The announcement, 'Gentleman to speak with you, sir,' induced Mr. Trott to pause half-way in the glass of port, the contents of which he was in the act of imbibing at the moment; to rise from his chair; and retreat a few paces towards the window, as if to secure a retreat, in the event of the visitor assuming the form and appearance of Horace Hunter. One glance at Joseph Overton, however, quieted his apprehensions. He courteously motioned the stranger to a seat. The waiter, after a little jingling with the decanter and glasses, consented to leave the room; and Joseph Overton, placing the broad-brimmed hat on the chair next him, and bending his body gently forward, opened the business by saying in a very low and cautious tone,
'My lord--'
'Eh?' said Mr. Alexander Trott, in a loud key, with the vacant and mystified stare of a chilly somnambulist.
'Hush--hush!' said the cautious attorney: 'to be sure--quite right--no titles here--my name is Overton, sir.'
'Overton?'
'Yes: the mayor of this place--you sent me a letter with anonymous information, this afternoon.'
'I, sir?' exclaimed Trott with ill-dissembled surprise; for, coward as he was, he would willingly have repudiated the authorship of the letter in question. 'I, sir?'
'Yes, you, sir; did you not?' responded Overton, annoyed with what he supposed to be an extreme degree of unnecessary suspicion. 'Either this letter is yours, or it is not. If it be, we can converse securely upon the subject at once. If it be not, of course I have no more to say.'
'Stay, stay,' said Trott, 'it IS mine; I DID write it. What could I do, sir? I had no friend here.'
'To be sure, to be sure,' said the mayor, encouragingly, 'you could not have managed it better. Well, sir; it will be necessary for you to leave here to-night in a post-chaise and four. And the harder the boys drive, the better. You are not safe from pursuit.'
'Bless me!' exclaimed Trott, in an agony of apprehension, 'can such things happen in a country like this? Such unrelenting and cold- blooded hostility!' He wiped off the concentrated essence of cowardice that was oozing fast down his forehead, and looked aghast at Joseph Overton.
'It certainly is a very hard case,' replied the mayor with a smile, 'that, in a free country, people can't marry whom they like, without being hunted down as if they were criminals. However, in the present instance the lady is willing, you know, and that's the main point, after all.'
'Lady willing,' repeated Trott, mechanically. 'How do you know the lady's willing?'
'Come, that's a good one,' said the mayor, benevolently tapping Mr. Trott on the arm with his broad-brimmed hat; 'I have known her, well, for a long time; and if anybody could entertain the remotest doubt on the subject, I assure you I have none, nor need you have.'
'Dear me!' said Mr. Trott, ruminating. 'This is VERY extraordinary!'
'Well, Lord Peter,' said the mayor, rising.
'Lord Peter?' repeated Mr. Trott.
'Oh--ah, I forgot. Mr. Trott, then--Trott--very good, ha! ha!-- Well, sir, the chaise shall be ready at half-past twelve.'
'And what is to become of me until then?' inquired Mr. Trott, anxiously. 'Wouldn't it save appearances, if I were placed under some restraint?'
'Ah!' replied Overton, 'very good thought--capital idea indeed. I'll send somebody up directly. And if you make a little resistance when we put you in the chaise it wouldn't be amiss--look as if you didn't want to be taken away, you know.'
'To be sure,' said Trott--'to be sure.'
'Well, my lord,' said Overton, in a low tone, 'until then, I wish your lordship a good evening.'
'Lord--lordship?' ejaculated Trott again, falling back a step or two, and gazing, in unutterable wonder, on the countenance of the mayor.
'Ha-ha! I see, my lord--practising the madman?--very good indeed-- very vacant look--capital, my lord, capital--good evening, Mr.-- Trott--ha! ha! ha!'
'That mayor's decidedly drunk,' soliloquised Mr. Trott, throwing himself back in his chair, in an attitude of reflection.
'He is a much cleverer fellow than I thought him, that young nobleman--he carries it off uncommonly well,' thought Overton, as he went his way to the bar, there to complete his arrangements. This was soon done. Every word of the story was implicitly believed, and the one-eyed boots was immediately instructed to repair to number nineteen, to act as custodian of the person of the supposed lunatic until half-past twelve o'clock. In pursuance of this direction, that somewhat eccentric gentleman armed himself with a walking-stick of gigantic dimensions, and repaired, with his usual equanimity of manner, to Mr. Trott's apartment, which he entered without any ceremony, and mounted guard in, by quietly depositing himself on a chair near the door, where he proceeded to beguile the time by whistling a popular air with great apparent satisfaction.
