Part 9

"He sought to starve it into capitulation by restricted diet, he tried to storm it by sudden charges of chalybeate. My lords, ladies and gentlemen, it was in the middle of one of these gallant sallies that he died. In a word, he was half-way through a glass of the cleansing liquid when death overtook him. There it stood, that partially empty glass beside the dead form of the veteran. May we not regard this relick as the tears of AEsculapius? Shall we not enshrine these sparkling drops in a lachrymatory and, having sealed the sacred fluid with the city seal, shall we not set it in a prominent part of our civick museum? My lords, ladies and gentlemen, we shall. I have consulted with my brother the Mayor of this town, and he has agreed.

"Moreover, let me remind you of the last words of the great Socrates, his last injunction to his friend to sacrifice a cock to AEsculapius. Let us also, in memory of our deceased exemplar, present a new tap to our publick fountain and so sacrifice, my lords, ladies and gentlemen, not a cock, but a turncock to AEsculapius."

The Great little Man here paused to wipe away the tears of sorrow and the heat of the atmosphere. "It seems," he continued, "out of place to make any announcement of a new diversion, but pleasure is as inexorable as death."

Here the audience seemed to murmur a mournful assent.

"Next Tuesday at 7 o'clock precisely will be held the Chinese Masquerade. This, as you are aware, limits our costumes to those authorized by gold-lackered cabinets and teacups of blue china. I myself shall act as Gold Mandarin and my young friend Mr. Charles Lovely will be the Blue Mandarin. There will be a grand minuet of Cathay, but I will not detain you now with farther particulars of this entertainment. I hope that we shall hold masquerades of assorted characters until May, when we shall make an attempt to start the Fetes Champetres which were so successful last year.

"Finally, my lords, ladies and gentlemen, you are aware that an incident of an unpleasantly obtrusive habit deterred us from Terpsichore on Monday night. I am, indeed, happy to say that the curtain has fallen upon the whole affair without a dissentient voice. I should have been inexpressibly grieved if the gloom consequent upon the defiance of my authority, had been at all lasting. May I add that the rebels--if I may call them so without offence--have acted in the handsomest manner and have offered to set up in the portico of these rooms a tablet commemorating the temporary cloud upon your delight. I should be more than mortal if I were not proud of such a token of confidence in my despotism.

"My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen, I am your very grateful, humble, and obliged servant to command."

The Beau's descent from his pedestal was the signal for much waving of lace handkerchiefs and fans. There were cries of 'Bravo, Beau,' 'Viva, Ripple!'

Finally when old Lord Vanity stepped up to the dignified lord of ceremonies and solemnly offered him his noted jade snuffbox full to overflowing of the richest brown Rappee, and when the Beau, having dropped his jewelled fingers into the modish soil, drew them forth and raised them to his aquiline nose, a stillness fell upon the room, and above the silence the sniffs of the great Beau, three in number, were distinctly heard by all. It was as if he wished them Good Health. But this was not enough for the Exquisite Mob. Somebody--it may have been our hero--ran post haste for a bottle of champagne, and somebody else rushed off for goblets. Presently, the prettiest Impromptu in the world was enacted, and very proud indeed were the spectators of a scene memorable for many years in the chronicles of fashion.

Delicately veined hands untwisted the silver wire and tore off the gold cap. Somebody fetched a corkscrew, somebody clenched the sombre green bottle between his brocaded knees. An arm tapering to snowy peaks pulled at the unwilling cork. A fairy explosion was followed by the dewy vapours of long imprisoned sunshine. The amber liquid sparkled and bubbled and flowed over the many faceted goblet in cream and foam.

The Beau mounted once more upon his pedestal and drank to the pleasure, health, and beauty of the company, while Lord Vanity and my Lady Bunbutter quaffed an answering toast in deputy for the lords, ladies and gentlemen present. Salvoes of well-bred applause pattered round the room, and the Beau's triumph was hailed with acclamations.

