Delicately veined hands untwisted the silver wire and tore off the gold cap. Somebody fetched a corkscrew, somebody clenched the sombre green bottle between his brocaded knees. An arm tapering to snowy peaks pulled at the unwilling cork. A fairy explosion was followed by the dewy vapours of long imprisoned sunshine. The amber liquid sparkled and bubbled and flowed over the many faceted goblet in cream and foam.
The Beau mounted once more upon his pedestal and drank to the pleasure, health, and beauty of the company, while Lord Vanity and my Lady Bunbutter quaffed an answering toast in deputy for the lords, ladies and gentlemen present. Salvoes of well-bred applause pattered round the room, and the Beau's triumph was hailed with acclamations.
And you, beautiful women and fine gentlemen, roses and carnations of an older century, nothing remains of you for us. Your very perfume is but a name. You are no more to the world of to-day than those glossy candles that spluttered to death in gilt sockets. And yet, from the ruin of elegance, one relick of that famous evening remains; for the silver wire of the bottle of champagne, flung heedless to the ground, caught in a flounce of some Beauty's petticoat. Long ago the gossamer stuff mouldered, long ago was Beauty herself a skeleton, but the wire cherished by Beauty's family may still be seen in a glass-topped table in the corner of a quiet library somewhere in the broad Midlands. O insignificant wire, you are more durable than the flowers who despised you!
And now another famous ball waned to a close, and all the world of taste and fashion went home to bed.
MR. CHARLES Lovely walked back with Mr. Antony Clare to theBlue Boar, and joined Mr. Francis Vernon in the Coffee Room.
The latter noticed that Clare frowned slightly when he saw him, and explained, almost apologetically, that he had moved thither from his lodgings in the Crescent. Charles was delighted and immediately proposed a game of hazard.
"You'll play, Tony?" he said eagerly.
"Not I," his friend answered. "I'm too sleepy, for 'tis confoundedly fatiguing to be on such polite behaviour for so long."
"That's true indeed," cried Charles, "and therefore we need recreation the more." With this he gave a tug at the bell-pull of flowery chintz, and presently Mr. Daish who had sent the waiters to bed, came yawning to answer the summons.
"Daish, bring two bottles of Burgundy like the fine fellow and good landlord that you are."
"Yes, Mr. Lovely, certainly, your honour, but I hope your honour will be careful with the bottles; it would be a terrible thing for the house if the watch was murdered as they nearly was twice over last week," said Mr. Daish, crumpling into obsequiousness at the impudence of his request, and retreating sidelong from the room.
Mr. Clare, seeing that it was useless to argue Charles out of his determination, took a seat by the fire.
"Egad," said Lovely, "what a jealous dog it is, he won't play, but can't bear to go to bed." Clare gave the fire a meditative poke.
"What shall it be, Mr. Vernon? Ecarté?"
"With pleasure."
"Or picket?"
"As you will."
"Why, then, picket, and if we find we grow too sleepy to count our sequences, we shall, at any rate, not be too sleepy to trickle dice out of a box, eh?"
Charles turned with these words to take some unbroken paquets of playing cards from a small mahogany cabinet hanging against the wall. The picture presented was a friendly one as the two men seated themselves at the card table. The fire was burning brightly and rosy shadows flickered over the ceiling. The curtains were close drawn and the ample flowers of their pattern seemed to retain somehow the warmth and the light. By the side of the grate sat Tony in a high grandfather's chair. He had taken off his wig and was staring meditatively at the crisp curls, as it reposed on his knee. The buckles of his shoes spat tiny glints of flame—red, blue and green. Presently he leaned across to a small bookshelf and took down some dry inn volume, but the print danced in the fire-light and very soon he was dozing peacefully, while his wig slipped to the ground and became a pleasant couch for a large tabby cat to purr away comfortable hours.
At the table sat Vernon and Lovely face to face, and the green baize made a prim battlefield for the debonair antagonists. It was a meadow-fight viewed from towering Olympus. Here was pasture profitable enough to some: to others barren as the unharvested sea. No crescent moon lighted it, no sun parched the fresh greenery whose four tall candles flickered only to chamber tempests, storms of tapestry, keyhole zephyrs. At either end were ranged round guineas in wicked little heaps, and along the borders stood serried packs of cards, shorn of their meaner numbers as becomes the apparelled duel of picket. These had been flung contemptuously on to the floor and the survivors lay face downwards on the table with a new and alluring slimness. Their backs were so innocent—mere festoons of flowers andbouquets of rosebuds; yet their very innocence only served to enhance the red and black determination of their faces. How the royal cards reflected in their appearance the temper of their courts. How sombre-suited went the Queen of Spades, how pensive seemed her consort, while the savage Ace was hung with garlands of mourning and sable flowers of Proserpine. The Queen of Diamonds looked harassed; the Knave had a lean eye and the King himself seemed peaked and careworn. The Club Court was a swarthy and more brutal counterpart of the gay Hearts, and the gay Hearts, with ripe dewy mouths, had yet a certain sly sensuality that bred distrust.
