Took from its depths the various manuscriptsTook from its depths the various manuscripts and read them aloud.[page229.
Took from its depths the various manuscripts and read them aloud.
[page229.
The estimable Mrs. Delany, who fervently hoped that no friend of hers would ever be painted by so dreadful an artist as Gainsborough—a hope which, fortunately, was not realised, or the world would have lacked one of its greatest pictures—was also unable to take a charitable view of Lady Miller’s age. But still the curious entertainment took place every Thursday during the season, and was attended by every one worth talking about, and by a good many persons who were talked about without being worth it, in Bath and the region round about. Every one who was considered eligible to enter the Assembly Rooms was qualified to attend the ceremony of the urn at Bath-Easton.
This faint echo of the contests of the minnesingersoriginated with a Greek vase which came into the possession of Lady Miller. Having acquired this property, it seemed to have occurred to her that it would be well to put it to some practical use, so she put it to a singularly unpractical one. The vase was called an urn, and in it were deposited, on the day of the ceremony, certain rhymed couplets bearing, with varying degrees of directness, upon topics of the hour. The company having gathered round the urn, which was placed on a pedestal, Lady Miller or her husband took from its depths the various manuscripts and read them aloud. Prizes were then awarded to the poems which a committee considered best worthy of honour.
At first the entertainment was regarded with coldness: hearing copies of verses read aloud, most of them of indifferent merit, failed as an attraction; but so soon as it became known that some highly spiced personalities were embodied in no less than three of the poems taken from the urn one day, people began to perceive that the ceremony might be well worth attending, and its popularity increased to such a degree that few of the people possessing the slender qualification for visiting Bath-Easton failed to put in an appearance every Thursday.
Dick Sheridan, who went with one of his sisters, noticed Tom Linley scowling by the side of Mrs. Abington, for on the other side of the lady was Dr. Goldsmith with his friendLord Clare, and both were distracting her attention from what he was saying to her regarding Petrarca. She had professed an unbounded admiration for Petrarca, when his verses were quoted in the language in which they were written. But Dick saw that Tom had his revenge upon the others, for Dr. Johnson came up with Mr. Edmund Burke, and before the broadsides of such conversational frigates, what chance had a mere bumboat like Dr. Goldsmith?
In the distance Dick saw Mrs. Thrale by the side of her husband, and Dr. Burney had just joined them with Signor Piozzi—the accomplished Italian whom Mrs. Thrale had mocked with marvellous effrontery while he was playing the piano one day in Dr. Burney’s house in St. Martin’s Street, off Leicester Fields. Dr. Burney had gravely rebuked her for her impoliteness; but his doing so only made the little invisible imp of Fate, who had been very hilarious over the lady’s mimicry, as he sat perched up on the cornice of the ceiling, almost choke himself with chuckling.
Mrs. Thrale was now very polite to Signor Piozzi, and so also was Mr. Thrale.
Then Miss Angelica Kauffmann, accompanied by Sir Joshua Reynolds and Miss Theophila Palmer, hastened to greet Garrick, who had once contributed a poem to the urn. Afterward, Mr. Richard Cumberland drew nigh, and Garrick lost no time making him contribute to the amusement of Miss Palmer.
“They tell me that Dr. Goldsmith’s new play is a fine piece of work, sir,” said the actor.
“Oh no, sir, no. Believe me you have been misinformed, Mr. Garrick; ’tis a wretched thing, truly,” cried Cumberland, who would not admit that any one could write except himself.
“Nay, sir, I hear that it surpassesThe Good-Natured Man, and that, you will admit, was a very fine piece of work,” said Garrick.
“What!The Good-Natured Man?You surprise me, Mr. Garrick!” said Cumberland. “Heavens, sir, ’twas a pitiful thing. You cannot surely call to mind the scene with the bailiffs! Oh, sir, you must be joking—yes, yes; I like to take the most charitable view of everything, so I assume that you are joking.”
“I know that your charitable views are your strong point, Mr. Cumberland,” said Garrick; “but you should not let them bias your judgment. You should not say a word against Goldsmith, for people say that he wroteThe Good-Natured Manafter he had been a good deal in your company.”
“’Tis a calumny, sir—a calumny,” said Cumberland warmly. “He was never inspired by me to writeThe Good-Natured Man.”
“Well, well, how people do talk!” said Garrick. “But I am glad to have your denial on this point, though I must say that when I produced the play I never heard it asserted that you had stood for the character.”
With his accustomed adroitness Garrick led Cumberland on to talk of many persons and their works, and for every person and every work he had some words of condemnation. Sir Joshua, standing by placidly with his ear-trumpet, saw that Miss Kauffmann was becoming indignant, so he led her away, leaving Garrick to amuse Miss Palmer to his heart’s content.
