"How late your father is," she went on as she opened a cupboard, set in the panelled wall, to reach for plates and dishes. Then she told him to get out the candlesticks--beautiful silver candlesticks with swan-like necks and curious mazy lines around their bases. The candlesticks were nowhere to be found.
"Where can they be?" exclaimed his mother, pausing to help in the search. Then he heard a sigh and was told to ask Mrs. Gruffle, the landlady, for the brass bed-chamber candlesticks. He rather liked these: there was always a delightful quagmire of grease in the little plate where the socket rested--grease that could be moulded into queer little pliable shapes, with shreds of tobacco stuck around for fur. When he came back to the parlour, he saw his father with his legs on the bars of the grate.
"They had to go, my dear, they had to go," the latter was saying.
"They were my mother's."
"I know, I know, but z----ds' You wouldn't have me fail Dicky Claribut?"
"But sure they were not worth----"
"Oons! I pledged my best buckles to him; the candlesticks were for his gentleman. I'm devilish sorry, my dear, but, 'faith, 'twas not to be avoided, and here's young Charles! Charles, my boy, never play, or, if you do, play deep and win."
"Don't put such ideas into the boy's mind," said his mother anxiously.
"Oddslife, my dear, be very sure the ideas are there already."
"How can you have the heart to persist when you know...."
"The heart, madam?" interrupted his father. "Let me tell you that the hearts of the Lovelys are all of a piece--and 'tis cardboard."
Our hero came to his elegant self with a start and was back in Curtain Wells with hot eyelids, and thoughts continually racing over the flowery wall-paper.
It was not long, however, before he was once more in pursuit of the past.
And now he was seated beside his handsome father in a chariot. They were both in mourning and he thought how well the black frogged riding-coat became his parent. As for himself, his black sattin breeches set his teeth on edge as he tried to scratch his knee.
"Where are we going?" he was asking.
"To your mother's brother, Sir George Repington of Repington Hall."
"That's the man whose letters made her cry?"
"The same, young Charles," said Mr. Lovely, ogling a dairymaid through his black-rimmed perspective, as the object of his glances shrank into a hedge, powdered with cow-parsley, and closed her eyes against the dust of their chariot.
Then, without any warning, they were driving through a stately park, and as they turned a corner, Mr. Lovely senior exclaimed "Good G...! A cemetery indeed!" Charles looked up and saw a field full of small cypresses with rank grass growing between them.
His father, who was looking rather pale, signed to the postboy to stop, and "Charles," said he, "do you go on up to the Hall, knock at the door and ask for your uncle, Sir George Repington. I'll wait for you here."
As he set out in obedience to his father he heard him mutter. "This was the very place. I swear this was the place, and not an apple tree left." And then Charles diminutive enough in his black suit with miniature small-sword of cut steel, was asking two enormous footmen in canary-coloured velvet for Sir George Repington. They looked at him and laughed.
"My uncle," said Charles solemnly.
And they laughed again, but one of them murmured, 'This way,' and walked up a very wide and very slippery staircase, while Charles stumped up behind him. Half way, his sword belt came undone, and the sword clattered down upon the polished oak stairs with a noise that seemed to resound a dozen times through the quiet house. As he did not dare to keep the canary-coloured gentleman waiting, he picked up the toy weapon, clutched it tight in his left hand and entered a big dark room where a gentleman with iron grey close cropped hair sat reading in a chair with a very tall back, his wig balanced upon his toes.
"What the d----l's this?" asked the grey gentleman jumping up.
"Your honour's nephew," said the yellow gentleman.
"Eh! what! leave us, sirrah," and "What do you want?" he said, turning to Charles.
Charles could only watch the long furrow over his nose and wonder how deep it was, when the grey gentleman caught sight of the small sword.
"Eh! what the d----l! give me that," and snatching the weapon, he broke it over his knee and flung it into the grate.
"Please, sir, my father sent me to see you."
"Who's he?"
"Valentine Lovely, sir."
"Good G----! Good G----!" muttered the old gentleman. "And Mrs. Lovely? Did she send you too?"
