On my way towards our lodgings, I resolved to look in at a humble
tavern, in the coffee-room of which the Captain and myself habitually
dined. It was now about the usual hour in which we took that meal, and
he might be there waiting for me. I had just gained the steps of this
tavern, when a stage coach came rattling along the pavement, and drew
up at an inn of more pretensions than that which we favoured, situated
within a few doors of the latter. As the coach stopped, my eye was
caught by the Trevanion livery, which was very peculiar. Thinking I
must be deceived, I drew near to the wearer of the livery, who had
just descended from the roof, and, while he paid the coachman, gave
his orders to a waiter who emerged from the inn--"Half-and-half, cold
without!" The tone of the voice struck me as familiar, and, the man now
looking up, I beheld the features of Mr Peacock. Yes, unquestionably
it was he. The whiskers were shaved--there were traces of powder
in the hair or the wig--the livery of the Trevanions (ay, the very
livery--crestbutton, and all) upon that portly figure, which I had
last seen in the more august robes of a beadle. But Mr Peacock it
was--Peacock travestied, but Peacock still. Before I had recovered my
amaze, a woman got out of a cabriolet, which seemed to have been in
waiting for the arrival of the coach, and, hurrying up to Mr Peacock,
said in the loud impatient tone common to the fairest of the fair sex,
when in haste--"How late you are--I was just going. I must get back to
Oxton to-night."
Oxton--Miss Trevanion was staying at Oxton! I was now close behind the
pair--I listened with my heart in my ear.
"So you shall, my dear--so you shall; just come in, will you."
"No, no; I have only ten minutes to catch the coach. Have you any
letter for me from Mr Gower? How can I be sure, if I don't see it under
his own hand, that"--
"Hush!" said Peacock, sinking his voice so low that I could only
catch the words, "no names, letter, pooh, I'll tell you." He then
drew her apart, and whispered to her for some moments. I watched the
woman's face, which was bent towards her companion's, and it seemed
to show quick intelligence. She nodded her head more than once, as if
in impatient assent to what was said; and, after a shaking of hands,
hurried off to the cab; then, as if a thought struck her, she ran back,
and said--
"But in case my lady should not go--if there's any change of plan?"
"There'll be no change, you may be sure: Positively to-morrow--not too
early; you understand?"
"Yes, yes; good-by"--and the woman, who was dressed with a quiet
neatness, that seemed to stamp her profession as that of an abigail,
(black cloak, with long cape--of that peculiar silk which seems spun
on purpose for ladies'-maids--bonnet to match, with red and black
ribbons,) hastened once more away, and in another moment the cab drove
off furiously.
What could all this mean? By this time the waiter brought Mr Peacock
the half-and-half. He despatched it hastily, and then strode on towards
a neighbouring stand of cabriolets. I followed him; and just as, after
beckoning one of the vehicles from the stand, he had ensconced himself
therein, I sprang up the steps and placed myself by his side. "Now,
Mr Peacock," said I, "you will tell me at once how you come to wear
that livery, or I shall order the cabman to drive to Lady Ellinor
Trevanion's, and ask her that question myself."
"And who the devil!--Ah, you're the young gentleman that came to me
behind the scenes--I remember."
"Where to, sir?" asked the cabman.
"To--to London Bridge," said Mr Peacock.
The man mounted the box, and drove on.
"Well, Mr Peacock, I wait your answer. I guess by your face that you
are about to tell me a lie; I advise you to speak the truth."
"I don't know what business you have to question me," said Mr Peacock
sullenly; and, raising his glance from his own clenched fists, he
suffered it to wander over my form with so vindictive a significance
that I interrupted the survey by saying, "Will you encounter the house?
as the Swan interrogatively puts it--shall I order the cabman to drive
to St James's Square?"
"Oh, you know my weak point, sir; any man who can quote Will--sweet
Will--has me on the hip," rejoined Mr Peacock, smoothing his
countenance, and spreading his palms on his knees. "But if a man does
fall in the world, and, after keeping servants of his own, is obliged
to be himself a servant,
---- 'I will not shame
To tell you what I am.'"
"The Swan says, 'To tell you what I _was_,' Mr Peacock. But enough of
this trifling: who placed you with Mr Trevanion?"
Mr Peacock looked down for a moment, and then, fixing his eyes on me,
said--"Well, I'll tell you: you asked me, when we met last, about a
young gentleman--Mr--Mr Vivian."
PISISTRATUS.--Proceed.
PEACOCK.--I know you don't want to harm him. Besides, "He hath
a prosperous art," and one day or other,--mark my words, or rather my
friend Will's--
"He will bestride this narrow world
Like a Colossus."
Upon my life he will--like a Colossus,
"And we petty men--"
PISISTRATUS (_savagely_.)--Go on with your story.
PEACOCK (_snappishly_.)--I am going on with it! You put me
out; where was I--oh--ah yes. I had just been sold up--not a penny in
my pocket; and if you could have seen my coat--yet that was better
than the small-clothes! Well, it was in Oxford Street--no, it was in
the Strand, near the Lowther--
"The sun was in the heavens; and the proud day
Attended, with the pleasures of the world."
PISISTRATUS, (_lowering the glass_.)--To St James's Square?
PEACOCK.--No, no; to London Bridge.
"How use doth breed a habit in a man!"
I will go on--honour bright. So I met Mr Vivian, and as he had known me
in better days, and has a good heart of his own, he says--
"Horatio,--or I do forget myself."
Pisistratus puts his hand on the check-string.
PEACOCK.--I mean, (_correcting himself_)--"Why, Johnson, my
good fellow."
PISISTRATUS.--Johnson!--oh that's your name--not Peacock.
