And, sir, if these accounts be true,The Dutch have mighty things in view;The Austrians—I admire French beans,Dear ma'am, above all other greens.* * * * *And all as lively and as briskAs—Ma'am, d'ye choose a game at whisk?
And, sir, if these accounts be true,The Dutch have mighty things in view;The Austrians—I admire French beans,Dear ma'am, above all other greens.* * * * *And all as lively and as briskAs—Ma'am, d'ye choose a game at whisk?
Table-Talk.
When they were about to leave the room, Lady Penelope assumed Tyrrel's arm with a sweet smile of condescension, meant to make the honoured party understand in its full extent the favour conferred. But the unreasonable artist, far from intimating the least confusion at an attention so little to be expected, seemed to consider the distinction as one which was naturally paid to the greatest stranger present; and when he placed Lady Penelope at the head of the table, by Mr. Winterblossom the president, and took a chair for himself betwixt her ladyship and Lady Binks, the provoking wretch appeared no more sensible of being exalted above his proper rank in society, than if he had been sitting at the bottom of the table by honest Mrs. Blower from the Bow-head, who had come to the Well to carry off the dregs of theInflienzie, which she scorned to term a surfeit.
Now this indifference puzzled Lady Penelope's game extremely, and irritated her desire to get at the bottom of Tyrrel's mystery, if there was one, and secure him to her own party. If you were ever at a watering-place, reader, you know that while the guests do not always pay the most polite attention to unmarked individuals, the appearance of a stray lion makes an interest as strong as it is reasonable, and the Amazonian chiefs of each coterie, like the hunters of Buenos-Ayres, prepare theirlasso, and manœuvre to the best advantage they can, each hoping to noose the unsuspicious monster, and lead him captive to her own menagerie. A few words concerning Lady Penelope Penfeather will explain why she practised this sport with even more than common zeal.
She was the daughter of an earl, possessed a showy person, and features which might be called handsome in youth, though now rather too muchprononcésto render the term proper. The nose was become sharper; the cheeks had lost the roundness of youth; and as, during fifteen years that she had reigned a beauty and a ruling toast, the right man had not spoken, or, at least, had not spoken at the right time, her ladyship, now rendered sufficiently independent by the inheritance of an old relation, spoke in praise of friendship, began to dislike the town in summer, and to “babble of green fields.”
About the time Lady Penelope thus changed the tenor of her life, she was fortunate enough, with Dr. Quackleben's assistance, to find out the virtues of St Ronan's spring; and having contributed her share to establish theurbs in rure, which had risen around it, she sat herself down as leader of the fashions in the little province which she had in a great measure both discovered and colonized. She was, therefore, justly desirous to compel homage and tribute from all who should approach the territory.
In other respects, Lady Penelope pretty much resembled the numerous class she belonged to. She was at bottom a well-principled woman, but too thoughtless to let her principles control her humour, therefore not scrupulously nice in her society. She was good-natured, but capricious and whimsical, and willing enough to be kind or generous, if it neither thwarted her humour, nor cost her much trouble; would have chaperoned a young friend any where, and moved the world for subscription tickets; but never troubled herself how much her giddy charge flirted, or with whom; so that, with a numerous class of Misses, her ladyship was the most delightful creature in the world. Then Lady Penelope had lived so much in society, knew so exactly when to speak, and how to escape from an embarrassing discussion by professing ignorance, while she looked intelligence, that she was not generally discovered to be a fool, unless when she set up for being remarkably clever. This happened more frequently of late, when, perhaps, as she could not but observe that the repairs of the toilet became more necessary, she might suppose that new lights, according to the poet, were streaming on her mind through the chinks that Time was making. Many of her friends, however, thought that Lady Penelope would have better consulted her genius by remaining in mediocrity, as a fashionable and well-bred woman, than by parading her new-founded pretensions to taste and patronage; but such was not her own opinion, and doubtless, her ladyship was the best judge.
On the other side of Tyrrel sat Lady Binks, lately the beautiful Miss Bonnyrigg, who, during the last season, had made the company at the Well alternately admire, smile, and stare, by dancing the highest Highland fling, riding the wildest pony, laughing the loudest laugh at the broadest joke, and wearing the briefest petticoat of any nymph of St. Ronan's. Few knew that this wild, hoydenish, half-mad humour, was only superinduced over her real character, for the purpose of—getting well married. She had fixed her eyes on Sir Bingo, and was aware of his maxim, that to catch him, “a girl must be,” in his own phrase, “bang up to every thing;” and that he would choose a wife for the neck-or-nothing qualities which recommend a good hunter. She made out her catch-match, and she was miserable. Her wild good-humour was entirely an assumed part of her character, which was passionate, ambitious, and thoughtful. Delicacy she had none—she knew Sir Bingo was a brute and a fool, even while she was hunting him down; but she had so far mistaken her own feelings, as not to have expected that when she became bone of his bone, she should feel so much shame and anger when she saw his folly expose him to be laughed at and plundered, or so disgusted when his brutality became intimately connected with herself. It is true, he was on the whole rather an innocent monster; and between bitting and bridling, coaxing and humouring, might have been made to pad on well enough. But an unhappy boggling which had taken place previous to the declaration of their private marriage, had so exasperated her spirits against her helpmate, that modes of conciliation were the lastshe was likely to adopt. Not only had the assistance of the Scottish Themis, so propitiously indulgent to the foibles of the fair, been resorted to on the occasion, but even Mars seemed ready to enter upon the tapis, if Hymen had not intervened. There was,de par le monde, a certain brother of the lady—an officer—and, as it happened, on leave of absence,—who alighted from a hack-chaise at the Fox Hotel, at eleven o'clock at night, holding in his hand a slip of well-dried oak, accompanied by another gentleman, who, like himself, wore a military travelling-cap and a black stock; out of the said chaise, as was reported by the trusty Toby, was handed a small reise-sac, an Andrew Ferrara, and a neat mahogany box, eighteen inches long, three deep, and some six broad. Next morning a solemnpalaver(as the natives of Madagascar call their national convention) was held at an unusual hour, at which Captain MacTurk and Mr. Mowbray assisted; and the upshot was, that at breakfast the company were made happy by the information, that Sir Bingo had been for some weeks the happy bridegroom of their general favourite; which union, concealed for family reasons, he was now at liberty to acknowledge, and to fly with the wings of love to bring his sorrowing turtle from the shades to which she had retired, till the obstacles to their mutual happiness could be removed. Now, though all this sounded very smoothly, that gall-less turtle, Lady Binks, could never think of the tenor of the proceedings without the deepest feelings of resentment and contempt for the principal actor, Sir Bingo.
