HOW KITTY WORE HER CROWN.
Thus happily began our stay at Epsom Wells.
After our morning walk we returned home, being both fatigued with the
excitement and late hours, and one, at least, desirous to sit alone and
think about the strange and perilous adventure of the evening. Strange,
indeed; since when before did a man dance with his own wife and not
recognise her? Perilous, truly, for should that man go away and give
no more heed to his wife, then would poor Kitty be lost for ever. For
already was her heart engaged in this adventure, and, like a gambler,
she had staked her whole upon a single chance. Fortunately for her, the
stake was consecrated with tears of repentance, bitterness of shame,
and prayers for forgiveness.
Mrs. Esther gently dozed away the morning over "Pamela." I was occupied
with needlework. Cicely ran in and out of the room, looking as if she
longed to speak, but dared not for fear of waking madam.
After a while she beckoned me to the door, and whispered me that
outside was a higgler with ducklings and cherries, should we please to
choose them for our dinner. I followed her, and after a bargain, in
which the Surrey maiden showed herself as good as if she had been bred
in Fleet Market (though without the dreadful language), she began upon
the business which she was burning to tell me.
"Sure, Miss Kitty," she said, "all the world is talking this morning
about the beautiful Miss Pleydell. The book-shop is full of nothing
else, the gentlemen in the coffee-house can talk of nothing but of
Miss Pleydell, and up and down the Terrace it is nothing but, 'Oh,
madam, did you see the dancing of Miss Pleydell last night?' 'Dear
madam, did you remark the dress of Miss Pleydell?' And 'Can you tell
me whence she comes, this beautiful Miss Pleydell?' And the men are
all sighing as if their hearts would burst, poor fellows! And they
say that Lord Chudleigh gave a supper after the ball to the gentlemen
of his acquaintance, when he toasted the beautiful Miss Pleydell. Oh
the happiness! He is a young nobleman with a great estate, and said
to be of a most virtuous and religious disposition. The gentlemen are
mounting ribbons in honour of the peerless Kitty, so I hear--and you
will not be offended at their venturing so to take your name--and, with
a little encouragement, they will all be fighting for a smile from the
fair Kitty."
"Silly girl, to repeat such stories!"
"Nay," she replied, "it is all truth, every word. They say that never
since the Wells began has there been such a beauty. The oldest dipper,
old Mrs. Humphreys, who is past eighty, declares that Miss Pleydell
is the loveliest lady that ever came to Epsom. When you go out this
afternoon you will be finely beset."
And so on, all the morning, as her occasion brought her into the room,
whisking about, duster in hand, and always clatter, clatter, like the
mill-wheel. After dinner we received a visit from no other than Lord
Chudleigh himself.
He offered a thousand apologies for presenting himself without asking
permission, kindly adding, that however he might find Miss Kitty,
whether dressed or in dishabille, she could not be otherwise than
charming. I know one person who thought Kitty in her morning frock,
muslin pinner, and brown hair (which was covered with little curls),
looped up loosely, or allowed to flow freely to her waist, prettier
than Kitty dressed up in hoop, and patches, and powder. It was the
mirror which told that person so, and she never dared to tell it to any
other.
He had ventured, he said, still speaking to Mrs. Esther, to present an
offering of flowers and fruit sent to him that morning from his country
house in Kent; and then Cicely brought upstairs the most beautiful
basket ever seen, filled with the finest flowers, peaches, plums,
apricots, and cherries. I had seen none such since I said farewell to
the old Vicarage garden, where all those things grew better, I believe,
than anywhere else in England.
"My lord," said my aunt, quite confused at such a gift, such
condescension! "What can we say but that we accept the present most
gratefully."
"Indeed, madam," he replied, "there is nothing to say. I am truly
pleased that my poor house is able to provide a little pleasure to two
ladies. It is the first time, I assure you, that I have experienced the
joy of possessing my garden."
Then he went on to congratulate Mrs. Esther on my appearance at the
ball.
"I hear," he said, "that on the Terrace and in the coffee-house one
hears nothing but the praises of the fair Miss Pleydell."
