LADY TANKERVILLE'S DRUM-MAJOR
The rising sun, as he came through the little panes of the windows,
etched a picture of that room into my brain. I can see the twisted
candles with their wax smearing the sticks, the chairs awry, the tables
littered with blackened pipes, and bottles, and spilled wine and tobacco
among the dice; and the few that were left of my companions, some with
dark lines under their eyes, all pale, but all gay, unconcerned, witty,
and cynical; smoothing their ruffles, and brushing the ashes and snuff
from the pattern of their waistcoats. As we went downstairs, singing a
song Mr. Foote had put upon the stage that week, they were good enough to
declare that I should never be permitted to go back to Maryland. That my
grandfather should buy me a certain borough, which might be had for six
thousand pounds.
The drawing-room made a dismal scene, too, after the riot and disorder of
the night. Sleepy servants were cleaning up, but Fox vowed that they
should bring us yet another bottle before going home. So down we sat
about the famous old round table, Fox fingering the dents the gold had
made in the board, and philosophizing; and reciting Orlando Furioso in
the Italian, and Herodotus in the original Greek. Suddenly casting his
eyes about, they fell upon an ungainly form stretched on a lounge, that
made us all start.
"Bully!" he cried; "I'll lay you fifty guineas that Mr. Carvel gets the
Beauty, against Chartersea."
This roused me.
"Nay, Mr. Fox, I beg of you," I protested, with all the vehemence I could
muster. "Miss Manners must not be writ down in such a way."
For answer he snapped his fingers at the drowsy Brooks, who brought the
betting book.
"There!" says he; "and there, and there," turning over the pages; "her
name adorns a dozen leaves, my fine buckskin. And it will be well to
have some truth about her. Enter the wager, Brooks."
"Hold!" shouts Bolingbroke; "I haven't accepted."
You may be sure I was in an agony over this desecration, which I was so
powerless to prevent. But as I was thanking my stars that the matter had
blown over with Bolingbroke's rejection, there occurred a most singular
thing.
The figure on the lounge, with vast difficulty, sat up. To our amazement
we beheld the bloated face of the Duke of Chartersea staring stupidly.
"Damme, Bully, you refushe bet like tha'!" he said. "I'll take doshen of
'em-doshen, egad. Gimme the book, Brooksh. Cursh Fox--lay thousand d--d
provinshial never getsh 'er--I know--"
I sat very still, seized with a loathing beyond my power to describe to
thick that this was the man Mr. Manners was forcing her to marry. Fox
laughed.
"Help his Grace to his coach," he said to two of the footmen.
"Kill fellow firsht!" cried his Grace, with his hand on his sword, and
instantly fell over, and went sound asleep.
"His Grace has sent his coach home, your honour," said one of the men,
respectfully. "The duke is very quarrelsome, sir."
"Put him in a chair, then," said Charles.
So they fearfully lifted his Grace, who was too far gone to resist, and
carried him to a chair. And Mr. Fox bribed the chairmen with two guineas
apiece, which he borrowed from me, to set his Grace down amongst the
marketwomen at Covent Garden.
The next morning Banks found in my pockets something over seven hundred
pounds more than I had had the day before.
I rose late, my head swimming with mains and nicks, and combinations of
all the numbers under the dozen; debated whether or no I would go to
Arlington Street, and decided that I had not the courage. Comyn settled
it by coming in his cabriolet, proposed that we should get the air in the
park, dine at the Cocoa Tree, and go afterwards to Lady Tankerville's
drum-major, where Dolly would undoubtedly be.
"Now you are here, Richard," said his Lordship, with his accustomed
bluntness, "and your sea-captain has relieved your Quixotic conscience,
what the deuce do you intend to do?
"Win a thousand pounds every night at Brooks's, or improve your time and
do your duty, and get Miss Manners out of his Grace's clutches? I'll
warrant something will come of that matter this morning."
"I hope so," I said shortly.
Comyn looked at me sharply.
"Would you fight him?" he asked.
"If he gave me the chance."
His Lordship whistled. "Egad, then," said he, "I shall want to be there
to see. In spite of his pudding-bag shape he handles the sword as well
as any man in England. I have crossed with him at Angelo's. And he has
a devilish tricky record, Richard."
