IF Eve had possessed a Confidante, it is probable that the evil wrought by Woman would have been double as great as it is reputed to be. Miss Courteen had stepped into the mud of reality and, not unnaturally, was eager to tell Mistress Betty of the accident and ascertain by candlelight consultation, whether or not her glass slipper was truly lost.
As they drove home in the rumbling coach, Phyllida experienced an emotion of futility as she half listened, half dozed, to the conversation of the Major, the Justice and her mother. To this came Youth. Bumpety-bump went the coach, bumpety-bump went the conversation, bumpety-bump went Thomas' broad back on the Jimmy, bumpety-bump went Phyllida's head, while her thoughts and memories kept pace in the darkness like swift sparks that are blown along by the wind. At last the coach drew up before their house in the Crescent: Phyllida and her mother alighted: Betty opened the door and the coach drove off to put down Major Tarry and Mr. Moon at their lodgings.
The hall seemed drab and unfamiliar; the bedchamber candle-sticks set out upon the little gate table had an air of reproof about them; they seemed to say as they sat in a prim row: "Look at us, we are quite content. Last night our candles burnt an inch lower, and the candle suffers diminution, but we remain the same. We are quite content."
"My pretty one looks pale," said Betty, full of solicitude.
"I'm tired," said Phyllida.
"Betty," said Mrs. Courteen, "you must help me to undress. The evening has been most enjoyable, and my lady Bunbutter tore her gown on a monkey's tail. Now, Phyllida, do you run quickly to bed, for to-morrow Mr. Moon and the Major have promised to drive with us to see Melton Abbey. You will enjoy the excursion vastly."
"What a whimsical place to visit."
"Whimsical! How can you be so irreverend, Phyllida?"
"But why, mamma, do you suddenly drive to Melton Abbey?"
"Why, child! because I wish to train your mind to be sure. Nothing tests deportment so severely as wandering round a Gothick ruin. However, they tell me that Gothick will soon be à la Mode, and who am I to dispute the commands of fashion?"
Upon the heels of this humble interrogation, the widow betook herself to bed.
"When you have undressed my mamma, Betty, come to my chamber, I have a thousand things to tell you," Phyllida whispered as they went up the narrow stairs.
She lighted all the candles in her room and looked round in sudden affright. It was as if some one had trespassed upon those virginal solitudes while she was away. Yet her room was the same as usual; the dimity covers were all in their places: the fire was burning merrily in the hearth: the bed-cloaths were turned back, fresh, cool and lavendered. Her slippers knelt devoutly by the fender: the fire-irons looked just as stilted and apologetick as usual. Everything was perfectly familiar, perfectly ordinary and perfectly safe; yet something in the room was strange, or was it herself who was altered? Was she out of harmony with this palace of amber morning dreams, this treasure-box of twilight hopes and imaginations?
Down she sat in the big flowered arm-chair and stared at the crackling logs—a stranger to her own possessions, and, as she untied one by one the ribbands from her glintingchestnut hair, she seemed to smell the jasmine of Courteen Grange and hear her father calling below her casement to come down quickly and count the buds on the York and Lancaster rose, as he was used to call in those sweet dead Junes.
Presently came Betty with a soft knock and Phyllida, starting away from the host of childish memories that assailed her, sprang up as the maid came in on tiptoe.
"Now, sit down, Betty, and listen with all your ears, for I dearly need your advice."
"My sweet one, I'm listening to 'ee," said Betty, pulling forward a fat lop-eared hassock and squeezing herself as close to the fender as possible.
"Betty, Mr. Amor kissed me this evening, and what should I do?"
"What were 'ee best to do? Why think no more about it, for indeed I dare vow you're not the first maid that was kissed."
"But the worst of the matter is that, though I struggled hard to escape, and though I detested him for his persistence, yet, oh! Betty, I don't like to tell you—I did not struggle as hard as I might have done."
As she made this confession, Phyllida went carnation red from forehead to pointed dimpled chin.
"There's no call for blushes," said Betty emphatically, "for you must learn the love of man soon or late, and Mr. Vernon is a proper enough gentleman for sure."
"And he said we should presently elope."
"Oh! time enough to be wed come three years or more," commented Betty.
"Oh! but you would not have me allow a gentleman to take my hand, and kiss me, and call me his dearest life without being married immediately. It would be most unbecoming."
"If all the world knew, 'twould, but then nobody don't know, and that's the best way for all true lovers."
"Nevertheless, Betty, I feel uneasy."
"'Tis only the stirring of your blood, my dear. Onlyto think," went on the confidante, "that last sweet Spring time you was building great cowslip balls in the green meadows, and now you are quite grown up with a bow of your own to arm you through the minivets and gawottes, so grand as may be."
"Yes, love makes one grow old, Betty. I've aged very much these weeks."
"Well, and 'twouldn't be right otherwise, for Life bean't all a long sweet April month, my pretty one."
"Then truly, dear Betty, you swear you think there is no harm in what I have done?"
"Oh, my dear, harm? Why, what harm could there be with your great fat Betty to watch and guard 'ee?"
"Still, I'm not sure, Betty. There's something tells me not to be sure."
"Then, do 'ee listen hard to me, my dear, while I tell 'ee what I do think about life. Life! 'Tis a garden and 'tis a wilderness, and between them there's a gaäte and 'tis a kissing gaäte. The wilderness is fine for children—a great open plaäce fit for scampering Jack hares and such like, but bare enough and bleak enough when you do grow old, and then you're too fat to get through that kissing gaäte, and then you do wish wi' all your might and main that when you was young you'd gotten into the garden among the sweet flowers."
Betty stopped, exhausted by the allegory.
"Yes, Betty, that is all very well, but you must go through the gate with the person whom you love for ever and a day."
"Nay, you can meet him inside and say Good-day and thank you kindly to the arm you went in on."
"I don't believe you give me good advice. If I told you that to-morrow morning I was going to run away with Mr. Amor to Gretna Green, what would you say?"
"Oh, God preserve you from the wicked thought, Gretna Green or any other such unlawful heathenish village green!"
"There you see," complained Phyllida, "you do not take me seriously, and it was foolish of me ever to tell youabout this evening. But now that I have told you, you must never breathe a word to a living soul—never—never—promise!