While Dick watched the little comedy, he heard a greeting laugh behind him, and, turning, he found himself face to face with Captain Mathews, whom he had known for some time, and thoroughly disliked.
He was surprised to see the man, for he heard that he had left Bath the day after it was announced that Betsy Linley was to marry Mr. Long. He certainly had not been seen in public since that day.
“Will they come, Sheridan—will they come, do youthink?” asked Mathews, with a note of apprehension in his voice.
“I have no idea of whom you are speaking; but whoever they are, I think I may safely prophesy that they will come,” said Dick.
“Thank Heaven!” said Mathews. “You must know that I mean Miss Linley and her grandfather, whom she is going to marry. But do you think that the marriage will ever come off? Oh, a pretty set of lovers that girl got around her—not a man of spirit among them all, or that old fool Long would have got six inches of cold steel through his vitals! I am the only man among them all, Sheridan—I am the only man of spirit left in Bath, as you’ll see this day, whether they come or not.”
“What do you mean by that threat, sir?” said Dick quickly.
The man laughed.
“I haven’t said aught to wound your feelings, have I?” he said. “Oh no! I don’t mean to say that you’re not a fellow of spirit, Sheridan, only you never loved Miss Linley as the others pretended to do. They showed their spirit by slinking off, sir, just when they should have stayed. You didn’t see me slink off, Sheridan? No, I am here, and here I mean to stay until the end of this affair has come, and it cannot be far off after to-day. I tell you, Dick Sheridan, that I am not the man to lie tamely down, as the rest of them did, and let Walter Long and Elizabeth Linley walk over my body to the church portal!”
“You are pleased to talk in the strain of a riddle, and that, Mr. Mathews, is an infernally dull strain, let me assure you,” said Dick. “Come, sir, if you have anything to say, say it out plainly, like a man. But first I venture to remind you that Mr. Linley and his family have been for years my friends, and also that Mr. Long honours me by his friendship, and I promise you that anything you say of them thatverges on an affront I shall think it my duty to resent. Now, Mr. Mathews, say what you have to say.”
Mathews looked at him for some time; then he laughed as he had laughed before.
“Your father is a play-actor, Mr. Sheridan,” said he at last. “I have seen him in more than one piece, both in Dublin and Bristol. He is a fine actor. Well, go to him, and he will tell you that the way to make a play a success is to keep the playgoers interested in it from scene to scene, and the best way to do this is to tell them only a little of the story at one time. Now, sir, consider that this scene is the beginning of a comedy—maybe it will turn out a tragedy before we have done with it—but this is the first scene; keep your eyes and your ears open, and you will find it worth your while. By the Lord, there they come at last! Curse it! the girl is getting lovelier every day—every day! Such beauty is enough to make any man mad. Look at her, Sheridan—look at her, and tell me if there is any man living that would not run a risk of all the tortures of the lost to be near her! Dick Sheridan, I don’t love her—not I, not I: I hate her! Deep down in my heart I tell you that I hate her. But there’s no human being that can tell the difference between the passion of love and the passion of hate.”
Dick saw that the man was not far removed from madness; but before he could give him the warning which was in his mind to bestow upon him, Mathews had turned about and hurried away to where people were grouping themselves round the urn.
Mr. Long, with Betsy Linley by his side, was replying to the greetings of some of their friends. He no longer carried his arm in a sling.
Dick Sheridan looked on at the scene of bright colours before him on the lawn; the newly erected imitation Greek temple was at the farther end of one of the many vistas, and at regular intervals stood Greek pediments of carven stone surmounted by busts of Greek poets. Among the shrubberies were pedestals with grinning fauns, and an occasional nymph with flying drapery. An Artemis with her dogs stood in the attitude of pursuit between two laurels.
Dick felt strangely lonely, although he had frequently attended the ceremony of the urn. His sister had gone to discharge the imaginary duties of one of the priestesses of the urn, and was, with another girl, engaged in twisting twigs of bay into a practicable wreath, her companion showing her how it was necessary not to make the joining too rigid, so that the wreath could be easily enlarged or diminished in size to suit the circumference of the head of the victor; for it was not to be taken for granted that the bays must go to the largest brow.
