MRS. DIANA had much to consider as the chairmen bumped her along the
ill-lit streets leading to Charing Cross. To be candid, she had been
swayed by an impulse in thus presenting herself and the matter remained
to be broke with Mrs. Fenton. She was a good girl to her mother, and her
father counts not, though if good looks and a certain seductive way be
reckoned, she was the more indebted to him for her inheritance. In these
qualities her mother was not preeminent and it is a melancholy
consequence that Mr. Beswick, retiring from the Royal Navy, betook
himself to the American colonies and the society of a lady who pleased
him better in those respects. He returned however once or twice on
business and expected notwithstanding to be received with the veneration
due to a husband and father, and oddly enough was so received and
appears to have excited a romantic interest in young Mrs. Diana’s tender
bosom. ’Twas something to have a parent who sinned in the high
sentimental strain and not with the creeping hypocrisy of other people’s
parents who indulged their vices under the guise of all that was
respectable—as was very well known to Miss. She even entreated him on
his last visit to take her with him to the colonies and doubtless
imagined herself a fair Pocahontas in moccasins and wampum chasing the
flying deer. Mr. Beswick, however, who had some humour, did but laugh
consumedly at the pretty picture and recommended attention to her
sampler. ’Tis to be thought he might prefer a duo to a trio. In any case
he returned to the deputy ruler of his heart and his wife and daughter
saw him no more.
In a year his relict married Mr. Fenton, of whom more hereafter, and
thus became Mistress of the Savannah Coffee House. It had been a
prosperous business and a resort of many wits and beaux—such famous
dramatists as Wycherley, Congreve, Farquhar and many more. Sir Richard
Steele had leaned frayed velvet elbows on the table, while he argued,
half maudlin with wine and good-temper, and Swift drew his harsh
eyebrows together and felled his flimsiness with a word.
But Mr. Fenton drank to excess and there was an ugly scandal one night
when he drove a bottle at a guest he had insulted and the watch was
called in, and it got about and men fought shy of the resort and betook
themselves to pastures new. ’Twas a very inferior set of persons came
there now, and had Mrs. Beswick enquired into the circumstances as
narrowly as became her prudence she had never become Mrs. Fenton.
A good easy woman, it perhaps weighed with her that Mr. Fenton was so
cordial in welcoming her daughter and she stayed not to consider his
motive.
“’Tis Di for a good song,” says he, sitting with his arm about her and
his glass and churchwarden at his elbow, “and a pretty face into the
bargain, and if custom is lacking here, which is certainly not the case,
her face at the windows would do the trick in a jiffy. Bring her then,
Lavinia, to a kindly welcome and a cut at my mutton for so long as the
rakehelly gallants leave her with us—which I dare swear won’t be long.”
This speech might have gave Mrs. Beswick pause but did not. Perhaps she
saw the matter plainer when she became Mrs. Fenton, for it is certain
she then was a very dragon of propriety and therefore though certain
men, by courtesy called gay and gallant, still frequented the house,
’twas much if they caught a glimpse of Diana vanishing up the stair with
a Parthian dart of a lovely ankle beneath her hoop, or heard a voice
carolling above like a lark in the clouds. Indeed ’twas more reasonable
to hope for a word with Her Royal Highness at St. James’s! And so it
stood, in spite of Mr. Fenton who saw his hope of a lure melting from
him.
Mrs. Fenton’s tail was pinning up for a visit to a neighbour when Diana
entered the parlour, and, seeing her mother preparing to go out, drew
back at the door. It fell unlucky for ’twas now or never, and even her
young courage was somewhat daunted at her own action, and the disclosing
of it. But she was desperate. Suppose Mr. Fenton should come in! Suppose
her mother should hear some rumour—for it seemed such news must be
striding the city already on every tongue! So with a hundred supposes
trembling in her heart, she ventured to accost the lady so busily
occupied with festooning her ample skirts over her hoop.
“Will my mamma be so obliging as delay going out until I venture a word
with her?”
“Why, Di, how can I? ’Tis most unreasonable when well you know I’m
bespoke to Mrs. Clayton for a week. Come hither and help me.”
The beauty knelt on one knee and took the corking pins obedient. Then
paused, and looked up pleading.
“If my mamma did but know the good fortune that hath befallen me, I
should not ask in vain.”
“Good fortune!” cries Mrs. Fenton, throwing up her hands. “’Tis many a
day since that came our way. Is it an offer of marriage, child? O how
shall I delight to trumpet it at Mrs. Clayton’s—the proud hussey! Why
her Bell hath but taken up with a haberdasher! Who is he, my heart’s
delight? Not one of these ranting officers I trust that wears all his
fortune in his regimentals! Or is it young Crosby, the alderman’s son? I
noted the sly rogue had many errands here of late. Now, perhaps, Di,
you’ll thank your mamma’s care that kept you secluded from all their
impertinences.”
“I thank my mamma for more than that,” says the charmer, “and ’twill add
to all I owe her if she will delay but one half-hour. Sure Coppet can
run with word to Mrs. Clayton.”
