_Wherein Lady Peggy picks a very pretty quarrel
with her presumed rival: and is
later bid to Beau Brummell’s
levee in her night rail._
At this precise moment Lady Peggy, scarce able to contain herself longer
and, reckless of every possible consequence, being about to cast herself
upon her quondam lover’s protection, and to be rid forever of being a
man, is stopped short of her purpose by the words that now fall slowly
from the young man’s lips.
“To deceive! to lie! to scheme! and plot, and bring shame and trouble
upon her father and mother! Gad’s life!” Sir Percy brings his clenched
hand down with a thump upon the card-table. “I had never believed that
of Peggy! I’d have felled him that had hinted she could even plan a lie,
or run off to a secret marriage with the best man that lives.”
At which speech My Lady’s color burned as never before since she was
born, and her choler rose at the double charge, both the one that was
true as to her deceit, and the one that was not as to her secret
nuptials.
Palpitating with rage and wounded sensibility, with remorse and
wretchedness; brought to bay with a situation she could not endure, Peg
now utterly forgot her breeches or her shame at these, and, stepping
boldly forth into the small circle of light shed in at the doorway, from
the candles in the corridor, she saluted Sir Percy and spoke:
“I bid you good-evening, Sir Percy de Bohun, and, having had either the
good, or the ill fortune to unintentionally overhear your remarks
concerning Lady Peggy Burgoyne, I feel it my duty and pleasure alike to
defend her from the unjust and unworthy attack which you, Sir, have just
been pleased to make.”
“Sir Robin McTart!” exclaims Percy, with a start and in a prodigious
anger. “I deny your charges, Sir, and would remind you that
eaves-droppers are ever the cumberers of dangerous ground.”
“Sir!” responds Lady Peggy, her temper rising the more at the sense of
the injustice and falseness of her whole tenure. “You coupled just now
the name of a lady with that of Sir Robin McTart. I demand how you dare
to assume such a responsibility, Sir, until at least either the lady in
question, or I, gives you our confidence, or our leave.”
“‘Our’ forsooth! ‘Our!’” comes fiercely from between Sir Percy’s
clenched teeth, while his hand flies to his sword-hilt.
“Why the devil, Sir—an you’ve been so lucky as win the lady for your
bride—make off with her i’ the dark, shut her up in some unfindable
hole? cheat her parents, and go strutting like some vain peacock up and
down other ladies’ drawing-rooms? Be a man, Sir, and publish your
triumph broadcast, nor let the town presently go gossiping and
countryside wagging with the scandal of an elopement! Zounds! Sir Robin
McTart, that!” flipping a stray card from the table almost in Her
Ladyship’s face, “for your gallantry and your honor!”
“What do you mean, Sir?” cries Peggy, struck with horror all a-heap, and
with terror as well, yet keeping up a brave show with her drawn rapier
and sparkling eyes.
“Whatever you damned please, Sir,” returns Percy, now white-heat too,
and most reckless of time or place.
“I’ve too much regard for Lady Peggy, Sir, not to postpone the climax of
this matter until our next meeting, let it be when you see fit!” cries
Peg with woman’s wit and wisdom too.
“’Slife, Sir, I ask you as one gentleman to another, nay, I implore it
of you,” cries Sir Percy, rent betwixt choler, love and apprehension,
“most humbly, is Lady Peggy your wife?”
Her Ladyship was now like to laugh, so near akin are mirth and sorrow,
but she replied very loftily:
“I decline to discuss the matter, Sir, and would remind you that report
hath your attentions engaged in quite another direction.”
“You know where Lady Peggy Burgoyne is at this moment?” says Sir Percy
hotly, determined to push his matter to its ending this very night, and
almost crazed by his passion and its balking.
“That I do, Sir,” returns Her Ladyship with a covert smile.
“Tell me, or I’ll brain you where you stand.” Percy makes an ugly lunge
at his opponent with his fist, but merely as a threat.
“That will I not,” says she firmly.
What might have further ensued is, at this crisis, put out of the
question by the entrance of Kennaston, who, espying Percy the first,
cries out joyfully:
“Percy, Percy, Lady Diana hath given me leave to tell you she consents—”
“Tush, Sir!” interrupts Percy, jerking his head toward the other
occupant of the room. “Sir Robin McTart and I have come near to blows,
and must fight of a surety, on the subject of your sister, Sir; and ’tis
for you to know without more delay that Lady Peggy is up in London,
unknown to her parents; that Sir Robin hath her whereabouts and
absolutely refuses to reveal the same.” Percy crosses the room, strikes
a tinder and lights the candles on the mantel-shelf.
“You are cursedly badly mistook, gentlemen, both of you,” says
Kennaston, quietly enough. “I’ve got a letter which I found upon my
table this very night, just come from my sister at Kennaston,” with
which her twin pulls My Lady’s most ill-spelled and crumpled missive
from his pocket and holds it up before the four astonished eyes that are
staring at it.
Peggy in amaze recognizes the letter she had written to her brother the
day long since in the buttery, and which she had taken up to town in her
reticule and must have dropped when she had paid her ill-starred visit
to Kennaston’s chambers in Lark Lane.