Then the tournament began. The stacked guineas sprawled in golden disarray and dwindled and swelled and tinkled to the tune of the game.
Charles was winning. Five times he had made the grand Repique, five times the gallant Pique, thrice Capote had taken captive twelve hostile cards to be redeemed with rippling guineas. Ace, King, Queen, Knave, Ten came in sequences as month succeeds to month. His hands were palaces for the abode of many courtiers. They were picture galleries of the oldest kings and queens in Europe. If he threw away Spades, he took up the red Hearts for which he longed. If he discarded Diamonds, he gained a lusty host of Clubs to serve his purpose.
At last Vernon, who had lost steadily for a pair of hours—six games at an average price of thirty guineas a game—declared he would fight no longer against his adversary's good fortune. "Moreover," he added, "so much counting has set my brain in a whirl."
"As you will," said Charles, who would have liked to continue with picket, but could not refuse to give his opponent an opportunity to avenge himself at another game.
So they turned to Ecarté.
And now his fortune deserted him. Each time Vernon dealt he turned up a King, and Charles began to dread their florid appearance, as some ambitious minister dreads the veering of his master's favour. Those kings who had hithertobeen numbered in his hands in fours and threes, those puppet kings, had won a new dignity from the only game which accords them their rightful place at the head of the pack; each one had acquired, it seemed, a personality that threatened him. Time after time were his Jeux de Règle defeated by the most astonishing combinations of ill luck.
So many times did those confounded monarchs affront him face upwards on the serene baize that he began to suspect Vernon of being a sort of gamester Warwick, a maker and unmaker of kings. Indeed, he went so far as to watch his deals rather narrowly and, being unable to detect anything amiss, became heartily ashamed of his suspicions.
It was now five o'clock of a chill morning; the fire had sunk into ashes, and dawn would soon shoot her icy arrows into the slow-flying bulk of night.
Clare was still asleep in the armchair, but presently the stealthy cold waked him and he jumped up; the candles were guttering away; the burgundy was drunk; the room smelt stale.
"Come to bed, Charles," he cried out.
Lovely, who had lost at Ecarté considerably more than he had won at Picket, drew back the curtains for answer. The dawn was in the East.
He blew out the candles one after another, and in the unreal morning twilight, the aftermath of smoke curled like an outworn pleasure into extinction save of a foul odour.
"We have still a grey hour for the dice," said Charles.
"As you will," replied Vernon.
The dice boxes were brought out, and the ivory cubes began to dance; strange fancies assailed Clare as he watched the gamesters; morbid imaginations, caught from the chilly atmosphere, froze his reason, and the rattle of the dice acquired a macabre significance. They clicked like the hoofs of horses on an iron-bound road. Then they were the castanets of a sinister dance. Soon they were the shaken ribs of Death, the king of dancers, and at the end no more than a baby's rattle, insistent, importunate, maddening.
Charles was winning again.
The various faces of the cubes took fantastick likenesses.Twowas a patched beauty, leaden-eyed, pallid, pleasure-doomed.Fivewas a skewbald cat andfoura plum cake. Six was a ladder to some evil house.Threewas a necklace of jet,onea Pierrot's velvet eye.
Charles was still winning.
The irresponsibleness of the dice annoyed Clare. They tumbled and rolled so gaily and it was mortifying to see a man enslaved by acrobats of ivory. The bodies, too, with their absurd waists were like women whom extravagant stays had driven to vomit sweetmeats.
Charles had won. The casement swung open in the sudden winds of dawn; the room was tinted with the cold colours of sunrise. The three men stumbled upstairs disdainful of the morning's gold. A guinea slipped from Lovely's pocket and tinkled down to the foot of the stairs to reward the little scullery-maid who was even now yawning on her pallet upstairs.
A thrush tuned his melodies against the swift coming of spring, and the purple leaf-buds welcomed the sun.
CHARLES was tempted to deprive himself of sleep for the pleasure of bedabbling his pale silk stockings with dew, but vanity killed romance and the fresh light enchanted a still unruffled couch. So he flung his coat over a chair, and the heavy pockets chinked as they fell back against the taper legs. His prayers were all to rosy Aurora when the fragrant linen sheets flowed like water over his parched brows.
Sleep could not pass the melodious batteries of many birds, and Lovely's brain had captured something of the time's clarity. The clock has many secret hours, but those who would know them must follow their slow pilgrimage wide awake. What castles men build to the pipes of the morning!
The world was waking up. Outside the talk of hostlers grew so loud that the birds fled from the inn yard to the still deserted bowling green.
Soon he heard the jangle of pails, the swish of mops and from time to time the sound of a horse's hoof striking the cobbles with a clap. In the distance a post-horn endowed the air with silver tongues. Charles followed its course along the London road. He pictured the cumbrous vehicle swinging in its straps between the black February hedgerows. He saw the postillions blinking sleepy eyes to the Eastern sun. He saw the great London road like a tape-measure unfolded from the gilded case that was London. Already he was at Knightsbridge watching some townbred maid gathering cresses in the little stream. Now he was spurring the horses to a fine lather, for he could see the grooms in a black knot by theWhite Horsecellars. In atrice he was taking the air in St. James' Street, and then suddenly he was a little boy picking his way through Westminster mud beside his mother who was carrying a bouquet of violets to their narrow house near St. John's Church. And now it was winter, and the sea-coal was burning sullenly: there were no violets, and heavy on the leaden afternoon he heard the bell tolling in Millbank Gaol. "God save the poor soul, the marshes will be icy cold to-night," said his mother, and he knew that some prisoner had escaped.