PEACOCK.--Johnson and Peacock both, (_with dignity_.) When you
know the world as I do, sir, you will find that it is ill travelling
this "naughty world" without a change of names in your portmanteau.
"Johnson," says he, "my good fellow," and he pulled out his purse.
"Sir," said I, "if, 'exempt from public haunt,' I could get something
to do when this dross is gone. In London there are sermons in stones,
certainly, but not 'good in everything,'--an observation I should take
the liberty of making to the Swan, if he were not now, alas! 'the
baseless fabric of a vision.'"
PISISTRATUS.--Take care!
PEACOCK--(_hurriedly_.)--Then says Mr Vivian, "If you don't
mind wearing a livery, till I can provide for you more suitably, my old
friend, there's a vacancy in the establishment of Mr Trevanion." Sir, I
accepted the proposal, and that's why I wear this livery.
PISISTRATUS.--And, pray, what business had you with that young
woman, whom I take to be Miss Trevanion's maid?--and why should she
come from Oxton to see you?
I had expected that these questions would confound Mr Peacock, but
if there really were anything in them to cause embarrassment, the
_ci-devant_ actor was too practised in his profession to exhibit it. He
merely smiled, and smoothing jauntily a very tumbled shirt-front, he
said, "Oh sir, fie!
'Of this matter,
Is little Cupid's crafty arrow made.'
If you must know my love affairs, that young woman is, as the vulgar
say, my sweetheart."
"Your sweetheart!" I exclaimed, greatly relieved, and acknowledging
at once the probability of the statement. "Yet," I added
suspiciously--"yet, if so, why should she expect Mr Gower to write to
her?"
"You're quick of hearing, sir; but though
'All adoration, duty, and observance;
All humbleness, and patience, and impatience,'
the young woman will not marry a livery servant--proud creature, very
proud!--and Mr Gower, you see, knowing how it was, felt for me, and
told her, if I may take such liberty with the Swan, that she should
----'Never lie by Johnson's side
With an unquiet soul,'
for that he would get me a place in the Stamps! The silly girl said she
would have it in black and white--as if Mr Gower would write to her!"
"And now, sir," continued Mr Peacock, with a simpler gravity, "you
are at liberty, of course, to say what you please to my lady, but I
hope you'll not try to take the bread out of my mouth because I wear
a livery, and am fool enough to be in love with a waiting-woman--I,
sir, who could have married ladies who have played the first parts in
life--on the metropolitan stage."
I had nothing to say to these representations--they seemed plausible;
and though at first I had suspected that the man had only resorted to
the buffoonery of his quotations in order to gain time for invention,
or to divert my notice from any flaw in his narrative, yet at the
close, as the narrative seemed probable, so I was willing to believe
that the buffoonery was merely characteristic. I contented myself
therefore with asking--
"Where do you come from now?"
"From Mr Trevanion, in the country, with letters to Lady Ellinor?"
"Oh, and so the young woman knew you were coming to town?"
"Yes, sir; some days ago. Mr Trevanion told me the day I should have to
start."
"And what do you and the young woman propose doing to-morrow, if there
is no change of plan?"
Here I certainly thought there was a slight, scarce perceptible,
alteration in Mr Peacock's countenance, but he answered readily,
"To-morrow? a little assignation, if we can both get out;--
'Woo me, now I am in a holiday humour,
And like enough to consent.'
Swan again, sir!"
"Humph!--so then Mr Gower and Mr Vivian are the same person."
Peacock hesitated. "That's not _my_ secret, sir; 'I am combined by a
sacred vow.' You are too much the gentleman to peep through the blanket
of the dark, and to ask me, who wear the whips and stripes--I mean the
plush small-clothes and shoulder-knots--the secrets of another gent, to
whom 'my services are bound.'"
How a man past thirty foils a man scarcely twenty!--what superiority
the mere fact of living-on gives to the dullest dog! I bit my lip, and
was silent.
"And," pursued Mr Peacock, "if you knew how the Mr Vivian you inquired
after loves you"! When I told him incidentally, how a young gentleman
had come behind the scenes to inquire after him, he made me describe
you, and then said, quite mournfully, 'If ever I am what I hope to
become, how happy I shall be to shake that kind hand once more,'--very
words, sir!--honour bright!
'I think there's ne'er a man in Christendom
Can lesser hide his hate or love than he.'
And if Mr Vivian has some reason to keep himself concealed still--if
his fortune or ruin depend on your not divulging his secret for
awhile--I can't think you are the man he need fear. 'Pon my life,
'I wish I was as sure of a good dinner,'
as the Swan touchingly exclaims. I dare swear that was a wish often on
the Swan's lips in the privacy of his domestic life!"
My heart was softened, not by the pathos of the much profaned and
desecrated Swan, but by Mr Peacock's unadorned repetition of Vivian's
words; I turned my face from the sharp eyes of my companion--the cab
now stopped at the foot of London Bridge.
I had no more to ask, yet still there was some uneasy curiosity in my
mind, which I could hardly define to myself,--was it not jealousy?
Vivian, so handsome and so daring--_he_ at least might see the great
heiress; Lady Ellinor perhaps thought of no danger there. But--I--I was
a lover still, and--nay, such thoughts were folly indeed!
"My man," said I to the ex-comedian, "I neither wish to harm Mr Vivian
(if I am so to call him,) nor you who imitate him in the variety of
your names. But I tell you, fairly, that I do not like your being in Mr
Trevanion's employment, and I advise you to get out of it as soon as
possible. I say nothing more as yet, for I shall take time to consider
well what you have told me."
With that I hastened away, and Mr Peacock continued his solitary
journey over London Bridge.