For a short time he watched the weaving of the wreath, and then he looked across the lawn to where Betsy was talking to Dr. Burney, Mr. Long standing close by with Dr. Delap, who had come from Brighthelmstone to drink the waters. Mathews had disappeared as suddenly as he had come upon the scene, but Dick made up his mind tokeep a watch for his return. The threats of which he had made use in regard to Mr. Long and Betsy were vague, but their utterance by the man at that time had startled Dick. The fellow might be mad, and yet have, with all the cunning of a madman, concocted a plot that might mean disaster to Betsy; but if he were narrowly watched his scheme of revenge could doubtless be frustrated, and Dick felt that he would never forgive himself if, after being forewarned, he should let Mathews carry out his purpose, assuming that he meant mischief.
While he was watching for a possible reappearance of the man, Mr. Linley came across the lawn to him, and drew him away in the direction of the gods and goddesses of the shrubberies. Dick saw that there was an expression of anxiety on his face. His manner, too, was nervous.
“Dick, I am in great trouble,” he said in a low voice. “You can guess what is its origin, I am sure?”
Dick had just seen Mr. Long and Betsy side by side. The match had not been broken off. What trouble, then, could possess the girl’s father?
“Indeed, sir, you surprise me,” said Dick. “I see Betsy with Mr. Long, and——”
“Oh, ’tis not about Betsy I am troubled,” said Mr. Linley, “though, Heaven knows, she has given me trouble enough in the past with her whimsies about singing in public. If I had not been firm with her, Dick, she would have given up singing a year ago. No, ’tis not about her, but Tom, that I wish to speak to you. You have seen him to-day with that woman—a play-actress?”
“I have seen him, sir. My father was a play-actor,” said Dick quietly.
“Surely you know what I mean, Dick! Surely you know that it is not in my thoughts to utter a word that would assume the form of a reproach upon the theatre.No, Dick, no; that is not my intention. But you have seen them together—Tom and Mrs. Abington? I don’t say a word against her, mind. She may lead a blameless life, though I have heard—— But that is not to the point.”
“Mrs. Abington is a very charming lady, Mr. Linley, and as for propriety—Dr. Johnson himself has dined with her.”
“Dr. Johnson—Dr. Johnson! Dr. Johnson is not to the point; he is old enough to take care of himself and to protect himself from the wiles of all the coquettes in England.”
Dick laughed.
“Nature and the small-pox have given him great advantage over the majority of men, sir. They have made him practically invulnerable.”
“But Nature and Italy have done just the opposite for Tom; his soul is capable of the deepest feeling, Dick, and he is open to every influence that an accomplished woman of the world has at her command. That creature—I mean that lady—Mrs. Abington—oh, she is undoubtedly a charming creature!—that’s where the danger lies. You know her, Dick; tell me what it is that she means to do in regard to Tom.”
“Oh, sir! she has taken a passing fancy to Tom—that’s all. You know what ’tis to possess the soul of an artist, sir. So far as I can gather, that soul is full of whimsies. The only comforting thought in connection with suchlike is that none of their whims lasts long. Their inconstancy is their greatest charm. Mrs. Abington will soon have done with Tom, sir.”
“Thank Heaven—thank Heaven! The sooner the better, say I. Dick, a fortnight ago Tom had no thought for anything save his violin. I felt that he was actually too deeply absorbed in it: he would scarce give himselftime to take his meals, and he was at the point of falling into a rage because I had given my consent to Betsy’s retirement from the concerts. He called me a traitor—a renegade—worse than a Mohammedan—for allowing her to renounce the true faith; those were his words, Dick. And yet, now, he has done nothing but improvise, and that the most sickly stuff—lovelorn; and his poetry—he has bought a rhyming-dictionary, and has turned the half of Petrarch’s poems into English.”
“You take this little matter too seriously, believe me, Mr. Linley. ’Tis but a bubble of feeling, sir—an airy nothing. ’Twill float away and leave not a trace behind.”
“I hope so—with all my heart I hope so. You do not think that you could do something to assist its flight, Dick?”
“Dear sir, I am convinced that any interference by me—yes, or even by you, sir—would have just the opposite effect to what we hope for in this matter.”
“What, don’t you think that you might bring the creat—the lady, I mean—that you might bring her to reason?”
“The soul of an artist is susceptible to many influences—love, hate, jealousy, criticism, a wet day, a gown that has been made a little tight in the bodice, a gewgaw,—all these have great weight with the soul of an artist; but reason has none. You must perceive, sir, that if every one were reasonable there would be no artists. Mrs. Abington is an artist in the comedy of love; she has curiosity, but ’tis of the butterfly order—a sip here and a sip there among the flowers. Oh, the flowers are nothing the worse for the curiosity of the butterfly. Tom will be himself again when she flies off to another part of the garden.”
