The Passionate Elopement
the conventionally ample type. The rooms with exterior rows of galleries
were built round a large quadrangle to which coaches and stage waggons
were admitted through an arch that was only just high enough for the
vehicles of a more recent pattern. The fixed population consisted of
innumerable plump and shapely chambermaids, innumerable dried-up
hostlers and grooms, and a certain number of sedate waiters who were all
clothed in the same shade of rusty black, and all of whom wished they
had settled earlier in life to become footmen. However this canker of
thwarted ambition never prevented them from handling anything from a
soup-tureen to a guinea-piece with reverence and precision.
The host, Jeremy Daish, was neither round nor rubicund. On the contrary
he was remarkably sallow and, in his suit of cinnamon cloth, bore a
vague likeness to a well-seasoned Cremona violin. He was the builder,
owner, and inventor of the famous _Daish's Rooms_ adjoining the Inn and,
as the latter served for a recognized adjunct to the more official
_Assembly Rooms_, Mr. Daish became a somewhat mildewed counterpart of
the great Beau himself, a mezzotint ill-executed of a famous painting in
oils. His back was so often crouched in servility that it had acquired a
permanent stoop. Rumour said that years ago Mr. Daish was often seen
fiddle in hand at West-country fairs and wakes, and supported the legend
by pointing out when a lady of the extremist fashion and quality graced
his dancing floor with a pair of very high red heels, the solemn
innkeeper would steal to the Dais of the musicians and, taking an
instrument, would himself bob and play my lady through a minuet with
considerable Gusto and Bravura.
The _Blue Boar_ was patronized by a select company of fashionable young
gentlemen who lent the old hostelry something of the tone of White's or
Almack's. Bagmen were excluded from the wing occupied by these elegant
patrons, and though from time to time one of the former, with a merry
reputation, would be invited to take wine with the quality in return for
the tale of a famous and gross adventure, it was distinctly understood
that nothing low or vulgar was allowed to penetrate beyond a certain
doorway.
Beau Ripple himself would saunter down towards twilight and exhort his
youthful subjects on the folly of vice, the futility of play and the
obligation to drink the waters at half-past eight o'clock. Mr. Ripple
was esteemed a Puritan, but such a genteel Puritan that the young
gentlemen, subdued by the length of his waistcoats and his
irreproachable ties and solitaires, listened to him willingly enough,
and overpowered by the orthodoxy of his wigs and buckles, the fullness
of his shirts and the size of his cuffs, heeded his warnings sometimes.
Mr. Lovely strolled through the archway into the yard all fresh and
shining after the morning swill. Along the galleries, the chambermaids
were hurrying about their work, and the figure of Mrs. Grindle, the
housekeeper, glittering and jingling with keys, warned him no loitering
in the galleries would be tolerated at that hour of the day. Two horses
were being groomed in the courtyard, but as he had discussed all their
points both with their owners and the hostlers at least half a dozen
times before, he was not inclined to pursue the outworn theme farther.
"Mr. Clare about?" he inquired.
"Han't seen him, y'r honour," answered one of the workers.
"'Es that Mr. Clare?" asked the other.
"Yes, my good fellow, have you seen him?"
"Rode over to Baverstock Regis to see a maiden aunt," the man replied.
"Ho! ho! ho!" roared the first, "dang me if that bean't the best I ever
hard. Ho! Ho! ho!" and convulsed with merriment, the man slapped his
tight-breeched thighs with frequency and vigour.
"You make the very d--l of a noise, Sirrah," said Mr. Lovely fretfully.
"I axe y'r honour's pardon, but when I hard Jock there talking of maiden
aunts--ho--ho--ho! and when I minds that shaapely--ah! well it doan't do
to mention no naames, but it come over me sudden to laugh," and with
this apology, the humorous hostler picked up his mare's near fore-leg,
and continued to chuckle at intervals for the rest of the day.
Mr. Lovely began to think Tony Clare was confoundedly young, and when
one young man begins to think another young man confoundedly young, it
is usually a convincing proof that the pensive young man is deep in
love.
"What's a fellow to do?" he sighed as he turned into the coffee-room. It
was empty, so he called for a draught of ale, put his feet on the window
seat and surveyed the passers-by. He wondered what had become of his
friends, and why the d----l all the world was gone mad because the sun
shone with unwonted brilliance for the middle of February. Then he
remembered it was Valentine day and amused himself with the manufacture
of paper darts which he shot at the prettiest young women in range.
Unluckily, in an attempt to pierce the ripe heart of buxom Miss Page who
assisted at the cook-shop, he wounded the Rector on the nose. This set
him moralizing on the fortune of Love. Could anything be more
incongruous than Love and the Rector. Yet why not? We are all targets of
a dimpled nudity. The phrase caught his fancy. Numberless Cupids in
attitudes of attack floated before his mind's eye. "Demme!" thought Mr.
Lovely, "my brain is like an Italian ceiling. Targets of a dimpled
nudity!" He flung back the lattice to its utmost extent and leaned out
to the morning whence the chatter of the world without floated into the
sunny room.
"Everybody is monstrous good-humoured," he concluded. But somehow it was
no longer amusing to quiz the young woman in Mrs. Tabby's ribband-shop
through his ivory rimmed perspective. Somehow since yesterday her
forearm had grown coarser.
"All the world's growing old," he grumbled disconsolately. But the world
would not be vapoured, and laughed and chattered and bobbed and flirted
and chirped with all the selfishness of a world that is always young in
defiance of the moods of her individuals.
