The Passionate Elopement 9 – Mackenzie · Verses Across
Literature · Romance
The Passionate Elopement 9Sunday Morning
18
Literature · Romance
The Passionate Elopement 9
Sunday Morning
MackenzieEnglish
Sunday morning at Curtain Wells was eminently a day of rest. A stroke of organizing genius on the part of Beau Ripple had abolished the fatigues of early Chalybeate by transferring the corporeal obligations of fashionable humanity to an hour which would not interfere with the respect owed to the spirit.
"A glass of Chalybeate," he had remarked, "will promote the proper digestion of the homily. Moreover, the vanity of post-religious promenades will be considerably mitigated by the discipline of the Pump."
At Curtain Wells, therefore, soon arose the pleasant custom of inviting one's friends and neighbours to partake of a substantial breakfast before setting out to St. Simon's parish church. The neighbours, if gentlemen, were expected to provide a suitable escort for their lady-hosts, and there was not a dame in the town who did not make it a point of honour to be armed in at the great West door on fine mornings or handed out of her chair with cautious ceremony if the weather was unsettled.
The Widow Courteen was not the woman to neglect or despise any prescriptive right conferred upon her sex. It was not surprizing, therefore, to see Major Constantine Tarry and Mr. Gregory Moon turning solemnly into the Crescent on the first Sunday morning whose events I am privileged to chronicle. The demeanour of neither gentleman would have allowed us even a momentary hesitation as to the day. The Sabbath wrote itself in the devout wrinkles of Mr. Moon's domed forehead and expressed itself in the stiff curls of the Major's military wig. As they drew near to Mrs. Courteen's house the latter voiced a desire to see eggs and bacon upon the breakfast table, and the former encouraged his ambition by repeating a legend of a fecundity among hens unusual at this season of the year. The meditation carried the two gentlemen to Mrs. Courteen's door in silence.
"Your turn to knock, Tarry," said Mr. Moon, in a rather depressed voice, as he fumbled with the steps from which the Major assaulted the door with military abruptness.
To them after a decent interval appeared Thomas in resplendent waistcoat of Sunday and with nose polished to the limit of a nose's power of brightness.
"Is your mistress within?" inquired the Major.
"Within and awaiting you," said solemn Mr. Thomas.
"Then I think, Mr. Moon," said the Major with half a turn, "we will step inside immediately."
"I think we may venture," replied the latter.
They were ushered into the passage where Thomas received their hats and canes. Thomas had such a sober effect on his fellow men that the slightest action in which he took part was conducted with a ritual at once austere and grand. One felt that the delivery of a hat, smallsword, cane, or message possessed at least the dignity, the entire absence of all worldly considerations that belong to the Sunday alms.
"Will your mistress receive us in the front parlour or the back parlour this morning?" inquired Tarry whose legs were prepared for either emergency.
"In the front parlour," said Thomas. "Miss Thomasina was ill this morning."
"In the back parlour, I presume?" said Moon.
"Very ill with retching and divers pains," continued Thomas.
"Poor Thomasina," said the Major with an attempt at jocularity.
"A feeble animal," said the footman, "and too fond of grass; and the grass of this city is fit only for Nebuchadnezzar."
A bright fire was crackling in the grate, and on each hob a kettle of burnished copper sang with considerable sentiment.
Thomas withdrew, and the Major and Mr. Moon took up the Englishman's position on the hearthrug with coat-tails wide apart to allow the grateful warmth free access to whatever chillness of morning air still clung about their bodies. So they remained, silent, wrapped in the dignified contemplation of an inferior painting in oils on the opposite wall. No doubt in reality their thoughts were far away, possibly in the chaste seclusion of the Widow's own room or possibly in the kitchen whence from time to time ascended the pleasant jingle and chink that heralds food's approach.
No doubt they would both have stood there long enough for us to moralize on England and the greatness of England, had not Mrs. Courteen come into the room just then.
Ponto, Phyllida's black spaniel, sidled in with the breakfast and Phyllida herself followed, and the freshness of her in the morning was strewn about the room like petals of roses.
Conversation at breakfast suited itself to the solemnity of the day. The widow sighed at every remark that was made, and in the gentle pathos of her manner indicated placidly her conviction of fleeting time and sorrow, and all those melancholy reflexions which are considered proper to the Sabbath. However, at all times she was accustomed to preserve a cloistral rigour of speech before her daughter. No one loved better to gather the easier blooms on the safe side of the garden-god's perfumed hedge, but they could only be plucked in numerous corners of ballrooms and during secluded promenades. The presence of Phyllida made her mother's blood so much rennet. Conversation became mere verbal curds and whey.
However, the Justice talked into his cup of the swift approach of Spring, of the benefit of sun, the intolerable increase in vagrancy, the need for repressing poachers. If platitudes were esteemed as high as rolling hexameters, Moon would have been among the epical poets. As for Major Tarry, he thrashed each topick at if his tongue were a little rattan cane. One felt that any observation was regarded by that gallant gentleman as an awkward recruit. He had an air of drilling the conversation. After breakfast, the various members dispersed to acquire a seemly attitude towards matters of religion.
Since the search for attitudes occupies a vast deal of human energy, it may not be out of place to inform my reader where the half-dozen required for Morning Prayer at St. Simon's were found.
The Widow Courteen found hers hidden between powder puff and patch-box.
Miss Courteen found hers between the lines of a three-cornered note.
Madam Betty found hers in the coral secrets of Miss Courteen's left ear.
Mr. Thomas found his in a Bible as large and heavy as a Bible should be.
Major Tarry found his in the stem of a churchwarden pipe.
Mr. Moon found his in the best attitude that exists.