I said nothing to that.
"Hope you do--kill him," Comyn continued. "He deserves it richly. But
that will be a cursed unpleasant way of settling the business,
--unpleasant for you, unpleasant for her, and cursed unpleasant for him,
too, I suppose. Can't you think of any other way of getting her? Ask
Charles to give you a plan of campaign. You haven't any sense, and
neither have I."
"Hang you, Jack, I have no hopes of getting her," I replied, for I was
out of humour with myself that day. "In spite of what you say, I know
she doesn't care a brass farthing to marry me. So let's drop that."
Comyn made a comic gesture of deprecation. I went on: "But I am going to
stay here and find out the truth, though it may be a foolish undertaking.
And if he is intimidating Mr. Manners--"
"You may count on me, and on Charles," said my Lord, generously; "and
there are some others I know of. Gad! You made a dozen of friends and
admirers by what you said last night, Richard. And his Grace has a few
enemies. You will not lack support."
We dined very comfortably at the Cocoa Tree, where Comyn had made an
appointment for me with two as diverting gentlemen as had ever been my
lot to meet. My Lord Carlisle was the poet and scholar of the little
clique which had been to Eton with Charles Fox, any member of which (so
'twas said) would have died for him. His Lordship, be it remarked in
passing, was as lively a poet and scholar as can well be imagined. He
had been recently sobered, so Comyn confided; which I afterwards
discovered meant married. Charles Fox's word for the same was fallen.
And I remembered that Jack had told me it was to visit Lady Carlisle at
Castle Howard that Dorothy was going when she heard of my disappearance.
Comyn's other guest was Mr. Topham Beauclerk, the macaroni friend of
Dr. Johnson. He, too, had been recently married, but appeared no more
sobered than his Lordship. Mr. Beauclerk's wife, by the way, was the
beautiful Lady Diana Spencer, who had been divorced from Lord
Bolingbroke, the Bully I had met the night before. These gentlemen
seemed both well acquainted with Miss Manners, and vowed that none but
American beauties would ever be the fashion in London more. Then we all
drove to Lady Tankerville's drum-major near Chesterfield House.
"You will be wanting a word with her when she comes in," said Comyn,
slyly divining. Poor fellow! I fear that I scarcely appreciated his
feelings as to Dorothy, or the noble unselfishness of his friendship for
me.
We sat aside in a recess of the lower hall, watching the throng as they
passed: haughty dowagers, distorted in lead and disfigured in silk and
feathers nodding at the ceiling; accomplished beaus of threescore or
more, carefully mended for the night by their Frenchmen at home; young
ladies in gay brocades with round skirts and stiff, pear-shaped bodices;
and youngsters just learning to ogle and to handle their snuff-boxes.
One by one their names were sent up and solemnly mouthed by the footman
on the landing. At length, when we had all but given her up, Dorothy
arrived. A hood of lavender silk heightened the oval of her face, and
out from under it crept rebellious wisps of her dark hair. But she was
very pale, and I noticed for the first time a worn expression that gave
me a twinge of uneasiness. 'Twas then I caught sight of the duke, a
surly stamp on his leaden features. And after him danced Mr. Manners.
Dolly gave a little cry when she saw me.
"Oh! Richard, I am so glad you are here. I was wondering what had
become of you. And Comyn, too." Whispering to me, "Mamma has had a
letter from Mrs. Brice; your grandfather has been to walk in the garden."
"And Grafton?"
"She said nothing of your uncle," she replied, with a little shudder at
the name; "but wrote that Mr. Carvel was said to be better. So there!
your conscience need not trouble you for remaining. I am sure he would
wish you to pay a visit home.
"And I have to scold you, sir. You have not been to Arlington Street for
three whole days."
It struck me suddenly that her gayety was the same as that she had worn
to my birthday party, scarce a year agone.
"Dolly, you are not well!" I said anxiously.
She flung her head saucily for answer. In the meantime his Grace,
talking coldly to Comyn, had been looking unutterable thunders at me.
I thought of him awaking in the dew at Covent Garden, and could scarce
keep from laughing in his face. Mr. Marmaduke squirmed to the front.
