As all roads are commonly reputed to lead to Earls Court, so here at
Curtain Wells all roads led to the Pump Room. It dominated the city from
the summit of a moderately steep hill as the Acropolis dominates the
almost equally famous city of Athens. In certain aspects it bore a
remarkable likeness to a Greek temple with its fluted columns and
portico haunted by many white pigeons. It was even more like a gigantick
summer-house whose interior was always open to the four winds. Any
reasonable explanation of a spring that gushed forth at the very top of
a hill always eluded those who toiled laboriously up the slope; but, as
a more religious butterfly once remarked, Providence plainly designed it
to serve some useful purpose by allowing it to gush forth at such an
unexpected elevation. The same lady used to regard volcanoes as an
uncomfortable if divine method of destroying large numbers of Papists
together, and would pertinently observe that if England had admitted the
claims of the Pretender, she was convinced what was now a cool,
health-giving fountain would have boiled over to the horrid
accompaniment of flames and lava. At precisely a quarter to nine
o'clock, Beau Ripple paused at the foot of the hill to survey through a
monocle his flurried followers. A wag once said that Ripple liked to
gaze at life through the wrong end of a spy-glass, because he himself
was of so small a stature. Whether this monocle actually diminished his
world to the size of an ant-heap, I do not know, but certainly the whole
assemblage stopped to recover their breath as if conscious of their
utter lack of importance in the eyes of the Great little Man. The
Physician-in-chief was solemnly beckoned into hearing.
"Two minutes," said the Beau.
Mr. Oboe the Physician opened the lid of an enormous watch attached to a
red silk fob and regarded the dial with an expression of great
intentness. He might, so complete was his abstraction, have been feeling
the pulse of the Exquisite Mob behind him.
Slowly the minutes rolled by while the Beau took several possessive
sniffs of the young spring air. Not an unseemly whisper disturbed the
silence. So still was it that above the cooing of the sacred pigeons on
the roof of the Pump Room, far down in the valley could be heard the
lowing of cows. At thirteen minutes to nine Mr. Ripple let his monocle
drop; Mr. Oboe replaced his watch; the Pump Room bell began to clang
very fast; the Exquisite Mob started to climb the hill and innumerable
glass goblets glittered in the sun. When the summit was reached the Beau
called in a loud voice:
"Oboe!"
"Mr. Ripple?" bowed the Physician.
"I allow two more minutes for panting."
"Certainly, Mr. Ripple. Very just, sir."
So the Exquisite Mob like the Hart panted after the Waters or perhaps
more accurately before them.
At the expiration of the breathing-space, a diminutive negro known as
Gog advanced towards Mr. Ripple, bearing a fluted goblet upon a tray of
Chinese lacker. An equally diminutive negro called Magog presented the
goblet to Mr. Ripple who turned slightly in the direction of the company
and slowly sipped his portion with consummate meditation. When almost
half-way towards the bottom of the glass the Beau looked up as if
surprized to see his adherents still thirsty. This was understood to be
the signal for approach, and the Exquisite Mob advanced to drink while
the children, miniatures of foppery, played Hide and Seek or Touchlast
round the pillars.
Mrs. Courteen sailed towards a thin little military man with a very long
and very crisp pigtail, whose outstanding feature in front was an
extremely conical Adam's Apple that bobbed up and down as if his throat
were a bowl of water and, rising with his choler, at boiling-point
invariably choked him into incoherence.
The Major would have passed for one of those half-pay officers who
frequent watering-places and rely for many of their meals upon an
acquaintance with the tacticks and strategy of the late Duke of
Marlborough, with the miserable failure of Carthagena and the already
forgotten personality of his Highness the Duke of C---- d.
As a matter of fact, he had followed Mrs. Courteen to Curtain Wells from
Hampshire where he owned a small hunting lodge known as Ramilies House,
Oudenarde Grange, and Malplaquet Place according to his humour, but for
no discoverable reason besides. He had a painted board for each
designation, but nobody ever extracted from him the principle on which,
from time to time, they were changed. When asked on one occasion why he
omitted the famous victory of Blenheim from his titular commemoration,
he replied that the omission saved the expense of continually forwarding
letters to Oxfordshire. The Major was inclined to resent the homage paid
to Beau Ripple.
"A d----d civilian, ma'am," he muttered to Mrs. Courteen.
"Oh! you soldiers! I protest you have no reverence for anybody."