I blushed, not so much at hearing my name thus mentioned, because I was
already (in a single day--fie, Kitty!) accustomed and, so to speak,
hardened, but because he smiled as he spoke. My lord's smile was not
like some men's, bestowed upon every trifle; but, like his speech,
considered. I fear, indeed, that even then, so early in the day, my
heart was already thoroughly possessed of his image.
"The child," said Mrs. Esther, "must not have her head turned by
flattery. Yet, I own, she looked and moved like one of the three
Graces. Yet we who love her must not spoil her. It was her first ball,
and she did her best, poor child, to acquit herself with credit."
"Credit," said my lord kindly, "is a poor, cold word to use for such a
grace."
"We thank your lordship." Mrs. Esther bowed with dignity. This,
surely, was a return to the Pimpernel Manner. "We have been living
in seclusion, for reasons which need not be related, for some time.
Therefore, Kitty has never been before to any public assembly. To be
sure, I do not approve of bringing forward young girls too early;
although, for my own part, I had already at her age been present at
several entertainments of the most sumptuous and splendid character,
not only at Bagnigge Wells and Cupid's Garden, but also at many great
city feasts and banquets for the reception of illustrious personages,
particularly in the year of grace, 1718, when my lamented father was
Lord Mayor of London."
The dear lady could never avoid introducing the fact that she was thus
honourably connected.
Lord Chudleigh, however, seemed interested. I learned, later, that
some had been putting about, among other idle rumours, that I was the
daughter of a tattered country curate.
"Indeed," he said, "I knew not that the late Mr. Pleydell had been the
Lord Mayor. It is a most distinguished position."
"Not Mr. Pleydell, my lord. Sir Samuel Pimpernel, Knight, my father,
was the Lord Mayor in question. His father was Lord Mayor before him.
Kitty Pleydell is not my blood relation, but my niece and ward by
adoption. Her father was a most distinguished Cambridge scholar and
divine."
"There are Pleydells," said Lord Chudleigh, "in Warwickshire.
Perhaps----"
"My father," I said, "was rector of a country parish in Kent, where
Sir Robert Levett hath a large estate. He was the younger son of the
Warwickshire family of that name, and died in the spring of last year.
My relations of that county I have never met. Now, my lord, you have my
genealogy complete."
"It is an important thing to know," he said, laughing; "in a place
like Epsom, where scandal is the staple of talk, as many freedoms
are taken with a lady's family as with her reputation. I am glad
to be provided with an answer to those who would enact the part of
town-crier or backbiter, a character here greatly aspired to. No doubt
the agreeable ladies whose tongues in the next world will surely be
converted into two-edged swords, have already furnished Miss Kitty with
highwaymen, tallow-chandlers, or attorneys for ancestors, and Wapping,
Houndsditch, or the Rules of the Fleet"--it was lucky that Mrs. Esther
had a fan--"for their place of residence. In the same way, they have
most undoubtedly proved to each other that she has not a feature worth
looking at, that her eyes squint--pray pardon me, Miss Kitty--her hair
is red, her figure they would have the audacity to call crooked, and
her voice they would maliciously say was cracked. It is the joy of
these people to detract from merit. You can afford to be charitable,
Miss Kitty. The enumeration of impossible disgraces and the distortion
of the rarest charms afford these ladies some consolation for their
envy and disappointment."
"I hope, my lord," I said, "that it will not afford me a consolation
or happiness to believe that my sex is so mean and envious thus to
treat a harmless stranger."
He laughed.
"When Miss Kitty grows older," he said to Mrs Esther, "she will learn
to place less confidence in her fellows."
"Age," said Mrs. Esther sadly, "brings the knowledge of evil. Let none
of us wish to grow older. Not that your lordship hath yet gained the
right to boast this knowledge."
Then my lord proceeded to inform us that he purposed presenting some
of the ladies of the Wells with an entertainment, such as it seems is
expected from gentlemen of his rank.
"But I would not," he said, "invite the rest of the company before I
had made sure that the Queen of the Wells would honour me with her
presence. I have engaged the music, and if the weather holds fine we
will repair to Durdans Park, where we shall find dancing on the grass,
with lamps in the trees, supper, and such amusements as ladies love and
we can provide."
