We will, if you please, take for granted the persuasions used by Mr.
Vernon to induce Phyllida to continue upon her headlong course. He rode
beside her on this second stage of her adventure, and I shall have
something to say of that drive together through the darkness of wind and
rain. We will take for granted Sir George Repington's indignation,
expressed with many a z----ds and many a pinch of snuff, and since
there are a number of fine folk abroad on this most atrocious evening,
it is only just that we should pay them the compliment of relating their
horrid adventures.
You have not forgotten, I hope, the sensation created in Curtain Wells
by the sight of Beau Ripple and Mrs. Courteen ensconced in the former's
vivid yellow postchaise, driven by the former's diminutive groom
Pridgeon. You made one of a host of conjectures, or rather you would
have done had you not been in the heart of the secret, thanks to the
honest, straightforward way in which I have treated you throughout this
story.
They went off with 'Tally-ho' and 'Whoo-whoop, gone away!' They rattled
over the cobbles and clattered over the kidney stones and jolted
prodigiously over a kerb that protruded too far into the road. They
bumped over a log of wood dropped by old Mother Hubbard in her frantick
endeavours to gain the protection of the pavement, they ground the face
of little Miss Muffet's favourite wax doll to minutest grains of powder.
They experienced a second's muffled progress as with two wheels they
rolled over little Tommy Trout's Easter coat and with the others made a
broad smear over little Sammy Green's satchel and cracked his new Horn
Book into a thousand splinters.
As for Mr. Ripple, every time he rose to a wayside obstacle and fell
with a genteel plump into Mrs. Courteen's wide lap, he had a sensation
of the acutest disgust; with disgust, too, he viewed his cushions of
fawn silk and ivory sattin bedabbled with the widow's copious
tears--these cushions made salt with a mortal widow's grief that were
never intended to be spoiled with anything less ethereal than the
glittering milk of the Queen of Heaven.
Extreme dizziness overtook the Great little Man when, in accents hoarse
with hysterical sorrow, the wretched woman by his side begged the loan
of his handkerchief. Then, indeed, he nearly called to Pridgeon to check
their mad course, turn the horses' heads stablewards, brooding for a
sensuous second upon the delights of a warm meditative bath, made
sweeter with Citron Essence.
Poor Mr. Ripple! As the mile-stones fled past and the chilly March
twilight crept over the dusky fallows and peered above the black
hedgerows, he thought with unutterable pangs of the cheerful and
comfortable town of Curtain Wells. His china shepherds and shepherdesses
called to him over the bleak country, and in the distance like elfin
bells he heard the reproachful tinkle of his elegant lustres.
At the turnpike Mr. Ripple asked the keeper whether a post-chariot had
lately come under his jurisdiction.
"Dick who?" inquired the janitor.
"Have you seen a post-chariot?" said Mr. Ripple, petulantly.
"No, I ain't. Have you seen two bullocks as 'ave lost, stolen and
strayed theyselves hereabouts--the red 'un with a----"
"Drive on," said Mr. Ripple.
"That's gentry," commented the gatekeeper as, spitting on the bust of
King George which reposed in the palm of his dirty hand, he retired to
brood over a well-thumbed pamphlet that set forth with convincing
ribaldry, the imminent danger of another Popish plot.
"Drive on," said Mr. Ripple, "we shall have a heavy shower presently."
They were bowling down a broad village street with a merry jingle of
harness and rhythmical clatter of hoofs, while the cracking of little
Pridgeon's whip, nearly as big as himself, made many inquisitive bodies
huddle in the low doorways of the cottages to survey the gallant
equipage.
"Reg'lar delooge, your honour," said Pridgeon, turning round on the box.
Mrs. Courteen was already so wet with the tears of outraged motherhood
that the addition of rain could scarcely have affected her comfort.
Nevertheless she shuddered so expansively that she squeezed her
companion closer than ever to the side of the chaise.
"Shall we put up at the _Green Dragon_?--very comfortable Inn, the
_Green Dragon_."
"No, no, Pridgeon, drive on. If it rains, it rains."
Such a platitude from Beau Ripple can only have been provoked by the
intensest despair. A ploughboy's epigram would not have seemed more out
of place. The Nine Muses were certainly waked from their harmonious
lethargy, and a small boy, playing _Sally in our Alley_ on a Jew's harp,
twanged a discordant echo of their shocked sensibility. A platitude from
Beau Ripple! The very chaise collapsed in ignominy. Bump--bang--whooooo!
