Madame Flirt A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' 10 – Pearce · Verses Across
Literature · Historical Fiction
Madame Flirt A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' 10In the Chapter Coffee House
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Literature · Historical Fiction
Madame Flirt A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' 10
In the Chapter Coffee House
PearceEnglish
It was nearly six o'clock when Lavinia stood on the broad steps of Queensberry House behind Burlington Gardens. Now that she was staring at the big door between the high railings with their funnel shaped link extinguishers pointing downward at her on either side her courage seemed to be slipping from her. The grotesque faces supporting the triangular portico seemed to be mocking her, the enormous knocker transformed itself into a formidable obstacle.
The adventures of the last forty-eight hours had suddenly presented themselves to the girl's mind in all their enormity. It occurred to her for the first time that she had not only thrown away the chance of her life, but that she had been guilty of black ingratitude to her benefactors. And her folly in permitting the fancy to rove towards Archibald Dorrimore, for whose foppishness she had a contempt, simply because he was rich! The recollection of this caused her the bitterest pang of all.
How could she justify her conduct to Mr. Gay! Would he not look upon her as a light o' love ready to bestow smiles upon any man who flattered her? Well, she wouldn't attempt to justify herself. Mr. Gay was a poet. He would understand. But the terrible duchess--Kitty of Queensberry who feared nothing and in the plainest of terms, if she was so minded, expressed her opinion on everything! Lavinia quaked in her shoes at the thought of meeting the high-born uncompromising dame.
"But I've promised the poor fellow. I must keep my word. I don't care a bit about myself if I can do that," she murmured.
Lavinia had a sudden heartening, and lest the feeling should slacken she seized the heavy bell-pull and gave it a violent tug.
The door was opened almost immediately by a fat hall porter who scowled when he saw a girl instead of the footman of a fine lady in her chair.
"What d'ye want? A-ringing the bell like that one would think you was my Lord Mayor."
"I'm neither the Lord Mayor nor the Lady Mayoress, as your own eyes ought to tell you. I wish to see Mr. Gay."
"Well, you can't," said the porter gruffly. "He's not here. He's staying with Mr. Pope at Twitnam."
"Twitnam? Where is Twitnam?"
"Up the river."
"How far? Can I walk there?"
"May be, but you hadn't better go on foot. It's a goodish step--ten or a dozen miles. You might go by waggon, there isn't no other way save toe and heel. An' let me give you warning, young 'oman, the roads aren't safe after dark. D'rectly you get to Knightsbridge footpads is ten a penny, let alone 'ighwaymen. Not that you're their game--leastways by the looks o' you."
"Thank you. I'm not afraid, but you mean your advice kindly and I'll not forget it. Mr. Gay's at Mr. Pope's house you say?"
"Mr. Pope's villa--he calls it. Mr. Pope's the great writer."
"I've heard of him. Which is the way after I've left Knightsbridge?"
"Why, straight along. Don't 'ee turn nayther to the right or the left, Kensington--'Ammersmith--Turn'am Green--Brentford--you goes through 'em all, if you don't get a knock on the 'ead on the way or a bullet through ye. One's as likely to 'appen as the other. I wouldn't answer fer your getting safe and sound to Twitnam unless you goes by daylight."
"That's what I must do then," said Lavinia resignedly. "Thank you kindly."
"You're welcome, I hope as how that pretty face o' yours won't get ye into trouble. It's mighty temptin'. I'd like a kiss myself."
"Would you? Then you won't have one. As for my face, I haven't any other so I must put up with it."
Dropping a curtsey of mock politeness Lavinia hastened away and did not slacken her pace till she reached Piccadilly and was facing the large open space now known as the Green Park.
It was a lovely evening and the western sun though beginning to descend, still shone brightly. The long grass invited repose and Lavinia sat down on a gentle hillock to think what her next step must be.
