There had been nothing to prepare Curtain Wells for its chastizement. No
wreathed pamphlet warned readers in the most choice preliminary duff
that a sarcastick comet would presently singe their vices, their follies
and their vanities. Nobody had been invited to subscribe in advance to
his own ridicule. As it were on the wings of a Westerly gale, these
destructive little volumes settled upon the fields of Pleasure like
locusts on a Bedouin plantation.
Two speculative chap-book pedlars sold the first twenty to as many
drinkers of chalybeate hastening home to breakfast. For those who
stopped to buy there was no breakfast that morning. The kidneys and the
bacon and the eggs and the ham and the loin chops and the red herrings
and the toasted bread were neglected. The vanguard of purchasers were,
in reading about neighbours, too much diverted, and, in reading about
themselves, too indignant to eat.
Out went the kidneys and the bacon and the eggs and the ham and the loin
chops and the red herrings and the toasted bread, frozen stiff in their
own fat; and out went the vanguard to warn the main army of fashion that
scurrility, satire and malice were abroad in many metres.
"Listen to this, Moon," ejaculated Major Tarry, as, undeterred by the
driving wind, he strode along, quoting extracts that were perfectly
inaudible to his companion.
"Listen to this, will you listen to this,"
"_Like a lap-dog he's fed with a second-best spoon,
And bays as he should at the sight of the Moon_."
"Yes, but listen to this," said the Justice treading heavily in a puddle
as he spoke.
"_Do not tarry,
M**n, but marry,
While you're still upon the wax,
Though above her,
You can love her,
And avoid the window tax_."
"Very low, very low indeed," said Tarry.
"So 'tis," quoth the Justice, "but the next verse is lower still."
"_For that coat of
Him we wrote of
Will be in your parlour soon,
And be reigning
When you're waning,
And we whisper horned M**n_."
"Ha, ha," said Tarry, "low, d----d low! But 'sblood, the fellow has
humour."
"Humour," said the Justice, "you call this obscene doggerel, humour?"
"In parts, sir, in parts."
"I call it melancholy and libidinous."
Mrs. Courteen was seated at her window disconsolately regarding the
rain.
"Gemini, child!" she exclaimed. "What can be the matter with Mr. Moon
and the Major that they gesticulate so wildly."
"They're reading books, ma'am," Betty announced.
"Reading book, but they are standing at the street corner like
Methodies!"
"They'm beaent gone sick mad for love of 'ee, do 'ee think, Ma'am?"
"Flatterer," sighed Mrs. Courteen. "No, child, they have probably been
converted. I detect Methodism in their madness. Te-hee! I must keep
that for Archdeacon Conybeare, who so dislikes extremes of sensibility
in anything that pertains to so sacred a thing as religion. Ah, dear!
Religion, what is it?"
"There's many ways of it ma'am, I do think. 'Tis true religious not to
laugh when the lads tickle thy ankles wi' straws during the prayer for
Good King George!"
"Tut-tut, how disloyal!"
Just then the raucous voice of one of the itinerant booksellers shouted
"Curtain Polls severely lashed by a Curtain-Rod."
"Run, Betty, and inquire the price at once," cried Mrs. Courteen
perceiving that this was the cause of the gentlemen's delay. "'Tis
evidently a rumour on the best authority about the Day of Judgment."
Presently Betty returned.
"'Tis a book, ma'am."
"I know that, simpleton, how much?"
"Four shillings and sixpence, ma'am, for a little mimsy book not so
thick as the magick history of Jack the Giant Killer."
"But what was inside, foolish one?"
"Oh, 'twas full of stars, ma'am."
"'Tis certainly a work on fortune-telling. Pray buy it instantly, here
is the money."
Back came Betty with the volume, and presently Mrs. Courteen fainted.
Downstairs ran Betty, and upstairs walked Mr. Thomas and Betty.
"'Twas the book as done it," said the latter vehemently.
The offending volume lay face downwards upon the quilted apricock of
Mrs. Courteen's lap, so Thomas picked it up and began to read:
"_At the Wells many elegant widows are seen,
But no one so modish as Mrs. C******n,
Her hoop_----"
So far he read, but, rubicund though he was, modesty was still able to
deepen his colour.
"Yes," said Betty, "pray do 'ee read us some more, Mr. Thomas."
"What Jebusite wrote this book? I will smite him and all his works,"
replied Thomas, flinging the volume into the fire. Whether the odour of
burning leather or the profuse drops of Sal Volatile revived the
offended lady I do not know, but she instantly sat up and, in a voice
tremulous with anxiety, bade her footman call a chair.
"For," said she, "I must pay a visit of condolence to my Lady Bunbutter,
whose propriety has suffered an almost irreparable injury."
