I, for one, should have enjoyed the witnessing of a little sport better than the homage of lovers.
“Here is Miss Peggy Baker,” cried Nancy, jumping up. “Oh! I must speak to my dear friend Miss Peggy.”
Miss Baker was walking slowly down the Terrace, accompanied by her little troop of admirers. At sight of us her face clouded for a moment, but she quickly recovered and smiled a languid greeting.
“Dear Miss Peggy,” cried Nancy—I knew she was going to say something mischievous—“you come in the nick of time.”
“Pray command me,” she replied graciously.
“It is a simple question”—Miss Baker looked suspicious. “Oh! a mere trifle”—Miss Baker looked uneasy. “It is only—pray, gentlemen, were any of you in the book-shop this morning?”
All protested that they were not—a denial which confirmed my opinion that impertinence was coming.
“Nay,” said Nancy, “we all know the truthfulness of gallants, which is as notorious as their constancy. Had you been there you would not have paid Miss Pleydell those pretty compliments which are as well deserved as they are sincere. But, Miss Peggy, a scandalous report hath got abroad. They say that you said, this morning, at the book-shop, that Kitty Pleydell’s eyes squinted.”
“Oh! oh!” cried Mr. Walsingham, holding up his hands, and all the rest cried “Oh! oh!” and held up theirs.
“I vow and protest,” cried Peggy Baker, blushing very much. “I vow and protest——”
“I said,” interrupted Nancy, “that it was the cruellest slander. You are all good-nature. Stand up, Kitty dear. Now tell us, Miss Peggy, before all these gentlemen, do those eyes squint?”
“Certainly not,” said poor Peggy, in great confusion.
“Look at them well,” continued Nancy. “Brown eyes, full and clear—eyes like an antelope. Saw any one eyes more straight!”
“Never,” said Peggy, fanning herself violently.
“Or more beautiful eyes?”
“Never,” replied Miss Peggy.
“There,” said Nancy, “I knew it. I said that from the lips of Miss Peggy Baker nothing but kind words can fall. You hear, gentlemen; women are sometimes found who can say good things of each other: and if we find the malicious person who dared report that Miss Peggy Baker said such a thing, I hope you will duck her in the horse-pond.”
Miss Peggy bowed to us with her most languishing air, and passed on. Nancy held up her hands, while the gentlemen looked at one another and laughed.
“Oh, calumny!” she cried. “To say that Kitty’s eyes were askew!”
For there had been a discussion at the book-shop that morning, in which the name of Miss Pleydell was frequently mentioned; and her person, bearing, and face were all particularly dwelt upon. Miss Baker, as usual in their parliaments, spoke oftenest, and with the most animation. She possessed, on such occasions, an insight into the defects of women that was truly remarkable, and a power of representing them to others which, while it was eloquent and persuasive, perhaps erred on the side of exaggeration. She summed up what she had to say in these kind words—
“After all, one could forgive fine clothes worn as if the girl had never had a dress on fit to be seen before, and manners like a hoyden trying to seem a nun, and the way of dancing taught to the cits who go to Sadler’s Wells, and a sunburnt complexion, and hands as big as my fan—all these things are rustic, and might be cured—or endured. But I cannot forgive her squint!”
And now she had to recant publicly, and confess that there was no squint at all.
This audacious trick of Nancy’s was, you may be sure, immediately spread abroad, so that for that day at least the unfortunate creature found the people looking after and laughing wherever she went. Naturally, she hated me, who really had done her no harm at all, more and more.
The gentlemen, or one among them, I knew not who, offered this evening a general tea-drinking with the music. It was served under the trees upon the open walk, and was very gay and merry. After the tea, when the day began to decline, we went to the rooms where, though there was no dancing, there was talking and laughing, in one room, and in the other games of cards of every kind—cribbage, whist, quadrille, hazard, and lansquenet. We wandered round the tables, watching the players intent upon the chances of the cards. I thought of poor Sir Miles Lackington, who might, had it not been for his love of gaming, have been now, as he began, a country gentleman with a fine estate. In this room we found Lord Chudleigh. He was not playing, but was looking on at a table where sat a young gentleman and an officer in the army. He did not see us, and, under pretence of watching the play of a party of four ladies playing quadrille, one of whom was Lady Levett, I sat down to watch him. Was he a gambler?
I presently discovered that he was not looking at the game, but the players. Presently he laid his hand upon the shoulder of the younger man, and said, in a quiet voice—
“Now, Eardesley, you have had enough. This gentleman knows the game better than you.”
“I hope, my lord,” cried the other player, springing to his feet, “that your lordship doth not insinuate——”
“I speak what I mean, sir. Lord Eardesley will, if he takes my advice, play no more with you.”
