"Richard has appeared amongst us like a comet," put in the ubiquitous Mr.Manners, "and, I fear, intends to disappear in like manner."
"And where is the tail of this comet?" demanded Fox, instantly; "for I understood there was a tail."
John Paul was brought up, and the Junior Lord of the Admiralty looked him over from head to toe. And what, my dears, do you think he said to him?
"Have you ever acted, Captain Paul?"
The captain started back in surprise.
"Acted!" he exclaimed; "really, sir, I do not know. I have never been upon the boards."
Mr. Fox vowed that he could act: that he was sure of it, from the captain's appearance.
"And I, too, am sure of it, Mr. Fox," cried Dorothy; clapping her hands. "Persuade him to stay awhile in London, that you may have him at your next theatricals at Holland House. Why, he knows Shakespeare and Pope and—and Chaucer by heart, and Ovid and Horace,—is it not so, Mr. Walpole?"
"Is not what so, my dear young lady?" asked Mr. Walpole, pretending not to have heard.
"There!" exclaimed Dolly, pouting, when the laughter had subsided; "you make believe to care something about me, and yet will not listen to what I say."
I had seen at her feet our own Maryland gallants, the longest of whose reputations stretched barely from the James to the Schuylkill; but here in London men were hanging on her words whose names were familiarly spoken in Paris, and Rome, and Geneva. Not a topic was broached by Mr. Walpole or Mr. Fox, from the remonstrance of the Archbishop against masquerades and the coming marriage of my Lord Albemarle to the rights and wrongs of Mr. Wilkes, but my lady had her say. Mrs. Manners seemed more than content that she should play the hostess, which she did to perfection. She contrived to throw poisoned darts at the owner of Strawberry that started little Mr. Marmaduke to fidgeting in his seat, and he came to the rescue with all the town-talk at his command. He knew little else. Could Mr. Walpole tell him of this club of both sexes just started at Almack's? Mr. Walpole could tell a deal, tho' he took the pains first to explain that he was becoming too old for such frivolous and fashionable society. He could not, for the life of him, say why he was included. But, in spite of Mr. Walpole, John Paul was led out in the paces that best suited him, and finally, to the undisguised delight of Mr. Fox, managed to trip Horry upon an obscure point in Athenian literature. And this broke up the company.
As we took our leave Dorothy and Mr. Fox were talking together with lowered voices.
"I shall see you before I go," I said to her.
She laughed, and glanced at Mr. Fox.
"You are not going, Richard Carvel," said she.
"That you are not, Richard Carvel," said Mr. Fox.
I smiled, rather lamely, I fear, and said good night.
"Banks, where is the captain?" I asked, as I entered the parlour the next morning.
"Gone, sir, since seven o'clock," was the reply. "Gone!" I exclaimed; "gone where?"
"Faith, I did not ask his honour, sir."
I thought it strange, but reflected that John Paul was given to whims. Having so little time before him, he had probably gone to see the sights he had missed yesterday: the Pantheon, which was building, an account of which had appeared in all the colonial papers; or the new Blackfriars Bridge; or the Tower; or perhaps to see his Majesty ride out. The wonders of London might go hang, for all I cared. Who would gaze at the King when he might look upon Dorothy! I sighed. I bade Banks dress me in the new suit Davenport had brought that morning, and then sent him off to seek the shipping agent of the Virginia packet to get us a cabin. I would go to Arlington Street as soon as propriety admitted.
But I had scarce finished my chocolate and begun to smoke in a pleasant revery, when I was startled by the arrival of two gentlemen. One was Comyn, and the other none less than Mr. Charles Fox.
"Now where the devil has your captain flown to?" said my Lord, tossing his whip on the table.
"I believe he must be sight-seeing," I said. "I dare swear he has taken a hackney coach to the Tower."
"To see the liberation of the idol of the people, I'll lay ten guineas. But they say the great Mr. Wilkes is to come out quietly, and wishes no demonstration," said Mr. Fox. "I believe the beggar has some sense, if the—Greek—would only let him have his way. So your captain is a Wilkite, Mr. Carvel?" he demanded.
"I fear you run very fast to conclusions, Mr. Fox," I answered, laughing, tho' I thought his guess was not far from wrong.
"I'll lay you the ten guineas he has been to the Tower," said Mr. Fox, promptly.
"Done, sir," said I.
"Hark ye, Richard," said Comyn, stretching himself in an arm-chair; "we are come to take the wind out of your sails, and leave you without an excuse for going home. And we want your captain, alive or dead. Charles, here, is to give him a commission in his Majesty's Navy."
Then I knew why Dorothy had laughed when I had spoken of seeing her again. Comyn—bless him!—had told her of his little scheme.
"Egad, Charles!" cried his Lordship, "to look at his glum face, one might think we were a couple of Jews who had cornered him."
Alas for the perversity of the heart! Instead of leaping for joy, as no doubt they had both confidently expected, I was both troubled and perplexed by this unlooked-for news. Oak, when bent, is even harder to bend back again. And so it has ever been with me. I had determined, after a bitter struggle, to go to Maryland, and had now become used to that prospect. I was anxious to see my grandfather, and to confront Grafton Carvel with his villany. And there was John Paul. What would he think?
"What ails you, Richard?" Comyn demanded somewhat testily.
"Nothing, Jack," I replied. "I thank you from my heart, and you, Mr. Fox. I know that commissions are not to be had for the asking, and I rejoice with the captain over his good fortune. But, gentlemen," I said soberly, "I had most selfishly hoped that I might be able to do a service to John Paul in return for his charity to me. You offer him something nearer his deserts, something beyond my power to give him."
Fox's eyes kindled.
"You speak like a man, Mr. Carvel," said he. "But you are too modest. Damn it, sir, don't you see that it is you, and no one else, who has procured this commission? Had I not been taken with you, sir, I should scarce have promised it to your friend Comyn, through whose interest you obtain it for your protege."
I remembered what Mr. Fox's enemies said of him, and smiled at the plausible twist he had given the facts.
"No," I said; "no, Mr. Fox; never that. The captain must not think that I wish to be rid of him. I will not stand in the way, though if it is to be offered him, he must comprehend that I had naught to do with the matter. But, sir," I continued curiously, "what do you know of John Paul's abilities as an officer?"
Mr. Fox and Comyn laughed so immoderately as to bring the blood to my face.
"Damme!" cried the Junior Lord, "but you Americans have odd consciences! Do you suppose Rigby was appointed Paymaster of the Forces because of his fitness? Why was North himself made Prime Minister? For his abilities?" And he broke down again. "Ask Jack, here, how he got into the service, and how much seamanship he knows."
"Faith," answered Jack, unblushingly, "Admiral Lord Comyn, my father, wished me to serve awhile. And so I have taken two cruises, delivered some score of commands, and scarce know a supple jack from a can of flip. Cursed if I see the fun of it in these piping times o' peace, so I have given it up, Richard. For Charles says this Falkland business with Spain will blow out of the touch-hole."
I could see little to laugh over. For the very rottenness of the service was due to the miserable and servile Ministry and Parliament of his Majesty, by means of which instruments he was forcing the colonies to the wall. Verily, that was a time when the greatness of England hung in the balance! How little I suspected that the young man then seated beside me, who had cast so unthinkingly his mighty powers on the side of corruption, was to be one of the chief instruments of her salvation! We were to fight George the Third across the seas. He was to wage no less courageous a battle at home, in the King's own capital. And the cause? Yes, the cause was to be the same as that of the Mr. Wilkes he reviled, who obtained his liberty that day.