This was indeed a delightful prospect; we accepted with great joy, and
so, with protestations of service, his lordship departed.
"There is," said Mrs. Esther, "about the manners of the great a
charming freedom. Good breeding is to manners what Christianity is
to religion. It is, if one may reverently say so, a law of perfect
liberty. My dear, I think that we are singularly fortunate in having
at the Wells so admirable a young nobleman, as well as our friends
(also well-bred gentlefolks) Sir Robert and Lady Levett. I hear that
the young Lord Eardesley is also at the Wells, and was at last night's
assembly; and no doubt there are other members of the aristocracy by
whom we shall be shortly known. You observed, Kitty, the interest shown
by his lordship, when I delicately alluded to the rank and exalted
station of my late father. It is well for people to know, wherever we
are, and especially when we are in the society of nobility, that we
are not common folk. What ancestors did his lordship say that envious
tongues would give us--tallow-chandlers? attorneys? A lying and
censorious place, indeed!"
Later on, we put on our best and sallied forth, dressed for the evening
in our hoops, patches and powder, but not so fine as for Monday's
ball. The Terrace and New Parade were crowded with people, and very
soon we were surrounded by gentlemen anxious to establish a reputation
for wit or position by exchanging a few words with the Reigning Beauty
of the season--none other, if you please, than Kitty Pleydell.
But to think in how short a time--only a few hours, a single
night--that girl was so changed that she accepted, almost without
wondering, all the incense of flattery that was offered up to her! Yet
she knew, being a girl of some sense, that it was unreal, and could
not mean anything; else a woman so bepraised and flattered would lose
her head. The very extravagance of gallantry preserves the sex from
that calamity. A woman must be a fool indeed who can really believe
that her person is that of a Grace, her smile the smile of Venus, her
beauty surpassing that of Helen, and her wit and her understanding that
of Sappho. She knows better: she knows that her wit is small and petty
beside the wit of a man: her wisdom nothing but to learn a little of
what men have said: her very beauty, of which so much is said, but a
flower of a few years, whereas the beauty of manhood lasts all a life.
Therefore, when all is said and done, the incense burned, the mock
prayers said, the hymn of flattery sung, and the Idol bedecked with
flowers and gems, she loves to step down from the altar, slip away from
the worshippers, and run to a place in the meadows, where waits a swain
who will say: "Sweet girl, I love thee--with all thy faults!"
On this day, therefore, began my brief reign as Queen of the Wells. Mr.
Walsingham was one of the first to salute me. With courtly grace he
bowed low, saying--
"We greet our Queen, and trust her Majesty is in health and spirits."
Then all the gentlemen round formed a lane, down which we walked, my
old courtier marching backwards.
The scene, Mrs. Esther said afterwards, reminded her of a certain day
long ago, when they crowned a Queen of Beauty at Bagnigge Wells, in the
presence of the Lord Mayor, her father.
To be sure, it was a very pretty sight to watch all these gallants
making legs and handling their canes with such grace as each could
command, some of them having studied in those noble schools of manners,
the _salons_ of Paris or the reception-rooms of great ladies in London.
Yet it was certain to me that not one of them could compare with my
lord--my own lord, I mean.
Presently we came upon Lady Levett and her party, when, after a few
words of kind greeting from her ladyship, and an admonition not to
believe more of what I was told than I knew to be true, we divided,
Nancy coming with me and Mrs. Esther remaining with Lady Levett. The
music was playing and the sun shining, but a fine air blew from the
Downs, and we were beneath the shade of the trees. We sat upon one of
the benches, and the gentlemen gathered round us.
"Gentlemen," said Nancy, "I am the Queen's maid of honour. You may
all of you do your best to amuse her Majesty--and me. We give you
permission to exhaust yourselves in making the court happy."
What were they to do? What had they to offer? There was a bull-baiting
in the market at which my maid of honour cried fie! There was a match
with quarterstaves on the Downs for the afternoon, but that met with
little favour.
"We need not leave home," said Nancy, "to see two stout fellows bang
each other about the head with sticks. That amusement may be witnessed
any summer evening, with grinning through a horse-collar and fighting
with gloves on the village green at home. Pray go on to the next
amusement on the list. The cock-pit you can leave out."