The gay vehicle was on its side and the front off-wheel was whirling
madly down the broad slope of the street, to the enormous delight of the
boy with the Jew's harp and the immense consternation of a flock of
geese in whose company it made a noisy entrance into the village pond.
Pridgeon turned once more on the Jimmy and, having pulled up the horses
and gazed at the Tableau, remarked:
"Blow me tight if I didn't think the wheel'd do that afore we started.
Blow me right and tight!"
By this time, all the village stood in a circle and supplied an
exhaustive commenting upon the sad event.
"She's putt her futt through her petticutt," whooped grandmother.
"So her 'ave and toored 'un proper."
"Blarm 'un if the old buoy's knee ain't streaked like somebody's baad
baacon."
"So it be, buoy, so it be," came the delighted rejoinder.
"Look, see the seat of his breeches!" cried a shapely hussy.
"I never saw such a power o' mud, why 'e's like a brown paaper plaster
behind. Poor soul!"
"Horse ain't hurt?" asked a sharp-featured, bow-legged individual with
professional anxiety.
Four or five hobbledehoys had assisted the Beau to his feet and
volunteered to show him the way to the _Green Dragon_. As that hostelry
stood exactly opposite the scene of the disaster, the offer savoured of
something more than mere friendliness.
Mrs. Courteen was whirling round and round, like a kitten after her
tail, trying to ascertain the precise amount of damage close to her
train; a good-natured booby stuck his foot on the skirt to steady it for
her inspection, and in doing so made the rent more irreparable.
"Better go to the _Green Dragon_, your honour," said Pridgeon, as spruce
as when he started.
"Better go to h----, you dunderhead," said the Beau, very white with
well-bred passion and the shock of the catastrophe. No fragile vase of
Dresden or of azure Sevres, no figure of opalescent Worcester, no
violet-flowered teapot of Lowestoft that ever fell from a proud cabinet
through the careless sweep of a chambermaid's broom, was to be so deeply
commiserated as Mr. Horace Ripple. These painted monuments of care
betray their inherent beauty even in the dainty particles that proclaim
their wreckage, but a fop with muddied breeches--why, in the very first
chapter of this story we trembled to behold the circumference of the
least dignified part of the Beau's anatomy protruding from beneath a
bedstead; and on that occasion, it was gay with the flowers of a silk
dressing-gown.
I do not think that the Great little Man ever recovered from this
outrage to his personal attire, for to the very end of his modish days,
he would wear a coat cut an inch or two lower than was readily allowed
by the least conservative tailor in his employment.
As for Mrs. Courteen, who followed meekly in the wake of her wounded
escort, she could not refrain from wishing that the Major and the
Justice were at hand to console her with jealous attentions and rival
sympathies, and when the first round drop of the swift-approaching storm
hit her plump on the nose and washed away in its downward course the
last vestige of powder from her face, she regretted also the tributary
fingers of Betty.
In the hall of the _Green Dragon_ their reception was almost servile.
Great Cobblebury, for all its pompous name, was too near to Curtain
Wells to attract the attention of many travellers, and the _Green
Dragon_ depended for custom almost entirely on the thirstiness of the
surrounding population. Guests, therefore, received very excellent
service for their money. The host, one George Upex, had watched the
advance of the chaise with sleek arms beneath a protuberant apron and
thumbs that twiddled sleepily; but the smash aroused his hospitable
instincts, and by the time Mr. Ripple and Mrs. Courteen had reached the
doorway of the inn, he was back from the kitchen, where he had hastily
ordered the immediate insertion into the capacious oven of several
dishes, and was ready to usher the stranded travellers into the parlour.
"And what will your good lady take?" he inquired, with his rubicund face
cocked at what he considered a very appetizing angle.
"She is not my good lady, sirrah," rapped out the Beau.
"Not at all, your honour--beg pardon," said Mr. Upex, putting up a
gigantick hand to an equally gigantick mouth as if he would force the
latter feature to eat the indiscreet question it had so grossly emitted.
"How long will it take to mend the damage to my chaise?" demanded Mr.
Ripple.
The landlord made a rough calculation in his mind.
"About an hour to cook the--to mend the--er--chaise," he replied.
"Have you a bed?" asked the Beau.
The landlord beamed. They were going to spend the night under his roof,
and mentally he saw himself on the next day obscuring the sunlight of
the parlour with a very long bill.
"A bed, your honour? Yes, indeed! Oh! yes." Mr. Upex paused. "A bed?"
"Yes! a bed--a b-e-d--bed."
"For one night?"
"One night--no! now, sirrah, now." Mr. Ripple stamped his little foot,
probably to shake off the mud of the humiliating accident.
