"And what is your life, William?" asked Sir George Repington, leaning
back in his chair and removing his wig.
"My life, George," replied Mr. Ripple, "is a gem carved by a cunning
workman to stamp any material sufficiently plastick to record an
impression. My life, George, is a conductor of musick. Of itself it
produces no sweet sounds, but evokes a fair harmony from many and
diverse instruments."
"You had ambitions once."
"I have gratified the most of them."
"Yet your life has not been active."
"No?"
"As for example mine has been."
"I do not know, George, that my contemplative existence has produced
less than your phrenzied encounters with mathematical alliances and
numerical intrigues. The manipulation of human beings is quite as
active. We have neither of us done a vast deal."
"I have had a great influence upon the political situation, more than
once," said Sir George proudly.
"So have I," said the Beau.
"Indeed?"
"I have tamed the wives of the most of our ministers."
"But you are not a man of intrigue?"
"Heaven forbid!" said the Beau devoutly. "No, no George, my knowledge of
Olympian intrigue taught me to be wise. I found that the gods never
improved their dignity by amorous descents. To be sure, on one or two
occasions, they made an effort to assert their divinity by dramatical
effects unworthy of a country conjurer, but I do not believe that they
ever recovered from the indiscretion of familiarity with their
inferiors. No! no! George, I am not a man of intrigue."
"Then what is your life? How do you pass your time?"
Sir George Repington had lit a churchwarden pipe and accentuated the
inquiry by waving the long stem. Mr. Ripple took a pinch of snuff and,
settling himself deeper in his chair, began to relate his manner of
existence in a clear and modulated tone that agreed well with the
comfort of the room. The narrative took its own course and reminded one
of the purring of a cat amid the flickering shadows cast by firelight on
a gaudy rug.
"I assumed my present name--Horace Ripple--partly out of respect to the
poet, partly out of respect to my father's mother. Belladine was too
metallick, too lustrous an appellation for a man without any desire to
agitate the peace of the world. Besides, there were other reasons why I
should forget my patronymick. As Horace Ripple, I rode one fine morning
into the town of Curtain Wells, procured a pleasant house in the Eastern
Colonnade and waited upon Beau Melon. The latter received me very
graciously and was pleased to compliment me upon the trimming of my
waistcoat. (I have often contemplated the revival of that auspicious
fashion.) I was lucky enough to render the great Beau a trifling
service, in the matter of adjusting the discordant claims of two
dairymaids who were quarrelling rather loudly over the young Earl
of---- well, his name don't matter. Melon had been entrusted with the
harvesting of the young nobleman's wild oats. After that I was able to
lend him five hundred pounds and half a dozen epigrams, also to put him
in the way of a neat translation of a song by the passionate Catullus,
whereby he secured the hand of the famous, wealthy, and eccentrick
Contessa Dilettante. He married, bequeathed to me his house, his
notebooks, and his goodwill, so that in a paltry five years I succeeded
to the sovereignty of Curtain Wells. Our season endures from October
until June. During that time I am as busy as a monarch should expect to
be. I have made many alterations during the years of my rule; for
instance, the Assemblies once held every Wednesday are now invariably
held every Monday."
"But what the d----l does it matter which day they are held?"
interrupted Sir George.
"Of course, it does not matter. Nothing matters. Nevertheless, George,
when I announced the change, I tell you my throne, for a moment,
tottered. However, I triumphed over the malcontents, and I venture to
think it would take a very bold man to suggest they should ever again be
held upon Wednesday."
"But, my dear William!" said his friend, "this is nonsense. 'Tis absurd
for you to sit there and congratulate yourself as though this were doing
something."
"My dear George," said the Beau very blandly. "Did I not read last year
in the _Intelligence_ that you were agitating yourself confoundedly in
order to secure some great financial advantage by altering the date of
the despatch of bullion to Portugal?"
"You did, William, you did," said Sir George, setting his shoulders back
at the proud thought of a great victory won.
"And what the d----l does it matter whether the ships sail in February
or March?"
"You don't understand--the depression of the markets, the----"
"Precisely so," interrupted Mr. Ripple, "and you, my dear friend, do not
understand the depression of Monday and Tuesday in the time before my
great reform."
"But mine was an affair of international importance."
"And mine was an affair of domestick and social importance. Gadslife, do
you suppose that my subjects care a jot about your schemes, if their own
bodies are uncomfortable? Do you realize that many an election
depends--yet why should I dispute the question. Nothing matters, but
everything is of the very greatest importance."
Sir George was bewildered by the Beau's sophistry and argued no
farther. After all, as he told himself, the atmosphere of Throgmorton
Street had probably stultified his outlook. He himself only regarded it
as a necessary, if purgatorial prologue to the paradise of the life of a
man of leisure. Belladine was a man of leisure, and if Aristotle's
politicks were not corrupt, must know more than himself about the
affairs of the whole world. So Sir George kindled a fresh pipe with a
burning coal, and listened to the continuation of Mr. Ripple's placid
narrative.
"I perceived," the latter went on, "that pleasure was the most
inexorable fact, setting aside birth and death, in the human economy.
