Chapter V: Part 5

"Mrs. Lovely's dead, sir."

The grey gentleman looked across the room at a large painting of a girl in a white dress skipping with a rope of roses.

"Please, sir," said young Charles, "I think that is Mrs. Lovely."

"It was, boy; it was."

"I wish I had known her then," said Charles.

"Is your name George, boy?" inquired the grey gentleman in a tone that was half eager.

"No, sir, 'tis Charles--after the Prince of Wales."

"A Papist, eh?" said the grey gentleman bitterly.

"George was too honest a name for that scoundrel. Well, boy, you can stay."

"Please, sir, I'd rather go back to my father," said the boy. "He's waiting for me."

"Then go and be d----d," said the grey gentleman, and he walked over to the window.

Poor little Charles was left standing alone in the big room. He waited a moment, but as the grey gentleman did not turn his head, he edged his way towards the great door. When he reached it, he looked round at his uncle. The latter was still staring out of the window. The child gave a puzzled sigh and with both hands succeeded in turning the handle. The clocks seemed to tick very loudly as he breathlessly closed the door and set out to descend the wide staircase. The canary-coloured gentlemen having vanished he could hold on to the balustrade with both hands without shame. As he crossed the green sunlit lawn, a blackbird flew into the shrubbery with a shrill note of alarm.

Then he was in the chariot with his father, and this time he was really fast asleep.

And now he was boy and man at once. The picture of the girl with roses became his mother as he had known her, pale and sad. Then it would change and become Miss Phyllida Courteen, strangely like his mother; and sometimes the Queen of Diamonds would be mopping and mowing in a frame of golden Georges.

At last these many dancing visions forsook his brain, and he slept a dreamless sleep, not waking until high noon of a wet and gusty day. When he reached the coffee-room, he found Mr. Francis Vernon perusing the latest edition of Mr. Hoyle, and as the weather was dirty, agreed to give Mr. Francis Vernon his revenge.

This favour was accorded in the handsomest manner possible and when, late in the afternoon, the young gentlemen all returned from hunting, Mr. Charles Lovely owed Mr. Francis Vernon rather more than he could very easily pay.

No doubt the latter's success is to be ascribed to his opportune purchase of the latest edition of Mr. Hoyle.

_Chapter the Twelfth_

WET DAYS

If cards are the devil's playthings, wet days are certainly his select playtime; and all the days before the Chinese Masquerade were very wet indeed. The Exquisite Mob returned from the Pump Room remarkably depressed in spirit. The forenoons passed away in the coffee-houses and the shops, but in the afternoons when it was wont to exercise itself and air its modes the stuffy parlours of Curtain Wells became vastly tiresome.

The result was that all the young gentlemen played very hard and very deep and very late, and Mr. Charles Lovely hardest, deepest, and latest of all. The old gentlemen all found their gout teazed them more lamentably. Even Beau Ripple grew tired of reading the Epodes of Horace and the Letters of Tully to his grey Angora cat. The ladies played Quadrille and talked scandal, while some of them, I grieve to say, supplied a foundation for much of the gossip.

Candlelight intrigues flourished, and there were not a few tragedies in porcelain, when some Sir John Vulcan, returning too soon from his favourite coffee-house, caught my Lady Venus in too ardent converse with some young Ensign Mars. Very red grew the gallant Ensign--near as red as his coat, while Sir John blustered and swore so loud that he almost cracked the walls with his fox-hunting voice, and my lady Venus fluttered her fan to the pace of her dainty heart, tinkling out exquisite little lies as soulless as unreal, but quite as fascinating as some frail musical box. And the trio acted and declaimed their time-honoured parts to a keyhole audience of lady's maid and gentleman's gentleman.

Very diverting the footmen of Curtain Wells found the story that evening, and very savoury it was voted below stairs--nearly as savoury as the stewed trotters over which it was related.

And so the days went by.

Pitter-pat went the rain on the window-panes, pitter-pat went the cards on the card tables, pitter-pat went the spoons in the coffee-cups, pitter-pat went my lady's shoes across the floor to watch for the third person, pitter-pat went many fans and many hearts.

Mrs. Courteen decked herself in the rosiest sattins, bade Betty close the shutters, draw the curtains and light the candles. Then she composed herself to read the last number of the _Prattler_ until a knock at the door announced the arrival of Mr. Gregory Moon and Major Constantine Tarry. Both vowed that their enchantress looked vastly well, and nodded agreement with her assertion that she believed she had a very fresh colour, no doubt due to the tonick air of the Wells.

"It flushes one merely to go upstairs," she declared. "I vow I take as much exercise in going up and down stairs as I do in taking my morning saunter to the Pump Room." The climb was euphemistically known as the Saunter. "Lud, lud," continued the widow, "complexions are droll things."

"Monstrous elusive, ma'am," said the Justice rather gloomily.

"Ha, ha," yapped the Major, "I pickled my skin in the Low Countries."

"That would be injudicious for a delicate surface. Height, Major," sighed Mrs. Courteen, "height! How we pine for it. Mortals! Dear! Dear!"

"I remember I once examined a vagabond who claimed to have been there," remarked Mr. Moon. "We ordered him a whipping."

"What became of him?" asked Mrs. Courteen.

"I believe he died shortly afterwards. Well! well! Kill or cure! Kill or cure!"

The widow flashed her white shoulders in an elaborate shudder.

"Talking of kill or cure," exclaimed the Major, jumping up, "did I ever repeat my tale of the Hessian captain?"

"Probably," said Mr. Moon mildly.

"What do you mean, sir?"

"You are somewhat inclined to repetition, sir."

Mrs. Courteen hurriedly assured Major Tarry that she for one had positively never heard it.

