WE will, if you please, take for granted the persuasions used by Mr. Vernon to induce Phyllida to continue upon her headlong course. He rode beside her on this second stage of her adventure, and I shall have something to say of that drive together through the darkness of wind and rain. We will take for granted Sir George Repington's indignation, expressed with many a z——ds and many a pinch of snuff, and since there are a number of fine folk abroad on this most atrocious evening, it is only just that we should pay them the compliment of relating their horrid adventures.
You have not forgotten, I hope, the sensation created in Curtain Wells by the sight of Beau Ripple and Mrs. Courteen ensconced in the former's vivid yellow postchaise, driven by the former's diminutive groom Pridgeon. You made one of a host of conjectures, or rather you would have done had you not been in the heart of the secret, thanks to the honest, straightforward way in which I have treated you throughout this story.
They went off with 'Tally-ho' and 'Whoo-whoop, gone away!' They rattled over the cobbles and clattered over the kidney stones and jolted prodigiously over a kerb that protruded too far into the road. They bumped over a log of wood dropped by old Mother Hubbard in her frantick endeavours to gain the protection of the pavement, they ground the face of little Miss Muffet's favourite wax doll to minutest grains of powder. They experienced a second's muffled progress as with two wheels they rolled over little Tommy Trout's Easter coat and with the others made a broad smear over little Sammy Green's satchel and cracked his new Horn Book into a thousand splinters.
As for Mr. Ripple, every time he rose to a wayside obstacle and fell with a genteel plump into Mrs. Courteen's wide lap, he had a sensation of the acutest disgust; with disgust, too, he viewed his cushions of fawn silk and ivory sattin bedabbled with the widow's copious tears—these cushions made salt with a mortal widow's grief that were never intended to be spoiled with anything less ethereal than the glittering milk of the Queen of Heaven.
Extreme dizziness overtook the Great little Man when, in accents hoarse with hysterical sorrow, the wretched woman by his side begged the loan of his handkerchief. Then, indeed, he nearly called to Pridgeon to check their mad course, turn the horses' heads stablewards, brooding for a sensuous second upon the delights of a warm meditative bath, made sweeter with Citron Essence.
Poor Mr. Ripple! As the mile-stones fled past and the chilly March twilight crept over the dusky fallows and peered above the black hedgerows, he thought with unutterable pangs of the cheerful and comfortable town of Curtain Wells. His china shepherds and shepherdesses called to him over the bleak country, and in the distance like elfin bells he heard the reproachful tinkle of his elegant lustres.
At the turnpike Mr. Ripple asked the keeper whether a post-chariot had lately come under his jurisdiction.
"Dick who?" inquired the janitor.
"Have you seen a post-chariot?" said Mr. Ripple, petulantly.
"No, I ain't. Have you seen two bullocks as 'ave lost, stolen and strayed theyselves hereabouts—the red 'un with a——"
"Drive on," said Mr. Ripple.
"That's gentry," commented the gatekeeper as, spitting on the bust of King George which reposed in the palm of his dirty hand, he retired to brood over a well-thumbed pamphlet that set forth with convincing ribaldry, the imminent danger of another Popish plot.
"Drive on," said Mr. Ripple, "we shall have a heavy shower presently."
They were bowling down a broad village street with a merry jingle of harness and rhythmical clatter of hoofs, while the cracking of little Pridgeon's whip, nearly as big as himself, made many inquisitive bodies huddle in the low doorways of the cottages to survey the gallant equipage.
"Reg'lar delooge, your honour," said Pridgeon, turning round on the box.
Mrs. Courteen was already so wet with the tears of outraged motherhood that the addition of rain could scarcely have affected her comfort. Nevertheless she shuddered so expansively that she squeezed her companion closer than ever to the side of the chaise.
"Shall we put up at the Green Dragon?—very comfortable Inn, the Green Dragon."
"No, no, Pridgeon, drive on. If it rains, it rains."
Such a platitude from Beau Ripple can only have been provoked by the intensest despair. A ploughboy's epigram would not have seemed more out of place. The Nine Muses were certainly waked from their harmonious lethargy, and a small boy, playing Sally in our Alley on a Jew's harp, twanged a discordant echo of their shocked sensibility. A platitude from Beau Ripple! The very chaise collapsed in ignominy. Bump—bang—whooooo! The gay vehicle was on its side and the front off-wheel was whirling madly down the broad slope of the street, to the enormous delight of the boy with the Jew's harp and the immense consternation of a flock of geese in whose company it made a noisy entrance into the village pond.