“Your lordship,” cried the gentleman in scarlet, “will perhaps remember that you are speaking to a gentleman——”
“Who left Bath, a fortnight ago, under such circumstances as makes it the more necessary for me to warn my friend. No, sir,”—his eye grew hard, and his face stern. “No, sir. Do not bluster or threaten. I will neither play with you, nor suffer my friends to play with you; nor, sir, will I fight with you, unless you happen to attack me upon the road. And, sir, if I see you here to-morrow, the master of the ceremonies will put you to the door by means of his lackeys. Come, Eardesley.”
The gamester, thus roundly accused, began to bluster. His honour was at stake; he had been grossly insulted; he would have the satisfaction of a gentleman; he would let his lordship know that his rank should not protect him. With these noble sentiments, he left the room, and the Wells saw him no more.
Then, seeing me alone, for I had escaped from my court, being weary of compliments and speeches, he came to my chair.
“I saw you, my lord,” I said, “rescue that young gentleman from the man who, I suppose, would have won his money. Is it prudent to engage in such quarrels?”
“The young gentleman,” he replied, “is, in a sense, my ward. The man is a notorious sharper, who hath been lately expelled from Bath, and will now, I think, find it prudent to leave the Wells. I hope, Miss Kitty, that you do not like gaming?”
“Indeed, my lord, I do not know if I should like what I have never tried. ’Tis the first time I have seen card-playing.”
“Then you must have been brought up in a nunnery.”
“Not quite that, but in a village, where, as I have already told you, my father was vicar. I do not know any games of cards.”
“How did you amuse yourself in your village?”
“I read, made puddings, worked samplers, cut out and sewed my dresses, and learned lessons with Nancy Levett.”
“The pretty little girl who is always laughing? She should always remain young—never grow old and grave. What else did you do?”
“We had a choir for the Sunday psalms—many people came every Sunday to hear us sing. That was another occupation. Then I used to ride with the boys, or sometimes we would go fishing, or nutting, or black-berrying—oh! there was plenty to do, and the days were never too long.”
“A better education than most ladies can show,” he replied, with his quiet air of authority.
“And you, my lord. Do you never play cards?”
“No,” he replied. “Pray do not question me further on my favourite vices, Miss Kitty. I would not confess all my sins even to so charming and so kind a confessor as yourself.”
“I forgive you, my lord,” I said, “beforehand. Especially if you promise to abandon them all.”
“There are sins,” he said slowly, “which sometimes leave behind them consequences which can never be forgotten or undone.”
Alas! I knew what he meant. His sin had left him burdened with a wife—a creature who had been so wicked as to take advantage of his wickedness; a woman whom he feared to hear of and already loathed. Poor wife! poor sinner! poor Kitty!
The next morning at dinner, we heard the summons of the post-boy’s horn, and Cicely presently ran in with a letter in her hand. It was addressed to me, in a large bold handwriting, and was sealed with red wax. I opened it and found a smaller letter inside it, marked “Private. For my niece’s eye alone.” So that both letters were from my uncle, the Doctor.
“Your private letter,” said Mrs. Esther, “doubtless contains some admonition or advice designed for you alone. Put it in your pocket, child, and read it in your own room. As for the other letter, as it is not marked private, it would be well for you to read it aloud, after dinner, and while we are eating one of my Lord Chudleigh’s delicious peaches.”
To this I willingly complied, because I greatly feared the private letter would contain some instructions concerning the secret which the Doctor and I possessed between us. Accordingly, the dinner over, I began the perusal of my uncle’s letter.
“My dear Niece,—You will first of all, and before reading any further, convey my dutiful respects to the lady by whose goodness you have been placed in a position as much above what you could have wished, as her benevolence is above the ordinary experience of mortals.”
“Oh, the excellent man!” cried Mrs. Esther.
“I have to report that, under Providence, I am well in health, and in all respects doing well; the occupation in which I am now engaged having received a stimulus by the threatening of a new Act for the prevention of (so-called) unlawful marriages. The increase in the number of applicants for marriage hath also (as is natural) caused an increase in the upstarts and pretenders who claim to have received canonical orders, being most of them as ignorant as a butcher’s block, and no more ordained than the fellows who bang a cushion in a conventicle. The clergymen of London complain that the parsons of the Fleet take away their parishioners, and deprive them of their fees: they cannot say that I, who never take less than a guinea, undersell them. You will be glad to learn that Sir Miles Lackington hath left this place. He hath lately received a legacy from a cousin of a small estate, and hath made an arrangement with his creditors, by virtue of which his detainers are now removed. Nevertheless, we expect him back before long, being well assured that the same temptation and vice of gambling, which brought him here before, will again beset him. Yet he promiseth brave things. We gave him a farewell evening, in which his health was toasted, and more punch drunk than was good for the heads of some present, among whom were gentlemen members of the Utter Bar, from the two Temples and Lincoln’s Inn, with many others, and honourable company.
