The Passionate Elopement
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