"He did not say 'have you heard my story, ma'am,' the Justice went on in the calm voice of despair. "He said 'have I repeated it?' I merely remarked that he probably has--dozens of times!"--Mr. Moon burst out in the nearest approach to a passionate enunciation that he ever attained.

"I vow you do him an injustice. Pray tell us the story, Major," and the widow tapped the sword-arm of the infuriated soldier three times. The painted chicken-skin fell with so persuasive a touch that the Apple sank to its normal position and, having turned his back on Mr. Moon, the Major began his tale.

"Well, Madam, you must know that in the year ... but before I tell this story, I should like to give you some idea of the disposition of his Majesty's forces."

Mrs. Courteen sighed. She knew what giving an idea of the disposition of the forces meant. It was useless to protest however, for the Major was already marching round the room in search of appropriate furniture.

He instantly declared that Mr. Moon's chair was necessary to the illustration.

"Pray excuse me, sir!" he rapped out.

The Justice, with a reproachful glance at Mrs. Courteen, moved ponderously to the couch.

"Well, Madam, here are Thistleton's Dragoons," and he gave a twist to the chair as he spoke.

"Oh, yes! Very droll!" said Mrs. Courteen.

"Here," the Major continued, seizing another chair and planting it vigorously down by the couch, "here is Buckley's Foot."

"Mine, sir," said the Justice.

"Your what, sir?"

"My foot, sir, not Buckfeast's."

The Major withered his rival with an eloquent silence.

"Here am I," he said, snatching from the mantelpiece a diminutive Worcester shepherdess and placing it between the two chairs.

The widow gazed anxiously at the pastoral soldier. It belonged to the owner of the house.

"Here is Tournai. You'll pardon me, sir, but I should be obliged if you would hand me the couch," said the Major fiercely.

The Justice moved wearily to the window-seat. That, at all events, was a fixture, he reflected gratefully.

After much exertion Tarry succeeded in moving the couch in front of the door, so that if the piece of furniture in question was a poor representation of what it was intended to convey, it certainly made of Mrs. Courteen's front parlour something very like an impregnable fortress.

"I should be glad to give you some idea of the enemy's earthworks," said the Major with a covetous glance in the direction of the chintz window-curtains.

Mrs. Courteen's fleeting expression of dismay warned him to prune the luxuriance of his examples, and as at that moment a tap at the door necessitated the instant surrender of Tournai to admit Mrs. Betty farther operations were stopped. Moreover the sudden capitulation involved the fracture of the Worcester shepherdess which, as Mr. Moon sardonically supposed, served to illustrate the point of the story.

"You're killed, Tarry; you're dead as mutton. I doubt a cure is inconceivable."

Betty held a note in her hands.

"From Bow Ripple," she whispered excitedly.

_Chapter the Thirteenth_

MONARCHY IN ACTION

Mrs. Courteen scarcely believed Betty spoke the truth. Never could she remember such a gigantick wave of elation as swept over her on receipt of the Beau's letter. Yet, without a doubt, it was true. There was the royal notepaper and, as she reverently examined the outside, there was the river of the house of Ripple meandering in regular curves through meadows of sealing-wax. She marked the colour--lilac--as if faintly to adumbrate the imperial purple of Rome. Moreover, the sprinkled sand, a few particles of which still adhered to the surface, smelt of Courts. There were years of authority between the lines of the graceful superscription; the very "C" of the Crescent bellied in the breeze of Royal favour. Major Tarry and Mr. Moon regarded her with an expression compounded of jealousy and respect. Who was this woman, this correspondent with monarchs?

"Pray excuse me, neighbours," murmured the widow, sinking into a chair. The seal crackled musically as with smooth forefinger and shapely thumb she gently withdrew the diaphanous paper from its waxen prison; so must the golden bough have sounded to the touch of AEneas.

THE GREAT HOUSE, CURTAIN WELLS,

_February_,

MADAM--_I shall do myself the honour of waiting upon you this
afternoon at half-past Four o'clock in order to the discussion of
an Affair of the gravest moral Importance._

_In expectation, Madam, I subscribe myself,_

_Your obliged Servant,_

HORACE RIPPLE.

"Gemini!" cried Betty, "the Bow will be here in fourteen ticks."

"Gentlemen," said Mrs. Courteen with that stateliness which follows from intercourse with Princes, "gentlemen, I must beg to be excused."

The Major and the Justice solemnly advanced and, having kissed the outstretched hand, moved sadly from the room. As they went downstairs the former mused on the unrepeated story of the Hessian Captain, while the latter vowed to insert a supplementary chapter to his great Essay on Peace which should deal with the self-esteem of retired Majors. With similar thoughts no doubt Mr. Oliver Goldsmith went home from that famous dinner when General Oglethorpe, at the instigation of Dr. Samuel Johnson, spilled the Port on the bare mahogany board in order to draw a plan of the Siege of Belgrade. At any rate, old Mr. Hardcastle talks a great deal about that famous beleaguerment in the witty and diverting farce of _She Stoops to Conquer_. Mrs. Courteen tremulously sought her toilet-glass. 'An affair of the gravest moral importance.' Powder judiciously distributed removed any implied indifference in the freshness of her widowed cheeks. Paleness and morality were certainly akin. As for her lemon sack, Betty vowed she would find nothing more becoming to the unique occasion.

A dignified knock at the front door put an end to any longer hesitation, and Mrs. Courteen, like the Queen of Sheba, presented herself immediately.

The Great little Man was pacing the carpet of the front parlour, but at the widow's entrance he turned on his heels with a low bow.

"We are quite alone?" he inquired.

"Solitary indeed," replied the lady. Surely, surely he could not be contemplating an offer of marriage. Yet certainly such might well be described as an affair of the gravest moral importance. If weddings were not moral, what would become of our weak humanity?