Besides all these unpleasant circumstances, Sir Bingo's family had refused to countenance her wish that he should bring her to his own seat; and hence a new shock to her pride, and new matter of contempt against poor Sir Bingo, for being ashamed and afraid to face down the opposition of his kins-folk, for whose displeasure, though never attending to any good advice from them, he retained a childish awe.
The manners of the young lady were no less changed than was her temper; and, from being much too careless and free, were become reserved, sullen, and haughty. A consciousness that many scrupled to hold intercourse with her in society, rendered her disagreeably tenacious of her rank, and jealous of every thing that appeared like neglect. She had constituted herself mistress of Sir Bingo's purse; and, unrestrained in the expenses of dress and equipage, chose, contrary to her maiden practice, to be rather rich and splendid than gay, and to command that attention by magnificence, which she no longer deigned to solicit by rendering herself either agreeable or entertaining. One secret source of her misery was, the necessity of showing deference to Lady Penelope Penfeather, whose understanding she despised, and whose pretensions to consequence, to patronage, and to literature, she had acuteness enough to see through, and to contemn; and this dislike was the more grievous, that she felt she depended a good deal on Lady Penelope's countenance for the situation she was able to maintain even among the not very select society of St. Ronan's Well; and that, neglected by her, she must have dropped lower in the scale even there. Neither was Lady Penelope's kindness to Lady Binks extremely cordial. She partook in the ancient and ordinary dislike of single nymphs of a certain age, to those who made splendid alliances under their very eye—and she more than suspected the secret disaffection of the lady. But the name sounded well; and the style in which Lady Binks lived was a credit to the place. So they satisfied their mutual dislike with saying a few sharp things to each other occasionally, but all under the mask of civility.
Such was Lady Binks; and yet, being such, her dress, and her equipage, and carriages, were the envy of half the Misses at the Well, who, while she sat disfiguring with sullenness her very lovely face, (for it was as beautiful as her shape was exquisite,) only thought she was proud of having carried her point, and felt herself, with her large fortune and diamond bandeau, no fit company for the rest of the party. They gave way, therefore, with meekness to her domineering temper, though it was not the less tyrannical, that in her maiden state of hoyden-hood, she had been to some of them an object of slight and of censure; and Lady Binks had not forgotten the offences offered to Miss Bonnyrigg. But the fair sisterhood submitted to her retaliations, as lieutenants endure the bullying of a rude and boisterous captain of the sea, with the secret determination to pay it home to their underlings, when they shall become captains themselves.
In this state of importance, yet of penance, Lady Binks occupied her place at the dinner-table, alternately disconcerted by some stupid speech of her lord and master, and by some slight sarcasm from Lady Penelope, to which she longed to reply, but dared not.
She looked from time to time at her neighbour Frank Tyrrel, but without addressing him, and accepted in silence the usual civilities which he proffered to her. She had remarked keenly his interview with Sir Bingo, and knowing by experience the manner in which her honoured lord was wont to retreat from a dispute in which he was unsuccessful, as well as his genius for getting into such perplexities, she had little doubt that he had sustained from the stranger some new indignity; whom, therefore, she regarded with a mixture of feeling, scarce knowing whether to be pleased with him for having given pain to him whom she hated, or angry with him for having affronted one in whose degradation her own was necessarily involved. There might be other thoughts—on the whole, she regarded him with much though with mute attention. He paid her but little in return, being almost entirely occupied in replying to the questions of the engrossing Lady Penelope Penfeather.
Receiving polite though rather evasive answers to her enquiries concerning his late avocations, her ladyship could only learn that Tyrrel had been travelling in several remote parts of Europe, and even of Asia. Baffled, but not repulsed, the lady continued her courtesy, by pointing out to him, as a stranger, several individuals of the company to whom she proposed introducing him, as persons from whose society he might derive either profit or amusement. In the midst of this sort of conversation, however, she suddenly stopped short.
“Will you forgive me, Mr. Tyrrel,” she said, “if I say I have been watching your thoughts for some moments, and that I have detected you? All the while that I have been talking of these good folks, and that you have been making such civil replies, that they might be with great propriety and utility inserted in the ‘Familiar Dialogues, teaching foreigners how to express themselves in English upon ordinary occasions’—your mind has been entirely fixed upon that empty chair, which hath remained there opposite betwixt our worthy president and Sir Bingo Binks.”
“I own, madam,” he answered, “I was a little surprised at seeing such a distinguished seat unoccupied, while the table is rather crowded.”
