + +<p><a name="page_195" id="page_195"></a>"How came these d——d lines into my book, eh, sir, answer me that, +sir," and having dissected the <i>Anatomy of Melancholy</i>, Charles picked +up Sir Roger L'Estrange's translation of Æsop to continue the assault.</p> + +<p>"I don't understand, Mr. Lovely, sir. Pray desist, Mr. Lovely, your +honour, sir. The printer must have printed them."</p> + +<p>"'Sdeath and fury! you rascal, I know that. Who wrote them, who wrote +them?"</p> + +<p>In order to supply the correct twirl to this note of interrogation, +Charles flung the little bookseller to the farthest corner of his little +back parlour, at the same time arming himself with half a dozen fresh +volumes.</p> + +<p>Mr. Virgin cowered in the dust and cobwebs.</p> + +<p>"Who wrote them?" Charles demanded.</p> + +<p>"I don't——"</p> + +<p>"What!" and the—th volume of the <i>Gentleman's Magazine</i>, newly arrived +from the binder, winged its way in the direction of the quivering +bookseller. This he ducked to avoid, but even as he ducked, the five +volumes of Mr. Ozell's revision of Urquhart and Motteux' <i>Rabelais</i> +burst over him like an exploded hand grenade.</p> + +<p>"Who wrote them?"</p> + +<p>"Truly I don't——"</p> + +<p>This time Mr. Prior's <i>Poems on Several Occasions</i> carried his wig into +obscurity, and the owner clapped a hand to his head just in time to +receive the bevelled morocco edges of the <i>Beggar's Opera</i> full on the +fingers.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Lovely, sir, you are too violent."</p> + +<p>"Violent, you dog? By G—— if you don't give the name of the son of a +w—— that wrote these damnable lines, I'll flay you alive and bind my +next edition of poems with your lousy skin." The foxy-faced old young +man commenced to wring his hands.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Lovely," he almost screamed. "Mr. Lovely, you're mad—go out of my +shop."</p> + +<p>"Who wrote those lines? Answer, or I'll break up your shop—ay! break it +up with your own sign-board. At the Sign of the Woman—at the Sign of +the Strumpet! Answer me, you lickspittle vermin, answer me."<a name="page_196" id="page_196"></a></p> + +<p>Charles had now seized his wretched publisher by the neck-band, and +shook him so roughly that the latter, fearing for his teeth, the most +extravagant purchase in his mean little life, began to whine.</p> + +<p>"A gentleman—a gentleman——"</p> + +<p>"Well, you misbegotten toad, I never supposed ’twas a midwife."</p> + +<p>"No, certainly not, Mr. Lovely, a gentleman—a gentleman."</p> + +<p>"His name, dog."</p> + +<p>"I don't know."</p> + +<p>"Yes, you do, answer will you."</p> + +<p>"He told me ’twas Amor."</p> + +<p>"I knew it, I knew it, you sneaking son of a b——, and he gave you +twenty guineas to print the verses."</p> + +<p>"No, not twenty, only ten, Mr. Lovely, on my soul."</p> + +<p>"On your soul! H—— l take your soul! Why you were spawned in a ditch, +you viper. So you let my honour go for ten guineas. Give them to me."</p> + +<p>"Oh! Mr. Lovely."</p> + +<p>"Give them to me."</p> + +<p>The miserable little old young man produced the money, unluckily for +himself, in paper.</p> + +<p>"Now since you love money so dearly, by heaven, you shall eat money." +And Mr. Lovely, making a bolus of the bribe, crammed it down the +reluctant bookseller's throat with his own ruler. Then our hero walked +out of the shop.</p> + +<p>I hope you will not deny this scene was in the true vein of heroism. +Aye! aye! 'tis full of bombast as you very properly observe, ma'am or +sir; but that is the part of a hero. He must follow the Prince of +Denmark's directions to the players. Aye! aye! and 'tis full of wind, +but so was the great Montgolfier balloon, and surely every aeronaut is a +hero, even in his descents at the tail-end of a parachute.</p> + +<p>So pray judge Mr. Lovely, not as a man, but as a hero, for I think +you'll do me the justice to admit I never tried to conceal his position.</p> + +<p>But he owes the villain a considerable sum of money. Of course he does, +and this awkward fact is perplexing him<a name="page_197" id="page_197"></a> very much indeed as he strides +down Curtain High Street. To tell the truth, when he emerged from Mr. +Virgin's shop, he found that when the Fates dipped him into Styx, they +made the same mistake as Madame Thetis, with this difference, that, +whereas Achilles was left with a vulnerable heel, our hero preserved a +vulnerable conscience.</p> + +<p>It would have been mighty heroick to march into the <i>Blue Boar</i>, run Mr. +Vernon through the lungs, wed the injured heroine and tread after death +the golden fields of Elysium; but his silly conscience would not allow +him to kill a man to whom he was under a monetary obligation.</p> + +<p>So he borrowed four hundred guineas from Mr. Antony Clare, who could ill +afford the loan, and putting this sum with what he had earned from +lashing the Curtain Polls in an extra thick paper envelope, he sealed it +with his own heroick seal. This fulfilment of earthly debts he sent up +to Mr. Francis Vernon by the hand of Mr. Daish himself, and set to work +to make his conscience less vulnerable by many consecutive pints of +heroick Burgundy.</p> + +<p>You thought that he was going to turn out poor humanity after bullying +Mr. Virgin so heroically? Egad, ma'am or sir, you thought wrong. You +doubt anybody can be a Burgundian hero? So he can; there has been more +than one Charles the Bold of Burgundy.</p> + +<p>The very word is as fire to the most pusillanimous: the very thought of +its crimson depths should set us all tilting.</p> + +<p>'Bring me a quart bottle of Burgundy.' The phrase is like a trumpet-call +outside the keep of Paradise.</p> + +<p>'Bring me another quart of Burgundy.' Down goes the portcullis before +the hero's charge.</p> + +<p>Port may turn a man into a hero—in his dreams; yet I doubt they are too +heavy. As for Sherry, it will serve to sharpen the wits of a dried-up +attorney, but is poor stuff to weave into heroes. On Champagne, a man +will talk like the crew of the <i>Argo</i>, but there's the end of the whole +business.</p> + +<p>Charles drank Burgundy and I promise you some fine heroicks presently.<a name="page_198" id="page_198"></a></p> + +<h2><i>Chapter the Twenty-third</i><br /><br /> +SPACE BETWEEN AN HEROICK COUPLET</h2> + +<p>A discouraging fact for the Persii of yesterday, to-day, and to-morrow, +is that, however needle-sharp their thrusted rapiers, however thorough +their castigations, Society never shows weal or scar at the end of it +all.</p> + +<p>Here was profligate, card-playing, snobbish, vapoured Society, quite +recovered of its whipping and, by candletime, setting out to perform, +just those very actions Persius most bitterly abuses.</p> + +<p>My lady Bunbutter continued to observe every Matador in her opponents' +hands, continued to rake in ill-gotten guineas, continued to use a +quadrille pack with Manille stained, Spadille nicked, Basto dog-eared, +and Ponto scratched. The Most Honble. the Marchioness of Hurricane +continued to help herself five times to the richest Fricassées; +continued to allow her lap-dog liberty of vomit in alien drawing-rooms, +continued to breathe stertorous bawdry into the prominent ears of her +Italian son-in-law—el Conde di Scirocco—while her daughter the +Contessa snored in a corner.</p> + +<p>Young Miss Kitcat continued to encourage the addresses of the +disreputable Captain Mann, and even went so far as to tap that military +scoundrel three times with her fan in coy avowal of his charming +naughtiness.</p> + +<p>The Earl of Cinderton drank five bottles of Port that very night in +order to emphasize his indifference to satire, and slept under his own +mahogany table because his lackeys below stairs were too drunk to carry +him to bed.<a name="page_199" id="page_199"></a></p> + +<p>In fact, nobody save the publisher of Curtain Polls displayed sign or +sense of injury.</p> + +<p>Our heroine indeed was vastly affected, but her misfortunes were due to +a gloss upon the original.</p> + +<p>As it happened, Mrs. Courteen did not discover the reference to her +daughter's indiscretion, until she was asked by an inquisitive dowager +to explain the allusion in the twelve lines. She managed to conceal her +agitation, thanks to the permanency of the newest rouge, but presently +called for her chair and arrived home a full two hours before she was +expected.</p> + +<p>When she sailed into the parlour Phyllida was languishingly occupied +with a blue vase of pot-pourri, and the parlour fire was trying to burn +up beneath a weight of blackened notepaper.</p> + +<p>The suddenness of the widow's entrance alarmed her daughter so much that +she dropped the vase, and the contents were strewn over the carpet. The +faint perfume that slowly permeated the stuffy atmosphere of the +lodgings, should have reminded Mrs. Courteen of her youth, of long June +eves and blossoms plucked awhile ago by fingers now wrinkled and stained +with years of snuff.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Courteen also neglected to remember that so far as ridicule went, +she had brought enough of that upon her own head.</p> + +<p>However, she recalled neither memory nor fact, and was properly enraged +with her daughter's light behaviour.</p> + +<p>"You have ruined my good name, child. I can never again look the world +in the face. How we shall be laughed at in Hampshire, for be sure that +odious Miss Talker whose sister married the Rector of Slumber, has +already despatched a copy to her brother-in-law, and you know what +chatterboxes parsons always are: I suppose because they preach, though I +should have thought, lud! that with so much breath used on Sunday, they +might be as dumb as dumb for the rest of the week, and hurt nobody, +least of all their own wives and neighbours. But there! what good<a name="page_200" id="page_200"></a> is it +to educate a young woman in the way she should go? I might better have +set an example to the village clock. At all events that does possess a +face. Put down your handkerchief, hussy."</p> + +<p>"Dear mamma——"</p> + +<p>"Don't excuse yourself, pray do not excuse yourself, I doubt 'tis all my +fault. I doubt I han't looked after you, taken you to Melton Abbey, and +prayed for you, minx, yes, prayed for you. And have you got any good +from learning the collects for Sunday and the Benedicite and the +Athanasian Creed and the thirty-nine Articles? None! A pretty thing, +truly, that after so much honourable religion, I should have my daughter +pointed out as a—as what no respectable young woman is. Pointed at! And +I, your mother, am to be laughed at, mocked at, jeered at, because you +suffer every down-at-heel fop to make gross love to you, sheltered from +the eye of men—yes! vastly well—but you forget the eye of one above +and the tongue of scandal."</p> + +<p>"Madam, I am truly, deeply ashamed. If I promise never, never again to +cause you the slightest uneasiness, will you forgive me for once, and +take me away from this odious town?"</p> + +<p>"Take you away? A pretty request truly; and give every old maid in +Curtain Wells the opportunity of saying I was afraid to show my face and +your figure. Take you away, miss? No, indeed, I shall take you around. I +shall try by exhibiting you beneath your mother's protection, to give +the lie to these atrocious reports and, next year, miss, next year, we +will pay a visit to Tunbridge Wells in order to provide a husband whom +you may kiss in the privacy of your own estate, with no one but a +wandering gamekeeper any the wiser."</p> + +<p>"I never kissed Mr. Amor," protested Phyllida.</p> + +<p>"Amor? Amor? And who is Mr. Amor?"</p> + +<p>"He is my true love, ma'am, whom I love with all my might and main."</p> + +<p>"There's indecency! there's impropriety! Lud! I<a name="page_201" id="page_201"></a> vow, vixen, you are as +wanton as a goddess. You love him, eh?"</p> + +<p>"That is my only excuse, ma'am, for having behaved so ill."</p> + +<p>"What business, I should like to know, has a child of fifteen——"</p> + +<p>"Seventeen, ma'am."</p> + +<p>"Fifteen, girl."</p> + +<p>"Then, sure, you are reckoning by leap years, ma'am."</p> + +<p>"Do not be impudent. I repeat, Phyllida, I will not have impudence. You +know dear Doctor Makewell particularly enjoined me not to allow +impudence. 'Your heart won't stand it, ma'am.' Cruel Phyllida, not +content with deceiving your mother, you are willing to injure her health +by impudence."</p> + +<p>"You think only of yourself," said Phyllida bitterly.</p> + +<p>"Only of myself! Oh! Phyllida, how dare you accuse me of selfishness? My +whole life since the death of your father who was a most exacting man +and would ride Pegasus, though I told him a hundred times if I told him +once that the brute would murder him. Now I've forgotten what I was +saying, and 'tis all your fault, ungrateful child. Go to bed instantly +and to-morrow I will have all your dresses starched as stiff as leather, +so that nobody, not even that spiteful Lady Jane Vane, can say I don't +take care that whatever your mind may be, your dresses leave nothing to +be desired. Go to bed, go to bed. I can't listen to you any longer. I +feel humiliated by your abominable behaviour. Judge of my feelings when +I tell you I did not dare invite either Mr. Moon or Major Tarry to +escort me home for fear the world would say I was setting you a bad +example. Now, perhaps you'll accuse me of not possessing a conscience. +Indeed, my conscience is too tender. 'Tis the tenderest part of me, +though I have one of the most delicate skins—a skin that bruises if I +ring a bell with unwonted celerity."</p> + +<p>"Mamma, I——" Phyllida began.<a name="page_202" id="page_202"></a></p> + +<p>"Pray do not say another word, you have said enough to-night to last a +lifetime. Send Betty with my bedgown worked in crimson hollyhocks and I +will try to forget this wretched experience by attempting to +ascertain—please get the playing cards—how Miss Trumper managed to +secure codille in the last hand but four of this extremely unpleasant +and unprofitable evening. Go to bed, Phyllida, don't dally. Here is +Betty. Go to bed, Phyllida."</p> + +<p>So Phyllida went to bedew her lavendered pillow. Anything was better +than listening to her mother's perpetual reproaches. Anything, anything +was better. Even to be betrayed. Ha! ha! now I think for the first time +you will admit Miss Phyllida to be a true heroine. Poor Clarie Harlowe! +How Phyllida had wept over her adventures and, even in the midst of +tears, how quick she had always been to thrust the forbidden volumes out +of sight when she heard her mother's step on the stairs.</p> + +<p>Poor Clarie Harlowe! She began to sign her name to innumerable nobly +penitent epistles.</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry" style="font-style:italic;"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Your cruelly abandoned</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Phyllida.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Your wretched, but still loving</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Phyllida.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Your heartbroken, hopeless</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Phyllida.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Your betrayed daughter</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Phyllida.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Your forsaken, but affectionate</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Phyllida.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Your seduced (or was it seducted, or abduced,<br /> or abducted?)</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Phyllida.</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>Oh, dear! Oh, dear! what a muddle fine language was to be sure!</p> + +<p>I have not yet apologized for my very ancient story, but faith! you must +blame the period and the intolerable<a name="page_203" id="page_203"></a> system of female education. Amor +had either to be a Lovelace or a Joseph at a time when young maidenhood +fainted before an ardent glance.</p> + +<p>After all we do not now apologize for our strong silent men and +hysterical girls. Why should we? And yet for my own part I love better +your talkative blackguard; I have known so many strong silent men, and +they were all fools or Scotsmen.</p> + +<p>During this digression, Phyllida has fallen asleep, her face flushed and +dabbled with spent tears, her chestnut hair in golden filigree upon the +pillow and, where the sleeve of her bedgown has retreated, a rosy arm +whose little fist is clenched in maiden despair.</p> + +<p>Poor foolish child! Why would you fall in love? Untenanted, your dearest +gate swings in the wind to-night, but you will not mount again upon its +topmost mossy bar. You will never again view with the same excitement +the huntsmen over the hill-top; they will mean less to you; their pink +coats will be quite dingy when next you say good morning to old Nick +Runnalls the Whip. For my part, I do not believe that hot buttered +apple-pies will taste so sweet when next you eat them in the long cool +kitchen with its pot of marjoram and shaded sunlight.</p> + +<p>And as for your bed-chamber with casements abob with peering rosebuds, I +doubt the shelves will not soon be disturbed to make a place for new +trophies. Once you thought it a day of days when you found the +thigh-bone of a horse or the skull of a badger. They hang on the walls +now, poor relicks of an outworn delight.</p> + +<p>All this shall go for a balcony in the Haymarket and a goldfinch in a +gilt cage. Foolish child! Away down in Hampshire the goldfinches build +green nests in the orchard. Phyllida! sweet, headlong, heedless +Phyllida!</p> + +<p class="cba"><span style="margin-left: 10%;">*</span> <span style="margin-left: 10%;">*</span> <span style="margin-left: 10%;">*</span></p> + +<p>"I blame you, Betty. I blame you, vixen. Why you cannot model yourself +on Thomas passes my comprehension." Thus the widow.<a name="page_204" id="page_204"></a></p> + +<p>"She meant no harm, poor pretty lamb," protested the maid.</p> + +<p>"'Tis not what we mean, but what we do that counts in this world."</p> + +<p>"Ah! 'tis fine for thee to talk, ma'am, you take good care to amuse +yourself, but, little miss, she must dingle-dangle all day long wi' +nought to do but dream of doing nought."</p> + +<p>"She has her friend, Miss Morton."</p> + +<p>"Ay! that black-eyed hussy what pinches the maiden who dresses her lean +skimpy rat's hair. I don't take much account o' she."</p> + +<p>They continued in this strain for quite two hours, and would never have +stopped if the candles had endured.</p> + +<p>They went up to bed just as Charles, having finished his third bottle of +Burgundy, knocked with vinous assurance at the door of the Great House.</p> + +<p>I am not at all certain whether this adventurous action should have been +included in this chapter, for I doubt nothing more heroick was ever done +even by Hercules at the zenith of his laborious career. It was +considered rash enough to wait upon Mr. Ripple in the middle of his +siesta. A royal Duke once succeeded in gaining admittance, if very +little else; but to wait upon Mr. Ripple when his flambeaux strewed the +steps, when the orange light in his porch was winking on its way to +annihilation, when the grey Angora cat had settled herself for repose, +when not even a mouse dared scamper in the wainscot, and when Mr. Ripple +himself sat amid the ruins of his complexion—this was defying the +lightning and inviting Jove's revenge indeed.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, fortified by three bottles of a vintage that held the +heart of France in its crimson depths, Charles recklessly knocked at the +front door of the Great House, not once, but twice or thrice, with added +vigour in the repetition. The sound sent the Beau's taper fingers a full +two inches deep into a pomade compounded of some particularly fine +Provençal almonds and the fat of foxes, the whole famous for removing +those pectinated wrinkles that<a name="page_205" id="page_205"></a> cluster at the edge of middle-aged lips. +The fragrant grease, wedged beneath his nails, caused him to press thumb +to fingers with an exclamation of fastidious displeasure.</p> + +<p>The clatter of the second and third assault froze him to his chair with +a sense of impending calamity.</p> + +<p>Gog and Magog were fast asleep dreaming their gaudy dreams of Africa. +Mrs. Binn, Mr. Ripple's intelligent cook, was snoring in the starlight +of an upper chamber; Polly and Molly, Mr. Ripple's equally intelligent +maids, were dreaming discreet dreams also in an upper chamber. Mr. Mink +alone of the royal household was awake, engaged upon the overwhelmingly +tricky job of frizzling his master's newest wig, and therefore quite +unable, during this capillary crisis, to attend to the affairs of the +world or the devil, knocked either never so loudly.</p> + +<p>Consequently Mr. Ripple had to open the door himself, for if the +knocking were to continue, many heads might peer from the Crescent +windows, and the morning's rumour of the occurrence damage his +authority.</p> + +<p>It is characteristick of the Beau that in this critical juncture of +affairs, he preserved his faculties so intact, that he was able without +affectation to choose deliberately between a dressing-gown of flowered +damask and a more diaphanous wrapper of dove-grey China silk. In +deference to the season he selected the latter.</p> + +<p>As he passed the door of his third dressing-room, he could see Mr. Mink, +apparently unconscious of anything untoward in the air, blowing with +steady breaths upon a remarkably hot pair of curling-tongs. The calm +demeanour of his gentleman restored whatever was still lacking to Mr. +Ripple's perfect equilibrium of mind.</p> + +<p>With gentle steps, he descended the quiet stairs and, candlestick in +hand, proceeded to draw back the cunningly wrought bolts of the front +door.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Ripple, I must speak to you," said Charles.</p> + +<p>"Charles," said the Beau, "this visit is either vastly important or—it +is vastly impertinent. Pray, what is your business, sir?"<a name="page_206" id="page_206"></a></p> + +<p>"Business?" repeated Charles, on whom the effort of concentration was +beginning to tell slightly. "Business?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, business, sir, business; for I presume you are not situated on my +doorstep for pleasure."</p> + +<p>"I want to speak to you."</p> + +<p>"Come to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"Nay, sir, I must speak with you now. I'm in a devilish mess and need +the advice of a man who has seen—who has seen——"</p> + +<p>"Well, sir?" said the Beau, shading his candle in such a way that the +pallid flickering rays lit up the young man's countenance.</p> + +<p>"D——! I don't know, Ripple, but for God's sake don't stand there with +that infernal candle dancing all over my face. Let me come in."</p> + +<p>Whether it was the note of misery in our hero's voice or his drawn face +or merely a whim of a great man's naturally eccentrick mind that made +the Beau beckon Charles to follow him upstairs to the tall white +drawing-room, where even still the fire glowed dully, will never be +known. Any way, beckon to him he did, and having set down the taper on +the high mantelpiece, seated himself beside the fire and began +meditatively to toast his embroidered morocco pumps.</p> + +<p>There they sat in the great drawing-room, the King and his Heir +Presumptive, and very ghostly they looked in the wan light, and very +unreal the whole experience seemed to Charles in after life.</p> + +<p>"'Tis about this book."</p> + +<p>"What book?"</p> + +<p>"This satire."</p> + +<p>"You wrote it?"</p> + +<p>"Aye," with great weariness.</p> + +<p>"<i>You</i> wrote it? 'Foregad, Charles, I should never have believed that."</p> + +<p>"But I never—I never wrote those lines."</p> + +<p>"What lines?" Mr. Ripple, having admitted much, would admit no more.<a name="page_207" id="page_207"></a></p> + +<p>"About Miss Courteen and the Maze, and the whole d——d, d——d, d—— +d——"</p> + +<p>No substantive was strong enough to suit the emphatick epithets thrice +repeated.</p> + +<p>"And who, may I ask, was the author of those graceful stanzas?"</p> + +<p>"I know, but—but, Ripple—I owed the blackguard money—the Chinese +Masquerade—I knew his name all the while—if harm comes of this affair, +'tis my fault—but by G——, I'll call him out, yes, I'll call him out, +I'll call him out, I'll call him out, and I'll——"</p> + +<p>"Go to bed," said Mr. Ripple peremptorily.</p> + +<p>"What d'ye mean?"</p> + +<p>"You fool, you're drunk. We'll talk of this to-morrow. Good night, Mr. +Lovely. By the way, who was the author of those graceful stanzas?"</p> + +<p>"Oh! h——! Amor. Vernor—Vernon. Anon! Oh, h——!"</p> + +<p>"What proof have you of this?"</p> + +<p>"Proof, eh? what d'ye say—proof—ha-ha-ha! proof! Why the proof of the +pudding's in the eating. Isn't that so? But I've found, I've found the +author, and I'll walk with him in Curtain Mead—in Curtain Mead by +moonlight, eh? and by the powers, you shall act for me."</p> + +<p>"Sir, this flippancy is intolerable."</p> + +<p>"Who's flippant—who's intol—erol—erable, sir? I say I'll pay him with +six inches of smallsword."</p> + +<p>"You forget my rules, Mr. Lovely."</p> + +<p>"Rules? Rules? What's the good of rules? He has insulted me and her."</p> + +<p>I think you will agree with me that Charles was drunk enough to be very +undignified. Mr. Lovely Senior appeared again, maudlin and quarrelsome. +The Beau, who remembered him, winced at the resemblance.</p> + +<p>"This interview is very repugnant to my sense of decorum," he protested. +"I beg you will take your leave, sir. The whole affair needs the +elucidation of the morning; this candle is insufficient. Moreover, the +hour is late; the<a name="page_208" id="page_208"></a> fire is low; I make it a rule to be asleep by +midnight whenever possible."</p> + +<p>"There you go again!" cried Charles, jumping up and walking with +feverish gestures and unsteady legs round about the room. "Rules! Rules! +Rules! 'Foregad, Sir, I tell you, you cannot make rules for life and +death."</p> + +<p>"But you can make many excellent rules for living and dying. One of the +best of these is moderation in liquor."</p> + +<p>Charles went back to the <i>Blue Boar</i> not quite sure whether he had told +Beau Ripple a very great deal or nothing at all. He remembered so little +of what he had said that next morning he came to the conclusion that it +was nothing at all. He was glad of this, for somehow when the effects of +the Burgundy wore off, he did not feel disposed to attempt the barricade +of the Great little Man's modish prejudice. Anything in the nature of an +intrigue would be distasteful to such an emotional ascetick.</p> + +<p>So Charles stayed late in bed on Tuesday morning and took no advantage +of the invitation grimly issued the night before.</p> + +<p>In the afternoon, being dejected in spirits, and finding all the world +gone a-hunting, or a-fishing, or a-wenching, he betook himself to the +<i>World Turned Upside Down</i>, a noted house for old red wines. While he +sat in the taproom discussing life with an elderly bagman, one of the +hostlers of the <i>Blue Boar</i> to whom he had confided his destination +brought him a note.</p> + +<p>"D—— his eyes," said Charles, crumpling the paper to a perfumed ball, +and flicking it towards the undulating surface of the elderly bagman's +rubied nose.</p> + +<p>"D—— his eyes," and, turning to his target, he inquired whether the +latter would drink Port or Burgundy.<a name="page_209" id="page_209"></a></p> + +<h2><i>Chapter the Twenty-fourth</i><br /><br /> +DAISH'S ROOMS<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></h2> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">M</span>R. JEREMY DAISH, as I told you many pages back, was remarkably like a +Cremona violin. Conceive then this elderly instrument of the Muses +making a final inspection of his polished floor, preparatory to the +invasion of my lady Bunbutter's red-heeled rout.</p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> I went into Daish's Rooms the other day, for they still +exist as the storehouse of a prosperous ironmonger who is not above +unbending at Christmas time so far as to display a variety of choice +knick-knacks wrought by the Curtain Wells Amateur Copper-Beaters' +Association. The famous frieze carved by an Italian immigrant still +exists, and makes a suitable background for the exhibition of patent +mouse-traps. Among all the brass gongs and Japanese flower-pots, above +the mowing machines and oil-stoves of varied price and power I was +pleased to detect the old iron hooks whence long ago hung the gilt +mirrors that held the unimpaired reflections of this gay history's +characters. For a moment, amid the bleak utility of the stores, I half +fancied the swish of a broidered petticoat and the whisper of a painted +fan, smelt Eau de Chypre and heard the Minuet in <i>Ariadne</i>. I shall not +visit Daish's Rooms again; the ghosts have too much power to wring my +heart with the tears and laughter of spent joys. +</p><p> +"It's a very inconvenient store-room," said the dapper manager, "I think +Mr. Bugloss intends to pull it down next year."</p></div> + +<p>Everything portended a successful evening's entertainment. The hautboys, +the flutes, the fiddles and the harp were drinking hot negus extra +strong in order to spur them to unwonted achievements of melody. +Prudence and Deborah, Mr. Daish's comely daughters, who never appeared +in the galleries of the <i>Blue Boar</i> so that their attendance on +occasions like the present might possess the charm at once of +condescension and novelty, were busily puffing their caps and smoothing +their pinners, and from time to time glancing in the direction of the +gilt mirrours just to see that the wax candles were not forming ominous +shrouds liable to mar the gaiety of my lady Bunbutter's agreeable +entertainment.</p> + +<p>Waiters came and peeped through a door which probably led to the +supper-room and the three footmen in black plush laced with silver braid +were engaged in a dignified consultation over the glittering knobs of +their tall Malacca canes.<a name="page_210" id="page_210"></a></p> + +<p>The wheels of the first coach crackle suddenly above the murmurous quiet +of preparation. Tremendously hooped and highly wigged, my lady Bunbutter +has arrived and is entirely approving of the arrangements made by Mr. +Jeremy Daish for the fitting entertainment of a distinguished and +fashionable company.</p> + +<p>Here comes the latter very splendid, prodigiously well-bred and +thoroughly determined to criticize the musick and the supper and my lady +Bunbutter herself with merciless perseverance. Here comes the Most +Honourable the Marquis of Hurricane and his eldest son the Earl of +Squall and his second son Lord Augustus Wind and Lady Mary Wind and Lady +Winifred Wind, and his son-in-law El Conde de Scirocco and the sleepy +Contessa, but lud! my lady, her ladyship was unable to appear and begs +to send her apologies. Her dog, my lady, has developed a quinsy, most +unaccountable.</p> + +<p>Here come the Earl of Cinderton and the Honourable Mr. Harthe-Brusshe, +and the Lady Angela Tongs, his married daughter.</p> + +<p>Here comes Mrs. Courteen and Miss Phyllida Courteen with Major +Constantine Tarry and Mr. Gregory Moon close behind.</p> + +<p>Here is young Miss Kitcat with Captain Mann who for all he was so +disreputable was nevertheless tantamount to the success of the Cotillon.</p> + +<p>Here come old General Morton and Miss Susan Morton.</p> + +<p>In fact, here comes everybody of any importance in Curtain Wells; and +the fiddlers are tuning up.<a name="page_211" id="page_211"></a></p> + +<p>Yet for all the fiddlers are inviting the world to dance, for all the +world declares the whole entertainment promises to be a grand success +(though not so grand as it should be, considering the ample means at the +disposal of my lady Bunbutter whose father was able to leave a large +fortune to a milliner in Soho), her ladyship herself casts many an +anxious glance towards the entrance. The courtiers have arrived but the +King is still absent, and absent he is likely to remain having caught a +slight nasal catarrh from his contact with the night weather, brought +about by Mr. Lovely. For this story his absence was even more important +in its consequences than my Lady Bunbutter dreamed, since if the Beau +had been present on this occasion I doubt he would have persuaded our +heroine to give up all thoughts of elopements, seductions, stratagems +and rope-ladder courtships. As it fell out, there was nobody to +encourage the unromantick side of her, that is to say, nobody whose +opinion she could honestly respect.</p> + +<p>Mr. Francis Vernon had hired the old dancing hall for a midnight party +of farewell; and the old dancing hall still possessed an oak door which +opened on a long corridor which in its turn opened into the new and +improved dancing hall of Daish's Rooms. Halfway along this corridor was +a recessed glasshouse now bare of vegetation, bleak and unfriendly in +the chilly moonlight but a very convenient place for the renewal of +true-lovers' vows when one of the lovers had not been invited to my Lady +Bunbutter's rout. So in the press of the opening gavottes, as Phyllida +passed down the side of the room to wait beside her mother's empty +chair, long white fingers plucked at the black silk mittens that netted +her soft little hand. Phyllida started and, looking up, saw the fingers +withdraw themselves through the space left by a half-opened door.</p> + +<p>She looked round in affright, but the fiddlers were busy over the gentle +tune and all the world of scandal was dancing or about to dance. The +thrill of his touch gave her strength enough to make up her mind and, +without more than a moment's hesitation, she slipped through the doorway +whose opening was obscured by greenery.<a name="page_212" id="page_212"></a></p> + +<p>A solitary candle lit the long corridor with fitful draughty light.</p> + +<p>"Come," said Vernon; and, taking his arm, she went down the passage +which seemed to stretch far away—to ruin perhaps, but the end was not +perceptible owing to the scarce illumination.</p> + +<p>Soon they were alone in the chilly glasshouse with the moon and a star +or two besides.</p> + +<p>"To-morrow, my dearest life," he whispered.</p> + +<p>"No, no," said Phyllida.</p> + +<p>"To-morrow," he went on, "a post-chaise will be waiting by the toyshop, +and on the seat a riding hood of peacock blue that to-day I bought for +my love."</p> + +<p>"No! No! Amor, dear Amor, I am afraid."</p> + +<p>"Afraid, dear heart, afraid?"</p> + +<p>Far off sounded the musick and far off the laughter of the world.</p> + +<p>"Afraid that misery will come of it."</p> + +<p>"Misery, my beloved? I will cherish you for ever."</p> + +<p>"Amor! Amor! I'm afraid. Something, I cannot say what, I cannot explain +my feelings, but something frightens me, I feel—oh! I feel as if I were +walking in a dark wet garden. I feel as if—as if the laurels and the +evergreens held a knife."</p> + +<p>Vernon clasped her to him.</p> + +<p>"My dear and my dear, they hold no more than an arrow; the arrow that +has pierced our hearts."</p> + +<p>Certainly our villain was play-acting, but he was his own audience and +that juxtaposition is as near to sincerity as even your hero attains.</p> + +<p>"You won't betray your Phyllida?"</p> + +<p>The appeal caught fire from the flaming cheeks of a maid and burned a +way direct, poignant, passionate, right through the lustre and tinsel of +his emotional costume.</p> + +<p>"You won't betray your Phyllida?" The question was such an one as +circulating libraries knew very well. It was asked by many a +contemporary Musidora or Clarinda of fiction. Yet so tremulous were the +lips that asked it, lips<a name="page_213" id="page_213"></a> frail as rose-leaves and, withal, ardent as +wine, that Vernon shuddered. For the first time in his life he had +raised a force. He was at home with Ranelagh romps, with patched +beauties of Vauxhall, mistresses of intrigue whose fans had become a +part of their bodies, or better, whose bodies were no more than the +appendage of their fans, light, airy things where Love danced in a mask +and could be shut up at will.</p> + +<p>Now for the first time he stared into eyes which held immortality. He +saw himself Point de Vise but intolerably diminished.</p> + +<p>Vernon noticed that the cheek nearer to him flamed more crimson and for +a while he was troubled by the mystery of Love's birth. Elation swung +him to the skies and, catching Phyllida to his heart, he whispered of +constancy, swore that love would endure for ever and hardly knew himself +for a liar.</p> + +<p>He never spoke again of pearls, and from that moment truly desired her +for the youth and the mystery of herself.</p> + +<p>With a pang of tenderness he let her go, watched her hurry down the +corridor like a crimson Autumn leaf that is blown along by the wind. By +the little door she looked back at him, and from the tips of her fingers +sped elfin kisses which on the wings of the musick of flutes and fiddles +were borne in grace and beauty.</p> + +<p>She had promised. With a sigh Mr. Francis Vernon went back to +superintend the arrangements for his farewell party. She had promised, +and, as she slipped unobserved into the glitter and heat of Daish's +famous Rooms, never seemed like one who has stood a long while in +moonlight.</p> + +<p>What mattered the censorious world? The softness of his black velvet +sleeve thrilled her, and, forgetting all else, she began to build her +house of dreams. What a house it was, with casements that looked on +every month of the marching years. Now it was December when the +snowflakes were falling. Down the corridor she and her lover moved in +the grey light, but the casements were lined with ferns and stars and +jewels of frost, so they sought Spring in the changing fire-gardens of +burning logs. February went by<a name="page_214" id="page_214"></a> with her showers and her celandines, her +snowdrops and thrushes that sing on bare branches. That casement in her +house of dreams was gilded round and the sill carved with posies and +true-lovers' knots, for through it she had seen Love for the first time. +March came in by night with a great noise of wind, yet even in the gusty +darkness she could put out her hands to touch a velvet sleeve as black +as the gloom enclosed by the open lattice. Every casement in her house +of dreams was full of delight, even the quaint little window at the very +end of the corridor whose ledge was the haunt of drifted leaves. In the +far-off autumn he would still be by her side.</p> + +<p>Somebody asked her to step a minuet, yet while her body danced, while +her feet kept tune to the twinkling rhythm, while her fan fluttered to +mortal harmonies, her soul was away with Love—God knows the spot, but +’twas somewhere mighty near the top of this green world. Now she was +rocking a wooden cradle while the wind in the wide black chimney crooned +an echo to the old nursery song she was singing. Ah! sir or madam, when +a young maiden starts to build her house of dreams, I think, if she be a +wise maid, she builds the nursery first of all.</p> + +<p>This wonderful house had a number of clocks, tall clocks, short clocks, +thin clocks, fat clocks, round clocks, square clocks, clocks on the +wall, clocks on the mantelpiece, clocks in the corners; and every clock +was ticking away to a tune of its own, for in the house of dreams there +was never a moment that did not deserve perpetual commemoration.</p> + +<p>Somebody asked her to step a gavotte. At the end of the garden of this +wonderful house was a green wicket, and when you had walked through a +coppice of birches and wild raspberries that ripen with the corn, you +found yourself on the London road. It ran straight as a dart over hill +and down dale, through villages whose cottages were only built to stare +at the gay equipages that rattled past, for nothing alive was visible +save a few geese on a blue and white pond beneath a blue and white sky. +Phyllida's mind was a book of old wives'<a name="page_215" id="page_215"></a> tales and her London was the +golden London of Dick Whittington.</p> + +<p>Fled were all the outraged heroines of dog-eared novels in greasy +circulation. The long reproaches, stilted protestations, vows, regrets +and declarations had vanished. The nodding spinsters behind country +counters who selected the literature of their clients and declared how +affecting was this tale, how full of sensibility was that one, had +gradually lost all definite shape like the volumes they doled out so +assiduously. Fled, too, with the vapours of young maidenhood, were some +of the sweets. Nevertheless I doubt there was not a soul to regret the +old Phyllida save perhaps Betty and Dick Combleton, the Squire's +youngest son away down in Hampshire.</p> + +<p>Miss Sukey Morton began to talk to her of young Tom Chalkley. She told +how he had passed their house, how he had looked up at the window, and +how by the greatest ill luck she happened to be rather pale that +morning. She babbled on about the imagined progress of an affair which +had never truly existed. To Phyllida who should have been sympathetick, +it was rather wearisome chatter. Suddenly Miss Morton shocked her dear +Courteen very much by asking if she had discovered who was satirized in +those twelve lines beginning ... Phyllida interrupted with a curt +negative, so curt that her darling Morton regarded her with black-eyed +curiosity.</p> + +<p>"And how should I know, Sukey, how should I know?"</p> + +<p>"My dearest Miss Courteen, there is no need to be angry about a simple +question."</p> + +<p>"These discoveries are all so low," complained Phyllida.</p> + +<p>"Oh, vastly low, though for my part I think the hussy deserves censure +since she has made every young woman ridiculous."</p> + +<p>With this commentary Miss Morton left her friend, and Phyllida, +wondering all the while if she knew the whole affair, was more than ever +firmly determined to elope to-morrow afternoon with her Amor.<a name="page_216" id="page_216"></a></p> + +<h2><i>Chapter the Twenty-fifth</i><br /><br /> +QUARTS OF BURGUNDY</h2> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HE old ballroom of the famous Daish's Rooms looked mighty cheerful on +the evening of my Lady Bunbutter's rout and Mr. Francis Vernon's +farewell entertainment.</p> + +<p>The circular mahogany table with finely carved claw legs shone like the +fine old piece of Spanish wood it was, that is to say, wherever it could +secure a clear space for shining, being almost entirely clouded over by +innumerable dishes of gruit and nuts, plates, silver knives and silver +forks, two large horns of snuff and half-dozen pairs of branched +candlesticks, while in the very centre surrounded by lesser fruits stood +a magnificent pineapple.</p> + +<p>Round the table stood a dozen or more solid Windsor wheelback chairs +that were warranted to stand firm, though the fattest gentleman that +ever sat down to dessert tipped perpetually back on them to the utmost +limit of his balance. A magnificent fire blazed and roared in the +hearth, and round the walls were hung prints of racehorses, cock-fights, +steeplechases, prize bullocks, and fat sheep, with bills of sale beneath +them and announcements of forthcoming diversions for the young gentlemen +of the <i>Blue Boar</i> and the more wealthy agriculturalists of the +neighbourhood.</p> + +<p>It was ten o'clock of a wet windy night and the chairmen were growing +quarrelsome as they stamped up and down in the street below.</p> + +<p>Mr. Jeremy Daish had been rather unwilling for Mr. Vernon to give his +party on a night when he himself would be unable to superintend the +commissariat owing to his services being required for my Lady +Bunbutter's rout close<a name="page_217" id="page_217"></a> at hand. However, he had left the strictest +injunctions with John the senior waiter to carry off at once all empty +bottles in order to the protection of the Curtain Wells watch, which was +wont to suffer considerably in their persons on such an hilarious +occasion as a party in the old ballroom of Daish's Rooms.</p> + +<p>The host stood with his back to the fire complacently surveying the +preparations. Vernon's extraction was somewhat ambiguous, and his father +may or may not have been the fine gentleman that his mother swore he +was. So, as he stood regarding the well-covered table and the tall +armchair at the head of it where he would presently take his seat, a +distinct feeling of elation seized him at the prospect of being in a +position to pass the decanter round a circle of such undeniable +breeding. He went over their names—names famous on many a battlefield +and many a hunting field. They belonged to a world of broad acres and +park gates and double lodges and Corinthian hunting-boxes. They were +revered at home by many peasants and wore the mantle of life with an air +of easy proprietorship. They possessed something like the dignified +stability of the Church of England. They were a force, an institution, a +product of insular civilization. In fact, they were English Gentlemen, +and Mr. Vernon contemplated their existence with great +self-satisfaction. He, too, was an English Gentleman, he reassured +himself. It was the consciousness of being one which gave him that +pleasant sense of superiority to the rest of the world when he found +himself in the congenial company of his peers.</p> + +<p>Yet poor Mr. Vernon (I am rather sorry for poor Mr. Vernon) could not +conceal from his shrewd self that he had no business to be at all unduly +elated at the prospect of entertaining young Tom Chalkley of the Foot, +Lieutenant Blewforth of the <i>Lively</i>, Mr. Harry Golightly of Campbell's +Grey Dragoons, Mr. Anthony Clare, little Peter Wingfield, Jack +Winnington, the Honourable Mr. Harthe-Brusshe, my Lord Squall, Lord +Augustus Wind and Mr. Charles Lovely.</p> + +<p>It was Mr. Vernon's note of invitation to the last which<a name="page_218" id="page_218"></a> had caused him +to d—— Vernon's hazel eyes, in the taproom of the <i>World turned Upside +Down</i>. Presently came a sound of laughter and careless talk as the young +gentlemen of the <i>Blue Boar</i> came swaggering in. Was it merely a sense +of eccentricity that made the host fancy he detected a note of +condescension in their loud and jovial greeting to himself? Probably.</p> + +<p>The early guests talked, as early guests always will, with half an eye +on the clock and the other half on the table.</p> + +<p>"Squall is late," said Vernon.</p> + +<p>"Squall coming?" inquired Blewforth.</p> + +<p>"L-l-ook out for squalls," stammered little Peter Wingfield.</p> + +<p>"Squall's an ass," said Mr. Golightly.</p> + +<p>"So is his brother," said Chalkley.</p> + +<p>"Always was," said Clare.</p> + +<p>"Wind is coming too," said Vernon. "Augustus, that is, and +Harthe-Brusshe."</p> + +<p>The young gentlemen of the <i>Blue Boar</i> looked peevish; it was tactless +of that fellow Vernon to keep them waiting for three such asses as +these.</p> + +<p>"They are late," said Blewforth very emphatically.</p> + +<p>"I'm expecting Lovely, too," said Vernon almost humbly. Somehow or other +he felt the slightest inclination to apologize, exactly what for he did +not know.</p> + +<p>"Charles is always late. He's a d——d careless fellow," said Mr. +Golightly, and one felt the final judgment upon Charles had been passed.</p> + +<p>"Charles is not jigging with old Butterbun, is he?" asked little Peter +Wingfield.</p> + +<p>"Oh! the d——l! not he," said Blewforth. "He's found a red-cheeked +hussy with whom he's carrying on an intrigue."</p> + +<p>"Eh, what! Never?" exclaimed a chorus.</p> + +<p>"What's his charmer's name?" said Chalkley.</p> + +<p>"Burgundy," replied Blewforth with a great guffaw that made all the +glasses and goblets and decanters on the big oak dresser ring an echo.<a name="page_219" id="page_219"></a></p> + +<p>"I never thought Charles cared much for wine or women," said Golightly.</p> + +<p>"Nor he don't," Blewforth put in. "Nor he don't. That's what beats me. +But I tell you I saw Charles Lovely sitting in the taproom of the <i>World +Turned Upside Down</i>. Nobody goes there unless he wishes to be drunk by +nightfall. Eh, boys? So depend on't when Charles does arrive, he'll +arrive drunk. But why? That's the riddle."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps the fair Courteen has slighted him," said Chalkley. "Serve him +right. He had no business to take himself so seriously. 'Tis very +fashionable to be a poet, but egad! 'tis devilish low to behave like +one."</p> + +<p>"Is that Miss Phyllida Courteen?" said Vernon, trying to speak as though +he had read her name in the list of visitors published every week by the +proprietors of the <i>Curtain Wells Chronicle and Pump Room +Intelligencer</i>.</p> + +<p>"Aye! d'ye know her? Blooming seventeen with a short upper lip, blue +eyes and hair the colour of that chestnut gelding, What's His Name sold +'tother day."</p> + +<p>"Very poor animal," said Golightly.</p> + +<p>"Not at all. I disagree with you."</p> + +<p>"Very poor animal indeed," said Golightly.</p> + +<p>"It fetched a very pretty price."</p> + +<p>"Oh," said Mr. Golightly and the argument was over.</p> + +<p>"Does she carry a white swansdown muff?" asked Vernon.</p> + +<p>"Who?"</p> + +<p>"Miss Courteen."</p> + +<p>"Eh? Oh! I don't know," and since Mr. Chalkley's tone of voice implied a +lack of further interest on the subject, the subject was dropped.</p> + +<p>"My belief is," said Lieutenant Blewforth loudly, and moving as he spoke +in the direction of the fireplace. "Egad, Vernon would you take it +unkind if I rang for a tankard of ale? I'm as dry as a gunner in action. +My belief is," he went on spreading his coat-tails to the genial warmth, +"my belief is——"</p> + +<p>"Gadslife! B-B-lewforth," interrupted Peter Wingfield, "pray get on with +the recitation of your c-creed."<a name="page_220" id="page_220"></a></p> + +<p>"Don't get excited, little man," said Blewforth. "My belief is Charles +wrote that book."</p> + +<p>"What book?" said Chalkley, whose acquaintance with the literature of +the day was remarkably small.</p> + +<p>"Curtain Polls."</p> + +<p>"Never heard of it," said Mr. Chalkley.</p> + +<p>"Rubbish!" said Clare, entering suddenly into the conversation. +"Rubbish!" and yet Mr. Anthony Clare was one of the two people in the +room who knew for certain that Charles was, indeed, the author of that +satirical trifle.</p> + +<p>"It has caused a terrible amount of talk," Blewforth went on. "My old +aunt Seaworthy to whom I paid my annual visit yesterday tells me that +all the world is very much hurt at being treated with such freedom."</p> + +<p>"I d-don't see why Charles should take to drink because he's wrote a +book." This was from Peter Wingfield.</p> + +<p>"Ripple may have been annoyed. He's confoundedly touchy about a little +matter like that and Charles thinks Ripple is a demigod."</p> + +<p>The Earl of Squall, Lord Augustus Wind and the Honourable Mr. +Harthe-Brusshe came into the room at that moment, and Mr. Vernon, who +had been feeling a little outside the intimacy of the company, made +haste to propose that, everybody save Charles being present, the wine +should be brought in.</p> + +<p>Everybody agreed that nothing fitted in more exactly with their wishes +than Mr. Vernon's timely suggestion and everybody selected his chair +with that preciseness which stamps the beginning of an entertainment. +Everybody sat down and the nuts were circulated.</p> + +<p>Presently John entered with twelve quart-bottles of Burgundy on a huge +tray. All of them had been gently warmed before a slow fire, and all of +them were wiped clean of the cobwebs and dust of the several years spent +in the ample cellars of the <i>Blue Boar</i>.</p> + +<p>Vernon had prepared a short oration for the entrance of the liquor and +while John reverently stationed a bottle at<a name="page_221" id="page_221"></a> everybody's right hand, he +made haste to deliver it. Perhaps his utterance was a shade too +reminiscent of one of the many prologues spoken by his mother at the +theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields, but that did not matter since nobody in +the room was old enough to remember that lady's inimitable delivery of +Mr. Dryden's rhymed Alexandrines.</p> + +<p>"The life of Burgundy," said Mr. Vernon, "is very like the life of a +butterfly. At first the grape or caterpillar-grub, feeding upon the +richness of the soil, then the cocoon or bottle stage when it languishes +for many years in darkness below the earth until—until it emerges +glowing with a thousand varied tints of crimson—and, like a butterfly, +wings its airy way into the brain of mankind."</p> + +<p>The company, with the exception of my Lord Squall who was sometimes +taken in the old family coach of the Winds to hear his father speak in +the House of Lords, were not accustomed to lengthy speeches and looked +at each other bashfully.</p> + +<p>Lieutenant Blewforth with nautical tact saved the situation by drinking +Mr. Vernon's health in a very large and brimming pint bumper which he +emptied in two sonorous gulps.</p> + +<p>As everybody else proceeded to follow this good example, everybody was +soon very cheerful, and the advent of the second dozen of bottles was +mightily applauded.</p> + +<p>However, the master mind was still absent and the drinking, though +steady, had not yet enlivened the company to uproarious spirits.</p> + +<p>"Where's Charles?" bellowed Blewforth munching a devilled biscuit. +"Where's that fellow Charles. Demme! He'll never catch us up at this +rate and we shall have him sober as a post-captain when we are beginning +to amuse ourselves."</p> + +<p>"What, you rogue," cried our hero entering just as the Lieutenant +bellowed his inquiry. "I wager five guineas, I am two bottles ahead of +any gentleman present." In order to clinch the bet he flung his purse in +the direction of the table. The gauntlet snuffed in its course two of +the candles<a name="page_222" id="page_222"></a> and fell with a plump into a piping bowl of punch splashing +Tom Chalkley as high as his stock and imparting to His Majesty's uniform +an odour of hot squeezed lemons that lasted for quite a couple of weeks.</p> + +<p>"Charles! Charles!" bellowed the burly Lieutenant, "Huzza for Charles!"</p> + +<p>The latter lurched into the vacant chair next to his friend Tony without +a word to the host. However, nobody observed this breach of good +manners, because everybody was anxiously leaning over to fill every +glass in reach of the newcomer as a preliminary to drinking his very +good health a score of times, without a heeltap to any one of them.</p> + +<p>"Z—ds! Charles. Where have you been?" said Chalkley.</p> + +<p>"Drinking old Burgundy with a rogue of a bagman who looked like Ranelagh +Garden en Fête, for his face was illuminated with every hue of crimson +lamp and I stake my wig his nose was as large and round as the Rotunda."</p> + +<p>With the arrival of Charles, everybody woke up and there were calls for +a song. The gallant Lieutenant was the first to respond with my Lord +Dorset's <i>To you fair ladies now at Land</i>.</p> + +<p>Let me remind you of that fine old ballad:</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry" style="font-style:italic;"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">To you fair ladies now at Land</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">We men at Sea indite;</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">But first would have you understand</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">How hard it is to write.</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>"Not at all," cried Charles.</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry" style="font-style:italic;"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">The Muses now, and Neptune too,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">We must implore to write to you;</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>"and chorus, gentlemen, please,"</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry" style="font-style:italic;"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">With a Fa, la, la, la, la, la</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">The Muses now, and Neptune too,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">We must implore to write to you.</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p class="nind">and so on to the last<a name="page_223" id="page_223"></a></p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry" style="font-style:italic;"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">With a Fa, la, la, la, la</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Let us hear of no Inconstancy</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">We have too much of that at Sea.</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>And a proper noise everybody made with the <i>Fa la-la-la-la</i> accentuating +every <i>Fa</i> with a bottle and every <i>La</i> with one of Mr. Jeremy Daish's +handsome silver spoons.</p> + +<p>The song being a very lengthy one allowed everybody plenty of time to +drink another quart of Burgundy before its rousing conclusion, and if +the company cheered loudly at the beginning, by heavens, they cheered so +loudly at the end that the noise was heard above the fiddlers in the new +ballroom of Daish's famous Rooms and put everybody out of step in the +last Cotillon notwithstanding the heroick efforts of the disreputable, +but nimble-footed Captain Mann.</p> + +<p>Then Charles gave a new ballad (new that is in the reign of Queen Anne) +sung first at Messieurs Brook and Hellier's Club at the Temple Tavern in +Fleet Street, but slightly altered by him to suit present company,</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry" style="font-style:italic;"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Since I'm in the Chair and every one here</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Appears in gay humour and easy;</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Say, why should not I, a new Ballad try,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Bright Brethren o' the Bottle to please ye.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">This wine is my theme, this is all on's Esteem,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">For Jeremy Daish cannot wrong us;</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Let them get Wealth who keeps us in health.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">By bringing neat liquor among us.</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>(with chorus of last two lines repeated).</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry" style="font-style:italic;"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Each Vintner of late, has got an Estate</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">By brewing and Sophistication</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">With cyder and sloes, they've made a d——d dose,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Has poisoned one half of the nation.</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p class="nind">and so on until<a name="page_224" id="page_224"></a></p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry" style="font-style:italic;"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Now God Bless the King, Peers, Parliament Men,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">And keep 'em like us in true concord;</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">And grant that all those, who dare be his foes,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">At Tyburn may swing in a strong cord;</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">We'll Loyalists be, and bravely agree</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">With lives and estates to defend her—him</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">So then we'll not care come Peace or come War</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">For Lewis, the Pope, or Pretender.</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>"Ah!" said Mr. Antony Clare whose father had been a Jacobite, "you've +spoilt more than the rhyme by the last word."</p> + +<p>This treasonable remark was the signal for more noise than ever because +all the young gentlemen of the <i>Blue Boar</i> who held His Majesty King +George's commission felt bound to uphold the honour of the Royal Navy +and the British Army by flinging a large number of Spanish nuts at the +head of the disloyal Clare who retorted by emptying a whole ram's horn +of snuff over Mr. Golightly so that for a while nothing was to be heard +but vollies of gigantick sneezes. Exhaustion reigned for a moment, but +presently the sound of hustling and bustling in the street outside +roused everybody to fresh vigour of mischief.</p> + +<p>My Lady Bunbutter's rout was over, and those of the Exquisite Mob who +had been invited were standing on tiptoe on the steps of Daish's Rooms +peering into the darkness and blinking in the glare of waving flambeaux. +The chairmen were so busy quarrelling over their positions that they +paid no attention to their fares and everything was in a very great +state of confusion indeed; nor was the clamour abated by Mr. Lovely +cleverly hitting the long red ear of the nearest chairmen with a +Barcelona nut because the injured chairman instantly floored a linkboy +who was standing by his side and the linkboy's torch severely burnt the +legs of Lord Cinderton's tall footman in his ash-grey livery and the +tall footman with a yell of dismay punched a flat-footed waiter on the +nose and the flat-footed waiter butted an inoffensive fop in the middle +of his sprigged silk waistcoat and the inoffensive<a name="page_225" id="page_225"></a> fop struck out with +his tasselled cane left and right with such force that presently +everybody in the street below was fighting with his next door neighbour +to the entire delight of the young gentlemen from the <i>Blue Boar</i>. Their +next diversion was to empty the dregs of the Burgundy bottles upon the +heads of the crowd, whereupon all the ladies of Curtain Wells screamed +very loud to see such a number of bloody polls and faces.</p> + +<p>Then Charles snatched off little Peter Wingfield's tie-wig and, having +set fire to it, began to drop tufts of burning hair out of the window, +which tufts made an immense smell and blew round and round in the gusty +March air in a very alarming manner.</p> + +<p>Little Peter Wingfield, having lost his own wig and being too little to +snatch Lovely's wig, mounted one of the stout Windsor wheelback chairs +and, taking down the print of a famous cock-fight extracted the hook +from the wall and laid an embargo on the black silk ties of three of his +friends in order to fish from the window for another wig. He succeeded +in catching the Marquis of Hurricane's to the intense delight of his +undutiful sons the Earl of Squall and Lord Augustus Wind. Of course +after such a successful display of angling, everybody else had to try +his hand with the picture hook and two more wigs were captured but +proved so frowsy that they were burnt immediately. However, Mr. Chalkley +caught the hem of Lady Jane Vane's petticoat just as she was stepping +into her chair and would without doubt have injured that virgin's modest +reputation for ever, had the garment been made of more durable stuff; as +it was, the hook would not hold and nothing was disclosed beyond what is +allowed by any wet day.</p> + +<p>Then Mr. Daish came hurrying in and begged their honours to desist +because the watch was coming, and what Mr. Ripple would say when he +heard of the riot he did not dare surmize.</p> + +<p>Poor Mr. Daish bowed and scraped and was so full of excuses that all the +young gentlemen felt quite sorry for him and put ham seat foremost into +the biggest bowl of punch in<a name="page_226" id="page_226"></a> order to drown his troubles, whereupon Mr. +Daish grew quite cholerick and vowed he would never let one of 'em enter +his inn again and made such ado that the culprits all protested he was +more noisy than anybody else, and offered to fetch in the watch and have +him arrested in his own bowl of punch.</p> + +<p>But presently they lifted him out and subscribed ten guineas by sending +round Mr. Golightly's hat; and poor Mr. Daish was more full of excuses +than ever and hoped that anything he had said that could by the most +spirited gentleman be considered derogatory would be forgiven and +ascribed to the dismay caused by the hot punch scalding his hinder parts +and goading him beyond the bounds of polite remonstrance.</p> + +<p>Everybody vowed that withered little Daish was a prince of good fellows +and begged him to buy himself a new pair of cinnamon cloth breeches as +soon as possible, while Thomas Chalkley of the Foot created much +amusement by shouting that he was holding Dunquerque against the French. +In order to hold Dunquerque against the French, it was very necessary +that Mr. Chalkley should fling out of the window nineteen quart-bottles +of Burgundy in quick succession, whereupon Lieutenant Blewforth of the +<i>Lively</i> not to be outdone vowed Portobello must be taken and proceeded +to take it by climbing with amazing dexterity on to the mantelpiece +armed only with a long Churchwarden's pipe. Yet notwithstanding all the +efforts of Ensign Chalkley to hold Dunquerque against the French, +notwithstanding that he was valiantly assisted by Cornet Golightly of +the Grey Dragoons, who led a desperate cavalry charge round the whole +room mounted upon one of the stout Windsor chairs, Dunquerque +capitulated. In other words the dignified Curtain Wells watch marched +upstairs with their lanterns and their staves and, standing in a knot by +the doorway, demanded the reason for such a riotous breach of the King's +peace, not to mention Mr. Ripple's and the Mayor's. But the young +gentlemen were all so merry and the watch was so cold that it consented +to taste the punch and presently<a name="page_227" id="page_227"></a> left Dunquerque in the hands of the +Allies and marched off warmer in mind and body to a quieter quarter of +the ancient borough of Curtain Wells. I am sorry to add that, in passing +the door of the Great House, they so far forgot their standing orders as +to cry with enormous fervour the hour and the weather exactly underneath +Mr. Ripple's window.</p> + +<p>With the departure of the watch, peace fell upon the company for a +while; a dice box was produced and some packs of cards, but play lasted +a very short time and was voted too confoundedly dull for so joyful an +evening. So more songs were sung, and it was exceedingly pleasant to +hear these young gentlemen shouting the refrains and hammering Encores +upon the polished mahogany table. It was exceedingly pleasant to see the +wigs on their knees and the long clay pipes keeping time to the tune; +but perhaps the pleasantest sight of all was the two sleepy waiters who +leaned against the jambs of the door and, with kindly grins on their +tired faces, tapped their flat feet to the more alluring measures.</p> + +<p>The night was wearing away when somebody called 'Vernon for a song!'</p> + +<p>The latter, to tell the truth, had felt out of his element, except +during the brief interval of play, but on being called upon to occupy +the centre of the room, he cheered up and announced his very great +pleasure in acceding to the gentlemen's request.</p> + +<p>I wonder if you are at all sorry for Mr. Vernon.</p> + +<p>He was very lonely sitting in his high armchair at the head of the +table. I wonder if you will forgive him for singing this song, which you +will find in Mr. D'Urfey's <i>Pills to Purge Melancholy</i>.</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry" style="font-style:italic;"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">In the merry month of May,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">On a morn by break of day,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Forth I walked the wood so wide,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">When as May was in her Pride</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Here I spy'd all alone, all alone,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Phyllida and Coridon.<a name="page_228" id="page_228"></a></span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Much ado there was God wot,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">He did love, but she could not,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">He said his love was to woo,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">He said none was false to you;</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">He said he had lov'd her long,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">He said love should take no wrong.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Coridon would have kissed her then,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">She said Maids must kiss no men</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Till they kiss for good and all;</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Then she bade the shepherds call</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">All the Gods to witness truth,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Ne'er was loved so fair a youth.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Then with many a pretty oath,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">As Yea and Nay and Faith and Troth,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Such as silly shepherds use,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">When they would not love abuse;</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Love which had been long deluded</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Was with kisses sweet concluded.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">And Phyllida with garlands gay</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Was crowned the Lady May.</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>The words were poor, as you will allow, and the tune a mere tinkle, but +it had the effect of rousing our hero from the half-sleep into which he +had fallen.</p> + +<p>"Sing that song again, will you."</p> + +<p>"G—— forbid," whispered little Peter Wingfield.</p> + +<p>"Nay, sir," said Mr. Vernon, "'Tis too long to sing over again, but I'll +toast the heroine if that will please your zest."</p> + +<p>"No, sir," said Charles, "it will not please me at all."</p> + +<p>The rest of the company began to wake up to the fact that something was +happening.</p> + +<p>"I should have thought," Vernon replied, "that Mr. Lovely would have +cordially welcomed such a toast, for we all know his partiality to the +name."<a name="page_229" id="page_229"></a></p> + +<p>"Gentlemen," said our hero. Did I not promise you some pretty heroicks a +score of pages back? "Gentlemen, I have a tale to tell you."</p> + +<p>Charles looked very stiff and very fierce as, clapping on his wig, he +began:</p> + +<p>"A short while ago I perpetrated an indiscretion in mistaking Mr. +Francis Vernon for a gentleman, for which I beg the pardon of everybody +present. Mr. Vernon for some reason best known to himself saw fit to +bribe my bookseller to insert in a volume I have just published twelve +scurrilous lines reflecting upon the character of a young lady whom +I—whom I——"</p> + +<p>"Admire," suggested our villain.</p> + +<p>"No, sir, respect."</p> + +<p>"Sir, your virtue should make us all blush," sneered Vernon, cold and +contemptuous.</p> + +<p>"D—— n you and your blushes; blush deeper, then," shouted Charles, +slinging the contents of a wineglass into Mr. Vernon's pallid face.</p> + +<p>There was silence for a moment until the honourable Mr. Harthe-Brusshe +proclaimed——</p> + +<p>"The affair should be settled at once."</p> + +<p>And this was the only remark that the Honourable gentleman uttered in +the whole of the evening.</p> + +<p>"With all my heart," cried Charles. "Tony, you'll act for me?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Vernon had delicately wiped his face with a handkerchief of Mechlin +lace. A single drop of the wine lingered above his left cheekbone. +There, it was not unbecoming.</p> + +<p>"I shall be proud to walk with Mr. Lovely in a month's time," said our +villain, "but for the present my honour is pledged to a lady."</p> + +<p>"Sure, you borrow on mighty small security, sir," said Charles.</p> + +<p>The lingering drop of wine that stained Mr. Vernon's cheek seemed to +expand for a brief moment.</p> + +<p>"I have named my day," was all he answered.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Vernon is within his rights, Charles," said Mr.<a name="page_230" id="page_230"></a> Golightly, "and +moreover the weather will be finer next month and we can make up a +jovial party."</p> + +<p>"'Tis hardly fair to poor Daish to fight in his rooms," said Blewforth. +"Ripple would put his shutters up at once."</p> + +<p>"H—— take you all," cried Charles, in an access of fury, as he sprang +to strike Vernon.</p> + +<p>The latter stepped back and with a well-aimed blow sent Charles flying +backwards over two chairs.</p> + +<p>"'Slife, Charles," said Mr. Golightly very stiffly. "Your conduct is +d——d irregular, Sir."</p> + +<p>"Most improper," said Mr. Chalkley.</p> + +<p>"Devilish unrestrained," said little Peter Wingfield.</p> + +<p>"Charles was two bottles ahead of us, gentlemen," said Blewforth who +held a broad mind in a broad body.</p> + +<p>Our hero was still lying where Vernon had sent him among cards and +broken glass.</p> + +<p>"D—— n you all," cried Clare. "Charles is worth the rest of you +puppies in red and blue coats put together, and by G——, Mr. Vernon, he +shall kill you for that blow."</p> + +<p>Everybody was so surprized to hear Mr. Anthony Clare, cool and placid +Tony Clare, break out like this that a wave of embarrassment swept over +the room. One by one they hurried from the scene of such an irregular +quarrel.</p> + +<p>It was very entertaining to see them march out so stiff and straight, +with nutshells crackling underneath their feet.<a name="page_231" id="page_231"></a></p> + +<h2><i>Chapter the Twenty-sixth</i><br /><br /> +AND THE DREGS OF THE SAME</h2> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">M</span>R. ANTHONY CLARE stayed behind to help our hero home to bed. His effort +to achieve sobriety had completely exhausted such faculties as remained +after so many quarts of Burgundy, and he babbled to his companion +foolish threats and impotent defiance in such an incoherent voice that I +doubt his enemy, had he been present, would scarcely have been able to +discover common sense in any one of his remarks. Charles woke up in the +morning full of bile, dressed himself in a splenetick fury and ate a +breakfast, conspicuous for its peppery flavours, with petulance and +aversion. Then he crammed his gold-laced Kevenhuller hat on his head and +went out to interview Mr. Horace Ripple.</p> + +<p>In crossing the courtyard of the inn he passed Mr. Chalkley, and for a +moment debated seriously the wisdom of challenging him out of hand. This +he was the more inclined to do because he fancied the gallant Ensign was +regarding him with some disfavour. However, the latter gave him a 'good +morning,' and excused his want of geniality on the score of a liver +teased out of endurance by hard and violent exercise.</p> + +<p>So Charles forgave him his supposed breach of good manners and decided +to hear from Tony a full account of the evening's events.</p> + +<p>Clare presently overtook him under the archway, and, on being informed +of our hero's destination, tried to dissuade him from the projected +visit to the Beau.</p> + +<p>"Z—— ds! I tell you that blackguard shall be turned out of the Wells +with ignominy." So much Charles vowed.<a name="page_232" id="page_232"></a></p> + +<p>"But 'tis no business of yours, Charles," argued his friend.</p> + +<p>"No business of mine? Eh! is that so? Then, by heaven! I'll make it my +business."</p> + +<p>"Ripple does not believe in settling disputes of this nature by the +personal encounter."</p> + +<p>"Then, by heaven!" said Charles, "that being the case there is the +greater necessity for expelling him from the company of gentlemen."</p> + +<p>"That is all very well," expostulated Clare, "but you are neither the +young woman's brother nor, as I believe, her lover. What right have you +to interfere?"</p> + +<p>"I tell you, Tony," said Charles, "that Ripple has already pondered the +advisableness of interfering with Mr. Francis Amor-Vernon and, indeed, +begged me to disclose his pseudonym, but I would not."</p> + +<p>"You owed him money, in fact?" said Clare, gently tapping the kerb of +the pavement with his cane.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I owed the dog money."</p> + +<p>"And now he is paid?"</p> + +<p>"Thanks to your generosity he is paid."</p> + +<p>"Charles," said Mr. Clare, laying his hand affectionately on that +indignant gentleman's right shoulder, "oblige me, who was able and glad +to oblige you, by not proceeding further in this affair."</p> + +<p>"'Tis monstrous ill-bred in you to remind me of an obligation under +which I laid myself with the most profound disinclination." Charles was +growing angry.</p> + +<p>"Nay, you know that is not my meaning, but, consider Charles, this +confounded, pasquinading pamphlet book has placed you in such an ill +light that the world will be very loth to believe any good of you."</p> + +<p>"Ripple is wiser than the raree-show over which he presides."</p> + +<p>"Ay! but depend on't, he has already been informed of last night's +affair and will be prejudiced against you on account of your quarrelsome +overtures."</p> + +<p>"'Sdeath! Tony, pray desist from further argument; you do not convince +me and will soon rouse my choler."<a name="page_233" id="page_233"></a></p> + +<p>"As you will," said Tony, and, leaving the company of his friend, betook +himself to the solitude of green fields. In the pleasures of country +sights and sounds he found some consolation for the undeserved +reproaches of a gentleman whom he had gratified at considerable expense +to himself.</p> + +<p>Charles continued in the direction of the Great House. Being arrived on +the topmost doorstep he rang the bell with complete assurance and +knocked thrice with the heavy brass knocker.</p> + +<p>He was admitted to an audience and walked upstairs to the tall white +drawing-room without trepidation or bashfulness. Mr. Ripple had favoured +him with so many compliments lately, had begged his advice on so many +trifles of publick importance, had in fact adopted him so completely +into intimate conversation, that Charles may be pardoned for supposing +that, notwithstanding his unceremonious conduct of the night before +last, notwithstanding his notoriety as the author of a book of satirical +poems, he would still be received with that inimitable and charming +condescension which the Great little Man reserved for few indeed.</p> + +<p>He found the Beau seated among the roses of his wide-winged armchair +sipping what looked uncommonly like a cordial physick. He did not rise +to Mr. Lovely's entrance, did not even turn his head, but merely said in +a tone, indifferent, lifeless and chill,</p> + +<p>"To what may I ascribe the honour of this visit, sir?"</p> + +<p>Conceive the shocked feelings of Madam Semele when he, whom she had +hitherto regarded with the familiarity born of many amorous meetings, +assumed at her own request the attributes of divinity. She died, if you +can recall the sad event.</p> + +<p>Charles experienced a particle of that dismay when the Great little Man +for whom he had hitherto felt an almost playful affection suddenly +appeared to him with the attributes of majesty—remoteness, scorn, and +inaccessibleness. The pattern upon the Aubusson rug swam before his eyes +in changes of tint and form as frequent as a child's Kaleidoscope,<a name="page_234" id="page_234"></a> and +he found himself in humble obeisance. The Beau twirled the fluted stem +of the green Venetian glass that contained his physick and waited for +Mr. Lovely to explain his business.</p> + +<p>"Well, sir," he said at last.</p> + +<p>The abashed favourite stammered his reasons for the visit.</p> + +<p>"Pooh, pooh," said the Beau. "Pooh, pooh! a likely story. Your brain, +sir, addled by the ridiculous rhymes it has already born with obvious +labour, refuses to hatch further monstrous fancies, and is content to +send into the world an abortion. The night before last, Mr. Lovely, you +waited upon me at an hour both indiscreet and inconvenient. I was ready +to overlook this horrid breach of decorum and was indeed willing to +receive your apologies on the following day. You found, however, a more +engaging diversion in cracking bottles with a bagman. For this I do not +blame you—and, indeed, think you will do well to cultivate a manner of +company for which you seem to me singularly adapted. Pray understand, +however, that, in finding your level, you have had to make a very +considerable descent. The rider who has been thrown into a ditch is +unable to cry 'View! Holloa!' to the master of the hunt. In other words, +Mr. Lovely, you have put yourself in a position where your estimate of +polite intrigue is incredible and impertinent. I am very well able to +look after the morals of the Beau Monde without the assistance of the +kitchen or the tap-room."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Ripple," said our hero, "you insult me."</p> + +<p>"Unfortunately, sir, I recognize no responsibleness in that direction. I +have always claimed the right to speak my mind. If you find my +strictures intolerable, the door affords you an easy remedy."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Ripple," Charles replied, "I think you are making a fool of +yourself."</p> + +<p>The Great little Man clutched the arms of his wide-winged chair and +gasped. It was certainly twenty years since any one had dared to address +him with such a want of reverence.<a name="page_235" id="page_235"></a></p> + +<p>"You wrap yourself in paint and sattin," continued Charles. "You strut +about as if you were indeed the king of a puppet show. But don't forget, +Mr. Ripple, that when the puppets perform, when they make miniature love +and die small deaths, the publick regards them, not the wire-puller +above. The world, your world, will forget you, Mr. Ripple, when it still +remembers the inconsiderable passions of your dolls."</p> + +<p>"It does not matter, sir," the Beau interrupted in a voice tremulous +with well-bred anger. "It does not matter what the world thinks of me, +so long as my puppets comport themselves with taste and discretion."</p> + +<p>"You fool," shouted Charles, "the wires are twisted."</p> + +<p>It is improbable that any one had ever shouted in this tall white room +before, and the lustres shivered at the unwonted sound, while a +diminutive Dresden shepherdess, fragile as a sea-shell, lost her head, +which rolled into the grate with a tinkle of dismay.</p> + +<p>"Leave my house," said the Beau.</p> + +<p>"Ay! and you dislike to be told that your show will presently appear +ludicrous."</p> + +<p>"Leave my house."</p> + +<p>"Good G——! Ripple. I know I have been to blame; I know my story seems +to you absurd; but, by Heaven! I swear those cursed lines were never +writ by me, and since Vernon wrote them, why, z——ds, man! Can't you +see his intention?"</p> + +<p>"Leave my house."</p> + +<p>"Very well, sir, your obedient servant."</p> + +<p>With a very grand bow, Mr. Lovely took his leave of the Great little +Man.</p> + +<p>When he was gone, the Beau stooped to pick up the head of the diminutive +Dresden shepherdess.</p> + +<p>"Tut-tut, I doubt the join will be plainly visible," he murmured to +himself.<a name="page_236" id="page_236"></a></p> + +<h2><i>Chapter the Twenty-seventh</i><br /><br /> +TIME FOR REFLECTION</h2> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">M</span>R. LOVELY left the Great House enraged with the owner, with Society +and, to say truth, with his own heroick self.</p> + +<p>I do not think he was very wildly in love with Miss Courteen, but I do +believe he was sincerely vexed with himself for letting her fall into +Vernon's power. For a moment he seriously pondered the wisdom of warning +her mother of the lengths to which the affair had gone, but upon +reflection shrank from a step which would savour, in the eyes of the +world, of ill-bred intrusion. After all, the girl was nothing to him, +and her reputation—plague on her reputation! I trust you observe the +unheroick aftermath of heroick Burgundy. Such bathos of indifference +would have sounded strange in the days preceding this forenoon.</p> + +<p>Just then my lady Bunbutter went by in her capacious chair and Charles +prepared to make an elaborate bow, but her ladyship merely stared at him +in cold disdain, and he was forced to buckle his shoe to save his +countenance.</p> + +<p>"So everybody knows," said Charles to himself, "Well! I shall always +regard Curtain Wells with affection and remember it with regret."</p> + +<p>He walked down the Colonnade where Miss Morton lived and, as he passed +the house, thought with half a smile of Valentine Day. It seemed a +century ago—that merry morning. Soon he was in the fields, where the +hedges were splashed with the silver of blackthorn in profuse bloom.</p> + +<p>He crossed a winding path, begun and ended with a notched and scrabbled +kissing-gate, and, passing through a small plantation where the +daffodils grew tall, went up a<a name="page_237" id="page_237"></a> rounded hillside along whose clear-cut +horizon great fleecy clouds moved solemnly. He stopped for a moment to +glance back at Curtain Wells with the March sun spangling the rain-wet +roofs before he dipped with a sigh into one of those serene valleys that +are only found in England—valleys whose slopes are often darkened by +the long shadows of sheep and cattle, whose hollows are bright with +moist grass and in summer fragrant with spearmint and creamy +meadowsweet.</p> + +<p>He took the devious course of a narrow stream and knew the grave +delights of rural meditation; yet somehow the image of Phyllida danced +before him all the time and whenever he paused, the wind far away over +the hillside had a melancholy and foreboding sound.</p> + +<p>He met an elderly gentleman—a parson by the colour of his cloth—who +was poking some decayed herbage with a long cane. The elderly gentleman +looked up as Charles went by, gave him a 'very good morning,' and said +he believed he had seen an adder enter the herbage.</p> + +<p>"Indeed," said Charles, who thought the information given demanded an +attitude of respectful surprize.</p> + +<p>"But nothing amazes me after that wonderful February. When I tell you +that half an hour ago I saw an Orange Tip butterfly, you will understand +that nothing amazes me."</p> + +<p>Charles left the Elderly Gentleman still investigating the decayed +herbage reputed to contain an adder, and found himself envying a mind +that could invest a day with such easy fame. He had seen an Orange Tip +butterfly. Had he met grey-eyed Athene, or beheld the roses and doves of +Cytherea, the day would scarcely have held a more splendid memory.</p> + +<p>He envied the Elderly Gentleman. To be sure, with a Stoick complacency, +he had announced that nothing strange in the natural order could startle +him after that wonderful February, but his tone of triumphant excitement +foretold an entry in his diary that very night, perhaps was the prelude +to a paragraph in the <i>Gentleman's Magazine</i>.</p> + +<p>He began to imagine the Elderly Gentleman sipping his<a name="page_238" id="page_238"></a> Port before the +Rectory fire, on his knees an open Concordance whose pages were +illuminated by dancing butterflies, precocious heralds of the scented +spring. He heard the dignified butler told of his reverend master's +lucky discovery, heard him asked to hand down the calf-bound diary of +such and such a faded year, heard the Elderly Gentleman's chuckle when +he found, as he suspected, that the date in his own experience was +unprecedented and finally heard him order a bottle of the Port in bin +twelve, the first-fruits of the Assiento Agreement.</p> + +<p>Charles fell to comparing himself to the Elderly Gentleman, greatly to +his own disadvantage.</p> + +<p>Certainly the image of Phyllida danced before him in the water meadows, +eluded him at every turn and twist of the little stream, and beckoned +him along this secluded valley; but his own heart did not beat with the +proper amount of answering fervour.</p> + +<p>Six weeks ago when he saw her first, all swansdown and blushes, he had +been duly elated. She had occupied much of his meditations ever since, +but he had no sensation of triumph, no delight in the great fact of her +existence. Perhaps that was because she belonged to the world. The +butterfly had belonged, as a phenomenon, to the Elderly Gentleman alone. +To the rest of mankind it was a legend. The discovery would be recorded +in print, but the discovery itself would flutter in secret pale wings +powdered with vivid gold, and this March morning would remain a +permanent fact in that Elderly Gentleman's heart. He would suffer no +disillusion. If others saw that butterfly, why, then, he would enjoy the +discussion of it, whether in the <i>Gentleman's Magazine</i> beneath a +learned pseudonym or over two or three glasses of Port, with details +long drawn out to protract the delicious memory.</p> + +<p>The ink is faded on the pages of those calf-bound diaries, the Latin +epitaph on the Elderly Gentleman's tombstone is now nearly illegible, +but since he went down to Elysium alert and heedful of the changing +seasons, I believe that his spirit still listens on summer eves to the +blackbirds in his<a name="page_239" id="page_239"></a> beloved orchard and observes with interest and +curiosity each separate harebell that blossoms above his mortal remains.</p> + +<p>Charles went on his way with much the same thoughts about the Elderly +Gentleman as I have set down for my own, and continued to envy his gift +of youth.</p> + +<p>Presently he met Margery of Baverstock Farm.</p> + +<p>Let me remind you, she was the wench to whom Mr. Anthony Clare had paid +light court back in the winter. Charles reproved him for his behaviour +and apparently his friend had given up his addresses, for the milkmaid +looked happy and blooming and seemed not at all displeased to giggle +over a hazel wand at Mr. Charles Lovely.</p> + +<p>"Good morning, Margery."</p> + +<p>"Oh, good morning, zur," said Margery.</p> + +<p>"No longer with Farmer Hogbin?"</p> + +<p>"I be with Farmer Hogbin's brother Jahn to High Corner Farm."</p> + +<p>"And happy?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, 'ess, proud and happy."</p> + +<p>"Seen Mr. Clare lately?"</p> + +<p>Margery blushed expansively.</p> + +<p>"Oh! naw! I an't seen him since Baverstock Barn. I be courting."</p> + +<p>"Eh, indeed," said Charles, "and who is the shepherd?"</p> + +<p>"Wully Pearce."</p> + +<p>"And you'll be married soon?"</p> + +<p>"Come barley harvest—'ess."</p> + +<p>"I will dance at your wedding, Margery."</p> + +<p>"We shaänt have daäncing, because Wully says it leads to what oughtn't +to happen."</p> + +<p>Charles made a wry face.</p> + +<p>"Going to wed a Puritan, eh?"</p> + +<p>"Nay," said the buxom maid. "He's carter to Farmer Jahn Hogbin."</p> + +<p>"Then, surely, he will let you have a merry junketing at the bride-ale."</p> + +<p>"Naw, indeed an' he wawnt, because his sister Molly<a name="page_240" id="page_240"></a> when they were +thrawing the stocking last year fell on her back, and Wully's fam'ly is +a proud and proper fam'ly and Wully says we mun be married wi' no such +nonsense."</p> + +<p>This long proclamation of propriety made Margery quite breathless, so +Charles, with a bow and the present of a crown, passed on his way. +Margery's case gave him more food for meditation. There was a buxom hale +wench with the bloom of a peach, throwing away her ample charms upon a +puritanical clod whose only ambition seemed to be the preservation of a +mealy-mouthed decorum. Pshaw! such prime beauty deserved a better fate. +Such a wedding as hers should have made old wives' fireside gossip for a +score of years and the tale of it quickened the hearts of every lover +and his lass that listened beneath the golden summer moon. Had he the +control of the ceremony, by Heaven! they should have danced the dawn in, +and every man and every maid should have gone to sleep with a face as +pale as the morning sky. It was ridiculous that young Cupid should be +breeched for the bidding of a lubberly half-baked ploughboy.</p> + +<p>And yet, to be honest with himself, was not he behaving in much the same +way as the despised Wully Pearce? Was not his chief objection to Vernon +based on the latter's reputation as a man of intrigue? It was Phyllida's +attraction to Vernon that made him indignant. Had she chosen to bestow +herself on a middle-aged squire with acres and a gaunt square hall and a +pack of hounds, would he have been at all seriously disconcerted by the +prospect? And Vernon could have no honest love for her, because if a man +means to wed a young woman, he does not stigmatize her behaviour in +scurrilous verses, even to secure an advantage over a supposed rival. Or +does he—when he is not quite a gentleman?</p> + +<p>Then occurred to him the story he had heard many years ago of a thin +unhappy-looking woman who had spoken kindly to him at some crowded Al +Fresco entertainment where he and his father and mother had gone one +fine July afternoon. He had asked about her as they drove home to the +lodgings,<a name="page_241" id="page_241"></a> and he remembered his mother's warning finger, while his +father laughed over Lord B—— and Mrs. D——.</p> + +<p>At the end of the tale his mother, a gentle Christian soul, had said it +served the baggage right, and bade him never talk to people to whom he +had not been presented by his parents. No doubt the circumstances of the +two cases were totally different, but he connected them vaguely in his +mind.</p> + +<p>Moreover, without any doubt, Phyllida had caught his fancy. She +disturbed his view. Yet there was nothing that singled her out from a +dozen handsome young women with whom he had danced, whose existence save +as a bevy he no longer recognized. Still, whatever he thought about the +affair, his opinion would never again be invited and, disinherited by +Beau Ripple, he must consider his own position with an eye to the +future.</p> + +<p>He was bracing himself preparatory to this great mental effort, when he +perceived round the next bend of the stream Mr. Anthony Clare, pensively +leaning against the rugged stem of a pollard willow-tree.</p> + +<p>"Tony," said Charles, "Ripple has dismissed me."</p> + +<p>"I know," said his friend, "your writ of banishment, signed, sealed and +delivered, is pasted on the window of every coffee-house and occupies a +large and distinguished space in the vestibule of the Assembly Rooms. +What do you propose to do?"</p> + +<p>"I might hire myself out to the amiable Hogbin as carter."</p> + +<p>"Pshaw," said Tony, "be serious."</p> + +<p>"Or I might take to the road."</p> + +<p>"Nonsense, man."</p> + +<p>"Nay! I vow such a career has many advantages for a poor man, since he +may live and, what is more, die at the public charge."</p> + +<p>"You are not in earnest, Charles?" said Mr. Clare, laying an anxious +hand upon his friend's wrist.</p> + +<p>"And why not, i' faith?"</p> + +<p>"What would you gain by such an impulse of folly?"<a name="page_242" id="page_242"></a></p> + +<p>"My livelihood and, as I said, very possibly my funeral expenses."</p> + +<p>"Such flippancy is ill-timed," said Mr. Clare, who was a serious young +man and spent much of his leisure with the theory of estate-management.</p> + +<p>"Nay! I am not treating the matter as a jest, but truly considering the +benefit of adopting such a novel method of existence in these hard +times."</p> + +<p>"Novel!" said Clare, with a scoffing laugh. "Novel! why, every +ne'er-do-weel blackguard for the past hundred years has tried this novel +method of existence and every one of them has come at last to the same +windy death."</p> + +<p>"Oh, as to the last scene," interrupted Charles, "indeed I vow 'tis the +best in the play, for it never fails to please the populace, and sure in +this dull world a man should try to give a little amusement; I hold that +the author of a diverting comedy and the thief who makes a brave exit +are the truest benefactors of humanity."</p> + +<p>"All this is very pretty fooling, but leads nowhere," said Clare, who +had a proposal to make and was vexed by Charles' levity.</p> + +<p>"But ponder, Tony, the Gothick atmosphere of such an escapade. Imagine +the moated grange, the haunted lane, the shadowy coppice, the +phantastick oaths and gestures, the pursuit by moonlight, the clatter of +hoofs, the jingle of spurs—all this appeals to an aspect of my +character too long subdued by the bonds of convention and the trammels +of polite society."</p> + +<p>"But, you fool, you would be taken at once. You have no cant of the road +and, as a Dilettante, would certainly be regarded with odious suspicion +by every regular highway-man between Berwick and Dover. Oddslife, I'll +not argue with you further, for I do not believe you mean a word of what +you say, and, harkee, I have a plan that will suit either of us better +than your cut-throat Braggadocio."</p> + +<p>As a matter of fact, Charles had once or twice thought quite seriously +of taking to the road. After all, it was in accordance with every +precedent of outlawry. As soon as<a name="page_243" id="page_243"></a> a man was banished from Society, he +should compensate himself for the discomfort he incurred. Tony, however, +now came forward with a project which, while it preserved much of the +charm of highway robbery, held none of its dangers or difficulties. He +suggested that since neither he nor Charles had very many ties to attach +them fast to Curtain Wells, they should spend a year in making the Grand +Tour of the British Islands.</p> + +<p>Charles objected on the score of money.</p> + +<p>"I have three hundred guineas," said Clare. "That will equip us with all +that we require as travellers, and I am sure the world will entertain us +for our pleasant appearance and company."</p> + +<p>"In fact we are to become beggars—in velvet gowns," Charles commented.</p> + +<p>"Adventurers, knights at arms, what you will," added Clare.</p> + +<p>Charles was enraptured with the idea, so deeply enraptured that he saw +no absurdity in grave Mr. Anthony Clare setting out upon such a career +of folly. In fact, it seemed the most natural thing in the world for his +friend to spend three hundred guineas on a whim. He himself would have +spent treble that sum (had he possessed it) in order to the exploitation +of such a witty, ingenious and romantick method of wasting time.</p> + +<p>"We must equip ourselves for the parts we are about to play. There must +be no shilly-shally, and above all no one must think us anything but +eccentrick men of fashion, itinerant beaux, fops on pilgrimage, +wandering wits."</p> + +<p>"The last phrase is unfortunate," said Clare. Charles laughed hugely.</p> + +<p>By this time Phyllida had faded like a summer joy, Vernon was forgotten, +nothing mattered except this new and exceedingly entertaining project.</p> + +<p>"What is the first thing to be done?" inquired Clare.</p> + +<p>"Egad, what should always precede any undertaking of importance—a visit +to the tailor."</p> + +<p>The two young men beneath a sky growing rapidly<a name="page_244" id="page_244"></a> overcast, walked +quickly through the lush meadows towards Curtain Wells, discussing as +they went the merits of rival tailors with infinite vivacity.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile in the Crescent, our heroine was engaged upon much the same +problem. Possibly the reason that so many timid young women have been +brave enough to plunge into an elopement, is the obfuscation of the real +issue, the vital stakes, by the need of deciding what they shall leave +behind to console their abandoned virtue.</p> + +<p>So it was, at any rate, with Phyllida. She was deterred from soft +regrets by the desperate necessity of making up her mind between the +charms of a muslin frock overlaid with pink rosebuds and a muslin frock +sprigged with the palest blue forget-me-nots.</p> + +<p>There were a thousand sentiments that might well have restrained her +from the wild step she was taking, but everything was forgotten for a +trifle; and when finally she slipped out of the door, the only living +creature for whom she indulged herself in the luxury of a protracted +farewell, was Thomasina the tabby cat, and that was considerably +interrupted by the attenuated miaouws of a large family lately arrived. +Even Ponto the spaniel had sidled off to a favourite heap of rubbish. +Pray do not suppose I am sneering at Phyllida. Heaven forbid that you or +I should sneer at a young woman, however impetuous, however foolish. +Still, I cannot help observing that the heroism of most heroick actions +is to be sought for in the obscure preliminaries to a grand event. +Phyllida had known the agony of making up her mind through many a +firelit, sleepless night. When the moment arrived for carrying out her +resolve, she spent most of the forenoon reading the advertizement of a +fashionable mantua-maker. As to her devices for getting rid of her +mother and Betty and the landlady and Thomas and Miss Sukey Morton, who +called to inquire whether Mrs. Featherbrain's new novel was called <i>The +Affectionate Aunt</i> or <i>The Disconsolate Uncle</i>,—why, they were as old +as the first writer of tales and I will not weary you with their +repetition. And why should I delay<a name="page_245" id="page_245"></a> you with the narrative of the +attempt to open her mother's jewel-case with a bodkin and a silver +paper-knife? Like most toilet receptacles, it was very easily broken.</p> + +<p>She hurried down the Crescent with a small parcel of cloaths wrapped up +in brown paper and tied with a green ribbon. If you are anxious to know +what was inside, I will refer you to Miss Howe, Mr. Richardson's Miss +Howe, to whom Miss Clarissa Harlowe confided a parcel of much the same +dimensions and contents.</p> + +<p>She did not forget her swansdown muff nor her swansdown tippet, and +altogether she looked just the same as she looked a good many pages ago +and was flushed to just the same frail hue of carmine.</p> + +<p>Ding-dong went St. Simon's husky clock, ding-dong, ding-dong.</p> + +<p>Pitter-pat went Phyllida's heart and pitter-pitter-pitter-pitter-pat +went Phyllida's heart when, exactly opposite the toy-shop, she saw a +post chariot and four bay horses and two postillions staring very +intently at the sky.</p> + +<p>It struck Phyllida how clever it was of her dear Amor to chuse such a +time and such a place; for all the world was engaged in directing the +start of the Invincible Stage Coach that ploughed once a week between +Curtain Wells and London.</p> + +<p>Tootle-a-tootle-a-tootle went the long brass horn of the guard and +plump-plump went two large parcels into his basket and crack-crack went +the coachman's long whip, and 'Now then Miss, jump in,' said one of the +post-boys, still staring intently at the March sky, and before Phyllida +knew where she was, she found herself sitting on a rather damp cushion +with a peacock-blue riding hood lined with swansdown on the seat beside +her, but no sign of Mr. Francis Amor.</p> + +<p>In dismay she put her head out of the window and cried to the nearest +postillion.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Harmor's followin' on 'orseback," he said, with a thumping thwack +on the ribs of his mount and a vicious prod with his rusty spurs.<a name="page_246" id="page_246"></a></p> + +<p>Phyllida drew back with tears of disappointment starting to her wide +blue eyes; but before she could make up her mind to stop the chariot and +never elope again, she caught the glance of Thomas in open-mouthed +amazement. Instinctively, she pulled the musty curtains close, and, +lifting the leather flap at her back, could not help laughing aloud to +see dignified Thomas mopping his brow with his right hand and waving his +tall cane with the left; and just as the chariot tore round the corner +of the street, she saw that Thomas had knocked off Lord Cinderton's grey +beaver hat. The Love Chase had begun.<a name="page_247" id="page_247"></a></p> + +<h2><i>Chapter the Twenty-eighth</i><br /><br /> +THE LOVE CHASE</h2> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">J</span>OHN GILPIN never rode so fast through Edmonton as, on that memorable +afternoon in March, Major Constantine Tarry pounded over the cobbles of +Curtain High Street. His scarlet uniform was very bright against the +huge iron-grey steed on whose broad back he nodded with hat pressed down +as far as his fierce prickly eyebrows, with pigtail bobbing to the +motion and with sword whose martial clangour recalled every famous +battle in the history of the world. He was conversing with the widow +when Thomas burst upon them with the news of Phyllida's elopement.</p> + +<p>"Gone, gone!" wailed the footman. "Oh Tyre! Oh Sidon! Hittites on +horseback and two Amorites in a chariot!"</p> + +<p>"What the d——l do you mean, sir?" snapped the Major, "who is gone?"</p> + +<p>"Miss Phyllida," groaned Thomas.</p> + +<p>"Gone," breathed the widow, and the odour of diffused Sanspareil +permeated the room.</p> + +<p>"Gone where?" shouted the Major.</p> + +<p>"To the desert beyond Jordan," answered the footman.</p> + +<p>"With what viper in sheep's clothing?" gasped Mrs. Courteen.</p> + +<p>"Which way, which way, sirrah?" interrupted practical Major Tarry.</p> + +<p>"Lunnon," ejaculated Thomas, fainting into the arms of a chair.</p> + +<p>This was why the inhabitants of the Wells saw a veteran of the Low +Countries shaken up like a cherry in a basket. The sedate glories of the +town were never more nicely<a name="page_248" id="page_248"></a> displayed than on this famous occasion. +From each bow-windowed shop came forth a bland shopkeeper and half a +dozen inquisitive customers.</p> + +<p>The little Miss Pettitoes trilled in bird-like accents: 'What an +adventure!' and returned to a counter spangled with their gay little +purchases, for the Miss Pettitoes were twin sisters and to-morrow was +their birthday.</p> + +<p>"What an adventure!" they trilled to each other over a dish of Hyson and +'What an adventure!' they trilled as they kissed each other 'good-night' +and went each to their bed chambers, identical save for the ribbons of +their fascinating little spinster night-caps.</p> + +<p>"Hurrah! hurrah!" shouted the boys, as they pushed the maids into the +puddles the better to follow so surprizing a cavalier.</p> + +<p>"Rot me!" said Mr. Golightly of the Grey Dragoons, as he lifted his +tortoise-shell rimmed monocle to his supercilious left eye, and 'Rot +you!' he ejaculated, as an enthusiastick trio of youth sheltered between +his remarkably tight-breeched legs.</p> + +<p>"Shall we make such an impressive entrance, d'ye think?" asked Mr. +Lovely, as he and Mr. Clare came out of Mr. Canticle's shop, followed by +Mr. Canticle himself and Mr. Canticle's apprentice loaded with a huge +brown-paper parcel.</p> + +<p>"Good day, Canticle," said Charles.</p> + +<p>"Good day, Mr. Lovely, good day, sir, and depend on't, grey will be the +modish colour for gentlemen of quality; and I beg you not to be uneasy +about the light-blue lining. That, sir, I venture to predict, will +supply the exact touch of genteel eccentricity that consorts so amiably +with the friendly madness of the season. I envy you, gentlemen, I envy +you; and I beg to wish you many a pleasant adventure. The cut of that +riding-coat, Mr. Lovely, will enthral the most fastidious glance, and as +for your breeches, Mr. Clare, I should perhaps be considered boastful if +I said that they impart a tone, sir, a very distinguished tone to the +landskip. Good day, gentlemen."</p> + +<p>The two young gentlemen laughed over Mr. Canticle's<a name="page_249" id="page_249"></a> prophecies, and +excused his loquacity because he had been a limner till the vogue for +foreign painters compelled him to apply his art in another direction.</p> + +<p>It was certainly a stroke of irony that the offer of a sartorial uncle +should make him, a very tolerable exponent of nudity, take up the +occupation of devizing cloaths.</p> + +<p>By this time, Major Tarry's coat-tails were flapping to hedge-row winds, +and his astonishing course was less universally regarded; although, even +in open country, the clamorous transit caused much confusion to +itinerant carters, while a pair of blackbirds forsook their hardly built +nest and retired in voluble dismay to the densest coppice between +Baverstock Regis and Curtain Wells.</p> + +<p>Mr. Jeremy Daish met our hero with a very lugubrious expression, as he +strolled into the coffee-room.</p> + +<p>"What has your honour been doing to enrage Mr. Ripple? Oh, Mr. Lovely, +read this."</p> + +<p>Charles took the proffered note, and half-smiling, half-sighing, perused +his decree of banishment.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="r"> +T<small>HE</small> G<small>REAT</small> +H<small>OUSE</small>. <br /> +C<small>URTAIN</small> +W<small>ELLS</small>, P<small>RIDIE</small> KAL. A<small>P</small>.</p> + +<p>M<small>R</small>. D<small>AISH,</small>—<i>The uncomfortable events of Wednesday evening compel +me to announce that I cannot contemplate with equanimity the +protracted Sojourn of Mr. Lovely at your hitherto peaceful House. I +have no desire to inflict upon you the invidious course of summary +Ejection, but at the same time I am bound to invite a trifle less +cordiality in your Reception of all young gentlemen unperturbed by +the Gout. The town of Curtain Wells exists for the supply of +hygiastick Waters; and, since red wine is a notorious antidote to +chalybeate, my civick brother the Mayor begs me to point out that +we cannot lend our patronage to a house which studiously encourages +the circulation of this antipathetick Beverage. In expectation, Mr. +Daish, that you will presently reconstruct at once your list of +wines and your list of visitors,</i></p> + +<p class="r"> +<i>I am, Mr. Daish, your obliged</i> <br /> +H<small>ORACE</small> R<small>IPPLE</small>.</p></div> + +<p>"Console yourself, Daish," said our hero, as he handed back the Beau's +exquisitely written epistle, "Mr. Clare and I propose to make a long +excursion into the country this very afternoon. Have the goodness to +order our horses to be in the yard at six o'clock."</p> + +<p>"Certainly, your honour, but I hope that nothing I may have said or done +or hinted—or—or—or—" poor Mr. Daish stumbled over the awkwardness of +the interview, and was more like a Cremona violin than ever, a violin +whose strings were snapping one by one.</p> + +<p>"Console yourself, Daish," said our hero with an incredibly magnanimous +air, "you are not to blame. You must know, Daish, that for a long time +past I have had a curiosity to survey this small green earth, unhampered +by anything more serious than the impulse of the moment. To-night, +Daish, when you retire to rest, when you gather the curtains of your +serene bed, when you hark to the clock in the passage striking the +moderate and orderly hour of ten o'clock, when you reflect with a sigh +of proprietary contentment that you have offended no one in the course +of an innkeeper's promiscuous day, when, in a word, your respectable +head sinks into your respectable pillow, dally for a moment in the +imagination of Charles Lovely and Anthony Clare mocking society, +laughing at convention, seated in the parlour of some remote inn and +dozing gratefully before a pile of logs.</p> + +<p>"Think of us, Daish, in the cool dusks and azure silences of April, at +the top of some gentle hill whence we can regard with exhilaration the +prospect of a good dinner, a crimson glass, and genial intercourse with +travellers. Behold us in your mind's eye, walking our horses down +through the twilight, as one by one in cottage lattices the candles +twinkle and, high above, the stars betray the night with silver spears. +For my part, already I can hear the evening gossip of housewives, and +the babble of children in small gardens, and clear against the green +West, I can see the many lovers of a little town moving with slow steps +along their customary path.<a name="page_251" id="page_251"></a></p> + +<p>"Thus, my excellent Daish, each solemn nightfall will discover for us a +new world, and, when the sun rises on the merry unknown streets of our +pilgrimage, we shall think to ourselves what a vast number of jolly +people exist in this remarkably jolly world. Oddslife—"Mr. Lovely broke +off—"what a surprizing alliance."</p> + +<p>As he looked out of the window, we had better look out of the window +too, and I think you will be quite disposed to agree with Charles when I +show you that vivid yellow chaise drawn by two fiery chestnut horses, +and driven by that extraordinarily diminutive coachman, for inside are +seated Beau Ripple and the Widow Courteen, and neither you nor I nor +anybody else ever saw both so nearly disconcerted.</p> + +<p>"Now what the deuce can be the meaning of that?" continued Mr. Lovely.</p> + +<p>"Of what you were saying?" inquired Mr. Daish in a deprecating voice.</p> + +<p>"The horses! the horses!" was all that Mr. Lovely saw fit to reply.</p> + +<p>Major Tarry's earlier progress might well have been the meteor which +heralds a cataclysm, for cataclysm this later apparition certainly was. +I vow the noise of conversation it caused far exceeded anything of the +sort that was ever known.</p> + +<p>The Beau found the publicity of such an exit unendurable to his polite +soul. That his sacred chaise, which had once bowled along at a high but +decorous speed in order to meet the H—r A—— t of Great Britain, +should achieve such a vulgar notoriety nearly upset the sit of his +waistcoat.</p> + +<p>His contemporaries felt the Great little Man's humiliation.</p> + +<p>Yet compassion did not prevent them from forming numberless conjectures +as to the cause of this strange affair. Some said 'Debt!'; others boldly +affirmed an intrigue; but as usual nobody guessed the true reason, which +was that beneath a gorgeous exterior lurked the gentlest, kindliest +heart.</p> + +<p>When the Widow, with a very noisy tale of seduction, poured forth her +tears upon his cushions, Mr. Ripple<a name="page_252" id="page_252"></a> instantly reproached himself and +nobody else with the disaster, immediately decided he must atone for his +negligence by immediately ringing his flowered bell-pull and commanding +Magog, who immediately appeared, to run immediately to the stables and +command the immediate harnessing of the royal horses to the royal chaise +and the immediate buttoning of his diminutive coachman's slender +gaiters.