_In this same Sir Robin believes he meets his
Fair: and Lady Biddy O’Toole is the
means of putting the whole Gardens
into a vast commotion._
After quitting Sir Robin, Her Ladyship, jingling the few shillings that
now remained to her, since purchasing unguents and the mask and cloak
necessary for the approaching festivity, suddenly made up her mind to
escape at once, to leave the bundle of her clothes, her shorn tresses,
and whatever else beside to tell what tale they might, and, here and
now, to shake the dust of London from her feet forever. And to this end
she was about to summon a chair to start her as far on her journey as
her purse would permit, when out comes Mr. Brummell himself from the
shop of Monsieur Jabot, and links his arm in hers with his accustomed
pleasant familiarity and easy condescension.
“’Pon honor!” exclaims the Beau. “Well met, Sir! Since you were nigh
hanged, Sir, I’ve not had too much of your agreeable company. I’d have
you know I’m just from Monsieur Jabot’s back room, where, the whiles I
took a dish of tea, I explained the riddles of your most amazin’ twist
of the lace. Faith, Robin, ’twas a lucky hour for me, when, having left
a pile of failures, so high! in the corner of my dressing-room, I beheld
your cravat and bade my man knock you down!”
Lady Peggy laughs. The cool audacity of Beau Brummell is a relief after
the mawkish sighs of the little scoundrel she has just parted from, and,
hoping that Mr. Brummell will soon spy either one of the Fair or a Royal
Highness, and so be diverted from her side, she bows and answers:
“Robin McTart must ever account that a lucky day for him, Sir!”
“Hark ye, my young buck,” proceeds the Beau. “Monsieur Jabot is so
enchanted with your manner of the cravat that to-day, with my
compliments, he introduces it at Court! And since I’ve been seen with
it,” adds he pompously, “’tis sure, by this day week, to be the height
of the mode!”
“Aye?” responds Her Ladyship, a-wondering how she can best get away.
“Aye!” echoes her companion in a monstrous amazement. “Rot me! Sir, but
such a distinction’s not often conferred upon a young gentleman up in
town for the first time. What’s the matter with you, boy?” cries he,
turning to observe Her Ladyship’s somewhat absent-minded aspect.
“Naught, I swear!” cries she, recovering herself.
“’Sdeath! Robin, are ye in love?” asks the Beau, taking a pinch of snuff
and tendering his box, as, attended by all eyes, the two make their way
down Piccadilly, betwixt ogling ladies in their chairs and chariots,
gallants, dowagers; each, all, mincing and la-la-ing as they go.
Her Ladyship inclines her head. She is well pleased to speak truth when
she can.
“By Gad! Mr. Brummell, you’ve hit the mark,” says she.
“Sleep not o’ nights? fickle at your meat? wake sighing? dream of
patches, smiles, and dainty fingers? mistrust yourself? easily
affronted? believe the whole world’s pointing at you in raillery? take
no pleasure in horse, man, gun or dog? loathe all the Fair, save one?
love solitude?”
Her Ladyship’s feign to smile in the midst of the snuff, which she
abhors, and has only taken because she had to. Sneezing, she nods as her
companion continues:
“Hate company? are cursin’ me now for an addle-pated fool, and wishing
I’d leave you to yourself, eh? Don’t answer. I know it, Robin, well; a
thousand times, more or less, have I been where you stand to-day, and
had just cause, I fancied, to damn the Prince himself, since that which
I was then pleased to dub his foolish prattle served to distract my
ruminations from whichever Lady ’twas at the moment claimed my fancy. I
cursed him then, Sir, for clinging to my arm, but now I bless him, as
you will me some future day—for, Robin, hark ye, there’s not one of the
jades but deceives us, no, Sir! and I’m goin’ to hang on to you, Sir,
for keepin’ of you out of the vapors. Zounds, Sir! I’ll not leave you to
any such ill company as himself proves to a young man in your
predicament. Come, Sir, come; we’ll up and into Will’s, and there, me
stickin’ faster than a burr, we’ll home to Peter’s Court and with a
merry lot of gentlemen make a pretty night of’t against to-morrow with
its evening at Vauxhall.”
