I fear the devil worst when gown and cassock,
Or, in the lack of them, old Calvin’s cloak,
Conceals his cloven hoof.
--ANONYMOUS.
Julian Peveril had scarce set sail for Whitehaven, when Alice
Bridgenorth and her governante, at the hasty command of her father,
were embarked with equal speed and secrecy on board of a bark bound for
Liverpool. Christian accompanied them on their voyage, as the friend
to whose guardianship Alice was to be consigned during any future
separation from her father, and whose amusing conversation, joined to
his pleasing though cold manners, as well as his near relationship,
induced Alice, in her forlorn situation, to consider her fate as
fortunate in having such a guardian.
At Liverpool, as the reader already knows, Christian took the first
overt step in the villainy which he had contrived against the innocent
girl, by exposing her at a meeting-house to the unhallowed gaze of
Chiffinch, in order to convince him she was possessed of such uncommon
beauty as might well deserve the infamous promotion to which they
meditated to raise her.
Highly satisfied with her personal appearance, Chiffinch was no less
so with the sense and delicacy of her conversation, when he met her in
company with her uncle afterwards in London. The simplicity, and at
the same time the spirit of her remarks, made him regard her as his
scientific attendant the cook might have done a newly invented sauce,
sufficiently _piquante_ in its qualities to awaken the jaded appetite
of a cloyed and gorged epicure. She was, he said and swore, the very
corner-stone on which, with proper management, and with his instruction,
a few honest fellows might build a Court fortune.
That the necessary introduction might take place, the confederates
judged fit she should be put under the charge of an experienced
lady, whom some called Mistress Chiffinch, and others Chiffinch’s
mistress--one of those obliging creatures who are willing to discharge
all the duties of a wife, without the inconvenient and indissoluble
ceremony.
It was one, and not perhaps the least prejudicial consequence of the
license of that ill-governed time, that the bounds betwixt virtue and
vice were so far smoothed down and levelled, that the frail wife, or the
tender friend who was no wife, did not necessarily lose their place in
society; but, on the contrary, if they moved in the higher circles, were
permitted and encouraged to mingle with women whose rank was certain,
and whose reputation was untainted.
A regular _liaison_, like that of Chiffinch and his fair one, inferred
little scandal; and such was his influence, as prime minister of his
master’s pleasures, that, as Charles himself expressed it, the lady whom
we introduced to our readers in the last chapter, had obtained a
brevet commission to rank as a married woman. And to do the gentle dame
justice, no wife could have been more attentive to forward his plans, or
more liberal in disposing of his income.
She inhabited a set of apartments called Chiffinch’s--the scene of many
an intrigue, both of love and politics; and where Charles often held
his private parties for the evening, when, as frequently happened, the
ill-humour of the Duchess of Portsmouth, his reigning Sultana, prevented
his supping with her. The hold which such an arrangement gave a man
like Chiffinch, used as he well knew how to use it, made him of too
much consequence to be slighted even by the first persons in the state,
unless they stood aloof from all manner of politics and Court intrigue.
In the charge of Mistress Chiffinch, and of him whose name she bore,
Edward Christian placed the daughter of his sister, and of his confiding
friend, calmly contemplating her ruin as an event certain to follow; and
hoping to ground upon it his own chance of a more assured fortune, than
a life spent in intrigue had hitherto been able to procure for him.
The innocent Alice, without being able to discover what was wrong either
in the scenes of unusual luxury with which she was surrounded, or in the
manners of her hostess, which, both from nature and policy, were kind
and caressing--felt nevertheless an instinctive apprehension that all
was not right--a feeling in the human mind, allied, perhaps, to that
sense of danger which animals exhibit when placed in the vicinity of the
natural enemies of their race, and which makes birds cower when the
hawk is in the air, and beasts tremble when the tiger is abroad in the
desert. There was a heaviness at her heart which she could not dispel;
and the few hours which she had already spent at Chiffinch’s were like
those passed in prison by one unconscious of the cause or event of his
captivity. It was the third morning after her arrival in London, that
the scene took place which we now recur to.
