With the tact bred of many a Quadrille party, my lady Bunbutter advanced to meet Mrs. Courteen, murmuring, 'poor dear little Miss Kitcat, so spiteful and yet, my dear Mrs. Courteen, since we are all friends, alas! how true!'
Now young Miss Kitcat was still young Miss Kitcat, and simply would not become old maid or dowager, and would allow herself to be ogled by that notorious rake and disreputable--yes! disreputable, card-sharper, Captain Mann.
While the dowagers discussed the situation and vowed that the rogue of an author sadly needed a lesson, Beau Ripple himself, with many an urbane tut-tut was reading _Curtain Polls_ in his tall white drawing-room, where the firelight danced and flickered over the gleaming ivory panels.
"Too bad," said the Beau to himself as he turned the scandalous pages. He did not, however, treat them less carefully because they were scandalous, for to Mr. Ripple a book was always a book, and he paid as much ceremony to the emanations of Grub Street as he would have shown to the copper plates of an elephant folio.
"This is, indeed, too bad," said the Beau, "and yet the rascal has wit. Oh, yes, he certainly has wit, but what an excellent example this volume affords of the superiority of prose over verse. A poetick satirist too often sacrifices his good breeding for the sake of the rhymes. Now I should never have said that. No, no, that is too bad, and this--good G----! this is unpardonable!"
The Great little Man jumped up as red as one of the big chintz roses that bloomed so prodigally all over his winged chair.
The King of Fashion looked very small as he stood in the middle of an Aubusson rug, yet I think he never looked more truly a monarch than at this moment. Unfortunately there was nobody to see him as he stood in his little world of mirrours and engravings.
And what had upset his equanimity? Certainly not the following lines:
"_Where R*****, gentlest, kindliest of Beaux, To all the world an urbane presence shows: Proclaims the tropick joys of China Tea, And rules e'en Fashion with his polished sway. At his approach the graceless ruffle shakes, While every waistcoat in its buttons quakes; Each conscious shoe more luminously shines, And puckered breeches haste to smooth their lines_."
Whatever the Curtain Rod thought of the subjects, to the Monarch he was always complimental.
"Intolerable! unpardonable!" cried the Beau, tapping his snuff-box so fiercely that some of the powder was spilled over the grey Angora cat which was purring against his gold-clocked stockings in the heart of a faded Aubusson rose. Octavia (the cat) sneezed assent. What had upset his equanimity? You shall take a short journey to find out, for I perceive a break in the weather and sweet April is in the West.
We will walk just so far as Curtain Garden, but, pray, do not turn into the Maze where the paths are atrociously damp. Alas, the rain is beginning again, but at the end of that long alley is a summer house, the abode of many Rococo Dryads, although 'tis haunted at present by amorous mortals, for I caught the glint of a buckle and a shimmer of chestnut ringlets.
It does not require King OEdipus to guess that those eyes which stare so into the heavens are the blue eyes of Phyllida, while any one would recognize in that smooth voice the careful enunciation of Mr. Francis Vernon.
He, like every one else that forenoon, was reading _Curtain Polls severely lashed by a Curtain Rod_. Perchance the following lines were they that lately enraged Mr. Horace Ripple:
"_Now is it a hoyden, a hussy or Miss, Who listens to love but refuses a kiss? 'Tis said every morning she flies to the Maze, And buries her head from the Publick's low gaze_
_Of Love in a Maze, pretty charmer, beware, For under the rose there are thorns ev'rywhere, And if you should chance the wrong turning to take, 'Tis odds that you'll trip on a tall garden Rake._
_The Cits, when you pass, point you out to their Belles, You serve as a moral all over the Wells, And Dowagers, drinking your health in green tea, Express a faint hope that man will not betray_."
"Those are pretty stanzas for a lover to read," said Vernon, who, to do him justice, did not seem very greatly perturbed by the insult.
"Oh, Amor," said poor Phyllida, "they can't truly be intended for me!"
"For whom else?"
"But who would write such cruel words of a young woman?"
"That puppy, Lovely."
"Mr. Lovely! Oh! no, he's a gentleman and a man of family and a man of taste and a friend of Beau Ripple."
"He may be all this and more," declared Vernon, "but he wrote this book."
"I don't believe it."
"He did, I say, for he informed me so himself--at least he as good as informed me!"
