The Passionate Elopement
Miss Courteen was so much charmed by this loquacious dream that she
began to compose an appropriate verse destined to be wrapped round the
green stalks of the flowers.
_The snowdrop's white_
_And so are you. . ._
The smallest foot in the world beat time upon the balcony making the
iron bars on which she stood vibrate in twanging chords, but failed to
summon from the caves of Poesy an echo worthy of the snowdrop's white.
"The last line is monstrous easy," she thought.
_The bluebell's blue!_ and the accumulation of liquids and labials has
enchanted her mouth to such a delicious pout that Mr. Vernon is leaning
forward and combing his wig more contemplatively than ever, for,
although he cannot see his charmer's lips, he feels sure from the
attitude of her whole body that her face is infernally captivating, and
the memory of her last whispered good-bye assails him and kindles a
leaping flame at the back of his hazel eyes.
Such a merciless regard as ours penetrates to the heart and we know that
Mr. Vernon is wondering what on earth will come of his affair with Miss
Courteen, and speculating how much she will inherit, and whether
matrimony is quite so expensive a joy as his friends make out. The
thought of money writes an ugly twisted line across his high smooth
forehead, and this line broadens into a hundred little tributary lines
as he thinks of his debts. So he brings himself back to the obstacles of
life in rather a gloomy frame of mind and faces the necessity of his
toilet in such a depression of spirits that he selects a suit to match
his mood. And that is the reason why Mr. Francis Vernon wore purple
sattin on Valentine morning.
All this while, Miss Courteen is quite unable to invent that odious
third line, and though she taps her foot to aerial musick and pulls a
chestnut curl right over her nose and twists it round her fingers and
wonders whether 'white' is a notably difficult word to rhyme, she never
succeeds, and just when she has almost succeeded, her mother's voice
sounds from the floor above. This disposes of inspiration altogether,
for though her mother's voice is very melodious and sounds prodigiously
pleasant as it murmurs 'Spadille' or 'Manille' over the card-tables, it
will allow no competition, and drives all invisible musick far away.
"Coming, dear mamma," says Phyllida just as Mr. Vernon decides to wear
purple and just as we step out of Mrs. Choke's front door thinking it
can no longer be indiscreet to follow our Muses to the scene of Mrs.
Courteen's toilet.
As we cross the road glittering in the sunshine with last night's rain,
we see a tall young gentleman writing busily in a set of ivory tablets
as he strolls quietly along the pavement. Mr. Lovely, the young
gentleman, looks up very quickly as a three-cornered note flutters down
and lodges in a fold of his ruffles. Miss Courteen who felt the note
falling, and thinks that after all she need not make more than a pretty
attempt to save it, peers over the railing into the upturned face of the
young gentleman who bows very low and sweeps his hat round in a very
grand curve, and begs to apologize for the awkwardness of his ruffles in
thus intercepting a lady's note. And you and I, my inquisitive
companion, stand still for a moment and watch the picture, remembering
it is merry Valentine morn. The maid with wide eyes and crimson cheeks
nestling in swansdown and the young man of the laughing expectant face,
in his peach-coloured velvet suit, seem somehow to have caught the
spirit of the day: they make us think of broken stiles, of hedges heavy
with may, of blue and white April noons, of lambs, and children with
pinafores a-flutter gathering cowslip-posies on a wind-washed down, and
of all the old and dear delights of Spring.
Says Phyllida, "Oh! pray pardon my clumsiness."
And "Madam," says he very gallantly, "I'm incredibly obliged, for you've
given me a rhyme."
"Oh! pray tell me--was it to 'white'?"
"Nay! 'twas harder than that," he murmurs.
"But I think that is monstrous difficult."
"Bright, sight, light," (cheerfully) "height," (regretfully) "night,"
(hopefully) and "fight," (fiercely).
"Indeed," adds Phyllida, "I thought of every one of them, but not one
would fit the sense."
The young gentleman who is a rhymester himself, grows interested. "Might
I," says he, "without impertinence inquire your necessity?"
"Sure, 'tis for a Valentine," and as Mr. Lovely's face darkens, she
hurriedly adds, "for a young lady, a friend of mine, you'll see the
direction writ on the flap."
His face clears again and he asks,
"You wish it delivered?"
"Oh, sir! how did you guess?"
"By accident, ma'am, or a happy intuition, I stepped out to take the air
this fine morning, and chance has discovered for me an incontrovertible
excuse for such idle exercise. To be footman to a sister of the Muses is
surely appropriate service for a poet."
"Then you are a poet?"
"My publisher affirms it."
"How romantick truly!" but the tail of the sigh is interrupted by her
mother's voice, and she has bare time to murmur her thanks, drop a
genteel curtsey and vanish. As for Mr. Lovely he has registered a vow to
attend the Monday Assembly next week instead of sitting down to Hazard
at the _Blue Boar_ Inn.
Abovestairs all is confusion because Mrs. Courteen cannot make up her
mind between yellow lutestring and orange silk. Phyllida whose heart is
full of the dancing springtide thinks her dear mamma should wear the
brightest colours and the richest stuffs in the world.
"For if you would only allow the curtains to be drawn back, you would
see what a golden morning it is outside," she complains to her mother
who answers:
"Women of fashion, Phyllida, dress by candlelight for candlelight."