"Morning, Richard," he said, with a marked cordiality. "Have you met the
Duke of Chartersea? No! Your Grace, this is Mr. Richard Carvel. His
family are dear friends of ours in the colonies."
To my great surprise, the duke saluted me quite civilly. But I had the
feeling of facing a treacherous bull which would gore me as soon as ever
my back was turned. He was always putting me in mind of a bull, with his
short neck and heavy, hunched shoulders,--and with the ugly tinge of red
in the whites of his eyes.
"Mr. Manners tells me you are to remain awhile in London, Mr. Carvel," he
said, in his thick voice.
I took his meaning instantly, and replied in kind.
"Yes, your Grace, I have some business to attend to here."
"Ah," he answered; "then I shall see you again."
"Probably, sir," said I.
His Lordship watched this thrust and parry with an ill-concealed delight.
Dorothy's face was impassive, expressionless. As the duke turned to
mount the stairs, he stumbled clumsily across a young man coming to pay
his respects to Miss Manners, and his Grace went sprawling against the
wall.
"Confound you, sir!" he cried.
For the ducal temper was no respecter of presences. Then a title was a
title to those born lower, and the young man plainly had a vast honour
for a coronet.
"I beg your Grace's pardon," said he.
"Who the deuce is he?" demanded the duke petulantly of Mr. Manners,
thereby setting the poor little man all a-tremble.
"Why, why,--" he replied, searching for his spyglass.
For an instant Dolly's eyes shot scorn. Chartersea had clearly seen and
heeded that signal before.
"The gentleman is a friend of mine," she said.
Tho' I were put out of the Garden of Eden as a consequence, I itched to
have it out with his Grace then and there. I knew that I was bound to
come into collision with him sooner or later. Such, indeed, was my
mission in London. But Dorothy led the way upstairs, a spot of colour
burning each of her cheeks. The stream of guests had been arrested until
the hall was packed, and the curious were peering over the rail above.
"Lord, wasn't she superb!" exclaimed Comyn, exultingly, as we followed.
In the drawing-room the buzzing about the card tables was hushed a moment
as she went in. But I soon lost sight of her, thanks to Comyn. He drew
me on from group to group, and I was duly presented to a score of Lady
So-and-sos and honourable misses, most of whom had titles, but little
else. Mammas searched their memories, and suddenly discovered that they
had heard their parents speak of my grandfather. But, as it was a fair
presumption that most colonial gentlemen made a visit home at least once
in their lives, I did not allow the dust to get into my eyes. I was
invited to dinners, and fairly showered with invitations to balls and
drums and garden parties. I was twitted about the Beauty, most often
with only a thin coating of amiability covering the spite of the remark.
In short, if my head had not been so heavily laden with other matters, it
might well have become light under the strain. Had I been ambitious to
enter the arena I should have had but little trouble, since eligibility
then might be reduced to guineas and another element not moral. I was
the only heir of one of the richest men in the colony, vouched for by the
Manners and taken up by Mr. Fox and my Lord Comyn. Inquiries are not
pushed farther. I could not help seeing the hardness of it all, or
refrain from contrasting my situation with that of the penniless outcast
I had been but a little time before. The gilded rooms, the hundred
yellow candles multiplied by the mirrors, the powder, the perfume,
the jewels,--all put me in mind of the poor devils I had left wasting
away their lives in Castle Yard. They, too, had had their times of
prosperity, their friends who had faded with the first waning of fortune.
Some of them had known what it was to be fawned over. And how many of
these careless, flitting men of fashion I looked upon could feel the
ground firm beneath their feet; or could say with certainty what a change
of ministers, or one wild night at White's or Almack's, would bring
forth? Verily, one must have seen the under side of life to know the
upper!
Presently I was sought out by Mr. Topham Beauclerk, who had heard of the
episode below and wished to hear more. He swore at the duke.
"He will be run through some day, and serve him jolly right," said he.
"Bet you twenty pounds Charles Fox does it! His Grace knows he has the
courage to fight him."
"The courage!" I repeated.
"Yes. Angelo says the duke has diabolical skill. And then he won't
fight fair. He killed young Atwater on a foul, you know. Slipped on
the wet grass, and Chartersea had him pinned before he caught his guard.
