Chapter XXIV: I Find a Friend in Need

You know the truth, _mon ami_--that the face which looked in at my door was the face of my father. O, heavens, the reunion, so wonderful, so pathetic! and the sequel, so interesting! Truly, through our living fidelities do the gods chastise our worldliness.

We had not been a day in the house when I ran across him in a passage. He was, it appeared, one of two gentlemen who lodged below. He was plainly, almost shabbily dressed; bloated a little; prematurely aged: but I knew him instantly. Though eleven years had gone since my childish eyes had last acknowledged and adored him, the instinct of nature was too sure to be deceived. I gasped, I trembled, as he stood ogling me; finally I threw myself into his arms.

“Papa!” I cried; “papa!”

“Hey!” he responded; “is that all?”

“Do you not remember your little Diana?” I implored, in an ecstasy of emotion.

“Wait,” he said, and put a hand to his forehead. “It may be on my notes. I’ve a damned bad memory.”

The door of a room hard by stood open. He led me in, closed it, and seated himself officially at a table.

“Now,” he said, “what mother?”

The shock, my friend! I had remembered him so strong and gallant--wicked, if you will; but then I had always pictured myself the cherished pledge of his wickedness. And now, it appeared, I was only one of a large family. Without a word, I turned my back upon him.

“Don’t go,” he said, disturbed at that. “What name did you say?”

I confronted him once more, sorrow and disdain battling in my face.

“I said Diana.”

“Of course,” he answered, beating his forehead; “the child of”--

After all, it was a long lapse of time. I told him my mother’s name.

“She was my one real love,” he said, shedding tears. “I recall her among the peats of Killarney as if it were to-day. When she died (she is dead, isn’t she?) I buried my heart in her grave. I have never known a moment’s happiness since. Speak to me of her, Dinorah.”

He followed me up a little later, when Patty was sitting with me, and peeped round the door.

“May I--daughter Di?” he said. I believe he had really in the interval been looking among his notes, or letters, and with such benefit to his memory that he felt secure, at least, in that monosyllabic compromise. Blame my fond heart, thou _fripon_. I was softened even in my desperate disillusionment by this half recognition. With a father, fashionable and well-connected, possibly rich, to safeguard my interests, I need no longer fear the light.

Receiving no answer, he sidled himself into the room, and to a sofa, on which he sat down. Patty, dropping her work, looked at him with all her might of astonishment.

“And is this dear child your sister?” he asked.

“Yes,” I answered; “from the very first.”

“Twins?” he exclaimed. “I am very sure there is no such entry.”

He sat frowning at the carpet for a little. Then, “Wait,” he said. “It is my misfortune to serve small beer.” And with these enigmatic words laid himself down and fell asleep.

With his first snore, Patty flew over to me.

“Who is it?” she whispered, frantic.

“_It_ is a wise father that knows his own child.”

“_Father_?” she said.

“Hush!” I answered; “yes.” And would say no more till he woke.

He came to himself presently, in a properer sense of the word. During the interval I had been curiously observing his condition. It was very different in seeming from that of the spark of eleven years since. It showed an assumption of finery, it is true; but the trappings were tawdry and soiled, and the materials cheap.

He sat up with a prodigious yawn, his face, in the midst, lapsing into a watery, paternal smile. But it was evident at once that something of the thread of memory was restored in him; and he began questioning me much more shrewdly and to the point.

“Why, ecod,” said he presently, “was it a fact that the sweep had stole you? If I’d only learnt the truth before Charlie Buckster put a bullet in himself. I’d a double pony on it with the man.”

Then we got on famously. He cried much over his poor lost love, and was so tender with me that he completely won me from my reserve, and I ended by recounting to him the whole tale of my fortunes, even up to the present moment.

“That Herring!” he said: “a fine guardian to my girl! I knew the stoat well in my time. Let him beware, now that she has found her natural protector.”

He swelled with indignation, as I with pleasure.

“You have gifts, presents from him, no doubt,” he said fiercely. “What do you say to my taking them all back, and throwing them in his face?”

