The Fortunes of Nigel

“I knew something of the symbolical language of flowers, once carried to such perfection among the Moriscoes of Spain; but if I had been ignorant of it, the captive would soon have caught at any hint which seemed to promise liberty. With all the haste consistent with the utmost circumspection – for I might be observed by the Abbess or some of the sisters from the window – I hastened to the postern. It was closely barred as usual, but when I coughed slightly, I was answered from the other side – and, O heaven! it was my husband’s voice which said, ‘Lose not a minute here at present, but be on this spot when the vesper bell has tolled.’

“I retired in an ecstasy of joy. I was not entitled or permitted to assist at vespers, but was accustomed to be confined to my cell while the nuns were in the choir. Since my recovery, they had discontinued locking the door; though the utmost severity was denounced against me if I left these precincts. But, let the penalty be what it would, I hastened to dare it. – No sooner had the last toll of the vesper bell ceased to sound, than I stole from my chamber, reached the garden unobserved, hurried to the postern, beheld it open with rapture, and in the next moment was in my husband’s arms. He had with him another cavalier of noble mien – both were masked and armed. Their horses, with one saddled for my use, stood in a thicket hard by, with two other masked horsemen, who seemed to be servants. In less than two minutes we were mounted, and rode off as fast as we could through rough and devious roads, in which one of the domestics appeared to act as guide.

“The hurried pace at which we rode, and the anxiety of the moment, kept me silent, and prevented my expressing my surprise or my joy save in a few broken words. It also served as an apology for my husband’s silence. At length we stopped at a solitary hut – the cavaliers dismounted, and I was assisted from my saddle, not by M – M – my husband, I would say, who seemed busied about his horse, but by the stranger.

“‘Go into the hut,’ said my husband, ‘change your dress with the speed of lightning – you will find one to assist you – we must forward instantly when you have shifted your apparel.’

“I entered the hut, and was received in the arms of the faithful Monna Paula, who had waited my arrival for many hours, half distracted with fear and anxiety. With her assistance I speedily tore off the detested garments of the convent, and exchanged them for a travelling suit, made after the English fashion. I observed that Monna Paula was in a similar dress. I had but just huddled on my change of attire, when we were hastily summoned to mount. A horse, I found, was provided for Monna Paula, and we resumed our route. On the way, my convent-garb, which had been wrapped hastily together around a stone, was thrown into a lake, along the verge of which we were then passing. The two cavaliers rode together in front, my attendant and I followed, and the servants brought up the rear. Monna Paula, as we rode on, repeatedly entreated me to be silent upon the road, as our lives depended on it. I was easily reconciled to be passive, for, the first fever of spirits which attended the sense of liberation and of gratified affection having passed away, I felt as it were dizzy with the rapid motion; and my utmost exertion was necessary to keep my place on the saddle, until we suddenly (it was now very dark) saw a strong light before us.

“My husband reined up his horse, and gave a signal by a low whistle twice repeated, which was answered from a distance. The whole party then halted under the boughs of a large cork-tree, and my husband, drawing himself close to my side, said, in a voice which I then thought was only embarrassed by fear for my safety, – ‘We must now part. Those to whom I commit you are contrabandists, who only know you as English-women, but who, for a high bribe, have undertaken to escort you through the passes of the Pyrenees as far as Saint Jean de Luz.’

“‘And do you not go with us?’ I exclaimed with emphasis, though in a whisper.

“‘It is impossible,’ he said, ‘and would ruin all – See that you speak in English in these people’s hearing, and give not the least sign of understanding what they say in Spanish – your life depends on it; for, though they live in opposition to, and evasion of, the laws of Spain, they would tremble at the idea of violating those of the church – I see them coming – farewell – farewell.’

“The last words were hastily uttered-I endeavoured to detain him yet a moment by my feeble grasp on his cloak.

“‘You will meet me, then, I trust, at Saint Jean de Luz?’

“‘Yes, yes,’ he answered hastily, ‘at Saint Jean de Luz you will meet your protector.’

“He then extricated his cloak from my grasp, and was lost in the darkness. His companion approached – kissed my hand, which in the agony of the moment I was scarce sensible of, and followed my husband, attended by one of the domestics.”