'What do you want here, you scoundrel?' exclaimed Mr. Alexander Trott, with a proper appearance of indignation at his detention.
The boots beat time with his head, as he looked gently round at Mr. Trott with a smile of pity, and whistled an adagio movement.
'Do you attend in this room by Mr. Overton's desire?' inquired Trott, rather astonished at the man's demeanour.
'Keep yourself to yourself, young feller,' calmly responded the boots, 'and don't say nothing to nobody.' And he whistled again.
'Now mind!' ejaculated Mr. Trott, anxious to keep up the farce of wishing with great earnestness to fight a duel if they'd let him. 'I protest against being kept here. I deny that I have any intention of fighting with anybody. But as it's useless contending with superior numbers, I shall sit quietly down.'
'You'd better,' observed the placid boots, shaking the large stick expressively.
'Under protest, however,' added Alexander Trott, seating himself with indignation in his face, but great content in his heart. 'Under protest.'
'Oh, certainly!' responded the boots; 'anything you please. If you're happy, I'm transported; only don't talk too much--it'll make you worse.'
'Make me worse?' exclaimed Trott, in unfeigned astonishment: 'the man's drunk!'
'You'd better be quiet, young feller,' remarked the boots, going through a threatening piece of pantomime with the stick.
'Or mad!' said Mr. Trott, rather alarmed. 'Leave the room, sir, and tell them to send somebody else.'
'Won't do!' replied the boots.
'Leave the room!' shouted Trott, ringing the bell violently: for he began to be alarmed on a new score.
'Leave that 'ere bell alone, you wretched loo-nattic!' said the boots, suddenly forcing the unfortunate Trott back into his chair, and brandishing the stick aloft. 'Be quiet, you miserable object, and don't let everybody know there's a madman in the house.'
'He IS a madman! He IS a madman!' exclaimed the terrified Mr. Trott, gazing on the one eye of the red-headed boots with a look of abject horror.
'Madman!' replied the boots, 'dam'me, I think he IS a madman with a vengeance! Listen to me, you unfortunate. Ah! would you?' [a slight tap on the head with the large stick, as Mr. Trott made another move towards the bell-handle] 'I caught you there! did I?'
'Spare my life!' exclaimed Trott, raising his hands imploringly.
'I don't want your life,' replied the boots, disdainfully, 'though I think it 'ud be a charity if somebody took it.'
'No, no, it wouldn't,' interrupted poor Mr. Trott, hurriedly, 'no, no, it wouldn't! I--I-'d rather keep it!'
'O werry well,' said the boots: 'that's a mere matter of taste-- ev'ry one to his liking. Hows'ever, all I've got to say is this here: You sit quietly down in that chair, and I'll sit hoppersite you here, and if you keep quiet and don't stir, I won't damage you; but, if you move hand or foot till half-past twelve o'clock, I shall alter the expression of your countenance so completely, that the next time you look in the glass you'll ask vether you're gone out of town, and ven you're likely to come back again. So sit down."
'I will--I will,' responded the victim of mistakes; and down sat Mr. Trott and down sat the boots too, exactly opposite him, with the stick ready for immediat
e action in case of emergency.
Long and dreary were the hours that followed. The bell of Great Winglebury church had just struck ten, and two hours and a half would probably elapse before succour arrived.
For half an hour, the noise occasioned by shutting up the shops in the street beneath, betokened something like life in the town, and rendered Mr. Trott's situation a little less insupportable; but, when even these ceased, and nothing was heard beyond the occasional rattling of a post-chaise as it drove up the yard to change horses, and then drove away again, or the clattering of horses' hoofs in the stables behind, it became almost unbearable. The boots occasionally moved an inch or two, to knock superfluous bits of wax off the candles, which were burning low, but instantaneously resumed his former position; and as he remembered to have heard, somewhere or other, that the human eye had an unfailing effect in controlling mad people, he kept his solitary organ of vision constantly fixed on Mr. Alexander Trott. That unfortunate individual stared at his companion in his turn, until his features grew more and more indistinct--his hair gradually less red--and the room more misty and obscure. Mr. Alexander Trott fell into a sound sleep, from which he was awakened by a rumbling in the street, and a cry of 'Chaise-and-four for number twenty-five!' A bustle on the stairs succeeded; the room door was hastily thrown open; and Mr. Joseph Overton entered, followed by four stout waiters, and Mrs. Williamson, the stout landlady of the Winglebury Arms.
