Gallantry: Dizain des Fetes Galantes, James Branch Cabell [free biff chip and kipper ebooks .TXT] 📗

Lord," said I, "is fairly conclusive; and so we will be journeying."

"Over my dead body!" says he.

"Sure, and what's beneath the feet," I protested, "is equally beneath consideration."

The witticism stung him like a wasp, and, with an oath, he drew, as I was heartily glad to observe, for I cannot help thinking that when it comes to the last pinch, and one gentleman is excessively annoyed by the existence of another, steel is your only arbiter, and charitable allowances for the dead make the one rational peroration. So we crossed blades; and, pursuing my usual tactics, I began upon a flow of words, which course, as I have learned by old experience, is apt to disconcert an adversary far more than any trick of the sword can do.

I pressed him sorely, and he continued to give way, but clearly for tactical purposes, and without permitting the bright flash of steel that protected him to swerve an instant from the proper line.

"Miss Allonby," said I, growing impatient, "have you never seen a venomous insect pinned to the wall? In that case, I pray you to attend more closely. For one has only to parry—thus! And to thrust—in this fashion! And behold, the thing is done!"

In fact, having been run through the chest, my Lord was for the moment affixed to the panelling at the extreme end of the apartment, where he writhed, much in the manner of a cockchafer which mischievous urchins have pinned to a card,—his mien and his gesticulations, however, being rather more suggestive of the torments of the damned, as they are so strikingly depicted by the Italian Dante. [Footnote: I allude, of course, to the famous Florentine, who excels no less in his detailed depictions of infernal anguish than in his eloquent portrayal of the graduated and equitable emoluments of an eternal glorification.—F.A.] He tumbled in a heap, though, when I sheathed my sword and bowed toward my charmer.

"Miss Allonby," said I, "thus quickly ends this evil quarter of an hour; and with, equal expedition, I think, should we be leaving this evil quarter of the town."

She had watched the combat with staring and frightened eyes. Now she had drawn nearer, and she looked curiously at her over-presumptuous lover where he had fallen.

"Have you killed him?" she asked, in a hushed voice.

"O Lord, no!" I protested. "The life of a peer's son is too valuable a matter; he will be little the worse for it in a week."

"The dog!" cries she, overcome with pardonable indignation at the affront which the misguided nobleman had put upon her; and afterward, with a ferocity the more astounding in an individual whose demeanor was by ordinary of an aspect so amiable and so engaging, she said, "Oh, the lewd thieving dog!"

"My adorable Miss Allonby," said I, "do not, I pray you, thus slander the canine species! Meanwhile, permit me to remind you that 'tis inexpedient to loiter in these parts, for the parson will presently be at hand; and if it be to inter rather than to marry Lord Humphrey—well, after all, the peerage is a populous estate! But, either way, time presses."

"Come!" said she, and took my arm; and together we went down-stairs and into the street.

IV

On the way homeward she spoke never a word. Vanringham had made a hasty flitting when my Lord's people arrived, so that we saw nothing of him. But when we had come safely to Lady Allonby's villa, Dorothy began to laugh.

"Captain Audaine," says she, in a wearied and scornful voice, "I know that the hour is very late, yet there are certain matters to be settled between as which will, I think, scarcely admit of delay. I pray you, then, grant me ten minutes' conversation."

She had known me all along, you see. Trust the dullest woman to play Oedipus when love sets the riddle. So there was nothing to do save clap my mask into my pocket and follow her, sheepishly enough, toward one of the salons, where at Dorothy's solicitation a gaping footman made a light for us.

She left me there to kick my heels through a solitude of some moments' extent. But in a while my dear mistress came into the room, with her arms full of trinkets and knick-knacks, which she flung upon a table.

"Here's your ring, Captain Audaine," says she, and drew it from her finger.
"I did not wear it long, did I? And here's the miniature you gave me, too.
I used to kiss it every night, you know. And here's a flower you dropped at
Lady Pevensey's. I picked it up—oh, very secretly!—because you had worn
it, you understand. And here's—"

But at this point she fairly broke down; and she cast her round white arms about the heap of trinkets, and strained them close to her, and bowed her imperious golden head above them in anguish.

"Oh, how I loved you—how I loved you!" she sobbed. "And all the while you were only a common thief!"

"Dorothy—!" I pleaded.

"You shame me—you shame me past utterance!" she cried, in a storm of mingled tears and laughter. "Here's this bold Captain Audaine, who comes to Tunbridge from nobody knows where, and wins a maid's love, and proves in the end a beggarly house-breaker! Mr. Garrick might make a mirthful comedy of this, might he not?" Then she rose to her feet very stiffly. "Take your gifts, Mr. Thief," says she, pointing,—"take them. And for God's sake let me not see you again!"

So I was forced to make a clean breast of it.

"Dorothy," said I, "ken ye the rhyme to porringer?" But she only stared at me through unshed tears.

Presently, though, I hummed over the old song:

    "Ken ye the rhyme to porringer?
  Ken ye the rhyme to porringer?
  King James the Seventh had ae daughter,
  And he gave her to an Oranger.

"And the Oranger filched his crown," said I, "and drove King James—God bless him!—out of his kingdom. This was a while and a half ago, my dear; but Dutch William left the stolen crown to Anne, and Anne, in turn, left it to German George. So that now the Elector of Hanover reigns at St. James's, while the true King's son must skulk in France, with never a roof to shelter him. And there are certain gentlemen, Dorothy, who do not consider that this is right."

"You are a Jacobite?" said she. "Well! and what have your politics to do with the matter?"