“I have my fears, Dick. But I don’t doubt that you take the most sensible view of the matter. I believe thathe has sent in a sonnet in praise of her to the urn to-day. Petrarch is his model. If he is awarded the prize he will lay it at her feet; they do these things in Italy but here we are more prosaic. Are they beginning to read the stuff?”
“We must not lose the chance of applauding Tom’s sonnet,” said Dick, making a move toward the circle that was formed round the Greek urn, from which Lady Miller, not looking so ridiculous as might have been expected, in her white robes, as a priestess (the period was a masquerade in itself, and the painters made the most of it), had just taken one of the manuscripts, and was putting herself in an attitude to read.
Mr. Linley saw this; but what Dick saw was that Mathews had reappeared, and was standing on the outskirts of the circle, his eyes fixed upon Betsy, with a poisonous smile about their corners.
Dick hastened across the lawn, and was in time to hear the second line of the heroics which the lady had begun to read, not without a certain amount of stumbling over unfamiliar words and an over-emphasising of the epithets, which were numerous and safely commonplace.
“What is it that Mathews means to do?” that was the question which came to Dick when he perceived the evil smile of the man, for he saw that it was a smile anticipatory of triumph; and all the time that Lady Miller was meandering through the poem, with its allusions to the deities in the mythologies of Greece and Rome, and its rhymes of “fault” and “thought,” “smile” and “toil,” with an Alexandrine for the third rhyme of “isle,” he was asking himself that question: “What is it that Mathews means to do?”
He looked across the listening circle, and saw that Mr. Long also had his eyes fixed upon the man, and that the same question had been suggested to him. Mr.Long was watching and waiting. And then he glanced away from Mathews and saw Dick. He smiled and nodded pleasantly; but Dick had no difficulty in perceiving that behind these courtesies Mr. Long was ill at ease.
And then the high-priestess extracted another poem from the urn. It was written in precisely the same strain as the first; only the rhymes were more palpably false—the same greater and lesser deities talked about the condition of society at Olympus, which every one recognised by the description as Prior Park; but just as it promised to become delightfully, spitefully, personal, and therefore interesting, the poem shuffled out on the spindleshanks of a reference to the need for clean napkins for the glasses in the Pump Room.
This was very feeble, most people thought (the author was not among them), even though the Pump Room was artfully disguised under the name of the Fount of Helicon. There was a distinct impression of relief when the third poem was found to be written as a lyric with a comfortable jolt about it, to which Lady Miller, after two or three false starts, accommodated her voice. It touched with light satire upon the question of watering the roads, and as this was the topic of the hour, it was received with abundant applause, and the general idea was, that unless something extremely good awaited reading, this lyric would carry off a prize.
The fourth poem turned out to be Tom Linley’s sonnet in praise of Mrs. Abington; and as every one knew Mrs. Abington, and as she herself was present, and as no one was able to identify the translation of Petrarch’s beautiful sentiments, there seemed little doubt the poet’s ambition would be rewarded.
Tom flushed, and was more overcome than he had ever been when playing before his largest audience. Mrs. Abington, too, gave a very pleasing representation of theingénuefluttered with compliments which she knows are thoroughly well deserved. She would have the people believe that she was overwhelmed—that she was not at all pleased with the publicity given to her in so unexpected a way, and the way she shook her head at Tom should have conveyed to him the fact that she considered him to be a very naughty boy—the result being that the crowd perceived that Mrs. Abington was a very modest lady, and that Garrick, who was something of a judge of such performances, was ready to affirm that Mrs. Abington had a very light touch.
Then Lady Miller, after a few complimentary remarks upon Mrs. Abington’s style of dress, began to read the next poem. Having now read four copies of verses, that fulness of expression with which she had begun her labours, had disappeared from her voice, and she had read the greater part of the sonnet in a purely mechanical way. It became clear before she had got through more than five lines of the new rhymes, that she had not the slightest idea what they were about. The stanzas were quite illiterate and the merest doggerel; but, at the end of the first, glances were exchanged around the circle, for the stanza was coarse in every way, and it contained a pun upon the name Long that could only be regarded as a studied insult to the gentleman bearing that name.
But it was plain that the high-priestess had not the remotest idea that anything was particularly wrong with the poem. She looked up from the paper with the smile with which she was accustomed to punctuate the periods, and then began to read the second stanza.
She did not get further than the third line. The first two contained a very gross allusion to an old man’s marrying a young woman; but the third was so coarse that even the apathetic reader was startled and made a pause, during which she scanned the remainder of the manuscript, andin doing so her face became crimson. She handed the sheet to her husband, saying a few words to him, and then tried to gather up the threads of her smile, so to speak.
