The old ballroom of the famous Daish's Rooms looked mighty cheerful on
the evening of my Lady Bunbutter's rout and Mr. Francis Vernon's
farewell entertainment.
The circular mahogany table with finely carved claw legs shone like the
fine old piece of Spanish wood it was, that is to say, wherever it could
secure a clear space for shining, being almost entirely clouded over by
innumerable dishes of gruit and nuts, plates, silver knives and silver
forks, two large horns of snuff and half-dozen pairs of branched
candlesticks, while in the very centre surrounded by lesser fruits stood
a magnificent pineapple.
Round the table stood a dozen or more solid Windsor wheelback chairs
that were warranted to stand firm, though the fattest gentleman that
ever sat down to dessert tipped perpetually back on them to the utmost
limit of his balance. A magnificent fire blazed and roared in the
hearth, and round the walls were hung prints of racehorses, cock-fights,
steeplechases, prize bullocks, and fat sheep, with bills of sale beneath
them and announcements of forthcoming diversions for the young gentlemen
of the _Blue Boar_ and the more wealthy agriculturalists of the
neighbourhood.
It was ten o'clock of a wet windy night and the chairmen were growing
quarrelsome as they stamped up and down in the street below.
Mr. Jeremy Daish had been rather unwilling for Mr. Vernon to give his
party on a night when he himself would be unable to superintend the
commissariat owing to his services being required for my Lady
Bunbutter's rout close at hand. However, he had left the strictest
injunctions with John the senior waiter to carry off at once all empty
bottles in order to the protection of the Curtain Wells watch, which was
wont to suffer considerably in their persons on such an hilarious
occasion as a party in the old ballroom of Daish's Rooms.
The host stood with his back to the fire complacently surveying the
preparations. Vernon's extraction was somewhat ambiguous, and his father
may or may not have been the fine gentleman that his mother swore he
was. So, as he stood regarding the well-covered table and the tall
armchair at the head of it where he would presently take his seat, a
distinct feeling of elation seized him at the prospect of being in a
position to pass the decanter round a circle of such undeniable
breeding. He went over their names--names famous on many a battlefield
and many a hunting field. They belonged to a world of broad acres and
park gates and double lodges and Corinthian hunting-boxes. They were
revered at home by many peasants and wore the mantle of life with an air
of easy proprietorship. They possessed something like the dignified
stability of the Church of England. They were a force, an institution, a
product of insular civilization. In fact, they were English Gentlemen,
and Mr. Vernon contemplated their existence with great self-satisfaction.
He, too, was an English Gentleman, he reassured himself. It was the
consciousness of being one which gave him that pleasant sense of
superiority to the rest of the world when he found himself in the
congenial company of his peers.
Yet poor Mr. Vernon (I am rather sorry for poor Mr. Vernon) could not
conceal from his shrewd self that he had no business to be at all unduly
elated at the prospect of entertaining young Tom Chalkley of the Foot,
Lieutenant Blewforth of the _Lively_, Mr. Harry Golightly of Campbell's
Grey Dragoons, Mr. Anthony Clare, little Peter Wingfield, Jack
Winnington, the Honourable Mr. Harthe-Brusshe, my Lord Squall, Lord
Augustus Wind and Mr. Charles Lovely.
It was Mr. Vernon's note of invitation to the last which had caused him
to d---- Vernon's hazel eyes, in the taproom of the _World turned Upside
Down_. Presently came a sound of laughter and careless talk as the young
gentlemen of the _Blue Boar_ came swaggering in. Was it merely a sense
of eccentricity that made the host fancy he detected a note of
condescension in their loud and jovial greeting to himself? Probably.
The early guests talked, as early guests always will, with half an eye
on the clock and the other half on the table.
"Squall is late," said Vernon.
"Squall coming?" inquired Blewforth.
"L-l-ook out for squalls," stammered little Peter Wingfield.
"Squall's an ass," said Mr. Golightly.