Soon Mrs. Courteen's chairmen were knocking at the door and the whole party prepared to set out. The widow seated in her chair, hummed a hymn tempo di minuetto. The Major marched upon her left and the Justice upon her right, and Thomas marched in front. Phyllida and Betty kept to the pavement and had scarcely time to wonder if all the world would be at church, when they arrived at the porch and found that all the world certainly was.
As the Major had handed the widow into her chair, Mr. Moon handed her out, and the party of Mrs. Courteen proceeded to Mrs. Courteen's pew, while Mrs. Courteen's chairmen carried the chair to an alley beloved of chairmen and proceeded to doze away the Sabbath morning in its damask recesses and were no doubt as comfortable as their mistress in the musty cushions of St. Simon's pews. In the Western gallery, three fiddles, two hautboys, and a bass viol squeaked and groaned with much fervour. In the pulpit the parson squeaked and groaned with equal fervour and in the desk below the clerk squeaked and groaned with most fervour of all. When the parson threatened damnation, the ladies fanned themselves rapidly and when he spoke of alms and oblations, they consoled themselves with carraway comfits.
The service was rather worldly and seemed remote enough from anything at all spiritual, but nevertheless in so far as it was indigenous to fair King Richard's land, it should exact from us as much respect as we owe to a Chippendale chair and that is or ought to be very great indeed. If so much condemnatory fervour was equivalent to breaking these butterflies of fashion upon a religious wheel, it cannot be denied that the exquisite bloom of their ruined wings was a great deal more pleasant to regard than the spattered blood and bones of earlier and more tangible martyrs to an extreme mode.
The parson continued to prophesy hell-fire. But hell-fire means so many kinds of illumination--certainly it had an invincible attraction for these gay moths and butterflies. Perhaps they thought of it merely as a huge aggregation of wax candles by which most of them had more than once been morally singed. If any permanency of emotion was desirable, it would certainty be more endurable in heat and gaiety than in chill aerial solitudes. And, thanks to chickens, there would always be painted fans. This was the sum of the congregation's united reflection during the sermon; individually, no doubt, each soul played with more particular premisses, but the ultimate conclusion was the same for all.
After so much damnation, the blessing was a rhetorical anti-climax. Clouds had gathered during the homily due, no doubt, to the violence of the preacher and, as the worshippers tripped out through the great West door, the clouds burst and the streaming rain inclined them more favourably than ever to the prospect of eternal warmth.
The morning's fair promise had been utterly belied, and many appealing glances were launched at Mr. Ripple as he beckoned to his chairman. Surely he would not be so barbarous as to force so much accumulated fine raiment through mud and water, to drink the latter element in a less pleasing form. But Mr. Ripple was inexorable: he stepped into his gilded chair, regardless of appeal: the chairmen tightened their muscles for the long pull uphill, and Gog and Magog, the diminutive negroes balanced one on each step, guarded their master from interruption. Now ensued shouts, whistles, cockcrows and screams. Hats were waved, canes flourished, and lily-white hands shaken. All this uproar was due to the fact that there were just half as many coaches and chairs as were required, and when these were filled, and on their way to the Pump Room, there remained in the church too many foolish virgins, too many improvident dowagers, too many thoughtless beaux.
The rain fell in torrents, and the last vehicle had turned the corner.
A desolate remnant surveyed the situation. It was wet enough.
Now arose one of those crises which are inseparable from a despotism. Somebody, for his presumption will always remain anonymous, somebody suggested that the idea of climbing the hill of health in such a downpour was unimaginable.
The stranded exquisites depended for the moment entirely on their rouge for colour.
"Rebellion," they muttered and the ominous word flapped over their heads and darkened the gloom more profoundly.
"The Beau will be furious."
"He will never forgive us."
"We shall be banished."
"Curtain Wells will no longer know us."
Again the daring voice was upraised:
"We are strong enough to defy Ripple. He has no right to make us wade through mud for a whim of his own. If we do so, we'll do so in shifts and shirts." The unknown voice gathered force with each new proposition, and the startled exquisites huddled closer in a very ecstasy of perturbation.
"Shall damask flowers lose their beauty, shall silver lace be tarnished and broideries lack lustre because Ripple has commanded the impossible? Silk is the fashion, ay! and watered silk, but not sodden silk. Well was it named the Pump Room, for such shall we become, mere pumps exuding moisture at the propulsion of a tyrant!"
The apparent carelessness of the unknown tyrannicide had its effect; a suspicion began to creep in that Mr. Ripple's domination was based on insecurity. The thin end of this destructive wedge was enough to break open the fortress of their duty and, the rain stopping for a moment, the stranded exquisites hurried home to discuss the probable result of their revolt over hot rum and lemon. Up at the Pump Room Mr. Ripple missed many a well-known face that Sunday, and his urbane countenance lost some of its smoothness as the minutes rolled by without the arrival of a single person on foot.
At the expiration of the quarter of an hour, he despatched Gog to see what had happened and when Gog came back with the news that the stranded exquisites had one and all departed to their own lodgings, Mr. Ripple ascended his marble pedestal with an air of determination.
"My lords, ladies and gentlemen," he began, and just then Magog hurried up with the Beau's glass of chalybeate. The latter looked at it for a moment. Pity and anger fought visibly for the mastery. Anger won, and the remorseless Beau dashed the glass into a thousand sparkling fragments.
"The Pump Room will be closed until--until this--," he faltered over the description of such ingratitude, "until the extraordinary behaviour of certain visitors has been justified, if it can be justified. There will be no Assembly to-morrow night."
The company shivered unanimously and the Beau, dismissing his chairmen, walked forth into the rain with all the dignity in the world. It is said he ruined three suits of unparagoned cut that fatal day by walking about the principal thoroughfares of Curtain Wells for the remainder of a very wet afternoon.