One young gentleman proposed that we might play with pantines, a
ridiculous fashion of paper doll then in vogue as a toy for ladies
with nothing to do: another that we should go hear the ingenious Mr.
King lecture on Astronomy: another that we should raffle for chocolate
creams: another that we should do nothing at all, "for," said he, "why
do we come to the Wells but for rest and quiet? and if Miss Pleydell
and her maid of honour do but grant us the privilege of beholding their
charms, what need we of anything but rest?
"'To walk and dine, and walk and sup,
To fill the leisure moments up,
Idly enough but to the few
Who've really nothing else to do.
Yet here the sports exulting reign,
And laughing loves, a num'rous train;
Here Beauty holds her splendid court,
And flatt'ring pleasures here resort.'"
I, for one, should have enjoyed the witnessing of a little sport better
than the homage of lovers.
"Here is Miss Peggy Baker," cried Nancy, jumping up. "Oh! I _must_
speak to my dear friend Miss Peggy."
Miss Baker was walking slowly down the Terrace, accompanied by her
little troop of admirers. At sight of us her face clouded for a moment,
but she quickly recovered and smiled a languid greeting.
"Dear Miss Peggy," cried Nancy--I knew she was going to say something
mischievous--"you come in the nick of time."
"Pray command me," she replied graciously.
"It is a simple question"--Miss Baker looked suspicious. "Oh! a mere
trifle"--Miss Baker looked uneasy. "It is only--pray, gentlemen, were
any of you in the book-shop this morning?"
All protested that they were not--a denial which confirmed my opinion
that impertinence was coming.
"Nay," said Nancy, "we all know the truthfulness of gallants, which is
as notorious as their constancy. Had you been there you would not have
paid Miss Pleydell those pretty compliments which are as well deserved
as they are sincere. But, Miss Peggy, a scandalous report hath got
abroad. They say that you said, this morning, at the book-shop, that
Kitty Pleydell's eyes squinted."
"Oh! oh!" cried Mr. Walsingham, holding up his hands, and all the rest
cried "Oh! oh!" and held up theirs.
"I vow and protest," cried Peggy Baker, blushing very much. "I vow and
protest----"
"I said," interrupted Nancy, "that it was the cruellest slander. You
are all good-nature. Stand up, Kitty dear. Now tell us, Miss Peggy,
before all these gentlemen, do those eyes squint?"
"Certainly not," said poor Peggy, in great confusion.
"Look at them well," continued Nancy. "Brown eyes, full and clear--eyes
like an antelope. Saw any one eyes more straight!"
"Never," said Peggy, fanning herself violently.
"Or more beautiful eyes?"
"Never," replied Miss Peggy.
"There," said Nancy, "I knew it. I said that from the lips of Miss
Peggy Baker nothing but kind words can fall. You hear, gentlemen; women
are sometimes found who can say good things of each other: and if we
find the malicious person who dared report that Miss Peggy Baker said
such a thing, I hope you will duck her in the horse-pond."
Miss Peggy bowed to us with her most languishing air, and passed on.
Nancy held up her hands, while the gentlemen looked at one another and
laughed.
"Oh, calumny!" she cried. "To say that Kitty's eyes were askew!"
For there had been a discussion at the book-shop that morning, in
which the name of Miss Pleydell was frequently mentioned; and her
person, bearing, and face were all particularly dwelt upon. Miss
Baker, as usual in their parliaments, spoke oftenest, and with the
most animation. She possessed, on such occasions, an insight into the
defects of women that was truly remarkable, and a power of representing
them to others which, while it was eloquent and persuasive, perhaps
erred on the side of exaggeration. She summed up what she had to say in
these kind words--
"After all, one could forgive fine clothes worn as if the girl had
never had a dress on fit to be seen before, and manners like a hoyden
trying to seem a nun, and the way of dancing taught to the cits who go
to Sadler's Wells, and a sunburnt complexion, and hands as big as my
fan--all these things are rustic, and might be cured--or endured. But I
cannot forgive her squint!"
And now she had to recant publicly, and confess that there was no
squint at all.
This audacious trick of Nancy's was, you may be sure, immediately
spread abroad, so that for that day at least the unfortunate creature
found the people looking after and laughing wherever she went.