"Amor! you must have been mistook."
"On my life, not at all. He owes me near five hundred guineas, and when I hinted that the expense of inland Spas tells upon a gentleman's resources, begged my pardon, swore he had a literary project on hand, and promised me a hundred guineas on Lady Day. That was the day before yesterday."
"A gamester!" said Miss Phyllida, who, with the injustice of her age and sex, neglected to see that her lover was as much to blame in this particular as Lovely.
"Ay! a gamester," said Vernon with fervid indignation.
"And for the sake of a hundred guineas he was ready to cheapen the honour of a maid?"
"My angel forgets the Chinese Masquerade. Mr. Lovely was piqued by her obvious weakness for a less fashionable, less conspicuous gentleman."
"Oh, I will never forgive him. He has ruined me."
"Nay, come, come, 'tis not so bad as that. Amor will never desert his Phyllida."
"I'm ruined, I'm ruined," she sobbed. "I shall never dare go to visit my cousin Barbara, who is as prim and proper as----" Nothing was prim enough for the comparison. "And she has the most delicious hot buns you ever tasted, and the dearest spaniel and the most beautiful pugdog. Oh dear! oh dear! oh dear! how all the neighbours will laugh, and old Rumble the carrier will be telling tales about me in every kitchen in the county, and 'tis all your fault."
"My fault?"
"Yes, yours, for asking me to come and meet you and making love, while all the while there was somebody peeping over the hedges. I'll never forgive you, never, never!----"
"Dearest life, we can put a stop to scandal by being wed immediately. Listen! I'll have a post-chaise ready at dawn, and post-boys in scarlet, and lodgings with a balcony and a goldfinch singing in a cage. My Phyllida, will you come?"
"Oh! I dare not, I dare not--not yet, oh lud, oh lud! how shall I look the world in the face?"
Vernon thought for a moment.
"Where are your pearls kept?"
"In my mamma's trunkmail, but Betty could give me the key--and sometimes in her jewel case."
"On the thirtieth," said Vernon, "there will be a ball at Daish's Rooms, next to the _Blue Boar_ where I lodge. You will surely be there, 'tis my lady Bunbutter's rout."
"Yes, we shall be there," said Phyllida.
"At two o'clock in the morning, I will have a post-chaise waiting by St. Simon's Church corner, opposite Leonard's toy shop. Would you have the courage to slip out, my dearest heart, my Phyllida?"
"Oh, no, I could not travel by night."
"'Twould be safer," urged Vernon.
"No, no, I could not."
"Then for your sake, I'll take the risque and have the post-chaise in the same place at three o'clock in the afternoon of the next day. Promise you will come."
"No, no, I shall never be brave enough, and I must go for I hear voices, and I must never be seen with you again. Good-bye, good-bye," and before Vernon could stop her, Phyllida was running down the poplar alley to escape from Curtain Garden.
Our villain began to wonder whether she would elope after all. If she were shy, he might secure the necklace at any rate. With slow steps, his mind full of silken pearls, Mr. Vernon went slowly homewards. Half way down the High Street, he passed a narrow street known as Blood Passage from the vicinity of a large slaughter-house. He hesitated; made up his mind, and, turning down it, came to a crooked house over a low tumble-down doorway. He knocked fastidiously with the amber knob of his cane. A slatternly woman, whose last night's rouge was streaked with the matutinal ashes, opened the door.
"Does Mr. Maggs live here?"
"Come in," said the frowsy light o' love.
_Chapter the Twenty-second_
THE CURTAIN ROD
The satirist stood in his publisher's back parlour, and, through the dusty glass of the partition, observed the Exquisite Mob purchase their castigation.
"'Tis strange," he pondered, "that mankind should be willing to pay four-and-sixpence to be laughed at. Yet it is!"
Mr. Lovely was awaiting a draught for one hundred guineas, and Mr. Paul Virgin, glad of anything that would delay for a while such an unwelcome disbursement, continued to bow and smirk over the counter as the neat little piles of new volumes speedily diminished. At last the hour for the midday meal arrived with a temporary lull in the storm of purchasers. Mr. Virgin turned with a sigh into his little back parlour and, wading carefully through the heaps of uncatalogued tomes, set out with a wry face to unlock his walnut writing-cabinet.