As soon as Pomander had drawn his breath and realized this discovery, he darted upstairs, and with all the demure calmness he could assume, told Mr. Vane, whom he met descending, that he was happy to find his engagements permitted him to join the party in Bloomsbury Square. He then flung himself upon his servant's horse.
Like Iago, he saw the indistinct outline of a glorious and a most malicious plot; it lay crude in his head and heart at present; thus much he saw clearly, that, if he could time Mrs. Vane's arrival so that she should pounce upon the Woffington at her husband's table, he might be present at and enjoy the public discomfiture of a man and woman who had wounded his vanity. Bidding his servant make the best of his way to Bloomsbury Square, Sir Charles galloped in that direction himself, intending first to inquire whether Mrs. Vane was arrived, and, if not, to ride toward Islington and meet her. His plan was frustrated by an accident; galloping round a corner, his horse did not change his leg cleverly, and, the pavement being also loose, slipped and fell on his side, throwing his rider upon thetrottoir.The horse got up and trembled violently, but was unhurt. The rider lay motionless, except that his legs quivered on the pavement. They took him up and conveyed him into a druggist's shop, the master of which practiced chirurgery. He had to be sent for; and, before he could be found, Sir Charles recovered his reason, so much so, that when the chirurgeon approached with his fleam to bleed him, according to the practice of the day, the patient drew his sword, and assured the other he would let out every drop of blood in his body if he touched him.
He of the shorter but more lethal weapon hastily retreated. Sir Charles flung a guinea on the counter, and mounting his horse rode him off rather faster than before this accident.
There was a dead silence!
“I believe that gentleman to be the Devil!” said a thoughtful bystander. The crowd (it was a century ago) assentednem. con.
Sir Charles, arrived in Bloomsbury Square, found that the whole party was assembled. He therefore ordered his servant to parade before the door, and, if he saw Mrs. Vane's carriage enter the Square, to let him know, if possible, before she should reach the house. On entering he learned that Mr. Vane and his guests were in the garden (a very fine one), and joined them there.
Mrs. Vane demands another chapter, in which I will tell the reader who she was, and what excuse her husband had for his liaison with Margaret Woffington.
MABEL CHESTER was the beauty and toast of South Shropshire. She had refused the hand of half the country squires in a circle of some dozen miles, till at last Mr. Vane became her suitor. Besides a handsome face and person, Mr. Vane had accomplishments his rivals did not possess. He read poetry to her on mossy banks an hour before sunset, and awakened sensibilities which her other suitors shocked, and they them.
The lovely Mabel had a taste for beautiful things, without any excess of that severe quality called judgment.
I will explain. If you or I, reader, had read to her in the afternoon, amid the smell of roses and eglantine, the chirp of the mavis, the hum of bees, the twinkling of butterflies, and the tinkle of distant sheep, something that combined all these sights, and sounds, and smells—say Milton's musical picture of Eden, P. L., lib. 3, and after that “Triplet on Kew,” she would have instantly pronounced in favor of “Eden”; but ifwehad read her “Milton,” and Mr. Vane had read her “Triplet,” she would have as unhesitatingly preferred “Kew” to “Paradise.”
She was a true daughter of Eve; the lady, who, when an angel was telling her and her husband the truths of heaven in heaven's own music, slipped away into the kitchen, because she preferred hearing the story at second-hand, encumbered with digressions, and in mortal but marital accents.
When her mother, who guarded Mabel like a dragon, told her Mr. Vane was not rich enough, and she really must not give him so many opportunities, Mabel cried and embraced the dragon, and said, “Oh, mother!” The dragon, finding her ferocity dissolving, tried to shake her off, but the goose would cry and embrace the dragon till it melted.
By and by Mr. Vane's uncle died suddenly and left him the great Stoken Church estate, and a trunk full of Jacobuses and Queen Anne's guineas—his own hoard and his father's—then the dragon spake comfortably and said: “My child, he is now the richest man in Shropshire. He will not think of you now; so steel your heart.”
Then Mabel, contrary to all expectations, did not cry; but, with flushing cheek, pledged her life upon Ernest's love and honor: and Ernest, as soon as the funeral, etc., left him free, galloped to Mabel, to talk of our good fortune. The dragon had done him injustice; that was not his weak point. So they were married! and they were very, very happy. But, one month after, the dragon died, and that was their first grief; but they bore it together.
