When gay postillions cracked their whips,
And gallants gemmed their chat with quips;
When patches nestled o’er sweet lips
At choc’late times; and, ’twixt the sips,
Fair Ladies gave their gossips tips;
Then, in Levantine gown and brooch,
My Lady Peggy took the coach,
For London Town!
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[Illustration: MY LADY PEGGY GOES TO TOWN]
_In the which My Lady Peggy sends off her
lover broken-hearted and promptly
falls into a swoon._
Kennaston Castle lies in Surrey. The Earl of Exham is master of the
picturesque old pile and of the estate, and decidedly the slave of the
very considerable number of debts which were up to His Lordship’s ears
when he came of age, some four and fifty years ago, and by this time
have reached almost to the crown of his head. He is also father to his
son and heir, Kennaston of Kennaston, and to the heir’s tall twin, My
Lady Peggy.
My Lady Peggy at this particular moment sits a-swinging on the top
branch of a plum tree at the foot of the kitchen garden whence she
commands a tolerable view of the highway.
“Impertinent sun!” cries Peggy, shading her handsome eyes with her hand
as she stares off along the dusty road. “How is’t you dare shine when
there’s no fine gentleman a-comin’ from the east; no gallant with
disheveled locks, powdered shoulders, disordered mien, distracted looks,
spurs a-digging into his beast, lips apart, heart beating like spent
rabbit’s, and ‘Peggy, lovely Peggy,’ the clapper to his eager tongue at
every jolt of his saddle, every rut of his way? Go cloud yourself, I
say! since Sir Percy tarries. I’d have the skies weep, even if I can’t.”
A peal of merriest laughter concludes this sally, and an apronful of
plums comes tumbling down all over the other young woman who stands
under the tree in waiting on her mistress.
“Is His Lordship not yet in sight, My Lady?” asks this one.
“Nay! that is not he, Chockey, and whisk me! but when His Lordship does
come, he’ll find a very sorry entertainment. I swear, as dad says, I’ll
not see him when he does appear, that will not I. Nay, shake not your
head, girl. Is’t not true that Lady Peggy had once a lover?”
“’Twere truer say a dozen of that sort of gentry, Madam,” replies the
buxom Chockey, as she sorts the plums, the best in her bonnet, the flaws
over the wall where the chickens and hens cackle to the refuse.
“Well, well, twenty if you like! but one more favored than the rest? the
properest sort of man at saddle, gun, line, wrestle, toast, song, or
dance? honest, straightforward, beautiful, as dad says the angels are he
saw painted on the walls at Rome. Speak I truth, eh, Chockey?”
“Madam, that you do.”
“And this paragon so worshiped his Peggy as, when she went off a-three
months since to visit her godmother in Kent, he vowed by all the saints
in the calendar he’d scarce survive until her return. False or true, eh,
Chockey?”
My Lady Peggy punctuated this query by an accurate aim and hit, on the
top of her waiting woman’s head, with an especially large plum.
“True, Madam,” dodging the fruit, and still with an eye on the road.
“And then, back comes My Lady Peggy, cutting short her stay in Kent,
where she had much pleasure, to tell the truth, in the society of a very
fine young nobleman.”
“Lawk, Madam! another?” interrupted the faithful Chockey.
“Another, Chock,” vouchsafes her mistress. “Sweet, sweet Sir Robin
McTart!”
“Oh, My Lady!” cries the girl, vainly endeavoring to conceal a smile.
“Aye, Chock,” proceeds Peggy, “I say again, a sweet and most entrapping
young man.”
“Madam, a squint eye, a wry nose, an underlip that hangs, a pair of
fox-teeth, and a chin that’s gone a-huntin’ for his throat!”
“Tut, tut! Chock,” laughs Lady Peggy, leaning back in her leafy bower,
“what’s all that to a nimble wit, a galloping conversation, and a
faithful heart?” Lady Peggy’s tone is as light as the May breeze blowing
her soft locks about her lovely blooming face, full of mockery,
witchery,—and then a bit of a sigh, low as flowers’ whispers, and up
with her drooped head higher than before, as in the half mannish tone
her twinship and long play-fellowship with her brother have given her,
she adds curtly—
“D’ye see aught coming yet, Chock?”
“No, My Lady, not yet,” answers the girl ruefully.
Peggy bites her lips until they hurt.
“As I was a-sayin’, Chock, your mistress cuts short her visit, sends
word to her lover she’ll be home o’-Thursday, and, as I live! to-day’s
the Monday after, and him still on the way! See him!” Peggy’s white
teeth close tight, and her eyes flash, and her little hands clench. “Not
I! Let him come now an’ he goes again faster than he ever traveled. The
vain coxcomb! the deceitful, cozening, graceless poppet! He’ll ne’er set
eyes on her he used to call his Peg again, or I die for’t.” And Peggy
jumped to the ground.