“O, confess more, sir!—Confess that to a poet a seat unoccupied—the chair of Banquo—has more charms than if it were filled even as an alderman would fill it.—What if ‘the Dark Ladye’[14]should glide in and occupy it?—would you have courage to stand the vision, Mr. Tyrrel?—I assure you the thing is not impossible.”
“Whatis not impossible, Lady Penelope?” said Tyrrel, somewhat surprised.
“Startled already?—Nay, then, I despair of your enduring the awful interview.”
“What interview? who is expected?” said Tyrrel, unable with the utmost exertion to suppress some signs of curiosity, though he suspected the whole to be merely some mystification of her ladyship.
“How delighted I am,” she said, “that I have found out where you are vulnerable!—Expected—did I say expected?—no, not expected.
‘She glides, like Night, from land to land,She hath strange power of speech.’
‘She glides, like Night, from land to land,She hath strange power of speech.’
—But come, I have you at my mercy, and I will be generous and explain.—We call—that is, among ourselves, you understand—Miss Clara Mowbray, the sister of that gentleman that sits next to Miss Parker, the Dark Ladye, and that seat is left for her.—For she was expected—no, not expected—I forget again!—but it was thoughtpossibleshe might honour us to-day, when our feast was so full and piquant.—Her brother is our Lord of the Manor—and so they pay her that sort of civility to regard her as a visitor—and neither Lady Binks nor I think of objecting—She is a singular young person, Clara Mowbray—she amuses me very much—I am always rather glad to see her.”
“She is not to come hither to-day,” said Tyrrel; “am I so to understand your ladyship?”
“Why, it is past her time—evenhertime,” said Lady Penelope—“dinner was kept back half an hour, and our poor invalids were famishing, as you may see by the deeds they have done since.—But Clara is an odd creature, and if she took it into her head to come hither at this moment, hither she would come—she is very whimsical.—Many people think her handsome—but she looks so like something from another world, that she makes me always think of Mat Lewis's Spectre Lady.”
And she repeated with much cadence,
“There is a thing—there is a thing,I fain would have from thee;I fain would have that gay gold ring,O warrior, give it me!”
“There is a thing—there is a thing,I fain would have from thee;I fain would have that gay gold ring,O warrior, give it me!”
“And then you remember his answer:
‘This ring Lord Brooke from his daughter took,And a solemn oath he swore,That that ladye my bride should beWhen this crusade was o'er.’
‘This ring Lord Brooke from his daughter took,And a solemn oath he swore,That that ladye my bride should beWhen this crusade was o'er.’
You do figures as well as landscapes, I suppose, Mr. Tyrrel?—You shall make a sketch for me—a slight thing—for sketches,I think, show the freedom of art better than finished pieces—I dote on the first coruscations of genius—flashing like lightning from the cloud!—You shall make a sketch for my boudoir—my dear sulky den at Air Castle, and Clara Mowbray shall sit for the Ghost Ladye.”
“That would be but a poor compliment to your ladyship's friend,” replied Tyrrel.
“Friend? We don't get quite that length, though I like Clara very well.—Quite sentimental cast of face—I think I saw an antique in the Louvre very like her—(I was there in 1800)—quite an antique countenance—eyes something hollowed—care has dug caves for them, but they are caves of the most beautiful marble, arched with jet—a straight nose, and absolutely the Grecian mouth and chin—a profusion of long straight black hair, with the whitest skin you ever saw—as white as the whitest parchment—and not a shade of colour in her cheek—none whatever—If she would be naughty, and borrow a prudent touch of complexion, she might be called beautiful. Even as it is, many think her so, although surely, Mr. Tyrrel, three colours are necessary to the female face. However, we used to call her the Melpomene of the Spring last season, as we called Lady Binks—who was not then Lady Binks—our Euphrosyne—did we not, my dear?”
“Did we not what, madam?” said Lady Binks, in a tone something sharper than ought to have belonged to so beautiful a countenance.
“I am sorry I have started you out of your reverie, my love,” answered Lady Penelope. “I was only assuring Mr. Tyrrel that you were once Euphrosyne, though now so much under the banners of Il Penseroso.”
“I do not know that I have been either one or the other,” answered Lady Binks; “one thing I certainly am not—I am not capable of understanding your ladyship's wit and learning.”
“Poor soul,” whispered Lady Penelope to Tyrrel; “we know what we are, we know not what we may be.—And now, Mr. Tyrrel, I have been your sibyl to guide you through this Elysium of ours, I think, in reward, I deserve a little confidence in return.”
“If I had any to bestow, which could be in the slightest degree interesting to your ladyship,” answered Tyrrel.
“Oh! cruel man—he will not understand me!” exclaimed the lady—“In plain words, then, a peep into your portfolio—just to see what objects you have rescued from natural decay, and rendered immortal by the pencil. You do not know—indeed, Mr. Tyrrel, you do not know how I dote upon your ‘serenely silent art,’ second to poetry alone—equal—superior perhaps—to music.”
“I really have little that could possibly be worth the attention of such a judge as your ladyship,” answered Tyrrel; “such trifles as your ladyship has seen, I sometimes leave at the foot of the tree I have been sketching.”
“As Orlando left his verses in the Forest of Ardennes?—Oh, the thoughtless prodigality!—Mr. Winterblossom, do you hear this?—We must follow Mr. Tyrrel in his walks, and glean what he leaves behind him.”
Her ladyship was here disconcerted by some laughter on Sir Bingo's side of the table, which she chastised by an angry glance, and then proceeded emphatically.
“Mr. Tyrrel—this mustnotbe—this is not the way of the world, my good sir, to which even genius must stoop its flight. We must consult the engraver—though perhaps you etch as well as you draw?”
