Complete Works of R S Surtees

by R S Surtees

  Quite “optional” of course. Billy, who was bent on doing the magnificent, produced a large green-and-gold-tasseled purse, almost as big as a stocking, and drew therefrom a great five-shilling piece, which having tapped imposingly on his plate, he handed ostentatiously to the man, saying, “for this lady and me,” just as if she belonged to him; whereupon down went the head even with the table, with an undertoned intimation that Billy “needn’t ‘urry, for he would make it all right with the guard.” The waiter followed close on the heels of the coachman, drawing every body for half-a-crown for the dinner, besides what they had had to drink, and what they “pleased for himself,” and Billy again anticipated the lady by paying for both. Instead, however, of disputing his right so to do, she seemed to take it as a matter of course, and bent a little forward and said in a sort of half-whisper, though loud enough to be heard by a twinkling-eyed, clayey-complexioned she-outsider, sitting opposite, dressed in a puce-coloured cloth pelisse and a pheasant-feather bonnet, “I fear you will think me very troublesome, but do you think you could manage to get me a finger-glass?” twiddling her pretty taper fingers as she spoke.

  “Certainly!” replied Billy, all alacrity, “certainly.”

  “With a little tepid water,” continued Miss Willing, looking imploringly at Billy as he rose to fulfil her behests.

  “Such airs!” growled Pheasant-feathers to her next neighbour with an indignant toss of her colour-varying head.

  Billy presently appeared, bearing one of the old deep blue-patterned finger-glasses, with a fine damask napkin, marked with a ducal coronet — one of the usual perquisites of servitude.

  Miss then holding each pretty hand downwards, stripped her fingers of their rings, just as a gardener strips a stalk of currants of its fruit, dropping, however, a large diamond ring (belonging to her ladyship, which she was just airing) skilfully under the table, and for which fat Billy had to dive like a dog after an otter.

  “Oh, dear!” she was quite ashamed at her awkwardness and the trouble she had given, she assured Billy, as he rose red and panting from the pursuit.

  “Done on purpose to show her finery,” muttered Pheasant-feather bonnet, with a sneer.

  Miss having just passed the wet end of the napkin across her cherry lips and pearly teeth, and dipped her fingers becomingly in the warm water, was restoring her manifold rings, when the shrill twang, twang, twang of the horn, with the prancing of some of the newly-harnessed cripples on the pavement as they tried to find their legs, sounded up the arch-way into the little room, and warned our travellers that they should be reinvesting themselves in their wraps. So declining any more Teneriffe, Miss Willing set the example by drawing on her pretty kid gloves, and rising to give the time to the rest. Up they all got.

  CHAPTER III. THE ROAD RESUMED. — MISS PHEASANT-FEATHERS.

  THE ROOM, AS we said before, being crammed, and our fair friend Miss Willing taking some time to pass gracefully down the line of chair-backs, many of whose late occupants were now swinging their arms about in all the exertion of tying up their mouths, and fighting their ways into their over-coats, Mr. Pringle, as he followed, had a good opportunity of examining her exquisite tournure, than which he thought he never saw anything more beautifully perfect. He was quite proud when a little more width of room at the end of the table enabled him to squeeze past a robing, Dutch-built British-lace-vending pack-woman, and reclaim his fair friend, just as a gentleman does his partner at the end of an old country dance. How exultingly he marched her through the line of inn hangers-on, hostlers, waiters, porters, post-boys, coachmen, and insatiable Matthews-at-home of an inn establishment, “Boots,” a gentleman who will undertake all characters in succession for a consideration. How thankful we ought to be to be done with these harpies!

  Bouncible, either mistaking the rank of his guests, or wanting to have a better look at the lady, emerged from his glass-fronted den of a bar, and salaam’d them up to the dirty coach, where the highly-fee’d coachman stood door in hand, waiting to perform the last act of attention for his money. In went Billy and the beauty, or rather the beauty and Billy, bang went the door, the outsiders scrambled up on to their perches and shelves as best they could. “All right! Sit tight!” was presently heard, and whip, jip, crack, cut, three blind ‘uns and a bolter were again bumping the lumbering vehicle along the cobble-stoned street, bringing no end of cherry cheeks and corkscrew ringlets to the windows, to mark that important epoch of the day, the coach passing by.