"How late your father is," she went on as she opened a cupboard, set in the panelled wall, to reach for plates and dishes. Then she told him to get out the candlesticks—beautiful silver candlesticks with swan-like necks and curious mazy lines around their bases. The candlesticks were nowhere to be found.
"Where can they be?" exclaimed his mother, pausing to help in the search. Then he heard a sigh and was told to ask Mrs. Gruffle, the landlady, for the brass bed-chamber candlesticks. He rather liked these: there was always a delightful quagmire of grease in the little plate where the socket rested—grease that could be moulded into queer little pliable shapes, with shreds of tobacco stuck around for fur. When he came back to the parlour, he saw his father with his legs on the bars of the grate.
"They had to go, my dear, they had to go," the latter was saying.
"They were my mother's."
"I know, I know, but z——ds' You wouldn't have me fail Dicky Claribut?"
"But sure they were not worth——"
"Oons! I pledged my best buckles to him; the candlesticks were for his gentleman. I'm devilish sorry, my dear, but, 'faith, ’twas not to be avoided, and here's young Charles! Charles, my boy, never play, or, if you do, play deep and win."
"Don't put such ideas into the boy's mind," said his mother anxiously.
"Oddslife, my dear, be very sure the ideas are there already."
"How can you have the heart to persist when you know...."
"The heart, madam?" interrupted his father. "Let me tell you that the hearts of the Lovelys are all of a piece—and 'tis cardboard."
Our hero came to his elegant self with a start and was back in Curtain Wells with hot eyelids, and thoughts continually racing over the flowery wall-paper.
It was not long, however, before he was once more in pursuit of the past.
And now he was seated beside his handsome father in a chariot. They were both in mourning and he thought how well the black frogged riding-coat became his parent. As for himself, his black sattin breeches set his teeth on edge as he tried to scratch his knee.
"Where are we going?" he was asking.
"To your mother's brother, Sir George Repington of Repington Hall."
"That's the man whose letters made her cry?"
"The same, young Charles," said Mr. Lovely, ogling a dairymaid through his black-rimmed perspective, as the object of his glances shrank into a hedge, powdered with cow-parsley, and closed her eyes against the dust of their chariot.
Then, without any warning, they were driving through a stately park, and as they turned a corner, Mr. Lovely senior exclaimed "Good G...! A cemetery indeed!" Charles looked up and saw a field full of small cypresses with rank grass growing between them.
His father, who was looking rather pale, signed to the postboy to stop, and "Charles," said he, "do you go on up to the Hall, knock at the door and ask for your uncle, Sir George Repington. I'll wait for you here."
As he set out in obedience to his father he heard him mutter. "This was the very place. I swear this was the place, and not an apple tree left." And then Charles diminutive enough in his black suit with miniature small-sword of cut steel, was asking two enormous footmen in canary-coloured velvet for Sir George Repington. They looked at him and laughed.
"My uncle," said Charles solemnly.
And they laughed again, but one of them murmured, 'This way,' and walked up a very wide and very slippery staircase, while Charles stumped up behind him. Half way, his sword belt came undone, and the sword clattered down upon the polished oak stairs with a noise that seemed to resound a dozen times through the quiet house. As he did not dare to keep the canary-coloured gentleman waiting, he picked up the toy weapon, clutched it tight in his left hand and entered a big dark room where a gentleman with iron grey close cropped hair sat reading in a chair with a very tall back, his wig balanced upon his toes.
"What the d——l's this?" asked the grey gentleman jumping up.
"Your honour's nephew," said the yellow gentleman.
"Eh! what! leave us, sirrah," and "What do you want?" he said, turning to Charles.
Charles could only watch the long furrow over his nose and wonder how deep it was, when the grey gentleman caught sight of the small sword.
"Eh! what the d——l! give me that," and snatching the weapon, he broke it over his knee and flung it into the grate.
"Please, sir, my father sent me to see you."
"Who's he?"
"Valentine Lovely, sir."
"Good G——! Good G——!" muttered the old gentleman. "And Mrs. Lovely? Did she send you too?"
"Mrs. Lovely's dead, sir."
The grey gentleman looked across the room at a large painting of a girl in a white dress skipping with a rope of roses.
"Please, sir," said young Charles, "I think that is Mrs. Lovely."
"It was, boy; it was."
"I wish I had known her then," said Charles.
"Is your name George, boy?" inquired the grey gentleman in a tone that was half eager.
"No, sir, 'tis Charles—after the Prince of Wales."
"A Papist, eh?" said the grey gentleman bitterly.
"George was too honest a name for that scoundrel. Well, boy, you can stay."