"Madam," said the Beau. "'Tis only after long thought and exhaustive research among the social archives of Curtain Wells: 'tis only after a complete examination of my glorious predecessor, Beau Melon's notes on the amenities of Polite Cures in which he calls attention with a red cross to the special difficulty of tendering advice to perplexed visitors, that I am resolved to inform you of a fact which may distress your maternal heart, complicate your domestick arrangements, disturb your apprehensive piety and not inconceivably lend to-morrow's goblet a very wry flavour. Madam, your daughter is in love."

The widow raised two anguished hands, but Mr. Ripple continued:

"When I say in love, madam, I say so because I am not so cynical of maiden humanity as to suppose that she would sit in vivacious discourse with a young gentleman for the space of one hour and a half measured by the frequent chimes of the publick clock unless she were in love."

"You cannot mean this," palpitated the unhappy mother. "Say you cannot mean it!"

"Madam, I am not used to devoting so much valuable time to the preparation of circumstantial falsehoods. Your daughter is in love."

"But she is so young," protested the widow. "Not more than fifteen or at the most seventeen."

"To you, madam, deaf to Love's alarms, for evermore protected against his showered darts, such precocious ardour must appear improbable, but I have proof of its existence."

"Malicious tongues! The world is so censorious. It would destroy the reputation of the mother by insinuations against the virtue of the child."

"Madam, pray allow me to narrate the unhappy but indisputable facts of the affair. You must know that it is a part of my duties--a pleasant part, if I may say so without undue want of reserve--to inspect Curtain Garden from time to time. You will recollect that this forenoon we enjoyed for two hours a glimpse of the sun. Having been kept indoors during the last two or three days, I determined to seize the balmy occasion and perform my rural duties. I observed that the spring bulbs were remarkably forward. I noticed with pleasant anticipation of summer saunters that the paths were in good order, the gravel free from weeds. From the main Promenade I turned into the Maze."

The widow started.

"The yew hedges were neatly trimmed and I noticed some very good examples of topiary; I may mention in particular the transformation of the old Noah into a peacock whose tail will doubtless gain a more vigorous plumage from the warm weather. I wandered along contemplating the various greens of the mosses that adorn the path and muffle the footsteps in a manner extremely suitable to the decorous quiet of the surroundings. During my saunters, I delight to rest my mind with the recitation of the Odes and Epodes of my poetick and pre-Christian namesake. I was embarked upon the apostrophe to Lyce:

_Nec Coae referunt jam tibi purpurae
Nec clari lapides tempora, quae semel
Notis condita fastis
Inclusit volucris dies._

"I had got so far, but egad! I could get no farther for the life of me. I repeated the last four lines, and in my attempts to catch the fugitive--Ah!" cried the Beau, "I have it!"

_Quo fugit Venus? Heu quove color? decens_
_Quo motus?_

or to paraphrase with an extempore couplet,

_Where now is fled thy beauty? Where thy bloom,_
_Those airy steps that charmed th' expectant room?_

"To continue, however--this elusive sentence made me lose my direction and I found myself removed from the centre of the Maze by an impenetrable hedge of yew. I was about to retrace my steps when I heard voices on the other side of the hedge. It was a duet, madam--man and maid, flute and bass viol, fife and drum, describe it how you will."

"Did you recognize the voices?"

"Madam, I did not."

"Then how--since you were not able to see over the tops of the hedges without----"

The Great little Man drew himself up.

"Madam," he said, "I regard the physical exertion of bobbing up and down as ungenteel."

"Then how do you----?"

"Because on retracing my steps I passed your maid in an attitude of vigilance and exactly one hour and a half later I saw Miss Courteen and the aforesaid maid leave the Garden; and vastly well she looked, madam."

Mrs. Courteen asked why Mr. Ripple did not interrupt them. "'Twould surely have frightened them out of love-making for ever."

"Madam, if I am a king, I hope I am also a gentleman."

"I will call the hussy and you shall reproach her, Mr. Ripple."

"Madam, that is precisely what I am anxious to avoid. On former occasions my interference has proved futile and I cannot allow my counsel to be exposed to contempt. In confidence let me tell you that the last three elopements which I tried to stop were all successfully carried through, and I hear that the parties have lived very happily together ever since. I have vowed not to accept again the responsibleness of a prophet. My glorious predecessor, Beau Melon, mentions several instances of his advice being neglected without any ill effects and notes that it is probably injudicious to interfere unless compelled by the prospect of a duel. Let me read you his comments. '_Elopements. Tell the father. D---- n Miss. She won't listen. Fool for your pains. Fifteen times bitten--shy for evermore. Bodies more important than souls in Curtain Wells._' An ill-constructed sentence, madam, but nevertheless full of truth."

"Then what do you advise me to do?"

"Madam, I should recommend you to pay less attention to your own heart, and give the most of your care to your daughter's."

The widow rose in a state of extreme agitation and rustled about the room to the hazard of all ware under a certain stability. Such a reproach from Mr. Ripple was more than she could bear politely.

However, presently she caught her placket in the wanton arm of a chair and after a short struggle capitulated to stillness.

She began the catalogue of her natural virtues. "I vow the child has been reared on the Church Catechism, she was for ever learning collects, texts, parables, miracles, question and answer, sermons, homilies, and aspirations. If I had been allowed my own way with her education, she would have led a life of Sundays; but the late Mr. Nicholas Courteen her father and my husband swore the child's intelligence was become like a Crusader's tomb, scrabbled over with pious nonsense ill-digested and ill-writ. Have I not warned her a hundred times that gentlemen do not love the gawky charms of a hoyden? Have I not repeated to her the history of half a score seductions? Am I to blame? Don't I keep a maid to look after her? What else has that hussy to do? I ask you, Mr. Ripple, what else?"

