Chapter 2
Budde Towers, according to Plabbin's "Guide to Hampshire," lay in the heart of the forest. Built in the days of William the Conqueror, 1066, and William Rufus, 1087, by Sir Francis Budde, it had been inhabited by none but Buddes of each successive generation. Madcap Moll's great-grandfather, Lord Edmund Budde,[4] added a tower here and there when he felt inclined, while her uncle Robert Budde--known from Bournemouth to Lyndhurst as Bounding Bob--built the celebrated picture gallery (which can be viewed to this day by genealogical enthusiasts), the family portraits up to then having been stored in the box-room.
Old Earl Budde, Moll's father, was as crusty an old curmudgeon as one could find in a county. His wife (the lovely Evelyn Wormgate, a daughter of the Duke of Bognor and Wormgate) had died while the radiant Moll was but a puling infant. Thus it was that, knowing no hand of motherly authority, the child perforce ran wild throughout her dazzling adolescence.
The trees were her playmates, the twittering of the birds her music--all the wild things of the forest loved her, specially dogs and children. She knew every woodcutter for miles round by his Christian name. "Why, here's Madcap Moll!" they would say, as the beautiful girl came galloping athwart her mustang, untamed and headstrong as she herself.
This, then, was the priceless jewel which George I., spurred on by an overmastering passion, ordered to be transferred from its rough and homely setting to the ornate luxury of life at Court, where he immediately bestowed upon her the title of Eighth Duchess of Wapping.
It was about a month after her arrival in London that Sir Oswald Cronk painted his celebrated life-size portrait of her in the costly riding-habit which was one of the many gifts of her royal lover. Sir Oswald, with his amazing technique, has managed to convey that suggestion of determination and resolution, one might almost say obstinacy, lying behind the gay, devil-may-care roguishness of her bewitching glance. Her slim, girlish figure he has portrayed with amazing accuracy, also the beautiful negligent manner in which she invariably carried her hunting-crop; her left hand is lovingly caressing the head of her faithful hound, Roger, who, Raymond Waffle informs us, after his mistress's death refused to bury bones anywhere else but on her grave. Ah me! Would that some of our human friends were as unflagging in their affections as the faithful Roger!
Her reign as morganatic queen was remarkable for several scientific inventions of great utility[5]--notably the "pushfast," a machine designed exclusively for the fixing of leather buttons in church hassocks; also Dr. Snaggletooth's cunning device for separating the rind from Camembert cheese without messing the hands! There were in addition to the examples here quoted many minor inventions which, though perhaps not of any individually intrinsic value, went far to illustrate Madcap Moll's influence on the progress of the civilisation of her time.
In Raymond Waffle's rather long-winded record of her life he dwells for several chapters upon the Papist plots which menaced her position at Court. After a visit to several of London's museums, I have discovered that most of the facts he quotes are naught but fallacies. There were undoubtedly plots, but nothing in the least Papist. She had her enemies--who has not? But, as far as religion was concerned, Papists, Protestants, Wesleyans, and occasionally Mahommedans, all joined together in unstinting praise of her character and judgment.
Any faults or acts of thoughtlessness committed during her brilliant life were amply compensated for by the supreme deed of loyalty and patriotism which, alas! marked the tragic close of her all too short career. Her ride to Norwich--show me the man whose pulses do not thrill at the mention of that heroic achievement! That wonderful, wonderful ride--that amazing, glorious _tour de force_ which caused her name to be revered and hallowed in every sleepy hamlet and hovel of Old England--her ride to Norwich on Piebald Polly, her thoroughbred mare! On, on through the night--a fitful moon scrambling aslant the cloud-blown heavens, the wind whistling past her ears, and the tune of "God Save the King" ringing in her brain, the rhythm set by the convulsive movements of Piebald Polly. On, on, through towns and villages, and then once more the open country--what is that noise? The roaring of water! Torrents are unloosed--the dam has burst! Miller's Leap. Can she do it?--can she?--can she? She can--and has. Dawn shows in the eastern sky--the lights of Norwich--Norwich at last![6]
Poor Moll! the day that dawned as she sped along those weary roads was to prove itself her last. Her exhaustion was so great on reaching the city gates that she fell from Piebald Polly's drooping back and never regained consciousness.