At length John Paul came in, calling my name. He broke off abruptly at sight of the visitors.
"Now we shall decide," said Mr. Fox. "Captain, I have bet Mr. Carvel ten guineas you have been to the Tower to see Squinting Jack (John Wilkes) get his liberty at last."
The captain looked astonished.
"Anan, then, you have lost, Richard," said he. "For I have been just there."
"And helped, no doubt, to carry off the champion on your shoulders," saidMr. Fox, sarcastically, as I paid the debt.
"Mr. Wilkes knows full well the value of moderation, sir," replied the captain, in the same tone.
"Well, damn the odds!" exclaimed the Junior Lord, laughing. "You may have the magic number tattooed all over your back, for all I care. You shall have the commission."
"The commission?"
"Yes," said Fox, carelessly; "I intend making you a lieutenant, sir, in the Royal Navy."
The moment the words were out I was a-tremble as to how he would take the offer. For he had a certain puzzling pride, which flew hither and thither. But there was surely no comparison between the situations of the master of the Belle of the Wye and an officer in the Royal Navy. There, his talents would make him an admiral, and doubtless give him the social position he secretly coveted. He confounded us all by his answer.
"I thank you, Mr. Fox. But I cannot accept your kindness."
"Slife!" said Fox, "you refuse? And you know what you are doing?"
"I know usually, sir."
Comyn swore. My exclamation had something of relief in it.
"Captain," I said, "I felt that I could not stand in the way of this. It has been my hope that you will come with me, and I have sent this morning after a cabin on the Virginia. You must know that Mr. Fox's offer is his own, and Lord Comyn's."
"I know it well, Richard. I have not lived these three months with you for nothing." His voice seemed to fail him. He drew near me and took my hand. "But did you think I would require of you the sacrifice of leaving London now?"
"It is my pleasure as well as my duty, captain."
"No," he said, "I am not like that. Yesterday I went to the city to see a shipowner whose acquaintance I made when he was a master in the West India trade. He has had some reason to know that I can handle a ship. Never mind what. And he has given me the bark 'Betsy', whose former master is lately dead of the small-pox. Richard, I sail to-morrow."
In Dorothy's coach to Whitehall Stairs, by the grim old palace out of whose window Charles the Martyr had walked to his death. For Dorothy had vowed it was her pleasure to see John Paul off, and who could stand in her way? Surely not Mr. Marmaduke! and Mrs. Manners laughingly acquiesced. Our spirits were such that we might have been some honest mercer's apprentice and his sweetheart away for an outing.
"If we should take a wherry, Richard," said Dolly, "who would know of it?I have longed to be in a wherry ever since I came to London."
The river was smiling as she tripped gayly down to the water, and the red-coated watermen were smiling, too, and nudging one another. But little cared we! Dolly in holiday humour stopped for naught. "Boat, your honour! Boat, boat! To Rotherhithe—Redriff? Two and six apiece, sir." For that intricate puzzle called human nature was solved out of hand by the Thames watermen. Here was a young gentleman who never heard of the Lord Mayor's scale of charges. And what was a shilling to such as he! Intricate puzzle, indeed! Any booby might have read upon the young man's face that secret which is written for all,—high and low, rich and poor alike.
My new lace handkerchief was down upon the seat, lest Dolly soil her bright pink lutestring. She should have worn nothing else but the hue of roses. How the bargemen stared, and the passengers craned their necks, and the longshoremen stopped their work as we shot past them! On her account a barrister on the Temple Stairs was near to letting fall his bag in the water. A lady in a wherry! Where were the whims of the quality to lead them next? Past the tall water-tower and York Stairs, the idlers under the straight row of trees leaning over the high river wall; past Adelphi Terrace, where the great Garrick lived; past the white columns of Somerset House, with its courts and fountains and alleys and architecture of all ages, and its river gate where many a gilded royal barge had lain, and many a fine ambassador had arrived in state over the great highway of England; past the ancient trees in the Temple Gardens. And then under the new Blackfriars Bridge to Southwark, dingy with its docks and breweries and huddled houses, but forever famous,—the Southwark of Shakespeare and Jonson and Beaumont and Fletcher. And the shelf upon which they stood in the library at Carvel Hall was before my eyes.
"Yes," said Dolly; "and I recall your mother's name written in faded ink upon the fly-leaves."
Ah, London Town, by what subtleties are you tied to the hearts of those born across the sea? That is one of the mysteries of race.
Under the pointed arches of old London Bridge, with its hooded shelters for the weary, to where the massive Tower had frowned for ages upon the foolish river. And then the forest of ships, and the officious throng of little wherries and lighters that pressed around them, seeming to say, "You clumsy giants, how helpless would you be without us!" Soon our own wherry was dodging among them, ships brought hither by the four winds of the seas; many discharging in the stream, some in the docks then beginning to be built, and hugging the huge warehouses. Hides from frozen Russia were piled high beside barrels of sugar and rum from the moist island cane-fields of the Indies, and pipes of wine from the sunny hillsides of France, and big boxes of tea bearing the hall-mark of the mysterious East. Dolly gazed in wonder. And I was commanded to show her a schooner like the Black Moll, and a brigantine like the John.
"And Captain Paul told me you climbed the masts, Richard, and worked like a common seaman. Tell me," says she, pointing at the royal yard of a tall East Indiaman, "did you go as high as that when it was rough?"
And, hugely to the boatman's delight, the minx must needs put her fingers on the hard welts on my hands, and vow she would be a sailor and she were a man. But at length we came to a trim-built bark lying off Redriff Stairs, with the words "Betsy, of London," painted across her stern. In no time at all, Captain Paul was down the gangway ladder and at the water-side, too hand Dorothy out.
"This honour overwhelms me, Miss Manners," he said; "but I know whom to thank for it." And he glanced slyly at me.
Dorothy stepped aboard with the air of Queen Elizabeth come to inspectLord Howard's flagship.
"Then you will thank me," said she. "Why, I could eat my dinner off your deck, captain! Are all merchantmen so clean?"
John Paul smiled.
"Not all, Miss Manners," he said.
"And you are still sailing at the ebb?" I asked.
"In an hour, Richard, if the wind holds good."
With what pride he showed us over his ship, the sailors gaping at the fine young lady. It had taken him just a day to institute his navy discipline. And Dolly went about exclaiming, and asking an hundred questions, and merrily catechising me upon the run of the ropes. All was order and readiness for dropping down the stream when he led us into his cabin, where he had a bottle of wine and some refreshments laid out against my coming.
"Had I presumed to anticipate your visit, Miss Manners, I should have had something more suitable for a lady," he said. "What, you will not eat, either, Richard?"
I could not, so downcast had I become at the thought of parting. I had sat up half the night before with him in restless argument and indecision, and even when he had left for Rotherhithe, early that morning, my mind had not been made. My conscience had insisted that I should sail with John Paul; that I might never see my deaf grandfather on earth again. I had gone to Arlington Street that morning resolved to say farewell to Dorothy. I will not recount the history of that defeat, my dears. Nay, to this day I know not how she accomplished the matter. Not once had she asked me to remain, or referred to my going. Nor had I spoken of it, weakling that I was. She had come down in the pink lutestring, smiling but pale; and traces of tears in her eyes, I thought. From that moment I knew that I was defeated. It was she herself who had proposed going with me to see the Betsy sail.