"Simply that Lord Humphrey is not of my way of thinking, my dearest dear. Lord Humphrey—pah!—this Degge is Ormskirk's spy, I tell you! He followed Vanringham to Tunbridge on account of our business. And to-day, when Vanringham set out for Avignon, he was stopped a mile from the Wells by some six of Lord Humphrey's fellows, disguised as highwaymen, and all his papers were stolen. Oho, but Lord Humphrey is a thrifty fellow: so when Ormskirk puts six bandits at his disposal he employs them in double infamy, to steal you as well as Vanringham's despatches. To-morrow they would have been in Ormskirk's hands. And then—" I paused to allow myself a whistle.

She came a little toward me, in the prettiest possible glow of bewilderment, "I do not understand," she murmured. "Oh, Frank, Frank, for the love of God, beware of trusting Vanringham in anything! And you are not a thief, after all? Are you really not named Thomasson?"

"I am most assuredly not Frederick Thomasson," said I, "nor do I know if any such person exists, for I never heard the name before to-night. Yet, in spite of this, I am an unmitigated thief. Why, d'ye not understand? What Vanringham carried was a petition from some two hundred Scotch and English gentlemen that our gracious Prince Charlie be pleased to come over and take back his own from the Elector. 'Twas rebellion, flat rebellion, and the very highest treason! Had Ormskirk seen the paper, within a month our heads had all been blackening over Temple Bar. So I stole it,—I, Francis Audaine, stole it in the King's cause, God bless him! 'Twas burglary, no less, but it saved two hundred lives, my own included; and I look to be a deal older than I am before I regret the deed with any sincerity."

Afterward I showed her the papers, and then burned them one by one over a candle. She said nothing. So by and by I turned toward her with a little bow.

"Madam," said I, "you have forced my secret from me. I know that your family is staunch on the Whig side; and yet, ere the thief goes, may he not trust you will ne'er betray him?"

And now she came to me, all penitence and dimples.

"But it was you who said you were a thief," my dear mistress pointed out.

"O Lord, madam!" said I, "'twas very necessary that Degge should think me so. A house-breaker they would have only hanged, but a Jacobite they would have hanged and quartered afterward."

"Ah, Frank, do not speak of such fearful matters, but forgive me instantly!" she wailed.

And I was about to do so in what I considered the most agreeable and appropriate manner when the madcap broke away from me, and sprang upon a footstool and waved her fan defiantly.

"Down with the Elector!" she cried, in her high, sweet voice. "Long live
King James!"

And then, with a most lovely wildness of mien, she began to sing:

    "Ken ye the rhyme to porringer?
  Ken ye the rhyme to porringer?
  King James the Seventh had ae daughter—"

until I interrupted her. For, "Extraordinary creature!" I pleaded, "you will rouse the house."

"I don't care! I intend to be a Jacobite if you are one!"

"Eh, well," said I, "Frank Audaine is not the man to coerce his wife in a political matter. Nevertheless, I know of a certain Jacobite who is not unlikely to have a bad time of it if by any chance Lord Humphrey recognized him to-night. Nay, Miss, you may live to be a widow yet."

"But he didn't recognize you. And if he did"—she snapped her fingers,—"why, we'll fight him again, you and I. Won't we, my dear? For he stole our secret, you know. And he stole me, too. Very pretty behavior, wasn't it?" And here Miss, Allonby stamped the tiniest, the most infinitesimal of red-heeled slippers.

  "The rogue he didna keep me lang,
  To budge we made him fain again—

"that's you, Frank, and your great, long sword. And now:

  "We'll hang him high, upon a tree,
  And King Frank shall hae his ain again!"

Afterward my adored Dorothy jumped from the footstool, and came toward me, lifting up the crimson trifle that she calls her mouth, "So take your own, my king," she breathed, with a wonderful gesture of surrender.

And a gentleman could do no less.

V ACTORS ALL

As Played at Tunbridge Wells, April 3, 1750

"I am thinking if some little, filching, inquisitive poet should get my story, and represent it to the stage, what those ladies who are never precise but at a play would say of me now,—that I were a confident, coming piece, I warrant, and they would damn the poor poet for libelling the sex."

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ DUKE OF ORMSKIRK.

COLONEL DENSTROUDE, }
SIR GRESLEY CARNE, } Gentlemen of the town.
MR. BABINGTON-HERLE, }

VANRINGHAM, a play-actor and a Jacobite emissary.

MR. LANGTON, secretary to Ormskirk.

MISS ALLONBY, an heiress, loves Captain Audaine.

LOTTRUM, maid to Miss Allonby.

BENYON, MINCHIN, and OTHER SERVANTS to Ormskirk.

SCENE

Tunbridge Wells, shifting from Ormskirk's lodgings at the Mitre to
Vanringham's apartments in the Three Gudgeons.

ACTORS ALL

PROEM.—To Explain Why the Heroine of This Comedy Must Wear Her Best

I quit pilfering from the writings of Francis Audaine, since in the happenings which now concern us he plays but a subsidiary part. The Captain had an utter faith in decorum, and therefore it was, as he records, an earth-staggering shock when the following day, on the Pantiles, in full sight of the best company at the Wells, Captain Audaine was apprehended. He met disaster like an old acquaintance, and hummed a scrap of song—"O, gin I were a bonny bird,"—and shrugged; but when Miss Allonby, with whom he had been chatting, swayed and fell, the Captain caught her in his arms, and standing thus, turned angrily upon the emissaries of the law.

"Look you, you rascals," said he, "you have spoiled a lady's afternoon with your foolish warrant!"