"Upon my soul, ma'am, I don't very well know," murmured Mr. Ripple.

"Nothing, sir, nothing, save to dress and undress me twice a day, give an eye to my gowns and arrange my toilet table. Apparently they think that I should--" The widow broke off to ring violently for Betty in order to reproach her with a careless supervision of Phyllida.

Mr. Ripple seized the opportunity to make his farewells. He swore to himself that nothing should induce him to remonstrate again with a careless mother. He would say a friendly word to the child herself.

The widow thanked the Beau for his advice and promised to be mighty severe with Phyllida.

"Not if you will be warned by me, madam. No, no, I beg you will not think it was to urge severity that I made you this visit. No, no, it was merely to suggest prudence. Your humble servant, madam."

"Your very devoted, sir."

The widow curtsied the Beau out of the room, and, having heard the front door closed, she watched in prim disgust for the entrance of Betty.

That young woman presently came into the room.

"Well, vixen!" said the widow.

"La! ma'am, what is it?"

"Well, gypsy!"

"Not a drop in my family, ma'am, and that's more than some of the cottage-folk near by can say."

"Well, little Impropriety, what excuse have you to hand?"

Betty asked what Impropriety meant.

"Would it be stealing you mean, ma'am?"

"Well, Madam Indecency!"

Betty suddenly saw the widow's amber petticoat gleaming through the unfastened placket.

"Dear love and barley breaks! However did I come to leave that undone! Never mind, ma'am. 'Tis not as if he'd caught a sight of your smock, though for my part I should not be afraid to show clean linen to any man, Bow or whatsoever."

"'Tis not to talk of plackets that I called you, hussy, but of packets--love-packets, notes, letters, assignations."

Betty began to understand. She remembered how they had met Mr. Ripple that morning in Curtain Garden, and at once connected the two incidents.

"'Twould be about this very forenoon that you are talking, ma'am?"

The widow was surprized. She had expected an impregnable barrier of mock stupidity.

"It would," she answered severely.

"Well, there now! And if I didn't say as 'twas very wrong, but indeed, he was so genteel and made such very grand bows that I didn't think as 'twould be kind to refuse him."

"Refuse him what?"

"Why, direction, ma'am, for the handsome poor soul was lost in the Maze. He was just twirling around from North to South like the weathercock on the old Parish Church at home."

"Does it take an hour and a half to direct a man out of a shrubbery?"

"No, indeed, ma'am, but hearing we was from Hampshire, he fell a-talking and said as when he was last there he was staying with my Lord Senna at Camomile Hall, and was bosom friend of Mr. the Honourable John Squills."

The widow grew interested. The latter had once attended a hunting breakfast at Courteen Grange.

"And what was the loquacious gentleman's name?"

"Ah there! indeed, 'twas wrong of me, but if I didn't go and forget to axe him!"

"Idiot!" said Mrs. Courteen, "and where does he lodge?"

"He intends to post to Bristol Well to-night."

"Is this true?"

"La, dearest ma'am, how does I know. But he spoke as though 'twas."

"You are a pair of simpletons. Lud! you might have been ravished and no one the wiser. I doubt you both deserve a whipping."

Mrs. Courteen dismissed the subject and turned to survey the ravages of emotion on her own face. Betty retired to warn her young mistress.

The widow was considerably vexed. Vain woman as she was, she was not too dull to perceive that the Beau's complaint of her daughter levelled an indirect reproof at herself. The late Squire Courteen, a-man of plethorick habit and a good seat, had broken his neck over a five-barred gate more than seven years ago. Some said his recklessness was too deliberate. Certainly the week before, young Mr. Standish had left the neighbourhood in a great hurry. Moreover when the Will was read it appeared that a codicil had been added the day before the Squire died by which his lady had forfeited every halfpenny of his money if she married before her daughter and by an ingenious stroke did the same if she failed to find a husband during the ensuing six months. Farther, a provision was inserted that this husband must be ten years younger than herself. It was all very much complicated and extremely malicious.

Mrs. Courteen fanned herself reflectively. She was perfectly happy in the ridiculous attentions and elderly gallantries of Major Tarry and Justice Moon. At twenty-nine she had still possessed enough florid beauty to excuse her ill-spelled love-letters. Moreover, she had a husband and was safe sport for young gentlemen who lost the hounds somewhat early in the day. When she was widowed, most of her attraction vanished. She grew fat and had to content herself with middle-aged suitors for whom she became a placid ideal on the dull journey of their lives. Mrs. Courteen continued to fan herself.

That absurd codicil drifted across her thoughts. If Phyllida married she was condemned to poverty or a young husband. Yet, after all, Moon or Tarry had enough--not much, but enough; but then both firmly believed in the annuity. The bitterness of her husband's dying jest stung her for the first time. What a fool she would be made to seem! Certainly Phyllida must not be allowed a wedding; that was the solution.

How fatiguing solutions were, to be sure! She felt quite vapoured. At any rate she would look after her for the future. If she had a gallant he should be discovered. If Betty's tale were true, why, prevention was better than cure.

"Alas!" sighed the widow. "I shall play indifferent well and yet--no matter. Perhaps I shall hold Spadille every hand of the game." Wafted by this pleasant hope, the widow sailed upstairs to assume the scarlet and black gown and the spade-patch which she wore to propitiate the cards; also to embellish her fingers with rings; also to trim her nails to a perfect curve and polish to whiteness the peering moon at their base. To such cardboard emotions was this lady come whose husband broke his neck out hunting.

_Chapter the Fourteenth_

MONARCHY IN REPOSE

On the following morning after breakfast Mrs. Courteen produced a strip of faded rose ribband.

"Try to match this, child," she said to Phyllida.

"But mamma, 'tis not possible. The silk is old," expostulated the daughter who was dressed and ready to take the air.

