Sunday morning at Curtain Wells was eminently a day of rest. A stroke of
organizing genius on the part of Beau Ripple had abolished the fatigues
of early Chalybeate by transferring the corporeal obligations of
fashionable humanity to an hour which would not interfere with the
respect owed to the spirit.
"A glass of Chalybeate," he had remarked, "will promote the proper
digestion of the homily. Moreover, the vanity of post-religious
promenades will be considerably mitigated by the discipline of the
Pump."
At Curtain Wells, therefore, soon arose the pleasant custom of inviting
one's friends and neighbours to partake of a substantial breakfast
before setting out to St. Simon's parish church. The neighbours, if
gentlemen, were expected to provide a suitable escort for their
lady-hosts, and there was not a dame in the town who did not make it a
point of honour to be armed in at the great West door on fine mornings
or handed out of her chair with cautious ceremony if the weather was
unsettled.
The Widow Courteen was not the woman to neglect or despise any
prescriptive right conferred upon her sex. It was not surprizing,
therefore, to see Major Constantine Tarry and Mr. Gregory Moon turning
solemnly into the Crescent on the first Sunday morning whose events I am
privileged to chronicle. The demeanour of neither gentleman would have
allowed us even a momentary hesitation as to the day. The Sabbath wrote
itself in the devout wrinkles of Mr. Moon's domed forehead and expressed
itself in the stiff curls of the Major's military wig. As they drew near
to Mrs. Courteen's house the latter voiced a desire to see eggs and
bacon upon the breakfast table, and the former encouraged his ambition
by repeating a legend of a fecundity among hens unusual at this season
of the year. The meditation carried the two gentlemen to Mrs. Courteen's
door in silence.
"Your turn to knock, Tarry," said Mr. Moon, in a rather depressed voice,
as he fumbled with the steps from which the Major assaulted the door
with military abruptness.
To them after a decent interval appeared Thomas in resplendent waistcoat
of Sunday and with nose polished to the limit of a nose's power of
brightness.
"Is your mistress within?" inquired the Major.
"Within and awaiting you," said solemn Mr. Thomas.
"Then I think, Mr. Moon," said the Major with half a turn, "we will step
inside immediately."
"I think we may venture," replied the latter.
They were ushered into the passage where Thomas received their hats and
canes. Thomas had such a sober effect on his fellow men that the
slightest action in which he took part was conducted with a ritual at
once austere and grand. One felt that the delivery of a hat, smallsword,
cane, or message possessed at least the dignity, the entire absence of
all worldly considerations that belong to the Sunday alms.
"Will your mistress receive us in the front parlour or the back parlour
this morning?" inquired Tarry whose legs were prepared for either
emergency.
"In the front parlour," said Thomas. "Miss Thomasina was ill this
morning."
"In the back parlour, I presume?" said Moon.
"Very ill with retching and divers pains," continued Thomas.
"Poor Thomasina," said the Major with an attempt at jocularity.
"A feeble animal," said the footman, "and too fond of grass; and the
grass of this city is fit only for Nebuchadnezzar."
A bright fire was crackling in the grate, and on each hob a kettle of
burnished copper sang with considerable sentiment.
Thomas withdrew, and the Major and Mr. Moon took up the Englishman's
position on the hearthrug with coat-tails wide apart to allow the
grateful warmth free access to whatever chillness of morning air still
clung about their bodies. So they remained, silent, wrapped in the
dignified contemplation of an inferior painting in oils on the opposite
wall. No doubt in reality their thoughts were far away, possibly in the
chaste seclusion of the Widow's own room or possibly in the kitchen
whence from time to time ascended the pleasant jingle and chink that
heralds food's approach.
No doubt they would both have stood there long enough for us to moralize
on England and the greatness of England, had not Mrs. Courteen come into
the room just then.
Ponto, Phyllida's black spaniel, sidled in with the breakfast and
Phyllida herself followed, and the freshness of her in the morning was
strewn about the room like petals of roses.