“I think that I had better go on to the next poem,” she said aloud. “The writer of the last must have inadvertently sent us the wrong leaf. He must have designed it for his favourite pothouse.”
This expression of opinion was received with general applause. Yet no one except Dick seemed to suspect Mathews of being the writer of the doggerel. But in the mind of Dick there was no doubt on the matter. He saw the triumphant leer on the man’s face, and could scarcely restrain himself from rushing at him and at least making an attempt to knock him down. He only held himself back by the reflection that before the evening had come, Mathews would have received a challenge from him. He made up his mind to challenge him, as certain as his name was Mathews. It would be in vain for people to assure him that this was not his quarrel, but Mr. Long’s; he would assert that, as the insult was directed against a lady, in the presence of his (Dick’s) sister, he was quite entitled to take it on himself to punish the perpetrator.
He had glanced at Mr. Long when Lady Miller made her pause, and had seen him smiling, while he addressed some words to Betsy, evidently regarding the creases of her glove, for immediately afterwards she held out her hand to him, and he straightened the little ripples on the silk.
Dick wondered if Mr. Long had failed to catch the insulting lines of the doggerel before the high-priestess had become aware of what she had been reading. Certainly he gave no sign of having caught their import. Dick rather hoped that he had not; he had no desireto cede to Mr. Long the part which he meant to play in this affair.
When he glanced again across the circle, he noticed that Mr. Long had disappeared. And the voice of Lady Miller, with its wrong inflections and its exaggerated emphasis on the adjectives, went on in its delivery of the even lines of the new poem, which was all about Phœbus and Phaeton, and Actæon and Apollo, and the Muses and Marsyas, though nobody seemed to care what it was about. It was very long, and it led nowhere. The circle gave it their silent inattention. Some yawned behind polite hands; one or two whispered. The last lines came upon all as a delightful surprise, for there was really no reason why it should ever end, and for that matter there was no reason why it should ever have begun.
This was, happily, the last of the contents of the urn. Most of thehabituésof Bath-Easton felt that the day had been one of mediocrity; the entertainment would have been even duller than ordinary if it had not been for that shocking thing to which no one referred. Of course Tom Linley was awarded the wreath of bays, which, with some ceremony, the high-priestess laid upon his brows, making him look quite as ridiculous as he felt.
“O lud!” whispered Mrs. Abington to Mr. Walpole, who had got beside her, “O lud! if young gentlemen will write prize poems, they have a heavy penalty to pay for it.”
“Nay, my dear creature,” said he, “’tis but fitting that the victim calf should be decorated for the sacrificial altar.”
“I admit the calf,” said she, “but whose is the altar?”
“’Tis dedicated to Hymen or Hades; it rests with you to determine which,” said he, with one of his wicked leers. He was very like one of the marble satyrs, she perceived—a Marsyas without his music. She longed for an Apollo skilled in flaying.
Flogged the fellow as never a horse had been floggedFlogged the fellow as never horse had been flogged.[page243.
Flogged the fellow as never horse had been flogged.
[page243.
The ceremony over, congratulatory smiles were sent flying around the listeners, and there was a general movement toward the house, full of spontaneity.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” came a voice from one side, and the movement was arrested. People looked over their shoulders. O lud! was the dulness of the day to be increased by speeches? they enquired.
“Ladies and gentlemen, you were grossly insulted just now by a wretch who is a master of the arts of the brigand, though he meant his poisoned knife for me alone. This is the blackguard, and I treat him as such.”
Before any one was aware of the fact that it was Mr. Long who was speaking, he had his hand upon the collar of Captain Mathews, and had swung him round by a certain jerk well known to wrestlers of the old school. Forcing him, staggering, backward with one hand, with a postillion’s short whip, which he held in the other, he flogged the fellow as never horse had been flogged. He cut strips off his garments as neatly as if his weapon had been a pair of shears; a cut of the lash made the blood spurt from one of his calves, another took a slice off his small-clothes just above the knee—ludicrous but effective. His coat parted at the back seams in the stress of the struggle, and a few more cuts at the opening made shreds of his shirt and let free, as it seemed, all the blood in his body. There was the shriek of females, and this brought the men to their senses. They hastened to interpose. Mr. Long sent his victim staggering against two or three of them. Mathews trod on their toes, and they cursed him unaware, Mr. Long belabouring away with a deftness that lacked neither style nor finish; and all the time his knuckles were digging into Mathew’s throat, until the wretch’s face became purple.
Half a dozen gentlemen launched themselves upon Mr. Long. He stepped adroitly to one side, and let them haveMathews. They fell on him in a heap, crushing out of his body whatever trifle of breath he retained.