The tears of Hermione here flowed so fast as to threaten the interruption of her narrative. When she resumed it, it was with a kind of apology to Margaret.

“Every circumstance,” she said, “occurring in those moments, when I still enjoyed a delusive idea of happiness, is deeply imprinted in my remembrance, which, respecting all that has since happened, is waste and unvaried as an Arabian desert. But I have no right to inflict on you, Margaret, agitated as you are with your own anxieties, the unavailing details of my useless recollections.”

Margaret’s eyes were full of tears – it was impossible it could be otherwise, considering that the tale was told by her suffering benefactress, and resembled, in some respects, her own situation; and yet she must not be severely blamed, if, while eagerly pressing her patroness to continue her narrative, her eye involuntarily sought the door, as if to chide the delay of Monna Paula.

The Lady Hermione saw and forgave these conflicting emotions; and she, too, must be pardoned, if, in her turn, the minute detail of her narrative showed, that, in the discharge of feelings so long locked in her own bosom, she rather forgot those which were personal to her auditor, and by which it must be supposed Margaret’s mind was principally occupied, if not entirely engrossed.

“I told you, I think, that one domestic followed the gentlemen,” thus the lady continued her story, “the other remained with us for the purpose, as it seemed, of introducing us to two persons whom M – , I say, whom my husband’s signal had brought to the spot. A word or two of explanation passed between them and the servant, in a sort of patois, which I did not understand; and one of the strangers taking hold of my bridle, the other of Monna Paula’s, they led us towards the light, which I have already said was the signal of our halting. I touched Monna Paula, and was sensible that she trembled very much, which surprised me, because I knew her character to be so strong and bold as to border upon the masculine.

“When we reached the fire, the gipsy figures of those who surrounded it, with their swarthy features, large Sombrero hats, girdles stuck full of pistols and poniards, and all the other apparatus of a roving and perilous life, would have terrified me at another moment. But then I only felt the agony of having parted from my husband almost in the very moment of my rescue. The females of the gang – for there were four or five women amongst these contraband traders – received us with a sort of rude courtesy. They were, in dress and manners, not extremely different from the men with whom they associated – were almost as hardy and adventurous, carried arms like them, and were, as we learned from passing circumstances, scarce less experienced in the use of them.

“It was impossible not to fear these wild people; yet they gave us no reason to complain of them, but used us on all occasions with a kind of clumsy courtesy, accommodating themselves to our wants and our weakness during the journey, even while we heard them grumbling to each other against our effeminacy, – like some rude carrier, who, in charge of a package of valuable and fragile ware, takes every precaution for its preservation, while he curses the unwonted trouble which it occasions him. Once or twice, when they were disappointed in their contraband traffic, lost some goods in a rencontre with the Spanish officers of the revenue, and were finally pursued by a military force, their murmurs assumed a more alarming tone, in the terrified ears of my attendant and myself, when, without daring to seem to understand them, we heard them curse the insular heretics, on whose account God, Saint James, and Our Lady of the Pillar, had blighted their hopes of profit. These are dreadful recollections, Margaret.”

“Why, then, dearest lady,” answered Margaret, “will you thus dwell on them?”

“It is only,” said the Lady Hermione, “because I linger like a criminal on the scaffold, and would fain protract the time that must inevitably bring on the final catastrophe. Yes, dearest Margaret, I rest and dwell on the events of that journey, marked as it was by fatigue and danger, though the road lay through the wildest and most desolate deserts and mountains, and though our companions, both men and women, were fierce and lawless themselves, and exposed to the most merciless retaliation from those with whom they were constantly engaged – yet would I rather dwell on these hazardous events than tell that which awaited me at Saint Jean de Luz.”

“But you arrived there in safety?” said Margaret.

“Yes, maiden,” replied the Lady Hermione; “and were guided by the chief of our outlawed band to the house which had been assigned for reception, with the same punctilious accuracy with which he would have delivered a bale of uncustomed goods to a correspondent. I was told a gentleman had expected me for two days – I rushed into the apartment, and, when I expected to embrace my husband – I found myself in the arms of his friend!”

“The villain!” exclaimed Margaret, whose anxiety had, in spite of herself, been a moment suspended by the narrative of the lady.

