The Passionate Elopement 5 – Mackenzie · Verses Across
Literature · Romance
The Passionate Elopement 5Curtain Maze
18
Literature · Romance
The Passionate Elopement 5
Curtain Maze
MackenzieEnglish
The Maze at Curtain Wells was always considered one of the principal sights of the place. Holding this reputation, it was naturally the least frequented. Visitors either went there the second day after their arrival or scuttled round it with a competent escort in the twenty-four hours that preceded their departure. But since no one went there twice and since all the visitors and residents of the Wells were perfectly familiar with the various shrines, its invariable emptiness may easily be apprehended. In summer the gardens of which it was a feature were thronged at the fashionable hours. There was also a Rotunda similar to if less grandiose than the famous Rotunda at Ranelagh Garden. This had not long been in existence, and was only used for balls and masquerades through May and June, when the Maze was spangled with lamps for the delight of the dancers. Even so, very few availed themselves of the shelter of its yew-hedges and always spent the rest of the evening in trying to find their way out, being lucky if they succeeded in making a somewhat ruffled appearance during the last Cotillon.
To Curtain Garden went Miss Phyllida Courteen and Madam Betty her maid: to Curtain Garden they were going when they passed Mr. Charles Lovely at the coffee-room window.
Betty belonged to a type of womanhood that grows with age, increased fat and pursiness, into a nurse such as Mr. Shakespeare drew in Romeo and Juliet. If she had been brought up in a disreputable purlieu of the town, she would have become a personally chaste procuress but, nurtured among the buttercups, she merely had a perpetual desire to see her pretty young mistress aflame through the careless progress of some gay spark or other. Whatever there was of passion in her meadow-born soul fed itself on objective embraces. She was never a maid for a kissing-gate at long shadow time, but when she saw Phyllida's heart flutter with quick emotion before the approach of Mr. Vernon, a primitive phrenzy set her cheeks aglow and fired her eyes to a livelier blue. She adored her mistress with a precocious maternity but, paradoxically enough, without any of the mother's jealousy of a lover near to his possession. Vernon with his pale face and slightly sinister demeanour had caught her fancy. 'Let him mate with my pretty one,' she would say to herself, 'blossom of apple looks most rare and sweet under a grey sky of clouds.' It was this anxiety to provide a physical match for Phyllida which had led her to encourage Vernon's addresses, and her mistress to pay heed to his vows. Her greatest delight was to stand, watching against interruption, in the next alley to the lovers. Here she would thrill her imagination with the thought of frail and timid fingers in the clasp of a strong white hand. The sudden interposition of Mr. Lovely vexed her. Certainly he was handsome enough, but too much of a piece with Phyllida; they might have been brother and sister. Moreover, he was always laughing.
"A man who always laughs is as bad as a dog who always wags his tail. Neither is fit for a maid," she grumbled to Phyllida as they stepped briskly along beneath the tall poplars that fringed the road leading to the entrance of Curtain Garden.
"Truly I vow he has a romantick air," protested Phyllida.
"La! what's romantick? 'Tis no more than reading a book on the shady side of the street." Betty tossed a contemptuous head.
"Indeed, Betty, I think 'tis a great deal more than that. To be romantick, child, is to have a noble heart, and to have a noble heart----"
"'Is to lead the Venite on a Sunday morning," interrupted the maid.
"No! 'tis not."
"Well! 'tes to kneel very obstreperous."
"'Tis no such a thing," said Phyllida, stamping on the pavement.
By this time, they had reached the famous wrought-iron gates of the principal entrance, where an old man in an enormous three-cornered hat and long heavily laced surtout walked up and down. Sometimes he would stop and, over gnarled hands twisted round the ivory crook of his cane, stare fiercely at the stamped effigies of AEsculapius and Flora while he addressed the presiding deities in a wheezy monotone.
"Curtain Garden! Curtain Garden! Lads and lasses, ye'll grow old. Fit for maids is Curtain Garden." Thus having droned a warning to Olympus, he would resume his walk.