Mr. Long politely assisted them to rise, affecting to wipe from their garments the result of their contact with the grass. He was breathing heavily, and his wig had become disordered.
He flung his whip—it was still serviceable—into a plantation, and when he found his breath he said:
“I think I should like a dish of tea.”
“If any one says that Mr. Long was not justified in his act, I tell him he lies,” remarked Dick grandly to the group who were propping up Mathews in a sitting posture on the grass.
The wretch seemed ludicrously out of place on the lawn, and the gentlemen who saw him there did not fail to perceive that the expression on the faces of the stone satyrs was for the first time appropriate. Had he been in the middle of a field of young wheat, he might have relieved a less disreputable figure from duty.
“Who is there that says Mr. Long was not justified?” cried one of the gentlemen; he was trying to remove a stain from his sleeve. “Good lud! does the lad think that county gentlemen are to learn discrimination as well as elocution from the Sheridan family?”
“The Sheridans take too much upon them,” said another; he was unlucky enough to have his wig trampled on by the huge foot of a first-class county gentleman in themelée, and was inclined to be testy in consequence. “Be advised, Mr. Sheridan, leave these matters to your elders and betters.”
Dick felt that he deserved the rebuke. His scarcely veiled threat savoured of impertinence. He lifted his hat and walked away. No one took any notice of him.
“By the Lord Harry, friend Long has a pair of arms thata man thirty years younger might envy!” Dick heard one of the gentleman say.
“He will have a wife that a man forty years younger does envy,” laughed a second.
“I heard my father talk of the great strength of Mr. Long when he was at his best,” said a third. “Why, ’twas he that floored Devonshire Paul, the wrestler, early in the forties, going to Barnstaple to do it—’tis one of Sir Edmund’s stories. Well, I dare swear that we haven’t seen the last of this business. How is the fellow? Bind him over not to make a disturbance in the house.”
Dick walked slowly to the villa. He found that the ladies who had been so overcome by the sight of Mathews’ blood were being carefully attended to. Poor Tom Linley was sitting in a corner with his sister. Tom looked very sulky. He was the hero of Parnassus, and yet no one paid any attention to him. People were laughing and talking, some in a loud tone, others in a whisper, not upon the subject of the construction of the sonnet of Petrarch as distinguished from the sonnet of Shakespeare, but upon the likelihood of a duel following the exciting scene which they had witnessed. Tom sulked, and tried to avoid seeing that Mrs. Abington was the centre of a group of gentlemen of fashion, with whom she was exchanging quips, also on the subject of the horsewhipping of Mathews.
Of course there would be a duel. Mathews held the king’s commission and wore the king’s uniform. If he failed to send a challenge to the man who had so publicly disgraced him, he need never show his face in society again. That was the opinion which was universal among the party in Lady Miller’s drawing-room, and it was only modified by the rider which some people appended to their verdict, to the effect that it was quite surprising how Mathews had ever got a footing in Bath society.
Mr. Linley, who was by the side of his daughter whenDick entered, was looking solemn. He was greatly perturbed by what had taken place, and expressed the opinion that Mr. Long would have shown more wisdom by refraining from noticing Mathew’s insult than he had displayed by avenging it, even though he had done so with remarkable success. Of course there would be a duel, he said; and Mathews was probably a first-class pistol-shot, though he had shown himself unable to contend with Mr. Long when taken by surprise.
Poor Betsy was overwhelmed by the thought of such a possibility. She appealed to Dick when he had come to her side. Was a duel inevitable? Was there no alternative? Could she do nothing to prevent such a sequel to the quarrel?
“Why should you be distressed at the possibility of a duel?” said Dick. “There is no particular reason why Mr. Long should stand up against that fellow; any gentleman who was present here to-day has a perfect right to send a challenge to Mathews.”
“Oh, that is only saying that some one else may be killed—some one in addition to Mr. Long,” cried Betsy. “Ah, why is it that disaster follows an acquaintance with me? Why have I been doomed to bring unhappiness upon so many people?”
Dick did not ransack his memory for an answer to her question—an answer founded upon the records of history. He did not cite any of the cases with which he was acquainted, of the unhappiness brought about by the fatal dower of beauty.
“How can you accuse yourself in such a matter as this?” he said. “If a rascal behaves with rascality, are you to blame yourself because he tries to make you the victim? I will not hear so cruel, so unjust a thing said about one who is more than blameless in this matter. Dear Betsy, I know the sensibility of your heart, andhow it causes you to shrink from much that others would give worlds to accomplish; but you must not be unjust to yourself.”