And Vane was not like the other Shropshire squires. His idea of pleasure was something his wife could share. He still rode, walked, and sat with her, and read to her, and composed songs for her, and about her, which she played and sang prettily enough, in her quiet, lady-like way, and in a voice of honey dropping from the comb. Then she kept a keen eye upon him; and, when she discovered what dishes he liked, she superintended those herself; and, observing that he never failed to eat of a certain lemon-pudding the dragon had originated, she always made this pudding herself, and she never told her husband she made it.
The first seven months of their marriage was more like blue sky than brown earth; and if any one had told Mabel that her husband was a mortal, and not an angel, sent to her that her days and nights might be unmixed, uninterrupted heaven, she could hardly have realized the information.
When a vexatious litigant began to contest the will by which Mr. Vane was Lord of Stoken Church, and Mr. Vane went up to London to concert the proper means of defeating this attack, Mrs. Vane would gladly have compounded by giving the man two or three thousand acres or the whole estate, if he wouldn't take less, not to rob her of her husband for a month; but she was docile, as she was amorous; so she cried (out of sight) a week; and let her darling go with every misgiving a loving heart could have; but one! and that one her own heart told her was impossible.
The month rolled away—no symptom of a return. For this, Mr. Vane was not, in fact, to blame; but, toward the end of the next month, business became a convenient excuse. When three months had passed, Mrs. Vane became unhappy. She thought he too must feel the separation. She offered to come to him. He answered uncandidly. He urged the length, the fatigue of the journey. She was silenced; but some time later she began to take a new view of his objections. “He is so self-denying,” said she. “Dear Ernest, he longs for me; but he thinks it selfish to let me travel so far alone to see him.”
Full of this idea, she yielded to her love. She made her preparations, and wrote to him, that, if he did not forbid her peremptorily, he must expect to see her at his breakfast-table in a very few days.
Mr. Vane concluded this was a jest, and did not answer this letter at all.
Mrs. Vane started. She traveled with all speed; but, coming to a halt at ——, she wrote to her husband that she counted on being with him at four of the clock on Thursday.
This letter preceded her arrival by a few hours. It was put into his hand at the same time with a note from Mrs. Woffington, telling him she should be at a rehearsal at Covent Garden. Thinking his wife's letter would keep, he threw it on one side into a sort of a tray; and, after a hurried breakfast, went out of his house to the theater. He returned, as we are aware, with Mrs. Woffington; and also, at her request, with Mr. Cibber, for whom they had called on their way. He had forgotten his wife's letter, and was entirely occupied with his guests.
Sir Charles Pomander joined them, and found Mr. Colander, the head domestic of the London establishment, cutting with a pair of scissors every flower Mrs. Woffington fancied, that lady having a passion for flowers.
Colander, during his temporary absence from the interior, had appointed James Burdock to keep the house, and receive the two remaining guests, should they arrive.
This James Burdock was a faithful old country servant, who had come up with Mr. Vane, but left his heart at Willoughby. James Burdock had for some time been ruminating, and his conclusion was, that his mistress, Miss Mabel (as by force of habit he called her), was not treated as she deserved.
Burdock had been imported into Mr. Vane's family by Mabel; he had carried her in his arms when she was a child; he had held her upon a donkey when she was a little girl; and when she became a woman, it was he who taught her to stand close to her horse, and give him her foot and spring while he lifted her steadily but strongly into her saddle, and, when there, it was he who had instructed her that a horse was not a machine, that galloping tires it in time, and that galloping it on the hard road hammers it to pieces. “I taught the girl,” thought James within himself.
This honest silver-haired old fellow seemed so ridiculous to Colander, the smooth, supercilious Londoner, that he deigned sometimes to converse with James, in order to quiz him. This very morning they had had a conversation.
“Poor Miss Mabel! dear heart. A twelvemonth married, and nigh six months of it a widow, or next door.”
“We write to her, James, and entertain her replies, which are at considerable length.”
“Ay, but we don't read 'em!” said James, with an uneasy glance at the tray.
“Invariably, at our leisure; meantime we make ourselves happy among the wits and the sirens.”
“And she do make others happy among the poor and the ailing.”
“Which shows,” said Colander, superciliously, “the difference of tastes.”
Burdock, whose eye had never been off his mistress's handwriting, at last took it up and said: “Master Colander, do if ye please, sir, take this into master's dressing-room, do now?”
Colander looked down on the missive with dilating eye. “Not a bill, James Burdock,” said he, reproachfully.
“A bill! bless ye, no. A letter from missus.”
No, the dog would not take it in to his master; and poor James, with a sigh, replaced it in the tray.
This James Burdock, then, was left in charge of the hall by Colander, and it so happened that the change was hardly effected before a hurried knocking came to the street door.