"I do promise," said Betty.
"With the old rhyme—till Christmas—you remember?"
Betty stood up, while a ritual, sacred to the childhood of Phyllida, was solemnly enacted. In a monotonous whispered chaunt, Betty promised:
Phyllida was satisfied that her indiscreet confidence was safely locked up in Betty's bosom, capacious, homely, sweet-savoured as an apple-closet.
You have seen the confidante in action. Is it not well that we have banished her from society? No longer may she enter stark mad in white muslin, as the play directs. We have put her away in an old chest with hoops and tie-wigs and gibbets and pirates and Newgate ordinaries and rotten boroughs and watchet ribbands. No longer does she play asterisk to a heroine, because nowadays the adventures of our heroines are entirely introspective. But, as upon all time-honoured institutions, let us drop a tear for the confidante; she has helped a thousand perplexed authors to unfold their simple dramas, she has helped many a scene-shifter to leisure.
Mr. Sheridan could laugh at Mr. Cumberland through this artful, artless medium, but he too had his Lucy. Mr. Smollett depended upon Miss Williams (a lady of the loosest character) in order to help his Narcissa to reveal herself and you, Mr. Goldsmith whose name, like immortal Madame Blaize, is 'bedizened and brocaded,' you had your dearest Neville.
Yet, after all, however much we may regret them, confidantes were very bad for heroines. They would encouragethem in all that was most reprehensible. Here you see, is our own confidante encouraging her mistress to play with Love's torch and for all you or she know, get badly scorched by the purple flame. Such temerity is very well for country wenches to whom a green gown is a proper delight for May morning. Betty, with her memories of many barley breaks, junketings and Hallowe'en festivals, where ripe lips are as common as cherries at midsummer, was not the perfect monitor for swansdown misses brought up under Miss Prudence Prim's long rattan, taught to sit up straight and put into corsets almost as soon as they were out of robe-coats. In fact she was a confidante, a match-maker, to whom a wedding-ring was a Post Hoc horse-collar, through which to grin at the censorious world.
After all, where's the ultimate difference between sweet sensibility a hundred and fifty years ago and sweet sensibility today? We should consider itdémodéfor the latter to gossip with her maid. Now every schoolboy and schoolgirl knows how to spell psychology, and has been awarded a sub-conscious self to enliven the lonely hours. And this sub-conscious self, what is it, under analysis? Why, nothing more than the old confidante in ghostly guise with as long a tongue and as rich a store of bad advice.
So now, having successfully, as I hope, occupied your attention while sweet sensibility gets into bed, let us snuff the candles and leave the room to Phyllida and wavering firelight.
ABOUT ten miles from Curtain Wells on the Bristol road stood a ruined cottage. With thatch discoloured, torn by gales and sparrows, and with windows made crooked by internal decay, its expression was grotesque and unpleasant. A tangled bed of rotten nettles filled the space before it, and all the vegetation beside was rank and desolate. This cottage served as fitting lodge to a sinister bye-way covered with weeds and almost overhung in summer by hedges dark with masses of black bryony, but in winter and spring sufficiently open to admit the cold grey sky overhead, and the chill Easterly rain, which on the morning after the Chinese Masquerade fell with dreary persistence.
Pray pardon me that I take you so far from wit, fashion, and beauty, along this unsavoury path, but indeed the journey is inevitable if you are at all anxious to understand something of Mr. Francis Vernon's intentions. The road leads to Blackhart Farm, famous, no doubt, in days gone by for the cherries of that denomination; but since the last dying speech and confession of Mrs. Mawhood the name has acquired a new and sinister significance.
Now you understand my apologies; or is it possible you have forgotten Mrs. Mawhood of Blackhart Farm, who was turned off at Tyburn amid the execrations of the mob in 17—? Yet her long black gloves and white face haunted many pillows on the night when she paid the ultimate penalty; and for what was she hanged? Come, come, this history is not the Newgate Calendar—you must search that bloody register.
At the time, however, of Mr. Vernon's visit, Mrs. Mawhood was alive and, I am sorry to add, flourishing. He followed the roadway for about a quarter of a mile between tall, damp hedgerows, dismounted at a small wicket-gate and, leading his horse, turned aside through a plantation of close-set, withered larches under which the grass grew pale and thin, with a sweet unhealthy odour of fungus. Blackhart Farm appeared in view—a long, low building with slated roof, trim enough, but repulsive and barren. From a pile of chimney stacks smoke was rising hardly through the heavy atmosphere.
The path by which Vernon arrived led immediately to the front door. Had he continued along the cart track he would have reached, by way of a bleak paved courtyard, the back of the house. Only a very shallow strip of garden separated the front of the farm from the gloomy plantation that served as barrier to the curious world.
Vernon tied his horse to the gate of the garden, walked up the moss-grown path between clipped bushes of box, and knocking with the handle of his riding-whip on the heavy door, waited. Several moments passed, and in the deep silence that surrounded this ill-wished abode, he could distinctly hear a clock ticking on the other side of the heavy door. This, the drip of trees, and the noise of his horse chewing the rank herbage by the gate, were the only sounds that broke the stillness.
At last footsteps shuffled over the stone-paved floor within. A small panel slid away from a grating and a voice of that peculiar unctuous hoarseness only heard in a prodigiously fat man or woman, inquired his name.
"I want to see you, old Mother Mawhood."
"Love o'maids!" said the fat voice, "'tis Fancy Vernon, or I'm not a fat old sinner."
The bolts were pushed back, the latch clicked, the door swung open, and Mrs. Mawhood, whose bulk, but little reduced by Newgate fare, was soon to test severely the three-legged tenement, occupied the portal.
Take a good look at Mrs. Mawhood, while with pursygreetings she makes Fancy Vernon welcome. She is like an idol in a cavernous East Indian temple, or a giant toadstool, or weight of unbaked dough, or in fact anything that is slow, sleepy, and horrible. Almost buried in folds of flesh is a pair of beady black eyes, as steady and wicked as those of a puff-adder or seaman's parroquet. She is dressed in black, and her nails are bitten to the quick.
Mr. Vernon was probably less narrow-minded than the mob which howled at her infamy during the Tyburn journey. At any rate he chatted with her amicably enough on this grey February forenoon.
