* * * * *
"I blame you, Betty. I blame you, vixen. Why you cannot model yourself on Thomas passes my comprehension." Thus the widow.
"She meant no harm, poor pretty lamb," protested the maid.
"'Tis not what we mean, but what we do that counts in this world."
"Ah! 'tis fine for thee to talk, ma'am, you take good care to amuse yourself, but, little miss, she must dingle-dangle all day long wi' nought to do but dream of doing nought."
"She has her friend, Miss Morton."
"Ay! that black-eyed hussy what pinches the maiden who dresses her lean skimpy rat's hair. I don't take much account o' she."
They continued in this strain for quite two hours, and would never have stopped if the candles had endured.
They went up to bed just as Charles, having finished his third bottle of Burgundy, knocked with vinous assurance at the door of the Great House.
I am not at all certain whether this adventurous action should have been included in this chapter, for I doubt nothing more heroick was ever done even by Hercules at the zenith of his laborious career. It was considered rash enough to wait upon Mr. Ripple in the middle of his siesta. A royal Duke once succeeded in gaining admittance, if very little else; but to wait upon Mr. Ripple when his flambeaux strewed the steps, when the orange light in his porch was winking on its way to annihilation, when the grey Angora cat had settled herself for repose, when not even a mouse dared scamper in the wainscot, and when Mr. Ripple himself sat amid the ruins of his complexion--this was defying the lightning and inviting Jove's revenge indeed.
Nevertheless, fortified by three bottles of a vintage that held the heart of France in its crimson depths, Charles recklessly knocked at the front door of the Great House, not once, but twice or thrice, with added vigour in the repetition. The sound sent the Beau's taper fingers a full two inches deep into a pomade compounded of some particularly fine Provencal almonds and the fat of foxes, the whole famous for removing those pectinated wrinkles that cluster at the edge of middle-aged lips. The fragrant grease, wedged beneath his nails, caused him to press thumb to fingers with an exclamation of fastidious displeasure.
The clatter of the second and third assault froze him to his chair with a sense of impending calamity.
Gog and Magog were fast asleep dreaming their gaudy dreams of Africa. Mrs. Binn, Mr. Ripple's intelligent cook, was snoring in the starlight of an upper chamber; Polly and Molly, Mr. Ripple's equally intelligent maids, were dreaming discreet dreams also in an upper chamber. Mr. Mink alone of the royal household was awake, engaged upon the overwhelmingly tricky job of frizzling his master's newest wig, and therefore quite unable, during this capillary crisis, to attend to the affairs of the world or the devil, knocked either never so loudly.
Consequently Mr. Ripple had to open the door himself, for if the knocking were to continue, many heads might peer from the Crescent windows, and the morning's rumour of the occurrence damage his authority.
It is characteristick of the Beau that in this critical juncture of affairs, he preserved his faculties so intact, that he was able without affectation to choose deliberately between a dressing-gown of flowered damask and a more diaphanous wrapper of dove-grey China silk. In deference to the season he selected the latter.
As he passed the door of his third dressing-room, he could see Mr. Mink, apparently unconscious of anything untoward in the air, blowing with steady breaths upon a remarkably hot pair of curling-tongs. The calm demeanour of his gentleman restored whatever was still lacking to Mr. Ripple's perfect equilibrium of mind.
With gentle steps, he descended the quiet stairs and, candlestick in hand, proceeded to draw back the cunningly wrought bolts of the front door.
"Mr. Ripple, I must speak to you," said Charles.
"Charles," said the Beau, "this visit is either vastly important or--it is vastly impertinent. Pray, what is your business, sir?"
"Business?" repeated Charles, on whom the effort of concentration was beginning to tell slightly. "Business?"
"Yes, business, sir, business; for I presume you are not situated on my doorstep for pleasure."
"I want to speak to you."
"Come to-morrow."
"Nay, sir, I must speak with you now. I'm in a devilish mess and need the advice of a man who has seen--who has seen----"
"Well, sir?" said the Beau, shading his candle in such a way that the pallid flickering rays lit up the young man's countenance.
"D----! I don't know, Ripple, but for God's sake don't stand there with that infernal candle dancing all over my face. Let me come in."