</p> + +<p>It was with a shudder, if a much polished shudder, that he handed Mrs. +Courteen to a place amid the fawn and ivory of the interior of his +chaise. With a barely repressed shudder, too, he observed the dabbled +rouge of her cheeks, and the open mouths of the cits, and the bobbing of +heads at windows, and a horrid bank of black clouds in the extreme +South-west that seemed to betoken a night full of rain, and last but +perhaps worst of all, the lean sign-post 'To London,' a prologue to +G—— knows what unendurable discomfort.</p> + +<p>"We have an adventure to hand," said Charles to Clare, as they strolled +across the yard of the <i>Blue Boar</i>. "We'll follow Ripple!"</p> + +<p>"Ripple?"</p> + +<p>"Ay! Which way did Mr. Ripple's chaise go?" demanded Charles of a knot +of idlers.</p> + +<p>"Lunnon Road," they replied unanimously.</p> + +<p>"We must get ready at once," declared Charles.</p> + +<p class="cba"><span style="margin-left: 10%;">*</span> <span style="margin-left: 10%;">*</span> <span style="margin-left: 10%;">*</span></p> + +<p>"How pleasant 'twould be," thought Phyllida, "if I were not alone."</p> + +<p>Even alone, it was very pleasant to bowl along a level road at an +equable rate of speed. It was very pleasant to try on the peacock-blue +riding hood that so became her. It was very pleasant to see the cheerful +faces of the many wayfarers encountered by the chariot. The backs of the +postillions glowed with scarlet, and a gay contrast they made to the +flaming gorse of a wild open stretch of country. Every cottage that +nestled back from the road with clipped yews to guard the gate seemed to +Phyllida a desirable place to live<a name="page_253" id="page_253"></a> and love in for ever. It was +pleasant to watch the lambs in the meadows, and exciting indeed to count +the still sparse primroses starring the hedgerows. It was pleasant to +watch the children stand on the topmost rung of a five-barred gate and +cheer as they rattled past. Very pleasant it was, though the sight +brought a slight lump in her throat, as she thought how often she had +done the same thing with Dick Combleton the Squire's youngest son.</p> + +<p>Up-hill with many a groan and grunt, and down-hill with a clatter and a +dash, and along the level with a ring and a jingle went the post-chariot +in the afternoon sunlight. Past farm-house and farm-yard, past villages +and churches, and inns with waving signs, past ponds and geese, past +many a tired woman trudging home from market and many a jovial carter; +past sign-posts and cross-roads and milestones; past smithies with +roaring fires and monstrous bellows, past lowing cows and crowing cocks, +past journeymen tinkers and journeymen barbers, past a great dancing +bear which, had Phyllida but known it, danced not a whit more foolishly +for bumpkins than rose-pink Phyllida herself for the malicious eyes of +the world of fashion.</p> + +<p>After a long climb up a heavy hill, whence a very fair champagne spread +before her, the great black and purple cloud caught the westering sun, +and suffused the whole landskip with a queer metallick sheen. It made +the rooks that swayed in the bare branches of a windy clump of elms take +on a strange green lustre over their plumage, and cast a stillness over +the world. That view remained with Phyllida all her life, as a pause +wherein she had contemplated existence for the briefest moment. Years +afterwards, an old woman, sitting in a dim ingle-nook, would see that +fair champagne in the clouds of smoke that curled ceaselessly up the +wide chimney, and, above the scent of burning logs, would be wafted the +perfume of the white March violets that blossomed at the foot of those +swaying elms where the rooks cawed and the dead leaves raced round and +round.</p> + +<p>"Stop, you blackguards," cried a rasping voice above the noise of fast +approaching hoofs.<a name="page_254" id="page_254"></a></p> + +<p>"Crack! crack!" went Dickie Maggs' big pistol.</p> + +<p>"'Ighwayman, Miss," he added cheerfully, as the sound of something soft +falling was heard, followed by horse-hoofs in mad retreat down the long +heavy hill.</p> + +<p>In a moment, the chariot was rocking in a wild gallop down the opposite +decline.</p> + +<p>Raindrops began to fall, deliberately at first, but soon fast enough, +while the earth was slowly blotted out by storm and rain and twilight.</p> + +<p>On the summit of the hill, Major Constantine Tarry lay face downwards, +having paid the extreme penalty of interference with other people's +business. Poor Tarry, he was a bore and a braggart, and had not the +slightest intention of being killed, yet I for one regret the manner of +his death, up there on the top of that wind-swept hill. And for all he +told you such very long stories when he asked you to dine with him at +Oudenarde Grange and Malplaquet Lodge and Ramilies House, he gave you +some capital Port, and Sherry nearly as dry as his own anecdotes. +Moreover, he really fought in that bloody fight of Fontenoy, and that +was a very great honour and should make us forgive a very great deal.</p> + +<p>A flash of lightning illuminated the dead body of the veteran lying face +downwards in the mud of an English high-road, and a distant volley of +thunder accorded military honours to his somewhat grotesque death.<a name="page_255" id="page_255"></a></p> + +<h2><i>Chapter the Twenty-ninth</i><br /><br /> +THE BASKET OF ROSES</h2> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">S</span>OME four-and-twenty miles from Curtain Wells on the Great West Road is +a tangle of briers among whose blossoms an old damask rose is sometimes +visible. If the curious traveller should pause and examine this fragrant +wilderness, he will plainly perceive the remains of an ancient garden, +and if he be of an imaginative character of mind will readily recall the +legend of the Sleeping Beauty in her mouldering palace; for some +enchantment still enthralls the spot, so that he who bravely dares the +thorns is well rewarded with pensive dreams and, as he lingers a while +gathering the flowers or watching their petals flutter to the green +shadows beneath, will haply see elusive Beauty hurry past.</p> + +<p>Here at the date of this tale stood the <i>Basket of Roses</i> Inn, a mile or +so away from a small village. When coaches ceased to run, the house +began to lose its custom and, as stone is scarce hereabouts, was +presently pulled down in order to provide the Parson with a peculiarly +bleak Parochial Hall.</p> + +<p>However, this melancholy fate was still distant, and old Simon Tabrum +had a fine custom from the coaches and private travellers who delighted +to spend a night in so sweet a lodging.</p> + +<p>The <i>Basket of Roses</i> was the fairest, dearest inn down all that billowy +London road. The counter, sheathed in a case of pewter, the glasses all +in a row, the sleek barrels and the irregular lines of home-brewed +cordials, charmed the casual visitor to a more intimate acquaintance. +Behind the tap was the Travellers' Room, and what a room it was<a name="page_256" id="page_256"></a>—with +great open fireplaces and spits and bubbling kettles and blackened +ingles. Long-buried ancestors of the village had carved their rude +initials over each high-backed bench and battered the bottoms of the +great tankards into unexpected dents by many rollicking choruses in the +merry dead past. The walls of this room knew the pedigree of every +bullock and the legend of every ghost for many miles round. Here was the +cleanest floor, the clearest fire in England.</p> + +<p>Old Tabrum the landlord was the very man for the house—the very man to +bring out all that was most worthy in his guests. He always produced +good wine and a piping hot supper, never asked for his money till his +guests were satisfied and always wore an apron as white as the foam of +his cool deep ale.</p> + +<p>He was eighty years old now, with a bloom on his cheeks like an autumn +pippin and two limpid blue eyes that looked straight into yours and, if +you had any reverence at all, made the tears well involuntarily at the +sight of such gentle beauty.</p> + +<p>Once he was a famous Basso Profundo, but now his voice was high and +thin, and seemed already fraught with faint aerial music. The ancient +man was a great gardener as properly became a landlord whose sign was a +swinging posy. What a garden there was at the back of this glorious inn. +The bowling-green surrounded by four grey walls was the finest ever +known, and as for the borders, deep borders twelve feet wide, they were +full of every sweet flower. There were Columbines and Canterbury Bells +and blue Bells of Coventry and Lilies and Candy Goldilocks with Penny +flowers or White Sattin and Fair Maids of France and Fair Maids of Kent +and London Pride.</p> + +<p>There was Herb of Grace and Rosemary and Lavender to pluck and crush +between your fingers, while some one rolled the jack across the level +green of the ground. In Spring there were Tulips and Jacynths, Dames' +Violets and Primroses, Cowslips of Jerusalem, Daffodils and Pansies, +Lupins like spires in the dusk, and Ladies' Smocks in the shadowed +corners. As for Summer, why the very heart of<a name="page_257" id="page_257"></a> high June and hot July +dwelt in that fragrant enclosure. Sweet Johns and Sweet Williams with +Dragon flowers and crimson Peaseblossom and tumbling Peonies, Blue +Moonwort and the Melancholy Gentlemen, Larksheels, Marigolds, Hearts, +Hollyhocks and Candy Tufts. There was Venus' Looking Glass and Flower of +Bristol and Apple of Love and Blue Helmets and Herb Paris and Campion +and Love in a Mist and Ladies' Laces and Sweet Sultans or Turkey +Cornflowers, Gillyflower Carnations (Ruffling Rob of Westminster amongst +them) with Dittany and Sops in Wine and Floramor, Widow Wail and +Bergamot, True Thyme and Gilded Thyme, Good Night at Noon and Flower de +Luce, Golden Mouse-ear, Princes' Feathers, Pinks, and deep-red Damask +Roses.</p> + +<p>It was a very wonderful garden indeed.</p> + +<p>And because the old man loved flowers, tending them in the early +twilight with water and releasing them from many a small weed which he +was fain to destroy, but in the end always replanted in a small clearing +on the shady side of his farthest meadow, because he loved flowers, the +old man, whose first wife died years and years ago on a long past +primrose-tide, married in the hale winter of his life a comfortable +wench whom he could trust as he trusted his flowers to be true to their +seasons. This second wife, more like a daughter than a wife, he +delighted to surprize with fragrant rolls of gaily sprigged cloths; and +never a summer morning broke but he was abroad in the dewy grass to +gather her such a posy of freshness and beauty as can only be taken in +the earliest hours of the morning. Mrs. Tabrum, for all she was so young +and rosy, had a great feeling for the importance of her position as +mistress of a famous hostelry and ordered about little Polly Patch, +newly arrived from Mrs. Margery Severe's select charity school, with a +great air of ladyship. Little Polly Patch was a very important young +woman too; for the <i>Basket of Roses</i> was not a large galleried inn full +of grooms and hostlers and waiters and chambermaids, but a house of +quite another character, where you were never bewildered by superfluous +service<a name="page_258" id="page_258"></a> but always received with a quiet dignity. Therefore you paid a +great deal of respectful attention to little Polly Patch who had a great +deal to do with your night's rest and your morning's breakfast. I think +Mr. Vernon was a very wise man to choose a domestick fairyland so apt to +soothe the sweet alarms of his Phyllida.</p> + +<p>Here they would sup while the horses were being changed, and hence they +would set out in the darkness, preserving, as they galloped along, a +sense of peace and quiet beauty that should be to her the fortunate +prelude of a happy adventure.</p> + +<p>Vernon had sent word to the house of their arrival, hinted at the +fatigues of a gay bridal, and let it be supposed they desired no +intrusion.</p> + +<p>To the ancient man such a confidence was enough to set his old brain +agog with the gallant scenes of his youth. He chuckled over every +tankard of ale he drew, told every one of his daffodils the merry secret +and piped away at long forgotten melodies until his wife in despair sat +him down in the ingle, put a broken fiddle in his hand and bade him play +his fancies to sleep. The storm that rose at sunset shrieked about the +inn, and the hollow groaning in the mazes of the huge chimney consorted +in fitting harmonies with the old man's eerie tunes.</p> + +<p>"March is going out wi' thunder and tempest like a roaring lion," he +muttered, as a sudden gust of hail was blown against the lattice which +pattered and rattled as if a crowd of elfin drummers were beating a wild +tattoo without.</p> + +<p>"Aye, 'tis a main ugly night," said Mrs. Dorothy Tabrum, who was laying +the shining silver about the snowy tablecloth.</p> + +<p>"So 'tis, my peony, so 'tis! A main ugly night for daffodils and young +brides. Is her chamber ready?" he went on.</p> + +<p>"Aye! Aye!"</p> + +<p>"Wi' rosy curtains drawn close?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Tabrum nodded.</p> + +<p>"Wi' candlelight and the cracking of logs and green bayleaves in the +presses?"<a name="page_259" id="page_259"></a></p> + +<p>"Why, do'ee think I'm gone daft to forget suchlike?"</p> + +<p>"And a vase of daffodils by her mirrour?" the ancient one persisted.</p> + +<p>Polly Patch came in at that moment.</p> + +<p>"All be ready, mistress," she said in a slow voice, solemnly nodding her +enormous mobcap while she spoke.</p> + +<p>"Now Polly," said Mrs. Tabrum, "lend a hand wi' this table and lets put +'un a thought nearer to the fire. Ugh! how it blows!" A vivid flash of +lightning illuminated the room, and on the heels of a terrifick roar of +thunder there was a cry of 'House! House!'</p> + +<p>"Hurry, hurry, my daisies, and make who comes there welcome. Jacob! +Jacob!" cried the old landlord as, much excited, he rose from his seat +in the ingle and quavered towards the taproom.</p> + +<p>"You are sure the candles are lighted, Polly?"</p> + +<p>"Sarten, mistress."</p> + +<p>"And the logs burning brightly?"</p> + +<p>"'Ess mistress."</p> + +<p>"And the curtains pinned together?"</p> + +<p>"'Ess mistress."</p> + +<p>"Then stand by the door, curtsey when you're spoken to, and don't put +your thumb in the soup."</p> + +<p>"No, mistress."</p> + +<p>"Is Mary Maria watching the fowls?"</p> + +<p>"Wi' both her eyes, mistress."</p> + +<p>"Hark!"</p> + +<p>"I'm harking away, mistress."</p> + +<p>And while the mistress and the maid harked vigilantly the ancient +landlord ushered Miss Phyllida Courteen into the Travellers' Room of the +<i>Basket of Roses</i> Inn.</p> + +<p>As he entered, old Tabrum looked very much like a sexton leading a shy +maid to the altar. She, flustered, expectant, murmured soft thanks into +the farthest recesses of her swansdown muff, stumbled frequently to the +voluble distress of her guide, and seemed afraid to look round the +well-ordered comfortable room after so many miles of wind and driving +rain.<a name="page_260" id="page_260"></a></p> + +<p>"Dear soul! And where's the bridegroom?" exclaimed Mrs. Tabrum, as she +led Phyllida to a high-backed chair right before the heart of the +blazing fire.</p> + +<p>Phyllida blushed as she explained Mr. Amor was travelling on horseback.</p> + +<p>"Indeed, I expected to find him here," she stammered, "Oh! I hope +nothing has happened to him."</p> + +<p>"Now, don't 'ee fret thyself, sweet marjoram," said the ancient one, +humming round her like a bee. "A'most anything might have happened to +him on such a dreadful night."</p> + +<p>"Don't 'ee hark to the ancient dodderer," interrupted the dodderer's +wife.</p> + +<p>"Killed by a falling tree, withered to a cinder by bloody lightning."</p> + +<p>"You alarm me," exclaimed Phyllida, jumping up.</p> + +<p>"Hold thy ancient foolish tongue," commanded Mrs. Tabrum peremptorily, +"and go see that Mary Maria keeps the fowls turning a while yet."</p> + +<p>"Very well, my gillyflower, very well," piped senility, "but don't 'ee +take on, my little blue love-in-a-mist, happen 'tis no more than a +broken leg has overtook your husband."</p> + +<p>"Polly," said Mrs. Tabrum, who saw that Phyllida was on the verge of +tears, "take thy ancient master away. Hark," she finished, with an +impressive forefinger.</p> + +<p>"What are us to hark to, pretty pink?"</p> + +<p>"Ef I doant hear a great tom-cat a-scratching in the tulips, my name +be'ant Dorothy Ann Tabrum."</p> + +<p>As at this moment the tempest outside was howling with unsurpassed fury, +it is extremely doubtful whether the buxom lady spoke the truth, but her +husband was alert at once and hastily snatching down a blunderbuss +labelled 'Loaded on Tuesday sennight' Simon Tabrum moved stealthily from +the room.</p> + +<p>"You must pardon my ancient old husband for his flowery manner of +speech. 'Tis not disrespect he do mean, but love and charity wi' his +neighbour, having as it were<a name="page_261" id="page_261"></a> been sown a power of years ago and being +now apt to let his withered branches fall on the heads of all manner of +folk."</p> + +<p>As this long sentence was evidently considered a full and proper +explanation of the dodderer's inconvenient habit of prophecy, Phyllida +smiled very charmingly and said she quite understood.</p> + +<p>"And now let us gossip of thy wedding," said Mrs. Tabrum in a cosy tone +of voice, "or would 'ee rather go to thy chamber, pretty miss?"</p> + +<p>"Oh! indeed I will stay here, thank you. Mr. Amor might come at any +moment."</p> + +<p>"Polly! Polly Patch!"</p> + +<p>"'Ess, mistress."</p> + +<p>"What for are 'ee standing there, lolloping thy great cap, dollop. Be +off, great clockface, be off, pundle, to Mary Maria, and tell her to +keep the fowls a-turning and a-turning."</p> + +<p>Polly Patch curtseyed solemnly and retreated slowly, murmuring to +herself, "and not to put my thumbs in the soup."</p> + +<p>"Do you think he will be a very long time?" asked Phyllida, turning +suddenly to the landlady and looking indescribably wistful.</p> + +<p>"What I can't make out, my lamb, is how he came to leave 'ee on such a +night. That's what I can't make out at all. Now at my bride-ale, for all +I was wedding a man old enough to be my ancestor, why it was bride-ale, +I do warrant. My aged husband being a publican and a sinner, there was a +mort of merry-making, I tell 'ee, and ’twas only when Tabrum slipped on +the floor and cracked the back of his faded head as we finished, and me +forced to use the holland smock as I won at Ascensiontide smock-racing. +Oh! his head was so raw as an egg, and running faster than ever I run +for the smock."</p> + +<p>"How dreadful," murmured Phyllida, not quite sure whether the narrative +should offend her maiden sensibility or not.</p> + +<p>"But he was out wi' the hens next morning," the talkative<a name="page_262" id="page_262"></a> lady +continued, "out wi' the hens and scratching away in the garden as hard +as any of 'em. But, I tell 'ee, I did souse his head wi' vinegar when I +got 'un indoors. The house smelt like a jar of pickle for a week o' +Sundays after. But there! Tabrum he gets ascited. Don't matter whether +'tis his own or another's wedding, he's all the while jumping around +like a Shrovetide pancake. And talk—well, 'tis babble, babble, and all +of men and maids as was under yews twenty green years ago. I tell 'ee, +we all laffed when he began telling 'ow he kissed my grandmother coming +out of Evening Prayer one frosty night. 'The moon was on her back,' he +says, 'ay, and ecod! so was she!' Pretty times, pretty times!"</p> + +<p>What farther free confessions would have rippled from Mrs. Tabrum's +cherry-ripe lips, it would ill become a modest writer or reader to +speculate. They were cut short by the lurching entrance of Charlie and +Dicky Maggs, the two postillions.</p> + +<p>It would have been hard to find a more ill-favoured pair of ruffians in +a day's posting. Both of them had dismounted very regularly at every +house of call on the road and arrived at the <i>Basket of Roses</i> with a +considerable cargo of bad spirits. The prospect of a long wait, while +the horses were changed and their fares supped, encouraged them to +farther excesses, and a lucky summons to the drawer to reach down a +special cordial gave them an opportunity to finish off the greater part +of a bottle of Plymouth Gin.</p> + +<p>Fortified by this, annoyed to find that Vernon had not arrived, and half +afraid they would lose their wages, they had come in to extract from +Miss Courteen as much money as they could, being willing and anxious to +drink away every minute of the wait.</p> + +<p>"Ve're vet, Miss," said Charles.</p> + +<p>"And it vouldn't be amiss if ve could 'ave a little piece of gold as 'ud +varm us wiv its shining," said Dicky.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Amor will settle your charges," said Phyllida.</p> + +<p>"And be off, you ruffians," exclaimed Mrs. Tabrum,<a name="page_263" id="page_263"></a> enraged by this +impudent invasion of the Travellers' Room.</p> + +<p>"Shut your mouth, mother Appleface," hiccoughed Charlie.</p> + +<p>"And fork out somefink on account, Miss," oozed from his brother.</p> + +<p>The latter began to move with uncertain steps after Phyllida, who shrank +towards the shelter of the inglenook.</p> + +<p>"Jacob! Jacob! Simon Tabrum! Polly Patch! Mary Maria!" screamed the +landlady, snatching at the only article of offence in reach, which +happened to be a pair of bellows. With these she puffed away furiously, +to the enormous delight of the drunken postillions, who continued to +advance and indeed probably found the air of the bellows very grateful +to their heated brains.</p> + +<p>It is unlikely that anything more serious than a volley of oaths would +have occurred, if a tall elderly gentleman in a chestnut-brown frogged +riding-coat had not come in at that moment; but as he did come in, no +doubt the room was the sweeter for the interruption.</p> + +<p>"Oh, your honour," said Mrs. Tabrum, "will 'ee please turn out these +drunken rogues, seeing as all the house is away at their business and no +one near by."</p> + +<p>The elderly gentleman clenched his riding-stick a trifle more firmly and +directed his steel-grey eyes—equally potent weapons—towards the +abashed brothers. They did not wait to be addressed, but hurried as +quickly as the fumes of liquor allowed them, to the more congenial +atmosphere of the taproom. It is comforting to reflect, while they +twisted their way out, that Charlie and Dicky Maggs were hanged at +Tyburn for a peculiarly atrocious robbery and brutal assault upon a +blind rat-tamer, who, with many clinging rats and mice and a +scarlet-frilled dog, was a familiar figure in the villages round London. +It is not perhaps so comforting to reflect upon the poor old man lying +insensible in a puddle, with his tame rats and mice wandering aimlessly +in and out of his innumerable pockets and his scarlet-frilled dog with +three broken ribs moaning in<a name="page_264" id="page_264"></a> the middle of a quickset bush. Egad! I vow +the Tyburn horse never responded so readily to Jack Ketch's whip and +never a pair of rogues went so ashen grey at the tide of a mob's +execrations in all the livid chronicles of quick and evil ends.</p> + +<p>The elderly gentleman in the chestnut Surtout turned from the exit of +Charlie and Dickie Maggs to survey the subject of their insolence. It +would have puzzled an onlooker to say precisely what effect was produced +on the elderly gentleman's countenance by this deliberate inspection of +Miss Phyllida Courteen, now melting in tears of apprehension and only +barely restrained from hystericks by Mrs. Tabrum's plump hands in +extensive motion.</p> + +<p>When the iron-grey clouds of a chill December afternoon dissolve for a +moment in the scud of a high gale and shed a ray of pallid sunlight on a +spent blossom, we are almost glad to see the thin azure thus displayed +as quickly veiled, and welcome the sullen twilight that succeeds. The +elderly gentleman's countenance took on for a brief moment a strange +light, but the frosted smile betrayed so much grim sorrow behind that it +was quite a relief to see his face resume a normal frigidity as he +muttered a regret and inquired into the chances of a good night's +lodging.<a name="page_265" id="page_265"></a></p> + +<h2><i>Chapter the Thirtieth</i><br /><br /> +SIR GEORGE REPINGTON</h2> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letraa">“</span><span class="letra">I</span>T is now eight o'clock," said the elderly gentleman, "if this young +lady has no objection, I will eat a light supper in this apartment; and +if you, ma'am, have no objection, I will retire to my bedchamber +immediately after the meal. I do not require a heavy supper," he added +as Mrs. Tabrum's jolly face began to pucker with the impatience of a +good housewife to enumerate the plentiful dainties of a well-stocked +larder.</p> + +<p>The latter perceiving that Phyllida was recovered of her alarm, and +anxious to prove to the elderly gentleman that his appetite was in the +wrong by producing a flock of savoury dishes as speedily as possible, +hereupon curtseyed, and was soon audible in shrill pursuit of little +Polly Patch.</p> + +<p>The Travellers' Room of the <i>Basket of Roses</i> was plunged into rosy +quiet. The Dutch clock swung a languid pendulum to and fro with gentle +tick; the fire whispered and crackled faintly; the lattices occasionally +shook before a more unruly blast; a mouse stood up in a dark corner and +squeaked; the huge oak dresser occasionally tapped; two unknown birds, +screened till morning by chintz foliage, sometimes stirred on their +perches; the elderly gentleman sometimes rapped his mother-o'-pearl +snuff-box; Phyllida sometimes smoothed her forget-me-not flowered +skirts; and away in the taproom was a tinkle and murmur of taproom +sounds muffled by several intervening doors. Yet, however fair the +surroundings, it is impossible for two people, unacquainted, to maintain +a graceful silence for long. The elderly gentleman began to tap his +snuff-box more frequently, while Phyllida would smooth her skirts more<a name="page_266" id="page_266"></a> +persistently and from time to time cast a sidelong glance in the +direction of the elderly gentleman. The latter felt the undercurrent of +strong emotion so keenly that he was worried by this steady inaction +into a curiosity quite alien to his character, and plunged into a +conversation consisting principally of a large number of direct +questions on his side and a small number of indirect replies on the part +of Phyllida. At last, after a tiresome quarter of an hour in which the +only solid piece of information given and offered was the fact that he +was going to, she departing from the salubrious town of Curtain Wells, +the elderly gentleman produced from the upper left-hand pocket of his +waistcoat an oval case of worn Morocco leather. Phyllida observed that +he rapped this in just the same decided way as he rapped his snuff-box +and felt a certain incongruity in his manner, as he took from it the +miniature of a young girl and offered the portrait for her inspection, +asking whether she detected a likeness.</p> + +<p>The girl, depicted with the meticulous art of the worker on a small +scale, recalled at once the features of Mr. Charles Lovely. Phyllida +hesitated for a moment before assigning the likeness to such a man.</p> + +<p>"You observe, Madam, the resemblance to yourself?" said the elderly +gentleman.</p> + +<p>"To myself?" replied Miss Courteen taken aback.</p> + +<p>"For what other reason should I show it to you?"</p> + +<p>"To say truth, sir, it reminds me more of a gentleman——"</p> + +<p>"Eh! what's that," he interrupted. "Not young Charles Lovely?"</p> + +<p>"Indeed, sir—’twas he occurred to my mind."</p> + +<p>"You know him?"</p> + +<p>"I have stepped a minuet with him," replied Phyllida, now more than ever +on her guard against the steel-grey eyes of the elderly gentleman.</p> + +<p>"This was my sister, his mother."</p> + +<p>If you had asked the stranger what prompted him to confide so suddenly +in Miss Courteen, I doubt he would have been unable to tell you. If his +clerks could have seen Sir George Repington, head of the great banking +house of<a name="page_267" id="page_267"></a> Repington, at this moment they would have been indescribably +shocked to hear him announce this piece of personal information. The +clerks in busy Throgmorton Street firmly believed that the great Sir +George Repington lived a desolate and severe life surrounded by +calculating machines of enormous complication; they would have gasped to +imagine his bleak financial solitudes disturbed by a young woman in an +inn-parlour. The chief cashier, indeed, might have emitted one of his +dry hacking little laughs; but then the chief cashier had grown old in +the service of the Repingtons and, having known Sir George as a young +man, enjoyed a privileged cynicism. Moreover, the chief cashier when he +was junior clerk had carried half a score sealed notes to Thistlegrove +Cottage—a diminutive paradise five or six miles along the Hounslow +Road. There, amid the chirping of many linnets, young Master Repington +would swear eternal fidelity while the sun-dyed sleepy air coloured his +dear one's lips as deep as rubies and enchanted with gold her soft brown +hair. No doubt the present scene of this small history would have +awakened a delightful memory from the dusty recesses of the chief +cashier's brain, for all that the end of Thistlegrove Cottage was a +businesslike affair on a level with many other successful monetary +transactions of the great house of Repington and Son.</p> + +<p>Phyllida was somewhat embarrassed by the sudden announcement of his +relationship to that dreadful Mr. Lovely, who had lampooned the whole of +the fashionable world. She wondered if the elderly gentleman was aware +of his nephew's late indiscretion, whether she ought to break the news +of his odium, and finally with a maid's inconsequence fell to wishing +she had never eloped since the step had involved her in so awkward an +adventure.</p> + +<p>Sir George, noticing her embarrassment, introduced himself,</p> + +<p>"My name is Repington, ma'am—Sir George Repington." As he said this he +received the miniature from Phyllida, and having, as it were, fondled +the oval for a second, replaced it in the upper left-hand pocket of his +waistcoat.<a name="page_268" id="page_268"></a></p> + +<p>The introduction put Phyllida deeper than ever into a quandary. She felt +the genteel movement to be a low curtsey coupled with the graceful +revelation of her name, but this was just the act she could not bring +herself to perform. What a vast number of polite difficulties attached +themselves to an elopement, and how she wished with all her heart she +had never been so foolish as to brave them unaccompanied.</p> + +<p>"The resemblance is certainly very remarkable," said Sir George +Repington.</p> + +<p>Phyllida clutched this conversational straw.</p> + +<p>"I doubt, sir, 'twould ill become me to allow the compliment."</p> + +<p>The stilted reply did not seem to offend the elderly gentleman, for he +bowed very gallantly and tapped the lid of his snuff-box with an air.</p> + +<p>"And my nephew, ma'am, what does Curtain Wells think of my nephew?"</p> + +<p>Luckily for Phyllida who was racking her brains to devize a polite +method of informing Sir George Repington that his nephew had offended +the whole world, that is to say the whole world known to the residents +and visitors of Curtain Wells, Mrs. Tabrum came back to say that a pair +of fowls were on their way.</p> + +<p>"A morsel of cheese is all that I require, thank'ee," said Sir George to +this information. "A morsel of cheese, well-aired sheets and——"</p> + +<p>"A bit off the breast," murmured Mrs. Tabrum coaxingly.</p> + +<p>"Well-aired sheets and——"</p> + +<p>"A grilled drumstick," insinuated the landlady.</p> + +<p>"Well-aired sheets and——"</p> + +<p>"The liver wing."</p> + +<p>Sir George Repington capitulated and sat down to supper with Phyllida +opposite and a great bowl of daffadillies between them.</p> + +<p>Nobody ever found out what exactly was the elderly gentleman's unspoken +requirement.<a name="page_269" id="page_269"></a></p> + +<p>Sir George was enjoying himself—a very unusual occupation for that grim +and solid man of business.</p> + +<p>Phyllida, on the contrary, was becoming more deeply embarrassed every +moment. She could not help picturing to herself the awkwardness of +greeting her dear Amor in the presence of such a man. Moreover, she +could not understand why the latter preserved such a lack of curiosity. +She, a heroine to herself, was unable to appreciate the point of view +that took her and her adventure for granted. She almost resented Sir +George's acceptation of her as part of the furniture of a wayside inn.</p> + +<p>As a matter of fact, the banker was abroad to enjoy himself, and the +discovery of a maid sitting solitary in the firelight of an inn parlour +only struck him as whimsical in so far as she resembled his dead sister. +Having, after a lapse of many grey years, put on once more the mantle of +youth, he was very ready to welcome a face that consorted so perfectly +with his mood.</p> + +<p>But as supper went on, and the elderly gentleman inquired no farther +into the well-being of Mr. Charles Lovely, while Mr. Amor did not +arrive, and the drunken postillions remained in the tap-room, and the +Dutch clock ticked on quite unperturbed by the raging of the storm +without, Phyllida began to regain her equanimity, and even to converse +so trippingly with the elderly gentleman that elopements and Gretna +Green marriages floated away while she chattered of her dearest Morton, +betrayed the latter's partiality for young Mr. Chalkley, compared her +boldness with the more modest behaviour of a certain Miss Jenny West, +who was the third daughter of a parson who lived four—no five miles +from where they lived in Hampshire, jumped from the tale of Miss West to +the tale of Miss West's brother who scandalized the country by stepping +eight consecutive gavottes with his cousin from Hertfordshire; and +ultimately confided to Sir George her profound contempt for Mr. Moon and +her immense distrust of Major Tarry. Yet, at the very moment when she +was telling Sir George of a ludicrous chase of the Major's wig one windy +March morning in the preceding year<a name="page_270" id="page_270"></a> the furious gale was blowing his +sodden pigtail to and fro without a curse from the little soldier in +whom stern death had begotten a divine and everlasting indifference to +the minor amenities of polite appearance. Sir George Repington was near +to the capture of his fled youth that fire-lit evening. He was back in +the old South Gallery at Repington Hall sitting in the wide window seat +at the West End, and opposite to him with flushed exquisite face sat his +sister Joan, rippling joyfully through the fair meadows of life like a +glittering brook. The musick of Phyllida's conversation revived for the +elderly gentleman many a crimson dusk. He thought with a sigh of the +South Gallery now, with its hollow echoes, its dust and long line of +contemptuous ancestors, and of himself as, with severe tread, he ran the +batteries of many immutable eyes.</p> + +<p>Old Tabrum would quaver in from time to time to survey the comfort of +his guests, regaling them with some particularly choice floral anecdote. +His wife too would peep to inquire whether the roasted fowls fulfilled +her expectations, and once little Polly Patch put her cap round the door +and asked if his honour would like the warming-pan left in his bed or +merely whisked three or four times over his already well-aired sheets.</p> + +<p class="cba"><span style="margin-left: 10%;">*</span> <span style="margin-left: 10%;">*</span> <span style="margin-left: 10%;">*</span></p> + +<p>Phyllida made a careless remark about her mother, and Sir George +Repington hoped that Mrs. Courteen (Phyllida had some time ago divulged +her name) would not be alarmed by the strife of the elements. Phyllida +made a very careless reply to this, by reassuring Sir George about her +mother, who, as she pointed out, would be not at all likely to observe +the wildness of the night in her anxiety to secure her hand against the +prying glances of my lady Bunbutter.</p> + +<p>"Is that Sir Moffyn Bunbutter's lady?" said Sir George.</p> + +<p>"Yes, indeed, sir."</p> + +<p>"Sure to be, sure to be," Sir George commented. "Who'd have thought of +seeing poor old Sir Moffyn's lady here of all places?"</p> + +<p>"But she's not here, sir. She is at Curtain Wells."<a name="page_271" id="page_271"></a></p> + +<p>"But your mother?"</p> + +<p>Phyllida saw her mistake, but, being unused to falsehoods, made no +attempt to extricate herself from the situation provoked by her own +carelessness. As a happy compromise, she blushed and made queer little +excavations in the salt-cellar.</p> + +<p>"You've no brother and your father is dead?" went on Sir George, fixing +the abashed young woman with his sharp eyes. "Then you are alone in this +inn?"</p> + +<p>The statement, put so baldly, sounded very dreadful to Miss Courteen. +Moreover, she had an uneasy idea that the elderly gentleman was +beginning to feel himself compromised by her company, so she made +patterns in the salt-cellar more fantastick than ever, blushed till the +shells of her ears seemed veritably to crack in the furnace of outraged +sensibility, and looked very guilty.</p> + +<p>"Alone?" the elderly gentleman repeated.</p> + +<p>Phyllida's whispered 'yes' was only just audible above the languid +ticking of the Dutch clock.</p> + +<p>The antique landlord broke the tension by putting his head round the +door and demanding from Sir George whether he preferred to sleep in the +Dorick Summerhouse with a view of the surrounding country, or in the +Green Vista with a more comfortable bed, if not so wide a view. +Antiquity was followed by his wife, who hustled him fairly into the +candlelight and explained that all their bedchambers were named to suit +the flowery eccentricity of her husband.</p> + +<p>"Thus we have the Parterre," said old Simon in support of his wife's +explanation, "the Pleached Alley (though that is more truly a passage). +The Sun Dial (a warm attick), the Quincunx, the Bosquet, the Arbour, the +Green Gallery, the Cascade (or stairway) and for my dear hollyhock and +myself, the Columbary."</p> + +<p>"God bless you, sirrah," said Sir George rather testily, "I'm no Dutch +garden-maker that I should fret about such vagaries of taste. Oons! +plant me where you will, I wager I shall not open till daybreak."</p> + +<p>This quip pleased the old landlord enormously, and he<a name="page_272" id="page_272"></a> retired upon a +chuckle prolonged sufficiently to convey him to the farthest ends of the +house, whither he was followed by his anxious wife.</p> + +<p>Left alone once more, Phyllida and Sir George looked at each other over +the remains of that genial supper.</p> + +<p>Neither broke the silence for a while. The elderly gentleman was the +first to speak.</p> + +<p>"Don't you think it is somewhat unwise to travel alone, especially as +your postillions do not seem a very trusty pair?"</p> + +<p>"I am not really alone," said Phyllida, +"I'm—I'm—expecting—a—a—companion."</p> + +<p>Sir George Repington raised his eyebrows and seemed about to make a +severe comment upon this halting explanation, but, leaning his elbow on +the table and his cheek on his hand, he changed his mind and in cold +deliberate accents, so cold and so deliberate that you would have sworn +a weight of emotion was sunk beneath them, began a tale. Since this tale +must either be told by me or by Sir George himself, inasmuch as it +concerns one or two of our characters, I will let the original author +give it to you in his own words, nay I will give the story the +distinction of a chapter to itself.<a name="page_273" id="page_273"></a></p> + +<h2><i>Chapter the Thirty-first</i><br /><br /> +A TALE WITH AN INTERRUPTED MORAL</h2> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">S</span>IR GEORGE REPINGTON filled up his glass (he was drinking Port wine), +motioned Phyllida to a seat on the right, sat himself down opposite, +and, to the accompaniment of thunder and lightning and wind and rain, +proceeded to entertain her with some vastly interesting details of his +domestick history.</p> + +<p>"I have already shown you the portrait of my sister Joan, and you will +remember that I remarked upon the resemblance between you and her—I did +not think at the time that such a coincidence would fulfil itself even +more completely.</p> + +<p>"We were left orphans soon after I reached my twenty-fifth birthday, and +I will admit that I experienced a keen sensation of pride in the +responsibleness of a great financial house and a very attractive young +woman. Pray, remember I was still young. We lived when we were in London +at a pleasant house in Soho Square, on the side nearest to the Oxford +Road, but spent much of our leisure at Repington Hall, a fine old family +mansion in the county of Surrey, near enough to the town to make our +visits there very frequent."</p> + +<p>Sir George sighed at the pleasant memories as he sipped his glass of +Port wine.</p> + +<p>"We spent many golden days at Repington Hall and our friends, carefully +selected, as all young people's friends are, found the long June +evenings on the great sloping lawn not less pleasant than we did. Egad! +I can see them all now and hear over the long silences that invariably +punctuate such intimate conversation the lowing of the cows in the<a name="page_274" id="page_274"></a> home +farm and the deer crunching the sweet long grass beneath the broad +oak-trees. And in Spring what a choir of nightingales sang in the +gnarled whitethorn trees by the sunk fence, and in late summer what +myriads of grasshoppers chirruped in the twilight. Yes, yes, I can see +them all—young Harbottle Ramsey—he's my Lord Sodor and Man +now—succeeded his uncle who was executed after the rising in +'45—well—well, Harbottle was always a staunch Whig, and by gad, so +were all of us in those evenings at Repington. Then there was Burnet, +Cinderton's eldest son—he is Cinderton now—Burnet was always monstrous +careful about his cloaths and always carried a small Persian rug to sit +upon. I remember we used to call it the hearthrug—Harthe-Brusshe is the +family name—and now they tell me he's a positive martyr to the lumbago. +Yes, yes, Ramsey and Burnet and Belladine, I wonder what's become of +Belladine—he was a famous fop—poor Belladine, poor Belladine—he never +recovered from the blow. And then there was Roger Quain.</p> + +<p>"He was my best friend, and the happiest day of my life was that on +which he was betrothed to my sister Joan. I tell you no such rousing +toast was given at Repington since the news of the Boyne victory was +brought in to my father. She and Roger were betrothed in July and should +have been wed in April."</p> + +<p>The old man—for, with the progress of his tale, such the elderly +gentleman seemed to become—took a longer sip at his glass of Port as if +to brace himself for the climax of the narrative.</p> + +<p>"They should have been wed in April. But that winter was a busy one in +Throgmorton Street, and my sister Joan, having caught a chill, was +ordered to remain in the country—her only companion, a foolish cousin +of my mother's. I was not at home more than twice all the winter. I +never knew of that blackguard's visits till March. He used to come every +day—every day until I forbade him the house—a white cockade papist +crammed with disloyalty—always bragging of some outlandish petty +<a name="page_275" id="page_275"></a>rebellion on the top of some d——d Scottish mountain or other. He +filled her head with his Jacobite twaddle—a fool who, earning his +livelihood by dice and cards, was willing enough to upset all law and +order for the sake of the plunder which he and his fellows might very +well have acquired at the expense of better and honester and more loyal +men.</p> + +<p>"He wound himself round her heart with his false French oaths and cursed +lovemaking.</p> + +<p>"I sent for Roger; he came down with Belladine—I shall always believe +that Belladine loved her too—and I told Roger he must keep an eye on +his treasure, or 'twould be stolen from him. The wedding was fixed; the +guests were invited; and one fine morning I went down to the orchard to +see how the apples were setting (there had been a shrewd Easterly wind +for some days)—and—and—I found him dead—Roger Quain—my dearest, +oldest friend—Roger Quain dead. Gadslife! young Madam, if you had seen, +as I saw, the fallen apple-blossoms reddened by his blood, I do not +think you would be making a runaway match; and she, my beloved sister, +eloped with his murderer—with Valentine Lovely, Esq., Jacobite, Papist, +rake, spendthrift, drunkard, gamester, and prodigal!"</p> + +<p>Sir George Repington rose from his seat and in the passion of +remembrance broke with his grip the thin stem of his wineglass, so that +the spilt liquid as it trickled over the hearth stones and stained the +ashes conjured up the old scene all too vividly and horribly for poor +Phyllida.</p> + +<p>"But why did Belladine let her go with that blackguard—that is what I +never knew—that is what I would like to ask Belladine—what can have +happened to Belladine?" the old man muttered to himself, "and why do I +tell you this?" he went on, "why—because——"</p> + +<p>But unfortunately the moral of this story was never properly related, +though 'tis easy enough to guess the import, for at that moment in came +the long-awaited Mr. Francis Vernon, splashed from head to foot in mud +and wearing a deep cut over his left temple. After all, Major +Constantine Tarry did succeed in delaying the elopement if only for an +hour or two because Mr. Vernon's mare had shied at the dead body and +flung her rider over the hedge<a name="page_276" id="page_276"></a> in her unwillingness to pass so damp and +gloomy an obstacle. If the veteran's ghost was able to spare a moment +from his enthralling conversations with Alexander the Great and other +notable captains in Elysium, I make no doubt at the sight he gave vent +to an attenuated cackle of pleasure.</p> + +<p>Nothing sets a woman off to such disadvantage as the need to introduce a +pair of men whom instinctively she knows to be hostile to each other. +They never make the slightest attempt to help her out of the awkward +position, and, indeed, add to it by such haughty behaviour, such +ruffling of crests and bristling of limbs that under the circumstances +the most polished gentlemen become uncouth savages or dogs eager to +squabble over a debated bone.</p> + +<p>In this instance Mr. Vernon stared Sir George Repington up and down, +while the latter, who was not accustomed to such freedom of regard, took +snuff very aggressively and looked as if he would like to give the +intruder a moment's notice, as indeed he would. Phyllida tried to stem +the tide of embarrassment by remarking in a hushed voice that Sir George +had been kindly entertaining her in the absence of Mr. Amor.</p> + +<p>"Has he?" was the latter's frigid response.</p> + +<p>"And oh, Amor," she went on, "those odious postillions pushed their way +to the room and wanted money and Sir George kindly came to the rescue +and bade them begone."</p> + +<p>"Did he?" was all that Vernon would vouchsafe in thanks to this timely +assistance.</p> + +<p>Phyllida, abashed by her lover's bad manners, seemed inclined to +apologize for them with tears. And now Sir George did what most +Englishmen would have done under the circumstances—he walked out of the +room in a very stately way. No doubt the banker thought the strength of +feeling which had led him to reveal his life's tragedy would kindle an +equal emotion in the heart of Miss Courteen and that when he returned he +would find the raffish intruder gone.</p> + +<p>This was in fact the precise result of his withdrawal. When he returned, +Mr. Vernon was gone. But neither was Miss Phyllida Courteen anywhere in +sight.<a name="page_277" id="page_277"></a></p> + +<h2><i>Chapter the Thirty-second</i><br /><br /> +THE HORRID ADVENTURES OF BEAU RIPPLE AND MRS. COURTEEN</h2> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">W</span>E will, if you please, take for granted the persuasions used by Mr. +Vernon to induce Phyllida to continue upon her headlong course. He rode +beside her on this second stage of her adventure, and I shall have +something to say of that drive together through the darkness of wind and +rain. We will take for granted Sir George Repington's indignation, +expressed with many a z——ds and many a pinch of snuff, and since +there are a number of fine folk abroad on this most atrocious evening, +it is only just that we should pay them the compliment of relating their +horrid adventures.</p> + +<p>You have not forgotten, I hope, the sensation created in Curtain Wells +by the sight of Beau Ripple and Mrs. Courteen ensconced in the former's +vivid yellow postchaise, driven by the former's diminutive groom +Pridgeon. You made one of a host of conjectures, or rather you would +have done had you not been in the heart of the secret, thanks to the +honest, straightforward way in which I have treated you throughout this +story.</p> + +<p>They went off with 'Tally-ho' and 'Whoo-whoop, gone away!' They rattled +over the cobbles and clattered over the kidney stones and jolted +prodigiously over a kerb that protruded too far into the road. They +bumped over a log of wood dropped by old Mother Hubbard in her frantick +endeavours to gain the protection of the pavement, they ground the face +of little Miss Muffet's favourite wax doll to minutest grains of powder. +They experienced a second's muffled progress as with two wheels they +rolled over<a name="page_278" id="page_278"></a> little Tommy Trout's Easter coat and with the others made a +broad smear over little Sammy Green's satchel and cracked his new Horn +Book into a thousand splinters.</p> + +<p>As for Mr. Ripple, every time he rose to a wayside obstacle and fell +with a genteel plump into Mrs. Courteen's wide lap, he had a sensation +of the acutest disgust; with disgust, too, he viewed his cushions of +fawn silk and ivory sattin bedabbled with the widow's copious +tears—these cushions made salt with a mortal widow's grief that were +never intended to be spoiled with anything less ethereal than the +glittering milk of the Queen of Heaven.</p> + +<p>Extreme dizziness overtook the Great little Man when, in accents hoarse +with hysterical sorrow, the wretched woman by his side begged the loan +of his handkerchief. Then, indeed, he nearly called to Pridgeon to check +their mad course, turn the horses' heads stablewards, brooding for a +sensuous second upon the delights of a warm meditative bath, made +sweeter with Citron Essence.</p> + +<p>Poor Mr. Ripple! As the mile-stones fled past and the chilly March +twilight crept over the dusky fallows and peered above the black +hedgerows, he thought with unutterable pangs of the cheerful and +comfortable town of Curtain Wells. His china shepherds and shepherdesses +called to him over the bleak country, and in the distance like elfin +bells he heard the reproachful tinkle of his elegant lustres.</p> + +<p>At the turnpike Mr. Ripple asked the keeper whether a post-chariot had +lately come under his jurisdiction.</p> + +<p>"Dick who?" inquired the janitor.</p> + +<p>"Have you seen a post-chariot?" said Mr. Ripple, petulantly.</p> + +<p>"No, I ain't. Have you seen two bullocks as 'ave lost, stolen and +strayed theyselves hereabouts—the red 'un with a——"</p> + +<p>"Drive on," said Mr. Ripple.</p> + +<p>"That's gentry," commented the gatekeeper as, spitting on the bust of +King George which reposed in the palm of his dirty hand, he retired to +brood over a well-thumbed<a name="page_279" id="page_279"></a> pamphlet that set forth with convincing +ribaldry, the imminent danger of another Popish plot.</p> + +<p>"Drive on," said Mr. Ripple, "we shall have a heavy shower presently."</p> + +<p>They were bowling down a broad village street with a merry jingle of +harness and rhythmical clatter of hoofs, while the cracking of little +Pridgeon's whip, nearly as big as himself, made many inquisitive bodies +huddle in the low doorways of the cottages to survey the gallant +equipage.</p> + +<p>"Reg'lar delooge, your honour," said Pridgeon, turning round on the box.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Courteen was already so wet with the tears of outraged motherhood +that the addition of rain could scarcely have affected her comfort. +Nevertheless she shuddered so expansively that she squeezed her +companion closer than ever to the side of the chaise.</p> + +<p>"Shall we put up at the <i>Green Dragon</i>?—very comfortable Inn, the +<i>Green Dragon</i>."</p> + +<p>"No, no, Pridgeon, drive on. If it rains, it rains."</p> + +<p>Such a platitude from Beau Ripple can only have been provoked by the +intensest despair. A ploughboy's epigram would not have seemed more out +of place. The Nine Muses were certainly waked from their harmonious +lethargy, and a small boy, playing <i>Sally in our Alley</i> on a Jew's harp, +twanged a discordant echo of their shocked sensibility. A platitude from +Beau Ripple! The very chaise collapsed in ignominy. Bump—bang—whooooo! +The gay vehicle was on its side and the front off-wheel was whirling +madly down the broad slope of the street, to the enormous delight of the +boy with the Jew's harp and the immense consternation of a flock of +geese in whose company it made a noisy entrance into the village pond.</p> + +<p>Pridgeon turned once more on the Jimmy and, having pulled up the horses +and gazed at the Tableau, remarked:</p> + +<p>"Blow me tight if I didn't think the wheel'd do that afore we started. +Blow me right and tight!"</p> + +<p>By this time, all the village stood in a circle and supplied an +exhaustive commenting upon the sad event.<a name="page_280" id="page_280"></a></p> + +<p>"She's putt her futt through her petticutt," whooped grandmother.</p> + +<p>"So her 'ave and toored 'un proper."</p> + +<p>"Blarm 'un if the old buoy's knee ain't streaked like somebody's baäd +baäcon."</p> + +<p>"So it be, buoy, so it be," came the delighted rejoinder.</p> + +<p>"Look, see the seat of his breeches!" cried a shapely hussy.</p> + +<p>"I never saw such a power o' mud, why 'e's like a brown paäper plaster +behind. Poor soul!"</p> + +<p>"Horse ain't hurt?" asked a sharp-featured, bow-legged individual with +professional anxiety.</p> + +<p>Four or five hobbledehoys had assisted the Beau to his feet and +volunteered to show him the way to the <i>Green Dragon</i>. As that hostelry +stood exactly opposite the scene of the disaster, the offer savoured of +something more than mere friendliness.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Courteen was whirling round and round, like a kitten after her +tail, trying to ascertain the precise amount of damage close to her +train; a good-natured booby stuck his foot on the skirt to steady it for +her inspection, and in doing so made the rent more irreparable.</p> + +<p>"Better go to the <i>Green Dragon</i>, your honour," said Pridgeon, as spruce +as when he started.</p> + +<p>"Better go to h——, you dunderhead," said the Beau, very white with +well-bred passion and the shock of the catastrophe. No fragile vase of +Dresden or of azure Sêvres, no figure of opalescent Worcester, no +violet-flowered teapot of Lowestoft that ever fell from a proud cabinet +through the careless sweep of a chambermaid's broom, was to be so deeply +commiserated as Mr. Horace Ripple. These painted monuments of care +betray their inherent beauty even in the dainty particles that proclaim +their wreckage, but a fop with muddied breeches—why, in the very first +chapter of this story we trembled to behold the circumference of the +least dignified part of the Beau's anatomy protruding from beneath a +bedstead; and on that occasion, it was gay with the flowers of a silk +dressing-gown.<a name="page_281" id="page_281"></a></p> + +<p>I do not think that the Great little Man ever recovered from this +outrage to his personal attire, for to the very end of his modish days, +he would wear a coat cut an inch or two lower than was readily allowed +by the least conservative tailor in his employment.</p> + +<p>As for Mrs. Courteen, who followed meekly in the wake of her wounded +escort, she could not refrain from wishing that the Major and the +Justice were at hand to console her with jealous attentions and rival +sympathies, and when the first round drop of the swift-approaching storm +hit her plump on the nose and washed away in its downward course the +last vestige of powder from her face, she regretted also the tributary +fingers of Betty.</p> + +<p>In the hall of the <i>Green Dragon</i> their reception was almost servile. +Great Cobblebury, for all its pompous name, was too near to Curtain +Wells to attract the attention of many travellers, and the <i>Green +Dragon</i> depended for custom almost entirely on the thirstiness of the +surrounding population. Guests, therefore, received very excellent +service for their money. The host, one George Upex, had watched the +advance of the chaise with sleek arms beneath a protuberant apron and +thumbs that twiddled sleepily; but the smash aroused his hospitable +instincts, and by the time Mr. Ripple and Mrs. Courteen had reached the +doorway of the inn, he was back from the kitchen, where he had hastily +ordered the immediate insertion into the capacious oven of several +dishes, and was ready to usher the stranded travellers into the parlour.</p> + +<p>"And what will your good lady take?" he inquired, with his rubicund face +cocked at what he considered a very appetizing angle.</p> + +<p>"She is not my good lady, sirrah," rapped out the Beau.</p> + +<p>"Not at all, your honour—beg pardon," said Mr. Upex, putting up a +gigantick hand to an equally gigantick mouth as if he would force the +latter feature to eat the indiscreet question it had so grossly emitted.</p> + +<p>"How long will it take to mend the damage to my chaise?" demanded Mr. +Ripple.<a name="page_282" id="page_282"></a></p> + +<p>The landlord made a rough calculation in his mind.</p> + +<p>"About an hour to cook the—to mend the—er—chaise," he replied.</p> + +<p>"Have you a bed?" asked the Beau.</p> + +<p>The landlord beamed. They were going to spend the night under his roof, +and mentally he saw himself on the next day obscuring the sunlight of +the parlour with a very long bill.</p> + +<p>"A bed, your honour? Yes, indeed! Oh! yes." Mr. Upex paused. "A bed?"</p> + +<p>"Yes! a bed—a b-e-d—bed."</p> + +<p>"For one night?"</p> + +<p>"One night—no! now, sirrah, now." Mr. Ripple stamped his little foot, +probably to shake off the mud of the humiliating accident.</p> + +<p>"Now?" Mr. Upex looked surprized, that is to say the mouth of Mr. Upex +remained fixed in a cavernous gape.</p> + +<p>"Why not now?" exclaimed the peremptory Beau. "Ain't your beds aired, +landlord? Ain't they made yet?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, certainly, your honour."</p> + +<p>"Then show me upstairs at once. I shall lie down until the wheel of my +chaise is mended. And shew this lady another room, and send two or three +chambermaids to attend to her."</p> + +<p>Mr. Upex looked much relieved.</p> + +<p>It was not such a shameless affair as he had been led by wanton +ambiguity of phrase to believe.</p> + +<p>"What about the duck?"</p> + +<p>"What duck? What duck?" asked Mr. Ripple fretfully.</p> + +<p>"The duck your honour ordered—that is, was about to order when I +interrupted your honour."</p> + +<p>"Send up three slices of the breast on a small tray to my chamber, and +don't put any stuffing on the plate, the odour of sage upsets my +appetite."</p> + +<p>"Indeed?" said Mr. Upex, quite frankly interested by such a nasal +idiosyncrasy.</p> + +<p>"Yes, and send out a woman of taste and discretion to purchase a +nightcap."<a name="page_283" id="page_283"></a></p> + +<p>"I wouldn't say, your honour, as how one of the maids wouldn't oblige +your—er—the good lady."</p> + +<p>"For myself, landlord, for myself."</p> + +<p>"I beg your honour's pardon."</p> + +<p>Mr. Upex hurried off to execute his guest's requirement and presently +returned to escort them to their rooms.</p> + +<p>"When my man comes in," said the Beau, "send him up to me with the +nightcap."</p> + +<p>Pridgeon had rescued the wheel from the pond and, having successfully +directed two bumpkins to trundle it to the blacksmith, arrived at the +inn with an admiring retinue of idlers, whom he regaled with quarts of +bitter beer. The woman of taste entrusted with the purchase of the +nightcap (she was the scullerymaid) returned with the vestment neatly +wrapped in paper, and, meeting her master on the stairs, was told to +hand it to the diminutive groom, who chucked her under the chin with the +parcel and took his bow-legged way upstairs to Mr. Ripple's temporary +apartment.</p> + +<p>Outside he rapped smartly on the door, which was cautiously opened +sufficiently wide to allow the urbane countenance of the Beau to peer +round the corner.</p> + +<p>"Is that you, Pridgeon?"</p> + +<p>"Me, y'r honour, with a present from Great Cobblebury."</p> + +<p>The Beau took the nightcap, and in its place handed muddied +smallcloaths, smeared coat, and wrinkled waistcoat.</p> + +<p>"Have these cloaths thoroughly brushed."</p> + +<p>"Yes, y'r honour."</p> + +<p>"And bring me three slices of breast in an hour's time."</p> + +<p>"Yes, y'r honour."</p> + +<p>"And don't get drunk to celebrate your carelessness."</p> + +<p>"No, y'r honour."</p> + +<p>"Poor clod," murmured the Beau to his polite self, as he closed the door +of his chamber and double locked it against intrusion.</p> + +<p>I think it would certainly be indiscreet to spy upon Mr. Ripple's +retirement. How did he spend his time in bed? The whisper of book-leaves +tempts me to suppose<a name="page_284" id="page_284"></a> that he read several of the bitterest odes, very +possibly a whole satire of Quintus Horatius Flaccus, that poet so fierce +but withal so urbane. Meanwhile Mrs. Courteen, surrounded by three +maids, respectively known as Susan, Joan, and Elizabeth, held forth upon +her misfortunes to a sympathetick audience.</p> + +<p>She stood in the middle of her chamber, a massive figure pouring forth +ludicrous complaint. It was as if a stork should seek to emulate a +nightingale.</p> + +<p>Susan knelt on the floor and industriously stitched away at the ragged +train; Joan knelt with innumerable pins stuck between her pearly teeth +and judiciously fastened several gaps in her attire, while Elizabeth, +who was being courted by Johnny, the <i>Green Dragon's</i> sibilant hostler, +rubbed away at the mud with as near an imitation of the sounds produced +by her lover's stringy throat as the softness of her own would allow.</p> + +<p>"I have been greatly distressed," said the widow, "grossly deceived, +intolerably put about for, though Mr. Ripple has the character of a +block of marble, it don't become a woman to be seen alone with a man +anywhere, especially in a yellow chaise which attracts everybody's +attention. I vow I heard that odious young Miss Kitcat laugh from her +balcony as we flew past—yes, flew—and such bumping! I dare swear I'm +bruised from head to foot, and my skin shows the smallest mark. I +remember when I was a young woman, I stepped a minuet with young Mr. +Heavibois of Heavibois Hall, and I declare he might have been taking the +grossest liberties all through the evening, for the way my wrist was +marked. Lud! it was as purple as my grandmother's silk coverlet that was +given to her by a young lieutenant in the Navy, and was thought to +belong to the wife of the Cham of Tartary, though I dare say he bought +it in Cheapside for ten shillings, being a young gentleman on whose word +nobody could rely, that is the worst of men, young women, you cannot +trust 'em. And now my own daughter has run away with a London spark, and +I, her own mother, must give up half a score routs and my Lady +Pickadilly's<a name="page_285" id="page_285"></a> drum—the most fashionable affair of the kind that will +ever be known in Curtain Wells, for my Lady Pickadilly is newly come +from town with her second son the Hon. John Hyde, as quiet a young +gentleman as ever said Bo! to a goose, and here we are nearly into +April, and if my daughter drowns herself from London Bridge, why then I +shall be wearing black at the Fêtes Champêtres and a pretty figure I +shall be truly! though, indeed, if one had the courage to wear a white +velvet vizard, I might very well pass for an Allegory of Moonlight—and +yet that would never do, for to be sure that malicious creature Mrs. +Dudding, whose Conversazione last month was the completest failure ever +known, would make one of her odious epigrams about poor Mr. Moon, the +best natured of gentlemen and the very personification of the milk of +human kindness. To be sure, his ankles are very big, but indeed I vow if +one were to regard all the defects in humanity, very few of us would be +able to hold up our heads. Mr. Ripple himself is the smallest man in the +Wells, but nobody esteems him the less for that. To be sure, I think he +was very ill-advised,—though for that matter he was never known to take +anybody's advice but his own—very ill-advised, I say, not to speak more +severely to my daughter. I was always so careful of her modesty that I +never allowed her to sit in the Maze with an odious little nudity in +stone always hovering about, till I declare they should have planted ivy +to climb up his shameless legs. I'm sure nothing could be more Biblical +than such vegetable apparel. Cupid they call him: Stupid I call it." +Mrs. Courteen here paused to take a longer breath and Susan exclaimed:</p> + +<p>"La! ma'am, what to do wi' your petticoat I doan't know. It comes +peaping through your gown like Tom o' Coventry in the Christmas +mumming."</p> + +<p>"Pin it, child, pin it," said the widow.</p> + +<p>"La! ma'am, we ha' used nigh forty pins already, and thee'll be like a +hedgehog soon."</p> + +<p>"No matter, child, no matter how I appear. I must do my duty as a +mother, but I vow I blush when I think that<a name="page_286" id="page_286"></a> near everybody takes us for +man and wife. To be sure, I don't mind, and always say that if the world +wishes to talk, the world will talk; and there once was a time when I +was talked about from one corner of the county to the other. And now +this improper affair of my daughter's will set every idle tongue wagging +again. My own maid Betty, who was privy to the whole unhappy intrigue, +was truly frightened when she found how far ignorance and wilfulness had +taken her. 'What will they say at Courteen Grange, ma'am, and what will +Mr. Rumble the carrier say, and Mrs. Rumble and the old widow who keeps +the shop and poor old Jonas the gardener and all the good folk of the +shire?' 'Ah,' said I, 'what indeed?' Ugh! child, you're running pins +into my—into my legs!"</p> + +<p>"Dear life, ma'am," said Susan the culprit, apparently not much abashed +by the accusation, "'tis difficult to find a bit of leg to run a pin +into, for, O my soul and body, you're shining like a starlight night, +wi' pins all over 'ee."</p> + +<p>So the rehabilitation of Mrs. Courteen went on with diffuse anecdotes on +the side of the widow, with similes from deft-fingered Susan, with much +displaying of pearly teeth from Joan, and with a gentle cooing from +Elizabeth, who was betrothed to the hostler of the <i>Green Dragon</i> Inn.</p> + +<p>Outside it was raining faster than ever, and the wind was beginning to +moan under the eaves and away in the remote corners of the house. A +flash of lightning and a terrifick burst of thunder that followed +immediately upon its heels undid half an hour's steady pinning, owing to +the violent tremours with which it afflicted poor Mrs. Courteen.</p> + +<p>It made Mr. Ripple break a Cæsura and, worse, it made him try to mend it +with a false quantity. Altogether the prospect was extremely uninviting, +and the succulent odour of roast duck was certainly no temptation to +precipitate his departure. However, the duck came to an end, and the +morsels of it which began to freeze upon his plate made him so impatient +of farther delay that when Pridgeon knocked at the door and informed him +the chaise was once<a name="page_287" id="page_287"></a> more fit for the roads, he called for his bill and, +as I believe, (such a sweet change had Horace and roast duck wrought in +his mind) hummed a popular jig while he buttoned up his breeches. Soon +he was tapping delicately at the door of Mrs. Courteen's chamber, +saying:</p> + +<p>"Come, ma'am, I hope you're rested. Our horses are waiting—'tis a most +atrocious night—but never mind, ma'am, never mind, we shall sleep the +sounder," he had almost said "for having done our duty," but not even +the stress of an untoward adventure could condemn his spirit to a second +platitude that stormy night, and he altered the unfinished sentence to +"for not having to endure Mrs. Dudding's epigrams. Foregad, ma'am," he +went on, "she churns the sour cream of her intellect and produces, after +infinite toil, a very rancid wit."</p> + +<p>Then the Great little Man pattered downstairs, condescended to +felicitate Mr. Upex upon his timely meal, inquired the name of his cook, +said she was a good woman and would go far, listened to Farmer Gruby's +opinion that this rain would do a power o' good to the land, condoled +with him upon a bovine loss which he was still lamenting, bade Pridgeon +stand another quart of ale each to the good fellows who had assisted to +talk about the accident, raised his monocle to a bill of sale affixed to +the wall, inquired into the state of the roads before them, evoked an +atmosphere of respectful adoration by presenting the landlord with a +card inscribed 'Horace Ripple, The Great House,' and finally won the +perpetual devotion of Mr. George Upex by writing in his neatest hand at +the top right corner of the engraved card 'Recommended by.' The landlord +vowed he would have the precious voucher of identity framed and hung up +in the parlour underneath a painting on glass of his gracious Majesty +K—— G——, and in close proximity to a likeness of Lord Breda's prize +bullock Jupiter, which several drunken loyalists had been known to +salute in mistake for the K——.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Courteen sailed downstairs, followed by Susan, Joan and Elizabeth, +all of whom were kept busy picking<a name="page_288" id="page_288"></a> up pins, which they stuck between +their teeth, to the great disappointment of Mr. Pridgeon, who would have +very much liked to snatch a kiss from each Hebe in turn, and, seeing +that the hostler was standing outside in the rain, I dare swear that but +for the pins he would have been successful in his amorous project. Off +went the chaise into the gathering gloom, spattering the onlookers with +mud, and almost drowning with its clatter the hearty cheers of the +inhabitants of Great Cobblebury.</p> + +<p>And now the Beau, whose urbanity had been restored by Horace and roast +duck, entertained Mrs. Courteen with delightful tales of fashionable +society. The most violent jolt no longer availed to upset the balance of +his sentences. The widow was deeply impressed by Mr. Ripple's charming +behaviour and, though she could not appreciate his anecdotes at their +value, was put into a very pleasant disposition of mind by a +half-fledged fancy that the Great little Man was slowly succumbing to +her ample fascination. As for little Pridgeon, his diminutive inside was +so replete with cordials and old Jamaica rum that he was quite +impervious to the weather and he sang a large number of country ballads +in a very engaging Alto voice.</p> + +<p>Suddenly, as they were driving over a wild stretch of commonland, dotted +with huge clumps of gorse and a number of stunted and wind-bent +thorn-trees, the chaise stopped with a jerk, spoiling the climax of one +of the Beau's best stories, describing how he had compelled the Duchess +of Hereford to apologize to a flower girl.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter?" he cried out.</p> + +<p>"Nothing," said Pridgeon, "but we're just underneath the gallows with a +very notorious reskel swingin' over our heads—reg'lar old scarecrow he +is—can't you hear the chains, y'r honour? He's bobbin' about in the +wind like a cork in a puddle."</p> + +<p>"Drive on, rogue," commanded Mr. Ripple sternly.</p> + +<p>"It 'ud be a pity not to see 'im. Blue Jenkins vas his name—I'll hold +up one of the lamps and you can take a good look at 'im. There was +hundreds used to walk 'ere of a<a name="page_289" id="page_289"></a> Sunday afternoon when he was just +turned off, ecod, y'r honour ought to take a look at him."</p> + +<p>"Will you drive on, sirrah!"</p> + +<p>Suddenly Mrs. Courteen uttered a loud scream; and very uncanny it +sounded in the tempest.</p> + +<p>"What in the name of—what's the matter?" exclaimed Mr. Ripple.</p> + +<p>"I hear horses," said Mrs. Courteen, and screamed again.</p> + +<p>Pridgeon cocked up his ears.</p> + +<p>"She's right," he shouted. "There's a couple of 'em coming up behind +us!"</p> + +<p>"Good G——! Highwaymen!" said Mrs. Courteen, clinging to Mr. Ripple. +The latter did not lose his presence of mind.</p> + +<p>"Drive on, you puppy! I'll see to the priming of my pistols." With these +words the Courageous little Man dived between the widow's agitated legs +and groped for the elegant walnut case of his exquisitely chased +pistols.</p> + +<p>"'Tain't no good," shouted Pridgeon, as he lashed the horse to a gallop. +"'Tis only a mile afore we reaches Long Hill and they'll catch us +walkin' there."</p> + +<p>"I warn you, madam," said Mr. Ripple calmly, while the postchaise +rattled through the storm, "I warn you that I shall certainly shoot +once, if not twice."</p> + +<p>But Mrs. Courteen had fainted away and only half a dozen pins released +from their responsibleness whispered a faint and ineffective answer.<a name="page_290" id="page_290"></a></p> + +<h2><i>Chapter the Thirty-third</i><br /><br /> +THE HIGHWAYMEN</h2> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HE rumour of Phyllida's elopement took definite shape just as the +candles were being lighted for the nuts and wine. It lent quite a +flavour even to the inferior Port that disgraced most of the +dinner-tables at Curtain Wells. And if a flavour was lent to moderately +bad wine, what a truly celestial aroma was given off by the fragrant +pots of tea in the parlours. Curtain Wells was always famous for the +finest blends, and I venture to think that the sad affair of Miss +Courteen inspired every hostess to a perfection of art unequalled before +or since. Never were the gentlemen so quick to follow the ladies from +the spent dinner. Moreover, the absence of Beau Ripple permitted a +recklessness of conjecture, a venom of Innuendo that would have made the +rumour famous, even had it proved devoid of the slightest foundation.</p> + +<p>Many inclined to the theory that Mr. Ripple had arranged the prologue to +suit himself, and vowed they had seen fervent stares exchanged between +him and Mrs. Courteen. One inventive young gentleman started a report +that Mr. Vernon was the Pretender; but this was contradicted by old Lady +Loch Lomond who, having been one of the ladies-in-waiting at St. +Germain's and watched the young prince in his bath, was positive that +Mr. Vernon did not resemble him at all. The young gentleman's ingenious +suggestion lent a momentary glamour to the heroine of the affair, but +with the destruction of his story by Lady Loch Lomond, publick attention +was again concentrated upon Beau Ripple. An extravagant explanation of +his roundabout method of courtship was found in a whispered legend that +in early youth<a name="page_291" id="page_291"></a> he had married one of the daughters of the Grand Turk +and escaping from the turbaned alliance four months afterwards through +the friendly offices of a fig merchant from Smyrna who smuggled him out +of the Bosphorous and landed him at Lyme Regis in Dorsetshire, had spent +the rest of his enforced celibacy in dread of vengeful scimitars.</p> + +<p>Then somebody remembered the codicil to Squire Courteen's will, and the +story of young Mr. Standish who left the neighbourhood in such a hurry. +One of the abetters of this last tale mentioned that Mr. Ripple was +badly in need of money, and finally everybody agreed that here at last +was the true explanation of the yellow chaise. The Beau was trying to +make up his losses by wedding Mrs. Courteen secretly so that the lawyers +should not lay violent hands upon her inheritance. This was such a +satisfactory and circumstantial account that everybody sat down to +Quadrille without their play being the more distracted than usual. +Meanwhile the author of the latest explanation went from house to house +to burble the news in the company of his two witnesses. The three of +them were received everywhere with acclamation as soon as it transpired +they were the bearers of the authoritative account; and though they were +all of them bores of the finest calibre, they enjoyed a considerable +popularity which compensated for all the slights and snubs they had +received in the past at the hands of rank and fashion. Having discovered +their talents, they all three existed for ever afterwards on the sources +of false information and published books of memoirs and thought +themselves great men and, in fact, are to this very day consulted by +social historians.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile another rumour was flying furiously round all the shops that +Mr. Lovely was on the verge of making a hurried departure from Curtain +Wells. Mr. Ripple owed nothing to the tradesmen; consequently his yellow +chaise caused no consternation in commercial hearts, but Mr Charles +Lovely owed large amounts. Every shopkeeper in the High Street vowed he +would know the true facts of this reported flight. Under the great +archway of the <i>Blue Boar</i>,<a name="page_292" id="page_292"></a> they pattered—all of them dressed in +snuff-coloured suits and all of them with suspiciously long envelopes +protruding from their left-hand pockets. There was Mr. Crumpett the +Confectioner and Mr. Frieze the Tailor and another tailor called Charges +and a third called Trimmings. There was Mr. Cuffe the hosier, and Mr. +Trinket of one toyshop and Mr. Leonard of another, and Mr. Wheeler the +coach-builder; there was fat Mrs. Leafy of one flower-shop and little +Miss Bunch of the other flower-shop, and old Mrs. Tabby of the ribband +shop, there was Mr. Filigree the Goldsmith, and Mr. Tree the bootmaker, +and Mr. Buckle the saddler, and young Washball the barber's senior +apprentice. In fact, the only creditors absent were Mr. Daish who was at +that very moment listening to a plausible demonstration of Mr. Lovely's +prospects, and the ex-limner Mr. Canticle who would have scorned to +associate himself with such a snuff-coloured rabble and had, moreover, +been paid something on account more lately than the rest.</p> + +<p>"What the deuce is this seditious gathering?" exclaimed Lieutenant +Blewforth to little Peter Wingfield as they swung round the corner and +plunged into the voluble assemblage. Suddenly there was a noise of a +window being thrown up, and a stillness fell upon the dingy throng as +they beheld the debonair countenance of our hero.</p> + +<p>"Speak up, Charles," bellowed the Lieutenant, "I support your +candidature. D—— e," he muttered to Wingfield, "d——e, if I knew +Charles was a Parliament man."</p> + +<p>"L-listen," said Mr. Wingfield, standing on tip-toe and craning his +little neck to hear Charles' views on the political situation.</p> + +<p>"Gentlemen," Mr. Lovely began, with a hand gracefully buried in the +opening of his embroidered waistcoat, "Gentlemen, I am sensibly +flattered by this deputation."</p> + +<p>A simultaneous grunt acclaimed this remark.</p> + +<p>"I say, I am sensibly flattered. It is always a pleasure to—to——"</p> + +<p>"Charles'll never be elected, if he talks to 'em so slow," commented Mr. +Blewforth with a shake of his burly head.<a name="page_293" id="page_293"></a></p> + +<p>"I say, I am sensibly flattered."</p> + +<p>"That's all very fine, Mr. Lovely, but what about my bill?" shouted Mr. +Filigree who being better able to stand a loss was bolder than his +companions.</p> + +<p>"Ay—yes—to be sure, your money," Charles started off again. "Well, +gentlemen, I say, gentlemen, money is a very wonderful thing. It is the +panacea or cure of all earthly ills, like sleep in the play it knits up +the ravelled sleeve of care. Money! to be sure!"</p> + +<p>"He's trying to make 'em swallow the new taxes," said Blewforth sagely.</p> + +<p>At that moment somebody twitched Mr. Lovely's coat from behind, and he +retired from the open window; the angry snuff-coloured crowd looked at +each other, conferred for a moment, then pattered quickly back by the +way they had come. From the tangle of their murmured confabulations, two +ominous words floated back to the Lieutenant and little Peter +Wingfield—'Sheriff's Officers!'</p> + +<p>It was Clare's announcement of the arrival of Betty in the best parlour +of the <i>Blue Boar</i> that had distracted Charles' attention from his +creditors. He found her trembling from head to foot and playing with the +buttons of her scarlet cloak.</p> + +<p>"My young mistress, your honour, my pretty lamb has gone."</p> + +<p>"Miss Courteen?"</p> + +<p>"Little Miss Phyllida."</p> + +<p>"With Vernon."</p> + +<p>"No, wi' Amor."</p> + +<p>"How long ago?"</p> + +<p>"Nigh three hours or more. The Bow and the Widow have galloped after +'em, but what I do say is, 'tis no work to set an old couple to catch a +young couple: oh! your honour, if ever in this sweet Springtime you +loved my dear one, will 'ee follow her now and bring her back to me?"</p> + +<p>The news of Phyllida's elopement so crudely announced staggered him, +notwithstanding his anticipation of such an event.<a name="page_294" id="page_294"></a></p> + +<p>Hitherto his love for the maid had been a pleasant fancy, an impulse to +day-dreams but nothing more material.</p> + +<p>That very morning as he wandered in the water-meadows, he had been so +full of the outside effect of his attitude there had been no room for +the personal desire. He had tried to convince himself he was sincerely +anxious for Phyllida's future happiness; but the true position he should +have taken up was a determination to possess her for himself whatever +the cost. She was young and fair, rose-flushed and adorable, and ’twas a +pity to waste so much freshness on Vernon dulled by pleasure and—not +quite well-bred.</p> + +<p>Now a sense of personal loss stung him into action. Besides, he and Tony +had vowed to transform life into a gay adventure. Here already was a +quest worthy of their highest hopes.</p> + +<p>"I will certainly go," said Charles.</p> + +<p>"Ah! you have a true heart."</p> + +<p>"Have I, Betty, have I?"</p> + +<p>"’Twas on merry Valentine morn, you saw my pretty one."</p> + +<p>"So ’twas."</p> + +<p>"When thrushes and blackbirds do maäte."</p> + +<p>"So they say."</p> + +<p>"Take it for a sign, will 'ee?"</p> + +<p>"I will."</p> + +<p>"And say when you come to her and have sent that wagabone packing off to +his Lunnon, say the linnets are piping away down in Hampshire, will +'ee?"</p> + +<p>"I will."</p> + +<p>"Say that us'll soon be harking for the cuckoo in the greenwood, and +look see, give her this; 'tis a little white daisy I picked. Bid her +look ’tes none the less beautiful because the edge of her petals are +gone red wi' the cold March wind. ’Tes a däisy, the same as before—a +little white däisy."</p> + +<p>Hastily putting the frail flower in Mr. Lovely's hand, the maid ran to +the door. There she stayed a moment.</p> + +<p>"And say, will 'ee, that I'm coming to kiss her and hug her and comfort +her as soon as the Wells waggon can bring me."<a name="page_295" id="page_295"></a></p> + +<p>"That's a good maid—a loyal maid," said Charles to himself when Betty +was gone, and, as he looked at the tender blossom somewhat shrivelled by +captivity, a fallen tear trembled like a dew-diamond on the golden heart +of the gathered flower.</p> + +<p>And now the problem of escaping his duns vexed Mr. Lovely more acutely +than before. Daish had been pacified by generous Clare with £50 on +account. The horses were saddled and ready; and by the greatest good +fortune when Charles looked out into the inn-yard, there was not a +snuff-coloured soul in sight.</p> + +<p>Blewforth came in with the news of Sheriff's officers, and Clare +appeared in the gallery all buttoned up for the journey: "Where shall I +tell Daish to send our baggage by the Wells' stage waggon? there's a +good inn called <i>The Basket of Roses</i> about twenty five miles away, dy'e +know it?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Charles, "is it on the London Road?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, on the London Road."</p> + +<p>"Then 'twill suit me very well. Shall we set out at once, Tony?"</p> + +<p>"No time to lose," shouted Blewforth.</p> + +<p>Daish came shuffling in to say the horses were growing impatient of the +cold.</p> + +<p>Off went our romantick adventurers: up they got on their horses: down +tinkled a couple of new silver crowns on the cobbles.</p> + +<p>"Thank 'ee, yer honours!" shouted Jimmy Trickett the hostler; and the +third detachment of the Love Chase set out amid the thunderous farewells +of Lieutenant Blewforth of the <i>Lively</i>, as jolly a sound to put heart +into a pair of handsome young gentlemen on a gallant quest as they were +likely to hear throughout their wanderings.</p> + +<p>They were gone when the snuff-coloured crowd pattered back with a +Sheriff's officer in tow, and Mr. Jeremy Daish was a person of +sufficient importance to be able to despise their snuff-coloured +threats. After all he had fifty pounds on account and there wasn't a +brewer amongst them.</p> + +<p>As they cantered along the same road which we have<a name="page_296" id="page_296"></a> already followed +three times, Charles told his friend of Betty's request and Tony was as +urgent as he to do all in his power to thwart Mr. Vernon. Honest Anthony +Clare was very proud of the handsome rider by his side. I do not think +he would have allowed that any one was quite the equal of Mr. Charles +Lovely in accomplishment or bearing. He could not avoid a feeling of +self-congratulation when he saw the maids among the daffodils of narrow +cottage gardens run to lean over their green gates and watch their +course away down the road. What a fine fellow he was in his full trimmed +grey riding-coat and brown buckskin breeches. How well the azure +waistcoat became him; how eagerly his blue eyes danced to the rhythm of +their horses. How far ahead down the billowy road he gazed, as if to +conjure up the vision of the galloping chariot that held his hope of +happiness.</p> + +<p>And when they, too, rode into the storm, muffled in their full cloaks of +black Bavarian cloth, what a romantick figure Charles made as he spurred +his iron-grey steed to farther exertions.</p> + +<p>There was musick in the south-west wind of that tempestuous twilight. It +sighed through the bare hedgerows and whistled round the broad brims of +their beaver hats. There was musick in the clap of horses' hoofs on the +wet road. There was musick in the big horse-pistols tapping against the +saddle-bows.</p> + +<p>They were passing a great barn where a host of yokels were thrashing a +stack that had lain too long, and a rare sight these were, knee-deep in +the amber corn whence the rats fled ceaselessly.</p> + +<p>"Shall we catch them, Tony?" asked Charles.</p> + +<p>"I think we shall."</p> + +<p>"But in time?" Charles dug his spurs in deep to cover the blush that was +flaming over his cheeks.</p> + +<p>"And will she turn back? Oh! Tony, Tony, she must, she shall, turn +back."</p> + +<p>In Great Cobblebury they stopped to give their horses a feed, and heard +of the accident of the yellow chaise.<a name="page_297" id="page_297"></a></p> + +<p>"Z—— ds, these clumsy vehicles travel fast enough," muttered Charles.</p> + +<p>When they started again, the darkness clung round them like a pall. The +blown branch of a tree brushed against Lovely's elbow in a narrow part +of the road and he shuddered, as though an unseen hand were warning him +to pause.</p> + +<p>"'Tis a plaguey rough night," he shouted over the wind, clapping his hat +tighter and leaning close to his grey's warm slim neck.</p> + +<p>They were crossing Dry Tree Common where Blue Jenkins was swinging in a +shameful cradle, and Clare shouted he could see the lights of a chaise +in front.</p> + +<p>"That's Ripple for a hundred," cried Charles spurring on his horse, +"gadslife, what a speed they are making. Hurry, Tony, hurry."</p> + +<p>A dazzling flash of lightning seared the sky long enough to illuminate +the ghastly figure on the gallows. Clare's chestnut mare shied violently +and threw her rider head foremost into a large clump of gorse. It was a +matter of some difficulty to catch the frightened animal, but Charles by +mere determination succeeded in doing so, for all the night was now +black before the rising of the moon. By this mishap, Clare was in much +the same state of prickles as the Widow, without the help of +deft-fingered Susan.</p> + +<p>"What the plague made you do that?" said Charles fretfully. They had +lost five valuable minutes through the behaviour of the mare. Tony +laughed with great good humour.</p> + +<p>When they reached the foot of Long Hill, they could see the lights of +the chaise once again. It was finding the heavy pull very difficult. The +rain was pouring down the ditches on either side with a gurgling sound, +heard all the more clearly, because in the shelter of the slope the wind +was quiet. Just before the summit, the carriage stopped and a bullet +sang between Clare and Lovely who were now a bare twenty yards behind. +Mr. Ripple believed in the advantage of an offensive campaign.<a name="page_298" id="page_298"></a></p> + +<p>"Stop! stop!" shouted Charles, "we are not highwaymen."</p> + +<p>The Beau recognized the voice, and in accents wherein could be detected +the faintest note of relief said:</p> + +<p>"Charles—Mr. Lovely! and why, may I inquire, are you abroad on such an +unpleasant night?"</p> + +<p>"Why, sir," called out Charles, "what have you been about? There's a +dead man lying in the road."</p> + +<p>"Good G——!" said Mr. Ripple, "a dead man?"</p> + +<p>"Bring a lamp," called Clare.</p> + +<p>Pridgeon descended from the box and, having tied the horses to a +withered fir-tree, snatched one of the lamps from its socket.</p> + +<p>As he came along, Charles observed by the wavering light primroses in +flower.</p> + +<p>"Surely, surely," said the Beau, "I cannot have killed this man."</p> + +<p>"N! No!" cried Clare who was kneeling beside the body. "He has been dead +some time. Z—— ds! 'Tis the little Major."</p> + +<p>"The little Major?" echoed Ripple sharply. "So 'tis! So 'tis!"</p> + +<p>"All alone in the storm," said Charles in a low voice.</p> + +<p>"It may have been highwaymen," said Ripple.</p> + +<p>"So it may, so it may," Clare agreed.</p> + +<p>"And it may have been Vernon," said Charles, "d—n him."</p> + +<p>"Charles," said the Beau, "I owe you an apology. I have been obstinate. +This should never have been allowed to happen."</p> + +<p>Charles grasped his hand in the darkness.</p> + +<p>After all, Mr. Ripple was not in his kingdom and they were all levelled +by the presence of Death.</p> + +<p>"We cannot leave the body here," said Tony.</p> + +<p>"It must travel in the chaise," said Charles.</p> + +<p>"What about Mrs. Courteen?" questioned Mr. Ripple.</p> + +<p>"She is in a swoon."</p> + +<p>"You are sure he is quite dead?" asked Charles and wondered at the +futility of the remark.<a name="page_299" id="page_299"></a></p> + +<p>Nobody troubled to reply.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps it would be better to send a waggon," said Clare. "We are not +many miles from Roseland-in-the-Vale."</p> + +<p>"Somebody has cut off his epaulettes," said Charles.</p> + +<p>"Then it may have been footpads," said the Beau. "No wayfarer would rob +the dead."</p> + +<p>"It is a very dark night," said Clare simply.</p> + +<p>"He fought at Fontenoy. Let us lift him out of the mud," said Mr. +Ripple, vaguely recalling long stories which the dead soldier had poured +into his ears.</p> + +<p>"He gave his life for her. We must certainly lift him out of the mud," +said Charles.</p> + +<p>"A dead body is dangerous to horses," said Clare, "I will take his +head."</p> + +<p>Just then the widow screamed again.</p> + +<p>"Say nothing of this to Mrs. Courteen," said Mr. Ripple to the +diminutive coachman.</p> + +<p>"I knew something 'd 'appen," replied the latter. "I knew something 'd +'appen when I see'd as how somebody had stuck a bunch of primmerroses in +Blue Jenkins's toes."<a name="page_300" id="page_300"></a></p> + +<h2><i>Chapter the Thirty-fourth</i><br /><br /> +OLD ACQUAINTANCE</h2> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">C</span>HARLES said he would ride on to the <i>Basket of Roses</i> and bid the +landlord prepare a supper against the arrival of the rest. Clare stayed +behind to protect the Beau from the hysterical excitement of Mrs. +Courteen, who would not be pacified by anything less formidable than an +armed escort. She had made up her mind that highwaymen were abroad, +refused to allow the chaise to drive fast lest they might gallop unaware +into a thieves' ambush, and alarmed herself with so many imaginary +bogies that she almost succeeded in making Mr. Ripple fire point blank +at Mr. Anthony Clare's shadow looming huge in the hedgerow.</p> + +<p>Charles reached the <i>Basket of Roses</i> not long after the departure of +the lovers, and on hearing the news immediately spurred his grey horse +to pursuit. For a couple of miles he plunged along a road that was +almost a swamp, fired to greater exertions each minute by the sight of +the ruts made by the chariot in front. Suddenly his horse began to go +lame; the road grew worse; the ruts proved to be those of a country +waggon. He was riding in the wrong direction, so he turned his grey +round and walked her back to the inn. While he was inquiring into the +possibility of securing a fresh mount, a voice from the parlour called +out to know if any person was inquiring into the whereabouts of a young +woman.</p> + +<p>"She supped alone with the old gentleman," whispered Mrs. Tabrum.</p> + +<p>Charles was not proof against a natural curiosity, and decided to wait +at the inn till the arrival of the others. He ascertained that Vernon +had changed horses so it was evident<a name="page_301" id="page_301"></a> that he intended to post as fast +as possible Eastward. His own horse must be tended if they were to +proceed that night. There was no other in the stables, and as he was +sure of catching the chariot before morning, he felt there would be no +harm in learning why Phyllida had supped at a wayside inn, alone with an +elderly gentleman. What was Vernon about meanwhile? Why had he not +accompanied her? Charles ordered supper and stepped into the Travellers' +Room.</p> + +<p>"You were asking about a certain young woman," said Sir George, fixing +him with deep set eyes of cold steel.</p> + +<p>"I was indeed, sir," answered Mr. Lovely pulling forward an armchair +into the blaze and stretching his damp legs towards the genial warmth.</p> + +<p>"My name is Repington," said the old gentleman.</p> + +<p>"Eh! What?"</p> + +<p>"Sir George Repington."</p> + +<p>Charles stared at him.</p> + +<p>"And mine, sir, is Lovely, Charles Lovely."</p> + +<p>"My nephew—humph—'tis your existence which has attracted me so many +miles West."</p> + +<p>"I did not think you knew of my existence," said Charles half sneering.</p> + +<p>"You never condescended to inform your uncle of your movements."</p> + +<p>"Sir," said the nephew, a smile of bitter recollection twisting the +corners of his mouth. "I did not flatter myself that any attention on my +side was welcome."</p> + +<p>"What! you remember our only interview?"</p> + +<p>"I was eight years old, sir."</p> + +<p>"Is that a date in youth's short calendar that breeds a specially +sensitive disposition of mind?"</p> + +<p>"You turned me out of your house."</p> + +<p>"On the contrary, nephew, you chose to go back to your father."</p> + +<p>"Why wasn't he admitted, too?"</p> + +<p>"Because," replied the uncle, "on a former occasion I was unfortunately +compelled to invite your father to leave my house."<a name="page_302" id="page_302"></a></p> + +<p>"By what right?"</p> + +<p>Sir George raised his eyebrows.</p> + +<p>"Truly, nephew, I think you are indiscreet for a young man of such +fashion."</p> + +<p>"I have the right to know," Charles burst out. "In all that I can +remember of my childhood, you stood like a shadow in the corner of the +room, you were the nightmare that haunted my pillow. You used to write +sometimes—oh! I can remember your letters in their fat pursy envelopes. +I can smell the sealing wax, black sealing wax, now. My father would go +out with an oath and my mother would sit by a window with your letter in +her lap, weeping, weeping."</p> + +<p>"Did she weep, boy?"</p> + +<p>"Ah! that pleases you, eh?"</p> + +<p>"No, no, I was thinking what a laugh she had once—what a laugh. I +expect I was hard—I was—Charles, nephew, give me your hand—I——"</p> + +<p>The old man faltered in his speech and, as if the room were dark, groped +for our hero's hand; the latter drew back.</p> + +<p>"No! thank 'ee, Uncle, once is enough."</p> + +<p>The old man did not heed the insult.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps I understand your feelings, boy, I've read your poems."</p> + +<p>Charles was touched for a moment, but hardened himself as he thought of +that wide staircase down which, clutching the balustrade with both +hands, he had stumbled alone. A child does not easily forgive a slight, +and Charles still regarded his uncle with the eyes of a child.</p> + +<p>"Did she speak of me before she died?" murmured the old man with a +wistful eagerness.</p> + +<p>"She may have spoken," said Mr. Lovely, "the fever was high."</p> + +<p>"Or laugh—before she died? Nephew! to-night a young woman came to this +inn alone. She smiled like my sister, she laughed like my—like your +mother and like your mother she went away with the wrong man."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?" cried Charles too much startled<a name="page_303" id="page_303"></a> by the sudden +violence of his uncle's speech to resent the criticism of his father.</p> + +<p>"And you have ridden in pursuit? Then you are her lover—eh? She's +played you false as Joan played Roger false, and you are riding after +her, and you will shoot him and marry her, and bring her to Repington +Hall. 'Fore Heaven, I would give all my fortune to hear that laughter +ripple along the lonely corridors of Repington Hall. They used to sit in +the sunny window seat; and he would lean over the sill to pluck the +roses that blew beneath. I cut the tree down when he was killed, and in +the orchard where Lovely murdered him I planted cypresses."</p> + +<p>"Murdered him?" cried Charles impressed against his will by the old +man's passion.</p> + +<p>"Aye, murdered him. Roger was no swordsman, he was a gentle kindly +creature who loved old books and old friends, that's why I cannot +understand Belladine, why did Belladine let him fight, and what became +of—Good G——!" said the old man, "he's come back." Charles looked up +and, seeing only Beau Ripple standing in the doorway, concluded that his +uncle was gone mad.</p> + +<p>"A pinch of snuff, George?" said Mr. Ripple.</p> + +<p>"Thank'e, William," said Sir George. "This is my nephew, William—young +Charles Lovely."</p> + +<p>"We are already very good friends," said the Beau.</p> + +<p>The exchange of courtesies effected by the Beau with that unfailing tact +which characterized his least actions shed a new serenity over the +situation and, though Charles was completely puzzled by a surprizing +junction of personalities, he, too, with a profound instinct for the +correct attitude, bore a part in what was apparently nothing more out of +the way than a conversational episode in a social evening; yet three +twigs in a whirlpool do not jostle one another much more roughly than +the same three twigs in a puddle.</p> + +<p>"How's the gout, George? You threatened at one time to become an easy +prey to our physical Alectro."</p> + +<p>"Better, William, thankee, far better. I found that hard<a name="page_304" id="page_304"></a> work kept it +off; or else I grew to drink less Port. I've dined solitary for a round +number of years now."</p> + +<p>"Your uncle looks well, Charles. Egad, I believe after all gold is +better than iron for a man's health whatever the apothecaries tell us. +Where is Clare?—a good fellow that friend of yours, Charles. I like Mr. +Clare."</p> + +<p>Tony came in from the stables at that moment and was presented to Sir +George Repington.</p> + +<p>He had often heard Charles rail against his uncle, but, perceiving no +strain in the relation between them, entered yhe gathering with an easy +grace, and gave a very humorous account of their departure from the +Wells.</p> + +<p>"Tut, tut," exclaimed Mr. Ripple, for Ripple he must remain, since as +Ripple he achieved immortality.</p> + +<p>"Tut, tut, I cannot have these riotous assemblies. This comes of leaving +Curtain Wells. By the way, where is Mrs. Courteen?"</p> + +<p>"She has an audience, sir," said Clare, "and is, therefore, as happy as +can be expected under the circumstances."</p> + +<p>"Who is Mrs. Courteen?" This from Sir George.</p> + +<p>"A lady in whose company I have set out upon a very restless adventure. +Cupid, George, has been shooting his arrows of late, without much regard +to our mortal comfort. I believe the young rogue was unduly elated by +the success of his Valentines."</p> + +<p>"Sure, you aren't abroad on a love-affair, too, William?"</p> + +<p>"Not of my own, George, but I have an onus in the matter. Some one has +stolen a porcelain shepherdess from my booth in Vanity Fair."</p> + +<p>"That would be the young woman with whom I supped to-night in this inn. +Her name was Courteen."</p> + +<p>"What! then we all have an interest in this matter, and can discuss the +proper conduct of it over the very excellent supper whose arrival I +anticipate without apprehension. This is a capital house, George."</p> + +<p>"The landlord is an oddity," said Clare, "called me tulip and onion in a +breath, and begged to be allowed to brush the mud off my boots which he +said was a famous<a name="page_305" id="page_305"></a> manure for carnation gillyflowers. I 'faith, the old +boy made me feel devilish unclean."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Tabrum came in to say the widow would not take supper with the +gentlemen. She was much fatigued, and would be glad to retire to bed if +Mr. Pipple—or was it Ripple—had no objection.</p> + +<p>"None whatsoever," replied the latter in a pensive tone of voice. He was +meditating rather sadly upon the circumscription of human fame.</p> + +<p>A mere five-and-twenty miles from Curtain Wells, and already there was a +doubt as to whether he were Pipple or Ripple.</p> + +<p>"The widow don't intend to proceed," said Charles, when Mrs. Tabrum had +curtseyed her way out.</p> + +<p>"She is a foolish woman," said the Beau.</p> + +<p>"But you are not going to leave the daughter to her fate," asked Sir +George. "As you——" he stopped.</p> + +<p>Charles looked up; Mr. Ripple gravely took a pinch of snuff. "I think," +said the former, "that I shall be more likely to catch the chariot. +What's o'clock?"</p> + +<p>"Half-past ten," said Clare. "Your horse must rest an hour or two yet; +I'll ride with you."</p> + +<p>"That would be wiser," said Sir George eagerly. "Then nobody will say +Charles took an unfair advantage of him. Although—" Again he stopped in +a sentence, and again Mr. Ripple took a pinch of snuff.</p> + +<p>It was strange how Sir George had identified himself with Phyllida's +fortunes. It seemed as if he were staking his hope of a happy old age +upon the result of this love chase. The meeting with Phyllida had filled +up the rift which time and disappointment had created. He felt that +fortune owed him reparation for his sister's loss; and could not help +thinking what an appropriate instrument of the Fates had risen up in the +person of his nephew. Sir George Repington had become so much accustomed +in his large financial experience to the theory of just exchange that he +was inclined to put too blind a confidence in the scales, and was too +sure that the balance would adjust itself at some time or other. His<a name="page_306" id="page_306"></a> +nephew had not shown himself greatly enraptured by this late +reconciliation, and Sir George had been lonely long enough. He was +anxious at eventide for company. Death came suddenly like a clock that +strikes in the night, and Sir George was afraid of the grey dawn +stealing over the tree tops through the gaunt windows of Repington Hall. +When the time came for him to face the vast uneasy realms of +immortality, he would like to feel that somewhere on this small green +earth, some hand would wave a sorrowful, a last farewell. He would +cherish these two lovers; the maid would bring him and Charles together +in friendship and charity. Everything pointed to a fortunate issue. He +no longer brooded resentfully over calamities that were forgotten long +ago. Belladine had come back. He and Belladine would sit on the sloping +Repington lawns. June was in front of them. Already, like balm upon the +old man's wounded heart, there stole the murmurous peace of the longest +day. He saw the golden light, and the long shadows of the elms. He heard +the caw of homing rooks and the flutter of thrushes in the great Hall +shrubberies. In dignity and in rustick ease he would move with measured +meditative steps like an English squire to his last account—not +account, that savoured too much of Throgmorton Street—to his last bed, +his virtues recorded in a Latin eulogy and for a memorial Charles and +Phyllida, perhaps a grandson George, certainly four weeping cherubs to +guard the four corners of his cenotaph.</p> + +<p>Our hero was in that state when a host of conflicting emotions fight for +the mastery. So much had happened in this eventful day. Everything and +everybody appeared in a new perspective. Beau Ripple, seen by the +firelight of the Travellers' Room, was no longer the exquisite despot of +a world in miniature, the impersonal porcelain monarch, the rarest and +most valuable piece in an universe of Bric-a-brac. He was in some way +connected with the tragedy of his uncle's early life. The sovereign +marionette of amber and tortoise-shell, of perfumes and pomades, whom +Charles had known hitherto, was only an elegant exterior. Underneath +the<a name="page_307" id="page_307"></a> sattin, it seemed, there lived a man—one Belladine, of whose +existence Fashion was ignorant. The well-dressed Attitude called Horace +Ripple would be revered long after his decease. His epigrams would be +quoted. He would represent a period in the frivolous archives of Curtain +Wells, but Belladine whose heart had quickened to something more vital +than a pretty measure, Belladine who had known tears and laughter, +Belladine the Man would be forgotten. Charles pondered with passionate +commiseration the myriad heartaches of poor humanity that were once +esteemed worthy of exaggeration until a new intrigue caught the publick +tongue, and contemplated regretfully the inevitable and gradual +insignificance of all scandal. Truly, it was more consoling to regard +Beau Ripple, that inexplicable phenomenon, than try to gain the +acquaintance of Mr. William Belladine who had once played an important +part in his uncle's life.</p> + +<p>The latter, too, was different. He had only existed in Charles' mind as +an aversion of childhood, but Charles no longer objected to sleep in the +dark—the habit had come to him unconsciously. After all he owed Sir +George Repington no grudge; it would be absurd to cherish an animosity +that was based on a jejune domestick patriotism. The time had long gone +by when he thought his own father the finest gentleman in the world. Yet +was not this power of taking so much for granted, this passive +acceptance of change and decline, a surrender of his youth? Was he, in +fact, already divesting himself of all passionate reality? Charles +experienced the despair of the devout man whose faith deserts him. He +wrestled with his doubts and suddenly (it seemed a miracle) beheld on +the ingle seat a swansdown muff. Youth returned—a harlequin with the +supple wand of illusion. He stood once more in peach-coloured velvet +coat, staring up to a balcony over whose railing dimpled the most +enchanting face in England.</p> + +<p>"This was your mother, boy," said Sir George almost timidly, breaking in +upon his dreams.</p> + +<p>Very tenderly, Charles took the locket from the old man, and the sight +of the fresh young face brought back to his<a name="page_308" id="page_308"></a> mind queer old nursery +rhymes, and his mother's voice and the smell of a pot of musk and the +cries of London coming in through an open window. There was a mist over +Charles' eyes and a lump in Charles' throat as he shook his uncle's +hand.</p> + +<p>The latter wondered at himself for having been content to remain so long +without the consolation of an acknowledged heir. For all these years, he +had worked without an object. Now the great house of Repington and Son +should be incorporated with some equally famous house and a delightful +leisure was at last imaginable.</p> + +<p>It warmed the old man's heart to hear Charles declare the importance of +immediate pursuit, to hear him shout for his horse to be saddled, lame +or sound, to see Mr. Clare look to the priming of the pistols and when, +on the threshold of departure, the old man saw his nephew pick up the +swansdown muff and cram it into the deep pocket of his great cloak, he +could scarcely forbear a loud huzza, such vigour and determination were +plainly visible on his nephew's attractive countenance.</p> + +<p>One incident, just before he set out, served to chill our hero's fervour +and discount his conviction of success. He was coming back from the +stable and, as he passed the staircase that led to the bedchambers, +perceived Mrs. Courteen beckoning from the corridor. He stopped to bow; +and in a tone where politeness and condolence and hopefulness were +pleasantly mingled, as good as promised the speedy restoration of Miss +Phyllida Courteen.</p> + +<p>"Sir," said the mother, "you are generous indeed to a fallen young +woman."</p> + +<p>Our hero frowned at this description of his love.</p> + +<p>"And equally generous," she continued, "towards the fault."</p> + +<p>Charles made a movement, but the widow plaintively ignored the +interruption.</p> + +<p>"They have told me of your generous resolve, but I would warn you, Mr. +Lovely, that interference in these matters is generally disastrous. The +child has done wrong—<a name="page_309" id="page_309"></a>I do not wish to extenuate her crime—for crime +it is when you consider her mother's indulgence of every whim. I know +nothing of the eligibleness of the gentleman in whose company she has +chosen to shock the sensibility of her mother's small and select circle +of intimate friends."</p> + +<p>Charles began to fidget.</p> + +<p>"He may for all I know be a man of fashion, of rank, of fortune. He may, +on the other hand, be a play-actor, an attorney's clerk, or a journeyman +tinker. In either case it seems unlikely he will make an offer of +marriage. Pray do not put such an idea into his head. Marriages forced +upon reluctant suitors commonly turn out unhappy for both parties."</p> + +<p>The widow must have been immensely in earnest, monstrously eager to +secure her ambition, for never before had her speech betrayed such power +of coherent expression.</p> + +<p>"Let her go on her way," said the mother. "Let her find out for herself +the results of rebellion; when the villain deserts her, she may not be +quite so unwilling to stone the damsons next August. Let her learn her +lesson, Mr. Lovely, and pray do not persuade her to come back. Her +reputation is tarnished; and I am not at all inclined to bear the burden +of her ill-behaviour, as I should do, Mr. Lovely, as I certainly should +do since the world is censorious, and apt to visit the sins of the +children upon the heads of the father, as the Bible says."</p> + +<p>Charles could scarcely believe that Mrs. Courteen was in earnest.</p> + +<p>He knew her for a worldly-minded woman, careless of everything save her +own pleasures, but for such depths of callousness he was not prepared.</p> + +<p>"Indeed, madam," he said coldly, "my only excuse for obtruding my +presence upon Miss Courteen at such a time is my sincere hope that she +will honour my solicitous regard with the bestowal of her hand."</p> + +<p>"The child must be punished," insisted the mother.</p> + +<p>"Indeed, madam, I venture to think we may safely leave<a name="page_310" id="page_310"></a> that office to +the small and select circle of your intimate friends."</p> + +<p>"I cannot understand what attracts—" Mrs. Courteen began, then changed +to "what makes men so generous."</p> + +<p>Mr. Lovely regarded her contemptuously.</p> + +<p>"So I should think."</p> + +<p>"Cruel Mr. Lovely," moaned the widow, "Cruel to suggest that I am +ungenerous. Why, I have never mentioned the pearls which were taken out +of my jewel-case."</p> + +<p>"They say that Miss Courteen's necklace vastly becomes her mother."</p> + +<p>"Do they, indeed, sir?" said the widow with an affected sigh.</p> + +<p>Charles made an impatient gesture.</p> + +<p>"Do you imagine, madam, that I am going to tire a good-hearted horse for +the sake of allowing you to bask in the flattery of your friends? By +G——! I tell you that one of 'em is already dead—shot for the sake of +that daughter whose ruin you contemplate so tranquilly."</p> + +<p>The widow turned pale.</p> + +<p>"At any rate," Charles continued; "at any rate, the little Major with +all his strut died like a cock of the game."</p> + +<p>"The Major dead," half screamed the widow; and even that information, so +brutally delivered, provided the thought that now more than ever was it +necessary to prevent Phyllida's marriage.</p> + +<p>"Aye, dead! He'll be here in the morning when the Wells waggon arrives."</p> + +<p>Charles turned away from the widow, thinking how impossible it was to +believe that a mother could be so heartless. The desire to cherish +Phyllida surged over him in a wave of tenderness; but when presently he +and Clare set out from the inn-door, under the tail of the storm-cloud +shedding stars in slow retreat across the sky, he felt Despair upon his +heels and pondered the infamy of this beautiful world. Poor hero! he was +a gamester even in his emotions and, having staked his hope in one wild +throw, was fearfully watching the<a name="page_311" id="page_311"></a> issue. What a maddening melody the +cubes made when rattled by the hands of Fate.