“Madam! Madam!” exclaims Chockey, pointing joyfully to a cloud of dust
far up the highway. “Look! Yonder comes Sir Percy! Don’t I know? Ain’t I
watched his long roan any day this twelve month a-turnin’ by the lodge?”
Lady Peggy seizes Chockey’s arm, and runs breathless to the house; in,
a-scrambling up the broad stairs to her chamber; a-pulling out of
drawers from their chests; a-hunting of ribbons and fallals, combs,
brushes, kerchiefs, perfumes, patches, powder, whatever else besides!
“Hurry, Chock, do my hair as he likes it!” urges Lady Peggy.
“Lawk, Madam! I thought you swore just now you’d never set eyes on Sir
Percy again?”
“You thought! Bless you, Chock, never be a-wastin’ your time a-thinking
where a woman’s concerned. When her heart steps up and lays hold the
reins, the steed gallops to the goal; she’s always time to think after
she’s acted.”
“Yes, Madam,” concurs Chockey, with a mental reservation back of her
mouthful of pins. “There, My Lady, Your Ladyship’s hair is lovely; your
Levantine gown becomes you like a pheasant do its plumage, and your eyes
is a-shinin’ with love and—”
“Tut, girl! It’s anger, wrath, temper,—so!” Peggy marches up and down
before the mirror, tossing her lovely head. “Thus attired, Chock, a lady
can flout, deride, harass, and madden one of the opposite sex, as can
she not do in cotton frock and fruit-stained apron. Give me my comfit
box, I pray. Tell me how long Sir Percy now hath been cooling his heels
in the drawing-room?”
“But little lacking the hour, Madam.”
“Good! I’d keep him there until Thursday, an I could. Now go tell him
I’ll be with him presently.”
Chockey went.
Lady Peggy stood at the door ajar; she heard the impatient footsteps of
her lover below, but yet she tarried, tapping her high red heel on the
sill.
“Lud!” cried she, “an I show no proper spirit, Percy’s uncle’ll have the
right of it when he says of one he’s never seen yet, ‘She’s a-hunting
your bank-notes, boy! She’s heiress to debts, Sir, and by my life, Sir!
I’ll never father-in-law her, so long as I’m above the sod, Sir!’
Despicable old wretch! as if ’twere not Percy I adored, without a care
if he have a farthing to his fortune, or a roof to his head!”
And then Chockey, her palm warm with a sovereign, came with a rush.
“My Lady!” cries she, “’f you could see Sir Percy! White as milk,
tremblin’, shakin’, chatterin’, a-begging and a-praying as you’ll
condescend to go to him inside of another hour!”
“White, said you Chock?”
The girl nods vehemently.
“Shaking?”
“Aye, Madam.”
“Like to faint, think you?”
“Like to die, My Lady!”
Then Lady Peggy, laughing, humming such a gay snatch of a song, comes
tripping down the stairs, pulling out her petticoats, stopping her
lover’s outstretched arms of eagerness with such a splendid curtsy as
any Court lady might have envied.
Still laughing.—“Lud! Sir Percy! is’t you?” amazed.
“Aye!” returns he, more amazed than she, and standing off with dropped
arms. “Whom did you think it was?”
“Another. My woman’s stupid, and when she described the gallant that she
did, it matched a different sort of him than you, methinks. However,
let’s be civil; the crops are good, the game likely to be, later; the
King in health,—prithee have a chair.” And Peggy swept a second curtsy,
motioning toward a seat.
“Peggy! Sweet lips! Joy of my soul, what’s it? Not one warm word for him
who only lives for thee? Who’s counted every hour since he parted from
you, eh?” The young man draws nearer to her, and bends upon his knee,
venturing, as he does so, to take her hand in his.
“Since you spent your time a-counting the hours, Sir, pray you, how many
hours have passed since in this same room we parted, now three months,
three weeks, and a few days since?”
Sir Percy sprang to his feet.
“Zounds! Peggy, and you flout me so?”
“Zounds! Sir Percy, did not I write you—and very well you know writing’s
not my forte,—that I’d be home o’-Thursday?”
“Aye, but I never got it until this morning; then did I put spurs and
leave my uncle in the lurch to fly to you.”
“What, Sir! not get my letter? An idle, silly, and foolish excuse. I
sent it by Bickers, and trustier man ne’er breathed. He vowed me he’d
put it in your hands.”
“Peggy, believe whichever of the two you like; but, in mercy tell me!
What kept you so long away? I’ve heard rumors of another. Eh, Peg, ’tis
not true, swear me ’tis not true? Oh, by the hue of my visage must you
know what jealous pangs have racked me!”
Lady Peggy nods her head maliciously.
“Jealous pangs, forsooth! and you thought to medicine them, I dare be
sworn, with vaulting the country over in the wake of Lady Diana Weston,
the greatest heiress in the market! Bah, Sir, and you’ve heard rumors!