"How's business, ma'am?" he asked.
"Very bad," she wheezed. "Only three of 'em upstairs and none of 'em real quality. Still, the flowers in the garden vant fresh food, especially the blood-red toolips. Ah! it was two lips that was the undoin' of the hussies, and, 'tis fair they should profit by the harvest."
This devilish joke was followed by a low rumbling chuckle echoed above by a thin wail.
Mrs. Mawhood waddled to the foot of the stairs.
"Keep that d——d brat quiet, you charity bastard," she wheezed angrily. "She'll hev to get up to-morrow," she continued, seating herself in a wide arm-chair beside the empty grate, "and a sickly puling jade she is. I suppose you've come for the Main?"
"No," answered Vernon, "indeed, I did not know there was to be one. Good birds?"
Mrs. Mawhood nodded. "Thirty-two cocks and a Velch main. 'Tis some of those baby gentlemen from the Vells as finks they's seeing life ven a dozen lousy chairmen sveats thesselves 'oarse over a pair of bleeding chickens. And ven they's 'ad their pockets picked, they goes 'ome 'appy."
"Is Moll here?" asked Vernon.
"No, Moll's keeping a gay house Catherine Street vay."
"Egad, I've a pretty little job for Moll."
"Now don't you go leading Moll astray. She ain't been in Bridewell not these two years, and she don't vant to neither."
"This job won't take her there. I'm in need of a housewife for a month, and Moll's a nice homely woman."
"'Oo's she to look after, eh?"
"A pearl necklace," said Vernon.
"And a pretty neck, eh?"
"Tolerable," said Vernon.
"When do you want her?"
"Let me see—February. Shall we say the last week in March?"
"I'll tell her: I shall be sending a hussy from here presently to a nice honest sitivation." Again the chuckle was heard.
"I want lodgings near the Haymarket. Nice and airy—with a balcony if possible, and—well, Moll knows what attracts sweet seventeen."
"That's young for a pearl necklace."
"'Tis hers by inheritance. The lodgings must be cheerful because Miss is shy."
"Oh, Moll knows what every age likes best. She'll buy a dear little singing goldfinch and put him in a cage and hang him up in the window. Who knows? P'raps it'll breed a nice little nestful of goldfinches for Moll. 'Ow many?"
"I can discuss that with Moll herself," said Vernon.
"Ah, but Moll's so soft 'arted. Not less than fifty goldfinches, mind, and if a little hindrance arrives, 'tis to come down to Blackhart Farm—mind—and be cared for by old Mother Mawhood wot's kind even to the pore little flies on the pane."
"You look too far into the future, old lady," said Vernon.
"And so a body should, my fancy boy," the hag answered. "Now I wager you ain't thought nothin' about postillions?"
"Time enough for that."
"Yes, time enough I dare say, but you ought to engage 'em in advance. That's vat the quality does ven they writes to me. Have you got a pair of good honest postboys?"
"No, but——"
"Vell! and good honest boys ain't so easy found in Curtain Vells! Boys who'll do vat's vanted and no questions axed and none answered."
"But I thought——"
"That's all werry fine," said the monstrous old woman. "But p'raps there'll be another elopement. Maids is thick in Curtain Vells, and p'raps you won't find your boys so easy. There's some that don't like the job—don't like two brace of pops behind 'em and a galloping brother and father."
"We shan't be followed," said Vernon contemptuously.
"No, I dare say you von't, but 'tis as vell to be behind a couple of good honest boys as'll use their pops when they're turning a corner and ready to swear they thought it was two gentlemen on the high toby as vas a followin' of 'em so fast."
"Very well," said Vernon, "whom do you want me to employ?"
"Vy, there's my two nephews, Charlie and Dickie Maggs, vot 'ud drive 'ard and fast all the vay to Lunnon town and no questions axed either end, but vot could easily be ansered wiv golden Georges."
"Let 'em wait on me when I send the word, and hark'ee, they must be ready any time this month, for Miss may take it into her head to run before I expect."
Further intercourse between Mr. Francis Vernon and old Mother Mawhood was interrupted by loud knocks on the door at the back, supported by catcalls, yells, horn-blowing and whip-cracking.
"That's for the Main," said Mrs. Mawhood. "Vill you stay to see the sport?"
"'Tis a Welch main?"
"Ay—thirty-two birds."
"Well, send a boy to put my horse in the stable."
"This way, my fancy, this way," wheezed the hag, as she waddled towards the courtyard where the noise was growing louder every minute.
It may strike the reader as strange that the young gentlemen of theBlue Boar(they were all there save Mr. Lovely) should come ten miles to a disreputable farm for the purpose of seeing thirty-two cocks of the game butchered. The Welch Main was a peculiarly bloody form of cock-fighting, as it was determined by a series of rounds fought by the respective survivors until at the end a pair of already vilely scarred and mutilated birds were placed beak to beak by the Feeder to determine the ultimate victor of the Main.
Ten miles was not too far to travel for such glorious sport in the days of the Georges, but that they were compelled to travel at all was due to the squeamishness of Beau Ripple, who had a singular aversion from the game and would allow no cock-pit to be established within his jurisdiction. He used to say the martyrdom of chickens should never extend beyond the demand for painted fans.
Therefore a suitable cockpit had been set up in one of the outlying barns of Blackhart Farm, whither at discreet intervals went Lieutenant Blewforth of theLively, Mr. Golightly of Campbell's Grey Dragoons, Mr. Tom Chalkley of the Foot, little Peter Wingfield, and many other young gentlemen. They would sit in the first tier and allow their exquisite necks to be blown upon by the stinking breath of the second tier which, in turn, was not unwilling to allow the third tier to spit over its shoulders in the intervals of yelling, 'Three to one on the Blotch-breasted Red!' 'Six to five against the Cheshire Pile!' 'Two to one on the Black-breasted Birchin!' and other such bewildering proclamations of their confidence in particular cocks of the game.