“It will also be a pleasure to you to learn that the ingenious Mr. Stallabras is also at large. Probably he, too, will return to us ere long. For the present his sole detaining creditor, who had supplied him for years with such articles of apparel (at second-hand) as were necessary for his decent appearance on the credit of his future glory, agreed to take ten guineas in full discharge of a bill for forty, which the poet could never hope to pay, nor the tradesman to receive. The calling of poet is at best but a poor one, nor should I counsel any one to practise the writing of verse unless he be a man of fortune, like Mr. Alexander Pope (unfortunately a Papist), or a Fellow of some substantial college, such as the Houses of Trinity, Peter, and Christ, at Cambridge, like Mr. Ray. Nor is there any greater unhappiness than to draw a bill, to speak after the manner of merchants, upon your future success and industry, and to be compelled to discount it. He hath now conceived the idea of a tragedy and of an epic poem. The first he will endeavour to produce at Drury Lane as soon as it is written: the second he will immediately get subscribed among his friends and patrons. Unfortunately he has already obtained subscriptions, for a volume of verses, and, having eaten the subscriptions, cannot now find a publisher: in truth, I believe the verses are not yet written. This melancholy accident obliges him to seek for new patrons. I wish him well.
“It is, my dear niece, with the greatest satisfaction that I learn you have, with Mrs. Esther, gone to Epsom. The situation of the place, the purity of the air upon the Downs, the salubrity of the waters, the gaiety of the company, will, I hope, all be conducive to the health of that most excellent lady, your best friend——”
“Oh, the good man!” cried Mrs. Esther.
“To whom I charge you be dutiful, obedient, and careful in the smallest punctilio. The cheerfulness of the amusements (if Epsom be the same as when I once visited it, when tutor to a young gentleman of quality) should communicate to her spirits something of the joy with which I could now wish her to regard the world. As for yourself, my child, I am under no apprehension but that music, gay companions, and your time of life will together make you as mirthful as is possible for human being. Remember, however, that happiness is but for a season: that mirth must never pass beyond the bound of good manners: and that when a woman is no longer young, the reputation she has earned as a girl remains with her, even to the grave. Wherefore, Kitty, be circumspect. The town news is but little: the (so-styled) young Pretender is said to be moving again, but little importance is now attached to his doings, and for the moment the Protestant dynasty seems firm. But Heaven knows——”
Here followed a quantity of news about the ministers, the Houses of Parliament, the foreign news, and so forth, which I omit.
“I have seen a sermon, published this year by one Laurence Sterne, on ‘Conscience,’ which I would commend to Mrs. Pimpernel. I also commend to you Dr. Samuel Johnson’s ‘Vanity of Human Wishes,’ and the first number of the ‘Rambler,’ of which I hear great things. Mr. Henry Fielding hath produced a novel called ‘Tom Jones,’ of which the town is talking. I mention it here in order that you may be cautioned against a book whose sole merit is the faithful delineation of scenes and characters shocking to the female moralist. For the same reason I would have thee beware of Mr. Smollett’s ‘Peregrine Pickle,’ in which, as a man who knows—alas! the wickedness of the world, I find a great deal to commend.
“The weather has been strangely hot even for July, and fever is rife in this neighbourhood. I hear that the Bishop of London threatens me with pains and penalties. I have sent word to his lordship, that if he will not allow me to marry, I will bury, and that at such prices as will leave his clergy nothing but the fees of the paupers, beggars, and malefactors.
“I think that I have no more news to send. I would that I were able to send thee such tidings as might be looked for in a London letter; but I know not what actor is carrying away all hearts, nor what lady is the reigning toast, nor what is the latest fashion in cardinal, sack, patch, or tie-wig, nor anything at all that is dear to the hearts of an assembly on the Terrace of Epsom. Therefore, with my duty to Mrs. Pimpernel,—I remain, my dear niece, your loving uncle,
“Gregory Shovel, Doctor of Divinity.
“Post Scriptum.—I enclose herewith a short letter of admonition, which thou mayest read by thyself, as such things are not interesting to Mistress Pimpernel.”
“Now,” cried Mrs. Esther, “was there ever such a man? Living in such a place, he preserves his virtue: among such dregs and offscourings of mankind he stands still erect, proclaiming and preaching Christian virtue. O Kitty! why was not that man made a bishop? Sure, there is no other position in the world fit for him. With what eloquence would he defend Christian faith? With what righteous indignation would he not expel evil-doers?”
I did not dare to ask, which of course occurred to me, what indignation he would show against such as violated the law by marrying in the Fleet.