The impertinence and vulgarity of Empson, which was permitted to him as
an unrivalled performer upon his instrument, were exhausting themselves
at the expense of all other musical professors, and Mrs. Chiffinch was
listening with careless indifference, when some one was heard speaking
loudly, and with animation, in the inner apartment.
“Oh, gemini and gilliflower water!” exclaimed the damsel, startled out
of her fine airs into her natural vulgarity of exclamation, and running
to the door of communication--“if he has not come back again after
all!--and if old Rowley----”
A tap at the farther and opposite door here arrested her attention--she
quitted the handle of that which she was about to open as speedily as
if it had burnt her fingers, and, moving back towards her couch, asked,
“Who is there?”
“Old Rowley himself, madam,” said the King, entering the apartment with
his usual air of easy composure.
“O crimini!--your Majesty!--I thought----”
“That I was out of hearing, doubtless,” said the King; “and spoke of me
as folk speak of absent friends. Make no apology. I think I have heard
ladies say of their lace, that a rent is better than a darn.--Nay, be
seated.--Where is Chiffinch?”
“He is down at York House, your Majesty,” said the dame, recovering,
though with no small difficulty, the calm affectation of her usual
demeanour. “Shall I send your Majesty’s commands?”
“I will wait his return,” said the King.--“Permit me to taste your
chocolate.”
“There is some fresh frothed in the office,” said the lady; and using a
little silver call, or whistle, a black boy, superbly dressed, like an
Oriental page, with gold bracelets on his naked arms, and a gold collar
around his equally bare neck, attended with the favourite beverage of
the morning, in an apparatus of the richest china.
While he sipped his cup of chocolate, the King looked round the
apartment, and observing Fenella, Peveril, and the musician, who
remained standing beside a large Indian screen, he continued, addressing
Mistress Chiffinch, though with polite indifference, “I sent you the
fiddles this morning--or rather the flute--Empson, and a fairy elf whom
I met in the Park, who dances divinely. She has brought us the very
newest saraband from the Court of Queen Mab, and I sent her here, that
you may see it at leisure.”
“Your Majesty does me by far too much honour,” said Chiffinch, her eyes
properly cast down, and her accents minced into becoming humility.
“Nay, little Chiffinch,” answered the King, in a tone of as contemptuous
familiarity as was consistent with his good-breeding, “it was not
altogether for thine own private ear, though quite deserving of all
sweet sounds; but I thought Nelly had been with thee this morning.”
“I can send Bajazet for her, your Majesty,” answered the lady.
“Nay, I will not trouble your little heathen sultan to go so far. Still
it strikes me that Chiffinch said you had company--some country cousin,
or such a matter--Is there not such a person?”
“There is a young person from the country,” said Mistress Chiffinch,
striving to conceal a considerable portion of embarrassment; “but she
is unprepared for such an honour as to be admitted into your Majesty’s
presence, and----”
“And therefore the fitter to receive it, Chiffinch. There is nothing in
nature so beautiful as the first blush of a little rustic between joy
and fear, and wonder and curiosity. It is the down on the peach--pity
it decays so soon!--the fruit remains, but the first high colouring
and exquisite flavour are gone.--Never put up thy lip for the matter,
Chiffinch, for it is as I tell you; so pray let us have _la belle
cousine_.”
Mistress Chiffinch, more embarrassed than ever, again advanced towards
the door of communication, which she had been in the act of opening when
his Majesty entered. But just as she coughed pretty loudly, perhaps as
a signal to some one within, voices were again heard in a raised tone
of altercation----the door was flung open, and Alice rushed out of the
inner apartment, followed to the door of it by the enterprising Duke of
Buckingham, who stood fixed with astonishment on finding his pursuit of
the flying fair one had hurried him into the presence of the King.
Alice Bridgenorth appeared too much transported with anger to permit her
to pay attention to the rank or character of the company into which she
had thus suddenly entered. “I remain no longer here, madam,” she said
to Mrs. Chiffinch, in a tone of uncontrollable resolution; “I leave
instantly a house where I am exposed to company which I detest, and to
solicitations which I despise.”
The dismayed Mrs. Chiffinch could only implore her, in broken whispers,
to be silent; adding, while she pointed to Charles, who stood with his
eyes fixed rather on his audacious courtier than on the game which he
pursued, “The King--the King!”