"Now?" Mr. Upex looked surprized, that is to say the mouth of Mr. Upex
remained fixed in a cavernous gape.
"Why not now?" exclaimed the peremptory Beau. "Ain't your beds aired,
landlord? Ain't they made yet?"
"Oh, certainly, your honour."
"Then show me upstairs at once. I shall lie down until the wheel of my
chaise is mended. And shew this lady another room, and send two or three
chambermaids to attend to her."
Mr. Upex looked much relieved.
It was not such a shameless affair as he had been led by wanton
ambiguity of phrase to believe.
"What about the duck?"
"What duck? What duck?" asked Mr. Ripple fretfully.
"The duck your honour ordered--that is, was about to order when I
interrupted your honour."
"Send up three slices of the breast on a small tray to my chamber, and
don't put any stuffing on the plate, the odour of sage upsets my
appetite."
"Indeed?" said Mr. Upex, quite frankly interested by such a nasal
idiosyncrasy.
"Yes, and send out a woman of taste and discretion to purchase a
nightcap."
"I wouldn't say, your honour, as how one of the maids wouldn't oblige
your--er--the good lady."
"For myself, landlord, for myself."
"I beg your honour's pardon."
Mr. Upex hurried off to execute his guest's requirement and presently
returned to escort them to their rooms.
"When my man comes in," said the Beau, "send him up to me with the
nightcap."
Pridgeon had rescued the wheel from the pond and, having successfully
directed two bumpkins to trundle it to the blacksmith, arrived at the
inn with an admiring retinue of idlers, whom he regaled with quarts of
bitter beer. The woman of taste entrusted with the purchase of the
nightcap (she was the scullerymaid) returned with the vestment neatly
wrapped in paper, and, meeting her master on the stairs, was told to
hand it to the diminutive groom, who chucked her under the chin with the
parcel and took his bow-legged way upstairs to Mr. Ripple's temporary
apartment.
Outside he rapped smartly on the door, which was cautiously opened
sufficiently wide to allow the urbane countenance of the Beau to peer
round the corner.
"Is that you, Pridgeon?"
"Me, y'r honour, with a present from Great Cobblebury."
The Beau took the nightcap, and in its place handed muddied
smallcloaths, smeared coat, and wrinkled waistcoat.
"Have these cloaths thoroughly brushed."
"Yes, y'r honour."
"And bring me three slices of breast in an hour's time."
"Yes, y'r honour."
"And don't get drunk to celebrate your carelessness."
"No, y'r honour."
"Poor clod," murmured the Beau to his polite self, as he closed the door
of his chamber and double locked it against intrusion.
I think it would certainly be indiscreet to spy upon Mr. Ripple's
retirement. How did he spend his time in bed? The whisper of book-leaves
tempts me to suppose that he read several of the bitterest odes, very
possibly a whole satire of Quintus Horatius Flaccus, that poet so fierce
but withal so urbane. Meanwhile Mrs. Courteen, surrounded by three
maids, respectively known as Susan, Joan, and Elizabeth, held forth upon
her misfortunes to a sympathetick audience.
She stood in the middle of her chamber, a massive figure pouring forth
ludicrous complaint. It was as if a stork should seek to emulate a
nightingale.
Susan knelt on the floor and industriously stitched away at the ragged
train; Joan knelt with innumerable pins stuck between her pearly teeth
and judiciously fastened several gaps in her attire, while Elizabeth,
who was being courted by Johnny, the _Green Dragon's_ sibilant hostler,
rubbed away at the mud with as near an imitation of the sounds produced
by her lover's stringy throat as the softness of her own would allow.
"I have been greatly distressed," said the widow, "grossly deceived,
intolerably put about for, though Mr. Ripple has the character of a
block of marble, it don't become a woman to be seen alone with a man
anywhere, especially in a yellow chaise which attracts everybody's
attention. I vow I heard that odious young Miss Kitcat laugh from her
balcony as we flew past--yes, flew--and such bumping! I dare swear I'm
bruised from head to foot, and my skin shows the smallest mark. I
remember when I was a young woman, I stepped a minuet with young Mr.