“Now,” I said, “with your permission, madam, I will retire, in order to read my uncle’s private letter of admonition.”
I opened the short note in fear; yet there was nothing alarming in it.
“My dear Niece,—I add a word to say that Lord Chudleigh is going to visit Epsom, and hath either engaged or been offered the mansion of Durdans for the summer: perhaps he is already there. It may be that you will make his acquaintance: in any case you cannot fail of being interested in his doings. Since his visit to the Fleet, I hear that he has been afflicted with a continual melancholy, of which you and I know the cause. He has also led a very regular and almost monastic life, reproaching himself continually for that lapse from temperance which led to what he regards as the curse of his life.
“Child, if he pays you attentions, receive them with such coquettish allurements as your sex knows how to hang out. On this point I cannot advise. But if he is attracted by more showy and more beautiful women”—I looked at the glass and smiled—“then be careful not to exhibit any jealousy or anger. Remember that jealousy and anger have ruined many a femina furens, or raging woman. Let things go on, as if nothing of all that you and I wot of had happened. He will be watched, and at the right time will be called upon to acknowledge his wife. Such a return for the evil done me by his father shall be mine. And with such a return of good for evil, a brilliant position for yourself. If he should fall in love, if he hath not already done so, with another woman, you would, in one moment, blast his hopes, trample on all that he held dear, and make him ridiculous, a criminal, and a deceiver. But it is at all times a more Christian thing for a man to fall in love with his own wife.
“Remember, my dear Kitty, I place the utmost reliance on thy good sense. Above all, no woman’s jealousies, rages, and fits of madness. These things will only do thee harm.
“Your loving uncle,
“Gregory Shovel, Doctor of Divinity.”
Were one a stock or a stone; had one no feelings; were one destitute of pity, sympathy, and compassion, these letters might have been useful as guides to conduct. But the thing had happened to me which my uncle, in his worldly wisdom, could never calculate upon: I had fallen in love with Lord Chudleigh: I was passionately anxious that he should fall in love with me. What room, in such a condition of mind as was this man, for advice so cold, so interested as this? Return good for evil? What had I to do with that? I wanted to wreak no vengeance on my lord: I would have surrounded him with love, and been willing to become his servant, his slave, anything, if only he would forgive me, take me for his sweetheart, and make me his wife. But to lay those snares: to look on coldly while he made love to other women: to wait my time, so as to bring shame and remorse upon that noble heart—that, Kitty, was impossible. Yet I could not write to my uncle things which he could not understand. I could not say that I repented and was very sorry: that I loved my lord, and was determined to inflict no harm upon him: and that, if he chose to fall in love with another woman—who was I, indeed, that he should love me?—I was firmly resolved that no act or word of mine should injure him, even though I had to stand in the church and see him with my own eyes married to that other—that happy woman—before the altar.
No one must think that I was sorry, or even embarrassed, when I heard that Harry Temple had joined the company at Epsom; and though the name of coquette was given me by him, and that of jilt, with such other abusive terms as the English tongue provides, by Will Levett, later on, I beg that every one will believe me when I declare that I had no knowledge at all of being betrothed, or under any kind of promise, to either of these two young men. Yet, as will have been perceived by any who have read the second chapter of this narrative, both of them had just grounds for believing me to be their promised wife. In fact, I was at the time so silly and ignorant that I did not understand what they meant; nor had I, being so much tossed about, and seeing so many changes, ever thought upon their words at all, since. And whereas there was no day in which the thought of my dear and fond Nancy did not come into my mind, there never was a day at all in which my memory dwelt upon either Will or Harry, save as companions of Nancy. And although grievous things followed upon this neglect of mine, I cannot possibly charge myself with any blame in the matter. As for Will, indeed, his conduct was such as to relieve me of any necessity for repentance; while Harry, even if he did play the fool for a while, speedily recovered his senses, and found consolation in the arms of another. Lastly, men ought not to go frantic for any woman: they should reflect that there are good wives in plenty to be had for the asking; women virtuously reared, who account it an honour (as they should) to receive the offer of an honest man’s faithful service; that no woman is so good as to have no equal among her contemporaries: while as for beauty, that is mostly matter of opinion. I am sure I cannot understand why they made me Queen of the Wells, when Nancy Levett was passed over; and I have since seen many a plain girl honoured as a beauty, while the most lovely faces were neglected.
The first, then, of my two lovers—or promised husbands—who arrived at Epsom was Harry Temple.
We were walking on the New Parade in the afternoon, making a grand display; I in my new purple velvet with purple ribbons, a purple mantle and purple trimmings to my hat, very grand indeed. Mr. Walsingham was talking like a lover in a novel—I mean of the old-fashioned and romantic school of novel, now gone out. The art of saying fine things now too much neglected by the young, was then studied by old and young.