“Ay, ay!” grumbled Burdock, “I thought it would not be long. London for knocking and ringing all day, and ringing and knocking all night.” He opened the door reluctantly and suspiciously, and in darted a lady, whose features were concealed by a hood. She glided across the hall, as if she was making for some point, and old James shuffled after her, crying: “Stop, stop! young woman. What is your name, young woman?”
“Why, James Burdock,” cried the lady, removing her hood, “have you forgotten your mistress?”
“Mistress! Why, Miss Mabel, I ask your pardon, madam—here, John, Margery!”
“Hush!” cried Mrs. Vane.
“But where are your trunks, miss? And where's the coach, and Darby and Joan? To think of their drawing you all the way here! I'll have 'em into your room directly, ma'am. Miss, you've come just in time.”
“What a dear, good, stupid old thing you are, James. Where is Ernest—Mr. Vane? James, is he well and happy? I want to surprise him.”
“Yes, ma'am,” said James, looking down.
“I left the old stupid coach at Islington, James. The something—pin was loose, or I don't know what. Could I wait two hours there? So I came on by myself; you wicked old man, you let me talk, and don't tell me how he is.”
“Master is main well, ma'am, and thank you,” said old Burdock, confused and uneasy.
“But is he happy? Of course he is. Are we not to meet to-day after six months? Ah! but never mind, theyaregone by.”
“Lord bless her!” thought the faithful old fellow. “If sitting down and crying could help her, I wouldn't be long.”
By this time they were in the banqueting-room and at the preparations there Mabel gave a start; she then colored. “Oh, he has invited his friends to make acquaintance. I had rather we had been alone all this day and to-morrow. But he must not know that. No;hisfriends aremyfriends, and shall be too,” thought the country wife. She then glanced with some misgiving at her traveling attire, and wished she had broughtonetrunk with her.
“James,” said she, “where is my room? And, mind, I forbid you to tell a soul I am come.”
“Your room, Miss Mabel?”
“Well, any room where there is looking-glass and water.”
She then went to a door which opened in fact on a short passage leading to a room occupied by Mr. Vane himself.
“No, no!” cried James. “That is master's room.”
“Well, is not master's room mistress's room, old man? But stay; is he there?”
“No, ma'am; he is in the garden, with a power of fine folks.”
“They shall not see me till I have made myself a little more decent,” said the young beauty, who knew at bottom how little comparatively the color of her dress could affect her appearance, and she opened Mr. Vane's door and glided in.
Burdock's first determination was, in spite of her injunction, to tell Colander; but on reflection he argued: “And then what will they do? They will put their heads together, and deceive us some other way. No!” thought James, with a touch of spite, “we shall see how they will all look.” He argued also, that, at sight of his beautiful wife, his master must come to his senses, and the Colander faction be defeated; and perhaps, by the mercy of Providence, Colander himself turned off.
While thus ruminating, a thundering knock at the door almost knocked him off his legs. “There ye go again,” said he, and he went angrily to the door. This time it was Hunsdon, who was in a desperate hurry to see his master.
“Where is Sir Charles Pomander, my honest fellow?” said he.
“In the garden, my Jack-a-dandy!” said Burdock, furiously.
(“Honest fellow,” among servants, implies some moral inferiority.)
In the garden went Hunsdon. His master—all whose senses were playing sentinel—saw him, and left the company to meet him.
“She is in the house, sir.”
“Good! Go—vanish!”
Sir Charles looked into the banquet-room; the haunch was being placed on the table. He returned with the information. He burned to bring husband and wife together; he counted each second lost that postponed this (to him) thrilling joy. Oh, how happy he was!—happier than the serpent when he saw Eve's white teeth really strike into the apple!
“Shall we pay respect to this haunch, Mr. Quin?” said Vane, gayly.
“If you please, sir,” said Quin, gravely. Colander ran down a by-path with an immense bouquet, which he arranged for Mrs. Woffington in a vase at Mr. Vane's left hand. He then threw open the windows, which were on the French plan, and shut within a foot of the lawn.
The musicians in the arbor struck up, and the company, led by Mr. Vane and Mrs. Woffington, entered the room. And a charming room it was!—light, lofty, and large—adorned in the French way with white and gold. The table was an exact oval, and at it everybody could hear what any one said; an excellent arrangement where ideaed guests only are admitted—which is another excellent arrangement, though I see people don't think so.
