Madame Flirt A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' 8 – Pearce · Verses Across
Literature · Historical Fiction
Madame Flirt A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' 8Chapter 8
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Literature · Historical Fiction
Madame Flirt A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' 8
Chapter 8
PearceEnglish
"YOU'VE A MIGHTY COAXING TONGUE"
The shop on London Bridge of Dr. Mountchance, apothecary, astrologer, dealer in curios and sometimes money lender and usurer, was in its way picturesque and quaint, but to most tastes would scarcely be called inviting. Bottles of all shapes and sizes loaded the shelves, mingled with jars and vases from China, Delft ware from Holland and plates and dishes from France, which Dr. Mountchance swore were the handiwork of Palissy, the famous artist-potter. Everything had a thick coating of dust. Dried skins of birds, animals and hideous reptiles hung from the walls and ceiling; a couple of skulls grinned mockingly above a doorway leading into a little room at the rear, and it was difficult to steer one's way between the old furniture, the iron bound coffers and miscellaneous articles which crowded the shop.
In the room behind, chemical apparatus of strange construction was on one table; packets of herbs were on another; a huge tome lay opened on the floor, and books were piled on the chairs. The apartment was a mixture of a laboratory and lumber room. A furnace was in one corner, retorts, test tubes, crucibles, a huge pestle and mortar, jars, bottles were on a bench close handy.
The room was lighted by a window projecting over the Thames, and the roar of the river rushing through the narrow arches and swirling and dashing against the stone work never ceased, though it varied in violence according to wind and tide. The house was a portion of the old chapel of St. Thomas, long since converted from ecclesiastical observances to commercial uses.
Dr. Mountchance, who at this moment was at a table in the centre examining a silver flagon and muttering comments upon it, was a little man about seventy, with an enormous head and a spare body and short legs. His face was wrinkled like a piece of wet shrivelled silk and his skin was the colour of parchment. His eyes, very small and deep-set, were surmounted by heavy brows once black, now of an iron grey. His mouth was of prodigious width, the lips thin and straight and his nose long, narrow and pointed. He wore a dirty wig which was always awry, a faded mulberry coloured coat, and a frayed velvet waistcoat reaching halfway down his thighs. His stockings were dirty and hung in bags about his ankles, his feet were cased in yellow slippers more than half worn out.
Dr. Mountchance's hearing was keen. A footfall in the shop, soft as it was, caused him to look up. He saw a slight girlish figure, her cloak pulled tightly about her, a pair of bright eyes peering from beneath the hood.
The old man gave a grunt of dissatisfaction. Many of his customers were women but he liked them none the more because of their sex. They generally came to sell, not to buy, and most of them knew how to drive a hard bargain. He shuffled into the shop with a scowl on his lined yellow face.
"What d'ye want?" he growled.
Most girls would have been nervous at such a reception. Not so this one.
"I want to sell this brooch. How much will you give me for it?" said she, undauntedly.
"Don't want to buy it. Go somewhere else."
"I shan't. Too much trouble. Besides, you're going to buy it, dear Dr. Mountchance."
The imploring eyes, the beseeching voice, soft and musical, the modest yet assured manner, were too much for the old man. Unconscious of the destiny awaiting her, Lavinia was employing the same tenderness of look, the same captivating pathos of tone as when two years later she, as Polly Peachum, sang "Oh ponder well," and won the heart of the Duke of Bolton.
"H'm, h'm," grunted Mountchance, "you pretty witch. Must I humour ye?"
"Of course you must. You're so kind and always ready to help others."
The doctor showed his yellow fangs in a ghastly grin that gave a skull-like look to his dried face.
"Hold thy wheedling tongue, hussy. This trinket--gold you say?"
"Try it, you know better than I."
Dr. Mountchance took the brooch into the inner room, weighed it, tested the metal and returned to the shop.
"I can give you no more than the simple value of the gold. 'Tis not pure--a crown should content ye."
"Well, it doesn't. Do you take me for a cutpurse? I'm not that sort."
"How do I know? You use thieves' jargon. Where did you pick it up?"
Lavinia gave one of her rippling laughs.
"That's my business and not yours. I tell you it's honestly come by and I want a guinea for it. You know it's worth five and maybe more. The man who gave it me--I don't care for him you may like to know--isn't mean. He'd spend a fortune on me if I'd care to take it but I don't." She tossed her head disdainfully.
"Oh, 'tis from your gallant. Aye, men are easily fooled by bright eyes. Well--well----"
Lavinia's ingenuous story had its effect. Not a few of Dr. Mountchance's lady customers preferred money to trinkets and he did a profitable trade in buying these presents at his own price. Some of these flighty damsels were haughty and patronising and others were familiar and impudent. The old man disliked both varieties. Lavinia belonged to neither the first nor the second. She was thoroughly natural and the humour lurking in her sparkling eyes was a weapon which few could resist. Dr. Mountchance unclasped a leather pouch and extracted a guinea.