“Ladies,” he was saying, “should never be seen save in the splendour of full dress: they should not eat in public, unless it be chocolates and Turkish sweets: nor drink, unless it be a dish of tea: they should not laugh, lest they derange the position of the patch or the nice adjustment of the coiffure: they may smile, however, upon their lovers; all their movements should be trim and evenly balanced, according to rules of grace: in fact, just as a woman was the last and most finished work in Nature, so a lady dressed, taught, and cultivated, should be the last and most finished work in Art. The power of beauty—Miss Pleydell will approve this—should be assisted by the insinuation of polite address: rank should be enhanced by the assumption of a becoming dignity: dishabille should hide at home: nor should she show herself abroad until she has heightened and set off her charms, by silk and satin, ribbons and lace, paint, powder, and patches.”
“I suppose, sir,” said Nancy, pointing to an absurd creature whose follies were the diversion of the whole company, “the dress of the lady over there in the short sack would please you. Her body a state-bed running upon castors, and her head-dress made up of trimmings taken from the tester. She is, sir, I take it, a finished work of Art.”
Then she screamed: “O Kitty! here is Harry Temple.” And then she blushed, so that Mr. Walsingham looked at both of us with a meaning smile. He came sauntering along the walk, looking about him carelessly, for as yet he knew none of the company. His manner was improved since last I saw him, a year and more ago: that was doubtless due to a visit to the Continent. He was a handsome fellow certainly, though not so tall or so handsome as Lord Chudleigh: his features were smaller and his air less distinguished; but still a pretty fellow. I thought of Nancy’s secret and laughed to myself, as yet never suspecting what he would say. The great difference at first sight between Harry Temple and Lord Chudleigh was that the former looked as if he was ready to take the place which the world would assign to him, while the latter would step to the front and stand there as if in his proper place. It is a grand thing to be a leader of men.
Suddenly he saw us, and stood still with such a look of bewilderment and astonishment as I never saw.
“Nancy!”—he had his eyes upon me all the time—“I knew you were here, but—but——”
Here Nancy burst out laughing.
“Harry does not remember you, Kitty. Oh the inconstancy of men!”
“Kitty?” It was his turn to look confused now. “Is it possible? Kitty Pleydell? Yet, surely——”
“I am sorry that Mr. Temple so easily forgets his old friends,” I said.
“No, no. Forget? not at all.” He was so disconcerted that he spoke in single words. “But such a change!”
“A year ago,” I said, “I was in russet and brown holland, with a straw hat. But this watering-place is not my native village, and I wear brown holland frocks no longer.”
“Save in a pastoral,” said Mr. Walsingham. “A shepherdess should always wear brown holland, with ribbons and patches, powder and paint; and a crook beautifully wreathed with green ribbons.”
“Gentlemen,” I said to my followers, “this is my old friend, Mr. Harry Temple, of Wootton Hampstead, Kent, whom you will, I doubt not, welcome among you. But what punishment shall be inflicted upon him for forgetting a lady’s face?”
This gave rise to a dispute on an abstract point of gallantry. One held that under no circumstances, and during no time of absence, however prolonged, should a gentleman forget the face of his mistress; another, that if the lady changed, say from a child to a woman, the forgetfulness of her face must not be charged as a crime. We argued the point with great solemnity. Nancy gave it as her opinion that the rest of a woman’s face might be forgotten, but not the eyes, because they never change. Mr. Walsingham combated this opinion. He said that the eyes of ladies change when they marry.
“What change?” I asked.
“The eyes of a woman who is fancy free,” said he gravely, “are like stars: when she marries, they are planets.”
“Nay,” said Nancy; “a woman does not wait to be married before her eyes undergo that change. As soon as she falls in love they become planets. For whereas, before that time, they go twinkle, twinkle, upon every pretty fellow who has the good taste to fall in love with her, as mine do when I look upon Lord Eardesley”—the young fellow blushed—“so after she is in love, they burn with a steady light upon the face of the man she loves, as mine do when I turn them upon Mr. Walsingham.”
She gazed with so exaggerated an ardour into the old beau’s wrinkled and crows’-footed face, that the rest of us laughed. He, for his part, made a profound salute, and declared that the happiness of his life was now achieved, and that he had nothing left to live for.
In the evening, a private ball was given in the Assembly Rooms by some of the gentlemen, Lord Chudleigh among the number, to a circle of the most distinguished ladies at the Wells. In right of my position as Queen, I opened the ball (of course with his lordship). Afterwards, I danced with Harry. When the country dances began, I danced again with Harry, who kept looking in my eyes and squeezing my hand in a ridiculous fashion. At first I set it down to rejoicing and fraternal affection. But he quickly undeceived me when the dance was over, for while we stood aside to let others have their turn, he began about the promise which we know of.