And you, beautiful women and fine gentlemen, roses and carnations of an older century, nothing remains of you for us. Your very perfume is but a name. You are no more to the world of to-day than those glossy candles that spluttered to death in gilt sockets. And yet, from the ruin of elegance, one relick of that famous evening remains; for the silver wire of the bottle of champagne, flung heedless to the ground, caught in a flounce of some Beauty's petticoat. Long ago the gossamer stuff mouldered, long ago was Beauty herself a skeleton, but the wire cherished by Beauty's family may still be seen in a glass-topped table in the corner of a quiet library somewhere in the broad Midlands. O insignificant wire, you are more durable than the flowers who despised you!

And now another famous ball waned to a close, and all the world of taste and fashion went home to bed.

_Chapter the Tenth_

AFTER THE ASSEMBLY

Mr. Charles Lovely walked back with Mr. Antony Clare to the _Blue Boar_, and joined Mr. Francis Vernon in the Coffee Room.

The latter noticed that Clare frowned slightly when he saw him, and explained, almost apologetically, that he had moved thither from his lodgings in the Crescent. Charles was delighted and immediately proposed a game of hazard.

"You'll play, Tony?" he said eagerly.

"Not I," his friend answered. "I'm too sleepy, for 'tis confoundedly fatiguing to be on such polite behaviour for so long."

"That's true indeed," cried Charles, "and therefore we need recreation the more." With this he gave a tug at the bell-pull of flowery chintz, and presently Mr. Daish who had sent the waiters to bed, came yawning to answer the summons.

"Daish, bring two bottles of Burgundy like the fine fellow and good landlord that you are."

"Yes, Mr. Lovely, certainly, your honour, but I hope your honour will be careful with the bottles; it would be a terrible thing for the house if the watch was murdered as they nearly was twice over last week," said Mr. Daish, crumpling into obsequiousness at the impudence of his request, and retreating sidelong from the room.

Mr. Clare, seeing that it was useless to argue Charles out of his determination, took a seat by the fire.

"Egad," said Lovely, "what a jealous dog it is, he won't play, but can't bear to go to bed." Clare gave the fire a meditative poke.

"What shall it be, Mr. Vernon? Ecarte?"

"With pleasure."

"Or picket?"

"As you will."

"Why, then, picket, and if we find we grow too sleepy to count our sequences, we shall, at any rate, not be too sleepy to trickle dice out of a box, eh?"

Charles turned with these words to take some unbroken paquets of playing cards from a small mahogany cabinet hanging against the wall. The picture presented was a friendly one as the two men seated themselves at the card table. The fire was burning brightly and rosy shadows flickered over the ceiling. The curtains were close drawn and the ample flowers of their pattern seemed to retain somehow the warmth and the light. By the side of the grate sat Tony in a high grandfather's chair. He had taken off his wig and was staring meditatively at the crisp curls, as it reposed on his knee. The buckles of his shoes spat tiny glints of flame--red, blue and green. Presently he leaned across to a small bookshelf and took down some dry inn volume, but the print danced in the fire-light and very soon he was dozing peacefully, while his wig slipped to the ground and became a pleasant couch for a large tabby cat to purr away comfortable hours.

At the table sat Vernon and Lovely face to face, and the green baize made a prim battlefield for the debonair antagonists. It was a meadow-fight viewed from towering Olympus. Here was pasture profitable enough to some: to others barren as the unharvested sea. No crescent moon lighted it, no sun parched the fresh greenery whose four tall candles flickered only to chamber tempests, storms of tapestry, keyhole zephyrs. At either end were ranged round guineas in wicked little heaps, and along the borders stood serried packs of cards, shorn of their meaner numbers as becomes the apparelled duel of picket. These had been flung contemptuously on to the floor and the survivors lay face downwards on the table with a new and alluring slimness. Their backs were so innocent--mere festoons of flowers and bouquets of rosebuds; yet their very innocence only served to enhance the red and black determination of their faces. How the royal cards reflected in their appearance the temper of their courts. How sombre-suited went the Queen of Spades, how pensive seemed her consort, while the savage Ace was hung with garlands of mourning and sable flowers of Proserpine. The Queen of Diamonds looked harassed; the Knave had a lean eye and the King himself seemed peaked and careworn. The Club Court was a swarthy and more brutal counterpart of the gay Hearts, and the gay Hearts, with ripe dewy mouths, had yet a certain sly sensuality that bred distrust.

Then the tournament began. The stacked guineas sprawled in golden disarray and dwindled and swelled and tinkled to the tune of the game.

Charles was winning. Five times he had made the grand Repique, five times the gallant Pique, thrice Capote had taken captive twelve hostile cards to be redeemed with rippling guineas. Ace, King, Queen, Knave, Ten came in sequences as month succeeds to month. His hands were palaces for the abode of many courtiers. They were picture galleries of the oldest kings and queens in Europe. If he threw away Spades, he took up the red Hearts for which he longed. If he discarded Diamonds, he gained a lusty host of Clubs to serve his purpose.

At last Vernon, who had lost steadily for a pair of hours--six games at an average price of thirty guineas a game--declared he would fight no longer against his adversary's good fortune. "Moreover," he added, "so much counting has set my brain in a whirl."

"As you will," said Charles, who would have liked to continue with picket, but could not refuse to give his opponent an opportunity to avenge himself at another game.

So they turned to Ecarte.

And now his fortune deserted him. Each time Vernon dealt he turned up a King, and Charles began to dread their florid appearance, as some ambitious minister dreads the veering of his master's favour. Those kings who had hitherto been numbered in his hands in fours and threes, those puppet kings, had won a new dignity from the only game which accords them their rightful place at the head of the pack; each one had acquired, it seemed, a personality that threatened him. Time after time were his Jeux de Regle defeated by the most astonishing combinations of ill luck.

So many times did those confounded monarchs affront him face upwards on the serene baize that he began to suspect Vernon of being a sort of gamester Warwick, a maker and unmaker of kings. Indeed, he went so far as to watch his deals rather narrowly and, being unable to detect anything amiss, became heartily ashamed of his suspicions.

It was now five o'clock of a chill morning; the fire had sunk into ashes, and dawn would soon shoot her icy arrows into the slow-flying bulk of night.

Clare was still asleep in the armchair, but presently the stealthy cold waked him and he jumped up; the candles were guttering away; the burgundy was drunk; the room smelt stale.

"Come to bed, Charles," he cried out.

Lovely, who had lost at Ecarte considerably more than he had won at Picket, drew back the curtains for answer. The dawn was in the East.

He blew out the candles one after another, and in the unreal morning twilight, the aftermath of smoke curled like an outworn pleasure into extinction save of a foul odour.

"We have still a grey hour for the dice," said Charles.

"As you will," replied Vernon.

The dice boxes were brought out, and the ivory cubes began to dance; strange fancies assailed Clare as he watched the gamesters; morbid imaginations, caught from the chilly atmosphere, froze his reason, and the rattle of the dice acquired a macabre significance. They clicked like the hoofs of horses on an iron-bound road. Then they were the castanets of a sinister dance. Soon they were the shaken ribs of Death, the king of dancers, and at the end no more than a baby's rattle, insistent, importunate, maddening.

Charles was winning again.

The various faces of the cubes took fantastick likenesses. _Two_ was a patched beauty, leaden-eyed, pallid, pleasure-doomed. _Five_ was a skewbald cat and _four_ a plum cake. Six was a ladder to some evil house. _Three_ was a necklace of jet, _one_ a Pierrot's velvet eye.

Charles was still winning.

The irresponsibleness of the dice annoyed Clare. They tumbled and rolled so gaily and it was mortifying to see a man enslaved by acrobats of ivory. The bodies, too, with their absurd waists were like women whom extravagant stays had driven to vomit sweetmeats.

Charles had won. The casement swung open in the sudden winds of dawn; the room was tinted with the cold colours of sunrise. The three men stumbled upstairs disdainful of the morning's gold. A guinea slipped from Lovely's pocket and tinkled down to the foot of the stairs to reward the little scullery-maid who was even now yawning on her pallet upstairs.

A thrush tuned his melodies against the swift coming of spring, and the purple leaf-buds welcomed the sun.

_Chapter the Eleventh_

NOX ALBA

Charles was tempted to deprive himself of sleep for the pleasure of bedabbling his pale silk stockings with dew, but vanity killed romance and the fresh light enchanted a still unruffled couch. So he flung his coat over a chair, and the heavy pockets chinked as they fell back against the taper legs. His prayers were all to rosy Aurora when the fragrant linen sheets flowed like water over his parched brows.