Rumour asserts that the King plunged the country in mourning for several weeks--some say he never smiled again. Madcap Moll, Eighth Duchess of Wapping, left behind her no children, but she left engraved upon the hearts of all who knew her the memory of a beautiful, noble, and winsome woman.
E. MAXWELL SNURGE
AN INTIMATE STUDY
I will not seek to write of E. Maxwell Snurge as his friends have written of him, tall, courageous, and vitally intelligent. Nor as his enemies have chronicled him, short, fat and intensely stupid. I will endeavour with a few brief flourishes of the pen, to portray the various intricacies of his character as I see them, clearly and dispassionately with the eyes of a psychological observer, whose hand is uncorrupted by the bribes of ruthless profiteers, grafters and the like.
It is my desire to convey to the reader the real E. Maxwell Snurge shorn of tawdry trappings of party politics and the illusion and glamour of public idolatry--a man--just a man--but _what_ a man!
To dwell on the widely circulated story of his life would be needless, and to follow his political career, merely futile. What is there left? you ask. And I answer you with extreme firmness, there is one aspect of E. Maxwell Snurge which has never been seriously analysed--his soul! And it is that and that alone which will be the foundation stone of my structural portrayal of his character.
Why wasn't E. Maxwell Snurge president of the United States? Many have asked that question, he frequently used to ask it himself, and his wife--the sainted Amy Snurge of ever revered memory--would rest her thin, ascetic hand upon his coat sleeve and answer him with yearning sympathy but little satisfaction--Why?
Let us turn to an early episode in his career in our search for the key to the complexities of his mind, an episode slight in itself but well worthy of recording if only for the illumination it throws upon the much questioned motives of his later actions. He was spending a week-end with friends on Long Island--a fishing week-end. Mrs. Jake Van Opus (formerly the lovely Consuelo Root) out of consideration for her eminent guest and with great tact and charm, immediately he arrived made a point of forbidding politics as a subject for discussion in the house, and confined the general conversation exclusively to fish. That this thoughtful act was appreciated by the overworked politician it is needless to remark; he settled down to his brief respite with a tranquil contentment and complete blankness of mind which only the cleverest of us can assume at will.
Athletic from birth, Snurge cast his line repeatedly far out to sea with the strength and dogged perseverance which characterised his every deed--but alas, nearly fifteen hours went by before his patience was rewarded. Day had turned to dusk and the sun was setting when he was suddenly jerked from the fishing stand into the water. With an exultant shout, he clambered on to a rock still clasping his rod--"A Bite, a Bite!" he cried in tones strangely alien from those he customarily employed when addressing a civic conference. "A Bite at last!" Playing his submarine quarry with extraordinary finesse, he eventually, amid laudatory shouts and frantic cheering, landed an exquisitely striped bass, which lay at his feet gasping, apparently quite exhausted by its struggles to evade captivity. Now comes the point of the story, Snurge surveyed his catch quietly for a few moments--those standing near by noticed sternly repressed tears in his eyes--then he said a thing which come what may will eternally prove him the possessor of unparalleled insight and humanity. Touching the recumbent fish gently with his foot he sighed deeply--
"This bass is Democracy," he murmured, "And see what I have done with it!" Superstitious observers state that at this point the bass closed its eyes wearily, but this may only be a fanatical exaggeration.
Then with a set face he lifted the fish high above his head and flung it back into its native element, thereby undoing the efforts of many hours' untiring labour and patience.
I have told this story in order to illustrate definitely the initial weakness in his lifelong policy, call it folly if you like, or even imbecility, but I prefer to assign to it the one all embracing word--"Generosity." He was too generous, all through his career he sacrificed everything through his generous capacity for seeing and sympathising with both sides of every question. Many, many times he would shelve the carefully formulated schemes of months on the sudden realisation of what the Opposition would suffer if he carried them through.