"I will drink some Madeira to wish you Godspeed, captain," I said.
"What is the matter with you, Richard?" Dolly cried; "you are as sour as my Lord Sandwich after a bad Newmarket. Why, captain," said she, "I really believe he wants to go, too. The swain pines for his provincial beauty."
Poor John Paul! He had not yet learned that good society is seldom literal.
"Upon my soul, Miss Manners, there you do him wrong," he retorted, with ludicrous heat; "you, above all, should know for whom he pines."
"He has misled you by praising me. This Richard, despite his frank exterior, is most secretive."
"There you have hit him, Miss Manners," he declared; "there you have hit him! We were together night and day, on the sea and on the road, and, while I poured out my life to him, the rogue never once let fall a hint of the divine Miss Dorothy. 'Twas not till I got to London that I knew of her existence, and then only by a chance. You astonish me. You speak of a young lady in Maryland?"
Dorothy swept aside my protest.
"Captain," says she, gravely, "I leave you to judge. What is your inference, when he fights a duel about a Miss with my Lord Comyn?"
"A duel!" cried the captain, astounded.
"Miss Manners persists in her view of the affair, despite my word to the contrary," I put in rather coldly.
"But a duel!" cried the captain again; "and with Lord Comyn! Miss Manners, I fondly thought I had discovered a constant man, but you make me fear he has had as many flames as I. And yet, Richard," he added meaningly, "I should think shame on my conduct and I had had such a subject for constancy as you."
Dorothy's armour was pierced, and my ill-humour broken down, by this characteristic speech. We both laughed, greatly to his discomfiture.
"You had best go home with him, Richard," said Dolly. "I can find my way back to Arlington Street alone."
"Nay; gallantry forbids his going with me now," answered John Paul; "and I have my sailing orders. But had I known of this, I should never have wasted my breath in persuading him to remain."
"And did he stand in need of much persuasion, captain?" asked Dolly, archly.
Time was pressing, and the owner came aboard, puffing,—a round-faced, vociferous, jolly merchant, who had no sooner got his breath than he lost it again upon catching sight of Dolly.
While the captain was giving the mate his final orders, Mr. Orchardson, for such was his name, regaled us with a part of his life's history. He had been a master himself, and mangled and clipped King George's English as only a true master might.
"I like your own captain better than ever, Richard," whispered Dolly, while Mr. Orchardson relieved himself of his quid over the other side; "how commanding he is! Were I to take passage in the Betsy, I know I should be in love with him long before we got to Norfolk."
I took it upon myself to tell Mr. Orchardson, briefly and clearly as I could, the lamentable story of John Paul's last cruise. For I feared it might sooner or later reach his ears from prejudiced mouths. And I ended by relating how the captain had refused a commission in the navy because he had promised to take the Betsy. This appeared vastly to impress him, and he forgot Dorothy's presence.
"Passion o' my 'eart, Mr. Carvel," cried he, excitedly,
"John Paul's too big a man, an' too good a seaman, to go into the navy without hinflooence. If flag horfocers I roots of is booted haside to rankle like a lump o' salt butter in a gallipot, 'ow will a poor Scotch lieutenant win hadvancement an' he be not o' the King's friends? 'Wilkes an' Liberty,' say I; 'forever,' say I. An' w'en I see 'im goin' to the Tower to be'old the Champion, 'Captain Paul,' says I, 'yere a man arfter my hown 'eart.' My heye, sir, didn't I see 'im, w'n a mere lad, take the John into Kingston 'arbour in the face o' the worst gale I hever seed blowed in the Caribbees? An' I says, 'Bill Horchardson, an' ye Never 'ave ships o' yere own, w'ich I 'ope will be, y'ell know were to look for a marster.' An' I tells 'im that same, Mr. Carvel. I means no disrespect to the dead, sir, but an' John Paul 'ad discharged the Betsy, I'd not 'a' been out twenty barrels or more this day by Thames mudlarks an' scuffle hunters. 'Eave me flat, if 'e'll be two blocks wi' liquor an' dischargin' cargo. An' ye may rest heasy, Mr. Carvel, I'll not do wrong by 'im, neither."
He told me that if I would honour him in Maid Lane, Southwark, I should have as many pounds as I liked of the best tobacco ever cured in Cuba. And so he left me to see that the mate had signed all his lighter bills, shouting to the captain not to forget his cockets at Gravesend. Dolly and I stood silent while the men hove short, singing a jolly song to the step. With a friendly wave the round figure of Mr. Orchardson disappeared over the side, and I knew that the time had come to say farewell. I fumbled in my waistcoat for the repeater I had bought that morning over against Temple Bar, in Fleet Street, and I thrust it into John Paul's hand as he came up.
"Take this in remembrance of what you have suffered so unselfishly for my sake, Captain Paul," I said, my voice breaking. "And whatever befalls you, do not forget that Carvel Hall is your home as well as mine."
He seemed as greatly affected as was I. Tears forced themselves to his eyes as he held the watch, which he opened absently to read the simple inscription I had put there.
"Oh, Dickie lad!" he cried, "I'll be missing ye sair three hours hence, and thinking of ye for months to come in the night watches. But something tells me I'll see ye again."
And he took me in his arms, embracing me with such fervour that there was no doubting the sincerity of his feelings.
"Miss Dorothy," said he, when he was calmer, "I give ye Richard for a leal and a true heart. Few men are born with the gift of keeping the affections warm despite absence, and years, and interest. But have no fear of Richard Carvel."
Dorothy stood a little apart, watching us, her eyes that faraway blue of the deepening skies at twilight.
"Indeed, I have no fear of him, captain," she said gently. Then, with a quick movement, impulsive and womanly, she unpinned a little gold brooch at her throat, and gave it to him, saying: "In token of my gratitude for bringing him back to us."
John Paul raised it to his lips.
"I shall treasure it, Miss Manners, as a memento of the greatest joy of my life. And that has been," gracefully taking her hand and mine, "the bringing you two together again."
Dorothy grew scarlet as she curtseyed. As for me, I could speak never a word. He stepped over the side to hand her into the wherry, and embraced me once again. And as we rowed away he waved his hat in a last good-by from the taffrail. Then the Betsy floated down the Thames.
It will be difficult, my dears, without bulging this history out of all proportion, to give you a just notion of the society into which I fell after John Paul left London. It was, above all, a gaming society. From that prying and all-powerful God of Chance none, great or small, escaped. Guineas were staked and won upon frugal King George and his beef and barley-water; Charles Fox and his debts; the intrigues of Choiseul and the Du Barry and the sensational marriage of the Due d'Orleans with Madame de Montesson (for your macaroni knew his Paris as well as his London); Lord March and his opera singer; and even the doings of Betty, the apple-woman of St. James's Street, and the beautiful barmaid of Nando's in whom my Lord Thurlow was said to be interested. All these, and much more not to be repeated, were duly set down in the betting-books at White's and Brooks's.