Vernon was not at all displeased that his visit to Blackhart Farm should have ostensible justification. Looking back, as he emerged into the courtyard, he noticed all the windows of the house were blind on that side and wondered why so ill-favoured and disreputable a dwelling-place had never been investigated by the servants of justice. So it was, however, not long after this date, and a gruesome day's work it was beneath the hot August sun: and not the leastgruesome sight was old Mother Mawhood, monstrous, flabby and terror-stricken, quivering in her chair by the empty fireside, opposite a Robin Redbreast from Bow Street drinking many quarts of beer and regarding her with unfavourable glances, while he listened to the chink of the spades in the flower garden by the plantation. The runners would never have visited Blackhart Farm had not a certain lady of quality, who travelled in a post-chaise with muffled windows, dallied a month too long, thereby raising the suspicions of her eagle-nosed aunt, the Countess of——, but what has all this to do with cock-fighting?
In the pit the spectators were arranging themselves. In front sat Lieutenant Blewforth and little Peter Wingfield as Masters of the Match. In the front tier sat the leading amateurs of Curtain Wells. Behind them were the shopkeepers, and behind the shopkeepers was the riff-raff of the Wells and its satellite villages.
Everybody was bawling odds at top voice, and occasionally one of the birds crowed. This was an infringement of etiquette and, being considered a sign of cowardice, immediately lengthened the odds against the offender. The tallowy man in a blue kerseymere coat and breeches is one of the Feeders, and is acting in that capacity for the Services represented by Lieutenant Blewforth, while the civilians are employing the good offices of Jimmy Trickett, who on less exciting occasions is one of the hostlers of theBlue Boar.
Vernon, looking for a vacant place in the front tier found himself next to Mr. Anthony Clare, who, for all he sat so unmoved, had provided eight cocks for the civilians and stood to lose a pretty pile of guineas.
"Where's Lovely?" asked Vernon, shaking the sawdust from his boots.
"He never comes to cock-fights," Clare replied rather coldly.
"Too brutal for a poet, eh?"
"I have never heard him say so," said Clare.
As a matter of fact Charles strongly disapproved of thesport and it is a significant fact that at this very moment, he was trotting along the Bristol road, tired of lashing Curtain polls and determined, against the advice of his conscience, to stake fifty guineas on the result of the Main.
The latter progressed with monotonous cruelty until, of the thirty-two cocks who began, but two pairs were left, all bleeding profusely. And now with a refinement of brutality, the steel gaffles, hitherto used to shorten the earlier and less interesting matches, were removed and silver ones fastened on in their place, because, the latter, being less deadly, prolonged the miserable contest.
During this momentary lull, Charles entered the barn and was greeted with cheers in which could be detected a note of surprize. Clare moved along in order to make room for his friend, and squeezed Mr. Vernon somewhat unceremoniously in doing so.
"What birds are being set to?" inquired Lovely.
"My Knowsley and Chalkley's Cheshire Pile, and a White Pile of Campbell's against Winnington's Cuckoo."
The semi-final dragged out its bloody length, until for the final was left Mr. Clare's famous Knowsley cock, his ebony breast dabbled with blood and his red pinions ragged and broken, but still preserving some of the smartness of their slantwise trimming—trimmed so in order that by a lucky stroke an adversary's eye might be put out. The survivor of the two Services was Mr. Campbell's White Pile, stained with crimson.
"Will your bird win?" whispered Mr. Lovely.
"I think so," said Clare, "he comes of a good breed."
"Two to one in Tens against the Pile," shouted Mr. Lovely.
"Done," said Vernon.
"Two to one in Twenties against the Pile," shouted Mr. Lovely.
"Done," said Mr. Vernon.
"Three to one in Fifties," shouted Mr. Lovely.
And this wager also was taken by Mr. Francis Vernon.
The Feeders were setting the birds beak to beak. Theshouting of odds was deafening: the gallant cocks were both exhausted by the four previous fights, but the feathers flew, the wings whirred, the gaffles clicked, and the blood flowed fast enough to please the vile faces that looked down through the murky atmosphere.
At last the White Pile, blinded in one eye, began to retreat before the Knowsley.
"I pound the cock," shouted Charles, flinging his hat into the pit.
The Teller of the Law, a seedy vagabond with a red nose, began to count in raucous accents. Twice he counted twenty slowly, and
"Vill any vun take it?" he asked.
"Yes," said Mr. Vernon, and just as Mr. Vernon said 'Yes,' the brave Knowsley cock, the champion of many famous fights, toppled over on his side, dead.
The Naval and Military Amateurs had won the Welch Main, and Mr. Charles Lovely had lost two hundred and ten guineas, not to mention ten pounds for so rashly pounding the cock.
The young gentlemen went back to Curtain Wells much pleased with the afternoon's entertainment, while the riff-raff walked or drove in queer vehicles back to their squalid homes, all save one unfortunate individual, unable to meet a debt of ten shillings incurred by backing the brave Knowsley, who for all he was dying had pursued his antagonist so confidently. He spent the night in a basket close to the roof and was not set down till the next morning by one of the labourers on Blackhart Farm.
YOU will remember, if you have not put this book upon the table meanwhile, that in the last paragraph of the last chapter, we left an unfortunate individual swinging in a basket hard by the roof of a barn. He was hoisted by a pulley amid the acclamations of the mob because he was unable to fulfil an obligation so small that half a guinea would have covered it. There he swung amid cobwebs and bats, fearful every time the basket creaked he should fall into the blood-stained sawdust of the cock-pit. I cannot tell you his name, but that is no great matter since we must examine him not as a man, but as a symbol.
Possibly with the Beau's perspective, we might diminish him to the size of a textual illustration, for this unfortunate man is a textual illustration, and though not etched with the care of Mr. Stothard, will serve his purpose well enough.
Suspension is a disreputable attitude for the human body, whatever way it is brought about, yet I doubt this maltreated anonymity was in better case than our hero. He paid the penalty for laying unwise wagers and found earth on the next morning much as he had left it on the afternoon of the day before. Moreover, he never paid his half-guinea, which was a real source of consolation. But our hero swung that night in an immaterial basket that creaked thrice as damnably as the other, and found no good-natured labouring man to put him on the ground next morning. The only result of opposing the advice of his conscience, was an additional debt of two hundred and twenty guineas to our villain.
To make matters worse, he had to meet his creditor overthe breakfast table, and of the many dooms measured out to sinners, this is surely one of the most difficult to face with equanimity.