In two months the broad gravelled path which he guarded would be thronged by the Exquisite Mob, but at present his only audience on fine days was composed of Phyllida and Betty. On wet days, when not even they ventured out, he would sit in a little pagoda whence every few minutes he would pop out his head, and in the same wheezy monotone lament 'Rain! Rain! on the windowpane!' and retire as abruptly as a cuckoo that has told the hour.
With this aged janitor Phyllida used to have a daily conversation which never varied by a single letter.
"Nobody in the garden this morning?"
"Not a soul nor a body, young miss."
"Are you better of your cold?"
"Very much worse."
As Phyllida used to tell Betty when they had left the gateway behind them, 'he must be very ill indeed because he has been very much worse every day.'
This customary conversation interrupted the argument over Mr. Lovely's romantick character of mind, and when they turned down the path which led to the Maze all discussion went to the wind at the prospect of again seeing her dear Amor.
Vernon had met Phyllida in the Maze but a bare two weeks ago. It happened to be his first visit to the Wells, and he was in the act of being solemnly lost when he accosted her for direction. Betty had encouraged the chance acquaintanceship and Mr. Vernon, who was tired of the mechanick Dryads of Vauxhall, embarked upon a new pleasure. The natural secretiveness of his disposition led him to adopt Amor as a fantastick pseudonym, and neither Betty nor Phyllida had troubled themselves to inquire farther into his antecedents. Indeed, it would have puzzled them to do so, for he had but lately appeared at the Pump Room in response to Phyllida's earnest entreaty, and absolutely refused to meet her at the Assembly Rooms. Consequently, had she felt inclined to indulge a suspicion, there was no one to whom she could appeal except perhaps Beau Ripple: and he, of course, was not to be thought of in connection with so trivial a matter.
You will recollect that Vernon's toilet of this morning was considerably perturbed by the image of Phyllida. Over his coffee he had reviewed the situation with great contempt for himself.
To begin with, he had moved into lodgings opposite his charmer's abode. What foolish enthusiasm! worthy of a stripling of sixteen, as he told himself. Then he had seriously contemplated matrimony. To be sure, he had made a few cautious inquiries and heard it stated on good authority that she was an heiress, but odds his life! was that enough to make him commit himself irreparably. He was jaded, and the rustick seclusion (so he characterized the Wells!) had affected his head. A boarding-school miss with gawky tendencies--a boarding-school miss with the smile of a young nymph--a boarding-school miss with little fingers that tugged the manhood--the weariness--out of his heart! It was impossible. His friends would sneer unmercifully, and he would settle in the country as he had often wished, and by heavens! he would seek her mother's consent. Pshaw! the chit would become more insipid than ever, more delightful, more enthralling, more utterly subjugating. Z----ds! what an impetuous fool he would be considered. No! No! country misses were very well in the country, and might bear transplantation for a season, but London bough-pots should be renewed every Spring. Meanwhile the affair was progressing very well, and if he could pluck a pigeon or two--there were always pigeons in the country--why a Summer in town--and after that--why after that--meanwhile his coffee was growing cold.
But when he saw her radiance among the dark hedges of yew, all his cynical plans withered away, and it would have taken mighty little to transform the libertine into as honest a lover as ever galloped across the horizon of a romantick imagination. What grace! What charm! What movement! What colour! It was incredible she would ever grow old. He rose from the stone seat in the heart of the Maze and saluted her with a sculptured bow.
"That's true romantick," whispered Betty. "See him bow, see him stand up tall and white like a great wax candle."
The swansdown tippet rose and fell to the beating of the eager heart beneath.
"My charmer takes the sun like a flower," said Mr. Vernon, bending over her hand.
Betty's eyes were a very quick and fiery blue as she turned away to her post, and, indeed, the scene would have ravished a block.
Never were yews so dark and velvety, so full of whispered secrets, as the gentle wind stirred their crisped leaves continually. In a silence made by cushions of moss set with many green stars that muffled every footstep, the stone image of Cupid, poised upon his damp-stained pedestal caught from the February sunlight the veritable bloom and semblance of divinity.
Vernon, as he led Phyllida to the seat and saw her eyes flash over the swansdown muff, was sure that such beauty must capture something of the permanence expressed by the statue and remain for ever young, for ever provocative of desire.