"So is his brother," said Chalkley.
"Always was," said Clare.
"Wind is coming too," said Vernon. "Augustus, that is, and
Harthe-Brusshe."
The young gentlemen of the _Blue Boar_ looked peevish; it was tactless
of that fellow Vernon to keep them waiting for three such asses as
these.
"They are late," said Blewforth very emphatically.
"I'm expecting Lovely, too," said Vernon almost humbly. Somehow or other
he felt the slightest inclination to apologize, exactly what for he did
not know.
"Charles is always late. He's a d----d careless fellow," said Mr.
Golightly, and one felt the final judgment upon Charles had been passed.
"Charles is not jigging with old Butterbun, is he?" asked little Peter
Wingfield.
"Oh! the d----l! not he," said Blewforth. "He's found a red-cheeked
hussy with whom he's carrying on an intrigue."
"Eh, what! Never?" exclaimed a chorus.
"What's his charmer's name?" said Chalkley.
"Burgundy," replied Blewforth with a great guffaw that made all the
glasses and goblets and decanters on the big oak dresser ring an echo.
"I never thought Charles cared much for wine or women," said Golightly.
"Nor he don't," Blewforth put in. "Nor he don't. That's what beats me.
But I tell you I saw Charles Lovely sitting in the taproom of the _World
Turned Upside Down_. Nobody goes there unless he wishes to be drunk by
nightfall. Eh, boys? So depend on't when Charles does arrive, he'll
arrive drunk. But why? That's the riddle."
"Perhaps the fair Courteen has slighted him," said Chalkley. "Serve him
right. He had no business to take himself so seriously. 'Tis very
fashionable to be a poet, but egad! 'tis devilish low to behave like
one."
"Is that Miss Phyllida Courteen?" said Vernon, trying to speak as though
he had read her name in the list of visitors published every week by the
proprietors of the _Curtain Wells Chronicle and Pump Room
Intelligencer_.
"Aye! d'ye know her? Blooming seventeen with a short upper lip, blue
eyes and hair the colour of that chestnut gelding, What's His Name sold
'tother day."
"Very poor animal," said Golightly.
"Not at all. I disagree with you."
"Very poor animal indeed," said Golightly.
"It fetched a very pretty price."
"Oh," said Mr. Golightly and the argument was over.
"Does she carry a white swansdown muff?" asked Vernon.
"Who?"
"Miss Courteen."
"Eh? Oh! I don't know," and since Mr. Chalkley's tone of voice implied a
lack of further interest on the subject, the subject was dropped.
"My belief is," said Lieutenant Blewforth loudly, and moving as he spoke
in the direction of the fireplace. "Egad, Vernon would you take it
unkind if I rang for a tankard of ale? I'm as dry as a gunner in action.
My belief is," he went on spreading his coat-tails to the genial warmth,
"my belief is----"
"Gadslife! B-B-lewforth," interrupted Peter Wingfield, "pray get on with
the recitation of your c-creed."
"Don't get excited, little man," said Blewforth. "My belief is Charles
wrote that book."
"What book?" said Chalkley, whose acquaintance with the literature of
the day was remarkably small.
"Curtain Polls."
"Never heard of it," said Mr. Chalkley.
"Rubbish!" said Clare, entering suddenly into the conversation.
"Rubbish!" and yet Mr. Anthony Clare was one of the two people in the
room who knew for certain that Charles was, indeed, the author of that
satirical trifle.
"It has caused a terrible amount of talk," Blewforth went on. "My old
aunt Seaworthy to whom I paid my annual visit yesterday tells me that
all the world is very much hurt at being treated with such freedom."
"I d-don't see why Charles should take to drink because he's wrote a
book." This was from Peter Wingfield.
"Ripple may have been annoyed. He's confoundedly touchy about a little
matter like that and Charles thinks Ripple is a demigod."
The Earl of Squall, Lord Augustus Wind and the Honourable Mr.