With which pleasant and most well-intentioned sally, Lady Peggy again
finds herself constrained to put off that redemption of her true estate
for which she so deeply yearns.
Mr. Brummell’s party went by water to Vauxhall, and ’twas indeed a
heavenly night for such an expedition, with no large lady-moon
a-staring, but the rather a thin slip of a silver damsel hanging in the
vault, and millions of stars a-waiting on her, not any of these
a-revealing too much or a-telling any tales if a gentleman’s hand
chanced to come in contact with a lady’s amid the folds of brocade, or
under the long cloth of the black, crimson or blue cloaks in which all
these merry masqueraders were enveloped.
Sir Percy de Bohun was beside Lady Diana Weston; Peggy noted the same
with jealous, despairing eyes; while at the left of Lord Brookwood’s
daughter sat her own twin—only the second time she had seen him since
the memorable night in Lark Lane; nor did she see him plainly now, for
all the company had set forth in their masks, and only removed them
between whiles to gain a breath of fresh air. ’Twas expected that the
larger number of the party would meet them at the Gardens, and
thereafter the sport and mystification would begin.
So it turned out; not only all the rest of Mr. Brummell’s friends in
their cloaks and masks, with glimpse now and then of satins, taffetas,
laces, ribands, jeweled stomachers, bodices ablaze, and so forth, but a
vast assemblage of other folk also awaited the arrival of the Beau’s
barge at the bottom of the Gardens.
Among these, two lurked in the shadow of the trees; they were Sir Robin
and the Vicar. The former noted with deep joy that he had, by a happy
chance, chosen a crimson color for his new suit, exactly corresponding
to that of one of these gallants; that his cloak of sable hue was also
quite the ton, and that he could thus, with ease, mingle with the party,
and presently, no doubt, either discover Lady Peggy’s identity, or, more
than likely, she herself would disclose the same to him, and at last
reward his faithfulness and patience. No qualm visited the little
gentleman’s conscience-pocket with regard to his supposed victim,
although, it is true, he had given him a vicious thought as he had stood
near the river’s bank waiting for Mr. Brummell’s barge to come in sight.
So had Peggy, as she was being rowed past the old Dove Pier; into her
mind and into Sir Percy’s had come the memory of the Sunday night, but
he spoke of it no more than, certes, did she.
Sir Robin, his cup overflowing with pleasurable anticipation and the
gratified sense that the one who had sworn to take his life lay,
fish-food, at the bottom of the Thames, flitted hither and yon, dragging
the bewildered Vicar of Friskingdean in his wake.
Wherever the company of Mr. Brummell wandered, there followed, hanging
on to the fringe, as ’twere, these two, whom presently one-half the
guests accepted as a matter of course to be of themselves.
First, always followed by an admiring and gaping crowd, ’twas up and
down the formal Walks somewhat sedately, for the masquerade, as has been
said before, was at that period but just coming into vogue, and fine
ladies and gentlemen were, at the outset of an evening, not as easy in
their disguises as they became after a promenade in the unaccustomed
duds; then, they formed a circle of mysterious appearance around the
orchestra; then, ’twas into the Room to stare at the pictures through
the peepholes of their masks; then a rush to gaze at the Cascade, which
the whole of them, save Lady Peggy, Sir Robin and the Vicar, had seen a
hundred times before; later, ’twas up and down the Walks again; and here
Sir Robin at last made bold, having long since joined himself and the
somewhat reluctant Vicar to a group of the Beau’s company, to address a
few words, as it chanced, to the lively Lady Biddy O’Toole!
It had seemed to him, after a careful survey of all, and having been
able, by dint of his ears, to learn which was Kennaston, whose was the
only personality so far in his possession, that Lady Biddy’s arch turn
of the head was the most like to belong to the object of his passion. So
up he springs, mincing, leaving the Vicar to huddle in the shade, and,
pulling Her Ladyship’s mask-riband with a twitching finger and thumb, as
he had seen others do just now, he said, very low, in her ear:
“I’m sure I know who Your Ladyship is!”