She did not stay to change her dress; she passed her suitors still
quoting scurrility, one against the other in the wind and rain, without
a smile of recognition or sympathy.
Outside my Lady Bunbutter's stood a row of sedan-chairs, and as Mrs.
Courteen walked up my Lady Bunbutter's front door-step, the knot of
chairmen packed more closely over a copy of _Curtain Polls_ indiscreetly
left behind by one of their fares. There was a rustle of pages quickly
turned by dirty thumbs, and as Mrs. Courteen was ushered in by my Lady
Bunbutter's claret-coloured footman, there followed her upstairs a burst
of ribald laughter.
My Lady Bunbutter had, by reason of her superior bulk and wealth,
successfully repelled all rival claimants to the throne of dowagership.
She reigned supreme; moreover her advice on this gusty forenoon was
particularly valuable, inasmuch as she had just shaken off the waters of
Bath on account of the publication there of some odious verses, in which
her name and her person were treated with intolerably small respect.
Therefore it was not surprizing to find her drawing-room the haunt of
innumerable widows, old maids and long-established wives. There they
sat, supplying asterisks with immense volubleness. As it happened, they
had just tittered behind their fans over the odiously vulgar, but
undeniably appropriate--yes! the odious fellow was certainly
witty--when the subject of their malicious laughter and false blushes
entered the room.
With the tact bred of many a Quadrille party, my lady Bunbutter advanced
to meet Mrs. Courteen, murmuring, 'poor dear little Miss Kitcat, so
spiteful and yet, my dear Mrs. Courteen, since we are all friends, alas!
how true!'
Now young Miss Kitcat was still young Miss Kitcat, and simply would not
become old maid or dowager, and would allow herself to be ogled by that
notorious rake and disreputable--yes! disreputable, card-sharper,
Captain Mann.
While the dowagers discussed the situation and vowed that the rogue of
an author sadly needed a lesson, Beau Ripple himself, with many an
urbane tut-tut was reading _Curtain Polls_ in his tall white
drawing-room, where the firelight danced and flickered over the gleaming
ivory panels.
"Too bad," said the Beau to himself as he turned the scandalous pages.
He did not, however, treat them less carefully because they were
scandalous, for to Mr. Ripple a book was always a book, and he paid as
much ceremony to the emanations of Grub Street as he would have shown to
the copper plates of an elephant folio.
"This is, indeed, too bad," said the Beau, "and yet the rascal has wit.
Oh, yes, he certainly has wit, but what an excellent example this volume
affords of the superiority of prose over verse. A poetick satirist too
often sacrifices his good breeding for the sake of the rhymes. Now I
should never have said that. No, no, that is too bad, and this--good
G----! this is unpardonable!"
The Great little Man jumped up as red as one of the big chintz roses
that bloomed so prodigally all over his winged chair.
The King of Fashion looked very small as he stood in the middle of an
Aubusson rug, yet I think he never looked more truly a monarch than at
this moment. Unfortunately there was nobody to see him as he stood in
his little world of mirrours and engravings.
And what had upset his equanimity? Certainly not the following lines:
"_Where R*****, gentlest, kindliest of Beaux,
To all the world an urbane presence shows:
Proclaims the tropick joys of China Tea,
And rules e'en Fashion with his polished sway.
At his approach the graceless ruffle shakes,
While every waistcoat in its buttons quakes;
Each conscious shoe more luminously shines,
And puckered breeches haste to smooth their lines_."
Whatever the Curtain Rod thought of the subjects, to the Monarch he was
always complimental.
"Intolerable! unpardonable!" cried the Beau, tapping his snuff-box so
fiercely that some of the powder was spilled over the grey Angora cat
which was purring against his gold-clocked stockings in the heart of a
faded Aubusson rose. Octavia (the cat) sneezed assent. What had upset
his equanimity? You shall take a short journey to find out, for I
perceive a break in the weather and sweet April is in the West.
We will walk just so far as Curtain Garden, but, pray, do not turn into
the Maze where the paths are atrociously damp. Alas, the rain is
beginning again, but at the end of that long alley is a summer house,
the abode of many Rococo Dryads, although 'tis haunted at present by
amorous mortals, for I caught the glint of a buckle and a shimmer of
chestnut ringlets.
It does not require King OEdipus to guess that those eyes which stare
so into the heavens are the blue eyes of Phyllida, while any one would
recognize in that smooth voice the careful enunciation of Mr. Francis
Vernon.
He, like every one else that forenoon, was reading _Curtain Polls
severely lashed by a Curtain Rod_. Perchance the following lines were
they that lately enraged Mr. Horace Ripple:
"_Now is it a hoyden, a hussy or Miss,
Who listens to love but refuses a kiss?