"Nothing is impossible, child," generalised the widow. "Do your best--all that is required of human beings. You may take Thomas with you."

"But mamma, I don't want Thomas. I would rather take Betty."

"People can't always take what they desire in this world, and a very good thing too," remarked Mrs. Courteen, "for the world would be a wickeder place if they could. Betty must stay and help me."

The widow was determined to begin the supervision of her daughter recommended by Mr. Ripple. It was the old story of Sisyphus and the Stones, of Tregeagle and the Thimble; as mischievous spirits are kept occupied in Tartarus, and condemned for ever to the performance of the impossible, so was Phyllida to be kept from the temptations of idleness, in order to save, if not her soul, at any rate her reputation.

The widow apprehended that obedience would be more easily secured by guile than the direct imposition of a command.

Miss Phyllida Courteen went out that morning with a sullen little frown above her charming little nose, and walked so fast that Thomas was hard put to keep his proper distance behind her as he continued to mutter, 'How long, O Lord?' with many a dolorous wheeze and mortified grunt.

In and out of a dozen haberdashers they went. All the young women behind the counters were very polite and amazingly hopeful, but when they came to pull out the long drawers filled with ribbands of every size and colour, they could only produce the gayest pinks, the most brilliant shades of rose, and though they continued to be very cheerful and persuaded themselves and their rather petulant customer that the match was as near as could be expected, they were quite unsuccessful, and the ribbands were put back in the drawers to await a less exacting purchaser.

Finally Phyllida, turning out of the tenth shop, heard St. Simon's clock strike eleven. It was a moderately fine morning, and she knew her beau was at that moment turning into Curtain Garden. She stamped her foot with vexation and disappointment.

"Oh Thomas, Thomas! was ever such a mad errand before?" complained his mistress.

"Velvet! Vanity! and a-whoring after strange silks," groaned Thomas.

"Thomas," said Miss Courteen in her most engaging voice, "you would do anything for me?"

"With God's help," agreed the footman.

"And you'd do a great deal for a shilling-piece?"

"To spite Beelzebub," said Thomas.

"Then, Thomas, step down to the Western Colonnade, make my compliments to Miss Sukey Morton, say I hope she is better of her cold, and will she give Miss Phyllida Courteen the pleasure of her company to Mrs. Pinkle's Conversazione. But perhaps you'll forget that long message?"

Thomas replied in accents of unctuous solemnity:

"Better of her cold and quite recovered."

"Yes, but there's more."

"Waste not, want not," he answered severely.

"Oh Lud! I suppose I were wise to write it down," with which Miss Courteen tried the eleventh haberdasher. The pinks were just as light, the carmines as crude and fresh as ever.

But at the opposite counter it was possible to buy the most agreeable paper; so Miss Courteen bought a quire, and also a box of wafers marked with a laurel-wreathed C. Then she borrowed old Mrs. Rambone's crow-quill pen with which the accounts were made up every evening in the little back parlour, and Miss Lettice Rambone politely cleared a corner of the counter and brought out a standish, while Phyllida put her swansdown muff on the chair because, though it was high enough to pull about haberdashery, it wasn't high enough for writing letters. After much arrangement, she wrote:

"MY DEAREST MISS MORTON,--_I hope you are better of your cold. I am
truly anxious that you should come and see me this afternoon at
four o'clock on a matter of great importance. I am truly distressed
by a most unlucky Event. I doubt my dearest Sukey can guess what
disturbs her.

Ever affect. and truly devoted_

PHYLLIDA.

P.S. _Pray come_.

P.P.S. _I saw a Red Coat not unknown to a certain young lady now
resident at Curtain Wells. The said Red Coat made a most polite
bow_."

Ph. C.

Then Phyllida sealed the note with one of her new wafers, and Thomas unscrewed the knob of his tall stick and put the note inside and the shilling-piece in his waistcoat pocket and marched away down the High Street, while Phyllida rushed off with her muff held up to the East wind which was quite cold when one was walking so fast. For the Western Colonnade, you turned to the right, but if you were going to Curtain Garden, you turned to the left, and Phyllida turned to the left.

She had to pass the end of the Crescent on her way, and hurried past, afraid for her life to see Mrs. Courteen sailing round the corner. She was now outside the Great House, and could not help looking up to the big bow-windows to see if Mr. Ripple was there. There he was, very calm and very dignified, but a little out of focus because his windows all had such very thick glass. She caught his eye, and the Great little Man smiled at her. She smiled back and blushed, thinking of the meeting of yesterday. Suddenly the window shot up, and Phyllida turned her head to see the Beau beckoning. She stopped in dismay, while Mr. Ripple, having first spread his handkerchief on the sill, leaned out to speak to her.

"Pray pardon this ungenteel summons, my dear Miss Courteen, but if you would not consider yourself compromised by such an adventure, I should be vastly honoured by your inspection of some proper new prints which have fallen into my hands."

Miss Courteen was overwhelmed by this invitation. What could she do but murmur assent?

The Beau, with a delightfully suave gesture, hurried to open the front door for Miss Courteen who tripped up the dazzling white steps, all swansdown and blushes.

Mr. Ripple begged her to follow him upstairs to the drawing-room and be seated before the fire.

It was a fine high room of good proportions, with three large sash-windows and a wrought-iron balcony running along the breadth of the house. The walls were panelled and painted white, and the floor was stained and varnished to a glaze of immense brilliancy. The rugs scattered about it were Aubusson, of rare hues in fawn and puce and faded lavender and old rose interwoven with queer dead greens. There were several prints on the walls, mostly after Watteau and Fragonard. The whole room wore the indescribable air that is only to be found in the house of a bachelor of comfortable means, good taste and a certain age. There was no trace of a woman's hand in its arrangement, and yet one felt that the owner, through long seclusion from the other sex, had softened towards it with the years until, secure at last, he was able to admit a feminine cirrhus into the limpid and rarefied air of his remote celibacy.