“Out with it,” says she, very low too.
“It’s she whose image is writ on my heart,” answers he.
“Sure,” answers she, “that’s a thing that can never be known until
you’re dead, and maybe not as soon, since the surgeons don’t cut up
everybody! Lud, Sir, give me your name, and we’ll talk of your heart
anon.”
“I am Sir Robin McTart of Robinswold, Kent,” exclaims he, feeling
positive that this saucy minx is none other than his adored, for be it
remembered Lady Biddy spoke under her breath and with a disguised tone
to her voice.
“’Od’s blood!” now whispers Her Ladyship, with an accent of mock terror,
into Sir Robin’s ear. “You! the highwayman! the cut-throat! the robber!
what, I’ve heard, sticks gentlemen in the back, or has your men do it
for you, and profits by that same!” laughing fit to kill herself.
But the little man does not laugh; the cold sweat stands out all over
his sallow countenance, and he’s so terrified, recalling the threats of
Mr. Bloksey, that he stands stock-still, and really can not move a leg.
They are nigh the Dark Walks as Sir Robin comes to his halt, and Lady
Biddy, not pausing even to note his silence, goes merrily on with her
most apt discourse.
“Oh,” proceeds she, “but you are the hero of the day, Sir Robin, and
it’s myself that’s proud to be in your company, and faith! I’d like to
have died running to see you hang on Saturday last!”
“Hang!” gasps he, getting back the use of his voice, but not of his
shaking legs. “Saturday last!”
“Don’t be that bashful, Sir Robin, making as if you’d never heard of
such before!” And Lady Biddy gives the Baronet’s cloak a playful tweak.
“Lud, Sir! you and Sir Percy de Bohun’s the two most talked about, of
all the bucks in town!”
“Sir Percy de Bohun!” repeats he, his knees knocking together.
“Sure’n didn’t he save you from the gibbet? Oh, go-along with you, Sir
Robin, you can’t palaver Lady—”
“Lady who?” he contrives to ejaculate, struck nearly dumb at this
mention of his rival, while Lady Biddy now bridles and is mute.
“You are Lady Peggy Burgoyne, are you not?” he goes on more softly,
bending toward his companion, and concluding at last that the Lady’s
words must have been the mere hap-hazards of a sparkling disposition.
Now Lady Biddy, in common with other ladies of fashion and moving in
certain high circles of society, had heard a deal of the mysterious and
all unseen Lady Peggy. She well knew the supposition that was rife as to
Lady Peggy’s being secretly the wife of Sir Robin McTart. She knew from
her bosom friend, Lady Diana Weston, who had the same most direct from
her suitor, Lord Kennaston, Lady Peggy’s own twin-brother, that his
sister was from home, unknown her whereabouts to father or mother, kith
or kin, maid or man, save that she was “up in London”; that Sir Percy de
Bohun was mad for love and loss of her; that her brother, had he not
been in like case by means of Lady Diana, would long since have made
public search, as he was indeed making such privately, for the discovery
of the eloping Fair. She likewise was aware that Sir Robin frequented
the gay world, was not adverse to ogling a lady, as she herself could
testify; stopped at Mr. Brummell’s house; and, albeit ’twas said had
fought a duel with Sir Percy because of Lady Peggy, still did not absent
himself from any rout, ridotto, or ball, on her always absent account.
So, equipped with such a fund of knowledge and any amount of surmise,
Her Ladyship replied coyly beneath her mask:
“Why do you think so, Sir Robin, and pray if I were Lady Peggy, what,
now, would you be afther saying to me?”
“Zounds! ’tis she!” exclaims the Baronet, carried away by the fact that
Lady Biddy’s hand beneath her cloak has more than half-way met his own
moist and trembling fingers.
“Loveliest of women! Oh, ’twas indeed by your express directions, was’t
not, that Mr. Incognito on Monday, watching for me in High Holborn nigh
the shop of Mounseer Jabot, bid me come here to-night to meet you?”