I’ll match ’em. I’ve seen the minx from afar. She is handsome, Sir; your
taste does you credit.”
“Peg, I swear ’twas but to please my uncle!” cries Sir Percy.
“Aye, and so displease me!”
“Nay, you know too well that I’ll never do that of my will; but my
uncle, as I’ve told you, must be coaxed, and then when once I gain his
consent to seeing you, our battle’s won. To see thee, Peg ’s to worship
thee! Lord Gower’ll kneel when he beholds thee!”
“Our me no ours, Sir!” returned Peggy. “Let’s here and now make an end
on’t all. You go pound the roads after your new mistress with her acres
and notes, and I—”
“Well, you what?” asks the young man impetuously and yet with a certain
grave dignity.
“Oh, I’ll acquit myself to a certainty with one that’s faithful as the
sun, and gallant from his head to his heels.”
“What’s his name?” inquires Sir Percy in a hard, strained voice. “If
he’s a better man, Peg, and you can say you love him—God keep me!”
“His name’s a very honorable and ancient one, he’s Sir Robin McTart,
twenty-third Baronet!”
“Peggy!”
If a thunderbolt had fallen betwixt Peggy’s red shoes and his brown
ones, Percy could not have been more astounded.
“Well, Sir?” returns she, scarce controlling the twitching of her lips.
“A milk-sop, molly-coddle! Oh Peggy, an you drop me, take a better man!
Peg, you’re a-joking. Not that bumpkin! I’ve never seen him, but report
has it he’s afeard if one of his own dogs looks him in the eye and
bays!”
“Sir Percy, have you finished?” inquires Peggy with dignity.
“No, have I not! By my soul, Peg, an you pitch me to hell for that
jackanapes, I’ll go to hell as fast as wine and dice, and cards and
brawls, and usurers, and all that sort of crew can carry me! I’ll up to
London, and one morning when your brother sends you word he’s found me
with a rapier stuck in my throat, my pockets empty, and ‘Peggy’ writ on
the scrap o’ paper a-lying over my heart, then you’ll believe Percy
loved you!”
“Lud, Sir! Men are apt at such chatter, and a fortnight after, the
vicar’s a-publishing their banns with the other lady!”
“Peg!” He takes her kerchief end, as it droops away from her pretty long
throat, in his fingers; he looks down deep into her eyes; his voice
shakes, so does his hand.
“Whatever betides, my bonny sweetheart, there’s only one that’ll ever
have banns read with me, and that’s—” He takes her by surprise and by
the shoulders, and squares her to the mirror in its niche.
“Farewell, Peg—since you send me, it’s the devil and dice, for by the
Lord! I can’t live a quiet life lacking your smiles.”
In two minutes more Chockey, from the upper window, saw the long roan
flying away from Kennaston faster than she ever galloped to it; and went
down to find her young mistress a-lying prone in a fine wrinkled heap of
silken gown, lace frills and furbelows, on the threadbare carpet of the
big drawing-room.
To rush across the wide hall to the dining-room, seize a game-knife,
back again; cut her mistress’s stays; pour a glass of cider down Lady
Peggy’s throat, willy-nilly; clap her palms; pound her back; set her on
her feet; and half carry her to her chamber, occupied not many minutes
for stout Chockey.
“Lawk, My Lady,” said she, surveying the prostrate form on the couch,
arms a-kimbo, eyes saucer-wide, “who’d ever have thought to see your
haughty Ladyship so mauled for the sake of any gentleman as lives!”
Lady Peggy lay still, but presently, from the depths of the pillows she
spoke.
“I ain’t mauled, Chock, not I!” Her Ladyship now sat up and stared
around the big room. “It’s only for sorrow for havin’ had to disappoint
Sir Percy, on account of dear Sir Robin.”
“Oh!” ejaculates the worthy Chockey in a tone of undisguised and
sarcastic disbelief.
“Chockey!” exclaimed her mistress in the tone of a drill sergeant, now
rising to her feet.
“Lawk! My Lady, I didn’t mean nothin’.”
“Chockey,” echoes Lady Peggy faintly, sinking to her knees, “whatever’ll
I do? Oh Chock! Chock! and Sir Percy just the centre of my heart, and me
to behave to him like a brute! Out of my sight, away with you! There’s
the first bell a-ringin’ for dinner. Say to daddy I’m too deep in my
hand-writin’ lessons to eat to-day! Say to him I’m gone out to break the
new colt and not got back. Say to him I’m gone to the devil!”
And Lady Peggy fell a-weeping with such violence as Chockey had never
seen; and, being a wise damsel, she left her mistress alone and went
down to soothe the gouty Earl, tied to his chair, as best she could for
the absence of his daughter Peg from dinner.
[Illustration]
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[Illustration]