"Please, sir, I'd rather go back to my father," said the boy. "He's waiting for me."
"Then go and be d——d," said the grey gentleman, and he walked over to the window.
Poor little Charles was left standing alone in the big room. He waited a moment, but as the grey gentleman did not turn his head, he edged his way towards the great door. When he reached it, he looked round at his uncle. The latter was still staring out of the window. The child gave a puzzled sigh and with both hands succeeded in turning the handle. The clocks seemed to tick very loudly as he breathlessly closed the door and set out to descend the wide staircase. The canary-coloured gentlemen having vanished he could hold on to the balustrade with both hands without shame. As he crossed the green sunlit lawn, a blackbird flew into the shrubbery with a shrill note of alarm.
Then he was in the chariot with his father, and this time he was really fast asleep.
And now he was boy and man at once. The picture of the girl with roses became his mother as he had known her, pale and sad. Then it would change and become Miss Phyllida Courteen, strangely like his mother; and sometimes the Queen of Diamonds would be mopping and mowing in a frame of golden Georges.
At last these many dancing visions forsook his brain, and he slept a dreamless sleep, not waking until high noon of a wet and gusty day. When he reached the coffee-room, he found Mr. Francis Vernon perusing the latest edition of Mr. Hoyle, and as the weather was dirty, agreed to give Mr. Francis Vernon his revenge.
This favour was accorded in the handsomest manner possible and when, late in the afternoon, the young gentlemen all returned from hunting, Mr. Charles Lovely owed Mr. Francis Vernon rather more than he could very easily pay.
No doubt the latter's success is to be ascribed to his opportune purchase of the latest edition of Mr. Hoyle.
IF cards are the devil's playthings, wet days are certainly his select playtime; and all the days before the Chinese Masquerade were very wet indeed. The Exquisite Mob returned from the Pump Room remarkably depressed in spirit. The forenoons passed away in the coffee-houses and the shops, but in the afternoons when it was wont to exercise itself and air its modes the stuffy parlours of Curtain Wells became vastly tiresome.
The result was that all the young gentlemen played very hard and very deep and very late, and Mr. Charles Lovely hardest, deepest, and latest of all. The old gentlemen all found their gout teazed them more lamentably. Even Beau Ripple grew tired of reading the Epodes of Horace and the Letters of Tully to his grey Angora cat. The ladies played Quadrille and talked scandal, while some of them, I grieve to say, supplied a foundation for much of the gossip.
Candlelight intrigues flourished, and there were not a few tragedies in porcelain, when some Sir John Vulcan, returning too soon from his favourite coffee-house, caught my Lady Venus in too ardent converse with some young Ensign Mars. Very red grew the gallant Ensign—near as red as his coat, while Sir John blustered and swore so loud that he almost cracked the walls with his fox-hunting voice, and my lady Venus fluttered her fan to the pace of her dainty heart, tinkling out exquisite little lies as soulless as unreal, but quite as fascinating as some frail musical box. And the trio acted and declaimed their time-honouredparts to a keyhole audience of lady's maid and gentleman's gentleman.
Very diverting the footmen of Curtain Wells found the story that evening, and very savoury it was voted below stairs—nearly as savoury as the stewed trotters over which it was related.
And so the days went by.
Pitter-pat went the rain on the window-panes, pitter-pat went the cards on the card tables, pitter-pat went the spoons in the coffee-cups, pitter-pat went my lady's shoes across the floor to watch for the third person, pitter-pat went many fans and many hearts.
Mrs. Courteen decked herself in the rosiest sattins, bade Betty close the shutters, draw the curtains and light the candles. Then she composed herself to read the last number of thePrattleruntil a knock at the door announced the arrival of Mr. Gregory Moon and Major Constantine Tarry. Both vowed that their enchantress looked vastly well, and nodded agreement with her assertion that she believed she had a very fresh colour, no doubt due to the tonick air of the Wells.
"It flushes one merely to go upstairs," she declared. "I vow I take as much exercise in going up and down stairs as I do in taking my morning saunter to the Pump Room." The climb was euphemistically known as the Saunter. "Lud, lud," continued the widow, "complexions are droll things."
"Monstrous elusive, ma'am," said the Justice rather gloomily.
"Ha, ha," yapped the Major, "I pickled my skin in the Low Countries."
"That would be injudicious for a delicate surface. Height, Major," sighed Mrs. Courteen, "height! How we pine for it. Mortals! Dear! Dear!"
"I remember I once examined a vagabond who claimed to have been there," remarked Mr. Moon. "We ordered him a whipping."
"What became of him?" asked Mrs. Courteen.
"I believe he died shortly afterwards. Well! well! Kill or cure! Kill or cure!"
The widow flashed her white shoulders in an elaborate shudder.
"Talking of kill or cure," exclaimed the Major, jumping up, "did I ever repeat my tale of the Hessian captain?"
"Probably," said Mr. Moon mildly.
"What do you mean, sir?"
"You are somewhat inclined to repetition, sir."
Mrs. Courteen hurriedly assured Major Tarry that she for one had positively never heard it.