Lady Biddy, although much averse to the clammy touch of her cavalier,
gives his fingers an assuring pressure.
“Why, oh, why!” pursues Sir Robin, now as much elated by this tacit
confession of her passion for him, as he was but lately overwhelmed by
the mention of such strange words as “hanging, highwayman, Sir Percy de
Bohun,” etc., etc., “why have you seen fit to keep me in such a length
of suspense? Why have I not been allowed, before this, to behold you,
and renew the days of our sojourn in Kent? Speak, my angel, speak!”
“La, Sir!” murmurs Lady Biddy, minx-like, ever anxious to get at the
heart of this now much deepened enigma, “la, Sir, do you not know but
too well the whys and wherefores of my secrecy?” Her Ladyship from Cork
actually squeezes the little Baronet’s crooked little hand.
“That do I not! Mr. Incognito never would tell me aught, but thus and
so; and bade me, from your adorable lips, keep myself in seclusion and
safety,—nor ever,” continues he, his tone sinking to a mere breath,
“endanger my precious self,” now stooping to imprint a chaste kiss on
Her Ladyship’s hand, “in the meeting even once of Sir Percy de Bohun,
for he had sworn to kill me on beholding me. Dearest life,” proceeds Sir
Robin, withdrawing Lady Biddy a bit into the shade of the great trees,
“I have obeyed your commands. I have never set eyes upon the scoundrel,
but have kept myself close housed at my inn in Pimlico, awaiting your
dear pleasure.”
“Have ye?” murmurs Lady Biddy, now more bewildered than she ever was
before in her life, and seeing no clear way, either to read the puzzle
or, truth to tell, to elude the gentleman. Yet the wits of a lady,
especially if she happen to have been born in Ireland, may usually be
trusted to extricate her from almost any dilemma; therefore, when Sir
Robin has done swearing of his impatient probation passed at the Puffled
Hen, says she, tweaking her hoop and making a courtesy:
“Lud! Robin,” (the hussy!) “but you are a killing creature! Nay, nay!”
drawing out a few steps, he after her, from the shade of the trees and
more in the flare of the twinkling globe lamps. “Nay, tarry here but a
moment; there are the same reasons for your not accompanying me now that
have prevailed upon me to keep our matters secret hitherto. I pray you,
stir not from the neighborhood of this wooden lion—see?—until I return,
which I will do presently.”
“Faith!” cries the Baronet, “I’ll not budge, my divine Peggy! until you
are once more at my side!” and with a horrid leer through his peepholes,
he essays to take Lady Biddy’s hand once more, but she’s off, balking
him.
Quick as thought, she scampered across to the edge of the orchestra,
where she discovered a group of masks and among ’em one, whom, by the
rose pinned to her bloom-colored bodice, she knew to be Lady Diana, and
she made certain that two of the three bloods near her, canes dangling
at their button-holes, must be Sir Percy and Lord Kennaston.
“Hist!” exclaims Lady Biddy, panting partly from speed, partly from the
fright a lady alone might experience in running the gauntlet of so many
macaronis and fops, not to speak of thieves and pickpockets, as perforce
was the case in progressing about Vauxhall.
“What is’t Biddy, for I know you by your silver heels,” answers Lady Di.
“Mischief, I’ll dare be sworn, or it’s not you! Speak your mind; there’s
none here but what can keep a secret, and the whole of us have been
a-watching you with some one, fie! at the entrance to the Dark Alleys.”
“Is Sir Percy here? Is this he?” whispers Biddy.
Sir Percy bows, for he is there; while the other two gentlemen,
inferring from her tone that she seeks a private ear, instantly withdraw
to one of the boxes for a glass of Burgundy to refresh their spirits.
“I’ve news for you, of one you’re a-dyin’ for, of Lady Peggy Burgoyne!”
exclaims she triumphantly.
“What! What!” comes simultaneously from behind each of the masks she
addresses.
“Aye; I’m after learning from, whom, think you?”
“Proceed, for the love of God, Madam!” says Percy, very low.