High over their heads a flight of pigeons circled against the azure, gathered and broke into a scattered multitude of snowy wings whose fluttering echoes travelled along the sunlight to the sombre heart of the Maze.
The simple grace with which Phyllida seated herself held Vernon entranced. He could have sworn that the stone wings of the Cupid trembled faintly as if, animate and inanimate, the whole world stood ready to scale the empyrean. Blinded by an ecstasy of hope, the man forgot himself, discarded the mean ambitions that for so long had guided his actions, and conceived the idea of a fresher existence. Great moments, like great men, have a solitary life, and there was nothing in Phyllida to respond to the fire which he had waked from a pile of ashes. Actually she was wondering whether her dear Amor had remembered Valentine day, whether, indeed, his burning gaze was a prelude to the offer of a trinket.
"'Tis surely a pleasant Valentine morning," she murmured screwing up her eyes to the sun.
Vernon cursed the want of practice with young misses which had let him forget what every fair esteemed a man's sacred duty. However, he was a resourceful gentleman and, without any perceptible hesitation, produced from his pocket a paste brooch cut to the likeness of a basket of twinkling blue forget-me-nots.
The history of this little ornament possesses enough irony to warrant a short digression. It used to hang in the window of a Midland toy-shop, and had made a pretty birthday gift from a young man deep in love to his betrothed. She wore it in her kerchief for ten years and sent it at last to her lover in London with some other trinkets not very valuable, but all of the same fresh beauty. At the bottom of the packet was a faded sprig of whitethorn. The young gentleman--not quite so young now--opened it as a London dawn empearled the city smoke. It had lain all day in his room neglected while the dice-box rattled like a skeleton at the feast of Love--a feast of pimps and blowsy carmine furies. The contents of the packet went with the last of his guineas, and at the division of the stake Mr. Vernon contemptuously accepted the brooch. The latter never troubled himself to take the ornament out of his pocket. Now once more it came back to Youth and Beauty.
As she pinned it to her kerchief, Phyllida thanked him for his sweet thoughtfulness, and wondered if he would always remember this morning.
By this time, Vernon had clambered down from his mountain top. Perhaps the brooch made his descent more easy. Yet I think he was sincere when he swore he would never forget.
Anyway Phyllida believed him and so there is nothing more to be said.
"When we are wed," she began, and startled him with such an abrupt disclosure of her dreams. "When we are wed, I think we will live in Hyde Park. Where is Hyde Park?"
"On the confines of Kensington, my dear."
"Yes, but where is Kensington?"
"A mile or so Westward of Temple Bar."
"I think we will live in Kensington."
"Nay, prithee! would you have us die of dullness."
"Is Kensington dull?"
"'Tis very rustick. No! my charmer shall lodge in the Haymarket."
Phyllida pouted. There was a Haymarket in the country town to which she made an occasional visit from the little village of Newton Candover, and she remembered it as a dusty spot not fit for a new pair of shoes.
"I vow I should detest the Haymarket."
"Nay, 'tis the gayest place, with hackney coaches passing to and fro all day. You shall sit at your window and all the fine ladies of rank and fashion will envy you."
"And what will my Amor be doing?"
"He will be looking over his angel's shoulder."
"Then they'll envy me more than ever," said Phyllida with a contented laugh. Vernon pressed her hand and looked round quickly as a man will before he attempts the first kiss. But Phyllida drew back.
"What shall we do when we are tired of sitting at the windows--if one could ever tire of anything so pleasant," she added with a sigh.
"We'll call a hackney-coach and drive to Westminster Steps, to the river."
"To the river? Now that will be most diverting."
"And we'll hail the waterman with the most elegant wherry, and row up through the dusk to Vauxhall."
Phyllida was staring at him with the round eyes of a child who listens to an old fairy-tale.
"Then what should we do?" she asked earnestly.
"We should choose a box for two and sit with our elbows over a very small table and look at each other just as we are looking now."
"Yes! go on," cried Phyllida clapping her hands.
"Then we should call for chicken-wings and eat our supper and listen to the new song and the musick of the orchestra playing the finest tunes high up among a thousand sparkling coloured lamps and watch the masqueraders and row back to Westminster under a great moon."
Mr. Vernon was so much inspired by the interest of his listener that he began to believe in the reality of this proposed idyll, quite forgetting that it was a chastened account of a hundred similar adventures enjoyed with the domino passion of a night.
"Vauxhall must be the properest place in the world," sighed Phyllida, "I doubt everybody wears their jewels."
"Everybody," replied her lover with a quick glance.
"I should wear my pearls."
"Your pearls?"
"My necklace that was left by Grandmother Courteen. Mamma won't let me wear it till I'm one-and-twenty."
"But supposing you ran away?"
"Oh I should never dare. I should be frightened."
Vernon changed the subject, perceiving at present the courtship was nothing more serious than a Springtime diversion.
He told himself if the child surrendered to his blandishments, it would be an easy matter to induce her to run away. He must weave a strong web of personal attraction round her, and if her prudence sustained her to the end, why perhaps he might commit himself to a serious offer of marriage. He must inquire further into her fortune. He wished it were not so difficult to put an arm round her waist. Innocence was very well and the prospect of a siege amusing enough at first, but a long deferred capitulation would be immensely fatiguing; and yet how charming she was. Not for anything would he have her different.
"When we are wed," he began and for the first time echoed her lately expressed hopes. In some way he felt that she would be to blame, if harm came of it. She had given the cue.
"When we are wed, we shall go to routs."
"But we shall be old and wise and able to go then. It won't be near so diverting then as 'twould be now--if you came to the Assemblies."
"My angel forgets the risque of discovery."
"There could be no more danger in that than there is in sitting here in the Maze."
"Come!"
"I'm sure if we were prudent nobody would suspect us of a love-affair."
"But consider my ardour. 'Twould illuminate the whole matter."
"Well! and if the old maids did talk, they would only talk into their teacups and every one knows that to be monstrous ungenteel behaviour. Lud! I've been censured before. Why, when I was but sixteen I was the talk of the ballroom because I stepped four gavottes with Dicky Combleton, Squire Combleton's youngest son. Every one said I was a forward minx, and he's only a year older than me and that's only last year." Phyllida became very indignant, and Mr. Vernon who lacked humour became very indignant too at being compared to a bumpkin.
"Surely my angel sees the circumstances are slightly altered?"
He clasped her hand, and stroked it slowly, but she was not to be pacified and drew it away.
"For my part, I don't know how you dare say you care for my reputation and sit here holding my hand. Walls have ears and hedges have eyes."
"You would not withdraw your hand if you were sure we were not observed?"
She made no reply.
"Possibly," he went on, "you would let me kiss those sweet lips to a smile--if we were not observed?"
"Indeed, I vow you should never do anything so indelicate."
"Z----ds! my pretty Puritan----" he stopped because Phyllida's eyes were very wide open indeed.
"Oh Sir! no one but a father or a very old man has the right to swear so dreadfully before a maid."
He laughed.
"So oaths depend on age for their propriety? I 'faith that's a new maxim I've learned this morning. After all, my Phyllida, I am fifteen years older than you."
"That may be," she retorted primly, "and I have often wondered whether I should allow a man of middle-age to make love to me."
Vernon wrinkled with annoyance at such a description. He certainly lacked humour.
"But then, you see, I am in love with you, and not marrying you because our estates join like my cousin Clarice who, we all agreed, was old enough to know better."
"Young enough, you mean. Morality rusts with the years."
"I don't know what you are talking about, but it sounds like a text."
"It is a text, my dear, the text of the man of the world."
"I hate texts, but I don't hate goodness and you must promise never, never to swear again, and--never, never to try to kiss me."
"Not even when we are wed?"
"That's another matter."
"Perhaps when you are old and wise and able to kiss you won't like kissing."
"Oh! I protest, I should like it vastly," said Phyllida with great decision.
"But if you have never made the attempt?"
"A young woman knows by instinct."
"But why won't you make sure in advance?"
"Because 'tis imprudent and wicked."
"For my part, I believe you are playing with me."
And then began a long argument which settled nothing at all and, after ten minutes, left matters precisely where they started.
