If Eve had possessed a Confidante, it is probable that the evil wrought
by Woman would have been double as great as it is reputed to be. Miss
Courteen had stepped into the mud of reality and, not unnaturally, was
eager to tell Mistress Betty of the accident and ascertain by
candlelight consultation, whether or not her glass slipper was truly
lost.
As they drove home in the rumbling coach, Phyllida experienced an
emotion of futility as she half listened, half dozed, to the
conversation of the Major, the Justice and her mother. To this came
Youth. Bumpety-bump went the coach, bumpety-bump went the conversation,
bumpety-bump went Thomas' broad back on the Jimmy, bumpety-bump went
Phyllida's head, while her thoughts and memories kept pace in the
darkness like swift sparks that are blown along by the wind. At last the
coach drew up before their house in the Crescent: Phyllida and her
mother alighted: Betty opened the door and the coach drove off to put
down Major Tarry and Mr. Moon at their lodgings.
The hall seemed drab and unfamiliar; the bedchamber candle-sticks set
out upon the little gate table had an air of reproof about them; they
seemed to say as they sat in a prim row: "Look at us, we are quite
content. Last night our candles burnt an inch lower, and the candle
suffers diminution, but we remain the same. We are quite content."
"My pretty one looks pale," said Betty, full of solicitude.
"I'm tired," said Phyllida.
"Betty," said Mrs. Courteen, "you must help me to undress. The evening
has been most enjoyable, and my lady Bunbutter tore her gown on a
monkey's tail. Now, Phyllida, do you run quickly to bed, for to-morrow
Mr. Moon and the Major have promised to drive with us to see Melton
Abbey. You will enjoy the excursion vastly."
"What a whimsical place to visit."
"Whimsical! How can you be so irreverend, Phyllida?"
"But why, mamma, do you suddenly drive to Melton Abbey?"
"Why, child! because I wish to train your mind to be sure. Nothing tests
deportment so severely as wandering round a Gothick ruin. However, they
tell me that Gothick will soon be a la Mode, and who am I to dispute the
commands of fashion?"
Upon the heels of this humble interrogation, the widow betook herself to
bed.
"When you have undressed my mamma, Betty, come to my chamber, I have a
thousand things to tell you," Phyllida whispered as they went up the
narrow stairs.
She lighted all the candles in her room and looked round in sudden
affright. It was as if some one had trespassed upon those virginal
solitudes while she was away. Yet her room was the same as usual; the
dimity covers were all in their places: the fire was burning merrily in
the hearth: the bed-cloaths were turned back, fresh, cool and
lavendered. Her slippers knelt devoutly by the fender: the fire-irons
looked just as stilted and apologetick as usual. Everything was
perfectly familiar, perfectly ordinary and perfectly safe; yet something
in the room was strange, or was it herself who was altered? Was she out
of harmony with this palace of amber morning dreams, this treasure-box
of twilight hopes and imaginations?
Down she sat in the big flowered arm-chair and stared at the crackling
logs--a stranger to her own possessions, and, as she untied one by one
the ribbands from her glinting chestnut hair, she seemed to smell the
jasmine of Courteen Grange and hear her father calling below her
casement to come down quickly and count the buds on the York and
Lancaster rose, as he was used to call in those sweet dead Junes.
Presently came Betty with a soft knock and Phyllida, starting away from
the host of childish memories that assailed her, sprang up as the maid
came in on tiptoe.
"Now, sit down, Betty, and listen with all your ears, for I dearly need
your advice."
"My sweet one, I'm listening to 'ee," said Betty, pulling forward a fat
lop-eared hassock and squeezing herself as close to the fender as
possible.
"Betty, Mr. Amor kissed me this evening, and what should I do?"
"What were 'ee best to do? Why think no more about it, for indeed I dare
vow you're not the first maid that was kissed."
"But the worst of the matter is that, though I struggled hard to escape,
and though I detested him for his persistence, yet, oh! Betty, I don't
like to tell you--I did not struggle as hard as I might have done."
As she made this confession, Phyllida went carnation red from forehead
to pointed dimpled chin.
"There's no call for blushes," said Betty emphatically, "for you must
learn the love of man soon or late, and Mr. Vernon is a proper enough
gentleman for sure."
"And he said we should presently elope."
"Oh! time enough to be wed come three years or more," commented Betty.
"Oh! but you would not have me allow a gentleman to take my hand, and
kiss me, and call me his dearest life without being married immediately.
It would be most unbecoming."
"If all the world knew, 'twould, but then nobody don't know, and that's
the best way for all true lovers."
"Nevertheless, Betty, I feel uneasy."