“From him that’s supposed to be her husband, Sir Robin McTart, that
mistook me for her,” Biddy titters, “that she’s here to-night by an
appointment with him, made by a trusted servant of hers, called 'Mr.
Incognito’; sent to meet Sir Robin before the shop of Monsieur Jabot in
Holborn; and he’s not seen Her Ladyship,—I mean Sir Robin’s not seen her
since they were sojourning in Kent together! and there’s a mystery for
you! And I made excuses and left him a-standin’ by the lion, for I could
no longer contain the news, but must run back to him now to extract the
rest of it. Pray heaven, Lady Peggy herself comes not by, and lets out
that I was not she at all, at all!”
“Good God!” murmurs Percy under his breath, as Biddy rattles on. “Can
this thing be? and what does it all mean?”
Restraining Lady Biddy, both he and Lady Diana endeavor to quiet her
abounding spirits, and to gain from her the detailed account of her
encounter with Sir Robin. Percy, in the midst of her voluble tongue and
her giggling, striving to form some plan of action which shall this
night bring matters to the touch between himself and the Baronet and
leave one or t’other of ’em stiff and stark.
Meantime, Sir Robin, with greedy eyes fixed on Lady Biddy, so long as he
can see her, and until she and her companions withdraw into a box,
stands as if at one with the wooden lion; presently, however, his gaze
is diverted hither and yon, not only by the playful and engaging remarks
of various young ladies who challenge his mask in the most direct and
obliging fashion, but by a certain Figure which he beholds moving about
aimlessly, it would seem, and alone, beneath the dark shadows of the
trees toward the river.
There is something in this Figure’s motions, although cloaked and
masked,—therefore, the Baronet notes, one of Mr. Brummell’s party,—which
strikes him as familiar, and when, presently, the unknown lifts mask and
reveals the countenance behind it, Sir Robin sidles up, one eye on the
wooden lion of his tryst, however, and plucking Lady Peggy by the arm,
says:
“Ho! Mr. Incognito!”
Peggy turns, and betwixt disgust, dismay, horror, and amusement, remains
silent.
“’Tis I, Sir, Robin McTart,” lifting his own mask a trifle to assure his
companion of his identity.
“Soh!” returns she, “I do perceive.”
“Oh, Mr. Incognito, what do I not owe to your being in My Lady’s employ!
She is indeed here.”
Her Ladyship, taking this for a question, answers thus, with emphasis:
“Yes, she’s here—indeed.”
“I have seen her,” sighs the little Baronet, leaning his head, just
exactly the height of Her Ladyship’s own, down on Peggy’s shoulder in an
excess of sensibility.
“Have you?” exclaims she, not daring to stir in the embarrassment of
believing it possible that the scoundrel has discovered her identity.
“Oh, yes,” sighs Sir Robin, “I have received a pressure, nay two of ’em,
from her hand. I’ve kissed her fingers; I await her return to meet me at
the wooden lion yonder.”
“Do you?” says Lady Peggy, mystified beyond everything. “Did she look as
you expected her to?”
“Ah!” gasps Sir Robin, “she has not yet lifted her mask for me to behold
her countenance, but when she returns, I shall beseech her for one
glimpse!”
“Ah!” returns Peggy, now fully persuaded that some one has been making a
jest of her companion, but none the less disquieted on her own score.
“Hark ye, Sir Robin,” says she, “you have ever found my counsels wise.
Be advised by me now; leave Vauxhall at once. Lady Peggy Burgoyne is not
safe, so long as you tarry here.”
The little Baronet, doughtily, although trembling, puts his hand to his
hilt.
“Nay, Sir!” continues Peg, “your weapon would not avail for her
preservation. She leaves town this very night for Kennaston. Do you the
same, nor risk detection longer here.” Her Ladyship uses the word
advisedly, and has the satisfaction of seeing Sir Robin shiver with
terror, then steady again as he reflects that Her Ladyship’s fears can
but be in connection with her own escapade; since, ’tis plain from all
he can spy and eavesdrop, not a soul as yet has missed Sir Percy de
Bohun from his accustomed haunts.