“Yes,” replied Hermione, calmly, though her voice somewhat faltered, “it is the name that best – that well befits him. He, Margaret, for whom I had sacrificed all – whose love and whose memory were dearer to me than my freedom, when I was in the convent – than my life, when I was on my perilous journey – had taken his measures to shake me off, and transfer me, as a privileged wanton, to the protection of his libertine friend. At first the stranger laughed at my tears and my agony, as the hysterical passion of a deluded and overreached wanton, or the wily affection of a courtezan. My claim of marriage he laughed at, assuring me he knew it was a mere farce required by me, and submitted to by his friend, to save some reserve of delicacy; and expressed his surprise that I should consider in any other light a ceremony which could be valid neither in Spain nor England, and insultingly offered to remove my scruples, by renewing such a union with me himself. My exclamations brought Monna Paula to my aid – she was not, indeed, far distant, for she had expected some such scene.”

“Good heaven!” said Margaret, “was she a confidant of your base husband?”

“No,” answered Hermione, “do her not that injustice. It was her persevering inquiries that discovered the place of my confinement – it was she who gave the information to my husband, and who remarked even then that the news was so much more interesting to his friend than to him, that she suspected, from an early period, it was the purpose of the villain to shake me off. On the journey, her suspicions were confirmed. She had heard him remark to his companion, with a cold sarcastic sneer, the total change which my prison and my illness had made on my complexion; and she had heard the other reply, that the defect might be cured by a touch of Spanish red. This, and other circumstances, having prepared her for such treachery, Monna Paula now entered, completely possessed of herself, and prepared to support me. Her calm representations went farther with the stranger than the expressions of my despair. If he did not entirely believe our tale, he at least acted the part of a man of honour, who would not intrude himself on defenceless females, whatever was their character; desisted from persecuting us with his presence; and not only directed Monna Paula how we should journey to Paris, but furnished her with money for the purpose of our journey. From the capital I wrote to Master Heriot, my father’s most trusted correspondent; he came instantly to Paris on receiving the letter; and – But here comes Monna Paula, with more than the sum you desired. Take it, my dearest maiden – serve this youth if you will. But, O Margaret, look for no gratitude in return!”

The Lady Hermione took the bag of gold from her attendant, and gave it to her young friend, who threw herself into her arms, kissed her on both the pale cheeks, over which the sorrows so newly awakened by her narrative had drawn many tears, then sprung up, wiped her own overflowing eyes, and left the Foljambe apartments with a hasty and resolved step.

CHAPTER XXI

  Rove not from pole to pole-the man lives here  Whose razor’s only equall’d by his beer;  And where, in either sense, the cockney-put  May, if he pleases, get confounded cut.On the sign of an Alehouse kept by a Barber.

We are under the necessity of transporting our readers to the habitation of Benjamin Suddlechop, the husband of the active and efficient Dame Ursula, and who also, in his own person, discharged more offices than one. For, besides trimming locks and beards, and turning whiskers upward into the martial and swaggering curl, or downward into the drooping form which became mustaches of civil policy; besides also occasionally letting blood, either by cupping or by the lancet, extracting a stump, and performing other actions of petty pharmacy, very nearly as well as his neighbour Raredrench, the apothecary: he could, on occasion, draw a cup of beer as well as a tooth, tap a hogshead as well as a vein, and wash, with a draught of good ale, the mustaches which his art had just trimmed. But he carried on these trades apart from each other.

His barber’s shop projected its long and mysterious pole into Fleet Street, painted party-coloured-wise, to represent the ribbons with which, in elder times, that ensign was garnished. In the window were seen rows of teeth displayed upon strings like rosaries – cups with a red rag at the bottom, to resemble blood, an intimation that patients might be bled, cupped, or blistered, with the assistance of “sufficient advice;” while the more profitable, but less honourable operations upon the hair of the head and beard, were briefly and gravely announced. Within was the well-worn leather chair for customers, the guitar, then called a ghittern or cittern, with which a customer might amuse himself till his predecessor was dismissed from under Benjamin’s hands, and which, therefore, often flayed the ears of the patient metaphorically, while his chin sustained from the razor literal scarification. All, therefore, in this department, spoke the chirurgeon-barber, or the barber-chirurgeon.