"He did not say 'have you heard my story, ma'am,' the Justice went on in the calm voice of despair. "He said 'have I repeated it?' I merely remarked that he probably has—dozens of times!"—Mr. Moon burst out in the nearest approach to a passionate enunciation that he ever attained.
"I vow you do him an injustice. Pray tell us the story, Major," and the widow tapped the sword-arm of the infuriated soldier three times. The painted chicken-skin fell with so persuasive a touch that the Apple sank to its normal position and, having turned his back on Mr. Moon, the Major began his tale.
"Well, Madam, you must know that in the year ... but before I tell this story, I should like to give you some idea of the disposition of his Majesty's forces."
Mrs. Courteen sighed. She knew what giving an idea of the disposition of the forces meant. It was useless to protest however, for the Major was already marching round the room in search of appropriate furniture.
He instantly declared that Mr. Moon's chair was necessary to the illustration.
"Pray excuse me, sir!" he rapped out.
The Justice, with a reproachful glance at Mrs. Courteen, moved ponderously to the couch.
"Well, Madam, here are Thistleton's Dragoons," and he gave a twist to the chair as he spoke.
"Oh, yes! Very droll!" said Mrs. Courteen.
"Here," the Major continued, seizing another chairand planting it vigorously down by the couch, "here is Buckley's Foot."
"Mine, sir," said the Justice.
"Your what, sir?"
"My foot, sir, not Buckfeast's."
The Major withered his rival with an eloquent silence.
"Here am I," he said, snatching from the mantelpiece a diminutive Worcester shepherdess and placing it between the two chairs.
The widow gazed anxiously at the pastoral soldier. It belonged to the owner of the house.
"Here is Tournai. You'll pardon me, sir, but I should be obliged if you would hand me the couch," said the Major fiercely.
The Justice moved wearily to the window-seat. That, at all events, was a fixture, he reflected gratefully.
After much exertion Tarry succeeded in moving the couch in front of the door, so that if the piece of furniture in question was a poor representation of what it was intended to convey, it certainly made of Mrs. Courteen's front parlour something very like an impregnable fortress.
"I should be glad to give you some idea of the enemy's earthworks," said the Major with a covetous glance in the direction of the chintz window-curtains.
Mrs. Courteen's fleeting expression of dismay warned him to prune the luxuriance of his examples, and as at that moment a tap at the door necessitated the instant surrender of Tournai to admit Mrs. Betty farther operations were stopped. Moreover the sudden capitulation involved the fracture of the Worcester shepherdess which, as Mr. Moon sardonically supposed, served to illustrate the point of the story.
"You're killed, Tarry; you're dead as mutton. I doubt a cure is inconceivable."
Betty held a note in her hands.
"From Bow Ripple," she whispered excitedly.
MRS. COURTEEN scarcely believed Betty spoke the truth. Never could she remember such a gigantick wave of elation as swept over her on receipt of the Beau's letter. Yet, without a doubt, it was true. There was the royal notepaper and, as she reverently examined the outside, there was the river of the house of Ripple meandering in regular curves through meadows of sealing-wax. She marked the colour—lilac—as if faintly to adumbrate the imperial purple of Rome. Moreover, the sprinkled sand, a few particles of which still adhered to the surface, smelt of Courts. There were years of authority between the lines of the graceful superscription; the very "C" of the Crescent bellied in the breeze of Royal favour. Major Tarry and Mr. Moon regarded her with an expression compounded of jealousy and respect. Who was this woman, this correspondent with monarchs?
"Pray excuse me, neighbours," murmured the widow, sinking into a chair. The seal crackled musically as with smooth forefinger and shapely thumb she gently withdrew the diaphanous paper from its waxen prison; so must the golden bough have sounded to the touch of Æneas.
THEGREATHOUSE, CURTAINWELLS,February,MADAM—I shall do myself the honour of waiting upon you this afternoon at half-past Four o'clock in order to the discussion of an Affair of the gravest moral Importance.In expectation, Madam, I subscribe myself,Your obliged Servant,HORACERIPPLE.
THEGREATHOUSE, CURTAINWELLS,February,
MADAM—I shall do myself the honour of waiting upon you this afternoon at half-past Four o'clock in order to the discussion of an Affair of the gravest moral Importance.
In expectation, Madam, I subscribe myself,
Your obliged Servant,HORACERIPPLE.
"Gemini!" cried Betty, "the Bow will be here in fourteen ticks."
"Gentlemen," said Mrs. Courteen with that stateliness which follows from intercourse with Princes, "gentlemen, I must beg to be excused."
The Major and the Justice solemnly advanced and, having kissed the outstretched hand, moved sadly from the room. As they went downstairs the former mused on the unrepeated story of the Hessian Captain, while the latter vowed to insert a supplementary chapter to his great Essay on Peace which should deal with the self-esteem of retired Majors. With similar thoughts no doubt Mr. Oliver Goldsmith went home from that famous dinner when General Oglethorpe, at the instigation of Dr. Samuel Johnson, spilled the Port on the bare mahogany board in order to draw a plan of the Siege of Belgrade. At any rate, old Mr. Hardcastle talks a great deal about that famous beleaguerment in the witty and diverting farce ofShe Stoops to Conquer. Mrs. Courteen tremulously sought her toilet-glass. 'An affair of the gravest moral importance.' Powder judiciously distributed removed any implied indifference in the freshness of her widowed cheeks. Paleness and morality were certainly akin. As for her lemon sack, Betty vowed she would find nothing more becoming to the unique occasion.