Phyllida, as she watched the firelight ripple in orange wavelets across the surface of the blue and white Dutch tiles set on either side of the hob, wondered what the Beau meant by this sudden invitation.

Just then he begged to be excused for a moment while he fetched the portfolio containing his new purchase.

She heard the door gently closed and looked round the room.

How tall and white it was, just like Mr. Ripple's hand, smooth and white and exquisitely shaped. Outside, the grey weather mellowed the ivory of the room. There was a curious stillness as of frost, and she watched the reflection of the fire leaping in opalescent miniature about the high windows. There was a new spinet, set at an angle to the rest of the furniture, in a case of light-coloured wood, painted with cupids, zephyrs and roses, all waxen-pale. The tall, quiet chamber began to depress her spirits, so that she felt compelled to strike the extreme treble note of the spinet which through the stillness rang out like the unwonted pipe of a bird in a hot August woodland.

At last, Phyllida, whose whole body was beginning to tingle with the effort of waiting in such breathless quiet, heard some one coming upstairs. Gog, the Beau's diminutive negro, entered with a silver tray; on which small and shining lake swam coffee cups like swans or fairy shells. The Great little Man followed close upon the dusky heels of his squire and soon Phyllida found herself sipping her coffee in easy conversation with the King of Curtain Wells.

"Do you know the, Maze? he was asking.

"Oh yes," said Phyllida.

"A pleasant spot, cool and green."

"It is indeed."

"I often sit there," said the Beau.

"'Tis a pleasant spot."

"Less fortunate than my poetick namesake, I have no plane-tree there, no long-buried Falernian; but I am unjust to my time, for, after all, I have Curtain Garden and Chalybeate that springs from the depths of earth," continued the Beau, half to himself.

Phyllida was not quite sure what he was talking about, but agreed politely.

"My dear Miss Courteen," said the Beau suddenly, "may I say something very abrupt and perhaps intolerably free, but nevertheless something which I feel ought to be said?"

"Oh yes, sir," Phyllida replied, wishing devoutly that she was well out of this tall, white room.

"My dear Miss Courteen," he went on, "I am a man who knows something of life on its merely social side. I have been an observer, if I may say so, a naturalist of humanity. My self-chosen attitude has forbidden me all passion, save that which is the recognized privilege of an audience. Of love I am supposed to know nothing, save in that third person whose company is unwelcome and superfluous. Perhaps my devotion to the _Odes_ has led me to see too many Lalages, too many Lyces. Perhaps I regard women too much as roses that bloom, scatter their sweets and die. In a word, perhaps I am unsympathetick."

"I don't think you are at all, sir," cried Phyllida, surprized by her own boldness.

"Thank you," said the Beau, with the merest hint of a tremour in his equable voice.

"But," he went on, "if I regard women as roses, I never seek to pluck them: most men do. Miss Phyllida, pray pardon a man of some age who cares more for Youth than he is willing to admit, who is not quite the phantastick, the fop, the cynick that his subjects make him out. You know what Shakespeare says: 'Each man in his time plays many parts.' I, my dear, have remained for more than thirty years faithful to one. That is why I am considered so eccentrick--well, well, I grow loquacious. My dear Miss Courteen, it is very unwise to make assignations in the pride of youth. Assignations belong to the middle-aged, the disillusioned. If you love a young gentleman, make no secret of it, and let the whole world join in your happiness; but if it be necessary to love this young gentleman in Mazes and such clandestine spots, this young gentleman is not worth so much devotion. Who is he?"

"Mr. Amor, Sir," said Phyllida, feeling half inclined to cry.

"Amor? Amor? I don't know the family. Is it by his wish these meetings are kept secret? Yes! yes! I know 'tis very romantick and very rapturous, but, believe me, my dear Miss Courteen, it is not worth the cost. You must think of your reputation."

"I do, Mr. Ripple, indeed I do--all the time!"

"Come, come then, present me to your Amor at the Chinese Masquerade. I'll talk to the rogue, and egad! we'll have the wedding in June. What do you say?"

"I don't think Mr. Amor would be very willing, and I'm sure my mamma would be monstrous vexed."

"Nonsense," said the Beau, "nonsense! You won't be happy, till you've packed yourself into a post-chaise smelling vilely of stale tobacco and horse-cloths. And when you've found some Fleet Street parson to marry you, you'll wish for a fine wedding and a bride-cake, and your tenants cheering and holloaing at the lodge-gates."

Here the Beau showed himself too unfamiliar with the mind of a young woman. The idea of eloping had never yet entered that dainty head of glistening chestnut curls; but from that moment Phyllida began to play with the notion.

"Come, come," he went on, "let's have no more of clandestine courtship. Heiresses and dace both attract by reason of their silver: libertines and pike have much in common. Moreover, you must think of your mother."

"I doubt you don't know my mamma very well. She swears I'm but a child, but I'm not a child, am I, sir?"

Mr. Ripple put up his monocle and solemnly stared at his fair impenitent.

"You are not a very old woman."

"Besides, my mamma doesn't understand the meaning of love."

"My dear young lady," protested the Beau, "that is a very common error with the young. Don't you think that shaded lane once lisped to her footsteps? Don't you think April once broke as sweet for her?"

"Well, if it did," argued Phyllida, "she's forgotten all she ever knew."

"Come, come, I dare swear she has a secret drawer fragrant with cedar. Find it, my dear Miss Phyllida, and you'll find many old letters, many withered nosegays."

"Indeed, I've searched."

"Perhaps her escritoire is the heart."

"'Tis very well for you, Sir, to talk thus, but my parents were never happy."