The repast was luxurious and elegant. There was no profusion of unmeaning dishes; each was abonne-bouche—an undeniable delicacy. The glass was beautiful, the plates silver. The flowers rose like walls from the table; the plate massive and glorious; rose-water in the hand-glasses; music crept in from the garden, deliciously subdued into what seemed a natural sound. A broad stream of southern sun gushed in fiery gold through the open window, and, like a red-hot rainbow, danced through the stained glass above it. Existence was a thing to bask in—in such a place, and so happy an hour!
The guests were Quin, Mrs. Clive, Mr. Cibber, Sir Charles Pomander, Mrs. Woffington, and Messrs. Soaper and Snarl, critics of the day. This pair, with wonderful sagacity, had arrived from the street as the haunch came from the kitchen. Good-humor reigned; some cuts passed, but as the parties professed wit, they gave and took.
Quin carved the haunch, and was happy; Soaper and Snarl eating the same, and drinking Toquay, were mellowed and mitigated into human flesh. Mr. Vane and Mrs. Woffington were happy; he, because his conscience was asleep; and she, because she felt nothing now could shake her hold of him. Sir Charles was in a sort of mental chuckle. His head burned, his bones ached; but he was in a sort of nervous delight.
“Where is she?” thought he. “What will she do? Will she send her maid with a note? How blue he will look! Or will she come herself? She is a country wife; there must be a scene. Oh, why doesn't she come into this room? She must know we are here! is she watching somewhere?” His brain became puzzled, and his senses were sharpened to a point; he was all eye, ear and expectation; and this was why he was the only one to hear a very slight sound behind the door we have mentioned, and next to perceive a lady's glove lying close to that door. Mabel had dropped it in her retreat. Putting this and that together, he was led to hope and believe she was there, making her toilet, perhaps, and her arrival at present unknown.
“Do you expect no one else?” said he, with feigned carelessness, to Mr. Vane.
“No,” said Mr. Vane, with real carelessness.
“It must be so! What fortune!” thought Pomander.
Soaper.“Mr. Cibber looks no older than he did five years ago.”
Snarl.“There was no room on his face for a fresh wrinkle.”
Soaper.“He! he! Nay, Mr. Snarl: Mr. Cibber is like old port; the more ancient he grows, the more delicious his perfume.”
Snarl.“And the crustier he gets.”
Clive.“Mr. Vane, you should always separate those two. Snarl, by himself, is just supportable; but, when Soaper paves the way with his hypocritical praise, the pair are too much; they are a two-edged sword.”
Woffington.“Wanting nothing but polish and point.”
Vane.“Gentlemen, we abandon your neighbor, Mr. Quin, to you.”
Quin.“They know better. If they don't keep a civil tongue in their heads, no fat goes from here to them.”
Cibber.“Ah, Mr. Vane; this room is delightful; but it makes me sad. I knew this house in Lord Longueville's time; an unrivaled gallant, Peggy. You may just remember him, Sir Charles?”
Pomander(with his eye on a certain door). “Yes, yes; a gouty old fellow.”
Cibber fired up. “I wish you may ever be like him. Oh, the beauty, the wit, thepetits-soupersthat used to be here! Longueville was a great creature, Mr. Vane. I have known him entertain a fine lady in this room, while her rival was fretting and fuming on the other side of that door.”
“Ah, indeed!” said Sir Charles.
“More shame for him,” said Mr. Vane.
Here was luck! Pomander seized this opportunity of turning the conversation to his object. With a malicious twinkle in his eye, he inquired of Mr. Cibber what made him fancy the house had lost its virtue in Mr. Vane's hands.
“Because,” said Cibber, peevishly, “you all want the truesavoir fairenowadays, because there is nojuste milieu,young gentlemen. The young dogs of the day are all either unprincipled heathen, like yourself, or Amadisses, like our worthy host.” The old gentleman's face and manners were like those of a patriarch, regretting the general decay of virtue, not the imaginary diminution of a single vice. He concluded with a sigh that, “The truepreux des dameswent out with the full periwig; stab my vitals!”
“A bit of fat, Mr. Cibber?” said Quin, whose jokes were not polished.
“Jemmy, thou art a brute,” was the reply.
“You refuse, sir?” said Quin, sternly.
“No, sir!” said Cibber, with dignity. “I accept.”
Pomander's eye was ever on the door.
“The old are so unjust to the young,” said he. “You pretend that the Deluge washed away iniquity, and that a rake is a fossil. What,” said he, leaning as it were on every word, “if I bet you a cool hundred that Vane has a petticoat in that room, and that Mrs. Woffington shall unearth her?”