But there was a little back-room, used as a private tap-room, which had a separate entrance by a dark and crooked alley, which communicated with Fleet Street, after a circuitous passage through several by-lanes and courts. This retired temple of Bacchus had also a connexion with Benjamin’s more public shop by a long and narrow entrance, conducting to the secret premises in which a few old topers used to take their morning draught, and a few gill-sippers their modicum of strong waters, in a bashful way, after having entered the barber’s shop under pretence of being shaved. Besides, this obscure tap-room gave a separate admission to the apartments of Dame Ursley, which she was believed to make use of in the course of her multifarious practice, both to let herself secretly out, and to admit clients and employers who cared not to be seen to visit her in public. Accordingly, after the hour of noon, by which time the modest and timid whetters, who were Benjamin’s best customers, had each had his draught, or his thimbleful, the business of the tap was in a manner ended, and the charge of attending the back-door passed from one of the barber’s apprentices to the little mulatto girl, the dingy Iris of Dame Suddlechop. Then came mystery thick upon mystery; muffled gallants, and masked females, in disguises of different fashions, were seen to glide through the intricate mazes of the alley; and even the low tap on the door, which frequently demanded the attention of the little Creole, had in it something that expressed secrecy and fear of discovery.

It was the evening of the same day when Margaret had held the long conference with the Lady Hermione, that Dame Suddlechop had directed her little portress to “keep the door fast as a miser’s purse-strings; and, as she valued her saffron skin, to let in none but – ” the name she added in a whisper, and accompanied it with a nod. The little domestic blinked intelligence, went to her post, and in brief time thereafter admitted and ushered into the presence of the dame, that very city-gallant whose clothes sat awkwardly upon him, and who had behaved so doughtily in the fray which befell at Nigel’s first visit to Beaujeu’s ordinary. The mulatto introduced him – “Missis, fine young gentleman, all over gold and velvet “ – then muttered to herself as she shut the door, “fine young gentleman, he! – apprentice to him who makes the tick-tick.”

It was indeed – we are sorry to say it, and trust our readers will sympathize with the interest we take in the matter – it was indeed honest Jin Vin, who had been so far left to his own devices, and abandoned by his better angel, as occasionally to travesty himself in this fashion, and to visit, in the dress of a gallant of the day, those places of pleasure and dissipation, in which it would have been everlasting discredit to him to have been seen in his real character and condition; that is, had it been possible for him in his proper shape to have gained admission. There was now a deep gloom on his brow, his rich habit was hastily put on, and buttoned awry; his belt buckled in a most disorderly fashion, so that his sword stuck outwards from his side, instead of hanging by it with graceful negligence; while his poniard, though fairly hatched and gilded, stuck in his girdle like a butcher’s steel in the fold of his blue apron. Persons of fashion had, by the way, the advantage formerly of being better distinguished from the vulgar than at present; for, what the ancient farthingale and more modern hoop were to court ladies, the sword was to the gentleman; an article of dress, which only rendered those ridiculous who assumed it for the nonce, without being in the habit of wearing it. Vincent’s rapier got between his legs, and, as he stumbled over it, he exclaimed – “Zounds! ‘tis the second time it has served me thus – I believe the damned trinket knows I am no true gentleman, and does it of set purpose.”

“Come, come, mine honest Jin Vin – come, my good boy,” said the dame, in a soothing tone, “never mind these trankums – a frank and hearty London ‘prentice is worth all the gallants of the inns of court.”

“I was a frank and hearty London ‘prentice before I knew you, Dame Suddlechop,” said Vincent; “what your advice has made me, you may find a name for; since, fore George! I am ashamed to think about it myself.”

“A-well-a-day,” quoth the dame, “and is it even so with thee? – nay, then, I know but one cure;” and with that, going to a little corner cupboard of carved wainscoat, she opened it by the assistance of a key, which, with half-a-dozen besides, hung in a silver chain at her girdle, and produced a long flask of thin glass cased with wicker, bringing forth at the same time two Flemish rummer glasses, with long stalks and capacious wombs. She filled the one brimful for her guest, and the other more modestly to about two-thirds of its capacity, for her own use, repeating, as the rich cordial trickled forth in a smooth oily stream – “Right Rosa Solis, as ever washed mulligrubs out of a moody brain!”