“I say, certainly not,” I answered.

“Ah well!” he said, “you have got them, anyhow; and the thought will wring his covetous soul.”

At this moment a great voice roared, “Johnson, you devil!” down below somewhere.

My father got quickly to his feet.

“Ay,” he answered, to my look; “’tis me, Di--the pseudonym I go by. Fact is, child, I’m temporarily under a financial cloud, and forced to eke out a living, while awaiting the moment of my complete restoration to fortune, by service--that is to say, by taking it, hem!”

“By taking service?”

“Exactly. A sort of elegant cicerone and social introducer to a damned old parvenu curmudgeon, who wants to learn at what lowest outlay to himself he can pose as a gentleman. ’Tis tiresome, though in its way amusing; but I really think I shall have to cut the old rascal on his taste in liquor. For a palate like mine, you know--small beer and blue ruin, faugh! You haven’t change for a guinea, my angelic?”

“Johnson!” roared the voice again.

“Coming, sir, coming!” cried my papa; and, seeing me unresponsive, skipped out of the room.

He was with us continually during the fortnight after our arrival; and I had no least idea of the consequences awaiting me, when one afternoon a hastily scribbled note, dated “_en route_ for the Continent,” was delivered at the house door by a porter, and sent up to me. I read it, shrieked, and sank half fainting into a chair.

“I have taken, dear daughter,” it said, “the entire responsibility for our monetary affairs upon my own shoulders. To live on one’s capital is, like the self-eating pelican, to devour the substance of the unborn generations. Seeing how you appeared quite unaccountably callous to the natural claims of your prospective family (for, with your attractions, you cannot hope to escape one), I, as its prospective grandfather, have asserted my prerogative by appropriating our principal to its properest uses of investment. The stocking you will find still reposing in its secret _cache_ behind the hangings of your dressing-table; but you will find it empty. Do not blame me, but console yourself with the conviction that in a few weeks I shall be in a position to return you your principal _at least trebled_. In the meanwhile, accept the assurances of my love and protection.”

Half dazed with the shock, I tottered, with Patty’s assistance, into our bedroom. It was too true. The desperate wretch, seizing his opportunity by night while we slept, had robbed us of everything. He had left us not a sixpence. We were ruined.

I tore my hair. I uttered cries and imprecations. I cursed Heaven, my own fond gullibility, the cruelty of the fate that would not let me live and be honest. Patty, poor fool, tried to calm me. I drove her away with blows, and, in a reaction to fury, rushed downstairs and into the room of the remaining lodger.

“Where is my money, where are my jewels?” I shrieked. “You are his accomplice. I will swear an information against you unless you tell.”

He was a gross, coarse man, of a violent complexion.

“Ho-ho!” he bellowed; “blackmail is it? Wait, while I call a witness.”

He pulled the bell down, summoning our landlady. When she came, there was an outrageous scene. Quite cowed in the end, I retreated to our apartments, where, however, I was not to be left in peace. Within an hour the harridan appeared with her bill, an extravagant one, which of course I was unable to settle. The next morning, driven forth with contumely, we were arrested at her suit, and carried to a sponging-house. Thence, quite self-collected now in my desperation, I despatched a note to Mr. Roper, who, without delay, good creature, waited upon us. I told him the whole unreserved truth.

“Very well,” he said, “I will quit you of this, child; and, for the rest, find accommodation for you in humbler quarters till you can help yourself. With your genius, that should not be long. You know my circumstances, and that I cannot afford luxuries.”

“I will work my fingers to the bone,” I said, with tears in my eyes.

“Not quite so bad as that,” he answered. “Bones ain’t negotiable assets. Have you ever thought on the stage, now, for a living?”

“I believe, without much study, I could make an actress,” I said.

“With none at all,” said he confidently. “I have a friend in Westley of Drury Lane, and will see if he can put you in the way to a part. I should fear the publicity, i’ faith, but that my lord has taken his grievances to the Continent for an airing, and in the interval we are safe to act.”