Then the luxury of the life was something to startle a provincial, even tho' he came, as did I, from one of the two most luxurious colonies of the thirteen. Annapolis might be said to be London on a small scale, —but on a very small scale. The historian of the future need look no farther than our houses (if any remain), to be satisfied that we had more than the necessities of existence. The Maryland aristocrat with his town place and his country place was indeed a parallel of the patrician at home. He wore his English clothes, drove and rode his English horses, and his coaches were built in Long Acre. His heavy silver service came from Fleet Street, and his claret and Champagne and Lisbon and Madeira were the best that could be bought or smuggled. His sons were often educated at home, at Eton or Westminster and Oxford or Cambridge. So would I have been if circumstances had permitted. So was James Fotheringay, the eldest of the family, and later the Dulany boys, and half a dozen others I might mention. And then our ladies! 'Tis but necessary to cite my Aunt Caroline as an extreme dame of fashion, who had her French hairdresser, Piton.
As was my aunt to the Duchess of Kingston, so was Annapolis to London. To depict the life of Mayfair and of St. James's Street during a season about the year of grace 1770 demands a mightier pen than wields the writer of these simple memoirs.
And who was responsible for all this luxury and laxity? Who but the great Mr. Pitt, then the Earl of Chatham, whose wise policy had made Britain the ruler of the world, and rich beyond compare. From all corners of the earth her wealth poured in upon her. Nabob and Caribbee came from East and West to spend their money in the capital. And fortunes near as great were acquired by the City merchants themselves. One by one these were admitted within that charmed circle, whose motto for ages had been "No Trade," to leaven it with their gold. And to keep the pace,—nay, to set it, the nobility and landed gentry were sore pressed. As far back as good Queen Anne, and farther, their ancestors had gamed and tippled away the acres; and now that John and William, whose forebears had been good tenants for centuries, were setting their faces to Liverpool and Birmingham and Leeds, their cottages were empty. So Lord and Squire went to London to recuperate, and to get their share of the game running. St. James's Street and St. Stephen's became their preserves. My Lord wormed himself into a berth in the Treasury, robbed the country systematically for a dozen of years, and sold the places and reversions under him to the highest bidder. Boroughs were to be had somewhat dearer than a pair of colours. And my Lord spent his spare time—he had plenty of it—in fleecing the pigeons at White's and Almack's. Here there was no honour, even amongst thieves. And young gentlemen were hurried through Eton and Oxford, where they learned to drink and swear and to call a main as well as to play tennis and billiards and to write Latin, and were thrust into Brooks's before they knew the difference in value between a farthing and a banknote: at nineteen they were hardened rake, or accomplished men of the world, or both. Dissipated noblemen of middle age like March and Sandwich, wits and beaus and fine gentlemen like Selwyn and Chesterfield and Walpole, were familiarly called by their first names by youngsters like Fox and Carlisle and Comyn. Difference of age was no difference. Young Lord Carlisle was the intimate of Mr. Selwyn, born thirty years before him.
And whilst I am speaking of intimacies, that short one which sprang up between me and the renowned Charles Fox has always seemed the most unaccountable: not on my part, for I fell a victim to him at once. Pen and paper, brush and canvas, are wholly inadequate to describe the charm of the man. When he desired to please, his conversation and the expression of his face must have moved a temperament of stone itself. None ever had more devoted friends or more ardent admirers. They saw his faults, which he laid bare before them, but they settled his debts again and again, vast sums which he lost at Newmarket and at Brooks's. And not many years after the time of which I now write Lord Carlisle was paying fifteen hundred a year on the sum he had loaned him, cheerfully denying himself the pleasures of London as a consequence.
It was Mr. Fox who discovered for me my lodgings in Dover Street, vowing that I could not be so out of fashion as to live at an inn. The brief history of these rooms, as given by him, was this: "A young cub had owned them, whose mamma had come up from Berkshire on Thursday, beat him soundly on Friday, paid his debts on Saturday, and had taken him back on Sunday to hunt with Sir Henry the rest of his life." Dorothy came one day with her mother and swept through my apartments, commanded all the furniture to be moved about, ordered me to get pictures for the walls, and by one fell decree abolished all the ornaments before the landlady, used as she was to the ways of quality, had time to gasp.
"Why, Richard," says my lady, "you will be wanting no end of pretty things to take back to Maryland when you go. You shall come with me to-morrow to Mr. Josiah Wedgwood's, to choose some of them."
"Dorothy!" says her mother, reprovingly.
"And he must have the Chippendale table I saw yesterday at the exhibition, and chairs to match. And every bachelor should have a punch bowl—Josiah has such a beauty!"
But I am running far ahead. Among the notes with which my table was laden, Banks had found a scrawl. This I made out with difficulty to convey that Mr. Fox was not attending Parliament that day. If Mr. Carvel would do him the honour of calling at his lodging, over Mackie's Italian Warehouse in Piccadilly, at four o'clock, he would take great pleasure in introducing him at Brooks's Club. In those days 'twas far better for a young gentleman of any pretensions to remain at home than go to London and be denied that inner sanctuary,—the younger club at Almack's. Many the rich brewer's son has embittered his life because it was not given him to see more than the front of the house from the far side of Pall Mall. But to be taken there by Charles Fox was an honour falling to few. I made sure that Dolly was at the bottom of it.
Promptly at four I climbed the stairs and knocked at Mr. Fox's door. The Swiss who opened it shook his head dubiously when I asked for his master, and said he had not been at home that day.
"But I had an appointment to meet him," I said, thinking it very strange.
The man's expression changed.
"An appointment, sir! Ah, sir, then you are to step in here." And to my vast astonishment he admitted me into a small room at one side of the entrance. It was bare as poverty, and furnished with benches, and nothing more. On one of these was seated a person with an unmistakable nose and an odour of St. Giles's, who sprang to his feet and then sat down again dejectedly. I also sat down, wondering what it could mean, and debating whether to go or stay.
"Exguse me, your honour," said the person, "but haf you seen Mister Fox?"
I said that I, too, was waiting for him, whereat he cast at me a cunning look beyond my comprehension. Surely, I thought, a man of Fox's inherited wealth and position could not be living in such a place! Before the truth and humour of the situation had dawned upon me, I heard a ringing voice without, swearing in most forcible English, and the door was thrown open, admitting a tall young gentleman, as striking as I have ever seen. He paid not the smallest attention to the Jew, who was bowing and muttering behind me.
"Mr. Richard Carvel?" said he, with a merry twinkle in his eye.
I bowed.
"Gad's life, Mr. Carvel, I'm deuced sorry this should have happened.Will you come with me?"
"Exguse me, your honour!" cried the other visitor.
"Now, what the plague, Aaron!" says he; "you wear out the stairs. Come to-morrow, or the day after."
"Ay, 'tis always 'to-morrow' with you fine gentlemen. But I vill bring the bailiffs, so help me—"
"Damn 'em!" says the tall young gentleman, as he slammed the door and so shut off the wail. "Damn 'em, they worry Charles to death. If he would only stick to quinze and picquet, and keep clear of the hounds*, he need never go near a broker."
[*"The "hounds," it appears, were the gentlemen of sharp practices atWhite's and Almack's.—D. C. C.]
"Do you have Jews in America, Mr. Carvel?" Without waiting for an answer, he led me through a parlour, hung with pictures, and bewilderingly furnished with French and Italian things, and Japan and China ware and bronzes, and cups and trophies. "My name is Fitzpatrick, Mr. Carvel, —yours to command, and Charles's. I am his ally for offence and defence. We went to school together," he explained simply.