'Mr. Overton!' exclaimed Mr. Alexander Trott, jumping up in a frenzy. 'Look at this man, sir; consider the situation in which I have been placed for three hours past--the person you sent to guard me, sir, was a madman--a madman--a raging, ravaging, furious madman.'
'Bravo!' whispered Mr. Overton.
'Poor dear!' said the compassionate Mrs. Williamson, 'mad people always thinks other people's mad.'
'Poor dear!' ejaculated Mr. Alexander Trott. 'What the devil do you mean by poor dear! Are you the landlady of this house?'
'Yes, yes,' replied the stout old lady, 'don't exert yourself, there's a dear! Consider your health, now; do.'
'Exert myself!' shouted Mr. Alexander Trott; 'it's a mercy, ma'am, that I have any breath to exert myself with! I might have been assassinated three hours ago by that one-eyed monster with the oakum head. How dare you have a madman, ma'am--how dare you have a madman, to assault and terrify the visitors to your house?'
'I'll never have another,' said Mrs. Williamson, casting a look of reproach at the mayor.
'Capital, capital,' whispered Overton again, as he enveloped Mr. Alexander Trott in a thick travelling-cloak.
'Capital, sir!' exclaimed Trott, aloud; 'it's horrible. The very recollection makes me shudder. I'd rather fight four duels in three hours, if I survived the first three, than I'd sit for that time face to face with a madman.'
'Keep it up, my lord, as you go down-stairs,' whispered Overton, 'your bill is paid, and your portmanteau in the chaise.' And then he added aloud, 'Now, waiters, the gentleman's ready.'
At this signal, the waiters crowded round Mr. Alexander Trott. One took one arm; another, the other; a third, walked before with a candle; the fourth, behind with another candle; the boots and Mrs. Williamson brought up the rear; and down-stairs they went: Mr. Alexander Trott expressing alternately at the very top of his voice either his feigned reluctance to go, or his unfeigned indignation at being shut up with a madman.
Mr. Overton was waiting at the chaise-door, the boys were ready mounted, and a few ostlers and stable nondescripts were standing round to witness the departure of 'the mad gentleman.' Mr. Alexander Trott's foot was on the step, when he observed (which the dim light had prevented his doing before) a figure seated in the chaise, closely muffled up in a cloak like his own.
'Who's that?' he inquired of Overton, in a whisper.
'Hush, hush,' replied the mayor: 'the other party of course.'
'The other party!' exclaimed Trott, with an effort to retreat.
'Yes, yes; you'll soon find that out, before you go far, I should think--but make a noise, you'll excite suspicion if you whisper to me so much.'
'I won't go in this chaise!' shouted Mr. Alexander Trott, all his original fears recurring with tenfold violence. 'I shall be assassinated--I shall be--'
'Bravo, bravo,' whispered Overton. 'I'll push you in.'
'But I won't go,' exclaimed Mr. Trott. 'Help here, help! They're carrying me away against my will. This is a plot to murder me.'
'Poor dear!' said Mrs. Williamson again.
'Now, boys, put 'em along,' cried the mayor, pushing Trott in and slamming the door. 'Off with you, as quick as you can, and stop for nothing till you come to the next stage--all right!'
'Horses are paid, Tom,' screamed Mrs. Williamson; and away went the chaise, at the rate of fourteen miles an hour, with Mr. Alexander Trott and Miss Julia Manners carefully shut up in the inside.
Mr. Alexander Trott remained coiled up in one corner of the chaise, and his mysterious companion in the other, for the first two or three miles; Mr. Trott edging more and more into his corner, as he felt his companion gradually edging more and more from hers; and vainly endeavouring in the darkness to catch a glimpse of the furious face of the supposed Horace Hunter.
'We may speak now,' said his fellow-traveller, at length; 'the post-boys can neither see nor hear us.'
'That's not Hunter's voice!'--thought Alexander, astonished.
'Dear Lord Peter!' said Miss Julia, most winningly: putting her arm on Mr. Trott's shoulder. 'Dear Lord Peter. Not a word?'
'Why, it's a woman!' exclaimed Mr. Trott, in a low tone of excessive wonder.
'Ah! Whose voice is that?' said Julia; ''tis not Lord Peter's.'
'No,--it's mine,' replied Mr. Trott.
'Yours!' ejaculated Miss Julia Manners; 'a strange man! Gracious heaven! How came you here!'