“Little did I think, sweet Kitty,” he said, with half-shut eyes, “that when I made that promise to bring you back into Kent, you would grow into so wonderful a beauty.”
“Well, Harry,” I replied, “it was kindly meant of you, and I thank you for your promise—which I now return you.”
“You return me my promise?” he asked, as if surprised, whereas he ought most certainly to have considered what had been my country ignorance and my maidenly innocence when he gave me his promise.
“Certainly,” I said; “seeing that I am now under the protection of Mrs. Esther Pimpernel, and have no longer any need for your services.”
“My services?” as if still more surprised. I am convinced that he was only acting astonishment, because he must have known the truth had he reflected at all. “Why, Kitty, I do not understand. You are not surely going to throw me over?”
Then I understood at last.
“Harry,” I said, “there has been, I fear, some mistake.”
“No,” he replied; “no mistake—no mistake at all. How could there be a mistake? You promised that you would return with me, never to go away again.”
“Why, so I did. But, Harry, I never thought——”
“You must have known what I meant, Kitty! Do not pretend that you did not. Oh! you may open your eyes as wide as you like, but I shall believe it, nevertheless.”
“You have made a great mistake,” I said; “that is very certain. Now let us have no more talk of such things, Harry.”
Lord Chudleigh came at that moment to lead me in to supper. I thought very little of what had passed, being only a little vexed that Harry had made so great a blunder.
The supper was pleasant too, with plenty of wax candles, cold chickens, capons, wheat-ears, ice-creams, and champagne, which is certainly the most delicious wine ever made.
After supper, my lord asked me if there was any friend of mine whom I would especially like to be invited to his party at Durdans?
I named Harry Temple, whom my lord immediately sought out, and invited in my name. Harry bowed sulkily, but accepted.
“Is there any person,” Lord Chudleigh asked next, “whom you would like not to be asked?”
“No,” I said; “I have no enemies.”
“As if the Queen of the Wells could avoid having enemies?” he laughed. “But there are none who can do you harm, even by the venom of spiteful tongues.”
He was silent for a minute or two, and then he went on, with hesitation—
“Pardon me, Miss Pleydell: I have no right to speak of these things to you; my interest is greater than my politeness, and I venture to ask you a question.”
“Pray speak, my lord.”
“A spiteful tongue has whispered it abroad that you have to-day given your plighted lover a cold reception.”
“Who is my plighted lover?”
“Mr. Harry Temple. Tell me, Miss Pleydell, if there is any promise between you and this gentleman?”
He looked at me in such a way as made me both rejoice and tremble.
“No, my lord,” I said, blushing against my will, and to my great confusion; “I am not promised to Mr. Temple. Will your lordship take me to the dancing-room?”
It was a bright moonlight night when we came away. We walked home, escorted by some of the gentlemen. Lord Chudleigh, as he stooped to take my hand, raised it rapidly to his lips and pressed my fingers. The action was not seen, I think, by the others.
That night I tried to put the case plainly to myself.
I said: “Kitty, my dear, the man you want above all other men to fall in love with you has done it; at least, it seems so. He seeks you perpetually; he talks to you; he singles you out from the rest; he is jealous; his eyes follow you about; he sends fruit and flowers to you; he gives an entertainment, and calls you the Queen of the Feast; he presses your hand and kisses your fingers. What more, Kitty, would you have?”
On the other hand, I thought: “If he falls in love with you, being already married, as he believes, to another woman, he commits a sin against his marriage vows. Yet what sin can there be in breaking vows pronounced in such a state as he was in, and in such a way? Why, they seem to me no vows at all, in spite of the validity of the Doctor’s orders and the so-called blessing of the Church. Yet he cannot part from his wife by simply wishing; and, knowing that, he does actually commit the sin of deceit in loving another woman.
“Kitty, what would you have? For, if he doth not love you, then are you miserable above all women; and if he does, then are you grieved, for his own sake, for it is a sin—and ashamed for your own, because your confession will be a bitter thing to say. Yet must it be made, soon or late. Oh! with what face will you say to him: ‘My lord, I am that wife of the Fleet wedding’? Or, ‘My lord, you need not woo me, for I was won before I was wooed’? Or perhaps, worst thing of all, ‘My lord, the girl who caught your fickle fancy for a moment at Epsom, whom you passed over, after a day or two, for another, who was not pretty enough to fix your affections, is your lawful wife’?
“Kitty, I fear that the case is hopeless indeed. For, should he really love you, what forelook or expectancy is there but that the love will turn to hatred when he finds that he has been deceived?”