“Frowse, the charwoman’s daughter, vowed she’d found it a-lying in the
entry under the water-tub. There’s an end of your dispute, Sirs, I
trust,” glancing from one to the other. “Come, come, Sir Percy, and you,
Sir Robin, whom indeed the letter you brought me from Lady Peggy the
other night doth most highly commend to my good offices, must be
friends,” taking a hand of each. “Nor let Dame Rumor split ye asunder
with her lies about my little twin’s being up in town. Gadzooks, Sirs,
the child’s not a notion of a difference betwixt Mayfair and—Drury Lane!
I beg of you, Mr. Brummell,” as this one now comes mincing in together
with Lord Escombe, Sir Wyatt, Mr. Jack Chalmers and others for their
game, “for you’ve the graces I lack in such matters.—These two gallants
have had a difference, and ’tis you, Mr. Brummell, can set ’em straight
again.”
“Cards! cards! Spades, clubs, diamonds, hearts,” exclaims the Beau,
touching the Queen of Hearts with the toe of his high-heeled shoe, as it
lies on the floor where it was shot from Sir Percy’s hand.
“Split me! but ’tis them that are at the bottom of every quarrel, Sirs;
whisk me, but if a spade, or a club, or a heart, provided it be a
lady’s, or a diamond, which the Jews have a lien on, ain’t the only
causes for disagreement in this world!”
“Correct as your own toilet, Sir!” cries Wyatt.
“Now, ’twas hearts of course, damn ’em, and the queen of ’em that’s
roused both your tempers, but for God’s sake, gentlemen,” taking now the
hand of each which has slipped clear of Kennaston’s fingers, “bethink
you, if the lady, whose name I can’t even guess, whom you both adore,
stood here, what would her pleasure be, Robin, my lad, answer me, for of
brawling there can be none here and fighting no more. Speak, Sir!”
“Faith!” answered Lady Peggy, with splendid valor and a rise in her
color and her heels, “to my certain knowledge the lady’d have her name
put out of the matter wholly, and she’d sooner die, Sir, than have any
fighting over her preferences, by either Sir Percy de Bohun or Sir Robin
McTart.”
The which being taken to be, by all present, a most prodigious and
amazing gentlemanlike and politic speech, Sir Percy was feign accept,
mock-smile and bow, while all the rest blew their lungs hollow
applauding and praising his still hated and still suspected rival.
Peace restored outwardly, whatever else raged in the breasts of the two
opponents, the gallants sat to their tables, Kennaston managing to
whisper to Sir Percy across the deal:
“As I was telling you when I entered, Percy, Lady Di permits me to let
you know she consents to my dedicating the ode to her, and Lillie, at
the corner of Beanford Buildings in the Strand, hath engaged to publish
it at once!”
But this, Lady Peggy, at a distant table, engaged in picquet with His
Grace of Escombe, hears not; there rings in her ears naught save the
words Kennaston uttered when he came into the card-room—“Lady Diana hath
given me leave to tell you she _consents_.”
“Consents!” To what else but his suit? Which, egged on by his noble
uncle, has been pushing any time these ten years, since boy and girl Sir
Percy and Lady Di had played, ridden, romped, quarreled as brother and
sister together.
“Consents!”
It echoes and resounds in Her Ladyship’s head over and over again the
night through, and ’tis quite of a piece with her mood that she seeks
out Lady Diana when tea and cakes are passing, and, with sly looks,
congratulates Her Ladyship on the happiness she has this night conferred
on a very gallant gentleman not so many miles away!
And quite in Lady Diana’s line of reasoning, having heard from Kennaston
that Sir Robin has come up to town highly commended to him by his
sister, and that, although he had been sorely jealous and distraught at
the said Sir Robin’s good fortune in the matter of the rescue of Her
Ladyship, he still believed him to be head over heels in love with his
twin, etc., etc., etc., and so, Her Ladyship argued, Kennaston had
doubtless confided to the said Sir Robin such tokens of her favor as the
said Lady Diana had that evening seen fit to manifest; never for a
moment misdoubting that any other swain was in the supposed Robin’s mind
any more than he was in her own!
“_Consents!_”
’Twas reverberating in Peg’s ears and a-knocking at her heart for the
hundredth time, when, returned to the card-room, she learned that Mr.
Brummell was inviting the company for the Thursday to his seat Ivy Dene.
’Twas to be a gentlemen’s party only; out on horseback, the twenty
miles, leaving the White Horse at ten in the morning, with luncheon en
route at the Merry Rabbit at Market Ossory; a look over the stables and
paddocks on arriving at Ivy Dene,—a quiet game, maybe, and such a dinner
as only, the Beau swore, his country cook could get up; with the ride
back to town by the light of the near-full moon.
Lady Peggy was soon made aware that this festivity was solely in her
honor, and succumbed to it as cheerfully as she might.