Harthe-Brusshe came into the room at that moment, and Mr. Vernon, who
had been feeling a little outside the intimacy of the company, made
haste to propose that, everybody save Charles being present, the wine
should be brought in.
Everybody agreed that nothing fitted in more exactly with their wishes
than Mr. Vernon's timely suggestion and everybody selected his chair
with that preciseness which stamps the beginning of an entertainment.
Everybody sat down and the nuts were circulated.
Presently John entered with twelve quart-bottles of Burgundy on a huge
tray. All of them had been gently warmed before a slow fire, and all of
them were wiped clean of the cobwebs and dust of the several years spent
in the ample cellars of the _Blue Boar_.
Vernon had prepared a short oration for the entrance of the liquor and
while John reverently stationed a bottle at everybody's right hand, he
made haste to deliver it. Perhaps his utterance was a shade too
reminiscent of one of the many prologues spoken by his mother at the
theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields, but that did not matter since nobody in
the room was old enough to remember that lady's inimitable delivery of
Mr. Dryden's rhymed Alexandrines.
"The life of Burgundy," said Mr. Vernon, "is very like the life of a
butterfly. At first the grape or caterpillar-grub, feeding upon the
richness of the soil, then the cocoon or bottle stage when it languishes
for many years in darkness below the earth until--until it emerges
glowing with a thousand varied tints of crimson--and, like a butterfly,
wings its airy way into the brain of mankind."
The company, with the exception of my Lord Squall who was sometimes
taken in the old family coach of the Winds to hear his father speak in
the House of Lords, were not accustomed to lengthy speeches and looked
at each other bashfully.
Lieutenant Blewforth with nautical tact saved the situation by drinking
Mr. Vernon's health in a very large and brimming pint bumper which he
emptied in two sonorous gulps.
As everybody else proceeded to follow this good example, everybody was
soon very cheerful, and the advent of the second dozen of bottles was
mightily applauded.
However, the master mind was still absent and the drinking, though
steady, had not yet enlivened the company to uproarious spirits.
"Where's Charles?" bellowed Blewforth munching a devilled biscuit.
"Where's that fellow Charles. Demme! He'll never catch us up at this
rate and we shall have him sober as a post-captain when we are beginning
to amuse ourselves."
"What, you rogue," cried our hero entering just as the Lieutenant
bellowed his inquiry. "I wager five guineas, I am two bottles ahead of
any gentleman present." In order to clinch the bet he flung his purse in
the direction of the table. The gauntlet snuffed in its course two of
the candles and fell with a plump into a piping bowl of punch splashing
Tom Chalkley as high as his stock and imparting to His Majesty's uniform
an odour of hot squeezed lemons that lasted for quite a couple of weeks.
"Charles! Charles!" bellowed the burly Lieutenant, "Huzza for Charles!"
The latter lurched into the vacant chair next to his friend Tony without
a word to the host. However, nobody observed this breach of good
manners, because everybody was anxiously leaning over to fill every
glass in reach of the newcomer as a preliminary to drinking his very
good health a score of times, without a heeltap to any one of them.
"Z--ds! Charles. Where have you been?" said Chalkley.
"Drinking old Burgundy with a rogue of a bagman who looked like Ranelagh
Garden en Fete, for his face was illuminated with every hue of crimson
lamp and I stake my wig his nose was as large and round as the Rotunda."
With the arrival of Charles, everybody woke up and there were calls for
a song. The gallant Lieutenant was the first to respond with my Lord
Dorset's _To you fair ladies now at Land_.
Let me remind you of that fine old ballad:
_To you fair ladies now at Land
We men at Sea indite;
But first would have you understand
How hard it is to write_.
"Not at all," cried Charles.
_The Muses now, and Neptune too,
We must implore to write to you;_
"and chorus, gentlemen, please,"
_With a Fa, la, la, la, la, la
The Muses now, and Neptune too,
We must implore to write to you_.
and so on to the last
_With a Fa, la, la, la, la
Let us hear of no Inconstancy
We have too much of that at Sea_.
