The Passionate Elopement
notable captains in Elysium, I make no doubt at the sight he gave vent
to an attenuated cackle of pleasure.
Nothing sets a woman off to such disadvantage as the need to introduce a
pair of men whom instinctively she knows to be hostile to each other.
They never make the slightest attempt to help her out of the awkward
position, and, indeed, add to it by such haughty behaviour, such
ruffling of crests and bristling of limbs that under the circumstances
the most polished gentlemen become uncouth savages or dogs eager to
squabble over a debated bone.
In this instance Mr. Vernon stared Sir George Repington up and down,
while the latter, who was not accustomed to such freedom of regard, took
snuff very aggressively and looked as if he would like to give the
intruder a moment's notice, as indeed he would. Phyllida tried to stem
the tide of embarrassment by remarking in a hushed voice that Sir George
had been kindly entertaining her in the absence of Mr. Amor.
"Has he?" was the latter's frigid response.
"And oh, Amor," she went on, "those odious postillions pushed their way
to the room and wanted money and Sir George kindly came to the rescue
and bade them begone."
"Did he?" was all that Vernon would vouchsafe in thanks to this timely
assistance.
Phyllida, abashed by her lover's bad manners, seemed inclined to
apologize for them with tears. And now Sir George did what most
Englishmen would have done under the circumstances--he walked out of the
room in a very stately way. No doubt the banker thought the strength of
feeling which had led him to reveal his life's tragedy would kindle an
equal emotion in the heart of Miss Courteen and that when he returned he
would find the raffish intruder gone.
This was in fact the precise result of his withdrawal. When he returned,
Mr. Vernon was gone. But neither was Miss Phyllida Courteen anywhere in
sight.
_Chapter the Thirty-second_
THE HORRID ADVENTURES OF BEAU RIPPLE AND MRS. COURTEEN
We will, if you please, take for granted the persuasions used by Mr.
Vernon to induce Phyllida to continue upon her headlong course. He rode
beside her on this second stage of her adventure, and I shall have
something to say of that drive together through the darkness of wind and
rain. We will take for granted Sir George Repington's indignation,
expressed with many a z----ds and many a pinch of snuff, and since
there are a number of fine folk abroad on this most atrocious evening,
it is only just that we should pay them the compliment of relating their
horrid adventures.
You have not forgotten, I hope, the sensation created in Curtain Wells
by the sight of Beau Ripple and Mrs. Courteen ensconced in the former's
vivid yellow postchaise, driven by the former's diminutive groom
Pridgeon. You made one of a host of conjectures, or rather you would
have done had you not been in the heart of the secret, thanks to the
honest, straightforward way in which I have treated you throughout this
story.
They went off with 'Tally-ho' and 'Whoo-whoop, gone away!' They rattled
over the cobbles and clattered over the kidney stones and jolted
prodigiously over a kerb that protruded too far into the road. They
bumped over a log of wood dropped by old Mother Hubbard in her frantick
endeavours to gain the protection of the pavement, they ground the face
of little Miss Muffet's favourite wax doll to minutest grains of powder.
They experienced a second's muffled progress as with two wheels they
rolled over little Tommy Trout's Easter coat and with the others made a
broad smear over little Sammy Green's satchel and cracked his new Horn
Book into a thousand splinters.
As for Mr. Ripple, every time he rose to a wayside obstacle and fell
with a genteel plump into Mrs. Courteen's wide lap, he had a sensation
of the acutest disgust; with disgust, too, he viewed his cushions of
fawn silk and ivory sattin bedabbled with the widow's copious
tears--these cushions made salt with a mortal widow's grief that were
never intended to be spoiled with anything less ethereal than the
glittering milk of the Queen of Heaven.
Extreme dizziness overtook the Great little Man when, in accents hoarse
with hysterical sorrow, the wretched woman by his side begged the loan
of his handkerchief. Then, indeed, he nearly called to Pridgeon to check
their mad course, turn the horses' heads stablewards, brooding for a
sensuous second upon the delights of a warm meditative bath, made
sweeter with Citron Essence.
Poor Mr. Ripple! As the mile-stones fled past and the chilly March
twilight crept over the dusky fallows and peered above the black
hedgerows, he thought with unutterable pangs of the cheerful and
comfortable town of Curtain Wells. His china shepherds and shepherdesses
called to him over the bleak country, and in the distance like elfin
bells he heard the reproachful tinkle of his elegant lustres.
At the turnpike Mr. Ripple asked the keeper whether a post-chariot had
lately come under his jurisdiction.
"Dick who?" inquired the janitor.
"Have you seen a post-chariot?" said Mr. Ripple, petulantly.
"No, I ain't. Have you seen two bullocks as 'ave lost, stolen and
strayed theyselves hereabouts--the red 'un with a----"
"Drive on," said Mr. Ripple.
"That's gentry," commented the gatekeeper as, spitting on the bust of
King George which reposed in the palm of his dirty hand, he retired to
brood over a well-thumbed pamphlet that set forth with convincing
ribaldry, the imminent danger of another Popish plot.
"Drive on," said Mr. Ripple, "we shall have a heavy shower presently."
They were bowling down a broad village street with a merry jingle of
harness and rhythmical clatter of hoofs, while the cracking of little
Pridgeon's whip, nearly as big as himself, made many inquisitive bodies
huddle in the low doorways of the cottages to survey the gallant
equipage.