Think--as I sometimes think--what a sad thing, what a vortex of conflicting emotions the heart of Amy Snurge must have been during those hard years, knowing her husband's strength and resource, deploring yet loving his weakness, encouraging, aiding and abetting his every act with the feminine pertinacity which has characterized the world's greatest heroines. Poor woman, no wonder the grave claimed her so soon, for like the bass--like Democracy, her vitality was exhausted by the destructive and constructive force of Snurge. Only unlike the bass she couldn't swim well, and unlike Democracy she had the man to contend with as well as the politician.
Snurge was by no means a revolutionary; he possessed too many ideals and too little passion, he was essentially a passionless man--except of course the one historic occasion during his campaign against prohibition when he completely lost control, and flying low in a government aeroplane broke a bottle of green chartreuse over the head of the Statue of Liberty.
The uproar which was the natural outcome of this defiant protest, was abruptly stemmed by the sudden reversal of his tactics on the day following the event, when he made a spirited appeal in West Forty-Second Street _for_ prohibition! This resulted in a hopeless gloom enveloping the metropolis. The populace commenced to realise in a measure the unreliability of Snurge as a saviour of the state, while at the same time fully appreciating his many sterling qualities.
Dark things were whispered in the White House.
One need not go far then to seek the reason for his fall from grace, his utter failure as a Republican candidate for the presidency--it was his generosity, his innate humanity, and his extraordinary breadth and clarity of vision.
If this man had but been president in 1914 there might not have been any war. Had he been president in 1776 there might not have been any revolution, and had he but been president in 1491 God knows what there might not have been.
REFERENCE
America in Sunshine and Shadow _B. F. Bramp_. 2 Vols. The Roguish Royalist _Anonymous_ Mirrors of Salt Lake City _By the Gentleman with the Cuspidor. 5 Vols._ Amy Snurge, a Grand Woman _Ernest Frapple_. 2 Vols. "Columbia Beware!" _Weedheim._
_I am also deeply indebted to Esther Throtch for her unlimited energy and devoted assistance._
BIANCA DI PIANNO-FORTI
Mediaeval Italy has in its time boasted many beautiful women, but there is one who must take her place before them all, one whose name is a byword to this day in every corner of that sun-washed country--Bianca di Pianno-Forti. One shudders at that name--so radiant was she, and yet so incredibly evil. Her tragic death somehow seems a fitting ending to a life such as hers--a life so without mercy, so without pity, and yet so amazingly vivid that it seems to be emblazoned on Italy's very heart.
She first saw the light in Florence. Her father, Allegro, of the celebrated house of Andante Caprioso, married at the age of fourteen Giulia Presto, of Verona, at the age of nine. At the birth of Bianca her mother died, leaving her to the care of her broken-hearted father and brother Pizzicato (destined later on to make the world ring with his music). Perhaps the only thing to be said in excuse of Bianca's later conduct is the fact that she never knew a mother's love. The nuns at the convent wherein she spent her ripening childhood were kind; but, alas! they were not mothers--at least, not all of them. Bianca left the convent when she was sixteen. Slim, lissom, sinuous, with those arresting eyes that seemed, so Fibinio tells us, to search out the very souls of all who came near her. Her first love affair occured about a week after her arrival in her home in Florence. She was in the habit of walking to mass at the cathedral with her maid Vivace. One morning, so Poliolioli relates, a handsome soldier stepped out of the shadows of an adjoining buttress and looked at her. Bianca at once swooned. The same thing happened again--and again--and yet again. One night she heard the shutters of her bedchamber rattle! "Who is there?" she cried, yet not too loudly, because her woman's instinct warned her to be wary. The shutters were flung open, and the young soldier stepped flamboyantly into the room. "I am here, _cara, cara mia_!" he cried. "I, Vibrato Adagio!" With a sibilant cry she fell into his out-stretched arms. "_Mio, mio,_" she echoed in ecstasy, "I am yours and you are mine!" So lightly was the first stepping-stone passed on her reckless path of immorality and vice. Her fickle heart soon tired of the debonair Vibrato, and in a fit of satiated pique she had his ears cut off and his tongue removed and tied to his big toe. Thus was her ever-increasing lust for bloodshed apparent even at that early age. Her next _affaire_ occured when she was travelling to Rome with her brother Pizzicato, who was to become a chorister at the Vatican. On stopping for refreshment at a wayside tavern, Bianca was struck by the arresting looks of the ostler who was tending their steaming steeds. Beckoning to him, she asked of him his name; he turned his vacant eyes round and round wonderingly for a moment. "Crescendo," he replied. Bianca's eyes flashed fire. "_Accelerato!_" she cried imperiously, and, hypnotised into submission, the scared man fled upstairs, Bianca following.