And a proper noise everybody made with the _Fa la-la-la-la_ accentuating
every _Fa_ with a bottle and every _La_ with one of Mr. Jeremy Daish's
handsome silver spoons.
The song being a very lengthy one allowed everybody plenty of time to
drink another quart of Burgundy before its rousing conclusion, and if
the company cheered loudly at the beginning, by heavens, they cheered so
loudly at the end that the noise was heard above the fiddlers in the new
ballroom of Daish's famous Rooms and put everybody out of step in the
last Cotillon notwithstanding the heroick efforts of the disreputable,
but nimble-footed Captain Mann.
Then Charles gave a new ballad (new that is in the reign of Queen Anne)
sung first at Messieurs Brook and Hellier's Club at the Temple Tavern in
Fleet Street, but slightly altered by him to suit present company,
_Since I'm in the Chair and every one here
Appears in gay humour and easy;
Say, why should not I, a new Ballad try,
Bright Brethren o' the Bottle to please ye.
This wine is my theme, this is all on's Esteem,
For Jeremy Daish cannot wrong us;
Let them get Wealth who keeps us in health.
By bringing neat liquor among us_.
(with chorus of last two lines repeated).
_Each Vintner of late, has got an Estate
By brewing and Sophistication
With cyder and sloes, they've made a d----d dose,
Has poisoned one half of the nation_.
and so on until
_Now God Bless the King, Peers, Parliament Men,
And keep 'em like us in true concord;
And grant that all those, who dare be his foes,
At Tyburn may swing in a strong cord;
We'll Loyalists be, and bravely agree
With lives and estates to defend her--him
So then we'll not care come Peace or come War
For Lewis, the Pope, or Pretender._
"Ah!" said Mr. Antony Clare whose father had been a Jacobite, "you've
spoilt more than the rhyme by the last word."
This treasonable remark was the signal for more noise than ever because
all the young gentlemen of the _Blue Boar_ who held His Majesty King
George's commission felt bound to uphold the honour of the Royal Navy
and the British Army by flinging a large number of Spanish nuts at the
head of the disloyal Clare who retorted by emptying a whole ram's horn
of snuff over Mr. Golightly so that for a while nothing was to be heard
but vollies of gigantick sneezes. Exhaustion reigned for a moment, but
presently the sound of hustling and bustling in the street outside
roused everybody to fresh vigour of mischief.
My Lady Bunbutter's rout was over, and those of the Exquisite Mob who
had been invited were standing on tiptoe on the steps of Daish's Rooms
peering into the darkness and blinking in the glare of waving flambeaux.
The chairmen were so busy quarrelling over their positions that they
paid no attention to their fares and everything was in a very great
state of confusion indeed; nor was the clamour abated by Mr. Lovely
cleverly hitting the long red ear of the nearest chairmen with a
Barcelona nut because the injured chairman instantly floored a linkboy
who was standing by his side and the linkboy's torch severely burnt the
legs of Lord Cinderton's tall footman in his ash-grey livery and the
tall footman with a yell of dismay punched a flat-footed waiter on the
nose and the flat-footed waiter butted an inoffensive fop in the middle
of his sprigged silk waistcoat and the inoffensive fop struck out with
his tasselled cane left and right with such force that presently
everybody in the street below was fighting with his next door neighbour
to the entire delight of the young gentlemen from the _Blue Boar_. Their
next diversion was to empty the dregs of the Burgundy bottles upon the
heads of the crowd, whereupon all the ladies of Curtain Wells screamed
very loud to see such a number of bloody polls and faces.
Then Charles snatched off little Peter Wingfield's tie-wig and, having
set fire to it, began to drop tufts of burning hair out of the window,
which tufts made an immense smell and blew round and round in the gusty
March air in a very alarming manner.