"Mrs. Lovely's dead, sir."
The grey gentleman looked across the room at a large painting of a girl in a white dress skipping with a rope of roses.
"Please, sir," said young Charles, "I think that is Mrs. Lovely."
"It was, boy; it was."
"I wish I had known her then," said Charles.
"Is your name George, boy?" inquired the grey gentleman in a tone that was half eager.
"No, sir, 'tis Charles--after the Prince of Wales."
"A Papist, eh?" said the grey gentleman bitterly.
"George was too honest a name for that scoundrel. Well, boy, you can stay."
"Please, sir, I'd rather go back to my father," said the boy. "He's waiting for me."
"Then go and be d----d," said the grey gentleman, and he walked over to the window.
Poor little Charles was left standing alone in the big room. He waited a moment, but as the grey gentleman did not turn his head, he edged his way towards the great door. When he reached it, he looked round at his uncle. The latter was still staring out of the window. The child gave a puzzled sigh and with both hands succeeded in turning the handle. The clocks seemed to tick very loudly as he breathlessly closed the door and set out to descend the wide staircase. The canary-coloured gentlemen having vanished he could hold on to the balustrade with both hands without shame. As he crossed the green sunlit lawn, a blackbird flew into the shrubbery with a shrill note of alarm.
Then he was in the chariot with his father, and this time he was really fast asleep.
And now he was boy and man at once. The picture of the girl with roses became his mother as he had known her, pale and sad. Then it would change and become Miss Phyllida Courteen, strangely like his mother; and sometimes the Queen of Diamonds would be mopping and mowing in a frame of golden Georges.
At last these many dancing visions forsook his brain, and he slept a dreamless sleep, not waking until high noon of a wet and gusty day. When he reached the coffee-room, he found Mr. Francis Vernon perusing the latest edition of Mr. Hoyle, and as the weather was dirty, agreed to give Mr. Francis Vernon his revenge.
This favour was accorded in the handsomest manner possible and when, late in the afternoon, the young gentlemen all returned from hunting, Mr. Charles Lovely owed Mr. Francis Vernon rather more than he could very easily pay.
No doubt the latter's success is to be ascribed to his opportune purchase of the latest edition of Mr. Hoyle.
_Chapter the Twelfth_
WET DAYS
If cards are the devil's playthings, wet days are certainly his select playtime; and all the days before the Chinese Masquerade were very wet indeed. The Exquisite Mob returned from the Pump Room remarkably depressed in spirit. The forenoons passed away in the coffee-houses and the shops, but in the afternoons when it was wont to exercise itself and air its modes the stuffy parlours of Curtain Wells became vastly tiresome.
The result was that all the young gentlemen played very hard and very deep and very late, and Mr. Charles Lovely hardest, deepest, and latest of all. The old gentlemen all found their gout teazed them more lamentably. Even Beau Ripple grew tired of reading the Epodes of Horace and the Letters of Tully to his grey Angora cat. The ladies played Quadrille and talked scandal, while some of them, I grieve to say, supplied a foundation for much of the gossip.
Candlelight intrigues flourished, and there were not a few tragedies in porcelain, when some Sir John Vulcan, returning too soon from his favourite coffee-house, caught my Lady Venus in too ardent converse with some young Ensign Mars. Very red grew the gallant Ensign--near as red as his coat, while Sir John blustered and swore so loud that he almost cracked the walls with his fox-hunting voice, and my lady Venus fluttered her fan to the pace of her dainty heart, tinkling out exquisite little lies as soulless as unreal, but quite as fascinating as some frail musical box. And the trio acted and declaimed their time-honoured parts to a keyhole audience of lady's maid and gentleman's gentleman.
Very diverting the footmen of Curtain Wells found the story that evening, and very savoury it was voted below stairs--nearly as savoury as the stewed trotters over which it was related.
And so the days went by.
Pitter-pat went the rain on the window-panes, pitter-pat went the cards on the card tables, pitter-pat went the spoons in the coffee-cups, pitter-pat went my lady's shoes across the floor to watch for the third person, pitter-pat went many fans and many hearts.