</p> + +<p>Pray remember, before you dismiss the widow to your eternal disdain, +that she may have loved young Mr. Standish, that rugged Squire Courteen +may have been very brutal in his cups, that such a malicious Codicil +might have soured a woman less dependent upon the amenity of life. +Finally, pray remember that she was a woman who did not wrinkle easily, +and the consequent temptations of a deceitful mirrour. Looking-glasses, +like human beings, lie more often than is commonly supposed, but possess +an unlucky reputation for truthfulness which seldom hampers humanity.</p> + +<p>Left alone with Sir George, Mr. Ripple took advantage of the opportunity +to explain to his old friend certain events on which the latter had long +brooded in vain.<a name="page_312" id="page_312"></a></p> + +<h2><i>Chapter the Thirty-fifth</i><br /><br /> +THE CUTTING OF A DIAMOND</h2> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letraa">“</span><span class="letra">A</span>ND what is your life, William?" asked Sir George Repington, leaning +back in his chair and removing his wig.</p> + +<p>"My life, George," replied Mr. Ripple, "is a gem carved by a cunning +workman to stamp any material sufficiently plastick to record an +impression. My life, George, is a conductor of musick. Of itself it +produces no sweet sounds, but evokes a fair harmony from many and +diverse instruments."</p> + +<p>"You had ambitions once."</p> + +<p>"I have gratified the most of them."</p> + +<p>"Yet your life has not been active."</p> + +<p>"No?"</p> + +<p>"As for example mine has been."</p> + +<p>"I do not know, George, that my contemplative existence has produced +less than your phrenzied encounters with mathematical alliances and +numerical intrigues. The manipulation of human beings is quite as +active. We have neither of us done a vast deal."</p> + +<p>"I have had a great influence upon the political situation, more than +once," said Sir George proudly.</p> + +<p>"So have I," said the Beau.</p> + +<p>"Indeed?"</p> + +<p>"I have tamed the wives of the most of our ministers."</p> + +<p>"But you are not a man of intrigue?"</p> + +<p>"Heaven forbid!" said the Beau devoutly. "No, no George, my knowledge of +Olympian intrigue taught me to be wise. I found that the gods never +improved their dignity by amorous descents. To be sure, on one or two<a name="page_313" id="page_313"></a> +occasions, they made an effort to assert their divinity by dramatical +effects unworthy of a country conjurer, but I do not believe that they +ever recovered from the indiscretion of familiarity with their +inferiors. No! no! George, I am not a man of intrigue."</p> + +<p>"Then what is your life? How do you pass your time?"</p> + +<p>Sir George Repington had lit a churchwarden pipe and accentuated the +inquiry by waving the long stem. Mr. Ripple took a pinch of snuff and, +settling himself deeper in his chair, began to relate his manner of +existence in a clear and modulated tone that agreed well with the +comfort of the room. The narrative took its own course and reminded one +of the purring of a cat amid the flickering shadows cast by firelight on +a gaudy rug.</p> + +<p>"I assumed my present name—Horace Ripple—partly out of respect to the +poet, partly out of respect to my father's mother. Belladine was too +metallick, too lustrous an appellation for a man without any desire to +agitate the peace of the world. Besides, there were other reasons why I +should forget my patronymick. As Horace Ripple, I rode one fine morning +into the town of Curtain Wells, procured a pleasant house in the Eastern +Colonnade and waited upon Beau Melon. The latter received me very +graciously and was pleased to compliment me upon the trimming of my +waistcoat. (I have often contemplated the revival of that auspicious +fashion.) I was lucky enough to render the great Beau a trifling +service, in the matter of adjusting the discordant claims of two +dairymaids who were quarrelling rather loudly over the young Earl +of—— well, his name don't matter. Melon had been entrusted with the +harvesting of the young nobleman's wild oats. After that I was able to +lend him five hundred pounds and half a dozen epigrams, also to put him +in the way of a neat translation of a song by the passionate Catullus, +whereby he secured the hand of the famous, wealthy, and eccentrick +Contessa Dilettante. He married, bequeathed to me his house, his +notebooks, and his goodwill, so that in a paltry five years I succeeded +to the sovereignty of<a name="page_314" id="page_314"></a> Curtain Wells. Our season endures from October +until June. During that time I am as busy as a monarch should expect to +be. I have made many alterations during the years of my rule; for +instance, the Assemblies once held every Wednesday are now invariably +held every Monday."</p> + +<p>"But what the d——l does it matter which day they are held?" +interrupted Sir George.</p> + +<p>"Of course, it does not matter. Nothing matters. Nevertheless, George, +when I announced the change, I tell you my throne, for a moment, +tottered. However, I triumphed over the malcontents, and I venture to +think it would take a very bold man to suggest they should ever again be +held upon Wednesday."</p> + +<p>"But, my dear William!" said his friend, "this is nonsense. 'Tis absurd +for you to sit there and congratulate yourself as though this were doing +something."</p> + +<p>"My dear George," said the Beau very blandly. "Did I not read last year +in the <i>Intelligence</i> that you were agitating yourself confoundedly in +order to secure some great financial advantage by altering the date of +the despatch of bullion to Portugal?"</p> + +<p>"You did, William, you did," said Sir George, setting his shoulders back +at the proud thought of a great victory won.</p> + +<p>"And what the d——l does it matter whether the ships sail in February +or March?"</p> + +<p>"You don't understand—the depression of the markets, the——"</p> + +<p>"Precisely so," interrupted Mr. Ripple, "and you, my dear friend, do not +understand the depression of Monday and Tuesday in the time before my +great reform."</p> + +<p>"But mine was an affair of international importance."</p> + +<p>"And mine was an affair of domestick and social importance. Gadslife, do +you suppose that my subjects care a jot about your schemes, if their own +bodies are uncomfortable? Do you realize that many an election +depends—yet why should I dispute the question. Nothing matters, but +everything is of the very greatest importance."</p> + +<p>Sir George was bewildered by the Beau's sophistry and<a name="page_315" id="page_315"></a> argued no +farther. After all, as he told himself, the atmosphere of Throgmorton +Street had probably stultified his outlook. He himself only regarded it +as a necessary, if purgatorial prologue to the paradise of the life of a +man of leisure. Belladine was a man of leisure, and if Aristotle's +politicks were not corrupt, must know more than himself about the +affairs of the whole world. So Sir George kindled a fresh pipe with a +burning coal, and listened to the continuation of Mr. Ripple's placid +narrative.</p> + +<p>"I perceived," the latter went on, "that pleasure was the most +inexorable fact, setting aside birth and death, in the human economy. +Before my time, the diversions of Curtain Wells, though conducted on a +lavish scale of expense were somewhat haphazard. They did not always fit +in with the moods of the pilgrims of Æsculapius. Too much was left to +private enterprize. There was not enough organization and, worst of all, +there was not enough stress laid upon the ascetick duties, whose +fulfilment would lend such a flavour and zest to relaxation. I +instituted, therefore, a rigour of exercise and diet, I insisted upon +the sacred character of the Pump Room, I glorified the taking of +chalybeate by a ritual at once subtle and magnificent. In a word, I +founded a new religion and, as the auctioneers have it, made of Curtain +Wells a true Temple of Hygeia. Having trained my subjects to make +themselves uncomfortable in a modish way, I was soon able to urge the +necessity of enjoying themselves on the same principle. To this end I +arranged that every month should have its specifick pleasures, which +would be welcomed as we welcome each flower that succeeds in its season. +I will not fatigue you with too much detail, but I can honestly affirm +that when the great Aquatick Gala or Fête Aqueuse comes to a dazzling +conclusion, when the showers of bursting crimson, violet, and golden +rockets dim the lustre of the Dog Star on the last night of June, the +whole of the fashionable world retires to verdant solitudes with a +profound admiration for me and a fixed determination to grace the grand +opening Assembly on the first night of October."<a name="page_316" id="page_316"></a></p> + +<p>"Indeed," said Sir George Repington, on whose mind a new prospect was +breaking, "and how do you pass your time during the intervening months?"</p> + +<p>"I meditate, George, I meditate in a charming rural retreat which I +possess in the green heart of Devonshire. There I spend leafy days in +pastoral seclusion. I have my plane tree, my jug of old Falernian. I +have my spaniel, Lalage, and an impoverished female cousin who performs +very engagingly upon the spinet. I sit in the austere musick-chamber +with shadowy white walls, empty save for two or three tall black oaken +chairs and the curiously painted instrument. I listen to the cool +melodies of Couperin and admire his unimpassioned symbols of the +Passions where a purple domino is the most violent, the most fervid +emotion. I hear above the chirping of the crickets, the faint harmonies +of Archangelo Corelli and the fugues of Domenico Scarlatti, whose name +is so vivid, but whose musick like the morning is a mist of gold. I sit +in a library hung with faded rose brocades and tarnished silver +broideries. There I meditate upon the bloody deaths of Emperors and the +grey hairs of Helen of Troy. There I move serenely from shelf to shelf +and hark to the muffled thunder of volumes clapped together to exclude +the odorous dust. I ponder Religion and Urn Burial and pore over the +lurid histories of notable comets. At dusk of a fine day, I step out +into the dewy garden to watch the colour fade from the flowers and the +stars wink in the lucent green of the western sky. Presently I step +indoors, light a tall wax candle set in a silver candlestick, go +sedately to bed and fall asleep to the perfume of roses and jasmine and +the echo of a cadence from the <i>Anatomy of Melancholy</i>."</p> + +<p>"And that is your life?" said Sir George.</p> + +<p>"That is my life."</p> + +<p>"William, would it have been your life if things had been different on +that April morning? I thought my life was as I would have wished to +spend it; I have worshipped dull columns of figures and the dust of +counting-houses, but to-night when I saw that child, when I saw that +nephew<a name="page_317" id="page_317"></a> of mine, I feared old age and wished I could somehow have +thought less, calculated less, striven less, and loved more."</p> + +<p>"George," said Mr. Ripple, tapping the lid of his snuff box with not so +brave an air as usual, and, as he spoke, his friend apprehended in a +moment's illumination that all this decorated narrative had been evoked +to defer an explanation which he had felt all the while was inevitable.</p> + +<p>"George," said Mr. Ripple, "if upon that morning in April, I could have +made up my mind, I should, I believe, have—and yet I don't know," he +broke off, "I doubt I was never intended to be a man of commonplace +action."</p> + +<p>"You did not interfere?"</p> + +<p>"I loved her, too."</p> + +<p>"You loved her?"</p> + +<p>"I saw she cared for him alone, and, when Roger fell, though I had my +pistol loaded and levelled, I had no heart to fire. But I was never +brave enough to tell you I had let him escape and, having waited too +long—oh! well there it is—I waited and could not bear to resume my old +life. And indeed, George, I think I have been a happy man. You have +conjured up the ghost of Belladine to-night and Belladine was and is and +will be miserable to the end of his days, but pray dismiss him, vex not +his ghost, and take snuff with Horace Ripple of the Great House, Curtain +Wells. We are both too old, George, to do anything now. We must depend +on young Charles."</p> + +<p>"And if he should fail?"</p> + +<p>"We are both old men. We should, therefore, both be able to suffer +another disillusion."</p> + +<p>"I suppose that is true," said Sir George rather sadly. "William——"</p> + +<p>"Horace," corrected Mr. Ripple.</p> + +<p>"William," persisted the other, "did I ever mention Thistlegrove Cottage +to you?"</p> + +<p>"Not that I can remember."</p> + +<p>"'Tis a fine night, full of stars," said Mrs. Tabrum, entering the room +with a tray full of brightly burning<a name="page_318" id="page_318"></a> candles, "and what time would your +honours like to be waked up in the morning?"</p> + +<p>"I will ring my bell," said Mr. Ripple.</p> + +<p>"I will ring my bell," said Sir George Repington.</p> + +<p>The two old friends took each a candle, and went upstairs to bed. From +the corridor casement they looked out.</p> + +<p>"What a laugh she had," says Sir George. A gust of wind extinguished his +candle, and he shuddered.</p> + +<p>"That is the way I shall go out."</p> + +<p>"That is the way we shall all go out," said Mr. Ripple.</p> + +<p>"And nothing afterwards?"</p> + +<p>"Darkness."</p> + +<p>"And nothing else?"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps a hand in the darkness."<a name="page_319" id="page_319"></a></p> + +<h2><i>Chapter the Thirty-sixth</i><br /><br /> +THE SCARLET DAWN</h2> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HE post-chariot that held in its musty recesses Miss Phyllida Courteen +and Mr. Francis Vernon rattled on its way with all the vigour imparted +by four fresh horses and the exhilarating effect of Plymouth Gin upon +the post-boys.</p> + +<p>A smell of saddlecloths and damp cushions, of leather straps and the +dust of oat and hay, clung to the vehicle while over them was wafted the +permeating steam of horses' flanks and the pungent odour of hot lamps.</p> + +<p>"Phyllida, my Phyllida, at last."</p> + +<p>"Why did you let me travel alone? I was frightened."</p> + +<p>"My dear," said Vernon, "indeed, I do not know how to explain my +neglect, but I wanted to ride out of the darkness and find you alone in +the firelight like a maid in an old tale. It must have seemed cowardice +to you."</p> + +<p>"I was frightened," murmured Phyllida, growing breathless at the +recollection of Mr. Charlie and Mr. Dicky Maggs lurching round the table +in the Travellers' Room.</p> + +<p>"You longed for me?" Vernon moved closer to his love and took her hand.</p> + +<p>"Amor," said the girl shuddering, "I think I am frightened now. I think +we will go back. I think I have done wrong."</p> + +<p>"You think all these foolish thoughts, dear life. I know that to-day +will be to you a day of days for ever."</p> + +<p>He held her now in his arms, and she with a sigh yielded herself into +his keeping. Soft she was and timid, like a bird which has fallen from +the nest, and in the gloom he could<a name="page_320" id="page_320"></a> still see her wide blue eyes and +above the jangle of the chariot he could hear her whisper,</p> + +<p>"I love you, Amor, I love you."</p> + +<p>"My Phyllida."</p> + +<p>"Amor, dear, dear Amor."</p> + +<p>"'Tis not my name, dear one."</p> + +<p>"'Tis the name you told me."</p> + +<p>"My name is Vernon."</p> + +<p>"To me you will always be Amor. Amor means Love. I asked the Archdeacon +and he told me that Amor meant Love."</p> + +<p>Vernon was taken outside of himself. As he kissed those lips more soft +than the petals of flowers, the other lips he had known seemed cracked +and dry. In the darkness, he felt her eyelashes upon his cheek as they +drooped to a blush, and a passion of remorse swept over him. He would +wed this child at the end of the journey. He would love her for ever. +That was certain. Oh, yes, there was no doubt he would love her for +ever. He had plucked this flower in a wanton moment, had thought to wear +her for a scented month and fling her away. O execrable intent!</p> + +<p>"My Phyllida, my Phyllida! Why do you love me?"</p> + +<p>"Why do you love me?" Her hand nestled in his.</p> + +<p>"I don't know, because—because—oh, because I do love you, because you +have driven me mad with your blue eyes and your hair and your lips. My +Phyllida, my Phyllida!"</p> + +<p>Vernon was no longer conscious of acting. This was no scene set with +chairs at appropriate angles. The raffish Mr. Francis Vernon of London, +the clever Mr. Francis Vernon who vowed every woman had her price, Mr. +Vernon the hero of half a hundred squalid intrigues was dead. Why should +he not forget him, taking for his own that fortunate pseudonym which had +set him as high as the angels? With a gesture of dismay, he drew from +his cuff a greasy King of Hearts and spurned the dishonourable cardboard +with his foot.</p> + +<p>"Amor!"</p> + +<p>"My dear! My lovely one! My heart!"<a name="page_321" id="page_321"></a></p> + +<p>"Once I climbed up a high hill at home in Hampshire."</p> + +<p>He held her more closely.</p> + +<p>"I climbed a hill and stared for a long while right into the sun. I was +giddy. Amor! Amor! I feel now as I did when I stared for a long while +into the sun."</p> + +<p>"Phyllida! Phyllida!"</p> + +<p>"You'll never not love me, Amor?"</p> + +<p>"Never, I swear it."</p> + +<p>"I could not bear you not to love me. Once I knew a young woman whose +lover forsook her and she used to work woollen flowers all day long with +a tambour frame, because she was working woollen flowers when he told +her that he loved her, and she never did anything else all the years +that we knew her; and, Amor, she is working them now, and oh, I'm afraid +when I think of her working those woollen flowers."</p> + +<p>Vernon in his new frame of mind could scarcely forbear telling his love +of the ills he had intended towards her. He had caught a passion for +frankness and would have poured into her ears the whole of his past. He +could not endure, to such elation had he been carried, that Phyllida +should be ignorant of the worst of him in order that for the future she +should know more truly the very best of him. But he was wise and, though +Cupid had lent him his own wings, he would not play too many aerial +pranks, soar too near the sun, fall and break his neck. It was indeed a +form of abnegation that prevented him from showing Phyllida his own bad +self. It was bitter to hear her murmur, with a white hand on his sleeve.</p> + +<p>"I knew you were true, my true love, all the time, all the time."</p> + +<p>Nothing tugs at the heart-strings of a man like a young maid's plighting +of her troth. Nothing makes his brain reel like her first kiss freely +given.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Phyllida, Phyllida! I'm not fit for you."</p> + +<p>"Foolish Amor."</p> + +<p>"Are you happy, my dearest?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, so happy."<a name="page_322" id="page_322"></a></p> + +<p>"We shall never be parted again."</p> + +<p>"Never!"</p> + +<p>"I did not know that life was so wonderful."</p> + +<p>"I thought it was," she murmured, as she nestled to his heart, "because +Spring was always so sweet, and now I need never mind the Winter."</p> + +<p>"All the years I did not know you, my Phyllida, were wasted years."</p> + +<p>"Amor!"</p> + +<p>"Phyllida!"</p> + +<p>"How I shall always love you."</p> + +<p>"Always?"</p> + +<p>"To the end."</p> + +<p>"Once," she said with a sigh, "I longed to grow old, and now I would +like to be always young."</p> + +<p>"Ah! Phyllida, my Phyllida, don't speak of age. I've wasted so much of +my life."</p> + +<p>He thought with anguish of the dead Summers he had known and wondered +with a great dread whether they would come again. If, while he could +still feel this splendid passion, they should be grey and dismal, he +would never forgive himself for having revelled in the warmth and gaiety +of those irrevocable seasons.</p> + +<p>"You are not sad?" she asked, jealous of his silence.</p> + +<p>"I wish that life were not so short."</p> + +<p>Our villain was beginning to examine the foundations of his existence +upon this earth, where hitherto he had jogged along, accepting the most +outrageous calamity and good luck with placid superficial mind. +Meditation upon the brevity of a life, which at any moment a tavern +brawl might extinguish, would have seemed to him before this passionate +conversation a lunatick method of spending time. Poor villain! he had +not enjoyed much leisure for meditation. He was born in a hurry, his +mother being under contract to appear as Millamant a long while before +she should. He was brought up in a hurry at Alleyn's School to be +murdered in a hurry by some Richard III. Moreover, in youth he had +assisted at so many tinsel deaths that it<a name="page_323" id="page_323"></a> was not surprizing he should +regard them lightly. Even his mother's death within sound of the orange +girls outside Drury Lane struck him as nothing more final than a last +appearance.</p> + +<p>Now for the first time, there broke upon him the stunning fact of +inevitable decay and, being a self-indulgent man, he had for the moment +nothing more dignified than petulant despair with which to meet this +sudden apprehension of mortality.</p> + +<p>"'Tis monstrous," he declared, "a fearful thought that you and I should +ever grow old and die. I cannot bear to think of your brown hair growing +white. Phyllida, you cannot grow old."</p> + +<p>Love had made a woman of Phyllida and already, with gentle touch, she +soothed his anguish.</p> + +<p>"Dear Amor, I know that if we love each other truly, we shall never grow +old to each other."</p> + +<p>"Phyllida, I love you," and clasping her lissome body breathless to his, +he defied the lightning of the Gods.</p> + +<p>And now a new fear assailed him. 'We shan't be followed,' he had +contemptuously informed old Mother Mawhood at Blackhart Farm. In sudden +dread he leaned out of the window of the chariot, and strained his eyes +to pierce the darkness. He could see nothing save the shadows of the +postillions against the hedge, hear nothing save the clatter of the +horses. The loneliness and gloom affected his spirits and with a shudder +he sought again the musty interior of the vehicle. He caught his love to +his heart.</p> + +<p>"What did you see?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"Nothing, but I was afraid, I could not bear to lose you now."</p> + +<p>"You saw nothing?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing."</p> + +<p>"And heard nothing?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing. Why do you ask?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Amor, I thought I saw the shadow of a man on horseback."<a name="page_324" id="page_324"></a></p> + +<p>"Fancy, my sweet, fancy." Then, with a sinking fear, he remembered he +had told Mother Mawhood of the pearls. He called to mind the postboys' +insolence, the look that passed between Charlie and Dickie when he told +them he would ride in the chariot. He sprang in alarm to open the +window, but the carriage pulled up with a jerk which flung him back +against Phyllida. The glass crashed to the heavy butt of a pistol and, +as he stretched out for his own fire-arms, he saw the postboys resting +long barrels on the sill and, by the lamp which one of them held, a +masked face that with thick brutal voice demanded their money.</p> + +<p>"Hand 'em over."</p> + +<p>"Hand what over?" said Vernon, in a futile attempt to delay his +humiliation.</p> + +<p>"The pops first," said one of the Maggs, winking humorously in the +direction of Vernon's pistols that in leathern holsters lay harmless on +the dusty floor of the chariot.</p> + +<p>Now occurred one of those astonishing coincidences that have tempted the +speculation of many sages since the beginning. A field-mouse chose that +very moment to cross the road. A large white owl spied the diminutive +pilgrim and, having tasted no food that stormy night, swooped daringly +upon his prey under the heads of the standing horses. Terrified by the +soft white apparition, the leaders plunged forward. In a moment the +chariot was bumping and jolting at a wild pace down the road, having +broken Charlie Maggs' big toe in transit. The blackguard deserved a scar +for his carelessness, if for nothing else, and the limp he earned that +night was some time afterwards the means of proving his complicity in +the affair of the blind mouse-tamer, thereby ridding the world of a very +dirty rascal. Mice were fatal to Charlie Maggs. It is satisfactory to +know that the adventurous animal avoided the owl, and it is also +consoling to learn that the latter never adorned a gamekeeper's pole, +but died a natural death in the hollow trunk where it had spent actually +all the days of its life.<a name="page_325" id="page_325"></a></p> + +<p>It was a moment or two before Vernon understood that the danger was +averted; then he bent low to reassure Phyllida, who was crouching in the +darkest corner of the chariot.</p> + +<p>"My dear," he cried, and for all the swaying motion caught her to him +with a certain grace. "My dear, there is nothing to be afraid of now."</p> + +<p>"Oh! Amor!" she sobbed, abandoning herself to the horror of remembrance, +"that face—that black face."</p> + +<p>"My sweet, you shall never see it again."</p> + +<p>"It will follow us."</p> + +<p>"If he should I have something here that will frighten him away fast +enough."</p> + +<p>Vernon waved a pistol which he had picked up even as he caught hold of +Phyllida. But the masked face did not pursue them and, after a mile or +so of noisy swaying progress, Vernon began to consider the possibility +of stopping the carriage. He leaned out of the window and nearly had his +eyes put out by a bramble sucker. A survey from the other side, where +the remaining lamp lent a wavering illumination, showed they were +travelling at an alarming pace down a deep rocky lane. Vernon noticed +that the boulders in places trespassed considerably upon the road with +projecting points, and there seemed every likelihood of the chariot +being presently wrecked like a rudderless boat. However, runaway horses +and drunken men share a large amount of the world's luck between them, +and notwithstanding the headlong speed, every boulder in turn was +successfully avoided. Farther along, the surface of the road grew worse +and, every other second, one of the wheels would grate against the side +of a deep rut with a horrid jar. They were going downhill now and Vernon +strained his eyes to discover the lie of the country. The pace was +harder than ever, and it seemed impossible for four horses to survive +the roughness of the road and the steepness of the descent.</p> + +<p>Suddenly above the clatter they heard the roar of water: at the same +moment the front wheel struck some permanent<a name="page_326" id="page_326"></a> obstacle: the chariot +dipped forward: Phyllida and Vernon were flung in a tangled heap on the +floor, while the sudden cessation of movement made the noise of the +water sound very portentous in the gloom. Vernon extricated himself from +the vehicle on the lighted side and, jumping out, splashed his way +through mire and puddles to the horses' heads. The two leaders with that +unexpected philosophy which in horses often succeeds the most fervid +excitement were cropping the young herbage peacefully, while the +wheelers were only slightly more restive through their inability to +reach the same sweet pasture. Vernon snatched the solitary lamp from the +socket and went to help Phyllida alight. As she stood upon the step and +gave him her little hand, he divined with a sense of awe, begotten by +the solitude of the surroundings, that she was truly his. He was Adam +greeting Eve with the mystery of woman all about her in that primæval +Spring.</p> + +<p>The scene of the catastrophe was peculiarly solemn. The chariot had +struck a column of stone that rose suddenly out of the ground as if the +finger of a Titan had been frozen into perpetuity to mark some early and +gigantick travail of his mother Earth. The lamp with feeble yellow light +made monstrous shadows of the huge features it sought vainly to +illuminate. So far as he could judge they were nearly at the bottom of a +deep ravine along which swept a torrent whose magnitude was impossible +to estimate, since the roar of the waterfall gave it in the darkness a +dreadful importance.</p> + +<p>"It must be close on two o'clock," said Vernon, "let's leave this +disastrous vehicle. We may find shelter somewhere over this valley."</p> + +<p>Phyllida drew the riding hood round her and, taking her lover's arm, +silently acquiesced in this proposal.</p> + +<p>As they drew near the waterfall, the thunder of it made her shiver. They +crossed the torrent by a stone bridge that seemed to have become a +natural feature in the landskip.</p> + +<p>On the far side by a common impulse they stopped and Vernon leaned down +to kiss her face.<a name="page_327" id="page_327"></a></p> + +<p>"My Phyllida," he murmured; and held the lamp so that he could see the +shimmer and gleam of love in her eyes. They stood silent, enraptured, +and the hot yellow lamp away down in the depths of this world-forsaken +valley became the very torch of Hymen.</p> + +<p>With slow steps they climbed the opposite hill, deserting the waters and +the rocks, the ferns, the little bridge, for the grey starshine above +the gloom. Yet the awe of that solemn ravine, which they had reached +after such peril, enthralled them still and I think both felt as if +somehow their love had been consecrated by a divine being. It was quite +a relief from the strain of reverence when Vernon informed Phyllida that +there was no sign of any human habitation.</p> + +<p>"What shall we do with the carriage?" asked the latter.</p> + +<p>"Don't fret about that."</p> + +<p>"And the horses?"</p> + +<p>"They must take their chance. I wish I knew the hour."</p> + +<p>"You said it must be two o'clock."</p> + +<p>"The sun does not rise till half-past five. Three hours and a half. I +wonder why we left the chariot. It would be wiser to go back. You will +be cold in this open country."</p> + +<p>The wind was blowing shrewdly up there in the starlight, and Phyllida +would not deny she was cold and tired.</p> + +<p>"We had better go back to the chaise. ’Twas warmer in the valley."</p> + +<p>Yet both of them felt a strange disinclination to risk the disillusion +of return till, suddenly, up there in the wind and starlight, terror +caught them, and the noise of water tumbling over rocks gave them a +sense of security from this wide place of silence.</p> + +<p>"'Tis a monstrous uneasy country," said Vernon, voicing in common speech +the sense of woe that oppressed him.</p> + +<p>"I feel frightened," Phyllida agreed, "let us go back to the water."</p> + +<p>They stopped to listen as people will whose minds have been much wrought +upon. There was nothing but the lisp of the wind in the bents of last +year's grass and a melodious<a name="page_328" id="page_328"></a> sighing in the boughs of larches. Yet +never throughout that adventurous night had Phyllida's heart pattered at +such a pace, never had she been so near to shrieking aloud. Without +longer delay they turned back in the direction of the coombe, walking +with quick steps as if to avoid an invisible pursuit. Half-way down the +hill, Vernon stooped to gather a primrose.</p> + +<p>"Here's a daisy," he said.</p> + +<p>"A daisy," Phyllida cried. "Why, foolish Amor, 'tis a primrose," and +whatever fiend or goblin followed in their wake fled in affright at the +sound of her rippling laughter.</p> + +<p>I think nothing shows more conclusively that Mr. Vernon was in love with +Miss Courteen than his indifference to her ridicule.</p> + +<p>"Sweetest," he said, "I'm ignorant of the best things like flowers," and +forthwith began to tell Phyllida of his life in London, so that when +presently they stood again upon the bridge, he was raising his voice in +order to describe his first impressions of rustick Marybone, to which he +added a very nice account of the view of the Hampstead Hills.</p> + +<p>Under the influence of this narrative, the scene lost some of its +grandeur. An air of grottoes, of stone embellishments, arbours, and +cunning recesses shed itself over the landskip. One heard comparisons +with this or that famous haunt of sight-seeing mobs. In fact both Vernon +and Phyllida, being English, felt their late raptures were unbecoming, +and having excused a lapse into sensibility by the fright they had +suffered, proceeded to declare that the chasm, far from being Titanick, +would make a mighty fine site for an excursion of pleasure. At least +Vernon clothed the opinion in words, Phyllida was too much fatigued to +do more than murmur a weary assent.</p> + +<p>They found the chariot just as they had left it and the four horses +browsing upon the grass. He handed her into the vehicle, made her +comfortable with what rugs and cloaks he could collect and left her to +rest with the assurance he would remain close at hand. She gave his hand +a tired clasp and almost immediately fell fast asleep. Vernon<a name="page_329" id="page_329"></a> tethered +the horses to various stumps in the vicinity, and proceeded to doze and +dream away the cold hours before dawn in the shelter of a particularly +large and overhanging ledge of rock. The sound of the falling water that +deafened him with its roar when first he heard it, now soothed him like +a gentle lullaby.</p> + +<p>I cannot do justice to the scene: Rembrandt with his powerful and gloomy +imagination could have etched it. He would have made the two lovers +present themselves to the onlooker in their right proportions to the +scenery. You and I are too near to the candlelight of Curtain Wells to +believe in the romantick desolation wherein they seemed of no more +importance than the ferns that hung down their green tongues to the +limpid pools hollowed from jagged rocks. Vernon, huddled in the shelter +of the crag, with his hat pressed over his eyes, his knees arched as +high as his chin, might well have been a belated herdsman who, having +flung himself into this valley to avoid the upland wind, had been +bewitched by the magick of running water to dream away the night. The +horses in the black shadows and the ruined chariot had an air of Gothick +melancholy; the yellow lamp that glimmered fitfully in the heart of the +abyss served only to throw into more huge relief the neighbouring rocks, +while it lighted the thresholds of gaping caverns that stretched beyond +to unimaginable depths of solitude and gloom. The night wore on and over +the hill the lovers had found so depressing to their spirits, like a +sword in the twilight, lay the first grey streak of dawn. Phyllida and +her lover slept while the features of the landskip began to win again +their own outlines, while the rocks that were wrapped in the warm velvet +of night appeared with a cold sheen. The grey streak widened to a broad +lake whose margin was flecked with the faint hues of lavender and mauve. +Birds began to twitter and chirp in the trees and bushes that overhung +the rocks below, while the winds of dawn fluted in the small withy bed +beside the bridge.</p> + +<p>Very wan in the morning twilight, Mr. Charles Lovely<a name="page_330" id="page_330"></a> and Mr. Anthony +Clare clattered down the deep lane that led to the valley. Their horses' +flanks glistened with the sweat of hard travel and the riders rose +hardly to the jerking downhill motion.</p> + +<p>Just as the rose-tipped fingers of Aurora plucked the lavender from the +skies, Charles and Tony caught sight of the chariot and just as they +pulled their horses to a standstill, Mr. Vernon woke up. It is +characteristick of the latter's new-found consideration that his first +action was to warn them with a gesture of Phyllida's presence fast +asleep inside. Charles tapped his holsters in reply and pointed up the +opposite slope. Vernon rose to follow his pursuers with a backward +glance in the direction of the chariot.</p> + +<p>When they were over the bridge and out of Phyllida's hearing Charles +reined in his walking horse and inquired if Vernon was willing to give +him satisfaction.</p> + +<p>"For what?" said the latter with a sneer.</p> + +<p>"For insulting my Muse," said Charles, determined if possible not to +make Phyllida the subject of the quarrel.</p> + +<p>"Your muse?" echoed Vernon, with the faintest intonation of surprise, +"but I promised you satisfaction for that a month hence."</p> + +<p>Vernon was equally determined that Phyllida should be the direct +occasion of the duel, if duel there must be.</p> + +<p>The rosy heavens became a sheet of vivid scarlet intersected with the +golden bars of the fast rising sun. Up he came in a blaze and dazzle of +glory, lustrous and invigorating; still the colour was not quite +effaced, and on the three men that scarlet dawn made an invincible +impression of disaster and woe. A red sky is a warning to shepherds and +sailors, no doubt it was ominous to lovers.</p> + +<p>The summit of the hill was reached and involuntarily the three paused in +their wrangling to marvel at the extensive landslip suffused with the +amber haze of earliest morn. The homesteads in sight seemed untenanted: +there was not a single column of curling smoke to mark the presence of +humanity.<a name="page_331" id="page_331"></a></p> + +<p>Where they were standing, the road was bordered on either side by a wide +stretch of level sward. On the left was a spinney of larches showing as +yet no crimson plumes of Spring, round which numbers of rabbits +gambolled in air that sparkled like golden wine. It seemed indeed more +like July than April, and only the bare trees told the true tale of the +season's youthfulness. Up here on the top of the world the three men +drank in the beauty of the universe and, having as it were performed +their orisons, turned to arrange the details of a bloody encounter.</p> + +<p>"I promised I would meet you where you would in a month's time," +repeated Vernon obstinately.</p> + +<p>"But I prefer to meet you now," replied Charles.</p> + +<p>"I have no one to act for me."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Clare will act for both of us."</p> + +<p>"That is an irregular proceeding."</p> + +<p>"I don't care."</p> + +<p>"And Miss Courteen?" Vernon was resolved to drag Charles to the real +point at issue. "What is to become of Miss Courteen?"</p> + +<p>"In either event, Mr. Clare will be able to escort her back to Curtain +Wells."</p> + +<p>"D—— n you," said Vernon, roused by his enemy's assumption of +guardianship. "And what if she wishes to stay with me?"</p> + +<p>"Mr. Lovely has her mother's authority to conduct her home," interposed +Clare.</p> + +<p>"What you two prim busybodies don't appear to understand is that Miss +Courteen prefers to remain with me."</p> + +<p>"Miss Courteen is not her own mistress. She is not of age," said Clare.</p> + +<p>"And pray how do you propose to make her accompany you?"</p> + +<p>"Why, in this way," interrupted Charles, shaking off his friend's arm, +"in this way, Mr. Vernon. If you decline to meet me with pistols, by +G—— I'll thrash you senseless with my crop."</p> + +<p>Vernon's hands twitched for a moment, but he had<a name="page_332" id="page_332"></a> learned a new +restraint, gained a new dignity from the wondrous ride and with scarcely +a perceptible quiver in his voice begged to point out to his friend Mr. +Lovely that if he shot him, he should not scruple to shoot Mr. Clare +were the latter to stand in his way.</p> + +<p>"But what if you're shot, Sir?" cried Charles, betraying in his +eagerness the true reason for his desire to force an instant encounter, +"as by G—— you deserve to be for murdering the poor little Major."</p> + +<p>Vernon was perplexed.</p> + +<p>"The Major? Is he dead? I had nothing to do with his death." The +simplicity of the denial almost convinced his listeners that he was +speaking the truth.</p> + +<p>"Come, Sirrah, will you meet me? said Charles, lifting his crop.</p> + +<p>"Listen, you pair of puppies," said Vernon between his teeth. "I could +have put a bullet into either of you at any time during the last five +minutes, and by heavens, I don't know why I kept my finger from the +trigger. Yes, I do," he shouted. "I've got a chance of happiness and I'm +not going to throw it away by having your blood on my head. You're an +interfering pair of fools, but I cheated one of you at cards and I +played a low game over the book, and by G——, I believe my father was a +gentleman. I'll meet you, Mr. Lovely, now."</p> + +<p>With these words he flung down on the grass at Charles' feet the two +pistols which the skirts of his riding-coat had concealed.</p> + +<p>"I'll step fifteen paces," said Mr. Clare, hiding his emotion with a +piece of practical utility. And, as he began to measure the ground, away +down in the broken chariot, Phyllida woke with a start. She was +surprized by the daylight and called to her lover. Only birdsong +answered her voice. In sudden dismay, presentiment hanging over her like +the aftermath of an evil dream, she jumped from the chariot. Intuition, +perhaps the remembrance of last night's fear, made her look towards the +summit of the slope. In silhouette against the golden sky, she saw three +figures.<a name="page_333" id="page_333"></a> Breathless with horror she ran in their direction. Up the hill +she laboured. It was still cold from the night air and foreboding was +heavy upon her heart. Up the hill she struggled, leaving in her path +many fluttering pieces of muslin where eager feet had torn the frail +flounces. Down the road, she saw them level their weapons. "One, two, +three," came in measured tones along the still air of the morning. There +were two shots, the scud of frightened rabbits to their burrows, a +reeling figure, a cloud across the sun, a mist over life, and she was +kneeling in the dewy grass beside Amor.</p> + +<p>"Oh, God!" she screamed, "He's dead. Oh! Oh! Oh!"</p> + +<p>That anguished cry wounded Lovely deeper than any leaden bullet, for it +killed his hopes.</p> + +<p>At the touch of his dear one, Vernon opened his dark eyes.</p> + +<p>"Here's a bunch of primroses," he murmured, "not daisies. I picked them, +Phyllida ... for you ... not daisies ... primroses...."</p> + +<p>And so with thoughts of flowers, Mr. Francis Vernon died. Pray let that +sentence be his epitaph.</p> + +<p>Charles, watching the maid stare into the sun with eyes whose light +seemed fled with the swift-flying soul of the dead man, wished +passionately—wildly—that he were the quiet body there in the dewy +grass.</p> + +<p>"What shall we do?" he murmured brokenly to Clare.</p> + +<p>"Leave her alone for a while."</p> + +<p>"What a mistake it has been."</p> + +<p>They walked away with cautious steps and spoke in whispers as if they +were afraid.</p> + +<p>"What right had I to interfere between lovers?"</p> + +<p>"You did it for the best."</p> + +<p>"I know, I know, but what a d——d number of silly actions are done for +the best."</p> + +<p>"To-day is the first of April," said Clare, seeking with a commonplace +to relieve the tension of Charles's distracted mind.</p> + +<p>"Is it? What an April fool fortune has made of me."<a name="page_334" id="page_334"></a></p> + +<h2><i>Chapter the Thirty-seventh</i><br /><br /> +APRIL FOOLS</h2> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HE last ejaculation of Chapter XXXVI will serve as an admirable summary +of the positions in which a number of our characters found themselves on +April the First, in the year whose annals include this small history.</p> + +<p>There is a peculiar happiness of choice in making the first day of that +treacherous and feminine month coincide with the humiliation of a large +number of worthy people. We plunge into April with a prodigious +expectation of jollity: we delight in the sound of her name, liquid as +the song of a thrush; we strut in the sunshine, fling off our surtouts, +recline on banks where the painted adder lurks and the East wind cuts +down from the high pastures, and altogether behave in a very foolish +fashion. The heavens have taken a deeper blue; so among the cowslips we +contemplate their azure until a black squall blows along, stings our +rash necks with perilous hailstones and drives us headlong to the +shelter of the pale green hedgerows. There on the drifted leaves of dead +Octobers, we are scratched by the crimson thorns of briers and, slowly +acquiring an extensive rheumatism, wish very sincerely we had never +stirred from the hearth where the wise pages of Montaigne or La +Rochefoucauld lie dog-eared through our precipitate adventure.</p> + +<p>Yet, after all, it is better to be a fool in April than a wise man in +November. Pit and boxes hear the ravings of the mad Ophelia with the +sense of superiority secured by plush, but the most of them would be +better men and women for having gathered that nosegay of columbines and +rue.</p> + +<p>So drop a tear for Phyllida. She was the heroine of the<a name="page_335" id="page_335"></a> piece, the +gentlest, tenderest maid. Sorrow has laid his grey fingers upon her +heart and, though she may grow old and wise and wed a squire with +well-tilled acres and spacious hall, to the end of her life a poignant +experience, on which you have been the privileged intruder, will +modulate her lightest laugh with a deeper harmony.</p> + +<p>At the <i>Basket of Roses</i> there were April fools that day.</p> + +<p>"Charles made up his mind and did no good," said Mr. Ripple. "I +hesitated, and was in no better case. What is one to do?"</p> + +<p>Sir George Repington was quite broken up by the affair. Years ago he had +built a bower in April which was destroyed in a morning. In old age, +Spring fooled him again.</p> + +<p>Like the heavy footnote of a tragedy, Mr. Moon, lately arrived by the +Wells waggon, employed himself with practical suggestions. Mr. Lovely +must retire over the water for a while, the sooner the better. Mrs. +Courteen and Miss Phyllida must return to Hampshire. He would make +posting arrangements; their baggage must be sent after them. Tarry must +be buried in the parish church at home; he could not allow a neighbour +to lie in a strange churchyard. For once in his life, Mr. Moon was of +real use to a situation and, in the protracted discussions of expedients +for hushing the matter up and conveying the principals safely into +seclusion, the grief of many hearts was temporarily allayed.</p> + +<p>"You must come back with me to Curtain Wells, George," decided Mr. +Ripple, "we must not allow the world to invent any more explanations of +the affair. I doubt the wildest rumours are flying round. In a month or +two, Charles can return if he will; meanwhile you and I, George, will +give ourselves the pleasure of paying his debts."</p> + +<p>In the dusk of to-morrow's dawn, the vivid yellow chaise of Beau Ripple +rattled over the cobbles of Curtain Wells, and drew up before the Great +House. A dexterous and hurried toilet was performed with Mr. Mink's +assistance and the watchers from the windows, ignorant whether the Great +little Man was returned, were immensely gratified to see him emerge from +his front door, goblet in hand, and wearing a<a name="page_336" id="page_336"></a> new buff suit of +unparagoned cut with very full trimming round the skirts.</p> + +<p>The Exquisite Mob buzzed around the Beau's pedestal with a scarcely +contained curiosity. Mr. Oboe, the Physician, was almost more +subservient than usual, and not a single person inquired after his +neighbour's health or expatiated upon his own. Gog and Magog exposed +their ivory teeth in a permanent smile of welcome, and in the kitchen of +the Great House, Mrs. Binn, the Beau's intelligent cook, prepared a +breakfast of the most savoury character. His ascent to the rostrum +produced an expectant silence.</p> + +<p>"My lords, ladies and gentlemen," he began, "I owe you a profound +apology. You will, of course, understand that in my capacity as Master +of the Ceremonies of Curtain Wells, I am under no obligation to any one, +but as Horace Ripple, I feel that my conduct in deserting you yesterday +morning without any notice of my intention deserves an explanation. When +I inform you that a domestick difficulty not entirely unconnected with +my censorious office called for hasty adjustment, you will, I am sure, +pardon me for not divulging the details of a very unfortunate affair. If +I may trespass to such an extent upon your good nature, I should like to +make my late adventure the subject of a short admonition. As you are +aware, I am not accustomed to mingle with the practical politicks of my +matutinal oration any allusion to your moral welfare: I should esteem it +highly impertinent on my part, were I to usurp in such a way the +prerogative of our friend the Rector. Nevertheless I am inclined to make +an exception to my rule this morning, the more so as I feel it my duty +to inform you of my impending resignation."</p> + +<p>The Beau raised his monocle in order to regard the consternation of the +Exquisite Mob.</p> + +<p>"That event may not occur yet a while; at any rate I shall remain in my +present position during this season. Next October, however, I hope to +present you with a younger, I will not say worthier, successor. +Naturally I shall still spend the greater part of my time in Curtain +Wells, but with the<a name="page_337" id="page_337"></a> advance of years, I shall wish to be excused from +many of your more nocturnal gaieties. That desire I could not gratify +were I still to hold the reins of responsibleness. However, this is not +an oration of farewell, so I will not longer emphasize the melancholy +topick of mutability.</p> + +<p>"The advice I would offer you this morning is, next to the duty of a +regular course of chalybeate, the most important item in human +happiness. My lords, ladies and gentlemen, never meddle with other +people's business when it happens to concern the heart or the soul of a +human creature. Do not, because you are older or because you have read +more widely or because you have travelled across Europe or because you +have dined with a Minister, or because you suffer from any of the +numerous delusions of superiority, do not be too sure that you are +competent to interfere with somebody who has enjoyed none of these +accidental advantages. Admonish the erring child, warn the impetuous +young woman, chide the libertine, reproach the gamester, set an example +of continence to all the world, but abstain from direct interference; +and if an unpleasant doom overwhelms the object of your interest, pray +do not suppose that you would have been able to avert it. My lords, +ladies and gentlemen, you are one and all the genteelest of companions, +but so far as my theology has taken me, you are none of you gods or +goddesses, except in the hyperbole of poetick dedications.</p> + +<p>"You have already heard the announcement of your forthcoming +entertainments; let me add to their number with a very cordial +invitation to the Great House, next Tuesday week. Finally, let me add +that during my tenure of office, I shall hope to make these personal +encounters a very frequent delight to your obliged humble servant Horace +Ripple. Oh, and pray let me assure you that my absence yesterday morning +was in no way due to any desire on my part to celebrate the festival of +the First of April. My lords, ladies and gentlemen, your very obedient."</p> + +<p>With these words the Great little Man descended from his pedestal, and +was presently in affable conversation with a number of men and women of +rank and fashion.<a name="page_338" id="page_338"></a></p> + +<p>You will remember that when, it seems an age ago, we first saw Beau +Ripple and the Exquisite Mob, we also met Mr. Vernon and Miss Phyllida +Courteen. For my own part, I feel that the Pump Room on this morning +lacked vitality for all its glitter and stir of elegant movement. I miss +the swansdown muff and the blushing, eager face of Phyllida. I miss +those little notes that dropped like feathers from the wings of Love. I +miss the ingenuous artifice and sweet stratagems of Phyllida and Betty +and for all it would nearly break my heart to see her misery, I would +fain be walking behind them away down in some budding Hampshire lane. +They are still in a postchaise, however, and the musty odour is wringing +her heart with an agony of regret. In what a world of memories will she +live the summer through. The cuckoo will call in the green wood and the +nightingale thrill the moonshine with her passionate song, but Phyllida +will stare into the sun.</p> + +<p>In a dip of the billowy downs, the harebells wave from their fragile +stems and ladies' slippers glow with red and orange flames. Far below +you can see the flashing wings of kestrels and hear the lapwing's +desolate cry. The beech trees rustle and in the long dry grass the wind +sighs continually. There she will sit hour after hour in the summer +heat, until she can forget.</p> + +<p>And yet, little heroine of a sad tale, I wonder whether you would not +have drooped in London and spent long lonely evenings while the twilight +stole in from the murmurous streets of the city. I wonder whether after +all you were not happier with a flock of rosy children, a portrait by +Mr. Romney, and the most comfortable corner in the great Hall pew. Upon +my soul, I am not competent to give an opinion.</p> + +<p>Phyllida's mother certainly thought that everything was for the best. In +her case optimism brought its reward, and she secured Courteen Grange as +a dower house, where she continued for many years to be very spritely +company for all the dowagers and many of the old bachelors in the +neighbourhood. It is perhaps strange she did not marry Mr. Moon, but to +confess the truth, the death of Major Tarry destroyed<a name="page_339" id="page_339"></a> some of his +charm. Without that brisk veteran to stir his ponderous courtship, the +Justice became wearisome, possibly with greater opportunity of intimacy, +more cautious. No doubt in the course of his legal researches, he came +upon the Codicil to Squire Courteen's Will, and his election to the +Chairmanship of the Bench rendered him oblivious to anything more +trivial than Immortal Renown. If we can judge of his qualities by the +epitaph in the South Aisle of the Church, he united in one person the +austerity of Solon, the severity of Draco, the wisdom of Solomon, and +the domination of Aaron. He never finished his great essay on Peace, but +as his mural biographer justly remarked, 'His was now the Peace that +passeth all Understanding,' so that presumably the publication of his +fragment would have been a superfluous tribute. One particular +distinction belongs to Mr. Moon. He was never made an April fool. And if +the quiet tea-tables of Newton Candover were temporarily disturbed by +the escapade of Miss Phyllida Courteen, why the parson benefited by an +increase in his congregation. But even the most impudent curiosity could +not long survive Mrs. Courteen's circumambient frankness.<a name="page_340" id="page_340"></a></p> + +<h2><i>Chapter the Thirty-eighth</i><br /><br /> +BEAU LOVELY</h2> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">C</span>HARLES was perfectly right when he said Fortune had made an April fool +of him. He should have accepted the ill omen of Valentine morning, for +it was certainly very unlucky to mock the God of Love with a false +pledge of affection. He was never intended for Phyllida. As Betty +rightly pointed out, they were too much alike. Pray do not suppose that +he was not an utterly miserable man for a long time. He was; but, in +compensation for being born a poet, he possessed the latter's faculty +for enshrining a reality in a sentiment. Phyllida came in time to stand +for the symbol of elusive youth. During his retreat abroad he suddenly +discovered that what he suspected was true, he had grown old. His father +had enjoyed a perennial inducement to commit foolish actions in the +quiet disapproval of his wife. Charles, however, in receipt of a +handsome allowance from his uncle found he no longer had the slightest +inclination to play. Wine had never attracted him save in moments of +high excitement and he was willing to let his love for Phyllida occupy +for ever the sacred inmost shrine of his heart.</p> + +<p>Clare remained with him as long as he thought Charles needed his +company, but word arriving that his cousin had died, he returned to +Devonshire, and in the following year you might have read in the +<i>Gentleman's Magazine</i> 'Sir Anthony Clare of Clare Court, Devon, to Miss +Arabella Hopley with £10,000.'</p> + +<p>To the end of his days he always said that if he lived his youth over +again, he should not have acted otherwise than he did upon the first of +April 17—. But Tony Clare was<a name="page_341" id="page_341"></a> obstinate in many ways, and, as I +believe, never admitted the virtue of even a new manure very willingly. +Before Clare left Charles had received a letter from Beau Ripple +inviting him to reside once more at Curtain Wells.</p> + +<p>"That is impossible," said Tony stiffly.</p> + +<p>"I suppose it is."</p> + +<p>"You forget that foolish satire."</p> + +<p>"I take it that Ripple intends me to succeed him as King of the Wells."</p> + +<p>"The publication of <i>Curtain Polls</i> has made that impossible."</p> + +<p>"I don't know. It might incline them to respect me."</p> + +<p>Charles was very lonely in Paris after Tony had gone, and when war broke +out again, he decided to go back to England. Just before he started he +received a second epistle from the Beau.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="r"> + +T<small>HE</small> G<small>REAT</small> H<small>OUSE</small>,<br /> +<i>June</i> 15. </p> + +<p>M<small>Y DEAR </small>C<small>HARLES</small>,—<i>Our season will presently evaporate in this +atrocious heat, and your Uncle and I intend to visit Repington +Hall. He is now somewhat recovered of his Disappointment and very +anxious to consult with you as to the advisableness of selling the +Property. I agree with him in thinking that you would not enjoy the +somewhat gross seclusion of a rustick Squire, so that you will +oblige him by returning to England and letting him know your +feelings in the Matter.</i></p> + +<p><i>I cannot see you can do better than take up your permanent +residence in Curtain Wells. I do not wish to urge you into a +contemplative Existence too prematurely, but to a man of your +temperament the opportunities of observing human Character must +make an imperious appeal. These I can offer you together with the +pleasant pastime of ruling the fashionable World. You need not fret +yourself with any early indiscretions. They will very soon acquire +a romantick Interest of their own, and I confidently look forward +to your success in the splendid Office I have long wished you to +fulfil. You will have the benefit of my Advice which I hope you +will not find too obtrusive. Come, what do you say? There is a +capital<a name="page_342" id="page_342"></a> house contiguous to Curtain Garden. I fear I cannot yet +resign the Great House. Your Uncle is willing to buy this property +for you and eagerly looks forward to your acceptance of his Offer. +In this hope he is cordially joined by</i></p> + +<p class="r"> +<i>Your devoted</i> <br /> +H<small>ORACE</small> R<small>IPPLE</small>.</p></div> + +<p>Charles hesitated no longer and hurried as quickly as possible to +Repington Hall. The canary-coloured footmen received him with extreme +deference, and he found the wide polished staircase quite easy to climb. +He had been a little afraid of his uncle's sentimental reminiscence, but +as it turned out his fears were groundless. Nothing was said about the +past and the conversation was almost entirely of a financial character. +He spent the remainder of the summer with Sir George Repington at +Scarborough, returning early in the autumn to form the establishment of +his new residence, Dragon Lodge.</p> + +<p>He bought a monocle of such thickness that the human countenance seen +through its glass was reduced to the merest pin-point. He procured two +Chinese mutes—Heaven knows how or where—but their names were Ho and +No. His eccentricities would exhaust another volume of description. He +was the famous Beau who appeared on the first of the month in a +light-coloured suit that gradually deepened until, on the last day of +the month, it always achieved blackness. When asked by somebody the +reason of this mode he replied that he was mourning the flight of time: +when asked farther why he was not perpetually funereal in his costume he +replied that the first day of the month always revived his hopes of +immortality. It was observed, however, that in April his dress did not +alter and those who rashly inquired the reason for this exception were +severely rebuked for their curiosity. His library was one of the finest +in England, although it did not contain a single copy of <i>Curtain +Polls</i>. The Great Dr. Johnson on one occasion complimented him upon the +selection of his authors, the decorousness of his bindings, and the +rigidity of his ladders.<a name="page_343" id="page_343"></a></p> + +<p>As Mr. Ripple had prophesied, the indiscretions of his past in course of +time acquired a romantick mystery of their own. He was credited in turn +with a faithless wife immured in a Gothick dungeon in the North-West of +the Island of Sicily, with a prodigiously passionate affair with a +German princess in which he was said to have pinked four Royal Dukes, +and with innumerable other entanglements quite impossible to recount. +All these tales only added to his prestige, while his wealth and +amiability gave him a reputation second to none of the Beaux of the +past. He wrote a number of verses, but never published another volume, +and was probably the original whom Sir Benjamin Backbite copied, though +his reasons for not printing were quite different from those of the +later fop.</p> + +<p>He would sometimes return early from assembly, rout, or ridotto to pay a +visit to Mr. Ripple. He would usually find the latter engaged in a game +of picket with Sir George Repington; and, after entertaining the two old +gentlemen with a witty and satirical account of the evening's +entertainment, he would walk slowly back to Dragon Lodge, stare +meditatively at the new motto he had adopted, <i>Fui decorus</i>, step into a +small ivory room that opened out of the massive library and take from a +cedar-wood drawer a white swansdown muff.</p> + +<p class="c"><br /><br /><br />E<small>XPLICIT</small></p> + +<hr class="full" /> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Passionate Elopement, by Compton Mackenzie + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PASSIONATE ELOPEMENT *** + +***** This file should be named 38177-h.htm or 38177-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/8/1/7/38177/ + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images available at The Internet Archive) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Passionate Elopement + +Author: Compton Mackenzie + +Release Date: November 30, 2011 [EBook #38177] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PASSIONATE ELOPEMENT *** + + + + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images available at The Internet Archive) + + + + + + + + +THE PASSIONATE ELOPEMENT + + + + +THE PASSIONATE +ELOPEMENT + +_By COMPTON MACKENZIE_ + + * * * * * + +NEW YORK + +G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS + +1916 + +BALLANTINE AND CO. LTD., TAVISTOCK STREET, COVENT GARDEN, LONDON + + +_TO FAITH_ + + + + +_Contents_ + + +I. THE TOILET 1 + +II. THE PUMP ROOM 10 + +III. THE BLUE BOAR 20 + +IV. CURTAIN MAZE 34 + +V. THE PUBLICK BREAKFAST 47 + + _The Order of the Exquisite Mob_ 49 + + THE PUBLICK BREAKFAST [_resumea_ 50 + +VI. BAVERSTOCK BARN 61 + +VII. SUNDAY MORNING 75 + +VIII. THE GREAT REBELLION 82 + +IX. THE ASSEMBLY 86 + +X. AFTER THE ASSEMBLY 104 + +XI. NOX ALBA 109 + +XII. WET DAYS 114 + +XIII. MONARCHY IN ACTION 118 + +XIV. MONARCHY IN REPOSE 127 + +XV. PHOEBUS ADEST 135 + +XVI. THE CHINESE MASQUERADE 146 + +XVII. THE GRAND MINUET OF CATHAY 157 + +XVIII. THE CONFIDANTE 165 + +XIX. BLACKHART FARM WITH A COCK-FIGHT 171 + +XX. IN WHICH EVERYTHING GROWS BUT +THE PLOT 180 + +XXI. CURTAIN POLLS 184 + +XXII. THE CURTAIN ROD 193 + +XXIII. SPACE BETWEEN AN HEROICK COUPLET 198 + +XXIV. DAISH'S ROOMS 209 + +XXV. QUARTS OF BURGUNDY 216 + +XXVI. AND THE DREGS OF THE SAME 231 + +XXVII. TIME FOR REFLECTION 236 + +XXVIII. THE LOVE CHASE 247 + +XXIX. THE BASKET OF ROSES 255 + +XXX. SIR GEORGE REPINGTON 265 + +XXXI. A TALE WITH AN INTERRUPTED MORAL 273 + +XXXII. THE HORRID ADVENTURES OF BEAU RIPPLE AND MRS. COURTEEN 277 + +XXXIII. THE HIGHWAYMEN 290 + +XXXIV. OLD ACQUAINTANCE 300 + +XXXV. THE CUTTING OF A DIAMOND 312 + +XXXVI. THE SCARLET DAWN 319 + +XXXVII. APRIL FOOLS 334 + +XXXVIII. BEAU LOVELY 340 + + + + +_The PASSIONATE ELOPEMENT_ + + + + +_Chapter the First_ + +THE TOILET + + +The meagre sun that for thirteen pallid February days had shone with no +more brilliance than a rushlight stuck amid the cobwebs of a garret, +poured down at last his profuse glories, and Curtain Wells woke up to a +fine morning and the burden of conscious existence, with an effort all +the more completely unanimous on account of its reputation as an inland +Spa. Residence there implied an almost monastick ideal of regularity. +Other shrines of AEsculapius, falling from their primitive purity of +worship, might set up for adoration a hooped Venus or bag-wigged Cupid, +but Curtain Wells would never admit so naked and misleading a pair of +Immortals. Her fountains ministered to bodily ailments--Vapours, Winds, +Gouts, Quinsies, Consumptions, Fevers quartan and tertian--without +pretending to the power of love-philtres or the sparkle of the Castalian +Spring. 'Tis true, romantick dusk or sunset candlelight might consecrate +the vows of many a shepherd and shepherdess, but those stretched hours +of dalliance were always understood to be the sensuous reward of a +strict matutinal discipline. + +Consequently Curtain Wells woke up as to a bugle-call. Casement-hangings +were flung back, shutters unbarred and, wonderful to relate, an +occasional window-sash creaked and subsided. A simultaneous toilet would +be followed by a simultaneous visit to the cleansing springs. Drums, +routs, auctions, ridottos, and masquerades did not avail to keep their +votaries abed. Perchance a velvet patch would hide the wearer's secret +blemish less artfully; beneath young Miss Kitcat's eyes there might be a +deeper violet than the state of her health warranted; my lady Bunbutter +newly arrived from scurrilous Bath might see her nose sharpen to a +richer carmine point; but half-past eight o'clock would behold them all +bound for the Pump Room, somewhat reticent perhaps, a little fretful +even, yet completely subjugated by their self-imposed renunciation. + +St. Simon's clock struck the half-hour of seven, and the birds who live +tropick days in the eternal summer of chintz curtains seemed to crow +remorsefully at any sluggard who was inclined longer to indulge his +laziness. The sun spangled their plumage with innumerable pin-points of +light until they began to glow with all the astonishing dyes of printed +fabricks. They glowed and ruffled until the sluggard forsook his couch +and, creeping over the chilly floor, flung them back into a day-long +folded tranquillity. Here, then, is an excellent opportunity to catch a +few of our fine characters unaware. Follow the guidance of my Muses and +you will see hero and heroine, comedian, villain, and chorus stripped of +all outward aids to beauty. You may trust the modesty of Clio and +Melpomene who will certainly treat their own sex with discretion and +admit you to the keyhole not a moment before it becomes your disposition +of mind. Pray do not expect a wanton exhibition because you are holding +on to the draperies of two pagan young women. + +See that fine house in the middle of the Crescent. Mark the flambeaux +guttering and sputtering into an odorous death. Note the flattened +Ionick columns which lend it such an air of superiority, and the extra +story, and the fat bow-windows on either side of the door. Look well at +the door with its cornice of airy Cupids for ever playing Hide and Seek +behind solemn urns and festoons of carven flowers. + +That is the Great House where Beau Ripple lives. Do you wonder at the +early hour of rising when you know that his decree was responsible for +the united achievement? I cannot think you do; especially if you have +read his _Epigrams_ published by Mr. Scratch at the Sign of the _Claw_ +in Paul's Churchyard--those epigrams with razor-keen edge translated +into Latin by Doctor Fumble and into Greek by the Reverend Mr. Tootell. +We read how, in ancient days, tyrants beguiled their political victims +with Impromptus of their own composition and at Curtain Wells it was +esteemed an honour to be reprimanded in such polished prose. Mr. Ripple +scorned the easy allurements of metre and, although in himself he summed +up the profound artificiality of his age, he was wont to say that Verse +as a form of composition possessed all the disadvantages of prose +without any of the advantages. + +Let us take a glimpse at the Great Man in the Great House while the +little maid is pondering the gaudy Valentine stuck in a crack of the +basement-steps by the sweep's apprentice. + +That carpet of mellow hue was presented by the Captain of an East +Indiaman, much addicted to wind. It muffles the footsteps of the +courtiers who throng the stairs, and secures a respectful calm. It even +enables us to reach the door of his bedchamber unheralded, but as, +invisible and armed with reverence, we cross the threshold, the Great +Beau is nowhere to be seen. We observe his bedclothes dignified even in +disarray, we see the open patchbox, the bottles of Eau de Luce and Eau +de Chypre, the black sattin tie and the wig on the stand, but not until, +instinct with awe, we drop our eyes, do we behold two pink feet and the +Circumference of the least austere portion of his anatomy wrapped, it is +true, in embroidered dressing gown, and with the bedspread hung about it +like a pall, yet nevertheless an unmistakeable Circumference protruding +from beneath the bed. Diana very wisely killed Actaeon for overlooking +her toilet, and I doubt we deserve the same penalty, for when, the +errant button in his hand, we see the Beau emerge with purple cheeks and +oaths innumerable, a certain conviction steals over our shocked +sensibility that the Great little Man is only mortal after all, of the +same temper and anatomy as ourselves, and, as the gods know very well, +this is a mighty dangerous and revolutionary discovery. + +There stood Beau Ripple dancing and d--g, while a monologue with +appropriate action went somehow like this: + +_Beau._ D---- all buttons for being round. + +Then he danced. + +_Beau._ D---- all pins for dropping upon the floor and the chambermaids +for not picking them up, and my own feet for treading on them. + +Then he danced again. + +_Beau._ D---- all beds for being wide. + +Then he danced. + +_Beau._ D---- my eyes, I shall be late for the waters. + +Then he danced to his mirrour. And the mirrour showed a man of ripe age +with smooth round face and a pair of very blue eyes. + +_Beau._ And d---- you, Ripple, for a clumsy old fool. + +Hereupon the Great little Man beamed at himself, for the nature of him +was so truly kind that he could not be crossed by himself for long, and +as for the world, his severity never upset the balance of a well-turned +phrase. He was an urbane man, one who had presumably lived all his life +in prim and decorous cities but, since he will preside over this story +of mine, we shall learn more about him as we go along. + +Further round the Crescent, Mrs. Choke let furnished apartments to +valetudinarian bachelors, and in one of the brightest of these, Mr. +Francis Vernon sat before his looking glass contemplatively combing his +wig. His closely cropped curly hair accentuated the lines of a profile +already inclined to sharpness, just as his red lips enhanced the +surrounding paleness of his complexion. He combed his wig very much as a +man strokes a cat. The caress half-felt loses itself in speculation, and +just now Mr. Vernon was gazing at the wrought-iron balcony of the +opposite house where Miss Phyllida Courteen, all swansdown and rosy +cheeks, was plucking half a dozen snowdrops from a bough-pot. These were +to be enclosed in a note and sent by the hand of the first +pleasant-looking passer-by to Miss Sukey Morton in the Western +Colonnade. And the aforesaid Miss Morton would, in the estimation of +Miss Courteen, simper and blush and confide in her dear Phyllida that, +though she had known he admired her and indeed, had proffered her a +dropped fan more than once at the Monday Assemblies, yet never, _never_ +had she for a moment imagined that he would _dare_ to send her a +Valentine, and if he had, she would have _died_ rather than take it, +yes, _died_, for _what_ she would do when she passed him next Monday +evening, she could not _think_, especially as he was _known_ to be +partial to her, and her Mechlin pinner was quite ruined by the +_abominable_ wax-candles they would use just because the P---- of +W---- was not coming that year after all. + +Miss Courteen was so much charmed by this loquacious dream that she +began to compose an appropriate verse destined to be wrapped round the +green stalks of the flowers. + + _The snowdrop's white_ + _And so are you. . ._ + +The smallest foot in the world beat time upon the balcony making the +iron bars on which she stood vibrate in twanging chords, but failed to +summon from the caves of Poesy an echo worthy of the snowdrop's white. + +"The last line is monstrous easy," she thought. + +_The bluebell's blue!_ and the accumulation of liquids and labials has +enchanted her mouth to such a delicious pout that Mr. Vernon is leaning +forward and combing his wig more contemplatively than ever, for, +although he cannot see his charmer's lips, he feels sure from the +attitude of her whole body that her face is infernally captivating, and +the memory of her last whispered good-bye assails him and kindles a +leaping flame at the back of his hazel eyes. + +Such a merciless regard as ours penetrates to the heart and we know that +Mr. Vernon is wondering what on earth will come of his affair with Miss +Courteen, and speculating how much she will inherit, and whether +matrimony is quite so expensive a joy as his friends make out. The +thought of money writes an ugly twisted line across his high smooth +forehead, and this line broadens into a hundred little tributary lines +as he thinks of his debts. So he brings himself back to the obstacles of +life in rather a gloomy frame of mind and faces the necessity of his +toilet in such a depression of spirits that he selects a suit to match +his mood. And that is the reason why Mr. Francis Vernon wore purple +sattin on Valentine morning. + +All this while, Miss Courteen is quite unable to invent that odious +third line, and though she taps her foot to aerial musick and pulls a +chestnut curl right over her nose and twists it round her fingers and +wonders whether 'white' is a notably difficult word to rhyme, she never +succeeds, and just when she has almost succeeded, her mother's voice +sounds from the floor above. This disposes of inspiration altogether, +for though her mother's voice is very melodious and sounds prodigiously +pleasant as it murmurs 'Spadille' or 'Manille' over the card-tables, it +will allow no competition, and drives all invisible musick far away. + +"Coming, dear mamma," says Phyllida just as Mr. Vernon decides to wear +purple and just as we step out of Mrs. Choke's front door thinking it +can no longer be indiscreet to follow our Muses to the scene of Mrs. +Courteen's toilet. + +As we cross the road glittering in the sunshine with last night's rain, +we see a tall young gentleman writing busily in a set of ivory tablets +as he strolls quietly along the pavement. Mr. Lovely, the young +gentleman, looks up very quickly as a three-cornered note flutters down +and lodges in a fold of his ruffles. Miss Courteen who felt the note +falling, and thinks that after all she need not make more than a pretty +attempt to save it, peers over the railing into the upturned face of the +young gentleman who bows very low and sweeps his hat round in a very +grand curve, and begs to apologize for the awkwardness of his ruffles in +thus intercepting a lady's note. And you and I, my inquisitive +companion, stand still for a moment and watch the picture, remembering +it is merry Valentine morn. The maid with wide eyes and crimson cheeks +nestling in swansdown and the young man of the laughing expectant face, +in his peach-coloured velvet suit, seem somehow to have caught the +spirit of the day: they make us think of broken stiles, of hedges heavy +with may, of blue and white April noons, of lambs, and children with +pinafores a-flutter gathering cowslip-posies on a wind-washed down, and +of all the old and dear delights of Spring. + +Says Phyllida, "Oh! pray pardon my clumsiness." + +And "Madam," says he very gallantly, "I'm incredibly obliged, for you've +given me a rhyme." + +"Oh! pray tell me--was it to 'white'?" + +"Nay! 'twas harder than that," he murmurs. + +"But I think that is monstrous difficult." + +"Bright, sight, light," (cheerfully) "height," (regretfully) "night," +(hopefully) and "fight," (fiercely). + +"Indeed," adds Phyllida, "I thought of every one of them, but not one +would fit the sense." + +The young gentleman who is a rhymester himself, grows interested. "Might +I," says he, "without impertinence inquire your necessity?" + +"Sure, 'tis for a Valentine," and as Mr. Lovely's face darkens, she +hurriedly adds, "for a young lady, a friend of mine, you'll see the +direction writ on the flap." + +His face clears again and he asks, + +"You wish it delivered?" + +"Oh, sir! how did you guess?" + +"By accident, ma'am, or a happy intuition, I stepped out to take the air +this fine morning, and chance has discovered for me an incontrovertible +excuse for such idle exercise. To be footman to a sister of the Muses is +surely appropriate service for a poet." + +"Then you are a poet?" + +"My publisher affirms it." + +"How romantick truly!" but the tail of the sigh is interrupted by her +mother's voice, and she has bare time to murmur her thanks, drop a +genteel curtsey and vanish. As for Mr. Lovely he has registered a vow to +attend the Monday Assembly next week instead of sitting down to Hazard +at the _Blue Boar_ Inn. + +Abovestairs all is confusion because Mrs. Courteen cannot make up her +mind between yellow lutestring and orange silk. Phyllida whose heart is +full of the dancing springtide thinks her dear mamma should wear the +brightest colours and the richest stuffs in the world. + +"For if you would only allow the curtains to be drawn back, you would +see what a golden morning it is outside," she complains to her mother +who answers: + +"Women of fashion, Phyllida, dress by candlelight for candlelight." + +Betty the maid, agrees with her young mistress, "Sweet, pretty dear +lamb," as she asseverates in Hampshire accents, "Orange silk, say I, and +God bless the gaulden sun." + +Mrs. Courteen who is sitting nearly half-undressed and quite incapable +of forming a decision, bids Betty go and find out Thomas' opinion. +Thomas is the family footman and a great critick of men, women, and +religions. Presently Betty comes back and says that Tammas would prefar +yaller. + +"Why, Betty, why?" + +"Because," answers the maid, "he says silks are for the vain and +abominable and lutestrings have a pleasant twang and savour of the +psalmist." + +So Mrs. Courteen turns from yellow sack to orange sack and from +primrose-quilted petticoat to apricock-quilted petticoat in despair, +till at last Betty asks triumphantly: + +"How would it be, ma'am, if you was to wear your most elegant and truly +genteel green sattin seeing that it do be Saint Valentine with a smell +of green leaves in the air?" + +This provokes a new decision, and causes a great rummaging in drawers +and presses and closets until the gown, fragrant with last year's +lavender, is discovered, when the toilet too long neglected starts +afresh. + +"What patches, ma'am?" says Betty. + +"My Cupid's bow and the two tears of widowhood." + +"What scents, mamma?" asks Phyllida. + +"My Citron Essence, child." + +Then shoes are buckled, stockings are gartered, and a black mantua +placed gently round her shoulders. One more touch of powder, one more +brush from the rouge pot, one more flounce and one more flirt while the +watchet ribbands in the cap are hastily changed to ribbands of palest +apple-green, and a pair of emerald snaps are quickly fastened. + +"Does my hoop sit straight? Oh! Lud! I vow I shall be late." + +A breathless moment and, in place of the mantua, a tippet of pheasants' +feathers is adjusted. Down the Crescent is heard the opening of many +doors. Phyllida runs to the window, draws back the curtains so that the +sun streams in upon the sicklied candles. + +"Has the Beau appeared yet?" asks Mrs. Courteen. + +"Here he comes, and oh! mamma, he is wearing a suit of olive-green." + +"What great good fortune! what taste I shall display. Green is certainly +the fashionable colour," and Mrs. Courteen began to trill to a tune of +her own invention.... + +"I shall be _a la mode_, I shall be _a la mode_ and very _bon ton_ and +_tres bon ton_." + +Radiant, she descends the stairs followed by Betty carrying an enormous +glass goblet. Outside, rubicund Thomas with heavily knobbed cane awaits +her. The widow glances over her shoulder at the crowds swinging down the +street, all equipped with glass goblets of various sizes and shapes. She +throws an anxious glance towards the head of the procession. The Beau is +certainly in green of a shade slightly darker than her own but, +nevertheless, distinctly comparable. She tosses her cap in anticipation +of the envied triumph and sails in the general direction. + +And you, Achates, who have accompanied me so early in the morning to the +toilets of some of our principal characters, pray give yourself the +additional trouble of thinking what a Great Man he must be to induce +these butterflies and moths of fashion to sally forth Cap a Pie perfect +at half-past eight o'clock of a February morning. + +"Let Bath be true to her bedgowns," he wrote, "in Curtain Wells we are +ignorant that men and women undress." + +When we think of that apoplectick Circumference which so lately +protruded, we can heartily assent to his opinion. + + + + +_Chapter the Second_ + +THE PUMP ROOM + + +As all roads are commonly reputed to lead to Earls Court, so here at +Curtain Wells all roads led to the Pump Room. It dominated the city from +the summit of a moderately steep hill as the Acropolis dominates the +almost equally famous city of Athens. In certain aspects it bore a +remarkable likeness to a Greek temple with its fluted columns and +portico haunted by many white pigeons. It was even more like a gigantick +summer-house whose interior was always open to the four winds. Any +reasonable explanation of a spring that gushed forth at the very top of +a hill always eluded those who toiled laboriously up the slope; but, as +a more religious butterfly once remarked, Providence plainly designed it +to serve some useful purpose by allowing it to gush forth at such an +unexpected elevation. The same lady used to regard volcanoes as an +uncomfortable if divine method of destroying large numbers of Papists +together, and would pertinently observe that if England had admitted the +claims of the Pretender, she was convinced what was now a cool, +health-giving fountain would have boiled over to the horrid +accompaniment of flames and lava. At precisely a quarter to nine +o'clock, Beau Ripple paused at the foot of the hill to survey through a +monocle his flurried followers. A wag once said that Ripple liked to +gaze at life through the wrong end of a spy-glass, because he himself +was of so small a stature. Whether this monocle actually diminished his +world to the size of an ant-heap, I do not know, but certainly the whole +assemblage stopped to recover their breath as if conscious of their +utter lack of importance in the eyes of the Great little Man. The +Physician-in-chief was solemnly beckoned into hearing. + +"Two minutes," said the Beau. + +Mr. Oboe the Physician opened the lid of an enormous watch attached to a +red silk fob and regarded the dial with an expression of great +intentness. He might, so complete was his abstraction, have been feeling +the pulse of the Exquisite Mob behind him. + +Slowly the minutes rolled by while the Beau took several possessive +sniffs of the young spring air. Not an unseemly whisper disturbed the +silence. So still was it that above the cooing of the sacred pigeons on +the roof of the Pump Room, far down in the valley could be heard the +lowing of cows. At thirteen minutes to nine Mr. Ripple let his monocle +drop; Mr. Oboe replaced his watch; the Pump Room bell began to clang +very fast; the Exquisite Mob started to climb the hill and innumerable +glass goblets glittered in the sun. When the summit was reached the Beau +called in a loud voice: + +"Oboe!" + +"Mr. Ripple?" bowed the Physician. + +"I allow two more minutes for panting." + +"Certainly, Mr. Ripple. Very just, sir." + +So the Exquisite Mob like the Hart panted after the Waters or perhaps +more accurately before them. + +At the expiration of the breathing-space, a diminutive negro known as +Gog advanced towards Mr. Ripple, bearing a fluted goblet upon a tray of +Chinese lacker. An equally diminutive negro called Magog presented the +goblet to Mr. Ripple who turned slightly in the direction of the company +and slowly sipped his portion with consummate meditation. When almost +half-way towards the bottom of the glass the Beau looked up as if +surprized to see his adherents still thirsty. This was understood to be +the signal for approach, and the Exquisite Mob advanced to drink while +the children, miniatures of foppery, played Hide and Seek or Touchlast +round the pillars. + +Mrs. Courteen sailed towards a thin little military man with a very long +and very crisp pigtail, whose outstanding feature in front was an +extremely conical Adam's Apple that bobbed up and down as if his throat +were a bowl of water and, rising with his choler, at boiling-point +invariably choked him into incoherence. + +The Major would have passed for one of those half-pay officers who +frequent watering-places and rely for many of their meals upon an +acquaintance with the tacticks and strategy of the late Duke of +Marlborough, with the miserable failure of Carthagena and the already +forgotten personality of his Highness the Duke of C---- d. + +As a matter of fact, he had followed Mrs. Courteen to Curtain Wells from +Hampshire where he owned a small hunting lodge known as Ramilies House, +Oudenarde Grange, and Malplaquet Place according to his humour, but for +no discoverable reason besides. He had a painted board for each +designation, but nobody ever extracted from him the principle on which, +from time to time, they were changed. When asked on one occasion why he +omitted the famous victory of Blenheim from his titular commemoration, +he replied that the omission saved the expense of continually forwarding +letters to Oxfordshire. The Major was inclined to resent the homage paid +to Beau Ripple. + +"A d----d civilian, ma'am," he muttered to Mrs. Courteen. + +"Oh! you soldiers! I protest you have no reverence for anybody." + +"Not I, ma'am. I don't bow the knee to a living soul. Not at all. +'Sblood, ma'am, the fellow's no better than a low adventurer. Would he +fight? Not he. So he forbids us to wear swords. D---- n it, ma'am, a +soldier without his hanger is like a monkey without his tail. That's +what I say." + +"So do I, Major, so do I," echoed a suave voice over his shoulder and +the Major turning round, encountered the bland half-bored, half-tolerant +smile of the Great little Man. + +"Your similes are uncommon happy, Major." + +Tarry's Apple throbbed and bubbled and rose and sank, but the Beau +passed on contemptuously, and a large flabby man in a suit of +snuff-coloured frieze treading upon the Major's toe at this moment, the +latter's wrath flowed into another channel. + +"My toe, Mr. Moon!" he said furiously. + +"Your toe?" inquired the other with great earnestness. The question of +disputed property which seemed imminent was quashed by the widow's +interruption: + +"'Tis too early for argument. Come, neighbours, let us make our +promenade. Where is Phyllida?" + +But Phyllida was making her promenade at a careful distance behind her +mother. Phyllida was taking the demurest little steps with an arm in her +beloved Betty's arm and with a swansdown muff held against her cheek to +ward off the shrewd Easterly wind, while almost level with the two maids +walked a stately gentleman of a pale complexion. And every time the +gentleman stopped to survey the promenaders over the tortoise-shell +handle of his ebony walking-stick, Phyllida and Betty stopped to see if +it was truly a quarter-past nine o'clock by St. Simon's church tower. +And every time the gentleman stopped to flick a speck of dust from his +purple sattin sleeve, by a very odd coincidence Miss Courteen always +stopped to see if her shoe had really become unbuckled. This tends to +show that in spite of all the precautions of Beau Ripple, the innermost +fane of AEsculapius had been invaded by a strange god. I doubt Miss +Courteen, considered by her mother too young for Chalybeate, was +learning to drink of that deep well whose waters will never run dry so +long as maids and men frequent its precincts. + +The Exquisite Mob continued to circle round the Pump Room because the +ritual of the Cure prescribed an hour's steady promenade before +breakfast. The scarlet heels of innumerable shoes clicked in unison and +the drowsy hum of morning small talk rose and fell upon the February +air. All agreed it was a monstrous fine day for the season of the year. +All expressed the opinion that by no stretch of imagination could such +weather be expected to last. All wished it would indeed, and everybody +asked his neighbour whether he intended to grace the next Assembly, and +the neighbour invariably replied he had every intention of doing so. +Everybody bowed or curtseyed very low to Mr. Ripple and Mr. Ripple had a +delightfully well-turned sentence for each of his subjects, as if he +would reward their energy in rising so early. Occasionally the Great +little Man would condescend to take a pinch of the best Rappee with an +elderly gentleman. But as he never took snuff with anybody under the +rank of Viscount in the peerage of England and as the peer thus honoured +was bound to be above the age of five-and-forty, it happened that the +elderly gentleman was always old Lord Vanity, the only individual +present who satisfied the double requirement. + +"How different this scene is from Hampshire to be sure, though for my +part I shall ever protest that those who have eyes to see, let them see, +and people who accuse us of wasting our time forget how persistently +they look for the arrival of the carrier." + +Whether or not Major Tarry and Mr. Moon understood this remark of Mrs. +Courteen's, they certainly both agreed with her. + +"To-day is Session day," muttered the Justice rather gloomily. + +"Well, sir, the magistrates will do their business without you," snapped +his rival. + +"Not unlikely, sir, not unlikely." + +"Well, sir, what the deuce are you grumbling at?" + +Mr. Moon replied that he was not grumbling, he was merely commenting; +and the two gentlemen bickered on across placid Mrs. Courteen like two +children over a hedge. + +Meanwhile on the farther side of the Course, as the broad path round the +Pump Room was called, Mr. Vernon was still keeping step with Phyllida +and Betty, but so delicately did the former tread and so far aloof did +he appear that no one suspected him of anything so low as ogling pretty +Miss Courteen or her maid. Sometimes he would murmur "When will my +charmer be there?" and every time he asked this question, the charmer +would send a rippling little laugh into her swansdown muff, and flash a +glance over the top towards Betty who would toss her head and imply that +such curiosity was worth a long-delayed gratification. + +At last Mr. Vernon would take out his laced handkerchief and flick +presumably at a ghostly Despair. Phyllida would be prodigiously afraid +that her dear Amor (by that name only did she know her lover) was +growing unhappy at her hard-hearted treatment and, feeling she had +tormented his patience long enough, would gently shake her muff until a +piece of paper fluttered slowly to the ground. Mr. Vernon would stoop +with indescribable grace and distinction of manner, and while Miss +Courteen looked very demure indeed and quite innocent of anything or +anybody in the world, he would put the piece of paper in his +handkerchief and press the handkerchief to his lips and look round the +corner of his eyes at Phyllida, who would just by chance be looking +round the corner of her eyes to ascertain if her Mamma were beckoning to +her. And this used to happen every fine morning during the promenade, +and continued to happen for many days afterwards. + +Half-past nine o'clock struck, and the promenaders all turned on their +heels to hear Mr. Ripple divulge the gaiety of the day. + +It is not to be supposed that Curtain Wells was careless of her +pilgrims' pleasure. On the contrary every hour of their visit was +wreathed in delightful possibilities of enjoyment. At present it was +Winter so that naturally most of the entertainments occurred indoors, +but in late Spring and Summer a series of Fetes Champetres and Fetes +Aqueuses, of moonlight Concertos, harlequin Ridottos, and lantern +Masquerades made Curtain Wells a tolerably attractive stage for the +marionettes who postured and declaimed upon its boards. + +There was much tiptoe attention for the Beau as he ascended a marble +pedestal and slowly turned the pages of a notebook bound in tooled +Morocco leather, gilt-edged, and of impeccable finish and design. + +"My Lords," Mr. Ripple began, whereupon old Lord Vanity, blinking +several times at his daughter Lady Jane Vane, took an extra large pinch +of Rappee. + +"My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen, I have the extreme honour to inform you +that the Publick Breakfast given to Sir Jeremy Dummer for the purpose of +commemorating his twenty-first consecutive winter at Curtain Wells will +be held (_Deo volente_) at the Town Hall to-morrow the fifteenth +instant." + +A murmur of delighted anticipation ran round the Exquisite Mob while Sir +Jeremy Dummer who was verging on nonagenarian antiquity drew himself up +very erect, quivering and doddering with senile pride. "There will be +the usual loyal and personal toasts," continued the Beau, "and at the +conclusion of the entertainment the Company will adjourn to the Civic +Chamber, where I hope the ladies will be already arrived, in order to +partake of a dish of tea. I may add that the tea, duty paid, has been +generously presented by Mr. Hopkins of the High Street, well known to +many of you as the incomparable provider of the rarer dried delicacies +which have traced prodigal patterns over so many of your mahogany +tables." + +The Exquisite Mob murmured its gratitude for the tea and the compliment +with much condescension and affableness, while the publick spirit of the +tradesman was generally extolled. + +"To-night at precisely half-past six o'clock, Mrs. Dudding's +Conversazione. Quadrille tables for ninety-six players, Pope Joan for +the young and sprightly and--ahem--a Pharaoh table in order that our +gentlemen, Mrs. Dudding informs me, may have no valid excuse for +absenting themselves on the score of dullness. Chairs at precisely +half-past ten o'clock and I must request you, my lords, ladies and +gentlemen, to warn your chairmen that quarterstaff play with the poles +will be visited with your acutest displeasure. I am sorry to complain of +an abuse on a morning when the prospect of Nature is so vastly pleasant, +but last week the whooping and halloaing of the partizans caused me to +place Basto upon the Ponto of my Vis a Vis." + +The Exquisite Mob sighed in sympathetick consternation as, with a +perceptible break in his voice, Mr. Ripple made this confession. + +"And since I am temporarily launched upon unpleasant topicks, I must beg +for earlier and less riotous hours at the _Blue Boar_. It is exceedingly +ungenteel to throw quart bottles of Burgundy at the watch. The latter is +a fine body of men devoted to the service of an orderly and decent +society, and does not deserve a crown of plaisters as the result of +publishing the hour of the night and the state of the weather. However, +I will mention no names, gentlemen." + +Lord Vanity, not feeling himself included in the last vocative, took a +pinch of Rappee and gazed very fiercely at my Lady Bunbutter through the +rheum and water of his ancient eyes. As her ladyship showed no signs of +a guilty conscience, the Earl took a second pinch and muttered "devilish +young cubs" under his breath. + +"On Sunday," the Beau resumed with his old suavity of enunciation, "the +waters will not be drunk until the fulfilment of Divine Service. On +Monday the usual Assembly will be held, and a Cotillon will be danced at +twelve o'clock precisely. Chairs at half-past twelve o'clock precisely. +And now, my lords, ladies and gentlemen, nothing remains for me but to +wish you a vastly enjoyable breakfast, a happy issue from your divers +infirmities and a very good morning." + +This benediction was the recognized sign of dismissal; the Beau +descended from his pedestal and the Exquisite Mob betook itself down +hill, although a few individuals waited behind in order to consult with +the former on matters of etiquette, fashion and gentility, his advice +being considered the most refined in the country. + +Mrs. Courteen sailed down upon Mr. Ripple and asked whether she was +right in thinking that the moment when green should be worn was arrived. + +"I think so, ma'am," the Beau assured her. "I think so: to be sure, a +few of our more conservative fops hold that green should never appear +before the Queen's birthday. But I differ from them, ma'am, I differ. +You will observe madam, that I differ." + +Phyllida had rejoined her mother by this time, and Mr. Ripple saluted +her freshness with a courtly bow. + +"Many Valentines?" he inquired with a quizzical droop of his left +eyelid. + +Phyllida blushed, protesting, + +"No, indeed, sir." + +The Widow hastily assured Mr. Ripple that her daughter was not near old +enough to dream of such follies, while Major Tarry and Mr. Moon, whose +skirts were stiff with Valentines intended for Mrs. Courteen herself, +looked very severely at the sun as if he were in some way responsible +for the madness of love in the air. + +"Tut-tut! Youth's the time for love, as Mr. Gay sings, and though I do +not encourage the interchange of passionate sentiments among those who +are seeking to recover their health, I regard St. Valentine's Day as a +very proper festival for young men and maidens in whose hearts no +degeneration is yet apparent." With these words Mr. Ripple drooped his +left eyelid lower than ever. + +"Fie! sir, we shall have the child vapoured like any woman of fashion, +if you put such inflammable ideas into her head," complained Mrs. +Courteen, who was just beginning to be more than a little jealous of her +daughter. + +"Not at all, ma'am," said the Beau, "I swear I saw an agreeable spark +toast Miss Phyllida in Chalybeate--the irreverent dog--but I forgave +him; upon my honour, I was near doing the same thing myself." + +Now Phyllida was not at all anxious for her mother to think she had an +admirer, and yet with youth's vanity, she could not resist a +half-acknowledgment of the Beau's rally. Luckily for her, Major Tarry, +who always resented his removal from the centre of attraction, thought +it was time to assert his existence by demanding rather pompously if the +Beau saw anything unusual in the sky. + +"Yes, sir," the latter agreed. "I see the sun, which is very unusual at +this season of the year." + +Mr. Moon gaped a smile, and Tarry's Apple began to rise. He had +anticipated a surprized negative from the Beau, whereupon he intended to +look very mysterious and say that after all perhaps he was mistaken. +Thus, having impressed the bystanders with the notion that they were +talking to a man of superhuman vision, he would offer an arm to Mrs. +Courteen. + +"Run, Betty," exclaimed the latter, "and tell Mr. Thomas we await his +escort." + +Thomas was at the footman's Pump Room, a hundred yards down the hill. +Here, every morning he mused regretfully upon the decline of +beer-drinking. Chalybeate to him was a sort of Jacobite liquor which was +slowly supplanting the honest Esau ale. As for streams that spouted +inexplicably from solid rocks, these he held to be an infringement of +Moses' prerogative. He would unscrew the knob of his footman's cane for +a morsel of Parmesan cheese and chew the cud of bitter reflection, while +with the butt of his nose he would polish the silver ball till it shone +with equal splendour. + +Betty found him thus occupied and, as he stalked after her in obedience +to his summoning, she heard him mutter several times in quick +succession, "Wells of Sodom! Waters of Gomorrah! Pillars of Salt!" + +Mrs. Courteen as she curtseyed her farewells to the Beau sank to the +ground like a deflated balloon. This done she gathered her party into +hearing and occupied their outward attention as they walked in the +direction of the Crescent with a long and disjointed account of her +health. + +"Why will you shake your muff so vehemently?" complained the Widow. + +"'Tis full of dust," said Phyllida. + +If it was, I am afraid Miss Courteen was trying to throw some of it into +her mamma's eyes. + + + + +_Chapter the Third_ + +THE BLUE BOAR + + +While the Exquisite Mob circled round the central fane of AEsculapius, +Mr. Charles Lovely had enough lack of taste and orthodoxy to make a +heretick promenade in the low-lying water-meadows at the foot of the +town. + +He had knocked three times at old General Morton's house in the Western +Colonnade and delivered Miss Courteen's Valentine into the hands of Miss +Sukey Morton's maid. She, poor soul, wore round her neck a brass button +attached to a piece of string still reminiscent in tarred perfume of the +Dorsetshire jetty down which she had wandered a year ago. It was +streaking her breast with verdigris as if in some way prophetick of a +heart that all too soon would be tarnished more irreparably by that +faithless lover beyond the seas. + +Consequently Miss Morton's maid received the paquet with a sympathetick +reverence learnt in long morning dreams when the sunlight splashed the +walls of her garret in waves and ripples of faint gold. + +"Any name, your honour?" she asked. + +"I believe not." + +"And no message?" she paused in bright-eyed hope of an assignation which +was to be the first step in the softening of her mistress' hard and +imperious little heart. + +"None at all so far as I know, my dear," and Mr. Lovely passed on down +the deserted street towards the meadows. + +The little maid stood on the steps regarding him. + +"Tes a Valentoine surely," she thought, and held the envelope between +her and the discoverer sun. A red heart glowed through the paper, a red +heart pierced by a flaming arrow. + +"And who'd ha' thought she had a bow and her be so spoitful." + +She sighed as she gazed after Mr. Lovely. + +"He do look proper and happy surely." + +The elegant young gentlemen had, in fact caught some of the harlequin +grace of a fine morning in the prime of the year as he avoided the +cracks in the paving stones to bring the meadows closer and make the +Colonnade less intolerably long. + +"Wi' sech a rosy spark, for sure, she've no call to be jealous of me," +thought the little maid, as her soul went winging over the great +Atlantick whose roar filled the silence of her mind, to meet the soul of +her sailor-lover who was at the moment sitting upon an alien beach in +the company of two dusky wantons and a bottle of Jamaica rum. + +Mr. Lovely turned the corner and the little maid vanished at the sound +of a bell summoning her to tie one of her mistress' pink bows to a more +modish angle. + +Our hero, for since perfect confidence should exist between us, I will +no longer attempt to conceal his identity, continued to walk to the tune +of a lyrick always provided the measure did not compel him to step upon +one of the fatal cracks. Soon he came to a road which ended in green +fields sodden with winter rains, but soft and grateful after the arid +pavement. + +Face to face with the pale blue February sky, he took up more earnestly +the intention of the half-fledged songs that occupied his brain. Strange +songs they were, fanciful and unrestrained in the eyes of their author +and his contemporaries who did not recognize in them an echo of one Mr. +Herrick, dead, and now forgotten by the world of literature. His mother +had read the poems to him as a child. The _Hesperides_ of 1648 was the +only book owned by the lodging-house in Westminster where a dingy year +of childhood had dragged out its course. In his youth, he had loved +their sharp, elusive harmonies, and when he attained years of +composition, could never free his own lyricks from extravagance so +acquired, however assiduously he attempted to follow Augustan models. To +his credit, be it added, he was always sincerely ashamed of his +barbarick numbers and, as he grew older, was often successful in +expressing the heart of a riotous evening in a clear-cut drinking song. +Perhaps this vain pursuit of formalism in words made him neglect his +private life, which ran a wild career checked by nothing stronger than +the strings of his purse. + +As he leaned over a stile and watched the cattle in the meadows, out of +the past there came like an arrow of song shot from the gloomy depths of +London, + + _Ye have been fresh and green, + Ye have been filled with flowers, + And ye the walks have been + Where maids have spent their hours._ + +But Mr. Lovely was dissatisfied. He felt the sentiment would have +reached a larger dignity, a more epigrammatick crispness, a more +trenchant elusiveness, if it had never strayed beyond the bonds of an +heroick couplet. He deplored his ineradicable early impressions and +vowed to study the classick models with a still more fierce ardour of +imitation. + +But having formed this resolution, our hero was just as discontented as +before. The sun shining into his heart, found no reflection there. + +"These d--d late nights are killing me," he complained, ascribing his +discontent to fatiguing sessions of play. He bent down to pluck a starry +celandine and wasted a few minutes in trying to find out whether he +liked butter. The little golden oracle told him he did, but as he was +well aware of this fact already, only the flower benefited by an +enhanced reputation for infallibility. Nevertheless it was flicked +carelessly over the hedge where it lay stalk upwards in the shade like +many another prophet before it. To confess the truth at once, Mr. Lovely +had only used the butter to deceive himself, for round about his +red-heeled shoes were eight golden petals which seem to prove that a +more intimate question had been asked, and answered unfavourably if we +may judge by the banishment of the flower. To console his wounded +susceptibleness, he determined to smoke a pipe and, having made up his +mind, found the long clay stem was broken. With a pithy condemnation of +things in general, he tried to establish the reason of his depressed +spirits. Then he discovered his spirits were not depressed, merely +unsettled. Burgundy of course. Hazard without a doubt. Should he try +Chalybeate? The d--l! not if he knew it. Should he try Chalybeate? She +wore a very engaging swansdown tippet. What a fool he had been to come +to these meadows! Should he try Chalybeate? The half-fledged lyrick was +strangled: the landskip seemed pretentiously bright in proportion to the +wintry air which was still abroad and, to crown all, he felt an +extraordinary desire to drink a tankard of ale with Mr. Anthony Clare at +the _Blue Boar_. The latter might know who wore swansdown in the +Crescent. With a sigh of relief, he wrung this admission out of himself, +shivered and turned his face towards Curtain Wells, whose houses +clustered like a swarm of bees around the sacred hill. + +The _Blue Boar_, whither Mr. Charles Lovely was bound, was a hostelry of +the conventionally ample type. The rooms with exterior rows of galleries +were built round a large quadrangle to which coaches and stage waggons +were admitted through an arch that was only just high enough for the +vehicles of a more recent pattern. The fixed population consisted of +innumerable plump and shapely chambermaids, innumerable dried-up +hostlers and grooms, and a certain number of sedate waiters who were all +clothed in the same shade of rusty black, and all of whom wished they +had settled earlier in life to become footmen. However this canker of +thwarted ambition never prevented them from handling anything from a +soup-tureen to a guinea-piece with reverence and precision. + +The host, Jeremy Daish, was neither round nor rubicund. On the contrary +he was remarkably sallow and, in his suit of cinnamon cloth, bore a +vague likeness to a well-seasoned Cremona violin. He was the builder, +owner, and inventor of the famous _Daish's Rooms_ adjoining the Inn and, +as the latter served for a recognized adjunct to the more official +_Assembly Rooms_, Mr. Daish became a somewhat mildewed counterpart of +the great Beau himself, a mezzotint ill-executed of a famous painting in +oils. His back was so often crouched in servility that it had acquired a +permanent stoop. Rumour said that years ago Mr. Daish was often seen +fiddle in hand at West-country fairs and wakes, and supported the legend +by pointing out when a lady of the extremist fashion and quality graced +his dancing floor with a pair of very high red heels, the solemn +innkeeper would steal to the Dais of the musicians and, taking an +instrument, would himself bob and play my lady through a minuet with +considerable Gusto and Bravura. + +The _Blue Boar_ was patronized by a select company of fashionable young +gentlemen who lent the old hostelry something of the tone of White's or +Almack's. Bagmen were excluded from the wing occupied by these elegant +patrons, and though from time to time one of the former, with a merry +reputation, would be invited to take wine with the quality in return for +the tale of a famous and gross adventure, it was distinctly understood +that nothing low or vulgar was allowed to penetrate beyond a certain +doorway. + +Beau Ripple himself would saunter down towards twilight and exhort his +youthful subjects on the folly of vice, the futility of play and the +obligation to drink the waters at half-past eight o'clock. Mr. Ripple +was esteemed a Puritan, but such a genteel Puritan that the young +gentlemen, subdued by the length of his waistcoats and his +irreproachable ties and solitaires, listened to him willingly enough, +and overpowered by the orthodoxy of his wigs and buckles, the fullness +of his shirts and the size of his cuffs, heeded his warnings sometimes. + +Mr. Lovely strolled through the archway into the yard all fresh and +shining after the morning swill. Along the galleries, the chambermaids +were hurrying about their work, and the figure of Mrs. Grindle, the +housekeeper, glittering and jingling with keys, warned him no loitering +in the galleries would be tolerated at that hour of the day. Two horses +were being groomed in the courtyard, but as he had discussed all their +points both with their owners and the hostlers at least half a dozen +times before, he was not inclined to pursue the outworn theme farther. + +"Mr. Clare about?" he inquired. + +"Han't seen him, y'r honour," answered one of the workers. + +"'Es that Mr. Clare?" asked the other. + +"Yes, my good fellow, have you seen him?" + +"Rode over to Baverstock Regis to see a maiden aunt," the man replied. + +"Ho! ho! ho!" roared the first, "dang me if that bean't the best I ever +hard. Ho! Ho! ho!" and convulsed with merriment, the man slapped his +tight-breeched thighs with frequency and vigour. + +"You make the very d--l of a noise, Sirrah," said Mr. Lovely fretfully. + +"I axe y'r honour's pardon, but when I hard Jock there talking of maiden +aunts--ho--ho--ho! and when I minds that shaapely--ah! well it doan't do +to mention no naames, but it come over me sudden to laugh," and with +this apology, the humorous hostler picked up his mare's near fore-leg, +and continued to chuckle at intervals for the rest of the day. + +Mr. Lovely began to think Tony Clare was confoundedly young, and when +one young man begins to think another young man confoundedly young, it +is usually a convincing proof that the pensive young man is deep in +love. + +"What's a fellow to do?" he sighed as he turned into the coffee-room. It +was empty, so he called for a draught of ale, put his feet on the window +seat and surveyed the passers-by. He wondered what had become of his +friends, and why the d----l all the world was gone mad because the sun +shone with unwonted brilliance for the middle of February. Then he +remembered it was Valentine day and amused himself with the manufacture +of paper darts which he shot at the prettiest young women in range. +Unluckily, in an attempt to pierce the ripe heart of buxom Miss Page who +assisted at the cook-shop, he wounded the Rector on the nose. This set +him moralizing on the fortune of Love. Could anything be more +incongruous than Love and the Rector. Yet why not? We are all targets of +a dimpled nudity. The phrase caught his fancy. Numberless Cupids in +attitudes of attack floated before his mind's eye. "Demme!" thought Mr. +Lovely, "my brain is like an Italian ceiling. Targets of a dimpled +nudity!" He flung back the lattice to its utmost extent and leaned out +to the morning whence the chatter of the world without floated into the +sunny room. + +"Everybody is monstrous good-humoured," he concluded. But somehow it was +no longer amusing to quiz the young woman in Mrs. Tabby's ribband-shop +through his ivory rimmed perspective. Somehow since yesterday her +forearm had grown coarser. + +"All the world's growing old," he grumbled disconsolately. But the world +would not be vapoured, and laughed and chattered and bobbed and flirted +and chirped with all the selfishness of a world that is always young in +defiance of the moods of her individuals. + +Suddenly the mob of Cupids faded from his mind and the World at which he +was scoffing ceased to exist. Surely at the very end of the High Street, +he could discern something which was slowly assuming the magic shape of +a swansdown tippet. His heart began to beat very fast and he felt the +rushing crimson flood his cheeks. Life was wrapped in swansdown, as, +through clouds of the airy texture, his soul soared to unimaginable +heights. Then came the descent and, waking as from a dream, he found +himself staring down into a pair of wide blue eyes. In his embarrassment +he knocked over a pot of jacynths and, above the noise of the fall, +heard himself telling a Swansdown Muff he had delivered the paquet. +Could anything be more enchanting than the warning fore-finger, save +the lips to which it was lifted? Could anything better console his +enforced silence than the knowledge that between him and her existed a +secret? The swansdown tippet and swansdown muff had vanished, but +fragments of broken Terra Cotta strewed the pavement. The swansdown +tippet and swansdown muff had floated away to some fairyland of their +own, but a blue jacynth perfumed the air. + +Certainly the idlers of Curtain Wells had a fruitful subject for an +afternoon's debate in the sight of young Mr. Lovely climbing out of the +coffee-room window. Besides, if that were not amazing enough, the idlers +were immediately diverted by the aspect of young Mr. Lovely gathering up +the remains of a shattered flower-pot and clasping a bruised jacynth to +his silk waistcoat. They all agreed the incident had no explanation, and +were even stirred out of their perpetual lethargy to muster round the +entrance of the _Blue Boar_ in order to verify a daring speculation that +he was going to carry the fragments within. + +"Good G----!" said Mr. Ripple who was approaching the archway from the +other side. "Good G----, sir, are you mad?" To Mr. Ripple the shock was +great. He had aspirations for Mr. Lovely. To be sure, he was wild, an +extravagant young dog, but then he possessed an inimitable assurance of +manner, a pretty talent for polite verse-making, and a consummate taste +in brocades. The Beau of late had often pondered the choice of his +successor. He had aspirations for Mr. Lovely and now he saw his +favourite positively panting (the most ungenteel motion and fatal to the +fall of a waistcoat), not merely panting but smeared with mould, hugging +potsherds, and apparently quite unmoved by his degradation. Is it +wonderful that Mr. Ripple cried, + +"Good G----, sir, are you mad?" + +"Yes," shouted Mr. Lovely. + +"Or drunk?" + +"Yes," shouted Mr. Lovely. + +As he seemed inclined to answer every question in the affirmative, the +Beau remarked he wished to see a representative group of the young +gentlemen at the Blue Boar upon a matter of the gravest social and +civick importance. + +Our hero ejaculated, "With you in the twinkling of a bedpost," and raced +across the yard, up the first staircase, along the first gallery and +into the last room. + +A light broke upon Mr. Ripple's bewilderment. + +"He has discovered some prehistorick relicks. Probably Cinerary Urn, a +Lunette or possibly a gold coin of Rome." + +In pleasant anticipation, the Beau who was an intimate friend of Mr. +Sylvanus Urban, beheld the folded copper-plate illustrating the +discovery and the rounded sentences on the opposite page of the +_Gentleman's Magazine_ in which the excavations would be carefully +recorded by Horace Ripple. + +"This must assuage my wrath," he decided by the door of the coffee-room. + +To tell the truth, the Beau was on censure bent when he met our hero +outside the _Blue Boar_. + +Already, that morning, he had alluded to the riotous nocturnal +behaviour, the assaults upon the watch, the fusilade of empty bottles, +but not being able to descry a single offender, he determined that +personal and individual remonstrance would be more efficacious. To the +_Blue Boar_ therefore, he went having first exchanged his suit of olive +green for one of black sattin unrelieved by silver and terminated by +ruffles whose cambrick fell in severe folds and condemnatory lines. + +As he stepped from the Great House round the Crescent and along the High +Street, he passed in sombre eclipse upon the gaiety of subjects shining +with the reflection of his genteel rays. + +Presently Mr. Lovely came back still bearing the marks of the potted +soil. + +"Was it an Urn?" + +Mr. Lovely looked surprized. + +"A Lachrymatory perhaps? Or a Lunette? Or," Mr. Ripple grew breathless +with excitement, "not an Image of AEsculapius?" + +"Pray, sir, are you trying to humour a madman? Because on my soul, I +don't know what you are driving at." + +"So, sir, your late phrenzy was nothing more than the unbridled haste +and inconsiderate volition of youthful folly?" sternly demanded the +Beau. + +"I 'faith, I knocked over one of old Daish's precious pots, and was +making haste to remove it from the region of his laments. That's all, +and there's my hand on't." + +"You will pardon me," replied the Beau drawing back, "I have no +objection to shaking a hand stained by honest toil, but I have never +shaken a hand sullied by mere zest for uncleanliness." + +"As you will, dear Beau," laughed Mr. Lovely. + +The Beau was about to point an example to adorn his statement when he +was interrupted by the entrance of severe Mrs. Grindle clasping her nose +with one hand, and with the other holding at arm's length the offending +jacynth by a shred of its roots. + +"Mr. Lovely, sir," she began and as our hero pulled forward a chair and +the Beau leaned back to listen, she continued, "I have known a cat +kitten in one of the maids' beds." + +"How very distressing," murmured the Beau letting the firelight play in +the diamonds of his rings. + +"But never, never," proclaimed Mrs. Grindle swelling like Mr. Handel's +_Largo_, "have I known a young gentleman want to turn his bachelor bed +into a ploughed field. Mr. Lovely, sir, I'll trouble you to say if this +is your planting or did you wish to insinuate that your bed was not made +this morning?" + +"Mrs. Grindle, madam," replied the accused, "you have heard of beds and +you have heard of garden-beds. Mine is a garden-bed. A Parterre +impromptu, a Landskip in miniature, a Bucolick of slumber, a dimity +Eclogue. In a word--but pray, Mrs. Grindle, my dear Mrs. Grindle, out +of regard for me rehabilitate that jacynth without a word to Mr. Daish, +and I, out of regard for you, will certainly pay for the washing of the +bedspread." + +Mr. Lovely smiled so very engagingly and looked so completely innocent +of any desire to insinuate anything except Mrs. Grindle's good-nature +that the housekeeper gave way, condescended to smile and, as she +retired, threw a quick glance in the direction of a mirrour to notice +the angle of her snowy cap. + +Having reduced Mrs. Grindle to affableness, Mr. Lovely turned his smile +towards the Beau. The latter had watched with much satisfaction the +progress of his favourite's negociations, thinking to himself that a man +who could circumvent such a dragon as the housekeeper would be very well +able to keep in order the most self-assertive of Duchesses. He began to +relent his indignation and, as Lovely smiled at him, to see in his late +impetuousness no more than the natural activity of a jolly young man. +Moreover, for a certain reason, he had a genuine affection for the +rogue, and was glad to perceive his high spirits. + +"I came here this morning in the hope of a serious conversation with +some of your friends. Are they--are they in the--er--taproom?" + +"They're all gone after maids." + +"Tut, tut, I wish I could make it plain that Curtain Wells exists for +the continence, not the encouragement of appetites." + +"You must blame the sun, dear Beau." + +"In view of the many pleasant hours I have spent basking in the warmth, +I should not presume to do anything so ungrateful. But I will remark +that the Sun in his human guises is not to be considered a beneficial +example to young men at a stage in the history of mankind when maidens +are no longer able to transform themselves into umbrageous laurels, thus +rendering impertinent and inconvenient what at first seemed appropriate +and inevitable. I allude, sir, to the legend of Apollo and Madam Daphne. +However, my dear Charles--" here the Beau laid three tapered jewelled +fingers upon the extremity of Mr. Lovely's left shoulder. + +"You overwhelm me, sir, with your condescension. The omission of the +surname by Beau Ripple, is the bestowal of a title." + +"Very well put, Charles," said the older man contentedly. "'Fore Gad! +you do me credit. Snuff, sir?" + +Charles (we may follow the lead of Mr. Ripple) was now veritably +astonished. Never could he recall such an instance of the Beau's +condescension towards a man of his years; and he dipped his fingers into +the proffered snuff-box with greater bashfulness than he would have +displayed towards the powder-box of Titania. + +"However, though the rest of our young gentlemen are--after maids," the +Beau stumbled over the crudity of the phrase, "I am happy to see that +you are engrossed by the seemlier pastime of horticulture." Was it fancy +or did Charles really see his mentor blow a tuft of swansdown from his +cuff? "I wish," the latter went on, "to remonstrate with you on the +indecorous character of your midnight entertainments. Owls, under +providence, are allowed to shriek and hoot after sundown, but there +seems no reason for extending to men the privilege accorded by a Divine +Creator to owls. In short, Mr. Lovely, there has been the--there has +been an atrocious hurly-burly in this house every night of late. Pray do +not interrupt me," he added as Charles made a protesting movement. "I +have the fullest Data for my general observations." + +"Youth, dear Beau, hot-headed, open-handed Youth." + +"Yes, yes, I know something of Youth's anatomy from a personal +experience of the happy state, but Youth, Mr. Lovely, is a mighty +inadequate justification for a circular scar on the forehead of one of +our most respected and silver-tongued watchmen--a scar inflicted by the +unconsumed but necessary concomitant of a quart of Burgundy." + +"It was an accident, sir, young Tom Chalkley of the Foot----" + +"I have observed, Mr. Lovely, that if one of these missiles happens to +strike the body against which it is aimed the result is invariably an +accident whereas if the missile goes wide of the mark it is a d----d +poor shot. But it cannot go on, Mr. Lovely. It shall not go on. The +residents acting in conjunction with the visitors reserve the right to +expel summarily any person who causes publick offence, and I, as their +accredited representative, should be in the highest degree culpable if I +allowed it to go on. Consequently, my dear Charles, I appeal to you as +to one possessed of some influence over the more violent spirits, to do +all in your power of persuasion to prevent it from going on." + +Now as the successful quart bottle had been thrown by our hero, and as +he was usually the chief agent in promoting a disturbance, it is evident +that Mr. Ripple secured his unparalleled authority as much by tact as by +severity. + +"Dear Beau, you shall be obliged," said Charles, "and now pray tell me +who wears a white swansdown tippet and lives hard by the Great House." + +"I am not accustomed to observe the minor variations in feminine +costume," answered Mr. Ripple with some austerity. + +"Nay! But a hermit froze to his psalter must have noticed her," +protested the younger man. + +"The analogy is incomplete." + +"I shall be at the Assembly on Monday night." + +"You could not be more worthily employed." + +"And I shall effect an introduction under your patronage." + +"That very much depends." + +"On my good behaviour?" asked Charles. + +"On the immunity of my watchmen from further assaults." + +"Dear Beau, we are all targets of a--" he hesitated, "of a dimpled +nudity or an empty bottle. Love and a bottle, there's the world." + +"The flesh, I think, sir." + +"I 'faith, Satan must have a fine sieve if he can separate the pair." + +"I am no theologian." + +"Then you'll present me?" persisted Charles. + +"You will protect my watchmen?" demanded the Beau. + +"On Monday night?" urged Charles. + +"Every night," added the Beau. "Unconditional surrender is my ultimatum. +But I hope I know how to display generosity towards a vanquished enemy. +You will attend the Publick Breakfast awarded to Sir Jeremy Dummer?" + +"Truly I----" + +"Tut, tut, I insist. My old friend Lord Cinderton arrives to-day with +his invalid son, George Harthe-Brusshe. I should like the young man to +see your cherry and trout-pink cuffs." + +"Too unseasonable a combination of colours for breakfast." + +"Pshaw! your appearance will give a fillip to his impoverished +appetite." + +"I 'faith, I believe I know how to flavour my conversation with Attick +salt, but I swear I never dressed myself for the Role of condiment." + +The conversation was soon entirely of sauces. + + + + +_Chapter the Fourth_ + +CURTAIN MAZE + + +The Maze at Curtain Wells was always considered one of the principal +sights of the place. Holding this reputation, it was naturally the least +frequented. Visitors either went there the second day after their +arrival or scuttled round it with a competent escort in the twenty-four +hours that preceded their departure. But since no one went there twice +and since all the visitors and residents of the Wells were perfectly +familiar with the various shrines, its invariable emptiness may easily +be apprehended. In summer the gardens of which it was a feature were +thronged at the fashionable hours. There was also a Rotunda similar to +if less grandiose than the famous Rotunda at Ranelagh Garden. This had +not long been in existence, and was only used for balls and masquerades +through May and June, when the Maze was spangled with lamps for the +delight of the dancers. Even so, very few availed themselves of the +shelter of its yew-hedges and always spent the rest of the evening in +trying to find their way out, being lucky if they succeeded in making a +somewhat ruffled appearance during the last Cotillon. + +To Curtain Garden went Miss Phyllida Courteen and Madam Betty her maid: +to Curtain Garden they were going when they passed Mr. Charles Lovely at +the coffee-room window. + +Betty belonged to a type of womanhood that grows with age, increased fat +and pursiness, into a nurse such as Mr. Shakespeare drew in _Romeo and +Juliet_. If she had been brought up in a disreputable purlieu of the +town, she would have become a personally chaste procuress but, nurtured +among the buttercups, she merely had a perpetual desire to see her +pretty young mistress aflame through the careless progress of some gay +spark or other. Whatever there was of passion in her meadow-born soul +fed itself on objective embraces. She was never a maid for a +kissing-gate at long shadow time, but when she saw Phyllida's heart +flutter with quick emotion before the approach of Mr. Vernon, a +primitive phrenzy set her cheeks aglow and fired her eyes to a livelier +blue. She adored her mistress with a precocious maternity but, +paradoxically enough, without any of the mother's jealousy of a lover +near to his possession. Vernon with his pale face and slightly sinister +demeanour had caught her fancy. 