In despair, he took to drinking the waters with the rest of the Exquisite Mob, and earned a few golden glances from Beau Ripple, but nothing more tangible. Even the advantage of these was neutralized by the chalybeate, which acted with disconcerting abruptness upon a healthy body unused to medicinal spurs.
The wry water served a good purpose, however, by souring his point-of-view. The liquid iron entered into his soul and he lashed the Curtain Polls in a variety of metres. He also took long walks into the country, and sought by the contemplation of scenery to acquire an impersonal attitude towards his fellow creatures. After all, there is no better training for a mob-master than the exercise of a satirical pen, and as time went on Mr. Lovely's book increased in bulk, although it never achieved more than a suggestive slimness even when bound in calf.
February faded into March, and in accordance with the season everything began to grow.
Mr. Lovely's book we have already noticed.
Mr. Vernon's seductive arts grew daily more seductive, and, though for a week or two after Mr. Ripple's warning, Mrs. Courteen arranged for the complete occupation of Phyllida's leisure, the growth of Mrs. Courteen's figure necessitated a stricter attention to diet and exercise, and caused her so much anxiety that her vigilance was soon relaxed. So whenever the forenoons were fine enough, Phyllida sat on the moss-grown seat in the centre of the Maze, and, under the patronage of the little stone Cupid, grew daily more powerfully enchanted by the magical personality of Mr. Francis Vernon.
Thomas, the footman, grew daily more unctuous owing to the visit of a gouty dean who, being invited to occupy St. Simon's pulpit, preached a remarkable sermon in seven divisions and twenty-three sub-divisions, conclusively establishing the identity of the English Nation with the tribeof Benjamin. Mr. Moon and Major Tarry grew more entirely devoted to the widow, and Thomasina the cat also grew owing to the advent of kittens. In fact, everybody and everything grew prodigiously in the merry springtime.
The list of visitors grew. Rich Mrs. Bendish arrived and made all the dowagers jealous with her chest of precious stones that she brought back from an island in the Caribbean Sea—buried treasure that was actually discovered. Lord Rocquepool came, and his daughters, the Honourable Georgina and the Honourable Caroline de Winqule. The Honourable Mrs. Winter-Green came, and the Welch baronet, Sir Owen Ap Taffy. The Marquess of Hurricane arrived, and several members of the great Wind family. Also, with all these aristocratick visitors, it is not surprizing that Mr. Ripple's snuff bill grew daily.
March came in like a lamb that year, and the sweet season danced in the bleak furrows over which the lank hares leaped and scampered. White violets scented equinoctial dusks, and in every window of the Wells big daffodils hung down their golden ruffs. March went by to the tune of fiddles and flutes. Mr. Ripple had to attend near half a dozen routs every night, and the weekly Assemblies were more fully thronged than ever before.
Every day the jolly sun grew more powerful and the noise of polite conversation was almost drowned by the twittering of the sparrows as they, like their betters, made a chorus of loves, jealousies, hopes, plans and disappointments in a world of chimney-stacks and slanting roofs. They perched in the most fashionable gutters, just as, down below on the sunny side of the High Street, the Exquisite Mob ruffled before the gayest shops.
"How well that chip hat becomes me!"
"What wonderful silks are being displayed this spring!"
"They say that hoops and head-dresses will both show a monstrous increase in size this year."
As if the daffodils had intoxicated the whole race of dyers, nothing but shades of yellow were to be seen. In these happier days for the followers of the Mode, Blonda andBrunetta, those charming sisters, were not compelled to rely on their natural complexions in order to wear a certain shade. In these happier days, powder, rouge and patches availed to make the gaudy apricock glow even beside the blooming peach without injury to either. Therefore the artfully arranged bow-windows with rolls of citron damasks, canary velvets, golden brocades, lemon sattins and orange silks, dismayed not Blonda any more than the sapphire and turquoise of the autumnal mode fretted the vanity of Brunetta. As for young maidens, their fashion like the eternal mountains was always white.
But suddenly on the twenty-seventh of the month the weather changed. Masses of wet grey clouds swept in from the Atlantick, and March prepared to go out like a lion.
And on this very morningCurtain Polls severely lashed by a Curtain Rodappeared on Mr. Paul Virgin's counter.
This small work produced far greater consternation than the sudden change in the weather. Though it rained and blew, and whistled and streamed, nobody paid the slightest attention, nobody said 'What a change in the weather,' for all the world was deeply engrossed in reading about his asterisked self and his asterisked neighbour.
THERE had been nothing to prepare Curtain Wells for its chastizement. No wreathèd pamphlet warned readers in the most choice preliminary duff that a sarcastick comet would presently singe their vices, their follies and their vanities. Nobody had been invited to subscribe in advance to his own ridicule. As it were on the wings of a Westerly gale, these destructive little volumes settled upon the fields of Pleasure like locusts on a Bedouin plantation.
Two speculative chap-book pedlars sold the first twenty to as many drinkers of chalybeate hastening home to breakfast. For those who stopped to buy there was no breakfast that morning. The kidneys and the bacon and the eggs and the ham and the loin chops and the red herrings and the toasted bread were neglected. The vanguard of purchasers were, in reading about neighbours, too much diverted, and, in reading about themselves, too indignant to eat.
Out went the kidneys and the bacon and the eggs and the ham and the loin chops and the red herrings and the toasted bread, frozen stiff in their own fat; and out went the vanguard to warn the main army of fashion that scurrility, satire and malice were abroad in many metres.
"Listen to this, Moon," ejaculated Major Tarry, as, undeterred by the driving wind, he strode along, quoting extracts that were perfectly inaudible to his companion.
"Listen to this, will you listen to this,"
"Yes, but listen to this," said the Justice treading heavily in a puddle as he spoke.
"Very low, very low indeed," said Tarry.
"So 'tis," quoth the Justice, "but the next verse is lower still."
"Ha, ha," said Tarry, "low, d——d low! But 'sblood, the fellow has humour."
"Humour," said the Justice, "you call this obscene doggerel, humour?"
"In parts, sir, in parts."
"I call it melancholy and libidinous."
Mrs. Courteen was seated at her window disconsolately regarding the rain.
"Gemini, child!" she exclaimed. "What can be the matter with Mr. Moon and the Major that they gesticulate so wildly."
"They're reading books, ma'am," Betty announced.
