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The Caxtons: A Family Picture, a novel by Edward Bulwer-Lytton |
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Part 14 - Chapter 6 |
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_ PART XIV CHAPTER VI On my way towards our lodgings I resolved to look in at a humble tavern, in the coffee-room of which the Captain and myself habitually dined. It was now about the usual hour in which we took that meal, and he might be there waiting for me. I had just gained the steps of this tavern when a stagecoach came rattling along the pavement and drew up at an inn of more pretensions than that which we favored, situated within a few doors of the latter. As the coach stopped, my eye was caught by the Trevanion livery, which was very peculiar. Thinking I must be deceived, I drew near to the wearer of the livery, who had just descended from the roof, and while he paid the coachman, gave his orders to a waiter who emerged from the inn,--"Half-and-half, cold without!" The tone of the voice struck me as familiar, and the man now looking up, I beheld the features of Mr. Peacock. Yes, unquestionably it was he. The whiskers were shaved; there were traces of powder in the hair or the wig; the livery of the Trevanions (ay, the very livery,--crest-button and all) upon that portly figure, which I had last seen in the more august robes of a beadle. But Mr. Peacock it was,--Peacock travestied, but Peacock still. Before I had recovered my amaze, a woman got out of a cabriolet that seemed to have been in waiting for the arrival of the coach, and hurrying up to Mr. Peacock, said, in the loud, impatient tone common to the fairest of the fair sex, when in haste, "How late you are!--I was just going. I must get back to Oxton to-night." Oxton,--Miss Trevanion was staying at Oxton! I was now close behind the pair; I listened with my heart in my ear. "So you shall, my dear,--so you shall; just come in, will you?" "No, no; I have only ten minutes to catch the coach. Have you any letter for me from Mr. Gower? How can I be sure, if I don't see it under his own hand, that--" "Hush!" said Peacock, sinking his voice so low that I could only catch the words, "no names. Letter, pooh! I'll tell you." He then drew her apart and whispered to her for some moments. I watched the woman's face, which was bent towards her companion's, and it seemed to show quick intelligence. She nodded her head more than once, as if in impatient assent to what was said, and after a shaking of hands, hurried off to the cab; then, as if a thought struck her, she ran back, and said,-- "But in case my lady should not go,--if there's any change of plan?" "There'll be no change, you may be sure. Positively tomorrow,--not too early: you understand?" "Yes, yes; good-by!" and the woman, who was dressed with a quiet neatness that seemed to stamp her profession as that of an abigail (black cloak with long cape,--of that peculiar silk which seems spun on purpose for ladies'-maids,--bonnet to match, with red and black ribbons), hastened once more away, and in another moment the cab drove off furiously. What could all this mean? By this time the waiter brought Mr. Peacock the half-and-half. He despatched it hastily, and then strode on towards a neighboring stand of cabriolets. I followed him; and just as, after beckoning one of the vehicles from the stand, he had ensconced himself therein, I sprang up the steps and placed myself by his side. "Now, Mr. Peacock," said I, "you will tell me at once how you come to wear that livery, or I shall order the cabman to drive to Lady Ellinor Trevanion's and ask her that question myself." "And who the devil! Ah, you're the young gentleman that came to me behind the scenes,--I remember." "Where to, sir?" asked the cabman. "To--to London Bridge," said Mr. Peacock. The man mounted the box and drove on. "Well, Mr. Peacock, I wait your answer. I guess by your face that you are about to tell me a lie; I advise you to speak the truth." "I don't know what business you have to question me," said Mr. Peacock, sullenly; and raising his glance from his own clenched fists, he suffered it to wander over my form with so vindictive a significance that I interrupted the survey by saying, "'Will you encounter the house?' as the Swan interrogatively puts it? Shall I order the cabman to drive to St. James's Square?" "Oh, you know my weak point, sir! Any man who can quote Will--sweet Will--has me on the hip," rejoined Mr. Peacock, smoothing his countenance and spreading his palms on his knees. "But if a man does fall in the world, and after keeping servants of his own, is obliged to be himself a servant,-- "'I will not shame To tell you what I am.'" "The Swan says, 'To tell you what I was,' Mr. Peacock. But enough of this trifling. Who placed you with Mr. Trevanion?" Mr. Peacock looked down for a moment, and then fixing his eyes on me, said, "Well, I'll tell you: you asked me, when we met last, about a young gentleman,--Mr.--Mr. Vivian." Pisistratus.--"Proceed." Peacock.--"I know you don't want to harm him. Besides, 'He hath a prosperous art,' and one day or other,--mark my words, or rather my friend Will's,-- "'He will bestride this narrow world Like a Colossus.' "Upon my life he will,--like a Colossus; "'And we petty men--'" Pisistratus (savagely).--"Go on with your story." Peacock (snappishly).--"I am going on with it! You put me out. Where was I--oh--ah--yes. I had just been sold up,--not a penny in my pocket; and if you could have seen my coat,--yet that was better than the small clothes! Well, it was in Oxford Street,--no, it was in the Strand, near the Lowther,--