'Let him mate with my pretty one,' she +would say to herself, 'blossom of apple looks most rare and sweet under +a grey sky of clouds.' It was this anxiety to provide a physical match +for Phyllida which had led her to encourage Vernon's addresses, and her +mistress to pay heed to his vows. Her greatest delight was to stand, +watching against interruption, in the next alley to the lovers. Here she +would thrill her imagination with the thought of frail and timid fingers +in the clasp of a strong white hand. The sudden interposition of Mr. +Lovely vexed her. Certainly he was handsome enough, but too much of a +piece with Phyllida; they might have been brother and sister. Moreover, +he was always laughing. + +"A man who always laughs is as bad as a dog who always wags his tail. +Neither is fit for a maid," she grumbled to Phyllida as they stepped +briskly along beneath the tall poplars that fringed the road leading to +the entrance of Curtain Garden. + +"Truly I vow he has a romantick air," protested Phyllida. + +"La! what's romantick? 'Tis no more than reading a book on the shady +side of the street." Betty tossed a contemptuous head. + +"Indeed, Betty, I think 'tis a great deal more than that. To be +romantick, child, is to have a noble heart, and to have a noble +heart----" + +"'Is to lead the Venite on a Sunday morning," interrupted the maid. + +"No! 'tis not." + +"Well! 'tes to kneel very obstreperous." + +"'Tis no such a thing," said Phyllida, stamping on the pavement. + +By this time, they had reached the famous wrought-iron gates of the +principal entrance, where an old man in an enormous three-cornered hat +and long heavily laced surtout walked up and down. Sometimes he would +stop and, over gnarled hands twisted round the ivory crook of his cane, +stare fiercely at the stamped effigies of AEsculapius and Flora while he +addressed the presiding deities in a wheezy monotone. + +"Curtain Garden! Curtain Garden! Lads and lasses, ye'll grow old. Fit +for maids is Curtain Garden." Thus having droned a warning to Olympus, +he would resume his walk. + +In two months the broad gravelled path which he guarded would be +thronged by the Exquisite Mob, but at present his only audience on fine +days was composed of Phyllida and Betty. On wet days, when not even they +ventured out, he would sit in a little pagoda whence every few minutes +he would pop out his head, and in the same wheezy monotone lament 'Rain! +Rain! on the windowpane!' and retire as abruptly as a cuckoo that has +told the hour. + +With this aged janitor Phyllida used to have a daily conversation which +never varied by a single letter. + +"Nobody in the garden this morning?" + +"Not a soul nor a body, young miss." + +"Are you better of your cold?" + +"Very much worse." + +As Phyllida used to tell Betty when they had left the gateway behind +them, 'he must be very ill indeed because he has been very much worse +every day.' + +This customary conversation interrupted the argument over Mr. Lovely's +romantick character of mind, and when they turned down the path which +led to the Maze all discussion went to the wind at the prospect of again +seeing her dear Amor. + +Vernon had met Phyllida in the Maze but a bare two weeks ago. It +happened to be his first visit to the Wells, and he was in the act of +being solemnly lost when he accosted her for direction. Betty had +encouraged the chance acquaintanceship and Mr. Vernon, who was tired of +the mechanick Dryads of Vauxhall, embarked upon a new pleasure. The +natural secretiveness of his disposition led him to adopt Amor as a +fantastick pseudonym, and neither Betty nor Phyllida had troubled +themselves to inquire farther into his antecedents. Indeed, it would +have puzzled them to do so, for he had but lately appeared at the Pump +Room in response to Phyllida's earnest entreaty, and absolutely refused +to meet her at the Assembly Rooms. Consequently, had she felt inclined +to indulge a suspicion, there was no one to whom she could appeal except +perhaps Beau Ripple: and he, of course, was not to be thought of in +connection with so trivial a matter. + +You will recollect that Vernon's toilet of this morning was considerably +perturbed by the image of Phyllida. Over his coffee he had reviewed the +situation with great contempt for himself. + +To begin with, he had moved into lodgings opposite his charmer's abode. +What foolish enthusiasm! worthy of a stripling of sixteen, as he told +himself. Then he had seriously contemplated matrimony. To be sure, he +had made a few cautious inquiries and heard it stated on good authority +that she was an heiress, but odds his life! was that enough to make him +commit himself irreparably. He was jaded, and the rustick seclusion (so +he characterized the Wells!) had affected his head. A boarding-school +miss with gawky tendencies--a boarding-school miss with the smile of a +young nymph--a boarding-school miss with little fingers that tugged the +manhood--the weariness--out of his heart! It was impossible. His friends +would sneer unmercifully, and he would settle in the country as he had +often wished, and by heavens! he would seek her mother's consent. Pshaw! +the chit would become more insipid than ever, more delightful, more +enthralling, more utterly subjugating. Z----ds! what an impetuous fool +he would be considered. No! No! country misses were very well in the +country, and might bear transplantation for a season, but London +bough-pots should be renewed every Spring. Meanwhile the affair was +progressing very well, and if he could pluck a pigeon or two--there were +always pigeons in the country--why a Summer in town--and after that--why +after that--meanwhile his coffee was growing cold. + +But when he saw her radiance among the dark hedges of yew, all his +cynical plans withered away, and it would have taken mighty little to +transform the libertine into as honest a lover as ever galloped across +the horizon of a romantick imagination. What grace! What charm! What +movement! What colour! It was incredible she would ever grow old. He +rose from the stone seat in the heart of the Maze and saluted her with a +sculptured bow. + +"That's true romantick," whispered Betty. "See him bow, see him stand up +tall and white like a great wax candle." + +The swansdown tippet rose and fell to the beating of the eager heart +beneath. + +"My charmer takes the sun like a flower," said Mr. Vernon, bending over +her hand. + +Betty's eyes were a very quick and fiery blue as she turned away to her +post, and, indeed, the scene would have ravished a block. + +Never were yews so dark and velvety, so full of whispered secrets, as +the gentle wind stirred their crisped leaves continually. In a silence +made by cushions of moss set with many green stars that muffled every +footstep, the stone image of Cupid, poised upon his damp-stained +pedestal caught from the February sunlight the veritable bloom and +semblance of divinity. + +Vernon, as he led Phyllida to the seat and saw her eyes flash over the +swansdown muff, was sure that such beauty must capture something of the +permanence expressed by the statue and remain for ever young, for ever +provocative of desire. + +High over their heads a flight of pigeons circled against the azure, +gathered and broke into a scattered multitude of snowy wings whose +fluttering echoes travelled along the sunlight to the sombre heart of +the Maze. + +The simple grace with which Phyllida seated herself held Vernon +entranced. He could have sworn that the stone wings of the Cupid +trembled faintly as if, animate and inanimate, the whole world stood +ready to scale the empyrean. Blinded by an ecstasy of hope, the man +forgot himself, discarded the mean ambitions that for so long had guided +his actions, and conceived the idea of a fresher existence. Great +moments, like great men, have a solitary life, and there was nothing in +Phyllida to respond to the fire which he had waked from a pile of ashes. +Actually she was wondering whether her dear Amor had remembered +Valentine day, whether, indeed, his burning gaze was a prelude to the +offer of a trinket. + +"'Tis surely a pleasant Valentine morning," she murmured screwing up her +eyes to the sun. + +Vernon cursed the want of practice with young misses which had let him +forget what every fair esteemed a man's sacred duty. However, he was a +resourceful gentleman and, without any perceptible hesitation, produced +from his pocket a paste brooch cut to the likeness of a basket of +twinkling blue forget-me-nots. + +The history of this little ornament possesses enough irony to warrant a +short digression. It used to hang in the window of a Midland toy-shop, +and had made a pretty birthday gift from a young man deep in love to his +betrothed. She wore it in her kerchief for ten years and sent it at last +to her lover in London with some other trinkets not very valuable, but +all of the same fresh beauty. At the bottom of the packet was a faded +sprig of whitethorn. The young gentleman--not quite so young now--opened +it as a London dawn empearled the city smoke. It had lain all day in his +room neglected while the dice-box rattled like a skeleton at the feast +of Love--a feast of pimps and blowsy carmine furies. The contents of the +packet went with the last of his guineas, and at the division of the +stake Mr. Vernon contemptuously accepted the brooch. The latter never +troubled himself to take the ornament out of his pocket. Now once more +it came back to Youth and Beauty. + +As she pinned it to her kerchief, Phyllida thanked him for his sweet +thoughtfulness, and wondered if he would always remember this morning. + +By this time, Vernon had clambered down from his mountain top. Perhaps +the brooch made his descent more easy. Yet I think he was sincere when +he swore he would never forget. + +Anyway Phyllida believed him and so there is nothing more to be said. + +"When we are wed," she began, and startled him with such an abrupt +disclosure of her dreams. "When we are wed, I think we will live in Hyde +Park. Where is Hyde Park?" + +"On the confines of Kensington, my dear." + +"Yes, but where is Kensington?" + +"A mile or so Westward of Temple Bar." + +"I think we will live in Kensington." + +"Nay, prithee! would you have us die of dullness." + +"Is Kensington dull?" + +"'Tis very rustick. No! my charmer shall lodge in the Haymarket." + +Phyllida pouted. There was a Haymarket in the country town to which she +made an occasional visit from the little village of Newton Candover, and +she remembered it as a dusty spot not fit for a new pair of shoes. + +"I vow I should detest the Haymarket." + +"Nay, 'tis the gayest place, with hackney coaches passing to and fro all +day. You shall sit at your window and all the fine ladies of rank and +fashion will envy you." + +"And what will my Amor be doing?" + +"He will be looking over his angel's shoulder." + +"Then they'll envy me more than ever," said Phyllida with a contented +laugh. Vernon pressed her hand and looked round quickly as a man will +before he attempts the first kiss. But Phyllida drew back. + +"What shall we do when we are tired of sitting at the windows--if one +could ever tire of anything so pleasant," she added with a sigh. + +"We'll call a hackney-coach and drive to Westminster Steps, to the +river." + +"To the river? Now that will be most diverting." + +"And we'll hail the waterman with the most elegant wherry, and row up +through the dusk to Vauxhall." + +Phyllida was staring at him with the round eyes of a child who listens +to an old fairy-tale. + +"Then what should we do?" she asked earnestly. + +"We should choose a box for two and sit with our elbows over a very +small table and look at each other just as we are looking now." + +"Yes! go on," cried Phyllida clapping her hands. + +"Then we should call for chicken-wings and eat our supper and listen to +the new song and the musick of the orchestra playing the finest tunes +high up among a thousand sparkling coloured lamps and watch the +masqueraders and row back to Westminster under a great moon." + +Mr. Vernon was so much inspired by the interest of his listener that he +began to believe in the reality of this proposed idyll, quite forgetting +that it was a chastened account of a hundred similar adventures enjoyed +with the domino passion of a night. + +"Vauxhall must be the properest place in the world," sighed Phyllida, "I +doubt everybody wears their jewels." + +"Everybody," replied her lover with a quick glance. + +"I should wear my pearls." + +"Your pearls?" + +"My necklace that was left by Grandmother Courteen. Mamma won't let me +wear it till I'm one-and-twenty." + +"But supposing you ran away?" + +"Oh I should never dare. I should be frightened." + +Vernon changed the subject, perceiving at present the courtship was +nothing more serious than a Springtime diversion. + +He told himself if the child surrendered to his blandishments, it would +be an easy matter to induce her to run away. He must weave a strong web +of personal attraction round her, and if her prudence sustained her to +the end, why perhaps he might commit himself to a serious offer of +marriage. He must inquire further into her fortune. He wished it were +not so difficult to put an arm round her waist. Innocence was very well +and the prospect of a siege amusing enough at first, but a long deferred +capitulation would be immensely fatiguing; and yet how charming she was. +Not for anything would he have her different. + +"When we are wed," he began and for the first time echoed her lately +expressed hopes. In some way he felt that she would be to blame, if harm +came of it. She had given the cue. + +"When we are wed, we shall go to routs." + +"But we shall be old and wise and able to go then. It won't be near so +diverting then as 'twould be now--if you came to the Assemblies." + +"My angel forgets the risque of discovery." + +"There could be no more danger in that than there is in sitting here in +the Maze." + +"Come!" + +"I'm sure if we were prudent nobody would suspect us of a love-affair." + +"But consider my ardour. 'Twould illuminate the whole matter." + +"Well! and if the old maids did talk, they would only talk into their +teacups and every one knows that to be monstrous ungenteel behaviour. +Lud! I've been censured before. Why, when I was but sixteen I was the +talk of the ballroom because I stepped four gavottes with Dicky +Combleton, Squire Combleton's youngest son. Every one said I was a +forward minx, and he's only a year older than me and that's only last +year." Phyllida became very indignant, and Mr. Vernon who lacked humour +became very indignant too at being compared to a bumpkin. + +"Surely my angel sees the circumstances are slightly altered?" + +He clasped her hand, and stroked it slowly, but she was not to be +pacified and drew it away. + +"For my part, I don't know how you dare say you care for my reputation +and sit here holding my hand. Walls have ears and hedges have eyes." + +"You would not withdraw your hand if you were sure we were not +observed?" + +She made no reply. + +"Possibly," he went on, "you would let me kiss those sweet lips to a +smile--if we were not observed?" + +"Indeed, I vow you should never do anything so indelicate." + +"Z----ds! my pretty Puritan----" he stopped because Phyllida's eyes +were very wide open indeed. + +"Oh Sir! no one but a father or a very old man has the right to swear so +dreadfully before a maid." + +He laughed. + +"So oaths depend on age for their propriety? I 'faith that's a new maxim +I've learned this morning. After all, my Phyllida, I am fifteen years +older than you." + +"That may be," she retorted primly, "and I have often wondered whether I +should allow a man of middle-age to make love to me." + +Vernon wrinkled with annoyance at such a description. He certainly +lacked humour. + +"But then, you see, I am in love with you, and not marrying you because +our estates join like my cousin Clarice who, we all agreed, was old +enough to know better." + +"Young enough, you mean. Morality rusts with the years." + +"I don't know what you are talking about, but it sounds like a text." + +"It is a text, my dear, the text of the man of the world." + +"I hate texts, but I don't hate goodness and you must promise never, +never to swear again, and--never, never to try to kiss me." + +"Not even when we are wed?" + +"That's another matter." + +"Perhaps when you are old and wise and able to kiss you won't like +kissing." + +"Oh! I protest, I should like it vastly," said Phyllida with great +decision. + +"But if you have never made the attempt?" + +"A young woman knows by instinct." + +"But why won't you make sure in advance?" + +"Because 'tis imprudent and wicked." + +"For my part, I believe you are playing with me." + +And then began a long argument which settled nothing at all and, after +ten minutes, left matters precisely where they started. + +What Vernon said in jest was in essence perfectly true but unfortunately +he was too vain and she was too young to believe it; for if potential +Phyllida knew very well she would not expire if her dear Amor vanished +for ever, actual Phyllida who was much younger and far more obstinate +was equally sure that a gradual decline into an interesting consumption +would be the natural result of such a calamity; while potential Vernon +who was anxious to prove himself a very fine fellow was very +contemptuous of actual Vernon and not at all willing to admit he would +find more than sufficient compensation for the loss of his Phyllida in +the ample charms of Miss Diana Flashington of the Theatre Royal, Drury +Lane. + +And this is the way a large number of world-shaking passions begin, +since at first we seldom apprehend our potentiality. + +The quarrel was interrupted by the sound of approaching voices just as +Betty came flying round the corner with the news that "Mr. Thomas and +your mamma be coming as fast as legs can carry 'em this way as ever is." + +The implication of a rapid advance is to be understood merely as +relative to their usual rate of procedure. + +In an instant all was confusion. Miss Courteen wrung her hands and +behaved quite as wildly as a grand married lady on the verge of +discovery in an ambiguous situation below stairs. Mr. Vernon flicked a +number of invisible specks of dust from his purple sattin breeches as +though he had been kneeling in devout protestation of honourable love +for the past hour, while Betty ran in turn to each of the four alleys +leading to their present position, and put a hand to an attentive ear. +She quickly ascertained by which path the enemy was advancing and +without more ado pushed Mr. Vernon hastily in the opposite direction, +thrust a tambour frame into her mistress's hands and composed herself to +spell aloud the Agricultural Calendar and Farmer's Assistant for the +current year. She was in the middle of some astonishing statisticks of +the comparative productiveness per acre of turnips and mangel-wurzels +when Mrs. Courteen followed by the majestick Thomas appeared upon the +scene. On perceiving her daughter, the latter gave a faint scream and +declared the meeting would certainly produce palpitations. + +At the utterance of this fatal word, Thomas immediately unscrewed the +knob of his cane and drew forth a bottle of salts, Phyllida performed +the same conjuring trick with her bag, while Betty after some +lace-involved rites in which a crimson garter played a prominent part +offered a third bottle not more than a moment later. By the tonick +influence of several sniffs Mrs. Courteen was sufficiently revived to +ask in a stern voice what Phyllida was doing in this ungodly place. +Thomas accompanied the query by muttering 'Canaanites' several times in +quick succession under his breath. What the commentary was intended to +imply no one knew; but there was a general belief that the footman +symbolized states of mind, people and actions of which he disapproved, +by the various hostile tribes encountered by the Israelites during their +wanderings. + +Phyllida assured her mother she was working a peacock in blue and +scarlet wool for the seat of a chair, and when Mrs. Courteen demanded +why she was not sitting on her own balcony, for the privilege of +possessing which she paid an additional five-and-sixpence a week in +rent, the daughter protested the East wind chapped her ankles. + +"Chaps your ankles, miss? What d'ye mean by chaps your ankles? At your +age, I didn't know I had ankles. Woollen hose was what I wore, and I +should have been whipped if I had ever dared to think my ankles were not +as thick as marrowbones." + +Phyllida begged her dear mamma's pardon and hoped to be forgiven, but +could not help remarking the sun was so warm that she had felt quite +positive her dear mamma would be pleased to see her take the air. + +"Twas very unkind of you," complained the widow, "to presume so far on +my acknowledged indulgence of your whims. You know the miserable state +of my health compels me to sip several glasses of the waters after +breakfast, and seize the lamentable opportunity to deceive your too +confiding parent. How am I to know you have not been sitting in this +heathen nook for days in succession?" + +Again the footman muttered 'Canaanites! Canaanites!' As this was exactly +where Phyllida had been sitting for days in succession, she looked +immensely shocked by the question. + +"Well! well," said Mrs. Courteen as if resigned to her daughter's +iniquity, "go home and pray that you may become a more dutiful child." + +Thomas murmured a low Amen and earned for his devotion a derisive and +ribald gesture from Betty. + +"Aren't you coming too, mamma?" + +"No, miss, I am not coming; I must rest myself and compose my mind and +soothe my feelings. Thomas, will you arrange my cushion." + +Thomas produced it from under the seven capes of his surtout without +perceptibly diminishing his girth. + +Said Phyllida to Betty as they stepped out of the Maze, "For my part, I +believe she only wanted to be rid of us in order to meet puffy old Moon +or skimpy little Tarry." + +And this supposition was perfectly true. + + + + +_Chapter the Fifth_ + +THE PUBLICK BREAKFAST + + +At half-past twelve o'clock of the following day, masculine Curtain +Wells began to arrive at the Town Hall determined to eat the health of +General Sir Jeremy Dummer with all the vigour of an appetite unspoiled +by a morsel of food since yesterday's supper. No procession was arranged +by those responsible for the entertainment, but the habit of punctuality +instilled by the Great little Beau secured an unrehearsed pageant. There +was no marshalled order, but since everybody set out from his abode at +the same time, the component populations of the place were compelled to +affect a military method of progress. + +It was quite unpremeditated and, therefore, the more impressive. The +Town Hall designed by Sir John Vanbrugh had been erected by publick +subscription to serve as a memorial to those gallant natives of Curtain +Wells who fought and died under the Duke of Marlborough. That the +aforesaid gallant natives were only three in number and in no case +killed in action was no cooler to the furnace of civick gratitude +kindled by the signing of the Peace of Utrecht. In their delight at the +discomfiture of the quarrelsome Whigs, the citizens expressly stipulated +there should be no hint of War and War's alarms in the construction of +their Hall. There were to be no cannon eternally belching forth stony +smoke, no image or superscription of Mars or Bellona. Greaves, bucklers, +spears, culverins, swords, scimitars and grenades were forbidden by +name. The central medallion of the pediment should enshrine Civick +Unity. + +So the reigning Mayor was represented in all the pomp of office grasping +the hands of two equally, befurred and bechained Aldermen. It was an +affecting combination of the real and the allegorical. A second +medallion contained a voluminously draped and very substantial lady who +with absent gaze spilled from a heavy Etruscan vase a large stream of +petrified Chalybeate. Her far-away look might be attributed to an effort +at ascertaining what a small AEsculapius was doing to a serpent on the +summit of a diminutive Pelion. This was Health. Finally a third +medallion held a peer in coronation robes thoughtfully regarding the +front of St. James' Palace. A curved scroll announced this pensive +aristocrat to be the representative of Society. + +Civick Unity, Health, and Society--could any other personifications so +justly convey the essential quality of Curtain Wells? And not a pike or +arquebus to frighten them out of a rigid serenity. + +Upon this sermon in stone, three streets converged, which at half-past +twelve o'clock were all thronged. Since the breakfast was essentially a +male function, the civick band by a happy inspiration of the band-master +thundered out _The Girl I left Behind Me_, as in its wake a number of +prosperous tradesmen tripped to the measure of the tune. Haberdashers +and cheesemongers, drygoodsmen and fishmongers, butchers, tailors, +saddlers, cooks and silversmiths all marched along with a pleasant +emotion of relief. Fortified by preliminary tankards of ale and +unhampered by prosaick wives and daughters, they retreated from nothing +save the business of serving customers. Vapours were dispelled by the +breeze of trumpets, and the thoughts aroused by the musick of the song +only added a pungent spice to their dreams of food and confirmed their +faith in the superiority of breeches over petticoats--at any rate when +walking away from the latter. + +Meanwhile down the central street came another crowd not marching with +the precision of movement inspired by the escort of the band, but still +urged to a certain unanimity of gait by the common object of their +advance. Mr. Mayor, preceded by his mace, set the time, and a line of +Aldermen carefully ordered their pace to his. Behind the Aldermen came +the Watch. This was a mistake. The latter should have led the +dignitaries, but had spent so much time in buttoning and unbuttoning its +capes and belts, in brushing its hats and polishing its staves that it +was late, thereby belying its name. So the Watch followed behind and +vented its contrition on a mob of boys in occasional backhanded cuffs +and current imprecations. Behind the boys marched three small +girls--Amazons heedless of the embargoe laid upon their sex. + +However both these processions were overshadowed by the prodigious +pageant that emanated from the street facing the medallion of Society. +The last deserves a chapter to itself since no appendix could do justice +to its importance. Let me therefore, without being held to have violated +the decency of orderly narration, insert at this point a supplementary +chapter which may serve as a programme to the entertainment I hope +worthily to recount. + + + + +_Chapter V a_ + +THE ORDER OF THE EXQUISITE MOB + + +_General Sir Jeremy Dummer in a sedan chair borne by two veterans of the +Militia. Beau Ripple in damson-coloured velvet coat and breeches, with +waistcoat of old rose sattin trimmed with silver and rose silk stockings +clocked with the same._ + +Mr. Ripple with admirable condescension occasionally arrested the +progress of the march in order to address a word of encouragement to Sir +Jeremy Dummer who was inclined to be querulous from want of food and the +action of the chalybeate. + +_The Earl of Cinderton in smoke-grey silk with cuffs of clouded blue._ + +_The Honourable George Harthe-Brusshe, his son, in a lighter shade of +the same._ + +_The Earl of Vanity looking like a fly, in amber._ + +_Five baronets in various degrees of_ FEUILLE MORTE. + +_Four Knights of the Shire trying to look like Baronets and horridly +bruised by the palings in their attempts._ + +_Seventeen exquisite young gentlemen all exactly alike and only to be +distinguished by the various shapes and sizes of their patches._ + +_Major Constantine Tarry who had devoted the sleep of the preceding +night to the preservation of his pigtail's rigour and appeared very pale +beside his red coat in consequence._ + +_Justice Gregory Moon looking much the same as usual save for a sprig of +yew in his buttonhole._ + +_Mr. Charles Lovely and Mr. Anthony Clare arm in arm. The former wearing +a cherry-coloured velvet coat with waistcoat and breeches of +trout-coloured silk, the latter in uniform cucumber green. Both laughed +very loudly and cheerfully from time to time._ + +_Five elegant young gentlemen including a Lieutenant of his Majesty's +Navy, a Cornet of the Grey Dragoons and an Ensign of the Foot._ + +_Twenty-three old men suffering from various diseases._ + +_Thirty-eight old men all firmly convinced that they were suffering from +gout but all perfectly healthy in truth._ + +_Forty-five old men equally firmly convinced that they were suffering +from other and various diseases, and all equally healthy in truth._ + +_Mr. Oboe the Physician watchful of his patients' demeanour and quick to +confirm the slightest suspicion of ill-health._ + +_Mr. Francis Vernon in a tawny suit of figured Manchester velvet._ + +_Fifteen or sixteen gentlemen of various ages, sizes, ranks, costumes, +complexions, and states of health._ + + + + +_Chapter V (resumed)_ + + +Beau Ripple mounted the steps that, in diminishing semi-circles, reached +the entrance of the Civick Hall and, turning his head, froze into +silence with a cold stare of surprize the concluding Crescendo of _The +Girl I left Behind Me_, as if the half-drawn breaths of the musicians +were suddenly changed to icicles. + +The good-natured band was not at all put out by Mr. Ripple's lack of +appreciation. His objection to panting was universally known, so the +band bore him no malice, but continued to pant. + +As the musick stopped, Mr. Mayor began to walk up the steps also. No +doubt his ascent would have been as active as the Beau's if he had not +been hampered by the civick robes on which he trod at every alternate +step. Possibly the freezing disdain of Mr. Ripple had made the steps +more glacial than their wont. At any rate, the Mayor whenever he avoided +the hem of his robes, always slipped and stumbled, but he achieved the +summit at last and greeted the Beau with such fervour that he effected a +perceptible thaw. + +On these occasions of supreme civick importance, it was customary for +the latter to relax his rule of never taking snuff with any one below +the rank of Viscount in the Peerage of England, so he offered his box to +the Mayor. That functionary with a reverence he had acquired over the +counter, inserted two fleshy fingers into the dainty receptacle, +withdrew them smeared with Rappee, sniffed the powder with avidity, +sneezed four times, and said he saw Sir Jeremy alighting from his chair. + +The Beau regarded the Mayor's invasion of the delicate touchstone of +quality with a smile of amused apprehension. He explained afterwards +that he felt as if he were carrying a sirloin of beef into a queen's +parlour. When the convulsions set up by the snuff had outworn their +first violence, he fixed his monocle upon the guest's chair. Sure +enough, Sir Jeremy was alighting. Mr. Ripple and the Mayor +simultaneously descended the steps, and while the former started back +with an affectation of surprise, the latter charged forward with eager +hospitality. + +"Gadslife! Sir Jeremy! You are vastly welcome, Sir. This is a great +occasion. Twenty-one years. Tet-tet." Thus Mr. Ripple. + +"How are you, Sir Jermy Dummer, Sir? Come along o' me, Sir Jermy, and I +hope yaul heat very hearty," said or rather shouted the Mayor. + +"_Eheu fugaces!_" murmured Mr. Ripple. + +"Heh?" asked the Mayor. + +"_Postume, Postume._" + +"Hoh!" said the Mayor. "I beg yaw pardon, Mr. Ripple. Will you take a +harm, Sir Jermy?" + +The poor old knight clutched at the fur of the Mayor's robe as the two +of them stumbled up the steps behind Mr. Ripple. + +In passing through the antechamber, the old man dropped his hat and +cane. + +"I shouldn't leave my hat an' cane here if I was you, Sir Jermy," said +the Mayor. "While some's heating, some'll be thieving." + +"I have not the slightest intention of doing anything so insane," +quavered the ancient soldier, "can't you see that I dropped 'em by +accident?" + +The good-natured Mayor stooped to recover the accessories. "I beg yaw +pardon, Sir Jermy. Follow me. The banquet's in here." + +The huge folding doors were flung back, and the sight of so much food +kindled a gleam in Sir Jeremy's rheumy eyes and waked a cackle from his +lean throat. + +"Glad to hear such a jovial laugh. Wittles is wittles when hall's said +an' done. Hain't that true, Mr. Ripple," said the Mayor turning to the +Beau for confirmation of this statement. + +"Victuals are victuals, sir, as you very justly observe." + +Upon these three celebrated figures broke the buzz of the excited crowd +from the centre of which Lord Cinderton and Lord Vanity withdrew +themselves. + +"Let me present Sir Jeremy Dummer, the Earl of Cinderton. Sir Jeremy +Dummer, the Earl of Vanity." The latter offered his snuff-box to the old +votary of Health who declined it saying, + +"No! thankee, my lord, not before I eat. D---- e if ever I took snuff +before I ate." + +His worship the Mayor was then presented to the two noblemen and, +discoursing amicably of the outlook on European politicks, the five +great men threaded their way towards the principal table. + +There was a tremendous shuffling among the innumerable waiters as Mr. +Daish urged them to unparalleled exertion. They ran hither and thither +like recently fertile hens. One half of them pulled out chairs from the +tables and the other half pushed them back again. Some fled bawling for +the soup. Others conversed in excited whispers. At last the assembled +company to the number of three hundred persons stood each member in the +place he had selected. + +What caused a further delay? Why did Mr. Daish hurriedly wave back the +white-capped cook bearing the first tureen? + +Through the doorway pattered little Mr. Archdeacon Conybeare. "I'm +late," he muttered, "I know it, I'm aware of it. I'm late. Maria, my +love, I'm late, I'm very late." + +The Beau was looking at the large clock below the gallery at the far end +of the hall. + +"Will you ask a grace, Mr. Archdeacon," he said. + +The Mayor smote the table with a silver hammer as the parson slipped +into his place. + +"For what we are going to receive ... my dear Mr. Ripple, 'tis no use to +tell me the contrary, I know I am very late." + +The Publick Breakfast had begun. + +I think it was the great Dr. Johnson whose forehead while he ate was +dabbled with perspiration and the veins of it red and swollen. At any +rate the Mayor had a similar appearance. He devoured his food as if he +feared the cherubs sporting in the gilded panels of the ceiling would +descend and snatch it from his plate. + +Mr. Ripple ate very modishly. One would have said he had watched the +honied meals of many butterflies. For all his fork's fastidious action, +it managed to pick the best of a Fricassee. Rounds, ribs, and sirloins, +he deplored. + +Sir Jeremy Dummer evidently felt that his sensibility to the honour +awarded to him deserved practical gratitude. He eat voraciously. The old +fighting spirit abode in him for a space and he handled his knife like +his hanger. He slashed at every course that came along, but, accuracy +being impaired by muscular fatigue, he was content to swallow much of +his food whole. + +Sir Jeremy Dummer ate: + +Two plates of turtle soup. + +The better part of a codfish. + +The wing of a capon. + +The wing of a duck. + +The breast of a pullet. + +A hot buttered apple dumpling and two or three slices of ham which he +had not noticed before. + +Sir Jeremy Dummer drank: + +Two tankards of old ale. + +One bottle of Madeira. + +Two bottles of Port. + +And on the following day, Sir Jeremy Dummer died. He had always been +famous for trencher-play until condemned by Oboe to milky sustenance to +which through twenty-one winter seasons he never willingly yielded. This +commemoration of his abstinence was his opportunity and his revenge. +Could he have made a worthier end? For my own part, I should not presume +to say so. + +Meanwhile, unconscious of this premature obituary, Sir Jeremy Dummer +enjoyed the breakfast amazingly. At first he was inclined to peevishness +through not being seated upon a sufficiently high chair. Mr. Daish, +however, with ready tact secured one of the Civick cushions and so +enabled Sir Jeremy, comfortably ensconced in crimson velvet, to eat his +last breakfast at ease. + +Mr. Lovely having made the acquaintance of the Honourable George +Harthe-Brusshe, by whom he had seated himself at the particular request +of Mr. Ripple, discussed with animation the food on his plate and the +last foppery of the town. Mr. Harthe-Brusshe, a lantern jawed young +gentleman with a sincere devotion to turtle-soup, observing that Mr. +Lovely was about to leave his portion, begged him to hand it over. +Charles who invariably encouraged every man's idiosyncrasy sent the word +down the table to pass up every neglected plateful. This request was +readily granted and presently Mr. Harthe-Brusshe found himself +surrounded by half-a-dozen portions. Thereupon he declined all other +dishes and was faithful to soup for the rest of the meal. + +"I suppose you find the difference in temperature sufficient variety?" +asked Mr. Lovely in a tone of great interest. + +"That's so, Sir," replied the other as he refused beef and veal for the +sake of a moderately warm fifth plate of soup. + +"I doubt you keep a bottle of it always to hand," remarked Lovely. + +"It would tire me too much. It tires me to keep things to hand." + +Here the Honourable George Harthe-Brusshe sighed with exhaustion and +seemed to desire silence. + +Charles turned to his other neighbour who happened to be Mr. Francis +Vernon. + +"Are you making a sojourn here, Sir?" + +Vernon noticed the richness of Mr. Lovely's attire, made a rough +calculation of the value of his buckles, brooches and solitaire, and +answered very politely he hoped so indeed. + +"I've not yet seen you at the _Blue Boar_, Sir. We make up a pleasant +party in the old Coffee-Room every night. There's young Tom Chalkley of +the Foot, Tony Clare, Peter Wingfield, Jack Winnington, Harry Golightly +of Campbell's Grey Dragoons, Blewforth of the _Lively_, and as many more +of us pass the time very pleasantly over some tolerable Port and very +excellent Burgundy." + +"I doubt the company is delightful." + +"'I faith, that's very true for when the wine makes us loquacious, d---- +e, we sing, and when it makes us mum, why, d----e, the dice-box talks +for us. You'll join us, Sir?" he added, turning to Mr. Harthe-Brusshe. + +"Proud," murmured that gentleman pensively regarding the rich scum +slowly hardening over the plate of soup to be attacked next. + +"Let me see," said Charles, "to-night we must positively keep quiet in +deference to the Beau. Monday night I've promised to go to the +Assembly." + +"What's that?" said Mr. Anthony Clare, a florid young gentleman on the +opposite side of the table. "Blewforth!" he called out to a naval +officer farther along. "Charles has forsook letters and is going to try +life for a change." + +"Good G----," said the Lieutenant solemnly. "Charles crowding all canvas +after a petticoat?" + +Charles looked somewhat disconcerted by this immediate perception of his +motives. + +"I 'faith, you're in the wrong, Blewforth," he protested, "'tis to +please Ripple and that's the whole truth of the matter." + +A roar of laughter greeted this excuse, and every young gentleman in +hearing vowed to exchange dice for dancing on Monday night. + +"I saw Charles leave a note at a house in the Western Colonnade," +remarked Ensign Chalkley of the Foot. + +"A Valentine for a hundred guineas," said Clare. + +"Name the charmer," shouted Blewforth, "name her, and egad, she shall be +the toast of the afternoon." + +Mr. Vernon felt relieved. Somehow he had half suspected Lovely was in +pursuit of Miss Courteen. If he had not decided to wear purple sattin on +the day before and buried himself in the closet to extricate the suit, +he would have been still more suspicious of Lovely. The latter ignored +the friendly jeers. + +"Shall we say Wednesday night, Sir?" + +"I shall be honoured." + +"May I beg the favour of your name, Sir? 'Tis customary with us to elect +our associates.' + +"My name is Vernon. Francis Vernon of the Crescent, Curtain Wells--and +London." + +It was Charles' turn to display apprehension. Here was a man well +dressed, of genteel appearance, living in the Crescent. + +"Ah! the Crescent! I once had a notion to lodge there myself." + +"'Tis a quiet position," said Vernon. + +"So much the better for my Muse." + +"You are a poet, Sir?" + +"I have a metrical fancy." + +"Try the Colonnade, Charles," bellowed the Lieutenant, "and your Muse'll +speedily become the most famous Toast of the time." + +"Blewforth owns a spy-glass," said some one. + +"I wish he would own a mirrour," said Charles, "his wig is infamous." + +"His head is swollen since the w-war," stammered little Peter Wingfield, +"or else he was w-wounded in the wig." Blewforth, impervious to +smoaking, gave a loud guffaw. + +Lovely and Vernon agreed to meet on the following Wednesday and the +conversation moved on general lines till the silver hammer of the Mayor +summoned the company to attend to the toasts. The eyes of the room were +on him as away up at the high table, he rose burly and majestick. + +"Mr. Alderman Jobbins," he proclaimed, "the King!" Mr. Jobbins, the +youngest of the city fathers, blessed his sovereign with unctuous pride, +and the toast was drunk amid acclamations whose echo was drowned in +broken glass. Curtain Wells knew when to borrow from military manners. + +Then the assembly tilted on its chairs after filling new glasses, and +composed itself to listen to Beau Ripple who had risen, monocle in hand. + +When the murmur of delighted anticipation had sighed itself out on the +wings of a loud 'Hush,' the Great little Man with indescribable suavity +begged the company's permission to say a few words. + +"Mr. Mayor, my lords, and gentlemen, may I say citizens? (a voice, 'You +may') for I think I am giving utterance to the sentiments of this +salubrious town when I protest that upon an occasion of such unique +interest and such immense significance, we no longer recognize any +distinction between visitors and residents (loud applause). We are +assembled this morning in order to honour a man for whom no honour is +sufficient. We are celebrating the twenty-first consecutive winter at +Curtain Wells of Sir Jeremy Dummer (loud cheers). He has been faithful +to us, gentlemen. Each year towards the close of the equinoctial gales, +his coach has clattered over the cobbles of Curtain Wells. Each year he +has alighted at the door of Number Seventeen, the Crescent. Each year he +has torn himself away from the gaiety of London in order to set us an +example of perseverance. Each year his arrival has encouraged other +gentlemen of grave address to put their faith in the cleansing springs +of Chalybeate. To be sure, his gout is as virulent as ever, but has he +despaired? No (cheers). Has he tried other remedies? No (cheers). He has +only been the more firmly convinced of the profound malignity of his +disorder and the more resolutely determined to annoy it by any and every +means in his power (continued applause). Twenty-one years ago Curtain +Wells was a different place. We had, it is true, this Civick Hall. We +had Crescent and Colonnade, Curtain Garden and Curtain Rotunda, Curtain +Wells and Curtain Pump Room, Curtain Hill and Curtain Dale. But we had +not your respected Mayor. In those days he was a younger, shall I add, a +more foolish man? I myself was still overshadowed by the reputation of +my great predecessor Beau Melon whose alabaster bust consecrates the +Assembly Rooms. + +"In those days, gentlemen, coaches very rarely exceeded the rate of four +miles an hour, and as you have heard, the new Machine proposes to travel +at an uniform speed of six. Twenty-one years! This valetudinarian +majority should make the youngest of us pause and reflect. Twenty-one +years of Chalybeate (a groan from the back of the room). + +"Mr. Mayor, my lords and gentleman, I propose the health of Sir Jeremy +Dummer and venture to assert that the time-honoured toast was never +before fraught with such significance. The health of Sir Jeremy Dummer! +It is in order to commemorate his health that we are assembled. Gout +has done many ill deeds, ruined many tempers, spoiled many legs, but for +this at least we should be grateful---- it has afforded us the spectacle +of a gallant gentleman faithful to his earliest prescription, hopeful of +an ultimate cure and charitable to the town of his adoption. (Loud and +prolonged applause.) One moment, gentlemen: let me add that the guest of +this entertainment has expressed a desire to present the town with a new +set of mugs for the publick fountains." (Volleys of applause.) + +Beau Ripple after leading the toast with three very urbane Huzzas +resumed his seat, and Sir Jeremy Dummer doddered up to make his reply. +As it consisted chiefly of a long and detailed account of his symptoms +and extended over half an hour, and as you, with knowledge of his speedy +death, will not bear it with the slumberous equanimity of his +contemporaries, I shall not recount it. It is enough to say that when it +was concluded, everybody woke with a start and cheered vociferously. +Then the Mayor proposed the health of Mr. Ripple, and somebody else +proposed the health of the Mayor, and so on until all the dignitaries +had had enough wine drunk to their long life to ensure for every one of +them an undiseased immortality. + +When the toasts were finished, the quality adjourned to the Civick +Chamber to meet the ladies over a dish of tea, while the quantity +marched off to put the seal on a great occasion by talking it over in +the various taprooms round the town. + +Vernon was not inclined to brave the extension of the affair when he +perceived his new friends cautiously escaping from the Beau. He hated to +be conspicuous, and it was a small pleasure to meet his Phyllida among +the dowagers. Indeed, he was beginning to wish he had been less hasty in +taking lodgings in the Crescent, and the prospect of the _Blue Boar_ was +already alluring enough to make him inquire the price of a room in that +merry house. So he asked if he might take Mr. Lovely's arm. + +In the square, the elegant young gentlemen made a bright knot. + +"What's to be done?" cried the Lieutenant. + +"L-l-let's ride over to B-Baverstock Regis and s-see T-Tony's m-maiden +aunt," stammered little Peter Wingfield. + +"Bravo!" shouted Charles. + +Clare looked up in surprize. Charles was seldom willing to play the game +of light love. Could that chatter of Blewforth's have gone deeper than +he thought? There was a strange excitement about him--an excitement that +was aroused by something stronger than the civick wine. Was he in love? +Mr. Anthony Clare was puzzled. + +"You must know, gentlemen," said Mr. Lovely, "that this maiden aunt is +of a very singular complexion. 'Tis usual, as we are all aware, to look +to maiden aunts for legacies and presents, but this lady, as I know by +the state of Tony's purse, gets more than she gives." + +"Fie! Charles," protested his friend, "I vow your point of view +deteriorates." What could be the matter with him? + +"Well, gentlemen," he continued, "since you are so set on meeting my +relatives, egad! you shall. We'll ride over to Baverstock to-night; +there are dances in Baverstock Barn, and the maids--maiden-aunts will +all be there. You'll come Charles?" + +"Not another word. I'll lead the love-chase or, shall we say, the legacy +hunt." + +"And you, sir?" Clare continued with a bow to Vernon. + +After a moment's hesitation due, no doubt, to bashfulness, the latter +assented, and in a trice the whole party went whooping and holloaing in +the direction of the _Blue Boar_. + +And all this time, Phyllida was counting the kisses in her teacup while +she watched Miss Sukey Morton search energetically for strangers. + + + + +_Chapter the Sixth_ + +BAVERSTOCK BARN + + +Vernon left his companions at the door of his lodgings in order to adapt +his dress to the road, having settled with them to meet presently at the +_Blue Boar_ where a horse was to be saddled in readiness. He wondered +while pulling on his riding-boots what was the monetary value of his new +friends. They talked of play; but was it high enough to make their +fellowship worth joining? They were all apparently expensive in their +tastes and habits, but seemed so young and irresponsible. That however +was rather an advantage. They belonged to the World, the World that is +of St. James' Street; yet if they were callow pigeons, why were they +learning to fly to far from the nest which bred them? + +Now Mr. Vernon had got hold of a wrong analysis. These young men of +Curtain Wells in spite of their outward freshness were not at all fit +for the table. They had tough breasts beneath an array of fine feathers. +This society of theirs, so remote from the larger society of London, +with a toleration of good and bad alike, was in its essence eclectick, +like a regiment or a college. An air of genial self-satisfaction clung +to it nourished by rules and opinions and traditions which had never +been proved to be false or harmful. The members were all clipped to a +pattern and displayed a wealth of blooms in a prim setting. Even Lovely +straggled too much, and was only allowed to disturb the fellowship on +account of his decorative qualities and because he was evidently only a +strong sport from the conventional habit of growth. + +Vernon in making up his mind to join this elegant association was quite +unaware that the condescension was on the side of youth. He was willing +to instruct them in the ways of the great world, but found what he had +been compelled to learn, they knew by inherited instinct. He was +ignorant of their existence: they on the other hand had experienced many +Mr. Vernons. Still he was endowed with too much insight not to +understand almost immediately that he must imitate their standards, and +soon caught the tone of his companions well enough to be voted an +acquisition. + +However, as he wrestled with his riding-boots, he was distinctly at a +loss. This ride to Baverstock was presumably an expedition of gallantry, +and yet he had felt it unwise to obtrude a jest appropriate to the +occasion. The conversation had possessed a certain elusive ribaldry; +women were discussed with frankness, and yet he had not ventured to +boast of his own conquests. These young men chattered of love, much as +they would have talked of fox-hunting. Love was a theory, a philosophy +with a cant terminology of its own. And yet the analogy was incomplete. +No man would hesitate to chronicle his leaps, but then no man would +confess to having shot a fox. There was the rub. He was a fox shooter; +these were hunters. Gadslife! How absurdly young they all were. And this +Lovely? He was evidently more prudish than the rest of them--a man of +sentiment who objected to either mode of death. He would like to see +this paragon of virtue who had stared so coldly at the tale of old Sir +John Columbine and his frail exquisite consort, put to the test. From +that moment he began to hate Charles, and stamped the wrinkles out of +his boots with considerable feeling. He would devote himself to emptying +Lovely's purse before he tried the rest of them. + +Vernon in a very pleasant frame of mind strolled through the chill of +approaching twilight. The humiliation of Lovely was in a way achieved as +soon as conceived. This was how Vernon always escaped from awkward +situations. He so seldom faced facts. + +An outraged husband once threatened him with a riding whip, and Vernon +promptly climbed out by the window. In the street he only remembered he +had successfully seduced the wife, and forgot the uncomfortable +epilogue. He behaved to futurity in the same generous way as he treated +the past. + +Presently he found the company assembled in the yard of the inn, with a +dozen horses pawing the cobbles impatient of the cold. They were soon +mounted and the arched entry rang again with the sound of hoofs as they +trotted through the High Street. + +"Which way?" shouted Vernon who was in front. + +"Straight ahead and turn to the right," answered Clare. "We've eight +miles to go and a good road to go on." + +"Huzza!" shouted Vernon who felt that extreme heartiness was the correct +attitude. + +In the clap and clack of the horses' hoofs, the affectation passed +unnoticed. + +How the fat shopkeepers stared to see these young gentlemen cantering +away in the late afternoon, 'Some wild frolick,' they thought and turned +half-regretfully to attend to their customers who were just as much +interested in the jolly troop as themselves. Children scrambled from the +gutters on to the pavement with yells of dismay as the horsemen +scattered their mud pies. Little girls effected heroick rescues of +favourite dolls from the very gate of death and little boys bowled their +hoops between the legs of wayfarers with more assiduity than usual, in +their struggles to avoid the legs of the horses. + +Lieutenant Blewforth like most sailors was an inferior rider, but on +this occasion he surpassed himself, and sat his horse like a Bedouin. He +only wished buxom Miss Page would step to the door of the cook-shop and +behold his prowess. Unluckily at the very moment when his ambition was +in process of achievement, his mount swerved, and the gay Lieutenant +found himself at his charmer's feet. The inevitable idler secured the +horse, and Blewforth, having no small change, was obliged to reward him +with a crown, and what is more look as if he enjoyed the expense. To +give him credit, he certainly succeeded. + +"Do you always propose yourself in that precipitous manner?" Charles +inquired as they cantered past the last house and gained the hedgerows. +"You pay very little heed to her corns." + +The Lieutenant uttered an enormous guffaw that made his mount swerve +again. + +"The Royal Navy is always so d-devilish romantick," stammered little +Peter Wingfield who looked like a precocious boy beside the burly +officer. + +"By G--," puffed Blewforth, "that reminds me of a good story I heard of +an ensign in Bolt's. He was a d--d bashful man, and couldn't abide the +women. One day he was making his compliments to the Colonel's +daughter--a gaunt hussy of thirty-five summers or winters. He hung back +outside the parlour-door for some time, mustered up courage to enter at +last, dashed into the room and, tripping over his hanger, found himself +kneeling at her feet. This was a bad beginning truly, but in trying to +retrieve the position, he clutched the air and caught hold of her skinny +hand. They were married in the spring, and the garrison said he badly +wanted her money." + +In the outburst of laughter which hailed the climax of the story, Vernon +asked with much interest what the young woman's dowry was worth. The +subject fascinated him. + +"Don't know, sir," replied Blewforth, "but I saw the jade at Portsmouth +last year, and I'm d--d if L50,000 would have made her endurable." + +They were riding through a pleasant country of meadows and small +streams; so Charles walked his mare to admire the willows empurpled by +the fast gathering dusk. Vernon seized the opportunity for conversation. + +"A fine landskip," he remarked. + +Charles looked up half-angry. He disliked a man who suited his words to +his own supposed tastes. + +"It might be finer," he said shortly. + +"Without a doubt," replied the other. "You'll pardon my ignorance, Mr. +Lovely, but of what does the entertainment before us consist?" + +Charles' face grew clear again at once--at any rate, the man did not +claim omniscience. + +"The entertainment, sir, is composed of fiddles and country dances +enjoyed by the light of tallow-dips in an old barn. There will be some +ploughboys, shepherds and farmers, with a few milkmaids and farm +wenches, and the whole will resemble a painted Dutch interior." + +"And you propose to join the merrymaking?" + +"We do." + +"It should be a diverting experience." + +"I hope so indeed. My friend Clare vows he has discovered a Venus +masquerading in fustian." + +"His maiden-aunt in short?" + +"The same. Like all small societies, sir, we have our intimate jests +which to a stranger must seem excessively threadbare." + +"On the contrary," said Vernon, "they possess an engaging spontaneity +which flatters me with the suggestion that my own youth has not vanished +irreclaimably. And yet," he sighed, "I am a man whom the world insults +by claiming as its own." + +"You have travelled?" inquired Charles. + +"I have made the Grand Tour." + +"That is a pleasure which I still owe to myself and to my country." + +"You lack energy?" + +"Of the kind expressed in gold." + +"An hour's good luck at the tables." + +"I've enjoyed some dozens," interrupted Lovely. "Almost enough to pay +for twice as many less fortunate periods." + +"Then why continue to play?" + +"Why fall in love? Why die in a consumption? Why live this life of ours +at all? Your question, sir, takes little account of mankind's innate +perversity, and no account at all of his tastes and disposition of +mind." + +"On the contrary," argued Vernon, "I esteem all these at their greatest +effect, but regard with equal reverence the doctrine of free will. I +myself--but why should I fatigue you with personal anecdotes?" + +"Pray continue," said Charles eagerly. He was always alert at a +confidence and plumed himself on his ability to read human character. In +this case curiosity outran discernment, and he failed to see the +improbability of a man like Vernon exposing his temperament without +securing a compensatory advantage. + +"I myself, Mr. Lovely, was once addicted to the equally expensive habit +of intrigue, but I found it led me into so many cursed situations that I +forced myself to enjoy less compromising pastimes. I chose cards." + +"Ah! cards!" commented Charles. + +"But here again," Vernon continued, "I found the introduction of a +passionate element ruined at once my pleasure and my skill. I was +confounded. To be sure there remained wine, but whoever heard of a man's +will exercised by wine? To be frank, Mr. Lovely, I was unwilling to take +the risque of defeat." + +"So I am to regard you as a disappointed voluptuary, a hedonist +philosopher whose premisses induced him to a false conclusion. No, no, +sir, keep your logick for speculations upon the soul, not the body." + +"Sir," answered Vernon, "I found, indeed, that pleasure tormented by +passion was no pleasure at all, but pleasure divorced from any ulterior +emotion I soon discovered to be the highest good." + +"So you would persuade me that you're an Epicurean who flings withered +rose leaves and drinks sour wine. Come, come, sir, I wager your fingers +would twitch and your lips quiver if one of us held a dice-box with a +deep stake on the main." + +"I deny that." + +"We shall see." + +"I hope we may." + +"Ay, sir, and I wager this affectation of indifference will not outlast +a week's ill luck, and as for woman, why the very dairymaids to-night +will kindle a spark in your eyes." + +"My life on't, they will not," cried Vernon. + +"Foregad! you wear too stolid a mask to convince me it is your natural +countenance." + +This duologue, which seems to show that Mr. Lovely was younger and less +wise than we might have thought, was interrupted by the shouts of the +riders in front who wanted to know whether Charles imagined they were +part of a funeral pomp. + +"For d----e!" shouted Mr. Golightly, "we are all nodding like plumes +and the twilight obscures the undeniable charms of the prospect." + +Baverstock Barn, like a great cathedral, loomed upon them at last. As +they dismounted, revelry and the drawling chatter of rustick voices, +mingled with the tuning of fiddles, came from within, while the +flickering light from the open door enchanted a heap of roots to the +appearance of huge gems. + +Clare approached the entrance while the rest stood by their horses. + +"Farmer Hogbin!" he sang out. + +"Who be caaling?" + +"Mr. Anthony Clare!" + +"Come in now, do 'ee come in." + +"I've brought over a party with me, farmer?" + +"Maids, do 'ee hear that? Maister Clare have brought wi'un a passel o' +gallantry." + +There was much jingling merriment from the maids. + +"Now then Jock, Tommas, William, Jarge, Joe, Sam, Peter, Ern, move your +shanks and stable they hosses." + +The farmer, a huge Falstaff of a man quite in proportion to his barn, +towered in the doorway obscuring the light, while the farm hands clumped +with heavy legs towards the horses. + +"Gi' they pleanty o' oats, my lads." + +"A' right," mumbled the lads in chorus. + +"Come in, my gentlemen, come in. Never mind for a speck of mud; the +maids'll dust 'ee." + +This sally provoked a ripple of laughter from the maids, and a chuckle +from the young gentlemen. + +The farmer surveyed them solemnly as they stepped into the barn. + +"Why, you be all in top-boots?" he shouted. "Ho! ho! my maids, ye'll get +thy twinkling toes rarely trod on, or shall I lend 'em my slippers to +each in turn?" + +This was considered splendid fooling, and laughter again resounded. + +"Nay, farmer, you're in the wrong," said Charles producing a pair of +pumps from the pockets of his riding coat. + +"Why! dang me, if they han't brought a King's wardrobe wi'en. Eh! maids, +you must mind your modesties to-night." + +The maids, huddled together like a bunch of red apples, were set shaking +with laughter at this warning--as if by a boisterous wind. + +"Who will help us with our boots?" asked Clare as he subsided upon a +truss of straw and flung his legs wide apart. + +There was considerable whispering from the heart of the bunch till one +of the maids was pushed by her companions out into the open with +ejaculations of "Go on, stoopid." + +"Thee needst not let on to be so backward." "Thee wast forthy enough +behind the kitchen door yester'een." "Eh! bustle thyself, great gowk," +and others of like freedom of opinion. + +The maid selected for Mr. Clare was blooming indeed. + +"Cream and claret," murmured Charles. + +"Gad! a Venus by a Dutch master truly," commented Vernon. + +"She's no g-ghost," stammered little Peter Wingfield. + + _"Farewell and adieu to you, gay Spanish ladies, + Farewell and adieu to you, ladies of Spain."_ + +sang or rather bellowed Mr. Blewforth, slapping his thigh with a +nautical zest. + + _"Our Blewforth, careening far nearer than Cadiz + Will give to green fields what was meant for the Main."_ + +continued Charles to the same tune. + +"Give what?" asked Tom Chalkley. + +"The breezy charm of his manner," replied Charles. + +Now ensued jests, giggles, laughter, pranks, and struggles, as each +gentleman persuaded a fair to wrestle with his riding-boots. Vernon who +had forgotten to provide himself with pumps remained aloof from the +merriment not sorry for an opportunity to convince Mr. Lovely of his +remoteness from anything so vulgar as excitement. + +Great was the mirth of everybody when the Lieutenant produced an +enormous Valentine that depicted a peculiarly fat Cupid winking at a +dairymaid over a brimming bowl of milk. Greater still was the mirth when +he presented the token with much earnestness to the bashful lass they +called Margery, and it became uproarious indeed when he explained he had +wished to offer it on the preceding night, but had been deterred by Mr. +Clare's reputed jealousy. + +"Whoever heard tell of such a thing in the milk before?" + +"Tis a Cupid, Margery," said Mr. Clare. + +"There now and if I didn't go for to think it were a baby," declared +Margery. + +Farmer Hogbin coming back from attending to the horses in time to hear +this remark called out in his great voice: + +"Don't 'ee fret thyself, my lass, what thee wants'll come soon enough, I +warrant. Now my gentlemen, take your partners, we was just a-going to +begin a round dance. Tune up your squeaking boxes, fiddlers, and tip us +_Come lasses and lads_." + +The fiddlers smiled encouragement at the dancers as they struck off with +the gallant old tune. Even Mr. Vernon, boots and all, was made to give +an arm to buxom Mrs. Crumplehorn, the cowman's wife. The sanded floor of +the barn resounded with the perpetual tripping of toes and heels. + + _"Come, lasses and lads, + Take leave of your dads."_ + +The waist of every fair was encircled by a neat arm that tapered to a +fine wrist as the dancers swung down to their places. Little Peter +Wingfield unable to enfold the ample Polly was given her pinner as if he +were indeed the child his appearance and behaviour proclaimed him. + +Every one admired the first two couples that took the middle. Mr. Lovely +was so graceful and Mr. Clare was so thorough. Round they went and down +they went and across and through and over and under while the rest of +the dancers clapped and tapped their appreciation. Faster and faster +went the fiddles, faster and faster went the shoes. Thicker and thicker +rose the sand and saw-dust from the floor until the barn seemed to be +the centre of a raging storm, such a wind the petticoats made and so +dense became the atmosphere. Thunder was added when the gigantick farmer +and the burly Lieutenant, whom merry chance had thrown into the arena +together, charged through their Pas Seul, bellowing the while with +Gargantuan laughter. + +At last the fiddles stopped and, panting mutual congratulations, the +exhausted couples subsided upon the various trusses of straw laid along +the side of the barn. Even the ivory paleness of Mr. Vernon's cheeks +wore a faint tinge of carmine, and some curls of his modish wig were +very slightly ruffled. + +Jock, Tommas, William, Jarge, Joe, Samuel, Peter, and Ern, who had +gathered into a critical knot, feeling themselves eclipsed by these +active visitors, were released from their sheepishness by a demand for +the bowls of spiced ale. + +After this, they played Kiss in the Ring; and it was truly a most +exhilarating sight to see Mr. Anthony Clare with flapping coat-tails in +pursuit of the blooming Margery who was soon caught not very unwillingly +as we may suppose. It was ludicrous in the extreme to see little Peter +Wingfield darting hither and thither like a little brown rabbit. His +little white wig seemed to twinkle like a tail set too high on his +little brown body. But he let himself be caught by Polly beneath a +lingering spray of mistletoe, and how all the world laughed when she +lifted him up and gave him a resonant kiss on his little red lips. As +for the large farmer and the burly Lieutenant they thundered after +every maid in the barn quite regardless of any rules and, as I think, +kissed the most of them very heartily indeed. + +But the chief excitement of all was caused by a great white owl that +came flapping down from the rafters and put out half the candles with +his great sweeping wings. How all the lasses screamed and how earnestly +the lads reassured them, and though the former were repeatedly told that +owls while feeding on mice had not yet imbibed their habits, they +persistently held their skirts a little higher than usual and nestled +very close and comfortable to the exquisite young gentlemen from the +_Blue Boar_. + +Then, of course, they all danced _Sir Roger de Coverley_, and drank more +spiced ale while they rested. Somebody called on Charles for a song and +he gave them one of his own which everybody agreed was much too serious +for so jolly an occasion. Charles swore he had composed the tune +himself, but everybody else vowed they had heard it before, and as for +the words, there was not a trace of originality about them. However, his +voice was pleasant enough as he sang: + + _"When in the dews of early morn + My Chloe trips for may, + Across the fields of springing corn + I watch her pass, + The fairest lass, + That e'er was won with vows of love + Upon a summer's day._ + + _"Ah! shame that I should leave thee, dear, + And cross the roaring sea, + That I should leave thee lonely here: + Think not, sweetheart, + Because we part + And I to foreign lands do rove, + Thou art less dear to me."_ + +Blewforth protested he had said good-bye with almost identical rhymes +in every port of the two hemispheres, and moreover was not ashamed to +confess as much. All the maids, however, grew quite tearful and vowed +the evening was spoiled; indeed, they made such ado that Charles sang +one of Mr. d'Urfey's ballads to cheer their spirits and succeeded in +providing such a burst of laughter that the echo of it never died away +during the rest of the evening. + +Of course, it was decided they must dance _Sir Roger_ once more and, +that duty accomplished, it was discovered that Anthony Clare and Margery +had vanished. Of course everybody wondered where they could have gone, +and when they returned in time to take a last sip at the spiced ale, it +was noticed that Margery hung back in the shadows with a melancholy +expression of countenance that made her companions nudge each other with +wise looks. + +Soon word came that the horses were saddled and waiting. Good-byes were +murmured, and many a promise to come again was faithfully sworn and many +a kiss given and taken. The ousted yokels held each a soil-stained hand +for their genteel rivals to mount from. The maids stood huddled in the +flickering light of the open barn-door; Farmer Hogbin bellowed a last +farewell which was thunderously echoed by the Lieutenant, as with +flushed faces and half-regretful memories, the horsemen cantered towards +Curtain Wells under a sailing moon. + +Clare rode by Charles to hear the judgment of Paris upon his +tatterdemalion Venus. + +"I'd liefer for her sake that you were overseas next barley-harvest," +said Charles shortly. + +"Plague on the man, what a cold stream it is!" + +"My excellent Tony, your Blowzabella will be happier mating on a straw +pallet with Hodge than living under your protection in London." + +"She would see the world." + +"Pshaw! her world is a garden of gillyflowers. She was never meant to be +pushed out of sight for an importunate visitor." + +"She would return." + +"Like a spent primrose fit only for the bonfire." + +"I could secure an annuity for her." + +"You'll tire of her in London. Drain the claret from her cheeks, smear +the downy bloom, and you'll find rank lees and rotten core. Hodge never +would. No, no, the thought of so much comely maidenhood languishing for +your velvet-sleeved caresses is merely droll." + +Clare loved and admired Charles too much to despise his tirades however +self-consciously virtuous they might appear. He felt more than ever +convinced that his friend was in love, in love too with some one the +very antithesis of the dairymaid. He would try one more test. + +"But if I told I was in mind to wed my Venus?" + +Charles jerked his reins in astonishment. + +"Z----ds, Tony look round you. There are maids more fit I say. Why wed +a mountain, however rich in pasture when you can wed a mountain-nymph?" + +Clare decided his suspicion was confirmed. Lovely objected to milkmaids +on the score of a taste sharpened to an exquisite point of refinement by +an ideal passion. He was postulating mere theories of life on account of +the charms of one dear She. Who was the witch? She had not withdrawn him +from their late junketing whatever her spells. + +"Your morality, Charles, did not prevent you from entering very heartily +into the spirit of our pastoral piece." + +They had fallen behind the others, and through the silent night Charles' +voice caught a melody from the wakening year as he rhapsodized. + +"Fore Heaven! I love the country, I love these creamy hussies. I love +their swains with the sweet earth all about them. I was happy to-night! +I was happy with those dear people. I could lose my tricked-out self in +that twinkling barn. I bowed to merriment as a tree bows to the wind. I +wanted to hear the singing hopes and joys and desires of humble people. +There we were, all of us populating a frieze for some merry artist god. +We were as wax moulded to some fantastick dancing shape. On these +occasions, I can surmize at immortality and imagine the heart of the +universe. I doubt you think I'm babbling nonsense, but I'm trying to +tell you I was entirely disinterested in our merry-making of to-night." + +Clare stretched out to touch the poet's arm. + +"Try to think that I, chattering of Margery, am not more personal than +you. 'Tis true, I piped a love-ditty, but though it may trouble the bush +and brake of a small wood, it would seem thin fluting----" + +"To any but her," Charles interrupted. "The thinnest tune will charm one +who is nearer than you to the primitive animal too easily quelled by +sweet songs. Pipe to a crowd, Tony, but musick dedicated to a solitary +shepherdess at the sight of whom your mouth will be awry in a year's +time is ill work for her." + +"I doubt you're right," said Clare softly. "You are compassionate to +poor nymphs to-night, Charles. Have you met a goddess?" + +"Tony, I have." + +"May you prosper!" + +"Thank'ee. I'll tell you more of her when I know more myself." + +They urged their horses to a trot and were silent for a while. Then +Clare asked Charles what he thought of Vernon. + +"Oh! a statue positively. I doubt the whole affair was to him vastly +low. + +"Umph! there was a permanent leer carved on his lips. I dislike the +fellow." + +"Nay! you're too stern in your judgments. He has promised me an evening +for Hazard." + +Clare smiled. It was useless to remonstrate with a man whom the thought +of two dice transformed into a machine with glassy eyes and curiously +sensitive fingers. + +So they rode silently. + +Charles could see Phyllida in the moon-enchanted clouds, sometimes with +the trim waist of a dice-box. + + + + +_Chapter the Seventh_ + +SUNDAY MORNING + + +Sunday morning at Curtain Wells was eminently a day of rest. A stroke of +organizing genius on the part of Beau Ripple had abolished the fatigues +of early Chalybeate by transferring the corporeal obligations of +fashionable humanity to an hour which would not interfere with the +respect owed to the spirit. + +"A glass of Chalybeate," he had remarked, "will promote the proper +digestion of the homily. Moreover, the vanity of post-religious +promenades will be considerably mitigated by the discipline of the +Pump." + +At Curtain Wells, therefore, soon arose the pleasant custom of inviting +one's friends and neighbours to partake of a substantial breakfast +before setting out to St. Simon's parish church. The neighbours, if +gentlemen, were expected to provide a suitable escort for their +lady-hosts, and there was not a dame in the town who did not make it a +point of honour to be armed in at the great West door on fine mornings +or handed out of her chair with cautious ceremony if the weather was +unsettled. + +The Widow Courteen was not the woman to neglect or despise any +prescriptive right conferred upon her sex. It was not surprizing, +therefore, to see Major Constantine Tarry and Mr. Gregory Moon turning +solemnly into the Crescent on the first Sunday morning whose events I am +privileged to chronicle. The demeanour of neither gentleman would have +allowed us even a momentary hesitation as to the day. The Sabbath wrote +itself in the devout wrinkles of Mr. Moon's domed forehead and expressed +itself in the stiff curls of the Major's military wig. As they drew near +to Mrs. Courteen's house the latter voiced a desire to see eggs and +bacon upon the breakfast table, and the former encouraged his ambition +by repeating a legend of a fecundity among hens unusual at this season +of the year. The meditation carried the two gentlemen to Mrs. Courteen's +door in silence. + +"Your turn to knock, Tarry," said Mr. Moon, in a rather depressed voice, +as he fumbled with the steps from which the Major assaulted the door +with military abruptness. + +To them after a decent interval appeared Thomas in resplendent waistcoat +of Sunday and with nose polished to the limit of a nose's power of +brightness. + +"Is your mistress within?" inquired the Major. + +"Within and awaiting you," said solemn Mr. Thomas. + +"Then I think, Mr. Moon," said the Major with half a turn, "we will step +inside immediately." + +"I think we may venture," replied the latter. + +They were ushered into the passage where Thomas received their hats and +canes. Thomas had such a sober effect on his fellow men that the +slightest action in which he took part was conducted with a ritual at +once austere and grand. One felt that the delivery of a hat, smallsword, +cane, or message possessed at least the dignity, the entire absence of +all worldly considerations that belong to the Sunday alms. + +"Will your mistress receive us in the front parlour or the back parlour +this morning?" inquired Tarry whose legs were prepared for either +emergency. + +"In the front parlour," said Thomas. "Miss Thomasina was ill this +morning." + +"In the back parlour, I presume?" said Moon. + +"Very ill with retching and divers pains," continued Thomas. + +"Poor Thomasina," said the Major with an attempt at jocularity. + +"A feeble animal," said the footman, "and too fond of grass; and the +grass of this city is fit only for Nebuchadnezzar." + +A bright fire was crackling in the grate, and on each hob a kettle of +burnished copper sang with considerable sentiment. + +Thomas withdrew, and the Major and Mr. Moon took up the Englishman's +position on the hearthrug with coat-tails wide apart to allow the +grateful warmth free access to whatever chillness of morning air still +clung about their bodies. So they remained, silent, wrapped in the +dignified contemplation of an inferior painting in oils on the opposite +wall. No doubt in reality their thoughts were far away, possibly in the +chaste seclusion of the Widow's own room or possibly in the kitchen +whence from time to time ascended the pleasant jingle and chink that +heralds food's approach. + +No doubt they would both have stood there long enough for us to moralize +on England and the greatness of England, had not Mrs. Courteen come into +the room just then. + +Ponto, Phyllida's black spaniel, sidled in with the breakfast and +Phyllida herself followed, and the freshness of her in the morning was +strewn about the room like petals of roses. + +Conversation at breakfast suited itself to the solemnity of the day. The +widow sighed at every remark that was made, and in the gentle pathos of +her manner indicated placidly her conviction of fleeting time and +sorrow, and all those melancholy reflexions which are considered proper +to the Sabbath. However, at all times she was accustomed to preserve a +cloistral rigour of speech before her daughter. No one loved better to +gather the easier blooms on the safe side of the garden-god's perfumed +hedge, but they could only be plucked in numerous corners of ballrooms +and during secluded promenades. The presence of Phyllida made her +mother's blood so much rennet. Conversation became mere verbal curds and +whey. + +However, the Justice talked into his cup of the swift approach of +Spring, of the benefit of sun, the intolerable increase in vagrancy, the +need for repressing poachers. If platitudes were esteemed as high as +rolling hexameters, Moon would have been among the epical poets. As for +Major Tarry, he thrashed each topick at if his tongue were a little +rattan cane. One felt that any observation was regarded by that gallant +gentleman as an awkward recruit. He had an air of drilling the +conversation. After breakfast, the various members dispersed to acquire +a seemly attitude towards matters of religion. + +Since the search for attitudes occupies a vast deal of human energy, it +may not be out of place to inform my reader where the half-dozen +required for Morning Prayer at St. Simon's were found. + +The Widow Courteen found hers hidden between powder puff and patch-box. + +Miss Courteen found hers between the lines of a three-cornered note. + +Madam Betty found hers in the coral secrets of Miss Courteen's left ear. + +Mr. Thomas found his in a Bible as large and heavy as a Bible should be. + +Major Tarry found his in the stem of a churchwarden pipe. + +Mr. Moon found his in the best attitude that exists. + +Soon Mrs. Courteen's chairmen were knocking at the door and the whole +party prepared to set out. The widow seated in her chair, hummed a hymn +_tempo di minuetto_. The Major marched upon her left and the Justice +upon her right, and Thomas marched in front. Phyllida and Betty kept to +the pavement and had scarcely time to wonder if all the world would be +at church, when they arrived at the porch and found that all the world +certainly was. + +As the Major had handed the widow into her chair, Mr. Moon handed her +out, and the party of Mrs. Courteen proceeded to Mrs. Courteen's pew, +while Mrs. Courteen's chairmen carried the chair to an alley beloved of +chairmen and proceeded to doze away the Sabbath morning in its damask +recesses and were no doubt as comfortable as their mistress in the musty +cushions of St. Simon's pews. In the Western gallery, three fiddles, two +hautboys, and a bass viol squeaked and groaned with much fervour. In the +pulpit the parson squeaked and groaned with equal fervour and in the +desk below the clerk squeaked and groaned with most fervour of all. When +the parson threatened damnation, the ladies fanned themselves rapidly +and when he spoke of alms and oblations, they consoled themselves with +carraway comfits. + +The service was rather worldly and seemed remote enough from anything at +all spiritual, but nevertheless in so far as it was indigenous to fair +King Richard's land, it should exact from us as much respect as we owe +to a Chippendale chair and that is or ought to be very great indeed. If +so much condemnatory fervour was equivalent to breaking these +butterflies of fashion upon a religious wheel, it cannot be denied that +the exquisite bloom of their ruined wings was a great deal more pleasant +to regard than the spattered blood and bones of earlier and more +tangible martyrs to an extreme mode. + +The parson continued to prophesy hell-fire. But hell-fire means so many +kinds of illumination--certainly it had an invincible attraction for +these gay moths and butterflies. Perhaps they thought of it merely as a +huge aggregation of wax candles by which most of them had more than once +been morally singed. If any permanency of emotion was desirable, it +would certainty be more endurable in heat and gaiety than in chill +aerial solitudes. And, thanks to chickens, there would always be painted +fans. This was the sum of the congregation's united reflection during +the sermon; individually, no doubt, each soul played with more +particular premisses, but the ultimate conclusion was the same for all. + +After so much damnation, the blessing was a rhetorical anti-climax. +Clouds had gathered during the homily due, no doubt, to the violence of +the preacher and, as the worshippers tripped out through the great West +door, the clouds burst and the streaming rain inclined them more +favourably than ever to the prospect of eternal warmth. + +The morning's fair promise had been utterly belied, and many appealing +glances were launched at Mr. Ripple as he beckoned to his chairman. +Surely he would not be so barbarous as to force so much accumulated +fine raiment through mud and water, to drink the latter element in a +less pleasing form. But Mr. Ripple was inexorable: he stepped into his +gilded chair, regardless of appeal: the chairmen tightened their muscles +for the long pull uphill, and Gog and Magog, the diminutive negroes +balanced one on each step, guarded their master from interruption. Now +ensued shouts, whistles, cockcrows and screams. Hats were waved, canes +flourished, and lily-white hands shaken. All this uproar was due to the +fact that there were just half as many coaches and chairs as were +required, and when these were filled, and on their way to the Pump Room, +there remained in the church too many foolish virgins, too many +improvident dowagers, too many thoughtless beaux. + +The rain fell in torrents, and the last vehicle had turned the corner. + +A desolate remnant surveyed the situation. It was wet enough. + +Now arose one of those crises which are inseparable from a despotism. +Somebody, for his presumption will always remain anonymous, somebody +suggested that the idea of climbing the hill of health in such a +downpour was unimaginable. + +The stranded exquisites depended for the moment entirely on their rouge +for colour. + +"Rebellion," they muttered and the ominous word flapped over their heads +and darkened the gloom more profoundly. + +"The Beau will be furious." + +"He will never forgive us." + +"We shall be banished." + +"Curtain Wells will no longer know us." + +Again the daring voice was upraised: + +"We are strong enough to defy Ripple. He has no right to make us wade +through mud for a whim of his own. If we do so, we'll do so in shifts +and shirts." The unknown voice gathered force with each new proposition, +and the startled exquisites huddled closer in a very ecstasy of +perturbation. + +"Shall damask flowers lose their beauty, shall silver lace be tarnished +and broideries lack lustre because Ripple has commanded the impossible? +Silk is the fashion, ay! and watered silk, but not sodden silk. Well was +it named the Pump Room, for such shall we become, mere pumps exuding +moisture at the propulsion of a tyrant!" + +The apparent carelessness of the unknown tyrannicide had its effect; a +suspicion began to creep in that Mr. Ripple's domination was based on +insecurity. The thin end of this destructive wedge was enough to break +open the fortress of their duty and, the rain stopping for a moment, the +stranded exquisites hurried home to discuss the probable result of their +revolt over hot rum and lemon. Up at the Pump Room Mr. Ripple missed +many a well-known face that Sunday, and his urbane countenance lost some +of its smoothness as the minutes rolled by without the arrival of a +single person on foot. + +At the expiration of the quarter of an hour, he despatched Gog to see +what had happened and when Gog came back with the news that the stranded +exquisites had one and all departed to their own lodgings, Mr. Ripple +ascended his marble pedestal with an air of determination. + +"My lords, ladies and gentlemen," he began, and just then Magog hurried +up with the Beau's glass of chalybeate. The latter looked at it for a +moment. Pity and anger fought visibly for the mastery. Anger won, and +the remorseless Beau dashed the glass into a thousand sparkling +fragments. + +"The Pump Room will be closed until--until this--," he faltered over the +description of such ingratitude, "until the extraordinary behaviour of +certain visitors has been justified, if it can be justified. There will +be no Assembly to-morrow night." + +The company shivered unanimously and the Beau, dismissing his chairmen, +walked forth into the rain with all the dignity in the world. It is said +he ruined three suits of unparagoned cut that fatal day by walking about +the principal thoroughfares of Curtain Wells for the remainder of a very +wet afternoon. + + + + +_Chapter the Eighth_ + +THE GREAT REBELLION + + +Not unnaturally, the only topick of that memorable Sunday was the +rebellion. The excitement it raised far exceeded anything of the sort +not excepting the Jacobite rising, and the oldest inhabitant of the +Wells positively asserted that the landing of the Duke of Monmouth was +altogether inferior in the quality of emotional interest. + +Sirloins of beef were allowed to freeze into glaciers of fat, horse +radish lost its sting, and the most frothy ale was flat in the presence +of such an absorbing topick of conversation. When at last everybody, +momentarily exhausted, sought recuperation in the Sunday dinner, +everybody ate so fast to be the sooner at the coffee-house or the Town +Hall or the Assembly Rooms or some such equally renowned haunt of gossip +that everybody had a remarkably bad attack of indigestion. + +From every doorway the crowds hurried forth after dinner, scorning the +sacred forty winks. But coffee-house, Town Hall, and Assembly Rooms were +closed, bolted, barred and shuttered, and for a sign over each was a +scroll of parchment on which was inscribed in the finest gold leaf: + + _Closed till further notice. By order. Horace Ripple._ + +Disconsolately the ladies trooped home again to discuss developments +over a dish of Bohea; eagerly the gentlemen trotted to the _Blue Boar_ +only to be told that nobody save lodgers could be admitted. + +Most of them admired the decision of the Great little Man, but the +rebels who, having once started, felt bound to hold out if only against +the censure of the faithful, laughed very loudly and boldly and said it +was all very well to close the places of publick entertainment on +Sunday, that was only a loss of two hours custom to the proprietors, but +on the next day, a very different tale would be told. So they prophesied +as they tripped home to their pipes and hot rum, with a twirl of their +elegant canes, a shake of their exquisite heads, and a _Whack +row-de-dow_ from their irreverent lips. + +The faithful who had seen the Beau in the first flood of his wrath were +not so sanguine. They knew that like the late King of France he could +say _L'etat, c'est moi_, and what shopkeeper, innkeeper, or porter, +would be brave enough to defy him? + +The sun set on a gloomy town and everybody went to bed at half-past +eight o'clock having nothing better to do. + +Mr. Ripple had earlier in the afternoon assured himself of Mr. Lovely's +fidelity, and in the company of the young gentlemen of the _Blue Boar_, +passed a very pleasant evening over some capital Burgundy opened at his +expense. He sent down messages to my Lord Cinderton and my Lord Vanity +begging the favour of their company, and both my lords hurried back as +fast as their dignified legs would carry them. Of course, they quite +agreed with Mr. Ripple that the outbreak was scandalous and were +determined to support his decrees against the whole of society provided +they were not included in the excommunication. The news of Sir Jeremy +Dummer's sudden decease was brought in, and Mr. Ripple, deeply moved by +the melancholy event, ascribed it to the horror with which the old +baronet was overwhelmed at the defiance of himself. It was soon +announced in every drawing-room that Sir Jeremy Dummer had died of an +apoplexy brought on by the sight of the rebel abstainers from morning +Chalybeate. + +It was arranged, almost in silence, that everybody faithful to the great +Beau, should repair to the Pump Room on the following morning, dressed +in funereal black, a quarter of an hour earlier than usual. They might +not be admitted, but their devotion would carry its own reward, and +would certainly afford the Beau confidence in the loyalty of the most of +his subjects. It was farther arranged that a deputation of the leading +visitors and residents should wait upon him at his lodgings with an +address black-edged, assuring him of their sorrow and fidelity. As for +the rebels, they must make what terms they could. + +At eleven o'clock of Monday forenoon the deputation waited upon the Beau +and was ushered over the Turkey carpet into his urbane presence. +Apparently he was quite untouched by the almost servile assurance of +loyalty contained in the address. He begged leave to inform the company +that, while sensible of their compliment, he could not permit any +publick amusement until the ringleaders of the revolt had, hat in hand, +implored his forgiveness. He added he had reluctantly despatched mounted +messengers to Leamington, Cheltenham, Bristol Well, Brighthelmstone, +Harrowgate, Scarborough, Tunbridge and the Bath, begging his brethren to +refuse admittance to any new arrivals until farther warning. He was +confident that his appeal would not be disregarded. The abashed +deputation withdrew, having effected nothing. Monday passed gloomily +enough. There were no chairmen, there were no chairs, there were no +coaches, there was no Assembly. The shops were all closed: the Pump Room +was closed: coffee-houses, chocolate-houses and taverns were all closed. + +The rebels were now merged almost imperceptibly into loyalists but a few +still held out, and two of the more callous--I will not affront the +living world with their names--went so far as to send out invitations to +a party of Quadrille. Six equally hardened rebels arrived at the time +appointed. Two tables were formed, the candles were lighted, the guineas +stood piled in glittering dozens, the cards were dealt, when suddenly +the door was flung open and Mr. Ripple in black sattin, armed with a +spade, marched into the room. + +"I think, ladies and gentlemen, that I am Spadille this evening," he +proclaimed in a voice of ice. + +The eight rebels dropped their cards. It was impossible to play with any +calmness in the presence of that menacing figure whose contempt was so +sublime. The ladies fluttered from the room in dismay. + +"Gentlemen," said the Beau, "you will call at my house to-morrow with +the humblest apologies for this evening's outrage." + +Then he vanished from the room. It only remains to add that the +gentlemen did call at the Great House on the following morning where +their humiliation was complete if we may judge by an alabaster tablet +set up in the portico of the Assembly Rooms where it remained until the +other day, when, alas! the famous old rooms, so long the most frequented +shrine of wit and beauty in England, were pulled down to make way for a +publick library. + +The tablet which was in the likeness of the Ace of Spades bore the +following inscription: + + Sacred to the Memory of Justice, Decency, and Order, + This Tablet was erected by four Gentlemen + In Token of their sincere Penitence and resolute + Amendment. + Also in the profoundest Admiration and deepest + Respect for Beau Ripple, King of Curtain Wells, + for many years + Arbiter of Fashion + and + Oracle of Wit. + The Great and Only + Spadille. + + + + +_Chapter the Ninth_ + +THE ASSEMBLY + + +The submission of the recalcitrants secured once more to Curtain Wells +her publick amusements, and the Monday Assembly was announced for +Wednesday evening. Everybody determined that it should make up in +brilliance what it lacked in punctuality, and all private +conversaziones, routs, and Quadrille parties were, by general consent, +postponed. + +We have temporarily got out of touch with the lesser intrigues of this +history, but truly all such were eclipsed by the great Rebellion whose +echoes drowned the whispered vows of lovers and the murmur of scandalous +small talk. The prospect of peace set everybody at amusement, with +vigour refreshed by the momentary lull in the gay tempest of their +lives. + +An additional excitement surrounded this Assembly because it was +everywhere reported that the young gentlemen of the _Blue Boar_ would be +present in force. This rumour was, indeed, likely to prove true, for the +young gentlemen, already determined to discover Mr. Lovely's charmer, +were confirmed in their resolve by a desire to reciprocate the Beau's +lately implied confidence in a way more likely to gratify him than any +other. + +The prospect of dancing with young Tom Chalkley of the Foot, Tony Clare, +and Peter Wingfield, or Lieutenant Blewforth of the _Lively_ fluttered +all the young ladies' hearts and very many of the old ones'. Moreover, +there were the Honourable Mr. Harthe-Brusshe and Mr. Golightly, and +above all, there was Mr. Charles Lovely who, if he were a poet, was also +a man of the extremest fashion and finest taste, and so at once genteel +and romantick. Altogether the postponed Assembly promised to be a great +success. + +Miss Phyllida Courteen hoped that her dear Amor would make an exception +for once, but Mr. Vernon declared he would by no means commit himself to +such publick adoration of his fair; so she was forced to content herself +with the prospect of teasing Miss Sukey Morton about the anonymous +Valentine. She knew that her dear Morton would suspect Mr. Chalkley who, +with the politeness for which the British Army has always been famous, +had once recovered her dropped fan. This somewhat ordinary event had led +Miss Morton to colour the whole world to the hue of a red coat. All the +dearest confidences exchanged with her beloved Courteen referred to +young Mr. Chalkley who was quite unconscious of the amount of room he +occupied in Miss Morton's heart, and was used to regard women as +musquets for the presenting of arms, but nothing more. + +The whole of Wednesday had been spent by the ladies of the Wells in +refreshing their bodies with sleep and rouge alternately, and the sickle +moon in the frore February sky looked pale and ghostly beside the sleek +tapers that twinkled in every window pane and the ruddy flambeaux of the +lackeys as they stamped up and down in waiting to escort their +mistresses to the ball. + +Phyllida was not long in putting on her white muslin nightgown with +flowered sack; and as her curls had neither to be subdued by Powder and +Pomatum, nor frizzled to a mock vivacity by restorative Tongs, she sat +in the bow-window of her bedchamber and stared at the young moon. The +curtains were drawn back, but, even so, she could still see innumerable +shepherds arming as many shepherdesses through the pattern and, as the +fire-light flickered over them, they seemed, indeed, to be stepping a +forgotten dance. + +"I should like to live in a curtain," thought Phyllida, "and be always +young and always happy and always hand in hand with--but after all +nothing could be less like a shepherd than Amor," and just then the +little flame that had been urging all the figures into motion turned to +a noisy puff of smoke; the picture faded from her mind and the voice of +her mother destroyed the last gossamer fancy that floated through her +brain. + +The widow's room was billowy with rejected petticoats on which, like +sea-wrack, floated garters, stockings, and gloves; while a large +constellation of paste gleamed fitfully through the mirk of a Paris net. +In the midst of the delicate havock sat the widow uncertain as ever what +colour and stuff would most become the evening. + +"The Major spoils my rose lustring and my orange sack makes the Justice +look----" + +"Like suet," said Betty. + +The widow was about to reprimand her for the simile, but as it perfectly +expressed what the Justice would look like, she refrained. + +"Sure, madam," said Phyllida, who was impatient to set out, "you had +best wear your blue brocade." + +"The child is right," said the widow emphatically. "Betty! my blue +brocade." + +Betty did not protest she had already tried on the blue brocade four +times because, if she had, the widow would instantly have thought that +green would be better, and the argument would have begun all over again. + +At last the widow was dressed; the coach was at the door; and in a very +short time made one of a long row of equally cumbersome vehicles that +extended far down the High Street. Mrs. Courteen peering from the window +announced she had caught a glimpse of Lady Bunbutter stepping out of her +coach in blue brocade. This dreadful anticipation of her own entrance +was extremely disconcerting, and if there had been the slightest +prospect of turning round in the crush of coaches, chairs, footmen, +linkboys and gaping cits, she would have instantly driven home to +exchange blue for any other colour in her trunk-mail or closet. However, +as she could not change her attire, she did the next best thing +possible, by blaming Phyllida for her suggestion. As this was the +prologue to every assembly, the latter was not much troubled by her +mother's annoyance and soon the coach arrived at the very steps leading +up to the Rooms. At the moment it drew up, Major Tarry and Mr. Moon +stepped forward and flung open the door and handed the widow out and +armed her up the steps and gave her name to Mr. Ripple's confidential +Secretary who passed it on to another equally confidential footman who +bawled it out at the top of his voice just as Mrs. Courteen sailed into +the ballroom where Mr. Ripple, with the rosy bloom of triumph on his +cheeks, advanced to offer two fingers vailed in gloves of diaphanous +chicken-skin. + +Curtseys, bows, and compliments lasted until the arrival of the next +guest, when the widow with her faithful Ancients surveyed the room in a +grand promenade. Phyllida made off to greet her dear Morton with half a +glance in the direction of the young gentlemen from the _Blue Boar_, who +were grouped rather stiffly at the other end of the ballroom. + +The babble of conversation and the swish of fans, the colour all compact +of movement, the innumerable tapers, the glitter of many brooches, pins, +and buckles, the mirrours, the preliminary notes of the musicians, the +shuffling feet, and the tap of the opened snuff-boxes combined in that +glorious whole--a ball at the Assembly Rooms, Curtain Wells. + +Soon the Minuets would begin, and after the Minuets, the Gavottes, and +so on to the Country Dances and the last great Cotillon. The passionate +history of the world is writ in crowquill letters on the programs of +dances. What