His manner was so free, and yet so dignified, as to charm me completely. For I heartily despised all that fustian trumpery of the age. Then came a voice from beyond, calling:—
"That you, Carvel? Damn that fellow Eiffel, and did he thrust you into the Jerusalem Chamber?"
"The Jerusalem Chamber!" I exclaimed.
"Where I keep my Israelites," said he; "but, by Gad's life! I think they are one and all descended from Job, and not father Abraham at all. He must have thought me cursed ascetic, eh, Fitz? Did you find the benches hard? I had 'em made hard as the devil. But if they were of stone, I vow the flock could find their own straw to sit on."
"Curse it, Charles," cut in Mr. Fitzpatrick, in some temper, "can't you be serious for once! He would behave this way, Mr. Carvel, if he were being shriven by the Newgate ordinary before a last carting to Tyburn. Charles, Charles, it was Aaron again, and the dog is like to snap at last. He is talking of bailiffs. Take my advice and settle with him. Hold Cavendish off another fortnight and settle with him."
Mr. Fox's reply was partly a laugh, and the rest of it is not to be printed. He did not seem in the least to mind this wholesale disclosure of his somewhat awkward affairs. And he continued to dress, or to be dressed, alternately swearing at his valet and talking to Fitzpatrick and to me.
"You are both of a name," said he. "Let a man but be called Richard, andI seem to take to him. I' faith, I like the hunchback king, and believeour friend Horry Walpole is right in defending him, despite Davie Hume.I vow I shall like you, Mr. Carvel."
I replied that I certainly hoped so.
"Egad, you come well enough recommended," he said, pulling on his breeches. "No, Eiffel, cursed if I go en petit maitre to-day. How does that strike you for a demi saison, Mr. Buckskin? I wore three of 'em through the customs last year, and March's worked olive nightgown tucked under my greatcoat, and near a dozen pairs of shirts and stockings. And each of my servants had on near as much. O Lud, we were amazing-like beef-eaters or blower pigeons. Sorry you won't meet my brother,—he that will have the title. He's out of town."
Going on in this discursory haphazard way while he dressed, he made me feel much at home. For the young dictator—so Mr. Fitzpatrick informed me afterward—either took to you or else he did not, and stood upon no ceremony. After he had chosen a coat with a small pattern and his feet had been thrust into the little red shoes with the high heels, imported by him from France, he sent for a hackney-chaise. And the three of us drove together to Pall Mall. Mr. Brooks was at the door, and bowed from his hips as we entered.
"A dozen vin de Graves, Brooks!" cries Mr. Fox, and ushers me into a dining room, with high curtained windows and painted ceiling, and chandeliers throwing a glitter of light. There, at a long table, surrounded by powdered lackeys, sat a bevy of wits, mostly in blue and silver, with point ruffles, to match Mr. Fox's costume. They greeted my companions uproariously. It was "Here's Charles at last!" "Howdy, Charles!" "Hello, Richard!" and "What have you there? a new Caribbee?" They made way for Mr. Fox at the head of the table, and he took the seat as though it were his right.
"This is Mr. Richard Carvel, gentlemen, of Carvel Hall, in Maryland."
They stirred with interest when my name was called, and most of them turned in their chairs to look at me. I knew well the reason, and felt my face grow hot. Although you may read much of the courtesy of that age, there was a deal of brutal frankness among young men of fashion.
"Egad, Charles, is this he the Beauty rescued from Castle Yard?"
A familiar voice relieved my embarrassment.
"Give the devil his due, Bully. You forget that I had a hand in that."
"Faith, Jack Comyn," retorted the gentleman addressed, "you're already famous for clinging to her skirt."
"But cling to mine, Bully, and we'll all enter the temple together. But I bid you welcome, Richard," said his Lordship; "you come with two of the most delightful vagabonds in the world."
Mr. Fox introduced me in succession to Colonel St. John, known in St. James's Street as the Baptist; to my Lord Bolingbroke, Colonel St. John's brother, who was more familiarly called Bully; to Mr. Fitzpatrick's brother, the Earl of Upper Ossory, who had come up to London, so he said, to see a little Italian dance at the Garden; to Gilly Williams; to Sir Charles Bunbury, who had married Lady Sarah Lennox, Fox's cousin, the beauty who had come so near to being queen of all England; to Mr. Storer, who was at once a Caribbee and a Crichton; to Mr. Uvedale Price. These I remember, but there are more that escape me. Most good-naturedly they drank my health in Charles's vin de grave, at four shillings the bottle; and soon I was astonished to find myself launched upon the story of my adventures, which they had besought me to tell them. When I had done, they pledged me again, and, beginning to feel at home, I pledged them handsomely in return. Then the conversation began. The like of it I have never heard anywhere else in the world. There was a deal that might not be written here, and a deal more that might, to make these pages sparkle. They went through the meetings, of course, and thrashed over the list of horses entered at Ipswich, and York, and Newmarket, and how many were thought to be pulled. Then followed the recent gains and losses of each and every individual of the company. After that there was a roar of merriment over Mr. Storer cracking mottoes with a certain Lady Jane; and how young Lord Stavordale, on a wager, tilted the candles and set fire to the drawing-room at Lady Julia's drum, the day before. Mr. Price told of the rage Topham Beauclerk had got Dr. Johnson into, by setting down a mark for each oyster the sage had eaten, and showing him the count. But Mr. Fox, who was the soul of the club, had the best array of any. He related how he had gone post from Paris to Lyons, to order, among other things, an embroidered canary waistcoat for George Selwyn from Jabot. "' Et quel dessin, monsieur?' 'Beetles and frogs, in green.' 'Escargots! grenouilles!' he cries, with a shriek; 'Et pour Monsieur Selwyn! Monsieur Fox badine!' It came yesterday, by Crawford, and I sent it to Chesterfield Street in time for George to wear to the Duchess's. He has been twice to Piccadilly after me, and twice here, and swears he will have my heart. And I believe he is now gone to Matson in a funk."
After that they fell upon politics. I knew that Mr. Fox was already near the head of the King's party, and that he had just received a substantial reward at his Majesty's hands; and I went not far to guess that every one of these easy-going, devil-may-care macaronies was a follower or sympathizer with Lord North's policy. But what I heard was a revelation indeed. I have dignified it by calling it politics. All was frankness here amongst friends. There was no attempt made to gloss over ugly transactions with a veneer of morality. For this much I honoured them. But irresistibly there came into my mind the grand and simple characters of our own public men in America, and it made me shudder to think that, while they strove honestly for our rights, this was the type which opposed them. Motives of personal spite and of personal gain were laid bare, and even the barter and sale of offices of trust took place before my very eyes. I was silent, though my tongue burned me, until one of the gentlemen, thinking me neglected, said:
"What a-deuce is to be done with those unruly countrymen of yours, Mr. Carvel? Are they likely to be pacified now that we have taken off all except the tea? You who are of our party must lead a sorry life among them. Tell me, do they really mean to go as far as rebellion?"
The blood rushed to my face.
"It is not a question of tea, sir," I answered hotly; "nor yet of tuppence. It is a question of principle, which means more to Englishmen than life itself. And we are Englishmen."