"'Tis only the stirring of your blood, my dear. Only to think," went on
the confidante, "that last sweet Spring time you was building great
cowslip balls in the green meadows, and now you are quite grown up with
a bow of your own to arm you through the minivets and gawottes, so grand
as may be."
"Yes, love makes one grow old, Betty. I've aged very much these weeks."
"Well, and 'twouldn't be right otherwise, for Life bean't all a long
sweet April month, my pretty one."
"Then truly, dear Betty, you swear you think there is no harm in what I
have done?"
"Oh, my dear, harm? Why, what harm could there be with your great fat
Betty to watch and guard 'ee?"
"Still, I'm not sure, Betty. There's something tells me not to be sure."
"Then, do 'ee listen hard to me, my dear, while I tell 'ee what I do
think about life. Life! 'Tis a garden and 'tis a wilderness, and between
them there's a gaate and 'tis a kissing gaate. The wilderness is fine
for children--a great open plaace fit for scampering Jack hares and such
like, but bare enough and bleak enough when you do grow old, and then
you're too fat to get through that kissing gaate, and then you do wish
wi' all your might and main that when you was young you'd gotten into
the garden among the sweet flowers."
Betty stopped, exhausted by the allegory.
"Yes, Betty, that is all very well, but you must go through the gate
with the person whom you love for ever and a day."
"Nay, you can meet him inside and say Good-day and thank you kindly to
the arm you went in on."
"I don't believe you give me good advice. If I told you that to-morrow
morning I was going to run away with Mr. Amor to Gretna Green, what
would you say?"
"Oh, God preserve you from the wicked thought, Gretna Green or any other
such unlawful heathenish village green!"
"There you see," complained Phyllida, "you do not take me seriously, and
it was foolish of me ever to tell you about this evening. But now that
I have told you, you must never breathe a word to a living
soul--never--never--promise!
"I do promise," said Betty.
"With the old rhyme--till Christmas--you remember?"
Betty stood up, while a ritual, sacred to the childhood of Phyllida, was
solemnly enacted. In a monotonous whispered chaunt, Betty promised:
"_I will not tell at primrose tide,
At cherry tide I'll silent be,
At barley harvest I'll be dumb
Till Christmas come and set me free._"
Phyllida was satisfied that her indiscreet confidence was safely locked
up in Betty's bosom, capacious, homely, sweet-savoured as an
apple-closet.
You have seen the confidante in action. Is it not well that we have
banished her from society? No longer may she enter stark mad in white
muslin, as the play directs. We have put her away in an old chest with
hoops and tie-wigs and gibbets and pirates and Newgate ordinaries and
rotten boroughs and watchet ribbands. No longer does she play asterisk
to a heroine, because nowadays the adventures of our heroines are
entirely introspective. But, as upon all time-honoured institutions, let
us drop a tear for the confidante; she has helped a thousand perplexed
authors to unfold their simple dramas, she has helped many a
scene-shifter to leisure.
Mr. Sheridan could laugh at Mr. Cumberland through this artful, artless
medium, but he too had his Lucy. Mr. Smollett depended upon Miss
Williams (a lady of the loosest character) in order to help his Narcissa
to reveal herself and you, Mr. Goldsmith whose name, like immortal
Madame Blaize, is 'bedizened and brocaded,' you had your dearest
Neville.
Yet, after all, however much we may regret them, confidantes were very
bad for heroines. They would encourage them in all that was most
reprehensible. Here you see, is our own confidante encouraging her
mistress to play with Love's torch and for all you or she know, get
badly scorched by the purple flame. Such temerity is very well for
country wenches to whom a green gown is a proper delight for May
morning. Betty, with her memories of many barley breaks, junketings and
Hallowe'en festivals, where ripe lips are as common as cherries at
midsummer, was not the perfect monitor for swansdown misses brought up
under Miss Prudence Prim's long rattan, taught to sit up straight and
put into corsets almost as soon as they were out of robe-coats. In fact
she was a confidante, a match-maker, to whom a wedding-ring was a Post
Hoc horse-collar, through which to grin at the censorious world.
After all, where's the ultimate difference between sweet sensibility a
hundred and fifty years ago and sweet sensibility today? We should
consider it _demode_ for the latter to gossip with her maid. Now every
schoolboy and schoolgirl knows how to spell psychology, and has been
awarded a sub-conscious self to enliven the lonely hours. And this
sub-conscious self, what is it, under analysis? Why, nothing more than
the old confidante in ghostly guise with as long a tongue and as rich a
store of bad advice.
So now, having successfully, as I hope, occupied your attention while
sweet sensibility gets into bed, let us snuff the candles and leave the
room to Phyllida and wavering firelight.
_Chapter the Nineteenth_