God keep her! All the while staring at the ribbon of her twin’s wig,
a-longing to cast her arms about his neck and pray him cover her up in
his wraprascal and fetch her home; vowing she’d run away from ’em all
the next minute, but where? How? Which way could it be done so that
capture, discovery, and humiliation would not follow? Peggy could
contrive no method, and the girl was literally terrified both at the
prospect before her and by the realization that easy as it had been to
jump into man’s attire ’twas well-nigh impossible to get out of it
again. Should she on returning to Peter’s Court lay off her satin suit,
wig, and rapier, and resume her Levantine gown, hood, petticoats,
patches, and reticule, how and of what hour of the day or night could
she in safety leave the mansion and find her way unsuspected to the
King’s Arms and the coach? ’Twould be out of the question; servants were
up and about at all hours, and were a woman seen emerging from her room,
what piece of scandal would not the next day ring from one end of the
town to t’other.
With “consents” tattooing in her brain, My Lady recklessly put all the
heart there was left in her into the present moment, lost a hundred
pounds to Escombe with a fine grace; won five hundred with no more ado;
laughed, drank a little wine, went home with her host at four in the
morning, and fell heavily asleep.
At two of the afternoon the Beau usually held an informal levee attended
by the more noted of the bucks and macaronis of the town; vastly
entertaining half hours, wherein, while soundly abusing the newspapers
for their being stuffed with lies, the company still eagerly devoured
every scrap of gossip they contained; where the amount of frizz towering
above Lady This’s brow was measured and scanned, the better appearance
of Lady That in the new-fashioned gown discussed; and the horrid aspect
of the Hon. Miss So and So’s toupee and her general resemblance to a
malt-sack tied in the middle, talked over. This couplet and that comedy
were torn to pieces by as many pretty wits as chanced to be present,
while Tempers dressed his master’s wig in a corner and a footman and a
negro page handed chocolate round in silver trays.
The Beau, himself, reclined on his great bedstead with its fine tester,
a half dozen of pillows richly laced at his head; a flowered gown about
his shoulders, his night-cap on, a coverlet embroidered by the Chinese
over him, his snuff-box at hand, reading aloud from the damp and freshly
arrived print whilst Sir Wyatt, Lord Escombe, Mr. Jack Chalmers, and a
dozen more sat or stood, cup in fingers, ’twixt lip and saucer,
hearkening, eager, to the news.
“’Tis by this on the tip of every tongue in town that there occurred
last night at Lady B——d’s rout an encounter (the second within a
se’ennight), betwixt Sir P——y de B——n and a certain young gentleman from
Kent whose handsome face, genteel manners, and dashing behavior, have
conspired to place him in so brief a time at the very height of favor in
society, and more especially in the eyes of Lady D——a W——n. It had been
supposed that the affair recounted in these pages as having taken place
in the chambers of Lord K——n of K——n was on account solely of the above
mentioned adorable young scion of a noble house. We are in a position to
assure the world of fashion that such is not the case, and that both the
unfortunate disputes betwixt these two gallants are to be laid to the
door of Lady P——y B——e, sister to Lord K——n. Report hath it that Her
Ladyship is in London; rumor contradicts report and avers that the fair
one has not stirred from home. The issue is awaited with interest, as
the verbatim account of an unsuspected elopement may be looked for at
any moment. Safe to say the vivacious Lady P——y B——e, whom the town hath
never had the pleasure of beholding, has succeeded in stirring Mayfair
to its depths and has been the cause already of a very pretty pair of
quarrels between two young gentlemen of the first quality.”
“’Slife!” cried Beau Brummell. “Who now the devil’s Lady P——y?”
“By the dragon, himself, I never heard that Kennaston had a sister!”
said Lord Wootton and Mr. Vane at once.
“Yes!” exclaims Sir Wyatt, tapping his forehead, recollectively, “I do
recall that Sir Robin McTart, the night we were at Kennaston’s chambers,
entered with the presentation of a letter of introduction from ‘Lady
Peggy Burgoyne to her brother,’ and ’sdeath! ’twas, I believe, she about
whom they fought, too!”
“Ha! ’tis not only Lady Di, then, that’s at the bottom of their quarrel
after all,” says Mr. Brummell, reflectively.
“Where is the fair one?” asks Escombe. “Who knows that?”
“Faith! no one. Stop! Sir Robin must know, since ’tis for her he
unsheathes twice in a week,” cries the host.
“Where is he?”
“Bring him in!”
“Send for Sir Robin!” is the cry of the company.
“Zooks! Sirs, but our reputations as gallants are broken up, an we’ve
not seen her of whom the prints speak thus!” says the Beau, adding at
once:
“Tempers, my compliments to Sir Robin McTart, and beg of him to join us,
for, at the least, a few moments. I know he’s averse to early rising,
but pray inform him to skip across in his dressing-gown and slippers,
and night-cap, we’ve no ladies here about to ogle him!”
The which message being conveyed to My Lady Peggy a-sitting by the
pulled-out chest of drawers, mournfully contemplating her long shorn
tresses with barred door, arouses in her such a fever of sorrow as
well-nigh chokes her utterance.
“Say to Mr. Brummell I’m asleep, Tempers, and crave to know his
pleasure, the answer to which I’ll send as faithfully as Morpheus will
permit, by you for Mercury! Off with you!” and Her Ladyship softly
stroked her locks, and for the thousandth time went planning her escape.