Heavibois of Heavibois Hall, and I declare he might have been taking the
grossest liberties all through the evening, for the way my wrist was
marked. Lud! it was as purple as my grandmother's silk coverlet that was
given to her by a young lieutenant in the Navy, and was thought to
belong to the wife of the Cham of Tartary, though I dare say he bought
it in Cheapside for ten shillings, being a young gentleman on whose word
nobody could rely, that is the worst of men, young women, you cannot
trust 'em. And now my own daughter has run away with a London spark, and
I, her own mother, must give up half a score routs and my Lady
Pickadilly's drum--the most fashionable affair of the kind that will
ever be known in Curtain Wells, for my Lady Pickadilly is newly come
from town with her second son the Hon. John Hyde, as quiet a young
gentleman as ever said Bo! to a goose, and here we are nearly into
April, and if my daughter drowns herself from London Bridge, why then I
shall be wearing black at the Fetes Champetres and a pretty figure I
shall be truly! though, indeed, if one had the courage to wear a white
velvet vizard, I might very well pass for an Allegory of Moonlight--and
yet that would never do, for to be sure that malicious creature Mrs.
Dudding, whose Conversazione last month was the completest failure ever
known, would make one of her odious epigrams about poor Mr. Moon, the
best natured of gentlemen and the very personification of the milk of
human kindness. To be sure, his ankles are very big, but indeed I vow if
one were to regard all the defects in humanity, very few of us would be
able to hold up our heads. Mr. Ripple himself is the smallest man in the
Wells, but nobody esteems him the less for that. To be sure, I think he
was very ill-advised,--though for that matter he was never known to take
anybody's advice but his own--very ill-advised, I say, not to speak more
severely to my daughter. I was always so careful of her modesty that I
never allowed her to sit in the Maze with an odious little nudity in
stone always hovering about, till I declare they should have planted ivy
to climb up his shameless legs. I'm sure nothing could be more Biblical
than such vegetable apparel. Cupid they call him: Stupid I call it."
Mrs. Courteen here paused to take a longer breath and Susan exclaimed:
"La! ma'am, what to do wi' your petticoat I doan't know. It comes
peaping through your gown like Tom o' Coventry in the Christmas
mumming."
"Pin it, child, pin it," said the widow.
"La! ma'am, we ha' used nigh forty pins already, and thee'll be like a
hedgehog soon."
"No matter, child, no matter how I appear. I must do my duty as a
mother, but I vow I blush when I think that near everybody takes us for
man and wife. To be sure, I don't mind, and always say that if the world
wishes to talk, the world will talk; and there once was a time when I
was talked about from one corner of the county to the other. And now
this improper affair of my daughter's will set every idle tongue wagging
again. My own maid Betty, who was privy to the whole unhappy intrigue,
was truly frightened when she found how far ignorance and wilfulness had
taken her. 'What will they say at Courteen Grange, ma'am, and what will
Mr. Rumble the carrier say, and Mrs. Rumble and the old widow who keeps
the shop and poor old Jonas the gardener and all the good folk of the
shire?' 'Ah,' said I, 'what indeed?' Ugh! child, you're running pins
into my--into my legs!"
"Dear life, ma'am," said Susan the culprit, apparently not much abashed
by the accusation, "'tis difficult to find a bit of leg to run a pin
into, for, O my soul and body, you're shining like a starlight night,
wi' pins all over 'ee."
So the rehabilitation of Mrs. Courteen went on with diffuse anecdotes on
the side of the widow, with similes from deft-fingered Susan, with much
displaying of pearly teeth from Joan, and with a gentle cooing from
Elizabeth, who was betrothed to the hostler of the _Green Dragon_ Inn.
Outside it was raining faster than ever, and the wind was beginning to
moan under the eaves and away in the remote corners of the house. A
flash of lightning and a terrifick burst of thunder that followed
immediately upon its heels undid half an hour's steady pinning, owing to
the violent tremours with which it afflicted poor Mrs. Courteen.
It made Mr. Ripple break a Caesura and, worse, it made him try to mend it
with a false quantity. Altogether the prospect was extremely uninviting,
and the succulent odour of roast duck was certainly no temptation to
precipitate his departure. However, the duck came to an end, and the
morsels of it which began to freeze upon his plate made him so impatient
of farther delay that when Pridgeon knocked at the door and informed him
the chaise was once more fit for the roads, he called for his bill and,
as I believe, (such a sweet change had Horace and roast duck wrought in
his mind) hummed a popular jig while he buttoned up his breeches. Soon
he was tapping delicately at the door of Mrs. Courteen's chamber,
saying:
"Come, ma'am, I hope you're rested. Our horses are waiting--'tis a most
atrocious night--but never mind, ma'am, never mind, we shall sleep the
sounder," he had almost said "for having done our duty," but not even
the stress of an untoward adventure could condemn his spirit to a second
platitude that stormy night, and he altered the unfinished sentence to
"for not having to endure Mrs. Dudding's epigrams. Foregad, ma'am," he
went on, "she churns the sour cream of her intellect and produces, after
infinite toil, a very rancid wit."