"Not I, ma'am. I don't bow the knee to a living soul. Not at all.
'Sblood, ma'am, the fellow's no better than a low adventurer. Would he
fight? Not he. So he forbids us to wear swords. D---- n it, ma'am, a
soldier without his hanger is like a monkey without his tail. That's
what I say."
"So do I, Major, so do I," echoed a suave voice over his shoulder and
the Major turning round, encountered the bland half-bored, half-tolerant
smile of the Great little Man.
"Your similes are uncommon happy, Major."
Tarry's Apple throbbed and bubbled and rose and sank, but the Beau
passed on contemptuously, and a large flabby man in a suit of
snuff-coloured frieze treading upon the Major's toe at this moment, the
latter's wrath flowed into another channel.
"My toe, Mr. Moon!" he said furiously.
"Your toe?" inquired the other with great earnestness. The question of
disputed property which seemed imminent was quashed by the widow's
interruption:
"'Tis too early for argument. Come, neighbours, let us make our
promenade. Where is Phyllida?"
But Phyllida was making her promenade at a careful distance behind her
mother. Phyllida was taking the demurest little steps with an arm in her
beloved Betty's arm and with a swansdown muff held against her cheek to
ward off the shrewd Easterly wind, while almost level with the two maids
walked a stately gentleman of a pale complexion. And every time the
gentleman stopped to survey the promenaders over the tortoise-shell
handle of his ebony walking-stick, Phyllida and Betty stopped to see if
it was truly a quarter-past nine o'clock by St. Simon's church tower.
And every time the gentleman stopped to flick a speck of dust from his
purple sattin sleeve, by a very odd coincidence Miss Courteen always
stopped to see if her shoe had really become unbuckled. This tends to
show that in spite of all the precautions of Beau Ripple, the innermost
fane of AEsculapius had been invaded by a strange god. I doubt Miss
Courteen, considered by her mother too young for Chalybeate, was
learning to drink of that deep well whose waters will never run dry so
long as maids and men frequent its precincts.
The Exquisite Mob continued to circle round the Pump Room because the
ritual of the Cure prescribed an hour's steady promenade before
breakfast. The scarlet heels of innumerable shoes clicked in unison and
the drowsy hum of morning small talk rose and fell upon the February
air. All agreed it was a monstrous fine day for the season of the year.
All expressed the opinion that by no stretch of imagination could such
weather be expected to last. All wished it would indeed, and everybody
asked his neighbour whether he intended to grace the next Assembly, and
the neighbour invariably replied he had every intention of doing so.
Everybody bowed or curtseyed very low to Mr. Ripple and Mr. Ripple had a
delightfully well-turned sentence for each of his subjects, as if he
would reward their energy in rising so early. Occasionally the Great
little Man would condescend to take a pinch of the best Rappee with an
elderly gentleman. But as he never took snuff with anybody under the
rank of Viscount in the peerage of England and as the peer thus honoured
was bound to be above the age of five-and-forty, it happened that the
elderly gentleman was always old Lord Vanity, the only individual
present who satisfied the double requirement.
"How different this scene is from Hampshire to be sure, though for my
part I shall ever protest that those who have eyes to see, let them see,
and people who accuse us of wasting our time forget how persistently
they look for the arrival of the carrier."
Whether or not Major Tarry and Mr. Moon understood this remark of Mrs.
Courteen's, they certainly both agreed with her.
"To-day is Session day," muttered the Justice rather gloomily.
"Well, sir, the magistrates will do their business without you," snapped
his rival.
"Not unlikely, sir, not unlikely."
"Well, sir, what the deuce are you grumbling at?"
Mr. Moon replied that he was not grumbling, he was merely commenting;
and the two gentlemen bickered on across placid Mrs. Courteen like two
children over a hedge.
Meanwhile on the farther side of the Course, as the broad path round the
Pump Room was called, Mr. Vernon was still keeping step with Phyllida
and Betty, but so delicately did the former tread and so far aloof did
he appear that no one suspected him of anything so low as ogling pretty
Miss Courteen or her maid. Sometimes he would murmur "When will my
charmer be there?" and every time he asked this question, the charmer
would send a rippling little laugh into her swansdown muff, and flash a
glance over the top towards Betty who would toss her head and imply that
such curiosity was worth a long-delayed gratification.