Jealousies and yellow-winged Envies hovered on the cool air +of waving fans, what vows would be made and broken in those alcoves, now +serene and empty, before the last flambeau expired in the gutter +outside. What mean Ambitions coiled around every genteel fine hoop! + +Yet Mr. Ripple was so suave, Mrs. Courteen and my Lady Bunbutter so full +of compliments, Lieutenant Blewforth so jolly and Mr. Lovely so witty, +old Lord Vanity so generous of snuff, my Lord Cinderton so +distinguished--and as for Miss Phyllida Courteen, she was enchanted to a +magical domain where only very slowly did Mr. Francis Vernon blacken a +trinket sun with the menace of real passion. + +Suddenly her heart began to beat so fast that she feared all her friends +would observe her agitation. Surely that young gentleman in primrose +sattin and flesh-coloured brocaded waistcoat, who took the polished +floor so easily, was the poet of Valentine Day to whom she had confided +her note. Surely too, for all he stared at everybody else from time to +time, his eyes were really fixed on hers. Perhaps he was a friend of +Amor's with a message to deliver--and yet it would be more interesting, +she decided, if he were not. Presently Mr. Lovely was bowing over her +chair and asking in the politest manner possible for the honour of the +next two dances. + +She looked round at Miss Morton as if to say she could not leave her +without a partner. + +"Madam," said Mr. Lovely bowing very low indeed, "if I might be so +presumptuous, does the young lady wish for a Vis a Vis, for in that case +I shall certainly present my friend Mr. Chalkley of the Foot." + +Miss Morton, amid a deal of simpering, confessed she favoured a minuet +on occasions, so Mr. Lovely hurried off to fetch Mr. Chalkley before the +musicians began to play the opening bars of the dance. + +Phyllida was astonished at the coincidence and not sure whether, after +all, Mr. Chalkley had not employed Mr. Lovely's offices on his behalf. +However, as she had little enough envy in her and was romantically +attached to Mr. Amor, she could scarcely refuse to help her dear Morton +into the arms of an expectant lover, and if Mr. Lovely had no real +inclination to dance with her, that was no great matter, since he was a +vastly agreeable young gentleman and would pass the time very pleasantly +in the absence of another. + +Mr. Chalkley, when summoned by Charles, was extremely indignant and +swore he was not come to dance with any jade in the room. + +"Pshaw," replied his friend, "you can't stand there gaping all the +evening." + +"Why don't you make Blewforth dance with the hussy?" + +"Odds my life, Tom, why won't you tread a minuet with a handsome young +woman?" + +"You're too devilish fond of arranging matters for other people to suit +your own whims. I'll be hanged if I dance a step to-night!" But all the +other young gentlemen vowed so earnestly that Mr. Chalkley was a surly +fellow, that he gave way at last and suffered himself to be dragged to +the feet of attractive Miss Sukey Morton, whose black eyes flashed very +brightly at the sight of Mr. Chalkley's red coat. + +Charles, having disposed her friend, offered his hand to Phyllida and +soon they were stepping the minuet with infinite grace, admired by every +one who saw them. + +For her the room sank into unreality and she lived in a rainbow whose +colours moved and changed to the slow dignity of far-heard Pizzicato. + +The melody to which these marionettes were dancing possessed a strange +quality. It was emotion in quintessence, without passion, without +abandon. Whatever it had of definite character lay in the half bashful +invitation to dance, as if some ghostly puppet master, pale and stately, +were beckoning to his performers. As the opening bars of the minuet were +repeated at the close only to die away in a poignant farewell, Phyllida +felt for the first time, in the swoon of her last courtesy, that she was +a doll whose gestures served to amuse a genteel but unearthly audience +of monocled Gods. + +Actually it was a mere momentary dizziness, a sudden loss of volition on +which Charles hung a score of fancies. + +"You are feeling faint?" he inquired. + +"No, no." + +"The heat is overpowering. Shall we sit for a while in an alcove, or +shall we saunter in Curtain Garden?" They passed through the crowded +room and down a cool passage into a Baroc cloister where stone Satyrs +took the place of Angels, and the Cherubim were not easily to be +distinguished from Loves. + +The young moon was setting behind Curtain Hill larger and more golden +than before. + +The cloister was hung with amber lights and held innumerable whispers. +Somewhere close at hand was a sound of running water. + +"You are fond of dancing, madam?" + +"Oh, sir, 'tis a very delicate motion truly." + +"I fear you thought I was presumptuous in offering my hand for the +minuet." + +"No, indeed, sir," Phyllida answered quite naturally. + +Lovely was rather surprized. He had expected the customary play of a +fan. + +"You are making a long stay here?" he asked. + +"Oh, sir, I do not know, 'tis for so long as my mamma thinks proper." + +"I have not had the honour of an introduction." + +"No," said Phyllida doubtfully. She was not at all anxious to present +Mr. Lovely, and willing enough to take advantage of the Assembly rule +that the offer and acceptance of a dance was not necessarily a passport +to intimacy on the next day. She did not wish to be treated like a child +before the gallant Mr. Lovely who treated her with such deference. + +"Did you hear anything more of the Valentine?" said Phyllida with a +ripple of laughter. + +"Not a word." + +"You remember the young woman by whom I was seated?" + +"Perfectly." + +"'Twas for her," said Phyllida with more laughter. + +"Nonsense." + +"Oh, yes! indeed, 'tis true, and the best of it is she thinks the +Valentine was sent by Mr. Chalkley." + +"Never!" + +"Oh! yes, yes, yes." + +"But he has never set eyes on her." + +"No! But she thinks he has--often, just because he picked up her fan +once." + +"Truly then I did a very politick action in effecting the introduction." + +"Oh, sir, she was ravished, you may be sure." + +"Gad! I'll send her a Valentine every day of the week, and put one in +her Prayer Book on Sundays." + +"Oh, sir! but sure, it might end in a wedding, and that's a very serious +matter as all the world knows." + +"Not more serious than love," said Charles. + +"Well, no, perhaps not more than love; but then neither of 'em is in +love with t'other." + +"I swear they shall be." + +"You can't force people to fall in love." + +"Can't you?" said Charles very earnestly, so earnestly that Phyllida +thought the air was turning chill and that they ought to go back to the +ballroom. + +"Not yet," pleaded Mr. Lovely. "I thought we might walk towards the +Maze." + +"The Maze?" said she quickly. + +"Why, yes! the entrance is but a few yards from where we are." + +"I had forgot," she answered, and then with a sudden determination, "I +think we had better go back." + +"You're not frightened of the Maze?" + +"Oh, no, truly I'm not," Phyllida affirmed. "But I think I heard my +mamma's voice and if she sees me here, I shall not be allowed to come to +the next Assembly." + +Phyllida was feeling a vague emotion of infidelity to her dear Amor and +almost dreaded to see his tall shadow in the amber light. + +"As you will," he said in some disappointment, "but we han't had a deal +of conversation yet." + +"That's true," she replied, "but this is only our second meeting. Oh! +Gemini!" she went on, "you'll think me forward and bold, but I vow I +never meant it in that way." + +"Madam," said Charles with a bow, "I should never presume to put upon it +an interpretation so complimentary to myself, but, seriously, you will +give me two more dances to-night?" + +"It would be indiscreet." + +"Nay, I do not think so." + +"Your friends would laugh." + +"I do not _think_ so." + +Mr. Lovely looked so fierce that Phyllida hurriedly promised two +gavottes, and Charles who was something of a Gascon could not help +congratulating himself on his speedy success. + +They walked back to the ballroom almost in silence, and above the +chatter of folk in the lobby, heard the opening of a plaintive minuet. + +Lovely, when he had left his partner, walked over to his friends of the +_Blue Boar_ and was greeted with a shower of sallies. + +"How now, Charles, have you been smuggling rare spirits in the +cloister?" cried Blewforth. + +"Snuggling would be b-b-better!" stammered little Peter Wingfield. + +Charles glared at both the young gentlemen, who laughed very heartily +indeed, and were not at all put about by his frowns. + +"Oddslife, Charles," said Mr. Chalkley, "where have been your eyes these +past six weeks to have so lately discovered the fair Courteen?" + +"Charles looks at women through dice-boxes," said Blewforth. + +"And what's worse, sees double wherever he looks," added Mr. Chalkley. + +"Charles," added Mr. Antony Clare, "be wise. Some knave of Clubs will +trump your Queen." + +"Mr. Clare," said Charles drawing himself up very straight and looking +as grand as possible, "I'll trouble you to croak when I ask for your +noise; as for you, gentlemen, you're too free with your words, be d--d +to the lot of you." + +Thereupon Mr. Charles Lovely swung himself out of the room with such an +air that the young gentlemen looked after him in some apprehension. + +"Egad!" commented Chalkley, "the man must be madly in love for he's lost +his wit." + +"And his humour too," said Blewforth. + +"Don't rally him too hard, boys," said Tony. + +"We can't all turn parsons because Charles is bewitched by two blue +eyes," grumbled Chalkley. + +This was the opinion of the company, and though in their hearts they +excused Mr. Lovely, they were loud in their condemnation of his churlish +behaviour. + +Clare, afraid he was gone to work off his injured feelings by reckless +play, soon followed him out of the ballroom, but could not find him at +the tables. + +Charles had, in fact, turned into the garden. Cupid had pierced him with +a long sharp arrow, and he was not yet able to bear a rough hand on the +wound. The night air came over him fresh and cool. In the darkness he +was more than ever enthralled by the image and pale fancies of an ideal +passion. Yet for all he was a poet, or perhaps just because he was a +poet, his love was tinted with the hues of convention. She was like +those Madonnas who appear to peasant children, Madonnas in crude +croelean robes sown with tinsel stars. One feels that much of the +apparition is due to preconceived opinion. So with Charles, his love +made one of a list of women dating to the Queens of Babylon. There was +too much bob-a-cherry about her and too much cream. She stood, too, on +such a high pedestal that if she owned feet of cracked clay not a soul +could have seen them. + +Charles felt very angry with his bachelor friends, and when Clare joined +him at the end of an alley was in no mood to be pleasant company. + +"Sure, Charles," the latter remonstrated, "you're the last man to tie +yourself to the skirts of a goddess." + +"There's a medium between an angel and a woman of the town," said +Charles sententiously. + +"But the woman was once an angel to somebody, and 'foregad! I believe +you do your charmer an injury to make her such a paragon of air. I swear +those eyes can flash with more than saintly ecstasy." + +"Z----ds! Tony, you are bent on a quarrel. I tell you the child's name +shall not be a toast for my profligate friends." + +"You are not better than any of them." + +"But at least I can reverence purity." + +"Aye, and so can Blewforth." + +"D---- e!" swore Charles, "'tis a pity he don't exercise his talent more +openly." + +The argument would doubtless have continued, if the sound of voices +approaching had not made the two young men pause involuntarily. Two +people were passing down the adjoining alley, and it was impossible not +to overhear some of the conversation, which was sufficiently ridiculous. +A feminine voice declared that soldiers were romantick, and a voice of +opposite sex replied that as an attribute of class, it was an undeniable +quality, but not for that reason universally applicable to individual +members of that class. + +"But a scarlet coat is so dazzling," argued Treble. + +"Madam," said Bass, "I cannot claim that my profession is romantick. The +Law, Madam, has no time for romance except perhaps in the examination of +an unwilling witness, but what my profession lacks, my name possesses. +Moon, madam, I venture to affirm, is a singularly romantick name." + +"It is," murmured the widow, for, of course, it was she. + +"The moon is the method of illumination adopted by every poet of +distinction." + +"How true that is," she sighed. + +"I might add that so far as dazzling goes my name is as capable of +extreme refraction as the red coat of a soldier. Moreover, madam, the +latter is very antipathetick to the complexion of a woman of quality." + +"But the coat need not be worn, Mr. Moon. It could exist in a bottom +drawer, I should feel it was there, and I could sometimes brush it +even." + +"Good heavens! ma'am, has not the Law an equal fascination? Do you know +that my house is full of legal cases?" + +"How untidy!" said the widow reprovingly. + +"Arguments _Pro_ and _Contra_, trials!" + +"But I dislike arguments, they put my hair out of curl and we have so +many trials to bear already." + +"They need never be used, but they can exist, madam, they can exist in +calf on a bottom shelf, and they could be dusted sometimes," declared +the Justice. Then in softer accents he began to plead: + +"Think, my dear Mrs. Courteen, of Mrs. Moon. Mrs. Moon! I often murmur +that short sentence over to myself." + +"Do you, Mr. Moon? When?" said the widow, who seemed touched by his +devotion. + +"Oh! after dinner--or getting into bed, or--" but the third occasion was +never revealed, for Major Tarry charged round the corner and carried off +the dear questioner to adorn a gavotte. + +Somehow the hedges no longer seemed so mysterious and the night not +quite so large. + +"Gad! what follies!" laughed Charles. + +"D'ye know who the lady was?" inquired the other. + +"Venus grown fat by the sound of her voice." + +"That was Mrs. Courteen." + +"Eh?" + +"Your charmer's mother." + +"Then she must have had a very delightful father." + +"That's neither here nor there," said Clare. "Your angel's wings may +moult, and she who now goes tiptoe for very lightness will one day--but, +pshaw! if you love her, she will always skim the ground." + +"Tony!" said Charles, "I've made a fool of myself." + +"In the best way of folly." + +It may seem odd that Charles should have been so ready to admit the +mortality of his goddess, but after all as yet his love was an +apparition. No miracles had been worked at the shrine, and she had a +mother. + +Also Charles began to smell romance, of which he pretended to an +exaggerated horror. Like mother, like daughter. He made up his mind to +neglect Miss Phyllida Courteen, and having done so, went back to the +ballroom with the temerity of a successful anchorite. Yet when he saw +her again she was young and adorable, and he was as madly in love with +her as ever; all the more perhaps because he realized that one day she +would fade. However, he was no longer so full of heroick rebukes for his +friends. Perhaps, like the Greeks, he was beginning to understand that +romantick Troy was a menace to the common sense of the world. + +Charles found the young men in precisely the same position as that in +which he left them. + +"Oddslife," cried Blewforth, "there's Charles come back. What, man! have +you been languishing under the sky? Your mistress has been dancing +merrily with Ripple himself, while you were star-gazing." + +"'Tis a pity that none of you have enough impudence to follow his +example," retorted Charles, "for on my soul you all stand stiff and +awkward as the figures on a Gothick tombstone. Gad! I've a mind to tell +the ladies how nimbly you tripped it at Baverstock, Blewforth, and as +for you, Tom, I'm hanged if I'd be cut out by a beggarly half-pay +militia captain," continued Charles pointing to the disreputable Captain +Mann who was handing Miss Morton through the gavotte. + +"Well said!" Clare joined in, "we shall find it more difficult than ever +to believe Blewforth's tales of conquest in the ports of civilization." + +"Unless," added Charles, "like a picture by a great master he possesses +an immovable reputation and attracts by beauty in repose." + +"Ha--ha--ha," bellowed the Lieutenant, "you should have seen me at +Minorca. These finicking hussies aren't worth the shoe leather one uses +in dragging them round the room." But just as Mr. Blewforth was about to +give a discourse on the beauty, grace, and agility of feminine Spain, +Mr. Ripple scaled the rigid group: + +"Now, gentlemen, you are not dancing. Come, come this won't do. I've +let you off the Minuets and Gavottes, but I insist on the Country +Dances. Let me see, Lieutenant Blewforth, I have the very Vis a Vis you +are looking for--Mrs. Georgina Bean, widow of the late Captain Bean, of +your own Service. She will like to hear the latest Marine Information." + +Blewforth struck his colours with an almost humble salute. + +"Mr. Chalkley," the Beau continued, "Miss Margery Mansel a young lady +fresh from boarding-school, will certainly suit your accomplishments. +Treat her kindly, sir. Mr. Golightly, I insist on your dancing with Lady +Jane Vane--your father and hers were intimate friends. Mr. +Harthe-Brusshe, your respected father tells me that he has a particular +desire you should dance with Miss Mimsy; she's an heiress, sir, and as +good as she is wealthy. Come, come, gentlemen, make no doubt that I +shall find a partner for every one of you." + +The young gentlemen, a little stiffer, a little more awkward, followed +Mr. Ripple very mildly across the room. The rest of the Assembly +fluttered quite perceptibly at their approach. + +Lovely had no opportunity of asking Phyllida to dance with him as by the +time he had crossed the room, she was standing opposite Mr. Moon. So he +hurried up to Miss Sukey Morton who flashed her black eyes and took his +arm with all the grace in the world and discussed the attraction of the +British Army with much fan-play and volubility. He met Phyllida in the +course of the dance and begged her hand for the Cotillon, but she shook +her head gravely with a glance in the direction of old General Morton, +and Charles passed on to less interesting encounters much exasperated by +the impertinence of old age. + +"Why aren't you a soldier, Mr. Lovely?" asked Miss Morton in a wondering +voice. + +"I like to pull the sheets over my head when I sleep," said Charles very +solemnly, "but soldiers always have to put them on top of a pole." + +"Oh! but think of war and fortresses and sieges and bivouacks." + +"I dislike war, I object to fortresses. For sieges I lack the patience +and I abominate bivouacks." + +"But the uniform is so gay," persisted Miss Morton, "and so martial." + +"A footman's, ma'am, is twice as gay and three times as martial." + +"Nay, I vow you're jealous of the Army." + +"Madam, is that surprizing, when Miss Morton inclines so much to +scarlet?" + +"Nay, now you are laughing at me,", she pouted, "and I hate to be +laughed at. Are you a friend of Mr. Chalkley?" + +"Indeed, I hope I may describe myself as such," said Charles. + +"Does he paint landskips as an Amateur?" inquired cunning Miss Sukey +Morton. + +"Not that I am aware of." + +The disappointment visible on her countenance recalled the incident of +the Valentine, and he made haste to add: + +"Though now I come to think of it, I found him cutting out an ace of +hearts one day last week." + +"An ace of hearts?" said Miss Morton very innocently, "why what would he +do that for?" + +"I asked him as much, and he muttered something about a torn velvet +patch. But his behaviour that day was monstrous odd altogether, for I +remember I found him later on the bowling green of the _Blue Boar_ +picking snowdrops, and when I rallied him, he asked me for a rhyme to +'white.'" + +Miss Morton danced for the rest of the evening as though her scarlet +heels were little flames. + +The hands of the clock were nearing the magick hour of the last +Cotillon, and everybody was hurrying in search of partners and places; +when the appearance of Gog and Magog, with Mr. Ripple's marble pedestal, +warned everybody that the Great little Man was about to make an +announcement. Everybody waited with extreme deference and not a whisper +disturbed the religious peace. The room was quite still save for the +tinkle of jewellery and the slow sighing of the fans. + +The Beau ascended his pedestal, calm and majestick while the listeners +craned their necks to attention. + +"My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen. You are doubtless all aware that we +have to lament the sudden death of that respected model of fortitude and +perseverance, Sir Jeremy Dummer." + +A sympathetick murmur floated along the wind of the fans. + +"I am happy to tell you that he died as he lived, fighting. He died, if +I may use so vulgar a metaphor, in harness--the harness of an old +war-horse who, having fought the foes of England during his prime, +continued to fight the greatest foe of England during his decay. That +energy which erstwhile displayed itself in the trenches of War enabled +him for twenty-one years to persecute by every means in his power that +enemy of all of us--the Gout. + +"He sought to starve it into capitulation by restricted diet, he tried +to storm it by sudden charges of chalybeate. My lords, ladies and +gentlemen, it was in the middle of one of these gallant sallies that he +died. In a word, he was half-way through a glass of the cleansing liquid +when death overtook him. There it stood, that partially empty glass +beside the dead form of the veteran. May we not regard this relick as +the tears of AEsculapius? Shall we not enshrine these sparkling drops in +a lachrymatory and, having sealed the sacred fluid with the city seal, +shall we not set it in a prominent part of our civick museum? My lords, +ladies and gentlemen, we shall. I have consulted with my brother the +Mayor of this town, and he has agreed. + +"Moreover, let me remind you of the last words of the great Socrates, +his last injunction to his friend to sacrifice a cock to AEsculapius. Let +us also, in memory of our deceased exemplar, present a new tap to our +publick fountain and so sacrifice, my lords, ladies and gentlemen, not a +cock, but a turncock to AEsculapius." + +The Great little Man here paused to wipe away the tears of sorrow and +the heat of the atmosphere. "It seems," he continued, "out of place to +make any announcement of a new diversion, but pleasure is as inexorable +as death." + +Here the audience seemed to murmur a mournful assent. + +"Next Tuesday at 7 o'clock precisely will be held the Chinese +Masquerade. This, as you are aware, limits our costumes to those +authorized by gold-lackered cabinets and teacups of blue china. I myself +shall act as Gold Mandarin and my young friend Mr. Charles Lovely will +be the Blue Mandarin. There will be a grand minuet of Cathay, but I will +not detain you now with farther particulars of this entertainment. I +hope that we shall hold masquerades of assorted characters until May, +when we shall make an attempt to start the Fetes Champetres which were +so successful last year. + +"Finally, my lords, ladies and gentlemen, you are aware that an incident +of an unpleasantly obtrusive habit deterred us from Terpsichore on +Monday night. I am, indeed, happy to say that the curtain has fallen +upon the whole affair without a dissentient voice. I should have been +inexpressibly grieved if the gloom consequent upon the defiance of my +authority, had been at all lasting. May I add that the rebels--if I may +call them so without offence--have acted in the handsomest manner and +have offered to set up in the portico of these rooms a tablet +commemorating the temporary cloud upon your delight. I should be more +than mortal if I were not proud of such a token of confidence in my +despotism. + +"My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen, I am your very grateful, humble, and +obliged servant to command." + +The Beau's descent from his pedestal was the signal for much waving of +lace handkerchiefs and fans. There were cries of 'Bravo, Beau,' 'Viva, +Ripple!' + +Finally when old Lord Vanity stepped up to the dignified lord of +ceremonies and solemnly offered him his noted jade snuffbox full to +overflowing of the richest brown Rappee, and when the Beau, having +dropped his jewelled fingers into the modish soil, drew them forth and +raised them to his aquiline nose, a stillness fell upon the room, and +above the silence the sniffs of the great Beau, three in number, were +distinctly heard by all. It was as if he wished them Good Health. But +this was not enough for the Exquisite Mob. Somebody--it may have been +our hero--ran post haste for a bottle of champagne, and somebody else +rushed off for goblets. Presently, the prettiest Impromptu in the world +was enacted, and very proud indeed were the spectators of a scene +memorable for many years in the chronicles of fashion. + +Delicately veined hands untwisted the silver wire and tore off the gold +cap. Somebody fetched a corkscrew, somebody clenched the sombre green +bottle between his brocaded knees. An arm tapering to snowy peaks pulled +at the unwilling cork. A fairy explosion was followed by the dewy +vapours of long imprisoned sunshine. The amber liquid sparkled and +bubbled and flowed over the many faceted goblet in cream and foam. + +The Beau mounted once more upon his pedestal and drank to the pleasure, +health, and beauty of the company, while Lord Vanity and my Lady +Bunbutter quaffed an answering toast in deputy for the lords, ladies and +gentlemen present. Salvoes of well-bred applause pattered round the +room, and the Beau's triumph was hailed with acclamations. + +And you, beautiful women and fine gentlemen, roses and carnations of an +older century, nothing remains of you for us. Your very perfume is but a +name. You are no more to the world of to-day than those glossy candles +that spluttered to death in gilt sockets. And yet, from the ruin of +elegance, one relick of that famous evening remains; for the silver wire +of the bottle of champagne, flung heedless to the ground, caught in a +flounce of some Beauty's petticoat. Long ago the gossamer stuff +mouldered, long ago was Beauty herself a skeleton, but the wire +cherished by Beauty's family may still be seen in a glass-topped table +in the corner of a quiet library somewhere in the broad Midlands. O +insignificant wire, you are more durable than the flowers who despised +you! + +And now another famous ball waned to a close, and all the world of taste +and fashion went home to bed. + + + + +_Chapter the Tenth_ + +AFTER THE ASSEMBLY + + +Mr. Charles Lovely walked back with Mr. Antony Clare to the _Blue Boar_, +and joined Mr. Francis Vernon in the Coffee Room. + +The latter noticed that Clare frowned slightly when he saw him, and +explained, almost apologetically, that he had moved thither from his +lodgings in the Crescent. Charles was delighted and immediately proposed +a game of hazard. + +"You'll play, Tony?" he said eagerly. + +"Not I," his friend answered. "I'm too sleepy, for 'tis confoundedly +fatiguing to be on such polite behaviour for so long." + +"That's true indeed," cried Charles, "and therefore we need recreation +the more." With this he gave a tug at the bell-pull of flowery chintz, +and presently Mr. Daish who had sent the waiters to bed, came yawning to +answer the summons. + +"Daish, bring two bottles of Burgundy like the fine fellow and good +landlord that you are." + +"Yes, Mr. Lovely, certainly, your honour, but I hope your honour will be +careful with the bottles; it would be a terrible thing for the house if +the watch was murdered as they nearly was twice over last week," said +Mr. Daish, crumpling into obsequiousness at the impudence of his +request, and retreating sidelong from the room. + +Mr. Clare, seeing that it was useless to argue Charles out of his +determination, took a seat by the fire. + +"Egad," said Lovely, "what a jealous dog it is, he won't play, but can't +bear to go to bed." Clare gave the fire a meditative poke. + +"What shall it be, Mr. Vernon? Ecarte?" + +"With pleasure." + +"Or picket?" + +"As you will." + +"Why, then, picket, and if we find we grow too sleepy to count our +sequences, we shall, at any rate, not be too sleepy to trickle dice out +of a box, eh?" + +Charles turned with these words to take some unbroken paquets of playing +cards from a small mahogany cabinet hanging against the wall. The +picture presented was a friendly one as the two men seated themselves at +the card table. The fire was burning brightly and rosy shadows flickered +over the ceiling. The curtains were close drawn and the ample flowers of +their pattern seemed to retain somehow the warmth and the light. By the +side of the grate sat Tony in a high grandfather's chair. He had taken +off his wig and was staring meditatively at the crisp curls, as it +reposed on his knee. The buckles of his shoes spat tiny glints of +flame--red, blue and green. Presently he leaned across to a small +bookshelf and took down some dry inn volume, but the print danced in the +fire-light and very soon he was dozing peacefully, while his wig slipped +to the ground and became a pleasant couch for a large tabby cat to purr +away comfortable hours. + +At the table sat Vernon and Lovely face to face, and the green baize +made a prim battlefield for the debonair antagonists. It was a +meadow-fight viewed from towering Olympus. Here was pasture profitable +enough to some: to others barren as the unharvested sea. No crescent +moon lighted it, no sun parched the fresh greenery whose four tall +candles flickered only to chamber tempests, storms of tapestry, keyhole +zephyrs. At either end were ranged round guineas in wicked little heaps, +and along the borders stood serried packs of cards, shorn of their +meaner numbers as becomes the apparelled duel of picket. These had been +flung contemptuously on to the floor and the survivors lay face +downwards on the table with a new and alluring slimness. Their backs +were so innocent--mere festoons of flowers and bouquets of rosebuds; +yet their very innocence only served to enhance the red and black +determination of their faces. How the royal cards reflected in their +appearance the temper of their courts. How sombre-suited went the Queen +of Spades, how pensive seemed her consort, while the savage Ace was hung +with garlands of mourning and sable flowers of Proserpine. The Queen of +Diamonds looked harassed; the Knave had a lean eye and the King himself +seemed peaked and careworn. The Club Court was a swarthy and more brutal +counterpart of the gay Hearts, and the gay Hearts, with ripe dewy +mouths, had yet a certain sly sensuality that bred distrust. + +Then the tournament began. The stacked guineas sprawled in golden +disarray and dwindled and swelled and tinkled to the tune of the game. + +Charles was winning. Five times he had made the grand Repique, five +times the gallant Pique, thrice Capote had taken captive twelve hostile +cards to be redeemed with rippling guineas. Ace, King, Queen, Knave, Ten +came in sequences as month succeeds to month. His hands were palaces for +the abode of many courtiers. They were picture galleries of the oldest +kings and queens in Europe. If he threw away Spades, he took up the red +Hearts for which he longed. If he discarded Diamonds, he gained a lusty +host of Clubs to serve his purpose. + +At last Vernon, who had lost steadily for a pair of hours--six games at +an average price of thirty guineas a game--declared he would fight no +longer against his adversary's good fortune. "Moreover," he added, "so +much counting has set my brain in a whirl." + +"As you will," said Charles, who would have liked to continue with +picket, but could not refuse to give his opponent an opportunity to +avenge himself at another game. + +So they turned to Ecarte. + +And now his fortune deserted him. Each time Vernon dealt he turned up a +King, and Charles began to dread their florid appearance, as some +ambitious minister dreads the veering of his master's favour. Those +kings who had hitherto been numbered in his hands in fours and threes, +those puppet kings, had won a new dignity from the only game which +accords them their rightful place at the head of the pack; each one had +acquired, it seemed, a personality that threatened him. Time after time +were his Jeux de Regle defeated by the most astonishing combinations of +ill luck. + +So many times did those confounded monarchs affront him face upwards on +the serene baize that he began to suspect Vernon of being a sort of +gamester Warwick, a maker and unmaker of kings. Indeed, he went so far +as to watch his deals rather narrowly and, being unable to detect +anything amiss, became heartily ashamed of his suspicions. + +It was now five o'clock of a chill morning; the fire had sunk into +ashes, and dawn would soon shoot her icy arrows into the slow-flying +bulk of night. + +Clare was still asleep in the armchair, but presently the stealthy cold +waked him and he jumped up; the candles were guttering away; the +burgundy was drunk; the room smelt stale. + +"Come to bed, Charles," he cried out. + +Lovely, who had lost at Ecarte considerably more than he had won at +Picket, drew back the curtains for answer. The dawn was in the East. + +He blew out the candles one after another, and in the unreal morning +twilight, the aftermath of smoke curled like an outworn pleasure into +extinction save of a foul odour. + +"We have still a grey hour for the dice," said Charles. + +"As you will," replied Vernon. + +The dice boxes were brought out, and the ivory cubes began to dance; +strange fancies assailed Clare as he watched the gamesters; morbid +imaginations, caught from the chilly atmosphere, froze his reason, and +the rattle of the dice acquired a macabre significance. They clicked +like the hoofs of horses on an iron-bound road. Then they were the +castanets of a sinister dance. Soon they were the shaken ribs of Death, +the king of dancers, and at the end no more than a baby's rattle, +insistent, importunate, maddening. + +Charles was winning again. + +The various faces of the cubes took fantastick likenesses. _Two_ was a +patched beauty, leaden-eyed, pallid, pleasure-doomed. _Five_ was a +skewbald cat and _four_ a plum cake. Six was a ladder to some evil +house. _Three_ was a necklace of jet, _one_ a Pierrot's velvet eye. + +Charles was still winning. + +The irresponsibleness of the dice annoyed Clare. They tumbled and rolled +so gaily and it was mortifying to see a man enslaved by acrobats of +ivory. The bodies, too, with their absurd waists were like women whom +extravagant stays had driven to vomit sweetmeats. + +Charles had won. The casement swung open in the sudden winds of dawn; +the room was tinted with the cold colours of sunrise. The three men +stumbled upstairs disdainful of the morning's gold. A guinea slipped +from Lovely's pocket and tinkled down to the foot of the stairs to +reward the little scullery-maid who was even now yawning on her pallet +upstairs. + +A thrush tuned his melodies against the swift coming of spring, and the +purple leaf-buds welcomed the sun. + + + + +_Chapter the Eleventh_ + +NOX ALBA + + +Charles was tempted to deprive himself of sleep for the pleasure of +bedabbling his pale silk stockings with dew, but vanity killed romance +and the fresh light enchanted a still unruffled couch. So he flung his +coat over a chair, and the heavy pockets chinked as they fell back +against the taper legs. His prayers were all to rosy Aurora when the +fragrant linen sheets flowed like water over his parched brows. + +Sleep could not pass the melodious batteries of many birds, and Lovely's +brain had captured something of the time's clarity. The clock has many +secret hours, but those who would know them must follow their slow +pilgrimage wide awake. What castles men build to the pipes of the +morning! + +The world was waking up. Outside the talk of hostlers grew so loud that +the birds fled from the inn yard to the still deserted bowling green. + +Soon he heard the jangle of pails, the swish of mops and from time to +time the sound of a horse's hoof striking the cobbles with a clap. In +the distance a post-horn endowed the air with silver tongues. Charles +followed its course along the London road. He pictured the cumbrous +vehicle swinging in its straps between the black February hedgerows. He +saw the postillions blinking sleepy eyes to the Eastern sun. He saw the +great London road like a tape-measure unfolded from the gilded case that +was London. Already he was at Knightsbridge watching some townbred maid +gathering cresses in the little stream. Now he was spurring the horses +to a fine lather, for he could see the grooms in a black knot by the +_White Horse_ cellars. In a trice he was taking the air in St. James' +Street, and then suddenly he was a little boy picking his way through +Westminster mud beside his mother who was carrying a bouquet of violets +to their narrow house near St. John's Church. And now it was winter, and +the sea-coal was burning sullenly: there were no violets, and heavy on +the leaden afternoon he heard the bell tolling in Millbank Gaol. "God +save the poor soul, the marshes will be icy cold to-night," said his +mother, and he knew that some prisoner had escaped. + +"How late your father is," she went on as she opened a cupboard, set in +the panelled wall, to reach for plates and dishes. Then she told him to +get out the candlesticks--beautiful silver candlesticks with swan-like +necks and curious mazy lines around their bases. The candlesticks were +nowhere to be found. + +"Where can they be?" exclaimed his mother, pausing to help in the +search. Then he heard a sigh and was told to ask Mrs. Gruffle, the +landlady, for the brass bed-chamber candlesticks. He rather liked these: +there was always a delightful quagmire of grease in the little plate +where the socket rested--grease that could be moulded into queer little +pliable shapes, with shreds of tobacco stuck around for fur. When he +came back to the parlour, he saw his father with his legs on the bars of +the grate. + +"They had to go, my dear, they had to go," the latter was saying. + +"They were my mother's." + +"I know, I know, but z----ds' You wouldn't have me fail Dicky +Claribut?" + +"But sure they were not worth----" + +"Oons! I pledged my best buckles to him; the candlesticks were for his +gentleman. I'm devilish sorry, my dear, but, 'faith, 'twas not to be +avoided, and here's young Charles! Charles, my boy, never play, or, if +you do, play deep and win." + +"Don't put such ideas into the boy's mind," said his mother anxiously. + +"Oddslife, my dear, be very sure the ideas are there already." + +"How can you have the heart to persist when you know...." + +"The heart, madam?" interrupted his father. "Let me tell you that the +hearts of the Lovelys are all of a piece--and 'tis cardboard." + +Our hero came to his elegant self with a start and was back in Curtain +Wells with hot eyelids, and thoughts continually racing over the flowery +wall-paper. + +It was not long, however, before he was once more in pursuit of the +past. + +And now he was seated beside his handsome father in a chariot. They were +both in mourning and he thought how well the black frogged riding-coat +became his parent. As for himself, his black sattin breeches set his +teeth on edge as he tried to scratch his knee. + +"Where are we going?" he was asking. + +"To your mother's brother, Sir George Repington of Repington Hall." + +"That's the man whose letters made her cry?" + +"The same, young Charles," said Mr. Lovely, ogling a dairymaid through +his black-rimmed perspective, as the object of his glances shrank into a +hedge, powdered with cow-parsley, and closed her eyes against the dust +of their chariot. + +Then, without any warning, they were driving through a stately park, and +as they turned a corner, Mr. Lovely senior exclaimed "Good G...! A +cemetery indeed!" Charles looked up and saw a field full of small +cypresses with rank grass growing between them. + +His father, who was looking rather pale, signed to the postboy to stop, +and "Charles," said he, "do you go on up to the Hall, knock at the door +and ask for your uncle, Sir George Repington. I'll wait for you here." + +As he set out in obedience to his father he heard him mutter. "This was +the very place. I swear this was the place, and not an apple tree left." +And then Charles diminutive enough in his black suit with miniature +small-sword of cut steel, was asking two enormous footmen in +canary-coloured velvet for Sir George Repington. They looked at him and +laughed. + +"My uncle," said Charles solemnly. + +And they laughed again, but one of them murmured, 'This way,' and walked +up a very wide and very slippery staircase, while Charles stumped up +behind him. Half way, his sword belt came undone, and the sword +clattered down upon the polished oak stairs with a noise that seemed to +resound a dozen times through the quiet house. As he did not dare to +keep the canary-coloured gentleman waiting, he picked up the toy weapon, +clutched it tight in his left hand and entered a big dark room where a +gentleman with iron grey close cropped hair sat reading in a chair with +a very tall back, his wig balanced upon his toes. + +"What the d----l's this?" asked the grey gentleman jumping up. + +"Your honour's nephew," said the yellow gentleman. + +"Eh! what! leave us, sirrah," and "What do you want?" he said, turning +to Charles. + +Charles could only watch the long furrow over his nose and wonder how +deep it was, when the grey gentleman caught sight of the small sword. + +"Eh! what the d----l! give me that," and snatching the weapon, he broke +it over his knee and flung it into the grate. + +"Please, sir, my father sent me to see you." + +"Who's he?" + +"Valentine Lovely, sir." + +"Good G----! Good G----!" muttered the old gentleman. "And Mrs. Lovely? +Did she send you too?" + +"Mrs. Lovely's dead, sir." + +The grey gentleman looked across the room at a large painting of a girl +in a white dress skipping with a rope of roses. + +"Please, sir," said young Charles, "I think that is Mrs. Lovely." + +"It was, boy; it was." + +"I wish I had known her then," said Charles. + +"Is your name George, boy?" inquired the grey gentleman in a tone that +was half eager. + +"No, sir, 'tis Charles--after the Prince of Wales." + +"A Papist, eh?" said the grey gentleman bitterly. + +"George was too honest a name for that scoundrel. Well, boy, you can +stay." + +"Please, sir, I'd rather go back to my father," said the boy. "He's +waiting for me." + +"Then go and be d----d," said the grey gentleman, and he walked over to +the window. + +Poor little Charles was left standing alone in the big room. He waited a +moment, but as the grey gentleman did not turn his head, he edged his +way towards the great door. When he reached it, he looked round at his +uncle. The latter was still staring out of the window. The child gave a +puzzled sigh and with both hands succeeded in turning the handle. The +clocks seemed to tick very loudly as he breathlessly closed the door and +set out to descend the wide staircase. The canary-coloured gentlemen +having vanished he could hold on to the balustrade with both hands +without shame. As he crossed the green sunlit lawn, a blackbird flew +into the shrubbery with a shrill note of alarm. + +Then he was in the chariot with his father, and this time he was really +fast asleep. + +And now he was boy and man at once. The picture of the girl with roses +became his mother as he had known her, pale and sad. Then it would +change and become Miss Phyllida Courteen, strangely like his mother; and +sometimes the Queen of Diamonds would be mopping and mowing in a frame +of golden Georges. + +At last these many dancing visions forsook his brain, and he slept a +dreamless sleep, not waking until high noon of a wet and gusty day. When +he reached the coffee-room, he found Mr. Francis Vernon perusing the +latest edition of Mr. Hoyle, and as the weather was dirty, agreed to +give Mr. Francis Vernon his revenge. + +This favour was accorded in the handsomest manner possible and when, +late in the afternoon, the young gentlemen all returned from hunting, +Mr. Charles Lovely owed Mr. Francis Vernon rather more than he could +very easily pay. + +No doubt the latter's success is to be ascribed to his opportune +purchase of the latest edition of Mr. Hoyle. + + + + +_Chapter the Twelfth_ + +WET DAYS + + +If cards are the devil's playthings, wet days are certainly his select +playtime; and all the days before the Chinese Masquerade were very wet +indeed. The Exquisite Mob returned from the Pump Room remarkably +depressed in spirit. The forenoons passed away in the coffee-houses and +the shops, but in the afternoons when it was wont to exercise itself and +air its modes the stuffy parlours of Curtain Wells became vastly +tiresome. + +The result was that all the young gentlemen played very hard and very +deep and very late, and Mr. Charles Lovely hardest, deepest, and latest +of all. The old gentlemen all found their gout teazed them more +lamentably. Even Beau Ripple grew tired of reading the Epodes of Horace +and the Letters of Tully to his grey Angora cat. The ladies played +Quadrille and talked scandal, while some of them, I grieve to say, +supplied a foundation for much of the gossip. + +Candlelight intrigues flourished, and there were not a few tragedies in +porcelain, when some Sir John Vulcan, returning too soon from his +favourite coffee-house, caught my Lady Venus in too ardent converse with +some young Ensign Mars. Very red grew the gallant Ensign--near as red as +his coat, while Sir John blustered and swore so loud that he almost +cracked the walls with his fox-hunting voice, and my lady Venus +fluttered her fan to the pace of her dainty heart, tinkling out +exquisite little lies as soulless as unreal, but quite as fascinating as +some frail musical box. And the trio acted and declaimed their +time-honoured parts to a keyhole audience of lady's maid and +gentleman's gentleman. + +Very diverting the footmen of Curtain Wells found the story that +evening, and very savoury it was voted below stairs--nearly as savoury +as the stewed trotters over which it was related. + +And so the days went by. + +Pitter-pat went the rain on the window-panes, pitter-pat went the cards +on the card tables, pitter-pat went the spoons in the coffee-cups, +pitter-pat went my lady's shoes across the floor to watch for the third +person, pitter-pat went many fans and many hearts. + +Mrs. Courteen decked herself in the rosiest sattins, bade Betty close +the shutters, draw the curtains and light the candles. Then she composed +herself to read the last number of the _Prattler_ until a knock at the +door announced the arrival of Mr. Gregory Moon and Major Constantine +Tarry. Both vowed that their enchantress looked vastly well, and nodded +agreement with her assertion that she believed she had a very fresh +colour, no doubt due to the tonick air of the Wells. + +"It flushes one merely to go upstairs," she declared. "I vow I take as +much exercise in going up and down stairs as I do in taking my morning +saunter to the Pump Room." The climb was euphemistically known as the +Saunter. "Lud, lud," continued the widow, "complexions are droll +things." + +"Monstrous elusive, ma'am," said the Justice rather gloomily. + +"Ha, ha," yapped the Major, "I pickled my skin in the Low Countries." + +"That would be injudicious for a delicate surface. Height, Major," +sighed Mrs. Courteen, "height! How we pine for it. Mortals! Dear! Dear!" + +"I remember I once examined a vagabond who claimed to have been there," +remarked Mr. Moon. "We ordered him a whipping." + +"What became of him?" asked Mrs. Courteen. + +"I believe he died shortly afterwards. Well! well! Kill or cure! Kill or +cure!" + +The widow flashed her white shoulders in an elaborate shudder. + +"Talking of kill or cure," exclaimed the Major, jumping up, "did I ever +repeat my tale of the Hessian captain?" + +"Probably," said Mr. Moon mildly. + +"What do you mean, sir?" + +"You are somewhat inclined to repetition, sir." + +Mrs. Courteen hurriedly assured Major Tarry that she for one had +positively never heard it. + +"He did not say 'have you heard my story, ma'am,' the Justice went on in +the calm voice of despair. "He said 'have I repeated it?' I merely +remarked that he probably has--dozens of times!"--Mr. Moon burst out in +the nearest approach to a passionate enunciation that he ever attained. + +"I vow you do him an injustice. Pray tell us the story, Major," and the +widow tapped the sword-arm of the infuriated soldier three times. The +painted chicken-skin fell with so persuasive a touch that the Apple sank +to its normal position and, having turned his back on Mr. Moon, the +Major began his tale. + +"Well, Madam, you must know that in the year ... but before I tell this +story, I should like to give you some idea of the disposition of his +Majesty's forces." + +Mrs. Courteen sighed. She knew what giving an idea of the disposition of +the forces meant. It was useless to protest however, for the Major was +already marching round the room in search of appropriate furniture. + +He instantly declared that Mr. Moon's chair was necessary to the +illustration. + +"Pray excuse me, sir!" he rapped out. + +The Justice, with a reproachful glance at Mrs. Courteen, moved +ponderously to the couch. + +"Well, Madam, here are Thistleton's Dragoons," and he gave a twist to +the chair as he spoke. + +"Oh, yes! Very droll!" said Mrs. Courteen. + +"Here," the Major continued, seizing another chair and planting it +vigorously down by the couch, "here is Buckley's Foot." + +"Mine, sir," said the Justice. + +"Your what, sir?" + +"My foot, sir, not Buckfeast's." + +The Major withered his rival with an eloquent silence. + +"Here am I," he said, snatching from the mantelpiece a diminutive +Worcester shepherdess and placing it between the two chairs. + +The widow gazed anxiously at the pastoral soldier. It belonged to the +owner of the house. + +"Here is Tournai. You'll pardon me, sir, but I should be obliged if you +would hand me the couch," said the Major fiercely. + +The Justice moved wearily to the window-seat. That, at all events, was a +fixture, he reflected gratefully. + +After much exertion Tarry succeeded in moving the couch in front of the +door, so that if the piece of furniture in question was a poor +representation of what it was intended to convey, it certainly made of +Mrs. Courteen's front parlour something very like an impregnable +fortress. + +"I should be glad to give you some idea of the enemy's earthworks," said +the Major with a covetous glance in the direction of the chintz +window-curtains. + +Mrs. Courteen's fleeting expression of dismay warned him to prune the +luxuriance of his examples, and as at that moment a tap at the door +necessitated the instant surrender of Tournai to admit Mrs. Betty +farther operations were stopped. Moreover the sudden capitulation +involved the fracture of the Worcester shepherdess which, as Mr. Moon +sardonically supposed, served to illustrate the point of the story. + +"You're killed, Tarry; you're dead as mutton. I doubt a cure is +inconceivable." + +Betty held a note in her hands. + +"From Bow Ripple," she whispered excitedly. + + + + +_Chapter the Thirteenth_ + +MONARCHY IN ACTION + + +Mrs. Courteen scarcely believed Betty spoke the truth. Never could she +remember such a gigantick wave of elation as swept over her on receipt +of the Beau's letter. Yet, without a doubt, it was true. There was the +royal notepaper and, as she reverently examined the outside, there was +the river of the house of Ripple meandering in regular curves through +meadows of sealing-wax. She marked the colour--lilac--as if faintly to +adumbrate the imperial purple of Rome. Moreover, the sprinkled sand, a +few particles of which still adhered to the surface, smelt of Courts. +There were years of authority between the lines of the graceful +superscription; the very "C" of the Crescent bellied in the breeze of +Royal favour. Major Tarry and Mr. Moon regarded her with an expression +compounded of jealousy and respect. Who was this woman, this +correspondent with monarchs? + +"Pray excuse me, neighbours," murmured the widow, sinking into a chair. +The seal crackled musically as with smooth forefinger and shapely thumb +she gently withdrew the diaphanous paper from its waxen prison; so must +the golden bough have sounded to the touch of AEneas. + + THE GREAT HOUSE, CURTAIN WELLS, + + _February_, + + MADAM--_I shall do myself the honour of waiting upon you this + afternoon at half-past Four o'clock in order to the discussion of + an Affair of the gravest moral Importance._ + + _In expectation, Madam, I subscribe myself,_ + + _Your obliged Servant,_ + + HORACE RIPPLE. + + +"Gemini!" cried Betty, "the Bow will be here in fourteen ticks." + +"Gentlemen," said Mrs. Courteen with that stateliness which follows from +intercourse with Princes, "gentlemen, I must beg to be excused." + +The Major and the Justice solemnly advanced and, having kissed the +outstretched hand, moved sadly from the room. As they went downstairs +the former mused on the unrepeated story of the Hessian Captain, while +the latter vowed to insert a supplementary chapter to his great Essay on +Peace which should deal with the self-esteem of retired Majors. With +similar thoughts no doubt Mr. Oliver Goldsmith went home from that +famous dinner when General Oglethorpe, at the instigation of Dr. Samuel +Johnson, spilled the Port on the bare mahogany board in order to draw a +plan of the Siege of Belgrade. At any rate, old Mr. Hardcastle talks a +great deal about that famous beleaguerment in the witty and diverting +farce of _She Stoops to Conquer_. Mrs. Courteen tremulously sought her +toilet-glass. 'An affair of the gravest moral importance.' Powder +judiciously distributed removed any implied indifference in the +freshness of her widowed cheeks. Paleness and morality were certainly +akin. As for her lemon sack, Betty vowed she would find nothing more +becoming to the unique occasion. + +A dignified knock at the front door put an end to any longer hesitation, +and Mrs. Courteen, like the Queen of Sheba, presented herself +immediately. + +The Great little Man was pacing the carpet of the front parlour, but at +the widow's entrance he turned on his heels with a low bow. + +"We are quite alone?" he inquired. + +"Solitary indeed," replied the lady. Surely, surely he could not be +contemplating an offer of marriage. Yet certainly such might well be +described as an affair of the gravest moral importance. If weddings were +not moral, what would become of our weak humanity? + +"Madam," said the Beau. "'Tis only after long thought and exhaustive +research among the social archives of Curtain Wells: 'tis only after a +complete examination of my glorious predecessor, Beau Melon's notes on +the amenities of Polite Cures in which he calls attention with a red +cross to the special difficulty of tendering advice to perplexed +visitors, that I am resolved to inform you of a fact which may distress +your maternal heart, complicate your domestick arrangements, disturb +your apprehensive piety and not inconceivably lend to-morrow's goblet a +very wry flavour. Madam, your daughter is in love." + +The widow raised two anguished hands, but Mr. Ripple continued: + +"When I say in love, madam, I say so because I am not so cynical of +maiden humanity as to suppose that she would sit in vivacious discourse +with a young gentleman for the space of one hour and a half measured by +the frequent chimes of the publick clock unless she were in love." + +"You cannot mean this," palpitated the unhappy mother. "Say you cannot +mean it!" + +"Madam, I am not used to devoting so much valuable time to the +preparation of circumstantial falsehoods. Your daughter is in love." + +"But she is so young," protested the widow. "Not more than fifteen or at +the most seventeen." + +"To you, madam, deaf to Love's alarms, for evermore protected against +his showered darts, such precocious ardour must appear improbable, but I +have proof of its existence." + +"Malicious tongues! The world is so censorious. It would destroy the +reputation of the mother by insinuations against the virtue of the +child." + +"Madam, pray allow me to narrate the unhappy but indisputable facts of +the affair. You must know that it is a part of my duties--a pleasant +part, if I may say so without undue want of reserve--to inspect Curtain +Garden from time to time. You will recollect that this forenoon we +enjoyed for two hours a glimpse of the sun. Having been kept indoors +during the last two or three days, I determined to seize the balmy +occasion and perform my rural duties. I observed that the spring bulbs +were remarkably forward. I noticed with pleasant anticipation of summer +saunters that the paths were in good order, the gravel free from weeds. +From the main Promenade I turned into the Maze." + +The widow started. + +"The yew hedges were neatly trimmed and I noticed some very good +examples of topiary; I may mention in particular the transformation of +the old Noah into a peacock whose tail will doubtless gain a more +vigorous plumage from the warm weather. I wandered along contemplating +the various greens of the mosses that adorn the path and muffle the +footsteps in a manner extremely suitable to the decorous quiet of the +surroundings. During my saunters, I delight to rest my mind with the +recitation of the Odes and Epodes of my poetick and pre-Christian +namesake. I was embarked upon the apostrophe to Lyce: + + _Nec Coae referunt jam tibi purpurae + Nec clari lapides tempora, quae semel + Notis condita fastis + Inclusit volucris dies._ + +"I had got so far, but egad! I could get no farther for the life of me. +I repeated the last four lines, and in my attempts to catch the +fugitive--Ah!" cried the Beau, "I have it!" + + _Quo fugit Venus? Heu quove color? decens_ + _Quo motus?_ + +or to paraphrase with an extempore couplet, + + _Where now is fled thy beauty? Where thy bloom,_ + _Those airy steps that charmed th' expectant room?_ + +"To continue, however--this elusive sentence made me lose my direction +and I found myself removed from the centre of the Maze by an +impenetrable hedge of yew. I was about to retrace my steps when I heard +voices on the other side of the hedge. It was a duet, madam--man and +maid, flute and bass viol, fife and drum, describe it how you will." + +"Did you recognize the voices?" + +"Madam, I did not." + +"Then how--since you were not able to see over the tops of the hedges +without----" + +The Great little Man drew himself up. + +"Madam," he said, "I regard the physical exertion of bobbing up and down +as ungenteel." + +"Then how do you----?" + +"Because on retracing my steps I passed your maid in an attitude of +vigilance and exactly one hour and a half later I saw Miss Courteen and +the aforesaid maid leave the Garden; and vastly well she looked, madam." + +Mrs. Courteen asked why Mr. Ripple did not interrupt them. "'Twould +surely have frightened them out of love-making for ever." + +"Madam, if I am a king, I hope I am also a gentleman." + +"I will call the hussy and you shall reproach her, Mr. Ripple." + +"Madam, that is precisely what I am anxious to avoid. On former +occasions my interference has proved futile and I cannot allow my +counsel to be exposed to contempt. In confidence let me tell you that +the last three elopements which I tried to stop were all successfully +carried through, and I hear that the parties have lived very happily +together ever since. I have vowed not to accept again the +responsibleness of a prophet. My glorious predecessor, Beau Melon, +mentions several instances of his advice being neglected without any ill +effects and notes that it is probably injudicious to interfere unless +compelled by the prospect of a duel. Let me read you his comments. +'_Elopements. Tell the father. D---- n Miss. She won't listen. Fool for +your pains. Fifteen times bitten--shy for evermore. Bodies more +important than souls in Curtain Wells._' An ill-constructed sentence, +madam, but nevertheless full of truth." + +"Then what do you advise me to do?" + +"Madam, I should recommend you to pay less attention to your own heart, +and give the most of your care to your daughter's." + +The widow rose in a state of extreme agitation and rustled about the +room to the hazard of all ware under a certain stability. Such a +reproach from Mr. Ripple was more than she could bear politely. + +However, presently she caught her placket in the wanton arm of a chair +and after a short struggle capitulated to stillness. + +She began the catalogue of her natural virtues. "I vow the child has +been reared on the Church Catechism, she was for ever learning collects, +texts, parables, miracles, question and answer, sermons, homilies, and +aspirations. If I had been allowed my own way with her education, she +would have led a life of Sundays; but the late Mr. Nicholas Courteen her +father and my husband swore the child's intelligence was become like a +Crusader's tomb, scrabbled over with pious nonsense ill-digested and +ill-writ. Have I not warned her a hundred times that gentlemen do not +love the gawky charms of a hoyden? Have I not repeated to her the +history of half a score seductions? Am I to blame? Don't I keep a maid +to look after her? What else has that hussy to do? I ask you, Mr. +Ripple, what else?" + +"Upon my soul, ma'am, I don't very well know," murmured Mr. Ripple. + +"Nothing, sir, nothing, save to dress and undress me twice a day, give +an eye to my gowns and arrange my toilet table. Apparently they think +that I should--" The widow broke off to ring violently for Betty in +order to reproach her with a careless supervision of Phyllida. + +Mr. Ripple seized the opportunity to make his farewells. He swore to +himself that nothing should induce him to remonstrate again with a +careless mother. He would say a friendly word to the child herself. + +The widow thanked the Beau for his advice and promised to be mighty +severe with Phyllida. + +"Not if you will be warned by me, madam. No, no, I beg you will not +think it was to urge severity that I made you this visit. No, no, it was +merely to suggest prudence. Your humble servant, madam." + +"Your very devoted, sir." + +The widow curtsied the Beau out of the room, and, having heard the front +door closed, she watched in prim disgust for the entrance of Betty. + +That young woman presently came into the room. + +"Well, vixen!" said the widow. + +"La! ma'am, what is it?" + +"Well, gypsy!" + +"Not a drop in my family, ma'am, and that's more than some of the +cottage-folk near by can say." + +"Well, little Impropriety, what excuse have you to hand?" + +Betty asked what Impropriety meant. + +"Would it be stealing you mean, ma'am?" + +"Well, Madam Indecency!" + +Betty suddenly saw the widow's amber petticoat gleaming through the +unfastened placket. + +"Dear love and barley breaks! However did I come to leave that undone! +Never mind, ma'am. 'Tis not as if he'd caught a sight of your smock, +though for my part I should not be afraid to show clean linen to any +man, Bow or whatsoever." + +"'Tis not to talk of plackets that I called you, hussy, but of +packets--love-packets, notes, letters, assignations." + +Betty began to understand. She remembered how they had met Mr. Ripple +that morning in Curtain Garden, and at once connected the two incidents. + +"'Twould be about this very forenoon that you are talking, ma'am?" + +The widow was surprized. She had expected an impregnable barrier of mock +stupidity. + +"It would," she answered severely. + +"Well, there now! And if I didn't say as 'twas very wrong, but indeed, +he was so genteel and made such very grand bows that I didn't think as +'twould be kind to refuse him." + +"Refuse him what?" + +"Why, direction, ma'am, for the handsome poor soul was lost in the Maze. +He was just twirling around from North to South like the weathercock on +the old Parish Church at home." + +"Does it take an hour and a half to direct a man out of a shrubbery?" + +"No, indeed, ma'am, but hearing we was from Hampshire, he fell a-talking +and said as when he was last there he was staying with my Lord Senna at +Camomile Hall, and was bosom friend of Mr. the Honourable John Squills." + +The widow grew interested. The latter had once attended a hunting +breakfast at Courteen Grange. + +"And what was the loquacious gentleman's name?" + +"Ah there! indeed, 'twas wrong of me, but if I didn't go and forget to +axe him!" + +"Idiot!" said Mrs. Courteen, "and where does he lodge?" + +"He intends to post to Bristol Well to-night." + +"Is this true?" + +"La, dearest ma'am, how does I know. But he spoke as though 'twas." + +"You are a pair of simpletons. Lud! you might have been ravished and no +one the wiser. I doubt you both deserve a whipping." + +Mrs. Courteen dismissed the subject and turned to survey the ravages of +emotion on her own face. Betty retired to warn her young mistress. + +The widow was considerably vexed. Vain woman as she was, she was not too +dull to perceive that the Beau's complaint of her daughter levelled an +indirect reproof at herself. The late Squire Courteen, a-man of +plethorick habit and a good seat, had broken his neck over a five-barred +gate more than seven years ago. Some said his recklessness was too +deliberate. Certainly the week before, young Mr. Standish had left the +neighbourhood in a great hurry. Moreover when the Will was read it +appeared that a codicil had been added the day before the Squire died by +which his lady had forfeited every halfpenny of his money if she married +before her daughter and by an ingenious stroke did the same if she +failed to find a husband during the ensuing six months. Farther, a +provision was inserted that this husband must be ten years younger than +herself. It was all very much complicated and extremely malicious. + +Mrs. Courteen fanned herself reflectively. She was perfectly happy in +the ridiculous attentions and elderly gallantries of Major Tarry and +Justice Moon. At twenty-nine she had still possessed enough florid +beauty to excuse her ill-spelled love-letters. Moreover, she had a +husband and was safe sport for young gentlemen who lost the hounds +somewhat early in the day. When she was widowed, most of her attraction +vanished. She grew fat and had to content herself with middle-aged +suitors for whom she became a placid ideal on the dull journey of their +lives. Mrs. Courteen continued to fan herself. + +That absurd codicil drifted across her thoughts. If Phyllida married she +was condemned to poverty or a young husband. Yet, after all, Moon or +Tarry had enough--not much, but enough; but then both firmly believed in +the annuity. The bitterness of her husband's dying jest stung her for +the first time. What a fool she would be made to seem! Certainly +Phyllida must not be allowed a wedding; that was the solution. + +How fatiguing solutions were, to be sure! She felt quite vapoured. At +any rate she would look after her for the future. If she had a gallant +he should be discovered. If Betty's tale were true, why, prevention was +better than cure. + +"Alas!" sighed the widow. "I shall play indifferent well and yet--no +matter. Perhaps I shall hold Spadille every hand of the game." Wafted by +this pleasant hope, the widow sailed upstairs to assume the scarlet and +black gown and the spade-patch which she wore to propitiate the cards; +also to embellish her fingers with rings; also to trim her nails to a +perfect curve and polish to whiteness the peering moon at their base. To +such cardboard emotions was this lady come whose husband broke his neck +out hunting. + + + + +_Chapter the Fourteenth_ + +MONARCHY IN REPOSE + + +On the following morning after breakfast Mrs. Courteen produced a strip +of faded rose ribband. + +"Try to match this, child," she said to Phyllida. + +"But mamma, 'tis not possible. The silk is old," expostulated the +daughter who was dressed and ready to take the air. + +"Nothing is impossible, child," generalised the widow. "Do your +best--all that is required of human beings. You may take Thomas with +you." + +"But mamma, I don't want Thomas. I would rather take Betty." + +"People can't always take what they desire in this world, and a very +good thing too," remarked Mrs. Courteen, "for the world would be a +wickeder place if they could. Betty must stay and help me." + +The widow was determined to begin the supervision of her daughter +recommended by Mr. Ripple. It was the old story of Sisyphus and the +Stones, of Tregeagle and the Thimble; as mischievous spirits are kept +occupied in Tartarus, and condemned for ever to the performance of the +impossible, so was Phyllida to be kept from the temptations of idleness, +in order to save, if not her soul, at any rate her reputation. + +The widow apprehended that obedience would be more easily secured by +guile than the direct imposition of a command. + +Miss Phyllida Courteen went out that morning with a sullen little frown +above her charming little nose, and walked so fast that Thomas was hard +put to keep his proper distance behind her as he continued to mutter, +'How long, O Lord?' with many a dolorous wheeze and mortified grunt. + +In and out of a dozen haberdashers they went. All the young women behind +the counters were very polite and amazingly hopeful, but when they came +to pull out the long drawers filled with ribbands of every size and +colour, they could only produce the gayest pinks, the most brilliant +shades of rose, and though they continued to be very cheerful and +persuaded themselves and their rather petulant customer that the match +was as near as could be expected, they were quite unsuccessful, and the +ribbands were put back in the drawers to await a less exacting +purchaser. + +Finally Phyllida, turning out of the tenth shop, heard St. Simon's clock +strike eleven. It was a moderately fine morning, and she knew her beau +was at that moment turning into Curtain Garden. She stamped her foot +with vexation and disappointment. + +"Oh Thomas, Thomas! was ever such a mad errand before?" complained his +mistress. + +"Velvet! Vanity! and a-whoring after strange silks," groaned Thomas. + +"Thomas," said Miss Courteen in her most engaging voice, "you would do +anything for me?" + +"With God's help," agreed the footman. + +"And you'd do a great deal for a shilling-piece?" + +"To spite Beelzebub," said Thomas. + +"Then, Thomas, step down to the Western Colonnade, make my compliments +to Miss Sukey Morton, say I hope she is better of her cold, and will she +give Miss Phyllida Courteen the pleasure of her company to Mrs. Pinkle's +Conversazione. But perhaps you'll forget that long message?" + +Thomas replied in accents of unctuous solemnity: + +"Better of her cold and quite recovered." + +"Yes, but there's more." + +"Waste not, want not," he answered severely. + +"Oh Lud! I suppose I were wise to write it down," with which Miss +Courteen tried the eleventh haberdasher. The pinks were just as light, +the carmines as crude and fresh as ever. + +But at the opposite counter it was possible to buy the most agreeable +paper; so Miss Courteen bought a quire, and also a box of wafers marked +with a laurel-wreathed C. Then she borrowed old Mrs. Rambone's +crow-quill pen with which the accounts were made up every evening in the +little back parlour, and Miss Lettice Rambone politely cleared a corner +of the counter and brought out a standish, while Phyllida put her +swansdown muff on the chair because, though it was high enough to pull +about haberdashery, it wasn't high enough for writing letters. After +much arrangement, she wrote: + + "MY DEAREST MISS MORTON,--_I hope you are better of your cold. I am + truly anxious that you should come and see me this afternoon at + four o'clock on a matter of great importance. I am truly distressed + by a most unlucky Event. I doubt my dearest Sukey can guess what + disturbs her. + + Ever affect. and truly devoted_ + + PHYLLIDA. + + P.S. _Pray come_. + + P.P.S. _I saw a Red Coat not unknown to a certain young lady now + resident at Curtain Wells. The said Red Coat made a most polite + bow_." + + Ph. C. + +Then Phyllida sealed the note with one of her new wafers, and Thomas +unscrewed the knob of his tall stick and put the note inside and the +shilling-piece in his waistcoat pocket and marched away down the High +Street, while Phyllida rushed off with her muff held up to the East wind +which was quite cold when one was walking so fast. For the Western +Colonnade, you turned to the right, but if you were going to Curtain +Garden, you turned to the left, and Phyllida turned to the left. + +She had to pass the end of the Crescent on her way, and hurried past, +afraid for her life to see Mrs. Courteen sailing round the corner. She +was now outside the Great House, and could not help looking up to the +big bow-windows to see if Mr. Ripple was there. There he was, very calm +and very dignified, but a little out of focus because his windows all +had such very thick glass. She caught his eye, and the Great little Man +smiled at her. She smiled back and blushed, thinking of the meeting of +yesterday. Suddenly the window shot up, and Phyllida turned her head to +see the Beau beckoning. She stopped in dismay, while Mr. Ripple, having +first spread his handkerchief on the sill, leaned out to speak to her. + +"Pray pardon this ungenteel summons, my dear Miss Courteen, but if you +would not consider yourself compromised by such an adventure, I should +be vastly honoured by your inspection of some proper new prints which +have fallen into my hands." + +Miss Courteen was overwhelmed by this invitation. What could she do but +murmur assent? + +The Beau, with a delightfully suave gesture, hurried to open the front +door for Miss Courteen who tripped up the dazzling white steps, all +swansdown and blushes. + +Mr. Ripple begged her to follow him upstairs to the drawing-room and be +seated before the fire. + +It was a fine high room of good proportions, with three large +sash-windows and a wrought-iron balcony running along the breadth of the +house. The walls were panelled and painted white, and the floor was +stained and varnished to a glaze of immense brilliancy. The rugs +scattered about it were Aubusson, of rare hues in fawn and puce and +faded lavender and old rose interwoven with queer dead greens. There +were several prints on the walls, mostly after Watteau and Fragonard. +The whole room wore the indescribable air that is only to be found in +the house of a bachelor of comfortable means, good taste and a certain +age. There was no trace of a woman's hand in its arrangement, and yet +one felt that the owner, through long seclusion from the other sex, had +softened towards it with the years until, secure at last, he was able to +admit a feminine cirrhus into the limpid and rarefied air of his remote +celibacy. + +Phyllida, as she watched the firelight ripple in orange wavelets across +the surface of the blue and white Dutch tiles set on either side of the +hob, wondered what the Beau meant by this sudden invitation. + +Just then he begged to be excused for a moment while he fetched the +portfolio containing his new purchase. + +She heard the door gently closed and looked round the room. + +How tall and white it was, just like Mr. Ripple's hand, smooth and white +and exquisitely shaped. Outside, the grey weather mellowed the ivory of +the room. There was a curious stillness as of frost, and she watched the +reflection of the fire leaping in opalescent miniature about the high +windows. There was a new spinet, set at an angle to the rest of the +furniture, in a case of light-coloured wood, painted with cupids, +zephyrs and roses, all waxen-pale. The tall, quiet chamber began to +depress her spirits, so that she felt compelled to strike the extreme +treble note of the spinet which through the stillness rang out like the +unwonted pipe of a bird in a hot August woodland. + +At last, Phyllida, whose whole body was beginning to tingle with the +effort of waiting in such breathless quiet, heard some one coming +upstairs. Gog, the Beau's diminutive negro, entered with a silver tray; +on which small and shining lake swam coffee cups like swans or fairy +shells. The Great little Man followed close upon the dusky heels of his +squire and soon Phyllida found herself sipping her coffee in easy +conversation with the King of Curtain Wells. + +"Do you know the, Maze? he was asking. + +"Oh yes," said Phyllida. + +"A pleasant spot, cool and green." + +"It is indeed." + +"I often sit there," said the Beau. + +"'Tis a pleasant spot." + +"Less fortunate than my poetick namesake, I have no plane-tree there, no +long-buried Falernian; but I am unjust to my time, for, after all, I +have Curtain Garden and Chalybeate that springs from the depths of +earth," continued the Beau, half to himself. + +Phyllida was not quite sure what he was talking about, but agreed +politely. + +"My dear Miss Courteen," said the Beau suddenly, "may I say something +very abrupt and perhaps intolerably free, but nevertheless something +which I feel ought to be said?" + +"Oh yes, sir," Phyllida replied, wishing devoutly that she was well out +of this tall, white room. + +"My dear Miss Courteen," he went on, "I am a man who knows something of +life on its merely social side. I have been an observer, if I may say +so, a naturalist of humanity. My self-chosen attitude has forbidden me +all passion, save that which is the recognized privilege of an audience. +Of love I am supposed to know nothing, save in that third person whose +company is unwelcome and superfluous. Perhaps my devotion to the _Odes_ +has led me to see too many Lalages, too many Lyces. Perhaps I regard +women too much as roses that bloom, scatter their sweets and die. In a +word, perhaps I am unsympathetick." + +"I don't think you are at all, sir," cried Phyllida, surprized by her +own boldness. + +"Thank you," said the Beau, with the merest hint of a tremour in his +equable voice. + +"But," he went on, "if I regard women as roses, I never seek to pluck +them: most men do. Miss Phyllida, pray pardon a man of some age who +cares more for Youth than he is willing to admit, who is not quite the +phantastick, the fop, the cynick that his subjects make him out. You +know what Shakespeare says: 'Each man in his time plays many parts.' I, +my dear, have remained for more than thirty years faithful to one. That +is why I am considered so eccentrick--well, well, I grow loquacious. My +dear Miss Courteen, it is very unwise to make assignations in the pride +of youth. Assignations belong to the middle-aged, the disillusioned. If +you love a young gentleman, make no secret of it, and let the whole +world join in your happiness; but if it be necessary to love this young +gentleman in Mazes and such clandestine spots, this young gentleman is +not worth so much devotion. Who is he?" + +"Mr. Amor, Sir," said Phyllida, feeling half inclined to cry. + +"Amor? Amor? I don't know the family. Is it by his wish these meetings +are kept secret? Yes! yes! I know 'tis very romantick and very +rapturous, but, believe me, my dear Miss Courteen, it is not worth the +cost. You must think of your reputation." + +"I do, Mr. Ripple, indeed I do--all the time!" + +"Come, come then, present me to your Amor at the Chinese Masquerade. +I'll talk to the rogue, and egad! we'll have the wedding in June. What +do you say?" + +"I don't think Mr. Amor would be very willing, and I'm sure my mamma +would be monstrous vexed." + +"Nonsense," said the Beau, "nonsense! You won't be happy, till you've +packed yourself into a post-chaise smelling vilely of stale tobacco and +horse-cloths. And when you've found some Fleet Street parson to marry +you, you'll wish for a fine wedding and a bride-cake, and your tenants +cheering and holloaing at the lodge-gates." + +Here the Beau showed himself too unfamiliar with the mind of a young +woman. The idea of eloping had never yet entered that dainty head of +glistening chestnut curls; but from that moment Phyllida began to play +with the notion. + +"Come, come," he went on, "let's have no more of clandestine courtship. +Heiresses and dace both attract by reason of their silver: libertines +and pike have much in common. Moreover, you must think of your mother." + +"I doubt you don't know my mamma very well. She swears I'm but a child, +but I'm not a child, am I, sir?" + +Mr. Ripple put up his monocle and solemnly stared at his fair +impenitent. + +"You are not a very old woman." + +"Besides, my mamma doesn't understand the meaning of love." + +"My dear young lady," protested the Beau, "that is a very common error +with the young. Don't you think that shaded lane once lisped to her +footsteps? Don't you think April once broke as sweet for her?" + +"Well, if it did," argued Phyllida, "she's forgotten all she ever knew." + +"Come, come, I dare swear she has a secret drawer fragrant with cedar. +Find it, my dear Miss Phyllida, and you'll find many old letters, many +withered nosegays." + +"Indeed, I've searched." + +"Perhaps her escritoire is the heart." + +"'Tis very well for you, Sir, to talk thus, but my parents were never +happy." + +The Beau mentally cursed the pertinacious memories of servants. + +"Then, if that was the case," he went on, "there is the greater reason +for your friends to secure you against such an irreparable misadventure. +Now come, you'll present me to this Mr. Amor? I may not understand all +women, but trust me, I have a tolerable knowledge of men." + +The pale February sun cast a watery beam through the high windows and +Mr. Ripple's face caught an added lustre, was in fact so bright and +kindly that Phyllida promised, subject to Mr. Amor's consent. + +And soon they were both bending over the portfolio of prints--very +diverting prints they were too, caricatures of the foibles of fashion. + +It was certainly very delightful to see tranquil monarch and fervent +maid laughing very heartily together at the most prodigious head-dress +the world ever saw. + + + + +_Chapter the Fifteenth_ + +PHOEBUS ADEST + + +The Coffee-room of the _Blue Boar_ wore a remarkably cheerful aspect on +the evening of the day on which we have seen something of Beau Ripple's +methods. There had been a splendid run from Oaktree Common across the +downs to Deadman's Coppice, where a short check only lent a spice to +that glorious final run across Baverstock Ridge until they killed just +outside Farmer Hogbin's famous barn. And after the death what delicious +musick acclaimed the deed--the baying of hounds, the chatter of maids, +the clatter of horses' hoofs, the guffaws of Lieutenant Blewforth, the +still louder guffaws of Farmer Hogbin mounted on his raw-boned hunter of +sixteen hands, the blasts of the horns, the chink of glasses and the +wind getting up in the South-west, all combined in harmonious delight. +What a splendid ride home it was and how the riders went over each +renowned minute of that for-ever-to-be-famous day. Lieutenant Blewforth +swore he would forsake the sea for the life of a country gentleman, and +everybody laughed when H.M.S. _Centaur_ (so they had named Blewforth and +his steed) shied at a belated calf. + +"Egad! B-b-Blewforth," stammered little Peter Wingfield, "'tis lucky +your stomach was trained on the roaring d-d-deep, for you pitch and roll +like a sloop making Ushant." + +"Ah! my boy," shouted Blewforth, "my pretty sloop don't shy like this +d----d bum-boat I'm pulling." + +How Mr. Golightly of Campbell's Grey Dragoons swore such a run was +better than a frontal charge at the enemy's guns and how young Tom +Chalkley of the Foot stiffened all over and muttered something about the +Cavalry. Indeed the only person to look glum was Mr. Anthony Clare who, +though he rode better than any of them and had shown them his horse's +heels all the way, missed Charles Lovely. + +As they walked along the road, fading into early dusk, and heard the +wind sighing in the trim hedges and saw the lights of Curtain Wells +seven miles away, Clare cursed that passion for cards which made a man +forsake the bleak Spring fallows for pastures of green baize. + +But later when the huge cold sirloin that sailed in so sleek, sailed out +like a battered wreck, and when pints of generous Burgundy had coloured +life to its own rich hue, and when Mr. Daish himself had coaxed the fire +to roar and blaze up the chimney, and set out the walnuts and put half a +dozen ample chairs round the fire, Mr. Clare could not resist the +universal content, but must laugh and make merry and relate the events +of the day for the seventh time, with as much zest as any of the +returned heroes. + +Charles had surely been winning: he was so flushed and talked so loudly. +Actually he did not possess a penny, and what was worse, owed Mr. Vernon +a couple of hundred guineas. Not much, but enough when you have only +cloaths to sell, and not a prospect in the world. + +Presently one by one the hunters dropped off to sleep with legs +outstretched and doffed wigs and long church-wardens' pipes, that one by +one dropped from slowly opening mouths, slid along unbuttoned waistcoats +and snapped their slender stems upon the floor, until everybody except +Mr. Vernon and our hero was snoring the eighth repetition of the events +of that famous day. + +The room was hot; the drawing of many breaths thick with fatigue, beef +and Burgundy induced a meditative atmosphere; the fire no longer blazed, +but sank to an intense crimson glow. Mr. Vernon counted up his gains, +while Mr. Lovely pondered his losses in silence. + +At last the latter got up suddenly. + +"The cards?" inquired Mr. Vernon. + +"Not to-night. I think I'll take the air," Charles replied. + +"As you will," said the other and betook himself once more to his +tablets. + +Charles paused for a moment outside the Coffee-Room to take down his +full black cloak and three-cornered hat. The night wind had brought in +its track a melancholy drizzle of rain that suited his own melancholy +mood. He wandered rather vaguely across the wide inn-yard, passed under +the arch and sauntered along the deserted High Street. + +To tell the truth, Mr. Lovely was very unpleasantly situated at this +period. His father had been the ne'er-do-weel survivor of a long line of +country squires away down in Devonshire. When he had eloped with Miss +Joan Repington, to the eternal chagrin of the young lady's brother, a +rich banker knighted for his loyal support of the Protestant Succession, +Valentine Lovely ran through his own and his wife's fortune in the first +six years of matrimony. Thence onwards they lived a hand-to-mouth +existence, dependent on Valentine's luck at the tables and the +inviolableness of an aunt's legacy of five thousand guineas. + +Mrs. Lovely died, prematurely aged, in the birth of a still-born child, +and Mr. Valentine Lovely and his young son continued to live the same +haphazard existence for another ten years. Charles spent all his time +with his father who in the intervals of drink and play taught his heir +to step a minuet, sing a merry song, and indite a witty epigram; also he +gave him a case of pistols, heavily chased with the Lovely arms, and +lent him the family tree for target. Finally he made him proficient in +the polite use of the smallsword and the dice-box. + +Once, when an early summer made the Bath intolerably hot, Mr. Lovely and +his heir posted down to Devonshire in a crimson chariot putting up at +the _Prior's Head_, in Danver Monachorum. He spent a week paying +unwelcome visits to the neighbouring gentry who looked askance at the +crimson chariot and still more askance at the degenerate heir of the +Lovelys. Valentine soon tired of so much pastoral exercise and departed +to St. Germain's, leaving young Charles in the care of an old stillroom +maid, now a prosperous farmer's wife. The boy spent placid hours in rich +meadows, ate a quantity of scalded cream, and grew out of knowledge in +the six months of his stay. He used to wander down to the park +gates--gloriously wrought-iron gates between massive stone pillars that +bore on each summit a quintett of cannon balls, the reputed trophy of +some seafaring Elizabethan Lovely. There was a picture in the great +hall, of curiously inferior execution, portraying numbers of Devon +sailormen led by a huge-ruffed gentleman with a long peaked beard, +swarming up the towering sides of the galleon _Jesu Maria_. Charles was +taken to see it when the new family was gone up to London town. He also +saw the great stone swan over the vast fireplace, with the motto of his +house, _Sum decorus_. + +Later in the autumn his father returned and the old life of lodgings, +inland Spas and long posting journeys was resumed. He had never again +visited that remote Devon village, with its cows and pastures and +dairymaids and famous chronicles. + +Then, just after Charles reached his majority, Mr. Lovely Senior died +quite suddenly, and our hero found himself in undisputed possession of +the interest on five thousand guineas and as much more in cash, owing to +a lucky run by his father in the week before his death. + +Charles now indulged the family vice of throwing money to the dogs and, +having lost the earnings of his father, set about realizing a trifle of +ready money on the five thousand guineas left him by his mother's aunt. +This step brought him into pen-and-ink contact with old Sir George +Repington who wrote him a stern letter of advice, with a postscript +offering him a stool in the Repington bank. Charles was furious and did +not reply. + +About that time he renewed the friendship with Mr. Anthony Clare begun +in that far-off summer away down in Devonshire. The latter persuaded him +to leave London and come to Curtain Wells where for a time he lived +happily enough on his small annuity. However, just before our story +opened, he had been hard hit at loo and had raised a thousand guineas by +making over the interest on his inheritance to the friendly moneylender +who advanced the needed sum. On the top of this came his losses to +Vernon, and now he was stranded indeed. + +Therefore the melancholy drizzle of rain suited his melancholy mood. Of +course he could borrow, play again and perhaps win, but if he should +lose he would be in debt to a friend, a position which he disliked. His +father, less scrupulous in this respect, was always content to lay +himself under fresh obligations. To Charles, however, something of the +pride which sustains a great financial house had descended through his +mother and, prodigal though he was, he would never borrow money from a +friend. Of course a moneylender was different, but what security could +he offer? It looked as if he would have to appeal to his uncle after +all. This alternative was thoroughly odious, and Charles racked his +brains to discover a way out of the difficulties into which he was +plunged. + +In such despondent meditation he wandered on until the dancing glare of +two large flambeaux, stuck in iron sockets, caught his attention. He +found himself outside the Great House. + +The project of consulting with the Beau entered his mind, but St. +Simon's struck the hour of ten, and he knew Mr. Ripple would be retiring +to rest, since he was accustomed to preserve his energy on those nights +when he was not called out to preside over an assembly, rout, or +masquerade. At that moment the two flambeaux, as if to proclaim their +owner's withdrawal from the claims of society, simultaneously collapsed +and strewed Mr. Ripple's fair white steps with ashes. + +The sudden darkness betrayed the opalescent windows of the Beau's +bed-chamber. He had neglected to draw the curtains, and on the blind his +suave shadow disported itself in preparation for the night and the next +morning. + +Charles watched the shadow dip giant fingers into monstrous pomade pots. +Now those fast deepening crowsfeet were being vigorously rubbed. Now +that swift creasing neck was being smoothed with slow caressing +movements. The wig-block displayed itself in generous shadowy curves. +Now, surely, the shadow's sudden inaction betokened a contemplation of +creeping age. + +"And this," thought Charles, "is the destiny marked out for me by +Ripple." + +He knew if he waited upon him on the morrow, explained his reverses, and +promised amendment, the Beau would one day procure for him the monarchy +of the Wells, but Charles was not inclined to manipulate the strings of +marionettes, himself suspended from a longer cord and dancing for the +amusement of a higher power. + +The incongruity of the situation, disclosed by the Beau's window, +tickled his sense of humour. There was the monarch of an artificial +kingdom caulking his wrinkles like a beldame in search of her youth; +there he was, that despotick king who prescribed Chalybeate as the +Panacea for all earthly ills, in ludicrous terror at the swift flight of +his complexion. + +There he was, no better than the chief eunuch of a Persian harem with +authority over women and the power of lock and key against intrusive +fops. + +Yet he was a kindly man and a gentleman. He was feared and loved, a man +whom the world called successful. Charles himself liked fine cloaths, +found talking pleasant, enjoyed the organization of splendid +entertainments, yet he could not condemn himself to eternal celibacy and +the preservation of his figure. The restriction of such an existence +would be unendurable. + +You will remember perhaps that in our first Chapter we caught Beau +Ripple in undignified pursuit of a button. We agreed how rash it was for +Gods and Goddesses to discover their anatomy to mortals, and here is the +very fact being forced home to Mr. Charles Lovely, an understudy to +divinity. + +Our hero went on his way, fortified against one ambition. + +Presently he passed by the lodgings of Mrs. Courteen as the door was +being opened to let out the satellite Moon and the appropriately named +Tarry. The pair of them paused on the steps to ascertain the state of +the weather and discuss the several games of ombre which they had played +for mother-o'-pearl counters. + +"Gadslife!" murmured Charles, "Ombre for counters! Then is great Anna +really dead?" + +The expensive lodgings of the Earl of Vanity towered above him and he +heard my Lord, with a flowered dressing-gown wrapped about his skinny +shanks, d----g his daughter's eyes for being so late at old Mrs. +Frillface's quadrille party. Farther down the Crescent was old Mrs. +Frillface's house, and outside stood two handsome chairs with the +chairmen fast asleep on the cushions, soon to be wakened from the frowsy +damask by Mrs. Frillface's bloated footman. + +And so on past all the lodgings of Curtain Wells. + +There was young Miss Kitcat who was really twenty-nine and single only +because, so they said, no one would marry her since that affair with Sir +Hector Macwrath, the young, Nova Scotia Baronet, more than ten years +ago. To be sure, the matter was never rightly explained, and everybody +excused the poor child because her mother never set her the best of +examples, and as for her father, everybody knew that he thought of +nothing but Mdlle. Dancaboute who had such trim ankles and spent so many +guineas and even wore the Kitcat rubies at a Ranelagh supper-party. So +Sir Hector married the lean heiress of Lord Glew, the chief of the +MacStikkeys, and Miss Kitcat remained young Miss Kitcat for many a long +day. There she was, swaying sleepily to the motion of the chair while +now and then her hair would catch in a splinter of wood as the first +chairman stumbled over a loose cobble. + +There was little Pinhorn whose father was a ship's chandler at Rye, but +had made money as fast as money could be made over the War commissariat; +there he was, strutting home from my Lady Bunbutter's, quite inlaid with +diamonds, and with a swinging fob near as big as his own bullet head. + +Charles gave him a curt good-night as he passed, and wondered to +himself how little Pinhorn ever dared challenge Captain Lagge to walk +with him in Curtain Meads. Unluckily the Beau had heard of the meeting +and went to remonstrate with the gallant Captain. + +"What did you say?" asked the Beau. + +"I said I would gladly cut the claws of every harpy on the transport," +answered the sailor. + +"Well, so you may, sir," said Mr. Ripple, "but by Heaven! you shan't do +so here." + +Next morning the Captain had his orders and was shot through the heart +in the Carthagena business. Poor Captain Lagge, he had a wife and a +little maid waiting for him in the prettiest cottage between Pevensey +and Brighthelmstone. + +Charles passed many others whose small histories, could I recount them, +would fill this book to overflowing. For each one he could recall some +unsavoury episode, some mean adventure that made its hero contemptible. + +"Oddslife," thought Charles, "was ever Society so corrupt, so insincere, +so entirely damnable?" + +By this time he was back in the High Street after a long circuit, and +just as he was thinking of crossing the road to reach the _Blue Boar_ +and bed, he noticed a candle was burning in his bookseller's little back +parlour. + +"I'll inquire after the sale of my poems," he decided, and without more +ado hammered loudly on the door of the shop. Presently in answer to his +continuous rappings, a foxy-faced old young man with a premature stoop +and cloaths both squalid and ill-cut, shuffled through the shop and +asked who was there. + +"A mendicant poet," cried Charles. + +"Be d----d," muttered the foxy-faced man, preparing to go back. + +"Come, Mr. Virgin, you'll open to me, Charles Lovely?" + +"Go away, Mr. Lovely, go away. I'm very busy--very busy indeed. I never +remember when I was so busy before, so full of business." + +"So much the better," cried Charles jumping up to smite the signboard +that hung over the door till it swung round on its hinges with a rattle +and a squeak. + +"Now don't be rough, Mr. Lovely. I've had the lady's face repainted. +'Tis beautifully done, Mr. Lovely. Do look. Can you see? 'Mr. Paul +Virgin. Bookseller and Publisher. At the Sign of the _Woman_.'" + +"Pshaw!" said Charles. "Will you open to me, or I'll turn the woman into +a w----!" + +"I suppose you must have your way, but oddscods, indeed I'm monstrous +busy. Oh! Mr. Lovely, I am so busy, you wouldn't believe." + +With this final protest, the old young man slowly drew the bolts of the +door and allowed Mr. Lovely to step inside. + +There was a musty smell in the shop and the shelves of calf-bound +volumes seemed alive in the uncertain flame of the candle. The counter +was heaped high with volumes and on the floor lay gigantick tomes bound +in jaundiced vellum covers. + +Lovely followed the foxy-faced man into the back parlour which in +addition to the general mustiness of the premises had a rank odour of +printer's ink and newly struck proofs. + +"I am so busy, Mr. Lovely. Mr. Antique Burrowes' great work on the +Abbeys of England and Wales must positively appear before the publick +next week; the subscription lists are filled up, and we expect a very +favourable reception, and so we ought, for the woodcuts are beautiful. +Look at this one, Mr. Lovely--this is Glastonbury--the Abbot's Kitchen. +What a place just for one man! Ah! those monks: what bellies they had." + +Charles scarcely glanced at the proof. + +"Very proper," he said, "and what about my poems?" + +"Ah! you always have your joke, Mr. Lovely. That's always the way with +poets--they will have their jokes just when I'm so busy too," said Mr. +Virgin sidling across the room to a shelf full of ledgers bound in +hideous marble boards. + +"How many sold, these three months?" + +"One, Mr. Lovely. One copy. You see it entered." + +"Who was the purchaser," said Charles with affectation of great +indifference. "Not a lady, I presume?" + +"Ha, ha, you poets--so fond of the women. Singers and poets always like +the women. There was Signor Amoroso, d'ye know him? The famous Tenore, +now singing every night at Vauxhall--he used to buy all my books about +the ladies. But, pray excuse my chatter, Mr. Lovely. I'm sure I oughtn't +to be talking, just when I'm so busy too. Let me see, who was the +purchaser--ah! here it is--it was Miss----" + +"Courteen?" Charles let slip in his eagerness. + +"Ha-ha! ha-ha!" laughed the foxy-faced bookseller, "Ha-ha! You must keep +your love-secrets better than that. No, it wasn't Miss----" he pursued. + +"Oh!" said Charles coldly. + +"It was Sir George Repington--I remember now--he wrote from the North." + +"Sir George Repington?" exclaimed Charles, completely surprized. "Humph! +I wish him joy of my effusions." + +"Oh, no doubt he'll like them or he wouldn't have sent all that way for +them. Well! well! some men are mighty whimsical in their tastes, and +there's no denying that people do read verses." + +"However," said Charles, "I take it the taste is not an extended one?" + +"Well! you mustn't complain. You had two hundred taken by subscription +and half a dozen copies sold to casual purchasers. You won't lose a vast +deal over the publication." + +"No," said Charles, "you wouldn't like that?" + +"No, indeed I shouldn't, sir, I take a pride in the success of my +clients. So did my father, sir, and he became an alderman of this town, +though he was a native of Exeter." + +"I take it, then, you are not prepared to offer a sum of money on +account of a new volume?" + +"Ho-ho!" laughed Mr. Virgin, "what a droll gentleman you are to be sure. +You will have your joke, and don't seem to regard how busy I am." + +"Very well, sir," said Charles, "I'll wish you a good night." + +"_Good_ night, Mr. Lovely, good night, sir. When I'm not so busy +perhaps, another time, I'll be most happy to talk over your--ahem--literary +projects." + +Mr. Virgin held up the candle to light Mr. Lovely through the shop. The +rays happened to fall on a pile of slim volumes reposing on the counter. + +"What are those?" Charles asked. + +"Ah, 'tis a great pity you can't write verse like that." + +"Poems?" said Mr. Lovely in accents of incredulity. + +"To be sure--poems, but such poems,--lampoons, squibs, and pasquinades. +'Tis a Satire on the characters of the Bath--very scandalous, they tell +me, but oddscods, 'tas run through nine editions in as many weeks. Now, +if your name was Lively, sir, instead of Lovely." + +"Mr. Virgin!" + +"No offence. What I mean is, if you could write something similar about +the visitors to Curtain Wells." + +"You'd publish it?" + +"Well, perhaps that's going too far, but I would give it my very best +attention." + +"Humph! Good night," and Charles went out into the drizzle. + +On his way home, he saw the Exquisite Mob and the Exquisite Mob-master +grouped before a satirist; and very soon he saw them performing their +anticks thinly disguised by initials and asterisks. + +That is how Mr. Charles Lovely sat down to indite + + _CURTAIN POLLS_ + severely lashed + by a + _Curtain Rod_. + + + + +_Chapter the Sixteenth_ + +THE CHINESE MASQUERADE + + +The Chinese Masquerade was the outstanding event of early Spring at +Curtain Wells. It was the quintessence of refined affectation, the great +fount in which many tributary delights found their source. Moreover, in +its character there was a national significance. It was not held merely +to emphasize the importance of being seriously amused; it was not one of +many entertainments sacred to Epicurus; it did not serve to commemorate +the fleetingness of life; it was no Burial Service with a ritual of +flung roseleaves and spilt wine. The Chinese Masquerade of Curtain Wells +was something far more grand than any of these, being a great national +act of homage to the beverage of Tea. Of old, Bacchus was saluted in +Samothrace, and the festival of wine was celebrated with all the absence +of restraint that might be expected from the past. Nymphs raved, Satyrs +danced, and garlanded leopards jigged to one wild inspiration. Phrenzy +footed it; troop followed troop, broke and dissolved in flashes of white +limbs when Dionysus of the sly smile and rosy cheeks bewitched thousands +with his strange madness. In fact, the whole affair was an intolerable +concession to Nature. At Curtain Wells you saw the centuries at work. +There the Bacchantes were corseted and hooped to primness; the Satyrs +had high red heels for hoofs, silken breeches for the fur of goats. +Instead of velvety leopards that used to amble over tuffets of fragrant +thyme, each with a hussy astride his supple back, went greasy chairmen +in lurching escort of dowagers and misses. Dionysus himself was changed. +He had kept his sly smile and rosy cheeks, but his vine wreaths were +become ruffles and ties, while his body glittered, not with youth and +health and immortality, but with paste buckles and brooches and +solitaires. The crashing cymbals of Thrace found a thin echo in the +delicate tinkle of tea-spoons and frail sounds of porcelain. To be sure, +the whole of the difference between the worship of Wine and the worship +of Tea was expressed by the fact that to honour the former, society took +off its cloaths, whereas in order to celebrate the latter, all the world +dressed itself up. + +Mr. Ripple wore above his suit of amber a robe resembling a golden +dressing-gown. He was the Gold Mandarin, decorated with dragons, tall +pagodas, flowers and fireworks. The Blue Mandarin, whose robe concealed +the pearl-grey suit of Mr. Charles Lovely, seemed as he moved across the +room like a blue garden, so many small landskips wrought in azure silks +trembled in the folds of his garment. Only these two officers of the +Pageant were privileged to remain unmasked. The rest of the company wore +yellow vizards whose painted eyebrows soared at a celestial angle over +eyeslits, cut almondwise. The general effect was of animated Ming +laughing, jesting, talking, and dancing with the lacker cabinets that +were used to contain it. + +The ballroom had pagodas in each of the corners where the children of +the Exquisite Mob dressed to a more exact replica[1] of the farthest +Orientals, nodded and peeped and chirped the austere maxims of Confucius +without the slightest idea of their meaning, but all convinced that it +was extremely diverting to partake of a grown-up entertainment, and far +better to drink real tea out of real cups in a delightful palace of +their own, than to play with acorns and ditchwater in the mildewed +Dorick summer-house at the head of the Park avenue. + + [1] They wore pigtails, which were considered unbecoming by the + older Follies. Besides, head-dresses were too elaborate to be ruined + for the sake of one entertainment. + +Chinese lanterns bobbed on golden wires slung from wall to wall whence +the gilt mirrours with the wax candles of the West had all been removed. +This Eastern light softened the mingled hues of blue and gold to a +gorgeous moving twilight stained by the afterglow of sunset. All along +the sides of the ballroom were placed for seats queer twisted animals, +winged dragons, squat bronzes, Chinese geese, monkeys and parrots in +crude shades of green and vermilion, while at suitable intervals were +set little houses to contain two persons. These were intended to +encourage the intimate amenities of polite conversation. + +Outside in the Rococo cloister unknown flowers expanded and curious +fruits ripened by lanternlight; and though the flowers were made of +linen dipped in scent, they served very well to pluck and offer to a +masked fair and as for the fruits, they were all filled with comfits. +Finally, here and there, smoking sandal-wood torches lent a remote +perfume to the Mise en Scene, and curled in scented wreaths about the +motley forms of the masqueraders. To say truth, the Eastern veneer was +more than usually superficial, even for a veneer. The result of the +attempt to secure reality only accentuated the difference between East +and West: still the latter enjoyed making believe so far as it consorted +with true gentility, and it may very easily be understood that nothing +low was permitted by the British Nation in the eighteenth glorious +century of Christian civilization. + +Thia was the first masked ball that had been held since Phyllida grew +enamoured of Mr. Francis Vernon, so she made no doubt he would avail +himself of the opportunity to be present. As soon as the Exquisite Mob +was assembled (at half-past seven o'clock precisely, because it was +considered vulgar to be late) there was a solemn drinking of tea, no +mere handing round of teacups and saucers, but a far more impressive +ritual, invented to mark the occasion with due importance. + +The Gold Mandarin seated himself on an ivory stool whose claw legs were +fretted with diminutive foliage, temples and flying birds. This was set +on a small platform draped with broideries at the foot of which was an +azure velvet cushion where, with crossed legs, sat the Blue Mandarin. + +Mr. Ripple clapped his hands twice to command the entrance of the +Procession of Tea. First walked two musicians slowly tapping gongs +shaped like saucers with large spoons. These were followed by six +children with nodding porcelain Mandarins whose tongues trembled in and +out of their surprized mouths. Then came the bearer of the Caddy--a +magnificently decorated specimen of lackerwork. On either side of the +Caddy was borne a Nankin jar full of milk. Finally, a lacker table on +wheels, overhung by a fringed canopy that protected an enormous bowl of +rarest Ming whither odorous vapours ascended from the flowery liquid, +was pushed along in slow and reverend state. + +The company opened its ranks to allow the procession a way until it +stopped before the Gold Mandarin's ivory throne. The Beau at once +descended, dipped a diminutive teacup into the bowl, took three sips and +sighed rapturously. The six porcelain Mandarins were set nodding with +redoubled vigour, gongs boomed from the topmost windows of the pagodas, +and the procession re-formed and passed into the upper room, whither the +assembled company followed it in order to drink in turn from teacups +filled at the sacred fountain. + +In the crush, Phyllida, who was wearing a gown faint blue like the March +sky, felt her sleeve pulled gently by a tall mask in tawny raiment. She +recognized the pointed white fingers and whispered 'Amor.' + +The mask shook his head to indicate silence, but presently Phyllida +succeeded in conveying her cup of tea to the outskirts of the crowd and +hurried through a corridor to a side-door opening into the cloister +where she waited for her lover's approach. In a minute he was sitting +beside her. + +She turned to him delightedly. + +"Dear Amor! This will be the first ball that I shall have truly +enjoyed." + +This statement scarcely did justice to the many pleasant hours she had +spent to the sound of fiddles, horns, and clarinets. + +"Why was my charmer absent yesterday? The Maze was prodigiously dull +without the sweet Nymph who loves to haunt its verdurous ways." + +"Oh! Amor, we are discovered." + +"Faith, is that so?" remarked Vernon, without any apparent concern. + +"Mr. Ripple told my mother I was conversing with a gentleman for one +hour and a half by the clock." + +"Interfering dancing-master!" + +"And yesterday I was sent to match a ribband quite impossible to match; +I'm sure 'twas done to keep me employed and when I heard eleven chime, I +could bear it no longer, but almost ran towards Curtain Garden, and on +my way the Beau beckoned me to come in and, pray don't be angry, dear +Amor, he was so vastly kind that I told him your name." + +"Here's a pretty state of affairs," muttered Vernon. + +"He asked me to present you to him to-night, and vowed we should be wed +in June." + +"Gadslife! I hope you sent him about his business?" + +"Not exactly," said Phyllida, "indeed he was so good-natured that I +promised--at least I half promised to do so." + +"Confusion take him," swore Vernon, "for a prating, meddlesome, +tailor-made gentleman. Harkee! I'll not have myself discussed by Mr. +Horace Ripple. I dare swear he patted your hands, eh? called you his +pretty dear, made old man's love, eh? A plague on his impudence!" + +Phyllida shrank from her lover's wrath. + +"Indeed, sir, I vow he did nothing of the kind. He behaved with some of +that propriety for which I could wish in my Amor." Phyllida remembered a +young woman talking something like this in the first volume of _The Fair +Inconstant_. Vernon could not keep back a smile. "I doubt I'm not +inclined to hear you farther." + +Vernon began to chuckle. + +"And let me tell you, sir, your behaviour becomes you very ill, and +moreover I told him your name, and the milk's spilt, and 'tis useless to +cry over spilt milk as all the world knows." + +A tear-drop trembled in each corner of Phyllida's eyes, making them seem +more clearly blue, as crystals that surround great sapphires enhance +their beauty. + +"Sweet indiscretion," began Vernon, who having been politick enough to +conceal his true name, could afford to be generous. + +A very faint sob was the sole response. + +"Nay, prithee, dear one," he continued, catching hold of a tremulous +hand, "let's have no quarrels at our first ball; I bear you no malice." + +"I should never have told him, had I been ashamed of you," she +interrupted. + +"Just so, adorable creature, but since we had resolved to keep our +affair secret, and since we were agreed that stolen meetings, like +stolen fruit, taste the sweetest, I was surprized to hear you had told +every one." + +"I did not tell any one." + +"But, my angel, you did." + +"Not until I was forced. 