Good loyal friend! He found us pretty snug quarters over a little shop in Long Acre, where, keeping to our pseudonym of the Misses Rush, we bided while he negotiated terms for me. He was successful, when once I had been interviewed by the management; and, to cut short this melancholy story, I made my first appearance on the boards as the fairy Primrose in the Christmas masque of the _Dragon of Wantley_. I had a little song to sing about a butterfly, which never failed to bring down the house; and altogether, I was growing not unhappy in the novelty of the venture, when that, with almost my life, was ended at a blow.

But first I must relate of the most surprising _contretemps_ that ever I was to experience, and which had the strangest and most immediate bearing on my destinies.

I had noticed frequently that the hind legs of the dragon would linger unaccountably, when the absurd monster, on his way off the stage, happened to pass me standing in the wings. This would lead to much muffled recrimination from the forequarters, which, exhausted by their antics, aimed only at getting to their beer; the consequence being that one eventful night, what between the haulings and contortions, the back seam of the creature split, and out there rolled before my eyes--Gogo.

He picked himself up immediately, and stood regarding me silently, with a most doleful visage. My dear, I cannot describe what emotions swept my soul in a little storm of laughter--the astonishment, the pity, the bewilderment! In the midst, too confounded to arrange my thoughts, I turned away, affecting not to recognise him; seeing which, he uttered one enormous sigh, and stumped off to face the battery of the stage-manager’s indignation.

I must have put a world of feeling that night into my little song about the poor butterfly, that was stripped of its wings by a cruel boy, and so prevented from keeping its assignation with the rose, insomuch that it moved a very beautiful lady, who was present in a private box, to send for me that she might thank me in person.

We had all of us, of course, heard of, and some of us remembered, perhaps, chucking under the chin, the ravishing Mrs. Hart, who, from pulling mugs of beer to the pinks of Drury Lane, had risen to be _chère amie_ to his excellency the British Ambassador at Naples, and, quite recently, his lady. She had lately come to London, _à travers tous les obstacles_, to be made an honest woman of, and it was she who craved the introduction, to which you may be sure I responded with as much alacrity as curiosity. I could have no doubt of her the moment I entered the box, and made, with becoming naïveté, my little curtsey. She was certainly very handsome, in spite of her twenty-seven years and her large feet, though, I thought, lacking in grace. But her face was beautifully formed, with a complexion of apple-blossoms, and red lips a little swollen with kissing, and, to crown everything, a great glory of chestnut hair. There were tears in her fine eyes as she turned impulsively to address me--

“La, you little darling, you’ve made me cry with your butterflies and things. Come here while I buss you.”

There was a gentleman sitting by her, foremost of two or three that were in the box, and he made room for me with an indulgent smile. He was a genial, precise-looking person, with a star on his right breast, and the queue of his wig reaching down his back in long curls that were gathered into a ribbon. I took him, rightly, to be Sir William, the husband, and made him my demure bow as I passed. His lady gave me a great kiss, in full view of the house, and taking a little jewel from her bosom, pinned it into mine.

“There,” she said, “wear this for Lady Hamilton, in token of the only reel feeling she has come across in your beastly city.”

Sir William put his hand on her arm.

“My dear,” he said.

She fanned herself boisterously. She had been disappointed, everyone knew, in her designs to be received at court, and was to leave England in a few days missing the coveted honour. Somehow she reminded me of the “bouncing chit” that our gentlemen call a champagne bottle--she so gushed and sparkled, and was a little large and loud.

I made my acknowledgments quite prettily, and left the box; and, once got outside, leaned for a moment against the wall, with a feeling of mortal sickness come over me. For, as I retreated, I had come face to face with those seated at the back--_and one of them was the Earl of Herring_.

Had he recognised me? He had not appeared to lift his eyes, even, as he sat at discussion with his neighbour. And that might be the most deadly sign of all.

I don’t know how I got through the rest of my part. But that night I clung to Patty as if she were my only support in a failing world.

Morning brought some reassurance; and so, for a further evening or two, finding myself still unmolested, I struggled to convince myself that he had not seen, or that I was forgotten, and my fault passed over. But all the time the terror lay at my heart.