“If I am in the King’s presence,” said Alice aloud, and in the same
torrent of passionate feeling, while her eye sparkled through tears of
resentment and insulted modesty, “it is the better--it is his Majesty’s
duty to protect me; and on his protection I throw myself.”
These words, which were spoken aloud, and boldly, at once recalled
Julian to himself, who had hitherto stood, as it were, bewildered. He
approached Alice, and, whispering in her ear that she had beside her
one who would defend her with his life, implored her to trust to his
guardianship in this emergency.
Clinging to his arm in all the ecstasy of gratitude and joy, the spirit
which had so lately invigorated Alice in her own defence, gave way in a
flood of tears, when she saw herself supported by him whom perhaps she
most wished to recognise as her protector. She permitted Peveril gently
to draw her back towards the screen before which he had been standing;
where, holding by his arm, but at the same time endeavouring to conceal
herself behind him, they waited the conclusion of a scene so singular.
The King seemed at first so much surprised at the unexpected apparition
of the Duke of Buckingham, as to pay little or no attention to Alice,
who had been the means of thus unceremoniously introducing his Grace
into the presence at a most unsuitable moment. In that intriguing Court,
it had not been the first time that the Duke had ventured to enter the
lists of gallantry in rivalry of his Sovereign, which made the present
insult the more intolerable. His purpose of lying concealed in those
private apartments was explained by the exclamations of Alice; and
Charles, notwithstanding the placidity of his disposition, and his
habitual guard over his passions, resented the attempt to seduce his
destined mistress, as an Eastern Sultan would have done the insolence
of a vizier, who anticipated his intended purchases of captive beauty
in the slave-market. The swarthy features of Charles reddened, and the
strong lines on his dark visage seemed to become inflated, as he said,
in a voice which faltered with passion, “Buckingham, you dared not have
thus insulted your equal! To your master you may securely offer any
affront, since his rank glues his sword to the scabbard.”
The haughty Duke did not brook this taunt unanswered. “My sword,” he
said, with emphasis, “was never in the scabbard, when your Majesty’s
service required it should be unsheathed.”
“Your Grace means, when its service was required for its master’s
interest,” said the King; “for you could only gain the coronet of a Duke
by fighting for the royal crown. But it is over--I have treated you as a
friend--a companion--almost an equal--you have repaid me with insolence
and ingratitude.”
“Sire,” answered the Duke firmly, but respectfully, “I am unhappy in
your displeasure; yet thus far fortunate, that while your words can
confer honour, they cannot impair or take it away.--It is hard,” he
added, lowering his voice, so as only to be heard by the King,--“It is
hard that the squall of a peevish wench should cancel the services of so
many years!”
“It is harder,” said the King, in the same subdued tone, which both
preserved through the rest of the conversation, “that a wench’s bright
eyes can make a nobleman forget the decencies due to his Sovereign’s
privacy.”
“May I presume to ask your Majesty what decencies are those?” said the
Duke.
Charles bit his lip to keep himself from smiling. “Buckingham,” he said,
“this is a foolish business; and we must not forget (as we have nearly
done), that we have an audience to witness this scene, and should walk
the stage with dignity. I will show you your fault in private.”
“It is enough that your Majesty has been displeased, and that I have
unhappily been the occasion,” said the Duke, kneeling; “although quite
ignorant of any purpose beyond a few words of gallantry; and I sue thus
low for your Majesty’s pardon.”
So saying, he kneeled gracefully down. “Thou hast it, George,” said the
placable Prince. “I believe thou wilt be sooner tired of offending than
I of forgiving.”
“Long may your Majesty live to give the offence, with which it is your
royal pleasure at present to charge my innocence,” said the Duke.
“What mean you by that, my lord?” said Charles, the angry shade
returning to his brow for a moment.
“My Liege,” replied the Duke, “you are too honourable to deny your
custom of shooting with Cupid’s bird-bolts in other men’s warrens. You
have ta’en the royal right of free-forestry over every man’s park. It
is hard that you should be so much displeased at hearing a chance arrow
whizz near your own pales.”