Before my time, the diversions of Curtain Wells, though conducted on a
lavish scale of expense were somewhat haphazard. They did not always fit
in with the moods of the pilgrims of AEsculapius. Too much was left to
private enterprize. There was not enough organization and, worst of all,
there was not enough stress laid upon the ascetick duties, whose
fulfilment would lend such a flavour and zest to relaxation. I
instituted, therefore, a rigour of exercise and diet, I insisted upon
the sacred character of the Pump Room, I glorified the taking of
chalybeate by a ritual at once subtle and magnificent. In a word, I
founded a new religion and, as the auctioneers have it, made of Curtain
Wells a true Temple of Hygeia. Having trained my subjects to make
themselves uncomfortable in a modish way, I was soon able to urge the
necessity of enjoying themselves on the same principle. To this end I
arranged that every month should have its specifick pleasures, which
would be welcomed as we welcome each flower that succeeds in its season.
I will not fatigue you with too much detail, but I can honestly affirm
that when the great Aquatick Gala or Fete Aqueuse comes to a dazzling
conclusion, when the showers of bursting crimson, violet, and golden
rockets dim the lustre of the Dog Star on the last night of June, the
whole of the fashionable world retires to verdant solitudes with a
profound admiration for me and a fixed determination to grace the grand
opening Assembly on the first night of October."
"Indeed," said Sir George Repington, on whose mind a new prospect was
breaking, "and how do you pass your time during the intervening months?"
"I meditate, George, I meditate in a charming rural retreat which I
possess in the green heart of Devonshire. There I spend leafy days in
pastoral seclusion. I have my plane tree, my jug of old Falernian. I
have my spaniel, Lalage, and an impoverished female cousin who performs
very engagingly upon the spinet. I sit in the austere musick-chamber
with shadowy white walls, empty save for two or three tall black oaken
chairs and the curiously painted instrument. I listen to the cool
melodies of Couperin and admire his unimpassioned symbols of the
Passions where a purple domino is the most violent, the most fervid
emotion. I hear above the chirping of the crickets, the faint harmonies
of Archangelo Corelli and the fugues of Domenico Scarlatti, whose name
is so vivid, but whose musick like the morning is a mist of gold. I sit
in a library hung with faded rose brocades and tarnished silver
broideries. There I meditate upon the bloody deaths of Emperors and the
grey hairs of Helen of Troy. There I move serenely from shelf to shelf
and hark to the muffled thunder of volumes clapped together to exclude
the odorous dust. I ponder Religion and Urn Burial and pore over the
lurid histories of notable comets. At dusk of a fine day, I step out
into the dewy garden to watch the colour fade from the flowers and the
stars wink in the lucent green of the western sky. Presently I step
indoors, light a tall wax candle set in a silver candlestick, go
sedately to bed and fall asleep to the perfume of roses and jasmine and
the echo of a cadence from the _Anatomy of Melancholy_."
"And that is your life?" said Sir George.
"That is my life."
"William, would it have been your life if things had been different on
that April morning? I thought my life was as I would have wished to
spend it; I have worshipped dull columns of figures and the dust of
counting-houses, but to-night when I saw that child, when I saw that
nephew of mine, I feared old age and wished I could somehow have
thought less, calculated less, striven less, and loved more."
"George," said Mr. Ripple, tapping the lid of his snuff box with not so
brave an air as usual, and, as he spoke, his friend apprehended in a
moment's illumination that all this decorated narrative had been evoked
to defer an explanation which he had felt all the while was inevitable.
"George," said Mr. Ripple, "if upon that morning in April, I could have
made up my mind, I should, I believe, have--and yet I don't know," he
broke off, "I doubt I was never intended to be a man of commonplace
action."
"You did not interfere?"
"I loved her, too."
"You loved her?"
"I saw she cared for him alone, and, when Roger fell, though I had my
pistol loaded and levelled, I had no heart to fire. But I was never
brave enough to tell you I had let him escape and, having waited too
long--oh! well there it is--I waited and could not bear to resume my old
life. And indeed, George, I think I have been a happy man. You have
conjured up the ghost of Belladine to-night and Belladine was and is and
will be miserable to the end of his days, but pray dismiss him, vex not
his ghost, and take snuff with Horace Ripple of the Great House, Curtain
Wells. We are both too old, George, to do anything now. We must depend
on young Charles."
"And if he should fail?"
"We are both old men. We should, therefore, both be able to suffer
another disillusion."
"I suppose that is true," said Sir George rather sadly. "William----"
"Horace," corrected Mr. Ripple.
"William," persisted the other, "did I ever mention Thistlegrove Cottage
to you?"
"Not that I can remember."
"'Tis a fine night, full of stars," said Mrs. Tabrum, entering the room
with a tray full of brightly burning candles, "and what time would your
honours like to be waked up in the morning?"
"I will ring my bell," said Mr. Ripple.
"I will ring my bell," said Sir George Repington.
The two old friends took each a candle, and went upstairs to bed. From
the corridor casement they looked out.
"What a laugh she had," says Sir George. A gust of wind extinguished his
candle, and he shuddered.
"That is the way I shall go out."
"That is the way we shall all go out," said Mr. Ripple.
"And nothing afterwards?"
"Darkness."
"And nothing else?"
"Perhaps a hand in the darkness."
_Chapter the Thirty-sixth_