HOW HARRY TEMPLE PROVED HIS VALOUR.
Thus were poet and baronet reduced to submission. The third suitor was
harder to manage, because he turned sulky. Sportsmen have said that a
fish, or a bird, or a fox, when he sulks, is then most difficult to
secure. Thus, to be captured or cajoled, the victim must be in a good
temper.
Now Harry Temple went in gloomy indignation, as was visible to all
eyes. He walked alone upon the Terrace, or sat alone in the Assembly
Room, a Killjoy to behold. That would not have mattered, because no
girl feels much sorrow for a man who foolishly sulks because he cannot
marry her; but everybody knew, or thought they knew, the cause of his
heavy looks. Peggy Baker said I had thrown him over for the sake of a
lord, who, she added kindly, would certainly throw me over in turn.
Some of the company cried shame on the flinty-hearted woman who could
let so pretty a fellow go love-sick.
"Kitty," his melancholy seemed to say, "you left us a simple country
girl: you would have been proud of my addresses had you understood my
meaning"--this was quite true: "you are now a woman of fashion, and you
have ambition: your head is turned with flattery: you aspire to nothing
short of a coronet. In those days you were satisfied with the approval
of your looking-glass and your conscience: now you would draw all men
to your heels, and are not happy unless you make them all miserable."
But that was not true at all; I did not wish to make men miserable; and
it was nothing to me whether they were miserable or happy. I thought of
one man only, as is natural to a woman in love.
"If," I said to him one day, being tired by such exhibition of temper,
"if you do not like the place, why make yourself unhappy by staying
here? Cambridge, methinks, would be a more fitting abode for you, where
there are books and scholars; not a watering-place, where people come
together to amuse themselves and be merry."
"I shall stay here," he replied, "until I find there is no hope for me."
"Oh, silly Harry!" I said; "is there no other woman in the world who
will make you happy, except poor Kitty Pleydell?"
"No--none," he shook his melancholy wig, the tie at the back of his
head wagging sorrowfully.
How was it possible to have any sympathy with so rueful a lover? Why,
it made one ridiculous. Everybody said that Harry Temple was in love
with me, that I, for the worst of motives, viz., to catch a coronet,
refused him, and that he was an excellent match, especially for one who
was nothing better than a country parson's daughter.
"I believe only a curate, my dear," Peggy Baker would say. "No doubt
she lived on bacon fat and oatmeal, and knitted her own stockings. And
yet she refuses Harry Temple, a pretty fellow, though studious, and a
man whom any of us, gentlewomen born, would be glad to encourage."
"Oh!" I said to him, "why do you not go? Why do you look reproaches on
me?"
"Because," he replied, "I still love you, unworthy as you are."
"Unworthy? Mr. Temple, methinks that a little civility----"
"Yes, unworthy. I say that a girl who throws over her oldest friends
with the almost avowed intention of securing a title, without knowing
anything of the character of the man who bears it----"
"This is too much!" I said. "First, sir, let me know what there is
against Lord Chudleigh's character. Tell me, upon your word, sir, do
you know anything at all? Is he not a man of principle and honour?"
"I know nothing against him. I dare say that he is what you think."
"Well, sir; and, in the next place, how dare you accuse me of
deliberately trying to attract my lord? Do you know me so well as to
read my soul? Do you know me so well as to be justified to yourself
when you attribute such a motive to me?"
"What other motive can I attribute to you?" he asked bitterly. "Is he
not a peer? Is he not rich?"
"O Harry!" I cried, "you will drive me mad between you. Cannot a peer
be a good man? Cannot a girl--I say--may not a girl--Harry, you force
me to say it--is it not possible for a girl to fall in love with a man
who is even a peer and a rich man? Go sir! you have humbled me, and
made me say words of which I am ashamed. Go, if you please, and tell
all the world what I have said."
Then he fell to asking my forgiveness. He was, he said, wretched
indeed: he had long lost my love.
"Man!" I said, "you never had it!"--and now he was like to lose my
friendship.
This talk about friendship between a man and woman when both are young
seems to me a mighty foolish thing. For if the woman is in love with
some one else her friendship is, to be sure, worth just nothing at all,
because she must needs be for ever thinking of the man she loves. There
is but one man in all the world for her, and that man not he who would
fain be her friend. Therefore she gives not a thought to him. Now if a
man be in love with one woman and "in friendship" with another, I think
that either his love for one must be a poor lukewarm passion, which I,
for one, would not be anxious to receive, or his friendship for the
other must be a chilly sort of thing.
However, one must not be angry for ever: Harry Temple had made me say a
thing which I could not have said to any woman--not even Nancy--and was
ashamed of having said: yet when he begged forgiveness I accorded it to
him. Harry, I was sure, would not repeat what I had said.
Somebody about this time wrote another of those little worthless
epigrams or poems, and handed it about:
"Kitty, a fair Dissenter grown,
Sad pattern doth afford:
The Temple's laws she will not own,
Yet still doth love her Lord."