Naturally, she hated me, who really had done her no harm at all, more
and more.
The gentlemen, or one among them, I knew not who, offered this evening
a general tea-drinking with the music. It was served under the trees
upon the open walk, and was very gay and merry. After the tea, when the
day began to decline, we went to the rooms where, though there was no
dancing, there was talking and laughing, in one room, and in the other
games of cards of every kind--cribbage, whist, quadrille, hazard, and
lansquenet. We wandered round the tables, watching the players intent
upon the chances of the cards. I thought of poor Sir Miles Lackington,
who might, had it not been for his love of gaming, have been now, as he
began, a country gentleman with a fine estate. In this room we found
Lord Chudleigh. He was not playing, but was looking on at a table where
sat a young gentleman and an officer in the army. He did not see us,
and, under pretence of watching the play of a party of four ladies
playing quadrille, one of whom was Lady Levett, I sat down to watch
him. Was he a gambler?
I presently discovered that he was not looking at the game, but the
players. Presently he laid his hand upon the shoulder of the younger
man, and said, in a quiet voice--
"Now, Eardesley, you have had enough. This gentleman knows the game
better than you."
"I hope, my lord," cried the other player, springing to his feet, "that
your lordship doth not insinuate----"
"I speak what I mean, sir. Lord Eardesley will, if he takes my advice,
play no more with you."
"Your lordship," cried the gentleman in scarlet, "will perhaps remember
that you are speaking to a gentleman----"
"Who left Bath, a fortnight ago, under such circumstances as makes
it the more necessary for me to warn my friend. No, sir,"--his eye
grew hard, and his face stern. "No, sir. Do not bluster or threaten.
I will neither play with you, nor suffer my friends to play with you;
nor, sir, will I fight with you, unless you happen to attack me upon
the road. And, sir, if I see you here to-morrow, the master of the
ceremonies will put you to the door by means of his lackeys. Come,
Eardesley."
The gamester, thus roundly accused, began to bluster. His honour was at
stake; he had been grossly insulted; he would have the satisfaction of
a gentleman; he would let his lordship know that his rank should not
protect him. With these noble sentiments, he left the room, and the
Wells saw him no more.
Then, seeing me alone, for I had escaped from my court, being weary of
compliments and speeches, he came to my chair.
"I saw you, my lord," I said, "rescue that young gentleman from the man
who, I suppose, would have won his money. Is it prudent to engage in
such quarrels?"
"The young gentleman," he replied, "is, in a sense, my ward. The man is
a notorious sharper, who hath been lately expelled from Bath, and will
now, I think, find it prudent to leave the Wells. I hope, Miss Kitty,
that you do not like gaming?"
"Indeed, my lord, I do not know if I should like what I have never
tried. 'Tis the first time I have seen card-playing."
"Then you must have been brought up in a nunnery."
"Not quite that, but in a village, where, as I have already told you,
my father was vicar. I do not know any games of cards."
"How did you amuse yourself in your village?"
"I read, made puddings, worked samplers, cut out and sewed my dresses,
and learned lessons with Nancy Levett."
"The pretty little girl who is always laughing? She should always
remain young--never grow old and grave. What else did you do?"
"We had a choir for the Sunday psalms--many people came every Sunday
to hear us sing. That was another occupation. Then I used to ride
with the boys, or sometimes we would go fishing, or nutting, or
black-berrying--oh! there was plenty to do, and the days were never too
long."
"A better education than most ladies can show," he replied, with his
quiet air of authority.
"And you, my lord. Do you never play cards?"
"No," he replied. "Pray do not question me further on my favourite
vices, Miss Kitty. I would not confess all my sins even to so charming
and so kind a confessor as yourself."
"I forgive you, my lord," I said, "beforehand. Especially if you
promise to abandon them all."
"There are sins," he said slowly, "which sometimes leave behind them
consequences which can never be forgotten or undone."
Alas! I knew what he meant. His sin had left him burdened with a
wife--a creature who had been so wicked as to take advantage of his
wickedness; a woman whom he feared to hear of and already loathed. Poor
wife! poor sinner! poor Kitty!