Peg Woffington Part 18

"Why doubt me then, when I tell you that I hold all your s.e.x cheap but you? Why suspect me of Heaven knows what, at the dictation of a heartless, brainless fop--on the word of a known liar, like the world?"

Black lightning flashed from her glorious eyes as she administered this royal rebuke. Vane felt what a poor creature he was, and his face showed such burning shame and contrition, that he obtained his pardon without speaking.

"There," said she, kindly, "do not let us torment one another. I forgive you. Let me make you happy, Ernest. Is that a great favor to ask? I can make you happier than your brightest dream of happiness, if you will let yourself be happy."

They rejoined the others; but Vane turned his back on Pomander, and would not look at him.

"Sir Charles," said Mrs. Woffington gayly; for she scorned to admit the fine gentleman to the rank of a permanent enemy, "you will be of our party, I trust, at dinner?"

"Why, no, madam; I fear I cannot give myself that pleasure to-day." Sir Charles did not choose to swell the triumph. "Mr. Vane, good day!"

said he, rather dryly. "Mr. Triplet--madam--your most obedient!" and, self-possessed at top, but at bottom crestfallen, he bowed himself away.

Sir Charles, however, on descending the stair and gaining the street, caught sight of a horseman, riding uncertainly about, and making his horse curvet, to attract attention.

He soon recognized one of his own horses, and upon it the servant he had left behind to dog that poor innocent country lady. The servant sprang off his horse and touched his hat. He informed his master that he had kept with the carriage until ten o'clock this morning, when he had ridden away from it at Barnet, having duly pumped the servants as opportunity offered.

"Who is she?" cried Sir Charles.

"Wife of a Cheshire squire, Sir Charles," was the reply.

"His name? Whither goes she in town?"

"Her name is Mrs. Vane, Sir Charles. She is going to her husband."

"Curious!" cried Sir Charles. "I wish she had no husband. No! I wish she came from Shropshire," and he chuckled at the notion.

"If you please, Sir Charles," said the man, "is not Willoughby in Cheshire?"

"No," cried his master; "it is in Shropshire. What! eh! Five guineas for you if that lady comes from Willoughby in Shropshire.

"That is where she comes from then, Sir Charles, and she is going to Bloomsbury Square."

"How long have they been married?"

"Not more than twelve months, Sir Charles."

Pomander gave the man ten guineas instead of five on the spot.

Reader, it was too true! Mr. Vane--the good, the decent, the churchgoer--Mr. Vane, whom Mrs. Woffington had selected to improve her morals--Mr. Vane was a married man!

CHAPTER IX.

As soon as Pomander had drawn his breath and realized this discovery, he darted upstairs, and with all the demure calmness he could a.s.sume, told Mr. Vane, whom he met descending, that he was happy to find his engagements permitted him to join the party in Bloomsbury Square. He then flung himself upon his servant's horse.

Like Iago, he saw the indistinct outline of a glorious and a most malicious plot; it lay crude in his head and heart at present; thus much he saw clearly, that, if he could time Mrs. Vane's arrival so that she should pounce upon the Woffington at her husband's table, he might be present at and enjoy the public discomfiture of a man and woman who had wounded his vanity. Bidding his servant make the best of his way to Bloomsbury Square, Sir Charles galloped in that direction himself, intending first to inquire whether Mrs. Vane was arrived, and, if not, to ride toward Islington and meet her. His plan was frustrated by an accident; galloping round a corner, his horse did not change his leg cleverly, and, the pavement being also loose, slipped and fell on his side, throwing his rider upon the _trottoir._ The horse got up and trembled violently, but was unhurt. The rider lay motionless, except that his legs quivered on the pavement. They took him up and conveyed him into a druggist's shop, the master of which practiced chirurgery. He had to be sent for; and, before he could be found, Sir Charles recovered his reason, so much so, that when the chirurgeon approached with his fleam to bleed him, according to the practice of the day, the patient drew his sword, and a.s.sured the other he would let out every drop of blood in his body if he touched him.

He of the shorter but more lethal weapon hastily retreated. Sir Charles flung a guinea on the counter, and mounting his horse rode him off rather faster than before this accident.

There was a dead silence!

"I believe that gentleman to be the Devil!" said a thoughtful bystander.

The crowd (it was a century ago) a.s.sented _nem. con._

Sir Charles, arrived in Bloomsbury Square, found that the whole party was a.s.sembled. He therefore ordered his servant to parade before the door, and, if he saw Mrs. Vane's carriage enter the Square, to let him know, if possible, before she should reach the house. On entering he learned that Mr. Vane and his guests were in the garden (a very fine one), and joined them there.

Mrs. Vane demands another chapter, in which I will tell the reader who she was, and what excuse her husband had for his liaison with Margaret Woffington.

CHAPTER X.

MABEL CHESTER was the beauty and toast of South Shropshire. She had refused the hand of half the country squires in a circle of some dozen miles, till at last Mr. Vane became her suitor. Besides a handsome face and person, Mr. Vane had accomplishments his rivals did not possess. He read poetry to her on mossy banks an hour before sunset, and awakened sensibilities which her other suitors shocked, and they them.

The lovely Mabel had a taste for beautiful things, without any excess of that severe quality called judgment.

I will explain. If you or I, reader, had read to her in the afternoon, amid the smell of roses and eglantine, the chirp of the mavis, the hum of bees, the twinkling of b.u.t.terflies, and the tinkle of distant sheep, something that combined all these sights, and sounds, and smells--say Milton's musical picture of Eden, P. L., lib. 3, and after that "Triplet on Kew," she would have instantly p.r.o.nounced in favor of "Eden"; but if _we_ had read her "Milton," and Mr. Vane had read her "Triplet," she would have as unhesitatingly preferred "Kew" to "Paradise."

She was a true daughter of Eve; the lady, who, when an angel was telling her and her husband the truths of heaven in heaven's own music, slipped away into the kitchen, because she preferred hearing the story at second-hand, enc.u.mbered with digressions, and in mortal but marital accents.

When her mother, who guarded Mabel like a dragon, told her Mr. Vane was not rich enough, and she really must not give him so many opportunities, Mabel cried and embraced the dragon, and said, "Oh, mother!" The dragon, finding her ferocity dissolving, tried to shake her off, but the goose would cry and embrace the dragon till it melted.

By and by Mr. Vane's uncle died suddenly and left him the great Stoken Church estate, and a trunk full of Jacobuses and Queen Anne's guineas--his own h.o.a.rd and his father's--then the dragon spake comfortably and said: "My child, he is now the richest man in Shropshire. He will not think of you now; so steel your heart."

Then Mabel, contrary to all expectations, did not cry; but, with flushing cheek, pledged her life upon Ernest's love and honor: and Ernest, as soon as the funeral, etc., left him free, galloped to Mabel, to talk of our good fortune. The dragon had done him injustice; that was not his weak point. So they were married! and they were very, very happy. But, one month after, the dragon died, and that was their first grief; but they bore it together.

And Vane was not like the other Shropshire squires. His idea of pleasure was something his wife could share. He still rode, walked, and sat with her, and read to her, and composed songs for her, and about her, which she played and sang prettily enough, in her quiet, lady-like way, and in a voice of honey dropping from the comb. Then she kept a keen eye upon him; and, when she discovered what dishes he liked, she superintended those herself; and, observing that he never failed to eat of a certain lemon-pudding the dragon had originated, she always made this pudding herself, and she never told her husband she made it.

The first seven months of their marriage was more like blue sky than brown earth; and if any one had told Mabel that her husband was a mortal, and not an angel, sent to her that her days and nights might be unmixed, uninterrupted heaven, she could hardly have realized the information.

When a vexatious litigant began to contest the will by which Mr. Vane was Lord of Stoken Church, and Mr. Vane went up to London to concert the proper means of defeating this attack, Mrs. Vane would gladly have compounded by giving the man two or three thousand acres or the whole estate, if he wouldn't take less, not to rob her of her husband for a month; but she was docile, as she was amorous; so she cried (out of sight) a week; and let her darling go with every misgiving a loving heart could have; but one! and that one her own heart told her was impossible.

The month rolled away--no symptom of a return. For this, Mr. Vane was not, in fact, to blame; but, toward the end of the next month, business became a convenient excuse. When three months had pa.s.sed, Mrs. Vane became unhappy. She thought he too must feel the separation. She offered to come to him. He answered uncandidly. He urged the length, the fatigue of the journey. She was silenced; but some time later she began to take a new view of his objections. "He is so self-denying," said she. "Dear Ernest, he longs for me; but he thinks it selfish to let me travel so far alone to see him."

Full of this idea, she yielded to her love. She made her preparations, and wrote to him, that, if he did not forbid her peremptorily, he must expect to see her at his breakfast-table in a very few days.

Mr. Vane concluded this was a jest, and did not answer this letter at all.

Mrs. Vane started. She traveled with all speed; but, coming to a halt at ----, she wrote to her husband that she counted on being with him at four of the clock on Thursday.

This letter preceded her arrival by a few hours. It was put into his hand at the same time with a note from Mrs. Woffington, telling him she should be at a rehearsal at Covent Garden. Thinking his wife's letter would keep, he threw it on one side into a sort of a tray; and, after a hurried breakfast, went out of his house to the theater. He returned, as we are aware, with Mrs. Woffington; and also, at her request, with Mr.

Cibber, for whom they had called on their way. He had forgotten his wife's letter, and was entirely occupied with his guests.

Sir Charles Pomander joined them, and found Mr. Colander, the head domestic of the London establishment, cutting with a pair of scissors every flower Mrs. Woffington fancied, that lady having a pa.s.sion for flowers.

Colander, during his temporary absence from the interior, had appointed James Burdock to keep the house, and receive the two remaining guests, should they arrive.

This James Burdock was a faithful old country servant, who had come up with Mr. Vane, but left his heart at Willoughby. James Burdock had for some time been ruminating, and his conclusion was, that his mistress, Miss Mabel (as by force of habit he called her), was not treated as she deserved.