I believe I spoke louder than I intended, for a silence followed my words. Fox glanced at Comyn, who of all of them at the table was not smiling, and said:
"I thought you came of a loyalist family, Mr. Carvel."
"King George has no more loyal servants than the Americans, Mr. Fox, be they Tory or Whig. And he has but to read our petitions to discover it," I said.
I spoke calmly, but my heart was thumping with excitement and resentment. The apprehension of the untried is apt to be sharp at such moments, and I looked for them to turn their backs upon me for an impertinent provincial. Indeed, I think they would have, all save Comyn, had it not been for Fox himself. He lighted a pipe, smiled, and began easily, quite dispassionately, to address me.
"I wish you would favour us with your point of view, Mr. Carvel," said he; "for, upon my soul, I know little about the subject."
"You know little about the subject, and you in Parliament!"
I cried.
This started them all to laughing. Why, I did not then understand. ButI was angry enough.
"Come, let's have it!" said he.
They drew their chairs closer, some wearing that smile of superiority which to us is the Englishman's most maddening trait. I did not stop to think twice, or to remember that I was pitted against the greatest debater in all England. I was to speak that of which I was full, and the heart's argument needs no logic to defend it. If it were my last word, I would pronounce it.
I began by telling them that the Americans had paid their share of the French war, in blood and money, twice over. And I had the figures in my memory. Mr. Fox interrupted. For ten minutes at a space he spoke, and in all my life I have never talked to a man who had the English of King James's Bible, of Shakespeare, and Milton so wholly at his command. And his knowledge of history, his classical citations, confounded me. I forgot myself in wondering how one who had lived so fast had acquired such learning. Afterward, when I tried to recall what he said, I laughed at his surprising ignorance of the question at issue, and wondered where my wits could have gone that I allowed myself to be dazzled and turned aside at every corner. As his speech came faster he twisted fact into fiction and fiction into fact, until I must needs close my mind and bolt the shutters of it, or he had betrayed me into confessing the right of Parliament to quarter troops among us. Though my head swam, I clung doggedly to my text. And that was my salvation. He grew more excited, and they applauded him. In truth, I myself felt near to clapping. And then, as I stared him in the eye, marvelling how a man of such vast power and ability could stand for such rotten practices, the thought came to me (I know not whence) of Saint Paul the Apostle.
"Mr. Fox," I said, when he had paused, "before God, do you believe what you are saying?"
I saw them smiling at my earnestness and simplicity. Fox seemed surprised, and laughed evasively,—not heartily as was his wont.
"My dear Mr. Carvel," he said, glancing around the circle, political principles are not to be swallowed like religion, but taken rather like medicine, experimentally. If they agree with you, very good. If not, drop them and try others. We are always ready to listen to remedies, here."
"Ay, if they agree with you!" I exclaimed. "But food for one is poison for another. Do you know what you are doing? You are pushing home injustice and tyranny to the millions, for the benefit of the thousands. For is it not true, gentlemen, that the great masses of England are against the measures you impose upon us? Their fight is our fight. They are no longer represented in Parliament; we have never been. Taxation without representation is true of your rotten boroughs as well as of your vast colonies. You are helping the King to crush freedom abroad in order that he may the more easily break it at home. You are committing a crime.
"I tell you we would give up all we own were the glory or honour of England at stake. And yet you call us rebels, and accuse us of meanness and of parsimony. If you wish money, leave the matter to our colonial assemblies, and see how readily you will get it. But if you wish war, persist in trying to grind the spirit from a people who have in them the pride of your own ancestors. Yes, you are estranging the colonies, gentlemen. A greater man than I has warned you"
And with that I rose, believing that I had given them all mortal offence. To my astonishment several got to their feet in front of me, huzzaing, and Comyn and Lord Ossory grasped my hands. And Charles Fox reached out over the corner of the table and pulled me back into my chair.
"Bravo, Richard Carvel!" he cried. "Cursed if I don't love a man who will put up a fight against odds. Who will stand bluff to what he believes, and won't be talked out of his boots. We won't quarrel with any such here, my buckskin, I can tell you."
And that is the simple story, my dears, of the beginning of my friendship with one who may rightly be called the Saint Paul of English politics. He had yet some distance to go, alas, ere he was to begin that sturdy battle for the right for which his countrymen and ours will always bless him. I gave him my hand with a better will than I had ever done anything, and we pressed our fingers numb. And his was not the only hand I clasped. And honest Jack Comyn ordered more wine, that they might drink to a speedy reconciliation with America.
"A pint bumper to Richard Carvel!" said Mr. Fitzpatrick.
I pledged Brooks's Club in another pint. Upon which they swore that I was a good fellow, and that if all American Whigs were like me, all cause of quarrel was at an end. Of this I was not so sure, nor could I see that the question had been settled one way or another. And that night I had reason to thank the Reverend Mr. Allen, for the first and last time in my life, that I could stand a deal of liquor, and yet not roll bottom upward.
The dinner was settled on the Baptist, who paid for it without a murmur. And then we adjourned to the business of the evening. The great drawing-room, lighted by an hundred candles, was filled with gayly dressed macaronies, and the sound of their laughter and voices in contention mingled with the pounding of the packs on the mahogany and the rattle of the dice and the ring of the gold pieces. The sight was dazzling, and the noise distracting. Fox had me under his especial care, and I was presented to young gentlemen who bore names that had been the boast of England through the centuries. Lands their forebears had won by lance and sword, they were squandering away as fast as ever they could. I, too, was known. All had heard the romance of the Beauty and Castle Yard, and some had listened to Horry Walpole tell that foolish story of Goble at Windsor, on which he seemed to set such store. They guessed at my weight. They betted upon it. And they wished to know if I could spin Mr. Brooks, who was scraping his way from table to table. They gave me choice of whist, or picquet, or quinze, or hazard. I was carried away. Nay, I make no excuse. Tho' the times were drinking and gaming ones, I had been brought up that a gentleman should do both in moderation. We mounted, some dozen of us, to the floor above, and passed along to a room of which Fox had the key; and he swung me in on his arm, the others pressing after. And the door was scarce closed and locked again, before they began stripping off their clothes.
To my astonishment, Fox handed me a great frieze coat, which he bade me don, as the others were doing. Some were turning their coats inside out; for luck, said they; and putting on footman's leather guards to save their ruffles. And they gave me a hat with a high crown, and a broad brim to save my eyes from the candle glare. We were as grotesque a set as ever I laid my eyes upon. But I hasten over the scene; which has long become distasteful to me. I mention it only to show to what heights of folly the young men had gone. I recall a gasp when they told me they played for rouleaux of ten pounds each, but I took out my pocket-book as boldly as tho' I had never played for less, and laid my stake upon the board. Fox lost, again and again; but he treated his ill-luck with such a raillery of contemptuous wit, that we must needs laugh with him. Comyn, too, lost, and at supper excused himself, saying that he had promised his mother, the dowager countess, not to lose more than a quarter's income at a sitting. But I won and won, until the fever of it got into my blood, and as the first faint light of that morning crept into the empty streets, we were still at it, Fox vowing that he never waked up until daylight. That the best things he said in the House came to him at dawn.