'Tis said every morning she flies to the Maze,
And buries her head from the Publick's low gaze_
_Of Love in a Maze, pretty charmer, beware,
For under the rose there are thorns ev'rywhere,
And if you should chance the wrong turning to take,
'Tis odds that you'll trip on a tall garden Rake._
_The Cits, when you pass, point you out to their Belles,
You serve as a moral all over the Wells,
And Dowagers, drinking your health in green tea,
Express a faint hope that man will not betray_."
"Those are pretty stanzas for a lover to read," said Vernon, who, to do
him justice, did not seem very greatly perturbed by the insult.
"Oh, Amor," said poor Phyllida, "they can't truly be intended for me!"
"For whom else?"
"But who would write such cruel words of a young woman?"
"That puppy, Lovely."
"Mr. Lovely! Oh! no, he's a gentleman and a man of family and a man of
taste and a friend of Beau Ripple."
"He may be all this and more," declared Vernon, "but he wrote this
book."
"I don't believe it."
"He did, I say, for he informed me so himself--at least he as good as
informed me!"
"Amor! you must have been mistook."
"On my life, not at all. He owes me near five hundred guineas, and when
I hinted that the expense of inland Spas tells upon a gentleman's
resources, begged my pardon, swore he had a literary project on hand,
and promised me a hundred guineas on Lady Day. That was the day before
yesterday."
"A gamester!" said Miss Phyllida, who, with the injustice of her age and
sex, neglected to see that her lover was as much to blame in this
particular as Lovely.
"Ay! a gamester," said Vernon with fervid indignation.
"And for the sake of a hundred guineas he was ready to cheapen the
honour of a maid?"
"My angel forgets the Chinese Masquerade. Mr. Lovely was piqued by her
obvious weakness for a less fashionable, less conspicuous gentleman."
"Oh, I will never forgive him. He has ruined me."
"Nay, come, come, 'tis not so bad as that. Amor will never desert his
Phyllida."
"I'm ruined, I'm ruined," she sobbed. "I shall never dare go to visit my
cousin Barbara, who is as prim and proper as----" Nothing was prim
enough for the comparison. "And she has the most delicious hot buns you
ever tasted, and the dearest spaniel and the most beautiful pugdog. Oh
dear! oh dear! oh dear! how all the neighbours will laugh, and old
Rumble the carrier will be telling tales about me in every kitchen in
the county, and 'tis all your fault."
"My fault?"
"Yes, yours, for asking me to come and meet you and making love, while
all the while there was somebody peeping over the hedges. I'll never
forgive you, never, never!----"
"Dearest life, we can put a stop to scandal by being wed immediately.
Listen! I'll have a post-chaise ready at dawn, and post-boys in scarlet,
and lodgings with a balcony and a goldfinch singing in a cage. My
Phyllida, will you come?"
"Oh! I dare not, I dare not--not yet, oh lud, oh lud! how shall I look
the world in the face?"
Vernon thought for a moment.
"Where are your pearls kept?"
"In my mamma's trunkmail, but Betty could give me the key--and sometimes
in her jewel case."
"On the thirtieth," said Vernon, "there will be a ball at Daish's Rooms,
next to the _Blue Boar_ where I lodge. You will surely be there, 'tis my
lady Bunbutter's rout."
"Yes, we shall be there," said Phyllida.
"At two o'clock in the morning, I will have a post-chaise waiting by St.
Simon's Church corner, opposite Leonard's toy shop. Would you have the
courage to slip out, my dearest heart, my Phyllida?"
"Oh, no, I could not travel by night."
"'Twould be safer," urged Vernon.
"No, no, I could not."
"Then for your sake, I'll take the risque and have the post-chaise in
the same place at three o'clock in the afternoon of the next day.
Promise you will come."
"No, no, I shall never be brave enough, and I must go for I hear voices,
and I must never be seen with you again. Good-bye, good-bye," and before
Vernon could stop her, Phyllida was running down the poplar alley to
escape from Curtain Garden.
Our villain began to wonder whether she would elope after all. If she
were shy, he might secure the necklace at any rate. With slow steps, his
mind full of silken pearls, Mr. Vernon went slowly homewards. Half way
down the High Street, he passed a narrow street known as Blood Passage
from the vicinity of a large slaughter-house. He hesitated; made up his
mind, and, turning down it, came to a crooked house over a low
tumble-down doorway. He knocked fastidiously with the amber knob of his
cane. A slatternly woman, whose last night's rouge was streaked with the
matutinal ashes, opened the door.
"Does Mr. Maggs live here?"
"Come in," said the frowsy light o' love.
_Chapter the Twenty-second_