"You've a mighty coaxing tongue, you baggage. Keep it to yourself that I gave you what you asked, lest my reputation as a fair dealing man be gone for ever."
"Oh, you may trust me to keep my mouth shut," said Lavinia with mock gravity.
A sweeping curtsey and she turned towards the door. At the same moment a lady cloaked and hooded like herself entered. They stared at each other as they passed.
Lavinia recognised Sally Salisbury, though the latter was much more finely dressed than when they encountered each other outside the Maidenhead Tavern in St. Giles. Sally was not so sure about Lavinia. The slim girl was now a woman. She carried herself with an air. She had exchanged her shabby garments for clothes of a fashionable cut which she knew how to wear. Still, some chord in Sally's memory was stirred and she advanced into the shop with a puzzled look on her face.
Mountchance received his fresh customer obsequiously. He had made a good deal of money out of Sally; she never brought him anything which was not valuable and worth buying. Sometimes her treasures were presents from admirers, sometimes they were the proceeds of highway robberies. The latter yielded the most profit. The would-be sellers dared not haggle. They were only too anxious to get rid of their ill-gotten gains.
The old man bowed Sally Salisbury into his inner room. He knew that the business which had brought her to him was one that meant privacy. He ceremoniously placed a chair for her and awaited her pleasure.
The lady was in no hurry. She caught sight of the gold brooch lying on the table, took it up and examined it. On the back was graven "A.D. to Lavinia." Sally's dark arched eyebrows contracted.
"Lavinia," she thought. "So it was that little squalling cat. I hate her. She's tumbled on her feet--like all cats. But for the letters I'd say she'd flung herself at the head of my man."
Sally was thinking of her encounter with Lavinia outside the Maiden Head tavern. Lancelot Vane was then sitting in the bow window of the coffee-room. True he was in a drunken sleep but this would make no difference. Lavinia, Sally decided, was in a fair way to earn her living, much as Sally herself did--the toy of the bloods of fashion one day, the companions of highwaymen and bullies the next.
"Where did the impertinent young madam get her fine clothes and her quality air if not?" Sally asked herself, and the question was a reasonable one.
"Have you brought me ought that I care to look at, Mistress Salisbury?" broke in the old man impatiently. "You haven't come to buy that paltry trinket, I'll swear."
"How do you knew? It takes my fancy. Where did you get it?"
"I've had it but five minutes. You passed the girl who sold it me as you came in. A pretty coaxing wench. She'd make a man pour out his gold at her feet if she cared to try."
Sally's lips went pallid with passion and her white nostrils quivered.
"A common little trull," she burst out. "She should be sent to Bridewell and soundly whipped. 'Tis little more than six months she was a street squaller cadging for pence round the boozing kens of St. Giles and Clare Market. And now--pah! it makes me sick."
Sally flung the brooch upon the table with such violence it bounced a foot in the air.
"Gently--gently, my good Sally," remonstrated Mountchance, "if you must vent your fury upon anything choose your own property, not mine."
It was doubtful if the virago heard the request. She was not given to curbing her temper, and leaning back in the chair, her body rigid, she beat a tattoo with her high-heeled shoes and clenched her fists till the knuckles whitened.
Mountchance had seen hysterical women oft times and was not troubled. He opened a stoppered bottle and held its rim to the lady's nose. The moment was well chosen, Sally was in the act of drawing a deep breath, probably with the intention of relieving her feelings by shrieking aloud. The ammonia was strong and she inhaled a full dose. She gasped, she coughed, her eyes streamed, the current of her thoughts changed, she poured a torrent of unadulterated Billingsgate upon the imperturbable doctor who busied himself about other matters until Sally should think fit to regain her senses.
That time came when after a brief interval of sullenness, accompanied by much heaving of the bosom and biting of lips she deigned to produce the pearl necklace, the spoil of Rofflash's highway robbery on the Bath Road.
Mountchance looked at the pearls closely and his face became very serious.
"The High Toby game I'll take my oath," said he in a low voice. "Such a bit of plunder as this must be sent abroad. I dursn't attempt to get rid of it here."
"That's your business. My business is how much'll you give."
Dr. Mountchance named a sum ridiculously low so Sally thought. Then ensued a long haggle which was settled at last by a compromise and Sally departed.
As she hurried back to her lodgings in the Borough, Sally was quite unaware that Rofflash, disguised as a beggar with a black patch over his eye and a dirty red handkerchief tied over his head in place of his wig, was stealthily shadowing her.