The rising sun, as he came through the little panes of the windows, etched a picture of that room into my brain. I can see the twisted candles with their wax smearing the sticks, the chairs awry, the tables littered with blackened pipes, and bottles, and spilled wine and tobacco among the dice; and the few that were left of my companions, some with dark lines under their eyes, all pale, but all gay, unconcerned, witty, and cynical; smoothing their ruffles, and brushing the ashes and snuff from the pattern of their waistcoats. As we went downstairs, singing a song Mr. Foote had put upon the stage that week, they were good enough to declare that I should never be permitted to go back to Maryland. That my grandfather should buy me a certain borough, which might be had for six thousand pounds.
The drawing-room made a dismal scene, too, after the riot and disorder of the night. Sleepy servants were cleaning up, but Fox vowed that they should bring us yet another bottle before going home. So down we sat about the famous old round table, Fox fingering the dents the gold had made in the board, and philosophizing; and reciting Orlando Furioso in the Italian, and Herodotus in the original Greek. Suddenly casting his eyes about, they fell upon an ungainly form stretched on a lounge, that made us all start.
"Bully!" he cried; "I'll lay you fifty guineas that Mr. Carvel gets theBeauty, against Chartersea."
This roused me.
"Nay, Mr. Fox, I beg of you," I protested, with all the vehemence I could muster. "Miss Manners must not be writ down in such a way."
For answer he snapped his fingers at the drowsy Brooks, who brought the betting book.
"There!" says he; "and there, and there," turning over the pages; "her name adorns a dozen leaves, my fine buckskin. And it will be well to have some truth about her. Enter the wager, Brooks."
"Hold!" shouts Bolingbroke; "I haven't accepted."
You may be sure I was in an agony over this desecration, which I was so powerless to prevent. But as I was thanking my stars that the matter had blown over with Bolingbroke's rejection, there occurred a most singular thing.
The figure on the lounge, with vast difficulty, sat up. To our amazement we beheld the bloated face of the Duke of Chartersea staring stupidly.
"Damme, Bully, you refushe bet like tha'!" he said. "I'll take doshen of 'em-doshen, egad. Gimme the book, Brooksh. Cursh Fox—lay thousand d—d provinshial never getsh 'er—I know—"
I sat very still, seized with a loathing beyond my power to describe to thick that this was the man Mr. Manners was forcing her to marry. Fox laughed.
"Help his Grace to his coach," he said to two of the footmen.
"Kill fellow firsht!" cried his Grace, with his hand on his sword, and instantly fell over, and went sound asleep.
"His Grace has sent his coach home, your honour," said one of the men, respectfully. "The duke is very quarrelsome, sir."
"Put him in a chair, then," said Charles.
So they fearfully lifted his Grace, who was too far gone to resist, and carried him to a chair. And Mr. Fox bribed the chairmen with two guineas apiece, which he borrowed from me, to set his Grace down amongst the marketwomen at Covent Garden.
The next morning Banks found in my pockets something over seven hundred pounds more than I had had the day before.
I rose late, my head swimming with mains and nicks, and combinations of all the numbers under the dozen; debated whether or no I would go to Arlington Street, and decided that I had not the courage. Comyn settled it by coming in his cabriolet, proposed that we should get the air in the park, dine at the Cocoa Tree, and go afterwards to Lady Tankerville's drum-major, where Dolly would undoubtedly be.
"Now you are here, Richard," said his Lordship, with his accustomed bluntness, "and your sea-captain has relieved your Quixotic conscience, what the deuce do you intend to do?
"Win a thousand pounds every night at Brooks's, or improve your time and do your duty, and get Miss Manners out of his Grace's clutches? I'll warrant something will come of that matter this morning."
"I hope so," I said shortly.
Comyn looked at me sharply.
"Would you fight him?" he asked.
"If he gave me the chance."
His Lordship whistled. "Egad, then," said he, "I shall want to be there to see. In spite of his pudding-bag shape he handles the sword as well as any man in England. I have crossed with him at Angelo's. And he has a devilish tricky record, Richard."
I said nothing to that.
"Hope you do—kill him," Comyn continued. "He deserves it richly. But that will be a cursed unpleasant way of settling the business, —unpleasant for you, unpleasant for her, and cursed unpleasant for him, too, I suppose. Can't you think of any other way of getting her? Ask Charles to give you a plan of campaign. You haven't any sense, and neither have I."
"Hang you, Jack, I have no hopes of getting her," I replied, for I was out of humour with myself that day. "In spite of what you say, I know she doesn't care a brass farthing to marry me. So let's drop that."
Comyn made a comic gesture of deprecation. I went on: "But I am going to stay here and find out the truth, though it may be a foolish undertaking. And if he is intimidating Mr. Manners—"
"You may count on me, and on Charles," said my Lord, generously; "and there are some others I know of. Gad! You made a dozen of friends and admirers by what you said last night, Richard. And his Grace has a few enemies. You will not lack support."
We dined very comfortably at the Cocoa Tree, where Comyn had made an appointment for me with two as diverting gentlemen as had ever been my lot to meet. My Lord Carlisle was the poet and scholar of the little clique which had been to Eton with Charles Fox, any member of which (so 'twas said) would have died for him. His Lordship, be it remarked in passing, was as lively a poet and scholar as can well be imagined. He had been recently sobered, so Comyn confided; which I afterwards discovered meant married. Charles Fox's word for the same was fallen. And I remembered that Jack had told me it was to visit Lady Carlisle at Castle Howard that Dorothy was going when she heard of my disappearance. Comyn's other guest was Mr. Topham Beauclerk, the macaroni friend of Dr. Johnson. He, too, had been recently married, but appeared no more sobered than his Lordship. Mr. Beauclerk's wife, by the way, was the beautiful Lady Diana Spencer, who had been divorced from Lord Bolingbroke, the Bully I had met the night before. These gentlemen seemed both well acquainted with Miss Manners, and vowed that none but American beauties would ever be the fashion in London more. Then we all drove to Lady Tankerville's drum-major near Chesterfield House.
"You will be wanting a word with her when she comes in," said Comyn, slyly divining. Poor fellow! I fear that I scarcely appreciated his feelings as to Dorothy, or the noble unselfishness of his friendship for me.
We sat aside in a recess of the lower hall, watching the throng as they passed: haughty dowagers, distorted in lead and disfigured in silk and feathers nodding at the ceiling; accomplished beaus of threescore or more, carefully mended for the night by their Frenchmen at home; young ladies in gay brocades with round skirts and stiff, pear-shaped bodices; and youngsters just learning to ogle and to handle their snuff-boxes. One by one their names were sent up and solemnly mouthed by the footman on the landing. At length, when we had all but given her up, Dorothy arrived. A hood of lavender silk heightened the oval of her face, and out from under it crept rebellious wisps of her dark hair. But she was very pale, and I noticed for the first time a worn expression that gave me a twinge of uneasiness. 'Twas then I caught sight of the duke, a surly stamp on his leaden features. And after him danced Mr. Manners. Dolly gave a little cry when she saw me.
"Oh! Richard, I am so glad you are here. I was wondering what had become of you. And Comyn, too." Whispering to me, "Mamma has had a letter from Mrs. Brice; your grandfather has been to walk in the garden."
"And Grafton?"
"She said nothing of your uncle," she replied, with a little shudder at the name; "but wrote that Mr. Carvel was said to be better. So there! your conscience need not trouble you for remaining. I am sure he would wish you to pay a visit home.