“No more on’t,” said the King; “but let us see where the dove has
harboured.”
“The Helen has found a Paris while we were quarrelling,” replied the
Duke.
“Rather an Orpheus,” said the King; “and what is worse, one that is
already provided with a Eurydice--She is clinging to the fiddler.”
“It is mere fright,” said Buckingham, “like Rochester’s, when he crept
into the bass-viol to hide himself from Sir Dermot O’Cleaver.”
“We must make the people show their talents,” said the King, “and stop
their mouths with money and civility, or we shall have this foolish
encounter over half the town.”
The King then approached Julian, and desired him to take his instrument,
and cause his female companion to perform a saraband.
“I had already the honour to inform your Majesty,” said Julian, “that I
cannot contribute to your pleasure in the way you command me; and that
this young person is----”
“A retainer of the Lady Powis,” said the King, upon whose mind things
not connected with his pleasures made a very slight impression. “Poor
lady, she is in trouble about the lords in the Tower.”
“Pardon me, sir,” said Julian, “she is a dependant of the Countess of
Derby.”
“True, true,” answered Charles; “it is indeed of Lady Derby, who hath
also her own distresses in these times. Do you know who taught the
young person to dance? Some of her steps mightily resemble Le Jeune’s of
Paris.”
“I presume she was taught abroad, sir,” said Julian; “for myself, I
am charged with some weighty business by the Countess, which I would
willingly communicate to your Majesty.”
“We will send you to our Secretary of State,” said the King. “But this
dancing envoy will oblige us once more, will she not?--Empson, now that
I remember, it was to your pipe that she danced--Strike up, man, and put
mettle into her feet.”
Empson began to play a well-known measure; and, as he had threatened,
made more than one false note, until the King, whose ear was very
accurate, rebuked him with, “Sirrah, art thou drunk at this early hour,
or must thou too be playing thy slippery tricks with me? Thou thinkest
thou art born to beat time, but I will have time beat into thee.”
The hint was sufficient, and Empson took good care so to perform his air
as to merit his high and deserved reputation. But on Fenella it made not
the slightest impression. She rather leant than stood against the wall
of the apartment; her countenance as pale as death, her arms and hands
hanging down as if stiffened, and her existence only testified by the
sobs which agitated her bosom, and the tears which flowed from her
half-closed eyes.
“A plague on it,” said the King, “some evil spirit is abroad this
morning; and the wenches are all bewitched, I think. Cheer up, my girl.
What, in the devil’s name, has changed thee at once from a Nymph to a
Niobe? If thou standest there longer thou wilt grow to the very marble
wall--Or--oddsfish, George, have you been bird-bolting in this quarter
also?”
Ere Buckingham could answer to this charge, Julian again kneeled down
to the King, and prayed to be heard, were it only for five minutes. “The
young woman,” he said, “had been long in attendance of the Countess of
Derby. She was bereaved of the faculties of speech and hearing.”
“Oddsfish, man, and dances so well?” said the King. “Nay, all Gresham
College shall never make me believe that.”
“I would have thought it equally impossible, but for what I to-day
witnessed,” said Julian; “but only permit me, sir, to deliver the
petition of my lady the Countess.”
“And who art thou thyself, man?” said the Sovereign; “for though
everything which wears bodice and breast-knot has a right to speak to
a King, and be answered, I know not that they have a title to audience
through an envoy extraordinary.”
“I am Julian Peveril of Derbyshire,” answered the supplicant, “the son
of Sir Geoffrey Peveril of Martindale Castle, who----”
“Body of me--the old Worcester man?” said the King. “Oddsfish, I
remember him well--some harm has happened to him, I think--Is he not
dead, or very sick at least?”
“Ill at ease, and it please your Majesty, but not ill in health. He has
been imprisoned on account of an alleged accession to this Plot.”
“Look you there,” said the King; “I knew he was in trouble; and yet how
to help the stout old Knight, I can hardly tell. I can scarce escape
suspicion of the Plot myself, though the principal object of it is
to take away my own life. Were I to stir to save a plotter, I should
certainly be brought in as an accessory.--Buckingham, thou hast some
interest with those who built this fine state engine, or at least who
have driven it on--be good-natured for once, though it is scarcely thy
wont, and interfere to shelter our old Worcester friend, Sir Godfrey.