On the third evening, as I was entering the theatre, I encountered a poor creature standing by the stage door. I went to him; I almost fell upon his breast in my agitation.

“Gogo!” I said, “Gogo!” and stood dumb and shame-stricken before him.

He threw up his hands with that odd familiar gesture, with that tempestuous sigh which found such an immediate response in my soul.

“Are you not coming in?” I faltered.

He shook his head.

“You are dismissed?”

“I spoiled their dragon for them.”

I burst into tears.

“It was for me, dear. Do you see to what I have come? Forgive me, Gogo.”

“I can’t help myself,” he groaned. “You are my destiny.”

“Gogo, I am frightened; I am in danger. Help me, Gogo.”

The poor fellow smiled.

“In everything but running away, Diana.”

“And that is just where I want your help. Come to me: come and see me to-morrow, Gogo, will you? O, Gogo, will you?”

“Don’t be foolish, Diana. At what time?”

“You know my address?”

“Of course I do.”

“As early as early, then; the moment I am out of bed.”

Strangely comforted, and looking to see if we were alone, I dropped a tiny kiss on his rough cheek, and ran in gaily, wiping my eyes as I went.

That night I sang my little song with renewed feeling, and ended to a burst of applause. As I was standing at the wings, flushed and radiant, a note was put into my hand. I opened it, and read: “_You are in danger. Don’t go home._”

I never learned who had sent it; some one, probably, from amongst the few friends I could still number in that wicked household. It had been handed in at the stage door by a messenger, and that was all I could discover. The lights of my triumph were darkened. I knew myself at last hunted--and alone. Why had I not bid my monster wait for me? But it were idle now to moan. Despair gave me readiness. I finished my part quite brilliantly, without a stumble, and chatted gaily, while disrobing, with the poor pretty little _coryphée_ who was my chief friend in the dressing-rooms. By one pretext or another I detained her until we were alone. Then, “Fanny,” I said, “keep mum; but I think it unlikely I shall come here again.”

She looked at me with her large grey eyes. We were much of a figure, and not unlike in features.

“O, Miss Rush!” she whispered. “And I’d ’oped always to ’ave you for a friend.”

“So you shall, Fanny,” I said: “but there are contingencies--you understand?”

Her lip was trembling. I think she wanted to tell me to keep good.

“And so,” I said hastily, “as I have liked you so, I want to exchange little presents with you, as a remembrance, if you will.”

The poor child had often cast admiring eyes on a calash which it was my habit to wear to the theatre, and which was indeed a very becoming thing of crimson velvet and cherry-coloured lining, with a frame of costly fur to the face. It had been given me by Bob, and certainly nothing short of my present desperation would have brought me to part with it; but it was, more than anything I wore of late, associated with me; and necessity has no conscience.

Fanny’s eyes sparkled against her will, as I held the thing out to her.

“O no, miss!” she entreated; “it’s too good for me, and I can’t give you nothing the same in exchange.”

“You shall give me your neckerchief,” I said; and, cutting the discussion short, drove her away at length, with her pretty face in the hood, and tears in her eyes.

I gave her five minutes’ start, then followed her out, with a brain as hot as my heart was shivering. “They must discover their mistake very soon,” I thought, “and will be returning on their tracks.”

However, I reached home, running by byways, in safety; and there, quite unnerved now the terror was passed, threw myself into Patty’s arms and told her everything. She was the sweet, simple counsel and consoler she always was to grief, and distressed me only by some concern she could not help showing for the fate of Fanny.

“You try to make me out a devil,” I cried passionately. “They will let her alone, of course, when they find she isn’t who they want.”

We slept in one another’s arms that night, fearful of every sound in the street. But morning brought the sun and Gogo--though the latter inexcusably late to his appointment--and both were a heavenly joy to me.

I saw at once by his expression that he carried news; but he did not speak.

“Gogo!” I whispered.

He uttered a strange sound, like a wounded beast, and turned his face from me.

“Did you exchange head-dresses with her last night?” he muttered.

