The Passionate Elopement
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