She was greatly disappointed at not finding Mr. Gay. She was sure he would have forgiven her escapade; he would have helped her over the two difficulties facing her--very little money and no shelter for the night. Of the two the latter was most to be dreaded.
"A year ago," she thought, "it wouldn't have mattered very much. The Covent Garden women and men from the country are kind-hearted. I'd have had a corner in a waggon and some hay to lie upon without any bother, and breakfast the next morning into the bargain. But now--in these clothes--what would they take me for?"
These reflections, all the same, wouldn't solve the problem which was troubling her and it had to be solved. She must either walk about the streets or brave the tempest of her mother's wrath. This wrath, however, didn't frighten her so much as the prospect of being again made a prisoner. Her mother, she felt sure, had some deep design concerning her, though what it was she could not conceive.
Tired of pondering over herself and her embarrassing situation Lavinia turned her mind to something far more agreeable--her promise to Lancelot Vane which of course meant thinking about Vane himself.
She couldn't help contrasting Vane with Dorrimore. She hated to remember having listened seriously to the latter's flatteries. By the light of what had happened it seemed now to her perfectly monstrous that she could ever have consented to marry him. It angered her when she thought of it--but her anger was directed more against herself than against Dorrimore.
"I suppose I ought to go back to Mr. Vane. He'll be waiting anxiously to know how I've fared, but no--I'll go to Twitenham first."
She sat for some time watching the sunset. She wove fanciful dreams in which the pallid face and large gleaming eyes of the young poet were strangely involved. With what courtly grace and reverence he had kissed her hand! Vane was a gentleman by nature; Dorrimore merely called himself one and what was more boasted of it.
But what did it matter to her? Vane had done her a service and it was only right she should repay him in some sort. This was how she tried to sum up the position. Whether Mr. Gay befriended him or not, their acquaintance would have to cease. He was penniless and so was she. If she confessed as much as this to him he would be embarrassed and distressed because he could not help her.
"I dursn't tell him," she sighed. "I'll have to do something for myself. Oh, if I could only earn some money by singing! I would love it. Not in the streets though. No, I could never do that again. Never!"
She clasped her hands tightly and her face became sad. Then her thoughts went back to Vane and she pictured him in his lonely garret perhaps dreaming of the glorious future awaiting him if his tragedy was a success, or perhaps he was dejected. After so many disappointments what ground had he for hope? Lavinia longed to whisper in his ear words of encouragement. She had treasured that look when his face lighted up at something she had said that had pleased him. And his sadness she remembered too. She was really inclined to think she liked him better when he was sad than when he was joyful. But this was because she gloried in chasing that sadness away. It was a tribute to her power of witchery.
Dusk was creeping on. She must not remain longer in that solitary expanse. She rose and sped towards Charing Cross. In the Strand citizens and their wives, apprentices and their lasses were taking the air. The scraps of talk, the laughter, gave her a sense of security. But the problem of how to pass the night was still before her. She dared not linger to think it out. She must go on. Young gallants gorgeously arrayed were swaggering arm in arm in pursuit of adventure, in plain words in pursuit of women, the prettier the better. Lavinia had scornfully repelled the advances of more than one and to loiter would but invite further unwelcome attention.
The night was come but fortunately the sky was clear, for the Strand was ill lighted. St. Mary's Church, not long since consecrated, St. Clement's Church, loomed large and shadowy in the narrow roadway, narrowing still more towards Temple Bar past the ill-favoured and unsavoury Butcher's Row on the north side of the street, where the houses of rotting plaster and timber with overhanging storeys frowned upon the passer-by and suggested deeds of violence and robbery.
Butcher's Row and its evil reputation, even the ruffians and dissolute men lurking in the deep doorways did not frighten Lavinia so much as the silk-coated and bewigged cavaliers. The days of the Mohocks were gone it was true, but lawlessness still remained.
Lavinia was perfectly conscious that she was being followed by a spark of this class. She did not dare look round lest he should think she encouraged him, but she knew all the same that he was keeping on her heels. Along Fleet Street he kept close to her and on Ludgate Bridge where the traffic was blocked by the crowd gazing into the Fleet river at some urchin's paddling in the muddy stream he spoke to her. She hadn't the least idea what he said, she was too terrified.
In the darkness of St. Paul's Churchyard she had the good luck to avoid him and she darted into Paternoster Row, and took shelter in a deep doorway. Either he had not noticed the way she went or he had given up the chase, for she saw no more of him.
The doorway in which she had sought refuge was a kind of lobby with an inner door covered with green baize. From the other side came the sound of loud talking and laughter, and the clinking of glasses. It was the Chapter Coffee House, the meeting place of booksellers, authors who had made their names, and struggling scribblers hanging on to the skirts of the muses.
The air was close. Inside the revellers may have found it insufferable. The door was suddenly opened and fastened back by one of the servants. The man looked inquiringly at the shrinking figure in the lobby. Evidently she was not a beggar and he said nothing.
Lavinia glanced inside from no feeling other than that of curiosity. At the same time she was reluctant to leave the protection of the house until she was sure her persecutor was not lurking near.
The candles cast a lurid yellowish light; the shadows were deep; only the faces of those nearest the flame could be clearly distinguished. One table was surrounded by a boisterous group in the centre of which was a fat man in a frowsy wig. He had a malicious glint in his squinting eyes and was evidently of some importance. When he spoke the others listened with respect.
This pompous personage was Edmund Curll, bookseller, whose coarse and infamous publications once brought him within the law. Curll, we are told, possessed himself of a command over all authors whatever; he caused them to write what he pleased; they could not call their very names their own. Curll was the deadly enemy of Pope and his friends, and his unlimited scurrility drew from the poet of Twickenham a retaliation every whit as coarse and as biting as anything the bookseller's warped mind ever conceived.
Had Lavinia been told this was the notorious Curll, the name would have conveyed nothing. The quarrels of poets and publishers were to her a sealed book. All that she knew was that she disliked the man at first sight, while his vile speech made her ears tingle with shame. Despite the danger possibly awaiting her in the gloom of Paternoster Row she would have fled had not the sight of one of the group at the table rooted her to the spot.
This was Lancelot Vane whom her maiden fancy had elevated into a god endowed with all the virtues and laden with misfortunes which had so drawn him towards her. Vane--alas that it should have to be written--had taken much wine--far too much!
Lavinia knew the signs. Often in the old days in St. Giles had she seen them--the eyes unnaturally bright, the face unnaturally flushed, the laugh unnaturally empty. And she had pictured Vane so sad, so depressed! The sight of him thus came upon her as a shock.
At first she was angry and then full of excuses for him. It was not his fault, she argued, but that of his companions and especially of the squint-eyed, foul-tongued man who no sooner saw that the bottle was getting low than he ordered another one.
What could she do to help him? Nothing. He was out of her reach. She remembered how he looked when she first saw him at the Maiden Head inn. He would probably look like that again before the night was ended. She could not bear to gaze upon him as he was now and she crept away with the old wives' words in her mind--Providence looks after drunken men and babes.
She stole from the lobby sad at heart. She had no longer the courage to face the dangers of the street. The deep shadow of great St. Paul's, sacred building though it was, afforded her no protection; it spoke rather of cut-throats, footpads, ruffians ready for any outrage. The din of voices, the sounds of brawling reached her from Cheapside. The London 'prentices let loose from toil and routine were out for boisterous enjoyment and may be devilry. She dared not go further eastward.
The only goal of safety she could think of was the coffee house in the Old Bailey. Why should she be afraid of her mother?
"She won't lock me up again. I'll take good care of that. I suppose she thinks I'm still a child. Mother's mistaken as she'll find out."
So she wheeled round and went back to Ludgate Hill, keeping close to the houses so that she should not attract attention.
