you know. Not that it isn't great fun, too. You will carry the
audience. You really ought not to: it is a sort of abduction! (_They
stroll out through the Horse Guards, and towards Parliament Square._)
MRS. WETHERELL
I thought you might say something about Chelsea Hospital. It is a
good thing, I am sure; and Charles the Second was the founder.
WETHERELL
No, Nell Gwynne: she put him up to it. I am told the old war-dogs
over there will eat you, Lord love 'em, if you say a word against
either of these.
MRS. WETHERELL
What was she like?
CLAY
Oh, wild honey. Just such a one as Mr. Du Maurier's Trilby.
WETHERELL
Quite true, quite true! (_They laugh._) A capital comparison: thank
you for it. And comparisons, being odorous, remind me of my dinner.
Rhoda very much wishes you to come home with us.
MRS. WETHERELL
Please do, Mr. Clay, and quite as you are. No one but ourselves and
my nice New York cousins, whom we are going to meet. We shall dine
early, so that you may have time afterwards, before your lecture.
WETHERELL
To repent.
CLAY
Aye, quicksilver creature! to re-dress. There! Mrs. Wetherell, have I
not understood you and avenged you, too?
MRS. WETHERELL
Indeed, you always do. Will you come?
CLAY
Many thanks to you; I should like nothing better. Will you mind if
we go directly into the Abbey? It is early yet for your appointment;
but I should delight in showing you the effigy. I'll wager a full
farthing Percy never saw it.
MRS. WETHERELL
The effigy?
CLAY
Yes; King Charles the Second's.
WETHERELL
Heigho! it would seem that we have not buried the biographee, after
all. But I am sceptical. I remember no effigy. Unfold.
CLAY
Here we are at the porch. Just follow me.... (_They go quietly in
file through the north transept and ambulatory, and up the great
steps of Henry the Seventh's Chapel._) There: to the right; inside,
east end. How dark it is!
MRS. WETHERELL
Aren't you coming?
CLAY
No; if you will excuse me. Conceive of me as sentimental; I hate to
step over that slab, or go by it, somehow.
WETHERELL
(_Farther up._) Not a soul here, to adore this surpassing tomb of
Lady Richmond. There's art for you! But no effigy of yours visible.
Your infallibility waneth. _Animus vester ego, Argilla mea!_ the
which is choice Schoolboy for--Mind your eye, O Clay.
CLAY
Of course there's none now.
WETHERELL
Avaunt, then, deceiving monster!
CLAY
But it used to stand, with Anne, William and Mary, and with Monk
behind it, there on the site of the old altar-stone; his name is cut
over the vault. That is where Dr. Johnson visited it often.
WETHERELL
I had forgotten. What were you saying about stepping over the slab?
CLAY
Not that slab. I meant the other, where Mrs. Wetherell is standing.
The tragic names are all together there: Mary Queen of Scots,
Rupert, and the lovely and dear Queen of Bohemia, and young Henry of
Gloucester, and poor Arabella Stuart, and--
MRS. WETHERELL
(_Slowly reading_)--ten infant children of King James the Second, and
eighteen infant children of Queen--
WETHERELL
Tee-hee!
MRS. WETHERELL
Percy!
CLAY
Sure enough, it does sound ticklish! But hush, Wetherell: people will
hear. (_They descend._) That verger in the dim amber light, standing
in the dear little doorway of S. John's, will let us see the cases
in the chantry. You have to show the Dean's pass. Wait a moment:
I must get mine. (_He draws a card from his pocket and approaches
the verger, who immediately leads the way to the stair of the Islip
Chapel._)
MRS. WETHERELL
(_First on the stair, five minutes after._) Ghastly things! Truly,
aren't they perfectly appalling?
THE VERGER
Oh, it's wax, you know, _isn't_ it? We think them uncommonly
precious. So ancient, ma'am. Carried at their own funerals, and
dressed in their own clothes. King Charles the Second, this is: he's
the oldest genuine one of those we show.
MRS. WETHERELL
Can it be possible that this lace all black with age, this beautiful
lace--? Yes, it is point! (_Hangs enraptured._)
WETHERELL
The head is surprisingly fine, for anything of the half-spook
half-dolly order. You say it was modelled on the death-mask?
CLAY
Yes; you have seen it in the Museum.
WETHERELL
I like it better than any of the portraits. It gives one a gentler
impression, somehow. Who are these? (_He and his wife move on to the
Duchess of Buckinghamshire and Queen Anne._)
CLAY
As for me, I shall stay with you, of course, my poor old
never-obsolete Most Sacred Majesty. What a pity you shirked your work
so!
"Qu'as-tu fait, ô toi que voilà,
De ta jeunesse?"
Ah, well! It is not beyond my right to say that to you, since I am
the only one alive who loves you.
TWO FEMALE VOICES BELOW
Cousin Rhoda! Rhoda! Percy! We saw you come up, from where the
Coronation Chair is; and the little door was left open. Oh, isn't
this splendid to find you? How DO you do?
THE VERGER
I beg your pardon, gentlemen; Evensong is just about to begin.
WETHERELL
Thank you; then we the heathen must go at once. Clay, let me present
you to---- See: he's in dreamland.
MRS. WETHERELL
I wonder if thoughts of dinner can rouse him.
WETHERELL
Not unless you can provide the suitably archaic wild boar, and the
flask of canary.
THE MISSES FRANEY
You both look so well! Dreadful, Percy, if you'll believe it. The
stewardess said there had not been such a passage for--
MRS. WETHERELL
Hurry, Cornelia. The service is beginning.
(_A strain from the organ wakes Clay. He follows them down, tiptoeing
past the filling pews, covering the oak-twig still in his hat._)
WETHERELL
(_In an undertone, on the threshold._) The air is good, again. Lo,
I perceive the genial 'bus yonder, also several nimble cabs. Come,
ladies fair; come, Clay. You shall eat posthumously in the nineteenth
century, and make us all drink the health of "the Blackbird"; as the
old song has it,
[Music: "With a fa la lá, la-la, la-la, la la lá, with a fa la lá,
la-la, lá, lá."]
(_Clay smiles, and they pass out into the Square._)
THIS BOOK WAS PRINTED BY
JOHN WILSON AND SON, AT
THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE,
MASSACHUSETTS, DURING
MAY, 1897
These essays have appeared, during the last ten years, in The
Contributor's Club of _The Atlantic Monthly_, _The Chap-Book_, _The
Independent_, _The Catholic World_, and _The Providence Journal_.
_An Open Letter to the Moon_, and _On Teaching One's Grandmother to
Suck Eggs_, are reprinted, by permission, from _Goose-Quill Papers_,
Roberts Brothers, Boston, 1885.
[Transcriber's Note: Obvious printer errors have been corrected
without note.]