'Tis very well for you. You're a man of fashion +and independence, and I'm a young woman." + +"Incontestable truth!" + +"Now you're being satirical, and I vow I detest sarcasm. Indeed, I think +it has all been a mistake, and I'll go back to Hampshire to-morrow, and +you may go back to your Haymarket." + +"Very well, madam, since you dismiss my suit, I will go back to my +Haymarket. It may be vastly diverting for you, madam, to break a man's +heart. You, secure in the verdant meads and--er--meadows of the county +of Hampshire, you, wandering among fields of daffadillies, at peace, +beneath a summer sun." + +"Daffadillies don't grow in the summer." + +"Alas! madam, I am ignorant of these pastoral delights." + +This was perfectly true since Mr. Vernon's mother was a lady who thought +a bough-pot in Air Street worth the finest estate in the Kingdom. + +"I," he continued, "have lived my life in cities, and though I have +often hoped to hear the cuckoo wake me at dawn, 'tis very evident I must +for ever bid farewell to such vain dreams." + +Here, Mr. Vernon, who had inherited considerable histrionick ability on +the female side, contrived to get an effective break into his usually +smooth enunciation. + +"But I don't want to quarrel for ever," protested Phyllida. + +Mr. Vernon turned his head away, probably to hide a tear. + +"For my part," she went on, "I should be very willing to live always as +we are living now." + +"My angel!" + +"But since the world is so censorious and seems to concern itself with +every unimportant young woman's affairs, I thought--I thought----" + +"You thought a wedding would put a stop to scandal. How little you know +the world. Why! madam, a hasty wedding would set people's tongues +wagging at once. Come, come, pay no attention to old Ripple. He knows my +name. If he chuse, he can seek me out. I warrant I shall hear no more +about it." + +"But we shall be watched." + +"Then we'll change our trysting-place. At any rate, prithee, let us +enjoy to-night." Here Mr. Vernon put on his mask and taking off his gown +resumed it inside out. "Do you see, dear charmer, I am both porcelain +and lacker, so that no one will be able to say you prefer the one to the +other. Hark! the fiddles have begun--let's go and step our first gavotte +together." + +Phyllida took his arm and they returned to the ballroom. The vizards +made all the faces appear fixed and wooden and Miss Courteen could not +help looking very often at Mr. Charles Lovely who was sitting +cross-legged on his azure cushion and, in contrast to the rest of the +masquerade, was plainly a man. Once she fancied she caught his eye, and +when he came up and asked her to honour his arm for the third gavotte, +she knew she had not been mistaken. Mr. Vernon silently relinquished his +partner. + +"Who was your late Vis a Vis?" Charles inquired. "I beg your pardon," he +added as he saw Phyllida hesitate, "my manners grow as barbarick as my +costume." + +He had noticed with devout jealousy that Miss Courteen's fingers reposed +a moment longer than was necessary upon that sattin forearm. + +"How did you discover me?" she asked with frank interest. + +"'Twas not difficult." + +"But masked as I am?" + +"I did not regard your mask--I saw your eyes." + +Phyllida was conscious of a blush and a faint quickening of the pulses, +all over her body. There was certainly something very satisfactory in +such a compliment. It was genuine moreover, for indeed he had discovered +her through the distorted yellow vizard which concealed her roses. + +Presently the dance began, and, though Phyllida liked every moment of +it, she could not help observing Amor, half buried in the greenery of an +alcove and, as it seemed to her, forbidding too keen a pleasure. + +Charles found it difficult to extract from his partner more than the +ordinary small talk of ballrooms, and as she became more and more +absent-minded during the progress of the dance, he let her go at the end +of it without a very valiant attempt to detain her for the next. +Presently he saw her join a blue mask and lose herself in the flickering +throng. Last time he had remarked particularly that her Vis a Vis wore +brown and gold, yet the two figures were alike in movement and gesture +and he could swear the hands were identical. It was the same without a +doubt. Charles bit his nails with vexation, and fretted confoundedly. + +"My dear boy, my dear Charles, pray do not gnaw your fingers. Narcissus +admired himself, 'tis true, but without carrying his devotion to +cannibality." + +Charles turned to the well-known voice of Mr. Ripple. + +"A thousand pardons, dear Beau, I was vexed by a trifle. The masquerade +comports itself with tolerable success." + +"I think so," the Beau replied, adjusting his monocle and gazing +critically at his subjects. "I certainly think so, but I am never easy +in my mind until the Grand Minuet has concluded the entertainment, yet +even so, I do not think you will ever find me preying upon my +extremities." + +Charles laughed. + +"They take their pleasures very easily, sir." Again the Beau examined +his puppets. + +"The burden of amusement certainly weighs very lightly on them, and yet, +Charles, I sometimes fancy I detect a shade too much of +self-consciousness in their movements. I could wish for a less anxious +grace, a less ordered abandon. My monocle which diminishes their size, +diminishes their importance; and I must confess that the motion of +dancing, if one regards the Ensemble, appears to me nothing less than +idiotical. However, do not let my cynical attitude prove contagious--I +have watched so many dances." + +"Yet you are willing for me to succeed you," said Charles. "Foregad, Mr. +Ripple, I was never intended for a spectator." + +"I have energy to keep me in office long enough to let you grow older. +Come, come, Charles, admit the career I offer would tempt many more +deserving young men." + +"But I have passions, feelings, desires, ambitions." + +"All very suitable," commented the Beau, "till you grow tired of +versifying life. We write poetry, Charles, in order to improve our +prose." + +"Some men write poetry to the end." + +"Usually a bitter end; but, indeed, I would not goad you into accepting +my offer. Have your dramas, lose your money, expose your heart to Cupid, +commit the thousand and one foolish actions that will afford you a moral +occupation for your middle age." + +"What would that be?" + +"A leisurely repentance." + +"Sir, I think you spin the natural functions into silk like the +silkworm." + +"Well, Charles, and isn't silk a more durable excrement than most? You +are still devouring the tender shoots of the mulberry tree; I am +already in the cocoon and shall go down to posterity as a very reputable +moth vouched for by a cenotaph in St. Simon's Church, Curtain Wells." + +"Sir, I doubt they will never say of me 'Vive le roi!'" + +"We shall see, we shall see. By the way, do you know a Miss Phyllida +Courteen? Her mother, a widow whose charms are as ample as her dowry, is +lodging in the Crescent." + +Charles was taken aback for a moment. + +"I believe I have met her once or twice at Assemblies." + +"At any rate, you know her by sight." + +"Oh yes!" replied our hero. + +"Now, I wonder whether you could pick her out from this multitude of +masks." + +Charles at once perceived the subject of the question. + +"She is standing over there by the second pillar and talking to a mask +in porcel--no, in lacker. That's strange." + +"What is strange?" inquired Mr. Ripple mildly. + +"Nothing--a lantern effect," Charles explained. + +Surely he could not be mistaken in those taper fingers. Moreover, they +were familiar to him. Where could he have seen them? + +"So that is Miss Courteen," said the Beau, looking at her very intently. +"Yes, now that you have pointed her out, I certainly seem to recognize +her. Who is her Vis a Vis?" + +"That I do not know," said Charles rather gloomily. + +"Then, pray, be so good-natured as to make an attempt to ascertain and +you'll oblige me monstrously. Or stay--perhaps I had better inquire +myself." + +Mr. Ripple, observing that Mr. Lovely looked somewhat melancholy, patted +him on the shoulder. + +"Don't look so full of disapprobation, Charles. Inquisitiveness, with +ordinary men and women, is a breach of good manners: with kings, it is a +condescension. Dear me! how time runs!" the Beau continued, tripping +from an epigram to a truism. "I will leave you to superintend the +Country Dances. Let them be as Oriental as possible, I beg." + +With this admonition the Great little Man threaded his way through the +Exquisite Mob. + +Charles d----d the country dances very devoutly. He was not enjoying +the evening at all, and wished he were sitting in the cosy firelight of +the _Blue Boar_, lulled by the whispers of playing cards, shuffled and +dealt. Where could he raise that two hundred pounds he owed Vernon? +Vernon--by G...! now he recognized those taper fingers. Vernon! they +belonged to Vernon, he could swear to them. Too often had he watched +their delicate harvesting of his guineas. He began to fret more than +ever. Suddenly he noticed that everybody was looking in his direction, +and became aware that time was indeed running and the moment for the +Country Dances had arrived. + +Meanwhile Mr. Ripple searched in vain for Phyllida and a Vis a Vis in +brown and gold. + + + + +_Chapter the Seventeenth_ + +THE GRAND MINUET OF CATHAY + + +The Country Dances of these powderpuff Orientals were so truly +inappropriate to the celebration that they almost succeeded in +convincing by sheer want of fitness. Picture to yourselves two hundred +blue and golden marionettes jigging to _Sir Roger de Coverley_ or +bobbing to _Come Lasses and Lads_. There was Merry England underneath +this hugger mugger of yellow masks, yet the sustained motion was +decidedly Eastern. Hands across, back to back, right hand, left +hand--each change of attitude was marked by a crashing gong; and he who +sounded this barbarick instrument was Mr. Charles Lovely. He stood upon +a tripod of ebony quite high enough for a hero of comedy, as I am sure +you will admit. + +As soon as his proconsulate was over, he jumped from the pedestal and, +once more assuming our poor humanity, sought desperately for Mr. Vernon +and Miss Phyllida Courteen. + +And now the great ballroom was cleared. The Exquisite Mob refreshed +itself not with chopsticks, but with two pronged forks and stout-handled +knives. Nor was the fare ascetick rice, but pies of mutton, rounds of +beef, custards, gay jellies and dappled puddings. In the ballroom the +attendants busily ran hither and thither in preparation for the Grand +Minuet of Cathay. Four pagodas guarded four corners; little bridges +spanned little rivers of blue silk. There were miniature groves that +shielded queer little Chinese gods and goddesses, while here and there +were temples with crooked roofs, hung round with silver bells destined +to be jingled at set moments of this incomparable minuet. High up near +the ceiling among the swinging lanterns one saw the peaked faces of +giant kites gazing benignly down. Finally in the very centre of the room +was a small fountain with a pond all about it of real water, starred +with white water lilies, on the highest jet of which a little god, +inflated by air, jigged to the rise and fall of the water. Mr. Ripple +had not been able to find Miss Courteen and was interrupted in his +search by a call to inspect the scene of the Minuet. Gog was sent to +fetch Mr. Lovely and presently the Gold Mandarin and the Blue Mandarin +were stepping over each bridge, peering from each pagoda, gently trying +the bells, lending a last touch to the rivers of silk and coming to a +standstill in silent admiration of the dancing water-god. + +"I think," said Mr. Ripple, "we may venture to proclaim, the Minuet of +Cathay." + +"I think so," said Mr. Lovely as he cast a quick eye in the direction of +every entrance in turn. + +"I could not find Miss Courteen," said the Beau, "have you had better +luck?" + +Lovely hesitated a moment. + +"No," he said finally. + +The Beau looked at him a moment. + +"I cannot imagine who this Amor can be. He is not down in my list." + +"Amor?" inquired Charles, somewhat too suddenly, "is his name Amor?" + +"So the young lady informed me, when we considered the situation +together. I perceive you know him." + +"Indeed, sir, I am acquainted with no one of that name." + +"I never imagined you were," replied the Beau testily. "'Tis too plainly +a Nom d'amour; but I'll wager you are able to extract a personality from +this pseudonym." + +"Nay, indeed, I----" + +"Very well," said the Beau, cutting him short, "there is no more to be +said," and he turned away to order a burly Oriental who on less +decorated occasions was wont to assist Mr. Balhatchett the butcher, to +sound the gong of invitation. + +While the huge sullen instrument boomed a diapason that threatened more +than it cajoled, Charles wondered if he had been wise to conceal his +knowledge of Mr. Amor's identity. Ripple had obviously not believed him +and was moreover very sensitive to any concealment on the part of his +subjects. He, as his own subaltern, was especially bound to indulge this +foible. Besides, what good had he done? thought Charles. Not much +indeed, for soon Ripple would certainly find out the whole affair. He +ought to tell him all he knew. Ripple would act for the best and close +the Pump Room against the intruder. It would be kill or cure. + +But just as he was upon the point of informing the Great little Man, our +hero remembered he owed Vernon two hundred pounds. O resolute hero! Be +quick to mount your ebony pedestal or we shall think you no better than +a walking gentleman. + +The Exquisite Mob of crimped and corseted Orientals began to saunter +back from supper, and the debate between honesty and honour was +adjourned to a more meditative opportunity. By this hour of the evening +most of the Masks were tolerably sure of each other's identity, and +though it was an acknowledged custom of the Chinese Masquerade as +opposed to other masked balls that all vizards should be worn from door +to door, the Grand Minuet of Cathay afforded much scandalous talk for +the ensuing days, all the more potent because a convention of anonymity +was sedulously maintained. It was not surprizing that intrigue should +flourish at a dance where half the company was hidden for many moments +at a stretch. The Minuet lasted a whole hour. It reproduced in the +various side-figures many emotions. It was a hundred dances in a grand +Ensemble. The musick was now courtly, now passionate: sometimes it +clanged in barbarick interludes of noise: sometimes but three or four +flutes twittered above the plash of the fountain. + +Over the bridges pattered the dancers: in and out of the diminutive +groves twinkled their scarlet heels. Now a couple swayed in a stationary +boat on a motionless river: now at the topmost window of a pagoda, +cambrick handkerchief and painted fan kept time to the tune. The Gold +Mandarin lived in a golden house beside the fountain and, if he chose, +could live a century of sound and perfume in that fragrant hour of +dancing. Far away at the other corner of the room lived the Blue +Mandarin in a small house at the foot of a small volcano that +ceaselessly puffed out clouds of incense. Wherever you went in that +strange dance of dances some new delight assailed your senses. + +Here, before a temple hung with silver bells, a dozen of these blue and +golden dolls moved with grace and precision through many variations of +the Minuet. They would carry away with them that night no more than a +memory of bells and stately movement by the rosy light of many lanterns. +Purged of all feeling save for correct gesture, the vizards seemed no +more alive than their mirroured counterparts that moved with equal grace +upside down in the polished floor of parquet. + +But step over one of these bridges where false white flowers hang in +scented clusters: go softly through that Bonbon grove, and there in an +alcove fretted to the semblance of wrought ivory, you shall see two +masks that are enraptured beneath a white moon-lantern, tracing the +melody with long caresses. In one of these fanciful resorts, sat Vernon +and Phyllida making love among the shadows, as in pairs and dainty +quartetts the dancers darkened the carved portal when they passed. For +Phyllida, the Assembly Rooms had been snatched up by some powerful +magician and set down in a land of Ombres Chinoises. Many a time had she +sat in the theatre and watched these silent black and white tragedies +and comedies. Now she had joined that whimsical procession which capers +across the draughty sheet. She recalled a particular entertainment of +this character last December. First the Columbine had pirouetted across +and made a light phantastick entrance into the shadow of the house at +the extreme corner. Presently came the Pierrot with a lantern swaying +atop of a tall pole. Up and down the sheet he had danced with incredible +agility, until a Pulcinello shook his bells from the window of the +house, and he floated away gathering giant size as he went. Then came +Harlequin, dancing almost more beautifully than Pierrot, and a quiet +murder was done in the laurel shadows round the house. Pierrot lay dead +and Harlequin, the slim and debonair assassin had donned his vizard: +Columbine wept a while until the lights were turned up, when everybody +agreed that the whole performance was in the best of taste and vastly +well executed. + +Phyllida came to herself and found Mr. Vernon gazing steadily at her +with his velvet eyes, all the more disconcerting set almondwise in the +Chinese mask. She shuddered. + +To say truth, this exotick minuet of strange perfumes and processions, +was not the sanest amusement for a maid who should have lived always +among the roses. The heat was growing intolerable, and still her lover +with persistent, regular motion bewitched her hand as it lay in his. + +The dancers passed and repassed them as they sat in artificial dusk. +Phyllida began to hate them when they fluttered their fans and +handkerchiefs. They were sickly things these dancers--crotchets and +quavers and semiquavers who had captured the semblance of humanity, who +breathed and bowed and capered, merely because musick had conjured them +into existence. Suddenly an amazing clangour of gongs and cymbals waked +her completely from the fever into which she had been flung, and, +waking, she found herself encircled by her lover's arms, his eyes +burning into hers and his lips, all that was left alive by the stolid +vizard, eager to meet her own. + +"Don't," she gasped. "Don't. I hate you, I hate you when you do that." + +"Nay, my angel must not be so prudish. Come, kiss me of your own will +and we'll gallop to Gretna Green next week." + +Phyllida still repulsed him. + +"To Gretna Green," he went on. "Drawn by a pair of cream-coloured +horses, in a chaise all citron silk and rosy sattin with my Phyllida +plunged into the softest cushions and her Amor to love her so fondly +while trees and milestones fly past." + +Vernon inherited much talent from his mother, and as he breathed his +persuasions in the most refined modulations of intensity, half looked +over his shoulder, for an audience. + +"My Phyllida, your lips are soft as moths." + +"Don't, Amor, don't." + +"Soft as little moths that in wet garden paths brush the cheeks with +feathery wings." + +"Release my hand, detestable Amor. I will sit here no longer to be +tortured by your boorishness." + +"But why will you repulse me? you love me? We are to be wed almost at +once. Why were you willing to sit in this dark corner, unless for the +charms of love?" + +The Minuet was drawing to a close. Long since the musick had departed +into wilder channels. This was now no courtly measure, but a barbarick +medley of noise, fit for trumpets of India, cymbals of Ethiopia, and the +hollow booming of drums that affright wrecked pirates in the green +swamps of Madagascar. + +Vernon stood up and drew Phyllida closer. + +"By G----, child, you madden me with your prettiness. Come, I swear you +shall kiss me before the end of the dance. You shall, by G---- you +shall!" + +Miss Phyllida Courteen, all swansdown and blushes in our first chapter, +is scarcely recognizable now. She is growing old fast. She is kindling +the faggots that will warm her chill old age. + +But still, though passion tugged at her heart strings, the school-miss, +the older Eve before the Fall, made her struggle against knowledge. + +"I hate you, I hate you like this. Let me go, sir, let me go!" + +With a sudden effort, she escaped from his arms, and he, plunging back +at the same moment, struck the frail summer house of ivory so that it +toppled over in front of the Blue Mandarin who was crossing a bridge +over a silken stream that flowed in the direction of his little house +beneath the miniature volcano. The Bonbon grove was strewn with +fragments. Like Cinderella fled Miss Courteen and was quickly lost in +the gold and azure company. With careless air, Mr. Vernon stooped to +buckle his shoe and Charles, seeing the taper fingers, stood for a +moment petrified upon the ridiculous bridge over which he had been +stepping with such an affectation of importance. + +Now was his opportunity to probe Mr. Vernon, or rather to lead him +gradually into the urbane presence of Mr. Ripple who would certainly +probe him deep enough. There was every reason to admonish him for, as he +knelt over his shoe, Charles could plainly see his costume was +reversible. Such a device was a breach of etiquette, deserving publick +censure. Himself as viceroy of Society, should not be backward in +arresting a traitor to Society's rules. Of old, the favourites of +monarchs had not scrupled to owe money to those whom they denounced as +dangerous to the State. + +Charles took a step forward. + +"Sir," he said, pointing with a tasselled wand whose handle was a squat +Buddha, "you have broken a law of the Chinese Masquerade." + +"Indeed," said Vernon, rising from his knees, not at all perturbed +apparently by the accusation. + +"Yes," went on the Blue Mandarin. Pray let our hero be impersonal for a +while, "You are wearing a double costume." + +"What a monstrous breach of privilege," said Vernon chilly, unmoved. + +"And it is my duty to report the incident to Beau Ripple. Your name, +sir?" + +It was now the turn of our villain to hesitate. If he frankly avowed his +identity, Lovely was bound to say no more about it, but did the +interloping young Jackanapes know the heroine of the affair?--he had +danced with her once that night. If he said Amor, Lovely might easily +inform Ripple and plead ignorance. D---- n the young fool! Why didn't he +pass over his absurd stream and take his callow brain, stuffed with +ceremonies, to the sugar-plum atmosphere of the Beaux' ante-room? + +"Why Lovely, man, don't you know me? 'Tis I, Vernon, what the plague do +you mean by so much impertinence? Were you shocked to see me trying to +kiss a saucy school-minx, eh? That was little Miss----" + +"Her mask, sir, should conceal her name." + +With what fair Incognita Mr. Vernon intended to couple himself, will +never be known. No doubt a pseudonym as nice as his own would have been +forthcoming, since he was of an inventive disposition and had on +occasions a pretty turn of fancy. + +The musick had stopped; the Grand Minuet of Cathay was finished. Mr. +Charles Lovely was aware of a rival to whom, by cursed ill-fortune, he +owed money which he was unable to pay. + +"Shall I give you your revenge?" murmured Vernon. + +The company, still masked, were hurrying in blue and golden bunches to +their coaches and chairs. + +"Not tonight," said Charles. "But on my honour, Vernon, you must really +be careful not to offend against our rules on another occasion." + +So, lightly enough, with no appearance of mutual ill-will the rivals +passed on. Phyllida was gone home, her face afire beneath her Chinese +mask. To her virginal chamber, I shall presently take you in order to +hear what Mistress Betty has to say about the ways of lovers. And while +we walk in the direction of the Crescent, somewhat overwrought by a +plethora of colour, scent, movement and sound, we may be tolerably +certain that young Mr. Charles Lovely--no longer Blue Mandarin, but +again our admired hero--is seated furiously inditing the most satirical +verses on the residents and visitors of Curtain Wells, in order to make +money enough to pay Mr. Vernon his guineas, and be able to run him +through in Curtain Mead with a clear conscience and a clean smallsword. + + + + +_Chapter the Eighteenth_ + +THE CONFIDANTE + + +If Eve had possessed a Confidante, it is probable that the evil wrought +by Woman would have been double as great as it is reputed to be. Miss +Courteen had stepped into the mud of reality and, not unnaturally, was +eager to tell Mistress Betty of the accident and ascertain by +candlelight consultation, whether or not her glass slipper was truly +lost. + +As they drove home in the rumbling coach, Phyllida experienced an +emotion of futility as she half listened, half dozed, to the +conversation of the Major, the Justice and her mother. To this came +Youth. Bumpety-bump went the coach, bumpety-bump went the conversation, +bumpety-bump went Thomas' broad back on the Jimmy, bumpety-bump went +Phyllida's head, while her thoughts and memories kept pace in the +darkness like swift sparks that are blown along by the wind. At last the +coach drew up before their house in the Crescent: Phyllida and her +mother alighted: Betty opened the door and the coach drove off to put +down Major Tarry and Mr. Moon at their lodgings. + +The hall seemed drab and unfamiliar; the bedchamber candle-sticks set +out upon the little gate table had an air of reproof about them; they +seemed to say as they sat in a prim row: "Look at us, we are quite +content. Last night our candles burnt an inch lower, and the candle +suffers diminution, but we remain the same. We are quite content." + +"My pretty one looks pale," said Betty, full of solicitude. + +"I'm tired," said Phyllida. + +"Betty," said Mrs. Courteen, "you must help me to undress. The evening +has been most enjoyable, and my lady Bunbutter tore her gown on a +monkey's tail. Now, Phyllida, do you run quickly to bed, for to-morrow +Mr. Moon and the Major have promised to drive with us to see Melton +Abbey. You will enjoy the excursion vastly." + +"What a whimsical place to visit." + +"Whimsical! How can you be so irreverend, Phyllida?" + +"But why, mamma, do you suddenly drive to Melton Abbey?" + +"Why, child! because I wish to train your mind to be sure. Nothing tests +deportment so severely as wandering round a Gothick ruin. However, they +tell me that Gothick will soon be a la Mode, and who am I to dispute the +commands of fashion?" + +Upon the heels of this humble interrogation, the widow betook herself to +bed. + +"When you have undressed my mamma, Betty, come to my chamber, I have a +thousand things to tell you," Phyllida whispered as they went up the +narrow stairs. + +She lighted all the candles in her room and looked round in sudden +affright. It was as if some one had trespassed upon those virginal +solitudes while she was away. Yet her room was the same as usual; the +dimity covers were all in their places: the fire was burning merrily in +the hearth: the bed-cloaths were turned back, fresh, cool and +lavendered. Her slippers knelt devoutly by the fender: the fire-irons +looked just as stilted and apologetick as usual. Everything was +perfectly familiar, perfectly ordinary and perfectly safe; yet something +in the room was strange, or was it herself who was altered? Was she out +of harmony with this palace of amber morning dreams, this treasure-box +of twilight hopes and imaginations? + +Down she sat in the big flowered arm-chair and stared at the crackling +logs--a stranger to her own possessions, and, as she untied one by one +the ribbands from her glinting chestnut hair, she seemed to smell the +jasmine of Courteen Grange and hear her father calling below her +casement to come down quickly and count the buds on the York and +Lancaster rose, as he was used to call in those sweet dead Junes. + +Presently came Betty with a soft knock and Phyllida, starting away from +the host of childish memories that assailed her, sprang up as the maid +came in on tiptoe. + +"Now, sit down, Betty, and listen with all your ears, for I dearly need +your advice." + +"My sweet one, I'm listening to 'ee," said Betty, pulling forward a fat +lop-eared hassock and squeezing herself as close to the fender as +possible. + +"Betty, Mr. Amor kissed me this evening, and what should I do?" + +"What were 'ee best to do? Why think no more about it, for indeed I dare +vow you're not the first maid that was kissed." + +"But the worst of the matter is that, though I struggled hard to escape, +and though I detested him for his persistence, yet, oh! Betty, I don't +like to tell you--I did not struggle as hard as I might have done." + +As she made this confession, Phyllida went carnation red from forehead +to pointed dimpled chin. + +"There's no call for blushes," said Betty emphatically, "for you must +learn the love of man soon or late, and Mr. Vernon is a proper enough +gentleman for sure." + +"And he said we should presently elope." + +"Oh! time enough to be wed come three years or more," commented Betty. + +"Oh! but you would not have me allow a gentleman to take my hand, and +kiss me, and call me his dearest life without being married immediately. +It would be most unbecoming." + +"If all the world knew, 'twould, but then nobody don't know, and that's +the best way for all true lovers." + +"Nevertheless, Betty, I feel uneasy." + +"'Tis only the stirring of your blood, my dear. Only to think," went on +the confidante, "that last sweet Spring time you was building great +cowslip balls in the green meadows, and now you are quite grown up with +a bow of your own to arm you through the minivets and gawottes, so grand +as may be." + +"Yes, love makes one grow old, Betty. I've aged very much these weeks." + +"Well, and 'twouldn't be right otherwise, for Life bean't all a long +sweet April month, my pretty one." + +"Then truly, dear Betty, you swear you think there is no harm in what I +have done?" + +"Oh, my dear, harm? Why, what harm could there be with your great fat +Betty to watch and guard 'ee?" + +"Still, I'm not sure, Betty. There's something tells me not to be sure." + +"Then, do 'ee listen hard to me, my dear, while I tell 'ee what I do +think about life. Life! 'Tis a garden and 'tis a wilderness, and between +them there's a gaate and 'tis a kissing gaate. The wilderness is fine +for children--a great open plaace fit for scampering Jack hares and such +like, but bare enough and bleak enough when you do grow old, and then +you're too fat to get through that kissing gaate, and then you do wish +wi' all your might and main that when you was young you'd gotten into +the garden among the sweet flowers." + +Betty stopped, exhausted by the allegory. + +"Yes, Betty, that is all very well, but you must go through the gate +with the person whom you love for ever and a day." + +"Nay, you can meet him inside and say Good-day and thank you kindly to +the arm you went in on." + +"I don't believe you give me good advice. If I told you that to-morrow +morning I was going to run away with Mr. Amor to Gretna Green, what +would you say?" + +"Oh, God preserve you from the wicked thought, Gretna Green or any other +such unlawful heathenish village green!" + +"There you see," complained Phyllida, "you do not take me seriously, and +it was foolish of me ever to tell you about this evening. But now that +I have told you, you must never breathe a word to a living +soul--never--never--promise! + +"I do promise," said Betty. + +"With the old rhyme--till Christmas--you remember?" + +Betty stood up, while a ritual, sacred to the childhood of Phyllida, was +solemnly enacted. In a monotonous whispered chaunt, Betty promised: + + "_I will not tell at primrose tide, + At cherry tide I'll silent be, + At barley harvest I'll be dumb + Till Christmas come and set me free._" + +Phyllida was satisfied that her indiscreet confidence was safely locked +up in Betty's bosom, capacious, homely, sweet-savoured as an +apple-closet. + +You have seen the confidante in action. Is it not well that we have +banished her from society? No longer may she enter stark mad in white +muslin, as the play directs. We have put her away in an old chest with +hoops and tie-wigs and gibbets and pirates and Newgate ordinaries and +rotten boroughs and watchet ribbands. No longer does she play asterisk +to a heroine, because nowadays the adventures of our heroines are +entirely introspective. But, as upon all time-honoured institutions, let +us drop a tear for the confidante; she has helped a thousand perplexed +authors to unfold their simple dramas, she has helped many a +scene-shifter to leisure. + +Mr. Sheridan could laugh at Mr. Cumberland through this artful, artless +medium, but he too had his Lucy. Mr. Smollett depended upon Miss +Williams (a lady of the loosest character) in order to help his Narcissa +to reveal herself and you, Mr. Goldsmith whose name, like immortal +Madame Blaize, is 'bedizened and brocaded,' you had your dearest +Neville. + +Yet, after all, however much we may regret them, confidantes were very +bad for heroines. They would encourage them in all that was most +reprehensible. Here you see, is our own confidante encouraging her +mistress to play with Love's torch and for all you or she know, get +badly scorched by the purple flame. Such temerity is very well for +country wenches to whom a green gown is a proper delight for May +morning. Betty, with her memories of many barley breaks, junketings and +Hallowe'en festivals, where ripe lips are as common as cherries at +midsummer, was not the perfect monitor for swansdown misses brought up +under Miss Prudence Prim's long rattan, taught to sit up straight and +put into corsets almost as soon as they were out of robe-coats. In fact +she was a confidante, a match-maker, to whom a wedding-ring was a Post +Hoc horse-collar, through which to grin at the censorious world. + +After all, where's the ultimate difference between sweet sensibility a +hundred and fifty years ago and sweet sensibility today? We should +consider it _demode_ for the latter to gossip with her maid. Now every +schoolboy and schoolgirl knows how to spell psychology, and has been +awarded a sub-conscious self to enliven the lonely hours. And this +sub-conscious self, what is it, under analysis? Why, nothing more than +the old confidante in ghostly guise with as long a tongue and as rich a +store of bad advice. + +So now, having successfully, as I hope, occupied your attention while +sweet sensibility gets into bed, let us snuff the candles and leave the +room to Phyllida and wavering firelight. + + + + +_Chapter the Nineteenth_ + +BLACKHART FARM WITH A COCK-FIGHT + + +About ten miles from Curtain Wells on the Bristol road stood a ruined +cottage. With thatch discoloured, torn by gales and sparrows, and with +windows made crooked by internal decay, its expression was grotesque and +unpleasant. A tangled bed of rotten nettles filled the space before it, +and all the vegetation beside was rank and desolate. This cottage served +as fitting lodge to a sinister bye-way covered with weeds and almost +overhung in summer by hedges dark with masses of black bryony, but in +winter and spring sufficiently open to admit the cold grey sky overhead, +and the chill Easterly rain, which on the morning after the Chinese +Masquerade fell with dreary persistence. + +Pray pardon me that I take you so far from wit, fashion, and beauty, +along this unsavoury path, but indeed the journey is inevitable if you +are at all anxious to understand something of Mr. Francis Vernon's +intentions. The road leads to Blackhart Farm, famous, no doubt, in days +gone by for the cherries of that denomination; but since the last dying +speech and confession of Mrs. Mawhood the name has acquired a new and +sinister significance. + +Now you understand my apologies; or is it possible you have forgotten +Mrs. Mawhood of Blackhart Farm, who was turned off at Tyburn amid the +execrations of the mob in 17--? Yet her long black gloves and white face +haunted many pillows on the night when she paid the ultimate penalty; +and for what was she hanged? Come, come, this history is not the Newgate +Calendar--you must search that bloody register. + +At the time, however, of Mr. Vernon's visit, Mrs. Mawhood was alive and, +I am sorry to add, flourishing. He followed the roadway for about a +quarter of a mile between tall, damp hedgerows, dismounted at a small +wicket-gate and, leading his horse, turned aside through a plantation of +close-set, withered larches under which the grass grew pale and thin, +with a sweet unhealthy odour of fungus. Blackhart Farm appeared in +view--a long, low building with slated roof, trim enough, but repulsive +and barren. From a pile of chimney stacks smoke was rising hardly +through the heavy atmosphere. + +The path by which Vernon arrived led immediately to the front door. Had +he continued along the cart track he would have reached, by way of a +bleak paved courtyard, the back of the house. Only a very shallow strip +of garden separated the front of the farm from the gloomy plantation +that served as barrier to the curious world. + +Vernon tied his horse to the gate of the garden, walked up the +moss-grown path between clipped bushes of box, and knocking with the +handle of his riding-whip on the heavy door, waited. Several moments +passed, and in the deep silence that surrounded this ill-wished abode, +he could distinctly hear a clock ticking on the other side of the heavy +door. This, the drip of trees, and the noise of his horse chewing the +rank herbage by the gate, were the only sounds that broke the stillness. + +At last footsteps shuffled over the stone-paved floor within. A small +panel slid away from a grating and a voice of that peculiar unctuous +hoarseness only heard in a prodigiously fat man or woman, inquired his +name. + +"I want to see you, old Mother Mawhood." + +"Love o'maids!" said the fat voice, "'tis Fancy Vernon, or I'm not a fat +old sinner." + +The bolts were pushed back, the latch clicked, the door swung open, and +Mrs. Mawhood, whose bulk, but little reduced by Newgate fare, was soon +to test severely the three-legged tenement, occupied the portal. + +Take a good look at Mrs. Mawhood, while with pursy greetings she makes +Fancy Vernon welcome. She is like an idol in a cavernous East Indian +temple, or a giant toadstool, or weight of unbaked dough, or in fact +anything that is slow, sleepy, and horrible. Almost buried in folds of +flesh is a pair of beady black eyes, as steady and wicked as those of a +puff-adder or seaman's parroquet. She is dressed in black, and her nails +are bitten to the quick. + +Mr. Vernon was probably less narrow-minded than the mob which howled at +her infamy during the Tyburn journey. At any rate he chatted with her +amicably enough on this grey February forenoon. + +"How's business, ma'am?" he asked. + +"Very bad," she wheezed. "Only three of 'em upstairs and none of 'em +real quality. Still, the flowers in the garden vant fresh food, +especially the blood-red toolips. Ah! it was two lips that was the +undoin' of the hussies, and, 'tis fair they should profit by the +harvest." + +This devilish joke was followed by a low rumbling chuckle echoed above +by a thin wail. + +Mrs. Mawhood waddled to the foot of the stairs. + +"Keep that d----d brat quiet, you charity bastard," she wheezed +angrily. "She'll hev to get up to-morrow," she continued, seating +herself in a wide arm-chair beside the empty grate, "and a sickly puling +jade she is. I suppose you've come for the Main?" + +"No," answered Vernon, "indeed, I did not know there was to be one. Good +birds?" + +Mrs. Mawhood nodded. "Thirty-two cocks and a Velch main. 'Tis some of +those baby gentlemen from the Vells as finks they's seeing life ven a +dozen lousy chairmen sveats thesselves 'oarse over a pair of bleeding +chickens. And ven they's 'ad their pockets picked, they goes 'ome +'appy." + +"Is Moll here?" asked Vernon. + +"No, Moll's keeping a gay house Catherine Street vay." + +"Egad, I've a pretty little job for Moll." + +"Now don't you go leading Moll astray. She ain't been in Bridewell not +these two years, and she don't vant to neither." + +"This job won't take her there. I'm in need of a housewife for a month, +and Moll's a nice homely woman." + +"'Oo's she to look after, eh?" + +"A pearl necklace," said Vernon. + +"And a pretty neck, eh?" + +"Tolerable," said Vernon. + +"When do you want her?" + +"Let me see--February. Shall we say the last week in March?" + +"I'll tell her: I shall be sending a hussy from here presently to a nice +honest sitivation." Again the chuckle was heard. + +"I want lodgings near the Haymarket. Nice and airy--with a balcony if +possible, and--well, Moll knows what attracts sweet seventeen." + +"That's young for a pearl necklace." + +"'Tis hers by inheritance. The lodgings must be cheerful because Miss is +shy." + +"Oh, Moll knows what every age likes best. She'll buy a dear little +singing goldfinch and put him in a cage and hang him up in the window. +Who knows? P'raps it'll breed a nice little nestful of goldfinches for +Moll. 'Ow many?" + +"I can discuss that with Moll herself," said Vernon. + +"Ah, but Moll's so soft 'arted. Not less than fifty goldfinches, mind, +and if a little hindrance arrives, 'tis to come down to Blackhart +Farm--mind--and be cared for by old Mother Mawhood wot's kind even to +the pore little flies on the pane." + +"You look too far into the future, old lady," said Vernon. + +"And so a body should, my fancy boy," the hag answered. "Now I wager you +ain't thought nothin' about postillions?" + +"Time enough for that." + +"Yes, time enough I dare say, but you ought to engage 'em in advance. +That's vat the quality does ven they writes to me. Have you got a pair +of good honest postboys?" + +"No, but----" + +"Vell! and good honest boys ain't so easy found in Curtain Vells! Boys +who'll do vat's vanted and no questions axed and none answered." + +"But I thought----" + +"That's all werry fine," said the monstrous old woman. "But p'raps +there'll be another elopement. Maids is thick in Curtain Vells, and +p'raps you won't find your boys so easy. There's some that don't like +the job--don't like two brace of pops behind 'em and a galloping brother +and father." + +"We shan't be followed," said Vernon contemptuously. + +"No, I dare say you von't, but 'tis as vell to be behind a couple of +good honest boys as'll use their pops when they're turning a corner and +ready to swear they thought it was two gentlemen on the high toby as vas +a followin' of 'em so fast." + +"Very well," said Vernon, "whom do you want me to employ?" + +"Vy, there's my two nephews, Charlie and Dickie Maggs, vot 'ud drive +'ard and fast all the vay to Lunnon town and no questions axed either +end, but vot could easily be ansered wiv golden Georges." + +"Let 'em wait on me when I send the word, and hark'ee, they must be +ready any time this month, for Miss may take it into her head to run +before I expect." + +Further intercourse between Mr. Francis Vernon and old Mother Mawhood +was interrupted by loud knocks on the door at the back, supported by +catcalls, yells, horn-blowing and whip-cracking. + +"That's for the Main," said Mrs. Mawhood. "Vill you stay to see the +sport?" + +"'Tis a Welch main?" + +"Ay--thirty-two birds." + +"Well, send a boy to put my horse in the stable." + +"This way, my fancy, this way," wheezed the hag, as she waddled towards +the courtyard where the noise was growing louder every minute. + +It may strike the reader as strange that the young gentlemen of the +_Blue Boar_ (they were all there save Mr. Lovely) should come ten miles +to a disreputable farm for the purpose of seeing thirty-two cocks of the +game butchered. The Welch Main was a peculiarly bloody form of +cock-fighting, as it was determined by a series of rounds fought by the +respective survivors until at the end a pair of already vilely scarred +and mutilated birds were placed beak to beak by the Feeder to determine +the ultimate victor of the Main. + +Ten miles was not too far to travel for such glorious sport in the days +of the Georges, but that they were compelled to travel at all was due to +the squeamishness of Beau Ripple, who had a singular aversion from the +game and would allow no cock-pit to be established within his +jurisdiction. He used to say the martyrdom of chickens should never +extend beyond the demand for painted fans. + +Therefore a suitable cockpit had been set up in one of the outlying +barns of Blackhart Farm, whither at discreet intervals went Lieutenant +Blewforth of the _Lively_, Mr. Golightly of Campbell's Grey Dragoons, +Mr. Tom Chalkley of the Foot, little Peter Wingfield, and many other +young gentlemen. They would sit in the first tier and allow their +exquisite necks to be blown upon by the stinking breath of the second +tier which, in turn, was not unwilling to allow the third tier to spit +over its shoulders in the intervals of yelling, 'Three to one on the +Blotch-breasted Red!' 'Six to five against the Cheshire Pile!' 'Two to +one on the Black-breasted Birchin!' and other such bewildering +proclamations of their confidence in particular cocks of the game. + +Vernon was not at all displeased that his visit to Blackhart Farm should +have ostensible justification. Looking back, as he emerged into the +courtyard, he noticed all the windows of the house were blind on that +side and wondered why so ill-favoured and disreputable a dwelling-place +had never been investigated by the servants of justice. So it was, +however, not long after this date, and a gruesome day's work it was +beneath the hot August sun: and not the least gruesome sight was old +Mother Mawhood, monstrous, flabby and terror-stricken, quivering in her +chair by the empty fireside, opposite a Robin Redbreast from Bow Street +drinking many quarts of beer and regarding her with unfavourable +glances, while he listened to the chink of the spades in the flower +garden by the plantation. The runners would never have visited Blackhart +Farm had not a certain lady of quality, who travelled in a post-chaise +with muffled windows, dallied a month too long, thereby raising the +suspicions of her eagle-nosed aunt, the Countess of----, but what has +all this to do with cock-fighting? + +In the pit the spectators were arranging themselves. In front sat +Lieutenant Blewforth and little Peter Wingfield as Masters of the Match. +In the front tier sat the leading amateurs of Curtain Wells. Behind them +were the shopkeepers, and behind the shopkeepers was the riff-raff of +the Wells and its satellite villages. + +Everybody was bawling odds at top voice, and occasionally one of the +birds crowed. This was an infringement of etiquette and, being +considered a sign of cowardice, immediately lengthened the odds against +the offender. The tallowy man in a blue kerseymere coat and breeches is +one of the Feeders, and is acting in that capacity for the Services +represented by Lieutenant Blewforth, while the civilians are employing +the good offices of Jimmy Trickett, who on less exciting occasions is +one of the hostlers of the _Blue Boar_. + +Vernon, looking for a vacant place in the front tier found himself next +to Mr. Anthony Clare, who, for all he sat so unmoved, had provided eight +cocks for the civilians and stood to lose a pretty pile of guineas. + +"Where's Lovely?" asked Vernon, shaking the sawdust from his boots. + +"He never comes to cock-fights," Clare replied rather coldly. + +"Too brutal for a poet, eh?" + +"I have never heard him say so," said Clare. + +As a matter of fact Charles strongly disapproved of the sport and it is +a significant fact that at this very moment, he was trotting along the +Bristol road, tired of lashing Curtain polls and determined, against the +advice of his conscience, to stake fifty guineas on the result of the +Main. + +The latter progressed with monotonous cruelty until, of the thirty-two +cocks who began, but two pairs were left, all bleeding profusely. And +now with a refinement of brutality, the steel gaffles, hitherto used to +shorten the earlier and less interesting matches, were removed and +silver ones fastened on in their place, because, the latter, being less +deadly, prolonged the miserable contest. + +During this momentary lull, Charles entered the barn and was greeted +with cheers in which could be detected a note of surprize. Clare moved +along in order to make room for his friend, and squeezed Mr. Vernon +somewhat unceremoniously in doing so. + +"What birds are being set to?" inquired Lovely. + +"My Knowsley and Chalkley's Cheshire Pile, and a White Pile of +Campbell's against Winnington's Cuckoo." + +The semi-final dragged out its bloody length, until for the final was +left Mr. Clare's famous Knowsley cock, his ebony breast dabbled with +blood and his red pinions ragged and broken, but still preserving some +of the smartness of their slantwise trimming--trimmed so in order that +by a lucky stroke an adversary's eye might be put out. The survivor of +the two Services was Mr. Campbell's White Pile, stained with crimson. + +"Will your bird win?" whispered Mr. Lovely. + +"I think so," said Clare, "he comes of a good breed." + +"Two to one in Tens against the Pile," shouted Mr. Lovely. + +"Done," said Vernon. + +"Two to one in Twenties against the Pile," shouted Mr. Lovely. + +"Done," said Mr. Vernon. + +"Three to one in Fifties," shouted Mr. Lovely. + +And this wager also was taken by Mr. Francis Vernon. + +The Feeders were setting the birds beak to beak. The shouting of odds +was deafening: the gallant cocks were both exhausted by the four +previous fights, but the feathers flew, the wings whirred, the gaffles +clicked, and the blood flowed fast enough to please the vile faces that +looked down through the murky atmosphere. + +At last the White Pile, blinded in one eye, began to retreat before the +Knowsley. + +"I pound the cock," shouted Charles, flinging his hat into the pit. + +The Teller of the Law, a seedy vagabond with a red nose, began to count +in raucous accents. Twice he counted twenty slowly, and + +"Vill any vun take it?" he asked. + +"Yes," said Mr. Vernon, and just as Mr. Vernon said 'Yes,' the brave +Knowsley cock, the champion of many famous fights, toppled over on his +side, dead. + +The Naval and Military Amateurs had won the Welch Main, and Mr. Charles +Lovely had lost two hundred and ten guineas, not to mention ten pounds +for so rashly pounding the cock. + +The young gentlemen went back to Curtain Wells much pleased with the +afternoon's entertainment, while the riff-raff walked or drove in queer +vehicles back to their squalid homes, all save one unfortunate +individual, unable to meet a debt of ten shillings incurred by backing +the brave Knowsley, who for all he was dying had pursued his antagonist +so confidently. He spent the night in a basket close to the roof and was +not set down till the next morning by one of the labourers on Blackhart +Farm. + + + + +_Chapter the Twentieth_ + +IN WHICH EVERYTHING GROWS BUT THE PLOT + + +You will remember, if you have not put this book upon the table +meanwhile, that in the last paragraph of the last chapter, we left an +unfortunate individual swinging in a basket hard by the roof of a barn. +He was hoisted by a pulley amid the acclamations of the mob because he +was unable to fulfil an obligation so small that half a guinea would +have covered it. There he swung amid cobwebs and bats, fearful every +time the basket creaked he should fall into the blood-stained sawdust of +the cock-pit. I cannot tell you his name, but that is no great matter +since we must examine him not as a man, but as a symbol. + +Possibly with the Beau's perspective, we might diminish him to the size +of a textual illustration, for this unfortunate man is a textual +illustration, and though not etched with the care of Mr. Stothard, will +serve his purpose well enough. + +Suspension is a disreputable attitude for the human body, whatever way +it is brought about, yet I doubt this maltreated anonymity was in better +case than our hero. He paid the penalty for laying unwise wagers and +found earth on the next morning much as he had left it on the afternoon +of the day before. Moreover, he never paid his half-guinea, which was a +real source of consolation. But our hero swung that night in an +immaterial basket that creaked thrice as damnably as the other, and +found no good-natured labouring man to put him on the ground next +morning. The only result of opposing the advice of his conscience, was +an additional debt of two hundred and twenty guineas to our villain. + +To make matters worse, he had to meet his creditor over the breakfast +table, and of the many dooms measured out to sinners, this is surely one +of the most difficult to face with equanimity. + +In despair, he took to drinking the waters with the rest of the +Exquisite Mob, and earned a few golden glances from Beau Ripple, but +nothing more tangible. Even the advantage of these was neutralized by +the chalybeate, which acted with disconcerting abruptness upon a healthy +body unused to medicinal spurs. + +The wry water served a good purpose, however, by souring his +point-of-view. The liquid iron entered into his soul and he lashed the +Curtain Polls in a variety of metres. He also took long walks into the +country, and sought by the contemplation of scenery to acquire an +impersonal attitude towards his fellow creatures. After all, there is no +better training for a mob-master than the exercise of a satirical pen, +and as time went on Mr. Lovely's book increased in bulk, although it +never achieved more than a suggestive slimness even when bound in calf. + +February faded into March, and in accordance with the season everything +began to grow. + +Mr. Lovely's book we have already noticed. + +Mr. Vernon's seductive arts grew daily more seductive, and, though for a +week or two after Mr. Ripple's warning, Mrs. Courteen arranged for the +complete occupation of Phyllida's leisure, the growth of Mrs. Courteen's +figure necessitated a stricter attention to diet and exercise, and +caused her so much anxiety that her vigilance was soon relaxed. So +whenever the forenoons were fine enough, Phyllida sat on the moss-grown +seat in the centre of the Maze, and, under the patronage of the little +stone Cupid, grew daily more powerfully enchanted by the magical +personality of Mr. Francis Vernon. + +Thomas, the footman, grew daily more unctuous owing to the visit of a +gouty dean who, being invited to occupy St. Simon's pulpit, preached a +remarkable sermon in seven divisions and twenty-three sub-divisions, +conclusively establishing the identity of the English Nation with the +tribe of Benjamin. Mr. Moon and Major Tarry grew more entirely devoted +to the widow, and Thomasina the cat also grew owing to the advent of +kittens. In fact, everybody and everything grew prodigiously in the +merry springtime. + +The list of visitors grew. Rich Mrs. Bendish arrived and made all the +dowagers jealous with her chest of precious stones that she brought back +from an island in the Caribbean Sea--buried treasure that was actually +discovered. Lord Rocquepool came, and his daughters, the Honourable +Georgina and the Honourable Caroline de Winqule. The Honourable Mrs. +Winter-Green came, and the Welch baronet, Sir Owen Ap Taffy. The +Marquess of Hurricane arrived, and several members of the great Wind +family. Also, with all these aristocratick visitors, it is not +surprizing that Mr. Ripple's snuff bill grew daily. + +March came in like a lamb that year, and the sweet season danced in the +bleak furrows over which the lank hares leaped and scampered. White +violets scented equinoctial dusks, and in every window of the Wells big +daffodils hung down their golden ruffs. March went by to the tune of +fiddles and flutes. Mr. Ripple had to attend near half a dozen routs +every night, and the weekly Assemblies were more fully thronged than +ever before. + +Every day the jolly sun grew more powerful and the noise of polite +conversation was almost drowned by the twittering of the sparrows as +they, like their betters, made a chorus of loves, jealousies, hopes, +plans and disappointments in a world of chimney-stacks and slanting +roofs. They perched in the most fashionable gutters, just as, down below +on the sunny side of the High Street, the Exquisite Mob ruffled before +the gayest shops. + +"How well that chip hat becomes me!" + +"What wonderful silks are being displayed this spring!" + +"They say that hoops and head-dresses will both show a monstrous +increase in size this year." + +As if the daffodils had intoxicated the whole race of dyers, nothing but +shades of yellow were to be seen. In these happier days for the +followers of the Mode, Blonda and Brunetta, those charming sisters, +were not compelled to rely on their natural complexions in order to wear +a certain shade. In these happier days, powder, rouge and patches +availed to make the gaudy apricock glow even beside the blooming peach +without injury to either. Therefore the artfully arranged bow-windows +with rolls of citron damasks, canary velvets, golden brocades, lemon +sattins and orange silks, dismayed not Blonda any more than the sapphire +and turquoise of the autumnal mode fretted the vanity of Brunetta. As +for young maidens, their fashion like the eternal mountains was always +white. + +But suddenly on the twenty-seventh of the month the weather changed. +Masses of wet grey clouds swept in from the Atlantick, and March +prepared to go out like a lion. + +And on this very morning _Curtain Polls severely lashed by a Curtain +Rod_ appeared on Mr. Paul Virgin's counter. + +This small work produced far greater consternation than the sudden +change in the weather. Though it rained and blew, and whistled and +streamed, nobody paid the slightest attention, nobody said 'What a +change in the weather,' for all the world was deeply engrossed in +reading about his asterisked self and his asterisked neighbour. + + + + +_Chapter the Twenty-first_ + +CURTAIN POLLS + + +There had been nothing to prepare Curtain Wells for its chastizement. No +wreathed pamphlet warned readers in the most choice preliminary duff +that a sarcastick comet would presently singe their vices, their follies +and their vanities. Nobody had been invited to subscribe in advance to +his own ridicule. As it were on the wings of a Westerly gale, these +destructive little volumes settled upon the fields of Pleasure like +locusts on a Bedouin plantation. + +Two speculative chap-book pedlars sold the first twenty to as many +drinkers of chalybeate hastening home to breakfast. For those who +stopped to buy there was no breakfast that morning. The kidneys and the +bacon and the eggs and the ham and the loin chops and the red herrings +and the toasted bread were neglected. The vanguard of purchasers were, +in reading about neighbours, too much diverted, and, in reading about +themselves, too indignant to eat. + +Out went the kidneys and the bacon and the eggs and the ham and the loin +chops and the red herrings and the toasted bread, frozen stiff in their +own fat; and out went the vanguard to warn the main army of fashion that +scurrility, satire and malice were abroad in many metres. + +"Listen to this, Moon," ejaculated Major Tarry, as, undeterred by the +driving wind, he strode along, quoting extracts that were perfectly +inaudible to his companion. + +"Listen to this, will you listen to this," + + "_Like a lap-dog he's fed with a second-best spoon, + And bays as he should at the sight of the Moon_." + +"Yes, but listen to this," said the Justice treading heavily in a puddle +as he spoke. + + "_Do not tarry, + M**n, but marry, + While you're still upon the wax, + Though above her, + You can love her, + And avoid the window tax_." + +"Very low, very low indeed," said Tarry. + +"So 'tis," quoth the Justice, "but the next verse is lower still." + + "_For that coat of + Him we wrote of + Will be in your parlour soon, + And be reigning + When you're waning, + And we whisper horned M**n_." + +"Ha, ha," said Tarry, "low, d----d low! But 'sblood, the fellow has +humour." + +"Humour," said the Justice, "you call this obscene doggerel, humour?" + +"In parts, sir, in parts." + +"I call it melancholy and libidinous." + +Mrs. Courteen was seated at her window disconsolately regarding the +rain. + +"Gemini, child!" she exclaimed. "What can be the matter with Mr. Moon +and the Major that they gesticulate so wildly." + +"They're reading books, ma'am," Betty announced. + +"Reading book, but they are standing at the street corner like +Methodies!" + +"They'm beaent gone sick mad for love of 'ee, do 'ee think, Ma'am?" + +"Flatterer," sighed Mrs. Courteen. "No, child, they have probably been +converted. I detect Methodism in their madness. Te-hee! I must keep +that for Archdeacon Conybeare, who so dislikes extremes of sensibility +in anything that pertains to so sacred a thing as religion. Ah, dear! +Religion, what is it?" + +"There's many ways of it ma'am, I do think. 'Tis true religious not to +laugh when the lads tickle thy ankles wi' straws during the prayer for +Good King George!" + +"Tut-tut, how disloyal!" + +Just then the raucous voice of one of the itinerant booksellers shouted +"Curtain Polls severely lashed by a Curtain-Rod." + +"Run, Betty, and inquire the price at once," cried Mrs. Courteen +perceiving that this was the cause of the gentlemen's delay. "'Tis +evidently a rumour on the best authority about the Day of Judgment." + +Presently Betty returned. + +"'Tis a book, ma'am." + +"I know that, simpleton, how much?" + +"Four shillings and sixpence, ma'am, for a little mimsy book not so +thick as the magick history of Jack the Giant Killer." + +"But what was inside, foolish one?" + +"Oh, 'twas full of stars, ma'am." + +"'Tis certainly a work on fortune-telling. Pray buy it instantly, here +is the money." + +Back came Betty with the volume, and presently Mrs. Courteen fainted. + +Downstairs ran Betty, and upstairs walked Mr. Thomas and Betty. + +"'Twas the book as done it," said the latter vehemently. + +The offending volume lay face downwards upon the quilted apricock of +Mrs. Courteen's lap, so Thomas picked it up and began to read: + + "_At the Wells many elegant widows are seen, + But no one so modish as Mrs. C******n, + Her hoop_----" + +So far he read, but, rubicund though he was, modesty was still able to +deepen his colour. + +"Yes," said Betty, "pray do 'ee read us some more, Mr. Thomas." + +"What Jebusite wrote this book? I will smite him and all his works," +replied Thomas, flinging the volume into the fire. Whether the odour of +burning leather or the profuse drops of Sal Volatile revived the +offended lady I do not know, but she instantly sat up and, in a voice +tremulous with anxiety, bade her footman call a chair. + +"For," said she, "I must pay a visit of condolence to my Lady Bunbutter, +whose propriety has suffered an almost irreparable injury." + +She did not stay to change her dress; she passed her suitors still +quoting scurrility, one against the other in the wind and rain, without +a smile of recognition or sympathy. + +Outside my Lady Bunbutter's stood a row of sedan-chairs, and as Mrs. +Courteen walked up my Lady Bunbutter's front door-step, the knot of +chairmen packed more closely over a copy of _Curtain Polls_ indiscreetly +left behind by one of their fares. There was a rustle of pages quickly +turned by dirty thumbs, and as Mrs. Courteen was ushered in by my Lady +Bunbutter's claret-coloured footman, there followed her upstairs a burst +of ribald laughter. + +My Lady Bunbutter had, by reason of her superior bulk and wealth, +successfully repelled all rival claimants to the throne of dowagership. +She reigned supreme; moreover her advice on this gusty forenoon was +particularly valuable, inasmuch as she had just shaken off the waters of +Bath on account of the publication there of some odious verses, in which +her name and her person were treated with intolerably small respect. +Therefore it was not surprizing to find her drawing-room the haunt of +innumerable widows, old maids and long-established wives. There they +sat, supplying asterisks with immense volubleness. As it happened, they +had just tittered behind their fans over the odiously vulgar, but +undeniably appropriate--yes! the odious fellow was certainly +witty--when the subject of their malicious laughter and false blushes +entered the room. + +With the tact bred of many a Quadrille party, my lady Bunbutter advanced +to meet Mrs. Courteen, murmuring, 'poor dear little Miss Kitcat, so +spiteful and yet, my dear Mrs. Courteen, since we are all friends, alas! +how true!' + +Now young Miss Kitcat was still young Miss Kitcat, and simply would not +become old maid or dowager, and would allow herself to be ogled by that +notorious rake and disreputable--yes! disreputable, card-sharper, +Captain Mann. + +While the dowagers discussed the situation and vowed that the rogue of +an author sadly needed a lesson, Beau Ripple himself, with many an +urbane tut-tut was reading _Curtain Polls_ in his tall white +drawing-room, where the firelight danced and flickered over the gleaming +ivory panels. + +"Too bad," said the Beau to himself as he turned the scandalous pages. +He did not, however, treat them less carefully because they were +scandalous, for to Mr. Ripple a book was always a book, and he paid as +much ceremony to the emanations of Grub Street as he would have shown to +the copper plates of an elephant folio. + +"This is, indeed, too bad," said the Beau, "and yet the rascal has wit. +Oh, yes, he certainly has wit, but what an excellent example this volume +affords of the superiority of prose over verse. A poetick satirist too +often sacrifices his good breeding for the sake of the rhymes. Now I +should never have said that. No, no, that is too bad, and this--good +G----! this is unpardonable!" + +The Great little Man jumped up as red as one of the big chintz roses +that bloomed so prodigally all over his winged chair. + +The King of Fashion looked very small as he stood in the middle of an +Aubusson rug, yet I think he never looked more truly a monarch than at +this moment. Unfortunately there was nobody to see him as he stood in +his little world of mirrours and engravings. + +And what had upset his equanimity? Certainly not the following lines: + + "_Where R*****, gentlest, kindliest of Beaux, + To all the world an urbane presence shows: + Proclaims the tropick joys of China Tea, + And rules e'en Fashion with his polished sway. + At his approach the graceless ruffle shakes, + While every waistcoat in its buttons quakes; + Each conscious shoe more luminously shines, + And puckered breeches haste to smooth their lines_." + +Whatever the Curtain Rod thought of the subjects, to the Monarch he was +always complimental. + +"Intolerable! unpardonable!" cried the Beau, tapping his snuff-box so +fiercely that some of the powder was spilled over the grey Angora cat +which was purring against his gold-clocked stockings in the heart of a +faded Aubusson rose. Octavia (the cat) sneezed assent. What had upset +his equanimity? You shall take a short journey to find out, for I +perceive a break in the weather and sweet April is in the West. + +We will walk just so far as Curtain Garden, but, pray, do not turn into +the Maze where the paths are atrociously damp. Alas, the rain is +beginning again, but at the end of that long alley is a summer house, +the abode of many Rococo Dryads, although 'tis haunted at present by +amorous mortals, for I caught the glint of a buckle and a shimmer of +chestnut ringlets. + +It does not require King OEdipus to guess that those eyes which stare +so into the heavens are the blue eyes of Phyllida, while any one would +recognize in that smooth voice the careful enunciation of Mr. Francis +Vernon. + +He, like every one else that forenoon, was reading _Curtain Polls +severely lashed by a Curtain Rod_. Perchance the following lines were +they that lately enraged Mr. Horace Ripple: + + "_Now is it a hoyden, a hussy or Miss, + Who listens to love but refuses a kiss? + 'Tis said every morning she flies to the Maze, + And buries her head from the Publick's low gaze_ + + _Of Love in a Maze, pretty charmer, beware, + For under the rose there are thorns ev'rywhere, + And if you should chance the wrong turning to take, + 'Tis odds that you'll trip on a tall garden Rake._ + + _The Cits, when you pass, point you out to their Belles, + You serve as a moral all over the Wells, + And Dowagers, drinking your health in green tea, + Express a faint hope that man will not betray_." + +"Those are pretty stanzas for a lover to read," said Vernon, who, to do +him justice, did not seem very greatly perturbed by the insult. + +"Oh, Amor," said poor Phyllida, "they can't truly be intended for me!" + +"For whom else?" + +"But who would write such cruel words of a young woman?" + +"That puppy, Lovely." + +"Mr. Lovely! Oh! no, he's a gentleman and a man of family and a man of +taste and a friend of Beau Ripple." + +"He may be all this and more," declared Vernon, "but he wrote this +book." + +"I don't believe it." + +"He did, I say, for he informed me so himself--at least he as good as +informed me!" + +"Amor! you must have been mistook." + +"On my life, not at all. He owes me near five hundred guineas, and when +I hinted that the expense of inland Spas tells upon a gentleman's +resources, begged my pardon, swore he had a literary project on hand, +and promised me a hundred guineas on Lady Day. That was the day before +yesterday." + +"A gamester!" said Miss Phyllida, who, with the injustice of her age and +sex, neglected to see that her lover was as much to blame in this +particular as Lovely. + +"Ay! a gamester," said Vernon with fervid indignation. + +"And for the sake of a hundred guineas he was ready to cheapen the +honour of a maid?" + +"My angel forgets the Chinese Masquerade. Mr. Lovely was piqued by her +obvious weakness for a less fashionable, less conspicuous gentleman." + +"Oh, I will never forgive him. He has ruined me." + +"Nay, come, come, 'tis not so bad as that. Amor will never desert his +Phyllida." + +"I'm ruined, I'm ruined," she sobbed. "I shall never dare go to visit my +cousin Barbara, who is as prim and proper as----" Nothing was prim +enough for the comparison. "And she has the most delicious hot buns you +ever tasted, and the dearest spaniel and the most beautiful pugdog. Oh +dear! oh dear! oh dear! how all the neighbours will laugh, and old +Rumble the carrier will be telling tales about me in every kitchen in +the county, and 'tis all your fault." + +"My fault?" + +"Yes, yours, for asking me to come and meet you and making love, while +all the while there was somebody peeping over the hedges. I'll never +forgive you, never, never!----" + +"Dearest life, we can put a stop to scandal by being wed immediately. +Listen! I'll have a post-chaise ready at dawn, and post-boys in scarlet, +and lodgings with a balcony and a goldfinch singing in a cage. My +Phyllida, will you come?" + +"Oh! I dare not, I dare not--not yet, oh lud, oh lud! how shall I look +the world in the face?" + +Vernon thought for a moment. + +"Where are your pearls kept?" + +"In my mamma's trunkmail, but Betty could give me the key--and sometimes +in her jewel case." + +"On the thirtieth," said Vernon, "there will be a ball at Daish's Rooms, +next to the _Blue Boar_ where I lodge. You will surely be there, 'tis my +lady Bunbutter's rout." + +"Yes, we shall be there," said Phyllida. + +"At two o'clock in the morning, I will have a post-chaise waiting by St. +Simon's Church corner, opposite Leonard's toy shop. Would you have the +courage to slip out, my dearest heart, my Phyllida?" + +"Oh, no, I could not travel by night." + +"'Twould be safer," urged Vernon. + +"No, no, I could not." + +"Then for your sake, I'll take the risque and have the post-chaise in +the same place at three o'clock in the afternoon of the next day. +Promise you will come." + +"No, no, I shall never be brave enough, and I must go for I hear voices, +and I must never be seen with you again. Good-bye, good-bye," and before +Vernon could stop her, Phyllida was running down the poplar alley to +escape from Curtain Garden. + +Our villain began to wonder whether she would elope after all. If she +were shy, he might secure the necklace at any rate. With slow steps, his +mind full of silken pearls, Mr. Vernon went slowly homewards. Half way +down the High Street, he passed a narrow street known as Blood Passage +from the vicinity of a large slaughter-house. He hesitated; made up his +mind, and, turning down it, came to a crooked house over a low +tumble-down doorway. He knocked fastidiously with the amber knob of his +cane. A slatternly woman, whose last night's rouge was streaked with the +matutinal ashes, opened the door. + +"Does Mr. Maggs live here?" + +"Come in," said the frowsy light o' love. + + + + +_Chapter the Twenty-second_ + +THE CURTAIN ROD + + +The satirist stood in his publisher's back parlour, and, through the +dusty glass of the partition, observed the Exquisite Mob purchase their +castigation. + +"'Tis strange," he pondered, "that mankind should be willing to pay +four-and-sixpence to be laughed at. Yet it is!" + +Mr. Lovely was awaiting a draught for one hundred guineas, and Mr. Paul +Virgin, glad of anything that would delay for a while such an unwelcome +disbursement, continued to bow and smirk over the counter as the neat +little piles of new volumes speedily diminished. At last the hour for +the midday meal arrived with a temporary lull in the storm of +purchasers. Mr. Virgin turned with a sigh into his little back parlour +and, wading carefully through the heaps of uncatalogued tomes, set out +with a wry face to unlock his walnut writing-cabinet. + +"We were hurried too much, Mr. Lovely, sir. We han't had leisure to bind +the book as it should be bound. Ye would hurry us so, Mr. Lovely." + +"You wouldn't pay me till the book was published, and I want the money, +so d----n all grumbling and be grateful that you'll make a small +fortune." + +"A small fortune! What a jester you are, Mr. Lovely. I declare you put +me in mind of the old plays, such jests!" + +Mr. Paul Virgin seated before his cabinet, was writing the draught with +tardy fingers. + +"There ye are, Mr. Lovely, and never say I don't treat ye with +consideration, with generosity, sir, for I dare swear I shall lose fifty +pounds sterling by this adventure." + +"Be d----d, you peevish rogue. Why all the world of fashion has +thronged your shop since nine o'clock this morning." + +"Yes, but it takes a deal to make a hundred guineas. Now let me make it +pounds, Mr. Lovely, sir. Do let me make it pounds." + +The latter snatched the draught from the old young bookseller and, +having read it through with much deliberation, transferred it to the +seclusion of his innermost pocket. + +After this transaction, which was effected with a singular grace, I am +sorry to add that he put his tapered finger to his tapered nose and +winked several times at the disconsolate Mr. Virgin. + +"The books are so ill-bound, look at this one, Mr. Lovely, your honour. +The leaves are falling apart already, just because you would hurry us so +terribly." + +Mr. Lovely stooped and picked up some loose pages. + +"Ay, 'tis autumn already with this copy," he said, glancing casually at +the page he held in his hand. "Why who wrote this?" + +"You did, Mr. Lovely, you did." + +"I wrote this--this d----d vile verse, this--" and Charles read aloud +the lines that so dismayed our heroine. "I wrote this damnable doggerel? +By G----, Mr. Virgin, I never wrote this." + +"Why, who else could have written it?" + +"That's what I want to know. Come back, you hound," shouted the irate +author, grabbing his publisher by the tails of his coat, just as he was +edging his way back to the shop. "Come back," he said, jerking him over +Mr. Bayle's Dictionary. "You moth-eaten vagabond, you impostor, you +thief." Charles began to belabour Mr. Virgin with a folio copy of the +_Anatomy of Melancholy_. Round and round the little back parlour he +thumped the publisher; the dust rose from innumerable ancient tomes. +Surely never were books so rudely disturbed since the niece and the +Padre flung the library of the illustrious Don Quixote de la Mancha out +of the window, and burned a hundred volumes of chivalry. + +"How came these d----d lines into my book, eh, sir, answer me that, +sir," and having dissected the _Anatomy of Melancholy_, Charles picked +up Sir Roger L'Estrange's translation of AEsop to continue the assault. + +"I don't understand, Mr. Lovely, sir. Pray desist, Mr. Lovely, your +honour, sir. The printer must have printed them." + +"'Sdeath and fury! you rascal, I know that. Who wrote them, who wrote +them?" + +In order to supply the correct twirl to this note of interrogation, +Charles flung the little bookseller to the farthest corner of his little +back parlour, at the same time arming himself with half a dozen fresh +volumes. + +Mr. Virgin cowered in the dust and cobwebs. + +"Who wrote them?" Charles demanded. + +"I don't----" + +"What!" and the--th volume of the _Gentleman's Magazine_, newly arrived +from the binder, winged its way in the direction of the quivering +bookseller. This he ducked to avoid, but even as he ducked, the five +volumes of Mr. Ozell's revision of Urquhart and Motteux' _Rabelais_ +burst over him like an exploded hand grenade. + +"Who wrote them?" + +"Truly I don't----" + +This time Mr. Prior's _Poems on Several Occasions_ carried his wig into +obscurity, and the owner clapped a hand to his head just in time to +receive the bevelled morocco edges of the _Beggar's Opera_ full on the +fingers. + +"Mr. Lovely, sir, you are too violent." + +"Violent, you dog? By G---- if you don't give the name of the son of a +w---- that wrote these damnable lines, I'll flay you alive and bind my +next edition of poems with your lousy skin." The foxy-faced old young +man commenced to wring his hands. + +"Mr. Lovely," he almost screamed. "Mr. Lovely, you're mad--go out of my +shop." + +"Who wrote those lines? Answer, or I'll break up your shop--ay! break it +up with your own sign-board. At the Sign of the Woman--at the Sign of +the Strumpet! Answer me, you lickspittle vermin, answer me." + +Charles had now seized his wretched publisher by the neck-band, and +shook him so roughly that the latter, fearing for his teeth, the most +extravagant purchase in his mean little life, began to whine. + +"A gentleman--a gentleman----" + +"Well, you misbegotten toad, I never supposed 'twas a midwife." + +"No, certainly not, Mr. Lovely, a gentleman--a gentleman." + +"His name, dog." + +"I don't know." + +"Yes, you do, answer will you." + +"He told me 'twas Amor." + +"I knew it, I knew it, you sneaking son of a b----, and he gave you +twenty guineas to print the verses." + +"No, not twenty, only ten, Mr. Lovely, on my soul." + +"On your soul! H---- l take your soul! Why you were spawned in a ditch, +you viper. So you let my honour go for ten guineas. Give them to me." + +"Oh! Mr. Lovely." + +"Give them to me." + +The miserable little old young man produced the money, unluckily for +himself, in paper. + +"Now since you love money so dearly, by heaven, you shall eat money." +And Mr. Lovely, making a bolus of the bribe, crammed it down the +reluctant bookseller's throat with his own ruler. Then our hero walked +out of the shop. + +I hope you will not deny this scene was in the true vein of heroism. +Aye! aye! 'tis full of bombast as you very properly observe, ma'am or +sir; but that is the part of a hero. He must follow the Prince of +Denmark's directions to the players. Aye! aye! and 'tis full of wind, +but so was the great Montgolfier balloon, and surely every aeronaut is a +hero, even in his descents at the tail-end of a parachute. + +So pray judge Mr. Lovely, not as a man, but as a hero, for I think +you'll do me the justice to admit I never tried to conceal his position. + +But he owes the villain a considerable sum of money. Of course he does, +and this awkward fact is perplexing him very much indeed as he strides +down Curtain High Street. To tell the truth, when he emerged from Mr. +Virgin's shop, he found that when the Fates dipped him into Styx, they +made the same mistake as Madame Thetis, with this difference, that, +whereas Achilles was left with a vulnerable heel, our hero preserved a +vulnerable conscience. + +It would have been mighty heroick to march into the _Blue Boar_, run Mr. +Vernon through the lungs, wed the injured heroine and tread after death +the golden fields of Elysium; but his silly conscience would not allow +him to kill a man to whom he was under a monetary obligation. + +So he borrowed four hundred guineas from Mr. Antony Clare, who could ill +afford the loan, and putting this sum with what he had earned from +lashing the Curtain Polls in an extra thick paper envelope, he sealed it +with his own heroick seal. This fulfilment of earthly debts he sent up +to Mr. Francis Vernon by the hand of Mr. Daish himself, and set to work +to make his conscience less vulnerable by many consecutive pints of +heroick Burgundy. + +You thought that he was going to turn out poor humanity after bullying +Mr. Virgin so heroically? Egad, ma'am or sir, you thought wrong. You +doubt anybody can be a Burgundian hero? So he can; there has been more +than one Charles the Bold of Burgundy. + +The very word is as fire to the most pusillanimous: the very thought of +its crimson depths should set us all tilting. + +'Bring me a quart bottle of Burgundy.' The phrase is like a trumpet-call +outside the keep of Paradise. + +'Bring me another quart of Burgundy.' Down goes the portcullis before +the hero's charge. + +Port may turn a man into a hero--in his dreams; yet I doubt they are too +heavy. As for Sherry, it will serve to sharpen the wits of a dried-up +attorney, but is poor stuff to weave into heroes. On Champagne, a man +will talk like the crew of the _Argo_, but there's the end of the whole +business. + +Charles drank Burgundy and I promise you some fine heroicks presently. + + + + +_Chapter the Twenty-third_ + +SPACE BETWEEN AN HEROICK COUPLET + + +A discouraging fact for the Persii of yesterday, to-day, and to-morrow, +is that, however needle-sharp their thrusted rapiers, however thorough +their castigations, Society never shows weal or scar at the end of it +all. + +Here was profligate, card-playing, snobbish, vapoured Society, quite +recovered of its whipping and, by candletime, setting out to perform, +just those very actions Persius most bitterly abuses. + +My lady Bunbutter continued to observe every Matador in her opponents' +hands, continued to rake in ill-gotten guineas, continued to use a +quadrille pack with Manille stained, Spadille nicked, Basto dog-eared, +and Ponto scratched. The Most Honble. the Marchioness of Hurricane +continued to help herself five times to the richest Fricassees; +continued to allow her lap-dog liberty of vomit in alien drawing-rooms, +continued to breathe stertorous bawdry into the prominent ears of her +Italian son-in-law--el Conde di Scirocco--while her daughter the +Contessa snored in a corner. + +Young Miss Kitcat continued to encourage the addresses of the +disreputable Captain Mann, and even went so far as to tap that military +scoundrel three times with her fan in coy avowal of his charming +naughtiness. + +The Earl of Cinderton drank five bottles of Port that very night in +order to emphasize his indifference to satire, and slept under his own +mahogany table because his lackeys below stairs were too drunk to carry +him to bed. + +In fact, nobody save the publisher of Curtain Polls displayed sign or +sense of injury. + +Our heroine indeed was vastly affected, but her misfortunes were due to +a gloss upon the original. + +As it happened, Mrs. Courteen did not discover the reference to her +daughter's indiscretion, until she was asked by an inquisitive dowager +to explain the allusion in the twelve lines. She managed to conceal her +agitation, thanks to the permanency of the newest rouge, but presently +called for her chair and arrived home a full two hours before she was +expected. + +When she sailed into the parlour Phyllida was languishingly occupied +with a blue vase of pot-pourri, and the parlour fire was trying to burn +up beneath a weight of blackened notepaper. + +The suddenness of the widow's entrance alarmed her daughter so much that +she dropped the vase, and the contents were strewn over the carpet. The +faint perfume that slowly permeated the stuffy atmosphere of the +lodgings, should have reminded Mrs. Courteen of her youth, of long June +eves and blossoms plucked awhile ago by fingers now wrinkled and stained +with years of snuff. + +Mrs. Courteen also neglected to remember that so far as ridicule went, +she had brought enough of that upon her own head. + +However, she recalled neither memory nor fact, and was properly enraged +with her daughter's light behaviour. + +"You have ruined my good name, child. I can never again look the world +in the face. How we shall be laughed at in Hampshire, for be sure that +odious Miss Talker whose sister married the Rector of Slumber, has +already despatched a copy to her brother-in-law, and you know what +chatterboxes parsons always are: I suppose because they preach, though I +should have thought, lud! that with so much breath used on Sunday, they +might be as dumb as dumb for the rest of the week, and hurt nobody, +least of all their own wives and neighbours. But there! what good is it +to educate a young woman in the way she should go? I might better have +set an example to the village clock. At all events that does possess a +face. Put down your handkerchief, hussy." + +"Dear mamma----" + +"Don't excuse yourself, pray do not excuse yourself, I doubt 'tis all my +fault. I doubt I han't looked after you, taken you to Melton Abbey, and +prayed for you, minx, yes, prayed for you. And have you got any good +from learning the collects for Sunday and the Benedicite and the +Athanasian Creed and the thirty-nine Articles? None! A pretty thing, +truly, that after so much honourable religion, I should have my daughter +pointed out as a--as what no respectable young woman is. Pointed at! And +I, your mother, am to be laughed at, mocked at, jeered at, because you +suffer every down-at-heel fop to make gross love to you, sheltered from +the eye of men--yes! vastly well--but you forget the eye of one above +and the tongue of scandal." + +"Madam, I am truly, deeply ashamed. If I promise never, never again to +cause you the slightest uneasiness, will you forgive me for once, and +take me away from this odious town?" + +"Take you away? A pretty request truly; and give every old maid in +Curtain Wells the opportunity of saying I was afraid to show my face and +your figure. Take you away, miss? No, indeed, I shall take you around. I +shall try by exhibiting you beneath your mother's protection, to give +the lie to these atrocious reports and, next year, miss, next year, we +will pay a visit to Tunbridge Wells in order to provide a husband whom +you may kiss in the privacy of your own estate, with no one but a +wandering gamekeeper any the wiser." + +"I never kissed Mr. Amor," protested Phyllida. + +"Amor? Amor? And who is Mr. Amor?" + +"He is my true love, ma'am, whom I love with all my might and main." + +"There's indecency! there's impropriety! Lud! I vow, vixen, you are as +wanton as a goddess. You love him, eh?" + +"That is my only excuse, ma'am, for having behaved so ill." + +"What business, I should like to know, has a child of fifteen----" + +"Seventeen, ma'am." + +"Fifteen, girl." + +"Then, sure, you are reckoning by leap years, ma'am." + +"Do not be impudent. I repeat, Phyllida, I will not have impudence. You +know dear Doctor Makewell particularly enjoined me not to allow +impudence. 'Your heart won't stand it, ma'am.' Cruel Phyllida, not +content with deceiving your mother, you are willing to injure her health +by impudence." + +"You think only of yourself," said Phyllida bitterly. + +"Only of myself! Oh! Phyllida, how dare you accuse me of selfishness? My +whole life since the death of your father who was a most exacting man +and would ride Pegasus, though I told him a hundred times if I told him +once that the brute would murder him. Now I've forgotten what I was +saying, and 'tis all your fault, ungrateful child. Go to bed instantly +and to-morrow I will have all your dresses starched as stiff as leather, +so that nobody, not even that spiteful Lady Jane Vane, can say I don't +take care that whatever your mind may be, your dresses leave nothing to +be desired. Go to bed, go to bed. I can't listen to you any longer. I +feel humiliated by your abominable behaviour. Judge of my feelings when +I tell you I did not dare invite either Mr. Moon or Major Tarry to +escort me home for fear the world would say I was setting you a bad +example. Now, perhaps you'll accuse me of not possessing a conscience. +Indeed, my conscience is too tender. 'Tis the tenderest part of me, +though I have one of the most delicate skins--a skin that bruises if I +ring a bell with unwonted celerity." + +"Mamma, I----" Phyllida began. + +"Pray do not say another word, you have said enough to-night to last a +lifetime. Send Betty with my bedgown worked in crimson hollyhocks and I +will try to forget this wretched experience by attempting to +ascertain--please get the playing cards--how Miss Trumper managed to +secure codille in the last hand but four of this extremely unpleasant +and unprofitable evening. Go to bed, Phyllida, don't dally. Here is +Betty. Go to bed, Phyllida." + +So Phyllida went to bedew her lavendered pillow. Anything was better +than listening to her mother's perpetual reproaches. Anything, anything +was better. Even to be betrayed. Ha! ha! now I think for the first time +you will admit Miss Phyllida to be a true heroine. Poor Clarie Harlowe! +How Phyllida had wept over her adventures and, even in the midst of +tears, how quick she had always been to thrust the forbidden volumes out +of sight when she heard her mother's step on the stairs. + +Poor Clarie Harlowe! She began to sign her name to innumerable nobly +penitent epistles. + + _Your cruelly abandoned + Phyllida. + Your wretched, but still loving + Phyllida. + Your heartbroken, hopeless + Phyllida. + Your betrayed daughter + Phyllida. + Your forsaken, but affectionate + Phyllida. + Your seduced (or was it seducted, or abduced, or abducted?) + Phyllida_. + +Oh, dear! Oh, dear! what a muddle fine language was to be sure! + +I have not yet apologized for my very ancient story, but faith! you must +blame the period and the intolerable system of female education. Amor +had either to be a Lovelace or a Joseph at a time when young maidenhood +fainted before an ardent glance. + +After all we do not now apologize for our strong silent men and +hysterical girls. Why should we? And yet for my own part I love better +your talkative blackguard; I have known so many strong silent men, and +they were all fools or Scotsmen. + +During this digression, Phyllida has fallen asleep, her face flushed and +dabbled with spent tears, her chestnut hair in golden filigree upon the +pillow and, where the sleeve of her bedgown has retreated, a rosy arm +whose little fist is clenched in maiden despair. + +Poor foolish child! Why would you fall in love? Untenanted, your dearest +gate swings in the wind to-night, but you will not mount again upon its +topmost mossy bar. You will never again view with the same excitement +the huntsmen over the hill-top; they will mean less to you; their pink +coats will be quite dingy when next you say good morning to old Nick +Runnalls the Whip. For my part, I do not believe that hot buttered +apple-pies will taste so sweet when next you eat them in the long cool +kitchen with its pot of marjoram and shaded sunlight. + +And as for your bed-chamber with casements abob with peering rosebuds, I +doubt the shelves will not soon be disturbed to make a place for new +trophies. Once you thought it a day of days when you found the +thigh-bone of a horse or the skull of a badger. They hang on the walls +now, poor relicks of an outworn delight. + +All this shall go for a balcony in the Haymarket and a goldfinch in a +gilt cage. Foolish child! Away down in Hampshire the goldfinches build +green nests in the orchard. Phyllida! sweet, headlong, heedless +Phyllida! + + * * * * * + +"I blame you, Betty. I blame you, vixen. Why you cannot model yourself +on Thomas passes my comprehension." Thus the widow. + +"She meant no harm, poor pretty lamb," protested the maid. + +"'Tis not what we mean, but what we do that counts in this world." + +"Ah! 'tis fine for thee to talk, ma'am, you take good care to amuse +yourself, but, little miss, she must dingle-dangle all day long wi' +nought to do but dream of doing nought." + +"She has her friend, Miss Morton." + +"Ay! that black-eyed hussy what pinches the maiden who dresses her lean +skimpy rat's hair. I don't take much account o' she." + +They continued in this strain for quite two hours, and would never have +stopped if the candles had endured. + +They went up to bed just as Charles, having finished his third bottle of +Burgundy, knocked with vinous assurance at the door of the Great House. + +I am not at all certain whether this adventurous action should have been +included in this chapter, for I doubt nothing more heroick was ever done +even by Hercules at the zenith of his laborious career. It was +considered rash enough to wait upon Mr. Ripple in the middle of his +siesta. A royal Duke once succeeded in gaining admittance, if very +little else; but to wait upon Mr. Ripple when his flambeaux strewed the +steps, when the orange light in his porch was winking on its way to +annihilation, when the grey Angora cat had settled herself for repose, +when not even a mouse dared scamper in the wainscot, and when Mr. Ripple +himself sat amid the ruins of his complexion--this was defying the +lightning and inviting Jove's revenge indeed. + +Nevertheless, fortified by three bottles of a vintage that held the +heart of France in its crimson depths, Charles recklessly knocked at the +front door of the Great House, not once, but twice or thrice, with added +vigour in the repetition. The sound sent the Beau's taper fingers a full +two inches deep into a pomade compounded of some particularly fine +Provencal almonds and the fat of foxes, the whole famous for removing +those pectinated wrinkles that cluster at the edge of middle-aged lips. +The fragrant grease, wedged beneath his nails, caused him to press thumb +to fingers with an exclamation of fastidious displeasure. + +The clatter of the second and third assault froze him to his chair with +a sense of impending calamity. + +Gog and Magog were fast asleep dreaming their gaudy dreams of Africa. +Mrs. Binn, Mr. Ripple's intelligent cook, was snoring in the starlight +of an upper chamber; Polly and Molly, Mr. Ripple's equally intelligent +maids, were dreaming discreet dreams also in an upper chamber. Mr. Mink +alone of the royal household was awake, engaged upon the overwhelmingly +tricky job of frizzling his master's newest wig, and therefore quite +unable, during this capillary crisis, to attend to the affairs of the +world or the devil, knocked either never so loudly. + +Consequently Mr. Ripple had to open the door himself, for if the +knocking were to continue, many heads might peer from the Crescent +windows, and the morning's rumour of the occurrence damage his +authority. + +It is characteristick of the Beau that in this critical juncture of +affairs, he preserved his faculties so intact, that he was able without +affectation to choose deliberately between a dressing-gown of flowered +damask and a more diaphanous wrapper of dove-grey China silk. In +deference to the season he selected the latter. + +As he passed the door of his third dressing-room, he could see Mr. Mink, +apparently unconscious of anything untoward in the air, blowing with +steady breaths upon a remarkably hot pair of curling-tongs. The calm +demeanour of his gentleman restored whatever was still lacking to Mr. +Ripple's perfect equilibrium of mind. + +With gentle steps, he descended the quiet stairs and, candlestick in +hand, proceeded to draw back the cunningly wrought bolts of the front +door. + +"Mr. Ripple, I must speak to you," said Charles. + +"Charles," said the Beau, "this visit is either vastly important or--it +is vastly impertinent. Pray, what is your business, sir?" + +"Business?" repeated Charles, on whom the effort of concentration was +beginning to tell slightly. "Business?" + +"Yes, business, sir, business; for I presume you are not situated on my +doorstep for pleasure." + +"I want to speak to you." + +"Come to-morrow." + +"Nay, sir, I must speak with you now. I'm in a devilish mess and need +the advice of a man who has seen--who has seen----" + +"Well, sir?" said the Beau, shading his candle in such a way that the +pallid flickering rays lit up the young man's countenance. + +"D----! I don't know, Ripple, but for God's sake don't stand there with +that infernal candle dancing all over my face. Let me come in." + +Whether it was the note of misery in our hero's voice or his drawn face +or merely a whim of a great man's naturally eccentrick mind that made +the Beau beckon Charles to follow him upstairs to the tall white +drawing-room, where even still the fire glowed dully, will never be +known. Any way, beckon to him he did, and having set down the taper on +the high mantelpiece, seated himself beside the fire and began +meditatively to toast his embroidered morocco pumps. + +There they sat in the great drawing-room, the King and his Heir +Presumptive, and very ghostly they looked in the wan light, and very +unreal the whole experience seemed to Charles in after life. + +"'Tis about this book." + +"What book?" + +"This satire." + +"You wrote it?" + +"Aye," with great weariness. + +"_You_ wrote it? 'Foregad, Charles, I should never have believed that." + +"But I never--I never wrote those lines." + +"What lines?" Mr. Ripple, having admitted much, would admit no more. + +"About Miss Courteen and the Maze, and the whole d----d, d----d, d---- +d----" + +No substantive was strong enough to suit the emphatick epithets thrice +repeated. + +"And who, may I ask, was the author of those graceful stanzas?" + +"I know, but--but, Ripple--I owed the blackguard money--the Chinese +Masquerade--I knew his name all the while--if harm comes of this affair, +'tis my fault--but by G----, I'll call him out, yes, I'll call him out, +I'll call him out, I'll call him out, and I'll----" + +"Go to bed," said Mr. Ripple peremptorily. + +"What d'ye mean?" + +"You fool, you're drunk. We'll talk of this to-morrow. Good night, Mr. +Lovely. By the way, who was the author of those graceful stanzas?" + +"Oh! h----! Amor. Vernor--Vernon. Anon! Oh, h----!" + +"What proof have you of this?" + +"Proof, eh? what d'ye say--proof--ha-ha-ha! proof! Why the proof of the +pudding's in the eating. Isn't that so? But I've found, I've found the +author, and I'll walk with him in Curtain Mead--in Curtain Mead by +moonlight, eh? and by the powers, you shall act for me." + +"Sir, this flippancy is intolerable." + +"Who's flippant--who's intol--erol--erable, sir? I say I'll pay him with +six inches of smallsword." + +"You forget my rules, Mr. Lovely." + +"Rules? Rules? What's the good of rules? He has insulted me and her." + +I think you will agree with me that Charles was drunk enough to be very +undignified. Mr. Lovely Senior appeared again, maudlin and quarrelsome. +The Beau, who remembered him, winced at the resemblance. + +"This interview is very repugnant to my sense of decorum," he protested. +"I beg you will take your leave, sir. The whole affair needs the +elucidation of the morning; this candle is insufficient. Moreover, the +hour is late; the fire is low; I make it a rule to be asleep by +midnight whenever possible." + +"There you go again!" cried Charles, jumping up and walking with +feverish gestures and unsteady legs round about the room. "Rules! Rules! +Rules! 'Foregad, Sir, I tell you, you cannot make rules for life and +death." + +"But you can make many excellent rules for living and dying. One of the +best of these is moderation in liquor." + +Charles went back to the _Blue Boar_ not quite sure whether he had told +Beau Ripple a very great deal or nothing at all. He remembered so little +of what he had said that next morning he came to the conclusion that it +was nothing at all. He was glad of this, for somehow when the effects of +the Burgundy wore off, he did not feel disposed to attempt the barricade +of the Great little Man's modish prejudice. Anything in the nature of an +intrigue would be distasteful to such an emotional ascetick. + +So Charles stayed late in bed on Tuesday morning and took no advantage +of the invitation grimly issued the night before. + +In the afternoon, being dejected in spirits, and finding all the world +gone a-hunting, or a-fishing, or a-wenching, he betook himself to the +_World Turned Upside Down_, a noted house for old red wines. While he +sat in the taproom discussing life with an elderly bagman, one of the +hostlers of the _Blue Boar_ to whom he had confided his destination +brought him a note. + +"D---- his eyes," said Charles, crumpling the paper to a perfumed ball, +and flicking it towards the undulating surface of the elderly bagman's +rubied nose. + +"D---- his eyes," and, turning to his target, he inquired whether the +latter would drink Port or Burgundy. + + + + +_Chapter the Twenty-fourth_ + +DAISH'S ROOMS[2] + + +Mr. Jeremy Daish, as I told you many pages back, was remarkably like a +Cremona violin. Conceive then this elderly instrument of the Muses +making a final inspection of his polished floor, preparatory to the +invasion of my lady Bunbutter's red-heeled rout. + + [2] I went into Daish's Rooms the other day, for they still + exist as the storehouse of a prosperous ironmonger who is not above + unbending at Christmas time so far as to display a variety of choice + knick-knacks wrought by the Curtain Wells Amateur Copper-Beaters' + Association. The famous frieze carved by an Italian immigrant still + exists, and makes a suitable background for the exhibition of patent + mouse-traps. Among all the brass gongs and Japanese flower-pots, above + the mowing machines and oil-stoves of varied price and power I was + pleased to detect the old iron hooks whence long ago hung the gilt + mirrors that held the unimpaired reflections of this gay history's + characters. For a moment, amid the bleak utility of the stores, I half + fancied the swish of a broidered petticoat and the whisper of a painted + fan, smelt Eau de Chypre and heard the Minuet in _Ariadne_. I shall not + visit Daish's Rooms again; the ghosts have too much power to wring my + heart with the tears and laughter of spent joys. + + "It's a very inconvenient store-room," said the dapper manager, "I think + Mr. Bugloss intends to pull it down next year." + +Everything portended a successful evening's entertainment. The hautboys, +the flutes, the fiddles and the harp were drinking hot negus extra +strong in order to spur them to unwonted achievements of melody. +Prudence and Deborah, Mr. Daish's comely daughters, who never appeared +in the galleries of the _Blue Boar_ so that their attendance on +occasions like the present might possess the charm at once of +condescension and novelty, were busily puffing their caps and smoothing +their pinners, and from time to time glancing in the direction of the +gilt mirrours just to see that the wax candles were not forming ominous +shrouds liable to mar the gaiety of my lady Bunbutter's agreeable +entertainment. + +Waiters came and peeped through a door which probably led to the +supper-room and the three footmen in black plush laced with silver braid +were engaged in a dignified consultation over the glittering knobs of +their tall Malacca canes. + +The wheels of the first coach crackle suddenly above the murmurous quiet +of preparation. Tremendously hooped and highly wigged, my lady Bunbutter +has arrived and is entirely approving of the arrangements made by Mr. +Jeremy Daish for the fitting entertainment of a distinguished and +fashionable company. + +Here comes the latter very splendid, prodigiously well-bred and +thoroughly determined to criticize the musick and the supper and my lady +Bunbutter herself with merciless perseverance. Here comes the Most +Honourable the Marquis of Hurricane and his eldest son the Earl of +Squall and his second son Lord Augustus Wind and Lady Mary Wind and Lady +Winifred Wind, and his son-in-law El Conde de Scirocco and the sleepy +Contessa, but lud! my lady, her ladyship was unable to appear and begs +to send her apologies. Her dog, my lady, has developed a quinsy, most +unaccountable. + +Here come the Earl of Cinderton and the Honourable Mr. Harthe-Brusshe, +and the Lady Angela Tongs, his married daughter. + +Here comes Mrs. Courteen and Miss Phyllida Courteen with Major +Constantine Tarry and Mr. Gregory Moon close behind. + +Here is young Miss Kitcat with Captain Mann who for all he was so +disreputable was nevertheless tantamount to the success of the Cotillon. + +Here come old General Morton and Miss Susan Morton. + +In fact, here comes everybody of any importance in Curtain Wells; and +the fiddlers are tuning up. + +Yet for all the fiddlers are inviting the world to dance, for all the +world declares the whole entertainment promises to be a grand success +(though not so grand as it should be, considering the ample means at the +disposal of my lady Bunbutter whose father was able to leave a large +fortune to a milliner in Soho), her ladyship herself casts many an +anxious glance towards the entrance. The courtiers have arrived but the +King is still absent, and absent he is likely to remain having caught a +slight nasal catarrh from his contact with the night weather, brought +about by Mr. Lovely. For this story his absence was even more important +in its consequences than my Lady Bunbutter dreamed, since if the Beau +had been present on this occasion I doubt he would have persuaded our +heroine to give up all thoughts of elopements, seductions, stratagems +and rope-ladder courtships. As it fell out, there was nobody to +encourage the unromantick side of her, that is to say, nobody whose +opinion she could honestly respect. + +Mr. Francis Vernon had hired the old dancing hall for a midnight party +of farewell; and the old dancing hall still possessed an oak door which +opened on a long corridor which in its turn opened into the new and +improved dancing hall of Daish's Rooms. Halfway along this corridor was +a recessed glasshouse now bare of vegetation, bleak and unfriendly in +the chilly moonlight but a very convenient place for the renewal of +true-lovers' vows when one of the lovers had not been invited to my Lady +Bunbutter's rout. So in the press of the opening gavottes, as Phyllida +passed down the side of the room to wait beside her mother's empty +chair, long white fingers plucked at the black silk mittens that netted +her soft little hand. Phyllida started and, looking up, saw the fingers +withdraw themselves through the space left by a half-opened door. + +She looked round in affright, but the fiddlers were busy over the gentle +tune and all the world of scandal was dancing or about to dance. The +thrill of his touch gave her strength enough to make up her mind and, +without more than a moment's hesitation, she slipped through the doorway +whose opening was obscured by greenery. + +A solitary candle lit the long corridor with fitful draughty light. + +"Come," said Vernon; and, taking his arm, she went down the passage +which seemed to stretch far away--to ruin perhaps, but the end was not +perceptible owing to the scarce illumination. + +Soon they were alone in the chilly glasshouse with the moon and a star +or two besides. + +"To-morrow, my dearest life," he whispered. + +"No, no," said Phyllida. + +"To-morrow," he went on, "a post-chaise will be waiting by the toyshop, +and on the seat a riding hood of peacock blue that to-day I bought for +my love." + +"No! No! Amor, dear Amor, I am afraid." + +"Afraid, dear heart, afraid?" + +Far off sounded the musick and far off the laughter of the world. + +"Afraid that misery will come of it." + +"Misery, my beloved? I will cherish you for ever." + +"Amor! Amor! I'm afraid. Something, I cannot say what, I cannot explain +my feelings, but something frightens me, I feel--oh! I feel as if I were +walking in a dark wet garden. I feel as if--as if the laurels and the +evergreens held a knife." + +Vernon clasped her to him. + +"My dear and my dear, they hold no more than an arrow; the arrow that +has pierced our hearts." + +Certainly our villain was play-acting, but he was his own audience and +that juxtaposition is as near to sincerity as even your hero attains. + +"You won't betray your Phyllida?" + +The appeal caught fire from the flaming cheeks of a maid and burned a +way direct, poignant, passionate, right through the lustre and tinsel of +his emotional costume. + +"You won't betray your Phyllida?" The question was such an one as +circulating libraries knew very well. It was asked by many a +contemporary Musidora or Clarinda of fiction. Yet so tremulous were the +lips that asked it, lips frail as rose-leaves and, withal, ardent as +wine, that Vernon shuddered. For the first time in his life he had +raised a force. He was at home with Ranelagh romps, with patched +beauties of Vauxhall, mistresses of intrigue whose fans had become a +part of their bodies, or better, whose bodies were no more than the +appendage of their fans, light, airy things where Love danced in a mask +and could be shut up at will. + +Now for the first time he stared into eyes which held immortality. He +saw himself Point de Vise but intolerably diminished. + +Vernon noticed that the cheek nearer to him flamed more crimson and for +a while he was troubled by the mystery of Love's birth. Elation swung +him to the skies and, catching Phyllida to his heart, he whispered of +constancy, swore that love would endure for ever and hardly knew himself +for a liar. + +He never spoke again of pearls, and from that moment truly desired her +for the youth and the mystery of herself. + +With a pang of tenderness he let her go, watched her hurry down the +corridor like a crimson Autumn leaf that is blown along by the wind. By +the little door she looked back at him, and from the tips of her fingers +sped elfin kisses which on the wings of the musick of flutes and fiddles +were borne in grace and beauty. + +She had promised. With a sigh Mr. Francis Vernon went back to +superintend the arrangements for his farewell party. She had promised, +and, as she slipped unobserved into the glitter and heat of Daish's +famous Rooms, never seemed like one who has stood a long while in +moonlight. + +What mattered the censorious world? The softness of his black velvet +sleeve thrilled her, and, forgetting all else, she began to build her +house of dreams. What a house it was, with casements that looked on +every month of the marching years. Now it was December when the +snowflakes were falling. Down the corridor she and her lover moved in +the grey light, but the casements were lined with ferns and stars and +jewels of frost, so they sought Spring in the changing fire-gardens of +burning logs. February went by with her showers and her celandines, her +snowdrops and thrushes that sing on bare branches. That casement in her +house of dreams was gilded round and the sill carved with posies and +true-lovers' knots, for through it she had seen Love for the first time. +March came in by night with a great noise of wind, yet even in the gusty +darkness she could put out her hands to touch a velvet sleeve as black +as the gloom enclosed by the open lattice. Every casement in her house +of dreams was full of delight, even the quaint little window at the very +end of the corridor whose ledge was the haunt of drifted leaves. In the +far-off autumn he would still be by her side. + +Somebody asked her to step a minuet, yet while her body danced, while +her feet kept tune to the twinkling rhythm, while her fan fluttered to +mortal harmonies, her soul was away with Love--God knows the spot, but +'twas somewhere mighty near the top of this green world. Now she was +rocking a wooden cradle while the wind in the wide black chimney crooned +an echo to the old nursery song she was singing. Ah! sir or madam, when +a young maiden starts to build her house of dreams, I think, if she be a +wise maid, she builds the nursery first of all. + +This wonderful house had a number of clocks, tall clocks, short clocks, +thin clocks, fat clocks, round clocks, square clocks, clocks on the +wall, clocks on the mantelpiece, clocks in the corners; and every clock +was ticking away to a tune of its own, for in the house of dreams there +was never a moment that did not deserve perpetual commemoration. + +Somebody asked her to step a gavotte. At the end of the garden of this +wonderful house was a green wicket, and when you had walked through a +coppice of birches and wild raspberries that ripen with the corn, you +found yourself on the London road. It ran straight as a dart over hill +and down dale, through villages whose cottages were only built to stare +at the gay equipages that rattled past, for nothing alive was visible +save a few geese on a blue and white pond beneath a blue and white sky. +Phyllida's mind was a book of old wives' tales and her London was the +golden London of Dick Whittington. + +Fled were all the outraged heroines of dog-eared novels in greasy +circulation. The long reproaches, stilted protestations, vows, regrets +and declarations had vanished. The nodding spinsters behind country +counters who selected the literature of their clients and declared how +affecting was this tale, how full of sensibility was that one, had +gradually lost all definite shape like the volumes they doled out so +assiduously. Fled, too, with the vapours of young maidenhood, were some +of the sweets. Nevertheless I doubt there was not a soul to regret the +old Phyllida save perhaps Betty and Dick Combleton, the Squire's +youngest son away down in Hampshire. + +Miss Sukey Morton began to talk to her of young Tom Chalkley. She told +how he had passed their house, how he had looked up at the window, and +how by the greatest ill luck she happened to be rather pale that +morning. She babbled on about the imagined progress of an affair which +had never truly existed. To Phyllida who should have been sympathetick, +it was rather wearisome chatter. Suddenly Miss Morton shocked her dear +Courteen very much by asking if she had discovered who was satirized in +those twelve lines beginning ... Phyllida interrupted with a curt +negative, so curt that her darling Morton regarded her with black-eyed +curiosity. + +"And how should I know, Sukey, how should I know?" + +"My dearest Miss Courteen, there is no need to be angry about a simple +question." + +"These discoveries are all so low," complained Phyllida. + +"Oh, vastly low, though for my part I think the hussy deserves censure +since she has made every young woman ridiculous." + +With this commentary Miss Morton left her friend, and Phyllida, +wondering all the while if she knew the whole affair, was more than ever +firmly determined to elope to-morrow afternoon with her Amor. + + + + +_Chapter the Twenty-fifth_ + +QUARTS OF BURGUNDY + + +The old ballroom of the famous Daish's Rooms looked mighty cheerful on +the evening of my Lady Bunbutter's rout and Mr. Francis Vernon's +farewell entertainment. + +The circular mahogany table with finely carved claw legs shone like the +fine old piece of Spanish wood it was, that is to say, wherever it could +secure a clear space for shining, being almost entirely clouded over by +innumerable dishes of gruit and nuts, plates, silver knives and silver +forks, two large horns of snuff and half-dozen pairs of branched +candlesticks, while in the very centre surrounded by lesser fruits stood +a magnificent pineapple. + +Round the table stood a dozen or more solid Windsor wheelback chairs +that were warranted to stand firm, though the fattest gentleman that +ever sat down to dessert tipped perpetually back on them to the utmost +limit of his balance. A magnificent fire blazed and roared in the +hearth, and round the walls were hung prints of racehorses, cock-fights, +steeplechases, prize bullocks, and fat sheep, with bills of sale beneath +them and announcements of forthcoming diversions for the young gentlemen +of the _Blue Boar_ and the more wealthy agriculturalists of the +neighbourhood. + +It was ten o'clock of a wet windy night and the chairmen were growing +quarrelsome as they stamped up and down in the street below. + +Mr. Jeremy Daish had been rather unwilling for Mr. Vernon to give his +party on a night when he himself would be unable to superintend the +commissariat owing to his services being required for my Lady +Bunbutter's rout close at hand. However, he had left the strictest +injunctions with John the senior waiter to carry off at once all empty +bottles in order to the protection of the Curtain Wells watch, which was +wont to suffer considerably in their persons on such an hilarious +occasion as a party in the old ballroom of Daish's Rooms. + +The host stood with his back to the fire complacently surveying the +preparations. Vernon's extraction was somewhat ambiguous, and his father +may or may not have been the fine gentleman that his mother swore he +was. So, as he stood regarding the well-covered table and the tall +armchair at the head of it where he would presently take his seat, a +distinct feeling of elation seized him at the prospect of being in a +position to pass the decanter round a circle of such undeniable +breeding. He went over their names--names famous on many a battlefield +and many a hunting field. They belonged to a world of broad acres and +park gates and double lodges and Corinthian hunting-boxes. They were +revered at home by many peasants and wore the mantle of life with an air +of easy proprietorship. They possessed something like the dignified +stability of the Church of England. They were a force, an institution, a +product of insular civilization. In fact, they were English Gentlemen, +and Mr. Vernon contemplated their existence with great self-satisfaction. +He, too, was an English Gentleman, he reassured himself. It was the +consciousness of being one which gave him that pleasant sense of +superiority to the rest of the world when he found himself in the +congenial company of his peers. + +Yet poor Mr. Vernon (I am rather sorry for poor Mr. Vernon) could not +conceal from his shrewd self that he had no business to be at all unduly +elated at the prospect of entertaining young Tom Chalkley of the Foot, +Lieutenant Blewforth of the _Lively_, Mr. Harry Golightly of Campbell's +Grey Dragoons, Mr. Anthony Clare, little Peter Wingfield, Jack +Winnington, the Honourable Mr. Harthe-Brusshe, my Lord Squall, Lord +Augustus Wind and Mr. Charles Lovely. + +It was Mr. Vernon's note of invitation to the last which had caused him +to d---- Vernon's hazel eyes, in the taproom of the _World turned Upside +Down_. Presently came a sound of laughter and careless talk as the young +gentlemen of the _Blue Boar_ came swaggering in. Was it merely a sense +of eccentricity that made the host fancy he detected a note of +condescension in their loud and jovial greeting to himself? Probably. + +The early guests talked, as early guests always will, with half an eye +on the clock and the other half on the table. + +"Squall is late," said Vernon. + +"Squall coming?" inquired Blewforth. + +"L-l-ook out for squalls," stammered little Peter Wingfield. + +"Squall's an ass," said Mr. Golightly. + +"So is his brother," said Chalkley. + +"Always was," said Clare. + +"Wind is coming too," said Vernon. "Augustus, that is, and +Harthe-Brusshe." + +The young gentlemen of the _Blue Boar_ looked peevish; it was tactless +of that fellow Vernon to keep them waiting for three such asses as +these. + +"They are late," said Blewforth very emphatically. + +"I'm expecting Lovely, too," said Vernon almost humbly. Somehow or other +he felt the slightest inclination to apologize, exactly what for he did +not know. + +"Charles is always late. He's a d----d careless fellow," said Mr. +Golightly, and one felt the final judgment upon Charles had been passed. + +"Charles is not jigging with old Butterbun, is he?" asked little Peter +Wingfield. + +"Oh! the d----l! not he," said Blewforth. "He's found a red-cheeked +hussy with whom he's carrying on an intrigue." + +"Eh, what! Never?" exclaimed a chorus. + +"What's his charmer's name?" said Chalkley. + +"Burgundy," replied Blewforth with a great guffaw that made all the +glasses and goblets and decanters on the big oak dresser ring an echo. + +"I never thought Charles cared much for wine or women," said Golightly. + +"Nor he don't," Blewforth put in. "Nor he don't. That's what beats me. +But I tell you I saw Charles Lovely sitting in the taproom of the _World +Turned Upside Down_. Nobody goes there unless he wishes to be drunk by +nightfall. Eh, boys? So depend on't when Charles does arrive, he'll +arrive drunk. But why? That's the riddle." + +"Perhaps the fair Courteen has slighted him," said Chalkley. "Serve him +right. He had no business to take himself so seriously. 