St. Ronan's Well Part 8

'She glides, like Night, from land to land, She hath strange power of speech.'

--But come, I have you at my mercy, and I will be generous and explain.--We call--that is, among ourselves, you understand--Miss Clara Mowbray, the sister of that gentleman that sits next to Miss Parker, the Dark Ladye, and that seat is left for her.--For she was expected--no, not expected--I forget again!--but it was thought _possible_ she might honour us to-day, when our feast was so full and piquant.--Her brother is our Lord of the Manor--and so they pay her that sort of civility to regard her as a visitor--and neither Lady Binks nor I think of objecting--She is a singular young person, Clara Mowbray--she amuses me very much--I am always rather glad to see her."

"She is not to come hither to-day," said Tyrrel; "am I so to understand your ladyship?"

"Why, it is past her time--even _her_ time," said Lady Penelope--"dinner was kept back half an hour, and our poor invalids were famishing, as you may see by the deeds they have done since.--But Clara is an odd creature, and if she took it into her head to come hither at this moment, hither she would come--she is very whimsical.--Many people think her handsome--but she looks so like something from another world, that she makes me always think of Mat Lewis's Spectre Lady."

And she repeated with much cadence,

"There is a thing--there is a thing, I fain would have from thee; I fain would have that gay gold ring, O warrior, give it me!"

"And then you remember his answer:

'This ring Lord Brooke from his daughter took, And a solemn oath he swore, That that ladye my bride should be When this crusade was o'er.'

You do figures as well as landscapes, I suppose, Mr. Tyrrel?--You shall make a sketch for me--a slight thing--for sketches, I think, show the freedom of art better than finished pieces--I dote on the first coruscations of genius--flashing like lightning from the cloud!--You shall make a sketch for my boudoir--my dear sulky den at Air Castle, and Clara Mowbray shall sit for the Ghost Ladye."

"That would be but a poor compliment to your ladyship's friend," replied Tyrrel.

"Friend? We don't get quite that length, though I like Clara very well.--Quite sentimental cast of face--I think I saw an antique in the Louvre very like her--(I was there in 1800)--quite an antique countenance--eyes something hollowed--care has dug caves for them, but they are caves of the most beautiful marble, arched with jet--a straight nose, and absolutely the Grecian mouth and chin--a profusion of long straight black hair, with the whitest skin you ever saw--as white as the whitest parchment--and not a shade of colour in her cheek--none whatever--If she would be naughty, and borrow a prudent touch of complexion, she might be called beautiful. Even as it is, many think her so, although surely, Mr. Tyrrel, three colours are necessary to the female face. However, we used to call her the Melpomene of the Spring last season, as we called Lady Binks--who was not then Lady Binks--our Euphrosyne--did we not, my dear?"

"Did we not what, madam?" said Lady Binks, in a tone something sharper than ought to have belonged to so beautiful a countenance.

"I am sorry I have started you out of your reverie, my love," answered Lady Penelope. "I was only a.s.suring Mr. Tyrrel that you were once Euphrosyne, though now so much under the banners of Il Penseroso."

"I do not know that I have been either one or the other," answered Lady Binks; "one thing I certainly am not--I am not capable of understanding your ladyship's wit and learning."

"Poor soul," whispered Lady Penelope to Tyrrel; "we know what we are, we know not what we may be.--And now, Mr. Tyrrel, I have been your sibyl to guide you through this Elysium of ours, I think, in reward, I deserve a little confidence in return."

"If I had any to bestow, which could be in the slightest degree interesting to your ladyship," answered Tyrrel.

"Oh! cruel man--he will not understand me!" exclaimed the lady--"In plain words, then, a peep into your portfolio--just to see what objects you have rescued from natural decay, and rendered immortal by the pencil. You do not know--indeed, Mr. Tyrrel, you do not know how I dote upon your 'serenely silent art,' second to poetry alone--equal--superior perhaps--to music."

"I really have little that could possibly be worth the attention of such a judge as your ladyship," answered Tyrrel; "such trifles as your ladyship has seen, I sometimes leave at the foot of the tree I have been sketching."

"As Orlando left his verses in the Forest of Ardennes?--Oh, the thoughtless prodigality!--Mr. Winterblossom, do you hear this?--We must follow Mr. Tyrrel in his walks, and glean what he leaves behind him."

Her ladyship was here disconcerted by some laughter on Sir Bingo's side of the table, which she chastised by an angry glance, and then proceeded emphatically.

"Mr. Tyrrel--this must _not_ be--this is not the way of the world, my good sir, to which even genius must stoop its flight. We must consult the engraver--though perhaps you etch as well as you draw?"

"I should suppose so," said Mr. Winterblossom, edging in a word with difficulty, "from the freedom of Mr. Tyrrel's touch."

"I will not deny my having spoiled a little copper now and then," said Tyrrel, "since I am charged with the crime by such good judges; but it has only been by way of experiment."

"Say no more," said the lady; "my darling wish is accomplished!--We have long desired to have the remarkable and most romantic spots of our little Arcadia here--spots consecrated to friendship, the fine arts, the loves and the graces, immortalized by the graver's art, faithful to its charge of fame--you shall labour on this task, Mr. Tyrrel; we will all a.s.sist with notes and ill.u.s.trations--we will all contribute--only some of us must be permitted to remain anonymous--Fairy favours, you know, Mr. Tyrrel, must be kept secret--And you shall be allowed the pillage of the Alb.u.m--some sweet things there of Mr. Chatterly's--and Mr. Edgeit, a gentleman of your own profession, I am sure will lend his aid--Dr.

Quackleben will contribute some scientific notices.--And for subscription"----

"Financial--financial--your leddyship, I speak to order!" said the writer, interrupting Lady Penelope with a tone of impudent familiarity, which was meant doubtless for jocular ease.

"How am I out of order, Mr. Meiklewham?" said her ladyship, drawing herself up.

"I speak to order!--No warrants for money can be extracted before intimation to the Committee of Management."

"Pray, who mentioned money, Mr. Meiklewham?" said her ladyship.--"That wretched old pettifogger," she added in a whisper to Tyrrel, "thinks of nothing else but the filthy pelf."

"Ye spake of subscription, my leddy, whilk is the same thing as money, differing only in respect of time--the subscription being a contract _de futuro_, and having a _tractus temporis in gremio_--And I have kend mony honest folks in the company at the Well, complain of the subscriptions as a great abuse, as obliging them either to look unlike other folk, or to gie good lawful coin for ballants and picture-books, and things they caredna a pinch of snuff for."

Several of the company, at the lower end of the table, a.s.sented both by nods and murmurs of approbation; and the orator was about to proceed, when Tyrrel with difficulty procured a hearing before the debate went farther, and a.s.sured the company that her ladyship's goodness had led her into an error; that he had no work in hand worthy of their patronage, and, with the deepest grat.i.tude for Lady Penelope's goodness, had it not in his power to comply with her request. There was some t.i.ttering at her ladyship's expense, who, as the writer slyly observed, had been something _ultronious_ in her patronage. Without attempting for the moment any rally, (as indeed the time which had pa.s.sed since the removal of the dinner scarce permitted an opportunity,) Lady Penelope gave the signal for the ladies' retreat, and left the gentlemen to the circulation of the bottle.

FOOTNOTE:

[I-14] Note II.--The Dark Ladye.

CHAPTER VII.

THE TEA-TABLE.

----While the cups, Which cheer, but not inebriate, wait on each.

COWPER.

It was common at the Well, for the fair guests occasionally to give tea to the company,--such at least as from their rank and leading in the little society, might be esteemed fit to const.i.tute themselves patronesses of an evening; and the same lady generally carried the authority she had acquired into the ball-room, where two fiddles and a ba.s.s, at a guinea a night, with a _quantum sufficit_ of tallow candles, (against the use of which Lady Penelope often mutinied,) enabled the company--to use the appropriate phrase--"to close the evening on the light fantastic toe."

On the present occasion, the lion of the hour, Mr. Francis Tyrrel, had so little answered the high-wrought expectations of Lady Penelope, that she rather regretted having ever given herself any trouble about him, and particularly that of having manoeuvred herself into the patronage of the tea-table for the evening, to the great expenditure of souchong and congo. Accordingly, her ladyship had no sooner summoned her own woman, and her _fille de chambre_, to make tea, with her page, footman, and postilion, to hand it about, (in which duty they were a.s.sisted by two richly-laced and thickly-powdered footmen of Lady Binks's, whose liveries put to shame the more modest garb of Lady Penelope's, and even dimmed the glory of the suppressed coronet upon the b.u.t.tons,) than she began to vilipend and depreciate what had been so long the object of her curiosity.

"This Mr. Tyrrel," she said, in a tone of authoritative decision, "seems after all a very ordinary sort of person, quite a commonplace man, who, she dared say, had considered his condition, in going to the old alehouse, much better than they had done for him, when they asked him to the Public Rooms. He had known his own place better than they did--there was nothing uncommon in his appearance or conversation--nothing at all _frappant_--she scarce believed he could even draw that sketch. Mr.

Winterblossom, indeed, made a great deal of it; but then all the world knew that every sc.r.a.p of engraving or drawing, which Mr. Winterblossom contrived to make his own, was, the instant it came into his collection, the finest thing that ever was seen--that was the way with collectors--their geese were all swans."

"And your ladyship's swan has proved but a goose, my dearest Lady Pen,"

said Lady Binks.

"_My_ swan, dearest Lady Binks! I really do not know how I have deserved the appropriation."

"Do not be angry, my dear Lady Penelope; I only mean, that for a fortnight and more you have spoke constantly _of_ this Mr. Tyrrel, and all dinner-time you spoke _to_ him."

The fair company began to collect around, at hearing the word _dear_ so often repeated in the same brief dialogue, which induced them to expect sport, and, like the vulgar on a similar occasion, to form a ring for the expected combatants.

"He sat betwixt us, Lady Binks," answered Lady Penelope, with dignity.

"You had your usual headache, you know, and, for the credit of the company, I spoke for one."

"For _two_, if your ladyship pleases," replied Lady Binks. "I mean," she added, softening the expression, "for yourself and me."

"I am sorry," said Lady Penelope, "I should have spoken for one who can speak so smartly for herself, as my dear Lady Binks--I did not, by any means, desire to engross the conversation--I repeat it, there is a mistake about this man."