The malicious dog thought this was the surest way to effect a dramatic exposure, because if Peggy found Mabel to all appearances concealed, Peggy would scold her, and betray herself.
“Pomander!” cried Vane, in great heat; then, checking himself, he said coolly: “but you all know Pomander.”
“None of you,” replied that gentleman. “Bring a chair, sir,” said he, authoritatively, to a servant; who, of course, obeyed.
Mrs. Clive looked at him, and thought: “There is something in this!”
“It is for the lady,” said he, coolly. Then, leaning over the table, he said to Mrs. Woffington, with an impudent affectation of friendly understanding: “I ran her to earth in this house not ten minutes ago. Of course I don't know who she is! But,” smacking his lips, “a rustic Amaryllis, breathing all May-buds and Meadowsweet.”
“Have her out, Peggy!” shouted Cibber. “I know the run—there's the covert! Hark, forward! Ha, ha, ha!”
Mr. Vane rose, and, with a sternness that brought the old beau up with a run, he said: “Mr. Cibber, age and infirmity are privileged; but for you, Sir Charles—”
“Don't be angry,” interposed Mrs. Woffington, whose terror was lest he should quarrel with so practiced a swordsman. “Don't you see it is a jest! and, as might be expected from poor Sir Charles, a very sorry one.
“A jest!” said Vane, white with rage. “Let it go no further, or it will be earnest!”
Mrs. Woffington placed her hand on his shoulder, and at that touch he instantly yielded, and sat down.
It was at this moment, when Sir Charles found himself for the present baffled—for he could no longer press his point, and search that room; when the attention of all was drawn to a dispute, which, for a moment, had looked like a quarrel; while Mrs. Woffington's hand still lingered, as only a woman's hand can linger in leaving the shoulder of the man she loves; it was at this moment the door opened of its own accord, and a most beautiful woman stood, with a light step, upon the threshold!
Nobody's back was to her, except Mr. Vane's. Every eye but his was spellbound upon her.
Mrs. Woffington withdrew her hand, as if a scorpion had touched her.
A stupor of astonishment fell on them all.
Mr. Vane, seeing the direction of all their eyes, slewed himself round in his chair into a most awkward position, and when he saw the lady, he was utterly dumfounded! But she, as soon as he turned his face her way, glided up to him, with a little half-sigh, half-cry of joy, and taking him round the neck, kissed him deliciously, while every eye at the table met every other eye in turn. One or two of the men rose; for the lady's beauty was as worthy of homage as her appearing was marvelous.
Mrs. Woffington, too astonished for emotion to take any definite shape, said, in what seemed an ordinary tone: “Who is this lady?”
“I am his wife, madam,” said Mabel, in the voice of a skylark, and smiling friendly on the questioner.
“It is my wife!” said Vane, like a speaking-machine; he was scarcely in a conscious state. “It is my wife!” he repeated, mechanically.
The words were no sooner out of Mabel's mouth than two servants, who had never heard of Mrs. Vane before, hastened to place on Mr. Vane's right hand the chair Pomander had provided, a plate and napkin were there in a twinkling, and the wife modestly, but as a matter of course, courtesied low, with an air of welcome to all her guests, and then glided into the seat her servants obsequiously placed before her.
The whole thing did not take half a minute!
MR. VANE, besides being a rich, was a magnificent man; when his features were in repose their beauty had a wise and stately character. Soaper and Snarl had admired and bitterly envied him. At the present moment no one of his guests envied him—they began to realize his position. And he, a huge wheel of shame and remorse, began to turn and whir before his eyes. He sat between two European beauties, and, pale and red by turns, shunned the eyes of both, and looked down at his plate in a cold sweat of humiliation, mortification and shame.
The iron passed through Mrs. Woffington's soul. So! this was a villain, too, the greatest villain of all—a hypocrite! She turned very faint, but she was under an enemy's eye, and under a rival's; the thought drove the blood back from her heart, and with a mighty effort she was Woffington again. Hitherto her liaison with Mr. Vane had called up the better part of her nature, and perhaps our reader has been taking her for a good woman; but now all her dregs were stirred to the surface. The mortified actress gulled by a novice, the wronged and insulted woman, had but two thoughts; to defeat her rival—to be revenged on her false lover. More than one sharp spasm passed over her features before she could master them, and then she became smiles above, wormwood and red-hot steel below—all in less than half a minute.
As for the others, looks of keen intelligence passed between them, and they watched with burning interest for thedenouement.That interest was stronger than their sense of the comicality of all this (for the humorous view of what passes before our eyes comes upon cool reflection, not often at the time).