You have not forgot him?”
“No, sir,” answered the Duke; “for I never heard the name.”
“It is Sir Geoffrey his Majesty would say,” said Julian.
“And if his Majesty _did_ say Sir Geoffrey, Master Peveril, I cannot see
of what use I can be to your father,” replied the Duke coldly. “He is
accused of a heavy crime; and a British subject so accused, can have
no shelter either from prince or peer, but must stand to the award and
deliverance of God and his country.”
“Now, Heaven forgive thee thy hypocrisy, George,” said the King
hastily. “I would rather hear the devil preach religion than thee teach
patriotism. Thou knowest as well as I, that the nation is in a scarlet
fever for fear of the poor Catholics, who are not two men to five
hundred; and that the public mind is so harassed with new narrations of
conspiracy, and fresh horrors every day, that people have as little real
sense of what is just or unjust as men who talk in their sleep of what
is sense or nonsense. I have borne, and borne with it--I have seen blood
flow on the scaffold, fearing to thwart the nation in its fury--and I
pray to God that I or mine be not called on to answer for it. I will no
longer swim with the torrent, which honour and conscience call upon me
to stem--I will act the part of a Sovereign, and save my people from
doing injustice, even in their own despite.”
Charles walked hastily up and down the room as he expressed these
unwonted sentiments, with energy equally unwonted. After a momentary
pause, the Duke answered him gravely, “Spoken like a Royal King, sir,
but--pardon me--not like a King of England.”
Charles paused, as the Duke spoke, beside a window which looked full on
Whitehall, and his eye was involuntarily attracted by the fatal window
of the Banqueting House out of which his unhappy father was conducted to
execution. Charles was naturally, or, more purposely, constitutionally
brave; but a life of pleasure, together with the habit of governing his
course rather by what was expedient than by what was right, rendered him
unapt to dare the same scene of danger or of martyrdom, which had closed
his father’s life and reign; and the thought came over his half-formed
resolution, like the rain upon a kindling beacon. In another man, his
perplexity would have seemed almost ludicrous; but Charles would not
lose, even under these circumstances, the dignity and grace, which were
as natural to him as his indifference and good humour. “Our Council must
decide in this matter,” he said, looking to the Duke; “and be assured,
young man,” he added, addressing Julian, “your father shall not want an
intercessor in his King, so far as the laws will permit my interference
in his behalf.”
Julian was about to retire, when Fenella, with a marked look, put
into his hand a slip of paper, on which she had hastily written, “The
packet--give him the packet.”
After a moment’s hesitation, during which he reflected that Fenella was
the organ of the Countess’s pleasure, Julian resolved to obey. “Permit
me, then, Sire,” he said, “to place in your royal hands this packet,
entrusted to me by the Countess of Derby. The letters have already been
once taken from me; and I have little hope that I can now deliver them
as they are addressed. I place them, therefore, in your royal hands,
certain that they will evince the innocence of the writer.”
The King shook his head as he took the packet reluctantly. “It is no
safe office you have undertaken, young man. A messenger has sometimes
his throat cut for the sake of his despatches--But give them to me; and,
Chiffinch, give me wax and a taper.” He employed himself in folding the
Countess’s packet in another envelope. “Buckingham,” he said, “you are
evidence that I do not read them till the Council shall see them.”
Buckingham approached, and offered his services in folding the parcel,
but Charles rejected his assistance; and having finished his task, he
sealed the packet with his own signet-ring. The Duke bit his lip and
retired.
“And now, young man,” said the King, “your errand is sped, so far as it
can at present be forwarded.”
Julian bowed deeply, as to take leave at these words, which he rightly
interpreted as a signal for his departure. Alice Bridgenorth still
clung to his arm, and motioned to withdraw along with him. The King and
Buckingham looked at each other in conscious astonishment, and yet not
without a desire to smile, so strange did it seem to them that a prize,
for which, an instant before, they had been mutually contending, should
thus glide out of their grasp, or rather be borne off by a third and
very inferior competitor.
“Mistress Chiffinch,” said the King, with a hesitation which he could
not disguise, “I hope your fair charge is not about to leave you?”