A dignified knock at the front door put an end to any longer hesitation, and Mrs. Courteen, like the Queen of Sheba, presented herself immediately.
The Great little Man was pacing the carpet of the front parlour, but at the widow's entrance he turned on his heels with a low bow.
"We are quite alone?" he inquired.
"Solitary indeed," replied the lady. Surely, surely he could not be contemplating an offer of marriage. Yet certainly such might well be described as an affair of the gravest moral importance. If weddings were not moral, what would become of our weak humanity?
"Madam," said the Beau. "'Tis only after long thought and exhaustive research among the social archives of CurtainWells: 'tis only after a complete examination of my glorious predecessor, Beau Melon's notes on the amenities of Polite Cures in which he calls attention with a red cross to the special difficulty of tendering advice to perplexed visitors, that I am resolved to inform you of a fact which may distress your maternal heart, complicate your domestick arrangements, disturb your apprehensive piety and not inconceivably lend to-morrow's goblet a very wry flavour. Madam, your daughter is in love."
The widow raised two anguished hands, but Mr. Ripple continued:
"When I say in love, madam, I say so because I am not so cynical of maiden humanity as to suppose that she would sit in vivacious discourse with a young gentleman for the space of one hour and a half measured by the frequent chimes of the publick clock unless she were in love."
"You cannot mean this," palpitated the unhappy mother. "Say you cannot mean it!"
"Madam, I am not used to devoting so much valuable time to the preparation of circumstantial falsehoods. Your daughter is in love."
"But she is so young," protested the widow. "Not more than fifteen or at the most seventeen."
"To you, madam, deaf to Love's alarms, for evermore protected against his showered darts, such precocious ardour must appear improbable, but I have proof of its existence."
"Malicious tongues! The world is so censorious. It would destroy the reputation of the mother by insinuations against the virtue of the child."
"Madam, pray allow me to narrate the unhappy but indisputable facts of the affair. You must know that it is a part of my duties—a pleasant part, if I may say so without undue want of reserve—to inspect Curtain Garden from time to time. You will recollect that this forenoon we enjoyed for two hours a glimpse of the sun. Having been kept indoors during the last two or three days, I determined to seize the balmy occasion and perform my rural duties. I observed that the spring bulbs were remarkably forward.I noticed with pleasant anticipation of summer saunters that the paths were in good order, the gravel free from weeds. From the main Promenade I turned into the Maze."
The widow started.
"The yew hedges were neatly trimmed and I noticed some very good examples of topiary; I may mention in particular the transformation of the old Noah into a peacock whose tail will doubtless gain a more vigorous plumage from the warm weather. I wandered along contemplating the various greens of the mosses that adorn the path and muffle the footsteps in a manner extremely suitable to the decorous quiet of the surroundings. During my saunters, I delight to rest my mind with the recitation of the Odes and Epodes of my poetick and pre-Christian namesake. I was embarked upon the apostrophe to Lyce:
"I had got so far, but egad! I could get no farther for the life of me. I repeated the last four lines, and in my attempts to catch the fugitive—Ah!" cried the Beau, "I have it!"
or to paraphrase with an extempore couplet,
"To continue, however—this elusive sentence made me lose my direction and I found myself removed from the centre of the Maze by an impenetrable hedge of yew. I was about to retrace my steps when I heard voices on the other side of the hedge. It was a duet, madam—man and maid, flute and bass viol, fife and drum, describe it how you will."
"Did you recognize the voices?"
"Madam, I did not."
"Then how—since you were not able to see over the tops of the hedges without——"
The Great little Man drew himself up.
"Madam," he said, "I regard the physical exertion of bobbing up and down as ungenteel."
"Then how do you——?"
"Because on retracing my steps I passed your maid in an attitude of vigilance and exactly one hour and a half later I saw Miss Courteen and the aforesaid maid leave the Garden; and vastly well she looked, madam."
Mrs. Courteen asked why Mr. Ripple did not interrupt them. "'Twould surely have frightened them out of love-making for ever."
"Madam, if I am a king, I hope I am also a gentleman."
"I will call the hussy and you shall reproach her, Mr. Ripple."
"Madam, that is precisely what I am anxious to avoid. On former occasions my interference has proved futile and I cannot allow my counsel to be exposed to contempt. In confidence let me tell you that the last three elopements which I tried to stop were all successfully carried through, and I hear that the parties have lived very happily together ever since. I have vowed not to accept again the responsibleness of a prophet. My glorious predecessor, Beau Melon, mentions several instances of his advice being neglected without any ill effects and notes that it is probably injudicious to interfere unless compelled by the prospect of a duel. Let me read you his comments. 'Elopements. Tell the father. D—— n Miss. She won't listen. Fool for your pains. Fifteen times bitten—shy for evermore. Bodies more important than souls in Curtain Wells.' An ill-constructed sentence, madam, but nevertheless full of truth."