Peacock.--"No, no; to London Bridge. "'How use doth breed a habit in a man!' "I will go on,--honor bright. So I met Mr. Vivian, and as he had known me in better days, and has a good heart of his own, he says,-- "'Horatio,--or I do forget myself."' Pisistratus puts his hand on the check-string. Peacock (correcting himself).--I mean--"Why, Johnson, my good fellow."' Pisistratus.--"Johnson! Oh, that's your name,--not Peacock." Peacock.--"Johnson and Peacock both [with dignity]. When you know the world as I do, sir, you will find that it is ill travelling this 'naughty world' without a change of names in your portmanteau. "'Johnson,' says he, 'my good fellow,' and he pulled out his purse. 'Sir,' said I, 'if, "exempt from public haunt," I could get something to do when this dross is gone. In London there are sermons in stones, certainly, but not "good in everything,"--an observation I should take the liberty of making to the Swan if he were not now, alas! "the baseless fabric of a vision."'" Pisistratus.--"Take care!" Peacock (hurriedly).--"Then says Mr. Vivian, 'If you don't mind wearing a livery till I can provide for you more suitably, my old friend, there's a vacancy in the establishment of Mr. Trevanion.' Sir, I accepted the proposal; and that's why I wear this livery." Pisistratus.--"And pray, what business had you with that young woman, whom I take to be Miss Trevanion's maid? And why should she come from Oxton to see you?" I had expected that these questions would confound Mr. Peacock; but if there were really anything in them to cause embarrassment, the ci-devant actor was too practised in his profession to exhibit it. He merely smiled, and smoothing jauntily a very tumbled shirt front, he said, "Oh, sir, fie!
"Your sweetheart!" I exclaimed, greatly relieved, and acknowledging at once the probability of the statement. "Yet," I added suspiciously,--"yet, if so, why should she expect Mr. Gower to write to her?" "You're quick of hearing, sir; but though--
"And now, sir," continued Mr. Peacock, with a simpler gravity, "you are at liberty, of course, to say what you please to my lady; but I hope you'll not try to take the bread out of my mouth because I wear a livery and am fool enough to be in love with a waiting-woman,--I, sir, who could have married ladies who have played the first parts in life--on the metropolitan stage." I had nothing to say to these representations, they seemed plausible; and though at first I had suspected that the man had only resorted to the buffoonery of his quotations in order to gain time for invention or to divert my notice from any flaw in his narrative, yet at the close, as the narrative seemed probable, so I was willing to believe the buffoonery was merely characteristic. I contented myself, therefore, with asking, "Where do you come from now?" "From Mr. Trevanion, in the country, with letters to Lady Ellinor." "Oh! and so the young woman knew you were coming to town?" "Yes, sir; Mr. Trevanion told me, some days ago, the day I should have to start." "And what do you and the young woman propose doing to-morrow if there is no change of plan?" Here I certainly thought there was a slight, scarce perceptible, alteration in Mr. Peacock's countenance; but he answered readily, "To-morrow, a little assignation, if we can both get out,--
"Humph! so then Mr. Gower and Mr. Vivian are the same person?" Peacock hesitated. "That's not my secret, sir; 'I am combined by a sacred vow.' You are too much the gentleman to peep through the blanket of the dark and to ask me, who wear the whips and stripes--I mean the plush small-clothes and shoulder-knots--the secrets of another gent to whom 'my services are bound.'" How a man past thirty foils a man scarcely twenty! What superiority the mere fact of living-on gives to the dullest dog! I bit my lip and was silent. "And," pursued Mr. Peacock, "if you knew how the Mr. Vivian you inquired after loves you! When I told him, incidentally, how a young gentleman had come behind the scenes to inquire after him, he made me describe you, and then said, quite mournfully, 'If ever I sin what I hope to become, how happy I shall be to shake that kind hand once more,'--very words, sir, honor bright!
"'I wish I was as sure of a good dinner,' as the Swan touchingly exclaims. I dare swear that was a wish often on the Swan's lips in the privacy of his domestic life!" My heart was softened, not by the pathos of the much profaned and desecrated Swan, but by Mr. Peacock's unadorned repetition of Vivian's words. I turned my face from the sharp eyes of my companion; the cab now stopped at the foot of London Bridge. I had no more to ask, yet still there was some uneasy curiosity in my mind, which I could hardly define to myself, was it not jealousy? Vivian so handsome and so daring,--he at least might see the great heiress; Lady Ellinor perhaps thought of no danger there. But--I--I was a lover still, and--nay, such thoughts were folly indeed! "My man," said I to the ex-comedian, "I neither wish to harm Mr. Vivian (if I am so to call him), nor you who imitate him in the variety of your names. But I tell you fairly that I do not like your being in Mr. Trevanion's employment, and I advise you to get out of it as soon as possible. I say nothing more as yet, for I shall take time to consider well what you have told me." With that I hastened away, and Mr. Peacock continued his solitary journey over London Bridge. _ |
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