Sir Charles, indeed, who had foreseen some of this, wore a demure look, belied by his glittering eye. He offered Cibber snuff, and the two satirical animals grinned over the snuff-box, like a malicious old ape and a mischievous young monkey.
The newcomer was charming; she was above the middle height, of a full, though graceful figure, her abundant, glossy, bright brown hair glittered here and there like gold in the light; she had a snowy brow, eyes of the profoundest blue, a cheek like a peach, and a face beaming candor and goodness; the character of her countenance resembled “the Queen of the May,” in Mr. Leslie's famous picture, more than any face of our day I can call to mind.
“You are not angry with me for this silly trick?” said she, with some misgiving. “After all I am only two hours before my time; you know, dearest, I said four in my letter—did I not?”
Vane stammered. What could he say?
“And you have had three days to prepare you, for I wrote, like a good wife, to ask leave before starting; but he never so much as answered my letter, madam.” (This she addressed to Mrs. Woffington, who smiled by main force.)
“Why,” stammered Vane, “could you doubt? I—I—”
“No! Silence was consent, was it not? But I beg your pardon, ladies and gentlemen, I hope you will forgive me. It is six months since I saw him—so you understand—I warrant me you did not look for me so soon, ladies?”
“Some of us did not look for you at all, madam,” said Mrs. Woffington.
“What, Ernest did not tell you he expected me?”
“No! He told us this banquet was in honor of a lady's first visit to his house, but none of us imagined that lady to be his wife.”
Vane began to writhe under that terrible tongue, whose point hitherto had ever been turned away from him.
“He intended to steal a march on us,” said Pomander, dryly; “and, with your help, we steal one on him;” and he smiled maliciously on Mrs. Woffington.
“But, madam,” said Mr. Quin, “the moment you did arrive, I kept sacred for you a bit of the fat; for which, I am sure, you must be ready. Pass her plate!”
“Not at present, Mr. Quin,” said Mr. Vane, hastily. “She is about to retire and change her traveling-dress.”
“Yes, dear; but, you forget, I am a stranger to your friends. Will you not introduce me to them first?”
“No, no!” cried Vane, in trepidation. “It is not usual to introduce in thebeau monde.”
“We always introduce ourselves,” rejoined Mrs. Woffington. She rose slowly, with her eye on Vane. He cast a look of abject entreaty on her; but there was no pity in that curling lip and awful eye. He closed his own eyes and waited for the blow. Sir Charles threw himself back in his chair, and, chuckling, prepared for the explosion. Mrs. Woffington saw him, and cast on him a look of ineffable scorn; and then she held the whole company fluttering a long while. At length: “The Honorable Mrs. Quickly, madam,” said she, indicating Mrs. Clive.
This turn took them all by surprise. Pomander bit his lip.
“Sir John Brute—”
“Falstaff,” cried Quin; “hang it.”
“Sir John Brute Falstaff,” resumed Mrs. Woffington. “We call him, for brevity, Brute.”
Vane drew a long breath. “Your neighbor is Lord Foppington; a butterfly of some standing, and a little gouty.”
“Sir Charles Pomander.”
“Oh,” cried Mrs. Vane. “It is the good gentleman who helped us out of the slough, near Huntingdon. Ernest, if it had not been for this gentleman, I should not have had the pleasure of being here now.” And she beamed on the good Pomander.
Mr. Vane did not rise and embrace Sir Charles.
“All the company thanks the good Sir Charles,” said Cibber, bowing.
“I see it in all their faces,” said the good Sir Charles, dryly.
Mrs. Woffington continued: “Mr. Soaper, Mr. Snarl; gentlemen who would butter and slice up their own fathers!”
“Bless me!” cried Mrs. Vane, faintly.
“Critics!” And she dropped, as it were, the word dryly, with a sweet smile, into Mabel's plate.
Mrs. Vane was relieved; she had apprehended cannibals. London they had told her was full of curiosities.
“But yourself, madam?”
“I am the Lady Betty Modish; at your service.”
A four-inch grin went round the table. The dramatical old rascal, Cibber, began now to look at it as a bit of genteel comedy; and slipped out his note-book under the table. Pomander cursed her ready wit, which had disappointed him of his catastrophe. Vane wrote on a slip of paper: “Pity and respect the innocent!” and passed it to Mrs. Woffington. He could not have done a more superfluous or injudicious thing.
“And now, Ernest,” cried Mabel, “for the news from Willoughby.”
Vane stopped her in dismay. He felt how many satirical eyes and ears were upon him and his wife. “Pray go and change your dress first, Mabel,” cried he, fully determined that on her return she should not find the present party there.