This was poor pleading with the super-sensitiveness of a girl who could never be brought to look on fame as the noblest of cravings—nay, who was ready to sacrifice much in order to escape being famous.
“Bloodshed—bloodshed!” she murmured in great distress. “Oh, why did we come here to-day? If we had remained at home, all might have been well. Why cannot we go away to some place where we can live in freedom from all these disturbing influences? Ah, here comes Mr. Long. How pale he looks! Pray Heaven he has not been already hurt!”
Mr. Long, who had been repairing the slight disorderliness of his dress in one of the bedrooms, had some difficulty in reaching Betsy, where she sat remote from the crowd in the drawing-rooms. He had to wait for the compliments which his friends offered to him on all sides. Every one treated him with great respect, and many with deference. There did not seem to be any difference of opinion among Lady Miller’s guests as to the propriety of his recent action; the only point which had been seriously discussed was in regard to the postillion’s whip. Where had he got it? It was suggested on one side that he had brought it with him; but some who knew affirmed that the whip had been hanging in the hall, and that Mr. Long had, after the reading of the insulting doggerel, hurried up to the house and got possession of the weapon while the last poem was being lilted to the audience. At first, of course, there were some people who thought that Mr. Long had acted precipitately in assuming that Mathews had written the objectionable stanzas; but Lady Miller acknowledged immediately on entering the house that the manuscript was signed by Mathews, and thus complete unanimityprevailed by the time Mr. Long had returned to the room.
Even on his way to Betsy he received a dozen offers from gentlemen to act for him in the event of his receiving a challenge. Betsy was somewhat cheered when she heard him say to one of them:
“You do me great honour, sir, but there will be no duel. I doubt if there will even be a challenge.”
She heard that with pleasure.
Dick heard it with amazement.
Could it be possible, he asked himself, that Mr. Long fancied that Mathews, boor though he was, would be content to accept his public horsewhipping as the final incident in the squalid comedy of his suitorship for the hand of Miss Linley? If that was indeed his belief, all that Dick could say was that he took a rather extraordinary view of the matter.
But Betsy, not having any experience of questions of honour, but having faith in the word of a man whom she respected, was reassured.
“Do say that again,” she cried, when Mr. Long had come to her.
“What do you command me to say again, madam?” he inquired. “Oh, a duel? Heavens, Mr. Sheridan, is’t possible that you are here and have not yet convinced Miss Linley that I shall not have to fight a duel?”
“Nay, sir,” said Dick, “I have done my best to impress upon her that there is no need for you to fight—that the quarrel belongs as much to any gentleman who was present as it does to you.”
“You will pardon me for saying that I do not think that that suggestion would tend to place Miss Linley’s mind at rest,” said Mr. Long. “But now I can give you my word that there will be no duel. If any one is foolish enough to send a challenge to the rascal whom I treated to a drubbing,he will do so without my knowledge and without my consent. Dear child, I can give you my word that there will be no duel.”
“I am satisfied,” she said simply, with a grateful look up to his face.
“If you are satisfied, all the world is satisfactory,” said Mr. Long.
But it did not appear as if Mr. Linley was quite satisfied.
“If there be no duel, sir, all that I can say is that ’tis not your fault,” he cried.
“Not my fault!—nay, just the contrary: ’tis to my credit,” laughed Mr. Long.
“I mean, sir, that you did your very best to provoke a duel,” said Mr. Linley with severity. Mr. Long was about to become his son-in-law, and this he considered, gave him a right to object to any incident that tended to jeopardise the connection.
“Oh, my dear sir,” said Mr. Long, “can you really think that so simple an incident as horsewhipping a man in a public place could be considered by him a sufficient excuse for a challenge? Nay, sir, you will find, I am persuaded, that Captain Mathews is not inclined to take your view of this business. He will, I think, be satisfied to let bygones be bygones.”
Dick was dumb. The only ground on which he thought he could reconcile Mr. Long’s confident assertion of what any person with experience of the world would consider incredible, was his desire to allay Betsy’s anxiety.