"Do not be angry, Kitty," said Nancy. "This is the penalty of
greatness. What would Peggy Baker give to be lampooned? Harry is a
fool, my dear. Any woman could tell, with half an eye, that you are not
the least in love with him. What are the eyes of men like? Are they so
blinded by vanity as not to be able to see, without being told, when
they are disagreeable objects for a woman's contemplation?"
"I condole with you, Miss Pleydell," said Peggy Baker. "To be the
victim of an irreligious and even impious epigram must be truly
distressing to one, like yourself, brought up in the bosom of the
Church."
"Thank you, dear Miss Peggy," I replied, returning her smiling
courtesy. "The epigram's wound is easily healed. Is it true that you
are yourself the author?"
"O Lord, no!" she replied. "I am but a poor poet, and could not for the
world write or say anything to wound another woman's feelings."
"She would not, indeed, dear Kitty," cried Nancy, who was with me. "It
is not true--though you may hear it so stated--that Miss Peggy said
yesterday on the Parade that your father was only a curate, and that
you made your own stockings. She is the kindest and most generous of
women. We think so, truly, dear Miss Peggy. We would willingly, if we
could, send you half-a-dozen or so of our swains to swell your train.
But they will not leave us."
Was there ever so saucy a girl?
Miss Peggy bit her lips, and I think she would have liked to box
Nancy's ears there and then, had she dared. But a few gentlemen were
standing round us, laughing at Nancy's sally. So she refrained.
"O Miss Nancy!" she replied, trying to laugh, "you are indeed kind. But
I love not the attentions of men at second-hand. You are welcome to all
my cast-off lovers. Pray, Miss Pleydell, may I ask when we may expect
his lordship back again?"
"I do not know," I replied. "Lord Chudleigh does not send me letters as
to his movements or intentions."
"I said so," she replied, triumphant for the moment. "I said so this
morning at the book-shop, when they were asking each other what news
of Lord Chudleigh. Some said Miss Pleydell would surely know: I said
that I did not think there was anything between his lordship and Miss
Pleydell: and I ventured to predict that you knew no more about his
movements than myself."
"Indeed," said Nancy, coming to my assistance. "I should have thought
you were likely to know more than Kitty."
"Indeed, why?"
"Because," said Nancy, laughing, "his lordship, who is, I believe, one
of your cast-off lovers, might perhaps have written to you for old
acquaintance' sake."
Miss Peggy had no reason for loving me, who had dethroned her, but she
had reason for hating Nancy, who always delighted in bringing her to
open shame.
"What have I done to you, Miss Levett?" she asked her once, when they
were alone. "You are not the reigning Toast: I am not jealous of you:
you have done no harm to me, nor I to you. Yet you delight in saying
the most ill-natured things."
"You have done nothing to me, Miss Peggy," Nancy told her. "But you
have done a great deal to my poor Kitty, who is innocence itself. You
have slandered her: you have traduced her family, which everybody knows
is as good as your own, though her father was a country clergyman and
a younger son: you have denied her beauty: you have written anonymous
letters to her, calumniating a young nobleman who, I verily believe,
is a paragon of peers. No doubt, too, you have written letters to him
calumniating her character. Truly, with the best intentions, you could
not do much to hurt her, for my Kitty is above suspicion."
"Very well, miss," said Miss Peggy; "very well: we understand each
other. As for your charges about anonymous letters----"
"We keep them all," said Nancy; "and with them a letter written and
signed by yourself. And I think I shall show the letters about on the
Terrace."
"If you dare----" but here she checked herself, though in a great rage.
"You will do as you please, Miss Levett. I shall know, some day, how to
revenge myself for your insults. As for your curate's girl, I warrant
her innocence and her being 'above suspicion'--indeed!--to be pretty
hypocrisy and pretence. As if any woman was above suspicion!"
"Oh!" said Nancy, as a parting shot, "nobody, I assure you, ever
thought Miss Peggy Baker or any of her friends above suspicion. Let us
do you, dear miss, so much justice. You shall not find us ungrateful or
unmindful of the benefits you have conferred, or are about to confer,
upon us. Malice and spite, when they are impotent, are amusing, like
the tricks of a monkey in a cage, or a bear dancing at a stake."
Such angry passions as these disturbed the peaceful atmosphere of the
Wells. What use was it for Mr. Nash of Bath, to deprive the gentlemen
of their swords when he left the ladies their tongues? "The tongue can
no man tame: it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison."
The accident which followed, a day or two after this, may or may not
have been instigated by an enemy. Nancy always declared it was, but
then she may have been prejudiced, and we never got at the truth.
Every Friday or Saturday there came down from London a coach full of
gentlemen from the City or the Inns of Court, to spend two or three
days at the Wells. These were our most noisy visitors: they pushed
into the coteries, and endeavoured to form parts of the trains of
the beauties in vogue: they drank too much wine: gambled fiercely
for small sums; and turned the quiet decorum of the assembly into a
babel of riot, noise, loud laughter, coarse jokes, and ill-breeding.