Then I could not but remember how a great lord, with a long rent-roll, of illustrious descent, might think it pleasant for a day or two to dance attendance upon a pretty girl, by way of sport, meaning nothing further, but that he could not think seriously of so humble a girl as myself in marriage. It would matter little to him that she was descended from a long line of gentlemen, although but a vicars daughter; the Pleydells were only simply country gentlefolk. I was a simple country clergyman’s daughter, whose proper place would be in his mother’s still-room; a daughter of one of those men whose very vocation, for the most part, awakens a smile of pity or contempt, according as they are the sycophants of the squire whose living they enjoy, or the drudges of their master the rector whose work they do. It was not in reason to think that Lord Chudleigh——Would to Heaven he had not come to Epsom Wells at all! Then, when the Doctor chose the day for revealing the truth, I might have borne the hatred and scorn which now, I thought, would kill me.
Oh, if one could fix him! By what arts do girls draw to themselves the love of men, and then keep that love for ever, so that they never seek to wander elsewhere, and the world is for them like the Garden of Eden, with but one man and one woman in it? I would have all his heart, and that so firmly and irrevocably given to me, that forgiveness should follow confession, and the heart remain still in my keeping when he knew all my wickedness and shame.
Then a sudden thought struck me.
Long ago, when I was a child, I had learned, or taught myself, a thing which I could fain believe was not altogether superstitious. One day my father, who would still be talking of ancient things, and cared for little of more modern date than the Gospels, told me of a practice among the ancients by which they thought to look into the future. It was an evil practice, he said, because if these oracles were favourable, they advanced with blind confidence; and, if unfavourable, with a heart already prepared for certain defeat and death. Their method was nothing in the world but the opening of a Virgil anywhere, and accepting the first line which offered itself as a prophecy of the event of their undertaking. I was but a little thing when he told me this, but I pondered it in my mind, and I reasoned in this way (nothing doubting that the ancients did really in this manner read the future)—
“If these pagans could tell the event by consulting the words of Virgil, a heathen like unto themselves, how much more readily ought we to learn what is going to happen by consulting the actual Word of God?”
Thereupon, without telling any one, I used to consult this oracle, probably by myself, in every little childish thing which interested me.
It was a thing presumptuous, though in my childhood I did not know that it was a sin. Yet I did it on this very night—a grown-up woman—trying to get a help to soothe my mind.
The moonlight was so bright that I could read at the open window without a candle. I had long since extinguished mine.
I opened the Bible at random, kept my finger on a verse, and took the book to the casement.
There I read—
“Wait on the Lord: be of good courage; and He shall strengthen thy heart. Wait, I say, on the Lord.”
Now these words I thankfully accepted as a solemn message from Heaven, an answer to my prayer.
So I laid me down, and presently fell fast asleep.
Everybody knows that a watering-place in summer is a nest of singing birds. I do not mean the birds of the air, nor the ladies who sing at the concerts, nor the virtuosos, male and female, who gather together to talk of appogiatura, sonata, and—and the rest of the musical jargon. I mean rather those epigrammatists, libellous imitators of Pasquin, and love-verse writers who abound at such places. Mostly they are anonymous, so that one cannot thank them as one would. The verses, this year at Epsom, came down upon us in showers. They were stuck up on the pillars of the porch of the Assembly Rooms, they were laid upon the table of the book-shop, they were handed about on the Terrace. Also they came to me at my lodgings, and to Nancy at hers, and very likely to Peggy Baker at hers. Here, for instance, is one set which were shown round at the Assembly—
Every morning lovers were at our feet (on paper). They wrote letters enjoining me “by those soft killing eyes” (which rhymed with “sighs”) to take pity on their misery, or to let them die. You would have thought, to read their vows, that all the men in the town were in profound wretchedness. They could not sleep: they could no longer go abroad: they were wasting and pining away: they were the victims of a passion which was rapidly devouring them: Death, they said, would be welcomed as a Deliverer. Yet it will hardly be believed that, in spite of so dreadful an epidemic of low fever, no outward signs of it were visible in the town at all: the gentlemen were certainly fat and in good case: their hearts seemed merry within them: they laughed, made jokes, sang, and were jolly to outward show: their appetites were good: they were making (apparently) no preparations for demise. Their letters and verses were, however, anonymous, so that it was impossible to point with accuracy to any sufferer who thus dissembled. From information conveyed to me by Cicely Crump, I believe that the verses and letters came in great measure from the apprentices and shopmen employed by the mercers, haberdashers, hosiers, and drapers of the town—young men whose employment brings them constantly into the presence of ladies, but whose humble positions in the world forbid them to do anything more than worship at a great distance: yet their hearts are as inflammable as their betters, and