“What do you mean?”

My heart seemed to stop.

“They said it was your hood. She was jostled by ruffians in the street, it seems, and thrown under the traffic, and killed.”

I fell on my knees before him, shuddering and hiding my face.

“You didn’t mean _that_, Diana?”

“Before God, no. I thought they would leave her when they found out.”

He gave a heart-breaking sigh, and looked at me for the first time.

“I wouldn’t go near the theatre again, if I was you. They’ll not judge you as--as favourably as I, perhaps.”

“I’ve done with the theatre. Fate is very cruel. No one understands me or believes in me. At least, don’t tell Patty anything of this. I think you will break my heart among you. How did you even know I was threatened?”

“Didn’t you tell me you were in danger?”

I cried out to him in a sudden agony--

“I _am_ in danger. O, Gogo! for God’s sake tell me what I am to do!”

Then the great human love of the creature went down before me. He fondled me, with tears and broken exclamations; he swore himself once more, through all eternity, through sin and sorrow, my bondman.

Presently, without extenuation, I had confessed all to him; and he had forgiven me; had admitted, even, that I had had the reason of a better regard on my side. But as to what had happened to himself during the long interval, he would tell me nothing as yet.

“I am the ex-hind legs of a dragon,” he said, “that was conquered by the Chevalière Primrose, and turned into two-thirds of a prince. I date myself from the translation. The curtain’s down on all that was before.”

Now, when we came to discussing the ways and means for my escape from a desperate situation, my dear resourceful monster was ready with a suggestion at once.

“The Hamilton,” said he, “sails from England in a day or two. She is disposed, by the tokens, to make a pet of you. Why not go to her; relate everything; throw yourself upon her charity, and ask to be conveyed abroad in her suite?”

“Gogo! When?” I cried. It was an inspiration.

“No moment like the present.”

“I will go. But you must come too, to protect me.”

“Of course.”

“And Patty?”

“All three of us together. Pack your box, pay your bill, and be ready while I wait. At the worst, ’tis something gained to shift your quarters and cover your trail.”

I demurred only at the bill; for, indeed, we needed every penny of our ready money. But he settled the matter by paying it himself.

“I have become of a saving disposition,” he said; “and whatever trifle there be, you are its heir. This is only drawing on your reversion”--and, indeed, he valued money at nothing at all. If he could have picked a living from the earth, he would never have been to the trouble of putting a penny in his pocket.

In a little, all being prepared, we took a coach and drove to the Ambassador’s hotel. My lady was fortunately at her toilette, and sent down a surprised message, that, whatever the deuce I wanted, I was to be shown up. I found her, tumbled a little abroad, in the hands of her _perruquier_, whom she dismissed while she talked to me.

“Why, child,” she said, “what a face! ’Tis as white, I vow, as the wings of your butterfly. Out with your trouble now.”

I threw myself at her feet. I made a clean breast of my story--of the inhuman cruelty of which I was the destined victim; and I ended by imploring her to let me and my friends enjoy the bounty of her protection. She fired magnificently, as I had hoped she would, over the recital. She embraced my cause impulsively and without a thought for possible consequences to herself.

“The infamous old fox!” she cried of my lord; “I was flattered by his attentions, hang him! until I found they was of the worst consequence to me as a lady of position. To think of the old beast wanting to murder you because of a lampoon--pasquinades we call ’em in Italy! La, child! if _I_ answered so to every dig that’s made at me, I’d better turn public executioner at once. Let’s keep our own characters clean against the light being turned on ’em, say I; and, if we don’t, there’s only ourselves to thank. It’s too late to talk of bein’ a lady when the crowner comes to sit on our dirty stockin’s.”

She made me repeat my little song to her, and cried over it again.

“Trot up your friends,” she said, wiping her eyes. “There’s room for you all here till we start for France--or Naples, if you will. Let me see the old devil dare to follow you into this sancshery! We’ll be even with him, gnashin’ his yellow teeth left behind. Go and fetch ’em. I want to see what they’re like.”

And she gave me a tempest of a kiss, and pushed me out at the door.