The Sunday was thus spoiled: those of us who loved quiet stayed, for
the most part, at home when we were not in church, or wandered on the
quiet Downs, where we were undisturbed. Solomon Stallabras attended us
on these occasions, and we turned our conversation on grave matters.
I exhorted him, for instance, to direct his splendid genius to the
creation of a sacred epic, which should be to the eighteenth century
what Milton's "Paradise Lost" was to the seventeenth. He promised to
think of it, and we talked over various plans. The Deluge, St. Paul,
the Apocalypse, were discussed in turn; for my own part, I thought
that the Book of Revelation would prove a subject too sublime for
our poet's strength, and recommended, as a fitter subject for his
easy and graceful verses, the life and travels of St. Paul. In these
considerations we forgot, for awhile, the calumnies of our enemy, and
each put aside, for a time, his own private anxieties.
One Saturday evening, while Lord Chudleigh was still away, a noisier
party than usual were in the Assembly Rooms, and although there was
no dancing, the talk and quarrelling of the gamblers were incessant,
while lights were hung out among the trees, and the walk was crowded
with people. Neither Nancy nor I was present, having little desire
to be stared at by ill-bred young citizens or pushing templars.
Unfortunately, Harry Temple was among them.
While he was idling among the trees there passed him a group of three
young fellows, all talking together noisily. I suppose they had been
drinking. One of them, unfortunately, caught sight of Harry, and began
to laugh. Then they stopped, and then one stepped forward and made
Harry a profound bow.
"We welcome," he said, "the Knight of the Rueful Countenance. We
condole with your misfortune.
"'Her Temple's rule she doth not own,
Though still she loves her Lord.'"
Harry was not only melancholy, but also, as some such men are, he was
choleric; and he was strong, being bred and brought up to country
pursuits. In a moment his cane was in one hand and his assailant's
cravat was in his other. Then he began to beat the man with his cane.
The others stood stupid with amazement. Sir Miles, who was on his way
to the tables, and had seen the beginning of the fray, stepped to the
front.
"Who interferes with Mr. Temple has to do with me," he shouted. "Fair
play, gentlemen. Let them fight it out with fists like men, first--and
stick each other afterwards with rapiers like Frenchmen, if they like.
Gentlemen, I am Sir Miles Lackington, Baronet, at your service, if any
one wants a little breathing."
He held his cane in readiness, but the other gentlemen kept aloof. When
Harry had spent his rage, because, so far as I can learn, there was no
resistance, he shook off his opponent, adjusted his wig, which was a
little deranged, and turned quietly to Sir Miles--
"You will oblige me, Sir Miles? Thank you, gentlemen all--your servant."
He resumed his walk, lounging among the trees, the women looking after
him with a mixture of fright and admiration, as calm as if nothing had
happened.
The man who was beaten was followed off the field by his friends. Nor
could Sir Miles get speech of them that evening. In the morning, when
he went to make his murderous appointment, he found they were gone.
Fighting, it would seem, was not to their liking; though an insult to a
harmless gentleman was quite in their way.
"I am sorry, Harry," I said honestly, because a woman cannot help
respecting a man who is brave and strong, "that the taking of my name
has caused you this trouble."
"I am sorry, too," he said sadly. "Yet I blame them not, Kitty."
"But you do blame me," I replied. "Harry, if, in a little
while--somehow--I am able to show that I could not, even if I wished,
grant the thing you want--if--I say--I can make that quite clear and
plain to you--will you promise to be reconciled to what cannot--cannot
be avoided?"
"If, Kitty--what an if? But you ask the impossible. There is no
reason--there cannot be. Why, such a thing is impossible."
"But again--if--Harry, promise me so much."
He laughed grimly.
"Well, I promise."
"Give me your hand upon it," I said. "Now we shall be friends indeed.
Why, you silly Harry, you let the days go by, and you neglect the most
beautiful girls who could perhaps make you a hundred times as happy as
Kitty, all because you deck her out with imaginary virtues which she
doth not possess. Foolish Harry! Open your eyes and look about you.
What do you see?"
I, for my part, saw pretty Nancy running along the walk to meet us.
Love was in her eyes, grace in her action; youth, beauty, sweetness
in her comely shape, her rosy cheeks, her pretty smile, her winning
tongue, her curly locks. She was in morning dress, without hoop or
patch. Through the leaves of the trees the sun shone softly upon her,
covering her with a soft light which might have been that in which
Venus stole along the shore in a golden mist to meet her son--of which
my father had read to me. She was pretty, she was sweet; far prettier
than I, who was so tall; far sweeter than I, who was full of evil
passions and shame, being a great sinner.
"Foolish Harry!" I said. "What do you see?"
He only looked me in the face and replied--
"I see nothing but the beautiful Kitty."
"Oh, blind, blind!"