“Certainly not, your Majesty,” answered Chiffinch. “Alice, my love--you
mistake--that opposite door leads to your apartments.”
“Pardon me, madam,” answered Alice; “I have indeed mistaken my road, but
it was when I came hither.”
“The errant damosel,” said Buckingham, looking at Charles with as much
intelligence as etiquette permitted him to throw into his eye, and
then turning it towards Alice, as she still held by Julian’s arm,
“is resolved not to mistake her road a second time. She has chosen a
sufficient guide.”
“And yet stories tell that such guides have led maidens astray,” said
the King.
Alice blushed deeply, but instantly recovered her composure so soon
as she saw that her liberty was likely to depend upon the immediate
exercise of resolution. She quitted, from a sense of insulted delicacy,
the arm of Julian, to which she had hitherto clung; but as she spoke,
she continued to retain a slight grasp of his cloak. “I have indeed
mistaken my way,” she repeated still addressing Mrs. Chiffinch, “but
it was when I crossed this threshold. The usage to which I have been
exposed in your house has determined me to quit it instantly.”
“I will not permit that, my young mistress,” answered Mrs. Chiffinch,
“until your uncle, who placed you under my care, shall relieve me of the
charge of you.”
“I will answer for my conduct, both to my uncle, and, what is of more
importance, to my father,” said Alice. “You must permit me to depart,
madam; I am free-born, and you have no right to detain me.”
“Pardon me, my young madam,” said Mistress Chiffinch, “I have a right,
and I will maintain it too.”
“I will know that before quitting this presence,” said Alice firmly;
and, advancing a step or two, she dropped on her knee before the King.
“Your Majesty,” said she, “if indeed I kneel before King Charles, is the
father of your subjects.”
“Of a good many of them,” said the Duke of Buckingham apart.
“I demand protection of you, in the name of God, and of the oath your
Majesty swore when you placed on your head the crown of this kingdom!”
“You have my protection,” said the King, a little confused by an appeal
so unexpected and so solemn. “Do but remain quiet with this lady, with
whom your parents have placed you; neither Buckingham nor any one else
shall intrude on you.”
“His Majesty,” added Buckingham, in the same tone, and speaking from
the restless and mischief-making spirit of contradiction, which he never
could restrain, even when indulging it was most contrary, not only to
propriety, but to his own interest,--“His Majesty will protect you, fair
lady, from all intrusion save what must not be termed such.”
Alice darted a keen look on the Duke, as if to read his meaning; another
on Charles, to know whether she had guessed it rightly. There was
a guilty confession on the King’s brow, which confirmed Alice’s
determination to depart. “Your Majesty will forgive me,” she said; “it
is not here that I can enjoy the advantage of your royal protection.
I am resolved to leave this house. If I am detained, it must be by
violence, which I trust no one dare offer to me in your Majesty’s
presence. This gentleman, whom I have long known, will conduct me to my
friends.”
“We make but an indifferent figure in this scene, methinks,” said the
King, addressing the Duke of Buckingham, and speaking in a whisper; “but
she must go--I neither will, nor dare, stop her from returning to her
father.”
“And if she does,” swore the Duke internally, “I would, as Sir Andrew
Smith saith, I might never touch fair lady’s hand.” And stepping back,
he spoke a few words with Empson the musician, who left the apartment,
for a few minutes, and presently returned.
The King seemed irresolute concerning the part he should act under
circumstances so peculiar. To be foiled in a gallant intrigue, was to
subject himself to the ridicule of his gay court; to persist in it by
any means which approached to constraint, would have been tyrannical;
and, what perhaps he might judge as severe an imputation, it would have
been unbecoming a gentleman. “Upon my honour, young lady,” he said,
with an emphasis, “you have nothing to fear in this house. But it is
improper, for your own sake, that you should leave it in this abrupt
manner. If you will have the goodness to wait but a quarter of an hour,
Mistress Chiffinch’s coach will be placed at your command, to transport
you where you will. Spare yourself the ridicule, and me the pain
of seeing you leave the house of one of my servants, as if you were
escaping from a prison.”
