Thomas, the footman, grew daily more unctuous owing to the visit of a gouty dean who, being invited to occupy St. Simon's pulpit, preached a remarkable sermon in seven divisions and twenty-three sub-divisions, conclusively establishing the identity of the English Nation with the tribe of Benjamin. Mr. Moon and Major Tarry grew more entirely devoted to the widow, and Thomasina the cat also grew owing to the advent of kittens. In fact, everybody and everything grew prodigiously in the merry springtime.
The list of visitors grew. Rich Mrs. Bendish arrived and made all the dowagers jealous with her chest of precious stones that she brought back from an island in the Caribbean Sea--buried treasure that was actually discovered. Lord Rocquepool came, and his daughters, the Honourable Georgina and the Honourable Caroline de Winqule. The Honourable Mrs. Winter-Green came, and the Welch baronet, Sir Owen Ap Taffy. The Marquess of Hurricane arrived, and several members of the great Wind family. Also, with all these aristocratick visitors, it is not surprizing that Mr. Ripple's snuff bill grew daily.
March came in like a lamb that year, and the sweet season danced in the bleak furrows over which the lank hares leaped and scampered. White violets scented equinoctial dusks, and in every window of the Wells big daffodils hung down their golden ruffs. March went by to the tune of fiddles and flutes. Mr. Ripple had to attend near half a dozen routs every night, and the weekly Assemblies were more fully thronged than ever before.
Every day the jolly sun grew more powerful and the noise of polite conversation was almost drowned by the twittering of the sparrows as they, like their betters, made a chorus of loves, jealousies, hopes, plans and disappointments in a world of chimney-stacks and slanting roofs. They perched in the most fashionable gutters, just as, down below on the sunny side of the High Street, the Exquisite Mob ruffled before the gayest shops.
"How well that chip hat becomes me!"
"What wonderful silks are being displayed this spring!"
"They say that hoops and head-dresses will both show a monstrous increase in size this year."
As if the daffodils had intoxicated the whole race of dyers, nothing but shades of yellow were to be seen. In these happier days for the followers of the Mode, Blonda and Brunetta, those charming sisters, were not compelled to rely on their natural complexions in order to wear a certain shade. In these happier days, powder, rouge and patches availed to make the gaudy apricock glow even beside the blooming peach without injury to either. Therefore the artfully arranged bow-windows with rolls of citron damasks, canary velvets, golden brocades, lemon sattins and orange silks, dismayed not Blonda any more than the sapphire and turquoise of the autumnal mode fretted the vanity of Brunetta. As for young maidens, their fashion like the eternal mountains was always white.
But suddenly on the twenty-seventh of the month the weather changed. Masses of wet grey clouds swept in from the Atlantick, and March prepared to go out like a lion.
And on this very morning _Curtain Polls severely lashed by a Curtain Rod_ appeared on Mr. Paul Virgin's counter.
This small work produced far greater consternation than the sudden change in the weather. Though it rained and blew, and whistled and streamed, nobody paid the slightest attention, nobody said 'What a change in the weather,' for all the world was deeply engrossed in reading about his asterisked self and his asterisked neighbour.
_Chapter the Twenty-first_
CURTAIN POLLS
There had been nothing to prepare Curtain Wells for its chastizement. No wreathed pamphlet warned readers in the most choice preliminary duff that a sarcastick comet would presently singe their vices, their follies and their vanities. Nobody had been invited to subscribe in advance to his own ridicule. As it were on the wings of a Westerly gale, these destructive little volumes settled upon the fields of Pleasure like locusts on a Bedouin plantation.
Two speculative chap-book pedlars sold the first twenty to as many drinkers of chalybeate hastening home to breakfast. For those who stopped to buy there was no breakfast that morning. The kidneys and the bacon and the eggs and the ham and the loin chops and the red herrings and the toasted bread were neglected. The vanguard of purchasers were, in reading about neighbours, too much diverted, and, in reading about themselves, too indignant to eat.
Out went the kidneys and the bacon and the eggs and the ham and the loin chops and the red herrings and the toasted bread, frozen stiff in their own fat; and out went the vanguard to warn the main army of fashion that scurrility, satire and malice were abroad in many metres.
"Listen to this, Moon," ejaculated Major Tarry, as, undeterred by the driving wind, he strode along, quoting extracts that were perfectly inaudible to his companion.
"Listen to this, will you listen to this,"
"_Like a lap-dog he's fed with a second-best spoon, And bays as he should at the sight of the Moon_."