The Beau mentally cursed the pertinacious memories of servants.

"Then, if that was the case," he went on, "there is the greater reason for your friends to secure you against such an irreparable misadventure. Now come, you'll present me to this Mr. Amor? I may not understand all women, but trust me, I have a tolerable knowledge of men."

The pale February sun cast a watery beam through the high windows and Mr. Ripple's face caught an added lustre, was in fact so bright and kindly that Phyllida promised, subject to Mr. Amor's consent.

And soon they were both bending over the portfolio of prints--very diverting prints they were too, caricatures of the foibles of fashion.

It was certainly very delightful to see tranquil monarch and fervent maid laughing very heartily together at the most prodigious head-dress the world ever saw.

_Chapter the Fifteenth_

PHOEBUS ADEST

The Coffee-room of the _Blue Boar_ wore a remarkably cheerful aspect on the evening of the day on which we have seen something of Beau Ripple's methods. There had been a splendid run from Oaktree Common across the downs to Deadman's Coppice, where a short check only lent a spice to that glorious final run across Baverstock Ridge until they killed just outside Farmer Hogbin's famous barn. And after the death what delicious musick acclaimed the deed--the baying of hounds, the chatter of maids, the clatter of horses' hoofs, the guffaws of Lieutenant Blewforth, the still louder guffaws of Farmer Hogbin mounted on his raw-boned hunter of sixteen hands, the blasts of the horns, the chink of glasses and the wind getting up in the South-west, all combined in harmonious delight. What a splendid ride home it was and how the riders went over each renowned minute of that for-ever-to-be-famous day. Lieutenant Blewforth swore he would forsake the sea for the life of a country gentleman, and everybody laughed when H.M.S. _Centaur_ (so they had named Blewforth and his steed) shied at a belated calf.

"Egad! B-b-Blewforth," stammered little Peter Wingfield, "'tis lucky your stomach was trained on the roaring d-d-deep, for you pitch and roll like a sloop making Ushant."

"Ah! my boy," shouted Blewforth, "my pretty sloop don't shy like this d----d bum-boat I'm pulling."

How Mr. Golightly of Campbell's Grey Dragoons swore such a run was better than a frontal charge at the enemy's guns and how young Tom Chalkley of the Foot stiffened all over and muttered something about the Cavalry. Indeed the only person to look glum was Mr. Anthony Clare who, though he rode better than any of them and had shown them his horse's heels all the way, missed Charles Lovely.

As they walked along the road, fading into early dusk, and heard the wind sighing in the trim hedges and saw the lights of Curtain Wells seven miles away, Clare cursed that passion for cards which made a man forsake the bleak Spring fallows for pastures of green baize.

But later when the huge cold sirloin that sailed in so sleek, sailed out like a battered wreck, and when pints of generous Burgundy had coloured life to its own rich hue, and when Mr. Daish himself had coaxed the fire to roar and blaze up the chimney, and set out the walnuts and put half a dozen ample chairs round the fire, Mr. Clare could not resist the universal content, but must laugh and make merry and relate the events of the day for the seventh time, with as much zest as any of the returned heroes.

Charles had surely been winning: he was so flushed and talked so loudly. Actually he did not possess a penny, and what was worse, owed Mr. Vernon a couple of hundred guineas. Not much, but enough when you have only cloaths to sell, and not a prospect in the world.

Presently one by one the hunters dropped off to sleep with legs outstretched and doffed wigs and long church-wardens' pipes, that one by one dropped from slowly opening mouths, slid along unbuttoned waistcoats and snapped their slender stems upon the floor, until everybody except Mr. Vernon and our hero was snoring the eighth repetition of the events of that famous day.

The room was hot; the drawing of many breaths thick with fatigue, beef and Burgundy induced a meditative atmosphere; the fire no longer blazed, but sank to an intense crimson glow. Mr. Vernon counted up his gains, while Mr. Lovely pondered his losses in silence.

At last the latter got up suddenly.

"The cards?" inquired Mr. Vernon.

"Not to-night. I think I'll take the air," Charles replied.

"As you will," said the other and betook himself once more to his tablets.

Charles paused for a moment outside the Coffee-Room to take down his full black cloak and three-cornered hat. The night wind had brought in its track a melancholy drizzle of rain that suited his own melancholy mood. He wandered rather vaguely across the wide inn-yard, passed under the arch and sauntered along the deserted High Street.

To tell the truth, Mr. Lovely was very unpleasantly situated at this period. His father had been the ne'er-do-weel survivor of a long line of country squires away down in Devonshire. When he had eloped with Miss Joan Repington, to the eternal chagrin of the young lady's brother, a rich banker knighted for his loyal support of the Protestant Succession, Valentine Lovely ran through his own and his wife's fortune in the first six years of matrimony. Thence onwards they lived a hand-to-mouth existence, dependent on Valentine's luck at the tables and the inviolableness of an aunt's legacy of five thousand guineas.

Mrs. Lovely died, prematurely aged, in the birth of a still-born child, and Mr. Valentine Lovely and his young son continued to live the same haphazard existence for another ten years. Charles spent all his time with his father who in the intervals of drink and play taught his heir to step a minuet, sing a merry song, and indite a witty epigram; also he gave him a case of pistols, heavily chased with the Lovely arms, and lent him the family tree for target. Finally he made him proficient in the polite use of the smallsword and the dice-box.