"Reg'lar delooge, your honour," said Pridgeon, turning round on the box.
Mrs. Courteen was already so wet with the tears of outraged motherhood
that the addition of rain could scarcely have affected her comfort.
Nevertheless she shuddered so expansively that she squeezed her
companion closer than ever to the side of the chaise.
"Shall we put up at the _Green Dragon_?--very comfortable Inn, the
_Green Dragon_."
"No, no, Pridgeon, drive on. If it rains, it rains."
Such a platitude from Beau Ripple can only have been provoked by the
intensest despair. A ploughboy's epigram would not have seemed more out
of place. The Nine Muses were certainly waked from their harmonious
lethargy, and a small boy, playing _Sally in our Alley_ on a Jew's harp,
twanged a discordant echo of their shocked sensibility. A platitude from
Beau Ripple! The very chaise collapsed in ignominy. Bump--bang--whooooo!
The gay vehicle was on its side and the front off-wheel was whirling
madly down the broad slope of the street, to the enormous delight of the
boy with the Jew's harp and the immense consternation of a flock of
geese in whose company it made a noisy entrance into the village pond.
Pridgeon turned once more on the Jimmy and, having pulled up the horses
and gazed at the Tableau, remarked:
"Blow me tight if I didn't think the wheel'd do that afore we started.
Blow me right and tight!"
By this time, all the village stood in a circle and supplied an
exhaustive commenting upon the sad event.
"She's putt her futt through her petticutt," whooped grandmother.
"So her 'ave and toored 'un proper."
"Blarm 'un if the old buoy's knee ain't streaked like somebody's baad
baacon."
"So it be, buoy, so it be," came the delighted rejoinder.
"Look, see the seat of his breeches!" cried a shapely hussy.
"I never saw such a power o' mud, why 'e's like a brown paaper plaster
behind. Poor soul!"
"Horse ain't hurt?" asked a sharp-featured, bow-legged individual with
professional anxiety.
Four or five hobbledehoys had assisted the Beau to his feet and
volunteered to show him the way to the _Green Dragon_. As that hostelry
stood exactly opposite the scene of the disaster, the offer savoured of
something more than mere friendliness.
Mrs. Courteen was whirling round and round, like a kitten after her
tail, trying to ascertain the precise amount of damage close to her
train; a good-natured booby stuck his foot on the skirt to steady it for
her inspection, and in doing so made the rent more irreparable.
"Better go to the _Green Dragon_, your honour," said Pridgeon, as spruce
as when he started.
"Better go to h----, you dunderhead," said the Beau, very white with
well-bred passion and the shock of the catastrophe. No fragile vase of
Dresden or of azure Sevres, no figure of opalescent Worcester, no
violet-flowered teapot of Lowestoft that ever fell from a proud cabinet
through the careless sweep of a chambermaid's broom, was to be so deeply
commiserated as Mr. Horace Ripple. These painted monuments of care
betray their inherent beauty even in the dainty particles that proclaim
their wreckage, but a fop with muddied breeches--why, in the very first
chapter of this story we trembled to behold the circumference of the
least dignified part of the Beau's anatomy protruding from beneath a
bedstead; and on that occasion, it was gay with the flowers of a silk
dressing-gown.
I do not think that the Great little Man ever recovered from this
outrage to his personal attire, for to the very end of his modish days,
he would wear a coat cut an inch or two lower than was readily allowed
by the least conservative tailor in his employment.
As for Mrs. Courteen, who followed meekly in the wake of her wounded
escort, she could not refrain from wishing that the Major and the
Justice were at hand to console her with jealous attentions and rival
sympathies, and when the first round drop of the swift-approaching storm
hit her plump on the nose and washed away in its downward course the
last vestige of powder from her face, she regretted also the tributary
fingers of Betty.
In the hall of the _Green Dragon_ their reception was almost servile.
Great Cobblebury, for all its pompous name, was too near to Curtain
Wells to attract the attention of many travellers, and the _Green
Dragon_ depended for custom almost entirely on the thirstiness of the
surrounding population. Guests, therefore, received very excellent
service for their money. The host, one George Upex, had watched the
advance of the chaise with sleek arms beneath a protuberant apron and
thumbs that twiddled sleepily; but the smash aroused his hospitable
instincts, and by the time Mr. Ripple and Mrs. Courteen had reached the
doorway of the inn, he was back from the kitchen, where he had hastily
ordered the immediate insertion into the capacious oven of several
dishes, and was ready to usher the stranded travellers into the parlour.
"And what will your good lady take?" he inquired, with his rubicund face
cocked at what he considered a very appetizing angle.
"She is not my good lady, sirrah," rapped out the Beau.
"Not at all, your honour--beg pardon," said Mr. Upex, putting up a
gigantick hand to an equally gigantick mouth as if he would force the
latter feature to eat the indiscreet question it had so grossly emitted.
"How long will it take to mend the damage to my chaise?" demanded Mr.
Ripple.
The landlord made a rough calculation in his mind.
"About an hour to cook the--to mend the--er--chaise," he replied.
"Have you a bed?" asked the Beau.
The landlord beamed. They were going to spend the night under his roof,
and mentally he saw himself on the next day obscuring the sunlight of
the parlour with a very long bill.
"A bed, your honour? Yes, indeed! Oh! yes." Mr. Upex paused. "A bed?"
"Yes! a bed--a b-e-d--bed."
"For one night?"