Pridgeon turned once more on the Jimmy and, having pulled up the horses and gazed at the Tableau, remarked:
"Blow me tight if I didn't think the wheel'd do that afore we started. Blow me right and tight!"
By this time, all the village stood in a circle and supplied an exhaustive commenting upon the sad event.
"She's putt her futt through her petticutt," whooped grandmother.
"So her 'ave and toored 'un proper."
"Blarm 'un if the old buoy's knee ain't streaked like somebody's baäd baäcon."
"So it be, buoy, so it be," came the delighted rejoinder.
"Look, see the seat of his breeches!" cried a shapely hussy.
"I never saw such a power o' mud, why 'e's like a brown paäper plaster behind. Poor soul!"
"Horse ain't hurt?" asked a sharp-featured, bow-legged individual with professional anxiety.
Four or five hobbledehoys had assisted the Beau to his feet and volunteered to show him the way to the Green Dragon. As that hostelry stood exactly opposite the scene of the disaster, the offer savoured of something more than mere friendliness.
Mrs. Courteen was whirling round and round, like a kitten after her tail, trying to ascertain the precise amount of damage close to her train; a good-natured booby stuck his foot on the skirt to steady it for her inspection, and in doing so made the rent more irreparable.
"Better go to the Green Dragon, your honour," said Pridgeon, as spruce as when he started.
"Better go to h——, you dunderhead," said the Beau, very white with well-bred passion and the shock of the catastrophe. No fragile vase of Dresden or of azure Sêvres, no figure of opalescent Worcester, no violet-flowered teapot of Lowestoft that ever fell from a proud cabinet through the careless sweep of a chambermaid's broom, was to be so deeply commiserated as Mr. Horace Ripple. These painted monuments of care betray their inherent beauty even in the dainty particles that proclaim their wreckage, but a fop with muddied breeches—why, in the very first chapter of this story we trembled to behold the circumference of the least dignified part of the Beau's anatomy protruding from beneath a bedstead; and on that occasion, it was gay with the flowers of a silk dressing-gown.
I do not think that the Great little Man ever recovered from this outrage to his personal attire, for to the very end of his modish days, he would wear a coat cut an inch or two lower than was readily allowed by the least conservative tailor in his employment.
As for Mrs. Courteen, who followed meekly in the wake of her wounded escort, she could not refrain from wishing that the Major and the Justice were at hand to console her with jealous attentions and rival sympathies, and when the first round drop of the swift-approaching storm hit her plump on the nose and washed away in its downward course the last vestige of powder from her face, she regretted also the tributary fingers of Betty.
In the hall of the Green Dragon their reception was almost servile. Great Cobblebury, for all its pompous name, was too near to Curtain Wells to attract the attention of many travellers, and the Green Dragon depended for custom almost entirely on the thirstiness of the surrounding population. Guests, therefore, received very excellent service for their money. The host, one George Upex, had watched the advance of the chaise with sleek arms beneath a protuberant apron and thumbs that twiddled sleepily; but the smash aroused his hospitable instincts, and by the time Mr. Ripple and Mrs. Courteen had reached the doorway of the inn, he was back from the kitchen, where he had hastily ordered the immediate insertion into the capacious oven of several dishes, and was ready to usher the stranded travellers into the parlour.
"And what will your good lady take?" he inquired, with his rubicund face cocked at what he considered a very appetizing angle.
"She is not my good lady, sirrah," rapped out the Beau.
"Not at all, your honour—beg pardon," said Mr. Upex, putting up a gigantick hand to an equally gigantick mouth as if he would force the latter feature to eat the indiscreet question it had so grossly emitted.
"How long will it take to mend the damage to my chaise?" demanded Mr. Ripple.
The landlord made a rough calculation in his mind.
"About an hour to cook the—to mend the—er—chaise," he replied.
"Have you a bed?" asked the Beau.
The landlord beamed. They were going to spend the night under his roof, and mentally he saw himself on the next day obscuring the sunlight of the parlour with a very long bill.
"A bed, your honour? Yes, indeed! Oh! yes." Mr. Upex paused. "A bed?"
"Yes! a bed—a b-e-d—bed."
"For one night?"
"One night—no! now, sirrah, now." Mr. Ripple stamped his little foot, probably to shake off the mud of the humiliating accident.
"Now?" Mr. Upex looked surprized, that is to say the mouth of Mr. Upex remained fixed in a cavernous gape.
"Why not now?" exclaimed the peremptory Beau. "Ain't your beds aired, landlord? Ain't they made yet?"
"Oh, certainly, your honour."
"Then show me upstairs at once. I shall lie down until the wheel of my chaise is mended. And shew this lady another room, and send two or three chambermaids to attend to her."
Mr. Upex looked much relieved.
It was not such a shameless affair as he had been led by wanton ambiguity of phrase to believe.
"What about the duck?"
"What duck? What duck?" asked Mr. Ripple fretfully.
"The duck your honour ordered—that is, was about to order when I interrupted your honour."
"Send up three slices of the breast on a small tray to my chamber, and don't put any stuffing on the plate, the odour of sage upsets my appetite."
"Indeed?" said Mr. Upex, quite frankly interested by such a nasal idiosyncrasy.
"Yes, and send out a woman of taste and discretion to purchase a nightcap."
"I wouldn't say, your honour, as how one of the maids wouldn't oblige your—er—the good lady."
"For myself, landlord, for myself."
"I beg your honour's pardon."
Mr. Upex hurried off to execute his guest's requirement and presently returned to escort them to their rooms.
"When my man comes in," said the Beau, "send him up to me with the nightcap."
Pridgeon had rescued the wheel from the pond and, having successfully directed two bumpkins to trundle it to the blacksmith, arrived at the inn with an admiring retinue of idlers, whom he regaled with quarts of bitter beer. The woman of taste entrusted with the purchase of the nightcap (she was the scullerymaid) returned with the vestment neatly wrapped in paper, and, meeting her master on the stairs, was told to hand it to the diminutive groom, who chucked her under the chin with the parcel and took his bow-legged way upstairs to Mr. Ripple's temporary apartment.
Outside he rapped smartly on the door, which was cautiously opened sufficiently wide to allow the urbane countenance of the Beau to peer round the corner.
"Is that you, Pridgeon?"
"Me, y'r honour, with a present from Great Cobblebury."
The Beau took the nightcap, and in its place handed muddied smallcloaths, smeared coat, and wrinkled waistcoat.
"Have these cloaths thoroughly brushed."
"Yes, y'r honour."
"And bring me three slices of breast in an hour's time."
"Yes, y'r honour."
"And don't get drunk to celebrate your carelessness."
"No, y'r honour."
"Poor clod," murmured the Beau to his polite self, as he closed the door of his chamber and double locked it against intrusion.
I think it would certainly be indiscreet to spy upon Mr. Ripple's retirement. How did he spend his time in bed? The whisper of book-leaves tempts me to suppose that he read several of the bitterest odes, very possibly a whole satire of Quintus Horatius Flaccus, that poet so fierce but withal so urbane. Meanwhile Mrs. Courteen, surrounded by three maids, respectively known as Susan, Joan, and Elizabeth, held forth upon her misfortunes to a sympathetick audience.
She stood in the middle of her chamber, a massive figure pouring forth ludicrous complaint. It was as if a stork should seek to emulate a nightingale.
Susan knelt on the floor and industriously stitched away at the ragged train; Joan knelt with innumerable pins stuck between her pearly teeth and judiciously fastened several gaps in her attire, while Elizabeth, who was being courted by Johnny, the Green Dragon's sibilant hostler, rubbed away at the mud with as near an imitation of the sounds produced by her lover's stringy throat as the softness of her own would allow.
"I have been greatly distressed," said the widow, "grossly deceived, intolerably put about for, though Mr. Ripple has the character of a block of marble, it don't become a woman to be seen alone with a man anywhere, especially in a yellow chaise which attracts everybody's attention. I vow I heard that odious young Miss Kitcat laugh from her balcony as we flew past—yes, flew—and such bumping! I dare swear I'm bruised from head to foot, and my skin shows the smallest mark. I remember when I was a young woman, I stepped a minuet with young Mr. Heavibois of Heavibois Hall, and I declare he might have been taking the grossest liberties all through the evening, for the way my wrist was marked. Lud! it was as purple as my grandmother's silk coverlet that was given to her by a young lieutenant in the Navy, and was thought to belong to the wife of the Cham of Tartary, though I dare say he bought it in Cheapside for ten shillings, being a young gentleman on whose word nobody could rely, that is the worst of men, young women, you cannot trust 'em. And now my own daughter has run away with a London spark, and I, her own mother, must give up half a score routs and my Lady Pickadilly's drum—the most fashionable affair of the kind that will ever be known in Curtain Wells, for my Lady Pickadilly is newly come from town with her second son the Hon. John Hyde, as quiet a young gentleman as ever said Bo! to a goose, and here we are nearly into April, and if my daughter drowns herself from London Bridge, why then I shall be wearing black at the Fêtes Champêtres and a pretty figure I shall be truly! though, indeed, if one had the courage to wear a white velvet vizard, I might very well pass for an Allegory of Moonlight—and yet that would never do, for to be sure that malicious creature Mrs. Dudding, whose Conversazione last month was the completest failure ever known, would make one of her odious epigrams about poor Mr. Moon, the best natured of gentlemen and the very personification of the milk of human kindness. To be sure, his ankles are very big, but indeed I vow if one were to regard all the defects in humanity, very few of us would be able to hold up our heads. Mr. Ripple himself is the smallest man in the Wells, but nobody esteems him the less for that. To be sure, I think he was very ill-advised,—though for that matter he was never known to take anybody's advice but his own—very ill-advised, I say, not to speak more severely to my daughter. I was always so careful of her modesty that I never allowed her to sit in the Maze with an odious little nudity in stone always hovering about, till I declare they should have planted ivy to climb up his shameless legs. I'm sure nothing could be more Biblical than such vegetable apparel. Cupid they call him: Stupid I call it." Mrs. Courteen here paused to take a longer breath and Susan exclaimed:
"La! ma'am, what to do wi' your petticoat I doan't know. It comes peaping through your gown like Tom o' Coventry in the Christmas mumming."
"Pin it, child, pin it," said the widow.
"La! ma'am, we ha' used nigh forty pins already, and thee'll be like a hedgehog soon."
"No matter, child, no matter how I appear. I must do my duty as a mother, but I vow I blush when I think that near everybody takes us for man and wife. To be sure, I don't mind, and always say that if the world wishes to talk, the world will talk; and there once was a time when I was talked about from one corner of the county to the other. And now this improper affair of my daughter's will set every idle tongue wagging again. My own maid Betty, who was privy to the whole unhappy intrigue, was truly frightened when she found how far ignorance and wilfulness had taken her. 'What will they say at Courteen Grange, ma'am, and what will Mr. Rumble the carrier say, and Mrs. Rumble and the old widow who keeps the shop and poor old Jonas the gardener and all the good folk of the shire?' 'Ah,' said I, 'what indeed?' Ugh! child, you're running pins into my—into my legs!"
"Dear life, ma'am," said Susan the culprit, apparently not much abashed by the accusation, "'tis difficult to find a bit of leg to run a pin into, for, O my soul and body, you're shining like a starlight night, wi' pins all over 'ee."
So the rehabilitation of Mrs. Courteen went on with diffuse anecdotes on the side of the widow, with similes from deft-fingered Susan, with much displaying of pearly teeth from Joan, and with a gentle cooing from Elizabeth, who was betrothed to the hostler of the Green Dragon Inn.
Outside it was raining faster than ever, and the wind was beginning to moan under the eaves and away in the remote corners of the house. A flash of lightning and a terrifick burst of thunder that followed immediately upon its heels undid half an hour's steady pinning, owing to the violent tremours with which it afflicted poor Mrs. Courteen.
It made Mr. Ripple break a Cæsura and, worse, it made him try to mend it with a false quantity. Altogether the prospect was extremely uninviting, and the succulent odour of roast duck was certainly no temptation to precipitate his departure. However, the duck came to an end, and the morsels of it which began to freeze upon his plate made him so impatient of farther delay that when Pridgeon knocked at the door and informed him the chaise was once more fit for the roads, he called for his bill and, as I believe, (such a sweet change had Horace and roast duck wrought in his mind) hummed a popular jig while he buttoned up his breeches. Soon he was tapping delicately at the door of Mrs. Courteen's chamber, saying:
"Come, ma'am, I hope you're rested. Our horses are waiting—'tis a most atrocious night—but never mind, ma'am, never mind, we shall sleep the sounder," he had almost said "for having done our duty," but not even the stress of an untoward adventure could condemn his spirit to a second platitude that stormy night, and he altered the unfinished sentence to "for not having to endure Mrs. Dudding's epigrams. Foregad, ma'am," he went on, "she churns the sour cream of her intellect and produces, after infinite toil, a very rancid wit."
Then the Great little Man pattered downstairs, condescended to felicitate Mr. Upex upon his timely meal, inquired the name of his cook, said she was a good woman and would go far, listened to Farmer Gruby's opinion that this rain would do a power o' good to the land, condoled with him upon a bovine loss which he was still lamenting, bade Pridgeon stand another quart of ale each to the good fellows who had assisted to talk about the accident, raised his monocle to a bill of sale affixed to the wall, inquired into the state of the roads before them, evoked an atmosphere of respectful adoration by presenting the landlord with a card inscribed 'Horace Ripple, The Great House,' and finally won the perpetual devotion of Mr. George Upex by writing in his neatest hand at the top right corner of the engraved card 'Recommended by.' The landlord vowed he would have the precious voucher of identity framed and hung up in the parlour underneath a painting on glass of his gracious Majesty K—— G——, and in close proximity to a likeness of Lord Breda's prize bullock Jupiter, which several drunken loyalists had been known to salute in mistake for the K——.
Mrs. Courteen sailed downstairs, followed by Susan, Joan and Elizabeth, all of whom were kept busy picking up pins, which they stuck between their teeth, to the great disappointment of Mr. Pridgeon, who would have very much liked to snatch a kiss from each Hebe in turn, and, seeing that the hostler was standing outside in the rain, I dare swear that but for the pins he would have been successful in his amorous project. Off went the chaise into the gathering gloom, spattering the onlookers with mud, and almost drowning with its clatter the hearty cheers of the inhabitants of Great Cobblebury.
And now the Beau, whose urbanity had been restored by Horace and roast duck, entertained Mrs. Courteen with delightful tales of fashionable society. The most violent jolt no longer availed to upset the balance of his sentences. The widow was deeply impressed by Mr. Ripple's charming behaviour and, though she could not appreciate his anecdotes at their value, was put into a very pleasant disposition of mind by a half-fledged fancy that the Great little Man was slowly succumbing to her ample fascination. As for little Pridgeon, his diminutive inside was so replete with cordials and old Jamaica rum that he was quite impervious to the weather and he sang a large number of country ballads in a very engaging Alto voice.
Suddenly, as they were driving over a wild stretch of commonland, dotted with huge clumps of gorse and a number of stunted and wind-bent thorn-trees, the chaise stopped with a jerk, spoiling the climax of one of the Beau's best stories, describing how he had compelled the Duchess of Hereford to apologize to a flower girl.
"What's the matter?" he cried out.
"Nothing," said Pridgeon, "but we're just underneath the gallows with a very notorious reskel swingin' over our heads—reg'lar old scarecrow he is—can't you hear the chains, y'r honour? He's bobbin' about in the wind like a cork in a puddle."
"Drive on, rogue," commanded Mr. Ripple sternly.
"It 'ud be a pity not to see 'im. Blue Jenkins vas his name—I'll hold up one of the lamps and you can take a good look at 'im. There was hundreds used to walk 'ere of a Sunday afternoon when he was just turned off, ecod, y'r honour ought to take a look at him."
"Will you drive on, sirrah!"
Suddenly Mrs. Courteen uttered a loud scream; and very uncanny it sounded in the tempest.
"What in the name of—what's the matter?" exclaimed Mr. Ripple.
"I hear horses," said Mrs. Courteen, and screamed again.
Pridgeon cocked up his ears.
"She's right," he shouted. "There's a couple of 'em coming up behind us!"
"Good G——! Highwaymen!" said Mrs. Courteen, clinging to Mr. Ripple. The latter did not lose his presence of mind.
"Drive on, you puppy! I'll see to the priming of my pistols." With these words the Courageous little Man dived between the widow's agitated legs and groped for the elegant walnut case of his exquisitely chased pistols.
"'Tain't no good," shouted Pridgeon, as he lashed the horse to a gallop. "'Tis only a mile afore we reaches Long Hill and they'll catch us walkin' there."
"I warn you, madam," said Mr. Ripple calmly, while the postchaise rattled through the storm, "I warn you that I shall certainly shoot once, if not twice."
But Mrs. Courteen had fainted away and only half a dozen pins released from their responsibleness whispered a faint and ineffective answer.