The King spoke in good-natured sincerity, and Alice was inclined for an
instant to listen to his advice; but recollecting that she had to search
for her father and uncle, or, failing them, for some suitable place of
secure residence, it rushed on her mind that the attendants of Mistress
Chiffinch were not likely to prove trusty guides or assistants in such
a purpose. Firmly and respectfully she announced her purpose of
instant departure. She needed no other escort, she said, than what this
gentleman, Master Julian Peveril, who was well known to her father,
would willingly afford her; nor did she need that farther than until she
had reached her father’s residence.
“Farewell, then, lady, a God’s name!” said the King; “I am sorry so much
beauty should be wedded to so many shrewish suspicions.--For you,
Master Peveril, I should have thought you had enough to do with your own
affairs without interfering with the humours of the fair sex. The duty
of conducting all strayed damsels into the right path is, as matters go
in this good city, rather too weighty an undertaking for your youth and
inexperience.”
Julian, eager to conduct Alice from a place of which he began fully
to appreciate the perils, answered nothing to this taunt, but bowing
reverently, led her from the apartment. Her sudden appearance, and the
animated scene which followed, had entirely absorbed, for the moment,
the recollection of his father and of the Countess of Derby; and while
the dumb attendant of the latter remained in the room, a silent, and, as
it were, stunned spectator of all that had happened, Peveril had become,
in the predominating interest of Alice’s critical situation, totally
forgetful of her presence. But no sooner had he left the room, without
noticing or attending to her, than Fenella, starting, as from a trance,
drew herself up, and looked wildly around, like one waking from a dream,
as if to assure herself that her companion was gone, and gone without
paying the slightest attention to her. She folded her hands together,
and cast her eyes upwards, with an expression of such agony as explained
to Charles (as he thought) what painful ideas were passing in her mind.
“This Peveril is a perfect pattern of successful perfidy, carrying off
this Queen of the Amazons, but he has left us, I think, a disconsolate
Ariadne in her place.--But weep not, my princess of pretty movements,”
he said, addressing himself to Fenella; “if we cannot call in Bacchus to
console you, we will commit you to the care of Empson, who shall drink
with _Liber Pater_ for a thousand pounds, and I will say done first.”
As the King spoke these words, Fenella rushed past him with her wonted
rapidity of step, and, with much less courtesy than was due to the royal
presence, hurried downstairs, and out of the house, without attempting
to open any communication with the Monarch. He saw her abrupt departure
with more surprise than displeasure; and presently afterwards, bursting
into a fit of laughter, he said to the Duke, “Oddsfish, George, this
young spark might teach the best of us how to manage the wenches. I have
had my own experience, but I could never yet contrive either to win or
lose them with so little ceremony.”
“Experience, sir,” replied the duke, “cannot be acquired without years.”
“True, George; and you would, I suppose, insinuate,” said Charles, “that
the gallant who acquires it, loses as much in youth as he gains in art?
I defy your insinuation, George. You cannot overreach your master, old
as you think him, either in love or politics. You have not the secret
_plumer la poule sans la faire crier_, witness this morning’s work. I
will give you odds at all games--ay, and at the Mall too, if thou darest
accept my challenge.--Chiffinch, what for dost thou convulse thy pretty
throat and face with sobbing and hatching tears, which seem rather
unwilling to make their appearance!”
“It is for fear,” whined Chiffinch, “that your Majesty should
think--that you should expect----”
“That I should expect gratitude from a courtier, or faith from a woman?”
answered the King, patting her at the same time under the chin, to make
her raise her face--“Tush! chicken, I am not so superfluous.”
“There it is now,” said Chiffinch, continuing to sob the more bitterly,
as she felt herself unable to produce any tears; “I see your Majesty is
determined to lay all the blame on me, when I am innocent as an unborn
babe--I will be judged by his Grace.”
“No doubt, no doubt, Chiffie,” said the King. “His Grace and you will
be excellent judges in each other’s cause, and as good witnesses in
each other’s favour. But to investigate the matter impartially, we must
examine our evidence apart.--My Lord Duke, we meet at the Mall at noon,
if your Grace dare accept my challenge.”
His Grace of Buckingham bowed, and retired.