At last Mr. Vernon would take out his laced handkerchief and flick
presumably at a ghostly Despair. Phyllida would be prodigiously afraid
that her dear Amor (by that name only did she know her lover) was
growing unhappy at her hard-hearted treatment and, feeling she had
tormented his patience long enough, would gently shake her muff until a
piece of paper fluttered slowly to the ground. Mr. Vernon would stoop
with indescribable grace and distinction of manner, and while Miss
Courteen looked very demure indeed and quite innocent of anything or
anybody in the world, he would put the piece of paper in his
handkerchief and press the handkerchief to his lips and look round the
corner of his eyes at Phyllida, who would just by chance be looking
round the corner of her eyes to ascertain if her Mamma were beckoning to
her. And this used to happen every fine morning during the promenade,
and continued to happen for many days afterwards.
Half-past nine o'clock struck, and the promenaders all turned on their
heels to hear Mr. Ripple divulge the gaiety of the day.
It is not to be supposed that Curtain Wells was careless of her
pilgrims' pleasure. On the contrary every hour of their visit was
wreathed in delightful possibilities of enjoyment. At present it was
Winter so that naturally most of the entertainments occurred indoors,
but in late Spring and Summer a series of Fetes Champetres and Fetes
Aqueuses, of moonlight Concertos, harlequin Ridottos, and lantern
Masquerades made Curtain Wells a tolerably attractive stage for the
marionettes who postured and declaimed upon its boards.
There was much tiptoe attention for the Beau as he ascended a marble
pedestal and slowly turned the pages of a notebook bound in tooled
Morocco leather, gilt-edged, and of impeccable finish and design.
"My Lords," Mr. Ripple began, whereupon old Lord Vanity, blinking
several times at his daughter Lady Jane Vane, took an extra large pinch
of Rappee.
"My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen, I have the extreme honour to inform you
that the Publick Breakfast given to Sir Jeremy Dummer for the purpose of
commemorating his twenty-first consecutive winter at Curtain Wells will
be held (_Deo volente_) at the Town Hall to-morrow the fifteenth
instant."
A murmur of delighted anticipation ran round the Exquisite Mob while Sir
Jeremy Dummer who was verging on nonagenarian antiquity drew himself up
very erect, quivering and doddering with senile pride. "There will be
the usual loyal and personal toasts," continued the Beau, "and at the
conclusion of the entertainment the Company will adjourn to the Civic
Chamber, where I hope the ladies will be already arrived, in order to
partake of a dish of tea. I may add that the tea, duty paid, has been
generously presented by Mr. Hopkins of the High Street, well known to
many of you as the incomparable provider of the rarer dried delicacies
which have traced prodigal patterns over so many of your mahogany
tables."
The Exquisite Mob murmured its gratitude for the tea and the compliment
with much condescension and affableness, while the publick spirit of the
tradesman was generally extolled.
"To-night at precisely half-past six o'clock, Mrs. Dudding's
Conversazione. Quadrille tables for ninety-six players, Pope Joan for
the young and sprightly and--ahem--a Pharaoh table in order that our
gentlemen, Mrs. Dudding informs me, may have no valid excuse for
absenting themselves on the score of dullness. Chairs at precisely
half-past ten o'clock and I must request you, my lords, ladies and
gentlemen, to warn your chairmen that quarterstaff play with the poles
will be visited with your acutest displeasure. I am sorry to complain of
an abuse on a morning when the prospect of Nature is so vastly pleasant,
but last week the whooping and halloaing of the partizans caused me to
place Basto upon the Ponto of my Vis a Vis."
The Exquisite Mob sighed in sympathetick consternation as, with a
perceptible break in his voice, Mr. Ripple made this confession.
"And since I am temporarily launched upon unpleasant topicks, I must beg
for earlier and less riotous hours at the _Blue Boar_. It is exceedingly
ungenteel to throw quart bottles of Burgundy at the watch. The latter is
a fine body of men devoted to the service of an orderly and decent
society, and does not deserve a crown of plaisters as the result of
publishing the hour of the night and the state of the weather. However,
I will mention no names, gentlemen."
Lord Vanity, not feeling himself included in the last vocative, took a
pinch of Rappee and gazed very fiercely at my Lady Bunbutter through the
rheum and water of his ancient eyes. As her ladyship showed no signs of
a guilty conscience, the Earl took a second pinch and muttered "devilish
young cubs" under his breath.