  Billy, feeling all the better for his dinner, and inspirited by sundry gulps of wine, proceeded to make himself comfortable, in order to open fire as soon as ever the coach got off the stones. He took a rapid retrospect of all the various angels he had encountered, those who had favoured him, those who had frowned, and he was decidedly of opinion that he had never seen anything to compare to the fair lady before him. He was rich and thriving and would please himself without consulting Want-nothin’-but-what’s-right Jerry, Half-a-yard-of-the-table Joe, or any of them. It wasn’t like as if they were to be in Co. with him in the lady. She would never come into the balance sheets. No; she was to be all his, and they had no business with it. He believed Want-nothin’-but-what’s-right would be glad if he never married. Just then the coach glid from the noisy pavement on to the comparatively speaking silent macadamised road, and Billy and the lady opened fire simultaneously, the lady about the discomforts of coach-travelling, which she had never tried before, and Billy about the smack of the Teneriffe, which he thought very earthy. He had some capital wine at home, he said, as everybody has. This led him to London, the street conveniences or inconveniences as they then were of the metropolis, which subject he plied for the purpose of finding out as well where the lady lived as whether her carriage would meet her or not; but this she skilfully parried, by asking Billy where he lived, and finding it was Doughty Street, Russell Square, she observed, as in truth it is, that it was a very airy part of the town, and proceeded to expatiate on the beauty of the flowers in Covent Garden, from whence she got to the theatres, then to the opera, intimating a very considerable acquaintance as well with the capital as with that enchanted circle, the West-end, comprising in its contracted limits what is called the world. Billy was puzzled. He wished she mightn’t be a cut above him — such lords, such ladies, such knowledge of the court — could she be a maid-of-honour? Well, he didn’t care. No ask no have, so he proceeded with the pumping process again. “Did she live in town?”

  Fair Lady.— “Part of the year.”

  Billy.— “During the season I ‘spose?”

  Fair Lady.— “During the sitting of parliament.”

  “There again!” thought Billy, feeling the expectation-funds fall ten per cent, at least. “Well, faint heart never won fair lady,” continued he to himself, considering how next he should sound her. She was very beautiful — what pretty pearly teeth she had, and such a pair of rosy lips — such a fair forehead too, and such nice hair — he’d give a fipun note for a kiss! — he’d give a tenpun note for a kiss! — dashed if he wouldn’t give a fifty-pun for a kiss. Then he wondered what Head-and-shoulders Smith would think of her. As he didn’t seem to be making much progress, however, in the information way, he now desisted from that consideration, and while contemplating her beauty considered how best he should carry on the siege. Should he declare who and what he was, making the best of himself of course, and ask her to be equally explicit, or should he beat about the bush a little longer and try to fish out what he could about her.

  They had a good deal of day before them yet, dark though the latter part of it would be; which, however, on second thoughts, he felt might be rather favourable, inasmuch as she wouldn’t see when he was taken aback by her answers. He would beat about the bush a little longer. It was very pleasant sport.

  “Did you say you lived in Chelsea?” at length asked Billy, in a stupid self-convicting sort of way.

  “No,” replied the fair lady with a smile; “I never mentioned Chelsea.”


  “Oh, no; no more you did,” replied Billy, taken aback, especially as the lady led up to no other place.

  “Did she like the country?” at length asked he, thinking to try and fix her locality there, if he could not earth her in London.

  “Yes, she liked the country, at least out of the season — there was no place like London in the season,” she thought.

  Billy thought so too; it was the best place in summer, and the only place in winter.

  Well, the lady didn’t know, but if she had to choose either place for a permanency, she would choose London.

  This sent the Billy funds up a little. He forgot his intention of following her into the country, and began to expatiate upon the luxuries of London, the capital fish they got, the cod and hoyster sauce (for when excited, he knocked his h’s about a little), the cod and hoyster sauce, the turbot, the mackerel, the mullet, that woodcock of the sea, as he exultingly called it, thinking what a tuck-out he would have in revenge for his country inn abstinence. He then got upon the splendour of his own house in Doughty Street — the most agreeable in London. Its spacious entrance, its elegant stone staircase; his beautiful drawingroom, with its maroon and rose-coloured brocaded satin damask curtains, and rich Toumay carpet, its beautiful chandelier of eighteen lights, and Piccolo pianoforte, and was describing a most magnificent mirror — we don’t know what size, but most beautiful and becoming — when the pace of the vehicle was sensibly felt to relax; and before they had time to speculate on the cause, it had come to a stand-still.

  “Stopped,” observed Billy, lowering the window to look out for squalls.

  No sooner was the window down, than a head at the door proclaimed mischief. The tête-à-tête was at an end. The guard was going to put Pheasant-feather bonnet inside. Open sesame — W-h-i-s-h. In came the cutting wind — oh dear what a day!

  “Rum for a leddy?” asked the guard, raising a great half-frozen, grog-blossomy face out of the blue and white coil of a shawl-cravat in which it was enveloped,— “Git in” continued he, shouldering the leddy up the steps, without waiting for an answer, and in popped Pheasant-feathers; when, slamming-to the door, he cried “right!” to the coachman, and on went the vehicle, leaving the enterer to settle into a seat by its shaking, after the manner of the omnibus cads, who seem to think all they have to do is to see people past the door. As it was, the new-comer alighted upon Billy, who cannoned her off against the opposite door, and then made himself as big as he could, the better to incommode her. Pheasant-feathers, however, having effected an entrance, seemed to regard herself as good as her neighbours, and forthwith proceeded to adjust the window to her liking, despite the eyeing and staring of Miss Willing. Billy was indignant at the nasty peppermint-drop-smelling woman intruding between the wind and his beauty, and inwardly resolved he would dock the guard’s fee for his presumption in putting her there. Miss Willing gathered herself together as if afraid of contamination; and, forgetting her role, declared, after a jolt received in one of her seat-shiftings, that it was just the “smallest coach she had ever been in.” She then began to scrutinise her female companion’s attire.