their aspirations are sometimes above their rank, as witness the gallant elopement of Joshua Crump, Cicely’s father, with Miss Jenny Medlicott, daughter of an alderman: then they find relief and assume a temporary dignity—as they fondly think—in writing anonymous love-letters. I think the letters must have come from these foolish and conceited young men, because I cannot understand how a gentleman who values his self-respect could so far humiliate himself as to write letters which he would be ashamed to sign, declaring himself the foolish victim of a foolish passion, and addressing a fellow-creature, a being like himself, with all the imperfections of humanity upon her, as an angel (which is blasphemous), and a sun of glory (which is nonsense), or a bright particular star (which is copied from the preface to the Bible). I confess that we liked the open compliments and public attentions of the gentlemen: they pleased us, and we took them in sober honesty for what they were worth—the base coin of gallantry rings as pleasantly sometimes as the guinea gold of love—but it is one thing to be called a goddess in the accepted language of exaggeration and mock humility commonly used in polite assemblies, and another to be addressed in a grovelling strain, seriously and humbly, as if one were the Lama of Thibet, or the great Bashaw, or the Pope himself. It is pleasant to see a young fellow dancing along the walk with his hat under his arm, making reverence, with his eyes full of admiration, his face lit with smiles, and compliments upon his tongue, because one knows that it is the natural homage paid by an honest fellow to a pretty girl, and that when years have robbed the beauty, the homage will be paid to some one else. But for these silly boys’ letters——
And then we made the sad discovery, by comparing our letters, that they were not even original. Many of them were, word for word, the same, showing that they had been copied from the same model. If it be true that passion makes the most tongue-tied lover eloquent, then this discovery proved that the violence of the passion was as feigned as the letters were false, unless Nancy’s supposition was true.
“Fie!” cried she, “the wretch has written the same letters to both of us. Can he be in love with two maids at the same time?”
Then she took both letters and showed them about among the company.
There was another kind of letter which I received: it was filled with slander and abuse, and was written in disguised handwriting. Several of them came to me, and I was foolish enough to be vexed over them, even to shed tears of vexation. My anonymous correspondent gave me, in fact, such information and advice as the following, which was not conveyed to me all at once, but in several letters.
“Your Lord Chudleigh is very well known to be a gambler who hath already dipped more than half his estate; do you think it possible that he should marry the daughter of that poor thing—a country parson—with no more fortune to her back than what a city madam may chance to give her? Be not deceived. Your triumph is to walk the Terrace with him at your elbow: your disgrace will be when he leaves you to lament alone…”
“Do not think that any other gentleman will stoop to pick up the cast-off fancy of Lord Chudleigh. When he leaves you, expect nothing but general desertion and contempt. This advice comes from a well-wisher.”
“Lord Chudleigh is, as is very well known, the falsest and the most fickle of men. When he hath added you to the list of women whom he hath deceived, he will go away to Bath or town, there to boast of what he hath done. He belongs to the Seven Devils’ Club, whose boast it is to spare no man in play and no woman in love. Be warned in time.”
“Poor Kitty Pleydell! Your reputation is now, indeed, cracked, if not broken altogether. Better retire to the obscurity of your town lodging, where, with Mrs. Pimpernel, you may weep over the chances that you think to have lost, but have never really possessed. Better take up, while is yet time, with Harry Temple. All the Wells is talking of your infatuation about Lord Chudleigh. He, for his part, is amused. With his friends he laughs and makes sport.”
And so on, and so on: words which, like the buzzing of a fly or the sting of a gnat, annoy for a while and are then forgotten. For the moment one is angry: then one remembers things and words which show how false are these charges: one reflects that the writer is more to be pitied than the receiver: and one forgives. Perhaps I was the readier to forgive because I saw a letter written by no other (from the similarity of the t’s and k’s) than Miss Peggy Baker, and was fully persuaded that the writer of these unsigned letters was that angry nymph herself.
As for the verses which were left at the door, and brought by boys who delivered them and ran away—Nancy said they had no clothes on except a quiver and a pair of wings, and so ran away for shame lest Cicely should see them—they bore a marvellous resemblance to those which the ingenious Mr. Stallabras was wont to manufacture; they spoke of nymphs and doves and bosky groves; of kids and swains on verdant plains; of shepherds’ reeds and flowery meads, of rustic flutes and rural fruits.
“The fashion of verses,” said Mrs. Esther, “seems little changed since we were here in 1720. Doubtless the English language has never been able to achieve a greater excellence than that arrived at by Dryden, Pope, Addison, and Steele.”
Perhaps the language of love is always the same, and when a man feels that tender emotion he naturally desires to quit the garish town and the artificial restraints of society, and with his inamorata to seek the simple delights of the meadows and the fields, there to be together: