Book: Richard Carvel, Volume 6
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Winston Churchill >> Richard Carvel, Volume 6
RICHARD CARVEL
By Winston Churchill
Volume 6.
XXXIV. His Grace makes Advances
XXXV. In which my Lord Baltimore appears
XXXVI. A Glimpse of Mr. Garrick
XXXVII. The Serpentine
XXXVIII. In which I am roundly brought to task
XXXIX. Holland House
XL. Vauxhall
CHAPTER XXXIV
HIS GRACE MAKES ADVANCES
The next morning I began casting about as to what I should do next.
There was no longer any chance of getting at the secret from Dorothy, if
secret there were. Whilst I am ruminating comes a great battling at the
street door, and Jack Comyn blew in like a gust of wind, rating me
soundly for being a lout and a blockhead.
"Zooks!" he cried, "I danced the soles off my shoes trying to get in here
yesterday, and I hear you were moping all the time, and paid me no more
attention than I had been a dog scratching at the door. What! and have
you fallen out with my lady?"
I confessed the whole matter to him. He was not to be resisted. He
called to Banks for a cogue of Nantsey, and swore amazingly at what he
was pleased to term the inscrutability of woman, offering up consolation
by the wholesale. The incident, he said, but strengthened his conviction
that Mr. Manners had appealed to Dorothy to save him. "And then," added
his Lordship, facing me with absolute fierceness, "and then, Richard, why
the devil did she weep? There were no tears when I made my avowal. I
tell you, man, that the whole thing points but the one way. She loves
you. I swear it by the rood."
I could not help laughing, and he stood looking at me with such a
whimsical expression that I rose and flung my arms around him.
"Jack, Jack!" I cried, "what a fraud you are! Do you remember the
argument you used when you had got me out of the sponging-house? Quoting
you, all I had to do was to put Dorothy to the proof, and she would toss
Mr. Marmaduke and his honour broadcast. Now I have confessed myself, and
what is the result? Nay, your theory is gone up in vapour."
"Then why," cried his Lordship, hotly, "why before refusing me did she
demand to know whether you had been in love with Patty Swain? 'Sdeath!
you put me in mind of a woman upon stilts--a man has always to be walking
alongside her with encouragement handy. And when a proud creature such
as our young lady breaks down as she hath done, 'tis clear as skylight
there is something wrong. And as for Mr. Manners, Hare overheard a part
of a pow-wow 'twixt him and the duke at the Bedford Arms,--and Chartersea
has all but owned in some of his drunken fits that our little fop is in
his power."
"Then she is in love with some one else," I said.
"I tell you she is not," said Comyn, still more emphatically; "and you
can write that down in red in your table book. Gossip has never been
able to connect her name with that of any man save yours, when she went
for you in Castle Yard. And, gemini, gossip is like water, and will get
in if a crack shows. When the Marquis of Wells was going to Arlington
Street once every day, she sent him about his business in a fortnight."
Despite Comyn's most unselfish optimism, I could see no light. And in
the recklessness that so often besets youngsters of my temper, on like
occasions, I went off to Newmarket next day with Mr. Fox and Lord Ossory,
in his Lordship's travelling-chaise and four. I spent a very gay week
trying to forget Miss Dolly. I was the loser by some three hundred
pounds, in addition to what I expended and loaned to Mr. Fox. This young
gentleman was then beginning to accumulate at Newmarket a most execrable
stud. He lost prodigiously, but seemed in no wise disturbed thereby.
I have never known a man who took his ill-luck with such a stoical
nonchalance. Not so while the heat was on. As I write, a most
ridiculous recollection rises of Charles dragging his Lordship and me
and all who were with him to that part of the course where the race was
highest, where he would act like a madman; blowing and perspiring, and
whipping and swearing all at a time, and rising up and down as if the
horse was throwing him.
At Newmarket I had the good--or ill-fortune to meet that incorrigible
rake and profligate, my Lord of March and Ruglen. For him the goddess of
Chance had smiled, and he was in the most complaisant humour. I was
presented to his Grace, the Duke of Grafton, whose name I had no reason
to love, and invited to Wakefield Lodge. We went instead, Mr. Fox and I,
to Ampthill, Lord Ossory's seat, with a merry troop. And then we had
more racing; and whist and quinze and pharaoh and hazard, until I was
obliged to write another draft upon Mr. Dix to settle the wails: and
picquet in the travelling-chaise all the way to London. Dining at
Brooks's, we encountered Fitzpatrick and Comyn and my Lord Carlisle.
"Now how much has Charles borrowed of you, Mr. Carvel?" demanded
Fitzpatrick, as we took our seats.
"I'll lay ten guineas that Charles has him mortgaged this day month,
though he owns as much land as William Penn, and is as rich as Fordyce."
Comyn demanded where the devil I had been, though he knew perfectly. He
was uncommonly silent during dinner, and then asked me if I had heard the
news. I told him I had heard none. He took me by the sleeve, to the
quiet amusement of the company, and led me aside.
"Curse you, Richard," says be; "you have put me in such a temper that I
vow I'll fling you over. You profess to love her, and yet you go betting
to Newmarket and carousing to Ampthill when she is ill."
"Ill!" I said, catching my breath.
"Ay! That hurts, does it? Yes, ill, I say. She was missed at Lady
Pembroke's that Friday you had the scene with her, and at Lady
Ailesbury's on Saturday. On Monday morning, when I come to you for
tidings, you are off watching Charles make an ass of himself at
Newmarket."
"And how is she now, Comyn?" I asked, catching him by the arm.
"You may go yourself and see, and be cursed, Richard Carvel. She is in
trouble, and you are pleasure-seeking in the country. Damme! you deserve
richly to lose her."
Calling for my greatcoat, and paying no heed to the jeers of the company
for leaving before the toasts and the play, I fairly ran to Arlington
Street. I was in a passion of remorse. Comyn had been but just.
Granting, indeed, that she had refused to marry me, was that any reason
why I should desert my life-long friend and playmate? A hundred little
tokens of her affection for me rose to mind, and last of all that rescue
from Castle Yard in the face of all Mayfair. And in that hour of
darkness the conviction that something was wrong came back upon me with
redoubled force. Her lack of colour, her feverish actions, and the
growing slightness of her figure, all gave me a pang, as I connected them
with that scene on the balcony over the Park.
The house was darkened, and a coach was in front of it.
"Yessir," said the footman, "Miss Manners has been quite ill. She is now
some better, and Dr. James is with her. Mrs. Manners begs company will
excuse her."
And Mr. Marmaduke? The man said, with as near a grin as he ever got,
that the marster was gone to Mrs. Cornelys's assembly. As I turned away,
sick at heart, the physician, in his tie-wig and scarlet cloak, came out,
and I stopped him. He was a testy man, and struck the stone an impatient
blow with his staff.
"'Od's life, sir. I am besieged day and night by you young gentlemen.
I begin to think of sending a daily card to Almack's."
"Sir, I am an old friend of Miss Manners," I replied, "having grown up
with her in Maryland--"
"Are you Mr. Carvel?" he demanded abruptly, taking his hat from his arm.
"Yes," I answered, surprised. In the gleam of the portico lanthorn he
scrutinized me for several seconds.
"There are some troubles of the mind which are beyond the power of physic
to remedy, Mr. Carvel," said he. "She has mentioned your name, sir, and
you are to judge of my meaning. Your most obedient, sir. Good night,
sir."
And he got into his coach, leaving me standing where I was, bewildered.
That same fear of being alone, which has driven many a man to his cups,
sent me back to Brooks's for company. I found Fox and Comyn seated at a
table in the corner of the drawing-room, for once not playing, but
talking earnestly. Their expressions when they saw me betrayed what my
own face must have been.
"What is it?" cried Comyn, half rising; "is she--is she--"
"No, she is better," I said.
He looked relieved.
"You must have frightened him badly, Jack," said Fox.
I flung myself into a chair, and Fox proposed whist, something unusual
for him. Comyn called for cards, and was about to go in search of a
fourth, when we all three caught sight of the Duke of Chartersea in the
door, surveying the room with a cold leisure. His eye paused when in
line with us, and we were seized with astonishment to behold him making
in our direction.
"Squints!" exclaimed Mr. Fox, "now what the devil can the hound want?"
"To pull your nose for sending him to market," my Lord suggested.
Fox laughed coolly.
"Lay you twenty he doesn't, Jack," he said.
His Grace plainly had some business with us, and I hoped he was coming to
force the fighting. The pieces had ceased to rattle on the round
mahogany table, and every head in the room seemed turned our way, for the
Covent Garden story was well known. Chartersea laid his hand on the back
of our fourth chair, greeted us with some ceremony, and said something
which, under the circumstances, was almost unheard of in that day:
"If you stand in need of one, gentlemen, I should deem it an honour."
The situation had in it enough spice for all of us. We welcomed him with
alacrity. The cards were cut, and it fell to his Grace to deal, which he
did very prettily, despite his heavy hands. He drew Charles Fox, and
they won steadily. The conversation between deals was anywhere; on the
virtue of Morello cherries for the gout, to which his Grace was already
subject; on Mr. Fox's Ariel, and why he had not carried Sandwich's cup at
Newmarket; on the advisability of putting three-year-olds on the track;
in short, on a dozen small topics of the kind. At length, when Comyn and
I had lost some fifty pounds between us, Chartersea threw down the cards.
"My coach waits to-night, gentlemen," said he, with some sort of an
accent that did not escape us. "It would give me the greatest pleasure
and you will sup with me in Hanover Square."
CHAPTER XXXV
IN WHICH MY LORD BALTIMORE APPEARS
His Grace's offer was accepted with a readiness he could scarce have
expected, and we all left the room in the midst of a buzz of comment.
We knew well that the matter was not so haphazard as it appeared, and on
the way to Hanover Square Comyn more than once stepped on my toe, and I
answered the pressure. Our coats and canes were taken by the duke's
lackeys when we arrived. We were shown over the house. Until now
--so his Grace informed us--it had not been changed since the time of the
fourth duke, who, as we doubtless knew, had been an ardent supporter of
the Hanoverian succession. The rooms were high-panelled and furnished in
the German style, as was the fashion when the Square was built. But some
were stripped and littered with scaffolding and plaster, new and costly
marble mantels were replacing the wood, and an Italian of some renown was
decorating the ceilings. His Grace appeared to be at some pains that the
significance of these improvements should not be lost upon us; was
constantly appealing to Mr. Fox's taste on this or that feature. But
those fishy eyes of his were so alert that we had not even opportunity to
wink. It was wholly patent, in brief, that the Duke of Chartersea meant
to be married, and had brought Charles and Comyn hither with a purpose.
For me he would have put himself out not an inch had he not understood
that my support came from those quarters.
He tempered off this exhibition by showing us a collection of pottery
famous in England, that had belonged to the fifth duke, his father.
Every piece of it, by the way, afterwards brought an enormous sum at
auction. Supper was served in a warm little room of oak. The game was
from Derresley Manor, the duke's Nottinghamshire seat, and the wine, so
he told us, was some of fifty bottles of rare Chinon he had inherited.
Melted rubies it was indeed, of the sort which had quickened the blood of
many a royal gathering at Blois and Amboise and Chenonceaux,--the
distilled peasant song of the Loire valley. In it many a careworn clown
had tasted the purer happiness of the lowly. Our restraint gave way
under its influence. His Grace lost for the moment his deformities, and
Mr. Fox made us laugh until our sides ached again. His Lordship told
many a capital yarn, and my own wit was afterwards said to be
astonishing, though I can recall none of it to support the affirmation.
Not a word or even a hint of Dorothy had been uttered, nor did Chartersea
so much as refer to his Covent Garden experience. At length, when some
half dozen of the wine was gone, and the big oak clock had struck two,
the talk lapsed. It was Charles Fox, of course, who threw the spark into
the powder box.
"We were speaking of hunting, Chartersea," he said. "Did you ever know
George Wrottlesey, of the Suffolk branch?"
"No," said his Grace, very innocent.
"No! 'Od's whips and spurs, I'll be sworn I never saw a man to beat him
for reckless riding. He would take five bars any time, egad, and sit any
colt that was ever foaled. The Wrottleseys were poor as weavers then,
with the Jews coming down in the wagon from London and hanging round the
hall gates. But the old squire had plenty of good hunters in the
stables, and haunches on the board, and a cellar that was like the
widow's cruse of oil, or barrel of meal--or whatever she had. All the
old man had to do to lose a guinea was to lay it on a card. He never
nicked in his life, so they say. Well, young George got after a rich
tea-merchant's daughter who had come into the country near by. 'Slife!
she was a saucy jade, and devilish pretty. Such a face! so Stavordale
vowed, and such a neck! and such eyes! so innocent, so ravishingly
innocent. But she knew cursed well George was after the bank deposit,
and kept him galloping. And when he got a view, halloa, egad! she was
stole away again, and no scent.
"One morning George was out after the hounds with Stavordale, who told me
the story, and a lot of fellows who had come over from Newmarket. He was
upon Aftermath, the horse that Foley bought for five hundred pounds and
was a colt then. Of course he left the field out of sight behind. He
made for a gap in the park wall (faith! there was no lack of 'em), but
the colt refused, and over went George and plumped into a cart of winter
apples some farmer's sot was taking to Bury Saint Edmunds to market. The
fall knocked the sense out of George, for he hasn't much, and Stavordale
thinks he must have struck a stake as he went in. Anyway, the apples
rolled over on top of him, and the drunkard on the seat never woke up, i'
faith. And so they came to town.
"It so chanced, egad, that the devil sent Miss Tea Merchant to Bury to
buy apples. She amused herself at playing country gentlewoman while papa
worked all week in the city. She saw the cart in the market, and ate
three (for she had the health of a barmaid), and bid in the load, and
George with it. 'Pon my soul! she did. They found his boots first.
And the lady said, before all the grinning Johns and Willums, that since
she had bought him she supposed she would have to keep him. And, by Gads
life! she has got him yet, which is a deal stranger."
Even the duke laughed. For, as Fox told it, the story was irresistible.
But it came as near to being a wanton insult as a reference to his
Grace's own episode might. The red came slowly back into his eye. Fox
stared vacantly, as was his habit when he had done or said something
especially daring. And Comyn and I waited, straining and expectant, like
boys who have prodded a wild beast and stand ready for the spring. There
was a metallic ring in the duke's voice as he spoke.
"I have heard, Mr. Carvel, that you can ride any mount offered you."
"Od's, and so he can!" cried Jack. "I'll take oath on that."
"I will lay you an hundred guineas, my Lord," says his Grace, very
off-hand, "that Mr. Carvel does not sit Baltimore's Pollux above twenty
minutes."
"Done!" says Jack, before I could draw breath.
"I'll take your Grace for another hundred," calmly added Mr. Fox.
"It seems to me, your Grace," I cried, angry all at once, "it seems to me
that I am the one to whom you should address your wagers. I am not a
jockey, to be put up at your whim, and to give you the chance to lose
money."
Chartersea swung around my way.
"Your pardon, Mr. Carvel," said he, very coolly, very politely; "yours is
the choice of the wager. And you reject it, the others must be called
off."
"Slife! I double it!" I said hotly, "provided the horse is alive, and
will stand up."
"Devilish well put, Richard!" Mr. Fox exclaimed, casting off his
restraint.
"I give you my word the horse is alive, sir," he answered, with a mock
bow; "'twas only yesterday that he killed his groom, at Hampstead."
A few moments of silence followed this revelation. It was Charles Fox
who spoke first.
"I make no doubt that your Grace, as a man of honour,"--he emphasized the
word forcibly,--"will not refuse to ride the horse for another twenty
minutes, provided Mr. Carvel is successful. And I will lay your Grace
another hundred that you are thrown, or run away with."
Truly, to cope with a wit like Mr. Fox's, the duke had need for a longer
head. He grew livid as he perceived how neatly he had been snared in his
own trap.
"Done!" he cried loudly; "done, gentlemen. It only remains to hit upon
time and place for the contest. I go to York to-morrow, to be back this
day fortnight. And if you will do me the favour of arranging with
Baltimore for the horse, I shall be obliged. I believe he intends
selling it to Astley, the showman."
"And are we to keep it?" asks Mr. Fox.
"I am dealing with men of honour," says the duke, with a bow: "I need
have no better assurance that the horse will not be ridden in the
interval."
"'Od so!" said Comyn, when we were out; "very handsome of him. But I
would not say as much for his Grace."
And Mr. Fox declared that the duke was no coward, but all other epithets
known might be called him. "A very diverting evening, Richard," said he;
"let's to your apartments and have a bowl, and talk it over."
And thither we went.
I did not sleep much that night, but 'twas of Dolly I thought rather than
of Chartersea. I was abroad early, and over to inquire in Arlington
Street, where I found she had passed a good night. And I sent Banks
a-hooting for some violets to send her, for I knew she loved that flower.
Between ten and eleven Mr. Fox and Comyn and I set out for Baltimore
House. When you go to London, my dears, you will find a vast difference
in the neighbourhood of Bloomsbury from what it was that May morning in
1770. Great Russell Street was all a sweet fragrance of gardens,
mingling with the smell of the fields from the open country to the north.
We drove past red Montagu House with its stone facings and dome, like a
French hotel, and the cluster of buildings at its great gate. It had
been then for over a decade the British Museum. The ground behind it was
a great resort for Londoners of that day. Many a sad affair was fought
there, but on that morning we saw a merry party on their way to play
prisoner's base.
Then we came to the gardens in front of Bedford House, which are now
Bloomsbury Square. For my part I preferred this latter mansion to the
French creation by its side, and admired its long and graceful lines.
Its windows commanded a sweep from Holborn on the south to Highgate on
the north. To the east of it, along Southampton Row, a few great houses
had gone up or were building; and at the far end of that was Baltimore
house, overlooking her Grace of Bedford's gardens. Beyond Lamb's Conduit
Fields stretched away to the countryside.
I own I had a lively curiosity to see that lordly ruler, the proprietor
of our province, whose birthday we celebrated after his Majesty's. Had
I not been in a great measure prepared, I should have had a revulsion
indeed.
When he heard that Mr. Fox and my Lord Comyn were below stairs he gave
orders to show them up to his bedroom, where he received us in a
night-gown embroidered with oranges. My Lord Baltimore, alas! was not
much to see. He did not make the figure a ruler should as he sat in his
easy chair, and whined and cursed his Swiss. He was scarce a year over
forty, and he had all but run his race. Dissipation and corrosion had
set their seal upon him, had stamped his yellow face with crows' feet and
blotted it with pimples. But then the glimpse of a fine gentleman just
out of bed of a morning, before he is made for the day, is unfair.
"Morning, Charles! Howdy, Jack!" said his Lordship, apathetically.
"Glad to know you, Mr. Carvel. Heard of your family. 'Slife! Wish
there were more like 'em in the province."
This sentiment not sitting very well upon his Lordship, I bowed, and said
nothing.
"By the bye," he continued, pouring out his chocolate into the dish,
"I sent a damned rake of a parson out there some years gone. Handsome
devil, too. Never seen his match with the women, egad. 'Od's fish--"
he leered. And then added with an oath and a nod and a vile remark:
"Married three times to my knowledge. Carried off dozen or so more.
Some of 'em for me. Many a good night I've had with him. Drank between
us one evening at Essex's gallon and half Champagne and Burgundy apiece.
He got to know too much, y' know," he concluded, with a wicked wink.
"Had to buy him up pack him off."
"His name, Fred?" said Comyn, with a smile at me.
"'Sdeath! That's it. Trouble to remember. Damned if I can think." And
he repeated this remark over and over.
"Allen?" said Comyn.
"Yes," said Baltimore; "Allen. And egad I think he'll find hell a hotter
place than me. You know him, Mr. Carvel?"
"Yes," I replied. I said no more. I make no reservations when I avow I
was never so disgusted in my life. But as I looked upon him, haggard and
worn, with retribution so neat at hand, I had no words to protest or
condemn.
Baltimore gave a hollow mirthless laugh, stopped short, and looked at
Charles Fox.
"Curse you, Charles! I suppose you are after that little matter I owe
you for quinze."
"Damn the little matter!" said Fox. "Come, get you perfumed and dressed,
and order up some of your Tokay while we wait. I have to go to St.
Stephens. Mr. Carvel has come to buy your horse Pollux. He has bet
Chartersea two hundred guineas he rides him for twenty minutes."
"The devil he has!" cried his Lordship, jaded no longer. "Why, you must
know, Mr. Carvel, there was no groom in my stables who would sit him
until Foley made me a present of his man, Miller, who started to ride him
to Hyde Park. As he came out of Great Russell Street, by gads life!
the horse broke and ran out the Tottenham Court Road all the way to
Hampstead. And the fiend picked out a big stone water trough and tossed
Miller against it. Then they gathered up the fragments. Damme if I like
to see suicide, Mr. Carvel. If Chartersea wants to kill you, let him try
it in the fields behind Montagu House here."
I told his Lordship that I had made the wager, and could not in honour
withdraw, though the horse had killed a dozen grooms. But already he
seemed to have lost interest. He gave a languid pull at the velvet
tassel on his bell-rope, ordered the wine; and, being informed that his
anteroom below was full of people, had them all dismissed with the
message that he was engaged upon important affairs. He told Mr. Fox
he had heard of the Jerusalem Chamber, and vowed he would have a like
institution. He told me he wished the colony of Maryland in hell; that
he was worn out with the quarrels of Governor Eden and his Assembly, and
offered to lay a guinea that the Governor's agent would get to him that
day,--will-he, nill-he. I did not think it worth while to argue with
such a man.
My Lord took three-quarters of an hour to dress, and swore he had not
accomplished the feat so quickly in a year. He washed his hands and face
in a silver basin, and the scent of the soap filled the room. He rated
his Swiss for putting cinnamon upon his ruffles in place of attar of
roses, and attempted to regale us the while with some of his choicest
adventures. In more than one of these, by the way, his Grace of
Chartersea figured. It was Fox who brought him up.
"See here, Baltimore," he said, "I'm not squeamish. But I'm cursed if I
like to hear a man who may die any time between bottles talk so."
His Lordship took the rebuke with an oath, and presently hobbled down the
stairs of the great and silent house to the stable court, where two
grooms were in waiting with the horse. He was an animal of amazing
power, about sixteen hands, and dapple gray in colour. And it required
no special knowledge to see that he had a devil inside him. It gleamed
wickedly out of his eye.