“I should suppose so,” said Mr. Winterblossom, edging in a word with difficulty, “from the freedom of Mr. Tyrrel's touch.”
“I will not deny my having spoiled a little copper now and then,” said Tyrrel, “since I am charged with the crime by such good judges; but it has only been by way of experiment.”
“Say no more,” said the lady; “my darling wish is accomplished!—We have long desired to have the remarkable and most romantic spots of our little Arcadia here—spots consecrated to friendship, the fine arts, the loves and the graces, immortalized by the graver's art, faithful to its charge of fame—you shall labour on this task, Mr. Tyrrel; we will all assist with notes and illustrations—we will all contribute—only some of us must be permitted to remain anonymous—Fairy favours, you know, Mr. Tyrrel, must be kept secret—And you shall be allowed the pillage of the Album—some sweet things there of Mr. Chatterly's—and Mr. Edgeit, a gentleman of your own profession, I am sure will lend his aid—Dr. Quackleben will contribute some scientific notices.—And for subscription”——
“Financial—financial—your leddyship, I speak to order!” said the writer, interrupting Lady Penelope with a tone of impudent familiarity, which was meant doubtless for jocular ease.
“How am I out of order, Mr. Meiklewham?” said her ladyship, drawing herself up.
“I speak to order!—No warrants for money can be extracted before intimation to the Committee of Management.”
“Pray, who mentioned money, Mr. Meiklewham?” said her ladyship.—“That wretched old pettifogger,” she added in a whisper to Tyrrel, “thinks of nothing else but the filthy pelf.”
“Ye spake of subscription, my leddy, whilk is the same thing as money, differing only in respect of time—the subscription being a contractde futuro, and having atractus temporis in gremio—And I have kend mony honest folks in the company at the Well, complain of the subscriptions as a great abuse, as obliging them either to look unlike other folk, or to gie good lawful coin for ballants and picture-books, and things they caredna a pinch of snuff for.”
Several of the company, at the lower end of the table, assented both by nods and murmurs of approbation; and the orator was about to proceed, when Tyrrel with difficulty procured a hearing before the debate went farther, and assured the company that her ladyship's goodness had led her into an error; that he had no work in hand worthy of their patronage, and, with the deepest gratitude for Lady Penelope's goodness, had it not in his power to comply with her request. There was some tittering at her ladyship's expense, who, as the writer slyly observed, had been somethingultroniousin her patronage. Without attempting for the moment any rally, (as indeed the time which had passed since the removal of the dinner scarce permitted an opportunity,) Lady Penelope gave the signal for the ladies' retreat, and left the gentlemen to the circulation of the bottle.
——While the cups,Which cheer, but not inebriate, wait on each.
——While the cups,Which cheer, but not inebriate, wait on each.
Cowper.
It was common at the Well, for the fair guests occasionally to give tea to the company,—such at least as from their rank and leading in the little society, might be esteemed fit to constitute themselves patronesses of an evening; and the same lady generally carried the authority she had acquired into the ball-room, where two fiddles and a bass, at a guinea a night, with aquantum sufficitof tallow candles, (against the use of which Lady Penelope often mutinied,) enabled the company—to use the appropriate phrase—“to close the evening on the light fantastic toe.”
On the present occasion, the lion of the hour, Mr. Francis Tyrrel, had so little answered the high-wrought expectations of Lady Penelope, that she rather regretted having ever given herself any trouble about him, and particularly that of having manœuvred herself into the patronage of the tea-table for the evening, to the great expenditure of souchong and congo. Accordingly, her ladyship had no sooner summoned her own woman, and herfille de chambre, to make tea, with her page, footman, and postilion, to hand it about, (in which duty they were assisted by two richly-laced and thickly-powdered footmen of Lady Binks's, whose liveries put to shame the more modest garb of Lady Penelope's, and even dimmed the glory of the suppressed coronet upon the buttons,) than she began to vilipend and depreciate what had been so long the object of her curiosity.
“This Mr. Tyrrel,” she said, in a tone of authoritative decision, “seems after all a very ordinary sort of person, quite a commonplace man, who, she dared say, had considered his condition, in going to the old alehouse, much better than they had done for him, when they asked him to the Public Rooms. He had known his own place better than they did—there was nothing uncommon in his appearance or conversation—nothing at allfrappant—she scarce believed he could even draw that sketch. Mr. Winterblossom, indeed, made a great deal of it; but then all the world knew that every scrap of engraving or drawing, which Mr. Winterblossom contrived to make his own, was, the instant it came into his collection, the finest thing that ever was seen—that was the way with collectors—their geese were all swans.”
“And your ladyship's swan has proved but a goose, my dearest Lady Pen,” said Lady Binks.
“Myswan, dearest Lady Binks! I really do not know how I have deserved the appropriation.”
“Do not be angry, my dear Lady Penelope; I only mean, that for a fortnight and more you have spoke constantlyofthis Mr. Tyrrel, and all dinner-time you spoketohim.”
The fair company began to collect around, at hearing the worddearso often repeated in the same brief dialogue, which induced them to expect sport, and, like the vulgar on a similar occasion, to form a ring for the expected combatants.
“He sat betwixt us, Lady Binks,” answered Lady Penelope, with dignity. “You had your usual headache, you know, and, for the credit of the company, I spoke for one.”
“Fortwo, if your ladyship pleases,” replied Lady Binks. “I mean,” she added, softening the expression, “for yourself and me.”
“I am sorry,” said Lady Penelope, “I should have spoken for one who can speak so smartly for herself, as my dear Lady Binks—I did not, by any means, desire to engross the conversation—I repeat it, there is a mistake about this man.”