’Twas the thought of marriage fixed Mrs. Fenton. She could not desert
that enchanting topic, and leaning over the stair-head she summoned
Coppet to his errand, while Diana laid her cloak and hood aside with an
anxious brow.
Returning, Mrs. Fenton plumped into her armed-chair and desired Diana
would shut the door.
“And now are we private, my bird, and I would have it all. I will see
Mrs. Clayton later. She grunts mightily with her cough, poor woman, and
’tis a kind heart, all said and done! So I’ll go, but later. Now,
child!”
She drew up a stool to her mamma’s feet and leaned her arm on the
maternal knee, looking up with her smile angelical.
“’Tis not marriage, my mamma, but something much more desirable.”
“What? What? Not marriage? Sure there’s nothing more desirable than
marriage for a girl,” cries mamma, her face falling.
It came a little foolish from poor Mrs. Fenton who had certainly not
been blest either in her first venture nor her second. Her daughter shot
a glance at her from those dangerous long eyes of hers.
“Need we pretend when we are alone, Mamma? Sure I know very well you
were not happy with my father. How could you be and him in the colonies?
’Twas scarce to be called marriage. And Mr. Fenton——” she paused
expressively.
“O my child,” cried Mrs. Fenton, dissolving into facile tears, “what do
you know of such horrors, and why is my unhappy fate to be yours? Sure
there are good honest men in the world that love their wives and have
never an eye for any man’s else’s.”
“If there be, I’ve not seen them. They never come my way,” replied Diana
sombrely. “Men! I loathe and detest them. Ever since I grew up and
comprehended their aims I’ve feared and hated them.”
“Lord, how unnatural! You that’s all beauty and sweetness and that they
would die to please, how can that be? Alas, child, you take neither
after your father nor your mother. Sure you can’t propose to be an old
spinster woman with a cat and a parrot and all according! Defend us!—
Sure that’s never in your mind.”
A moment’s silence and the lady resumed.
“And I can tell you this, Di, marry you must and whether you would or
no, for needs must when the devil drives, and I know no devil like an
empty purse. Things are going down child, down! You know we scarce have
visitors now, and none but those to be ashamed of,—and listen in your
ear—(she glanced fearfully at the door) ’twas but last night when you
was gone to bed that Mr. Fenton told me plump out that things were
slipping from bad to worse. And, says he, if Di’s pretty face is to be
shut away from my customers that’s left I won’t be answerable for the
consequences! He did so, child! and when I asked his meaning, says he—
‘I would have her come down and sing for my customers and be
pretty-behaved with them, and there’s no harm to her and gain to me that
may keep us all off the parish.’ I cried, Di, indeed I did, child, but
he took no heed.”
Mrs. Diana’s fine dark brows were drawn together and her lips in a stern
line above her pearls of teeth. Perhaps these news did not come so
surprising to her as her mamma might suppose. But she said nothing. Mrs.
Fenton continued—her handkerchief to her eyes, her ample bosom heaving
with sobs.
“So you see, child, well may my thoughts turn to marriage and a good
home for you, where perhaps there might be a knife and fork laid for
your poor mamma if things go from bad to worse, for I won’t have my
child made a decoy, so I won’t! No, not to please Mr. Fenton nor any man
on earth. What would your dear father have said that had such high
notions of honour? Why, don’t I remember his saying last time he
went—‘Lavinia, if when I come next I find my girl come to any harm ’tis
you are answerable and I’ll have your heart’s blood if I swing for it!’
Ah, ’twas him for handsome uplifted notions of honour. I can hear him
say it so fine!”
’Twas bewildering certainly for a young girl still in her teens to
adjust the rights and wrongs in such cases. Our poor girl could scarce
have made a worse choice of parents all things considered. And besides
all this she had herself to contend with, and she so young! Even the
blossom was not set, much less any show of fruit. Indeed she was
helpless in the face of her own emotion, ignorant but passionate and
slave of the desire to express herself in some form that would catch the
world’s approval. And ’tis true she hated such men as came her way,
plumbed their shallows, (for deeps they had none) and then scornfully
passed on. She saw no help in any but her own powers. In a certain
fashion however her mamma’s words now gave her courage. But let her
speak for herself.
“I wish my mamma to know I am resolved to leave Mr. Fenton’s house.”
She leaned upward affectionately and put her arms about her mother, and
would have said more, but was violently interrupted.
“Leave Mr. Fenton’s house! Lord, what words are these? And not to be
married? For what reason?”
Diana might have run off many to non-suit her mamma’s unreason. That he
drank, diced, betted, that he was almost openly unfaithful to his
obligations, that on her mother’s own assertions he proposed to make use
of her face as a decoy to his unworthy companions. But she summed all up
in one phrase.
“Because he is intolerable, Mamma. Because whichever way I turn his
figure blocks the road. Let us speak freely. I’m in danger here and you
know it.”
“Danger! With your mamma to watch you! ’Tis a poor compliment to my
wisdom. My heart’s almost broke to hear you, you undutiful child! And if
not marriage, then what? You’re a scatter-brained little fool, and I
doubt but you will end as some fine gentleman’s Miss instead of an
honest man’s wife! Good Lord, how shall I get to Mrs. Clayton’s and the
street all floated with rain. Hark to it! I’ll hear no more folly.”
