EVELINA IN CONTINUATION Saturday Morning, April 16.
MADAM DUVAL was accompanied by Monsieur Du Bois. I am surprised that
she should choose to introduce him where he is so unwelcome: and,
indeed, it is strange that they should be so constantly together,
though I believe I should have taken notice of it, but that Captain
Mirvan is perpetually rallying me upon my grandmama's beau.
They were both received by Mrs. Mirvan with her usual good-breeding;
but the Captain, most provokingly, attacked her immediately, saying,
"Now, Madame, you that have lived abroad, please to tell me this here:
Which did you like best, the warm room at Ranelagh, or the cold bath
you went into afterwards? though I assure you, you look so well,
that I should advise you to take another dip."
"Ma foi, Sir," cried she, "nobody asked for your advice, so you may
as well keep it to yourself: besides, it's no such great joke to be
splashed, and to catch cold, and spoil all one's things, whatever
you may think of it."
"Splashed, quoth-a!-why I thought you were soused all over.-Come,
come, don't mince the matter, never spoil a good story; you know you
hadn't a dry thread about you-'Fore George, I shall never think on't
without hollooing! such a poor forlorn draggle-tailed-gentlewoman! and
poor Monseer French, here, like a drowned rat, by your side!-"
"Well, the worse pickle we was in, so much the worser in you not to
help us; for you knowed where we were fast enough, because, while I
laid in the mud, I'm pretty sure I heard you snigger: so it's like
enough you jostled us down yourself; for Monsieur Du Bois says, that
he is sure he had a great jolt given him, or he shouldn't have fell."
The Captain laughed so immoderately, that he really gave me also a
suspicion that he was not entirely innocent of the charge: however,
he disclaimed it very peremptorily.
"Why then," continued she, "if you didn't do that, why didn't you
come to help us?"
"Who, I?-what, do you suppose I had forgot I was an Englishman,
a filthy, beastly Englishman?"
"Very well, Sir, very well; but I was a fool to expect any better,
for it's all of a piece with the rest; you know, you wanted to fling
me out of the coach-window, the very first time ever I see you:
but I'll never go to Ranelagh with you no more, that I'm resolved;
for I dare say, if the horses had runn'd over me, as I laid in that
nastiness, you'd never have stirred a step to save me."
"Lord, no, to be sure, Ma'am, not for the world! I know your opinion
of our nation too well, to affront you by supposing a Frenchman would
want my assistance to protect you. Did you think that Monseer here,
and I had changed characters, and that he should pop you into the mud,
and I help you out of it? Ha, ha, ha!"
"O very well, Sir, laugh on, it's like your manners; however, if
poor Monsieur Du Bois hadn't met with that unlucky accident himself
I shouldn't have wanted nobody's help."
"O, I promise you, Madame, you'd never have had mine; I knew my
distance better: and as to your being a little ducked, or so, why,
to be sure, Monseer and you settled that between yourselves; so it
was no business of mine."
"What, then, I suppose you want to make me believe as Monsieur Du
Bois served me that trick o'purpose?"
"O' purpose! ay, certainly; whoever doubted that? Do you think a
Frenchman ever made a blunder? If he had been some clumsy-footed
English fellow, indeed, it might have been accidental: but what
the devil signifies all your hopping and capering with your
dancing-masters, if you can't balance yourselves upright?"
In the midst of this dialogue, Sir Clement Willoughby made his
appearance. He affects to enter the house with the freedom of an old
acquaintance; and this very easiness, which, to me, is astonishing,
is what most particularly recommends him to the Captain. Indeed,
he seems very successfully to study all the humours of that gentleman.
After having heartily welcomed him, "You are just come in time, my
boy," said he, "to settle a little matter of a dispute between this
here gentlewoman and I; do you know she has been trying to persuade
me, that she did not above half like the ducking Monseer gave her
t'other night."
"I should have hoped," said Sir Clement, with the utmost gravity, "that
the friendship subsisting between that lady and gentleman would have
guarded them against any actions professed disagreeable to each other:
but, probably, they might not have discussed the matter previously;
in which case the gentleman, I must own, seems to have been guilty of
inattention, since, in my humble opinion, it was his business first
to have inquired whether the lady preferred soft or hard ground,
before he dropt her."
"O very fine, gentlemen, very fine," cried Madame Duval, "you may try
to set us together by the ears as much as you will; but I'm not such
an ignorant person as to be made a fool of so easily; so you needn't
talk no more about it, for I sees into your designs."