Upon arriving in Rome, Bianca and Pizzicato repaired to their father's brother-in-law, who was well known as a lavish entertainer. He was one Rapidamente Tempo di Valse, a widower, living with his two sons, Lento and Comprino, handsome lads both in the first flush of manhood, and both destined to fall victims to Bianca's compelling attractions. Contemporary history informs us that Bianca stayed in the Palazzo Tempo di Valse for seven years, visiting Pizzicato from time to time, and employing herself with various love affairs.
In June she became betrothed to Duke Crazioso di Pianno-Forti, of the famous family of Moderato e Diminuendo--indirectly descended from the Cardinal Appassionato Tutti. Tutti was the great-uncle of the infamous Con Spirito, well known to posterity as the lover of the lovely but passionate Violenza Allargando, destined to become the mother of Largo con Craviata, the fearless captain of Dolcissimo's light horse under General Lamento Agitato, whose grandmother, Sempre Calando, was notorious for her illicit liaison with Pesante e Stentato, a union which was to bear fruit in the shape of Lusingando Molto.
Bianca's wedding was celebrated with enormous rejoicing in Venice, where was situated the ducal palace of the Pianno-Fortis. Mention should be made of the life led by Bianca during the first years of her marriage, of her pet staghounds, of her tapestried bedchamber with bloodthirsty scenes of the chase depicted thereon--how she loved blood, this beautiful girl!
Her portrait herein reproduced is after an engraving by Campanele; note the sinister line of the cheek-bone and the passionate beauty of the nethermost lip! One can visualise her--radiant at the head of crowded dining-tables, drinking from gem-encrusted goblets, accepting glances fraught with ardent desire from one or other of the male guests.
All the world knows of her famous visit to the Pope, and how he died a few hours later; while it would be mere repetition of general knowledge to enlarge on her sojourn with the Doge, and his subsequent demise. Let us touch ever so lightly on her three children, Poco, Confuoco, and Strepitoso. How could they help being beautiful with such a mother, poor mites, branded from birth with the sense of their impending fate! After a while Bianca became aware that tongues were a-wag in Venice, sullying her name with foul calumnies. Her decision for their downfall was swift and terrible. She persuaded her easy-going husband to ride to Naples; then, free of his cumbersome authority, she set to work on the preparations for her world-famous supper party. Picture it if you will: five hundred and eighty-three guests[7] all seated laughingly in the immense banqueting-hall--Bianca at the head of the table, superb, incomparable, her corsage a glittering mass of gems, her breast chilled by the countless diamonds on her camisole, her smile radiant and a peach-like flush on the ivory pallor of her face. This was indeed her hour--her triumph--her subtle revenge. Her heart thrilled with the knowledge of that inward secret that was hers immutably, for every morsel of food and drink upon that festive board was impregnated with the deadliest poison--all except the two pieces of toast with which she regaled herself, having dined earlier and alone.
Historians tell us that following close on that event some rather ugly rumours were noised abroad--in fact, some of the relatives of the poisoned guests even went so far as to complain to various people in authority and stir up strife in every way possible. Bianca was naturally furious. Some say that it was her sudden rage on hearing this that caused her to burn her children to death; others say her act was merely due to bad temper owing to a sick headache. Anyhow, as later events go to show, she had chosen the very worst time to murder her children. More ugly rumours were at once noised abroad by those who were jealous of her. Upon her husband's return from Naples he was immediately arrested, and a few days later hung. Too late the hapless Bianca sought to make her escape; she was caught and taken prisoner while swimming across the Grand Canal with her clothes and a few personal effects in a bundle in her mouth. She was carried shrieking to Milan, where she endured a mockery of a trial; on political grounds she was sentenced to being torn to pieces by she-goats at Genoa. Poor, beautiful Bianca! On the fulfilment of her unjust and barbarous sentence it is too horrible to dwell at any length. This glorious creature, this resplendent vision, this divine goddess--she-goats! Dreadful, degrading, unutterable!!!