But Betsy’s father apparently did not see so much as Dick. Though a professional musician, he was not without his experience of quarrels. He shook his head when Mr. Long had spoken with that airy confidence which he had assumed, and said:
“I would fain hope that events will justify the confidence with which you speak, sir; but to my mind it would seem as if——”
“Nay, dear sir, I will give you my assurance that I shall not be called on to fight any duel over this matter,” cried Mr. Long in the tone of a man who has said the last word on a matter that has been under discussion for some time. “I admit that before I took the unusual step which I thought I was justified in adopting, I saw the risk that I was running. A man who horsewhips his fellow-guest may be made to answer to his host for so doing. I ran that risk, and I am happy to say that our host did not take too severe a view of the occurrence. That puts an end to any suspicion that one may entertain as to the likelihood of swords being crossed or pistols unloaded to the detriment of my health. Let us change the subject, if you please. It seems to me that enough attention has not been given to Tom’s beautiful sonnet. Dear friend Tom, you have proved by the writing of that sonnet that you have already mastered the elements of successful authorship. If all poets would choose a popular subject for their songs, they would have no need to wear hats, for they would be perpetually crowned with bays. May I ask the favour of a copy of your sonnet, sir? I should like to have it printed to place beneath my print of Sir Joshua’s picture of Mrs. Abington?”
Tom was delighted. His mortification at the neglect which he had received—was he not really the hero of the day?—vanished. His large eyes shone with pleasure as he gave his promise to supply Mr. Long with the copy which he desired.
Mr. Long, seeing that Betsy’s large eyes, so wonderfully like those of her brother, were also shining with pleasure, was quite satisfied.
Unfortunately, just as Tom was beginning to explainthe difficulties in the way of any one wishing to create a sonnet which was really a sonnet, and not merely a fourteen-line poem, a number of people came up to talk to his sister and Mr. Long, thus interrupting him. But neither Betsy nor Dick failed to notice the vexed look which Mr. Long gave to the boy, by way of assuring him that his discourse on the Italian sonnet was something to be parted from only with a deep regret.
Dick, at the suggestion of Mr. Long, walked with Betsy round the gardens, Mr. Long following with Miss Sheridan.
The walk was a silent one. It did not seem as if they had any topic in common. They seemed to have nothing to talk about. But their silence was not the silence of strangers; it was that which exists only between the closest of friends. They had not had such a stroll side by side since she had given her promise to Mr. Long. But how many walks they had had together in the old days! Their thoughts flashed back to those days on the perfume of the rosebuds. They had often walked among the roses.
It was Dick who broke the silence.
“I do not think that a better man lives than Mr. Long,” said he.
She sighed.
He glanced down at her in surprise. He was almost irritated by her sigh.
She did not speak.
“I do not believe that a better man lives in the world,” he said with emphasis. “Surely you do not think that he is to blame for what took place here to-day, Betsy?”
“Oh, no, no! he behaved like—like a man,” she replied at once. “And he has given us his assurance that there will be no duel,” she added joyfully.
“Yes, he has given us that assurance,” said Dick. “Buteven if there were to be a duel, I have no doubt that he would show himself to be as brave a man.”
“But there will be no duel—he said so,” she cried. “And to think of that foolish rumour that went round the town, that you and he had fought! I never believed it for a moment. It was senseless—cruel! The gossips circulated the report simply because it was known that you had been with him for more than an hour on the day after you had saved him from his assailants.”
Dick was once again surprised.
“How could you know that I had been with him on that night?” he inquired.
“I know it—alas! I know it,” she cried. “He is so good—so—generous—so noble! Oh, I must love him—I must! Sometimes I really think that I do love him.... And you saved his life, Dick. It would be the basest ingratitude on my part if I did not love him after that.... And the way he talks of your courage!—he told me how bravely you pursued the wretches who had waylaid him. He is full of your praises, Dick. Oh, I must love him! He is the worthiest man in the world to be loved. And I believe that I do love him. I sometimes believe that I do.”
“My poor Betsy,” he said, “I might give you counsel on this matter if it would be of any value to you. Alas! dear, I know that nothing that I could say to you would avail against the promptings of your own true heart. It was you who first taught me the lesson which I think I have since learned more fully—the lesson of the meaning of love. Who am I that I should offer any counsel to such as you? I can only tell you that I feel that Mr. Long is the best worthy of your love of all the men in the world. But you yourself know that already.”
“I do—indeed, I do know it,” she cried eagerly. “And that is why I say that I am sure, sometimes, that I do love him. I must—I must—only—— Oh, Dick, I am very unhappy!”
“My poor Betsy! my poor Betsy!”
That was all he could say.
Several versions of the story of the exciting occurrence at the Parnassus of Bath-Easton were in circulation during the next few days. The fact that over fifty persons had witnessed the whole affair was only a guarantee that there would be at least forty-nine different versions of it. The consequence was that before two days had passed, people in Bath were quarrelling over such details as whether Captain Mathews had or had not made an attack upon Mr. Long with his cane, or if it was really true that Miss Linley had been walking with Captain Mathews, thereby arousing the jealousy of Mr. Long, and causing him to assault the other. Before the second day had gone by, there was, of course, a report that a duel had taken place, and the result was, according to the various reports: