_In which is set down how My Lady is whisked
off to a rout, willy-nilly, at the home
of her hated rival._
Mr. Brummell was a most shrewd and an altogether kindly personage as
well; he had easily, on alighting from his carriage and assisting Lady
Peggy to do the same, espied the disreputable looking parcel which the
supposed son of his dear old friend vainly tried to conceal; and the
Beau was not long of putting two and two together, and of concluding
that young Sir Robin had lost his all at play, and had even perhaps
pawned his wardrobe,—saving the ill-looking bundle—for the price of his
last few days’ food. Therefore it was, that, in the most obliging
manner, he not only installed Sir Robin in an elegant and spacious
apartment, but vowed he would at once send for both his tailor and
perruquier to wait upon him, and ended by assuring his guest that his
own man Tempers would be up presently to make the young gentleman’s
toilet for him.
“Your pardon, Sir, Mr. Brummell,” quoth Peggy, while her maiden heart
set off at such a race-horse flutter as it seemed must never quiet down.
“But, pray you, remember I am country-bred, unused to town ways, have
never had a man to wait upon me in my life” (the solemn truth!) “and
should never know how to comport myself in such altered conditions.”
The Beau shrugged his shoulders in the French fashion, lifted his
eyebrows, thought ’twas amazing strange that Sir Hector’s son should
have been so ill educated; said:
“Your pleasure, Sir, whilst under my roof, shall be mine; nor can I
misdoubt but that one who has had the genius to invent that tie is amply
able to array and perfume himself, even to the dressing of his own wig.”
“You flatter, Sir, I protest!” answered the guest. “I await with
impatience the moment when, in cleaner case, I may have the honor of
instructing you in the intricacies of the knot you are good enough to
admire.”
With any number of bows, the distinguished host closed the door, and My
Lady Peggy was left to herself.
For a moment she stood quite still, her heart yet a-clapping madly in
her bosom, her eyes wandering about the princely room in which she found
herself, and at last resting on the mirror wherein was reflected her own
slim figure, tricked out in Kennaston’s suit of gray velvets, and in the
yellow wig, which was indeed the counterpart of the real Sir Robin’s
pate. Her countenance?—sure none would recognize it since neither twin
nor quondam suitor had—was dark with the coffee-stains; her eyes were
ringed with sleeplessness and unaccustomed wine; her general aspect that
of a young gentleman very much the worse for whatever his most recent
experiences might have been.
Peg laughed, then she cried, then ran to the door and fastened it
securely; then untied her bundle when out fell night-rail, green hood
and kerchief, powder, patch-box, lavender, musk, pins, needles, red
silken hose, Levantine gown, and veil of Brussels lace. She shook the
skirt out of its wrinkles, laid off her wig and ’broidered waist-coat;
unpinned her long plaited hair from its coil, and was stoutly making up
her mind to brave all, get into her petticoats, and confess everything
to Mr. Brummell. But, as she was about to wash the dark stains from her
face, comes there a “rap-a-tap” at the door, and Peg, dropping the ewer,
calls out fiercely:
“Who’s there?”
“An it please you, Sir Robin, Mr. Brummell bids me say to you that Mr.
Chalk, the tailor, a person of the best fashion, will have the honor of
waiting upon you for your measurements in a quarter of an hour, if
you’ll be pleased to see him then, or later?”
Peg hesitated; there was a battle fought within her those sixty seconds
wherein all that was noblest and best struggled and strove to know which
was the right thing to do; nor could she determine, save that, at second
thought of confiding her sex to Mr. Brummell, it appeared to her she
could not.
“I shall be ready to see Chalk, I thank you, in fifteen minutes, more or
less,” humming a tune with elaborate carelessness, rolling up the
Levantine, the hood, veil, and night-rail into a ball, and pitching them
into the chest of drawers; disposing the powder and perfumes and pins on
the dressing-table; throwing the needles and patches into the fire;
untying the kerchief and taking out soap, scissors, brushes.
“’Tis clear as water, I’m to be a man yet awhile,” whispered she.
“Heaven grant it may not be long! So!” seizing the scissors and shaking
out the locks. “Snip! clip, and away with you! that I was once vain of,
because a vile deceiver named Percy vowed he loved you!”
And off came Peg’s hair, the which for silly liking of she stuffed into
the drawer beside the Levantine and let fall a tear or two. Then snip,
clip again as she had often done for her twin; so that, in no time at
all, her head, with its short curly locks brushed back at this side and
that of her broad forehead, had all the aspect of a man’s.
“There,” cried she, sweeping the last litter of her black tresses into
the flames. “An I be a gentleman, I’ll be a gallant one. I sighed once
to taste the sweets of bein’ of t’other sex for only one-half an
hour.—Zounds! as daddy’d say, would that I’d never quit my frocks. What
hath it bettered me? To behold with mine own eyes the charms of her
who’s routed me from his heart; to hear him a-pledgin’ me just to please
my brother, and for the sake of spitin’ Sir Robin McTart; to get myself
into a position that makes me burstin’ with shame and feelin’ sure I can
never hold up my head again in this world. Me, that’s always loathed a
hoyden! and even have I the muscle of a lad, and can I stride a horse,
and jump any ditch was ever dug,—yet, yet,—oh! How did I ever bring
myself to put on _these_?” And My Lady Peggy slaps her breeches with a
whack, and promptly falls upon her knees a-praying for her father and
mother, and brother, and Sir Percy, and Chock, and Bickers.
“And, Oh God, high up in Heaven, forgive me for all my wilfulness and
jealousy and foolhardiness, and stealin’ my twin’s clothes; and deceit,
the which has got me into this foul station, wherein I have told naught
but lies—and I do despise lies,—they are most disgustin’ and utterly
wicked. Forgive me for all the horrible sins I’ve committed—”
Footsteps now resound in the corridor and the voice of Mr. Brummell’s
own man says blandly:
“This way, Mr. Chalk,” as he raps gently at the door.
“—And for all those I shall have to commit!” concludes Her Ladyship, as
she springs to her feet and unfastens the door, admitting the tailor _a
la mode_.
That night, the suit of grays well brushed, her wig re-curled, and her
pocket-napkin richly perfumed, her mother’s Brussels veil stripped up
and made into a cravat of so ravishing a device as caused her host
almost a spasm when he beheld it, Sir Robin McTart sat at honor-place at
dinner, and was, to make a long story short, the cynosure and toast of
the occasion.
The duel with Sir Percy, the rescue of My Lady Diana, the invention of a
cravat, the nimble wit, the handsome face, soon bespoke Peggy into a
favor, that, considering all other things, was well-nigh incredible; and
when, the following day; she appeared in one of the suits Mr. Chalk had
made, with a dash of powder on her wig and a bronzed complexion due to
surreptitious purchase at the players’ cosmetic shop in Drury Lane, of
sundry brown, red, and black pastes while making feint of being a
comedian, the satisfaction of her host was unbounded.
“Robin, my boy,” said this one, with a side-glance at his guest, “an
you’re a bit short of money, I’ll put a few hundreds to your account at
my banker’s. Young gentlemen will be wild and spendthrift at times;
London’s new to you I fancy, and—”
“I thank you, Mr. Brummell, from my heart,” returned Peg, “but I’ve
three hundred pounds now idle in my pocket. That will last me, I’m
confident, until I reach home, and, by your leave, I’m thinking I’ll
quit town this evening.”
But Mr. Brummell has no ears for any such scheme. The Beau’s erratic
fancy has not been caught by a new object for the mere sake of losing
it; his joy in the dash and buoyancy, the originality and naïvete of his
latest discovery is genuine, and no argument, of the very few Lady Peggy
can offer, but he breaks down at once.
“Zounds, Sir! Are you a fool, Sir? Your sire was not one before you. To
have half London a-talkin’ about you; all the prints a-chronicling your
movements; all the ladies a-dying for a glimpse of you, and you only up
in town these few days; and a-proposing to go back and bury your talents
for tying Brussels, in Kent! Fie upon you, Sir! I listen to no such
whims. Here’s my basket loaded with invitations for you already. Lady
Brookwood’s rout to-night!” with a sly glance at Peg’s really blushing
face; “Lady Diana Weston’s mother, as you are doubtless aware? The
Charity Bazaar at Selwyn’s to-morrow; dinner at Holland House;
Almacks’s, and my own little plan for next Thursday which is an outing
to my seat in Surrey a-horseback; dinner, bowls, a look over the
stables, and home by the light o’ the moon. ‘Back to Kent,’ forsooth!
No, Sir, not yet.”
A few hours later, as Lady Peggy got into her magnificent suit of
crimson satin, gold embroidered; as she beheld her image in the glass
and caught the hilt of her sword in her hand, the blood that surged over
her face and throat was ruby-red; and, at her wits’ ends for what to do,
the girl’s tears forced themselves to her eyes once again.
She was to be off soon to Lady Brookwood’s; here she should encounter
not only Lady Diana, but doubtless Percy himself; mayhap Kennaston, if
he had been able to get him a decent coat to wear in place of the gray
velvets! Doubtless, too, all those others she had met in Lark Lane.
For the hundredth time she cast wildly about in her mind as to how she
could, now at this present moment, rid herself of the hated disguise,
get into her Levantine, get home to her mother’s arms, hide her head
forever, and never, no never! look into face of man again!
But Peggy saw no road. Every path seemed barred, save those that would
forever damn her in the eyes of foes and friends alike.
“Oh,” cried she in desperation. “How easy ’tis to get into breeches, a
coat, a waist-coat, and a wig, but God ha’ mercy! will I ever be able to
get out of ’em?”
It is to be put down to the credit of My Lady Peggy’s up-bringing in the
country with most times only a lad for her playmate, that now she bore
herself with not only a fine ease and grace, but also with as splendid a
swagger and daring as any young macaroni that carried a sword.
“An I’m to be a man, I’ll be one!” cried she, “and if Lady Diana ogles,
lud! I’ll give as good as she sends. Little him as I love’ll know, ’tis
of his sometime Peggy he’ll be jealous!”
So it was with a prodigious fine flutter of her napkin and a mightily
impudent twirl of her eye-glass (purchased not two hours since), that
Her Ladyship made her bows and kissed the finger-tips of Lady
Brookwood’s handsome daughter.
“I am your most grateful, Sir Robin!” cried this one, “and more pleased
than I can express to welcome you. I only regret that Lord Brookwood is
at Brookwood Hall, and not here to thank you for rescuing his daughter.”
And so forth and on, with presentations to a dozen of fine ladies,
dowagers and damsels, and a precious lot of fine gentlemen; and it
seemed to Peggy, in her simplicity, as if the whole of Mayfair were
a-bowing and scraping and making her out a hero,—which indeed was not
far off the fact.
[Illustration: Two watched her as she came in...]
Two watched her as she came in on Beau Brummell’s arm. These were Sir
Percy and Kennaston; one green with anxiety for Grigson’s return from
his errand, jumping at every sound; having left word both at Lark Lane,
his coffee-house, as well as at home where he had gone, that Grigson
should report to him at once he arrived; the other green with envy of
Peggy and any other who neared his divinity, yet afraid and too
diffident to approach her closer than with the devouring gaze of his
eyes.
“That damned puppy again!” cries Percy, under his breath, as he surveys
Peg in her satins. “By Gad, Sir, every lady in the room’s turning spite
eyes on t’other, your incomparable Diana included, for fear he won’t
stop and pay her a compliment.”
“Ah,” sighs the young poet. “Percy, an you loved like me ’twould be
bliss to even gaze upon your fair. Think you I dare make bold now to
cross and make my bow?”
“Why not?” returns the other gloomily. “Forgive my humor, Kennaston.
Truth is, Sir, I’m mad, mad for Peg, and my ears are cracking and my
brain splitting until that rascal, Grigson, gets back with answer to my
letter. He’s been gone long enough to have made the journey four times
over!”
“Oh, Percy,” returns Peg’s twin. “I love you as a brother, an could I
but physic Your Lady into complaisance, I’d give my life for it. What
owe I not to you?” adds the young man with deep feeling. “You’ve fed me,
and zooks! Sir, to-night you’ve clothed me, for since the scurvy knaves
that frightened Lady Di stole my suit of grays and my sword and hat,
what had I left? Where would I be now, were’t not for you?”
“Tush, Ken, lad, I love you for yourself,—and ten thousand times more
for her sake. Ken, I love her so that as I told her, if Sir Robin were a
better man I’d cry off, an she said she loved him.”
“What said she?”
“Not that she loved him, but that she might,” he continues with sadness,
as his eyes follow Peg on her almost royal progress about the
drawing-rooms. “’Tis a proper fellow, enough, and I’d always heard he
was a fright and a coward.”