Once, when an early summer made the Bath intolerably hot, Mr. Lovely and his heir posted down to Devonshire in a crimson chariot putting up at the _Prior's Head_, in Danver Monachorum. He spent a week paying unwelcome visits to the neighbouring gentry who looked askance at the crimson chariot and still more askance at the degenerate heir of the Lovelys. Valentine soon tired of so much pastoral exercise and departed to St. Germain's, leaving young Charles in the care of an old stillroom maid, now a prosperous farmer's wife. The boy spent placid hours in rich meadows, ate a quantity of scalded cream, and grew out of knowledge in the six months of his stay. He used to wander down to the park gates--gloriously wrought-iron gates between massive stone pillars that bore on each summit a quintett of cannon balls, the reputed trophy of some seafaring Elizabethan Lovely. There was a picture in the great hall, of curiously inferior execution, portraying numbers of Devon sailormen led by a huge-ruffed gentleman with a long peaked beard, swarming up the towering sides of the galleon _Jesu Maria_. Charles was taken to see it when the new family was gone up to London town. He also saw the great stone swan over the vast fireplace, with the motto of his house, _Sum decorus_.

Later in the autumn his father returned and the old life of lodgings, inland Spas and long posting journeys was resumed. He had never again visited that remote Devon village, with its cows and pastures and dairymaids and famous chronicles.

Then, just after Charles reached his majority, Mr. Lovely Senior died quite suddenly, and our hero found himself in undisputed possession of the interest on five thousand guineas and as much more in cash, owing to a lucky run by his father in the week before his death.

Charles now indulged the family vice of throwing money to the dogs and, having lost the earnings of his father, set about realizing a trifle of ready money on the five thousand guineas left him by his mother's aunt. This step brought him into pen-and-ink contact with old Sir George Repington who wrote him a stern letter of advice, with a postscript offering him a stool in the Repington bank. Charles was furious and did not reply.

About that time he renewed the friendship with Mr. Anthony Clare begun in that far-off summer away down in Devonshire. The latter persuaded him to leave London and come to Curtain Wells where for a time he lived happily enough on his small annuity. However, just before our story opened, he had been hard hit at loo and had raised a thousand guineas by making over the interest on his inheritance to the friendly moneylender who advanced the needed sum. On the top of this came his losses to Vernon, and now he was stranded indeed.

Therefore the melancholy drizzle of rain suited his melancholy mood. Of course he could borrow, play again and perhaps win, but if he should lose he would be in debt to a friend, a position which he disliked. His father, less scrupulous in this respect, was always content to lay himself under fresh obligations. To Charles, however, something of the pride which sustains a great financial house had descended through his mother and, prodigal though he was, he would never borrow money from a friend. Of course a moneylender was different, but what security could he offer? It looked as if he would have to appeal to his uncle after all. This alternative was thoroughly odious, and Charles racked his brains to discover a way out of the difficulties into which he was plunged.

In such despondent meditation he wandered on until the dancing glare of two large flambeaux, stuck in iron sockets, caught his attention. He found himself outside the Great House.

The project of consulting with the Beau entered his mind, but St. Simon's struck the hour of ten, and he knew Mr. Ripple would be retiring to rest, since he was accustomed to preserve his energy on those nights when he was not called out to preside over an assembly, rout, or masquerade. At that moment the two flambeaux, as if to proclaim their owner's withdrawal from the claims of society, simultaneously collapsed and strewed Mr. Ripple's fair white steps with ashes.

The sudden darkness betrayed the opalescent windows of the Beau's bed-chamber. He had neglected to draw the curtains, and on the blind his suave shadow disported itself in preparation for the night and the next morning.

Charles watched the shadow dip giant fingers into monstrous pomade pots. Now those fast deepening crowsfeet were being vigorously rubbed. Now that swift creasing neck was being smoothed with slow caressing movements. The wig-block displayed itself in generous shadowy curves. Now, surely, the shadow's sudden inaction betokened a contemplation of creeping age.

"And this," thought Charles, "is the destiny marked out for me by Ripple."

He knew if he waited upon him on the morrow, explained his reverses, and promised amendment, the Beau would one day procure for him the monarchy of the Wells, but Charles was not inclined to manipulate the strings of marionettes, himself suspended from a longer cord and dancing for the amusement of a higher power.

The incongruity of the situation, disclosed by the Beau's window, tickled his sense of humour. There was the monarch of an artificial kingdom caulking his wrinkles like a beldame in search of her youth; there he was, that despotick king who prescribed Chalybeate as the Panacea for all earthly ills, in ludicrous terror at the swift flight of his complexion.

There he was, no better than the chief eunuch of a Persian harem with authority over women and the power of lock and key against intrusive fops.

Yet he was a kindly man and a gentleman. He was feared and loved, a man whom the world called successful. Charles himself liked fine cloaths, found talking pleasant, enjoyed the organization of splendid entertainments, yet he could not condemn himself to eternal celibacy and the preservation of his figure. The restriction of such an existence would be unendurable.

You will remember perhaps that in our first Chapter we caught Beau Ripple in undignified pursuit of a button. We agreed how rash it was for Gods and Goddesses to discover their anatomy to mortals, and here is the very fact being forced home to Mr. Charles Lovely, an understudy to divinity.

Our hero went on his way, fortified against one ambition.

Presently he passed by the lodgings of Mrs. Courteen as the door was being opened to let out the satellite Moon and the appropriately named Tarry. The pair of them paused on the steps to ascertain the state of the weather and discuss the several games of ombre which they had played for mother-o'-pearl counters.

"Gadslife!" murmured Charles, "Ombre for counters! Then is great Anna really dead?"

The expensive lodgings of the Earl of Vanity towered above him and he heard my Lord, with a flowered dressing-gown wrapped about his skinny shanks, d----g his daughter's eyes for being so late at old Mrs. Frillface's quadrille party. Farther down the Crescent was old Mrs. Frillface's house, and outside stood two handsome chairs with the chairmen fast asleep on the cushions, soon to be wakened from the frowsy damask by Mrs. Frillface's bloated footman.

And so on past all the lodgings of Curtain Wells.