'Whoever you are, you might have known that I came against my will, ma'am,' replied Alexander, 'for I made noise enough when I got in.'
'Do you come from Lord Peter?' inquired Miss Manners.
'Confound Lord Peter,' replied Trott pettishly. 'I don't know any Lord Peter. I never heard of him before to-night, when I've been Lord Peter'd by one and Lord Peter'd by another, till I verily believe I'm mad, or dreaming--'
'Whither are we going?' inquired the lady tragically.
'How should _I_ know, ma'am?' replied Trott with singular coolness; for the events of the evening had completely hardened him.
'Stop stop!' cried the lady, letting down the front glasses of the chaise.
'Stay, my dear ma'am!' said Mr. Trott, pulling the glasses up again with one hand, and gently squeezing Miss Julia's waist with the other. 'There is some mistake here; give me till the end of this stage to explain my share of it. We must go so far; you cannot be set down here alone, at this hour of the night.'
The lady consented; the mistake was mutually explained. Mr. Trott was a young man, had highly promising whiskers, an undeniable tailor, and an insinuating address--he wanted nothing but valour, and who wants that with three thousand a-year? The lady had this, and more; she wanted a young husband, and the only course open to Mr. Trott to retrieve his disgrace was a rich wife. So, they came to the conclusion that it would be a pity to have all this trouble and expense for nothing; and that as they were so far on the road already, they had better go to Gretna Green, and marry each other; and they did so. And the very next preceding entry in the Blacksmith's book, was an entry of the marriage of Emily Brown with Horace Hunter. Mr. Hunter took his wife home, and begged pardon, and WAS pardoned; and Mr. Trott took HIS wife home, begged pardon too, and was pardoned also. And Lord Peter, who had been detained beyond his time by drinking champagne and riding a steeple-chase, went back to the Honourable Augustus Flair's, and drank more champagne, and rode another steeple-chase, and was thrown and killed. And Horace Hunter took great credit to himself for practising on the cowardice of Alexander Trott; and all these circumstances were discovered in time, and carefully noted down; and if you ever stop a
week at the Winglebury Arms, they will give you just this account of The Great Winglebury Duel.
CHAPTER IX--MRS. JOSEPH PORTER
Most extensive were the preparations at Rose Villa, Clapham Rise, in the occupation of Mr. Gattleton (a stock-broker in especially comfortable circumstances), and great was the anxiety of Mr. Gattleton's interesting family, as the day fixed for the representation of the Private Play which had been 'many months in preparation,' approached. The whole family was infected with the mania for Private Theatricals; the house, usually so clean and tidy, was, to use Mr. Gattleton's expressive description, 'regularly turned out o' windows;' the large dining-room, dismantled of its furniture, and ornaments, presented a strange jumble of flats, flies, wings, lamps, bridges, clouds, thunder and lightning, festoons and flowers, daggers and foil, and various other messes in theatrical slang included under the comprehensive name of 'properties.' The bedrooms were crowded with scenery, the kitchen was occupied by carpenters. Rehearsals took place every other night in the drawing-room, and every sofa in the house was more or less damaged by the perseverance and spirit with which Mr. Sempronius Gattleton, and Miss Lucina, rehearsed the smothering scene in 'Othello'--it having been determined that that tragedy should form the first portion of the evening's entertainments.
'When we're a LEETLE more perfect, I think it will go admirably,' said Mr. Sempronius, addressing his corps dramatique, at the conclusion of the hundred and fiftieth rehearsal. In consideration of his sustaining the trifling inconvenience of bearing all the expenses of the play, Mr. Sempronius had been, in the most handsome manner, unanimously elected stage-manager. 'Evans,' continued Mr. Gattleton, the younger, addressing a tall, thin, pale young gentleman, with extensive whiskers--'Evans, you play Roderigo beautifully.'
'Beautifully,' echoed the three Miss Gattletons; for Mr. Evans was pronounced by all his lady friends to be 'quite a dear.' He looked so interesting, and had such lovely whiskers: to say nothing of his talent for writing verses in albums and playing the flute! Roderigo simpered and bowed.
'But I think,' added the manager, 'you are hardly perfect in the-- fall--in the fencing-scene, where you are--you understand?'
Works of Charles Dickens (200+ Works) The Adventures of Oliver Twist, Great Expectations, A Christmas Carol, A Tale of Two Cities, Bleak House, David Copperfield & more (mobi) Page 1421