Sleep could not pass the melodious batteries of many birds, and Lovely's brain had captured something of the time's clarity. The clock has many secret hours, but those who would know them must follow their slow pilgrimage wide awake. What castles men build to the pipes of the morning!

The world was waking up. Outside the talk of hostlers grew so loud that the birds fled from the inn yard to the still deserted bowling green.

Soon he heard the jangle of pails, the swish of mops and from time to time the sound of a horse's hoof striking the cobbles with a clap. In the distance a post-horn endowed the air with silver tongues. Charles followed its course along the London road. He pictured the cumbrous vehicle swinging in its straps between the black February hedgerows. He saw the postillions blinking sleepy eyes to the Eastern sun. He saw the great London road like a tape-measure unfolded from the gilded case that was London. Already he was at Knightsbridge watching some townbred maid gathering cresses in the little stream. Now he was spurring the horses to a fine lather, for he could see the grooms in a black knot by the _White Horse_ cellars. In a trice he was taking the air in St. James' Street, and then suddenly he was a little boy picking his way through Westminster mud beside his mother who was carrying a bouquet of violets to their narrow house near St. John's Church. And now it was winter, and the sea-coal was burning sullenly: there were no violets, and heavy on the leaden afternoon he heard the bell tolling in Millbank Gaol. "God save the poor soul, the marshes will be icy cold to-night," said his mother, and he knew that some prisoner had escaped.

"How late your father is," she went on as she opened a cupboard, set in the panelled wall, to reach for plates and dishes. Then she told him to get out the candlesticks--beautiful silver candlesticks with swan-like necks and curious mazy lines around their bases. The candlesticks were nowhere to be found.

"Where can they be?" exclaimed his mother, pausing to help in the search. Then he heard a sigh and was told to ask Mrs. Gruffle, the landlady, for the brass bed-chamber candlesticks. He rather liked these: there was always a delightful quagmire of grease in the little plate where the socket rested--grease that could be moulded into queer little pliable shapes, with shreds of tobacco stuck around for fur. When he came back to the parlour, he saw his father with his legs on the bars of the grate.

"They had to go, my dear, they had to go," the latter was saying.

"They were my mother's."

"I know, I know, but z----ds' You wouldn't have me fail Dicky Claribut?"

"But sure they were not worth----"

"Oons! I pledged my best buckles to him; the candlesticks were for his gentleman. I'm devilish sorry, my dear, but, 'faith, 'twas not to be avoided, and here's young Charles! Charles, my boy, never play, or, if you do, play deep and win."

"Don't put such ideas into the boy's mind," said his mother anxiously.

"Oddslife, my dear, be very sure the ideas are there already."

"How can you have the heart to persist when you know...."

"The heart, madam?" interrupted his father. "Let me tell you that the hearts of the Lovelys are all of a piece--and 'tis cardboard."

Our hero came to his elegant self with a start and was back in Curtain Wells with hot eyelids, and thoughts continually racing over the flowery wall-paper.

It was not long, however, before he was once more in pursuit of the past.

And now he was seated beside his handsome father in a chariot. They were both in mourning and he thought how well the black frogged riding-coat became his parent. As for himself, his black sattin breeches set his teeth on edge as he tried to scratch his knee.

"Where are we going?" he was asking.

"To your mother's brother, Sir George Repington of Repington Hall."

"That's the man whose letters made her cry?"

"The same, young Charles," said Mr. Lovely, ogling a dairymaid through his black-rimmed perspective, as the object of his glances shrank into a hedge, powdered with cow-parsley, and closed her eyes against the dust of their chariot.

Then, without any warning, they were driving through a stately park, and as they turned a corner, Mr. Lovely senior exclaimed "Good G...! A cemetery indeed!" Charles looked up and saw a field full of small cypresses with rank grass growing between them.

His father, who was looking rather pale, signed to the postboy to stop, and "Charles," said he, "do you go on up to the Hall, knock at the door and ask for your uncle, Sir George Repington. I'll wait for you here."

As he set out in obedience to his father he heard him mutter. "This was the very place. I swear this was the place, and not an apple tree left." And then Charles diminutive enough in his black suit with miniature small-sword of cut steel, was asking two enormous footmen in canary-coloured velvet for Sir George Repington. They looked at him and laughed.