Little Peter Wingfield, having lost his own wig and being too little to
snatch Lovely's wig, mounted one of the stout Windsor wheelback chairs
and, taking down the print of a famous cock-fight extracted the hook
from the wall and laid an embargo on the black silk ties of three of his
friends in order to fish from the window for another wig. He succeeded
in catching the Marquis of Hurricane's to the intense delight of his
undutiful sons the Earl of Squall and Lord Augustus Wind. Of course
after such a successful display of angling, everybody else had to try
his hand with the picture hook and two more wigs were captured but
proved so frowsy that they were burnt immediately. However, Mr. Chalkley
caught the hem of Lady Jane Vane's petticoat just as she was stepping
into her chair and would without doubt have injured that virgin's modest
reputation for ever, had the garment been made of more durable stuff; as
it was, the hook would not hold and nothing was disclosed beyond what is
allowed by any wet day.
Then Mr. Daish came hurrying in and begged their honours to desist
because the watch was coming, and what Mr. Ripple would say when he
heard of the riot he did not dare surmize.
Poor Mr. Daish bowed and scraped and was so full of excuses that all the
young gentlemen felt quite sorry for him and put ham seat foremost into
the biggest bowl of punch in order to drown his troubles, whereupon Mr.
Daish grew quite cholerick and vowed he would never let one of 'em enter
his inn again and made such ado that the culprits all protested he was
more noisy than anybody else, and offered to fetch in the watch and have
him arrested in his own bowl of punch.
But presently they lifted him out and subscribed ten guineas by sending
round Mr. Golightly's hat; and poor Mr. Daish was more full of excuses
than ever and hoped that anything he had said that could by the most
spirited gentleman be considered derogatory would be forgiven and
ascribed to the dismay caused by the hot punch scalding his hinder parts
and goading him beyond the bounds of polite remonstrance.
Everybody vowed that withered little Daish was a prince of good fellows
and begged him to buy himself a new pair of cinnamon cloth breeches as
soon as possible, while Thomas Chalkley of the Foot created much
amusement by shouting that he was holding Dunquerque against the French.
In order to hold Dunquerque against the French, it was very necessary
that Mr. Chalkley should fling out of the window nineteen quart-bottles
of Burgundy in quick succession, whereupon Lieutenant Blewforth of the
_Lively_ not to be outdone vowed Portobello must be taken and proceeded
to take it by climbing with amazing dexterity on to the mantelpiece
armed only with a long Churchwarden's pipe. Yet notwithstanding all the
efforts of Ensign Chalkley to hold Dunquerque against the French,
notwithstanding that he was valiantly assisted by Cornet Golightly of
the Grey Dragoons, who led a desperate cavalry charge round the whole
room mounted upon one of the stout Windsor chairs, Dunquerque
capitulated. In other words the dignified Curtain Wells watch marched
upstairs with their lanterns and their staves and, standing in a knot by
the doorway, demanded the reason for such a riotous breach of the King's
peace, not to mention Mr. Ripple's and the Mayor's. But the young
gentlemen were all so merry and the watch was so cold that it consented
to taste the punch and presently left Dunquerque in the hands of the
Allies and marched off warmer in mind and body to a quieter quarter of
the ancient borough of Curtain Wells. I am sorry to add that, in passing
the door of the Great House, they so far forgot their standing orders as
to cry with enormous fervour the hour and the weather exactly underneath
Mr. Ripple's window.
With the departure of the watch, peace fell upon the company for a
while; a dice box was produced and some packs of cards, but play lasted
a very short time and was voted too confoundedly dull for so joyful an
evening. So more songs were sung, and it was exceedingly pleasant to
hear these young gentlemen shouting the refrains and hammering Encores
upon the polished mahogany table. It was exceedingly pleasant to see the
wigs on their knees and the long clay pipes keeping time to the tune;
but perhaps the pleasantest sight of all was the two sleepy waiters who
leaned against the jambs of the door and, with kindly grins on their
tired faces, tapped their flat feet to the more alluring measures.