Kennaston presently took heart of grace and crossed to pay his duty to
Lady Diana, who, ’twas plain to be seen by every other than this bashful
swain, was by no means the indifferent to him she would feign play off.
Her color came and went as Kennaston, blushing to match his lady,
ventured to spout his ode to her; and, leaving the pair to gallop on
this pleasant path, Sir Percy at a distance unconsciously followed Lady
Peggy, at least with his gaze.
Peggy meantime, denying right and left the story of her prowess, with
quips and jests and ogles of the fair, still kept her eye on Percy. Not
yet had she seen him approach Lady Diana; yet hold! even now, catching
her own gaze fixed upon him, he turned and was presently bending over
the little beauty’s fingers.
A pang shot through Peg’s heart, and the tears were like to force their
way; she made an excuse and left the long drawing-room, taking refuge in
a small apartment where the tables were ready for cards. She sank into a
chair and buried her face in her hands. The candles were not yet lighted
and she was totally unobserved. Dashing the salt drops from her lashes
with her hand,—
“What am I!” she cried in her bitterness, “that I can not abide to even
see him a-bending over her hand! Ain’t you no spirit, Peg? No pride?
He’s not thinking of you, my dear; didn’t he say plain, if Sir Robin was
the better man he’d give up to him! What kind of a suitor’s that, Peg?
Lud! I’d not give up him to any one, whether they were my betters or
no!”
Could My Lady but have postponed her exit for a few brief moments she
would have beheld Sir Percy, at a word in his ear from a footman, quit
Lady Diana’s side with but the smallest ceremony, dash out into the
vestibule, seize with a vice-like grip the man who stood there pale and
trembling, and gasp out:
“At last! the letter, the letter?”
Grigson shook his head and got even whiter.
“No letter?” Percy says in a dazed way.
“Only your own, Sir Percy,” handing back the missive. “Her Ladyship was
from home, Sir.”
“Well, what of that! you infernal, damned rascal, did I not command you
seek her, if ’twere at the other end of the world!”
“Aye, Sir, and the quickest way of settin’ about findin’ Her Ladyship
was for me to get back to town, Sir, as fast as the cursed beast I was
cheated into hirin’, Sir, would fetch me.”
“Speak out, for God’s sake! Is Her Ladyship up in London?” asked Sir
Percy, actually shaking with impatience and astonishment.
Grigson nods and without more ado proceeds to give an exact if somewhat
rambling account of his entire experiences, from the moment he had
quitted his master until the present.
’Twere idle to attempt to describe Sir Percy’s state of mind. Up to now
there had ever lingered in his heart the hope, nay, one of those
unconscious beliefs men have, that in the end Peggy would be his. This
news that Grigson brought crushed every such thought from his brain, but
put in its place such a hatred of the young man now tasting the sweets
of hero-worship (in little), in the adjoining room, as caused his
fingers to itch for his steel and t’other’s flesh to meet once more, and
to the death.
He drew Grigson in from the vestibule and, unobserved in the crush, down
the corridor to the darkness of the card-room where Peggy still sat
disconsolate in her far-off corner.
She, for the moment, is even unconscious that any one has entered until
the voices arrest her attention.
“By Gad!” Sir Percy cries in a low tone, falling into a seat and
clapping his brow. “Up in London! The woman, vowing Sir Robin had
crossed your entrance, inquiring for Her Ladyship! Your meeting, not Sir
Robin, but an ill-conditioned little popinjay with squint eyes and of
the height of the dwarf that waits upon my Lady Brookwood?”
“Aye, Sir Percy,” returns Grigson. “No more like Sir Robin, which, Sir,
begging your honor’s parding, is a very pretty young nobleman, with a
good eye and a proper height.”
Sir Percy nods.
“Then,” speaking as if to himself and motioning the man away, “since
she’s up in town without her parents’ knowledge and with a cock-and-bull
story stuck into her Abigail’s mouth, it must be she’s eloped with the
scoundrel out of Kent!”
Grigson going, ventures to ask: “Any more h’orders, Sir Percy? Will I
cover the town, all the inns and taverns, Sir?”
The young man shakes his head and the servant bows himself away.
[Illustration]
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[Illustration]