The day for her death[8] dawned fair over the Mediterranean. Bianca, garbed in white, walked with dignity into the meadow wherein the she-goats anxiously awaited her. She bravely repressed a shudder, and fell upon her knees. History tells us that every goat turned away, as though ashamed of the part it was destined to play. Then, with a look of ineffable peace stealing over her waxen face, Bianca rose to her full height, and, flinging her arms heavenwards, she delivered that celebrated and heartrending speech which has lived after her for so long:--
"_Dio mio, concerto--concerto!_"
One by one the she-goats advanced....
SARAH, LADY TUNNELL-PENGE
("WINSOME SAL")
Ffraddle of 1643 was very different from the Ffraddle of 1789, and still more different from the Ffraddle of 1832. At a time when civil war was raging between Jacobites and Papists and Roundheads and Ironsides and everything, Ffraddle stood grey, silent and indomitable--the very spirit of peace allied with strength seemed embodied in its grim masonry. The clash of arms and the death cries from millions of rebellious throats which echoed athwart the length and breadth of young England were unable to pierce the stillness of Ffraddle's moated security. Owls murmured on its battered turrets, sparrows perched on its portcullis, cuckoos cooed all over it, heedless indeed of the turmoil and frenzied strife raging outside its feudal gates.
What a birthplace for one of history's most priceless pearls--Sarah Twig! The heart of every lover of beauty leaps and jumps and starts at the sound of that name--Sarah Twig. Why are some destined for so much while others are destined, alas! for so little? Who knows? Sarah--a rose-leaf, a crumpled atom, dropped as it were from some heavenly garden into the black times of the Merry Monarch--when, according to Bloodworthy, virtue was laughed to scorn and evil went unpunished; when, according to Follygob, virginity was a scream, and harlotry a hobby; and when, according to Sheepmeadow, homeliness was sin, and beauty but a gilded casket concealing vice and depravity unutterable.
History relates that though food was scarce and light hearts hard to find, at the birth of Sarah Twig there was no dearth of these commodities. The snow was on the ground, Follygob says--the woods and coppices and hills lay slumbering beneath a glistening white mantle. What a mind! To have written those words! It was undoubtedly Follygob's artistic style and phraseology that branded him once and for all as the master-chronicler of his time.
Sarah Twig was born in the east wing, a lofty room which can be viewed to this day by all true lovers of historical architecture. To describe it adequately is indeed difficult. Some say there was a bed in it and an early Norman window; others have it that there was no bed but a late Gothic fireplace; while a few outstanding writers insist that there was nothing at all in the room but a very old Roman washstand.[9]
The night of Sarah's birth was indeed a wild one--snow and sleet eddied and swirled around the massive structure destined to harbour one whose radiant beauty was to be a byword in all Europe. The wind, so Follygob with his incomparable style tells us, lashed itself to a livid fury against the sturdy Ffraddle turrets and mullions, whilst outside beyond the keep and raised drawbridge the beacons and camp fires stained the frost-laden air with vivid streaks of red and yellow--colours which formed the background of the Ffraddle coat of arms, thus presenting an omen to the startled inhabitants which history relates they were not slow to recognise.
Bloodworthy describes for us the plan by which Lord Ffraddle was to acquaint the village with the sex of the child. If it were a boy, red fire was to be burnt on the south turret, and if a girl, green fire was to be burnt on the north turret; but unfortunately, he goes on to tell us, owing to some misadventure blue fire was firmly burnt on all the turrets. Imagine the horror of the superstitious populace! Some left the country never to return, crying aloud that a chameleon had been born to their beloved chatelaine!