“I think there is,” said Lady Binks, in a tone which implied something more than mere assent to Lady Penelope's proposition.
“I doubt if he is an artist at all,” said the Lady Penelope; “or if he is, he must be doing things for some Magazine, or Encyclopedia, or some such matter.”
“Idoubt, too, if he be a professional artist,” said Lady Binks. “If so, he is of the very highest class, for I have seldom seen a better-bred man.”
“There are very well-bred artists,” said Lady Penelope. “It is the profession of a gentleman.”
“Certainly,” answered Lady Binks; “but the poorer class have often to struggle with poverty and dependence. In general society, they are like commercial people in presence of their customers; and that is a difficult part to sustain. And so you see them of all sorts—shy and reserved, when they are conscious of merit—petulant and whimsical, by way of showing their independence—intrusive, in order to appear easy—and sometimes obsequious and fawning, when they chance to be of a mean spirit. But you seldom see them quite at their ease, and therefore I hold this Mr. Tyrrel to be either an artist of the first class, raised completely above the necessity and degradation of patronage, or else to be no professional artist at all.”
Lady Penelope looked at Lady Binks with much such a regard as Balaam may have cast upon his ass, when he discovered the animal's capacity for holding an argument with him. She muttered to herself—
“Mon ane parle, et même il parle bien!”
“Mon ane parle, et même il parle bien!”
But, declining the altercation which Lady Binks seemed disposed to enter into, she replied, with good-humour, “Well, dearest Rachel, we will not pull caps about this man—nay, I think your good opinion of him gives him new value in my eyes. That is always the way with us, my good friend! We may confess it, when there are none of these conceited male wretches among us. We will know what he really is—he shall not wear fern-seed, and walk among us invisible thus—what say you, Maria?”
“Indeed, I say, dear Lady Penelope,” answered Miss Digges, whose ready chatter we have already introduced to the reader, “he is a very handsome man, though his nose is too big, and his mouth too wide—but his teeth are like pearl—and he has such eyes!—especially when your ladyship spoke to him. I don't think you looked at his eyes—they are quite deep and dark, and full of glow, like what you read to us in the letter from that lady, about Robert Burns.”
“Upon my word, miss, you come on finely!” said Lady Penelope.—“One had need take care what they read or talk about before you, I see—Come, Jones, have mercy upon us—put an end to that symphony of tinkling cups and saucers, and let the first act of the tea-table begin, if you please.”
“Does her leddyship mean the grace?” said honest Mrs. Blower, for the first time admitted into this worshipful society, and busily employed in arranging an Indian handkerchief, that might have made a mainsail for one of her husband's smuggling luggers, which she spread carefully on her knee, to prevent damage to a flowered black silk gown from the repast of tea and cake, to which she proposed to do due honour—“Does her leddyship mean the grace? I see the minister is just coming in.—Her leddyship waits till ye say a blessing, an ye please, sir.”
Mr. Winterblossom, whotoddledafter the chaplain, his toe having given him an alert hint to quit the dining-table, though he saw every feature in the poor woman's face swoln with desire to procure information concerning the ways and customs of the place, passed on the other side of the way, regardless of her agony of curiosity.
A moment after, she was relieved by the entrance of Dr. Quackleben, whose maxim being, that one patient was as well worth attention as another, and who knew by experience, that thehonorariaof a godly wife of the Bow-head were as apt to be forthcoming, (if not more so,) as my Lady Penelope's, he e'en sat himself quietly down by Mrs. Blower, and proceeded with the utmost kindness to enquire afterher health, and to hope she had not forgotten taking a table-spoonful of spirits burnt to aresiduum, in order to qualify the crudities.
“Indeed, Doctor,” said the honest woman, “I loot the brandy burn as lang as I dought look at the gude creature wasting itsell that gate—and then, when I was fain to put it out for very thrift, I did take a thimbleful of it, (although it is not the thing I am used to, Dr. Quackleben,) and I winna say but that it did me good.”
“Unquestionably, madam,” said the Doctor, “I am no friend to the use of alcohol in general, but there are particular cases—there are particular cases, Mrs. Blower—My venerated instructor, one of the greatest men in our profession that ever lived, took a wine-glassful of old rum, mixed with sugar, every day after his dinner.”
“Ay? dear heart, he would be a comfortable doctor that,” said Mrs. Blower. “He wad maybe ken something of my case. Is he leevin' think ye, sir?”
“Dead for many years, madam,” said Dr. Quackleben; “and there are but few of his pupils that can fill his place, I assure ye. If I could be thought an exception, it is only because I was a favourite. Ah! blessings on the old red cloak of him!—It covered more of the healing science than the gowns of a whole modern university.”
“There is ane, sir,” said Mrs. Blower, “that has been muckle recommended about Edinburgh—Macgregor, I think they ca' him—folk come far and near to see him.”[15]
“Iknow whom you mean, ma'am—a clever man—no denying it—a clever man—but there are certain cases—yours, for example—and I think that of many that come to drink this water—which I cannot say I think he perfectly understands—hasty—very hasty and rapid. Now I—I give the disease its own way at first—then watch it, Mrs. Blower—watch the turn of the tide.”
“Ay, troth, that's true,” responded the widow; “John Blower was aye watching turn of tide, puir man.”
“Then he is a starving doctor, Mrs. Blower—reduces diseases as soldiers do towns—by famine, not considering that the friendly inhabitants suffer as much as the hostile garrison—ahem!”
Here he gave an important and emphatic cough, and then proceeded.