Conversation at breakfast suited itself to the solemnity of the day. The
widow sighed at every remark that was made, and in the gentle pathos of
her manner indicated placidly her conviction of fleeting time and
sorrow, and all those melancholy reflexions which are considered proper
to the Sabbath. However, at all times she was accustomed to preserve a
cloistral rigour of speech before her daughter. No one loved better to
gather the easier blooms on the safe side of the garden-god's perfumed
hedge, but they could only be plucked in numerous corners of ballrooms
and during secluded promenades. The presence of Phyllida made her
mother's blood so much rennet. Conversation became mere verbal curds and
whey.
However, the Justice talked into his cup of the swift approach of
Spring, of the benefit of sun, the intolerable increase in vagrancy, the
need for repressing poachers. If platitudes were esteemed as high as
rolling hexameters, Moon would have been among the epical poets. As for
Major Tarry, he thrashed each topick at if his tongue were a little
rattan cane. One felt that any observation was regarded by that gallant
gentleman as an awkward recruit. He had an air of drilling the
conversation. After breakfast, the various members dispersed to acquire
a seemly attitude towards matters of religion.
Since the search for attitudes occupies a vast deal of human energy, it
may not be out of place to inform my reader where the half-dozen
required for Morning Prayer at St. Simon's were found.
The Widow Courteen found hers hidden between powder puff and patch-box.
Miss Courteen found hers between the lines of a three-cornered note.
Madam Betty found hers in the coral secrets of Miss Courteen's left ear.
Mr. Thomas found his in a Bible as large and heavy as a Bible should be.
Major Tarry found his in the stem of a churchwarden pipe.
Mr. Moon found his in the best attitude that exists.
Soon Mrs. Courteen's chairmen were knocking at the door and the whole
party prepared to set out. The widow seated in her chair, hummed a hymn
_tempo di minuetto_. The Major marched upon her left and the Justice
upon her right, and Thomas marched in front. Phyllida and Betty kept to
the pavement and had scarcely time to wonder if all the world would be
at church, when they arrived at the porch and found that all the world
certainly was.
As the Major had handed the widow into her chair, Mr. Moon handed her
out, and the party of Mrs. Courteen proceeded to Mrs. Courteen's pew,
while Mrs. Courteen's chairmen carried the chair to an alley beloved of
chairmen and proceeded to doze away the Sabbath morning in its damask
recesses and were no doubt as comfortable as their mistress in the musty
cushions of St. Simon's pews. In the Western gallery, three fiddles, two
hautboys, and a bass viol squeaked and groaned with much fervour. In the
pulpit the parson squeaked and groaned with equal fervour and in the
desk below the clerk squeaked and groaned with most fervour of all. When
the parson threatened damnation, the ladies fanned themselves rapidly
and when he spoke of alms and oblations, they consoled themselves with
carraway comfits.
The service was rather worldly and seemed remote enough from anything at
all spiritual, but nevertheless in so far as it was indigenous to fair
King Richard's land, it should exact from us as much respect as we owe
to a Chippendale chair and that is or ought to be very great indeed. If
so much condemnatory fervour was equivalent to breaking these
butterflies of fashion upon a religious wheel, it cannot be denied that
the exquisite bloom of their ruined wings was a great deal more pleasant
to regard than the spattered blood and bones of earlier and more
tangible martyrs to an extreme mode.
The parson continued to prophesy hell-fire. But hell-fire means so many
kinds of illumination--certainly it had an invincible attraction for
these gay moths and butterflies. Perhaps they thought of it merely as a
huge aggregation of wax candles by which most of them had more than once
been morally singed. If any permanency of emotion was desirable, it
would certainty be more endurable in heat and gaiety than in chill
aerial solitudes. And, thanks to chickens, there would always be painted
fans. This was the sum of the congregation's united reflection during
the sermon; individually, no doubt, each soul played with more
particular premisses, but the ultimate conclusion was the same for all.