'Tis very +fashionable to be a poet, but egad! 'tis devilish low to behave like +one." + +"Is that Miss Phyllida Courteen?" said Vernon, trying to speak as though +he had read her name in the list of visitors published every week by the +proprietors of the _Curtain Wells Chronicle and Pump Room +Intelligencer_. + +"Aye! d'ye know her? Blooming seventeen with a short upper lip, blue +eyes and hair the colour of that chestnut gelding, What's His Name sold +'tother day." + +"Very poor animal," said Golightly. + +"Not at all. I disagree with you." + +"Very poor animal indeed," said Golightly. + +"It fetched a very pretty price." + +"Oh," said Mr. Golightly and the argument was over. + +"Does she carry a white swansdown muff?" asked Vernon. + +"Who?" + +"Miss Courteen." + +"Eh? Oh! I don't know," and since Mr. Chalkley's tone of voice implied a +lack of further interest on the subject, the subject was dropped. + +"My belief is," said Lieutenant Blewforth loudly, and moving as he spoke +in the direction of the fireplace. "Egad, Vernon would you take it +unkind if I rang for a tankard of ale? I'm as dry as a gunner in action. +My belief is," he went on spreading his coat-tails to the genial warmth, +"my belief is----" + +"Gadslife! B-B-lewforth," interrupted Peter Wingfield, "pray get on with +the recitation of your c-creed." + +"Don't get excited, little man," said Blewforth. "My belief is Charles +wrote that book." + +"What book?" said Chalkley, whose acquaintance with the literature of +the day was remarkably small. + +"Curtain Polls." + +"Never heard of it," said Mr. Chalkley. + +"Rubbish!" said Clare, entering suddenly into the conversation. +"Rubbish!" and yet Mr. Anthony Clare was one of the two people in the +room who knew for certain that Charles was, indeed, the author of that +satirical trifle. + +"It has caused a terrible amount of talk," Blewforth went on. "My old +aunt Seaworthy to whom I paid my annual visit yesterday tells me that +all the world is very much hurt at being treated with such freedom." + +"I d-don't see why Charles should take to drink because he's wrote a +book." This was from Peter Wingfield. + +"Ripple may have been annoyed. He's confoundedly touchy about a little +matter like that and Charles thinks Ripple is a demigod." + +The Earl of Squall, Lord Augustus Wind and the Honourable Mr. +Harthe-Brusshe came into the room at that moment, and Mr. Vernon, who +had been feeling a little outside the intimacy of the company, made +haste to propose that, everybody save Charles being present, the wine +should be brought in. + +Everybody agreed that nothing fitted in more exactly with their wishes +than Mr. Vernon's timely suggestion and everybody selected his chair +with that preciseness which stamps the beginning of an entertainment. +Everybody sat down and the nuts were circulated. + +Presently John entered with twelve quart-bottles of Burgundy on a huge +tray. All of them had been gently warmed before a slow fire, and all of +them were wiped clean of the cobwebs and dust of the several years spent +in the ample cellars of the _Blue Boar_. + +Vernon had prepared a short oration for the entrance of the liquor and +while John reverently stationed a bottle at everybody's right hand, he +made haste to deliver it. Perhaps his utterance was a shade too +reminiscent of one of the many prologues spoken by his mother at the +theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields, but that did not matter since nobody in +the room was old enough to remember that lady's inimitable delivery of +Mr. Dryden's rhymed Alexandrines. + +"The life of Burgundy," said Mr. Vernon, "is very like the life of a +butterfly. At first the grape or caterpillar-grub, feeding upon the +richness of the soil, then the cocoon or bottle stage when it languishes +for many years in darkness below the earth until--until it emerges +glowing with a thousand varied tints of crimson--and, like a butterfly, +wings its airy way into the brain of mankind." + +The company, with the exception of my Lord Squall who was sometimes +taken in the old family coach of the Winds to hear his father speak in +the House of Lords, were not accustomed to lengthy speeches and looked +at each other bashfully. + +Lieutenant Blewforth with nautical tact saved the situation by drinking +Mr. Vernon's health in a very large and brimming pint bumper which he +emptied in two sonorous gulps. + +As everybody else proceeded to follow this good example, everybody was +soon very cheerful, and the advent of the second dozen of bottles was +mightily applauded. + +However, the master mind was still absent and the drinking, though +steady, had not yet enlivened the company to uproarious spirits. + +"Where's Charles?" bellowed Blewforth munching a devilled biscuit. +"Where's that fellow Charles. Demme! He'll never catch us up at this +rate and we shall have him sober as a post-captain when we are beginning +to amuse ourselves." + +"What, you rogue," cried our hero entering just as the Lieutenant +bellowed his inquiry. "I wager five guineas, I am two bottles ahead of +any gentleman present." In order to clinch the bet he flung his purse in +the direction of the table. The gauntlet snuffed in its course two of +the candles and fell with a plump into a piping bowl of punch splashing +Tom Chalkley as high as his stock and imparting to His Majesty's uniform +an odour of hot squeezed lemons that lasted for quite a couple of weeks. + +"Charles! Charles!" bellowed the burly Lieutenant, "Huzza for Charles!" + +The latter lurched into the vacant chair next to his friend Tony without +a word to the host. However, nobody observed this breach of good +manners, because everybody was anxiously leaning over to fill every +glass in reach of the newcomer as a preliminary to drinking his very +good health a score of times, without a heeltap to any one of them. + +"Z--ds! Charles. Where have you been?" said Chalkley. + +"Drinking old Burgundy with a rogue of a bagman who looked like Ranelagh +Garden en Fete, for his face was illuminated with every hue of crimson +lamp and I stake my wig his nose was as large and round as the Rotunda." + +With the arrival of Charles, everybody woke up and there were calls for +a song. The gallant Lieutenant was the first to respond with my Lord +Dorset's _To you fair ladies now at Land_. + +Let me remind you of that fine old ballad: + + _To you fair ladies now at Land + We men at Sea indite; + But first would have you understand + How hard it is to write_. + +"Not at all," cried Charles. + + _The Muses now, and Neptune too, + We must implore to write to you;_ + +"and chorus, gentlemen, please," + + _With a Fa, la, la, la, la, la + The Muses now, and Neptune too, + We must implore to write to you_. + +and so on to the last + + _With a Fa, la, la, la, la + Let us hear of no Inconstancy + We have too much of that at Sea_. + +And a proper noise everybody made with the _Fa la-la-la-la_ accentuating +every _Fa_ with a bottle and every _La_ with one of Mr. Jeremy Daish's +handsome silver spoons. + +The song being a very lengthy one allowed everybody plenty of time to +drink another quart of Burgundy before its rousing conclusion, and if +the company cheered loudly at the beginning, by heavens, they cheered so +loudly at the end that the noise was heard above the fiddlers in the new +ballroom of Daish's famous Rooms and put everybody out of step in the +last Cotillon notwithstanding the heroick efforts of the disreputable, +but nimble-footed Captain Mann. + +Then Charles gave a new ballad (new that is in the reign of Queen Anne) +sung first at Messieurs Brook and Hellier's Club at the Temple Tavern in +Fleet Street, but slightly altered by him to suit present company, + + _Since I'm in the Chair and every one here + Appears in gay humour and easy; + Say, why should not I, a new Ballad try, + Bright Brethren o' the Bottle to please ye. + This wine is my theme, this is all on's Esteem, + For Jeremy Daish cannot wrong us; + Let them get Wealth who keeps us in health. + By bringing neat liquor among us_. + +(with chorus of last two lines repeated). + + _Each Vintner of late, has got an Estate + By brewing and Sophistication + With cyder and sloes, they've made a d----d dose, + Has poisoned one half of the nation_. + +and so on until + + _Now God Bless the King, Peers, Parliament Men, + And keep 'em like us in true concord; + And grant that all those, who dare be his foes, + At Tyburn may swing in a strong cord; + We'll Loyalists be, and bravely agree + With lives and estates to defend her--him + So then we'll not care come Peace or come War + For Lewis, the Pope, or Pretender._ + +"Ah!" said Mr. Antony Clare whose father had been a Jacobite, "you've +spoilt more than the rhyme by the last word." + +This treasonable remark was the signal for more noise than ever because +all the young gentlemen of the _Blue Boar_ who held His Majesty King +George's commission felt bound to uphold the honour of the Royal Navy +and the British Army by flinging a large number of Spanish nuts at the +head of the disloyal Clare who retorted by emptying a whole ram's horn +of snuff over Mr. Golightly so that for a while nothing was to be heard +but vollies of gigantick sneezes. Exhaustion reigned for a moment, but +presently the sound of hustling and bustling in the street outside +roused everybody to fresh vigour of mischief. + +My Lady Bunbutter's rout was over, and those of the Exquisite Mob who +had been invited were standing on tiptoe on the steps of Daish's Rooms +peering into the darkness and blinking in the glare of waving flambeaux. +The chairmen were so busy quarrelling over their positions that they +paid no attention to their fares and everything was in a very great +state of confusion indeed; nor was the clamour abated by Mr. Lovely +cleverly hitting the long red ear of the nearest chairmen with a +Barcelona nut because the injured chairman instantly floored a linkboy +who was standing by his side and the linkboy's torch severely burnt the +legs of Lord Cinderton's tall footman in his ash-grey livery and the +tall footman with a yell of dismay punched a flat-footed waiter on the +nose and the flat-footed waiter butted an inoffensive fop in the middle +of his sprigged silk waistcoat and the inoffensive fop struck out with +his tasselled cane left and right with such force that presently +everybody in the street below was fighting with his next door neighbour +to the entire delight of the young gentlemen from the _Blue Boar_. Their +next diversion was to empty the dregs of the Burgundy bottles upon the +heads of the crowd, whereupon all the ladies of Curtain Wells screamed +very loud to see such a number of bloody polls and faces. + +Then Charles snatched off little Peter Wingfield's tie-wig and, having +set fire to it, began to drop tufts of burning hair out of the window, +which tufts made an immense smell and blew round and round in the gusty +March air in a very alarming manner. + +Little Peter Wingfield, having lost his own wig and being too little to +snatch Lovely's wig, mounted one of the stout Windsor wheelback chairs +and, taking down the print of a famous cock-fight extracted the hook +from the wall and laid an embargo on the black silk ties of three of his +friends in order to fish from the window for another wig. He succeeded +in catching the Marquis of Hurricane's to the intense delight of his +undutiful sons the Earl of Squall and Lord Augustus Wind. Of course +after such a successful display of angling, everybody else had to try +his hand with the picture hook and two more wigs were captured but +proved so frowsy that they were burnt immediately. However, Mr. Chalkley +caught the hem of Lady Jane Vane's petticoat just as she was stepping +into her chair and would without doubt have injured that virgin's modest +reputation for ever, had the garment been made of more durable stuff; as +it was, the hook would not hold and nothing was disclosed beyond what is +allowed by any wet day. + +Then Mr. Daish came hurrying in and begged their honours to desist +because the watch was coming, and what Mr. Ripple would say when he +heard of the riot he did not dare surmize. + +Poor Mr. Daish bowed and scraped and was so full of excuses that all the +young gentlemen felt quite sorry for him and put ham seat foremost into +the biggest bowl of punch in order to drown his troubles, whereupon Mr. +Daish grew quite cholerick and vowed he would never let one of 'em enter +his inn again and made such ado that the culprits all protested he was +more noisy than anybody else, and offered to fetch in the watch and have +him arrested in his own bowl of punch. + +But presently they lifted him out and subscribed ten guineas by sending +round Mr. Golightly's hat; and poor Mr. Daish was more full of excuses +than ever and hoped that anything he had said that could by the most +spirited gentleman be considered derogatory would be forgiven and +ascribed to the dismay caused by the hot punch scalding his hinder parts +and goading him beyond the bounds of polite remonstrance. + +Everybody vowed that withered little Daish was a prince of good fellows +and begged him to buy himself a new pair of cinnamon cloth breeches as +soon as possible, while Thomas Chalkley of the Foot created much +amusement by shouting that he was holding Dunquerque against the French. +In order to hold Dunquerque against the French, it was very necessary +that Mr. Chalkley should fling out of the window nineteen quart-bottles +of Burgundy in quick succession, whereupon Lieutenant Blewforth of the +_Lively_ not to be outdone vowed Portobello must be taken and proceeded +to take it by climbing with amazing dexterity on to the mantelpiece +armed only with a long Churchwarden's pipe. Yet notwithstanding all the +efforts of Ensign Chalkley to hold Dunquerque against the French, +notwithstanding that he was valiantly assisted by Cornet Golightly of +the Grey Dragoons, who led a desperate cavalry charge round the whole +room mounted upon one of the stout Windsor chairs, Dunquerque +capitulated. In other words the dignified Curtain Wells watch marched +upstairs with their lanterns and their staves and, standing in a knot by +the doorway, demanded the reason for such a riotous breach of the King's +peace, not to mention Mr. Ripple's and the Mayor's. But the young +gentlemen were all so merry and the watch was so cold that it consented +to taste the punch and presently left Dunquerque in the hands of the +Allies and marched off warmer in mind and body to a quieter quarter of +the ancient borough of Curtain Wells. I am sorry to add that, in passing +the door of the Great House, they so far forgot their standing orders as +to cry with enormous fervour the hour and the weather exactly underneath +Mr. Ripple's window. + +With the departure of the watch, peace fell upon the company for a +while; a dice box was produced and some packs of cards, but play lasted +a very short time and was voted too confoundedly dull for so joyful an +evening. So more songs were sung, and it was exceedingly pleasant to +hear these young gentlemen shouting the refrains and hammering Encores +upon the polished mahogany table. It was exceedingly pleasant to see the +wigs on their knees and the long clay pipes keeping time to the tune; +but perhaps the pleasantest sight of all was the two sleepy waiters who +leaned against the jambs of the door and, with kindly grins on their +tired faces, tapped their flat feet to the more alluring measures. + +The night was wearing away when somebody called 'Vernon for a song!' + +The latter, to tell the truth, had felt out of his element, except +during the brief interval of play, but on being called upon to occupy +the centre of the room, he cheered up and announced his very great +pleasure in acceding to the gentlemen's request. + +I wonder if you are at all sorry for Mr. Vernon. + +He was very lonely sitting in his high armchair at the head of the +table. I wonder if you will forgive him for singing this song, which you +will find in Mr. D'Urfey's _Pills to Purge Melancholy_. + + _In the merry month of May, + On a morn by break of day, + Forth I walked the wood so wide, + When as May was in her Pride + Here I spy'd all alone, all alone, + Phyllida and Coridon._ + + _Much ado there was God wot, + He did love, but she could not, + He said his love was to woo, + He said none was false to you; + He said he had lov'd her long, + He said love should take no wrong._ + + _Coridon would have kissed her then, + She said Maids must kiss no men + Till they kiss for good and all; + Then she bade the shepherds call + All the Gods to witness truth, + Ne'er was loved so fair a youth._ + + _Then with many a pretty oath, + As Yea and Nay and Faith and Troth, + Such as silly shepherds use, + When they would not love abuse; + Love which had been long deluded + Was with kisses sweet concluded._ + + _And Phyllida with garlands gay + Was crowned the Lady May._ + +The words were poor, as you will allow, and the tune a mere tinkle, but +it had the effect of rousing our hero from the half-sleep into which he +had fallen. + +"Sing that song again, will you." + +"G---- forbid," whispered little Peter Wingfield. + +"Nay, sir," said Mr. Vernon, "'Tis too long to sing over again, but I'll +toast the heroine if that will please your zest." + +"No, sir," said Charles, "it will not please me at all." + +The rest of the company began to wake up to the fact that something was +happening. + +"I should have thought," Vernon replied, "that Mr. Lovely would have +cordially welcomed such a toast, for we all know his partiality to the +name." + +"Gentlemen," said our hero. Did I not promise you some pretty heroicks a +score of pages back? "Gentlemen, I have a tale to tell you." + +Charles looked very stiff and very fierce as, clapping on his wig, he +began: + +"A short while ago I perpetrated an indiscretion in mistaking Mr. +Francis Vernon for a gentleman, for which I beg the pardon of everybody +present. Mr. Vernon for some reason best known to himself saw fit to +bribe my bookseller to insert in a volume I have just published twelve +scurrilous lines reflecting upon the character of a young lady whom +I--whom I----" + +"Admire," suggested our villain. + +"No, sir, respect." + +"Sir, your virtue should make us all blush," sneered Vernon, cold and +contemptuous. + +"D---- n you and your blushes; blush deeper, then," shouted Charles, +slinging the contents of a wineglass into Mr. Vernon's pallid face. + +There was silence for a moment until the honourable Mr. Harthe-Brusshe +proclaimed---- + +"The affair should be settled at once." + +And this was the only remark that the Honourable gentleman uttered in +the whole of the evening. + +"With all my heart," cried Charles. "Tony, you'll act for me?" + +Mr. Vernon had delicately wiped his face with a handkerchief of Mechlin +lace. A single drop of the wine lingered above his left cheekbone. +There, it was not unbecoming. + +"I shall be proud to walk with Mr. Lovely in a month's time," said our +villain, "but for the present my honour is pledged to a lady." + +"Sure, you borrow on mighty small security, sir," said Charles. + +The lingering drop of wine that stained Mr. Vernon's cheek seemed to +expand for a brief moment. + +"I have named my day," was all he answered. + +"Mr. Vernon is within his rights, Charles," said Mr. Golightly, "and +moreover the weather will be finer next month and we can make up a +jovial party." + +"'Tis hardly fair to poor Daish to fight in his rooms," said Blewforth. +"Ripple would put his shutters up at once." + +"H---- take you all," cried Charles, in an access of fury, as he sprang +to strike Vernon. + +The latter stepped back and with a well-aimed blow sent Charles flying +backwards over two chairs. + +"'Slife, Charles," said Mr. Golightly very stiffly. "Your conduct is +d----d irregular, Sir." + +"Most improper," said Mr. Chalkley. + +"Devilish unrestrained," said little Peter Wingfield. + +"Charles was two bottles ahead of us, gentlemen," said Blewforth who +held a broad mind in a broad body. + +Our hero was still lying where Vernon had sent him among cards and +broken glass. + +"D---- n you all," cried Clare. "Charles is worth the rest of you +puppies in red and blue coats put together, and by G----, Mr. Vernon, he +shall kill you for that blow." + +Everybody was so surprized to hear Mr. Anthony Clare, cool and placid +Tony Clare, break out like this that a wave of embarrassment swept over +the room. One by one they hurried from the scene of such an irregular +quarrel. + +It was very entertaining to see them march out so stiff and straight, +with nutshells crackling underneath their feet. + + + + +_Chapter the Twenty-sixth_ + +AND THE DREGS OF THE SAME + + +Mr. Anthony Clare stayed behind to help our hero home to bed. His effort +to achieve sobriety had completely exhausted such faculties as remained +after so many quarts of Burgundy, and he babbled to his companion +foolish threats and impotent defiance in such an incoherent voice that I +doubt his enemy, had he been present, would scarcely have been able to +discover common sense in any one of his remarks. Charles woke up in the +morning full of bile, dressed himself in a splenetick fury and ate a +breakfast, conspicuous for its peppery flavours, with petulance and +aversion. Then he crammed his gold-laced Kevenhuller hat on his head and +went out to interview Mr. Horace Ripple. + +In crossing the courtyard of the inn he passed Mr. Chalkley, and for a +moment debated seriously the wisdom of challenging him out of hand. This +he was the more inclined to do because he fancied the gallant Ensign was +regarding him with some disfavour. However, the latter gave him a 'good +morning,' and excused his want of geniality on the score of a liver +teased out of endurance by hard and violent exercise. + +So Charles forgave him his supposed breach of good manners and decided +to hear from Tony a full account of the evening's events. + +Clare presently overtook him under the archway, and, on being informed +of our hero's destination, tried to dissuade him from the projected +visit to the Beau. + +"Z----ds! I tell you that blackguard shall be turned out of the Wells +with ignominy." So much Charles vowed. + +"But 'tis no business of yours, Charles," argued his friend. + +"No business of mine? Eh! is that so? Then, by heaven! I'll make it my +business." + +"Ripple does not believe in settling disputes of this nature by the +personal encounter." + +"Then, by heaven!" said Charles, "that being the case there is the +greater necessity for expelling him from the company of gentlemen." + +"That is all very well," expostulated Clare, "but you are neither the +young woman's brother nor, as I believe, her lover. What right have you +to interfere?" + +"I tell you, Tony," said Charles, "that Ripple has already pondered the +advisableness of interfering with Mr. Francis Amor-Vernon and, indeed, +begged me to disclose his pseudonym, but I would not." + +"You owed him money, in fact?" said Clare, gently tapping the kerb of +the pavement with his cane. + +"Yes, I owed the dog money." + +"And now he is paid?" + +"Thanks to your generosity he is paid." + +"Charles," said Mr. Clare, laying his hand affectionately on that +indignant gentleman's right shoulder, "oblige me, who was able and glad +to oblige you, by not proceeding further in this affair." + +"'Tis monstrous ill-bred in you to remind me of an obligation under +which I laid myself with the most profound disinclination." Charles was +growing angry. + +"Nay, you know that is not my meaning, but, consider Charles, this +confounded, pasquinading pamphlet book has placed you in such an ill +light that the world will be very loth to believe any good of you." + +"Ripple is wiser than the raree-show over which he presides." + +"Ay! but depend on't, he has already been informed of last night's +affair and will be prejudiced against you on account of your quarrelsome +overtures." + +"'Sdeath! Tony, pray desist from further argument; you do not convince +me and will soon rouse my choler." + +"As you will," said Tony, and, leaving the company of his friend, betook +himself to the solitude of green fields. In the pleasures of country +sights and sounds he found some consolation for the undeserved +reproaches of a gentleman whom he had gratified at considerable expense +to himself. + +Charles continued in the direction of the Great House. Being arrived on +the topmost doorstep he rang the bell with complete assurance and +knocked thrice with the heavy brass knocker. + +He was admitted to an audience and walked upstairs to the tall white +drawing-room without trepidation or bashfulness. Mr. Ripple had favoured +him with so many compliments lately, had begged his advice on so many +trifles of publick importance, had in fact adopted him so completely +into intimate conversation, that Charles may be pardoned for supposing +that, notwithstanding his unceremonious conduct of the night before +last, notwithstanding his notoriety as the author of a book of satirical +poems, he would still be received with that inimitable and charming +condescension which the Great little Man reserved for few indeed. + +He found the Beau seated among the roses of his wide-winged armchair +sipping what looked uncommonly like a cordial physick. He did not rise +to Mr. Lovely's entrance, did not even turn his head, but merely said in +a tone, indifferent, lifeless and chill, + +"To what may I ascribe the honour of this visit, sir?" + +Conceive the shocked feelings of Madam Semele when he, whom she had +hitherto regarded with the familiarity born of many amorous meetings, +assumed at her own request the attributes of divinity. She died, if you +can recall the sad event. + +Charles experienced a particle of that dismay when the Great little Man +for whom he had hitherto felt an almost playful affection suddenly +appeared to him with the attributes of majesty--remoteness, scorn, and +inaccessibleness. The pattern upon the Aubusson rug swam before his eyes +in changes of tint and form as frequent as a child's Kaleidoscope, and +he found himself in humble obeisance. The Beau twirled the fluted stem +of the green Venetian glass that contained his physick and waited for +Mr. Lovely to explain his business. + +"Well, sir," he said at last. + +The abashed favourite stammered his reasons for the visit. + +"Pooh, pooh," said the Beau. "Pooh, pooh! a likely story. Your brain, +sir, addled by the ridiculous rhymes it has already born with obvious +labour, refuses to hatch further monstrous fancies, and is content to +send into the world an abortion. The night before last, Mr. Lovely, you +waited upon me at an hour both indiscreet and inconvenient. I was ready +to overlook this horrid breach of decorum and was indeed willing to +receive your apologies on the following day. You found, however, a more +engaging diversion in cracking bottles with a bagman. For this I do not +blame you--and, indeed, think you will do well to cultivate a manner of +company for which you seem to me singularly adapted. Pray understand, +however, that, in finding your level, you have had to make a very +considerable descent. The rider who has been thrown into a ditch is +unable to cry 'View! Holloa!' to the master of the hunt. In other words, +Mr. Lovely, you have put yourself in a position where your estimate of +polite intrigue is incredible and impertinent. I am very well able to +look after the morals of the Beau Monde without the assistance of the +kitchen or the tap-room." + +"Mr. Ripple," said our hero, "you insult me." + +"Unfortunately, sir, I recognize no responsibleness in that direction. I +have always claimed the right to speak my mind. If you find my +strictures intolerable, the door affords you an easy remedy." + +"Mr. Ripple," Charles replied, "I think you are making a fool of +yourself." + +The Great little Man clutched the arms of his wide-winged chair and +gasped. It was certainly twenty years since any one had dared to address +him with such a want of reverence. + +"You wrap yourself in paint and sattin," continued Charles. "You strut +about as if you were indeed the king of a puppet show. But don't forget, +Mr. Ripple, that when the puppets perform, when they make miniature love +and die small deaths, the publick regards them, not the wire-puller +above. The world, your world, will forget you, Mr. Ripple, when it still +remembers the inconsiderable passions of your dolls." + +"It does not matter, sir," the Beau interrupted in a voice tremulous +with well-bred anger. "It does not matter what the world thinks of me, +so long as my puppets comport themselves with taste and discretion." + +"You fool," shouted Charles, "the wires are twisted." + +It is improbable that any one had ever shouted in this tall white room +before, and the lustres shivered at the unwonted sound, while a +diminutive Dresden shepherdess, fragile as a sea-shell, lost her head, +which rolled into the grate with a tinkle of dismay. + +"Leave my house," said the Beau. + +"Ay! and you dislike to be told that your show will presently appear +ludicrous." + +"Leave my house." + +"Good G----! Ripple. I know I have been to blame; I know my story seems +to you absurd; but, by Heaven! I swear those cursed lines were never +writ by me, and since Vernon wrote them, why, z----ds, man! Can't you +see his intention?" + +"Leave my house." + +"Very well, sir, your obedient servant." + +With a very grand bow, Mr. Lovely took his leave of the Great little +Man. + +When he was gone, the Beau stooped to pick up the head of the diminutive +Dresden shepherdess. + +"Tut-tut, I doubt the join will be plainly visible," he murmured to +himself. + + + + +_Chapter the Twenty-seventh_ + +TIME FOR REFLECTION + + +Mr. Lovely left the Great House enraged with the owner, with Society +and, to say truth, with his own heroick self. + +I do not think he was very wildly in love with Miss Courteen, but I do +believe he was sincerely vexed with himself for letting her fall into +Vernon's power. For a moment he seriously pondered the wisdom of warning +her mother of the lengths to which the affair had gone, but upon +reflection shrank from a step which would savour, in the eyes of the +world, of ill-bred intrusion. After all, the girl was nothing to him, +and her reputation--plague on her reputation! I trust you observe the +unheroick aftermath of heroick Burgundy. Such bathos of indifference +would have sounded strange in the days preceding this forenoon. + +Just then my lady Bunbutter went by in her capacious chair and Charles +prepared to make an elaborate bow, but her ladyship merely stared at him +in cold disdain, and he was forced to buckle his shoe to save his +countenance. + +"So everybody knows," said Charles to himself, "Well! I shall always +regard Curtain Wells with affection and remember it with regret." + +He walked down the Colonnade where Miss Morton lived and, as he passed +the house, thought with half a smile of Valentine Day. It seemed a +century ago--that merry morning. Soon he was in the fields, where the +hedges were splashed with the silver of blackthorn in profuse bloom. + +He crossed a winding path, begun and ended with a notched and scrabbled +kissing-gate, and, passing through a small plantation where the +daffodils grew tall, went up a rounded hillside along whose clear-cut +horizon great fleecy clouds moved solemnly. He stopped for a moment to +glance back at Curtain Wells with the March sun spangling the rain-wet +roofs before he dipped with a sigh into one of those serene valleys that +are only found in England--valleys whose slopes are often darkened by +the long shadows of sheep and cattle, whose hollows are bright with +moist grass and in summer fragrant with spearmint and creamy +meadowsweet. + +He took the devious course of a narrow stream and knew the grave +delights of rural meditation; yet somehow the image of Phyllida danced +before him all the time and whenever he paused, the wind far away over +the hillside had a melancholy and foreboding sound. + +He met an elderly gentleman--a parson by the colour of his cloth--who +was poking some decayed herbage with a long cane. The elderly gentleman +looked up as Charles went by, gave him a 'very good morning,' and said +he believed he had seen an adder enter the herbage. + +"Indeed," said Charles, who thought the information given demanded an +attitude of respectful surprize. + +"But nothing amazes me after that wonderful February. When I tell you +that half an hour ago I saw an Orange Tip butterfly, you will understand +that nothing amazes me." + +Charles left the Elderly Gentleman still investigating the decayed +herbage reputed to contain an adder, and found himself envying a mind +that could invest a day with such easy fame. He had seen an Orange Tip +butterfly. Had he met grey-eyed Athene, or beheld the roses and doves of +Cytherea, the day would scarcely have held a more splendid memory. + +He envied the Elderly Gentleman. To be sure, with a Stoick complacency, +he had announced that nothing strange in the natural order could startle +him after that wonderful February, but his tone of triumphant excitement +foretold an entry in his diary that very night, perhaps was the prelude +to a paragraph in the _Gentleman's Magazine_. + +He began to imagine the Elderly Gentleman sipping his Port before the +Rectory fire, on his knees an open Concordance whose pages were +illuminated by dancing butterflies, precocious heralds of the scented +spring. He heard the dignified butler told of his reverend master's +lucky discovery, heard him asked to hand down the calf-bound diary of +such and such a faded year, heard the Elderly Gentleman's chuckle when +he found, as he suspected, that the date in his own experience was +unprecedented and finally heard him order a bottle of the Port in bin +twelve, the first-fruits of the Assiento Agreement. + +Charles fell to comparing himself to the Elderly Gentleman, greatly to +his own disadvantage. + +Certainly the image of Phyllida danced before him in the water meadows, +eluded him at every turn and twist of the little stream, and beckoned +him along this secluded valley; but his own heart did not beat with the +proper amount of answering fervour. + +Six weeks ago when he saw her first, all swansdown and blushes, he had +been duly elated. She had occupied much of his meditations ever since, +but he had no sensation of triumph, no delight in the great fact of her +existence. Perhaps that was because she belonged to the world. The +butterfly had belonged, as a phenomenon, to the Elderly Gentleman alone. +To the rest of mankind it was a legend. The discovery would be recorded +in print, but the discovery itself would flutter in secret pale wings +powdered with vivid gold, and this March morning would remain a +permanent fact in that Elderly Gentleman's heart. He would suffer no +disillusion. If others saw that butterfly, why, then, he would enjoy the +discussion of it, whether in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ beneath a +learned pseudonym or over two or three glasses of Port, with details +long drawn out to protract the delicious memory. + +The ink is faded on the pages of those calf-bound diaries, the Latin +epitaph on the Elderly Gentleman's tombstone is now nearly illegible, +but since he went down to Elysium alert and heedful of the changing +seasons, I believe that his spirit still listens on summer eves to the +blackbirds in his beloved orchard and observes with interest and +curiosity each separate harebell that blossoms above his mortal remains. + +Charles went on his way with much the same thoughts about the Elderly +Gentleman as I have set down for my own, and continued to envy his gift +of youth. + +Presently he met Margery of Baverstock Farm. + +Let me remind you, she was the wench to whom Mr. Anthony Clare had paid +light court back in the winter. Charles reproved him for his behaviour +and apparently his friend had given up his addresses, for the milkmaid +looked happy and blooming and seemed not at all displeased to giggle +over a hazel wand at Mr. Charles Lovely. + +"Good morning, Margery." + +"Oh, good morning, zur," said Margery. + +"No longer with Farmer Hogbin?" + +"I be with Farmer Hogbin's brother Jahn to High Corner Farm." + +"And happy?" + +"Oh, 'ess, proud and happy." + +"Seen Mr. Clare lately?" + +Margery blushed expansively. + +"Oh! naw! I an't seen him since Baverstock Barn. I be courting." + +"Eh, indeed," said Charles, "and who is the shepherd?" + +"Wully Pearce." + +"And you'll be married soon?" + +"Come barley harvest--'ess." + +"I will dance at your wedding, Margery." + +"We shaant have daancing, because Wully says it leads to what oughtn't +to happen." + +Charles made a wry face. + +"Going to wed a Puritan, eh?" + +"Nay," said the buxom maid. "He's carter to Farmer Jahn Hogbin." + +"Then, surely, he will let you have a merry junketing at the bride-ale." + +"Naw, indeed an' he wawnt, because his sister Molly when they were +thrawing the stocking last year fell on her back, and Wully's fam'ly is +a proud and proper fam'ly and Wully says we mun be married wi' no such +nonsense." + +This long proclamation of propriety made Margery quite breathless, so +Charles, with a bow and the present of a crown, passed on his way. +Margery's case gave him more food for meditation. There was a buxom hale +wench with the bloom of a peach, throwing away her ample charms upon a +puritanical clod whose only ambition seemed to be the preservation of a +mealy-mouthed decorum. Pshaw! such prime beauty deserved a better fate. +Such a wedding as hers should have made old wives' fireside gossip for a +score of years and the tale of it quickened the hearts of every lover +and his lass that listened beneath the golden summer moon. Had he the +control of the ceremony, by Heaven! they should have danced the dawn in, +and every man and every maid should have gone to sleep with a face as +pale as the morning sky. It was ridiculous that young Cupid should be +breeched for the bidding of a lubberly half-baked ploughboy. + +And yet, to be honest with himself, was not he behaving in much the same +way as the despised Wully Pearce? Was not his chief objection to Vernon +based on the latter's reputation as a man of intrigue? It was Phyllida's +attraction to Vernon that made him indignant. Had she chosen to bestow +herself on a middle-aged squire with acres and a gaunt square hall and a +pack of hounds, would he have been at all seriously disconcerted by the +prospect? And Vernon could have no honest love for her, because if a man +means to wed a young woman, he does not stigmatize her behaviour in +scurrilous verses, even to secure an advantage over a supposed rival. Or +does he--when he is not quite a gentleman? + +Then occurred to him the story he had heard many years ago of a thin +unhappy-looking woman who had spoken kindly to him at some crowded Al +Fresco entertainment where he and his father and mother had gone one +fine July afternoon. He had asked about her as they drove home to the +lodgings, and he remembered his mother's warning finger, while his +father laughed over Lord B---- and Mrs. D----. + +At the end of the tale his mother, a gentle Christian soul, had said it +served the baggage right, and bade him never talk to people to whom he +had not been presented by his parents. No doubt the circumstances of the +two cases were totally different, but he connected them vaguely in his +mind. + +Moreover, without any doubt, Phyllida had caught his fancy. She +disturbed his view. Yet there was nothing that singled her out from a +dozen handsome young women with whom he had danced, whose existence save +as a bevy he no longer recognized. Still, whatever he thought about the +affair, his opinion would never again be invited and, disinherited by +Beau Ripple, he must consider his own position with an eye to the +future. + +He was bracing himself preparatory to this great mental effort, when he +perceived round the next bend of the stream Mr. Anthony Clare, pensively +leaning against the rugged stem of a pollard willow-tree. + +"Tony," said Charles, "Ripple has dismissed me." + +"I know," said his friend, "your writ of banishment, signed, sealed and +delivered, is pasted on the window of every coffee-house and occupies a +large and distinguished space in the vestibule of the Assembly Rooms. +What do you propose to do?" + +"I might hire myself out to the amiable Hogbin as carter." + +"Pshaw," said Tony, "be serious." + +"Or I might take to the road." + +"Nonsense, man." + +"Nay! I vow such a career has many advantages for a poor man, since he +may live and, what is more, die at the public charge." + +"You are not in earnest, Charles?" said Mr. Clare, laying an anxious +hand upon his friend's wrist. + +"And why not, i' faith?" + +"What would you gain by such an impulse of folly?" + +"My livelihood and, as I said, very possibly my funeral expenses." + +"Such flippancy is ill-timed," said Mr. Clare, who was a serious young +man and spent much of his leisure with the theory of estate-management. + +"Nay! I am not treating the matter as a jest, but truly considering the +benefit of adopting such a novel method of existence in these hard +times." + +"Novel!" said Clare, with a scoffing laugh. "Novel! why, every +ne'er-do-weel blackguard for the past hundred years has tried this novel +method of existence and every one of them has come at last to the same +windy death." + +"Oh, as to the last scene," interrupted Charles, "indeed I vow 'tis the +best in the play, for it never fails to please the populace, and sure in +this dull world a man should try to give a little amusement; I hold that +the author of a diverting comedy and the thief who makes a brave exit +are the truest benefactors of humanity." + +"All this is very pretty fooling, but leads nowhere," said Clare, who +had a proposal to make and was vexed by Charles' levity. + +"But ponder, Tony, the Gothick atmosphere of such an escapade. Imagine +the moated grange, the haunted lane, the shadowy coppice, the +phantastick oaths and gestures, the pursuit by moonlight, the clatter of +hoofs, the jingle of spurs--all this appeals to an aspect of my +character too long subdued by the bonds of convention and the trammels +of polite society." + +"But, you fool, you would be taken at once. You have no cant of the road +and, as a Dilettante, would certainly be regarded with odious suspicion +by every regular highway-man between Berwick and Dover. Oddslife, I'll +not argue with you further, for I do not believe you mean a word of what +you say, and, harkee, I have a plan that will suit either of us better +than your cut-throat Braggadocio." + +As a matter of fact, Charles had once or twice thought quite seriously +of taking to the road. After all, it was in accordance with every +precedent of outlawry. As soon as a man was banished from Society, he +should compensate himself for the discomfort he incurred. Tony, however, +now came forward with a project which, while it preserved much of the +charm of highway robbery, held none of its dangers or difficulties. He +suggested that since neither he nor Charles had very many ties to attach +them fast to Curtain Wells, they should spend a year in making the Grand +Tour of the British Islands. + +Charles objected on the score of money. + +"I have three hundred guineas," said Clare. "That will equip us with all +that we require as travellers, and I am sure the world will entertain us +for our pleasant appearance and company." + +"In fact we are to become beggars--in velvet gowns," Charles commented. + +"Adventurers, knights at arms, what you will," added Clare. + +Charles was enraptured with the idea, so deeply enraptured that he saw +no absurdity in grave Mr. Anthony Clare setting out upon such a career +of folly. In fact, it seemed the most natural thing in the world for his +friend to spend three hundred guineas on a whim. He himself would have +spent treble that sum (had he possessed it) in order to the exploitation +of such a witty, ingenious and romantick method of wasting time. + +"We must equip ourselves for the parts we are about to play. There must +be no shilly-shally, and above all no one must think us anything but +eccentrick men of fashion, itinerant beaux, fops on pilgrimage, +wandering wits." + +"The last phrase is unfortunate," said Clare. Charles laughed hugely. + +By this time Phyllida had faded like a summer joy, Vernon was forgotten, +nothing mattered except this new and exceedingly entertaining project. + +"What is the first thing to be done?" inquired Clare. + +"Egad, what should always precede any undertaking of importance--a visit +to the tailor." + +The two young men beneath a sky growing rapidly overcast, walked +quickly through the lush meadows towards Curtain Wells, discussing as +they went the merits of rival tailors with infinite vivacity. + +Meanwhile in the Crescent, our heroine was engaged upon much the same +problem. Possibly the reason that so many timid young women have been +brave enough to plunge into an elopement, is the obfuscation of the real +issue, the vital stakes, by the need of deciding what they shall leave +behind to console their abandoned virtue. + +So it was, at any rate, with Phyllida. She was deterred from soft +regrets by the desperate necessity of making up her mind between the +charms of a muslin frock overlaid with pink rosebuds and a muslin frock +sprigged with the palest blue forget-me-nots. + +There were a thousand sentiments that might well have restrained her +from the wild step she was taking, but everything was forgotten for a +trifle; and when finally she slipped out of the door, the only living +creature for whom she indulged herself in the luxury of a protracted +farewell, was Thomasina the tabby cat, and that was considerably +interrupted by the attenuated miaouws of a large family lately arrived. +Even Ponto the spaniel had sidled off to a favourite heap of rubbish. +Pray do not suppose I am sneering at Phyllida. Heaven forbid that you or +I should sneer at a young woman, however impetuous, however foolish. +Still, I cannot help observing that the heroism of most heroick actions +is to be sought for in the obscure preliminaries to a grand event. +Phyllida had known the agony of making up her mind through many a +firelit, sleepless night. When the moment arrived for carrying out her +resolve, she spent most of the forenoon reading the advertizement of a +fashionable mantua-maker. As to her devices for getting rid of her +mother and Betty and the landlady and Thomas and Miss Sukey Morton, who +called to inquire whether Mrs. Featherbrain's new novel was called _The +Affectionate Aunt_ or _The Disconsolate Uncle_,--why, they were as old +as the first writer of tales and I will not weary you with their +repetition. And why should I delay you with the narrative of the +attempt to open her mother's jewel-case with a bodkin and a silver +paper-knife? Like most toilet receptacles, it was very easily broken. + +She hurried down the Crescent with a small parcel of cloaths wrapped up +in brown paper and tied with a green ribbon. If you are anxious to know +what was inside, I will refer you to Miss Howe, Mr. Richardson's Miss +Howe, to whom Miss Clarissa Harlowe confided a parcel of much the same +dimensions and contents. + +She did not forget her swansdown muff nor her swansdown tippet, and +altogether she looked just the same as she looked a good many pages ago +and was flushed to just the same frail hue of carmine. + +Ding-dong went St. Simon's husky clock, ding-dong, ding-dong. + +Pitter-pat went Phyllida's heart and pitter-pitter-pitter-pitter-pat +went Phyllida's heart when, exactly opposite the toy-shop, she saw a +post chariot and four bay horses and two postillions staring very +intently at the sky. + +It struck Phyllida how clever it was of her dear Amor to chuse such a +time and such a place; for all the world was engaged in directing the +start of the Invincible Stage Coach that ploughed once a week between +Curtain Wells and London. + +Tootle-a-tootle-a-tootle went the long brass horn of the guard and +plump-plump went two large parcels into his basket and crack-crack went +the coachman's long whip, and 'Now then Miss, jump in,' said one of the +post-boys, still staring intently at the March sky, and before Phyllida +knew where she was, she found herself sitting on a rather damp cushion +with a peacock-blue riding hood lined with swansdown on the seat beside +her, but no sign of Mr. Francis Amor. + +In dismay she put her head out of the window and cried to the nearest +postillion. + +"Mr. Harmor's followin' on 'orseback," he said, with a thumping thwack +on the ribs of his mount and a vicious prod with his rusty spurs. + +Phyllida drew back with tears of disappointment starting to her wide +blue eyes; but before she could make up her mind to stop the chariot and +never elope again, she caught the glance of Thomas in open-mouthed +amazement. Instinctively, she pulled the musty curtains close, and, +lifting the leather flap at her back, could not help laughing aloud to +see dignified Thomas mopping his brow with his right hand and waving his +tall cane with the left; and just as the chariot tore round the corner +of the street, she saw that Thomas had knocked off Lord Cinderton's grey +beaver hat. The Love Chase had begun. + + + + +_Chapter the Twenty-eighth_ + +THE LOVE CHASE + + +John Gilpin never rode so fast through Edmonton as, on that memorable +afternoon in March, Major Constantine Tarry pounded over the cobbles of +Curtain High Street. His scarlet uniform was very bright against the +huge iron-grey steed on whose broad back he nodded with hat pressed down +as far as his fierce prickly eyebrows, with pigtail bobbing to the +motion and with sword whose martial clangour recalled every famous +battle in the history of the world. He was conversing with the widow +when Thomas burst upon them with the news of Phyllida's elopement. + +"Gone, gone!" wailed the footman. "Oh Tyre! Oh Sidon! Hittites on +horseback and two Amorites in a chariot!" + +"What the d----l do you mean, sir?" snapped the Major, "who is gone?" + +"Miss Phyllida," groaned Thomas. + +"Gone," breathed the widow, and the odour of diffused Sanspareil +permeated the room. + +"Gone where?" shouted the Major. + +"To the desert beyond Jordan," answered the footman. + +"With what viper in sheep's clothing?" gasped Mrs. Courteen. + +"Which way, which way, sirrah?" interrupted practical Major Tarry. + +"Lunnon," ejaculated Thomas, fainting into the arms of a chair. + +This was why the inhabitants of the Wells saw a veteran of the Low +Countries shaken up like a cherry in a basket. The sedate glories of the +town were never more nicely displayed than on this famous occasion. +From each bow-windowed shop came forth a bland shopkeeper and half a +dozen inquisitive customers. + +The little Miss Pettitoes trilled in bird-like accents: 'What an +adventure!' and returned to a counter spangled with their gay little +purchases, for the Miss Pettitoes were twin sisters and to-morrow was +their birthday. + +"What an adventure!" they trilled to each other over a dish of Hyson and +'What an adventure!' they trilled as they kissed each other 'good-night' +and went each to their bed chambers, identical save for the ribbons of +their fascinating little spinster night-caps. + +"Hurrah! hurrah!" shouted the boys, as they pushed the maids into the +puddles the better to follow so surprizing a cavalier. + +"Rot me!" said Mr. Golightly of the Grey Dragoons, as he lifted his +tortoise-shell rimmed monocle to his supercilious left eye, and 'Rot +you!' he ejaculated, as an enthusiastick trio of youth sheltered between +his remarkably tight-breeched legs. + +"Shall we make such an impressive entrance, d'ye think?" asked Mr. +Lovely, as he and Mr. Clare came out of Mr. Canticle's shop, followed by +Mr. Canticle himself and Mr. Canticle's apprentice loaded with a huge +brown-paper parcel. + +"Good day, Canticle," said Charles. + +"Good day, Mr. Lovely, good day, sir, and depend on't, grey will be the +modish colour for gentlemen of quality; and I beg you not to be uneasy +about the light-blue lining. That, sir, I venture to predict, will +supply the exact touch of genteel eccentricity that consorts so amiably +with the friendly madness of the season. I envy you, gentlemen, I envy +you; and I beg to wish you many a pleasant adventure. The cut of that +riding-coat, Mr. Lovely, will enthral the most fastidious glance, and as +for your breeches, Mr. Clare, I should perhaps be considered boastful if +I said that they impart a tone, sir, a very distinguished tone to the +landskip. Good day, gentlemen." + +The two young gentlemen laughed over Mr. Canticle's prophecies, and +excused his loquacity because he had been a limner till the vogue for +foreign painters compelled him to apply his art in another direction. + +It was certainly a stroke of irony that the offer of a sartorial uncle +should make him, a very tolerable exponent of nudity, take up the +occupation of devizing cloaths. + +By this time, Major Tarry's coat-tails were flapping to hedge-row winds, +and his astonishing course was less universally regarded; although, even +in open country, the clamorous transit caused much confusion to +itinerant carters, while a pair of blackbirds forsook their hardly built +nest and retired in voluble dismay to the densest coppice between +Baverstock Regis and Curtain Wells. + +Mr. Jeremy Daish met our hero with a very lugubrious expression, as he +strolled into the coffee-room. + +"What has your honour been doing to enrage Mr. Ripple? Oh, Mr. Lovely, +read this." + +Charles took the proffered note, and half-smiling, half-sighing, perused +his decree of banishment. + + THE GREAT HOUSE. + + CURTAIN WELLS, PRIDIE KAL. AP. + + MR. DAISH,--_The uncomfortable events of Wednesday evening compel + me to announce that I cannot contemplate with equanimity the + protracted Sojourn of Mr. Lovely at your hitherto peaceful House. I + have no desire to inflict upon you the invidious course of summary + Ejection, but at the same time I am bound to invite a trifle less + cordiality in your Reception of all young gentlemen unperturbed by + the Gout. The town of Curtain Wells exists for the supply of + hygiastick Waters; and, since red wine is a notorious antidote to + chalybeate, my civick brother the Mayor begs me to point out that + we cannot lend our patronage to a house which studiously encourages + the circulation of this antipathetick Beverage. In expectation, Mr. + Daish, that you will presently reconstruct at once your list of + wines and your list of visitors,_ + + _I am, Mr. Daish, your obliged_ + + HORACE RIPPLE. + + +"Console yourself, Daish," said our hero, as he handed back the Beau's +exquisitely written epistle, "Mr. Clare and I propose to make a long +excursion into the country this very afternoon. Have the goodness to +order our horses to be in the yard at six o'clock." + +"Certainly, your honour, but I hope that nothing I may have said or done +or hinted--or--or--or--" poor Mr. Daish stumbled over the awkwardness of +the interview, and was more like a Cremona violin than ever, a violin +whose strings were snapping one by one. + +"Console yourself, Daish," said our hero with an incredibly magnanimous +air, "you are not to blame. You must know, Daish, that for a long time +past I have had a curiosity to survey this small green earth, unhampered +by anything more serious than the impulse of the moment. To-night, +Daish, when you retire to rest, when you gather the curtains of your +serene bed, when you hark to the clock in the passage striking the +moderate and orderly hour of ten o'clock, when you reflect with a sigh +of proprietary contentment that you have offended no one in the course +of an innkeeper's promiscuous day, when, in a word, your respectable +head sinks into your respectable pillow, dally for a moment in the +imagination of Charles Lovely and Anthony Clare mocking society, +laughing at convention, seated in the parlour of some remote inn and +dozing gratefully before a pile of logs. + +"Think of us, Daish, in the cool dusks and azure silences of April, at +the top of some gentle hill whence we can regard with exhilaration the +prospect of a good dinner, a crimson glass, and genial intercourse with +travellers. Behold us in your mind's eye, walking our horses down +through the twilight, as one by one in cottage lattices the candles +twinkle and, high above, the stars betray the night with silver spears. +For my part, already I can hear the evening gossip of housewives, and +the babble of children in small gardens, and clear against the green +West, I can see the many lovers of a little town moving with slow steps +along their customary path. + +"Thus, my excellent Daish, each solemn nightfall will discover for us a +new world, and, when the sun rises on the merry unknown streets of our +pilgrimage, we shall think to ourselves what a vast number of jolly +people exist in this remarkably jolly world. Oddslife--"Mr. Lovely broke +off--"what a surprizing alliance." + +As he looked out of the window, we had better look out of the window +too, and I think you will be quite disposed to agree with Charles when I +show you that vivid yellow chaise drawn by two fiery chestnut horses, +and driven by that extraordinarily diminutive coachman, for inside are +seated Beau Ripple and the Widow Courteen, and neither you nor I nor +anybody else ever saw both so nearly disconcerted. + +"Now what the deuce can be the meaning of that?" continued Mr. Lovely. + +"Of what you were saying?" inquired Mr. Daish in a deprecating voice. + +"The horses! the horses!" was all that Mr. Lovely saw fit to reply. + +Major Tarry's earlier progress might well have been the meteor which +heralds a cataclysm, for cataclysm this later apparition certainly was. +I vow the noise of conversation it caused far exceeded anything of the +sort that was ever known. + +The Beau found the publicity of such an exit unendurable to his polite +soul. That his sacred chaise, which had once bowled along at a high but +decorous speed in order to meet the H--r A---- t of Great Britain, +should achieve such a vulgar notoriety nearly upset the sit of his +waistcoat. + +His contemporaries felt the Great little Man's humiliation. + +Yet compassion did not prevent them from forming numberless conjectures +as to the cause of this strange affair. Some said 'Debt!'; others boldly +affirmed an intrigue; but as usual nobody guessed the true reason, which +was that beneath a gorgeous exterior lurked the gentlest, kindliest +heart. + +When the Widow, with a very noisy tale of seduction, poured forth her +tears upon his cushions, Mr. Ripple instantly reproached himself and +nobody else with the disaster, immediately decided he must atone for his +negligence by immediately ringing his flowered bell-pull and commanding +Magog, who immediately appeared, to run immediately to the stables and +command the immediate harnessing of the royal horses to the royal chaise +and the immediate buttoning of his diminutive coachman's slender +gaiters. + +It was with a shudder, if a much polished shudder, that he handed Mrs. +Courteen to a place amid the fawn and ivory of the interior of his +chaise. With a barely repressed shudder, too, he observed the dabbled +rouge of her cheeks, and the open mouths of the cits, and the bobbing of +heads at windows, and a horrid bank of black clouds in the extreme +South-west that seemed to betoken a night full of rain, and last but +perhaps worst of all, the lean sign-post 'To London,' a prologue to +G---- knows what unendurable discomfort. + +"We have an adventure to hand," said Charles to Clare, as they strolled +across the yard of the _Blue Boar_. "We'll follow Ripple!" + +"Ripple?" + +"Ay! Which way did Mr. Ripple's chaise go?" demanded Charles of a knot +of idlers. + +"Lunnon Road," they replied unanimously. + +"We must get ready at once," declared Charles. + + * * * * * + +"How pleasant 'twould be," thought Phyllida, "if I were not alone." + +Even alone, it was very pleasant to bowl along a level road at an +equable rate of speed. It was very pleasant to try on the peacock-blue +riding hood that so became her. It was very pleasant to see the cheerful +faces of the many wayfarers encountered by the chariot. The backs of the +postillions glowed with scarlet, and a gay contrast they made to the +flaming gorse of a wild open stretch of country. Every cottage that +nestled back from the road with clipped yews to guard the gate seemed to +Phyllida a desirable place to live and love in for ever. It was +pleasant to watch the lambs in the meadows, and exciting indeed to count +the still sparse primroses starring the hedgerows. It was pleasant to +watch the children stand on the topmost rung of a five-barred gate and +cheer as they rattled past. Very pleasant it was, though the sight +brought a slight lump in her throat, as she thought how often she had +done the same thing with Dick Combleton the Squire's youngest son. + +Up-hill with many a groan and grunt, and down-hill with a clatter and a +dash, and along the level with a ring and a jingle went the post-chariot +in the afternoon sunlight. Past farm-house and farm-yard, past villages +and churches, and inns with waving signs, past ponds and geese, past +many a tired woman trudging home from market and many a jovial carter; +past sign-posts and cross-roads and milestones; past smithies with +roaring fires and monstrous bellows, past lowing cows and crowing cocks, +past journeymen tinkers and journeymen barbers, past a great dancing +bear which, had Phyllida but known it, danced not a whit more foolishly +for bumpkins than rose-pink Phyllida herself for the malicious eyes of +the world of fashion. + +After a long climb up a heavy hill, whence a very fair champagne spread +before her, the great black and purple cloud caught the westering sun, +and suffused the whole landskip with a queer metallick sheen. It made +the rooks that swayed in the bare branches of a windy clump of elms take +on a strange green lustre over their plumage, and cast a stillness over +the world. That view remained with Phyllida all her life, as a pause +wherein she had contemplated existence for the briefest moment. Years +afterwards, an old woman, sitting in a dim ingle-nook, would see that +fair champagne in the clouds of smoke that curled ceaselessly up the +wide chimney, and, above the scent of burning logs, would be wafted the +perfume of the white March violets that blossomed at the foot of those +swaying elms where the rooks cawed and the dead leaves raced round and +round. + +"Stop, you blackguards," cried a rasping voice above the noise of fast +approaching hoofs. + +"Crack! crack!" went Dickie Maggs' big pistol. + +"'Ighwayman, Miss," he added cheerfully, as the sound of something soft +falling was heard, followed by horse-hoofs in mad retreat down the long +heavy hill. + +In a moment, the chariot was rocking in a wild gallop down the opposite +decline. + +Raindrops began to fall, deliberately at first, but soon fast enough, +while the earth was slowly blotted out by storm and rain and twilight. + +On the summit of the hill, Major Constantine Tarry lay face downwards, +having paid the extreme penalty of interference with other people's +business. Poor Tarry, he was a bore and a braggart, and had not the +slightest intention of being killed, yet I for one regret the manner of +his death, up there on the top of that wind-swept hill. And for all he +told you such very long stories when he asked you to dine with him at +Oudenarde Grange and Malplaquet Lodge and Ramilies House, he gave you +some capital Port, and Sherry nearly as dry as his own anecdotes. +Moreover, he really fought in that bloody fight of Fontenoy, and that +was a very great honour and should make us forgive a very great deal. + +A flash of lightning illuminated the dead body of the veteran lying face +downwards in the mud of an English high-road, and a distant volley of +thunder accorded military honours to his somewhat grotesque death. + + + + +_Chapter the Twenty-ninth_ + +THE BASKET OF ROSES + + +Some four-and-twenty miles from Curtain Wells on the Great West Road is +a tangle of briers among whose blossoms an old damask rose is sometimes +visible. If the curious traveller should pause and examine this fragrant +wilderness, he will plainly perceive the remains of an ancient garden, +and if he be of an imaginative character of mind will readily recall the +legend of the Sleeping Beauty in her mouldering palace; for some +enchantment still enthralls the spot, so that he who bravely dares the +thorns is well rewarded with pensive dreams and, as he lingers a while +gathering the flowers or watching their petals flutter to the green +shadows beneath, will haply see elusive Beauty hurry past. + +Here at the date of this tale stood the _Basket of Roses_ Inn, a mile or +so away from a small village. When coaches ceased to run, the house +began to lose its custom and, as stone is scarce hereabouts, was +presently pulled down in order to provide the Parson with a peculiarly +bleak Parochial Hall. + +However, this melancholy fate was still distant, and old Simon Tabrum +had a fine custom from the coaches and private travellers who delighted +to spend a night in so sweet a lodging. + +The _Basket of Roses_ was the fairest, dearest inn down all that billowy +London road. The counter, sheathed in a case of pewter, the glasses all +in a row, the sleek barrels and the irregular lines of home-brewed +cordials, charmed the casual visitor to a more intimate acquaintance. +Behind the tap was the Travellers' Room, and what a room it was--with +great open fireplaces and spits and bubbling kettles and blackened +ingles. Long-buried ancestors of the village had carved their rude +initials over each high-backed bench and battered the bottoms of the +great tankards into unexpected dents by many rollicking choruses in the +merry dead past. The walls of this room knew the pedigree of every +bullock and the legend of every ghost for many miles round. Here was the +cleanest floor, the clearest fire in England. + +Old Tabrum the landlord was the very man for the house--the very man to +bring out all that was most worthy in his guests. He always produced +good wine and a piping hot supper, never asked for his money till his +guests were satisfied and always wore an apron as white as the foam of +his cool deep ale. + +He was eighty years old now, with a bloom on his cheeks like an autumn +pippin and two limpid blue eyes that looked straight into yours and, if +you had any reverence at all, made the tears well involuntarily at the +sight of such gentle beauty. + +Once he was a famous Basso Profundo, but now his voice was high and +thin, and seemed already fraught with faint aerial music. The ancient +man was a great gardener as properly became a landlord whose sign was a +swinging posy. What a garden there was at the back of this glorious inn. +The bowling-green surrounded by four grey walls was the finest ever +known, and as for the borders, deep borders twelve feet wide, they were +full of every sweet flower. There were Columbines and Canterbury Bells +and blue Bells of Coventry and Lilies and Candy Goldilocks with Penny +flowers or White Sattin and Fair Maids of France and Fair Maids of Kent +and London Pride. + +There was Herb of Grace and Rosemary and Lavender to pluck and crush +between your fingers, while some one rolled the jack across the level +green of the ground. In Spring there were Tulips and Jacynths, Dames' +Violets and Primroses, Cowslips of Jerusalem, Daffodils and Pansies, +Lupins like spires in the dusk, and Ladies' Smocks in the shadowed +corners. As for Summer, why the very heart of high June and hot July +dwelt in that fragrant enclosure. Sweet Johns and Sweet Williams with +Dragon flowers and crimson Peaseblossom and tumbling Peonies, Blue +Moonwort and the Melancholy Gentlemen, Larksheels, Marigolds, Hearts, +Hollyhocks and Candy Tufts. There was Venus' Looking Glass and Flower of +Bristol and Apple of Love and Blue Helmets and Herb Paris and Campion +and Love in a Mist and Ladies' Laces and Sweet Sultans or Turkey +Cornflowers, Gillyflower Carnations (Ruffling Rob of Westminster amongst +them) with Dittany and Sops in Wine and Floramor, Widow Wail and +Bergamot, True Thyme and Gilded Thyme, Good Night at Noon and Flower de +Luce, Golden Mouse-ear, Princes' Feathers, Pinks, and deep-red Damask +Roses. + +It was a very wonderful garden indeed. + +And because the old man loved flowers, tending them in the early +twilight with water and releasing them from many a small weed which he +was fain to destroy, but in the end always replanted in a small clearing +on the shady side of his farthest meadow, because he loved flowers, the +old man, whose first wife died years and years ago on a long past +primrose-tide, married in the hale winter of his life a comfortable +wench whom he could trust as he trusted his flowers to be true to their +seasons. This second wife, more like a daughter than a wife, he +delighted to surprize with fragrant rolls of gaily sprigged cloths; and +never a summer morning broke but he was abroad in the dewy grass to +gather her such a posy of freshness and beauty as can only be taken in +the earliest hours of the morning. Mrs. Tabrum, for all she was so young +and rosy, had a great feeling for the importance of her position as +mistress of a famous hostelry and ordered about little Polly Patch, +newly arrived from Mrs. Margery Severe's select charity school, with a +great air of ladyship. Little Polly Patch was a very important young +woman too; for the _Basket of Roses_ was not a large galleried inn full +of grooms and hostlers and waiters and chambermaids, but a house of +quite another character, where you were never bewildered by superfluous +service but always received with a quiet dignity. Therefore you paid a +great deal of respectful attention to little Polly Patch who had a great +deal to do with your night's rest and your morning's breakfast. I think +Mr. Vernon was a very wise man to choose a domestick fairyland so apt to +soothe the sweet alarms of his Phyllida. + +Here they would sup while the horses were being changed, and hence they +would set out in the darkness, preserving, as they galloped along, a +sense of peace and quiet beauty that should be to her the fortunate +prelude of a happy adventure. + +Vernon had sent word to the house of their arrival, hinted at the +fatigues of a gay bridal, and let it be supposed they desired no +intrusion. + +To the ancient man such a confidence was enough to set his old brain +agog with the gallant scenes of his youth. He chuckled over every +tankard of ale he drew, told every one of his daffodils the merry secret +and piped away at long forgotten melodies until his wife in despair sat +him down in the ingle, put a broken fiddle in his hand and bade him play +his fancies to sleep. The storm that rose at sunset shrieked about the +inn, and the hollow groaning in the mazes of the huge chimney consorted +in fitting harmonies with the old man's eerie tunes. + +"March is going out wi' thunder and tempest like a roaring lion," he +muttered, as a sudden gust of hail was blown against the lattice which +pattered and rattled as if a crowd of elfin drummers were beating a wild +tattoo without. + +"Aye, 'tis a main ugly night," said Mrs. Dorothy Tabrum, who was laying +the shining silver about the snowy tablecloth. + +"So 'tis, my peony, so 'tis! A main ugly night for daffodils and young +brides. Is her chamber ready?" he went on. + +"Aye! Aye!" + +"Wi' rosy curtains drawn close?" + +Mrs. Tabrum nodded. + +"Wi' candlelight and the cracking of logs and green bayleaves in the +presses?" + +"Why, do'ee think I'm gone daft to forget suchlike?" + +"And a vase of daffodils by her mirrour?" the ancient one persisted. + +Polly Patch came in at that moment. + +"All be ready, mistress," she said in a slow voice, solemnly nodding her +enormous mobcap while she spoke. + +"Now Polly," said Mrs. Tabrum, "lend a hand wi' this table and lets put +'un a thought nearer to the fire. Ugh! how it blows!" A vivid flash of +lightning illuminated the room, and on the heels of a terrifick roar of +thunder there was a cry of 'House! House!' + +"Hurry, hurry, my daisies, and make who comes there welcome. Jacob! +Jacob!" cried the old landlord as, much excited, he rose from his seat +in the ingle and quavered towards the taproom. + +"You are sure the candles are lighted, Polly?" + +"Sarten, mistress." + +"And the logs burning brightly?" + +"'Ess mistress." + +"And the curtains pinned together?" + +"'Ess mistress." + +"Then stand by the door, curtsey when you're spoken to, and don't put +your thumb in the soup." + +"No, mistress." + +"Is Mary Maria watching the fowls?" + +"Wi' both her eyes, mistress." + +"Hark!" + +"I'm harking away, mistress." + +And while the mistress and the maid harked vigilantly the ancient +landlord ushered Miss Phyllida Courteen into the Travellers' Room of the +_Basket of Roses_ Inn. + +As he entered, old Tabrum looked very much like a sexton leading a shy +maid to the altar. She, flustered, expectant, murmured soft thanks into +the farthest recesses of her swansdown muff, stumbled frequently to the +voluble distress of her guide, and seemed afraid to look round the +well-ordered comfortable room after so many miles of wind and driving +rain. + +"Dear soul! And where's the bridegroom?" exclaimed Mrs. Tabrum, as she +led Phyllida to a high-backed chair right before the heart of the +blazing fire. + +Phyllida blushed as she explained Mr. Amor was travelling on horseback. + +"Indeed, I expected to find him here," she stammered, "Oh! I hope +nothing has happened to him." + +"Now, don't 'ee fret thyself, sweet marjoram," said the ancient one, +humming round her like a bee. "A'most anything might have happened to +him on such a dreadful night." + +"Don't 'ee hark to the ancient dodderer," interrupted the dodderer's +wife. + +"Killed by a falling tree, withered to a cinder by bloody lightning." + +"You alarm me," exclaimed Phyllida, jumping up. + +"Hold thy ancient foolish tongue," commanded Mrs. Tabrum peremptorily, +"and go see that Mary Maria keeps the fowls turning a while yet." + +"Very well, my gillyflower, very well," piped senility, "but don't 'ee +take on, my little blue love-in-a-mist, happen 'tis no more than a +broken leg has overtook your husband." + +"Polly," said Mrs. Tabrum, who saw that Phyllida was on the verge of +tears, "take thy ancient master away. Hark," she finished, with an +impressive forefinger. + +"What are us to hark to, pretty pink?" + +"Ef I doant hear a great tom-cat a-scratching in the tulips, my name +be'ant Dorothy Ann Tabrum." + +As at this moment the tempest outside was howling with unsurpassed fury, +it is extremely doubtful whether the buxom lady spoke the truth, but her +husband was alert at once and hastily snatching down a blunderbuss +labelled 'Loaded on Tuesday sennight' Simon Tabrum moved stealthily from +the room. + +"You must pardon my ancient old husband for his flowery manner of +speech. 'Tis not disrespect he do mean, but love and charity wi' his +neighbour, having as it were been sown a power of years ago and being +now apt to let his withered branches fall on the heads of all manner of +folk." + +As this long sentence was evidently considered a full and proper +explanation of the dodderer's inconvenient habit of prophecy, Phyllida +smiled very charmingly and said she quite understood. + +"And now let us gossip of thy wedding," said Mrs. Tabrum in a cosy tone +of voice, "or would 'ee rather go to thy chamber, pretty miss?" + +"Oh! indeed I will stay here, thank you. Mr. Amor might come at any +moment." + +"Polly! Polly Patch!" + +"'Ess, mistress." + +"What for are 'ee standing there, lolloping thy great cap, dollop. Be +off, great clockface, be off, pundle, to Mary Maria, and tell her to +keep the fowls a-turning and a-turning." + +Polly Patch curtseyed solemnly and retreated slowly, murmuring to +herself, "and not to put my thumbs in the soup." + +"Do you think he will be a very long time?" asked Phyllida, turning +suddenly to the landlady and looking indescribably wistful. + +"What I can't make out, my lamb, is how he came to leave 'ee on such a +night. That's what I can't make out at all. Now at my bride-ale, for all +I was wedding a man old enough to be my ancestor, why it was bride-ale, +I do warrant. My aged husband being a publican and a sinner, there was a +mort of merry-making, I tell 'ee, and 'twas only when Tabrum slipped on +the floor and cracked the back of his faded head as we finished, and me +forced to use the holland smock as I won at Ascensiontide smock-racing. +Oh! his head was so raw as an egg, and running faster than ever I run +for the smock." + +"How dreadful," murmured Phyllida, not quite sure whether the narrative +should offend her maiden sensibility or not. + +"But he was out wi' the hens next morning," the talkative lady +continued, "out wi' the hens and scratching away in the garden as hard +as any of 'em. But, I tell 'ee, I did souse his head wi' vinegar when I +got 'un indoors. The house smelt like a jar of pickle for a week o' +Sundays after. But there! Tabrum he gets ascited. Don't matter whether +'tis his own or another's wedding, he's all the while jumping around +like a Shrovetide pancake. And talk--well, 'tis babble, babble, and all +of men and maids as was under yews twenty green years ago. I tell 'ee, +we all laffed when he began telling 'ow he kissed my grandmother coming +out of Evening Prayer one frosty night. 'The moon was on her back,' he +says, 'ay, and ecod! so was she!' Pretty times, pretty times!" + +What farther free confessions would have rippled from Mrs. Tabrum's +cherry-ripe lips, it would ill become a modest writer or reader to +speculate. They were cut short by the lurching entrance of Charlie and +Dicky Maggs, the two postillions. + +It would have been hard to find a more ill-favoured pair of ruffians in +a day's posting. Both of them had dismounted very regularly at every +house of call on the road and arrived at the _Basket of Roses_ with a +considerable cargo of bad spirits. The prospect of a long wait, while +the horses were changed and their fares supped, encouraged them to +farther excesses, and a lucky summons to the drawer to reach down a +special cordial gave them an opportunity to finish off the greater part +of a bottle of Plymouth Gin. + +Fortified by this, annoyed to find that Vernon had not arrived, and half +afraid they would lose their wages, they had come in to extract from +Miss Courteen as much money as they could, being willing and anxious to +drink away every minute of the wait. + +"Ve're vet, Miss," said Charles. + +"And it vouldn't be amiss if ve could 'ave a little piece of gold as 'ud +varm us wiv its shining," said Dicky. + +"Mr. Amor will settle your charges," said Phyllida. + +"And be off, you ruffians," exclaimed Mrs. Tabrum, enraged by this +impudent invasion of the Travellers' Room. + +"Shut your mouth, mother Appleface," hiccoughed Charlie. + +"And fork out somefink on account, Miss," oozed from his brother. + +The latter began to move with uncertain steps after Phyllida, who shrank +towards the shelter of the inglenook. + +"Jacob! Jacob! Simon Tabrum! Polly Patch! Mary Maria!" screamed the +landlady, snatching at the only article of offence in reach, which +happened to be a pair of bellows. With these she puffed away furiously, +to the enormous delight of the drunken postillions, who continued to +advance and indeed probably found the air of the bellows very grateful +to their heated brains. + +It is unlikely that anything more serious than a volley of oaths would +have occurred, if a tall elderly gentleman in a chestnut-brown frogged +riding-coat had not come in at that moment; but as he did come in, no +doubt the room was the sweeter for the interruption. + +"Oh, your honour," said Mrs. Tabrum, "will 'ee please turn out these +drunken rogues, seeing as all the house is away at their business and no +one near by." + +The elderly gentleman clenched his riding-stick a trifle more firmly and +directed his steel-grey eyes--equally potent weapons--towards the +abashed brothers. They did not wait to be addressed, but hurried as +quickly as the fumes of liquor allowed them, to the more congenial +atmosphere of the taproom. It is comforting to reflect, while they +twisted their way out, that Charlie and Dicky Maggs were hanged at +Tyburn for a peculiarly atrocious robbery and brutal assault upon a +blind rat-tamer, who, with many clinging rats and mice and a +scarlet-frilled dog, was a familiar figure in the villages round London. +It is not perhaps so comforting to reflect upon the poor old man lying +insensible in a puddle, with his tame rats and mice wandering aimlessly +in and out of his innumerable pockets and his scarlet-frilled dog with +three broken ribs moaning in the middle of a quickset bush. Egad! I vow +the Tyburn horse never responded so readily to Jack Ketch's whip and +never a pair of rogues went so ashen grey at the tide of a mob's +execrations in all the livid chronicles of quick and evil ends. + +The elderly gentleman in the chestnut Surtout turned from the exit of +Charlie and Dickie Maggs to survey the subject of their insolence. It +would have puzzled an onlooker to say precisely what effect was produced +on the elderly gentleman's countenance by this deliberate inspection of +Miss Phyllida Courteen, now melting in tears of apprehension and only +barely restrained from hystericks by Mrs. Tabrum's plump hands in +extensive motion. + +When the iron-grey clouds of a chill December afternoon dissolve for a +moment in the scud of a high gale and shed a ray of pallid sunlight on a +spent blossom, we are almost glad to see the thin azure thus displayed +as quickly veiled, and welcome the sullen twilight that succeeds. The +elderly gentleman's countenance took on for a brief moment a strange +light, but the frosted smile betrayed so much grim sorrow behind that it +was quite a relief to see his face resume a normal frigidity as he +muttered a regret and inquired into the chances of a good night's +lodging. + + + + +_Chapter the Thirtieth_ + +SIR GEORGE REPINGTON + + +"It is now eight o'clock," said the elderly gentleman, "if this young +lady has no objection, I will eat a light supper in this apartment; and +if you, ma'am, have no objection, I will retire to my bedchamber +immediately after the meal. I do not require a heavy supper," he added +as Mrs. Tabrum's jolly face began to pucker with the impatience of a +good housewife to enumerate the plentiful dainties of a well-stocked +larder. + +The latter perceiving that Phyllida was recovered of her alarm, and +anxious to prove to the elderly gentleman that his appetite was in the +wrong by producing a flock of savoury dishes as speedily as possible, +hereupon curtseyed, and was soon audible in shrill pursuit of little +Polly Patch. + +The Travellers' Room of the _Basket of Roses_ was plunged into rosy +quiet. The Dutch clock swung a languid pendulum to and fro with gentle +tick; the fire whispered and crackled faintly; the lattices occasionally +shook before a more unruly blast; a mouse stood up in a dark corner and +squeaked; the huge oak dresser occasionally tapped; two unknown birds, +screened till morning by chintz foliage, sometimes stirred on their +perches; the elderly gentleman sometimes rapped his mother-o'-pearl +snuff-box; Phyllida sometimes smoothed her forget-me-not flowered +skirts; and away in the taproom was a tinkle and murmur of taproom +sounds muffled by several intervening doors. Yet, however fair the +surroundings, it is impossible for two people, unacquainted, to maintain +a graceful silence for long. The elderly gentleman began to tap his +snuff-box more frequently, while Phyllida would smooth her skirts more +persistently and from time to time cast a sidelong glance in the +direction of the elderly gentleman. The latter felt the undercurrent of +strong emotion so keenly that he was worried by this steady inaction +into a curiosity quite alien to his character, and plunged into a +conversation consisting principally of a large number of direct +questions on his side and a small number of indirect replies on the part +of Phyllida. At last, after a tiresome quarter of an hour in which the +only solid piece of information given and offered was the fact that he +was going to, she departing from the salubrious town of Curtain Wells, +the elderly gentleman produced from the upper left-hand pocket of his +waistcoat an oval case of worn Morocco leather. Phyllida observed that +he rapped this in just the same decided way as he rapped his snuff-box +and felt a certain incongruity in his manner, as he took from it the +miniature of a young girl and offered the portrait for her inspection, +asking whether she detected a likeness. + +The girl, depicted with the meticulous art of the worker on a small +scale, recalled at once the features of Mr. Charles Lovely. Phyllida +hesitated for a moment before assigning the likeness to such a man. + +"You observe, Madam, the resemblance to yourself?" said the elderly +gentleman. + +"To myself?" replied Miss Courteen taken aback. + +"For what other reason should I show it to you?" + +"To say truth, sir, it reminds me more of a gentleman----" + +"Eh! what's that," he interrupted. "Not young Charles Lovely?" + +"Indeed, sir--'twas he occurred to my mind." + +"You know him?" + +"I have stepped a minuet with him," replied Phyllida, now more than ever +on her guard against the steel-grey eyes of the elderly gentleman. + +"This was my sister, his mother." + +If you had asked the stranger what prompted him to confide so suddenly +in Miss Courteen, I doubt he would have been unable to tell you. If his +clerks could have seen Sir George Repington, head of the great banking +house of Repington, at this moment they would have been indescribably +shocked to hear him announce this piece of personal information. The +clerks in busy Throgmorton Street firmly believed that the great Sir +George Repington lived a desolate and severe life surrounded by +calculating machines of enormous complication; they would have gasped to +imagine his bleak financial solitudes disturbed by a young woman in an +inn-parlour. The chief cashier, indeed, might have emitted one of his +dry hacking little laughs; but then the chief cashier had grown old in +the service of the Repingtons and, having known Sir George as a young +man, enjoyed a privileged cynicism. Moreover, the chief cashier when he +was junior clerk had carried half a score sealed notes to Thistlegrove +Cottage--a diminutive paradise five or six miles along the Hounslow +Road. There, amid the chirping of many linnets, young Master Repington +would swear eternal fidelity while the sun-dyed sleepy air coloured his +dear one's lips as deep as rubies and enchanted with gold her soft brown +hair. No doubt the present scene of this small history would have +awakened a delightful memory from the dusty recesses of the chief +cashier's brain, for all that the end of Thistlegrove Cottage was a +businesslike affair on a level with many other successful monetary +transactions of the great house of Repington and Son. + +Phyllida was somewhat embarrassed by the sudden announcement of his +relationship to that dreadful Mr. Lovely, who had lampooned the whole of +the fashionable world. She wondered if the elderly gentleman was aware +of his nephew's late indiscretion, whether she ought to break the news +of his odium, and finally with a maid's inconsequence fell to wishing +she had never eloped since the step had involved her in so awkward an +adventure. + +Sir George, noticing her embarrassment, introduced himself, + +"My name is Repington, ma'am--Sir George Repington." As he said this he +received the miniature from Phyllida, and having, as it were, fondled +the oval for a second, replaced it in the upper left-hand pocket of his +waistcoat. + +The introduction put Phyllida deeper than ever into a quandary. She felt +the genteel movement to be a low curtsey coupled with the graceful +revelation of her name, but this was just the act she could not bring +herself to perform. What a vast number of polite difficulties attached +themselves to an elopement, and how she wished with all her heart she +had never been so foolish as to brave them unaccompanied. + +"The resemblance is certainly very remarkable," said Sir George +Repington. + +Phyllida clutched this conversational straw. + +"I doubt, sir, 'twould ill become me to allow the compliment." + +The stilted reply did not seem to offend the elderly gentleman, for he +bowed very gallantly and tapped the lid of his snuff-box with an air. + +"And my nephew, ma'am, what does Curtain Wells think of my nephew?" + +Luckily for Phyllida who was racking her brains to devize a polite +method of informing Sir George Repington that his nephew had offended +the whole world, that is to say the whole world known to the residents +and visitors of Curtain Wells, Mrs. Tabrum came back to say that a pair +of fowls were on their way. + +"A morsel of cheese is all that I require, thank'ee," said Sir George to +this information. "A morsel of cheese, well-aired sheets and----" + +"A bit off the breast," murmured Mrs. Tabrum coaxingly. + +"Well-aired sheets and----" + +"A grilled drumstick," insinuated the landlady. + +"Well-aired sheets and----" + +"The liver wing." + +Sir George Repington capitulated and sat down to supper with Phyllida +opposite and a great bowl of daffadillies between them. + +Nobody ever found out what exactly was the elderly gentleman's unspoken +requirement. + +Sir George was enjoying himself--a very unusual occupation for that grim +and solid man of business. + +Phyllida, on the contrary, was becoming more deeply embarrassed every +moment. She could not help picturing to herself the awkwardness of +greeting her dear Amor in the presence of such a man. Moreover, she +could not understand why the latter preserved such a lack of curiosity. +She, a heroine to herself, was unable to appreciate the point of view +that took her and her adventure for granted. She almost resented Sir +George's acceptation of her as part of the furniture of a wayside inn. + +As a matter of fact, the banker was abroad to enjoy himself, and the +discovery of a maid sitting solitary in the firelight of an inn parlour +only struck him as whimsical in so far as she resembled his dead sister. +Having, after a lapse of many grey years, put on once more the mantle of +youth, he was very ready to welcome a face that consorted so perfectly +with his mood. + +But as supper went on, and the elderly gentleman inquired no farther +into the well-being of Mr. Charles Lovely, while Mr. Amor did not +arrive, and the drunken postillions remained in the tap-room, and the +Dutch clock ticked on quite unperturbed by the raging of the storm +without, Phyllida began to regain her equanimity, and even to converse +so trippingly with the elderly gentleman that elopements and Gretna +Green marriages floated away while she chattered of her dearest Morton, +betrayed the latter's partiality for young Mr. Chalkley, compared her +boldness with the more modest behaviour of a certain Miss Jenny West, +who was the third daughter of a parson who lived four--no five miles +from where they lived in Hampshire, jumped from the tale of Miss West to +the tale of Miss West's brother who scandalized the country by stepping +eight consecutive gavottes with his cousin from Hertfordshire; and +ultimately confided to Sir George her profound contempt for Mr. Moon and +her immense distrust of Major Tarry. Yet, at the very moment when she +was telling Sir George of a ludicrous chase of the Major's wig one windy +March morning in the preceding year the furious gale was blowing his +sodden pigtail to and fro without a curse from the little soldier in +whom stern death had begotten a divine and everlasting indifference to +the minor amenities of polite appearance. Sir George Repington was near +to the capture of his fled youth that fire-lit evening. He was back in +the old South Gallery at Repington Hall sitting in the wide window seat +at the West End, and opposite to him with flushed exquisite face sat his +sister Joan, rippling joyfully through the fair meadows of life like a +glittering brook. The musick of Phyllida's conversation revived for the +elderly gentleman many a crimson dusk. He thought with a sigh of the +South Gallery now, with its hollow echoes, its dust and long line of +contemptuous ancestors, and of himself as, with severe tread, he ran the +batteries of many immutable eyes. + +Old Tabrum would quaver in from time to time to survey the comfort of +his guests, regaling them with some particularly choice floral anecdote. +His wife too would peep to inquire whether the roasted fowls fulfilled +her expectations, and once little Polly Patch put her cap round the door +and asked if his honour would like the warming-pan left in his bed or +merely whisked three or four times over his already well-aired sheets. + + * * * * * + +Phyllida made a careless remark about her mother, and Sir George +Repington hoped that Mrs. Courteen (Phyllida had some time ago divulged +her name) would not be alarmed by the strife of the elements. Phyllida +made a very careless reply to this, by reassuring Sir George about her +mother, who, as she pointed out, would be not at all likely to observe +the wildness of the night in her anxiety to secure her hand against the +prying glances of my lady Bunbutter. + +"Is that Sir Moffyn Bunbutter's lady?" said Sir George. + +"Yes, indeed, sir." + +"Sure to be, sure to be," Sir George commented. "Who'd have thought of +seeing poor old Sir Moffyn's lady here of all places?" + +"But she's not here, sir. She is at Curtain Wells." + +"But your mother?" + +Phyllida saw her mistake, but, being unused to falsehoods, made no +attempt to extricate herself from the situation provoked by her own +carelessness. As a happy compromise, she blushed and made queer little +excavations in the salt-cellar. + +"You've no brother and your father is dead?" went on Sir George, fixing +the abashed young woman with his sharp eyes. "Then you are alone in this +inn?" + +The statement, put so baldly, sounded very dreadful to Miss Courteen. +Moreover, she had an uneasy idea that the elderly gentleman was +beginning to feel himself compromised by her company, so she made +patterns in the salt-cellar more fantastick than ever, blushed till the +shells of her ears seemed veritably to crack in the furnace of outraged +sensibility, and looked very guilty. + +"Alone?" the elderly gentleman repeated. + +Phyllida's whispered 'yes' was only just audible above the languid +ticking of the Dutch clock. + +The antique landlord broke the tension by putting his head round the +door and demanding from Sir George whether he preferred to sleep in the +Dorick Summerhouse with a view of the surrounding country, or in the +Green Vista with a more comfortable bed, if not so wide a view. +Antiquity was followed by his wife, who hustled him fairly into the +candlelight and explained that all their bedchambers were named to suit +the flowery eccentricity of her husband. + +"Thus we have the Parterre," said old Simon in support of his wife's +explanation, "the Pleached Alley (though that is more truly a passage). +The Sun Dial (a warm attick), the Quincunx, the Bosquet, the Arbour, the +Green Gallery, the Cascade (or stairway) and for my dear hollyhock and +myself, the Columbary." + +"God bless you, sirrah," said Sir George rather testily, "I'm no Dutch +garden-maker that I should fret about such vagaries of taste. Oons! +plant me where you will, I wager I shall not open till daybreak." + +This quip pleased the old landlord enormously, and he retired upon a +chuckle prolonged sufficiently to convey him to the farthest ends of the +house, whither he was followed by his anxious wife. + +Left alone once more, Phyllida and Sir George looked at each other over +the remains of that genial supper. + +Neither broke the silence for a while. The elderly gentleman was the +first to speak. + +"Don't you think it is somewhat unwise to travel alone, especially as +your postillions do not seem a very trusty pair?" + +"I am not really alone," said Phyllida, +"I'm--I'm--expecting--a--a--companion." + +Sir George Repington raised his eyebrows and seemed about to make a +severe comment upon this halting explanation, but, leaning his elbow on +the table and his cheek on his hand, he changed his mind and in cold +deliberate accents, so cold and so deliberate that you would have sworn +a weight of emotion was sunk beneath them, began a tale. Since this tale +must either be told by me or by Sir George himself, inasmuch as it +concerns one or two of our characters, I will let the original author +give it to you in his own words, nay I will give the story the +distinction of a chapter to itself. + + + + +_Chapter the Thirty-first_ + +A TALE WITH AN INTERRUPTED MORAL + + +Sir George Repington filled up his glass (he was drinking Port wine), +motioned Phyllida to a seat on the right, sat himself down opposite, +and, to the accompaniment of thunder and lightning and wind and rain, +proceeded to entertain her with some vastly interesting details of his +domestick history. + +"I have already shown you the portrait of my sister Joan, and you will +remember that I remarked upon the resemblance between you and her--I did +not think at the time that such a coincidence would fulfil itself even +more completely. + +"We were left orphans soon after I reached my twenty-fifth birthday, and +I will admit that I experienced a keen sensation of pride in the +responsibleness of a great financial house and a very attractive young +woman. Pray, remember I was still young. We lived when we were in London +at a pleasant house in Soho Square, on the side nearest to the Oxford +Road, but spent much of our leisure at Repington Hall, a fine old family +mansion in the county of Surrey, near enough to the town to make our +visits there very frequent." + +Sir George sighed at the pleasant memories as he sipped his glass of +Port wine. + +"We spent many golden days at Repington Hall and our friends, carefully +selected, as all young people's friends are, found the long June +evenings on the great sloping lawn not less pleasant than we did. Egad! +I can see them all now and hear over the long silences that invariably +punctuate such intimate conversation the lowing of the cows in the home +farm and the deer crunching the sweet long grass beneath the broad +oak-trees. And in Spring what a choir of nightingales sang in the +gnarled whitethorn trees by the sunk fence, and in late summer what +myriads of grasshoppers chirruped in the twilight. Yes, yes, I can see +them all--young Harbottle Ramsey--he's my Lord Sodor and Man +now--succeeded his uncle who was executed after the rising in +'45--well--well, Harbottle was always a staunch Whig, and by gad, so +were all of us in those evenings at Repington. Then there was Burnet, +Cinderton's eldest son--he is Cinderton now--Burnet was always monstrous +careful about his cloaths and always carried a small Persian rug to sit +upon. I remember we used to call it the hearthrug--Harthe-Brusshe is the +family name--and now they tell me he's a positive martyr to the lumbago. +Yes, yes, Ramsey and Burnet and Belladine, I wonder what's become of +Belladine--he was a famous fop--poor Belladine, poor Belladine--he never +recovered from the blow. And then there was Roger Quain. + +"He was my best friend, and the happiest day of my life was that on +which he was betrothed to my sister Joan. I tell you no such rousing +toast was given at Repington since the news of the Boyne victory was +brought in to my father. She and Roger were betrothed in July and should +have been wed in April." + +The old man--for, with the progress of his tale, such the elderly +gentleman seemed to become--took a longer sip at his glass of Port as if +to brace himself for the climax of the narrative. + +"They should have been wed in April. But that winter was a busy one in +Throgmorton Street, and my sister Joan, having caught a chill, was +ordered to remain in the country--her only companion, a foolish cousin +of my mother's. I was not at home more than twice all the winter. I +never knew of that blackguard's visits till March. He used to come every +day--every day until I forbade him the house--a white cockade papist +crammed with disloyalty--always bragging of some outlandish petty +rebellion on the top of some d----d Scottish mountain or other. He +filled her head with his Jacobite twaddle--a fool who, earning his +livelihood by dice and cards, was willing enough to upset all law and +order for the sake of the plunder which he and his fellows might very +well have acquired at the expense of better and honester and more loyal +men. + +"He wound himself round her heart with his false French oaths and cursed +lovemaking. + +"I sent for Roger; he came down with Belladine--I shall always believe +that Belladine loved her too--and I told Roger he must keep an eye on +his treasure, or 'twould be stolen from him. The wedding was fixed; the +guests were invited; and one fine morning I went down to the orchard to +see how the apples were setting (there had been a shrewd Easterly wind +for some days)--and--and--I found him dead--Roger Quain--my dearest, +oldest friend--Roger Quain dead. Gadslife! young Madam, if you had seen, +as I saw, the fallen apple-blossoms reddened by his blood, I do not +think you would be making a runaway match; and she, my beloved sister, +eloped with his murderer--with Valentine Lovely, Esq., Jacobite, Papist, +rake, spendthrift, drunkard, gamester, and prodigal!" + +Sir George Repington rose from his seat and in the passion of +remembrance broke with his grip the thin stem of his wineglass, so that +the spilt liquid as it trickled over the hearth stones and stained the +ashes conjured up the old scene all too vividly and horribly for poor +Phyllida. + +"But why did Belladine let her go with that blackguard--that is what I +never knew--that is what I would like to ask Belladine--what can have +happened to Belladine?" the old man muttered to himself, "and why do I +tell you this?" he went on, "why--because----" + +But unfortunately the moral of this story was never properly related, +though 'tis easy enough to guess the import, for at that moment in came +the long-awaited Mr. Francis Vernon, splashed from head to foot in mud +and wearing a deep cut over his left temple. After all, Major +Constantine Tarry did succeed in delaying the elopement if only for an +hour or two because Mr. Vernon's mare had shied at the dead body and +flung her rider over the hedge in her unwillingness to pass so damp and +gloomy an obstacle. If the veteran's ghost was able to spare a moment +from his enthralling conversations with Alexander the Great and other +notable captains in Elysium, I make no doubt at the sight he gave vent +to an attenuated cackle of pleasure. + +Nothing sets a woman off to such disadvantage as the need to introduce a +pair of men whom instinctively she knows to be hostile to each other. +They never make the slightest attempt to help her out of the awkward +position, and, indeed, add to it by such haughty behaviour, such +ruffling of crests and bristling of limbs that under the circumstances +the most polished gentlemen become uncouth savages or dogs eager to +squabble over a debated bone. + +In this instance Mr. Vernon stared Sir George Repington up and down, +while the latter, who was not accustomed to such freedom of regard, took +snuff very aggressively and looked as if he would like to give the +intruder a moment's notice, as indeed he would. Phyllida tried to stem +the tide of embarrassment by remarking in a hushed voice that Sir George +had been kindly entertaining her in the absence of Mr. Amor. + +"Has he?" was the latter's frigid response. + +"And oh, Amor," she went on, "those odious postillions pushed their way +to the room and wanted money and Sir George kindly came to the rescue +and bade them begone." + +"Did he?" was all that Vernon would vouchsafe in thanks to this timely +assistance. + +Phyllida, abashed by her lover's bad manners, seemed inclined to +apologize for them with tears. And now Sir George did what most +Englishmen would have done under the circumstances--he walked out of the +room in a very stately way. No doubt the banker thought the strength of +feeling which had led him to reveal his life's tragedy would kindle an +equal emotion in the heart of Miss Courteen and that when he returned he +would find the raffish intruder gone. + +This was in fact the precise result of his withdrawal. When he returned, +Mr. Vernon was gone. But neither was Miss Phyllida Courteen anywhere in +sight. + + + + +_Chapter the Thirty-second_ + +THE HORRID ADVENTURES OF BEAU RIPPLE AND MRS. COURTEEN + + +We will, if you please, take for granted the persuasions used by Mr. +Vernon to induce Phyllida to continue upon her headlong course. He rode +beside her on this second stage of her adventure, and I shall have +something to say of that drive together through the darkness of wind and +rain. We will take for granted Sir George Repington's indignation, +expressed with many a z----ds and many a pinch of snuff, and since +there are a number of fine folk abroad on this most atrocious evening, +it is only just that we should pay them the compliment of relating their +horrid adventures. + +You have not forgotten, I hope, the sensation created in Curtain Wells +by the sight of Beau Ripple and Mrs. Courteen ensconced in the former's +vivid yellow postchaise, driven by the former's diminutive groom +Pridgeon. You made one of a host of conjectures, or rather you would +have done had you not been in the heart of the secret, thanks to the +honest, straightforward way in which I have treated you throughout this +story. + +They went off with 'Tally-ho' and 'Whoo-whoop, gone away!' They rattled +over the cobbles and clattered over the kidney stones and jolted +prodigiously over a kerb that protruded too far into the road. They +bumped over a log of wood dropped by old Mother Hubbard in her frantick +endeavours to gain the protection of the pavement, they ground the face +of little Miss Muffet's favourite wax doll to minutest grains of powder. +They experienced a second's muffled progress as with two wheels they +rolled over little Tommy Trout's Easter coat and with the others made a +broad smear over little Sammy Green's satchel and cracked his new Horn +Book into a thousand splinters. + +As for Mr. Ripple, every time he rose to a wayside obstacle and fell +with a genteel plump into Mrs. Courteen's wide lap, he had a sensation +of the acutest disgust; with disgust, too, he viewed his cushions of +fawn silk and ivory sattin bedabbled with the widow's copious +tears--these cushions made salt with a mortal widow's grief that were +never intended to be spoiled with anything less ethereal than the +glittering milk of the Queen of Heaven. + +Extreme dizziness overtook the Great little Man when, in accents hoarse +with hysterical sorrow, the wretched woman by his side begged the loan +of his handkerchief. Then, indeed, he nearly called to Pridgeon to check +their mad course, turn the horses' heads stablewards, brooding for a +sensuous second upon the delights of a warm meditative bath, made +sweeter with Citron Essence. + +Poor Mr. Ripple! As the mile-stones fled past and the chilly March +twilight crept over the dusky fallows and peered above the black +hedgerows, he thought with unutterable pangs of the cheerful and +comfortable town of Curtain Wells. His china shepherds and shepherdesses +called to him over the bleak country, and in the distance like elfin +bells he heard the reproachful tinkle of his elegant lustres. + +At the turnpike Mr. Ripple asked the keeper whether a post-chariot had +lately come under his jurisdiction. + +"Dick who?" inquired the janitor. + +"Have you seen a post-chariot?" said Mr. Ripple, petulantly. + +"No, I ain't. Have you seen two bullocks as 'ave lost, stolen and +strayed theyselves hereabouts--the red 'un with a----" + +"Drive on," said Mr. Ripple. + +"That's gentry," commented the gatekeeper as, spitting on the bust of +King George which reposed in the palm of his dirty hand, he retired to +brood over a well-thumbed pamphlet that set forth with convincing +ribaldry, the imminent danger of another Popish plot. + +"Drive on," said Mr. Ripple, "we shall have a heavy shower presently." + +They were bowling down a broad village street with a merry jingle of +harness and rhythmical clatter of hoofs, while the cracking of little +Pridgeon's whip, nearly as big as himself, made many inquisitive bodies +huddle in the low doorways of the cottages to survey the gallant +equipage. + +"Reg'lar delooge, your honour," said Pridgeon, turning round on the box. + +Mrs. Courteen was already so wet with the tears of outraged motherhood +that the addition of rain could scarcely have affected her comfort. +Nevertheless she shuddered so expansively that she squeezed her +companion closer than ever to the side of the chaise. + +"Shall we put up at the _Green Dragon_?