_It is here we encounter that considerable lacuna in the Reminiscences to which reference was made in the “Introductory.” An examination of the MS. shows that the large section--of more than a hundred pages--which related to Mrs. Please’s experiences during the terrific period of the Revolution, and afterwards so far as the year_ ’98, _when the narrative is resumed, was at some time bodily removed, whether with a view to separate publication_ (_of which, however, no proof can be found_), _or through one of those intermittent panics of conscience to which the lady was subject, there is no evidence to show. While this breach is to be regretted--from her editor’s point of view, at least--it must be said that innumerable contemporary references to Madame “Se-Plaire” enable us in some measure not only to follow the career of that redoubtable adventuress_ (_pace M. le Comte de C----_), _but to supply to ourselves at least one presumptive reason for her shyness, on reflection, of perpetuating certain of its incidents. However, not to confuse matters, we will take our stepping-stones in the order of their placing._

_It appears, then, that Mrs. Please and her friends were conveyed safely in the Ambassador’s entourage, to Paris, where Madame the Ambassador’s wife received, during the few days of her stay in the French capital on her way to Italy, some salve to her hurt vanity in the reception accorded her at the Tuileries by the queen, who took the opportunity to intrust her with a letter to her sister of Naples. Whether elated, indirectly, by the royal condescension, or electrified by the state of the national atmosphere, or for whatever reason, Diana, it appears, decided to remain where she was. She even, there is some reason for believing, sought, in the character of a very loyal little_ moucharde, _to ingratiate herself with the queen, going so far as to imply that Lady Hamilton had taken this delicate means of placing in Her Majesty’s hands a counter-buff to Mr. Pitt, whom Miss Diana had often seen in my lord of Herring’s house in Berkeley Square, and whose sinister designs against France she was quite ready to quote--or invent._

_However this may be, it seems certain that Her Majesty was inexplicably so far from being prepossessed by her fair visitor’s fair protégée, that_ (_assuming even that she gave her her countenance at the first_) _she did not hesitate long in turning upon her the coldest of cold shoulders. We know at least that within a month of her arrival in Paris, Diana_ (_which always equals, be it understood, Diana_ plus _her two inseparables_) _had established herself, far from the precincts of the court, in very good rooms in a house in the Rue St. Jacques; where with characteristic suddenness and thoroughness she announced her complete conversion to the principles of ultra-republicanism. It must have been about this time, moreover, that she found interest to return to the stage; for in addition to the inclusion of her name in the bill of that stirring melodrama_, Les Victimes Cloîtrées, _which set all fermenting Paris overflowing, there exists that reference to her in the rather spiteful Reminiscences of Adrienne Lavasse, which, I think, is worth transcribing. “Mademoiselle Please,” says the actress, “was for a little our_ ingénue _at the Français. She was imported from England; but, it must be confessed, had a pretty gift_ [une belle facilité] _for our tongue. One night, after a_ mêlée _in the green-room, she lifts her voice in a furious outcry about her having been ravished of a neckerchief which had been given her by a fellow_-comédienne _in London, and which, she declares, she would not have parted with for a louis-d’or. But I never observed”_ (_adds the little spitfire_) _“that she took the trouble to replace it with another; from which it is evident that it was not her modesty that she valued at so high a figure.”_