  A cottage-bonnet, made of pheasant-feathers; was there ever such a frightful thing seen, — all the colours of the rainbow combined, — must be a poacher’s daughter, or a poulterer’s. Paste egg-coloured ribbons; what a cloth pelisse, — puce colour in some parts, — bath-brick colour in others, — nearly drab in others, — thread-bare all over. Dare say she thought herself fine, with her braided waist, up to her ears. Her glazy gloves might be any colour — black, brown, green, gray. Then a qualm shot across Miss Willing’s mind that she had seen the pelisse before. Yes, no, yes; she believed it was the very one she had sold to Mrs. Pickles’ nursery governess for eighteen shillings. So it was. She had stripped the fur edging off herself, and there were the marks. Who could the wearer be? Where could she have got it? She could not recollect ever having seen her unwholesome face before. And yet the little ferrety, white-lashed eyes settled upon her as if they knew her. Who could she be? What, if she had lived fellow — (we’ll not say what) — with the creature somewhere. There was no knowing people out of their working clothes, especially when they set up to ride inside of coaches. Altogether, it was very unpleasant.

  Billy remarked his fair friend’s altered mood, and rightly attributed it to the intrusion of the nasty woman, whose gaudy headgear the few flickering rays of a December sun were now lighting up, making the feathers, so beautiful on a bird, look, to Billy’s mind, so ugly on a bonnet, at least on the bonnet that now thatched the frightful face beside him. Billy saw the fair lady was not accustomed to these sort of companions, and wished he had only had the sense to book the rest of the inside when the coach stopped to dine. However, it could not be helped now; so, having ascertained that Pheasant-feathers was going all the way to “Lunnnn,” as she called it, when the sun sunk behind its massive leadeen cloud, preparatory to that long reign of darkness with which travellers were oppressed, — for there were no oil-lamps to the roofs of stage-coaches, — Billy being no longer able to contemplate the beauties of his charmer, now changed his seat, for a little confidential conversation by her side.

  He then, after a few comforting remarks, not very flattering to Pheasant-feathers’ beauty, resumed his expatiations about his splendid house in Doughty Street, Russell Square, omitting, of course, to mention that it had been fitted up to suit the taste of another lady, who had jilted him. He began about his dining-room, twenty-five feet by eighteen, with a polished steel fender, and “pictors” all about the walls; for, like many people, he fancied himself a judge of the fine arts, and, of course, was very frequently fleeced.

  This subject, however, rather hung fire, a dining-room being about the last room in a house that a lady cares to hear about, so she presently cajoled him into the more genial region of the kitchen, which, unlike would-be fine ladies of the present day, she was not ashamed to recognise. From the kitchen they proceeded to the store-room, which Billy explained was entered by a door at the top of the back stairs, six feet nine by two feet eight, covered on both sides with crimson cloth, brass moulded in panels and mortise latch. He then got upon the endless, but “never-lady-tiring,” subject of bed-rooms — his best bed-room, with a most elegant five-feet-three canopy-top, mahogany bedstead, with beautiful French chintz furniture, lined with pink, outer and inner valance, trimmed silk tassel fringe, &c., &c., &c. And so he went maundering on, paving the way most elaborately to an offer, as some men are apt to do, instead of getting briskly to the “ask-mamma” point, which the ladies are generally anxious to have them at.

  To be sure, Billy had been bowled over by a fair, or rather unfair one, who had appeared quite as much interested about his furniture and all his belongings as Miss Willing did, and who, when she got the offer, and found he was not nearly so well off as Jack Sanderson, declared she was never so surprised in her life as when Billy proposed; for though, as she politely said, every one who knew him must respect him, yet he had never even entered her head in any other light than that of an agreeable companion. This was Miss Amelia Titterton, afterwards Mrs. Sanderson. Another lady, as we said before (Miss Bowerbank), had done worse; for she had regularly jilted him, after putting him to no end of expense in furnishing his house, so that, upon the whole, Billy had cause to be cautious. A coach, too, with its jolts and its jerks, and its brandy-and-water stoppages, is but ill calculated for the delicate performance of offering, to say nothing of having a pair of nasty white-lashed, inquisitive-looking, ferrety eyes sitting opposite, with a pair of listening ears, nestling under the thatch of a pheasant-feather bonnet. All things considered, therefore, Billy may, perhaps, stand excused for his slowness, especially as he did not know but what he was addressing a countess.