Whether it was the note of misery in our hero's voice or his drawn face or merely a whim of a great man's naturally eccentrick mind that made the Beau beckon Charles to follow him upstairs to the tall white drawing-room, where even still the fire glowed dully, will never be known. Any way, beckon to him he did, and having set down the taper on the high mantelpiece, seated himself beside the fire and began meditatively to toast his embroidered morocco pumps.
There they sat in the great drawing-room, the King and his Heir Presumptive, and very ghostly they looked in the wan light, and very unreal the whole experience seemed to Charles in after life.
"'Tis about this book."
"What book?"
"This satire."
"You wrote it?"
"Aye," with great weariness.
"_You_ wrote it? 'Foregad, Charles, I should never have believed that."
"But I never--I never wrote those lines."
"What lines?" Mr. Ripple, having admitted much, would admit no more.
"About Miss Courteen and the Maze, and the whole d----d, d----d, d---- d----"
No substantive was strong enough to suit the emphatick epithets thrice repeated.
"And who, may I ask, was the author of those graceful stanzas?"
"I know, but--but, Ripple--I owed the blackguard money--the Chinese Masquerade--I knew his name all the while--if harm comes of this affair, 'tis my fault--but by G----, I'll call him out, yes, I'll call him out, I'll call him out, I'll call him out, and I'll----"
"Go to bed," said Mr. Ripple peremptorily.
"What d'ye mean?"
"You fool, you're drunk. We'll talk of this to-morrow. Good night, Mr. Lovely. By the way, who was the author of those graceful stanzas?"
"Oh! h----! Amor. Vernor--Vernon. Anon! Oh, h----!"
"What proof have you of this?"
"Proof, eh? what d'ye say--proof--ha-ha-ha! proof! Why the proof of the pudding's in the eating. Isn't that so? But I've found, I've found the author, and I'll walk with him in Curtain Mead--in Curtain Mead by moonlight, eh? and by the powers, you shall act for me."
"Sir, this flippancy is intolerable."
"Who's flippant--who's intol--erol--erable, sir? I say I'll pay him with six inches of smallsword."
"You forget my rules, Mr. Lovely."
"Rules? Rules? What's the good of rules? He has insulted me and her."
I think you will agree with me that Charles was drunk enough to be very undignified. Mr. Lovely Senior appeared again, maudlin and quarrelsome. The Beau, who remembered him, winced at the resemblance.
"This interview is very repugnant to my sense of decorum," he protested. "I beg you will take your leave, sir. The whole affair needs the elucidation of the morning; this candle is insufficient. Moreover, the hour is late; the fire is low; I make it a rule to be asleep by midnight whenever possible."
"There you go again!" cried Charles, jumping up and walking with feverish gestures and unsteady legs round about the room. "Rules! Rules! Rules! 'Foregad, Sir, I tell you, you cannot make rules for life and death."
"But you can make many excellent rules for living and dying. One of the best of these is moderation in liquor."
Charles went back to the _Blue Boar_ not quite sure whether he had told Beau Ripple a very great deal or nothing at all. He remembered so little of what he had said that next morning he came to the conclusion that it was nothing at all. He was glad of this, for somehow when the effects of the Burgundy wore off, he did not feel disposed to attempt the barricade of the Great little Man's modish prejudice. Anything in the nature of an intrigue would be distasteful to such an emotional ascetick.
So Charles stayed late in bed on Tuesday morning and took no advantage of the invitation grimly issued the night before.
In the afternoon, being dejected in spirits, and finding all the world gone a-hunting, or a-fishing, or a-wenching, he betook himself to the _World Turned Upside Down_, a noted house for old red wines. While he sat in the taproom discussing life with an elderly bagman, one of the hostlers of the _Blue Boar_ to whom he had confided his destination brought him a note.
"D---- his eyes," said Charles, crumpling the paper to a perfumed ball, and flicking it towards the undulating surface of the elderly bagman's rubied nose.
"D---- his eyes," and, turning to his target, he inquired whether the latter would drink Port or Burgundy.
_Chapter the Twenty-fourth_
DAISH'S ROOMS[2]
Mr. Jeremy Daish, as I told you many pages back, was remarkably like a Cremona violin. Conceive then this elderly instrument of the Muses making a final inspection of his polished floor, preparatory to the invasion of my lady Bunbutter's red-heeled rout.