_How long Mrs. Please continued on the stage at this time_ (_she returned to it again later_) _is not certain. Probably her engagement was terminated by that famous split in the company, when democratic Talma and Vestris migrated to the Rue de Richelieu, bequeathing the remnant honours of the old house in the Faubourg St. Germain to the royalist Fleury, Dazincourt, and Company. What we_ do _know is that about this critical period a lucky_ coup _in a State lottery established our heroine on her feet, and that thenceforth she flourished. She kept a little salon in those same historic rooms, through which a regular progression of nationalists passed and vanished. There, in their time, were to be seen Brissot, Guadet, Gensonné, the Roman Roland, the handsome Barbaroux, Pétion, Vergniaud, the sweet and indolent, in his ragged coat, Desmoulins, Barrére, Billaud-Varennes, Barras. The order is significant of our lady’s political, or politic, evolution. The life of the State, she came to think, was only to be saved by ruthless amputation; and, unfortunately, the disease was in the head. As the atmosphere thickens, our glimpses of her become rarer and more lurid. She appears once as the proprietress of a sort of_ Mont de piété, _very private and exclusive, in which she amassed good quantity of property, pledged by the proscribed, who never returned to redeem it. Among these, curiously, seems to have been her father, whom, as characteristically as possible, she forgave and attempted to shelter, though without avail, for he was guillotined. It was probably to propitiate the Government for this filial dereliction that she reappeared on the boards, in_ ’93, _in that grotesque monument to the dulness of the Sovereign People_, The Last Judgment of Kings; _and there, so far as we can trace, ended her connection with the stage._

_During all this period, it is only fair to her to say, she seems to have played the inflexible duenna to her little friend and adoratrice, Miss Patty Grant, protecting the child from outside evil and her own kind pliability, and, when she was called away from her side, committing her to the care of that faithful and incorruptible monster, the cripple._

_Towards the end of_ ’93 _she appears to have been so far in favour with the powers that she was despatched on a secret propagandist mission to the Neapolitan States--a portentous departure. She was not back in Paris again until the spring of_ ’95, _when she returned to find the Terror overthrown, its “tail” in process of being docked by Sanson, and the_ jeunesse dorée _patrolling the streets._

_Not much record of this journey remains, beyond the single weighty fact that it brought her acquainted with the young revolutionary enthusiast, Nicola Pissani, who accompanied her home by way of Tuscany and Piedmont, propagating their gospel of Liberty on the road._

_We may perhaps be pardoned for thinking it probable that Mrs. Please, on her return to Paris, would have recanted her extremist views, had it not been for this romantic_ exalté, _to whom, no doubt, she at the time was sincerely attached. It is possible, indeed, that she did persuade him of the necessity of an_ open _recantation, in order that she might consort with him the more safely in those measures which he, and for his sake she, had at heart--the violent establishment of a republic at Naples, to wit. For, for the moment, sanscullotism was out of fashion, and propagandists at a discount. It made no difference to her, apparently, that her former patroness and saviour was heart and soul with the court of Ferdinand. She was of the Roman mettle, and would have sacrificed her own child to Liberty--with Pissani. I swear my heart bleeds for her; for_ (_the truth has to be uttered_) _that passionate young zealot was no sooner made free of the house in the Rue St. Jacques, than he fell hopelessly entangled in the unconscious meshes of poor blameless, lovable little Patty Grant. And, worse: Miss Grant, without a thought of disloyalty to her friend and sister--who, indeed, persistently, and perhaps justifiably, posed for no more than the Neapolitan’s pious fellow-missionary--yielded her whole sweet soul to him!_

_Nothing was declared, or came of this at the time. Pissani went back to Naples; the two--he and Diana: not he and another, you may be sure, unless by stealth--corresponded regularly; the march of events proceeded; our heroine managed, no doubt, to console herself, provisionally, for the separation. Perhaps she may have been conscious of an alteration in her friend; a hint of some sad preoccupation; the bright eyes dulling, the white face growing ever a little more white and drawn. If she did, she chose, while biding her time of enlightenment, to attach any but the right reason to the change. She seems to confess, indeed, that she had the suspicion. Like enough, in that case, she indulged it for a perpetual stimulant to her romance, which might have withered without. She was not one to bear tamely her supplanting by another--least of all by the little humble slave of her passions and caprices, of her kisses and disdains. And, in the meantime, the years went over them, while she was studying to ingratiate herself with the Directory, so that presently her house knew again its succession of ministers and deputies--men who came to lighten their leisure with a little interlude of love or wit. And so we reach the crisis._