What Vernon said in jest was in essence perfectly true but unfortunately he was too vain and she was too young to believe it; for if potential Phyllida knew very well she would not expire if her dear Amor vanished for ever, actual Phyllida who was much younger and far more obstinate was equally sure that a gradual decline into an interesting consumption would be the natural result of such a calamity; while potential Vernon who was anxious to prove himself a very fine fellow was very contemptuous of actual Vernon and not at all willing to admit he would find more than sufficient compensation for the loss of his Phyllida in the ample charms of Miss Diana Flashington of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane.
And this is the way a large number of world-shaking passions begin, since at first we seldom apprehend our potentiality.
The quarrel was interrupted by the sound of approaching voices just as Betty came flying round the corner with the news that "Mr. Thomas and your mamma be coming as fast as legs can carry 'em this way as ever is."
The implication of a rapid advance is to be understood merely as relative to their usual rate of procedure.
In an instant all was confusion. Miss Courteen wrung her hands and behaved quite as wildly as a grand married lady on the verge of discovery in an ambiguous situation below stairs. Mr. Vernon flicked a number of invisible specks of dust from his purple sattin breeches as though he had been kneeling in devout protestation of honourable love for the past hour, while Betty ran in turn to each of the four alleys leading to their present position, and put a hand to an attentive ear. She quickly ascertained by which path the enemy was advancing and without more ado pushed Mr. Vernon hastily in the opposite direction, thrust a tambour frame into her mistress's hands and composed herself to spell aloud the Agricultural Calendar and Farmer's Assistant for the current year. She was in the middle of some astonishing statisticks of the comparative productiveness per acre of turnips and mangel-wurzels when Mrs. Courteen followed by the majestick Thomas appeared upon the scene. On perceiving her daughter, the latter gave a faint scream and declared the meeting would certainly produce palpitations.
At the utterance of this fatal word, Thomas immediately unscrewed the knob of his cane and drew forth a bottle of salts, Phyllida performed the same conjuring trick with her bag, while Betty after some lace-involved rites in which a crimson garter played a prominent part offered a third bottle not more than a moment later. By the tonick influence of several sniffs Mrs. Courteen was sufficiently revived to ask in a stern voice what Phyllida was doing in this ungodly place. Thomas accompanied the query by muttering 'Canaanites' several times in quick succession under his breath. What the commentary was intended to imply no one knew; but there was a general belief that the footman symbolized states of mind, people and actions of which he disapproved, by the various hostile tribes encountered by the Israelites during their wanderings.
Phyllida assured her mother she was working a peacock in blue and scarlet wool for the seat of a chair, and when Mrs. Courteen demanded why she was not sitting on her own balcony, for the privilege of possessing which she paid an additional five-and-sixpence a week in rent, the daughter protested the East wind chapped her ankles.
"Chaps your ankles, miss? What d'ye mean by chaps your ankles? At your age, I didn't know I had ankles. Woollen hose was what I wore, and I should have been whipped if I had ever dared to think my ankles were not as thick as marrowbones."
Phyllida begged her dear mamma's pardon and hoped to be forgiven, but could not help remarking the sun was so warm that she had felt quite positive her dear mamma would be pleased to see her take the air.
"Twas very unkind of you," complained the widow, "to presume so far on my acknowledged indulgence of your whims. You know the miserable state of my health compels me to sip several glasses of the waters after breakfast, and seize the lamentable opportunity to deceive your too confiding parent. How am I to know you have not been sitting in this heathen nook for days in succession?"
Again the footman muttered 'Canaanites! Canaanites!' As this was exactly where Phyllida had been sitting for days in succession, she looked immensely shocked by the question.
"Well! well," said Mrs. Courteen as if resigned to her daughter's iniquity, "go home and pray that you may become a more dutiful child."
Thomas murmured a low Amen and earned for his devotion a derisive and ribald gesture from Betty.
"Aren't you coming too, mamma?"
"No, miss, I am not coming; I must rest myself and compose my mind and soothe my feelings. Thomas, will you arrange my cushion."
Thomas produced it from under the seven capes of his surtout without perceptibly diminishing his girth.
Said Phyllida to Betty as they stepped out of the Maze, "For my part, I believe she only wanted to be rid of us in order to meet puffy old Moon or skimpy little Tarry."