--very comfortable Inn, the +_Green Dragon_." + +"No, no, Pridgeon, drive on. If it rains, it rains." + +Such a platitude from Beau Ripple can only have been provoked by the +intensest despair. A ploughboy's epigram would not have seemed more out +of place. The Nine Muses were certainly waked from their harmonious +lethargy, and a small boy, playing _Sally in our Alley_ on a Jew's harp, +twanged a discordant echo of their shocked sensibility. A platitude from +Beau Ripple! The very chaise collapsed in ignominy. Bump--bang--whooooo! +The gay vehicle was on its side and the front off-wheel was whirling +madly down the broad slope of the street, to the enormous delight of the +boy with the Jew's harp and the immense consternation of a flock of +geese in whose company it made a noisy entrance into the village pond. + +Pridgeon turned once more on the Jimmy and, having pulled up the horses +and gazed at the Tableau, remarked: + +"Blow me tight if I didn't think the wheel'd do that afore we started. +Blow me right and tight!" + +By this time, all the village stood in a circle and supplied an +exhaustive commenting upon the sad event. + +"She's putt her futt through her petticutt," whooped grandmother. + +"So her 'ave and toored 'un proper." + +"Blarm 'un if the old buoy's knee ain't streaked like somebody's baad +baacon." + +"So it be, buoy, so it be," came the delighted rejoinder. + +"Look, see the seat of his breeches!" cried a shapely hussy. + +"I never saw such a power o' mud, why 'e's like a brown paaper plaster +behind. Poor soul!" + +"Horse ain't hurt?" asked a sharp-featured, bow-legged individual with +professional anxiety. + +Four or five hobbledehoys had assisted the Beau to his feet and +volunteered to show him the way to the _Green Dragon_. As that hostelry +stood exactly opposite the scene of the disaster, the offer savoured of +something more than mere friendliness. + +Mrs. Courteen was whirling round and round, like a kitten after her +tail, trying to ascertain the precise amount of damage close to her +train; a good-natured booby stuck his foot on the skirt to steady it for +her inspection, and in doing so made the rent more irreparable. + +"Better go to the _Green Dragon_, your honour," said Pridgeon, as spruce +as when he started. + +"Better go to h----, you dunderhead," said the Beau, very white with +well-bred passion and the shock of the catastrophe. No fragile vase of +Dresden or of azure Sevres, no figure of opalescent Worcester, no +violet-flowered teapot of Lowestoft that ever fell from a proud cabinet +through the careless sweep of a chambermaid's broom, was to be so deeply +commiserated as Mr. Horace Ripple. These painted monuments of care +betray their inherent beauty even in the dainty particles that proclaim +their wreckage, but a fop with muddied breeches--why, in the very first +chapter of this story we trembled to behold the circumference of the +least dignified part of the Beau's anatomy protruding from beneath a +bedstead; and on that occasion, it was gay with the flowers of a silk +dressing-gown. + +I do not think that the Great little Man ever recovered from this +outrage to his personal attire, for to the very end of his modish days, +he would wear a coat cut an inch or two lower than was readily allowed +by the least conservative tailor in his employment. + +As for Mrs. Courteen, who followed meekly in the wake of her wounded +escort, she could not refrain from wishing that the Major and the +Justice were at hand to console her with jealous attentions and rival +sympathies, and when the first round drop of the swift-approaching storm +hit her plump on the nose and washed away in its downward course the +last vestige of powder from her face, she regretted also the tributary +fingers of Betty. + +In the hall of the _Green Dragon_ their reception was almost servile. +Great Cobblebury, for all its pompous name, was too near to Curtain +Wells to attract the attention of many travellers, and the _Green +Dragon_ depended for custom almost entirely on the thirstiness of the +surrounding population. Guests, therefore, received very excellent +service for their money. The host, one George Upex, had watched the +advance of the chaise with sleek arms beneath a protuberant apron and +thumbs that twiddled sleepily; but the smash aroused his hospitable +instincts, and by the time Mr. Ripple and Mrs. Courteen had reached the +doorway of the inn, he was back from the kitchen, where he had hastily +ordered the immediate insertion into the capacious oven of several +dishes, and was ready to usher the stranded travellers into the parlour. + +"And what will your good lady take?" he inquired, with his rubicund face +cocked at what he considered a very appetizing angle. + +"She is not my good lady, sirrah," rapped out the Beau. + +"Not at all, your honour--beg pardon," said Mr. Upex, putting up a +gigantick hand to an equally gigantick mouth as if he would force the +latter feature to eat the indiscreet question it had so grossly emitted. + +"How long will it take to mend the damage to my chaise?" demanded Mr. +Ripple. + +The landlord made a rough calculation in his mind. + +"About an hour to cook the--to mend the--er--chaise," he replied. + +"Have you a bed?" asked the Beau. + +The landlord beamed. They were going to spend the night under his roof, +and mentally he saw himself on the next day obscuring the sunlight of +the parlour with a very long bill. + +"A bed, your honour? Yes, indeed! Oh! yes." Mr. Upex paused. "A bed?" + +"Yes! a bed--a b-e-d--bed." + +"For one night?" + +"One night--no! now, sirrah, now." Mr. Ripple stamped his little foot, +probably to shake off the mud of the humiliating accident. + +"Now?" Mr. Upex looked surprized, that is to say the mouth of Mr. Upex +remained fixed in a cavernous gape. + +"Why not now?" exclaimed the peremptory Beau. "Ain't your beds aired, +landlord? Ain't they made yet?" + +"Oh, certainly, your honour." + +"Then show me upstairs at once. I shall lie down until the wheel of my +chaise is mended. And shew this lady another room, and send two or three +chambermaids to attend to her." + +Mr. Upex looked much relieved. + +It was not such a shameless affair as he had been led by wanton +ambiguity of phrase to believe. + +"What about the duck?" + +"What duck? What duck?" asked Mr. Ripple fretfully. + +"The duck your honour ordered--that is, was about to order when I +interrupted your honour." + +"Send up three slices of the breast on a small tray to my chamber, and +don't put any stuffing on the plate, the odour of sage upsets my +appetite." + +"Indeed?" said Mr. Upex, quite frankly interested by such a nasal +idiosyncrasy. + +"Yes, and send out a woman of taste and discretion to purchase a +nightcap." + +"I wouldn't say, your honour, as how one of the maids wouldn't oblige +your--er--the good lady." + +"For myself, landlord, for myself." + +"I beg your honour's pardon." + +Mr. Upex hurried off to execute his guest's requirement and presently +returned to escort them to their rooms. + +"When my man comes in," said the Beau, "send him up to me with the +nightcap." + +Pridgeon had rescued the wheel from the pond and, having successfully +directed two bumpkins to trundle it to the blacksmith, arrived at the +inn with an admiring retinue of idlers, whom he regaled with quarts of +bitter beer. The woman of taste entrusted with the purchase of the +nightcap (she was the scullerymaid) returned with the vestment neatly +wrapped in paper, and, meeting her master on the stairs, was told to +hand it to the diminutive groom, who chucked her under the chin with the +parcel and took his bow-legged way upstairs to Mr. Ripple's temporary +apartment. + +Outside he rapped smartly on the door, which was cautiously opened +sufficiently wide to allow the urbane countenance of the Beau to peer +round the corner. + +"Is that you, Pridgeon?" + +"Me, y'r honour, with a present from Great Cobblebury." + +The Beau took the nightcap, and in its place handed muddied +smallcloaths, smeared coat, and wrinkled waistcoat. + +"Have these cloaths thoroughly brushed." + +"Yes, y'r honour." + +"And bring me three slices of breast in an hour's time." + +"Yes, y'r honour." + +"And don't get drunk to celebrate your carelessness." + +"No, y'r honour." + +"Poor clod," murmured the Beau to his polite self, as he closed the door +of his chamber and double locked it against intrusion. + +I think it would certainly be indiscreet to spy upon Mr. Ripple's +retirement. How did he spend his time in bed? The whisper of book-leaves +tempts me to suppose that he read several of the bitterest odes, very +possibly a whole satire of Quintus Horatius Flaccus, that poet so fierce +but withal so urbane. Meanwhile Mrs. Courteen, surrounded by three +maids, respectively known as Susan, Joan, and Elizabeth, held forth upon +her misfortunes to a sympathetick audience. + +She stood in the middle of her chamber, a massive figure pouring forth +ludicrous complaint. It was as if a stork should seek to emulate a +nightingale. + +Susan knelt on the floor and industriously stitched away at the ragged +train; Joan knelt with innumerable pins stuck between her pearly teeth +and judiciously fastened several gaps in her attire, while Elizabeth, +who was being courted by Johnny, the _Green Dragon's_ sibilant hostler, +rubbed away at the mud with as near an imitation of the sounds produced +by her lover's stringy throat as the softness of her own would allow. + +"I have been greatly distressed," said the widow, "grossly deceived, +intolerably put about for, though Mr. Ripple has the character of a +block of marble, it don't become a woman to be seen alone with a man +anywhere, especially in a yellow chaise which attracts everybody's +attention. I vow I heard that odious young Miss Kitcat laugh from her +balcony as we flew past--yes, flew--and such bumping! I dare swear I'm +bruised from head to foot, and my skin shows the smallest mark. I +remember when I was a young woman, I stepped a minuet with young Mr. +Heavibois of Heavibois Hall, and I declare he might have been taking the +grossest liberties all through the evening, for the way my wrist was +marked. Lud! it was as purple as my grandmother's silk coverlet that was +given to her by a young lieutenant in the Navy, and was thought to +belong to the wife of the Cham of Tartary, though I dare say he bought +it in Cheapside for ten shillings, being a young gentleman on whose word +nobody could rely, that is the worst of men, young women, you cannot +trust 'em. And now my own daughter has run away with a London spark, and +I, her own mother, must give up half a score routs and my Lady +Pickadilly's drum--the most fashionable affair of the kind that will +ever be known in Curtain Wells, for my Lady Pickadilly is newly come +from town with her second son the Hon. John Hyde, as quiet a young +gentleman as ever said Bo! to a goose, and here we are nearly into +April, and if my daughter drowns herself from London Bridge, why then I +shall be wearing black at the Fetes Champetres and a pretty figure I +shall be truly! though, indeed, if one had the courage to wear a white +velvet vizard, I might very well pass for an Allegory of Moonlight--and +yet that would never do, for to be sure that malicious creature Mrs. +Dudding, whose Conversazione last month was the completest failure ever +known, would make one of her odious epigrams about poor Mr. Moon, the +best natured of gentlemen and the very personification of the milk of +human kindness. To be sure, his ankles are very big, but indeed I vow if +one were to regard all the defects in humanity, very few of us would be +able to hold up our heads. Mr. Ripple himself is the smallest man in the +Wells, but nobody esteems him the less for that. To be sure, I think he +was very ill-advised,--though for that matter he was never known to take +anybody's advice but his own--very ill-advised, I say, not to speak more +severely to my daughter. I was always so careful of her modesty that I +never allowed her to sit in the Maze with an odious little nudity in +stone always hovering about, till I declare they should have planted ivy +to climb up his shameless legs. I'm sure nothing could be more Biblical +than such vegetable apparel. Cupid they call him: Stupid I call it." +Mrs. Courteen here paused to take a longer breath and Susan exclaimed: + +"La! ma'am, what to do wi' your petticoat I doan't know. It comes +peaping through your gown like Tom o' Coventry in the Christmas +mumming." + +"Pin it, child, pin it," said the widow. + +"La! ma'am, we ha' used nigh forty pins already, and thee'll be like a +hedgehog soon." + +"No matter, child, no matter how I appear. I must do my duty as a +mother, but I vow I blush when I think that near everybody takes us for +man and wife. To be sure, I don't mind, and always say that if the world +wishes to talk, the world will talk; and there once was a time when I +was talked about from one corner of the county to the other. And now +this improper affair of my daughter's will set every idle tongue wagging +again. My own maid Betty, who was privy to the whole unhappy intrigue, +was truly frightened when she found how far ignorance and wilfulness had +taken her. 'What will they say at Courteen Grange, ma'am, and what will +Mr. Rumble the carrier say, and Mrs. Rumble and the old widow who keeps +the shop and poor old Jonas the gardener and all the good folk of the +shire?' 'Ah,' said I, 'what indeed?' Ugh! child, you're running pins +into my--into my legs!" + +"Dear life, ma'am," said Susan the culprit, apparently not much abashed +by the accusation, "'tis difficult to find a bit of leg to run a pin +into, for, O my soul and body, you're shining like a starlight night, +wi' pins all over 'ee." + +So the rehabilitation of Mrs. Courteen went on with diffuse anecdotes on +the side of the widow, with similes from deft-fingered Susan, with much +displaying of pearly teeth from Joan, and with a gentle cooing from +Elizabeth, who was betrothed to the hostler of the _Green Dragon_ Inn. + +Outside it was raining faster than ever, and the wind was beginning to +moan under the eaves and away in the remote corners of the house. A +flash of lightning and a terrifick burst of thunder that followed +immediately upon its heels undid half an hour's steady pinning, owing to +the violent tremours with which it afflicted poor Mrs. Courteen. + +It made Mr. Ripple break a Caesura and, worse, it made him try to mend it +with a false quantity. Altogether the prospect was extremely uninviting, +and the succulent odour of roast duck was certainly no temptation to +precipitate his departure. However, the duck came to an end, and the +morsels of it which began to freeze upon his plate made him so impatient +of farther delay that when Pridgeon knocked at the door and informed him +the chaise was once more fit for the roads, he called for his bill and, +as I believe, (such a sweet change had Horace and roast duck wrought in +his mind) hummed a popular jig while he buttoned up his breeches. Soon +he was tapping delicately at the door of Mrs. Courteen's chamber, +saying: + +"Come, ma'am, I hope you're rested. Our horses are waiting--'tis a most +atrocious night--but never mind, ma'am, never mind, we shall sleep the +sounder," he had almost said "for having done our duty," but not even +the stress of an untoward adventure could condemn his spirit to a second +platitude that stormy night, and he altered the unfinished sentence to +"for not having to endure Mrs. Dudding's epigrams. Foregad, ma'am," he +went on, "she churns the sour cream of her intellect and produces, after +infinite toil, a very rancid wit." + +Then the Great little Man pattered downstairs, condescended to +felicitate Mr. Upex upon his timely meal, inquired the name of his cook, +said she was a good woman and would go far, listened to Farmer Gruby's +opinion that this rain would do a power o' good to the land, condoled +with him upon a bovine loss which he was still lamenting, bade Pridgeon +stand another quart of ale each to the good fellows who had assisted to +talk about the accident, raised his monocle to a bill of sale affixed to +the wall, inquired into the state of the roads before them, evoked an +atmosphere of respectful adoration by presenting the landlord with a +card inscribed 'Horace Ripple, The Great House,' and finally won the +perpetual devotion of Mr. George Upex by writing in his neatest hand at +the top right corner of the engraved card 'Recommended by.' The landlord +vowed he would have the precious voucher of identity framed and hung up +in the parlour underneath a painting on glass of his gracious Majesty +K---- G----, and in close proximity to a likeness of Lord Breda's prize +bullock Jupiter, which several drunken loyalists had been known to +salute in mistake for the K----. + +Mrs. Courteen sailed downstairs, followed by Susan, Joan and Elizabeth, +all of whom were kept busy picking up pins, which they stuck between +their teeth, to the great disappointment of Mr. Pridgeon, who would have +very much liked to snatch a kiss from each Hebe in turn, and, seeing +that the hostler was standing outside in the rain, I dare swear that but +for the pins he would have been successful in his amorous project. Off +went the chaise into the gathering gloom, spattering the onlookers with +mud, and almost drowning with its clatter the hearty cheers of the +inhabitants of Great Cobblebury. + +And now the Beau, whose urbanity had been restored by Horace and roast +duck, entertained Mrs. Courteen with delightful tales of fashionable +society. The most violent jolt no longer availed to upset the balance of +his sentences. The widow was deeply impressed by Mr. Ripple's charming +behaviour and, though she could not appreciate his anecdotes at their +value, was put into a very pleasant disposition of mind by a +half-fledged fancy that the Great little Man was slowly succumbing to +her ample fascination. As for little Pridgeon, his diminutive inside was +so replete with cordials and old Jamaica rum that he was quite +impervious to the weather and he sang a large number of country ballads +in a very engaging Alto voice. + +Suddenly, as they were driving over a wild stretch of commonland, dotted +with huge clumps of gorse and a number of stunted and wind-bent +thorn-trees, the chaise stopped with a jerk, spoiling the climax of one +of the Beau's best stories, describing how he had compelled the Duchess +of Hereford to apologize to a flower girl. + +"What's the matter?" he cried out. + +"Nothing," said Pridgeon, "but we're just underneath the gallows with a +very notorious reskel swingin' over our heads--reg'lar old scarecrow he +is--can't you hear the chains, y'r honour? He's bobbin' about in the +wind like a cork in a puddle." + +"Drive on, rogue," commanded Mr. Ripple sternly. + +"It 'ud be a pity not to see 'im. Blue Jenkins vas his name--I'll hold +up one of the lamps and you can take a good look at 'im. There was +hundreds used to walk 'ere of a Sunday afternoon when he was just +turned off, ecod, y'r honour ought to take a look at him." + +"Will you drive on, sirrah!" + +Suddenly Mrs. Courteen uttered a loud scream; and very uncanny it +sounded in the tempest. + +"What in the name of--what's the matter?" exclaimed Mr. Ripple. + +"I hear horses," said Mrs. Courteen, and screamed again. + +Pridgeon cocked up his ears. + +"She's right," he shouted. "There's a couple of 'em coming up behind +us!" + +"Good G----! Highwaymen!" said Mrs. Courteen, clinging to Mr. Ripple. +The latter did not lose his presence of mind. + +"Drive on, you puppy! I'll see to the priming of my pistols." With these +words the Courageous little Man dived between the widow's agitated legs +and groped for the elegant walnut case of his exquisitely chased +pistols. + +"'Tain't no good," shouted Pridgeon, as he lashed the horse to a gallop. +"'Tis only a mile afore we reaches Long Hill and they'll catch us +walkin' there." + +"I warn you, madam," said Mr. Ripple calmly, while the postchaise +rattled through the storm, "I warn you that I shall certainly shoot +once, if not twice." + +But Mrs. Courteen had fainted away and only half a dozen pins released +from their responsibleness whispered a faint and ineffective answer. + + + + +_Chapter the Thirty-third_ + +THE HIGHWAYMEN + + +The rumour of Phyllida's elopement took definite shape just as the +candles were being lighted for the nuts and wine. It lent quite a +flavour even to the inferior Port that disgraced most of the +dinner-tables at Curtain Wells. And if a flavour was lent to moderately +bad wine, what a truly celestial aroma was given off by the fragrant +pots of tea in the parlours. Curtain Wells was always famous for the +finest blends, and I venture to think that the sad affair of Miss +Courteen inspired every hostess to a perfection of art unequalled before +or since. Never were the gentlemen so quick to follow the ladies from +the spent dinner. Moreover, the absence of Beau Ripple permitted a +recklessness of conjecture, a venom of Innuendo that would have made the +rumour famous, even had it proved devoid of the slightest foundation. + +Many inclined to the theory that Mr. Ripple had arranged the prologue to +suit himself, and vowed they had seen fervent stares exchanged between +him and Mrs. Courteen. One inventive young gentleman started a report +that Mr. Vernon was the Pretender; but this was contradicted by old Lady +Loch Lomond who, having been one of the ladies-in-waiting at St. +Germain's and watched the young prince in his bath, was positive that +Mr. Vernon did not resemble him at all. The young gentleman's ingenious +suggestion lent a momentary glamour to the heroine of the affair, but +with the destruction of his story by Lady Loch Lomond, publick attention +was again concentrated upon Beau Ripple. An extravagant explanation of +his roundabout method of courtship was found in a whispered legend that +in early youth he had married one of the daughters of the Grand Turk +and escaping from the turbaned alliance four months afterwards through +the friendly offices of a fig merchant from Smyrna who smuggled him out +of the Bosphorous and landed him at Lyme Regis in Dorsetshire, had spent +the rest of his enforced celibacy in dread of vengeful scimitars. + +Then somebody remembered the codicil to Squire Courteen's will, and the +story of young Mr. Standish who left the neighbourhood in such a hurry. +One of the abetters of this last tale mentioned that Mr. Ripple was +badly in need of money, and finally everybody agreed that here at last +was the true explanation of the yellow chaise. The Beau was trying to +make up his losses by wedding Mrs. Courteen secretly so that the lawyers +should not lay violent hands upon her inheritance. This was such a +satisfactory and circumstantial account that everybody sat down to +Quadrille without their play being the more distracted than usual. +Meanwhile the author of the latest explanation went from house to house +to burble the news in the company of his two witnesses. The three of +them were received everywhere with acclamation as soon as it transpired +they were the bearers of the authoritative account; and though they were +all of them bores of the finest calibre, they enjoyed a considerable +popularity which compensated for all the slights and snubs they had +received in the past at the hands of rank and fashion. Having discovered +their talents, they all three existed for ever afterwards on the sources +of false information and published books of memoirs and thought +themselves great men and, in fact, are to this very day consulted by +social historians. + +Meanwhile another rumour was flying furiously round all the shops that +Mr. Lovely was on the verge of making a hurried departure from Curtain +Wells. Mr. Ripple owed nothing to the tradesmen; consequently his yellow +chaise caused no consternation in commercial hearts, but Mr Charles +Lovely owed large amounts. Every shopkeeper in the High Street vowed he +would know the true facts of this reported flight. Under the great +archway of the _Blue Boar_, they pattered--all of them dressed in +snuff-coloured suits and all of them with suspiciously long envelopes +protruding from their left-hand pockets. There was Mr. Crumpett the +Confectioner and Mr. Frieze the Tailor and another tailor called Charges +and a third called Trimmings. There was Mr. Cuffe the hosier, and Mr. +Trinket of one toyshop and Mr. Leonard of another, and Mr. Wheeler the +coach-builder; there was fat Mrs. Leafy of one flower-shop and little +Miss Bunch of the other flower-shop, and old Mrs. Tabby of the ribband +shop, there was Mr. Filigree the Goldsmith, and Mr. Tree the bootmaker, +and Mr. Buckle the saddler, and young Washball the barber's senior +apprentice. In fact, the only creditors absent were Mr. Daish who was at +that very moment listening to a plausible demonstration of Mr. Lovely's +prospects, and the ex-limner Mr. Canticle who would have scorned to +associate himself with such a snuff-coloured rabble and had, moreover, +been paid something on account more lately than the rest. + +"What the deuce is this seditious gathering?" exclaimed Lieutenant +Blewforth to little Peter Wingfield as they swung round the corner and +plunged into the voluble assemblage. Suddenly there was a noise of a +window being thrown up, and a stillness fell upon the dingy throng as +they beheld the debonair countenance of our hero. + +"Speak up, Charles," bellowed the Lieutenant, "I support your +candidature. D---- e," he muttered to Wingfield, "d----e, if I knew +Charles was a Parliament man." + +"L-listen," said Mr. Wingfield, standing on tip-toe and craning his +little neck to hear Charles' views on the political situation. + +"Gentlemen," Mr. Lovely began, with a hand gracefully buried in the +opening of his embroidered waistcoat, "Gentlemen, I am sensibly +flattered by this deputation." + +A simultaneous grunt acclaimed this remark. + +"I say, I am sensibly flattered. It is always a pleasure to--to----" + +"Charles'll never be elected, if he talks to 'em so slow," commented Mr. +Blewforth with a shake of his burly head. + +"I say, I am sensibly flattered." + +"That's all very fine, Mr. Lovely, but what about my bill?" shouted Mr. +Filigree who being better able to stand a loss was bolder than his +companions. + +"Ay--yes--to be sure, your money," Charles started off again. "Well, +gentlemen, I say, gentlemen, money is a very wonderful thing. It is the +panacea or cure of all earthly ills, like sleep in the play it knits up +the ravelled sleeve of care. Money! to be sure!" + +"He's trying to make 'em swallow the new taxes," said Blewforth sagely. + +At that moment somebody twitched Mr. Lovely's coat from behind, and he +retired from the open window; the angry snuff-coloured crowd looked at +each other, conferred for a moment, then pattered quickly back by the +way they had come. From the tangle of their murmured confabulations, two +ominous words floated back to the Lieutenant and little Peter +Wingfield--'Sheriff's Officers!' + +It was Clare's announcement of the arrival of Betty in the best parlour +of the _Blue Boar_ that had distracted Charles' attention from his +creditors. He found her trembling from head to foot and playing with the +buttons of her scarlet cloak. + +"My young mistress, your honour, my pretty lamb has gone." + +"Miss Courteen?" + +"Little Miss Phyllida." + +"With Vernon." + +"No, wi' Amor." + +"How long ago?" + +"Nigh three hours or more. The Bow and the Widow have galloped after +'em, but what I do say is, 'tis no work to set an old couple to catch a +young couple: oh! your honour, if ever in this sweet Springtime you +loved my dear one, will 'ee follow her now and bring her back to me?" + +The news of Phyllida's elopement so crudely announced staggered him, +notwithstanding his anticipation of such an event. + +Hitherto his love for the maid had been a pleasant fancy, an impulse to +day-dreams but nothing more material. + +That very morning as he wandered in the water-meadows, he had been so +full of the outside effect of his attitude there had been no room for +the personal desire. He had tried to convince himself he was sincerely +anxious for Phyllida's future happiness; but the true position he should +have taken up was a determination to possess her for himself whatever +the cost. She was young and fair, rose-flushed and adorable, and 'twas a +pity to waste so much freshness on Vernon dulled by pleasure and--not +quite well-bred. + +Now a sense of personal loss stung him into action. Besides, he and Tony +had vowed to transform life into a gay adventure. Here already was a +quest worthy of their highest hopes. + +"I will certainly go," said Charles. + +"Ah! you have a true heart." + +"Have I, Betty, have I?" + +"'Twas on merry Valentine morn, you saw my pretty one." + +"So 'twas." + +"When thrushes and blackbirds do maate." + +"So they say." + +"Take it for a sign, will 'ee?" + +"I will." + +"And say when you come to her and have sent that wagabone packing off to +his Lunnon, say the linnets are piping away down in Hampshire, will +'ee?" + +"I will." + +"Say that us'll soon be harking for the cuckoo in the greenwood, and +look see, give her this; 'tis a little white daisy I picked. Bid her +look 'tes none the less beautiful because the edge of her petals are +gone red wi' the cold March wind. 'Tes a daeisy, the same as before--a +little white daeisy." + +Hastily putting the frail flower in Mr. Lovely's hand, the maid ran to +the door. There she stayed a moment. + +"And say, will 'ee, that I'm coming to kiss her and hug her and comfort +her as soon as the Wells waggon can bring me." + +"That's a good maid--a loyal maid," said Charles to himself when Betty +was gone, and, as he looked at the tender blossom somewhat shrivelled by +captivity, a fallen tear trembled like a dew-diamond on the golden heart +of the gathered flower. + +And now the problem of escaping his duns vexed Mr. Lovely more acutely +than before. Daish had been pacified by generous Clare with L50 on +account. The horses were saddled and ready; and by the greatest good +fortune when Charles looked out into the inn-yard, there was not a +snuff-coloured soul in sight. + +Blewforth came in with the news of Sheriff's officers, and Clare +appeared in the gallery all buttoned up for the journey: "Where shall I +tell Daish to send our baggage by the Wells' stage waggon? there's a +good inn called _The Basket of Roses_ about twenty five miles away, dy'e +know it?" + +"No," said Charles, "is it on the London Road?" + +"Yes, on the London Road." + +"Then 'twill suit me very well. Shall we set out at once, Tony?" + +"No time to lose," shouted Blewforth. + +Daish came shuffling in to say the horses were growing impatient of the +cold. + +Off went our romantick adventurers: up they got on their horses: down +tinkled a couple of new silver crowns on the cobbles. + +"Thank 'ee, yer honours!" shouted Jimmy Trickett the hostler; and the +third detachment of the Love Chase set out amid the thunderous farewells +of Lieutenant Blewforth of the _Lively_, as jolly a sound to put heart +into a pair of handsome young gentlemen on a gallant quest as they were +likely to hear throughout their wanderings. + +They were gone when the snuff-coloured crowd pattered back with a +Sheriff's officer in tow, and Mr. Jeremy Daish was a person of +sufficient importance to be able to despise their snuff-coloured +threats. After all he had fifty pounds on account and there wasn't a +brewer amongst them. + +As they cantered along the same road which we have already followed +three times, Charles told his friend of Betty's request and Tony was as +urgent as he to do all in his power to thwart Mr. Vernon. Honest Anthony +Clare was very proud of the handsome rider by his side. I do not think +he would have allowed that any one was quite the equal of Mr. Charles +Lovely in accomplishment or bearing. He could not avoid a feeling of +self-congratulation when he saw the maids among the daffodils of narrow +cottage gardens run to lean over their green gates and watch their +course away down the road. What a fine fellow he was in his full trimmed +grey riding-coat and brown buckskin breeches. How well the azure +waistcoat became him; how eagerly his blue eyes danced to the rhythm of +their horses. How far ahead down the billowy road he gazed, as if to +conjure up the vision of the galloping chariot that held his hope of +happiness. + +And when they, too, rode into the storm, muffled in their full cloaks of +black Bavarian cloth, what a romantick figure Charles made as he spurred +his iron-grey steed to farther exertions. + +There was musick in the south-west wind of that tempestuous twilight. It +sighed through the bare hedgerows and whistled round the broad brims of +their beaver hats. There was musick in the clap of horses' hoofs on the +wet road. There was musick in the big horse-pistols tapping against the +saddle-bows. + +They were passing a great barn where a host of yokels were thrashing a +stack that had lain too long, and a rare sight these were, knee-deep in +the amber corn whence the rats fled ceaselessly. + +"Shall we catch them, Tony?" asked Charles. + +"I think we shall." + +"But in time?" Charles dug his spurs in deep to cover the blush that was +flaming over his cheeks. + +"And will she turn back? Oh! Tony, Tony, she must, she shall, turn +back." + +In Great Cobblebury they stopped to give their horses a feed, and heard +of the accident of the yellow chaise. + +"Z----ds, these clumsy vehicles travel fast enough," muttered Charles. + +When they started again, the darkness clung round them like a pall. The +blown branch of a tree brushed against Lovely's elbow in a narrow part +of the road and he shuddered, as though an unseen hand were warning him +to pause. + +"'Tis a plaguey rough night," he shouted over the wind, clapping his hat +tighter and leaning close to his grey's warm slim neck. + +They were crossing Dry Tree Common where Blue Jenkins was swinging in a +shameful cradle, and Clare shouted he could see the lights of a chaise +in front. + +"That's Ripple for a hundred," cried Charles spurring on his horse, +"gadslife, what a speed they are making. Hurry, Tony, hurry." + +A dazzling flash of lightning seared the sky long enough to illuminate +the ghastly figure on the gallows. Clare's chestnut mare shied violently +and threw her rider head foremost into a large clump of gorse. It was a +matter of some difficulty to catch the frightened animal, but Charles by +mere determination succeeded in doing so, for all the night was now +black before the rising of the moon. By this mishap, Clare was in much +the same state of prickles as the Widow, without the help of +deft-fingered Susan. + +"What the plague made you do that?" said Charles fretfully. They had +lost five valuable minutes through the behaviour of the mare. Tony +laughed with great good humour. + +When they reached the foot of Long Hill, they could see the lights of +the chaise once again. It was finding the heavy pull very difficult. The +rain was pouring down the ditches on either side with a gurgling sound, +heard all the more clearly, because in the shelter of the slope the wind +was quiet. Just before the summit, the carriage stopped and a bullet +sang between Clare and Lovely who were now a bare twenty yards behind. +Mr. Ripple believed in the advantage of an offensive campaign. + +"Stop! stop!" shouted Charles, "we are not highwaymen." + +The Beau recognized the voice, and in accents wherein could be detected +the faintest note of relief said: + +"Charles--Mr. Lovely! and why, may I inquire, are you abroad on such an +unpleasant night?" + +"Why, sir," called out Charles, "what have you been about? There's a +dead man lying in the road." + +"Good G----!" said Mr. Ripple, "a dead man?" + +"Bring a lamp," called Clare. + +Pridgeon descended from the box and, having tied the horses to a +withered fir-tree, snatched one of the lamps from its socket. + +As he came along, Charles observed by the wavering light primroses in +flower. + +"Surely, surely," said the Beau, "I cannot have killed this man." + +"N! No!" cried Clare who was kneeling beside the body. "He has been dead +some time. Z----ds! 'Tis the little Major." + +"The little Major?" echoed Ripple sharply. "So 'tis! So 'tis!" + +"All alone in the storm," said Charles in a low voice. + +"It may have been highwaymen," said Ripple. + +"So it may, so it may," Clare agreed. + +"And it may have been Vernon," said Charles, "d--n him." + +"Charles," said the Beau, "I owe you an apology. I have been obstinate. +This should never have been allowed to happen." + +Charles grasped his hand in the darkness. + +After all, Mr. Ripple was not in his kingdom and they were all levelled +by the presence of Death. + +"We cannot leave the body here," said Tony. + +"It must travel in the chaise," said Charles. + +"What about Mrs. Courteen?" questioned Mr. Ripple. + +"She is in a swoon." + +"You are sure he is quite dead?" asked Charles and wondered at the +futility of the remark. + +Nobody troubled to reply. + +"Perhaps it would be better to send a waggon," said Clare. "We are not +many miles from Roseland-in-the-Vale." + +"Somebody has cut off his epaulettes," said Charles. + +"Then it may have been footpads," said the Beau. "No wayfarer would rob +the dead." + +"It is a very dark night," said Clare simply. + +"He fought at Fontenoy. Let us lift him out of the mud," said Mr. +Ripple, vaguely recalling long stories which the dead soldier had poured +into his ears. + +"He gave his life for her. We must certainly lift him out of the mud," +said Charles. + +"A dead body is dangerous to horses," said Clare, "I will take his +head." + +Just then the widow screamed again. + +"Say nothing of this to Mrs. Courteen," said Mr. Ripple to the +diminutive coachman. + +"I knew something 'd 'appen," replied the latter. "I knew something 'd +'appen when I see'd as how somebody had stuck a bunch of primmerroses in +Blue Jenkins's toes." + + + + +_Chapter the Thirty-fourth_ + +OLD ACQUAINTANCE + + +Charles said he would ride on to the _Basket of Roses_ and bid the +landlord prepare a supper against the arrival of the rest. Clare stayed +behind to protect the Beau from the hysterical excitement of Mrs. +Courteen, who would not be pacified by anything less formidable than an +armed escort. She had made up her mind that highwaymen were abroad, +refused to allow the chaise to drive fast lest they might gallop unaware +into a thieves' ambush, and alarmed herself with so many imaginary +bogies that she almost succeeded in making Mr. Ripple fire point blank +at Mr. Anthony Clare's shadow looming huge in the hedgerow. + +Charles reached the _Basket of Roses_ not long after the departure of +the lovers, and on hearing the news immediately spurred his grey horse +to pursuit. For a couple of miles he plunged along a road that was +almost a swamp, fired to greater exertions each minute by the sight of +the ruts made by the chariot in front. Suddenly his horse began to go +lame; the road grew worse; the ruts proved to be those of a country +waggon. He was riding in the wrong direction, so he turned his grey +round and walked her back to the inn. While he was inquiring into the +possibility of securing a fresh mount, a voice from the parlour called +out to know if any person was inquiring into the whereabouts of a young +woman. + +"She supped alone with the old gentleman," whispered Mrs. Tabrum. + +Charles was not proof against a natural curiosity, and decided to wait +at the inn till the arrival of the others. He ascertained that Vernon +had changed horses so it was evident that he intended to post as fast +as possible Eastward. His own horse must be tended if they were to +proceed that night. There was no other in the stables, and as he was +sure of catching the chariot before morning, he felt there would be no +harm in learning why Phyllida had supped at a wayside inn, alone with an +elderly gentleman. What was Vernon about meanwhile? Why had he not +accompanied her? Charles ordered supper and stepped into the Travellers' +Room. + +"You were asking about a certain young woman," said Sir George, fixing +him with deep set eyes of cold steel. + +"I was indeed, sir," answered Mr. Lovely pulling forward an armchair +into the blaze and stretching his damp legs towards the genial warmth. + +"My name is Repington," said the old gentleman. + +"Eh! What?" + +"Sir George Repington." + +Charles stared at him. + +"And mine, sir, is Lovely, Charles Lovely." + +"My nephew--humph--'tis your existence which has attracted me so many +miles West." + +"I did not think you knew of my existence," said Charles half sneering. + +"You never condescended to inform your uncle of your movements." + +"Sir," said the nephew, a smile of bitter recollection twisting the +corners of his mouth. "I did not flatter myself that any attention on my +side was welcome." + +"What! you remember our only interview?" + +"I was eight years old, sir." + +"Is that a date in youth's short calendar that breeds a specially +sensitive disposition of mind?" + +"You turned me out of your house." + +"On the contrary, nephew, you chose to go back to your father." + +"Why wasn't he admitted, too?" + +"Because," replied the uncle, "on a former occasion I was unfortunately +compelled to invite your father to leave my house." + +"By what right?" + +Sir George raised his eyebrows. + +"Truly, nephew, I think you are indiscreet for a young man of such +fashion." + +"I have the right to know," Charles burst out. "In all that I can +remember of my childhood, you stood like a shadow in the corner of the +room, you were the nightmare that haunted my pillow. You used to write +sometimes--oh! I can remember your letters in their fat pursy envelopes. +I can smell the sealing wax, black sealing wax, now. My father would go +out with an oath and my mother would sit by a window with your letter in +her lap, weeping, weeping." + +"Did she weep, boy?" + +"Ah! that pleases you, eh?" + +"No, no, I was thinking what a laugh she had once--what a laugh. I +expect I was hard--I was--Charles, nephew, give me your hand--I----" + +The old man faltered in his speech and, as if the room were dark, groped +for our hero's hand; the latter drew back. + +"No! thank 'ee, Uncle, once is enough." + +The old man did not heed the insult. + +"Perhaps I understand your feelings, boy, I've read your poems." + +Charles was touched for a moment, but hardened himself as he thought of +that wide staircase down which, clutching the balustrade with both +hands, he had stumbled alone. A child does not easily forgive a slight, +and Charles still regarded his uncle with the eyes of a child. + +"Did she speak of me before she died?" murmured the old man with a +wistful eagerness. + +"She may have spoken," said Mr. Lovely, "the fever was high." + +"Or laugh--before she died? Nephew! to-night a young woman came to this +inn alone. She smiled like my sister, she laughed like my--like your +mother and like your mother she went away with the wrong man." + +"What do you mean?" cried Charles too much startled by the sudden +violence of his uncle's speech to resent the criticism of his father. + +"And you have ridden in pursuit? Then you are her lover--eh? She's +played you false as Joan played Roger false, and you are riding after +her, and you will shoot him and marry her, and bring her to Repington +Hall. 'Fore Heaven, I would give all my fortune to hear that laughter +ripple along the lonely corridors of Repington Hall. They used to sit in +the sunny window seat; and he would lean over the sill to pluck the +roses that blew beneath. I cut the tree down when he was killed, and in +the orchard where Lovely murdered him I planted cypresses." + +"Murdered him?" cried Charles impressed against his will by the old +man's passion. + +"Aye, murdered him. Roger was no swordsman, he was a gentle kindly +creature who loved old books and old friends, that's why I cannot +understand Belladine, why did Belladine let him fight, and what became +of--Good G----!" said the old man, "he's come back." Charles looked up +and, seeing only Beau Ripple standing in the doorway, concluded that his +uncle was gone mad. + +"A pinch of snuff, George?" said Mr. Ripple. + +"Thank'e, William," said Sir George. "This is my nephew, William--young +Charles Lovely." + +"We are already very good friends," said the Beau. + +The exchange of courtesies effected by the Beau with that unfailing tact +which characterized his least actions shed a new serenity over the +situation and, though Charles was completely puzzled by a surprizing +junction of personalities, he, too, with a profound instinct for the +correct attitude, bore a part in what was apparently nothing more out of +the way than a conversational episode in a social evening; yet three +twigs in a whirlpool do not jostle one another much more roughly than +the same three twigs in a puddle. + +"How's the gout, George? You threatened at one time to become an easy +prey to our physical Alectro." + +"Better, William, thankee, far better. I found that hard work kept it +off; or else I grew to drink less Port. I've dined solitary for a round +number of years now." + +"Your uncle looks well, Charles. Egad, I believe after all gold is +better than iron for a man's health whatever the apothecaries tell us. +Where is Clare?--a good fellow that friend of yours, Charles. I like Mr. +Clare." + +Tony came in from the stables at that moment and was presented to Sir +George Repington. + +He had often heard Charles rail against his uncle, but, perceiving no +strain in the relation between them, entered yhe gathering with an easy +grace, and gave a very humorous account of their departure from the +Wells. + +"Tut, tut," exclaimed Mr. Ripple, for Ripple he must remain, since as +Ripple he achieved immortality. + +"Tut, tut, I cannot have these riotous assemblies. This comes of leaving +Curtain Wells. By the way, where is Mrs. Courteen?" + +"She has an audience, sir," said Clare, "and is, therefore, as happy as +can be expected under the circumstances." + +"Who is Mrs. Courteen?" This from Sir George. + +"A lady in whose company I have set out upon a very restless adventure. +Cupid, George, has been shooting his arrows of late, without much regard +to our mortal comfort. I believe the young rogue was unduly elated by +the success of his Valentines." + +"Sure, you aren't abroad on a love-affair, too, William?" + +"Not of my own, George, but I have an onus in the matter. Some one has +stolen a porcelain shepherdess from my booth in Vanity Fair." + +"That would be the young woman with whom I supped to-night in this inn. +Her name was Courteen." + +"What! then we all have an interest in this matter, and can discuss the +proper conduct of it over the very excellent supper whose arrival I +anticipate without apprehension. This is a capital house, George." + +"The landlord is an oddity," said Clare, "called me tulip and onion in a +breath, and begged to be allowed to brush the mud off my boots which he +said was a famous manure for carnation gillyflowers. I 'faith, the old +boy made me feel devilish unclean." + +Mrs. Tabrum came in to say the widow would not take supper with the +gentlemen. She was much fatigued, and would be glad to retire to bed if +Mr. Pipple--or was it Ripple--had no objection. + +"None whatsoever," replied the latter in a pensive tone of voice. He was +meditating rather sadly upon the circumscription of human fame. + +A mere five-and-twenty miles from Curtain Wells, and already there was a +doubt as to whether he were Pipple or Ripple. + +"The widow don't intend to proceed," said Charles, when Mrs. Tabrum had +curtseyed her way out. + +"She is a foolish woman," said the Beau. + +"But you are not going to leave the daughter to her fate," asked Sir +George. "As you----" he stopped. + +Charles looked up; Mr. Ripple gravely took a pinch of snuff. "I think," +said the former, "that I shall be more likely to catch the chariot. +What's o'clock?" + +"Half-past ten," said Clare. "Your horse must rest an hour or two yet; +I'll ride with you." + +"That would be wiser," said Sir George eagerly. "Then nobody will say +Charles took an unfair advantage of him. Although--" Again he stopped in +a sentence, and again Mr. Ripple took a pinch of snuff. + +It was strange how Sir George had identified himself with Phyllida's +fortunes. It seemed as if he were staking his hope of a happy old age +upon the result of this love chase. The meeting with Phyllida had filled +up the rift which time and disappointment had created. He felt that +fortune owed him reparation for his sister's loss; and could not help +thinking what an appropriate instrument of the Fates had risen up in the +person of his nephew. Sir George Repington had become so much accustomed +in his large financial experience to the theory of just exchange that he +was inclined to put too blind a confidence in the scales, and was too +sure that the balance would adjust itself at some time or other. His +nephew had not shown himself greatly enraptured by this late +reconciliation, and Sir George had been lonely long enough. He was +anxious at eventide for company. Death came suddenly like a clock that +strikes in the night, and Sir George was afraid of the grey dawn +stealing over the tree tops through the gaunt windows of Repington Hall. +When the time came for him to face the vast uneasy realms of +immortality, he would like to feel that somewhere on this small green +earth, some hand would wave a sorrowful, a last farewell. He would +cherish these two lovers; the maid would bring him and Charles together +in friendship and charity. Everything pointed to a fortunate issue. He +no longer brooded resentfully over calamities that were forgotten long +ago. Belladine had come back. He and Belladine would sit on the sloping +Repington lawns. June was in front of them. Already, like balm upon the +old man's wounded heart, there stole the murmurous peace of the longest +day. He saw the golden light, and the long shadows of the elms. He heard +the caw of homing rooks and the flutter of thrushes in the great Hall +shrubberies. In dignity and in rustick ease he would move with measured +meditative steps like an English squire to his last account--not +account, that savoured too much of Throgmorton Street--to his last bed, +his virtues recorded in a Latin eulogy and for a memorial Charles and +Phyllida, perhaps a grandson George, certainly four weeping cherubs to +guard the four corners of his cenotaph. + +Our hero was in that state when a host of conflicting emotions fight for +the mastery. So much had happened in this eventful day. Everything and +everybody appeared in a new perspective. Beau Ripple, seen by the +firelight of the Travellers' Room, was no longer the exquisite despot of +a world in miniature, the impersonal porcelain monarch, the rarest and +most valuable piece in an universe of Bric-a-brac. He was in some way +connected with the tragedy of his uncle's early life. The sovereign +marionette of amber and tortoise-shell, of perfumes and pomades, whom +Charles had known hitherto, was only an elegant exterior. Underneath +the sattin, it seemed, there lived a man--one Belladine, of whose +existence Fashion was ignorant. The well-dressed Attitude called Horace +Ripple would be revered long after his decease. His epigrams would be +quoted. He would represent a period in the frivolous archives of Curtain +Wells, but Belladine whose heart had quickened to something more vital +than a pretty measure, Belladine who had known tears and laughter, +Belladine the Man would be forgotten. Charles pondered with passionate +commiseration the myriad heartaches of poor humanity that were once +esteemed worthy of exaggeration until a new intrigue caught the publick +tongue, and contemplated regretfully the inevitable and gradual +insignificance of all scandal. Truly, it was more consoling to regard +Beau Ripple, that inexplicable phenomenon, than try to gain the +acquaintance of Mr. William Belladine who had once played an important +part in his uncle's life. + +The latter, too, was different. He had only existed in Charles' mind as +an aversion of childhood, but Charles no longer objected to sleep in the +dark--the habit had come to him unconsciously. After all he owed Sir +George Repington no grudge; it would be absurd to cherish an animosity +that was based on a jejune domestick patriotism. The time had long gone +by when he thought his own father the finest gentleman in the world. Yet +was not this power of taking so much for granted, this passive +acceptance of change and decline, a surrender of his youth? Was he, in +fact, already divesting himself of all passionate reality? Charles +experienced the despair of the devout man whose faith deserts him. He +wrestled with his doubts and suddenly (it seemed a miracle) beheld on +the ingle seat a swansdown muff. Youth returned--a harlequin with the +supple wand of illusion. He stood once more in peach-coloured velvet +coat, staring up to a balcony over whose railing dimpled the most +enchanting face in England. + +"This was your mother, boy," said Sir George almost timidly, breaking in +upon his dreams. + +Very tenderly, Charles took the locket from the old man, and the sight +of the fresh young face brought back to his mind queer old nursery +rhymes, and his mother's voice and the smell of a pot of musk and the +cries of London coming in through an open window. There was a mist over +Charles' eyes and a lump in Charles' throat as he shook his uncle's +hand. + +The latter wondered at himself for having been content to remain so long +without the consolation of an acknowledged heir. For all these years, he +had worked without an object. Now the great house of Repington and Son +should be incorporated with some equally famous house and a delightful +leisure was at last imaginable. + +It warmed the old man's heart to hear Charles declare the importance of +immediate pursuit, to hear him shout for his horse to be saddled, lame +or sound, to see Mr. Clare look to the priming of the pistols and when, +on the threshold of departure, the old man saw his nephew pick up the +swansdown muff and cram it into the deep pocket of his great cloak, he +could scarcely forbear a loud huzza, such vigour and determination were +plainly visible on his nephew's attractive countenance. + +One incident, just before he set out, served to chill our hero's fervour +and discount his conviction of success. He was coming back from the +stable and, as he passed the staircase that led to the bedchambers, +perceived Mrs. Courteen beckoning from the corridor. He stopped to bow; +and in a tone where politeness and condolence and hopefulness were +pleasantly mingled, as good as promised the speedy restoration of Miss +Phyllida Courteen. + +"Sir," said the mother, "you are generous indeed to a fallen young +woman." + +Our hero frowned at this description of his love. + +"And equally generous," she continued, "towards the fault." + +Charles made a movement, but the widow plaintively ignored the +interruption. + +"They have told me of your generous resolve, but I would warn you, Mr. +Lovely, that interference in these matters is generally disastrous. The +child has done wrong--I do not wish to extenuate her crime--for crime +it is when you consider her mother's indulgence of every whim. I know +nothing of the eligibleness of the gentleman in whose company she has +chosen to shock the sensibility of her mother's small and select circle +of intimate friends." + +Charles began to fidget. + +"He may for all I know be a man of fashion, of rank, of fortune. He may, +on the other hand, be a play-actor, an attorney's clerk, or a journeyman +tinker. In either case it seems unlikely he will make an offer of +marriage. Pray do not put such an idea into his head. Marriages forced +upon reluctant suitors commonly turn out unhappy for both parties." + +The widow must have been immensely in earnest, monstrously eager to +secure her ambition, for never before had her speech betrayed such power +of coherent expression. + +"Let her go on her way," said the mother. "Let her find out for herself +the results of rebellion; when the villain deserts her, she may not be +quite so unwilling to stone the damsons next August. Let her learn her +lesson, Mr. Lovely, and pray do not persuade her to come back. Her +reputation is tarnished; and I am not at all inclined to bear the burden +of her ill-behaviour, as I should do, Mr. Lovely, as I certainly should +do since the world is censorious, and apt to visit the sins of the +children upon the heads of the father, as the Bible says." + +Charles could scarcely believe that Mrs. Courteen was in earnest. + +He knew her for a worldly-minded woman, careless of everything save her +own pleasures, but for such depths of callousness he was not prepared. + +"Indeed, madam," he said coldly, "my only excuse for obtruding my +presence upon Miss Courteen at such a time is my sincere hope that she +will honour my solicitous regard with the bestowal of her hand." + +"The child must be punished," insisted the mother. + +"Indeed, madam, I venture to think we may safely leave that office to +the small and select circle of your intimate friends." + +"I cannot understand what attracts--" Mrs. Courteen began, then changed +to "what makes men so generous." + +Mr. Lovely regarded her contemptuously. + +"So I should think." + +"Cruel Mr. Lovely," moaned the widow, "Cruel to suggest that I am +ungenerous. Why, I have never mentioned the pearls which were taken out +of my jewel-case." + +"They say that Miss Courteen's necklace vastly becomes her mother." + +"Do they, indeed, sir?" said the widow with an affected sigh. + +Charles made an impatient gesture. + +"Do you imagine, madam, that I am going to tire a good-hearted horse for +the sake of allowing you to bask in the flattery of your friends? By +G----! I tell you that one of 'em is already dead--shot for the sake of +that daughter whose ruin you contemplate so tranquilly." + +The widow turned pale. + +"At any rate," Charles continued; "at any rate, the little Major with +all his strut died like a cock of the game." + +"The Major dead," half screamed the widow; and even that information, so +brutally delivered, provided the thought that now more than ever was it +necessary to prevent Phyllida's marriage. + +"Aye, dead! He'll be here in the morning when the Wells waggon arrives." + +Charles turned away from the widow, thinking how impossible it was to +believe that a mother could be so heartless. The desire to cherish +Phyllida surged over him in a wave of tenderness; but when presently he +and Clare set out from the inn-door, under the tail of the storm-cloud +shedding stars in slow retreat across the sky, he felt Despair upon his +heels and pondered the infamy of this beautiful world. Poor hero! he was +a gamester even in his emotions and, having staked his hope in one wild +throw, was fearfully watching the issue. What a maddening melody the +cubes made when rattled by the hands of Fate. + +Pray remember, before you dismiss the widow to your eternal disdain, +that she may have loved young Mr. Standish, that rugged Squire Courteen +may have been very brutal in his cups, that such a malicious Codicil +might have soured a woman less dependent upon the amenity of life. +Finally, pray remember that she was a woman who did not wrinkle easily, +and the consequent temptations of a deceitful mirrour. Looking-glasses, +like human beings, lie more often than is commonly supposed, but possess +an unlucky reputation for truthfulness which seldom hampers humanity. + +Left alone with Sir George, Mr. Ripple took advantage of the opportunity +to explain to his old friend certain events on which the latter had long +brooded in vain. + + + + +_Chapter the Thirty-fifth_ + +THE CUTTING OF A DIAMOND + + +"And what is your life, William?" asked Sir George Repington, leaning +back in his chair and removing his wig. + +"My life, George," replied Mr. Ripple, "is a gem carved by a cunning +workman to stamp any material sufficiently plastick to record an +impression. My life, George, is a conductor of musick. Of itself it +produces no sweet sounds, but evokes a fair harmony from many and +diverse instruments." + +"You had ambitions once." + +"I have gratified the most of them." + +"Yet your life has not been active." + +"No?" + +"As for example mine has been." + +"I do not know, George, that my contemplative existence has produced +less than your phrenzied encounters with mathematical alliances and +numerical intrigues. The manipulation of human beings is quite as +active. We have neither of us done a vast deal." + +"I have had a great influence upon the political situation, more than +once," said Sir George proudly. + +"So have I," said the Beau. + +"Indeed?" + +"I have tamed the wives of the most of our ministers." + +"But you are not a man of intrigue?" + +"Heaven forbid!" said the Beau devoutly. "No, no George, my knowledge of +Olympian intrigue taught me to be wise. I found that the gods never +improved their dignity by amorous descents. To be sure, on one or two +occasions, they made an effort to assert their divinity by dramatical +effects unworthy of a country conjurer, but I do not believe that they +ever recovered from the indiscretion of familiarity with their +inferiors. No! no! George, I am not a man of intrigue." + +"Then what is your life? How do you pass your time?" + +Sir George Repington had lit a churchwarden pipe and accentuated the +inquiry by waving the long stem. Mr. Ripple took a pinch of snuff and, +settling himself deeper in his chair, began to relate his manner of +existence in a clear and modulated tone that agreed well with the +comfort of the room. The narrative took its own course and reminded one +of the purring of a cat amid the flickering shadows cast by firelight on +a gaudy rug. + +"I assumed my present name--Horace Ripple--partly out of respect to the +poet, partly out of respect to my father's mother. Belladine was too +metallick, too lustrous an appellation for a man without any desire to +agitate the peace of the world. Besides, there were other reasons why I +should forget my patronymick. As Horace Ripple, I rode one fine morning +into the town of Curtain Wells, procured a pleasant house in the Eastern +Colonnade and waited upon Beau Melon. The latter received me very +graciously and was pleased to compliment me upon the trimming of my +waistcoat. (I have often contemplated the revival of that auspicious +fashion.) I was lucky enough to render the great Beau a trifling +service, in the matter of adjusting the discordant claims of two +dairymaids who were quarrelling rather loudly over the young Earl +of---- well, his name don't matter. Melon had been entrusted with the +harvesting of the young nobleman's wild oats. After that I was able to +lend him five hundred pounds and half a dozen epigrams, also to put him +in the way of a neat translation of a song by the passionate Catullus, +whereby he secured the hand of the famous, wealthy, and eccentrick +Contessa Dilettante. He married, bequeathed to me his house, his +notebooks, and his goodwill, so that in a paltry five years I succeeded +to the sovereignty of Curtain Wells. Our season endures from October +until June. During that time I am as busy as a monarch should expect to +be. I have made many alterations during the years of my rule; for +instance, the Assemblies once held every Wednesday are now invariably +held every Monday." + +"But what the d----l does it matter which day they are held?" +interrupted Sir George. + +"Of course, it does not matter. Nothing matters. Nevertheless, George, +when I announced the change, I tell you my throne, for a moment, +tottered. However, I triumphed over the malcontents, and I venture to +think it would take a very bold man to suggest they should ever again be +held upon Wednesday." + +"But, my dear William!" said his friend, "this is nonsense. 'Tis absurd +for you to sit there and congratulate yourself as though this were doing +something." + +"My dear George," said the Beau very blandly. "Did I not read last year +in the _Intelligence_ that you were agitating yourself confoundedly in +order to secure some great financial advantage by altering the date of +the despatch of bullion to Portugal?" + +"You did, William, you did," said Sir George, setting his shoulders back +at the proud thought of a great victory won. + +"And what the d----l does it matter whether the ships sail in February +or March?" + +"You don't understand--the depression of the markets, the----" + +"Precisely so," interrupted Mr. Ripple, "and you, my dear friend, do not +understand the depression of Monday and Tuesday in the time before my +great reform." + +"But mine was an affair of international importance." + +"And mine was an affair of domestick and social importance. Gadslife, do +you suppose that my subjects care a jot about your schemes, if their own +bodies are uncomfortable? Do you realize that many an election +depends--yet why should I dispute the question. Nothing matters, but +everything is of the very greatest importance." + +Sir George was bewildered by the Beau's sophistry and argued no +farther. After all, as he told himself, the atmosphere of Throgmorton +Street had probably stultified his outlook. He himself only regarded it +as a necessary, if purgatorial prologue to the paradise of the life of a +man of leisure. Belladine was a man of leisure, and if Aristotle's +politicks were not corrupt, must know more than himself about the +affairs of the whole world. So Sir George kindled a fresh pipe with a +burning coal, and listened to the continuation of Mr. Ripple's placid +narrative. + +"I perceived," the latter went on, "that pleasure was the most +inexorable fact, setting aside birth and death, in the human economy. +Before my time, the diversions of Curtain Wells, though conducted on a +lavish scale of expense were somewhat haphazard. They did not always fit +in with the moods of the pilgrims of AEsculapius. Too much was left to +private enterprize. There was not enough organization and, worst of all, +there was not enough stress laid upon the ascetick duties, whose +fulfilment would lend such a flavour and zest to relaxation. I +instituted, therefore, a rigour of exercise and diet, I insisted upon +the sacred character of the Pump Room, I glorified the taking of +chalybeate by a ritual at once subtle and magnificent. In a word, I +founded a new religion and, as the auctioneers have it, made of Curtain +Wells a true Temple of Hygeia. Having trained my subjects to make +themselves uncomfortable in a modish way, I was soon able to urge the +necessity of enjoying themselves on the same principle. To this end I +arranged that every month should have its specifick pleasures, which +would be welcomed as we welcome each flower that succeeds in its season. +I will not fatigue you with too much detail, but I can honestly affirm +that when the great Aquatick Gala or Fete Aqueuse comes to a dazzling +conclusion, when the showers of bursting crimson, violet, and golden +rockets dim the lustre of the Dog Star on the last night of June, the +whole of the fashionable world retires to verdant solitudes with a +profound admiration for me and a fixed determination to grace the grand +opening Assembly on the first night of October." + +"Indeed," said Sir George Repington, on whose mind a new prospect was +breaking, "and how do you pass your time during the intervening months?" + +"I meditate, George, I meditate in a charming rural retreat which I +possess in the green heart of Devonshire. There I spend leafy days in +pastoral seclusion. I have my plane tree, my jug of old Falernian. I +have my spaniel, Lalage, and an impoverished female cousin who performs +very engagingly upon the spinet. I sit in the austere musick-chamber +with shadowy white walls, empty save for two or three tall black oaken +chairs and the curiously painted instrument. I listen to the cool +melodies of Couperin and admire his unimpassioned symbols of the +Passions where a purple domino is the most violent, the most fervid +emotion. I hear above the chirping of the crickets, the faint harmonies +of Archangelo Corelli and the fugues of Domenico Scarlatti, whose name +is so vivid, but whose musick like the morning is a mist of gold. I sit +in a library hung with faded rose brocades and tarnished silver +broideries. There I meditate upon the bloody deaths of Emperors and the +grey hairs of Helen of Troy. There I move serenely from shelf to shelf +and hark to the muffled thunder of volumes clapped together to exclude +the odorous dust. I ponder Religion and Urn Burial and pore over the +lurid histories of notable comets. At dusk of a fine day, I step out +into the dewy garden to watch the colour fade from the flowers and the +stars wink in the lucent green of the western sky. Presently I step +indoors, light a tall wax candle set in a silver candlestick, go +sedately to bed and fall asleep to the perfume of roses and jasmine and +the echo of a cadence from the _Anatomy of Melancholy_." + +"And that is your life?" said Sir George. + +"That is my life." + +"William, would it have been your life if things had been different on +that April morning? I thought my life was as I would have wished to +spend it; I have worshipped dull columns of figures and the dust of +counting-houses, but to-night when I saw that child, when I saw that +nephew of mine, I feared old age and wished I could somehow have +thought less, calculated less, striven less, and loved more." + +"George," said Mr. Ripple, tapping the lid of his snuff box with not so +brave an air as usual, and, as he spoke, his friend apprehended in a +moment's illumination that all this decorated narrative had been evoked +to defer an explanation which he had felt all the while was inevitable. + +"George," said Mr. Ripple, "if upon that morning in April, I could have +made up my mind, I should, I believe, have--and yet I don't know," he +broke off, "I doubt I was never intended to be a man of commonplace +action." + +"You did not interfere?" + +"I loved her, too." + +"You loved her?" + +"I saw she cared for him alone, and, when Roger fell, though I had my +pistol loaded and levelled, I had no heart to fire. But I was never +brave enough to tell you I had let him escape and, having waited too +long--oh! well there it is--I waited and could not bear to resume my old +life. And indeed, George, I think I have been a happy man. You have +conjured up the ghost of Belladine to-night and Belladine was and is and +will be miserable to the end of his days, but pray dismiss him, vex not +his ghost, and take snuff with Horace Ripple of the Great House, Curtain +Wells. We are both too old, George, to do anything now. We must depend +on young Charles." + +"And if he should fail?" + +"We are both old men. We should, therefore, both be able to suffer +another disillusion." + +"I suppose that is true," said Sir George rather sadly. "William----" + +"Horace," corrected Mr. Ripple. + +"William," persisted the other, "did I ever mention Thistlegrove Cottage +to you?" + +"Not that I can remember." + +"'Tis a fine night, full of stars," said Mrs. Tabrum, entering the room +with a tray full of brightly burning candles, "and what time would your +honours like to be waked up in the morning?" + +"I will ring my bell," said Mr. Ripple. + +"I will ring my bell," said Sir George Repington. + +The two old friends took each a candle, and went upstairs to bed. From +the corridor casement they looked out. + +"What a laugh she had," says Sir George. A gust of wind extinguished his +candle, and he shuddered. + +"That is the way I shall go out." + +"That is the way we shall all go out," said Mr. Ripple. + +"And nothing afterwards?" + +"Darkness." + +"And nothing else?" + +"Perhaps a hand in the darkness." + + + + +_Chapter the Thirty-sixth_ + +THE SCARLET DAWN + + +The post-chariot that held in its musty recesses Miss Phyllida Courteen +and Mr. Francis Vernon rattled on its way with all the vigour imparted +by four fresh horses and the exhilarating effect of Plymouth Gin upon +the post-boys. + +A smell of saddlecloths and damp cushions, of leather straps and the +dust of oat and hay, clung to the vehicle while over them was wafted the +permeating steam of horses' flanks and the pungent odour of hot lamps. + +"Phyllida, my Phyllida, at last." + +"Why did you let me travel alone? I was frightened." + +"My dear," said Vernon, "indeed, I do not know how to explain my +neglect, but I wanted to ride out of the darkness and find you alone in +the firelight like a maid in an old tale. It must have seemed cowardice +to you." + +"I was frightened," murmured Phyllida, growing breathless at the +recollection of Mr. Charlie and Mr. Dicky Maggs lurching round the table +in the Travellers' Room. + +"You longed for me?" Vernon moved closer to his love and took her hand. + +"Amor," said the girl shuddering, "I think I am frightened now. I think +we will go back. I think I have done wrong." + +"You think all these foolish thoughts, dear life. I know that to-day +will be to you a day of days for ever." + +He held her now in his arms, and she with a sigh yielded herself into +his keeping. Soft she was and timid, like a bird which has fallen from +the nest, and in the gloom he could still see her wide blue eyes and +above the jangle of the chariot he could hear her whisper, + +"I love you, Amor, I love you." + +"My Phyllida." + +"Amor, dear, dear Amor." + +"'Tis not my name, dear one." + +"'Tis the name you told me." + +"My name is Vernon." + +"To me you will always be Amor. Amor means Love. I asked the Archdeacon +and he told me that Amor meant Love." + +Vernon was taken outside of himself. As he kissed those lips more soft +than the petals of flowers, the other lips he had known seemed cracked +and dry. In the darkness, he felt her eyelashes upon his cheek as they +drooped to a blush, and a passion of remorse swept over him. He would +wed this child at the end of the journey. He would love her for ever. +That was certain. Oh, yes, there was no doubt he would love her for +ever. He had plucked this flower in a wanton moment, had thought to wear +her for a scented month and fling her away. O execrable intent! + +"My Phyllida, my Phyllida! Why do you love me?" + +"Why do you love me?" Her hand nestled in his. + +"I don't know, because--because--oh, because I do love you, because you +have driven me mad with your blue eyes and your hair and your lips. My +Phyllida, my Phyllida!" + +Vernon was no longer conscious of acting. This was no scene set with +chairs at appropriate angles. The raffish Mr. Francis Vernon of London, +the clever Mr. Francis Vernon who vowed every woman had her price, Mr. +Vernon the hero of half a hundred squalid intrigues was dead. Why should +he not forget him, taking for his own that fortunate pseudonym which had +set him as high as the angels? With a gesture of dismay, he drew from +his cuff a greasy King of Hearts and spurned the dishonourable cardboard +with his foot. + +"Amor!" + +"My dear! My lovely one! My heart!" + +"Once I climbed up a high hill at home in Hampshire." + +He held her more closely. + +"I climbed a hill and stared for a long while right into the sun. I was +giddy. Amor! Amor! I feel now as I did when I stared for a long while +into the sun." + +"Phyllida! Phyllida!" + +"You'll never not love me, Amor?" + +"Never, I swear it." + +"I could not bear you not to love me. Once I knew a young woman whose +lover forsook her and she used to work woollen flowers all day long with +a tambour frame, because she was working woollen flowers when he told +her that he loved her, and she never did anything else all the years +that we knew her; and, Amor, she is working them now, and oh, I'm afraid +when I think of her working those woollen flowers." + +Vernon in his new frame of mind could scarcely forbear telling his love +of the ills he had intended towards her. He had caught a passion for +frankness and would have poured into her ears the whole of his past. He +could not endure, to such elation had he been carried, that Phyllida +should be ignorant of the worst of him in order that for the future she +should know more truly the very best of him. But he was wise and, though +Cupid had lent him his own wings, he would not play too many aerial +pranks, soar too near the sun, fall and break his neck. It was indeed a +form of abnegation that prevented him from showing Phyllida his own bad +self. It was bitter to hear her murmur, with a white hand on his sleeve. + +"I knew you were true, my true love, all the time, all the time." + +Nothing tugs at the heart-strings of a man like a young maid's plighting +of her troth. Nothing makes his brain reel like her first kiss freely +given. + +"Oh, Phyllida, Phyllida! I'm not fit for you." + +"Foolish Amor." + +"Are you happy, my dearest?" + +"Oh, so happy." + +"We shall never be parted again." + +"Never!" + +"I did not know that life was so wonderful." + +"I thought it was," she murmured, as she nestled to his heart, "because +Spring was always so sweet, and now I need never mind the Winter." + +"All the years I did not know you, my Phyllida, were wasted years." + +"Amor!" + +"Phyllida!" + +"How I shall always love you." + +"Always?" + +"To the end." + +"Once," she said with a sigh, "I longed to grow old, and now I would +like to be always young." + +"Ah! Phyllida, my Phyllida, don't speak of age. I've wasted so much of +my life." + +He thought with anguish of the dead Summers he had known and wondered +with a great dread whether they would come again. If, while he could +still feel this splendid passion, they should be grey and dismal, he +would never forgive himself for having revelled in the warmth and gaiety +of those irrevocable seasons. + +"You are not sad?" she asked, jealous of his silence. + +"I wish that life were not so short." + +Our villain was beginning to examine the foundations of his existence +upon this earth, where hitherto he had jogged along, accepting the most +outrageous calamity and good luck with placid superficial mind. +Meditation upon the brevity of a life, which at any moment a tavern +brawl might extinguish, would have seemed to him before this passionate +conversation a lunatick method of spending time. Poor villain! he had +not enjoyed much leisure for meditation. He was born in a hurry, his +mother being under contract to appear as Millamant a long while before +she should. He was brought up in a hurry at Alleyn's School to be +murdered in a hurry by some Richard III. Moreover, in youth he had +assisted at so many tinsel deaths that it was not surprizing he should +regard them lightly. Even his mother's death within sound of the orange +girls outside Drury Lane struck him as nothing more final than a last +appearance. + +Now for the first time, there broke upon him the stunning fact of +inevitable decay and, being a self-indulgent man, he had for the moment +nothing more dignified than petulant despair with which to meet this +sudden apprehension of mortality. + +"'Tis monstrous," he declared, "a fearful thought that you and I should +ever grow old and die. I cannot bear to think of your brown hair growing +white. Phyllida, you cannot grow old." + +Love had made a woman of Phyllida and already, with gentle touch, she +soothed his anguish. + +"Dear Amor, I know that if we love each other truly, we shall never grow +old to each other." + +"Phyllida, I love you," and clasping her lissome body breathless to his, +he defied the lightning of the Gods. + +And now a new fear assailed him. 'We shan't be followed,' he had +contemptuously informed old Mother Mawhood at Blackhart Farm. In sudden +dread he leaned out of the window of the chariot, and strained his eyes +to pierce the darkness. He could see nothing save the shadows of the +postillions against the hedge, hear nothing save the clatter of the +horses. The loneliness and gloom affected his spirits and with a shudder +he sought again the musty interior of the vehicle. He caught his love to +his heart. + +"What did you see?" she asked. + +"Nothing, but I was afraid, I could not bear to lose you now." + +"You saw nothing?" + +"Nothing." + +"And heard nothing?" + +"Nothing. Why do you ask?" + +"Oh, Amor, I thought I saw the shadow of a man on horseback." + +"Fancy, my sweet, fancy." Then, with a sinking fear, he remembered he +had told Mother Mawhood of the pearls. He called to mind the postboys' +insolence, the look that passed between Charlie and Dickie when he told +them he would ride in the chariot. He sprang in alarm to open the +window, but the carriage pulled up with a jerk which flung him back +against Phyllida. The glass crashed to the heavy butt of a pistol and, +as he stretched out for his own fire-arms, he saw the postboys resting +long barrels on the sill and, by the lamp which one of them held, a +masked face that with thick brutal voice demanded their money. + +"Hand 'em over." + +"Hand what over?" said Vernon, in a futile attempt to delay his +humiliation. + +"The pops first," said one of the Maggs, winking humorously in the +direction of Vernon's pistols that in leathern holsters lay harmless on +the dusty floor of the chariot. + +Now occurred one of those astonishing coincidences that have tempted the +speculation of many sages since the beginning. A field-mouse chose that +very moment to cross the road. A large white owl spied the diminutive +pilgrim and, having tasted no food that stormy night, swooped daringly +upon his prey under the heads of the standing horses. Terrified by the +soft white apparition, the leaders plunged forward. In a moment the +chariot was bumping and jolting at a wild pace down the road, having +broken Charlie Maggs' big toe in transit. The blackguard deserved a scar +for his carelessness, if for nothing else, and the limp he earned that +night was some time afterwards the means of proving his complicity in +the affair of the blind mouse-tamer, thereby ridding the world of a very +dirty rascal. Mice were fatal to Charlie Maggs. It is satisfactory to +know that the adventurous animal avoided the owl, and it is also +consoling to learn that the latter never adorned a gamekeeper's pole, +but died a natural death in the hollow trunk where it had spent actually +all the days of its life. + +It was a moment or two before Vernon understood that the danger was +averted; then he bent low to reassure Phyllida, who was crouching in the +darkest corner of the chariot. + +"My dear," he cried, and for all the swaying motion caught her to him +with a certain grace. "My dear, there is nothing to be afraid of now." + +"Oh! Amor!" she sobbed, abandoning herself to the horror of remembrance, +"that face--that black face." + +"My sweet, you shall never see it again." + +"It will follow us." + +"If he should I have something here that will frighten him away fast +enough." + +Vernon waved a pistol which he had picked up even as he caught hold of +Phyllida. But the masked face did not pursue them and, after a mile or +so of noisy swaying progress, Vernon began to consider the possibility +of stopping the carriage. He leaned out of the window and nearly had his +eyes put out by a bramble sucker. A survey from the other side, where +the remaining lamp lent a wavering illumination, showed they were +travelling at an alarming pace down a deep rocky lane. Vernon noticed +that the boulders in places trespassed considerably upon the road with +projecting points, and there seemed every likelihood of the chariot +being presently wrecked like a rudderless boat. However, runaway horses +and drunken men share a large amount of the world's luck between them, +and notwithstanding the headlong speed, every boulder in turn was +successfully avoided. Farther along, the surface of the road grew worse +and, every other second, one of the wheels would grate against the side +of a deep rut with a horrid jar. They were going downhill now and Vernon +strained his eyes to discover the lie of the country. The pace was +harder than ever, and it seemed impossible for four horses to survive +the roughness of the road and the steepness of the descent. + +Suddenly above the clatter they heard the roar of water: at the same +moment the front wheel struck some permanent obstacle: the chariot +dipped forward: Phyllida and Vernon were flung in a tangled heap on the +floor, while the sudden cessation of movement made the noise of the +water sound very portentous in the gloom. Vernon extricated himself from +the vehicle on the lighted side and, jumping out, splashed his way +through mire and puddles to the horses' heads. The two leaders with that +unexpected philosophy which in horses often succeeds the most fervid +excitement were cropping the young herbage peacefully, while the +wheelers were only slightly more restive through their inability to +reach the same sweet pasture. Vernon snatched the solitary lamp from the +socket and went to help Phyllida alight. As she stood upon the step and +gave him her little hand, he divined with a sense of awe, begotten by +the solitude of the surroundings, that she was truly his. He was Adam +greeting Eve with the mystery of woman all about her in that primaeval +Spring. + +The scene of the catastrophe was peculiarly solemn. The chariot had +struck a column of stone that rose suddenly out of the ground as if the +finger of a Titan had been frozen into perpetuity to mark some early and +gigantick travail of his mother Earth. The lamp with feeble yellow light +made monstrous shadows of the huge features it sought vainly to +illuminate. So far as he could judge they were nearly at the bottom of a +deep ravine along which swept a torrent whose magnitude was impossible +to estimate, since the roar of the waterfall gave it in the darkness a +dreadful importance. + +"It must be close on two o'clock," said Vernon, "let's leave this +disastrous vehicle. We may find shelter somewhere over this valley." + +Phyllida drew the riding hood round her and, taking her lover's arm, +silently acquiesced in this proposal. + +As they drew near the waterfall, the thunder of it made her shiver. They +crossed the torrent by a stone bridge that seemed to have become a +natural feature in the landskip. + +On the far side by a common impulse they stopped and Vernon leaned down +to kiss her face. + +"My Phyllida," he murmured; and held the lamp so that he could see the +shimmer and gleam of love in her eyes. They stood silent, enraptured, +and the hot yellow lamp away down in the depths of this world-forsaken +valley became the very torch of Hymen. + +With slow steps they climbed the opposite hill, deserting the waters and +the rocks, the ferns, the little bridge, for the grey starshine above +the gloom. Yet the awe of that solemn ravine, which they had reached +after such peril, enthralled them still and I think both felt as if +somehow their love had been consecrated by a divine being. It was quite +a relief from the strain of reverence when Vernon informed Phyllida that +there was no sign of any human habitation. + +"What shall we do with the carriage?" asked the latter. + +"Don't fret about that." + +"And the horses?" + +"They must take their chance. I wish I knew the hour." + +"You said it must be two o'clock." + +"The sun does not rise till half-past five. Three hours and a half. I +wonder why we left the chariot. It would be wiser to go back. You will +be cold in this open country." + +The wind was blowing shrewdly up there in the starlight, and Phyllida +would not deny she was cold and tired. + +"We had better go back to the chaise. 'Twas warmer in the valley." + +Yet both of them felt a strange disinclination to risk the disillusion +of return till, suddenly, up there in the wind and starlight, terror +caught them, and the noise of water tumbling over rocks gave them a +sense of security from this wide place of silence. + +"'Tis a monstrous uneasy country," said Vernon, voicing in common speech +the sense of woe that oppressed him. + +"I feel frightened," Phyllida agreed, "let us go back to the water." + +They stopped to listen as people will whose minds have been much wrought +upon. There was nothing but the lisp of the wind in the bents of last +year's grass and a melo-dious sighing in the boughs of larches. Yet +never throughout that adventurous night had Phyllida's heart pattered at +such a pace, never had she been so near to shrieking aloud. Without +longer delay they turned back in the direction of the coombe, walking +with quick steps as if to avoid an invisible pursuit. Half-way down the +hill, Vernon stooped to gather a primrose. + +"Here's a daisy," he said. + +"A daisy," Phyllida cried. "Why, foolish Amor, 'tis a primrose," and +whatever fiend or goblin followed in their wake fled in affright at the +sound of her rippling laughter. + +I think nothing shows more conclusively that Mr. Vernon was in love with +Miss Courteen than his indifference to her ridicule. + +"Sweetest," he said, "I'm ignorant of the best things like flowers," and +forthwith began to tell Phyllida of his life in London, so that when +presently they stood again upon the bridge, he was raising his voice in +order to describe his first impressions of rustick Marybone, to which he +added a very nice account of the view of the Hampstead Hills. + +Under the influence of this narrative, the scene lost some of its +grandeur. An air of grottoes, of stone embellishments, arbours, and +cunning recesses shed itself over the landskip. One heard comparisons +with this or that famous haunt of sight-seeing mobs. In fact both Vernon +and Phyllida, being English, felt their late raptures were unbecoming, +and having excused a lapse into sensibility by the fright they had +suffered, proceeded to declare that the chasm, far from being Titanick, +would make a mighty fine site for an excursion of pleasure. At least +Vernon clothed the opinion in words, Phyllida was too much fatigued to +do more than murmur a weary assent. + +They found the chariot just as they had left it and the four horses +browsing upon the grass. He handed her into the vehicle, made her +comfortable with what rugs and cloaks he could collect and left her to +rest with the assurance he would remain close at hand. She gave his hand +a tired clasp and almost immediately fell fast asleep. Vernon tethered +the horses to various stumps in the vicinity, and proceeded to doze and +dream away the cold hours before dawn in the shelter of a particularly +large and overhanging ledge of rock. The sound of the falling water that +deafened him with its roar when first he heard it, now soothed him like +a gentle lullaby. + +I cannot do justice to the scene: Rembrandt with his powerful and gloomy +imagination could have etched it. He would have made the two lovers +present themselves to the onlooker in their right proportions to the +scenery. You and I are too near to the candlelight of Curtain Wells to +believe in the romantick desolation wherein they seemed of no more +importance than the ferns that hung down their green tongues to the +limpid pools hollowed from jagged rocks. Vernon, huddled in the shelter +of the crag, with his hat pressed over his eyes, his knees arched as +high as his chin, might well have been a belated herdsman who, having +flung himself into this valley to avoid the upland wind, had been +bewitched by the magick of running water to dream away the night. The +horses in the black shadows and the ruined chariot had an air of Gothick +melancholy; the yellow lamp that glimmered fitfully in the heart of the +abyss served only to throw into more huge relief the neighbouring rocks, +while it lighted the thresholds of gaping caverns that stretched beyond +to unimaginable depths of solitude and gloom. The night wore on and over +the hill the lovers had found so depressing to their spirits, like a +sword in the twilight, lay the first grey streak of dawn. Phyllida and +her lover slept while the features of the landskip began to win again +their own outlines, while the rocks that were wrapped in the warm velvet +of night appeared with a cold sheen. The grey streak widened to a broad +lake whose margin was flecked with the faint hues of lavender and mauve. +Birds began to twitter and chirp in the trees and bushes that overhung +the rocks below, while the winds of dawn fluted in the small withy bed +beside the bridge. + +Very wan in the morning twilight, Mr. Charles Lovely and Mr. Anthony +Clare clattered down the deep lane that led to the valley. Their horses' +flanks glistened with the sweat of hard travel and the riders rose +hardly to the jerking downhill motion. + +Just as the rose-tipped fingers of Aurora plucked the lavender from the +skies, Charles and Tony caught sight of the chariot and just as they +pulled their horses to a standstill, Mr. Vernon woke up. It is +characteristick of the latter's new-found consideration that his first +action was to warn them with a gesture of Phyllida's presence fast +asleep inside. Charles tapped his holsters in reply and pointed up the +opposite slope. Vernon rose to follow his pursuers with a backward +glance in the direction of the chariot. + +When they were over the bridge and out of Phyllida's hearing Charles +reined in his walking horse and inquired if Vernon was willing to give +him satisfaction. + +"For what?" said the latter with a sneer. + +"For insulting my Muse," said Charles, determined if possible not to +make Phyllida the subject of the quarrel. + +"Your muse?" echoed Vernon, with the faintest intonation of surprise, +"but I promised you satisfaction for that a month hence." + +Vernon was equally determined that Phyllida should be the direct +occasion of the duel, if duel there must be. + +The rosy heavens became a sheet of vivid scarlet intersected with the +golden bars of the fast rising sun. Up he came in a blaze and dazzle of +glory, lustrous and invigorating; still the colour was not quite +effaced, and on the three men that scarlet dawn made an invincible +impression of disaster and woe. A red sky is a warning to shepherds and +sailors, no doubt it was ominous to lovers. + +The summit of the hill was reached and involuntarily the three paused in +their wrangling to marvel at the extensive landslip suffused with the +amber haze of earliest morn. The homesteads in sight seemed untenanted: +there was not a single column of curling smoke to mark the presence of +humanity. + +Where they were standing, the road was bordered on either side by a wide +stretch of level sward. On the left was a spinney of larches showing as +yet no crimson plumes of Spring, round which numbers of rabbits +gambolled in air that sparkled like golden wine. It seemed indeed more +like July than April, and only the bare trees told the true tale of the +season's youthfulness. Up here on the top of the world the three men +drank in the beauty of the universe and, having as it were performed +their orisons, turned to arrange the details of a bloody encounter. + +"I promised I would meet you where you would in a month's time," +repeated Vernon obstinately. + +"But I prefer to meet you now," replied Charles. + +"I have no one to act for me." + +"Mr. Clare will act for both of us." + +"That is an irregular proceeding." + +"I don't care." + +"And Miss Courteen?" Vernon was resolved to drag Charles to the real +point at issue. "What is to become of Miss Courteen?" + +"In either event, Mr. Clare will be able to escort her back to Curtain +Wells." + +"D---- n you," said Vernon, roused by his enemy's assumption of +guardianship. "And what if she wishes to stay with me?" + +"Mr. Lovely has her mother's authority to conduct her home," interposed +Clare. + +"What you two prim busybodies don't appear to understand is that Miss +Courteen prefers to remain with me." + +"Miss Courteen is not her own mistress. She is not of age," said Clare. + +"And pray how do you propose to make her accompany you?" + +"Why, in this way," interrupted Charles, shaking off his friend's arm, +"in this way, Mr. Vernon. If you decline to meet me with pistols, by +G---- I'll thrash you senseless with my crop." + +Vernon's hands twitched for a moment, but he had learned a new +restraint, gained a new dignity from the wondrous ride and with scarcely +a perceptible quiver in his voice begged to point out to his friend Mr. +Lovely that if he shot him, he should not scruple to shoot Mr. Clare +were the latter to stand in his way. + +"But what if you're shot, Sir?" cried Charles, betraying in his +eagerness the true reason for his desire to force an instant encounter, +"as by G---- you deserve to be for murdering the poor little Major." + +Vernon was perplexed. + +"The Major? Is he dead? I had nothing to do with his death." The +simplicity of the denial almost convinced his listeners that he was +speaking the truth. + +"Come, Sirrah, will you meet me? said Charles, lifting his crop. + +"Listen, you pair of puppies," said Vernon between his teeth. "I could +have put a bullet into either of you at any time during the last five +minutes, and by heavens, I don't know why I kept my finger from the +trigger. Yes, I do," he shouted. "I've got a chance of happiness and I'm +not going to throw it away by having your blood on my head. You're an +interfering pair of fools, but I cheated one of you at cards and I +played a low game over the book, and by G----, I believe my father was a +gentleman. I'll meet you, Mr. Lovely, now." + +With these words he flung down on the grass at Charles' feet the two +pistols which the skirts of his riding-coat had concealed. + +"I'll step fifteen paces," said Mr. Clare, hiding his emotion with a +piece of practical utility. And, as he began to measure the ground, away +down in the broken chariot, Phyllida woke with a start. She was +surprized by the daylight and called to her lover. Only birdsong +answered her voice. In sudden dismay, presentiment hanging over her like +the aftermath of an evil dream, she jumped from the chariot. Intuition, +perhaps the remembrance of last night's fear, made her look towards the +summit of the slope. In silhouette against the golden sky, she saw three +figures. Breathless with horror she ran in their direction. Up the hill +she laboured. It was still cold from the night air and foreboding was +heavy upon her heart. Up the hill she struggled, leaving in her path +many fluttering pieces of muslin where eager feet had torn the frail +flounces. Down the road, she saw them level their weapons. "One, two, +three," came in measured tones along the still air of the morning. There +were two shots, the scud of frightened rabbits to their burrows, a +reeling figure, a cloud across the sun, a mist over life, and she was +kneeling in the dewy grass beside Amor. + +"Oh, God!" she screamed, "He's dead. Oh! Oh! Oh!" + +That anguished cry wounded Lovely deeper than any leaden bullet, for it +killed his hopes. + +At the touch of his dear one, Vernon opened his dark eyes. + +"Here's a bunch of primroses," he murmured, "not daisies. I picked them, +Phyllida ... for you ... not daisies ... primroses...." + +And so with thoughts of flowers, Mr. Francis Vernon died. Pray let that +sentence be his epitaph. + +Charles, watching the maid stare into the sun with eyes whose light +seemed fled with the swift-flying soul of the dead man, wished +passionately--wildly--that he were the quiet body there in the dewy +grass. + +"What shall we do?" he murmured brokenly to Clare. + +"Leave her alone for a while." + +"What a mistake it has been." + +They walked away with cautious steps and spoke in whispers as if they +were afraid. + +"What right had I to interfere between lovers?" + +"You did it for the best." + +"I know, I know, but what a d----d number of silly actions are done for +the best." + +"To-day is the first of April," said Clare, seeking with a commonplace +to relieve the tension of Charles's distracted mind. + +"Is it? What an April fool fortune has made of me." + + + + +_Chapter the Thirty-seventh_ + +APRIL FOOLS + + +The last ejaculation of Chapter XXXVI will serve as an admirable summary +of the positions in which a number of our characters found themselves on +April the First, in the year whose annals include this small history. + +There is a peculiar happiness of choice in making the first day of that +treacherous and feminine month coincide with the humiliation of a large +number of worthy people. We plunge into April with a prodigious +expectation of jollity: we delight in the sound of her name, liquid as +the song of a thrush; we strut in the sunshine, fling off our surtouts, +recline on banks where the painted adder lurks and the East wind cuts +down from the high pastures, and altogether behave in a very foolish +fashion. The heavens have taken a deeper blue; so among the cowslips we +contemplate their azure until a black squall blows along, stings our +rash necks with perilous hailstones and drives us headlong to the +shelter of the pale green hedgerows. There on the drifted leaves of dead +Octobers, we are scratched by the crimson thorns of briers and, slowly +acquiring an extensive rheumatism, wish very sincerely we had never +stirred from the hearth where the wise pages of Montaigne or La +Rochefoucauld lie dog-eared through our precipitate adventure. + +Yet, after all, it is better to be a fool in April than a wise man in +November. Pit and boxes hear the ravings of the mad Ophelia with the +sense of superiority secured by plush, but the most of them would be +better men and women for having gathered that nosegay of columbines and +rue. + +So drop a tear for Phyllida. She was the heroine of the piece, the +gentlest, tenderest maid. Sorrow has laid his grey fingers upon her +heart and, though she may grow old and wise and wed a squire with +well-tilled acres and spacious hall, to the end of her life a poignant +experience, on which you have been the privileged intruder, will +modulate her lightest laugh with a deeper harmony. + +At the _Basket of Roses_ there were April fools that day. + +"Charles made up his mind and did no good," said Mr. Ripple. "I +hesitated, and was in no better case. What is one to do?" + +Sir George Repington was quite broken up by the affair. Years ago he had +built a bower in April which was destroyed in a morning. In old age, +Spring fooled him again. + +Like the heavy footnote of a tragedy, Mr. Moon, lately arrived by the +Wells waggon, employed himself with practical suggestions. Mr. Lovely +must retire over the water for a while, the sooner the better. Mrs. +Courteen and Miss Phyllida must return to Hampshire. He would make +posting arrangements; their baggage must be sent after them. Tarry must +be buried in the parish church at home; he could not allow a neighbour +to lie in a strange churchyard. For once in his life, Mr. Moon was of +real use to a situation and, in the protracted discussions of expedients +for hushing the matter up and conveying the principals safely into +seclusion, the grief of many hearts was temporarily allayed. + +"You must come back with me to Curtain Wells, George," decided Mr. +Ripple, "we must not allow the world to invent any more explanations of +the affair. I doubt the wildest rumours are flying round. In a month or +two, Charles can return if he will; meanwhile you and I, George, will +give ourselves the pleasure of paying his debts." + +In the dusk of to-morrow's dawn, the vivid yellow chaise of Beau Ripple +rattled over the cobbles of Curtain Wells, and drew up before the Great +House. A dexterous and hurried toilet was performed with Mr. Mink's +assistance and the watchers from the windows, ignorant whether the Great +little Man was returned, were immensely gratified to see him emerge from +his front door, goblet in hand, and wearing a new buff suit of +unparagoned cut with very full trimming round the skirts. + +The Exquisite Mob buzzed around the Beau's pedestal with a scarcely +contained curiosity. Mr. Oboe, the Physician, was almost more +subservient than usual, and not a single person inquired after his +neighbour's health or expatiated upon his own. Gog and Magog exposed +their ivory teeth in a permanent smile of welcome, and in the kitchen of +the Great House, Mrs. Binn, the Beau's intelligent cook, prepared a +breakfast of the most savoury character. His ascent to the rostrum +produced an expectant silence. + +"My lords, ladies and gentlemen," he began, "I owe you a profound +apology. You will, of course, understand that in my capacity as Master +of the Ceremonies of Curtain Wells, I am under no obligation to any one, +but as Horace Ripple, I feel that my conduct in deserting you yesterday +morning without any notice of my intention deserves an explanation. When +I inform you that a domestick difficulty not entirely unconnected with +my censorious office called for hasty adjustment, you will, I am sure, +pardon me for not divulging the details of a very unfortunate affair. If +I may trespass to such an extent upon your good nature, I should like to +make my late adventure the subject of a short admonition. As you are +aware, I am not accustomed to mingle with the practical politicks of my +matutinal oration any allusion to your moral welfare: I should esteem it +highly impertinent on my part, were I to usurp in such a way the +prerogative of our friend the Rector. Nevertheless I am inclined to make +an exception to my rule this morning, the more so as I feel it my duty +to inform you of my impending resignation." + +The Beau raised his monocle in order to regard the consternation of the +Exquisite Mob. + +"That event may not occur yet a while; at any rate I shall remain in my +present position during this season. Next October, however, I hope to +present you with a younger, I will not say worthier, successor. +Naturally I shall still spend the greater part of my time in Curtain +Wells, but with the advance of years, I shall wish to be excused from +many of your more nocturnal gaieties. That desire I could not gratify +were I still to hold the reins of responsibleness. However, this is not +an oration of farewell, so I will not longer emphasize the melancholy +topick of mutability. + +"The advice I would offer you this morning is, next to the duty of a +regular course of chalybeate, the most important item in human +happiness. My lords, ladies and gentlemen, never meddle with other +people's business when it happens to concern the heart or the soul of a +human creature. Do not, because you are older or because you have read +more widely or because you have travelled across Europe or because you +have dined with a Minister, or because you suffer from any of the +numerous delusions of superiority, do not be too sure that you are +competent to interfere with somebody who has enjoyed none of these +accidental advantages. Admonish the erring child, warn the impetuous +young woman, chide the libertine, reproach the gamester, set an example +of continence to all the world, but abstain from direct interference; +and if an unpleasant doom overwhelms the object of your interest, pray +do not suppose that you would have been able to avert it. My lords, +ladies and gentlemen, you are one and all the genteelest of companions, +but so far as my theology has taken me, you are none of you gods or +goddesses, except in the hyperbole of poetick dedications. + +"You have already heard the announcement of your forthcoming +entertainments; let me add to their number with a very cordial +invitation to the Great House, next Tuesday week. Finally, let me add +that during my tenure of office, I shall hope to make these personal +encounters a very frequent delight to your obliged humble servant Horace +Ripple. Oh, and pray let me assure you that my absence yesterday morning +was in no way due to any desire on my part to celebrate the festival of +the First of April. My lords, ladies and gentlemen, your very obedient." + +With these words the Great little Man descended from his pedestal, and +was presently in affable conversation with a number of men and women of +rank and fashion. + +You will remember that when, it seems an age ago, we first saw Beau +Ripple and the Exquisite Mob, we also met Mr. Vernon and Miss Phyllida +Courteen. For my own part, I feel that the Pump Room on this morning +lacked vitality for all its glitter and stir of elegant movement. I miss +the swansdown muff and the blushing, eager face of Phyllida. I miss +those little notes that dropped like feathers from the wings of Love. I +miss the ingenuous artifice and sweet stratagems of Phyllida and Betty +and for all it would nearly break my heart to see her misery, I would +fain be walking behind them away down in some budding Hampshire lane. +They are still in a postchaise, however, and the musty odour is wringing +her heart with an agony of regret. In what a world of memories will she +live the summer through. The cuckoo will call in the green wood and the +nightingale thrill the moonshine with her passionate song, but Phyllida +will stare into the sun. + +In a dip of the billowy downs, the harebells wave from their fragile +stems and ladies' slippers glow with red and orange flames. Far below +you can see the flashing wings of kestrels and hear the lapwing's +desolate cry. The beech trees rustle and in the long dry grass the wind +sighs continually. There she will sit hour after hour in the summer +heat, until she can forget. + +And yet, little heroine of a sad tale, I wonder whether you would not +have drooped in London and spent long lonely evenings while the twilight +stole in from the murmurous streets of the city. I wonder whether after +all you were not happier with a flock of rosy children, a portrait by +Mr. Romney, and the most comfortable corner in the great Hall pew. Upon +my soul, I am not competent to give an opinion. + +Phyllida's mother certainly thought that everything was for the best. In +her case optimism brought its reward, and she secured Courteen Grange as +a dower house, where she continued for many years to be very spritely +company for all the dowagers and many of the old bachelors in the +neighbourhood. It is perhaps strange she did not marry Mr. Moon, but to +confess the truth, the death of Major Tarry destroyed some of his +charm. Without that brisk veteran to stir his ponderous courtship, the +Justice became wearisome, possibly with greater opportunity of intimacy, +more cautious. No doubt in the course of his legal researches, he came +upon the Codicil to Squire Courteen's Will, and his election to the +Chairmanship of the Bench rendered him oblivious to anything more +trivial than Immortal Renown. If we can judge of his qualities by the +epitaph in the South Aisle of the Church, he united in one person the +austerity of Solon, the severity of Draco, the wisdom of Solomon, and +the domination of Aaron. He never finished his great essay on Peace, but +as his mural biographer justly remarked, 'His was now the Peace that +passeth all Understanding,' so that presumably the publication of his +fragment would have been a superfluous tribute. One particular +distinction belongs to Mr. Moon. He was never made an April fool. And if +the quiet tea-tables of Newton Candover were temporarily disturbed by +the escapade of Miss Phyllida Courteen, why the parson benefited by an +increase in his congregation. But even the most impudent curiosity could +not long survive Mrs. Courteen's circumambient frankness. + + + + +_Chapter the Thirty-eighth_ + +BEAU LOVELY + + +Charles was perfectly right when he said Fortune had made an April fool +of him. He should have accepted the ill omen of Valentine morning, for +it was certainly very unlucky to mock the God of Love with a false +pledge of affection. He was never intended for Phyllida. As Betty +rightly pointed out, they were too much alike. Pray do not suppose that +he was not an utterly miserable man for a long time. He was; but, in +compensation for being born a poet, he possessed the latter's faculty +for enshrining a reality in a sentiment. Phyllida came in time to stand +for the symbol of elusive youth. During his retreat abroad he suddenly +discovered that what he suspected was true, he had grown old. His father +had enjoyed a perennial inducement to commit foolish actions in the +quiet disapproval of his wife. Charles, however, in receipt of a +handsome allowance from his uncle found he no longer had the slightest +inclination to play. Wine had never attracted him save in moments of +high excitement and he was willing to let his love for Phyllida occupy +for ever the sacred inmost shrine of his heart. + +Clare remained with him as long as he thought Charles needed his +company, but word arriving that his cousin had died, he returned to +Devonshire, and in the following year you might have read in the +_Gentleman's Magazine_ 'Sir Anthony Clare of Clare Court, Devon, to Miss +Arabella Hopley with L10,000.' + +To the end of his days he always said that if he lived his youth over +again, he should not have acted otherwise than he did upon the first of +April 17--. But Tony Clare was obstinate in many ways, and, as I +believe, never admitted the virtue of even a new manure very willingly. +Before Clare left Charles had received a letter from Beau Ripple +inviting him to reside once more at Curtain Wells. + +"That is impossible," said Tony stiffly. + +"I suppose it is." + +"You forget that foolish satire." + +"I take it that Ripple intends me to succeed him as King of the Wells." + +"The publication of _Curtain Polls_ has made that impossible." + +"I don't know. It might incline them to respect me." + +Charles was very lonely in Paris after Tony had gone, and when war broke +out again, he decided to go back to England. Just before he started he +received a second epistle from the Beau. + + THE GREAT HOUSE, + + June 15. + + MY DEAR CHARLES,--_Our season will presently evaporate in this + atrocious heat, and your Uncle and I intend to visit Repington + Hall. He is now somewhat recovered of his Disappointment and very + anxious to consult with you as to the advisableness of selling the + Property. I agree with him in thinking that you would not enjoy the + somewhat gross seclusion of a rustick Squire, so that you will + oblige him by returning to England and letting him know your + feelings in the Matter._ + + _I cannot see you can do better than take up your permanent + residence in Curtain Wells. I do not wish to urge you into a + contemplative Existence too prematurely, but to a man of your + temperament the opportunities of observing human Character must + make an imperious appeal. These I can offer you together with the + pleasant pastime of ruling the fashionable World. You need not fret + yourself with any early indiscretions. They will very soon acquire + a romantick Interest of their own, and I confidently look forward + to your success in the splendid Office I have long wished you to + fulfil. You will have the benefit of my Advice which I hope you + will not find too obtrusive. Come, what do you say? There is a + capital house contiguous to Curtain Garden. I fear I cannot yet + resign the Great House. Your Uncle is willing to buy this property + for you and eagerly looks forward to your acceptance of his Offer. + In this hope he is cordially joined by_ + + _Your devoted_ + + HORACE RIPPLE. + +Charles hesitated no longer and hurried as quickly as possible to +Repington Hall. The canary-coloured footmen received him with extreme +deference, and he found the wide polished staircase quite easy to climb. +He had been a little afraid of his uncle's sentimental reminiscence, but +as it turned out his fears were groundless. Nothing was said about the +past and the conversation was almost entirely of a financial character. +He spent the remainder of the summer with Sir George Repington at +Scarborough, returning early in the autumn to form the establishment of +his new residence, Dragon Lodge. + +He bought a monocle of such thickness that the human countenance seen +through its glass was reduced to the merest pin-point. He procured two +Chinese mutes--Heaven knows how or where--but their names were Ho and +No. His eccentricities would exhaust another volume of description. He +was the famous Beau who appeared on the first of the month in a +light-coloured suit that gradually deepened until, on the last day of +the month, it always achieved blackness. When asked by somebody the +reason of this mode he replied that he was mourning the flight of time: +when asked farther why he was not perpetually funereal in his costume he +replied that the first day of the month always revived his hopes of +immortality. It was observed, however, that in April his dress did not +alter and those who rashly inquired the reason for this exception were +severely rebuked for their curiosity. His library was one of the finest +in England, although it did not contain a single copy of _Curtain +Polls_. The Great Dr. Johnson on one occasion complimented him upon the +selection of his authors, the decorousness of his bindings, and the +rigidity of his ladders. + +As Mr. Ripple had prophesied, the indiscretions of his past in course of +time acquired a romantick mystery of their own. He was credited in turn +with a faithless wife immured in a Gothick dungeon in the North-West of +the Island of Sicily, with a prodigiously passionate affair with a +German princess in which he was said to have pinked four Royal Dukes, +and with innumerable other entanglements quite impossible to recount. +All these tales only added to his prestige, while his wealth and +amiability gave him a reputation second to none of the Beaux of the +past. He wrote a number of verses, but never published another volume, +and was probably the original whom Sir Benjamin Backbite copied, though +his reasons for not printing were quite different from those of the +later fop. + +He would sometimes return early from assembly, rout, or ridotto to pay a +visit to Mr. Ripple. He would usually find the latter engaged in a game +of picket with Sir George Repington; and, after entertaining the two old +gentlemen with a witty and satirical account of the evening's +entertainment, he would walk slowly back to Dragon Lodge, stare +meditatively at the new motto he had adopted, _Fui decorus_, step into a +small ivory room that opened out of the massive library and take from a +cedar-wood drawer a white swansdown muff. + +EXPLICIT + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Passionate Elopement, by Compton Mackenzie + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PASSIONATE ELOPEMENT *** + +***** This file should be named 38177.txt or 38177.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/8/1/7/38177/ + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images available at The Internet Archive) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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