But the two arms about her person held her fast and two eyes that had
softened a stone looked up at her.
“My mamma must hear her girl. Who have I, if not you, Mamma? I have been
a great studier of music and you know my voice hath been commended. ’Tis
my intention to be beholden no longer to Mr. Fenton, but to go on the
stage. For good.”
The murder was out.
“The stage!” screamed Mrs. Fenton, violently unloosing the arms. “That I
should live to hear it. The stage!—where every woman is a hussey and
every man a knave. If you go on the stage in a year from now you’ll be a
mincing wanton that a decent man will flout.”
“And what shall I be if I stay here, Mamma? What has yourself said?
Don’t I know Mr. Fenton hath been pleased to borrow your little capital
for his pleasure? Don’t I know we are all living on credit? We shall see
the inside of a debtor’s prison before long, Mamma, and what then?”
“Di,” cries the other, exerting herself feebly, “you had always the
horrid skill to make the worse appear the better reason. I can’t debate
with you—I never could from the day you was six, but I bid you on my
blessing to consider, and I say that the example I set you when Mr.
Beswick run off to the American colonies is the only safe one for a
young woman to follow. Shut your eyes and your mind to what’s
disagreeable in the present and be patient.”
Diana showed her little teeth in a smile that was not gay.
“Surely the men invented that commandment. But in your case, Mamma, be
pleased to remember you had a husband, and, thank God, I’m free. A girl
needs not ruin her life for her stepfather. ’Tis certainly not in the
Church Catechism.”
A few tears ran down the poor lady’s cheeks and her girl made no motion
to dry them. She stared above her mother’s head at the print of the fair
Mrs. Oldfield as Lady Betty Modish which graced the wall. That was her
own possession; her father’s gift, and perhaps it had set her thoughts
in that train. She said nothing but indeed followed her dream as her
mother rambled weakly on, till she happed on the phrase that the child
had food and roof and sure that should content her. Then Diana flamed
indignant, towering above her.
“Food and roof? But it does not content me. How should it? I need more.
Eighteen!— ’Twas my birthday a week since, and what happiness or good
has one of the eighteen years brought me? That man feeds on us, lives on
us, sponges on us, and would do worse. He will suck us dry as a China
orange. No—I have my chance and tomorrow I go.”
“Good God, and where?”
She condescended then on explanations, and added that she knew a good
old woman who would give her lodging and that the fine salary she
expected would make all easy. The old woman in her head was Mrs. Scawen
for she knew no other, and ’tis to be seen how wild and insubstantial
were all her plans. Indeed her mother was not wrong in scenting much
danger, and equally the girl was cruel enough, in her young rebellion,
to these anxieties. But there it was, and if anything was needed to
clinch her resolves it was when Mr. Fenton swaggered into the room in
his spotted and blotched cloth coat, carrying his bloated face without
shame and garnishing every sentence with a deep oath. The courtship had
been short, or sure poor Mrs. Fenton had discovered what like he was in
time to save her and her child.
The two women hushed their talk like birds before a storm when he flung
himself into the creaking armchair and came out with a proposal that the
girl should dance and sing at a roister to be held at the coffee house
in a week’s time.
“There’s money in light toes and a pretty face, Lavinia,” says he, “and
when I hear talk of these foreign beauties coming to twirl the money out
of poor English pockets I think I know as pretty a girl at home and I’m
much mistook unless she sits by me now.”
Mrs. Fenton made an exclamation of horror.—A dancer! then silenced
herself because Diana sat rigid. Thus they endured until the horrid man
took himself off to his bottle below, and then the poor lady flung
herself weeping into her girl’s arms and owned she could see no hope of
better things.
“But promise me, promise me, Di,” she cried, “that you won’t drag your
father’s honoured name in the dirt of the stage. Sure you don’t forget
his father was a landed gentleman in Sussex if he hadn’t diced his all
away. Promise me this.”
Diana promised, with a glitter in her eyes. “You have my word, Mamma.
I’ll take a name that no dirt can soil because it’s so black already.
Fenton. I’ll be Mrs. Fenton. And for Christian name—O, my mamma, lend
me yours that I may have one thing at least clean about me where I go.
Let me be Lavinia because ’tis your name. Lavinia Fenton! And if I make
my fortune you’ll come to me, and we’ll have rooms where that horror
can’t pursue us, and some happy day to come, you’ll bless your Lavinia
Fenton!”
So her heart softened when she saw her mother’s grief, and it well
became her.
The two passed the evening together talking and weeping, clasping each
other’s hand, and trembling each in her own way at the coming dawn and
its events. They slept in each other’s arms also, if sleep it could be
called, with Diana huddling against her mother like a young bird that
quakes to leave the nest maternal, yet knows her wings are fledged. And
such indeed was her pitiful case.
So she saw the morning dawn wet and dismal behind the curtains, and
clung the faster to her one refuge.