Betty the maid, agrees with her young mistress, "Sweet, pretty dear
lamb," as she asseverates in Hampshire accents, "Orange silk, say I, and
God bless the gaulden sun."
Mrs. Courteen who is sitting nearly half-undressed and quite incapable
of forming a decision, bids Betty go and find out Thomas' opinion.
Thomas is the family footman and a great critick of men, women, and
religions. Presently Betty comes back and says that Tammas would prefar
yaller.
"Why, Betty, why?"
"Because," answers the maid, "he says silks are for the vain and
abominable and lutestrings have a pleasant twang and savour of the
psalmist."
So Mrs. Courteen turns from yellow sack to orange sack and from
primrose-quilted petticoat to apricock-quilted petticoat in despair,
till at last Betty asks triumphantly:
"How would it be, ma'am, if you was to wear your most elegant and truly
genteel green sattin seeing that it do be Saint Valentine with a smell
of green leaves in the air?"
This provokes a new decision, and causes a great rummaging in drawers
and presses and closets until the gown, fragrant with last year's
lavender, is discovered, when the toilet too long neglected starts
afresh.
"What patches, ma'am?" says Betty.
"My Cupid's bow and the two tears of widowhood."
"What scents, mamma?" asks Phyllida.
"My Citron Essence, child."
Then shoes are buckled, stockings are gartered, and a black mantua
placed gently round her shoulders. One more touch of powder, one more
brush from the rouge pot, one more flounce and one more flirt while the
watchet ribbands in the cap are hastily changed to ribbands of palest
apple-green, and a pair of emerald snaps are quickly fastened.
"Does my hoop sit straight? Oh! Lud! I vow I shall be late."
A breathless moment and, in place of the mantua, a tippet of pheasants'
feathers is adjusted. Down the Crescent is heard the opening of many
doors. Phyllida runs to the window, draws back the curtains so that the
sun streams in upon the sicklied candles.
"Has the Beau appeared yet?" asks Mrs. Courteen.
"Here he comes, and oh! mamma, he is wearing a suit of olive-green."
"What great good fortune! what taste I shall display. Green is certainly
the fashionable colour," and Mrs. Courteen began to trill to a tune of
her own invention....
"I shall be _a la mode_, I shall be _a la mode_ and very _bon ton_ and
_tres bon ton_."
Radiant, she descends the stairs followed by Betty carrying an enormous
glass goblet. Outside, rubicund Thomas with heavily knobbed cane awaits
her. The widow glances over her shoulder at the crowds swinging down the
street, all equipped with glass goblets of various sizes and shapes. She
throws an anxious glance towards the head of the procession. The Beau is
certainly in green of a shade slightly darker than her own but,
nevertheless, distinctly comparable. She tosses her cap in anticipation
of the envied triumph and sails in the general direction.
And you, Achates, who have accompanied me so early in the morning to the
toilets of some of our principal characters, pray give yourself the
additional trouble of thinking what a Great Man he must be to induce
these butterflies and moths of fashion to sally forth Cap a Pie perfect
at half-past eight o'clock of a February morning.
"Let Bath be true to her bedgowns," he wrote, "in Curtain Wells we are
ignorant that men and women undress."
When we think of that apoplectick Circumference which so lately
protruded, we can heartily assent to his opinion.
_Chapter the Second_
THE PUMP ROOM
As all roads are commonly reputed to lead to Earls Court, so here at
Curtain Wells all roads led to the Pump Room. It dominated the city from
the summit of a moderately steep hill as the Acropolis dominates the
almost equally famous city of Athens. In certain aspects it bore a
remarkable likeness to a Greek temple with its fluted columns and
portico haunted by many white pigeons. It was even more like a gigantick
summer-house whose interior was always open to the four winds. Any
reasonable explanation of a spring that gushed forth at the very top of
a hill always eluded those who toiled laboriously up the slope; but, as
a more religious butterfly once remarked, Providence plainly designed it
to serve some useful purpose by allowing it to gush forth at such an
unexpected elevation. The same lady used to regard volcanoes as an
uncomfortable if divine method of destroying large numbers of Papists
together, and would pertinently observe that if England had admitted the
claims of the Pretender, she was convinced what was now a cool,
health-giving fountain would have boiled over to the horrid
accompaniment of flames and lava. At precisely a quarter to nine
o'clock, Beau Ripple paused at the foot of the hill to survey through a
monocle his flurried followers. A wag once said that Ripple liked to
gaze at life through the wrong end of a spy-glass, because he himself
was of so small a stature. Whether this monocle actually diminished his
world to the size of an ant-heap, I do not know, but certainly the whole
assemblage stopped to recover their breath as if conscious of their
utter lack of importance in the eyes of the Great little Man. The
Physician-in-chief was solemnly beckoned into hearing.
"Two minutes," said the Beau.
Mr. Oboe the Physician opened the lid of an enormous watch attached to a
red silk fob and regarded the dial with an expression of great
intentness. He might, so complete was his abstraction, have been feeling
the pulse of the Exquisite Mob behind him.
Slowly the minutes rolled by while the Beau took several possessive
sniffs of the young spring air. Not an unseemly whisper disturbed the
silence. So still was it that above the cooing of the sacred pigeons on
the roof of the Pump Room, far down in the valley could be heard the
lowing of cows. At thirteen minutes to nine Mr. Ripple let his monocle
drop; Mr. Oboe replaced his watch; the Pump Room bell began to clang