“I am no friend either to excess or to violent stimulus, Mrs. Blower—but nature must be supported—a generous diet—cordials judiciously thrown in—not without the advice of a medical man—that is my opinion, Mrs. Blower, to speak as a friend—others may starve their patients if they have a mind.”
“It wadna do for me, the starving, Dr. Keekerben,” said the alarmed relict,—“it wadna do for me at a'—Just a' I can do to wear through the day with the sma' supports that nature requires—not a soul to look after me, Doctor, since John Blower was ta'en awa.—Thank ye kindly, sir,” (to the servant who handed the tea,)—“thank ye, my bonny man,” (to the page who served the cake)—“Now, dinna ye think, Doctor,” (in a low and confidential voice,) “that her leddyship's tea is rather of the weakliest—water bewitched, I think—and Mrs. Jones, as they ca' her, has cut the seedcake very thin?”
“It is the fashion, Mrs. Blower,” answered Dr. Quackleben; “and her ladyship's tea is excellent. But your taste is a little chilled, which is not uncommon at the first use of the waters, so that you are not sensible of the flavour—we must support the system—reinforce the digestive powers—give me leave—you are a stranger, Mrs. Blower, and we must take care of you—I have an elixir which will put that matter to rights in a moment.”
So saying, Dr. Quackleben pulled from his pocket a small portable case of medicines—“Catch me without my tools,”—he said; “here I have the real useful pharmacopœia—the rest is all humbug and hard names—this little case, with a fortnight or month, spring and fall, at St. Ronan's Well, and no one will die till his day come.”
Thus boasting, the Doctor drew from his case a large vial or small flask, full of a high-coloured liquid, of which he mixed three tea-spoonfuls in Mrs. Blower's cup, who, immediately afterwards, allowed that the flavour was improved beyond all belief, and that it was “vera comfortable and restorative indeed.”
“Will it not do good to my complaints, Doctor?” said Mr. Winterblossom, who had strolled towards them, and held out his cup to the physician.
“I by no means recommend it, Mr. Winterblossom,” said Dr. Quackleben, shutting up his case with great coolness; “your case is œdematous, and you treat it your own way—you are as good a physician as I am, and I never interfere with another practitioner's patient.”
“Well, Doctor,” said Winterblossom, “I must wait till Sir Bingo comes in—he has a hunting-flask usually about him, which contains as good medicine as yours to the full.”
“You will wait for Sir Bingo some time,” said the Doctor; “he is a gentleman of sedentary habits—he has ordered another magnum.”
“Sir Bingo is an unco name for a man o' quality, dinna ye think sae, Dr. Cocklehen?” said Mrs. Blower. “John Blower, when he was a wee bit in the wind's eye, as he ca'd it, puir fallow—used to sing a sang about a dog they ca'd Bingo, that suld hae belanged to a farmer.”
“Our Bingo is but a puppy yet, madam—or if a dog, he is a sad dog,” said Mr. Winterblossom, applauding his own wit, by one of his own inimitable smiles.
“Or a mad dog, rather,” said Mr. Chatterly, “for he drinks no water;” and he also smiled gracefully at the thoughts of having trumped, as it were, the president's pun.
“Twa pleasant men, Doctor,” said the widow, “and so is Sir Bungy too, for that matter; but O! is nae it a pity he should bide sae lang by the bottle? It was puir John Blower's faut too, that weary tippling; when he wan to the lee-side of a bowl of punch, there was nae raising him.—But they are taking awa the things, and, Doctor, is it not an awfu' thing that the creature-comforts should hae been used without grace or thanksgiving?—that Mr. Chitterling, if he really be a minister, has muckle to answer for, that he neglects his Master's service.”
“Why, madam,” said the Doctor, “Mr. Chatterly is scarce arrived at the rank of a minister plenipotentiary.”
“A minister potentiary—ah, Doctor, I doubt that is some jest of yours,” said the widow; “that's sae like puir John Blower. When I wad hae had him gie up the lovely Peggy, ship and cargo, (the vessel was named after me, Doctor Kittleben,) to be remembered in the prayers o' the congregation, he wad say to me, ‘they may pray that stand the risk, Peggy Bryce, for I've made insurance.’ He was a merry man, Doctor; but he had the root of the matter in him, for a' his light way of speaking, as deep as ony skipper that ever loosed anchor from Leith Roads. I hae been a forsaken creature since his death—O the weary days and nights that I have had!—and the weight on the spirits—the spirits, Doctor!—though I canna say I hae been easier since I hae been at the Wall than even now—if I kend what I was awing ye for elickstir, Doctor, for it's done me muckle heart's good, forby the opening of my mind to you.”
“Fie, fie, ma'am,” said the Doctor, as the widow pulled out a seal-skin pouch, such as sailors carry tobacco in, but apparently well stuffed with bank-notes,—“Fie, fie, madam—I am no apothecary—I have my diploma from Leyden—a regular physician, madam,—the elixir is heartily at your service; and should you want any advice, no man will be prouder to assist you than your humble servant.”
“I am sure I am muckle obliged to your kindness, Dr. Kickalpin,” said the widow, folding up her pouch; “this was puir John Blower'sspleuchan,[16]as they ca' it—I e'en wear it for his sake. He was a kind man, and left me comfortable in warld's gudes; but comforts hae their cumbers,—to be a lone woman is a sair weird, Dr. Kittlepin.”
Dr. Quackleben drew his chair a little nearer that of the widow, and entered into a closer communication with her, in a tone doubtless of more delicate consolation than was fit for the ears of the company at large.