"Yes, but listen to this," said the Justice treading heavily in a puddle as he spoke.
"_Do not tarry, M**n, but marry, While you're still upon the wax, Though above her, You can love her, And avoid the window tax_."
"Very low, very low indeed," said Tarry.
"So 'tis," quoth the Justice, "but the next verse is lower still."
"_For that coat of Him we wrote of Will be in your parlour soon, And be reigning When you're waning, And we whisper horned M**n_."
"Ha, ha," said Tarry, "low, d----d low! But 'sblood, the fellow has humour."
"Humour," said the Justice, "you call this obscene doggerel, humour?"
"In parts, sir, in parts."
"I call it melancholy and libidinous."
Mrs. Courteen was seated at her window disconsolately regarding the rain.
"Gemini, child!" she exclaimed. "What can be the matter with Mr. Moon and the Major that they gesticulate so wildly."
"They're reading books, ma'am," Betty announced.
"Reading book, but they are standing at the street corner like Methodies!"
"They'm beaent gone sick mad for love of 'ee, do 'ee think, Ma'am?"
"Flatterer," sighed Mrs. Courteen. "No, child, they have probably been converted. I detect Methodism in their madness. Te-hee! I must keep that for Archdeacon Conybeare, who so dislikes extremes of sensibility in anything that pertains to so sacred a thing as religion. Ah, dear! Religion, what is it?"
"There's many ways of it ma'am, I do think. 'Tis true religious not to laugh when the lads tickle thy ankles wi' straws during the prayer for Good King George!"
"Tut-tut, how disloyal!"
Just then the raucous voice of one of the itinerant booksellers shouted "Curtain Polls severely lashed by a Curtain-Rod."
"Run, Betty, and inquire the price at once," cried Mrs. Courteen perceiving that this was the cause of the gentlemen's delay. "'Tis evidently a rumour on the best authority about the Day of Judgment."
Presently Betty returned.
"'Tis a book, ma'am."
"I know that, simpleton, how much?"
"Four shillings and sixpence, ma'am, for a little mimsy book not so thick as the magick history of Jack the Giant Killer."
"But what was inside, foolish one?"
"Oh, 'twas full of stars, ma'am."
"'Tis certainly a work on fortune-telling. Pray buy it instantly, here is the money."
Back came Betty with the volume, and presently Mrs. Courteen fainted.
Downstairs ran Betty, and upstairs walked Mr. Thomas and Betty.
"'Twas the book as done it," said the latter vehemently.
The offending volume lay face downwards upon the quilted apricock of Mrs. Courteen's lap, so Thomas picked it up and began to read:
"_At the Wells many elegant widows are seen, But no one so modish as Mrs. C******n, Her hoop_----"
So far he read, but, rubicund though he was, modesty was still able to deepen his colour.
"Yes," said Betty, "pray do 'ee read us some more, Mr. Thomas."
"What Jebusite wrote this book? I will smite him and all his works," replied Thomas, flinging the volume into the fire. Whether the odour of burning leather or the profuse drops of Sal Volatile revived the offended lady I do not know, but she instantly sat up and, in a voice tremulous with anxiety, bade her footman call a chair.
"For," said she, "I must pay a visit of condolence to my Lady Bunbutter, whose propriety has suffered an almost irreparable injury."
She did not stay to change her dress; she passed her suitors still quoting scurrility, one against the other in the wind and rain, without a smile of recognition or sympathy.
Outside my Lady Bunbutter's stood a row of sedan-chairs, and as Mrs. Courteen walked up my Lady Bunbutter's front door-step, the knot of chairmen packed more closely over a copy of _Curtain Polls_ indiscreetly left behind by one of their fares. There was a rustle of pages quickly turned by dirty thumbs, and as Mrs. Courteen was ushered in by my Lady Bunbutter's claret-coloured footman, there followed her upstairs a burst of ribald laughter.
My Lady Bunbutter had, by reason of her superior bulk and wealth, successfully repelled all rival claimants to the throne of dowagership. She reigned supreme; moreover her advice on this gusty forenoon was particularly valuable, inasmuch as she had just shaken off the waters of Bath on account of the publication there of some odious verses, in which her name and her person were treated with intolerably small respect. Therefore it was not surprizing to find her drawing-room the haunt of innumerable widows, old maids and long-established wives. There they sat, supplying asterisks with immense volubleness. As it happened, they had just tittered behind their fans over the odiously vulgar, but undeniably appropriate--yes! the odious fellow was certainly witty--when the subject of their malicious laughter and false blushes entered the room.