But, though Jin Vin tossed off his glass without scruple, while the lady sippped hers more moderately, it did not appear to produce the expected amendment upon his humour. On the contrary, as he threw himself into the great leathern chair, in which Dame Ursley was wont to solace herself of an evening, he declared himself “the most miserable dog within the sound of Bow-bell.”

“And why should you be so idle as to think yourself so, silly boy?” said Dame Suddlechop; “but ‘tis always thus – fools and children never know when they are well. Why, there is not one that walks in St. Paul’s, whether in flat cap, or hat and feather, that has so many kind glances from the wenches as you, when ye swagger along Fleet Street with your bat under your arm, and your cap set aside upon your head. Thou knowest well, that, from Mrs. Deputy’s self down to the waist-coateers in the alley, all of them are twiring and peeping betwixt their fingers when you pass; and yet you call yourself a miserable dog! and I must tell you all this over and over again, as if I were whistling the chimes of London to a pettish child, in order to bring the pretty baby into good-humour!”

The flattery of Dame Ursula seemed to have the fate of her cordial – it was swallowed, indeed, by the party to whom she presented it, and that with some degree of relish, but it did not operate as a sedative on the disturbed state of the youth’s mind. He laughed for an instant, half in scorn, and half in gratified vanity, but cast a sullen look on Dame Ursley as he replied to her last words,

“You do treat me like a child indeed, when you sing over and over to me a cuckoo song that I care not a copper-filing for.”

“Aha!” said Dame Ursley; “that is to say, you care not if you please all, unless you please one – You are a true lover, I warrant, and care not for all the city, from here to Whitechapel, so you could write yourself first in your pretty Peg-a-Ramsay’s good-will. Well, well, take patience, man, and be guided by me, for I will be the hoop will bind you together at last.”

“It is time you were so,” said Jenkin, “for hitherto you have rather been the wedge to separate us.”

Dame Suddlechop had by this time finished her cordial – it was not the first she had taken that day; and, though a woman of strong brain, and cautious at least, if not abstemious, in her potations, it may nevertheless be supposed that her patience was not improved by the regimen which she observed.

“Why, thou ungracious and ingrate knave,” said Dame Ursley, “have not I done every thing to put thee in thy mistress’s good graces? She loves gentry, the proud Scottish minx, as a Welshman loves cheese, and has her father’s descent from that Duke of Daldevil, or whatsoever she calls him, as close in her heart as gold in a miser’s chest, though she as seldom shows it – and none she will think of, or have, but a gentleman – and a gentleman I have made of thee, Jin Vin, the devil cannot deny that.”

“You have made a fool of me,” said poor Jenkin, looking at the sleeve of his jacket.

“Never the worse gentleman for that,” said Dame Ursley, laughing.

“And what is worse,” said he, turning his back to her suddenly, and writhing in his chair, “you have made a rogue of me.”

“Never the worse gentleman for that neither,” said Dame Ursley, in the same tone; “let a man bear his folly gaily and his knavery stoutly, and let me see if gravity or honesty will look him in the face now-a-days. Tut, man, it was only in the time of King Arthur or King Lud, that a gentleman was held to blemish his scutcheon by a leap over the line of reason or honesty – It is the bold look, the ready hand, the fine clothes, the brisk oath, and the wild brain, that makes the gallant now-a-days.”

“I know what you have made me,” said Jin Vin; “since I have given up skittles and trap-ball for tennis and bowls, good English ale for thin Bordeaux and sour Rhenish, roast-beef and pudding for woodcocks and kickshaws – my bat for a sword, my cap for a beaver, my forsooth for a modish oath, my Christmas-box for a dice-box, my religion for the devil’s matins, and mine honest name for – Woman, I could brain thee, when I think whose advice has guided me in all this!”

“Whose advice, then? whose advice, then? Speak out, thou poor, petty cloak-brusher, and say who advised thee!” retorted Dame Ursley, flushed and indignant – “Marry come up, my paltry companion – say by whose advice you have made a gamester of yourself, and a thief besides, as your words would bear – The Lord deliver us from evil!” And here Dame Ursley devoutly crossed herself.