_Naples, about the middle of_ ’98, _was in a last state of ferment. Jacobinism threatened it within and without, the former but awaiting the advance of the French under Championnet to arise and hand over the city to its sympathisers. In September Nelson came sweeping to its sea-gates in his_ Vanguard; _in October General Mack posted from Vienna to take command of its rabble army of resistance; in November its king led another army to Rome, nominally to restore the Pope his kingdom, and, having done some ineffective mischief, returned ingloriously, to find his capital in a state of anarchy. Finally, in December, the whole royal family sneaked on board the_ Vanguard, _and transferred itself_ pro tempore _to Palermo, where it remained until the danger was laid, when it returned to exact a bloody vengeance._

_Therewithin lies the whole tragedy of Pissani and a little English maid. Early in the February of that year the man had written, hurried and agitated, to Mrs. Please, to announce that the moment was ripe, the tree of despotism tottering to its fall, to be replaced by the more fruitful one of Liberty; and to urge her to come at once, if she would see consummated the glorious work for which they had both laboured so long and so self-sacrificially. No doubt that he believed in her single-heartedness, as she, in another way, in his. He assured her that she might be, if she would, a second Pucelle. He fired her vanity: he rekindled her passion. With characteristic impetuosity, she broke up her household, and_ (_here figures either her blindness or her imperious self-confidence_) _prepared to transport it, stock and block, to the scene of her anticipated triumphs. She had no difficulty in procuring passports. Indeed, there is reason to suppose that she was intrusted with despatches for General Berthier, then occupying Rome. At any rate she, in company with Mademoiselle Grant and her inseparable Gogo, embarked at Marseilles for Civita Vecchia; were in the Eternal City before the end of the month; and had thence, travelling again by sea, reached Naples without accident by the middle of March. Here, by preconcerted arrangement_ (_as regarded only herself and the Neapolitan, however_) _they were met by Pissani, who conducted them in the first instance to a little cabaret in the dark quarters near the Arsenal. And here, from the glooms of that dingy rendezvous, Mrs. Please is pleased to enter again upon her own story._

_B. C._

[_Note_.--To the curious in matters of personal appearance, the following extract from the _Roper Correspondence_ (Hicks & Beach, London, 1832) may be of interest. The passage occurs in a letter--dated Paris, January 1798--from the Hon. Robert Roper to his cousin Lord Carillon, and runs as follows:--

“I have renewed my acquaintance with the Please, who is twenty-seven, and nothing if not the ripe fruit of her promise. Dost remember, Dick, how she was your ‘Long-legged Hebe’? I tell you, sir, she is by Jove out of Leda, a very Helen. She moults her years, like the swan her father its feathers, and is always ready with a virgin bosom of down for the next quilt. The same sprightly insolence; the same _perfect irregularity_ of feature--and conduct; the same zeal in making the interests of others her own--and the profits thereof. Her face retains its pretty _moue_; her hair has only ripened a little, like corn. She is still slender, as we remember her--in everything now but the essentials; still as pale, with the flawless eyebrows and bob-cherry lips. I would be sentimental; but, alack! she tells me our past is put away in a little bag like lavender. ‘Would you wish the gift of it, sir,’ she says, ‘to lay among your bed-linen? ’Tis grown too scentless for my use. _Il n’y a si bonne compagnie qu’on ne quitte._’ O, Dick, to be rebuked for one’s years, and by an immortal! O, Dick, for the time ‘when wheat is green and hawthorn buds appear’! Why may not our feet continue to dance with our hearts? I have a _débutante_ always within my breast, and because _I_ am forty, _she_ must be a wallflower forsooth!

“She has realised at last _la grande passion_, she tells me. She is perfectly frank. _He_ is gone elsewhere, and she only waits for his whistle to follow. _This_ to me! She has her little salon, as pretty as a bonbon box, and a dozen of powdered ministers at her feet. The morning after our meeting I breakfasted with her and her friend. You recall the little soft brunette, with the motherly eyes and the caressing bashfulness? She is still with her, the foil, as of old, to her ladyship, and virgin soil to this day, I believe.... Madam took her tea laced with a little _eau de vie_. There was a curious legless monster in waiting: something between a dumb-waiter and a Covent Garden porter. She defers to him in everything; and he growls.”]