“But she swore me she’d be back in a few moments, Mr. Incognito, and
’sdeath! Sir!” perceiving Lady Biddy emerging from the box and advancing
toward the lion alone, “there she is!”
Off and away Sir Robin McTart to join his Fair, while Lady Peggy,
screened by the increasing shadows, for the dripping lamps are one by
one, by this, dying down in their globes, beholds one—she devines not
which—of Beau Brummell’s lady guests, courtesying and greeting the
Baronet with her finger-tips.
Now My Lady’s heart’s a-thumping monstrous hard; she beholds, as well as
Sir Robin and his supposed Peggy, two others—alas! she knows too well
who they are, a-peeping out from the corner of the box-entrance whence
Lady Biddy came just now, and watching her encounter with Sir Robin.
These are Lady Diana and Sir Percy.
Together? Aye and a-goin’ to be “together” for all their lives, she
sadly thinks, both of them, quite forgetting, save perchance for a
moment’s beguilement, her very existence. But it behooves her, if not
for her own sake, of which she has come to the pass of recking but
little, then for her father’s and mother’s, now to bid farewell forever
to disguises, falsehoods, cheatings, man’s estate, and even the
melancholy chance of seeing the countenance of Sir Percy. She will off
presently, and reach home as best she may.
A few minutes, more or less, can make no odds, and ’tis but too true
that Her Ladyship stood there in ambush of the branches in the vain hope
that Percy might lift his mask, if but for an instant, and thus allow
her parting gaze to rest upon his features.
It is quite true that mortals, although in never such haste to reach a
desired crisis, still ofttimes halt at the threshhold of its attainment;
so Her Ladyship, with now nothing to hinder her escape, still stood
leaning against an oak, listless, but for the eager eyes fixed on the
pair in the box entrance. These presently crossed into the throng and,
joining others of the maskers, were lost to her view; but the Baronet
and Lady Biddy had not been idle of their tongues this while.
Much simpering, angling for news, tittering, and a neat show of wit in
the manner of plying a gentleman with questions on a matter about which
he was quite ignorant, on the lady’s side; ardor, impatience, as much
daring as his little spirit permitted, on the gentleman’s. Finally said
he:
“Mr. Incognito says you start for Kennaston this very night, my dearest
life, is’t so?”
“Tell me who is Mr. Incognito?” says she, “and I’ll answer you
straight.”
“He’s your paid servant, sworn slave, and the bearer of all tender
messages between us.—Now, go you to Kennaston to-night?”
“As sure as I’m Lady Peggy Burgoyne,” returns Biddy. “I start for home
ere cock-crow!”
“I’ll follow you poste-haste, but,” cries Sir Robin, “loveliest of
created beings, I beseech, I implore! one glimpse of your angelic
countenance before we part—to meet only when I can claim you as my own!”
“No! No!” exclaims Biddy, restraining the Baronet’s hand which is laid
upon the lutestring of her mask.
“But divine creature, I insist!” with one arm seizing the buxom Lady
Biddy about the waist, while with the other he essays to untie the
riband which hides her charms from view.
Then Lady Biddy O’Toole, whose lungs were of the best, let such a bawl
as rang far up and down the Thames, causing a score of red-stockinged
boatmen to leave their wherries and dash up the Gardens; causing every
tongue in Vauxhall to cease clacking, every glass to jingle to its
table, every echo to resound; every other lady there to shriek; the
musicians to stop; the waiters to drop their trays; each gentleman to
draw sword; and a vast number of persons of both sexes to shout:
“Watch! Watch! Murder! Thieves! Highwaymen!” and whatever else beside.
While a concourse of people of every condition at once closed in around
Sir Robin and Lady Biddy, at the outside rim of which, shivering betwixt
terror and that lively curiosity which overrides even a desire for
personal safety, gaped the now unmasked Vicar of Friskingdean, unable to
find his natural protector and sometime pupil in all this hurly-burly.
[Illustration]
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[Illustration]