Part 19 (1/2)

'Some turkey!' he said, awaking, and touching the carving-knife and fork, with a smile and a bow; and he mingled once more in the business and bustle of life.

And soon there came in the general talk and business one of those sudden lulls which catch speakers unawares, and Mr. Beauchamp was found saying--

'I saw her play on Thursday, and, upon my honour, the Bellamy is a mockery, a skeleton and a spectacle.'

'That's no reason,' said Aunt Becky, who, as usual, had got up a skirmish, and was firing away in the cause of Mossop and Smock-alley play-house; 'why, she would be fraudulently arrested in her own chair, on her way to the play-house, by the contrivance of the rogue Barry, and that wicked mountebank, Woodward.'

'You're rather hard upon them, Madam,' said Mrs. Colonel Stafford, who stood up for Crow-street, with a slight elevation of her chin.

'Very true, indeed, Mistress Chattesworth,' cried the dowager, overlooking Madam Stafford's parenthesis, and tapping an applause with her fan, and, at the same time, rewarding the champion of Smock-alley, for she was one of the faction, with one of her large, painted smiles, followed by a grave and somewhat supercilious glance at the gentleman of the household; 'and I don't believe _they_, at least, can think her a spectacle, and--a--the like, or they'd hardly have conspired to lock her in a sponging-house, while she should have been in the play-house. What say you, Mistress Chattesworth?'

'Ha, ha! no, truly, my lady; but you know she's unfortunate, and a stranger, and the good people in this part of the world improve so safe an opportunity of libelling a friendless gentlewoman.'

This little jet of vitriol was intended for the eye of the Castle beau; but he, quite innocent of the injection, went on serenely--

'So they do, upon my honour, Madam, tell prodigious naughty tales about her: yet upon my life I do pity her from my soul: how that fellow Calcraft, by Jove--she says, you know, she's married to him, but we know better--he has half broken her heart, and treated her with most refined meanness, as I live; in the green-room, where she looks an infinity worse than on the stage, she told me----'

'I dare say,' said Aunt Becky, rather stiffly, pulling him up; for though she had fought a round for poor George Anne Bellamy for Mossop's sake, she nevertheless had formed a pretty just estimate of that faded, good-natured, and insolvent demirep, and rather recoiled from any anecdotes of her telling.

'And Calcraft gave her his likeness in miniature,' related the macaroni, never minding; 'set round with diamonds, and, will you believe it? when she came to examine it, they were not brilliants, but rose-diamonds--despicable fellow!'

Here the talk began to spring up again in different places, and the conversation speedily turned into what we have heard it before, and the roar and confusion became universal, and swallowed up what remained of poor George Anne's persecutions.

CHAPTER XXIV.

IN WHICH TWO YOUNG PERSONS UNDERSTAND ONE ANOTHER BETTER, PERHAPS, THAN EVER THEY DID BEFORE, WITHOUT SAYING SO.

And now the ladies, with their gay plumage, have flown away like foreign birds of pa.s.sage, and the jolly old priests of Bacchus, in the parlour, make their libations of claret; and the young fellows, after a while, seeing a gathering of painted fans, and rustling hoops, and fluttering laces, upon the lawn, and a large immigration of hilarious neighbours besides, and two serious fiddlers, and a black fellow with a tambourine preparing for action, and the warm glitter of the western sun among the green foliage about the window, could stand it no longer, but stole away, notwithstanding a hospitable remonstrance and a protest from old Strafford, to join the merry muster.

'The young bucks will leave their claret,' said Lord Castlemallard; 'and truly 'tis a rare fine wine, colonel, a mighty choice claret truly (and the colonel bowed low, and smiled a rugged purple smile in spite of himself, for his claret _was_ choice), all won't do when Venus beckons--when she beckons--ha, ha--all won't do, Sir--at the first flutter of a petticoat, and the invitation of a pair of fine eyes--fine eyes, colonel--by Jupiter, they're off--you can't keep 'em--I say your wine won't keep 'em--they'll be off, Sir--peeping under the hoods, the dogs will--and whispering their wicked nonsense, Dr. Walsingham--ha, ha--and your wine, I say--your claret, colonel, won't hold 'em--'twas once so with us--eh, general?--ha! ha! and we must forgive 'em now.'

And he shoved round his chair lazily, with a left-backward wheel, so as to command the window, for he liked to see the girls dance, the little rogues!--with his claret and his French rappee at his elbow; and he did not hear General Chattesworth, who was talking of the new comedy called the 'Clandestine Marriage,' and how 'the prologue touches genteelly on the loss of three late geniuses--Hogarth, Quin, and Cibber--and the epilogue is the picture of a polite company;' for the tambourine and the fiddles were going merrily, and the la.s.ses and lads in motion.

Aunt Becky and Lilias were chatting just under those pollard osiers by the river. She was always gentle with Lily, and somehow unlike the pugnacious Aunt Becky, whose attack was so spirited and whose thrust so fierce; and when Lily told a diverting little story--and she was often very diverting--Aunt Becky used to watch her pleasant face, with such a droll, good-natured smile; and she used to pat her on the cheek, and look so glad to see her when they met, and often as if she would say--'

I admire you a great deal more, and I am a great deal fonder of you than you think; but you know brave stoical Aunt Becky can't say all that--it would not be in character, you know.' And the old lady knew how good she was to the poor, and she liked her spirit, and candour, and honour--it was so uncommon, and somehow angelic, she thought. 'Little Lily's so true!' she used to say; and perhaps there was there a n.o.ble chord of sympathy between the young girl, who had no taste for battle, and the daring Aunt Becky.

I think Devereux liked her for liking Lily--he thought it was for her own sake. Of course, he was often unexpectedly set upon and tomahawked by the impetuous lady; but the gay captain put on his scalp again, and gathered his limbs together, and got up in high good humour, and shook himself and smiled, after his dismemberment, like one of the old soldiers of the Walhalla--and they were never the worse friends.

So, turning his back upon the fiddles and tambourine, Gipsy Devereux sauntered down to the river-bank, and to the osiers, where the ladies are looking down the river, and a blue bell, not half so blue as her own deep eyes, in Lilias's fingers; and the sound of their gay talk came mixed with the twitter and clear evening songs of the small birds. By those same osiers, that see so many things, and tell no tales, there will yet be a parting. But its own sorrow suffices to the day. And now it is a summer sunset, and all around dappled gold and azure, and sweet, dreamy sounds; and Lilias turns her pretty head, and sees him;--and oh!

was it fancy, or did he see just a little flus.h.i.+ng of the colour on her cheek--and her lashes seemed to drop a little, and out came her frank little hand. And Devereux leaned on the paling there, and chatted his best sense and nonsense, I dare say; and they laughed and talked about all sorts of things; and he sang for them a queer little s.n.a.t.c.h of a ballad, of an enamoured captain, the course of whose true love ran not smooth;--

The river ran between them, And she looked upon the stream, And the soldier looked upon her As a dreamer on a dream.

'Believe me--oh! believe,'

He sighed, 'you peerless maid; My honour is pure, And my true love sure, Like the white plume in my hat, And my s.h.i.+ning blade.'

The river ran between them, And she smiled upon the stream, Like one that smiles at folly-- A dreamer on a dream.