"Then what do you advise me to do?"
"Madam, I should recommend you to pay less attention to your own heart, and give the most of your care to your daughter's."
The widow rose in a state of extreme agitation and rustled about the room to the hazard of all ware under a certain stability. Such a reproach from Mr. Ripple was more than she could bear politely.
However, presently she caught her placket in the wanton arm of a chair and after a short struggle capitulated to stillness.
She began the catalogue of her natural virtues. "I vow the child has been reared on the Church Catechism, she was for ever learning collects, texts, parables, miracles, question and answer, sermons, homilies, and aspirations. If I had been allowed my own way with her education, she would have led a life of Sundays; but the late Mr. Nicholas Courteen her father and my husband swore the child's intelligence was become like a Crusader's tomb, scrabbled over with pious nonsense ill-digested and ill-writ. Have I not warned her a hundred times that gentlemen do not love the gawky charms of a hoyden? Have I not repeated to her the history of half a score seductions? Am I to blame? Don't I keep a maid to look after her? What else has that hussy to do? I ask you, Mr. Ripple, what else?"
"Upon my soul, ma'am, I don't very well know," murmured Mr. Ripple.
"Nothing, sir, nothing, save to dress and undress me twice a day, give an eye to my gowns and arrange my toilet table. Apparently they think that I should—" The widow broke off to ring violently for Betty in order to reproach her with a careless supervision of Phyllida.
Mr. Ripple seized the opportunity to make his farewells. He swore to himself that nothing should induce him to remonstrate again with a careless mother. He would say a friendly word to the child herself.
The widow thanked the Beau for his advice and promised to be mighty severe with Phyllida.
"Not if you will be warned by me, madam. No, no, I beg you will not think it was to urge severity that I made you this visit. No, no, it was merely to suggest prudence. Your humble servant, madam."
"Your very devoted, sir."
The widow curtsied the Beau out of the room, and, having heard the front door closed, she watched in prim disgust for the entrance of Betty.
That young woman presently came into the room.
"Well, vixen!" said the widow.
"La! ma'am, what is it?"
"Well, gypsy!"
"Not a drop in my family, ma'am, and that's more than some of the cottage-folk near by can say."
"Well, little Impropriety, what excuse have you to hand?"
Betty asked what Impropriety meant.
"Would it be stealing you mean, ma'am?"
"Well, Madam Indecency!"
Betty suddenly saw the widow's amber petticoat gleaming through the unfastened placket.
"Dear love and barley breaks! However did I come to leave that undone! Never mind, ma'am. 'Tis not as if he'd caught a sight of your smock, though for my part I should not be afraid to show clean linen to any man, Bow or whatsoever."
"'Tis not to talk of plackets that I called you, hussy, but of packets—love-packets, notes, letters, assignations."
Betty began to understand. She remembered how they had met Mr. Ripple that morning in Curtain Garden, and at once connected the two incidents.
"'Twould be about this very forenoon that you are talking, ma'am?"
The widow was surprized. She had expected an impregnable barrier of mock stupidity.
"It would," she answered severely.
"Well, there now! And if I didn't say as ’twas very wrong, but indeed, he was so genteel and made such very grand bows that I didn't think as 'twould be kind to refuse him."
"Refuse him what?"
"Why, direction, ma'am, for the handsome poor soul was lost in the Maze. He was just twirling around fromNorth to South like the weathercock on the old Parish Church at home."
"Does it take an hour and a half to direct a man out of a shrubbery?"
"No, indeed, ma'am, but hearing we was from Hampshire, he fell a-talking and said as when he was last there he was staying with my Lord Senna at Camomile Hall, and was bosom friend of Mr. the Honourable John Squills."
The widow grew interested. The latter had once attended a hunting breakfast at Courteen Grange.
"And what was the loquacious gentleman's name?"
"Ah there! indeed, ’twas wrong of me, but if I didn't go and forget to axe him!"
"Idiot!" said Mrs. Courteen, "and where does he lodge?"
"He intends to post to Bristol Well to-night."
"Is this true?"
"La, dearest ma'am, how does I know. But he spoke as though ’twas."
"You are a pair of simpletons. Lud! you might have been ravished and no one the wiser. I doubt you both deserve a whipping."
Mrs. Courteen dismissed the subject and turned to survey the ravages of emotion on her own face. Betty retired to warn her young mistress.
The widow was considerably vexed. Vain woman as she was, she was not too dull to perceive that the Beau's complaint of her daughter levelled an indirect reproof at herself. The late Squire Courteen, a-man of plethorick habit and a good seat, had broken his neck over a five-barred gate more than seven years ago. Some said his recklessness was too deliberate. Certainly the week before, young Mr. Standish had left the neighbourhood in a great hurry. Moreover when the Will was read it appeared that a codicil had been added the day before the Squire died by which his lady had forfeited every halfpenny of his money if she married before her daughter and by an ingenious stroke did the same if she failed to find a husband during the ensuing six months.Farther, a provision was inserted that this husband must be ten years younger than herself. It was all very much complicated and extremely malicious.