After so much damnation, the blessing was a rhetorical anti-climax.
Clouds had gathered during the homily due, no doubt, to the violence of
the preacher and, as the worshippers tripped out through the great West
door, the clouds burst and the streaming rain inclined them more
favourably than ever to the prospect of eternal warmth.
The morning's fair promise had been utterly belied, and many appealing
glances were launched at Mr. Ripple as he beckoned to his chairman.
Surely he would not be so barbarous as to force so much accumulated
fine raiment through mud and water, to drink the latter element in a
less pleasing form. But Mr. Ripple was inexorable: he stepped into his
gilded chair, regardless of appeal: the chairmen tightened their muscles
for the long pull uphill, and Gog and Magog, the diminutive negroes
balanced one on each step, guarded their master from interruption. Now
ensued shouts, whistles, cockcrows and screams. Hats were waved, canes
flourished, and lily-white hands shaken. All this uproar was due to the
fact that there were just half as many coaches and chairs as were
required, and when these were filled, and on their way to the Pump Room,
there remained in the church too many foolish virgins, too many
improvident dowagers, too many thoughtless beaux.
The rain fell in torrents, and the last vehicle had turned the corner.
A desolate remnant surveyed the situation. It was wet enough.
Now arose one of those crises which are inseparable from a despotism.
Somebody, for his presumption will always remain anonymous, somebody
suggested that the idea of climbing the hill of health in such a
downpour was unimaginable.
The stranded exquisites depended for the moment entirely on their rouge
for colour.
"Rebellion," they muttered and the ominous word flapped over their heads
and darkened the gloom more profoundly.
"The Beau will be furious."
"He will never forgive us."
"We shall be banished."
"Curtain Wells will no longer know us."
Again the daring voice was upraised:
"We are strong enough to defy Ripple. He has no right to make us wade
through mud for a whim of his own. If we do so, we'll do so in shifts
and shirts." The unknown voice gathered force with each new proposition,
and the startled exquisites huddled closer in a very ecstasy of
perturbation.
"Shall damask flowers lose their beauty, shall silver lace be tarnished
and broideries lack lustre because Ripple has commanded the impossible?
Silk is the fashion, ay! and watered silk, but not sodden silk. Well was
it named the Pump Room, for such shall we become, mere pumps exuding
moisture at the propulsion of a tyrant!"
The apparent carelessness of the unknown tyrannicide had its effect; a
suspicion began to creep in that Mr. Ripple's domination was based on
insecurity. The thin end of this destructive wedge was enough to break
open the fortress of their duty and, the rain stopping for a moment, the
stranded exquisites hurried home to discuss the probable result of their
revolt over hot rum and lemon. Up at the Pump Room Mr. Ripple missed
many a well-known face that Sunday, and his urbane countenance lost some
of its smoothness as the minutes rolled by without the arrival of a
single person on foot.
At the expiration of the quarter of an hour, he despatched Gog to see
what had happened and when Gog came back with the news that the stranded
exquisites had one and all departed to their own lodgings, Mr. Ripple
ascended his marble pedestal with an air of determination.
"My lords, ladies and gentlemen," he began, and just then Magog hurried
up with the Beau's glass of chalybeate. The latter looked at it for a
moment. Pity and anger fought visibly for the mastery. Anger won, and
the remorseless Beau dashed the glass into a thousand sparkling
fragments.
"The Pump Room will be closed until--until this--," he faltered over the
description of such ingratitude, "until the extraordinary behaviour of
certain visitors has been justified, if it can be justified. There will
be no Assembly to-morrow night."
The company shivered unanimously and the Beau, dismissing his chairmen,
walked forth into the rain with all the dignity in the world. It is said
he ruined three suits of unparagoned cut that fatal day by walking about
the principal thoroughfares of Curtain Wells for the remainder of a very
wet afternoon.
_Chapter the Eighth_