"On Sunday," the Beau resumed with his old suavity of enunciation, "the
waters will not be drunk until the fulfilment of Divine Service. On
Monday the usual Assembly will be held, and a Cotillon will be danced at
twelve o'clock precisely. Chairs at half-past twelve o'clock precisely.
And now, my lords, ladies and gentlemen, nothing remains for me but to
wish you a vastly enjoyable breakfast, a happy issue from your divers
infirmities and a very good morning."
This benediction was the recognized sign of dismissal; the Beau
descended from his pedestal and the Exquisite Mob betook itself down
hill, although a few individuals waited behind in order to consult with
the former on matters of etiquette, fashion and gentility, his advice
being considered the most refined in the country.
Mrs. Courteen sailed down upon Mr. Ripple and asked whether she was
right in thinking that the moment when green should be worn was arrived.
"I think so, ma'am," the Beau assured her. "I think so: to be sure, a
few of our more conservative fops hold that green should never appear
before the Queen's birthday. But I differ from them, ma'am, I differ.
You will observe madam, that I differ."
Phyllida had rejoined her mother by this time, and Mr. Ripple saluted
her freshness with a courtly bow.
"Many Valentines?" he inquired with a quizzical droop of his left
eyelid.
Phyllida blushed, protesting,
"No, indeed, sir."
The Widow hastily assured Mr. Ripple that her daughter was not near old
enough to dream of such follies, while Major Tarry and Mr. Moon, whose
skirts were stiff with Valentines intended for Mrs. Courteen herself,
looked very severely at the sun as if he were in some way responsible
for the madness of love in the air.
"Tut-tut! Youth's the time for love, as Mr. Gay sings, and though I do
not encourage the interchange of passionate sentiments among those who
are seeking to recover their health, I regard St. Valentine's Day as a
very proper festival for young men and maidens in whose hearts no
degeneration is yet apparent." With these words Mr. Ripple drooped his
left eyelid lower than ever.
"Fie! sir, we shall have the child vapoured like any woman of fashion,
if you put such inflammable ideas into her head," complained Mrs.
Courteen, who was just beginning to be more than a little jealous of her
daughter.
"Not at all, ma'am," said the Beau, "I swear I saw an agreeable spark
toast Miss Phyllida in Chalybeate--the irreverent dog--but I forgave
him; upon my honour, I was near doing the same thing myself."
Now Phyllida was not at all anxious for her mother to think she had an
admirer, and yet with youth's vanity, she could not resist a
half-acknowledgment of the Beau's rally. Luckily for her, Major Tarry,
who always resented his removal from the centre of attraction, thought
it was time to assert his existence by demanding rather pompously if the
Beau saw anything unusual in the sky.
"Yes, sir," the latter agreed. "I see the sun, which is very unusual at
this season of the year."
Mr. Moon gaped a smile, and Tarry's Apple began to rise. He had
anticipated a surprized negative from the Beau, whereupon he intended to
look very mysterious and say that after all perhaps he was mistaken.
Thus, having impressed the bystanders with the notion that they were
talking to a man of superhuman vision, he would offer an arm to Mrs.
Courteen.
"Run, Betty," exclaimed the latter, "and tell Mr. Thomas we await his
escort."
Thomas was at the footman's Pump Room, a hundred yards down the hill.
Here, every morning he mused regretfully upon the decline of
beer-drinking. Chalybeate to him was a sort of Jacobite liquor which was
slowly supplanting the honest Esau ale. As for streams that spouted
inexplicably from solid rocks, these he held to be an infringement of
Moses' prerogative. He would unscrew the knob of his footman's cane for
a morsel of Parmesan cheese and chew the cud of bitter reflection, while
with the butt of his nose he would polish the silver ball till it shone
with equal splendour.
Betty found him thus occupied and, as he stalked after her in obedience
to his summoning, she heard him mutter several times in quick
succession, "Wells of Sodom! Waters of Gomorrah! Pillars of Salt!"
Mrs. Courteen as she curtseyed her farewells to the Beau sank to the
ground like a deflated balloon. This done she gathered her party into
hearing and occupied their outward attention as they walked in the
direction of the Crescent with a long and disjointed account of her
health.
"Why will you shake your muff so vehemently?" complained the Widow.
"'Tis full of dust," said Phyllida.
If it was, I am afraid Miss Courteen was trying to throw some of it into
her mamma's eyes.
_Chapter the Third_