Mrs. Vane cast an imploring look on Mrs. Woffington. “My things are not come,” said she. “And, Lady Betty, I had so much to tell him, and to be sent away;” and the deep blue eyes began to fill.
Now Mrs. Woffington was determined that this lady, who she saw was simple, should disgust her husband by talking twaddle before a band of satirists. So she said warmly: “It is not fair on us. Pray, madam, your budget of country news. Clouted cream so seldom comes to London quite fresh.”
“There, you see, Ernest,” said the unsuspicious soul. “First, you must know that Gray Gillian is turned out for a brood mare, so old George won't let me ride her; old servants are such tyrants, my lady. And my Barbary hen has laid two eggs; Heaven knows the trouble we had to bring her to it. And Dame Best, that is my husband's old nurse, Mrs. Quickly, has had soup and pudding from the Hall everyday; and once she went so far as to say it wasn't altogether a bad pudding. She is not a very grateful woman, in a general way, poor thing! I made it with these hands.”
Vane writhed.
“Happy pudding!” observed Mr. Cibber.
“Is this mockery, sir?” cried Vane, with a sudden burst of irritation.
“No, sir; it is gallantry,” replied Cibber, with perfect coolness.
“Will you hear a little music in the garden?” said Vane to Mrs. Woffington, pooh-poohing his wife's news.
“Not till I hear the end of Dame Bess.”
“Best, my lady.”
“Dame Best interestsme,Mr. Vane.”
“Ay, and Ernest is very fond of her, too, when he is at home. She is in her nice new cottage, dear; but she misses the draughts that were in her old one—they were like old friends. 'The only ones I have, I'm thinking,' said the dear cross old thing; and there stood I, on her floor, with a flannel petticoat in both hands, that I had made for her, and ruined my finger. Look else, my Lord Foppington?” She extended a hand the color of cream.
“Permit me, madam?” taking out his glasses, with which he inspected her finger; and gravely announced to the company: “The laceration is, in fact, discernible. May I be permitted, madam,” added he, “to kiss this fair hand, which I should never have suspected of having ever made itself half so useful?”
“Ay, my lord!” said she, coloring slightly, “you shall, because you are so old; but I don't say for a young gentleman, unless it was the one that belongs to me; and he does not ask me.”
“My dear Mabel; pray remember we are not at Willoughby.”
“I see we are not, Ernest.” And the dove-like eyes filled brimful; and all her innocent prattle was put an end to.
“What brutes men are,” thought Mrs. Woffington. “They are not worthy even of a fool like this.”
Mr. Vane once more pressed her to hear a little music in the garden; and this time she consented. Mr. Vane was far from being unmoved by his wife's arrival, and her true affection. But she worried him; he was anxious, above all things, to escape from his present position, and separate the rival queens; and this was the only way he could see to do it. He whispered Mabel, and bade her somewhat peremptorily rest herself for an hour after her journey, and he entered the garden with Mrs. Woffington.
Now the other gentlemen admired Mrs. Vane the most. She was new. She was as lovely, in her way, as Peggy; and it was the young May-morn beauty of the country. They forgave her simplicity, and even her goodness, on account of her beauty; men are not severe judges of beautiful women. They all solicited her to come with them, and be the queen of the garden. But the good wife was obedient. Her lord had told her she was fatigued; so she said she was tired.
“Mr. Vane's garden will lack its sweetest and fairest flower, madam,” cried Cibber, “if we leave you here.”
“Nay, my lord, there are fairer than I.”
“Poor Quin!” cried Kitty Clive; “to have to leave the alderman's walk for the garden-walk.”
“All I regret,” said the honest glutton, stoutly, “is that I go without carving for Mrs. Vane.”
“You are very good, Sir John; I will be more troublesome to you at supper-time.”
When they were all gone, she couldn't help sighing. It almost seemed as if everybody was kinder to her than he whose kindness alone she valued. “And he must take Lady Betty's hand instead of mine,” thought she. “But that is good breeding, I suppose. I wish there was no such thing; we are very happy without it in Shropshire.” Then this poor little soul was ashamed of herself, and took herself to task. “Poor Ernest,” said she, pitying the wrongdoer, like a woman, “he was not pleased to be so taken by surprise. No wonder; they are so ceremonious in London. How good of him not to be angry!” Then she sighed; her heart had received a damp. His voice seemed changed, and he did not meet her eyes with the look he wore at Willoughby. She looked timidly into the garden. She saw the gay colors of beaux, as well as of belles—for in these days broadcloth had not displaced silk and velvet—glancing and shining among the trees; and she sighed, but, presently brightening up a little, she said: “I will go and see that the coffee is hot and clear, and the chocolate well mixed for them.” The poor child wanted to do something to please her husband. Before she could carry out this act of domestic virtue, her attention was drawn to a strife of tongues in the hall. She opened the folding-doors, and there was a fine gentleman obstructing the entrance of a somber, rusty figure, with a portfolio and a manuscript under each arm.