Suddenly the mob of Cupids faded from his mind and the World at which he
was scoffing ceased to exist. Surely at the very end of the High Street,
he could discern something which was slowly assuming the magic shape of
a swansdown tippet. His heart began to beat very fast and he felt the
rushing crimson flood his cheeks. Life was wrapped in swansdown, as,
through clouds of the airy texture, his soul soared to unimaginable
heights. Then came the descent and, waking as from a dream, he found
himself staring down into a pair of wide blue eyes. In his embarrassment
he knocked over a pot of jacynths and, above the noise of the fall,
heard himself telling a Swansdown Muff he had delivered the paquet.
Could anything be more enchanting than the warning fore-finger, save
the lips to which it was lifted? Could anything better console his
enforced silence than the knowledge that between him and her existed a
secret? The swansdown tippet and swansdown muff had vanished, but
fragments of broken Terra Cotta strewed the pavement. The swansdown
tippet and swansdown muff had floated away to some fairyland of their
own, but a blue jacynth perfumed the air.
Certainly the idlers of Curtain Wells had a fruitful subject for an
afternoon's debate in the sight of young Mr. Lovely climbing out of the
coffee-room window. Besides, if that were not amazing enough, the idlers
were immediately diverted by the aspect of young Mr. Lovely gathering up
the remains of a shattered flower-pot and clasping a bruised jacynth to
his silk waistcoat. They all agreed the incident had no explanation, and
were even stirred out of their perpetual lethargy to muster round the
entrance of the _Blue Boar_ in order to verify a daring speculation that
he was going to carry the fragments within.
"Good G----!" said Mr. Ripple who was approaching the archway from the
other side. "Good G----, sir, are you mad?" To Mr. Ripple the shock was
great. He had aspirations for Mr. Lovely. To be sure, he was wild, an
extravagant young dog, but then he possessed an inimitable assurance of
manner, a pretty talent for polite verse-making, and a consummate taste
in brocades. The Beau of late had often pondered the choice of his
successor. He had aspirations for Mr. Lovely and now he saw his
favourite positively panting (the most ungenteel motion and fatal to the
fall of a waistcoat), not merely panting but smeared with mould, hugging
potsherds, and apparently quite unmoved by his degradation. Is it
wonderful that Mr. Ripple cried,
"Good G----, sir, are you mad?"
"Yes," shouted Mr. Lovely.
"Or drunk?"
"Yes," shouted Mr. Lovely.
As he seemed inclined to answer every question in the affirmative, the
Beau remarked he wished to see a representative group of the young
gentlemen at the Blue Boar upon a matter of the gravest social and
civick importance.
Our hero ejaculated, "With you in the twinkling of a bedpost," and raced
across the yard, up the first staircase, along the first gallery and
into the last room.
A light broke upon Mr. Ripple's bewilderment.
"He has discovered some prehistorick relicks. Probably Cinerary Urn, a
Lunette or possibly a gold coin of Rome."
In pleasant anticipation, the Beau who was an intimate friend of Mr.
Sylvanus Urban, beheld the folded copper-plate illustrating the
discovery and the rounded sentences on the opposite page of the
_Gentleman's Magazine_ in which the excavations would be carefully
recorded by Horace Ripple.
"This must assuage my wrath," he decided by the door of the coffee-room.
To tell the truth, the Beau was on censure bent when he met our hero
outside the _Blue Boar_.
Already, that morning, he had alluded to the riotous nocturnal
behaviour, the assaults upon the watch, the fusilade of empty bottles,
but not being able to descry a single offender, he determined that
personal and individual remonstrance would be more efficacious. To the
_Blue Boar_ therefore, he went having first exchanged his suit of olive
green for one of black sattin unrelieved by silver and terminated by
ruffles whose cambrick fell in severe folds and condemnatory lines.
As he stepped from the Great House round the Crescent and along the High
Street, he passed in sombre eclipse upon the gaiety of subjects shining
with the reflection of his genteel rays.
Presently Mr. Lovely came back still bearing the marks of the potted
soil.
"Was it an Urn?"
Mr. Lovely looked surprized.
"A Lachrymatory perhaps? Or a Lunette? Or," Mr. Ripple grew breathless
with excitement, "not an Image of AEsculapius?"
"Pray, sir, are you trying to humour a madman? Because on my soul, I
don't know what you are driving at."
"So, sir, your late phrenzy was nothing more than the unbridled haste
and inconsiderate volition of youthful folly?" sternly demanded the
Beau.
"I 'faith, I knocked over one of old Daish's precious pots, and was
making haste to remove it from the region of his laments. That's all,
and there's my hand on't."
"You will pardon me," replied the Beau drawing back, "I have no
objection to shaking a hand stained by honest toil, but I have never
shaken a hand sullied by mere zest for uncleanliness."
"As you will, dear Beau," laughed Mr. Lovely.
The Beau was about to point an example to adorn his statement when he
was interrupted by the entrance of severe Mrs. Grindle clasping her nose
with one hand, and with the other holding at arm's length the offending
jacynth by a shred of its roots.
"Mr. Lovely, sir," she began and as our hero pulled forward a chair and
the Beau leaned back to listen, she continued, "I have known a cat
kitten in one of the maids' beds."
"How very distressing," murmured the Beau letting the firelight play in
the diamonds of his rings.