"Reading book, but they are standing at the street corner like Methodies!"
"They'm beänt gone sick mad for love of 'ee, do 'ee think, Ma'am?"
"Flatterer," sighed Mrs. Courteen. "No, child, they have probably been converted. I detect Methodism in theirmadness. Te-hee! I must keep that for Archdeacon Conybeare, who so dislikes extremes of sensibility in anything that pertains to so sacred a thing as religion. Ah, dear! Religion, what is it?"
"There's many ways of it ma'am, I do think. 'Tis true religious not to laugh when the lads tickle thy ankles wi' straws during the prayer for Good King George!"
"Tut-tut, how disloyal!"
Just then the raucous voice of one of the itinerant booksellers shouted "Curtain Polls severely lashed by a Curtain-Rod."
"Run, Betty, and inquire the price at once," cried Mrs. Courteen perceiving that this was the cause of the gentlemen's delay. "'Tis evidently a rumour on the best authority about the Day of Judgment."
Presently Betty returned.
"'Tis a book, ma'am."
"I know that, simpleton, how much?"
"Four shillings and sixpence, ma'am, for a little mimsy book not so thick as the magick history of Jack the Giant Killer."
"But what was inside, foolish one?"
"Oh, ’twas full of stars, ma'am."
"'Tis certainly a work on fortune-telling. Pray buy it instantly, here is the money."
Back came Betty with the volume, and presently Mrs. Courteen fainted.
Downstairs ran Betty, and upstairs walked Mr. Thomas and Betty.
"’Twas the book as done it," said the latter vehemently.
The offending volume lay face downwards upon the quilted apricock of Mrs. Courteen's lap, so Thomas picked it up and began to read:
So far he read, but, rubicund though he was, modesty was still able to deepen his colour.
"Yes," said Betty, "pray do 'ee read us some more, Mr. Thomas."
"What Jebusite wrote this book? I will smite him and all his works," replied Thomas, flinging the volume into the fire. Whether the odour of burning leather or the profuse drops of Sal Volatile revived the offended lady I do not know, but she instantly sat up and, in a voice tremulous with anxiety, bade her footman call a chair.
"For," said she, "I must pay a visit of condolence to my Lady Bunbutter, whose propriety has suffered an almost irreparable injury."
She did not stay to change her dress; she passed her suitors still quoting scurrility, one against the other in the wind and rain, without a smile of recognition or sympathy.
Outside my Lady Bunbutter's stood a row of sedan-chairs, and as Mrs. Courteen walked up my Lady Bunbutter's front door-step, the knot of chairmen packed more closely over a copy ofCurtain Pollsindiscreetly left behind by one of their fares. There was a rustle of pages quickly turned by dirty thumbs, and as Mrs. Courteen was ushered in by my Lady Bunbutter's claret-coloured footman, there followed her upstairs a burst of ribald laughter.
My Lady Bunbutter had, by reason of her superior bulk and wealth, successfully repelled all rival claimants to the throne of dowagership. She reigned supreme; moreover her advice on this gusty forenoon was particularly valuable, inasmuch as she had just shaken off the waters of Bath on account of the publication there of some odious verses, in which her name and her person were treated with intolerably small respect. Therefore it was not surprizing to find her drawing-room the haunt of innumerable widows, old maids and long-established wives. There they sat, supplying asterisks with immense volubleness. As it happened, they had just tittered behind their fans over the odiously vulgar, but undeniably appropriate—yes! the odious fellow wascertainly witty—when the subject of their malicious laughter and false blushes entered the room.
With the tact bred of many a Quadrille party, my lady Bunbutter advanced to meet Mrs. Courteen, murmuring, 'poor dear little Miss Kitcat, so spiteful and yet, my dear Mrs. Courteen, since we are all friends, alas! how true!'
Now young Miss Kitcat was still young Miss Kitcat, and simply would not become old maid or dowager, and would allow herself to be ogled by that notorious rake and disreputable—yes! disreputable, card-sharper, Captain Mann.
While the dowagers discussed the situation and vowed that the rogue of an author sadly needed a lesson, Beau Ripple himself, with many an urbane tut-tut was readingCurtain Pollsin his tall white drawing-room, where the firelight danced and flickered over the gleaming ivory panels.
"Too bad," said the Beau to himself as he turned the scandalous pages. He did not, however, treat them less carefully because they were scandalous, for to Mr. Ripple a book was always a book, and he paid as much ceremony to the emanations of Grub Street as he would have shown to the copper plates of an elephant folio.
"This is, indeed, too bad," said the Beau, "and yet the rascal has wit. Oh, yes, he certainly has wit, but what an excellent example this volume affords of the superiority of prose over verse. A poetick satirist too often sacrifices his good breeding for the sake of the rhymes. Now I should never have said that. No, no, that is too bad, and this—good G——! this is unpardonable!"
The Great little Man jumped up as red as one of the big chintz roses that bloomed so prodigally all over his winged chair.
The King of Fashion looked very small as he stood in the middle of an Aubusson rug, yet I think he never looked more truly a monarch than at this moment. Unfortunately there was nobody to see him as he stood in his little world of mirrours and engravings.
And what had upset his equanimity? Certainly not the following lines:
Whatever the Curtain Rod thought of the subjects, to the Monarch he was always complimental.
"Intolerable! unpardonable!" cried the Beau, tapping his snuff-box so fiercely that some of the powder was spilled over the grey Angora cat which was purring against his gold-clocked stockings in the heart of a faded Aubusson rose. Octavia (the cat) sneezed assent. What had upset his equanimity? You shall take a short journey to find out, for I perceive a break in the weather and sweet April is in the West.
We will walk just so far as Curtain Garden, but, pray, do not turn into the Maze where the paths are atrociously damp. Alas, the rain is beginning again, but at the end of that long alley is a summer house, the abode of many Rococo Dryads, although 'tis haunted at present by amorous mortals, for I caught the glint of a buckle and a shimmer of chestnut ringlets.
It does not require King Œdipus to guess that those eyes which stare so into the heavens are the blue eyes of Phyllida, while any one would recognize in that smooth voice the careful enunciation of Mr. Francis Vernon.