"My uncle," said Charles solemnly.

And they laughed again, but one of them murmured, 'This way,' and walked up a very wide and very slippery staircase, while Charles stumped up behind him. Half way, his sword belt came undone, and the sword clattered down upon the polished oak stairs with a noise that seemed to resound a dozen times through the quiet house. As he did not dare to keep the canary-coloured gentleman waiting, he picked up the toy weapon, clutched it tight in his left hand and entered a big dark room where a gentleman with iron grey close cropped hair sat reading in a chair with a very tall back, his wig balanced upon his toes.

"What the d----l's this?" asked the grey gentleman jumping up.

"Your honour's nephew," said the yellow gentleman.

"Eh! what! leave us, sirrah," and "What do you want?" he said, turning to Charles.

Charles could only watch the long furrow over his nose and wonder how deep it was, when the grey gentleman caught sight of the small sword.

"Eh! what the d----l! give me that," and snatching the weapon, he broke it over his knee and flung it into the grate.

"Please, sir, my father sent me to see you."

"Who's he?"

"Valentine Lovely, sir."

"Good G----! Good G----!" muttered the old gentleman. "And Mrs. Lovely? Did she send you too?"

"Mrs. Lovely's dead, sir."

The grey gentleman looked across the room at a large painting of a girl in a white dress skipping with a rope of roses.

"Please, sir," said young Charles, "I think that is Mrs. Lovely."

"It was, boy; it was."

"I wish I had known her then," said Charles.

"Is your name George, boy?" inquired the grey gentleman in a tone that was half eager.

"No, sir, 'tis Charles--after the Prince of Wales."

"A Papist, eh?" said the grey gentleman bitterly.

"George was too honest a name for that scoundrel. Well, boy, you can stay."

"Please, sir, I'd rather go back to my father," said the boy. "He's waiting for me."

"Then go and be d----d," said the grey gentleman, and he walked over to the window.

Poor little Charles was left standing alone in the big room. He waited a moment, but as the grey gentleman did not turn his head, he edged his way towards the great door. When he reached it, he looked round at his uncle. The latter was still staring out of the window. The child gave a puzzled sigh and with both hands succeeded in turning the handle. The clocks seemed to tick very loudly as he breathlessly closed the door and set out to descend the wide staircase. The canary-coloured gentlemen having vanished he could hold on to the balustrade with both hands without shame. As he crossed the green sunlit lawn, a blackbird flew into the shrubbery with a shrill note of alarm.

Then he was in the chariot with his father, and this time he was really fast asleep.

And now he was boy and man at once. The picture of the girl with roses became his mother as he had known her, pale and sad. Then it would change and become Miss Phyllida Courteen, strangely like his mother; and sometimes the Queen of Diamonds would be mopping and mowing in a frame of golden Georges.

At last these many dancing visions forsook his brain, and he slept a dreamless sleep, not waking until high noon of a wet and gusty day. When he reached the coffee-room, he found Mr. Francis Vernon perusing the latest edition of Mr. Hoyle, and as the weather was dirty, agreed to give Mr. Francis Vernon his revenge.

This favour was accorded in the handsomest manner possible and when, late in the afternoon, the young gentlemen all returned from hunting, Mr. Charles Lovely owed Mr. Francis Vernon rather more than he could very easily pay.

No doubt the latter's success is to be ascribed to his opportune purchase of the latest edition of Mr. Hoyle.

_Chapter the Twelfth_

WET DAYS

If cards are the devil's playthings, wet days are certainly his select playtime; and all the days before the Chinese Masquerade were very wet indeed. The Exquisite Mob returned from the Pump Room remarkably depressed in spirit. The forenoons passed away in the coffee-houses and the shops, but in the afternoons when it was wont to exercise itself and air its modes the stuffy parlours of Curtain Wells became vastly tiresome.

The result was that all the young gentlemen played very hard and very deep and very late, and Mr. Charles Lovely hardest, deepest, and latest of all. The old gentlemen all found their gout teazed them more lamentably. Even Beau Ripple grew tired of reading the Epodes of Horace and the Letters of Tully to his grey Angora cat. The ladies played Quadrille and talked scandal, while some of them, I grieve to say, supplied a foundation for much of the gossip.