One of the chief delights of a watering-place is, that every one's affairs seem to be put under the special surveillance of the whole company, so that, in all probability, the various flirtations,liaisons, and so forth, which naturally take place in the society, are not only the subject of amusement to the parties engaged, but also to the lookers on; that is to say, generally speaking, to the whole community, of which for the time the said parties are members. Lady Penelope, the presiding goddess of the region, watchful over all her circle, was not long of observing that the Doctor seemed to be suddenly engaged in close communication with the widow, and that he had even ventured to take hold of her fair plump hand, with a manner which partook at once of the gallant suitor, and of the medical adviser.
“For the love of Heaven,” said her ladyship, “who can that comely dame be, on whom our excellent and learned Doctor looks with such uncommon regard?”
“Fat, fair, and forty,” said Mr. Winterblossom; “that is all I know of her—a mercantile person.”
“A carrack, Sir President,” said the chaplain, “richly laden with colonial produce, by name the Lovely Peggy Bryce—no master—the late John Blower of North Leith having pushed off his boat for the Stygian Creek, and left the vessel without a hand on board.”
“The Doctor,” said Lady Penelope, turning her glass towards them, “seems willing to play the part of pilot.”
“I dare say he will be willing to change her name and register,” said Mr. Chatterly.
“He can be no less in common requital,” said Winterblossom. “She has changedhisname six times in the five minutes that I stood within hearing of them.”
“What do you think of the matter, my dear Lady Binks?” said Lady Penelope.
“Madam?” said Lady Binks, starting from a reverie, and answering as one who either had not heard, or did not understand the question.
“I mean, what think you of what is going on yonder?”
Lady Binks turned her glass in the direction of Lady Penelope's glance, fixed the widow and the Doctor with one bold fashionable stare, and then dropping her hand slowly, said with indifference, “I really see nothing there worth thinking about.”
“I dare say it is a fine thing to be married,” said Lady Penelope; “one's thoughts, I suppose, are so much engrossed with one's own perfect happiness, that they have neither time nor inclination to laugh like other folks. Miss Rachel Bonnyrigg would have laughed till her eyes ran over, had she seen what Lady Binks cares so little about—I dare say it must be an all-sufficient happiness to be married.”
“He would be a happy man that could convince your ladyship of that in good earnest,” said Mr. Winterblossom.
“Oh, who knows—the whim may strike me,” replied the lady; “but no—no—no;—and that is three times.”
“Say it sixteen times more,” said the gallant president, “and let nineteen nay-says be a grant.”
“If I should say a thousand Noes, there exists not the alchymy in living man that could extract one Yes out of the whole mass,” said her ladyship. “Blessed be the memory of Queen Bess!—She set us all an example to keep power when we have it—What noise is that?”
“Only the usual after-dinner quarrel,” said the divine. “I hear the Captain's voice, else most silent, commanding them to keep peace, in the devil's name and that of the ladies.”
“Upon my word, dearest Lady Binks, this is too bad of that lord and master of yours, and of Mowbray, who might have more sense, and of the rest of that claret-drinking set, to be quarrelling and alarming our nerves every evening with presenting their pistols perpetually at each other, like sportsmen confined to the house upon a rainy 12th of August. I am tired of the Peace-maker—he but skins the business over in one case to have it break out elsewhere.—What think you, love, if we were to give out in orders, that the next quarrel which may arise, shall bebona fidefought to an end?—We will all go out and see it, and wear the colours on each side; and if there should a funeral come of it, we will attend it in a body.—Weeds are so becoming!—Are they not, my dear Lady Binks? Look at Widow Blower in her deep black—don't you envy her, my love?”
Lady Binks seemed about to make a sharp and hasty answer, but checked herself, perhaps under the recollection that she could not prudently come to an open breach with Lady Penelope.—At the same moment the door opened, and a lady dressed in a riding-habit, and wearing a black veil over her hat, appeared at the entry of the apartment.
“Angels and ministers of grace!” exclaimed Lady Penelope, with her very best tragic start—“my dearest Clara, why so late? and why thus? Will you step to my dressing-room—Jones will get you one of my gowns—we are just of a size, you know—do, pray—let me be vain of something of my own for once, by seeing you wear it.”
This was spoken in the tone of the fondest female friendship, and at the same time the fair hostess bestowed on Miss Mowbray one of those tender caresses, which ladies—God bless them!—sometimes bestow on each other with unnecessary prodigality, to the great discontent and envy of the male spectators.
“You are fluttered, my dearest Clara—you are feverish—I am sure you are,” continued the sweetly anxious Lady Penelope; “let me persuade you to lie down.”
“Indeed you are mistaken, Lady Penelope,” said Miss Mowbray, who seemed to receive much as a matter of course her ladyship's profusion of affectionate politeness:—“I am heated, and my pony trotted hard, that is the whole mystery.—Let me have a cup of tea, Mrs. Jones, and the matter is ended.”
“Fresh tea, Jones, directly,” said Lady Penelope, and led her passive friend to her own corner, as she was pleased to call the recess, in which she held her little court—ladies and gentlemen curtsying and bowing as she passed; to which civilities the new guest made no more return, than the most ordinary politeness rendered unavoidable.
Lady Binks did not rise to receive her, but sat upright in her chair, and bent her head very stiffly; a courtesy which Miss Mowbray returned in the same stately manner, without farther greeting on either side.
“Now, wha can that be, Doctor?” said the Widow Blower—“mind ye have promised to tell me all about the grand folk—wha can that be that Leddy Penelope hauds such a racket wi'?—and what for does she come wi' a habit and a beaver-hat, when we are a' (a glance at her own gown) in our silks and satins?”