He, like every one else that forenoon, was readingCurtain Polls severely lashed by a Curtain Rod. Perchance the following lines were they that lately enraged Mr. Horace Ripple:
"Those are pretty stanzas for a lover to read," said Vernon, who, to do him justice, did not seem very greatly perturbed by the insult.
"Oh, Amor," said poor Phyllida, "they can't truly be intended for me!"
"For whom else?"
"But who would write such cruel words of a young woman?"
"That puppy, Lovely."
"Mr. Lovely! Oh! no, he's a gentleman and a man of family and a man of taste and a friend of Beau Ripple."
"He may be all this and more," declared Vernon, "but he wrote this book."
"I don't believe it."
"He did, I say, for he informed me so himself—at least he as good as informed me!"
"Amor! you must have been mistook."
"On my life, not at all. He owes me near five hundred guineas, and when I hinted that the expense of inland Spas tells upon a gentleman's resources, begged my pardon, swore he had a literary project on hand, and promised me a hundred guineas on Lady Day. That was the day before yesterday."
"A gamester!" said Miss Phyllida, who, with the injustice of her age and sex, neglected to see that her lover was as much to blame in this particular as Lovely.
"Ay! a gamester," said Vernon with fervid indignation.
"And for the sake of a hundred guineas he was ready to cheapen the honour of a maid?"
"My angel forgets the Chinese Masquerade. Mr. Lovely was piqued by her obvious weakness for a less fashionable, less conspicuous gentleman."
"Oh, I will never forgive him. He has ruined me."
"Nay, come, come, 'tis not so bad as that. Amor will never desert his Phyllida."
"I'm ruined, I'm ruined," she sobbed. "I shall never dare go to visit my cousin Barbara, who is as prim and proper as——" Nothing was prim enough for the comparison. "And she has the most delicious hot buns you ever tasted, and the dearest spaniel and the most beautiful pugdog. Oh dear! oh dear! oh dear! how all the neighbours will laugh, and old Rumble the carrier will be telling tales about me in every kitchen in the county, and 'tis all your fault."
"My fault?"
"Yes, yours, for asking me to come and meet you and making love, while all the while there was somebody peeping over the hedges. I'll never forgive you, never, never!—--"
"Dearest life, we can put a stop to scandal by being wed immediately. Listen! I'll have a post-chaise ready at dawn, and post-boys in scarlet, and lodgings with a balcony and a goldfinch singing in a cage. My Phyllida, will you come?"
"Oh! I dare not, I dare not—not yet, oh lud, oh lud! how shall I look the world in the face?"
Vernon thought for a moment.
"Where are your pearls kept?"
"In my mamma's trunkmail, but Betty could give me the key—and sometimes in her jewel case."
"On the thirtieth," said Vernon, "there will be a ball at Daish's Rooms, next to theBlue Boarwhere I lodge. You will surely be there, 'tis my lady Bunbutter's rout."
"Yes, we shall be there," said Phyllida.
"At two o'clock in the morning, I will have a post-chaise waiting by St. Simon's Church corner, opposite Leonard's toy shop. Would you have the courage to slip out, my dearest heart, my Phyllida?"
"Oh, no, I could not travel by night."
"'Twould be safer," urged Vernon.
"No, no, I could not."
"Then for your sake, I'll take the risque and have the post-chaise in the same place at three o'clock in the afternoon of the next day. Promise you will come."
"No, no, I shall never be brave enough, and I must go for I hear voices, and I must never be seen with you again. Good-bye, good-bye," and before Vernon could stop her, Phyllida was running down the poplar alley to escape from Curtain Garden.
Our villain began to wonder whether she would elope after all. If she were shy, he might secure the necklace at any rate. With slow steps, his mind full of silken pearls, Mr. Vernon went slowly homewards. Half way down the High Street, he passed a narrow street known as Blood Passage from the vicinity of a large slaughter-house. He hesitated; made up his mind, and, turning down it, came to a crooked house over a low tumble-down doorway. He knocked fastidiously with the amber knob of his cane. A slatternly woman, whose last night's rouge was streaked with the matutinal ashes, opened the door.
"Does Mr. Maggs live here?"
"Come in," said the frowsy light o' love.
THE satirist stood in his publisher's back parlour, and, through the dusty glass of the partition, observed the Exquisite Mob purchase their castigation.
"'Tis strange," he pondered, "that mankind should be willing to pay four-and-sixpence to be laughed at. Yet it is!"
Mr. Lovely was awaiting a draught for one hundred guineas, and Mr. Paul Virgin, glad of anything that would delay for a while such an unwelcome disbursement, continued to bow and smirk over the counter as the neat little piles of new volumes speedily diminished. At last the hour for the midday meal arrived with a temporary lull in the storm of purchasers. Mr. Virgin turned with a sigh into his little back parlour and, wading carefully through the heaps of uncatalogued tomes, set out with a wry face to unlock his walnut writing-cabinet.
"We were hurried too much, Mr. Lovely, sir. We han't had leisure to bind the book as it should be bound. Ye would hurry us so, Mr. Lovely."
"You wouldn't pay me till the book was published, and I want the money, so d——n all grumbling and be grateful that you'll make a small fortune."
"A small fortune! What a jester you are, Mr. Lovely. I declare you put me in mind of the old plays, such jests!"
Mr. Paul Virgin seated before his cabinet, was writing the draught with tardy fingers.
"There ye are, Mr. Lovely, and never say I don't treat ye with consideration, with generosity, sir, for I dare swear I shall lose fifty pounds sterling by this adventure."
"Be d——d, you peevish rogue. Why all the world of fashion has thronged your shop since nine o'clock this morning."
"Yes, but it takes a deal to make a hundred guineas. Now let me make it pounds, Mr. Lovely, sir. Do let me make it pounds."
The latter snatched the draught from the old young bookseller and, having read it through with much deliberation, transferred it to the seclusion of his innermost pocket.
After this transaction, which was effected with a singular grace, I am sorry to add that he put his tapered finger to his tapered nose and winked several times at the disconsolate Mr. Virgin.
"The books are so ill-bound, look at this one, Mr. Lovely, your honour. The leaves are falling apart already, just because you would hurry us so terribly."
Mr. Lovely stooped and picked up some loose pages.