Monsieur Du Bois, who was just able to discover the subject upon
which the conversation turned, made his defence, in French, with
great solemnity: he hoped, he said, that the company would at least
acknowledge he did not come from a nation of brutes; and consequently,
that to wilfully offend any lady, was, to him, utterly impossible;
but that, on the contrary, in endeavouring, as was his duty, to save
and guard her, he had himself suffered, in a manner which he would
forbear to relate, but which, he greatly apprehended, he should feel
the ill effects of for many months: and then, with a countenance
exceedingly lengthened, he added, that he hoped it would not be
attributed to him as national prejudice, when he owned that he must,
to the best of his memory, aver, that his unfortunate fall was owing
to a sudden but violent push, which, he was shocked to say, some
malevolent person, with a design to his injury, must certainly have
given him; but whether with a view to mortify him, by making him let
the lady fall, or whether merely to spoil his clothes, he could not
pretend to determine.
This disputation was, at last, concluded by Mrs. Mirvan's proposing
that we should all go to Cox's Museum. Nobody objected, and carriages
were immediately ordered.
In our way down stairs, Madame Duval, in a very passionate manner,
said, "Ma foi, if I wouldn't give fifty guineas only to know who gave
us that shove!"
This Museum is very astonishing, and very superb; yet if afforded me
but little pleasure, for it is a mere show, though a wonderful one.
Sir Clement Willoughby, in our walk round the room, asked me what my
opinion was of this brilliant spectacle!
"It is a very fine, and very ingenious," answered I; "and yet-I don't
know how it is-but I seem to miss something."
"Excellently answered!" cried he; "you have exactly defined my own
feelings, though in a manner I should never have arrived at. But
I was certain your taste was too well formed, to be pleased at the
expense of your understanding."
"Pardi," cried Madame Duval, "I hope you two is difficult enough! I'm
sure if you don't like this you like nothing; for it's the grandest,
prettiest, finest sight that ever I see in England."
"What," cried the Captain with a sneer, "I suppose this may be in
your French taste? it's like enough, for it's all kickshaw work. But
pr'ythee, friend," turning to the person who explained the devices,
"will you tell me the use of all this? for I'm not enough of a conjuror
to find it out."
"Use, indeed!" repeated Madame Duval, disdainfully; "Lord if every
thing's to be useful!-"
"Why, Sir, as to that, Sir," said our conductor, "the ingenuity of
the mechanism-the beauty of the workmanship-the-undoubtedly, Sir, any
person of taste may easily discern the utility of such extraordinary
performances."
"Why then, Sir," answered the Captain, "your person of taste must
be either a coxcomb, or a Frenchman; though, for the matter of that,
'tis the same thing."
Just then our attention was attracted by a pine-apple; which, suddenly
opening, discovered a nest of birds, which immediately began to
sing. "Well," cried Madame Duval, "this is prettier than all the rest!
I declare, in all my travels, I never see nothing eleganter."
"Hark ye, friend," said the Captain, "hast never another pine-apple?"
"Sir?-"
"Because, if thou hast, pr'ythee give it us without the birds;
for, d'ye see, I'm no Frenchman, and should relish something more
substantial."
This entertainment concluded with a concert of mechanical music: I
cannot explain how it was produced, but the effect was pleasing. Madame
Duval was in ecstasies; and the Captain flung himself into so many
ridiculous distortions, by way of mimicking her, that he engaged the
attention of all the company; and, in the midst of the performance of
the Coronation Anthem, while Madame Duval was affecting to beat time,
and uttering many expressions of delight, he called suddenly for salts,
which a lady, apprehending some distress, politely handed to him,
and which, instantly applying to the nostrils of poor Madame Duval,
she involuntarily snuffed up such a quantity, that the pain and
surprise made her scream aloud. When she recovered, she reproached
him with her usual vehemence; but he protested he had taken that
measure out of pure friendship, as he concluded, from her raptures,
that she was going into hysterics. This excuse by no means appeased
her, and they had a violent quarrel; but the only effect her anger
had on the Captain, was to increase his diversion. Indeed, he laughs
and talks so terribly loud in public, that he frequently makes us
ashamed of belonging to him.
Madame Duval, notwithstanding her wrath, made no scruple of returning
to dine in Queen Ann Street. Mrs. Mirvan had secured places for the
play at Drury-Lane Theatre, and, though ever uneasy in her company, she
very politely invited Madame Duval to be of our party; however, she had
a bad cold and chose to nurse it. I was sorry for her indisposition;
but I knew not how to be sorry she did not accompany us, for she is-I
must not say what, but very unlike other people.