“To tell you who she is, my dear Mrs. Blower, is very easy,” said the officious Doctor. “She is Miss Clara Mowbray, sister to the Lord of the Manor—the gentleman who wears the green coat, with an arrow on the cape. To tell why she wears that habit, or does any thing else, would be rather beyond doctor's skill. Truth is, I have always thought she was a little—a very little—touched—call it nerves—hypochondria—or what you will.”
“Lord help us, puir thing!” said the compassionate widow.—“And troth it looks like it. But it's a shame to let her go loose, Doctor—she might hurt hersell, or somebody. See, she has ta'en the knife!—O, it's only to cut a shave of the diet-loaf. She winna let the powder-monkey of a boy help her. There's judgment in that though, Doctor, for she can cut thick or thin as she likes.—Dear me! she has not taken mair than a crumb, than ane would pit between the wires of a canary-bird's cage, after all.—I wish she would lift up that lang veil, or put off that riding-skirt, Doctor. She should really be showed the regulations, Doctor Kickelshin.”
“She cares about no rules we can make, Mrs. Blower,” said the Doctor; “and her brother's will and pleasure, and Lady Penelope's whim of indulging her, carry her through in every thing. They should take advice on her case.”
“Ay, truly, it's time to take advice, when young creatures like her caper in amang dressed leddies, just as if they were come from scampering on Leith sands.—Such a wark as my leddy makes wi' her, Doctor! Ye would think they were baith fools of a feather.”
“They might have flown on one wing, for what I know,” said Dr. Quackleben; “but there was early and sound advice taken in Lady Penelope's case. My friend, the late Earl of Featherhead, was a man of judgment—did little in his family but by rule of medicine—so that, what with the waters, and what with my own care, Lady Penelope is only freakish—fanciful—that's all—and her quality bears it out—the peccant principle might have broken out under other treatment.”
“Ay—she has been weel-friended,” said the widow; “but this bairn Mowbray, puir thing! how came she to be sae left to hersell?”
“Her mother was dead—her father thought of nothing but his sports,” said the Doctor. “Her brother was educated in England, and cared for nobody but himself, if he had been here. What education she got was at her own hand—what reading she read was in a library full of old romances—what friends or company she had was what chance sent her—then no family-physician, not even a good surgeon, within ten miles! And so you cannot wonder if the poor thing became unsettled.”
“Puir thing!—no doctor!—nor even a surgeon!—But, Doctor,” said the widow, “maybe the puir thing had the enjoyment of her health, ye ken, and, then”——
“Ah! ha, ha!—whythen, madam, she needed a physician far more than if she had been delicate. A skilful physician, Mrs. Blower, knows how to bring down that robust health, which is a very alarming state of the frame when it is consideredsecundum artem. Most sudden deaths happen when people are in a robust state of health. Ah! that state of perfect health is what the doctor dreads most on behalf of his patient.”
“Ay, ay, Doctor?—I am quite sensible, nae doubt,” said the widow, “of the great advantage of having a skeelfu' person about ane.”
Here the Doctor's voice, in his earnestness to convince Mrs. Blower of the danger of supposing herself capable of living and breathing without a medical man's permission, sunk into a soft pleading tone, of which our reporter could not catch the sound. He was, as great orators will sometimes be, “inaudible in the gallery.”
Meanwhile, Lady Penelope overwhelmed Clara Mowbray with her caresses. In what degree her ladyship, at her heart, loved this young person, might be difficult to ascertain,—probably in the degree in which a child loves a favourite toy. But Clara was a toy not always to be come by—as whimsical in her way as her ladyship in her own, only that poor Clara's singularities were real, and her ladyship's chiefly affected. Without adopting the harshness of the Doctor's conclusions concerning the former, she was certainly unequal in her spirits; and her occasional fits of levity were chequered by very long intervals of sadness. Her levity also appeared, in the world's eye, greater than it really was; for she had never been under the restraint of society which was really good, and entertained an undue contempt for that which she sometimes mingled with; having unhappily none to teach her the important truth, that some forms and restraints are to be observed, less in respect to others than to ourselves. Her dress, her manners, and her ideas, were therefore very much her own; and though they became her wonderfully, yet, like Ophelia's garlands, and wild snatches of melody, they were calculated to excite compassion and melancholy, even while they amused the observer.
“And why came you not to dinner?—We expected you—your throne was prepared.”
“I had scarce come to tea,” said Miss Mowbray, “of my own freewill. But my brother says your ladyship proposes to come to Shaws-Castle, and he insisted it was quite right and necessary, to confirm you in so flattering a purpose, that I should come and say, Pray do, Lady Penelope; and so now here am I to say, Pray, do come.”
“Is an invitation so flattering limited to me alone, my dear Clara?—Lady Binks will be jealous.”
“Bring Lady Binks, if she has the condescension to honour us”—[a bow was very stiffly exchanged between the ladies]—“bring Mr. Springblossom—Winterblossom—and all the lions and lionesses—we have room for the whole collection. My brother, I suppose, will bring his own particular regiment of bears, which, with the usual assortment of monkeys seen in all caravans, will complete the menagerie. How you are to be entertained at Shaws-Castle, is, I thank Heaven, not my business, but John's.”
“We shall want no formal entertainment, my love,” said Lady Penelope; “adéjeûner à la fourchette—we know, Clara, you would die of doing the honours of a formal dinner.”
“Not a bit; I should live long enough to make my will, and bequeath all large parties to old Nick, who invented them.”
“Miss Mowbray,” said Lady Binks, who had been thwarted by this free-spoken young lady, both in her former character of a coquette and romp, and in that of a prude which she at present wore—“Miss Mowbray declares for