"Ay, 'tis autumn already with this copy," he said, glancing casually at the page he held in his hand. "Why who wrote this?"
"You did, Mr. Lovely, you did."
"I wrote this—this d——d vile verse, this—" and Charles read aloud the lines that so dismayed our heroine. "I wrote this damnable doggerel? By G——, Mr. Virgin, I never wrote this."
"Why, who else could have written it?"
"That's what I want to know. Come back, you hound," shouted the irate author, grabbing his publisher by the tails of his coat, just as he was edging his way back to the shop. "Come back," he said, jerking him over Mr. Bayle's Dictionary. "You moth-eaten vagabond, you impostor, you thief." Charles began to belabour Mr. Virgin with a folio copy of theAnatomy of Melancholy. Round and round the little back parlour he thumped the publisher; the dust rose from innumerable ancient tomes. Surely never were books so rudely disturbed since the niece and the Padre flung the library of the illustrious Don Quixote de la Mancha out of the window, and burned a hundred volumes of chivalry.
"How came these d——d lines into my book, eh, sir, answer me that, sir," and having dissected theAnatomy of Melancholy, Charles picked up Sir Roger L'Estrange's translation of Æsop to continue the assault.
"I don't understand, Mr. Lovely, sir. Pray desist, Mr. Lovely, your honour, sir. The printer must have printed them."
"'Sdeath and fury! you rascal, I know that. Who wrote them, who wrote them?"
In order to supply the correct twirl to this note of interrogation, Charles flung the little bookseller to the farthest corner of his little back parlour, at the same time arming himself with half a dozen fresh volumes.
Mr. Virgin cowered in the dust and cobwebs.
"Who wrote them?" Charles demanded.
"I don't——"
"What!" and the—th volume of theGentleman's Magazine, newly arrived from the binder, winged its way in the direction of the quivering bookseller. This he ducked to avoid, but even as he ducked, the five volumes of Mr. Ozell's revision of Urquhart and Motteux'Rabelaisburst over him like an exploded hand grenade.
"Who wrote them?"
"Truly I don't——"
This time Mr. Prior'sPoems on Several Occasionscarried his wig into obscurity, and the owner clapped a hand to his head just in time to receive the bevelled morocco edges of theBeggar's Operafull on the fingers.
"Mr. Lovely, sir, you are too violent."
"Violent, you dog? By G—— if you don't give the name of the son of a w—— that wrote these damnable lines, I'll flay you alive and bind my next edition of poems with your lousy skin." The foxy-faced old young man commenced to wring his hands.
"Mr. Lovely," he almost screamed. "Mr. Lovely, you're mad—go out of my shop."
"Who wrote those lines? Answer, or I'll break up your shop—ay! break it up with your own sign-board. At the Sign of the Woman—at the Sign of the Strumpet! Answer me, you lickspittle vermin, answer me."
Charles had now seized his wretched publisher by the neck-band, and shook him so roughly that the latter, fearing for his teeth, the most extravagant purchase in his mean little life, began to whine.
"A gentleman—a gentleman——"
"Well, you misbegotten toad, I never supposed ’twas a midwife."
"No, certainly not, Mr. Lovely, a gentleman—a gentleman."
"His name, dog."
"I don't know."
"Yes, you do, answer will you."
"He told me ’twas Amor."
"I knew it, I knew it, you sneaking son of a b——, and he gave you twenty guineas to print the verses."
"No, not twenty, only ten, Mr. Lovely, on my soul."
"On your soul! H—— l take your soul! Why you were spawned in a ditch, you viper. So you let my honour go for ten guineas. Give them to me."
"Oh! Mr. Lovely."
"Give them to me."
The miserable little old young man produced the money, unluckily for himself, in paper.
"Now since you love money so dearly, by heaven, you shall eat money." And Mr. Lovely, making a bolus of the bribe, crammed it down the reluctant bookseller's throat with his own ruler. Then our hero walked out of the shop.
I hope you will not deny this scene was in the true vein of heroism. Aye! aye! 'tis full of bombast as you very properly observe, ma'am or sir; but that is the part of a hero. He must follow the Prince of Denmark's directions to the players. Aye! aye! and 'tis full of wind, but so was the great Montgolfier balloon, and surely every aeronaut is a hero, even in his descents at the tail-end of a parachute.
So pray judge Mr. Lovely, not as a man, but as a hero, for I think you'll do me the justice to admit I never tried to conceal his position.
But he owes the villain a considerable sum of money. Of course he does, and this awkward fact is perplexing himvery much indeed as he strides down Curtain High Street. To tell the truth, when he emerged from Mr. Virgin's shop, he found that when the Fates dipped him into Styx, they made the same mistake as Madame Thetis, with this difference, that, whereas Achilles was left with a vulnerable heel, our hero preserved a vulnerable conscience.
It would have been mighty heroick to march into theBlue Boar, run Mr. Vernon through the lungs, wed the injured heroine and tread after death the golden fields of Elysium; but his silly conscience would not allow him to kill a man to whom he was under a monetary obligation.
So he borrowed four hundred guineas from Mr. Antony Clare, who could ill afford the loan, and putting this sum with what he had earned from lashing the Curtain Polls in an extra thick paper envelope, he sealed it with his own heroick seal. This fulfilment of earthly debts he sent up to Mr. Francis Vernon by the hand of Mr. Daish himself, and set to work to make his conscience less vulnerable by many consecutive pints of heroick Burgundy.
You thought that he was going to turn out poor humanity after bullying Mr. Virgin so heroically? Egad, ma'am or sir, you thought wrong. You doubt anybody can be a Burgundian hero? So he can; there has been more than one Charles the Bold of Burgundy.
The very word is as fire to the most pusillanimous: the very thought of its crimson depths should set us all tilting.
'Bring me a quart bottle of Burgundy.' The phrase is like a trumpet-call outside the keep of Paradise.
'Bring me another quart of Burgundy.' Down goes the portcullis before the hero's charge.
Port may turn a man into a hero—in his dreams; yet I doubt they are too heavy. As for Sherry, it will serve to sharpen the wits of a dried-up attorney, but is poor stuff to weave into heroes. On Champagne, a man will talk like the crew of theArgo, but there's the end of the whole business.
Charles drank Burgundy and I promise you some fine heroicks presently.