But there is Lady Di a-calling, a-calling."
"Do all the women cheat in America too?" asked Topham, as we approached.
I thought of my Aunt Caroline, and laughed.
"Some," I answered.
"They will game, d--n 'em," said Topham, as tho' he had never gamed in
his life. "And they will cheat, till a man has to close his eyes to
keep from seeing their pretty hands. And they will cry, egad, oh so
touchingly, if the luck goes against them in spite of it all. Only last
week I had to forgive Mrs Farnham an hundred guineas. She said she'd
lost her pin-money twice over, and was like to have wept her eyes out."
Thus primed in Topham's frank terms, I knew what to expect. And I found
to my amusement he had not overrun the truth. I lost like a stoic, saw
nothing, and discovered the straight road to popularity.
"The dear things expect us to make it up at the clubs," whispered he.
I discovered how he had fallen in love with his wife, Lady Diana, and
pitied poor Bolingbroke heartily for having lost her. She was then in
her prime,--a beauty, a wit, and a great lady, with a dash of the
humanities about her that brought both men and women to her feet.
"You must come to see me, Mr. Carvel," said she. "I wish to talk to you
of Dorothy."
"Your Ladyship believes me versed in no other subject?" I asked.
"None other worth the mention," she replied instantly; "Topham tells me
you can talk horses, and that mystery of mysteries, American politics.
But look at Miss Manners Dow. I'll warrant she is making Sir Charles see
to his laurels, and young Stavordale is struck dumb."
I looked up quickly and beheld Dolly surrounded by a circle of admirers.
"Mark the shot strike!" Lady Di continued, between the deals; "that time
Chartersea went down. I fancy he is bowled over rather often," she said
slyly. "What a brute it is. And they say that that little woman she has
for a father imagines a union with the duke will redound to his glory."
"They say," remarked Mrs. Meynel, sitting next me, "that the duke has
thumbscrews of some kind on Mr. Manners."
"Miss Manners is able to take care of herself," said Topham.
"'On dit', that she has already refused as many dukes as did her Grace of
Argyle," said Mrs. Meynel.
I had lost track of the cards, and knew I was losing prodigiously. But
my eyes went back again and again to the group by the doorway, where
Dolly was holding court and dispensing justice, and perchance injustice.
The circle increased. Ribands, generals whose chests were covered with
medals of valour, French noblemen, and foreign ambassadors stopped for a
word with the Beauty and passed on their way, some smiling, some
reflecting, to make room for others. I overheard from the neighbouring
tables a spiteful protest that a young upstart from the colonies should
turn Lady Tankerville's drum into a levee. My ears tingled as I
listened. But not a feathered parrot in the carping lot of them could
deny that Miss Manners had beauty and wit enough to keep them all at bay.
Hers was not an English beauty: every line of her face and pose of her
body proclaimed her of that noble type of Maryland women, distinctly
American, over which many Englishmen before and since have lost their
heads and hearts.
"Egad!" exclaimed Mr. Storer, who was looking on; "she's already
defeated some of the Treasury Bench, and bless me if she isn't rating
North himself."
Half the heads in the room were turned toward Miss Manners, who was
exchanging jokes with the Prime Minister of Great Britain. I saw a
corpulent man, ludicrously like the King's pictures, with bulging gray
eyes that seemed to take in nothing. And this was North, upon whose
conduct with the King depended the fate of our America. Good-natured
he was, and his laziness was painfully apparent. He had the reputation
of going to sleep standing, like a horse.
"But the Beauty contrives to keep him awake," said Storer.
"If you stay among us, Mr. Carvel," said Topham, "she will get you a
commissionership for the asking."
"Look," cried Lady Di, "there comes Mr. Fox, the precocious, the
irresistible. Were he in the Bible, we should read of him passing the
time of day with King Solomon."
"Or instructing Daniel in the art of lion-taming," put in Mrs. Meynel.
There was Mr. Fox in truth, and the Beauty's face lighted up at sight of
him. And presently, when Lord North had made his bow and passed on, he
was seen to lead her out of the room, leaving her circle to go to pieces,
like an empire without a head.