Then the Great little Man pattered downstairs, condescended to
felicitate Mr. Upex upon his timely meal, inquired the name of his cook,
said she was a good woman and would go far, listened to Farmer Gruby's
opinion that this rain would do a power o' good to the land, condoled
with him upon a bovine loss which he was still lamenting, bade Pridgeon
stand another quart of ale each to the good fellows who had assisted to
talk about the accident, raised his monocle to a bill of sale affixed to
the wall, inquired into the state of the roads before them, evoked an
atmosphere of respectful adoration by presenting the landlord with a
card inscribed 'Horace Ripple, The Great House,' and finally won the
perpetual devotion of Mr. George Upex by writing in his neatest hand at
the top right corner of the engraved card 'Recommended by.' The landlord
vowed he would have the precious voucher of identity framed and hung up
in the parlour underneath a painting on glass of his gracious Majesty
K---- G----, and in close proximity to a likeness of Lord Breda's prize
bullock Jupiter, which several drunken loyalists had been known to
salute in mistake for the K----.
Mrs. Courteen sailed downstairs, followed by Susan, Joan and Elizabeth,
all of whom were kept busy picking up pins, which they stuck between
their teeth, to the great disappointment of Mr. Pridgeon, who would have
very much liked to snatch a kiss from each Hebe in turn, and, seeing
that the hostler was standing outside in the rain, I dare swear that but
for the pins he would have been successful in his amorous project. Off
went the chaise into the gathering gloom, spattering the onlookers with
mud, and almost drowning with its clatter the hearty cheers of the
inhabitants of Great Cobblebury.
And now the Beau, whose urbanity had been restored by Horace and roast
duck, entertained Mrs. Courteen with delightful tales of fashionable
society. The most violent jolt no longer availed to upset the balance of
his sentences. The widow was deeply impressed by Mr. Ripple's charming
behaviour and, though she could not appreciate his anecdotes at their
value, was put into a very pleasant disposition of mind by a
half-fledged fancy that the Great little Man was slowly succumbing to
her ample fascination. As for little Pridgeon, his diminutive inside was
so replete with cordials and old Jamaica rum that he was quite
impervious to the weather and he sang a large number of country ballads
in a very engaging Alto voice.
Suddenly, as they were driving over a wild stretch of commonland, dotted
with huge clumps of gorse and a number of stunted and wind-bent
thorn-trees, the chaise stopped with a jerk, spoiling the climax of one
of the Beau's best stories, describing how he had compelled the Duchess
of Hereford to apologize to a flower girl.
"What's the matter?" he cried out.
"Nothing," said Pridgeon, "but we're just underneath the gallows with a
very notorious reskel swingin' over our heads--reg'lar old scarecrow he
is--can't you hear the chains, y'r honour? He's bobbin' about in the
wind like a cork in a puddle."
"Drive on, rogue," commanded Mr. Ripple sternly.
"It 'ud be a pity not to see 'im. Blue Jenkins vas his name--I'll hold
up one of the lamps and you can take a good look at 'im. There was
hundreds used to walk 'ere of a Sunday afternoon when he was just
turned off, ecod, y'r honour ought to take a look at him."
"Will you drive on, sirrah!"
Suddenly Mrs. Courteen uttered a loud scream; and very uncanny it
sounded in the tempest.
"What in the name of--what's the matter?" exclaimed Mr. Ripple.
"I hear horses," said Mrs. Courteen, and screamed again.
Pridgeon cocked up his ears.
"She's right," he shouted. "There's a couple of 'em coming up behind
us!"
"Good G----! Highwaymen!" said Mrs. Courteen, clinging to Mr. Ripple.
The latter did not lose his presence of mind.
"Drive on, you puppy! I'll see to the priming of my pistols." With these
words the Courageous little Man dived between the widow's agitated legs
and groped for the elegant walnut case of his exquisitely chased
pistols.
"'Tain't no good," shouted Pridgeon, as he lashed the horse to a gallop.
"'Tis only a mile afore we reaches Long Hill and they'll catch us
walkin' there."
"I warn you, madam," said Mr. Ripple calmly, while the postchaise
rattled through the storm, "I warn you that I shall certainly shoot
once, if not twice."
But Mrs. Courteen had fainted away and only half a dozen pins released
from their responsibleness whispered a faint and ineffective answer.
_Chapter the Thirty-third_