"And I have to scold you, sir. You have not been to Arlington Street for three whole days."
It struck me suddenly that her gayety was the same as that she had worn to my birthday party, scarce a year agone.
"Dolly, you are not well!" I said anxiously.
She flung her head saucily for answer. In the meantime his Grace, talking coldly to Comyn, had been looking unutterable thunders at me. I thought of him awaking in the dew at Covent Garden, and could scarce keep from laughing in his face. Mr. Marmaduke squirmed to the front.
"Morning, Richard," he said, with a marked cordiality. "Have you met the Duke of Chartersea? No! Your Grace, this is Mr. Richard Carvel. His family are dear friends of ours in the colonies."
To my great surprise, the duke saluted me quite civilly. But I had the feeling of facing a treacherous bull which would gore me as soon as ever my back was turned. He was always putting me in mind of a bull, with his short neck and heavy, hunched shoulders,—and with the ugly tinge of red in the whites of his eyes.
"Mr. Manners tells me you are to remain awhile in London, Mr. Carvel," he said, in his thick voice.
I took his meaning instantly, and replied in kind.
"Yes, your Grace, I have some business to attend to here."
"Ah," he answered; "then I shall see you again."
"Probably, sir," said I.
His Lordship watched this thrust and parry with an ill-concealed delight. Dorothy's face was impassive, expressionless. As the duke turned to mount the stairs, he stumbled clumsily across a young man coming to pay his respects to Miss Manners, and his Grace went sprawling against the wall.
"Confound you, sir!" he cried.
For the ducal temper was no respecter of presences. Then a title was a title to those born lower, and the young man plainly had a vast honour for a coronet.
"I beg your Grace's pardon," said he.
"Who the deuce is he?" demanded the duke petulantly of Mr. Manners, thereby setting the poor little man all a-tremble.
"Why, why,—" he replied, searching for his spyglass.
For an instant Dolly's eyes shot scorn. Chartersea had clearly seen and heeded that signal before.
"The gentleman is a friend of mine," she said.
Tho' I were put out of the Garden of Eden as a consequence, I itched to have it out with his Grace then and there. I knew that I was bound to come into collision with him sooner or later. Such, indeed, was my mission in London. But Dorothy led the way upstairs, a spot of colour burning each of her cheeks. The stream of guests had been arrested until the hall was packed, and the curious were peering over the rail above.
"Lord, wasn't she superb!" exclaimed Comyn, exultingly, as we followed. In the drawing-room the buzzing about the card tables was hushed a moment as she went in. But I soon lost sight of her, thanks to Comyn. He drew me on from group to group, and I was duly presented to a score of Lady So-and-sos and honourable misses, most of whom had titles, but little else. Mammas searched their memories, and suddenly discovered that they had heard their parents speak of my grandfather. But, as it was a fair presumption that most colonial gentlemen made a visit home at least once in their lives, I did not allow the dust to get into my eyes. I was invited to dinners, and fairly showered with invitations to balls and drums and garden parties. I was twitted about the Beauty, most often with only a thin coating of amiability covering the spite of the remark. In short, if my head had not been so heavily laden with other matters, it might well have become light under the strain. Had I been ambitious to enter the arena I should have had but little trouble, since eligibility then might be reduced to guineas and another element not moral. I was the only heir of one of the richest men in the colony, vouched for by the Manners and taken up by Mr. Fox and my Lord Comyn. Inquiries are not pushed farther. I could not help seeing the hardness of it all, or refrain from contrasting my situation with that of the penniless outcast I had been but a little time before. The gilded rooms, the hundred yellow candles multiplied by the mirrors, the powder, the perfume, the jewels,—all put me in mind of the poor devils I had left wasting away their lives in Castle Yard. They, too, had had their times of prosperity, their friends who had faded with the first waning of fortune. Some of them had known what it was to be fawned over. And how many of these careless, flitting men of fashion I looked upon could feel the ground firm beneath their feet; or could say with certainty what a change of ministers, or one wild night at White's or Almack's, would bring forth? Verily, one must have seen the under side of life to know the upper!
Presently I was sought out by Mr. Topham Beauclerk, who had heard of the episode below and wished to hear more. He swore at the duke.
"He will be run through some day, and serve him jolly right," said he. "Bet you twenty pounds Charles Fox does it! His Grace knows he has the courage to fight him."
"The courage!" I repeated.
"Yes. Angelo says the duke has diabolical skill. And then he won't fight fair. He killed young Atwater on a foul, you know. Slipped on the wet grass, and Chartersea had him pinned before he caught his guard. But there is Lady Di a-calling, a-calling."
"Do all the women cheat in America too?" asked Topham, as we approached.
I thought of my Aunt Caroline, and laughed.
"Some," I answered.
"They will game, d—n 'em," said Topham, as tho' he had never gamed in his life. "And they will cheat, till a man has to close his eyes to keep from seeing their pretty hands. And they will cry, egad, oh so touchingly, if the luck goes against them in spite of it all. Only last week I had to forgive Mrs Farnham an hundred guineas. She said she'd lost her pin-money twice over, and was like to have wept her eyes out."
Thus primed in Topham's frank terms, I knew what to expect. And I found to my amusement he had not overrun the truth. I lost like a stoic, saw nothing, and discovered the straight road to popularity.
"The dear things expect us to make it up at the clubs," whispered he.
I discovered how he had fallen in love with his wife, Lady Diana, and pitied poor Bolingbroke heartily for having lost her. She was then in her prime,—a beauty, a wit, and a great lady, with a dash of the humanities about her that brought both men and women to her feet.
"You must come to see me, Mr. Carvel," said she. "I wish to talk to you of Dorothy."
"Your Ladyship believes me versed in no other subject?" I asked.
"None other worth the mention," she replied instantly; "Topham tells me you can talk horses, and that mystery of mysteries, American politics. But look at Miss Manners Dow. I'll warrant she is making Sir Charles see to his laurels, and young Stavordale is struck dumb."
I looked up quickly and beheld Dolly surrounded by a circle of admirers.
"Mark the shot strike!" Lady Di continued, between the deals; "that time Chartersea went down. I fancy he is bowled over rather often," she said slyly. "What a brute it is. And they say that that little woman she has for a father imagines a union with the duke will redound to his glory."
"They say," remarked Mrs. Meynel, sitting next me, "that the duke has thumbscrews of some kind on Mr. Manners."
"Miss Manners is able to take care of herself," said Topham.
"'On dit', that she has already refused as many dukes as did her Grace ofArgyle," said Mrs. Meynel.
I had lost track of the cards, and knew I was losing prodigiously. But my eyes went back again and again to the group by the doorway, where Dolly was holding court and dispensing justice, and perchance injustice. The circle increased. Ribands, generals whose chests were covered with medals of valour, French noblemen, and foreign ambassadors stopped for a word with the Beauty and passed on their way, some smiling, some reflecting, to make room for others. I overheard from the neighbouring tables a spiteful protest that a young upstart from the colonies should turn Lady Tankerville's drum into a levee. My ears tingled as I listened. But not a feathered parrot in the carping lot of them could deny that Miss Manners had beauty and wit enough to keep them all at bay. Hers was not an English beauty: every line of her face and pose of her body proclaimed her of that noble type of Maryland women, distinctly American, over which many Englishmen before and since have lost their heads and hearts.