Mrs. Courteen fanned herself reflectively. She was perfectly happy in the ridiculous attentions and elderly gallantries of Major Tarry and Justice Moon. At twenty-nine she had still possessed enough florid beauty to excuse her ill-spelled love-letters. Moreover, she had a husband and was safe sport for young gentlemen who lost the hounds somewhat early in the day. When she was widowed, most of her attraction vanished. She grew fat and had to content herself with middle-aged suitors for whom she became a placid ideal on the dull journey of their lives. Mrs. Courteen continued to fan herself.
That absurd codicil drifted across her thoughts. If Phyllida married she was condemned to poverty or a young husband. Yet, after all, Moon or Tarry had enough—not much, but enough; but then both firmly believed in the annuity. The bitterness of her husband's dying jest stung her for the first time. What a fool she would be made to seem! Certainly Phyllida must not be allowed a wedding; that was the solution.
How fatiguing solutions were, to be sure! She felt quite vapoured. At any rate she would look after her for the future. If she had a gallant he should be discovered. If Betty's tale were true, why, prevention was better than cure.
"Alas!" sighed the widow. "I shall play indifferent well and yet—no matter. Perhaps I shall hold Spadille every hand of the game." Wafted by this pleasant hope, the widow sailed upstairs to assume the scarlet and black gown and the spade-patch which she wore to propitiate the cards; also to embellish her fingers with rings; also to trim her nails to a perfect curve and polish to whiteness the peering moon at their base. To such cardboard emotions was this lady come whose husband broke his neck out hunting.
ON the following morning after breakfast Mrs. Courteen produced a strip of faded rose ribband.
"Try to match this, child," she said to Phyllida.
"But mamma, 'tis not possible. The silk is old," expostulated the daughter who was dressed and ready to take the air.
"Nothing is impossible, child," generalised the widow. "Do your best—all that is required of human beings. You may take Thomas with you."
"But mamma, I don't want Thomas. I would rather take Betty."
"People can't always take what they desire in this world, and a very good thing too," remarked Mrs. Courteen, "for the world would be a wickeder place if they could. Betty must stay and help me."
The widow was determined to begin the supervision of her daughter recommended by Mr. Ripple. It was the old story of Sisyphus and the Stones, of Tregeagle and the Thimble; as mischievous spirits are kept occupied in Tartarus, and condemned for ever to the performance of the impossible, so was Phyllida to be kept from the temptations of idleness, in order to save, if not her soul, at any rate her reputation.
The widow apprehended that obedience would be more easily secured by guile than the direct imposition of a command.
Miss Phyllida Courteen went out that morning with a sullen little frown above her charming little nose, and walked so fast that Thomas was hard put to keep his proper distancebehind her as he continued to mutter, 'How long, O Lord?' with many a dolorous wheeze and mortified grunt.
In and out of a dozen haberdashers they went. All the young women behind the counters were very polite and amazingly hopeful, but when they came to pull out the long drawers filled with ribbands of every size and colour, they could only produce the gayest pinks, the most brilliant shades of rose, and though they continued to be very cheerful and persuaded themselves and their rather petulant customer that the match was as near as could be expected, they were quite unsuccessful, and the ribbands were put back in the drawers to await a less exacting purchaser.
Finally Phyllida, turning out of the tenth shop, heard St. Simon's clock strike eleven. It was a moderately fine morning, and she knew her beau was at that moment turning into Curtain Garden. She stamped her foot with vexation and disappointment.
"Oh Thomas, Thomas! was ever such a mad errand before?" complained his mistress.
"Velvet! Vanity! and a-whoring after strange silks," groaned Thomas.
"Thomas," said Miss Courteen in her most engaging voice, "you would do anything for me?"
"With God's help," agreed the footman.
"And you'd do a great deal for a shilling-piece?"
"To spite Beelzebub," said Thomas.
"Then, Thomas, step down to the Western Colonnade, make my compliments to Miss Sukey Morton, say I hope she is better of her cold, and will she give Miss Phyllida Courteen the pleasure of her company to Mrs. Pinkle's Conversazione. But perhaps you'll forget that long message?"
Thomas replied in accents of unctuous solemnity:
"Better of her cold and quite recovered."
"Yes, but there's more."
"Waste not, want not," he answered severely.
"Oh Lud! I suppose I were wise to write it down," with which Miss Courteen tried the eleventh haberdasher.The pinks were just as light, the carmines as crude and fresh as ever.
But at the opposite counter it was possible to buy the most agreeable paper; so Miss Courteen bought a quire, and also a box of wafers marked with a laurel-wreathed C. Then she borrowed old Mrs. Rambone's crow-quill pen with which the accounts were made up every evening in the little back parlour, and Miss Lettice Rambone politely cleared a corner of the counter and brought out a standish, while Phyllida put her swansdown muff on the chair because, though it was high enough to pull about haberdashery, it wasn't high enough for writing letters. After much arrangement, she wrote: