Part 2

“Stop-at-home, nor stir-abroad! Smile, ogle!” each word emphasized with heel and toe.

“And—” Lady Peggy now flops back into her chair, breathless, “wait on man’s will and whims,—that, Chock, ’s what ’tis to be a woman.”

“Aye, ’tis,” assents the waiting woman. “But yet, My Lady, if I dared make bold, there’s summat Your Ladyship might do, an My Lady, Your Ladyship’s mother, came back home again from her visit to your uncle in York.”

“Out with it!” says Peggy hopelessly, folding up her attempted letter and tucking it in her reticule.

“Mayhap you could persuade, by much weeping and praying, falling into swoons and such like, that Her Ladyship would take you up to London! Once there, Sir Percy couldn’t keep his distance from you.”

Peggy looks at Chockey as if she were a vision sent from on high; then, quickly succeeding derision curls her lip.

“My Lady mother take a squealing chit like me up to town! Never! She’d say my manners weren’t fit, or my figger, or my wardrobe. Lud! Chock! Bethink thee, lass, of my gowns in London town! and me no more acquainted with the ways yonder, than our Brindle is with the family pew!”

Lady Peggy walked out into the paddock, rubbed the cream from her slippers on the turf; caressed the ponies; munched the sweet cake she had in her apron-pocket, felt the keen sweet air blow over her hot forehead, and saw, dancing ever before her mind’s eye, that insidious sweet suggestion of “going up to London.”

How did one go up to London?

In the coach: aye to be sure; and the coach left the “Mermaid” in the village every Tuesday and Thursday at five in the morning. The coach! The splendid coach, a-swinging on its springs like a gigantic cradle; the postillions a-snapping their whips, the coachman a-cracking his long lash and a-shouting “All h’up for London!” and the ladies and gentlemen—well armed, these last, in dread of the highwaymen on the heath—all a-piling in and a-settling themselves; and the guards a-tooting their horns, the landlady and the boots and the maids and the hostlers all a-bowing and a-scraping and—off they go! for London town—where Percy was a-pining and a-dying for her, so her twin writ in his letter.

Well, Lady Peggy went in, clapt on a fresh gown and shoes, and never was daughter more tender and patient with crabbed, gouty, crusty dad than she all through that lovely day. Playing backgammon; spelling out the newspaper; trouncing the cat when it jumped on His Lordship’s leg; blowing the fire; wheeling his chair from hither to yon; stroking the bald head; combing the white whiskers; and finally said she,

“Daddy, London’s a very big sort of a place, now, isn’t it?”

The Earl nods, coddling his leg into the slip of sunshine that’s walking westerly away from him.

“My brother lodges, so he says, at the corner of Holywell Road and Lark Lane; tell me, dad, where should that be now?” Lady Peggy has a careless air, and flecks a buzzing fly out of His Lordship’s bowl of porridge.

“Eh?” pursues she, “is’t for instance, in the city, or nigh London Bridge, or where the quality lives, or toward Southwark, or where?”

“Rot me!” cries His Lordship, looking up at his daughter in surprise, “what’s my poppet got into her pretty head now, forsooth? Tut, tut, girl, what’s town to thee, or its bearings? hey? stick thy eye into thy churn an’ keep thy hand on the dasher,—’twere better’n all the shops in Piccadilly, or all the fops at Court.”

“Slow, dad! I was only askin’ of my twin’s whereabouts. Shops and fops are not dizzyin’ your Peggy, you may swear; ’tis my brother, Sir, of whom I’d learn!”

“’Twere better chase the scoundrel out’n my head, Peg, than hammer him in! A lad with every chance here in the county to raise his house, and make a good match with a nice plump girl, havin’ land joining his own; but no! Up and off to town to starve and scratch!”

The Earl pommels the floor with his stick, causing the cat to leap into the air.

“Let him die in want! Let him freeze, thirst, come to the gallows, say I! For such as leaves plenty to pursue want, gets no sympathy from me!”

“He ain’t begged for’t yet, dad,” says Peggy very mildly. “All I was a-wonderin’ was this: When my brother took the coach at the Mermaid that mornin’ you mind? how far off the inn where he alighted was the lodgin’ at the corner of Holywell Road and Lark Lane?—eh, dad? Surely”—and here Lady Peggy knelt and stroked his lordship’s gouty member, and her voice positively trembled, doubtless with excess of filial zeal and devotion.

“Surely,” resumed she, “you, who were, I dare be sworn”—such arch eyes as Lady Peggy now made!—“a fine gallant not so many years ago, must remember that,—don’t you?”

“Let’s see, let’s see,” responds His Lordship, rubbing his head. “They set ye down at the King’s Arms, nigh the Bridge, Southwark Bridge, yes; Well! Damme! I ought to know! Lark Lane? A devil of a hole; why, girl! it’s not a quarter hour’s trot from the inn, but it’s a beastly environment. Gad! that son of mine chooses pens, ink and writing-paper there, rather than—”

“Lady Belinda here, weight fourteen stone; acres two thousand; guineas, countless; temper, amazin’; years, untold! ha! ha! ha! Oh, daddy!” Lady Peggy springs up and dances about a minute in most genuine gaiety, then she seizes her father’s head between her palms and hugs and kisses him with much grateful warmth; then flops down a-coddling of the gout again; laughing, giggling, pinching puss, and saying,—

“Daddy, drop London! Care I no more for’t. Know I quite enough. Let’s chat of aught else in the world, until you fall a-napping, which will be soon now, guessing by the shadows.”

’Twas very soon.

Then Lady Peggy tiptoed off to her chamber; then she pulled the rope that rang in the kitchen, and presently Chockey came, chopper and bowl in hand, checkered apron over white one; for serving maids were scarce in Kennaston Hall, footmen there were none; butler there was when he was not doing t’other half his duty at the stables.

“Come hither, Chockey,” says her mistress in a whisper, with a beckon. “Shut the door; go on with choppin’ your leeks and carrots, cook’ll want ’em for the soup,—but listen, Chock; unlock your ears Jane Chockey, as never you did before in your life.”

Chockey bobs as she chops, leaning against the headpost, for support of her occupation, and also of her curiosity.

“You know my mother’s box, the small one that was re-covered last spring with the skin of the red calf that died natural? Bickers put it on with a gross of brass nails?”

Chockey again bobs.

“Put into it,” continues Lady Peggy, “a change of linen for yourself and me, two night-rails,” Chockey’s eyes dilate, “my gray taffeta gown with the flowered petticoat, my green hood and kerchief; powder, patch-box, lavender, musk, pins, needles; my red silken hose; your Sunday cap and sleeves”—Chockey’s chopper ceases to work, and the bed-post creaks. “All of which,” continues her mistress, “is but prelude to saying: ‘I’m going up to London by to-morrow’s coach, and I’m takin’ you with me!’”

“Madam!” Down goes the bowl, leeks, carrots, chopper and all a-spilling over the floor.

“Aye,” says Peggy calmly, “gather up thy mess, Chock, and to work with the duds. Lay out my Levantine gown, my blue kerchief, my black silk hose, my brown cloak; and, from my mother’s press, take the thick fall of Brussels lace and the brown bonnet it’s tied to, and bring ’em hither; put them under the bed beside thy trundle so’s my father’ll not see ’em when he stops to bid me good-night. Borrow cook’s hat she bought at the Fair when she was young, and her delaine veil for thyself; for, so appareled as not to be recognized, will you, dear Chock, and my Lady Peggy take the coach on April the twelfth. But, Chock, remember, mum’s the word, an you let your tongue wag to my undoing, but the thousandth part of a syllable, your mistress and you part company forever! Go.”

Chockey picked up Lady Peggy’s waving hand between a pinch of her apron, lest her onion-smelling fingers should foul so dainty a morsel, kissed it, and off and obeyed, speechless from surprise and veneration, both.

At night’s fall,—the Earl, somnolent again from fire’s warmth and the port he would take, despite the surgeon’s orders to the contrary,—Lady Peggy, Chockey in her wake, purse in hand, went scouting through the kitchen-garden, the paddocks, the cowyard to the stable where Bickers’s pipe shone in the gloaming like a fire-gem as he dodged and lurched after a refractory colt.

Bickers, albeit sometimes the slave of beer, was all times Lady Peggy’s abject, and it took no effort nor persuasion to gain him to her will. He took his orders amiably,—they were to secure two places in the London mail for to-morrow morning, and strictly to hold his peace both now and forever about the whole concern.

Peggy gave him the price of the seats and with wise Castle-mistress foresight, she showed Bickers a sovereign beside.

“And Bickers,” said Lady Peggy, “considering that the devil walks abroad often in the Mermaid’s tap-room, I am told, I’ll keep the sovereign for you ’til you come back, lest he rob you of it, eh?”

“Well, My Lady,” said Bickers; “a whole sovereign, My Lady, ain’t often seen out of the quality’s pockets, and the devil might think I’d stole it, My Lady, and try to get it from me. Keep it, My Lady, keep it!”

With which the old man, having conquered the colt, set off for the village by a side-path all too well known to his tread. Presently by the spark in his pipe-bowl the two women saw that he had turned back; that, as he came close to them, he clapped his thumb over the glow, and,

“My Lady Peggy,” mumbled he sheepishly.

“Whatever is’t, Bickers?” cries his mistress in alarm.

“Naught to fright ye, My Lady, only it’s been on my mind these many days to tell you as the letter you sent me with to Sir Percy de Bohun—”

“Well, well?” Lady Peggy’s words came with a gasp, as the old man dead stops.

“Go on Bickers, I say!” the mistress’s foot stamps with a thud on the damp earth.

“Askin’ Your Ladyship’s parding, the devil caught me that time at the Kennaston Arms, My Lady, and he clawed that tight, My Lady, that I couldn’t stir, and—and—”

Peggy now stooped, seized a billet of wood as big as her arm and gave Bickers a sound drub across his hands. The pipe fell in bits, the ash glowed; Bickers jumped, so did Chockey.

“‘And, and’ what?” drubbed Peggy with a will. “Not so much as ha’ penny of the sovereign, unless you out with the whole truth!”

“I will! I will!” cried the old man. “Sir Percy never got the letter, My Lady, until the very day I seen him on the long roan a-ridin’ for’s life away from the Castle yonder,” and Bickers jerked his thumb toward the house as he now made off.

The devil did not catch Bickers that night; he earned his sovereign before the moon rose.

As he sped, Lady Peggy took Chockey’s proffered arm.

“You see, Chock, you see, how we that are born to wear petticoats are no better’n puppets! a-dancin’ and a-cryin’; or a-kneelin’ and a-weepin’, as it happens to suit the whim of what, Chock? Who, Chock? Tell me, Chock!” cries Lady Peggy excitedly.

“Lawk, My Lady, that can I not!”

“A man, Chock, a man! it’s a him that pulls the strings, girl, and all we’ve to do is to simper and jerk this way, that way. To think,” here Peggy’s voice falters, for they’ve gained the house and are clambering the back stairs in the dark. “To think that Bickers, Bickers! should ha’ made me treat my worshiped Percy like a hog! Yes, Chockey, like a hog! even that name ain’t vile enough for me. But, oh, an I reach London in safety, and gain my brother’s chambers, and learn from him that ’tis for very love of me Sir Percy’s canterin’ to perdition, then, Chock, Lady Peggy’ll know how to spell paradise for him she’s riskin’ much to hear the truth about.”

“But, My Lady,” ventures Chockey, who, notwithstanding the blissful prospect of seeing London, still had a practical eye toward the dangers that beset the path, both thereto, and once there.

“But, My Lady, supposin’ we can’t find Lord Kennaston’s lodgin’s; supposin’ he’s away from home when we get there; or, a-havin’ a party, or ain’t got no place for us to sleep; or suppose—”

“Suppose me no supposes, Chock!” Lady Peggy shakes out the Levantine gown from its wrinkles. “If London were the black pit, and an army of Satans a-sittin’ grinnin’ around the brim, still would I go and find out for myself if it’s for me he pines—or, if Lady Diana Weston is up in London too!” With which Her Ladyship gives the petticoat, she takes from its peg against the morrow, a somewhat emphatic, not to say malicious shake.

III

_Wherein is recounted how Her Ladyship set forth, accompanied by her faithful woman, for London Town._

Whoever knows the rare delights of an English dawn nowadays can figure for himself, to the letter, how ’twas when Lady Peggy and Chockey, after a make-haste toilet in the dark, slipped out into the sweetness that long-ago spring morning. The mists were rolling and creeping slowly back and over from the river-meadows; the brawl of the stream tinkled in their ears; the scents of the flower-garden next the court-yard of the Castle, came potently, lured by the flush that by now was tingeing all the pallid east with rose; the yellow moon hung low to her setting, and two stars for handmaidens still shone, of all her million troupe, at either side the disk; yonder, the steeple of the church pricked up to heaven; hither, the oaks, greening to their full leafage; there a brown rabbit scurried across the road; here the rooks hopped and ha-ha-ed to their fellows. Else, ’twas all a-hush with that recurring fond expectancy of hope, with which every day of every year so waits and wonders for “to-morrow” to be born.

Lady Peggy took the lead, kirtle high upheld, shoes soon bedrabbled in the dust and dew. Chockey, bearing the newly-covered box in her stout arms, followed close at heel. Both women, veiled double, and being wholly unused to such matters, sighting the path much the worse for the covering; in fact Peggy stumbled along like some old crone, and yet laughed under her breath merrily back at floundering Chockey.

“Hist! Chock, had I now but brought dad’s cane and snuff-box, I must sure be taken for some three-score dame come yawning out of bed before her hour, to overtake, mayhap, a recreant grandson! Zounds! as my twin’d say, were he here,” and hauling at the mischievous Brussels veil, down flopped Her Ladyship, on her knees betwixt two villainous ruts.

“Oh, My Lady!” moaned the waiting-woman panting under cook’s delaine and the calf-skin box. “Lord ha’ mercy! an this be the way to London. I’d liefer be sittin’ in the kitchen chimney a-blessin’ my porridge and spoonin’ of’t, than this!” assisting her mistress to her feet.

“Fie upon thee, Chock! Remember you’re waiting-woman now to a lady of fashion, to wit myself, and well used to journeys up to town in coaches every season! Lud!” Here Peggy stood in a puddle to take breath. “I wonder if we’ll ever pass muster at the inn; and yet I’m sure, landlord, or dame, or hostler’d never think o’ me.”

“Haste, Madam,” returns Chockey, “for do not forget the coach starts at five on the stroke, and we’ve still the quarter-mile to go.”

So on they went. My Lady Peggy unable to restrain, from time to time, however, the keen relishful overflow of her spirits. When one’s young and not ailing, a new day whips the blood and brain to such a pinnacle of unquestioning gladness as breaks bonds, be they never so weighty, and, pro tem., sweet few-years comrades him with the happiness of earth and air and sky.

But once the curl of cheerful smoke from the “Mermaid” chimney full in view above the oak-tops, My Lady sobered much, and, clutching Chockey’s arm, both fell a-trembling; stood stock-still, and stared into each other’s eyes, as lace and wool would let.

“Lady Peggy,” cries Chockey, “an it please Your Ladyship,” with tell-tale gasps of throat, “let’s go back home!”

“Jane Chockey!” answered her mistress, only needing this spur to set her a-panting the more to her purpose, “we’ll go on.”

And on they went. Peggy with a measured tread; Chockey plodding after. Into the inn-yard, where even now the great coach with its four bays waited the signal to start.

The passengers were piling on; and, atop already, quipped a trio of college lads in beavers. There stood mine host and hostess, maids, men, boys, cooks, and scullions; tips were tossed, baggage packed in the boot; farewells spoken; candles held high, lashes cracked; prancing, pawing; a rattle, a door-bang, curtsies, bows,—

“All h’up for the London mail!” shouted the coachman merrily.

And Lady Peggy and her woman, neatly sandwiched between a fat, fussy dowager and a swearing, tearing old gentleman who together absorbed the most of the vehicle and all the attention of their fellow passengers, found themselves on the road to town.

No one paid the least heed to them, save that, at the stops, the guard came civilly to ask Chockey if her mistress required any refreshment, to the which Chockey, well prepared, always answered “no”; since, to raise their veils might betray their identity. So ’twas in hunger, silence and oblivion that the momentous journey was taken.

When they crossed the heath, the testy old gentleman did turn toward Peggy, thereby flattening her the more, and, pulling out a brace of pistols, said:

“Have no fears, Madam, I’ve traveled this road these sixty years, probably you have yourself”—thus paying tribute to Peggy’s now trembling agitation, which he pleasantly mistook for age.

“And the damned rascals, Madam, know better’n to attack the coach when I’m aboard. You’re not in fear?” now bending a pair of sharp old eyes on the Brussels lace.

Lady Peggy, smothering her laughter, and recalling how often, half-a-score years ago, she’s sat on this old gentleman’s knee (he was a friend of her father’s), puts hand to ear, and nudges Chockey behind the broad back of the dowager.

The old gentleman nods comprehendingly, turns square to Chockey, and says “deaf?”

And Chockey, divided between terror and mirth, nods back again.

Without other incident, the journey up to the great city is accomplished, and, by three in the afternoon, up pull the four horses before the door of the King’s Arms in the Strand, and Lady Peggy, and her woman, and her box, are set down in the yard, amid the din and bustle incident always to the arrival of travelers.

Not much attention is bestowed on them. A couple of unpretending appearing women, evidently not persons of quality, as the meek little calf-skin box is their sole belonging; coming up to London too without even one man-servant,—bespeak but little consideration in the throng of ladies of fashion, gallants over their coffee, courtiers popping in for the news, sparks intent on ogling a pretty face or noting a trim ankle, that much o’er crowded the yard, ordinary and parlor of the King’s Arms.

Just here once, for an instant, Lady Peggy’s brave heart failed her; most, when she espied at the door, just getting into her silken-curtained chair, a lady, so young and beautiful, so richly girt, so spick and span, with such wonderful patches and such snowy powdered locks, such sparkling eyes, such begemmed fingers glistening through her mitts,—and knew at once that Lady Diana Weston was indeed “in town”!

She faltered a bit, indeed sank down on the box which Chockey had set in a corner of the yard, and, for a brief moment, both mistress and maid bedewed their masking falls with a few splashing tears.

Then spoke Lady Peggy, rising and plucking up her spirits,—“Chock,” said she, “beckon me a boy from yonder group; inquire the path to the corner of Holywell Road and Lark Lane; order him shoulder the box and lead the way. Speak with a swagger, Chock; knock the drops out of your lashes with a laugh, girl! Let ’em think we’re old hands at the town and used to bein’ waited upon!” Lady Peggy straightened herself in her grimy shoes, and gave the Levantine a twitch which she hoped was quite the mode.

Meantime Chockey did her mistress’s bidding, and in less time than it takes to set it down, the two were following the lad, in and out of such a net and mazework of streets and lanes as set their heads a-whirling; now they wheeled around this bend, now across that alley,—foul-smelling as a ditch or a dirty dog; anon up a broader way where knockers shone and chairs waited at the curb; then a cut down here, and at last this was Holywell Road and yonder the opening of Lark Lane.

Well, to be sure, ’twas a sorry spot. As Lady Peggy paid the boy and stood on the step, she ruefully surveyed the environment; the wig-maker’s opposite, with a wig in the window, she half-laughingly noted, the very yellow counterpart of Sir Robin McTart’s round pate; a dingy chocolate-house at t’other end of the row of dark, timbered, nodding houses; and this one of the stretch, taller, grimier even than its forlorn neighbors, was where poor scribbling Kennaston hunted that jade called Fame!

At double-knock, came hobbling the charwoman, loath to be disturbed at her twilight pipe, but brisking at sight of Lady Peggy’s now uncovered face and shilling between fingers.

“Yes, indeed, here His Lordship lodged and ate; was His Lordship at ’ome? Nay, that was he not! but surely might be before cock-crow to-morrow! His Lordship’s sister! Lawk! Would Her Ladyship and Her Ladyship’s woman condescend to come in and mount? What a beautiful surprise for ’is young Lordship when he did get ’ome to be sure! No, he ’adn’t gone out alone, a gay spark, a gentleman of the first quality ’ad come, as often ’e did, and fetched h’off His Lordship with ’im, last night; ’is name? Was it Sir Robin McTart peradventure? No, no, that was a name she ’ad never ’eard! ’Twas no Duke nor Earl neither, but a—Sir, Sir—?”

And as the old woman and Chockey, carrying the calf-skin box between them, reached the last landing and set their burden down in thankfulness, Lady Peggy, feeling the way, said:

“Sir Percy de Bohun, perchance? Methinks my brother has a companion by some such title!”

“Aye, that’s ’im! Ah, My Lady, as splendid a gentleman as ever sang ‘God save the King!’ free with ’is sovereigns, My Lady, as trees is with their nuts; and, to match ’im for oaths! there’s not that Prince o’ the blood as can swear so beautiful when ’e’s dead drunk. These is ‘is Lordship’s your brother’s chambers, My Lady!” throwing open the door and ushering Peggy and her servitor into as dingy, dirty, empty, sad, bare, and unkempt an appearing place as ever mortal and intrepid lady set two tired feet within.

But Lady Peggy, for the nonce, was only eager on one point.

“Drunk, say you, dame? and wherefore should so generous a young gentleman be a-gallopin‘ that silly road, eh?”

“Lawk! Your Ladyship! ‘ow should I know? but His Lordship’s own gentleman, My Lady, what ‘olds ‘im up and steadies His Lordship in ‘is cups, do say”—the old charwoman, whisking the dust of ages from a wooden chair, sets it for Lady Peggy and bends to tidy the hearth and gather together the few shingles and faggots strewn about.

“‘Say’ what?” urges Peggy, with eager eyes and a sixpence shining in her hand (another shilling’s more than she dare hazard of her slender store).

“Do say, My Lady,—God bless Your Ladyship’s sweet face! as it’s h’all on account of a young lady!”

Lady Peggy’s eyes sparkle and all at once the smoky room seems cheerful, and the tardy blaze in the fire-place glows and thaws her chilled bones and blood.

“Ah?” she says, smiling.