The fine gentleman was Colander. The seedy personage was the eternal Triplet, come to make hay with his five-foot rule while the sun shone. Colander had opened the door to him, and he had shot into the hall. The major-domo obstructed the farther entrance of such a coat.
“I tell you my master is not at home,” remonstrated the major-domo.
“How can you say so,” cried Mrs. Vane, in surprise, “when you know he is in the garden?”
“Simpleton!” thought Colander.
“Show the gentleman in.”
“Gentleman!” muttered Colander.
Triplet thanked her for her condescension; he would wait for Mr. Vane in the hall. “I came by appointment, madam; this is the only excuse for the importunity you have just witnessed.”
Hearing this, Mrs. Vane dismissed Colander to inform his master. Colander bowed loftily, and walked into the servants' hall without deigning to take the last proposition into consideration.
“Come in here, sir,” said Mabel; “Mr. Vane will come as soon as he can leave his company.” Triplet entered in a series of obsequious jerks. “Sit down and rest you, sir.” And Mrs. Vane seated herself at the table, and motioned with her white hand to Triplet to sit beside her.
Triplet bowed, and sat on the edge of a chair, and smirked and dropped his portfolio, and instantly begged Mrs. Vane's pardon; in taking it up, he let fall his manuscript, and was again confused; but in the middle of some superfluous and absurd excuse his eye fell on the haunch; it straightway dilated to an enormous size, and he became suddenly silent and absorbed in contemplation.
“You look sadly tired, sir.”
“Why, yes, madam. It is a long way from Lambeth Walk, and it is passing hot, madam.” He took his handkerchief out, and was about to wipe his brow, but returned it hastily to his pocket. “I beg your pardon, madam,” said Triplet, whose ideas of breeding, though speculative, were severe, “I forgot myself.”
Mabel looked at him, and colored, and slightly hesitated. At last she said: “I'll be bound you came in such a hurry you forgot—you mustn't be angry with me—to have your dinner first!”
For Triplet looked like an absurd wolf—all benevolence and starvation!
“What divine intelligence!” thought Trip. “How strange, madam,” cried he, “you have hit it! This accounts, at once, for a craving I feel. Now you remind me, I recollect carving for others, I did forget to remember myself. Not that I need have forgot it to-day, madam; but, being used to forget it, I did not remember not to forget it to-day, madam, that was all.” And the author of this intelligent account smiled very, very, very absurdly.
She poured him out a glass of wine. He rose and bowed; but peremptorily refused it, with his tongue—his eye drank it.
“But you must,” persisted this hospitable lady.
“But, madam, consider I am not entitled to—Nectar, as I am a man!”
The white hand was filling his plate with partridge pie: “But, madam, you don't consider how you overwhelm me with your—Ambrosia, as I am a poet!”
“I am sorry Mr. Vane should keep you waiting.”
“By no means, madam; it is fortunate—I mean, it procures me the pleasure of” (here articulation became obstructed) “your society, madam. Besides, the servants of the Muse are used to waiting. What we are not used to is” (here the white hand filled his glass) “being waited upon by Hebe and the Twelve Graces, whose health I have the honor “—(Deglutition).
“A poet!” cried Mabel; “oh! I am so glad! Little did I think ever to see a living poet! Dear heart! I should not have known, if you had not told me. Sir, I love poetry!”
“It is in your face, madam.” Triplet instantly whipped out his manuscript, put a plate on one corner of it, and a decanter on the other, and begged her opinion of this trifle, composed, said he, “in honor of a lady Mr. Vane entertains to-day.”
“Oh!” said Mrs. Vane, and colored with pleasure. How ungrateful she had been! Here was an attention!—For, of course, she never doubted that the verses were in honor of her arrival.
“'Bright being—'” sang out Triplet.
“Nay, sir,” said Mabel; “I think I know the lady, and it would be hardly proper of me—”
“Oh, madam!” said Triplet, solemnly; “strictly correct, madam!” And he spread his hand out over his bosom. “Strictly!—'Blunderbuss' (my poetical name, madam) never stooped to the taste of the town.